The depart...

A body of a woman is lying down in front of the house. She has a bullet through her head and her clothes have been ripped off. She was my mother.

A man is beside her, pointing and shrieking at the stars and sobbing uncontrollably. That is my father. He says, they came and killed her, because he had joined the Special Police as a sweeper for some extra money. He says the Police had killed one of them and they will kill him too. They always do.

The people around him keep looking at him, stoic and expressionless. A few days ago, my father was one of them. Now somebody else has taken his place.

He tells me that he will take me to the city, to Raipur. He says he will find a new job and send me to school. I do not understand. I ask him what will happen to Kanu, Mishi and Keero from the village school. He tells me their fathers are one of them. He says he will kill them for what they have done. I still do not understand. I cry from remorse, despair and fear within me. Mother s face keep coming into my mind; I cant look at her and I want to run to the school, in the hope that she will be there at the door, as always when I return. My mind goes to the half boiled rice which Mother used to cook for me after school. Somehow my instincts tell me that she is gone. I feel angry now, angry for what they have done.

Aunt holds me tightly as she weeps. She tells me that god will make everything alright. Sooner than later everything will be forgotten. Today its one family, tomorrow it will be another.

Soon police convoy will be here. They will take photos of the body and take it away. They will say Naxal people came and murdered her. Soon they will kill some of the villagers and claim death of the rebels. They will take money from villagers by threatening them with death. Non compliant villagers will be killed as encounters. And then they go away. After that, the rebels come. They take money, food, women and children. Defiants will be shot and bludgeoned to death; the entire family wiped away at the executioner's command. In one way or the other, the ones killed will always be us.

The sun has moved all the way across the house. Before the night ends, I will want to go to the city. We will pack for the night and go away, for ever.

Before long,we would want to get lost in the milling crowd.

True Love....

I am 25 and I am still looking for that heavenly sign. And I have an abusive inner being.

I bumped into her in the market. I recognized those prominent cheek bones and those doe shaped golden brown eyes that decorated her faceas she tripped over and fell down. She looked older.

"..Ofcourse she s older, you fool.." someone screamed inside me.

Time then reduced to a super slow procession of frames. Those braids of hair that fell on her face, as she looked at me, the blue tees and casual chinos and how she dropped the jute bag overladen with those reddish water sprinkled tomatoes and cabbages which seemed genetically modified. The jute bag looked heavier than her, but now it lay hapless on the concretized narrow passage with all the contents spilled out. A man was rushing down the aisle with a cart loaded with cauliflowers and I had veered to avoid him and thus bumped into her.

I lay spellbound, my gaze transfixed on her, as I was 10 years ago. My first,last and only love. I was in seventh then, overtly shy and pathetic with girls, that's what had been testimonified on my orkut profile, although I used to believe the vice-versa. Apart from my age, things haven't changed much, which also I believe is a strong sign of the love that I have and had for her. My love was so strong that inspite of my friends teasing me with the girls of the college, I had refused to budge an inch. I had been single all along, patiently waiting for her to come along. She was my soul mate, the one that was meant to be -- for me. Even Bejan Daruwala on the Sunday horoscope this week, TOI had said, its a good time to find your loved ones. This was the divine sign.

Our relationship in school had no verbose content. I knew her name and I fervently hoped that she knew mine. Her distracted gaze whenever she glanced at me seemed like a veil over her true feelings. Mother used to say so. Mother can never be wrong. And then it was the last day; there I was, the first position on the first bench, shining in my bluish white Ujala washed shirt and grey pants. She walked up to me, the same distracted gaze and said, "..fill up my scrap book.." I could nt believe it, I was the first guy to fill her empty scrapbook, what other signs could one possibly need. It was the perfect fitting to the jigsaw puzzle. But my unevolved brain could not answer the next question that followed "..what now...."
She said thank you and walked away, leaving me and my transfixed stare.

Mother said that I would definitely find her,sooner or later.

And as I lay on the ground, a tiny sensible part within me shrieked, ".. atleast help her, oaf..." while the larger rest of me wondered, "..what now..." and about the divine sign as Bejan Daruwala had prophesied. Without an answer from the larger part, I decided to atleast follow the tiny squeaky voice inside me. I quickly got up to my feet and bent down for the jute bag trying to find the missing tomatoes. She had already collected all of them and her shoulder lightly grazed mine when she refilled the bag with the collected vegetables.

"Sorry..." I managed to mutter finally. I handed over the bag, my stare still looking for signs of recognition beneath that distracted look.

She hastily said, thanks and walked away leaving me and my transfixed stare.

Oh, I hate love stories....