The Tree

The Tree

When I was a child, there was a tree with pink flowers right outside my window. Each year, it bloomed at the same time - in the autumn months, and a gentle breeze blew pink flowers into my bedroom.

The tree was planted by my mother. She died two years ago, after a brief struggle with cancer. She planted the tree as a newly wed, just a few months after she moved to her husband's house, from the seeds of a similar tree that grew in her parents' backyard. The year I was born, the sapling she brought blossomed into a tree.

This tree served as the setting for much of my childhood. It was under this tree that my brother and I chased each other as children. When I wanted to cry, and wanted no one else to witness my tears, I would clamber up the branches, and hide myself among the green leaves and pink buds. But somehow, once I was up in the branches - so close, I felt, to the sky, that I could reach out and touch passing clouds - I would forget the reason for my tears, and sit still in the tree, enraptured by the beauty around me. I would stay up in the tree, till the clouds had passed, and the sky had begun to darken, the dying sun bleeding pink and gold across the heavens. The world then seemed a place of infinite wonder, of beauty, and my sadness seemed to have no place in it. And then, just as the stars began to peep out of the velvety night sky, my mother would call, her voice low and gentle, calling me for dinner. I would scamper quickly down the branches, grazing my knees and tearing my frock in the process, and run inside. My mother would never scold me, even though she noticed my awry hair, the rents in my frock, my torn socks. She would smile at me - a beautiful, dazzling, warm smile - as she plucked the leaves and feathers from my hair.

My mother had the most beautiful smile in the world. I am quite certain of this - I have never seen a smile that matches hers. It was the sort of smile that warms your bones, that makes you think anything is possible. It's a shy smile, a special smile - the kind you feel that used only on rare occasions, with intimate friends.

For many years I believed that it was my smile, the smile that she kept only for me, until one day, the first day, on my eighth year, that the tree was in bloom. I had climbed up the branches and was watching a sparrow build a nest, when I heard a low murmur of voices below me. Puzzled, I looked down, brushing a bough of pink blossoms aside. I saw my mother, garbed in a simple green sari, conversing with my Maths Tutor. From the snatches of conversation that rose through the air and reached me, I surmised they were looking for me. My tutor murmured something, something I couldn't quite catch, and my mother burst into laughter - a low, beautiful sound. She smiled then, and her smile transformed her. She wasn't a beautiful woman - she had a unremarkable, plain face - but when she smiled, she was transformed into a dazzling, bewitching beauty. I watched my tutor stutter, under the influence of her smile, watch his mouth gape open, his knees weaken, a sweat break out on his forehead. I watched him reach towards her, pull her into an embrace, and press his lips against her.

My mother didn't resist. She slid easily into his arms, she seemed to accept the hot, fevered kisses he pressed across her lips, her face, down her throat, towards her bosom. I heard her moan, softly, and saw her wrap her arms around him. He slid an arm down, pulling up the folds of her sari, her petticoat settling around her hips.

I saw many things that day, the day the pink flowers bloomed.

When I look back now, I am surprised that I didn't feel angry or betrayed. Those are the things we are supposed to feel, when we watch a scene of this kind. I think I felt a vague tinge of disappointment, but the over-riding emotion was one of surprise. What I had seen that day, from the high branches of the tree - of bodies crushed together, moans and sighs - an experience, that simultaneously, seemed to combine pain and pleasure for those involved - was a thing of wonder, an incident that had provoked my curiosity. I suppose, even then, I must have understood what it meant, because it was only an hour later that I dared venture back into the house, after making sure that I bore no trace of my escapades amongst the branches. I had lurked, guiltily, at the back of the house, until my mother finally saw me. She had rushed towards me then, admonishing me - for my maths tutor had left in the interval, since I wasn't to be found. She had caught my wrists and bent towards me, tenderly. The tenderness had vanished, in an instant, when her finger gently probed through my tussled hair, and emerged, with the crushed remains of a pink petal. She had stared at the petal. When she finally looked at me, her face was stricken. There was fear and guilt in her eyes. I had kissed her then, and she had, in reflex, without thought, had clasped me tightly, her eyes still troubled. I wished I could have told her then that I would have never betrayed her, that I would never tell of what I had seen. But she must have known that - there was no way I could have ever spoken of this to anyone.

No way at all.

Now that I am older, now that I am a woman in my own right, I understand a little more. I can't remember much of my father - he remains only a vague memory of a bald head, black-framed glasses, a white shirt and a pair of shiny, polished shoes. He was never at home much, and never paid any attention to me. I suppose I must have been a disappointment - an embarrassment - I can understand that a man like him, a self-made man who prided himself (so I have heard) on his intelligence, could not have borne, easily, the existence of a daughter like me. Whatever love and attention he had for his offspring was lavished, exclusively, on my brother.

But my mother loved me, and her love had made up for the lack of interest on my father's part. Her love had made me into her ally, made me understand her and her weakness. After that day, the day of the incident under the tree, she had banished my maths tutor from the house. A new tutor was appointed, a balding, pot-bellied old man, who had a tendency to fall asleep in the middle of lessons. I missed my old tutor, but I saw him often enough, lurking outside the entrance of our house, a lovelorn look in his eyes, awaiting a glimpse of my mother.

To my mother's credit, she put my old tutor out of her mind. But there was a hunger in her eyes, that appeared for the first time, a hunger that grew as time passed. My father became more distant, as I grew out of girlhood. I became an adolescent, gawky and tall, uncomfortable with my body. I could not longer be ignored, or forgotten, I was too tall, too awkward. My presence, a reminder of my embarassing, disappointing existence - constantly irritated my father. He spent less and less time at home.

My mother too, smiled less and less often, until one day, when I was hidden amongst the top-most branches, on level with the top-story of the house, I spied her through the window of the guest bedroom, her arms entwined around my uncle, my father's cousin who had come to visit for a few days. I was astonished, intrigued. I was old enough to understand this now. I watched him kiss her, stroke her hair, and slowly, gently, unwind her sari.

A breeze blew through the tree, and a shower of pink blossoms rained down. The spell was broken. Surprised, embarrassed, I looked away.

But from that day onwards, my mother began to smile again, frequently. My uncle stayed and left, but he was replaced by a schoolteacher, an accountant, and later, a widowed neighbor. There weren't too many men - just a select few, and never more than one at a time - but the hunger was now absent from her eyes, and she laughed more. I was happy.

Then, one day, a few weeks after I turned sixteen, my father died, while on a business trip out of town. My brother came down, from college, to help settle my father's affairs. I hadn't seem him for a long time and, although we were playmates in childhood, a distance had begun to emerge between us.

The pink flowers bloomed, a few days later, and I climbed up the tree to escape the strange silences and tense atmosphere that had begun to reign in my household. I missed the way things had been - for years it had been just my mother and me, my brother and father present only for brief periods. My brother and father hadn't understood me, couldn't communicate with me. My mother and I needed no words to do so - we saw each other for what we were, there was no pretence or hiding possible. My brother's presence in the household had upset the gentle harmony that had existed, and I felt like a stranger in my own home.

I sat on the top-most branch and surveyed the world below. I saw my mother exit the house, and come to rest under the shade of the tree. Tears dripped down her cheeks, I knew that despite their difficulties and her repeated infidelities, she mourned my father's passing. A few moments later the lawyer followed my mother out of the house, and stopped at the sight of my mother's wet cheeks. He had stopped down, and sat beside her. They spoke to each other in soft voices, and a moment later, my mother had smiled, amidst her tears.

Even I, high up in the branches, gasped. Her smile was like a rainbow breaking across a land battered by rain.

It was her most beautiful smile, the most beautiful smile I had ever seen, shining amidst the trails of tears that ran past her cheeks.

The lawyer was stunned, gutted by the heart-wrenching beauty of my mother's smile. He had leaned closer, and then, with a cruel, violent force, had pressed her against the tree, had smothered her lips with kisses. Even as his hands wandered across her blouse, my brother had stepped out, from the tiny back door that led to the kitchen. He had stopped, shocked, by the sight of our mother and the lawyer entangled together. He exclaimed, loudly, and at the sound - my mother and the lawyer seperated. My mother had rushed after my brother, as he strode, angrily into the house, and the lawyer had remained, standing, under the tree, as the wind shook the branches, and loose petals drifted down, falling onto his bare head.

My brother walked out of the house that day, and didn't come back.

From then on, my mother didn't smile so often.

How I wished I could have spoken to my brother on that day, tried to make him understand. Perhaps then everything would have been different.

But, perhaps it would have still been the same.

We went on, like this for a while. My mother pined for her son, the son who would not return, who refused to answer her phone calls or letters. Whatever news we had of him was secondhand. We learnt, a year later, that he married a college classmate and had settled in another city. Later, we heard that they had a child.

My mother sickened. Perhaps it was the hatred of her son, or the knowledge that she would never see her grandchildren, but she had lost her interest in living. Cancer grabbed hold of her, and she made little effort to free herself from it's clutches.

As she lay, sick, in bed, autumn came and the pink flowers bloomed. Every day, that fall, I placed a bouquet in a vase by her bedside, as she could no longer go out to see the tree she had planted, so many years ago. She would watch my movements, her eyes sharp and bright. One day, as I moved away, she had grabbed my hands and pulled me towards her.

She smiled then, for the last time.

After she died, my brother came home, with his dry, thin stick of a wife, and their brawling, red-faced son. They wandered through the house, making lists of all the items in the house, the properties that had to be sold.

One afternoon, my sister-in-law followed me into my bedroom. She had sat next to me on the bed, and had placed her hand over mine. "Your brother and I think that it's the best thing to sell the house," she spoke, her voice shrill. "Of course, we'll make arrangements for you." She spoke slowly, as if speaking to a child. She hesitated, before she went on. "There's a good home you know, for people like you. It's a bit far from here, but it's a lovely place." She named a place I knew off, a home for the mentally challenged. I stared at her, stunned. My sister-in-law stuttered, and then repeated the news again, even as my mind reeled. This is what my brother and his wife thought of me?

"It's the right sort of place for you. You'll get the kind of help you need there." She smiled - an ugly, dry smile, and left the room.

That evening my brother spoke to me. He spoke as if to a slow child, or a retarded individual, spacing his words, and using expansive gestures. He told me that I had been wronged, that I should have received proper attention and care in my childhood. When I shook my head, to contradict him, he had spoken of my father.

"It was our father's belief," he told me, "that you should have been sent to the right sort of institution in the first place. You could have been treated if you had gone there early enough. Unfortunately," he continued, "our mother was far too fond of you. She told him that you didn't need it. That you were fine. I thought so too...at one time...But she was wrong. She was wrong," he repeated, brutally.

I wanted to hit him then. I wanted to scream, yell, shriek. I wanted it to drown his words with my voice.

"What a woman," he exclaimed. "She couldn't even wait for a week to pass after our father's death, before she embarked on yet another of her infidelities. How many of them where there?" He eyed me, warily. "You must know. You were always here. But of course you can't - you won't - say."

For the millionth time I wished I could speak. That my tongue would not lie silent, that my mouth would utter words and sentences, that made sense. That I could have told my brother the truth, made him understand. Made him see. He hadn't understood me, my mother or my father. Her infidelity wasn't what he made it out to be - it wasn't a sin, it was something human. It wasn't just her fault - it was hers and mine - and his too. It was the fault of the distance between my parents, a distance I was responsible for.

My brother didn't, couldn't, understand.

Or he would blame her smile, a smile that he would think had been designed to attract. That wasn't it. Her smile was gift, something divine and wondrous - that transfigured her, and the world.

"I know you worshipped her," he continued, cruelly. "She was a bad woman, a bad wife. She wasn't a good mother, to you or me."

I opened my mouth then, I couldn't take it any longer. I tried to protest, to say something - but nothing came out - just the same twisted, ugly moans that issued from my mouth every time I tried to speak. I saw my brother's lips twist into a smirk, heard his thin, ugly wife laugh.

I ran away then, their laughter chasing me. I ran into my room and shut the door.

I packed my clothes, and at night, when my brother's family had gone to sleep, I exited the house. I stopped in front of the tree for the last time, in the moonlight. It was to early for the flowers to blossom, but I pulled a few leaves and buds loose, and stuffed them into my pocket.

I left then.

The house was sold, a month later. The new owner razed the house to the ground, in order to erect an apartment building. I returned, a week later, to watch them cut down the tree that my mother had planted. It was autumn, and the pink flowers were blooming. As the tree fell, the flowers shook free and covered the street in a carpet of pink.

I cried that day.

Since then, I've made a new life for myself. I had a little money - from the sale of the house and my mother's will. I have a little house now, as well, and run the photo studio out of the garage. It's a small place - but it suits me well.

There's a blackboard along one side of my shop. That's how I communicate, answer my customers. And wherever I go, I carry a small slate with a piece of chalk. Somehow, I seem to manage.

I have a daughter now, as well. Her father wasn't in my life for very long, a foreign researcher who came to me to have a set of old photographs restored. We had a few pleasant months, before he returned to his country, and he left me with this beautiful keepsake. She is just a baby now, but she has my mother's eyes and her smile.

Just before she was born, I found, while clearing out my old things, the dried buds and seeds that I took with me, the night I left our house. I've planted a seedling in our garden, and a sapling has emerged. I hope, by the time my daughter is old enough to climb trees, the sapling will have grown into a tree, and that the wind will scatter pink flowers into her bedroom every morning.

The Mills & Boon Novel that Never Was

I should explain why exactly this horrific attempt at a romantic story exists. Mills and Boon are having a romantic short story competition in India, and I thought it would be fun to have a shot at writing an entry. This is one my failed attempts - halfway through, it dawned on me that Mills and Boons are never written in the first person. But here goes...

It was monday morning. And I was at another, boring, long editorial meeting, trying to determine the articles and issues that our next issue of India Now should cover.
Don't get me wrong. I love my job. India Now is a great place to work - we have a great team and we produce excellent content. More than any other magazine, India Now really has it's pulse on what is happening in India today. But I hate editorial meetings. They go and on and on - and there painful, pointless, longwinded arguments. I have to be there of course - but when I'm at one, I pretend I'm lying on a beautiful beach, under clear, blue skies, sipping on a margharita, feeling the sun kiss my skin.
"Ila? Were you listening to what I'm saying?"
The voice of Rajan Moitra, my boss and the chief editor of India Now punctures my daydreams.
Sighing inwardly, I pulled on my brightest, happiest smile. "Yes, of course I was." I shot him an arch look. "How could you think otherwise?"
My editor smirked. "Well, if you were," and his tone clearly told me that he didn't think I was, "then do you have any objections to taking on this assignment? It's just your cup of tea."
Drat and double drat. What was the assignment that Rajan was talking about?
"Ila?"
"Yes, of course. I'll do it." I sighed and slunk back into my seat. What else could I say?

Four hours later, I was buckling my seat belt on a chartered flight. The economy section of the plane was full of reporters and photographers. I spotted my friend Kalpana, a reporter from a newspaper Indian Times, comming through the aisle. Even though she's a reporter for a rival publication, we've both been part of the jounralistic pack for years, and have covered many of the same events. We've been through a lot together - riots, assassinations, murders and gang wars. And in that time, a fast friendship has stuck between us. We'll still vie for the next scoop, and the best quote, but still our friendship survives, intact.
Kalpana saw me wave and headed over. She slipped into the empty seat next to me.
"It's quite brave of you to come," Kalpana said, as she buckled her own seat belt. "I thought you would opt out for this one."
"What do you mean?" I frowned, puzzled.
Kalpana shot me an incredulous look. Just as she opened her mouth to reply, a steward passed us with a stack of press kits. He handed Kalpana a copy for each of us.
Kalpana opened the magenta folder and pointed to the letterhead embossed on the pages inside. "That's why," she said.
I looked to follow her meaning. "TRITON TECH is pleased to Announce the Launch of Paradise Hotels & Resorts Chain"
Triton Tech...Triton Tech. That meant only one thing.
Oh no. Damn it. I had to get out.
Kalpana hissed at me. "You didn't know?"
"No...I...I didn't... Shit. I have to get out of here." I stood up, and scrambled across, just as the pilot began to announce our imminent departure.
Kalpana shot me a worried look. "You better hurry, Ila."
I ran down the aisle, towards the first class section, just as the plane began to taxi down the runway.
A steward blocked my path. "You better get back to your seat, Ma'am."
I stared him down, as I edged my way about him, into the first class section.
"I have to get out," I told him. "I have to get off the aircraft."
"We can't do that, Ma'am. We are just taking off." He gestured to indicate the window outside. The plane had just begun to incline, towards the sky.
"I've got to get out," I pleaded, my voice hysterical. "Please."
The steward was gruff. "Please get back to your seat, Ma'am, I can't let you out. It's dangerous to be standing while the plane takes off."
Just as he spoke, the plane shot towards the sky. I lurched, stumbled forwards, and as the plane swung upwards, fell across, onto the lap of passenger seated in one of the First Class Seats.
A pair of hands grabbed me. "Are you okay? A familiar male voice asked me.
Full of horror, I looked up - into a pair of piercing, hard grey eyes. A pair of eyes I only knew too well.
"Ila?"

I shut my eyes. Shit. Shit and double shit. This was exactly the situation I had been trying to escape from. Here I was sprawled across the lap of the very man I had been trying to avoid. I dug my fingernails into the palm of my hand, hoping that this was just a dream.
"Ila? Are you okay?" He sounded as shocked as I felt. "You look like you are in great pain."
Cringing, I opened my eyes. Yes, it was Aditya. Radiantly handsome, clad in a grey suit, whose perfect cut could only have been the handiwork of a Saville Row tailor. His crisp, blue shirt, and his grey silk tie, patterned with a subtle silver pattern fitted him perfectly and would have no doubt cost the entire sum of my monthly salary. He hadn't changed - still darkly handsome with a patrician profile. Waves of black, glossy hair swept away from his forehead with just a tint of grey at his temples. And just a shade uncoventional - the sideburns and the slightly long hair proclaimed him. But this eyes had changed - there was something dark and brooding.
"Aditya, I'm fine." I tried to squirm out of his grasp.
He smiled, it was the same smile that broke the severity of his face, and sent shivers down my smile. I tried not to reveal my reaction - it was awful, that even after all these years, he could still have this effect on me. He helped me to my feet, but didn't release his grasp on my arm.
"You're here for the press conference?"
I nodded, feeling the warm press of his fingers on my arm, shooting sparks across my skin, triggering memories long-buried. Images of him and me together, his lips pressing down on mine, his arms around me filled my head. I felt weak and light-headed. "I've got to go Aditya," I stuttered incoherently.
"I've really got to go."
The smile faded. His eyes hardened and he released his grip on me.
Just then, a door opened, and a woman stepped out of the toilet. My eyes narrowed as I recognized her. It was my once-Nemesis, the Arch-Fiend herself. Priya Malhotra, 32, a glamorous Bollywood actress whose svelte figure curved at just the right places. She was wearing a clinging Armani frock that didn't leave much to the imagination.
"Well!" She exclaimed haughtily, her full, red lips curving into a smile. "Look who we have here." She examined me, sizing me up, a disdainful look on her pretty face.
"Hello Priya." I smiled thinly, and walked past her. Just as I reached my seat, I turned, to see that Aditya was watching me. Our eyes met. There was a look of impatience on his face. Or was it anger? He turned away and, my heart still pounding, I sat down.
"Well?" Kalpana whispered. "What happened?"
I told her what happened. "I really wish I could get off this damn plane."
"But you can't," she told me. "There isn't a plane back for the next two days. You're stuck. Cheer-up, your paths were bound to cross sooner or later."
"Well," I sighed, "I would have preferred later. But you're right."
"That's the way, girl," Kalpana patted me affectionately. "You show him."
I sank back in my seat, trying to calm myself. But I couldn't. I could still smell his cologne, and when I shut my eyes, the image of his face seemed imprinted on my eyelids. It had been two years, but it felt like it had happened yesterday. Two years ago....

The Birth of Maya or Illusion

I Am Become Death the Destroyer of All Worlds.
Richard Openheimer, from the Bhagvad Gita

Cawnpore, 1857.

Screams puncture her dreams. She wakes up, tiptoes to the balcony, leans over the banisters. Her golden-brown ringlets fall over her elfin face, she impatiently tosses them aside. She watches the flames run riot below, twisting and uncurling, snapping along the length of the mansion. She notices the grey shapes that swirl in the darkness, and squints to see them better. They step into the ring of fire, and she sees their faces, lighted by the spiraling flames, faces contorted by anger, malice and passion. She shudders. She hears screams below, and listens intently, hears the voices of her mother, father, sisters as they scream, plead for mercy, and finally - on the doorstep of death - curse their attackers.

She shudders again. It is too much for one little girl to bear, to witness. She returns to her bed, crawls into the pile of silken, white sheets, burrows a hiding place for herself. She falls asleep...and dreams...dreams of something other than fire, pain, revolution and death. She deludes herself with nice dreams, pleasant dreams. She shuts out the noise of pain with these fantastic illusions.

The fires spreads and ravages the house, incinterating everything in its path. The white silk sheets sprout red flames, blacken and shrivel into ash. The legs of the teak bed buckle under, collapse and break...the pieces burnt and scorched.

The fires blossoms and dies, spent.

Hours later, the attackers creep in, sweep the mansion for its valuables and treasures. An old, bearded soldier pauses in the midst of his looting in the little girl's bedroom. He picks up a white rabbit on the floor, fur singed in places, ash dotting the undersides of pink ears, the little pink bunny mouth. He looks across the room, at the little bed, at the collapsed book shelves, with blackened picture books spewing out, at the dolls littering the floor.

He looks at the toy in his hands, and thinks of his own grandchildren, far away from fire and violence, sequestered in a tiny hillside village. He buries his face in the rabbit, and the white, singed fur muffles his loud, heavy sobs, absorbs his swollen, salty tears.

He cries for the violence. He cries for the injustices he has faced, he cries for the buried resentment and anger that has been unleashed in an orgy of violence and revenge. He weeps for the madness and mania that swept over his own soul, that possessed him, transformed him into a grinning, malevolent sprite for an evening; and that has departed now - leaving him alone to face the guilt and the horror.

But he is only human.

The girl murmurs in her sleep, the reality of the old, gnarled soldier and his bitter tears in her room seeps into her dreams, disturbs her carefully constructed illusions. She sleeps still, miraculously unharmed by the fire, undiscovered by the looters, cocooned in a mass of blackened, charred sheets. And when the soldier leaves, his boots stamping across the creaking floor, her dreams flower again.

She sleeps on. The years have come and gone, the mansion has disappeared, the books and shelves have crumbled to ash, but the little girl, wrapped in a nest of greying, rotting sheets, sleeps on, buried in the womb of the earth. She has become a Goddess, and the people of the town have built a small temple around her. Bats flit in and out of the rough, stone structure, and a Brahmin Priest, garbed in a white dhoti, cycles to the entrance of the temple every day, and performs a silent puja. She doesn't even look human anymore - her flesh has withered away, only her white bones, peak out of the mess of flowers of fruits piled by pilgrims and devotees atop her remains everyday.

But her breath still remains, echoing through the small, dark stone chamber, the sound of a child sleeping.

She still dreams.

DIARY OF A KILLER

I spotted him again, sitting at an outdoor cafe. It was past sunset, and the sky was already darkening. The city was covered in a lovely violet haze, as fog crawled through the streets and markets of Delhi. The end of his cigarette gleamed red-orange, dangling loosely from his fingers, ash sprinkling his chair as he chattered on his cellphone. His eyes passed over me, as I crossed the street. He didn't recognize me as I passed his chair and made my way to the covered section of the coffee shop. I stared at him, forcing his eyes to meet mine, and first bafflement, and then irritation washed over his face. Oh, these Indians, I could hear him drawling in an American accent on the phone, as if he wasn't one of us, they stare at everything.

I wanted him.

I had met him for the first time, two months ago. I had paused, as he brushed past me. I stared at him, masses of black hair curling over a perfect, beautiful face, a perfect, athletic body. Like the Apollo Belvedere, sculpted in mid-stride. Or even like Adam, arrogantly nude on the ceiling of the Sistine chapel, his finger reluctantly reaching towards his Maker. He was beautiful, possessing the impossible, perfect beauty that only artists can imagine, that rarely manifests itself in nature.

But he was here, before me, in the flesh, not in paint or marble.

He had gone upto the bartender and, shouldering his way easily through the queues amassed there, had thumped on the bar, until he caught the bartender's attention and was served his drink.

I could never do that.

He came back to his table, filled with raucous, laughing men and lit a cigarette. I ventured closer, like a moth driven to a fatal flame, and asked for a match. He reached into the pocket of his jeans, handed me a lighter. I scurried away, to hide the cigarette I did not have.

He had forgotten about me, and even about the lighter. I watched him later, after he plucked another cigarette from a pack, his smile dissolve into a puzzled frown as he reached into his pockets and found no lighter.

He didn't remember me then.

Was I that forgettable? That easily consigned to oblivion?

Tonight, though, I followed him from the cafe to a night club. I had been stalking him since I had first seen him, knew everything about him - his name, his job, his girlfriend. Vikram Singh, age 25 years, a high-flying advertizing executive in an American firm that had opened up a branch in Delhi recently. A beautiful girlfriend who was a successful lawyer, with a face that belonged to a pre-Raphelite painting. I had practiced his American drawl for hours, until I had got it down perfect.

I had watched him, shadowed him - and he still didn't notice me.

The crowd parted before him like the waters of the Narmada had parted for Vasudeva, holding the infant Krishna. He walked through, easy, confident. He didn't pay attention to the heated, lustful glances that women threw his way, but he was aware of them. I struggled through the crowd in his wake, as it spilled back into the path it had created, elbows poking my skinny frame, shoved from side to side. No one noticed me, no one smiled at me.

I ordered a bloody mary and had waited until he made his move. I saw him edge past the crowd, lean down and whisper to his friends.

It was time. I followed him to the bathroom, and as the door swung to let me in, and felt the syringe in my coat pocket.

He was standing, his back towards me, facing the urinal. I glanced at myself in the mirror that hung over the washbasins, catching a last look at the face that was so easily forgotten. An unremarkable face, a plain face - the sort of face that your eyes would skim over in a crowd. Not striking nor ugly enough to merit attention - just plain, ordinary.

I hated that face.

I turned to him, forced him to look at me. "Hello Vikram."

He was stunned. "What! how do you know my name..." His eyes widened with surprise I pushed him to the wall.

"Wait!" he exclaimed. Fear began to seep in, he spoke frantically, "What the hell do you think..." I cut off his words, pressed my mouth to his.

He struggled, but I hung on. I pressed my body against his, felt the warmth of desire flare up in my groin, and surge upwards. Slowly, his resistance faded, his lips loosened and my tongue crept in.

It was then that I pulled the syringe out of my pocket, and pressing him to the wall, stuck the needle into the nook of his arm.

He pulled away from me, in surprise, but I pressed my hand to his mouth, as he slipped to the floor. Then, his eyes rolled back in his head, his arms and legs began to thrash about, his muscles started to spasm.

I pulled him into a cubicle. He was still writhing on the floor, as I left, shutting the door behind me.

They found the body ten minutes later, limbs sprawled on the floor of the men's bathroom. MAN DIES OF OVERDOSE AT ELITE DELHI NIGHTCLUB the headlines screamed at me the next morning, as I ate my breakfast.

Time to find another victim.

JACK & JILL

Jack was a scoundrel of the worst kind, his mother started to say after she found him pilfering the contents of her hand bag, at age eight. Twenty-five years later, Jack had moved on from hand bags. He used to frequent the sleazy premises of Rosie's Bar and Restaurant, located on the second floor of Acram building, just of Jewel Street. It was the kind of bar where you would encounter a trio of Russian mafia men, dressed in fur-lined leather jackets despite the blistering Indian heat, haggling with a bald chinese man over an aeroplane. You could find anything in Rosie's bar, the locals used to claim. The bartender, a one-eyed, former Mossad Agent called Zohar, knew the city inside out - with one telephone call he could arrange a police raid, a kidnapping, a packing crate full of cocaine or a meeting (for the right price, of course) with the city's top business men. No one knew exactly how Zohar pulled it off, but he did.

Jack was of a different order. The dealings that resulted in a stolen aeroplane, a drug heist or a mafia don killing were still above him, but Jack was a respectable pimp - he had a number of talented girls, to meet a variety of different needs. But the jewel in his crown, so to speak, was Jill.

Rumours abounded that the afore-mentioned Jill was none other than Jack's own sister - but this was speculation, not (as yet) confirmed by fact. Jill wasn't a beauty - in fact if you were to venture one night into Rosie's bar, and saw Jill lounging across a table-top, propositioning a scarred, burly gangster - you wouldn't have thought much of her. She didn't look like a moll - she was far too plump, had greasy lank hair, and acne-scarred cheeks. But the regular clientele of Rosie's Bar could testify to the fact that if you forgot the excess pounds, the bad hair cut and complexion, Jill could work wonders. She had been known to tease out the passwords for swiss bank accounts from the lips of infatuated, stern businessmen. Compromising photographs of her and a certain politician (whose was once touted as the next PM), ruined the politician's marriage and destroyed any prime-ministerial hopes. Once, the gossips claimed, a French actor, an academy award nominee, who had encountered Jill on a trip to India, had sent a private jet to ferry her to his private Carribean Island for a special party.

Jill was very good at what she did.

But it wasn't enough. Jill dreamt of love - of finding someone who would take her home and look after her - of a family, children and a suburban house.

Jack dreamt of being something more than a pimp.

It was their dreams that got them into trouble.

Jack had begun a small export business on the side - a way of getting bigger game. He had started a trade sending exotic, endangered animals out of the country. He had recently laid his hands upon a male Tdijre, a animal that was considered extinct. The Tdijre had been originally obtained for a British gangster. A local IT tycoon, catching wind of this news, outbid the British Gangster, and obtained the last Tdjire.

The British Gangster vowed revenge on Jack, and contracted a local outfit to obtain the Tdijre.

A plan was hatched.

While Jack was busy with the Rdijre deal, Jill obtained a regular. He was a handsome young man - not quite like Jill's other clients. In post-coital moments, he would whisper to Jill of love, and would steal up, during the day, to serenade her with old movie songs. He even began to write her poetry.

Jill was touched.

Soon, the regular brought her gifts. First it was a teddy bear, then a dress, then a golden locket. Her regular told her he was an orphan, a self-made man, and he was lonely.

Jill began to dream.

Jack returned and found Jill in a lackadaisical state, her eyes dreamy, her thoughts far away. Her talents, her clients complained to Jack, had begun to wane. She wasn't bringing her renowned enthusiasm to bed with her anymore.

Meanwhile, Jill's latest regular had asked her to marry him. He mentioned their dreams - of being together, of children, of a suburban house.

It looked like dreams could come true.

When Jack confronted her, Jill attacked him. He guffawed when she mentioned the regular's wish to marry her. "He? Marry you?" Jack had laughed cruelly. Hurt, Jill had picked her things, and sashayed out the door.

A couple of hours later, Jack got a call. He thought it would be his contact in the police, but it was different voice.

"We've got Jill," the voice said. "She's your sister. We know. We're going to kill her unless you bring the Tdjire to the top of the Hill in three hours."

The Hill was the city's largest building, in the center of the financial district.

Jack hungup. He didn't know what to do. He thought of his long-forgotten mother, of his childhood with Jill, of the fights and the good times they had together.

He sighed, picked up the phone and made a few calls.

A couple of hours later, thanks to a favor a security guard owed him, he found himself inside the IT Tycoon's house, next to a tank which housed the repitilian Tdjire. He filled a green plastic bucket with water, and fished the Tdjire out with a tea-strainer. He placed the Tdjire in the bucket, and quickly made his way out, as the obese Tycoon snored upstairs, in his four-poster bed, lying next to his slim, model wife.

An hour later, thanks to another favor, he obtained access to the Hill building, even though it was past midnight. He took the elevator to the top floor, and climbed the fire-escape to the terrace. There, in the moonlight, he saw Jill, she was bound and gagged, and her former parmour, the handsome regular, held a knife to her throat.

"Hand the Tdijre over, and she's yours," another voice spoke. Jack turned, and saw the British gangster, who he had double crossed, step out of the shadows behind the door to the fire-escape.

Jack began to sweat. Things weren't turning out the way he imagined.

He handed the pail over.

The gangster lifted the Tdjire out. The Tdijre lay limply, and curious, the gangster flipped it over.

The Trdjire was dead.

The gangster was incensced. He screamed at Jack, and began raining blows on him. Jack ducked and began to strike back. As they tussled on the rooftop, the gangster's bouncer intervened, and hurled Jack away. Jack stumbled, close to the parapet, and tried to regain his balance. The water from the pail ran over the rooftop, making the ground slippery. Jack slipped, in the mess, and fell over the ledge.

He fell down thirty stories, to his death.

Jill pulled away from her paramour, to watch her brother hurtle to his death. SHe screamed, but her scream was stuck in her throat.

The paramour and the Gangster exchanged glances. The Gangster nodded, just once, and the paramour stepped behind Jill, and pushed her over the edge.

And screaming, Jill fell, to her death.

Jack and Jill
Went up the Hill
To fetch a pail of water
Jack fell down
And broke his crown
And Jill came tumbling After

AN INDIAN VAMPIRE

There was a Vampire on my veranda.

"You're a writer, aren't you?" He asked.

I nodded, stunned by this strange apparition on my balcony. He was a tall, pale, gangly youth. I could make out tiny, pitted acne scars on his cheeks, bloodless lips. There were bags under his eyes, and lines etched across his forehead.

"I need you to write my story," the Vampire told me. He paused, and looked at me shyly. "Please?"

I frowned. "Why?"

He smiled, baring his pointed, gleaming canines. I shuddered, and a look of fear must have crossed my face, for suddenly his smile drooped.

He sighed. "It isn't like they say it is. All these hollywood blockbusters portray Vampires to be these good-looking, sexy blood-suckers, living the good life. You know - like Underworld Evolution. Or, like in Interview with the Vampire." His shoulders sagged. "Pretty girls, palatial mansions, a garage full of flashy cars, truckloads of money. If f life were anything like that, I bet the majority of the human population would be queuing up tomorrow to join the vampiric species."

I felt a little sorry for him then. "What's it like then? Really like?"

"It's dreadfully hard to be a vampire in the modern age. I mean, it's not too bad if you've already been alive for a century or so - that's a decent span of time to have picked up a decent bit of cash. But unfortunately, this isn't the case - at least not for us, the younger vampires. The old guys have it good - they've got that old-world charm that attracts legions of admirers willing to slit their throats and pour out their blood into crystal glasses, and most of them have managed to pick up that palatial mansion and swiss bank account somewhere along the line. But for the average vampire like me, it's a different story."

I was intrigued. "How so?"

"I still have to work and that's always a drag." He sighed. "You see....I live with my parents...."

"What do you mean - you live with your parents?" I was surprised. This was the first I had ever heard of a Vampire living with his parents.

The Vampire explained. "For all practical intents and purposes, I'm still legally alive, even if most of my biological processes have stopped. I could still drop off the radar, pretend I'm dead - but my parents would have been devastated by my loss. Not to mention, if I was actually dead, they would have had me cremated by hindu funerary rites - and that would have finished me off for good." He shuddered. "What would have been the point of becoming a Vampire then?"

I was puzzled. "But...you know...all that stuff about sunlight begin fatal to Vampires - what about that?"

"It's true." Another spasm of regret crossed his face. "No more sunsets or sunrises for me."

"But you work? What do you do?" Something else struck me. "Why do you work?"

"I have to work." He replied. "Otherwise my parents would have nagged me to get a job. Luckily, the BPO craze has hit India bigtime - and the night hours suit me perfectly, working a 9 pm to 5 am job is absolutely perfect when you're a vampire, and have nocturnal habits."

That made sense.

The Vampire continued. "On my salary, I'm hoping to get my own place. I still haven't found a decent apartment, but I'm sick of living with my parents. I still haven't told them about the whole vampire thing, I think that would be too much of a shock for them. You see, I come from a Tam-Brahm family. At home, we are completely vegetarian."

"That must be pretty difficult for a Vampire," I joked.

The vampire nodded sadly. "Eating any sort of food gives me chronic indigestion, my 'dead' system can't really take it. But my mother lurks in wait for me, a plate of dosas or idlis in hand. "Just one tiny bite, darling" she says, "just try this. It's so tasty. I made it just the way you like it." The Vampire shuddered. "The very idea of a dosa makes me sick. I try desperately to fend off her attempts - and now she thinks I'm turning anorexic. Sometimes I have to submit, pretend to swallow a handful of dosa, and then rush to the bathroom and vomit." He patted his stomach. "Loose Motions all the time."

"It sounds awful," I said. I really meant it. "A living hell."

"It wouldn't be so bad if we were non-veg, and I could have the ocasional rare steak, streaming with blood." He salivated at the thought. "But my parents are so vegetarian, and so absolutely brahmin, the very mention of a dead cow can cause them anguish."

I nodded. I could understand.

The Vampire continued. "So I'm waiting for the old folks to drop off, take off to Hollwood with my savings, and then pretend to pop off. They'll put me in a cemetery, and then in the dark of night, I'll climb out of my grave - and finally - I'll be free!"

There was a soft smile on his face, a dreamy look in his eyes as he contemplated his future freedom. "Hollywood, here I come," he whispered. He pulled out a grimy, folded piece of paper from his pocket, and handed it to me.

It was print-out of a Craig's List announcement. "CEMETERY LOT FOR RENT" The auction notice read. "IN WEST HOLLYWOOD. EXCELLENT VIEW OF BRAD PITT'S HOUSE." I perused the rest of the sheet, another Vampire was sub-letting his coffin for six months, while he took a holiday to Bangkok and visited relatives in Transylvania.

I folded back the sheet and handed it to the campire. "Why Hollywood?" I was curious.

His voice was soft, and full of hope as he answered. "It's a land of dreams, a land of opportunity." He licked his lips. "They're some pretty hot vampires in LA, I hear. You know - the extras they used in Interview with the Vampire and Underworld: Evolution. Real sexy ones."

I suppressed the urge to comment that the extras were very likely mortal actresses, and not vampires. The Vampire was so very hopeful, it seemed cruel to dash his dreams.

"That's the life," he said, dreamily. "I just have to get to America."

We were silent for a while, watching the monsoon clouds slowly drift across the moon.

"But why are you telling me all this?" I asked.

"You're a writer," the Vampire replied. "You can spin my story into some sort of best-selling novel. You know - the type that'll get picked to be made into a film. Lots of cash - we'll split it 50-50... and then I can fund my trip to America."

This didn't make much sense. "But you're story is depressing. Why would people want to read this?"

The Vampire shrugged. "Spin into anything. The call-center crowd - that's a perfect audience. You know - there's that guy who wrote that book about a call-center, sold tonnes of copies and got made into a film with Salman Khan and Katrina Kaif." His voice turned dreamy again.

I considered this. He was right. The call-center crowd was the perfect audience for middle-brow vampire lit, more importantly, the setting of his story in a call-center, would be a major selling point.

So I wrote the book. But after seventeen rejections from various publishing houses, we finally gave up. Apparently, one Publisher informed me, the book would hurt the sentiments of both Christian and Hindu Groups. "We can't afford to offend both at the same time," the publisher told me. "They'll burn down the office." With that, he pushed my manuscript from his table into the dustbin. And so the book, like my friend the Vampire, never saw the light of day.

After that, we lost touch. A few months later, as I walked through the center of the city, I saw workmen hoisting a new billboard into place. It was an advertizement for a fairness cream for men, featuring a thin, pale youth in a fashionable suit. With a shock I realized that it was my friend the Vampire, whose preternaturally pale skin made him the perfect model for such a product.

His star was on the ascent. He became a regular feature of Page 3 - seeming to grace every celebrity event with his presence.

A year later, I ran into him at the opening of a club that was being run by a friend of mine. The crowd was mostly the usual high-fliers, with a fair sprinkling of foreigners. I spotted the Vampire, attired in a jazzy, flamboyant shirt and a gold Rolex, standing in the corner. A handsome, sharp-featured foreigner stood next to him, sporting a fake tan. The Vampire greeted me jovially, and introduced me to his friend.

"This is Viktor," he said. Viktor shook my hand, and smiled. His lips parted to reveal a pair of sharp, pointed canines.

Another Vampire.

"A friend from Romania," the Vampire added. He led me to a table, and we caught up over a drink.

"I thought you must have made enough to head to Hollywood," I said. It had struck me as strange, that despite his dreams to go to America, the Vampire had remained here.

"I was going to go," he explained. "But then the recession struck, big time. Everyone, especially the Vampires started to come here. The recession bit heavily into a lot of their investments - so they came here, because it's cheaper to live well. India IS the place to be. Plus, the Indian market seemed to be stronger than the rest. So it was a good idea to stay on, and I've made a killing." He guffawed, at his own joke.

I smiled weakly."How?"

"Had invested in a bit of land. Once the foreign crowd started to come, I set up a cemetery, started renting out coffins. And then branched out into importing blood." He handed me the bottle he had been drinking from - it looked like an ordinary beer bottle, but as I glanced at it - the contents were red. "Class A blood, imported from Russia. High Alcohol content. I have a whole range, with various flavours, for every pocket."

"But what about the parents?" I asked. "Your mother still trying to feed you with dosas and idlis?"

The Vampire scowled. "Not so bad now, though. I've moved out - got a penthouse in the center of town. So at least I've got my own space. But..." His voice dropped.

"What?" I asked.

"The folks are trying to get me married." He sounded hassled. "They think I should settle down now, find a nice, tam- brahm girl, have some kids." He sighed. "Not ready for all of that yet. But it's given me a new idea for a business."

"What?"

He handed me a small flier, emblazoned with the letters "VAMPIRESHAADI.COM"

"Arranged marriages for Indian and NRI Vampires," he told me. "We can match you with your caste, gotra, community etc. We should launch next week. Already, we've netted excellent ad revenues."

I was impressed. The Vampire had really come a long way.

He smiled, when I complimented him. "Thanks. But what about you? How have you been?"

I grimaced. "Alright. Could be better. Work's not that great. The recession has hit us freelancers quite bad."

The Vampire smiled, sympathetically, and leaned across the table. "I have an idea," he whispered. "Especially, for someone of your talents and outlook."

"About what?" I was intrigued.

His voice dropped lower, and he told me. We spent the rest of the night talking. By Sunrise I was convinced.

And that's how I too became a Vampire.

Shadows

A shadow follows me. I see it slide across the walls of buildings, over tarred roads blistering in the noon day sun. And when rain comes, clouds clotting the sky, the shadow skitters across the surface of a puddle, and reappears, mocking me, in the scattered shards of a broken mirror.

In darkness the shadow disappears.

Once, in a dark room, I met a lover. He came from a masquerade, a domino of sequins and glitter masking his face. He pulled me, gently, into the darkness, and then I felt his hands, along my back, tracing my spine. I laughed, and pulled away his domino but - there was nothing there. No one there, just an empty suit of clothes, drifting in the wind, and a blue sequined domino in my hand...and then I heard laughter - dry, mocking laughter. But there was no one there.

There was no one there.

Once, there was the sound of wings flapping, a sudden, small breeze tugged at my hair, drifted across my face. But I saw nothing. Something fell into my lap, I felt for it - I felt the soft fringes of a feather. And then I heard a chuckle - the soft whisper of words - and I knew, there was a God with me in that room. A God with wings, and laughter, a God whose language, whose half-whispered words, I could not begin to understand. I heard this God, I felt this God, but I could not see him.

I saw nothing.

Once, I stood in an empty street. It was dark, at night, and a flickering street lamp scattered a twitching pool of shadows that danced across the empty street. A man stepped out of the shadows, towards me, the light outlining his dark, black form. He stood in front of me, shoulders hunched, tentative.

"Who are you?" I asked, suddenly afraid.

He moved towards me, and then I saw that he had no eyes, no nose, no features. He was just a shape, a vague man-shape. But he had lips, soft shadings of black on black - lips that moved in the darkness, dripping with soft words.

"I am you," he said, and then he reached towards me, with his shadowy hands.

I watched, stricken, as his hands disappeared into my chest. I felt a vague tugging, and then his hands emerged, gripping something. It was my heart, bleeding, in his hands. And even as I watched, those soft lips smiled, a horrible, sly smile, and he stuck my heart into his dark chest. And then, he began to walk away from me, towards the flickering, dancing light - and even as he moved, his form gained substance. The soft, grey lips turned red, the shadowy hands grew into firm, taunt fingers, and flesh wrapped itself across his shadowy form. Eyes appeared in his blank face - eyes, just like mine, over a nose, just like mine.

I looked down then, at my hands, which were fading. My clothes turned to smoke, my fingers and toes curled into shadows, my body blurred.

He laughed once, softly, and walked away - a man, fully formed, with eyes and skin and lips and fingers.

I am shadow now. I am darkness.

I spend the days and light following this man, this man who has stolen my heart, my shadow that has robbed me. I live a half-life now, merging with darkness, sliding across walls and floors, peeping out from glittering surfaces.

I hear nothing, I see nothing.

In darkness, shadows disappear.

I disappear.

The Dream

A dream crept out of my skull, through my ear, staining my white pillow case. I awoke in the morning, after a heavy, black sleep, to find the corpse of a dream, bleeding on my pillow. The blood had crusted and blackened, and there was just the heart of the dream itself, a glass-like shard, made of shadows and rainbows, embedded in the bloody, black mess.

Carefully, I pried the shard loose. It glittered, full of colours, in the morning sun. In the shard, I saw faces trapped and frozen - a princess, with tears cascading down burning cheeks, an ogre, with a mouth full of sharp, pointed teeth, a witch, black locks rioting through the air, as she sped through the skies. These things and more, I spied, frozen in the glass corpse of the dream.

I pounded the shard into a fine powder, which I corked in a blue glass bottle. I kept it there, on a shelf in my kitchen. Perhaps, someday, I would have some need of it - perhaps someday, when my craft and skill ran out, I could turn to the powder in the bottle. Or when pain and illness overcame me, I could turn and find release in the magical dreams the powder could bestow.

But one night, I awoke, to hear the sound of a scuffle in my kitchen. I donned my dressing gown, and quietly crept down the stairs. In the dark kitchen, I saw the shadow of a cat against the wall, pulling the bottle out with it's paws. The bottle fell off the sledge, splintered on the floor, the powder spilling out. The cat leapt through the air, and landed on it's paws, to lick the floor of the powder.

Horrified, I watched, as the shadow of the cat blurred and shifted. A sabre-toothed tiger stood in place of the cat, and then, a moment later, a lazy-eyed chameleon, colours shifting across it's skin, slumbered on the floor. A mammooth rose up, tusks piercing the ceiling, and then a snake - with a blue, sinuous tongue, slithered across the floor. But then, the snake shook, a shudder ran through the length of it's body, and it's skin changed into gold, red, blue and green. And finally, the cat, lay again, sprawled across the floor of my kitchen, tongue hanging out.

Minutes passed, and the cat didn't move. I ventured, tentatively across, to touch the cat. It was dead, frozen stiff.

When morning came, I buried the cat in the graveyard.

Days later, I found a hole in the ground, where I had buried the cat. Now, the children of my village claim that a cat visits them in their dreams, a furry, shadow-less creature, with a long blue tongue. There are also reports, of giant footprints in the forest - footprints that belong to an elephant. In my garden, I see the sliding tracks of a snake, and once, the postman found a long, pointed tooth, embedded in my post box.

The dream lives on.

HIGHWAY TO HELL

The strangest thing happened to me the other day. I had just entered a coffee shop, and ordered myself a cappuccino, when i noticed a cellphone lying on the table in front of me. When summoned, the buxom waitress looked askance. "Look," she said, fixing me with a stern look, "you found it." And with that, she flounced away, no doubt to hassle some other equally nonplussed and well meaning customer.
I stared at the cell phone lying on the table. It was the latest razr sleek model, in a gold covering. Very bling-bling. And even as I watched, the phone began to vibrate and ring. The display flashed, bright red. The ring-tone was Highway to Hell.
Interesting choice.
The phone kept ringing, and the other customers in the coffee-shop began to dart suspicious, evil glances at me. One pious-looking woman, accompanied by her five-year old son, placed her well-manicured hands over her son's ears, as his head started bobbing in beat to the refrain.
The song got louder and louder, till it filled the whole shop.
Soon all the customers in the shop had turned towards me, steely anger glinting in their eyes. One portly man, a regular mafioso-looker, approached my table and stabbed a stubby finger in the phone's direction. "Pick it up," he said, "Pick it up, or else..." He clenched his hand into a fist.
Suffice it to say I took the call.
"Hello?" I murmured, tentatively.
""Where are you?" A shrill voice shrieked. "All the junior demons are on strike! And you know what that means - no torments for all the wicked sinners! Tantalus is happily munching on fruit and drinking. Sisyphus is taking a break from rolling that stone uphill. And no one is prodding Adolf's butt with a fiery pitchfork! Can you imagine? He's actually smiling! And Stalin has sneaked across to talk to Chegniz Khan!" Here the voice dropped to whisper. "You better come home quick, I think a rebellion might be in the offing..."
"But..." I finally managed, after a stunned moment. "Who is this?"
"Huh?" The shrill voice was taken back. "Isn't this Lucifer?"
"I found this phone..."
"Christ!" The voice cursed and hung up.
I stared at the phone, perturbed. After a moment, I ventured to examine the phone, and called the last number dialed, hoping to discover who the cellphone owner was and return his bizarre instrument to him.
It was an American number. A girl with a southern accent picked up the phone on the first ring.
"Hello?" She drawled, shyly. "Is-Is that God? Sorry, I'm just an intern, the President didn't expect your call and he's just in the loo." She giggled now, a little embarrassed. "This is my first day in the Oval Office. God, if you have a moment, I was wonderin', if you heard my last prayer-"
I ended the call.
This phone was truly evil.
The phone rang again, and before the customers could gather and lynch me, I answered it. A germanic voice spoke. "Mephistopheles? This is Dr Faustus here. You haven't been..."
I snapped the phone shut. The phone rang again, and I stuffed it into my handbag, and ran into the street. No matter how many times I pressed the end call button, the phone would soon start to ring. Kim Il Jong, the editor of the New York Times, a leader of an obscure californian cult, Richard Branson's personal assistant, all called, in quick succession.
The devil was clearly a busy man.
I tried everything. I tried to lose the phone - but it wouldn't get lost. (which made we wonder - how had the devil lost the phone in the first place?) I tried to burn it - it proved immune to fire. I tried to drown it, to bury it, to convince a dog to eat, to give it away at blind beggar - but nothing worked. The phone remained, stubbornly, with me.
Finally, the devil called himself. "I need my phone back," he said.
"I've been trying to get rid of it," I told him. "Really, I don't want it. It's horrible. I've been getting a horrible perspective into how things really work - and it's really sinking me into depression-"
The devil cut me off. "Let's cut to the chase. Give me back my phone. What do you want? Helen of Troy - the most beautiful woman? Hugh Grant? Prince?"
"No!" I screamed horrified.
The devil sighed. "So what do you want then? Quick, I'm a busy man. What will it be? You're a writer, I see. The pulitzer? The booker?" When I failed to respond, he continued. "You drive a hard bargain. The nobel it is."
"Look," I finally managed to stammer. "I don't want those things, at least, not this way. It wouldn't be real. You can have your cell phone back."
The devil grunted, disgusted. "Nothing in life is for free, baby, that's my motto, and it's the only thing I stick by. So, if you aren't going to accept something in return, we'll have to work something else out." He paused. "Let me ask the Big Guy. Hold on."
I was put on hold for a few minutes, to the tune of Madonna's "Like a Prayer." Finally, the devil came back on.
"That was funny," I said.
"What was?" He replied, his voice suspicious.
I told him about the hold tune. He cursed. 'That Gabriel again! Always playing practical jokes on me! huh!" He paused, and then his tone changed. "I spoke to the Man Upstairs. He'll manage the exchange, but this way, you'll have to give up something."
"What?"
"Frankly, if I were in your shoes, I don't think I'd do it." The devil sighed. "But here it is. It's your choice." He told me how to get rid of the phone.
I couldn't believe it. "Are you sure that will work? It sounds so simple."
"Of course it will work," The devil replied, irritated. "A deal's a deal. You'll just have to stick to the terms. He ended the call.
I contemplated the phone for a couple of minutes. It began to ring. Then, I made a decision.
I did it.
Minutes later, I checked my bag. My prayers had been answered. The phone had gone.
Since that day, I've had to attend church regularly, even though I had been a confirmed agnostic for most of my adult life. As the devil says, a deal is a deal.
But one day, a thought crossed my mind.
A moment later, my landline began to ring.
It was the devil. "Yeah," he replied sheepishly. "I've been thinking that too. The Big Guy is the one that's gotten the most out of the whole affair - so it stands to reason...But there isn't anyway out of it. I'm mean, even if the Big Guy did set it up that way, you're bound to the terms, unless there's a loophole."
"Is there?"
"Well," the devil drawled, "I may be able to work something out."
And that's how I ended up in Hell Pit number 3, with a pair of horns surgically attached to my forehead, prodding Adolf's butt with a pitchfork.
Hell. It ain't so bad. The company's interesting - I got to give it that. Atilla and Rasputin are more entertaining company that Reverend Francis and Mervin, the church organist could ever be.
And Oscar Wilde, in Hell Pitt number 4, says the most hilarious things.

Red Rain

Light a fire. Light a fire that spreads fast. Light a fire that spirals into the sky, red tongues of flame licking the clouds, flames ascending the heavens. Watch the sky turn red, blood-red, watch the sky bleed red drops of rain onto the ground. The rain comes fast, red and full of fire, scorching skin, burning earth.

A god is dying, and his blood rains down upon us.

There is blood on our hands - on your hands and mine, and as we reach towards each other. My palms are slick with blood, my hands slide across your face, marking your face with blood. You reach, with your red fingers, inside of me.

And there under a red sky, under a bleeding, dying God, we make love.

His eyes are full of sadness, as he watches me climb onto your lap, watches you grasp my hips and heave, watches us beat a tattoo, faster and faster, against the red, bloody earth.

His eyes drip tears, crimson tears that drop upon my head and yours, tears that writhe down our bodies, sneak into our crevices, snake along the insides of our innards, worm through our veins, and pierce our hearts.

We shudder then, together, at the same time, we shudder. You pull my head down, onto your chest, and I rake my fingernails across your back. My screams are muffled by your skin, and your moans are silenced by my hand across your mouth.

Red rain still falls, as we wriggle apart, as I claw my way through red, bleeding mud away from you, as you struggle upright, zipping your fly, buttoning your wet, torn shirt.

The god above us breathes his last, his dying breath, forcing the clouds together, and thunder sounds across the sky.

I look up into the sky, full of horrible sound and noise. I am scared, and I pull my skirt down, wipe the mud and blood off my face.

In the distance, through the falling rain I see your back, as you walk between the trees. There is fury in me, and I clench my fist so hard, that blood spurts as my nails dig into my palm.

And you - you feel the heat of my glance on your back, you feel my burning anger sear your skin, charr your clothes. You pause, and you reach a hand across your back, fingering the marks of my nails, tracing a trail of love bites that lead towards your neck.

And then your eyes fill with fire, fill with venom, a poison that blackens your eyes. Your eyes spit black poison, and earth shrivels under that black, deadly glance.

Under the gaze of a dying god, Hatred is born.

The Future Is Coming

The city of the future, on Planet X, is filled with towering high-rises, like gigantic phalluses, thrusting out of the ground, ramming into an orange, smog filled sky.

In one yellow taxi, coasting a few metres above ground, three passengers are engaged in an act that defies description. The driver, a West Indian with a strong accent, nonchalantly whistles as he raises the partition between the driver and the rear seats. He's used to this.

A few meters away, a lone alien stares forlornly at the setting sun. She is unused to nighttime, coming from a rare planet, that boasts of five suns, and thus never experiences night. The sight of stars are a strange, bewildering experience for this poor alien, and the idea of darkness awakens dormant, primal fears. She shuts the window, pulls the curtains across to seal out every glimpse of the darkening sky, and turns on all the lights at full intensity. She gets into bed, and falls asleep.

In the next room, a blue-skinned, orange haired songstress unscrews a bottle of whisky. She sighs, and views the communicator in her room, contemplatively. She taps her fingers, lightly, on the bottle, and then summoning her courage, places a call. A few minutes later, tears running down her blue cheeks, she ends the call and takes a large swig of whisky. The bottle is finished, over the next hour, and the songstress falls asleep, lying on the carpeted floor, trapped in the throes of a nightmare.

In her dream, a young orange-haired boy falls down a never-ending hole.

In a hole in the ground, a rat burrows through a strange, alien soil. The rat bears little resemblance to his relatives back on earth; he has been bred specifically for this colonized planet, by a black-market trader, who deals in exotic, live goods. This rat, is one of many, bred for a new, off-planet cult, who sacrifice rats to their patron deity - a God with the body of a woman, and the head of saber-toothed cat, with a taste for genetically-modified rodents. This cult has grown in size and influence, ever since a rogue scientist advanced a hypothesis that the planet was originally inhabited by a race of intelligent feline-like creatures.

In party in a mansion in the Upper Reaches of the city, the rogue scientist is toasted by the elite of this city. A woman, with a strange tattoo of a snake that shifts and swirls across her skin, whispers seductively in the ears of the rogue scientist. He laughs, flattered by this woman's interest, and follows her into private, curtained alcove. There, he is startled when she bites him, vampire-like, on the neck, with two artfully concealed fangs, that retract into her skull. There is a powerful poison in her fangs, and the scientist falls, twitching, to the floor. Within seconds, he is dead.

The woman with the snake-tattoo, briskly exits the mansion, her job done. Within seconds, the rival cult that she belongs to, posts a notice on the planet-wide intranet, claiming responsibility for the scientist's death. This cult maintains the scientist is a blasphemous heretic, for they believe that a race of snake-like creatures, who live in the core of the planet, will rise, one-day, to the surface, when they will devour all heathens and unbelievers. Only the followers of the snake-cult will survive this apocalypse, and will live to see the dawn of a golden age, under the governance of these intelligent, alien snakes.

When the black-market trader sees the news on the intranet, he places a call to Earth, to inform his colleagues to cancel the last order for rats, and instead to work on developing a new breed of snakes, that can survive on Planet X.

Five years later, both rats and snakes are rife on the streets of Planet X, and most citizens have undergone state-sponsered genetic modifications that make them immune to rat and snake bites. The black-market trader is now making brisk business by importing mongooses, for wealthy citizens, who favour what they term an 'eco-friendly' approach.

In an artificial garden, a mongoose ferrets through a clump of imitation roses, as his owner, concludes a business deal with a client. He summons a boy from his mansion, and hands him over. He has discovered a loophole in Planet X's laws, that allows him to trade in livestock, which is not human. He has exploited this by breeding slaves who are not technically human. The boy, who has been summoned, has gills grafted onto his neck, that allow him to breathe underwater. His eyes flash, in anger, as is handed over, perfunctorily.

Three years later, the boy has reached manhood, and he swims in a distant lake, towards freedom, to a rebel slave colony. He is accompanied by a snake, one of the descendants of the snakes the black market trader brought to Planet X. In a short while, due to the radiation underneath the surface, the snakes have evolved a a rudimentary intelligence. This snake is a prophet, and he preaches, that a Day of the Snakes will come, when the snakes will rise up, with the slaves, and dispossess the humans of Planet X, a prophecy that ironically, bears much resemblance with the beliefs of the long-dead snake-cult.

And elsewhere, on Planet X, a baby is born, a mutant, with a third eye.

This is the future.

The Bridegroom

A shriek, followed by a scream, and then a furious clawing. Teeth biting into skin, nails raking through soft flesh, droplets of blood, streaking a rose path. The slither of sweat-stained bodies, fingers wriggling into soft, wet crevices. His face, pressed against her, her legs, splayed over him. A shudder, that ran up the length of their bodies, a cry and then - release.

They fell apart, panting. And there, sprawled across the gleaming white ceramic tiles, legs tangled near the porcelain basin, fingers clutching the towel rail, they watched each other warily.

She was the first to get up, pushing back the sweaty, strands of hair. She viewed herself in the mirror, hanging over the sink, straightening her dress, pain-stakingly wiping away the errant smears of lipstick and mascara. And then, carefully stepping over him, she left.

He watched her leave, hips sashaying under her tight dress, stilletoes click-clacking across the tiles. Then slowly, he rose, tucked in his shirt, pulled up his trousers, smoothened his hair.

Outside, the party was at it's peak - a crescendo of noise - gossip, flirtation, music blaring through the odd silences in the midst of loud, raucous conversations. A fat man, with heavy jowls, passed him as he entered the garden, clapping him loudly on the back. "Great party isn't it?"

He nodded, caught a whiff of alcohol from the man's breath, and made his way across. He saw her, by the pool, next to a elderly grey-haired old man, her head bent to catch his words. He saw her elderly companion look up, notice him, watched the old, grey eyes narrow in disdain, long, elegant fingers grip her arm in a possessive way. And even from where he stood, he saw the gleam of gold between her fingers, a marriage band.

His cellphone rang, he reached for it. A girl's voice poured out - soft and seductive, slightly accusing.

"Where are you?"

"At the party of course." He laughed.

"Really? I've been looking for you all over!"

"I'm right here, by the pool."

There was a short silence. "Stay right there. I'll be over in a second."

He smiled, put the phone away, and grabbed a glass of champagne from a passing waiter, as a beautiful young girl made her way to him, her black halter-neck dress swirling as she reached up to kiss him.

She frowned though, smelling an unfamiliar scent about him. Something was amiss; a slight crease formed between her delicate, arched eyebrows, her eyes watchful. But a moment later, they were overwhelmed in a press of people - uncles, aunts, cousins.

"Congratulations, both of you!" An elderly aunt reached up, to pat his cheek, and pressed a gift into her hands. "Such a lovely couple."

When they were free, he noticed the other woman, still by the pool, watching them. "Who is she?" He asked his bride-to-be.

"My sister." She smiled, and pulled him along. "Come, meet her."

She dropped from a height of forty storeys. And as she spun down, through the air, past glittering windows and flowerpots - she thought, This isn't the way it happens it movies. It should be quicker.

She had thought that she would ram head first into the pavement, and her body - would be smeared across the pavement, bones and flesh turned into jam. She had imagined, with meticulous detail, the startled faces of the pedestrians, stunned to find a body hurtling towards them. She had imagined a young child, bursting into tears, hiding her face in her mother's skirts, while the mother turned deadly pale.

She had enjoyed it.

But now, she was worried - the normally busy intersection was bereft of people. No one would witness her self-slaughter.

Maybe I should have waited, she thought, until more people came out onto the street.

She sighed.

It was a bit too late.

Random Bad Story I wrote

A few days ago, as I walked home, I noticed a child in the playground. Nowadays, even during the day it is dark - as if some enormous beast has swallowed the sun, and I only dare venture out during the hour of noon, when the darkness fades into a grey haze. But yesterday, as I neared the playground, I could see that the swings have rusted, and the slides have crumbled to the ground. But there was a little girl, forlornly staring at a broken see-saw. She started to scratch the paint with her fingers, and even as I watched, a black shape hurried across the street, to the playground, a torch in hand.

It was a young woman. I could see relief break across her face, as she spotted the little girl. "Come," she cried out to the child, "I've been worried about you. You shouldn't be out, not when it's this dark."

"But it's always dark, mummy," the child asserted. "Where have all the other children gone, mummy?" The child asked, her voice plaintive now. "Where do they play?"

The woman gathered the child into her arms. They sat together, huddled on the platform of a rusted merry-go-round.

"Once upon a time," the woman crooned, the ritual words that began a story, "there was a sun and a moon. The sun was a bright, beautiful, shining thing. The moon was weaker - just a delicate, wan, fragile light. And, so what do you think happened?"

"The moon was jealous of the sun, because the sun was so much brighter," the girl exclaimed.

I stopped to listen, even though it was growing dark. The woman went on, her voice soft and crooning, and she told the child that the moon plotted with the stars to steal the sun's light, and the conspiracy of stars approached the Grand Sorcerer, the most powerful magician in the world. In his lab, he developed a darkness injection, which a comet, the brave child of another star, bore on his back and flew into the sun. The sun, felt a prick, just like a mosquito bite, and watched with horror as darkness began to spread across his bright, shining body.

"But how do we make the sun better?" The child asked.

The woman shook her head and drew her child closer. I walked away, feeling a slight tinge of disappointment. What could I have expected, I asked myself, a reason, an answer? But the truth is - no one knows why these strange black clouds rolled across the sky, and blotted out the sun.

But that was days ago. The power stations have stopped working, bereft of sun light, and our cities have begun a slow, unstoppable, descent into anarchy. Batteries are prized now, and so are matches and lighters - but in a few days, perhaps even a few hours, they will run out.

I reached my apartment and paused. At the end of the street, I can see a few youth, knives flashing in the light of a dying noonday sun, surrounding an old, aged woman. She reaches into her pockets and hand a few things over. There's a quick flash, and the youth move swiftly away, black shadows racing through the dark. The woman, crumples to the ground. I watch, horrified, and run over. Blood spills through her sari. In a matter of seconds, she grows cold.

Another casuality.

It is dark now, and I am safely sequestered in my apartment. The darkness is too much to bear. It is maddening. I stumble over a pile of books in my living room. Sitting on the floor, I finger pages and spines in the darkness. But it is too dark to read.

Once, there were many of us in htis building. Now, there are fewer left. My neighbour has disappeared in the last two days.

It has been what - five, six days - since the darkness came. At first, it was a time of companionship, we all drew closer together. We had lit all our candles the first evening, to banish the darkness. I shudder to think of that waste - now that I savour each match, each candle, each battery. But on the second day, depression has begin to set in. I remember some one saying that - "It is a great step for humanity, this darkness. It is a great gift. It frees. It resets civilization - makes us begin once again." He had laughed then, a manic laugh.

I hear the same laugh now. And I wonder if it is my imagination. But no, I hear it a second time, and - I also hear a rhythmic thump, comming from above, as if some one is dancing in the flat above me.

I am curious now, and I grope my way upstairs. The door to the apartment above me is open, and I push through. I hear the thumping, louder now. A light burns in the distance - a strange, jumping, dancing light. I come closer, and I see a man, a mad grin twisting his face. A lamp burns still, and as he dances around it - it throws macabre, shifting shadows on the walls. The man holds something in his arms, and as I come closer - I see it is a dead body, the body of a woman.

He begins to dance faster and faster, oblivious to my presence, spinning around the light. Shadows and light leap across the wall, and the strangeness of it all clutches at my heart. I feel scared. And then, I leave, creep back downstairs.

Later that night - or is it day? - there is a bright gleam in the horizon. It spreads quickly, and I realize that the eastern part of the city is in flames. It is horrible - but it is also beautiful. In the fire, I can make out tiny black figures darting about. I wonder if they are sane or mad. Does it matter?

Today, it is darker still. I know it is dangerous, but I must go out. I can barely make anything out, and at the end of my street - I see a strange squatting shadow. I come closer, and I see two men, hunched over the body of a wounded dog. The dog is alive, his eyes watch me, but he is bleeding. And even as I watch, the men reach into his torn body, and pull his intestines. They begin to eat. The dog tries to stir, but he is wounded, and the light fades from his eyes.

I run back, towards home, and retch. Nothing comes out, just saliva, and for hte first time in days - I realize that I am hungry. I look back at the men, eating a live dog, and for a second - I am tempted.

I count my matches - here are just three left now. The batteries are dead. In the kitchen, there is a can of kerosene - and for a moment, madness tempts me - to see everything, the whole room, go up in a flash of light. To have light. I start to cry.

I sit in the darkness. I feel like I am waiting - but what am I waiting for?

Sometimes in the dark, I see phantoms. People from my past, long dead, rising from the floor, reaching their hands - dead hands, with grotesquely elongated fingers, like the hands of figures in El Greco paintings. The fingers reach towards me, wrap around my neck. I feel cold, clammy, a sweat breaks out on my forehead. And suddenly they disappear. Pinpoints of heat explode across my body.

It is cold now. I go upstairs, to the terrace - and watch the dark sky. I have not talked to anyone in two days, I have not heard a human voice - except for the queer laugh of my mad neighbour. I stack my books in a pile, and douse the pile with kerosene. i use my last match to set it alight. Brightness explodes, and the brightness fills my eyes, banishes the dark. At least, the darkness is gone.

It is beautiful. And it is then that I know what i must do, before the fire dies. I walk into the fire, and my body explodes in pain. THe flames dance over my skin. The pain is immense.

But there is light.

Out of mud

He came, rising from the mud.

First his mouth, filled with razor sharp teeth, then his neck, bloated and long, snaked across the cracked, fissured earth. He rose, fashioned from the bones of the earth, a skeleton of stone. He reared his head once, and the water drained from the nearby rivers and ponds, a swirling mass of water filled the spaces between his bones. He reared his head again, and this time, the leaves fell off the strong, straight orchard trees. The trees withered and bent, spines, once straight, now supine, hunched like old men over their roots. Fruit fell, from their branches - heavy, ripe fruit fell....but withered, dry skins touched the ground....all the succulence and flesh sucked out.

Threads of flesh coiled around his bones, weaving and layering into a multi-coloured, dazzling skin. Now complete, he smiled, white teeth flashing, putting the sun to shame. He took his first step, and the earth bent, shook under his enormous weight. He reached the edge of the cliff and then bent low to observe the realm beneath. Fields of green flecked the landscape, filled with tiny black figures, scurrying industriously through crops of rice and wheat. In the distance, black clouds of smoke hovered over a city, a soaring, dark city.

He laughed. And as he laughed, his body shifted and changed - grew smaller, tiny, transformed into the shape of a man. A handsome man, with flickering red eyes, and tiny, pointed teeth.

He spoke now, for the first time, a language of war, words sounding like the thrust of bayonets, the sound of bullets racing through darkness, the squelch of blood, the crying of women.

He spoke quietly, but the tiny, black figures, hard at work in the fields, stopped to listen. The city stopped too, cars braked, lights flickered off and on. In a dark alley, between piles of garbage, a criminal, a young, hunted boy, stopped and listened. A few yards a away, a plump, perspiring policeman, hot on the trail of the criminal, paused and dropped his gun. In a room that overlooked the dark alley, a pair of lovers, burrowing and clawing into each other under white, sweat-stained sheets, stopped their fierce lovemaking.

They all stopped, and listened.

The words of the newly born man on the cliff, borne by the wind, filled their ears and wormed into their brains.

He spoke, and then stopped.

The policeman looked around for his gun, but it was there, in the tiny hands of a young child. The policeman smiled at the little girl, pretty in her blue frock, and gestured towards his gun. But she frowned, and shot the policeman. The bullet tore through his chest, and embedded in his soft, fleshy heart.

He died, a look of surprise frozen on his face.

In the room over the alley, the man stared at the woman, dark and sweaty, hovering over him . He gazed at her neck, at a mole on the side of the neck, a loop of black hair curling over it. He frowned, something about the mole disturbed him, repulsed him. Without thinking, he reached out his hands, and caught her neck in his strong grip. She gaggled, she whimpered, she tried to scream, but he strangled her.

The man on the cliff, with red eyes and sharp teeth, smiled. He strode off the cliff, into the air, towards the city.

He is coming.

Another story that never went anywhere

He awoke, the scent of sweat heavy in his nostrils, the taste of cigarettes lingering on his tongue. Awakening again, here, in this small dark, stuffy room. He rubbed his eyes, blinked, hoping that the darkness would fade away, dissolve into something else - a woman, a bollywood mansion, trees...something else, but not these grimy, crumbling walls.

Anything else.

He turned, and grimaced. The pillow still smelt of her. He traced the wrinkles on the greying sheets, imagining the curve of her hips, the twist of her lips as she smiled at him.

But she wasn't there. She had left days ago, stuffing her clothes and cosmetics into a battered, grey suitcase. She had paused, and they had stared at each other, minutes dragging by. She stuffed her last pair of panties into a sequined handbag, and then turned, curls cascading over her shoulder, and marched out the door.

Or had she? He frowned. Had she been less than a memory? A figment of his imagination?

His cellphone was ringing. "There's a story - you better get there at once, the van's waiting," the grating, nasal voice on the phone informed him. "Some big car accident. A big actor too, don't know who as yet...he's been rushed to the hospital - could be dead." The voice paused, speculating the outcomes death could bring . "If he dies," the voice continued in an awed, hushed tone, "it could even be a headline piece."

He pulled on a shirt, a pair of trousers, slung his bag over his shoulders, and headed out to the van.

On the way, he leaned out the window, feeling the wind whip through his hair. The clouds were gathering over the sea, and he spied a tall, slight, figure, negotiate the treacherous rocks of the Bandstand Beach. Her white sari flapped in the wind, a radiant, blinding white - the dazzling, ethereal shade of detergent commercials. A smaller figure, a child, waved to her from further off. She smiled warmly, tenderly, back. He turned away, as the van wriggled through the throng of traffic. But he still felt the brilliance of her smile, her dazzling white smile, warm on his face.

He dozed, and dreamt of his own mother. He had always been embarrassed by her - by her gaudy nylon saris, haphazardly worn, splattered with sambar and chutney stains. By her bra-strap, poking out underneath her ill-fitting blouse. By her feet, rough and callused, and her thick, ungainly ankles. He had been relieved when she had died, finally, after a long illness. Even then, she died indecently, clinging onto life - long after any decent, self-respecting person would have. She had been stubborn, for his sake, she had whispered, on those long hospital nights, as she lingered on.

He awoke, as they arrived at the destination, and quickly clambered out of the van. He spotted a fellow reporter, puffing on a foul-smelling beedi. "No headline story here, yaar," the reporter informed him, "actor is expected to make a full recovery. Page 4 or 5 news, at the most."

Damn, Veeru thought, just my luck. A headline piece, almost, on my hands, and the bugger decides to live. Damn it.

Later at home, he dreamt of his imaginary paramour, of her wicked hips and bee-stung lips. He awoke, sweating and hot. It was time to start hating her, she was taking over his mind, he thought as he opened the door of the ancient fridge, but there was nothing there, save for a solitary milk bottle, half-full of curdling, yellow milk. Instead, he lit a cigarette, opened his notebook and began to write.

A story that never went anywhere

I sit here, alone, in a coffee shop. All about me, pairs of doting lovers engage in the business of flirting and wooing - the business of love-making as it exists in India. Because that is all it ever amounts to - stolen moments in coffee shops, furtive touches in parks, purloined kisses in the dark recesses of some alley or shadowed doorway.

I watch these lovers, cocooned in my own loneliness. I watch one girl, beautiful in a fleshy, opulent sort of way, bat her long, glitter-lined lashes at her male companion. She wears a gaudy, floral-print shirt, and her long hair carries the tell-tale signs of having been subjected to some rough, chemical straightening technique. An office worker, probably corporate. Her lover leans closer, murmuring, I imagine, something flirtatious, stretching the fabric of his cheap suit. His crew cut glints red under the coffee shop lights, the result of a heinous, tasteless dying technique. It looks like an office romance - an attraction birthed among the cubicles, flirtation near the printer, and finally - thrown together in the narrow, steel-and-glass confines of an elevator - the discovery of their shared love for brash hair-styling.

You get the idea.

I imagine the matrimonial classified - female, 24, well-placed in boring, monontous office job invites alliance from similar background. Must have bad haircut and a taste for vulgar dyes. Cheap, tasteless dress sense preferred.

Another couple near me sip their coffee placidly, darting occasional, lust-filled looks at each other, over the white porcelain rims of their coffee cups. They sit in silence, filmy music blaring through the silence that hangs between, like a corpse. No conversation or banter. I watch them, and their furtive romancing, and wonder where the attraction lies. They are dessicated husks of people - dry skin stretched haphazardly over thin, rickety bones. In simultaneous, mirrored motions, they unpin their BPO office badges. Voice accent trainers? Do they pretend foreign identities during night shifts? Basvaraj or Bill? Naina or Nancy? By what names do they call each other?

I can imagine their matrimonial night, when they clasp each other in a rigid, clinical fashion, skin barely touching, and he thrusts (just the smallest, littlest bit) of himself into her. He murmurs her name - "Nancy," he cries, forgetting her real name, her birth name. Afterwards, as they lie apart, on the white sheets, smelling of disinfectant and plastic, her eyelids drift down, and just before she falls asleep, she wishes "Bill" a good night...

"Bill" and "Nancy" look up, catch me watching them. Ashamed, embarassed I look away.

A new song blasts overhead, a shrill-voiced songstress screeches -

"This is a hip-hopper...
Come Hip-hopper, come and love me."

I gag, over the sheer horror of the lyrics, which sound even more atrocious in Hindi. I look up, and catch a man ogling the song-stress on screen, shaking her derrière to the fast beat of the song, so fast that her short skirt, barely covering her ass, rides just the teensiest bit up. I watch him, nursing his expresso, salivate and crane his neck, hoping to see just a little bit more - even though the image is a flat, recorded image.

I laugh, and he whips about, surprised and panicking, offended at having been caught.

Another voyeur, like myself - except I prefer live objects to observe.

I look away, searching for a fresh object to observe. I catch a woman beside my table, in the act of twitching the pages of her newspaper open. The front spread obscures her face, as she holds it up to read.

And then it slams into me.

Sam dreams she is an armour-clad knight. Steel kisses her skin, sweat drips down her face, stinging her eyes. She tightens her grip on her lance, it's weight heavy in her hand. Through her visor, she squints at her challenger, a dazzling steel-clad figure. His helmet, burning white under the fierce sun, blinds her eyes. He breaks into a run.

Sam urges her horse forward. Their lances clash, the loud ring of steel-upon steel deafens her ears. Head ringing, she feels her bones melt, her tendons scream, her muscles shriek in agony. Yet she clings, desperate, to her seat, barely staying upright, as her opponent, dazed, tumbles into the dust.

She has won.

Sam dreams. Of a spider, crouching in the shadows, edging slowly towards her, it's black, pincer-like limbs reaching for her. Stunned, she is still for a moment, until the hideous, enormous, black appendage brushes her skin. The spider's touch is rough, like sandpaper, coarse hair prickling her arm.

The spider hovers above her, it's huge, cavernous mouth just above her, saliva trailing from it's jaw.

Sam shudders and awakens. She stares at a blinking white computer screen before, letters dancing before her eyes, a slow dance that is killing her mind.

She shudders again. She remembers the arm-wrenching joust, the enormous spider. She yearns for something else - for pain, excitement and adventures.

Anything. But not the hypnosis of the computer screen, seeping past her skull, crawling through her neural pathways, infecting her brain cells with boredom, slowly, indidiously. Anything else.

Even death.

BOLLYWOOD ISHTLYE

He woke up in the middle of night. Again, the same dream…over and over again. The tall, exquisitely beautiful woman, so beautiful that it hurt too look at her. Walking away from him, a baby in her arms, the white pallu of her sari fluttering.

He was sweating. He was hungry, there was an emptiness, a longing in the pit of his belly. He turned to the sleeping girl beside him…

Later, he lay amidst sweaty and tangled sheets, the darkness blinding him. The muffled voices of his neighbors, arguing, punctuated the heavy, stuffy silence. He lit a cigarette, and watched the darkness flee, briefly, from the lighted match. The girl sighed.

“The same dream?”

He nodded.

She turned to the other side. A train rolled past overhead, and the walls of the inconceivably tiny apartment shuddered.

He cursed aloud. The girl kicked him under the sheets. He pushed her away, roughly.

He hated this. This one-bedroom apartment. His job. The girl lying next to him, her face sweaty and flushed, the stench of sex clinging to her body.

But what else was there?

Flashback. He remembered his childhood, living with an alcoholic father, who used him as a punching bag. His mother had left his father years ago, pregnant with another man’s child. So he had learnt. Ego bruised, pride wounded, his father had taken revenge on his wife through the only thing she had left him, his son.

He had missed his mother. In his mind, he had fashioned an image of her, sculpting her into the perfect, the ideal woman. Eyes like Manisha Koirala like Preity Zinta’s, a body like Mallika Sherawat’s. But always clad respectably, in a pure, simple white sari.

He had come to Bombay two years ago. For the first time, he had dared to hope – dreaming of films, of jobs, cars and money…and then, two years later, still stuck in the same dreary job, hope had gone sour.

The morning light filtered dimly through the small window. He hadn’t slept the whole night. He arose, got dressed slowly and left. The girl slept on.

The milk-bottles rattled in the basket suspended to his cycle’s handlebars. He peddled slowly up the hill, daydreaming. A tall woman walked past, white sari flapping in the sea-breeze, like the woman from his dreams. Stunned, he stopped in the middle of the road to turn around. There was no woman. A truck, driving towards him, swerved, missing him by hair’s breadth. He jumped back, and the truck turned, crashing into a car driving up the hill.

Jai watched, horrified. He let go of the cycle. It dropped to the ground, milk-bottles shattering. Already, the sound of police sirens sounded faintly in the distance.

He started running.

And somewhere, someone yelled “CUT!”