THE COMB...

Three days later, they were unearthed from beneath the debris, their faces- upturned bowls of pale china clay, with cracks snaking their way out from the corners of their parted lips, a dried string of blood stretching form the forehead to the chin, the eyes, two polished glass mirrors stitched to perfection, reflecting the clear blue sky....

the comb lay split in half in her stiff hand...flies buzzed around, piercing her, drawing no blood, withdrawing in dismay...

the foolish fastidiousness that Death demands!

comb your hair! brush your teeth! iron your clothes!

and off you go!

the first tremor made her irritant...it made her hand shake, and the sharp-teethed comb bit into her scalp maliciously...drawing blood in glee.

the next tremor pulled her in....

Ah! The foolish fastidiousness that Death demands!

THEIRS....

Sometime between their seventeenth or twentieth visit, they let slip from their velvety pouches, tiny rabbits, and held up stiff-backed menu cards like protective walls, as the little rodents went about their task- nibbling furiously, artistic frenzy gleaming in their blood-shot eyes like headlights, employing the left limb to sweep back wood shavings...that too, in perfect unision, like a troupe of ballet dancers. The task done, prespiring foreheads were wiped, all the ten and twenty cannines tapped for assurance of their durability, papery dust and shavings puffed away, the artisans- escorted back to their velvety burrows with thought-balloons of plump carrots and walnuts inflating before their eyes....

Now, the seigh seemed complete.

The table was theirs. Their name would spit back at intruders of every shape and colour, the deep incisions on wood would glare menacingly, sometimes glowering, making diners uneasy, making them avert their eyes. The slender legs of the table and of their chairs, would graze against the intruders' legs, death-cold...hostile...making a million goosebumps erupt.

Finally, they would change seats.

The waiters would scratch their heads in confusion- hungry diners willing to wait it out in the lounge till another table emptied out, but not daring to occupy the one with the ugly scars on its face!

Those who dared to seat themselves at Their table, returned home with crimson gashes and scratches on their bodies which only they could see.." Can't you people see these! Look at this- the bloody scar! Why the hell is it invisible to you?"

Young spirited boys, with a hairy Tarzan hanging from the arteries of their heart, challenged each other to graze their hips against the demented piece of furniture...They had fantastic stories to recount- " I felt a spark! Like a high voltage electric shock!"...." What grazed againt my hip was not wood but the edge of a knife! See...see the deep cut! Maybe then you would believe me!"

Some heard groans..others, high-pitched shrieks.

Some swore to have heard a low deep voice...like a drum-roll, beating out a warning for all.

A few heard roars...felt jolts and kicks...

A man had put his palm against the wood, a sharp splinter flew into his eye. He could see everything, but would remain blind for the rest of his life....

So, the table lived.

It collected dust, ants, pecks from rosary beads and curses thrown from afar...

Yet, it lived.

Its owners never returned after that day, the day that they sealed their names on the table-top.

Their job here was done...they need not return.

Now, for the rest of the world....

They remembered in hazy snatches, words of their fifth grade teacher...He had told them once- 'Make the world your home.'

Thus, now....for the rest of the world.

HIDING PLACE...

In his own shadow, he finds a hiding place. Clawing desperately at its edges, he attempts to pull it tight around himself...hopes the black cloak would pounce on him and devour. Not a trace of him would be left then. Just a figure in misty black, rubbing its paunch contentedly, belching rhythmically...

But it seems as though, the monster never swallows him...it just pushes him to the side of its mouth and keeps him there...and when the celebratory arson begins in the east, the monster spits him out. There he lies, defenceless and weak, the cloak having slipped off from over him, leaving him shivering in his sleep...

The world flashes torches on his face...rudely, mockingly. The stones roll over stealthily to his side of the road and wait to make him stumble. His habits they know well. His comical gait they ape when they gather for their nightly ritual of ale-drinking and merry-making. He walks with his eyes closed..this they know. Thus, he never notices the lean lamp-post striding puposefully across the street, egged on by the enuthusiastic clamours of the stones, pillars and flower-pots, as it posts itself innocuously just where it is sure to collide with him. And their plan succeeds...like always.

His letter-box bears no ruddy roses with shy pink ribbons clinging on to them with the committment of a lover who has been sentenced to indefinite exile, and for whom, these fragile red petals are the only carriers of the agony in his heart. No. His letter-box bears no token of love. It shifts laborously all the way to its owner's door and knocks angrily...a pregnant blue letter-box bursts with irritation as he opens its door. Unpaid electricity bills, letters of warning, rejected resumes...each battle with the other to reach him first, not to be wisked off their feet in a bear hug, but to be torn open and done justice with.

Euthanasia they beg for. And he begs for it too....

he searches for corners to hide in...but realises, that the world is but, round.

LOVE...IT WILL BE

Bangles i like, and their sound too....the way they clank and cry, giddy with happiness...the little rascals!

And oh! The pinch of vermillion...how the red dust snakes its way coquettishly along the parting of my hair, and having completed the journey, look up innocently in denial of the carnage they have caused!

Yards of brocade in peacock blue scale my frame, twisting and turning, contorting, bunching up conspiringly at my belly and then diving in. Almost instantly, twisters of intoxicating sensuality ravages through my being. Wholeness consumes me.

I smell fresh jasmines...feel their soft pulse under my finger. They embellish my tassels with surprising feminity. I close my eyes and dream of soft satin sheets and polished four-posters..of the deep breaths of insense sticks and of slender hands pulling at the strings of the sitar...also, of urgent explorations on a moonless night.

I want to blush....to feel the heat rising like the sun in my cheeks...

I want to gaze at my reflection on the mirror through kohl-ladden eyes, and lower them abruptly as you enter the room....

I want to see love settle contentedly, on my bangles...on the lids of my eyes...on the parting of my hair...

Flecks of love it will be, billowing out before me, caught in a trance in the light falling through the shutters of my window as i wipe the tops of cupboards and dressers....Yes, love it will be.

THE WAR....

they fought all night till their eyelids drooped in protest.....
the next morning she rose early to continue, but he never woke...
there he was, pushed to the extreme left of the bed...had thrown up his hands in submission and let her claim that coveted side of the bed that ensured sweet breezy dreams....
now, his submission seemed eternal...complete.
the upper edge of his lip seemed to have pricked itself up just a bit...the grin never had the leisure to assume its full form, but there it was, jeering at her- 'which side of the bed will you sleep on now?'
it never struck her that this sudden elimination of her rival called for celebration...burst of confetti? popping the corks of campaigne bottles? three loud cheers?
now, after all those tiring nights of epic warfare, why was she sitting by his side, wiping away the quivering pellets of sweat lining his forehead? the pellets he had gathered meticulously through the night...a temple-ful of evidence to bring under the glaring scrutiny of some imaginary Justice, to expose before all, the hegemony of his wife. now, she wiped them away...softly, lovingly, longingly...'destroying evidence!', he would have barked, but in that room of controlled breaths, wispering voices, mournful sighs and a general oppressive air of reverence, his voice passed through the sieve of silence...and melted away...
the war has ended. peace unfurled its pristine white flag, mockingly.
they carried him away in a glass box, leaving her with sweat on her palms...and nothing else.
the bed looked massive at night, it seemed to rise and expand before her eyes...she could attempt to swim across it, and give up midway in fatigue. ..
her throat hurt...irascible words scratched against her voice box...'let us out!', they screamed.
but the nightly rituals were done with...words and thoughts has been burnt at his funeral pyre.
now, she sat picking at her own ashes, while shooting jealous glances at the left side of the bed...

OF LIGHT....

Patches of light, moonlight...

click! click! goes the knitting needles, steel striking steel.

The patches quiver painfully as they are made to twist and turn, loop their hundred-and-one tentacles over each other, stretch till they whine.

Two bony figures, one shorter than the other, crawl on all fours to reach the twelveth hour. Once there, they sigh, joyful for the brief respite...their temples dripping senility....

The Hour....has been reached.

The knitting done.

'i am safe..', she murmers, the iron claw gripping her throat, slowly loosening its hold...

' another night...will Pass..'

Wrapping herself up in the newly-made cloak, she sits at her corner.

The singular cockroach marching resolutely towards the warmth of her bunched-up frame does not stir a single muscle on her face...

She keeps sitting at her corner...the blazing cloak, clasping her, tight.

She sits...two blind spots distended mercilessly over the hollows that should have been her eyes.

She sits...

gathering wisps of courage to brave a world that she can not see....

THE GIFT....

I put her to sleep with a snorkel in her mouth, held on resolutely as her pink rubbery lips tried in vain to push back the intruder from storming its portals, and having finally succeeded in my seigh, kissed the two faint eyebrows good night....and waded out.

The brown envolope lay on the shelf, i had read and re-read it, memorized the obese words spattered across the page, till they had started to do somersaults around me with surprising perfection. Now, i stood ready for my oration....
He, my singular audience, sat on the couch, dispassionate eyes tracing the trials and tribulations of a terrified treadbare duce ball as savage men hit at it mercilessly with bats and still others, chased it to the farthest ends of the arena. I could hardly see him, the world swam before my eyes, like looking through a curtain of smoke....he, knitting the curtain with a deftness that shocked me, still....
Finally, my cue...the comercials came on...
"Thank you for giving me this...", said i, and threw down the X-ray report before his eyes.
Two over-cooked brinjals with their stalks sliced off, stared back at him, glumly...
"What the hell are these?!", he exclaimed....
"My lungs", i replied.

Trudging through heaps of ash, diving through giant smoke rings in an act of mock celebration of my fate, i turned back and looked at him for the last time...
"Don't worry..i havn't told her that she has it too...not that i wouldn't have, only, it would have been a tad difficult explaining the beauty of cancer to a six year old..."