Rashmi's Space

In the next three days, we will step into the New Year. Make a clean new beginning – bidding farewell to something old and familiar. I hate goodbyes. But then, I also love new beginnings! And what better than the fag end of the year to remind us of that? And so I sit, lost in thought, at the dining room table, watching the sunlight stream through the bay window, the light catching shimmering threads in the sheer curtain that adorns the window, and has rarely ever been used in the past year. I need to use those curtains, I think. Draw them close at least once in the New Year. For that matter, I need to have a place of my own to work from too, not just end up at the dining table with my laptop – another thing to get done in the New Year. But even as I think it, I know I will never use that curtain. It will just stay there, adorning the two ends of the window. Nor will I ever get organised in a single place that will be my ‘place of work’ in the house… because that is how I roll. ...

Note: This is the second and concluding part of the story. Do check out the story so far in  Part 1  so you are up to date :)  I hear a tentative knock on the door. And then a question, softly: “Baba, are you asleep?” “No. Come in,” I call out and my daughter walks in. It is late in the night. Dinner is long over. And my daughter has come to see me. My daughter, who is the most like me of my three children – the only one I had wanted to be there when I returned home today with the auto driver, but was not there because she was visiting a friend in a different city. My daughter, who is my only true source of happiness. My daughter – the only one who loves me for who I am, and not for the locked box I keep in the safe in my closet. My daughter, who lives with us because she has never married. She has vitiligo, you see. Sometimes I feel, I have failed her there. Because even though she has always been beautiful to me, even with the white patches ...

Note: This is the beginning of the story.  Do check out Part 2 for the conclusion.  It is all a blur. The roads, the trees, the shops that pass by, they are all familiar, and yet, unfamiliar to me. The bright lights that zoom past, are they streetlamps? Or lights from the shops? The buildings that pass, the bus stops dotting this tree-lined avenue, the playground in the distance where boys must be playing football in the fading light – it is all a blur. There must be people walking on the pavement, some waiting at the bus stops, some crossing the road – but to me, they are all a blur too. I sit in an auto rickshaw and it zooms away, very fast, making me dizzy. I sit here, clutching the slim iron rod that separates the driver’s seat from the passengers’, and hope that the driver takes me home safely, in one piece. I know he intends to. That is where we are going, in fact – home. But the thing is, see, I had thought it was very close, just around the corner; turns ...

“Mr. Desai?” Ananta looks up. “These are Ms. Kamath’s ornaments,” the nurse says, handing him two gold bangles, a gold chain, and a pair of pearl earrings. Ananta stands up and takes them, the way one would take back an offering from a priest at a temple. Then he sits back down on the bench he has been sitting on for some hours now. He looks down at Krishna’s ornaments. And keeps looking at them long after the nurse has turned and walked away.  How has it all come to this? It was only a few hours back that he had gone to Krishna’s house, late in the evening. He was hoping to talk some sense into her. He was looking forward to making her understand how thoughtless she was being in deciding to go away from him. He wanted to make her realise that she wasn't even understanding the seriousness of what she was about to do. And in the process, she was going to break her own heart too…how could she not see that? And so he had gone to Krishna’s house. But he ...

The sound of the raindrops hitting the window panes in a quiet residential part of a small town is so different from that in a big city. That is the thought in her mind now, as she looks out of her kitchen window. The trees around her property are thick and dark as they stand drenched in the heavy downpour. It is the second day in a row that heavy rains continue to lash their area. She has heard in the morning on the radio that the rain will continue for a couple more days. It is good, she thinks, that she has just picked up her groceries, having moved in only a few days ago.       From the small gap in the trees, she can see across to the blue-walled house, just as she could see as a child. It is drenched too. The creepers outside its kitchen wall making a brave attempt at holding on through the heavy downpour. She can see its kitchen window clearly from here. How amazing, she thinks, how few things change over a period of time, although everything is chan...

"... na kahin chanda, na kahin taare... jyot ke pyaase mere, nain bechaare... tarapat, tasasat, umar gawayi... poocho na kaise maine rain bitayi..." An old melody. The twilight hour. Strong, bold notes. An older voice. On his evening walk, he passes the gazebo in the park marked Senior Citizens Area, he cannot help but stop a moment and listen as the elderly man finishes his rendition of the timeless Mohd. Rafi melody. As soon as he is finished, there is a smattering of applause and smiles and nostalgia all around. He finds a smile spreading across his face automatically. He knows this song. He has heard it on Vividh Bharati several times as a child, when his own father, who now would be close to the singer's age, would put on the radio in the mornings and late in the nights. The old man doesn't sound like a trained singer, more like an enthusiast; but his wonderfully clear voice rings out in the failing light making the evening mesmerising, ma...

Ever noticed how we Indians are stereotyped in movies - Hollywood and Bollywood? Well, there are many who complain about this stereotyping, but what we fail to see is we do behave in a unique manner - not just as a community, but as a nation on the whole.... Look at festivals, for one (that’s our specialty!). We celebrate all festivals, be it Diwali, Navratri, Ganesh Chaturthi, Holi – with equal gusto! Getting all our family and friends together and spending some quality time making memories, we get lost in the spirit of celebration. And then when the lustre of the festival wears off, with all the hype and hoopla behind us, we are back to work - from poojas , and aartis we are back to meetings and deadlines......from sarees, ghagra-cholis and pathani salwars , we are back to trousers and work wear with barely any trace of the cultural excesses of a few days before.