Byakulo

I said that to someone once...It was a cold evening...the sun just setting, the light changing from a yellow rose to an amber necklace. We sat alone, together, side by side, looking across a river, searching for the point where the earth met the sky, where reality and dreams...well....had sex and gave birth to Luck!!
Anyway, I held her hand...with my palms sweating , it kept slipping off. I had a lump the size of a pumpkin in my throat and i was feelin a bit woozy.( On second thoughts, I did have that piece of Samosa stuck somehere and we were sitting on top of a bridge!!). I had planned this moment for sooo long, going down to every small detail, my coup-de-grace will be so unique, so special that...that...well...you know what i mean. No point talikin about split milk..It rained, she blew and eveerythin got screwed...

So, here I was, sittin beside the girl I loved, about to tell her that she was the most amazing person I had ever met and I was so very deeply in love with her. Actually, the location was so ironic...we were on a bridge and I just have to jump off if she says no!! No messy tears, no sleepless nights, no down-in-the dumps.....(i mean i won't have to do those stuffs). Finally, I took a big breath, tightened my grip on her hand,looked into her eyes and blurted out.."Hum aapki ankhon mein..". "Sshhh....", her finger on my lips,her face radiant like a thousand stars, she said,"I know...". The last rays of the sun shillouted our fading forms as I shared my first kiss.

AND THAT WAS THE EXACT TIME THAT SOME &*%$^$$&* DRUNK KID DECIDED TO RAM HIS POP'S OLD MARUTI RIGHT WHERE WE WERE SITTIN!!! CAN YOU BELIEVE MY &*%$**&^%* LUCK!!! So...please...don't have kids...you never know who's life they are gonna ruin (aside from your's , of course).

Ciao!!

Even today, after more than 5 years, i feel a pang of guilt whenever i see a dead cat. You might think how common that sight is....live in a city like Delhi or Bangalore for a few years and somehow or the other, dead animals seem to keep falling in your path. Big cities have a strange way of sucking the life out of everybody, man & animal; you just have to give them enough time. Anyway, let me come back to the story at hand.
I had come back to India after a couple of years working abroad. With my parents retired and desperately determined to marry me off at the earliest instance, I decided to go on a nice, long road trip. In the States, a road trip is synonomous with a pack of rabid boozing youngsters, intent on taking you to the grave with them. I had something quieter in mind; a cross-country trip to my aunt's place in Darjeeling . The car of choice became my parent's old zen, the same one i had learned driving in and had almost caused 2 weedings and a funeral. But that's another story...
The first 4000 miles were remarkably uninteresting. The roads seemed to have changed with the times and one only had to look out for the odd 'axel breaker' on the way. The presence of a roadside repair shop was usually a signal for one. The villages on the way also seemed remarkably quiet, as if waiting for something to happen. Hours used to pass with the steady whine of the a/c and some strains of a Hindi song. An odd truck used to appear from somewhere, replete with it's bridal finery and slowly vanish into the horizon, the driver probably too stoned to know where he was headed. Time just ticked away.
Orissa was the last state before my home strech. The roads had now started to show a bit of their true form and I had had to slow down. It was around noon that the radiator began to work up. The gauge had already been threading it's way east and was now in the red zone. As i slowed down to a stop, i thought about the paradox of technology. Had it been my granpa's old Ambi, i would just have had to top her with water and away we go. This marvel of the 21st century needed a coolent which i was sure the nearby river didn't have. I needed to find a shop....fast. And so, with a can in hand and a straw hat, i started my trip to the nearest town, Sundergarh.
As i walked in the sweltering heat, i tried to recall what i had read in the guide book about this town. As with many cases, there wasn't much to say. A smattering of traders and goverment employees and the adjoining mining community was all it had. The railway line had skirted it by about a parsec and this melting, molten road was its lifeline. I imagined this as India's Wild West..... and I the explorer. And so, stumbling and swearing, i reached the town.
There are times in your life when you feel like the happiest person on the planet, like it is a blessing to be alive. This wasn't one of those times. As i looked at the rows of closed shops and houses, I felt an utterly, irrelevant need to be like Ram's wife Sita, so that the earth may swallow me alive. Here I was, kilometers from my car, with an empty bottle & an empty stomach, standing along a road with not a single living being in sight...and this was a town (and a district headquater to boot, as i later came to know).
I was feeling suicidal, probably as an outgrowth of feeling desperate. There was no way my car was going to move an inch without the coolant. And I could see no one who could give me some, except for a stray dog who was now giving me nasty looks for breaking his siesta. Wishing him a long life and a happy nap, i truged along on my quest. After some 30 mins of grovelling around and knocking on closed doors, I decided that this is where i am going to die, a lone warrior on the search for the holy coolant and resignedly, sat down under a tree.
The boy had probably been looking at me for quite some time. Then he whistled. That was exactly when I felt like that guy in Planet of the Apes when he sees another human ( the fact that SHE was a hot, half-naked Estella Warren is totally beyond the point!!). I motioned him to come near. Chewing something i knew wasn't gum, he walked over. I thrust the bottle forward and said "Coolant chahiye. Hai kya?" He nodded and just put up five fingers, all the while chewing what smelt like cow dung. As i nodded , i had the honour of seeing possibly the fastest dissapearing act ever witnessed. It was followed by an equally fast reappearing act. He was back, one hand outstreched and the other with a full bottle of green coolant. Even as i parted with 500 bucks, I was thanking him and proclaiming him my saviour. He had just given me my holy grail. There wasn't much after that..i simply rushed to my car, poured the coolant and rode away into the sunset ( ya,it was already evening.... what do you expect?)
A few hours later, something interesting happened. My engine just stopped. The entire engine block had melted. As was soon apparent, that wasn't some coolant he gave me. I spent the next five days waiting for a new engine, all the while fuming and cursing the denizens of that region, while the local mechanics enjoyed the biggest joke of their lives. That kid had burned a big hole in my pocket and an even bigger hole in my ego. I don't think i really like him anymore.
Oh...about that dead cat and stuff... I had killed my sister's cat when i was a kid and never told her. So, always felt kindof guilty abut that. Ya know, childhood problem.
See ya!!

In a land very near to us ( C'mon guys!!! "Far, Far Away"!! In the Jet Age!! Naaahh...), there once lived a Giant. He was the kindest and the most honest and the most trustful and the most....you get the flow. In short, he was COOOOOOOOOOOOL. He did have a few quirks, though. Unlike his other brethren, he was a veggie. Trust me , that could wreck serious havoc with your social life. I mean, how would you feel if you see one of you pals uprooting and chewing puny, green trees, while the rest of the crowd goes on a merry, killing spree, destroying vilages and eating people? Won't that make you think of that guy as a wierdo? And a veggie giant's lovelife!!! Don't even get me started about that one... Which giantess, with even a eeniy-meeniy bit of self-esteem will agree to go out with a giant who faints at the sight of blood? Who wants to be the laughing stock of the #$%$&*^*# ?( oh yes... that's the name of their city...pronounced as Kee-naaa-eeee.....huge one, but that's pretty obvious, isn't it)
So there he was, ostracised from his clan and with absolutely no chance of getting any pretty giantess as a companion. It was then, after bearing this torture for 27 long man-years, that the Giant decided to take the ultimate step, across the void, beyond the point of no return.( no, no I'm not talkin about soocide and stuff. You see, giants cannot commit sucide. Long ago, one of them tried to jump of a cliff..you know what happened to the dinosaurs, right?) He decided he had to move, go far away from #$%$&*^*#, leaving behind his sore and stinking legacy( eating too many banyan trees can do that to you).
Bidding tearful goodbyes to his dear parents ( for the record, those were the Giant's tears) , he set forth in search of his destiny. The road took him to across several states, where he was feared, loathed and stoned. You see, people have trouble seeing your inner beauty if there is such a huge mass covering it. So onward he truged, looking for a haven for himself and his desires.
After many days and nights, he finally reached a temple city. A place where everybody was at peace with himself and love was in th air. By this time, the repeated stonings had started to take their toll and his hidden beuty was beginning to shine through. The good people of the city accepted him as one of their own( ok, ok...as 12 of their own) and invited him to park himself there alongwith his Streetcar Named Desire.
Now that he had got the chance, there was no way that our hero was going to squander it. He immediately went about his task of fining female companionship. Technical problems such as the fact that all females around were human and he towered over them failed to dissaude him.

Hear me mere mortals,
I tell you a tale of passion,
a tale of lust and deciet,
across the ages we move,
with the warriors of love,
come with me on this journey,
one which no one has ever taken,
tales of the giant and the man,
listen about the beauty and the beast,
how the love came and how betrayal happens,
this is a tale of times to come