Avik's Story

When all the flowers swayed with soothing air and welcomed her, the little one smiled. Her mother taught her not to touch or pluck flowers. Flowers do have a life. The baby flowers grow from little buds to colorful petals, a full journey. She understood, and so when the flowers welcomed her, she leaned forward and giggled. She walked over the grass and played with butterflies, as though she could speak with them. They showed her their secret hives and their unlimited love towards flowers. “How come you guys fly? I cannot fly”, the little one asked. “You don’t have any wings. I can’t see any wings”, the leader of the butterflies said. He had these two beautiful mosaic see-through wings. And his little body was attached in-between. The little one was sad. She too wanted to fly and sat on flowers and love them. No one stopped butterflies from touching the flowers, only her mother did. She flipped her hands as though she could fly. The gang of butterflies laughed. “Why ...

(representational image @ pinterest)  I had a tickling sensation in my stomach for so long and I had no idea how to solve it. The problem was seemingly ridiculous. The middle aged tea-seller in my neighborhood wasn’t serving me tea anymore. Somehow he was angry or offended by me. And God knew why. That day at morning, I started walking briskly from my house as usual, crossed the rows of closed shops beside main road, and then took the service lane alongside NSIT, the famed engineering college in vicinity. It was my morning routine, except the days when I swipe off the alarm in my mobile and wake up exactly at nine. That is the last possible hour of time to be able to prepare for office and not to be marked as late. As usual, I walked that day upto the police chowki at the edge of the vast campus of NSIT, and then turned back, and stopped near the tea-stall at market. The uncle was from Bihar and he had a short  stealthy stature. He knew me by face. I was a regula...

F ar far away, in a small beautiful island nation surrounded by mighty ocean , there lived a small girl and her little baby. She named her baby as doll. It was not her best friend - her best friend was from her school, but it was her baby. She took her in arms when she was back from school, and fed her when the doll was hungry and comforted her when she was sad. Oneday the small girl came back from her school, and found the doll lying on the wooden floor. It was a clear afternoon. ‘What happened?’ She asked. Her head was little bent, as she leaned forward to her doll. ‘I’m ill. I fell down from bed, and now can’t get up’, the doll said. Her voice was melancholic. ‘Okay. I’ll help you’. The girl grabbed her raised hand, and then took her to bed. Then she kept her palm on her forehead to feel the temperature. It was hot. Her face grimaced. Her doll had fever, and nobody in this house did care for that. She had to do everything on her own. ‘You lie down here. ...

The girl snapped at me, as if I was drooling into something yummy, which was not mine, and the owner wanted me to shoo-away. She adjusted her dupatta and then tried to cover her bare shoulders by pulling her short kurti . Her face stiffened and she snapped at me again. I could hear the hard quirky sounds of her teeth, pressed against each other. And only then I came to senses, and shifted my gaze away from her and looked outside through the sweat tainted glass. ‘God. She is damn beautiful and she looks just like my first crush in college’. Once I read in Quora, if the stalker is handsome and well dressed, then girls take him as secret admirer. Well, I was neither well-dressed nor handsome. I was returning from office, and I was in metro. I was a mess. I choose a corner to stand, and the girl with fiery eyes stood beside me. Some persons have these things. They’re like Jatinga Fire. Innocent birds burn themselves to death. My first crush in college had this ‘Jatinga’ thing. H...

Vinayak Damodar Savarkar of Hindu Mahasabha founded the term Hindutva, and then RSS took it as its own, literally. Sardar Patel sent a letter to Pundit Nehru right after assassination of Mahatma Gandhi that RSS had nothing to do with it, but at the same time he wrote to Chief of RSS, MS Gowalkar accusing his organization to create such an environment where a person like Gandhiji could be killed and then the members of his organization could celebrate the death of Father of Nation. In the presence of Dalit leader Ambedkar and Hindu nationalist Shyamaprasad Mukherjee in cabinet, the Government banned RSS for years despite no direct proof of their involvement. Because there was a common belief that they were the happiest guys in world in the death of the most revered Indian. So they must have done something. History plays brutal games. RSS told in court that they weren’t associated either with Savarkar or his Hindu Mahasabha or his extreme Hindu fascism, which they termed as ‘...

The biggest flaw of humankind is that they can’t find their own mistakes. It takes generations just to admit that a mistake has been committed, and then it takes double or triple the time (it took for admission) to rectify or begin reconciliation process of the mistake and the damages it has done. My country isn’t exception, rather in few instances, it leads from front. It’s an easy and acceptable process all over the world to shift the blame on others. We learn it from childhood, and then master it while applying over all aspects of life. Our teachers, our parents, our seniors and our friends encourage us not to blame ourselves. Our whole educative curriculum and professional environment are modeled after finding others’ mistakes, and not of us. The international policies are tailored on this policy. And so, when we’re faced with a real problem, be that massive global warming or miniscule Kashmir issue, be that tremendous oil-greed of West or abject poverty of third w...

I got fever yesterday. And my DTH TV recharge was due. Though the two things were completely different and never were supposed to be mentioned together, but mayhem started when I received calls after calls on my phone requesting (actually ordering) to recharge the TV while my head was whirling due to nausea and my body was aching for high fever. Not a single person in my life taught me to be rude. But when I politely explained the guy over phone that I’d recharge my TV as soon as possible and he on the other hand, was adamant that I should recharge it then and there, I lost cool. I felt instant good when my tongue got inspired from my skin-on-fire, and I asked the guy with a raised tone, why he was so bothered for my recharge! The guy was hopelessly mechanical or stunningly shrewd. He started to describe the offers the DTH service was providing currently and, oh boy, it was a long list. I told him that I was dropping the call and after a ‘thanks’ from my side, I ended his robotic...

It is past midnight, and I feel terrible. I just want to wake up my parents, who're sleeping in next room and say sorry. A big apologize. They've come to my place yesterday, and today itself I yelled at them. Just hours before. And from the moment, when I shut my door down - switched off light and laid down on bed, their flabbergasted faces were all over my closed eyes. Sleep is gone. I have done something terrible. So I have to confess. I opened back my eyes, switched on light, and have started vomiting all my sins and broken promises all over the screen of laptop. It’s funny, but a must, if you believe in the power of confession. One of my favorite rituals with parents is post-dinner gossip. We sit across the sofa or chairs and then talk about anything. My father talks about philosophies and country and politics, and my mother describes the family matters – quarrels, marriages, deaths – all those stuffs in  minute details . For a better part of the year, I miss most...

Yesterday I was overwhelmed. All the past memories, which I thought were obsolete and stored beyond oblivion, came back alive. I laid down on sofa; TV ran mute over a corner table; old laptop’s lid was open on a teapoy; my glass of beer was near empty; and my eyes were half open. It was like ages. I was not to be blamed though. My poor and hasty decision was. Yesterday was Father’s Day. So I thought I’d write something like I did on Mother’s Day. Something emotional and true to heart. I was sure that I could write up about my father for pages. He is such an interesting character afterall. He has spent his whole life in a small village, but has an excellent taste for knowledge and childish eagerness for traveling. He has grown up in a traditional Bramhin family, but turns out to be an atheist and complete devotee to reason and science. I have seen, people and my relatives are terrified at his high temper and loud presence, and at the same time are relaxed for his superman-wise...

I take metro for three stations and then walk 250 busy meters on a crowded road to reach to the bus stop full of all kind of vehicles; then take a bus, which takes approximate 10 minutes to reach my destination – my office. Not far, comparing to my previous one, but much dramatic. I go through three most used conveyance modes in Delhi every morning, and then every evening. Metro, bus and foot. Not a single day is passed without an interesting drama, participated by people, mostly strangers. Metro dramas are little sophisticated, upper-middle-class-wise. I have watched them and experienced them for whole two years, so I am quite used to those. A sarcastic comment wrapped with English words, or short lasted heated argument, which starts with a full fighting potential and ends with a fart, or a getting down moment, where someone is pissed off by a push or something. That doesn’t interest me at all.   On the contrary, my walking on the densely crowded section of roa...