Then in the metaphoric whirlpool, we found ourselves in a tumble. Our arms were not really ours anymore and my woollen cap was on your shoulder. We kicked and pushed and bit. But we held on.

You then walked away, parting the little catastrophe across the centre. At the bottom of the world, after all the water was drained, I sat cross legged, drawing little pictures with a stick. The mud was brown but also red. You returned a while later, and I assumed things were better. You held out your hands for me to see. Claws, you said, not smiling. You have claws, you told me. I ran my fingers on those marks on your forearm; scars from angry wounds. They are beautiful and beastly at the same time. You pushed my hand away. Your fingertips were cold.

They were my fault, I figured; the wounds, the anger. While you stood nearby, I hung my head low because I was too scared to talk. When I looked up, you were gone. There were imprints of your slippers walked away from me in the mud; a perfect pattern. In the midst of this I realized that the whirlpool was gone.

The rains came, and the pictures in the mud were washed away. I picked myself up and tried to follow your path. The footprints were gone, but my memory prodded me with sharp jabs in my back. When I found you, there were no words.

I tried to hold your hand, and this time you let me.

Bye.

The train crawled out of the station leaving behind a sea of people, waving furiously at their parting family and friends. Children, sitting on the shoulders of their parents, called out their goodbyes in strangely cheerful tones, not quite reflecting the unhappiness that their adult counterparts seemed to feel. I watched from under a huge railway clock, knowing full well that this was perhaps the last time I’d see Arka.

A couple of hours earlier, we had made our way into the crowded train station, pulling suitcases full with clothes that Arka had long outgrown, sweatshirts that had never been worn in the sorry excuse of a winter in Bombay and books that had been collected from several places –the enthusiastic booksellers at Fountain and the air-conditioned book stores in malls which didn’t quite have the same charm.

I was carrying Arka’s backpack and since I have the emotional resilience of a child, I could feel the tears welling up simply because I knew this was the last time. I wore the backpack close to my chest, like Bombay trains teach you to. I hugged it really tight, when Arka wasn’t looking.
I pronounced it as Arka when I first met him. “Or-koh” he had corrected me and clearly I wasn’t the first person to say it wrong. After that, there was no looking back. I said his name in my head multiple times in the years that followed, every time he crossed the street to where I was waiting or every time his number flashed on my phone. Or koh. Or koh.

The station was too crowded to find a place to sit. I put his backpack next to his suitcases and stood there, my arms on my hips. “Do you have everything? Tickets? Water? Do you want some food? I could run across and get a sandwich or something.” I said, my words tumbling out, like tears that had been held back too long. He looked at me with a look of exasperation and mild affection. “I’ll be fine; I have travelled alone before you know.” I nodded.
We had something that I can’t quite define and we were stuck in a confusing little place between being best friends and more. I never admitted it to him or to myself even but I knew that his going away would give me some perspective. I’d know for sure whether I wanted to follow him, to pursue him, to demand that he be more than just my best friend. A big part of me also knew that once he sat on the train, I’d mentally give up. It takes too much out of a person to place your feelings in front of someone, knowing that there is a good possibility that they will take one look and shake their head. No.No.No.

My feelings had colourful clashes inside my head more often than what is healthy.

The train came into the station and people began to jump in, to arrange luggage and keep their things, so that they could hug and kiss their teary eyed relatives in peace. Arka and me stood still.
“I’ll go, I think.” I said and didn’t give a reason because I couldn’t come up with one. I didn’t want to stay because I know I’d cry. Arka nodded. “Yeah, it’s too damn crowded anyway.” “Will you be able to manage the luggage?” He nodded again. I hid in his hug, working my best to not tear up, something that would both annoy him and make him uncomfortable. He patted my back. “I’ll call you. This isn’t a big deal.”

I walked away but didn’t have the heart to leave the station until the train left. I stood far away, waiting, watching, and wondering. Wondering if, somewhere behind tinted train windows, Arka was looking for me among all those faces.

Against the stark background of red muddy roads and small houses, we made a story.
I climbed trees with the sun browning my bare arms. I would sit there, watching the people go by, secretly looking for him, and holding my breath every time I saw a curly haired man. His curly hair touched his nape, resting lightly on the collar of his white shirt. He wore glasses, thin rimmed and intimidating. He carried a book covered in brown paper. I never found out which book it was, and honestly at that point it didn’t matter.
We spoke once that summer. He knew my father, he said. “Your father is a brilliant teacher. If it wasn’t for him, I would never have entered the teaching profession” He told me, shifting the book from one hand to another. I knew all that and more. I knew that in the flickering light of the candle, he taught old women the alphabet. The woman who worked in our house had told my mother this in a hushed tone. She begged my mother to never repeat this; she worried her husband would beat her if he found out.
I never saw him in the monsoons. The women said he had gone off somewhere, taking with him only his book and a small bag. They said he had taught them what they needed to know. Under the awning of a defunct temple, they read out words from children’s books, stringing letters together with the tip of their fingers.
I stayed out a lot, walking through the streets barefoot; footprints in a sea of red. I didn’t bother about the rain. My hair was always wet; lashing against the small of my back. It’s amusing, only in retrospect, that my childish heart was all knotted up over a person I barely knew. Somewhere along the way, I learnt to not hold my breath so often and that was a good thing because I didn’t see him after that.
He came to our house many years later when my father passed away. He touched my mother’s feet, and held out some flowers. He spoke to me in a very low voice, saying over and over again how he will remain indebted to my father. I didn’t have much to say. I offered him water and asked him if he’d like to eat something. He shook his head morosely. He had wanted to come for the cremation he said, but he had received the news too late. He left soon enough; I stared at his back until he became one with the dark. And that was that.
The truth is, in real life, these are how most stories pan out. Not all of the people we meet become lovers. Not all betray our trust or swindle us. Most people just walk in and out of our scheme of things altering our existence only in a negligible manner. That doesn’t make them or their stories any less important. It’s good to remember that in the dramatic lives we like to lead, there is also simplicity tucked away in the folds.

Balloons. He sells balloons.
His wife screams at him every morning. “Try and find another job, will you?” she screams. “The smell of your stupid balloons is making me sick.” He stays mum. Then she screams some more for good measure.
He makes his way through the dizzying crowd outside Dadar station. The women carrying baskets of flowers on their head chatter in rapid Marathi. They throw him disdainful looks, for no particular reason. He finds a spot where it isn’t too sunny and settles there. Nobody buys his balloons. A couple of children pass him by, squealing, running towards the ice cream man. The ice cream man has a sour disposition, but that doesn’t deter the kids. He scowls while scooping out bright pink icecream. They just grab the cones from his hand and skip away. He yells at them for giving less money. They stick their tongues out at him and run.
Then an old woman comes to buy a balloon. She wants a 5 foot balloon that says happy birthday on it. He shakes his head. He has only the regular variety. She walks away. He sighs and remembers the time when he would come with his father to watch him sell balloons. He remembers the number of children who would surround the cheerful man begging for the balloons. Blue ones and smiling ones. Happy balloons in the bright summer sky. Now, no one wants balloons; atleast not the ones he sells. Even his kid doesn't care for his balloons. He wants toys and ice cream and shoes that light up.
He looks down at his wallet as the evening comes by. Nothing. His balloons look deflated, mirroring his general spirit. He makes his way to the station, bracing himself for his wife's taunts and his kid's disappointment.
Then someone taps him on the shoulder. It's the icecream man. He pushes forth a small battered ice box. "Will you give me your balloons for some left over icecream?" He asks. He now looks more tired than sour.
"My wife threatened to throw me out if I bring in more strawberry smell into the house. She said it makes her head ache." He explains.
"But the balloons? Does your wife like them?"
"No, but my dog does. He chases them around the room and it makes him happy."
Then they walk away into the crowd, balloons bobbing and small mercies in ice boxes.
The next day, they look a little less harrowed.
The city moves past them as usual.

Prompt word: Prey

Some say it’s an urban legend. Some try to convince you it’s true. They tell you it happened to  a friend of a friend in a medical school in Delhi. One can never really be sure.

She had just started a course at one of India’s best medical schools in Delhi. Her parents had gotten teary eyed when she left. Their little girl would be alone in a big city. She cried a little as she left her parents behind. Sometimes if she was alone at home; the rattling windows scared her out of her wits. She couldn’t really imagine living alone.

Her first week in hostel was difficult. They had paired her with a girl in the third year; ‘a senior’. When she moved into her room, the senior smirked. She meekly introduced herself. The senior laughed. The laughter was mirthless. That night, she found out why. They called it ragging. She had never heard of it. She didn’t really buy it when they said, “It’s a hostel tradition.” But she didn’t protest other. Her nervous demeanor left her helpless, more often than not.

It was harmless in the beginning. They asked her to sing a song, to dance. She obliged, her face flushed with embarrassment. It got worse. Soon they asked her to stand on the bed and strip. She refused; they insisted. She finally ran out of the room, crying. When she returned, the seniors were gone. She sat on her bed. Her room-mate returned shortly and apologized. Even to a naïve girl like her, the apology sounded fake. She didn’t respond. She fell asleep that night wishing she was home. A few days later she came home after class. As she sat on her bed, she felt something under the sheets. Must be a book, she thought and reached for it. She screamed until her voice went hoarse. It was a broken skull.

 In very tiny letters it said- ‘Property of AMJ College, Anatomy department.’

The seniors came in a minute too late. They had planned to burst in to see her shocked face. They miscalculated. When they entered she was nowhere to be seen. They were confused. Had she not come in at all? That wasn’t it. They had vaguely heard a scream. Then they heard her ragged breath. They followed the sound. She was sitting on the top of a steel cupboard. The cupboard wasn’t too high; they could see her face clearly. Her eyes had a blank expression. She was gnawing at the skull.

Her parents came a week later. They had come to take her back. Even after a week, her eyes still had the same blank expression. She was never the same again.

The big tree

The big tree is being cut down. A lot of children cry. They hug the trunk and their shrill voices cut through the heavy afternoon air. I look down from my first floor window and see one particularly enthusiastic child swinging on one of the branches. The people that the BMC has hired to bring down the tree are standing at a distance and chalking out their modus operandi. I can imagine the children’s distress, the tree is nothing but magnificent.

Moreover, the plan to bring down the tree isn’t well thought out, evidently. They can’t possibly have thought of cutting down such a huge tree on a Sunday afternoon with no protest from the residents. Sunday afternoons are a time when mothers stop bothering their children about food and homework and such; and the children rush out in the sun to play. I consider going down myself, if nothing else to reason with the officials, but from what it appears, a lot of like-minded people are doing that already.

Some concerned residents approach the BMC men and ask them something. From a distance, it looks like a very grave conversation. One of the officials makes hand gestures which indicate that the road has to be widened. The residents are unimpressed. One of them points to the tree and says something to the official. From his gestures, it looks like he is pointing out the tree’s grandeur to the BMC official. It is the official’s turn to look unimpressed. He has heard too much of this intellectual rubbish.

As the people flock around the man talking animatedly to him, I see that the enthusiastic child has fallen off the branch. It must have been a couple of feet of the ground, but that’s all it takes. The child starts howling. The child’s mother tries to pacify him. The other kids are confused and join in the crying. The adults try to calm the kids down – but the floodgates have opened. They bawl and shriek and the BMC officials have had enough. “ Chalo, hato!” one of them shouts and raps his stick on the pavement for effect. The children don’t budge; they surround the injured kid and keep making a racket.

“Chalo!!” The official shouts again and grabs one kid by the collar. He has tolerated more than he bargained for. The child screams as if pinched. The adults try to intervene but the official screams at them as well.

After 20 minutes of stern words and raps with the baton, the crowd begins to disperse. Just as the BMC official rounds up his men and gives them instructions, there is another intervention. In the middle of an unassuming October afternoon, it begins to rain. The official slaps his forehead in disbelief. It will be hard to work; the others chime in, as the rain gathers force. They walk towards their vehicle in frustration, cussing the children. Just before they drive off, they see the children have returned. They run around their beloved tree - the blues and yellows of their raincoats are in sharp contrast with the wet brown trunk. They laugh and play and give the BMC officials condescending looks.

The tree stands there, not sure what it has done to deserve such love from these 6 year olds

Every night, once it was dark outside and the lights came on, she'd wait for her father to come home. Sometimes, she'd wait at the window, sometimes she'd try and distract herself by playing a game.The minute he rang the doorbell, she'd squeal, race across the house and open the door.
Her father had once admitted to himself that there was no feeling more precious that that of tiny arms around your neck to welcome you home.
She called him Bob. He used to be a Baba but one day when he got home from work, she announced that she had a new friend - Bob. He smiled, waiting to hear of her new friend. She then climbed into his lap and said - You're Bob! and giggled. He called her his Little Bug. When he kissed her forehead at night, he always said "Little Bug in a Rug" and that always made her laugh.
On rainy evenings, Bob and his Little Bug would go to have soup at the diner around the corner. The owner was a family friend and he let her have as many croutons in her tomato soup as she pleased. They spoke about their days and their friends. Her friends who wore sunshine-yellow socks and made Mother's Day cards, his friends who worked long hours and didn't have anyone at home waiting for them.
 Sometimes, she didn't tell him certain stories in her day because she knew he'd feel bad. She didn't tell him how all her friends made fun of her socks that didn't match. She never mentioned the time when her friends shut her inside a cupboard during a game of hide-and-seek. Nobody likes being the weird kid in the corner but she knew that she always had Bob. He would never think she was weird.
He told her she could become whatever she wanted. So she became a writer. Spiral notebooks filled with her writing. Confusing poetry. Dark tales of love lost. He worried for her.
On her 20th birthday, she announced she wanted to study writing further.  She sat on an airplane soon enough and took off to America. Before she left, she had thrown her arms around him. There was still no feeling more precious.
She wrote him long, winding letters and short stubby emails. She left him abrupt messages online that made his day. "Dear Bob. It's cold here." "Dear Bob. The teacher looks a lot like our old maid." " Dear Bob. I thought of you when it rained here this morning"
She told him she didn't want to get married, when he asked. He had nothing to say. All he said was "I will support whatever decision you take." They never spoke about it after that.
On his 60th birthday, he got a brown package. He knew she'd send something special. One year she had sent him a harmonica. One year, a vintage chess board. This time it was a book.
He held it close to his heart when he saw the cover. It had her name on it. The small girl who climbed into his lap wrote this book. He didn't worry for her anymore.
On the first page, in bold print it said " For my Bob who always listened to all my stories."
He shut his eyes and thought of her. He thought of her telling him the stories at the soup diner. Stories she had saved up all day to tell him. He opened his eyes and looked at the book in his hand
His Little Bug had made it.

Prompt word: Vermillion

The bangles in the box have been unused for a while. They sit there in all their glitter and glory. They miss the time gone by. The time when she loved them dearly, gazed at them, admired them. The times when she would come from the bath, her waist length hair covering her bare back like a curtain. She would sit in front of the mirror, the soft orange lights in the room making her looking a hundred times prettier. She would dot her glowing forehead with just a hint of red. She would dust the parting in her hair with vermillion. The tips of her fingers were always a faint red, a testimony to this everyday ritual.
The bangles were kept in a wooden box. The insides of the box smelled of polish and good times. Now they had not much to do but to sit there demurely; as the events of the past haunted them as much as they haunted her.
The call came in late one night. She sat on the bed and cried for hours. She’d had taken one look at the wooden box and thrown it to the floor. She was angry. Why did fate pick her? She was meant to grow old with her husband. She was meant to have him hold her slim waist; have him whisper how pretty she was. She sat in front of the mirror – her glowing cheeks were now a flaming red. She tore at her hairline, in an attempt to wipe of the vermillion. She rubbed it off, her hair now an angry mess. The vermillion had served its time. Now, it didn’t make her look pretty. It didn’t make her feel secure. It was just a rude reminder of her loss. She rubbed at her forehead until the fleshy part of her palm grew red. The orange light gave it the red an eerie edge.
The bangles were picked up by a concerned friend and put back in the wooden box. The box was kept away out of sight; lest they bring back memories of the tragic time
A few days back she opened the wooden box. She had a look of pain and longing. The pale blue bangles had been her favourite. She touched them tenderly, like they would break with her mere touch. Then suddenly she shut the lid with a force that caused a couple of bangles to crack. They never did complain though. They had heard her cry into the nights. Her pain was deeper than their longing to adorn her hands again. They continued to sit in there, in the dark. They understood. They understood that they reminded her of that night.