The food is never so enticing
as when you are denied.
Water never has such a hold
until your lips are dried.
But you wait for the signal
and a not a moment before
do you let it touch your lips
as you surround it
and yet ignore it,
praying,
waiting until you are free
to devour it.
Ah! Bliss!
Authors Note: Our dear old delivery guy is grumpier than usual.
I hate these foreigners.
They swoop in, sully our lands, eat our food, and stutter around with their red heads held high as if they own the place. Sometimes I wish I could take them all aside and show them what we do with encroachers. But we have hosted them all our lives. I can’t get on a killing spree…
Not that I am afraid of them! I mean, I know they are bigger and stronger, and their group is too huge, and the raw power they radiate when they descend together on their huge black wings and too long crooked beaks held high is awe-inspiring. And our women “Ooh” and “Aah” as they pass.
Agh! I wish I could take a swing at that massive black one my sweety is pining for. Every time he is around, something comes over her. She has never been clumsy before but when he looks in her direction, she drops whatever fish she is holding and has to brace herself with both legs. You would think we never taught her how to fish.
Sometimes, she stands taller, ruffles her feathers, plumps them up and cleans herself too often, as if vying for his attention; as if this foreigner is going to fall in love with her and stay here forever or take her along with him. He won’t. He is here only for the winters. Come summers and he will fly away leaving her high and dry. Just the thought makes me want to peck him to death.
Not that he is interested in her. For all the attention he gives her back, she could be a mouse in the field. He just flies around showing off, his eyes only for the woman he brought along–never even sparing a second look for my pretty girl. Every time he passes without looking at my sweety, I can see her heart break in the way her face drops, and that too makes me want to break some wings.
I want to peck him to death or, at least, want him to leave the place before my sweety loses it. I wish she would choose a stork who would love her or, better still, stay away from all the storks forever so I don’t have to kill them all…
Sigh! I am not sure anymore what I want anymore. I just wish being a father was easier.
I open mail and I see
my bank trying to reach me
offering a loan I didn’t ask for.
Then there are recruiters
mailing me
on a 10 year-old resume
offering me a job
that I needed when
I was still growing teeth.
People are begging me
to take half of their bank account
to get them out of their country.
I have won competitions
I didn’t enter,
and I have won enough lotteries
to make jealous the Arab emporer.
And then, there are
WordPress notices,
and subscription mails from world over…
What I sought and didn’t find
was a single mail
seeking me as a person
(not as a user or a bank account).
No one misses me…
We have just faced the worst fear of parents–children stepping out of their control zone! Our daughter has finally joined school. For 5 hours, she is out of our sight and very much on our minds. I can only wonder how parents send their children to hostels or marry them off. We can’t breath properly if until we see her again. It is like a part of us leaves with her. The house is too quiet and weird without her chatter.
And then, there is the fear for her well being–we know she is in safe hands. (My husband visited the school multiple times to ensure that.) But still the days and nights before the first day at school were filled with instructions.
Note that there are no doors in the classes of this school to ensure children don’t shut them, but still our daughter indulged us.
And then there was more serious stuff about good touch-bad touch and self-defense heirarchy with increasing severity. If someone corners you or you don’t like their touch:
And so we go again…
In the end I was afraid that I had converted my daughter into a walking landmine, ready to explode at the touch, and I had to calm her down, reminding her that most people are nice and generous. They don’t hurt people and usually take care of children. I am wondering whether I have done a good job.
Even after all these preparations, on the first day, after walking her to school, my husband went back there to check on her after an hour and would have gone again if it wasn’t against the rules. He reached the school half an hour early to bring her back home.
All these years, we had waited for the day to come when our daughter would go to school and we would have some quiet time. Now, all we can do is look at the clock slowly ticking away the time until she returns home and fills our day again with her constant chatter.
I wanted to write about this for past one month but either I didn’t have time or the will or energy… So, our area is in temperate zone, around one kilometre from the river–half a kilometre by flight… of course planes don’t fly for such short distance, but birds do and that’s why we often see a lot of water birds here. Also, there is a small farm–I mean, really tiny farm–across the road inside what once used to be a government park. Which means that we get lot of birds around harvest and tilling. And there are trees, quite a lot of them where bird’s nest.
In short, it is a bird watcher’s paradise.
Every year, during winters I and my daughter spend an incredible amount of time on the rooftop, taking in the sun, watching birds and feeding birds. Several birds visit the rooftop on a daily basis and others we see in the overly large trees closer to water and larger fields close by.
We have gray and black Crows, Eagles, Hawks, Owls, Peacocks, Rock Pigeons, Wood Doves, Orange-black Mynah, Yellow-brown Mynah, Pied Mynah, , RufousTreepie, Babblers, Barbets, Cuckoo, Parrots, Magpies, Sunbirds, Sparrows, Tailor Birds, Kingfishers, Egrets and Lapwigs as a usual fare.
We also get guest birds during winters: green pigeon, Indian gray hornbill, black Ibis, brahmini starlet, speckled finch, black and white finch and others unnamed but awaited birds that grace us with their presence every year.
Out of all these birds, Gray Hornbill and Green Pigeon are the most difficult to take pictures of because of their colour and reclusive behaviour. They choose the densest tree and the shortest flight route. They move from trees to tree, hardly ever crossing more than a few feet at a time. A bunch of them is nesting in a tree that is just far enough that my phone never captures their picture. The only way is to either befriend the neighbours who live close by (not my cup of tea) or climb to the highest branches of the 60-feet tree (What are you even suggesting?!). So I had send out a prayer to God to let me take a pic and they started coming to a tree closeby so I and my daughter can look at them properly.
I took a few pictures. See if you can spot them.
first pic: At least 5 hornbills in the tree along with starlets
second pic: what horn bill looks like
third pic: Black Ibis
Fourth pic: at least 8 green pigeon.
Let me know if you see anything in the first and last pic. 😄
I ran across
the empty school
to reach the bus stand
before the bus left for home
without me.
I was late.
I was eight
and scared
and too far from home.
I didn’t know the way back
or simply, how to go.
My heart ran faster than me.
My feet were jelly
as I wondered if I’d have to
spend the night at school.
I heard your voice
as you called my name
from the second floor corridor
where you were searching me.
All of a sudden,
the world righted itself on its axis.
You ran down, scared for me.
I don’t remember what you said,
just that I hugged you
and you hugged me.
I wasn’t scared anymore.
You were here–
my eleven-year-old hero.
Neither of us are much of huggers
but it has been too long
since you hugged me, big brother.
I miss you
and I hope you miss me too.
It was just out of reach. I stretched on my feet, balancing against the counter but I just couldn’t reach the damned tin. It was a tease if I ever saw one. He knows well how I crave for them, and right now, I had the mother of all cravings.
I looked at him for help but he was smiling dazedly at his laptop. The only thing I hate more than lapdogs is laptops. They are invaders who encroach into other people’s territory taking away their jobs and rightful places. Right now, I wanted to throw this one on the ground and grind it into tiny pieces. It has made my John it’s slave until he he wouldn’t remember I was in the room trying to get his attention.
I looked at that tin once again. I have to get it somehow. Either I will reach it or it will have to come to me…Having lost the battle against the former idea, I decide to go for the latter.
So, I pick myself as gracefully as I can and walk towards John like the models do on TV, making demure noises. He looks around at me and smiles. Good! I have his attention now. I walk closer, circling him, rubbing my shoulders against him.
Finally, he gets the message. He moves that blasted laptop to the table, gives me a heart-melting smile and gets out of his chair.
Then he opens the tin of tuna. I run to my dish. Oh, how I love this man.
The Hungarian horntail 🐉 guarding a clutch of eggs 🥚🥚🥚, one of them golden, between her feet, throwing flames 🔥 at Harry Potter 👦🏻 while he flies around on a broomstick 🧹 with a huge smile on his face.
My daughter is five-year-old and she is a Harry Potter fan. She is not old enough to read the book on her own but she has been eating it up in large doses since last year, thanks to her mother who has read the entire series 7-8 times already. She has reached the Goblet of Fire and Harry has just finished his first task with flying colours, and my daughter is celebrating with his portrait with the dragon. I think they both look handsome.
Or rather, Harry looks handsome. The dragon is pretty with her open blond hair.😊
And then, there is the unicorn…
You walk across the street
holding my hand tightly,
running slightly,
avoiding the crazed traffic
thinking about the next treat.
…
I follow as fast as I can go,
giggling all over the road,
chasing the wild plans
we cooked together, all along
knowing half of them
wouldn’t come to be.
…
Not sure
where you are steering me,
nor does it matter to me,
for my hand is in yours,
in this knowledge, I am secure,
that you are with me…
…
Wherever I go,
however far I go,
in my half-cooked plans
and crazy schemes
and far-fetched dreams,
you were…
you are…
you will be with me…
Wherever, whenever, forever!
Author’s Note: For Manpreet
(For no particular reason, missing my bestie yet again)
Happy Republic Day!
This is the day when India truly became independent because it was now that it adopted it’s new Constitution and shed the laws forced by British Government. It was the day when India declared itself as a Democratic, Secular, Socialist, Republic and hence created the foundation over which the new India rests now.
It is not perfect but it is mine! Like all of us, it is a work in progress. Let’s make our country great.
Short Stories | Fish-eye Perspective 