Her world

Nightmares rise from the depths. At least, that's what Shivangi’s mother and father had explained to her. Shivangi always had nightmares; they visited every once in a while. They always greeted her with a friendly hello, and invited her politely into their land. When Shivangi refused, they turned vicious and snarly and their invitations were no longer asked, they were demanded. And so Shivangi obeyed, of course; she didn't want to hurt their feelings! Nobody wanted their feelings hurt. Shivangi knew that for certain. She hated being teased. Her parents called it bullying, and talked with her class teacher and the principal about it. Shivangi knew that her principal was a good man, and she even knew how to spell his name. Prince, drop the e and add the I, because he's your pal. Princ-i-pal.

Shivangi dreamed of princes before the bad monsters took over. The princes that visited her looked like some of the boys in her classroom, but they were handsome and weren't shorter than her and they could never beat her in a race across in the play ground. They had long curly black hair that shined and shimmered like the sunshine on the sea. They wore silly looking clothing and rode prettied horses. But they always turned out mean, and they called Shivangi bad names and made her cry.

There was a prince that Shivangi loved, though. She even talked to him when nobody was listening. His name was Areeb. He was more handsome than any of the other princes, and he was better than the other princes in every way possible. His sword was sharper and shinier; his shield had never broken though it had many a dent and scrape. His hair was black like the night, and was worn in long dreadlocks that touched his horse's back when he sat down. His skin was equally dark and his eyes were so brilliantly blue that they dazzled and swirled with goodness when she looked into them. His clothes weren't silly; he wore a knight armor that melted into regular clothing when he touched her.

Areeb always protected Shivangi. Whenever the mean princes began to circle around her and tease her and make her cry, Areeb came dashing through the woods to her rescue and fought all the bad guys off. Shivangi had always wanted to hug him, but he always disappeared. He did touch her once, though. It was when she was so scarred by her day's events that even in her dreams she was in pain. Areeb appeared, smiled, touched her forehead, and his clothes turned normal. Then, he disappeared.

The day was Tuesday May 1st, at 3:15 P.M., fifteen minutes before school would be over. She was waiting in line for the bathroom. The boy who was in there, had been taking forever, and Shivangi could barely hold it anymore. She clenched her legs together and prayed to God that she wouldn't wet her pants in front of the entire fifth class. Finally, Anshul came out and walked to his desk. Mrs. Nair, the teacher, scolded him for not washing his hands and sent him to the sink. Shivangi rushed into the tiny square of a room.

As she relieved herself, she looked at the dirty tile floor. The tiles were so small you could fit them into your mouth, no problem. But Shivangi wouldn't do that, oh no. That'd be gross, and she'd probably get sick. There's lots of dirt and stuff in the floor, and it'd be smelly, too. Shivangi’s eyes looked over the painted cement-block wall, and up to the square ceiling light, then to the toilet paper holder. The paper was called Jackson Tissues and it was scratchy and thin. Shivangi liked the kind mom bought, with a Charming name; it was thick and soft and flowered or lined. She wanted to curl up and sleep in a blanket of Charming, someday.

There was a little vent in the door, and Shivangi could see a few boys' shoes outside. She got nervous, and began to pull her pants up. Before she could get them up all the way, a boy opened the door, said, "Oh, sorry," and closed it. And then there was laughter. The whole class was laughing. Shivangi's face turned a deep red and she didn't want to leave the bathroom. She wanted to sit in the corner and cry.
"Mama, come get me" she whispered, hoping that her mother would hear. But she couldn't, and Shivangi knew that Mama was at home, probably dusting or cooking lunch. Tears began to drip down Shivangi’s face as she zipped her zipper XYZ-PDQ. (e)Xamine Your Zipper Pretty Darn Quick. All the kids said that, especially when playing Dog and the Bone on the pavement, even when someone's zipper wasn't unzipped.

Slowly, Shivangi pushed down the silver handle with her shoe so that the toilet would flush and she wouldn't have to touch it and get germs. Even slower, she peered into the classroom. All eyes were on her; some people laughed, some looked away. Shivangi blushed even more and began to cry. She turned right around
Shivangi!" Mrs. Nair cried. "Come out, please."

"No!"

There was laughter, and Shivangi could hear one of her friends, Priya, saying, "Leave her alone, you big fat bully. I hate you."

There was a few gentle knocks on the door. "Shivangi, are you in there?"

‘Don't ask me stupid questions, Mrs. Nair, I hate you right now,' Shivangi thought.
"Shivangi Jain, open the door immediately."

"Go away!"

"Miss Jain, would you like me to call your parents?"

Oh no, oh no, don't do that. Only bad kids get their parents called, and I'm not bad. Plus, you have to go to the office to wait, and the office is where the really really bad kids get put so they can wait for their parents, and I'm never, ever going to go to the office,' Shivangi thought.

The classroom was silent. "Shivangi, darling, please come out right now. its okay, nobody will hurt you."

"Leave me alone!"

"Shivangi Jain! I'm getting the principal."

Not the principal, not the principal. He's for the super duper bad kids. Shivangi began to cry even harder.
Minutes passed, and Shivangi heard the principal's booming, jolly voice.

"Miss Jain, you in there?" He asked, gently knocking on the door. Kids began to talk all at once. "Yes, Sir, she's in there, she's been in there for hours," "She sure is Sir, I bet her parents will be real angry at her," "Sir, will she get suspended?" "Nobody can get her out, Sir,"

Shivangi didn't want to be bad, so she decided to speak up in a very small voice. "I'm in here, Sir."
"Send your class out to recess, Mrs. Nair," the principal said quietly.
"But Sir, we're in the middle of our lesson and we have ten minutes until school gets out"
"Mrs. Nair, send your class out to recess immediately, please."

"What good will it do?"

"Shivangi will be less intimidated and more comfortable, causing her to come out in a non-humiliating fashion. The kids in the classroom will be less tempted to come and look and make a big fuss over this. Am I clear?"

Mrs. Nair sighed. "I suppose." In a few seconds, she said, "Recess, class! Line your backpacks up against the wall; you can retrieve them when the bell rings. Go, go, go!"

“Ma’m, as Shivangi's most best friend, can I stay inside with you?"

"No, Priya, go on outside”, Mrs. Nair said.

The classroom was empty and children's voices could be heard faraway outside.
"Shivangi, will you come out, please?" The principal asked. Shivangi felt a wave of humiliated sorrow wash over her and she began to weep again.
"Onlyonly if Mrs. Nair goes away."
"What?" Mrs. Nair asked, shocked.
"You heard her, Geetha. Please leave; you may supervise your class."
Mumbling, Mrs. Nair left.

"She's gone now, Shivangi."
"I don't want to come out," Shivangi sobbed.
"It's okay, now, I won't judge you."
What does that mean? Shivangi thought
"Okay"

Slowly, Shivangi got up off of the dirty floor and opened the door. The principal was sitting on a chair beside the bathroom door. Shivangi expected him to start laughing at her, but he didn't. She felt a little better.
"Now Shivangi, what caused you to hide in the bathroom?"
"I don't want to say, Sir."
"Please tell me, I need to know."
"I don't want to say, Sir."
"Shivangi, please answer my question."
"I don't want to say, Sir!"
"Now you listen to me, Shivangi, I asked you a question, and when I ask you a question, you are to answer it. Am I understood?"

Shivangi began to cry, and turned back for the bathroom.

"Oh, no you don't," the principal said, and ran for her, but she got into the bathroom first. She locked it from the inside.

"Miss Jain, if you don't come out right this instant, I'll phone your parents!"

Shivangi began to sob. No, mom and dad will be so angry. No, please no. Sir, I don't want to be a bad girl and get into trouble! I don't want to get grounded
"I'm coming in, Miss Jain," the principal said. He shouted. Shivangi heard approaching footsteps.

The handle of the door began to shake. "Shivangi, Shivangi come out right now!"

"Leave me alone!" Shivangi screamed, curling into a ball and crying hysterically. They were going to hurt her! They were going to tease her again.
The handle broke and the mean princes surrounded her. They were sneering and laughing at her.

“Shame shame..puppy shame..all the donkeys know your name..”
“Be brave Shivangi, use the knife. The one I told you to bring and hide in your pinafore” As always, Areeb appeared to her rescue
“But..but..” she whimpered
“Do it Shivangi, just the way I taught you....”
“You will help me?” She asked at once frightened and excited at the prospect of getting back at them
“Yes..of course..let’s do it together..”
They charged with the knife , striking at the mean princes. Again and again. Till the voices stopped laughing. And calling her names.
Shivangi turned to thank Areeb, but he had disappeared, as always. But she knew she was safe now.

The phone rang incessantly in the principal’s office. It was Shivangi’s mother. She wanted to tell the principle that she had forgotten to give Shivangi her medicines today. And that if they could give her a half day to take her to the doctor. Shivangi hadn’t been feeling too well of late. As the phone rang, she also continued to wonder, where was that brand new knife she had purchased yesterday?

Another Fairy Tale

Shards of silence fell over the group. The Voice boomed again;
“Airies and Airymen. These are times of great uncertainties. We must find a solution to this crisis at once or face extinction”

The owner of the Voice was a pompous looking man. The overhead lights cast an eerie glow caused by the reflection from his orange and green coloured robes. He sat erect with his hands folded on the rectangular ivory table that filled most of the space in the room. On his head, sat the Voice. It was the last surviving member of its clan. It belonged to the Emperor since he was a boy of eight. Long before he made a fool of himself without clothes.

“If we don’t stop her before tomorrow, we are all doomed. Gone will be the days of riding on our glorious past. Oh! It will all be such a waste. Such a poor little waste”, Mrs. Hood cried hysterically.

Mrs. Hood had been a heroine in her hay days. Now, the red cap looked a little ridiculous on her scanty haired head. It had taken a long time to convince her mother to poison her grandma. The old hag was ninety and still sitting on mansions and palaces all over the country. She had taken advantage of the Wolf’s secret crush on her. She wasn’t that little after all. She had convinced him to take the blame and in turn they could live happily ever after. It had all worked out well till a certain Grimm got whiff of the plot and was about to publish it. He and his brothers had to be bribed to rewrite the sound bite and it was a huge hit. The book followed soon after and the royalties were decent even by today’s standards.

They all had tales. Ms. Beauty for one, who was in the business of manufacturing spindles of a special kind. These were supplied to terrorist organizations and could put people to sleep. Forever. Alexander, Hitler, Stalin and even Taliban paid a huge premium on these machines. She too had to rely on Grimm brothers to present a palatable story about her real business.

Cinder also had an interesting tale. Mr. Charming had wanted to marry her, a commoner. These days it was only too easy. Princess Katie and Prince William couldn’t even imagine the difficulties of those days. Mr. Charming had to go to great lengths to put a romantic, dreamy eyed spin on things. He had utilized public sympathy with the ‘Shoe that fits’ campaign. Eventually, it had all worked out well. They had to approach Grimm for publicity and image management. Her step mother and sisters had only been too happy to play the part. Who wouldn’t with that kind of money in the offing?!

The Emperor himself, who now chaired the meeting, had a lot at stake. When he had been caught in a compromising position with his partner, he had to turn to Grimm to turn things around. Being a homosexual was an idea that was abhorred in those days. A man in his position could lose everything.

They were all faced with an impending catastrophe. Everything created so painstakingly could fall to bits. One crazed woman could undo it all. Turn things to shambles. They had long ago stopped their appearances in public. They were content with their race being re-branded as fairies instead of ‘Airies’ and dished out in glossy story books and Disney toons. They had taken to disguising as humans. They would secretly laugh, when once in a while they peeked through a window and heard such fairy tales. But overall, life was good. The money was good. And above all, their secret was safe with the Brothers.Untill yesterday

The phone rang. It was barely five. He had slept late after dropping Rumpelstiltskin to the airport. He woke up with a groggy head to only find himself frantically beckoned by the new android that Rumples had gifted last Christmas.

“The Emperor speaking”, he barked on the phone.

“I know who you are”, a shrill voice sounded at the other end.

“I have no patience for crank calls at this hour”, said the Emperor, annoyed.

“ Grimm told me everything. I know who you are. Unless you are willing to listen and give what I want, am going to spill it all out. I have proofs. Spindles, poisoned apples and best of all pictures of you in your naked glory”
The Emperor forgot to breathe. For what seemed like an hour but was only a few seconds, the Emperor saw his world fall apart. He now whimpered, “ Who are you and what do you want?”

“Who I am, is unimportant. Let’s say am one of the grim exes”, the woman at the other end chuckled, pleased at her own wit. “What I need is to get a deal on the inside. I am too old now, but I want my bother to be an Airie. The only twist is that he doesn’t want to be a part of your happy mushy world. He wants to be one of the Bad Ones. He has got his head around being remembered as a legend. The problem is that he has no credentials. The only worthwhile thing he has done was being friends with an organization in Pakistan. But he wants to be remembered as the greatest terrorist of all times. Such that one day, mothers tell stories about him. He wants children to talk in hushed tones and say, ‘Osama could live ten years amidst guns and nukes. And when he died, the U.S President himself left all agendas to make an announcement.”

And now the only thing that was in the way of ‘Tale of Osama and the U.S Military’ was the Voice in the Emperor’s head. That stopped him from being party to creating and living another gigantic lie. Or in the local parlance, another fairytale. Would the Voice win?

matters of heart

I have looked at this for long now
From all angles and dips and dents
Across lines and points and circumferences
I have even peered through its guts

I have found things, yes.Plenty of things
Like my hand underwater, drawing out discarded stuff
Mouthful of curves making smiles
Along with fistful of dreamy flights

I have tried measuring these things
On scales and balances, judiciously placed
They have tilted always in another favor
I get a lousy sum at the end to discontent with

I have heard that in matters of heart
The motions of business should be done away with
How, what, when and where should be mere technicalities
But.My heart resides in my brain

The knee seems an inappropriate place.
It goes weak at the first heartbeat

Among the Multitude - Walt Whitman

Among the men and women the multitude,
I perceive one picking me out by secret and divine signs,
Acknowledging none else, not parent, wife, husband, brother, child,
any nearer than I am,
Some are baffled, but that one is not--that one knows me.

Ah lover and perfect equal,
I meant that you should discover me so by faint indirections,
And I when I meet you mean to discover you by the like in you.

Experiments in breathing

I have decided to breathe

Wait – what’s that shadow on your face?

Am crazy or what? Is that the rhetoric that I see you chew and swallow?

After all, who doesn’t breathe?



That is a misconception and I shall expound

Yes – hold your horses will you?

When was the last time you felt your breath?

Yes - When you knew you were breathing?



The breathing in of life and breathing out of crap

Or carbon-dioxide, to suit senses marinated in sophistication

Yes, so as I was saying- when was last time you felt alive?

Felt a gush of air through your nose revive and refresh?



When was it last that you were not gulping mouthfuls-

Of existence dealt in doses of day ends and weekends?

When was it last that you leapt out of your bed-

And not feel like a ton of bricks on your head?



Indulge me a little more in this experiment on breathing and answer-



Do you nudge the night to call it a day?

Or do you run through the day, hunted like a prey?

Do you have moments to spare, jingling in your pocket?

Or do you beg for them like you lost them to a paycheck?



On a scale of one to ten, are you more dead or alive?

On a scale of one to five – are you exceedingly anxious or supremely content?

On a scale of zero to seven – how often do you stand and stare?

On a scale of zero to nine- how often do you do things without a care?



I put those to make my experiments in breathing, quantitatively sound

For you will appreciate when I say, and I say this without qualms

That you can do zilch without counting and then calculating

Reasoning, rationalizing, weighing, measuring and then erring anyways



And so coming to square one, or back to basics if you like

For what can be more basic than breathing

I have decided to exercise this very fundamental right

More rightful than rights to equality or fraternity



The right to breathe and the right to live

The right to pause and rewind

The right to wonder and pursue

The right to be and just be.

These make me

A piece of heart and chunks from the following:

Nostalgia – Seasoned yet fresh with mango flavored bits of memories

Smell – From mom’s sari after her prayer

Sight – Of grandpa quietly amused at the half eaten toothpaste in my mouth

Conversation – With a stranger about to turn friend against the pitter patter of rain on concrete

Sound – From the rustle of dawn caught between night and day

Curiosity – About the reflection in the mirror, neither child nor woman

Taste – Of water mixed with tamarind laced tears

Fear – Of yellowed future living upto expectations without me

Touch – Of a hint at the corners of his mouth reflected in the glint in his eyes

Calm – As I see myself counting waves by the sea and tossing ideas for my pen

Passion – Wrapped in bubble shaped seconds that burst at uninvited intervals

Paper – Printed, blank, written and read with words floating upon my mind

Coffee and Tea – That break the average of a day with steam and tongue

Friend – In the singular, she suffices, substitutes, suffuses

Anger – not the strong and silent variety. Fragile and loud

Delight – At whiffing the bold type faced unread mail running into pages

Pain - From waiting behind doors locked from the outside for the sound of footsteps announcing sleep

Loss – Of bricks that could build castles in air complete with windows overlooking the specks below

Here and Gone

I am curious about the hollow of your neck.  If it tastes of earth

The pulse under my breath on which I pour myself and spread

To know who you are. To catch you when you aren’t thinking

When you gasp for breath and find me instead

It is still grey on the outside, though I have colors bursting under my skin

It is warm around this place above my breast where I start to feel a throb

The scent on my skin reminiscent of  seconds and minutes desirous of years

Your half a smile meets the other half tossed its way

I am not good at letting go. I have saved the twinkle in your eye

From that day when you splashed water and wouldn’t let me go

I also have the squeeze of your hands in my fingers

And the smell of belonging when I buried my head in your shirt

Not that you are gone. Not that you are here

Not that I let you go. Not that I held on

Not that I lived you. Not that I died

Not that I can’t do without you. Not that I will