Dark Beauty

A regular consumer and connoisseur of dark chocolate, he could smell the percentage of cocoa in every chunk. “No one understands my passion,” he said to himself as he bit into a dark beauty, staying up the entire night, high on caffeine.  

The Lucky Charm

Going from door to door, he would whistle incessantly. They called him the Whistling Messenger who would hand them the letters and cycle back to town, leaving behind a haunting tune.The letters never carried any saddening news.

He was their lucky charm until the day he delivered a postcard with news of death. The Messenger’s whistle was never heard again. All that was found on the lane drifting back to town was a bicycle, a khaki uniform, and a handbag with a skull.

Happiness sealed in the letters used to be his lucky charm. 

The Picnic

As we lay our rug beside the river and settled down, looking forward to the much-awaited Spring picnic, the sound of rustling leaves was difficult to ignore. It did not take me more than a few seconds to back up and drive away in my Jeep, before the merry group could get suspicious. I saw the sleek body of the panther, playing hide-and-seek in the vegetation. Everything was happening according to plan. 

Marriage

He had presented her a dictionary, the page bookmarked said that marriage is the relationship that exists between a husband and a wife. The dictionary lay torn in the bin as she wrote down with pen her own definition of revenge on the divorce papers blotted with tears. In this one year of marriage, he had taught her that marrying her teacher was not a good idea.     

Heavy Baggage

Sweltering heat hit the face of the petite school girl as she dragged her feet on the red bricked lane. Steam escaped from the lid of the boiling earth from the stove of the blasphemous earth. An avalanche of heat overflowed in copious amounts from the perspiring goblet of summer.Drenched in sweat, clad in her crimson and cream school uniform, the girl whiled away the trying time by getting engrossed in humming a playful tune, not bothered about her disheveled appearance.

 An occasional thud could be heard on the hardened soil, as she was walking back home from school. The afternoon sun bit her skin and she could not help but wonder from where the sound was coming from at that time of the day in the vehement heat of July. After spotting a colossal old banyan tree, she stopped for a while in the generous shade . The sound still echoed in the silence. Out of curiosity, she started walking towards the source of the raucous sound. A poignant sight melted her heart, which had remained strong in the formidable heat. 

A pit had been dug beside a mustard field, about eight feet deep and the sound that had aroused her curiosity, was that of a rusted spade, escaping into the stillness of the air, whenever it sunk into the grumbling earth. A frail old farmer clad merely in a torn dhoti, wiped beads of sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand, enveloped in mud. His bones peeped out from behind his wrinkled skin that spread over the bones as a mesh of cobwebs woven together in place. But, hidden behind the pallor was his youth. A youth that had been forced to age into a diminutive old frame, strong physically yet weak in stature.

The girl stood absorbed in the moment, with her hands cupped  over the eyes to be able to see clearly. To her utter surprise, the farmer looked up at her wearily and smiled. He asked her gregariously if she needed any help or if she had by any chance lost her way.

A sea of pity gushed into her heart but with heaviness in her heart she politely refused. On the other hand, she inquired about the reason behind his heart wrenching plight. She came to know that the leviathan landscape was in the hands of a wretched landlord, who had hired the farmer to slog for him, only to sell of the mud dug out by the end of every week. The farmer was a prey of selfish motives. This was merely because the indignant farmer had once been unable to pay off the debts of the landlord. The story tugged at the strings of her heart and she implored him out of the pit, to sit under the shade of the banyan tree. She watched him scraped off the leftovers from her lunch box that had a slice of bread and butter left in it a few seconds back. After the meal, he told her about how the town used to be a village once and promised to delve into details about the long lost culture, some other day.

He walked back to the field but his shoulders no longer drooped as before. Even the shoulders of the girl no longer felt tired under the weight of her bulky school bag. There were heavier things to be worried about and taken care of. Today she had walked back from school from a different route but she knew that she would follow this path everyday and no longer crib about the heavy baggage upon her shoulders.

Catch you soon in your room

   

   Desperately waiting for her son, Aman’s mother waved at him through the window of his bedroom as he hopped out of his school bus beside the playground in the neighborhood, bathed in the sunlight of the summer evening .He look up to smile at her then happily strolls up to the porch of his house and starts bullying the dog tied to the postbox near the gate .The scrawny boy climbed up the stairs with heavy footsteps and was  welcomed by his mother in his room .As  she went  out ,tired he  glanced towards his wall clock only to fall flat on his bed and slept like a log .By the time he woke up the night had set in.

   On the moonlit night the moon played peek-a-boo with the clouds as the house came into view where an interesting game of hide and seek was about to be played. Aman woke up and took out his clothes from the chest of drawers and turned around looking at the clothes, He was startled to hear the noise coming from the shaking cabinet. He turned towards the drawer to see that he had accidently closed the drawer in which his shadow had gotten stuck that was now trying to escape. Exasperated, as soon as he opened the drawer, the shadow slid down on the floor and hid beneath the bed. He jumped up on the bed in fear and tried to look beneath bed and got kicked by the shadow, falling down from the bed. He frantically started searching for it after landing on the floor. In a while the shadow rose up and pressed its nose against the face of the boy. 

   He reached out to catch hold of the shadow but it slid from his hands so he rushed to the doorway to check if there was anyone around. But as soon as he opened the door his mother called him for dinner and frightened he closed the door behind him as he ran back into the room. As his mother called him for dinner he was baffled but before he could complete his reply he was dragged mercilessly by the shadow back into the room. As he tried to hold the shadow with both his hands, it happily ran across the entire room. Aman could not tolerate it any longer when his head hit the lamp and he was blinded by the lampshade that had made its way to his head.

   Boiling with anger due to the atrocious behaviour of the shadow, with the lampshade on his head, he stomped towards the lamp and with a sly smile switched it off. He let few moments of silence pass by in the darkness of the bedroom before switching on the light to notice a trembling shadow sitting in a corner of the room. He started walking away with sarcasm in his body language and was soon followed by the shadow that slid upon him and became a part of him again. Contented, he patted his stomach and went outside from the room whistling. The sound of his mother screaming could be heard as the shadow was stuck in his room door behind him to end the old game and begin a new one.

Mystery of the Magical Words

     As my pen moves across the ordinary ruled sheets of my spiral notebook, my mind drifts back to the golden period of my life that made me believe in the beauty of miracles and strengthened my belief in the power of words. As a tiny tot I used to be in awe of the charm that the world of fairytales offered but unlike most of the other kids of my age I had never allowed myself to be lost in the enthralling accounts of the lives of the supernatural. Having grown up in a mansion where the library constituted of half the square feet of the house it will not be wrong in case I am labelled as a bookworm that I am. Even my room is occupied by books and huge windows open up my room to the beauty of nature that guides me through the process of writing and acts as fuel for my imagination. The prime reason of the establishment of the library was the passion that my father had as an author for books or any written medium of expression. He used to tell me quite often that words define us and mould our life. They open up the windows to our imagination and the day we learn the art of expression, we create a magical world of words for ourselves where nothing is within ordinary realms and nothing is impossible. I did not believe in a higher power but believed in myself. In spite of being a cripple my parents never made me feel so. I have been taught and mentally prepared to take charge of myself and my life but I am emotionally dependant on my parents who are my biggest strength as well as weakness. I also picked up the habit of writing from him and writing along with reading had become an inseparable part of life. I could let go of my crutches that were the only reason of my dismay, whenever I took flight in the world of words. The pea in the peapod used to be my all time favourite storybook and whenever father used to go for attending seminars and promotion of his latest piece of works, I used to keep the book beneath my pillow to drive away my fear of darkness and surrender to deep slumber in the arms of the night and dream away. Dreaming and recalling the dreams that I had had during the previous night was something I used to relish and await every single day.

     One fine day back then father had taken leave of me and mother and gone on an expedition for the promotion of his book for a day. As always I kept my favourite book under my pillow and slept within a few moments. In my dream that night I sneaked out of the mansion through the window of my room and ran to the nearby village where the farmers who used to work in our fields resided. The thought of the village had always fascinated me and I had been inclined to visit the village many a times but to my dismay I had never been allowed to because of my upbringing in a place where playing in mud inviting minor bruises was unacceptable.

     

     My dream was like a dream come true for me where I made my way through paths amidst trees and bushes to run to the fields abounding in peapods. The fields bathed in the purity of dewdrops, was truly an example of serenity at its best. I gasped with joy and bent down to embrace the fragrance of the white buds of the pods but was engulfed in darkness as soon as I felt the fragrance take over my senses. In the fraction of a second I felt as if my mother had tucked me in within a warm blanket in my bed on an unusually cold night. But after a few moments itself the thought that had struck me had been replaced by the realisation that my human body had been replaced by the body of a miniature pea that was huddled along with five other peas within a peapod that were actually whispering to each other. The pod opened as if the warm blanket had been taken away and moonlight made its way within my new arena. The sudden shock diminished soon as my companions made me aware of the fact that the ones that are enveloped in the fragrance of the flowers sprouting on the plants when clock struck twelve, were made their companion for the night when they come alive. 

     It dawned upon me that the series of events that were taking place were the same as those mentioned in my favourite storybook of the peapods. I had a fascination for peapods when I was a child as the peas looked so adorable and innocent within their cover that provided them with a comfortable cot to thrive in. The peas persuaded me to jump outside the peapod. All of us did so and bounced our way into different fields and flowerbeds. My sole desire at that moment was to freeze the time forever but I was mortified when informed that the peas come alive only at midnight and have to return to their peapods as stationery miniscule elements of the nature as soon as the sun rises.

     The daybreak was near and I was rushed back home by the peas. As soon as I jumped back inside my room through the window, the sun rose and at that moment my I came out of my dream when sunrays cast a glow upon my face. I woke up with a smile and was taken aback to notice two tiny peas on my windowsill. At that moment my father came into the room and after being a patient listener to my entire story that would have seemed like a piece of my imagination to others, he unravelled the mystery behind the entire incident. That day I came to know that the children who believe in the power of words are bestowed upon the privilege of visiting the world of words once. Today I am a children's author and with every word written by my quill I cross my fingers with the realisation that while I pour my passion into my books somewhere the magic of words would be coming alive for a hopeful heart.