Just b-e-l-i-e-v-e!

Red-green-yellow. Lights. Lights off. Silence. The night and owl stories. Lust. Loneliness. He called up. Late in the night and remained silent until he could sleep. She listened to his silence and the monster who wanted to drink blood, not rain. He was not in love. He was honest enough to tell her. She was happy to read him, blindly. The script was being written. She read many... many more.... At times, she prayed to be saved. At times, she got tangled. Then he held her hand, showed her love... She searched for keys. Hastily. Gasping. Pressing. Backspace. DEL. Esc.

August is sinister I would not call it a month of green love and blessings it brings night to a sunny day and who cares for those houses that swim away it was only yesterday August had not come, I would feel joy under their cheeks swelled up cautiously and sleep on eye brow for peaceful days and dreams of green green meadow where are they? where are the happy days? this havoc, the flood of pain, is the same water, you rejoiced in and prayed for days after days Summer was better they all said, sighed and hoped for another season to dawn. hope, once and ever, we only have to have.

The day I will be dying And few days before that What I will feel Is what I have already felt before my wedding.

I don't know whether the blotches, cut marks, pockmarks and spots were by birth on his face. But his face looked slightly uneven. Though I am not the niggler who would just sit back and pass petty remarks on people's beauty and behavior. But still if you believe me, it was hard to look at him and then look again at him. Since I was the headmistress of this small town's very own small school, I asked his class teacher about him. And what I found was a little sad fact, indeed. When he was very young, about two years, he was running with older kids and accidentally fell over an iron fence in his farm. And, thus he lost all his beauty. Yes, he was born a very beautiful baby. The most beautiful among his relations. And so, it spread in the whole town that there is definitely somebody who did something upon him when he was born. Later, they all said, it was an 'evil eye'. So he was put up with stark black kohl in his eyes and a black thread around his neck always, in ...

These nights, when you go to bed thinking, what if you had another reality. The cozy blanket comforts her memories. Memories of the things that never happened. She repeats her name in half-sleep : Rhea... Rhea. She talks to him in her imagination. A smile makes her lips a crescent moon. She sees him before her closed eyes. He was sitting like a little child, fixing his eyes on his goal and his goal was to troubleshoot. She didn't disturb him, though she put her head on his lap and slept . When she woke up next day, she made lunch for her eight year old boy. Breakfast for everyone. Juice for mother-in-law. Washed dishes in the sink and did a little dusting around the house. It was not a big house and she was relieved that it was not. She liked its small size, coziness and flat-like appearance. On an ordinary day, she would hear birds talk, the shrill voice of horns, vendors howling on the street and servants coming and going out of the house. On such days, her memories are shrou...

When I write I become undiscovered lands You - a mad traveler. You take my words for map - to be lost in me - You seem to find a new World.

At present - I am culling mustard seeds rolling in a plate creating - different shapes - On each slide - a different art. And this means nothing to anybody, to them Who keep asking me - What do you do?

Her name was Siyana Jad. She rose to honor by people of her clan during her early twenties. And why not! she had  sacrificed big things in her life for her clan. But if you ask her, what was that? She would mock it off saying, 'may be I was Possessed.' Initially, she laughed off her sacrifices. She did not take them seriously. But the nature of psychology is going from simple to complex. People, in their minds, in their whispers, in their evening meetings regarded her sacrifices as something unusual. Before she knew, she rose to become a Demi-God for her clan. People, actually, worshipped her. Though, it is a different thing, those who respect you, worship you for your sacrifices, expect for even more sacrifices. More discipline. Chastity. More restraints . She went through all drama (leela) unattached. But on the lonesome days, she would feel deep in her heart that unknowingly, she chose heaven, while she was born for hell. If tasting life in all flavors meant Hell, then it...

Sea-Green Waters Snow covered mountain Roses A house wearing green leaves Floral frocks Real smiles Stories I scroll up and down and I sink low - lower where Life is (not) absent

The words I did not speak had become a fine powder. Crimson. This is only about me. I am sorry. The naked 'maang' stares in the mirror, in my day-visions. I will act like a lover and this will be over. But then, I learnt to cook, I fancied each afternoon, that 'someone' would come and I will arrange all things perfectly. A round table decorated with blue pottery, vases of fresh flowers, handmade pickles and chutneys in tiny clay jars, food along with desserts. That, you feel being in Paris. I wanted to design a heaven for 'someone'. A garden for happy souls. You said, "You are weird." I thought, "You were talking to my dreams."

I fold pain press gently its crevices, I keep it in wardrobe, fresh, fragrant. But in a couple of days, it is again hung outside, in gallery for people to see what it looks like ; what color pain, I have ; what size big it is... I fold it again, again and again, till it is no more a pain in itself.

Don't complicate Let chapati be a chapati Your moon be a moon Of late, I have been disliking the taste of moon. It sticks to the ceiling of mouth and bites dead teeth and eats cavity. It doesn't leave my mouth easily. Now Don't be that moon please! Darling We are already good chapatis.

I had you on dinner I served you all dishes and waited by your side ; at one point, I gazed like Rose, standing at the deck of Titanic, into the deep blue waters of Atlantic. Not sure why! though I gazed and in a hazy memory I remember we drifted apart, in that very moment.

The nod. The flame goes high. I burnt my hand, almost. Last week, it was my neck. and I have burnt marks all over yet, I come, as if I am hypnotized by this flame.

The night, like monster with hundred faces, comes. A lone candle burnt ... continues to burn...       A moth, an old friend, came ... began to be burnt. Slowly. The candle needed the moth, to stay far, to stay alive. He preferred to die, she lived, with a harder fate of a lone wood in a forest. Choices in love are onerous. Though, It is an old story, now. You read it, love. I read it, loss.

We are corrupted. some virus entered - it hanged our fate all of a sudden. Shall we restart?

Tomorrow I may die of a sudden heart-attack or I may get a couple of month's warning if diagnosed with cancer. Or just suppose if I die out of blue in suicide bombing attacks and there are no chances that I can come back to tell you How I liked you? How you made my life beautiful? In that case, while I am still alive I want to Love and not let love be a feeling that subsides and not let love stick to a stereotype and not let love be bound or bind to a name I will let it be only Love.

Why do I look in the mirror, When you are not here? Somebody lingers around is that, you call fear? We are women, all same we survive, fighting tear Do you hate me, more? As I say, I will choose to bear I know, they ignore our voices 'Anu' we must write to make them hear

May was the month of writing microtales. As I chose to write each day in one specific genre. Here are some of my favorite microtales -

In the middle of the night out of a broken sleep I felt I am a body and my body craved for you - your sensuous touch. s uddenly then, I saw, my body split up in million hideous insects who roamed in the room everywhere - to eat the tiny vulgar scrapes of one's own mind. I didn't mind my body, your touch, the insects, even vulgarity, only the disturbed peaceful sleep - wanted for another tiresome day.