Short Story: A Whisper on a Zephyr

(My first attempt at writing a romantic short story. Kindly grade me on mush factor: A - Nice - made me feel warm and fuzzy; B - Not bad, but I wouldn't hire you; C - Hand me some detergent, I got mush all over me! )

"I need your help," declared Tara, plopping down her coffee mug, "Remember my friend Sharanya?"

"Pretty little thing, shoulder-length hair, quotes Kipling when indignant and Yeats when murderous? How could I forget?" said Hari.

Tara giggled. "Well, she's been feeling low since her break-up way back in Jan, so I told her I'll find her a date who doesn't smoke, isn't a male chauvinist pig, and appreciates literature."

"Tough one."

"And seeing that all the guys I know are either married or in a different country, I thought you could recommend one for a blind date."

"Actually, I do know someone who fits the bill. I'll give Kiran a call. You've met him."

"Kiran... oh, the guitar guy? The songwriter-cum-singer chap?" she made a face, "Too chocolatey for my taste." Then she brightened, "What am I thinking? This is not for me. He'll be perfect for Sharanya!"

"Chocolatey?" he sounded amused. "Wait till I tell him. The expression on his face ought to be priceless!"

"Oh, you're an evil man!"

"So, which one am I?"

"Eh?"

"Married, or in a different country?"

Tara spluttered coffee all over the table. "Well, it's just that I've never seen you date and I've known you for how long, six years?" He raised an eyebrow as if to say all the more reason. "Not to imply that you're gay or anything, I know you're not," she said hastily. The other eyebrow went up. "Well, we've decided on Kiran, so that's that!" she said, defiantly ending the conversation.

-----------

"A blind date?" Kiran sounded doubtful.

"Don't worry, she is pretty, I've seen her," assured Hari.

"It's not the looks, I mean, I know nothing about her. What if she is the yelling type, or the technology type? You know I don't get along very well with most of your female friends."

"Look, I'll give you an escape call if you want, alright? Just give it a shot."

"Alright... twenty minutes after I'm in, you're calling me up, ok? I'll make up some emergency if I want to get out."

"Fine. By the way, I know exactly who you were thinking about when you said yelling and technology. She thinks you're too chocolatey, incidentally."

Kiran looked flabbergasted. "Chocolatey? Chocolatey? What the hell is that supposed to..."

But Hari was already out the door, grinning widely.

-------

Tara couldn't put her finger on it. She was bothered.

Why doesn't he date?

And why do I not think of him as "available"?

I have been taking him for granted.

Good lord! I haven't told him I am moving!

Why haven't I told him? Why is that so hard?

"Don't you have a call to make?" the voice shook her out of her reverie. Tara looked at her watch, and sure enough, it was time to make a call. She shot Hari a glare.

How did he know it was time for me to make a call?

She dialled the number and listened. Then, she simply said, "Ok," nodded and disconnected the call. As if on cue, Hari picked up his cell and made a call.

Kiran watched Sharanya hang up her phone and immediately excused himself as his own phone rang.

"Why on earth are you drinking hot chocolate? Aren't you man enough for an espresso?"

Not even a hello. "How the hell did you know I am drinking hot chocolate? Are you in here?"

"Actually, I didn't. But I do now."

"She's drinking pink lemonade. What do you say to that?"

"She's a girl. What's your excuse?"

"You're supposed to be asking how my date is going."

"I know you and I know her. I'm sure the date is going just fine."

"If you knew it would go fine, then why did you agree to call?"

"So that you would stop whining."

"Alright, so you had a reason to say you would call, but why did you actually call?"

"Couldn't pass up the opportunity to pull your leg."

The line went dead.

Hari chuckled and shut the phone. Tara, who was mentally filling up the other side of the conversation, was laughing. "You're an insensitive lummox, you know that?"

"So you keep saying."

At the other end, Kiran was apologising. "That was Hari. He's a Crumple-Horned Snorkack."

"Crumple-Horned Snorkacks don't exist."

"Exactly. He's unbelievable."

Laughter. A pause. "That was your escape call, wasn't it?"

"And that was yours, so we're square." Kiran was grinning.

"Ouch. Okay, we're square. Let's shake on that." She proferred a hand.

Kiran shook it, but she was already saying, "So, who are your favourite authors?"

"Hmmm.... J.D. Salinger... Ayn Rand... Aldous Huxley."

"Interesting... in a way, they are all social commentators, but their styles and viewpoints are all unique."

"My turn. I'm told you like poetry. Your favourite poets?"

--------

Tara was gathering up her courage. "Let's go for a walk. Someplace else. I have something to tell you."

Why did he not date?

"Okay. Beach?"

She nodded. "Yes. I need air."

It didn't take them long to arrive. They headed towards the water. "So, what is it?"

"I'm quitting the company. I'll be moving to Bangalore. You know my team here hates me."

"I know. You boss consulted me on your replacement."

He turned around to see that she had stopped, two steps behind.

"You knew?!! And yet you said nothing!"

"I was wondering when you were going to get around to telling me. I thought I'd give you some space."

Tara grit her teeth. Oaf! Lummox! Insensitive, thickheaded fool!

But a small voice in her head asked, Him or me?

------

"Oh my God!" said Kiran, "Look at the time!" Glancing down at his half finished drink, he added a rueful "The late hot chocolate."

Sharanya looked at her equally unfinished lemonade and pushed it away in distaste. "Let's leave. I want to listen to your songs, the ones you wrote yourself. Tara said they were quite good."

"What about dinner? It is rather late."

"We'll order pizza or something."

"Okay... I don't mind. Won't be the first time I stuck to my guitar instead of eating proper food."

-------

With growing panic, Tara realized why it was so hard for her to tell him she was moving. Why she never really thought of him as "available".

"Listen... I'm going to miss you. As irreverent and facetious and... and... an insensitive lummox as you are, I will miss you. This may sound crazy, but I want to ask you something."

"You sure have a strange way of asking me for a favour." A faint smile played on his lips. "Go on."

"Come to Bangalore. In fact, the company I am joining needs a team lead in their Embedded Systems department. You would be perfect for it. You'll get a substantial raise, I'm sure."

Without a break in his stride, he replied, "Okay."

Tara was again stranded two steps behind. Okay, he says. Just like that. And then she realized. He knew I was going to ask. How does he know all these things?

In a flash of insight, she figured out why he never dated.

"Do I have to search for an apartment?" That infuriating smile again.

She knew him well. It was no simple question. That man and his subtleties! This was as close to a proposal as she was going to get from him. Lummox!

My Lummox.

She put her hand around him and leaned on his shoulder, with a contented sigh. "No. Mine is big enough for the two of us."

He put his hand around her waist. They walked, the waves lapping at their feet.

-------

Sharanya was sitting on the floor, her back against the wall. Her eyes were closed. Her feet swayed in beat to the soft strumming of the guitar, and the sound of Kiran's voice.

It feels like...
Early spring rain.
It feels like...
You're drunk on elixir.

Sometimes, love hits you hard,
Like an oncoming train.
Sometimes, love comes softly,
Like a whisper on a zephyr.

X-----X------X

Music and lyrics, where have they gone?

My poetry blog informs me that I haven't written a poem in eleven months.

I've practically stopped listening to music these past two years, in spite of having a free napster account from my university.

I consider the lack of music and lyrics in my life as a symptom of something deeper.

I think I have been drifting in a sailboat, waiting for the wind, and forgetting that I have a motor.

Time to take control of my life, wouldn't you say?

Just Another Kid

I think it was 1998. We had just got ourselves an internet connection, a dialup one of course, broadband was for millionaires in those days. I knew how to type out a URL and browse the site, but I had little clue what to browse. I ended up trying various things on the Yahoo portal at first.

I remember feeling low about something one day that month. Did it have something to do with my studies? I can hardly remember. My life was largely happy in those days.

Thus it was, that in a sulky, depressed mood, I entered the Yahoo chatrooms and sat around looking (and feeling) bored, observing the chatroom without actually participating.

And then it happened.

She: Stephen?
Me: Sorry, you have the wrong person.
She: Oh.... sorry. How are you?
Me: (confused) I'm not Stephen.
She: You already said that. And I said, how are you?
Me: (thinking she was just being polite) Oh... don't bother. I'm just another kid.
She: We all were at one point of time :)

And thus it continued, me trying to explain that she was wasting her time talking to me, she saying something... nothing... everything. She was a 30-something woman in Australia, married with kids. By the end of fifteen minutes when she said goodbye, I realized I'd been expertly pep-talked without even realizing it.

It may sound like nothing, but for a fifteen-year-old who had never before been actually depressed about anything (yes, I really had a nice childhood), it was a lot. I was one of those quiet and shy types in those days, stammering a lot, avoiding conversation where possible. I was low enough in confidence to actually tell someone that I was just another kid. Yes, that little pep talk meant quite a bit to me.

Within a couple of weeks after that incident I realized the general futility of entering public chatrooms and stopped, so I never bumped into that woman again, never had the chance to thank her. But the fact of the matter is that I changed after that. Gradually, but unmistakeably. Gone is the stammer from those days. Gone is the panic when a girl spoke to me (don't smirk). Gone is the lack of self-confidence. In fact, these days I have such a supremely confident air about me that people give me a wide berth. Another thing I don't understand - why do we treat people who are sure of themselves as though they are from Mars?

I never was good at diplomacy. I admire those people who calmly and subtly make people feel better, introduce faith and hope in the direst of situations. While I hold most motivational and self-improvement books and speakers in contempt - like Olive's Dad in Little Miss Sunshine - I acknowledge that there exist a few people who really are good at it. One time when a super-depressed friend said she wanted to kill herself, I slapped her, grabbed her shoulders and shook her so hard I near broke her neck. Effective, actually, but a butcher's cleaver is not often of help in a situation that demands a surgeon's scalpel.

If you ever feel low enough to say, "Oh, don't bother, I'm just another _____", and there are no good motivators around, come to me. I love slapping people.

Cheers,
Prashanth.

Indian Bridge comes of age

India stamped its presence on the world bridge scene this week with an excellent show at the 3rd European Open Bridge Championships. The Indian team Texan Aces reached the finals, losing to the French team Bessis 117-91 in a hard fought contest. This is the first time that an Indian team has gone past the quarterfinal stage in a major international championship. If you're wondering why an Indian team would call itself that, it's because the team captain, G. Venkatesh, is nicknamed "Texas" back in sunny California, where he lives now.

It says something about my life when I pick up Hugh Kelsey's Advanced Play at Bridge for casual reading on a train journey, and forget to watch the India - South Africa cricket match but remember to watch the aforementioned bridge final. But I am not alone. My partner for the chennai club scene asseverates that he will join me for our weekly game at the T.Nagar social club even if he has to come straight from his office. My friends who graduated with me from IITM two years ago, now spread across different time zones, still find time for the occasional online game. The Indian Bridge Federation has started conducting a Junior National Bridge Championship every year, in which travel and other expenses for all players are compensated. The IIT Kharagpur bridge team even has a coach, Sumit Mukherjee, who is a member of the Texan Aces team - or at least, they had when I last met them.

It is a sad but true fact that Indian sports fail to get infrastructure unless our performance on the international circuit is good. This throws us in a vicious loop, for unless we have the funds to coach young players, how will we do well? Look at the chess scene in India before and after Viswanathan Anand... happened, for lack of a better word. Today, nobody will dare underestimate an Indian player at an international chess tourney. Bridge needs a similar revolution, but I am confident that it is not far away. Indian teams have been consistently improving in their performance at world championships, and with a little encouragement for the junior players, we will be on par with the best teams in the world pretty soon.

Cheers,
Prashanth.

Tomatoes and Onions

I hate them.

That's right, I hate eating tomatoes and onions.

The normal reaction to this is one of disbelief, and in my defense all I can say is that everybody hates some vegetables. Well, the ones I hate are tomatoes and onions. I don't even mind eating bitter gourd. Really!

Of course, having likes and dislikes is something adults cannot afford most of the time (one of the few lessons I have learnt in my admittedly short life thus far), and after eating in a hostel mess for five years and a mixture of my roommates' cooking and my own cooking for another two years, I've learnt to close my nose and swallow anything that pretends to be food. Still, I surprised myself with how well I learned that lesson this week.

See, I went to a friend's house for lunch this weekend, and not knowing my food preferences, the first thing they served me was a tomato-onion-bhath-type thing. Another thing I've learnt in my short existence is manners, so I ate without protest, if a little slower than usual. In the old days I would have either declined or sat picking out every piece of tomato and onion from it before eating.

It was not my imagination - I really ate what would at one time be like climbing Mt. Everest for me, and I didn't gag and I didn't mind it that much. Still, I didn't completely surprise myself, because of something that happened in January.

I had come back from the US after 18 months there and my Mom was careful to serve food I liked. Of course, that didn't stop her from making the usual snide comments on how picky our little prince was when it came to food.

Perhaps it was the tone that made me out to be a spoilt little brat. Perhaps it was the fact that my parents really don't know how far I have come from my high school days - no matter what my Mother like to pretend, she has no idea how much life at IIT changed me. I heard her telling someone the other day that I don't drink coffe. Imagine! Like I was still a teenager!

But I digress. The short of it is that I lost my temper, and told my Mom squarely that I have grown up and I proceeded to prove it by picking up a small onion - raw - and eating it in front of them (taking care not to wince at each bite). You won't believe the deafening silence at the dining table.

My Mom is actually proud of me for that particular demonstration, but I am not so sure it is something to be happy about. To me, this is symbolic of a lot of things wrong in my life. It means that not only am I willing to make sacrifices and compromises on my preferences and principles, I have reached the stage where I actually don't mind doing so. It is not so much the fact that I am giving in that irks me, but the fact that I have come to accept that it needs to be done.

In case you have missed the point, I am not talking talking about tomatoes and onions anymore. I am talking about the mentality that drives people into submission willingly. I am more sympathetic of why women in India don't do more to fight for their rights, having first hand experience of a similar sort. It has to do with society and family and duty and a lot of things I don't want to go into - any Indian would understand the kind of thing I am talking about.

I am not trying to say that I have been repressed or stifled deliberately. In fact, my family has given me every opportunity to do what I like, without placing too many demands on me. I would probably just put it this way: I am coming to understand my duties and responsibilities, which arise by simply being part of a family and a society. And I don't like what I am seeing. I may be a little dense at times but I am not so stupid as to run from responsibility. Or from my family. Or from my country. Even though I can - all I have to do is put my foot down and I can live my life the way I want in the USA and never come back. That's simply not who I am.

I'm sure a good number of people reading this blog understand what I am going through. I would appreciate any advice dropped in the comment box. If I have to summarize this entire post in one sentence, I would say this: I ate a raw onion one day to make a point; I did make my point, but if anybody won a victory that day, it wasn't me.

Cheers,
Prashanth.

"US Return"

This week I was visiting my grandparents in the town of Salem, where I have enough cousins that I won't get bored. One day I went to the video store with one of my cousins to get a couple of movies. As I chatted with him and sifted through the movies, the store owner asked, "Are you a US Return?"

Imagine my surprise! I was quite positive that nothing in our conversation gave away the fact that I'd spent some time in the States. I even checked with my cousin after we left the store if I'd picked up an American accent in these two years, and he said I haven't. In any case I had been speaking in Telugu... er... Telugu mixed with a little English. Okay, a lot of English. But I am positive I don't have an accent.

And then it struck me. I was wearing knee-length shorts. I suspect that in a town the size of Salem, only someone from abroad would dare go out in broad daylight wearing shorts :)

I've watched enough movies and serials in Telugu and Tamil to know the Cardinal Sins of a US Return.

Sin #1: A US Return cannot speak the local languages well. He mixes it with > 50% English.
Verdict: Guilty.

Sin #2: A US Return has a pronounced American accent.
Verdict: Not guilty.

Sin #3: A US Return is (almost by definition) a snob.
Verdict: Hmmm.... possibly guilty :P

Sin #4: A US Return wears shorts almost all the time in this blazing summer.
Verdict: Guilty.

Miscellaneous sins: A US Return guzzles alcohol, smokes a pack of cigarettes a day, chews gum, and sleeps with random women.
Verdict: What the...? I've been watching too many Telugu movies....

Cheers,
Prashanth.

Tread carefully...

Some twenty-odd women meeting in my house.

I squeeze in through the mass to pick up a plate and get my lunch.

My family lectures me if I stay aloof, so I eat with them instead of going back to my room and utter polite greetings and "Yes, my health is just super now, thank you" when asked.

I say something about a relative and get shushed because his grandmother is in the room and may have heard me.

One of the women steps out of the house for a few minutes and now the other women start talking about her.

Apparently it is okay to say anything behind someone's back, but not to their face or in front of their relatives.

All talk is loud.

All jokes are facetious.

They think I ought to get married, and my age is still 23.

A circle of women is a nest of vipers. Tread carefully, or don't tread at all.

Cheers
Prashanth.