Rainy Day

He yawned and looked out of the window, it was a dull gloomy morning. It was raining continuously for the past few days, so he had little time to go out and get some fresh air. He hated the touch of rain to his skin. But he longed for the wind to rustle his grey air. He longed for it to throw a stray leaf at him that made him blink. So he stretched, went out and sat by Sheila on the veranda. Away from the reach of the spatter. She looked at him with love in her ginger eyes. The look that still gave him shivers from head to toe. They had been together for the past eight years. Since she separated from her husband, to be precise. They had a loving coexistence. He couldn’t believe someone could love him as much as she did. It felt like she was a different person when she was with him.

He knew because he had followed her unnoticed to her shop a few times. He had seen her sit there alone, her head resting on her palm. Waiting for the next customer to walk in. He had seen her with her customers, trying to look cheery and make small talk, with an ounce of sadness still hanging in her eyes and making her look older than she really was. He had seen her checking the time over and over again for hours till it was finally time to close shop. But when she got back home, it seemed that all the love in her consumed her and became the person she was. She would smile, she would talk, she would be a different person altogether. She was wonderful.

He inched closer to her and rested his side on her chair. She rested her palm on his back. They both sat together and looked at the rain in silence. There used to be a time when she would talk her heart out to him, and he would just listen. He prided himself at being a good listener. And when she talked, he could feel the comfort it gave her to let out like that. She didn’t talk much nowadays. Just the occasional you-know-what-happened-todays. But he knew that didn’t matter. It was just age.

She had been married 36 years when her husband met a younger woman and decided to give his hormones a second chance. Their only child had long grown up and settled down in a far off land. He never visited her. Her man left her with her little boutique, money enough to buy a new house, and plenty of humiliation. That was all she had now, apart from her grey haired fellow.

She met him outside the grocery store one morning, a month after her divorce. He used to idle there in the morning when people came to get their daily supplies of milk. It was she who first came and talked to him that day. Within an hour they became friends. And then she started seeing him there every morning, without fail. A few weeks later he started visiting her at her place, and then eventually moved in with her. Time flew by, and they became the most important part of each other’s lives. He liked both owning her this way and being owned by her. They were inseparable. She might have grown old, but to him, she was just as beautiful now as she was when he first laid eyes on her.

It was almost lunch time. She was already inside, setting the table, while he took a few more minutes to laze by himself. He inhaled the air, spiced with the smell of her delicious chicken curry and felt pleased. She was an incredible cook. He would have lunch and then catch a few winks. There wasn’t much for him to do. After all, there’s hardly much to do for a cat when it’s raining outside.

Inspired by Geetanjali Rao's Printed Rainbow

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Terrorism

I’m sorry I have to write about this. There is no other way to get these feelings out of my system. The images of dead bodies, blood splotches, stray limbs lying across my television screen. It’s just too disturbing. It’s just too much to ignore. It is just too harsh; to continue thinking it doesn’t affect me. I’m safe. I’m not. But it doesn’t scare me. I’m not terrorized by terrorism, it’s like lizards. They’re not terrifying, they’re abhorrent. It doesn’t scare me. It makes me feel like puking my guts out. It’s such a charade! 

Men who like to kill men for pleasure. Like a sport. For no fucking reason. Men who have no plan, and so get into a hospital to shoot already suffering people down to bits. Who kill some and let others go, at random, to go and tell their story to a world that is waiting to listen to their account, while others die. Who don’t mind getting killed because that is what they were trained for. Who have no respect for the gift of life. Who can fire at people standing on the road minding their own business. And who have a smile on their faces when they do it. A ghastly, fiendish smile that makes it all seem like a weird nightmare. They know what’s wrong with us, and they strike our open wounds. The make a farce of our governance, law, and order, everything. They expose our follies and make our country stand naked in front of the whole world. 

When the worst is over, there are other men. Men whom we give the authority to govern us and responsibility to protect us. The same men who like to take their friends to see the remains of a symbol of prosperity, raped and looted of its glory. Who like to wink at people seeking answers to why so many lives were lost. Why we didn’t do something about it. They wink! Men who are more worried about whether or not the women at the solidarity meetings are chaste enough to be expressing solidarity in the first place. Who seek resignations, object to resignations, and hand in resignations, just to show which side they are on. Men who tell us not to fear. Who tell us to stand united. Who say they will make those responsible pay the price for their deeds. Men who forget their speeches the moment they get off the stage.

And the rest of the men who stay up all night, devouring the action on TV. Not blinking, expressionless, their jaws hanging open. Who like to have all the reports, so they’ll have the background on every story when they talk to their friends about it in the morning. Who like to keep note of the rising death toll at all times. Have the latest numbers. Men who think so and so deserved to die because he was pointing fingers at people of his own religion?! To them it’s like something happening in outer space. Something which they should most definitely have an opinion about. Something that gives them another reason to criticize the governance, and in doing so, pay their due to their motherland. Who get ready, and get to work, thanking their stars that they were not a part of it. Who try to tell themselves, life goes on. 

But that’s the problem with something like this. Life doesn’t go on as usual. Something changes. Even for us far away, who didn’t lose a friend or relative. Who had nothing to do with the people who were directly affected. Something changes forever. 

Ask me how I feel. I feel fine.

Freaked out, Insecure, Neurotic and Emotional. 

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