The Air-Conditoned Dungeon

                       Brimmed with excitement I changed into  loose cotton pyjamas of the infirmary which must have been worn many a times before by anxious souls who no matter how afraid they would be, still a faint smile or a blank expression of indifference would pallor their faces. Only men are supposed to wear pyjamas and gowns are earmarked for women.. Hence, no pyjama wearer would have ever exhibited his fear to the doctors or people accompanying him (friends/family..?) thereby concealing the deep-seated human fear with a masquerade of manliness.  I so wanted to wear the gown but… Even today, the one who wore pyjamas followed suit, the only difference being he was ignorant to the subconscious fear residing within him. Being clad in the pyjamas, with a T-shirt retained on his metalless body he busied himself with clicking selfies.

                         When his turn came to be united with the MRI Machine for a brief period of 45 minutes he gracefully embraced his beloved allowing his hands to be tied up with straps and his ears to be guarded with wool to protect him from the machine’s overwhelming love. Swoosh! And It started. She swallowed him within herself with his eyes open. His open eyes saw his soul being separated from Goddess to be transported  to the world of the living dead. He couldn’t take it anymore and in a moment of rage flung open the strap that tied him to this worldly machine screaming for help beseeching to be let out. He was indeed let out for a minute or two to be consoled and forcefully encouraged  to be swallowed again into the machine away from his omnipotent friend to gain experience which was a must (oblivious to the absence of confined presence of the widespread omnipotent) .

                      He was once again taken inside that air-conditioned dungeon after witnessing the death of his courage, braveness, boldness among other things, but this time with doctorly patience.. Even the Manjulika in him herself got scared  of the angelic machine. 
                    I felt claustrophobic and my phone’s battery was going to pass out which irritated me deviating my free flowing thoughts from being united with the notepad on Memo.  So, he continued with the story with just 2% of charge left in his phone but with an immeasurable amount of passion in his heart. 
                   Just one look at the enclosed tube in which he was contained was more than enough to induce panic but he chose to close his eyes and divert his mind. His mother on the other hand painstakingly seated outside the chamber ( having undergone two such MRIs in the past) didn’t have the heart to be inside that chamber again but she would ensure that her prayers would reach him across through this synthetic fallopian tube. My mom’s prayers accompanied with that of dad helped me escape the instinct of breaking free from this experience-gaining tube. Thoughts of the Ooh la la lady and her iconic sexual innuendos from her not so Dirty Picture and her latest look from her recent flick (which made her look beyond gorgeous) kept hovering over my mind. It was then that I got exposed to my true fear when my childhood dream of putting up in a hospital just for the sake of fun got shattered. I could now empathise with a lifeless person lying in a coffin or a participant of a reality show locked up in a box with creepy crawlies and Goddess knows what. I found myself to be luckier than them and yet not so lucky. I decided to be fit and never plan a trip to a hospital ever again as some dreams should better be left unfulfilled. The battle with the synthetic tube continued,while mother’s vulnerable  prayers from outside the chamber were imbibed inside like a seat-belt being fastened on the soul enabling it to savour turbulence on this philosophical flight of rebirth.

                      The battle of the soul’s constant struggle to survive in this world away from its beloved continued. He instantly connected to his omnipotent friend from that narrow life-like tube where the network of the cell-phones were jammed but his friend could still reach him along with the prayers of his mother. Hence, the connection established with the Goddess was strong with no inflationary fluctuations in between. Battling up the temptation to not give up is seldom easy. But he kept on fighting silently and motionlessly with the world trying to define his life until his spiritual master would rescue him from the clutches of this dark, air-conditioned dungeon.

                       Anticipating the moment of ecstasy of being freed,undergoing a pleasant death in this literally breath-taking tube to leap back again into a mundane life, in order to come out and greet my mother with a faint-smile after winning over the battle was what I was looking forward to. But rather than stretching the story like an elastic band of an Indian soap opera or a never ending Bollywood film I would rather not allow the ‘bahu’ to become a ‘saas’ or a child bride to grow-up and not let the readers predict the already comprehensible climax to this story which I hope you enjoyed going through (a rhetorical question, isn’t it? )".

Carnal Chauvinism

                    A fictional account of a few womens' unwanted experiences in a patriarchal world. While such incidents often occur in real world everywhere around us at the blink of an eye but we still choose to overlook them. It’s high time we really gave up those rose-tinted glasses and open our eyes to such inhuman behavior and take immediate required action against it!

                    A:   I am a girl from Calcutta, a city that breeds honourable men. I am a sinner who is blessed with such divine milky radiance that people (men,women,children..) often worship this body which is considered to be a temple open to everyone. Their offerings in the temple comprise of virtues like lust, greed, envy, avarice, subordination, objectification, stereotyping among others.. My temple of God clad in a three-quartered shorts and a sleeveless deep-neck top attracts the malicious eyes of these pious devotees towards me as I tread along the cemetery of life.

                   The walls of the temple often get injured by annoying incessant drizzles at regular intervals and in extreme cases the entire sacred plaster of the wall is stripped off under the spell of the tormenting torrential rain accompanied by thundershower and lightning. The supposedly sacred plaster once ruined, ruins the temple’s image for a lifetime. After all it is the external structure of the temple that is of utmost significance, the Goddess residing within can be conveniently taken for granted and epitomized as the sacrificial lamb. People get a glimpse of heaven by glancing from top to bottom at my young, coconut white bodily temple. After all, this temple is a public property where no one will ever be prosecuted for trespassing. Just because I prefer not to decorate the temple’s neck with a mangalasutra or crown the head with blood-red vermillion to offer a proof of this temple’s land being someone’s private property people feel it is their fundamental right to glance at it and forcefully enter the threshold to acquire carnal ecstasy.

                    B: The other day it was my best friend’s birthday and I decided to upload pictures with him on all the social networking sites (as the ritual demands ). Woah! My inbox got flooded with messages like: “Snc wn?” , “Nvr new u r dtng hm!”, “He’s hawwt babe!” “U bth rock! Muahhh! #Mde fr each odr yaarrr!” “May God #bless you both!” “#New bff” “Cu8 cupl!” “Lucky U!” “Mah Blsngs!”…followed by a couple of more such remarks and #hashtags.. This was the first time I committed a virtual crime, being a girl I uploaded pictures with a male friend and then felt sorry for him not being my boyfriend, such a slut  that I was. While,he on the other hand was being praised for having a ‘patakha’/ ‘maal’/‘tota’ and their liked on his profile picture (read DP) but severely criticized by his friends after their epiphanic realization that I was not ‘his girl’. Perhaps,it is the 8^th sin for a girl to be ‘just’ friends with a boy in India. Why could I not fall for him? How could I be so close to him considering the fact he belongs to the opposite sex. I am bound to regret this for eternity. God, please forgive me for I knew not what I did and also don't punish that boy who raped and murdered the minor girl in my neighbourhood the other day for he is just a boy and after all boys do commit mistakes. But, a mighty confession has the power to atone him of all his murderous sins and to turn him into the greatest of all saints..

                  C: The long, windy stretch of Princep Ghat adjoining the Hooghly river  is precisely the place where I  happily  (except during summers) work. Waking up approximately at 4 am daily embracing the breeze of the chaste and pious Ganges (never mind the excreta, chemical discharges, grit, dirt, etc) , I set up my tea stall for the day. The stall adjoining the railway line constructed to enhance the  Riverfront Tourism offers serene, pleasant views of the holy Ganges along with the surplus views of young famishedly dressed girls and women deeply engrossed in work to the regular commuters on these trains. These commuters have their nasty little ways of showering me with their lusty love that comprises of catcalls, shrieks, whistles, sexual remarks and what not while I’m busy preparing tea. Initially, I used to be adequately offended by this unwelcoming overwhelming adulation. Later on, I decided to express my gratitude towards these lovely bunch of people by indulging in some much needed Adam-teasing. Hence, now onwards these gentlemanly gestures are greeted with ram-pyaalis which are hurled into the faces of these commuters enabling them  with an option of revisiting their roots.

            D:  I must have been three then when my parents decided to take me out on a holiday to a hill-resort in Southern India. After a tiring journey we checked-in at a lavish hotel with a lobby boasting of a monumental chandelier huge enough to fit in at least ten of me in it. I was warmly greeted by a bellhope who decided to transport me to the room allotted after allowing me a fun-ride on his luggage trolley whilst my parents were engaged with the check-in formalities in the meantime. While I was taking a look at the stupendous room I felt a finger sliding down through my pinafore into my neck and the surrounding area grasping the region below neck which would then blossom into a woman’s breasts in years to come. I felt ticklish and smiled only to feel a bit uneasy moments later. Before I could even resist, the finger made its way through my abdomen and I could feel it encircling my eve’s garden only to soil it. This lead to the eruption of dormant tears down my cheeks which were greeted by a grin on the bellhop’s face. My soul was molested and stripped off for at least two minutes before the emerging footsteps of my parents could be heard. I was then thrown down on the bed with my face full of salty water. The moment my parents entered the sanctimonious room I was lifted by those dirty hands once again to help him keep his jovial amiable mask intact which would so delicately unmask my soul for years to come. I didn’t even know what had happened to me then but still I would keep weeping like a child because I indeed was one while he would keep smiling despite committing the crime of brutally raping and murdering his own conscience spewing drops of blood all over me.

Dispelled Darkness

                                    The cold fear invites dependence upon these long, mighty files in black that I clutch upon sometimes in despair, sometimes in hope. Staring with the eyes of hope at the flickering gleam of dawn and dusk melting around the threshold of the life's transient growth.

                                    The prison is nothing but a brief allusion to the bounded torments of the innocent immortal. An inflicted ecstasy induced by the elixir of grief that builds up a camouflage of minds and hearts which the earthly prisoners inspire.

                                    He lights the match stick of buoyancy dispelling the iron black darkness of the cell. His rugged eyebrows twitch in the direction of the light. The prisoner takes an oath of not allowing his black friend to visit him again. His face builds up a smile of relief but the eyes try to rob the face of it's jewel by initiaitng the flow of pearly drops for the death of darkness. The darkness has passed away from his world, the darkness that was his love. Forlorn! But,was she ever there? Or was it just a bewildered illusion caused by the wordly iron bars against the hues of the sun?

(It contains more than one person narrative,prisoner represents the soul and the human trapped on earth away from his beloved, the God.The darkness symbolises his human love and also the worldly things that separate him from the Almighty.This, overall symbolises the confusion of the prisoner's mind)