The Unknown

With every step I rise

I see this mysterious hand around my shoulders

Curling up my identity

Fondling my deepest secrets

Buried deep in my treasure of Subconscious.

This Stranger calls by my nameless name

In the middle of the darkness of the star-lit sea

Picking up the un-acquaintanceship of my ideal life

from the death-dead apprehensions

This unmeetable carries my soul

As we pass through the unenlightened ideas

In search of the beautiful unknown 'new’. 

Kiss

As he touched the hair falling on my forehead, I closed my eyes. Very slowly, he moved his fingers around my hair line and I felt every movement of his middle finger rolling on my face. He pulled my face towards his to kiss. I don’t know if he had opened his eyes, but I didn’t, probably not wanting to mix the questionable prudence in reality. I know, we see more with the closed eyes. As I felt his breath around my face, I smelt the beer he had last night. In every breath of his, lied an untold story of equal loneliness and greater impatience.

He squeezed my shoulders in his fists and kissed them, and shoved off all the burdensome questions that kept my mind busy.

He filled his fingers in the gap between my fingers, pulling me towards me and re-illumined my dying spark. He put his hand on my heart and the bleeding from the painful wounds stopped.  

He touched my back with his palm, and for a moment, I realized what leap my life could take only if a man was there to support it forever. He continued to move fingers on my back bone as if trying to wake up the sleeping desires I buried years ago.

He kissed my lips and with a thud I got back what I had lost…I touched my own life. I felt like a woman..

And without asking me to open my eyes, he showed me how much he wanted to open my eyes, get up from the dream and make him real. 

Haveli da kotha

Note:

The story is a human interest story showing ill treatment of Hindu minorities living in Pakistan. Some of the words in the story used are Hindi, which are translated in the brackets).

HAVELI DA KOTHA

(The roof of the house)

Khudda Lahora is a small village in the West Punjab, Pakistan. There is no school or hospital or bank, but is ruled by local money lenders, Shahi Vaid (local physicians), and madarsas (Muslim schools) run by the local Imam.

Lalaji Phoolchand owned a small grocery shop there, which was just a stone’s throw distance from his haveli (house), where his wife Prito, his son, Ballu and daughter Navnee stayed.  None of his children ever visited any school.

At home, Prito, taught them how to read and write and helped Lalaji in hisaab-kitaab (calculations) at his shop.

Lalaji inherited this grocery shop from his ancestors in 1947, as a ‘murder gift’ from the Government during Partition, when his joint family of 34 was brutally murdered, by their own neighbors.

Since then, Lalaji, had never been able to move with his head held high, as, with his name, the surname of ‘minority’ was attached.

Lalaji neither sat at the chaupal (public place for discussions) under the shady mango trees during summers nor did he bask winter Sun, sharing the folklore. Navnee or Ballu never played with the neighbor kids and Prito never exchanged sweets at festivals or the typical household gossip with the other women in the street.

Threats from Extremists were nothing new to the family but the way of reception was. For Lalaji and his family, the meanings of life had become different – it only included threat, fears and apprehensions.

The heart beats became faster with every thud on the haveli da kotha and shadows passing by the windows.

Some days back, on a Divali Festival night, when haveli da kotha was illuminated with candles, a headless cow was hung at the haveli gate by some miscreants.

Lalajiji spent two nights in Police Lock up and paid a fine of Rupees 500 after being arrested by the local thanedar (police) over a false complaint by a villager involving intimidation.

Prito didn’t come out of the haveli after she was denied the right to take water from village well, as she was a non-muslim, hence a kafir (non believer).

Once over an argument at shop, Lalaji was threatened directly to instruct his family to accept Islam or to leave the village.

More so, last year, two buffaloes of Lalaji were burnt alive on being suspected to be possessed by Shaitan (the evil).

One day, when Lalajiji’s was not well, Navnee went to give him lunch to his shop. But she never returned. She was abducted by the extremist group and Lalaji was given a final ultimatum to accept Islam.

Next day, Navnee’s headless body was hung at Lalajiji’s gate. Daughters had replaced the cows now for the Lalas.

Cremation of Navnee created another ruckus, as the mohallawalas (villagers) didn’t allow Navnee’s body to be removed for cremation, but wanted it to get buried.

Lalaji, Prito and Ballu stayed with the decaying headless Navnee for nearly a week under tremendous terror, when finally Lalaji decided to dispose it off in his own Haveli da kotha (the roof of the house).

The family was attacked again by the villagers and consequently, Ballu was arrested on the charges of disturbing the peace and tranquility of the village. Everyone talks that he was reported as killed in an encounter while attempting to run away while on his way to Karachi Court.

The very next morning, Lalajiji caught ‘Samjhauta Express’ and took Prito along with him to Amritsar, India, thinking that it was the last samjhauta (compromise) of his life.

Three monsoons have shoved off Lalaji’s haveli.

Haveli da kotha still smells of ash- ash of Navnee’s headless body, ash of Ballu’s anguish, ash of Prito’s silent sufferings and Lalaji’s helplessness.....

Disclaimer: The story is a work of fiction. The characters do not exist, except in the mind of the author. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead is purely coincidental.

Men after drinking :)

(This article is dedicated to my HK Brother Subro, who suggested me to write about this and my HK friends who became my inspiration- in- ignorance :P )

“What soberness conceals, drunkenness reveals.”

Don't know how far it is true, but they say a man generally won't lie after he is drunk (noteworthy, am being diplomatic when I say, they speak truth).  “A man's true character comes out when he's drunk”, experienced Charlie Chaplin.

Don't know the science behind or if at all there is any. But the probable logic behind is your mind loses its control and your tongue gets directly connected to your heart.

Probably, that’s the time when you don't have to bother with the question running at the background of your mind-why this man is speaking this. All you have to do is to lend your ear to him and just copy all the data without doubting for any virus in it. Just like you have got the access to the shared folder kept at the back of the mind of the person’s subconscious.

Probably alcohol helps us get rid of our apprehensions by making us forget them! Psychologically speaking, men drink to experience the unknown state of their mind. I remember, in my CBSE syllabus, we had a chapter on Dr. Simpson who explained how, in the absence of anaesthesia, the wounded patients were given alcohol before they were operated. Is that why we say we drink during pain or when hurt.

I too have got drunk heavily, but my mind was almost in my control. I never pulled that feeling over my mind- thanks to my inhibitions or the Indian woman mentality.

My earlier memories of ‘too much drinking’ pertain to the time when I was a kid. There was a group of drunkards. A group of men belonging to Himachal Pradesh, Haryana and interior Punjab. They were in the foremen category. They were given khaki uniforms from dad’s office, and used to work in night shifts. Every morning, I used to hear watchman hitting the ground with his lathi, and abusing in the patented Punjabi mother-sister screwing gaalis (the meaning of which I didn’t know then) and then the communication leading to an affray. Those khaki jump suits clad men will be swaying, their eyes closed, talking to themselves and complaining about everyone while trying to fathom which way to go. This is how I used to think all foremen were, until I got to know that it was alcohol speaking out of them.

I narrated this story to emphasise that men behave differently when they are drunk.

At Holi, my favourite Indian festival, it used to be a big fun. But when I was a teenager, we were instructed not to play Holi outside the colony as there will be all drunken men. So, my question is, if a man is a ‘true he’ when drunk, so why will he bother other women/ girls at that time.

I must also mention about our Indian weddings, where (especially in Punjab) offering booze is a status symbol. There, a line could not be drawn between not-so-sober and sober ones. You could see men sitting next to you and talking. A man known for his dumb personality becomes a babble mouthed creature and the other one lends his ear to him. Such agony aunts (I mean uncles) will be sitting on every corner and sharing how agonised they are. The stories of sacrifices, lost love, guilt crippling one’s heart and yes, cheating- aah!!

“An intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend time with his fools”, says Ernest Hemingway.

Men sharing greatness of their mothers, men complaining about their fathers, to parentless men, all kind of unite in the ‘I want to express my heart out’ exercise.

The quantity of alcohol getting mixed with the blood is directly proportional to the beauty of the girl sitting opposite to the man J. As in the words of Winston Churchill, “I may be drunk, Miss, but in the morning I will be sober and you will still be ugly.”

So, does alcohol uncover the true man inside us or does it make us a different person altogether.

Also, more importantly, men forgetting what they said, shared, unveiled what secrets to whom- in their memory database, no such files exist. It somehow goes for an auto delete.

And, before I end this articles, I must remind- a drunken man will never confess that he is drunk (probably to stress that his words should be trusted).

In any way, let us say-  Cheers!!

P.S. The words described as men are not gender specific. They include women too.