** Chapter : 3 **
Wistful evening at dunny
If summers of Delhi are sweaty, if winters of Delhi are frosty then monsoons of Delhi are bewildering and unforeseen. Even if there are no clouds, even if sky is crystal clear from nowhere sky will break down on the earth pouring the capital of the county with the gallons of the water, roads will be blocked due to water on the streets and many will end up spending their nights on the roads, in their cars stuck into the traffic. But, still I loved the Delhi monsoon. Here was I standing in my gallery, the sky was pouring down in its full fledge. I was playing with the droplets of the rain, as they fell from the sky; I was trying to catch them. Each drop will fall into my palm; roll from the top of my palm to middle of it, twittering over my little palm, will merge into the little pool of the water. I gathered the rain droplets till it started to over flow from my palm. Monsoons always brought a six year old Ipsa back in me. A Six year old Ipsa, her mother’s intelligent to be doctor girly, her father’s darling daughter and her brother’s ……………………….. I just threw the water gathered in my hand in disgust, my brother’s reminder always made me upset, he was the one chapter that had troubled me since I was six. I rubbed my eyes with the watery hands, something was itching in there, was it my past? A buzzing cell drove my attention.
“So How’s Miss. Vaidya, no news since long. Hope you are alive.” Satva was there on the call; his smooth voice brought a little smile on my grimy face.
“Alive as of now..!”
“Oh, someone is sounding grimy, all well?” I wondered how this guy guessed it just from my voice
“Nothing, you say how’s you?”
“Nothing much on my side either, Second Home was remembering you by the way.”
“Oh really..!!”
“Yes Ms. Vaidya. So, why don’t you join us tomorrow as we celebrate its birthday?”
“Oh, wow….!! Tomorrow is its birthday? I will surely come.”
“Good then tomorrow, four in the evening we all will await you.”
“It’s a deal, captain.”
Just within the span of only one month, Second Home had actually become second home for me. Whenever I had ended up there, it welcomed me with both its arms spread like a mother, in the lap of it; I felt serenity as I felt in the womb of my mother. In very short spell I had become Beta for uncles and aunties and Didi for all the kids staying over there.
The whole place was festooned with the flowers today, aroma of the blooming roses was blooming the atmosphere, music was in the air along with the thrill and eagerness of seventy year olds mixed with buzz of ten year olds. Satva surely had found some sponsor for the event, I guess.
“Didi, Hows you? You didn’t came whole week..!” A sweet little angel looking girl in her fairy white frock came and hugged me tightly, Pari is what we all called her. She was cute, innocent, sweet and my favorite at the second home. I just put my hand in my purse, she saw it and her eyes light up. She knew what was coming out of it, a Yummylicious and tempting Dairy milk.
“Hey Ipsa, welcome..!” Satva finally got some time to notice me; he was in his dark blue tee and ruffled denims looking pleasantly eye-soothing.
“Hello, I hope I am not late.”
“Can you ever be, Ms. Time Freak?”
“Ms. Time Freak?” We had a round of laughter as I made a canny face on his comment; I knew he was correct, I was a bit time freak. His Cell rang, he just excused himself a little away, his expressions changed from soothing to being serious.
“I have not asked you to call me.”
.. … … ………. ………… ………….
“So what? I will call you when I need to talk.”
…………. ………… ………………..
“No issues, it’s you who will take care of everything, all the arrangements from my side have been done. I will be away next week; you make sure you finish the task satisfactorily to the high command.”
……………………….. …………… ………….. …………
“I will contact you once I am back. Take care and god bless.”
……… ………… ………….. and the call ended, this very moment I realized, this is not the Satva I know. My guess when I met him first was correct I guess, he has multiple layered personality and not all the layers I know, only few which are visible on outer surface are known to me.
“Sorry Ipsa, was an urgent call, work related.”
Oh, the Satva I know is back; in a jiffy. How can he control himself so much, a moment before he was someone else here he is back to the one I knew. Satva’s waving hand in front of my eyes, broke the flow my thoughts. “Where are you Ipsa?”
“Was wandering in the world of my own contemplations, let it be. What were you saying?”
“Are you free next week?”
“Next week?”
“Yes, actually I am taking everyone on a trip; I was looking for a women coordinator. In case you join, that will be great, I won’t need any outsider.”
“Trip, oh great..! Where?”
“Dunny Islands, it’s in Gujarat, near beyt dwarka.”
“Sea?”
“Oh, you already sound excited.”
“Ocean is my all-time favorite, on any given day I am in to meet the sea.”
“That’s great. We are departing on Friday night.”
“Done dona done.”
The main attendant brought the cake, nice dark chocolate cake was making my mouth watery. My eyes were stuck on the dark brown colored chocolate dripping cake, as if a cat’s eye is stuck at nice healthy mice. Chocolate was one of my weaknesses, and here I was directly exposed to it.
∞
I didn’t know, where I was standing. But the place was dark, not much light. I guess I was standing in the midst of a dense forest. Smell of wet sand was in the air, strong wind was blowing. I was able to hear the crackling of dried leaves hurrying alongside the wind, moisture in the air was evident too. The atmosphere was rainy, but it wasn’t raining. In some far distant place I was able to hear a jackal crying. As I glared towards the sky, moon wasn’t present there, but a few stars were smiling at me. There was not even a single cloud in the sky, how can it rain? I thought, though it almost looked like it will rain in a few moments only. As I looked bit around me, at distance a hill stayed tall and sturdy.
“It must be raining on the other side of the hill; we are under the shadow of it.” A Masculine voice broke my attention; two hands blocked my eyes from the back. The person wanted me to guess, who he was. The voice was very known to me, the soft touch he had on my eyes too was identifiable. Someone very known and close it was, yet I was not able to know, who he was. I just ran my hand over the hand on my eyes, the hands were bare, he wore nothing on his wrists either. I was starting to feel a bit agitated, a sweat drop rolled past my neck, brushing my left ear on the way.
“Who are you, I am not able to recognize you.” No reply came, the silence was frustrating, the crying jackal was also becoming more and more audible. I just stood there, waiting for reply. I opened my eyes; the hands over them were disappeared so was the person standing beside my back. I hurriedly looked here and there but no one was there.
“You didn’t recognized me chhutki, no one ever recognized me.” I was only able to hear the masculine voice. “You didn’t even recognize my bare wrist, which are waiting for Rakhi since a long.”
The wind blew at the speed higher than normal, few more leaves hurried along. I wasn’t able to get from which direction the voice was coming, It was just getting diluted in the air, I looked in my pockets, a rakhi was there, since I was six I carried it in my pocket with a wish to found the wrist to tie it. Today I found it, but was not able to recognize it. I stayed there with a flabbergasted mind and beautiful rakhi in my hand. I saw a figure running away from me, a manly figure; in the direction of the hill. I ran behind him, trying to catch him. He was running without any aim or thinking of any direction he was just running, I too was running, trying to catch him. I saw, a big hooded figure rising from the hill, Bhaiya was running straight towards him. The hooded figure was laughing; he knew his victim was directly coming to him, bhaiya just kept on running. I wanted to stop him, I tried to shout but he didn’t listened, he kept on running. He was within the reach of the hooded figure now; he took out a sword from its case. The shine of the edge of the sword reflected in the eyes of the hooded figure even on the dark night. He laughed out loud, so loud that his laugh echoed in the forest at least thrice. Mercilessly, he took the sword, swung it in arch from left to right and stabbed deep into bhaiya’s belly.
“Bhaiyaaaaaaaaaaaaaa…….!” I was in the temporary tent, sweating heavily. It was dark, breeze was flowing strongly, it was making the jute tent flutter. We had arrived today evening only at the beautiful Dunny Islands. I was feeling suffocated within the tent, I just came out. The soft sand of the beach touched my legs, The Bay of Khambhat was growling, the only visible light was far away at the horizon, I guess it was of Reliance Refinery at the Jamnagar. My lips felt dried up, I ran my tongue over, they tasted salty. I was at the sea shore, the most bolstering place on this planet earth for me. I just sat on the shore, the sand beneath felt icy, the sky above my head was crystal clear, I sat there glaring at the stars, my mind started to calm a bit.
“અહિયાં નયન માં ઉજાગરા ની રતાશ છે, ને આભ માં છવાય છે લાલી સવાર ની.” – ““Eyes have reddened due to non-sleeping overnight, while sky is colored red with the colors of the morning.” Satva came out of his jute made tent, named dolphin. He looked fresh, his hair all disheveled, I was sitting at the shore. The view out there was more than a picturesque. The sky was colored in deep orange shade, a little of red-hot sun was visible at the horizon; it was trying hard to come out of the roaring ocean. It seemed that the sun was trying hard to come out, but it was gravity which was not allowing him to come out, the battle was on Sun vs. Gravity. Waves were thrashing at the shore, they rose slowly from the middle of the ocean, picking up the pace as they raced towards the shore. The atmosphere was serene, I was here since last night, hadn’t slept whole night yes but this sea had calmed my mind in the process.
“Good Morning, Mr. Poet.”
“Very good morning madam seems you hadn’t slept whole night!”
“Company of waves and stars is a rare joy, in fact a blessing for me.”
“Joy – is sometimes a blessing, but is often a conquest.”
“You are too smart with the words.”
“Words can only be as good or as bad as the thoughts they convey.”
“Smart Buoooyyyyyyy…!”
“Colors of your company madam, nobody is born smart.”
“Excuse me, who said nobody is born smart, we Leos are.” We both laughed, he went towards the jungle area to freshen up in the company of nature. Slowly I started to feel the human presence around, a few more people had come out of their tents, Sun had won his battle against gravity, as the price of it, his monarchy over sky was about to begin. I decided to throw laziness away with a little walk over the shore. As I walked on the shore, with my boots in my hand, my feet half drenched in the sea water, coming waves to the shore felt like massaging my foot while algae on the shore was giggling over my foot, it made me smile a bit. I had seen, since a morning a guy was standing over there at the shore, in his sky blue colored t-shirt and dark blue denim. His hair were all ruffled, he wore that old fashioned Karamchand Jasoos fame glares, thought it suited him. His skin tone had turned a shade or two, duskier coz of sun and sea, I guess. He looked fairly striking; there was a smile on his face, a placid smile. He was there since a while, glaring at the sea waters, enjoying the wave music.
“Trying to foresee something at the horizon?” my inquisitiveness drove me towards him.
“No, the view over there is blurred and I believe in clarity of thoughts.” He smiled back at me.
“Good one, Hi I am Ipsa Vaidya from Delhi.”
“Heya, this is Unnat from Ahemedabad.” He extended his hand for a hand shake
“I noticed you are standing here since a while, my curiosity drove me towards you.”
“Oh yes, actually we are going back today after lunch. So, actually trying to breathe the entire ocean in one deep breath.”
“Oh, you are going back today. We just arrived last night.”
“Try and enjoy every moment, you won’t know and these days will slip away, just like this.” He took a little sand in his hand from the shore, it just slipped from his hand, flew with the air.
“I will remember that, captain.”
“Captain? I am just a stupid common man, madam..!” The atmosphere got filled with our glee, I believe whenever we laugh or smile, moment freezes for a while. And this was one more of those frozen moments.
∞
Oh, boy..! It was the tiring day even at the vacation. Finally we had some relief, in the morning we had long sea bathing. Then from there we had a technical session about how low and high tides happen with the gravity forces of moon. From there we went for a beach combing session, where we saw one of the most beautiful sea-life with various types of sea vegetation, some sea anemone, jelly fish, star fish, ghost crab and corals as well. The sun was about to set, the wind was beginning to feel colder, stars had started to appear in the sky and darkness had begun to spread over the shore of Dunny. I just changed and got out to seat at the swing at the shore in the company of the windy sea shore.
“Someone is looking gorgeous.” Satva was already present there.
“Tumhara noor hai jo pad raha chehre par, warna kaun dekhta mujhe is andhere mein.” – “It’s your light that has enlightened my face, or else who will look at me in this obscurity.”
“Ahem…Ahem..!! Someone is catching up with my poetic way.” I took my seat on the swing with a proud smile on my face, Satva facing me.
“Thanq.. Thanq..” I blushed
“Why are you looking bit uneasy, any problem with your neck?”
“Yes, I am having a stiff neck. Is it apparent?”
“Oh..!! Can I help? If you don’t mind, I can help you apply ointment or something..!”
“Thanx re, but I will be all well..!”
“C’mon Ipsa, won’t go any further down from your neck, promise.” He said making such a canny face, made me smile.
“E….E… Hasi to Fasi…!!” He rushed into his tent to get the ointment, a few moments later he appeared with a while colored tube in his hand. He asked me to take a seat on the sand, while he adjusted himself on the plastic chair. I took my hair from neck, placed them in front side. He took the ointment in his hand and started to rub it around neck. I moaned a little; wonder it was pain or the touch of his masculine hand. He slowly started to rub it on my neck; I was sitting at the edge of my breath. I don’t know why, just his touch was turning me on, I was having Goosebumps, pain in my neck was nowhere in the consideration now. My breathing was becoming hefty; I don’t know what was happening to me, this had never happened before.This was a new feel for me, altogether a new feel, a heavenly feel. I just closed my eyes to anticipate what was happening, and it was a surprise, I saw a guy I met at the shore today – Unnat.
“Try and enjoy every moment, you won’t know and these days will slip away, just like this.” A little sand flew at my face, as the wind played with the sand. I remembered his words. I just opened my eyes, turned around and looked into Satva’s eyes, they indeed were hallucinating.
“What?” He was stunned, I just without saying a word, placed my lips on his. I think, this should have been part of a romantic Bollywood movie, heroine kissing the hero with fading evening, huge sun diluting into the sea water on the sea shore, how romantic.
“I Love You Satva….!!” The smooch ended with the words, I normally would have liked him to come out with, but he stood there shocked, he didn’t knew which bomb had stuck him, he just stood there bomb shelled. A moment passed one more and even one more. I just stood there, anticipating him to say something.
“Tum parvana ho mein shama, kareeb aaogi jal jaogi. Aur me tumhe jalane ki aag me har din jalta rahunga.” – “I am a fire while you are a butterfly. Don’t try and come nearby or else you will be burnt. And I will keep on burning whole life for burning you up.”
“Didi..!!” Pari came in running from her tent, leaving our conversation abruptly unfinished.
** Chapter : 4 **
Wretched soul of the heart of the country…
Everyone was fast asleep; all the lights in the bus were switched off. Though it was just 8:30, everyone was tired after a wonderful three day marine camp at the Dunny Islands. It’s different; I was altogether in a different state of mind. Still that bomb shelled Satva was standing in front of my eyes, reluctant to tell anything. I wondered if I hurried in voicing my feelings, should I have waited a little more to let him be comfortable with me. Satva, sat just in a row next to mine, I gawked at him, seemed he too wasn’t sleeping either, but pretending to be asleep quite well. The Driver applied sudden breaks, I was so lost in thoughts; even before I can realize, my head banged with the seat in front. Ass Hole…! I realized, Pari was sleeping besides me; I tapped my head for untimely swearing. Satva immediately stood up from his seat, Look, I knew he wasn’t sleeping. I too followed him down. Scene out there was a bit surprising, barricades were set up and not one or two or three at least twenty to twenty five or even some more police men were standing in attention, as if we were in the final stage of a video game. I don’t know why but all of it didn’t give a good feel to me, my cell rang.
“Ipsa where are you?”
“Just entered Delhi sir, why what happened?” It was my boss from the Hindu, he was sounding very much uneasy, something was wrong for sure.
“Just half an hour back, there were two bomb blasts on the Rajiv Chowk Metro Station and one at the Shivaji Stadium Metro Station. Is it possible for you to reach Rajiv Chowk?”
“Oh F**k…!! I will be there ASAP.”
“Thanks Ipsa, you are a sweet heart. See you there.” I just hurriedly put my cell back into the purse, took out the press I-Card and hung it around my neck.
“Satva, there are serial blasts in Delhi; I am moving, see ya later.” I said it on the go, without even waiting for Satva’s reaction, looking for the Auto. The Delhi seemed in mayhem, agitation was palpable on the every face. Each person was either calling or texting someone to inquire that they were unaffected by this horrendous act. As my auto moved towards the Rajiv Chowk Station, panic hit faces increased, I guess my face too stood identical.
The Rajiv Chowk Metro Station was all in wreckage, everyone was running to find a face which was known to him, but was not visible to him now. Fear and panic was visible even on the face of the policemen, but more than panic it was the feel of being helplessness. They knew these bastards don’t have the courage to face them directly one on one, so they target these innocent people. I found the sir waiting for me over there only. We entered the premises showing our Press I-Cards. The scene inside the station was disgustingly terrible. The atmosphere was filled with the tears and blood, the air smelled of burnt soul of humanity with the piquancy of explosive added to it, sobbing of the relatives of the demised echoed into the station alongside blasts. Even metal scrap of benches and other metal items present which were turned into a big debris due to blast there was drenched in the blood, a hand lied here and a leg there, the sight was ghastly horrific.
Valiant medical staff was trying their level best to find the ones alive and get them into the stretchers, to get them at nearby hospital from the heaps of the bodies that lied lifeless, what was their mistake, why they were killed so brutally, why? Even before I realize, tears shaded down from my big eyes, I had never ever felt these much pain before in life, nor did I see such brutality before, and nor did had seen these much blood on the floor, so much blood that it numbs your nerves and wits. I just stood there, being the witness of all the anarchy; my wits had given up, somewhere from my subconscious Lataji arose with these words:
“Humse na dekha jaye barbadiyo ka sama, Ujdi hui basti me ye tadap rahe insan,
Nanhe Jismo ke tukde liye khadi ek maa, Baarood ke dhuen mein tu hi bol jaye kahan,
Ek tu hi Bharosa, Ek tu hi Sahara……..”
“I am not able to see this atmosphere of annihilation; Human being is suffering in this shattered colony. A Mother is standing, holding organs of her children. Where to go from this smoke of explosives. You are the only faith, you are the only backing.”
After a while, I came out of the place, with sore eyes due to constant crying. It was almost two and half hour passed, still the panic was same if not more since I stepped here. People had gathered in bunch outside the place, Police were trying hard to keep the public away from the place. The various news channel correspondents were also there with their cutie pie looks and their camera men to cover all the latest breaking news on the blasts.
“I think this is the collective failure of UPA Government, first Banars, then Pune and now Delhi. Three Cities, so many blasts, so many lives and yet government is not able to stop the cancer of terrorism. Our Security agencies have failed to provide us security, while going for a job we don’t know that we will return safely. This is Disha Sharma, with cameraman Rakesh Dhruv, Anytime News, Faster than the fast.” I frowned at a cute looking girl, who didn’t look so cute with such humdrum comments live on the Television as of now, Is it the time to blame people? Is it the time to blame our security agencies? It is amazing how every Indian feels there is problem always in the system, and we always have someone to blame at. All the time we need someone we can point fingers to, for misleading us, looting us, dividing us and keeping us backward, and our media has played a huge role into it, God Bless India. I rushed out into the car waiting for me to drop me at a place, I was required as of now, an urgent meeting awaited me.
Select Page below to Continue Reading…
