Before She Left.

 

As he looked at the people around him enjoying themselves at the annual autumn fair, he wondered where his beloved, Pari was. She was going out of town for a couple of days and had promised to meet him before she left.

The sun was playing hide and seek with the clouds shining in the golden light as the day was drawing to an end.

He checked his watch, it was almost five. He smiled as he watched little children play near the beautiful blue lake beneath the oak trees that grew tall and strong.

He closed his eyes as the soft autumn breeze caressed his face and thought about her. He could recall each and every detail- her silvery voice, her big blue eyes, her luxuriant chestnut-brown hair, her dimply smile, her pale skin so clear that the bluish veins were almost visible on her delicate wrists and hands, her long neck and her adorable, absolutely adorable non-stop chattering.

He opened his eyes and laughed as her some long-forgotten silly joke came back to his mind.

Silly girl, he thought to himself and smiled again.

“You called me?”

It was her, he could recognize her voice anywhere. He turned around and there she was, smiling gloriously. Even after all this time, he could never prevent his heart from skipping a beat whenever he saw her.

“Finally!” he pretended to be angry, crossing his arms on his chest.

“Aw, sorry! I got stuck.” she grinned, “I’m here now.”

“Hmm.” he smiled. He could not get mad with her.

“Come,” she said, extending her right hand.

“Where?” he asked, holding her outstretched hand tightly.

“You’ll see.” she smiled her mysterious smile.

“Did you miss me?” he asked, childishly.

“I miss you each moment I am not with you.” she pouted and he laughed.

They walked slowly away from the crowded fair. He did not know where she was taking him, nor did he care. Knowing her, it had to be something beautiful or important or both.

Another gust of breeze made him sneeze and he looked in his pockets for a handkerchief but in vain.

“Here.” she said, giving him one from her purse.

“Thanks.” he smiled and planted a kiss on her cheek.

“Have you ever thought what you would do without me?” she asked playing with his fingers.

“Why would I want to even think about that?” he questioned, surprised.

“Oh, come on! I just asked. Don’t look so horrified!” she replied, her smile, for once, not lighting up her eyes.

She turned away her face before he could be sure that he had noticed some anomaly.

They had almost reached the end of the cobbled path which gave way to the dusty and then the metalled road.

“Why are we going out of the fair? I thought you wanted to take the rides, eat rubbish and have fun?” he teased her.

“Yeah, yeah. But, there is something you need to know, first.” she smiled her ‘new’ smile again.

Before he could ask her anything he heard some commotion. He looked around and saw a crowd gathered at the turn of the road. Some thing must have happened.

“What’s going on there?” she asked.

“No idea. Come on, let’s see.” he said pulling her.

“I’ll stay here.”

“What?”

“You go, I don’t feel so good.”

“What’s wrong? Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” she smiled, “you go and see what happened.”

“I can’t leave you here!”

“Go,” she kissed him and pushed him away.

He walked away, a bit confused. A huge silver truck had skidded into the opposite lane at the turn, crushing the black BMW convertible against the mountainside. The car looked oddly familiar as he closed in on the scene.

The police were keeping the people from coming too close. The ambulance siren grew louder as it got nearer.

He let out a horrified scream as he recognized the wrecked car. Two policemen stopped him from coming closer.

“Let go off me!” he shouted.

She was scared, that is why she did not want to come here.

Suddenly, he stopped struggling. He turned around and, there she was, exactly where he had left her. The wind blew her hair and her pretty green sundress. He could see every feature of her very clearly, as though she was standing merely inches before his face. He smiled and she smiled back, so beautifully that it stopped his heart. She raised her hand a little and waved slowly.

 “Look, they’ve finally managed to take out the body...” someone from the crowd spoke and he turned around again.

The body was grossly covered in blood.

“Pari!” the words choked him.

He was bewildered, his head spun.

He looked around, but could no longer see Pari.

“Pari!” he screamed as he ran towards the body.

His hands were drenched in blood as he snatched her body away from the stretcher.

“Pari!” he wailed.

She had not broken her promise, even though she had died. She had come to see him before she left, for ever.

Her life ended. His world ended..

__________________________________________________________________________
About the author : Subtly expressive, with that bowtie smile. Thoughts whirling and winding but most of them lost, she is a writer without ink and quill. A doll, with a beautiful face of porcelain white and many dreams; a mystery to many – Henna Multani, and such a sweetheart to me.

Happy Valentine’s Day, love!

"Prisha, you know, I keep dreaming about you," Sahil says. "You're out jogging around the park in the morning or reading some book or you're just laying in bed with a bad headaches." he stops rocking his chair.

"You are so gorgeous, with your hair fanned out on the pillow petals of a flower. That delicate curve on your wrist bones when you pressed your thumb and middle finger to your temples to stop the unbearable pain in your head. You'd not move, tangled in the white sheets, like a body at the morgue came back to life, unexpectedly", said Sahil rocking his chair backward.

"You laid there all day, always still; cradling your head in your hands, fingers crawling on your face like spiders to ease the throbbing. You'd barely eat anything but crackers but you'd still smile at me when I stood in the doorway watching you. Years spent like this, the occasional headaches that left you bed ridden", and Sahil rocks his chair forward.


"And one day you were not here, anymore. Your headaches were spent in the hospital, with those white collared depressive nurses and doctors and choking tubes and beeping screens. The white sheets weren't the same as the ones at our home. They were too starched and stiff. I remember, you said you missed our floral purple curtains, the green walls and the softness of the pillow.” Sahil kept rocking the chair, mindlessly.

”I went back home to get it for you and when I returned, you were not in that bed and that helpless look doctor’s face just said “I am sorry for your loss” and then I was asked to sign some papers and they put you in a box, into the dirt."

Sahil stops rocking his chair as tears rolled down his cheeks.

"Happy valentine's day, honey."

Don’t just buy, zap it at ZAPstore.com.

An online buyer for the last 3 - 4 years, I have tried buying everything from flowers to electronic gadgets. Without taking names here; I have had many bad experiences online - some delivering the wrong product while others eating up my money. But since the last one year, my online shopping experience has improved considerably with other new websites in India. Recently, I was introduced by a friend to a new electronic online store – Zapstore.com where you “Zap” rather than just “Buy”. What caught my attention was their unique innovative model of online retail, a good variety (but not large) of products and a customer friendly interface.

Talking about originality, Zapstore has a very distinctive and interesting selling method. You can either “Buy” the product directly  just like any other online store and you can ‘ZAP’ it.  With these Zaps, which are like bids – your gadget price starts dropping so you can actually buy your product less than the market price being offered (around offline or online). For dumb freaks like me, this whole process can be a bit confusing, but the Zap team has been sensible enough to explain it in a very sensible manner through a flow-chart and a video  : http://zapstore.com/how-to-zap.php

 
As they say, what looks good would sell well too. And this is quite true about Zapstore, the website is clean unlike most other Indian e-commerce websites which are filled with flashes all around the place making it difficult to focus. The catalog is not exhaustive but I guess they have just started off, I am expecting they would have much more to offer us in the near future.
They also offer free-shipping all over India.  And what is better than the option of having to pay when you get the order delivered to you!

Being a blogger myself for sometime, I am not someone who’d just blindly believe anything a website says. Price for the NokiaX2-01 phone was less than what I could find at Nokia’s very own brick and mortar store and other online shopping websites. Zapstore has also mentioned its registered office address and telephone number right there. Though I hope they start taking calls 24*7, you see I am a night person!

This is a webstore with promising future as long it maintains what it has shown till now. Being easy to use, with flexible payment modes and timely package delivery; it is already setting a new benchmark and trying well to break the average Indian customer’s inhibition of online shopping. Overall a good and promising innovative online electronics gadget store; definitely recommended. Checkout Zapstore.com now!"

And she is..

"She is the kind of beauty that talks in whispers,

Slipping under the blankets and
Misty on the window glass,
Hesitant and still,
Looking for cloudy moonlight
Shining stardust on the bed-side.

She’d creep up to me and yet I notice it only when she's right next to me,
Or her smooth lips brush against my neck, but..
God!

She is..."

"Subtle?
Resplendent?"

"No,
She is an epitome of unmatchable beauty.
An Angel trapped on this earth,
A bit of oblivious,
Becuase you never know, what she is thinking next."



"She is yours?"
"No!"

"Is she his?"
”No!”

"She is no one's, but mine!"

”Just mine!”

On her birthday..

15th February, 2007.

She had been meaning to ask him this question for a couple of days now. But, one way or the other, her aim was thwarted. However, today, she was determined to bring it up.

Her phone rang. It was him.

“Hey, baby!” she chirped.

“My princess! How are you?” said a happy male from the other end.

“I be gooooooooooood. How be you?” she spoke, deliberately in wrong English.

“I am perfect, beautiful!” he laughed.

“I’ll be twenty-one, soon.” she began.

“I know.” he smiled.

“Do you even know when my birthday is?” she teased.

“Yeah.” he said.

“When?” she asked.

“Twenty-fifth” he answered.

“Twenty what?” she questioned.

“Twenty-fifth. Isn’t it?” he said.

“Oh, yes! Absolutely.” she grinned.

“You are scaring me now, Anam. Am I wrong?” he was worried.

“No, Raj. It be twenty-fifth only.” she grinned again, “how did you remember?”

“I remember the twenty-sixth because it’s my parents’ anniversary. And, this is how you had told me to remember it.” he said, a bit unsure.

“Good boy.” she smiled, “so, what else?”

*****

24th February, 2007.

“It’s not your birthday tomorrow?” said Raj, incredulous.

“Shh!” she signalled him to lower his voice as the people at the other tables in the cafe had started staring.

“What? Your birthday is not on twenty-fifth but on twenty-seventh?”

“Yeah. Look, it’s not a big deal!” she tried to calm him down.

“I fucking forgot your birthday and it’s not a big deal?”

“You did not forget it, baby! You were just a bit confused. We’ve been together for only 6 months and, honestly, we’ve been too busy to talk about birthdays.” she giggled.

“You are actually laughing?” he was taken aback, “Girlfriends or wives are supposed to wreak havoc if boyfriends or husbands forget their birthdays!”

“Oh, come on! We had never actually talked about it. So, technically you did not forget. I just mentioned it in passing when you had told me about your parents’ anniversary.” she smiled.

“But you remember my birthday.” he pouted.

“Oh, well, I am perfect.” she grinned and he could not help kissing her.

“I am sorry.” he said.

“Oh, shut up. Don’t ruin my kiss.” she said and pulled him closer.

*****

27th Feb 2011

“So this is why you’ve two birthdays now?” asked Kajal, Anam’s friend, laughing.

“Yeah.” Anam smiled happily.

“You honestly were not mad at him?” Kajal questioned.

“Not really. I felt a li’l bad but then I remembered that I had never told him emphatically.” Anam grinned.

“My silly angel!” said Raj, as he kissed the top of her head.

“Babyyyyyyyyyyy!” she jumped up in joy and hugged him.

“My goodie bag!” she squealed as she took a huge, cute paper bag full of presents for her birthday and a bouquet of red roses and white carnations from his hands.

“Happy twenty-fifth actual birthday!” he grinned and kissed her.

“Thank you,” she said, “And, must be twenty-five roses this year, right?” she giggled, in between kissing him.

“Hmm mmm” he mumbled, not willing to stop kissing her.

“You guys, get a room!” Kajal rolled her eyes.

“You girl, get out.” laughed Raj while Kajal rolled her eyes again.

“Is there any moral or philosophical conclusion in this story, Miss Philosophy Major?” Kajal asked, sitting down, flipping the pages of a magazine.

“The moral of the story is,” Anam began and paused to clear her throat, “that you can have presents twice a year for your birthday because of someone else’s mistake if you are smart enough.” she laughed.

“No, the moral is that we can make happy beginnings from silly things.” smiled Raj, embracing Anam lovingly.

__________________________________________________________________

About the author : Subtly expressive, with that bowtie smile. Thoughts whirling and winding but most of them lost, she is a writer without ink and quill. A doll, with a beautiful face of porcelain white and many dreams; a mystery to many – Eos Cullen, as she likes herself to be called in public.