Romance through years

“I fell in and out of love with every girl in my village during my late teenage years. But those days a boy and girl never spoke to each other. “

The above lines are by the hero from one of RKNarayanan’ s short stories, if my memory serves me right.

So, can it not be true for a girl to be in and out of love with boys in various stages of her life?

I Reena(name changed) can say that I was one of the above. Today being a mature 25 and married to Mr. Handsome, I can be classified as “happily married”. My loving companion is on a tour, so for want of anything else to do, I go on a nostalgic journey of my little loves. My first romance was during the ‘primary school’ years. This means till you are 11 or 12 years old. Although not much remains in the form of memory, I remember this boy with dimples and a cute mop of hair. He was my little hero. I felt we suited each other on two issues, both of us short in height and both skinny. It left me in tears each time the teachers changed our places in class but never made him sit next to me. I hoped each year that the next class I go to, I would sit next to him. But it was not to be. So my admiration for him was from a distance. To tell the truth, I don't remember him looking at me even once. I know I agonised over that. Then one day I noticed his palms. He had skin peeling off them in round white patches. On top of that, they were very sweaty too. If I remember right, there ended my romance during primary school. All my years were wasted I thought. I should have looked at his hands earlier, wherein I could have transferred my attention to the next cute boy there was.

Well after this sad story, I moved on to ‘high school’. This is where you spend the first half of your teenage life. All of us girls, maybe the boys too were proud that we were all grown up to go alone by public transport or bicycles to school. No more being shepherded into school buses I thought. Some of us had younger siblings, who were forced to put up with our pride that we were now different and superior to them. The environment, classmates, teachers were totally new but it took me a very short time to fix the love of my life. Actually I think there were two handsome boys and I would switch my affections from one to the other. This depended on who was in the line of my ‘sideways vision’. I will explain this. The class was divided into two rows. Girls were seated in one and boys in the other. The side glances could only bring a few bodies into one's sight. So when we changed places which was mandatory, only one of them would remain in my sideways vision. Another very important point was that girls were too shy to even look directly at 'that row’. In my heart I hoped they would sense my silent affection although I didn't think what I would do if someone told me something in the nature of “I like you”.The mills & boon romantic novels fuelled our imagination that there will be romance one day. Then one day I caught one of my hero glancing secretly again and again at a beautiful classmate of mine. His betrayal made me curse him and I told him to go to hell, mentally of course. My high school years gradually ended and the tragedy of my primary school continued.

Now the next stage was set. We 15 and 16 year olds were stepping out of school and entering undergraduate “college”. I was finally rid of my uniforms. But faltered & blundered with my dressing, although this realization is an afterthought, 10 years late. My assumption that I was glamorous enough to hook a line of boys turned out to be too far-fetched. I managed to catch the eye of a mad fellow who followed and frightened half the girls in class. Finally we heard that after he had turned his attention to an influential father's daughter, he was put in jail.

There were such a large number of boys and girls in class and in the entire college that it was like a confusing kaleidoscope. Suddenly the boys were all so tall that even if I courageously looked, it would be at the flared bottom of their bell-bottom pants. Moreover we girls were advised of the ‘keep boys at arm's length rule’. This was also an age when the boys looked their ugliest, to me. But we girls thought that we were very attractive as we were in our sweet teens. Maybe it was only in our homes we were regarded so. According to many of us,there was thus only one way, the girl would have to be wooed by a love struck boy. But ‘arms length’ turned out to be a very great distance and difficult to cross for them that they only resorted to staring (they had become brave enough and crossed the glance line). So then, the two years turned out to be uneventful and overdressed except for some stray cases of a brave boy approaching a ‘mod’ girl only to be told off. Girls turned their attention to the new entrant, a box in our lives. The television programs where we got to see men too courageously in the proximity of our homes but at a safe distance too. 

My line of thought is cut short as my dutiful husband checks to see if everything is fine with me. He was not satisfied with the dreamy response but said bye. I shall stop at this juncture to maybe continue the remaining 7 or 8 years of romance. 

Lights Beckon

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Games are over

friends gone.

Anticipating night,

twilight switches on

Heavy the air

With unknown fare.

Patch of light from
wooden pole with bulb alone.
Insects swirl
around its pate,
drawn to its glare
in a frenetic way.

Wings soon scorched
tar below beckons,
writhing body
later dead.

A warning to beware
of lights a glare?
If at all blinded
become not shrouded.

Can be taken as a story of the flies we used to see on bulbs. They would fly close to the light after dark. in the morning all that would remain were the wings on the road. The fleshy part being eaten by other prey and even collected by neighbours who would cook it.

Can also be interpreted in a way we Indians grow up with sayings about treading carefully in life especially when attracted to flashy, attractive things and circumstances

My post in Sulekha  http://creative.sulekha.com/lights-beckon_472294_blog

Atop an Antenna

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“Why do you cry your heart out?’ I ask of the Parrot that sits at the top of an antenna opposite my flat. I began noticing this cry about two weeks ago. Initially, I used to hear a squawking every evening. One day after straining my eyes out of the window, I saw this bright green, beautiful bird. To me even his first sounds seemed like a painful cry. I say this because I have heard the high pitched excited screeching of a flock of Parrots flying near the house many times to know the difference. They used to dive, glide, chase each other and make plenty of noise.

But this lonely majestic bird sounded lost. I would say this to him….

Why do you cry, little one
 painfully cry
A call to your partner
 Loud and clear ?
She whom death tore
Away from you or..
Your bonds having come off
 You don’t know what to do.

Why do you come, when
dawn is new
Crying out, for me to
 Listen to you
I fail to bring relief
 For you,
Even though you daily
 Remind me to.
Oh handsome one!
 What do I do?
Who else is there
 To hear you plead

I wish to hear, no more
 Tomorrow,
Hoping you have
 Lost your sorrow.
But call out anew, afresh,
 On every morn that dawns.
Live. Dear one,
 Let strength return
In your hidden heart
 That throbs and burns

(As he sits on the silent steel, he does not know that they just receive signals and do not transmit them. Wish they did.)

This poem of mine was posted in :http://creative.sulekha.com/atop-an-antenna_472288_blog

The scared Little Girl

The little girl could not sleep. She did not know why. Everyone in the house was fast asleep. The dogs' howling did not scare her. In fact the sounds calmed her as she knew they were dogs. Even during day, when many of her friends screamed or stood in fright on seeing a dog, she calmly walked past as if knowing by instinct that keeping calm was the best thing to do. But tonight like many nights; she slept still as, if shifting even slightly would bring the focus of the face at the window on her. She slyly squinted one eye and tried to focus into the darkness through the windows. Now she was sure no one was there, but then again there was a doubt. So she quickly shut her eyes and sometime must have fallen asleep as she heard her mother shout out from the kitchen to wake up and get ready for school. Some days she mustered the courage to close the window but it did not help much. She still could see a man. Sometimes with a moustache and sometimes not. The glass distorted the face and it looked disgusting. For some periods during the year, a mosquito net was draped over the bed in protection against mosquitoes obviously, but the little girl was not free from the man at the window. The net only made her squint harder to check if the monster man was there. Sounds of leaves, wind or rain did not chase this obstinate man away. Sometimes she shivered in fright under the blanket. Going to the bathroom required a great deal of courage and her eyes would be fixed on the tiny windows all the time. But she thought she was lucky as the face never appeared in her bathroom window. As she grew, she started assuring herself that the face was imagination after all. She sometimes rebuked herself for having been such a stupid. Once in a way, she would bravely go to the window and look out nervously daring the man to appear. This helped and she could read novels into the night. But there were still times, of the frightening lurch in her heart as she looked at the window. When the lights were out, she would suddenly wake up from sleep with a lingering sense that the man had appeared and had stared at her again.....

BEING INDIAN WITH CHANGING TIMES

Residing in the south of India, we were exposed to a new entrant two years ago in the form of a newspaper. We were soon lured and anticipating novelty combined with low price into subscribing to this age old, established paper. After that, our days changed. We seemed to have a lot to 'debate', as our television hosts love to say.

First of all, an English paper, whether an answer paper for an exam or the daily diet of news, will lose a lot of marks for wrong spelling. So when every page has horrible errors, I leniently cut only 25 marks.

Now let's see from where this paper reaches us. The paper states that it is Coimbatore edition, the exact city where I reside in. What does that mean? I want to hear more about my city and state. But what do I get to read.? Only a rape, murder, accident or chain snatching and an occasional genuine researched article. Unfortunately their ads to promote this new paper turned out to be more creative than the content. Now I have to cut marks for poor choice of content. Maybe 30, as at least the state of Tamilnadu gets a better mention.

There are certain things that I abhor in this daily.

The first one being, the only major headlines(at an eye-catching, top spot with a font size 14 !) in 'global' page will invariably be the love life of some famous or sometimes obscure person from film or television media in a globe which usually has only America in it. It sometimes carries disgusting quotes like 'some lame x would like to sleep with some y, an lmn singer is back with her xyz boyfriend'. Is being obsessive about boyfriends and girlfriends called 'being in tune with the times'?

Then to grind this sort of 'being modern' into the reader, there is another boxed section with a lot more of global private life. For this trash in the main paper, I would give negative marks but that is not usually permitted. So let's leave marking out for this.

There is serious political stuff in its insides if you love to read totally subjective views written  in the name of reporting. For example, During poll campaign for Gujarat elections, the editorial frantically turned into an advisory board  for the Congress party on how to counter the Modi juggernaut. They seem to have taken the 'scion' under their wing, protecting him when he is criticized. Another thing is that, sometimes reporters use vile language to address people who they do not like, which I see as being arrogant.  For all the above issues I will deduct 25.

The paper conveniently sources articles from the Internet and fills in its supplements and Sunday pages. Never mind if it is not relevant or is culturally irrelevant to us ordinary Indians. There are porn actors quotes, diet advice which has fruits like grapefruit,(how many people know what this is? ), kiwis in it.  Is this a paper brought out in India, for Indians you wonder. All through the 2 years, I may have  seen only a countable number of authentic advice given by indigenous professionals, as if there is a dearth of such people in our country. For this 'easy way out' attitude, I will have to cut remaining 20 marks.

To this null score,  I have to add a positive and that is peace of mind I now have after switching to another daily which thankfully is by indians and for Indians like me. I do not even miss the debates, in fact we begin the day with a clear head! 

Moving from D to C

Expanding D to C : Doha to Coimbatore

As preparations to go to the home land for the anual two month vacation drew near, plans changed drastically and it became a shifting of the entire base operations permanently. And so, loading the plane with about 150 kgs of our belongings, we boarded without regret but only anticipation (except for the youngest member of the family who had many a question, also making it clear he would miss many people, places and things) And so, yet another phase of my life closes, only to begin in the land where I was born. The stint in the gulf ends. The IMAX view of the sky has been replaced with a 70mm one. There is no sea here and the various awe inspiring shades of blue and green that was visible from the terrace. The silence that was totally enveloping and round the clock only to be broken by our own activities; has been sacrificed for quiet only at night.

As I write, the background has a variety of sounds. For one, the discussion of some men painting in the neighbouring compound. The horns of all types of vehicles, especially the buses and their running engines come through to the house from the road which is 25feet from the house(luckily). Then there is this constant conversation going on which I am enjoying. It is in varied pitches. First of all I can hear a whistle like constant soft sound over which there are sudden bursts of a cough like noise. Before I carry on, I want to say that these sounds are the chattering of energetic, winged and feathered aves class of vertebrates from the tree whose leaves brush against our balcony. Now the deep and resonant call of the cuckoo on this Gulmohar travels a long way to be returned with a reply and soon the brown spotted male is joined by the black female . The crow which is also squatted on a branch gives his ‘caw , caw’ joining the Myna and the sparrow occasionally, although seated alone and at a distance from them. Today being cloudy and cool, all of these feathered friends seem to be enjoying themselves. I can now hear a scraping sound which I think is the squirrel which seems so busy scampering, pausing and running off. The pigeon which seems happy not to leave the corner of my bathroom window makes his characteristic booming noise.

New sights, sounds, smells will replace almost 4 and a half years in Doha. There will be fresh inspirations, beautiful experiences and challenging adjustments and here I am ready to gain new memories to go alongside the older ones.

I am 10 years old

(A short story for kids)

My age has One and Zero in it. This year(2010) too. I feel they are the two most important numbers. I imagine the number One as straight and single. Single like the One Sun and the One Moon that our One Earth has. It is really unique. Now I’ll tell you what I feel about the Zero. Zero to me also stands for the Sun, the Moon and the Earth. You may wonder how they can be one and zero because zero means nothing. To me they are like the zero as they are all round, hugely round.



I love all the three Ones or Zeroes that I have mentioned. But it still puzzles me that in the vast sky, when the Sun appears, the Moon disappears. But I have seen the Sun and the Moon together sometimes, one to the left and one to the right. Is it like my Mom says, ‘I am the opposite of my brother’? Are they enemies most of the time, I wonder? In my home my one father and my one mother live along with me even though they are enemies sometimes. So I imagine the Sun as the father, Moon as the mother and the many, many stars, their children all sharing a same home which is the sky.


I have not yet spoken about another single, unique, round object. That is the Earth. The pictures taken by astronauts orbiting the earth are all blue with clouds but the globe on my desk shows me new things everyday. There is a big dent on my globe which has made the Americas go into the earth. This dent was caused when my brother and I fought over a football and the ball banged into earth just like a meteor


I ask myself whether I should make Sun and Moon my current heroes as I do not have anybody, although it may sound stupid to my friends. I think I should leave out Moon and only choose Sun, as I feel Moon cannot be trusted. On some nights she is perfectly round, which I love. Then it is like a half eaten biscuit and at other times like a lonely ‘smiley’ mouth. Oh, well! Then I shall make only the Sun my hero. I feel he rules the whole world, unlike the many Presidents and Prime ministers who head only a small part on earth. He is always bright and radiant. I’ll forgive his scorching habit as he is fierce only for two or three months in a year. The clouds, rain or dust sometimes try to overpower him but they fail to drive him away permanently. When he wakes up and passes his wand in all directions, we wake up and when he goes to sleep, in a few hours we also sleep. I have learnt that it is due to him that we have the chlorophyll filled greenery on the earth. As I heard someone say, he helps life to go on. Till I turn eleven next year the One(1), round(O) Sun is my hero, when somebody else may take his place.