So said the Sea

I see the vastness of these oceans and I look at my bare foot legs, wet with the oceans longing for me. Not that I waded into these waters deliberately, not that I heard it's call and responded as in a dream. These waters came searching for me.

As the showers spray salt shatter break breach surf and roll, I feel like the sea, rushing to lose myself among the vastness that now surrounds me.

It is time to lose a bit of me. It is time to change a bit of you. Of what use my dear are these two separate identities?

Roller Coaster Ride

I have felt your heart fluttering as my fingers made weird random design on your palm. No, you don't have to tell me what I do to you.

It's just a small bit of all that you do to me as well.

The Dream Within A Dream

I had this dream. I had this dream that I was floating on a cloud and you were with me. From the mist of wayward dreams, I could feel your fragrance engulfing me. Each time I was confused and frightened and lonely and sad, I could see you pouting at me. The sun was but a glimmer and the birds were catching wind. The dew drops seem to have turned into a translucent liquid, and they were staring at me.

And when I opened my eyes. I could feel the softness of your lashes, as they lovingly brushed against mine.

The Wedding Trousseau and other Short Stories

If you were to mix an Ekta Kapoor with a Munshi Premchand and add a dash of R.K.Lakshman to it, you will get an Ankita Sharma.

I just finished reading her book of short stories and discovered a very different Anki from the mellow blogger I have followed for long.

The Wedding Trousseau and other short stories is published in India by Humming Words Publishers and contains eleven really short and widely diverse stories. However, there is an invisible thread that connects them. They are all stories from our everyday milieu. The protagonists are all people you come across everyday. The frustrations, the taboo's, the deep rooted social norms, divides and beliefs and longing and mystery and laughter, these fill each page. From the abject poverty of a Chottu to the blatant hubris of his memsahib, from UFO sightings to a drunk wife beater, these stories make the ordinary, extraordinary.

My best wishes to my favorite fellow blogger.

And for those who wish to order online, it is available here or here.

You can read Ankita's blog here

The smoothness on rock faces

What happens when waterfalls dry up? She asked me one day.

The steady deluge turns into a drip and then down below, it leaves muddy memories from the time when all was well. The parched rocks smolder and dries up the last memories of the water that once fell from above. And then there is dust and death and silence and waiting... And waiting.

Who waits Raj?

The universe, Princess. The roundness of the cavity into which water once fell, waits for its purpose. The smoothness on the rock faces nurses its hope and waits as well. The spawns and the lichens and the catfish and the lovers... everybody waits Princess.

What if water never falls again? What if the river has dried up for ever? What if it has changed its course? Will they still wait?

They will Princess. My universe will never accept that possibility. It survives on perpetual hope. Hope is good. It nurses convenient memories over generations of adversities. We hope, therefore we are.