Normal

"Why are you like this? Why can't you be normal?"
"I don't know what qualifies as normal."
"You know like other people, people who want an ordinary life. Marriage. House. Car. Kids. In that order."
"I think my life is pretty ordinary."
"No, you're crazy. You want crazy things."
"Once I get my driving license, I will be on rung#3 of ordinary."
"Then you'll find something else, random."
"I'll drive a stick shift."
"See..."
"Sticks are cool."
"Why can't you want what others want."
"You expected otherwise? You fed me all the stories of your mother and her adventures and how happy you were doing what you wanted. I want all of that freedom."
"Sounds good in stories. Who would've thought you'd take it so seriously and turn into a gypsy."
"Sometimes being Bohemian is conforming as well, only differently. But to be honest, I am not addicted to the idea of being a nonconformist."
"Still..."
"Ma, all I ever want is to not be afraid of wanting something, regardless of whether I get it or not..."
"You take after your grandmother."
"That's a compliment."
"I think we gave you too much freedom."
"Too much freedom? No Ma, am tied, as tied as tied can be."

The first date

The evening had been fantastic. The friend who set them up had been right about how much they had in common, though to others they looked like a very odd couple. She a fair brown woman, he a tanned white man.

Coming to this Indian restaurant was his idea. A common friend had tipped him about her foodlove, and what better time to experiment with Indian food than with an Indian woman. She chose an assortment of curries, letting her fingers do the talking, while he struggled with the unpronounceable names. Soon after, he started melting into a puddle of sweat. She poked fun as she saw him through different stages of red, blushing coyly at his miserable state.

They walked back home on that quiet winter night. When he stopped at her doorstep, her heart did too. He had this look of urgency in his eyes, will she invite him in?
And she did. She was nervous. His stomach rumbled.
As soon as the lights were flicked on, with a moment of quiet hesitation, he pooped the question: "Can I use your bathroom?"

Riposte

She wishes she had listened to her mother when she told her not to believe that man.
Heartbroken now, she swears that she'll chase him down to the end of the earth and not rest till she pierces his heart with her sword. The heart, only the heart, and nothing else but the heart.

--
She stands facing him, eyes bleeding rage and bloodlust. They engage in a dramatic duel. Years of training have given her the agility which the world would be envious of. Reflexes, on the other hand, can't be acquired - one needs to be born with them.

He swings at his opponent, who barely dodges the blade before launching her own attack. She retreats a few steps before slashing forwards. Swiftly, she lunges and aims her sword at his chest. He bends backwards. She misses. The sword slices his gut instead.

Content, she skips down the winner's path. For though she has missed the bulls eye, the promise has been fulfilled.
Her mother always told her, the real way to the man's heart is through his stomach.

Reviving Romance

To cure her headache from last night
he placed on her palm a pill-
the morning-after poem.

Because we need a superhero story.

Once upon a recent past, in a tropical island not so far away, there lived a girl called, what else, Tomoko. Of unparalleled goodness, niceness and sweetness. since she was a girl, and this has started off as a fairy tale, it obliges us to have a supervillain called evil-stepmama-san.
The evil-stepmama-san, the aerobics instructor, made her do all the work at home, and at her studio. But it kept Tomoko slim, and she didn't complain. And then, Tomoko decided to have other plans. So secretly, next to the cinders, she hatched her great plan of getting out of this mess, and finding a superhero.

She decided to cheat, and looked through the phone book, for all the alliterative names. And after rather bad attempts of making blank calls to people called Bunny,Bugs; Duck,Donald and Parker,Peter she found a name she thought sounded imaginary enough to be that of a superhero. [But I can't tell you what it is, because it would make it his story, and that would be unfair. And we will save his story for another day.]

So she packed her clothes, and her precious glass slippers and gladiator shoes, and set out to find her superhero. After a long day's journey in public transport, she found a little shack called Namastay. As soon as she checked in, she fell asleep. And as soon as she fell asleep, she started dreaming. And her fairy-godmother, poco coco, [a fashionista - Her aim in life is to eliminate all badly dressed people. But we will save her story for another day too] came into her dreams and gave her the message. She told our darling Tomoko, that the Cinderella look was outdated, and to ensnare the man, she needed to dress the part.

Latex body suit - green. She didn't care that sticky latex made her hot (not like thaaat) in that equatorial weather. Next, she coloured her hair an envious shade of green, and wore red lipstick on her grin, (taking inspiration from Joker, who suddenly seemed very popular). And she got a purple cape, which apart from giving her the superhero aura, , also served the purpose of keeping her warm, when the air conditioning froze her to the bones.

--End of story, maybe--

The process

So the plan was quite clear, thus spake the Engineer/MBA. He charted it out for me neatly on a piece of paper. He excelled at spreadsheets, that kinda stuff you know. This is how he put it:

#define Start date T April sometime.

Start chatting;
T + 1 month: we will send pictures to each other.
Iff (all goes well) /*meaning, she doesn't get a heart attack looking at his pics*/
{

2 more months of wooing;
Early part of the following month, he proposes;

If( she says yes) {

Jump up and down ten times;

For(the next three months) discuss if we should get married?;

If (OK) then {

For(one month) - discuss when to get married;
loop for One year {
swimming and sinking in love;
If (End of next year) get out of this stupid loop;

}

Check(bank balance);
Tie the knot;
}
}
Happy ever after;

Bloody geek. Wants everything to be perfect. In order. Six Sigma compliant. Cant go wrong. Only 6 defects in a thousand pieces. In a million, the nitpicker would correct you.

Thankfully Love, as Tom Robbins said, is the ultimate outlaw. And it had other plans.

So then she called, and said she had sent him the pics like he had asked for, for which he had cooked up a silly excuse like a hard disk crash, and that she had Paneer butter masala for lunch which was too spicy.
And thankfully, the process crumbled.

Eeeesshh. Shilly phish, the two of them, I tell you.

With their parents blessings, they will probably elope today. I am keeping my fingers crossed.

Kee Kando.

Somedays, I am not so cynical about the world. And I am kind. And excited.

[PS] I know the brackets dont match. Its okie. Its fine.

Once upon a time.

A fairy tale sounds better with a head full of wine than with a belly full of beer.

Beer makes one full, content.
Wine, on the other hand, has a sense of emptiness. The kind that can be equated to unrequited love. The kind which is reticent. The kind that needs unnecessary elaboration. The kind for which volumes need to be written.

That day, holding the glass by it's stem, sipping on her wine, she swore on the emptiness of her once-upon-a-times.
And emptying the rest of his pint with a quick swig, he promised her the happy-ever-afters.

Happy ever after.

The moment...

Another attempt at a shortish story.
---

Sitting with his head bowed down, he could see her shoes, through the glass table. The heel of the right shoe had worn off unevenly on one side. A reflection of her unsteady walk, his vagrant observation reasoned with his conscious thoughts.

She looked straight ahead into emptiness. Emptiness, in this case, consisted of unknown people at the crowded coffee shop. She had chosen to sit next to him, so she didn't have to look at him in the face. He didn't have to look at her either, but he chose to steal glances, and occasionally, held the gaze out of greed. From the corner of her curious eye she could sense him trying to understand her blank expression.
She, the stoic. The emotionless fool. The one who had nothing to lose.

How do you ever talk to such a person? They thought to themselves in a rare moment of resonant thought.
She fidgeted with her spoon in an attempt to distract herself. Picked up a grain of sugar, and put it in her mouth, perhaps to add flavour to her bitterness. In symbolic protest, he let out a sigh and fidgeted with the silence.

For with all the comfortable private moment of togetherness, they had two more people sitting at the table, a pair of twins, identical yet fraternal. One looking at him in the face, one looking at her. And do you know who they were? Those two were the embodiment of their past - one his version, and one hers.

And there was no use reconciling.

The moment culminated....
And there was no going back....

A ruined tale

She waited for him at the gate. After 7 minutes and a few seconds of impatient scanning of blank faces, she spots the tilted head she was looking for. They meet in the most unlikely of places.

The moment comes, they hug. Fill their lungs with each others scents. Exchange a moment.

"Beer?" "Of Course!"

Sitting on the tall chair, she kicks her shoes. "I hate 'em"

The world takes over, people walk in and out of the conversation, loves, hates, likes and dislikes get their 15 seconds. She tries to narrate a story. She ruins the punchline.

Like she ruined this one.

Weltschmerz

I am tired ... Now I will just chase someone else's utopia.

So, Jessica Lall died, eons ago, and the supposed killer(s) got off unscathed.
She died in a room full of people.
They say, the blindfolded lady in robes with the weighing scales died 7 years after that incident.
In a room full of people.
Some people died of bird flu, and some others of gastro. All within miles of each other.
In a far away land, a dictator died of natural causes.
Is that a matter of choice?

And then the chicken died. Culled, they say.
Cows have gone mad.

Some individuals and their identities were murdered.
Some others died in character the other day.
Some thought processes too.
Some expressions .
Weak ones.
Culled.

Blood pressure drugs reduce risk for alzheimers'. Jogging alone is bad for health. Antibiotics cause asthma. Antibiotics cure asthma. Chillies prevent cancer. Coffee causes heart attack. Coffee prevents liver cancer. The risk for Cardio-vascular disease is directly proportional to the circumference of the waist. Circumference of the waste.

Is that a matter of choice?

I don't know how to deal with death. I have lusted for life, always. Reality and utopia, between them have a disparity. Despair-ity, which I don't understand. Hence, today, I chase someone else's utopia.

A Fiery love story

She was a-little-over-four years old and he exactly a month younger than a-little-over-four. They had been friends for the longest time possible and spent all their time together.

He learnt this little trick of holding a matchstick between the forefinger and thumb, balancing the matchbox on the back of his hand, tossing it up in the air and striking the match. Its quite a feat, if you know how to do it right.

One day they were playing under the bed, and he decided to demonstrate his prowess by demonstrating this trick. Somehow the matchstick slipped, and the "modha" (the small cane stool), which was carefully hidden under the bed, caught fire. Before they could control it, it rolled over and the bedsheet caught fire, followed by the whole bed.

So he, the one with the trick and the intelligence, asked her to get some water to douse the fire. She, the one without common-sense, found a soap dish: the wrong half, the bottom half. Obviously, by the time she would get to the room the water would fall through those little drainage holes in the soap dish.

Girly Girl panics and screams "Aag". Parents come to rescue.

They get fired.

It was a bad accident, a misadventure that could have ended badly... Thankfully, both of them got off unscathed. And lived happily ever after.

One scar however remains: This story is often narrated as "They set the bed on fire".

Yes, they struck a match at four.