Monthly Archives: June 2021

THE SHOEMAKER AND APPRENTICE

SHORT STORY

PART-1

One will never think that this will be the ideal day in life till one witnessess that with two eyes. Sometimes the most beautiful things, the noblest of gifts, the friendship that one has been expecting all along these courses come most unexpectedly. This was also in the case of Titian the shoemaker. He had been an apprentice to the ablest of craftsmen in the town from the age of nine when his dad unexpectedly succumbed to a terminal malady. And he was in the fifth standard then and his mom told him to find a job and he got the apprentice position with pocket money of 200 rupees a month, an endowment that the head Crispin gave to all the three of his apprentices. The head shoemaker married twice and his eldest son from the first marriage was also in the shop to take care of the trainees under him. He had divorced his first wife but has kept his son by his side. He loved his son so much but was quite tough in his dealings with his son and taught him the lessons of the trade the hard way. On quite a few occasions, he banged the boy mercilessly too, not because of serious transgressions like stealing or fraud but the boy was casual about the hide and parchment and other goods kept in the storehouse for the making of the shoe. The gentleman’s footwear were some of the best in the market, and he put a mark in his mother tongue as a signature but it was of no use, as counterfeit shoes soon came in the market with the same signature in the same curves and casual impression of the original one. Still, the customers could easily identify, those who had worn his shoes earlier could easily identify the original from the duplicate.

The boy was honest and the episode took place when he went to the second show that started at 10 P.M. And ended at 1 A.M. He went to the theatre on a bicycle and after that slept in the corridor in front of the store as usual. But on the special night of the robbery, the door was not locked properly and it led to the theft. The boy was in a hurry to see the film of his favourite heroine and hero from the first scene. And the movie started with a stunt scene and the boy never missed the first part.
The theft occurred and he apprehended that his papa would be angry and though he had the portent the dad would be fierce, he could not foresee, the latter will hit him and this the dad did liberally. This was additionally because the gentleman had taken a loan on interest for the expansion of trade and was already at default for a couple of payments and was desperate. But in the evening he cooled down and bought the favourite sweets of the boy with an additional small bottle of sherry. But the lad was defiant and did not accept the sherry and the chocolates and instead advanced to the same movie once again. Readers- What do you think about the dad and the son? When I gave the initial draft to a few associates of mine, one man told me that such irresponsible boys should be beaten because they do not know the travails of their parents while bringing them up. A lady told, second shows in our family nobody goes for second shows, you are inviting the attentions of nocturnal beings by such an irresponsible action. One expert in bringing up children said that since the boy is not yet eighteen and a minor(he was just seventeen and two months) he should get permission to leave at such a time. He should be taught the basic manners at home at an early stage. One gentleman who was my classmate in school years, but whom I lost touch with him and had contacted recently and as he knew from somebody that I write some silly stories, he had asked me to send my drafts before publications. This gentleman was a frequent traveller, and when I asked his opinion he told me that the boy was perfectly right in his actions and in case he met the dad, he will punch his belly into pieces. Who is the hero, he asked later. And I told the name of the actor. Then he replied that the boy should go to that cinema and see the actor in performance and also, that the daddy can receive another advance and pay it leisurely since seeing the film at such a point in life is critical. And meanwhile, this cavalier was also the hero’s devotee. I wrote back in a side note that as a man I also thought likewise, though as a writer I must support all my characters no matter how wicked they are, and though I would like to estimate differently at a private level, to do so in my fiction will be quite naive and as a writer and as a human being, many of my present beliefs may be flawed and I am also in a learning process. “Are you Milton? “, he asked. I said that though I am not as great a poet as Milton, the attitude in this regard, the question of impartiality, is the same.
So this is some of the backgrounds of the story.
2
And I did not tell you about the second partner of the shoemaker and this order. His second spouse was most stunning and possibly fifteen years younger than him and he wedded her instantly after the separation. He already had a boy by her and this breach took place when these accounts appeared in the newspaper. The evening daily reporter made investigation reporting and discovered the (famous ) shoemaker’s secret life which cost him his matrimony. But the shoemaker was not discouraged. And took the other affair and got a breakup and espoused immediately.
The brick had put the offspring by his secondary wedlock in a leading college in the city and his intonation and lexicon are excellent. You may question how I grasped his articulation and diction. I happened to meet him once in the workshop when his sibling and dad had departed and it was a temporary office for him. I had gone there because a pair of footwear I purchased (I am his client ) from his store was hurting my toes severely because the sponge he used was of moderate quality.
Regularly when you wear his shoes you get the sensation of your caring companion holding your hand, but this was like your chief foe holding your hand in a bombastic decent way. So I went there to submit a question and he persuaded me that the shoe is indeed fine, and now and again your dispositions when you walk will influence the agony or joy you get while wearing the shoes. “Were you going for a meeting?” He asked. Indeed I was. I had stopped a job and was looking for another and I was truly wearing the shoes that day. “That is it!”, he told with an enthusiastic grin, “Honorable man”, he proceeded in his best compliment – ‘ ‘ There you are,” he said, “You should change your temperaments as opposed to changing your shoes. On the off chance that you are intrigued, I have an alliance program for that “. I said-”I will consider it” and returned home that day considering how to talk like him in the hardest of circumstances.
………………………….

NOVEL-PART

Fellows entered the room with beards of Stradanus.(As an aside, I went to the hot place to write this story ). Local newspapers at a corner on cracked rosewood table.Vasari wandering through the lives of painters. Galleries. Again Titian, the monk with a book. The wind was calm when he reached the riverbank, a current that passed under a bridge. And befitting.

Bookshelves like folds of intermittent layers of limestone and chert in the shape of Grecian folds. Kids coming from the park. He had to jump and enter. Windows were glassy. One could see grass and amidst the flowers, some yellow, some red, he dug the soil and found the tone of earth, brown. The chrysanthemum days over. She came this time newly dressed. In Madagascar, children playing violin.

I got the Eleanor Roosevelt book as a present. In school days. The club secretary was faraway kin from dad’s side. With his family, he went to a classical film in school days. Perhaps that was the first time that he travelled in an auto-cart. They were jam-packed, still, the trip was enjoyable. Often he would sit on the back curved seats of the gallery and read books. Once he read a soldier’s story. In the club, there was a small but good library. We would be shown free films by the Films Division. Sitting on the ground, we would watch the movies.

…

The city, or rather a town, the hottest in the region, temperature 40-degree centigrade, most of the time except winter and rainy reason. Small roads, the main centre is but a mile broad and a mile long. He eats raw eggs then, his mentor’s wife wrote, may not be good clinically, check it out. He had a problem swallowing. The same ground, parties used for meetings in the evening. He went there in forenoons Once after coming to the historical river, that he had read in geography titles, was amazed at the beauty, the calmness and the unusual breadth of banks. He had a family ritual to perform, he did it in honour of his father. He didn’t know if it was right or wrong, but he did it. He took it as a few moments away from work and schedules to remember his father, bask in the thoughts of his humble father, how they went to a small circus, how while walking home from a friend’s house at eight o’clock night, he, his dad and mom. He felt sleepy, after passing his friend’s house, the fellowship terrains, Swamy’s bookstall, He introduced his old friend, he is old B. A. He introduced his young friend, he is a new B.Sc. mirth, laughter after a decade or two Swamy also bought a farm. That season notwithal he was walking home, on the same sand, grit and gravel trail by the millpond with steps that went deep into the water, where his dad lifted him and walked home when he was drowsy and couldn’t push further.

 Crash of a project, loss of fortunes, weight went down by ten kilograms, the backers apportioned his tract and took out the money and in the same seasons he bought two books of Edith Wharton and read. In the evening he would go to the bookstall, covering the head with a shawl as if he had a cold, to escape from creditors, but bought books and read it. And a money lender offered him a sum, discouraged him, a good man if it is for business take, otherwise don’t, you will be in trouble. This moneylender was kind, He was an old experienced chap. Didn’t want to spoil the life of a young man. He wasn’t exactly young. He was forty-three, a junction in life, you are neither young nor old, you think experienced, but you’re not enough experienced to know the mind of all types of people on earth. That you need additional years, at platforms, dormitories, railway waiting halls, the whole night, ask the lady. It is not always a story of just passion, some had, but others involved in some frustration, a deep wound in family, a tale that is hidden, much more.

 You must have the brain of a snake and the heart of a dove, mom said. He tries to get the heart of a dove, the brain of a snake he found is not an essential commodity. It is plenty, and he could seek help. But, then it is a lengthy tale involving several detours.

At forty-three you are losing your youth but not on the wise edge to understand all the brains on earth. It needs some more glimpses, further journeys, some rechecks, some trashings into the bin. Some more inquiries, unexpected responses.

 Is it true? At the sweet stall of his countryman. Again in the hotel. On the other end of the phone” dad is reading a book”. And the small town was girdled by crags and boulders. When the sun was high in the sky, the rocks became hot. He would read in the reading room and the people outside spoke a tongue that he could understand but cannot reply. The man said-Put the signature.. Yes, just that though probably a bit late.

…………………

NOVEL-PART

The educator says what will befall on the off chance that you don’t have some trade. Nothing. We will endure. Our sinews and ligaments made for enduring. He goes to the next veer. Takes the transport and again pulls out to the woodshed. He had been sitting tight there for an ampere-hour. Downpours. Some more holding up at the bus depot. Also, he had another trade. A provider had offered an agreement. Now and again it is hard to endure. If you have the wellbeing to move, the world looks fine. Indeed, he thinks he has that.

One day he was coming from the library. He was at the xerox centre for getting the notes for his part-time. student. On the way, the old woman halted. You have something on your head, where he asks, the nape, the woman mumbles. Also, lo that is the rundown cyst he had in his families, his mom had and surprisingly a few individuals from his mother’s family had. They endure. These cysts are anything but harmful, I trust, he said. Indeed, perhaps not, however, I am not a clinical lady, the old woman guarantees. She is drab, however, the eyes have a radiance. At a bus stop, in a group, she may stick out. Or then again was it his imaginative mind?

He was of late gaining from animal psychology. The psyche of a creature. He had never been a creature darling, however, he got extraordinary and afterwards, he began learning, the Chinese variety, he got it following a month. Also, this spurred me to find out additional. Perhaps a similar brain did Darwin compose something about his involvement with the zoo. Possibly the canine or elephant can feel, be pitiful, burdensome or be whatever the human psyche can pass on. The felines it is known, (said ) communicates outrage. It is a similar psyche. At times animals turn frantic. There are that various states of enunciations, however a similar psyche.

At Kathie market, he met the Unami specialist and had tea and afterwards went to Jaime gallery behind common courts. When he additionally went to courts. Another a backer. He joined to converse and conveyed a bereavement in the family. History changes. Rehashes, flush the mug and fill it again and down it, then, at brief duration splash and rinse again and stuff and drink once more- his approach.

• (Excerpt from a fictional work )
• 

Sketches – Author

ART OF FICTION

[Aesthetics]

Fiction is timeless. Fiction indirectly tells the truth. That is why fiction is relevant. It does not offend . In good fiction, there is a subtle garb.

Thousand and one nights is pure fiction. So nobody is offended. Instead it saves a population. In Poe, the story is more fact than fiction and the king is deluded. He could not enjoy it, So the end of the storyteller. If somebody asks you if you are a good woman /man and in case, you are a good woman/man and tells that you are a good woman(man), people will be offended. They will mock you or throw stones upon you. So you do a good action. And better tell it indirectly or by parable, so that people are not offended. You can criticise people in parables. Writers have done it and have escaped. But some facts in the fiction juts out and people take it as a breach. Since nobody is authorized to judge another, you can reveal certain things, that is in you, in another, it is the same thing, the precious human mind. So it is relevant. To judge. No. It is not anybody’s business. Especially not a writer. If a writer judges, he is in trouble. It has happened. He has to stop writing and do some other job for a living. We cannot judge anybody correctly. The weapon that is pointed on the other has another side against oneself. So it injures, both, the writer as well as the reader. So judgement is not the way of fiction. Perhaps in a treatise, it may be relevant. But one has to edit that tract from time to time, as values and standards and laws and cultural differences are many and evolving. Nobody can tell ultimately that eating with both hands is shoddy. We cannot even say that hitting your mother is a bad thing. Because all the mother hitters will make your life miserable. Some mother hitters even think that they are doing a virtuous act. So the writer can only portray them. Then the mother hitter will tell that such and such a writer has written a nice or bad fable about their daily trade. But slowly the poison/medicine may disseminate without them knowing. Some mother hitters will stop hitting their only mother because that writer had succeeded in his work. Mostly the mother hitters do not grasp that the account is about them. Even when they know it, they savour the story. They may think that they have got a reprieve. That is the victory of the author. He wants the parent hitters to read it and when they hit her next time, their hands will tend to be macilent or weak because the story has crossed his nerves. The writer tells the posterior tale exposing the whole process of that movement, the behind the view emotions of the event. Some of them have witnessed that or done that. So she knows better, she had felt or was in the crucible and luckily escaped the dying heat. So that writer is a valuable member of the society she lives in. And again, some stories should be written by everybody because it is therapeutic. 

Some stories are to be written by everybody if not published. It is a good exercise for the soul. It is equally therapeutic.

It is almost similar to the story of Poe of Scheherazade[THE THOUSAND AND SECOND TALE OF SCHEHERAZADE], the narrator meets with her doom after the tale that is probably true. The original storyteller succeeded in overcoming the depopulation of the land by her cleverness in the art of concealing. Poe consciously gives a twist showing another probability to the well known tale.

Some facts are stranger than fiction. Some people are crueler than we could ever imagine.Likewise, the opposite. The writers’ business is writing. Without judgment. To judge is to take an anonymous load. It is risky, but ultimately a writer’s choice. Because a writer is free. Some facts of our times are stranger than fiction and the writer deals with such themes dexterously. Otherwise, he will invite trouble. Again the same theme of responsibility. All stories cannot be written. And all are not meant to be. Some stories are like love letters. They are very private. They are not to be published in full. You cull out portions from it and exhibit and they may enter the other zone of geography/time. We have a lot of talks. So good fiction need not address the present-day audience. Maybe even written for people to come. 

They entertain and also, eradicate doubts, and join together hostile families belligerent groups and lost friends. They have a beautiful wave, they talk to offenders in a non-legal term yet explore the potentialities of language.

Sometimes, sheer Truth is not palatable, Fiction is not offensive. Fiction is corrective. It serves another goal, it unveils the mind of the writer as well as setting a chord, it is restorative, the author also enriches from its choice returns. Fiction, good fiction is entertaining as well, and it could seek to another level of our being. 

I feel that it is more moralistic than the moral books in the sense that it puts a canopy on the truth. In case the fiction addressees to some pitfalls in self (the writer himself included) or the society, it hoists the spirit. It does not just allow the time to be dissipated that way. Our time is perhaps the most estimable commodity. It does not report directly, Do this, do that-. On the other hand, it acts as a mirror. You know what to do. It does its job slowly. Good fiction is based on true emotions, and our emotions are true when it occurs. It can see through hypocrisy, and that is one of the reasons that the writer writes, to give clarity to his feelings, and when he writes about a feeling, he posits redemption. Certain routes that are propitious. If you discourse plain religion and its jargons, it will be appealing to one group but offensive to another. But fiction could screen Truth and give it to the reader, the selfsame thing that the sacred text aspires to dispatch. There is a sort of benefaction. And the reader is equally active when he reads the Fiction. She doesn’t know what she is reading and is corrected. The good and bad side of fiction,- It could hide poison as well as medicine. It depends wholly on the writer. Readers can benefit from so many angles, but it is as vague as the flows of life. In this sense, it is the highest art. Music is deep but acts another way. The symbol is different. Music is more like an intravenous injection. Art and stories are like healthy potions, sometimes it may take time to act. But it will act. Readers are always partial. It is good to be so. The writer is at home with his group. It is rare to find an impartial reader. But once it happens it is like the miracle of time. A culmination of culture.

…………………………………………….

-[ From a book on Aesthetics that is in progress –

Title-‘‘The Language of Beauty”]

.

THE DOWAGER AND THE SWANS
SHORT STORY

1

That was a shining part of life, the meeting with the dowager. This happened during my stay in the North. She was in her late forties, maybe fifty when I met her for the first time. A mature era in a lady’s life, when she can undoubtedly recognize the mix-up from reality. More metaphysical and more balanced. She investigated time and again, the methods of individuals and more than once their astute ranges of charms. In addition to it, maybe some honourable characteristics. If such a lady had fizzled in adoration at any rate once in her life, I would have been a pupil for quite a while. Presently the incredible wizard is in such a state of affairs. She is wise. Her stature – Five feet eight inches tall and had a medium composition and her nose was a conspicuous piece of her face and it’s anything but a definitive demeanour. Eye tone, dark. Her alluring gressorial advances took a slight gradient. As she moved up and down the steps the white hairs of costard locomoted. The white braids like snow in the Himalayas in February. Or then again one of those streams twisting and there will be a flood in specific years. She was beguiling with the dull bundles that had given her a credible and recognized look. She established a reputation that she didn’t endure craziness in a discussion. He despised all narcissists, yet her unwritten biography gives hints that she survived a few. She wasn’t dainty much as tall as her sibling, yet when they were together, beyond doubt, everybody realized they were siblings. She spoke delightful English and French. All things considered, she was in a French state since she once worked in Red Cross
developments and she preferred conflict stories and analyst fiction, fiction that portrayed disloyalty and elopement. Peruse Michael Madhusudan Dutt so anyone might hear her voice. She enjoyed music, not noisy music, but rather tunes, and is supposed to be in the organization of a social gathering that upheld great exercises and, once said, was head of a circle of bohemians and individuals like that and participated in late-night parties. Until a considerable lot of the photographs of those gatherings were distributed in the nearby paper which carried a terrible name to his family. At long last, her oldest little girl cautioned her that if she progressed forward in her direction, she [daughter] would return home for eternity. So she halted that way of life since she cherished her girl over a jug of bourbon. The little girl was a duplicate of her late spouse, who expounded on regal families in the north and some legendary stories. He kicked the bucket early on a tour in the mountains close to Darjeeling, from fever. The woman wore saris for the most part, in winter she masked them in pashmina shawls and wrapped some Kanchipuram routinely. Often, she presented them to family ladies or friends’ networks as a wedding blessing and made the young lady take snaps with her if expedient. The young ladies were obliged to auntie’s impulses and took it more as a favour than a pleasure. A few women were glad when they snapped the photo with her since it made them look more wonderful. Then, at that point, her face gave profound indications of development, pigmentation because of the medications she had taken, and it influenced her skin. In her childhood, her greatness was without a doubt twofold. My dad saw his companion toward the start of her significant other and they appeared to have participated in one of these walks in the battle for the opportunity and he disclosed to me that she was magnificent, even though my father was more enthusiastic for a docile character, who could make arbitrary penances for the family. Furthermore, he traced these characters in my mom and I figure he wasn’t quite right about that. Although she was family-minded my mother was intolerant to bad practice all through her profession, yet she could manage circumstances delicately and shun remarking on others conduct. then again, my mom didn’t have the foggiest idea about the writing and expressions of the human experience yet she was cautious about kitchen gossips and tattles also. My mom was just perusing materials outside austere books, which appeared to be daily newspapers, which she examined from the first page to the last one, when she had no more conspicuous activity. Just read the newspaper reclining in an easy chair [made of wooden backings, and in the centre was joined a thick cotton material, which upheld the spine – A long lay on this seat ought not to be fine for the spine]. Notwithstanding, she was not keen on keeping ornaments and was prepared to pledge them in the bank at whatever point my dad required cash. These transactions were very normal in our families.2

I arrived at the quarter in summer, after a few lengths from the town transport depot. Passing oxbow streets one saw the palace at a distance of two furlongs from the bus depot and I took an auto rickshaw and the driver directed me to the front snicket. On both sides stood pony show bureaus and stockpiles of shoes and warehouses. The old woman  in one of the shops with whom I had a casual talk revealed to me that the house isn’t far. Likewise, I adhered to her guidance. The driver took me to a specific spot. In those years, I had a propensity for eating sweets which possessed a flavour like orange. I stopped the vehicle and bought a packet of sweets and kept it in my pocket. The sweet was named ” Chikki” , a sweet made of groundnut and sugar in the basic stage. I purchased a parcel and kept it in the jeans pocket.

The lady got me pleasantly. Yet, before that, I needed to go through the investigation of her sibling, a resigned colonel from the Army. He was stout and smiled showing front teeth and carried a slight blotch on right cheek. When I arrived at the house, he was amidst a melodic conference, playing mouth organ, while his understudies, young men and young ladies in  mid-twenties were singing or playing  stringed instruments. A young lady kept playing Tambura. The resigned skipper snickered regularly telling wisecracks and I believed that he should be gone along with the kind of individual equipped for engaging such a few understudies. The students make the most of his quality which was obvious from their developments and signals. After our gathering and the underlying stay in the guest quarters, I was offered a room, more a mini hall than a room and it was outfitted part of the way with around a hundred books, English and French, for the widow had an association with the French language and it is supposed that her dad knew the researchers in the time by and by and even got a chance to work with her. He was a prominent empiric of his time and after his passing, his subject books were donated to a school. I didn’t see his assortments but the lady guaranteed that I will be shown these things in the course of time. Furthermore, the guest room I stayed in during the initial days was  over a little hillock and after the plain section, you need to make a windy trudge. The young fellow entrusted with my welfare and went about as a host was a vocalist who rendered canorous tunes in regional tongue and I dwelled on that countless gifted individuals are consigned to oblivion without  acclaim. They could have made a commitment to society as opposed to living a quiet [may be useful for them] and an unflustered social life. This is a borderline issue. The subject of usefulness. I hoped that the man could have exerted some more assay to foster his gifts, rather than quiet [may be useful for them]. The omelette of the sous chef was an incredible one.

3

Did the lady have some basic issues? Possibly, so. By all means, she was brave, still excessively self-assured to the edge of arrogance. She will pass the assessment on everything. She had extraordinary information on writing and workmanship and music and she was somewhat of a dabbler. She had an inner mind feeling that numerous researchers have that they are hopeless which viewpoint prompted at times contentions with the Colonel. The colonel then again had enormous information on life and individuals, not from books( he seldom read like a book except for a couple of magazines on vehicles and body wellness) stories had a consequent contention of what is legitimate in a circumstance. Although the colonel was n’t vociferous in his repartees, he didn’t win the contention. The dowager won by her words. But in life, it is not by words that we win… Winning by words is temporary. Life will take you a full round with the goal that all the proficient are tried by individuals as would be natural for them. As such. We need to swallow our own words. Over the long haul what the colonel advised ended up being true.

4

At the point when I arrived at the house to instruct the matron’s youngsters French and Romanian, I was not in a superior position. My insight into these languages was far from a great level and the latter language I learned only partially from my three months stay near the Carpathians as a part of my outing to Europe. My vacation there included a flick scheme. The film could not see the celluloid, yet my travel grew to such a level that I found my future spouse and that is another tale.

The dowager had two swans that she kept in her private pond. She took excessive care of the creatures. There was an assistant deputed, especially for this work. And his salary was at par with other workers. The other operators apprehended it as an affront as the custodian of the birds did not do any other industry other than nursing and taking charge of the swans. I also felt somewhat dismayed to behold this peculiar incongruity in the treatment amid the operators. I aspired to grasp it but on a couple of instants, when the issue of the swans attained forth, the dowager skirted a direct response and secreted her sensibilities in a smile. And that was the beginning of a fabulous time.

5

In the spring of the following year, I got a message from Sam, one of the dowager’s collaborators. He might have written to me twice or thrice. I don’t by and large recollect the occasions he composed. He touched upon a few issues connected with the lady’s  health, especially the condition of her heart. They thought of taking  her to an extended get-away to a Spanish retreat,  to stay away from the everyday hectic duties. But that didn’t come to pass. I went to see her and she told – “I am contemplating what will befall me later on. I hope that my time here is running short”. I said- “You’re O.K.- You will see numerous good seasons”. She said, ‘I don’t think so. Besides, my concern is, not that. What will happen when I go from here- ‘.   I assured, ‘No- Never- Nothing terrible could happen because you have been a nice lady’. She said, ‘I don’t think so’. She continued that she had kept a couple of journals that she scrawled over the years. She said – ‘I will hand it over to you for perusing’. I said that I try not to read other people’s private papers, though , I am not a saint. “Perhaps”, she said, “you can keep it after I depart. I have made courses of action for that. What’s more, never distribute it. I said-”No”. Also, she said – ”You take care of my swans’ ‘, she said and I made arrangements to shift the swans to a friend’s pool in that season. I said to my friend to take good care of them .

In that rainy season, she took her final gasp in a Darjeeling therapeutic clinic. It was a day of heavy downpour and thunderclouds. I reached the place only after two weeks of her demise. The properties of her were already settled according to her will among her two children and the assistants in the house. She had made some trusts for good causes. And I asked Sam about her diaries. and he was not aware of such a diary. Though I asked several people in the household about those diaries, nobody gave a sure reply. They were sometimes awestruck about my question. I took a bus to the nearest railway station and from there took a train to my native place. The swans. That is another tale.
……..

White Wine

SHORT STORY

There was still water in the mud and more than mud the murky stream went to the fountainhead to reach inside the original washstand. Sumner, the only man who knew how to get these things done. Sumner is a gentleman of twenty five years. They are brothers.- Solomon and Sumner . They married from the same family. Those too sisters. Two beautiful sisters that the brothers were crazy about…We all walked through the serial that spread among the branches that lay beneath the cabinet. Was it full, I don’t retain. The case was so stereotypical that I lost touch with the surroundings that lay beneath. Broad landscapes, one after the other in a multitudinous array for the wind to tell my story.
My story. Oh. I am growing to that part. After the rain, wintertime starts. The winter of my specific myths and brushes. Tell in that fashion, four more favourable times to come and get hold of my inner worth. The crumbled roof at the sidewalk. Join some more crumbled escape routes. The final was that they did not have anything to own. Not even themselves. Sumner took me there. Sumner is my friend.

2

At Churchgate, Solomon had a bookstall. It sells classic books, best sellers and children’s toys. Where is Sumner, I inquired. He went to Pune and then to Goa, he said. He joined a sect and has switched his gears. He said. I was not astonished, anything can pass now. If death can befall today, then anything is expedient in life. I had gone to a portion of my research on ethnic groups a few hundred miles from here. Then I thought that knowledge will clarify my apprehensions. But it is not like that. Knowledge will proffer you more doubts. Doubts are beneficial if you don’t make a canopy of them. But knowledge can at best assure you that it is just inception. Where are you put up last night, Sumner asked. I told the place. That wretched square, he exclaimed. I told him that I was on this tour on shoestring funds. Moreover, my bountiful guide will join me later in this course and we will be well off and can bear a Star Stay. But that is not the point. I miss Solomon. We chatted for some time in a nearby cafe and I purchased a book from his store, a collection of Rilke. He didn’t charge, so I bought a doll for my sister’s boy and paid the check. We will congregate at hometown, he stated.

3

The girl proceeded on tweeting and cooing and aimlessly endeavouring into the erudition of digits. Lot has been spoken about that part of the inevitable clash that happened one day in the terrace when A. was going to the next structure to accumulate the pond pumps. In this area collection, of pond pumps. So far there has been no hope in these genuine hopeful things that we shed our hopes for. Coming from chemistry lab. Oh, no, you said . Once, I said. Be a Mycologist, you said- ‘My dad wants me to be a doctor, I said. Your Dad , that  fool, you said. Don’t blame uncles,I said. You are the last vestige of a matriarchal society. She laughed at life . Still I managed an embrace. ‘Hope is a bird’ with green feathers and wings. Green stands for the moist midday when the clubhouse was chock-full of characters. They just started another song. And another one after that till past midnight. O- Was it the hopeful season, when was it you drank last time. I drank white wine pinky once when my wife was admitted to the hospital for that surgery after the accident. An unknown driver saved her. It was morning, and not too many vehicles were on the road. Past the J . Park, where I slept one day in a crowd of thieves who were sleeping in the afternoon after their theft at night. The cop called me, come. I did not go. Then he asks. Why didn’t you come when a cop called you to come. He was in casual wear. I told them that I didn’t know that he was a cop. The other cop knew me, he looked into my eyes and told his friend that he is mistaken. And I showed my library card, the only identity card I kept at that time. And They left me with pieces of advice and warning., don’t ever come and sleep here., you see here that thieves sleep. This is no place for gentlemen cavaliers. You wanted to be one then . A new version. More favourable periods come. Jot down. Memory is a journey into a river of nonsense and also a corridor of wise and cruel faces mingled. Longer still I knew her. Yes, I loved her. Did she love me? Lord, she became the wife of a priest. I went to mountains and cliffs and lakes and big thalabs[pool]. I went to Kurukshetra and sat by the big thalab [pool] and wondered how, when, what, who, which cadence, what language. Where the middle starts and ends in this story.

4
Solomon told me this story when we were coming from the tuition classes. Solomon’s father died of a stroke. His mother, drowning? ‘those were pearls that were his eyes’.There are many ways of dying. Heart problem, sugar issues, liver malfunctioning, kidneys. The worst thing is unbegotten death. There is still hope in a death that comes slowly like an Irish dancer. Death comes in slow motion. Ceili. Féile.Ghillies.There are likewise many ways of living too. Living by selling vegetables. Living as a boss. A shoemaker, owning a company, selling tickets for evening shows. Making other’s work for you and drinking liquor in the evening.Eating oddments and staying beside platforms.Painting faces and dancing at street corners and inviting ladies for supper, and parting without romance. A good relationship is like a bank balance. Also a sign of a well-spent life. When you are at trunk road entrance, fallen in the street corner, don’t think of your sins . Don’t forget them too, so that you will have hope in future.

5
Love fails. Death makes a closure. So this part we will talk about later. Come on. My wife is undergoing an operation. Hope it is not a major operation. We will see a movie after that. in the theatre. I am a well-known silhouette. The manager’s offspring is my student. So I get a reduction and an opening before the time. Come on mate, and soak in the white wine. Death and life are two lovers chasing each other. Tonight, we will share our duskiness.
…………………..