SMS

“-And you say that a man cannot,of himself,understand what is good and evil; that it is all environment,that the environment swamps the man. But I believe it is all chance.” - Ivan Vasilievich*

Had I not met Madhav in my train journey from Trivandrum.I might have thought it all as Ivan’s silly urge to think against the normal course. In the ten odd hour journey to my place on a day,when sleep chose to keep away from me, I had met him. Only in the last few hours of my journey we spoke, but was enough to make me see something differently;nothing but our small SMS’s- the Short Messaging Service, as they say.

We started on that talk as I got a message in between, and read to say, “Silly forwards…” I may have told it as monologue but was fairly loud enough so as to engage him in some talk for some time,at least. I had no one else near me to turn for a talk,quite unlikely for that day express. He was a bit too reclusive and monosyllabic till then. But my words on SMS made him to shed his gown of silence, alas!

“Not always!”,saying this he showed me a SMS from his phone and asked, “What you think of this?”
“Care is the sweetest form of Love…..”
It was familiar and I answered, “A forwarded message, even I do have it. Just for namesake or for keeping a friendship breathe”
“That’s all you think of it? Anything else? Temme what all can be?”, he insisted as he took back the phone.

“Hm…I din’t notice the sender, is it a girl?.” He thought for a second and told with a smile, “Yes,of course! But don’t ask me who.”
“So it can also be about any other relation like love,in a wild thought, I must say. That’s all I can think of.”

“Well it is like some god send nectar to me, and I cant tell you what it means to me in words but I’m sure you can feel it once you hear my story,” Madhav told with a peculiar note and stress, “And little does it matter to my feeling to it that the sender is a girl! Hear my story and you will know!”

“ Myself, Madhav, a student at Trivandrum:to make it crisp, I do have to face a whole lot of some serious trouble in my life,as for now; none of which I have shared with anyone nor am I going to. So you must not ask me on what they are, but understand them as the cause of my greatest griefs so far,in my twenty year of life in memory.”

I just nodded and taking it as my consent he continued with a long breath, “Yesterday morning I was in a net cafe. I had so much problems staring at me so that I needed to divert my attention from them to save myself from a break down; say I had to run away from them,some how. I found chatting to be a good way of distraction, so I searched in chat rooms for some time till I settled with a girl with her nick name, ‘Black Rose’, from the same town.”

“Here it is! The saga of an Internet-love, successful or failed or even fooled”, I thought.

“We chatted for a long time. I must say you that she understood me better than even myself. So I thought that she may have the solution to all my problems and later I saw her as the solution!” He paused for a while, removed his spects,wiped his face and continued with a faint tinge of grief in his words, “ I wanted to meet her. She told me that time was not ripe and then again,as I forced she even told me that she was not so good looking, as some would even try to run away seeing her!
But I took it on with another question, “but not all will try to run away from you,right?”.
“Right , some do come really close,making me feel that I am indeed not so bad.” She had to admit. That increased my persistence on her and finally we decided to meet at the railway station,that evening.”

I gave a hand to my chin and leaned forward to him. The story was getting interesting, “And then?” I enquired, forgetting that we had started off the talk from a SMS.


“Then we met at the station. Trust me, at that time I felt that she was the most beautiful thing that would ever come to me. With a black veil on her head, a snow whit face and deep dark eyes,she seemed to be there just for my solace. We sat on the bench as the announcements broke open for the expected arrival of a train. Not many were around us and neither did we care for any.
I took her hand and held it to my heart to say, “The grief in my heart and the problems around me seem to vanish in your presence; I feel the ecstasy of being in a new world full of promises.”


“Do you love me?”,she asked and in return I came closer to her, lifted her face and bent down to kiss her deep with all my passion. I do say that it was to be more of my lust towards her physique than the love to her real self that prompted me to take those first steps into a complete union with her. .

Then my phone rang me up for this message and I left her for that moment. The train had arrived and passengers were busy getting down. I winked at her and told, “I’ll be back now” and stood up and took a few steps as I read the message which came as a scruple.

“Care is the sweetest form of LOVE and whn someone tells “I care for U”,it is as good as saying “I’ll keep U in my heart, forever” I CARE FOR U! Tc”

That brought in a new light to make me think above the problems that surrounded me and the ones who hated me, to see the ones who loved me, cared for me and would miss me. I felt sorry for my eloping thoughts as I thought of the ‘black rose’ waiting for me. But I didn’t turn back to her nor will I get back to her as I had promised, until as she said, “the time is ripe!” And I’ll never spill a tear on that lost chance with her.” He stopped.

This story was giving me enough to strain my brain and sense. A whole new world of thoughts; it was difficult to understand him,but I was trying to break through. My station was approaching. I walked to the door and he followed me with a question, “Now what do you think of that SMS? Any idea what it means to me?” I just nodded as I thought.

I got down and he helped me with my luggage. He told, “Now don’t get too much carried away by it, may be you wont understand full of my story as it is,for now and nor you wont be knowing why I am going to meet that message sender now…But slowly, you will get to it!”

It was my turn to give him something,a surprise,as I told, “Don’t ever think of kissing that ugly black rose again and I hope you’ll neither go and kiss that girl who messaged you, for she may not know all that you mean by your kiss!”

He was quite surprised but happy and he laughed to say adieu to me as the train moved on. I waved at him till I could no longer see his waving hands.
Just as I turned a message came to my phone. With a smile I thought,
“Now I know of yet another meaning to an SMS; But do you?!!”

*Ivan Vasilievich is a character from Tolstoy's After the Dance

Dream

It was a misty morning and the thick cover of fog had smoothened down all the warm rays of a rising sun. The re roses in my garden were showing me their own lovely charm as someone opened the gates and walked in. I tried to peep through the curtains of snow that stood between me and the gate, to make out my guest.

At a distance I felt that some one with a white blanket on, was walking in. was there a red rose held out in the hand?, or was it just an art work on the blanket? As ii got closer I made it out as a girl, clad in white dress and the redness of the rose had turned out to be her lips. Anxiety made me take a few steps to reach just in front of her. As I searched my memory, she asked, “You forgot me?, so fast!!”, with an element of complaint in her voice.

This… this… Suddenly it came to me. How did I take so long to make her out? At a time this face was the apple of my eyes. Then I wanted her, so desperately, to pay me a visit. And then, this was the face I looked for in every face I saw! Now she’s here; looking at me, at a breaths distance!

But I was afraid! Afraid to look back, for the fear of losing all that I have won over my lost memories.. So I just kept my eyes on to the roses as if I got something lost in them….

“You didn’t like me here?” she asked. I had no answer. She sighed at my silence and continued, “Even if it is so and even if I wish to go back from here, I can’t do that... I hope you know why……”

Why? Because… cos this was my world; my dream world! A face that I had removed from my mind with the greatest of efforts had caught me up again, in my own dream! But her presence still had that magical sheen, making me a happier soul. Deep inside, in some corner of my mind she had survived all my efforts to throw her out; somewhere, from where I couldn’t or didn’t remove her! That thought brought a smile on to me and I looked at her radiant face genuinely praying, "If ever, this was not a dream….”

But it was not to be real anyway. That thought brought me back to face the reality. This dream is sweet now, but on waking into the other world, this is a pain: a throbbing pain that will make all those wounds I had nursed and time had healed to bleed open yet again to hurt me deeper. I became aware of the facts and searched for a soft but firm voice. But my older self invaded into my words with a shiver of compassion as I uttered, “You must go, and never ever come again!”

The innocence in those wide eyes was drenched with tears and she stooped as if to hide them a bit and then looked at me. The look on her face was pathetic and made my heart let out a weep. It was the most beautiful face I ever saw, it was the shine in those eyes that had led me through the darkness’s that surrounded me. Now all that full of visible grief, due to me…. Oh!

But once I wake… The one whom I feel the salt of the earth for me now, may then prove to be just the opposite to the extreme. I couldn’t let that happen, not even in the wildest of my dreams. As I thought and kept looking into her lustrous eyes, I feared of losing myself. I had to tell her off, some how...

“Get away from me!” I yelled and shoved her away in frenzy. That careless shoving pushed her down to the sand. I got a bit more tensed and took a step back to watch her better.

Slowly she stood up, with a cut on her fore head, bleeding. She turned on her full bloomed eyes on to me and smiled; a smile coloured with blood and fragranced with tears! Feeling the pain of my heart breaking like a coloured glass under a roller, I turned back and walked away with tears in eyes and legs at a faster pace….

Eyes and cheeks were all feeling wet and that made me wake into this world. Did I cry out in the end of that dream, without even my knowledge? I slowly got up and switched on the lamp. My head was feeling a bit heavy. I thought the dizziness was a hang over of the dream. Then I thought of mirror, for always I think of looking into a mirror in my dreams, butt has never done so… With a yawn I walked up to the mirror.

One glance of me in the mirror, I was shocked! There was a bleeding cut on my temple and that has coloured me up to my cheeks. On looking back to the bed, I found my alarm clock, broken. It made sense to me on how I could have shoved it down from the shelf just above the bed. Blood had painted a few red roses on my white pillow to remind me of those red lips and their owner; though I didn’t like to remember and had forgotten all of it….

Towards Perfection

One afternoon, as I was lazily going t h r o u g h t h e newspapers, I saw the postman coming to me. He had a parcel for me. I signed and tookit.

It was from my old time friend, Shiva. It was so long since I heard anything about Shivnarayan; that was his full name. I gazed at the parcel in front of me and tried to guess what could be inside, must be something perfect...

Shiva was a man who sought perfection, or say he was always keen on the compromised parts that made things and persons less than ‘perfect’. He was immensely talented in finding errors
with almost anything and everything that he came across! He always tried to do things in a perfect way, and expected others to follow him by being perfect. He expected everything that came to him, to be perfect; because of this only I used to put a deliberate distance between us, for I knew that I could match everything but the ‘perfect’ search of Shiva. Still we remained friends, though not the very best.

I still remember how I first met him. We all were in first year. To escape hostelragging, all of us were put in a separate hostel, far from our senior batch hostels.All of us were new to each other and the place. Slowly everyone was getting closer, and was making friends, first the room-mate, then neighbours and so on.....

One day some of us were watching TV. It was an English movie; Shiva was sitting near me. As the movie started, he also started, talking of the ‘stupid things’ shown on movie and how far they were from truth, errors in screenplay and so on. I felt annoyed by his talk, but then ignored his talks, as everyone was doing. He was continuing despite our lack of attention.
I was glued on to the movie, but at some point he got me distracted. He was telling,
“see this is what they show in English movies. Think about the same things done in our movies, we’ll tell its all impossible; those flying fights, risky gun shots all are simply impossible. But now it is done by them, we clap for it! How stupid....”
I thought of all such stuff in our movies and then I knew he was pointing to the truth. Now I wondered if all his talks were really worth being heard. I had never listened to them before. I told him,
“ya, you are right! We won’t acept it here”.
He paused his talk on movies and turned to me, “see this is it, we all take time to admit truth. We never try to admit them outright....”.
Now it was my fault that I shared his thought a bit late, though I felt irritated I didn’t answer him. I went back to the movie and ignored his talk as before.

However, after that incident Shiva thought I too had some ‘sense’ and he could share his thoughts with me too. I think there were a handful of other guys in that list of people with ‘sense’, including my then room-mate Amith. So he used to come to our room once in a while. In college we all could hardly talk as seniors were all around us, waiting for a chance and we were getting the taste of what ragging was all about. Slowly the ‘ragging fear’ ended but by then it was the turn of the lecture classes to kill all our spare time at college.

One day, as I was sitting in my room Shiva came inside in a pensive mood. Without telling anything he laid on my bed, buried his face into my pillow and began to weep. Amith, my room-mate and I slowly walked to him and asked, what the problem was. He had no answer but increased his weeping. On insisting he told us what happened. In short: he had revealed his love to a girl of our batch, which she plainly turned down!. Amith tried to console him,
“Shiva, it is ok. You leave it now. There is always, there must be some one for everyone....”.

He raised his face, wiped away the tears and replied, “No, I am not sad for the reason you think. I feel sorry for myself; for thinking her a ‘perfect girl’, at least for a while. If she can’t see my heart full of care, she is not perfect; she can’t be!”
As we continued to tell him to forget all these stuff, he told in a firm voice,
“I’ll show her who I am. I’ll search out a perfect girl and walk in front of her along with that girl. Then she’ll come to know what she had missed!”
“Man, that’s fighting spirit, come on!” Amith cheered Shiva as he walked out of our room.
“Bit different one, right?” As I asked Amith replied, “No, just showing that he’s not hurt, that’s all.”
Hardly a week after that, as we were standing on the corridor, we saw Shiva walking across with a bunch of roses.

He was smiling. He told us, “I found her! See these all are from her!” He waved the roses and a card at us as he went.
I looked at Amith and he told, “ya, definitely a different one, you are right.
I change my opinion!”
But that change of opinion was not to be the final one. The very next day evening Shiva came to talk with us.
This time he looked upset and told us outright, “She’s also not that good!”
Who else?, his new girl friend!
As we were about to ask he told, “she’s leaving all those love from her family and parents just for mine. That’s not right. She’s hurting many. So she’s not really that good at heart!”
“So?” I asked. “So what?” I told her that I’m leaving her. See I’ve been fooled twice by these girls. There seem to be no perfect girl.” He stopped and looked at us for a moment.
I hoped, he was going to ask, “How’s my joke?”
But no, he was serious. He sighed and left our room.

Amith and I looked at each other in disbelief. Now Amith corrected his change in opinion
“He’s different. Not a bit, but entirely different!”
Though we downplayed the incident and kept it away from most of our batch mates, all were slowly making out his differences. As he walked into our rooms we all pretended to be too busy for him. Though, at times we felt it was wrong, we didn’t have a better solution to keep away from all these troubles. Still he used to talk to all of us and we tried to stop those talks before he started showing us the ‘problems’, or ways to become perfect. All those who tried to talk and change his attitude fell out from his list of people with ‘sense’; but still was kept in list of friends. Soon Amith and I had lost our places in the list of people with ‘sense’. He hardly came to us after that.

One day we heard that Shiva had decided to leave the course. He was packing his things and then he told us in a tone of advice, “see this course is not a complete one. We learn only here and there. It is very hard to adjust with this. I’ll think and join a good course later on.”

We didn’t tell anything as we knew that he won’t listen to us. He used to keep contact with us after that also. But later as all our numbers changed many times and as we hardly informed him about it our contact was lost except for his greeting cards that came to a few of us, including me and Amith, once in a while. I never replied him as by then I had lost his address.

Now this is a parcel. I untied it and saw what was inside. Inside was a shell. We used to buy shells for our friends, from the beaches, back in college days. I took out the shell, my name was engraved on it. Now I knew that Shiva had been to our old places, where we all friends roamed a thousand times. He used to tell then, “The protection given to the organism by nature, its shell, is the cause of its kill at the hands of humans, strange!” We used to murmur,
“but not stranger than you!”

There was a letter also, inside the parcel. It read,

“Dear friend,
I know you’ll be amazed to hear from me.
Now I am at the tip of our country, where we all once spent great times together. Of late I have come across something strange, the world out here is not perfect. But still stranger, thing is that I find that even I lack perfection. I have always renounced things which were not exactly the very best. Now that I have found myself not exactly the way I expected me to be, I find no point in being myself.
The world out here is imperfect but somewhere it must be perfect....
Beyond the sky above or beneath the ocean that lies in front of me, the world must be perfect.... There I must also be perfect. I will be! I go in search of it, towards perfection....
Wish me luck.
With love,
Shiva”

I was shocked! I didn’t know what to do. Then I began searching all those obituary columns of newspapers. I searched in vain. No news of such a man was anywhere in the papers. I went and phoned Amith. He told that he too had got a similar parcel, like many others. He had checked out with police. Shiva is recorded as only a man missing case, so far. He again told me,
“see if it was done by Shiva, then it’ll remain a perfect ‘man missing’, for ever.” I cut the phone and stared at those words,
“towards perfection......”.