they always tell you

Rohit knew the signs when he saw them. He could see them ever so often. They stared at him everywhere. And some of the signs were dangerous. But somehow he just went on and on, along the dicey path he had chosen. He kept to it, and it was becoming clearer that he could not ignore the signs any longer!

no conditions

Gaurav had been in this relationship for 5 years now. He was this sort of person who had lot of people in his life, he loved them very dearly. Friends, family and finally but most importantly his significant other with whom he shared a steady relationship for the past 5 years. Gaurav is the sort who loved very strongly, each relationship was very special to him; it took a lot from him, he invested a lot in each of them. And they were very important to him.

But with the one that mattered the most, he was very different. He never saw an up or down. It was intense, but a sustained intensity that seemed to last for long time and something he felt would never never go down. And as she said, he expected very little which while was awesome in many many ways, was not so great in some. But she did not complain.

And sometimes he wondered about this. She was so much a part of his life that he just accepted, even when things changed. He waited patiently when she was cranky, she went off into her own world and when they felt like strangers to each other. But somehow, this love was so strong, so secure and stable that it never shook, may be just a little. It did not have the crazy high of a drug, but brought the security that only home brings and for this they loved each other very very very deeply. Thank god they thought many times, we're glad it worked out the way it did!

eye lock

It was a wild disco night. Drunk people were dancing away to the loud peppy music of the DJ. The disco lights were making wild patterns on the floor. They were both at opposite ends of the disco. But they both had the same strong feeling that someone special was across the floor. So they left their respective partners and gravitated towards the centre of the floor. And then it happened. Sometimes you just know that it has happened. As they stared into each other's eyes, there was the brilliant spark of realization that they had waited for this moment forever. This was it. This was the person. Without a single word, they locked hands and walked away... forever!

cafe city centre

He walked in to the coffee shop in the middle of the city. Wow! he thought, this place is so nice. He was grateful that cities have these pockets right in their over crowded centre where either the government decided to own it or the wonderful owner was not lured by the money that real estate was going to fetch him and decided to keep serving good old fashioned coffee in chipped china and with waiters who seemed like they hadn't had a bath in a few years. But the sheer amount of open space made the place seem like heaven amidst all the noise, pollution and congestion. Even people on the road seemed like intruders; there were just so many of them on the roads just like animals, cars and dirt and grime. The beggars made it worse. And at night, the pimps and hookers made it colourful. But the cool shade of the large banyan tree right in the middle of the open air cafe brought a huge smile on his face; he had chosen the rendezvous point right.

He was there for an interview. Interview of a person of some stature. Nothing huge or fancy about her, but she was a winner in her own right. She had, to put it simply, stood the test of time. Her novels never reached the NY bestsellers list, but that did not deter her from pouring out the travails of a woman in India. She wrote novel after novel, highlighting the good and bad things (more bad things) that happened to women in India. And finally the recognition was hers. The local government had recognized at her old age, the contribution she had made to the womens' rights particularly and modern literature in general. And she chose to express herself in English, a language not her native and definitely not the native of the women she highlighted in her work.

Why does she write in English, he wondered? It simply made her inaccessible to a vast audience that would have resonated with the way she felt and what she conveyed in her books. May be she never intended to reach them, may be she never thought of it as women's rights but looked at the whole issue with an indifference and only chose it because there were enough case studies around for her to easily make stories out of them. May be she was not creative at all; as is expected from most writers of books; may be she was just a special kind of reporter. Worse still, may be she never sympathaised with the women she wrote about; they probably meant nothing to her. She could may be write about cockroaches or global warming in the same way that she did about the oppressed women. And because someone who felt about oppression read her novel, they decided to make her a person who stood for all of this; womens' rights and all. May be she is like some of the people who can be branded as "cooling-glass-liberal". This he thought would be the ideal thing to speak about.

the fiction series

I am starting a series of articles that will be labeled "fiction". It is a series of articles depicting various types of people I have met. Incidents I have heard of and discussed. But they are all changed beyond recoginition. So do not bother trying to find out who it is based on