And So It Happened: The Epilogue

For chapter three, read here

Epilogue

She never went back to Delhi. Instead she made a choice, first of many, and made the city of dreams her home. With his support, she went back to study. Later, she wrote a book called ‘Lady Of The Night’- a chronicle of her past life. It helped her find a closure. An added bonus was that the book went on to become a bestseller. The media followed her, the activists made her their poster girl. She was suddenly the depraved-girl-turned-righteous.

Now, she works and vigourously fights for the rights of women.Sometimes when the fast pace of city life gets to her, she comes back to the village and can be seen sitting under the tall trees watching the sunset or taking a walk on the beach with him.

He went to complete the business deal he had left in the middle. It made him the second richest youngest man. He had no desire to be the first because he finally realized that his race was against him, not someone else. As she had said once, he chose to make a decision. It was led by his heart. And that’s when he decided to buy a house in the quaint little village of Kelve. He can be often seen fishing by the sea. But mostly, he takes a canvas and paints as the curious village children come up to him and chat with him.

When it becomes too quiet, he goes to the city. There he can be seen catching up with her in one of the restaurants and cafes which dot the city. Though he still avoids going to Nariman Point.

And so it happened, when two tortured and agonized souls met each other, they found a purpose, a meaning and maybe they found themselves.

If you ever happen to visit Kelve, you might see them. You could probably go upto them and say Hello. Maybe they'll tell you what's happening in their life right now. I am sure it would be interesting.

THE END

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And So It Happened: Chapter 3

For chapter two, read here.

Chapter 3


“You need a room, sir?”

“Yes. One.” he said.

After checking into their room, she stepped out. Never had she been allowed to venture out like this. The fresh air, salty sea breeze, birds chirping, tall eucalyptus trees. They went and sat by the sea. She had never seen a beach before. It was like a dream.

Gingerly she put her feet in the water, feeling the sand on the soles of her feet. She closed her eyes and waved her arms pretending to be like the seagulls which were flying above her. She giggled with joy as he sat watching her.

Later as she came back and sat next to him, he said, “You know earlier… we were talking… I hope you didn’t mind me asking…about it…”

She shook her head.

He lit up another cigarette

“But I don’t understand. Why can’t you choose. You know...to walk away?”

“Why can’t you?” she countered his question.

“Well… that’s the only thing I know. How to make money. What will I do?” he said almost wistfully.

“Yeah… that’s the only thing I know,” she repeated but spoke for herself too. Words which had involuntarily forced out of somewhere deep inside.

As the evening rays of the sun melted into the sea, the hours dissolved into one another, the horizon turned shades of orange and cobalt, they had let down the guard a little bit.


Soon it was time for dinner.

The next day they explored the area a little bit. The wind played with her hair as he caught a whiff of her perfume. Touching her arm, he indicated he wanted to sit down on the rocks.

“Doesn’t it look beautiful!” She pointed out to the boats dotting the sea. “Maybe it’s the fishermen.”

“Hmmm,” he grunted.

Maybe he doesn’t want to talk. She sat quietly.

“Tell me if you were not making money what would you? In your heart, what do you dream of doing?” she asked, childlike, trying to ignore his indifference.
“I would be a painter,” he said dreamily looking at the wide expanse of the sea.

“I wish I had the power to change,” he added as an afterthought.

“Maybe you do”

“Hmmm”

“Maybe you can try…”

He shrugged his shoulders.

A gentle breeze enveloped them.

“What would you do?” he asked her.

“Oh…a million things,” she said slowly, sighing, resigning to her fate.

He stole a glance at her. And put his arms around her shoulders pulling her close to him. She didn’t resist.

“Maybe you can try…,” he said.

“Meri line mujhi ko wapas..”

They looked at each other and broke into a smile at their private joke.

The fact that they were strangers carrying no burden of a personal relationship with each other made it easier to talk. At that point of time they didn’t figure it out.

The sound of waves, laughter of children playing football in a distance, they became acutely aware of the noise and then all sounds blocked out and they were alone in this world, in a prison of their thoughts and actions

Maybe I should have run away when I had my chance. Six years back. When my greed started enveloping me. When my body was been bartered.

Both got lost in their thoughts again. Neither realizing that sometimes silence speaks more than words. The silence is the sound of soul - healing - with the thoughts which reverberate inside, when one reflects on the actions, choices.

Another day has passed. Its time for both of them to go back to their old life.

That night wrapped in a blanket of darkness, she turns to him and says, “Thank you”

“For what?” he asks her, puzzled.

“Nothing. Everything” she answers cryptically.

“No. I should thank you instead,” he says firmly, softly.

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To be continued...

And So It Happened: Chapter 2

For chapter one read here

Chapter 2

The city road took them to NH 8. Another round of silence ensued. Each lost in thoughts. Both wanting to get away from it all. Soon the concrete jungle gave way to the Sahyadri mountain range.

She remembers hypnotically staring, noticing a pattern on the road, of sunrays passing through the leaves, bringing a translucent quality to them, the fog in a distance dissipating and reappearing. Everything becoming clear and then blurred.

He remembers ten years back, a group of college friends, in a car. The song playing I want to break free. Incessant chatter, all bantering and agreeing they wanted to break free, none knowing that they were already free.

He remembers the taste of first killing at the stock market. The compulsion. The addiction. The phenomenal rise. The Midas touch. Turning everything he touched into gold. And now an emptiness. A sense of worthlessness. How did I get here?

“Did you say something?,” she asked.

He shook his head, “No”.

“Why did you start this… this…line of work?,” he unexpectedly asked her.

Taken aback, as no one had bothered to ask before, she shrugged her shoulders. Then she mumbled something under her breath. “Millions of women are forced into it. I am just another one.”

A truck passed by, and her voice got lost.

He just heard the words, “Millions…forced….another one”

“So you didn’t have a choice?”

“Choice, huh? That’s a joke. Choice is when you can decide whether you want to do something or whether you have to do something,” bitterness crept in her voice.

“It’s a decision you make with your head or your heart. Its something you don’t compromise on,” she stopped abruptly. An outburst could cause her problems. If he gave a bad feedback, it could jeopardize getting good clients in the future.

He had touched a raw nerve. At ten years of age, orphaned, she went to live with her Uncle. He sold her. So you see - this girl of twenty one years of age - didn't know anything about choices.

Roads became narrower. Signboards whizzing past her. Dahisar-Thane-Palghar-Saphale-Edwan-Kelve.

After about four hours, the scenery changed as she noticed huts, chickens, cows, women carrying straw baskets on their heads, children playing and men rushing off to catch fish in the little rivers and inlets. I wish I could trade my life with them.

He turned into a dirt lane. They drove for another fifteen minutes and reached a quaint village, untouched by modern life. At the end of the village lay a small resort and by it - the Arabian Sea. Some enterprising fellow had built it by the water’s edge.

To be continued...

And So It Happened: Chapter 1

Chapter 1

It was a sultry summer morning as he stood in the balcony, with his back to the Mumbai skyline. His open shirt caressed by the breeze, as he obsessively smoked. Through the glass doors separating the room with the terrace, his eyes took in her gentle sinuous curves, her delicate nose, her luscious lips.

Why was she in his bed, in his hotel suite. The simple answer was he was rich and he could buy anything, even a companion. The answer which wasn’t obvious but hung there like the heavy air of smoke was loneliness - gnawing him. That’s what he felt but he didn’t know it. And he didn’t like coming back to an empty room. That’s why she was there.

His eyes had an inscrutable expression, the hard lines on his face masked his loneliness. With a sigh, unconsciously he snuffed out the cigarette and walked inside. Waking her up by nuzzling her bare neck and her shoulders, he waited as she stirred and opened her eyes, smiling at him.

“Good morning, princess,” he drawled.

“Good morning,” she replied, her sleep filled eyes looking at him. He wanted to lean forward and kiss her but with a tinge of sadness remembered that wasn’t part of the deal.

Later, they sat having their breakfast in silence. She was trained not to speak until spoken to but the stillness made her restless.

“So you have a meeting this morning?” she asked.

“Hmmm… I cancelled it.”

She faintly nodded her and didn’t ask for an explanation.

“Do you sometimes feel that nothing makes sense? That you have everything and still nothing? That you are in a prison?”

She didn’t answer. She understood they were rhetorical questions and that he wanted to continue talking. She had met his kind before too. Only they were much older than him. He looked like he was in his late twenties.

“There is void, a gaping hole and I don’t know what to fill it with.”

That’s your soul dying. She wanted to say. But she bit her lip. What would he know about it anyway? Her’s had died inch-by-inch, man-by-man. She knew what an empty soul meant. She wanted to scorn him, but his sad eyes and her paycheck, which she was to receive after three days, strained her to keep those thoughts in check.


“For once, I don’t want the money, the riches, the fame. I want to be the man on the street – who has his daily struggles.”

He was running his hands through his hair, sitting cross legged on the bed.

“Let’s get out of here,” suddenly he said.

”But where?” she looked at him uncertainly.

“I don’t know. Wherever the road takes us.”

The morning rays of sun were becoming stronger, the sky in colours of marigold and cerulean turning into sunflower yellow and lighter hues of blue. Somewhere in the background she could hear honking cars and temple bells.


To be continued...

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This is the first part of a fiction story with a four part series. Stay tuned!

Flowering Hope

Though it was a cold winter morning, the sun had chosen to shine that day. The fog started to clear and by afternoon, the small park had its first visitor almost after a month of cold, grey and gloomy winter.

The Neem tree spread its branches, and through the branches, the rays of the sun passed making the leaves looking translucent green. Underneath a man slept wearing a tattered blue sweater and grey trousers. He had a shock of white hair, a wrinkled face, and long gnarled fingers. His hand was placed over his eyes, maybe to block the light, as he napped.

At a distance a young father, held the hand of his son while his wife, a few steps behind, held a small baby girl in her arms.

As the two and a half year old boy passed by the flowerbeds, a riot of colours, waved for his attention. He left his father’s hand and ran to inspect them all.

And came back, out of breath saying, “Papa! Red, Yellow, Purple, Orange, so many!” The indulgent father smiled.

The roses, in different shades of pink, peach and red, the marigolds, a beautiful sunset orange, the purple chrysanthemums, the sunny yellow daises, all lovingly nurtured and cared for, by the gardener.

The little girl decided it was her turn to inspect the green grass and decided to crawl on it, all the while gurgling.

The boy, fascinated by the colours and the play of light on the petals, kept repeating the names, furrowing his brows asked, “Why don’t we have them at home?”

The father, seeing the interest of the boy, decided to ask the maali, the gardener about the flowers which could be planted in Spring.

Of course, he didn’t know how the man looked like. No one had ever bothered to find out whose green fingers had lovingly created the beauty they came to see, admired and left.

The young father called out in an uncertain voice to the man sleeping under the tree, “Maali? Aap maali hain? Are you the gardener?”

The man woke up with a start, “Haanji. Yes.”

“Bade aachey phool hai. The flowers are very beautiful”.

“Itney saare colours hain, ” piped a voice. It was the small boy, clutching the father’s leg, peeking from behind and looking at the man.

“I was thinking of planting some flowers for the Spring season... Which ones do you recommend?”

The gardener had an incomprehensible expression on his face while he was thinking. Someone is asking my opinion and appreciating my flowers too.

47 years of working here, he had grown old, giving his life to working in this park. Yet this was the first time someone had made a genuine effort to talk to him.

“Sirji, you can plant tulips, hyacinths, daffodils, irises…,” his voice trailing off.

The father nodded and thanked him.

After a while, as they were about to leave, the gardener came running and plucked out the most beautiful flower and handed it to the boy.

The boy shyly said, “Thank you, Uncle.” And waved him goodbye.

Of course they didn’t hear him say thank you under his breath or the lone tear in his eye, now streaming down his face.

* Fiction story inspired by observing a real life incident

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On a completely different note, I found this fascinating Genographic Project. Someone please gift me a kit so I can find where my ancestors are from.