

Amphigory

amphigory [ˈæmfɪgərɪ], amphigouri [ˈæmfɪˌgʊərɪ]

n pl -ries, -ris

(Literature / Poetry) a piece of nonsensical writing in verse or, less commonly, prose

[from French amphigouri, of unknown origin], a nonsense verse or composition : a rigmarole with apparent meaning which proves to be meaningless.

Amphigory

By Shitiz Srivastava

Copyright 2013 Shitiz Srivastava

Smashwords Edition

ISBN : 9781301205615

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"I wrote this book."

Shitiz Srivastava

Dedicated to my parents who were always cynical about my future as anything, society who is refusing to change with the speed of apple products, girls who broke up with me and don't pick my phone now, friends who stayed with me to laugh at my failures, facebook friends who were always there(online) and those whose names I can't remember but I am sure helped in their own ways to stop me from becoming anything.

The Short Stories

First Story : The Idea of Perfect Escape.

Second Story : A Film Maker Convicted.

Third Story : Love from the Past Times.

Fourth Story : Twice Dead for the Beauty.

Fifth Story : The Smoke Of Honor.

Sixth Story : Things Of Her That I Miss Now.

Seventh Story : The Conundrum.

Postface.

1. The Idea of Perfect Escape

"No Crime can escape. Because if escaped, it's not a crime."

A little introduction of Ravindra Thakur (R.T.).

He was born and brought up in a bourgeoisie family at Patna, Capital of Bihar, to a stationery and book shopkeeper. He went to Delhi for higher education, to St. Stephens. After doing his graduation he started preparing for IAS, his father's dream. He couldn't get selected for IAS so he decided to quit after the third attempt but luck struck him this time and he got selected after his third attempt, though not in IAS proper but in a very different way prestigious, PPS, the Indian police services. He has been working for 20 years now and surprisingly he turned out to be exceptionally brilliant in his profession considering his shy nature. He kept on getting promotion after promotion and finally he made it to CID. He was soon named as star detective and one of the finest policemen ever recruited. He had a wife but she left him after ten quarrelsome years. He misses her a lot but his ego stops him from calling her. He does sometimes give her blank calls to listen to her voice but now keeps himself busier than his usual just to keep him away from her thoughts. He has a daughter and a son too whom he is only legally allowed to meet on Saturdays and Sundays. His personal life is shattered but professionally he is achieving new milestones with every case. Everyone admires him but his only problem is his overambitious and finicky nature which always puts him into trouble of getting too much involved in whatever he does.

1.

That was unbelievable. That was too fucking unbelievable to happen on its own.

The question was why would it happen? What was the reason behind it?

Detective Ravindra Thakur or what everybody calls him R.T. was in a very difficult situation. He got what he desired for so long now but the way he got it was not the way he imagined it would happen.

Everybody was congratulating him on what he had done. He knew he didn't do anything. People don't seem to care how he did it; all they were busy doing was congratulating him. He felt guilty for all those compliments. He felt he didn't deserve it, anyone of it.

The chief of C.I.D, Mr. Mathur personally called and congratulated him. That was the final hit on the nail, it made him feel more terrible about everything and he wanted to puke then and there in his office. But he didn't do it. The carpet was way too expensive and exquisite to be ruined by puke.

The moment he came out of the office of CID chief, there was a telephone call for him from Delhi. It was from the President's residence, of course Indian. This was just too much for him to take in one day. He couldn't take this anymore. More congratulations. More fake laughter. But wait, there was more self-humiliation along with national honors to come for him. Everyone was happy, except him, when the opposite should have been the outcome. The President wanted to give him a special award next year on Republic day for his meritorious contribution in the field of criminal investigations and his current brave act...... fuck, what luck, and what timing. Most of the time your dreams are achieved when you are least supposed to enjoy them.

After listening to the president's secretary giving him, what in other situations would be called as good news, he ran to the toilet.

Finally he puked.

He hadn't eaten anything whole day so it was just water that was coming out of his mouth with a little pulp of something that he couldn't figure out what it was. He felt a terrible twisting pain in his stomach. He couldn't control himself anymore. The puking was getting severe with every passing minute and every second to him felt like a year of terrible pain.

He got over it finally, like everything, sooner or later he always got things over with. He sipped some water, drank some of it, gargled rest of it out. He was feeling relaxed now physically... mentally he was fucked. He knew he needed solace, isolation whatever for some time. He wanted to go into hibernation, a process in which insects and animals underground themselves and sleep for a brief period to pass the difficult and bad time of climate change, except RT wanted to pass this congratulatory good time.

He felt relieved after puking but he knew the moment he would go back into the office, the puking would start again.

For different people, the definitions of success are different. Some remain happy in undeserved success but some work so hard that they want every moment of success to be very special when it comes. They know that they have done everything to deserve every bit of success they have got so they want to enjoy it and hence wait for it eagerly. Worst thing that could happen to these hard-work loving people is when they get what they want on its own, by fate or by luck or whatever you call X-factor, at the last stage when they are dreaming of achieving it with their own abilities and are near the end of getting it. It shatters the man who believes in his own work. They work so hard to achieve their goal and suddenly they get it, lying there, down under their feet, like alms thrown to someone in charity.

R.T. decided to run away from his office but he knew that going out from the main entrance of the building was not the option for him. He had to find some other way. He looked randomly for something to help him get out, suddenly he looked at the window, and he realized he can easily escape out of the building from it. He was sure he could get out of it because one of the prisoners from his custody went out of that window long time back; then and there he decided to follow the footsteps of that prisoner whom he once cursed for doing what he was going to do now. He looked back, confusingly thought for a while and convinced himself that this is enough for him, he would not tolerate the enjoyment that was going everywhere inside and outside this building, he needed to be out, and he needed some free, fresh, pure oxygen with lots of frustration mixed in it.

He carefully removed the glass tiles from the window and put them on the ground carefully to avoid making any noises. First, he threw his coat outside the window and lifted his pants up to the knee, also pulled his sleeves to the elbow. Then he put one of his legs out, gradually moved out of the window and thump jumped on the ground. He was safe, no one saw him and he made no noise. No one used that lane; it was really narrow and dirty, advantage. He crept out straight to his car, turned the key, ignited the engine and rushed out from there.

He needed sometime. He needed sometime because he didn't know what to do next.

What can be done with an achievement? Once you achieve something, it becomes useless, then you want something else to achieve.

Sometimes we run very fiercely after something to achieve and then perhaps achieve it but once we achieve it after thorough hard work and determination we have no idea what to do with it then. We concentrate so much on achieving it that we didn't think further like what it would be like to possess it.

He was feeling like that only.

He was completely clueless about his next step. He was wishing that whatever happened hadn't happened and he was still engaged in doing something to make it happen.

Running after something is always more interesting than getting it. Life seems so dull when we achieve our goals.

He pushed the steering in the right direction. It was decided; he was going home now.

2.

The news headline was ubiquitously same everywhere in the town.

They got him finally; he was finally caught.

The man who single handedly masterminded every big crime that happened in India in last fifteen years.

When he was nine, he split open the skull of his school teacher with a brick because he was beating him for not doing the homework. He could never control his temper. His father was a contractor, so you can say he inherited the rowdiness from him. He was never punished anywhere outside the school. No one said anything to him, not even his mother or his father, they couldn't, they died one year after he was born. They were a family of ten people and one of them was his grandmother; it's not easy for an old lady to concentrate the whole day on one kid. He grew recalcitrant with time. There was no stopping him. He had sex when he was thirteen with a woman twice his age. That was not a right time for a child to experience the most enjoyable act of human beings. Life desires struggle, if you don't do it now, you have to do it sometime later but you got to do it, it's one thing you cannot escape. His life was no struggle because he did not want to meet the critical demands that struggle has laid for people who want to go on the right path, he chose the other path. He killed his first lot of human being when he was seventeen because the man he killed refused to give him money for the work he had done for him. This was the last time he worked for anyone.

He opened his own smuggling syndicate when he was twenty one and since then his biography got updated regularly in every police organization.

Now that was some kind of resume. Today he is forty one years old. He committed his first crime at seventeen so for twenty four years he had been constantly busy doing crimes and surprisingly never been caught, except for today.

Why am I telling you this? Because this story is basically his story and you must know it. This story is about what happened to him after twenty four years of life in crime and forty one complete years of life.

The name, well the name is Devendra Khan. The name that once terrorized the whole of India, leave alone Mumbai, His capital. The government of India, the Interpol, the Scotland Yard, you name the organization and they had his file and he was, well he was free. He was a free man with no boundaries to stop and laws to control. In India, talking crimes, he was bigger than the President of India and more famous than Amitabh Bacchan.

But on 24th September 2008, he was caught. He was caught by one of the most celebrated officers of the Indian police force. He was caught by R.T.

R.T. once claimed on an Indian television interview that he will be the man who will catch Khan; so true it became one day when he was caught. R.T. became hero of the nation. Newspapers, magazines, television no matter what kind of media you choose, you will find stories of R.T. and his photos with Devendra Khan posing just next to him. Right from the birth of this modern hero and modern villain to how they become one, they were showing everything. There was a terrible competition between television channels to show the maximum information they could show about India's most hyped arrest. When they couldn't find enough information about them, they started showing their personal life, their wives, their kids, their families and like that was not enough, they further degraded themselves to a level where they started showing the opinion of people who lived in their neighborhood.

Everything that could be possibly known about this event was on the television but there was one thing that no one knew. Only five people in this whole world had any information about it. One was the chief of C.I.D. and other four were ones who arrested Devendra Khan, which included R.T.

3.

R.T. was very angry on the media and the reason was more than 99 missed calls on his cell phone.

Call a person once, if he is not picking your call then it either means that he is busy doing something else or he is deliberately not picking your call; calling again and again doesn't make any difference, does it; I don't think so either.

R.T. came out of his old esteem 1997 model and moved towards his government-given meager-rent big house sufficient enough for two families and in which he was living alone. He stopped and thought about something and then with a determined face he started moving again, this time with confident steps, like he got a clue for something .He moved inside his house.

Only after 15 days of trial and everything, R.T. will get the chance to talk to Devendra Khan. RT was perplexed by the acts of Devendra Khan that why had he deliberately got himself arrested when he could live a comfortable life as an outlaw, which he was living. He was confused but somewhere back in his mind he knew what could be his plan. One thing that he could not understand was why everyone else was so blind to what was so easy for him to comprehend; can't they see what's happening, when it was like an obvious fact to him. Then RT remembered that he is the one of the five men who knows how Devendra was arrested so society can be excused for overlooking things.

A question that kept bothering RT's mind- Is he taking the whole matter too seriously unlike everyone or are there more layers yet to be peeled off?

RT took out his diary and started writing something. When in doubt, he wrote. It clears his mind of all doubts. When the things are written down, they become easy to sort out for him. More than that when you have no one to talk to and share, writing comes as the only option to bring peace to mind. RT took some whiskey in a glass and filled the glass with ice cubes; this is going to be a long night for him. When in thoughts, nights become long for him. He was thinking about the face of Devendra Khan and how satisfied, emotionless and confident he was when he was going for trial in front of the magistrate. That was the first time he saw such a face. There was nothing special in his face he felt except his past activities which were creating an aura around him that was making him look extraordinary in every way.

No one is good or bad except for our thinking for them.

He was a criminal but what annoyed RT most was the fact that Devendra was treated like a celebrity for no reason at all, at least for no good reason at all. Everyone wanted a glimpse of him, no one had seen him before, and he never had his photo taken for over twenty years. Photographers compensated for all those photos that they should have had over all those years.

RT tried not to bother himself with such trivial things. He never bothered about these things before; he would not have even today if it was not for Devendra.

4.

"The crime that has never been committed is 'The perfect crime' and an escape that has never been tried is called 'The perfect escape'. Both of them need loads of intelligence and knowledge along with ability to use them well.

"What exactly are they?" RT asked.

"Now consider this, I am sitting in front of you. Suppose we have an argument, a heated argument. You say something to me, I say something to you. You start to abuse me, I start to abuse you. You get angry and you kill me by poking this knife lying on this table intoS my stomach. I die instantly. What will you do now? What will be your first thought? Will you repent what you have done? The answers to these questions will lead you to the concept of perfect crime.

After this incident, you won't be in your comfortable state of mind, of course, in panic you will try to hide my body and remove all the evidences of what you have done. Your first thought will be full of anger that you have finally won the argument, your next thought will be of self realization of your act and then you will try to estimate the gravity of the situation, which will terrify you no doubt. You won't repent killing me at that moment because your concern is not me but you yourself, you will instantly hope for something to happen that would undo what has been done, you wish it would be a bad dream, you would wish you haven't done it, not because you killed a man but because you are afraid of punishment. You don't regret the crime you have done but you regret the whole event because of punishment that will be given to you which defies the whole purpose of giving punishment. Anyway that's a different matter.

Now suppose the same murder is committed by you but under a perfect planning, by weighing beforehand all the consequences, finding cures to eliminate all the risk factors and most important, consciously being aware of what you are doing and being ready for whatever comes if everything fails even after such a thorough planning. You don't panic and you are not afraid because you know what you are doing. Suppose under such conditions you commit the crime, consider murder, as that is the biggest crime noted in the books of law, and escape it. This will be called perfect crime.

A perfect crime is one in which a man commits a crime and clearly escapes the consequences by not getting caught and remains a free, guilt ridden man who is also consciously aware of the intensity of his crime and its repercussions on his life once caught.

The idea of perfect crime was important to understand to finally get the concept of perfect escape.

World's most deadliest and wanted criminals like Dawood Ibrahim or Osama Bin Laden have committed crimes that cannot be excused. We can't even punish them; we don't even have right laws and extreme punishments for them. We are helpless in front of them. We can never do anything bad enough to them to quench our anger. We don't have any punishments for them. They have done crime against millions, what punishment can you give to this one man. They are like the best criminals that there is. Now again suppose these criminals want to live life in general society with common people, just like you and me. Can they?"

"No, they cannot. Of course not. How can they? I never thought that they could, now that I am thinking about it this is a very stupid thought, very stupid. This is just not possible, at least not in society in which he has committed the crime." R.T. said.

"I know it may sound stupid to you, also impossible. But assume for discussion sake that it happens or it could happen. A man commits a crime and gets away with it from the clutches of same people against whom he has committed the crime, instead those same people willingly excuse him from all his crimes and leave him free.

When a man consciously commits a crime and gets away with that, then starts living like an innocent man among the same, against whom he has committed the crime, then it is called a perfect escape. "

No ordinary man can perform such a task, only few fortunate are blessed with immaculate powers to perform it with such articulation and artistry. As far as I know and have researched, Devendra is one such person. I was his official biographer once and was writing a book about him way back in 2005, I interviewed him for quite some time and then I decided to quit."

"Decided to quit! Why?" R.T. questioned.

"Do you think if I had sat there and decided to talk to him again and again to gather trivia's about his life, listen to his philosophy and wrote a book, then would I have been here talking to you in a dialect that is making complete sense to you.

I knew I was getting convinced by his talks, he had that power. I also knew he will convince me real soon about his every wrong doings and I knew that would be the end of my life as an intellectual if he did that to me. He has got the power to control the minds of other people. You can't argue with him, he has answers to everything. He can carry any argument in his favor and he would make you agree with him too. He will make you so weak mentally that you will helplessly want to believe him. You will start idolizing him. He is not a fluke; he became whatever he is because he deserves it. However in my opinion he deserves only death because he can change the course of the world and not in a good way. His thoughts must be stopped.

You probably may not be able to understand what I am saying but I have no better way to explain Devendra Khan to you. He is invincible. And see, I am praising him again when I started my conversation criticizing him. I am helpless, he makes me helpless, he can make anyone helpless; he has that effect on people. I feel ashamed whenever I finish talking about him after I realize what I was saying.

(Takes a pause)

Can a man single handedly change the destiny of this world? Yes he can. A man like Devendra khan can. What exactly changes the destiny of the world? It's not action; action taken without thinking by a man has no effect on this world, action taken with thinking by a man although does affect this world but not in a very global and universal way; it's only thinking by a man that causes other men to change their thinking and lead them to act, that can actually change this world in a true and effective manner.

We know a saying that a house becomes a home only by people living in it. Similarly this world becomes what it is only by people living in it. No change could be called a change until there is someone to realize it. Changes can be natural or made by living creatures, but they nonetheless need lots of efforts to come along.

Khan, he had the capabilities to change anything, I know it from whatever I had learned so far and whatever I have believed so far. I knew, just after two meetings, any more talks and I will be writing praises about him, defending him and trying to save him. Ohh... I am sorry to myself for what I am saying... 'trying to save him' (sarcasm on himself)..... I don't have the powers to save him, no one has. Only he can save himself. And you have not arrested this man; this man has indeed arrested you, and not just you, everyone. Have you seen the impact he has on youngsters? He is playing with their morals, their ethics, their thinking. He is changing them to an extent where they are destroying themselves as well as the country, the world. Unbelievably philosophers and best writers across the country are singing his praises; sadly even after knowing everything he had done.

Now, can you imagine the extent of his capabilities? He has published three books. None of the books were released in the market because he didn't want the money or publicity, he has enough of it. His plans were different, something that we cannot even fathom in our whims. He wanted to corrupt the minds of youngsters. You know what he did; he released his books from secret sources, first to the underground youngster societies who are always looking for something dark, unique, uncommon subjects to follow to satisfy their intellectual dosages and feelings of different from the crowd. These people were easy to trap and influence. Then he released excerpts of his book on the internet and advertised, again through secret sources, and that's how writings of Devendra Khan leaked. People, as soon as they came to know about it, wanted to read it, discuss it, they got a very fine topic to gossip while going to their office or while having evening tea. Parents were trying to stop their kids from reading it; again, a very nice marketing technique. Kids don't notice many things on their own until their parents ask them not to do it, then once told not to do it, they want to do it.

What he wanted he got, he wanted to corrupt the minds of people and he succeeded in that. This man is more dangerous and poisonous than anyone born before. This man has the power to communicate his thoughts that he creates; (based on his needs) so clearly to anyone that those who listen to him become thoughtless and start believing what he tells them; it's like hypnotism. There can be no better destructive weapon to destroy mankind, than the ability to control the mind of people and Khan has that weapon."

"Damn this sonofabitch!! I never thought of it like that. I thought that it was random madness that aroused with every criminal case that takes place, people take the side of a criminal sometimes but then that's it. Something like Stockholm syndrome. But how he does all this? He is not even properly educated." R.T. inquired.

"The best kind of education that a man can get is on his own. When he was 27, he started thinking about life and what he has made out of it. He started thinking in terms of life as a whole. He surrendered his entire work load to his assistants and henchmen and retired. You don't know about this because all the business all this time was carried in his name only as he symbolized fear in the underworld, and work was easy to carry out, with his name. For 7 years he just read books. Can you believe it? Neither can I when I first heard that. But his mind is very sharp and no ordinary man can achieve what he has achieved. He read one to two books daily which became five books after three years. Every literature, crap or masterpiece, he has read it. Every philosophy, psychology or science, he has gone through it. It's is difficult to defeat him in any topic. He not only knows everything but he knows it better than anyone. He can argue with you on any topic in this world and win. He can convince you of anything in this world, even of the weirdest thought that has ever been thought of.

Do you still think you can beat this man?"

"Of course I can. He has committed crime and everyone knows about it. We have witnesses and proofs. I believe in the order and justice of my country law."

"Do you believe that your court gives justice to everyone? Do you believe that every criminal gets punished?"

"No, not every time."

"You answered your own question. This man knows about all those 'not every time'. This man has tremendous knowledge about law too. You will become helpless in front of him when you will see that everyone knows what he has done and yet no one is able to punish him because he is defeating them in their own process and procedures. He knows everything about law, not only of India, but every country that exists, he has learned by heart case studies too which he can and will use to prove his point, which I am sure will be missing from your side. He knows everything. Every penal code, every amendment, every judgment ever made and most important, he knows their loopholes too.

I can't help you anymore. I can't give you any lead; you have to find your own way to beat him which seems impossible as of now. "

4.

R.T. was very angry. He was angry with himself. He couldn't think of a single way how to break Devendra Khan. The worst feeling that a man can face in his life is of helplessness. RT was going through the same feeling. He didn't know how to start, where to find a lead, what to do in so less of time. Devendra spent years in becoming what he was now but RT had just 14 days. After that Devendra might become a general, common, ordinary citizen like him and others. He needs to be punished, at least stopped, not because he did something wrong, but to prove to others that criminals may hustle for a while but cannot escape from law completely.

He thought of reading the books on Devendra for once but he knew he doesn't have time to finish the books. He does not have the reading powers like Devendra; good, he knew his limitations. He can't read all the books like Devendra, there is no time. Devendra can escape, there were major chances of him escaping, after talking to the writer he became sure of that, but he will definitely make his escape troublesome, which was the only motivation he was left with.

It is not an easy job to convince oneself of a belief that you yourself don't believe in but want to believe into. He thought, 'why does it matter to me', lot of criminals escape after doing crimes, what will it matter if one more does.

But he knew that this time it does matter. Devendra khan was not an ordinary criminal; he was more than just a criminal. When a man commits a crime, his mind gets blocked for a while and he couldn't imagine the results of doing it, but after he does it he thinks of escaping from it. It's normal human psychology that everyone knows. When a man consciously does a crime in complete knowledge of its punishment then either he has a backup of someone who can make him escape his crime or he knows ways to save himself and escape punishment. Devendra was a man who knew what he was doing and was always aware of whatever crime he was committing. Devendra does not care about punishment or laws or repentance, he just wants to test his powers and prove every person a living fool. People like him want to prove that whatever human civilization has achieved and whatever it has created is nothing in front of them. They want to prove that every human accomplishment and ways of living life discovered are imperfect in front of them and their curriculum vitae. Devendra does not want to become the most powerful man on the planet, he just wants to test the capabilities of mankind. So today the world has got divided into two parts; on one side is whole human civilization, everyone who was born so far in this civilization and contributed in its making while on the other side is standing Devendra khan with a premature smile full of smug, and right now he was winning.

5.

"The only emotion that makes a man criminal is anger, and when I say crime then I do not mean petite crimes of pick pocketing , I mean murder, pure act of deliberately making another person devoid of life. Killing someone is no crime, an animal kills other animals, we ourselves kill so many animals, and we also kill men, our own species in wars. There is no punishment for crimes that are committed in masses. But only a large mob can punish a small mob; a small mob can never punish a large mob; never in the history has such an event occurred. So killing can be justified in many ways. If a man kills another human being he needs to be punished; there appears more destruction when killing would be done in masses but in actual there will be more killing if every person moves out to kill another person individually. Ideally, considering mathematics, immediately they will be reduced to half of what their original population was. They won't stop even then, rest of them since given the freedom of independent killing will start killing each other and reduce rest of them to half and like this, divided by two, we all will be reduced to just one man, who will eventually die because of lack of human connection. Funny, isn't it? But that's why Devendra must be punished for his acts of human killing. If Devendra escapes then every man who got punished for murders, had got death sentence will have their death wasted. Those death sentences won't remain punishments anymore; they will become hard-core cold blooded murders of first rate committed by government on the agreement and onn behalf of whole human community.

Every punishment that was given was given for a reason, was given to keep people in belief that bad things happen to bad people because we knew that there is no God to punish those who do wrong; wrong is a relative word so don't judge me on that. We decided to take the charge in our own hands. Hence, we made a set of rules, called it law and started following it. They were in the benefit of nearly everyone so everyone started to follow them. Few of them who didn't were punished because these set of rules or laws were made for them only. The faith on law of people increased and with this faith increased the power of those who were given the job of maintaining the law. One man makes another one powerful just by giving him his faith. Things start getting wrong and corrupt. Later, people in mass amounts lifted their faith from the government that ran by the same laws. Hundreds of revolutions across the world are evident example of that. But still, love it or hate it, it is the only way we can run our society. We have failed to find any better procedure. Many have tried and started socialism, communism, democracy, republic but everything has one basic concept, there has got to be a leader and everyone must follow him. Devendra today is challenging everything. He is the only Indian I think who has become more famous than anyone in our history. He has created a mass movement and a revolution and based on what, nothing. He has published three books, not one is in the market. Not a single book of his was released. Why? I will tell you, because he is a very smart man. He knew that if he releases the book, people won't read it because of his image and it will be considered crap even before anyone goes through it. He wrote all the books with an intention, intention of creating this movement, intention of creating the furor in the world. He had everything planned. He released all his books secretly and made them so scarce to find that anyone who has to read it has to make an effort to read it. Those people who got it felt special and exclusive from other people that they have got access to a book that cannot be read by everyone. His books were a secret known to everyone. He did the cheapest publicity possible. Today, every youngster wants to feel that he is different, that's why they create separate secret groups in which they try to do unique things and follow offensive ideals rejected by everyone. Like following Satan, it gives them a feeling that they are different from the crowd, everyone is following God, so what is the use of it, follow exactly opposite. These youngsters are always in search of a unique topic to follow and want to pretend to themselves that they have found a meaning and unique purpose of life. Devendra gave them that. He gave them a philosophy that justified every wrong thing that they have ever done or were planning to do. No more of these bad acts were bad to them; they can now satisfy themselves with fake reasons created by Devendra to perform the acts of crime. These people when they work like this have such strong beliefs that you cannot even scare them with the goriest punishments. They establish strong thoughts and no one can ever convince them of otherwise. The worst thing about him is that he never criticizes anything like communities or religion, instead he philosophizes that how crimes, for which he didn't use the word crime, can be committed within the boundaries of religion. He never even calls crime a crime, he uses the most clichéd line used everywhere, he uses the phrase, 'finding oneself'. Self help motivators and spiritual gurus are using this line for ages to fool people into something that no one could ever understand, life. People start believing that they are not what they thought about themselves, instead they are something else, which gives them a good feeling since most people think of themselves and their life as very boring compared to someone they idolize and they are fed up of living with themselves, they like the idea of them being someone else that they are not, and they love the concept of finding themselves. It gives them a feeling of doing some work, it keeps their mind occupied and they feel intellectually-grownups. Devendra knew this basic flaw of human psychology. He is just playing with it now and what a play he has created.

He is not someone who does an action and then thinks about its consequences and later creates reasons to justify them. He is a man who creates reasons beforehand, confirms its consequences and only then performs actions. He does what an average man will never do.

Do you know the definition of God or do you know whom we call God? God is someone who had planned everything that is happening in this world. Isn't that what we say about him? That he knows everything. He has planned every event in this world. Devendra is trying to become God, take better control of events in his hands and if he succeeds then what he has done will become better and better with every single person who will commit crime and escape from it right in front of the people who at the first place charged him of all the crimes."

6.

From 'The Times of India',

"......Devendra Khan had 243 cases registered against him and this amount was only in India. No one was sure how many cases were registered in different other countries against him. Today 189 cases dropped against him because of lack of witness and lack of evidences. Rest 54 cases seem perfunctory act of trial now. He will be released soon and become a common citizen. His popularity is growing day by day. He has become a national icon. There is no stopping him now....."

7.

RT was furious. He had been engaged in lot of dialogues with different people but none helped. Actually he knew that no one can help. People are same all the time, everyone knows the problem but no one has the solution. He had to find one himself. To fight with your enemy, you got to know your enemy, his strengths, his powers, his weaknesses, his fallbacks and everything. But the most important thing to know would be the thing on which you can provoke him. This thing will be personal no doubt and it will be something with which he could be held by his neck and he won't mind the pain and embarrassment rather plead for mercy.

RT became so happy with this thought that at least he was getting any thoughts after a long dry period of thought blockage but next moment he again resumed his sad status thinking of how to get those facts on which he could provoke Devendra. Who can give him those facts? He decided something. He made himself a jug of coffee and put it in a thermos. Always prepare some coffee before you start doing something important, this was his usual philosophy. This is going to be the longest night of his life. He knew he can't sleep for the next 13 days. Every second was important and every tick of clock was expensive. He has to work day and night and he can't do it alone, he needs people. None were of any use or can help him from his office except two people, Jayanth and Kamath. He trusted them. He called both of them. It was 7:30 in the evening. He didn't tell them what they were called for. What they both didn't know was that they won't be able to sleep for the next thirteen days. They both were unaware of their future for thirteen days and what was coming to them, courtesy RT.

RT was one man whose order, coming whatever time of day and for whatever reasons they just can't refuse, that was the respect RT commanded from his subordinates. However, they came and realized what a big mistake they have made this time. But in front of immense passion and mad excitement that they can see in the eyes of RT, every other thing became secondary. They could see in the eyes of R.T. what he was trying to do and accomplish. RT told them everything that he knew or came to know about Devendra Khan in last few days. They both agreed to work for this and that too willingly. RT knew that time was less and he needed very dedicated and sincere workers, well he got them. He knew that both of them were sincere but he wanted them to be excited, passionate and mad like him because without it, this work cannot be done in such short time.

RT called the nearby restaurant and ordered food for nearly ten people. Both, Jayanth and Kamath knew instantly that they will not be returning to their homes this very night. They called their homes and washed their faces. Kamath was sent to the library and was supposed to spend his night in the library finding every single thing written by every single author ever on Devendra Khan but not to go through each and every detail due to shortage of time. RT gave him some money and loaded him some food that came from the restaurant. The food was more than he would eat but he didn't say anything and took the packet. He knew he may get exhausted and feel hungry. One must always be prepared for the hunger-emergency. It was decided that both RT and Jayanth will come to the library at 4 o'clock. Kamath went out. RT and Jayanth decided to work from home. RT asked Jayanth to surf the net and find from anything to everything about Devendra and also try to find important contacts and note down every useful detail. He asked him to call wherever he wanted and gather information and instructed him to call irrespective of the fact that it was night and people who will be called might be sleeping. To hell with people, just gather and get the information in whatever way he could, that was the instruction to Jayanth. There was a landline beside him and a printer too. He was allowed to use it as much as he desires any of them. But everything must be gathered till 6 AM, after that only the final research will be done and actions will be taken.

RT went to his room. Jayanth was little perplexed by the behavior of RT because RT was a man who always believed in team effort and he didn't assign any work to himself, instead he went to his room. He would never go to sleep while his people are working, that much he knew about RT from his past work experience with him. He will always be there working with them. Then Jayanth thought that maybe he made an exception today as he got tired after so much hard work he had done. After all he was the one who was responsible for the arrest of the certified biggest criminal in the whole world today, no matter how the event took place. Jayanth started working, and within seconds of him starting he saw RT coming back from his room but this time fully dressed like he was going outside. Jayanth smiled to himself. He knew he could never be wrong about this man. This man can work for months without getting tired. Working for RT always made him feel proud about himself. He wished RT was his dad or elder brother; he hated the formalities that were between them because of the job. Sometimes you want to be closest to the person you admire most and the inability to do so makes one really sad. It always felt to Jayanth that RT can solve anything and can do anything; he was like a hero for him. He worshipped him. RT was the only man he could say he knew in his life, everyone else were men just because of biological reasons but RT was a man because of his deeds, work and personality.

RT didn't say anything to him, Jayanth was expecting some last minute instructions, but nothing came. RT went out of the room. Jayanth got back to his work.

8.

"It is not easy to kill a man and that too at a very young age. Devendra did it. He was a very angry lad when he was young. He was angry because he was over ambitious. 'You can't get everything in life", it was a simple thing that he couldn't understand. Other than that he was a very excited and motivated. He was a keen observer and highly enthusiastic young man. It was not that he didn't try doing work, he tried but when a work was given to him he wanted to do it his way. A common trait in people like him, they just don't like taking orders from other people and also think that they can do anything better than anyone else such that no other person can do it the way they can. They feel that they know everything.

Devendra was a half Muslim, from his father's side and half Hindu, from his mother's side, so he wasn't partial to any religion. He actually hated both of them and was an atheist. During some local riots, his parents were killed one night and no one knows whether the people who killed them were Hindus or Muslims. Devendra, that's why didn't know whom to hate and which side to take, he decided to hate both of the sides and remain neutral. At that time of young age, his only animosity was against rich kids who he thought do not deserve anything in life because everything they have is inherited and nothing they have is earned by them. He loathed them. He worked because he believed that if he would work hard then he might become rich and famous like everyone else but later he realized that life was not that easy, rather contrived. The Rich gets richer and poor remains poor. Hard work doesn't mean that it will always be paid. He changed his philosophies because he couldn't wait to become rich. He wanted to sit where those rich kids were sitting. He wanted to enjoy the life that those rich kids were enjoying. He had the right dreams but unfortunately he chose the wrong path. He was living with his uncle and later left his house to live with his friends. He left studies not because he didn't like it, he was always a good student academically but he felt that it was a waste of time and will not help him in his goals. He fell in love with a girl and married her later when he was doing a job in a warehouse. His uncle helped him in his marriage. He was just seventeen when he got married. Three months later he committed his first crime. There is a possibility that he was irritated by the fact that he was not able to give his newlywed wife the comforts and happiness that he thought she deserves from him. He started working harder to earn more money and when in the end the contractor refused to acknowledge his work and pay him what he deserved, he killed him on the spot with his bare hands. The life of biggest criminal ever walked on earth started.

His hatred for rich people kept on increasing and he didn't like the way this world was running. He wanted to change it. He wanted to change it according to his own thinking and beliefs. He thought he knew how to run the world. He went ahead and started doing it. Whatever he didn't like, he started eliminating . He eliminated rules that he didn't like and more importantly he eliminated people he didn't like. Police was no fear to him. He didn't care about the police as he was always confident about not getting caught. He never tried to hide himself or escape. May be it was his sheer luck but the police didn't stop him; many people believe that the police didn't stop him because they thought he was helping them . He was eliminating criminals as being a criminal himself his ego clashed with egos of other criminals, soon everyone either obliged to his terms or got killed. He killed most of his rivals and till the time the police realized he was becoming a nuisance, he was so big an organization that it became difficult to locate him and his aides. No informer could enter his group and no one dared to go against him. He never 'kills' anyone who goes against him but he 'brutally kills' them till their last sigh, he doesn't stop even after killing them, he kills their family too. He believed that from that family if one turns out to be a traitor then the whole family having the same blood will carry the blood of a traitor. More than that, there will be no witness and no one to complain against him. It was only when he made his criminal organization a corporation and started smuggling and killing on a very professional basis that he finally got bored of his profession. He accidently killed his wife when he was beating her for some reason that no one knows. He never married again and he was never very interested in womanly love. Whenever he would feel the sexual urge he would call a woman from his own group and satisfy himself. No one minded that, no one had the guts to mind that. When he was 27, he decided to quit but he knew he couldn't. There were people searching for him at every place. He knew he can't escape and run anywhere. He still felt so inferior to all those rich kids. When he got too bored, he started watching television all day. He left all his work to his assistants. It was then he came across a self help book by some anonymous writer. He liked the book so much that he finished the book in one night. He bought all the books written by that author. Whatever bibliography was given there, he bought all those books too. His education started right then and there. It was then he read Nietzsche and other philosophers. He came to know about perfect crime and the concept of 'Superman', not the comic one but the philosophy of a man who is considered a superman because his intelligence excuses him from being punished by any other human being. It was then he realized that a man who is intelligent can escape anything. He decided to do an experiment, an experiment that was never done before......"

9

RT came back next morning. He went out with nothing in his hand and empty handed too. Jayanth thought maybe he went on some important proof hunting thing but he wasn't, RT spent his night at the railway station; sitting and watching trains come and go, people come and go. He was observing the movement of life of people and how easily it flows but how complex we make it by our own actions. Common people busy in their own lives, no care for anything happening in other parts of the world, no care for tomorrow, no care even for next moment. They are not holy but they are not evil too; they don't have any caste, creed, color, any other classifications and degrees, they are just people, people is their religion and people is their identity. R.T. needed to give a break to his mind.

Suddenly RT realized his root of fear for Devendra and why he was constantly struggling with himself to find a way to fight with Devendra. The reason being he already had himself defeated by Devendra in his own mind by constantly listening to his praises by the numerous highbrows he had met. There was no reason for him to feel intimidated by all those praises of Devendra. No one actually knows Devendra; no one has ever properly talked to Devendra, and whatever opinions they all have is the result of whatever Devendra has shown them about him and wanted them to believe. Again, this is a game of Devendra to manipulate the minds of people. Devendra has been successful in corrupting the minds of intellectual and intelligent people which, RT thought, was a very great setback for society as a whole.

10.

Excerpts from the books of Devendra khan.

"......every crime that I have committed has a reason behind it, I won't tell you the reason because you don't deserve to know it. Why you don't deserve to know it is because you have never gone through the pain where you are given a choice of choosing between becoming indifferent by closing your eyes and committing a crime..... "

".....there is no perfect definition of right or wrong, then on what basis are you judging me. Between your own death and others, what will you choose? ......"

"......I don't say rich people are bad people. They have done everything to deserve what they have. But what I am against is that fact that if on any single day two births take place, shouldn't they be given equal chance to survive in this world, shouldn't they be given equal opportunities to prove themselves. These two innocent kids who will become people after some time have their lives written before they are born, what power we have to do that. Are we so powerful? I am just questioning the source of that power. We like playing God, don't we......"

".....the only purpose of man's life is work and he must work. Good or bad, doesn't matter. What matters is that he must keep working. He should always keep his mind, hand and feet in motion. A person once told me that he is a true human being because even if he is not doing anything to change this world at least he is not doing something bad to this world. He indicated to me as someone who symbolizes everything bad in this world, destructor of anything humane in this world, a threat to humanity. This man, I say, if not taking anything from the society, is not even giving anything to the society too. He is a neutral man who is more or less like a parasite on the society that lives on the food crumbs thrown by the society and corrupts society by his unreasonable and unknowledgeable thoughts. When I smuggle something, I make a country poor but on the other hand I make another country rich. When I kill a man it's a simple rule of struggle because between him and me, only one can live, and the one who fights well is the one who lives. If this thinking is wrong to you then burn all the philosophies of Charles Darwin because he was the one who based all this theories on this philosophy only. Everyone has a fair chance to live. What are the chances that in the given circumstances, that man is not going to kill or backstab me? Time always moves forward and you can never know the other side once an event occurs. So on what basis do you judge? Your definitions of karma and justice comes from Bhagwad Gita, which was given by a man who himself did injustice on the war ground and instead of doing karma, believed in his godly magical powers. We all are living in a highly hypocritical world. At least, I am not a hypocrite........ ."

11.

Next night Jayanth and Kamath came to RT with all the details they could gather about Devendra Khan and they expected a long one day break after one whole non sleeping tiring day of work but not every time all plans meet their desired destinies. RT loaded them with more work of people they have to meet and gather information. 'No' was never an accepted answer for RT so both decided to silently listen to instructions of RT and with no other option left for both of them, decided to do what was told. Both of them silently left the house to do more work. One more day both of them will not see their family.

RT read all the material Jayanth and Kamath brought and finally reached to the conclusion that everything that they came up with was useless as everyone knows about this stuff. There was no way to break this man. There was no fact on which he could be blackmailed and nailed down. He revealed all the secrets of his life in his books. RT has read all the books till now and he knew why those books were the most important thing for this case. Devendra revealed everything about his life in that, even the smallest incidents because he knew that he could be blackmailed on that. He put everything so beautifully such that even though he revealed everything about him, still nothing could be used against him. He accepted all his crimes but he made them all look situational and circumstantial as he knew these books could be used in courts and their validity can be questioned as on one side he has to accept that he wrote the book because a book is one thing which made him a hero for masses and the book might be used in court against him as his acceptance of crimes; so either he didn't mention some of his gruesome crimes or he mentioned them in such a way that they would only justify his acts and prove him nothing but innocent.

Frustration circled the mind of RT and he decided to let Devendra win as there was no hope in the case. This was an already won one sided battle. RT decided to let Devendra win. RT knew that it was not him or his decision but Devendra's decision to win; he just complied and accepted his defeat.

12

'Do you believe in the existence of superman?'

'No.'

'Does your belief about superman actually effects the fact whether he exists or not? You don't believe he exists and suppose I believe he does, so your theory is as true as mine because we both can't prove our sides. No amount of argument would lead to any results because what we are talking about is not superman but our beliefs about him. So what matter is our belief and what creates them rather than the thing itself. You cannot convert anything to truth unless and until you convince some one about it. Nothing in this world matters more than the opinion of other people. Our own existence is convinced to us by others, how else would we know that we exist?

Suppose you become a spirit and you can see others but others can't see you, then would you exist? To you, you may but to others you don't, so whom do you believe. Simple as that you will say that I don't exist anymore and why, because others are not acknowledging your presence. Belief matters that much and people matter too. When someone accepts your belief, even if he negates it, it starts to exist because opposing the existence of something howsoever brings it into existence by the virtue of it being talked and thought about.

Everything that exists in your mind starts to exist the moment you think about it, because if it can exist within the skull of your brain, in your mind then it can exist outside it too. How over confident we are to think that we can think something that cannot exist. As a human being we have some limitations, which we refuse to accept, because of our vanityful nature, the limitation is that we only think what we see and know, thinking beyond which is impossible for us. We do not imagine illogical things no matter how much we believed that we do; we don't imagine illogical things, we just watch things in unorganized manner. Our imaginations are result of limited knowledge only.

Do you want to know the power of belief? Everyone to some level knows about it and we also have references about it everywhere, even in our fiction. Let me elaborate more on this. What does superman say when he is about to fly?'

'Don't know.'

'He says "up, up and away" and he says that because before flying he convinces himself that he can fly. He creates so much belief in himself about it that every single cell of his body starts believing in it. So much so that he starts to fly. How does he create so much belief in him? It's only because he is a superman. Normal people do not use that much of their beliefs, they don't even use one percent of their beliefs, those who uses more becomes successful and referred as great, others live as rest of the population. Belief is the most important human tool, taking help of which one can perform any task.

Have you seen Harry potter?'

'Yes, I have.'

'Do you remember the scene where Harry Potter was taught how to use the witch's broomstick. He was told to use all his mental energies and concentration on the magic. But Harry didn't believe that this little stick could do any magic or he was any special. Until and unless, by repeatedly reminding him to believe in its power, he started to believe that it will work, it started to work. He concentrated all beliefs to one point, he concentrated with all his power and gathered his concentration on one single point that it became extremely powerful and magic worked through that stick. Did that stick have magical powers, no, but the mind of Harry Potter had. The Stick was just a prop used to make that magic go out of his body. It was a symbol that if all beliefs get concentrated at one point, that is the point of stick, it comes out with its full force and can make anything happen. It was not Harry Potter who was the one but everyone's belief that he was, they knew that he was the one because they thought he could do it, they created their own beliefs in him and made him believe he can do it, including other factors that supported the fiction, but even in fiction, human properties and nature never change.

Similar was the concept of the movie 'Matrix', where Neo became one only when in the end he started believing that he is the one. Before that he was getting bruised and hurt and got pain, but only after he realized he can do anything with his powers, he was able to defeat the evil virus.

Every one of us has powers to do anything, we just don't believe in them and that's why they don't work. Once you start to believe in those powers you will see the magic of the human mind.

Galileo has given the concept of symmetry. Everything exists in two. If there is one, then to neutralize it, there is got to be someone opposing it that will make it two. Nothing exists in isolation, nothing is unique and that's what makes the concept of being unique interesting to human beings. The concept of uniqueness attracts us because it is something unattainable and we all always desire and want to achieve something what we can't; but then that's the whole definition of achievement. So the concept of anyone existing in unique form is just pure hypothetical if we carry our belief in Galileo, which till now have not been contradicted.

That's why we create our heroes that are unique in existence. Like God is one, why, because only a hypothetical thing like God can be one. He is the most powerful so he can exist in that state. But we knew this concept didn't satisfy everyone, so we have Satan too. Good is defined by evil only. No one would mind evil if there was only evil in this world.

Years ago kings were there who used to kill people in masses and at that time they were considered right. Devendra is doing the right thing if we compare him to those kings. We don't know who is right, he or us, but at the same time we can't remain in this state of doubt and we have to take a decision. The decision is that no matter what Devendra is fighting for, he has complete faith in his beliefs and no matter for what we are fighting for; we must take complete faith in what we are fighting for. A man can never win if he is doubtful of the reasons for which he is fighting.

We have to fight him without thinking what is wrong or what is right. We have to fight this man for we do not believe in his principles. We have to fight because only one can stand the victory; the other has to face defeat. There is nothing like both sides winning. And whoever wins will write history.

You might think that what affect this will bring in the lives of people. This is just another case of a criminal prosecution. People do think that these things don't matter to them until and unless it happens in their own home. Somewhere the result of this case will influence the mind of common people. Those who were in the belief that they can never get past the law, will reconsider their decision. People won't look at thousands of people who got prosecuted but they will forever remember who defeated the law.

Our law may be full of flaws and loopholes, but that is no reason for us not fighting for it. We must fight for it and we must believe in it because if people like you who are employees of this law does not believe in it then you can't expect this hypocrisy of others believing in it. You cannot make others believe in something you yourself don't believe in.'

13.

RT made another drink for himself and sat on the sofa. He kept looking at all the documents and research of Jayanth and Kamath. He forced himself to rethink about his decision to quit the case but he could see no reason to continue on a journey that has no destination and has 'defeat' written all over it. He was never so pessimistic about anything in his life as he was for this case. What is the use of fighting an aimless battle? Sometimes it is better to leave things as they are. You cannot win all the time. Life is not perfect. He was missing his wife tremendously. He gave her a call but she didn't pick. He called her again and kept calling her. She didn't pick. She knew his number. How badly he needed someone to talk to? No one was there. No one can understand him. It was difficult to make anyone understand him; people will think of him as a foolish person for consuming his life for something that is so trivial. He is just a criminal and nothing else and for people like him, criminal courts are there. What is the work of a policeman? The work of a policeman is to bring the culprit to the court for justice and after that his responsibility ends and courts begin. His responsibility ended the day he arrested Devendra but then why is he not able to get the peace of mind. Why does he so desperately want Devendra to get punished? What is so important about this man to get so much special attention?

RT was always a proud police officer. He always believed in the law and its integrity. He was proud of what he was and his profession. To him his profession and department was the most prestigious and precious thing in the world. He loved what he did and loved everything that came with it. All the rules, regulations, policies, laws, people everything related to his profession, he loved everything. He worshiped his profession, his country and he was always ready to make optimistic changes to it to make it better. He never even loved his wife that much. Had he loved his wife even a percentage of it, then she would have been sitting with him today telling him not to worry about anything. He put everything second to his profession. And now this one man has come, who is standing there and making mockery of everything he devoted his life to. He is out there making a fool out of everyone and no one is bothering about that. He is making fun of his profession, fun about what he had done till today as police man and trying to darken the glory of his job. He is not just thinking of doing it, He is doing it. No one is there to stop him. RT never questioned his authorities and law of his country but today he was, and just because of one man who thinks he can do anything he wants and no one will stop him. He is proving to be right and RT is feeling helpless for not being able to do anything about it.

RT thought that he is thinking too much about this case because he is unnecessarily involving himself too much into the case without any good reason. May be he so much wants to run away from the memories of his wife that's why he is thinking so much about this case. May be it is not as big a thing as he thinks it is and by constant thinking it has grown so much in his mind that it is becoming impossible now to remove it from his mind. May be he has to shut this case and start concentrating on other things for a while. If no one is caring about it then why should he be the only one taking all the pain. May be he is getting old and is trying too hard to prove his life is worth living as after his wife left he does not feel enthusiastic or excited about anything. There were many may be's coming in his mind and finally he decided to take rest from now and leave all thoughts of this case. He left the destiny of this case of Devendra Khan on the court now. He has finished all responsibilities by arresting him and now he is allowed some rest and he will take it.

He picked his phone and dialed the number of Jayanth to tell him to stop investigating and go back to their home as the case is finally over now. Before the bell of Jayanth's phone rang the door bell of the house of RT rang. He hung the phone and opened the door. It was Jayanth and Kamath. They didn't look very excited and had lots of papers in their hands. RT guessed that they have really worked hard to get every single information about Devendra as they could.

Before RT could say anything, Kamath handed him an envelope.

14

"Dear Ravindra,

It's been a pleasure to have you arrest me. I was looking forward to meeting you for a very long time. If there is any man that I respect on this planet these days then I can say it's you. But my likeness has other dimensions too, my likeness is not because you are an honest man who has a tremendous record in the Indian police service, I admire you because you are the only person who actually thinks and believes that he can defeat me.

You think that you know everything about me and I don't know anything about you just because I am captured in jail. You yourself know that sitting in jail is not my helplessness but my conscious decision. I can get out of here anytime I want, but I don't want to break another law to get out of here as I intentionally came here to test the powers of law. I believe that your law is going to respectfully ask me to go free as they have released me from most of the crimes they themselves have listed against me.

Life is very amusing and I am cherishing every moment of it. I might face defeat, odds of which I had always kept in mind, but I will be a tough challenge for you and trust me I am not here to lose, I am here to win and I will win. Everything that has happened till now has happened because I wanted it to happen that way. You may confuse me with God but I am no God, I am just a simple man who knows how to give his thoughts life, who believes that anything is possible in this world and only if a man desires then anything can happen in this world. I am just another example of human triumph. Unfortunately my triumph is given to me by other human defeats but nonetheless, the ultimate is the one who wins the battle.

If you need any help from me then just tell me as I am always ready to help you and people like you. Even with my complete support and help you can't win over me because I have conquered myself way back when the thought of getting arrested didn't even cross my mind and you are yet to conquer yourself.

I promise you that none of my men will be an obstacle in your path of finding a way to defeat me.

Looking forward to meet you.

Thanks and Regards

Devendra.

Cell No. 889"

15

RT was at the gate of police headquarters. He could see "POLICE HEADQUARTERS" written on top of the building. He felt like he was going for some examination. He remembered the first day of his job and how nervous he was that day. He was feeling the same nervousness today except that on his first day he didn't have much to lose if he failed in his job while today his failure would be the failure of whole human society and their laws which they proclaim to be flawless.

He parked his car. He re-arranged the back view mirror and saw his face. He didn't shave for the last two weeks so he had a pretty thick stubble. He took out his black ray-ban aviator glasses and put them on. He again checked himself whether he was getting the right look or not. Suddenly while checking himself, he realized what kind of idiotic act he was doing. He didn't know why he wanted to be perfect for this meeting. He was feeling nervous because he himself wasn't sure about what was going to happen. He was prepared nonetheless but until the moment comes you can never know whether you are prepared completely or not. He finally came out of the car and started moving towards the door of the police headquarters. The guards were saluting him and as usual he was replying to all of them in his officerish manner. Jayanth and Kamath were waiting for him to come. They saluted him as well and started walking with him inside.

Something was pulling him back, from going inside. May be it was everything that he came to know about Devendra Khan in these last few days. He again convinced himself that no one can influence him without his permission. He is going to put the truth on the table today. He is the man on the right side; at least he was standing for what most believe in. He can't let himself down and others too.

16

RT entered the room and on the dark side of the table HE was seated. RT sat on the chair opposite to him. The light from the lamp hanging from the ceiling was falling directly on the table. RT moved towards him and Devendra moved towards RT. Time has been equally cruel to both of them for making them wait for this moment. It seemed that RT was not the only one who has done research on his subject.

A snake is as frightened of you as you are of him.

The time came.

RT said,"..............................................

2. A Film Maker Convicted

Recently an unheard case hearing came into notice of journalists and reporters about a convicted film maker who was convicted on the charges of making films that are harming the youngsters and innocent minds. The film maker has been in headlines for many reasons for long and this trial too gained lots of publicity due to which the judge decided to do a close hearing in which no other person except the people concerned with the case will be present in the courtroom.

Following are the dialogues and interactions between the film maker, judge and the related attorney that were written by massive interviews of the people that were there present in the courtroom that day.

The Film maker refused to take a defense counsel but when forced as it being compulsory he listed himself as his defense counsel.

Here is what was written by putting bits and pieces of that hearing together.

Judge: Mr. Filmmaker. You are standing in front of jury today and you are convicted in several cases. All the cases will be called one by one in front of the jury and your defense in each of them will be called. You are allowed to argue and present facts based on solid evidences, not just theory and you are allowed to take as much required time for preparing the defense, the court is allowing you that. That would be all from me.

The respected lawyer can put his accusations one by one now and the convicted filmmaker is requested to answer them in the politest way possible maintaining the dignity and decorum of the courtroom.

(Film maker is standing still and looking at the ground as if he isn't even listening. The judge waits for any reaction, but finally signals the lawyers to proceed.)

Lawyer: With all due permission my lord, I would like to present in front of the jury, the case of Mr. Filmmaker. Mr. Film maker has been making films for nearly 20 years now. His first film was released in 1990 as far as my facts go, and then his latest film came in 2009. (To the filmmaker) Not a single of your movies got passed by the censor in one round. A lot of editing became common routine for your movies, and then out of nowhere, the full versions were available in the market in the form of pirated CDs. I reckon it could be done without your permission. Your film portrays many psychological disorders of human life and many dark secrets that are corrupting the minds of youngsters and children. I am not saying this baselessly, five of the top magazines have recently special articles on you and on your movie style, three newspapers have covered and went through an exclusive research on what and how your films are affecting the society and nearly all news channels are covering your story from time to time, none of them says anything positive.

(The lawyer submits some magazines and CDs to the judge).

(To the judge) All the reports are presented to your honor on his desk. You can view them now or later, as you please. A copy of all the cuttings from the magazines and the newspapers along with a CD is also provided to the jury for consideration.

(To the film maker again) Now, I am confused here. I don't know whether you are more interested in film making or just in pure cheap publicity. I don't think this is helping you anyhow. Even your cheap publicity is not doing any good, as 11 of your 13 movies have been declared flops, one was semi hit and only one was super hit. Twenty years and one super hit movie, I don't know how you are arranging funds and producers for your movie?

You film shows extreme violence and sex, along with complex storylines that is not only hard to understand but uncomfortable to watch. Some of your movies were so slow that the characters were hardly moving. You lift the gay rights, you lift the drug culture and you show irrelevant philosophy. Your movies don't have any moral or lesson; they are just made for the heck of it. Your movies don't inspire young people to do something good in life. They don't inspire anyone to love ones culture or country.

I agree your films are appreciated in other countries but in our own country I have read that they are severely despised by most film makers. Your films are appreciated abroad not because of your good direction but because of the controversial topics you choose and also because these countries unjustly want to encourage poor countries for their film making to come ahead.

You don't give interviews and live a very private life. You never came out to justify your movies. I don't know what's driving you to make them, if it's not for audience. I am sincerely unaware of any motives of yours for making these films and unable to understand that why anyone would like to waste his life in making things like these. I personally believe that you in a different field could have been doing far better than

wasting your life in here, when, with no offense intended, you have no talent for film making in my opinion.

That's all from me. Thank you.

(Everyone starts to look at Film-maker. He is silent. Still in the same calm composure with conceited grace on his face. He is still looking downwards on the floor somewhere. The lawyer is getting irritated. He felt like he wasn't heard. They wait for another three minutes.)

Judge: Let me inform you that your silence in the court room will be taken as an acknowledgment and acceptance of the convictions and could be held against you. You will be accused of guilty per charge and will be executed accordingly.

(Still silence).

Judge: I am asking you for the last time. After this I will duly ask the jury to announce their verdict on you being held guilty or innocent. (He stops and waits for any reaction).

(Unable to get one, he continues) Silence won't help you. I ask you for the last time that whether you plead yourself guilty or innocent. (No answer. The Film maker is standing like a statue).

Hmm. I respectfully ask the jury to announce their decision and also like to state that the convict is now also charged under the contempt of court for not answering and following the court rules along with maintaining the untimely silence.

(Everyone starts to look at the judge now and then to the jury, when suddenly....)

Filmmaker: Yeah, sorry, excuse me, what were you saying? (Talking as if he woke up from a long sleep). Sorry, my apologies. I hope you don't mind my absent mindedness.

Lawyer: I don't think you are taking this court any seriously Mr. Filmmaker. You are being held as a convict here. I hope you know that. Now I am not going to repeat my arguments and accusations. If you want to, make your defense howsoever you want.

(Judge is smirking at the whole incidence. He was expecting some good debates here but it turned out that this guy is a lunatic).

Filmmaker: No, no I heard you. I heard you clearly and precisely. I was just watching that ant going over there. It started moving right from my feet to that corner of the courtroom. It started moving, in the straight direction, I don't know how she knew that it was straight; I never could myself walk in a straight line until some line was drawn on the ground. This ant is really a genius. She knew where she was going. She didn't care or give a damn about anyone in this courtroom. In the midway, near the shoes of Mr. Lawyer, when he was accusing me of making unmoralistic films, she took an insect three times bigger than her own weight and dragged her to the other corner, where I assume is her home. This was simply marvelous.

To me it was amazing, I see a big thing and I judge it whether I will be able to do it or not; I don't do it actually at first but I weigh the options in my mind initially. I don't touch that thing but I think whether I would be able to do it or not. Sometimes without trying it or giving it a shot I discourage myself that won't be able to do it. Now this ant just saw something that she wanted and that was a task nearly impossible to do, but she did it. Now that is courage. All we need is a belief that we can do it and we would do it.

(The film maker is again looking at the ground and looks like he is talking to himself.)

(Looks back to the Lawyer) Now, Mr. Lawyer. I heard everything you said and I heard it great. I listened to you very clearly. It was an awesome piece of work from your side. You really did some research on me.

Well, when you said that I make films for me and not for audience, you were partially right, as I make films for me but also for my audience.

I make films I like, that I want to reach an audience; but I don't let the likeness of the audience intimidate the likeness of me because whatever we know about the likeness of audience is based on the experience of previous movies and their plots. What I make is completely new and no one, including me knows whether the audience is going to like it or not. And what audience you are talking about, audience like you or audience like me. Because I like my movies, and there are a few people who like my movies. Then there are people like you, who don't, then don't see them. You are never forced to buy tickets, and even if you do, the exit door of movie theatres is always open. Blaming the director for a movie, who is presenting his vision that you consciously chose to see, is nothing but blaming your own thinking powers and insulting them.

You cannot say that we have to be responsible and should make good movies. We never made any rules regarding that. We make movies; that's it, period. There are no rules attached. You cannot force anyone to be responsible; and those who are, aren't they making so called 'good and responsible' movies. Let them make it, but, no one asked them to be responsible, they just felt it. I don't feel responsible.

A film maker should be independent of all responsibilities and expectations otherwise no art could ever be perfect and satisfactory to any level. Both of these things hamper his thinking and the characters he creates.

I am an artist. I do art. Art is nothing in itself without the appreciation of those who didn't participate in its making. I like my work to get acknowledged, but on the cost of what! Sometimes you got to choose your appreciations too.

I question myself, that should I change myself and start making films that will get appreciated and kill the man inside me. I immediately decide with no further ado, I have to work for this man inside me only. I am not responsible for the whole world. Everyone is responsible for himself. You cannot feel responsible for anything if you are not responsible for you and your actions. Being irresponsible to the man inside you and showing that you care for your country and society, in my eyes is a crime.

The basic goal, aim, motivation of any man should be to keep himself happy. Only if he is happy, he can keep others happy. I am in constant efforts to keep myself happy. I get happy by making these films.

You say that nearly all my films except one was a flop. No one watched it. And then you said I am corrupting the minds of youngsters and kids. How and in what way is it possible that my films are a flop, no one is watching them and I am still accused of harming the innocent minds.

You said that I have sex, violence, gore and whatever in my movies. Isn't it a part of society? Aren't those the kind of cases you witness here every day? Am I supposed to put a blind eye towards it? Can't I show it in my movies if I feel like showing it as I find them interesting enough to re-create them with my own hands? Should I become hypocrite and start showing the good life, larger than life portrayals and give people hope for three hours of a better world that they will never ever see?

Just like a film maker imagines a scene in love, romance, fight and gives it a shape, I do that too; but in a different way. Whatever I have witnessed, I put my imagination in it and I write a script. Is that wrong?

Drugs are taken. People have sex . Violence exists. People smoke. If I am showing that, then how am I wrong?

I am not asking people to do anything, I am showing my mind, if they feel like doing it, they can do, I don't force and I can't force them to do anything, neither can you insult their intelligence by thinking on their behalf and deciding what they must think and what not.

Man has a brilliant mind. It thinks and it imagines. Please do not stop it. The whole human civilization is based on the fact that we think. We can think beyond the truth and we can think beyond the realities. We think, therefore we are; I heard that somewhere, so right it was.

I don't give interviews as I don't feel justifying my actions to anyone. Who needs the explanations? I don't think anyone does. All they want to do is nail me down. The truth is that they don't want to know me. They want to create something that could be sold. When I say "they", I mean newspapers, magazines and news channels. No one has time to know the subtleties of my thinking; yes, I am admitting people are too immature for that and why to tell them anything when I am already telling them in the form of my movies. All they want is news, I give them enough of that through my movies, why interview?

Spare me the luxury of thinking and I will change my profession. I might become a lawyer (looking at lawyer) but not today. Today I can think and am still thinking.

I don't know what punishment you will decide for me and I don't care. Whatever happens to me now, I will be happy and you will be irritated by thoughts of me because you don't have the courage to think and so you don't like anyone who does.

If you think that I have a film making as a profession and taking it away from me you can cut my hands, well you all are grossly mistaken about that. I am not a film maker and that is not my profession. My profession is thinking, I can very well do it all the time and no one in this world can stop me from doing it. Movies are just my medium of presenting my thoughts. You can ban my movies but not my thoughts.

I am standing here, all alone, daring you to give me the worst that you have.

The film maker was released and his films were sent to the film committees for reconsideration.

3. Love from the Past Times

1.

It was a normal day in the life of Sharma hospital, except for one thing. Dr. Rajesh Sharma was nowhere to be found. Everyone was looking for him. All the chiefs of various departments and assistants working under them were running hither and thither just to locate where he could be at this time of the day. It was not as if they were doing this for the first time. It happened many times before in the Sharma hospital. No one was panicking but still they were all little worried because like every time they never knew which part or place he could be in the hospital. They were worried and they had to find Dr. Rajesh Sharma. They were all too well paid to do their jobs and one of their unwritten job guidelines was to find Dr. Sharma when he would go missing.

Dr. Sharma was not a sick man. He was also not mentally unstable. There is a difference between an artist and insane. Dr. Sharma; people believed was an artist. He was the best doctor in town and if there ever had been any competition of best doctor, he would have won the competition by great margins.

Dr. Sharma was a quiet man. Never talking to anyone until forced by situation and no one dares to talk to him until its a matter of death, but not in matters of life. He was capable enough to save some one's life, at the same time equally capable to drive someone to death by his talks. Talking was something which was not natural to him. He could talk sometimes on his own but that would be just professional talks, occasional scolding or finicky instructions which all were always very short and technical.

His physical appearance was of a man of thin structure with bones coming out of most part of his body. You can call him polemic by looking at him but don't say it, he might not like it. He was half bald, that is he lost his hair in front but he still had some left at the back. He had small round glasses that go bend around his ears which was an attached part of his personality and no one had seen him without glasses for ages. For the sake of mental picture he looked just like Larry David, the writer of Seinfeld sitcom, except the sense of humor on his face.

Finally they located Dr. Rajesh Sharma. He was sleeping on a bench of a hospital corridor where patients were supposed to sit. Who could have guessed that? People sitting around told medical staff that this man came out of nowhere and started fighting with everyone over this bench and finally removed everyone from it, and slept over it. It was hard to believe that he owned this place. Medical staff however didn't care for the story as they were already too fed up being concerned with human diseases. They were very interested in waking Dr. Rajesh, the man who ran this whole hospital, chairman of the famous Sharma hospital.

Finding him was not the end of problem, just the beginning. The problem was to wake him up. Everyone was looking at everyone else and was trying to find a goat that could be sacrificed today. Waking Dr. Rajesh was not an easy thing, you never know in which mood he would wake, when he would wake up. Everyone surrounded him. Lucky for everyone, today was everyone's good day, he woke up in a neutral mood on its own in fact he had no idea where he was. He hurriedly got up from the bench and moved towards his office without looking or saying anything to anyone. He went inside his office and slammed the door. Everyone just kept staring at the whole event like spectators in an opera who have no clue what's going on but are curious to know the meaning behind what is in front of them is. They were too afraid to move. What if he comes back? They didn't know what was the first right move to make, should they move right hand first or should they move left leg first or should they do vice versa, are there any instructions for them or do they have to work on their own instinct, no one among them knew anything. Dr. Rajesh didn't give any instructions this time, so unlikely of him. Doctors in the hospital were always motivated to take decisions by themselves but statics from previous history had revealed that no decision by anyone by far has won the approval or praise of the Dr. Sharma, except for quitting job decisions. Still the best doctors were employed in the hospital because the pay was good.

They were all still motionless. Everyone had their own thinking going on inside their minds and everybody was waiting for the first person to move. May be they all were supposed to stand there and wait for instructions which might come soon. Some of them went back slowly and noiselessly tried to escape from the door that opens to next wing of the hospital but became still when they heard the bell from the room of the 'Chief', Dr. Rajesh. They dispersed. Only the peon had to worry now.

Usually Dr. Rajesh was referred as 'Chief' in the hospital premises by all the hospital staff.

However, after the bell from the office of 'Chief' was rung, peon called the chief of medicine who then went inside. Chief of medicine saw real 'Chief' in a very calm and comfortable composure, his hair neatly combed, his face fresh as ice just like one looks after a morning bath, he was nothing like tired and sleepy what he was on the chair when he was sleeping. He was on his office chair and his hands were on his desk reading and signing some office documents. The office was grand and expensive but this was not the office of a man of taste, this was a beautiful office of the man having lot of redundant money. Everything you look at in the office was too perfectly crafted and aesthetically placed which only a student from some college of interior decoration can do or the maid of some high class family. It was all wooden from inside with books shelves on all the sides not just of medical but bestseller novels and literature as well. It was evident that books were kept there for the reasons of existence and not of purpose. It was all neatly arranged and everything was pricey and shiny. There were two doors from the left side of the entry, one opened to the bath room and other opened to his private room where he lives when he is not working, which no one had seen except for the workers who made it. True, one of the most respected and rich doctor of India lives in a cell. He had a home too but he only occasionally goes there.

"What happened?" asked the chief.

"Nothing, sir", said the chief of medicine gulping down his own saliva.

Chief looks up at him, looks down again and gets busy with his work.

"Then get lost, will you?".

"Yes sir" replied the nervous soul.

He went to the door and suddenly came back like he found the mystery behind origin of life.

"No sir....sorry sir... actually I had something but I forgot to tell you in hurry...."

"What hurry?"

"Hurry to find you Sir. Actually there is a patient, no there was a patient, who died few minutes ago because of kidney failure."

"What did he come for?"

"For kidney transplant operation, Sir."

Chief looks at him again.

"What happened, you didn't transplant the kidney on time."

"We did sir, we did. But there is a little problem. We didn't have any kidney at the time of operation and on urgent basis we called some hospitals for a kidney out of that only one responded but the kidney they had wasn't tested and testing needed some time. In the hurry, I said we will test the kidney and ordered it. Till it came, the condition of the patient was already severe and was getting worse. I took some liberty in the name of God, decided to leave everything on fate and do my best to save him. I decided to take the risk and transplant the kidney immediately without testing it. I did the operation and it turned out that the kidney was not fit for transplant and the patient died."

Chief is unbaffled by his monologue.

"So what now?"

"The relatives of the patient are claiming to sue us. They are shouting outside the hospital and have brought the media too. I am sorry sir."

'Chief' didn't care for his apology and remained indifferent.

"Was there any chance of that patient surviving if you hadn't done the transplant?"

"No sir. He was dying anyways. He just had one kidney at the first place; on more of it, it was a case of chronic alcoholism."

"Then get out. Get back to your work. Throw all his relatives out. Ask them to sue us. Don't talk to media. And place an order of kidneys from our US client."

Happy but simultaneously disheartened and nervous chief of medicine walked few feet backwards and turned back to go out of the room like knights do in royal British palaces. He opened the door when he heard from the 'Chief', "Good work doc". He smiled and went ahead to say thank you but next moment he again heard something like "Get out" from the same man so he cancelled his thanksgiving plan. That compliment was one of the rare things happening in the hospital. The chief of medicine went back to his work, never mentioned it to anyone and the day became normal again for everyone.

After lunch was the time for daily routine of the 'Chief' to take a good round of the hospital just to check everything was going fine in the hospital. It was more of a scaring-everyone-around round. These fifteen minutes when the chief was on round were the most productive fifteen minutes of the hospital every day.

2.

It was afternoon, close to two o'clock. It was a rainy day with winds blowing everywhere in the city. The chief was on the daily routine of the hospital round. Chief went on to drink coffee at the canteen. The canteen owner was the only one who was not afraid of the Chief. He was the only one who would talk to chief endlessly and get a smile in return. Chief never uttered a word to him except for his order but always listened to him. Canteen owner talked to everyone but his best listener was surprisingly Dr. Rajesh Sharma. Chief took his coffee after a long one sided conversation and came to sit on a chair. He drank his coffee and it looked like with every sip he was refreshing old memories. He finished his drink and moved to his Chamber.

He was on his way to the chamber when suddenly he saw a stretcher running towards the emergency room in the corridor of the seventh floor. That never surprised anybody usually, after all what else would you expect in hospital. But the whole scenario of it was fascinating to the Chief and was saying its own story. He saw a girl with her clothes blood-bathed lying on the stretcher looking nearly dead in an unconscious situation. A boy was running behind the stretcher carrying a coaching bag on his back and round glasses on his eyes. 'Chief' personally never cared about such matters or had any curiosity; he was always indifferent to what cases were coming in or going out from the hospital until he was especially called to look into the matter. But this scene was completely different. It was not déjà-vu because he knew where he had seen it happening, but except for that it was like déjà vu. Forty three years ago he was standing at some hospital in the similar conditions doing the same thing. This time fortunately, he didn't know the end to this story.

Driven by curiosity, he went behind the stretcher to know what had happened and what the actual scene was. He went directly inside the operation room along with stretcher like a kid goes after a candy selling sales man and took everyone by surprise. He didn't care to look or reply to anyone's expression about being surprised. He mechanically wore his green medical robe, masked his face, covered his hair, gloved his hand and moved towards the girl. This must be relative of doctor, some were thinking. For other doctors it was like when a very busy father comes to the cricket ground for the first time to teach his son how to play cricket, the son feels elated and very proud, he just wants to be with his father and learn everything that he teaches. The father here however was not the caring father but a rebuking step-father.

The magical hands of 'Chief' started working on the body of the girl and soon an hour or so passed. Everyone was standing still and doing as instructed by Chief like robots. After four hours, Chief washed his hands and removed his robe. He came out of the emergency room and paced towards his Chamber in his usual speed which was little faster than everyone else's usual speed. He saw a boy with a T-shirt hanging loosely on his body and covered in blood, some blood on his face and some on his hands, running towards the chief. The 'Chief' looked at him theifly and then looked in the direction of his Chamber. The boy came near and started doing one thing that 'Chief' despises most in this world, talking.

"Sir...Sir...how's she...is she alright...sir please tell me something...her parents are on their way sir...please tell me something...sir ...sir..."

'Chief' kept on walking. A medical guard pulled the boy away from the 'Chief' sensing danger to his life, boy is new and doesn't know that no one talks to Chief without his permission. The 'Chief' looked back at him for one more time and walked towards his Chamber. While entering in his Chamber, he saw the parents of the girl running towards the emergency room. They were moderately rich people having a middle class look and probably similar thinking too. 'Chief' went inside his room. The day was getting heavier for him.

3.

'Chief' waited inside his room, he didn't know what he was waiting for but he was waiting and he kept waiting. Suddenly a doctor came inside and told him that they were in urgent need of the kidney and not one but a pair of them. 'Chief' already knew that they needed kidneys since he was the one who was operating on the girl few minutes ago. He knew that the girl had got both her kidneys affected and must be removed. But they didn't have any spare kidneys, more than that they needed the exact match. The blood sampling of the parents of the girl was done and also few of the relatives were called for sampling, but in most of the cases it turned out to be negative, only in the case of the father did it turn out right but he could not donate both of his kidneys so there was again a problem.

The 'Chief' went again to the emergency room to check the condition of the girl. When he was on his way to the emergency room, he saw the boy coming to him, he started running fast to avoid any conversation with the boy. But he failed in his short lived plan and the boy reached to him just in time to start the conversation.

Boy cried," Sir, please save her...please save her...I can't live with this guilt...its only because of me that this accident has happened.....she was so happy today...it's her birthday today...and I ruined everything for her...not only ruined I gave her the worst memories of her life, leave apart the injuries....sir, please, they are not allowing me to take the test, I want to donate my kidneys....they are saying that I am not eligible and too young to donate kidneys.....and I am not one of relatives too...I mean what does that have to do with anything...if I want to donate my kidneys then it is my decision...please sir, only you can ask them to change their mind about this...this would be my only way of doing redemption for what I have done .....please...sir ..please...sir".

The boy kept on talking and the 'Chief' kept on staring at him without blinking. Suddenly he came back to his senses and convinced the boy that he will try to do what he can by saying "I will do what I can". Chief moved inside the emergency room again.

After fifteen minutes the 'Chief' came outside the room and saw the boy sitting just outside the emergency room on a bench. He stopped for a moment and looked at the boy again who in return stared at him with hopes in his eyes that may be 'Chief' might be going to say to him some words of relief. But nothing came and 'Chief' moved on. The boy kept staring at the 'Chief' till he disappeared from his vision.

4.

'Chief' was sitting inside his office, thinking something. He goes inside his cell and lies down on the bed. There were lots of thoughts going inside his mind. The problem with bad memories is that they always return. He comes back to his Chamber and rings the bell. The peon comes in; he orders the peon to call the boy who is sitting next to the emergency room wearing a green T-shirt with blood stains all over his clothes. There was actually no necessity of description as no one else was sitting there but everybody knew that Chief was partial towards descriptions whenever he gave one. Chief still didn't know the name of that boy. The boy came inside. Peon knew from his past experiences that the boy was in trouble. But he was wrong.

Chief asked," What's your name? ".

"Chetan" boy replied.

"Are you anyway related to this girl".

"No, sir."

"So what happened and who are you to this girl?"

"Actually Sir, I know her because we are studying in the same coaching for last one year, still she is unaware of my existence. Last year I saw her first and since then I fell in love with her but I could never say anything to her. I tried many times to talk to her but couldn't. Yesterday after her birthday celebration in the coaching, I wanted to give her a gift. I saved all my money to buy her this gift. But I couldn't give it to her. I don't know why I always get so afraid when I see her; maybe I don't want her to dislike me, I don't know. Yet I made up my mind that today I am going to give her the gift and tell her what I feel about her. She went out of the coaching in her scooty and I was chasing her on my scooter, I don't know what I was thinking, I mean I cannot give her a gift outside her house. But at that time I was just clueless of what I was doing. I just wanted to be near her for a little more time and look at her before she disappears in her house. I was planning something out in my mind driving my bike when I heard a loud thud sound. I went near and saw an accident in front of me". And he started crying."It was her".

"So why are you saying it's your fault, it was an accident. And redemption for what!"

"I don't know. I just feel that I could have saved her but I couldn't".

"So after the accident... (with hesitation)...you did what...called hospital emergency?"

"No sir...I didn't know how much time that would take...I carried her to the hospital in my arms."

The boy started crying and the doctor kept looking at him emotionlessly and didn't make any attempt to console him.

"Don't worry. She will be alright. I promise you that. You go home now; your parents must be worrying about you. Besides her parents are here to take care of her".

"No sir I don't want to go home. I want to stay here only until she gets O.K."

"Don't lose your mind. I am not prohibiting you from coming here tomorrow or whenever. I am asking you to just leave today and take some rest. O.K. Now good night. Go".

"OK sir if you say so. But I will come first thing in the morning".

"Yeah sure. Anything. Now go".

The boy leaves the room. 'Chief' picks up a remote control and switches off all the lights. He pushes a button on the right side of his desk and neon built sign of "Do not disturb" starts glowing outside the Chief's office.

5.

Rajesh was new in the city and of numerous transfers he had seen of his dad who was in the army, he never came to a big city before. He was very passive by nature such that if people don't know him well there were chances they would confuse him for an idiot. His dressing sense was personal insult to all French and Italian fashion designers. He never cared much about anything about him because in small cities, where he lived till now, people don't care much for appearance; it's in big cities that people don't care about anything but appearance. Anyhow, dressing sense was just a trivial flaw in his flawfull nature; he was inconfident, unknowledgeable, full of complexes, unfriendly, hadn't done anything in his past life he would want to remember and neither was he aware of what he will do in the near immediate future, leave alone the future that people call 'future'.

The city was new and he was trying to adjust to his new life. He was excited and happy to see himself in a big and advanced city. The school is going to be good and life is going to be terrific, he thought. Soon he joined a very nice school. Later, it turned out that the niceness of the school was just limited to the admission process, the curriculum followed inside the school was very hard and Rajesh was not used to working hard In small cities you don't have to work hard to get good marks, your father being at a big post was good enough reason for teachers to give you good marks.

This was his second last year in school i.e. eleventh class, but his parents were already worried about his admission in college. They asked him to join a good coaching institute so that he could study well and crack some entrance tests of colleges. Rajesh knew he was not good at math so he preferred biology as an optional subject at the boards, which meant just one thing; he was only eligible to become a doctor now.

He joined the top PMT coaching in the city and started going there.

On the first day of coaching, his life got divided into the life he was living till now and the life he will be living from now. Everything got changed from that first day of coaching. He learnt how to dress well and be cool. He made some temporary friends who talk only when they see each other accidentally. His personality started changing and it was changing for the good. In the coaching class the admission process was going on every day so the population of the class was increasing everyday as well.

One day there was a new admission. He saw someone standing at the entrance of the gate. What he saw was something he can never forget now. It was not perfect, it was beyond perfect. It was something for which words were not made. It was something for which metaphors were not yet invented.

It was not 'it', it was a 'she'. Rajesh was sitting in the coaching hall waiting for the class to start, when suddenly like sunflower everyone's head got stuck in one direction, the entrance door. Rajesh looked there too and then she entered. "Oh my God" was his first thought and "Oh my God " was also his second thought. He decided to kill himself because he did not want to live in the world where god was so impartial in creating objects. Being beautiful was still tolerable but magnificence beauty beyond words-to-describe was too cruel. Just like sunflower moves with the movement of the sun, everyone's head was moving with her walking from one side of the coaching to her seat. After they all saw and made sure that she got settled in her chair well did they start doing something else. That was the aura following her. The girl's name as told to Rajesh by a boy sitting next to him was Priyanka Mehan. She was a Punjabi girl wearing a blue salwar suit, simple black strap watch on her wrist, hair clung by a rubber band loosely such that some hair were falling on her face and black sandals on her feet. She sure had make up as later Rajesh came to know that her mother was some cosmetic expert, but it was only to enhance her beauty, not to make her beautiful. Rajesh could still see that she was beautiful beyond make up. Some guys have this power to see inside out of girls. Make up enhances beauty but beauty must be there to enhance. She was limitless beautiful and make up didn't seem to be there on her face. He didn't know whom to praise, her mother or her. Everything about her felt so natural. She always looked so fresh and clean. Her walking style was like she was always in a hurry to go somewhere or do something. Her face in neutral conditions was like she was always thinking about something. But when she smiled, her smile could kill an army of millions. She was so sophisticated that sometimes he felt that even touching her might be painful to her and would forever defile her beauty. He started living in his own world where she was like goddess to him, he didn't want to know more about her as he thought that might destroy everything divine about her.

She was a goddess to him.

Rajesh was completely in love, he also thought about a word 'infatuated' for a while to describe his feelings. He was not sure which one was it, love or infatuation. He didn't know whether it was his first time; what he knew was that he could do anything to see her and just see her, continuously. He went to the coaching just to see her. He never studied a word when she was in the coaching; he was only staring at her. He didn't want to lose a look of single moment of her. He knew he can never get her so he wanted to capture each and every expression of hers and make them a part of his memories. At his home, for all the time he was at home he only revised what he saw in the coaching and wrote poems on her.

It was not love, it was worshipping.

One day he asked very innocently to his neighbor in the coaching just to enquire about her that who she was. His neighbor told him everything about her, her name, her father's name, her mother's name, her brother 's name, her dog's name, her car's color, her apartment name. He asked him that does he know her personally, the guy replied, 'no, everyone knows about her, she is the most beautiful girl in the town'. Everyone was after her. Rajesh joined the club of her admirers. There were rowdies and students waiting outside the coaching just to get a glimpse of her. The ticket collectors of scooter parking had divided their work schedule such that everyone gets to collect a ticket from her alternatively and get a chance to stand next to her. She was like a legend in the town and Rajesh was no one but a new entrant in the mob of her admirers.

Rajesh felt like a loser. He got depressed and remained frustrated for days. Sometimes you think that you are very special to have a certain feeling about something but when you realize that, that feeling is shared by many, then you feel like a jerk to think like everyone. He felt that his feelings were never before experienced feelings and it turned out to be wrong, in fact his feeling were the most felt about feelings.

The obsession was increasing day by day and there was no outlet for his feelings. He tried to divert his mind by listening to songs, reading books, watching movies, sleeping but he was amazed by the fact that how his mind connected everything to Priyanka Mehan. He decided to turn it into competition to calm his mind. He made it a competition for him, everyday he chased the girl and tried to gather as much information about her as possible. Soon he came to know where she lived and how she travels, what does her father do, what does her mother do, what does her brother do, what does her dog do and everything that he could know from a distance. After gathering all this information he became more frustrated because now he knew everything about her and yet can't do anything. He would give her blank calls or hoax calls asking for stupid things wishing she would pick the phone and he could hear her voice. Once or twice she did talk him when he pretended he was calling from the coaching and that was all he ever talked to her.

One day someone in the coaching class told him when her birthday was. Her birthday was on 7th December. He collected all his savings together and decided to present her a book. He went to the biggest book shop in the city and bought a book. The book was "How to win friends and influence people" by Dale Carnegie. This book helped Rajesh change his life and this book was very dear to him. He wrote a poem on a note and put the note inside the book but he didn't mention his name anywhere on the book or on the note. He didn't know how she would react to this. He was afraid what if she doesn't like this thing, then he would have no other chance. He didn't want to be scolded by her in front of everyone, not that he would mind it, at least she would be standing in front of him. He never remained in company of girls and so he didn't know how girls react at what.

He put the book in her scooty a day before her birthday, when he found her scooty alone in the parking zone. She came and he was waiting for her to see the book. But she came with a bunch of friends and she was standing in a group talking to her girl friends. Suddenly the heart beats of Rajesh started rising. He got scared and he felt he wasn't ready to handle any reactions from her as of now. He feared that he will be caught. He felt that he wouldn't be able to take her negative reactions. If she feels bad about this gift from an anonymous sender, she might get angry and that anger he knew will be indirectly on him. He didn't want to make her angry. She was so beautiful, so sweet and her smile was the most beautiful thing in this world for him. He surely didn't want to see her angry. He silently went to her scooty again and before she came he removed his gift. This act made him feel very relieved and comfortable. He cursed himself forever after that for doing such a cowardice act.

Now he convinced himself that the reason for which he was born was to lose, in his mind he declared himself a loser and lived with this shame for few days. He said to himself, what is the worst that could possibly happen. She may scold him but then that's it. She is not going to kill him. He can't always be afraid like this. He can't always worry about this to happen or that to happen. Some day he has to say something and he realized that if it was not today then it will never be. He is a man and he will act like a man.

For few moments Rajesh overcame all his fears, complexes, low confidence and most important his low self-esteem. He became courageous, he became brave, and he was ready to take risks just for that girl. It was the time he stood for something. This girl, who didn't even know about his existence changed his personality unknowingly and changed it for the rest of his life. A man cannot change anything unless he wants it badly to change. To do this, Rajesh convinced himself that he will go through anything to transform himself from a boy to a man, If he loves the lady so much, then he is going to tell her.

Few days later. Rajesh saw her wearing a helmet after coming out of the coaching. He walked towards her to talk to her. She was in some kind of a hurry. She started her scooty and drove away before he could collect his guts to talk to her. Rajesh knew that it was now or never situation. He might not ever sum up all his guts like this again to do this and also if he fails to do this today then he will lose forever whatever respect he has in his eyes for himself and he will never overcome his low self esteem again.

He took his cycle and started following her. He thanked god that she was on scooty because scooty do not have gears and it runs slow usually. What he didn't know was that girls in a city manage to find a way to run a scooty faster than a motorcycle, main reason is that cops don't catch girls for high speed. He puts all his energy on his cycle to catch her but can't. He does not lose hope and keeps trying. He keeps paddling. In the run to catch her he didn't figure out what would he do even if he would catch her? What would he say? It was sure she will stop at her home. He can't tell his heart's tale to her outside her house. He couldn't say to this to himself 'what's the worst that could possibly happen' because he knew that in this case worst might happen and worst will be worst than being shot down by terrorists. His thoughts were changing with every passing moment but he kept on paddling. All he wanted was to see her again and catch her and stop her and ....next he didn't know what he will do.

Anyhow he kept on peddling and peddling and suddenly he saw a mob of people gathered around. It was difficult for him to pass the road. He slipped off his bicycle seat to the ground and started walking to the next side but he had to cross the mob to reach to the next side. He pushed people behind and kept crossing the mob when he reached to the centre. He saw Priyanka lying there on the ground. Her scooty might have slipped on the road and she went through a major accident with the pavement. There was blood all over her clothes and there was blood on her face. Her nose was bleeding, her teeth had blood on them and her temple had a wound on it. Her watch was damaged and her scooty was reduced to half with all its parts scattered on the road. Priyanka was in an unconscious state when Rajesh reached there. Some people were trying to help her but most of them were standing watching her lose her life because no one wanted to get involved in a case of death if she was dead or dies later.

For few moments, Rajesh stood there watching her for he was unable to believe what he was watching. He was shocked. People hear about calamities and misfortune happening to lots of people all over the world on radio, television and newspapers but no one believes that anything like that can happen to them. It seems unobvious to them. For many people, life passes easily and except for trifle problems they don't face much of crisis situations. So when it happens to them, they become clueless as what to do next.

Rajesh had many times thought of things like these. He secretly wished and wanted a thing like this to happen, however not this gross. He wished many times in his dreams that something bad is happening to Priyanka and he is the only one who could help her out of that situation, finally him emerging as hero in her life, her savior from distress. Many times he thought of himself as her protector from the dragons of life. Many times in his dreams he thought of doing brave things to save the troubled Priyanka, and now when actually Priyanka was going through something bad he didn't know what to do. He was afraid for a moment of what people would say or what the police would do to him or how will he take her to hospital in such a condition alone. He had never taken big decisions in life or had done any big things in life. He was hesitating and the thought of his love and his goddess lying in front of him didn't even cross her mind. But he was still in dreams about what he could do rather than doing anything. He imagined again and again himself going and picking her up and taking her to the hospital, but it was all in his mind and it was all what he was thinking. He didn't take any steps and he didn't do anything. He was not a hero, he was a coward. He was standing right there watching the girl he thought he loved more than anything else in this world, dying. The blood was rushing out from her body and with every passing minute her chances of survival were getting less and less. Rajesh was still standing there wishing someone would come and save her. It appeared like he had finally accepted his cowardness.

Somebody called a hospital and the police, an ambulance came right in time to the accident scene. Police pushed the mob behind. Rajesh was pushed backwards too. He was numb. He didn't feel anything. He couldn't believe himself of what he just did. Suddenly he felt that he finally came to know himself. He had seen people achieving extraordinary feats in extraordinary situations but he was not even one of those. He just stood there. All that he thought was about himself and all that he had thought about anything at all appeared lies to him. He felt like an alien to himself. He hated himself. They carried the blood dripping disfigured body of Priyanka to the hospital and Rajesh stood there gazing at everything like a movie was running in front of him..

Was his love just skin deep like when a child sees a colorful candy and fancies having it!! It was not love. It cannot be love. He was fooled by his emotions. Love would have made him do what he didn't do. He had read it many times in books, love makes people do things that they only imagined they could do, it was just lust for her body. How much he hated that thought that his love was just for her body. Was he that superficial? So all those times when he was writing the poems, singing songs, imagining going out with her on a lovely night, all that feeling of romance was all because he loved her body! What is love then? He questioned himself. It cannot be just her beauty that he fell in love with. How can it be? There has to be more. He couldn't find anymore. It must be her beauty that he was in love with. He didn't even know her, how can he love her? For loving a person, you must know that person. It was not love. But then why does he still want her? Why does he still feel like going to see her? Why does he still want to ask her for forgiveness for what he had done? May be everything is wrong and there is a better explanation for what he did. If anything those stories were wrong and those movies were wrong. Adversity does changes a man but not necessarily. He had never done anything like it before so what was expected of him. He was a protective son of an over protective father. What was his fault? He had only imagined himself doing things but he had never really done anything real in his life. But does all that change the fact that he still didn't help her when she needed him? What about other people? They didn't help her as well, why is he the only one to feel guilty. But then they didn't know her. They didn't love her. They didn't care for her. Normally human beings are excused from helping anyone if they don't know him. Helping or not helping is a matter of choice, not necessity. They didn't promise themselves that they will save this beautiful princess from the evils of the world. It was his responsibility. He had made the commitment. She was his responsibility. He was supposed to save her. He was her savior. He was her protector. He committed a big crime, redemption of which he might never get.

He felt like there were two parts of him, one whom he knows who keeps telling him things to do and other who he had no idea about its existence. Too late but he learned a new thing about himself, he was not as brave as he thought he was. He thought that he could die for this girl but now he realized that it was just a poetic thought that he made up to convince himself of his intensity of love for this girl.

Priyanka's parents too reached the place of the accident as someone might have called them by looking at their number from Priyanka's ID card. Rajesh saw her parents for the first time from so close a distance. He had seen them when he used to follow her home to track things about her. He always imagined her parents to be good to him and giving him their daughter believing him to be the only man who could keep their daughter happy. He was feeling ashamed facing them. He was living inside his own mind now.

Rajesh felt like they both were looking at him and asking him why did it happen to her when they had given the responsibility of her well being to him. He was supposed to take care of her. He could hear them scolding him for his impotence. At one moment Rajesh felt he heard them saying that he was just a phony and a liar. Rajesh felt that he was responsible for whatever happened to Priyanka today. This accident was his mistake. He was dying under the guilt. Why didn't he do anything? It was his responsibility to take care of her and he didn't perform his responsibility well. He wished that someone would just come and kill him at the spot. The accident was his fault, no doubt about that.

Tears came into his eyes. But he didn't let them fall. He didn't know why but now he was trying to act brave. Maybe to reassure himself but it didn't help. His mind couldn't stop working.

At some moment he realized that he didn't care about Priyanka that much. It was always him self that he cared about. He was not crying for Priyanka, he was crying because he never thought he was a coward no matter how many times situation proved that to him, this was the first time he felt like a coward. "Coward" - a trait that any human being would despise. How selfish is he? He never realized that too as well. He never loved Priyanka, he just wanted that special feeling of love and loving the most beautiful girl that was there in his vicinity. He didn't know whether he fell in love with her at first sight or did he fall in love with her because everyone was crazy about her. Was it that he just wanted something that everyone wanted? Priyanka was not a girl to him but an object or a thing, a thing which when one like him acquires feels good and proud because everyone else wanted it but he had it. He was thinking all this and the more he was thinking, more he was feeling ashamed about himself for thinking all that.

He came back home and while cycling; he couldn't control himself from crying. He cried like anything. He didn't even control his expressions this time. He cried with tears flowing from his cheeks and his face distorted. Some people looked at him but others didn't mind him crying. People are not stone hearted; they just don't care much about each and everything that is going on in this world. He didn't care about people now. Nothing mattered to him anymore. Those ten minutes in which he didn't do anything taught him more than he ever learned in his entire life.

He reached home, wiped his face clean with his hands because his mother might ask what happened and he was not in the mood to either say the truth or blatantly lie; so he directly went to his bed, tears again started flowing from his cheek. He put his face inside the pillow and cried. He didn't know when he slept. When he got up next day, he didn't go to school. He went to the hospital. He didn't ask at the reception about her, he was afraid they might ask his relation to her. He searched the whole hospital building . He finally found her father sitting on a bench, her brother crying but her mother was not there. He again felt guilty , he felt like this all happened only because of him. It was all his fault. He regretted ever joining that coaching for if he hadn't joined the coaching then he would never have known her and this would never happen to her.

This didn't occur to Rajesh that what happened was inevitable and his existence had no effect on the fate of Priyanka.

He stood there for some time to know from overhearing how she was.

He stood there like a statue.

"It's all my fault."

He was still standing there.

"It's all my fault."

He kept standing.

"It's all my fault."

Priyanka's mother fainted this morning and had been admitted. He overheard.

Priyanka died early that morning.

6.

Dr. Rajesh woke up hearing the knocking on the door. The peon had brought him his daily evening tea. He switched on the light of the room with a remote control and with the same remote opened the door. The peon came inside and put the tea on the table. Peon left the room. Rajesh didn't even know the name of this peon who was giving him tea every evening for the last ten years. The peon had a badge with his name engraved on it but Rajesh never even bothered to look at it too. Today he looked and he called him by name. Peon was surprised but hid his surprise as he was too afraid to confront such a thing. The peon didn't know that the man he was giving tea now was a complete different man. Peon left.

Dr. Rajesh always felt like a coward in his life. Always running away from something. His success was contrived story of a rich guy becoming something. To run away from himself, he engrossed himself in his medical activities. He would spend most of his time in hospital. Unknowingly he became the best and most knowledgeable doctor, May be people like him for what he did but he knew that they hate him from inside just like he hates himself from inside. It was not that difficult for him to survive. Coward like him in history knew that people like them will exist and it will become difficult for them to survive if some provision would not be made for them. So they devised some methods. Just read and learn some books, get admitted to a good college, do whatever you are told mindlessly; when need to lead arises, give instructions based on case studies and statistics. It was not that difficult to survive for him if breathing and eating were only pre-requisites for life like animals. There was no escape from thoughts. There was no escape from guilt. How that small incident changed his entire life and he never came out of it.

How easy it is for people like him to live and easily pass away entire life without overcoming the cowardness, instead of fighting, choosing to surrender. How easy it is for people like him to make people believe that they are very brave when they are terribly frightened from inside, what those film actors get paid heavy amounts for is something that comes so easy to him. How easy it is for people like him to live a complete worthless life but still get their names engraved in the books and journals as great people.

He went out of his room to the operation theatre. The boy was still standing there but this time he didn't come to him. May be he has lost all hopes like him. Dr. Rajesh went directly inside. One of the surgeons inside the room told doctor Rajesh that if by tomorrow they couldn't find the matching kidneys, she will not be saved. Dr. Rajesh silently listened to everything. He moved to the file that was lying on the table that contained all medical information about the girl. He read the file with a cursory look and threw the file back on the table and turned to the surgeon who was giving him the information about kidneys.

"Don't worry you will get kidneys as well as blood by tomorrow. Save this girl..... She is a nice girl.... and ....she must live".

"Sorry Sir, we didn't know she was your relative".

"That's none of your business.

Doctor feels embarrassed by this sudden snapping. Dr. Rajesh suddenly realizes his rudeness.

."But so that you may know...... she is someone that I have known for years".

No one understood anything but none dared to ask anything further.

Few surgeons later claimed that they saw a little moisture in his eyes when he was leaving the room but others discarded this thing as baseless gossip of few surgeons who just want to make useless news for amusement in the hospital.

Dr. Rajesh went home early. Again something that never happened much in the hospital. Dr. Rajesh goes to his home once or twice in months, most of the time he stays in the hospital. It was believed that he hated his home. It is a shame to go to an empty house, if only he were married.

7.

Dr. Rajesh opened the door of his ancestral home and went inside. After the death of his parents, he lived there all alone.

He went to his bedroom and opened his almirah. He opened the lower drawer but it was locked. He tried to find the keys but he didn't know where he had kept them. He forgot everything about his home. He was like a stranger in his own place. It had been years since he disturbed anything in this house. He was like a thief let loose in a house to find something expensive. Finally he got some keys in the key drawer next to his bed. He took all of them. One by one he inserted keys in the locker hole and after few futile attempts, one key fitted in. The locker opened. He had lots of bank documents inside, some documents of real estate, agreements and other papers. They were all important papers but not what he was searching for. He juggles with hands inside the drawer to find something. He lifted a packet full of documents and there it was. Below the packet he found what he was searching for. A book.

"How to win friends and influence people" by Dale Carnegie.

He opened the book and flipped its pages. The book was so old that instead of pages getting flipped, they were breaking apart from the touching like crispy potato chips. In between somewhere, he found it. The note that he put in the scooty of Priyanka Mehan and later took it out. It was dirty and had become yellowish. There was something written on it with red ink. It was that stupid poem he wrote for her. That stupid poem seemed so stupid to him now. He hadn't opened the note for a very long time. He started reading it.

"I KNOW

IT IS VERY RUDE TO DO THIS

BUT FOR ME IT IS

AN OPPURTUNITY NOT TO MISS

TO ME YOU ARE

THE MOST PREFECT THING

AND I CALL YOU MY GODDESS

YOU ARE VERY NICE AND LOVING

DON'T GET ANGRY ON THIS GIFT

THIS IS FOR YOUR BIRTHDAY

I LOVE YOU PLEASE FORGIVE ME

AND I APOLOGIZE FOR WHAT I SAY

YOU SAY YES, AND I WILL BE ON THE MOON

YOU R UNKOWN ADMIRER

HOPES TO MEET YOU SOON"

He smiled at the naivety of the poem. He couldn't control himself. A tear falls on the note. Everything was still in front of his eyes like it happened yesterday.

He was smiling. For years no one had seen him smile yet no one was there to witness it again. He wished someone was around to share his joy. He made some good food for himself. That day he ate more than his stomach. He was really hungry after a long time. He went to his bed and slept like a calm baby, something which he could never do in years.

8.

Next day Dr. Rajesh was found dead in his house with a death note that he wants his kidneys and blood to be donated to that girl in the hospital and every other property of his to be taken by government as he has no successor.

People who saw his dead body claimed that he had a smile on his face.

4. Twice Dead for the Beauty

1.

If there is anything like "photographers block" then he was having it.

Arjun Sachdeva, an artist who is a photographer by profession. A chronic alcoholic and a chain smoker, well which artist isn't nowadays and Arjun inherited all those qualities. He was sitting in his apartment staring at a nail on the wall in front of him. Real world irritated him. He was sitting in a corner of his studio apartment looking at the half empty- half full glass of water on the half wooden half glass table that he very fondly bought from his visit to Gujrat for Maya, his girlfriend or what everyone calls her now, his ex-girlfriend.

He was a wild life photographer who later to earn money became fashion photographer and started doing photo-shoots, model portfolios. People have always preferred nude girls over nude animals. He did some movies too as assistant but then came an unthinkable moment when he started asking questions to himself. It was then when everything started turning upside down in his life but not for good. The flow of money stopped of course, if only people got paid for sitting at home, Arjun would have been a millionaire by now. The best friends soon became contact numbers and occasional messages. Girlfriend went ahead in life in search of better life with actual money-backing men. What would you chose between money and hope? It's obvious, isn't it!! And Arjun, well he got left in his home thinking where to make a new start or whether he should make one or not, or rather pick from all those myriad starts he has made in his life that never ended.

The biggest problem with whole attaining intellectualism thing is that till the time you completely understand the thing that you were searching for, you realize you already had it, but in this futile process of searching it you lose everything for the happiness of which you were searching it.

Arjun kept drinking that night and then worse happened; he felt hungry. He opened his fridge and it was empty, unfortunately miracles don't happen anymore. Cooking gas got empty way back when he spent most of it lighting his cigarettes, so except two pieces of stale bread which he very thoughtfully kept for the future emergency time he had nothing left in the name of food. He took one piece of bread and left another one in the fridge for final dinner.

It's nearly six months now that he hasn't been working. In desperation he checked out some contacts from his mobile and after little dwindling whether to call or not he started calling few people to find some work. Working for so many years he still didn't know that entertainment industry do not work this way, you don't get work because you want to work; you only get work when the work comes on its own from your contacts. Work calls you, you don't call the work. No one gets work by asking for work, getting work is an art in which buttering is the main ingredient. You lick someone's feet you will get the job, not otherwise. The result of working on one's own terms results in the two pieces of bread in the fridge, which was now just one.

He was running out of smoke too. He was running out of many things as a matter of fact but then most of the things weren't that important. His glass of whiskey was last glass of liquor in his house that worried him. He didn't want to call any of his friends and ask for money, he kept that for dire dead situation. Anyways, what is the use of asking for money, when he knew deep down subconsciously that no one will give it! But he was not that incompetent. He chose this life on his own terms. That was his biggest mistake. He knew most of his friends make fun of him behind his back, friends who initially used to admire him and quote him, now being elevated to higher levels in life, have stopped admiring him.

'Pathetic world and its pathetic people', he thought.

May be his friends were right. The rule of admiration clearly states that one must only admire those who are above them.

Thinking of what next to do with his life Arjun fell into deep sleep. It was exactly 9 O' clock on the wall clock last time he saw, in the perfect right angle triangle, hanging up on the wall exactly in front of him little above the big mirror. Now the last piece of bread will be breakfast.
Arjun woke up at 2 o'clock in the night. He is having a terrible headache and hangover.

'Never drink empty stomach', he promised himself. He made promises like that to himself after every five hours.

He went to the bathroom and suddenly looking at the wash basin he felt like puking, and something in a very dark liquid form came out of his mouth, he didn't remember eating anuthing like it before, actually he didn't remember when was the last time he had eaten anything. Yes, the bread, he remembers, but it was white, wasn't it? He didn't ponder much over that mystery. He drank some water from the wash basin and came back to his room. All the walls in the room were filled with photographs of great photographers. They all were the most perfect form of art, as said and believed by many, in the photography field. But what was the use; no one will remember him for hanging the photos of greatest photographers on his wall.

Arjun started destroying himself a year ago and kept on destroying from the time when the idea of chasing perfection clutched his mind. He tried to find perfection through his photographs but he didn't know when and how to attain it. It was unknown to anyone who even remotely cared that when this transition started occurring to Arjun. He remembered the quotation of a great philosopher,' Perfection cannot be attained; it only comes when it wants and only to those it chooses on its own'. Was he right? He can't be. Who the bloody writer was of this damn quotation? If it would be true then all his life that he devoted in searching for perfection would become a meaningless driveling farcical ordeal. It can't be true. This cannot be the right quotation. This is not even a quotation. This is amphigory, it sounds good but it means nothing but crap. Perfection is not something that comes on its own, it must be created and it can only be created. Perfection cannot happen on its own. Perfection needs work to be done upon it to become what it is.

Arjun remembered something. Thinking about perfection, something came to his mind, a thought whose growth he forcefully stopped way long back because of its pervert nature. Sometimes we think we know something and are in conscious awakening of it but we are afraid to think about it, we fear that if we think upon it for long then it might cause, what in worldly language could be called as, psychological problems. Now, just for now he told himself, fuck those psychological problems, when the end is near nothing matters except last wish. His last wish was to live perfection in the art he is nearly giving his life for.

He ran to his bedroom. There was a cupboard that he never opened for years. It was time to open it. He opened the cupboard and a gush of dirt washed his face. He didn't remember who closed it last but whosoever did it did a very fine job of putting so much stuff at one place, so tightly packed, irregularly and yet still managed to close it. He didn't curse anyone as no doubt it indeed was saving so much space in his apartment. Earlier all this stuff used to be a major reason for walking clog in his apartment which also taught him the importance of traffic manners laid by government for people's own benefit only. He blessed that unknown soul, soul who can't be a girl as no girl would do such a lousy job. He wished him best of life before moving on his hard journey of finding something that he was not sure he would be able to find.

And suddenly he remembered something.

It was Rahul, yes it must be Rahul who put all the stuff in the almirah, but then it was irrelevant and who cares now. He wanted to see it, desperately, his thing of perfection. But where was it? His hunger for finding it was increasing with every passing moment. Drama ended and he found it, it was just there lying in one of the bundles of papers he had made himself with a plan to throw them some time later until the day when Rahul came and ruined his throwing-plans by putting everything in the almirah. Everything in almirah was in perfect order of disorder so Arjun left it in its natural state.

Finally, he got it. The picture. His perfect picture. His greatest work. He can't believe it. It was there in front of him and he was holding it in his hands. The beauty of the picture had matured with time. Today this tattered and ragged picture was looking much more beautiful to him than it was five years ago.

He looked at it and kept looking at it. He rotated the picture several times to see it from different angles. He stretched his hands to see the picture from a distance. Then he put it near to his eyes to see the details. There were unfortunately not many details. Sometimes he kept the picture still and moved himself around in different angles. Stupid as it may be to visualize it, he did it. After few minutes he stood up and tried to close the almirah with whatever mess remained in it, without cleaning the stuff that fell on the floor earlier when he opened it. He still tried closing the door of almirah when with a thump noise a bottle fell from the stuff lying on top of almirah to that which was scattered down on the ground. Arjun saw the bottle and smiled as 700 mL of golden liquid inside the bottle was making yellow shadows on the ground. In that happiness, he left the door of almirah open; it was his gift to her tonight, to breathe as much as she can.

He picked up the bottle, kissed it and came back to the hall. Seemed life was falling back on track. At any other time, this would have been just a coincidence or an accident, but today to him it was a sign, an optimistic sign that he was doing right and was going in the right direction. He felt that from now on things will start falling back in to the right cones. He moved to his drawing room where he used to sit, sulk and drink earlier. He sat on the sofa, drank a peg and kept looking at the picture. Except for the sulk part he did everything else that was included in his evening's program. Suddenly he got up, walked to the big mirror that was in front of him, hanging from the wall and he stuck the photo in the corner of the big mirror that was right straight at it. He looked at the picture again, made a peg for himself, came back and sat on the sofa again. He kept on looking at the picture and he didn't know when he fell into sleep again.

2.

Two years ago. Some place in Shimla.

"OK...silence on the set....roll camera...sound....ACTION."

An Ad film for beauty cream was being shot in the locales of Shimla and Arjun was handling the camera for it. He was the director of photography( DOP)/ cameraman. This was his second Ad film as DOP after he made a jump from a still fashion and wildlife photography to running photography.

The shoot was going well until two police jeeps arrived near the location of shoot. Something had happened. The producer had taken the permission for the shooting so there can't be any legal problem; the sudden arrival of the police so early in the morning had surprised everyone. The police head inspector walked towards the shoot. The Production manager took out all his documents and ran towards the police inspector to show him his love of Indian law for which he gathered all the right papers and permission. Production manager and Inspector talked for a minute and went on their way.

The Inspector assured the producer that there was no problem concerning the shoot. Howsoever, there was a murder of a local girl reported in the nearby place of shoot so they were all marching there for investigation. He just wanted to know if they know anything about it. They all nodded in negation. Satisfied, the police started their walk to the crime scene from there. It was a hilly place, cars and jeeps couldn't go there so police had to walk to the place. Out of curiosity some crew members also followed the police to the scene of crime and what they saw was the world's most heinous sight. A nude girl was lying on the green carpet of grass upside down. She probably got killed by choking in the neck or by getting stabbed in her stomach after the killer raped her. But since there was no blood anywhere on her body or grass so it must be the first option that the killer had taken. Arjun was standing in the crowd too with his camera, next to the producer. It was just a naked body lying on the green grass. Because of the night moisture and morning light the grass was looking much greener than it usually does. The police inspector went near the body and decided to turn the body when his eyes fell on the camera Arjun had hanging from his neck. He called Arjun and asked him to take some pictures of the dead body from different angles before he tampers with the body to investigate.

Shimla is a small place and there are no official police photographers there. They don't require photos actually but inspector might have seen some English movies in which they click photos of the murdered body so out of that greed to appear professional in front of everyone he asked Arjun to snatch some photos of dead body for future reference.

Arjun thinking it a police case and taking it as a very important matter tried to do his best job. He clicked photos from different angles and from every angle.

The Inspector never called him again to get the photos and those photos remained with him forever.

3.

Arjun is developing reels in his personal laboratory. He just came back from a shoot and he has to submit some photographs to a production house for some other assignment as soon as possible. His girlfriend Maya is still sleeping. She is sleeping since afternoon after she came back from a late night shoot that extended till noon.

Arjun was in a hurry. He had already taken one extra day after the deadline and he still isn't any near finishing his job. Finally he washed all the photos and hung them on wires stretching from this corner to that corner with the help of clips. He got all the photos and took them all in a hurry. While at the gate of the apartment he saw something, he took some photos out, ran back to his room, opened the almirah and put those photos in the almirah. He ran back to the gate, moved out and closed the door.

He came late that night. His girlfriend wasn't waiting for him in the apartment. His girlfriend would always come later than him. It was an unusual relationship where they both have reached to a level where they both didn't care about each other anymore. Arjun was in fact relaxed to find out that she was not there.

He went to the almirah again and took the photos he left in there the previous day. They were the same photos he had clicked while he was in Shimla for the Ad shoot. Those were the same photos of the murdered girl.

He realized that those photos looked very beautiful and were like the perfect photos. The color contrast, the focus, the ambience and the situation, everything was in perfect order. He couldn't take his eyes from the photos. But these photos were not an enactment; they were real photos of a real girl engaged in a real murder. They can't be published. Leave publishing, the whole idea of even liking those pictures felt too pervert to Arjun. Arjun kept the photos back and decided to take them out whenever the police will call him for them.

They never called.

4.

Now.

Arjun got up in the morning the next day. He hated the mornings. For some reason he never liked the mornings and sunlight. He loved the darkness of night. Night made him feel that he was sitting in a closed room in this big unknown world. Things are mystery, lives are mystery. Light ruins it all. There was so much beauty in darkness that light can never give.

Arjun had a dream last night about that shoot in Shimla, taking that photo of the murdered girl, hiding the photo in almirah and later picking that cursed photo out of his almirah and sticking it into the wooden frame of the mirror.

Arjun saw some pictures lying there on the table. These were the same pictures he saw last night thinking about perfection. He looked up and he saw a picture stuck by the wooden frame of the mirror. Evidently he was not dreaming.

It is said that every artist has one masterpiece in life with the exception of Shakespeare. Some artists just produce one masterpiece and then are later unable to even replicate their own perfection like Jospeh Hellar after Catch-22 or Ramesh Sippy after Sholay. Some artists have done many good works but still their best work limits itself to one for which they are usually known. Arjun felt clustered in his own world. He had no masterpiece and no perfection in his work. One work in which he could see perfection in was unfortunately accidental and that too he cannot show to the world because of is pervert nature.

The world can hail a person as great for his accidental masterpiece, for his perfection, for his beauty of art but for an artist that masterpiece becomes a nightmare. He feels that it was not he but some divine magical powers that had him do all the good work. He is unable to convince himself for its credit. He starts asking questions to himself and finally decides that if he is as good as he thinks he is, then he might as well write another masterpiece but this time with conscious thought of writing a masterpiece like Atlas Shrugged, that Ayn Rand wrote after Fountainhead. He will prove to the world that his work is not a fluke. He tries to repeat what he did. For an artist, when he truly becomes an artist, the success stops to matter after a particular period of time and appreciation reduces to a redundant word. He just wants acknowledgement that what he has done is better than his previous work including the work of every artist ever done in the history of mankind.

Arjun got up from the somber mood of the morning. Something was going in his mind which was very evident from his facial expressions. He decided something.

He decided to repeat it; the perfection and the beauty of that photo. He did it once on his camera but it was only accidental and he didn't know that it would come out so beautiful. He has to do it again. He can do it again. Whole of his life he convinced himself that he is going to do something after which the world will divide itself into two parts, before it and after it. He always thought that he was someone special and he do not came to this world to live like an ordinary man, he came to be called great. There was always something inside him, he felt.

But greatness is a very misunderstood concept and the more you try to attain it, the more it runs away from you.

Arjun was getting obsessed with the concept of becoming perfect and attaining what great people have attained so easily. He decided he will try to know more about that nude murdered girl. He needs to know what was it about the girl that made it all look so perfect. He has to go to the same place and try again to take photos. He's got to know the truth and history behind the photo so that he could know the roots to its perfection. Arjun was getting obsessed with the thoughts of finding the truth of the photo. He has to know it because it might lead him to some secrets that will reveal to him about how to attain perfection. This time the perfection would not be of natures but of him. But before that he needs to know who that girl was and why was she there? Who murdered her and why? Whole thing about it and everything about it, he needed to know. May be he will come to know about some secrets that were known to only masters of perfection and died with them.

Arjun gets a feeling of déjà vu. Had he thought this before sitting in his room with that photo stuck in the wooden frame? How many days it has been since he is sitting in his room in the same position looking at the photo? He doesn't know the answer to anything now. It's now déjà vu, but even if it is, it was irrelevant. No one is writing or taking records of what is going on inside his mind. Inside his mind he was free to do anything. He stops drinking as he feels that drinking has dissolved more chemicals in his body than nutrients. He starts feeling dizzy. Arjun feels that he has done this before and he has done everything before. He always wanted to be a perfect and greatest cameraman but he thought that desperation for being one had only aroused inside him in recent times only. He again feels that he had thought about this feeling before. He was getting mad because everything he was doing and thinking he was feeling that it had happened to him before. Damn this déjà vu. The feeling of déjà vu usually leaves after some time but continuous feeling of it can make you mad. Arjun decides to sleep again. He can't go anywhere right now. He falls on the bed but only after five minutes he gets up again. Guess he again made up his mind. Takes up his backpack and keeps necessary things inside it. He takes it and leaves for the station. He also takes the photo with him by plucking it out from the wooden frame of the mirror.

5

Few days later.

It was snow all around in Shimla. This can't be the time for him to test for his perfect photo. He needed green grass first of all. He had to wait for two months. He thanked god for his unemployment. He felt so stupid not to consider this stupid thing before moving out of his apartment about weather conditions. But he had come and he was glad that he came. He sold some of his stuff to gather enough money to survive for few days. Maya would be angry to see an empty apartment but she would probably understand it. She always pretended to be very understanding. She would be quite happy to find he had left the place and she won't care about the things missing in the apartment. Anyways, her rich new boyfriend that she weakly tried to hide from Arjun will buy her everything once she will fake cry in front of him that Arjun was so cruel that he left her penniless and took all her stuff. Arjun also sold the gold chain that she presented him on his birthday when they were dating. That gave him some good money. How nice she was when they were dating and he had lots of money. It was only after he left the job that everything changed.

Arjun rents a room in a very cheap hotel and puts his stuff there. He takes out the photo and sticks it in the wooden frame of the mirror in the room. It was really cold and Arjun wasn't prepared for this. He had to limit his actions to minimum. He decided that he will do the sight-seeing and will take photos of the place till the snow melts. He had both digital camera and reel camera. He never liked digital camera. He felt it to be very fake. It never captures the real picture. It never captures the picture as it is. He had this old second hand Nikon camera that he bought from Delhi for 35,000 Rs. He always took his good photos from it. Right now he was using a digital camera only, first to save the cost of reel and second to save the processing charges. In just about a week he became familiar with all the streets of Shimla, the small place it is. He soon got bored of travelling and eating at the same place. He decided to do some research on the background of that girl. Every day when he roamed around the market he would see a big library but he never thought of going inside. But now when he is thinking about it, it must have old newspapers of that murder incident in it. He might get some insights into the matter. However he stalled the thinking for many days as he was too afraid of finding nothing.

Arjun one day finally breaks his lazy shell and goes to the local library to collect the information he had to about that girl and that incident. The murderer as he came to know from the papers wasn't caught or found and was missing still. After that, he went to the police station and tried gathering as much information about the girl and her family as he could and also how much the whole case has proceeded. He had to disguise himself as an author who is working on interesting unsolved crime stories for a magazine. He comes to know that although that murderer did escape but the girl was not raped before getting killed, she was just killed for unknown reasons. The method the murderer used for killing the girl was to strangle her with his bare hands clutched on her neck. The girl it was guessed didn't expect the attack and was probably familiar with the murderer. The murderer later removed his finger prints as after forensic report came, it was revealed that the murderer used his hands to kill her. Arjun gets a photo of that girl from the police station and for the first time he sees the face of that girl. Arjun remaind stunned for few seconds after looking at the photo. She was magnificently beautiful. She was more beautiful than anything he had seen before. And that was just a photo. That photo he snatched in the ad shoot didn't become perfect because it was the right frame in the right place but because the girl who was lying there dead on the green grass had goddess like beauty. It was not him. It was her. She was the masterpiece. Now he knew that why that photo was so perfect, it was the girl who was more than perfect. It was not entirely him who was responsible for that photo to be beautiful but it was more than that. He took the photo from the police station to his hotel room after having a copy of it. He kept looking at her photo for hours.

He drank that night after so many days. He took the vow that he will not drink again in his life. He was disappointed. Now this one hope of him making a masterpiece looked like a distant dream. He earlier thought even if the photo was fluke but somewhere he had a hand in its beauty whereas now he felt that anyone, instead of him had snatched photos of her that day, it would have been a masterpiece. Everything was perfect that day, nature, the girl, the scene but not him. All he did was hold that electronic device and clicked it.

But so what! Who said masterpieces are independent creations. They are always inspired. No one creates anything on its own. Everything is a derived version of something else. Even masterpieces are derived. So what if everything was perfect. He took the photo. It all got captured with his hands. It all happened through him. Anyone can have masterpieces; the art is not to create them but to find them. No one creates, everyone cheats somewhere to some extent. Human beings themselves are not that perfect. It is also not how you form it but how you present it. He will create his masterpiece and he will do it, no matter what it costs. He had come far enough. He had sold everything he has. He can't go back now. Success is always one step ahead when people decide to quit. He will not quit. He will pursue. Yes, he will go till the end.

6.

Arjun took all the information from all the places and wrote them on his journal so that he would not forget them. He couldn't sleep. He felt that he was very excited now that he could see himself reaching towards his goal, except he couldn't see where he was going.

The very next day Arjun reaches the house of that murdered girl. He got the address from the police station. He finds it after some difficulty in locating the right place. The Police man didn't give the right address, he just gave him one scrap of paper on which it was scribbled something that looked like Greek . He had to guess most of the things.

He found the place after few hours of knocking around the wrong places. The only solace was that now he was more familiar with the inside roads of Shimla. He knocked at her house door and an old man answered it. The old man was wearing a simple Kurta and Pyjama with a half sweater which was amusing to Arjun because it was very cold and he being young himself was wearing more than that. May be they had good heaters in their home. He fooled them with the same story that he was a writer and was currently writing an article for his book about the unsolved murder mystery of their daughter. Initially reluctant to talk as they must have gone through a lot with local police men with whom even Arjun had bad experiences. They told him the complete story. They must have repeated the same story months after months so they had it on their tips of their tongues. They told him everything that they knew but it was no different from the story that he had heard before from the police men and what he had read in the newspapers. Still he tried to listen to them like he was listening to it for the first time. He curiously listened to him waiting for some crucial information that he could catch about the girl which would be useful to him but there wasn't any. She was just a simple girl like any other girl who was living her life and was good to everyone when one day they found her dead. She had no enemies, and she never talked bad to anyone. Definitely since she was so beautiful, guys would have been after her all the time, proposing to her, following her. She must have refused someone his initiatives of romance and that psycho would have killed her in return. It was simple and Arjun hated that. How could it be? No, it can't be that simple.

Arjun came searching for this but he didn't know what it would be, all he knew was that he was looking for something interesting, and now when he came to know that there is nothing special about that girl, except her extraordinary beauty, which was not even there in the photo he clicked, which means it was not the girl, but him who had captured the most perfect image. He was confused. If only he could meet the guy who killed her, it would be so good.

Deep down he knew that his dream of snatching a perfect photo, was just fooling oneself, and it could never be attained but he was adamant he will get it, no matter what. Refusing to believe in the truth was his only option since truth itself wasn't too perfect to keep him alive for long. People live in the world but an artist lives in his own mind.

On the other hand, doing retrospection of everything so far he had realized that except for beauty there was no contribution of that girl to the photo and he can simply proclaim it to be his masterpiece. Ohh!! After so many days he had such a happy thought. He decides to stay for few more days to convince himself more about it and then go back to Mumbai for finally publishing it. Who cares whether it's a dead body, high class people who care for art are usually emotionless and mostly perverts. They would love the photo, especially the story behind it.

7.

Few days pass by.

Arjun is walking on the mall road of the city. It is good to take a walk in the cold air with coffee in one hand and people and only people all around. The city was full of foreigners, married couples and holiday tourists. Natives were busy fooling outlandish people by giving whatever they were asking on extra expensive prices. He thanked God that he didn't have money otherwise he would have been fooled by them too.

Suddenly he saw something. He thought he saw the same girl whose photo he had clicked. How could it be her, she died long back. He was not even drinking for three days. Does this mean he has started hallucinating and the time has come for him to make an appointment with psychologists? May be he is thinking too much about that girl that he is seeing her everywhere. Arjun was getting confused. But he had to confirm his sanity. How can it be her? She looked so real. He must have made a mistake. He saw her again. She was in front of him, not too far away. He started following her. He kept following her just to see her face one more time and confirm. Two or three times he did get a glimpse of her and the more and more he looked at her, the more he became sure that it was her. He kept following her. He had to find her source; he had to find where she lives or any connection through which he could find her again. That was a mystery. This means she wasn't dead all this time, which means he was following a foolish plot all this time. He cursed her badly for living. He wished she were dead. He needs to know the mystery behind it. it was turning into a plot of a crime mystery novel. He was still following her. She reached a home and entered inside.

Arjun was shocked. He didn't believe that it could be so mysterious and so interesting. It was also irritating for him to know that she entered the very house he went in to take an interview of the murdered girl's parents. This means her parents knew about her death and didn't tell anyone. How is it possible? She was roaming in the market without any fear. Didn't she fear the police? He couldn't figure out anything of this story. Till now, Arjun was seeking adventure and all he was getting was simple stories. Now he got what he wanted, excitement.

He decided to confront the family about this mystery. If that girl died in front of the whole world and in front of his own eyes, he saw her dead body, then how is she still alive. Whose body was it then? He rings the bell, last time he knocked as he couldn't see the small bell at the side of door. The same old man came out; first he was surprised to see Arjun standing there and then his expression of surprise changed in to irritation. More irritating interrogation and more irritating stories. He asked Arjun what does he wants now, they have already told him everything they knew. He told them that he saw their daughter who was killed going inside. How is it possible, he asked? Why did they lie about her death? He demanded an explanation of what was going on in here and what is the mystery otherwise he would call police. The old man got more irritated than he was before. The old man gave an expression that made Arjun feel like an idiot in school, bothering his head master with stupid questions that in his opinion were intelligent ones. The old man asked him to come inside and sit. Arjun sat on the sofa in front of him and very excited to know the truth as he was expecting some new story to unfold and some mystery to unravel. The old man started reading a newspaper unbothered about the presence of Arjun and shouted for tea for the unwelcome guest. Arjun was getting irritated by his behavior and was wondering why he was so calm when he was asking him a question of such grave importance. The same girl whom he saw in the market came out with tea in her hands after some time. He looked at her and kept looking at her. He couldn't believe his own eyes and what he was seeing.

"This is her twin sister" the old man revealed.

Damn. Arjun thought. That was not much of a big mystery. Why is everything so simple? Now he realized how stupid he had behaved earlier with the old man. After he came out of his shock he apologized to the old man. His desire to find something extraordinary made him start seeing ordinary things in an extraordinary manner. Why didn't he use his brains? Of course, it was so easy to figure it out, twin sister, a very valid explanation. How could he not think of that? He didn't talk to the girl and came out depressed, promising the old man never to disturb him again. Life is not that exciting as he thought it would be. His perfection would only remain an unconscious effort now and will be limited to just photo. He will never be great. He will never be remembered for anything. He has to return to that old life and click photos of naked animals and women.

8.

He was walking on the mall road thinking about the things like that and how much he has ruined his life. He started looking here and there at shops to change thoughts of his mind when suddenly his eyes caught sight of a painting. It was the painting of a naked girl in a very surreal way lying upside down on the green grass. This painting was more perfect than his photo. His photo only captured reality but this painting had captured the imagination. It was the most beautiful thing he had seen in a long time. Definitely, he could easily conclude that this photo was made by the man who had murdered this girl otherwise this scene would be of no importance to him, which means that she was not killed or murdered because she was raped or murdered for revenge, but she was killed for her beauty, and she was killed on that green grass purposefully to give the contrast of her white skin on the green grass, which means that the photo he had taken was not a coincidence of a beautiful picture but a conscious effort of an artist, who left it there after creating it. He didn't know whether he should feel good about it or bad but the natural feeling inside him was of relaxation. He had found an accomplice. A perfect artist. An inspiration. He was dying to meet him just once and talk to him. This was the exciting turn he was waiting for. He bought the painting, it was not expensive. He investigated the whole photo for a signature or some other clue, but there was no clue in the photo from which the killer could be identified. But it was good for Arjun to know that such a great artist exists somewhere and he was satisfied by the fact that he was somewhere on the right path and doing a great job just like him. Till now he was not sure whether what he was doing was leading to something great or not but now he knew whatever he was doing was right and he was undoubtedly on the right path. All he has to do is to meet that man.

He decided to remain in the city for as long as he can now and leave all the memories of that murdered girl behind and start anew. He thought that if he remains in the city for some time then he may find out his own inspiration. He will now look for his own inspiration; something new and something that has never been seen before. He was all excited again.

What Arjun didn't know about fate was that even if you leave things forever, there are chances that things won't leave you.

9.

After a week's struggle to find something that could serve his imagination as inspiration, Arjun couldn't find anything and again started getting frustrated. He was clicking photographs on his DSLR at a much faster speed than the events were actually happening in his real life.

'I have no natural talent' ,Arjun started thinking.

It is said that man's best work is not created by him instead it is gifted to him by divine forces while he just serves as a medium to bring that greatness and that perfection into the world.

Inspiration is a hard thing to find when you are actually looking for it.

One of the routines of Arjun was to sit in an old British café and drink coffee in the morning and evening. He would order the cheapest coffee there as he was running out of money. That day was also going on its usual plan when a figure came inside the café and sat in front of Arjun. Arjun looked up and saw it was the sister of that murdered girl.

His first thought, 'Oh how amazingly beautiful she is!'

His second thought, 'But what is she doing here?'

His third thought,' Am I in trouble?'

He got the answer from her only.

She started saying,' For a very long time no one came to inquire about the murder...death of my sister. Everyone seems to have forgotten her. But I can't forget her, she was my sister, how can I forget her. The Police have stopped the investigation and my father has got tired of running after people to seek justice. No one is interested in her case anymore. Then you came. Now, You are my last and only hope.'

'What do you want from me? ' Arjun asked.

'I need your help' she replied.

Arjun agreed to help her as she had such hypnotic beauty that he didn't have the strength to say no to her.

She told him that her name was Aleya and her sister's name was Manya. They both talked for two hours over many cups of coffee. Soon they bonded well. Arjun told her how much he had investigated the death of her sister without disclosing his real intentions. Aleya also gave him some insights about her sister which Arjun didn't know. To Arjun this information was irrelevant because he was not interested in solving the case but still he listened to her, as he himself wanted to find the killer and the exact reasons for Manya's death.

Aleya and Arjun started investigating and for a week they visited different places her sister wnet to, a week before she died. They met a lot of Manya's friends and enquired lot about her. Arjun felt like a detective for a while but soon the excitement turned to a boring job, when they both couldn't find anything about it.

By the time the investigation was over, Arjun had fallen in love with her. He loved to spend all day with her and talk at length on what to do next. Investigation became his excuse to be with her and spend time with her. Most of the time he wouldn't even listen to her , but stare at her and admire her beauty. Day by day his craziness was increasing and it had already crossed the boundaries of madness. All night he would dream about her. It was a love beyond his understanding.

After two weeks of finding nothing in the amateur investigation they were doing Arjun couldn't control himself and told her his feelings about her. Surprisingly he was not thrashed by her , instead she said that in the two weeks she too had developed some liking and feelings for him. That was a real surprise for him as Maya had crushed his manly self esteem way back by commenting everyday on his worthlessness.

The revelation was not a big thing for her Arjun felt. She was too determined to find out what happened to her sister that for Aleya everything came second. After having the hearts crossed and love talks exchanged, she again started talking about what they should do next to find the killer of her sister. Surprisingly she was now more enthusiastic about it. May be she assumed that because Arjun loved her now, he would dedicate more of himself for the task. She didn't know Arjun that much to assume that. She just couldn't give the thoughts of finding the killer and she was left with no other thought but to find him. He thought this really very cruel of her but he had to support her because he didn't want to lose her.

10

They spend another week together finding the killer but to no results and he was getting irritated with every passing moment. He wanted to kiss her badly but he was afraid she would mind. Every time she moved her lips to say something, he would imagine him putting his lips on them. He felt he could kiss her all day long. Nights were getting longer and those moments when she was not with him were the worst to pass. There was no turning back for him and the path forward was too unpassable for him. He had lost all his interest in her sister's death case and he had forgotten those perfect and masterpiece theories of him as well. He felt that he had found a new inspiration in life and he can give his life a new direction and a new meaning from here.. To get her and attain her became like a goal to him. He never craved for anything like that before. He was getting insane. Why was she so beautiful?

A thing for beauty is that man by nature loves beauty more than anything else. When he sees it he wants to attain it and keep it for himself; it's a different thing altogether that no matter how beautiful a thing is man gets bored of it sooner or later. Beauty deteriorates and so does feelings. The man in love is always extreme in everything towards the thing he starts to love but it fades sooner in the opposite extreme once he savors it.

Arjun wanted to have Aleya. That was all he thought. She always maintained her distance from him. If she were in the city she would have been in his bed by now. Damn these small city girls and their upbringing. He had dreamt about a girl like her his whole life. She was nothing like he had seen or met before; more than that she was just a replica of the most perfect art of his life. He was getting crazier and crazier.

She would take him to different places near Shimla everyday and all he would do was to take photos of her .. Aleya always reminded him of her sister and that photo, and that painting , and that he so desperately wanted to forget. He took thousands of photos all this time, looking back at them he realized that his motive of finding the most perfect art form has vanished somewhere. He didn't want it anymore. Life offers much more. It's true, love changes the man.

One day something came to Arjun's mind. He asked Aleya whether she would like to pose for her as he would like to do her photo shoot for some fashion magazine and have it published when he returns to Mumbai. That way he can also convince her to come to Mumbai. She agreed initially but when Arjun asked her to pose for her nude she immediately refused. She said she would never do anything like that. It was against her morals and life ethics. He didn't force her further for that, because he knew there was no use for that. She was a very strong, confident and determined girl who knew what decision she was taking. But what could Arjun have done, been with naked girls and animals for so long, he liked taking their photos naked. Aleya was angry with Arjun for a few days, after he had asked her to pose nude for him, but soon her anger faded away.

11.

Another useless week went by and Arjun decided to leave for Mumbai. He was running out of money and it was becoming impossible to survive for him there anymore, more than that there was nothing left there for him to do. He stayed this long for Aleya only.

Next day in the coffee shop, he told Aleya that he is leaving for Mumbai soon and she started crying. It's been a time for him to see a girl cry for him. Although he made Maya cry in Mumbai but sadly that cry was not for love but of repulsion and anger. Aleya had truly fallen in love with him, Arjun realized. He couldn't believe that she had fallen in love with him. This was an opportunity for him not to miss . He hesitated a bit, then kissed her. Arjun requested to her if she can come with him to the city. She refused saying she had responsibilities towards her parents and she can't leave them. He consoled her by saying that he will soon come back after earning some money as he cannot stay here for long as he had to go back to the city and start finding some job. She understood his situation. She was an amazingly understanding girl Arjun wondered whether girls like these still existed.

They spent that night together. That whole night she cried and kept talking about how they spent their weeks together, how he had helped her in her quest of finding her sister's killer and how much she loved being with him. Arjun kissed her again and this time she didn't hesitate. He realized that she had finally decided to allow him to do anything he wanted to her. She had finally surrendered to him.

Arjun felt repulsive by this behavior. He didn't expect her to surrender like this. He liked her strong and firm personality. Probably that's why he had loved her in the first place he thought. Suddenly he felt that he didn't want her anymore. The Aleya he wanted was gone with that firm determination to find the killer of her sister and what has left was no different from any other girl he would meet anywhere in this world.

May be that's what he was seeking in her, something different from the usual. He found that in her, for a while, but now it was all different. He was still a fan of her beauty. He felt like watching her eternally like that. She looked more beautiful after crying with her moist eyes and red nose. Her cheeks were also swollen; it looked like there could be nothing more beautiful in this world than the sight he was witnessing at that moment.

Arjun however felt that, they should go out for a walk as that might make her feel better about herself. She might stop crying.

The night had passed and the morning was about to break. Arjun had a flight to catch that very morning in five hours.

They both moved out and started walking in the foggy moist cold morning of the hills. Arjun sneaked in the hotel in between and took his luggage with him. Arjun took out his camera and started snatching his last photographs of the Shimla morning. He took many photographs of Aleya too. They kept on walking here and there holding hands. After a while Aleya stopped crying. Arjun for the first time saw her truly happy face. She looked more beautiful smiling.

They kept on walking and suddenly Arjun realized that they have reached somewhere familiar. The birds were chirping and flying in the sky. Big trees were filtering the morning sunlight and refining it to lower intensity. There was fog everywhere. Green grass washed with night moisture beneath the soles was making it more heavenly. Sceneries; wherever you turn your head. It was the most beautiful sight Arjun had ever seen in his life. But it reminded Arjun of something. Something Arjun was very familiar with.

It was the same place Manya was killed. Aleya was silent. She must have been remembering her sister. That was the last place she wanted Arjun to visit. She didn't know that Arjun was there among the first people who saw her dead body. It was difficult for her to forget her sister. He felt bad for her tragedy. He felt more helpless for not being able to help her all this time.

Aleya sat on the grass silently. Arjun felt the silence of mourning of her sister from Aleya and sat next to her. He never knew that the mornings can be so beautiful.

The fog, green grass, red apples, brown trees, green leaves it was a sweet dream for any photographer. A perfect place. A perfect time. A Masterpeice.

Arjun started wondering, how that man could have brought that girl here, and killed her in such a nice environment. No one can do that. This place was just too perfect to do anything like that.

Aleya's eyes were getting moist and he decided to cheer her up. He started taking her photos from different angles. Aleya blushed and tried to cover her face. Arjun kissed her on her hand. She felt shy and lay herself down on the grass. Arjun clicked some more photos of her. He changed the position of her hair and kept on clicking photos.

He removed her slippers and kissed her on her feet. She didn't resist. He clicked more photos. He removed her top and bra. Again this time she didn't resist. He clicked more photos. He kissed her. He removed her lowers and panties and she didn't resist. He kissed her all over her body. He clicked some more photos. For the first time she started kissing him. Arjun kept his camera aside and they started making out. They kept on kissing each other for long. They were both sweating in that cold atmosphere. Arjun had water coming to his eyes. Everything was fading in front of his eyes. He had something coming over to him. He didn't know what it was. He was getting more and more passionate and felt like doing something. He was getting extra energy in his body and he had no outlet for that. He just wanted to eat Aleya. She looked so delicious to him. He wanted to lick her and bite her. What was getting on to him? He was not in control of himself. He felt like he could actually eat Aleya alive. The images were floating inside his mind. He could not control the images. He kept on kissing her. Suddenly he started licking her. Her face, her neck and her whole body. Aleya started getting uncomfortable. She started to resist a little bit. Arjun then held her hand tightly. Something was getting inside him. He knew he was doing something wrong but he couldn't stop himself. His body and mind were not in coordination. He forced his body weight on Aleya. The more Aleya resisted the more force Arjun would apply. Her resistance increased. Arjun tried to stop her resistance. After few moments, she stopped moving. Arjun looked up and he saw her dead with her eyes wide open. He saw his one hand on her neck but he doesn't remember putting his hand on her neck. What was he doing? What has he done? He felt like he didn't own his body, and started cursing himself and his body for what it had done. It was not his fault, his body did it. He didn't even know what was happening.

Arjun stood up still trying to believe what he had done. Images of Manya's body started hanging in front of his eyes. He could see the green grass with his water filled eyes. He could see the white fog with his watery eyes.

He was out of control. He was unable to realize that he killed a person few minutes ago. He was in shock so much that may be he was unable to realize the reality. His hands started moving in a direction unknown to him. Everything was going out of his control. He realized that something was happening to him and he was not in his control anymore. Something was coming on to him and he was unable to control it. It refused to go. He couldn't understand that when he understands everything and not giving orders to his hand then why are they behaving so abnormally. His hands were moving and they were not asking for his permission

She was lying nude on the green grass. Arjun got up clueless. He wore his clothes, removed his finger prints from her body, took his luggage and went to the airport. He never came back to Shimla again.

12.

Arjun today works in a small production hosue as an in house cameraman. He is married with one kid. He is part of a mob now and not many people know him.

He still remembers that morning sometimes ,and he still has no explanation or justification for what he had done. After the incident he had a complete memory wash out. He didn't remember anything. Later, when he got over the shock he started getting these dreams about that morning. He had lost few fragments of memory about that morning when he killed Aleya, what he remembers clearly was how madly he was snatching the photos of the nude dead body of Aleya from different angles circling around her completely naked.

5. The Smoke of Honor

1.

Mr. Prakash Vishwanath was a very honorable man. He never took a single thing that didn't belong to him and had never done anything wrong that his conscious did not allow. He was a man of integrity and honor. He always spoke the truth and has spent all his life in building a nice character and reputation. Everyone respects him and everyone likes him. He has a wife, Bhagyalaxmi and she is a good wife. He loves her and she loves him, simple logic. They had three children, Manoj, Saroj, Suresh and they all live in big cities doing some big jobs about which Mr. Vishwanath was always curious but could never understand. Mr. Vishwanath is a voracious reader and likes to read a lot; he was a meritorious student in his school and college life. He never faced troubles or failures in life and his life was a simple ride of merry-go-round.

Only bad habit in him was that he used to smoke, a habit he inherited from his father who was a smoking enthusiast. His father not only smoked but had a collection of all the cigarette brands that ever existed, also of those that were obsolete from the market. He had a huge collection of cigars, pipes, smoking joints and everything which produces smoke. Mr. Vishwanath was a single child so he inherited all this stuff, this habit along with the craziness to maintain and extend the collection. His smoking antiques collections were his life's saving and cleaning them and regularly checking them was his hobby. He was very proud of his collection. Many times he got offers to sell this collection to many collectors with high rates, but he never did. They were too precious for that. The only problem he faced from the side of this collection was that Bhaggu, as he would call Bhagyalaxmi with love, was irritated by his habit of smoking.

'It is harmful for you', she would say.

She said to him many times but to a man the things that belong to his father, good or bad, are always very precious to him. In cases like these, conscience allows them to happen because it becomes part of the fanciful learning that a person gets as a child.

The three kids were good to them but probably only because of the long distance. They visited on the festivals turn wise, like if one of them comes for one festival then no other will show up and the next time another one will come. They never gave or sent any money because all of them had their father's ego as their excuse.

2.

The daily routine of Mr. Vishwanath and Bhagyalaxmi was that they get up in the morning at 5 am and go to jog. It was a society thing as every old couple in their society went to jog in the morning, it made them all feel that they are very particular about their health and also that they are better than youngsters who sleep till afternoon. What they forgot was that they never jogged before in their life until retirement happened.

In old age you can curse anything and get away with that, it's a benefit of being old as you are taken to be a man who is talking with experience even if it is utter non sense. Anyhow, after jogging they used to come back with one or more old friends and have a tea party and talk about politics, afterwards talk would always change its direction from politics to the home politics and then to their past lives and to how glorious it was, a conversation in which they all compete with each other with their achievements but most of the times make up things in order to save their faces. They all had their children married and working in good places but none of them were happy about it.

After this tea party, Mr. Vishwanath would come home, take a bath and get ready for breakfast, eat it, move out of the house for some work. No one knew what he was going for, most of the time he himself never knew where he was going, but to him, now, sitting at home the whole day was unbearable. For a man who has worked for more than forty years and had maintained a strict discipline of life, it becomes difficult to break the routine of life and adjust to a new life of emptiness. He had many places to go, like the post office, to check his account, to check whether his pension money came or not, spend two hours in the local market visiting acquaintances, visit ing some old friend or register complaints about some household problems, nothing more and the day went successfully.

Bhagyalaxmi on the other side would spend her whole day making food and cleaning house. In the morning she prepared breakfast, as soon as that finished, she would start to prepare the lunch which always took more than two hours of her time. After lunch, she used to sleep for two-three hours and then make tea and watch television for a while; then she would start preparing dinner which would take more of her time than lunch and hence ended her work for the day.

Every day for them was a struggle to do the most difficult thing, pass time.

3.

Life was going fine, until one day. In the morning, on one of the days of July, Mr. Vishwanath found that he had a theft in his house. Bhaggu started to panic as lots of stuff was missing, the stuff that was missing was not very important but now since it was stolen, it felt like something important was lost. There was no question of cash theft as there was nothing much at the first place in the house. However, police came, inquired and just the rest of the cases nothing came out. The things were lost all right and it was well known by police and neighbors that nothing could now be recovered.

The thief was not a very good and experienced one and only took little and cheap stuff. Rest of the things were intact, nothing worthy was stolen. That day was too heavy for Bhaggu to pass. Little and useless as everything was, but whatever it was, it all was precious to Bhaggu. All items were from her life's savings. They were like good kids who never left their parents. She collected each and every thing throughout her life and everything in her house was not just things but a part of her family.

Bhaggu cried many times during the day and night as she realized that no one was understanding her feelings that she had towards those things, not even her children and her husband. To everyone, they were just things. Finally after a week or so, she got over everything and got involved in routine life. The only good thing that came out of that theft was that Mr. Vishwanath stopped smoking, she didn't know why and how that happened but she didn't mind the reason as far as he stopped smoking. Two weeks after the theft, one day Mr. Vishwanath came home very late and while eating dinner he gave his wife a present, a present that she was not expecting, a present that was her desire for a long period but she lost all hopes for it with the period of time. They were the ongoing and return tickets of two people to Vaishno Devi Mandir. She was never this happy for a very long time in the past. She was so happy that she started crying and cried her heart out. Mr. Vishwanath didn't stop her.

4.

One week later, they returned home from their trip to vaishno devi. She had already told everyone that she is going with her husband to the Vaishno Devi Mandir. She was very happy as generally women are much better than men in extracting pleasure and happiness from the little happenings, achievements and accomplishments. On return, she bought lots of Prasad for everyone and immediately when she came home, she herself went to every neighbor and gave them their Prasad.

Life went on to same routine again. Bhaggu got her lifelong wish fulfilled; Mr. Vishwanath has left smoking and was also getting his long due pension now. Life was going all well now.

Two weeks passed. Bhaggu noticed that Mr. Vishwanath was getting late every night. Earlier it was just occasional but now everyday he came late. His health was deteriorating. She didn't ask him what he was doing. It was always the question like these that irritated him most. She started making healthier food and bought some health medicines which she used to give him by mixing them in different fruit and vegetable juices. But his health was still getting worse and he was getting thinner day by day. She started worrying and was getting more and more worried as the days were passing.

5.

One day when she was cleaning their bedroom, she decided to clean the store room where they kept all their old and unused stuff. She hadn't cleaned the room for many days. So she opened the store room and started cleaning it. Suddenly her eyes fell on the old rustic almirah. She opened the almirah in which she kept all the memorable family photos, her best and expensive clothing's, her jewels, her marriage dress and other things in one half, and smoking collection of Mr. Vishwanath on the other half. The other half was empty. It was not there. Bhaggu got very scared; the whole collection was missing from there. The floor moved below her feet. She didn't know where it went. She didn't check the collection for a very long time. She knew Mr. Vishwanath won't take it anywhere as he was too secretive and possessive about it. Mr. Vishwanath himself hadn't checked the almirah after they both fought over his smoking habits and Mr. Vishwanath, to please Bhaggu, put the collection in almirah.

But, where could it go?

Did that thief take it?

But why will he take it when all expensive things and everything else were still there?

Who could steal it? No one would be interested in a collection like that; even the most ardent smokers won't care about this collection.

The place did seem like inhibited by some strangers. She saw that everything was kept as it was and nothing was moved. She was very worried and she didn't know what to do?

Finally when she couldn't find any reason for its disappearance, she decided to avoid the topic from her husband and hide this theft as long as she can.

6.

She knew he will be terribly depressed and devastated if he comes to know about this happening. She kept everything back again hurriedly and closed the almirah. She went out and started watching T.V. but after flipping channels after channels for some time, she realized that she couldn't concentrate and the whole collection again and again was coming to her mind bothering her. She started imagining horrid things like her husband finding about the theft and heartbroken.

In old age, when people don't have much left in the name of property so whatever is left, becomes precious, because every single of those things contain one most important thing with them- memories; which can never be replaced.

She couldn't keep calm for long. She hurried back to the almirah and opened it again. She again searched thoroughly whole of the store room, almirah but still she couldn't find anything. Not even a clue or something. Suddenly she saw a bag, a bag that her husband used to take with him when he used to go to his office. The bag was completely tattered. She still remembered where she bought that bag. She bought that bag from a road side vendor at a very cheap rate but it came out to be a very good bargain. That bag gave companionship to her husband for more than thirty years. Then Suresh started earning from his first job and brought a very expensive bag from his first business trip to United States. Since then this bag was lying here. She didn't know why but she started crying thinking about all the days when her husband used to leave home for office with this bag. She felt utterly miserable and pathetic after that. Since there was no one to blame for the missing collection, she started blaming herself for it as she was the first one to find that it was missing. Her tears kept rolling and whole forty years of life started rolling in front of her. She never approved of the smoking collection but she knew what it meant to her husband.

7.

She decided to open the bag and see what was kept inside it, just out of curiosity. Her tears were still rolling. She opened the bag. There were many pouches. Most of it contained some kind of official documents that she couldn't understand. In one of the pouches there was an envelope. She opened the envelope. It was a letter. She started reading it.

"Bhaggu,"

She was astonished to see a letter addressed to her.

"When you will get this letter I will no more be in this world to give you my hands in the walks of life. I will be no more there to protect you. I will no more be there to scold you on your innocent questions. By the way, I loved your questions because I always loved the fact that you were dependant on me for everything, you always made me feel like a man. You don't know but every night I used to kiss you on your forehead because you are the most beautiful and divine thing in the world when you are sleeping. Every single day and moment of my life would seem wasted without you being there. I never understood that, till our kids left us which were among the most unforgettable pain of my life. We kept on hearing and reading that kids leave their parent when they are old but we never distrusted our own kids for doing the same; rather blamed parents for their bad upbringing. Then it happened to us and we were shattered and our opinions about world changed forever. There is nothing worse happening for an old man but change in his opinions and beliefs.

This is however no time for regrets. I will no more be telling you that you have lost taste from your hand. I will no more be there to listen to your neighborly gossips. I will no more be there to be scolded by you for my smoking habits. I will no more be there to justify all my stupid habits and actions with all kinds of illogical reasons.

I will no more be there for whole lot of things but I want you still to be happy about the time we spent together for it does not deserve tears. I don't want you to beg in front of others for help as I know you cannot do any kind of financial calculations or for that matter anything related to those things because you were always dependant on me for those things.

I can't tell you how much I liked you being dependent on me for everything, how manly you made me feel in my home and in my life. You were the reason that I was always proud of myself.

Well, anyways, I took care of everything in those last days of mine and now you don't have to do anything but enjoy life as it comes. Pension might not come as it never did but you will still keep getting money every month. I have registered you for the world tour which is scheduled next year. Don't worry; you will soon get all the details form the mail. Do go there as that is my last wish.

Never go to any of our children for help and don't take their help. You were and are only my responsibility and no one else's. No one has the right to take care of you than me and I have taken care of everything.

Bhaggu, I am suffering from cancer and till the day you will get this letter I will be long gone. Don't cry because then people will start taking advantage of you. Be careful especially of our ungrateful kids.

I don't want to write much because then you will keep this letter and read it again and again and become weak.

Miss me but don't show it to anyone. Love you my lovely darling."

That day she cried most in her life.

8.

That day when Mr. Vishwanath came home, Bhaggu ran and gave him a big round hug and kissed him. He tried to control but tears came in his eyes. Mr. Vishwanath took Bhaggu to the sofa lying in the corner and they slept there for the whole night.

That day Mr. Vishwanath thought that Bhaggu panicked because of isolated life she is living at home all day. Mr. Vishwanath still does not know that Bhaggu read the letter. Bhaggu later realized on her own that Mr. Vishwanath sold the smoking collection to get some money.

Mr. Vishwanath never smoked again for the rest of his life.

6. Things of Her That I Miss Now

1.

And I opened the e-mail which had her photos. I had always thought of deleting those photos but I never could. I deleted them some times but I had already mailed them to so many places that I would get it from somewhere somehow.

Break ups are not the toughest thing it's the time you spend after break up which is the toughest. I had broken up with her three months earlier and now I am sitting here sulking, missing and cursing her. She was the best thing that happened to me in years (just keep on reading, thoughts do change with time) and I threw it away thinking, what the hell, life is big, many other good things will come if you have your spirits all right with you then why to gloom over one tiny thing, a beautiful girl you love.

Such is human mind, isn't it; always thinking rubbish. I guess this whole human society proudly stands on this fact that we are idiots from the basic core, do idiotic things all the time and unfortunately we are way past of any chance of improvement.

From where I am crying now, that time looks like a golden time for me. No we didn't have any sex. People like me, loser as we like to call ourself, it was unthinkable. It was platonic; yes, we Indians still believe in it. The land of kamasutra, have people full of thinking that having sex is, what do you call, a very very bad thing and it is also a sign of bad character, cherry on cake. I don't know who first came up with this thought of sex being an offensive activity and started prophesying it. I bet people like me would have killed that man if they could find him today. We are what we are because of him. No need to elaborate further that that guy, whoever he is, prophesized it with open chest, was undoubtedly wrong. He ruined lives of many innocent boys who got one chance of a night stand but blew it owing to their commitment to sex-is-offense before marriage thing, trying to pretend themselves as typical South Indian hero with bulky mustache for whom girls are never the priority, instead its only the girls that come after them (I have lots of comments to make on this weird fantasy of South Indian film writers but later) which we know never happens in real life unless the girl is so ugly that no one wants her. You won't believe that I have known people who refuse to jerk off thinking about the girl they love I know it is stupid because I was once like that and I know some of you reading it are like that. Trust me, stop following Shahrukh Khan as your love god and for god's sake, masturbate at least once a day thinking about your love. Anyhow what I thought at that time was something like since I would be spending rest of my life with her no doubt so sex can be done later, as there is enough time then to do such things, what is NOW needed is to make base of relationship. Some crap I might have read somewhere or must have seen in a movie. I know the last bit sounded so good "making base of relationship" but the nicer it sounds the worst kind of gibberish it is.

Yes... yes... I know, no need to get on my head and shout at me, I know I was wrong. I didn't get to have any sex , and that's all was my fault. I always knew I was doing something wrong but I am neither ashamed nor am I regretting that part, because whatever good time I had with her was nothing less than life of orgasm (see I still haven't learnt anything from my pathetic and on the face experiences, also I can't keep blaming myself for one mistake my whole life). But for your kind information, she offered me sex with her many times. Don't even ask why I didn't accept the invitation. For more information on my stupid behavior, watch Akshay Kumar in 'Dhadkan' or Mohnish Behl in 'Hum Saath Saath hain'.

Have you ever noticed that girls in the Hindi movies of 80's (still going on in South) always fell in love with Auto drivers or mechanic. I don't know what is so manly and macho, about these mechanics and taxi drivers , that rich and beautiful girls were always falling in love with them. Surprisingly this hero whose profession was either repairing or running vehicles always had some sort of tremendous attitude, don't know what he had accomplished or what did he think of him. Come on man you are a poor chap, be a little embarrassed. The rich girl or heroine would always like them for their attitude. Not that these characters of heroine had any less attitude. They had loads of attitude but for the first time they would meet anyone (hero) who had more attitude than them. Auto mechanics for some reasons reserve the right to refuse service to anyone if they are not talked to nicely. Police don't mean anything to them. They have their own ways to deal with things. These so called hero of movies (often Mithun or Govinda) and were always so careful about marrying their sisters into a nice family but always ended up marrying them to some looney who later would turn against the hero instead and back bite him. The hero's mother would always have some incurable medical diseases, handicap and other problems. I wonder what she did when she was young to get all these problems. What I hated most about these movies was that the only guy who had selflessly left everything and was ready to do anything for the heroine's approval for a meaningless sex or temporary love was always shown as a villain. They were always so honest about their feelings. These innocent guys, typecasted in our society as villains, would always drink heavily before raping the heroine or hero's sister-mother and taking some sort of revenge. You know why they drink heavily before doing these things. I will tell you why. It was because they were all good hearted people and would never do anything in their conscious mind to hurt anyone, even when the hero is destroying his and his father's happiness and their peacefully-run illegible business transactions. I mean a villain never went to the hero's garage and puncture all the cars in his garage then why is the hero always interfering in the poor villain's family business of illegal activities. Everyone has got the right to earn his bread. I have cried many times in my heart for the innocent souls of these guys who were always shown in negative light. What were their mistakes? That they were sons of rich criminals or that they had lots of money or that they studied in good colleges or that they had much better friends who could fight for him (so dedicated) or that they were sometimes NRI as well. All that they wanted was to marry the heroine. It was always when they were marrying the heroine the hero would come and beat him, mind you, for no reason. Marriage is a legal proposition if you ask me and Indian Law. Indian movies have always shown negative people as heroes and heroes as villains. Just like my mentor George Constanza had said once "What kind of topsy turvy world do we live in, where heroes are castigated as villains...".

Coming back to the topic of love, ex-girlfriend and blah blah.

Yes, I admit. I did mistakes and I did lot of mistakes in that relationship which later so much became a part of my nature, that now when I don't make mistakes I feel I am not myself. Now whenever I do something right I start feeling otherwise which earlier I felt when I did mistakes. However there is not a single good reason that I well remember today for which I can say she should not have left me because most of the efforts were from my side in throwing me away from her and breaking the relationship. But the world stands witness to the fact that whenever I had broken up with a girl, within three days I had crawled back shamlessly on my knees to apologize to her asking for forgiveness.

She never replied to my miserable rantings of forgiveness later. She still doesn't. That bitch. She left me because she had finally accumulated enough good reasons and it was a viable decision now when I look back at all the reasons she must have. But the main reason she left me was because she had made a new boyfriend, however I think I should ignore that fact for now as it hurts me.

Why am I like this? I mean the kind of idiot that I am, there must be some scientific explanation for that. I am still wondering who am I actually (very deep, right). I am just wondering because I want to find some reason in myself to whom I can blame every bad thing I have done when I was in that relationship and the reason I am just wondering, and not trying hard to do anything is because all the answers to my questions , of whom to put all the blame on me, are lying inside me which if it comes out can ruin my career as boyfriend, in future as that might lead to a big scar on my innocent mind , who is right now trying to find some scapegoat to put all the blame upon. I am writing all the things down so that boys who are going to commit the same mistakes do not end up in a state in which I have comfortably settled which means I have philanthropic purposes too in writing this book. Philanthropy is all about giving, Bill Gates gave money and I am giving crap but again remember it's all about giving and nothing else.

Right from the time of puberty I am falling in love with women sexually one after another so that collectively adds up to quite an experience in falling. Here is a secret, I was falling in love with them before too but I don't want to discuss that as it does not go with tone of book and what I wrote earlier, thinking again it was not much of a secret than a redundant confession. Now about falling in love before puberty, I think science related to it also thinks that falling in love and thinking sexually about a woman before you hit puberty is immature perverseness and I refuse to believe I am a pervert, when I know deep down I am, still I claim I am not a pervert.... On second thoughts I may be.... but I am not... I could be.... But I am not... I wish I were.... But I am not.

How many times can you hurt a girl before she leaves you? Answer is infinite; because it's not you who is tested here but the girl and her power of tolerating you as a jerk. I am a jerk myself and I knew it but I never helped myself to come out of it. I loved my jerkiness and I thoroughly enjoyed it. But I couldn't see through my jerkful pleasures that it was giving me more sad memories than it was giving me happy ones. My advice – don't be a jerk, it's long lasting once caught.

Have you ever noticed and wasted your time thinking that why we are unable to understand women? Even if you never did, I know that now you are thinking about it as I have diverted your mind to it. I have found the answer and I will give it to you but a warning was still really necessary before I release this information. If you haven't burnt your hands with a woman then please don't read it as it may cause serious severe damage to your brain cells but on good side it may open some options for you as psychopath which in itself is a very interesting and extraordinary occupation. So here it is. We don't understand women because ....becasuuuuuuuuuuuse..... 'There is nothing to understand in a woman'... Was that too difficult to understand? There is nothing to understand about women, we men have gotten so far, written so many books, developed so many theories in trying to understand women that we don't see the single fact that women are just crazy monkeys hanging around doing the most unexpected things. What we try to do is we try to find a pattern in them, the lazy we are, we have found patterns in everything, the music, writings, natural occurrences and that's how science was born. But is that so difficult to understand that women do not have any pattern, except few which we will discuss later. Do not try to understand women because once they get to know that you are working on them as self approved and certified scientists they will run away from you. That's why there are so less women scientists, whatever there are, are mostly unmarried because these scientist women have patterns in them and we don't like women with patterns. The unpredictability factor of women is the reason we love them so much. Women are the entertainment package given to men by god so that they don't get bored in the world. Just think for a moment, what are you thinking when you are getting bored at a bus stand, railway station, examination hall, 11 PM to 6 AM etc. etc. times, yes you are thinking about a girl. What are we searching most on the internet, girls aka woman. Why was facebook, google created ? Because of a woman. If it weren't for women, you would just sit on your ass thinking of a thought to think upon. Men would rather die hungry rather than get up and go out to grow food. It was a woman I guess who first forced a man to go and bring some food for her. The ritual is same even now. We men are growing food for them and all they are doing is chomping everything up, even our brains.

Coming back to my romantic story. I saw her first in a salsa dance class. I joined the salsa class with the sole intentions of meeting new girls and see them move their hip legally. My future love-trouble(that girl) used to come with some good height, handsome looking idiot whom I didn't like for obvious reasons just mentioned. I immediately fell in love with her and as unattractive god has made me, she didn't notice me.

Why would anyone notice me? Sometimes I believe my unattractiveness adds as a point of advantage because if I had been an attractive one then I would have to work on my instincts the moment a girl notices me and I would never get the time to plan everything before I actually hit the girl with my charm (my charm was again a misconception I had, I have no charm, in fact I am charmless). Most of the time (take it as all the time) I get the chance to plan the things before attacking on the girl with my flirtations. I got the chance this time too. Every day I used to watch her dancing and flowing in air. I saw her every move and motion. I read her carefully because my modus oprendi has to be a perfect fail proof plan. It failed and I realized that nothing works according to my plan. I can never succeed willingly. I made a plan that was sure to fail, considering all my plans have opposite effects I was sure I would win her this time. It failed too. Then I realized another truth. My plans do not fail it was just that no matter what I do nothing works in my favor. If I plan to do things in my favor, they would go another way and if I plan to do things against me, problem already solved. I was in a no win situation for me. But I made it. How? You will know.

She loved dancing and because I was not a professor of dance so I thought she was a good dancer as well. Later I came to know that she too thought that she was a great dancer herself, unfortunately no one else shared that opinion with her. But I believed all things about her that I wanted to believe because I was in love with her and as a boy in love I felt I must do that. I saw her dancing and salsaing and the more I saw her the more I fell in love with her which explains the old landlords in my country going to a dancer's place to entertain themselves. I always wondered why rich people spend so much money watching a girl dance on boring songs if there is no distant intention of having sex with her but then again I am not sure of their intentions.

She was this cute little baby (don't we love to pretend that girls are babies) who had no knowledge of the evilness of the world (she knew everything by the way), dancing with the abstract beauty of ignorance (she was zoology honors, later did law), who appeared to me like goddess (one of my many ways of impressing girls was to call them goddess). She however danced with that guy only. And they were touching each other at different body parts. Crack sound Please. I find no need to elaborate on the fact that I didn't like the guy, neither sexually and not in any other sense. I knew I loved her (wanted to lick her body covered in chocolate cream) but I knew she was far within my reach so I consoled myself by hitting her hence and thence while dancing and saying sorry to make her notice me. Till that time, all beautiful girls were far within my reach and rest of them were like my sisters. Although I had conquered some good ones from the lot in the past but I still had that inferiority complex inside me.

Inferiority complex is actually a good word to hide the true weakness of you. If you don't look good and you know it then call it inferiority complex to girls, girls will think that you are intelligent, first because you know this word and second you acknowledge it yourself that how inferior you are, which initially sounds like you are modest. Girls dig modesty. Girls like people with lots of mental deficiencies. Girls don't like good guys, they like guys with deficiencies and personality problems, it gives them a chance to improve them and make sure the proverb "there is always a woman behind a man" comes out to be right. Girls are born psychologists and they like to hear your troubles and problems, and they always think they have the perfect right solution for our problems (Which never works).

But I digress. She was beautiful and I wanted her. What was the next step? Nothing for a while as a part of plan, which I was yet to make. I was too lazy to do much. People like me don't take steps. We wait for magic to happen. Initially, I tried to forget her because after few days of me joining salsa classes she left it. I put her in my memories as another of my incomplete one sided love stories. Life is not that easy. There is always something which will motivate you to do something that is not right, that thing is called 'mind' in today's language. I had nothing to do those days so I decided to chase her on social networking, contacts within contacts and using other ways too just to pass some time. Mind you, I still didn't think that I had any chance with her. My mind started working and I coyly took her name out of the entry register that we had to fill every day when we entered the salsa classes under the eyes of our Salsa intructor. I had successfully used this trick many times before too to find the name and number of other girls I fell in love with in my school days but that is another of long embarrassing story which I won't tell you as I know this story will cause me enough embarrassment and scar on my reputation for once.

I have got a lot of phone numbers of lots of girls in my mobile. When you don't have the number of the girl you think, you think 'If only I could get the number of this girl, I would have her'. But I have realized that getting someone's number doesn't help in anyway. Even if you have her number, what did you expect, that she will talk to you just because you have her number.

"Oh so you have my number... You are my hero".

Nothing happens if you get a girl's number. First girls don't pick unknown numbers for their own reasons. I don't know why they don't pick unknown numbers, come on, no one can possibly press your breasts on phone. Pick the phone, have a chat, do some social service for boys. All we need is few good laughs and a hope for sex, is that too difficult for you ladies. Most women don't know how much they can use us. Sometimes I feel I was born to be used by woman. I often have this feeling that I am a tissue paper and usually that feeling becomes more frequent after break ups. Many guys have told me that they feel like sanitary napkins after break ups. I tried to feel like sanitary napkins once but I think I am more comfortable with tissue paper feeling. Both are used badly and thrown heartlessly, but tissue papers are treated comparatively in a much better manner than sanitary napkins. Second, (remember I wrote 'first" up there in the first line) girls only want to talk to someone who knows them through someone. If you tell them that you are his mother's sister's son's uncle's neighbor's daughter-in-law's elder brother's wife's sister's pet dog, she might talk to you but not otherwise. In short, if you have achieved a girl's number, you have achieved nothing. If she has given you her number, then it's a different matter.

Smart lines don't work on girls and that's a fact. Girls are not that intelligent. You may have often seen in American films that a guy comes to a bar and says something very smart and girl starts laughing and they end up having sex together in a hotel room. Nothing like that will ever happen to you and trust me on that. Most of the time girl won't understand your smart lines; or might feel offended or might get a complete different interpretation of what you said. Sometimes they do understand but pretend not to understand just to show you how stupid you are. Sometimes they will say "excuse me" or "Pardon" or the rude one "what did you say" and they all mean one thing, you have to repeat what you have said, the toughest thing in the trade. It doesn't mean they haven't listened to you, it means that they need some more time to find a catch in your smart line to throw back at you and make you feel like 'committing suicide' or ' why the hell did I open my mouth'.

Girls like to insult boys and let me tell you a secret for having them, let them insult you. The good thing about girls is that because of lack of anything constructive to do in their life, they sometimes use their brain and think. When they will think they will feel pity and they will feel guilty about what they did to you. Pity and guilt have always been the two cornerstones of start of a good relationship. Girls get sympathy from everyone but they don't have an outlet for sympathy so they always are in hunt to find someone to give sympathy, if you get the chance to get sympathy take sympathy. The more pathetic you are the more beautiful a girl you will get. Only two kinds of people get beautiful girls in life, rich (obvious) and pathetic (universally loved).

Coming back to my love story.

So I got her name. For reasons valid, most true life inspired stories change the name of the original characters to hide their identity and to save them from I don't know what, no one will chase them to ask for autograph; anyhow I will blindly change her name too. But what should I call her? I will call her, let's say, Shirsha Mishra. This way when she will read this book she will never know about whom I am writing and no one will ever be able to know about her and she can get married somewhere someday to some handsome rich bloke whenever she wants. I won't cry if I will ever be able to know that she is getting married because I don't want to cry, girls cry and I am a boy and boys don't cry.... Please, I just need few moments...just wait here or turn to next page....(buhuhuhu)....ok I am all right now.....buhhuhuhuhuhu...subak... subak).

Ok it's all right now. So you know now how much I cried but don't you dare to make fun of me behind my book.

Although I have successfully cried several times by brutally crushing my face inside the pillows in a closed room so that no one could hear that I cried but it never helps. I don't know why people say that crying helps, probably they want you to cry and see for yourself how stupid it feels. Now since you have started feeling more stupid so the previous stupid state of her leaving you do not remains that stupid to you any more, that's what I guess. Otherwise I only cried because I heard somewhere that once you cry your emotions get drained out and you are normal again. Bingo - so not true. I will still stick to earlier explanations of feeling stupid. Besides that, these are all lies of first rate because I have cried several times for her and after two hours I always feel like crying again for her. But please, let's not discus my private life here.

So I guess I was telling you about her and how she looked but where exactly was I and what was I saying? Good, we both forget. Coming to think about it, I can't tell you how she looked because then people will start looking for her and in case they will find her then she might sue me for harming her private life. Harming her private life is somewhat a part of my intention but simultaneously it might also destroy my private life by her suing me which is none of my life's plan.

I love my life and I loved her too though somewhere my love is more inclined towards my life. I don't remember every little thing that happened between us (one of the reasons for break up, male species don't remember important things, for that matter anything worth remembering). Guys do remember things, it's not that we forget everything but let me explain to you what happens. We try to listen to everything and try really hard to remember everything and if someone would call us on bournvita quiz contest and ask us who is the father of unmarried puppy of the cousin of your girlfriend's favorite neighbor, I can hit on the buzzer and shout the answer without a blink but the moment my girlfriend asks me what is the name of her favorite cousin, I might get nervous heart attack and fall down unconscious.

Anyhow although I don't have a photographic memory but I will still try telling you everything that I can remember as of now about her.

The truth is that I still don't know that whether I loved her or not. Sometimes I feel that I really love her and can cut my wrist for her and write her name on the walls of the bathroom from the blood spurting out of my wrist (why bathroom?? Because its walls are white, blood is easily visible and tiles soak less) but sometimes I feel that I just feel that I love her but actually I don't love her. I am confused between my thinking and my feelings; I don't know how to operate them as I don't know which one is coming from which part of the body. But there is a truth and it can't be changed, and it is that I know I can spend my entire life with her without regretting a single moment. Oh no, scrap the last line, it's an over statement issued in no one's interest by some emotionally charged brain cell. I can't spend my whole life with her; she would have made a dog out of me. Not that I don't like being a dog of a girl, I do but it's just something I like to dream or fancy about. When it happens in actual it is a completely different experience and you just want to slap the bitch, I mean... the Mistress.

Sometimes I wonder what life is and the only image that comes to my mind is of bunch of bullies playing with the shirt of a kid in the school ground who he is begging in front of them for his shirt, instead they are making fun of him and playing with the shirt. I feel those bunch of bullies is life and the loser kid is me. Nothing to do with the fact that it actually happened with me, I mean not the exact incident but somewhat like it. I loved to collect pens once, and used to buy a lot of expensive pens. It was way before I started stealing pens for collection. A guy in my class had so much undefined loveful inclination for me that whenever he had this curb to make someone cry, he would always chose me as his favorite idiot. A sincere appeal to that Bully - Mr. Bully thanks for making me feel special for always choosing me over a big group of idiots in that class. He would first steal my most expensive pen from my pen box and dismantle all its parts. Then he would show me one of the parts which were enough to make me run after him and beg to give me all parts of pen's body. After a while I would start crying which I thought was my final weapon and might frighten him but in actual this was what he was always waiting for, me crying. He loved to see me cry over a pen. After an hour or two he would give me the pen like a big brother doing a gracious and most grateful thing by returning my own pen to me and making me feel like an eternally blessed idiot when I would thank him for that. I know it is a sad story, I myself feel sad whenever I remember this story. But then this is life, let's move on.

Should I just skip everything and come to the part where I first met her? Why am I asking you, you are not writing this book? So, let's begin with our first meeting - The first time we saw each other was from a distance and I can say from her side that she liked what she saw (sheer narcissism). It was a miracle for me. The most beautiful girl I have ever seen in my life (not exactly true but human mind can see and feel only one beautiful girl at a time) that I thought I can never even talk to or would be brushed cruelly with scolding words even if I tried to, was standing in front of me and I was standing in front of her, but in the next moment it all became normal. I have noticed that everything becomes normal and ordinary after a certain period of time and those certain periods are often very short. Anyhow, let me tell you a little back story of this first meeting to make it more interesting. Or let's end this chapter here and begin the whole thing with a new chapter. I guess your nod means you agree with me.

2.

I have a friend by the name Sudhanshu (I am again changing the name of my friend to hide his identity, mainly because I don't want him to become famous in case this book becomes famous) and he is a good friend for many classified reasons. He shares all my pervert visions and illogical thoughts with same energy and vigor with which I create them. He is always ready to participate in all stupid acts that I do and I never do anything that I feel could remotely put me into trouble, alone. I always keep someone to accompany me, mostly its Sudhanshu, I do it because when you are in trouble everyone leaves you and no one understands you except the one who was involved with you in the crime, at least then you can talk with that person about the event over and over again without thinking that he may be getting bored because he understands the gravity of the situation in fact he is equally interested in talking about it. I can proudly say that I have done enough to put Sudhanshu many times in trouble and I am always fortunate to have Sudhanshu always standing next to me making fun of the whole thing. I have also suffered problems because of Sudhanshu because he makes so much fun even of the worst situations in which we are that everything starts to appear to me funny, like in a sitcom and then we get into more trouble.

But this story is not about Sudhanshu, no offense to him. He is a nice guy but is what is important here because people reading this book will be normal people, like normal people are, wanting to read about girl friends not male friends.

I met Shirsha on Orkut later and convinced her of my intelligence and sense of humor. If the girl is not directly looking at me, I can very easily make her fall in love with me. I had one photo in which I was looking good because it was one of my photos in which my face was hidden by my long hair and black specs. I edited, morphed and re-edited the photo so many times that finally I started looking like a stud. I fooled her and she thought I looked good...huh.. what an idiot she was! I also impressed her by my job that I got in the third year of college (it was difficult to get job those days) and also by an article that I got published in a very popular website in which I included her name as well. She was so happy to see her name in the article she didn't write. People always feel delighted to get the credit for things they haven't done. People were praising her for the article and I made my way in.

Soon we exchanged our phone numbers. For days she and I were chatting on the phone through phone messages and messenger on internet and it created the base for my later played tricks (bless those souls who enhanced communication technology, thanks Tim Burners Lee, thanks Alexander graham bell and also thanks to all those small time software developers whose name we don't know but they will always be remembered for what they did). We talked very less because it is not wise to start talking too much very early to classy girls (she pretended to be classy throughout our relationship and me as just a poverty stricken uneducated landlord's butt of joke farmer). She was, as I believed earlier, from high society, a rich family, I was wrong because she was as rich as I was (I am referring to my parents property as my own here which they have none anyways otherwise I wouldn't be writing my own book rather would have preferred reading penthouse in my own penthouse and would keep a writer to write books under my name), but it doesn't matter because I loved her and not her money (don't take it completely true, if she had more money, I would have loved her more).

I love her. I love her. I love her. (God!! These sexual organs inside me).

[Note: some of the lines that I haven't omitted from the book were from the time when I was crazy for her after break up, now I don't believe in those lines but I felt it would be good to keep them that way.]

I deeply and sincerely apologize for the above lines because I get these kinds of love jolts from time to time. Sometimes I fall deeply in love and sometimes I feel it's superficial, I don't know what the difference is but I like to explain this thinking like this; it makes me believe that I am turning into a great thinker and philosopher who can think and can dissect his thinking into some more thinking's.

Throughout our relationship I believed that I was the intelligent one and I was controlling the whole situation. I believed that everything was going according to my plan and she was behaving as I was making her behave. I thought that whatever happened was because of my cunningness, my well prepared and thought through thinking. I believed in me and my powers of intelligence. Then she came, proved me wrong and took away everything that I had in the name of self esteem, shattered my ego and burned down my self-respect. From then on I have lived like a fool and am not able to get out of it. She kicked on the balls of my confidence so hard that every time I do something I feel I can't do it and when I am forced to do it, somehow I do it, which means that somewhere I can dedicate my late success(in case I will get any) to her and her only.

So, the first meeting; back to the topic. One day I got a message from her that she would be soon coming to Lucknow and she soon came to Lucknow. Another day, after few days of this previous day when I got the above mentioned message I got another message, not to mention that we were talking on messages all the time in between all those days, that she will be coming to Wave(a cool hang-out Mall in Lucknow) that afternoon and if I could come there, then we can meet.

Why won't I come, of course I will come to meet my goddess, the girl of my dreams for whom I was waiting for millions of years, had I been living for millions of years in land of no woman. I was like the dog that was finally given the meat and bones when for years he was only fed vegetables. It is no need to tell you I believe that I would go to meet her even if I were the most busy man on this planet, but I was not busy, unfortunately I have never been busy in my life ever, in fact sometimes I wonder why do I have so much time to think about same things over and over again. I remain busy though, in trying to figure out how to get busy all the time but practically I never get busy, in fact I am much freer than some Indian people were in 1947. I am so free that sometimes I want to become slave of something, get bonded in chains and get restricted movements and everything which is the definition of masochism. Don't worry, I am just making it up to wake you and I don't want to be slave of anyone but these thinking (and BDSM videos) do make me respect my freedom. However if I think again, reconsider my thoughts, then I can be slave to someone, some beautiful girl and live as her slave and let her treat me as a slave and I do things to her, oh wait sorry again, I just started describing a pervert porn movie. Change of topic. So as I was saying, I never do anything (at least not something constructive) and I always have time for everything that sometimes I have to make excuses to people that I am busy doing something so that they know that sometimes I get busy too and I can't be taken for granted when I later successfully waste that time doing nothing. Anyways, I was free that day as the rest of the days of my life and went to the mall. You might have forgotten what happened up there so I must remind you that Shirsha called me to meet her, it was not a date but I will call it a date so as to save some arguments and extra redundant lines. There was a problem, how to look nice for the first meeting because this first meeting was going to decide my future with her (which never got made). There was lack of time as she had given me a time to meet her which was as far as I remember, one hour from the time she messaged. The clock was ticking and heart beats were going up and down, my heart beats usually go up and down like everyone else's but at that moment it decided to go a little fast, I guess in order to motivate my other body parts to inspire to work faster, especially my brain which never does anything and never produces the right information when needed. My brain has a problem and has no cure, it imagines too much and it did imagine too much that day as well.

Actually I never met any girl before for the first time (I have very well met them second time, but never first time) in such a short notice without proper pre-meeting courtship so I was little suspicious, and get prepared to laugh at the length of the imagination my mind had and the reasons it created for her calling me to meet. I thought that maybe she wants to see me and get me beaten by her brother or friends or make fun of me in front of everyone else by calling me to a public place and humiliating me. I don't know why I thought like that. I know it was result of insecurities I had once when I was a child, when I didn't know the meaning of the word 'insecurities'. Due to lack of good people to consult or get good advice, I called my dear friend Sudhanshu and he confirmed my fears by saying that what I was saying can happen exactly. To ask to opt between reality and other wise, Sudhanshu would always opt for otherwise. I asked him to come to my home as soon as possible as I had urgent crisis situation and I also asked him to bring me a belt, a handkerchief and a nice shirt or whatever he had that he can think can make me look good. He was free as always so he came as fast as he can. Sudhanshu, at this point of time I would like to mention, is a guy who is always ready to help other people, probably because he has nothing constructive to do in his own life. His life was equally worthless as my life but occasional stupidities like these kept us busy for long. So he came with himself and stuff. I told him again everything to reconfirm my thinking of the whole scenario and he too doubted the fact that why any beautiful girl like Shirsha would call me to meet her at such an immature acquaintance unless and until she had an ulterior motive. Sudhanshu and I both had immense faith in each other's incapability's and too much, too weird imaginative thinking. I decided to dress well in case the meeting turns out to be a genuine one in which she is just calling me to quench her curiosity to find that whether I was as interesting in real as I was on technical electronic gadgets or on a nearly fake profile.

We made a plan. Not a detailed though. The plan was that I will definitely go to meet but Sudhanshu will stand there too at a distance keeping an eye on us in case someone comes to beat me, then he could save me or take me to hospital in case I get beaten up before he could come to rescue me (which I doubt considering his physical dimensions), or he could just come down to stand my side if he sees her humiliating me, just to support me in humiliating her back because you can't humiliate anyone if you are alone, you always need someone to laugh and support your crude, senseless jokes which you are making at person you want to humiliate when you are humiliating someone. There is no other better way to make fun of someone than to have accomplice who laughs like empty fuel car. So it was decided, Sudhanshu was going with me.

After trying infinite (exaggeration, not even six) number of shirts and pants, we put a check on the shirt that Sudhanshu brought from his home. I took his belt, as I didn't have one and I also took his handkerchief, again I didn't have one of it too. It's not that I didn't had these things, it was because since I don't take much care of my things they either get lost or damaged. But there was one problem, I had cheap mobile phone. No one likes anyone with cheap mobile phones, I mean I won't. I did have an option to switch it with Sudhanshu but sadly he had a cheaper one so I had to stick with mine.

Luck was with me that day I guess for as I closed the door of my room, one of my friends from college, called Aman by parapsychologists (again I am hiding his identity for no reason at all, in fact he would have been happy to see his name somewhere in any book) came to my room for passing some of his redundant time. I saw an expensive mobile in his hand and immediately exchanged mine with his, but I completely forgot that some of my cheesy and embarrassing messages to Shirsha were also saved in that mobile which automatically got saved in his mobile when we exchanged the sim, later he read them and made fun of me for a long time, for which I will never forgive him.

Anyhow, my accomplice Sudhanshu and I were at the scene of crime (yet to be committed) now. First we went to the place of action, which was a big hall inside the mall, where at the centre was the coffee shop and all around it were the shopping shops. We set our spots to stand or sit. We then went to the bathroom and revised our whole plan. Then we went to place where this uneventful event was supposed to happen and took our respective places. I sat at the coffee place, disguising myself as guy drinking coffee and waiting for someone. I thought of ordering a coffee but the rates in the menu card discouraged me. I was also wearing glasses on my eyes because I didn't want anyone to see where my eyes were moving but it didn't matter as glass was transparent. They were like harry potter glasses, except they were square. They didn't have any power in them but it appeared like they do. Glasses like these make people believe that the person wearing them is very erudite and ardent reader and hence forms an intelligent image of him. I was none of it so thought glasses might help me in appearing like one. I had long hair, stubble, full shirt, jeans, shoes (of course) and a handkerchief. Now all I had to do was wait and wait for some more time.

Suddenly my phone rang. My heart beats got nearly double, if we don't logically go by mathematics and biology. I took my phone and looked at it. What the hell, it was Sudhanshu. He can never be a detective. 'Like this he will break our disguise' I thought.

Sudhanshu was standing at the corner of the second floor and was keeping an eye on everyone coming and going in the mall. Sudhanshu had seen a photo of Shirsha so he knew how she would look like. I asked him whether he saw her but he said that he called me to ask the same question. He was getting bored and he insisted that I should call her and ask where she is. I refused to do that as that may sound that I am too eager to meet her. Girls don't like guys who are too eager to meet them. Girls want guys to run after them and when guy openly displays his affection by actually running after her then she makes him run more after her, which makes a man a good runner but he never gets the girl. So the solution is to show that you don't care about her which confuses the girl and makes her wonder that why he doesn't care and she runs after the guy to know why is he not caring enough for her to run like everyone else behind her. In this process of girl running after you, you can make her fall in love with you and never let the girl know that when you were pretending to not care about her, in actual you were caring a lot about her but don't tell that to her as that will make her more confused and also suspicious that you are a man not to be trusted as she will then think of you as a conspirer for doing this caring-not caring act(which was forbidden since 4000BC by the early-man early-woman agreement signed at some cave in Africa) and will leave you for someone else who will do the same thing to her but won't reveal it to her.

Sudhanshu and I kept on talking and finally our conversation moved to some topic that had nothing to do with what we came to the mall for. We were carrying on our useless topic of whether fantasizing women breasts is a sexual fetish or not when Sudhanshu got happy to see something and told me that he thinks he saw Shirsha. I asked him where and he told me the location. I too saw her but I didn't believe that it was her. She had grown healthy since salsa classes but it was ok since I like chubby girls. Funny thing was that Sudhanshu recognized her first and I didn't. Another thing to note was that she came there and went directly upstairs while I was down at the open café, which was the decided place of meeting. She was talking to someone and we both saw her talking to someone and it's still a mystery to us whether she was talking to someone or not. She always said she wasn't talking to anyone but we were sure that we saw her with someone; finally we had to believe her as opposing her would mean losing her forever. May be we thought that they were talking but they were not, may be they were walking too close that it appeared that they were talking. Truth doesn't matter what matters is to get the girl (remember it, its relationship maintenance secret). I still don't know what her plan was and why she went up; maybe she had this plan that if I would turn out to be hopeless case then she could run from then and there. There was no way to know that but to face whatever comes. She called and although I knew where she was I pretended that I didn't see her. She asked me to look up and I looked up. She was standing there. She didn't even feel the need to wave her hands in the air as we see in the movies to make me locate where she was, ATTITUDE. She thought if I liked her so much then I will see her in a mob of thousand people; girls and their fanciful thinking. Thank god there wasn't a mob, leave a part mob there wasn't even much people to begin with, even the people working in the mall were more than the entire population of people who came to visit the mall. I saw her and I went to her, it's always you who have to go. Sudhanshu was keeping an eye on me; any mishappening and he would come like superman for the rescue. I don't know what had gone over my head that to protect me I had kept Sudhanshu as protector. Anyhow I took her downstairs to the coffee shop and we started talking. I felt like man and she made me feel like a man (just for that day), though she was manlier than me. We changed places from one place to another, from here to there and near about passed three hours and funny thing was I totally forgot about Sudhanshu. Sudhanshu being a good friend didn't remind me thinking that calling me might ruin the whole thing as it was a feeling of great happiness that at least one of us was getting a girlfriend. I knew he must be having tears of happiness just like me as we were like two farmers who have lived in a village where they have never seen water for ages and all of a sudden there is rain, this feeling was mutual for both of us. Suddenly I remembered that Sudhanshu came with me on my bike and he has left his bike at my place so even if he wants to go, he can't go. But the amusing story didn't end there. Shirsha and I were coming out of the landmark, a book and CD shop in the mall, and she told me that for a very long time she is noticing that a guy standing at the corner is constantly looking at us. She was just terrified by him looking at her all the time. I looked at him too and not to my surprise it was Sudhanshu who was staring at us. Sudhanshu, unaware, not in his wildest dream would have thought that she will notice him staring at us. When Shirsha called me initially, she told me that she won't be there in the mall for long, one hour or maximum two hours. I made the plans according to that only but she ruined everything by staying like forever. For some reason she always lied to me about her parents that they were too strict, didn't allow her freedom or whatever but her dominating behavior and time she would spend with me always went against that. One thing I also learnt from her that day was how to say "whatever" in complete attitude with extra air around; more amusing than that she was even wearing a T-shirt with "whatever" written on it. We stayed in the mall for more than four hours and nothing happened in fact at one point she even opened her course book and started reading and learning it. She said she had exams coming up and she lied to her parents that she is going to a mall to study. What, do I look so stupid? Whose parents will say "my lovely daughter go and study hard in the shopping mall where you can actually concentrate".

Anyhow coming back again, what happened next was, after telling me that this guy is constantly looking at us, it came to my understanding too that I am taking too much advantage of my good friend who hasn't said a thing and stood by me without complaining. I knew that if I were in his place I would have really got angry. I wouldn't tolerate this kind of behavior that I was doing to him. I had to go and ask him to leave. While Shirsha was telling me this, her phone rang and before I could say anything to her she went inside because it was her mother's call and girls always talk to their mother's in private, another interpretation is girls don't talk to anyone in front of me.

What I did next was the act for which I should get the national award for stupidity and bravery simultaneously on an event that should be organized only in my honor. I went to him. I had a phone but no part of my brain came up with that idea. I not only went to him, I also started talking to him. You want to know who what 'him' is, well that him is Sudhanshu. I could have messaged him or called him but suddenly I had this feeling of a young daughter's father on her wedding day that I felt obliged to go and personally ask the guests the leave. I asked Sudhanshu to leave and handed him silently the keys of my bike and told him that Shirsha has noticed her and he should leave now. It's all safe and all our fears of getting beaten or getting humiliated were futile. After doing that gravely stupid act, I don't know with what plan to explain this to Shirsha I came back to her. May be I thought that I will tell her the truth but on the way back to Shirsha from Sudhanshu I realized how stupid the whole story would seem and to tell a girl that a good friend of mine was keeping an eye on us for last three hours for a reason so stupid that I will rather go with it till my deathbed than tell it to anyone. So, by the time I reached to Shirsha, I was clueless about how will I explain to her what I just did. But I came up with something and only because on this intelligence of mine I later got her as my girlfriend, not because of this incident but because I am that intelligent. She was already suspicious of my behavior the moment I went to Sudhanshu as she was watching me while on call. She sensed something fishy. Because it was an abnormal act for anyone to do, to just go to a stranger and talk to him in such a friendly way and make him leave the mall. I told her, now I am laughing at this, I told her that I asked that guy that why was he staring at us and he told me that he was not staring but he recently lost his girlfriend whose face resembled that of Shirsha and they used to come here often. I told her that he got so embarrassed when I told him that my friend is getting uncomfortable because of you that he left the mall. She made some suspicious eyes but decided to believe me because there was no way for her to know the truth.

The first meeting was the best one and I can say on her behalf too that we both had a good time. Unfortunately we never saw good times again whenever we got together after this. That was the end of happy days or rather a happy day.

3

I am counted in that breed of people who are called engineers. I was doing my engineering in computer science when I met Shirsha , I was in my fourth year but I knew her identity from the second year. How I passed my exams and what I did in college is a mystery, that I know which if revealed can open the secret of what kind of engineer I was. I didn't study much in college because very early I realized that there was no use for it. I got bad marks and I did everything to save myself from getting near to any kind of deep knowledge about computer science or software. Except anything related to movies and other entertaining stuff. Basically, my whole knowledge of computer was related to how to download movies and how to run the internet , although I can proudly brag about some knowledge of a few things that normal people not having computer background won't know, like formatting the system and uploading the operating system which amused people like I was showing them magic tricks and they would consider me a computer genius. To people who were born before 1960s, anyone who knows anything about computers is a computer engineer. However, my several attempts to be thrown out of college failed and not only that my fate rewarded my hatred towards this field by awarding me a job in one of the leading companies as software engineer, when I was least expecting it. The name of the company was Infosys (I am changing the name of the company to hide its identity, again for no reason) and I got selected purely because I had comparatively good knowledge of English than many others in my college and also those who had good knowledge of English had (really) bad percentage, like Sudhanshu. The placement in a big company was a thing of pleasure and achievement. I started getting respect in my college, home and everywhere I went. To an extent Shirsha was also impressed by my profile. I got placed in a company for which people are dying to become a part of. I didn't care much for the placement the punishment of which I got later. I have this habit of taking things for granted when I get them. All people take things for granted once they get it but I guess I take things too much for granted when I get them. Same thing happened with Infosys and same thing later happened with Shirsha . I don't learn that easy. However I don't miss my job at Infosys but I still do miss Shirsha . [Note: I don't miss her anymore].

I love her. I love her. I love her. [ Note: Old stuff]

I again apologize for this outburst of my love for Shirsha but I love her and I really do, as of now (nope I don't). I want to spend my life with her (again, no) but I don't think she wants to do it now.

After few months, I was respectfully thrown out of Infosys during the training time. It was said in Infosys people from the computer background are not thrown out and it is very rare, though their policies of throwing out people were very strict. I was the rare breed. There was one exam after another and you have to pass, of course, some of them , to remain in the company. I didn't pass any of them. No matter how much I tried to study, I always ended up failing them. It was then I realized that I had to leave this thing. Not only was I failing in the exams, I was losing confidence in myself. What wrong have I done to this company to select me in the first place? Was it just that they wanted to prove how worthless I was? I don't know and now I don't care. I am living life on my own terms now. I failed few last exams deliberately (like I would have passed if I wanted to) and as their policy they asked me to leave. I realized that computer engineering was not my thing and I can't do it anymore. I knew I could have done it if I had tried it more but a part of my body had accepted that I won't be able to do it because the exams I failed were not that difficult. Anyways, I knew way back I will be asked to leave so I had everything planned. I didn't go home from there because I knew I had nothing back there in my city except preparing for more competitive exams. I went to Mumbai to realize my dream of becoming a director. Actually I didn't want to become a director as much as I wanted to become an actor but I knew the population (enormous) that comes to Mumbai every day with the same dream , of becoming an actor in Mumbai , and finally lose a big score of their life struggling, and going back to their homes empty handed with no career to pursue ahead. I chose the field of direction to start with and I hope I will become an able director who could later launch himself as a good actor if I keep working the way I am working now ( I am mostly unemployed).

But I digress. This story is not about me. This story is about Shambavi. The girl I loved and couldn't get and the girl who left me probably for some other guy. [Note : whatever you are going to read now is an example of how crazy a guy can become in love and how nice a girl seems to him even after she has kicked him in his balls]. But nonetheless, she changed my life in many ways and I love her for that. Before she came into my life I never knew how good I was. She always gave me confidence in myself. May be not consciously but she was the source of confidence in me. With her I always felt the most powerful man on the planet. I knew when I was walking with her that everyone was looking at us and thinking about me that how the hell this guy got this gorgeous girl next to him. I knew people were thinking like that because I also think like that whenever I see an odd couple like us. [She was a bitch]

She was beautiful and she was good. Not like ordinary girls (duhh). She was intelligent too(to an extent yes). Whatever intelligence I had got, I got it by reading books or I can say I have attained it (I am just too modest actually I was born intelligent). Books made me whatever I am otherwise I would have been the bigger idiot than what I am today. But she was more intelligent to me in every way and I don't know how. She had better understanding of human behavior (just joking, she treated me like an animal). She always knew how to behave to whom and in what ways. She would even scold people, a thing that I still can't do( I fight with people). She was the girl who would have her work done if she wanted. She was not afraid of anyone and still she maintained her cuteness.

4.

Whenever I think of her I always think of the heroine of the movie 'My Sassy girl'(This ...for the record..is true). Her acts resembled to those of the character of Jun-ji-hyun in many terms. She had everything that I had in my mind for my perfect girlfriend but still I didn't care for her. Let me tell you an instance of her, an instance thinking of which I think , still cry and miss her. I had this film bug inside me way back when I was in my second year of college. I used to watch good amount of movies earlier but I crazily started watching movies in my second year of college like five movies or so a day . I decided that I won't do any software job after graduating rather go to some film school and study film making. I filled the form of FTII, Pune and I went to Delhi to give the exam. Delhi no doubt is special and will always remain special to me because of her, only because whatever Delhi I have seen I have seen with her only. That's why whenever I go to Delhi now I get a very nauseating feeling of running away from it because I know I won't be meeting her now. Delhi will never be same for me without her. Anyhow, I went to Delhi to give the exam sometime in July and she came to pick me up at the railway station. I had already told her that I didn't know the place where the examination centre was. The college was Jamia Milia where the examination was to be conducted. She knew I had money problems because I used to get very little monthly allowance which was more than enough for any guy, but my phone bills always over exceeded what my economy allowed which kinda always left me bankrupt. We took the taxi after she had negotiated with lots of taxi drivers for money and we decided to sit in one. I don't like bargaining too much so I said to her that it's ok if we spend some extra money on it , if it saves some energy of the tongue, but she didn't listen to me. We sat in one taxi and we moved and half way through the taxi driver started saying something about the fare. He knew we had reached half way and now we couldn't get out. Shirsha got angry and she started arguing with him and I sat there silently. One thing lead to another and the next thing I knew was that she was calling some taxi organizations to find the fare and complaining about the behavior of the taxi driver. The taxi driver got scared but he was still adamant on the same money. Finally we reached the place. I thought even if he takes fifty extra rupees what does it matters, he is a poor man anyways. But Shirsha apparently didn't think so. She knew how people get cheated in this city and no one can cheat her. She fought with him and I was standing still like a statue looking at them fighting. I was standing silently because I had no idea what to say in situations like these. I was never rude to people before. I had no idea how to be rude to people or how to show anger to people. I was always scared of people and I always had these weird thoughts of people hurting me in extreme ways. I never fight with people. I am not a coward or maybe I am a coward but then that's me. There was time during the fight when the taxi driver looked at me and said something and expected my agreement on it. I had no idea what to do so I noded my head in agreement with him and said something, for which Shirsha scolded me real good later. She was fighting with him and I was trying to move a little apart from the fight trying to pretend that I am not the part of the fight and I don't know her, when she was fighting for my money only. It was embarrassing at that moment for me but now when I look at it I feel that I have never seen such a strong girl before in my life. The only strong woman I ever met in my life is my mom who could beat the shit out of anyone if that anyone had tried to mess with me. Finally, Shirsha had her way and the taxi driver got what she gave him. This is one of the things for which I still truly miss her. It makes me fall in love with her all over again (sincerely).

I am sorry but I forgot to tell you one more thing that happened during that fight for which too I got good scolding from her. The moment the taxi driver got ready to take the money with bad expressions to take the money bargained by Shirsha , I took a five hundred rupee note and said to the taxi driver that I don't have the change and then I innocently looked at her thinking I said something very appropriate because till now I didn't have much say in anything. She looked at me angrily and shouted at me to give him the note and it's his problem to return the change. My point was what if I give him the five hundred rupees note and he won't return it back or does not return the right change, what would we be able to do. She later scolded me for imagining that he can take my five hundred rupee note and won't return the exact change. She said she would not have hesitated in going to the police if the taxi driver had done any such thing. The way she was telling me all this I knew she wouldn't have hesitated in killing that taxi driver if the need be.

She became normal after some time. I loved her angry face. Sometimes I used to make her angry deliberately doing stupid things (which came naturally for me) just to see her angry face. She would always become normal after scolding me a little. I loved when she used to scold me for one thing or the other. I loved when she used to correct me or prompt me whenever I would do something stupid. I loved when she would try to take care of me like a baby. She was like my mother, sister and wife all at the same time. I used the last line in the phone message to impress her once. She was impressed by my poetic (plagiarized) thoughts.

Jamia Milia had its canteen and since there was some time for the exam to start , we sat there to wait. I asked her that if she wants to go then she can leave but she had different plans. She had exams some days later so she had brought all her study material with her to study in the canteen. How can a man not love a girl like her? She was going to wait for me. Who waits for me? No one I know. In the choice between wait for me and not to wait for me, people would definitely go for not to wait for me. Not many people waste their time on me. She was really good to me.

We sat down on one long chair and she asked me to eat something so that I don't feel hungry during the exam. What a concern! Mind blowing. I, at that time had a beard grown over my face. There was not much of a choice to eat in that cafeteria. I took cake and tea to eat and bought a bottle of Pepsi for her. As careless as I am about everything, while I was eating I dropped some cake crumbs on my beard and I still clearly remember how with her beautiful little fingers she wiped the cake crumbs from my beard and from around my lips. She always took good care of my appearance.

Oh I am falling in love with her so much now. There is no note following it, don't worry. It was not complete waste of time, there was love for sure, to some extent.

She wanted me to succeed and how badly I mistreated her later on. She however mistreated me as well so it balanced out everything.

I don't think there is enough punishment in this world for my redemption. Ok scrap last line again, I was a victim as well. If anything, I deserve is a medal as well.

This chapter had too much praises for her and I am getting too emotional. I am again starting to fall in love with her. I don't like that. I have to change the chapter now.

Chapter change. Let's move on.

5.

It was not that only me who was wrong in the relationship business. She did some wrong too. If I were so wrong and disgusting then she wouldn't have been with me in the first place. I might have been good at times. She liked me and she wanted to be with me. I am good to some extent and I know my limits. She tried to change me and just like Mr Narayan Shankar in Mohabbatein didn't like changes, so didn't I. She tried to change a lot of things in me and the problem was that she tried real hard to change me so much so that she wouldn't take no for an answer. I think she loved to change me and in that process she only saw things in me that should be changed and never saw the things that were good in me for which I was what I was, things that were too good to be unchangeable(immodest but true). Everyman has an identity and that identity can be anything. Suppose a man lives in a dirty place in a dirty condition then that becomes his identity. It is also very difficult to judge a person from a distance as his happiness can't be seen from that distance. If she had lived life with me in those dirty conditions I am sure she would have loved it. Ok I take it back, I am going too far to judge someone now. The source of happiness of people is often very strange and it is completely stupid to empathize to someone finding him in a very distressed condition. Some people like to remain in distressed conditions. Pigs lie in garbage and they are happy in it and so are some people. We guys are pigs, I am a pig. People like me live in particular conditions that are offensive to a lot of people but I get happiness in it so how wrong am I in living like that. People try to change other people because they don't feel others are happy in it but they don't ask other people, they think that just because they don't like it so it must be something wrong. How selfish and fanciful we humans are!

Shirsha tried to change me and I am always ready to change myself for something good or for beautiful girls. But there is still a limit. I learned a lot from her and that I will always owe to her. She taught me when to wear chappals and when not to wear chappals. I knew when to wear chappals but unfortunately one day she called me to meet her and I went to meet her directly from my friend's house where I went in Hawai chappals. When she called me to ask me to meet her I didn't have time to go back to my room and change, I had to go there directly. I was sadly, wearing the hawai chappals and she scolded me right then and there when she saw me wearing those chappals. Appearance matters and I know that. If someone calls you and you go to meet that person not dressed properly then it immediately gives the impression that you don't care enough about that person to take time to dress properly which infers that you took the person you have come to meet for granted and are giving no importance to him. From that day on, afraid of her anger I stopped wearing hawai chappals altogether and started wearing designer chappals, which is the latest trend. She is still gone but I am still afraid of her and I feel that if some day she sees me in hawai chappals she will come and scold me even if we are not talking. I liked getting scolded by her but later it was all scolding and no love. Initially I felt that when she was scolding me, she scolded me out of love and concern but later it became a competition for her. It started making me feel inferior. I felt like I came from a village. If I had so many mistakes, why did she say yes to my proposal in the first place?

One thing that I found terribly wrong about her was that she was never happy whenever I went to see her. I didn't meet her much; I guess may be six or seven times during the whole courtship of nearly two years. The reason why I avoided meeting her was that the whole time I would be with her I would remain in tension and irritation. First I had money problems and I didn't like her spending her money. She didn't understand my money problems. She never said anything about it but every time I felt like I was some poor guy who got fortunate to meet a princess. There was lots of pressure. She would never call me but always give me missed calls. She had this theory that it's only a boyfriend's duty to call and girlfriends have no such obligation. Being in love I would recharge heavily to call her and compromise on my eateries. What is the use of being a guy if a girl has to pay money for him? I felt that way in those days. It doesn't work that way anymore as guys are not the only one earning today. Second whenever I was with her I was always confused of what I wanted to do. I was never sexually aroused when I was with her and I don't know why. I loved her no doubt. On the phone I felt everything. When on phone, I could talk to her for hours without getting bored but not when she was in front of me. I don't know why this uncomfortable distance existed between us? I even once told her that we were much better on the phone than when we were together ,which of course made her angry. The feeling was always mutual. We both would get bored in each other's company. I have never understood the reasons behind it.

I don't miss her for her beauty or because she was caring or anything. I miss her for being there, just like that. She was a waanabe and she needed a boyfriend to show it to the world I guess so she said yes when I proposed. She was very demanding and I was too submissive to her. We were not a match for sure. I spent some best times with her but I can't cling to them forever. She made me do things which I could have never imagined myself doing and when she was with me I remember I was always so confident about doing anything in my life. The thought of marrying another girl never crossed my mind and I had accepted that no matter how and what happens between us I am only going to marry this girl.

It didn't turn out as I wished it to be.

5.

Today I am not feeling love for her anymore. Why would I? If I will tell you the painful story of what this girl has done to me then you will start crying too and will never forgive this girl for what she had done to me. It is a worldwide fact that a guy, who never gets many girls, always calls a girl after a relationship ends to tell her what mistake he has done and he wants her back in his life or to consider him again. I have had many break ups because I always get angry and start feeling girls are tremendous burden on my "creative thinking" and I break up with them insensitively but next day I always realized what mistake I had done. I know I do wrong but how much punishment should I get. The girls in my life had always come as motivation and they only inspired me to do better things in my life. I, if become successful, I will attribute all my success to girls that came to my life and gave me so many frustrations that I became a writer. Truly said, there are always some females behind a successful man. Probably because successful people always have money and girls always run after money. If you have money, you have girls with you. You might have noticed that sometimes I use woman to describe females and sometimes I use the words girls to describe them, I just want to tell you it's female I am talking about and there is no well planned meaning behind it, I'm just randomly using both words, based on whichever comes first to my mind.

She is not picking my calls and replying to my messages for a long time now, which is strange because girls always reply. I wanted the closure and I didn't get it. She ignored me for complete two years and I kept calling her from my mobile to know whether she has changed her number or not. I know if I had tried some different unknown number she would have picked the call but I didn't want to do that. I wanted her to pick my call consciously whenever she is ready. I didn't want her to feel like I was chasing her as some love burnt idiot. For god's sake, people make mistakes and I did some too. We are not God. I was naïve and a kid back then.

But she has moved on I know. How easy it is for girls to move on leaving everything, behind that matters so much in life for others? I can't move on and it was difficult for me because I loved her. It was only after our break up that I truly realized the depth of it but I did love her. Now there is no confusion. I have tried irritating her by calling her again and again and messaging her bulk messages of pathetic apologies and reminding her how good I was and how human society is full of people who have done bigger mistakes, like Stalin who got away with killing so many people. A great philosopher, Eddie Izzard, once truly said that for one murder we have punishments, even for two we have, till ten or hundreds we have something, but for someone who has done millions of murders we can only say "good work, you must get up very early in the morning". The last bit of joke was out of context but I felt like writing it down.

Anyhow I digress. Yesterday night I talked to my friend Sudhanshu who is doing his M.Tech from a south college after somehow passing engineering with maximum number of backs in the history of our college and also proudly with the lowest percentage. He was the last guy expected to go study further engineering but he is one of the few who went for it. There is little trivia about him that I want to tell, so that you don't think he was an idiot, he was the person with the highest number of high school and intermediate percentage in our class in college but he ended as the student with least percentage from our class. Behind him were only guys who got their year backs, that is failed for one year. Just like me he also realized that college studies are no good. Colleges are for enjoyment and that is what is to be done there.

So I talked to him last night and since he had no experience in the matters of girls, he gives the best advices. But I must admit he too has some experiences. Bad experiences though. In fact he has equally many embarrassing and pitiful experiences of unsuccessfully chasing girls and getting humiliated in front of everyone. He is like a film critic who has never made a film but knows how to explain them. you can never be a critic if you know how to make a film because once you make a film, you know how difficult the process is, then you will always feel sympathetic towards the film maker, for making it , no matter how crapy he has made it, as you will always be praising him for at least making a movie by arranging so many things. So as a critic, I feel one has to be completely ignorant, which most of them are, about everything and solely base their judgment on his observations. Fulfilling all the criteria's of the above definition, Sudhanshu was the best guy to take advice from on girls. I talked to him at length and he again made the whole situation so funny that after some time I was only laughing at my miserable situation.

The bitch is still not picking my phone. Who does that?

I know my emotions keep changing from bitch to goddess but then it's because she had shown me both sides I guess.

How indifferent can a person get? That too after four months of break up. I mean my memory deletes everything just the next day of creating the memory and starts making new memories. She never cuts my phone, or throws away her sim or rebukes me. She just let my calls come on her phone and let me send her messages. I know she notices how many calls I have made and what messages I am writing. Even if she is not, isn't that bothering to her that a guy is running after her for so long just to hear her voice. I don't feel like I exist anymore. She makes me feel like my existence doesn't even matter to her. I know she must have made a boyfriend because I know she can never be alone for that long but at least tell me that and give me a closure because I am still waiting for her wishing may be she is taking her time and one day will come back. I have moved on now and I don't feel anything for her now(lying).

I remembered all the dates that I had forgotten during my courtship with her and I exclusively called her on those days. She never picked the calls. I especially remembered the day when we last talked to each other. Dates were always important to her and I thought she would remember this last day at least since its one year for hell's sake, she might call or pick my call or atleast show me some sign. She didn't. I don't know how and why, but all my feelings that I had kept tied for her got washed away in a moment and I had never called her since. I don't have the same feelings for her anymore in fact I don't have any feelings for her anymore. I have realized now that she had really moved on and I do not matter to her anymore. All my fanciful thinking and beliefs are gone to the dumps and I had realized the bitter truth of life. Life is not movies.

I don't know what I had in my mind when I started writing this book. Well I know what I had in mind, nothing, pure nothing. I just had the break up and I was distressed, anyone would be , so I wanted to write about this girl who broke up with me. Now I question myself, why? But then it becomes meaningless to ask questions to oneself. If I knew the answer myself very well why would I question in the first place, it's only because I am afraid of the answer that's why I am stalling answers and questioning myself. The problem is that these questions cannot be asked to anyone except oneself. No one bothers about others love stories. Everyone is sulking in mending up their own love stories and picking the bits and pieces of their own life. so many times I have thought of becoming gay, but every time Katrina Kaif comes on screen I change my decision.

Recently I have read vagina monologues. It is the only piece of literature that I have read in the recent times which had descriptions of vagina in it and still I wasn't getting any erections. It never gets cheap anywhere. In fact I was so disturbed after reading it that I took a vow that I will never have sex with anyone throughout my life, especially a woman. Then I saw Aishwarya Rai on television and again changed my mind.

I don't know why but I feel that I have this special connection with Aishwarya Rai. I am not the only one to feel this connection. Sudhanshu too feels the same way. No we don't think her as our sister or mother, but there is something else that we feel that I cannot describe without using the word sex in it. I mean it's basically not sex but then we ourselves got confused that if it is not sex then what it is, so for the lack of any good word to describe I like to call that relationship between me and Aishwarya Rai as something special. Initially I used to think that Aishwarya Rai is a goddess and used to pray to her to pass me in examinations, thanks to Abhishek Bachchan that now I know she is not a goddess. I think Aishwarya Rai was a perfect woman for me. I don't know why, I think it was just that connection or maybe it was remotely related to the fact that she was a damn beautiful lady (not anymore). I tried to maintain that divine relationship with other heroines too but it never worked that well as it worked with Aishwarya Rai.

Anyhow, coming back to the central topic of Shirsha let me put some light on some more stupidities of mine. I don't want to discuss her anymore. I don't love her anymore. I am just missing her because I have no one else with me right now and I have to finish what I started writing about her. I miss the night talks with her though and I miss that when I pick the phone now I don't have anyone that I can call anytime without getting the feeling that she is getting disturbed. I don't have anyone these days whom I want to call these days. I keep flipping my mobile's contact list from up to down and down to up to find just one person whom I can talk to about my day. I think I really missed her for all those things. God I wish I meet some one soon.

I love her. I love her. I love her.

I didn't write the above lines this time because I am getting crazy about her, I just wrote that because I have written it earlier and it felt that I haven't written it for a long time. So I wrote it.

Thoughts are getting repetitive now. Time for another chapter change.

7.

Shirsha is still not picking my calls or replying in any way. I have some questions that were aroused in my empty mind about her and faithfulness towards me. I don't think she was faithful to me when we were in a relationship if we ever were in one. I think she was using me; I am just not able to figure out what was my use. I mean I am a complete useless guy so much so that I think if it weren't for me being a living creature my parents would have sold me in discount at exchange offer in the festive season. She used me I know for the reasons I used her. She used me because she desperately needed a boyfriend and I just became a victim of her evil desires. Remember the guy she was dancing with in the salsa class, I knew she had something going on with him, and I know that they must have had a fight between them when I met her because no sane girl with even a little bit of self respect will consider making me her boy friend , without me begging to her first, I think I was used by her in a way which is difficult to imagine. Well now that my Sherlock Holmes mind has started working, I want to tell you some things that I have never shared with anyone because they would have embarrassed me if I did, also because no one listens to me.

Can you believe that after two years she never told me where she lived in her hometown. She never gave me her address. I mean two years and I don't know anything about her. She never told me where she lived in Delhi, her hostel address. I mean she took me there once but never gave me the address ever, in any written form and she also took me to her hostel from the most confusing route so that I would never be able to come back even if I wanted to. From the above lines somehow I feel that readers are getting this feeling, that it was not she, rather me who was the bigger idiot. You may think so, but you have to step into my shoes to actually realize all that I have been through. She never sent me any of her photographs, except sometimes and for that I had to beg to her like a dog. Can you believe that I have no photo with her in two years being together because she would never let me have any photo with her? She had plans and wicked plans about leaving me from the first day and now I feel that we didn't have a break up but it was all a part of a conspiracy against me. I am feeling good now that by the grace of god I got saved from the clutches of that evil woman. She must have been working for some secret agent. Just like they show in movies that how they pick some ordinary guy and put him into the most arduous mission. I was that ordinary guy and she was the special agent assigned for this special job, to use my unknown extraordinary brain and powers against my enemy. When on one hand the movies end happily, my life ended like ending of some French- Italian Neo realism movie.

It's amazing how a man can live in his own mind and make himself happy. I have since learned how to live in my own mind.

The truth if I talk seriously is that I didn't love her the way she loved me (how confused am I?). I don't know many things about her because I never took much interest in her life. She loved me and I know that but she had enough with me. I broke up with her several times. She never tried to break up with me except for the final time. I did wrong to her and I am getting punished for that and I deserve the punishment. It has taught me a lesson and I am following the teaching keenly. Life gives you, few people, that remain with you, that love you unconditionally, and care for you , for no reason at all, and we must never take them for granted. You can't keep hurting a person and expect good favors in return. You are not supposed to commit crime with the intention of doing redemption later because that kills the whole purpose of redemption. That way one can keep on doing crime and get redemption later. I have realized that the word 'sorry' does not work every time. Sometimes you have to just leave things as they are, understand your mistakes and thank god that you are human because I don't think god makes any mistakes. I don't think god must be having any good memories.

8

'This is not a novel, it has no story?'

No of course not. This is not a novel and I am not telling you a story here. This is not a story book, some one really misguided you. This is a book of complaints and grievances. This is not a love story or any story, I have written all this just to clear my heart out. To make things more clear to myself, this book isn't about Shirsha either because she is long gone but I wanted to say something in reference to her because every event in my life and every perspective of my mind of looking towards the world has changed since she left me. I do not have her but I have her memories and I like to play with them. I don't miss her as I want her back but because she has left a space in my life which I do not want to be filled. It was only then after she has left me that I realized how important she was to me, and just because I know how important she was to me I, don't mean that we both should be together.

Here I am discussing life in general and what I feel towards a particular thing of life. Oh crap, even I know that is not true. Can I be honest? I think I should be.

You have to accept that sometimes things have no reason and yet they exist. You have to accept that sometimes stories are there but there is no message in the end. You have to accept that every story that has girl and a boy in it may not be a love story.

May be none of the above are true or maybe I am wrong throughout but doesn't that still make this a book about everything wrong in it. I mean it would still be called a book, isn't it?

Women always have a special place in my heart. Should I end it here or do you want more. Well you asked for it. It was you who were complaining about the storyline. Read it or leave it now. Ok I guess it's enough for what I had to say. There were lots of things that I had to say but I didn't and there were lots of stories that I wanted to write but I guess I have lost my motivation now. Long chunks of time have passed and like everything the memories of Shirsha are fading from my mind with every passing day. I don't mind it. Every person who comes to our life has a purpose in your life. The purpose of Shirsha in my life was fulfilled so she left. She came to change and make me a better person and help me write an extra article for this book. She did what she could and I thank her for all that. She was not a bitch, she was in fact a very nice girl and anyone would be happy to have her. I wished we had more of us but somehow we belong to two different universes and after a time we both had to return to our respective worlds.

7. The Conundrum

1.

It is the middle of the night and I am having sex with a police officer (female). I am just lying down and she is humping up and down, up and down on me, I hate the humping. My mind is still working. For some reason, I have my mind work in excellent conditions during sexual intercourses. I can solve any problem, any riddle in seconds during sexual intercourses. I wish during exams they had this facility to have sex, I would have topped all exams. World problems, oil problems, country problems, Kashmir issues send me details while I am having sex and I will provide you all the necessary solutions to solve everything within no time.

She was enjoying the sex. She looked happy. What else does a real gentle man want then to see the happy face of the woman he is banging. I think I have developed this power to control my sexual emotions and I think I am the only one to have done that. It now lies within my jurisdiction to decide whether I want to enjoy the sex or not. I can feel emotional as well as emotionless during sex and I can also fake my emotions. Few women care about your emotions during sex, those are the ones you should marry because those are the ones who really see in your eyes how much lust is there and can really feel it.

I have heard that some guy Umberto Billy has had sex with most number of women, other nerds of the same group are Charlie Sheen, Jack Nicholson etc. but I can proclaim that I have sex with most number of women than anyone in the human history and that too in a country like India. Commendable, isn't it?

I sometimes feel very fortunate that due to my very elite and noble upbringing, I never distinguish a woman based on those with whom I would like to have sex and those with whom I would not like to have sex. If nature allows me I can have sex with anything that is female. I like male too but I can't have sex with them, not that there is anything wrong with that.

My black Ray-ban aviators are on my eyes. I always wear my Ray-ban aviators everywhere; even during sex, especially during sex. My black tuxedo is lying on the ground of the control room of the police station. I always wear a black tuxedo, in fact I always wear black clothes, even in jail. There is something about the black color that attracts me towards it. I believe it is the same reason that exists behind the nature of black holes, everything gets attracted towards it. Not many wear black anymore, it's probably because everyone likes black but nobody is ready to accept it. Just like white, black has every color in it, people just are not able to see it probably because of the black color in the black color but trust me black has got it all.

While on the desk where daily new cases are brought and solved, I am banging a government assigned protector of the city and all I am thinking about is black and creating new philosophies about it.

Women like to have sex with me, not because I am a sex genius or something or my dick is extraordinary like Arnold Schwarzenegger 's (I am assuming that from his body) but because I am the most popular and youngest actor of Bollywood. People worship me, girls are crazy about me, media is frenzy about me and I am giving two blockbusters every year, I am winning all awards at all award ceremonies. I am a celebrity to whom girls come easy.

This is not my first sex episode in a police station with a police woman. This is not my first stint in the police station either. I have been here convicted for many reasonable cases before. Initially I thought that people will start hating me for my bad acts but surprisingly I have got a bigger fan following now. Idealists of course say things about me but for producers I am the best bet in the market, so instead of stopping myself from doing irresponsible things I have started pampering myself even more. I now consciously try to be more responsible towards my irresponsibility. I had sex with every female police officer in this station and now I am just repeating the circle. Did I just say 'every', ok minus that because my record is prevented from getting made by a lady officer who is punishing herself by saying 'no' to me all the time and slapping me hard every time I try to smell her hair. You can tell a lot about a woman by smelling her hair, you can also tell a lot about the shampoos she is using by sniffing her hair and there is much more that you can tell by the way she slaps you. I don't remember her name, I am really bad with names, especially the women whom I desire and crazily want to have sex with.

I was called for interrogation last afternoon and I am here since. I will be released at noon by today and I have no problems with that. I love spending time in jails. It gives me time to think and rethink on the things that I have thought previously. If I will ever plan to write a book I will surely hit someone on his head with a steel vase which will at least give me six months to write, but what I really would like to know is how much will I actually be punished for hitting someone on his head with a steel vase; all I need to take care I guess is that he does not die, or becomes mentally handicapped and I am done for six months.

Right now I have to think how I committed the murder of John Smith without me actually remembering it, crime for which I am here.

2.

Next morning was good. Its a pity that one morning I get to wake up early and still don't get to see the sun.

I closed my eyes behind my black Ray-ban aviator. I am still working on the theory of 'How John died – Part 1?'.

I have a mind like Sherlock Holmes and people have always kept saying that to me while I was working on an Indian adaptation of Sherlock Holmes(another blockbuster of mine). I feel that I have this ability to connect the things with each other. But right now I do not have all the pieces that I could connect. I need to investigate. I will investigate.

Female police officers are passing by for no reason and smiling, then looking at me. Some male police officers have also smiled and I have smiled back but my defense is that I am giving them honest male to male smiles.

What happened after that sensational and rocking performance of John? That party. Right. I am going right. After the party... what happened after the party. By the very early next morning I was in the police station banging a lady officer. How did I end up here? What have I done this time that I don't know?

There were several questions hovering my mind like anything.

Then suddenly some voice inside me said 'get up and come out'. I don't know what inner voice is and what it says actually but I think something very profound was happening to me. May be it is asking me to stop and leave my fake life. But I love my fake life. How can I just get up and come out. I can't come out, no one will like me if I will come out and be good. Good people are losers. The voice inside me was getting more authoritative by every passing minute. 'Come on, get up and come out'. May be it's the time for me to change. May be I should change myself. May be finally I should listen to my inner self. I had my eyes closed behind my aviators. See, that's the benefit of wearing aviators, you are not accountable to anyone for your closed or open eyes. They save you from remarks like, 'why are you closing your eyes, when I am talking to you' or 'why are you not closing your eyes, its prayer'. The voice inside me was getting harder and harder. My head started to ache, may be from the booze I had last night and that was no mystery. I drank something last night but I don't remember what. Till three glasses I always remember to take account of the brand but after that it's all golden brown liquid to me.

Suddenly I saw myself standing in a railway station and people around were moving here and there oblivious to my celebrity status. The train starts to move and I am looking at the train. Next thing I know is that I am too close to the train. The side bar on the train that people hold to get inside the train is hitting me again and again as the train is moving. I am looking at it but I am not moving. I am looking at my hand getting hit by the side bar but I am not moving. I am not feeling any pain. In fact the expression on my face is of surprise that what is this happening to me and why am I standing so near to the train and not trying to move? That inner voice inside me is still shouting 'get up get up'.

Unfortunately, it was not my inner voice it was a constable pretending to be my inner voice. He came and tried to wake me up and then he came inside the cell and shook me to wake me up. That took a lot of worry from my head. I don't need inner voices right now, if anything I need is an outer voice, that's the voice I need. If voice is coming from outside, I can relate to it. Outer voices come usually on phone, I like it as I can control its incoming.

I was made to sit in front of that woman whose name I kept forgetting and which I always desperately try to remember on a police desk when I am having sex with other lady officers.

She is the only one who is stopping me to make my record of having sex in the police station with every lady officer where I have been jailed.

Now she is going to ask me questions and like every time I am not ready for it.

3.

'Name'

'Avinash Siingh'. She already knows my name.

'What do you do?'.

'Acting'. Now she is just trying to hurt my feelings. If she weren't beautiful...

'Father's name'

'Karanjit Singh'. I hate my father. My father is the richest man of Bollywood, a producer, I love him for that but for rest....

'Mother's name'.

'Priyalata Singh'. Why does she want my mother's name ? Anyways my mother is a bitch, a female version of my father....

She is asking me questions about me and she does it every time. I think she does it because this is her job and not a very important job, there is nothing much for her to do here. May be to cross check the convicts sometimes or find right information or hear their story or to check whether any information in their file is changed, who actually cares. She keeps asking me questions and I keep dreaming about licking her lips and cutting her with my teeth. In the meantime all the female police officers are winking at me and are giving me the smirks as they are passing me and I am cordially replying them. Finally I got it. Her name is Ragini. Now I will try to remember that name for the rest of the day.

Life does not end for me here. I have been bailed by my father's lawyer and my father is not here. He was never there whenever I needed him, thank god. He is of no good use to me. Now I have to go outside and wave hands, throw flying kisses to people, tell them how much I love them and surprisingly I don't give a damn to people but for some reason they care for me a lot. Fortunately I don't have that mindset where I would start reciprocating there idiotic love for me. I don't give a damn to people even if that would do any good to me. But still I have to save my celebrity image for I cannot be famous and still damn people too much. Some fanatics have made some temples for me, worship me and blah blah. I wonder what they do in there and how much free time they have??

So I went out and there it was, massive amount of people that were ready to stop me from letting me go to my car. I need some extra air. It's always been like that, I always had trouble with people and extra air. People don't let me go and extra air never comes in. Stupid people and stupid air. Anyhow I have to pretend that I enjoy their support and it was true as without their support I would not have been out of here.

Oh that sun shining just above my head. I hate sunshine. I hate brightness. I hate open spaces. I love nights. I love darkness. I love closed spaces. Sunshine makes me want to faint but I never faint, I don't know why. No matter how much I try to faint, I could never faint in a proper manner. Once I tried to pretend to be faint but I know nothing can be compared to the fun of original fainting.

The good thing about my life is that my parents don't care about what I do which is why every time I go to jail I don't have to stand in front of them and answer them,and explain why I did what I did, unlike Satyendra Kumar, South Indian superstar who still has to answer to his parents if he is sleeping late or coming late at night without calling them. Satyendra is a good friend of mine probably because we never talk to each other very much. I once tried to learn tamil and said something to him in tamil due to which he still thinks that I know tamil so he speaks to me in tamil and all I do is nod. He never notices that I am never talking anything in tamil.

I am going home and I am going to have some good sleep. After that I will take some cocaine and will drink more than my capacity and will again go to sleep next day as well.

4.

Next day it is. I have to start investigating who killed John Smith. John Smith was my drug-buddy in our college days and he used to remain doped all the time. His name was actually Satynarayan Parthiv Dubey but for some reason he thought that Christian names were very cool. He unsuccessfully tried many times to convince people that his name was George but he never looked like a George and no one actually believed him. He tried many complex Christian names like Ryan, Tom, Micheal, Bradd and many others but his breakthrough name came with John which he finally revealed on internet. People immediately accepted him as John. If you ask me honestly, I also felt he was kinda John type of guy. If John were here he would have been so happy to know about this. The tricky part was to keep the second name. Initially he didn't want to keep a second name but it was I who reminded him about how many forms are there on internet where it is compulsory to put your second name otherwise they won't accept your profile. One day while drinking, he secretly told me that he wanted to be remembered as a man with one name, that night he was really emotional and I remember I cried that night too. Not because of him. I actually tried to have sex with his girlfriend after he slept drinking and doping but she kicked me in my balls. I don't think girls realize that what tremendous responsibility our balls are to us. We men are like those patients who have to carry their glucose bottles with them everywhere, even when they are going to the toilet, especially when they are going to the toilet.

John searched internet and he came to know that Mohammad and Smith are most used up names in the world and he decided to keep Mohammad as his second name as he didn't want both his names to be Christian. It was later when he heard that he had to have his penis circumcised to keep that name that he decided to change his second name to Smith.

John loved me too much. He was gay. He used to have sex with lots of women though just to pretend he was not gay and also so that he can tell stories of his affairs with women that how he made love to women to his guy friends in order to prove to them that he was no harm to them and could then sleep in their room to sexually molest them later while they were sleeping. He never had a real gay man to man relation in his unfortunate life. He once offered me his sexual services as well but I escaped saying that I am a man trapped in a woman's body and I am an actor by day but an actress by night. He was disgusted with the thought and left me alone. In fact many times I had to dress up like a woman to prove to him that I was a transvestite. From that day onwards we became good friends. We were such good friends that we used to sleep naked with each other without any fear.

John was a very good friend with Satyendra as well and had spent days trying to understand what he said only to find after a couple of months later that Satyendra was talking in tamil and was a tamilian. It was only after four years that we came to know that Satyendra was not talking in tamil but in telugu, when I watched a movie of Ravi Teja called Vikramarakudu and I found some of the words that Satyendra used were similar to it. Satyendra is now a big star down south in Malyalam Cinema after he was thrown out of kannada cinema for having an affair with a married actress. Satyendra was born and brought up in north India but because his mother was particularly attracted towards dark and tall man, she ran away with her own locality sweeper to the next locality to live. Satyendra was born black and remained black for the rest of his life. But optimistic as he was, he turned his blackness to his advantage. He realized that south Indians usually have dark skin so he went there and started working there as one of them. He told tamils that he only speaks telugu and to telugu that he only speaks malyalam and to malyalies that he only speaks kannada and to kannada that he only speaks tamil. No one knew the actual truth that he knew none of these languages. He did movies in all the states yet he knew no language. I have often heard him speak in bhojpuri to himself but I don't myself care for him that much now.

So John Satyendra and I were a team, along with few other players who were made fun by everyone throughout our whole school and college life. John was like a big brother to me and I was like a big brother to him. I knew him from the day he was born and he knew me from the day he was born. Satyendra was like a big brother to both of us and every time we met John and I would beat him blue like he was a small kid.

But now John is killed by someone. I don't know why I blame myself for the death of John, probably because I had the gun in my hand when I woke up that morning next to the body of John. I rearranged everything before the police came so that the police will never suspect me, though I later became the prime suspect as my rearranging thing didn't work out well. I don't care much about John dying as much as I care about me getting caught. I loved John but I knew that he would die soon.

What I suspect about myself is that when I didn't have any motive of killing John then why would I kill him, of course except the fact that I worshipped his wife, wanted to sleep with her and was jealous of his popularity I never thought ill of him. I wished many times that he dies but I swear I never wished it strongly and always wished him to die natural. John loved me and he himself had told me that many times and I am not that cruel to kill someone who loves me, because you don't find enough people in this world who love you even after they know that you are transvestite. I don't have many people in this world who love me, of course except for the love of my millions of fans besides which I don't have anyone who loves me.

John's wife was exactly like John, she loved men. She can sleep with anything that has a penis. I have heard she was into animal sex as well. She was a sadistic woman and liked to burn John at night with burning candle wax. John never liked that but he didn't want to hurt her feelings. John was like a personal slave to her and because of his inability to have sex with women he was a perfect slave. I envied John. I wanted to become the slave of John's wife and have sex with her later. I offered her my services once but she refused to take me under her as her slave as she thought two slaves will be too much of responsibility and burden to carry. She made me her slave whenever John was out of the city for some performance. I think she killed John while performing one of her fantasies but the important thing here is that she would be looking for a new slave now.

John was a terrible singer but he produced so much noise in his music that people actually thought that he was singing something which was good but only difficult to hear. John learned about music in our college days from our sports teacher who used to drink at nights and sing songs for his wife who ran away with the Math teacher. His wife thought that sport was not a real subject and must be excluded from the college curriculum which hurt our sports teacher's feeling, he would often hurt his wife's body in return by beating her with hockey sticks, thus she ran away and so he started singing.

Anyways I decided to visit the scene of crime once more to gather any evidence on how John was killed.

5.

You cannot be a superstar and Sherlock Holmes at the same time. I have to disguise myself as something else to roam around in the city and investigate the murder of John. John's murder has already created so much uproar in the media and police that except for appearing on national Television no one is bothered anymore about who killed him? I have heard that some people also committed suicide after John died as a tribute to him and everyday someone was killing themselves in the same way John was killed, I have heard it is a kind of fan thing very popular in the west. Many people thought that John committed suicide. As far as I know John , he would never commit suicide, he can drive others to suicide, he would rather run away as a coward but will never commit suicide. John was a coward by nature and we both admired this quality of him of running away from problems. He once told me 74 ways of how to run away from a problem while facing the problem. His story matched that of Kurt Gobain except that I have heard that Kurt was intelligent and made sense sometime.

I went for shooting that day as planned by my secretary , while we were having sex last night. After the shoot I had to disguise myself as someone else and do my investigation. I convinced my make-up man to help me in my plan. But I couldn't trust my make up man for details that I have given him, so I had to kill him after he did my make-up. It was not easy to kill a makeup man though. After he did my make-up I tried to kill him by stabbing him but my make up fell off during that fight so I told him that I was just joking, having fun with him and was playing a practical prank on him in which I would kill him and he won't know about it. He got convinced and did my make up again and after that I killed him successfully. Now I am on my way to find my innocence in John's case because I don't want to be convicted in the wrong case. Now the only problem in front of me was how to dispose the body of the make-up man. I took my car to the jungle and dumped his body there. Nature is the best recycle- bin. May be the insects will take care of him and I hope he will rest in peace, dead bodies anyways don't make much noise. As my respectful homage to his death, I did some make-up of his. That would have been his last wish; wouldn't it!

So I went to the hotel where John was staying. John used to stay at a hotel rather than his home because he had lots of money and he preferred doing whatever he wanted in small rooms whose cleaning was not his responsibility. I was dressed like an old Proud Englishman who refuses to do any work in their life, make fun of people, waste their life in the name of literature and is later knighted by the Queen even though they have never been to the war. The hotel manager came to me and greeted me by blessing him for coming to his hotel. He recognized me which means I killed a man for no reason. I killed that make up man because when I killed him I was not myself but the man in the make-up, now everything has changed as without me realizing it I am a murderer of two killings.

I didn't kill John, neither did I kill that make up man. It's all a part of a dream and I am dreaming I guess. But that's what I thought. Unfortunately thoughts don't make reality but reality does make dreams. Last sentence doesn't mean a shit so ignore it. I immediately went out of the hotel to another hotel and booked a room there. I stayed there for a day thinking what I should do next and slept.

Suddenly I woke up two minutes later and realized something. People recognize me when I am something else but they won't recognize me if I am just myself. Why that thought didn't strike me before? So I immediately shaved my head, face and whole body. I didn't have to shave my whole body but I was filled with emotions shaving my hair and with that gentle touch of that German razor on my body which was sexually cleaning it with very touch so I cleaned it up whole. Sometimes I feel that there is a sleeping transvestite inside me in real.

So I shaved myself completely inside out and wore my black tuxedo. With a very predictable surprise I found that no one recognized me. I moved out of my hotel and moved to that hotel where John was killed. This time the manager didn't recognize me, I guess. Because he smiled at me lustily, I don't know why and I don't want to know why. I booked a room for me and moved upstairs. I knew the room where John was killed because I was fucking in it when he was killed. Who could have killed him? He was no use or threat to anyone, neither alive nor dead. Who and when was I fucking whom.... Pervert that is no one's concern ...ok his wife...no he never knew...even before dying...I hope.

I went to his room and opened his room from the duplicate key that my mentor Mustafa Sheikh had made. Here is a little story about Mr. Mustafa Sheikh. I met him during my third stint at jail diaries. He was my roommate temporarily but that was enough for him to influence me with his talent and intelligence. The man was a genius. He knew everything about stealing, thievery, robbery, rape, killing and murders except their history as he knew only technical things. He was a man of achievement and jail was like his resting place. He knew everyone at jail and everyone knew him. He knew how to get out of it but never tried to play hands with law and order. He even demonstrated his talent by opening the cell jail in which we were locked in and then closing it back. Mustafa Sheikh was not Mustafa Sheikh's name. He was once caught by police in confusion of some guy named Mustafa Sheikh and was beaten to death until Mustafa Sheikh surrendered himself and shot himself in front of parliament after burning a man with petrol to prove his point which is still unknown. Mustafa Sheikh liked the name Mustafa Sheikh so much so that he kept the name Mustafa Sheikh since. No one knows Mustafa's real name. He had a very disturbing childhood. His mother died right after she was killed. His father was a male prostitute and a known pimp in Delhi and used to sell his body to foreigners. His father was called Indian ambassador in Delhi circuit for his services before some policemen took him away one night and he never came back. I met Mustafa first when he came to my house to steal some money. He took all my money, tied my hands and beat me for no reason, after that I offered him a cup of coffee and over that coffee we became good friends. If there is anything called mentor in my life then I would say Mustafa was that to me. He always had answers to my problems. He taught me how to kill men, how to rape women, how to steal things and pretend innocent and many more. I respect him a lot and he loves me a lot.

So anyhow, I opened the room and found that the room was empty and clean. It was so clean that I wanted to sleep there. Hotel management must have cleaned it after the incident. I searched for evidence there and tried to reconnect incidents. I also tried to force my mind to remember what had happened that night but nothing came in to my mind except the thoughts of his hot wife. So I started masturbating thinking about his wife's white teeth. I have lately realized that I love most of woman body parts separately and nearly all of them give me erection. It's not just boobs, vagina or lips I get sexual thinking about feet, finger, nails, teeth, nose, neck, thigh, arm pits, hairs, ears in short whole woman body gives me erection. I am not very biased towards boobs like most guys in my age. I have lots of friends especially Satyendra who used to point at boobs of actresses he used to work with. Down South in India People have terrible navel fetish, Satyendra had navel fetish too. He was too much in navel that I think no one has cleaned as many navels as he had in his life. I have seen hundreds of south Indian movies that were especially focusing their camera frames on heroine's navel. I never thought of navel as a potential sexually enticing part of human body before seeing the south Indian cinema. Anyhow there was nothing in the room that could have helped me. I have realized that more than trying to find the man who killed john I am merely passing time as I am bored of shooting for films. I know that no one has enough evidence to charge me in this case so I don't think I am very much into tension of getting arrested. But I have to find out who is the killer of my friend John because he was my friend and after a long time I am feeling like I have something worthwhile to do.

6.

After that I immediately went to the room of John's wife to ask her what happened that night. She might put some light on the whole case. This is what I thought.

"Can you tell me what happened that night?"

"Would you like to lick my body?"

For an hour I licked her body like a pet dog.

"Now can you tell me what happened that night?"

"Would you like to have sex with me?"

For another hour I had sex with her like a maniac.

I now realized that she was fulfilling my fantasies only because she didn't want to answer my question. But I was persistent and I changed the question.

"That night what happened tell me?",

"I killed John during sexual BDSM foreplay".

So I was right. This was my first thought listening to that.

Now all I have to do is to find a man with waste life to paste this kill on and end all this mess.

I like John's wife even more now. She killed her husband and had me arrested. Wow, you don't find women like these in every century. Now I am in love with her even more. Later after having sex twice she beat the hell out of me and instructed me to lick her feet all night long and accept the murder of John to the police in the morning. I agreed that in the night and later ran away in the morning to the police to tell them that John's wife had killed john. No one believed me as most male officers were in high positions in the police office and most of them were slaves of John's wife. They arrested me for even proposing such a thought. I spent another day and night in the jail and had sex with 3 female officers. They released me next day reporting to the press that they again called me for interrogation in John's murder.

After that I immediately went to shit and dump a load and slept in the bath room where I had a nightmare that I died while shitting. This is one thing I am very afraid of, to die on the commode. It's really really embarrassing.

After that I went to Satyendra Kumar to tell him that John's wife had killed John but he didn't believe me either and said that she cannot kill John so I asked with curiousity, that why is he saying so to which he replied that he himself killed john to which I couldn't say anything but sit down and eat three biscuits in surprise. He told me he is actually in real life a slave of John's wife and she instructed him to kill John to which I asked him what about his real life of acting, he said that he did acting earlier but now he acts just to hide it from the world that he is John's wife's slave. That day in full emotions for the first time I heard Satyendra Kumar talking in Hindi and English mixed. He accepted that he didn't know any south Indian languages except for few words but since he had some lisping problems so people often confuse him from some different tribe, he just took advantage of that.

That was a shock for me as I never expected a man to be such a coward like Satyendra to become a slave of John's wife. How could she make him her slave when she refused to make me her slave and drive my sexual fantasies wild? I was in terrible anger so I decided to have myself arrested for a while and think about what I am going to do next. I went to the police station and slapped a constable. They put me in jail for three days but sadly they beat me with sticks on my ass this time. Fortunately I enjoyed that. I have enough of those experiences with my sadistic aunts in my childhood. That day I also realized celebrity status won't save you if you finger police men.

8.

Immediately as I got out of prison I called Mustafa Sheikh. He was busy robbing some bank. I told him it was urgent so he called me there. I went to the bank. The bank was nearly empty from inside except few people having guns in their hands and few people having their hands up in the air. Some of them were happy to see me and ran towards me for autographs; those were the ones who got killed first there. I asked one of the gunmen where Mustafa was and he directed me towards a room. I entered there and I saw Mustafa sitting on a stool trying to open a big steel safe. I sat next to him.

"What is the problem now?"

"I want to become John's wife's slave but she has refused to make me her slave. Now I want to kill her."

After that Mustafa Sheikh got up and started beating me and kept on beating me for half an hour, and then he resumed his work of opening the safe.

"But why?" I aksed.

"Because I am also a slave of John's wife and no one can kill her till I am alive."

Damn, so everyone is coming under the spell of John's wife. Why is she refusing me the entry to her beautiful dominating world? There must be some reason and it must be connected with the death of John, if not then I will try to connect it to make it more interesting.

"Had she killed John?"

"No"

"How do you know ?"

"Everyone knows"

"Then how did John die"

Mustafa had developed some mysterious expressions over his face. He knew the secret.

"If you want to know how John died then you have to go through that night all over again when John was killed. You have to live that night again."

Suddenly the lock opened and Mustafa gave me some money from the safe. I later signed on those notes and distributed them to hostages in the bank. They were all very happy, I guess to receive my autograph on one thousand rupee note.

I decided to wait till night when the club opens to relive the same night and find out what had happened that night.

I started doing everything I could do as I did remember something from that night till I passed out. I drank heavily and went unconsciousness.

9.

When I got up in the morning I found the dead body of Satyendra Kumar lying next to me. I was shocked to find his body next to me. How could he die like this? I again tried to rearrange things in the room and went out. The police later came, held me as prime suspect and took me to the police station where again I had lots of sex for three days of interrogation.

Ragini, the girl who always refused me sex finally came to me one night. What could have been the truly happiest moment of my life turned out to be the ugliest moment of my life. Instead of having sex with me she came to my cell and tried to kill me by sitting on my face with her naked white butt. She tried to choke me for some time till I forcefully lifted her. I was unable to breathe as well as sexually aroused by that. After taking few breaths I put her butt back on my face as it was too sexually satisfactory. She knew now I won't be killed like that as I have started enjoying it. She went out of my cell without saying anything. I was surprised by her behavior. I then called the female officer who was standing at the corner looking at us as we were having sex before Ragini came in.

Later as I was released from the jail I immediately went to meet Satyendra's parents. Satyendra's father was cleaning the toilet which suited the description that Satyendra gave me of his father who loved to clean toilet all day long. Just give him one dirty toilet and he won't ask for anything else in his life. Even during his birthday's, Satyendra once told me that they used to call guests who would shit in the whole toilet to make it as dirty as possible as a gift to his father who would then clean the entire toilet whole night and would later thank god for his lovely and supportive family. Satyendra's mother was nothing much to describe. She was an ordinary woman with no hairs on her head.

"I am sorry for your loss." I consoled his father.

"Not to mention. Would you like to go toilet?"

"No thanks. I just want to know if you know who killed Satyendra. Do you know who killed Satyendra."

"Yes it was John's wife. She kills everyone, after a time of enjoying with their body or if she runs out of place to accommodate slaves in her home. Would you like to go to toilet?"

"No thanks. And Thanks. Don't worry uncle, I will soon kill John's wife and avenge your son".

Listening to that John's father started beating me like hell and kept on beating me for an hour. He later asked me for forgiveness as he told me secretly that he was John's wife slave too and can't bear ill words about her. He forgave me and apologized later. He forgave me then and apologized again for beating me. This continued for another half an hour after which I got some pressure and went to toilet. It felt so good after a long time to see smile on the face of an old man after I came out of toilet. Glad I am of any help to Satyendra's father who just lost his son.

After that I immediately called Mustafa. Mustafa was in the middle of raping some 14 year old girl that he bought from the nearby government school for two thousand bucks. I told him I wanted to meet him to which he called me somewhere near the government school. He was inside the girl by now and the girl was moaning.

" I tried to re-enact the whole thing but I found that Satyendra had died in the same manner as John. What should I do now?"

"There is only one way to know the truth and it is to relive that night. Here is a camera" He took out a camera from his pocket. "Keep it with you and watch it next day to find out what happened".

After I took the camera I asked Mustafa whether I would have the turn or not. He slapped me and humiliated me. He gave me long lecture on growing pedophiles in country and morals of man and fear of god while having sex with that fourteen year old girl. I went out of that place with a sad heart. Later I came to know that that girl was actually city's most honest and daring police inspector dressed as a fourteen old girl to trap Mustafa. Mustafa too died in the police encounter that night. I have now lost my mentor.

Anyways I decided to keep the camera with me and re-re-live the whole night again. I again went to the same club and drank heavily till I passed out. I don't remember what happened after that but next morning I found myself again in the same hotel room and this time I again had a dead body next to me. It was the dead body of Satyendra's father. This mystery was eating my brain one after another. What is this all happening and who was doing this? Is this is John's wife then why is she doing this to me? I had lots of question and all the answers to my question were captured in the camera I had with me. But the camera was for espionage purposes and could be only seen with proper projector. I immediately went to my room and put the data into my system. The data got copied. I clicked on the file and it opened. What came on screen and what fell on my ears shocked the earth below me. I never expected what I was seeing. I finished watching the whole video and suddenly something struck on my head simultaneously with a metal clinging noise. I fell down on the floor unconscious.

10.

When I woke up I saw Ragini sitting in front of me and wearing a dominatrix dress and stick in her hands from which she was beating me mercilessly. Now everything was clear to me. It was not John's wife who was killing everyone. It was me who was killing everyone because I was John's wife. I didn't know that I was living under the double personality of me and John's wife. I was the transvestite I never thought I became. Making excuse to John that I am a transvestite again and again I think I developed an alternate personality of a transvestite that I didn't know of. That means that I was John's wife and everyone was my slave and I wanted to become a slave of myself. When I talked to John' s wife that day meant I was talking to myself whole night. I was killing everyone one after another and took everyone under my spell. That means I am masochistic by day and a sadistic mistress by night. Everything was getting clear to me now except for one thing that's why Ragini took me here. What is her concern?

"Why did you bring me here?"

"I was in love with John's wife as I am a woman who loves women" which explains why she never had sex with me, " you fooled me by saying that you are a woman and played with my emotions. You made me your slave and used my body but never let me use your body. I supported you in all your killings and removing the evidences and in the end it turned out that you are a man."

"How did you know?"

"This morning I tried to take chances to have sex with you but as I opened the pants" Fear could be seen on her face, " so from now on, You will be slave and your whole life will be used as my revenge".

I tried to escape and also tried to explain to her that I was mentally ill and whatever I did have some psychological explanations but she didn't listen to me and made me her sex slave before she killed me one day by brutally beating me with her sandals for not cleaning her shoes properly with my tongue.

Post face

I got asked many expected- unexpected questions from various people who read my book beforehand but the question that I expected most from them , that no one really asked was 'Why I wrote this book'. See if a book has just one story then people want to ask 'why did you write it' but if you are writing a book full of different stories then people are just afraid that if they ask 'why did you write this book' then you will start giving them a personal syllabus of each story and everything involved with your mind while you were writing it which might be too tiring for them. To all those people who were afraid of asking me but wanted to know why I wrote this book, I think I am going to write my piece of mind here and why every story in it is important to me.

The first idea that struck me was of the story 'The perfect escape' and I wanted to write a full length novel on it initially but soon I realized that my mind wanders more than I expect and I am not that sincere to write a full length novel on any single thing. I have attention span of a kid and my thoughts change very frequently so before I pick the pen to write my first thought, I already have it forgotten and the second thought is already in my mind. If I am in a serious mood and I start writing something serious, then there is a chance that I will soon get into humorous mood and will change the serious story into a humorous one, and vice versa which incidentally happened with 'The Conundrum'.

Coming back to the story of 'The Perfect Escape' I always wondered one thing about criminals that what if someday a criminal quits everything and decides to retire to live peacefully and respectfully at the same place among same people against whom he did all the crimes. Could anyone do that? Would anyone do that? Suppose Dawood Ibrahim, the man who has committed so many serious inexcusable gruesome crimes in India, decides to come back and live in India. What then! Will government or people of India allow him that? I asked many people the same questions, they all said no and they all said that it was an impossible thing and a stupid topic to even further discuss. No one can live like that, he had to go through punishment for sure and even if he goes through the punishment and does everything, society might never accept him again. That was my thinking of a complete evil hardcore criminal on which I based Devendra khan, the antagonist in the story 'The Idea of Perfect Escape' who comes back to the society and challenges the laws that have been refined through ages of experience, judgments and thinking, the laws which punished hundreds of people through ages, the laws on which millions of people have their faith instill and the laws which forms this country's primal base of running. So it's one man against faith of millions who have lived under the impression that these laws will protect them. If he wins, it will not just be the defeat of whole human civilization but also of those who got punished for their crimes as their punishments will get wasted for this one man who got released and forgiven by those who were his victims even after knowing he was guilty.

I wrote some monologues and arguments earlier on conversation between two people after getting impressed by the work of Marques de Sade on 'The priest and the dying prisoner'. I intended them to use them for making a conversation story between two people with anti-ideologies. Later I put them in the story, as they were since they suited the characters of my story. Why I did that? Firstly they helped understanding the psychology of the character better, secondly they helped the story and characters to progress better and thirdly, they were good. Those monologues had helped me structure this story. My idea of RT was that of a only man in this world who would understand the deep and complex thinking of Devendra and would yet remain confused that why is he the only one to see things the way they were. I never explained why he was the only one as that was irrelevant but I like the polarity in the two characters of extreme qualities standing at two opposite sides. Galileo said everything exists in symmetry which is one of the causes of existence of anything in our universe and I always like to use that thought in my stories. Whatever plans Devendra had, I felt that I needed an RT to stop him and bring some conflict.

Initially I decided to write exclusively on the life of RT as well, about his family life and everything but later I realized that it was hindering the progress of the story and also it would be terribly redundant of a plot. I as a writer got too interested in the character of RT and Devendra than people around him and their history though I have given briefs of their life to make you understand them better.

When I wrote the story I asked my father to read the story and he liked the story very much. To him it was very interesting and he couldn't keep it down till the end but by the end decided to never pick it up again as the end irritated him very much. I asked him the reason and he said that the story is good but whenever anyone will read the book he will expect to know who wins in the end or what happens in the end. I never wrote the end and the end was never in my mind when I was writing the end. I cannot possibly tell who won in the end because I myself don't know. When I was writing it, it was a fictional story and I could have ended it anyway I want but later it became a very serious thing for me and the whole concept started conquering my mind all the time and I decided to leave it there as both men were too perfect for me to write. I knew whatever Devendra would say would be perfect and will have no arguments against which I as a writer felt incapable to write.

I wrote excerpts from the book of Devendra and his letter but I never dared quoting him in the entire book and it was because I cannot write in that perfect manner as he would think and speak. He is a very intelligent man and whatever he thinks and says no one can match him or cut him or argue against. He is very ideally ideal but not exactly evil. He had just done what he believed, I cannot call him evil because he had convinced a lot of people about what he did and why he did it. In terms of worldly language he would what I would call a perfect evil.

I ended it at the beginning of conversation because I knew I don't have enough word power to write the conversation. I felt myself to be terribly inadequate to write what the character that I had created would say. I left it like that. It leaves you with hanging desire to read more but trust me there is nothing more except some honest thinking that what if some person like this could exist, then how helpless would everyone who could think it as wrong would feel.

The truth however is that many similar people in our society exists, not exactly with the same intellect but with the same desires to perform same feat and surprisingly they try doing it all the time. The sons of rich and powerful people in India have performed this kind of feat in my knowledge many times. They have committed the crime and are living freely among their victims instead get respect from them. We usually feel indifferent to it. It will stop happening when we will actually start thinking about it. 'It's not happened to me' can become 'It happened with me' if you turn a blind eye to what's happening to others, soon others will turn a blind eye to what's happening to you. No one is fortunate enough for bad things not happening to them as they are always in the line, everyone is in the line. People who are indifferent are usually the first ones to except any illogical reasoning without protesting.

The story 'A Film maker convicted' is not actually a story but an article of mine that got published in a now defunct film website which received high levels of praises and it was only after this article that people around me started taking me seriously as a writer. Before that I was just another guy scribbling things around. This is the same article mentioned in 'Things of her that I miss now' which I used to impress the girl I was dating then. I used this article many times to impress people of my writing and they often got impressed by it. Some find the philosophy in it quite heavy and frankly it was to some extent heavy, as one of the direct influence on me while I was writing it was of Ayn Rand, Author of 'Fountainhead' whose writings have impressed me on many levels. I have made some changes to the article later but more or less it is same.

'Love from the past times' is more or less an extension of a love story of mine that never bloomed from its childhood. Though some told me that its storyline matches with 'A walk to remember' by Nicholas Sparks but frankly I didn't even know about this book while I was writing the story. I created it on my own and later found out that someone similar has written it before but all I can say now is 'his story is different from mine'. In my story I didn't concentrate on a girl or her problems. I was more inclined , on showing that, how when a man has his story unfinished is seeking a closure for his great love story that made a big change in his life. Some people have this tendency to forget things easily but some people sometimes cling to the same memories for the rest of their lives. It was the story of that man who couldn't do anything to save the life of the girl he worshipped, felt guilty but later did his redemption by giving his body part to a girl who was in a similar condition as the girl he loved in his past. He just couldn't get over the death of that girl. Finally when he did , he died with a smile on his face.

'Twice dead for the beauty' was a story that I made up as a part of film trilogy that I thought I would make up with Arjun Rampal whenever I will have enough money to fund my own films. I told my girlfriend that idea then and she liked it so I started developing it. When I wrote the first draft, I hated it so much that I didn't touch it for two years. Later when I was re-reading it once, before finally throwing it into recycle bin as pre-decided I realized that it was not a complete waste. I wanted to write something on beauty and the frustrations of an artist who wants to be remembered for his master work. He was an artist who obstinately wanted to create his master piece that he would do anything for it. I just wanted to show him search for beauty just like people go out in search of truth. The character started writing itself soon and story started getting woven itself around such that the character of Arjun turned into maniac and a killer. The crazy desire to create masterpiece made him mad.

Another story 'Smoke of honor" is one which I have taken from my own home. My paternal side is full of people who take pride in things that are given to them by their ancestors. They don't care whether that thing is harmful or useful or not, they just keep it and feel proud about it. It is one of the things that I love about my family, their love for their ancestral things. I mixed this with story of two old people who expected too much from their kids but never received anything. It happens a lot and much have been written and said about it. I just wanted to present my own version of it and imagined the old man as me like when I would get old and live with my wife, how it would be then. One more thing that I wanted to show was couples often fight with each other over their kids and they forget that in the battle of life the only person who is going to remain together with them is each other. They always realize it when their kids are gone. I wanted them to know that no matter what happens if husband and wife stick to each other and plan their lives around themselves and not their kids then it would be a much happier for them then otherwise.

Next story 'Things of her that I miss now' is mostly a true story of my encounters with a very unique girl that I could now only dream of. I wished she were with me but then again it would have been a tremendous loss for this book as I wouldn't have written that story for her, would I. The story is actually excerpts from pages of my diary that I wrote after I had broken up with her. It is the only story of this book which I have revised and re-revised again and again. Initially when I wrote it, it was pathetic, later begging her to come back and her memories that were haunting me. Later as the time passed, my love for her also started fading away. All I had was her phone number so whenever I would think of writing anything about it, I would just take her photos out from my email and see her and call her. She won't pick my call but for moments my love for her would come back. I didn't either want her to pick my calls; all I wanted was my feelings of love to come back so I could finish this story. I didn't want to delete the story as it had some of my favorite lines and instances. There are lots of comments between the lines, which were not meant to be funny as they were to show my transition from being crazy about her to complete oblivious about her. After some time it was difficult for me to bring same emotions for her, which I had when I started writing the story. It was difficult for me to edit it at times as I loved her no doubt but my anger was coming out at times as well. Now I have written the story, so probably I will stop giving her missed calls to remember her and might forget her completely but I have made her memories live in the form of this book. I hope she never reads this book else she will hate me more.

The final story 'The Conundrum' was the result of watching too many crime series and reading too many crime novels. I decided to write a crime comedy about an actor who accidentally realizes that he had a knack for solving crimes. I had whole thoughts and thinking about it along with plot lines. It would be serious at times as well as funny. I also wanted to make a movie on it and was planning a script when I decided to write the synopsis. That synopsis is 'The Conundrum' you just read. I enjoyed writing it very much because I had my thoughts flow freely. I didn't care about sense or non sense anymore. I had no plot and I had no story. From a sincerely intelligent story it took a turn to black humor, then to crazy stuff and after that to pervert thoughts. I shouldn't have watched Jimmy Carr while writing this story. I had no idea how I was going to end it but somehow I ended it and it turned out to be fine.

So these are the stories that I have written over time experiencing various things in life. I am sharing them with you with the belief that you will like it. I started writing this book with the intention of making a movie some day from the money that I will get from this book. I hope soon my movie will also come to you in the form of entertainment.

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About Author :

https://www.facebook.com/shitiz.srivastava

Email : Srivastava.shitiz@gmail.com

Currently lives in Mumbai.
