Category: Short Story

IN SEARCH OF ME

~ a6inaya ~ Leave a comment

SHE is a Myth found not in pages;
Heaven on earth confined in clouds’ cages;
Queen of mounts, swaying for ages;
By the wave of wands in the hands of mages;

Mount RORAIMA, A forgotten World, a floating isle plateau seated 7671 above the Forest floor, is surrounded by three different countries Brazil, Venezuela and Guyana whose borderlines intersect on the massive shelf, with all four sides being sheer 400-meter high cliffs. It is called as Tepui by the local inhabitants, means “House of Gods” and also the natives fear venturing up onto the plateau due to legends regarding ptero…”

The sudden blow of breeze breached my tent-castle caressing my senses, making me stop the account on mount Roraima in the middle. Closing the diary I came out of the tent to get enfogged by the vista in front of me. “No wonder it inspired Arthur Conan Doyle in writing his The Lost World. This place is magical, paradise in earth” I looked at the world beneath me standing on the edge of the floating isle, indeed at the top of the world, out of all the confinements that chained me once. It has been six years since my divorce and start of my career as a travel journalist. ‘A Star Journalist’, people of my kind used to call me.
The sun has set but his rays hesitating to leave this paradise remained spreading its hands to barricade the entrance of darkness into the prominence. I went back to the campfire near the tent and sat on the stone bench. On the other side I could see two other tents and a guide talking to the folks in the blue tent beside the peech one. Looking at their outfits I deduced that they might be hikers from some other country. I took out my wallet and looked at the picture of my father. A smile crept on my face; “I want to see all the beautiful places in the world” my only dream from childhood which I used to tell my father whenever he asked about my ambition. I have been to most of the places, beautiful and dangerous, in the world. But this place fascinated me like no other, the mystic beauty and the majestic view bestowed a spectacular feast to the eyes and heart. Waterfalls filling down sheer cliff faces into clouds, Labyrinths of stone pinnacles, Valleys carpeted with crystals, Carnivorous pitcher plants, Exquisite rare orchids, seated right above the Amazon forest. Everything in this place delighted me. It took two days’ continuous walk to reach the plateau , my excitement amplified with each steps in a ramp-like path that led me to the dream-land.


Travel never exhausted me, instead augments my thirst for adventure and filled me with contentment . As I took a light supper and sat near the campfire looking at the sky, I saw the guide approaching me. “Hola Senora, como puedo ayudarte?” he’s a wheat-complexed, tall and gigantic man with a fine physic. One cannot claim that he’s handsome due to his lop-sided mouth and a strange structure of his face. “Hello sir, I’m Zoya and sorry I don’t speak Spanish. Do you know English?” “ye ye Senora, I speak Engleesh. I Carlos, local guid. Ow can I elp you?” He asked with the deep voice struggling with the language. “Everything is good here sir, thank you” I replied trying to decode the guide’s odd expression. “Senorita Soya, I vill be stayving in the peach color tent near the blue von. Any elp wantad cal me” “Ok Mr. Carlos, Good night” “buenas noches” he left the place bowing to me.


Sleep seemed distant now. This place’s echoing silence occupied my thoughts. Not interested to resume my account I decided to explore the flat hill. The only light that illuminated the place is the lamp that set outside the hikers’ tent. I strode in the opposite direction of tents and walked to the stone pinnacles, a self-constructed labyrinth. It appeared as if a man-eating flora pretending to sleep to lure the prey. I took my mobile and switched on the torch to find the path in dark. After walking for another half-an hour deep into the maze, I comprehended that I’m in fact is not alone and chose to get back to the tent. All the directions looked alike and uneasiness gripped my spirit. “Is there anyone else here?” I could sense my voice shivering. No response. Might be my hallucination. I turned back and resumed my journey in a direction which seemed unfamiliarly familiar. “I must be foolish to do this, wandering in an unknown place that too at the middle of the night” chiding myself I increased my pace hoping to get out of the mess now I am in. I stepped in the stone stair hitting the rock nearby falling straight down the bush making my mobile flutter away. I landed in something soft yet viscous. I tried moving my right leg in vain and found that it is entangled in a thing which looked like a creeper, but exceptionally sturdy. I felt my leg getting throttled, also my other leg and hands too. I struggled against the strangling vine and shouted in a hope of getting saved.

“You should not have come alone” I heard a voice from behind. There stood a man in the darkness, an axe in his hands. I yelled in fear and pain as the man with bright blue eyes and archaic physic came near me. The vine reached my neck and I started gasping for air. He leisurely took hold of the vine and started cutting. His face so divine and calm. My heart skipped a beat. “You’re free now. Thank your stars that I’m here. Follow me now, I’ll take you outside” “But what is that thing, that tried to choke me” “It is Jimson weed; it not only strangles but create hallucinations and respiratory depression and kills people”. I followed him like Mary’s little lamb not even wanting to Know who he is. “Look there, your tent. Now go and get some sleep Zoya” “I don’t remember telling you my name sir” I responded with a surprise. “Even I don’t remember you thanking me for saving your life” he replied sarcastically as I blinked in awe “THANK YOU”

HALO

~ Azhar Al-Hassan ~ Leave a comment

HALO. Sounds like you are saying ‘Hello’ right? It may be right because HALO is saying ‘hello’ to the world from the top of it. Well, that can be the last time one says ‘hello’ and also the last time he says ‘good bye’ to the world if things go wrong. Yes. HALO: High Altitude and Low Opening. High Altitude of 30,000 feet and Low Opening from 4000ft above the ground. HALO can make you go hollow. 30,000 feet— 100 seconds of free fall—when I pulled the ripcord the parachute did not open…

I had always travelled in my life. Not a lot but I travel. I was fortunate to have parents who takes us, if not to the foreign countries, but at least to the other states of my own country which has lots of fascinating things to see. INCREDIBLE INDIA! Both of my parents are teachers working in the same government aided school. They arrange tour on every quarterly, half early and annual vacation for staffs and their family members. Sometimes, it is a short tour and sometimes it is long. I was just five years old when I went on a fifteen days tour for the first time in my life to Delhi, Agra and Shimla. I could not remember what I saw at Taj Mahal, Qutub minar, Red Fort, Lotus temple and I don’t even know that I was in the foot hills of Himalayas. I don’t know how a child admires nature, landscapes and architectural aesthetics. But I still remember how joyful we were as children during those fifteen days. I remember wandering from the first compartment to last compartment on Tamil Nadu expresses which takes three days to reach Delhi from my home town; how I caught the attention of a white women in Taj Mahal because of a traditional dress I was wearing and she caged my fluttering child’s wings in her camera; how reluctant I was to pose for my compelling father and made monkey faces as poses. Through out my childhood, in every vacation, we go for a tour and visited various historical places and hill stations in India. And that, as I mentioned clearly, were tours. Years later when I became a traveller I realized that travelling and touring are different. I don’t want to explain it though! Of course touring involves travel. I’m leaving it for you to ponder. I’ve toured a lot but there came a point in my life in which I needed literal travel to set me off in a right position in my metaphorical travel in which I have lost my way completely. “I shall be telling with a sigh, two roads diverged in a wood and I took the one less travelled by and that made the difference”. By choosing to study literature and by aspiring to become a teacher and writer I have taken the road ‘less travelled by’. Literature had taught me about the journey of life. It had also taught about the journey in which you tread on red carpet in couple: The journey of love. I was reminded of e e cummings on the moment I saw her. “Somewhere I have never travelled, gladly beyond any experience”. Shifa…Shifa is her name. The word Shifa in Arabic means cure. She had been the cure for everything in my life. We set off a beautiful journey of marriage. By that time, when she was in her last trimester of her pregnancy I kept the manuscript of my first novel ready to be published. But my talisman, the prerequisite-of-my-soul-to-run, my ‘Cure’ has left me with an incurable pain in my heart with my baby too. She died in her labour. I was left alone in a dark, dungeon alley suffocating and unable to get away. That’s when I needed a literal travel to orient my position in metaphorical travel. I met Melquides, a high Bohemian. I resigned, renounced temporarily and tried to get away from the land which became strange for me without her. Living the life of Kerouac allowed me to comprehend how Wordsworth perceived the ‘Solitary Reaper’ in high land and how Arnold perceived the view of ‘Dover Beach’. I changed myself to rags and forsook all my possessions. I wandered with Melquides writing lyrics for his rhapsodies. We ate with the frugal amount gained from singing, hitch-hiked for moving, sheltered wherever we got place. What I avoided was their promiscuity because I loved and made love now no love so made no love and I avoided smoking weeds. I wonder what kind of a journey that sets you off. The whole INCREDIBLE INDIA seemed different. I understood What a person should understand after crossing through boulevards of metropolitans and cosmopolitans of India, wandering through barren sands in deserts of Rajasthan, hiking in the snowy mountains of Himalayas, burying foot in soaking swamps of Sunderbans, and walking through the dampened sands in the beaches of Arabian sea, Bay of Bengal and Indian ocean. I went with empty pockets and heavy head and came back as is if I was dissolved by drenching myself in heavy rain. But something in me was very stubborn to go away. I think I was in the last point of finding my way out of love’s labyrinth. “Enough of being Thomas Hardy, let me be Robert Browning” I thought. When I wandered in Himalayan range I met Alan Eutace. He holds the world record for sky diving from highest altitude of 135,908ft. He came there to hike Mt.Everest. He talked a lot about the ventures he did in his life apart from sky diving. He inspired me a lot. So, I thought of going for sky diving and I came here all the way to Long Island, America. One full day of instructions were given by trained and experienced sky divers. The next day, I was all set to jump. I still remember how I stood nervously at the edge of deck of back opening of the plane. 30,000 ft. I jumped gathering all my courage. I enjoyed the view of the long island during the 100 secs of free fall, for free fall is the fun part of sky diving. When I have to open the parachute, I pulled the ripcord but it did not open. I was just 4000ft and lowering and 30 seconds and counting, away from death. I closed my eyes. I saw my shifa. “Don’t worry I’m watching you” she said. When I landed I was with my Shifa. “Hello” she said. I felt like I was still falling. “what happened” I exclaimed. “Nothing Mr. I just made you cheat death” she said. The voice came from very close to my ears. I realised that I was clasped from behind by another camouflaged hands. We were both sitting on the ground. She released me. I didn’t move a bit. She got rid of the parachute and oxygen cylinder and came before me. I was still sitting on the floor like a baby who just learned how to sit. My shifa was standing before me in camouflage uniform like mine, hands on her hip and smiling. “Hey Remedy! Is he alright” shouted a man from behind. “perfectly alright” she said raising her thumb. “Remedy?!” I asked in confusion. “yes! Remedy walker” she said and put forth her hands as if to shake hands but it’s not for shaking hands but to help me stand up. I took her hands and stood up. “Remedy Walker, professional HALO jumper and trainer” she said again. It was as if my ‘Cure’ had come as a ‘Remedy’. I felt like exactly how I felt during the time of free fall. I felt very light still having the heavy camouflage cloth, oxygen cylinder and unopened parachute clutched tightly on me. I realised that I should still be in love’s labyrinth not finding my way out because it’s only difficult when you there as only person.

I easily became an American citizen (you know how). I was trained by my Remedy to become a professional HALO jumper. I have also finished my second novel which is to become my first published novel, a fictional travelogue to which this piece of meta-Story will be an autobiographic, fictional preface.

Burning Bright

~ Khaled KM ~ 2 Comments

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“You are proving again and again that I made a bloody big mistake…… Goddammit! William….” screamed Jerome sitting behind, gripping my shoulders as I was in highspeed struggling to control the handlebar to steady on the road’s edge in order to cut in a Motorcoach. Even the slightest shake on the edge of 4154ft from the ground would cost life.

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It was notably one of the one-out-of-million-well-planned-trip-miraculously-happen-at-last. And it was Masinangudi, one of the splendidious hillstations in india. We were almost ready to set off from our native for the trip and Jerome handed over his bike key to me and said “You ride it machi”. All other friends were bewildered of Jerome’s decision because of my history with riding. We know accident happens, which is inevitable, but for me it happens almost everytime.
“But shift after reaching the foothill” advised Jacky with concern for one has to be well-experienced to ride uphill. And it was going to be the first time for me to travel hundreds of kilometres by bike, so i kickstarted excitedly and began our journey on the highway as the clock struck 2am. After hours of riding kindled my confidence to accelerate 120km speed on the highway that gave a fabulous feeling which can only be perceived by Bikeriders. The nearer we were getting to the foothill, the cooler the breeze began smooching us and in dark, the mountains looked like sleeping dinosaurs. As soon as we reached the foothill, we had such a nice cup of tea to warm up for the hillriding which was going to be hell-freezing especially in the month of December.

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After having the tea, Jerome casually said “I am already frozen machi. Just ride it uphill too”. This time even I myself didn’t think it was a good idea to let an inexperienced ride on the deadly hairpin bends of the hill. Seemingly courageous, I kickstarted in dilemma as well as enthusiasm. In fact when I saw myself elevating from the ground after each kilometre, I got scared of losing control. But after sometimes, I was fascinated by the sceneries spinning around me as if I was thrown into a fantasy world. It was indeed bliss to fall in love with each and every inch of nature on the move with the cool breeze cuddling romantically. Absorbing the magnificent beauty of nature. I told myslef that every humanbeing must explore once like this especially by bike.

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All the way to our destination, I felt like literally flying without wings. The trees, birds, mountains, clouds, the pure cool breeze, there the world itself wrapped in green were evident for why they call it Mother Nature. At last, after 5hours of riding from foothill made my friends weary but not me as I was refreshened each and every second by the beauty of the place. Riding all the way uphill is like reciting the most beautiful poem written by the favourite poet. It never ceased to engage us by its magnanimity. Then we safely reached Masinagudi, a part of the Mudumalai National Park in Tamil Nadu and is noted for its rich forests and abundant flora and fauna, which lies at a distance of 30 km from another famous hill station, Ooty. We were provided a treehouse resort by a friend of friend which is in the deep down of the reserve forest. After unpacking things as the sun set, I witnessed that the most beautiful part of the day was actually the night in the woods. It was enthralling to stay among the dark, deadly, terrific woods and mountains with the sounds of nocturnals. Tiresome put us in deep sleep after planning to go for trekking the GAYA mountain, the most hazardous mountain of southern India, the next day.

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As sun rose from top of the mountains, I came out of the house wiping my eyes and saw the marvelous morning with birds flying all over the place that can only be experienced and never be explained by words. Later we were geared up for trekking but the native guy, who was supposed to take us, didn’t turn up. so Jacky said that we could go without him actually that would be more adventurous. The width of path to GAYA is exactly the size of single foot. After an hour of trekking, there were maze like paths and the one, we took, left us being lost at the summit of another mountain’s cliff. Though it was too risky as the sun was about to set, I loved being lost there in the realm of adventure. When my friends yelled blaming one another for the situation, I was standing on the cliff with arms wide-open and embracing the twilight. That moment I realised how tiny part I am of this tremendously divine nature. Suddenly there was this soothing mesmerising music flew around and it was from distance above where I was standing.

There was a woman sitting on the very edge of the cliff, playing the lyre facing the vast wide forest as if no humans exist but herself and the nature alone. While all my friends were panicked that she might be a witch for the place she sat and the music she played and the orange colour hair she had, despite their silly stance I stepped forward and spoke “how did you get there” she turned instantly and what I came across was a gorgious smily face with the glorious nature on the background. “I was flying” she smiled. She was from Germany and her name was Leena. “What are you doing here alone playing this music?” I conversed. “I am a research scholar and I am on the quest of untying the harmonious relationship between the nature and the music” she further talked about the mysterious knot of nature and music which I didn’t quite understand may be because of her accent but what I understood was how one should live in communion with nature along with music. As the time passed and the darkness engulfed the forest, she led us out of the maze and took us, as it was not safe to roam anywhere at night, to her tent on Maravakandy, a dam inside the jungle. She all of a sudden hushed and insisted me to crawl over the rock to peek. In distance, I was spellbound to encounter, across the flowing stream, a Tiger in the moonlight. “What a gigantic Form it has been gifted!.” She exclaimed quietly.

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“Tiger Tiger Burning Bright in the Forests of the Night” I muttered staring it without a blink as Leena raised her eyebrows at me and husked “are you a poet? Mr. William”..

FOR THE CONTEST :

It’s writing challenges to the wonderful writers of the kilk forum every week. So here is this week’s challenge

Category : short story
Word count : 1000 words
Theme : wanderlust (adventure in specific)
Title : the writers choice….

Just do it… In style…

Kilk, Apna Tashan…….
👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍

The invisible white devil in the rural parts of India

~ abdulhameed ~ 3 Comments

I never thought of the emergence of a new hateful thing on my body, until I got shaved off my hair.

I hate looking at the reflection of my own lizard face on the mirror. I terribly hate my thin jaw line and my vampire teeth which are often called the signs of fortune by my mother. Whenever my reflection is residing inside the four wooden frames of the old mirror which is hanged on the paint-withered wall of tiled roof house of my grand mother, the twenty-two years old I hate my short shoulders more than my sunken cheeks and all the other hateful things which I have left deliberately here to mention. I call dearly these things as the unwelcomed guests because they have come to my body without my approval and made me look thin and ugly.

One day, after the visit of that barber to my grand mother's house, I found a new thing to hate ( not actually new but it was emerged and i had no idea whether this new thing had not been taken care of or it suddenly appeared on my head. I started to hate this new thing more than all the other hateful things) on my body.

I went to my grandma's home during this lockdown, which is a remote village whose existence in the district had perceived only after 2 decades of its birth. My mother had been asking me trim my long hair for two weeks and I had been hesitating stubbornly to get my hair trimmed for those two weeks because I knew about my mama and her mind-set. A year ago, when I had returned from the saloon with one sided hair cut, she went all the way to the barber shop and shouted at him for the style he made. According to my mama, it was not a kind of hair cut a decent boy had. Then, I found that my hair had grown a bit longer enough to touch the tip of my bulbous nose during this period of lockdown. All the saloons were closed. So, there was no way to go to saloon and get my hair cut. 'Then how can I get my hair trimmed?' I asked my grandma. She said that there was a poor barber, living near, who used to run to all the houses in that remote area with his small shaving kit and a ramshackle bike. I guessed It would be tough to get my usual hair cut now. So, I decided to get my hair shaved rather getting it trimmed under the custody of my mom and Grandma. As I told mama about my decision on my hair, she mocked me by quoting a famous saying in Tamil: vechcha kudimi serachcha motta( which means "having a tuft, or else shaved).

After two days of calling the barber, he visited my grandma's home to let his blade travel through my dense hair. As he started to shave my hair, there was an unusual silence invaded between me and him. Once I thought of asking him that why did not he teach this art of cutting hair to others; why did the barbers keep this art with them. Then I found those were odd questions to ask a barber and I swallowed them. He cleared his throat often when he was in half way to finish the job. 'Have some water' I told barber and the very next moment I called my grandma to get some water for him. She pretended as she did not hear my voice. I had no idea where my mother was on that time. The barber said 'No thanks thambi'. I felt something unusual on my scalp. I saw the white flakes at the ends of the fallen hair on the cloth. Those flakes had not been found at the end of the hair which had fallen just before. I wondered how I got those flakes suddenly. He shaved my hair neatly. Still he was thirsty and had a sore throat, I thought. So, When he got to leave, I hurried to kitchen and got a big silver tumbler full of water and stretched it before him. He looked at my grandma and I looked at her too. She suddenly grabbed the tumbler from my hand and handed him over one hundred rupee note. 'Bhai amma, there are lot of patches on your grandson's head because of dandruff. Get him some ointment’ (bhai amma is a venerable name for calling a Muslim women in our region) he suggested. After he left the place, my grandma told me 'did you see his face? as I gave him a hundred, how happy he was!' I started to look my shaved head on the mirror.

‘Flake is a sin, Flake is a crime and Flake is inhumane’ I said to myself. ‘AND FLAKE IS A CURSE’ I added. I wondered why I had to say this as I was looking at the white flakes on my head.

Ammu

~ Khaled KM ~ 2 Comments

Velan, a renowned advocate, lost in thoughts leaning on the backseat of his car recollecting the days and memories, is on the way to his village after twelve years. The only face which occupied his mind entirely is Bharathi’s.
When they were children, she follows him like a puppy whenever he goes and is excelled in crying aloud without tears if he refused to buy her the barfi Mittai which is her favorite. Knowing this, Munoo Anna, the barfi seller, takes advantage of, roams here and there shouting Barfi! Barfi! deliberately in the street. There is a beautiful temple in front of which, the jasmine field surrounded by the mango trees where they, along with other friends, play Kannamoochi(hide-and-seek) Nondipidi(hop-and-catch), in which, If she got caught to hop, he would get cought immediately to release her.
“Sir.. Sir.. we have reached.” told the driver, brought Velan back to concious state.
As soon as he stepped out of the car, his Amma hugged him and burst into tears lamenting about Bharathi. It had been twelve year since Bharathi passed away. It was of Childmarriage, after getting married at the age of 13 to have child when she herself was a child, she died of her labour pain.
“If I knew what was going on at the time, I would have stopped the marriage” cried velan, his forehead leaning on the portrait of Bharathi.

My eye of life, my mother, my child, My Ammu
Your tiny hands and feet, I even now retreat
Sister in birth but a mother of my earth
I lift you all around and never let touch on ground
Born before me My soul, gone before me must be My Foul
A part of me now is buried I am sick worried
Wish to join you over there
Don’t leave me here alone it is not fair
Sobbing is not bringing you back
The memories I possess, can’t take back
I wil never let that take back
I will never let that take back

Velan, drenching in tears, came out to the temple where they used to play hop-and-catch. The odor of jasmine reminded him of her voice which, he could still hear everywhere, let him sobbing. A child, playing there, came near and wiped his eyes with her tiny palms and meaningfully smiled looking at his eyes while her mother calling her name in distance “Bharathi”.

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FOR THE CONTEST :

It’s writing challenges to the wonderful writers of the kilk forum every week. So here is this week’s challenge

Theme : Indianness
Specific theme : life in Indian villages
Mandatory device : a folk poem( rhyme is a must) describing a person/ nature / lifestyle / food style
Maximum words : 400 ( please stick to the word count)
Title : author’s choice

Just do it… In style…

Kilk, Apna Tashan…….
👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍

Ammachi

~ a6inaya ~ 2 Comments

“Ammachi, I cannot walk a step more” Ponni, folding her hands, stubbornly sat down in the mud, sweating profusely due to heat and long journey. “Ponni, it’s noon already. We might lose the last bus to marudhai” ammachi told looking at the sun over their heads. She noticed the protest and weariness in Ponni’s face, it might be hectic for a nine-year old child but the only concern now is to save Ponni from the ordeal, which ruined, her daughter, Ponni’s mother. On hearing the devastating news, ammachi, without any delay, took the sleeping Ponni in her shoulders, some money and things in a bundle and left their home.

Ammachi opened the bundle she’s carrying, and gave some sundal and kolukattai to Ponni. After resuming their journey Ponni walked inserting her tiny fingers into ammachi’s copper bangle and her heart went back to her village and Panguni Thiruvizha. She suddenly remembered her mother taking Mulaipaari to temple. “Ammachi, you said mother will join us before dusk. Why she hasn’t come yet?” Ammachi’s eyes moistened at once but wiping the tears unknown to Ponni, she stopped near a pond. As they both refreshed themselves, Ponni looked at her ammachi’s wrinkled but resolute face. They crossed the pudhu kulam, observing the sun retiring from the tiring day allowing the darkness to engulf their hearts. After two hours of walking they reached the town-road.

“Thambi, ippo marudhaiku bus iruka” “innum aramani aagum aatha. Vandha solludhen” Ammachi sat down on the stone alongside the road lost in her thoughts and Ponni too sat keeping her head in Ammachi’s lap “if we were in home, mother would have sung a lullaby for me to sleep” Ponni’s complaining voice strangely echoed in ammachi’s ears as she recalled Muthu informing about Ponni’s mother’s disappearance, like many of our people. And she already knew what Muthu was telling her “Aatha, they are planning to make our Ponni, the next Krishna-dasi”

Star of my skies
Open not, your eyes

Twilight of thy night
Fear not, here is your Knight

Blue-Moon in Guise
In the Field of my Paradise
Close your little gem eyes
So, Heavens may rise
To bless you twice

Star of my skies
Open not, your eyes
Pearl of my wise
Break through the ties

Twilight of thy night
Fear not, here is your Knight
Give up not, without a fight
Morrow, Sun may see your might.

PIZZA AND PAZHAYA SORU

~ Azhar Al-Hassan ~ 2 Comments

PIZZA AND PAZHAYA SORU

“She is my delicious Biriyani. The flavour of all her condiments in the rice is delicious but when I accidentally chew one of those condiments itself like cardamom for example, hidden in a morsel I take, it’s bitter” I remarked on my would-be wife’s characteristics, straddling with my half-trousers on, on the wall of a deep well in the middle of a paddy field. He, my cousin had his lungi folded up and straddled, facing me. Breeze messed his messy hair messier. Punching the wall, he stared at me for a while and then he turned away and smirked.

“She is my pazhaya soru and I’m her pacha molaga” He said. For a moment, I thought “how patriarchal! Does that mean that there is no flavour for her without him?”

“such a deadly combination” he added some moments later, answering my alleging thoughts.

“o come on man! Why do you have to say something so ‘country-related’ always countering me?” I asked.

“Do you know what Is grown in this field you are sitting in the middle of right now?” He belittled me “samba or kurunai? Three months crop or six months crop?” I pouted out my lower lip.

“Do you know W.H. Auden and W.B. Yeats?” I tackled him with a counter question. He gave a relegating look and remained silent.

“Both are great poets. And Auden was right about country people” I kindled him for response.

“what that bugger had to say about us?” he raised his eyebrow and jutted his tongue through his right cheek.

“In a homage poem to Yeats he metaphorized village to ignorance because they didn’t read Yeats’ genius”

“avan kadakiyan kena kooo” He said in his typical country Tamil dialect .
“My Tamil Selvi writes better” he said and sang in his high pitched voice.

The sun had set in the West
The mass has gone to rest
Even the waning moon hid his crescent
Why am I still lying feeling resent

It all started when this flower the spring had bloomed
Promised by the words of love and fooled
With the hand on my head I’ve been told
I’ll never be let down even when I’m old.

“Wow…but what’s between you and her” I inquired

“I couldn’t keep my promise” he said anxiously.

“Why” I asked

“engappan dhiyan” he shouted angrily.

“what Mama told?”

“avanga namma aalunga illa le” he replied very hesitantly.
Translation: “they don’t belong to us”. But I still can’t understand what that means!

Truelove

~ sheikabdullahsha ~ 2 Comments

Short Story

I remember that morning, when my Juliet came to my house and stood near the window of my room. when I was in deep sleep, she noticed me the way I was sleeping. My sister noticed that someone was standing near the window, and mesmerized by her beauty got jealous. Yes, that is my Juliet.


Not only the outside appearance, inner soul was also very pure and real. My sister allowed Juliet to enter the room and she closed the door gently. She came and sat beside me and watched me even though she was disappointed. meanwhile, a steady rain began, thunder and lightning strikes made her wake me up. Slowly I woke up and saw her face and she began to speak. I saw her and her face was looking pale and dull.


Her face was completely changed, she said there is an issue regarding our love affair, and my parents won’t accept our relationship. She had fought with her parents and left home. She was in a dilemma even though,she was strong and stubborn to marry me as soon as possible. She was in a fear about losing me. Mostly she was scared about my decision, and thus without any information she left her house.


She told me that ‘ I am ready to sacrifice everything for you, I Just want to marry you now, will you marry me? Because things are getting complicated, my parents are finding a groom for me and trying to make the betrothal. I don’t like their determination, that’ why I ran away from my house. Forever, I am yours, you can do whatever you want. Yes, this is Juliet. According to me, She is not only my love, but she is also the goddess of beauty, marriage and sex. She is the one who was created as the wonderful woman in this world, according to me.


I took a bath and after that we both set outside and walked on the empty street. Due to heavy rain, thunder, and lightning no one was outside. Actually, she likes to get drenched in rain showers and I like it too. I was holding her hand tightly and walked some distance. Now I began to speak and tried to console her. She didn’t bother about my words and didn’t reply to anything. But she was repeating the words”Will you marry me?”. I replied to her “yes, I’ll marry you”. She became very happy and hugged me tightly.


When she was holding my hand and while I was walking with her, slowly the background atmosphere changed, I didn’t realize and noticed anything, after she hugged me tightly. I felt something was different and she brought me to a new place. There everyone was wandering and longing for love and affection. Meantime, each and every person was fulfilling longing for others and everyone in this atmosphere are happy without any worries. Yes, She brought me to heaven. Her parents have killed her already, when she begged to get her married to me. Where love, there I am. Now in heaven.

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As I lay dying…

~ a6inaya ~ 6 Comments

As I lay dying in the dimly lit extensive chamber with towering stone pillars entwined with more carved serpents rose to support a ceiling lost in darkness, casting a long black shadows through the odd, greenish gloom that filled the place, blood spurted out of my body in torrents, streaming over the marbled floor in this once-spectacular-secret-chamber of my master and his venerable ancestor.


Even though I deem dying for my master as a greatest of all honors, I cannot help mourning my end. It’s awful. As you may see, the poisonous fang of Basilisk, the great green serpent of my master’s venerable ancestor with bright colored yellow eyes that could kill the victim the moment he/she/it looks at it (unfortunately, it managed to kill only one mad Myrtle girl fifty years ago and all other so-called victims of this useless Basilisk are just petrified, much to my master’s dismay), had punctured my heart with its venom making a sizzling hole in the middle of my chest not only slaughtering me but also my master, who writhed in unbearable agony and died by disappearing into mist, which I had to confess with an unendurable torment.

I was overwhelmed when I saw my master screaming out of pain seeing the Potter boy plunging the fang straight into my torso, causing me and my master a great deal of misery. I was always proud of containing and concealing my master’s memory that too for fifty years but when I came to know that I’m one of the seven Horcruxes, in the sixth part of the Harry Potter collection: The Half Blood Prince, (I heard about Horcruxes when I was laying in the Dumbledore’s table in his beautifully illuminated office alongside the Gryffindor Sword and some burned broken stone.

The Head Master pointed out to me and the inglorious stone with his half blackened left hand and told the Potter boy about my master splitting his esteemed soul to attain immortality and stowed in seven peculiar powerful objects) I was hurt. But still I was pleased to know I’m the first Horcrux. But I don’t go boosting about it. You know that.
You may even think I’m less significant comparing the other things that made a Horcrux, as the objects except me are precious on its own, like the Diadem of Rowena Ravenclaw which is said to be the key of powerful knowledge and wisdom, the Locket of Slytherin household, The Resurrection Stone in the Marvolo Gaunt’s Ring, one of the Deathly Hallows, unknown to my master, who made it a Horcrux due to his lack of knowledge, the Helga Hufflepuff’s Cup and his supposed favorite Nagini, the Snake (which was to die ashamedly by the hands of silly Neville Longbottom at the last chapter of the last part of the Novel), and the seventh Horcrux, that even my master never knew till his death, is the Potter boy himself, but even though I’m not valuable like them I’m so special for my master as not only I’m offered with his soul but also with the memories he admired a lot, which other Horcruxes deprived of.


Now I was left all alone in this chamber to bereave my death myself. The only sound in the chamber is the drip drip of the ink still oozing out of my pierced diary pages. Beside me lying dead is the giant serpent Basilisk whose body coiled, his eyes poked and punctured by the singing phoenix bird Fawkes and killed by the potter boy who drove the Gryffindor Sword to the hilt right into the roof of the serpent’s mouth.

Wait! Wait! I hope you haven’t read the Second part: Harry Potter and the Chamber of the Secrets because the muggle-born Rowling might mislead you by weaving a tale of me having stuffed into the old filthy sock and presented to Mr. Lucius Malfoy just to free the traitor Dobby, an elf, much to my apprehension, which I consider to be a greatest disgrace for a well-regarded pure-blood Horcrux like me.

PS: Excuse me for not telling my master’s name as He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named.

The Men Within

~ Khaled KM ~ 2 Comments

Leafing through War and Peace while licking the choco powder on the flat dish, that I love tasting without utilising spoon whenever I taste reading in my room where no light from outside peeks except this tiny bulb seldom blinks, I have been just sitting over my desk arranging all the books on shelf alphabetically, an imbibed habit since childhood that I am very cautious about everything in order and neat and proper, uncompromisingly, even I fold my clothes and keep them evenly elegantly in the closet, that too in order, like t-shirts on first row, shirts on the second row, pants and inners on the third row, and place my escritoire and recliner accurately straight to each other like one interviewing the other or like Dryden and Shadwell stare! he..he! which is funny isn’t it? It is not. Ok but my humour sense will tickle a lifelong meditating Monk to laugh out loud frenzily, my batchmates from University used to say like that, but who would go to Himalayas to tickle them. I certainly, definitely, would never ever, like the never-ever ever-ever, think of treading one step away from my room where my entire world is built within so beautifully so lively. I am Tony but I would preferably like you to acknowledge me as story teller. Since I pursued Comparative Literature in the University of Edinburgh from the batch of what-they-trendily-say Inter-War years. Of course, but I love not just reading novels, even an adolescent from third standard could do that nicely, but interpreting them soulfully is what one must acquire. Tolstoy, Tolkien, Shakespeare, Hardy I narrate pertinently, I am the best rhapsode that I can challenge anybody in the world. Generally I do not permit anybody’s glance to dirt my room and my precious collection of great literary canons, which I posess like a mother tiddles her new born, except this one fellow, who resembles someone I can not resist, visit me for stories and listen audiently like an ardent student. Speaking of which reminds me of the horrid quarrel-turned-into-fistfight situation when I caught him trying to touch my possessions, taking advantage of the caliginousness of my room, that led to I heavily trampling on his neck that stopped his blood flow on his face, which was groaning in red, and his eyeballs flipping backward out of oxygen. “Hackk.. Hackk.. Ahem.. what is this giant book left open for?” This must be Where an Peace for the bulky size and the coverpage drawing, which is of my dexterity with many armed soldiers with many raged horses riding and fighting and killing that reminds me of the nuclear holocaust deprived of my whole family when I was not even seven and dropped out of school to make a living out of something. The ineffable fascination towards Picasso, van Gogh, da Vinci drew me close to draw ever since. I am Shyamalan, an artist, famous for the coverpages for almost all the literary works. But My strange hobby is collecting and decorating my room with iconic books which i don’t read, of illiteracy, but the man, who ironically resembles me in every action like clone, visits my room to read and narrate all the stories so passionately to me. All I do all day long is either listening ardently or mesmerisingly staring the coverpages of the books arranged in order on the shelf, like a flawless drawing, by the classy handwork of Tony. “If you do not stop scratching the wall, you will be electrified once again today Ms. Bath” announced Dr. Mubasheer in metalic voice from the corner speaker of my room.

FOR THE CONTEST :

It’s writing challenges to the wonderful writers of the kilk forum every week. So here is this week’s challenge
Category : short story
Word count : not exceeding 600 words
Style : postmodern
Specific element : unreliable narrator
Theme : alone in the dark room
Title : the writers choice….

Just do it… In style…

Kilk, Apna Tashan…….
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