Mother

 O' Mother,

I wait for your call,

your call to run 

carefree in orchids

full of glee;

I wait for your call,

your call to step

into freezing waters 

and streams;

I wait for your call,

your call to breathe

in the sharp air

that runs free;

I wait for your call,

your call to admire 

your beauty, not in photos

but in reality;

I wait for your call,

your call to take me home

the multistoried home

under the shade of the Chinar;

I wait for your call,

your call to sweep

me off my feet

and take me galore;

O' Mother,

your call has still

not come,

but here I stand steadfast 

waiting.

The Stringed Girl

She sat on the soft stitched chair in the café and stared out into the rainy world that lay on the other side of the cold window she sat beside. It was a feeling like no other, being in the warm and humid environment of the wonderful place that she was in. The noise from the brewing machines and the customers didn’t bother her. She was lost in her own thoughts the rest was muffled by her brain. 

In her hands was a coffee mug in which steamed the hot and brown liquid that it was filled with. Her hands grew hot and turned red from holding the mug but she didn’t care because the world outside was cold and she would take all the heat she could get. She took a deep breath, taking in the bitter sweet aroma of the coffee beans that filled the café and let it all out. It was intoxicating, Caffeine, the way it kept her up all night and the way it kept her mind always racing, she loved it.

 She loved coming here on Sundays and today was one. Her dark brown eyes which matched the colour of the brick walls of the shop remained fixed on a particular drop of water that hung on to the window as its comrades came by slowly sliding down into the drain. She loved the place because her father worked here and she had grown fond of it as she grew into the woman she now was. She took all her inspiration from nature. After all she had to, who else could she take it from. She despised the rich and was disgusted at the poor, the only one she could trust was nature because she had lived longer than anyone else and created something so complicated, so beautiful but yet seemed simple in ways humans could never imagine.

She moved her hand to tuck her brown hair behind her ear as she craned her neck to get a sip of the cooling coffee. The liquid touched her soft lips as it went inside and the sense of satisfaction on her face came and went as she gulped it down. She wore a pink fur coat with black stocks and heels. Her long fingers tapping on the coffee mug and her arms on the windowsill. Her head rested on her arms and whenever she exhaled the window glass became foggy, giving her the chance to write something and then make it disappear withing seconds.

The table started to vibrate in a heartbeat pattern. She reached out to her phone which was kept on the table and picked it up. 

The dystopian world that she lived in was shrouded with deadlines and incomplete tasks which had piled up over the years and had been scarred with the deaths of strangers and family she loved most. Her life had been very hard and she worked in conditions no one should resort to. The phone’s blue light screamed into her petite and delicate face which had very sharp and defined cuts and made her look like anyone’s dream girl. 

Lucas, the phone rang. What does he want now?

“Hey Lucas!” she said as she picked up the phone,

“Hi Hazel, how are you?” he replied,

“I’m fine, what about you?”

“Yup, the same as you saw me last time.”

“What?! What did you do now?!” she exclaimed,

“Nothing, just……” he said, trying to hide something and Hazel understood it very well, 

“Just what! Tell me Jumbo!” she said in a very tense but hushed manner,

“I’ve gotten into some legal trouble Ellie and I – I don’t know what to do. There are gangsters at my tail and every time I step foot outside my house a man starts to follow me wherever I go! Hazel, I’m scared.” He said as quickly as he could, hyperventilating.

She had had it. Her brother used to get into trouble and she used to drag him out of it every time. He was reckless and very childish, as if he hadn’t grown up at all. He was irresponsible and something always went gravely wrong when he was on the other side of the country, but what could she do? He was first and last family she had.

“Okay, first of all calm down and take a deep breath. Tell me, how did you get into it after I had told you to keep away?”

“Come here and I’ll tell you, can’t tell you over the lines, they’re tapping my calls and I’m sure they’re listening.”

“Ok, fine I’ll book a flight tomorrow and meet you.”

“Tomorrow at six pm in front of wiggle blossoms near the red executioner.”

“Fine.”

And she hung up. Her hand went to her forehead and she started squeezing it. She was fed up cleaning his messes. He needed to get a stable life and become independent. He was twenty - two and she was twenty - four. They had created a secret language when they were kids and used it only when they had to talk secretly.

They were born in Tanglewood and the whole place was filled with people who indulged in wrongdoings but most of them were old. They had got the knack for lying to each other for stupid things. She knew that this was a trick. Tomorrow was his birthday and he wanted to spend it with her. She knew his silly antics and his brilliant acting and she fell for it each time. 

She exhaled sharply, breathing all her stress out, finished the rest of the coffee as quick as she could and left the bill at the table with the money and a tip walking slowly to the exit. She hesitated and took another deep breath, wore a smile and pushed the cold metal handle of the wooden door.

The Arcane Passenger

It was a cold night and it had been raining furiously for the past few hours. The road was wet and covered in mud from the surrounding terrain. The tyres of the car had absolutely no grip, it was slipping and sliding through the rugged curves of the North Yungas in Bolivia. With no safety rails along the road the driver was sweating. The ferried person was wearing black sunglasses with a tuxedo and black gloves. He was smoking an El Gigante in the back seat with a Glock 17 beside him.

His calm demeanour on such roads was shocking to the driver but he said nothing and continued on. The lights of the car seemed to be flickering through the black and damp night. The driver quickly turned as the car drifted very close to the edge at a height of five thousand feet above sea level and carefully stopped by a bunker opening made of plain grey cement.

The driver hurried to open the door to let out the obscure man. Taking out the umbrella from the door frame, he opened the suicide doors of the Rolls Royce Wraith with a gentle touch. The passenger collected his belongings, the cigar still in his mouth and the Glock in his white gloves, he walked to the bunker entrance.

 The bunker was covered in vines and the surroundings were that of a rain forest, small trees, rustling of leaves, humid air and thick greenery. The driver opened the gate for the passenger.  As the passenger went inside the bunker, he pulled the trigger on the gun and the driver fell with a thud. The man didn’t care less about the driver but what he did care about was his project. He had worked his whole life for this moment to happen and he wasn’t just going to let it slip away.

 He stood there for a moment over his body with a smoking gun and scoffed. He quickly disappeared into the darkness of the bunker.

Throughout the night his body lay out on the dreaded road of the North Yungas. The next week the police found the dead body of the driver with a bullet in his head when they were on patrol duty and another body on the stairs of the bunker with his head twisted at a weird angle and his face blue.
 
The driver on the other hand had bled so badly that the soil surrounding it had tuned into a fading red hue. The body itself was dirty and by the time they found it, it had started to rot in some places. They immediately sent it for autopsy in the hope to find out who the perpetrator of violence was.
 
The police, investigating the crime scene, went into the bunker. As they advanced into the darkness, all they found was the stubble of the cigar, bullet shells all over the hard floor and the bullets in the walls. Someone had a gun fight here. There was no furniture, no bodies, no blood and no evidence except the bullets that someone had paid a visit to the bunker.

The passenger was just a retailer as he would describe himself to others but no one knew that there was more to him than just retailing. He was on his was to a gala for the select few billionaires of the world, which none had heard of. The whole gala seemed to be a façade but only a handful of people actually knew what it was for.

 As he advanced into the dark bunker with steep stairs the door behind him shut with a loud bang of metal against metal. Someone was following him. He didn’t look back and simply descended the stairs as if he hadn’t heard anything but he knew who was behind him and he knew he couldn’t use his gun or else his clothes would get dirty.

As soon as the unknown person was about to slit his jugular, he ducked and kicked him in his shin. The person crumpled with a shriek and the next thing he knew was darkness.

As the passenger reached the end of the stairs, he found a briefcase in the middle of the room. He cautiously unbuttoned his coat so that it wouldn’t crumple and picked up the case quietly. The stubble of his cigar fell. Being as fast as a cheetah he loaded his Glock with fresh rounds and shot at the walls. Bang! Bang! Bang! The bullets found their mark and he knew it. He swiftly ascended the stairs buttoning his shirt skipping the dead body, opened the door to the Rolls, sat in the driver’s seat and drove off to the venue with no memory of what he did.

 He had killed his driver, an assassin and 12 other people who were hidden in the wooden walls of the bunker which were painted to look like cement. He had done so because no one could have the foggiest idea of what he had picked up from the bunker.

As he drove speedily on the roads of death whilst sending rocks flying behind him, he lit up another El Gigante and held it in between his teeth, taking puffs every once in a while. He deaccelerated to a stop and got out of the car, checked if the surroundings were free of any people and drifted the car into the mountain side.

 It seemed as if he was about to crash into the mountain side. The side opened like retractable gates which lead to a red asphalt road. It was almost as if the doors weren’t there. The doors looked as a part of the mountain itself and closed behind the car.

 The passage was lit with bright white LED lights lined along the length of the road and the ceiling was low and curved. The tunnel was narrow and was inclined to the depths of the mountain. The road ended in a circular elevator which transported the cars to a service station further deeper into the mountain where workers kept the cars serviced and clean. He parked the car on the elevator and picked his stuff.

He was still inside the car but he could sense and feel that the air inside the tunnel was very humid but fragrant, beads of sweat had started to form on his forehead. He wiped it off with his handkerchief and continued on.


 He got out and carefully picked up his prized possession, the briefcase and headed for another elevator which led to the gala above. The elevator was classy as it was all soft, purple and cushioned velvet except the floor which was gold plated, the doors were made of alligator leather and covered in shining diamonds with rubies for their eyes that shone like fire.

 He entered the elevator as if it knew he was there and said “welcome, Lucifer!” in the voice of a female attendant. Up he went as the elevator ascended and he checked his watch. He was first. He was the host of the show, he had to be first. From inside his jacket he took out cuffs and cuffed his hand to the briefcase.

As soon as the doors opened, he walked into the hall, adjusting his tuxedo and hair with the briefcase cuffed to his hand. He went hurriedly to the stage which was placed in dead centre of the huge circular room with giant chandeliers hanging in the silhouette of a woman. The floor was covered with the finest Russian carpet that spanned the whole hall and felt like fur, gold-plated chairs were placed under the chandeliers where the bidders would sit, for when the gala ended an auction would take place at the same venue and it was for that sole reason Lucifer had come.

 The walls were depictions of ancient mythological wars in silver, gold and ruby. There were three large bulletproof windows which were queued along the outside wall whose tint was controlled electronically and hidden Bose speakers which played a soothing tune.

Taking a deep breath, he took out the contents of the bag and placed it inside a bulletproof glass box lined with rose gold diamonds which made the container attract immense attention. He closed the container and sealed it with epoxy resin.

Lucifer then sat on a chair and waited for the gala to get over. Billionaires from all over the world were entering in outfits so exquisite that one would think they weren’t human at all. Someone was dressed as a lotus made of gold inlaid with diamonds that shone like stars, someone ate saffron rice with white truffle and foie gras as toppings with edible gold foil all over the dish and finally some acted as if they were above all, showing off their lifestyle but Lucifer wasn’t going to meddle with these lowlifes.

 He was going to brush shoulders with some of the world’s most important people and sell them something they had never seen or heard before. Something that if they acquired would unleash all the worst forces of nature that would cause such destruction, it would flatten a county in minutes and the world in a matter of hours.

The chair he sat in was draped in Corinthian leather and lined with Rhodium, placed on the stage next to the box which could kill everyone on Earth. He simply watched as these fools lofted around in their ridiculous outfits for hours, exchanging fake kisses, hugs, emotions and money. These billionaires were just like babies to him, arrogant, showing off and needing hundreds of servants to do their work.

 He was disgusted at the fact that they spent money on such useless things like gold plated toilet paper and platinum crusted cars with sapphire lined engine bays. It was an amusing affair to see them get on with their formalities, everyone had smiles on their faces but he knew they detested each other with the same intensity as a car would ram a dog at a hundred miles per hour, not leaving any moment to show that they were the best. This façade went on for hours with dance shows and speeches until it finally ended.

He checked his watch again, it was 2 am. It was time for the world’s most coveted auction to begin and the irony was that no one would ever know about it. The fluffy and puffy billionaires went the same way they had entered not sparing a second to show their belongings and their mess was cleaned by workers dressed in black and white.

The chairs were rearranged into a skull and the light were dimmed. The windows of the hall were turned opaque and the spotlight was on Lucifer. The buyers entered in simple layman’s clothes such as jeans and graphic tees but he knew that these people were more important than POTUS than just outfits they were wearing. They weren’t here to chat; they were here for business and they would get it done. The box was taken away to be sold as the last thing on the auction.

The first article that was to be sold was an old and bulky laptop on which the codes to access any of the world’s nuclear warheads were saved and heavily encrypted for ten million dollars. The second article was a tank mounted on which was an experimental rail gun which blasted almost anything in its range and reduced it to ashes sold for seven million. The third article was a 100 megaton Hydrogen bomb - with a yield equivalent to two Tsar Bomba's - sold for fifty million. The fourth article was a gas tank filled with one ton of helium – 3 sold for seventy-eight million. All of these articles were sold to the buyers with deep pockets.

 The last article was what Lucifer had delivered himself. A weapon so powerful that people were scared by the mere mention of it. A nuclear warhead which was filled with all of the deadliest types of viruses that human kind had encountered under great pressure and in a large amount. A bio - weapon whose value was more than twenty billion dollars. This was the dreaded weapon which no one wanted to buy and have their reputation tarnished upon. It was simply too risky to even be in a nuclear silo, let alone store it under your house. It was brought up to the stage and Lucifer asked, "Any bids?" Only one paddle went up for the article. "Going once, going twice, sold!"

A smile appeared on Lucifer’s face as he removed his sunglasses which showed his red and green eyes with a scar on the left one. The scar seemed as if  his eye ball had been cut into two halves. “Congratulations, Mr. Quixote! You are now the most dreaded person alive.

Living The Life (part 2)

Hey guys, my name is Rishabh and for those who don't know what I am doing kindly read the previous part of this series!

Coming back to my life. I had lost my talent hunt competition with a two year streak and 6th grade was pretty much the same. I had grown to be popular, some of my peers didn't like me, some befriended me and some rarely became my best friends but that was expected. What was unexpected was the coming of newbies in 6th and it was raining cats and dogs.

I think at least ten new students took admission into 6th that year and most of them came to our class 6th A. It was a class of toppers but no one used to say that out loud, especially the teachers. They couldn't and if they wanted to they'd just slip it into our personal conversations but when they did it was a whisper and mostly the talks were related to academics and other problems which were to come in the following years. And trust me you will not be disappointed in the next few parts!

So, it was a normal first day of 6th at school and we did expect a few new admissions but boy were we wrong. It happened so that most of the students came, took off the next year and frankly speaking I don't know why. It was a good school, sure we had our disadvantages who doesn't. Life ain't perfect and when you realise that you'll live it to the fullest.

We had Sans, Tanishi, Darya, Aiwik, Atharva and some others also but these were in our class. Some of these guys got shuffled into the other two sections, B and C to be on the point. We had Sans, Tanishi, Bani and Yash in our section but the other two moved out in the first few months.

Sans was a dancer and was competition to our best female dance and she was amazing. She knew moves that only the big guys could pull off like twerks and scissor steps but Sans, oh here is where it gets interesting. Sans, I think was better than Bhavini but he couldn't math the female skills she had, instead he openly flouted what the male could do. He used to pull of stunts like it was nothing and it shook us to the bone.

Aiwik was a guy who didn't perform well in academics but was very social and most of the time joked and went over the line, he was a little aggressive also.

 Atharva was now the tallest guy in the whole of 6th and continued to be for the coming years.

Tanishi was a chotta packet bada dhamaka, she blabbered a lot. I mean I used to think how much can a person talk until his or her jaw gets tired but she surpassed my imagination exponentially every day and since she was my partner for most of the year, my ears were experienced. She had an interest in a lot of pop songs and it was infectious. It spread to me and I don't know how many students but I was grateful because it developed my interest in songs by ten fold. Whenever my stationary fell down and I reached to pick it up she used to bless me with a long life by saying Aayushman Bhava with a hand over my head, as if I had asked for her Aashirvad. Overall she was amazing and we had performed a few songs together in front of the whole class and when she went away I missed her.

Darya was the tallest girl in all the sections and my first impression of her was that she had an extremely heavy voice and looked like a tall watch tower but that impression was soon lost. She was from the Sikh community and had long hair which stretched below her waist. She was a vegetarian and we all used to tease her by showing her non vegetarian food which made her gag and run away from it. She soon became a part of our small tola which increased from four to five. I personally had developed a huge crush on her over the course of a year but didn't have the courage to tell her. She was perfect to me. I could go on and on about her but that would take too long.

So all of them came into our class but many things changed during 6th. Most of our teachers got changed because they left the school. We had to change ourselves to the different teachers who came in but none of them used to teach us to our liking like our first original set of teachers. Our academic and extracurricular teachers changed and were soon replaced by new ones. Our Maths, extracurricular head, French and Theatre teachers changed.

Most of the new teachers were good and fun to work with but that attachment with some teachers like those of French couldn't be made again as they kept changing throughout the year until one came and stayed.

6th was a changing year for all of us lots of new things and this year we were given marks and not grades. It was a little different as we now had all of our exams in shuffled rooms so that we couldn't cheat, at least I hadn't started yet and had no plans also.

Our class teacher had changed as the previous one had left the school and so that year was all about how we handled changes. This part is short because there wasn't much to tell about 6th. It was a year well spent with friends and good marks.

Oh I forgot one thing when I was in 5th I had my first and last annual day in the school and it was a blast. All academics were almost stopped for the students who participated and all that was being done was practice, practice and practice. It was like the whole school was alive with songs, dancing and acting.

 When it happened and my part came, people told me I had done great but I knew that I had messed up the last line. I had improvised and made it through the worst part but the time that was to come was even worse. we had to sit in a humid hall packed with children from all classes. We were served chips and a drink but we had our own tiffins to gobble up before we reached home.

This reminds me of one more thing. Whenever I used to leave some sabji or roti I used to get a strong beating from my mother. She used to tell me what almost all mothers tell to their children that people don't get to eat food and you being privileged waste it, but  it is true to the last letter. Our country does have a lot of homeless people and beggars who don't get to eat and that makes me wonder, I should do something. It made me feel guilty and they way my mother tells it made me feel sorry for myself but now, none of that happens anymore because I finish my tiffin on time and all of it!

Living The Life

Hello everyone, my name is Rishabh and today I'm gonna tell you all about my life! So, it all started when I shifted from Pune where I had lived for 4 years of my life. We had taken a plane to Delhi and were staying in our house with minimal furniture and other stock. We had shifted on the 7th floor and it seemed pretty high to me compared to our house on the 4th floor in Pune. 

When we first came to our new society, I was scared because I had a fear of lifts and this lift was shaking when it went up. I held on to my mom for the first time when we got in but then I got used to it. I had to.

It was like beginning afresh, like a second chance to make a lasting impression on the people of my school. I was very excited to go to my school because we had left at the end of my holidays in Pune but since different states have different plans for the year I had to wait till the holidays in Delhi were over. I was desperate and couldn't wait for my new life to begin, I could be a different person here and nobody would know because everyone I was to meet didn't know me.

And so there began my first day of school. My mom had dropped me off at the gate and I went in. I had remembered my class because before the school closed for the holidays I had met my class teacher at PTM. So I went to my class room and found that it was empty but the lights were switched on.

It was a totally different classroom. There were six batches of two tube lights each for illumination, all of them equidistant, There was a big window at the other end of the class which was covered in an orange curtain and there were wood and steel chairs and tables in five rows with six in each. The floor was covered in seemingly random arrangement of mostly white and less of yellow tiles which was new to me, the teacher's table was in an 'L' shape with one end against the wall and the other was in the open. Attached to the table was the teacher's cupboard which had a big compartment and one small with two and one door respectively. At the bottom of the cupboard which was made of wood was another compartment of two doors which housed the subwoofer and CPU of the projector.

Not far away was a wooden frame outlining the two white boards which was also new to me because I had always seen the black boards on which we had to write with chalk till 4th and now I was in 5th. The frame was a lot bigger than the boards themselves and in the shape of a rectangle which almost covered the whole of the wall. The student's tables were positioned facing this frame. A third of the walls were covered with white tiles and the next third was covered with wood and the last third was plain white plaster along with the ceiling. 

As I entered the class room I found out that the door was also made of wood and right next to it was a metal dustbin with a garbage bag fitted into it. This was exciting, a new class meant new friends, new teachers, new enemies and new lovers!

I looked around to my right and chose the last table in the first row to sit on. There was a lot of wood work in the class, I noticed as I sat on the yellow wood and steel chair which had a slightly inclined table for easier writing position. The table had a small but long depression in the front which served as a holder for pencils and other quick access stationary. I was impressed.

So I sat down quietly with my head between my hands on the table, waiting for my new classmates to walk in through that door any moment. To me it seemed like a long time before someone actually came in, let alone notice me. Two girls walked in through the door chatting with one another like they were best friends from a long time. One of them was short and the other was taller than the other, both of them had curly dark brown hair and they were in skirts which went a little ways below their knees, exposing their calves which were bare and half sleeves shirts which were buttoned up except the top ones. Later I found out that it was the summer uniform and this was new too as we had only two uniforms for the whole year. One for regular wearing and the other for sports.

This school was one of the branches of the same school I went to when I was a child. I was born in Delhi, Sarita Vihar and I had spent my first two years living with my nani at her place. When I came back to live with my parents, we had shifted to Indrapuram and there I used to go to a feeder branch for my upper kindergarten and later I went to the main school.

So back to the class room, the girls sat down on the first table and kept their bags on the table while I kept mine hanged on the side hooks. They continued to chat for a while and then when they looked back they saw me. It came to them as a surprise because I had come after the holidays and generally the newbies come at the start of the term. The expressions on their faces were priceless and worth capturing. Their expression was like girls in a party who didn't notice the man behind who was trying to move through the crowd.

Anyways, once they noticed me they came over to my table and asked me the general questions like, "What's your name?" and the rest of the 'w's in English. I never knew that these girls would become my best friends in out group of five friends, especially the taller one. There was something about her that intrigued me. That day I was introduces to the rest of the class and these two girls spread the news of coming of a new student and it spread like wild fire.

That day I was seated with the topper of the class or as her name meant the flute of lord Krishna, Vanshika. I was also informed that the language which I wanted to take as a third language, 'French' was taught here from 4th and I was a year behind. Luckily the French teacher was nice and she helped me out. 

I was taken on a tour by the girls I had met in the morning of  the school and they showed the whole building during the break. I got to know their names Jia and Chitrangdha. They had one more best friend who was Manvi. I was surprised that on my first day of school I had got three best friends who were girls! 

It was the best first day of new school that anyone could've asked for and the first year went by like this. I had gotten straight A's in all of my subjects through out the year and I had even surpassed the topper.

It was the reputation that anyone could've asked for but that wasn't it. I was performing amazingly in my extracurriculars also. I had chosen to do Theatre out of Music and Dance. The extracurricular periods were called MDT with respect to the three extracurriculars. The most amazing thing I loved about this school was that we had something called 'Talent Hunts' in which you could showcase your skills in MDT. I had registered for my first Talent Hunt and I had forgotten about it except the day when it was supposed to happen. As we moved to the stilt area which was basically an open ground floor which had a wooden stage at one end.

Luckily I was creative and was watching a lot of Charlie Chaplin episodes with my sister during the recent days. I had a black woolen cap with me and I was in my uniform which was trousers and half sleeves shirt with a red sweater which I was wearing. We also used to get newspapers of ToI and Hindustan Times student editions everyday. 

I combined all of them to form my outfit. I stuffed my cap with newspapers and wore it as a tall hat which Charlie Chaplin used. I set up my set for the act which was basically a table and some newspapers. I took the essence of mime and humour of Chaplin and performed one of his episodes with out any former practice. Fortunately everyone laughed and I won a certificate saying that I held and Outstanding position in the competition. I was surprised and happy that I had won but it was until 6th grade that I told everyone that I had won it just like that.

From that day onwards I had got so many offers for participating in competitions which our school never really won but it was fun to participate for the experience and I was happy doing it. I had won the talent hunt of 6th and 8th from then. It was in 7th that I made a mistake of switching my performance to singing 'Heathens' by Twenty One pilots and I lost. That day I realised that I should do what I'm good at and happy with because I had switched to singing just for a change and little did I know that the singers who were my competition were pretty good at doing what they did and inevitably I lost.

                                              ********************************** 

Hey readers, hope you liked it as this is just the first of a series!

yours, Author.

Homecoming

It was a sunny day in the hills where Vidyut lived. And the rays of the Sun were peeping in frequently through the canopy which was throughout. The world below was totally different. It was full with life. Small shrubs and herbs, plants and short trees served as the carpet.

 On the slope of the hill was a step which had been cleared by Vidyut himself. It had taken him a whole week before he had a clearing big enough for a small house and hadn't slept for a few days. After he was satisfied with his work, he thought of food when only a few meals were left and decided to grow his food himself.

He had built his own kitchen garden to provide him with food and got the seeds from nearby wild vegetation. Till the first harvest was ready he survived on the wild plants.

It was June and the heat was not forgiving at all. He had to till in his kitchen garden all day to reap the fruits of harvest for himself. The plants needn't be watered because the rains were often and the soil was forever moist so irrigation was not an issue. The main problem was of the insects which pestered him. 

They used to eat and destroy the garden in waves. After trying out a few herbs he found Chrysanthemum nearby and grew it in his garden. He also marked his boundary with his pee so that a wild animal could tell that it was taken.

When the rains came, the fragrance of wet mud grew strong and that pleased Vidyut very much, giving him the satisfaction that he won't go hungry and the smell itself was very amusing. He always loved when the first drops fell. He used to go outside and dance to the beats of the rain. He occasionally used to lay in the mud and He always liked the fact that nature surrounded him, giving him a sense of safety.

His small house which he had made of the wood from the trees around was a brown colour and now covered in some places with moss. It consisted of three bedrooms, a bathroom and a kitchen.

 The first room was for the storage of produce, the second for the household consumption and the last room for him to sleep in. The kitchen had a mud oven which was lit by the dry wood he had to find once in a week. The house had two windows and they gave a beautiful view of the scenic beauty of the green cover which spread out like a warm blanket over the hill and the surrounding plains.

He had set up a sharp and ragged fence around the house to keep wandering animals away and had marked the trees to find his way back. 

The place for nature's call always changed every day and he had to be careful if there were insects nearby. The days when he went in search for wood were the most boring and tiring. He had to cut down a small tree which was about five to six feet high above him with an axe that was now blunt. 

He had found the axe lying in the mud when one day he was marking territory. The wild animals were not many and proved not to be a botheration. The cutting took half the day and by the time he was done he had to haul ass and the wood back home after selecting what he needed. 

Those were the worst days when every inch of his body screamed with pain and the next day was always a haze.

He had lost his parents when they were on vacation, mountain climbing. They were five hundred feet above the ground and climbing when the ropes gave way. They were side by side when it happened. The rope was held tightly by a hook to the mountain and held for a few hours. But when they shifted course because of a large protrusion in their way the rope became stretched on a sharp edge and held for while before it tore in half. 

It was a surprise at first because they had heard the sounds of ropes tearing but couldn't see it and so continued. After that the ropes quickly cut until they hung by the last strand. Alec's father was about to set up another hook in a small crevice when it finally tore and they fell all the way landing with an unsettling thump which made their guide shiver.

Ever since then he had been going from foster homes to schools and back. One day he decided to escape from the foster home and run away to live his own life. He was always treated as a boy who was good for nothing and given the last opinion on everything.

 Vidyut was given the broken bed to sleep on and the smallest room in which all seven children were crammed into. He was always traumatized by the nightmares which came to him every night. The nightmare of his parents falling to their deaths side by side was always the same, recurring every night, leaving him restless throughout the day. It was always the thump which awoke him sweating profusely.

He had had enough of being pushed around and treated badly. He made plans one week before the day he left and told no one about it. He had been on his best behavior for the week and did all his chores with extras, helping the mother.

 Vidyut told the foster mother that he'd go going out for a while to the library to return some books he had taken from school and that it was the last day to do so unless they wanted to pay a fine. Out of care for money she let him go and he packed his bags with goodies to last him a few days with a few bucks that he needed.

He climbed down the stairs and breathed the air of freedom. He looked left and right and ran to the nearest bus depot where he bought himself a ticket without much hassle from the counter,  to somewhere far away from this place, He was filled with joy and boarded the bus with newfound curiosity, sat in the bus and travelled for four hours.

He didn't have any plans to go to anywhere until he found the place. He stopped the bus, slung his backpack on his shoulders, walked with his head held high and never looked back. He had to let go of his past and found a new life among nature.

He found the hill on which he currently lived and fell in love with it immediately. He had wandered around till he found the perfect place to set camp and built fires at nights to make him feel safe. It was a year now he ran away and he didn't regret it any moment for everyday something new was to be discovered.

 Since then no police sirens were heard around and he was finally sure that his foster mother had given up. 

It was a beautiful life since then. No nightmares, no nothing. Only two entities lived there. One was him and one was nature.

 At times he used to look up at the clear sky and watch the stars move. It was true bliss and the night didn't feel so dangerous anymore but instead it was as if she was his mother and took care of him. His old past never bothered him and thought only of tomorrow which was always a step ahead and he wanted to catch up with it.

After toiling under the Sun for most of the day he went inside and made himself a cup of tea. He was fourteen. His body sparkled with sweat all over him and made his muscles stand out. He had broad and beefy shoulders and strong legs which he had made with time. His stomach was laid with a six pack and his face was defined, his hair hadn't been cut for a year and had grown six inches long. His eyes were chocolaty brown and his smile was worth remembering. He had scars on his body which set a reminder for him to not go on the other side of the hill where he had had dangerous encounters with death.

The warm drink slowly slid down his throat and he let out a sigh of relief. He was tired and wanted to fall down on the floor and sleep. That's when he heard a knock. “What the hell was that?!” He thought.

“Was that what I think it was?” he thought to himself and it happened again. This time he was sure that he had heard the correct sound. Vidyut slowly moved towards the wall and picked up his axe. The door was now being knocked frantically.

He held it firmly in one hand, ready to strike and with the other opened the door with a swing. He closed his and brought down axe and missed. He heard running footsteps enter his house and he quickly looked behind.

 For the first time in a year he saw a girl.

The Tiger

He used to live in his little cottage in the midst of a rainforest which was ready to burst with life when the rains came with their regal splendour as they gently spread their motherly cover over the monotonous green cover which stretched for kilometers in every direction. 

He lived in such a forest and couldn't remember where it was located. he was living devoid of any electronics in his hut and relied only on the brute strength of his body and nature's produce. He was shut off from civilization and social interaction for so long that he had forgotten his name, his identity in the ladder of society and even all his family members except his wife who was the reason he had moved to such a lifestyle and environment. His house back in civilization reminded him too much of her.

 She had died due to cancer which had consumed her from the inside and she left him alone in the world with two children. He left his children at her parents and left off to begin a  new life. It took every bit of his energy and thought to leave his children behind and begin a new chapter in his life, at times he felt that it was very selfish of him to leave his children but after a while he used to convince himself that it was better than having a lonely and slowly emotionally changing father that they were in the care of their grandparents.

 Every day in nature was full of unexpected surprises and new things to learn would emerge through the wet and ever damp soil and into his mind. He was woken by the songs of the birds and the calls of the animals in the forest and he loved every bit of it. 

Though he had forgotten his old life except his wife, he never thought of it but it always used to come back to him with certain incidents that used to occur in the wild, he used to shudder and stop like a machine that took to long to decide what it had to do.

 By living close to the nature he forgot all about the mixed emotions of anger and sadness which used to cover him like a cold blanket on a wet night. His everyday work was to brush his teeth by chewing on twigs of Acacia which was a minute's walk from his hut, bathe in the water of the running stream beside his abode and then he used to occupy himself in the work of collecting food, making cloth and other necessary tasks that had to be carried out.

 The serene beauty and sounds of nature kept him entertained in the day, but during the night he was met with cloudless skies  and spectacular sights of the milky way and the constellations that were in the sky. Tall trees, grass and plants used to surround him like cove and nourish him. He was always left stunned by the bounty that nature provided him with. he was totally dependant on nature and muscle and activities like lighting a fire and weaving clothes had to be done by hand.

 The simple sight of him would make you happy and sad at the same time because he would always smile no matter what  happened but if you looked closer you could see the wrinkles on his face which were the marks left behind the stress. His face was in the shape of an oval with lots of wrinkles on his forehead and his brow was high, his hair was a bird's nest uncut like his fingernails, he wore a torn shirt and surprisingly fine belt whose buckle was covered in dried blood after using it a few times which held up a pair of pants, they were torn at the knees and calves. 

One fine day when the sky was now golden with the sunset and he was sitting by the stream enjoying his day's work when the rain came down unexpectedly with a thunderclap so ear shattering that it nearly shook his clothes.

 The rains had finally come. He stood up and looked at the heavens which finally let go of the all the water it had accumulated during the months. The first drops fell on his face  gently but slowly quickened their pace with time and he realised that all his work was outside, so he rushed to the hut and brought all the ramshackle equipment inside which he had made with wood and vine and the dry fire wood for the fireplace inside his hut where he used to cook his meals. 

By the time he was moving all his equipment inside, it was already night and the rains wouldn't stop when he heard the rustling of leaves  ahead of him. It was his time to sleep and he had to make sure that his territory which he had marked with urine was unbreached.

 He went to investigate barefooted which invited uninvited guests like rocks and thorns, they impaled his feet but he pushed away the pain and carried on.

 wherever he stepped foot he left marks of blood which immediately dissovled in the rain water and seeped into the ground. He stopped of exhaustion after running for a while. To his right he saw a flash of bright orange and black. A tiger he thought too himself.

 He was in grave danger and ran as fast as he could to his dilapidated hut which had been reduced to that state because of the rain which seeped in through the roof and had made the mud of the hut soft. By the time he reached the door,  he was limping due to the pain by the stones and thorns in his feet which had doubled  in quantity. 

He quickly entered the hut and threw himself on the piece of furniture which served as the bed to sleep on. He rolled up into a ball with fear and kept his eyes fixed on the door, waiting for the now imminent death which seemed to be staring him in the face.

 There was an eerie silence and only the sound of the rain was continuous before the door creaked open as in a horror film and first came in the whiskers and then followed the nose. He closed his eyes so that he would be spared the bloody scenes that he thought were to come shortly. He waited impatiently for death to come and whisk him away when he felt the warm and humid breath of the Tiger.

 The Tiger approached him and the closer it got the more heavily he breathed. He now waited for the final strike to occur any moment when all he felt was a pec on his left cheek. He was shocked and surprised and when he opened his eyes the Tiger was gone. The kiss felt as if his wife had given it and tell him that she still loved him and what all he did for her. 

He was forever lost in the wonder that his wife had come to visit him.

The Parents

He was on his king sized bed when his phone rang on the side table. He woke up with a startle and jumped for his phone which rang loudly and vibrated continuously thinking that it was from his client.

 Jason ran a successful telecom company of which he was the sole founder and CEO of which meant that the chain was always ending with him and he was to be held answerable for any mistakes done by his staff. He had devoted his whole life and invested his money, time and sweat into making his child grow and the fruit was reaped quickly as his company became the largest and best telecom company in the world and he became the youngest and quickest billionaire in the world. 

This man was in his twenties and he had created a balance between his work life and personal life which is very difficult and that too at such a young age. He was in his undergarments which exposed his ripped muscles and smooth skin which slightly tanned. He had green eyes and a chiseled face with high and defined cheek bones and sharp eyebrows above which was a forehead which felt like that of a baby's. He had long hair which was neatly cut at the sides and uncut at the top which had small streaks of blonde inlaid in them. He was a tall and bulky man who stood at five six and had the body of a gorilla.

 He swiped his phone to accept the call and expected a professional voice but to his surprise it was his younger sister who was an actress in Hollywood and had twenty seven films to her name. His sister's voice which he hadn't heard for over a year now sounded unfamiliar but soothing. The talk was of their parent's fiftieth anniversary being round the corner and pleaded for his to come to celebrate and their visit would be a surprise for their parents because they had not visited their parents for over five years now and this time it was an incredible milestone, so they had to show up. their parents longed to see their children in the flesh, not on television or in long dusty photos.

 He promised her that he would be there and promised her that he would call more often from now on and they hanged up. He looked at the time on his phone and it was seven in the morning. He was late for work and so he rushed through his morning routine of brushing, bathing and wearing clothes.

 He sat at the table to eat cereal and gulped it down like a whale would if it kept its mouth open underwater and didn't bother to hail a cab as he got down the stairs. He ran to the office. When he reached he greeted by the beautiful face of his assistant who babbled about the day's schedule to Jason and the day swept by being  filled with signing deals, meeting clients, meetings with the company board, monitoring the shares and all the other stressful work in which he was eventually drowned in. 

By the time he got home, he was too tired to make himself a meal, so he skipped dinner and went to sleep. This was his continuous routine for the coming days and he completely forgot about the anniversary. One morning he got a call from his sister. Everything rushed at him and suddenly he remembered the anniversary was today! His sister had called to confirm that he was coming and he told her the truth. She was very disappointed in him and hung up.

 Almost he had the idea of cancelling all his meetings for the and take a leave and that is what he did. He quickly packed his bags and got ready to leave for silicon valley. He booked a cab and rushed to the airport. During the ride he booked the first flight he saw which departed only two hours from then. As soon as he got off the cab, he ran to the entry and made his way through security. He got his boarding passes and got out as fast as possible through the secondary security check and rushed to the gate at which he flight was to departure from. It was the last gate at the other end of the terminal and he ran as fast as a cheetah. He confirmed the gate numbers and quickly boarded the aircraft. 

He thought of surprising his family by his appearance and thought of the gift he would give to his parents on their huge milestone. He decided to give them phones and also thought of buying the cake. When the flight landed he hurried over to the nearest apple store and bought two of the most top-end phones available and he off, on his way to the Satura cakes bakery to buy a triple storied red velvet cake. He asked it to be delivered at the address he gave them within an hour.

 He caught a cab to his real home and when he reached, he could only look in nostalgia at the old house which was his home for over half his life. He walked up to the porch and felt the polished wooden handrail, the memories were knocking on his door, begging for him to let them in and he did. He was overcome by a sense of calm and love for parents after he remembered what his parents had done for him. He was eternally grateful to them as they had brought him into this world and given him a companion he had always wanted, his sister. He realized that all that his parents did was give and now it was his turn to return the favour with interest.

 He walked to the side of the house which had a small pathway leading to the backyard and that's where he saw them. His parents were sitting on wooden chairs, holding hands and their heads on each other's head. He didn't realized how much he had missed his parents and was lost staring at them. Suddenly two hands gripped him from behind and held him into a hug. 

He was almost surprised at the strength of the person and turned back to see his lovely companion smiling at him with watery eyes, she was happy that her brother had finally showed up. They both for a few minutes looked at their parents and how their mother's hair covered their father's shoulder with such an loving grace as they stared out into the beautiful sunset that followed ahead of them. 

The trees were lined in such a way that the sun seemed to be setting in between them and over the the horizon the rays of the sun reached out to them. They finally advanced to their parents and touched their shoulders, they looked back slowly to show their wrinkled faces and glowing eyes. They immediately stood up and embraced them tightly. They hugged for a long time with absolute silence except the frequent sobbing sounds that emerged from both sides.

 When they stopped, tears were flowing on both sides and their parents were very elated that their children had finally come home and they went in to celebrate.

The Girls

She was on her cycle, riding on a mountainous track from which the serene Himalayas were to be seen among her seven friends with whom she had come to India as a tourist. All the girls had landed in India at the Indira Gandhi International Airport and were collecting their luggage. All the girls got their luggage within 15 minutes of arrival and set off for their hotel where they were supposed to stay for a day

It took them an hour to reach the hotel which was only ten kilometers away. while they got there Amanda was a geologist and saw an advertisement board with a picture of the Himalayas, she was hooked. she had to go to see them, it was the longest mountain range in the world and she was fascinated by them.

She at once told her friends of the idea to go on a small detour to see the scenic beauty of the Himalayas and after much convincing they agreed to go. They stayed the night at Aerocity and set off the next day for Uttrakhand, a state located in the Northern part of India and known for the allure of the Himalayas.

The journey was very tiring but they had fun along the way listening to songs, looking at the landscape and eating a variety of dishes during stops. The roads were very curvy and the girls were feeling nausea, some of them even vomited but all was okay and they continued their journey.

They had left after having lunch at a small dhaba and reached their resort by eight o'clock. They were dead on their  feet by the time they set foot on the asphalt and were very sleepy. They paid the driver and  slouched their way to the reception to check in.

After their  business with the formalities was done, they carried themselves to their villa which had a peculiar name, 'Rajrambha' which translates as, 'Royal House'. By the time they entered they threw themselves on the beds and slept like bears. They didn't have time to admire their villa which was big as they had sweet
dreams after the long day of travelling.

After a few hours they all woke up and decided to be civilized, they freshened up and changed their clothes. Amanda slipped on the waxed surface of the villa and was startled.  For the first time one of the girls noticed the grandeur of the villa.

It was of two floors, which meant more space as contradicted to the single floored villa they thought they saw, the ground floor had a high ceiling and even if the tallest girls in the group were stacked together they would be short by a few inches. The ground floor had a king sized bed on which four girls could sleep easily and the bed was placed against a wall in the middle of the room that acted as a barrier between the living space and the bathroom. In front of the bed was a huge TV and below that there was a table on which varieties of local delicacies were kept for them to relish. There were a flight of steep stairs to the right wall of the villa. The bathroom was also significantly big and housed a basin, a huge mirror, a bucket, a shower, a  step stool, a towel hanger, brushes, toothpaste and  dental floss. The floor of the bathroom was white and to the right upper corner was a water heater which was very necessary because of the acute cold in the region. 

The stairs led to the second floor of the villa which had a very low ceiling but was very cozy and also had a king sized bed which faced a window through which there was a view of the mighty Himalayas. She immediately captured and declared the second floor hers and invited some of her friends up. 

Since it was very cold and the treacherous winds invaded by coming inside from the nooks and corners of the villa, so they called the reception and arranged three room heaters. She was very excited about tomorrow's detour for  sightseeing the Mountain range. Amanda quickly jumped back to bed and was fast asleep while the others played card games until midnight.

She woke to the sounds of the rustling of leaves of trees outside her window and checked her watch. It screamed late to her, it was four thirty in the evening already and looked outside only to be relived that she was no more in the American time zone. She checked her phone and switched time zones, she saw that it was five am. 

She ripped the sheets off the bed and almost slipped while rushing down the stairs. when she reached down, she screamed only to see the angry faces of the rest of the girls who were annoyed that she had woken them so early. Since they were already up, they decided to get ready for the day and rushed to the bathroom.

 All the girls were ready by five forty five am and headed out to the reception. They got to know that they were spot on on the time as the Himalayas looked their best during sunrise and sunset. They also got to know that they had the facility to use cycles and had twelve of them in store. The girls quickly rushed to the store and took the cycles for a ride into the sun.