The Lustful Self-Deception

 “Beltola, Beltola......Paltan.....”, the grumpy words of the handyman sounded all over as I made a rushing entry into the city bus and placed myself on the last seats. He was a little fellow and his rapid blabber seemed more like a pandit rhyming his mantras during a bhagwat-puja. It was a dusty noon of a typical scorching summer Sunday and the usual long wait of the bus in the Jalukbari stop made me sigh. All faces inside, being bluffed by a number of tricky initiations of the engine, desperately awaited the finally sure start of the journey.

“Where will you go, Baideu?” the little handyman asked looking at someone outside.

“Panbazaar”, she responded with the softest of tones aided by a sweet soothing voice. My eyes flavoured her slow casual steps through the two mini stairs at the back door of the bus. She let her black glossy eyes roam all over to mumble her flaccid red lips, “Damn it....not a single empty seat!”

Jeez!!! She was pretty. She was white but not that snowy. Some strips of her long straight hair fell out to disturb her angel face, and she brushed them back with those tender fingers of her beautiful soft hand. She stood in the midst of other blurry figures and her black eyes revealed an adorable innocence and a caring concern. A red top over her lovely ups and lustrous skin, a skin-tight jeans that shaped out her timid limbs, a pair of heels dressing her tiny feet, two small but shining ear rings, one each pierced into the lower flaps of her two cute ears, a pink bangle on her right wrist, a lady bag on her left shoulder and an ecstatic scent of the perfume that breezed out from her appealing sexy body, presented a heavenly beauty that made me forget the steaming heat of the sun in a moment.

The conductor disturbed my thirsty thoughts, “Please Bhai.” He said holding out a hand as he signalled for the fare.

“One, Panbazaar.” I handed a five rupee note and said, a bit louder attempting to pinch her ears with the mention of the place she was going. But she was unmoved. She looked desperate for something else. May be, she was late for something, a birthday party, a movie perhaps. Or maybe, If I could help you with anything, I thought as if she was noticing me concerned about her. Though she looked tensely engrossed in the mysterious reason of hers, the density of her strained expressive face, the sigh on the one side bent juicy lips, rapid breaths of her sweet nose and the glitter of her artistic eyes, threw at me a lusty attraction.

Hi, I am Avinash, what’s your name beautiful? I practiced thoughtfully, a number of times, about how to start a conversation when we reach our stoppage. Not only that, her lovely reactions to my teasing, lists of dates featuring our unending romances, my precious gifts to her, my passionate kisses savouring the honey all over her and even our nervous first night together flashed in my eager mind. The human mind, I say it’s the most complicated thing ever built. It’s amazing, viewing the fact how it relates two complete unknown strangers so closely, just in a fraction of time.

Finally, the bus reached Panbazaar. She hurried past everyone to get down, while I followed behind, holding my nerve streams and planning to produce a fruitful result of the conversation which I had vehemently awaited during the whole journey. I opened out my mouth to say the words, but they suddenly stopped somewhere in the middle of my throat as my eyes structured a situation, I had never actually hoped about its possibility.

A boy about my age adored her welcome. She smiled at him and exclaimed how sorry she was for the late arrival. He held her hand gently and the couple walked away laughing about something that seemed very special to them.

There was I, still standing and thinking how my soliloquy had deceived me. It just took a second once again to feel about coming to my real life again. What a world, I was in a moment ago! I felt. I lit a cigarette and smilingly puffed out a tiny cloud of smoke, “Fuck......!!”

The Road Left

Of the night that serves the demoral soup,
As if nothing, I am standing sick.
The darkness leaking in every nook,
Hearty confessions of the road, my limbs did lick.
A smile with a sigh comes across;
 It's only that tempts me to the old rhythm,

Concealing the vices that arrives in gross
That's the bitter truth I bear within.
A casual walk won't do it now.
Its time I curtailed my acidic laments
And crammed the stanzas how
To abort the memories of the undying moments.
My insane mind finds out a way,
Where no nightingales' entertain
And a voice inside longs to say
That destiny destines the destination of man.

A smoke on the corridor bench

A winter midnight creeps in,

An army of dogs that howls aloud;

Breaks the silence of the night of mine,

Where I sit on the corridor bench with baba beside.

Hellish beats of the heart

Pierces my orgasmic mind,

And nervy streams of my hand flatters me

To lift the delicately lying little baba.

Ah! The smell I say its

Like the one I have lusted for ages.

It says, “May I come in?”

As I place it on my dry rusted lips.

So it goes flushing through my throat inside

Like a sea where hellions bathe.

But kills every agony of me inside

During its gracious return.

I open my red swollen eyes.

A cold breeze slaps away my face

And spot the peck of light from a distant hill.

And I say to myself

“What a night it’s been tonight!”

Where I still lay on the corridor bench with baba beside.

A Night's Painting

Midnight crept as the old painter stood staring at his old masterpieces that had amazed innumerable minds decades ago. His trembling right hand held a peg of whiskey and his rusted lips supported a burning cigarette. A worn out coat, an old pyjama and a pair of chappals covered his thin bony figure and his eyes traversed every nook and corner of his art gallery which was once the most famous centre of exhibition in the city. Pausing by the "The Bridge", he tried to recollect the fortune that was showered on to him and most importantly his fabulous life that prevailed during those days.
These daily observations were not unusual for him. But that day was different. It was the day of his anniversary and to his utmost regret his wife had left him thirty years ago. Tears rolled down his cheeks as he gulped a shot and looked his most favourite work, "Beauty of a Lifetime" which depicted her, ornamented with the lovely ring he gifted in their wedding. Her demise arrived in exchange of every little joy in his life as a merciless fate was bestowed upon him. Every time he thought about the sudden trajectory, every time it killed him inch by inch. He also seemed to have lost his smooth elegant touch with the brush that existed earlier, while various new painters conquered the minds of the customers. In spite of all his loss, she left behind one their precious creations to take of, their own little son.
Releasing a heavy puff, he roared a hard cough and a pile of memories of their happy little family ran through him without permission. He recovered from his shattered mind and gave a smile as he remembered his dreams of his son emerging to be a better painter than his father and in fact the best ever in the world. Like him, the little one too had the early knack of brushing out landscapes, portraits and antiques with ease.
"Father, I got first in the inter-school!" the boy from the fourth class yelled with excitement and playfully swung the medal around. He kissed his son on the forehead and said, "I am proud of you, my boy."
"One day I'll use your brush and canvas to make the greatest painting in the world", the little one replied.
But his sunny days were short lived. A few weeks later fate sung the rhyme of an adverse prelude by taking away his love forever, leaving him bewildered and damaged. This left his son astonished too. One could hardly imagine the effect of losing one's mother at such a small age. Though he continued, his paintings seemed to yield little of the earlier juice in them that attracted his fans. Sometimes he would remain lonely for hours engrossed in contradictory thoughts. Wealth started to degrade rapidly and it became difficult for him to sustain his normality. His son grew up gradually to a teen, then to a young person, but in all these years he never took to his father's profession by the core of his heart. The boy got curtailed in the bad winds of the city and the little artist in him got erased bit by bit, which deeply agonized his father.
Sometimes he would make his son sit with him explaining the ideologies of the world and how he should take to his artistic view of life. But it resulted in vain as he had to search for the distracted soul for days only to find him smoking weed in the vulgar corners. He was in debt, struck by disease and hardly could make his two ends meet. If only, his son could aid him with the slightest possible contribution. But still, the man loved him because he was the only left gem, his only little son in his remaining life. He hoped that his boy would soon step into his shoes and fulfil his dream. His disease had made him weaker day by day and a consolation from his son was the last thing he wished for.
A cold breeze made the old man shiver to his tender bones and suddenly arose from all these distant memories. His empty whiskey bottle flushed disappointment in him. Drunken thoughts powered the trembling hand to grasp a flat brush. He soaked it deep in the grey bowl of color and stroke it in the blank white canvas for another night's paint.
"Father", he whispered, "Wake up Father ', the boy screamed shaking the old man's shoulder. Shocked, he stood, he saw that the lean body in the chair had turned cold, his father was no more.
Dropping on his knees he held him tightly and glanced at the painting that lied against his dead father. A tear drop twinkled down his face as he saw the little one kissed by his father.
He rose gently lifting the brush from the frozen hand and soaked it. Slowly he went up to where he had always tried for but couldn't, and laid the first stroke on his father's canvas.