Brewing Romance

Pic Courtesy : https://stock.adobe.com/
Written by : Abhisek Pattnaik

“Mari Mari Kothaga Ni Jatha..”
The song played in the background as it drizzled outside. I didn’t understand Telegu but somehow this one was making perfect sense to me. There are certain songs that remain with you forever. Isn’t it? I had heard this song for the first time when I was in her room to help her move certain items. She was my friend’s girlfriend. And I fell for her like a dried leave; having no option but to fall. And when you are in Love, it makes you do stupid things. Isn’t it? Guess, now that I look back I won’t be able to assess, which one happened first. The falling in love or the stupidity that allowed me to fall.

“Knock, knock”.

I opened the door to the surprise of her presence there. The very sight of her was keeping me content those days. And there she was in her orange salwar. She must have taken a shower, as only her long hair seemed recently towel dried. Her dark circles were somehow making her Irish Brown eyes even more beautiful.

She smiled looking at my speaker bar that was playing the song; maybe acknowledging my fondness for her without saying a word.
“Tea”, she asked.
We shared the same building only separated by a single floor. We had become good friends by now to seek each other’s company for tea. Five minutes into it, we were sitting on the balcony with the speaker by our side; a cup of tea in our hands to witness the dusky sky grew darker as the evening skies of Kolkata continue to drizzle.

“I didn’t know, you like this song as well”, she said allowing herself an idiosyncratic chuckle.
I couldn’t muster enough courage to look into her eyes. So instead I continued to look into my cup of tea and said “Even I found it out very recently “.

She didn’t say anything nor did I. We simply sat there enjoying each other’s presence. Guess, nothing explicit was ever meant to be said. Love can be many things for many people; each having their own idea for it. But, for me that was it. An evening with her on my balcony as it continued to play…

“Mari Mari Kothaga Ni Jatha..“

An Usual Morning

Image Copyright : Sushree Satapathy
Written by : Abhisek Pattnaik

It rained cats and dogs last night; the first shower of the season. I woke up to the cool morning breeze that was making its way through the window. The rain had washed off the dusts of the summer, making everything more colorful again.

Rain always manages to summon the artist in me; maybe it also manages to wash away the dust of my daily life. And what better artists enjoy than solitude. High on the freshness of air that had a scent of rain in it, I went out to the terrace, welcomed by the symphony of chirping birds and sat by the table on the rooftop, that my landlady had discarded; with a cup of tea and a lit cigarette to accompany me.

A flock of pigeons on the building across the road were taking their baths, in the water pool collected on the rooftop from last night’s shower; while a conspicuously large pigeon sat on the half done, unattended parapet wall, watching over them; giving an impression as if he was in charge of oversight for this flock of pigeons to take proper baths.It brought me a smile, bringing me back memories of my childhood days; memories of my boarding school, the morning PT classes and our beloved PT teacher.

I was in Navodaya and those of you who are not aware of it, it’s a chain of Government sponsored boarding schools in India. We had our days meticulously divided, from morning till night; Sundays used to be an exception of course. And our days would start with the PT classes that I absolutely loathed. As an avid sleeper, I understood from childhood the beauty of sleeping in the morning hours, which the PT classes weren’t allowing me to have anymore. But, having given the option of attending morning PT verses caning from my PT teacher, I had opted for sacrificing my morning sleep most of the time. The morning yoga classes, the occasional tracking to nearby hills, the preparatory days before cluster meets for sports events that allowed us to play instead of the regular drills and our occasional intermittently successful attempts to escape from the drills after the attendance: it all came flushing in.

“Wouldn’t I absolutely love to relive those days. Maybe a single day to wake up in those bunker beds to the siren of morning PT; reserving taps with our towels for baths; standing in cues for breakfast; a fake fainting act to skip the morning assembly if it’s too sunny; stealing a glance from my childhood crush…. Oh! The list is just endless.”

My tea was over by now. So were the ceremonial baths of that flock of pigeons. Taking a smile on my face I came back to my room of routines. “Time for some dose of reality now.”