COLD (Written on 18th April 2021 @2030hrs for the #Fridayword prompt)

Goli Soda was barely 10 but he had perceived the world around him in a solid way.
He was as unique as his name. Obviously an orphaned child, was picked by a street side vendor who sold goli soda. Goli soda is a type of drink that is available in the country side of India where the soda is bottled in a dark green bottle that has a marble at the neck holding the gas inside. You press the marble in to relish the drink.
These are usually lugged around In a huge ice box on a bicycle cart with the bottles lined up and the seller drags the opener along the lined up bottles making a peculiar sound that announces his arrival to the neighbourhood.

So Goli Soda was a wee bit excited today. This was the week where the orphanage would have prospective foster parents to come and pick them for adoption. He was reaching the age limit beyond which one would not choose to adopt him. Strange is the human thought process, he thought to himself.

He heard the commotion at the registration desk and figured that the first batch of parents must have arrived. He ran across the street to get a gunny bag full of ice.
He got it and put it in the bucket in his bathroom and dunked himself in the ice. His room mates were astonished at his behaviour and were perplexed.

He suggested his friends to do so as well.

He explained he had seen in many people’s phones something called an ice bucket challenge. Where they poured buckets of ice on themselves. When he enquired, he was told that was the cool thing trending then.

Also, whenever he saw the customers ask for water or soda at any shop, they would insist on it being “Cold”. Hence, he thought if the parents would ask for a child, they would want the child to be Cool or Cold, Hence the need to dunk himself in the ice. So, he could be delivered “COLD” to his foster parents.

BLACK (written on 23rd April 2020 @1730hrs)

Tip tap tippity tap. Tappity tappity tip tip tap. Srrrrrrrrrrrrrr Tching.

Silence….

…

The dark horse, the underdog had just stepped out of his bed. Just that he did not know all these hidden qualities yet. Today, he was a colourful and flamboyant personality but only visually.

He had yet to develop the charm and charisma to win over the world.

This had been Aarav’s routine. He would wake up. Go to the door. Collect the milk packets and newspaper. Throw the newspaper on the centre table and keep the milk packets in the chiller tray of his refrigerator. Take the older packet out and put it out for boiling in the milk cooker that would whistle to alert the job done.

He would then move to the washroom for his daily hygiene routine. Exactly by the time he would be done brushing, the milk cooker would cry for his attention. He would turn the gas knob off and head to the shower.

Once done, he would come out and start his multi-tasking routine. He would toast his two slices of bread, prepare a double egg omelette along with his morning Masala Chai – all this while getting dressed. Complete with the necessary dash of deo-spray and a few drops of attar at necessary and appropriate places i.e., on the back of his palms, his inner wrists and behind his earlobes.

Finally, with the cup of chai in his hand, he would go and dedicate a good two and a half minutes in front of the mirror to admire himself.

He would be dressed in bright colours. As was his alleged personality. Usually, his trousers and shirt colours would match and made out of the same fabric piece. 

Bright yellow, parrot green OR Pink with blue borders. He would sometimes add a fluorescent scarf to the equation – When he felt like accentuating his presence or had an intention to intimidate his opponent.

Once done admiring himself sufficiently, he would get his dose of daily gossip from the daily tabloid while he nibbled on his breakfast. Eventually it would be time for him to step out. He had a customized checklist. 

He would do a SHAKE just before he would open the door and step out. 

This SHAKE would remind him of S for Sunglasses, H for Handkerchief, A for his Accessories, K for Keys and E for his E-cigarette.

He would open the door with all his confidence and a blinding white light would beam in his eyes and he could see nothing beyond. His day would get reset. The next thing he remembered was waking up again and continuing the above routine. Day after day like he was stuck in a time-loop. This had been going on for a few years now.

And then one day, as he opened the door and stepped out, he finally saw something other than the Blinding White Light. The colour he had been waiting for. BLACK.

He was a character from an author’s imagination. But after creating the character profile, the author had passed away suddenly. His son had apparently now taken it upon himself to complete this story. The BLACKink tippity tapping on the old typewriter had come back in Aarav’s life to rescue him from the Time-Loop that he was stuck in.Tip tap tippity tap. Tappity tappity tip tip tap. Srrrrrrrrrrrrrr Tching.

The Little Storyteller (written on 14th April 2020 @2354hrs for the DYWT Anthology)

Chapter 1: Debut

The lobby design was very unusual. One of the walls had vibrant colours and was kaleidoscopic.

The main wall was a dull grey with a receptionist counter so high, you could barely see the person sitting on the other side. The third wall had a spiral hypnotic design that could suck you in, if you kept staring at it. It was sort of eerie too. The entrance was through that wall, yet after coming in, you couldn’t tell, where the door was. The fourth wall was all glass and faced the vast expanse of green lawns with a few trees scattered here and there. There was a lot of action out there on the lawns, but one could hear nothing. The visual cacophony had an element of drama to it.

Little Nina was nervous. She had just turned 10. This was her first day here.

She tried hard, not to get distracted by the three walls and keenly focused on observing the activities outside.

After a while, a man walked in and greeted Nina with a half-hearted smile.

He was in his late seventies. He was wearing denims paired with a checkered Red shirt and rimless glasses. He sported thick brows and a nice thin neatly maintained moustache on his dark lips but a receding hairline on his head.

Just as he was about to talk, he was interrupted by a security guard.

Nina heard him say, “Sir, we have a situation”. The man left with the security guard without saying anything to Nina leaving her to wait again.

After a few more minutes, the elderly man returned with another middle-aged man and said, “Ojas, see if you can get Tish to spend some time with Adi. We can’t let her spend more time with Wendy and throw away our efforts so easily. She has potential. She just needs a little more work.

Ojas responded, “But isn’t Adi too young to mentor Tish?”

“Yes, but his focus is a rare thing these days. We sadly don’t have anyone with those qualities in Tish’s age group. Ok listen, I’ve got a recruit here.” He said pointing at Nina.

“Let me attend to her and then we’ll talk about this in detail later.” He concluded.

And then as if he remembered something, turned around and asked,

“Ojas, do we have anything “FOR” or “FROM” ‘The other guys’?”

The man named Ojas simply shook his head and walked away.

The elderly gentleman finally came up and said, “Hi, I’m Praveen. You must be Nina.”

She nodded. She was about to speak but was not given a chance.

Praveen continued, “Come along and let’s get you started”.

Nina did not understand Praveen’s body language. He did this whole thing so mechanically.

There was absolutely no respect for her anxiety, enthusiasm or energy whatsoever.

She presumed the exchange before their interaction to be the reason for his behaviour.

Whatever the case, she chose not to speak and to simply go along.

They walked across the reception desk. The person sitting beyond the desk did not bother to look up and was busy with something. They now went towards the wall with the hypnotic design. Nina was quickly trying to spot a door but before she could figure it out, she found herself on the other side of the wall.

Praveen continued in a very matter-of-fact tone, “Nina, this is the first room, where we keep a database of all the entries”.

As they kept walking, they crossed different segments separated by such thin walls, felt like they almost did not exist, but they were there, nevertheless.

“This is the second room, where the coding happens. – They check the compatibility of all entries received in the previous room”. Both these rooms were full of workers across all age-groups. It looked like they were doing their jobs half-heartedly.

They then walked across to the next room, which had far fewer workers, also in all age groups.

The people in this room, were fairly focussed though.

“Here is where the programs are executed after all the initial checks are completed. Very few get to this stage. A lot of entries either get eliminated in the first two stages or are too vague and incapable of executions”, continued Praveen.

They took a turn and came to a long corridor with too many doors. Some had doorknobs but others had keyholes. A very few had electronic RFID and Biometric locks attached. And surprisingly although the corridor looked symmetrical, the doors were of differing sizes.

Nina assumed that she will have to choose from one of the doors. But before she could react, yet again, Praveen took over and led the way. He placed his eyes in front of one of the retina-scanners and a huge door right in front of them opened and brought them to the vast expansive lawn that she had seen from behind the glass wall. She felt awesome here. There was too much noise in contrast to her experience from inside.

People really looked busy and were enjoying whatever it was that they were doing. Each one was doing something different. There were some age inappropriate activities that she spotted but quickly turned away to avoid any embarrassment on her first day. She looked at Praveen to see if she was busted already. Looked like he was not paying attention and was busy trying to avoid someone’s attention.

But within a few seconds, this man walked up to him and said, “Yo ol’man. What up? Giving your usual tour to the recruit? When will you spend some time with us? We can have some fun man. You gotta loosen up a bit.”

Praveen ignored him, turned towards Nina, pulled her by the arm and walked a few steps away and said. “Did you know, we were observing you while you were waiting in the lobby – even before I was interrupted by the security guard? That’s why I was late to come out and meet you.”

The man interrupted, “Yo, I’m talkin to you ol’man. Don’t show no disrespect”.

“Not now Wendell”, retorted Praveen.

He looked at Nina and continued from where he’d left off before the interruption, “And I noticed, you were far more observant towards this crowd. Very unfortunate.

I know you’ll end up here anyway but it’s my duty to tell that you should be avoiding this the most. This area and whatever happens here is completely against what this organization stands for.

Well, that’s for another time. Let me take you to your training centre now.”

They turned back to walk through the door they got in. Suddenly a small secluded section caught Nina’s attention. This section had the most angelic looking cute babies. The kids were smiling away to glory and were engrossed in what looked like some meaningful discussions but all in gibberish.

Nina and Praveen eventually reached the long corridor again.

This time, Praveen used a key from his pockets to open one of the other doors that led them to the Training Centre.

“Nina, this is where you begin the training.” Suddenly, there was a zing to his tone and for the first time Nina felt welcome in his voice and body language. Nina quickly looked around. It looked like a huge classroom, but very shabby and not maintained well. She saw many kids of her age-group here and all were engrossed in some routine looking tasks.

The trainees were all sitting in rows.

One row was picking dirty canvases from a conveyor belt and washing the colours off and passing it to the next one.

The second row would do some sort of chemical treatment and were passing it on to the next row. The third row was repainting the canvas in pristine white colour and passing it to the next row.

Here on, the rows would split.

Some would create a background; some would add basic colours and then pass on.

The next group would add elements to the canvas and eventually the last group would complete the new painting.

And it went finally to the row of seniors / mentors who would inspect the refurbished canvas and certify acceptance or rejection.

Accepted ones were being dumped in a box called, “Dispatch”.

The rejected ones were being dumped on the conveyor belt that would take it back to the first row for cleaning – all over again.

Praveen said, “I’ll introduce you to your senior here. It usually takes about 4 to 5 years before the regulars step out into the other rooms that we walked through.

Within those years, you may well grow in ranks within these rows.

There have been some bright students who graduated sooner, but eventually ended up in the expanse with Wendy – The Wanderer and Tish. They did not make it to the Coding or Execution rooms like Adi will.

You’ve met Wendy briefly, but you haven’t met Tish or Adi yet.

I sincerely hope you don’t spend time with Tish and that you spend more time with Adi.

He has been a rare find these days. Sort of a prodigy.

I sincerely wish you will make a difference and take this organization to the level it really deserves to be at.”

They walk over to the Floor Supervisor who was busy talking to another student.

“Purti”, Praveen called. “Meet Nina. Your new student.”

“Hi there Nina. A very warm welcome to this beautiful Training Centre. You look so full of charm. Let’s work together to cook up some magic, what say?”. She said with a certain affection in her voice. Nina felt lucky to have Purti as her Trainer and secretly was thanking God that it was not the relatively hostile Praveen.

“Thank you Purti ma’am, I’m excited to be here and I’ll do my best”, said Nina.

Realizing that these were the first few words she had uttered since her arrival here.

She turned around to thank Praveen, but he had left already.

Chapter 2: Repetition and Routine

“Ashu – won’t you do anything you promise? C’mon girl. When will you start helping me? I’m going nuts here.” Yelled Poorna and she continued as she stormed out of Tejaswini’s room. That was her name, but she would be called anything by her parents. Poorna would call her Ashu (as in short for aswini from within Tejaswini), Tejas, her father would call Wini and of course many other cajoling names depending on their mood.

Tejaswini could still hear her mom faintly as she walked away, “Adwait ko school mein chhodke aai na maushi?” (she was checking with her maid if she had dropped her son, Adwait to the school?)

Tejaswini got ready and was at the breakfast table in no time. Half-impressed, Poorna said, “what about the morning work-sheet, Ashu? You always skip that. You’re now getting older and your syllabus will have more as you go to higher grades. Your fun and frolic days will have to wait for a few years now. You must change gears beta. Else, you will not end up being a responsible individual.”

While Tejaswini knew these words almost verbatim by now, she barely understood the essence of what was being said. She would soon be in her 6^th grade and has been hearing these words for the last 6 odd months. They would be sprung at her in variations and at random places and contexts.

She quickly gulped down the paratha in her plate and stood by the door to be stormed out towards her school bus.

“Tejas, hurry up and drop Ashu to the bus stop please”, said Poorna.

While waiting at the bus-stop, Tejas held his daughter’s hand, looked at her and said, “Wini, you’re a big girl now. This is where we would expect you start practicing what you love. And we are. Still trying to figure out what you love? We’ve given you all the exposure we can. There are many kids out there who are not so privileged. Let alone the others, we weren’t as privileged. We didn’t have the plethora of choices that are spread out in front of you. The world is only getting more competitive now.”

Tejaswini was silently mouthing these words too but was busy looking for someone to rescue her from this unsolicited sermon from her father.

“Hi Trishna didi”, she yelled, broke loose of her father’s grip and ran towards Trishna.

This teenager was her bus companion from her housing complex.

“Bye Dadda”, she said and got busy in some hushed conversations with Trishna.

Tejas smilingly shook his head and walked back home.

Poorna had just plonked herself on the couch with her cup of coffee as Tejas returned.

“Did you talk to her? Did you knock some sense into your girl’s head?” asked Poorna as she sipped on her morning cuppa.

“Poorna, she’s just a small kid. You’re overshooting here. Don’t fall prey to the peer pressure.” Replied Tejas. “Maybe too many choices are not helping her focus. Could we cut down on her number of classes and let her stick to one or two activities a week,” he continued.

“Tej – it’s not like I’m comparing her to the other kids. But she’s certainly slow. Isn’t that bothering you?” asked Poorna with a certain concern in her voice.

“Poorna, maybe you think you’re not comparing. Ok, maybe you’re not comparing her to the other kids of her age. But you are most certainly comparing her to your own childhood. You are pushing her to do things you could not do in your childhood. That too is harmful, if it is overdone.”

“When did we drift apart in our parenting styles Tej? When did that change gears”? asked Poorna in a very soft tone.

Tejas went close to Poorna, gave her a tight hug and sat snugly beside her on the couch and started to stroke her hair gently. He said, “Poorni, what was your dream when you were Wini’s age?”

She looked up in his eyes and said in a naughty tone, “I wanted to be the Best Mom in the world. And You’re not allowing me to” Saying that, she pushed Tejas and sprang up from the couch. “Now, get ready and get lost. Don’t you have to go to work today?”

Tejas got ready and was about to close the door and leave when he turned back and said, “Poorni, you know what, we were pushed into the rat race and we fell in line. We did not really have BIG Dreams. Did we? Our dreams entailed of material possessions and we did what we did to accumulate those.

We must teach Wini to dream yaar and then of course to chase those dreams.”

He said that, closed the door and left without waiting for Poorna’s response.

She completed her response nevertheless, “I did have Dreams before marriage Tejas – Big Dreams. But then Marriage happened and Ashu happened. My dreams were lost. I wouldn’t say they were sacrificed because I made some choices too. Those dreams still haunt me sometimes, but I guess I’ve given up on them for now. I don’t want Ashu to go down that path. I really hope you understand that”. Her eyes got moist as she realized she was talking to a closed door.

In the bus, Tejaswini was sitting with Trishna didi. Trishna did not really like spending time or holding conversations with a much younger Tejaswini, she would rather fantasize about the boys from her school or cook up excuses to get away from home so that she could spend more time with the boys.

However today, Tejaswini had received two earfuls from her mom and dad.

She needed to vent out. She had many questions to ask her. “Why do you think our parents pester us so much? Why can’t they leave us alone? Is it a crime if we are not like them or grow exactly as they ask us to? They keep giving references of their childhood or their friends. There’s this Leo Uncle who mom keeps referring to. He’s Dadda’s friend but I don’t think mom likes him very much. She keeps telling me I’ll end up like him if I don’t pay attention to studies and attend all those classes every single day. You’re at least 4 years older to me. What do you want to be when you grow up? Have you figured it out yet?” When she looked up to Trishna, she was lost in her own world, bobbing her head to a tune coming from her earphones.

A dejected Tejaswini looked out the window. She closed her eyes after meaninglessly staring at the all the chaos on the road.

Tejaswini really loved to tell stories. In any form, visual or prose. She could create fantastic cartoon characters and would keep drawing away in her rough books. She had written some short stories as well. But the first time her mother saw those drawings, she got yelled at. The next time she tried telling those stories to her Dad, she was asked to focus on her Tae-Kwando, Basketball and Guitar practice. She did like to play her Guitar and Basketball, but she’d love to do it when she felt like it and not three times a week or almost daily as was being prescribed.

Tejas’ words were lingering on Poorna’s mind. “We must teach Wini to dream yaar and then of course to chase those dreams”, he’d said.

“How do we teach her something we don’t know well ourselves?” she wondered. But she’d decided to give it a shot anyway.

Tejaswini was relatively upbeat upon her return. Poorna was a bit relieved to see that.

She gave her a glass of water and enquired her routine set of questions, “Did you finish your lunch? Or would you eat that now? Or do you want something else?”

Ashu nodded and said, she’d finished her lunch but would love to have a little bit of anything interesting at home.

Poorna blurted out the next question involuntarily, “any home assignments today?”

Ashu rolled her eyes. This repetition of series of questions had now become a routine.

She picked her bag and responded as she walked towards her room to change,

“No mom. Can I take a quick nap after eating? I have my Tae-Kwando classes in the evening. I’ll need some energy”.

It was Poorna’s time to roll her eyes now. “Only thirty minutes”, she responded.

Chapter 3: Experience Matters

Nina found herself at the vast expanse where she’d seen all sorts of chaotic activities.

She tripped and almost slipped a few flight of stairs. She did not remember these stairs from her last visit. She was jolted for a while but soon calmed herself and started to look around.

A few of them were jumping up and down a giant trampoline. Some of them were playing with their dogs.

She thought she saw someone familiar at a distance but could not place him.

She walked closer only to find Wendell. She remembered him from the bothersome conversation Praveen had with this man. It was too late for her to turn away. Wendell spotted her too. He was with a few other people. Yet, he excused himself and approached Nina with a huge bucket of ice cream. He extended the bucket towards her and said, “Friends?”

Nina was unsure but ice cream was Nina’s weakness. She suddenly heard her favourite song being played in the background. She turned around to see a band practicing and they were pretty good at it too. She thought, this was a sign.

She stretched her hands to accept the ice cream bucket and before she could even touch it, Praveen whisked her away. He turned to Wendell and yelled, “Wendy, how dare you? You know you’re not supposed to do that? She is young and untrained, But not you. What’s wrong with you? Why did you become like this? Had you tried a little more, you’d have been one of our finest. You could have been a role model to the new generation. I would have proudly let you mentor them. But look at you. You’re now one of the wanderers. No discipline whatsoever. You are actually disturbing the equilibrium and sanctity of this sacred institution.”

Wendell simply smirked, shrugged his shoulders, took back the extended hand with the ice cream bucket in it and said, “Ya’ll won’t never understand ol’man. Que sera sera.” And he wandered off.

Praveen knelt down, looked her straight in the eye and said, “Nina, there’s nothing to learn here. You’ve got to focus on your training and stay with Purti and the other students. There’s a lot of canvases to clean and re-work on. If you don’t do it now and continue to come here, you’ll end up like Tish and Wendy. They were both, my protégés.

They had almost graduated as the Best students but gave up mid-way and ended up here in the vast nothingness. Despite being extremely good at coding and executing, they just gave up. I do not want to see you become like them. If you are good at the canvases and coding and executing them, not only can you graduate yourself, but you can make more so we can sell it to the others. And heaven knows we are short on production there. We barely make it for our own students. At his current rate, Adi shows a lot of promise. We’ve been able to sell some of his works. And I really could use more hands and funds to keep this place running. We also support our sister concern that almost always relies on us collectively.”

 Nina saw pain in Praveen’s eyes and found him a wee bit vulnerable. She found the courage to speak up this time. “I understand Sir. I want to do my best. There are times when I feel like taking a break. But I see your concern and I promise you; I won’t let you down. By the way, what sister concern were you referring to sir?”, she asked.

Praveen composed himself, a little relieved by Nina’s response, he said – “Oh that. It’s called the Hum…”

He was interrupted by someone. It was probably the guy behind the reception desk. Nina couldn’t tell. But Praveen just looked at Nina and said, ‘go back and report to Purti, I’ll see you around” and walked away with the other guy.

Nina kept her gaze fixed on Praveen till he disappeared behind the huge reception desk.

At that moment, she felt an arm around her shoulder. She turned to find a girl standing right behind her. She looked at her inquisitively.

The girl figured out her look and said, “I’m Tish.”

“Ah!” said Nina.

Tish continued, “Listen, you don’t have to do everything that Praveen Sir says. This vast expanse exists for a reason. Else, this place would not have been created right? Get trained and all but do come here as well. You must meet the Wanderers. You must experience this. If you don’t, your lessons wouldn’t be complete. You’ll know when and where to use these lessons with your regular training. This is equally important. There’s a lot of funding that goes from here underground to the other sister concern that Praveen sir was mentioning. He just does not know that.”

Nina was perplexed with so much information.

She ended up uttering, “you eavesdropped on our conversation? Isn’t that bad manners Tish?”

Tish ignored Nina’s snide remark and continued, “The only thing you have to worry about is ‘distraction’. That damn thing is dangerous in your training as well as in experiencing the wanderers.

But do remember, Experience matters”. And she ran away in another direction.

She stood there for a while, this time moving her attention to the kaleidoscope, wondering about its presence there, if everything here had a reason.

She did not realize when she got transfixed to the vibrant colours on display.

Eventually, Purti had to come out, shake her off and take her back to the workshop.

Purti started her course, “Nina, you may be surprised but this is not your first time here. You’ve spent some time in the secluded open space outside the lobby. Just that you wouldn’t remember anything. Whatever the kids there do, gets painted on a canvas. The first two steps in this room are to clean and chemically delayer the canvas so that we create a blank new canvas for re-use by the likes of you.

The next step after cleaning, would be adding the basic elements and pastel colours. Preparing for the proverbial ‘Big Picture’, which gets tested for coding and execution.”

Purti continued as she walked towards the front of the hall, “It is very important to focus on the first two processes. Any traces of impurity can hamper the second stage and eventually the whole picture. Which is why, wandering in the vast now is NOT a good idea. I’m sure Tish told you that it is ok to go there every now and then.”

She turned and looked straight in Nina’s eyes and sternly asserted,

“But there’s a time for it and that time is NOT NOW.”

Chapter 4: Action Time

Tejaswini almost jumped out of her bed when she saw her mom up close to her face in the process of waking her up from her afternoon nap.

It felt like her mom’s eyes were popping out of the sockets and falling on her.

“I’m keeping an eye on you girl”, joked Poorna.

“Mom!”, said Tejaswini in a typical irritated sound.

“Don’t do that. You scared me. I hate waking up like this. Most moms cuddle their kids and wake them up so sweetly and you decide to Monster Mom me”.

They both laughed and went out towards the dining area to enjoy their honey lemon water together. This had been their mother-daughter ritual. The 4:30 pm drink.

This was the right time to strike up a conversation about Tejas’ suggestion. While Poorna was preparing her next few words, Tejaswini asked, “Mom, why do you not like Leo Uncle? Isn’t he one of Dad’s good friends? Yet you give his examples for things that I shouldn’t be doing”.

Poorna was startled at this direct question. She wasn’t prepared for such conversations with her grown up baby. Although she expected Ashu to behave like a big girl, she herself hadn’t let go of the image of her baby.

“Uh, well, you know.” She stuttered and was struggling to respond.

Tejaswini sensed her mom’s discomfort. She said, “it’s ok Mom, you don’t have to answer that. I guess I’ll figure it out when I grow older, like most other things.”

The last few words felt like a dagger piercing Poorna. She went numb for a while. While her hand and mouth automatically coordinated to sip on her drink, internally her mind was thinking on various fronts. Is this an opportunity? Is this where we start to have proper conversations? And then suddenly, she found her courage and said, “Ashu, no. I insist I’ll answer that question. Look, it’s not that Leo Uncle is not a good man. He is the most amazing gentleman we’ve known. Just that he is not a role model for most youngsters for various reasons. Nothing bad again. No vices but somehow something about him is not right. Either that or we haven’t understood him. So, it’s better to maintain a certain distance with relatively unknown features. That’s all.”

Tejaswini sat there completely blank. Staring squarely at her mom. She heard a lot of words coming out of her mouth but could barely make any sense of it.

Poorna realized, this was too much for a soon-to-be 6^th grader. She clicked her tongue to the typical ‘tch’ sound and re-started, “Beta, we like to hang out with him but he’s not someone whom we can tell kids of your age, you should be like him one day. Does that make sense?”

“A little” said Tejaswini.

Poorna tried to connect this with the topic she’d been waiting to broach, “Ashu, when you sleep, you go to your dream land right? Do you remember anything from there?” she asked.

“I don’t think I remember them all mom. But I do have some recollection on some days, why?

Like the other day, we were all in Disney Land. Randomly Trishna Didi appeared. Even Leo Uncle was there”.

Poorna felt her conversation was drifting away, She tried to bring it back.

She said, “Ok good. So, there are two types of dreams, One that you either remember or don’t, Then there are some dreams that won’t let you sleep till you make them come true”.

Tejaswini gave another blank look.

“Hmmm”, said Poorna pondering for a while as she took some more sips of her Honey Lemon water. Then continued with renewed energy, “Ashu, remember how you have ‘Fill in the Blanks’ in your exercise books?

“Mhmm”, nodded Tejaswini.

“Good”, continued Poorna. “So, similarly when you wake up in the morning till you go back to bed at night, there may be so many things you believe that are missing in our lives. Like you always wanted a magic hand to brush your teeth for you?

You always wanted more friends to talk to and play with.

You always wanted your grandpa back.

You wished for a new dress every week.

You see there are so many blanks. There are some that cannot be filled. There are some that can be. You must figure out which ones you ‘CAN’ and which ones you’d ‘LIKE to FILL’?

Automatic brushing of one’s teeth is possible through Robotics.

Remember Adwait, our maushi’s son. He has signed up for Robotics classes recently through his school scholarship.”

“You know you should think about these things. Match them with what you really enjoy doing.

We just want you to focus enough so that once you figure out the blanks you want to fill in, you should be capable enough of doing it too.”

“Mom, can I say something?”, asked Tejaswini softly keeping her empty glass on the table.

“Sure Ashu, go ahead”, answered Poorna excitedly.

“I don’t know about the blanks. But I know I love to tell stories. Can you help me be capable to tell better stories or tell my stories better?”

Poorna was stumped with yet another direct attack, she wasn’t prepared for.

She decided to not react. She knew had to change her stance here but was not sure how to do it and took the usual escape route, “Ok. Let’s work on it together with Dadda. For now, chalo, it’s time for your Tae-Kwando classes. Go get ready and see if you can rinse your glass on your way out”. She winked at her daughter. Keeping them busy with tasks always did the trick. Or so she thought.

When Tejaswini had gone to her classes, Poorna was sitting by the window going over the conversation she had with her daughter. She was happy that a beautiful communication channel had opened up between them, but she was also nervous for she would not know the answers to so many questions that would come her way.

She decided to share this with Tejas so he could do some of the weightlifting too.

Tejas was baffled at the turn of events between his exit that morning and his return from work.

At the dinner table, he smiled at Poorna and said, “Where’s the princess? Asleep already? Ah! Must be the Tae-Kwando.”

He held Poorna’s hand and said, “I’m glad you changed your approach Poorni. We’re in it together. We’ll deal with it one day at a time, but we MUST teach her to DREAM. Dream BIG”.

Poorna said, “Our daughter’s chosen to ‘Tell Stories’ Tej. So, let’s be the wind beneath her wings to let her soar high.”

“Yes ma’am”, said Tejas.

Poorna held an imaginary megaphone to her mouth and said the next few words loud, “Lights, Camera, ACTION!”

Tejaswini was fast asleep in her room.

Chapter 5: Merging Worlds

Nina was at her desk in the third row already diligently sketching away. She did not know if there were kids around or if Purti was supervising at all. It just did not matter to her. She kept using a greater number of canvases than allocated and kept sketching cartoon characters on them instead of painting them white. She was completely engrossed. She did not notice Praveen standing behind her and watching her in action.

After a while, Praveen slowly placed his palm on Nina’s head and said, “Bless you my child”

Nina jumped up in reverence. “I’m sorry sir. I did not see you”.

“That’s perfectly alright my child”, said Praveen. “I’m glad to see you do well. Come, let’s go for a brief walk and talk session”.

Purti was dialing frantically on her phone at the corner of the workshop as she saw Nina leave with Praveen.

At the lobby Praveen said, “Nina! We haven’t had a good induction. What we had the first day was a half-hearted tour. Allow me to start afresh”.

Nina’s eyes shone with a sparkle and she looked at Praveen with eager anticipation.

Purti and Ojas came and stood next to Nina and said, “If you don’t mind sir, we’d like a revisit too.”

Nina was happy to see Purti and Ojas there and she felt a strange connection with Praveen at that moment.

“The first day, remember I told that you were being observed. I’ll explain what we look for.

These three walls, he said pointing at 1) The reception desk, 2) The Kaleidoscopic wall and 3) The Hypnotic wall, are our inner selves.

1. The receptionist behind the desk is our hidden inner voice. We can listen to it and also easily see the person behind, but we just have to put some effort. This person is quite simple but the most underestimated.
2. The Kaleidoscope represents the possibilities each of us have. It’s vibrant and very colourful. It’s only a matter of tapping within to reach out and do our best. And the only path is through the journey inwards. That happens through meditation.
3. That’s what the Hypnotic wall denotes.

We call these walls ‘The Internal’. We look for potentials who show interest in any of these walls.

But rarely does anyone do that these days. That’s totally fine though.

You showed a keen interest in ‘The Vast Expanse’ which is the 4^th wall,” he said pointing at the glass wall. “What we noticed is that you were very focused and observant. That explains what you did on the canvas today.

• The vast expanse denotes a feast to the sensory organs. What we call ‘The External’,” said Purti and Ojas in chorus too. Praveen looked at them and smiled in acknowledgement.

Nina looked a little confused. Praveen noticed that and said, “Just hear me out. You may NOT understand everything I say today, but this will register and will come handy at some point later in your life. As a matter of fact, that’s exactly why we get you here at a young age. But not very young. Your memory and other retention abilities begin to develop in and around the age of 8. But it takes a couple more years to become ready for this sort of moulding.”

He continued, “This process you all are getting trained on, is called

‘Dispassionate

 Recognition of

 Emotional

 Accountability

 Mechanism’

The acronym for which is DREAM. The ideas generated that are ‘Emotionally Accountable’ towards the larger society we live in, move to coding and execution stages. The more we have of those, we use them to fund our sister concern, called

‘Humbly wait for

Opportunity to

 Present itself

 Emphatically’

Also known as HOPE or what we call as ‘The Other Guys’. We sort of have an exchange program with them. Some Hopes fuel some Dreams and most Dreams fuel Hope at large.

The more we have of people like Adi and you, the more visible Role Models we create.

Eventually we’d have more dreams to sell and in turn have more ‘DREAMers’.

That’s what our organization stands for and strives for. We really lack this species now a days.

There are many dreamers out there. Those are the entries that get accumulated in the database. But most are not well thought through or are incapable of execution at least at that stage. Remember the crowded rooms with least focused people during your tour. Hence, needs a revisit. Yet again, most people don’t do that. They simply give up. You’d have people of all age groups here.

As a result of such half-hearted attempts, what we have in abundance now are the lazy Daydreamers, who are also called “The Wanderers”. They aimlessly keep dreaming without discipline and an action plan. They use the expanse as they wish. There are more short-term materialistic or physical ideas there. None of them dispassionate nor emotionally accountable. Not wrong to be there occasionally. But that cannot be “The DREAM”. You rather spend time on the ones where you can fund OR fuel Society’s HOPE.”

“So, Nina, I already see you’ve made a choice. Do come and visit the vast expanse for your observations and experiences, they’re important. But go back and work on your canvases or stories. They are beautiful.”

“May you have the power to create characters that are so inspirational, that they come to life through the inspired readers. God Bless you my child.”

And all of them, Praveen, Ojas, Purti and Nina got into a BIG HUG.

Nina’s face had the broadest smile on.

Next morning, Tejas and Poorna were happy watching Tejaswini smiling in her sleep. They both clutched their hands tighter in appreciation of aligning their parenting styles and seeing the results of just beginning the efforts.

Tejaswini woke up smiling and hugged her parents as soon as she saw them by her bed.

She said, “Dad, mom, I think I saw grandpa in my sleep. They called him Praveen in my Dreamland. We were all together in this Big lobby”.

I saw Trishna Didi, Leo Uncle and we also spoke about Adwait.

They were called Tish, Wendell and Adi there.

You know your names were Ojas and Purti.

And I was Nina.

Her father was stunned at the names she uttered.

He said, “Wini, do you even know the meanings of these names?”

Tejaswini shook her head while Poorna looked on with curiosity.

Tejas continued, “Nina means a ‘Little girl’ that is the Hope of LOVE.

And you truly are THAT my princess.

Praveen, your Grand Pa’s name, means ‘The Expert’ or ‘The Experienced’.

That’s how you perceive him probably.

Wendell literally means ‘The Wanderer’. And our interactions with Leo Uncle made you picture him that way.

Tish or short for Trishna that means ‘Mirage’ and you looked at it as a ‘Distraction’.

Adi or Adwait means ‘The One with no duality’. And your mind perceived it as Focused.

Ojas means ‘The Provider’. You look at me as the Provider of our Family.

Purti which is an alias of Poorna, your mom’s name, which means ‘Complete’. Your mom most certainly COMPLETES us all.

“Wini, you really are good at telling stories. We’re proud of you.

I’m sorry, we never paid such close attention.

You go girl. Dream on to be The Little Storyteller that you are”.

** T H E  E N D **

MOON (written on 11th April 2020 @ 1800hs

April 7 2020 – Somewhere in a Basement of an old single screen movie theatre.

48-year-old Yash was pacing up and down restlessly waiting for the buzzer to sound, so he can get on with what he had been waiting for. A random note on his computer had indicated that 7^th April at 2133hrs, it would be “THE APPROPRIATE DAY and TIME TO TRAVEL” for Yash. Unlike his name suggests, he had always been unsuccessful in his attempts all these years leaving him looking like an old retired professor with unkempt ruffled hair and a temperament that the others in the town couldn’t handle.

 He wasn’t sure if the note had come from another time or from extra-terrestrial entities. Either way he was anxious. The buzzer went off and the count-down automatically began.

He ran and jumped into his seat and fastened his seatbelt. He quickly looked out of his window, that was angled in such a way that the moon would be visible even from the basement. The Full Pink moon was larger and a few shades darker than he had expected. “Hmm! no clouds today”, he thought.

Before he could take in the beautiful view fully, the chair started to vibrate ferociously and within a jiffy, he vanished.

Unknown date and time – somewhere that looked like a Giant cave.

“Welcome Prof. Yash. I’ve been waiting for you.” Said an unknown voice.

Yash turned around and saw a young and handsome boy of about 20 years of age standing with his hands folded. His face had a sense of calm that was unusual for a boy his age.

“Why do I get a feeling you knew I’d get here? Who are you? You’re not an Indian but you look familiar in a weird way. Where am I? Am I dead? Or which year have I come to? Is this the old Takshashila? Or have I miscalculated something?” Rattled a baffled Yash.

The young boy said, “Calm down Prof. Yash. I’ll answer all your questions tomorrow morning. Right now, you just need some rest.” The young boy smiled, put his arms on Yash’s shoulders and ushered him towards what looked like a make-shift tent. As Yash entered, he noticed that the tent was used by someone else but had tidied up for him just in time. He was curious and turned around before being shown in. Hesitantly Yash went in and noticed the young boy had zipped the tent and heard him locking from outside. Yash felt something strange in his stomach. He was both, anxious and apprehensive. Was his experiment a success? Did he travel in time? Is he where he was meant to be? He drifted to a deep slumber as these thoughts kept coming in cycles.

Yash woke up after what felt like a coma. The tent zipper was undone, and he slowly stepped out.

It was still dark outside. He didn’t understand. He looked around and he heard some sounds coming from the left corner. As he walked towards the sound, he also saw a light emanating from behind the cave walls. His steps grew more confident after seeing the light but within a few steps, he stumbled upon something. He adjusted his eyes and tried to look for what had he stumbled upon. He shrieked in horror when he saw a pile of bones under his legs. He looked around and found many skeletons scattered around. He froze and out of muscle memory, his feet started to walk backwards. In an attempt to flee, he slowly turned back when he heard the only familiar voice of the young boy.

“Ah, there you are Prof. Yash. What’s the rush?”, he said.

“You were supposed to answer all my questions. And I think you know what they are?”

The young boy smiled and took him along to his chamber. Prof. Yash was startled to see another huge cave within the cave. It was designed like a giant laboratory. He was stunned to see his own equipment at the right end of the entrance. The chair from where he last saw the Pink moon.

He only had more questions in his mind now. And almost like reading his mind, the young boy spoke.

I’m Doc Emmett Brown. And yes, I’ve been waiting for you.”

“Wait a minute – how old are you again? And you say, you’re a doctor? And what is my equipment doing here? How did it get here?”, asked Yash.

“Shhhh. Yash. Hang in there. I’ll tell you everything – why don’t you take a seat? On your own seat – so you’d be comfortable.” Said the young boy.

Yash was still trying to remember why the name sounded familiar as he sat down.

The boy continued as he sat on an old rusty cushioned chair that looked like a car seat from the 1970’s.

“I’m The ‘Doc’ Emmett Brown. The old weirdo who’d pioneered the time-traveling DeLorean automobile. When I finally took off in the locomotive after bidding good-bye to Marty McFly, the machine in the locomotive malfunctioned and instead of time-travel, it brought me here.”

“And where exactly is HERE”? and what am I doing here?” interrupted Yash.

A little irritated, the ‘Doc’ continued.

“We’re on the lunar surface. The locomotive brought me to the Moon and also millions of years ago. I had completely lost track of time and space. I kept fiddling with the machine in my attempt to get back to Earth. To MY present. I probably jumped time – Years, Centuries, Millennia, I don’t know. And in one of my attempts, I met a few celestial bodies who told me that I need to keep working on the “Moon-Cycle” that’ll help me retain my youth. I wasn’t sure when was that, but it happened. I was warned that if I miss the fortnightly cycle, I’d be killed. And to help me stay safe, they’d given me a secret weapon.

I’ve been maintaining the Moon-Cycle to ensure the waxing and waning is on time and the tides on earth are on schedule – so that my Youth remains intact.

Parallelly I kept working on my attempts to get back to My Time and My people from inside this huge crater.

My machine would frequently talk to other scientists who’d be experimenting with Time-Travel on Earth, like yourself.

I was never able to intercept NASA or other Space Agencies’ communications channel. I missed meeting Neil Armstrong or Rakesh Sharma when they came here.

It was easier to tweak the Time-Traveller’s codes to ensure they come here with their equipment and help me in my return. They’d all be agitated in the beginning and would get violent. But eventually all of them worked and I almost had an army of scientists working for me from all over the World. And in a way for themselves as well.

They would all be tampering with so many signals in the space, it would accidentally trigger some of the celestial bodies and that would result in either an eclipse or set a meteor loose. I’d have to intervene and do some course correction to ensure Earth is safe. Else, where would we return? And with whom would I enjoy my youth?

You were pretty low on my radar. You were probably pretty low on everyone’s radar. Quite honestly, you’re a very tardy scientist and I wouldn’t have really bothered you.

But a few days ago, my army of scientists all attempted a rebellion and tried to kill me instead of focusing on their experiments.

I had to use my secret weapon to decapacitate them. But something happened and they all exploded. Their blood rose to the surface making the entire Moon Blood RED and their skeletons dropped where they stood. Those were the skeletons you stumbled upon your way here.”

“No wonder the Moon was a few shades darker pink that day”, he shuddered at the thought.

The DOC continued, “I had no choice but to start recruiting again. I sent you that message with the date and time soon after the mishap here.

You’re my first hire after the failed coup.

We’ve got work to do and we’ll need more hands.

We’ve got to go ‘Back to The Earth’ and get back to romanticising the MOON – as we always do”.

ICE CREAM (written on 27th March 2020 @2000hrs)

Draped in white, I was happily dancing to the steady rhythm in an enclosed area.
The dancing gave me such a high and I felt serene. The whole enclosed area along with me came to a wonderful still. 
It was almost meditative, felt like I was flowing out of my enclosure into a new vast space.

Just when I was enjoying the blissful state and a certain warmth around, there was a huge commotion. An army of invaders attacked my space and there was a commander with a grit of steel that came and stirred the whole vast space upside down. 
We clashed with each other for a while and then eventually blended into one big homogenous group. Don’t ask me why and how? It all happened so quickly.

Turned out the homogeneity was just a façade. There were more secret agents that somehow blended in changing the overall space into something totally unrecognizable. Let alone the space, I thought I was just thickening out to the new situation, but I could not fathom the horror when I did not recognize myself. The world was showing its true colours. 

My white drape was now a bright yellow with tinges of saffron here and there. I’d heard of idiots who would not blend in certain demanding times. They would still want to stick out to their individuality. I saw a few such nuts clinging on and they began to irritate my thickening skin. But I guess I was reminded by the Steel Commander to simply accept what could not be changed.

I knew I could now not get back to the white form I remembered myself in.

After boiling in such hard times for what seemed an eternity, let alone accepting, I began to enjoy the new environment with the migrants and their individuality. Change is inevitable and the sooner you accept that, the better it is. No sooner than I truly accepted this, the heat went missing.

I guess that is what is called the ‘cooling period’. We all were getting to know each other.
At that time, a wise nut slowly mentioned the words, ‘Winter is coming’. 
There was unrest all over again. From a vast space, we were all sent into different camps which looked like small cubicles and were sent off to what felt like another planet.
And the nut’s prophecy came true. It truly was Winter. Nothing like I’d experienced before.
Felt like a blizzard but the best part is all the nuts and the secret agents and the first set of invaders along with me literally stuck together as thick friends and we ‘Froze’ in time.

After being knocked out of our senses for a long time, I was woken up by some strange sounds.
Later I could recognize the voices. It was of a sweet little girl. She was excited and was kind of pestering her mom for something.

That’s when the doors opened and there was a bright blinding light. We were taken out of our frozen slumber back into the warmth of bright sunshine.

As we thawed back to normalcy, we were ‘scooped’ out into cute little glass bowls.
That’s when I heard the little girl clearly, “Woow – Aich Cleem”.

WAIT (written on 3rd January 2020 @1950hrs)

Kian was all of nine but the collaborated parenting in the initial years were bearing fruits in his behavior. He had become very responsible and quite independent for his age. He was not sure if it was Kiara’s arrival a few years ago or the Social Media invasion or genuinely busy days at work that kept his father glued to his laptop and phone all the time. The situation at home was a sort of tests for Kian today.

His mother was a little under the weather and was drowsy with slurry in-comprehendible utterances in between. He could see her shivering despite the layers of clothes and a thick blanket she was under. He looked if the fan was switched on and thankfully it was turned off. He quickly glanced towards the window to see if that was open. Mom’s bedroom window was tightly shut. But he could hear the whistling sound of the cool breeze from somewhere and he could also feel it on his skin. He would notice the soft hair on his forearms stand to attention occasionally when the breeze made its way through the maze of rooms. He shouted and requested his dad to shut the window in his room, but it only fell on deaf ears.

Kian could not leave the room yet. He did have the luxury of shouting though since his mother was awake. Kian was busy on two fronts.

While he was busy placing a soft cloth soaked in ice water on his mother’s hot forehead, he had his eyes on the gas stove. The water kept on the burner was taking ages to boil because of the blowing wind fluttering the flame.

Gas stove in the kitchen was luckily in his line of sight from his mother’s bed. After all his mom had warned him that he can’t leave the gas stove unattended. So, he had to stay put in that room and place with very little scope for movement.

He could have easily used Kiara’s help, but she was engrossed in a school project. She had to create a unique design of house of cards and photograph it. She had been at it since the time she woke up that morning. Her reflexes and hand-eye coordination were yet to fully develop and that was one of the objectives of her project. If she would so much as breathe heavily or shake every time Kian yelled, the house of cards would collapse.

Being a young boy himself and as an elder brother, he would have loved to help Kiara but today the duty of son took priority. On one hand, while he was upset that she was unable to help, he was also happy that Kiara was occupied, else she would have been pestering him for breakfast. So, it was one monkey less on his back.

His mother started to cough profusely again. He immediately let the cloth slowly drown in the now lukewarm water and sprang towards the kitchen to turn the gas knob to ‘high’ position. He had to ensure the water bubbles quickly so that it could comfort his mother’s sore throat.

As he walked towards the kitchen, from the corner of his eye, he noticed Kiara’s house of cards standing tall and she had her head bent unlocking the smart phone to capture it for the project to be complete.

He was silently praying to the “Wind-Gods” to help him and Kiara complete their respective tasks quickly.

In the background, he heard his father’s footsteps approaching towards the room. He was so eagerly waiting to heave a sigh of relief and use some extra hands to help him in the situation.

His father still with his eyes on the iPhone screen stepped in the room and stretched his hand out to switch on the fan.

Kian could not help losing the words slip from his lips,

“Dad – WAIT!”

Perspective (written on 13th Dec 2019 @1450hrs)

Limping badly and with bruises all over his body, blood trickling down his sleeve, Puran Singh crashed on his ‘khatiya’ that was laid out on the frontyard.

His ‘Tauji’ was lost in his thoughts in a corner under the shade of the stairs that went up to the roof. He was puffing on a hukkah that had died almost 10 minutes ago. Half of tobacco remained but the coal had stopped burning.

Tauji was notorious for his akhada and the pehelwans and their rivalry with the neighbouring villages.

In a fit of rage, he had killed the pehelwaan of the neighboring village who had defeated his younger brother, Puran’s father, who in turn jumped into the well and killed himself.

Tauji himself had managed to bully his way through his years with a bloated ego.

After all, according to him, he had upheld the family honour by avenging his brother’s death.

Cops were not allowed to get involved citing internal family matter.

He first shot a glance towards his nephew and when he noticed him in that condition, he sprang up and dashed towards Puran skipping a step and a half. On his way, he started yelling and asking for warm-water, haldi, lep, and all other sorts of ‘First-aid’ he could think of. He was so loud, half the village would have heard him.

After nursing some immediate wounds and ensuring the blood flow stopped and that his bruises were under a thick layer of paste made from home remedies, Tauji asked Puran what had happened?

Unsure of how to start, he first glanced around.

There was a crowd outside their gate, thanks to Tauji’s loud voice and the commotion caused since his return.

A little embarrassed with the attention, he held his gaze to the ground, half-heartedly, started narrating the incident where he was in a bus and after stopping at the neighboring village, people in the bus started ganging up on him and just for resisting out loud, they started to beat him and eventually threw him out of the bus. That fall from the bus is what triggered the bleeding. However, Puran claimed the villagers chased him for quite a distance before giving up. Puran could not hold back any longer and he kind of collapsed on the khatiya into deep sleep purely out of pain.

Tauji was livid with rage. He was shocked and surprised at their courage to do something like this to his family despite the history.

He shouted and started to gather the boys from his akhada while he himself went inside to pick the ‘do-nali’ that was hanging in his room.

Half-way across the district, in the neighboring village police station, the other HALF of this story was being narrated. After all, it was the first official ‘Molestation complaint’ against Puran Singh.

First Love (Written on 6th Nov 2017 at 2030hrs)

Something clicked. And I was pushed down my memory maze. Not sure if everyone experiences this. Trip down memory lane is a very unidimensional way of letting someone know what goes on in my brain when a memory resurfaces. Unlike simply retrieving it from an archived folder, despite being a very poor observer, my mind goes through the labyrinth of images, sounds and other senses causing much more emotional collateral than I’d like. So here I was – face-to-face with my ‘First Love’.

Are there any books or user manuals written on how is one supposed to feel in such a situation? Even if there is, I haven’t laid my eyes on ‘em yet.

All those years ago, I was involuntarily dragged into my first meeting. I must have really created a scene, knowing the ‘drama queen’ that I was; for my first meeting was supposed to be an unwilling bribe just so I can silently tag along.

The curvy lanes of the ‘sarafa’ street always first brings back the unpleasant image of that frightful big bellied sweaty man in front of the hot boiling oil pan in which he would be stirring something mysterious with his broken ladle. Every once in a while, he would wipe his brows with the ‘gamchcha’. Wonder how could people crowd there to savour whatever that he was ‘cooking’. But somehow, that is etched in my core memory just as much as the rabbit cage a few shops down. A jeweller had found this unique way to keep the kids entertained as their parents would be conned into buying expensive pieces of decorative metal. Without the kids to worry about, they would end up buying much more than they had originally intended to.

My parents too probably realised it by the time the cashier would hammer the ‘Paid’ rubber stamp on the bill. But alas! It would be too late. They came out looking for me near the rabbit cage. Only I wasn’t there. They panicked and randomly picked the first passer-by, a dog-walker, to check if he’d seen any 8 year old girl with a violet frock. He simply pointed them in my direction across the street.

I stood there – smitten at the sight of the cold swirling architecture that would place itself majestically on the cone from the first shiny ‘Softy’ vending machine in the ‘Sarafa’…

So here I was – face-to-face with my ‘First Love’ – but not as I remembered. Today, it is in a much dilapidated condition. With so much globalization, not many takers I see. But how can I ever get over it? The mushy softy first love.