Part 3. Broken Nest

[NOTE: This is part of an ongoing short story. Read parts 1 and 2 before this to make any kind of sense.]

“Those nights that once were;

On rooftops when stars rained light.

Dreams that seemed impossible by day,

Came alive in the dead of night”.

Mother of mine had been a poet. It seemed like centuries ago- the memories my mind had created in its fancy. How she might have rocked my cradle at night, how she’d have recited her secret poems to my readily receptive ears. How those words swallowed whole and unquestioned must constitute to me at present. How a parent gives to their children in more than just biological ways.

The BEST bus lurched sideways as it turned the final right towards Veera Desai Road from Link Road. The height of monsoon was upon Mumbai and, like every year, the authorities had only been half-prepared. The roads were predictably holed up in craters, harvesting water. One would have expected the on-foot commuters to run for shelter given the intensity of the downpour, but the Mumbaikars were no longer naive enough to be caught unawares; people sauntered about under the cover of umbrellas as if it were a balmy Sunday afternoon.

The bus halted at what google maps indicated was the closest stop to the residence of a certain Bharam Swami. I alighted holding on tightly to my raincoat, and the sling-bag underneath. The raindrops fell harshly on my uncovered head and I ran for cover under a tea vendor’s shanty on the footpath.

Have you even felt a knot in your stomach right before a crucial moment in your life? I‘m not much into grade-boasting or scorekeeping but examinations were sort of a big deal for me growing up. As the number of days separating me from the D-day decreased, the knot in the tummy would tighten and coil itself around my intestines like an invisible viper. I‘m sure some of you all might share the feeling.

I felt that snake tightening its lethal grip around my waist as I neared the man’s house.  So far I‘d steeled myself from overt emotion because thirty years is a very long time. But that old familiar feeling of dread and peril and all things dark and ugly was coming back to me as I took slow, unsure steps towards the red pin on my mobile.  

Zilleh cooperative housing society loomed up ahead like a haunted relic. A dilapidating off-white building resembling countless other crumbling residential blocks dotting the ugly suburban landscape. Fresh raindrops had drenched the buildings sheathing the few top floors in a deeper hue. Paint peeled off from the walls and exposed the cement underneath. A rusting brass gate swung untethered by the gust of cold wind. No one questioned who I was or where I wanted to go at the gate; the guards did not bother in the heavy rain. The old fashioned complex had two blocks: A and B, both having four storeys and a narrow flight of stairs leading to two cubbyhole houses on each floor’s landing.

My steps grew heavy and difficult and my breath grew more labored. My hands were now shaking not so much from the dampness but from an indescribable dread. There should have been people here, at least a small group of mourners outside house number 242. I started to climb up the stairs, an uncomfortable rigidity catching hold of my legs. As if someone had left their bicycle unoiled for too long. 

 At the first floor landing I felt like throwing up. I supported myself against the railing. I could make out some faint activity emanating from the floor above. A general sound of people. Some thoughtful  undertones. I struggled to climb the last flight of stairs, choking up, unsure of what I would encounter, the monsters in my chest heaving and throbbing. The curiously numbered 242 lay just out of the corner of my sight now. The man responsible for my broken nest lay dead a few feet away from me but his ghost appeared before my eyes. I felt myself going weak and my limbs collapsed under their own weight. I fell with a thud and a sharp stinging pain at the back of my head. The apparition straddled and crouched close to me.

 I slipped into the dreams of past…

*

The Kotkars ensure her daughter sleeps in their room, the door firmly closed on their fights. But they do not anticipate Namah’s curiosity. She slips out every night, woken up by the deafening screaming matches, and becomes a voyeur to their violence.

“We must end this.  Cannot go on like this, like nothing ever happened.”

Namah presses her ear against the door.

“Why do you assume I can? You think it’s not hard on me? Living through everyday?”

“This is it. I want a divorce; a proper one. You don’t get to touch me-“

A chair is overturned. 

Father is attacking mother!

Someone is thrown against the door. 

She’s hurt her head! What do I do?

Namah steps away from the door but does not dart back into her room like the last time. The door is ajar now, allowing a better view of perpetrator and the perpetrated...

Her memory starts to crack and shatter. She is not sure what she is seeing; perhaps her mind is playing tricks. In a flash of memory, she realizes everything. The rapist. The obituary. The face. Ms. Taraporevala. And the monster under her bed.

*

I woke up inside the apartment that had been my destination. I could see a bunch of solemn mourners huddling around me instead of…the deceased. Awkwardly, I propped myself up on my side, seeing more of the place. The living room area had been cleared for a tidy floor mat, where I had been laid out.

Someone asked me how I was feeling, but it barely registered in my brain. Something restless and anxious was growing within me; a strong revulsion for everything, and I was already zoning out once again. The pain in the back of my head returned gradually but greatly, probably from having fallen over in the staircase.

The flash of memory returned all at once. I swung around like a woman possessed. The lifeless body of M. Bharam Swami lay right behind me, draped in a modest white cloth draping it from neck to toe.

In death, his colorless face bore almost complete resemblance to the man of my nightmares: small pair of  lips pursed together unevenly, caught mid-sentence; high cheekbones - not bony - wrinkled with age; and most strikingly, round, bulging eyelids hiding a large pair of eyes.

From somewhere under the folds, the tips of his fingertips were also exposed. I frantically crawled over to the cadaver and dug up its hands. Some commotion arose behind me: alarmed voices ordered me back. Restless and almost panicking for answers, I unearthed the hands of the ‘man’, and only confirmed my greatest fears.

Feline, graceful and wrinkly as they would have grown after all those years, I knew the slender fingers of my rapist could have belonged to none other than-

‘MOTHER!’

--

[Epilogue coming soon...]

Part 2: Upon a whim

[This is part 2 of an on-going short story. Read part 1 here.]

The moment I called mom I realized I’d made a fuck-all mistake. She would surely have changed her number in 30 years. Before I could cut the call, though, the phone had begun to ring. On the second ring, someone picked up.

“Hello,” spoke a curt, masculine voice.

“Hey, mom…?” I spoke, awkwardly.

“Um, excuse me?”

“I’m sorry, is this Mrs. Maya Kotkar…” I paused, realizing she might have reverted to her maiden name after what had happened. “I mean...Menon; Maya Menon?”

Pause. No response. I could swear I heard a sigh before the line got cut. I called again. The line was engaged. I tried at least thrice but it gave me the same response.

I hadn’t met or spoken to mom for 30 years. I couldn’t be sure whether it was her on the other end or not. It had seemed like a ‘he’, but I could have been mistaken. I had not followed mother on any of the social media. I had not kept track of her either online or offline. Because of whatever happened between her and dad, they decided to give up on me and I on them. Nothing had broken my stubborn stand not to contact her or dad ever…until today.

And now that I wanted to, I could not.

Upon a whim, I checked my rapist’s obituary details. The soggy remnants of the obituaries section revealed the hellish face of my perpetrator, the asshole pedophile. A shiver ran down my spine when I looked into those monstrous eyes once again. Horrors I had long since locked away at the back of my mind came flooding back.

His name was given under the photo (in fucking comic sans): M. Bharam Swami.

‘Bharam Swami’. The man responsible for everything bad in my life. The manufacturer of all my pain and agony . The man had died after living a full life, never suffering any retribution or karma for his crimes against me. His smile in the photograph, though creepy, did not seem full; he seemed like a broken man, a man possessed by a terrible curse which even spilled on to his happiest moments.

The brief obituary read,”Mr. Swami, our Beloved Father and Grandfather left for his Heavenly Abode on the 26^th of June,2016. All Loved Ones are invited to be part of a Prayer Meeting on the 27^th of June, at 5:30 PM. Address – A/242, Zilleh Building, Veera Desai Road, Mumbai”.

‘Veera Desai Road’: Not very far from where I was staying.

‘27^th of June’: Today.

‘5:30 PM’: Still 8 hours to go.

Like every decision this morning, I decided - upon a whim - to attend the funeral of my rapist. He had been inside me once, and going by one line of reasoning, I had a connection with him that was greater than most. The last time I had seen his face was under my bed, in my nightmares…

*

It takes a kid to make adults do stupid things.

Ms. Taraporevala, Maya and Kamal bend down to have a peek under Namah’s bed. They lift the untucked bedsheet partially concealing the space between the base of the bed and the floor. Namah topples back as the drapery is pulled back, as if knocked over by an invisible force. Her head hits the floor with a thud. The psychologist continues to look, as if to search for a real entity huddled underneath. Maya and Kamal rush to Namah’s aid, who is now convulsing violently. Maya is suddenly unnerved, quivering with every word and action. Kamal tries to assuage her, but she is as frantic as her daughter.

“It’s all my fault!” she keeps repeating under her breath, her head hidden in her palms. “I failed!” 

Kamal makes a move towards her but she shirks away from his touch and storms out of the room. He picks up Namah and gently eases her on the bed. Ms. Taraporevala still seems to be dazed by the girl’s extreme reaction, looking under the bed.

“There’s nothing really there!” he says with a hint of annoyance.

Ms. Taraporevala knows better. She gets up and checks the girl for signs of mental trauma.

“Mr. Kotkar, it is best if you leave this house forever.”

She stares blankly at him. She’s the best psychologist he could afford. He can’t fucking believe it.

“What-“ he starts.

“I’ll take your leave,” she cuts in.

“But…what about…”

She walks out and stops near the entrance of the master bedroom, where the mother is crouched over with her back to her. She seems prostrate in deep prayer or introspection. Ms. Taraporevala does not enter the room and walks away…

Read Part 3.

Mother of Mine: A short story in parts

Part 1. The Arena of Misery

The Times of India woke me up today. The papers might have rapped against the door when the newspaper guy lobbed them into my flat. I collected the thick bundle, skimmed through the full page advertisement on my way to the loo and closed the door behind me. The toilet seat was warm and musty, so I used the advertorials to wipe it dry. I opened the paper to read in detail.

Going from page four to page five, I thought I spotted a familiar face in the obituaries section.  I did a double take. I instantly recognized the face in the photo.

It was the man who had fucked me when I was 6.

It was awkward sitting there, in the loo, realizing my life’s biggest mystery had solved itself. The smell of shit and urine hung in the hot morning air. I had trouble breathing. I went for the hand shower. The newspapers fell to the wet floor, getting soaked. I slipped my feet inside my flip flops and cleaned my ass. The air stank even more and the heat grew unbearable. My gown stuck to my back due to sweat.

I picked up my phone and called mom for the first time in 30 years.

*

 “Ma,” cries Namah from her bedroom, thirty years ago. She has been hollering for a good minute, but the screams have not attracted Maya or Kamal’s attention. Kamal is the first to rush in. The baby’s skirt is bloodied, her eyes are puffy and her hands are trembling after a trauma.

Her undies are pulled down to her ankles.

“What the-"

The young father runs towards her and hugs her, but she does not stop howling. Maya enters the room restlessly, only to confront a shocking sight. She rushes to her daughter’s aid and breaks down.

“What happened?” “Who did this?” “Tell us, don’t be afraid.”

But Namah is not fit to speak. She is taken to the hospital, her body is thoroughly examined and the reports come out within a day. She has been raped, but there is another bizarre revelation: no semen samples are found on her vagina. There has been forcefully penetration, and the urethra is bloody, but it is likely to have been an object than a penis.

She remains mortified and silent despite the continuous requests of her parents. The police flags off a dispirited investigation. They begin questioning the usual suspects: the building security guard, the washer-men, the neighbors and other daytime loiterers. No one claims to have seen anything. Even the parents themselves had been busy with their own chores.

Back at home, Namah refuses to enter her bedroom again. At the door, she falls down in a crippling fit. Her pulse quickens, her eyeballs roll up, and her limbs pulsate with a life of their own. When she regains consciousness, she has been safely shifted to her parent’s master bedroom.

“Let’s call if off…she doesn’t deserve us then.”

“She doesn’t deserve you, yes. Why don’t you fuck off from our lives?”

She can hear her parents from the other room - her room - fighting. She steps off the bed, trying to make as little sound of her feet as she can.

“I was in the kitchen, Kamal. You were supposed to take care of her. Why couldn’t you?”

“Are you blaming everything at me? How am I at fault? We don’t even know-“

She hears them struggle and topple over some furniture. Tactfully, she returns to her bed, pulls over the blanket over her head and pretends to be asleep.  

The next day, after a dose of anti-depressants and mild sedatives, she finally recounts the ordeal in short, trembling sentences to her parents.  

“The bad man climbed in through the window. He looked…funny. He looked like a clown but he did not smile. His face was white-colored. His hair was thin and grey. His arms were slim and he wore a black coat. One with those lines running all over. He wanted to hurt me really bad. He held my mouth and undressed me…”

She chokes up and snuggles back into the comforting embrace of her parents, whom she knows are drifting away – because of what happened.

The police launch a district-wide manhunt. Big money and publicity ensure that they are not caught napping another time. There is a rapist on the loose and not a minute to waste. The suspects are picked up again, locked behind bars overnight, but no confession is extracted. The parents are questioned over and over, their place is searched from top to bottom but nothing substantial is found. A sketch is drawn on the basis of Namah’s descriptions: a monstrously pale face with round, youthful eyes and small, narrow lips; the cheeks are puffy and the hair is greying. Black and white posters of the much-despised child rapist are splashed in the papers and stuck on police station walls. The police hold little hope, though; Namah’s testimony is unreliable and sketchy. They fear her state of mind is affecting her judgement greatly. No concrete arrests are ever made and the case slips from public consciousness and media eye. For the many social media crusaders closely following the case, something fresher and more revolting comes along and Namah’s absconding rapist is forgotten.

During the day, when her parents are at their respective workplaces, Namah is left alone with a female caretaker. Her fear of excessive human interaction seems to have taken deep root. Concerned about her education, Kamal and Maya consult a psychologist to counsel their daughter into normalcy.  Between ensuing fights and arguments, her parents find a common ground only in the well-being of their daughter. They anticipate the meeting with Ms. Taraporevala, their psychologist, who is gracious enough to make a house visit. It’s a weekly ritual they are comforted by as much as their daughter.

“Did you dream of anything today?” Ms. Taraporevala questions Namah.

Namah is quiet, staring into space.

“Namah…” eggs on her mother. “Tell her what you dreamt of.”

Maya seems as rattled as her daughter, whereas Kamal maintains a composed exterior. In the weeks since the crime, she has lost her obsessive pursuit of cleanliness and presentability. Her hair is wispy, singled out, and quickly losing volume. She nags her husband less but violent fights erupt ever so often.

“I saw a ghost.”

“What kind of a ghost?”

“He sleeps under my bed and whispers in my ears…every day.”

The adults exchange worrisome glances.

“There’s nothing like ghosts, Namah,” assures Kamal softly. Ms. Taraporevala gestures him to keep quiet.

“Every day? Even today?” she asks.

“No, I’ve stopped sleeping on my bed.”

“She’s shifted into our room since…” explains Kamal. Maya shudders at the reference of the dreadful day.  

“Will you show me?” she asks.

She leads the adults to her bedroom, which is locked.

“Ma’am, she is still a bit anxious about entering the room, so we’ve had it locked…” explains Kamal.

“Namah, are you scared of going inside?” asks Ms. Taraporevala.

She nods, her eyes wide with palpable fear. Some color from her face has vanished; her naturally rosy cheeks are pallid. The psychologist considers for a moment if she should press on. She looks back at Maya, who is distraught and frazzled, and then at Kamal. He manages the subtlest of nods, barely perceptible.

On his cue, her bedroom - the arena of all her misery – is opened for the first time since the fateful day. 

--

Read part 2 here.

i'm also guilty

I met a UP bhaiyya today who told me, 'is sheher mein aap kitne hi bade ho jaaye, aapse aur bhi bada koi hai. aur jitne bhi gareeb ho jao, aapse gareeb log bhi hain'. I wanted to say 'Ambani' but thought better than to refute someone in their element. But then he said, 'teen cheezein humesha chhupa ke rakhni chahiye: bhojan, stree (female) aur dravya (money).'

--

Another cabbie bitched about drunken Bandra girls in mini skirts puking every mile. 'Jab nashe nahin kiye hote tab toh har minute ghar pe khabar karti hain, jaise unki koi izzat lootne wala ho.'

--

I was in Hauz Khas, Delhi last summer with a friend. She was driving out of the parking lot when the parking guy remarked, 'wah, aapki gaadi toh bilkul sahi-salaamat hai. normally ladkiyon ki gaadi pe bohot dents hote hain...'

--

A guy cut into the female line at the local train ticket counter at Bandra Station. The counter guy refused to sell him the ticket. The man returned to his place in the regular queue (behind me) and said, 'agar aurat aadmi ki line mein lag sakti hai, toh aadmi aurat ki line mein kyun nahin lag sakta?'
--

Mom was returning from Pune to Mumbai this afternoon. The guy at the toll booth wondered aloud, 'arey aap akele Pune se drive kar ke aa gayi?'
--

I catch myself staring at women often. I regret it till the next time I do it again. This is perhaps why I cannot respond to anyone in any of these^ scenarios.

Foreskin: A poem

What am I doing

Writing stories hollow

While injustice prevails,

Outside my burrow.

Swartz, Dabholkar, Hitchens, Dey

Are dead and gone

The forces of evil

Are at a dawn.

And I, corny and cheesy

Talentless and unmindful

Comfortable in my environs

String together a rhyme.

All around me, better people

Suited better to tasks they’re given.

Who am I and what, my purpose?

Around people clearly more driven.

I’m the double, the foreskin, the appendix

Here because of privilege and means.

Thinking and mulling,

Taking forever.

The world owes us nothing,

Neither its fruits nor its luxuries

Neither its gifts nor its rewards,

For we are the sole purpose for our miseries.

If, reader, you stand at a precipice like mine,

Then may this become the singular rhyme;

That tips you over into the valley of action,

Overcoming your inertia like I’ve never done. 

'bhaiyya ek chicken momo'

across the table, he stands
and takes my barking order.
his upper lip yet unfurnished with a manly bush,
his arms thin as stick; no broader.

the accident of birth that pits
us across this gulf of money
yawns to remind me of who i am
every single moment.

all he does is nervously smile;
perhaps his first day at the booth,
among many countless more to come,
foreshadowed on the dying embers of his youth.

across the table, he stands,
and takes the world's barking order.
perhaps only half-understanding his fate,
too young to be led to a slow, life-long slaughter.

the accident of birth separates us.
the gulf between us: this table.
years of prejudice and misplaced entitlement
root us unshakably to our life's station.

i need help

my roommate and his sleeping girlfriend
on the mattress next to mine
their flesh melting and mixing into one another.
frozen in awkward embrace, hairy skin exchanging sweat all night

their legs in prosaic repose,
one over the other,
his arms resting heavily on hers,
dead weight under the moonlight.

her sports bra-top barely sheathing her shapely waist,
his black vest wet with perspiration
stiller than the midnight air, silent except her snores,
they might as well be dead.

like unwitting sources of vicarious fantasies,
their bodies bundle and tighten in rigor mortis,
are they asleep afterall,
or dead as in my head? 

chicken sandwich with cheese

she eats and spills, half on my bed

half on her dress; at least she's fed

after a round of smoking sticks

mistaking whispers for sounds of the Feds.

she sees the world through a macro lens,

dispensing wisdom that makes little sense.

her nostrils flare, her eyes go red

she burns up like a stick of incense. 

and now she snores in a gentle rythm

her lips, both chapped, frozen in a hymn

her bare arm clutches the blanket around

her chest: in darkness, beats, without a sound.

how i wish to place my lips on her

and run them down her every curve

and unravel her secrets, one by one,

but for the risk of waking her up.

her thoughts must go, first up then down,

like the twists and turns of this pathetic poem

first in a smile and then, a frown;

of the wonders of her dream - her face informs.

she heaves a sigh, disturbed by me

she knows, in sleep, of my mischief.

and pulls the blanket overhead,

to give an appearance akin to the dead.

in a thousand nights of passion and lust

have not lovers felt a similar rush

as i feel here, as she sleeps near

i kiss her limp skin, exploiting her trust.

Punchline: Part 3 of 3

[Read part 1 here and part 2 here.]

Mrs. Mehta came about after we sprinkled water on her face. We shook her shoulders and gently slapped her cheeks to push her into consciousness. She still looked slightly disoriented when we helped her on to a chair.

It wasn’t what she had done that was more frightening, but what she kept repeating to herself, under her breath: “Don’t forget to laugh.”

She looked at the faces staring down at her; some with genuine concern, others with sadistic interest. People tend to show their worst when something untoward happens to someone in a crowd. Everyone rabidly huddles around the person of interest and just…stares.

“Are you okay?” I ventured, putting a caring hand to her shoulder. She twitched at my touch and I promptly pulled my arm back. She was straight up shivering now, perhaps from being wet with the water we splashed on her face. Or so I told myself.

“Did you guys all laugh?” She asked me, whispering in my ear. “TELL ME! Did you?”

She clutched my shirt collars and tugged tightly, pushing me almost off balance. My face was now obscenely close to hers, and all I could smell was her strong perfume.

“No-no! It wasn’t that good a joke, really…” I struggled to break free.

“Oh you dumb bastards!” She let go of me and crumpled in a weeping mess. Her hands cradled her head and her shoulders bobbed from sobbing. There were some subdued murmurs from the party crowd. Some had lost the initial interest and were contemplating leaving the party.

Mrs. Shroff decided to speak up.

“What the hell is wrong, Reshma? You’ve been acting completely nuts all evening. Tell us, what’s the matter?”

At first, it didn’t appear like Mrs. Mehta had heard her, but she eventually stopped sobbing and looked up. Her eyes were bloodshot and her kohl had spread to her cheeks. She looked like a total mess.

“You won’t believe me.”

An instant change had come over her: she was suddenly no longer crying or cursing. He face turned expressionless and she spoke with no intonation, drowned of all emotion. It was as if she had resigned herself to whatever had been gnawing at her from inside.

“Give it a shot,” Mrs. Shroff persisted.

Mrs. Mehta did not respond. She kept sitting in the same posture, looking though everyone with a spaced-out gaze. This lasted for about ten seconds.

Finally, she said, “The joke Avi told us is cursed.”

There were collective gasps from the thinning group of guests in the hall.

“What? What do you mean,” inquired Mrs. Shroff.

Mrs. Mehta heaved a long sigh, the one you do before embarking on a long, perilous journey.

“I’ll tell you everything, but none of you will believe me.”

“It’s okay with me,” replied Mrs. Shroff and looked around, “and I’m sure the rest of us don’t mind.”

“Yes,” replied her husband a bit too cheerfully, “always ready for a good long story.”

The mood lightened up ever so slightly, but Mrs. Mehta remained dead serious.

“When I was about 18, I was told the same joke by a eunuch. Not exactly verbatim, but the bare bones were the same. He claimed to be the very eunuch in the joke. He told us – me and three of my friends – how he had been banished from the kingdom by the ungrateful king and had been wandering over the world ever since.”

She paused for breath. No one moved an inch or made a sound. She looked at me.

“Where did you hear the joke, Avi?”

All eyes in the room turned in my direction.

“I-I can’t remember,” I spoke in a small voice.

I sprinted through my vague memory of the joke in search of its teller. It’s not as easy as it sounds. Trying to remember jokes is no joke, try it yourself: trace back any joke you’ve heard to the person who told it to you. In most cases, I’m sure you’ll have little success.

“Anyway,” she replied after a pause, “it doesn’t really matter now. At that time, when I heard the joke, there was something in those few silly lines that made me guffaw just once. I didn’t think too much of it; it could easily have been the other way round. My three friends did not. In hindsight, I would rather not have laughed and saved myself a lifetime of paranoia.”

“What do you mean,” Mrs. Shroff asked.

“My three friends who hadn’t laughed, they all died within a span of a few years. And the creepiest part is…they all died funny deaths.”

A few people across the room gasped, while others simply exchanged glances of shock and disbelief.

“What do you mean…funny?” I asked, surprising myself.

“One of them died of a heart attack after her cousins pranked her, another had a coconut fall on her head…you catch my drift.”

Silence prevailed over everyone like an ominous shadow. We suddenly seemed defenseless and threatened; at least I did.

“Since then,” she continued, “I have encountered many suspicious deaths and connected them to similar jokes that might be cursed. You can never be sure, right? For four decades I’ve lived with the burden of forced laughter, literally having to smile through the ordeal. You never know which joke, when insulted with no reaction, can kill you.”

I could feel an invisible weight crushing me from the inside, compelling me to take support of the wall next to where I was standing. What if what she was saying was true? Were all of us doomed? Wait – had I laughed?

“Which is why I ask you, again: did anyone laugh at the joke?”

I thought back hard. Had I?

Mr. Aravind, who had been quietly hearing her all the while, spoke out.

“I don’t believe any of this. It’s a make-believe situation in your head, Reshma.” His words were firm but not impudent.

“I hope so myself, really. I genuinely pray that my friends died as part of a remarkable coincidence. But the evidence of the contrary stacks up pretty evenly for me.” She looked around, surveying the scared faces around her.

“If that’s how it is,” contested Mr. Aravind, “then what is the exact time period within which these deaths are supposed to occur? Of course, you can connect any death to a joke that was not laughed at, since everyone has to die one day.”

The argument was solid, but my sense of reasoning was hardly working right now. Mrs. Mehta appeared to be lost in thought, her face dug into her palms. She emerged a few moments later.

“You are right, I might be wrong. As I said, I can’t convince you to believe me. In that case, I’m sorry for having ruined your evening. Maybe I’m genuinely in need of medical attention…”

Mr. Aravind, who seemed to have taken upon himself to dispel everyone’s fear, continued ruthlessly.

“You better. You have no right to scare people with your crazy-“

“WAIT,” interrupted Mrs. Mehta, “where is Rajen?”

She was referring to Mr. Mohanty. I looked around the hall but could not find him. Then I remembered – he had stormed off midway.

“He left the party,” I replied. “When you were unconscious.”

She looked at me with crazy bulging eyes, the blood veins ready to pop. True or not, she was well and truly scared.

A mobile phone rang out, cutting through the silence in the room like a knife. It was Mr. Aravind’s.

“It’s…Mohanty.” He looked fixedly at the mobile screen, as if double-checking if he had read right. He picked it up and put it against his ear very slowly. 

“Hello, Aravind Aga speaking. Yes…yes sir…OH MY GOD!” 

He exclaimed loudly and let the phone slide down from his hand, which fell on the ground with a metallic crash. His mouth was wide open in absolute fear and shock. Mrs. Shroff rushed to his aid in a bit to support him, but he flopped to the ground.

“It was…it was the –cops. They said that...Mohanty died in a car crash…” 

The hall full of people did not react with any immediate display of fear or panic. Some stood rooted to their places, others sat down and some hung their heads in despair, but everyone asked themselves the million dollar question:

“Did I laugh at the joke?”

THE END

PS: Let me know how you liked it in the comments below :)

Punchline: Part 2 of 3

[NOTE: I had originally intended this to be the concluding part of a two-part story, but I changed my mind. The story has come out slightly longer on paper, so there's another epilogue-ish part left after this.

If you're new here, read part 1 here before this. Thanks!]

Jokes have never been my thing, I’ll tell you that.

The first time I remember being truly frightened of what others my age found funny was during a trip to McDonald’s. I remember how the one-way opening doors at the entrance swung open on my way out and I first noticed the figure of Ronald McDonald sitting alone on the bench. I’d seen all sorts of clowns in my day, but there was something singularly sinister about a full-grown man, with a snow-white face and blood-red splotches around his mouth, sitting all by himself on a lonely bench and smiling maniacally at onlookers. The other kids loved to snuggle into his lap and pose for photographs, but I’d stiffen up at his very sight or mention.

From that day on, the KFC versus McDonald’s debate was a one-sided affair in my head. I would happily sacrifice a happy meal for a good night’s sleep free of murderous and bloodthirsty clowns haunting my dreams; thank you very much.

To my 7-year old self, that fear was as real as the time I encountered The Hijra. 

I must have been 17, unaware of my growing youth and the onset of societal expectations from a ‘grown up woman’. I didn’t feel a lot of pressure to perform or behave a certain way at home. Papa was the absent dad type, and ma let me be on my own as long as my grades were not an issue. I had always held a sense of muted pride in calling myself, or having myself called an ‘army brat’. It was a tag that I wore proudly on my sleeve, which probably made me look a tad uppity outside the army circle. I was also something of a ‘siren’ in high school, with my premature puberty (and what comes with it) the subject of many hushed exchanged among the boys in my class. As a result, I was taller than most boys and bouncier than most girls of my age. Of course, I appeared to be blissfully unaware of all this, and that worked to my benefit.

I had a gang of girls to call my own, all of them army brats just like me. There was the neighbourhood bimbo, Ananya, colonel Gill’s iklauti beti (only daughter), who thought herself to be my ‘bestie’, but knew deep inside that she was, at best, my sidekick. Then there were the inseparable Tanushree and Shonali, the Bengali Seeta aur Geeta of our vixen-pack. Both were distant cousins whose families had served the country through generations. Shonali was the cleverer of the two, but not as endowed in the sharp Bengali features department as her voluptuous cousin. Tanushree was drop dead gorgeous, but also drop dead dumb to strike a conversation with. As a result, all the mindless ‘hunks’ of our batch would make a beeline for her, and we all gossiped, sometimes jealously, about her more-than-active sex life.

Fun times, in short.                                   

That winter afternoon, our quartet was haunting one of the endlessly meandering bylanes of Pune’s Camp area. If you are familiar with the city, you’ll know that the cantonment area houses the Southern Command Headquarters of the Indian Armed Forces, which is sort of a big deal; a lot of army officers’ residences also lie in the vicinity.

As you enter the snug, uncluttered boulevards of this urban retreat, you are bound to be bowled over. The sights and sounds here are quite unlike the rest of the city: the constant honking of angry horns is replaced by the early morning singing of the mynah. The one-way roads, invariably jam-packed with vehicles of all shapes and sizes (and their drivers, of all shapes and sizes too), give way to narrow, pedestrian friendly pathways, sheltered against the sun by a thick canopy of overhead trees. If Jehangir had found paradise in Kashmir, I’d found my own here, in the heart of Pune, the city of ‘punya’ (virtue).

If there’s one more thing this area is famous for, it’s its safety. Women and girls feel absolutely free and safe to venture out during odd hours on these army-occupied roads. I wasn’t wise enough to appreciate it then, but I lived a sheltered life there, liberated by a sense of security and unrestrained mobility.

It was one of those harsh winter afternoons when the sun was absent and the overcast skies seemed to cut off all daylight, drenching everything in a blanket of grey. While others preferred the indoors to the roads, my gang of girls would have none of it: we were out there for an untimely loitering-session in the open. That’s when we met Him/Her/It.

The Hijra was walking towards us from the far end of an alleyway which, curiously enough, tapered in a dead-end. I knew this not because I could see its end, which in fact sort of devolved into darkness, but because I knew the geography of this place by heart. I was, naturally, the first to suspect.

“Hey, that guy-“

The others didn’t need to be told; they had stopped in their tracks already. The Hijra stumbled towards us in a zig-zag pattern, probably under the influence of questionable substances. It had draped its bulky frame with a flashy pink coloured sari, a shade that hurt the eye and stuck out like a light bulb in darkness. The densely growing trees sheathed the lane from any overhead sunlight, instantaneously giving it an even eerier appearance.

“We better get going,” suggested Ananya, already backing off.

Tanushree agreed. Shonali stood her ground and turned to me. I didn’t know why, but I stood rooted to my spot, despite my heart filling up with a strange anxiety. Something about the Hijra was off – maybe it was the way it walked, or the way it wound the pallu of the sari around its shoulder or his very presence at the dark end of a narrow alley at midday. I looked back and Shonali and found myself smiling at her with a look of anticipation.

She nodded back at me, coiling her lip up ever so slightly.

“Don’t be fucking pansies,” I said to Ananya and Tanushree. “It’s harmless.”

The Hijra was now only about 50 metres away from us. From this distance, we could begin to make out a strange singing sound.

“Abhin na jaao chhod ke, ke dil abhi bharaa nahin…”

The situation was undoubtedly absurd, but it’s hard to reproduce the sense of dread it came with. The singing was off-key, off-tune and screechy, but there was a mystical attraction in the quality of its voice. The baritone reverberated across the empty street, seeming to amplify it without any electronic equipment. It left all four of us entranced, like the Mughal court during Tansen’s alaaps. It was when the Hijra was close enough to spot us that it stopped singing and the spell was broken.

“Hey, girls!” It scampered towards us emphatically.

Ananya and Tanushree edged further back but we held them by the wrists. My fingernails dug into Ananya’s hand and she didn’t try too hard to prise away.

The hijra broughts its palms together, producing a crisp, dry clap that the Indian trans-community is famous for.

“Hello, ladies,” it spoke as it sauntered towards us, still clapping. We could only look on.

“What do you want,” asked Shonali.

The Hijra encircled us and stared us up and down, clicking its tongue a few times.

“Haaye wallah, what curvy city belles! I’d die for one of these.”

It stared at its own waistline, which was wider and rounder than all ours put together. Maybe not really, but you catch my drift.

“What’s stopping you,” I ventured.

The Hijra stopped in front of me and drew closer, probably taken aback at my impudence. Its mouth stank of ruminated paan masala and tobacco.

“Your tongue stings, like your eyes,” it taunted as one of its spindly hands held up my chin to have a better look. I recoiled in reflex.

“Ah, Ms. Touch-me-not!”

“Enough,” I said, “Let’s go.” Being adventurous with a stranger was one thing but being physically accosted by them, quite another. I had had enough.

“Not so fast, ladies!” It held back my arm. I jerked it free.

“Won’t you like to hear a joke before you leave?” It smiled evilly at us. I cannot be sure now, but I’m positive I had sensed a weird desperation in its eyes. It was the face of a person who had bottled a story in their heart for too long and couldn’t wait to spill it to someone. In that moment, some of my anger vanished and I almost pitied it.

“No, thank you,” I spoke, betraying my instincts. “Let’s go girls.”

We began to walk away from the Hijra and the dead-end and the impasse.

“Are you sure,” it shouted back at us, “you’ll be inviting the wrath of a Hijra, afterall, and the ill-will of a chhakka is very potent.”

I did not want to, but Ananya held me to a stop. I saw that Tanushree had forced Shonali similarly to a halt.

“What do we do,” Ananya asked under her breath.

“I-I think we should like him finish his fucking joke and get going,” said Tanushree, shuddering from fear.

“Yes, let’s,” suggested the fucking fountainhead of wisdom Ananya.

“What happened,” the Hijra prompted, “in a fix? A joke’s just a joke, I promise.”

I swore to myself and turned about. We walked towards it for the joke it was dying to tell. How bad could it be, I asked myself?

Oh hell yes, it was bad. It was overlong and stretched on for a solid five minutes, but we listened intently to a voice that commanded to be heard. It had its fair share of twists and turns, but the one in the end stole the cake: it was an autobiographical joke, and a scary one at that. In fact, it was so unfunny that it was funny to me; out of all four, only I braved a sarcastic laugh.

“Why don’t you laugh, you ungrateful bitches,” it demanded of my friends in a sudden fit of anger.

“Because it wasn’t funny,” spoke Shonali with characteristic bluntness. I was proud to call her a friend.

“Oh, it wasn’t? We’ll see who’s laughing the last.” It said, spitefully. Its eyes were back to their furious, glistening glory. It glared at the three of them with wide eyes and then turned to me.

“You’re lucky you laughed.”

Its voice changed and dropped into a coarse, ethereal whisper as it turned to my friends and said, “You have been warned, ladies.”

It laughed the most beastly laugh I have ever heard and walked backed into the dark dead-end while singing the wretched golden oldie.

"Abhi abhi toh aaye ho, bahaar banke chhaaye ho..."

Tanushree and Ananya were cowering and huddling together, as if to shield their bodies from cold.

“What did it mean?” asked Tanushree, her face taking a pale hue.

“Gah, probably nothing,” I said, dismissing her fears. “Just a lot of bullshit. That’s what they survive on: fear and manipulation.”

Years later, I tried to shake the memory of the creepy experience off my back, but my mind kept returning to the strange Hijra and its autobiographical joke and the manic laughter. I guess we all tried to, and superficially brushed away the unpleasant incident to some success.

But I’m sure it would still have haunted Ananya, Shonali and Tanushree to this day – had they been alive.

You see, barely a week later, Shonali was comically struck on the head by a falling coconut while ona family vacation to Kerala, and died instantly. Her death was featured in the ‘That’s Bizarre’ column of the local tabloid, probably becoming the laughing stock of many readers.

Seven months after Shonali met her maker, Ananya followed suit after suffering from an untimely cardiac arrest, triggered by a prank played on her by her kid cousins. Her family thought she was only playing dead as part of a double-prank, thereby literally laughing while she breathed her last.

Oh, and Tanushree had her head sliced clean from her torso in a freak accident involving a kite-thread. A FUCKING KITE THREAD!

As poetic justice would have it, the three people who had found the Hijra’s joke too unfunny to be graced with laughter had died funny deaths.

The joke was about a childless queen who’s cursed with a transsexual kid by an angry sage. And now, forty-two years later, the joke was on me again.

[To be concluded]

Punchline: A short story in 3 parts

PART 1 OF 3

Everyone knew her as that aunty. She was one of those boisterous menopausal socialites who laughed at every joke they heard, however lame. It would take her only a fraction of a second after the punchline to break out into bouts of uncontrollable laughter. Dhruv had told me about her in the last party we both attended.

“What’s the worst joke you know?”

 I looked at him with a slightly puzzled expression.

“Why?”

“Just tell me if you know one that won’t make anyone laugh.”

I rummaged internally to catch hold of the elusive memory of that one unfunny joke I might have heard in the past.

“Okay,” I said, being a sport, “but don’t blame me if it makes your dick shrink.” We chuckled. “So, there’s this one king-“

“Wait, wait; don’t tell me! Recite it to Mehra aunty and see if she still laughs.”

I looked into his eyes and sensed mischief. A look of mutual understanding passed between us and we moved towards her group. She was standing with friends from her kitty, with a glass of wine held daintily in her hand. We stopped next to her and she wheeled around, smiling pleasantly.

“Hi, boys! What are you two up to?” she spoke animatedly.

“We’re fine, aunty,” responded Dhruv, putting on a slick voice. “Actually, we were just talking about a joke Avi heard. Would you like to hear it?”

For a split second, I sensed her smile vanish and her face lose color, as if we had asked her to donate her kidneys to the one of the inmates at the charity home she ran. She regained her composure sooner than she had appeared to lose it.

“Why, I am in the middle of a conversation with Mr. Shroff! Come back some other time?” she spoke with an artificially chirpy voice.

I said okay and began to turn around but Dhruv held me back.

“I insist you hear it now, since Avi here can be quite forgetful!” he spoke, grinning with malice and ill-intent. She sensed his eagerness but didn’t drop her guard.

“Erm, okay, go ahead.”

By this time, Mr. Shroff and Mr. Aravind, both of whom were in the same talking group as Shreya aunty, looked at us with curiosity.

“You have a joke to tell? Tell it to us too!”

Mrs. Mohanty and Mrs. Shroff also bundled together to hear us. It is amazing how jokes, or even their mere anticipation, knit together people from all walks of life. Suddenly, I could sense the crescendo rising as our audience of five demanded they be told the joke without any ado.

The fact that the joke was about as likely to tickle them as a heart attack did not ease my rising tension. Dhruv elbowed me, side-glancing at me with his half impish smile.

“Go ahead, tell it,” he said.

“Okay, so here it goes: there was once a very wise king who ruled over a huge, peaceful kingdom. He had served his public diligently for more than 50 years, and was now very old and on the threshold of his demise. There was only one thing that worried him: he had two beautiful daughters, but no sons to carry forward his legacy.”

At this point, I think it wise to inform the venerable reader that Mrs. Mehra’s face began to lose color and her eyes grew few sizes few large for their sockets. She looked like she had seen a spectre than was invisible to everyone else. No one else noticed them, but I, keen to gauge the reaction of my audience, caught her expressions in their autumnal retreat. In that instant, I knew she was a woman possessed.

“So, one day, he called over a most revered saint from the Himalayas to suggest a way out of his quandary. The wily Brahmin had amassed a great following not only for his meditative abilities but also, erm, his…most potent seed of Adam.” I smiled to myself, knowing I was getting to the meatiest part.

At this juncture, most of our audience scowled and some even put their palms to their mouths, probably to stifle their disapproving tongue-clicks. Some might have expected an adult joke, but I’m sure a sex-crazed ascetic did not feature highly in a group of middle-aged, middle class Indians’ idea of a joke. The men, sporting as they are, dared single chuckles.

Mrs. Mehra’s face was inscrutable; she seemed she could use a warm bear-hug. Something about the joke made her stiffen with fright; I could not place what exactly it was, but it made her body grow rigid with every line I spoke. Seeing her display such real horror made the hair on my arms rise and my spine tingle with unease. Her eyes exuded a feeling so indescribably terrible that I almost skipped a beat and stopped the joke midway, but I chose to look away and continue.

“Anyway, the great sage instructed the king’s wife to remain celibate for 108 days and not even encourage the mere thought of carnal desire. Only after agreeing to this strict guideline would he ‘bless’ the queen with his holy seed.”

Mrs. Mehra was worryingly pale by now. I nudged Dhruv and signalled towards her with concern. He followed my gaze but did not react immediately. Unfazed, I continued. I could sense the others getting uncomfortable with the joke, too, but none as much as her. It was like she had seen the devil.

“The king agreed to his demands and convinced the queen to take the severe vow of sexual abstinence. The queen, accustomed to the king’s lack of sexual vitality, readied herself for the near-impossible task of avoiding her own means of…self-pleasure. For 107 days, she kept her oath and veered her thoughts away from any sexual feelings. On the eve of the 108^th and final day of the vow, she tossed and turned in her bed, unable to withdraw her sexual cravings any longer. She turned to her side on the bed when the king was fast asleep and pleasured herself in the dead of the night-“

“Enough!” Exclaimed Mr. Mohanty angrily. While I was so focussed on Mrs. Mehra’s expressions, I had completely overlooked Mr. Mohanty’s rising discomfort with my joke.

“I’m done with your sick, disgusting jokes. And you know what, Reshma ji,” he looked at Mrs. Mehta, “I’m done with this goddamn party.” He threw his glass on the ground and started walking across the hall in short, impatient strides.

When Mrs. Mehta spoke next, it was in an ear-shattering scream.

“WAIT!!! DON’T YOU DARE WALK THE FUCK OFF!” She shouted in a voice not quite human. All heads in the room turned in her direction. Her eyes, already popping out of their lids, emanated a fury unmatched even by the terrifying illustrations of Kali from my Amar Chitra Katha paperbacks.

Mr. Mohanty looked back in disbelief.

“COME BACK, AND LET HIM FINISH THE JOKE!” Her voice thundered and reverberated across the spacious hall. Something unspeakable had come over her, and we could not help but pay her all our attention.

“Excuse me?” Mr. Mohanty asked, still reeling.

“Just COME BACK and hear the joke through!” Her anger had now a tinge of desperation in it. “Please,” she added.

Mr. Mohanty, perhaps too stumped to question the woman, walked slowly back to where he was a few seconds ago. He did not take her eyes off her, nor did anyone else in the room. Everyone wondered what the fuck was suddenly amiss with Reshma Mehta, the high-flying, cool-as-cucumber, life-of-the-party socialite.

“No one leaves this place before the joke gets over,” she ordered in a booming, monotonous voice. Then she looked at me, and her furious gaze made me recoil. “And you; continue.”

And then she screwed her face in one of the most horrific smiles I have ever seen a human perform. “Go on, what happened then?”

There was something hypnotic in the way she looked at – nay, through – me. It was like she held an invisible gun to my head, ready to blow my brains out if I didn’t finish the joke. I couldn’t help but continue.

“Then…when the sage arrived that night to impregnate the queen, he saw her shifting in the throes of self-induced orgasm,” I continued awkwardly, the discomfort in my audience’s faces no longer encouraging me. “He got angry and cursed her with impotency. The queen pleaded copiously to him, asking for one chance at forgiveness. At first, the sage was unmoved, but upon testing her genuine concern, suggested a way out with a peculiar demand. He wanted her to make sure that the instant the baby boy is born, there would be loud clapping in the court to announce his birth. The queen thought to herself: that isn’t too bad, is it? I just have to arrange for a group of clappers who would be present at the time of the delivery and clap the moment I give birth. The sage thus smiled and went away, blessing the queen and leaving her to sleep.”

I paused for effect. Mrs. Mehta looked at me, expecting me to continue. She appeared exhausted and embattled. Her body stood strangely rooted to her place and fat beads of sweat formed on her forehead.

“Anyway, so the queen decided not to tell the king about the infraction and kept the secret to herself. Nine months later, the ecstatic king decked up the kingdom in the most beautiful adornments and threw open the palace gates to the public. Everyone assembled in the hall to witness the birth of their new heir. As per the queen’s strict commands, a group of expert clappers positioned themselves at a vantage point to begin clapping the moment the baby boy emerged from the mother’s womb and uttered a cry.”

The absurdity of the joke perfectly mirrored the absurdity of the situation in the hall. It was supposed to have been a regular light hearted get-together but Mrs. Mehta had lost her marbles over something.

I entered the final act of my joke, sighing to complete the rest in a single uninterrupted breath. The tension in the room assumed a palpable character.

 “As soon as the queen began to wail in labour pain, the court musicians started playing their instruments to drown out her voice. The public waited with bated breath for the baby boy to emerge. Within a few minutes, a baby form emerged from the queen’s body and the clappers readied themselves. Before anyone could clap, however, the baby brought its tiny hands together and clapped them together sonorously. The clappers sat dumbfounded, realizing they had been beaten to it. You see, the baby was not a boy or a girl, but…somewhere in between, which is why he, or she…well, clapped.”

The joke was over, but no one had reacted. Everyone stood in absolute silence as I looked from person to person in hope of any response. Only Dhruv, who stood beside me, stifled a soft chuckle and diffused the situation. Mrs. Mehta suddenly broke into a raucous fit of forced laughter, her beastly voice thundering over everyone.

“LAUGH!” she ordered everyone, but no one did. We all saw incredulously as she stumbled across the room, laughing wildly, before finally collapsing to the ground and fainting.  

Dhruv was right: Mrs. Mehta would laugh at anything.

READ PART 2 HERE.

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