Desire, by the starlight...

A short story

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She lay stretched out on the sand, gazing up at the starry sky. The moon was nowhere to be seen that night and the enveloping darkness seemed like such a blessing. She enjoyed being half submerged in the water, feeling the grainy coarseness of the sand beneath as well as the soft caresses of tiny waves all around.

Somewhere behind her and beyond the small hillock lay fast asleep the village of Ambawadi, and somewhere within the town was Sada, probably knocked out halfway through his second bottle of country liquor in some dingy corner. Men...she sighed. She knew Sada cared for her. He lovingly called her Ipsita, meaning Desire. But she had traveled far and wide with him for the last eight days at a stretch, and all she wanted now was some peaceful solitude to rest her weary self.

A soft warm breeze was kissing the parts of her body that were out of the water. She sighed again, suddenly felt needy in a way she hadn't felt before. And then she heard the sound. Someone was approaching, moving slowly through the water. She lay absolutely still as he came really near. In the feeble starlight all she could make out was his dark, big outline.

Minutes passed as he settled in the shallow waters beside her. He seemed to be waiting, hesitating. Twice he moved towards her tentatively, as if expecting her to draw away, but then he rolled back again, unsure. And then he eased towards her till their bodies touched, side-by-side. She tilted towards him in encouragement. Their bodies grew closer together and she felt his limbs wrap her body in a sensuous embrace.

They lay like that for a long time, holding on, bodies rubbing against each other. It felt wonderful, unlike anything she had experienced before. She wondered why she felt so comforted in the arms of a total stranger. Did it feel right because it was so wrong? Her thoughts drifted to Sada, who used her often but had never given her this kind of pleasure. She sighed again and nestled as close to him as possible, feeling his roughness against her smooth surfaces.

A few hours went by in total bliss. Then slowly the darkness began to lift, and so did the tide. It would be daybreak soon. As the water began to inch upwards, he started moving. Their bodies rubbed together faster, harder. She heard his groans as he beat against her repeatedly. Froth formed amongst the waves as they broke over their struggling bodies. And then, with a final climaxing wrench, he disentangled his limbs from her and was gone.

The first rays of the sun lit her world. She wanted to laugh out aloud, but couldn't. She could still feel the remnants of his touch and somehow knew that he had taken away a bit of her identity with him. As the tide flowed in fast, she felt all her weariness slip away, and her body and spirit floated and danced with the waves.

Sada rubbed his heavy head as he clambered over the hillock looking for Ipsita. It was time for them to be on their way, and he cursed the hangover under his breath as he labored under the heavy bundle of net and bait. But as always, his face brightened when he saw her. He followed the rope out into the knee high water and was about to tip his load in when he saw the damage and gasped. Her insides were littered with soggy leaves, twigs, pieces of bark and sand. Her paint had been severely scratched and chipped all along her side. She looked ragged, but yet funny, as she bobbed along merrily with the first ' I ' missing out of the Ipsita painted along her bow.

With tired eyes he looked around trying to spot a possible cause or culprit. He looked at the narrow strip of sand, the rocks and hillock beyond, a few other boats tied up at a distance, the line of palm trees towards the north and the dense clump of mangroves in the south. And then he looked out onto the water and spotted the gnarled old mango tree floating away in the distance. Its dying branches were outstretched exuberantly towards the sky, as if on some final mysterious high...

- Vivek Rao

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Scrambled: Quasi

These are the various moods of Abhijit Rao aka Quasi aka Q aka Gadget Boy aka DaRao aka SPM Singh (only his school friends will get the last one)....

Q is a software dude of the highest order, a brilliant photographer, an absolute geek and probably the laziest, slobbiest, arse i've ever seen (not that i've actually seen his arse, mind you).

At the age of 12 he wrote his first porn story, built a flashing LED display on his bulky spectacles (through which he peered from below neatly oiled and combed good-boy hair), and fell in love (along with most of his friends) with the prettiest girl on campus.

He has a tendency to spend long hours in the loo (perplexing, since his regular twice-a-day "fun feature" usually lasts all of 30 seconds - self admittedly), longer hours in front of the computer and any remaining time stretched out flat on his back, snoring his nose-hair off.

Atleast that was the case till the end of his college years. For the last 4 or 5 years you could find him at all odd hours at the Ruia naka, mingling with guys and chicks half his age (and managing to cross a few bases with some of them! - both sexes). He also developed a major travel bug, and has burned rubber extensively, earlier in my Maruti 800 and his Maruti Esteem, and more recently in my Honda City and his Mahindra 4x4 open Jeep. His writings and photos, including those from his travels, can be seen on his blog and his flickr account. Quite a lot of it is really good stuff.

His geekiness has matured considerably from blowing nose bubbles during school, to accumulating a collection of gadgets that most commerce ch*ts like myself can barely even operate. His stash includes.....

-- many cameras, camera bags, lenses, filters, tripods, related arbit attachments and gizmos

-- more than a dozen torches of various sizes, shapes, twists, makes and strengths (all expensive, mind you),

-- more than a couple of dozen knives of various sizes and attachments

-- a walking stick complete with sliding rods, buttons, special pressure surfaces and grips (somehow serves the same purpose as my grandpa's simple wooden stick)

-- titanium spoon and fork

-- donald duck pen that actually quacks

-- fisher space pen (the kind thats actually used in space; note: Paul C Fisher developed the pressurized refill for NASA in 1965. The combination of tungsten carbide ball point & thixotropic ink in a hermetically sealed cartridge pressurized at nearly 35 pounds per sq. inch allows it to write in freezing cold, boiling heat, underwater and at any angle - even upside down!; reminds me of the age old "american jet propelled pen v/s russian pencil" joke)

-- mustard coloured floaters (brilliant thing about these is they totally fool you; you'd guess they cost around 400 bucks while they actually cost 4000!)

-- water bottle with built-in infra-red gadged to kill germs

....and many many more, believe me!

He has 2 major regrets in life: one is that for the last 4 years he has had a male wife (who is most probably going "sheee, flop!!" while reading this (sorry percy!)). The other is his phone voice; his carefully cultivated ranti looks are ofttimes jeopardised when he answers the phone and friends ask, "aunty, is abhijit there?" :-D

Most would agree that he can be quite a pain sometimes (quasi in an argumentative mood and a charging rhino are equally dangerous), but somewhere below the layers of body hair and grime, he's a really great guy! He has helped me get out of some pretty bad spots and has generally been there whenever i've really needed him. Quasi - my elder brother and one of my best-est friends. :-)

Beat the heat.....doggy style!!

This dude seems to be able to cool off by airing his..er..stuff. Now, dont all of us wanna be able to do that?? :-D


And this dude has found a cool puddle of muck (yuck!) in the shade of a TATA 1613 to wallow in...

Its getting so freaking hot outside!! And people still think global warming is some distant phenomenon that doesn't affect us directly. I remember, during school days, winters used to be pretty cool even in mumbai. Now we hardly realise when winter comes and goes by, but summer...well thats another story.

I wont be surprised if hens start laying boiled eggs soon. he he he! that sounds funny. So when we sit down to drink, we just need to park a hen in the middle, dab some salt and pepper to her underside, and viola! good chakna will be just a cluck or two away! :-D

Crazy lines

During a boring lecture (predictably!) during my second year at JBIMS, I was feeling particularly edgy, was doodling on the last page of my notebook, and so I tried an experiment. I just penned a rhyme, letting the words flow without any pause for reflection, just letting my absolutely random thoughts spill over. This took less than 2 mins to write. Totally weird stuff!

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Heat and Cold

Whatever we know till today
Is something no one will ever say

But truth is a strange game, do you
Prefer the truth till your face is blue?

Can conscience play a gentler role?
Or can you ignore it, you troubled soul?

Because tomorrow your perspective
Can be twisted and turned into something new

Then above the mountains things will change
This world is not beautiful, but strange

So gallop on, your minds horses may
They will never ever escape the day

Forever they lie bound and trapped beneath
My shallow dreams and my grinding teeth

Whatever we know till today
Is part of a bargain street-side play

- Vivek Rao

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he he he he he

Viral..!

Have been down with a viral infection since yesterday. Bad body ache and fever....what a waste of a weekend. This thing seems to have spread quite widely this time. Lots of people in office are either suffering from it or are talking about their family members being down with flu symptoms.

Took the opportunity of being confined to bed to complete Season 1 of Prison Break, courtesy Surve (who was kind enough to download it; and who is down with a 103 fever btw...). Prison Break is highly recommended to anybody who hasn't seen it yet. It is bloody fantastic! Its like a good thriller movie, only that it is about 16 hours long (across 22 episodes). Good shit, as Bidrya would say.

2 chicks in Season 1; both immensely likeable! :-)

Time....

One of my all time favorite songs. These lyrics really really hit me. Floyd rules. No doubt about it.

Time
(Mason, Waters, Wright, Gilmour) 7:06

Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day
You fritter and waste the hours in an offhand way.
Kicking around on a piece of ground in your home town
Waiting for someone or something to show you the way.

Tired of lying in the sunshine staying home to watch the rain.
You are young and life is long and there is time to kill today.
And then one day you find ten years have got behind you.
No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun.

So you run and you run to catch up with the sun but it's sinking
Racing around to come up behind you again.
The sun is the same in a relative way but you're older,
Shorter of breath and one day closer to death.

Every year is getting shorter never seem to find the time.
Plans that either come to naught or half a page of scribbled lines
Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way
The time is gone, the song is over,
Thought I'd something more to say.....