OH MAN!!!!

There were around twelve thousand of them on bikes carrying the saffron flags to hide their mischief behind. Together they chorused, "JAI SHREE RAM", "JAI SHREE RAM"

Upstairs, in a shadowed room a voice groaned. Pulling the sheets off his face, Ram rubbed the sleep out of his eyes. Hair all tousled, he looked like a disgruntled angle.

"JAI SHREE RAM!"

He groaned again. "Oh Man! Not again."

Jumping out of bed he pulled out his rucksack and started stuffing things in it haphazardly with one hand, while he speed dialed Rahim with his other hand.

"Hey, wassup?" answered a velvety voice from the other side.

"How do you feel about a spot of vacation?" Ram asked.

"Something up?" Rahim queried.

"Nope just some thousand of my so called followers shouting slogans and heading towards the area of your so called followers. Get the picture?"

"Oh Man!" exclaimed Rahim," Again! I still haven't recovered from the havoc they created in our name last time. Damn it, how they make us wanna curse and swear."

Now that he knew the reason for Ram's frustration, he let his own frustration be heard loud and clear on the phone. You could almost see him sighing and shaking his head from side to side in disappointment.

"Whose idea was it to create these idiots anyway?"

"I think it was Jesus's daddy, wasn't it?"

They both groaned again. But then Ram visibly fought his anger and smiling slightly he said,"Chill yaar, time for some R and R, i say. Get the pun," pride evident in his voice.

Rahim groaned, "For your sake! Stop with your poor jokes already. I'll come with you only on the condition that you won't crack a single joke the entire trip. What did you have in mind, huh?"

"Hmm....I've been thinking about 127 hours in the Grand Canyon, what say?"

"Alright, see you there in an hour around. And while you are at it ask Jesus if he wants to join us as well?" And Rahim cut the call.

Still packing, Ram called up Jesus. "Hey there, are you up for a short break at the Canyons?"

"Oh Man! You mean they are doing it again?" said Jesus from the other end 

Pain is all I have
Pain is all I feel
Will you...
Share it with me

Pain is all I got
Pain is all I see
Will you...
Bear it with me

Breathless!!
Chest heaving.
World!!
Is receding.

I asked
For your help
I asked
For your gospel.

You handed me
Nectar
You waved me
Goodbye.

Senseless!!
I lay at your feet.
Lifeless!!
I'm finally free.

Rules Of The Game

It whizzed past your ear
The surprised look on your face
Pure priceless.
You had thought
I didn't know the rules
And all the while I was
The one playing you instead.

I just stood at one spot
Waiting for you

To send everything my way.

While I made you run
On my whims and fancies

All over that court

And across as well.

You didn't give it your all
Scared you'll hurt me
Maybe even scar my feelings.
I let you have your way
A drop here, a miss there
'Cus it felt nice to know
That's how much you cared.


And so it became
A new game altogether
A game that was all mine
The power of it enthralled
For I was the one making
The rules of this game
And it felt almost divine.


Yet there was a lost charm
For I never was the one
To fool someone for long.
The thrill for me 
Is always in the victory
Of beating someone
Who is my equal in all.


You look at me uncertain
You give me all you got
I know you wish
That I'd take it
And allow you to play
All those moves you've been
Holding back on for so long.


In a split second
I send it sailing back at you
In tandem we move now.
We take it up a notch
And turn it into a heady waltz
Knowing all too well
That the rules of the game
Are yet to be formed.

DASTAAN...

Prologue


She always wondered why they had named her Dastaan. After all it was a very unusual name. So what was the Dastaan behind her name then?


And that night while the storm raged outside and they sat all cozy inside, she looked up to see her Dad smiling at her in the way that was reserved only for her. The smile that said 'you make my world beautiful'. And suddenly she asked, "Why did you name me Dastaan?" 


They looked at her, a bit puzzled.


"I mean I love my name. But why Dastaan?"


She listened to them trying to explain, blubbering and disoriented at first. Calling her a story, a tale, a saga etc. And then they got into the flow  and told her about -


The Dastaan that was their life. A Dastaan they lived. Their own Dastaan.

CHAPTER - 3

As she heard them talk, she could see it all happening in her mind's eye. That was the way she imagined it happened anyhow.


She imagined the astonishment on her Dad's face when on their first meeting her Mum, a complete stranger to him then, leapt into his arms sobbing. She could imagine her Mum clinging harder to him with each thunderbolt and Dad trying to soothe her and falling in love with her. Right then and there.


She could imagine her father, the dream of every romantic woman, wooing her Mum. And her mother, the idea of every man's perfect woman, let herself be courted. She could see the pain on those young faces when they parted and her father went to the war.


She could almost see the destruction that shadowed her Dad's face whenever he thought nobody was looking for years after serving in that infernal war. She remembered those videos from her childhood where her father would be sitting as if frozen til the time he noticed either Mum or her. That's when a smile would light up his face and crease the corner of his eyes as if some of his pain had just dissipated.


She remembered her childhood then. The bed-time stories, the walks with her father to the ice-cream stands, her first day in school while they waited outside the entire while, icing the star shaped cookies she helped her Mum bake, the trips they took together, the sniffles and the fevers, the football matches and the violin concerts. 


She remembered their presence at every important moment of her life and at those too that she had considered not-so-important at the time but valued now. She remembered being the cause for their joy, their smiles, their pride and sometimes worry.


She remembered being the star in their lives and she understood.


She understood the saga and beyond that was all of their lives. She understood her name better. She understood herself better.


She looked at them still enchanted with each other and smiling that smile that was reserved for her. The smile that said 'you make my world beautiful'. She smiled back with the realization that in her lived on their Dastaan... 

DASTAAN...

Prologue

"But why Dastaan?"

She tried to answer that question. The look of puzzlement across her face keeping his gaze hooked onto her. He smiled that amused smile that always complemented that puzzled look. She walked upto him and leaned over him, her gentle lavender fragrance ensnaring his senses.

"A story, a tale. No! More than that, it is many stories linked into one. No, it's more than that! Actually, all of that and something more. Something more profound, mysterious and encompassing. I don't know how to explain," she muttered. The wonder and exasperation giving her voice a smoky quality.

"Maybe, a saga," he offers, smiling.

And a dastaan it was, their life. A dastaan they lived. Their own Dastaan.

Chapter - 2

He had come back on a stormy night.

She was always there for him it seemed. Waiting. Leaping into his arms out of the blue. Holding onto him with all that was true. That one year of courtship, one year of engagement and one year of marriage. He remembered telling her one night when they lay entangled in each other's embrace, " These three years with you have been the true beginning of my dastaan, the story of my life."

"Our dastaan," she had whispered.

And then the war began and brought with it the year of hell. She supported his decision to serve the nation and became his only thread to humanity while he got sucked into that vortex of destruction. On the days when he saw tiny corpses of toddlers lining the streets, it was the thought of her and of the part of them that grew inside her that kept him going. 

He came back broken in so many ways that he was sure he could never be pieced back together.Now that he thought of it that night the storm wasn't half as violent as the rage storming in his soul.  But then she opened the door and while she stood there with the little whimpering bundle in her hands, he knew he'd found the salve for those hurting jagged ends.

She leaped into his arms, her face wet with tears. His shivering and sobbing  angel. Then she moved back and placed his little girl into his arms and murmured, "Dastaan, sweetheart, look it's your daddy."

And Dastaan looked right at her daddy and reaching up pulled at his nose and smiled. A small bruise on his soul healed and he looked up into her eyes and whispered, "Our Dastaan."

DASTAAN...

Prologue

"Dastaan......dastaan," she murmurs again as she unfolds herself from the couch and walks over to the study table where he is sitting, working on his computer. She leans over him, winds her hands around his neck and whispers the word in his ear.


"A story, a tale. No! More than that, it is many stories linked into one. No, it's more than that! Actually, all of that and something more. Something more profound, mysterious and encompassing. I don't know how to explain," she muttered. The wonder and exasperation giving her voice a smoky quality.


"Maybe, a saga," he offers, smiling.


She frowned. "Maybe."


And a dastaan it was, their life. A dastaan they lived. Their own Dastaan.

Chapter-1


They had met on a dark stormy night. 


Now that she thought of that night it seemed something straight out of a movie; a chapter out of a typical romantic novel; a prose out of those poetry that the loveless poets wrote while imagining themselves in love or being loved.


For her part, she had never been the type to believe in all that fantasy that love seemed to entail. A level head over her shoulder and a purpose in her stride, she never had the time to think about fairy tales.


And then that night she ended up in the role of damsel in distress... 


With a flat tyre, a dead cell phone, a lonely road and a looming storm she could have dealt with. Anyday, anytime. No problem at all. What she could not deal with was the thunder. Thunder was the only thing in the whole wide universe that rendered her mute, terrorized and shaking. And thunder was doing it now, driving her crazy with fear. With each peal of thunder she gathered herself closer, shaking and whimpering while the emergency blinkers of the car flashed on and off in incessant rain.


She had no idea how long she sat there huddled in her seat, rocking to and fro like a lost little girl seeking comfort in the motion, but is seemed like forever. Then he pulled up behind her car. It was too dark to see anything clearly. All she saw was a tall, lean form jump out of a Dodge into the curtain of rain and then her attention was diverted to the bolt of lightning that jagged the sky.


With the next clap of thunder, she threw caution out of the window and dashing out of the car she leapt into his arms; a wet, shivering and sobbing stranger.

What I Feel For You...

What I feel for you
I cannot express
For words so intense
Do not exist.
The purity of my love

Is beyond all evil 

I stand here as an equal

Not as friend, nor a rival.
No restrains
No boundaries
No fences drawn
Yet i hold it contained,
Here inside me since dawn.
Because...
What I feel for you
Is raw, Is untamed,
A blessing, A pain,
Is now, Is forever,
Sunshine and rain.
It is the stuff of legends
What myths are made of.
That part of the truth with
Which lores are paved off.
So I command to release
The lightning
The thunder
The fireworks 
The storm
For in the din of it all
In that one fleeting, 
Passing moment
Will echo
What I feel for you.