You Never Know!

1.

He could see red. It was more like vermillion. Something shone bright. It felt like he was staring into the sun. His eyes cautiously half-opened, only to see sunshine easing its way in through as Nupa raised the blinds and grinned that grin he remembered from the first time he saw her. His feeling of fondness was interrupted by flashes of red; this time, a deeper shade. In what felt like less than a second, reality took over. The previous night’s events inundated his mind like a tornado attacking an unsuspecting town. Fear paralyzed the whole of him. Guilt engulfed him. That he slept blissfully after his sinful act sickened his guts. He could still see it all fresh in his mind. She couldn’t scream, he had gagged her. She was powerless, his little one. He remembered how her eyes welled up in pain. She wriggled and twisted. It was a deep slit; the collar of her favorite purple top was soaked in blood. The stars on the collar weren’t even visible. He saw how she dreaded him that minute, it killed him inside. She was his only baby daughter. He couldn’t see her writhe in pain. He just couldn’t. Yet, he did, for a whole minute. He wept; he stood there watching her and let his tears gush down as they did. He’d sworn to kill, if any man hurt his little girl; he never never saw himself there. What else could he have done? She knew too much. If she said a word about Riya outside, it would ruin his life forever, and not just his. Nupa would never forgive him. Everyone would despise him. It was a choice between his everything and his little girl. He had to let her go. He remembered how he saw the girl freeze. He was trembling as he closed her door shut and walked to his room where his wife was asleep and sleep-talking. He could not recollect how he slept through the night. He wondered if the little one had told her friends what she had seen earlier that week. What if she had? How would he face Nupa if she found out? The thought of it petrified him. Riya was one thing. He had slaughtered what Nupa loved, more than she loved him. He’d be known as the beast who slayed his own little one. He was a murderer. He was a bastard; he was disgusted. He closed his eyes.

He sat upright, watched Nupa as she walked across the room; he smiled a contrived smile. He was glad when she smiled back; Nupa hadn’t noticed the sweat on his forehead.

2.

He could see red. It was more like vermillion. Something shone bright. It felt like he was staring into the sun. His eyes cautiously half-opened only to see sunshine easing its way in through as Nupa raised the blinds and grinned that grin he remembered from the first time he saw her. She was still that lovely beautiful woman he had met nineteen years back; how he loved her! It was the thought of her and their little girl asleep in the other room that kept him a very happy man. The little one was going to turn 14, she wanted to go for a sleepover. It felt unbelievable that their little bundle of happiness had grown up so much; he was overwhelmed. His eyes filled up every time he brought back memories from the day Nupa delivered her. They were blessed. He got out of bed walked to Nupa and kissed her forehead. He concocted what the little girl called Daddy’s Sunday Strawberry Smoothie and walked to her room to wake her up. He twisted the knob; the door squeaked as it opened. He dropped the glass. He screamed as he scampered towards where his baby girl lay. Nupa rushed to the room in alarm, she stopped at the door. He felt the girl’s wrist and banged his fist on the edge of the cot. Nupa stood motionless. She couldn’t see; it was blurry. An appalling shade of red was all she saw. The shards of glass that she had stepped on didn’t hurt her foot. Her only child was no more. She wailed deafeningly. Then again, hysterically. He’d sworn to kill, if any man ever hurt his little girl. That second, he knew he’d find the man and rip his ribs out. Only, nothing would bring back his girl. It killed his insides to see her frozen.

He was to blame. He whispered to Nupa that it was his fault, all his. He shouldn’t have left his only child alone. He sobbed uncontrollably. He never had his whole life.

P.S. : The above is a fictitious narration, inspired by the unsolved Aarushi murder case about which numerous stories/theories were conjured.  I shudder when I wonder what the man in case 2 would go through, if he were accused of murder. The world could get sadistic sometimes.

Let's talk about life!

It’s a beautiful morning. Unlike most other post-nightmare mornings, I woke up this morning after abruptly cutting short a very happy and delightful dream. That makes me wonder, a dream feels so real – almost as real as REAL- one can actually feel real emotions during/after a dream. That’s really awesome simulation. Nature always has a way of beating technology, and the former does is so naturally and easily. That’s like when ‘love’ protects Harry when the darkest and most powerful magic fails the dark Lord. Anyway, let me nor digress. My dream, coming back there, I vaguely remember dancing exultantly. I was ecstatic, I’ve no idea why. I did have a good night, like it matters if it was all only in my head. I’m so happy, I don’t even remember the mood dampening stuff of yesterday evening. It’s truly a beautiful morning.

This looks like the ideal day to start afresh. ‘A new beginning’ – Now how fresh and positive does that sound? The freshness reminds me of a pretty dew drop majestically seated on pristine green leaf that’s forced to do a graceful dance thanks to the pleasantly cold wind. That’s perhaps how the phrase ‘turn over a new leaf’ was coined. Apologies if anything I write today sounds like crap. My mind is on one of its overly excited and restless days. Please excuse me and my temporarily capricious mind for its unsystematic, arbitrary and interrupting thoughts. Coming back to this morning that’s so bright yet beautifully sober, it makes me want to start living life. Living life wonderfully, the way it’s to be lived. Life that’s a routine is not just monotonous and depressing, but ironical. Life- the word, the sound of it – it gives an idea of depth and intriguing beauty. Close your eyes and say it aloud while still whispering and you will feel it too. That reminds me of one day back in school, when my French ma’am asked all of us to say the word ‘aujourd’hui’ aloud with our eyes closed. When you know the meaning of a word, it in a way reverberates along with the sound of it. It’s wonderful. Damn, I should stop myself from digressing. It’s funny how the mind meanders into random thoughts when you unleash it! Haven’t we all had a day when we started somewhere and went zig-zag-zig and completely forgot what we were talking about?! Oh I did that AGAIN.

I was talking about life. Isn’t it the most mysterious of all things around? While in a tough situation or when I can’t take something any longer, I wonder if life is real. I wonder if the day before really happened; if our memories of the past are true. What if our past is nothing but data recorded in our heads like the thoughts in a pensieve? What if I was being fooled?  I wonder if the next morning will make me realize it was all a dream. I remember I wondered all this before my board exams; I remember wondering if my exams even mattered. I also remember having no other way but to stop thinking crap and study through the night. It’s all so intriguing.

Source: dianamajalahti.com

While I still have this life, I want to live it. I want to live it today, the way I dream of living it someday. Today could be the last day. How I’d regret in heaven if this mystery ended without me having visited the Caribbean? Or wait, there’s France. I swore to myself while in French class, that I’d one day sharpen my French and then visit the country. How I’d sit in heaven and watch a lot of you traveling and exploring and shopping and die for the second time, this time of jealousy. Regret is the worst feeling there is. My team at work tells me I should learn to be more proactive. That’s a sign! On the same day random and aimless clicks on fb led me to one article I just had to read. I’ve been having sudden moments of realization lately. I realized yesterday that I’m 22 and if life’s become a droning routine, there’s got to be something wrong with the way I’m living it. I’ve been discussing traveling, a lot. It can’t be simply coincidental that all of this happens together. It feels like the world’s trying to tell me something.

Source: Google

I love to travel. It’s an amazing feeling. Maybe it’s just me, but beautiful places inspire me to an unbelievable extent. It’s an overwhelming feeling. The Grand Canyon, for instance, I loved the tranquil of it. I could just stand and stare a whole day. From up there, the river Colorado with its waters rising and receding monstrously and aggressively looks like a peaceful, very pretty teal strip undulating amidst the vastness of rocks and boulders of various shades of brown. It’s gorgeous. It’s humbling, the magnificence of it. This is the feeling I long to feel. Not just that, so much more. I want to visit new places, take a stroll on the streets. I want to satiate my curiosity, I want to explore. I want to watch people, meet some and live life their way while I’m there. I want to eat their food and drink their drinks. In any place I visit, I want to understand the history, embrace the culture, and inhale the beauty. I want to shop and of course I want to dress up their way. I want new and refreshing experiences. I want new perspectives. I want to understand people better. I want to see life differently. I want to travel, explore, and fall in love with my life.

Source: writingthroughthefog.com

I want to begin to live life. I want to begin to feel life. Today is the day to start afresh. A new beginning.

A not-so-feministic post by a feminist

Disregarding all my grace, I heaved myself awkwardly on a friend’s bike’s strangely high pillion seat. He took off in full speed. As the wind hit my face hard, and tears ran sideways and flew out of my face, I took a second to figure out what I could see on the pavement on my left: A candle-light march. I did not need to be told why; It was all India had in mind. I got a glimpse of a placard saying “Women are not objects of sex”. In a second, we zipped past and the protest was nowhere in sight.

Through the ride, while I was trying to keep my highly tied pony-tail from staying horizontal cause of the wind, I pondered over what the placard said. I wondered if that would ever change or if it could. I still wonder.

Source : http://everythingethics.wordpress.com

Let’s not talk about rape or any kind of abuse here. Men who rape are cruel, cold-blooded, callous, animals. Let’s talk about humans, not them. Let’s simply talk about how women are viewed in our society.

We women, we blog, rant and grumble about how it is impossible to take a stroll on the Indian roads without being scrutinized head to toe, in detail, by random scoundrel-like fellows. We get infuriated at the men, at their uncouthness and at our own helplessness. I grit my teeth when people blame not-so-much covering clothes. I hate that our attire should be a criterion, but I quite know it is and hence dress consciously. We all put away the dresses and tank tees while in a conservative town/area to avoid the stares. But otherwise, we dress at our own accord. There is life back in our wardrobes; nothing beats the feeling of walking into a party all dressed up and feeling good about it. Now which girl would disagree? But, hang on, did someone tell you that men in the city don’t check girls out? NO. You know for a fact that they do. You know so well that the well-dressed gentleman who apologized to you more profusely while handing you your clutch that he never caused to drop in the first place than you would have if you had stepped on his toe with your stiletto’s heel, was simply trying to hit on you cause of how hot you looked in that dress. Still, you smiled back; you did secretly enjoy the attention, didn’t you? You still wondered why all men couldn’t be as chivalrous. You dressed up to feel good or because you love and want to flaunt your new dress or cause you wanted to look as good as your girlfriends. You might not have dressed up to grab the attention of the good-looking man at the bar. Yet, when your girlfriend told you that her guy friend finds you sexy, didn’t a small tiny tiny bit of you feel ecstatic? No you certainly did not want to have sex with him. But it did feel good to be attractive and surely it did feel good coming from a guy. Now, let me you get reminded of the man in a lungi who earlier that day, loudly, with no intention of not being heard, articulated “ey itemmm daa!” and then jeered at you along with his friends. It disgusts you, the mere thought. Has it ever occurred to you that it’s just the sophistication in the former that comforts us women? Men are the same, everywhere.

Men in small not-so-modern towns don’t exactly get to see women attired skimpily or very fashionably. Women in these places usually adhere to the town’s not-so-modern expectations. A woman who walks the road bravely dressed in shorts on a summer morning will naturally cause more than a head to turn. You’d get the gaze not just from the men, the women too. However, for a city bred man, a woman in a halter necked top would be nothing new. He’d ‘ve mastered a way to scan the vicinity sub-consciously and put in some effort to look only in selective cases.  Even in those cases, the man would look in a way where either the lady’d never realize or she would and would covertly relish the attention. Try a bikini in a city and see how many eyes follow you; even the sophistication will evaporate then. Or walk into a pub on ladies’ night and see how many men wait outside and request random girls to help them get past the bouncers posing as a couple. Why would a man want to pay for a couple-entry ticket to a pub on ladies’ night, knowing every drink would cost him? Quite obvious, isn’t it? Let’s leave aside random men; our own guy friends check girls out all the time, don’t they? Mine do it so religiously like it’s some duty earmarked to them by manhood. I sit with them either bored or I join them, only I check out the woman’s outfit. It’s fun, sometimes. We all have such friends and we find it perfectly okay. Yet, we complain when the roadside men do the same.

My point of contention here is that all men are the same; we know it. We are comfortable with the more sophisticated ones for they never make us feel violated and unsafe. They never make us wish we had a blanket to cover ourselves up. We secretly seek the attention of the sophisticated men but we want the other ones to look away. And that, well, is probably asking for too much.

Probing further, almost every man watches porn, your brother does, your friend does, they all do. I’m not saying women don’t, but that’s irrelevant here. Porn’s easily available everywhere. EVERYWHERE. It’s legal too. Now doesn’t porn objectify women in a sexual way? Of course it does. And do we women particularly want to illegalize it? No, because most of us believe it’s normal for a man to want to watch this stuff.

When Katrina dances singing “I know you want it but you’re never gonna get it, Tere haath kabhi na aani…… Duniya yeh saari mere ishq ki hai deewani”, we dance along, we sing along. Clearly we aren’t going to demur at this, how can we forget freedom of speech? We are broad-minded and progressive, it’s cheap to even wonder if this is okay. It doesn’t matter if she objectifies herself in the song. It’s just a song. Only, there some men who know they’re really never get it, and can’t take their eyes off a woman when they get a chance. But forget that, let’s dance to ‘Shieela, Shiela ki jawaani…”.

Some men who have no exposure to such women in real life, can’t help that they look at women around in a sexual way, more so if there is exposure of skin. It’s natural that a woman loves to bring out her grace, beauty and elegance in the way she goes about things. And it’s natural that men are attracted to women, more so if she emanates poise and good looks. I’m neither saying porn should be illegalized nor that item numbers should be banned. I’m not saying women shouldn’t dress up the way they want, I love to dress up too. I’m simply saying women have always been objectified. That doesn’t mean any man can have sex with a woman when it isn’t consensual. It simply talks about how a woman is viewed in our world : a sexual object. Knowingly or unknowlingly, we ‘ve accepted it and we object to only some aspects that we don't like. This is reality and it might just never change.

Or it just might, some far away day. We need to stop doing a lot of crap that we do in the name of culture. We need to demystify sex. We need to stop rousing curiosity by giving sex the notorious importance that it's given today. It shouldn’t be a taboo subject at all. The stereotypes associated with women should be disregarded.  People have to stop stopping boys and girls from hanging out together. It’s important that everyone understands and learns to handle people of the other gender. No that isn’t bad culture; it’s such misinterpreted ideas injected into our minds that have gotten us here. Let’s focus on the right things and let’s hope to see some change some day.

P.S. :  As mentioned earlier, nothing can justify any act of abuse of any kind. No man has the right to cash in on his physical strength to exploit a woman verbally/physically/sexually. What is a world that makes half its people feel unsafe and afraid?! Let’s fight for our cause and not give up till we feel safe. Till that blessed day arrives, let’s walk around with peper-spray (http://www.chilliguard.com/)

P.P.S. : The ideas in this article are inspired by that of a friend. I denied and got angry when I couldn’t refute his arguments. It took a lot of self-debating to convince my feminist side that he was quite right.

Interview : Sruthy Venky, Miss Madras 2012

My interview with Miss Madras 2012 - Sruthy Venky got featured in Dashing Magazine's January edition.

Click here to read the interview. Page 22-26.

This is my first attempt at this. I'd love to take feedback of any kind.

Thanks in advance.

Cheers

Ashwini

Misfortune by a SNAP

There is someone - a denizen of the skies, seated up there on a throne-like royal couch resting his massive hirsute legs on the soft fluffs of a cloud. Not God or some divine existence – Being an agnostic, I don’t spend hours mulling over let alone writing about the existence of God. 

So going back to the clouds, on one huge greyish-white cloud, there is a golden throne, draped in red velvet, adorned in silver and gold satin – nothing short of what I imagine the legendary throne of Apollo to be. Our mammoth protagonist is comfortably seated devouring seedless green grapes, pausing only for sips of scotch. There’s a 24hrs catering service to satiate his palate when the grapes get boring. There’s the typical manservant seated in an ordinary yet golden chair a couple of fluffs below. There are small TV screens all around, needless to say, LED and HD supporting as well. This hulk like figure is glued to his new phone- an Android Ice-cream sandwich model which he ordered on Flipkart simply because the OS had a name that goes well with the fluffs of his abode. All day, he basks in all this comfort while flirt-texting a lady ogre he’s trying to hit on.

The screens in his abode relay random scenes from a blue, pretty-looking orb called Earth. Earth has many many many small insignificant creatures called humans who live a few years doing incomprehensible and strange things before disappearing into nothingness. The screens play scenes from the lives of these creatures like a TV soap, thus entertaining the manservant constantly, and the hulk too when Whatsapp is down or when the lady is busy with something/someone else. The manservant uses a remote control to switch to another scene from another mass of land on the Earth. The hulk is more powerful and influential. He casually flicks his fingers to alter the story of the scene. He can change anything. Everything.

One day they were watching a female human walking. She was dressed up. The Hulk realized dressing up was a lady thing, universally; it happens in the clouds and far away on Earth too. The she-human was not half as pretty as the Hulk’s special one, yet she looked so proud and haughty. He flicked his fingers, SNAP. The she-human tripped and fell flat faced into a puddle. The Hulk and his manservant burst into fits of laughter.

Another day, millions of miles away, on Earth, I woke up to a bright and pleasant Sunday morning. I was going to take my unresponsive iron box to the electronics shop; I hated having to wear clothes I disliked only because they were the only ones crisply ironed the way I liked it. I stepped out of the house. SNAP. The sun shone brighter than ever and it sent down heat waves that quite burnt my skin. I walked almost a mile hunting for the shop. The weather was so bad; I was almost drenched in sweat. I reached the shop. The guy behind the desk plugged the iron box in. SNAP. It worked perfectly like it hadn’t, in weeks. The manservant giggled so much seeing the bewilderment on my face that he snorted. I walked to the tailor’s shop. SNAP. It was closed. This seemed like so much fun to the manservant. Even the hulk was smiling; he needed something to keep his mind off the lady issues. I had woken up early on a Sunday for no good reason. I cursed the Gods under my breath; little did I know who was behind all of this. I came back home, frustrated. I decided to do some laundry, simply to cross something off my to-do list. I filled water, soap. I dumped in the clothes. The machine roared for five seconds before it began to whirl and whirl. Five minutes passed.  SNAP. The power went off. I was so mad, I didn’t know who to punch; I was alone at home. The Android vibrated, the lady had texted. The ogre smiled like a toddler would at the sight of a new toy train. He asked the manservant to program the SNAPs to a randomize function. The manservant reluctantly obeyed. The ogre went back to his phone. The manservant simply watched as SNAPs happened in random scenes on random screens.

I binged on the tub of half-melted ice-cream I had saved for the day. I drew in my pretty red curtains; there was no sign of the sun outside. I cursed my way to deep sleep.

The half-truth

I watch Gossip Girl. All the time. I don’t care if I’m almost 22, I love watching it.

Now that I’ve said it out loud, I can write this post in peace, proudly and shamelessly, with no feeling of stupidity.  

So, like any other Saturday, I spent the last one watching Gossip Girl and lazing around aimlessly taking breaks only to gobble up home-delivered fast food and Biryani. Gossip Girl is a gripping tale of the past, the scandals and secrets in the lives of the elite society of New York. The show deals with an assortment of emotions and scenarios - vendetta, vengeance, betrayal, hatred, jealousy, unchastity  and among all of this- pure unsullied love. It is an intriguing rendition of real human emotions - a little more of the negative ones maybe. I watched so many episodes of this that day that it was almost like I was a part of the Upper-East side. I was in their world like one of them; it was Nate, Chuck, Serena, Blair and me. I got how they protected each other; it was okay to wrong someone else to protect another of their own. Unconsciously or sub-consciously, I sided Blair in my own head and hoped to see her find happiness in NYU. I knew how she felt when she had a tough time fitting in. It didn’t matter that Blair was the most cunning, scheming and devious person in the real and fictitious world put together. I wanted Chuck to win her back. They were beautiful together. They might be two egoistic and obstinate people, but while together, they were invincible and nothing less than lovely. I knew even Blair had a good person inside her somewhere, even if it’s deep inside. Oh and needless to say, I hated Jenny. I hated the sight of her, that expression; I hated everything about her.

And in the evening, drowsiness took over me, completely – what else could I have expected after a spending a whole day glued to my laptop!

I felt like a sloth. I didn’t even get up when my roommate brought home a box of strawberry cheesecake flavored ice cream. I moved a little, maybe an inch, only to lift my laptop n place it on the floor. Then, I just lay there. Soon, I was deep in thought.

Why did I wish good fortune for Blair and not for Jenny? They were both unkind and venomous to the same extent. Blair is queen B after all and Jenny, just little J. Yet, I liked Blair. – Only because I had seen bits of her nice side, because the show had shown me her nice side and her aspect of the story behind her machinations. I got Blair. Not so with Jenny.

I was deeper in thought, now.

How different is life in actuality? Stories are always one-sided. One-sided is different from biased; One sided stories can be completely true, but they show you just one side or maybe both sides from one viewpoint. We don't hesitate to make judgments/decisions based on these stories. While at our creative best, we extrapolate these one sided facts to add our interesting suppositions and far-from-real conclusions. Sometimes, we slander the person who looks like the bad one in the story. And this snowballs to a mammoth story that’s no more even remotely similar to the truth. I have been there too, on both sides – the slanderer and the slandered. We all have.

We never wonder if the bad person in the story has his/her own reasonable story or an acceptable reason or a past that justifies his/her doings. Half-picture can be misleading. When has a partly solved jigsaw puzzle ever made sense? Getting to know the complete picture some day might make one regret in retrospect.

Everyone has a story – Tigerwoods, Shiny Ahuja, every other person on TV, you, me - everyone. That does not in any way justify anybody's doings, but let's not be in a hurry to belittle anyone. Let’s try to see the best in people. Let’s try to fathom both sides before getting judgmental; Or let’s just stop judging. Let’s make this world friendlier and kinder.

The upright protagonist of a story might be very moral like it appears. Or he might just be really really clever.

Dialogue in the dark

Mukund was here in Hyderabad. He is one of the closest friends I’ve ever had. I’ve known him for more than four years now. Yet he has not ceased to amaze me; he can be anything – the coolest friend to spend an evening with, the pain in the neck, the flirt, the know-it-all fellow who takes less than a second to guess what I’m upto, a punch bag that serves as my vent and a non-judging friend I can always always confide in. And justifiably, I was excited.

The weekend finally arrived and so did this guy. Then dawned the realization that with Ganesh Chaturti, the Telengana bandh and Gandhi Jayanthi, this was unarguably the worst weekend for anyone to visit Hyderabad.

Quite typical of all my plans, this was quite a dud. It was an almost completely boring weekend, at least for him who traveled quite a distance hopeful about seeing the best of a new city. I spent every second, hunting for some way to turn things around. Soon I gave up.

I settled for a typical dally-in-the-mall-and-watch-a-quick-movie Sunday. We went to the only mall in vicinity – Inorbit - only to realize the movie tickets were all sold out. So we grabbed a quick snack and walked around aimlessly looking for some way to pass time.

We came across a small crowd next to a counter in ‘Dialogue in the Dark’. The curious side of me could not walk past without knowing what it was about. We enquired and got to know it’s an exhibition that takes you through 6 scenarios – Jungle, Super Market, Shaking bridge, Boat ride, Cricket game and Café – in complete darkness. We were to make best use of our other senses through the exhibition. We paid and waited, solely because there was just nothing else to do in this city that day. We waited till our names were called out; we deposited our phones in the locker and we were given a walking stick each. Secretly I was very apprehensive about what was ahead.

We entered the first scenario – jungle - and I could see just black space. Nothing more. Not my hands, or my nose. Not even my bright red chappals. I felt uneasy in the gut of my stomach. I was too scared to move, I could see nothing. I held Mukund’s collar from behind and tagged along like a toddler. Every time I lost him I called out for the guide who was there to help. I was afraid of getting lost or being left behind. It was some comfort to know that the guide will take me back to the group if I yelled. Obviously the guides could see somehow. Not me, and worse, my brain’s wheels stopped moving like they always did when I needed them the most. After a while I realized I was holding my stick half way up in the air instead of using it to move around. I felt ashamed for a minute. But that was blanketed by a much stronger feeling of paranoia that was setting in. I can’t even recollect how the jungle scenario was; I was too afraid to notice. I felt the floor with my foot cautiously, checking for a change in level, before every step I took. I felt handicapped and helpless. There was no beauty in the jungle; Just darkness and fear.

The supermarket scenario lay ahead. We had to move along the racks and shelves to identify objects by smelling or feeling them. This was fun. In the line, Mukund was ahead of me and behind me was Shipra – a tamil girl I met in darkness. This was easier.  

While walking to the next room for the next scenario, I had to walk bending down just a bit. I felt too tall, the corridor had a low ceiling. I walked this way a few seconds. When this got uncomfortable I shot my hand forward to make sure there was someone there I wasn’t lost. The person ahead wasn’t bending. I shot my hand out, this time upwards. And there was no ceiling. I was imagining it all along. I felt like I was being fooled. I was hallucinating. I didn’t know how to feel – stupid or more scared. Surely I could no more trust my senses.

We played a round of cricket with a ball that was filled with something and hence made noise. I swayed the bat randomly in the air and I wasn’t surprised when I heard the ball hitting the wall behind. I was so pathetic that the guide joked about my skills. While I was fielding the ball hid my ankle with a hard thud and I jumped up for a second in pain. I think that was Mukund’s four and I ‘m certain that he was beaming in pride. While I was waiting in the corner hoping I do not get hit a second time, Shipra dropped her crocodile hair clip and despite the darkness pervading, the guide walked across and found it in no time. That just confirmed it for me, the guide could see. God knew how, but he could.

We were led to a table in the café. There had to be some science behind the guide’s vision. Mukund supposed that they could have some type of infra-red glasses on. We handed over a currency note which the guide identified it as a twenty rupee note. We sipped some hot coffee enjoying the comfort of the chair. It was such a relief to not feel lost, to not be afraid every moment. It felt so good and safe to just stay seated. For the first time ever, I appreciated something that simple.

The exhibition was over, we were going to be led out of the dark world. The guide politely thanked us all. We cheered, mostly in relief that it was the end. The guide wasn’t done, he went to give a short speech that inspired me like nothing else ever has. It left me with a feeling of awe. 

He told us that ‘Dialogue in the Dark’ was an initiative to make it possible for people to see a world that you can’t see. It’s done so that people learn to appreciate the other four senses. And behind the darkness, facilitating this is a group of visually challenged people who’ve taken it up to show the world their aspect of the world. He went on to tell us that he was not born with the disability, he was blinded by an accident. And life after the accident began the way the exhibition began for us.

I was hit by some massive force. I couldn’t say a word, nooone could. We all sat in the darkness, in silence. I was more than inspired. It is inexplicable, how much I respected the guide in front of me, at that instant. There was no pity, no sympathy; pure respect, nothing less. The whole time during the exhibition, I was at peace knowing he was around; I looked up to him, like all of us did. He was our guide, he guided us through when we felt helpless and lost. All this, when every moment of his life, he feels every emotion I felt that one hour.

Mukund and I, we got back after that. Not a word was spoken on the way back.