She had a beautiful smile

​It was a Wednesday. As usual, I was at work, with all the messy bills and accounts. I wasn't interested, but I was forced to smile at each and every person who crossed the counter; it was my duty. I couldn't concentrate on anything, as my mind was searching for something in vain. It was just a few months ago I started at this cafeteria. Maybe the job didn't satisfy me, but I could keep myself busy. And that was all I needed. It was a real fleeing from the memories.

​Yeah, I was lost in thought, but it was only then I realized that I was looking straight at the doorway. Somebody smiled at me from there. It was a familiar face. Not simply familiar, but so familiar... The same face who smiled in the same way when she cheated on me. Her face didn't seem to have any traces of guilt, or "sorry." Instead, she was happy, smiling as always, talking to her friend with ease; unlike the boy she cheated on! I thought, "The world is strange."

​She walked towards my counter and, with a smile, asked, "Remember me?" I said "no." She turned away, walked towards a table, sat there, and looked at me. She had a small box wrapped in gift paper with her. I walked towards the table, sat on the opposite chair, and then she handed the box to me. I asked, "What is this?" She didn't say a word, just smiled. I took it and kept it aside.

​I called the waiter and ordered two double chocolate sundaes, without even asking her. I guess, that was not the freedom I took; but it was my blank feeling for her which didn't allow me to look at her and ask something. She asked, "How are you?" I said, "I'm good." She introduced her friend to me. I looked at her friend, who was silent till then, with a smile. She, too, smiled.

​I was again thinking deeply of something which even my mind didn't know about. It was her loud laughter that awakened me this time. She was talking, talking to me. I asked, "What did you say?" She said, "I was telling her, if our relationship was still there, you would have married me by now! Isn't it?" and again laughed. I really wanted to tell her something. But words were stuck. I prayed that she leave fast, or else I might lose patience. I think that was the first time God heard my prayer! She left soon. Even then, my mind was lost in memories.

​"Didn't she ever contact you after that? Manu, Manu, I am asking you!" Renuka's yelling shook me out of my thoughts. Searching for words, I replied, "Yeah, she did. I was so sure about the pain haunting her, and..."

​"And you called her and asked, 'I'm still ready to accept you, past is past, it's okay that you ditched me for a pig... do you love me puppy?... Blah blah bah...' Is that what happened?" Renuka interrupted with full vigour.

​"Yeah, that was what happened... and you are intelligent," I said.

​She smiled and said, "Let it be, you will not change! Where is she now?"

​"Married," I said.

​"The same boyfriend to whom she ditched you?" Renuka was really interested in her story!

​"No! Never! It happened with someone else," I said with a grin. Renuka was really confused. I'm sure she will keep asking me Why, Why, Why????. But when I diverted the topic to her favorite subject, food, she turned quiet. That was the best thing I found in Renuka. I watched her moving her eyes through the menu of the Indian Coffee House. I was so sure that she would end up her menu search with her favorite onion oothappam. The same happened. Without a doubt, she ordered. Two onion oothappams and two coffees. She didn't care to ask me; and I am glad that it is the freedom she always takes and not the guilty feeling I had on that day. The freedom of real affection was clearly written on her smiling face.

AN UNFORGETTABLE ENCOUNTER

AN UNFORGETTABLE ENCOUNTER

Many of those who travel by train must have had many good and bad experiences with people. So have I. I’ve met many people on trains, but this one was special.

It was a December morning. I slipped out of a beautiful dream at the ring of my phone. It was my father; he asked me to get ready to go home. I remembered him mentioning it yesterday. I wasn’t very interested and didn’t even care to set an alarm. Trying to recall the dream, I walked to the washroom. By his next call, I was ready to go. He was waiting for me outside the gate, and we walked to the railway station.

As we reached the station, the train arrived. My father, by his nature, never allowed me to hook onto the crowd at the door. But I always managed to crawl in, find a seat, and get settled. This time, though, I couldn’t make it; he had a pretty strong hold on my bag. We finally got inside the train, and I had to sit where he instructed me to. I was a little annoyed since I didn’t get a place near him.

I took out my headset, switched on the music, and closed my eyes, trying to get back to my dream. As the train started moving, I felt someone looking at me. Without showing much expression, I looked around. I saw a young man sitting near me ; a North Indian by his looks. He resembled actor Prabhu, with his big, cute face, and also the shopkeeper next to my hostel, with his heavy tummy. He smiled, and I smiled back.

We started our conversation with a simple hi-hello, and soon it grew into different topics. I didn’t really want to talk much, but there was something about him that made me answer his questions. He was special with his style of talking: very gentle, polite, and jovial. He even said hi to my father, who was sitting in the next seat, and my father nodded back.

We discussed many things. He was from Varanasi and had come to Kerala with his Keralite friend. Only then did I notice his friend sitting next to him. The friend started talking to me in Malayalam. Even though I loved Malayalam more than English, I replied in English- that’s how I usually avoided loose talk with strangers. His friend pointed at some random stream outside the window and called out, “Deepak, look at that!” He turned around and asked me, “You didn’t know my name, right?” I just smiled.

At the next station, I got a seat near my father and shifted. As I waved him goodbye, he said, “Visit Varanasi, it’s a nice place.” I smiled as usual and took my place near my father. We shared glances and smiles until we reached the station. As I got off the train, I waved him goodbye, and he waved back with a smile.

About three months later, I found a friend request on Facebook- Deepak Kumar. I saw a message in my inbox: “Hi Revathy. You remember me?”

I replied, “The train?”

He said, “Yeah!”

I moved the cursor to accept his request. My friend, who was watching me, grew curious and asked, “Are you going to accept it?”

“Why not?” I rolled my eyes.

“I thought you wouldn’t—by your nature,” she said with a grin. Then she added, “If he searched for you all over Facebook with just your first name, he really means it! Accept it, yaar—he’s damn cute!”

I didn’t smile. I just gave her a “don’t mess with me” grin and, without a second thought, deleted the request.

I don’t know what made me delete that request, but whenever I boarded a train after that incident, the first thing that crossed my mind was his face—or maybe it was his natural behavior and the way he spoke. He didn’t seem like a guy from the present tech era. Instead, he reflected a certain humanity within him.

It was indeed an unforgettable encounter—an encounter with a serene human being.

​The Voice of the Small God

​The Voice of the Small God

​I can't really understand why I feel like giggling at people's serious talks. Whenever I see somebody coming up to me to talk, I start guessing what they will say. To my surprise, it's happened many times—I’ve made extraordinarily accurate guesses!

​Five years ago, I was not the girl who heard the voice of my mind. Whenever I started talking to a stranger, I heard someone inside telling me about him. I thought it was my 'inborn crookedness' (or 'doubtful nature,' as a friend of mine described it) that made me think so. But soon I realized it wasn't that inborn stuff; it was my super-powered mind telling me all those things. Poor mind!

​But it was too late for me. By that time, I was infected by a disease—'LOVE'—(described as the most dangerous disease that can block any human from hearing the thinnest voices of superior powers, including parents, God, and the god inside). As someone said about love, it had no eyes, no nose, no ears, no sense... (did it have a bump? I don't really know :P). We made many nests and webs about our future. At times, he was like Charlie Chaplin, making me laugh with all his one-sided love stories and the tale of his bulky junior who had a crush on him, which he ignored (I found all of them to be lies later on). I really enjoyed them all. At other times, he was as cowardly as the lad of Mary, which annoyed me to the extreme, especially since I was famous with the nicknames like 'Phoolan Devi' and 'Jhansi Ki Rani.' I thought (due to the continuous tutorials by the experienced lovers of my hostel) that he would change. He never took the risk of calling me or even telling me once that he loved me.

​I was totally free when other friends of mine were like caged birds. I walked like a king in front of my friends but was melting inside. More than that, I was sad about his attitude. He never appreciated my looks. He wanted me to change a lot, and the changes he wanted were ones only God could make (*eg: my skin color*). I never preferred to walk like a girl, or wear nasty colors on my nails, neither on my hands nor on my toes. I kept my long hair just for the sake of my mom and hated my big, rolling eyes, as they gave me an extremely girlish look. And I started developing yet another disease, which still haunts me—inferiority complex :P. Soon, I changed myself into a rude sadist. I never wanted to see anybody happy. A three-year-long journey made me a girl with no lovely feelings.

​The journey ended on a day when he was a little drunk and told me all the true feelings he had for me. He was extremely disappointed with my looks and was afraid of his mom, who worried a lot about the caste of his wife. His dreams and imaginations about his girlfriend were so different. I came into his life as a 'time-pass' type of relationship, and he stayed for the sake of my happiness. I broke into tears. Yes, I was wrong. I never heard my inner voice! I couldn't sleep all night. I didn't know what was going through my mind, but I was sure enough that I was going to wake up with a perfect decision.

​And I did. It took me more than a month to find a reason to tell him why I was leaving. And I found it. He didn't call me for a week when he went home for the holidays. Yes, it had happened many times before, but it became an issue only then. Maybe my mind was set—too much set to withstand all his questions and dramas (which my mind filtered as 'acting out just for me to make an impression that he is sad').

​Then and there, I started hearing opinions from people my mind said "tested OK," and by doing that, I tested my inner voice too. I was a slave of myself—a slavery that was really horrible at the beginning but turned sweeter by practice. Now I live in peace with my mind.

​I now have no confusion in taking decisions. I have neither complexes nor the marks of the old, mean sadist either. :) Listen to your inner voice, the small god in you! And make no mistakes.

My dear മത്തങ്ങാ..... :D

                                            

 i  always hated "മത്തങ്ങാ "....it was one of my nicknames for a loong tym in my childhood ( ..n then came my അമ്മൂമ്മ   with her nasty ' മത്തങ്ങാ എല്ലിശേരി ' :/ ..n when i was in 6th std ,agn my nick name came back to me. The skinny girs whom i describe the most ugly pointed me n grinned.."ദേണ്ടെ മത്തങ്ങാ പോലെ ഇല്ലെടീ അവളെ കാണാന്‍....... :P ...' >:O ...i was not sad of my bulkiness,but i hated my nickname more ... 

so my mom,lovely mom helped me  reduce my weight  by sending me to dance classes....I was a lill sad that i became an ultra slim girl .similar to the girls i hated...but i was happy that i will no longer be nicknamed as 'മത്തങ്ങാ'.. :) 

                   it happened when I was 18. I had an excellent lunch from sacred hearts hostel with my friends.. suddenly something so delicious passed my tongue. I asked our young cook at SH about the recipe...for my surprise,it was the same old മത്തങ്ങാ !

            From that day i started loving മത്തങ്ങാ ...n when all searched for a theme for our designer show,i had no doubt....! i selected a theme by which i can show my affection to the lovely pumpkins.... :) n i made it...   the pumpkin patch...:)