Life

Airports are fancy places, resembling miniature ‘shopping-malls’. Jazz and glitzy, people are seen in their best attires at airports. It’s something beyond comfort, mostly about style and luxury. Air-crew seems to be the smartest people on earth while air-hostess represents one’s role model for makeup and etiquette. ‘Grooming’ is the word which defines this industry. One can see people in their so called ‘style-diversity’. Business travelers and frequent-flyers, all dressed formally rolling their executive stroller-bags, students in latest hip-hop styles and housewives as if all dressed-up for parties. Some tourists and vacationing beings are seen in holiday mood with Bermudas, t-shirts and bathroom slippers. She noticed that whenever she traveled by train she took out her most comfortable and sober clothes along with flip-flop for travel. But whenever she traveled via plane it was like getting ready for a party. This time she was traveling from New Delhi to Mumbai for a...

She was like the “the new girl in the city” but she had started falling in love with it. Though a metropolitan but Kolkata had its own culture. On one side, the bustling traffic with trams on the road and hand-rickshaw pullers from the Victorian times gave a rustic feel to the city, on the other side the developing New Town areas with its malls and high rise buildings gave competition to cities like Gurgaon and Noida.   She was amazed to see that the old ambassador car, which can rarely be spotted anywhere in India, form an eminent part of Kolkata in the form of ‘yellow-cabs’. She found herself beaming with excitement when she first came out on Howrah station and spotted the famous Howrah bridge right in front of her. If Mumbai and Delhi boast of their sea, Kolkata stand humble there with its sacred “Ganga”. Even the peculiar road-side lamps reminded her of British times. On her way to hotel she couldn’t believe her eyes when she spotted the ‘the white Victoria Memorial’ in...

This was her first job and she had come with her uncle to see the college. Her uncle also happened to teach in the same college and this had put her quite in ease. She knew she had a support to fall back on. She was quite terrified to be in a campus where all the students were from very affluent families. This was an engineering college in national capital region which ran primarily on capitation fee. Hence the students who could manage to take admission in this college were born to rich or super-rich parents. We call it ‘ovarian –lottery’. She was wearing a maroon cotton suit, dupatta taken like a shawl, which made her look ‘desi’ yet elegant. She was quite unsure how she was going to tackle the ‘Porsche ambience ‘of the college. But she was determined to make it. After taking a round of the college her uncle left her at her department. There were three people in the department. Two middle-aged men who were supposedly the professors and a young man, whom she guessed to ...

This is completely insane, she thought. ‘What was I thinking? Why did I agree to this meeting?’ she muttered to herself. Sitting on the Mumbai airport, she was constantly dreading the departure of flight 6E 339 as Avi was supposed to leave via this flight. She looked at Avi who was sitting next to her and was lost in his Smartphone. She started thinking about the day, one week back when she received that phone call from Avi. Last week Monday morning she was rushing through her emails and trying to cope up with the Monday workload, when her phone rang. She lost all sense of time and place when she heard that voice on the other side. It was Avi, ‘definitely Avi’ whom she dated for almost three years in college. As soon as the college ended Avi got admission in MS in one of the university at San Francisco. He took this decision without telling her as he knew she would never agree to it. Leaving India, for whatsoever reason, was the last thing on her list and Avi knew well about it...

It was a typical day of monsoon but everything was new for her. She had never seen the sea with its full fury and beauty. The gushing waves seemed eager to take everything in their arms. Every time she moved back a few steps, the waves managed to reach her, wetting her feet and as if trying to take her in.   And when they couldn’t reach her she moved ahead few steps wanting to get touched. Everything on the shore was cleared off. Due to monsoon season it was a red alert and not even fishermen dared to go inside the sea. There were no shackles, no vendors nothing and the shore stood naked with its pristine peace. This was the time when there were not many tourists as it was an ‘off-season’. And she was really happy about it as also meant no distractions and no piercing eyes of strangers. She was leisurely walking on the beach, a thing she had longed to do since years. Looking at the sea, she became suddenly aware of her minute existence in the vast space. And for few secon...