Stormtroopers

A long time ago.

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Light sabers

In a galaxy far, far away.

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Yoda

DO or DO NOT. There is no TRY.

Darth Vader

No, I'm your father.

Villains

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The Force Awakens

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Long live the Rebel Alliance.

November 24, 2012

Life...

You see when you watch movies like Student of the Year, you usually don't get the entertainment you had craved for. But one thing you get-motivation. To shed all the extra pounds of flab making a mess of your body. Heaven knows I was sitting through the entire movie just making mental notes of what workouts I should be doing to get a boost whenever I cast a look at myself in the mirror again. All in all, I should say that mission was accomplished.Sweat and pain begin in full swing from today. My belly is already groaning in protest. :-)

Last two weeks have been kinda hectic. Was into a lot of studying- a habit I have not been on talking terms with for the last two years or so. Cramming stuff into my head with an aim of regurgitating at the very first opportunity I get, all the nervous cramps one gets before a major exam, the coffee induced energy spell, your parents suddenly going out of their way to make life easier for you while you are cramming away,yeah.... and all that jazz. Packed into a tiny time-space of two weeks time. Blogging took a hit. Story ideas remained in the factory or rotting in the warehouse. A pile of movies begging for attention. Yeah...so plenty of things to resume and reboot.

Just today, I received a comment on my blog from my latest follower. The guy had read a few of my stories and said -"The protagonist seems to have a thing for unavailable people" or something on those lines. I smiled on reading that. That guy nailed it!!! :-D So Cmus (or Nikhil, I presume?) you seem to have a way of deducing truths. :-) Looks like we are gonna have fun times ahead!!! :-) Welcome aboard!!

November 14, 2012

Thicker Than Water-Final Chapter


After a hour long drive, they arrived at Jaiswal’s residence. Jaiswal got out of his car and was about to take out his bag when he saw a piece of salwar sticking out of the car door. Suddenly alarmed, he yanked the door open to see a frightened Meera lying on the floor.

“What the fu..”, Jaiswal left his sentence hanging as he dragged Meera out of the car, grabbing her  rudely by the hair.

Meera screamed in pain and her left foot shot forward to hit Jaiswal in his right shin. Jaiswal grit his teeth to tune out the agony in his bones and slapped Meera across her cheek with tremendous force. Meera drowned in a world of hurt .Two of her teeth started moving with a life of their own, as a metallic, copper like fluid filled her mouth .She spat out the blood. It tasted warm and deep.

She felt too weak to resist as Jaiswal tugged and jerked her along to his house. His fingers dug deep into her soft flesh as he inserted his keys into the door lock and pushed the door open. He yanked her hand so hard ,pulling her into his house, she started fearing that her shoulder had got dislocated.

Jaiswal pushed the door close with his left foot and grabbed Meera’s throat. “You are Sriram’s elder daughter, aren’t you?” He growled as he looked menacingly at her wide, terrified eyes.

“What the fuck were you doing in my car?”

“To t...take back the ring,” she managed to choke out.

Jaiswal let out a low guttural laugh. “So daddy’s adopted daughter wants to play hero, huh? For what? So that daddy starts loving her more than her sister?”

Meera’s face registered shock and surprise at how this man had come to know so much about their family. And then it dawned on her. Suraj must have told him.

“Looks like I’ll have to play the gracious host,” Jaiswal hissed and pushed her towards his bedroom. Meera tried in vain to wrest free from his grasp, only to have his heavy hand smash down on the back of  her head.

Darkness descended in front of her eyes, and a dull pain throbbed at the back of her skull. Before she knew what was happening, her assailant had shoved her into a dark closet in the bedroom.

“It’s dark in here,” she heard Jaiswal chuckle. “I brought you some company. Do be gentle with him though. He has a nasty bite.”

She watched in horror, as he threw a dark spider, the size of a human foot, into the closet and locked the door.

Drowned in a pitch-black world.
A deadly spider waiting to bite her!

Present time

Meera brought both her hands behind her to clutch a shelf. She bent her knees slightly. For a closet, it had a surprisingly large gap between the shelves and doors. Enough to fit in her frame. But it wasn't big enough. The doors kissed her knees halfway through her bending.

This would have to do.

Counting to three, she jumped with as much force she could muster in the tight enclosure. The shelf creaked as she lunged upwards. As her feet left the floor, she dug them into the doors. The top of her head thudded against the roof. And her teeth accidentally bit down on her tongue. The hairy monster was no longer on her legs, having jumped somewhere in the dark abyss. Taking a deep breath, and ignoring the hurt, she pushed with all her might against the doors which held her. The shelves and the doors groaned under her weight.
Minutes passed. Her armpits and palms became a sweaty, sticky mess. How much longer ? she thought desperately. Just then, she felt the eerie hairy something drop on her stomach. As it started moving, fear clutched her heart again, a terrified shriek escaping her mouth. With a sudden burst of adrenalin, she withdrew her right foot and lashed it out against the door with a strength beyond her imagining. A split-second later, the hinges gave way. The right door flew off the hinges. With no support for her foot, Meera crashed to the floor. The shelves scraped her back as she fell. Her backbone jarred from the impact with the floor.

Almost in a trance now, she pulled the hairy arachnid from her stomach, ready to hurl it outside.
Jaiswal had gone to the toilet to take a leak. The noise of the door breaking drew him out. Meera hesitated for the tiniest fraction of a second, before she threw the spider at her assailant, with whatever strength her shoulder could muster.

Jaiswal’s hair stood on the back of his nape as he saw his deadly pet being flung towards him. Its trajectory made a bee-line for his face. He stood rooted to the ground, dead still, shaving precious seconds off his reaction time. The spider was barely a couple of inches from his face, when his reflexes swung into action. His right arm jerked upwards and sideways in a wide arc before him. His hand intersected with the flight path of the tarantula and sent it hurtling across the room.

He barely had time to recover his wits, before he gasped from a sharp punch delivered to his solar plexus. Another blow quickly followed, knocking his wind out. Before he could realize what was going on, Meera had withdrawn Jaiswal’s dagger from his pocket, and plunged it deep into his guts.

The dagger was so sharp, he hardly felt it enter him. But the pain was there soon after, as an unwanted reminder. Jaiswal grunted, fighting with all his endurance to prevent himself from howling in torment.

Meera withdrew the blade and plunged it again. Blood spilled out like freshly opened champagne.
Despite the agony burning up his stomach, Jaiswal let out a low guttural laugh. “My my! Won't daddy be proud?” he managed to gasp out. “A ruthless killing machine for an adopted daughter. A nasty little thing, aren’t you?”

“Runs in the family, I guess,” she snarled.

“What?” Jaiswal clutched his stomach as his face clouded in surprise.

“Shinde? Remember?” Her lips curled into a sadistic half-smile.”What do you think I came here all the way by myself for? Could've easily called the cops, couldn't I?”

“Wait a min..you mean..you are..” Jaiswal's head was reeling now.

“Guess blood's thicker than water, after all.” As she came closer to him, her eyes gleamed with a cruel intensity. And she pushed the blade one more time, spilling out his red guts on the floor. “That’s for killing my father, ass-hole!”

Sixteen years ago, she had been hiding. Just like tonight. Under a different bed. In a different house. Peeping from under the bed, she had witnessed Jaiswal slitting her father's throat with her very eyes. Jaiswal's haughty, upturned nose and cruel countenance were seared into her memories.

Tonight, sixteen years later, the moment she had first set her eyes on him, Meera had recognized Jaiswal as her father's killer. Hatred quickly purged out fear the more she looked at him from under the bed. The birth of her desire, to avenge the twin-deaths of her father and her childhood ,was instantaneous.

“You'll never get away with...” Jaiswal stopped, unable to speak any longer. It just hurt too much.

“Oh, I think I'll,” Meera replied with a sinister insouciance.

That ominous indifference was all too familiar to Jaiswal. Shinde used to have the same after he summarily dispatched his victims.

Jaiswal couldn't stand on his feet anymore. His knees dropped to the floor. The edges of his eyes were being invaded by a sea of blackness, and Meera continued speaking. “I guess I'll just take the ring. Sell it. And get on with my life. No point returning to my home. Don’t think folks will miss me there, anyway!”

“You think...”, Jaiswal was breathing heavily now, barely forcing his mouth to move as he spoke with pauses, “it 's gonna be ...so easy..do you? ..Selling that shit....you d-don't know anybody.”

“Oh, I'll manage,” Meera said with an assured smile. “Thanks for the concern.”

It was the last thing Jaiswal heard before he passed out. Last thing he would ever hear.

Meera retrieved the stone from Jaiswal's bag and wishfully wondered what Rahim uncle and she could do with fifty lacs to spare. Rahim should be able to get a buyer. He had been her late father's associate in his particular line of work. He still had the contacts.

As she walked out of the house to a breaking dawn, she couldn't help keep her mind off how she would look in a pair of Louis Vuitton shoes.

Or Gucci. With maybe a Prada handbag to go with it.
~The End~

Thicker Than Water-II


Present day: Two hours ago

Meera sighed as she looked at the Louis Vuitton shoes her sister, Sameera, had got for her birthday. There was no way her parents would splurge so much on her.

They were nothing alike, she and her sister. Sameera was the outgoing Queen Bee who dressed in Hollister skirts and Abercrombie tops. Meera was the one who lurked around by herself in thrift-store clothing and ragged sneakers. Sameera carried around a practically limitless credit card. Sameera was their parents' favourite, and everyone knew it. It was an open secret.

She blinked back a tear and punched in the number of the only person she could call at times like these.

“Hello, Rahim uncle?” Her voice quivered.

“Meera?”  an elderly man’s voice sounded at the other end. “ You alright?”

“No.”A salty tear traced a thin line across her cheek.

“What happened?” Rahim’s voice dripped with concern.

“They don’t love me,” anger and resentment flooded through every syllable of hers. “They never did. They just love her.”

“They love you, child,” Rahim said in a kind and compassionate tone. “They took good care of you, didn’t they?”

“They took care, but never learnt to care.” Meera couldn’t stop sobbing now. “Guess blood is thicker than water after all.”

Sixteen years ago, Meera was adopted from an orphanage by Sriram and his wife. Meera was barely five then. For a brief moment, she had become the cynosure of the couple’s eyes.  She was all the husband and wife could think  and talk of. Meera couldn’t help feeling happy then. But a few months later, Mrs. Sriram conceived a child. And things never remained the same. Soon, Meera started feeling like a broken toy who no one wanted to play with.

Rahim had been a friend of Meera’s real father. After Meera’s father had passed away, Rahim got her admitted in a foster home. He had a special fondness for her, but never felt he could take the responsibility of a child on his bachelor shoulders. It didn’t take long for Meera to get adopted, but Rahim made sure to keep in touch with her.  As far as Meera was concerned, Rahim uncle was her lifeline. His burly chest was something in which she could bury her teary face and forget that  the world outside existed. Rahim would let her be like that for hours, stroking her hair gently, until her well of tears dried up.

“Everything will be all right,” Rahim spoke softly into the phone. “Trust me.”

“I only wish...”, she left the sentence hanging.

“What, Meera?”

“If only I could do something to make daddy and mommy love me again,” Meera answered despondently. “I can’t take this much longer.”

“I want you to remember that I’ll be here for you,” Rahim reminded her gently. “Always.”

They spoke for a few minutes more. It was two in the night when she hung up. The food left on her study-desk was cold and untouched. She was in no mood to eat tonight. Everyone in the house was sound asleep.  She walked over to the window to feel the night breeze, hoping it would soothe her. Instead, she was greeted by a strange sight.

Outside, six storeys down, their domestic help Suraj was engaged in a conversation with another man. The man was leaning on his Swift Dzire, and seemed to be giving Suraj some instructions.

Meera’s curiosity and alarm shot up a couple of notches when she saw Suraj leading the mysterious man into their building. The watchman was snoring away.

Meera went over to where her sister was sleeping and nudged her.

No response.

She nudged her again, a little bit harder this time.

No. Still nothing.

Sameera had never been a light sleeper. Meera sighed and went to her parents’ bedroom. She nudged both her mom and dad.

 Not a stir. Not even an irritated grunt.

Agitated and frightened, she started shaking them really hard. Much to her woe, they continued sleeping soundly.

Drugged!  The realization hit her like someone had kicked her in the stomach. The food! Suraj must have put something in the food! She was awake just because she didn’t eat it.Just then, she heard the door to their flat unlock. They were here!Meera quickly hid beneath her parents’ bed. Footsteps fell soon after on the smooth marble floor of that room.

“That safe, sir,” she heard Suraj say to the man.

She watched as two pair of feet moved across the room to the safe in the corner. She poked her head out just a bit to get a glimpse of what was going on.

As her eyes fell on Jaiswal, his appearance sent a frigid wave down Meera’s back. Upturned nose. A haughty and cold face. Sinister eyebrows, complete with thin triangle like eyes below. A properly trimmed goatee completed the look. Fear and revulsion continued tightening their grip on her the more she looked at that  face.

Jaiswal didn’t waste any time. Time was always a safecracker’s greatest enemy. With Suraj’s assistance, he turned the heavy safe around. He then brought out a drilling machine from his back-pack and quickly drilled two holes in the rear of the safe.  He put the driller back into his bag and brought out a long, thin, flexible tube. It had an eyepiece on one end, and another lens on the other. It was a fiber-optic viewer called a borescope . Deftly, he inserted the borescope through one of the drilled holes and  a special extra-long screwdriver through the other. Jaiswal could now use the borescope to see the screws and wheel pack keeping the safe lock in place. His jaw tightened in determination, as he slowly used the screwdriver to move the wheels into position to allow the bolt to pass.

The safe door swung open. Jaiswal paid no heed to the bundles of cash and the legal papers. From the back of the safe, he brought out a thin, small box. His clenched and unclenched his other fist in anticipation as he opened the clasp. Sure enough, the ring was there.

“Suraj, do you know how much this ring is worth?” Jaiswal smiled a crooked smile and beamed at the domestic help.

Suraj just stared at him stupidly.

“Fifty lacs,” Jaiswal grinned, basking in a sense of accomplishment.

“Fifty?” Suraj’s eyes widened.

“And this wouldn’t have been possible without you,”  Jaiswal thanked him , before swiftly grabbing Suraj’s head by the mouth and the back of his skull. Surprise and terror got scrawled in bold all over the  boy’s face.

“Sorry, but I always sucked at saying thanks,” Jaiswal muttered under his breath and then twisted the head with a sudden, violent jerk, rupturing Suraj’s vertebrae.

The assignment went bloodless after all, he thought smugly as Suraj’s lifeless body slumped to the floor.

Jaiswal turned his back to the bed and started collecting his stuff back into his bag. To his dismay, he found that his borescope had got stuck in the hole somehow. He grunted, as he kept poking at the hole to extricate his piece of expensive equipment.

While the pulling and tugging kept him occupied, he didn’t notice a girl crawling out from under the bed and fleeing the room.

A couple of minutes later, Jaiswal had managed to pull out his tool and place everything in his bag. He started whistling as he walked out the door of the flat. Soon after, he was seated in his car. He opened his bag again to check if everything was in place. Assured that things were in order, he shoved his key into the ignition and revved away. Unaware that Meera had quietly slipped into the back of his car.

For daddy! Meera thought to herself as the car started.

To Be Continued..

Thicker Than Water

A cold shiver ran down Meera’s spine as the darkness engulfed her. Not a tiny crack of light anywhere. She tried to move, but her arms were blocked by the doors in front and the shelves behind. There was hardly an inch or so between her breasts and the doors. She let out a sob and cramped her hands against the doors, pushing with all her might. The rough edges of the wooden shelves dug rudely into her back, as she heaved and strained. The solid heavy doors didn't even creak. She screamed. And screamed again. Cold sweat rushed out of her skin pores. And then she felt it.

Something ticklish crawling up her leg. She went limp in fear .

 She was cooped up in a pitch dark cupboard with a  massive, hairy tarantula. Terror etched itself onto her brain, her heart dreading the moment when its fangs would sink into her skin.

Five days ago
“Tarantula,” Jaiswal said as he lit a cigarette.”The name has an interesting history.”

“Hmm?” Vidyut raised his eyebrow quizzically.

“The true tarantula,” Jaiswal uttered and paused a moment for a puff, “was a European Wolf Spider named after the town of Taranto. Southern Italy. People were shit scared of its venom. And people bitten had to avoid falling into a coma by dancing to a lively tune known as the tarantella.”

“Nasty little things,” Vidyut chuckled as he took a sip of his whiskey. “You sure have a crazy test in pets.”
Jaiswal's obsession with poisonous spiders was known to everybody acquainted with him. His previous pet had been a cobalt blue tarantula, which he had flown in from Thailand. He would stand in front of it for hours. Marveling at its iridescent blue legs and light gray body with a child-like fascination in his eyes.

 “I call my new pet Shinde,” Jaiswal sounded smug.

“Shinde?!” Vidyut stared at Jaiswal. “Why the fuck did you name it after your...”

“Sign of respect,” Jaiswal didn't let his companion finish and smiled a wry smile. “That man taught me everything I know.”

“And you slit his neck!” Vidyut blurted. “ Lovely!”

“Eliminating competition,” Jaiswal replied unperturbed, “ is always a bullet-proof business strategy, my friend.”

“Cut-throat competition, huh?” Vidyut sniggered and gestured slicing his own wind-pipe.

Jaiswal's lips curled in amusement too. But the smile vanished a fraction of a second later.

“So you think this ring is that valuable?” His tone became matter-of-fact and intent.

“Fifty lacs. Easily.” Vidyut put down his whiskey and turned his gaze at Jaiswal.

Jaiswal ground his cigarette stub in the ash-tray and turned to his associate.  “Fifty lacs? You sure?”

“Positive,” Vidyut smiled, exposing his gums as well as his gilded pre-molars. “The right customer may even cough up sixty.”

“I still can’t believe such a priceless ring can be found… there,” Jaiswal shook his head incredulously.

“Mr. Sriram’s grand-father was a heavy hitter in the government circles,” Vidyut answered. “He pulled a lot of strings."

“A black opal ring gifted to Lord Curzon by the Queen herself!” Jaiswal whistled. “And the government just forgot about it!”

“When all the valuables were being catalogued after Independence, some got conveniently lost or misplaced,” Vidyut grinned goofily. “That ring never existed as far as the authorities are concerned.”

“I just wonder how much bureaucratic influence Sriram’s grand old man had to pull off a stunt like that,” Jaiswal mused in amazement.

“The irony is-Sriram himself doesn’t have a clue about the worth of that thing.”

“Hmm. There is no way he would keep the ring at his own house if he knew.”

“Can’t blame him,” Vidyut poured in two pegs of Signature into his empty glass. “Very few people do. Come to think of it. It’s merely an accident that we came to know about this. If it hadn’t been for our guy at the government office, those papers citing the grand-dad’s connection to the ring would never have been found.”

“The grandpa never told anybody in his family??!!!”

“Sriram’s grand-father died soon after Independence. Maybe he just didn’t get the chance.”

“Hmm,” Jaiswal stroked his chin thoughtfully. “I shall pay Mr.Sriram’s place a visit then.”

“When can I expect the ring?” Vidyut’s voice remained mirthful, but his eyes took on an odd intentness.

“End of this week,” Jaiswal replied without hesitation.

“And what do you plan to do about that boy Suraj?”

“I don’t know.” Jaiswal picked up his dagger lying on the table. Moving his fingers gingerly over the blade, he said, “Why keep loose ends? The cops will definitely pull him up for questioning. It would be a pity if he blurts everything out.”

Suraj was the helping-hand at Sriram’s house. He was the one who had divulged the whereabouts of the ring to Jaiswal in exchange for fifty grand.

“Damn!” Vidyut grimaced. “I was hoping to keep this assignment quick and clean. No blood.”

“Hmm, maybe I’ll think of something,” Jaiswal smiled wickedly.

To Be Continued...

November 1, 2012

Just hate me...

It's not me I' m worried about.
Not my heart, but it's you.
I live with pain, I snuff it out.
But for you, it is too new.

We live far apart,far too much-
I can't bask in your scent;
The distances are vast as such,
All we can do is resent.


Can't drown my face in your hair,
Can't kiss or cradle your chin;
Can't blow you kisses in the air.
Can't stroke your lips as you grin.

But far more important, far more
Is that I make others suffer.
Hearts which loved me, they tore.
They couldn't be any tougher.

To want me is to die and cry,
Shallow hopes wind up in flames.
The river of tears won't dry,
When your soul this craving claims.

So shun me,stay away from me,
I'm not worth the anguish, worth the ache.
Hate me, loathe me, run away, just flee.
Lest your heart gets seared by a stake.