Even after the many years that have passed
How on heaven and earth can it be?
The thought of meeting you once again
Has butterflies fluttering away in me.

Christopher Plummer tells Diane Lane, his daughter in the movie Must Love Dogs, “Even on his best day he wasn’t good enough for you.”

I’d always wondered about the ‘happily ever after’ in fairytales. After the usual hardships and drama, the prince inevitably finds his princess. They kiss under the open blue sky and then they live happily ever after. The expected abruptness of the end frustrated me every time. ‘Tell me what happy ever after is like’, I would sigh into the last page of the book.

Now, I know what happens after the kiss that seals the happily-ever-after life.

The prince and princess get married. They have a big fat wedding attended by thousands of people from all over the kingdom. They have to stand all day on the stage as people queue to shake hands with them. They look at the tempting banquet laid out for the guests, but they can’t eat. They have guests to meet. By end of the day, their feet are killing, their stomachs are groaning, he’s irritable and she has a headache. Not a very good first day of married life!

The next few days of their short honeymoon (the prince has a kingdom to rule so he can’t take too many days off), the married royal couple sleep and only sleep, to recuperate from the strain of the wedding.

Back in the palace, the prince gets back to the royal business. He meets subjects all day, has consultation meetings with his ministers, leaves for a hunting trip, comes back and gets the princess pregnant, goes off again for a travel trip to conquer the neighbouring kingdoms, comes back to see a three year old child who does not recognise him. The princess is frustrated, lonely and very very angry. And whenever the prince is back, they argue and fight. He doesn’t understand her anger and she doesn’t understand why he doesn’t because she’s constantly explaining it to him. And then he stops pretending that he’s listening and after a while she stops trying to talk. And then they live in silence- unhappily ever after.

‘I can’t be friends with people who have body odour’ stated S the other day. I laughed at the on-the-face absurdity of the statement. And yet, when I thought about it later I realized that I actually don’t have friends who smell bad. And if you leave friends aside, I certainly have never had a boyfriend who didn’t smell good. In fact, I remember rejecting a very good-looking athletic-bodied man simply because all the athletics made him rather unpleasant smelling. I have found not so good looking (as per general societal standards) people attractive, but never a person with BO. ‘Beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder’ may be a cliché, but there is beauty in a smile, a broken tooth, the twinkle in one’s eyes, etc, etc. But what beauty can one find in something that repulses your every breath. And let’s face it. When the lights are off, everyone looks good but you still smell the same!

I had a dream. A nightmare. Early today morning. I usually never remember my dreams. But the dream that I had today morning is so clear in my head that I can replay it again and again, with every single detail intact.
We were in our house. Not our current house, but the layout was a cross between three-four houses we’ve stayed in over the years. My mother, brother and I were hiding, in my parents’ bedroom. My father, for some reason, wasn’t part of the dream. My mother looked as she does now, but my brother was younger. Shorter and smaller than me. I could not see myself. The dream was through my eyes.
We were quiet and spoke in hushed whispers, as we hid behind a door. We were scared. Terrorists were attacking people in the safety of their houses. We had double locked the main door, but we heard it being kicked open. The sound of running feet, objects being knocked around. My mother told us to stay in the room and ran along the corridor towards the kitchen. My brother and I could hear the terrorists now. I don’t think they’d discovered my mother yet. The terrorists sounded angry. Suddenly, my brother panicked. He ran out of the room. I screamed out his name, as loud as I could dare. But he just ran along the passage. And I, instinctively, ran behind him. I knew the terrorists were right there. I started crying as I ran towards them, because I knew that they’d caught my brother. Now they’d turned and seen me as well. And yet, I didn’t stop.
The next part of the dream I saw as a third person, a CCTV angle but clearer. One terrorist raised his gun, a machine gun, and fired at me. The round lasted maybe a few seconds, but everything seemed to move in slow motion. I felt every bullet sear my chest. It didn’t hurt as much as I thought it would. But I knew I was dying, if I wasn’t already dead. And that hurt. I couldn’t believe that I died like this, so easily and so meaninglessly. And as I was dying, the thought that I always say that I’ll die early (because of my short life line), flitted through my head. But though I said it often enough, I never actually believed it. And now I was dying and I didn’t want to die. My tears mixed with blood as I dropped on the floor.
I woke up thinking that I was dead already. It took me a few seconds to reorient myself. I wasn’t dead. It was just a dream. But before I could rejoice, I drifted back into sleep.

It was just another regular day. I was going about my own business. I admit it wasn’t much; business had been slow for a while. The silent phone was beginning to get my goat. Restless, I went for a walk in the crowded alleys where I worked.

I was walking in my usual fast-paced brooding silence, when I was suddenly pulled forcibly into a dark corner. I reached out to my pocket for a weapon, to find none. I turned around swiftly, prepared to attack. My hand froze midway. It was someone I knew, from a distance.

She looked around furtively and pulled me further into shadows. She was nervous, I could tell. I waited, my time was cheap. And she looked like business.

She whispered and I had to shift in closer to hear her. ‘I need help and I believe you’re the only one can help me’ she said. She trembled slightly, but I knew she was a cool bird. I waited for her to speak again. She looked up to me and said ‘I believe you’ve been downloading music past the firewalls. I need this song desperately, can you….’

Baby, I miss you, maybe, some of the times
But not as much as you’d like to think
It comes to me at the most expected of times
At times, when I’ve had one too many a drink

It’s almost like I make myself want to feel
Almost like I feel I should be feeling something
But baby, its part pretend and not really real
There’s not much left, but for the mark of the ring

You’ve not been part of my life for long now
And as the bonds grew weaker, I got stronger
And baby, I tried to warn you, I tried and how
I did tell you, it’s not going to last much longer

And now baby, I am here, and well, you are not
And maybe I should be sad, but I can’t be, I’m sorry
For even some months ago, who would have thought
I would be trying hard to hold on, at least to your memory

One
He saw his own loneliness mirrored in the stranger’s eyes
And he painted in his mind, sorrows of her imagined life
He fell just a little in love with the woman he had conjured
And he wanted to hold her, to fill the spaces empty of love or strife

Two
Later he trivialised the night saying it was impulse and nothing more
And after all, he has acted on his impulses many a times before
What’s the fuss, nothing was lost, while nothing was gained
It’s just a friendship questioned and a friendship strained