fate

She lifted the pen. It felt really heavy in her hands, I guess. She looked at the corner of the paper where she was supposed to sign. She kept the pen down again; unsure what should be her next action. Tears rolled down her eyes silently, but she didn’t cry. If she cried her two little children standing beside her would start crying too. She didn’t want to reveal to her little ones that something was really wrong with their father. She lifted the pen once again wiping the tears, took a deep breath and signed in the place where she was supposed to. She was a bold lady; I thought and felt bitter for the person who had plunged the knife into her husband’s chest.
As I walked back towards the operating room, my mind was in turmoil unable to digest what went on in the last few minutes. I go through this conflict almost everyday when I have to explain to the relative standing outside the operating room about the risk of the operation. I had to tell the truth of how bad the condition was in the most gentlest and reassuring way. At times I had to explain to a tense mother that we are risking the child’s life by deciding to operate at such a tender age, but we are doing it to save the life. Then the usual question unthinkably is fired at me almost every time, “nothing serious I hope?”, “no risk to life, isn’t it?” “Have faith in God, things will be fine” are the only words I can muster to utter at those moments. These are those times when the differences of status, caste creed, and religion all become one.

I am yet to find a better way of telling the anxious relatives that their dear ones are on the verge of death and all I can do is a last ditch attempt to bring them back. Hopefully they realize what we are doing is an attempt at best and we need their signature to do that. Sometimes I wish that our abilities and limitations are understood by the people standing outside the door and not classify us as a bunch of heartless creatures.
My thought sequence was suddenly broken down by the booming voice of the senior surgeon whom I had requested for help in this difficult operation. His hands were swift and accurate. He cut with such gentle precision that I once wondered whether he had one more pair of eyes and brains at the tip of the scalpel to know exactly where it had to go. Some people are just born with that extra bit of talent in their share which they themselves are unaware of, I thought, as the surgeon walked out closing all the ragged layers into continuity without even acknowledging my compliments.
Miracles don’t happen everyday, but they do happen once in a while. I rushed out of the operating room to tell my dearest friend that she could smile once again. The hands that created the knife haven’t forgotten to sharpen the scalpel.

sparke- just a short story

Sparkle
The kiss you planted on my forehead was much more powerful than I had ever imagined, for it had grown roots beyond its domain of skin surface into my tissues relishing on my brain, thus influencing my perception of reality. I started perceiving life as an ongoing dream which I wish to pull to its extreme, scared to death that it might snap anytime I stretch it beyond its unknown strength. I opened my eyes to admire you the way you are, the way you hold me, the way you feel on my body, the way my receptors are stimulated when you are on me- a never before experience. But I do wish to think about your reality, your future, your existence which is beyond me.
Let me remind you some real life facts. Our days are numbered and we never know when our meeting would be the last one. What I hear in reply is one more whispering purr from her soft voice saying that we shall love each other forever. Then I unwillingly remind her of her marriage to some other man, expecting a pang of guilt that would take over her as the hot reality touches her bringing her back to reality in an instant. By now she had grown immune to this guilt weapon of mine and it only made her tighten her arms around me with a sob and a tear in her brownish black round eyes. I spoke as softly in her ears as possible making her ready to face the situation.
My light is not supposed to last long in your life for I am the cracker in the dark. I give all the excitement you need by exploding within you every time you light my fuse but I can never be the light in your life which can show the way in the darkness. You need an eternal ongoing lamp to show you the way to newer horizons, to accompany you in your journeys, to discover new places. A cracker like me can’t even light myself; I would be useless without a steady flame from a lamp. So my dear lady, please understand the situation and take the decision you are supposed to by choosing the glowing lamp whose life is compatible with yours and your people. You can spend a lifetime with a lighted lamp in your room, but, not more than an instant with a cracker. A lamp might be boring enough that you tend to get carried away about its presence and you stop noticing it all together. But the day the lamp stops functioning you will miss it more than your own self. The cracker is not even capable of giving you enough light to show you where the lamp was hidden in case you want to light it again; rather it’ll only blinden you further with its harsh powerful flash. So my dear, be wise and go to the man who is waiting for you and also the favorite of your parents.
She looked at me with compassion in the beginning as I spoke, then a question in her eyes as to why I was doing this, then a conflict broke within her, a look of indecision followed, then fear and doubt, then her expression changed to having found an answer and finally her face mirrored confirmation and determination to follow what she had decided in a long drawn silence, over what felt like hours, constantly focusing on me with those bright intense eyes.
She spoke with the calmness which I had never seen before. She looked as though she had suddenly matured in the last few hours with me. She pointed at the lamp at the corner of the room and told me that she wouldn’t want to light no lamp that would take her anywhere away from the cracker. She said she prefers the company of the silent cracker in the darkness with the thought that she has in her possession the power to light up the entire neighborhood even though it’s just for an instant. She has in her hands to block all emotions all sufferings all thoughts just by lighting the fuse of her cracker. I opened my mouth to say something just to be closed by her tender fingers on my lips as she continued. I neither have new roads to discover, nor do I have new people to find. My man is right here, my home is right here. I don’t have any use of this ever burning lamp in my life. I am ready to live by the darkness if that’s what my cracker has in its fate as his possession. I’ll wait for that last sparkler from that cracker, after which he would be no more, disappearing in a puff smoke. Then I would hold the cracker close to my heart so that I too would disappear along with the cracker.
I removed her hand from my mouth to blurt out my last sentence after which she shut it for good when I said it was suicidal to think the way she was thinking when she knows that my days were numbered and I was to die soon.
She planted a long kiss on my forehead as though she would miss it all her life and spoke with gentle but stern voice. A woman loves a man forever when she really falls in love. It’s not by choice that she falls in love, but by chance. She’s totally unaware of her actions, she’s unaware why she loves a man, and she just follows her instincts. she trusts the man with all her heart, she will only console herself saying that her man is playing a love game with different rules even if the man brings out a dagger and crashes it down her innocent heart, thus bringing her lively heart into a standstill. Such is the love of a woman. Hence my dear cracker, now I don’t have any words to explain you why I love the cracker more than the lamp. I just love it. That’s it.
Do not ask me any more questions, do not try to rationalize my actions, and do not try to talk logic into me. There is neither any nor I would understand if there is one. Probably no men ever understood why the great queen blindfolded herself just because her husband was blind. No men would ever understand why the wife would want to jump to the pyre of her husband. I’ll tell you, it’s that feeling of lost love is worse than life itself and they wouldn’t want to love another man in their life. It’s beyond their capacity, and that’s the nature of a true women. And those women who do not fall in this category do not qualify to be called a woman. I am a woman, I live by my instincts, and I shall love you forever whether you are with me or not. I shall not jump into your fire when you breathe your last, but I’ll keep you alive in my heart and you’ll live within me as long as I live. Saying this, she closed her eyes and held me closer. I had nothing more to say. I just submitted myself in front of the woman who had higher level of wisdom than mine never bothering about the differences between a cracker and the lamp.