Works of RK

If you were to mix an Ekta Kapoor with a Munshi Premchand and add a dash of R.K.Lakshman to it, you will get an Ankita Sharma. I just finished reading her book of short stories and discovered a very different Anki from the mellow blogger I have followed for long. The Wedding Trousseau and other short stories is published in India by Humming Words Publishers and contains eleven really short and widely diverse stories. However, there is an invisible thread that connects them. They are all stories from our everyday milieu. The protagonists are all people you come across everyday. The frustrations, the taboo's, the deep rooted social norms, divides and beliefs and longing and mystery and laughter, these fill each page. From the abject poverty of a Chottu to the blatant hubris of his memsahib, from UFO sightings to a drunk wife beater, these stories make the ordinary, extraordinary. My best wishes to my favorite fellow blogger. And for those who wish to order online, it is available her...

What happens when waterfalls dry up? She asked me one day. The steady deluge turns into a drip and then down below, it leaves muddy memories from the time when all was well. The parched rocks smolder and dries up the last memories of the water that once fell from above. And then there is dust and death and silence and waiting... And waiting. Who waits Raj? The universe, Princess. The roundness of the cavity into which water once fell, waits for its purpose. The smoothness on the rock faces nurses its hope and waits as well. The spawns and the lichens and the catfish and the lovers... everybody waits Princess. What if water never falls again? What if the river has dried up for ever? What if it has changed its course? Will they still wait? They will Princess. My universe will never accept that possibility. It survives on perpetual hope. Hope is good. It nurses convenient memories over generations of adversities. We hope, therefore we are.

The night went crazy With all the bantering throughout the night And when the candles gave up And the waiters stole a wink And the guests on other tables Slowly made their way to someplace else I knew that the best of us Had only begun.

Don't look at me that way I am not the silences you wish to seek. For deep within me rages A fiery storm that consumes, And my love I cannot buy you peace.

That time in life When in the heat of smoldering summer Wild blush of spring roses Bloom on your dimple cheeks, When dead daisies from last season Flower fragrant in your breeze. It is that time in life When life  itself Swings to fluttering rhythms Of a beautiful butterfly wing. When wild flowers burst forth A parched desert dune And hope that lay dormant From long years of arid ennui Springs and bursts forth Shoots of living green. Live on, I say For these are not moments that you lose To thoughts of yesterday Or hopes of a tomorrow That may never come.

How I hate the silly perfumed wind As it rushes to breeze you in. That stupid oyster grain As it delicately dangles Between those secret place I believe Are oh so mine! That hint of a bindi blazing fire consuming All my worlds all the time.

The setting sun down west Put up such a splendid show in red I had to hurry down to you my love In case You had for a change Given away too much of your blush!