The Things we do for Love

It was plain bad luck that he was contemplating this barely a fortnight before Valentine’s Day, but come to think of it, he had felt it coming for a while.

He quickly glanced outside the window of the flat he had shared with his bride for six months now, and caught sight of their old, rather unfriendly neighbour staring suspiciously, a torch in his left hand and a cellphone in the other.

The only dustbin the flat had was in the kitchen and if truth be told, it was rather gruesome even by his own villainous standards, to visualise the chopping into tiny pieces; he was no accomplished criminal.

It wouldn’t be long before either the neighbour or the smell gave him away, and on second thoughts, the whole impulsive plan started to seem a bad idea.

Minutes later, he sat across the table from his cheerful wife, smilingly gulping down the horrible food that he had been unsuccessful in disposing of, and whose true character he hadn’t the heart to disclose.

*             *             *

Five Sentence Fiction is about packing a powerful punch in a tiny fist. Each week, Lillie McFerrin posts a one word inspiration, then anyone wishing to participate can write a five sentence story based on the prompt word. The word does not have to appear in the five sentences, and is just for direction. This week: VILLAINOUS.

Now every Friday on Saddi Delhi.

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What a Wonderful World!

There are clothes on the chair, skydiving from both sides of it. They have been there for a while. Bedsheets, jeans, shirts, the works. Oh, they aren’t mine. They belong to the good people I share my room with. Personally I think, they add a lot of colour to the place. There is a bright orange towel, a grey dolphin, even a huge parrot-green laundry bag. Every time I see my own purple laundry bag, I am reminded of the tasks to be accomplished. No clothes have been washed in about a week; there are several to be laundered. The bed could do with a new pillow-cover. But anyhow, the point is: though there are thirty nine things I need to do about my den, I am beyond them now.

No, I haven’t achieved nirvana.

‘Turning 30’ odd arguments into a long verbal battle…

Naina (Gul Panag) just turned 30 a weekend ago. Her friends threw her this grand surprise party: new red dress, cake, champagne the works. Her ex boyfriend from college (Purab Kohli) dropped by too and you know, our Naina can’t really be blamed for going on the much hyped ‘rebound’. It’s called the break up therapy didn’t I hear: a romp in the bed with an ex flame and your break up reeling gets a punctuation. Chick flick yes, but nothing to write home about. The charm was conspicuous by its absence, the plot thinning out with every passing reel.  I wonder then, what was it about this latest Prakash Jha flick that made a battlefield out of my anticipated lazy Sunday morning? Revising here the crux of the debate, I hope to get some insight:

SPOILER ALERT: (You may not want to read on if you haven’t seen the movie yet but then, didn’t we all know the plot already?)

Love in Pune

Move away Bangalore, Pune is India’s new IT hub. With scores of IT companies mushrooming in this quiet old Maharashtrian city, the former concrete jungle has some stiff competition. But if you’re like D – who happens to be my harebrained, silly and romantic alter – and you find yourself one day among geeky software developers, then you could do with some preventive measures.

Prevention of course, from falling in the dire illness they call love. Poor D, she is still overwhelmed with how she opened her eyes one overcast morning to a scary looking Visual Studio screen (and she vows her fate has been one of the major catalysts behind Microsoft’s Silverlight – they couldn’t rest till they proved every cloud has a silver lining). She was trying her best to code away to perfection like the intelligent looking people in other cubicles. And bang came something to make her task more difficult – now she fails to find rest even in a one-day weekend, even after C-O-D-I-N-G the whole week. The midsummer clouds in Pune’s air have done little to hold her tight and stop her from falling head first in the alluringly dangerous quicksand of love. Dear D, my deepest sympathies.

Here is the checklist I have prepared for her, in no particular order of priority. I hope the coming week sees her act on the instructions and steadily, even if painfully, recover.

Five Ways to Stop Falling In Love: