The Right Woman

What is it about meeting the right woman that makes an ice-cold, logic-driven man melt like… candle-wax in the grip of feisty flames? Is it some sort of unseen electromagnetic radiation emitted by the woman that warps space and time around her thus imbibing a man with that peculiar floating sensation? Could it be just plain hormone-triggering chemicals, floating around and through her, that trips a man’s unwary sensory receptors sending him to overdrive? Could it be that this whole scenario is really an enactment of a sadistic plot cooked up by unseen forces? Or maybe it’s just a ritual of some sort that a man has to go through before the overlapping veils of ignorance lifts up and clears his vision! I do not understand it yet … but it sure feels good!

Torque

It’s been a month. And I still feel that she’s the best thing that’s happened to me. Let me introduce you to my very first bike. Yup it’s a Karizma!



A 225cc, 17bhp beast-of-an-engine packed in a streamlined body… I christened her Blackbird after the legendary spy plane that broke every speed record in the books and still remains today the fastest plane that ever roamed the skies! (http://www.sr-71.org/blackbird/sr-71/).



This babe has got power... loads of it. At the slightest twist of the throttle she surges ahead like a restrained beast. Since the engine is new I usually keep to a max speed of 60kmph. For all you new timers it’s a good idea to run your engine at a low rpm for the first one year or so. After which and if you’ve handled the bike really well (especially while changing gears) this babe would cruise at around 130-140kmph… smooth as silk! I just can’t wait till the day I let her rip!



My friends of course think that I am crazy. Usually, people who are new to riding bikes altogether, start with the smaller bikes… the 100 cc or 135 cc bikes. And here I was, starting it all off with the fastest sports bike in the Indian market. I wouldn’t say that they were trying to discourage me or anything coz they’ve got a very good point. Being a first time rider I would end up making a lot of mistakes especially while changing gears, while braking and the likes which would inevitably cause damage to a new engine. That in turn would mean that the bike will not be all that fast or powerful one year down the line. Granted! And that is why I am extra cautious while taking the bike out! O what the hell, I’m a sucker for speed and I didn't want to wait forever to get a fast bike. A couple of years down the line I plan to buy a 1200cc bike. Oh yes and I believe I’ll be ready for it! But for now I’m content cruising down the highway on BlackBird, my very own crotch rocket!

Confessions of a Vampire

I stood in the shadows watching her walk towards me. Funny! When I was a kid, a lifetime ago, I remember shuddering at the thought of being enveloped by Darkness, in whose domain it always seemed as if the outstretched claws of unseen monsters were just a whisper away . A smile broke out on my lips. Fate, it seems, is not without a sense of irony. Here I was some 20 years later, in the shadows of the night waiting patiently for my kill.
****
I sank my fangs into the flesh of her neck. Her blood squirted into my mouth, quenching a thirst that had been haunting me for the past few days. I felt like I was floating. The feeling was akin to the one you get when you make love for the first time. Delightfully sensuous! I held her tight as I drank her blood with a sense of abandonment.
****
At first she struggled, her autonomic nervous system kicking in. But then she gave in to me, not because she saw the futility in fighting a stronger being but because she realized that there was nothing for her to go back to. I felt this. I tasted it in her blood.
****
Right from the first bite on her neck till the last drop of her blood that danced across my tongue, I felt connected to her like I did with all my victims.
****
I choose my victims carefully, always looking for ones who are introverted, with social lives that are nothing to brag about. Towering over her corpse, I felt no remorse. I just liberated her from her misery.
****

Deep Blue Sea… well almost!

I was drowning and I knew it. To tell you the truth, I never learned to swim and it showed in the way I splashed around in the water. I tried, desperately, to grab a hold on the broadish wooden plank bobbing around on the surface near me... but the damn thing seemed equally desperate to slip away from my outstretched hands. Finally, after countless tiring attempts I managed to grab it with both my hands and pulled my head out of the water. In those few seconds of respite, I managed to see a couple of triangular fins slicing through the waves about a hundred yards away. The plank wobbled, slipped from my grasp and I went under. It was then that the word formed itself in my head, “Sharks!”

I moved my arms and legs, kicking and fighting my way to stay afloat. Surfacing just beside the plank, I immediately latched onto it. The rain kept incessantly beating down on my face and it was hard to keep my eyes open for too long. Blinking away the water, I looked around me. For a moment I froze. The fins were nowhere to be seen. Then I turned around in the water, a full 180 degrees. “Where are they?” Panic enveloped me in a deadly embrace... although I must say I was not exactly in the mood for a romantic affair... much less with Miss Panic. And to make things worse, my legs were getting tired and it felt as if they had turned into lead oars.

Just then, a huge wave crashed into me. And there I was… floating in a world of blue and black where time slowed down… and the sound of the rain and the waves almost ceased to exist. It was so serene that for a moment I began to wonder why I was fighting it. That was when my lungs started convulsing and reality kicked in.

"This must be it. I’m not going to make it this time."

But my body had a mind of its own and kept moving. And that was when I surfaced… only to see 10 tons of bone-crushing death, packaged in a streamlined body, bearing down on my head with its jaws wide open. My eyes were still fixated on the razor sharp teeth when it jaws clamped around my head.

The world went dark….. And I heard static. Then a tinny voice that sounded distant and somehow strange said, “Alright that was the last one of the requirements. I guess we can wind up the call unless you have any questions, Jijo?”

“Huh!” was my first coherent thought. “Where did the shark go?”

That was when I opened my eyes and saw my project mates staring at me. The speaker phone on the desk blared “Where did the WHAT go?!”

Enlightenment… unfortunately, set in a tad too late. I was on a conference call! In what was a dismal attempt to cover my embarrassment, I managed to say “I meant …. umm... look at how fast the time goes! ….. I think the requirements are quite clear!”

For a moment there was an uncertain silence. Then the speakerphone blared again “Alright, hope you guys have a good night!” And then the dial tone.

“Phew!!” I thought to myself “That… was close!”

“Are you sure you got all of that?” My Project Leader asked me on the way back from the conference room. “Oh yeah sure… I got it all stored up here!” I said tapping at my head with one finger and putting on a toothy grin that would have put Julia Roberts to shame.

To tell you the truth this was not the first time. The last time I attended a meeting I got chased by a T. Rex who thought I was trying to steal the carcass of some prehistoric animal that it was feasting on. But that could be the meat of another story to be told some other day.

Rage

Embittered frustration, accumulated over time, exploded. A birth of sorts! Mushroom clouds of rage lashed out skywards at the speed of sound. The blast waves sped across the plains leveling everything in its path, swallowing up unsuspecting victims and tearing them from limb to limb. The white blinding fury forming the core of the blast stripped everything… even the atoms constituting the air we breathe, off of its sanity and purpose… killing the very essence that fed and nurtured it… hara-kiri… Madness! Eventually, robbed of its purpose and reason the flames die a slow painful death… a glorious birth but an inglorious fall from its cradle to its grave! Attempts to revive it are met with silence… an emptiness that is as hollow as the reason for its existence!

Thus awakened by wisdoms ever-elusive touch… I move on!