The Ceremony at Sivakasi

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or otherwise, is entirely coincidental.


It was 1:45 in the afternoon , the July sun was at its peak in Sivakasi in Tamil Nadu . The family home had been repainted just a week back and it was sporting a bright new look .On the porch, a small girl was crying, her red  banana had been snatched away by a  group of five year old boys who were grinning from ear to ear .The lunch was almost  over . The last batch of relatives finished their lunch and the maids took the plantain leaves out and fed them to the cows . A well polished silver square container with betel leaf was being passed around .It was only three hours before the groom and his family members arrived . A few of them dispersed to find a place to have a nap , while the others occupied themselves with card games and gossips .


'Diya! Get up Akka  ! Why are you not getting ready ? Don't you want to look nice for Mama ?'  shrieked her little sister .She was so excited about her sister's marriage . She would  get two sets of new dresses , lots of jewelry and all the sweets she could eat plus two weeks of holiday at school and lots of photographs . Just then her sister's mobile buzzed .She tried to reach it but Diya quickly pulled it towards her . Go and play outside , I have work to do said Diya. She closed the door and looked at the message on her phone .

 [ 'Diya  .. What happens if he says yes .I know I was calm before you left but  I am freaking out now . .Please tell me you will stop this ? ' ]

She typed out ' Don't worry . I'll take care .Just don't text. I'll message you after its over ' and sent it , deleted the entire conversation from her phone and proceeded to take a shower . The cold water put some calmness into her . She walked out and dried herself . Her mother would come in in a few minutes . It was an elaborate ceremony  and it would take her a couple of hours to get ready .If the groom said yes , they would go ahead and fix a date for the marriage . She didn't know the groom personally but had heard about him on a number of occasion through her parents . Ajay this . Ajay that . To her Ajay was okay ,made good money ,didn't look too bad but more importantly approved by her parents and relatives . She didn't have the stomach to do anything else other than marry this guy .

Just then her mother walked in and asked her to get ready . Her mother looked very content about the entire situation . She had known earlier about the texting boy . She had prayed that Diya doesn't follow up on him and her prayer had come true . She still didn't trust Diya completely because she knew her daughter was not the innocent girl everybody believed her to be . Diya's mobile buzzed again . This time her mother picked it up . Diya's heart skipped a beat . It was from Airtel Money . Diya had been working in Chennai for two years now . She would be forced to quit her job once she got married . She had known this earlier . After fours years of college in her hometown she wanted to experience the City before her parents locked her down in old fashioned clothes , in an old fashioned house with an old fashioned husband.

She got ready and looked at herself in the mirror .  ' Who could say no to this ' she thought to herself  and chuckled a little . She felt bad for the poor guy who was in Chennai hoping she would stop all this and marry him instead . For a while she too believed this was possible . Chennai had shown her what life could have been  .She had a good job , helpful roommates and an adorable boyfriend . She had told him this was going to happen but he didn't want to believe it .Before she left , she had told him she would try everything to stop her marriage but she knew it wasn't true . He didn't .

The Open hall was a sight to behold with its natural lighting and its sheer grandeur . It was 5:30 in the evening. Just as expected the groom and his family had arrived and now everybody had gathered around in the main hall . Family members were all seated on the floor . The bride walked down the corridor . She was carrying the tray of coffee her mother had handed out to her in the kitchen. The kids were running down the corridor , into the main hall hoping to annoy some more people . Diya walked carefully , thinking about what she was about to do . She almost wanted to walk down the hall  and scream to everybody that this was not what she wanted . She wanted to work and earn . She wanted to get married to her guy in Chennai .Chennai had always felt like home to her . She didn't want to spend her entire life in this  little town in the middle of nowhere . She couldn't do any of those things though .

She had hoped she wouldn't be weak when the moment came . Now she was really nervous . She entered the Open hall . Everybody just turned around to catch a glimpse of the bride . She looked beautiful . She walked towards the groom and his family . She gave them all her coffee and got their blessings .She sat down and  glanced towards the floor . Her father spoke in an intense voice asking the groom's father for his word . Ajay's father then joked that he was already married .His wife gave him an angry glare.

The crowd held its collective breath for the groom to speak . He sat upright and said ' Who could say no to her' . A  big wave of joy swept across the Open hall . Everybody stood up and began greeting each other . Sweets  and coffee were distributed among the audience . The bride started to walk towards her room. The mobile in her hand buzzed just then . She looked  to see that no one was watching and looked at the text .  It read    ' Did he say No? ' . 

What's with Indian Women ?

Note :  If you've noticed , the frequency of posts has reduced and that is because I decided not to write about women for atleast a few months . As you can see I have failed miserably .It was like asking the Pope not to talk about Jesus Christ . The following is not to glorify or hurt any section of people and are just mere observations through bird watching . I apologize for the generalizations . Also I've left out certain groups because of insufficient information .

They are not the fairest , most intelligent , tallest or curviest set of females that have existed or will exist but there is just something about Indian women , Isn't it ? The teenage girl with her new scooty dressed in a half saree at the temple , the worried mother making mental calculations in crowded buses or the grandmother sweating bullets preparing Medhu vadai in a hurry before her grandchildren came home from school , Indian women seems to have that X factor that I don't seem to find in others . Now , I understand its our environment and conditioning that has made us like our women but I swear I wouldn't exchange our set of women for any other country's . Maybe Latinos if they could make Idly sambhar and Fish curry .

Okay , I maybe a bit biased here but whats the deal with girls from the coastal regions of Andhra Pradesh ? Their pale twilight coloured hair and skin , that conservative free flowing Anarkali chudidhars with colours that almost hurt , a hint of hair on the upper lip which they are very conscious but cannot do anything about , the way they  move their eyes without moving their head! How do they manage to be so lady-like and hot at the same time ? Like everybody else I also assumed they are very shy in general but leave a group of Telugu girls and guys alone for five minutes and I can bet you can come back to some singing , dancing and a lot of gossip !

I am one hundred percent sure Kerala is called God's own country purely for its women and toddy. Beautiful , Check . Intelligent , Check . Well Educated , Check .Independent , Check . You know what else , Check ! Maybe they only let the good ones out of the state but every Malayali girl I've met has been very sure of what she wants and knows how to get it .They are some of the most intelligent and sociable people you'll ever meet .  The sexiest thing in a woman is her confidence and mallus beats the rest of the world hands down in this area . Their long earrings , thick eyebrows and the sing-songy language only add to their already enormous appeal !

I feel bad grouping over 400 million women as North Indian girls but I am going to go ahead and do it for lack of a better naming term .First things first . Be it The Marathi , The Rajasthani , The Punjabi or The Delhi girl ; They are all  beautiful and I mean really beautiful  and they have an awesome sense of dressing , fashion and everything in that genre . They only downside to this is sometimes this need to be beautiful and thin takes up a lot of their time . They are also very confidant and know how to get things done . They are not afraid to speak their mind and will not take shit from anyone .If I had to pick a poster child for an Indian Woman , I would definitely put a North Indian  girl on it !


How can I talk about irresistible women and not mention Tamil girls . I read somewhere that Intelligence is the ultimate Aphrodisiac and it couldn't be truer than the case of women speaking Tamil . On first look they seem scared , reserved and a bit awkward but it couldn't be further from the reality . Tamil girls know exactly what to do in every situation that is presented to them . They handle delicate and sensitive issues without as much as batting an eyelid .They make very good companions and  are excellent partners in crime . Everything about them the accent , the flower adorned long hair , the downward gaze of the beautiful eyes , the caramel skin tone  and the rhythmic melody of the anklet  makes us go mad . The Tamil girl  is the stereotypical good girl who will show her bad side only to very few people  !

I have nothing else to say . Bye .

The Goddamn Plan

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or otherwise, is entirely coincidental.



It was a warm sunny afternoon . Sitting there in his cubicle and looking out through the window , he noticed groups of people returning back to their desks after lunch . Groups of women giggling , men enjoying their cigarettes and a few others  engrossed in conversations .  He rocked back on his chair and noticed how everything inside his office was grey . Was it symbolic ? was his first thought . He glanced back at his monitor.He had an excel open . It was staring at him right in his face . Big numbers , charts and whatnot . It seemed irrelevant to him . Suddenly his new phone buzzed . It was from one of those numbers which refer to you as Dear customer . He didn't bother . He just sat there and stared into space .

Not so long ago , he shared a room with someone when it could barely hold one person , he barely had money to cover his expenses ,all his stuff could be packed in a small travel bag and he would consider himself lucky if he got six hours of sleep in a day . Now it had all changed . He lived the life a lot of people only hoped to live someday . Wholesome paycheque , motorbike , branded clothes and shoes , a flat in an apartment and people always addressing him with respect . Something was missing though . His heart was never in the place  he was . When he got up in the morning , he wanted to get dressed and be in the office . When he was at his desk , he wanted to be in the food court . When he was in the food court , he wanted to go home and when he was home , well you know where he wanted to be .Often in the middle of conference calls his mind would wander onto a football pitch , him playing with a bunch of his friends with just boxers in the rain . Would anyone be bothered if i didn't show up ? Does my updating the quality centre with my results affect how much my company makes ?

Pass kar behen****  , people would scream in a room filled with smoke when he took a wee bit longer . With just over three hundred  rupees in the back account , eloborate plans would be chalked up for the weekend and implemented too . A twenty rupee pack of cards had kept  them entertained for about two years . Poori and aloo in the morning  seemed to them like a rescue boat to Robinson crusoe . Even remotely funny things would cause a laugh riot . All this was exactly one year ago . Now , he could watch the simpsons on high definition and not once would he come remotely close to smiling . Man ! Where did it go wrong ?

He got back to his Excel sheet , he looked at it for a minute and decided it didn't matter . Nothing he did that day would matter . Nothing he did sitting in his cubicle would matter . He thought for sometime and looked outside his window at the people in disgust . How could they be laughing and smiling at this life .  This superficial , pretending to be happy and successful life that everyone led where they could be easily be replaced by machines and clients wouldn't know the difference . Was this where evolution was supposed to take us ? Something somewhere has gone terribly wrong .

He couldn't bear  to be in the office anymore . He got up , rushed to his bike and pulled it into second gear .The ride back home was the only high point of his day . He could feel the cold wind hitting him straight in his face at 80kmph. It made him feel alive . He then reached home . He parked his bike and just when he was about to ring the doorbell, He could hear his mother proudly explaining his job description to her friend . It was at that moment he realized that it hadn't gone wrong anywhere . Things had gone exactly to plan. Just that no one told him that THIS was the plan all along .


When I was a child
I caught a fleeting glimps
out of the corner of my eye
I turned to look but it was gone
I cannot put my finger on it now
the child has grown
the dream is gone

Update

I realize I haven't posted in a while . And today being my birthday , I thought this was the right time to just slip this past you . I have started working and it is sucking all the fun out of my life , Also I live in the suburbs and don't have an internet connection as of now and I am working towards getting one soon. Yes,soon . The posts will be back on hopefully by the end of this month . Thank you for all your kindness sent to the inbox . I really did not expect that . Cheers .