When Strangers Meet

Parting of the black clouds.....
Blowing of some breeze
As approaches silently
Footstep of some unseen
Softly it grows
Heart ruptures into an ecstasy
And spring comes in December
When two Strangers meet.......

The Fog

 The solitary heart beats but with no willingness, the eyes are moist with silent tears that yearn to scream out of the sockets, the lungs breathe still but with reluctance and no zeal. As I pen my thoughts down, the mind struggles in its hope of stumbling on to some joy, the weary eyes weakly hunt for a path ahead, the parched lips mumble in dire prayers as the soul awaits for the clearing of the fog ahead......for the mist to lift...for the road to show.....for the destiny to reveal itself....

The Knock

Enveloped by Darkness....
Wrapped in gloom
Away from the crowd
It stands all alone
Phantoms and Spirits
Darkness and doom
From behind the walls
Some whispers loom
But the Door stays silent
Cobbed and shut
Patiently waiting for someone to knock...
To push open...
To enter
To step inside at last....

(By Ritesh Agarwal)

Pathos of the 'someone'

Deep, dense, dark clouds hover above...
As the oceans weep beneath
Awaiting the sun to show up
And a ray of hope to peep....
A Tempest is brewing in the heart of the sea
A Whirlpool of gloom whirling and swirling....
The wave is looking up
Hoping and pleading
Praying amidst all desolation
Amidst solitude and hopelessness
For one....only one...just one
Elusive sliver of  ray
To show before the end of the Day...

Daniel Radcliffe inches closer: Deathly Hallows on its way

Daniel Radcliffe inches closer: Deathly Hallows on its way

Emma Watson shall soon don her cloak again, Rupert Grint shall soon be red-haired again and the bonbon Daniel Radcliffe shall soon be battling the Dark Lord again as November gets an inch closer, now that we are heading into October.

Since the release of the last Harry Potter flick ‘Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince’, it has been ages since the next instalment hits cinemas. And, with the novels already having completed its journey, there is only the 7^th film to look forward to. The sojourn, this far, has been painful yet exhilarating, sluggish yet electrifying.

However, this November, the Potter maniacs shall find themselves once again transported into a world they have seldom been before, into a world where wizards and witches rule supreme, where one swish of a wand is enough to kill, or to awaken, in a fantasy web where only our mind can journey as we leave our mundane bodies behind.

As Daniel Radcliffe, in the garbs of the Boy-who-lived, readies himself to take on the inevitable, the feared and the unspoken You-Know-Who, the spectators are gearing up for an inescapable bewitchment of their droning senses to be caught in the enveloping flames of the adrenaline rush that comes with every Hogwarts voyage.......

(By Ritesh Agarwal)

9th August, 2010

                                               9^th August, 2010

Hiya was staring at the screen with a blank mind awaiting a reply from Rit who was lurking in the small chat window. It was 2am but Hiya seemed reeling under a spell as she immersed herself in talking to this unheard, unseen stranger whom she had bumped into a few hours back in Yahoo Messenger.

Night grew deeper and the eerie darkness was complete by the time she logged off. A strange fondness had developed for this perfect stranger. He seemed bewitching. She smiled to the darkness as she hit the pillows....there was a strange tug at her heart which seemed agonising yet sweet.

Over the next couple of days, Hiya found herself getting drawn to her laptop...forlorn in his thoughts as she yearned to chat with him. He was hypnotic; endowed with some mystical charm. Blinded by his mysterious charisma, she even exchanged numbers.

She found herself calling him next evening. His voice seemed hollow and strangely long drawn as if he were millions of miles away (yet she knew he lived in Calcutta only).... Tentative yet bewitched, Hiya sighed, ‘Can we meet?’

He paused, then asked, ‘When?’

‘On 9^th August,’ Hiya was firm ‘But where?’

‘Okay, 9^th August, 2010....outside the Park Street cemetery at 8 pm. I hope you shall keep your promise.’

He hung up! He had said he lived near that graveyard. It felt a tad strange. Hiya kept thinking about it for a long time....apparently lost in her thoughts.

The impending day arrived. He looked sweet as Hiya approached him. With luscious red lips, jet black hair and a warm flickering smile, he seemed a womanizer as Hiya found herself succumbing to his murderous charms.

Before she knew it, she found herself walking into the cemetery alongside him as if a stroll inside a graveyard is a very normal thing to do. As they went deeper, a chill ran through her spine....the eeriness seemed complete as...moon was flirting with the clouds.

Like a bewitching Dracula, Rit was casting his spell over her....she kept swooning as if in a trance. ‘Do you believe in ghosts,’ he broke the silence with a playful chuckle.

Suddenly, Hiya felt she saw an apparition nearby....as if a pale, smoky ghost floating in the misty air.....but it must be a sliver of moon ray- she convinced herself.

Rits went on to some thread of conversation but Hiya’s mind was preoccupied. ‘Do you believe in ghosts’ (his voice was still ringing in her ears).

‘Yes, I do,’ she threw him a powerful look...her eyes lit up in a fiery determination.

The next moment Rit found himself falling on the ground....a violent storm brewing in his head. He looked up and found himself staring vacantly at the empty air where Hiya was standing only a moment ago. Something glistening on the ground caught his gaze. Paralysed and petrified, with a sense of utmost horror, he read the inscribed words shimmering on the tomb......

                             Hiya Ganguly

               (17^th July, 1985- 9^th August, 2010)

She had kept her promise..........

A Visitor from the World beyond (A horror story)

It was past midnight when the train screeched to a halt at some unknown station. Shruti woke up. Surprisingly, the compartment was empty. She peered outside the window...she could hear a strong hustle from a crowd nearby.

She alighted from the train and walked towards the gathering as she caught a few words like ‘Poor child’ and ‘Must be a love affair.’ As Shruti pierced through the crowd, a mutilated body came into sight. Her battered face seemed faintly familiar even as the wheels had brutally crushed the young body. A girl, possibly, in her early twenties, had plunged into the deathly tracks as the train approached roaring. The mob was busy speculating the reason behind her committing suicide but, for some strangely uncanny reason, Shruti felt she knew the plausible cause.

Jerking herself out of the curious onlookers, Shruti began to walk back to her silent compartment. As she crawled forwards, she felt she heard another footstep just behind her. She whirled round but saw no one. A tad perturbed, she shook herself and recommenced her journey back to her coach. She could see from outside that the train was virtually empty. Pensive and brooding, she found the silence as deep as the eeriness of the moon-lit night.

Then she heard it again- the crackling of the leaves.....this time far more distinctly. Panicking and perspiring, she quickened her pace but whatever ‘it’ was, was now breathing down her neck. And then she heard a murmur as someone called out her name softly. She turned around......she saw ‘it’. She mustered courage and asked ‘Who are you’ knowing pretty well it was a pale shadow she was talking to. Then the shadow turned paler, thinner and began to fade away into emptiness.

Shruti threw a glance heavenwards. Moon was being enveloped by a spread of thick, black clouds. Only the last ray was peeping out keeping the shadow barely alive. Shruti looked back at the shadow. It was melting away along with the flickering light.....and then finally..... it spoke its final words which continued to ring in her ears for hours- “Didn’t you recognise me? I am your soul. You just got run over by the train.........”

(By Ritesh Agarwal)

Stars never showed up.......

Jhanvi was a touch poignant. She craned her neck to look heavenwards but the clouds were thick and large. The night seemed sombre, the darkness was complete and moonlight was faint as a couple of rays peeped out of the curtain of clouds. She was all alone at the terrace as the clock chimed 2 am. Unable to find solace in sleep, she had come up silently even as her parents and young Rahul slept soundly. After all, destiny had rolled its dice; fate had conspired.

It was some 10 days ago that she had bumped into Sameer at Riya's birthday party. He appeared amiable and honest and had been exceptionally cordial when Riya introduced her to him. Smiles were exchanged, hesitant hands finally shaken and a soft 'Hi' spoken. As the evening grew on, some lines interchanged lips....mostly a few murmurs...some tentative whispers...some diffident words. The final straw came when he walked alongside her to the bus stop all alone. But when the bus arrived, the parting seemed strangely unbearable....Jhanvi took her seat but her head kept glancing out as he had turned to go....going...going...gone. The bus moved on.

The week that followed was agonizing. She kept tossing on her bed each night re-living that evening in her mind over and over again as if afraid to lose a sweet memory.

Rain had begun to trickle down in droplets throwing Jhanvi back to the terrace as she gazed at the gloomy void that was over her. How wonderful it had been yesterday. Jhanvi had summoned courage, battled nerves and telephoned Riya asking her Sameer's number. How a spine-chilling thrill had run through her nerved body as she saw her trembling fingers pressing the keypads. His voice seemed divine. She could feel him smiling warmly as he caressed her through his soft-spoken manner. She fumbled as he asked her to reach the Sunshine Cafe at 6. As she hung up, she sensed a tinge of excitement enveloping her entire self. 

A bolt of lightning split the sky as Jhanvi returned to her senses. The army of clouds above had conspired to keep the stars away from her. How she longed to look at those glittering gems and hunt for her love amidst the gloom. Her insides were screaming which the roaring cloud craftily muffled and the rain carefully blended with her tears. She waited for him till 8 but he never showed up. How could he when he got run over by the bus.......

(By Ritesh- 29th August, 2010)

Into the Sunset

As the day closes itself....
As the evening fades.....
As the shadows creep in....
And d moonlight and d shades.....
Sumone yearns for a new dawn
For re-awakening of the sun
and lost people to hunt for....
forgotten toys to get....
But.......helpless and pathless

He walks into the Sunset.......

What is Love.....

Love is an inexplicable
 yet the most beautiful feeling one can ever feel....
 It wakes you up and helps you dream once again
It prods you to seep in the magic
that a sinking sun spews on the horizon
 And a silvery moon radiates onto the void....
Love drives you to do magic
 to feel the magic
 and to see sense in nonsensical life...
 Love may not have the prowess to change your surroundings
 but it does have the infinite strength to change you
 in a manner that you change your surroundings
 or develop newer and broader vision....
Love is a fragrance-
intangible, incomprehensible, untouchable and unforeseeable
Yet it exists in hearts
where there is a small space for things other than malice........

Twilight.......

As the sun makes way
for the dark
 to envelope the starry sky
 dotted by one orb of a silver disc,
Nature folds its wings
as the birds bid adieu to yet another
mundane day,
I gaze at the heavens awaiting
His judgement and find to my utter gloom
that Before the dusk
Before the dawn
Before the commencement of the sojourn
the dreaded happens
the feared beckons as

one Twilight comes calling....

sachin tendulkar

He bats like a man possessed by a demon, he strikes like a snake spewing its venom,
Cricket sans Sachin is like a blood sans serum..........