The Deception

         

        “Well, I wish you all the best and hope that you land that job.  Now I’ve to rush as I have an appointment right now.  Here’s my card, if you need any help”, so saying, he thrust a visiting-card into her carry-bag, waved at her and briskly walked away.

       
        Meena felt slightly foolish and humiliated.  He had appeared eager to escape from her jabbering.  “What had just come over her?” she thought.  She had always been wise and sensible and kept to herself, after her husband, Sunil’s untimely death in a car accident, three years ago.

        
        She felt her eyes beginning to well up with tears and hastened into the cloak-room to gain composure.  She washed her eyes and dabbed them with a tissue that she always kept handy in her purse.  She slowly appraised herself in the huge mirror behind the wash-basin.  A delicate-looking lady stared back at her from the mirror with dark, fathomless eyes.  The naturally rosy cheeks and jet-black hair belied her real age.  She was nearing 40 but didn’t look a day beyond 30. 

        

The copyright of this story is with Mrs. Priya Ramesh Swaminathan.

The Reunion

        She was everything that he was not.  Good-looking, talented, confident and successful.  She was Sweety Kapadia and he was Varun Khera.  Both had met in college several years ago.  30 years to be precise.  She had entered a co-ed college, straight from a placid, strict, all-girls school and he had taken admission there, straight from a boisterous yet strict, all-boys school.  Both of them had set notions about college-life and the other sex!  What had once been taboo for both of them, was the bait for both of them.  Interacting with members of the ‘opposite sex’!

        
       Try as they would, they just couldn’t overcome their inhibitions, ingrained into their heads after years of brain-washing by their parents and teachers.  ‘One mustn’t talk to boys’.  ‘One mustn’t talk to girls’.  It would divert their attention and disturb their concentration in studies.  Studying was the be-all and end-all of their existence, with the occasional basket- ball match or the excursion, thrown in to relieve their humdrum ‘school-going’ routine.

       

The copyright of this story is with Mrs. Priya Ramesh Swaminathan.

A Lesson Learned Too Late!

          
                   The hawkers were raucously ferrying their wares, brandishing them at passengers seated inside the trains which had halted at the station and inducing those on the platform to buy them.        

The copyright of this story is with Mrs. Priya Ramesh Swaminathan.

A Life-long Affair

        The door creaked open and Birju walked in gingerly.  He had just returned from the market and remembered that his master Mr. Anupam Roy had asked him to replace the bed-covers in his bedroom with fresh ones and launder the previous ones.  Birju knew that his master would check the same, immediately after returning from work in the evening.

         
The copyright of this story is with Mrs. Priya Ramesh Swaminathan.

  

A Strange Bond

       She saw him daily. A fair, balding man of medium-build, his tall frame stooping over a walking stick; sitting on the bench beside the temple, which she visited daily. He always looked sad and forlorn. Something in his demeanor made Karuna want to reach out to him, comfort him about whatever it was, that engulfed him perennially in such grief.

      
      She was a twenty year old lively girl with compassion for all living creatures, whether man or beast. Probably, this accounted for her numerous pets; dogs, cats, rabbits and a talking parrot. Her house teemed with them. Her parents and brother had long ago, got used to having new additions to her ever-growing collection of pets. Her patience in feeding and tending to them and her unbelievable love and compassion for them, made them tolerant of the ‘nuisance’.

      
     Fortunately, they lived in a cottage which had enough space in the front and at the rear of the house. The pets however, refused to be bound to their designated spaces and enjoyed roaming freely in the house. Thus her brother would holler when he found a mongrel in the bathroom, when he went to bathe; and her mother would shriek when one of the cats pounced on the dining table goodies. Her parrot would gleefully chatter away as Karuna’s father tried to make sense of the office work, which he constantly brought back with him. Only Karuna could soothe all their ruffled feathers by coaxing her pets into order and silence.

      

The copyright of this story is with Mrs.Priya Ramesh Swaminathan.