If you were a falling star, I'd wish for you.

He is simple. She is smart. He is shy. She is sweet. He is witty. She is over powering. He is stuck up. She has gone places. He is slow. She is snappy. He is a doting son. She is miles away form her family. He is unsure. She is difficult. He is happy for her. She's thinking about the dress at Macy's. He is waiting. She just winked at the fair skinned guy across the room. He is a guy. She is a woman.

'Its complicated'

Sitting by the window of the car I see things speed by. Without you, it all seems slow, it all seems parched. I hate to admit I'm falling apart. I'd rather be hurt than feel nothing without you.We can run away, forever. I'm on a boat and only short of direction. I need you to guide me. I'v lost you to time, I'v lost you to space. I won't let us drift apart. Apart, we aren't complete. You can either complete us, or complicate us.

His dairy.

It played again...

Cold, the room is real cold.

The air is heavy. The walls have a shade of their own.

The bed is damp.

The bed underneath is damp from the water that drizzles from the ruined roof above.

It feels like the rain. Cold rain. Merciless rain.

A wolf howls somewhere. Someplace near.

Those eyes are fixed at the stars. Twinkling stars. Up there. In the murky sky.

The nursery rhyme constantly playing in the head...

Shards of glass from the broken window pane carpet the grimy floor.

Some things in life can never be forgotten

Twinkle, twinkle, little star,
How I wonder what you are!
Up above the world so high,
Like a diamond in the sky!

It played again. Start. Stop. Rewind. Forward. It played again.

As the wait for the dark to rise continued. She had business to mind...

Us, the kayak, the water and my grave.

One day it'll rain...

One day we'll be sailing on a kayak...

The two of us...sailing in a world of our own.

A look at the vast blue blanketing ocean

A thrilled face, a squeal, jazz fingers and we'll dive into the blue water...

The cold gush of water grabbing at me...

I'll soon be dragged into my watery grave...

Waiting for the climax music to play, for sharks to circle around me, for you to kick them left and right, envelope me in your arms and for us to swim to the shore. Together.

Waiting. Waiting. Waiting. Waiting. Waiting.

Soon I: screaming for help...

And you: swimming further away ...

Rescuing a drowning figure from another kayak.

Sala. How you'r like that man?

A letter to....Cody??

Dear Cody,

I'v been meaning to write you a letter, a letter to someone I do not know. Know not I you. Does it matter? Not matter it does.

I'v been waiting all day long for you. Not that it takes much of an effort to wait, but I have been waiting. I see you everyday. I see you look at me in the eye. And then I see you look away. But wait, if I see myself looking away, how do I know that you look away too? What matters is that we both look at each other. You at me, I at you. I never smile when you are around. I just talk. Cause there are so many things I want you to know. And I believe you do the same. Makes it easier for me to put myself to sleep at night, after battling all those thoughts about you.

I dream. I see us walking. On a street. Past midnight. Into the dawn maybe. Not holding hands, certainly not. We dare not be like every other fairy tale couple. Not. I see us clutching at our coats to evade the bitting cold. Remember we hate the winter? Sometimes I wish we'd be mute. Wouldn't really matter. Maybe you wouldn't be able to sing me a song then, but, I anyway wouldn't understand these songs you'd want to sing. No, let us be mute. That way you wouldn't ever know that all I read is chick lit. That way you wouldn't shatter my heart by talking about her, your 'good friend'...

Maybe we could smile once in a while...your smile dazzling the shit out of me. I wonder if the cold would let me smile? Exactly why I hate the cold. You'd love the cold. You'v been in it all your life. I hope you love walking on the outer side of the pavement. I fear that side. I fear being hit by a car. I fear no-one being around to shield me. Now that you are here, you might as well serve the purpose.

Maybe if I have nothing else to speak of, we'd wait by the side of the road and clear the patch filled with dry leaves, with our feet, crushing them, just like you crushed my heart one day...and I was too full of nothing to revert back. What was I to do if they said you had your heart pinned to some other specimen from Venus?

We could walk a lil more...uphill. In silence. Cause I always wanted you to speak to the real me, to the me that lies deep beneath me...

Maybe you could break the silence to ask me if I was doing well...what with the thick air and the anxiety...uphill we'd walk.

When we reach the end of the road and there is nowhere to go, we'd simply turn and walk back to where we started from. I dont need no climax. No pushing off cliffs or flying high with happiness...All I need is for it to be real.

I won't go home without you...

Even if I have to sell my pricey diamonds for you...

Those looks you steal are a question to me. Still. Always.

I got no name, I got no address, I got no money for stamps.

Its a letter to Cody, a name so fictitious they already think I am deranged.

I like the sound of your name. I hope even as you read this you like the name I just named you after...Cody, the kid from Scary Movie 4.

Voices.

One day he grabbed the wet earth and shoved it up in his mouth.

Crunch Crunch Crunch ...

He chuckled at the sound.

One day he coerced the dog to swallow the house keys.

The dog whimpered, yet swallowed.

He chuckled when his father began digging a grave for the dog in their courtyard.

One day he pinched his sleeping grandmother's nose shut.

He held on to it. The old lady first flinched, then shuddered, and then opened her mouth wide, gasping for breath.

He chuckled when the shocked look on her face wouldn't wear off for days.

One day he struck a match and flung it at the cowshed.

The cows moo-ed and people ran with pails of water.

He chuckled when they carried the carcasses out of the shed. 11 scalded blistered remains.

One day he lifted his baby sister carefully, very carefully, and walked over to the well.

He stood on his toes carefully, very carefully.

And tossed the bundle in his hand into the well.

Carefully, very carefully.

He chuckled when he heard the splash and a muffled cry.

They always told him to do so. The voices.

Powerless.

She rushed inside the room and banged the door shut.

She flung her bag in a corner and collapsed on the bed.

She tucked her hair behind her ear and stared at the ceiling fan above her.

She breathed in and drew her knees close to her chest.

She wrapped her arms around herself and coiled like a fetus in the womb.

And then...

She cried.

The cry was harsh. The cry was bitter. The cry was one of anguish. The cry was one of fury.

Her tears intermingled with the kohl in her lifeless eyes ran like a dark venomous rivulet.

She cried her heart out...but there was always some more hurt lingering.

And she cried some more.

She stared at the circling fan above for what seemed forever.

This was the 6th time in a row.

A boy had broken her heart.

A boy had left her all alone.

A boy had left her without any love.

Yet another time somebody, a man, had stolen her girlfriend away from her...The one she had loved...and lost. Again.

F****** B****** She yelled out loud.

Love, Tamed and Caged.

She wants him. She wants him bad. Bad.

She feels like a kid peeking from behind her mother's sari...

She can feel time slipping.

She can feel the passion in life depleting, like the crayon you scribble hard with...

She wants things to happen fast, real fast.

And then, she also fears the shadows that trail light...

She plans her moves with care, making it a game of hide and seek...

Then, when she gathers the courage to walk upto Him...

Her mind goes blank and all she can remember is...

The red vermilion that adorns her forehead...

The thin string of black and golden beads that rest upon her chest...

The green glass bangles...

The red footprints she left at the doorstep...

and everything else...

That bonds her to a relationship she shares with another being...

Be it a failed marriage, she is still a tamed animal...a caged bird.

She turns and walks back into her shell...

And this is what happens, they say, to an Indian married woman.