Tales from Innsbruck

Tales from Innsbruck

Short Fiction

Chapter- One

Give me some space and a pickaxe. I will give you a nursery. He talked that way. Since I didn’t have soil and pickaxes, it wasn’t destined to be repassed . We were on our long drive through the Austrian landscape. I have crossed to these zones in every one of the conditions, with a poke of Euros and without propelling fagging about the following dinner. This was before my wedding whenever I had that uncommon chance to trail with a fine woman and traveller. Furthermore, that story I will describe elsewhere, yet this story isn’t that. It is the story of my most prominent experience as a vocalist with some of the craziest colleagues I had met.

For convenience, I will present my old buddy as Renéltte Ognjen though the last piece of his terminology escapes my tongue, having been raised in a different land and culture. Maybe I need to rehearse hours to pronounce his name property, that being said the highlight and inflexion will not be correct. That is certifiably not a major issue. My distant uncle could for the duration of his life probative his significant other from Scotland yet they had a decent hitched life and memory, both are no more. This uncle used a contracted structure at last to both the accomplice’s appreciation. Be that as it may, my overall perspective on things, after seeing numerous relationships of my mates and family members and nephews and nieces and even myself, is that we assert on the unimportant things in wedded life and less careful of major strands. Look, I am digressing from the essential content, excuse me…We strolled along through the expansiveness and length of the town…..The climate was charming when I arrived at Innsbruck. April’s average temperature of 9°C sprawls exactly in between the annual low of -1°C in January and the annual high of 19° in July. The weather became warmer day after day. I came once again in the presence of the river that touched St. Moritz,Scuol, Landeck, Innsbruck,Wörgl, Kufstein, Rosenheim, Schärding, Passau etc. Yesterday’s was foggy but today things are brighter. The time frame before harvest is turbid to be the dreariest season. We were initially three travellers. We had come that day from Graz. The third person SW- – wearing cowboy jeans and smoked the Cuban stogie which he bought from another station. SW- grinned regularly in a flirtatious tone which his darling showed. The lady smiled playfully. the fragile earthy coloured gown was waving in the hurricane. The woman’s portrayal. She wore silver rings on her toes and fingers. ‘You don’t discover numerous scenes that are amusing here’ SW- – told. The Italian minister removed his cassock and kept it on the wooden scaffold at the corner. ‘What an awkward season when I came’. SW – muttered, for he came two months ago and it was cold and he recollected some of the ice in his eyes and his torso shrank in the chill.- – told the influenced toe that solitary SW- – could go. Man are you into additional periods of sleep.

The mountaineer had quite recently shown up from his trip from the upper Alps. He left his two voyaging colleagues in Salzburg and the individuals will go to their farm in the hinterlands. He was engaged in Heraclitus among these. Also, the difference was a Jungian attempting to copy the style of the clinician pulling out into his TOWER yet he was not intrigued. He looked outside the coal shoveler’s saw the group’s body as shadows. The station was dull and it was the last train and they missed the last train from—run and they all left. They needed to wait for a few hours and it was too difficult to even think about getting a train and it was difficult to tarry.

I had my entrance, Ms Callet recited in melody. When she spoke the room reverberated and she probably knew. She had that attitude, experiment, change as you progressed and was oblivious of others’ opinions. She was an actor. She voiced word after word in clarity as if she were rehearsing a future role. When she spoke, few differed and it seemed that they were captivated by her persona rather than her ideas. I had my coach’s secretary call me. She was my schoolmate and the college in the state in the seashore town where I was the friend of the writer nicknamed Pedro the facetious individual and Soho who came to my home and remained and we both ventured out in front of tracts above windmills full-time away there.

At that point, the woman said she had a green kimono in the closet which she took from the colossal assortment of things in her handbag. Her keister consisted of the multitude of things that she had amassed in the excursions. She said that she wanted to surrender it quickly. At the point when SW– inquired. Tomorrow, she said and added in her mother tongue, Slovene, ‘conceivably tomorrow’. The snow hid in the background, and the little furnishings were unkempt. The boy showed up and when the couple sat tight for the room dispensed that evening, he came to with the modest declaration that the room was prepared. on the fourth floor, the kid said. Also, he added-“Sir the lift isn’t working”. What’s more, SW- who had the propensity for talking finally and stopping after every expression and investigating the audience into their eyes for additional signals didn’t articulate anything this time. Shortly the couple left. Furthermore, the kid showed up. The respectable man stinks of alcohol, the kid declared. – ‘Don’t have any desire to serve anyone who drinks. I might want to be in the organization of non-drinkers“. The kid was perfecting virtues one item a week. He talked. Perhaps I will go to Cologne this late spring to complete my work. The kid had the propensity for visiting hallowed places each year. He had been in the lodging industry for as far back as three years. He had changed the lodging multiple times in this span. He showed the photos. They were photographs in black and white with my old cartridge camera which my father introduced on my birthday. Which birthday, SW– posed, an improper inquiry, as the woman later revealed to us both when we shared red wine and chaotically in the next week. She had a duplicate of one of Fitzgerald. A sad author, the SW- in a plain bout of witter. More nostalgic than genuine. ‘Not my view,’ – I meddled. He continued – I like Jack London folks- You should carry on with life to an immense degree to connect and realize the core.

The kid was 5 feet nine inches and wore hazel shoes and suede and said that he would not like to serve the alcoholics. He had high aspirations throughout everyday life and he said that he frequently imagined that his life was not advancing to the levels he anticipated.

….

Came to Austria to see my coach. My mentor, 72 years of age, is a retired individual who served in Vienna after World War-2. He, associated with the enhancements of the rail line, finally left as an engineering advisor. Towards the end of his profession, when there were just five years to resign, he found a new life of freedom, wilful superannuation. He went toward the South. At that point, his work was in Vienna and he went to stay with his child in the subalpine region by the Danube His child wedded a distant cousin and they have two children, a boy and a young lady. My passage moved toward him and shaped a little tummy, which is an improbable sight taking everything into account. Since I met him, he has been mindful to keep his body in reasonable condition.

….

The other explorer turned out to be a mountain dweller, and he kept severe control throughout everyday life, in practically every one of the circles. He was notwithstanding being late to ascend in the first part of the day. His main concern was the pug. He kept his tones and he had briefly given him under the care of cousin and appeared to be somewhat stressed over the matter. Be that as it may, he was by all accounts restored after we ate and a quart of red wine at eight evening at the inn’s salon.

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Shoemaker and Apprentice -2

Shoemaker and the Apprentice

Short Story – Part–2

His mother was sick that day so the apprentice could not go to the shoemaker’s store. And the boy requested a day off. With great irresolution, the shoemaker gave it. ‘You must meet me at the party lounge anyway. I have a carton to transfer to home. Will you not?’ he asked. The boy replied in the affirmative. ‘ 7 pm’ – He said. And the apprentice went to the N.N. Hospital with his mother. The mother had to be administered sedation. She had some fluctuations in sodium levels. She behaved oddly. earlier she had some fluctuations in her potassium levels. That time she behave differently still. ‘Keep the Bible in the auto-rickshaw’, she instructed the boy. She was not completely alright. Her moods change. The boy thought- after the frequent sickness, her views of life are changing . Was it a change? Maybe. Mother was disinclined to talk. After papa’s passing, she was not performing fit for some interval. Earlier she was not much into religious things. She was born a Christian and baptised in childhood. His father was Hindu. Theirs was a love marriage. And his father was a  driver by profession. When he died in an accident, mother became lonely . Even then she did not read religious books. Her colleagues were Lara and Alicia, her neighbour who she called Liz. They were good mates.

She wrote to her only brother in Singapore  so that the boy’s education could be competed. The schools in the nearby areas  ask big donation which they cannot have the wherewithal for. Education is a sweeping business. And sometimes, the people who are operating them don’t have the basic education. They can not even speak properly. Once he was interviewed by one of the heads. They think that money can buy everything. Some people think that when they have money they are even above manners. Some have that infamous gawp that the whole world has taken a loan from them. Not all the rich, but some. She wrote a letter to her only brother in Singapore so that the boy’s education could be completed. The boy’s elder sister is wedded to a man in the gulf region. And the couple comes only once in two years for a short visit. The brother in Singapore did not reply. Instead, his wife called the neighbour’s house landline. As they did not have a landline phone, the sister in law shouted in the other landline number. She said- ‘Don’t trouble us with your complaints. How old is the boy?’ . ‘Nine’ – She said. “He can work and eat.” The sister in law bawled over the phone. The neighbour is a good lady, a brunette from Innsbruck. She looked at her sympathetically. The neighbour did not say anything. She just took a warm gander. The next week the boy got work in the shoemaker’s shop. His mother was a charwoman. The boy decided. He will work hard and be affluent and do some good activities in life. You know, maybe all the charwoman’s sons can’t become Albert Camus. Still, they all can strive towards excellence on some level. If a puppy can lick and show love to its caretaker, man can beyond question, do better things other than engage in trouble. Yes, man can.

……..

Shoemaker and Apprentice-1

THE SHOEMAKER AND APPRENTICE

SHORT STORY

PART-1

One will never think that this will be the ideal day in life till one witnessess that with two eyes. Sometimes the most beautiful things, the noblest of gifts, the friendship that one has been expecting all along these courses come most unexpectedly. This was also in the case of Titian the shoemaker. He had been an apprentice to the ablest of craftsmen in the town from the age of nine when his dad unexpectedly succumbed to a terminal malady. And he was in the fifth standard then and his mom told him to find a job and he got the apprentice position with pocket money of 200 rupees a month, an endowment that the head Crispin gave to all the three of his apprentices. The head shoemaker married twice and his eldest son from the first marriage was also in the shop to take care of the trainees under him. He had divorced his first wife but has kept his son by his side. He loved his son so much but was quite tough in his dealings with his son and taught him the lessons of the trade the hard way. On quite a few occasions, he banged the boy mercilessly too, not because of serious transgressions like stealing or fraud but the boy was casual about the hide and parchment and other goods kept in the storehouse for the making of the shoe. The gentleman’s footwear were some of the best in the market, and he put a mark in his mother tongue as a signature but it was of no use, as counterfeit shoes soon came in the market with the same signature in the same curves and casual impression of the original one. Still, the customers could easily identify, those who had worn his shoes earlier could easily identify the original from the duplicate.

The boy was honest and the episode took place when he went to the second show that started at 10 P.M. And ended at 1 A.M. He went to the theatre on a bicycle and after that slept in the corridor in front of the store as usual. But on the special night of the robbery, the door was not locked properly and it led to the theft. The boy was in a hurry to see the film of his favourite heroine and hero from the first scene. And the movie started with a stunt scene and the boy never missed the first part.
The theft occurred and he apprehended that his papa would be angry and though he had the portent the dad would be fierce, he could not foresee, the latter will hit him and this the dad did liberally. This was additionally because the gentleman had taken a loan on interest for the expansion of trade and was already at default for a couple of payments and was desperate. But in the evening he cooled down and bought the favourite sweets of the boy with an additional small bottle of sherry. But the lad was defiant and did not accept the sherry and the chocolates and instead advanced to the same movie once again. Readers- What do you think about the dad and the son? When I gave the initial draft to a few associates of mine, one man told me that such irresponsible boys should be beaten because they do not know the travails of their parents while bringing them up. A lady told, second shows in our family nobody goes for second shows, you are inviting the attentions of nocturnal beings by such an irresponsible action. One expert in bringing up children said that since the boy is not yet eighteen and a minor(he was just seventeen and two months) he should get permission to leave at such a time. He should be taught the basic manners at home at an early stage. One gentleman who was my classmate in school years, but whom I lost touch with him and had contacted recently and as he knew from somebody that I write some silly stories, he had asked me to send my drafts before publications. This gentleman was a frequent traveller, and when I asked his opinion he told me that the boy was perfectly right in his actions and in case he met the dad, he will punch his belly into pieces. Who is the hero, he asked later. And I told the name of the actor. Then he replied that the boy should go to that cinema and see the actor in performance and also, that the daddy can receive another advance and pay it leisurely since seeing the film at such a point in life is critical. And meanwhile, this cavalier was also the hero’s devotee. I wrote back in a side note that as a man I also thought likewise, though as a writer I must support all my characters no matter how wicked they are, and though I would like to estimate differently at a private level, to do so in my fiction will be quite naive and as a writer and as a human being, many of my present beliefs may be flawed and I am also in a learning process. “Are you Milton? “, he asked. I said that though I am not as great a poet as Milton, the attitude in this regard, the question of impartiality, is the same.
So this is some of the backgrounds of the story.
2
And I did not tell you about the second partner of the shoemaker and this order. His second spouse was most stunning and possibly fifteen years younger than him and he wedded her instantly after the separation. He already had a boy by her and this breach took place when these accounts appeared in the newspaper. The evening daily reporter made investigation reporting and discovered the (famous ) shoemaker’s secret life which cost him his matrimony. But the shoemaker was not discouraged. And took the other affair and got a breakup and espoused immediately.
The brick had put the offspring by his secondary wedlock in a leading college in the city and his intonation and lexicon are excellent. You may question how I grasped his articulation and diction. I happened to meet him once in the workshop when his sibling and dad had departed and it was a temporary office for him. I had gone there because a pair of footwear I purchased (I am his client ) from his store was hurting my toes severely because the sponge he used was of moderate quality.
Regularly when you wear his shoes you get the sensation of your caring companion holding your hand, but this was like your chief foe holding your hand in a bombastic decent way. So I went there to submit a question and he persuaded me that the shoe is indeed fine, and now and again your dispositions when you walk will influence the agony or joy you get while wearing the shoes. “Were you going for a meeting?” He asked. Indeed I was. I had stopped a job and was looking for another and I was truly wearing the shoes that day. “That is it!”, he told with an enthusiastic grin, “Honorable man”, he proceeded in his best compliment – ‘ ‘ There you are,” he said, “You should change your temperaments as opposed to changing your shoes. On the off chance that you are intrigued, I have an alliance program for that “. I said-”I will consider it” and returned home that day considering how to talk like him in the hardest of circumstances.
………………………….

Park Avenue -3

NOVEL-PART

Fellows entered the room with beards of Stradanus.(As an aside, I went to the hot place to write this story ). Local newspapers at a corner on cracked rosewood table.Vasari wandering through the lives of painters. Galleries. Again Titian, the monk with a book. The wind was calm when he reached the riverbank, a current that passed under a bridge. And befitting.

Bookshelves like folds of intermittent layers of limestone and chert in the from of Grecian folds. Kids coming from the park. He had to jump and enter. Windows were glassy. One could see grass and amidst the flowers, some yellow, some red, he dug the soil and found the tone of earth, brown. The chrysanthemum days over. She came this time newly dressed. In Madagascar, children playing violin.

I got the Eleanor Roosevelt book as a present. In school days. The club secretary was faraway kin from dad’s side. With his family, he went to a classical film in school days. Perhaps that was the first time that he travelled in an auto-cart. They were jam-packed, still, the trip was enjoyable. Often he would sit on the back curved seats of the gallery and read books. Once he read a soldier’s story. In the club, there was a small but good library. We would be shown free films by the Films Division. Sitting on the ground, we would watch the movies.

…

The city, or rather a town, the hottest in the region, temperature 40-degree centigrade, most of the time except winter and rainy reason. Small roads, the main centre is but a mile broad and a mile long. He eats raw eggs then, his mentor’s wife wrote, may not be good clinically, check it out. He had a problem swallowing. The same ground, parties used for meetings in the evening. He went there in forenoons Once after coming to the historical river, that he had read in geography titles, was amazed at the beauty, the calmness and the unusual breadth of banks. He had a family ritual to perform, he did it in honour of his father. He didn’t know if it was right or wrong, but he did it. He took it as a few moments away from work and schedules to remember his father, bask in the thoughts of his humble father, how they went to a small circus, how while walking home from a friend’s house at eight o’clock night, he, his dad and mom. He felt sleepy, after passing his friend’s house, the fellowship terrains, Swamy’s bookstall, He introduced his old friend, he is old B. A. He introduced his young friend, he is a new B.Sc. mirth, laughter after a decade or two Swamy also bought a farm. That season notwithal he was walking home, on the same sand, grit and gravel trail by the millpond with steps that went deep into the water, where his dad lifted him and walked home when he was drowsy and couldn’t push further.

 Crash of a project, loss of fortunes, weight went down by ten kilograms, the backers apportioned his tract and took out the money and in the same seasons he bought two books of Edith Wharton and read. In the evening he would go to the bookstall, covering the head with a shawl as if he had a cold, to escape from creditors, but bought books and read it. And a money lender offered him a sum, discouraged him, a good man if it is for business take, otherwise don’t, you will be in trouble. This moneylender was kind, He was an old experienced chap. Didn’t want to spoil the life of a young man. He wasn’t exactly young. He was forty-three, a junction in life, you are neither young nor old, you think experienced, but you’re not enough experienced to know the mind of all types of people on earth. That you need additional years, at platforms, dormitories, railway waiting halls, the whole night, ask the lady. It is not always a story of just passion, some had, but others involved in some frustration, a deep wound in family, a tale that is hidden, much more.

 You must have the brain of a snake and the heart of a dove, mom said. He tries to get the heart of a dove, the brain of a snake he found is not an essential commodity. It is plenty, and he could seek help. But, then it is a lengthy tale involving several detours.

At forty-three you are losing your youth but not on the wise edge to understand all the brains on earth. It needs some more glimpses, further journeys, some rechecks, some trashings into the bin. Some more inquiries, unexpected responses.

 Is it true? At the sweet stall of his countryman. Again in the hotel. On the other end of the phone” dad is reading a book”. And the small town was girdled by crags and boulders. When the sun was high in the sky, the rocks became hot. He would read in the reading room and the people outside spoke a tongue that he could understand but cannot reply. The man said-Put the signature.. Yes, just that though probably a bit late.

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Park Avenue-2

NOVEL-PART

The educator says what will befall on the off chance that you don’t have some trade. Nothing. We will endure. Our sinews and ligaments made for enduring. He goes to the next veer. Takes the transport and again pulls out to the woodshed. He had been sitting tight there for an ampere-hour. Downpours. Some more holding up at the bus depot. Also, he had another trade. A provider had offered an agreement. Now and again it is hard to endure. If you have the wellbeing to move, the world looks fine. Indeed, he thinks he has that.

One day he was coming from the library. He was at the xerox centre for getting the notes for his part-time. student. On the way, the old woman halted. You have something on your head, where he asks, the nape, the woman mumbles. Also, lo that is the rundown cyst he had in his families, his mom had and surprisingly a few individuals from his mother’s family had. They endure. These cysts are anything but harmful, I trust, he said. Indeed, perhaps not, however, I am not a clinical lady, the old woman guarantees. She is drab, however, the eyes have a radiance. At a bus stop, in a group, she may stick out. Or then again was it his imaginative mind?

He was of late gaining from animal psychology. The psyche of a creature. He had never been a creature darling, however, he got extraordinary and afterwards, he began learning, the Chinese variety, he got it following a month. Also, this spurred me to find out additional. Perhaps a similar brain did Darwin compose something about his involvement with the zoo. Possibly the canine or elephant can feel, be pitiful, burdensome or be whatever the human psyche can pass on. The felines it is known, (said ) communicates outrage. It is a similar psyche. At times animals turn frantic. There are that various states of enunciations, however a similar psyche.

At Kathie market, he met the Unami specialist and had tea and afterwards went to Jaime gallery behind common courts. When he additionally went to courts. Another a backer. He joined to converse and conveyed a bereavement in the family. History changes. Rehashes, flush the mug and fill it again and down it, then, at brief duration splash and rinse again and stuff and drink once more- his approach.

• (Excerpt from a fictional work )
• 

Sketches – Author

The Art of Fiction

ART OF FICTION

[Aesthetics]

Fiction is timeless. Fiction indirectly tells the truth. That is why fiction is relevant. It does not offend . In good fiction, there is a subtle garb.

Thousand and one nights is pure fiction. So nobody is offended. Instead it saves a population. In Poe, the story is more fact than fiction and the king is deluded. He could not enjoy it, So the end of the storyteller. If somebody asks you if you are a good woman /man and in case, you are a good woman/man and tells that you are a good woman(man), people will be offended. They will mock you or throw stones upon you. So you do a good action. And better tell it indirectly or by parable, so that people are not offended. You can criticise people in parables. Writers have done it and have escaped. But some facts in the fiction juts out and people take it as a breach. Since nobody is authorized to judge another, you can reveal certain things, that is in you, in another, it is the same thing, the precious human mind. So it is relevant. To judge. No. It is not anybody’s business. Especially not a writer. If a writer judges, he is in trouble. It has happened. He has to stop writing and do some other job for a living. We cannot judge anybody correctly. The weapon that is pointed on the other has another side against oneself. So it injures, both, the writer as well as the reader. So judgement is not the way of fiction. Perhaps in a treatise, it may be relevant. But one has to edit that tract from time to time, as values and standards and laws and cultural differences are many and evolving. Nobody can tell ultimately that eating with both hands is shoddy. We cannot even say that hitting your mother is a bad thing. Because all the mother hitters will make your life miserable. Some mother hitters even think that they are doing a virtuous act. So the writer can only portray them. Then the mother hitter will tell that such and such a writer has written a nice or bad fable about their daily trade. But slowly the poison/medicine may disseminate without them knowing. Some mother hitters will stop hitting their only mother because that writer had succeeded in his work. Mostly the mother hitters do not grasp that the account is about them. Even when they know it, they savour the story. They may think that they have got a reprieve. That is the victory of the author. He wants the parent hitters to read it and when they hit her next time, their hands will tend to be macilent or weak because the story has crossed his nerves. The writer tells the posterior tale exposing the whole process of that movement, the behind the view emotions of the event. Some of them have witnessed that or done that. So she knows better, she had felt or was in the crucible and luckily escaped the dying heat. So that writer is a valuable member of the society she lives in. And again, some stories should be written by everybody because it is therapeutic. 

Some stories are to be written by everybody if not published. It is a good exercise for the soul. It is equally therapeutic.

It is almost similar to the story of Poe of Scheherazade[THE THOUSAND AND SECOND TALE OF SCHEHERAZADE], the narrator meets with her doom after the tale that is probably true. The original storyteller succeeded in overcoming the depopulation of the land by her cleverness in the art of concealing. Poe consciously gives a twist showing another probability to the well known tale.

Some facts are stranger than fiction. Some people are crueler than we could ever imagine.Likewise, the opposite. The writers’ business is writing. Without judgment. To judge is to take an anonymous load. It is risky, but ultimately a writer’s choice. Because a writer is free. Some facts of our times are stranger than fiction and the writer deals with such themes dexterously. Otherwise, he will invite trouble. Again the same theme of responsibility. All stories cannot be written. And all are not meant to be. Some stories are like love letters. They are very private. They are not to be published in full. You cull out portions from it and exhibit and they may enter the other zone of geography/time. We have a lot of talks. So good fiction need not address the present-day audience. Maybe even written for people to come. 

They entertain and also, eradicate doubts, and join together hostile families belligerent groups and lost friends. They have a beautiful wave, they talk to offenders in a non-legal term yet explore the potentialities of language.

Sometimes, sheer Truth is not palatable, Fiction is not offensive. Fiction is corrective. It serves another goal, it unveils the mind of the writer as well as setting a chord, it is restorative, the author also enriches from its choice returns. Fiction, good fiction is entertaining as well, and it could seek to another level of our being. 

I feel that it is more moralistic than the moral books in the sense that it puts a canopy on the truth. In case the fiction addressees to some pitfalls in self (the writer himself included) or the society, it hoists the spirit. It does not just allow the time to be dissipated that way. Our time is perhaps the most estimable commodity. It does not report directly, Do this, do that-. On the other hand, it acts as a mirror. You know what to do. It does its job slowly. Good fiction is based on true emotions, and our emotions are true when it occurs. It can see through hypocrisy, and that is one of the reasons that the writer writes, to give clarity to his feelings, and when he writes about a feeling, he posits redemption. Certain routes that are propitious. If you discourse plain religion and its jargons, it will be appealing to one group but offensive to another. But fiction could screen Truth and give it to the reader, the selfsame thing that the sacred text aspires to dispatch. There is a sort of benefaction. And the reader is equally active when he reads the Fiction. She doesn’t know what she is reading and is corrected. The good and bad side of fiction,- It could hide poison as well as medicine. It depends wholly on the writer. Readers can benefit from so many angles, but it is as vague as the flows of life. In this sense, it is the highest art. Music is deep but acts another way. The symbol is different. Music is more like an intravenous injection. Art and stories are like healthy potions, sometimes it may take time to act. But it will act. Readers are always partial. It is good to be so. The writer is at home with his group. It is rare to find an impartial reader. But once it happens it is like the miracle of time. A culmination of culture.

…………………………………………….

-[ From a book on Aesthetics that is in progress –

Title-‘‘The Language of Beauty”]

Sketch -Author

THE DOWAGER AND THE SWANS

.

THE DOWAGER AND THE SWANS
SHORT STORY

1

That was a shining part of life, the meeting with the dowager. This happened during my stay in the North. She was in her late forties, maybe fifty when I met her for the first time. A mature era in a lady’s life, when she can undoubtedly recognize the mix-up from reality. More metaphysical and more balanced. She investigated time and again, the methods of individuals and more than once their astute ranges of charms. In addition to it, maybe some honourable characteristics. If such a lady had fizzled in adoration at any rate once in her life, I would have been a pupil for quite a while. Presently the incredible wizard is in such a state of affairs. She is wise. Her stature – Five feet eight inches tall and had a medium composition and her nose was a conspicuous piece of her face and it’s anything but a definitive demeanour. Eye tone, dark. Her alluring gressorial advances took a slight gradient. As she moved up and down the steps the white hairs of costard locomoted. The white braids like snow in the Himalayas in February. Or then again one of those streams twisting and there will be a flood in specific years. She was beguiling with the dull bundles that had given her a credible and recognized look. She established a reputation that she didn’t endure craziness in a discussion. He despised all narcissists, yet her unwritten biography gives hints that she survived a few. She wasn’t dainty much as tall as her sibling, yet when they were together, beyond doubt, everybody realized they were siblings. She spoke delightful English and French. All things considered, she was in a French state since she once worked in Red Cross
developments and she preferred conflict stories and analyst fiction, fiction that portrayed disloyalty and elopement. Peruse Michael Madhusudan Dutt so anyone might hear her voice. She enjoyed music, not noisy music, but rather tunes, and is supposed to be in the organization of a social gathering that upheld great exercises and, once said, was head of a circle of bohemians and individuals like that and participated in late-night parties. Until a considerable lot of the photographs of those gatherings were distributed in the nearby paper which carried a terrible name to his family. At long last, her oldest little girl cautioned her that if she progressed forward in her direction, she [daughter] would return home for eternity. So she halted that way of life since she cherished her girl over a jug of bourbon. The little girl was a duplicate of her late spouse, who expounded on regal families in the north and some legendary stories. He kicked the bucket early on a tour in the mountains close to Darjeeling, from fever. The woman wore saris for the most part, in winter she masked them in pashmina shawls and wrapped some Kanchipuram routinely. Often, she presented them to family ladies or friends’ networks as a wedding blessing and made the young lady take snaps with her if expedient. The young ladies were obliged to auntie’s impulses and took it more as a favour than a pleasure. A few women were glad when they snapped the photo with her since it made them look more wonderful. Then, at that point, her face gave profound indications of development, pigmentation because of the medications she had taken, and it influenced her skin. In her childhood, her greatness was without a doubt twofold. My dad saw his companion toward the start of her significant other and they appeared to have participated in one of these walks in the battle for the opportunity and he disclosed to me that she was magnificent, even though my father was more enthusiastic for a docile character, who could make arbitrary penances for the family. Furthermore, he traced these characters in my mom and I figure he wasn’t quite right about that. Although she was family-minded my mother was intolerant to bad practice all through her profession, yet she could manage circumstances delicately and shun remarking on others conduct. then again, my mom didn’t have the foggiest idea about the writing and expressions of the human experience yet she was cautious about kitchen gossips and tattles also. My mom was just perusing materials outside austere books, which appeared to be daily newspapers, which she examined from the first page to the last one, when she had no more conspicuous activity. Just read the newspaper reclining in an easy chair [made of wooden backings, and in the centre was joined a thick cotton material, which upheld the spine – A long lay on this seat ought not to be fine for the spine]. Notwithstanding, she was not keen on keeping ornaments and was prepared to pledge them in the bank at whatever point my dad required cash. These transactions were very normal in our families.2

I arrived at the quarter in summer, after a few lengths from the town transport depot. Passing oxbow streets one saw the palace at a distance of two furlongs from the bus depot and I took an auto rickshaw and the driver directed me to the front snicket. On both sides stood pony show bureaus and stockpiles of shoes and warehouses. The old woman  in one of the shops with whom I had a casual talk revealed to me that the house isn’t far. Likewise, I adhered to her guidance. The driver took me to a specific spot. In those years, I had a propensity for eating sweets which possessed a flavour like orange. I stopped the vehicle and bought a packet of sweets and kept it in my pocket. The sweet was named ” Chikki” , a sweet made of groundnut and sugar in the basic stage. I purchased a parcel and kept it in the jeans pocket.

The lady got me pleasantly. Yet, before that, I needed to go through the investigation of her sibling, a resigned colonel from the Army. He was stout and smiled showing front teeth and carried a slight blotch on right cheek. When I arrived at the house, he was amidst a melodic conference, playing mouth organ, while his understudies, young men and young ladies in  mid-twenties were singing or playing  stringed instruments. A young lady kept playing Tambura. The resigned skipper snickered regularly telling wisecracks and I believed that he should be gone along with the kind of individual equipped for engaging such a few understudies. The students make the most of his quality which was obvious from their developments and signals. After our gathering and the underlying stay in the guest quarters, I was offered a room, more a mini hall than a room and it was outfitted part of the way with around a hundred books, English and French, for the widow had an association with the French language and it is supposed that her dad knew the researchers in the time by and by and even got a chance to work with her. He was a prominent empiric of his time and after his passing, his subject books were donated to a school. I didn’t see his assortments but the lady guaranteed that I will be shown these things in the course of time. Furthermore, the guest room I stayed in during the initial days was  over a little hillock and after the plain section, you need to make a windy trudge. The young fellow entrusted with my welfare and went about as a host was a vocalist who rendered canorous tunes in regional tongue and I dwelled on that countless gifted individuals are consigned to oblivion without  acclaim. They could have made a commitment to society as opposed to living a quiet [may be useful for them] and an unflustered social life. This is a borderline issue. The subject of usefulness. I hoped that the man could have exerted some more assay to foster his gifts, rather than quiet [may be useful for them]. The omelette of the sous chef was an incredible one.

3

Did the lady have some basic issues? Possibly, so. By all means, she was brave, still excessively self-assured to the edge of arrogance. She will pass the assessment on everything. She had extraordinary information on writing and workmanship and music and she was somewhat of a dabbler. She had an inner mind feeling that numerous researchers have that they are hopeless which viewpoint prompted at times contentions with the Colonel. The colonel then again had enormous information on life and individuals, not from books( he seldom read like a book except for a couple of magazines on vehicles and body wellness) stories had a consequent contention of what is legitimate in a circumstance. Although the colonel was n’t vociferous in his repartees, he didn’t win the contention. The dowager won by her words. But in life, it is not by words that we win… Winning by words is temporary. Life will take you a full round with the goal that all the proficient are tried by individuals as would be natural for them. As such. We need to swallow our own words. Over the long haul what the colonel advised ended up being true.

4

At the point when I arrived at the house to instruct the matron’s youngsters French and Romanian, I was not in a superior position. My insight into these languages was far from a great level and the latter language I learned only partially from my three months stay near the Carpathians as a part of my outing to Europe. My vacation there included a flick scheme. The film could not see the celluloid, yet my travel grew to such a level that I found my future spouse and that is another tale.

The dowager had two swans that she kept in her private pond. She took excessive care of the creatures. There was an assistant deputed, especially for this work. And his salary was at par with other workers. The other operators apprehended it as an affront as the custodian of the birds did not do any other industry other than nursing and taking charge of the swans. I also felt somewhat dismayed to behold this peculiar incongruity in the treatment amid the operators. I aspired to grasp it but on a couple of instants, when the issue of the swans attained forth, the dowager skirted a direct response and secreted her sensibilities in a smile. And that was the beginning of a fabulous time.

5

In the spring of the following year, I got a message from Sam, one of the dowager’s collaborators. He might have written to me twice or thrice. I don’t by and large recollect the occasions he composed. He touched upon a few issues connected with the lady’s  health, especially the condition of her heart. They thought of taking  her to an extended get-away to a Spanish retreat,  to stay away from the everyday hectic duties. But that didn’t come to pass. I went to see her and she told – “I am contemplating what will befall me later on. I hope that my time here is running short”. I said- “You’re O.K.- You will see numerous good seasons”. She said, ‘I don’t think so. Besides, my concern is, not that. What will happen when I go from here- ‘.   I assured, ‘No- Never- Nothing terrible could happen because you have been a nice lady’. She said, ‘I don’t think so’. She continued that she had kept a couple of journals that she scrawled over the years. She said – ‘I will hand it over to you for perusing’. I said that I try not to read other people’s private papers, though , I am not a saint. “Perhaps”, she said, “you can keep it after I depart. I have made courses of action for that. What’s more, never distribute it. I said-”No”. Also, she said – ”You take care of my swans’ ‘, she said and I made arrangements to shift the swans to a friend’s pool in that season. I said to my friend to take good care of them .

In that rainy season, she took her final gasp in a Darjeeling therapeutic clinic. It was a day of heavy downpour and thunderclouds. I reached the place only after two weeks of her demise. The properties of her were already settled according to her will among her two children and the assistants in the house. She had made some trusts for good causes. And I asked Sam about her diaries. and he was not aware of such a diary. Though I asked several people in the household about those diaries, nobody gave a sure reply. They were sometimes awestruck about my question. I took a bus to the nearest railway station and from there took a train to my native place. The swans. That is another tale.
……..

White Wine

White Wine

SHORT STORY

There was still water in the mud and more than mud the murky stream went to the fountainhead to reach inside the original washstand. Sumner, the only man who knew how to get these things done. Sumner is a gentleman of twenty five years. They are brothers.- Solomon and Sumner . They married from the same family. Those too sisters. Two beautiful sisters that the brothers were crazy about…We all walked through the serial that spread among the branches that lay beneath the cabinet. Was it full, I don’t retain. The case was so stereotypical that I lost touch with the surroundings that lay beneath. Broad landscapes, one after the other in a multitudinous array for the wind to tell my story.
My story. Oh. I am growing to that part. After the rain, wintertime starts. The winter of my specific myths and brushes. Tell in that fashion, four more favourable times to come and get hold of my inner worth. The crumbled roof at the sidewalk. Join some more crumbled escape routes. The final was that they did not have anything to own. Not even themselves. Sumner took me there. Sumner is my friend.

2

At Churchgate, Solomon had a bookstall. It sells classic books, best sellers and children’s toys. Where is Sumner, I inquired. He went to Pune and then to Goa, he said. He joined a sect and has switched his gears. He said. I was not astonished, anything can pass now. If death can befall today, then anything is expedient in life. I had gone to a portion of my research on ethnic groups a few hundred miles from here. Then I thought that knowledge will clarify my apprehensions. But it is not like that. Knowledge will proffer you more doubts. Doubts are beneficial if you don’t make a canopy of them. But knowledge can at best assure you that it is just inception. Where are you put up last night, Sumner asked. I told the place. That wretched square, he exclaimed. I told him that I was on this tour on shoestring funds. Moreover, my bountiful guide will join me later in this course and we will be well off and can bear a Star Stay. But that is not the point. I miss Solomon. We chatted for some time in a nearby cafe and I purchased a book from his store, a collection of Rilke. He didn’t charge, so I bought a doll for my sister’s boy and paid the check. We will congregate at hometown, he stated.

3

The girl proceeded on tweeting and cooing and aimlessly endeavouring into the erudition of digits. Lot has been spoken about that part of the inevitable clash that happened one day in the terrace when A. was going to the next structure to accumulate the pond pumps. In this area collection, of pond pumps. So far there has been no hope in these genuine hopeful things that we shed our hopes for. Coming from chemistry lab. Oh, no, you said . Once, I said. Be a Mycologist, you said- ‘My dad wants me to be a doctor, I said. Your Dad , that  fool, you said. Don’t blame uncles,I said. You are the last vestige of a matriarchal society. She laughed at life . Still I managed an embrace. ‘Hope is a bird’ with green feathers and wings. Green stands for the moist midday when the clubhouse was chock-full of characters. They just started another song. And another one after that till past midnight. O- Was it the hopeful season, when was it you drank last time. I drank white wine pinky once when my wife was admitted to the hospital for that surgery after the accident. An unknown driver saved her. It was morning, and not too many vehicles were on the road. Past the J . Park, where I slept one day in a crowd of thieves who were sleeping in the afternoon after their theft at night. The cop called me, come. I did not go. Then he asks. Why didn’t you come when a cop called you to come. He was in casual wear. I told them that I didn’t know that he was a cop. The other cop knew me, he looked into my eyes and told his friend that he is mistaken. And I showed my library card, the only identity card I kept at that time. And They left me with pieces of advice and warning., don’t ever come and sleep here., you see here that thieves sleep. This is no place for gentlemen cavaliers. You wanted to be one then . A new version. More favourable periods come. Jot down. Memory is a journey into a river of nonsense and also a corridor of wise and cruel faces mingled. Longer still I knew her. Yes, I loved her. Did she love me? Lord, she became the wife of a priest. I went to mountains and cliffs and lakes and big thalabs[pool]. I went to Kurukshetra and sat by the big thalab [pool] and wondered how, when, what, who, which cadence, what language. Where the middle starts and ends in this story.

4
Solomon told me this story when we were coming from the tuition classes. Solomon’s father died of a stroke. His mother, drowning? ‘those were pearls that were his eyes’.There are many ways of dying. Heart problem, sugar issues, liver malfunctioning, kidneys. The worst thing is unbegotten death. There is still hope in a death that comes slowly like an Irish dancer. Death comes in slow motion. Ceili. Féile.Ghillies.There are likewise many ways of living too. Living by selling vegetables. Living as a boss. A shoemaker, owning a company, selling tickets for evening shows. Making other’s work for you and drinking liquor in the evening.Eating oddments and staying beside platforms.Painting faces and dancing at street corners and inviting ladies for supper, and parting without romance. A good relationship is like a bank balance. Also a sign of a well-spent life. When you are at trunk road entrance, fallen in the street corner, don’t think of your sins . Don’t forget them too, so that you will have hope in future.

5
Love fails. Death makes a closure. So this part we will talk about later. Come on. My wife is undergoing an operation. Hope it is not a major operation. We will see a movie after that. in the theatre. I am a well-known silhouette. The manager’s offspring is my student. So I get a reduction and an opening before the time. Come on mate, and soak in the white wine. Death and life are two lovers chasing each other. Tonight, we will share our duskiness.
…………………..

Valley

Short Story

PART-1

Today I am going to speak about my visit to a valley that lay amid mountains. When you think of mountains, what image comes to your mind, I wonder you are in the same spot as me. I have gone here, I have seen it, and you still have that feeling inside you which perhaps delivers you a bit placid. I am awed by mountains, their glares when they peek from the vitreous snows and one should deem to experience the thrill of cruising on snowflake barefoot in a full moon night. This could be an obvious pleasure trip, with a light satchel, you can tread on and on till your foot is weary of the climb, and weary of the clamber, weary of the trials and drags, weary of the snow. the loud clamour of the village voices, the hazy nights, the lone moments that take you again and again to these wondrous vistas. We are usually oblivious of the beauty of the cliffs, as we are of the other graces that lie within and without. cliffs sometimes proffer a possibility. meanwhile, he asks-how did you reach this neighbourhood. I said, I was for an era following the way of a river, which was much larger at the foot of it when I followed it first and then I reached here. Day and night there were diverse notes like bays and, strangely no racket fretted me too long as I was mentally sunk in the feasibility of this voyage. You just know that I had a few advisers in that space, some well versed in complex topics, like hymnology, music, arts etc. One guide I remember wore Etruscan buskins and held cudgel, not for combat as he pledged but for a noble conviction, you can say peace or some other notion that often drives us through crossed waters and smites of passion. One night as I lay I gathered a sound beside my upper part. A tiny note and as I combed it proceeded to be a small bird much similar to a turtledove. the fowl in an enfeebled note uttered, ‘Who dare come to my quarters alone ?’. I was more than amazed and a little touched by this unfamiliar affair of a bird communicating to me. The entire region on the opposite bank of the current was covered by pecan trees and as striking contrast, this side only deserted tracts. What a nocturnal interlude for my troubled slumber. Then out of courtesy and also curiosity, I asked the winged creature its abode and objective of the visit. the dove only said that it is the estate of her folks and decamped without further talk.

The Chess Master Bride

Short Story

Gooseberries and chess bring to me disparate memories. Perhaps, this is the second story I might have crafted on the theme of chess, the first one unpublished. I had written two, at the best I think so, or I had wished to write about the game of chess. First of all, let me tell you my interest, privilege, affiliation or authority or lack of all these, to write such a one, except being a whimsical storyteller-

 From childhood, say from the age of ten, I played or observed this game, first played with interest but observed with little enthusiasm, as I had other passionate activities at this stage with the local kids… I have observed the games of Petrosian, Paul Morphy, Bobby Fisher, Capablanca, Mikhail Botvinnik, Kasparov or the moves of Anatoly Karpov or some other master. But I have not seen the new contestants, because by that time, my interest in this game shrivelled to such an extent that the very thought of it brought to me mixed feelings of loss and struggle…Still, I would like to write about the game as it has some tie into certain members of my immediate family because my younger brother who met with a tragedy was a champion of this game.

May I tell you with tremor and a feigned puissance, conceivably a wrong one, the remaining of the anecdote? In my fifth class, I got access to an exclusive club called Civilian Club of Masters because of dad’s standing who was a notable civil servant in the British era as well as Free India, and our home then was in Nasik, a town in the western part of the country. We lived in Nasik and Deolali for a handsome number of years and it was where my younger sisters (twins, younger to me by five or six years) were born and also died. My mother was half British and half Indian and she was a stenographer in British service till she wound up to settle herself as a housewife.

I still remember how I blubbed in that midday, a lad of six, alone under a gooseberry tree, over the loss of his sister. As for gooseberries,(just based on my memories, not scholastic) they are of two types. – I am not checking Google to find if this is true- The first type has strong rough inner flesh and tastes bitter in the beginning but on further chewing turns sweet and the second type of gooseberries are soft and fleshy and sour and sweet and changes colour as it ripens. This tree’s branches are not as strong as the first type, and I was sobbing under this second kind and now a middle-aged lady who was our family friend came with her hubby and told – ‘Raju, you have another sister. Don’t weep my brave boy’, or something similar to that. But that sister also died within a few weeks due to a similar disease of the type of dysentery and these were twins, and my mother’s condition plummeted to depression. But she was not the one to give up…

2

Mama’s demise…

3

After my mother’s passing, my father bereaved for three years but later married  a remarkable lady in his workplace who became my stepmother and the greatest force in my life behind all my endeavours.  She hailed from a middle Travancore village. She gave me a sister and a brother for me…

My brother in turn became a genius chess player. I was in a habit of drawing animals. And my dad saw that I would not make a good chess player. And I painted though I had a delusion in those eras that a painter’s life is not a grand one. And my brother and myself pkayed the game of chess whenever we got time, and ince in Denver after a play tour, we played two days at a stretch. In my youth, a major tournament took place in Reykjavik  between Bobby Fisher and Boris Spassky  and the interests of the youth in our boondocks turned to that play and we both as a rule immersed in the game. My younger brother had a coach, and I recollect him arriving to our apartment in the evening saving for the weekend and he was paid per hour, and though it was my sibling who was playing the game, I was evenly engrossed in the game ensuing my curiosity in it tower that I matched a rival to him. This happened in a larger space, I grew a competitor to him in the rooms of life as well on the chessboard. His tutor was a college senior who participated in the National and had a graceful squint on his left eye and was gaunt with a pleasant stamp. He arrived in an auto cart that was parked till waited till the session was over. The coach was paid on an hourly basis by my dad though he did not play the game he applauded good players. Once the coach came with a little boy who was to become later the national champion. Both of us, my brother and I became masters of this game playing most of the time, and on the journeys we took frequently, we played, in railway compartments with people who knew the game and we carried in our satchel, a chessboard and the pieces. This was a game sometimes I imagined callous or fun and deep focused, and sometimes vexatious and during our stopover at Rezaabad, I noticed people playing at the doorsteps of their dwellings

-(To continue)

Story Seven Burgundy

Story


Station.I think I have seen him in a dream. The dream. Now. And myself. Which of these three is a falsehood? I question. At that point I met him…I talk. We go to an eatery. My cousin wiped out. Didn’t come. 

Coming here after blue moon. Last time was to see aunt in I.C.U. in a medical clinic. Medical clinic was a film studio when I visited this spot in before college. I saw actor P. there in a good way. The actor was handsome . Uncle knows studios.Once he attempted to act, yet fizzled. He was a family man who cherished children. Aunt cried in the l.C.U. No words. Possibly she thinks of bygone eras. Perhaps she thinks about my plight. I sold every one of my properties and came there. A pauper. Her lineage got affluent.  My dad and his sibling (aunt’s spouse) were more like friends. Possibly she contemplated that. Possibly she pondered the couple of moments or days she has on this planet. Anyway she cried. There was love streaming without bounds.He was a decent uncle. My newfound friend -Food. Talk. His mom gave him this name.Aberastasuna. Means wealth. He is wealthy in habits. Rich talk.Like the flow of the Rhône. His grandfather played in 1934 World Cup. His walk was more like a hop ,but beautiful. He came from a Jazz Festival and told about his place where the rivers flow to South. I like him. I talk- My life. My dad. My raising in a small  town. I become familiar with different dialects. Knowing love is better than knowing dialects. He inquires. Was it an exercise in futility? I say- No. You love and express in multiple  tongues. He looks.Love is good. Love is life. It attracts best things . I like that flavour. He had Chablis and Scallop Risotto.l had pudding.We talk.Time passes- 

I don’t care for that minister. When a cleric offended my mom for wedding from another religion.Ironically I wedded from the same community of that cleric who admonished my mom. Life sometimes takes a 360 degree turn. We can’t resist. 
I welcomed him. We will meet in the rose garden. Rose nursery before the Archives, where I do research. (It is now November.Cutting time.Still…) In the parterre we will sit overlooking flower beds- I say.
Why ?-He inquires. ‘Just that,’ I said. I would prefer not to leave behind an old buddy . I should see him again in wonderful spots in future if possible. Yes, if possible.

………….

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The Raconteur

Short Story

Connaught Circus. I had supper with an aged narc who was my friend during that season. The restaurant was striking with teal windows on either side. This dining assuetude was something I emulated from my good buddy A.S. When I reached down the street, it was dark and the narc went his own way… A gentleman in the shadows. He was drunk and stumbled on my path and while vaulting up, abused me as if it were my mistake he fell on my track . A very sordid phrase if my memory is right . I knocked him down with a hard one on his left cheek. He stumbled and drooped again. That was how I was taught in the village. If somebody abuses you, offer a blow. While rising up from the ground, he uttered smilingly that there is perhaps another way of reacting.

The gentleman further informed that he has a story to tell . In the interim , presented himself-‘ I am so and so, the raconteur’. We shook hands and parted.

I saw him again ,one early afternoon at Mohan Singh’s Place and he asked me while I was worrying about our serendipitous meeting. “Do you have fifty bucks to spare?. I had no lunch”. I said- ‘Sure. But, what will you give me back?’. I was very matter of fact in those days and in the prime of youth. With a sentiment of general nonchalance that was my run of the mill air.

“I will tell you a story”, the raconteur said. I gave him fifty rupees , and he rendered the story…

“Sometime in the distant past-There was a king ruling in a dust bowl land.” I interrupted-” I think, I have heard this story before” .He susurrated- ” This is a different story.”

And took my permission to depart saying, “Pardon me,I am ravenous “.And with a splitting guarantee ,continued- “I will finish the story later.” No big surprise, I didn’t see him in the following two years, in that huge city.

One fine day I was with a companion walking around the B.J.Park.

Here I met him again.He outdistanced me from behind and halted in front . In a blunt accent, put in –

“Do you have another hundred rupees?” I gave him that sum exclusively to impress my new companion with whom I was strolling.

The friend either imagined that I was very generous or foolish.But I didn’t get further statistics on that issue. In the wake of accepting the cash he said- “Where did we stop?”

And began portraying a couple of lines and stated, the Black Minorca or open sesame, Electra’s anagnorisis, or something relevant or irrelevant. Then he ogled at my friend. “I am busy”, he said and went.

A couple of years passed. I met him inadvertently on a beach in the South. I needed to take several minutes to remember him. “You have transformed”, I said. “You as well “, he said.

Now, he began narrating the rest of the story. “The Prince turned into a man. He wedded a princess from another nation. Also, he went to another nation to grow the fringes. His peripeteia..The third stasimon… “. Things like that. This time I was more interested in him than the story.

“Would we be able to meet tomorrow evening”, he inquired. “”Sure- what time?” I inquired. “Evening, around this time,” he said.

The waves were colossal and the breeze was brackish.

Precisely on the time proposed, he arrived.

“If it’s not too much trouble,disclose to me the remaining part of your story-I requested.

“Much obliged for giving me your time”, he was extra courteous.

Then said- ‘You are the story’.

…………………

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