The sound of silence...

This post has been published by me as a part of the Blog-a-Ton 47; the forty-seventh edition of the online marathon of Bloggers; where we decide and we write. To be part of the next edition, visit and start following Blog-a-Ton.

           **************************************************************** 

An eerie silence had descended on the village. As the news spread, villagers had started piling up near the old peepal tree. They looked on speechlessly, wiping away a tear that seemed to occasionally flood their eyes. The quiet itself was quite chilling. You could hear a pin drop if you heard closely. Munni’s body hung from the branch of the tree, bearing a testimony to the brutal way she had borne the savage of the beasts.

Munni’s little 4 year old sister looked at her in awe. What was this new game didu was playing? Just yesterday, didu had taught her how to swing on the tyre that hung from the same tree branch. It had been so much fun! She had screamed in delight as the swing kissed the skies. Why was the rope around her neck today? And why wasn’t didu swinging? Maybe it was a new game. She would ask didu when she came down.

The silent protests had done nothing to unnerve the beasts. The beasts had assumed the silence was out of fear. 

Fear of their autocracy. 

Fear of their power. 

They had ravaged the village before and they would do it again. Who would stop them? The arrogance was smug on their faces. Ignorant villagers! Did they think their silence would be heard? Who would hear the silence when the loudest of voices could be easily muffled?

The beasts had been celebrating their victory. After years of protest, the villagers had finally been tamed. There was not one voice of dissent. Their revelry had reached dizzying proportions. But what they had not anticipated was the power of silence. They had not anticipated the entire village to turn up at their den. The din of the crapulous beasts was soon drowned in the cacophony of sharp axes, pitchforks, plows, cudgels and spears. Silence prevailed again, and one could hear nothing except the sound of blood sputtering out of the bodies of the beasts. 

 Munni had been avenged. And with that so many like her had been avenged too. 

The arrogance had been pithed. They and their ilk had been taught that silence must be heard. No one would now dare to de-sanctify their village and its goddesses.

And all that could be heard after that was the sound of silence.

           ***************************************************************

The fellow Blog-a-Tonics who took part in this Blog-a-Ton and links to their respective posts can be checked here. To be part of the next edition, visit and start following Blog-a-Ton. Participation Count: 06

A handful of sand...

Image: Pixabay.com

She had done the right thing, hadn't she? Anyone would approve of it. Anyone would vouch for the correctness of her decision. It was the right thing to do indeed. In fact there couldn't be another option.  

She knew he wasn't strong enough to ask. She knew he wanted her to release him. She knew only she could do it. Only, she wished, she didn't have to be the one doing it. But the futility of hanging on had become too obvious to be ignored. Hanging on to something, she really didn't have. Sometimes, she felt she’d rather have something than nothing at all, but the truth was, to have something halfway was harder than not having at all. It had been confusing to determine if the signs were there for her to give up or just a test to see how long she could hold on. Sometimes she felt they were friends, sometimes, she felt they were more than that, but of late, she had begun to feel like they were complete strangers. It was kind of weird how they had gone from being strangers to friends to lovers and now they were back to being strangers again. She wished they had just remained friends. Maybe then, she wouldn't have to grapple with this.

She was frustrated because she couldn't tell if it was real. She was mad because she didn't know how he felt. She was upset because she couldn't set it right. She was sad because she needed him by her side. She was angry because he didn't seem to understand. She was disappointed because they could never be together. It had become way too complicated. She didn't know where she stood in his life. It was like hanging in dead air, knowing she could be thrown off any time. She sometimes wished she had never met him at all, but at the back of her mind she was thankful that she had.

She wished he had told her how much he still loved her. She knew that he did. She knew the real reason was guilt. How could he say it was never love? Was the whole thing fake?  She knew that every feeling had been real, and every word exchanged between them had been true. Had he taken her feelings for granted? Did he not know how much courage it had taken for her to just confess her love? 

She wished she could put her thoughts in a jar. She had been thinking too much, over analyzing things. It had been getting too difficult to handle and she had been tired of going to war with herself. She was sick of being tired. She wanted to be at peace with herself. She wanted to be happy. The right step would be to let go. The parting had been amazingly smooth, and she was surprised at her skills of concealing her emotions and make it look like it was a given. But wasn't she the quintessential drama queen? He had said so himself!

And let go she did. There was no point grasping that handful of sand. It was better to let it slip through.

Then why was she hurting all over? Did doing the right thing always hurt? Every cell and nerve of her body was numb with pain. There was a void somewhere, like a vacuum, trying to suck out her very breath. Why was there that void? If she had been right, oughtn't she be happy, oughtn't she feel free? But here she was, standing alone, tears streaming down her face, a blanket of sadness covering her from head to toe and invisible cuffs pinning her down. It bled her soul, and left a tear, but probably some day the scar would heal. He did seem to be happy, didn't he? He had even said, they could always be friends. She knew she didn't want to be friends. Not with him, not with anyone else.

Maybe someday she might learn to trust again. Trust someone who wouldn't hurt her. Trust someone who wouldn't leave her aching. Trust someone who would fill that void in her being and in her heart. Trust someone who wouldn't be scared to love her back.

Or probably not.

 That place was already taken, and she was not sure anyone else could ever fill that space.

A tête-à-tête with Jeffery Archer... 100 Words on Saturday 2014 - # 16

"Aren't we sometimes prisoner's of our births?" I asked him.

"Only time can tell" Jeffery said.

"But I want to go to heaven not hell!" I pleaded.

"That is best kept secret. There are many paths to glory but it would be a matter of honour if you strive to be first among equals. I cannot give you a false impression but just suffice to know that there will always be a twist in the tale which will give you a clue beyond reasonable doubt. To cut a long story short, it’s all in the da vinci code” he winked.

*************************************************************************

Written for the write tribe prompt "Your favorite author and what you’d like to discuss with him or her." as a part of 100 Words on Saturday. 

Spare the child...

My little one is forever full of questions! Maybe all children are like that. I was cooking dinner, when he strode up to me, his toy zebra in one hand, and tugging my dress with the other.

“Mamma”

“Hmmm…?”

“Why do animals live in the jungle? Why can’t they live in apartments like us?”

I will save our conversation for some other day, but I remembered his question in context to a news that I saw on TV a couple of days ago.  A live-in maid inPune, who took care of a couple’s 11 month old baby girl while the parents worked in night shifts, was tossing the baby in air, kicking it with her feet and terrorising it in every possible way! How on earth can anyone be so heartless, was beyond my comprehension. To say I was shocked, would be an understatement. I felt repulsed just watching it. The contents of my tummy did a flip, every time she threw the child in air and played with like it were a toy! Luckily for the child, there was CCTV installed in the house, and alerted by the little ones reluctance to be alone with the maid, the parents decided to check the CCTV footage. And this is what they found out! Was the woman mentally sick to have been so ruthless with a toddler?  

Read the rest of the post here.....at Parentous.com

Wanting what is not!

For the past two months, there's been no difference between my house and the fish market!

Summer vacations+ kids at home+ neighbours' kids= one deadly concoction + terrible headaches!

And the most irritating aspect of this holiday is the constant ringing of the door bell! Ting tong- "Aunty, can S and S come out to play?" Ting tong- "Mamma I wanted to take my skates" Ting tong "Mamma, take these skates, give me the cycle keys" Ting tong "I'm thirsty" Ting tong "Aunty, I want water" Ting tong-" Can I take monopoly?" Ting tong"I'm hungry" Ting tong "I want my bat" Ting tong "Susu"...ting tong...ting tong.... the entire day,the bell keeps chiming and I keep marching to and fro, leaving whatever I'm doing, to open the door! Like precision clockwork, they keep ringing that bell, leaving me feeling like a doorman! Enough to drive anyone insane! And god forbid if it was our house that was chosen for indoor games! I swear, I could see the walls shake, the floors tremble and the doors creak on their hinges, and the windows just about stopped short of cracking their glass!

I complained to my mother, how this was affecting my concentration, and how I haven't been able to write and submit my work on time because of it. Mom's answer? She laughed, "Are you under some false impression that you were a quite child who only stayed indoors all day and helped me with the housework? You created the most racket, my dear, and added to that was your incessant chatter! You drove me nuts! All kids are like that! And it's just a matter of a couple of months." Couple of months seemed like light years....at least the kids ensured that I felt so! Mom wasn't really being helpful, so all I could do was grin and bear it! I just wanted some quite and peace.

That time has now passed! The holidays are over. Today, the school reopened and kids are back at school. I think that I might even hear a pin drop, if it falls anywhere in the apartment! But there's an eerie silence too, and it's like I'm suddenly missing all that cacophony of the sweetlings! (Oh wait.. did I just call them sweetlings?!)

Someone said it right, "As a rule, man is a fool, when it's hot he wants it cool, when it cool, he wants it hot, always wanting what is not!"