InderVeer

Chapter One: Veer

The early alarm was snoozed a while ago. Veer was wide awake but unwilling to move out of the razai. These late-night studies have washed off his energy. He remembers when he was free, a child, more happy and unaware of the world. Not knowing what his actions will result into. Everything he would do will be seen as a childishness.

But now, people demand things out of him. He is expected to crack an exam which is breaking him to the core to prepare himself. He is expected to behave a certain way and walk. When elderlies are at home, Mrinalini suggests that he talk to them about his future, which he never saw but was shown by someone else.

The clock strike 04.45 AM, and the alarm sings his favorite tune again 'tera chehra jab nazar aaye, ye zameen ruk jaaye...' He musters the energy this time and goes over the tasks that are scribbled on the notepad. He looks over the table and feels the letter throbbing inside the cover. He has not read it yet and is scared to read even later.

He admires the parts of his room; a year ago, they were the same walls that made him claustrophobic. The wearing-off stains of paints smelled sadness at the first shower of the year. He never liked the rain; he never liked the rawness of mud after the long summer. It somewhere reminded him of the barrenness he always felt, out of nowhere.

The room is chilled. Winter has entered inside uninformed again. He stares at the ceiling and the fan hanging down for his life. Veer traces and imagines the shapes of people, people that are lost now in the whirlwind of the past. There is a boy who used to play with him when he was a kid. Some boys whom he has witnessed while coming from school. Some men were too caring when he went to the shops to buy candies. Their contour is designed, and he is feeling a bit warm now.

He removes his shirt as if to counter the coldness to knock him down. But he knows now there is no stepping back. No breeze can slice through him, cut the thoughts of his wanderlust. He stands before the mirror and admires the places he was touched. He takes a whiff of his armpits. The drug is potent.

Abruptly he jerks and moves his body in the rhythm of lovemaking he has watched in secret. He drowns himself at the oozing wetness from him. He bathes himself in it and gives strokes to reach the rendered relaxation.

And he is there, at the edge. And then he falls from the cliff into the nothingness-that is everything he ever wants and hopes for.