The doorbell was ringing insistently. She was in deep slumber and it felt like coming from far away. Her head was heavy with sleep and tiredness of the day she had managed to finish only a few hours ago. She had come from work around ten that night and after a quick dinner had hit the bed and off to sleep in no time.

It had been busy day at the hospital with one event after the other and every one of them an emergency. She did not have a moment to spare for lunch or just to breathe normally. It was almost nine when the chaotic environment at the hospital had lulled for a while and she could head home before coming back next day for more punishment. Being an intern was the cruelest punishment with grueling work schedule and no mercy from anyone. The interns were treated no better than the scrubs the hospital staff wore. The intention here seemed to be to dissuade a person from being a doctor than encourage one to enroll.

Geeta had here bachelors in medicine from India and was married to a software engineer. Her husband RajShekar was a software engineer and traveled a lot. They lived in Lynchburg, Virginia in one of the historic homes that was converted into an apartment. It was ways from the hospital she interned in but was cheap and it had its own private entrance. It also had two beds and two living areas one of which she used as a study. The rooms were on either side of a long corridor that leads to the front door and a garden. She hated the apartment but with her school fees and single income this was the best they could afford. Further as soon as she completed her internship they intended to move to Washington suburbs. The college fees, lack of aid and their visa status had forced them to stay in this remote town far removed from Washington DC.

She rubbed her eyes and looked at the clock beside the bed. It was 3 am soon time for her to get up and get ready to go to work. The sleep was still lingering in her senses like after effects of a strong hangover. Her body hurt from exhaustion and lack of rest. It rung through the silent night clear and loud, reverberating through the confined corridors. The bell never rung, as they never had visitors with the busy schedule the couple kept.

She sat ajar in the bed with sleep long gone and now replaced by fear. Sometimes at night, when she was alone, she'd feel a sudden chill, as though something had reduced the temperature a few notches. She felt presence of something, a cold whisper of evil. She hated Raj for leaving her alone during the week and cursed him aloud. He would laugh and brush of her fear saying that he did not expect it from her a doctor.

"Who is there?" she whispered hoarsely, the sound not emanating from her throat. She sat there not knowing what to do next? The bedroom door was locked but she knew it was a very flimsy protection.  She could feel the presence of whatever was out there waiting for her.

The apartment faced away from the street and there were no apartments or houses close by. There were four other units in the house but only one other apartment was occupied. They have never had an opportunity to meet the other tenant who it was told lived on the second floor. She was perspiring now and hair on her neck and forearms stood upright. The house was in complete darkness.

She stepped down from the bed gingerly but the old house and the wooden floor creaked. Every step and every location in the house provided a musical note that also was dependent on the time of the day. She looked for cell phone and then recollected it was in her car parked on the street. They did not have a landline.

She opened the door and put her neck out peering into the darkness of the long corridor. She saw nothing but her nose smelt something funny. A subtle stink that was not there when she had gone to bed, it was not sweat or perfume nor flatulence though she was scared. It was something organic. Meat…dead rotting cadaver that was left out in the open too long. They were vegetarians so where would they have rotting meat in the house. It was smell of death and she had sensed it in the hospital.

She gathered courage and called out, "Who is it?"

There was no response and her voice sounded louder in the dark enclosed space. She remembered about the torch they had purchased when the house had lost power during a storm. It was lucky Raj was back earlier from his trip on that occasion. She walked back with the torch and opened the bedroom door. She flashed the light into the dark corridor with unsteady hands. It bounced around creating shadows and casting aspersions in her mind.

She stepped out of the comforts of her bedroom and hit the switch now brightening the dark corridor. She shrieked as saw him standing there. He was standing inside, the door open, ajar. They looked at each other across the short distance, she with terror and he with a benign smile. The smile providing no comfort or solace to Gita's panic stricken mind and body. The seconds that passed between the shriek and silence seemed like eons. She stood open mouth and gasping for air like a marathon runner at the finish line.

"The door was open," he said walking toward her. She stood there like a deer caught in headlight before reacting. She ran back and closed the bedroom door. She looked around and saw the door in the bedroom opening into the small balcony. She could hear the insistent rap on the door and the smell now at its zenith, putrid and pungent. She opened the door to the balcony and ran out. She clambered over the small railing and jumped out. She ran wildly towards the street, screaming and wailing. She turned back to see him standing in the balcony smiling at her. His teeth were bright and shining through the dark night.

She ran to the street and in front of a patrol car. She was still out of breath, her throat dry and sweat pouring down in spite of the cold winter night.

"What are you doing here?" he asked as he got out of the car.

"We live here" she said trying to calm down her fast beating heart. 

 "It is an abandoned building and to be demolished. Lack of funds has kept it around" he said shaking his head. He drove her into the town and a motel. Geeta and Raj moved into a new apartment the following week. 

He was beating her again. It was late at night and I woke up hearing the noises from the bedroom. She was whimpering, biting her lips to keep from crying out. This was a game they played almost every night with same results. She would have black eye and a bruised lips; he would have satiated his demons for another day. I was an unwilling spectator, shackled to their story. This night was no different but ..

We moved from place to place my dad never able to keep a single job. He was discharged from the army for reasons unknown and hooked up with my mom. She grew up in an orphanage with no one to call her own. The marriage was to be an escape from the miseries that was her life into miseries that became our life.

He worked in garage and she worked as a maid in the hospitals. Inevitably he would get into a fight either with a customer or the owner but unlike my mother they would have him in the street on his ass. It would start another cycle of finding a new job and the interim he drank. This was a time we stayed away from him scared, afraid to let him face his demons alone.
He would get a job or some army buddy of his would be willing to help him. We would pack and leave town. I am surprised how he could have friends willing to help him for the man I knew had not a single friendly bone in him. He was talented mechanic and the tales of his violent behavior not yet revealed, he would get a job.

There would be a truce and forced peace. He would smile and she would be happy too. He would buy me presents either a cycle or some toy as if the make for the bad times. They would also enroll me in school. Life anew for me, new school, unfriendly kids and catching up for lost days with teachers who had no patience. Life at home always unsteady with another storm just around the corner. Studies was farthest away from my mind.

I have tried to escape, coax her to run far away.

"You stay out of this Jimmy" she would say.

"How do you put up with this?"

She would give me a beatific smile looking like an angel from the murals on the church wall. An angel, pale, shriveled with current bruises and remainders of the past visible still healing. Touch my face lightly and look at me with those big brown eyes pulling at my core questioning my ability to defend her, protect her and all I could do was watch, a mute spectator.

"Leave her alone" I said in my loudest voice which a ten year old can muster.

He looked at me amused. He walked towards me, looming over a giant, enormous to a ten year old.

"Don't hit her daddy" I said now crying, my body shaking in fear.

"Did she tell you that" he bellowed

"I told him it was an accident" she said sounding like a frightened school girl, an older sister.
I looked down at the floor, staring intently on a spot willing it to do something. I prayed to the Gods who protected the weak and delivered us from evil, to help me, like every other time.
I chanted in my mind like my mother said to do when I was scared "Hail Mary, full of grace pray for us sinners, now and hour of death".

It never changed his violence nor did any angel come down to intervene to deliver us from evil. He slapped me "Don't you ever dare to tell me what to do". May be we were the sinners and he delivering us judgment for it.

I fell down on the floor, looked at him angry not taking my eyes away from him.

"What are you looking at me for?" he said pulling me by my shirt.

I was scared but looked at him intently, studying his bulging, blood shot eyes and his twitching face muscles.

I lay in bed listening to the noises.

"It is enough, leave us alone" she said now crying.

"You f****** bitch" he said.
I heard a noise and her yell. I held to the side of my bed, gripping it hard. He lost another job and he was drunk, more drunk than usual.

"Get out of her" she yelled

I heard her cry again, maybe he punched her. It was quiet, very quiet. I sat up straight like a sprigged up toy. I walked slowly as if the floors were covered with glasses and pushed the door open. She was on the floor and bleeding.

He was hovering over, yelling and raised his feet, kicking her strewn body repeatedly. I went up to him and pushed him.

"What did you do to her, you bastard?"

At fifteen, I was as tall as him and put on some muscles working in the local gym but he still was stronger and bulkier than I. He turned around surprised at my action.

"So you want to protect her" he said smiling at me. Then he punched me in the face. I yelled out in pain as my lips crushed in to my teeth and started bleeding. I looked at him and this time did not back out.

I rushed in to him headlong like I did in my street fights. Hit him on his over sized stomach with a head butt and heard a big whoosh, then him yell with surprise and pain. He quickly regained his balance, reached out and grabbed me in an arm crunch, tightening and making my breathing hard. I bit his hand. He pushed me back and followed it with another punch on my head. I flashed my arms out and hit on his face. Drink and age had slowed his reflexes; my fight back had surprised him.

I was in a zone, my arms and my whole body tense. I reached out grabbed his face as to kiss and head butted him repeatedly hurt and hurting. I could see blood his and mine mingled. He pushed me back and I hit the open kitchen drawers. He was coming to get me like a bull charging at the matador. I turned saw a knife, grabbed it and went to meet him. I pushed the knife into his guts once, twice and repeatedly, clearing out the rage, hatred and vile I carried in me.

I sat down on the floor as he tumbled back, dead. I sat long on the blood strewn floor, his, hers and mine.The demons laid to rest, I relaxed.

Rajiv walked out to pick his car from the car rental parking lot at DFW airport. It had been a long flight from New York to Dallas and long overdue one at that. He put the car into drive and tried to find his way out of the maze that DFW airport had become. In the late 90s when he had finally said good bye to Dallas with the intention of making his career in Wall street and fast moving financial sectors in New York, the airport was much smaller and not the behemoth it had become now.

It was a journey he did not want to make but had to. It was a closure he needed to move on with his life. As he got out of the airport joining the traffic towards Denton his heart missed a beat with overwhelming feelings of nostalgia. He could remember all the back seat trips he took with his parents umpteen times, through these very roads. He soon took the by lanes that brought him to the neighborhood he grew up in.

Rajiv pulled into the driveway and got out of his car. It was early Friday morning and the neighborhood had a deserted look with families at work and schools. Nothing had changed same scenes different actors. It was early spring with blooms of various kinds in all the yards. He walked to the trunk of his car to retrieve the garage opener, and then he thought otherwise. He walked to the garage opened the manual entry bar and typed in the password from memory. The doors creaked and made its slow ascent to the top. He looked around in the garage and it had only one car parked.

Rajiv parked his car and pushed open the door to the house. He felt the air inside rush out as if it was waiting for someone to let them free. He felt silly. The house was well kept and maintained by the caretakers. He took his shoes out of old habits and walked in. He took a deep breath and would have sworn that he could still smell the spices from long, long ago. Was he getting emotional he thought? He was used to making bigger decisions at a heartbeat based on hard facts and without any emotions.

Rajiv felt tightness in his throat. He walked around looking at the old house, the pictures on the wall, the paintings and seeing in it all the touches of hands which where no longer around. His parents, this was his first home. His parents had been dead for a few years now.  His last few trips years ago, were a haze trying to come in grips with his feelings of loss and pain which could not be explained in words or tears. His wife and kids were there with him for those trips but this was something he had to do alone.

He could not come around to selling the house. His life was in New York now but could not let go of his past. He was an only child and the house was now his. His wife was getting tired of the attention and time it took out of their busy schedule to attend to an old house. Why don't you sell it Rajiv was her constant refrain?

He opened and shut doors to various rooms stopping to look at them. He walked into his bedroom and still could see traces of his childhood. His Lego toys, various game cards, books and posters on the wall of teams he no longer supported. He walked to the shelf unloaded his wallet, his gizmos and laid down on the bed. He fell asleep in no time with all the strains and strife of his life left outside the door of a room from past. 

Rajiv was woken by the incessant ringing of the phone and the doorbell at the same time. He got up lazily, rubbed his eyes and face. He called out "mom" and stopped before sound would come out. He sat there trying to get his brain and heart in order; not wanting the later to ride the former. He sat there feeling their presence in the room and around him. He rolled over and jumped down from the bed. Wait a second he thought he did not jump from the bed did he? He stood up and stretched. He felt relaxed and walked towards the cell phone. It was a call from his wife, he picked up and said hello. It sounded like a whisper.

"Rajiv, where are you honey?" she asked.

He yawned.

"You ok. I was getting worried. It is almost 6'oclock and you have not called back" she said. 

"What?" he was shocked. He had been sleeping for almost six hours.

"I will call you back. Someone is at the door" he said. He walked towards the main door and could see the day had turned mellow with Sun hiding behind the dusk cast by the evening sky. He opened the door it was Ritesh Nayak his friend from school days. They hugged and walked into the house.

Rajiv could see Ritesh looking around. He smiled and then friends walked towards the living room. Ritesh after graduation had decided to be a teacher.

"In fact I teach at the Universal elementary" he said.

"You a teacher, I cannot believe it" said Rajiv.

Once his trip plans had been finalized on a lark he had send an email to Ritesh to see if they could meet. They had been best of friends and not in regular touch for years. Ritesh had bought a house across the street in the new development and settled quietly into suburbia like his and Rajiv's parents. He wanted to be close to his parents in their old age and not pack them off to one of the old age homes. His wife was a doctor and practiced locally. Rajiv could see he was happy and contented.

"So you plan to sell the house" asked Ritesh

"Yeah that is the plan" said Rajiv

"We have spent so many hours in this house" said Ritesh looking around.

Rajiv looked around and smiled. He promised to drop at Ritesh's house and meet his family for dinner the next day. After awhile Ritesh left. Rajiv opened the door to the backyard and could see an overcrowded backyard with plants everywhere. His dad's handiwork he thought and smiled. He could smell the fragrance of blooms and grilled meat emanating from backyards across. He walked slowly taking it all in and breathing deeply. He walked back in got a bottle of wine from his dad's collection and went back out. He pulled an old rickety chair and sat on the deck till it was dark. He could see his dad moving from one flower bed to other watering, removing weeds or just standing looking at them. He felt calm and at peace within himself.

Rajiv spoke to his wife and kids. He went to bed early that night. The old house at night still made noises like bones of an old man. Every creak was echoed in the silent and empty house. Rajiv could hear soft soothing songs wafting in from the living room. They were songs about love and loss from times long gone.

He woke up next day and cancelled the meeting with the realtor. He knew he had a decision to make but it could wait another day. It was not pressing and he did not need the money. He spent the day having dinner with Ritesh, going to his old school and visiting some of their old haunts.

As he arrived at the airport on Sunday morning to catch flight home, Rajiv promised to come back more often. He felt relaxed and revitalized like he had not in ages. Maybe next time around the family could join too, he thought. He could visualize his kids running around and trampling the same grounds he did not too long ago. In the hustle and bustle of the airport he could still hear the songs from past and he whistled a tune as he boarded the plane.

Corpse in the train

It has been almost thirty years but I still wake up at night many a times with nightmare of that day as if it happened yesterday. The men and the bleeding corpse haunt my dreams making me toss and turn with queasy palms and sweat streaming as if sitting in a sauna bath. I still have a cold shiver pass through my spine and get up with a jerk, trying to look back if the men are moving towards me. I see the darkness of my bedroom and lie down trying to calm the uneven heartbeat and frayed up nerves waiting eagerly for the morning lights to cover the nightmares for another night somewhere down the road.

I ran a small business in a place called Vangani on the central line of the train service on the Mumbai-Karjat sector. It is a small town with green forest and a beautiful waterfall to the east of the station during the monsoon season. The town is the busiest during rainy season when the trekkers from Mumbai land to climb the Chanderi hill even though one is advised to not do so. The hills are slippery and leading many a mishaps but then the folly of youth and regret of a lifetime.

We had a busy day at the nursery with monsoon in full swing and increased demand for various plants and shrubs. It was not a big business but the satisfaction I got from it was immense. Most of our customers were big corporations or the government with environment and gardening, not a hobby for the vast public. It is what you would call now a niche market. It was something I discovered and fell in love over the course of my career in the railways. The land required for the nursery was acquired from the central government on a concessional lease and rest as they say was history. The demand for the plants was even through out the year but it peaked during the monsoon.

I lived in Karjat which is the fifth rail station from Vangani. Even though it is only the fifth stop the distance between each station is almost fifteen minutes and it takes me almost an hour to reach my house. What makes the journey a stretch is the halting of trains between the stations for no apparent reason. The biggest town was Karjat which itself was not much of a big town with a few industries and apartment buildings spread wide and afar. Karjat in those days was famous for farm houses belonging to the rich and famous from Bombay.

The frequency of trains to Karjat is far and infrequent and gets worse towards the night. By the time I closed the nursery and started my long trek towards the railway station it was almost eleven at night. It had rained for the whole day and had added a certain amount of chill and fragrance which only an aftermath of rains can do. There were no street lights and the roads were deserted with most of the residents long succumbed to their tired bodies. Vangani was still a village with farms and small houses spread far and wide. I looked at my watch and realized there would be a train in next five minutes and if I missed it the next one would be only in the early hours of the next day. I did not want to spend the night listening to the hum of tube lights and the darkness pervading to both sides of the rail station. 

I hurried almost running to ensure I get to the station on time and catch the train. As I turned the corner of the small road connecting the railway station I could hear the sounds of the approaching train and I ran. I climbed the stairs of the bridge taking two at a time and then ran the small distance on the bridge before clambering down the last flight of stairs on to the flat form. The train had just arrived and I was determined to catch the first class compartment towards the rear of the train as that would make my access towards exit at Karjat easier. Most compartments in the train were empty. I walked faster and as I reached my predetermined compartment, train honked and started its slow departure. I cursed my stupidity and paced myself to get into the moving train. 

"Catch the next compartment" said a man in gruff voice.

I looked up to see a dark man with a thick mustache.  He looked to me like a villager and not someone who should be in a first class pass compartment or the authority to decide on my right to get in. I ignored him, reached out and grabbed the long bar at the entrance of the compartment and jumped in. I gathered my breath then looked at him. His eyes were red and had long hair which was wrapped around in a bandana. He had the looks of a mendicant but not one with piety but pure evil. He glowered at me not hiding his rage and hatred at my having ignored his instructions.

"Do you have ticket?" I asked angrily looking around.

The train had gathered momentum and was out of the station embracing the darkness pervading outside. It was miles and miles of darkness with monsoon adding the cloud cover which enabled it to be darker. I walked in to sit when I saw the scene which is still vivid in my mind after all this years. There was a corpse on the ground covered in a shabby cloth lying between the seats.  There was another man sitting near the body on his hunches. He held a long and sharp blade in his hand which still had dried reddish brown substance on its edge. He wore a lungi around his waist and it was dark dirty saffron in color.

I was staring at the body and the man sitting near it calmly. His face calm but still had a satanic glow with embers of cruelty hidden only skin deep. Then it struck me that the cloth covering the body had been white but was darkened by dried blood. I stood there not knowing what to do. The next station was a few minutes away and here I was alone in the compartment with two strangers and a dead body covered in blood. Then a sudden gust of wind blew the cloth and I saw her face, it was a young woman in her teens. Her face had a virginal innocence even in her death. A death which I realized had not come easy for the poor girl, looking at the blood that had coagulated in the sheets.

I turned back and saw the man who had prohibited me from entering the compartment was right behind me. I could feel his breath on my neck. He was tall and thin with muscles of someone who had done hard labor in the fields. He had something in his hand, looked like a short round bamboo stick which he slammed against the open palms of his right hand repeatedly in a slow rhymic motion.

"Chudail" said the man sitting near the corpse in a deep guttural voice as he got up. He was calm and I saw he was bare chested with broad shoulders and a beard up to his navel. Even though they both were dressed like savant I could smell and see evil that permeated their souls.

I looked at him with terror with each passing second dragging on for an eon. I don't have enough words in my lexicon to describe my state of mind at that juncture. It was fear, feeling sorry for the girl and the horror these men were. I could not open my mouth and the desire to survive the ordeal overtook any feelings I had for the dead girl.

In my periphery vision I could sense the train slowing down at the imminent arrival of the next halt. I pushed the man behind me and rushed towards the gate of the compartment waiting with eager anticipation for the station to come. I can tell you one thing I was never so excited to see the Shelu a non-decrepit station ever in my life. I turned back and looked to see them standing there looking at me thinking and planning their next move. The tall man with the bamboo stick in his hand was pulling a thin long blade out of the wooden case. It was 'Gupti' I realized, a long sharp blade encased in a wooden bamboo like casket.

I jumped out of the train before it could halt and ran. A minute late and I was sure they would have either pushed me out of the running train or stabbed and thrown me out. I ran not turning back till I was far away from the train. I saw them at the doorway looking at me intently as if to memorize my face. I walked back and forth the whole night in an empty rail station not willing to sit for the fear of falling asleep.

I read all the newspapers including local papers to find out who the men and dead girl were for several months. I did not have enough information to approach the cops nor the guts I must admit. My business suffered as I was not able to travel in the train or be alone at any place. Any noise or even silence makes me turn around expecting a knife to pierce through my body. The unsaid violence in the train left me in a state of shock and loss of faith in men and the evil we are capable off.

I sold my business and moved out to a busy crowded city in the south.  I am miles and decades away but the nightmares are still a part of my being like the air I inhale. I know this for sure is something which will go with me to my grave and maybe beyond .

The Train Tales

Dear Seema

It was a beautiful June morning with temperatures in the sixties as Rajeev Khoshy parked his Porsche in the covered company parking and walked to his office. It has been a busy few months with the company in turmoil as they had lost some major contracts with many a customer putting off the plan to invest in software as the economy swung into depression. The divisional VP had asked him to compile a list ranking the employees in the department and to come up with a lay off plan.

Rajeev Khoshy was the director responsible for project management and execution of new contracts won by the company. He had spent a few months and too many sleepless nights agonizing over the decisions to lay of his team members. He knew it was something which had to be done but that did not make his task easy.

Last couple of weeks he and the executive team had finally come up with the numbers and today was the day. He and the Human resource Manager Sandra would have the employees come into the conference room and convey the news. Then the security personnel would ensure without a lot of commotion the staff members pack their belongings and are escorted out of the company premises. It was late in the afternoon before the task was completed. It left Rajeev drained and mentally exhausted.  

As they sat collecting thoughts and having the paper work completed, there was a knock. It was Duncan Webb the VP, as if on cue Sandra walked out.

"Hello Duncan"

Duncan did not respond to Rajeev's tired greeting. He pulled a chair and sat across from Rajeev.

"Rajeev, the business scenario is forcing our hands. It is not a fair but this had to be done to ensure the business survives"

"I understand"

"We have to let you go"

"Uh…"

Rajeev was not sure he heard it right. He looked at Duncan's face looking for a reaction then with shock and disbelief.

"Why?"

"We had to eliminate a level. With reduced staff levels many of the departments will be merged"

"Where is my department being rolled into?"

"Project and post implementation support will be one department"

"I have given 15 years of my life to the company Duncan. This will screw me."

Duncan did not react. HR manager Sandra walked in.

"Here are your papers, we will pay salary till the end of July" said Sandra.

Rajeev could not believe they made him do the dirty work and then they kicked him to the curb. Sandra the friendly lady from HR knew this all along as they chatted and grieved about the stream of employees who were being laid off.

Rajeev walked quietly to his office and started packing. Fifteen years and he had fifteen minutes to pack. He was overcome with emotions. But he was determined not to break down in front of strangers. Sandra was standing quietly watching as he started gathering his personal belongings and putting them into boxes which she had brought in for him. It was ensemble of his life at various stages, pictures of his family, and paintings of his daughter when she was a kid, various certificates and remains of a life which seemed to have all vanished in an instant into nothingness.

As he walked out there was pin drop silence among the survivors, looking at him but not seeing him, lost in their own thoughts probably finding solace in escaping the cut or finding reasons to justify his exit. He smiled and pushed the dolly towards the door. Sandra reached out to help but he refused.

He put the boxes in his Porsche and spun out of the garage. He did not feel like going home. His wife not yet back from her work and his daughter gone to college. It was an empty house. They had recently purchased the house in La Jolla a wealthy and hillside seaside resort community.  The company had done extremely well the previous year and he had made a big bonus with his stock options climbing up in value beyond their expectations. They were the only family in their upscale friend circle living in modest neighborhood and driving sedans. It was time to upgrade.

Things changed like the coming of a storm with no warnings, the sales dropped, shares prices tanked, there were accounting scandals and suddenly the future of the company was not rosy at all. Rajeev knew things were bad but put his blinders expecting things to turn around and his high salary had left with fewer opportunities in the job market.

 It was a frantic few weeks calling his contacts trying to find a job, making a budget, looking at his bank balances and the realization that they were living beyond their means. His wife's job was enough to cover food and a few items but still left mortgage, car payments etc being drawn down from their savings. It was a hard market to get a job and the declining home prices ensured their equity in the home was negative.

It has been almost a year from the time Rajeev lost his job and there was a permanent pall like that of a funeral home. The phone never rang with invitation for parties or catch up golf game at the country club, if it did ring it was the debt collectors wanting their pound of flesh. The distance between Rajeev and his wife Sherry had widened. The glue that held their marriage dissipated with their daughter having flown the coop.  He aged overnight and lost all aspiration to look for a job. His desire and longing to getaway from everything increasing by the day.

Sherry found a job in Connecticut and very close to where their daughter was going to school. Mother and daughter had bonded well in the adversity that had befallen the family.

"What have you decided?" she asked

"I am not willing to start allover again"

"Then "

He was silent. He did not have the answers.

"My job starts next month and it is something which I would be happy doing"

"I know"

"You should go" he said. He looked around at the speed with which life had turned pages. It was only yesterday there was a whole world to conquer and now his was crumbling all around him.

Sherry had her belongings shipped a week before she was supposed to start her new job. Rajeev packed a few clothes in an overnight bag. They locked the house and he mailed the keys to the bank. 

She took a cab to the airport. The parting was not sad the relationship having long withered away. He got into Porsche drove out not knowing where too other than desire put a distance with his past.

Without realizing it, I suddenly burst out laughing as I thought of the scenes unfolding at workplace if they saw me walk in. I was waiting at the signals for the lights to change caught in the traffic maze when the realization hit me. I was seething in anger till then. When I got a grip on my laughter realized someone was staring at me. I looked to the right and saw a middle aged white lady looking at me intently. I smiled a genial smile to let her know the strange looking Indian laughing his head out was no crazy man. She smiled back in acknowledgement. Then as the traffic moved I was not sure if she was astonished at me laughing my head out or my current state of affairs. I kept looking ahead and could not control the laughter again.

I thought how my team would react to me, if they saw me walk in. The reactions could start first from shock then rip roaring laughter all around.  The reaction would be different for religious Sally to the gay Ted. First I would not realize then when it caught on to me, I would wish the ground would burst open and consume me for the shame that would engulf me. Would I get back in car and drive home or what? It would create quite a stir as I walk in to my video conference call with a straight face and start explaining the numbers.

Ok let me start from the beginning so that readers would not be confused why I am raving without making any sense. I got up this morning late for work and on a day when it was critical to be on time. I had a conference call with Germany to review the quarterly financial results. It was a critical review with my CEO and other top exec as this could trigger decisions about what to do next.  So imagine my plight when I woke and stared at the clock to realize I was late.

I rushed to the bathroom door to find it occupied. I could hear my teenage daughter in the shower singing. I hurried to the closet outside my master bedroom picked a spare towel and tried the other bathroom in the house. Guess what it was occupied with my son in it. Thank god he was not singing. I rushed to look for my wife and discovered she had gone to the gym. The whole house was up and running and nobody had bothered to wake me up.

I rushed back to the master bath and knocked on the door. The girl could not hear me over the shower, the radio and singing. I knocked louder each knock making me angrier by the second. I could hear her turn the water off and respond.

"Sarita" I yelled.

"I am not done dad" she called out.

"Why are you here? Where is your mom?" I yelled some more.

Her cool collected response was not helping. Somehow I was not able to relate to the teenage daughter of mine who not many summers ago were apple of my eyes. I had to be patient as my wife would constantly rebuke me. But at this moment all I felt was anger and desire to pull out remaining strands of hair on my bald head. Eventually she came out upset at me for spoiling her royal bath and walked out in a huff.

I rushed in to the bath and was in a hurry to finish my morning ablutions when could hear the kids screaming and fighting. I could hear them knock on my door and asking me to give judgments through the other side of the door. It did not matter that I was late and was in a rush. I yelled out to shut up and get ready for school, as they would not want to face my wrath today.

I rushed out of the shower to the dressing closet when my wife just walked in after her work out. She looked relaxed and had an easy sway about her.

"Where are you going in a rush?" she asked

"Why did not you wake me up?" I retorted angrily.

"You came in late and…"

I cut her off and said "you had to go to gym and the kids."

"Why are the kids upset?" she asked ignoring my hurry to get dressed and anger at state of affairs. I had my shirt on, combed my hair and brushed past her to get my shoes on.

"Wait" she called out.

I was no mood to wait. I was sure she wanted me to have breakfast.

"You cannot just go like that" she said.

 What did she expect me to do?  I ignored her and opened the door to the garage. I put on my shoes and got into my car. I saw her at the door talking and indicating for me to wait. I could not hear her over the din of the car and backed out with out further ado. I could see her look of dismay as I drove off.

Now here I was sitting in the car driving to work with no pants and in my red boxer. The cell phone rang and I picked it up it was my wife. Before she could say anything I said "I know".

"Why don't you pull in to that gas station on your right?" she said.

"Where are you?" I asked her. 

How did she know that I was near the Racetrack gas station? That woman never ceases to surprise me, even after fifteen years of marriage. I changed lanes ignoring the honks of fast moving traffic and pulled in to the gas station. I could see in the rear view mirror my wife's car pulling in right behind me. I smiled.