Deed, indeed!

Producing two 10-rupees bill from my purse, I placed it into his shrivelled, doddering palms. "Nahin aap yeah rak lo" he said vehemently shaking his head. Puzzled I kept insisting with a smile. I was touched.
I had told the cab driver to keep the change. Instead of taking additional six rupees from me he preferred to forego his four. What a soul! My heart went out to that honest, old driver.
I insisted he keep the change and ran away from the scene. Contented and smug, I pondered over the event once more. I was on my way to an interview then. I had supposedly done a good deed.
Yet, something irked my conscience.
Was it unconditional? I couldn't dispel thoughts of an ulterior motive.
There probably lurked in me a latent desire to appease the gods. Would I behave the same way if I was hot, perspiring, late for work and in a foul mood?
Food for thought.

Perdition due to a weak bladder!

Travelling is never fun for me. Not that I do not like to, but a weakness debilitates me.
Yes, I have a weak bladder. A bladder that sometimes makes me question the whole point of living this life.
There have been times when I have been moved to tears, too embarrassed or too much in pain, just hoping that I can relieve myself in time.
While I see the more blessed, gulping down gallons, I am forced to exercise restraint.
I cannot travel in a bus for more than four hours at a stretch. That would invariably provoke my uncooperative bladder into asserting itself. And if the sun is at its searing best, even a soothing drought of lime soda is denied to me.
When I am in a plane, I am constantly subjugated into making bashful trips to the loo.
In the train my agonies only get better. Notwithstanding, that I am constantly badgered by prying, intrepid eyes, my constant jaunts to the lavatory is an assault on my olfactory senses. Not to forget the countless times I have had to endure, eye-revolting, nose-wrenching stench out of sheer desperation at bus depots, railways stations, roadside toilets...
It's not once or twice that my bladder has cheated on me. Innumerable times.
It was the first day of my Class X tutorials. Timid and shy I entered a class of at least 60, half of which comprised "boys". Having studied in a girl's school, it was far from an ideal situation. A quarter of an hour into the class, my bladder started its quirky tantrums. The aircon only worsened the situation as time flew by. At the end of the 60 minutes class, blinded by tears, I had to make a frantic leap for the door before the next tutor stepped in.
Paranoid by my humiliation, every furtive glance was interpreted as people secretly laughing at me.
In college, at the end of a Math class taught by a male professor, I made a cacophonous rush to the lavatory. I was hysterical and wasn't thinking. Well, at least I made the class laugh.
Thankfully, by the time I made it to degree college, asking professors for permission was considered too much of a hassle, and I willingly made water, not only once but also twice, thrice during lectures.
But the worst was not over. Once I made a three and a half hour bus-trip from a village in Kottayam to Kochi, Kerala. I was supposed to visit a cousin in Kochi and then take a flight to Mumbai the next day. I had two pieces of luggage with me and was supposed to travel alone. But on my grandma's insistence (for which I am forever grateful to her) she argued that I was too young to travel alone and that my uncle should accompany me.
That day I was fasting. I did not even have a glass of water. Just a few bunches of grapes. Little did I know their malicious intent.
Within an hour after the bus started, my bladder made its presence felt. I was writhing and squirming in my seat. To top it, a girl came and dumped her heavy school bag on my lap. The pain was excruciating.
I thought of all the possibilities. Should I flash one of my seductive smiles (does not exist) and ask the driver to stop at a roadside house? Should I just make a puppy face and beg him for mercy? Should I just tell my uncle and leave the onus of finding a suitable arrangement to him?
Should I just bear it? The thought that I may die because my bladder would burst, began to sneak in on me. With morbid humiliation I imagined the news headlines, next day. "Girl dies after bladder bursts".
What a shameful way to die? I was so flustered, I started moaning to the lady sitting next to me. Poor woman. She empathised with me. But what more could she do?
Finally, I got up and signalled to my uncle. Even now, the perplexed look he gave me that day, does not fail to evoke a chortle or two. I got down at a bus depot, some 3 km away from my intended destination. What a relief it was as I deposited my luggage with my uncle and made a run for it. I had pushed the headlines for some other time, thankfully.
After that for a long time I was extra cautious to avoid such situations.
However, morbid thoughts revisited me two months ago, when travelling to Singapore.
I had just settled down to enjoy my orange juice on a Singapore Airlines flight.
I love orange juice and had a second helping. Obviously, nature called. Of course, there are lavatories in the plane. But you restrict your visit to twice at the most. When it becomes three, four eyes start wondering. It's not easy to be constantly getting up and moving around in a plane.
I was so frustrated, I didn't want to live anymore. My whole life is spent pampering my bladder. I was positively exasperated.
Well, the only consolation was my mother assured me that drinking lots of barley water would strengthen the said trouble-maker. I have not yet tried the remedy. But plans to do soon. Till then, a prayer for my weakness...

The Unlikely Virgin

It's time for some night mulling. After three months of wallowing in the ordinary day-lit world, it is again the bad old night shifts. But this time there is a difference. I return to the city, which supposedly never sleeps.
A city that's bursting on its seams with unbridled money, people and now high rises.
Speeding past the empty but "not desolate" city roads in the wee hours of night, I notice a sensuous side of Mumbai. A disgusting thought for most.
Gazing out the windows of an SUV that conveys me into the arms of sweet repose daily, I feel a sense of calm. There are no vehicles emitting constant dissonance into the putrid air, no pallid urchins scampering in intrepid haste, no pedestrians scurrying cheek by jowl on the narrow pavements, no hawkers spilling their wares on to the half-baked, ill-dug roads.
The city discards its termagant image and takes on the garb of a nubile sixteen-old-year old lost on a balmy invigorating night.
At this point my imagination runs wild and I experience the sexual excitement of an unworldly adolescent gurgling with anticipation.
The street light glowing in wonted indolence sheds its reluctant radiance on the tranquil streets accentuating her every curve, every contour. In her arms, rest the innocents unsullied by the vagaries of a brutal detached world.
The balmy winds rushing in through the windows ripple my hairs, tingle my senses. I am aroused.
She is lovely in her ripe nakedness.
Deep in thoughts, I realise how much the city is ill-treated. She is constantly abused, misused, violated, yet at night with an alluring pleasant smile, she welcomes me into her arms.
And into her fecund moistness, I dissolve.