All Chapters of Cycle of Cliches: Chapter 1 - Chapter 10

Songs and Stories I write from a cremetorium and I swear by my origins that this story conforms to the unwavering loyalty to clichés.I am aware that the cremetorium is the weirdest of places to write from, for that matter, anything, let alone a story, but I can’t be tardier than what I have been all this while.Eighteen years is a freakin', long time to stay on one story, isn’t it? I wish tardiness wasn’t in the list of my genetic inheritance.Here, at the cremetorium I become the famous singer who crooned his best number sitting by the bier of his dead sister. It wasn’t just a dirge for his sister, but a delicate and gradual unveiling of a story. A story of drawing rainbows, of playing under the sun, of a heart burning in sorrow and another entranced by indelible moments of joy. The famous singer’s song was his story.My story, by the way, is my song.And the tapping on this laptop keyboard is my beat. With each tap, I see the song shaping up as the dirge for the event.

Nico-Tar Urge The small, six-by-four smoking room looked like Delhi in a winter morning.Smoggy.Smothering.If not for smoking, nobody would like to be there even for a minute! Worse still, there weren’t any chairs to sit. Trust me, with all the drowsiness and fatigue, I couldn’t stand more than a minute.Men drowned in their smart phone screens, cigarettes tucked between their fingers, welcomed me with as much indifference as I sometimes show to people talking about binge-watching web-series. The only aberration in the room, was this woman, standing far opposite to the entrance, with her gaze fixed at the wall to her right. Holding a pack of Marlboro Gold and an iPhone in her right hand, she was staring at the wall-mounted electric lighter. Her Hamlet-like dilemma, I thought was: To light up the next one or not? Curse my stealthy, sluggish, perverted eyes! Wish I could stop them from measuring her up! I slid my left hand into the pocket of my jeans for the packet of

Bohag I should have put on the windcheater jacket before coming out of our apartment in Guwahati. A full-sleeve tee shirt wouldn’t have been bad either. The morning breeze in the terrace felt a little unsettling after the comfort under the blanket. It had been more than a month since winter was officially over. For those who wore sweaters in March were taunted as kaso – tortoise. Cold-blooded animal. Among my acquaintances in Guwahati, only Birinchi, the fast bowler in the local cricket team I had started playing for that year, wore sweaters in March. He would always be shivering while fielding.Now, it was April. It had rained the previous night – the first showers of the year – and the breeze carried with it the scent of petrichor. For the first time in a while, I wasn’t startled awake from sleep. It was a gradual waking-up. Someone was playing the Pepa – the buffalo hornpipe – and the tune was gleefully calling everyone around to join the merriment. As the drum-beats joine

A Lot Can Happen Over Coffee In the airport smoking-room, the monochromatic images evaporated into the spiralling clouds of smoke just as Junali’s voice struck my eardrums, “Where are you lost? Hullo!”Her hazel eyes, almost popping out in wonder, her lips gaped like O.“Disbelief.” came out impromptu, after a long, deep breath. I didn’t have to care for my English pronunciation anymore. Courage had killed the inhibitions with my spoken English, long ago. From struggling with my sha and cha sounds to being a Voice and Accent Trainer before being promoted as a Training Manager in an international Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) company, for me, it’s been a worthwhile journey so far in terms of spoken English. “Disbelief?” she repeated after me.“Yes…a…world…of…disbelief.” I couldn’t resist the insane spurt of thoughts, uttering every word with a deliberate slow pace. Looking straight into her eyes! Without a blink! With a half-smile!“Hmm.” She said with a sigh and too

Rushdie in a Nightgown I call out Biswa and a few others in the playground at the top of my voice, but it seems that they can’t hear what I’m saying.I’m saying that I don’t want to bat at number three anymore, and I don’t wish to play for the club too. I have made it to the national team, I have got the blue jersey with Number 4 and my first name embossed on it. I’m going to open the batting with Sachin. It’s, kind of, I want to say goodbye to all of my teammates before boarding the bus to the airport in the big city…but all of them vanish in thin air, leaving me with a trace of fear! I wonder if I have just seen ghosts. How can real people vanish?And then I run towards the bus stop. There’s a big tourist bus with huge glass windows and navy blue curtains waiting there – a video coach that’s going to play ‘Jigar’ once the bus starts moving. Halfway through our journey, the bus stops at a restaurant for refreshments, and I feel I can’t keep going all the way waking up other