Things That Bang

Posted by Deepti Lamba at 06:42 PM Stumble It! digg this del.icio.us Fark It | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

I rescued a toad from a hovel and gave him a villa instead. The hovel was a little garden pot with an inch of water in it and the villa was my lily pond. I gently picked up the pot that lay on the driveway and slid him out of the pot into the lily pond.

Feeling I had done my bit for mother earth I was about to walk away when he croaked- "Ribbit"

I turned back to look at him and gave his scaly face a benevolent smile “You're welcome.”

“Ribbit!” he croaked again

“You're a talkative one.” I spoke to him again and he stepped on a lily leaf and looked at me. I stared back at him. This was a definite Syfy moment. His scaly head bobbed a little as if he was checking me out and he spoke "I like what I see!"

I gasped and looked around wildly "Did you just speak to me?"

He stuck his tongue out to catch a passing dragonfly and missed.

"Why? Do you think you are the only one who can speak in English?"

I remained quiet and stared at him.

"Speak woman! no, you aren't crazy. We can speak. Ask your temporal. His Nawwab talks to him all the time."

"Er.....you are on Desicritics.org?" I spoke up and then pinched myself hard on my arm.

"Actually no! I visit his site baithak quite often. We poets like to keep an eye on each other."

"Really? And what were you doing in my flower pot?"

"I was in a Jacuzzi and you threw me into a swimming pool."

"Lily pond" I corrected him.

He carefully moved on to a fatter leaf and croaked "Does it matter? Anyway you did me a good turn now I want to return the favour. "

I shook my head "No its okay. Not required. I ...er...need to go back in."

"No wait! I was thinking - maybe you can marry me?"

"What?!" I gaped. The toad was barely bigger than my hand

"I can't marry you!" I shook my head at him.

"Why? I'm well settled. I can speak English with a neutral accent. I like reading your hot stories and kind of like your kids too."

I glared at the toad and spoke "I'm sure I am losing my mind here."

He made a sound somewhere between a laugh and a croak and I shuddered "No, you're not woman. We could bump off your husband, take his millions and visit this sadhu who will turn me into a handsome young man and help you get that twenty year old body again and we'll be happy"

"You are an evil reptile" I gasped

"Evil? No! An opportunist? Probably! So what do you say?"

"No!" I shouted then tried to calm my nerves. I spoke again "No! I'm not interested."

"You aren't huh? But lady you have no choice. I will make sure that you will be mine."

That fat toad looked sinister and the world suddenly seemed to close around me and I couldn't breath.

I spread my hands out and shouted "Leave me alone."

"Never!" he croaked and lunged towards me. I turned and ran out of the garden towards the driveway.

He followed croaking my name and I imagined his wet slimy body somehow hanging against my jeans legs. I ran towards the driveway and saw the part timer open the main gates.

She stared at me in surprise as I ran towards the porch.

Aaman's car took a sharp curve through the iron gates, into the driveway and I watched the jumping toad squelch under the front tire in a matter of few seconds.

I pushed back a scream and tried to compose myself- a talking toad killed under my husband's car. This wasn't murder Dee. I told myself. So what if he was a talking toad. He was just a toad.

Aaman opened the door of the car "Hi babe what's up?" he asked holding his Blackberry next to his ear.

"Er..nothing." I gave him a weak smile and let him pass inside the house.

I stared at the front tires of his car, took a deep breath and followed him in. My toad saving days had come to a quiet squishy end.

Posted by Deepti Lamba at 08:43 PM Stumble It! digg this del.icio.us Fark It | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

"What is it that you want?" Shelby asked before taking a sip of the bitter coffee. Her soon to be ex-husband shrugged and looked around the room and took his time to reply. Shelby was used to his antics by now and waited for his response.

He stared at a woman sitting behind her. Shelby knew he was staring at another woman, probably a petite blonde with too much lipstick. He always liked to compare between his wife and other women and always found her wanting. Fifteen years of living with the schmuck had eroded her self-esteem but there had been a lifeline thrown from an unexpected quarter.

With a trembling hand, she put the cup back in the dainty porcelain plate with tiny flowers made on it. The Paradise Cafe was expensive. It was her husband's idea to meet there. The clientèle were the kinds born with elegance infused in their DNA. He reeked old money and she - what did she smell of? Sweaty underarms - the tell tale signs of a middle class woman clearly out of her element.

She looked away from his handsome chiselled face and let her eyes fall on a blonde sitting behind him. She was the kind he liked - thin like a reed, with perfectly symmetrical features, large china blue eyes, long dark eyelashes, a sharp thin nose and luscious lips painted red.

The woman raised a quizzical eyebrow at Shelby and raised a white gloved hand to call the waiter. She wore the air of privilege and authority; all that Shelby lacked. She felt out of her skin, worse still she felt like a bull in a China shop but she had to see this conversation through. She was not chicken!

She folded her sweaty palms on her cotton dress. Her tightly drawn knees itched with unwaxed hair. She cleared her throat and tried to get her wayward husband's lewd attention. "Max! Act like a horny SOB on your own time. Why did you call me here?"

Max returned his languid attention back to his brunette wife. She had put on weight over the years and lost most of her pixie looks. Shelby reminded him of a fat Labrador - still easy on the eyes but lacking elegance and sophistication. He wondered why he had married someone below his station, someone who could never match his wit, his intellect, never got along with his friends and was naive in bed.

He had always liked blondes but married a dowdy brunette. A mistake he was going to finally correct after fifteen years of trying to instil some class in her. She was a waste. Her maroon cotton dress was pulled off from some mall Sale, her nails were chipped and the roots of her hair had not been touched for over three months. For a renowned author who made plenty of money, Shelby never really cared about her appearance and that irked him. But she was not his problem any more.

Max leaned back against his chair and spoke "You know what I want, Shelby."

Her lips tightened and eyes narrowed. Anger raced through her mind and she began to breath faster.

"You know I will never hand it over to you Max! Never!" She glared back at him and his eyes fell on her heaving breasts. He smirked, knowing she found his attention on her breasts ironical. That was again his way of saying her breasts were fat!! He stopped calling her fat a long time back he did it with his eyes and his mocking smile.

She thrust her breasts higher and stared back at him. He raised an eyebrow at her attempts to fight him at his own game and spoke softly "If you don't hand over that first edition of Copperfield I will not divorce you."

Shelby shook her head at his crass attempts to blackmail her and let her eyes fall back on the woman sitting behind her husband.

The blonde was also having coffee. She liked it without milk and sugar. Bitter like the taste of betrayal, something Max was sure to feel sooner than later the blonde had told her over sex musty sheets. The blonde smiled at her tenderly and Shelby held back the answering lift of her lips and she pushed the memory aside and looked back at her husband.

"You can continue to sulk and pout over that book. Fact is you gifted it to me in front of your friends and its mine. I won't return it to you."

Max leaned over the table and sneered at Shelby "You stupid cow! What do you know about literature or about art? You fat burger-eating filth"

"Burger eating filth?!" Shelby let out a open hearted laugh and felt the scales of power shift. "That's the best you can come up with? Wait! its beneath your high born dignity to call me a cunt, bitch, twat or a whore, right? You think them but your frigid mommy used to wash your mouth with soap when you said curse words, didn't she?"

"Don't bring my mother into it!" Max dropped all pretext of being civil and seethed at Shelby. "She warned me against you. Look at me when I am talking to you." He glared at her.

Shelby pulled her eyes away from the blonde who licked the cream off her lips with the pink tip of her tongue and sent Shelby a flying kiss.

"Hmmmm...?!" Shelby smiled a happy Christmas is here smile at Max who blinked. Shelby was in love. She couldn't stay mad at Max. Her mood lifted as if hundreds of flamingos flew away from a dried lake to rivers that swelled with churning water and plenty of fish.

"Ah! yes! your mother. God bless her dead soul. She never did like me. Did she?" Shelby leaned over and patted Max's hand that crumpled the fine linen napkin that had the initials of the Cafe embroidered in gold thread. "Its okay Max, I don't have any bitter feelings towards that old dragon but as per that book, it was the only thing you gave me selflessly"

She gave him a whimsical smile and began to collect her things. She pulled her suede coat on, put her leather bag against her shoulder and as she got up she spoke to him "Get your lawyer to talk to mine. It can all be very amicable. We'll sell off the lakeside property, the house in Maine and divide the money equally."

He tried to speak up but she pushed the chair and stood up "Yes! Equally, Max. I know I made more than you, saved more than you and I am willing to let you have my shekels as well in return for an amicable divorce."

She put the woollen scarf with white and black pandas made on it around her neck and continued to speak to Max though her attention was on the blonde who had paid her bill and was ready to leave as well. "The Copperfield stays with me Max and I will fight tooth and nail for it. Goodbye Max."

She walked towards her blonde lover who kissed her and without a backward look Shelby walked out of the restaurant. The blonde glanced back at Max who gaped at his secretary and wife leave the restaurant as lovers.

Posted by Deepti Lamba at 12:24 AM Stumble It! digg this del.icio.us Fark It | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

My best friend's getting married in a couple of months and the lady hates shopping. And that is the only thing we don't have in common. I love to shop.
There is something pleasant about trying on tons of clothes with a female friend inside the changing room telling you whether it looks good or not. Or trying on your tenth pair of shoe in the sixth shoe store.

For my best friend, however, shopping is an anathema. And currently trousseau shopping for her is pure torture and while she bemoans her plight over long distance calls; I, on the other hand, talk about shops and contacts where she could get snazzy clothes and good discounts. She wants me to shop for her and it doesn't seem a bad idea since I like to 'help' people shop.

Since I am very choosy about clothes many a times I land up browsing but not buying for myself but make others buy tons. This is a trait my elder sister and I have in common. We make people try on clothes, heap praises and virtually do the job of the sales people of the stores.

Retail therapy, obviously doesn't last for long. For there is always something better to be looked at and desired. Its a never ending cycle. But thankfully there isn't always stuff around which is worth hankering over. And thats when my girlfriends and I merely hang out at stores.

We hold clothes while they are still hanging on the hangers, stare at the price tag with a absent minded glance and talk about things completely unrelated to shopping.

Retail stores act as stress busters as well. A haven away from being whatever we are in our daily lives. Where we can just be women looking for stuff to make us look pretty. It can be the 'me time' for many.

But my best friend swears retail shopping its worse than suffering in Gitmo. She sees malls as places made of nightmares with zombie sales people, never ending Kenny G music and greasy jail house food courts. Worse still she is allergic to malls- literally. She breaks into hives in clothes stores- little bumps and rashes dot her pink skin and she scratches and mutters dozens of curses on my grinning head.

Getting back to my best friend's on going shopping she was quite pleased that I like to shop for guys as well. I do. I absolutely love men's clothes especially formals; even the ugliest man can look snazzy if dressed right but my best friend would rather chew her nails than step into a men's store and help her fiancé get all 'dolled' up.

Even my husband likes to shop for his own clothes but I kind of sneak in clothes into his wardrobe with a patronizing I can dress you better attitude.

Unfortunately for my friend we live hundreds of miles apart and I'm not rich enough to go back home (Delhi) just to help her shop. And maybe its right that she buys her own stuff and dolls up her man and fills up her car with shopping bags instead of me go Tyra Banks on her credit card.

Not that I am much of a fashion diva. Far from it. Its an innate female nesting trait where I want to bring in an extra twig or worm for the betterment of my family and friends through mall hunting.

Don't even get me started on the levels where they sell cosmetics. The smell of face chemicals is heaven on earth for me. I don't think I could ever shop till I drop. Maybe I should go live in China where they supposedly have 24/7 open stores and just for the kicks drag my best friend along with me.

Posted by Deepti Lamba at 01:26 AM Stumble It! digg this del.icio.us Fark It | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)