Dear Diary

By Vaishnavi Maganti

This particular array of short stories provides the reader with a diverse range of options to choose from. You might find yourself flipping through the pages in engrossment, as it provides a platform of relativity and easy association to you and perhaps revive a moment or two from your own personal lives with relation to these personalized stories. All in all, this is definitely one book that is worth going into your shelf.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Partridge Publishing India
• Release date: Feb 13, 2014
• ISBN: 9781482818475

Book preview

Copyright © 2014 by Vaishnavi Maganti.

ISBN:               Softcover                        978-1-4828-1848-2

                         Ebook                             978-1-4828-1847-5

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

To order additional copies of this book, contact

Partridge India

000 800 10062 62

www.partridgepublishing.com/india

[e-mail]

Contents

Acknowledgments

Preface

The Bagh

Teeth Fairy

Gallons of Love, Tons of Trust, and an Ounce of Colour

My Happy Meal Story

Imperial Intricacies

Starlight, Star Bright

The Note

Brown Beats Blue

Looks Can Kill

Indian Bazaars

I Love Liars

Consciously Asleep

Money Buys Warmth

Emotions in a Cocoon

Tick-Tock

Tragedies of a Silent Lover

Epilogue

Glossary

Acknowledgments

T o my sister Jahnavi, who constructively criticized each aspect of this book and most importantly served as a pillar of strength for me, having sat up late at nights reviewing them, typing them, and most importantly for having motivated me.

To my parents Balram and Jayasree, for never having disparaged the inefficient dreams of the fifth grader who aspired to have published a book, giving me all the emotional support I ever required, and all the love that fuelled my work.

And to my mentors; Shailaja Rao and Frane Bhattacharya, for guiding me throughout, and critically analyzing each bit of my journey and work, and for having inspired me.

To life, for bringing up new challenges and inspirational instances each day, lighting paths of optimistic expression every conscious moment.

Preface

I remember having held my first ever book back when I was ten, claiming to the world that I would publish one fine day, and have the whole world read my works.

There was no mockery following it, my parents never laughed at all that I said. In fact, it was this belief of theirs that they invested in me which accumulated to my steers of determination.

I’m not saying that I walked around this earth with a pen and a book in hand from that day on.

There were times too that I got carried away and prioritized other things over writing.

But there surprisingly never was a time where I stopped writing at all; Every time I was happy, I wrote. Every time I was upset, I wrote. Every time I was inspired, I wrote.

And this has never changed.

Each and every story written below has a special significance of its own in my heart, having been inspired out of momentary instances; they freeze a lot of those timeless moments in my spirit.

To have published them, my sole purpose was to connect with just a few out there; going through similar feelings or feelings that once struck chords with these, as they would perhaps connectedly flip through the pages till the very end.

The Bagh

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Prologue:

H istory had always been one of my favourite subjects! No matter how dry and boring people claimed it to be, I always found a magical story weaved in between the various timelines, and enjoyed the whole presence of different Emperors, their ways of life, territories, conquests, treaties, wars, festivals, rise of leaders.

Everything about it fascinated me. As I was promoted to higher classes, yes, the number of dates and events we had to remember had increased too. Also, the addition of World History barring the regular Indian History was exhilarating yet fully loaded. So then, a week before my board examination, I realized that could possibly be the last time I studied History again, before picking out on my subjects in senior grades, so I decided to make it as dramatic and appealing as possible.

I happened to be going through the Gandhian Era and a couple of other events that had shaken the entire country decades ago, when I mentally created a story in my head about the probable diurnal life and emotions of those who lived in such troubled times. This not only gave me an edge in linking about 4 chapters and events in a row, but also gave me a vague insight to the lives and the pain that innocent families possibly endured.

This piece of work is a polished version where I decided to focus only on one particular incident as the original piece served better for reference purposes during my examinations.

The best part was that, with the help of a whole new direction to this subject, my History and Civics’ score was one to pull my percentage up when my results came out. I scored way over 90.

Being the fascinated learner that I always was, I strongly recommend every student to look at a subject as not just an object of satisfaction to score well, but as a subject of diversity, and a variety of concept. The Indian Education system may be rigorous, but I’m sure there is a reason as to why every subject exists.

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I saw all of it. The boy of 14 was lying unconscious on the red earth, his hands thrown recklessly apart from each other and legs mangled, the body was covered almost fully in dark red blood and a bunch of torn pieces of coloured paper were thrown around the fallen body. Nobody knew better when he would gain consciousness and whether or not he would ever even gain it. I wasn’t a doctor, but if I couldn’t tell from his condition how badly he was injured, I could easily pass off as a human being with extremely poor, or let’s say, no judging abilities. He was sure to have broken a couple of bones, and the bullet lodged in his chest had certainly knocked the breath out of him.

To you, it might just seem like an anxious scene as you’re the passive listener, having no acquaintance with the boy howsoever. Leave alone knowing his name, you do not know anything about him except for the fact that he was a soon-to-be corpse. You do not have any images of him except for that of his loosely fallen, brutally injured body.

I was there. I was there when he was struggling to find his last words as he placed a little piece of a paper in my palm. I was there when he walked towards the garden that very morning as he turned and waved to me with a mischievous glint in his eyes and a warm smile, so as to reassure me that things were going to be okay now that he set out for them. I was there when his family moved into the town a couple of years ago and built a modest home a fence away from ours. I was there through most of his past, and he was there with me in my subconscious mind. And this gave me the most substantial reason to cry endlessly in front of his body, as he lay like a colourless rainbow on the very red earth, where he once played gilli-danda.

I could not feel a thing. It felt as though I was deprived of any feeling of excitement. I couldn’t trust my senses. It was all an illusion.

Well, at least I hoped it was an illusion more than anything I ever hoped for. It just couldn’t be him lying defenselessly in front of my eyes!

My eyes were definitely tricking me. My brain was processing wrong images and conclusions.

I never felt more numb and helpless. As I stood there, with eyes staring blankly at him, clenching tightly the paper in my palm, a few young men slowly began to drag his body away which they believed was dead. I wanted to yell out to them, that he wasn’t dead, that he was just a little injured. Either they did not hear me, or I was in such a state that I could think no more than I could speak. The very sight of his body being dragged away aroused a sudden surge of rush inside me. I ran towards them and asked them to put him down. I cried so much that my voice was muffled up and everything I said sounded like gibberish. I tried to push them away and hold him all to myself, but no. Those men carried him away nonetheless, as I sunk to the ground and buried my head in my palms and cried so much that I eventually blacked out too.

Coming from a patriotic family, I should’ve expected more or less a situation like this in my life especially around times like this. But it never really occurred to me that it could be just about happening to me.

Now before you wonder what is even going on in my life, I’m Aazadi. And that boy, who died, was my best friend Shikhar. He has died in the stampede caused due to the blockage of the entrances by this English General whose name I later learnt was Dyer. I never bothered to add the ‘Mr.’ before referring to him. He might’ve been a renowned and great General who commanded his soldiers and coordinated orders well, but to me he was that one man who took away the life of one of the most important people in my life. He was that one man who I’d remember for the rest of my life for all the wrong reasons.

It was just a matter of a moment, and he swept away and replaced 8 years of memories with gory bloodshed images as he ordered his men to exhaust their ammunition till all those who gathered at the Bagh were killed and punished for conspiring against the Empire.

Well, we were standing up for ourselves. Why is standing up for oneself always misinterpreted? To a third person, it might all just seem like a stubborn old belief which one is holding on to with all their strength but unless they themselves are involved, they wouldn’t understand the psychological attachment or the emotions that run beyond any stubborn action. We were a happy community once upon a time apparently, but now we don’t get to even walk on the roads like we would have wanted before being asked a hundred questions about our background, and if those men caught us guilty of initiating any sort of passionate feelings, we would be tortured till we gave up.

Listening to stories of those free days was one of the most mind-relieving pastimes for me as they bring about a sense of inner peace and happiness into me every time my grandmother narrated a story or two. It just set about a sort of freedom and the entire concept was just so enticing that, subconsciously I began to develop this new craving for it.

Shikhar and I used to play with green marbles everyday for about a hundred and forty five days when we got back from school and our entire world consisted of only the two of us and our families and a few green marbles and any matter not fitting into any of these three would mean that it meant adults’ business. Now that I look back, I realize how those insignificant little marble fights meant the end of the world to me and how at every stage of life, we consider our problem to overrule that of everyone else’s on the planet. To me, now, the fact that I can’t beat my neighbor at hopscotch is the most pressing of issues while to Baba, his work and the finances of the family are priority, while to the head of the white men, this entire country consisting of many me’s and Baba’s was on top of everything. Let’s just call this spiral a parallel universe where relativity is purely subjective to the millions of souls out there who can all feel, and breathe, and think, and live.

Post the marble craze, it was climbing onto trees and doing the monkey jumps that was most sought after play around our colony. I would manage with a few hands from the ones on top and after a few sighs and upheavals I would find myself panting on one of those branches, with a mouthful of guava and laughter. I would always make sure that I ended up sitting next to Shikhar and feel the butterflies in