Paper Boats in Puddles: A Collection of Short Stories and Musings

By Priya Velayudhan

Paper boats are loved for their simplistic perfection and the delight they bring to children - both young, old and the really aged. Though they are set afloat in puddles, each one of them carries a hope to travel far and wide, riding higher waves - just like every one of these stories. Written with much love and hope during titbits of stolen moments from that elusive thing called Time, every single one of them carries a strong message that calls for one to pause and ponder upon. From the comfort of a loving family to the grappling pangs of hunger, from the inevitable judgements stamped by society to the flicker of hope in humanity that comes to us in many ways, these stories are humane to the last word.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Partridge Publishing India
• Release date: Sep 13, 2017
• ISBN: 9781543700374

Priya Velayudhan

Stories crafted with a deep love for language and sensitivity to the problems weighing people down, Priya’s stories are detailed with undeniable truths and shines true with a radiant hopeful glow. Marked by empathy and honesty, the reader can be assured of interesting journeys – some of them even déjà vu.

Book preview

Copyright © 2017 by Priya Velayudhan.

ISBN:                   Softcover                   978-1-5437-0038-1

                            eBook                         978-1-5437-0037-4

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 author 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.

www.partridgepublishing.com/india

Contents

1.   Almost a Writer

2.   Birds of Many Feathers

3.   Simple Complications

4.   The Gift

5.   The Road to Dharamsala

6.   No.7, Beach Promenade

7.   Dead or Alive?

8.   A Princess and her Horse

9.   Jingle Bells

10.  Potluck

11.  Sweet Child of Mine

12.  Trapped in Time

13.  An April in Paris

14.  Selvi Akka

15.  Detours to the Altar

16.  Spare Keys

17.  Over Basketball and Ice-Cream

18.  Strings Attached

19.  Return to Innocence

20.  Love Stories for Survival

21.  The Filthy Smell of Humanity

22.  A Handful of Moons amid the Stardust

23.  That Familiar Face

24.  Prayer

25.  The One That Flew Away

26.  She – The Eternal Flame

27.  Sanctuary or Asylum?

28.  Love a Girl who Cooks

29.  Grandmother Chronicles

30.  Coming Home

31.  Found and Lost

32.  Innocent Feathers of Hope

33.  Thank You

For Acha, my most tireless patron and my most honest critic.

Preface

It is now almost a societal custom in marriage ceremonies of Indian middle class, irrespective of religion, caste, ethnic or linguistic diversities, to have a leisurely, colourful wedding reception with lot of sound and music on a suitable evening just a day or two after the formal tie-up event is over and the couple has been accepted as life partners. Here photo-cum-blessing/congratulating sessions with invited guests forced on the decorated dais for a quick smiley interaction with the couple in their modern attire, and a sumptuous cosmopolitan feast are the main events. For the first one, an inevitable long queue is normal and its length is generally accepted as a parameter of the social status, popularity and wealth of the parents. Nowadays, age and fame give me non-queue priority in almost all such functions and I used to be one of the first birds to appear on the stage.

My blessings are always limited to one short sentence of six words.

Be healthy in body and mind.

To be healthy in body and mind! How is it possible? How to achieve it? You will not get it from elders’ blessings or even God’s direct intervention. There are hundreds of fool-proof and time-tested wisdom-packed Pandora’s boxes carefully prepared by druids of all varieties and attractively marketed with guarantees almost similar to business success mantra guides offered by the best of flops-turned-gurus in the business jungle. But the unfortunate truth is that no teacher or example can get you real health in body and mind. It is simply because we are all different in physique and brains, and generally no guide or sermon can help us to find out what we really are. We then settle for the available wisdom and live a life with frustrations, occasional hiccups and console ourselves blaming all others including God and of course, just omitting ourselves for our failures.

But a few come out with their own innovative thoughts to find a healthy and happy life accepting all inevitable uncertainty and failures as glorious training experiences. They are real Richie-rich. The science of economics is yet to invent a measuring method to find the economic value of such real happiness.

Here Priya Velayudhan, one such rare soul, a techie-housewife from Kerala, the south-west coastal part of India, brought up in a picturesque village with lots of myths and greenery and very little changes in climatic variations and almost free from unforeseen natural calamities, man-made or otherwise, tries to find out what she is. She searches her own pattern and spot in life. Now she suddenly finds.

I am a writer.

Priya wants to tell stories. She wants to be a story teller. She is not trapped by dogma and tries to follow her intuitions. She says in her introductory piece in this collection of her short stories now you are reading, aptly titled Almost an Author: It was necessary to create your own imaginary world to survive the harshness of your own real world. To Priya, writing was not an escape. It was a vacation. It was her way of making sure of everything, solving life’s complicated jigsaw puzzles.

I am of the firm opinion that nobody is a writer unless he (no gender bar, he includes she as well) has something to say. Something new, unique, born out of his own thinking; and the way in which he conveys the idea should be a way that only he can create. His ideas, themes and stories should be told in his own individual voice. Language, word choices, punctuations etc., are important and will add to the quality of his creation, but such things are secondary and they will have no effect if you have nothing new to say. And who is a writer? He is part of the society. He moves with the society, albeit with his own independent interpretations and should be able to guide the thinking in general.

Here, these stories prove that Priya has something to say and she is not afraid to come out.

Today, in the 21st century, we are in a transitional chapter of world history where the market economy, thrust by the incredible and sweeping scientific and technological inventions, have brought the world to a stage where the time old prejudices of race, language and color have almost been wiped out and a stage has come when the entire existing equations in philosophy, sociology, politics, economics, and every other social science have become meaningless and have to be re-cast. Now we are all converted or in the process of being converted to a new religion. The religion of Consumerism. Even politics and existing religions are absorbing the rituals and philosophy of consumerism forced by their survival instincts, and nobody can stop it.

In this atmosphere, the freedom of thought, freedom of speech, and freedom of expression attain a new form. Conception of a freedom or a right does not guarantee its inclusion, legality, or protection via a philosophical caveat. Freedom of thought is the matrix, the indispensable condition, of nearly every other form of freedom. And who can survive this tsunami of technological revolution in communication conduits?

In my opinion, only story tellers.

In words, in print, digital, visual, audio or any new medium. Fiction, the best ever food and medicine for mental health will rule the future thought processes, and storytelling will be the art and science of future generations. Wisdom and entertainment combined. Here the storyteller’s responsibility, commitment and outlook become crucial factors in his survival.

Civilizations vanished, but Odyssey and Iliad, Mahabharata and Ramayana, Jataka tales and Shehzada’s Arabian Nights survived and Charlie Chaplin’s story telling in The Great Dictator was the best attack on Hitler. Stories are eternal.

But what to tell? How to tell?

The writer has to find his own path.

To bring out her ideas, here Priya, purposely or by instinct, most probably the latter, rides the path of Indian way of story-telling. The bards narrate the stories in prose or verse in open air where nature and birds and animals are characters with their own positive contribution in the story by their presence and make the story tastier.

Priya has a style, not the stunning and voluptuous grabbling of Hemmingway, but more like the slowly moving soothing flow of Maugham. O Henry suspense endings are rare, but a bit of Chekhov type anxiety creating condiments give us a smell and aroma generally liked. In this collection of 30 stories, Priya has brought a wide array of kaleidoscopic places, characters and situations in easy readable style with enough material to keep us going up to the end of each story. Actually it is the most important factor. To keep the reader reading. I am sure once you finish going through these stories you will agree with me.

A story teller needs no autobiography, because he is present, straight or incognito, in all the characters and these stories excel in this aspect. We find Priya everywhere in different forms. It is a virtue and best helper to the creator. The writer’s self, his sub-conscious - known only to him or sometimes even unknown and unbelievable, top secret aberrations, come out automatically and no real story teller will have any hesitation in bringing them out through the characters he created.

I am not attempting to stand between you and Priya, by summarising the stories, because once the story is before you, even the story teller is out and the story is yours only, a purely personal one, and nobody can or should be a hindrance with goaded blah-blah. But I can give one prediction. You start reading, you will end up fully enjoying the travel through territories and characters, you have seen, but never looked at.

I am happy and proud to introduce the talented writer, Priya Velayudhan, who has all the basics of a story teller and I am sure the first step she has made now in this Paper Boats in Puddles will be the forerunner of many more outstanding contributions from her fertile talents.

With blessings and best wishes,

K L Mohana Varma

Author’s Note

Paper Boats in Puddles brings to mind images of childhood and a time when we knew nothing but innocence. Like most children who grew up in the ’90s in India, I have celebrated rain, rainbows and many such simple pleasures. As we grow up though, the complications we weave into every single day consume us in ways we cannot measure. Our relationships have become like well-rehearsed lines from a familiar play - they come easily but fail to have that unassuming spark of spontaneity. Love and kindness are often give and take, and life is seldom fair.

Each one of the stories in this collection have taken birth from simple thoughts or ideas, situations or people. Though many of them have been borne from frustration at a society that’s anything but civilized, some of them have also been results of treasured relationships and symbolize hope. I wouldn’t try too hard to fit this into a genre. To put it as precisely as I could, they are thoughts, reactions and perceptions of an observant mind.

Acknowledgments

The book you are holding right now is the realization of a collective dream. Though writing has been as much a part of me as the air I breathe, the thought of publishing it as a book hadn’t crossed my mind as a goal I should set for myself. Content with the limited praise and the nuanced critique, my stories travelled only as far and wide as my social circle. But one day, a crazy idea took shape and gathered the courage to take off. And take off it did.

I express my deepest gratitude to,

My husband, my parents, my brother and everyone in my family who made me believe that it was worth it.

My friends - Parvathy, Priyanka, Fasil, Sheeja, Ranjith, Vibin and Rakesh for helping me push beyond my limits and find time in a world that seemed to be racing ahead of itself.

My brother Anildev, uncle Manikandan Kizhakoot, cousins Nisha and Nirmal, friends Jince and Vishnu, for the amazing illustrations that breathed new life into my stories.

My cousins Alvin and Alexo, for taking time out to give some of my stories a read and share comments that have not once crossed my mind.

My teachers at Bluebells School, New Delhi - for giving me valuable experiences and insights, and making me realize that there are countless windows to see the world.

Kathy Lorenzo and the team at Partridge for helping us realize this dream.

People around me for understanding the need to steal some time to pen it all down, whenever possible.

And last but never the least, my daughter Nivedya - for helping me reach for the stars, yet stay strangely grounded. You will always be the light that I will forever judge goodness by.

And how can I forget - you, the reader - to pick this book from the millions of books out there, and give it your time. I hope you won’t regret it.

Almost a Writer

She stared at the starry night sky. The stars stared back at her, and so did the moon. As she walked back from her office in the city to her home close by, she sensed the heat of the moment even as her hands were digging deep into her coat pockets for a little warmth. Located in a country that claimed to embrace the modern along with the traditional, it was not surprising that she was split between two lives herself. One ‘normal’ life where she had a ‘normal’ job that paid her decent money, so she could carry out her needs without depending on anyone. And another secret life, where she stretched her mind, sought hidden meanings and made up happy endings as vibrantly as sorrowful sagas. She was a dreamer, and entangled herself wilfully in webs of fiction and non-fiction, and played with the thin line that divided them both. Sometimes she sensed fleeting moments of revelation as an idea presented itself before her. And if she was not as lucky as she usually is, it would disappear just before she could hold it in her hands and take a closer look. Like passing clouds in an endless sky, they would swim aimlessly in her mind. Sometimes caught in a spider’s web of self-made elegance, and sometimes trapped in glass cases like sculptures in a museum.

Tonight the full moon loomed over the horizon like a mighty lantern. And the brightly lit offices in buildings across the complex looked like tiny lights atop funnily-shaped Christmas trees. Oddly, it was the Christmas season. When all things shone with goodness, and everyone believed naively that peace will prevail. It was a silly thing to hope for. When one couldn’t control the madness in one’s own head, how could order be expected to shape out of the natural chaos and conflict in the world? Yet we all fall for it. May be it is the winter chill. Or maybe the jolly old man in the white beard, red hat and gold-rimmed glasses. Or maybe it is our hearts resonating to the voices of gay Christmas carols sung to the strains of a jaunty guitar. Maybe it’s all of those reasons. She fished out her cell phone from her pocket. The beep was a new email. It was the publisher, and the subject line was what made her heart do a little dance - ‘Realize your dream - Get Published!’. Calling it a dream would be an understatement. She had nursed this vision, or you could call it a strong desire to see her own book in the book stores that she frequented at least once every month. Running her fingers over books stacked in book shelves in the local Crossword store, it became easy for her to visualize her own book hitting the stores someday. And if she allowed her imagination to soar like a kite, someday she would be seated at events reading excerpts from her book, speaking to her readers and distributing autographed copies of her new book. She knew the task was colossal. But she was a dreamer, and she hadn’t learned to estimate the scale of complexity or the probability of slip-ups. She was so accustomed to this dream that it almost seemed real, and she was prepared to invest all the time she had towards it.

With this fervent determination to put pen to paper as soon as she got home, she rushed as fast as her legs could walk in this biting cold. The fog blurred the path ahead, making it seem like an abandoned dream. However she walked on, as the way back home was instilled in her inner map so strongly that the fog couldn’t slow her down. She needed a cup of tea to warm up and let her mind think. She put the kettle on right away, after she flung her bag on the bed and washed her hands and face. Soon she was in her element. Propped up in her bed by two big pillows, sipping hot tea, and staring at the blank page on her laptop screen. Did they make pages white on purpose, so that the writer has absolutely no idea as to what to write, she wondered. Why not blue or orange, or even black - the most colourful of them all? Stray thoughts would come by now and then to slow her down, tickle her till she laughed or gave in for a break. By now though, she knew how to work her way around them. She played them their own game. She tickled them back till they laughed and gave in. She smiled at the irony.

Today the words came to her real quick. Like a ripple creating waves on the water, the words she began to write took on a life of their own and created something. She was merely an agent. A mediator between the words and the story. On and on she wrote. A poor man with no consistent job, but a million dreams in his heart. Ramu wanted to be his family’s saviour, and provide some comfort to ease his paralyzed wife’s burdens. He was up before the sun rose in his village, and set about on his errands. He would distribute newspapers to the neighbouring locality. No one in his ‘locality’ was in need of newspapers. They couldn’t read, and they didn’t care what Narendra Modi and Nawaz Sharif discussed during the Indo-Pak ‘peace’ talks, or whether Kareena Kapoor gave birth to a baby girl or boy. For them, survival was the only task. The only goal for the day, to live up to by any means. They could beg, borrow