An unusual beginning...

"What do you want me to know? That you aren't really happily married? That, there are dried tears at the length of your synthetic smiles?? That it really isn't as it appears, on the surface???"

















I couldn't believe, he just said them!!













For the first time in three decades, someone had read my silence...





To be continued...

Thus began the long drive...

"I do."










Lazier streets. Liberal traffic. Subtle music. Good company. A long drive at hand.











I couldn't help feeling good.










"Avishek, I think I should tell you something. Wanted you to know it, but didn't really get the chance."






To be continued...

The meeting...

We did meet.











The lazy timekeeper screamed 2100 hours!











We headed for an early dinner.









"What next?"


"Airport!"


"I don't know the way!!"





To be continued...

The plan...

He was 23. I was 31. Enough said.













"What are you up to, this weekend?"


"Nothing much, frankly!"


"Long drive. What say?"


"I don't really have an issue with that!"


"Sounds good. You're a sport, Priyanka!"












Saturday morning. Plans said so!





To be continued...

The unseen blisters...

The blisters of my tainted marriage hadn't dried yet.














My marriage was a known thing but, the gradual advance to a divorce wasn't.











For Avishek, I was happily married.











Our conversations just grew lengthier across the days.




To be continued...

And it grew...

He looked, straight in the eyes, spoke with conviction, and had something magnetic about him.













He wasn't an everyday.











Hellos grew to conversations, advancing to engaging discussions.












Avishek, it seemed, was a bad habit.




To be continued...

The first glimpses...

Priyanka :




The first glimpses, the proper ones, of Avishek were, at the Diwali party.
















It was almost a month he had joined, and we were speaking for the first time. Our subjects were different. So, that wasn't really unexpected.
















For the first time in years, I felt like a friend, and not a colleague.





To be continued...

Dead dreams and a black sheep...

Avi let parental dreams choke to death.











He was the inevitable black sheep.











I didn't even know him well enough, to judge.












Going with the flow was wiser.







To be continued...

The arrogant bastard...

"Neither your dad nor your grandpa, was just a writer, by profession!"







"How's that even my fucking problem?"







"You'll starve to death. Literature doesn't make you rich."







"How's that even your farthest concern? And just because, it didn't give dad or grandpa thick pockets, that doesn't explain a point!"







"Look at you! Filthy young bastard!"




To be continued...

Drowned dreams...

Avi was all set to sign off school in style, when I headed Gurgaon, donning the dawn of my professional life.





















Hell broke loose, over Avi's career choices.













Mom and dad's dreams of making a doctor of him were stunned to silence, by Avi's arrogant, "impractical" ways!







To be continued...

The spoilt brat...

By the time he was sixteen, Avi was a hot headed, arrogant, unnecessarily aggressive, spoilt brat!


















He had accolades to boast of, but, he was way too showy. Though, not many realised the fact, for his ways were subtler!
















Avi was miles away, from anyone even remotely associated with the family.





To be continued...

The early signs...

Frankly speaking, we never really shared positive vibes. Not any sort of it.













He was blood. And, blood never came with options.













Avishek started writing, unusually early.













By the time he was twelve, he was flooding the lengths of his exercise books, with his juvenile gibberish.






To be continued...

The big bird...

Five-and-a-half years younger, he was always, a kid to me.
















He was naturally instinctive, confident and aggressive. Playing with words was a craft, he excelled!! Though, not an academically regular guy, he never quite managed to stay, off attention!!!















He was never, a bird to be caged!!








Untamed. Careless. Easy going.







To be continued...

The early days...

Ankita :




Some people strive to success. For some, it comes naturally.







Avishek was always, a passenger of the second compartment.














Growing up as a kid, he was initially shy, though making newer friends was a routine for him.















He was unusually hot headed, sniffing anger at the length of his nostrils.






To be continued...

The celebrated...

There wasn't a looking for him, ever again!!

















Success has its own perks. And, prices.



















The tanned ashtray was overflowing dead cigarettes and restless ashes. The year-old, unfinished manuscript, was crumbling at the edges.









To be continued...

The bloodline...

Grandson of a known poet, Aniruddha Gupta, son of an even better known poet-novelist, Ankur Gupta, writing came to Avishek, more than naturally.


















A little more than fifteen-and-a-half years back, Avishek shot to overnight fame, with his debut novel, "In Our Days".



















He was just twenty four!







To be continued...

The inheritance of loss...

Avishek G was more than a household name.















A caustic tongue, "sensitive" storytelling, and a much talked of, personal choices.














He was the perfect pepper for the paparazzi!














Literature is, more than often, inherited.








To be continued...

The prologue...

Minus power. Monochromed age. Jeans. T-shirt. The singular penthouse.


















The dawn of forty, was a week away.





















Fifteen-and-a-half years. A dozen novels. Three hundreds of poetry. Five decades of short stories.






To be continued...

Rusted beginnings...

The plastered walls have lost transparency. Yellowed age, a bit rusted. The carelessly left door sang a soliloquy. A slice of the sun's temperature, peeped in. The glass penned time was sleepy, off stale nicotine.


















The stale outline of the morning tea, bordered the bone china.




















"How are you?"

"The city's spent..."

"Haven't caught up, in a long time!"

"Adulterated hourglass. Busy street play..."

"Can't we keep the wordplay aside?"

"Don't you do literature?"








To be continued...