Surreal

Surreal

1. Characterized by fantastic imagery and incongruous juxtapositions;

2. Resembling a dream

3. Having qualities attributed to or associated with surrealism

Anahita Dordi

Brushing her wavy locks, Nisha was all set to meet her colleague Alok. Waiting for her phone to ring she saw to it that she had worn Alok’s favourite colour and left her hair open just like he liked them to be. Tring tring went the phone; it had to Alok. As soon as she answered the call a voice narrated an extremely loving and romantic poem. Nisha was almost into tears until when the voice said, “Neha you there?”

It was surreal for Nisha to have expected Alok to call and strange timing of the poetic call she received. Strange co-incidents happen.

At times even a wrong number leaves a smile on your face.

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Truth Dude

It started as an innocuous comment. ‘So what’s the truthdude thing? Truth always wins and all that.’

About a year later, I was in Delhi, sitting in her Mamaji’s flat.

My breath was shallow. My skin was tingling. The anticipation was killing me.

We drove to a furniture shop where her mamaji was to select an almirah – a present for his newly wed daughter. Everybody was busy going through compartments and fixtures and colours.

I was standing right next to her.

‘Put your hand down’, I whispered.

‘What?’

‘Your hand…’

Contact!

After a year of intense questioning, thinking, feeling, loving, and going to the brink of insanity and back.

Our fingers intertwined.

Electricity – spontaneous combustion – aaaaaaarrrrggghhh!!

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Mandappa

"Slept well?" Johny's pillow asked Reeba's.

"No, couldn't sleep a wink last night. Reeba's so tensed over her appraisals that her brain cells

were thrashing around like popcorn in a pressure cooker. Frying and dying faster than you could list the names of Jack the Ripper's victims. What's the deal with this money thing? Everybody hates it, yet they spend their lives revolving around it. They either think of acquiring it or spending it. It's a vicious cycle. A cycle more vicious than a double headed cobra on heat."

"These humans, waste their lives on something they hate. Kinda surreal don't u think?"

"Just like the Tarantino movie I saw before I passed out" said Johny's pillow.

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Dok Saab

Jeeves, this morning I felt very what's that word, it starts with an S and means dreamlike. I was woken by the sweet voice coming from the Radio. I looked at Her. She was smiling. I say she because she looked like Jayanti.

Love you Rajat, she said.

Shut up, I wanted to say, but I said cock-a-doodle-doo.

What else can a chicken, which has been fed upon saffron and pineapple, say?

I threw away my blanket and jumped out of my bed, or was it a pen.

Ruffling a few feathers I reached her, and switched her off.

Sun was shining through the window and I wanted to get out and you were blocking my way.

Is it surreal you want to say, Sir!

Yes that was the word, Surreal, but Why are you carrying that knife Jeeves?

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Richa

(a correction has been made to the text!! The NOTE was part of the submission)

Hey diddle diddle,

The cat and the fiddle,
The cow jumped over the moon;
The little dog laughed to see such sport,
And the dish ran away with the spoon.

This was my first introduction to surreal writing. I did not know it as "surreal" then…I just knew I did not like it. Then I read Lear's The Story of the Four Little Children Who Went Round the World, it was full of sentences like "After a time they saw some land at a distance; and when they came to it, they found it was an island made of water quite surrounded by earth. so that it was perfectly beautiful, and contained only a single tree, 503 feet high. Pardon me but where is the humor in it?? Recently I re-read Lewis Carroll's masterpiece ""Alice in Wonderland" and "Through the Looking Glass" and believe me I tried but I still could not see the humor. I was told you have to have savoir faire, sophistication to appreciate such art. Well it has taken me years to attain enough of both to admit "I don't like Alice in Wonderland"!! There I have said it!!!

Santonu

I was looking at her for hours! Her trembling face on the candle was smiling, spreading light to the every corner of the room. The brown chocolate cake was waiting for the guests to arrive. I was sitting silently in front of the table, talking to her; the shining knife the wine glasses created the perfect ambience. It was my birthday and I was jovial; with the evening getting younger and seductive, I was following every curve of her face, her smile. Friends were filling the room and suddenly I was conscious, everyone in the room started cheering me as I was blowing off the candle, her surreal image disappeared with a thin smoke line which bade adieu. I lost her, my soul as every one cheered….

Kiss

Kiss

• to touch or press with the lips slightly pursed, and then often to part them and to emit a smacking sound, in an expression of affection, love, greeting, reverence etc.
• to express a thought, feeling, etc., by a contact of the lips:

Santonu

November rain soaked the dry leaves on the streets on this cloudy morning. A tumble of water was just froze in his eyes. The Gulmohar with all the protruded roots gave him the perfect bed to lie down. Wind was blowing and carrying the rain drops away from him, not all, his blank face was also getting the chill of wind and the rain, only if he could feel it. He cried all through the night and through the dawn, the tears froze only when time kissed him bye…

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Richa

Waiting ….Agonising…Cracking

Dry parched lips…..

Gathering…..Darkening…Rolling

Hitting the land with a hiss

Melting….Embracing….Hugging

The earth-rain first kiss

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Anahita Dordi

Seven year old Riya was lying on the bed of the general w

ard of the hospital. She was suffering from Blood Cancer, had undergone blood transfusion and now was on heavy medication. Doctors weren't very sure if sh

e would cope up. If yes, life would be normal for the little kid. If no, then severe problems for the entire family.

Her mother saw to it that she timely swallowed her medicines. Once after her routine her mother kissed Riya's forehead. A smile immediately stretched acro

ss Riya's face. Since that day daily after her meals and medicines Riya would insist her mother to kiss her forehead.

Weeks passed and Riya completely recovered. Her mother too

k her back home. She hugged Riya and said, "My little small warrior! Always remember you are a strong girl. You fought bravely and responded well to the medicines too."

Riya replied….. I hated the medicines mummy, I just responded to your kisses.

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Truth Dude

the art of missing

I miss her kiss
her lovely smile,
her double tight squeezes
her silken sighs.

I wander alone
on a journey together.
She walks her own path
even though she's with me forever.

Cliched it sounds
but it is a fact.
She peers into my soul,
I kiss her, with tact.

Alone through the night
and busy during the day.
Her tempting lips part
and she leads me astray

from the path I've walked on
for how long I do not know.
But I'll gladly leave it for you,
baby, I miss you so!

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NM

He walked through the customs… thinking about her… about the fight…
She talked over the phone… it was the last customer… of that very night…
He was going to leave her… for a very, very long year…
She was going to miss him… she knew she had done a sin…
He lounged back in his seat… listening to her favorite song…
She rolled over in her bed… she knew she was wrong…
They both were thinking…
About the same thing…
Their egos had made them miss…
That one last goodbye kiss.

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Sarang

‘What now?’ Shehnaz’s scared whisper filled the telephone booth.
‘Soon a bus will take us far from our families,’ Arun’s voice quivered.
‘What if they–’
‘They’ll never catch us,’ he grabbed her shoulders. ‘We’ve made arrangements.’

A minute passed.

‘Girl, can I kiss you?’
‘On my lips.’ She thought it would lessen her fear.

But before that, an angry voice jolted them, ‘Look in there.’ And the door opened; out stood cops and Shehnaz’s brothers.

‘So… we come to it,’ she said in tears.
He kissed her one her cheek… then their lips locked, passionately.

When the devil hands parted them, their necks dropped.

‘Perhaps, there was potassium cyanide on girl’s cheek’, whispered a cop after some time.

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Dok Saab

Muaahhhhhhhh !!
I could feel the warm thick betel juice trickling down my cheeks.
She tightened her arms around me.
You are choking me , I tried to squirm out, but by the time she planted another wet kiss on my lips. I could feel the sweet musty fragrance of saffron with a tinge of tobacco.
Dadi leave me , I am not a kid now.
Oh yes my Ram, my Kishan, Dabbo told me that you have become a big doctor now.
At last, she let me go.
Marry soon, I want to kiss your son before I die. And tell your wife I'll beat her if it is a girl.
She was very strong for an eighty year old. And she always greeted me with a forced kiss whenever I met her.
How I hated her messy kisses.
.
.
.
The room was filled with fragrant smoke of guggul.
I saw her sleeping on the mat. She looked divine.
I bent over her and took her in my arms.
Dadi, why don't you kiss me today. Look I have my son with me too.
I pressed my cheeks on her lips. They were cold.
I tightened my embrace around her. She slipped away.
How much I yearned for her kiss.
A wet kiss filled with betel juice, smelling of saffron.

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Mandappa KC

Mornin folks, I cheerily greet thee

With black eyes and broken bones three

The konfessioners are back and so is me

But here's the story of this new spree

Kiss is the word they did choose

So I asked around like Big Moose

What's a kiss? Can I get one from you?

Sitting there with a hat so blue?

I walked around, asked far and wide

Girls I knew of every hip size

Smack! One on my forehead and on my back

Til' they got together and tied me in a sack

The smack was more a whack indeed

Left, right and thrashed like weed

Writhing in pain, in my pant I piss

So warm and tender, is this kiss?

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The Dark Poet

(Note:-- This one was ‘subject to approval’)

She's dark

and has a soul of steel

she knows how to love, and how to do it without fear

she has hair that dance n sing

they lay on his pillow in the morning

like a storm

he plays with em

twirls his clumsy sinner's finger and watches the curls unravel

she's beautiful, not sexy

celestial, a cherub

She smiles and it's not perfect

but he thinks it is

she fits into his arms n chest perfectly

they're a jigsaw

they always make love

and then she tip toes around on the wooden oak floor

she sings averagely

but he finds it beautiful

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Konfessioner Singh

“Parting to merge

allowing liquid heat to seep…

As waves of tumult

exalt:

in me sight

in you lust…”

Gasping in the middle of the night she touches the dry curves, resting a finger on the bow only to taste black ink…remembering the notes.

“I send you three kisses. One for your heart, one your lips and the last your eyes…”

She concentrates on what Napoleon wrote to Josephine. Constantly composing her own rhyme… Trying hard to remember how it had felt, the exact pressure, the smell of the rain…did it rain? She lies back down, tucking the sheets under her heels swallowing a forgotten memory and remembering only that it never did rain…and she wasn’t and would never be Josephine.

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