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Story: The dysfunctional family
Not every family laughs together, some even shout together too !! On a very important topic for the present generation, highlighting the internal issues within a family with no reason or logic behind those issues. Presenting one of the best short story: The dysfunctional family.
The engine started to roar signalling the takeoff. The marriage in the family concluded happily with only a few fights, misunderstanding and ego issues: nothing unusual.
The elders came out to drop them to the car. Each one was wishing a safe and happy journey; deep inside hoping for the car to leave the very next second. The sister looped in the car, as she did not have any hugs or kisses to share with her cousins. The brother helped the driver to adjust the luggage in the back of the car.
Packed in the car:
The mother and father were still in conversation with the elders. The driver sat and signalled the others to leave. Finally, for the very first and last moment, all four sat in the car and waived their hands to the ones standing out there with a smiling face. The first gear was put on and with the very first turn towards the main road, all smiles in the car faded.
And it starts…
The suit buttons were opened and safety pins handling the blouse and Saree were removed to get more comfortable. The father brought out his tobacco leaves to chew. Seeing him chewing, the daughter signalled the mother.
Dialogue starts:-
Mother: The moment you leave the house, all your nonsense activities start. Do you even understand what effect it will cause to your health and to your children watching you eat this?
Father: Do you have a decent polite tone to speak to your husband? You first tell me what the kids will learn from this.
The father glared to the mother and she lowered her voice. The moment it seemed that now it will be a smooth ride, the sister started.
Sister: You know mother, the aunt was again blaming me for bad behaviour with her daughter in law.
Before the mother could answer, the father intervened,
Father: You don’t know how to behave. You must have done something wrong again. I should have never brought you to the village again.
Sister (fuming with anger because of the words of the father): Who are you to judge? You don’t even know the matter I am talking about. That is why I don’t like to travel with you, you spoil the mood every time. I was talking to mother, but no! You have to interfere
Father (responding to the mother):
Are you watching this? THIS is what she has learnt in your upbringing.
Sister was about to shout again when the mother stopped her.
Mother: If I am the cause of her bad upbringing then who is responsible for your behaviour?
Fighting and shouting in front of the driver.
They stared each other and the glares replaced the words.
The son on the other end saw the scene going in the car but focused on his mobile.
The car took a halt for tea. The family entered the restaurant and all silently had their food.
As they moved back to the car, the son carried a bottle of soft drink and some wafers for the journey.
The car started and so did the father
And it continues…..
Father: The boy only wants to eat junk food and nothing else. He just wants to do whatever he feels. Not respecting parents or other family members. He is totally shameless.
Son: But I did nothing now. I had these snacks because I was hungry.
Mother: But here your father is right. You don’t respect your elders, nor do you obey their words. You just have to do what you feel is right. This is not a way a family works.
Sister: He was not present even in the functions of the wedding.
Son: You already know I hate weddings.
Father: I should have never brought you here. It was my mistake
Mother: If bringing everyone here is a mistake then you yourself shouldn’t have come here
Father: This unnecessary intervention by you has spoiled the entire family. I seriously do not find any logic talking to you.
Sister: As if my mother finds any logic with you.
Father: Good. This is your respect for your father, of speaking to him on your mother’s behalf. We talk about culture, customs and values and this is what we find in our home.
Son: And look! Even you are not able to change a family trait. What a shame!
It goes on and on……
Father: Don’t you dare speak to me in that tone boy, or else I will give you a tight slap. You are getting on my nerves.
Son: I did nothing. I am just telling you.
Father: I am telling you just stop.
Mother (speaking to Son): Why are you telling him, you be in your own world and live your life. You don’t care about us and so you don’t need to say anything. So just shut up
Sister: You people are mad, arguing and shouting like retards. Why don’t you just kill yourself?
Mother: These are your manners which you will show when you get married! Be quiet and stay out.
Conclusion
The shouting and argument continued. The sister cried a few tears in the corner and closed her eyes. The brother had his headphones on and ignored everything else. The mother and father continued their arguments and the driver listened.
They arrived at the destination. The children’s maternal grandfather was waiting at the gate. As the car turned towards their gate, the loosened buttons got tightened again. The safety pins were tugged. The tears were cleared by applying a layer of mascara beneath eyes. And the headphones were removed also making the hairstyle a better one.
The car stopped and the family came out, all with their smiling faces again. The driver laughed and the superficiality of life cried at the same time !!
@ramta Jogi
Best Short Story: The dysfunctional family
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The virus called “TIME”
This is a Fiction story on Corona Virus and the lockdown scenario.
” The virus called time” short story by Ramta Jogi –
The police patroled in the city saying, “Stay in to stay alive, as the virus could potentially kill you.
Against this announcement, he ran away. He ran, despite the pleas, the requests, and the instructions. Just a few moments ago his flatmates heard him thrashing his TV set on the ground before they could get up to see what had happened, he banged the door and briskly walked out of their apartment. A couple of his flatmates ran behind him, others, concerned and shocked, reluctantly dialed 100 for help. Without a care in the world, the techie ran to the streets to end his frustration caused by the forced isolation. It was 20th May, the 58th day of the nationwide lockdown.
It was in January that year, that people started to talk about the spread of a certain virus, not deadly, but highly contagious. The word was that it spreads faster than the word itself. The media conducted several inconclusive debates about the medium of the spread. Some suggested it was airborne, some said it spreads through touch.
Before the governments realized, people infected with the disease started queueing up at the hospitals. Soon, there were reports of young children and elderly people dying as their immune systems gave up the fight. Unaware of how to deal with the situation, nationwide lockdowns were instated as a measure of containment as desperate times call for desperate measures. It was declared a Pandemic.
Unaware of how grave the situation is, families and work professionals looked at the situation as the thing that was missing in their lives. The family time it was! Delicious meals, time with the kids, online movies, etc. The initial lockdown, which was meant for 3 weeks, came as a “Refresh” button for some. People viewed it as the time to recuperate from their hectic work life. Soon, the forced change to the lifestyle became a little harder to come to terms with. People realized that the love they have for their families is because they don’t stay with them 24*7.
As the days progressed, time moved slowly as many lost tracks of which day it was. TV wasn’t that interesting, online games weren’t challenging enough. Nagging from the kids caused irritation and cooking wasn’t fun anymore. Even making love, became more of a duty rather than passion. News channels and the internet spread more negativity than ever before. Caged inside their rooms away from home, students and bachelors found it hard to survive. What’s the point in punishing everyone because of the stupidity of a few?
Tension mounted on families as the breadwinners panicking about their jobs. Small businessmen were finding it difficult to maintain liquidity sighting negligible demand. Manufacturing set-ups had been shut for weeks. The concept of work-from-home was giving employees more stress than ever before as there was an apparent lack of trust from the employers.
The count of infected people kept growing exponentially, and so did the negativity in the lives of all. People woke up every morning with a hope that this will end soon, and they would be free again, but accepted the reality that it wouldn’t end soon enough.
On the penultimate day of the ongoing lockdown, it was decided that the restrictions would remain imposed for another 30 days. While everyone was subconsciously prepared for this extension, the announcement which followed sent shockwaves. The government wasn’t just grappling to contain the virus spread, they were also struggling to contain the spread of “Fake news” and misinformation. As a precautionary measure, it was decided that a nationwide internet ban would come into effect for the next couple of weeks.
This move was a huge setback for the businesses and citizens in general. It was hard to come to terms with the situation as frustration knew no bounds. News channels became the only source of information, but with the constant fear-mongering, a strong undercurrent of fear could no longer be ignored. The service of all-time and any-time connectivity which social media provided was being missed thoroughly. Especially those who lived away from their families began hallucinating. With nothing to do and no one to talk to, they felt imprisoned.
It had been three weeks since the announcement of the extension. There was an eerie calmness in the environment. Roads were empty, no airplanes in the sky. Bodies and minds were numb. The silence was uncomfortably deafening. This was a test of patience, the reaction to every discussion was an outburst.
Thoughts of going back to the streets were flooding the minds. People weren’t afraid of the virus anymore, after all, how long can an invisible enemy keep you down? The policemen guarding the streets were well-aware of the growing angst. They were thrashing people who took to the streets without any strong reason. The situation is moving towards curfew.
Long unkempt hair, a sense of fatigue and discomfort prevail. Stocks have crashed, economies are staring at an inevitable recession. People aren’t sure of how to get their lives back on track once things normalize. Most have become living corpses.
And on that day, he hurried out, to end his frustrations, to come out of the isolation. No one knew him. Just another bloke out of the 1.3 billion. A police van tried to stop him, but he was in a strange state of mind, probably unaware of what he was doing.
He fell, got up, started running again. The van chased him down and one of the policemen blew a stick to his legs, followed by another one to his head, knocking him down. People heard the screams and came out to their balconies to see what was wrong. By the time his flatmates ran down, he had been seriously injured. Seeing his state, one of them shouted: “Kill us all, before the isolation, kills us!”
The power of raw emotions and anger had found a way out. The policemen could sense the situation getting out of hand as the voices grew stronger and louder. They started hitting those near them to vacate the street. Within minutes, a huge crowd had gathered as people watching the proceedings from their balconies came down in solidarity. More security personnel were summoned to bring the situation under control. It became an ugly scene as mob walked closer to the police sloganeering “Kill us all, before the isolation, kill us!”
The frustration had finally got the better of the patience. The inner numbness had finally ended. The chaos became too much to handle. Ambulances rushed to the area to help those who had been injured. The sheer inner angst was shielding the pain of broken bones and bruised bodies as people shouted at the top of their voices “Kill us all before the isolation kills us!”
Soon a force was called, to disperse the crowd. But who knew that it was just the beginning. The isolation had a far scarier impact on the minds than the virus had on the bodies.
They said, “Stay in to stay alive, as the virus could potentially kill you.”
They were right. The virus did affect many, it was the virus called TIME.
The same evening it was announced that the Prime Minister will be addressing the country the next morning.
For more such content, visit Ramta Jogi
Corona virus – Lockdown – Story
Edited by Akshay Toplay
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Story: Wine & You
Her long hazel colored nails tinkled, as her wrist softly moved, touching the wine glass. Her fingers made their way towards her fountain pen placed on the bunch of papers, with her eyes still looking on the screen. Rough sheets of papers lay scattered all over the table. The tinkling sound drew her attention away from her laptop towards her glass of wine. With a soft gracious smile on her face, she finally grabbed the glass. Meanwhile, she also picked the pen which was kept open on the last draft of her first poem for editing.
Reading the final draft and sipping the last drop of her wine made her realize that it was the 4th glass she had that evening and now she was not in a stage to have any more. In trying to make herself comfortable and focusing on the poem, she found yet another correction, and this was, as per her understanding, the last one. The comma got replaced by a semicolon. She edited the same on her laptop.
Somehow she was done with the poem. The poem was ready from her end and she wanted some of her close friends to read and review it. But as the night and the heaviness of the content demanded, she opted for the 5th glass of wine again. The solitude of being alone at home was pleasing her. She stood by the window and it was getting cold. The touch of the cold breeze was making her happy. The wine was kinking in. Suddenly the face went low, a few tears dropped and she started watching the stars.
It was not only the wine that made her dull. It was Punit, in whose memories she was so absorbed that the tears came out. He came in her life as happiness to her existence. Her soul was at peace with her breaths, because of him. He made her look beautiful in her own eyes. He became her definition of love. But time and circumstances define the person you are and in no time, he left.
What went wrong or whose fault it was, were the questions that can be ignored when the end is not one she dreams off. He left, leaving her in search of the solitude she never wanted but is now all that she wants. She took to drinking. The girl whose love was defined by someone’s existence started living her life. Wine became a part of her. She had never drunk before Punit. Not even with her earlier boyfriends.
Slowly with wine came a time of self-realization. This leads to defining her in the smallest world of words. She started reading and playing with words.
Reliving the time with him, she tried to write. Pages after pages got lost in some corners of the room, making her realize how easy it was to live that life and how difficult it was getting to portray it on paper. Days passed and each rolled paper thrown in dustbin gave her a better meaning about herself.
Today, after filling the room with many such paper balls, she was finally with the draft of her first poem. The stars were now blinking at her, shinning and making her realize how beautiful she looks even without anyone praising her in the room. The darkness of night was no longer a sign of loneliness for her. It was peace and tranquility now. The process of writing about her life made her a better woman. She understood those aspects of life, which she never felt while living them. Words made her a better person. They made her love herself. Now, the 5th glass was supped. She smiled at the moon and thanked the stars for showing faith in her. She moved back to her laptop and titled her poem, “Wine and You” and sent it to her friends.
That night she was in love with her existence even more, in relation to no one else. Moving back towards the bed, she slept with utmost peace. The poem got appreciated published in International magazine and loved by all. Somehow, what the words in “Wine and you” did for her, was what the wine and the guy in her life were not able to do.
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The myth of a virgin Indian| Life blog
The myth of a virgin Indian | Life blog
We belong to an era where everything happens today, and tomorrow it turns out that nothing had happened yesterday. An era where rules, regulations, laws, ethics exist only in the daylight, in the frame which is seen by others. What happens in the dark, in isolation, is a falsifiable truth, a myth, which can be ignored or refuted. We are how we are seen, not how we actually are. The “real me” is of least relevance to us. The truth does not affect us, as long as it is not known to others around us. We move on and move out from our past or the darkness way too fast.
Having embedded ourselves tightly into the visibility of life, we have diminished the “thinking” component of our existence. We have accepted a life which is seen by others rather than the one which is lived by us. We have made our minds so strong that we can even differentiate between those two parts. And to make things worse we can even justify how both are right and that too at the same point of time. Any wrong action or decision is accepted and then framed to explain how they were right for us with respect to society. We convince ourselves and make ourselves believe that we are good and innocent and we have done no wrong. Hence, in the bright light of day, in the eyes of society, we become what we are seen as —
The Virgin Indian.
The rapes that are covered by the media become a shame for the nation, but the ones that take place in isolation, in remote corners, go unnoticed, unregistered and hence are said to have not happened.
The domestic violence that takes place inside the houses stays there. No one takes any notice of it. There may be marks, but there is no proof. The acts of forced sex in marriage take place once the lights go off, and once the lights are switched on, it is seen as a happy marriage again.
The acts of corruption are always termed as taking place “under the table” and so above the table, everything is clean and clear. A thief when caught justifies himself, stating “I have not done anything and I am innocent.”
These examples are among many that show that anything which is either not seen by the public or not accepted becomes something that has not even taken place. There is violence, harshness under the cover of night but in the daylight, distant from the past, it’s as if nothing happened. We are seen as pure, pious Virgin Indians.
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We have distanced ourselves from the regret of our own actions and so we have adapted to the blame game theory created by mankind. Here for each and every act which is unfair, is a heinous crime, the blame always shifts to the other person. It’s always someone else who is responsible for a misdeed or crime. We, on the other hand, are clean of any stain. In the circle of blame, life continues and in the end, no one is the source of any wrongdoing; therefore, everyone ends doing nothing.
We see being in a denial as a part of our lives and thus we see ourselves as virgins and have closed our eyes to the truth, to our own actions and our own guilt. Somehow, we have convinced ourselves that we are in a deep sleep, unknowing and unaware of what we are doing and the consequences that our actions can lead to. What we forget is that even as we sleep, we are awake in our dreams.
We need to ask ourselves, should the brightness or darkness change us from being what we are? Are we virgins in the true sense or have we just got up and put on our clothes and are thinking that nothing happened last night? But clothes are what appear to outsiders; we still feel our own nakedness.
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The problem with us is that we have blindfolded ourselves to our thoughts. The question is never what right or what wrong did we do. The question is acceptance. However right or wrong we prove to society or the outer world, we can never lie to ourselves, even in the darkness of the night and brightness of the lights. In front of the mirror, and more so, within our own heart we know that we have lost our virginity a long ago.
We have lost it along with our conscience, in terms of doing certain things as part of the fun, accepting something wrong just because it never mattered too much to us, being a part of something immoral which benefited us and many more such reasons. Deep inside we know how many times we have laid down our ethics, morals, and truth in general and how many times we have believed in our own disbelief.
We are no longer virgins; what we are now is just an answer to our own regrets. To soothe, to pacify and to keep ourselves free of the pain and torture of penitence we keep on reminding ourselves that we are virgins, unsullied. But in the shelter of dark, the actions did take place. Closing our eyes will neither change the truth, nor the consequence.
In the end, we remain the scattered particles of our own guilt, our own conscience. There we are, gathering up the pieces, trying to put them together and hoping that in the broad daylight we can portray ourselves as being the Virgin Indian.
Previously Published in The Huffington Post @ https://www.huffingtonpost.in/aakash-joshi/the-virgin-indian_b_8441370.html
The myth of a virgin Indian | Life blog
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