Vinod Pande

“Façade. One, simple word. But, very complex portents. It’s like living a life of half-dead. You are neither fully inside a grave, nor completely out of it, beyond the oppressive calmness of the slabs, tombstones and plaques. There is one solace though, you soon discover that you are not alone in the vast graveyard of the half-dead. This is what Kamini soon realized when she plunged herself back into the world that the destiny had conspired her to inherit.”

“How do you tell a young girl in her formative years that the real value, real wealth is only in acquisition of knowledge through higher education? In caring for the downtrodden as well as the learned. In committing yourself to the matters of culture and creativity, when your own life has been complete antithesis of the same?”

“Was it a moment of indecision or was it a moment of redemption. Redemption long overdue and long unacknowledged? They didn’t know. He suddenly went at her mouth and she claimed it as if it was never supposed to be elsewhere. It was stormy. It was fierce. His manhood shafted through his loose night pajamas challenging her even beyond the thickness of her bath robe, which was cast aside in one unsparing sweep of his hand, revealing the quavering ripeness of her fulsome breasts. After a moment of awe, he went at them with unquenched ferocity.First he devoured her there itself, against the wall, on the carpet. Within moments their frenzied hands tore away each other’s underpants with unapologetic fury and then in one smooth motion of a dancer’s lucidity, he lifted her and like a great performer of an opera, placed her on the bed. The inviting altar of desire and passion and longing. Now as they claimed each other, there was unhurried fluidity in their motion. Tears of pain and love in their eyes. Ecstasy of carnal compatibility in their fusion. Symphony of sensuality in their strokes and when he finally exploded inside her, she had gone aflame with matching uncontrollability. It was a heavenly union which in one go had robbed them of their beings, their earth, their universe, their past, their present, their future. In one instant, they had undone what was done and had done what was ‘not done’.”