Olive Chaudhuri

// “Anything else Sir?” The waiter asked “Sir??” He stood there for a while confused, looking at my unresponsive lips. Cluster of thoughts were circling inside my mind. The half sipped coffee in front of me was losing its charm and warmth. “No. I.. I’m good” I shoeed him away, I couldn’t believe on my eyes. She was sitting right in front of me. Hardly, fifty meters away from my table. I still remember the day how it all started? When she came into my notice. She was thrashing a guy. Yes, she was actually throwing punches and hurling abuses on a guy who happened to be a senior of ours. It was quite a show and because she wasn’t friends with anyone. So, nobody intervened and neither did I. Finally a female professor settled it and ended the commotion. Our whole batch, including me was amazed when we saw that. She was well known for not talking to anyone, not even in at lunches. Pretty much reserved in her earphones and books most of the time. I tried to get in touch with her on social me...

  // Smoking, to her father, came as naturally as breathing. He smoked and breathed and breathed and smoked. And each time he was away, she'd sneak into the ashtray and pick the filter butts. She had a liking for the smell of cigarettes and loved it more when her fingers smelled of them. But, this story isn't about her father, his smoking, or her sniffing - actually, it's about cigarettes and him. She doesn't smoke, was never tempted to. He's been smoking for the last three months now, has been trying to kick the butt. They spend their cigarette breaks together, in the company of one other office colleagues. He shares his cigarette with the colleague who wears a nude gloss. And each time, as their fingers kiss while handing the cigarette to each other, she feels the ash of jealousy being smeared on her insides. She wonders what his cigarette tastes like - him, the colleague, the women he makes love to, rum, leftover tea, half-burnt lips - all this while she catches ...

It started raining. I was in my balcony with a cup of chai. My Bluetooth speaker was belting out 'Ranjish Hee Sahi, Dil dukhane ke liye aa' Every night you come to your balcony for a smoke. Maybe you know I'm here, but you never look to where I'm sitting. Some nights I hear the strains of the guitar coming from your balcony when I'm lying in my room, sleepless. I know that you like your coffee cold with a spoon of sugar in it, pasta for dinner, you like to smoke cigarettes on your balcony every night after work and when it rains you sleep there. I know it sounds stalkerish, but when our Balconies face each other, it's inevitable that I know. I don't know why, but lately I have this desire to talk to you, ask about your day and his. I haven't seen him since the lockdown began, the other day I saw you taking down all his pictures, you were talking angrily on the phone, you took out everything that looked like was his and threw it out. You smoked a cigarett...

Some days I wake up and then I realize that you are not here. Yesterday's grief is still lying on my bed, I wish I could tell it to leave, but I don't. I get up and then go to the kitchen to make coffee. There is this fading mark on the kitchen counter, near the gas stove, that still reminds me of how you never used to use coasters and left the round ridge of coffee cup everywhere, especially on the table in front of the couch. I know I can't make the plants stay alive, yet somehow they seem to be thriving, your favourite plant in that yellow pot, is still in the corner, I'm taking good care of her not because I care about you, but somehow I have grown to care for her. In my bookshelves there are empty spaces where your books used to be, I have been meaning to fill them up, at least I still have my record collection. I guess when we separate our lives, our things get separated too. I know I returned the musical Carvaan box that you had gifted me, I miss hearing the rand...