The Idea
Pushmeet is a spoilt, rich, lady's man. Almost incongruous to that fact, Pushmeet is a writer. Completely orthogonal to these two facts is Pushmeet's dilemma about who is a better life partner for him - Veronica, his neurotic, bohemian, tortured intellectual personality incarnate journalist bed-fellow and cigarette stockist, or Trina, his lissome, sleek, precise, pin-prick sharp architect muse and imperceptibly sarcastic bouncing board.
So he does what a writer does best, he plays the quintessential narcissist. He writes Veronica and Trina into a story, and has them meet each other and discuss their love-lives with each other. Through his words spoken through their mouths, he hopes to find clarity among his muddled up feelings for the two of them. The story is a weave of Pushmeet's own life and his story, told through the conversation between Trina and Veronica.
His attempts to establish his preference among the two women leads to questions about his own identity that he has never thought of. As words tease his subconscious onto pages, his eyes find truths he never knew existed. About love, about loving and about lovers.
What Makes This Story ‘Real’
In bits and pieces, I have thought about these things at some point of my life or another. The setting in the story is fictional, the characters are fictional, but what they speak and what they seek is tainted with my interpretation of my reality.
Extract
Trina stared at her nose-ring. "Silver," she thought, "I haven't seen silver jewellery in a long time." Sunlight skids on silver, like a ninja on water. "Ninjas? What have I been drinking! Why am I thinking of ninjas?"
"Do you want a cigarette?" Veronica's dusky voice seemed to wrench her out of her silvery fog.
"I am trying to give up. I want my lover to give it up actually. But he says I am hypocrite if I don't give it up myself first."
"Mine smokes like a chimney. And hides his stash in my apartment - his is searched it seems, by what he calls 'the cigarette police!' Have you ever kissed a mouth full of smoke? Exchanged smoke like saliva? I found the thought disgusting till he made me do it."
"No... I don't quite like the saliva bit either, much to his chagrin. I am more of a touch person, than a kiss person."
The microwave beep woke Pushmeet out of his trance. He could still see Ron blowing smoke-rings into Tri's face. He felt a longing to feel Tri's fingers on his stubble. They made it seem more like an Monet brush stroke than an ugly outgrowth of his lethargy. He hungrily dug into the cup of instant noodles - they almost tasted edible to his smoked taste buds. A subdued mewl behind him made him remember the stray cat he had picked up yesterday on his way back home from the pub. "You need to eat too? Or would you like a cigarette instead? Let's ask the girls..."
Endnote
This is my entry for the HarperCollins–IndiBlogger Get Published contest, which is run with inputs from Yashodhara Lal and HarperCollins India.
Voting
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