Endure the Yarn please don't yawn

From the Author's keyboard:

Since it is short-story season I have decided to put my very first hand at fiction on the blog. Brickbats and bouquets are welcome. I am almost feeling like I did the first time I tried my hand at cooking and waited with baited breath for my guinea pigs to give me a thumbs up. Don't ask me the denouement of that exercise.
I would appreciate it if you could think of a suitable title for this.


Suleiman looked down from his precarious perch. In the sea of traffic below, he spotted a beggar heckling at the darkened windows of the Innovas and Corollas that whizzed past him with an indifferent roar. In a moment of respite that his work spared him, Suleiman quietly reflected that at least he had a respectable job that fed his family. Turning back to the giant billboard, he resumed filling the model’s bosom with a color that would entice prospective buyers to purchase the mobile phone in her hand. The brush in his hand kept swooshing effortlessly while his mind drifted to the innumerable such scantily clad models selling everything from staplers to SUVs. Semi-nudity to him signified penury and he found it rather befuddling that the richer people got, the less clothes they wore. Ironically, it was this quirk of the society that in some confounding way provided the shirt on his back.

The incessant honking from the traffic jam below snapped him out of his reverie. An unusually long fleet of sleek cars glided through the junction below. “Wonder which minister is in town today?” Suleiman thought aloud. It wasn’t a minister.

A few blocks away the journalists jostled each other to get a word, a rehearsed plastic smile, a gaffe captured onto their lenses to make it to their dailies’ front pages. As slender legs emerged from the door of the Porsche, the flashes and clicks reached a crescendo till Nayantara revealed her perfectly sculpted curves in a shimmering Versace gown. As she stepped into the art gallery, the coterie of photographers followed like Pied Piper’s mice.

At the center of the gallery stood Javed Mirza regaling his celebrated guests who hobnobbed amidst the easels that were meant to be the piece de resistance of the event. “Yes Mrs. Gupta that, in fact, was painted a year back. I was thinking of a stark theme and was deeply intrigued by this scene during my morning walk. That is when I decided that world should know about it…” explained Javedji as he tried to give a rather philistine Mrs. Gupta an insight into an artist’s thought process. He was disconcerted by nouveau riche customers who neither understood nor attempted to understand art, but instead “invested” in art like yet another trophy of the opulence and extravagance that providence showered on them. ‘Investment’ indeed! What did they think it was? Real estate? He was losing his patience as Mrs. Gupta began haggling with his agent Shukla about the price. Was he to sell it to her on a per square inch rate?

Just as he tried to waggle out of the situation, Nayantara presented her ethereal self by his side and they pecked each other on the cheek providing the scribes yet another photo-op. Mesmerized by her presence he devoted his full attention to her and guided her through his masterpieces, “See that subtle hint of gray in her eyes? Don’t you feel her sorrow?” Nayantara nodded like an automaton that was programmed to be polite. The cameras followed them like a spotlight tracing the path of figure skaters gracefully sliding across the granite floor of the gallery. “So we hear you are planning to sign-up with a leading director in Hollywood. Is it true that you will be doing movies?” prodded a scribe. “No comments.” Nayantara silenced the heckler. Javedji appeared to be absorbed in his own works.

As he approached his magnum opus he felt the same tingling spasm run through his neck as he had felt while receiving the National award for it. He lingered longer at the charcoal of a loving mother staring coyly through a veil that covered half her face and fell gently onto her bosom at which her child clung not wanting to look at the cruel world that would engulf him. “Javedji, why don’t you ever paint models?” Nayantara finally broke the aura of silence. The scribes waited with baited breath for a philosophical rant to follow. “I don’t find it challenging enough”, he said measuring his words, for he had been warned by Shukla to steer clear of any conflicts with potential clients. “Well, what if I were to request you to paint me?” Nayantara fluttered her eyelashes. Shukla broke into sweat as he contemplated over possible face-saving statements that he would have to mouth to silence the tabloids. “Now that is a request I would possibly consider worth my while.” Javedji grinned. Shukla breathed easy on hearing the miraculously affable response from the normally irascible artist.

Later as a barage of questions poured in from the journos, Shukla swiftly waived them off and swiveled Javedji towards the alcove. “Today is the last day of the exhibition Javed Mian and we haven’t been able to strike a single deal apart from the two lakhs for ‘Musings’. I think you will seriously have to do the Nayantara portrait to keep our heads above the water.” Nayantara daintily stepped into her Porsche glancing momentarily at the gigantic hoarding of herself in the latest T-mobile advertisement before zooming off.