Where Oceans Meet by Himanshu Chhabra

Where Oceans meet is the debut novel of Himanshu Chhabra (Himanshu Appie Chhabra), released in June, 2019, this book is a dream project which turned into a reality.
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Blurb:

L O S T

Jai, who doesn't know his name yet, wakes up every day in a struggle to know his identity. Battling and tossing between his nightmares and crowd of Mumbai, he grabs onto his hope tight.  Three months in the forest of Humans, he keeps on looking for his could-be name, his could-be identity, and his could-be life.

He is a survivor.

meets Radhika,

L O S T

Radhika fights against her odds, steadfastly struggling through her own battles.

She is a warrior.

Radhika recognises him in a bar and initiates a conversation.

 You look familiar, she tells him.

They get drunk and subconsciously end up in an apartment, their Apartment, where they get to know that they have been married to each other for years.

This book takes you on a journey of a survivor's breakthrough, a warrior's zenith, their past, present and future.

About the Author:

Himanshu Chhabra is a Tax Adviser and a Consultant, who had no intention to be a writer. There is no back story to it. Writing just happened one day on its own and kept on happening again and again. Then he started to enjoy it and realized that it was what he had wanted to do all along.

He started with blogging in 2012 with a blog named ‘Purple Pen’, which had over 4.5 million views. The blog left a stirring impact on the blogging industry and thousands of readers appreciated his writings.

He has been part of many anthologies such as ‘Uff ye Emotions 1 & 2’ and ‘25 Strokes of Kindness’ and has also been a part of various projects as a ghost writer. Beside writing, he also enjoys an intimate bond with photography. 

He is from Hisar, Haryana. If you want to get this book signed you know where to find him.

As a hybrid author who enjoys stiff drinks [read: water], music, late night drives, romance with universe and five-star reviews on his books, he can be found on facebook.com/HACwrites and would love to hear from you at officialHimanshuchhabra@gmail.com

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The Weird Kind of Love, A Short Story by Himanshu Appie Chhabra

“We can never have a romantic relationship,” he finally said, seeing her volume down the music again.
“This was supposed to be a romantic late night drive where we hold hands and listen to music.”
“And?” she questioned.
“And, you are reducing the volume repeatedly,” he was annoyed.
“Because, I need to talk to you,” she complained.
“You will end up spoiling a romantic night.”
“Who said I think late night drives with music is romantic? It all happens in movies. In real we both are weird. You are weird. I am weird. To me, romance isn’t having a glass of champagne with you but to have a coke and complain about how expensive champagne is. It isn’t in the candlelight dinners but how we always end up outside Dominos at midnight, just before it is supposed to close down and have choco-lava cakes in our car. It isn’t in a movie date where we share a popcorn, but how we let everyone else go and form a queue in the interval and when everyone comes back we go and pick the first thing we see, quickly.”
“You always pick Aloo-patties,” he finally laughed.
“That’s not the point. Let’s not focus on having a perfect romantic evening with perfect romantic music and focus on this weird kind of love. There are a different kind of love out there and only our kind of one is real for us. The weird kind of one,” she spoke.
“I am not weird, you are weird,” he punched on her arm.
“I am not weird, you are weird,” she punched back.
“Up for a choco lava cake?” she asked and turned down the volume again. This time he didn’t complain.

-Himanshu Appie Chhabra

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The First Consequence, A very short story by HAC

“It wasn’t really a great idea to invite me over for a drink right after your break up this evening.” She placed the bottle on the coffee table and comforted him with a hug.

He looked pissed, still hugged back, trying to be cheerful.

“What happened to your eyes? Someone made you cry or didn’t sleep last night?” he seemed really concerned. “I am extremely sorry, I didn’t know you were in such a bad state, else I wouldn’t have called you.”

She opened the bottle in response. She was too tired of answering people, when they already knew it. “Let me bring the glasses,” he excused himself, noticing she didn’t want to answer. He came back with ice, two glasses, and snacks.

“Since when you started to drink it neat?” he questioned, seeing her putting no soda or water in it.

“Since the day my boyfriend started behaving like a real d*ck,” the glasses were clinched and she found her throat burn, as she emptied it.

“Don’t remind me of my girlfriend,” he gulped down his sorrows too and corrected himself, “Ex-girlfriend.”

“Why people fall in love? It was really a stupid idea to make him my boyfriend. We were good as friends.” It was a long conversation and the bottle was almost empty by then.

“They fall in love because they are unaware of the consequences,” he kissed her out of nowhere. Their lips met, and she kissed back. Alcohol here was to be blamed.

“And, what are those consequences?” she broke the kiss only to kiss him again.

“If we were aware of them we would never fall for each other repeatedly,” the glass fell off the table as she leaned over him and lay on his chest.

“I’m sorry for pissing you off,” she finally said.

“I’m sorry for making you cry,” he too didn’t keep her sorry for too long.

They both slept right there on the couch. It was the most comfortable nap for both of them. “We can never fall out of love buddy,” she blabbered before surrendering her mind to sleep completely.

“The first consequence,” he closed his eyes and disposed a sigh of relief.

-Himanshu Appie Chhabra

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Grenades and Soap Bubbles, A short story by HAC

“The fault in our stars,” he chuckled. She looked at him as a murderer of the moment and went back to reading. Their flight was delayed, while he was getting bored, she almost drowned in her book.

“I’m a grenade and at some point I’m going to blow up,” he disturbed her again with a quote from the book and waited for her to complete it.

“And I would like to minimize the causalities, Okay?” she completed it with a smile.

“Okay,” he smiled back.

“I didn’t know you had this quote still in your skull, what else do you remember?” he has her full attention.

“I remember that no one told Hazel Grace that she was not a grenade, instead she was a soap bubble,” he chipped wafers in his mouth.

She waited for him to explain. He didn’t. But kept looking at her.

She gave it a thought and put her opinion on it “Soap bubble? Yeah! I guess. She surely short-lived but didn’t hurt anyone. Like a soap bubble, she floated through everyone’s life and spread happiness. Everyone around her carried the same spark in their eyes that one can see in a kid’s eyes, laughing and clapping at a soap bubble,” she closed the book and ran her fingers on the cover, as if feeling it.

“No, I meant somebody blew through her mother to bring her into life,” he laughed. “But you make sense too.”

She laughed with him, and declared him a total jerk. Totally unaware of the fact that he had seen her cry while reading the book. And, he chose to be a boy first that could make her smile with lame jokes before being a man who could comfort her in his arms and wipe her tears off. Because, wiping off tears is soothing, but making her believe that tears do not exist… is a whole new story. 

-Himanshu Appie Chhabra

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'SNOW BURIED PROMISES' A tribute to the martyrs of Siachen Avalanche.

More than anything else, the promise was to come back.
But up there, the mountains had different plans. They moved, as the unforgivable snow came sweeping down the terrain in threatening waves, shrouding the brave lives with a cold jacket of death. However, they stayed just like that – meeting death in its eye below the frozen earth; crushed by the snow; blood slowly ceasing in their limbs, as life kept company of their mangled bodies, no better than that last leaf on a withered tree in storm. It was waiting, fighting and trying to live, even when death had long owned them. And I am sure it was nothing, absolutely nothing but their lonely will to survive, the power of the prayers their loved one’s muttered in devotion through every single day of their being away on the frozen mountains, purchasing peace with life and those promises above all, that kept dragging their gritty heart to its next possible thump.

The name itself rose terror – Siachen Glacier. 20,000 feet above earth, lost in snow, right up at the Line of Control between Indian and Pakistan, along the eastern Karakoram Range of the great Himalayas. A place where life is not programmed to survive and hence, any existence there in a temperature of -60, with the hopeless sky almost falling upon the icy blue mountains, came at the very mercy of death.

No sooner than the news of an Avalanche rocking Siachen was sent out, rescue teams, provided with every life supporting amenities were flown in to the land of devastation – deployed with the seemingly impossible task of recovering those trapped, fighting souls from under the enormous covering of concrete snow. As electronic saws and drills rattled the glacier, the Jawans united by the mad compassion of rescuing their fellow mates, it was only the frozen, lifelessness that, one after another, started to reach up their searching hands in the sea of cold.

Death had almost won and the promises all looked untrue; till on the sixth day, thirty feet in snow, life was found feebly pulsating in frozen veins. Military aircraft had then flown through blinding mist and that miracle survivor, Lance Naik Hanaman Thappa, was airlifted to RR Hospital in Delhi. What looked a futile search, a failed rescue operation till then, cutting through acres of ice round the clock atop one of the highest place in the world and finding brave heart Thappa down there, had suddenly brought the nation together in a sudden burst of joy. Not only was his extraction from 30 feet beneath the snow a magical, unbelievable effort by the rescue team, but also his being alive and the hopes for his survival, were just starting to be the much needed aid to the deep sadness of the death of all the other soldiers.

But at last death won. The iron soul succumbed. And sadness, like a pregnant wave, came rushing all the way from the mountains and closed upon the country in tears and shattered hopes. The blood, perhaps, had long became ice in his veins, but Naik’s heart continued to walk that extra mile. The bones sure had contracted to the point of crumbling, but the skin never fell off. And what really makes this possible, what really adds those extra hours to your existence when death had owned you, is nothing but the power love.

....If only love could breathe life back to the promises that all broke and died upon the mountains in snow. All the promise to be back home. To the familiar air of his village. To the moments of sitting together at meals with your loved ones. And to the playful trotting horse he became every time, Netra, his 2 year old daughter, propped up on his back.

© Sobhan Pramanik

‪#‎BraveHearts‬
‪#‎SiachenAvalanche‬
‪#‎RIP

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PROHIBITED

'PROHIBITED'‬

Like wildlife reserves, even relations come with their own well demarcated, accessible and prohibited zones. There are these spaces where everyone is allowed. Every single soul, in their free, undisturbed roam can go wandering without any inhibition or even bothering to measure the consequences of their doings. Such spaces naturally come with an uncalled safety. There's really no one to probe you with the protectiveness of it all. Simply being ...there, letting yourself uncoil along the tide of your independent thoughts, you cannot help but feel immensely secured. And on the other hand there are these prohibited zones marked with red on your map, where we don't even desire to be present in person to feel the vulnerability. The very demarcation, the fact of being unguarded and above all, the fear in our heart, pursues our mind with an alacrity that manages to keep us away from such zones and their privacies forever intact.

I regret that I loved you from the accessible space in me. However, it really saddens me to absorb the idea of letting you into that region, coming right up close to my feelings. And just when I had my love plucked out of my heart, blossoming and fragrant and have kept it on your palm, hoping you would cherish it forever, the same way I did it for you, you closed your fingers and crushed those breathing petals. Killing me altogether.

But then, I also loved you enough to keep aside a prohibited zone for myself, where no one dared to venture. Not you. Not anyone. Up there in my protected solitude, where the most dangerous animals are believed to reside, my feelings wander free - untouched and true at its heart. And sometimes, when the fact of being killed by you on the outer spaces of my world becomes a regret, it is those very feelings in my heart that becomes those wild, feared animals that keeps the world at bay and you, tightly held against my chest.

© Sobhan Pramanik

[Write with us and get your stories, articles and poems featured here. Contact - iampurplepen@gmail.com]

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Magician, A Short story by Himanshu Chhabra

“You are a charmer,” she said, curling up under my arm so that my hand rested on her head. She read an abstract from my laptop before concluding this statement.

Before I could give her a response, my mind stopped me to notice the beauty of how we were surrendered with the darkness and how she soaked all the light genesis out of my laptop screen. The light was evident of the intensity with which she was looking at me for the response.

“Magician to be precise,” I finally responded. With no clue why I said that, and what I was supposed to say next. She made herself more comfortable in my hold. And, in that particular marathon of second, I felt the glory of every new cell she touched on my skin and sadness of every cell she untouched. I felt my skin fragmented by the fragrance of her skin.

“I am a magician. Have you seen them doing their tricks? Have you seen how magic works? How they take all your attention to one irrelevant point and do something where your attention isn't. Same goes with me. I will look deep into your eyes, as if I will dig your soul out of them. I will neatly keep all your attention with my eyes. Your eyes quaffing mine and then I will put my palm on your waist. You will think that you got my trick. That I will do something with your waist. You will pretend that all your attention is in my eyes but your mind will secretly follow my moves on your waist. How limited I am with the way I touch you, soft and tranquil. And, I will do nothing. I will just hold you for a while and then move my hand away. You won’t have a clue that your heart isn’t there anymore. I would steal your heart with stillness of my eyes and coldness of my touch. That's how you will know that I am not a charmer but magician.”

She smiled.

“I don’t believe you.” She folded my laptop and we were accompanied by complete darkness.

“You don’t believe what?” I asked.

She held my hand and placed it on her waist, “That your hand will land between my second base and the third base and you will pull it away.” She pressed her lips against mine.

She was right. I didn’t pull my hand away. (I won’t tell you where they went. Ummm… Abracadabra, they disappeared.) The magician was amused itself the way he was tricked by his own trick.

-Himanshu Appie Chhabra

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