I started my journey home. Just out of college I got a job, in the city, and was in my probation period. It was not wise to go on leave, but I received a call from my father saying that my mother became mad and my presence there was essential.On the way home, along the hilly road, our bus was stopped, at a hamlet, for tea. Getting down, I walked a bit away, went behind a bush and started emptying my bladder. As I was doing so, I was not aware, then, that a woman nearby was looking at my out-of-fly secrecy. When I noticed her presence I felt awkward, but she smiled at me. A mad woman she was. Thought of my mother flashed in me. I smiled back. And the mad woman voiced, "A big penis you have there to give solace to a lair so dear."All the way home I was wondering on the mad woman's remark.On reaching home, I found my mother quite normal, but my father and sister had already condemned her as mad. By evening, I came to realize, they were right. My mother started talking in an incoherent

You could blame it on the situation. The temple queue was such a crush that it was inevitable that the people in the queue were pressed together in all sorts of awkward ways.But when Srikant, an 18-year old from her neighborhood first brushed against Shobha aunty (mami) in that crowd he was guilty of allowing it to happen rather easily.He had always secretly fantasized about Shobha aunty, with her full bosom and enticing way of wearing her saree.She always showed cleavage, her face was radiant and she wore flowers in her hair -- which somehow seemed raunchy to him.She always seemed dressed to seduce; or was it just the desire in the eyes of the 18- year old boy that she looked that seductive?And when she came up against the awkward and geeky youth from in the temple crowd, she recognized him from get togethers though she did not know him by name.She immensely preferred him to the anonymous males brushing up against her and crushing against her.And not all those brushes and crushes