Friday, October 31, 2008

'extra'-ordinary

Rajiv always liked to watch the junior artistes, or extras, whenever a funeral scene or any other serious scene played on the big screen. He chuckled when he spotted some dumb oaf in the last row of 'mourners' smiling at the camera to catch its attention.

Today was no different. A similar funeral scene was playing and everyone was sitting around the 'dead body', dabbing their glycerined eyes. The heroine sniffed into her hanky. Heart-rending scene indeed. But Rajiv was busy looking at the lesser actors, shaking their heads vigorously, and wailing their guts out. He smiled. Then he looked at one girl who was standing in a corner. The camera was not directly focused on her, her face partially hidden behind another face. That was odd. She looked familiar. Maybe acted in some dumb TV serial. Rajiv craned his neck. Then he realized how stupid that was. It was a two dimensional screen, stupid...he laughed at himself. Then the camera moved and zoomed on the girl. She looked up. At him. He didn't know how to react. Then she tilted her head to her right, as if telling him to turn to his left. He turned his head slowly. It was her, sitting beside him, but watching straight at the screen. He swallowed and turned to the screen again. She was gone.

And so was the girl on his left.

******

13 comments:

Pinku said...

cinema hall mein bhi tumhare bhoot peecha nahi chodenge????

continue this one na....

Anonymous said...

does 'looked familiar' mean a 'continued...' .. nice one :)

phatichar said...

pinku: *groan...iska bhi sequel chahiye??

manu: :-) thx..don't think it was 'continued' any more.. hehe

Mampi said...

hahhhhahahahaha

tum nahi badlo'gey.....

and I love Pinku's suggestion. Now that is two genius women asking for a sequel. I can imagine your expression now... in a two dimensional screen in fact.

Nirav said...

Nice read... creepy as usual

Mama - Mia said...

back afta ages!

very nice read, yet again!!

cheers!

abha

phatichar said...

mampi: :-) thanks, but I think I'm done with sequels (unless of course something irresistable comes my way) ;-)

nirav: hey, thanks man

mama-mia: welcome back! :-)

Priya Iyer said...

i thot i left a comment here, but it disappeared! :( anyways, just wanted to say - glad to see u blogging again, and the post is as spooky as ever! keep 'em coming! :)

phatichar said...

priya iyer: glad to be back..sorry 'bout your missing comment. Guess it got influenced by my stories.. ;-) (kidding)

Anonymous said...

V spooky and v nice. :D
And that was quite a huge gap betn the posts .... :)

phatichar said...

alice: Thanks..yeah, agree that was a huge gap. Will try to be consistent now...

Bhavya said...

You know, I'm the kind of person who hardly ever reads/watches thrillers/horror stories/mystery stories... but this is becoming a little addictive. Keep up the good work!

phatichar said...

Bhavya: That was flattering.. thanx :-)