The skin was stretched tight, paler than the rest of her body. Like warm honey. Das thought if he licked it, it would taste different from the rest of her. Instead he gently placed one hand over his wife’s belly and continued staring at it.
She sighed from somewhere above his head. “Your hands are cold,” she grumbled.
He took his hands away and repositioned the nightie over her stomach before he kissed it for the third time that morning. Anita sighed again.
“What’s wrong?”
“Everything. The usual. It doesn’t matter. He’ll come soon.”
“She,” Das corrected.
Normally they would get into a loving tug-of-war over names and gender. But Anita had been growing tired in the last few weeks of pregnancy. She was weary of all the people patting her belly, asking her when the child was due, offering suggestions on pre-natal and post-natal care, giving her oranges she’d craved for through the pregnancy. She wanted to have the baby and be done with it.
Das was a lot more enamoured by the invisible but very powerful being that was kicking his wife’s gut. He almost did not mind that he’d not made love to her in the last few months. They had been married twelve years and had been trying for a baby for eight of those years.
“Biju, I’ve been having bad dreams,” Anita said. She looked up at Das from her hands. He was sitting at the edge of the bed, beside her feet. He placed his hands on her swollen ankles.
“I know. I sleep next to you, remember? And we don’t do much to tire me out anymore, so I don’t sleep as deeply as...” he trailed off, smirk fading, seeing Anita was not going to crack a grin.
“We’ve waited so long, I just think something is....” she trailed off. She looked down at her hands again, which were splayed over her belly.
Das did not say anything. He continued to rub her feet, pressing down and easing kinks in the parts he knew ached most.
**
“Still no news from your parents?” It was more a statement than a question from Das. Anita’s silence bounced off the walls.
“Don’t worry about them,” he continued, “We’ll send them a picture of the baby. It’ll have some grandmother’s nose and one uncle’s unibrow, and they will love it and call us right away.”
“I’m not worrying about them, you are,” she replied.
They’d moved into his parents’ house in Kolkata for the last few weeks of her pregnancy. Das’ parents loved their daughter-in-law and usually she loved them too, but her strain was palpable. As her stomach stretched tighter and the baby kicked harder, the lines on Anita’s face deepened each day.
She missed her mother. Das knew that during their dozen years together, whenever she was particularly tired or unwell and she wept, it was because she wanted her mother. Though the pregnancy had been normal, and a blessing after so long, Anita’s want for her mother didn’t go away. Even when they were desperately trying for a child, there were times when Anita would blame her parents once she realised she was not pregnant. “They cursed our marriage,” she would say.
Das never knew what to say because he knew that she loved her parents nonetheless. His murmured dissent was all he’d offered at those times before distracting her with other things.
Anita was standing in front of the window later that day, watching motorcycles on the road whizz by, the neighbour arguing with the vegetable-seller over the price of aubergines. The older women had both tucked their long, oiled hair into buns held up by black hair-pins, one stood in the blazing May sun, the other in the shadow of her verandah. Anita heard the raised voices squabbling in melodious Bengali. She still couldn’t understand much of the language besides a few vegetable names, the words for love and anger. She promised herself her son would be fluent in both parents’ languages and in English too. He wouldn’t speak the broken English his parents spoke when they’d first met each other.
Anita remembered when she first taught Das how to speak Malayalam. She’d hoped he would impress her Kerala-village-born parents with his grasp of the language and that they would forgive him for sweeping their daughter off her feet. But her parents never understood her falling in love with a circus technician, a man outside their caste, creed and state. She tried not to remember the raised voices, threats and tears, which ended in her mother giving her the most valuable pair of earrings in her cupboard and her largest box to pack, not saying a word or shedding another tear.
Anita sighed. The vegetable-lady had moved on and could be heard complaining to her Mrs Das. Anita’s mother-in-law was a plump, maternal lady with a fierce temper and a great, big heart. Enough to nearly make Anita forget about her own mother. Mrs Das was paying no attention to the vegetable-seller’s mutterings, asking for fresh spinach (“Anita needs some greens you know. And where are those mangoes you gave me last week? No, not the Amrapalli ones, she didn’t like those much”), and checking the consistency of the tomatoes. Das had trotted downstairs to his mother. She could picture them – him grinning at the woman and answering questions about the wife and baby, while his mother sorted through the basket, asking Das whether he would eat his peas that night. It would lead to a gentle exchange, with Mrs Das deciding to ask Anita how she made his vegetables and got him to eat them, with grated coconut and cumin seeds.
Anita felt the baby kicking again. She suddenly heard a faint popping noise before she felt a warm gush between her legs.
**
Anita’s face was blotchy. She’d been crying for hours and refused to eat anything.
Das and his parents tried to calm her down, Mr Das even suggested a mild sedative, but Mrs Das wouldn’t have it. “The girl has tried for a baby for nearly ten years, she finally has one and he... his... he’s not made properly? Of course she will be upset! Don’t you dare put her to sleep, she needs to let it out!” she shouted in Bengali before storming back into her daughter-in-law’s room.
Anita was savagely blowing her nose into a handkerchief the size of a small towel. “When can I see him?” Her hair was tightly bound in a bun, she was wearing her own navy-blue nightgown – one she’d made especially for her breastfeeding days, with a zip that opened the front of the gown down to the top of her belly.
Mrs Das took the liberty to sit on the bed next to Anita, and shook her head. “He’s too weak, daughter.” This led to more tears as Mrs Das expected. She opened her arms and drew Anita into them patting her on the head with one hand, rubbing her back with the other. Through sobs, Anita spluttered, “It’s all her fault... That horrible mother of mine, her drishti ... She won’t... She just won’t accept Biju and me...”
Outside the room, her husband and father-in-law were speaking to a pair of doctors treating the baby.
“I don’t understand... If it is so bad, how did the doctors not see this before? Anita had scans taken through her pregnancy...” Das trailed off.
“This isn’t something scans can pick up yet,” the male doctor responded.
“Wait, so basically his kidneys are compromised and, and his waste is poisoning him and you can’t do anything about it?” Mr Das asked. The female doctor nodded, and noticing how anxious the Das men looked, said, “He’s on dialysis, he’ll regularly need that. He’s also on IV fluids... All we’re saying is that right now he’s too weak for surgery. We can only do that when he’s stronger. Aside from that everything is fine.”
“Aside from his nine fingers and his kidneys pumping poison into him? Forget the fingers, but, his kidneys? FINE?” Das shouted.
The doctors shifted uneasily. Senior Das placed his hand on his son’s shoulder and asked them, “How long do you think that would be?”
The two in white coats exchanged looks. The woman answered, “It could be anything between six months to a year or two. We can’t tell. It depends entirely on the state of his health. Nothing can be done till he is much better.”
***
It was the day after his surgery, and Varun hadn’t woken from anaesthesia. His heart had stopped once during surgery and once after. He’d been revived, but the Das’ remained worried. His doctors argued their case. “The procedure went fine, everything is alright now. He is in good health, his kidneys are functioning normally...”
“Then why isn’t he waking up?” Anita asked them early that morning.
“It could be his heart. After the kidneys poison his system, it could have slowly reached his heart, and it could be-” “Could?” Anita spat.
When they were alone, Mrs Das had gently asked her, “Child, have you had any news...” she hesitated before finishing, “from your parents?” She’d heard her daughter-in-law speak of her parents often, but they were mentioned less and less over the years. She’d never asked about them before.
Anita’s head swirled with thoughts of her three-year-old never waking up again; she did not even notice Mrs Das broaching a taboo topic. “No, Ma. I would’ve told you if they had...” She took a deep breath and put her hand on her mother-in-law’s. “Don’t worry, he’s not going to leave us, he has plenty of time to see his other grandparents.”
Later when Mrs Das was asleep, Anita and the deep bags under her eyes slipped away from the hospital and the smell of antiseptic to send her parents another letter. After slipping the letter into the post-box, she spent a few minutes in the bustling car park, watching other families come and go. Sometimes she wished for a nicotine habit like Das’ that could give her a few moments of peace every day. When she returned to the waiting room, she looked at her family for a moment before entering.
Her husband hadn’t shaved and smelled of sweat and cigarettes. Mr Das had gone home with her the night before, so they were both bathed and fresh that morning. Anita wanted to wash as well, but chose not to leave her three-year-old son’s bedside for very long.
She finally stepped into the room. “Any news?”
“In the five minutes you’ve been away? No.”
Mrs Das hissed at her son’s sarcasm. Anita barely noticed his bite anymore. Both their lives centred around Varun, his frequent trips to the hospital, his dialysis, infections, medications and fevers.
While Das had been with the circus, Anita had also started home-schooling Varun – she began with English and moved to Math while Mrs Das taught him (and Anita) Bengali alphabets.
As soon as Varun was in better health, he was sent off for surgery. Anita was almost disappointed. She’d gotten used to her baby running about their house in Kolkata when he had the strength, speaking in a muddle of languages to his toys, helping in the kitchen. He was a cheerful child despite spending much of his time in the hospital – he didn’t realise that he wasn’t ordinary. It never occurred to him to ask his mother why he rarely met other children at the hospital or why he had nine fingers instead of ten.
**
Some weeks after Varun’s surgery, a letter arrived in the Das’ post-box. It had Anita’s handwriting on it. A letter to her parents that came back from Kerala with a ‘Return to Sender’ stamp.
Amma and Appa,
Varun is not well. I don’t want to take up any of your time so I will just briefly tell you.
He went into surgery for his kidney trouble. It went okay and his kidneys are much better now. But for some reason he is not waking up from his anaesthetic.
That’s all I wanted to say. I’m not sending a picture of him this time.
Your only daughter,
Anita Mammen-Das
Mrs Das saw that the letter had been unsealed and re-sealed, so she did not tell her daughter-in-law about its return. Why upset her even more? She threw it away and returned to her grandson.
Varun had been moved home after many weeks in the hospital, machines pumping breath into his body for the first few weeks. His kidneys functioned and soon his lungs did too, but he showed no signs of waking up, confounding all medical staff who examined him.
Das was distraught, while his wife robotically went about tending to Varun, washing him and changing his clothes everyday, checking that his IV fluids were flowing well. The grandparents were doubly unhappy, over Varun and also their son and daughter-in-law’s downward spiral. One of the two always spent the night on a mat in Varun’s room, while the other cried themself to sleep in the bed meant for them. Das’ regular snipes about his wife’s non-existent family did nothing to solve the matter. Even his mother’s stern reproaches didn’t stop him.
The old lady finally told him one morning over their chai: “Go back to work. There is nothing you can do here.”
Das dipped his biscuit in tea, not replying. He took it out too late – it disintegrated and fell into the milky tea, splashing his white vest. He sighed, finally looking up into his mother’s eyes, which were gleaming.
“That’s what happens when you try to ignore your mother and shout at your poor wife.”
Das looked down again. For the first time there was shame in his eyes. Mrs Das didn’t need to look at his eyes. She reached out and placed her hand over the tanned knuckles tightly gripping the tumbler of tea. “We’ll look after them till he wakes up. And he will. Don’t you worry, puchka.”
Das waited a moment before getting up, his chair grating. His jaw was clenched tight as he headed towards his bedroom, their bedroom, he reminded himself. When he got there, he pushed the door to open it, but it was locked.
Then he remembered that Anita had started locking the door while she dressed.
When Anita stepped out of her room she nearly tripped over her husband. “What are you doing?” she asked. Das stood up and walked into the room, gesturing for her to follow. Anita frowned, opening her mouth to say, “Varun-”
“Is asleep. And your blouse isn’t buttoned properly.”
Frowning, she stepped back into the room, reaching behind, towards her blouse. She hadn’t had the time to wash her regular blouses, and she hated using the ones with buttons she couldn’t reach.
Das didn’t say anything, simply shutting the door and reaching to help her. Anita dropped her hands in shock – it’d been months since Das touched her. She frowned deeper and started to squawk when she realised he was undoing her buttons.
When Anita turned, Das placed his hands on her shoulders. “I’m sorry,” he shocked her once more. He continued, “If I hadn’t married you... if you’d married another... you wouldn’t, this wouldn’t...” He trailed off.
Anita slowly took his hands off her shoulders and stared, expressionless, into his eyes for a moment. Then she reached for the safety-pin that pinned her sari to her blouse and removed it, placing it in her husband’s palm.
Das finally allowed his eyes to tear up.
**
Amma and Appa,
Here is the last picture I am sending you of my son, Varun Das. He is still asleep, but he has grown quite big in the last one year since his surgery.
I’m sorry I’ve wasted yours and my time writing to you the last twelve years. I thought one day you would forgive me. Since that isn’t going to happen, I will never contact you again.
I wish you all the happiness in the world.
Anita Das
**
Das jumped out of the black taxi, yelling to the driver, “Just throw my bags inside the gate, please, thank you brother!” and ran towards his parents’ front door.
The door was open, his mother was standing at the entrance talking to the neighbourhood milk-man about the jump in milk prices.
“Son! Did you get my message about-”
Das was not interested in anything besides getting to his son. “Ma, hi, I’ll come to you...” Mrs Das yelled back the blur that was her son, “Wait, there’s someone in there, come back and I’ll tell you what... Bijoy!”
Das had run up the stairs to Varun’s room by then. The door was ajar, he pushed it open and saw his son, grown since the last time he’d seen him. There were two things that caught Das’ eye – Varun was sitting upright, not quite wide-eyed, but dozing off because his legs were being massaged by a grey-haired woman.
Das realised the smell that had invaded his senses was that of coconut oil – something he’d only smelt in his wife’s hair and cooking before. When the woman looked up at him, hesitantly, he realised why she was lovingly kneading the child’s oily legs.
The eyes he was looking into were identical to his wife’s dark brown eyes.
He stood speechless while Varun squealed for his father and tried to stand up. Das went over to his little boy and wrapped his arms around him. He stood there for several moments before Varun stumbled and the woman told him, in Malayalam, “Sit down, your legs aren’t strong enough yet.” Das was torn between shouting at her for telling his son to stop hugging his own father, or to be grateful she finally came.
Anita broke the silence. She’d slipped in without her husband realising.
“Ma, it’s fine.” There was a long, awkward silence before she continued in Malayalam, “You remember Bijoy.”
Her mother nodded, standing up and wiping her oily hands on her sari. She mumbled about leaving them alone before Das’ manners kicked in. He quickly stepped over to where his mother-in-law stood and bent to touch her feet respectfully. In broken Malayalam he said, “It’s good to meet you again, Mother.”
The woman froze, not knowing how to react. She looked at her daughter with big eyes and fled out of the room stifling a shameful sob.
Anita’s expression changed to one of amusement. “Thank you for rubbing that in.” She embraced her husband, who still had stars in his eyes.
Their son giggled and bounced in his bed. His lengthened frame made the wooden frame creak loudly. Das went and sat by him, pulling his wife and drawing her into their circle as well.
“Want to tell me how that happened?” he asked.
Anita shrugged. “I don’t really know. She just showed up out of the blue some weeks ago. And-”
“Your father?”
Her eyes fell, “He passed away last month... They’ve been with my elder brother’s family. His wife wasn’t good to them and Acha had been unwell. He wanted to see me, but...”
“But he’s a stubborn old coot.” Das corrected himself, “Was. Sorry.”
“Biju!” She gasped.
“It’s true, you know it.”
“Well, the stubborn old coot left us his old house.”
“Coot, coot, coot, coot” Varun echoed.
His father laughed and hugged him again before the boy said, “Amamma kissed me awake. Didn’t she, Ma?” He tripped over the new word he had learnt for his grandmother.
Das cocked an eyebrow, switching to Hindi, which Varun did not understand yet. “Load of crock. What happened, what woke him?”
“Actually...” Silence.
“You’re joking.” Das’ voice was still disbelieving.
“Well, she just kissed him on his cheeks. Both. And she cried. On him. And that night he woke up. We called the doctor, the same one you know, and he came home at 2 in the morning to check him. He said he is fine. That everything is alright. No explanations.”
Varun was whining, pulling his father’s shirt while Anita spoke. When Das looked at him incredulously, the boy said, “I have to go bathroom.”
The parents exchanged looks. “Number two,” the boy added.
His father broke into a huge grin.
**(the end)**
Showing posts with label fiction. Show all posts
Showing posts with label fiction. Show all posts
Friday, 13 February 2015
Tuesday, 30 December 2014
457 Oak Wood Circle
I stood outside the house. 457 Oak Wood Circle. How pretentious did that sound for an Indian home? Did I really want to meet the people inside? What if they were having a get-together? What if they told me to go away? Worse, what if they were having a party and invited me in? What would my family say if they knew where I was?
The air was crisp as I took a deep breath. Fresh and a welcome change from my hometown’s heat and pollution. The house was large from the outside, it looked tastefully done with its manicured garden and ornate black lamps hanging from various ceilings. I didn’t hear any voices – what if they weren’t home.
Answering my question, a figure walked through one of the rooms while switching on the lights. I couldn’t tell if it was a man or a woman. Then I heard a dog bark. My heart jumped. Anyone who owns a dog and is good to it has to have a good heart, even if it’s buried somewhere deep. My friend had laughed when I told her that. But I’d always believed it to be true.
So I opened the gate and shut it behind me, as quietly as I could. I walked up the sloping driveway. Another tiny rose garden on my right and two cars before me – a silver small one and a larger red one. Who was the second car for?
I should not judge a book by its cover, I reminded myself. It had happened very often as a child with my mother. She never married. We were constantly judged. You get the gist.
I tried not to think of my mother. Memories from my childhood, adulthood, from her funeral – it was all too much.
I took a deep breath and looked at some of the other houses. The smell was unlike anything I had ever come across. Fresh, clear, leafy, it cleared my head as I breathed it in. If it had a colour, it would be one of those deep orangey-browns, I decided.
The other houses were as perfect as the one I stood in front of. Spacious lawns, big windows, clean cars in the driveway.
I turned around and looked at the door once more before walking up to it. I wiped my palms on my jacket. My heart was beating so hard that I didn’t hear the doorbell when I rang it.
The door was opened by a older woman, dressed neatly in a sari with her hair tied back in a braid. She smiled politely.
“Hi. Can I help you?”
“Does Rahul Wadia live here?”
“Yes. Both of them do.”
“Both?”
“Yes, junior and senior,” she laughed.
I swallowed. “Well, I think I’m here for the senior.”
“You think?”
“I’ve never met him before, so...”
Her eyes grew suspicious. “Who are you?”
“I’m his son.”
I wondered if she was going to let me inside.
The air was crisp as I took a deep breath. Fresh and a welcome change from my hometown’s heat and pollution. The house was large from the outside, it looked tastefully done with its manicured garden and ornate black lamps hanging from various ceilings. I didn’t hear any voices – what if they weren’t home.
Answering my question, a figure walked through one of the rooms while switching on the lights. I couldn’t tell if it was a man or a woman. Then I heard a dog bark. My heart jumped. Anyone who owns a dog and is good to it has to have a good heart, even if it’s buried somewhere deep. My friend had laughed when I told her that. But I’d always believed it to be true.
So I opened the gate and shut it behind me, as quietly as I could. I walked up the sloping driveway. Another tiny rose garden on my right and two cars before me – a silver small one and a larger red one. Who was the second car for?
I should not judge a book by its cover, I reminded myself. It had happened very often as a child with my mother. She never married. We were constantly judged. You get the gist.
I tried not to think of my mother. Memories from my childhood, adulthood, from her funeral – it was all too much.
I took a deep breath and looked at some of the other houses. The smell was unlike anything I had ever come across. Fresh, clear, leafy, it cleared my head as I breathed it in. If it had a colour, it would be one of those deep orangey-browns, I decided.
The other houses were as perfect as the one I stood in front of. Spacious lawns, big windows, clean cars in the driveway.
I turned around and looked at the door once more before walking up to it. I wiped my palms on my jacket. My heart was beating so hard that I didn’t hear the doorbell when I rang it.
The door was opened by a older woman, dressed neatly in a sari with her hair tied back in a braid. She smiled politely.
“Hi. Can I help you?”
“Does Rahul Wadia live here?”
“Yes. Both of them do.”
“Both?”
“Yes, junior and senior,” she laughed.
I swallowed. “Well, I think I’m here for the senior.”
“You think?”
“I’ve never met him before, so...”
Her eyes grew suspicious. “Who are you?”
“I’m his son.”
I wondered if she was going to let me inside.
She
All I did that night was watch her.
She was attractive, to say the least. But she was a walking cliché I had never met or expected to meet. She may not have been older than the two girlfriends she’d come with, but the way she carried herself seemed more... mature.
I did not know her name. Yet.
She was in a black and white dress with loose straps, that fitted loosely across her waist. It did not reveal much, but it was enough. Slender legs in flat open-toed slippers, a large purple bag across one shoulder, black and white pearls across a neck and her very visible collar bones. She did not smile often at the man with them, but when she smiled at her friends, it lit up the dark pub.
She drank beer.
I was working that night, so it was distracting me that she was at my table. I wondered who she knew from my office, whether she was already dating one of my male colleagues. I hoped she was not that stupid. I wondered why I had never met her during my six years in the city. Although I had a feeling I already knew the answer. She did not seem the extremely social type.
When I saw a colleague go up to her and throw her arms around her, I heaved a sigh of relief. I'd finally find out who she was.
Merin returned and I tried to ask her if she had called friends to the event, but we got dragged into hosting yet another contest to give away some freebies.
Every minute felt like a year, but finally we wound up at the table reserved by our office. The girl was still there; she had asked a friend to take off her beads for her and was in the process of tying her hair. It took all my will power to stop from asking her not to. Her almost waist-length black locks were part of the reason I could not stop staring at her.
Merin finally introduced me to her, over the loud music and beer in our hands. She smiled politely and was about to walk away when she heard my surname. It turned out she was also from my part of the country.
Fifteen minutes later, when the pub was closing and we were all leaving, my mobile was richer by ten digits.
I stepped out and texted her.
“Hey, this is Daniel. Just thought you could save my number ”. I knew it was cheesy, but it had been a long day.
She did not reply.
--
All I did that night was watch her. She was so happy. Fiddling with her brand new Canon, clearing dishes from the table, chattering with her roommate and mother, occasionally bending down to kiss her dog on his whiskered cheek and returning to another friend who was teaching her to use the Canon.
It should have felt like I was coming home when I came to her. But I knew in two days she would be gone. To distant lands, beautiful skies, scenic beauty, snow, festivals and state of the art libraries.
My heart broke a little that night, but she just thought I was feeling tired. It broke when she leaned her chin atop my scruffy hair. She probably thought I was too tired to respond, but I felt something die when I felt her. I knew it could be the last time.
I thought of the first few times I saw her – in her black and white dress, in her orange shirt and jeans, in her night shirt and ethnic looking shorts when she was unwell... that was when her facade first cracked, when I bought her medicines and chicken soup, forgetting she was a vegetarian.
I memorised her face that night, as she bent over the camera. With her grey framed spectacles, black t-shirt and red pajamas. The orange slippers she slipped on when she dropped me home. I inhaled the scent of her as I sat beside her in the car, as she drummed her fingers on the steering wheel along to a song on the radio.
It took everything in my power not to hold her when she left me, as she was sitting in the driver’s seat, brows furrowed as she looked into the rear view mirror. And when she said, “See you on Saturday, dollface,” I tried not to crack and tell her I would not be there to say goodbye.
It was raining that night, but I did not notice. I had to handle another deluge.
She was attractive, to say the least. But she was a walking cliché I had never met or expected to meet. She may not have been older than the two girlfriends she’d come with, but the way she carried herself seemed more... mature.
I did not know her name. Yet.
She was in a black and white dress with loose straps, that fitted loosely across her waist. It did not reveal much, but it was enough. Slender legs in flat open-toed slippers, a large purple bag across one shoulder, black and white pearls across a neck and her very visible collar bones. She did not smile often at the man with them, but when she smiled at her friends, it lit up the dark pub.
She drank beer.
I was working that night, so it was distracting me that she was at my table. I wondered who she knew from my office, whether she was already dating one of my male colleagues. I hoped she was not that stupid. I wondered why I had never met her during my six years in the city. Although I had a feeling I already knew the answer. She did not seem the extremely social type.
When I saw a colleague go up to her and throw her arms around her, I heaved a sigh of relief. I'd finally find out who she was.
Merin returned and I tried to ask her if she had called friends to the event, but we got dragged into hosting yet another contest to give away some freebies.
Every minute felt like a year, but finally we wound up at the table reserved by our office. The girl was still there; she had asked a friend to take off her beads for her and was in the process of tying her hair. It took all my will power to stop from asking her not to. Her almost waist-length black locks were part of the reason I could not stop staring at her.
Merin finally introduced me to her, over the loud music and beer in our hands. She smiled politely and was about to walk away when she heard my surname. It turned out she was also from my part of the country.
Fifteen minutes later, when the pub was closing and we were all leaving, my mobile was richer by ten digits.
I stepped out and texted her.
“Hey, this is Daniel. Just thought you could save my number ”. I knew it was cheesy, but it had been a long day.
She did not reply.
--
All I did that night was watch her. She was so happy. Fiddling with her brand new Canon, clearing dishes from the table, chattering with her roommate and mother, occasionally bending down to kiss her dog on his whiskered cheek and returning to another friend who was teaching her to use the Canon.
It should have felt like I was coming home when I came to her. But I knew in two days she would be gone. To distant lands, beautiful skies, scenic beauty, snow, festivals and state of the art libraries.
My heart broke a little that night, but she just thought I was feeling tired. It broke when she leaned her chin atop my scruffy hair. She probably thought I was too tired to respond, but I felt something die when I felt her. I knew it could be the last time.
I thought of the first few times I saw her – in her black and white dress, in her orange shirt and jeans, in her night shirt and ethnic looking shorts when she was unwell... that was when her facade first cracked, when I bought her medicines and chicken soup, forgetting she was a vegetarian.
I memorised her face that night, as she bent over the camera. With her grey framed spectacles, black t-shirt and red pajamas. The orange slippers she slipped on when she dropped me home. I inhaled the scent of her as I sat beside her in the car, as she drummed her fingers on the steering wheel along to a song on the radio.
It took everything in my power not to hold her when she left me, as she was sitting in the driver’s seat, brows furrowed as she looked into the rear view mirror. And when she said, “See you on Saturday, dollface,” I tried not to crack and tell her I would not be there to say goodbye.
It was raining that night, but I did not notice. I had to handle another deluge.
Day sleeper
Scratch, scratch, scratch.
I tried hard but couldn’t reach the itch on my back. Right smack in the middle of my back. Smack.
I growled. A passer-by gave me a strange look and walked away faster. Who cared. Why was he walking the streets that late at night anyway? I growled louder as if to affirm that yes, indeed, I was violent and it was better to walk away from me. I was too bothered by the itch to care.
I tried scratching my back against the wall. Didn’t work. I tried rolling on the pavement. Didn’t work. I gave up, panting, sweating profusely from my pink tongue. Pink. Bubblegum pink. They said it was pink. I don’t know. I can’t tell pink from brown. They said I was brown too. Like Jignesh’s skin. Like everybody’s skin. Not white, not black but deep, dark brown. Not that I knew the difference.
I could smell Jignesh. I waited. And waited. I was going to try scratching myself on the pavement again when I heard his steps. His smell grew stronger. I heard my name. “Murukku!” I broke into a run. I liked running. It made me sweat. And then I could see my tongue hanging from my mouth like an extra appendage. My pink tongue. So-called pink.
I ran and ran and ran. And then ran some more. I began to tire. I couldn’t run too far. He knew that I had only three legs. Where the hell was he? I smelt a million things. Not that it made a difference. Only Jignesh did at that moment, so I kept running in the direction of his smell.
His smell grew stronger as he got closer. I finally found him.
He looked happy to see me. I was overwhelmed with relief. I rubbed myself on his knee, as if I was asking him to scratch my back. He didn’t get the hint. Humans could be so dense sometimes. Ok, so I loved him, ok so he was my so-called master but that wasn’t more important than my persistent itch.
I gave up subtlety. I rolled around madly on the road, whining, growling and making funny noises. He got it. Relief. He scratched my back. More relief. Bliss.
Ah! So now that the emergency is over I suppose I can fill you in on my story. Not that it makes a difference to me but well, I should be polite. After all, a master is known by the dog he keeps.
I say poor because he is poor. Not out of sympathy. He is poor, so I am poor too. We are a pair or poor, brown animals. I say animal because he is one. All humans are animals. They just refuse to acknowledge the fact. Poor brown animals who think they’re smarter than other animals. I’ve heard they vary in colour and that there are many, many more. Not that it made a difference to me.
It was time for some food. I knew the road I was on. Mudaliar Road. I had no idea why these animals bothered naming roads. But then I figured that’s how they identified it. Anyway, I could not read. But I could smell. I could smell which roads had the food, which ones had just trash. This one always smelt good. There was always the strong stench of meat coming from Mudaliar Road. The other dogs knew this too. This wasn’t my turf so I always got their left-overs from the left-overs. If there were any.
There were this time. I silently thanked the people who cooked too much that week. The scratching had made me hungry.
I rummaged around the smelly bin and found what smelled so wonderful. Old dosa and biriyani. Heaven. I loved this street. People would cook too much wonderful food and throw away most of it. What a shame. But it fed us, those who walked the street. The street walkers, the rag pickers, the crows and a whole lot of other animals. It was the essence of our existence.
Even poor Jignesh. He was often reduced to eating out of the same bins that his dog ate from. That would be a blow to most human egos. Most. But it didn’t matter to Jignesh. He was so poor that he couldn’t even afford an ego. It didn’t really make a difference to him. Only one thing did seem to make a difference to him.
Daylight.
He was the only one who stayed at home when it was bright and came out when it was dark. They made fun of him. The other dogs. They mocked poor Jignesh. Not that it made a difference. They were the ones who got beaten up. Not me.
I feasted on the remains of the remnants of the biriyani. It wasn’t enough. I trotted off in search of smellier bins. You see, the smellier a bin is, the nicer the food in it is. It is not the other way around, as the humans think. The stronger the stench from these bins is, the faster they run away from them. They have this strange habit of closing their nose tight with their fingers when they near these bins. I wondered what it would be like to hold your own nose. Anyway, so we survived on food from the bins. So did Jignesh sometimes. I told you he was different.
I couldn’t smell him nearby. I guess he had gone to finish his work. Yes he did ‘work’. He picked up trash. I generally accompanied him and ate what I liked but I was preoccupied today. The itch had disturbed me. I needed some good smelly food in my system before I got back to normal.
Then I saw him. Or rather, he saw me. And he was not alone. No, I’m not talking about Jignesh. I was not supposed to be there. But I hadn’t expected him to be there either. I decided to be friendly. If I ran he would catch up with me and tear me apart. He came towards me, his paws not making the slightest noise even at this time of the night when everything was silent. Or should I say morning. The others followed, obviously following his lead. I knew he recognized me. They all did. I didn’t belong to any pack, I was a nobody. I was the loner, the wounded soldier, the perfect catch for any of them.
He sniffed at me. I sniffed and wagged my tail. He looked at me. I made sure I did not blink. Then he lifted up his head and barked. It was a half bark, half howl. At least that is what I thought it was. Maybe only leaders of packs did that so their bark-howls were different. The rest followed suit. I did too. I liked howling. I did it very rarely. It was fun.
He stopped. He walked away. Relief, for the second time that night. He walked towards the pavement. I knew what was coming. Up went his hind leg.
Marking territory is an art. Some dogs did it with flair. Some just looked like mediocre dogs trying to be the leader of a pack. This one appeared to be in the former category. He seemed dangerous. He let me go this time. I didn’t know if he would allow it to happen again though. I did not know if he was a friend or an enemy. Hence I placed him in the dangerous ‘neither friend nor enemy’ category.
I knew that I only had one friend. Jignesh. I went looking for him. I thought of when he had first found me. On the pavement, very late at night, many hours after I was left for dead. After the dogs had ravaged my body, at least a hundred pairs of legs walked past me. The crows were waiting on nearby trees, waiting for me to stop breathing. But only Jignesh picked me up. He took care of me and gave me everything he could. I was nearly dead, yet he took me home and helped me heal completely. Well, almost completely. My right hind-leg never healed properly.
The city was a cold one. I did not like it. It didn’t seem to care. For anybody. Whether it had two legs, four legs or even three. I wanted to go away with Jignesh. But he wouldn’t leave. He always hid when the sun came out. So I remained there. I didn’t know if people really managed to live in the city. We all just existed there. If some dog chewed your leg off you would die of pain or die trying to drag yourself off to safety. There was only one Jignesh after all and he had done his good deed already. He had already saved one life.
There was also a strong possibility of getting squashed by a vehicle. Squashed like a bug. I’d seen it happen. The animal’s insides would be outside. And nobody but the scavengers gave it any respect. They respected it. They cleaned up the mess.
That was one stench even I did not like. The ‘squashed bug’ stench.
I nearly got run over once; I didn’t want to die like that. Squashed like a bug. I did not want to die at all. I had nearly died once earlier as well, that was enough for me. I was saved by Jignesh the first time. A three-legged stray dog made no difference to the truck that mowed it down. Or the person behind the wheel. But I made a difference to Jignesh. And so I accompanied him in the dark hut during the day from then on.
Being in the city during the day was great sometimes. I missed it. I missed the light. But I realised after a while that I liked it better at night. Silence. I could hear things that weren’t heard otherwise. I saw things that weren’t seen otherwise. And so during the day I was inside the little dark hut. I spent it with Jignesh.
The hut was by the side of the city river. People washed clothes in the river, urinated in it, threw their garbage in it, bathed in it, played in it... They seemed to do everything they could in that greenish-brown muck. We isolated ourselves. Our hut was as far away from the other huts as possible. Of course that didn’t stop others from coming and poking their noses around. In a slum you can never be completely alone. It was obvious that Jignesh wanted to be alone, yet they would not leave him alone. Children would come and barge through the door, hurl insults and even stones at him and leave without closing the door. They would just open the door and leave, with Jignesh trembling and shielding himself from the light in the darkest, coldest corner of the small enclosed area.
I was a smart dog. But in the beginning I was stumped. I figured something must have happened a long time ago. Something which led to Jignesh avoiding the sunlight. But he never spoke about it. I had resigned myself to remaining in the dark when it came to Jignesh’s fear of daylight. At least I knew he would never go anywhere. He was too scared. I had seen him cower when the door burst open. I would try nudging it shut. At first he seemed surprised that I tried to understand his reaction to the light. I wondered why. How stupid did people think we animals were? Maybe he was surprised because nobody else understood it or tried to help him but a so-called ‘animal’ could.
In the beginning, I could not understand what made him act so crazy when it came to something as simple and essential as daylight. But then I sensed his fear, I could smell it. I saw his extreme reactions to the light – the shivering, the fits he would have, the sweating. I heard his cries when the door would burst open. Then I just tried to help in every way that I could. After a point of time I could sense his hunger, some of his essential needs. I would forage for food and bring back something for him if I sensed he was hungry. And I kept the door shut always. Always.
I remember the only time he ever fell ill. I did not know what was happening, but he smelt different. His smell got weaker and he smelt sour. He would shiver and then sweat, even though there was no light in the hut. I brought him newspaper to cover himself when he shivered. I stole bottles of anything I could find. Water mostly. And then I found a shop where those sour smelling people went. They always left with bottles or paper packets. I stole some of those bottles. ‘Medicine’ they called it. I had no idea what it was; I only hoped it would help Jignesh. I dug up the mud around the hut and stuffed it into cracks I found peeping out from under the door and walls. It prevented light from creeping through. I was scared then. But he got better. And then so did I.
How long would it take for Jignesh to get over his fear? How long would it be before he tried to live instead of merely existing? I didn’t even know if he had any family. I didn’t know if that would make much of a difference though
I continued walking through the streets, aimlessly. That’s when I found Mirchi. Quite by accident.
Mirchi was black with a white patch on her long, pointed tail. I didn’t know what friends were but perhaps you could call her my friend. We got along well. I was the only male dog who seemed uninterested in her and she was the only dog I liked. Perfect. She never liked any of the dogs who were interested in her. She just had their puppies.
She pretended to be cold and detached when in fact she had a heart of gold. She had saved me many a time from the jaws of death. Literally. Being an outsider, most dogs thought they had reason enough to kill me. Many had tried. Many had nearly succeeded. Mirchi had rescued me most of those times. Of course she was detached too. She would disappear suddenly for long stretches and reappear as suddenly. She always left her puppies to survive on their own and she never stuck to any particular male.
One would think that most female street dogs were like that. Not true. Leaders of packs did not like sharing. Mirchi was a different case altogether. I suppose she was an outsider too in a way. Like me. But she was hardly ever alone. She was often with her ‘men’ or puppies. This time she was alone, though.
I never asked where she went. I didn’t want answers and she didn’t like questions either. Perfect.
We ran in circles around each other. Detached and alienated we were, but I was happy to see her. I had fun with her…Running across different nieghbourhoods, eating to our hearts’ content. Then I saw that the sun would come up soon. I knew Jignesh would want to get back before... Well, before the sun rose.
I heard Jignesh’s whistle and a distant yell. ‘Murukku!’ I ran. With a limp of course. But I still ran. Mirchi knew about my strange life as a night creature. She never asked questions either.
I used to get bored. I never needed much sleep. Sometimes I would think to myself, why can’t I go out, and I used to slip out while Jignesh slept. I don’t know why I felt guilty about it. It was not as though he had imposed his schedules upon me. He never minded if I left during the day. That day I was bored. I decided to go hunt for Mirchi.
I found her. She was being harassed by some dog I didn’t know. I watched from a distance. It wasn’t long before she got rid of him. We did our usual crazy things after that. Stopping traffic, stealing food from vendors, that sort of thing.
I lost track of time. It was around noon before I realised I should be back in the hut with Jignesh. So I raced back as fast as I could to my ‘master’. I stopped running only when I could see the hut clearly. My tail stopped wagging. The door was open. I went inside careful not to open the door more. But Jignesh was not there.
I looked for him. For days. I went everywhere I could, went to every place I had ever been with him. I asked for help from other dogs. Some laughed, some helped. I couldn’t understand what had happened. Did he finally get better? Why didn’t he take me with him? Did he die? Did he get hurt because I left him alone? But he managed to survive before I was around. I left him only for a little while. The questions and the guilt slowly ate me up from inside. I had let him down.
I never saw him again.
Later I heard from Mirchi that he had died. She had found out from one of the other slum dogs. They were laughing about it; about how it should have happened earlier and how the crows ate him up. I never knew for sure. I checked at the bridge where they said he might be. The Indira Nagar Bridge. But he was not there. I found part of his slipper. Nothing else remained. No sign of him. The smell of him had nearly been wiped entirely from what was left of his slipper too.
I took it home and kept it where he used to sit during the day. The house was soon taken over by other people. I was thrown out and whatever few belongings Jignesh had were left on the side of the road. I did not take anything. I didn’t need to.
Some part of me still thinks that he is alive, but I’ll never know for sure. So I’ll just keep looking.
Coffee
It was the smallest big toe I had ever seen.
That was the first thing I noticed as I was picking up the milk packet.
Crooked toes with veins running like highways and by lanes on a map. Jagged, irregular nails – chipped and twisted.
I stood up, slowly, to bowlegs and thin knees. The kneecap, visible and twitching. They were that thin.
A wrinkled cloth, dripping wet, covered his bony waist that supported a sunken stomach – bare. The water trickled down and into the wrinkles across his stomach. They ran along his ribs, this way and that and cascaded down like a Feng-shui waterfall.
His chest was wet, frail with extended and prominent collarbones that held his bony shoulders up.
Bent back. Arms, bent, that ran down to his long and thin fingers – crooked and shivering. The water ran down along his veins, gathered at his fingertips and awaited gravity.
He saw me seeing him and into him with his twinkling big eyes. The water slid along the wrinkles on his forehead down to his high cheekbones and seemed to form a pool in the hollow of his cheeks. They were that hollow.
His shivers made the water hide down into his thick pedestrian-crossing moustache. The water emerged to line his blackened, thin lips and moved down to his most prominent feature. His jutting and bony chin before the end of which the water stopped… for a bit. To choose which way to take to move on.
That was Madurai – my ‘paalkaaran’.
* * *
With the unmistakable swipe of his ‘veshti’ round his hip and into a knot, holding it tight, Madurai swung the door open.
Madurai – My ‘paalkaaran’.
Barista seemed cold. Aloof.
He shivered at the gust of freezing air. It was cold inside. Already bent at the back, he huddled in. Feeling cold and lost.
Barista – 1. Madurai – Nil.
Today was Match day. The day of the Battle.
Barista beckoned like an adversary’s “Va Da Dai” with its tongue curled downwards and in.
“Yes Sir, how may I help you?” the boy in brown asked as if his mouth was filled with coffee beans.
“Aaaa…. Hmmm.”
Madurai didn’t know English.
Barista – 2. Madurai – Nil.
Already all eyes were on him. All around. All eyes. The tension was mounting.
“We have Café Latte, Espresso, Mocha, Mocha Fizz, Café Italiano, Brazil Berry, Raqhwa, Black Coffee, Espresso Café, Café Margarita, Fizz Italiano, Black… Smoothie… Cooo… ffff…eeee…”
Madurai’s head spun. He was numb. The crowd, all around, waited. Holding their breaths and coffee mugs in mid-air.
“Chudaana Filter Degree Kaapi, Shtanga, Chakarai kami.”
“Uhm… Sorry Sir. I am afraid we don’t have that, Sir. But I can…”
“HmmH… Washt!”
Madurai turned back with a flourish, swung the door open the other way and walked out. Proud.
Barista was stunned.
Perfect Three-pointer shot from nowhere.
Barista – 2. Madurai – 3.
Time-out.
That was the first thing I noticed as I was picking up the milk packet.
Crooked toes with veins running like highways and by lanes on a map. Jagged, irregular nails – chipped and twisted.
I stood up, slowly, to bowlegs and thin knees. The kneecap, visible and twitching. They were that thin.
A wrinkled cloth, dripping wet, covered his bony waist that supported a sunken stomach – bare. The water trickled down and into the wrinkles across his stomach. They ran along his ribs, this way and that and cascaded down like a Feng-shui waterfall.
His chest was wet, frail with extended and prominent collarbones that held his bony shoulders up.
Bent back. Arms, bent, that ran down to his long and thin fingers – crooked and shivering. The water ran down along his veins, gathered at his fingertips and awaited gravity.
He saw me seeing him and into him with his twinkling big eyes. The water slid along the wrinkles on his forehead down to his high cheekbones and seemed to form a pool in the hollow of his cheeks. They were that hollow.
His shivers made the water hide down into his thick pedestrian-crossing moustache. The water emerged to line his blackened, thin lips and moved down to his most prominent feature. His jutting and bony chin before the end of which the water stopped… for a bit. To choose which way to take to move on.
That was Madurai – my ‘paalkaaran’.
* * *
With the unmistakable swipe of his ‘veshti’ round his hip and into a knot, holding it tight, Madurai swung the door open.
Madurai – My ‘paalkaaran’.
Barista seemed cold. Aloof.
He shivered at the gust of freezing air. It was cold inside. Already bent at the back, he huddled in. Feeling cold and lost.
Barista – 1. Madurai – Nil.
Today was Match day. The day of the Battle.
Barista beckoned like an adversary’s “Va Da Dai” with its tongue curled downwards and in.
“Yes Sir, how may I help you?” the boy in brown asked as if his mouth was filled with coffee beans.
“Aaaa…. Hmmm.”
Madurai didn’t know English.
Barista – 2. Madurai – Nil.
Already all eyes were on him. All around. All eyes. The tension was mounting.
“We have Café Latte, Espresso, Mocha, Mocha Fizz, Café Italiano, Brazil Berry, Raqhwa, Black Coffee, Espresso Café, Café Margarita, Fizz Italiano, Black… Smoothie… Cooo… ffff…eeee…”
Madurai’s head spun. He was numb. The crowd, all around, waited. Holding their breaths and coffee mugs in mid-air.
“Chudaana Filter Degree Kaapi, Shtanga, Chakarai kami.”
“Uhm… Sorry Sir. I am afraid we don’t have that, Sir. But I can…”
“HmmH… Washt!”
Madurai turned back with a flourish, swung the door open the other way and walked out. Proud.
Barista was stunned.
Perfect Three-pointer shot from nowhere.
Barista – 2. Madurai – 3.
Time-out.
Wednesday, 11 January 2012
flying
‘Come fly with me’, she said.
I took her hand. It dissolved into colours – purple, red, violet, maroon, indigo, auburn, orange, amber. The amber of candlelight in my room and caramel, the caramel of hair that did not belong to me. Her hand was still in mine, dark brown eyes speckled with deep chocolate specks that shone. It shone brighter than the candles.
Smooth skin, short breaths, long strokes, she did not utter a word. Neither did I. She was not real after all, it was just a magic trick in my head that I did not want to let go of.
I held on tight, never letting go of her hand. And we flew. Over the polluted skies of the metropolitan city, over the heads banging at an outdoor rock concert, over the speeding lights on the highway, billboards advertising make-up and new movies, over all of the mundane things that made up my life without her.
Hands still clasped, we were back to the beach. This time there was no moon leading the way, it was just her silent feet on the wet sand.
‘Remember?’
Of course I remembered, how could I forget?
There was suddenly the sound of drums, beating consistenly, like a heart. Bu-bup. Reminding me that there was a clock somewhere, I did not have her for very long. The beat got faster.
I turned her around so she faced me. We did not speak. She came in closer, wound her arms around my neck so that one was in my hair, the other was splayed against my back. She smiled that smile of hers, it shone in the dark. And she kissed me. I felt myself melt under her touch, like I always do, and always will, even in my dreams. Now, only in my dreams. The beating of the heart-clock returned.
I was still deep in her kiss, the smell of the sea mixed with the distinct smell of her skin, her conditioner and the lotion she used on her body. The beating got louder, and my arms went around her waist, pulling her in. She was in a dress suddenly, she had been in jeans earlier. The dress flapped against her caramel legs as she stood on tiptoe, smiling into my mouth.
Midnight blue, I then knew why it was called that – such a dark blue, it was almost black, but for purple racing clouds in the sky. She always did love purple. So I did not know whose dream it was, mine or hers. Mine, since she had probably moved into other realms, making new colours elsewhere, with people she never dreamed of meeting.
I did not want to let her go. The sparkling eyes met mine in such joy that they were sad. No words. Our foreheads rested against each other’s.
‘Don’t go,’ I said.
Her mouth pursed, her head lowered, the way it always did when she tried not to cry. I ran my hand across her collarbones, she took my hand and placed it over her heart, then kissed my forehead.
‘Don’t forget me,’ she said, slowly loosening her grip.
‘How can I?’....’Come back soon?’
She had started moving away from me, the coldness gradually set in. First her arms were not moulded to me, running through my hair, fingers gently putting pressure on my scalp the way they did when she tried to relax me. Then her skin became separate from mine, our hips were not touching, her breathing did not match mine. I did not feel every emotion that ran through her. And she moved away.
‘Come back? Of course. Where else will I be except with you?’
‘Always?’ I asked.
‘For as long as you want.’
My eyes flew open.
The air-conditioner was running, it was cold, my bladder was full. I wanted to go back to sleep. No, I wanted to go back in time. I looked at the clock – 2.50 am. My mind raced. Seventy three days or so. 1,762 hours. I nearly started weeping. I could smell her on my pillows, from seventy five or eighty days ago, when she would come over, love me, listen to me, hold me.
I wanted to fly with her all the time. But of course, I couldn’t.
I took her hand. It dissolved into colours – purple, red, violet, maroon, indigo, auburn, orange, amber. The amber of candlelight in my room and caramel, the caramel of hair that did not belong to me. Her hand was still in mine, dark brown eyes speckled with deep chocolate specks that shone. It shone brighter than the candles.
Smooth skin, short breaths, long strokes, she did not utter a word. Neither did I. She was not real after all, it was just a magic trick in my head that I did not want to let go of.
I held on tight, never letting go of her hand. And we flew. Over the polluted skies of the metropolitan city, over the heads banging at an outdoor rock concert, over the speeding lights on the highway, billboards advertising make-up and new movies, over all of the mundane things that made up my life without her.
Hands still clasped, we were back to the beach. This time there was no moon leading the way, it was just her silent feet on the wet sand.
‘Remember?’
Of course I remembered, how could I forget?
There was suddenly the sound of drums, beating consistenly, like a heart. Bu-bup. Reminding me that there was a clock somewhere, I did not have her for very long. The beat got faster.
I turned her around so she faced me. We did not speak. She came in closer, wound her arms around my neck so that one was in my hair, the other was splayed against my back. She smiled that smile of hers, it shone in the dark. And she kissed me. I felt myself melt under her touch, like I always do, and always will, even in my dreams. Now, only in my dreams. The beating of the heart-clock returned.
I was still deep in her kiss, the smell of the sea mixed with the distinct smell of her skin, her conditioner and the lotion she used on her body. The beating got louder, and my arms went around her waist, pulling her in. She was in a dress suddenly, she had been in jeans earlier. The dress flapped against her caramel legs as she stood on tiptoe, smiling into my mouth.
Midnight blue, I then knew why it was called that – such a dark blue, it was almost black, but for purple racing clouds in the sky. She always did love purple. So I did not know whose dream it was, mine or hers. Mine, since she had probably moved into other realms, making new colours elsewhere, with people she never dreamed of meeting.
I did not want to let her go. The sparkling eyes met mine in such joy that they were sad. No words. Our foreheads rested against each other’s.
‘Don’t go,’ I said.
Her mouth pursed, her head lowered, the way it always did when she tried not to cry. I ran my hand across her collarbones, she took my hand and placed it over her heart, then kissed my forehead.
‘Don’t forget me,’ she said, slowly loosening her grip.
‘How can I?’....’Come back soon?’
She had started moving away from me, the coldness gradually set in. First her arms were not moulded to me, running through my hair, fingers gently putting pressure on my scalp the way they did when she tried to relax me. Then her skin became separate from mine, our hips were not touching, her breathing did not match mine. I did not feel every emotion that ran through her. And she moved away.
‘Come back? Of course. Where else will I be except with you?’
‘Always?’ I asked.
‘For as long as you want.’
My eyes flew open.
The air-conditioner was running, it was cold, my bladder was full. I wanted to go back to sleep. No, I wanted to go back in time. I looked at the clock – 2.50 am. My mind raced. Seventy three days or so. 1,762 hours. I nearly started weeping. I could smell her on my pillows, from seventy five or eighty days ago, when she would come over, love me, listen to me, hold me.
I wanted to fly with her all the time. But of course, I couldn’t.
Monday, 9 January 2012
eight days
It was perfectly normal, the last sunrise of the year. I don’t see why everyone was making such a big deal of it – it was like every other day, the sun rose in the east, set in the west, around the same time as the day before.
I watched it from my window, with a cup of coffee warming my hands. “It could be the last, you could get run over by a drunken bastard tonight or go blind and never see another sunrise again,” my roommate remarked as we both stared at it and I voiced my cynicism to her.
“That could happen any other day of the year too, ya?”
“Agreed.”'
And we both went back to sleep for a quick nap before work.
That was a bad idea.
In New Delhi, winter is awful. No central heating, lack of warm water if you share a flat with two women, and one of them washes her hair... the list goes on. Especially for one who has been brought up in balmier weather. Much balmier weather.
According to the BBC weather website, it was 24 degrees Celsius in my home city. Delhi was at nine degrees.
I woke up late, to no hot water, had to heat water just to wash my ass, and brushed my teeth, washed my face and armpits in freezing cold water, cursing the roommate who washed her hair that morning, throughout the painful process. Then I doused myself in Kylie Minogue's latest fragrance and ran.
The normal route to office involved a short auto rickshaw ride, a long ride in the subway, and then I’d have to hop into another auto.
Obviously that morning I did not have time to do all that. And no self-respecting auto driver in the Indian capital wanted to drive from Chittaranjan Park to Gurgaon in peak morning traffic. I couldn’t really blame them.
“We can share this auto if you want,” one creepy dude told me after he’d seen me unsuccessfully try to talk seven auto drivers into getting me to Gurgaon.
“How the fuck will you get an auto to Gurgaon?” I asked him. He demonstrated – the Delhi way. By offering the driver four times the normal amount of money. And let me tell you, even the normal amount of money is obscene.
I declined the scintillating opportunity to share an auto with a dweeb. Yes, I said dweeb.
I even heard another guy laughing at me from a tea shop across the road. He’d been watching me too, and saw the showoff with the money. I made a face at him before setting off on my such-a-brisk-walk-it’s-almost-a-jog to the train station.
I turned up at office an hour and half late. After having left my phone in an auto. Disastrous end to a perfectly normal year, somewhat disproving my theory. ‘No, this also could have happened on any other day,’ I thought.
It got somewhat better when I got a call from a girl who had found my mobile phone in the auto. She must have been the passenger after me. I was so relieved I almost cried. My precious Blackberry, with all my 1,674 contacts, my emails, notes and whatnot would be returned to me later that afternoon during her lunch break.
Since I’d turned up to work ninety minutes late, I had no lunch break. I was still phone-less at 4 pm, missing a ton of “hey, what are you doing for New Years Eve” calls and messages from clients. Strangely I wasn’t in a rush to get it back.
I’d already been wished by my parents the night before. “Jaan, Mrs Mehta’s son is back from Yale Business School... We met him last night, he’s very smart you know, he’s also a little creative like you. He plays the ghatam!....” so on and so forth. Somewhere in there was a new year greeting.
Monisha (of course her name was something pseudo-arty-socialite, I thought to myself) was busy and had asked a very reliable colleague to return my phone to me at Coffee House at 6 pm. I wondered who else was not rushing back to the city for New Years Eve plans and was returning a mobile phone to a stranger at 6 pm – a creepy stalker or someone who believed in karma, had done something really bad in 2011 and wanted to redeem himself. Because good people did not exist in New Delhi, the most corrupt city in the world. The galaxy. The universe. You get my point.
I sat at the designated meeting place, waiting for my king size latte. And the guy, who was obviously was late. What if I had plans, I thought grumpily, and took out the latest Murakami book from my bag.
I looked up when the coffee arrived and saw the guy from the tea shop across the road that morning. He was on his phone. He saw me, grinned and came over, plonking himself in the seat opposite me. I raised my eyebrows.
He put my Blackberry down on the table, while still yelling at someone about a financial transaction gone wrong.
I stared open-mouthed. My hometown was a small city where coincidences happened. Delhi was like the New York of India – these things did not happen.
“I’d ask you to buy me coffee in return for this, but now I’m thinking dinner,” I heard him say after he'd finished his phone call.
I looked at him dubiously. Pat came another line, “You can’t even say no now, I have your phone number.”
He wasn’t really very attractive. Maybe an inch taller than me, in black pants, white shirt, carrying a bag shaped to fit in a laptop and files – not like the dreamy, artistic men I’d dated when I was young(er). Following which I was single for four years.
“Sameer. My name is Sameer.” He held out his hand.
“Gayathri.” I mumbled back, shaking the offered hand.
We spent four hours at the coffee shop while he tried his various witticisms on me. I don’t think I realised what time it was till we were told the store was shutting. 10.20 pm.
I got his number and got company on my way home. Of course he lived in C R Park, he was having tea right across from my apartment in the morning.
I’d like to say something like “....and that’s how I met your father, kids”, but honestly, even though he may have swept me off my feet a bit eight days ago, it’s only been eight days. It could have just been a perfectly normal end to the year, not the esoteric beginning to the story of my times with a man who could be the love of my life.
Though I wouldn’t mind that, he seems to be a pretty good kisser.
I watched it from my window, with a cup of coffee warming my hands. “It could be the last, you could get run over by a drunken bastard tonight or go blind and never see another sunrise again,” my roommate remarked as we both stared at it and I voiced my cynicism to her.
“That could happen any other day of the year too, ya?”
“Agreed.”'
And we both went back to sleep for a quick nap before work.
That was a bad idea.
In New Delhi, winter is awful. No central heating, lack of warm water if you share a flat with two women, and one of them washes her hair... the list goes on. Especially for one who has been brought up in balmier weather. Much balmier weather.
According to the BBC weather website, it was 24 degrees Celsius in my home city. Delhi was at nine degrees.
I woke up late, to no hot water, had to heat water just to wash my ass, and brushed my teeth, washed my face and armpits in freezing cold water, cursing the roommate who washed her hair that morning, throughout the painful process. Then I doused myself in Kylie Minogue's latest fragrance and ran.
The normal route to office involved a short auto rickshaw ride, a long ride in the subway, and then I’d have to hop into another auto.
Obviously that morning I did not have time to do all that. And no self-respecting auto driver in the Indian capital wanted to drive from Chittaranjan Park to Gurgaon in peak morning traffic. I couldn’t really blame them.
“We can share this auto if you want,” one creepy dude told me after he’d seen me unsuccessfully try to talk seven auto drivers into getting me to Gurgaon.
“How the fuck will you get an auto to Gurgaon?” I asked him. He demonstrated – the Delhi way. By offering the driver four times the normal amount of money. And let me tell you, even the normal amount of money is obscene.
I declined the scintillating opportunity to share an auto with a dweeb. Yes, I said dweeb.
I even heard another guy laughing at me from a tea shop across the road. He’d been watching me too, and saw the showoff with the money. I made a face at him before setting off on my such-a-brisk-walk-it’s-almost-a-jog to the train station.
I turned up at office an hour and half late. After having left my phone in an auto. Disastrous end to a perfectly normal year, somewhat disproving my theory. ‘No, this also could have happened on any other day,’ I thought.
It got somewhat better when I got a call from a girl who had found my mobile phone in the auto. She must have been the passenger after me. I was so relieved I almost cried. My precious Blackberry, with all my 1,674 contacts, my emails, notes and whatnot would be returned to me later that afternoon during her lunch break.
Since I’d turned up to work ninety minutes late, I had no lunch break. I was still phone-less at 4 pm, missing a ton of “hey, what are you doing for New Years Eve” calls and messages from clients. Strangely I wasn’t in a rush to get it back.
I’d already been wished by my parents the night before. “Jaan, Mrs Mehta’s son is back from Yale Business School... We met him last night, he’s very smart you know, he’s also a little creative like you. He plays the ghatam!....” so on and so forth. Somewhere in there was a new year greeting.
Monisha (of course her name was something pseudo-arty-socialite, I thought to myself) was busy and had asked a very reliable colleague to return my phone to me at Coffee House at 6 pm. I wondered who else was not rushing back to the city for New Years Eve plans and was returning a mobile phone to a stranger at 6 pm – a creepy stalker or someone who believed in karma, had done something really bad in 2011 and wanted to redeem himself. Because good people did not exist in New Delhi, the most corrupt city in the world. The galaxy. The universe. You get my point.
I sat at the designated meeting place, waiting for my king size latte. And the guy, who was obviously was late. What if I had plans, I thought grumpily, and took out the latest Murakami book from my bag.
I looked up when the coffee arrived and saw the guy from the tea shop across the road that morning. He was on his phone. He saw me, grinned and came over, plonking himself in the seat opposite me. I raised my eyebrows.
He put my Blackberry down on the table, while still yelling at someone about a financial transaction gone wrong.
I stared open-mouthed. My hometown was a small city where coincidences happened. Delhi was like the New York of India – these things did not happen.
“I’d ask you to buy me coffee in return for this, but now I’m thinking dinner,” I heard him say after he'd finished his phone call.
I looked at him dubiously. Pat came another line, “You can’t even say no now, I have your phone number.”
He wasn’t really very attractive. Maybe an inch taller than me, in black pants, white shirt, carrying a bag shaped to fit in a laptop and files – not like the dreamy, artistic men I’d dated when I was young(er). Following which I was single for four years.
“Sameer. My name is Sameer.” He held out his hand.
“Gayathri.” I mumbled back, shaking the offered hand.
We spent four hours at the coffee shop while he tried his various witticisms on me. I don’t think I realised what time it was till we were told the store was shutting. 10.20 pm.
I got his number and got company on my way home. Of course he lived in C R Park, he was having tea right across from my apartment in the morning.
I’d like to say something like “....and that’s how I met your father, kids”, but honestly, even though he may have swept me off my feet a bit eight days ago, it’s only been eight days. It could have just been a perfectly normal end to the year, not the esoteric beginning to the story of my times with a man who could be the love of my life.
Though I wouldn’t mind that, he seems to be a pretty good kisser.
Friday, 18 November 2011
should be loved
It’s as if there’s an unspoken promise – that I will wait.
Why should I wait? Why, when he is off frolicking in new places, meeting new people, learning new things... He didn’t promise me anything. Nobody decided anything except that it should stop once he leaves.
My boss won’t wait for me to be in a better mood before I toss out more ideas for a shitty client, my cat won’t wait to be fed, the clouds won’t wait till I’m home before letting loose all that pent up rain, the traffic won’t wait till I get to work before getting bad, my maid won’t wait for her salary, my colleague won’t wait for an explanation for that teensy mark on my neck, so why should I wait? I could get hit by a car crossing the road tomorrow.
I don’t want to wait. It doesn’t feel right. I haven’t heard from him in five weeks – monosyllabic chats don’t count. And I don’t want to wait. I would like to wreak havoc on boykind before I get hit by a car. Anna has done it with 12 boys, I’d like to get halfway there (I’d honestly like to be in double digits, but that’s not realistic since I’m ticklish with strange boys, let’s face it)... he’s probably doing it with that pretty Mediterranean looking girl I saw in some pictures, drunken eyes, pointy hat for Halloween. I shouldn’t have to wait while he gets into triple digits. We didn’t promise each other anything.
From: Maria Kumar
On Wednesday, 5 November, 6.39pm
To: Paul Cherian
Bcc: Seema Revanoor
Subject: Re: Bad news
Hey Paul,
Sorry it took me a few days to get back to you, work has been insane. And it's fine, once you get a new phone, save my number. It's 9967054549.
It was nice bumping into you as well, and yeah, it’s raining this much because I finally got out of my office and house for a bit!
I’m not free Friday night, but we could do something on Saturday. Dinner sounds good. Let me know where and when. See you soon.
Maria
I hit ‘send’.
Apparently I wasn't going to try and wait.
special
You ever know those moments when you’re doing something you *know* you’ll regret later? It’s stupid really, it was just chocolate. But that’s how it starts... you start to unravel with one, tiny chocolate addiction.
You make excuses, yeah, everyone does. Oh it’s winter, oh it’s alright, you need to store up for the cold, you’ll burn it off, and all of that wisdom from everyone. But it makes you feel like shit later and it shouldn’t. And I know I’m not gonna go jogging, who in their right minds will put on their shoes and go running in this cold. The wind would cut your ears right off, it’s not a nice feeling. Then I’d feel worse and eat more chocolate. Totally pointless.
I wish the weight would go to my boobs, but no, it goes straight to my hips. The big hips look good only on JLo, the beautiful bloody bitch.
People look at me strangely, all wrapped up in layers of fur. Like just because I have white skin doesn’t mean I’m from Norway or the bloody Highlands. Once I open my mouth, they exchange looks. ‘Ah these stupid Americans.’ Yeah, we’re stupid, but at least we don’t have mice in our kitchens.
Cheese. That’s my other craving right now. Chocolate, and cheese. So I’m sitting home on a cloudy Friday evening, trying to get cracking on essay # 847, chomping into my cheese sandwich when I heard a bloodcurdling scream. Sigh. The flatmate is back.
I take the sandwich with me.
Hysterics in the kitchen. The tiny, brown creature has disappeared, probably into my room, it being the closest to the kitchen, now smelling of cheese and all.
I’ve had it. With the screaming and the darkness and the wind and all that. I go find my nail polish remover, empty the bottle into that glass bottle (it had Thai curry paste in it) I just washed, and dunk a massive chunk of Red Leicester in it.
I switch off the lights, go to my room and go to bed. When the alarm rings, I calmly get out of bed. I fumble around in the kitchen and go back to sleep.
I awaken to a scream again. I hope she hasn’t toppled the bottle over, I’m not cleaning dead mouse shit up. I left it in front of her door hoping it would make her feel better.
Fuck, it’s 8.30am on a Saturday, who wakes up that early in December?!
I roll over, hug my pillow, pretend it is someone I love and go back to sleep, dreaming of dead mice, actors laying mice traps, writing essays, running down mountains under fat grey clouds.
Sunday, 9 October 2011
light her up
The call came at 4.30 one Friday morning, and I thought to myself, what a brilliant start to the weekend. Then of course, I felt guilty, because that’s not what one is supposed to think when you’re told that your mother has just died. But I told myself not to be stupid. Nina would probably have laughed and apologised for ruining my chances of hooking up with the latest girl I’d set my hopes on. And she would have said, “Technically, I’m not even your mother.”
My stepmother was not much older than me, she married my father when she was very young, just twenty. I was five then. My mother had died in childbirth.
I walked out of the shower in a towel to ask my father what colour to wear, whether I should shave. He was staring at himself in the mirror. Just staring.
“Pa?” I repeated. I saw the mental shake he gave himself before replying, “Wear whatever you want, you know she wouldn’t have cared. Just try to look a little sad.” Black kurta and stubble it was to be, I decided.
We went to the hospital in complete silence. My father was driving, he looked straight ahead at the road. When we got there, the interfering relatives were already there. You see, Nina had inherited a lot of money. The only daughter of a rich business tycoon who was disinherited when she married at twenty, to a man fifteen years her senior. He forgave her of course, when she developed ovarian cancer for the first time. That was when I was thirteen. She went into remission twice, first when I turned sixteen, and then again when I was twenty. “Third time’s a charm,” I had laughed when she lay pale, a bag of bones, against the hospital bed. She had laughed with me. My father was not there to lose his temper or start weeping at the time.
I wondered why the relatives even bothered. I highly doubted that she left them anything. Pa would obviously get it all. Not that he wanted it, ironically. I had told him a few days earlier that he should just give it all away to the relatives and ask them to leave us alone forever. I knew he had no idea what to do with the money and could not bear the interferers either. He did not think that was such a good idea. “Maybe I should give it all to you,” he suggested mischievously. I was too impressed at his attempt at humour to react to that.
I pretty much did nothing at the hospital that day, aside from making sure that my father got something to eat and didn’t throw himself off the tenth floor of the hospital. But even that wasn’t pretty.
“This is the first meal I’m having after she stopped breathing,” his voice quivered over his chapati and dal. “Yes, so? Don’t worry I haven’t poisoned it. I don’t want her money yet,” I told him as I dug into my own meal. “Oh and this is like, my third meal since she died,” I said over my stuffed mouth. He just glared malevolently at me.
----------------------------------------------
The next morning, Saturday, I woke up early. I usually never rose before noon, Nina knew better than to wake me after a night of intense partying. But I managed to wake up around six that morning without the help of an alarm. I was quite impressed at myself. My father of course had not slept all night.
“Wear white,” was the first words we exchanged that day.
It would be a day when the first match I lit would not be for a cigarette but to set fire to my stepmother’s body, I remember musing. Dad and I had decided earlier that I would light the match, because his hands would be shaking madly, and we would light her up together.
Which is exactly what we did. Though I’d expected Pa to be sobbing by then (which is why I said I would do it along with him, I didn’t want him accidentally setting fire to his own foot) he was surprisingly calm. He took a minute to look at her pale, gaunt face. Her nose and mouth were stuffed first with cotton to soak up her body fluids, and then with rice. Someone had put kumkum on the middle of her forehead, I had no idea why. She was wrapped in white.
Strangely it was me found it hard to leave the pyre, though the heat seemed like a good enough reason to get away. Dad stood with me till the flames were too much to bear and the priest told us, “It’s not good to see the body after setting fire to it.” I had wanted to tell him why we didn’t choose an electric pyre was because we wanted to see her, but held myself back.
We walked away in silence, before I asked him, “Yo Pa, we’re allowed to eat today, no?”
-----------------------------------------------------------
It was like a scene out of a movie. We were all seated around a conference table at Dev, Nizam, Mehta and Associates, waiting for the lawyer to read out Nina’s will. I didn’t want to be there, but knew that my father wanted me there. “I’ll give you my dresses, toots, don’t worry,” Nina had winked at me when she was around. “Much appreciated, yo. The girlfriend will find that much easier to take off.” “What girlfriend? You’ve settled on just one girl now?” “No, I just said that to make you happy.” She laughed. “Since when have you ever tried to make me happy?!” “Well, you’re dying. Shouldn’t I try to make you happy at least now?” She reached out and pinched my cheeks.
There was dead silence when the middle-aged stuffy looking lawyer walked in, wearing his full-sleeved pin-striped shirt and steel grey trousers. He was even wearing a black waistcoat. I stifled my laughter. Nina would have found it ridiculous too, such attire in our weather.
He started reading out my dead stepmother’s will.
“This is the last will and testament of Vidya Nina Subramani. All earlier wills...” blah blah blah.
It was amusing actually. The first few things were ridiculous. I could picture her in my head smirking while she wrote it or discussed it with Mr Stuffy-in-a-waistcoat. She left her clothes to her nieces, her shoes to her sister, her books to me (though I hated reading, so it was another joke), her DVD collection to another niece and me, and her dogs to dad.
This went on for about fifteen minutes, which must have seemed like fifteen years to the nearly salivating relatives.
“I hereby leave all my stocks and shares, currently under the control of my chartered accountant S Krishnan, to my bereaved husband Anil Poddar.
My precious jewellery, all thirty seven pieces of it located in my State Bank of India locker number 291, Poes Garden branch, I leave to my son Gaurav Poddar...”
I snorted when I heard that. Trust her to leave shiny stuff to me. The lawyer continued after shooting me a death glare befitting a star trooper.
“My entire estate in Wellingdon hill station, covering four acres, and the house built there, I leave to my son Gaurav Poddar.
All the cash in my four bank accounts (in my name, Vidya Nina Subramani) amounting to approximately Rs 79 lakhs, I leave to my son Gaurav Poddar.
The fixed deposits in my name at my main bank Standard Chartered, worth Rs 1.3 crores, I leave to my son Gaurav Poddar...”
“Wait, this is a joke, right?” someone spoke up. I don’t remember now who it was.
“Please, could you leave your questions for when I finish,” the lawyer said firmly, more than asking the relative. My father murmured in agreement.
I don’t remember what came after, but when I heard my name again after a few moments, I looked up. “Sorry, could you repeat that... I didn’t hear you.”
Stuffy looked at me in resignation and read it out once more.
“And finally, I leave to my son Gaurav Poddar, twenty three letters which are in my husband Anil Poddar’s possession. Following my husband’s demise, the letters will be in the possession of my husband’s sister, Shilpa Murthy. These are one letter each year on his birthday, till he turns forty five-years-old.”
The lawyer looked up, took of his glasses and began folding the will up. The relatives began murmuring loudly amongst themselves. It was probably anger directed at Nina and me, but I don’t remember much now. I remember the ringing in my head. What was wrong with her, I was thinking, why did she leave me everything? I remember Pa asking me if I was okay, but I got up and ran outside.
I remember asking the secretary where the men’s toilet was. I found my way there and locked the toilet before making my way to the mirror.
‘Why would she do that, why would she give everything to me,’ was all I remember thinking. Then I thought of the letters, she would have probably written during those long hours in the hospital, when she was waiting to die, a bag of bones, the woman who was the only mother and sister and female friend I had ever known.
I started crying and sank to the floor as the pictures of my mother flashed through my brain.
My stepmother was not much older than me, she married my father when she was very young, just twenty. I was five then. My mother had died in childbirth.
I walked out of the shower in a towel to ask my father what colour to wear, whether I should shave. He was staring at himself in the mirror. Just staring.
“Pa?” I repeated. I saw the mental shake he gave himself before replying, “Wear whatever you want, you know she wouldn’t have cared. Just try to look a little sad.” Black kurta and stubble it was to be, I decided.
We went to the hospital in complete silence. My father was driving, he looked straight ahead at the road. When we got there, the interfering relatives were already there. You see, Nina had inherited a lot of money. The only daughter of a rich business tycoon who was disinherited when she married at twenty, to a man fifteen years her senior. He forgave her of course, when she developed ovarian cancer for the first time. That was when I was thirteen. She went into remission twice, first when I turned sixteen, and then again when I was twenty. “Third time’s a charm,” I had laughed when she lay pale, a bag of bones, against the hospital bed. She had laughed with me. My father was not there to lose his temper or start weeping at the time.
I wondered why the relatives even bothered. I highly doubted that she left them anything. Pa would obviously get it all. Not that he wanted it, ironically. I had told him a few days earlier that he should just give it all away to the relatives and ask them to leave us alone forever. I knew he had no idea what to do with the money and could not bear the interferers either. He did not think that was such a good idea. “Maybe I should give it all to you,” he suggested mischievously. I was too impressed at his attempt at humour to react to that.
I pretty much did nothing at the hospital that day, aside from making sure that my father got something to eat and didn’t throw himself off the tenth floor of the hospital. But even that wasn’t pretty.
“This is the first meal I’m having after she stopped breathing,” his voice quivered over his chapati and dal. “Yes, so? Don’t worry I haven’t poisoned it. I don’t want her money yet,” I told him as I dug into my own meal. “Oh and this is like, my third meal since she died,” I said over my stuffed mouth. He just glared malevolently at me.
----------------------------------------------
The next morning, Saturday, I woke up early. I usually never rose before noon, Nina knew better than to wake me after a night of intense partying. But I managed to wake up around six that morning without the help of an alarm. I was quite impressed at myself. My father of course had not slept all night.
“Wear white,” was the first words we exchanged that day.
It would be a day when the first match I lit would not be for a cigarette but to set fire to my stepmother’s body, I remember musing. Dad and I had decided earlier that I would light the match, because his hands would be shaking madly, and we would light her up together.
Which is exactly what we did. Though I’d expected Pa to be sobbing by then (which is why I said I would do it along with him, I didn’t want him accidentally setting fire to his own foot) he was surprisingly calm. He took a minute to look at her pale, gaunt face. Her nose and mouth were stuffed first with cotton to soak up her body fluids, and then with rice. Someone had put kumkum on the middle of her forehead, I had no idea why. She was wrapped in white.
Strangely it was me found it hard to leave the pyre, though the heat seemed like a good enough reason to get away. Dad stood with me till the flames were too much to bear and the priest told us, “It’s not good to see the body after setting fire to it.” I had wanted to tell him why we didn’t choose an electric pyre was because we wanted to see her, but held myself back.
We walked away in silence, before I asked him, “Yo Pa, we’re allowed to eat today, no?”
-----------------------------------------------------------
It was like a scene out of a movie. We were all seated around a conference table at Dev, Nizam, Mehta and Associates, waiting for the lawyer to read out Nina’s will. I didn’t want to be there, but knew that my father wanted me there. “I’ll give you my dresses, toots, don’t worry,” Nina had winked at me when she was around. “Much appreciated, yo. The girlfriend will find that much easier to take off.” “What girlfriend? You’ve settled on just one girl now?” “No, I just said that to make you happy.” She laughed. “Since when have you ever tried to make me happy?!” “Well, you’re dying. Shouldn’t I try to make you happy at least now?” She reached out and pinched my cheeks.
There was dead silence when the middle-aged stuffy looking lawyer walked in, wearing his full-sleeved pin-striped shirt and steel grey trousers. He was even wearing a black waistcoat. I stifled my laughter. Nina would have found it ridiculous too, such attire in our weather.
He started reading out my dead stepmother’s will.
“This is the last will and testament of Vidya Nina Subramani. All earlier wills...” blah blah blah.
It was amusing actually. The first few things were ridiculous. I could picture her in my head smirking while she wrote it or discussed it with Mr Stuffy-in-a-waistcoat. She left her clothes to her nieces, her shoes to her sister, her books to me (though I hated reading, so it was another joke), her DVD collection to another niece and me, and her dogs to dad.
This went on for about fifteen minutes, which must have seemed like fifteen years to the nearly salivating relatives.
“I hereby leave all my stocks and shares, currently under the control of my chartered accountant S Krishnan, to my bereaved husband Anil Poddar.
My precious jewellery, all thirty seven pieces of it located in my State Bank of India locker number 291, Poes Garden branch, I leave to my son Gaurav Poddar...”
I snorted when I heard that. Trust her to leave shiny stuff to me. The lawyer continued after shooting me a death glare befitting a star trooper.
“My entire estate in Wellingdon hill station, covering four acres, and the house built there, I leave to my son Gaurav Poddar.
All the cash in my four bank accounts (in my name, Vidya Nina Subramani) amounting to approximately Rs 79 lakhs, I leave to my son Gaurav Poddar.
The fixed deposits in my name at my main bank Standard Chartered, worth Rs 1.3 crores, I leave to my son Gaurav Poddar...”
“Wait, this is a joke, right?” someone spoke up. I don’t remember now who it was.
“Please, could you leave your questions for when I finish,” the lawyer said firmly, more than asking the relative. My father murmured in agreement.
I don’t remember what came after, but when I heard my name again after a few moments, I looked up. “Sorry, could you repeat that... I didn’t hear you.”
Stuffy looked at me in resignation and read it out once more.
“And finally, I leave to my son Gaurav Poddar, twenty three letters which are in my husband Anil Poddar’s possession. Following my husband’s demise, the letters will be in the possession of my husband’s sister, Shilpa Murthy. These are one letter each year on his birthday, till he turns forty five-years-old.”
The lawyer looked up, took of his glasses and began folding the will up. The relatives began murmuring loudly amongst themselves. It was probably anger directed at Nina and me, but I don’t remember much now. I remember the ringing in my head. What was wrong with her, I was thinking, why did she leave me everything? I remember Pa asking me if I was okay, but I got up and ran outside.
I remember asking the secretary where the men’s toilet was. I found my way there and locked the toilet before making my way to the mirror.
‘Why would she do that, why would she give everything to me,’ was all I remember thinking. Then I thought of the letters, she would have probably written during those long hours in the hospital, when she was waiting to die, a bag of bones, the woman who was the only mother and sister and female friend I had ever known.
I started crying and sank to the floor as the pictures of my mother flashed through my brain.
Monday, 22 August 2011
time to say goodbye
**author's note: this was inspired by Margaret Atwood's "Happy Endings", and is an experiment in progress.**
Boy meets girl. It’s the oldest story ever, I thought to myself and scratched my lip.
Thunder rolled on the distance. 2.26 am, my computer blinked at me. I stared at the blank screen. See, I reasoned with myself, let’s not go there. It can only end in two ways – happy or unhappy. Somewhere within me a voice disagreed. Or maybe those were the rumblings of a stomach pressured by tuna and tiramisu.
How many ways can this damn story end? I scratched my lip again. This is where I look to Margaret Atwood for inspiration. ‘Happy Endings’, indeed. Lightning and mad, mad, furious thunder. As if the gods of writing were roaring at me. So many songs, poems, stories, books, novellas, haikus, sonnets, biographies, license plate numbers, legal documents, passports, birth certificates, phone bills, were based on love. So many. And here I was, a so-called writer, staring blankly at a screen, wondering what the fuck the ‘L’ word was about.
It was 2.30 am by that time. First I had to pick a scenario – a couple, and decide how they fell for each other. Love or lust. Then came the biggie. How did it end? Miserable, or happily? Dreamily for one and suicidal for another or both the same? I sighed. Too many options, just too many options.
Fuck.
Oh wait, that’s a form of love too. Or an action.
This was going nowhere. I decided to shut up and not give in to my narcissistic authorial ramblings and just go with it. My first love story, here we go.
*******************************************************************************
Present day, Bangalore, India
“Where is he, Rudy?”
“In there, painting like a mad freak.”
The trusty roommate had opened my ‘studio’ door a crack, about an hour earlier, just to make sure I was alright and not losing my mind, like I tend to sometimes. I had stopped painting and was staring at my product when Jaya came over. She walked into my tiny studio and stood behind me. I could smell her. Over the strong reek of acrylic paint and the whiff of my canvas. She smelt faintly of the oil she uses on her hair, some sweet shampoo or conditioner and a familiar floral perfume.
“Hmm. Is that me?” she laughed.
I turned around and looked at her. She froze in her tracks.
“What’s wrong, chooch?”
“Nothing, why? So, do you like it?” I asked gesturing magnificently at my creation.
“Yes. But what was that weird look you just gave me?”
“Come outside, I need to get out.”
“Abey, tell me first what that look was!”
I wondered how to tell her what was going through my head. That I adored her, even though I had known her just over a month, that I was freakishly attached to her, and it scared the bejesus out of me. That I had many imaginary scenarios in my head where she would break my heart – today, tomorrow, next week, where she did it in the past.. all crazy scenes involving my heart being shattered.
“Nothing’s wrong. And no, the girl in the painting isn’t you.” I poured myself a rum and coke and offered her a sip. She shook her head, sat down opposite me and stared at me unblinkingly. She heaved a huge sigh after a few moments of pointless staring.
“Why won’t you talk to me? I don’t understand you, I spend most of my time wondering what your various looks mean. If you tell me what’s on your mind, I can understand you better, na?”
I stared at her in silence and smiled. I took a long sip of my drink and watched her light a cigarette. I didn’t smoke but almost everybody I knew did, so I didn’t say anything.
“Rudy, where’s your ashtray?” she yelled. He obediently walked out of the tiny excuse of a kitchen, where he had been making himself scarce, and handed her his makeshift ashtray, which was a tin box from Reebok.
“Haan, so tell me.” She wasn’t giving up today, apparently.
I didn’t budge either. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, or what look.”
“Ok, then tell me about the painting.” I was taken aback. Firstly, I was surprised she even cared. Secondly, how the hell was I supposed to explain a painting done out of the very hyperactive imagination and intense feelings I was trying to keep hidden from her?
I mumbled my reply. “Whattt?” she asked. I heard Rudy snort in the kitchen.
“If I have to explain it, it isn’t a very good painting. In any case, you can make whatever you want of it.”
She sighed again. “You dipshit. I get that. But what do *you* feel about it, what were *you* thinking when you were madly at it with a paintbrush, not thinking about your pretty green shirt.”
I forgot about my shirt. I looked down at it. It was unsalvageable.
“Accha, I think we should stop seeing each other.”
“Wait, *whattt*?” Rudy choked on something in the kitchen, as Jaya got high-pitched. I was also taken aback by myself.
“Rudy, get out! And Jaya… well…”
“Yes, well?”
“See, I’m leaving soon...”
“I always knew that, you dipshit. You told me that two nights after we met.” She put on a fake deep voice and rose to the occasion. “‘Hello hi, my name is Dhruv, I work at a gallery. I’m finally going to go study this year, I’m going to do a course in Graphic Design in Australia.’ You think I don’t remember???”
“Yes, well…..”
“Well, what? What happened, are you scared because you like me or something?”
I raised my eyebrows. Like her or something? I thought of the last time we had sex and how I was in absolute heaven because I made her so happy with my erm, performance. And I was amazed because I usually don’t give a shit how happy I make the girl, as long as I get what I want. The thought of Jaya’s eyes closed in ecstasy with her arms wrapped around my neck and her moaning my name.. well. Like her, it seems. I tried not to spit at her.
I took a deep breath instead and looked at her calmly. “Yes, it’s because I like you too fucking much, J. And I’m leaving and I don’t want you or me to get hurt.”
“Are you serious?”
“Yes.”
“Why are you so scared, Dhruv?” She moved closer and held my hand. I felt myself melt into a puddle of green boy in shirt with paint.
“I don’t know. I just am. I cannot do these intense things, it’s too scary. And this is very intense. I can do one night stands and stupid, slutty women. Not smart ones with gorgeous hair who are actually decent to me. On top of that I’m leaving so let me just save myself the heartbreak, please.” We were both quite for a few moments as she digested what I'd said. "It's time to say goodbye, I think," I added quietly.
“I don’t want you to marry me or anything but let’s just spend some time together. Please? Or, take a couple of days and think about it. I think you’re just freaking out because things have gotten steamy the last few days. So relax.” She winked at me then got up, picked up her bag and started walking away. I felt my heart sink as I gazed at her gorgeous behind, her hair swinging from side to side.. it was damp and she had left it loose, but I know it covered a shapely waist, which was also covered by her red shirt. I shook myself out of it.
She looked back at me and said, “I’ll call you in a few days. Pick up, please. And relax. We’re in the same boat. I’m not going to hurt you.” And the 26-year-old singer/lawyer left the building. I forced myself not to watch her from my window, watch her leaving my apartment complex, walking to her car [parked a couple of buildings away] and driving away from me.
She didn’t call for four days. Those were the longest four days of my life. When she finally did call, I did not respond. I imagined her with the boy who left his Tissot watch by her window. A watch I would never be able to afford. I imagined her with the multitude of men she met through her music contacts – talented people who could write her songs and poetry and woo the hell out of her.
I never called Jaya back. She came by my apartment when I was not there and cried to Rudy. Poor Rudy. Then I called her to say it was over and I wished her the best. She cried over the phone. I felt like crap but knew I was doing it for a reason.
Two months later, I left for Melbourne. I still think of her on and off. She is probably fucking the brains out of some Bangalore-based creative types, holding his hand and smiling her warm, sunshine-like smile at him. Lucky bastard. I am waiting to find the Australian equivalent of her.
************************************************************************************
For those who want a happier ending: conclusion #2
She didn’t call for four days. Those were the longest four days of my life. I imagined her with the boy who left his Tissot watch by her window. A watch I would never be able to afford. I imagined her with the multitude of men she met through her music contacts – talented people who could write her songs and poetry and woo the hell out of her.
When she finally did call, I cried. I actually cried. I, Dhruv Shankar, womaniser and drunkard and emotionally stunted painter, cried. Because a girl did not call me for four days. Jaya was very touched. We made sweet, sweet, very slow love and I got even more attached to her. I still freaked out about it, but she got used to my strange ways.
Before I left for Melbourne, I even worked up the nerve to admit that the ‘L’ word had somehow gotten involved. Love, not lust. She smiled when I told her, and said she knew when she saw the mad painting I completed some weeks earlier, unmindful of wearing one of my favourite green shirts.
We broke up when I left, but I had a feeling I would come back for her. We stayed in touch. We grew distant when I got busy with work, making ends meet, studies and acclimatising to a new continent. She dated a couple of other guys. One I vaguely knew, back in Bangalore.
One year and seven months after I left, I returned to Bangalore and called her. We met the next day, at a coffee shop, where she sobbed into my red shirt [much to my embarrassment but also to my delight] about the last boy she dated – a stupid sod of a Telugu boy who hit her. When I looked into those tear-filled deep brown eyes again that day, in a crowded coffee shop, I was a goner. And I think she knew it too.
*************************************************************************************
For those who want a more realistic ending: conclusion #3
She didn’t call for four days. Those were the longest four days of my life. I imagined her with the boy who left his Tissot watch by her window. A watch I would never be able to afford. I imagined her with the multitude of men she met through her music contacts – talented people who could write her songs and poetry and woo the hell out of her.
Four days became fourteen and then became forty. I was heartbroken. I, Dhruv Shankar, womaniser and drunkard and emotionally stunted painter, was actually heartbroken. I left for Melbourne with a burning hatred for all womankind in my heart. I slept my way through my first year at university with any woman I could find, and eventually the memories of her scented black hair and the mole below her left breast left me. It took a while, though. And I met a brilliant Malaysian-Indian girl named Sam. We dated steadily for eight months before we tired of each other. Sam and I still remain friends though.
I lived in Australia, between Melbourne and Brisbane, for fourteen years. I met my wife there, an American with brown hair and piercing blue eyes that could see right through me. Jennifer. We lived in poverty, got married against my parents wishes, had one child by mistake and nearly split up because we could not handle it. When Jen went to America “for a break”, I followed her after a miserable, aching three months. And I got her back. We made our second child in her parents’ home in Birmingham, Alabama.
Jen, the kids and I moved back to Bangalore finally when my parents got too old and I worried about them. They had forgiven me for marrying an American the instant they saw their first grandchild, you see.
Years later, when my son Mirav brought home his third girlfriend, I thought of Jaya again. Fleeting thoughts of where she was, what was she doing, and I forgot about her. The girl looked a lot like Jaya. I never did find out why she didn’t call me. I wondered about it for a few days, the next time I met the girl. Then, thankfully, Mirav broke up with her, and I never thought of Jaya again.
Boy meets girl. It’s the oldest story ever, I thought to myself and scratched my lip.
Thunder rolled on the distance. 2.26 am, my computer blinked at me. I stared at the blank screen. See, I reasoned with myself, let’s not go there. It can only end in two ways – happy or unhappy. Somewhere within me a voice disagreed. Or maybe those were the rumblings of a stomach pressured by tuna and tiramisu.
How many ways can this damn story end? I scratched my lip again. This is where I look to Margaret Atwood for inspiration. ‘Happy Endings’, indeed. Lightning and mad, mad, furious thunder. As if the gods of writing were roaring at me. So many songs, poems, stories, books, novellas, haikus, sonnets, biographies, license plate numbers, legal documents, passports, birth certificates, phone bills, were based on love. So many. And here I was, a so-called writer, staring blankly at a screen, wondering what the fuck the ‘L’ word was about.
It was 2.30 am by that time. First I had to pick a scenario – a couple, and decide how they fell for each other. Love or lust. Then came the biggie. How did it end? Miserable, or happily? Dreamily for one and suicidal for another or both the same? I sighed. Too many options, just too many options.
Fuck.
Oh wait, that’s a form of love too. Or an action.
This was going nowhere. I decided to shut up and not give in to my narcissistic authorial ramblings and just go with it. My first love story, here we go.
*******************************************************************************
Present day, Bangalore, India
“Where is he, Rudy?”
“In there, painting like a mad freak.”
The trusty roommate had opened my ‘studio’ door a crack, about an hour earlier, just to make sure I was alright and not losing my mind, like I tend to sometimes. I had stopped painting and was staring at my product when Jaya came over. She walked into my tiny studio and stood behind me. I could smell her. Over the strong reek of acrylic paint and the whiff of my canvas. She smelt faintly of the oil she uses on her hair, some sweet shampoo or conditioner and a familiar floral perfume.
“Hmm. Is that me?” she laughed.
I turned around and looked at her. She froze in her tracks.
“What’s wrong, chooch?”
“Nothing, why? So, do you like it?” I asked gesturing magnificently at my creation.
“Yes. But what was that weird look you just gave me?”
“Come outside, I need to get out.”
“Abey, tell me first what that look was!”
I wondered how to tell her what was going through my head. That I adored her, even though I had known her just over a month, that I was freakishly attached to her, and it scared the bejesus out of me. That I had many imaginary scenarios in my head where she would break my heart – today, tomorrow, next week, where she did it in the past.. all crazy scenes involving my heart being shattered.
“Nothing’s wrong. And no, the girl in the painting isn’t you.” I poured myself a rum and coke and offered her a sip. She shook her head, sat down opposite me and stared at me unblinkingly. She heaved a huge sigh after a few moments of pointless staring.
“Why won’t you talk to me? I don’t understand you, I spend most of my time wondering what your various looks mean. If you tell me what’s on your mind, I can understand you better, na?”
I stared at her in silence and smiled. I took a long sip of my drink and watched her light a cigarette. I didn’t smoke but almost everybody I knew did, so I didn’t say anything.
“Rudy, where’s your ashtray?” she yelled. He obediently walked out of the tiny excuse of a kitchen, where he had been making himself scarce, and handed her his makeshift ashtray, which was a tin box from Reebok.
“Haan, so tell me.” She wasn’t giving up today, apparently.
I didn’t budge either. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, or what look.”
“Ok, then tell me about the painting.” I was taken aback. Firstly, I was surprised she even cared. Secondly, how the hell was I supposed to explain a painting done out of the very hyperactive imagination and intense feelings I was trying to keep hidden from her?
I mumbled my reply. “Whattt?” she asked. I heard Rudy snort in the kitchen.
“If I have to explain it, it isn’t a very good painting. In any case, you can make whatever you want of it.”
She sighed again. “You dipshit. I get that. But what do *you* feel about it, what were *you* thinking when you were madly at it with a paintbrush, not thinking about your pretty green shirt.”
I forgot about my shirt. I looked down at it. It was unsalvageable.
“Accha, I think we should stop seeing each other.”
“Wait, *whattt*?” Rudy choked on something in the kitchen, as Jaya got high-pitched. I was also taken aback by myself.
“Rudy, get out! And Jaya… well…”
“Yes, well?”
“See, I’m leaving soon...”
“I always knew that, you dipshit. You told me that two nights after we met.” She put on a fake deep voice and rose to the occasion. “‘Hello hi, my name is Dhruv, I work at a gallery. I’m finally going to go study this year, I’m going to do a course in Graphic Design in Australia.’ You think I don’t remember???”
“Yes, well…..”
“Well, what? What happened, are you scared because you like me or something?”
I raised my eyebrows. Like her or something? I thought of the last time we had sex and how I was in absolute heaven because I made her so happy with my erm, performance. And I was amazed because I usually don’t give a shit how happy I make the girl, as long as I get what I want. The thought of Jaya’s eyes closed in ecstasy with her arms wrapped around my neck and her moaning my name.. well. Like her, it seems. I tried not to spit at her.
I took a deep breath instead and looked at her calmly. “Yes, it’s because I like you too fucking much, J. And I’m leaving and I don’t want you or me to get hurt.”
“Are you serious?”
“Yes.”
“Why are you so scared, Dhruv?” She moved closer and held my hand. I felt myself melt into a puddle of green boy in shirt with paint.
“I don’t know. I just am. I cannot do these intense things, it’s too scary. And this is very intense. I can do one night stands and stupid, slutty women. Not smart ones with gorgeous hair who are actually decent to me. On top of that I’m leaving so let me just save myself the heartbreak, please.” We were both quite for a few moments as she digested what I'd said. "It's time to say goodbye, I think," I added quietly.
“I don’t want you to marry me or anything but let’s just spend some time together. Please? Or, take a couple of days and think about it. I think you’re just freaking out because things have gotten steamy the last few days. So relax.” She winked at me then got up, picked up her bag and started walking away. I felt my heart sink as I gazed at her gorgeous behind, her hair swinging from side to side.. it was damp and she had left it loose, but I know it covered a shapely waist, which was also covered by her red shirt. I shook myself out of it.
She looked back at me and said, “I’ll call you in a few days. Pick up, please. And relax. We’re in the same boat. I’m not going to hurt you.” And the 26-year-old singer/lawyer left the building. I forced myself not to watch her from my window, watch her leaving my apartment complex, walking to her car [parked a couple of buildings away] and driving away from me.
She didn’t call for four days. Those were the longest four days of my life. When she finally did call, I did not respond. I imagined her with the boy who left his Tissot watch by her window. A watch I would never be able to afford. I imagined her with the multitude of men she met through her music contacts – talented people who could write her songs and poetry and woo the hell out of her.
I never called Jaya back. She came by my apartment when I was not there and cried to Rudy. Poor Rudy. Then I called her to say it was over and I wished her the best. She cried over the phone. I felt like crap but knew I was doing it for a reason.
Two months later, I left for Melbourne. I still think of her on and off. She is probably fucking the brains out of some Bangalore-based creative types, holding his hand and smiling her warm, sunshine-like smile at him. Lucky bastard. I am waiting to find the Australian equivalent of her.
************************************************************************************
For those who want a happier ending: conclusion #2
She didn’t call for four days. Those were the longest four days of my life. I imagined her with the boy who left his Tissot watch by her window. A watch I would never be able to afford. I imagined her with the multitude of men she met through her music contacts – talented people who could write her songs and poetry and woo the hell out of her.
When she finally did call, I cried. I actually cried. I, Dhruv Shankar, womaniser and drunkard and emotionally stunted painter, cried. Because a girl did not call me for four days. Jaya was very touched. We made sweet, sweet, very slow love and I got even more attached to her. I still freaked out about it, but she got used to my strange ways.
Before I left for Melbourne, I even worked up the nerve to admit that the ‘L’ word had somehow gotten involved. Love, not lust. She smiled when I told her, and said she knew when she saw the mad painting I completed some weeks earlier, unmindful of wearing one of my favourite green shirts.
We broke up when I left, but I had a feeling I would come back for her. We stayed in touch. We grew distant when I got busy with work, making ends meet, studies and acclimatising to a new continent. She dated a couple of other guys. One I vaguely knew, back in Bangalore.
One year and seven months after I left, I returned to Bangalore and called her. We met the next day, at a coffee shop, where she sobbed into my red shirt [much to my embarrassment but also to my delight] about the last boy she dated – a stupid sod of a Telugu boy who hit her. When I looked into those tear-filled deep brown eyes again that day, in a crowded coffee shop, I was a goner. And I think she knew it too.
*************************************************************************************
For those who want a more realistic ending: conclusion #3
She didn’t call for four days. Those were the longest four days of my life. I imagined her with the boy who left his Tissot watch by her window. A watch I would never be able to afford. I imagined her with the multitude of men she met through her music contacts – talented people who could write her songs and poetry and woo the hell out of her.
Four days became fourteen and then became forty. I was heartbroken. I, Dhruv Shankar, womaniser and drunkard and emotionally stunted painter, was actually heartbroken. I left for Melbourne with a burning hatred for all womankind in my heart. I slept my way through my first year at university with any woman I could find, and eventually the memories of her scented black hair and the mole below her left breast left me. It took a while, though. And I met a brilliant Malaysian-Indian girl named Sam. We dated steadily for eight months before we tired of each other. Sam and I still remain friends though.
I lived in Australia, between Melbourne and Brisbane, for fourteen years. I met my wife there, an American with brown hair and piercing blue eyes that could see right through me. Jennifer. We lived in poverty, got married against my parents wishes, had one child by mistake and nearly split up because we could not handle it. When Jen went to America “for a break”, I followed her after a miserable, aching three months. And I got her back. We made our second child in her parents’ home in Birmingham, Alabama.
Jen, the kids and I moved back to Bangalore finally when my parents got too old and I worried about them. They had forgiven me for marrying an American the instant they saw their first grandchild, you see.
Years later, when my son Mirav brought home his third girlfriend, I thought of Jaya again. Fleeting thoughts of where she was, what was she doing, and I forgot about her. The girl looked a lot like Jaya. I never did find out why she didn’t call me. I wondered about it for a few days, the next time I met the girl. Then, thankfully, Mirav broke up with her, and I never thought of Jaya again.
Monday, 11 July 2011
little needs
“I ask for very little, you know. I mean…”
“Little? LITTLE?” he spat.
“I am NOT done!!”
“No, you are. I am. We’re done. Bloody done.” He threw the pillow at the bed and stormed out of our bedroom.
He was joking. Had to be. It was over something stupid.. incredibly stupid. And it always was. I think this time it was over him not telling me that he wouldn’t be home for dinner.
I held back a flood of tears and crept out to see if the baby had woken up. She hadn’t. I was amazed. By her beauty and fragility, yet some unnerving invisible strength which allowed her to sleep through our worst fights. I had a feeling she was going to be just like her father. My baby. The only thing I could ever call my own.
I ran out of the room before the sobbing began, not wanting to wake her. After all, I would have to rock her back to sleep. Her father had left. God knows for how long.
I make him sound like a monster. He’s not. He’s just… insensitive? And I wondered if he was right, if I expected too much from him, as a man, as a husband, as a father. Most of all as a husband. Because he was a good enough father.
A little time, a little love, maybe a compliment here and there. He wasn’t like some other husbands who constantly compare the wife to his beloved mother, or a cheating, disease-carrying bastard. He wasn’t hiding a second family behind closed doors, he wasn’t a miser or a workaholic. But he was insensitive. Like he never saw me. Never noticed the extra talcum powder I put just before he was due home, or the trouble I took over getting back into shape after having Tina. He never noticed how glad I was to see him when he came home, or how all I wanted when I was sick, was just to be held. By him.
I wondered how long it would take before he figured it out. I lifetime felt too long. It felt like all I could see in my future was a black cloud, with bright multi-coloured toys here and there, where Tina would be lying.
I sighed and went to wash my face. I needed to get some sleep before facing the black cloud of the next day, and the villain in my stories – an insensitive husband. Sounds downright evil, doesn’t it?
--
I looked at the picture of my parents on their 5th wedding anniversary. There was tissue all around me, my nose was stuffed, my eyes were so puffy that I could barely see. I was exhausted. It felt like my whole world was a lie. Which was ridiculous. I was 22 and an adult and so many of my friends’ parents had split up or were living lies.
But for my mother to suddenly walk out after 24 years of marriage, a few months shy of their fucking 25th anniversary.. I was trying to wrap my brains around it. My aunt, her younger sister, halped put a few things in perspective. Which left me wondering why she didn’t leave when I was a baby. Why she put up with it at all. My boring clod of a father who never noticed her beauty, how she adored him.
I tried putting myself in her shoes. They seemed painful. I wondered how I never noticed in all those years. And how he never noticed. My stupid father. And my poor mother, for wasting 25 of her most beautiful years.
I started crying again.
“Little? LITTLE?” he spat.
“I am NOT done!!”
“No, you are. I am. We’re done. Bloody done.” He threw the pillow at the bed and stormed out of our bedroom.
He was joking. Had to be. It was over something stupid.. incredibly stupid. And it always was. I think this time it was over him not telling me that he wouldn’t be home for dinner.
I held back a flood of tears and crept out to see if the baby had woken up. She hadn’t. I was amazed. By her beauty and fragility, yet some unnerving invisible strength which allowed her to sleep through our worst fights. I had a feeling she was going to be just like her father. My baby. The only thing I could ever call my own.
I ran out of the room before the sobbing began, not wanting to wake her. After all, I would have to rock her back to sleep. Her father had left. God knows for how long.
I make him sound like a monster. He’s not. He’s just… insensitive? And I wondered if he was right, if I expected too much from him, as a man, as a husband, as a father. Most of all as a husband. Because he was a good enough father.
A little time, a little love, maybe a compliment here and there. He wasn’t like some other husbands who constantly compare the wife to his beloved mother, or a cheating, disease-carrying bastard. He wasn’t hiding a second family behind closed doors, he wasn’t a miser or a workaholic. But he was insensitive. Like he never saw me. Never noticed the extra talcum powder I put just before he was due home, or the trouble I took over getting back into shape after having Tina. He never noticed how glad I was to see him when he came home, or how all I wanted when I was sick, was just to be held. By him.
I wondered how long it would take before he figured it out. I lifetime felt too long. It felt like all I could see in my future was a black cloud, with bright multi-coloured toys here and there, where Tina would be lying.
I sighed and went to wash my face. I needed to get some sleep before facing the black cloud of the next day, and the villain in my stories – an insensitive husband. Sounds downright evil, doesn’t it?
--
I looked at the picture of my parents on their 5th wedding anniversary. There was tissue all around me, my nose was stuffed, my eyes were so puffy that I could barely see. I was exhausted. It felt like my whole world was a lie. Which was ridiculous. I was 22 and an adult and so many of my friends’ parents had split up or were living lies.
But for my mother to suddenly walk out after 24 years of marriage, a few months shy of their fucking 25th anniversary.. I was trying to wrap my brains around it. My aunt, her younger sister, halped put a few things in perspective. Which left me wondering why she didn’t leave when I was a baby. Why she put up with it at all. My boring clod of a father who never noticed her beauty, how she adored him.
I tried putting myself in her shoes. They seemed painful. I wondered how I never noticed in all those years. And how he never noticed. My stupid father. And my poor mother, for wasting 25 of her most beautiful years.
I started crying again.
Sunday, 5 June 2011
mr sweet
Sitara was having the worst day in the world.
Once a lawyer, she had thought life going over endless reams of legal documents could not be worse than *not* getting a story and being yelled at. So she switched over to the media. Newspapers, to be precise. Her written test was excellent, she charmed the heck out of her future editor at her interview and even managed to talk her way out of getting a beginner’s salary.
Which is why, when she *did* make mistakes, he got really mad. Forget red cheeks. The man had a round face, he was short and plump, but refused to accept it. So he wore t-shirts that were too small for him. When he was angry, these t-shirts seemed to expand around his tummy and shrink around the chest because he would inhale that much. And then he would explode. The man’s voice could carry across the ground floor of our editorial building. Besides that, his extremely long, grey ear hair almost curled up like Malayali cinema villain’s curly moustaches.
So the day that Sitara screwed up for the third time in two days, his ear hair really got curly.
“How, how, HOW can you miss environment day?! We had a fucking supplement out today? The Indian Times printed a GREEN NEWSPAPER!!!”
Sitara shuddered remembering the force of the man’s temper against the already-heavy load she was carrying. Although she couldn’t blame him. What so-called environmental reporter didn’t plan ahead for these things? Especially because she was busy planning a romantic evening for her one-year anniversary with her boyfriend. Now, she would forever remember that the day coincided with World Environment Day.
“Shame on me,” she muttered, while packing up her things.
The boss came in at that moment. She froze. His eyes were bulging out of his face as he stared at her, he was not blinking.
“Y-Yes, sir?”
“What the fuck are you doing?” His voice was very quiet.
“Packing my things, sir……?” She was almost whispering.
Then she saw it. He inhaled.
And then he exhaled.
“What the HELL are you? You goddamn lawyer people never give up! And now.. now you mess up and think you can just LEAVE?! FUCK no! I want a page one story for tomorrow! Give it to me in time for the city edition!”
She swallowed. “Sir, it’s already 3.30.”
“Well, you’d better work fast then.”
Sitara never worked harder and faster on her one-year anniversary. It also helped that her boyfriend left her her favourite flower, an orchid, on her desk when he left. [This was one of the few times she appreciated having a boyfriend in the same building.]
So at 9.47 pm that night, when she finally got home to the elaborate dinner she had planned, she gave him an anniversary he would probably never forget.
As they were falling asleep, she muttered, “You are the sweetest. I don’t even know where you got an orchid from. Our goddamn office is in that hellhole of an industrial area.”
“Uhm. Truth? You’ve been talking about that flower a lot, so…”
“Huh?”
“Well, the truth is........ a boyfriend would look for a place where he could get it no?” And Sitara melted into his dimpled chin as he grinned down at her.
There was a collective roar from Paul’s friends when he got to that part of the story about their anniversary.
“Dude! Nicely played!”
“What the fuck, man, how come these things don’t happen to me!”
Among all that, “Wait, wait, wait, wait!!”
The decibel level dropped slightly. “Yes?”
“So if it wasn’t you, who left that flower for her, Mr Sweet?”
“No idea, dude. If I ever find out, I’ll thank the dude, though. The sex has never been better!” And he dimpled at his dudes.
Monday, 30 May 2011
lucky
My name is Meera Lakhani. People call me Lucky. I’m part south Indian, part north Indian. Then again, if you’re from India, you would have known that the minute you read my name. Lucky is just a dead giveaway. Who has heard of a Sindi/Punjabi named Lucky… err... everybody?
I am bipolar. I still don’t quite know what that means. For me, it just means that most people don’t stick around in my life for very long. My parents could be called an exception, in several cases at least. But they know even less about me than I do. Which is difficult.
I’m in the earlier half of my 20s. I don’t know why I’m trying to be vague about myself… maybe it just seems safer. People say the Internet is a dangerous thing anyway. Anyway, my best friend is a dog I rescued when she was lying on the road, bleeding. I named her – wait for it – Cecilia. I don’t know why. It’s a very un-hip, infra dig name, I know. But around that time, I had read an oft quoted quote by some chap named Cecil Rhodes. Something along the lines of what Robert Frost said.. miles to go, so much to do.. I can’t remember now. But I was inspired. I was young, in my teens, and had just been officially diagnosed with my manic depression [I realize that is different from bipolar disorder in the eyes of some, I really don’t care. Either way, I’m sick.] I found Cecilia on the road and my heart broke. Literally. I broke down in the middle of the road, called some people, took her to the vet and helped her.
My doctor told my parents it was a good sign I cared for animals – gave me something to be responsible for. Little did they know that it would be the *only* thing I’d ever be responsible for. My dog, I mean.
I lost my job as a secretary to a fat, overpaid, snarky executive recently. I spat in his face. And I didn’t have the nerve to tell my folks. I knew I’d do it during my next high or low. So the last few days have been spent driving around, sometimes with Cecil in the seat next to me… just looking. For I don’t know what.
Then one day I rescued an animal from being beaten to death by humans and though I’ve been taken my meds regularly and all that, though it’s been a couple of months since the last “incident” [that’s what my parents called my highs and lows, my psychotic breaks] I began to think I was going crazy.
I started seeing crows everywhere. Yes, I’m sure. And I haven’t told my psychiatrist about it yet. They’ll all think I’m nuts again.
It’s like they’re watching me. So, I started reading up on crows. And I realized how smart the bloody birds are. I thought about it incessantly but couldn’t figure out for the life of me why they were following me around. Then I remembered. They’re scavengers. They can probably smell death a mile away. So maybe I was dying, or maybe they know I was so screwed in the head that I would die soon. I’m not sure.
And so. I have drawn up a list. Or rather, I intend to. Of things to do before I die. Not very original, yes, I realize that. But who cares. I’m dying. I get to be unoriginal, clichéd in the face of my mortality.
I thank the crows for again giving me a reason to wake up in the morning. So I can accomplish whatever I can before Death [I picture her from Gaiman’s Sandman. Pretty cool character, huh?] comes for me. So I’m ready when she comes. *cue for maniacal laughter that I’m not too good at*
Cecil and I are gonna be ready. Or something.
I am bipolar. I still don’t quite know what that means. For me, it just means that most people don’t stick around in my life for very long. My parents could be called an exception, in several cases at least. But they know even less about me than I do. Which is difficult.
I’m in the earlier half of my 20s. I don’t know why I’m trying to be vague about myself… maybe it just seems safer. People say the Internet is a dangerous thing anyway. Anyway, my best friend is a dog I rescued when she was lying on the road, bleeding. I named her – wait for it – Cecilia. I don’t know why. It’s a very un-hip, infra dig name, I know. But around that time, I had read an oft quoted quote by some chap named Cecil Rhodes. Something along the lines of what Robert Frost said.. miles to go, so much to do.. I can’t remember now. But I was inspired. I was young, in my teens, and had just been officially diagnosed with my manic depression [I realize that is different from bipolar disorder in the eyes of some, I really don’t care. Either way, I’m sick.] I found Cecilia on the road and my heart broke. Literally. I broke down in the middle of the road, called some people, took her to the vet and helped her.
My doctor told my parents it was a good sign I cared for animals – gave me something to be responsible for. Little did they know that it would be the *only* thing I’d ever be responsible for. My dog, I mean.
I lost my job as a secretary to a fat, overpaid, snarky executive recently. I spat in his face. And I didn’t have the nerve to tell my folks. I knew I’d do it during my next high or low. So the last few days have been spent driving around, sometimes with Cecil in the seat next to me… just looking. For I don’t know what.
Then one day I rescued an animal from being beaten to death by humans and though I’ve been taken my meds regularly and all that, though it’s been a couple of months since the last “incident” [that’s what my parents called my highs and lows, my psychotic breaks] I began to think I was going crazy.
I started seeing crows everywhere. Yes, I’m sure. And I haven’t told my psychiatrist about it yet. They’ll all think I’m nuts again.
It’s like they’re watching me. So, I started reading up on crows. And I realized how smart the bloody birds are. I thought about it incessantly but couldn’t figure out for the life of me why they were following me around. Then I remembered. They’re scavengers. They can probably smell death a mile away. So maybe I was dying, or maybe they know I was so screwed in the head that I would die soon. I’m not sure.
And so. I have drawn up a list. Or rather, I intend to. Of things to do before I die. Not very original, yes, I realize that. But who cares. I’m dying. I get to be unoriginal, clichéd in the face of my mortality.
I thank the crows for again giving me a reason to wake up in the morning. So I can accomplish whatever I can before Death [I picture her from Gaiman’s Sandman. Pretty cool character, huh?] comes for me. So I’m ready when she comes. *cue for maniacal laughter that I’m not too good at*
Cecil and I are gonna be ready. Or something.
Sunday, 29 May 2011
flocks
Time: around late afternoon when the sun is hot, but not hottest, in the sky.
Place: somewhere in southern India, where the summers are scorching, where animals wander around on the roads of places teeming with office buildings and the trash the offices manage to come up with.
A crow sits on a cow’s back. The cow is patient, but begins to get annoyed when it starts pecking at her. “Like seriously. You have plenty to choose from but you peck at something 500 times your size that’s still alive??”
“Why are you speaking like a black person? And. It’s hot, I’m bored and I know you’re too tired to actually kill me.”
“How do you even know I’m speaking like a black person unless you’ve also….”
“Guys, shut up! I’m trying to snooze here.” Another cow from not-so-yonder speaketh up.
“Snooze? What have you all been listening to?” a crow spat from a tree. Yes, crows don’t spit but it was trying to clean a wing and it sounded like it was spitting words out.
“I’m bored, Ma,” another crow said. “Let’s play a game?”
“Oh for Ram’s sake, fine let’s play a bloody game.” That was a bull from the herd, sleeping by the side of the road. “You crows go and find food. And we go, find food. And at the end of two hours, we’ll see who has found the most food.”
Baby crow was excited. “What’s the prize?”
Silence. Then the bull said, “Eternal sunshine of the spotted mind.”
“EH?!” Yes, that was a chorus.
“I don’t know, I’ll think of a prize. After all, I’m tha man!” That said, tha man goes back to sleep, unaware of the traffic that shoots past him at 70 kmph on a Saturday afternoon.
--
114 minutes later…
“Wha?” The bull opened his eyes blearily. A cow looked at him from her big, dark, soulful eyes. “What are we giving the kid crow? Have we decided?”
“What’s wrong with you woman! You woke me up for this?! For, for.. for THIS?” he spat. “Screw the crow! Cows and crows aren’t even supposed to be friends, what world do you live in? I just wanted it to stop cawing in my ear and gave it something to do!”
Stone cold silence. She cleared her throat. “You might want to turn around.”
The bull did.
He saw an endless cloud of black. Flocks and flocks of crows had gathered to help the brat. Turns out he was some alpha male’s first born (yes, even crows have fertility issues now. One wouldn’t have thought it, right?) and they had decided to help him. The result was a huge pile of.. well, garbage.
Let me make it clear. Crows are smaller than cows, and bulls too, definitely. But they’re useful. You don’t want to annoy the scavengers of a wannabe metropolitan Indian city. One never knows when they will be of use. Say, when it rains and the cows need shelter. The crows fly further than the cows imagine. They’d know where to get plastic to keep dry for the first rains to abate, while the cows managed to find their way to a deserted shed the crows know of. Before you ask – humans are useless. They think of only themselves and their milk, meat, whatever. Calves, even full-grown cows, have died of things like pneumonia after being left in the rain by the two-legged mammals.
“Erm. I was kidding.” Crows flexing their muscles is funny. Trying not to laugh is funnier. So best to say least in such a moment. “Ok, wait. Let me prove it. I’ll go find some food.”
Hysterical crow laughter. Bulls do not *look* for food. It comes to them.
“This should be fun,” alpha crow said.
It was. Sort of. One and a half minutes later, a stupid male motorcyclist was lying in the middle of the road, in a small pool of blood, moaning.
“See! I told you I could do it!” Yes, that was stupid bull-talk. Now we know where the term bull-shit originated from. Alpha crow to alpha bull: “That’s not what you guys eat. You’re not taking this seriously.”
“No, no, I am! See, I never specified what sort of food or whose food. I just said food. You guys can eat this!”
Hmm. Strange. The bull was reasoning with them. Before this could be properly considered by the birds (if one can call them that), there was a big noise. Humans had flocked to the one lying on the road. In languages we do not understand, they hawed and hemmed and pointed at the bull. Two humans promptly started beating the big animal up with wooden planks from a nearby construction site. This was something the crows could not fix before it was too late.
The flock of birds and herd of mammals (four-legged ones) were in discussion as the alpha bull continued to be made mash out of.
--
It was my day off and I was bored. My bipolarness was at it again. I had stolen a cop’s uniform, bought POLICE stickers for my car and cheesy blue and red flashing lights for too. I was happy and whistling and looking for trouble. I found it.
After almost two hours of driving, when I was in some godforsaken industrial area, I came across a cow being bashed up by some idiots on the road. I slowed down and parked nearby. People allowed me to – they thought I was a cop.
I viewed the scene from a little further away and figured.. these were morons. They obviously blamed a poor, dumb animal, which could not talk, for an accident. That too a bike accident by a moron who was obviously drunk and or high or just careless.
I strutted to the men, took out my lathi and whacked the bigger one of them
He turned, eyes wild, “EEEYYYYY!!.....”. His companion also turned, both holding bloody, wooden planks, and both stopped in their tracks seeing my uniform.
“Go, call someone. Animal doctor or something.” Nobody reacted. “GO!” Some people standing by ran, some whipped out their phones. “Call Blue Cross, you son of an unmarried mother!” I swore in the local tongue.
Then I turned back to the men. I calmly whacked them a couple of times with the lathi I stole from somewhere during one of my drunken, psychotic highs. They shrieked and asked for mercy, blaming the cow. I whacked them till they got why I was mad and till they apologized for killing the animal. Well, I don’t know if it was dead, it certainly looked it.
As they crawled away, I called the real cops and waited for Blue Cross before I made a run for it.
--
The crows watched, bewildered at what she was doing. After it was all over and their friend the stupid bull was carted off to animal hospital, they agreed on one thing – if anyone got the best food that day, it was the policewoman. To have two numbskulls begging for mercy, almost begging to be her food, to be killed and eaten by her, was thrilling. Especially since she had done it to save one of them, and not out of boredom.
Alpha crow announced what they were all considering. “The two-legged mammal who saved Bull wins. Since there was no prize discussed, she wins our loyalty. We will keep an eye on her and keep her safe from harm. No human who did that is normal, maybe she is off in her head.”
“I think you mean off with her head,” his female partner whispered.
“I meant crazy, not headless, you chicken!”
And they all dispersed, shaking their heads at the strange happenings of the day. That lady was one of them now. Whether she liked it or not.
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