gabbles

Players

2006-12-26T23:07:00.000+05:30

Players

The key to good flirting is confidence. If you have that, even the corniest of pick up lines will not let you down. And of course, he knew it. He'd been doing this forever. He was a player. Keen and sharp, with a seductive smile on his lips that all the candidates who met him here for coffee would ache to reach over and kiss, but would hold themselves just back. He knew how he did it, even though they didn't. This was his place. He thought of himself as a decadent Austin Powers and this place as his mojo den.

For all intents and purposes - other than his - the place was a coffee shop.

Amber glow and warm liquids and friendly voices, and he would conduct his interviews here. One by one, day by day, evening by evening, over cups of coffee that ranged from lattes to mochas to the cheaper 'house specials' that the barista knew he would ask for. A grin, a wink, a polite "And what will you have? These guys make great coffee", and they would be hooked.

But of course, it would depend on him, whether he would reel them in or not.

He was finicky. Not in the sense that snooty people are. His detractors and friends always said that he slept with anything that walked. He would smile and agree. He was a player. If he played you right, and you responded to some degree, he would be equally hooked. After the three hours or so it took to satiate him, he would ask you ever so politely to leave his apartment, just a block away from the amber coloured coffee shop. And his chemistry was such that, you would probably call or sms him a couple of days later, asking for a rematch, even though you knew he was never the kind who repeated his tricks.

So he would make it a point to reach the coffee shop fifteen minutes before the appointed time, and settle into his chair, the table which overlooked the road outside, and grin at the barista for his usual - a cheaper 'special' to tide him over till his trick arrived. Sometimes, he would run his eyes over the rest of people in the store, and if he saw a specimen that turned him on, he would stare fixedly, till the object of his gaze would look up, and he would smile. Just like that. Sometimes it helped to fix another date for the next day. Sometimes, it would result in nothing at all. But that was ok. He was familiar with the rules of the game.

Rule One was that nobody wins all the time. There's no such thing as a perfect run, and he was game for that. He was game for the thrill of wondering whether he would win or not. And if he lost, he never took it to heart. Because he knew, in another day, week, month or year, he would be back in front of the game, he would smile in a new avatar, and the game might not be that resilient. Sometimes, he loved the fact that his friends thought he was terribly cold. For his part, he couldn't understand how they could be so... restrictive.

There was the first candidate, and his eyes would grin at him. He would make a mental note and approve of the open shirt, the speck of tanned skin at the neck that looked amazingly delicious. He would move his hand forward and touch a forearm in a pretense to get at the sugar packets. They would laugh, and he would move his chair in closer. The joke would be silly. Something about how dumb the hero of the latest Bollywood flick looked while performing his Spiderman moves, but there would be something terribly charming about how the player made his move that made the game laugh. And blush, when the player made his own pleasure boldly apparent.

Rule Two was that everyone likes being flattered on a date. That's the easiest way to get them to take off their clothes.

***

But then clothes are terribly over-rated, she thought, smiling at the prey sitting opposite her, trying not to look at the horrendous zebra print shirt. It's what I want underneath the clothes that’s important, she giggled to herself in a fit of girly sluttishness, and flushed a bit in a move that was calculated to get the prey feeling a tad hot in the air-conditioned coffee shop.

Clothes are terribly over-rated in the sense that she never bothered to dress up too much for her tricks. She was meeting them evening after evening, coffee after coffee, because she wanted to, and a girl can't get dressed up all the time, she reasoned. So she would walk over from her office which was a short walk away from the coffee shop, play with her hair, undo the jacket, apply some brief gloss, and she would be perfect. It was the way she handled herself. The confidence, the poise, the combination of good girl and bad girl that made men turn their heads when she walked by. The elan when she crossed her legs, when she arrived at the coffee shop fifteen minutes before the appointed time, at her favourite table that was closest to the barista's counter. That way, she could look clearly at everyone who entered the store, and she could amuse herself by flirting with the barista in the meantime. They played a game, she and the barista: he would pretend to know her name, and she would pretend to give it to him, but of course she would change it every day he asked her. She wondered briefly, when she saw the barista flush and dimple, whether she should get a trick with him sometime, but then abandoned the idea: it would unnecessarily complicate matters.

Rule Three was that a player's arena must be a neutral zone. The player cannot toy with any of the original elements therein, as that would lead to complications. The perfect playing ground is hard to find - it can't be too empty or too full or too remote or too prominent or too dim or too lit up or too open or too closed - and once a player finds his or her ground, the player tries not to fuck it up by messing around with the neutral elements.

So she would flirt with the barista, smile at him, touch his wrist when he would serve her coffee, but then never look at him afterwards, be suitably sweet when paying the bill but always leaving a tip and never giving him the opportunity to ask her out.

The flirting had additional advantages. If her Trick Of The Day was a good candidate - good shoes, great clothes, great smile, good build, no bad breath, with a car and a place where they could be uninterrupted for two hours - a brief flirting usually got them further intrigued. Men love slutty women. Men love to have sex with slutty women. And she used that to her advantage. The idea was to be a classy slut. The idea was to smile just so that her trick would think, she's going out of my hand right now, if I don't take her for a drive in my Merc right now, buy her flowers, and o god I want that ass! And the flirting was a great diversion in case the trick turned out to be disappointing and she had to ditch him: the server is my boyfriend, and I didn’t think he’d be working today but he is, so it's best that you leave right now or he'll smash your brain to a pulp.

Rule Four was that there is nothing like the hint of competition to get a man exceedingly horny or exceedingly scared.

***

But of course he had noticed her for a long time now. Sometimes, when he would come in early and survey the crowd, and there she would be sitting, legs crossed, flirting with the barista, and he would smirk to himself before looking out the window again to search out his game. Sometimes, while talking to his game, his eyes would linger on her, where she sat, and they would appreciate her long tanned legs, and the stilettos that seemed to make his heart beat faster. He would smile absentmindedly, especially if his game for the day was boring, demented or just ugly, and somehow, looking at her with her tricks, he would be inspired to come up with great excuses to dump his depressing game.

My boss just called, there's an important contract I have to prepare back at the office.

This coffee tastes like shit, I think I'm going to be sick now.

Do you mind if I visit the loo?

I'm feeling hungry. I think maybe I should ditch coffee and have lunch. You've already eaten, right?

My flatmate is locked out of the apartment and is waiting for me to go and let him in right now.

That was my mum on the phone - we have unexpected (but important) guests at home, and I have to rush right now.

Rule Five was that you never looked too closely at a dumped trick's face when you made your excuse: you flailed your arms, looked a bit lost and disappointed, gathered your bag, paid your half of the bill, and rushed out. Pronto.

Of course, other than the great inspiration she provided him with, he didn't fail to notice that she was with a new trick every day at the coffee shop, and he would grin to himself. She's a player, like me, he would think, and he would feel something that was a weird combination of the sexual and the non-sexual titillate him. It was difficult to put his finger on it. And he would look at her. And her loser tricks. And her hot tricks. And he would go to bed with his hot game. And dump the lame ones.

Rule Six was that Darwin had it abso-fuckin-lutely right, and the Creationists have lousy missionary style sex.

***

Rule Seven was to make the tricks and games of the world think they're this Someone Special for the player, who can get the player to perform strange and profound acts of tenderness. Licking chocolate out of a fork, while doing so, usually helps.

So now, while her trick gaped at her and declared that experimenting and free sex were definitely the order of the day, week, month and year, she leant back onto her chair, uncrossed and recrossed her legs and smiled gratefully. He... understood her. He would also understand if she wanted another expensive frappe, wouldn't he?

Rule Eight was to make your move fast, she suddenly thought, when she stumbled on her heels, but was caught by the grip of the man who was coming over to the counter to ask for the cheque, and distinctly felt the fingers squeeze her lower back where they touched her. She knew it was the player, even before she turned around to thank him for catching her. She knew because she'd been noticing him for the past god knows how many days and weeks, and she'd known that his grip and his squeezing fingers would feel like that. She smiled to herself, and to him, when she saw the flicker and spark in his teeth and eyes when she turned around, and the rest happened like clockwork.

"Thank you. I'm fine now."

"You're very fine."

"That was - "

"- an insane compliment."

"I wanted coffee."

"Maybe you wanted more than that."

"What could I want?"

"I live nearby."

"Let's go."'

"I've paid."

And while his game and her trick remained seated at their tables, bewildered at the brief conversation at the barista’s counter, the two players strode out the glass doors.

***

"We should have made love like animals," she smiled, stretching herself, poking her long legs out of the printed coverlet on his bed.

"I always make love like an animal," he replied, as her fingers traced an absurd pattern on his chest.

"You have such curly hair here," she giggled, her player mode kicking back in, "I feel like I'm in a Mills & Boons novel here. Maybe you'll turn out to be a big hairy knight or something!"

"You already met the big hairy knight," he grinned, taking her hand down to his groin.

"Hairy, at any rate," she teased, squeezing him, and he started laughing now, too, letting go of her hand.

"I should be going now, anyhow. My boss will start missing me," she sighed, stepping out naked from underneath the coverlet.

He looked at her lithe body, as she stepped into her panties, and grinned again, "Is that your favourite excuse? I usually go for the Urgent Family Call!"

She laughed again, and threw one of the Hare Ram printed satin cushions strewn on the floor at him, which he ducked. "Did I tell you how much I love your place?"

"No, you were much too busy ripping my clothes off," he retorted, pulling his drawstrings on now.

"That's because I wanted to make love like an animal today. I was so completely in the mood," she sighed wistfully.

He rearranged the thrown cushion on the divan below the bed, and his eyes twinkled when he spoke, "You knew who I was, right? I mean... How could you not know... ?"

"O, I knew, all right," she nodded, grinning, and plopped down on the bed to step into her stilettos now, "But I just didn't care. I thought - there are sparks, so let's light them. And you thought the same - otherwise, you wouldn't have brought me here!"

The player nodded in turn, and kneeled at her feet. "I like you. There's chemistry."

"There’s chemistry," she agreed, "We're both sluts."

His smile broadened, "I love the way I am."

She ruffled his hair, "I love the way I am, too. So it's just perfect."

She got up now, picked up her handbag, and turned back, "But I really have to go now, and since you have my number and I have yours, let's catch up this Friday for drinks. I'll introduce you to this bunch of friends I'm going dancing with."

He grinned broadly and nodded happily, and she headed for the door. Looked back at him in his drawstring pants and ruffled curly hair, surrounded by his satin printed cushions, and beamed, "I love gay men!

Oleander Faye

2006-08-21T00:54:00.000+05:30

Oleander Faye

His name was Oleander Faye, and he hated it when people called him Ollie, as they invariably did, in college. The name 'Ollie' conjured up images of a fat man with thinning black hair, hurrying to keep up with a tall, slender carrot-haired man called 'Larry' - something from the cartoon strips of Laurel and Hardy.

And Oleander was anything but fat or hurrying. True, his head was framed by jet-black hair of so fine a countenance that it seemed to be thinning, but this was purely because it was soft like silk, not threadbare like common cotton. His nose was long and piercing, jagged like a mountain eagles, and his eyes were a terrible pale ice blue. He was fair to look at - white, almost. His lips were pale pink, not the healthy brown-rose that other young men of his age possessed to kiss beautiful women. His skin was translucent, something like bone china, something that you would expect in someone with melanoma or some other skin disease. But Oleander was healthy, perfectly so, if you ignored his perennially bored countenance. He was someone you'd think was supercilious, and you tried to keep out of his way. Yet, you couldn't.

Oleander Faye had his admirers. The women swooned over him. They imagined all sorts of fanciful stories about him. He could be a Nordic prince brought up by foster parents, at the centre of some great European scandal. He could be the illegitimate son of an American President, being groomed to take his rightful political place. He could be a God among lesser mortals. When Oleander spoke in his precise, clipped words, the women held their breath. Surely some great work of significance would soon be revealed now, even as he spoke, even as his pale eyebrows furrowed, and the satin hair tousled over his icy eyes... surely, surely...

And the men swooned over him too. The hardiest ones called him a 'pansy' to his face. Pansy Ollie would sit for hours in the library. Pansy Ollie would wake up every morning at the crack of dawn and walk the grounds, stopping to smell the roses, making such a deep contrast: the crimson petals in the colourless hands of the pale young man with raven-black hair. Pansy Ollie would take a bath in the tub, his room mate would report, and the boys sniggered at this. "Does he also use scented candles, Pete?" And Pete would oblige, "Green apple." So, sometimes, Pansy Ollie would be called Fruity Ollie. But despite the taunts and the sniggers, there were those incidents. When the star gymnast went over to Oleander sitting on the courtyard to ask him about the correct flight angle, and then rub his crotch against Oleander's palm. When Oleander would walk through the library and the Head Boy would instruct him to climb the ladder to fetch him a useless book, so that Oleander's shirt would rise, and as he would alight, the Head Boy's hands would squeeze his ass surreptitiously. When Oleander would walk through the tall arches, and two unknown footsteps followed him, asking him whether he wanted some hot black cock inside him, and Oleander would walk ahead faster, slightly flustered even though he would never admit to it. He would never admit to it, even now, five years later, lying as he was, naked in the bathtub, his fine head resting against the white marble, eyes half-closed, talking to his reflection in the mirror at the far end of the cavernous room.

"This is a medieval setting," his reflection spoke up, in tones as precise and clipped as Oleander's own. "Would you like to die here?"

"Not at all," Oleander murmured dreamily. Now that his reflection was doing the talking, he could be the elegant, sensible one, he reasoned: too much pressure to keep on the beautiful display at all times. "No, I'd like to make lover here, not die."

The reflection giggled. "With who? That Latino boy? He's not half as pretty as you would like to think he is."

Oleander Faye sighed again, a simple exhalation of breath. "Carlos doesn't need to be pretty. I love him. That's all he needs to be - Carlos."

All of it seemed so surreal, even though it had happened just the night before. They were out on a date, surreal Oleander Faye and earthy Carlos Santanna, a walk to the Indian restaurant around the corner. Takeaway didn't seem very romantic the day after, while lolling in the bath tub, but that time, it had. That time, all that mattered was Carlos' strength, the aggressive way he extended his hand to touch Oleander's, the disarming way he smiled (Oleander Faye never smiled, for all his perfection, never showed his teeth, for it would be too much beauty for the world to take), and Carlos talking, talking, talking, the movement of his lips, dark crimson lips that surged and that Oleander had been lusting after all night.

"He was a good kisser, wasn't he, you little tart?" the reflection squealed cheekily. Was that a blush on its pale face?

Oleander Faye allowed himself the cliched gesture of touching his own lips, in the memory of his past night's lover's kiss.

"Was he as good as the two boys on the football team?" The reflection squeaked again, saucily, mighty happy at the recollection of that event five years ago.

An usual event. Oleander Faye, the beautiful boy, walking home from the library, had been caught by the two husky boys. They teased him, told him to walk with them, pinched at his nipples, patted his arse, and Oleander gave only a token resistance. They pulled him below one of the darkest arches, behind one of the broadest columns, and there Oleander Faye shut his eyes tight, as they undressed him and then went back to their dormitory an hour later to brag that they had 'buggered Pansy Ollie'. Oleander had hurriedly dressed himself later and limped back to his own room, but was not able to deny to himself how excited he had been, how flushed, how aroused, as the huskies brought him down his knees.

"We shall not talk about that," Oleander said sharply now, to the dancing image in the mirror of the cavernous room which contained the bathtub.

The imp kept silent. He knew he had hit a raw nerve. But before he could say anything else, Oleander Faye remarked, "You're not being either very elegant or sensible, you twit. Tell me what they think when they come here."

And the mirror smiled in joy. This was how even Perfection needed to be sure of itself, he laughed. This was how even beautiful, beautiful Oleander Faye needed to know what his tricks thought of him, when he brought them home, when they washed up after the deed was done, or when they were cleaning up peremptorily before going into the next room to Oleander. The reflection held all the secrets, and Oleander wished he could know everything beforehand, but nevertheless, this would suffice: this ritual of floating in the tub and listening to the monster in the mirror talk.

So there was the married Wall Street lawyer who took his Armani off, thinking to himself that if he let it be, the faggot waiting to blow him outside would rip it to shreds. There was the needy charlatan from downtown, who pretended to hold the key to Oleander's sleeplessness with the white powder in his pockets, and who rubbed his palms in glee, not quite believing his luck at netting such a pretty boy customer. There was the bald bear from the pub around the corner who was wondering which ropes to use and how long to tie up his prey, before leaving the flat with all his money - not that there would be much of that, in this dump. There was the old man who wished that, as innocent as Oleander's face was, it would look younger so that he resembled his eleven year old grandson who he liked to fuck sometimes, dropping in to say 'good night'. There was the serial sleep-over who went about his task of washing his face in cold water with ice-cold precision, keeping his thoughts at bay, focused only on going out to fuck the pale raven-haired boy and never seeing his face ever again.

But then Oleander Faye knew all that and didn't want to hear about them. He said, instead -

"Tell me about Carlos."

The imp bowed his head.

"Does he care?"

The imp shrugged.

"Can he love?"

These were difficult questions, all of them, and the reflection in the far mirror was perplexed. Water splattered from the tub onto the earthy floor. Oleander Faye was getting impatient. Faye means 'fairy'. The golden fairy boy was getting impatient.

"Will he love?"

And the imp considered the demand. Carlos Santanna was the seventh son to Puorto Rican immigrants who had come over with not much more than the faded coats on their back. He had met Oleander Faye while coming back in the train. He had smiled at the pale beautiful boy, and Oleander her been surprised - who was this big, brawny Indian-looking guy smiling at? Me? And Carlos had walked over. With an open, inviting smile that Oleander Faye regarded supremely dangerous. But the more Oleander Faye moved away, the harder Carlos Santanna pushed forward. He would wait at the train station till Oleander would show up. He would come over to him to say 'hello'. He would never directly proposition him, no, he would wait to be propositioned. And that left Oleander Faye distraught. No one had ever counted on him pursuing the other party. Oleander Faye was always done to - approached, picked up, raped, fucked, dumped. This expectation of action from him was something new, that he was unsure of. But he was curious, despite himself. So, the day after the incident with the ice-cold serial sleep-over who'd wanted to inject him with HIV, Oleander Faye brushed his hair-to-be-swooned-at, slipped on his clean pair of jeans and a vest, zipped up his boots, and went to the train station, when Carlos Santanna stood, grinning at him. And he went over to Carlos, hugged him, and asked him to love him. Carlos was moved: he had not expected Oleander Faye to come to this. So he took him home from the Indian restaurant, undressed him till he was stark naked, put him to bed, and covered him with the moss-green blanket that Oleander never used. When Oleander pulled onto his hand and asked him to fuck him, Carlos ran his hand over Oleander's feverish forehead and told him to sleep.

Oleander Faye slept.

But when, the next day, Oleander Faye - who was the cause of swooning summer madness in girls when he was in college, who had been fucked by the entire football team, who was known in London's gay circles as one of the easiest lays of all, and who had narrowly escaped being injected with an HIV positive needle, - when he, Oleander Faye, dipped his tired body in a tubful of warm water that overflowed and splattered onto an ancient earth floor, and asked his mirror the question that held the key to his soul, the mirror's imp shook its head and vanished away into the depths of silent, secretive glass.

"Will he love?" Oleander Faye wept again.

And then he whispered, when he heard no answer - "I have so much to give. So much to give..."

The Dancer in Paradise

2006-06-25T22:33:00.000+05:30

The Dancer in Paradise

Dancing in the room, with the lights dimmed, and I feel happy. Your hands are holding onto me, holding me against you, and I can't help but sigh at the entire way this whole episode is turning out to be. We met yesterday, over a coffee shop, and tonight, we're dancing in my apartment. We spoke about Suketu Mehta yesterday, and his book, and today the conversation had nothing to do with books really. We hardly spoke today. Just looked into each other's eyes, and I knew you wanted to come home with me.

God knows I wanted to let you in.

***

"He's actually my uncle," you said, and I turned around at the comment. You were goodlooking, quite goodlooking, I thought, that was my first impression. Also, a smartass for venturing your opinion where none had been asked for, and I let you know that.

"I'm sorry, do I know you?" I replied, steely voice in tow.

Your divine smile did the trick. And you said, "No, no you don't. And I'm sorry for butting in. It's just that I'm awfully proud of the fact that he's my uncle. Believe me, no one gets more embarassed than him, when I act this way. Awfully sorry."

Of course I had to relent to that. The entire package was there. The grin, the elfen ears, that excessively long nose that I suddenly longed to reach out and squeeze, and I grinned back, "It's quite alright. I'm sorry if I appeared rude. He's really a great author. It's a great book. You should feel proud."

I loved the way you beamed. As if you'd earned a medal from me at that very instant. Was I being mad, I thought, but then you said - "Thanks a bunch. Let me make it up to you for the interruption. Can I get you a cup of coffee at the store here?"

And, I don't know what compelled me, I said 'yes'.

***

It all came out. You're the great author's nephew and live in the States with him. Here down for three weeks, and you'll be in Sri Lanka for a week in between. New to Bombay. "Well then, I must show you around," I jumped up to exclaim, and simultaneously rap myself sharply inside my head for doing so.

"That would be great," you beamed, and suddenly I couldn't resist. A date was set. A ferry ride to Elephanta. It helped that I've quit my job and on a break for some time. There's so much time to kill. Elephanta will be good. And dinner afterwards.

I decided to try my luck at dinner, because you're looking so delicious: "Do you dance?"

And that's when you grin, wink at me and reply: "I'm a dance teacher."

***

Salsa. The twist. The hustle. Lambada. The tango. Cheek to cheek, then. And finally, lip to lip. I'm hooked.

Hurried phone calls to friends follow the next day, and advice pours forth. "He's here only for another week. Then he's going away to Sri Lanka. He's not going to call you again after that. Just enjoy the passion now. Nothing more."

A scowl on my face. Why on earth won't I believe my friends? "What if it's more? What if...?"

"It's not more," chimes in friend no 2. "They come and they go. Non resident idiots are fun to screw. Screw him and get over it. Nothing more. Don't screw yourself like this now."

Reason shines through, and fights with the heartstrings. But... "He dances divinely."

"He'll dance right out of your life," comes the reply, fast as lightning, I'm not sure from which one.

***

A week goes by terribly fast. Terribly. Fast. And we find ourselves on the dance floor again, talking about everything but books and uncles. "What's Sri Lanka like?" I ask, in a whimper, not really wanting to know.

"Heaven." A pause, and then - "What's Bombay like?"

I'm puzzled, and don't reply, but then he does, for me - "It's paradise. Because it has you."

He'll dance right out of your life, I think, and grin at him through a steel heart. "You're glib."

"I'm honest," he replies, and I wish he would beam now. I want him to laugh and talk nonstop the way he usually does, about dance and books and travel and other things that don't matter, anything that won't make me look at him, like this, and wish I could reach up and squeeze his nose and stroke his ears, something which I don't trust myself at all to do... Ninny, I call myself, and wonder why it took so little time, such little effort. And then, I make up my mind, and tell him, "No, you're glib."

He looks slightly pained for an instant, but then the smile comes back on his face. He grins and kisses my ear, and I shudder at his hot breath. They're playing some delicious tango tune, and he holds my waist firmly, and pulls me closer to him. I'm grateful for that, grateful that he will take me to dance with him and then to bed later, so that we can forego this silly talk which drives me crazy, so that I can forget that he's leaving for his week-long trip to Sri Lanka tomorrow and that I will probably never see him again. Jumble of thoughts destroyed thankfully by the jumble of body movements as we twirl on the dance floor, but then he whispers into my ears as the final crescendo starts... "Hold on... you'll see..."

***

My friends have been angels. I've been thinking of you every day. Talking about you to them, and they've been patient enough to bear me prattle on. A week-long romance. I must be going mad. Or juvenile. But it seems so important to me, and I don't know why. A week full of dance and desire, a week full of absence and wondering whether you'll come back or not. And finally, it's over. "You're glib," I tell an imaginary him, whispering, while I fold the clothes fresh from the laundromat.

There was the episode when we went to Marine Drive together for a pizza, and got stuck in the rain. "I hate the rain!" you sputtered, hiding under the store awning, while I shrieked in glee. I'm a child in the rain.

"You're crazy!" I yelled back, nose dripping water, and hugged you, getting you wet. I think you were in two minds, whether to push my wet body away or hold on, but I didn't give you a chance. "And I'm demented!"

You started laughing now, and grabbed me in, away from the torrents now, "Are you always going to be this mad?"

I nodded my head vigorously: "Getting second thoughts?"

And you pecked my cheek, even as I tugged on your nose, "Not even if I tried!"

Bombay rains make me decidedly mad, I've decided, more than a week later, as I fold clothes on the bed. Friends are right, and lovers rarely are. Screw them, don't let them screw your head: the cardinal rule of a fling, and I.. and I flung it out of the window. I hate Sri Lanka now. I'm never going to go there, I decide, like a child.

The doorbell rings, and it must be friends 1 and 2 with the pizza. Pizza and sobby love stories for a rainy evening, that's my life. Thank god my new job begins from tomorrow.

And there you are. Dishevelled. Smiling. A big nose and elfen ears. Smiling. "I'm back... and it's Paradise again."

I stand there at the door, looking at you. Red bags and black jacket, dripping wet in the rain. I step back, and walk over to the stereo and switch on the CD which I haven't removed in a week's time. "Just in time for a dance," I smile, as your hands encircle my waist.

Giving the boot

2006-06-14T11:12:00.000+05:30

Giving the boot

"These boots were made for walking, and that's just what they'll do. One of these days these boots are gonna walk all over you," she crooned in the radio, and you had to grin, imagining that blonde temptress in her tiny denim shorts, frayed suitably so that strands of blue fabric strayed over her smooth cream skin.

"And what about the boots?" Sid asks, smiling at me. He's amused at something.

What about them? I ask back, a bit irritated at the grin in his voice. Sid has a way of standing up and saying something that makes you think you're being silly. The really irritating part is that nine times out of ten, he's right.

"Well," he says, the infernal idiot, stretching up to his feet, yawning and crisscrossing his legs, long long long legs, and settling back into the lazy couch, hugging the pillow closer, but that silly smile of his remains the same, "The song is about the boots after all. So maybe, after all that beautiful theorizing about the blonde's denim shorts and creamy thighs, you could spare a thought about what the boots are like."

Appy titters. "Moron," she coughs aloud, and I'm inclined to agree. Nancy Sinatra had weightier topics on her mind when she was singing Boots, I'm sure, than boots themselves. Appy's inclined to agree, mind reader that she is, and says so: "I’m sure that Nancy Sinatra had weightier topics on her mind when she was singing Boots, than boots themselves!..." The problem is, I often suspect Appy of sarcasm, and she often happily admits to the crime. So that's why I look at her askance now, not very thrilled at her backing, as I would be perhaps, if Archie had said the same thing.

But Archie says: "You guys are nuts. That's Jessica Simpson singing that stupid song, for god's sake, and not Nancy. Was Nancy even blonde? She was brunette, na?"

Archie's the practical one. The one who peers at the world from behind shades of grey and black and white, not too many colours like me, who's perpetually on the run after rainbows... and boots now, I suppose. Archie's not very impressed with either Jessica Simpson or Nancy Sinatra.

The other two, however, have vested interests, and I can't trust either. Sid has a crush on Nick Whatshisname, Jessica Simpson's ex, and that's why he can’t stand thoughts about the blonde or her frayed denim jeans. And Appy swoons every time she hears Frank Sinatra sing The Way You Look Tonight. She's seen the last scene of You've Got Mail only a gadzillion times, the rose garden where Meg Ryan sees Tom Hanks come through with his dog, and that's when you have the score in the background, love wrinkling noses and foolish hearts being touched in lovely ways. And Appy never fails to sigh in heartfelt angst when she sees that scene. It's enough to make Archie go 'O pleeeeeezzze!' in a most pitiful way.

"All of you are complete philistines, I swear. What's important is the tone. The boots are secondary. That's why you don't have to think of them all the time, Sid. It's the woman you're supposed to be looking at." And in cue to my words, Appy throws another pillow towards Sid. But that's when I decide to take Appy the Sap head-on, and charge at her next: "And honestly, Jessica's version is much better than Nancy's. Nancy was hardly as sexy! I mean, have you guys seen the video? There's this hot chick in an old Western saloon, in these tiny shorts and high knee length boots, hitting guys and dancing on table tops. It's a complete male fantasy come true. It’s all about kink and sex. Nancy doesn’t even come close!"

Appy's sputtering now so much that she can't respond to that one, and that's when Archie pushes her glasses back higher up the bridge of her nose, and says in her Sigmund Freud voice: "So, you never told us that you have S&M fantasies. Do you like rough sex?"

Sid hoots in laughter and I get a pillow thrown at my face. I'm not very amused. Before I can retaliate, however, Archie drones on: "The video has Jessica dancing in the saloon, causing all the guys to hit each other - a brawl, in fact. And then, in the middle of it all, Jessica and her dancers are gyrating and touching each other erotically and all the men pipe down after they see that. That kind of stuff actually perpetuates several myths about male heterosexuality - most importantly, the fact that heterosexual men get turned on by seeing women touch each other and themselves. It's remarkable how grown men will fight to compete for the affections of a woman, but will immediately be 'good' and sit down to watch if the woman in question starts making out with other women in leather and boots. So basically, heterosexual men are in love with the entire S&M fantasy, however much they go blue in the face denying it."

Appy, mutters to herself: "I like S&M. I like kinky."

Part of me is listening to what Appy said, and feels happy cuz she's really hot and sexy, but the other part of me is distracted by Sid the Fag’s sudden outburst: "Straight men are morons! They run after chicks canoodling themselves and can't stand it if gay men do it! Double standards! EFFing double standards!"

Archie sighs in heartfelt approval and I want to tell them both to go fuck themselves. The fag who doesn't go two days without getting laid and the dowdy hag who's not got laid in years. Talk about strange bedfellows! I'm about to say something mean which I would probably regret later, but am saved when Appy croons almost to herself, "I hope Frank Sinatra wasn't gay. Do you think he was, Sid?"

Sid sighs happily, and chirps in, his Homosexual Pride abated for sometime, "I have no idea. Dapper dude, though. I wouldn't be surprised. It would be so cool, if all those mafia guys in 1920s America were gay!"

Archie sighs again, pained at the misrepresentation of the Capones and says, "You have your decades severely mixed up, Sid. I suggest you stick to lusting after Nick Whatshisname and leave Frank for the Sap Bowl there."

And that's when Sid sticks his tongue out to Archie and me, and quotes from a very unlikely source: "These boots were made for walking, and that's just what they'll do. One of these days these boots are gonna walk all over you!"

When Harry met Sally and I

2005-12-07T15:53:00.000+05:30

When Harry met Sally and I

I always thought it was a matter of common courtesy to not smoke in front of non-smokers, or at the least, to ask their permission before doing so. As it turns out, it was fallacy on my part to think so. So, I sit here, wedged between Harry and Sally on the park bench, as they puff away to glory and I crinkle my nose.

It's always been like this. For the five years that we've known each other, it's always been like this. Harry and Sally and me, the token Non-Chimney, to complete the pack.

Sally's real name is Sharmishta, and she's still in love with her old boyfriend, the one who dumped her to marry a Monica or a Kelly, or one of the other Makapao women who live and work in Bandra. Harry and I call her Sally, though, because of her penchant for falling in love with Christian boys. Glenn was her first love, the one she lost her virginity to, on his huge blue couch in his sea-facing apartment on Carter Road. Glenn was perfect, she used to tell us, young and dashing ad executive who made it big quite by chance, when the boss noticed his layout on the desk while passing by, and the climb came quickly after that. Sally and Glenn met at a bookstore, as they both reached for Love in the Time of Cholera, and were smitten.

But today, he's dumped her, and married Diana. Or was it Monica? Today, Sally's sitting on the park bench with me and Harry, smoking her Gold Flakes Light because she's thinking about the cute boy called Aaron whom she met in the yahoo chatroom at work. She's furrowing her brows and thinking hard because she's wondering why Aaron seems so interested even though she weighs 77 kilos. But maybe, he's a nice guy, she tells herself, maybe he's not as shallow as Harry.

Harry's parents named him Haresh. But he found his new name, Harry, in the course of a sojourn in a gay chatroom. In a gay chatroom, Harry would explain to us, no one ever uses his (very few hers) real name. There would be several Rahuls there, an umpteen number of Sameers, and quite a few Sahils as well. The trick, Harry explained, was to choose a name that sounded friendly enough, fake enough, and definitely not complicated. No one would ever want to sleep with a Haresh, but a Harry definitely gave the impression of a cute Anglo stud.

Of course, Harry had met Sally's Glenn briefly during the time they were still going strong, and he felt strangely vindicated now after the end of the affair in his initial assessment that Glenn was a 'fart-face'. Harry liked to tell himself (and others) that he could read people. I, he said, was a pushover. Sally, by the same mystic art, was a sucker for pain. And Harry, the two of us concluded, was a flake.

But the thing he said about me being a pushover is not completely untrue. I'm an ordinary guy, really, and I find myself in a very ordinary place. It's strange how those ideas of being this famous writer died down. Ashes to ashes, and all that jazz. My dad told me that a chartered accountancy was the best way forward, and since none of my stuff was getting published anywhere, I had no other viable alternative to show him. I spent five years and finally became a CA. That actually sounds pretty cool to say, but not when I see Harry, who stuck to his guns, stood up to his dad and is the lead guitar in a music band today, or when I see Sally, who's writing feature stories for one of the city's leading tabloids. O, yes, they bitch about their jobs same as I do, whenever we sit on the park bench, but that's just natural, or they're just being ingrates - you can look at it in whichever light you want.

The park lies in the centre of this little square patch of green grass, surrounded by the shining glass towers and concrete buildings where we work. All three of us. Sally's newspaper has its offices on the first and second floors of Highway Towers A Wing; Harry's band usually comes to the little studio behind Highway Towers D Wing, and my firm occupies half the fifth floor in Sunrise Towers II. The complex is called Sunrise Complex, by the way, which used to be the Sunrise Mills ten years ago, but none of us who come here every day, six days a week, really care about what the mill was like, what they made, or where the old workers have gone. That's just reality here in Lower Parel. Hell, people need crummy music bands, tabloids and chartered accountants more than they need parchy old cloth, right?

I hate sermonizing, by the way. That makes me wonder why I like Harry, actually. He's got issues. All gay men have issues, he tells me, and I must learn to deal with them. You're the only gay man I know, I tell him, and I actually wouldn't have minded if you'd never come out to me at all, you know. To which, he arches his eyebrows in what I call the diva queen mode, and sniffs. Of course, Sally has to take his side here, even though she bitches about him to me when he's not there. I get quite fed up with the two of them at times - it would be such sweet and divine vengeance if Harry decided he wasn't gay one day, and the two of them got married.

Haresh weds Sharmishta. Invite for one.

It's actually funny how similar the two of them are. Like the fact that they both ignore my glum face when they smoke right next to me. I'm dying of cancer here, but no, they need their stupid joints. And then, they're both drama queens. When Sally got her heart trampled upon by Steven from Hill Road, she told Harry first, and the two of them went to Cafe Mocha, within sight of Steven's house, and drank wine and ate chocolate fiesta, and tried to get over him. Harry falls for most of the guys Sally dates, and in a way, it's his heart that gets broken too, when she gets dumped. Me? I’m the one who has to drive down to pick up the two drunken sods from Mocha and drop them home.

But Sally's not exactly sure why she fell for Steven. Not after what Glenn from Carter Road did to her. Her parents are quite scandalized about their daughter's liaisons with Catholic boys, and have asked her not to have anything to do with them. Also Muslims. Parsis, definitely: they're sickly. Sikhs are very domineering, they tell Sally, and so a Sikh boy is out for her own good. Any nice Hindu boy is fine. Unfortunately for them, Sally is not as rigid as they would like her to be. She's a girl who likes the idea of love, is in love with that idea herself, and is quite willing to believe that there exists someone who will fall head over heels in love with her, just as she will do the same for him. She's not stupid in matters of love, mind you, just gullible, and in a way, that's much, much worse.

It had been beautiful with Glenn, of course. Glenn and the blue couch facing the ocean, on which they'd made love. When his face was lower, burrowed between her breasts, she would sigh, and look out at the blue-green expanse of sea and tell herself how lucky she was to have found the love of her life. When Glenn told her casually that he wasn't in love with her anymore, on that same blue couch facing the sea, she smiled back her bitter tears and told him to go to hell. She prays regularly, you know.

No one could ever accuse Harry of being in love with the idea of love anymore, though. Like all men who discover they're gay relatively early in life, Harry had had his heart broken a couple of times in quick succession by older men who needed a quick screw(driver). Harry was able and more than willing. And since then, he's come to the conclusion that love is what you make of it. He's not running after love anymore, but is willing to wait for it. He's built a reputation for himself in the gay circles of this world called Bombay, and is pretty much satisfied at the whole deal. Sally and I keep telling him to be safe and make sure to use a condom every time, and that's probably the only time Sermonising Diva Harry shuts up and listens to us.

He calls us his fairy godmothers, and I'm the chief in that line, by virtue of being his flat-mate. I'm the one witness to the succession of young men, old men, bald men, hairy men, swarthy men, boyish men, fat men, thin men that he brings in almost every other day, and I must confess that I'm quite jealous of his bloody-active sex life. Gay men have sex a lot, I told him one evening morosely, after a certain Dick or Tom had just departed, and he nodded, agreeing. You don't have to try hard at all, I observed again, quite sad at the extra effort I had to put in every time I needed to have sex. Harry nodded again, lighting an infernal cigarette now, and replied, That's true, but that's why we never have relationships. It's so much fun having just sex, no?

Try telling that to Sally, I replied, and he chuckled.

Perhaps, that's what Ritika tries, when she's ever here. It's so much fun just meeting and being there for each other and shagging sometimes (once in the month she's here), than actually getting into marriage or an engagement or something silly of that sort, Vishnu, and when she says or does things that seem to suggest this is what she’s thinking, I can't help but feel that maybe my life is an acute waste. Harry doesn't like Ritika (She's doing the quarterback, he proclaimed once, looking at a picture she'd sent me, of her with the Northwestern University football team) and it took all of my self control to not smash his head in when he says something like that. Sally's very sweet and all about Ritika, but I don't think she likes her much, either.

I get the feeling that both Harry and Sally think I'm being a pushover for Ritika. Again.

So here are the arguments against Ritika: 1) She's studying in the US, so I see her once a year, and that too only for three weeks or so before she goes to Delhi to be with her parents; 2) She's bossy. So bossy; 3) She doesn’t put out easily. I have to literally beg her for sex when I see her, and I hate doing that. 4) She hasn't been calling me of late, and when I call, she hangs up within five minutes, saying she has to go out with Michael or Todd or Jonas. 5) She may be doing the quarterback. (His name is Michael, I think.)

But on the other hand, dumping Ritika will basically mean admitting that my life sucks. I'm twenty seven and I've had three relationships, and none of them worked out. Ritika and I have been seeing each other (well, not literally seeing, since she left for the States) for three years now. So I'm loath to let go of it. Harry says, I'm just waiting to get dumped. I've seen via Sally how horrid it is to be dumped, and I don't want to end up like that.

"I have to head back now," Sally says, stubbing her used ciggie on the ground under her feet, "Don't you boys have to go, too?"

I look at her curiously and then at my watch. Sally hates her boss, and she's the one who deliberately lengthens these afternoon park sessions. Harry asks, offhand, still puffing on the last vestiges of his cigarette, "What's the rush?"

"New project," Sally says, getting up on her feet, and I follow. "Something quite cool on gay rights and all that jazz. You want to help me out on this one? How about doing an interview or something?"

I find that funny, as Harry may be out to the whole world here in Bombay, but his parents in small town Ferozepur still think their son is a sweet natured entrepreneur who will return home someday to marry the next door neighbour's daughter, and I chortle at the thought of that. "Yea, why don't you mail a copy of the interview to Ferozepur, na?"

Harry flashes me an evil look that suggests he's going to put too much pepper in my food when he cooks dinner tonight and sighs, getting his ass off the bench. "Nopes. Will give ya numbers of some other guys you can chat to, though. On condition of anonymity, of course."

Sally brightens, and says, "Of course. Scout's honour."

"Your cheesy newspaper has those too?" Harry quips, but it's a lame one, as he hands her his cellphone which has the number of a 'friend' of his.

"So, how should I talk to this guy? I mean, does he like you? Have you... you know, done him and dumped him or something?"

"Actually, it might help, if you don't give him my name at all."

"That bad, eh?" and Harry shrugs.

"He's immature. What can I say?"

"Yes."

"Sure."

A shared grin. "And what are you?"

A shrug. "I'm Harry."

One more

2005-11-13T17:20:00.000+05:30

One more

The tiny museum across the field seemed ridiculous in this City of Palaces, Amitabh mused, looking out from his bedroom window.

His room was at the back of the house, facing a field, which overlooked the Police Headquarters in Northwest Calcutta, and a part of the building had been cordoned off as a tiny Police Museum, housing little bits of memorabilia the DC had deemed important. There had been a lot of fanfare in the unveiling last Tuesday, the Mayor had come down and given a speech, a famous actress had zoomed up all the way from the studios in Tollygunge to cut the red ribbon, and the locals had preened with glory when the film crew of half a dozen Bengali television channels had come scouting for some matter for the six-o-clock news. Amitabh had not been there, but he had no need to. Everyday, he could walk over to the window in his bedroom, look out across the field, and see the Museum.

His mother came into the room, gazed up at the poster of Rani Mukherjee that adorned his cupboard, and said, "I've kept the milk on the table. Will I pick you up around four today, after I finish, or will you come back yourself?"

He looked at her, and hoped she wouldn't note the slight catch in his voice. "No, no, I'll come back myself. I'll be back earlier - by two. So if you finish around four, that means you'll be back by - what, four-thirty?"

She smiled, and turned towards the full-length mirror in his room to make sure that the pleats of her sari were alright, and said, "It will probably be closer to five. Perhaps later. We may have a meeting today, after school, and if that happens then I'll have to stay late. I hope we don't have the meeting, though!"

He grinned and lifted his bag up, and walked over to the drawing room, while she followed. "If they have the meeting on a Saturday, then you'll grumble that it takes away a holiday. So you might as well have your meeting today!"

"God! That's another thing! No, I don't want it on a Saturday. There, the milk is on the right. Next to Baba's tiffin box."

Amitabh could hear the bell ringing from the family's puja-room, where his father would settle for the daily Lakshmi-puja. Mother and son exchanged a silent grin, and Amit rolled his eyes heavenwards. "I have my key," he said, gulping his milk down, "I'll see you later in the evening," and he came around to give her a quick peck on the cheek.

"Alright, darling," she kissed him, before he could move away, "Take care, and have fun."

For a so-called modern building, the damn place lacks a lift, he thought, shuttling down the steps, hurtling past doorways that were done up in various degrees and styles. There was the Moitras', on the third floor, two big brown doors, with a miniature Ganpati shrine on the right - they had relocated from Pune. The second floor had the two biggest flats, one with a terrace and one without, and here lived the Sens behind their tan wooden door, padlocked because they were on holiday in Shimla now, and the Senguptas, who had a massive iron grill in front of their blue door. The first floor was occupied by the fifty-year old widow Mrs Das, who had a modest brown door, with a big peephole in the centre, through which she surveyed all who knocked on her fiefdom.

The Chakraborty's own door, on the fourth floor, was a simple affair in black, with a brass name-plate proclaiming, in suitably diminishing sizes denoting the family hierarchy,

S N K CHAKRABORTY

M CHAKRABORTY
R CHAKRABORTY
A CHAKRABORTY

That was him, he thought: the last little mention - A Chakraborty, Amitabh Chakraborty, Amitabh, Amit, different facets of an individual a part of him knew.

The ground floor was the garage.

***

The idea was simple, in theory at least. Economics was meant for the people, and it was up to people with common sense to derive the maximum out of it. Or something like that, some brilliant wit had said ages ago. It was time now for that brilliant wit to eat his words, however, as Amit and he frowned at the marks sheet put up on the front notice board, in front of the main college staircase.

"Well, I suppose this means you don't have much of common sense," Amit observed sagely, in a bad joke that he could not resist.

"Einstein," muttered Indranil through clenched teeth, checking the marks he had already jotted down in his notebook to see whether the collective score meant a passing grade in the entire discipline. After five minutes of intense number crunching, he came back with a frown and "I don't really know what to make of it. It all depends on what the Fourth Paper comes back with."

Tanu laughed, flicked her curly hair back, and said, "So, the verdict for now is: there is no verdict in the first place? How brilliant is that?!"

Indranil looked at the two of them, sitting on the last two steps of the staircase, grinning up at him like jack-o-lanterns, and he shrugged. "I suppose so. Maybe I should talk with Sur about it?"

Tanu shook her head. "Not a good idea. Sur is a colossal pain-in-the-ass. He's just going to make a stupid face and give you some bullshit about how you never do anything in class but sleep. Didn't you see the crap he gave Amit this morning - and only because he came maybe five frikkin' seconds after Sur showed up for his lecture!"

Amit smiled lazily, and said, "Aaa, but babe- you forget that our man here is one of Sur's soft spots. He can smile like a crocodile and Sur-the-ass will probably purr like a kitten for him!"

Indranil grinned and said, "I know - he's got the hots for me, I think! Hehehehahaaa."

"I don't envy you one bit, you big lug," Tanu shot back, "That monster is downright nasty! And you can have him, if you want! Look at Mukherjee - now that man has absolutely no airs, and is always willing to help you out - even though he's the frikkin' HOD!"

"I think you have a chance," Amit said, after Tanu finished fuming, "It's worth a shot. Be extra-nice and sugary sweet with him - flatter him nice and good, and make a long face about the results so far, and then ask him, what he thinks you would get in the Essay paper. I hear, he hasn't started correcting that one as yet, and if you get your foot in now, it's worth a shot. "

Indranil agreed, and went towards the staff room, to find Sur, while Tanu and Amit strolled away from beneath the grand staircase. "So what are your plans now?" she asked, hunting for a hair-band in her bag, "Attending the next lecture?"

Amit looked at his watch, "That's the one with Dey on Developmental Eco, isn't it? I don't think so. It starts too late. I'm supposed to meet my mum at around two, and go to a relative's house for some silly talk-stuff. Think I'll take a ditch."

Tanu shrugged. "I have to attend. I bunked his last class. That stupid new rule on attendance will screw my happiness if I bunk again. You want to catch lunch?"

"A sandwich or something will do."

***

Amit looked at his watch. Five minutes were left to two. He was standing at the corner of Maniktala Main Road, under the canopy of the bus stop, leaning against a rail, painted a bright yellow. He wasn't far from his house, and in fact, could retrace the way quite simply even now, from where he stood: right at the crossing, then straight on, then another right at the fifth lane, walk in straight, then the first left, and the grey house on the right side of the road. Man Sadan. It wasn't nearly as complicated as it sounded, he knew, and smiled to himself at the security of his knowledge. Then he looked at the watch again, and stomped his left foot a mite impatiently. It was two minutes past two now. The person he had come to meet was late.

The intersection where he stood was a busy one. To the left, rearing its head like an archaic old monster was a clock tower from the old market, and bright red Coca Cola banners screamed from the clock. There was no chime, however, none that Amit could sense now, though lying in bed some times, he imagined he could hear the huge clock in the Maniktala intersection tick away his heartbeat. The market was on the opposite side of the road, teeming with people, buying fish, slippers, medicines, vegetables and fruits, household articles, pieces of cloth to wipe their household floors with: practically everything you would need to run your house with clockwork precision.

To the north, stretched away the main road towards an even busier intersection, an even busier market at Hatibagan, where Amit had seen the bird sellers and their gleaming white cockatoos and their jabbering green parrots lining the pavements. The road to the right rolled away to Kankurgancchi, surrounded by yet another jamboree of shops, mechanical goods, cheap clothes, electrical repairs, which clustered on the sidewalk and threatened to spill out on to the road, already crammed with cars, buses, auto-rickshaws, hooting and fighting for their right of way. In the middle of it all, loomed like a king, the traffic policeman, an insistent whistle between his lips, the traffic lights at the intersection blinking and changing allegiance at his command.

"Ummmm, excuse me... are you Amit?"

His English was a bit slurred with the heavy non-Bengali accent, but then Amit knew that his name was Aniruddh, and he was Marwari. Aniruddh was wearing a checked half-sleeve shirt, in blue and black, over grey stone-washed jeans that seemed to hang from his narrow waist. His hair was combed back onto his scalp, and there was a tiny glint of imitation gold on his left ear. His feet were shorn in sandals of some kind - Amit could not tell, as his jeans were too long. He had a tentative grin on his face, as if he were not sure that this was the right person to address, though Amit had informed him precisely how he would be dressed, the night before - white t-shirt, blue jeans, red bag. And Amit, while extending his own hand to shake Aniruddh's, reeled off the facts the latter had told him, in his mind - 21 years old, 5'8'' height, 28 waist, 60 kg weight, clean shaven, fair, handsome, blue and black checked shirt, grey jeans - "Hi, yea, it's me, Amit. You're Aniruddh?" (aka, ani81@yahoo.com)

"I'm sorry, I got a bit delayed. I hope you weren't waiting for long...?"
Amit smiled, knew that Aniruddh's eyes were scanning him as meticulously as he had examined him, and replied, "No problem. I was okay. Just watching the road," and they laughed for some reason at that. Not a full-blown laugh, more like a chuckle, and Amit wondered whether Aniruddh would turn him down now. Would it be all this grand wait had led up to? Getting dumped in front of the crowded Bata showroom on Maniktala Main Road? - and so he said, "So, what would you like to do?"

Aniruddh had finished his perusal, and made up his mind, "You live somewhere here?"

So it was going to happen. "Close by, yes. Do you want to go there?"

Aniruddh flashed a nervous grin now, "It's okay? No one will be there?"

"My parents are both out to work, and I'm an only child. No problems. We can leave now, if you want."

Aniruddh nodded, and they were off. Right at the crossing, then straight on, then another right at the fifth lane, walk in straight, then the first left, and the grey house on the right side of the road, Amit relayed the way over again in his mind as he set out, trailed by a wondering Aniruddh, who looked around him with the slight awe people have when they venture into unexplored territory. Amit stepped over a puddle that had formed from the drizzle ten minutes ago, which had forced him to get under the canopy at the bus stop, and looked back with a fleeting smile at the boy following him. "Have you been this side, earlier?", and Aniruddh shook his head in a way that signified clearly, the place held little charm for him as it stood, and that sent a tiny frisson of resentment through Amit. Thoroughly unreasonable, he deplored to himself, shaking his head, and decided to try a new tactic - "So what do you study in college?"

"B.Com."

No help. Three-fourths of the youngsters from the Marwari community in Calcutta were in to B.Com. Amit tried again, "Which college?"

"Bhaggu."

The Bhawanipur Gujarati Educational College, more noted for fashion shows and speed racing than any academic achievements, the snob in Amit snorted, and he replied in a somewhat lofty tone, "I'm doing Economics in St Xaviers", but this seemed to have little effect on Aniruddh, who gave a half-smile and dodged puddles on the road.

The next question, however, came from him: "Do you go to the site a lot?" he asked Amit, who grinned a bit self-consciously. There seemed to be no easy way to answer this, but Amit had tried to perfect the answer as best as he could. "I go over there when I have the time." There - it didn't seem as if he was a perverted sex maniac who was always in gay chat rooms to find new men, nor did it make him look like a green thumb. "How about you?"

"The same," Aniruddh shrugged, and then - "Is it far from here?"

Amit turned around now, "Why? Are you getting tired?" he grinned a bit then, and "You're not in the habit of walking, are you? It's quite near, really. Just a little bit away."

Aniruddh nodded, and kept on walking, pulling his head down, and Amit wondered suddenly whether his reply had smacked of poor-Bengali-who-has-no-car-and-must-walk-a-lot, and what he could do to rectify the situation. After a couple of minutes of trying to search for the perfect rejoinder, and a couple of minutes' pause from Aniruddh's side, Amit decided that it was all too much trouble, and he should let sleeping dogs lie, as they were.

Man Sadan. "We're here." And Aniruddh gave another half-smile.

"Come behind me," Amit instructed him, and walked in, past the empty gatekeeper's stool, into the compound, and started climbing the stairs. Then, reminded that his companion wasn't exactly a star runner, he turned and said a in a partly apologetic tone, "You'll have to climb some stairs, I'm afraid. It's the fourth floor," but Aniruddh smiled gamely.

Mrs Das' flat was open, on the first floor, but there was nobody there, and Amit scampered up past her door to the second floor, gratified to note that Aniruddh had also quickened his pace behind him. Obviously, he was used to this game, he told himself. The second floor was empty, both apartments had their doors shut, and they climbed a bit leisurely. But Smita Moitra was standing at her door, waiting for the maid to let her in, on the third floor, and the two of them could not sneak past her.

"Hello, Amitabh," she said with the excessive cheer in her voice that she reserved for people she never felt completely comfortable around, "Back home early from college?" And she looked keenly at Aniruddh, behind him.

Amit smiled, gratified to note that Aniruddh had remained silent, and moved up the landing where the stairs left the third floor, and continued up to the fourth. "Yes, Aunty. My Friend and I decided to do some study-sessions at home, you see."

"O, that's very good. In fact, you should take my Piyali to study with you boys also, you know. God knows, she doesn't do anything all day, just sits at home all day, or goes out with her friends, no studies at all -" as the door opened - "Piyali! There you are, dear! I was just telling Amit that - "

But Amit had not waited for the rest, and clambered up the stairs, as soon as she saw the door opening and Piyali's scrawny frame, with her bush of short curly hair, standing with her hand on her hips. Aniruddh was waiting on the other side, with a sour smile on his face, as if he knew that neighbours could be very pesky indeed!

"Sorry," Amit whispered, and started fumbling with the door, to let them both in the Chakraborty flat. "Most of the time, I usually miss them," he explained, letting Aniruddh enter first, "Most of the time, I have the place all to myself," and he grinned, while fixing the bolt on the door from the inside.

Aniruddh walked in the flat, and sat on the expansive sofa that faced the television set, covered by a lace cloth. "It's okay, I have neighbours too," he grinned, and then, "can I have some water, please?"

"O, sure! Sorry, I forgot to ask you, myself, just a second," and Amit disappeared into the kitchen that projected from a corner of the big sitting room. He switched on the Aqua-guard, and waited for the light to turn green, suddenly becoming conscious that Aniruddh was alone outside, and feeling strangely nervous at the thought. What could he do, steal the TV? and he grinned to himself, collecting cool water in a glass from the machine, but then stopped chuckling when he remembered that he barely knew Aniruddh at all.

"Here's your water!" Did I sound shrill?

Aniruddh was standing at the mantelpiece, in front of the television, looking at the family pictures arranged delicately by Amit's mother, and he accepted the glass with a smile, while Amit looked at him, feeling slightly relieved and quite foolish at the same time. When he handed the glass back, he said, "Didn't you say you're an only child? Who's that?" and he pointed towards a picture of Roshni beaming in her orange graduation robes from Jadavpur University.

Amit felt like drinking some water now, his throat felt parched, but he smiled and recovered fast, "A cousin. She graduated recently." My elder sister. She's now in Bangalore.

Aniruddh nodded, and Amit placed the glass on the dining table. "So, would you like to come to my room?"

"Sure. Lead the way."

Amit looked out the window out of habit, as he entered his room, at the field below, and the police headquarters across, the ridiculous little museum that housed bits and pieces of Calcutta's law-and-order heritage. He looked back at the bed, and saw that it was all made up, set prim and proper, since the morning, and he felt a single pang of guilt and fear. That disappeared, when Aniruddh said, "Nice room" behind him, and sat down near the head.

Amit smiled and sat down beside him. "So, when do you have to go back home?" Do I sound nervous? Ridiculous. This is just one more time...

Aniruddh smiled, "About an hour or so. I think it will be enough time, don't you think?"

Amit smiled again, or rather he let his face muscles remain in that position now, and moved his left hand on to Aniruddh's thighs, and stroked gingerly - rough fabric, he thought - "More than enough... time..."

Now? Now? Should I do something now? And then, when he saw Aniruddh's face also slowly nod and move forwards, the decision was made. They kissed slightly, both tremulously, and then slowly opened their lips to let the others' tongue in. Amit moved his hand up to Aniruddh's face now, but he felt Aniruddh's hands touch him now on his legs, between his legs. His lips were making the sloshing sounds of a wet kiss, and he hoped that he wasn't turning Aniruddh off, but then a sharp squeeze from the latter dispelled his doubts. Aniruddh pushed him slightly, and he allowed himself to fall back on the bed, with Aniruddh on top of him.

***

"The phone bill is getting a bit too much, Amitabh. I want you to cut down on your internet browsing. If you want to browse, you should go to a cyber café. It's much less expensive, in the long run," Surendra Nath Kanti Chakraborty declared, helping himself to three big spoonfuls of mutton curry.

Amitabh looked up from his food, and said, "It's not the same thing, Baba. There are hassles in going to a cyber café. They don't allow you to download stuff and they don't want you to use floppy discs. It's a big hassle." Plus, no porn.

"Be that as it may, the bill is too much," his father pronounced, "Maya, the mutton is excellent. What's gotten into our madam, that she is cooking so well these days?"

Amitabh kept his silence, hoping that the new flow of conversation would stem the anti-internet diktat, as his mother replied, with a smile that accentuated her dimples, "She wanted a new sari for Puja, and I gave her one of my old taant ones. So, she's pleased as punch these days, and goes about as if she's on cloud 9! It's quite funny, really! Amit - would you like some more?"

He shook his head, "No thanks, I'm done. I've had quite a lot, already. I'm just going to wash my hands and go inside, ok?"

"Don't get on the internet again," his father's voice boomed from the dining table, as he headed into his room.

There was the bed, and Amit sat gingerly, watching the headboard, recreating the scene from earlier that afternoon in his head. It had been a rapid two hours - Aniruddh's initial stingy limit of one hour had been discarded, at the end - and when he had finally left, Amit had roamed the confines of the flat in a giddy high, not sure where he was going, not sure where he was coming from, but glad to be here, nonetheless. How does one explain a thing like that, a part of him wondered, and he settled for a grin and shake of his head.

He lay back down on the bed, put an arm under his head, and looked up at the ceiling. He wondered whether he should give Aniruddh a call tomorrow on his cell phone, but thought better of it. Give it more time, if you call him now, he'll think you're desperate, and that was the last thing he wanted. It was important to play these silly little games, he realized, even if you didn't exactly believe in them. He looked at Aniruddh's name and number on his cell phone display and smiled, and jumped up, when the phone actually started blinking and buzzing, playing Beethoven's Symphony Number Six as if its very life depended on it.

Amit quickly switched it on - "Hullo? - hey Tanu, what you up to?"

"Yea, sure, I remember the MBA class tomorrow. I'll be there. Yea, that's great, I don't mind coffee afterwards. Barista should be great - "

"No, I was just lying in bed and dreaming - no, not asleep, yet - nope, I can't come online to chat with you now - dad's told me to cut down again - (snigger) - yea, cool, I'll see you tomorrow then at college - "

"Take care, babe. B'bye"

Amit switched off the cell, to see that Maya was entering the room with a pile of ironed clothes, which she placed on the low table next to his computer table. "Are you going to sleep now, baba? Will you put your mosquito net up, before you fall asleep?"

"Yes, ma," he yawned, "I'll just read a book for awhile. I'll put the net up, don't worry. Goodnight."

Maya smiled, and her dimples appeared again, "Goodnight, and don't forget to put the clothes in your cupboard in the morning," and she left, shutting the door behind her.

Amit sighed. I'll ditch the book tonight, he thought, too tired for that, and he patted the bed again. It wasn't too late, but the single light bulb in the field outside the window was already on, and he could see the police constable on the other end, closer to the Museum's edge. Ridiculous museum, he thought, and made a mental note to himself to visit the Indian Museum sometime soon: haven't been there in a while. Maybe Indranil will come along; I don't think Tanu will be interested.

He settled back into bed, pulling the thin cotton sheet up to his chin, and yawned in the darkness, which was punctuated by the lone light bulb in the field outside and the clear moonshine streaming in through the windows, and his last waking thought was - I wonder if Aniruddh would like to come.

Blue

2005-10-07T23:16:00.000+05:30

Blue

Not sure what it feels like when you step through the fire storm. Perhaps, it’s something like this. Hot and cold at the same time. Cliched and novel. Something new that you can’t really describe because your teeth are chattering and your hands are shivering. Try to remove the lens from your eyes but you can’t, because your fingers twitch.

It’s almost a special sight, watching those fingers, artistic like your father’s, long and tapering, with small blunt nails like your mother’s, and they can’t enclose the lens between them. It’s a piece of blue ellipse, something that you imagine a supernova of your mind would look like, but you can’t really be sure, because you’re stepping through the firestorm, and that means everything is very uncertain. The forearm starts to hurt and you remember the bite that he gave you earlier this evening.

***

Earlier this evening. Met him at the bus stop outside your building, and you thought to yourself that there must be some other way of doing this. There’re other creatures to kill, other than yourself. You’ve never been the kindest, mellowest person to walk the earth, but this time, and the times before this, your prey is yourself. So you bring him up to your apartment and shut the door, and he looks at you.

It’s clear he doesn’t want to waste time, and as soon as he’s had the water you offered, he wants you. You wanted him, too. You wanted the debasement, and the supernova flames and the bites. He bites you while he makes love. He’s older than you, much older, and there’s a certain level of servility in that. Of course it’s kinky. It’s because of the kink factor that you close your eyes and beg him to eat you alive. You feel the fires even then, and wonder if he’ll get them from you. A tingle in your nose. A sharp ache in your throat. Your pharynx constricts. A shout. Is that what an orgasm is called? The remnants of torture and the memory of a bite.

You can see the crimson mark his fangs left on your arm, and you shudder.

***

Brown skin pales there on your arm. Red mark glistens with water. The shower jets do nothing to abate your fever. Stand there under the jet for some time. Let water drip. Dtip. Drip. Drip. Laugh while you stand. You don’t know at what. It’s a mystery. You’re burning up. Names of medicines that you can’t recall. Pop a pill. Any pill. But no, you love yourself too much to do any of that.

It’s all in the day of Garp.

Find that amusing. Reach for the soap. Rush your hands through your scalp. Knead the skin there. Tight. I wish I was in love. I wish I was in love. If I say that over and over again, can I make it true? Can, I? Can, I? O, please Santa, can I?

Find that funny. Laugh like Garp would.

***

It’s a gay ball. Streamers. Balloons. Heart shaped ones at that. How tacky. Laugh. Drink like a fish. But you’re burning up. So fast, and the image of the blue lens in your fingers comes back over and over in your mind. How did you manage that, you wonder. Somehow, you did. Somehow, you grasped that slippery blue half-orb in your artistic fingers and touched your eye. Somehow, you could see again, though it was through veils of water. Veils that kept on flooding your eye as you rushed out of the apartment, past the bus stop where the man who bit you stood earlier in the evening, and you rush into the cab.

“Take me to hell,” you urge the cabbie, flashing an extra tenner at him, and then you notice his horns, as the car surges forward. It’s a circle, and that’s when the supernova fire storm and the burning and the shower sequence finally make sense to your fevered mind. Somebody hands you a dry martini at the ball, and you wonder how he knew what your drink was. It’s a day of coincidences, but you know that there’s no such thing as that.

Sip. Swirl. Sigh. Soothe. Stir. Shiver. See. Sip.

Dance. Droll.

Effort. Easy.

Fag.

Spot the blue lens in the story, and that’s your pass out of Hell.

Miracle man

2005-09-21T10:00:00.000+05:30

Miracle man

Tracking a person is the hardest thing I've done to death. But it's the thing I know how to do. I follow the prey with all the keenness of a bloodhound. Or, I would like to believe that I do. It's not quite so hard, though. I've done this forever. Reading people, following people. It's knowing people that I try to do. That's my job. Knowing people.

I'm good at it. That's why they hire me.

I sit here in my apartment, in a building gone to seed. The stairs up here are stained with god-knows-what. There are voices wafting in from somewhere not so very far away, as you climb up the stairs, but you don't really pay attention to them. They're not important. Nothing is, other than why they come. They come to see me. To ask my help. I help people. By knowing them.

I came here some years back. I worked as a hack. I rode in open-air double-decker buses. I laughed when it rained and the water stung. I laughed because even in all that poverty, I had absolutely no idea what I was doiing. And then, one day, I looked into the cracked mirror in the hall of my two-room closet, and I knew what I was supposed to do.

The woman who sits in front of me looks at me in something mingled with fear and confidence. She doesn't know for a fact that I can do what she wants, but she hopes I can. It would make her life so much simpler if I can. So I smile at her, show her my yellowed teeth, and wait for that touch of recoil. It would be boring if she fawned over me, believed every word I said, adored me. This is riskier, risquer. I prefer it this way.

"I can give what you want," I rasp, in the voice that I have perfected over the years, because I've discovered they like it best this way.

She trembles because she's not sure she wants to know. I tremble at the absurdity of it all.

"Give it to me," I croak again, and I thrust my hand out.

She's dressed quite well, this one. From somewhere in Malabar Hills, her house has a lovely view of the sea. She stands out there at the living room window every day, before heading out to a corporate job. She's a bitch at work, though. Her coworkers find her demanding, over-zealous and simply ball-busting. That sounds funny. And when she comes back home, she's Miss Honey and Cream to her husband. He's an investmant banker himself, and he sees the ocean from his office on the fifteenth floor of a Nariman Point skyscraper. They're a happy family. Or, they would be, if she had not come here to my door. Asking me to tell her something she already knows.

"This is his?" She nods in reply, and clasps her hand across her lap. There are only two chairs in this room, and it's threadbare otherwise. There's the fan overhead, and I keep it on a a low speed as much as for the weather, as for the effect of suspense it creates in my clients' minds. It's all a show, a lovely spoof they love to believe in.

"When was the last time he wore it?" I ask, handling the tie in my hand. Silk. Patterned. Quite ugly, really. Not at all to my taste. But I need to find out when he tied it around his neck last, or the effect will not be a hundred per cent.

"Two days back," she answers, and her voice is quite calm. She's one of the stronger ones, I can tell. She has to be. She's a ball-buster. I can tell that from her thin lips. I'd like to kiss those thin lips, but that's hardly business-like behaviour on my part, and so I sit still. Not exactly still: I still leer at her, I still handle the tie, crinkling it and pulling it, testing its strength.

I drop it on the floor. That contact is all that I find necessary.

"It's quite clear," I pronounce, and she looks up at me. Her eyebrows arch upward, but that's all.

"My payment, first," I say, leaning back against the chair.

She looks at me. She's skeptical of course. She's never believed in power of anything but her own, but she's here because she's heard of me in good faith. She has faith, not belief. That's very strange, but I feel the same way. Faith, not belief. It sounds funny, but it's not. So, she looks at me, shrugs imperceptably, and then opens her handbag. Takes out her cheque book, signs it with a flourish. Her hands are heavily veined. I wonder if she has anorexia. I don't find such thin women appealing, though. Pity.

I accept the cheque she hands me over.

"You can go home now," I say, "It's done."

She gets up from her chair now, and turns. She whirls around though, once, just to look at me, an absurd figure still seating on my lone chair, the room quite empty and dusty, thin shaft of sunlight from the blinded window, and the closed door leading to the other room. It's an absurd little picture and she can't really imagine how she fits into the whole thing. But she does. But she did. I smile. What else am I supposed to do?

She shuts the door behind her, and climbs down the stairs, one by one, slowly, past the stained walls, past the not-so-far-away voices of children, down the stairs. But she's lighter. She's lighter because she has faith - not belief - that I made her philandering husband break his affair with his secretary. The ball-buster.

Being Pragmatic

2005-08-31T00:55:00.000+05:30

Being Pragmatic

There was a murder here last week, I thought vaguely, walking down the Gateway Walls, the boundary of waist-high stone that separated Bombay city from the Arabian Sea. Not that the murder had anything to do with me. It was just one of those crazy things that people never expect to happen in this city. People come to Bombay, and people live here, and they expect it to be heaven on earth. Nothing bad could ever happen here, they say.

Not me. I'm the pragmatic one. Or so I like to think.

Because that's all one can do. Think. And hope. And realize that, in the end, it was all meant to be.

************************************

Terrible to think there was a murder here, only last week. That sort of thing never happens in Bombay. That's the kind of thing people in Delhi are so used to, not us, not here! It's strange to think of random people coming in from wherever and just... slitting people's throats. At the Gateway, where so many people come around, happily posing, pressing, pushing for pictures... how strange.

It would be strange also if I asked to have a picture of you and me together. It would be strange because it would be so... soon. I hate that word. I hate being the understanding person who goes slow. The pragmatic one. I hate to be the one who has to pretend to be the silent partner, the one who must take it easy when I know that it's the last thing on my mind.

I guess that makes me the fool.

I smile, for I see you, and I wave. You wave back, and a rush of happy blood surges to my brain...

************************************

I like the way you talk about random things in the world. I like the way you smile and tilt your head. I like the way you raise your eyebrows so instinctively when I say something funny, something overtly serious, or something hypocritical. I like the child that you are, but to be honest, I can't help feeling slightly worried about that part of you.

"I've never been here before. It's great."

I smile at your honesty. Some people would say something like, O, I've been here ages ago, - by personal invite from the owners! "It's one of my favourite places," I reply, and I love the smile you beam my way in response. There's a reason why I like you... there's a reason why...

You so obviously love the sea. You've been here for ages. All your life. A Bombay Boy. It sounds funny to put it like that, and I smirk, remembering the film by the same name... you probably hated it, if you ever saw it! And that's when I think - I know so little about you. And I'm not sure whether what I know is what I'm looking for. And yet, I'm sitting here, absolutely riveted to my seat. What's the word my pragmatic soul is searching for...?

Aa, yes, it's smitten...

And you smile in response again now. I wonder whether you're really not a mind-reader.

************************************

I'm a bit overawed by all this, I admit. The fancy restaurant, the fancy coffee, the fancy croissants, the fancy people sitting not five yards away from us. It's even more unnerving, to realize that you'll grab the cheque as soon as it comes, and I'm going to sit there, fidgeting before the waiter, as you take your time choosing which credit card to pay with. There's something funny in there, of course, and I can't help smiling at the thought: even though I would gladly go Dutch, there's just no way I'd be able to afford it, given your penchant for the most expensive places in Bombay!

I actually smiled at that thought, and your hand came out to clasp mine.

But then you retract.

That's the way it goes. Begin the game. The Game. The Hide and Seek. The I'll-count-to-hundred-and-you-go-hide-till-I-find-you game. There are a million names for it. I'm horrible at the game, and yet I realize why it's so important I play it. I'm just not a pragmatist. Just not the kind of person who understands that human beings need to have someone run away from them, before they can be stimulated enough to run towards them. Silly theory. I never did understand it. But I have to play it. Whoever wants to die a virgin, after all?

And at that, I smile again.

************************************

They met some weeks earlier, at a party A had thrown for his promotion at work. X had stood at a pillar, sipping at the wine, when he spied Y. Y had stood at the balustrade, chatting with C, when she noticed X talking with A. There had been different moments.

There had been one moment. At the buffet counter, shoulders nudged, smiles exchanged, and enquiries were later made. Someone worked at a high profile MNC bank. The other was an artist, with a single exhibition out. Whispers were made among mutual friends, approving the match, and numbers were freely handed out. But of course, X decided it would be strange to call up Y without speaking to her before. And Y decided that it would seem much too desperate to call up first.

That's when A got into the act, called both of them, and told Y that X was interested in getting some Impressionist pieces for his collection. And then left them alone.

For their first date, X had procured passes to an exclusive drama performance at the NCPA. And after that, a midnight dinner at the Taj. They talked about art and the show, about their mutual friends, about what the stars in the sky that night suggested, and then X dropped Y home. There was no goodnight kiss, and Y wondered why not. X wondered why not, either, and debated with himself whether or not he should have asked her out for a drink.

There were phone conversations the week after that. He was busy with meetings, and she was working on a new collection. Life came in the way. But they talked. About little things. And they still wondered, albeit privately, why they hadn't kissed.

************************************

Roll the dice. Walk across the Walls. Feel the sea salt spray. There's a rush of sea in the air suddenly, and I'm splashed! You're laughing, and I'm indignant, but then a split-second later, I'm laughing as well. It's ridiculous how beautiful your face looks when it's laughing, and that sets me off smiling at first, and then laughing, as well. We touch, and I'm on fire. (Too cliched!) I rope my fingers around your back, and my breath falls heavy on your shoulder. I'm soaked to the skin, and warm to the core.

Damn it, why don't you kiss me?

Utter Vexation.

************************************

The lights of the Press Club are shining bright ahead in the darkness, by the time why leave the cafe. There are still people around the Walls, though, but I suppose that never changes, whatever time of day it is. The sea is choppy, too, and I remember the slight drizzle while we were inside. I've always had something special... a special fondness for the rain... I would sit for hours once, by the window sill, looking out... and I wonder if it's the same with you. I turn to ask -

You're wet!

You're wet! And spluttering like a wet... Something!

Hahahahahahahehehehehehahahahahuhuhuhuhuhahahahahaehehehehehe!

I hold you in my arms, and by this time you're laughing as well. You're looking lovely, a sparkle in your eyes... O, damn, why must I degenerate into cliches now? They sound so bloody trite!

Stop talking, stop talking. Fingers burn. (Trite again.)

There. I kissed you. Was this the first time?

Evening Haze

2005-07-28T00:28:00.000+05:30

Evening Haze

I’m not a slave to romance. Yet there are sights that bring out the sadomasochist in me. I’m standing on top of the westernmost ramparts of the Lal Qila, and I can’t help feeling out of place here. This is the world I pander to, the Slave in me whimpers, and the Rationalist in me laughs. I’ve always been schizophrenic, a mistress of many moods, and I’ve come to realize that.

This is Delhi, my adopted home.

I’ve spent my day in Chandni Chowk, looking for a shop that would repair my Vivitar camera. I finally found one. Everyone finds what they’re looking for in Chandni Chowk. The place is an auctioneer’s three wishes come true, the mother of all bargain basements. At all times, it buzzes with activity, from the shops that have sprung up, repairing and selling cameras and watches, both the genuine and the cheap look-alikes, and the stalls with chiffons and net georgette billowing in the wind, to the blinding flash of a bangle shop. This is the part of Delhi that gets you, the Ostentatious tells the Quiet, and the Quiet nods her head in response. The Mediator smiles at her two selves for now, while looking out over the ramparts of the Red Fort. It is a battle far from over, for, very soon, the Quiet will take an opportunity to lord over the Ostentatious. Meanwhile, the Atheist breathes in deeply, and takes in the view.

How strange it is, the Querulous wonders. I’ve lived here in this city for close to seven years now, yet this is my first proper visit to the fort. My first visit, since I was a five-year old child in a powder blue jumpsuit, walking along with the customary traveling pair of Bengali parents. (Bengalis travel – that’s what we do, intrepid pioneers of the first order!) Of course, I don’t remember much from that first trip, and I have to depend, instead, on the glossy photographs in the glossy album, with the picture of a sultry woman on top, too much dark red lipstick. This was a long overdue trip, I know, says the Finalist to the Querulous, who is satisfied for some time.

“Have I seen you before?” he says now, interrupting the Slave’s entropy, the Rationalist’s reason, the Quiet’s planning, the Ostentatious’ revelry, the Quiet’s truce, the Querulous’ satisfaction and the Finalist’s answer. “You look familiar.”

“I’m sorry I don’t think so.” But no, I’m not sure, really. The Querulous is bubbling with a new question now: could he be…? The Quiet is suckling on a finger.

“Are you sure? Are you Bengali? Perhaps, in Calcutta?” The crow’s feet around his eyes are strangely exciting, the Ostentatious notes, and smiles in quiet mystery, imitating the Quiet.

I think back now, and a part of me remembers something, a brief encounter, a shared walk down a tree-lined road – “In front of the Grand Hotel? The Bookshop?”

He laughs, a sound that seems to fill our immediate surroundings, and I feel myself smile with him. (The Rationalist is stumped, and can’t think why.) For I remember him. That’s the one. He’s the one. The one in front of the book stall before the Grand Hotel, in Calcutta. Not very long ago, actually. The Ostentatious smiles again, glad to have her guess proved right.

“Aa, yes! The bookshop, and then we walked down Chowringhee, but you took the metro at Maidan. How was the book, by the way? Have you read it?”

A copy of Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children, and my own multiple Children smile in delight at the thought. The book had been well read, and sat now, on top of my bookshelf back home in GK. I have a very neatly arranged bookshelf, and another one for music, the Atheist surges in pride.

“I have. It’s a brilliant book. But what brings you here to Delhi? This is such a complete surprise, seeing you here!” The wind is toying with the light cotton stole I’ve wrapped around my shoulders, and he rescues the sash that threatened to blow away. Delhi is like that, you know – free.

He smiles and comes closer. The Mediator does not mind, the Quiet is a bit shocked, but is shushed down by the Querulous, who wants to know more, as usual. “Well, I think I told you that I have relatives here – in CR Park. My cousin just passed his college exams, so I came down for a quick visit. And where do you stay?”

“South Delhi. GK.”

“GK? Phase one or two? I’m in Phase Two myself.” We’re walking back towards the Queen’s hamam. Whitewashed now, once inlaid with precious stones and jewels. Whitewashed now.

“I thought you were in CR Park... how come GK?” I play with him, and the Ostentatious smirks in approval. The Slave is a little worried, however.

He smiles again, and says, “No, I said, my relatives live there. I prefer not to stay there when I’m in Delhi. My company has a guesthouse in GK Two, M-block, and I usually stay there. Very nice place.”

“I’m in M-block, too.” Demure? I like him. I liked him then, at the tea shop in front of the Maidan metro station in Calcutta, but I thought it strange to have tea with him then. But this is Delhi. This is my turf. How strange an effect territory can have on a person, the Querulous wonders, and the Mediator shrugs in response.

“What a coincidence,” he says, in the tone of a man who never believes in coincidences, and the Rationalist in me laughs. I find him funny, I find myself retarded at times, perhaps it’s the place that does this to me.

“So, what do you have planned for the day?” he asks, as we pause in front of the red sandstone gateway. Brilliant view, the Atheist sighs, but I don’t’ know whether she’s talking about the man or the fort, smirks the Ostentatious.

“I should ask you that. You’re the tourist here. What do you plan to do, after the Red Fort?”

“Well, actually, I wanted to catch the son et lumiere show they have here. I’ve heard a lot about it. It’s supposed to be very good. Would you like to watch it with me? It should start within a few minutes. It’s already begun to darken.”

I’d planned on doing the same. My camera had been given for repair. I had taken leave from work for this. I had nothing else planned for the day. A sound and light show at the Lal Qila had seemed like a good idea, the perfect way to round up my day at Chandni Chowk, so I said, ‘yes’.

***

There are few things as romantic as a kiss in the evening haze. Some things that are supposed to be, are not really so. That doesn’t make sense. I’m not sure what does. How do I explain it all? I’ve never been one for talking tall. I’ve never been one for expressing myself. It’s simply too much trouble. People have all these preconceived notions about me, for some reason, and most of my effort goes in trying to dispel those, in the first place. Like the one she had, of me in CR Park. Or, when she thought, back in Calcutta, that I was one of those hundreds of educated intellectuals roaming the streets of a dying megapolis in the eternal quest for something… atheistic.

But she was different this evening, from that first time I saw her, hunched over a bookseller’s wares in the Grand Arcade in Calcutta. She seemed less skittish, less poised to run. There was something that teased me here, and something in her that delighted in that. I like her multiple selves. I liked the fact that a thousand lips, and a thousand souls behind those thousand lips, kissed me back, when I reached over.

What was the sound and light show about? A different age, and different people. An emperor who lived in an old India, and built castles and forts, and defended his empire. He levied fabulous tribute from his vassals, and his people lived in prosperous harmony. A princess who skipped through the lanes of Chandni Chowk, and bought glass bangles, and her mother who distributed gold mohurs in payment for the glass trinkets that her daughter picked up. Another foolish king who wined and dined away his kingdom, playing with his harlots, while the enemy burnt his castle down, so that he fled, forever reviled by his former people. And an earlier emperor, an amorous one, who built the world’s most famous monument to love.

Her kiss was hungry. Soft and searching at first, not sure as to what she may find. Something a good Bengali girl has been taught to do, through generations of self induced hesitation. And then the lustful abandon, as she decided to take the plunge. That makes it seem almost vulgar. But that is, what it was. Abandon, and even vulgar. A conscious decision to open her mouth, flirt with my tongue, lick my oral cavity, bite my lips, feel the flush and rejoice in the power. I was that mad king with his harlots, but I had a thousand here, while he only had a hundred. My thousand girls were so much better attuned to what both I and they needed, and they loved me.

A word I am ever unsure of, and try to run away from. A whole world, rather than a word.

Afternoon mirage

2005-05-31T17:14:00.000+05:30

Afternoon mirage

You were leaning against the pillar when I saw you, looking at me. I felt violated in that first instant, but then it didn’t matter after that. You were something new and different. Something that this city offered me every day, and I refused each time. Contradiction in my soul, I looked at you, and I thought you smiled.

And then, you walked up to me, and looked at the book in my hand, the one I was planning to buy from the vendor under the Grand Arcade. I thought your eyes twinkled, but I can never be sure, because eyes rarely twinkle, people do, and you said, “That is a good book. Do you like reading about places in general, or is it only this particular author?”

I’m not used to being spoken to by strangers, unless they’re beggars or they’re policemen, and so my first instinct was to stare through you. I’m not a people person, despite the fact that I come from the City of Joy. I find people intrusive, I find their questions intrusive, I would rather live in a land where no one cares or no one bothers you. So, I shrug, for all that I find you interesting, and I say, “Excuse me, I have to go somewhere.”

There’s a smile again from you, and I smile back, despite the chill in my voice a moment ago. Is that something you do for everyone, I wonder. “He’s an excellent author. One of my favourites. But if you’re a beginner, I don’t think this is the one for you. Here – “

And you fetched that book I had discarded on the pile a few seconds earlier, before I looked up to see you leaning against the pillar, “ – This is a good one. He writes forcefully, almost tragically. If you’re just starting, you may get overwhelmed, and then you may feel that he’s not really speaking to you, but telling you things you don’t really want to know.”

This time, I could not help myself, so the smile broadened, and I say, “I can tell you’re an expert on him.”

“No, not an expert!” sunny laughter, “Hardly an expert. I’m just… someone who knows what I read.”

It might have ended there. It might have ended with me turning back to the vendor who did not really understand who this third person was, but not really concerned since he was getting two books sold in the place of one, and me walking away. I would have turned to you, thanked you for your help, and I would have walked back into my portal of anonymity and secret pavements.

But then, “You’re not from Calcutta, are you?”

That took me back, and I laughed again, for it was so untrue, and it was so expected. “Actually, I am. I’ve lived in this city for twenty-one years. But now, I live in Delhi. I’m settled there.”

“I should have guessed. Yes, it would either be Delhi, or abroad.”

“Is that a judgement you’re passing?”

“No, no… like I said before, I’m no expert. I pass no judgements. It was just… something that struck me. Something I thought. Delhi is a nice place. I’ve been there a lot of times. I have family there.”

I laughed, and thought about that extended family every Bengali has, huddled together in a single locality in South Delhi, unified by its greens, its tangail saris, and its sweet shops. “Let me guess – Chittaranjan Park?”

And you laughed as well, rich and deep, from somewhere I could not fathom. “Of course! But I rarely lived with them! I prefer to stay at this small hotel I know of, near Connaught Place. It’s called – “

“- The Bengal Lodge. Yes, I know about it. It’s like another extension of Chittaranjan Park.”

“But without the hassles of having your family there!”

“I’m surprised.”

“At what?”

“You don’t want to live with your family in Chittaranjan? I mean, you just struck me as so… so... I mean – “

“Typical?” Quiet smile, and I blushed, despite myself. For what on earth did I care?

“I’m sorry, but yes. I would have assumed you would love to soak in all that ambience in Chittaranjan.”

And that was when your brows furrowed, and you scratched your ear lightly before answering, “You know, of all the words I hate, ‘typical’ is the most profound.”

“Are you a Leo?” Was I flirting? “That would explain it!”

Throaty laughter and you clapped your hands in glee, “No, a Scorpio, actually! What does Linda Goodman say about them?”

“That they’re awful people to cross, and you should be wary of them.”

“But isn’t that the truth for everyone?”

“Not really. There are some people who wouldn’t really mind if you crossed them, who would just take it all, and leave it behind somewhere.”

“And, would you be very shocked if I told you that I was one of them?” A hand up to prevent me from interrupting, when I open my mouth - “That’s again a picture you built up about me, isn’t it? Like the fact that I was a typical Bengali who would love to stay in Chittaranjan Park and soak up the ‘ambience’, as you put it?”

“Well, wouldn’t you?”

You stopped, and placed your hands behind your back, and now I look at you. Yes, you look typical. Somebody you see on the roads of Calcutta almost every other day. Frizzled hair, sensuous mouth, mirthful eyes that promise so much behind black rimmed glasses Fashion has suddenly brought back ‘in’ again, plaid kurta that crackles when you walk, open-toed sandals worn well and frayed. I wonder how typical you are, though, when you say, “Of course, I would. But I would still not like to stay with my family. Isn’t that something common between the both of us?”

You took me by surprise, and I stopped. Was I that obvious? Perhaps, I was. Perhaps it was clear that I was wandering, and wondering about my destination. That had nothing to do with the city I had left or the city I had abandoned. That had nothing to do with the lover I had left and the lover I was seeing. That had something to do with a stranger in a familiar city, meeting another stranger who seems to know every word I speak before I speak it. That seems to be about clichés.

So, you smile in an almost gentle way, and say, “Don’t worry so much about it. It’s something a lot of people go through these days. I’m in that stage myself. I can recognise it so well in the people I meet. Don’t worry so much about it. Would you like a cup of tea?”

We had already reached the Birla Planetorium. I hadn’t thought we had walked that far. I didn’t need to travel that far. I should have turned left much earlier, at the Park Street junction, and I hadn’t. So I shook myself inside, and I smiled, despite my discomfiture, and said, “No, thank you. I have to be going. It was nice meeting you. But I have to go now.”

“Are you sure? You don’t want tea? They make excellent stuff here,” you said, gesturing to the little boy who sat under the huge tree, studiously arranging his faded glass tumblers in a neat column that almost reached up to his knees. I smiled, at the sight. I would have liked to see this in Delhi, I thought.

“No. Thank you. It was nice talking to you. I must leave now.”

“Very well. Goodbye and take care. I hope you enjoy the book.”

I laugh, “I’m sure I will.”

Poison

2005-05-21T12:29:00.000+05:30

Poison

She asked me whether I was having a great time, and I replied I was, weakly. She wasn’t fooled, though, and told me not to worry, things would get better, they had to get better, this was one of the hottest spots in Delhi, and they always got better. I should dance, she suggested, and I looked around.

He was not there.

I felt hands close around my waist, and he pulled me back closer against him, against his caved chest, and I could smell the spice of his cologne. It was intoxicating; I should know, for I had bought it for him. He nuzzled my neck, and I could hear him whisper something in my ears. He’s telling me he loves me, a part of me said, and I thrilled to the thought. He’s telling me he loves me, a part of me said, and I shriveled up a bit.

I love him, too.

“The music is excellent,” Raj said, his words slurring from the charras, his words strong, and he kissed me below the ear. He bit the lobe, softly. “You look great tonight. Did I tell you that before?”

He hadn’t. I hadn’t blamed him for that. I don’t blame him for a lot of things. I don’t blame him for this, now, for what we are and what we were and what we have become. I wonder whether I should turn around and kiss him now, but I decide to hold back. A part of me is still a prude. I wouldn’t do that, not even here, not even in the most liberal of the city’s nightspots. That’s just the way I am.

And he knows it. So he dares me. And urges me. He turns me around, slowly, and I face his smile. His eyes glitter in the strobe lights, and when he speaks, I hear what I hear more from what I know he says, rather than what he actually does. “Kiss me.” Abrupt and necessary. That’s the way he is. I smile uncertainly, as I always do when confronted by such a situation.

“I love you,” I reply, knowing he won’t be satisfied by the answer. He wants more than that. As I do. We always want more. Love is good, love is kind, but love is simply not enough. Not on a night like this, and not ever.

So he smiles and kisses the corner of my lips. A slight peck. He’s teasing me, because he knows that I trembled when he did that. He knows that I find the idea of being touched in public quite… I don’t know what. I get embarrassed. There’s more than that, of course. It’s something I can’t explain. Most of all, to myself. And he knows it. And he teases me because of that.

So he smiles again, and whispers, his mouth close to me again, and whispers, “Kiss me.”

I’m not sure what love is about. Knowing the limit of your partner’s hesitance? Knowing how far you can turn and whirl that person, till finally – finally – you get your way? Or till that person trips and acquiesces before you? Is knowing the amount of juice that you can squeeze out of your loved one the measure of how much you are in love? That could be it. It could be the reason why people do a lot of unfair things to the person they say they’re in love with. It could be the reason you stick around with a person who goads you and torments you, and loves you forever. Unceasingly. It’s a measure of knowing that that person loves you enough to love you even when you fall.

I slip, as I always do. I acquiesce, as I always do. I kiss him.

****

Babur’s house, but he’s not here. The man is perennially late. I’m used to that. I look forward to that. Raj doesn’t care. Raj wouldn’t care about anyone at all, as long as he sits there in the center. I walk over to the bathroom, and he holds my hand. I turn back to smile at him, and he kisses my palm. His tongue circles a wet motif that disappears as quickly as it flashed a hot trail on my skin. I laugh, because at some level, I find it all very funny. That’s his way of saying he’s in love with me. That’s my way of saying, I know.

I splash water on my face in the washroom. It’s not very cool. This is March, in Delhi, and the city is warm. There’s a strange current in the night air. An uncertainty of a sudden hailstorm that would break the otherwise muggy spell the city finds herself in. I imagine it would sound like the angry hiss of the water from the tap. A sudden onrush of water and flood too great for anyone to imagine. An angry retort to the lazy haze that shimmers and keeps everyone in a stupor. The water’s not cool, but it’s enough.

Even over the hiss, I can hear Raj sniff in the bedroom, and his slow, soft sigh of release.

The apartment is a rooftop one. Babur got it cheap. It’s up here in Khirki Extension, in the heart of South Delhi, closed in on all sides by residential buildings, and you can see the green trees lining the main road outside only from up here, the roof of the house. There are two rooms here – a larger one that is the bedroom, and a smaller one with a single divan spread with a leather parchment thrown over it. Babur is not a very good housekeeper, and there are bottles of Absolut strewn all over the place, bottles of Bacardi, but I don’t give them a second look anymore, as I once did, when Raj first brought me here.

There is a huge stone circle in the center of the roof, with a cupola on top, and stone seats below, and a running waterfall by the side. The waterfall needs three buckets of water to feed on, before you can hear the rustling of water. It’s dry now, as I walk over and sit underneath the cupola. I look at the waterfall, silent and glowering, parched and hungry, and I wonder how regularly Babur fills it, and whether he ever dunks the thing with vodka. Judging by the number of bottles lying about, it is entirely possible.

“Hey, love,” Raj says, in the silken soft tone that I know so well. The smoke from his charras lifts skywards in a fragile wisp, and disappears somewhere behind the moon. I smile at him, because I am so used to him.

Hey, I whisper back, and give him my hand. He comes, and stands behind me. He takes another whiff of the weed, and his hands close around my bare shoulders. He kneads the muscles slowly, the way I like it, even without my telling him. He is prescient, I think, and sigh, as I feel his fingers pushing, probing, pulling my tired skin and muscles. “You’re tense,” he says, almost to himself, and I sigh almost to myself.

“Did you have a hard day today?”

I smile and shake my head, and then he laughs, and says mischievously, “Did I tire you out just now?”

It’s funny, I think. To think that so much pleasure could tire me out. To think that he would stop and knead and pleasure me, and stop and start all over again just like this. I’m sitting on an open roof, naked, with a naked man touching my shoulder blades. That should be exciting. That should be stimulating. I should turn around and look at him with tremulous glee in my face and want him to make love to me right now, right here. Yet, all of it seems like a sad déjà vu redone so many times. The roof, the charras, the words, the nudity, the sex that is about to come, all of it.

Yet, I turn towards him, as I know I must. His eyes are closed, glazed underneath, I know. His lips are trembling, the cigarette packed with charras is shivering in his fingers, and I lick his fingers, one by one. A substitute for fellatio. A substitute for the kind of intimacy that I know we both crave. Finally, when I can sense that he is close to the edge, I rise from the stone seat and press my self against him, and kiss his lips. It is a strong kiss, nothing tender about it, urgent and seeking, angry and vengeful, that both of us know must be there. It is an accusation that I utter in that kiss, and he succumbs to my hurt, even while conceding that there is nothing he can do to wash away the sins I charge him with.

He clasps me to him, and we kiss hungrily on the roof, at night, in Babur’s apartment. Babur’s next-door neighbour is watching from her roof, I know, but that doesn’t stop either one of us, as stoned as we are.

****

The rickshaw stops below a clump of trees by the side of the road. Up ahead, the flyover looms ahead to carry speeding cars and other rickshaws speeding towards Connaught Place. The Nehru Place Park Hotel twinkles grandly to the right. I was there last night, walking out of a late dinner with an old friend, and then wishing him goodnight with a full kiss on his lips. That seems ages ago now, however. Raj is sitting distraught to my left, in the rickshaw. His fingers are folding and unfolding themselves, in a tight vice. The rickshaw driver sits with his legs crossed, unfazed by the little drama being played out behind him: he’s seen this happen a million times already, and will see another ten million such episodes, so he smokes his beedi in peace.

“What the fuck is taking Babur so long?” Raj mutters through clenched teeth. I look at him, and note the sharp intake of breath. He looks in my direction and sees me watching him, so he loosens himself and smiles, or tries to, and laughs a bit – “Hey, don’t worry, love. There won’t be any problem at all. There’s no danger here – no cops or anything, ok? So, chill!”

And then, with a dash of bravado, he taps the silently smoking rickshaw driver on his shoulder and asks him in Punjabi, “What do you say, brother? No cops around here, am I right?”

The man shifts slightly in his shift, and puffs out a cloud of smoke that smells even worse than the charras that Raj is addicted to, and watches the two of us in the backseat. He chews his invisible cud, and replies in Hindi, “Yes, the police come by, often. But they come to get their own supplies. Don’t worry, everyone knows me here. They might look in the window, but then when they see me, they’ll be okay. Everyone knows me. The cops come here for their own supplies.”

Raj laughs nervously: I don’t think he’s very reassured by the man’s answer, yet that is what I find strangely cement in this cloud of surrealism. The rickshaw driver goes back to smoking his beedi silently, and spits some liquid out through the vehicle, and Raj laughs again nervously.

To the left, behind the clump of trees, a tiny path leads down into a makeshift hamlet of temporary hutments and stalls. They are lined up, progressing far away into the dark, from the glare of the streetlamps. Babur disappeared down that lane a few minutes ago, with Raj’s money, and we’re waiting for him here.

It is eerie and dark. I can see the outlines of a couple of people who stand there in the lane, coming out of the hutments, scratching their belly, looking idly out towards the road and the lone rickshaw parked there, with two pairs of eyes scanning them. They are used to this scrutiny, something tells me, even as I am used to it myself. Babur is somewhere in one of those huts, watching the charras being ground, the dark powder being parceled into tiny paper packets, and he is smelling the fumes that incinerate the little dreamy hamlet that has sprung up by the wayside.

I see his six foot three frame emerge then, through one of the huts, and he starts walking out, climbing up the hilly lane, and his movements are drowsy, slumbered, slow and hazy. I can also see the red flash of a police jeep some way behind us on the highway, pulling over.

“Damn,” Raj hisses, angrily, “Damn the ass! He’s smoked some of the stuff and he’s so bloody wasted, he can’t move!” His eyes darted back towards the rear view mirror of the rickshaw and he cursed something or somebody in words I could not decipher, and banged the steel bars that separated us from the driver’s seat. That man had finished his beedi, and calmly pulled on the starter of his little machine. The rickshaw hummed to life, but we stood there, waiting for the slumbering giant to clamber out of his lane before the red light stopped behind us.

“Damn, damn, damn” Raj hissed, “That ass is going to get us fucked! He’s going to get us in fucking jail!”

He was panicking, and so was I. I touched the rickshaw driver, and urged him, in Hindi, “Brother, start off now. Let’s go. Let’s go now.”

“No,” Raj yelled practically in my ear, and grappled with my hands, “We can’t leave the fuck here! Do you now how much that damn thing costs? We’re not going without that fucking thing!” And to the rickshaw driver, he barked out in Hindi, “Stay where you are, dammit! Start as soon as he comes in, but stay where you are for now!”

He needed to stay, as much as I needed to run. That was when time stood still, a cliché if ever I heard of one. Is that what love is about? To know the limit of endurance? I thought it was. He thought it was, too. This was his call, and I had to stay because I was in love. He needed to stay because he was addicted to something. Not me. Something, not me. How did that explain a lot of things? I don’t know. That didn’t. That didn’t explain why I stayed put, watching the lumbering figure of Babur climb out through the lane and beneath the trees. That didn’t explain why I didn’t cower when the police jeep flashing the red lights stopped behind the rickshaw. That didn’t explain why I clutched Raj with all my heart and soul, when the rickshaw burst into life and shot forward, even as both Raj and the rickshaw driver pulled stoned, happy Babur inside the vehicle.

I expected that to be the end. I expected the khaki-clad policeman to jump out of the jeep and command us to stop. I expected the jeep to lurch forward and give us chase, over the flyover, and across it, and overtake us. I expected to be marched to a jail cell, booked for smoking weed, and the love of my life exposed as a babbling eccentric with idiosyncrasies too marked for anyone to ignore or forgive. None of that happened, however.

The jeep remained where it was, its red light flashing. The rickshaw climbed the flyover and coursed down it. Babur remained stoned out of his wits, resting in the back. Raj lit himself a cigarette packed with the stuff and sighed, before passing the lit joint over to the rickshaw driver. The two of them burst out laughing, and chatted in Hindi together.

“My god! I almost thought we were done for! Those bastards nearly caught us!” Raj giggled, slapping the rickshaw driver on his back.

He responded with his own native bravado, “You didn’t believe me when I told you, sir! Those fuckers, they come all the time – but only for their own commission! They won’t trouble you when I’m with you, sir! Everyone knows me around here, I’m telling you!”

Babur kept on smiling, and I smiled too, though my head was still whirling with things I kept on expecting to happen. Maybe there is another dimension, I thought, where all this really happens, maybe there is another time and place where the police stopped us, and caught us, and then thee was nothing else to do, but give in…

Raj’s arms snaked around me, and he pulled me closer to him, and kissed me below my ear. “See, babe? I told you it was fine. No sweat. I love you.”

Leters

2005-05-02T01:08:00.000+05:30

Letters

Writing letters is never easy. I can’t stop thinking that perhaps you won’t get this one, or perhaps you’ll forget where you kept it, and you’ll never hear the words I had to say. The words that I’ve thought of, softly for you, chosen for you. These are the words that I would whisper to you at night, if I could, and you would fall asleep to my voice. I would be tender, I would promise. I would push your strands of hair behind your ear, and softly whisper, touch by touch, and my tongue would lull you to sleep.

I love you. Is there anything ever as insipid as that?

I adore you. Is there anything ever as desperate as that?

But that is not here for me, any more, and so I write. I put pen to paper, thought to word, intent to action, and I hope that you read me. I hope that you hear me, and I hope that you understand me. There is, after all, only one thing that I have to say.

I love you.

*******************

My love,

I am well.

Do not worry.

I have had to move fast, so that I have not had the time yet, nor the opportunity, to read the letter that you have sent. But I know what you must have written about, and so I can answer even now, without having torn the envelope. I love you.

Stay well.

*******************

I wept that day, when they brought me word of you. I held that tiny scrap of paper to my heart and tears rolled down from my eyes. I am silly, I know. I should not behave like this. You are still here, in my heart of hearts. You are still here, where I cherish you the most.

Do you hear my words then? I trust that you do. I touched the pillow tonight, and the crisp cotton cooled my fevered hand. It was your touch, I knew, that soothed me. You were there with me, even while you’re not here.

I go on and on and on and on.

Why would you want to listen to me prattle like this?

Save for, I love you.

*******************

My love,

Yes, I hear your voice. Your whispers against my ear. I can almost feel your fingers touch my hair, stroke it softly, soothe me to sleep.

Stay well, my love, for I shall soon be back. I shall soon be back.

I am moving again. I think I know some place where I can get the job done. It should not take me too long. Wish me luck. Wish me... love.

But I already have that from you, don’t I?

*******************

I am distressed, for I have had no word from you.

I am in love with you, and yet, when I quell my heart to listen for signs of you from the rustling wind, I hear nothing stir. Save fear.

Where are you? Are you safe?

Will this reach you? Will it find you safe?

I love you. I always will.

*******************

My love,

There is nothing to fear. I got sidetracked for a while. But there is nothing to worry. I have made a new friend. He can help me, he says. We shall soon have what we have always longed for, you and I. The end is near.

Do not worry. There will no purpose served. There is nothing wrong. I got your last two letters but did not have the time to –

Do not worry.

Understand that great things take time.

I remain, as always, yours.

*******************

I should be calmed by what you have said, yet I find I am not.

There is something amiss, I know that, but cannot tell what.

I sound like a dolt. I sound like a mocking soldier. A mad hatter. A soothsayer who can tell evil from the stars. And yet, I feel that I’m not completely mistaken.

I touched your pillow last night. It gave me no comfort. I write in the hope that my fears are wrong, ill founded, silly, maudlin, sly. I will not be betrayed by my fears. They will not change me. Or the way I feel about you.

They must not do this. They must be controlled.

For what else could I do, save love you?

*******************

No word.

No word.

There is, still, no word.

I am beside myself with worry. The mountains are covered with mist.

Is it a sign?

I believe in you, come what may. I believe in you.

*******************

My dear,

Things are almost at an end.

Take care.

*******************

I tell myself what you said. Things are almost at an end. You will come back. I am sure of that.

So I went out today. I stood in front of the store windows, and imagined what you would bring home for me. Would that be something for me to wear? Something around my neck? Something glittering for my ears? Something in leather? Would you bring something for the table? I crumble at your touch.

All I need from you is your touch. That is all. A smile can devastate me and prop me up for eons. I am sure you will come back soon. Things are almost at an end. You said that.

So I touched the pillow, and stared at it last night. Imagined you lying next to me, and I loved you again. I would touch you, the ridge of your back, the slight tremble in your ears, the silk of your dark hair, and I would love you. I held you in my arms tight last night, and told you again and again, for as long as I could –

I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you.

*******************

It is done.

You will hear from me soon.

Be happy.

Yes, it is done.

*******************

I am happy beyond words!

So happy…

*******************

They were whispering to me last night. They were asking me why it has taken so long. You should be here by now. You should be walking up the road, smiling, holding your arm out for me. They are small, and petty, and… things I cannot bring myself to say. They should not have asked me that about you. They should not have asked me.

I wait.

I am sure you will come soon.

I love you, as always.

Insatiable Lust

2005-04-19T13:24:00.000+05:30

Insatiable Lust

Krish shifted gears smoothly, and the car lurched forward in one seamless motion. He let out a sigh then, before moving the joystick forward, and switched the radio on. As the hard beat of the Afro bongo banged throughout the car interior, the Baleno coursed out over the smooth stretch of tarmac that Mumbaikars (Bombayites? He wondered, idly, for a split second) called The Queen’s Necklace.

I stood out there at the tip of Nariman Point. Nothing ahead, but clear blue-grey sea. It had rained last night. The city was still wet. The roads glistened as if newly boiled tar had been poured on them. The archer on the Air India building was poised to leap clear of some invisible barrier, and I could almost see the target of his arrow. He was shining in a red neon glow that I so wished I could have. The water buoys below my feet were locked into place, and yet there was an immense sense of instability. There was an immense sense of satisfaction from that.

This is my city.

A great vicarious pleasure that you get only when you’re standing here on the edge. There were voices drifting down, but the glorious sea wind muffled them all. I turned back, and saw my friends standing farther away closer to the shore, jeans rolled up, slightly tipsy, and someone laughed, I don’t remember who, someone called out and told me to be careful, and I waved back. This is my life. Chapter closed, a chapter ready to start. I need my reading glasses. I need so much more than just that.

Nariman Point is a man-made spectacle of tall buildings, centaurs etched in neon, great big three-headed dumb-bells that hold back the tide and teenagers drunk with lust. I’ve drunk from the same broth, and I’ve licked my lips at the sensation. It’s been a grand life.

There was something engaging about watching families ‘at work’, Krish thought, as the Baleno zoomed past the makeshift balustrade of Marine Drive. This single stretch of road attracted you from miles away, you came unbidden to its call, and you sat and ran and frolicked under the great big trees that lined the pavement. There was sea and there was wind, and yet, there was your family, and that was the most important thing of all.

Faster than the speed of light…

Krish was the kind of man who seized life by the horns and wondered where on earth the matador was - and if he wasn’t going to show up, Krish might as well take his place and kill the bloody thing. It was something unmediated, something that happened, and he took his role in life without question. There was no room for any questions. Not now, not when he argued with the parking attendant in front of the Hilton Towers, who always demanded more money than he was wont to get.

Krish could react, as well. He could roll his window down, and yell at the poor bugger till he turned red and tearful, and took the meager change that was flung in his direction. I’m not a monster, he argued, when his friends teased him, I’m just a man who has worked hard and wants to keep everything he’s got. It’s about knowing what your worth is, he would say, and he chuckled at the line now, as the signal approached, a merciful green overhead, and he gunned the engine. The car shot forward, and he thought about the neon Sagittarius again.

The view from this window amazes me to no end, and yet I was oblivious to all that, with her sitting across me. Whenever she smiled, I wondered why. Whenever she didn’t, I wondered again. I know I was acting maudlin, not the way men in my position are meant to, but that didn’t really help. I extended my hand and covered hers with mine, on the table. The Hilton is a wonderful place to make love to, I thought. And I wondered if love was also on her mind.

I wanted desperately for her to fall in love with me, and I looked for any telltale signs. When her mobile phone rang, and she switched it off, after a cursory glance at the number. Or the way she scanned the menu when the waiter held it for her, and then looked back up at me as if seeking direction for what she should eat.

So I held her hand and told her that she was the most beautiful woman on the face of the earth that night, and for a second, as she believed me, she truly was. I laughed at my silliness and even more at her naiveté, but it was a fling, a casual affair that dictated the comings and goings of the world.

I smiled proudly that night, like a man supremely in control, yet I kept on wondering whether the waiter was the real one in charge. I was a puppet, a chief puppet for all my machinations, and he, the great white shape swathed in a great white apron who served and bobbed and curtsied and said ‘Very good, sir’, and ‘Excellent choice, madam’, he was the one who pulled all the strings. Sly bastard. I slipped him a five-hundred rupee note afterwards, when we left the restaurant. I told him to send up a bottle of champagne up to my room in an hour’s time, and he nodded, without a single flick of emotion, tongue, nose, eye or ear that showed me he knew me.

Signboards screamed for attention, streetlamps like steady two-second milestones, as the Baleno wound its way over the tarmac. His ears drummed to the beat from the radio. A part of him tried to listen to the words, and gave up, and then resumed the attempt again. There were ideas forming in his head, but the car stopped him from giving into those thoughts. It acted like a security blanket, a barrier to the thoughts he may have had. The only thing that remained were these – memories that flashed at the breath neck speed he was driving, and a libido that seemed to surge every time the car growled beneath him.

He grinned. He could do not much else. The streetlamps that lined their way through the center of Maine Drive were too blindening, and there was only a gut instinct that prevented him from dying. It had always been that way. And he knew another name for that instinct.

I longed to see what else they could give me. I longed to see what else I could give them. A simple give-and-take relationship, I was told, and so we called a general meeting. Fancy term for a bunch of college kids to hang out at Jazz by the Bay. Gary Lawyer was singing, and from time to time, I was craning my head back to see the man. His eyes were closed, and his lips moved in a trance. I wanted to sing like that. But I was drunk, and drunk people want to do so many things. I had wanted to walk here all the way from Andheri, and had certainly not done that. The walk from Churchgate had sufficed.

The meeting started, and the questions began.

What was I looking for? Had I ever been anything other than a man on the prowl for them? Did I love anyone? Did I believe in love?

(That irritating woman had a nasal voice, and I could not stand it, as she drawled, on and on and on.)

What about lust? Was I truly insatiable? Did I think I could have any woman I wanted?

(That irritating woman with the nasal voice had a nice set of legs, and a good set of boobs to match, and I kept on looking at her. I may have smiled.)

Was I thinking of something?

No!

Would I force myself on a woman who did not want me? (Was she giving me a hint? I smiled some more at her.)

The questions were meaningless, and everyone laughed at the end of it. Gary came over to our table and shook hands when we told him we were fans. It was funny, watching the women giggle like school girls in front of him, and then, after he had left, to collapse on their boyfriend’s laps. They would probably shag them tonight, thinking of Gary lawyer. I looked over the irritating woman with the nasal voice and the heaving bosom, and announced that I was going to the loo.

The good thing about this place is that it’s got an amazing blue lighting inside that’s so frikkin’ dark and sexy. And it’s full. Perennially. So, I was pretty clear, that as she snaked her way through the dark blue crowd towards the men’s loo, they wouldn’t be able to trace her path. And I was waiting for her, just inside the door, when she came in. I grabbed her and pushed her against the wall, and started kissing her hungrily. The only guy in there gave me a thumbs-up, which I ignored, and left. I took her into one of the stalls, and when we came out, the rest of the gang were into the fifth round of beers.

They were not interested in the answers to the questions they had asked me, and I never bothered to reply.

Krish smiled at the words of the song, and he yelled them out to himself. Seconds were all it took, for the car to zoom out from beneath the Marine Lines flyover, and the Baleno swerved to the right, to avoid hitting a Zen that careened down from it. The driver, a fat Punjabi with a headful of turban, screamed an obscenity that never made it through the thick windows of the Baleno, and Krish calmly showed him his middle finger in response.

It was an orchestra that he knew well. Soon, Thackers would come up ahead, and he would pull down the car a notch, coax her/ it into settling for a pace that would give the rest of these mother-****ers a measure of peace, but it was still some way ahead. There was Bachelors, and Barista, and as he sped past them, the yawning mouth of Chowpatty started forming to his left. He pressed his foot down on the accelerator. Jennifer Lopez jived to Get Right on the radio.

Green chilly ice cream from Bachelors’. The shot that it gives you. It drives your breath out of your nostrils, and the back of your throat surges in something much wilder than what a piece of menthol will do for you. It takes time to get used to it. It takes a few seconds to let it overwhelm you. But the trick is never to lose control. The trick is to let your taste buds tingle for a few seconds and then inhale deeply, master the flavour and the cool texture leaves you hungry for more. The second spoonful is so much easier, so much tastier, and yet it’s never enough. The scoop of ice cream in your cup finishes too fast, all too soon, and you’re left gazing at the empty cup with a touch of accusation.

‘Drama King!’ he said, and I grinned at him.

‘God, you can make a masala film out of the silliest things!’ she said, in tandem, and I ginned again.

‘I can’t help it. That’s how I think of it. It’s quite sexy!’

‘Ass!’ in unison.

I could think of other things. She was having some strawberries with cream, delicious and frothy. He stuck to tried and tested vanilla. I nudged him, and told him that he would have to do better than that. He was shy, and laughed it off. So I never pressed him, because he was my friend. He’d been through it all with me. I would let him be. I would leave her alone. But you could see that she needed me.

She needed Ethiopian coffee at Barista, steamed just right, whirling brown qawwah, a flavour that decided it would do nothing else but intoxicate you. She had changed since that stormy night at the Hilton, we both had. I wondered what it was she wanted now, but I think I knew. It was something insatiable, and there could hardly be a single word for it. There were subtle nuances to it that I could not catch, no matter how hard I tried.

I needed to drive. She needed to drive me crazy.

The end. Fiction that never exists. Songs that tell you lies. A road that tantalizes you with its length and curves at the last moment.

The Baleno shot out through the wide curve of Marine Drive like the armed Centaur on the Air India building, and Krish guided her/ it left towards Malabar Hill. He cut the gas, and the car groaned softly to herself in protest, as Krish wheeled her in, after the other cars that stood their chance to alight the hill. A huge hoarding changed colours and shapes overhead, and he laughed to himself at the pun on the billboard. The drive wound itself down, and a sigh escaped his lips, even as Jennifer Lopez reached the crescendo of her song on the radio.

This was the end, he thought, as the car snaked upwards at a tamed pace, and he could see the long trail of streetlamps that glowed in the dark far off into the sea, the Queen’s Necklace they called it, and many other names that reminded them of how much they coveted it and wanted t own it, but now as the Baleno climbed up, he could only think that the sight of majesty somehow killed it, this was the end. The dissipation of lust.

Brutality

2005-04-02T17:17:00.000+05:30

Brutality

There were organs playing in the crowd, she remembered. It was an idea she had had, coming here alone, on a night that should have been empty but wasn't. There were people milling around, more than she had ever imagined, expected or wanted, glasses in hand, glittering under the strobe lights, skin flashing and teeth glinting in an exercise she had come to adore. When they started playing the organs from somewhere in the middle of the hard crash-boom-bang of the techno-beat, she thought she had died and gone to heaven.

He touched her without being asked to, without being spoken to, and that amused her. When he leaned over and winked at her, his grey-green eyes creasing conspiratorialy, (were his eyelids tanned too?), and his lips moved back, to expose his grin, laughing, ravenous, questioning, she could not deny the thrill that coursed through her.

It wouldn't help to deny anything. Least of all now, when she was alone with him, all in the world, and nothing else really mattered.

So, she smiled back and touched his shoulders, though the fabric of his crisp cotton shirt and wondered whether he worked out, and she threw her head back in laughter, allowing him to tease her ear lobes. It really wouldn't matter if there were people around her, looking at her with longing, shock, trepidation and jealousy: she would have done it all anyway. The bartender looked over at them impassively, imperviously, refilled her blackcurrant shot, and tossed him a Bacardi. He sipped at it, and she loved the way his lips made love to the rim of his glass, taking their time, touching and feeling the cold wet silica-concentrate.

She moved her manicured hand down the front of his chest, had a flash of insight, extrasensory perhaps, of him, emerging from the shower, dripping, the towel wrapped loosely around his waist, but her vision was interrupted, as he leaned over and kissed her lips.

It was brutal, and this was what heaven should feel like, she told herself. The organs had receded somewhere far into the background, they simply did not matter, and this was the all, the now and the ever-after that she had sought. She had been selfish then, not wanting to share the sensation with anyone else, and so she had come alone, and even now as his brutally hard and demandng lips wanted eveything she had from her, she realised this was the only way it could have happened. Heaven was not to be shared so lightly, and hell was even more expensive. She was in no mood to be a philanthropist.

But it was about passion, she knew, and so she broke the kiss a few seconds later, when the bongo drums flared up in staccato bursts: she clasped his hand, pulling him away onto the dance floor with her. She hadn't come all this way for a drink and a kiss. If that was all she had sought, it would have been so much easier and safer to call up any of the men she had known, slept with, had affairs with, loved. But this was the unknown element, a creature she never wanted to tame for an indiscernable future she had no interest in. This was living for the present, something that demanded Latin letters carved out in stone if she could have lived in Greco-Roman days, but for now, a smile in bed would suffice.

That, and the memory of bongo drums, beating in her ear.

***
2.

I keep on wondering what drove me to her and never can find the right answer. It happened, suffice to say, it happened: that's all there is to it. Did she signal, smile, beckon, in any small, singular way that would have made me go to her? I don't recall, no. But I did go. And I touched her, laughed, let her touch me, in a way that I shudder to think about now.

I'm not shy. I'm not provocative. I'm not abashed. I'm not aghast. I'm not tender. I'm not brutal. I'm not persuasive. I'm not barren. I'm not cruel. I'm not a giver. I'm not a toy. I'm not God. I'm not forgiving. I'm not a stranger. I'm not the man who knocks on your door in the dead of night, and disappears when you get up to let him in.

Good or bad never makes sense to me. You are what you are, I am what you see, I ask you what I want, and I give you if you want me to. I take my fee. Call me a terrorist, call me an instrument, call me a gigolo, and I will probably agree. The funny thing was, that night, she called me none of these. It was a night without labels, and I found it strange. Unnerving, even.

***
3.

Perhaps, she should have remembered something more about the dance, she thought. But all of it seemed so trivial on hindsight. Apart from the organs in the very beginning and the thrashing bongos that had pulled her onto the floor, the rest was a blur she didn't think was very important. Yes, of course, they had danced, yes, of course they had kissed again, many times, swaying together sinuously, and she had remembered that silly childhood fear she once had of becoming pregant if a boy danced too close (or was it too far?) from her, but she had smiled in the beatific glow that the certainty of misconceptions give you when you're older and wiser, and she had pushed it all behind her.

Perhaps, then, it was just the sex she had wanted. But if it was the sex, and just the sex, it didn't explain a lot of things. The brutality, for instance. When she made him be brutal against her, egged him on to hold her hard and swallow her whole, made him hit, claw and maul her, it was difficult to understand why none of it made sense to her. She knew it was not what he had wanted, and it was not what she wanted either, but somehow, the key was in the brutality. Somehow, it had been needed: an iota of wisdom she could not do without.

Then there was the action. She had been focussed on everything he did, every little piece of sexual activity she goaded him on to. There was no romanticising it on her part, though she sensed that he was in fact trying to. But she could have none of that, and made the act completely centred upon the things he was doing to her, the way she was responding. There was so little to the brain, so much in just those organs that deflated, engorged and surged in a coarseness that she somehow identified with so much this night.

If it was about the sex, the brain would have kicked into gear, but she made sure, it never did.

There had been hurried trips, one after the other, to his washroom, and then they had faced each other, and exchanged a chaste kiss on the cheek.

"This was good."

O, yes -

"I'm so glad I saw you at the bar."

I know. I wouldn't have wanted to miss you either.

"This was fun."

O, yes -

"I'd love to meet up with you again, soon."

Why not?

"Can I call you, some time?"

Why not? Yes -

"I don't have your number, though. Could you... ?"

Of course. Here, take it down -

Call me.

"I'll call you."

Well, goodbye, for now.

"Yes, goodbye. For now."

"I'll call you."

Do I have my bag?

Shoes?

Ear rings?

Yes.

"It's late. Would you like to spend the night here?"

***
4.

Perhaps, I should have remembered something more about the sex. But all of it seems so trivial on hindsight. I tried to get a grip of what she wanted from me, and then realised that she did not want what I wanted to give her. She needed to know something desperately, and I tried to understand what it was. I'm not sure I still do. She wasn't like the others, the ones who need to know they have a man with them who will be with them. She wanted to know that the man had her, that he would leave if she so commanded and pounce on her like a maritime bandit if she so desired. And yes, she desired. She was all about desire.

I tell myself that it's not true, that I'm not in love with this strange waif who dropped into my life one fine night and I saunter over to her. How can this be love? There is no tenderness, no anguish, no tiny little darts of melancholy. What there is, is a sweeping generalisation, a void, as it were, and the only thing I can think of was the dance. She danced like a bat out of hell.

I tried to hold her at first. I tried to guide her, pull her close to me, kiss her again and again, and though she allowed me to touch her and kiss her, prise her lips open with my tongue, there was nothing else. Her eyes were closed in the grim knowledge of a child who has seen the destruction of the world, her eyes were open and darting with all the epiphany of a prophet who has seen heaven unleashed, and there was no taming her. I was hers, she let me know, if I was to be anything at all.

Her hair thrashed, and I laughed, and sweated under the bright gaze of the hundred and one strobe lights. She begged me to dance with her, touched my thigh as she did so, so I did what she asked, because I wanted what she had to give. Too late, I realised, there was not much she had with her. So I danced some more, swung with her, prayed with her, and wondered how on earth I would get her in bed with me that night.

So how could that be love?

"That was good."

Yes.

"You dance really well."

Thank you. You're not bad either.

"I was just following your moves."

"I haven't seen you here before, have I?"

This is my first time, yes.

"You're alone?"

Am I?

I'm thirsty.

"Can I fetch you something?"

"What'll you have?"

Water.

"Let me - "

They don't have it here.

"Would you like to - ?"

Yes.

"My place is not very far - "

Let's go.

The Blind Men Who See

2005-03-25T19:45:00.000+05:30

This is something I wrote a long time back. Pulled it out of the closet now, as I read something on another blog that had a similar message. And no, there's no scope for heartbreak in this one, as Erratica pointed out!!! ;-)

The Blind Men Who See

When you think you’ve done it all one fine day, my friend, come out with me. We’ll walk and we’ll talk, and we might even walk the talk. No more looking for hidden meanings, no more talking about hidden reasons. I might not even utter a word, for all you know: I probably won’t. Two blind men ambling down the lined road, hands in pockets, walking sticks tapping on the gravel. We might hear yells from the children; we might hear the twittering of birds. We might feel the cool breeze wafting down upon us; we might hear the crunch of pebbles underneath our feet. I’m liable to smile then, and I’d advise the same to you.

When we go walking that balmy afternoon, we could sit under the shade of a tree on a wrought-iron bench. I’m one to rest back and sigh aloud. You might hear me sigh, if your ears are keen enough. You might want to smile a bit then, and sigh in contentedness yourself. You might want to tell yourself that you’ve done it all, seen it all, and it’s time you put your feet up and had a slight snort. You might want to put your hands up on the handles of the wrought-iron bench and let your tap-tapping walking-stick rest against your thigh. It’s a black world we see, we blind men, but what of that? It’s a world simply teeming with life, and our eyes are not the sole instruments to experience that fact.

The trees will shed their leaves that afternoon and the squirrels will squeak. I’m not sure whether we’ll be able to hear either. You might want to blow cool air out through your lips, and turn back inside, relegating the outside to a blur. You might see the faces of loved ones floating by in a dead stupor before you, or those vivacious ones that refuse to stay put. You might smile again at their energy and decide that it’s all a case of not having seen enough and done enough with their lives. You might have wanted to be there for them, to steer them around to a way of life that has reaped you such rich dividends. You might want to lay out a hand and caress their faces, their hair, their eyes. I might even get caught up in your dreams, as I listen to you fondly recollect, and I might even slip a tiny teardrop down my cheek. I might be caught up in the rapture of your moment, and I might even hold your hand in empathy.

I might even say a word or two. Your looks and your glances and your quivers may embolden me enough to hold you. I might simply rub your shoulders, my blind eyes seeing yours, or I might even coax you to emerge from your cocoon. We’re friends, you and I, - we have been since the day we could see each other. We’re older than most couples, you and I, - and like most old couples we have forgotten how to converse. We don’t need to anymore. I can’t see your jowls quiver, or your eyebrows arch, but I can understand them, all the same. All the same, I can sense your dreams and your aspirations and your tiredness. Call it what you will, my fancy or a psychic bond, call it what you will, I believe in it with all my heart, nevertheless. We’re friends, you and I, - we have been since the time we could both see… Doesn’t that say it all...?

We might stay put then, you and I. We might not even say a word, and we would understand it all. No more loved ones wafting by, no more talk about disappointed dreams and fulfilled ambitions. Your empire stands behind you, and your future before you. There’s no scope for worry, my friend, not as long as you and I can still sense… Not as long as you still have You by your side. You might wake up one fine day, my friend, and see that your tap-tapping walking stick no longer lies by your bedstead. You might feel alarmed for an instant at that, but you will not hobble along anymore, will you? This memory might stay with you: the lazy afternoon sun, the squealing children, the chattering birds, and then again, this memory too might flit away. It doesn’t really matter, and neither do I. I could be You and You could be Me. You might turn to your left and then to your right, and I may not be hunched there on my walking stick beside you, and you will still be able to see the garden path before you. Children scampering and birds twittering and leaves rustling as they form a velvet carpet for you to tread on, my friend.

So when you think you’ve done it all one fine day, my friend, come out on a walk with me – and I’ll show you the rest of the way.

Sliding Doors

2005-03-22T23:59:00.000+05:30

Sliding Doors

Time Zero

The elevator is seamless in motion, and slides up without a hitch that I can feel. It lets me be, free to stand here, and revel in the dizzying effect of being weightless, transported beyond gravity to a fourteenth floor which seems strangely surreal at times, something of a nonentity at others. But most of all, the elevator affords me a view of the breath-taking expanse of ocean yawning below me.

All this takes only a few seconds. I enter the apartment complex, the security guard tips his cap in my direction and I give him a slight nod in a salute of my own, I punch in the lift button and the car arrives, and I step in. Steel doors slide noiselessly together in a dream-like slow motion, and I ignore the liftman after telling him which floor to go to. And I turn out towards the glass back of the slithering elevator, looking out at the expanse of glimmering, waiting sea visible from high above Prabhadevi. All of it only takes a few seconds.

I remember my first vision of Bombay. The aircraft was circling around neighbourhoods I had absolutely no idea of, twinkling fairy lights, glinting yellows and golds, punctuated by staccato bursts of white and silver, some megalith Christmas tree spread over a flat expanse, black sea still yawning and gulping calmly from where I was, high up, feeling slightly sick, my ears blocked out because of the air pressure. I remember silly things like that, and I remember falling in love with the city after that view. I try to search for something of that view now, as the lift courses upwards, but it is strangely exhilarating and disappointing at the same time how different characters they all tend to have. Physical manifestations of sea and rock and water and concrete and a jumble of human beings, you’d think the mob mentality would be the same everywhere you saw them, but this night above Prabhadevi in a lift that slithers and soothes and makes love to me in its silence has a whisper that is quite unlike the gentle drone of the aircraft.

And I wonder whether I have lost something, or gained something, or am simply, inconsolably scared to death of something.

Two hours earlier

All it takes is a glance to know that you like someone. That’s so not true. All it takes is a conversation to know that you like someone. Another falsehood. I’m not sure what it takes, I’m not sure what it took, but I’m here, and I like this man opposite me. Perhaps it has something to do with the way he’s looking at me, not too concerned, not too worried, not too formal, but he wants me all the same. It’s something I can tell.

I propel him through the huge shelves to the deo and hair gel section. He’s finicky, he wants a L’Oreal, and the damn store doesn’t have any. I’m amused and I laugh at the state of affairs. It’s not that funny, he says. He has favourites. Well, so do I, and I understand what he means. I squeeze his shoulders in empathy. Shopping can be a terrifying experience, I have friends who can’t make up their minds about a silly handkerchief, but not this time. Both he and I take our time together. We lounge on our own through the warm white light streaming down on the cold white floor, each in our little reveries. This is a first date, something tells me, go and speak to him, find out more about him, so he’s cute, but he’s more than just something to ogle at, go and talk to him, and I stand looking at a dark blue linen shirt, wondering if they have my size.

“It’s perfect. You’ll look great in it,” he says, coming up behind me, his hands around my waist, and it thrills me for some reason. You’re not a virginal little child, you ninny, you’ve been down this road for ages and ages, stop acting like a school child.

So I grin and dimple, and take it off the rack, and look at myself in the mirror with it. “You think so?”

He nods, and shows me what he’s picked out for himself. It’s a white T-shirt with a slogan about tall drinks and teetotalers and I laugh at the silly line. There’s a dilemma though: he doesn’t know which size to pick, small or medium, and I tell him to try them both on. I follow him to the changing rooms and stand outside his little stall, while he goes in.

There’s a guard there, at the extreme end of the changing rooms, maybe he’s supposed to keep an eye so that nobody walks away with the clothes, after wearing them and snipping off the labels with a tiny scissor. I smirk at the thought, and wonder whether I would ever do something like that. It’s quite enticing, really, for a clotheshorse like me. But I stop thinking about shoplifting, when I see him take his shirt off inside the cubicle, through the gap in the door, which he hasn’t bolted. I’m tempted, and I smile to myself. I wonder if I’m blushing. People say I blush very easily. A human lie detector. Damn.

The door opens, and he comes out, whirling around for my benefit. It’s the medium size, and he likes how it feels. It’s nice, I comment, and tell him to try on the small size. All I want, right now, is to see him naked in the little stall, and I confess that I’m blushing now. Thank god, the guard is a bit far away. The door to the stall closes. He’s put the latch on this time, and I sigh. Is the guard looking at me now?

Another stall opens, and two men emerge from inside. They’re laughing, holding those big black-netted bags inside which I can see tonnes of clothes. Have they been trying them out, I wonder, or…? The guard evidently shares my suspicions (or so I think), because he steps a couple of paces forward, and the two men stop grinning and laughing and file away past him silently. They head towards the cash counter, but I can’t help smirking at the look on the guard’s face, as he traces them all the way there.

“And what do you think, now?”

“I like this one better. It fits better.” I nod. There’s something sexy about him now, something even better than the idea of him, bare-torsoed in the cubicle, taking his clothes off layer by layer. This leaves something for me to imagine. “I like this one,” I say again, in assent.

He’s frowning. “You don’t think it’s a bit tight… here?” He points towards his chest, and I find the gesture horribly funny. I laugh loudly, and tell him it’s all right, it’s not as if he’s got Pamela Anderson’s boobs, and that the T-shirt looks fine. He’s still a bit unsure, and looks at himself in the mirror, and that’s when I make my move.

Fuck the guard, something tells me, and I move inside the stall with him, and wrap my arms around him. He’s surprised, but pleased, and I roam my hands over his tight chest, on the stretched t-shirt, and over his flat belly. “I like the fit,” I grin at him, winking slightly, and even pat his butt. And then I step right out of the stall and back in the corridor, where the guard is, not quite sure what to make of this split-second of indiscretion. I should flash him a smile too, I think, but don’t.

“Take it,” I tell him, because he’s turned back towards the mirror, looking at his multiple images dancing to his left, right, centre, and I wonder if he can see me leering at him, through the mask of decided nonchalance now on my face.

All it took was a second.

Twenty seconds after Time Zero

Steel doors open, and I say a distinct “thank you” to the liftman in security guard’s garbs, who gives me a salaam, when I step onto the fourteenth floor. A corner of my mind wanders and wonders whether I’m an elitist snob, an elitist ass, who likes getting salaam-ed like this, and another little piece of conscience wags a finger at me, and says I probably am. I’m not a very nice person, but I’m the kind of person who loves you, o, who the fuck am I kidding? I’m tired and I’m high, and I think I like my life and I think I hate what I’ve got myself into.

And all this goes through, in circles and circles, with eagles high up in an imagined blue sky, while time ticks away in a matter of seconds. I’ve pressed the doorbell, and I’m waiting to be let in.

A week before Time Zero

I’ve been telling myself that I can do this, and yet I can feel myself faltering even now. It doesn’t help that he’s here. But then, I would not be able to do it if he weren’t. My world is a conundrum, and I’m the Mad Hatter in Wonderland. (Glad to meet you.)

We were at the hospital, from where he picked up a report for his mother. She’s wonderful creature. She smiles at me, whenever she sees me, and holds my hand, and sits me down, and wants to know about all the gossip going on at my workplace. She pretends to think that her son and I are merely friends, she knows we’re so much more than that, yet she lives happily in her dreams and is happy to see us romp in her reality. Her eyes are always open, and yet, she has a cataract in the right one. O, horrible thought.

But he was so wonderful at the hospital. He laughed and talked with the nurses, flirted with the ramrod straight old lady behind the counter he had to pick the report up from and took her scolding in good grace, said hello to the elderly gentleman behind us in the queue and introduced me to him before they started talking about how his parents were, held my hand while leading me out to the parapet where his bike stood, leaning against the wall, lined with little gladioli pots. It was the going to be hard, I knew, and I wondered why on earth I was about to do it. All my reasons seemed to fly away. I cried and laughed with delirium while he guided the Honda towards Bandstand, and I wished fervently that the world would end and time would stop ticking.

But he can sense it. I can sense him sensing it. He leans over the rocks, where the two of us are sitting, and he strokes my arm. “Sit nearer to me,” he whispers, but I demur, and by the look on his face now, I can sense that he can sense it. It’s a demented, twisted loop over which I ache for control.

Small talk is something I want now. So I start yapping about work, and my trip to Goa, and the beautiful people I saw there and flirted with, and the late nights and the tall glasses of Long Island Iced Teas, and the shifting sand biting and crunching on the beach. Are there crabs here on the rocks, I wonder and ask him, but he smiles and says, even if they are, they won’t hurt us. They’re afraid of us, more than we are afraid of them. I’m afraid of him, even though he can probably sense it. Can he understand it, though?

He does. “Tell me what you’ve been going through. You want to tell me something. Are you alright?”

So he’s the one who drags out my confession from me. I was too cowardly to do it myself. Too frail. Too undecided. But if I were undecided, what am I doing here in the first place? Too many thoughts spring unbidden, unwanted, to my mind, and I cloister them away. I have to be honest, but how do I find the words to tell him? Am I even aware that I’m not looking at him, I’m looking at the group of three college boys sitting some distance away, on the rocks, feeling the spray of the sea.

And so it falls like a tonne of bricks, heavy, hard, smothering. “I don’t know where we’re going.”

“I’m not in love with you.”

“I don’t think I’m ion love with you.”

“I want to be in love with you.”

“But I’m not.”

“It’s not fair to you, to not be in love with you.”

“Am I being naïve, saying that I’m not in love with you?”

“You deserve much more, you deserve some one who is so much in love with you.”

Sentences, frayed and misty, with common words and threads that somehow link them together. I’m not even aware that my cheeks are wet, but I can feel his fingers on them, brushing and wiping and strong, and soothing. He tells me not to cry, and I find that ridiculous (because I’m not crying, am I?) and he tells me it’s alright. He smokes a cigarette, and I would rather look at the stream of smoke playing filigree on the darkening sky, than his thoughtful eyes.

“It’s alright,” he says. “I’ve never been with someone so much younger than me. I wondered how it could happen now. But I hoped… But it’s alright,” and he smiles at me, as if I’m the one who’s heart is broken now, “There’s so much more time. It’s alright.”

He baffles me. Yet, it is no more than I expected of him. We sit there on the rocks, talking about work, the boys on the beach, the lovers ahead, one arm around another, and then we feel awkward on noticing them, and talk about mundane matters instead: credit card payments, auto loans, rent allowances, future career plans, and so many little things I would go to a tax consultant for, or to a career counselor.

I take an auto rickshaw back to the station. He remained on the beach, and I moved my fingers through his hair, as he smiled again and again, and told me that it would be alright. I knew it would be hard. Will it last, I ask myself, but don’t really want to find an answer. Is there any fat, bald old man on any tall mountain I can holler to, and ask my future from? What can he possibly tell me that I don’t know myself…

Thirty seconds after Time Zero

Wooden doors remain closed, and I’m exasperated. Bell peals sound maddening to my ears, and yet nobody lets me in. I rummage in my bag for a key, finally.

The Performance

2005-03-11T23:12:00.000+05:30

The Performance

The problem with serendipity is that it never lasts forever, and when it fades at the last, that's when you get to see the silly, sly little shadows popping out from behind the curtains, from behind the drawers and cupboards, though you tell yourself that they were always there. I could never see them, earlier, Aakaash mused, sitting at the chair, his laptop open before him on the oak table.

Serendipity gave me my wife, and serendipity gave me my lover, and serendipity showed me myself. Awful thought, he whispered, half beneath his breath, resting back against the chair, wondering whether Shalini was asleep. A couple of trips to Delhi for the company, a couple of laughs, a couple of drinks, and somehow they had ended up in a cab speeding away from Connaught Place, kissing furiously in the backseat. The big broad Sikh driver had beamed at him, when he left a ten-rupee tip and then rushed up the stairs to her flat. That was how it all started, though it seemed funny now, to think of it as so story-bookish. To think of it all so contrived.

Aakaash sipped the brandy which had stood a silent observer beside the laptop. There were water rings on the oak table where he lifted the chilled glass from, and he idly moved his finger through the rings, marring them, mixing them, feeling the water mixed with tiny (dust?) particles crackling his skin, and he took another sip. The laptop was switched off, a uniform dull black glow. Shalini was somewhere in the flat, probably lying down, probably asleep.

He took the brandy and abandoned the oak, the laptop, and walked into the bedroom. She was sitting there, looking out the verandah to the quiet street outside. It was past eleven, GK's M-block was silent, the shops and their glitter had closed in for the night, and he could see that she had been crying. It all made him feel terribly weary, suddenly, and he would have wished she wasn't there, would have wished that he wouldn't have to go through this tonight. He had enough on his mind already, with Geeta -

The phone had rung, almost insistently, once, then twice, and Geeta's voice had called from the next room, "I'll get it!" (Was there a hint of anxiety there, on hindsight) but he had picked up the receiver the very same time she had. And he had heard them.

"I've missed you. I haven't seen you for so long - "

"Probir, I told you not to call at home. Everyone is here - Ma, Baba, Aakaash - "

"But they didn't answer, did they? And besides, I had to hear your voice."

"Now you're being silly, Probir."

Aakaash had stood there, impassive and silent till the conversation lasted. When he heard the click announcing that Geeta had replaced the receiver, he did the same. Probir Banerjee was his first cousin, his mother's sister's son, and he was a regular at the house. It seemed strange to stand there, listen to his wife and her lover, it seemed stranger to walk out to her then, hug her from behind and tell her that he had to leave for Delhi. It seemed strange not to mention it to her, not to shout or scream or rant or wonder why. That was the most important reason, the one he couldn't figure out, and that was the reason why he had done none of that screaming or raving or ranting. That was the question that had given him this headache, that even the quiet of a GK evening and the soothing burn of a brandy could not ease. Why. And not even Shalini, sitting there, on the edge of the bed, in her black negligee could answer. But he would have to ask her, in any case, and that seemed to make it worse.

"I met my parents for lunch today, Aakaash," she said, still not looking at him, and he knew what it was all about. This would not wait, it had waited earlier when he had brushed it under the carpet and she had seemed only too eager to do so herself, but it would not wait anymore. "You know what it was about…" she said, letting it hang in the air between them.

"Of course I do," he said, and sat on the bed behind her. His hands snaked up on either side of her, and rested on her shoulders, kneading them, feeling the tension she carried on her mantle, and she shook her head slowly from side to side, as if indicating, that this was not enough, it would not suffice anymore. And for some reason, he thought about walking along a beach.

"Did you tell them about us?" It would be a sandy beach, white sand, white surf, something as beautiful as Kovalam. Something as secluded as Gokarna, completely veiled from human habitation, separate, alone, where he could stand for hours in the surf, feel the lapping waters and imagine - what?

"Yes, I did." There was a choke in her voice, he could tell. She was going through hell because of this, because of him, and he felt guilty about it. This was not the way it was supposed to be, was it? It had all promised to be so easy, from that first time they had kissed scorchingly in the back of that cab from CP, and that first time that he had made love to her here on this bed, on these sheets - it seemed ages ago, and he felt old, but was it really that long ago, a part of him rebelled against memory.

"I don't know what to do, Aakaash. I don't know," her voice sounded strong and calm now, and he patted her shoulders, like a soft reward, a further appeasement, an inducement to tell him more. "I thought, at one point of time, I could handle this. I thought I could make this work. But I don't know about this anymore."

He nodded, even though she could not see him. She was still looking straight out through the verandah, at the night, where a lone mango tree burst out from the grassy yard, and its leaves peeked in through at her bedroom, like a thousand little prying eyes that demanded merriment and amusement. He wondered whether they were amused now, and a smile crinkle at the corners of his mouth for some reason. "I know," he breathed softly, and he wondered if he heard her.

"Is there anything to us?" He could sense the hope in her voice, and the tension in the leaves, like an audience, on the perch of a climax in the movie, waiting, waiting, holding in their breath, wondering what would come, but knowing the answer already in their heart of hearts already -

"I don't know," he said, kissing her right shoulder tenderly. She took it calmly, not flinching, not shuddering, not hoping, just accepting, and he wondered again when on earth it had stopped being so easy. The audience was used to this - one climax postponed for awhile, while a diversion came on the scene.

Shalini traced a design on the sheet in front of her. Her knees hurt, from sitting on the bed in the same position for too long an interval, her shoulders were stronger now, her stomach was still contorted, and her hands were free on the silky satin bed sheet, as they roved, finger nail by finger nail, flicking and experimenting, and her brain was telling her things her father had told her earlier that day, while her heart was still hoping and wondering - "Will you leave your wife?"

The audience was all ears now. The tree rustled gently outside her bedroom.

**********

Geeta's birthday, and Geeta looked lovely. She had the classic Bengali large eyes, lined with kohl, and her nose was sharply wrought, her cheekbones receding upwards into a faint blush, her lips thinly set, her forehead crowned by a huge red circle she had painted on it. Aakaash smiled and kissed her cheeks, and whispered in her ear how beautiful she looked, and she coloured. He had pulled out all the stops for her - they had a corner table next to a tall French window that had a spectacular view of the city below them, the quartet played Happy Birthday for her, and she loved that, they had spoken of so many little things in the way new lovers did. It was almost as if the five years in between had never happened.

"So, how long have you and Probir been seeing each other?"

He had timed his arrow well, he saw, from the widening of her eyes, the slight incredulity in that little jerk of her head. She had been surprised about this, now, but did that mean that she had expected it all the same some time, he wondered in silent conflict within himself, but then brushed it away. This was his moment, he realized, the time when he would confront her, and tell her about everything - about herself.

Geeta looked down at the fluted glass she held in her hand, and looked up again, across the table, at him. It was an answer from her that he sought, and she decided that she was strong enough to give him one. Let him hate her, despise her, make a mockery of her. The twinkling lights in the city below seemed to want to say something to her, but she would deal with them later. They all had a place to wait, a turn to take, she decided, and hers had arrived. Should I smile? What would that mean? "A little over six months."

"Six months," he repeated, and let it hang in the air. Aakaash looked down at the white table cloth, finely crafted, silky smooth to the touch, and it reminded him of a satin bed sheet on a bed far away, in the apartment of a girl who was so far away now. It wasn't in Geeta to lie about it, she wouldn't have done so. She was strong, and who knew that better than he? She would tell him everything, and suddenly that thought was more frightening than anything he had contrived earlier.

To think of it all so contrived…

And before he had a chance to quell himself and ready himself, that question he had long laboured over made itself known. He looked out at the smiling city lights and he again thought about an expectant audience, and before he could stop himself from churning, he asked in a rapid intake of breath that seemed to come after an eternity - "Do you love him?"

I don't need to know! I don't want to know! God, I didn't want to ask that! Let her not answer - O, please, let her not answer. But Geeta did answer. Almost immediately. "No", she replied, not looking away from him.

He could sense the audience getting more restless. Somewhere inside the restaurant, the quartet was playing another tune at another table, there was applause from that quarter, and turbulence in this one. Geeta was looking down at the table cloth too, sometimes at the fluted glass that she had placed there, sometimes at him, at his own face, and he wondered idly whether she could see his dilemma, whether she could know that he was so close -

"You don't love him?" he repeated hollowly, not sure whether to give a loud whoop of joy or dissolve into hysterical sobs. His hands clenched the hand-rest of his chair tightly, and he begged the audience to quell their blood lust for a few seconds more. He would give them their lust, he would give them their blood, all he needed was time, he thought, all he needed was time, "Then, why?"

Aakaash rejoiced now to see her weakening. Her eyes were quivering, and yet they still hadn't declared defeat - magnificent! The lights below seemed to blink even more tempestuously, and he wondered whether he could hear any leaves rustling. He wondered whether her shoulders were tense now, whether there would be any good if anyone touched her now, helped her along, and yet, he did not want that salvation for her. It was his time, time for him to know why. He was clear that it was his time, as she answered softly, "Because, I wasn't… sure - "

"You weren't sure? Of what, may I ask?" Just the right amount of iron in your voice, Aakaash. The cuckolded husband. The angry, violent husband who's found out that his wife's been sleeping with another man behind his back. The right amount of sarcasm, anger and - most of all - betrayal. It's her error - she's the one who's been caught at it.

Finally, Geeta's eyes fell. She sat silent for awhile, even as he perfected that look of supreme condemnation on his face. The waiter came and placed the bill on the table. With a flourish, Aakaash signed the credit card slip, and the waiter took it away. He got ready to rise from his seat, determined to walk straight towards the car, letting her trail behind him.

And then she spoke. Distinctly. "I wasn't sure of you, Aakaash. I wasn't sure of where I stood with you - and even now, I'm not." And she got up and walked out of the door, leaving him in his chair, dazed.

From somewhere, somehow, he could hear thunderous applause in his ears.

Frailty, thy name is...

2005-03-04T13:28:00.000+05:30

Frailty, thy name is...

There are times when love withers away and even though you try to hold on to it, and tell yourself there's more where it came from, you can't keep on fooling yourself. But then, I can't tell you that to your face, for then you'll squint and sigh, and look at me as if I'm a mad man, or worse yet, an infant, and this is just a childish fling I'm having, not understanding, not wanting to understand, that love is about compromise.

That's one thing I find hard to accept. Maybe because I'm the romantic you fell in love with. That love is all about compromise. I know what compromise is about, I've been there, done that, have had my fair share of submitting when I didn't want to, taking when I'd had enough, but I don't ever want to compromise on this last bastion of mine. Is that too terrible a thing to ask for?

But when I look at you, I won't be able to tell you these things. When I look at you, and see the happy glow in your eyes, I will melt, and hold your hand, and pretend that everything is perfect, that I see a future for the two of us together, rose bushes and long highways, hands held together, words of love and passion murmured into your ear, a silly song sung for no reason at all. That's because you believe in some things, and I do not. Does that mean I'm frail, or does that mean I have no discipline inside of me?

Does that mean I'm beaten?

Things I won't forget about you:

1. The fact that I call your eyes wicked, not cute. Your eyes that dance and excite and twirl to no end.

2. That long, long, long walk we took on the stretch of road from the Gateway to the Radio Club, night, partying balloons, noises that erupted, lone gaslight from a lone archaic lamp, hands holding and squeezing, the world at utter chaos and our world an oyster of peace.

3. Buying that bauble at the Kaala Ghoda Festival, cheap, imitation stones, priceless beyond compare, glittering, teamed up with mehndi for your hands, cheap, imitation, priceless, laughter, cheap, real, expensive.

4. Candles on the floor of my apartment, on the windowsills, on the bed sideboards, on the table top, on the cupboard top, tall flames, swaying and sashaying, still sentinels in a gusty breeze, and my hungry, hungry lips and my hungry, hungry soul that needed to devour you, and have you close to me for the entire night.

5. That short walk behind Athena, watching trawlers, boats, speeders course their way through the water, point out the Navy land far to the left, near the Gateway, the awestruck lovers sitting here and there in the shade, in the relative desertion of the day, tall banyan trees covering us with their shadows, and a single kiss exchanged that thrilled fingertips that touched.

So many, many more instances that evoke so much, and weaken me when I think about you and me and nothingness. Was it all worth nothing, you would ask me, and I would have no answer. I would have an answer, but it would not help if I gave it to you, for what would I say? Yes, you meant a lot to me, yes, I love you, yes, you mean a lot to me, yes, I'm being foolish in leaving you for I don't know when I will next find someone as magical as you, someone to love me as much as you do, yes, yes, yes, I'm a fool, but then you would glint triumphantly at me, and say these are all reasons why I should stay... Yet, go I must.

Silly, stupid sentiment. Sentiment battles with the sea, an odd line my imagination throws up, as I sit here, waiting for you, gazing at the Gateway which rears up its head; like a tall ornate four poster bed. There are crowds about, balloon-sellers, pimps who roam even during the day, unafraid of the consequences (should I learn something from them?), families on a Sunday romp, squeals and shrieks and laughter and excitement, and through the haze, I see you coming towards me, eyes laughing, hair waving, lips creased into the most divine smile I have ever seen you throw my way. I laugh, and I hug you, (do you hug me too tight?), and I will myself to be strong, strong, strong, if only for a day, if only for an instant, if only for a second.

Inane conversation follows - "Marvelous day", "How's work?", "You want to eat something?", "I had to wake up SOOOO early today, I'm SOOO tired!", "I love you", "The other day, I heard this outrageous piece of gossip", "God, that kid is SOOO cute!", "When do you have to be back?", "My shoes are killing me?", "Coffee?"

She sips her mocha and watches him. He's distracted, she can tell. But he's not ready to tell her yet, and she can wait for him. She's waited for him for so long already. To give himself to her completely, the way she's surrendered herself. At times, she feels a twinge of ache, whether he will really ever summon up the courage to tell her - and what then?

Courage can go both ways, her father used to tell her, when she was young, on the shooting range. It can make a man, or it can destroy a man. And the man doesn't know till the very last instant what it is he has signed himself up for. She would listen to her father's voice, gentle and strong, undulating yet firm, holding her hands steady on the gun, as she fired. Courage was a dangerous thing, she had learnt in her own life, so she smiled at this man across the table from her, who seemed distracted, and flashed silly smiles her way, and asked her what dessert she would like to have.

"What are you thinking of?" he asked her, somewhat at calm now, helped by the strong reassurance in her sea-green eyes. Strange that something that ought to terrify him in his moment of truth should so embolden him, he thought vaguely, but let it pass.

"I was thinking about something my father had said, a long time ago," she smiled, and brushed her hair back, and sat back on the chair. "Something about what makes people the way they are, and what people do themselves to change that."

He gave a nervous laugh, "That sounds very high-brow to me."

"Does it? Perhaps... It seems so commonplace to me, really. To imagine that a person can change his own life in an instant, with a word or a gesture or an action - in ways that even he cannot know the consequence of - "

He reached out a hand and touched her palm. She was cool to the touch - amazing, he thought, after that walk along the Gateway in the afternoon. But this was the way he liked her best, when she had these little thoughts that came to her unbidden, and she shared them with him, at ease with herself and with him, as if this was the way it was meant to be, an eternity of semi-silence together with no awkward pauses. He wondered why those awkward pauses came to him, alone, when he was without her, and yet, when she was there, they seemed to - disappear?

And he asked himself again that hated question - was it because he was frail?

"What do you think about weakness?" he asked her, suddenly, pushing his finished cup of cappuccino away to one side, and squeezing her hand gently again.

"Weakness? I'm not sure it exists, really."

"That's just the eternal optimist in you talking," and he felt the tide of familiar irritation again - this was how he hated her, with her self-assured swagger and her turn of knowing almost anything there was to know under the sun, that there was good, good, good under the world, and nothing else... Well, she was wrong, he was sure, and she would learn that, he was weak, and not all of her imagined strengths could save them, because he was weak, it was just the way he was, and yet, there was no room for compromise.

She laughed now, "No, it's not. It's not weakness I'm worried about, to tell the truth. It's courage. The feeling of having too much of it. The feeling of being invincible, when you think you have it. My father used to tell me that. Courage can drive a man in either direction, when he thinks he knows the answers, but does he really? He thinks he's doing the big thing, the right thing, but how on earth does he know what will happen in the future - one, two weeks, one, two months... it is imagined courage that scares me the most, not weakness, because weakness is also the manifestation of an imagined lack of courage - "

Something was stirring within him, the fear - and he suppressed it with a laugh - "Sounds like too much imagination to me!"

Her only response was a smile. He would understand, though he would pretend not to. That was the way he was, and she had accepted him for it. There were other more important things than surety she looked for in a person to be in love with, other more important things, and she had found them in him, though he still seemed unsure of his worth, of his importance, of his courage - but she would give him his time, she thought, she would give him his time.

"Shall we go?" she smiled again, her mocha done.

It was the moment of truth now, for him, and he hesitated. But it was the moment of truth, he countered against himself, and so he must not hesitate. Compromise, but not in this. I have to learn for myself, I have to decide for myself. I have to find love, even if the search kills me, and though I may be frail. So I stop, and squeeze her hands again (am I seeking some sort of affirmation from her?), and the glinting sea-green depths of her eyes suddenly makes it easier for me to tell her what I must. It's about my life, and I may be selfish, but I warned you about me a long time ago, and I must not let memories (happy memories!) divert me now... Jumbled thoughts, a kaleidoscope of ideas and reasons, and I finally say, "No. Let's wait awhile. I have - something to tell you..."

She knew what it was.

A Song

2005-02-28T22:18:00.000+05:30

A song

It was hard to imagine they were playing a song like that on the radio at prime time, but there it was, an uncontestable truth. He adjusted the headphone in his right ear, and stood on the platform, hands punched into the pockets of his denim jacket, waiting for the Andheri local to come chugging along.

Like a Bridge over troubled waters
/ I will lay me down...

Simon and Garfunkel had always held a special place for him, and it was one of his favourite tunes: one of their most popular tunes, but that did not deflect from its very obvious genius and melody. A woman named Ayesha had called up the radio station and asked the RJ to play this song for her husband, Arun, and he had smiled at the beautiful absurdity of it all. In some way, he had wished he had called up some RJ during the heydays and asked them to play a song for them, but it had never happened. And he could not fathom why.

The train arrived, and the usual eight-o-clock rush almost overwhelmed him, but he stuck close to his target: located the door of the approaching carriage, and stood in a direction not exactly in front of the doorway, but beside it, so that when the train stopped and the steady stream of humanity pushed, shoved, released outwards, he snug in, beneath the extended armpits of a middle-aged Parsi man, and slithered to the middle of the carriage, where the two doors on either side were equidistant. Then he readjusted the headphones. This was the routine.

The Parsi man was wearing a black blazer over a white shirt and grey synthetic trousers. His name was Faraaz, Contractor and he looked at the young man who had slipped in the train, avoiding the angry pushes of the rest of the commuters from Elphinstone Road station. He smiled, it was all so beautifully resilient, somehow: this borrowed pride from a face in the crowd he would probably never see again. The boy was listening to music on his walkman, and his eyes were half-closed, but Faraaz could see that he was alert, as alert as any man could ever be in the throng of a crowded Bombay local. He had a red bag strapped around his shoulders, and while one hand gripped the overhead beam for support, his other hand was curled protectively around the bag. Faraaz thought he could hear the wafting strains of some music from the walkman, and he smiled to himself in the imagined melody. But the train had slowed down for Dadar, and he blanked out momentarily, stiffened himself for the throng that would soon shove its way into the already crowded carriage.

The faceless young men with the red bag around his body and Simon-and-Garfunkel in his soul opened his eyes and looked around. The crush in Dadar had been terrible, but he had been saved the worst part of it, because of his vantage position in the middle, his back against the seats-partition. The song had finished and the RJ was reading out dedications now, but he still found himself thinking about Ayesha and Arun, her husband, dancing in some remote corner of the city, in what could be nothing more than a rented one-bedroom-hall-kitchen, to the strains of the song. A part of him wondered what Ayesha looked like, and what Arun had done for her, that she was this impressed, and a chuckle escaped his lips. He wondered whether he should have taken tips from Arun, and then decided that it would not have been of much use.

Matunga Road was like the quiet breeze just before the storm, Faraaz Contractor thought to himself. He edged slowly towards the interior of the carriage: he had been able to stand the terrible throng at Dadar, but entertained no such illusions about his prospects in Mahim. The junction was not marked a big red in the station-chart that hung overhead, it was a chrome-blue like the other ‘minor’ stops, but the oncoming rush at Mahim was always too terrible to imagine. And, directly after Mahim, came Bandra, a big red circle on the chart.

Faraaz sighed, and wondered why on earth he ever allowed his wife to convince him to move from Colaba, in the first place. But then, he reminded himself that the flat had sold for a good sum like Rehaanaa had said it would, and it had certainly got rid of all the debts they had. Santa Cruz is a nice place to live, really, he mused, but it was the horrendous journey every morning and every evening to and from Churchgate that so irritated him. As he glanced at Red Bag, he wondered not for the first time whether he should buy one of those walkmans and portable radios that he had seen so many of the young men around Bombay hitch onto their waists. And then he gave a little chortle as to how his son’s eyes would widen on seeing him head out to work in the morning with a walkman hitched to his belt. But, aaaaaa, to revel in the music – and he widened his smile in a stream of imagined Beethoven.

Ayesha had come on the line again, and explained to the RJ that her husband had surprised her this morning when she came out of the bathroom with a dozen long-stemmed red roses lying there on the bed, while he himself was no where to be found. The RJ laughed and asked her whether Arun knew she had called up to ask for a special song for him, and Ayesha said, she didn’t think so. That was when the RJ had his brilliant idea of getting Arun’s cell phone number from Ayesha and said, he would give the busy husband a call, so that they would play a little game with him. Ayesha, of course, was quite delighted at the turn of events. The RJ started playing Kiss Me, by Sixpence None The Richer.

In spite of rehearsing his lines, the forthcoming exchange made him smile, as he listened to the RJ’s banter and Ayesha’s obvious excitement. One of the newcomers at Mahim had collided with him, even as he stood by the side, pressed against the partition, but he had ignored the fierce look the Mahim commuter had thrown his way, and tried to catch a breath of fresh air in the crowded train. And he tried to think of his lines, that he was going to tell her, when he reached Khar Road. She would be waiting at the restaurant on S V Road, and he would have to go and tell her the lines he had agonized over for days and nights now. Hearing Simon and Garfunkel talking about troubled waters had not exactly been easy, either.

She would sit at the table he knew so well, away from the busy road, towards the back of the restaurant, with the open window, overlooking the lawns on the right. She would glance at her slim, detailed watch, and frown because he was late, and order starters. She was used to him being late. It would probably be the grilled prawns.

“I’ve been thinking about us - "

Would that do? Or would it seem, as if it was a festering problem..? “I have something to say about us – " But it had been festering, hadn’t it? Hadn’t he better be honest now?

“I want to tell you something – "

Should he pause? For how long? “This is not going to work.”

He hoped it wouldn’t be like in the movies, and she would think he was making a joke. He hoped that she would recognize the import in his voice and eyes and understand what he was saying. She probably would. She was different, in that way. Different, and yet –

“I love spending time with you. I love being with you, - but – “

“There’s nothing else that I can see. I’m not in love with you.”

“I don’t see where we’re going with this – “

Or, “I don’t think we’re going anywhere with this – “

“It would be best to call it off. I don’t think we should go ahead with this – “

“I don’t see myself spending my whole life with you. I’m sorry – “

Did that sound too cavalier, too condescending? Should he apologize? Perhaps it would be better if she could hate him – though he wished she wouldn’t...

“I’m sorry.”

Faraaz Contractor roused himself from the reverie he had suddenly lapsed into, and realized that he had completely missed Bandra. What was the matter with him, he wondered, a bit frustrated at himself. At this rate, I’ll find myself half-way to Borivilli again, like the other day! It won’t do, loosing track of time like this – this would never happen if we were still in Colaba – I never dozed off in the bus! And he chuckled, despite his self-directed ire: Colaba seemed such a long way away now.

He looked sideways at the young man with the walkman who slumped heavily against the partition. He seemed preoccupied with something, and his eyes were closed again: Faraaz thought about shaking him slightly to make sure he didn’t miss his stop, but then he noted the flicker of white below the eyelashes and knew he wasn’t dozing, after all. There was, once again, the faraway gleam of music from his walkman, and Faraaz made up his mind, now. The music was necessary, he decided, if only to distract, if only to attract, if only to make him miss all his stops on his future journeys – and he laughed, because of the bad joke directed at himself. He would tell Rehaanaa tonight.

Khar Road arrived. Arun had been called up by the RJ, and told that his wife had called in to say that she felt neglected by her husband – and had he anything to say in his defence? He had been embarrassed to be questioned like this on air, and he fumbled and hemmed and hawed, and said he had no idea why Ayesha would think this about him. He had always tried to be a good husband, he protested, even as the RJ grilled him about their love life. When the RJ asked him if he had done anything nice lately for his wife, Arun said that, well, he had left a dozen roses on the bedside – and then both Ayesha and the RJ yelled “SURPRISE!!!!” to a flabbergasted Arun. The episode had been successful, the RJ wished the couple all the very best in their life together, the audience level had soared in the last few minutes of the drama, and the RJ invited anyone else who had a personal story of love and life to narrate to call the radio station. As he played Arun’s request, Ayesha by Outkast, the faceless young man in the train patted his red bag protectively again, rechecked his headphones in his ears, and alighted at Khar Road station.

He had news to give, and he walked briskly down the platform towards the overhead walkway, from where he would hire an auto rickshaw to take him to a certain restaurant in S V Road, where a young lady had probably ordered grilled prawns while she waited for him.

Faraaz Contractor stepped off the train at Santa Cruz, and began his own walk down the platform, to climb the overhead walkway. He had a certain skip in his steps, though he would deny it if someone told him so. He was whistling a tune, something he had imagined he heard from the young man’s walkman when he had departed, a station earlier, but it was really an old little melody that Rehaanaa and he had danced to ages ago in their little flat in Colaba, when debts did not seem quite so burdensome. The night was a trifle chilly, but Faraaz never noticed the nip in the air.

The Fairy Bower

2005-02-28T13:34:00.000+05:30

The Fairy-Bower

I can't see the ceiling from here. I can hear the dull whirr of the fan overhead, spot the faint shimmer of the mosquito-net in the darkness from the moonlight without. The pillow exudes a warmth that suddenly seems terribly stifling and not even the fan's efforts can make up for it. My chest is damp with sweat, and my upper lip fringed with the same. One more sigh, and I close my eyes, reopening them once again. I can see the open windows on the other side of the room - two large doorways that frame a strange milky glow outside.

I turn over onto my side. She's still asleep - I can hear the steady, even breath that escapes her nostrils, even see in the dull gloom the slow rising and lowering of her breast. My mouth curves itself into a smile inexplicably, and I close my eyes again. It's time to sleep, I tell myself. It's late - quite, quite late. A yawn, and I open my eyes. For awhile, I'm staring at her inert form, just staring vacantly. It's empty inside, not a single thought as I gaze at her, not a single emotion bubbling over or even cascading gently in a trance. A blink, and the heat from the pillows is too much to bear.

Tucking the ends of the netting back underneath the mattress, I step back and stand for a second, surveying the neatly packaged bed and its contents for awhile. A hiss of exhaled breath, and I paddle softly on down the corridor. I'm not wearing any slippers, I've lost any idea I ever had about where they could possibly be. The noiselessness suits me just fine, anyhow. I'm walking through billowing curtains and stepping on cashmere rugs, up stairs and down corridors. For awhile, I forget where I am in the darkness. It's so strange - this is the house I grew up in... A hand extends itself and feels the smooth edge of a glass table - I'm in the main hall. Almost simultaneous with the mental recognition, my senses start to kick in. My eyes spot the glint of moonlight on the crystal centerpiece, the smell of stubbed-out cigarettes comes assailing me from the ashtray pushed underneath the drapes, I catch the soft rustle of the wind on the gauze curtains, and my arms seek out the contours of the velveteen sofa...

I bask in the warm glow of the refrigerator light as I open the door. A tall pitcher of juice. Covered remnants of dinner. A huge hunk of pomegranate. A bottle of water. I retract the water and stifle the amber glow of the refrigerator once again. Somehow, I'm content to simply stand there in the pitch blackness - in spite of the same sultry warmth that drove me from my bed. Somehow, I'm in that same place I found myself earlier gazing and not seeing her face, as I lay next to her in bed. A drop of water condenses, rolls down the length of the bottle, and falling on my foot, pierces my thoughtless reverie. Suddenly, bottle and dark, empty room flood back to my consciousness, and I leave hurriedly. I knock down the little carved stool next to the ottoman, but I don't notice.

They're all asleep. As I roam up the stairs, paddling along silently, I can feel their thoughts resting serenely in their beds next to their hearts. In spite of the sultry weather, and in spite of the barking dogs outside on the road. I stop there at the head of the stairs, listening to one of them howl outside. It's a strange call, I conclude, a call bespeaking so much of anguish to my tired human ears, but actually borne of probably nothing more than a missing gnawed-out bone from last week's treasure-find. I shrug my shoulders at the strange disparity between my perceptions and what really happens out there, and take a gulp of water from the bottle. The water helps to assuage the mugginess somewhat.

I open the door softly, and step in. The netting on the bed makes it look like some strangely ornate shrine. My room is bare, save the treasure that lies asleep within her fairy-bower, oblivious to this incessant dampness that torments me. My windows are bare too, and the dull milky shine of the night sky pours unabated into the room. I stoop to place the bottle of water on the floor, at the foot of the bed, and amble over to the tall windows. They look on over the neighbor's compound, dotted with tall palm fronds that I can't make out in the dark. As far as I can see, there's only rough tangled undergrowth looking equally forbidding before me - somehow, I get the feeling of being this savage witch-doctor of eons ago in some grim and mysterious part of the world. These are my secrets lying before me, shrouded in the deepest, blackest veils that not even the clearest beam can pierce through. Perhaps not even a stone's throw away, the forlorn night-lights of some other houses down the block shine in the gloom - in this atmosphere, I find it so easy to forget that I walked down there just this morning and picturize instead far-away watch-towers and their messages of ill-tidings come swiftly forth. An aboriginal atmosphere in a supernatural frame of mind.

A slight snort from within the packaged treasure throws a stone at my mired consciousness. I turn bodily, and spy her form beneath the shimmering netting, turning over onto her side now. Her slender hand reaches forth to my side of the bed, feels about for a few seconds and then stays put. I can hear the sigh of contentedness issue forth from her lips, even now, as far as I am away from her. A blink, and the silence of the sleeping house becomes a living entity with me. I look out over the window again, but the witch-doctor's domain seems to have been washed away in invisible smoke...

My eyes follow the path of the smoke and affix onto the strangely curdling sky overhead. It's as if a nebula has opened up before me. Soft and silent, ringed with colour and shine. A slight breeze, and somehow the witch-doctor becomes quite, quite redundant. Somehow, the open doesn't permit any more shrouded mysteries of the deep - somehow, there's this very real urging to open Thineself to the wonders abroad - as terribly weird and tailor-made as it may sound. This is not a line from a Rebel Song of the Sixties, nor a pot-induced spot of spontaneously optimistic thinking - in some strangely haunting way, this is the truth. The truth out There that calls to the one in Here. And all of it because of some optical phenomena reflected in the nocturnal sky of one hot, muggy night in April...

Another gulp of cool water, and I set the bottle to rest on the floor again, amidst the converging concentric rings of condensation. And then, I enter through the veils of the glimmering bower and take my place in my bed.

A Routine

2005-02-26T17:26:00.000+05:30

A Routine

Ten strokes,well-counted beneath her breath. It had been a routine she had grown up with, inculcated with great meticulousness. She performed it now, never wavering from her gaze at her reflection in the mirror, the short bone comb never pausing in its descent. A wince always followed from habit, more than anything else. Hair parted easily enough, hardly anything so momentous, hardly anything so important, and yet there was a certain formality to the occasion. A certain hardness crept into her features then, but she would have argued otherwise.

The first stroke always met the most resistance, she knew. That had been when she had said 'no' to him. The second stroke had been met with defiance, rather than any real anger. It had been a game, and she smiled fleetingly at the memory. The hardness did not exactly melt away, however. The third stroke had been his persistence, and she had flicked up her nose at him. He had been much younger than she, how could he possibly think that she would do what he wanted from her…?! Ridiculous, and yet - there had been longing, yes, there had been longing - On the fourth stroke, she had decided to play his game, and outwit him, so the maneuvers started. The fifth stroke met her stolid glare at him, and his young, irreverent (young!) smirk in response.

There had been others, since then. Five other strokes of their relationship had sounded, like deep, sonorous gongs of a bell, signifying each new beginning and each new climax before she found herself hungry enough for him. It was ridiculous to think of who had won and who had lost. She had extracted whatever he had to offer, and he had been paid in kind. Was there something mercenary about it, she paused to wonder, and her lips, exquisitely pink-and-peach with make-up, quivered slightly. It had been give-and-take. Even marriage was like that, she reassured herself, and finally smiled into the mirror. Her ten strokes were done.

She wondered idly, holding the glittering fabric over her skin, whether she would ever tire of these parties, and then laughed to herself, saying, not bloody likely! She liked the attention much too much, liked the way she flitted across the room, glided even, so that even the most hardened socialite could not suppress a twinge of envy at her consummate ease. There was something beautiful in the way she did her stuff, and even the best of the best had to acknowledge that. Their acknowledgement came like this: in delicate little party invitations that were embossed and laced and gilded and zardozied with tassels, which invited Mr and Mrs… to the annual affair at Mr and Mrs… for dinner and cocktails, promptly at eight. She laughed. Decided the fabric was exactly the correct shade of party brashness to suit the night's needs, and put her watch back down on the derriere after noting it was past ten. The Husband would be waiting downstairs.

The idea, as she told everyone repeatedly, was to be different. You had to stand out in a crowd, but just sufficiently enough. Even if you wanted to wear cotton, you couldn't very well indulge yourself when everyone else was in silks. The trick was to get what you wanted over a period of time, slowly entrench yourself so that every one else soon wants the same kind of things that you do - and then, next party season, to completely reinvent yourself, so that everyone else was left gasping for air and gaping in astonished admiration! She was an expert chameleon. Her success on the circuit was a testimony to that. The bitches could hardly hide their green while she strutted her way over in front of them.

At the party, they all commented on how glossy her hair looked and she smiled her pearly whites at them. Glossy was a euphemism for 'obviously dyed', but then she was not going to waste her time worrying about the jackals. She downed her wine, ran a light hand over her perfect do, and smiled some more. Ten strokes that guaranteed a sheen.

The Husband was by her side, of course - he always was. In some ways, she was glad of that. Now, more than ever before. Now, because she knew the Lover was somewhere about. Perhaps in the anteroom, perhaps in the cellar, inspecting the wine. She knew that he was here, and she was looking forward to seeing him. She had almost not come to this party when the Husband had asked her, and had capitulated only when she had pored over the guest list.

What were the other strokes, she tried to remember now… The fifth had ended in a blatant challenge from either end. In the sixth, he had gone down on bended knee, capitulating before her. That had tempted her, that had tempted her so very much. She had longed to give in to the purity she had seen then, touch his hair, touch his lips, hold him close, fall in love, fall in love, fall in love... But she had recovered in time, and taken what he had to offer. She had loved him, and made sure that he fell in love with her. The seventh stroke signified her victory. She smiled now, tingling with the red wine in her mouth, recalling the fervent worship at the Bandra flat where he would wait for her. The little attentions he would lavish on her, and fuss over her, the passionate love bites she had pretended were mosquito bites when her friends at the pool asked - o, of course, they weren't fooled for a minute (she giggled) but one could never ask outright! One could never say anything outright -

The eighth stroke had set the ball rolling for a jettison, and she had been late for those afternoon trysts, she had called him a silly boy and mulled his hair, she had flung gifts at him like a little boy you take to the fair grounds. Her mind had been made up, the ninth stroke had been the eighth's anti-climax, and she had soothed his worried, shushed his doubts, loved him again, pulled him closer, tortured herself with her own doubts, but emerged stronger, more resilient, more focused in the game. Now it's time to play the dice, my love, she had crooned softly to herself that evening, as she clipped on the shining diamond danglers to her ears. She had inspected herself in the mirror, while the Husband had been waiting downstairs reading a copy of The Economic Times, pouted her lips like she had once seen Angeline Jolie do in a movie, and tip-tapped her way out of the room. Tonight was the tenth stroke when she broke a heart. Tonight would be the bitter-sweet climax. Wince? - no, not really.

In a way, it had been all too ordinary. She was no longer as young as she had once been, no longer as easily satisfied, either. No longer so easily humoured. It wasn't a sudden occurrence, this strange new side of her, but it certainly felt like that on hindsight. Certainly, it felt that she had awoken one day and cried her bleary eyes out. Her life had been a full one, she had told herself, and yet somehow under the light, it seemed so completely uniform - that horrible old mother of all evils. That was the trouble, she surmised: the vague, helpless feeling that there could easily be thousands of replacements for you if you happened to disappear one fine day. Childishly, she had thought about that: what would happen if indeed one fine day she disappeared into thin air, would her husband sit in the front hall, shattered… He still loved her, of course - she knew that, but couldn't imagine why. What had she offered him that no other woman of her age and her beauty and her graces could not? What had been the strange underpinning characteristic that made him still so helplessly in love with her…?

Whatever it was, she had brought him here now, so that the Lover could see the two of them together. She spied him now, at the anteroom, talking to some giddy female in a backless dress the colour of hot chilly and eyes like burgundy. His eyes passed her by dismissively. She would have been angry then, if this had been anytime, anywhere else - but now, she only smiled a secret enigma to herself. He would see soon enough: he would see the Husband's adoration and he would be startled. He would raise his eyebrows and sidle over to her side to whisper sweet nothings in her ear, and she would laugh in a tinkle and flit away from him, hand in hand with the Husband. She would make him beg, and take his calls only the next day, and she would then haughtily deign to meet him at the Bandra flat one last time, out of pity.

First stroke. His eyes caught her again, and this time, they saw her arm in arm with the Husband. Was he thinking now, of the two of them, together? His eyes seemed all smoky, all hazy... She looked away into the ruby liquid of her glass.

Second stroke. He laughed with the girl in the red dress, reached over and whispered something in her ear, but then moved away from her. He strode across the room and wafted over to her.

Third stroke. The fat Punjabi hostess laughed raucously suddenly, and said something about the new gazebo, and insisted on showing it off to her uninterested guests. The Husband nodded placidly, agreeing, and she assented as well. Let the Lover wait his turn.

Fourth stroke. The night air felt delectably cool on her skin, and she pulled the zardozi stole closer around her shoulders. She suddenly thought of the ice-cube in the Lover's mouth the last time they had met at Bandra, his hungry eyes as he crawled over to her on the bed across the expanse of silver satin sheets. A shiver, and he was right there beside her on the lawns.

Fifth stroke. His hands were folded. The corners of his fingers touched her bare fore-arms. He was wearing a ring, she noted, something spiraled, something she had not given him. A part of him wondered if his job was paying well now.

Sixth stroke. She could see the gregarious vultures there on the other side, ogling her. They had seen the Lover next to her, his husky build and his strong fingers that fed their fantasies. Their eyes were glinting with jealousy and she suddenly laughed. No light tinkle: a deep, throaty laugh.

Seventh stroke. The Husband looked flummoxed at her sudden laugh and smiled agreeably to himself. He ran his arm over her back and pulled her in closer to him. He whispered something in her ear. The Lover noted it all.

Eighth stroke. She was ready now. She would turn and face the Lover, put on a look of utter astonishment and pretend to just have noticed him. She would act as if it was a great surprise to see him here, and she could not acknowledge him now, as he was a nobody, he simply did not matter enough - He would turn red then, and he would stutter.

Ninth stroke. Her eyes danced as she turned. Her mouth opened and she said 'Ooo…', her fingers were raised, perhaps a tiny spill of the wine could be good for the drama, a detached part of her brain thought, perhaps a different intonation in the voice, perhaps she should hold onto his arms, perhaps -

Tenth stroke. His eyes smiled, and he said "Darling!" and pushed past her to the burgundy woman in the dress that crinkled and ripened like dry chillies. He bent slightly from his huge frame and kissed her squarely on the lips, with his strong, masculine lips. The Husband was engrossed by the new gazebo.

Wince.

An Important Night

2005-02-24T13:17:00.000+05:30

An Important Night

"There are more important things in the world than money," she said, taking a sip from her red wine, "It's another matter altogether that I can't think of one right now."

It was typical of her to make a statement like that, he thought, gazing fondly at her. He could never imagine her otherwise. "It's all right, you don't have to, darling. All you have to do is get rich quick, so that I can break your petite little shoulders, while you earn for the both of us," he laughed, raising his own wine glass.

Tinkle of laughter, or something of the sort. She wasn't the sort who tinkled. She had a raspy sort of snort that she emitted to indicate pleasure at something. Her features could not quite contain a tinkle of any sort, he mused, but gem that she was, she wasn't really concerned. While he tenderly described her as 'on the heavier side', Chandni would snort and call herself 'fat'. That was the kind of person she was.

“Fag!" she exclaimed, with mock disdain, “Blood-sucking fag! Who told you to go in for those airy-fairy NGO things in the first place?!”

“I’m the tender sort, love. Not made out to suck blood in true corporate fashion like you, at any rate,” he retorted happily. This was the sort of exchange they had missed, the sort of stupid laughs and stupid insults that somehow lost their bite over the phone or over the internet chat. It was the kind of evening that demanded personal presence, an almost full moon lording over the sky in its jaundice colour, and the clink of red wine glasses drained quite dry of their red wine.

“God, I’ve missed this,” she said suddenly, giving words to his stream of thought. And on impulse, she reached forward to hug him. It was an incomplete funny little hug, as they were both on cushions, legs splayed over the verandah floor, but it was a hug nonetheless, and that satisfied Chandni’s sense of closeness.

“Good grief, woman. You’re going to be a rich MBA. You can’t get all touchy-feely like this!” he laughed, placing the glass a little out of the way, where she would not crush the damn thing.

“Of course I can, “ she shot back, tilting her head back, and her nose up in the air, “I’m just getting ready for all those gorgeous men in the office I’ll be sexually harassing”, and she gave something that passed for a wicked cackle in her head.

“You’re drunk, babe,” he pointed out.

“I’m buzzed,” she nodded, and then looked at her empty glass mournfully. A split second later, she looked up again – “Fancy going out?”

He grinned. It was just the sort of thing that she would have come back with. It was just the sort of thing he wanted, too. Getting even more drunk. The excuse? Will ‘tomorrow is another day’, suffice, he wondered. Who cares! “Sure” – lopsided grin again.

*****2

"So, what’s more important than money?" he shouted in Chandni’s ears, over the loud music. He was rewarded by a smile of total absentia in her face, and he knew he had to shout louder in her brain for her to hear - "WHAT'S MORE IMPORTANT THAN MONEY?"

Horrible to think of Calcutta like this, a part of him pondered. When was the last time he had been down here to the city’s nether-regions, its hot spots and pubs? Never, really. Calcutta had always been the sane city for him. The place of his origin, where he was the goody-goody boy next door. It had taken his sojourn in Delhi to realize his wilder side, so to speak. Wilder side – and he smirked quite absentmindedly – bloody corny like hell!

“I’LL TELL YOU WHEN I FIND OUT!” she yelled back. Chandni was drunk, hopelessly drunk, and he thanked his stars that she had the keys to her flat and he wouldn’t have to wake up her parents to put her into bed. He could almost picture the looks on Mr and Mrs Chatterjee’s faces when he brought their stumbling, lolling, slurring daughter back home. He cringed, and he found the idea vastly funny, so he laughed at her reply, while she had no idea why on earth he was laughing. O well, she thought, gay men do funny things. They’re absolute darlings, but they do do funny things!

For the moment, Chandni’s attention was focused completely on the demigod sitting two places away from her at the bar. He was tall and broad-shouldered, had long hair that curled sinfully at the back of his neck. He was wearing an ashen blazer over a black v-neck that emphasized the tanned skin of his throat. He had to be Marwari, no Bong could ever look so sexy, she smiled mischievously to herself. I want you, she mouthed, and then coloured when she realized from his grin (o, hell!) that she had spoken out loud, quite aloud in fact. While Abhi looked on mortified, V-neck actually came over to her side of the bar.

“Hey. I’m Deb.” O great – so he was Bong, in the end. So much for women’s intuition!

“Hi, Chandni here.”

“Hi, Chandni. Can I buy you a drink?” He had the most gorgeous grey eyes, she noticed, while tottering over their brink.

“Aaa.. no, thanks. I think I’ve already had one too many. Judging from that little display of mine” I’m colouring, I’m colouring, O god, help me now, Abhi, what the fuck are you doing now!

“Ahemmmmm – “ He coughed pointedly in their direction, and Chandni turned, grateful for the interruption to Deb’s laugh. “Hi, I’m Abhi, Chandni’s friend.” O my god, you idiot Abhi, did you have to stress that frikkin’ word?!

She was gratified to note that it was Deb’s turn to blush now. “O, I’m sorry, I didn’t think that you guys were together – I wouldn’t have – “

Laughs all around. “O we’re not!”

“We’re not!”

“I mean, we’re just friends. We really are just friends!”

“We’re just friends.” I feel like a frikkin’ echo – why the hell doesn’t she go away with him somewhere now?

Deb smiled, satisfied at the proceedings. He looked Abhi over: wild curly hair, silly poker smile on face, no paunch, but not well-built either, dark blue shirt with top two buttons undone, black stonewashed jeans and brown loafers. She wasn’t going to fall for him, he decided, and turned his attention squarely back to Chandni. “So, I haven’t seen you around here. Are you new in town?”

Abhi sighed, and settled back into his bar stool. Chalk another one up for the Great Tart. How did she manage, a part of him wondered in admiration, but then he smirked at the silly little name he had just called her privately and wondered whether he was actually jealous of her. He turned back to get a look at Deb’s tight black V-neck and his Gigolo Joe corduroys and told himself, Never! Thank God! That helped to make him feel better, and he smiled his most flirtatious grin at the bartender.

“A refill please. Double it, this time, will you?”

*****3

Chandni smiled beatifically, while Deb’s hands moved at her waist, up her sides, flirted suggestively at her bodice and then trailed back down to rest at her waist again. I’m not really fat, she told herself, I’m not really fat, Abhi always says I’m just on the ‘heavier side’. And Bongs like their women to be a bit... meaty (?) The adjective did nothing to satisfy her ever-probing MBA soul, however, so she simply kept on beaming at Deb, and wondered what he would look like, naked.

“So, are you going to specialize in marketing or finance?” he asked her, flashing his pearly-whites.

He really does have the longest lashes! Could he be... like Abhi…? But then his hands would hardly be going there! “Neither,” she replied happily,” I’m into HR.”

Deb grinned again, “You know, everybody blames HR for everything. You’ll be made the scapegoat for everything!”

So, he knew someone in the line and knew absolutely nothing about HR, she thought, but hell, I don’t really want his brains now, do I? “HR’s in charge of the purse strings. That’s what counts in the end, you know!”

He was trying to be clever now, and he roared in laughter, “So you’re after money, are you?”

“Of course. Aren’t you?”

It was as if she had said something wildly funny, and he tossed his head back to laugh, and then, when the slow number came back on, he pulled her close to him suddenly, and wrapped his hands around her waist. A startling development, Chandni thought, but on the whole, not very bad, as she felt his hot muscular thighs brush against her. I knew he likes ‘heavier’ women! Blush of joy and triumph.

*****4

“I’m sorry you got dumped,” the bartender winked at Abhi, pouring him his double vodka, with lemon juice and bitters, on the rocks. “The guy’s a regular here. Usually has a lot of the women falling for him. But you can warn your lady friend,” and he gave another conspiratorial smile, warm and flush, with just the faintest traces of Bacardi on his breath.

Abhi flushed himself. “O, no. You’ve got that wrong. We’re not together, the lady and I. I mean, we’re together, but not – “ He stopped, not very inclined to make a further mess of things, and feeling that the bartender had understood the gist of what he was trying to say, despite the creasing of his forehead in an effort to follow Abhi. So, he ended with a simple proclamation that is bound to have any bartender preen with joy – “I’m quite drunk, I’m afraid.”

This admission had the desired effect on Irfaan (for that was who his brass name-tag pronounced him to be), and he smiled brilliantly. “O, that’s quite alright. The guys here can get you a cab, if you feel unwell,” then hurriedly, as if to prevent Abhi from balking out the door and searching for a cab the very next instant, he grabbed his arm, and said – “But I think you’re ok. Not that far gone, at all. Here’s your drink, sir.” And he was gone, to the other side, as someone hollered for a martini.

Abhi sipped on his double vodka and smiled at Irfaan’s busy back. He’s pretty cute, and maybe he was coming on to me. Was he...? He laughed then, and took another drink. I’m so frikkin’ strange I keep on imagining men are coming onto me, when they’d probably want to keep me at arms’ length first thing, if they find out I’m gay, he laughed – pathetic! He turned to see that Chandni was apparently having a whale of a time, and Deb was making bull-faces at her with his index fingers, while she pretended to be some virtuous (?) Italian Madonna-cum-matador. On a wildly vindictive level, he wished with all his might that Mr and Mrs Chatterjee would suddenly appear out of thin air to see their daughter in the act – maybe the old fart would get a heart attack, he grinned – and was disappointed to see that God had denied him special powers. Or maybe, he had given him those special powers after all: Abhi grinned to himself, as a smiling Irfaan came back to him, after delivering the martini.

“Not usually so busy on a Tuesday night,” the bartender said, smoothening out his black apron. Abhi eyed it critically. It was a short one, not at all like the longish ones waiters at the Italian restaurants wore, while serving pastas, but it was hooked in the same style, and reminded Abhi something of what he expected a blacksmith in the Welsh countryside to wear (not that he had ever seen a blacksmith in the Welsh countryside). This was worn over some red shirt with ruffles with the pub’s insignia on top, and smart black trousers that clung to the man’s legs. Abhi licked his lips and imagined Irfaan wearing only the short black apron. “Isn’t it?” he replied, and his voice sounded raspy even to his ears.

The bartender smiled, poured himself a quick vodka shot, and gave Abhi a sly grin. “So, I haven’t seen you around here before. Are you new in town? My name is Irfaan.”

Abhi chuckled for some strange reason, and touched his index finger to Irfaan’s name-tag. “I figured that out. My name is Abhi – Abhinay. Yea, I’ve been living in Delhi. I’m here on vacation, with my friend.”

The bartender flashed another smile and crept closer. “The lady? Do you have other friends in Calcutta? If you need anyone to show you around, I could – “

He was gone, as a fat businessman in a safari suit yelled out an order for two RCs, two gins-and-sodas, one Old Monk with coke, and one Absolut shot. Abhi was left contemplating the sleek black hair at the base of his head, when Chandni almost fell over him. “Hey, love – Deb wants to go to some sexy place in Tolly. Do you want to come along, or should we leave?” So she had noticed the way little (?) Irfaan had leant over the bar, Abhi thought, with a twinge of satisfaction. “You could stay here, if you want, and go over to my place to spend the night, if you want,” Chandni said again.

It was an attractive proposal, Abhi tinkered, and when Irfaan looked back over his shoulder to smile at him, he decided that he was going to take it. He changed his mind, when he turned back to find Deb’s hands wrapped firmly around Chandni’s waist, his lips nuzzling her ears, and Mr and Mrs Chatterje’s astral projections behind them staring accusingly at him. Abhi gulped and said, “No hassles, I’ll come with you guys.”

So, he popped off the stool, waved at a crestfallen Irfaan and shouted back, “I’ll be back some time!”, before hurrying after the fast-disappearing pair.

*****5

“I am so, so, SO drunk!” Chandni declared happily, pressing Deb’s shoulders. He turned to grin at her, and pat her head as if he was rewarding a puppy for doing something particularly cute and turned back to the wheel. Abhi snorted from the back seat – not very loud, he took care. Somehow, the insides of the Lancer had always seemed larger to him earlier, or was he drunk now, as well?

“Sooooooo – what was going on with the cute bartender, Abhi baby?” Chandni crooned from the front, and he wished he could shake her hard right there and make him forget that he existed. Deb was looking at him in the rear view mirror, he noted, and gave a silly laugh – “Bar tender? They had a female bar tender? I never noticed that – and I’m a regular there!”

I know that, you dick, Anhi snarled, but kept on smiling like a placid schoolboy, hoping that his silence would prompt Chandni to keep her mouth shut. But she was far too drunk and far too happy at being groped at, so she tittered at Deb’s remark, “No, silly! It was a guy, only – a verrrrry cute guy, too! Abhi’s gay, silly! Couldn’t you tell?”

O great, now I need to carry a signboard around my neck! Gay man walking – straight men, beware! He wondered why on earth Mr and Mrs Chatterjee’s astral projections hadn’t reappeared now to kill their daughter, and then wondered if they wanted him to do the dirty work for them.

But Deb’s face hadn’t changed to the all-too-predictable shocked visage Abhi had expected. His brows had furrowed, and then he burst out grinning as if he had known Abhi for ages and this turn of events was vintage-Abhi, something to be predicted only too well. “Aaa, we’re here,” and he eased the Lancer away into the private road that led to the private club.

“I am SO drunk, “Chandni announced again, as they entered the club, and she took in the red interiors with the bright light in her eyes of a child being offered a whole basket of sweets for herself. “This place is AMAZING!” she whooped, as the red laser beams danced off the red vinyl upholstery and the whirling red strobe lights on the walls, and she lifted a blood-red tequila shot off the tray that a waiting girl in a shining red miniskirt was carrying by. Abhi felt like killing someone, and settled for a place at the bar, instead.

“Stay away from the bartender, dude!” Deb winked at him, as a parting shot, before heading on to the dance floor with Chandni, and Abhi made a face. Why on earth could she never find a normal guy, like the boring pinstriped jerks she would work with at some boring pinstriped office, he groaned.

But the music was excellent, and he found himself shedding his Scrooge suit after a few minutes. It was the kind of music they play for people who know what good music is, he told himself, with the realization that he was quite a snob really: not the kind of brainless trance or hip hop that was quite the rage anywhere on the world, but a touch of exotica, a touch of strum and soul that would render the most incapable brute of stopping in his tracks and smiling in his motion. Poetic? – perhaps, but to him, it was natural. So, he drifted over to the dance floor, with his drink in hand, even without a dance partner, dancing with his tall glass, noting how the people around him made way quite automatically for him. It was intoxicating. Or maybe, he was getting drunk, too.

That’s one of the stereotypes about us, Abhi moaned to himself, while moving his body on the floor, the old stereotype about gay men knowing how to dance well. A woman with an extra-size bust, crammed into a tight knee-length black dress moved onto the floor beside him, and flashed him a quick grin. Maybe she knows, he thought, maybe she can sense it – but aaa, what the fuck do I care about it? It was all so unimportant, he decided, as his feet played to the beat, and he twirled Black Dress around on his arm.

“OMIGAWD! Abhiiiiiii,” - he recognized the shriek and turned to laugh, while Chandni pirouetted into his arms. Deb was laughing too, and he flashed a grin at Black Dress, who seemed a bit nervous now at the new entrants. But Chandni seemed unwilling to surrender her best friend back to Black Dress, and held fast onto him, dancing and laughing, letting Deb dance with her instead. A corner of Abhi’s mind wondered at this turn of events and whether everything was hunky-dory with them, but the greater part of him didn’t really care, and so he kept on twirling Chandni around.

She seemed to be having a great time, tanked up as she was. She turned and turned, and yelled on about how drunk she was, and what a great piece of ass Abhi was, when suddenly she groaned aloud, clutched her throat, and lurched to the floor. The greenish-grey vomit seemed red in here, a detached part of Abhi noted.

“Holy CRAP! Are you alright, Chandni? Chandni?” No astral projections of the parents to disturb him. Even Black Dress and Deb were hunched over her now.

Chandni nodded weakly, and tried to give a smile, not really succeeding. Most of the people around them still continued to dance, oblivious to anything at all. Somebody called for the management, and Abhi wanted to hit the person, when he made out the disgust in the man’s voice. “Baby, are you okay? You want to go to the loo? Baby?”

Black Dress knelt down now, and helped Chandni up. She was shivering suddenly. “I’ll take her. I’ll take her to the washroom. Can you walk?” She had a beautiful, soft voice, Abhi noted, suddenly exceedingly grateful.

Chandni nodded, and the two women moved slowly through the red hall packed with red people dancing in the red light to a music that had lost its charm to a now sobre Abhi. The manager had arrived now, and Deb was speaking to him, and then the attendant arrived with a bucket to wash the floor, while the manager put on his best Santa Claus imitation ho-ho-ho and asked the rest of the dancers to carry on dancing, as it was a minor glitch only. Abhi heaved a sigh forcefully in the red light, and brushed back his sweat-stricken hair with both his hands. There was a light slap on his back, and Deb boomed into his ear – “Wow, that was something, huh, champ?! Don’t think she’ll be back for more fun, do you?”

Abhi looked at his red face, which seemed to throb strangely in the music, even though the man was not moving, and saw the idiotic grin on his face, and turned away for the washroom, himself.

The loo was a bright white, something of what he expected of a secret FBI facility. Sparkling white, clinically spotless, great white square patches overhead that bathed the room in a white gleam, Parryware urinals that lined up next to each other like offering bowls in some futuristic temple, I have a morbid imagination, Abhi told himself, as he walked over to one of the urinals in a surprisingly steady gait, and unzipped his trousers. That was when he allowed himself to utter “Idiot!” out loud in the empty room.

As if on cue, Deb walked in, with his Gigolo Joe corduroys, black V-neck, and Lancer-matching shiny teeth. “I looked in on the Ladies, I think they’re almost done,” he declared, and came to stand at the urinal next to Abhi’s.

“So what have we got here?” – and Abhi started: “Excuse me?”

Deb laughed in staccato bursts, and said, “I mean, so what do you do, Abhi? I know that Chandni’s in the MBA thing. What about you?”

Abhi reminded himself to smile politely like all good Bengali boys are supposed to, and replied, “I work for a NGO. I live in Delhi.”

“O” silence, and Abhi hoped it would last, but it was not meant to – “So the gay scene in Delhi is supposed to be really rocking. You must be getting a lot of action there.”

Am I colouring? A part of him wondered in a detached fashion. No, I don’t think so. But it is strange for him to ask that. Why would he ask me that? What do I say now? Shall I keep quiet, or do I say something? Shall I laugh? I can laugh. I can laugh and blow it away. Shall I laugh?

The laugh died away on his lips, however, when he felt Deb’s hands touch his inner thighs just below his crotch, from behind, and Abhi’s entire body stiffened. Is this really happening? and the detached part of him started chuckling at the absurdity of the entire situation.

“Or maybe you don’t really get much there – or you prefer good ole Calcutta boys, mmmm?” Deb whispered fiercely in his ear now, pressing his body against his behind, so that Abhi could make out his state of arousal. This feels like a hilarious porno flick, Abhi started laughing inside, and there was the necessary interruption in such cases – the old, bald man in the safari suit who hurried in to one of the urinals, glancing suspiciously towards Deb and Abhi, as Deb quickly stepped back a couple of paces from Abhi. That was all the opening he needed. He stepped away from the urinals himself, flashed Deb a sardonic grin while passing him, and stepped out of the white room.

Black Dress and Chandni were standing right outside, and the music was still beating – “You ready to go home, babe?” Chandni nodded. Abhi turned to Black Dress and smiled his thanks, while Chandni touched her arm. They turned towards the entrance. “Chandni, wait – “ Deb’s voice came from behind, but neither of them stopped on their way out.

*****6

The cab wound its way towards Prince Anwar Shah Road, and Chandni settled in Abhi’s arms, in the back seat. The cabbie’s eyebrows were interested at the prospect, but a careening Maruti distracted him, and he yelled “Haraami, maalkhor!” at the driver whose tail lights were swishing in the dark, deserted city.

“I hope mum and dad are asleep,” Chandni murmured into Abhi’s shirt.

“I hope so, too.” There had been no more astral projections of the Chatterjees since they had left the pub, but he knew that as far as they were concerned, anything was possible. “Do you have the key?”

She felt around in her tiny black purse for a few seconds, and sighed – “Yes.”

Abhi looked at the closed shutters of the shops that were whizzing past, and imagined them a few hours from now, in the glinting sunlight, brimming with activity, with crowds of people in front of them, jostling for space, the roads swarming with busy, busy Calcuttans, on their way to work, on their way to a bit of gossip, anything that caught their fancy. And people said, it was a dying city! “So, how was your night?” he asked, after some time.

“Not bad. It was fun,” she mewed into his shirt, and then settled herself better so she wouldn’t suffocate into his chest – “I had fun,” she reaffirmed, “Didn’t you have fun?”

Abhi nodded. “I did,” he said, thinking about Irfaan’s dimples, and then, “What about your date? You took his number?”

Chandni shook her head and sniffed. “Nopes. Not interested. Felt me up too much,” and then she burst out laughing for some reason. He joined in. It was ridiculous, he thought, she was ridiculous – she had always been like this, for as long as he could remember, and he was suddenly laughing at all those times when he had laughed and laughed and laughed and…

They reached the house, and the lights were all off: Mr and Mrs Chatterjee were sound asleep in their beds, hopefully. He paid the fare, while Chandni unlocked the front door, and scampered up the stairs. He followed, taking care to be silent, even as he could hear her heavy footfalls dance above in the darkness. He thought about hissing a warning, but decided that his stupid hiss would probably wake up her stupid parents, so he kept silent, and followed her up to the terrace. Their red wine glasses still stood, tall and empty on the parapet, next to the candle that had flickered out, and the wine bottle that still contained some of the wine. Chandni switched on the terrace light and sat on the lawn chairs the Chatterjees lined their terrace with. There was an impressive view of the city around them, and Abbhi sauntered over to the edge to get a glimpse of the dark skyline. This was a quiet city, he mused, there was no glitter of fairy-lights in the distance, or tall sky scrapers on every road and gully, as in Delhi or Bombay, he thought. This was the city that was meant for you to come home to.

“Careful – don’t fall,” her baby-voice sounded through, and he turned to grin at her – “I won’t.”

She had poured herself some more wine, and was licking the fluted glass. She had been watching him, he realized, watching him watch the city, and the cloud of emotions and feelings flit continually over his face, wax and wane like some mutant moonlight. Chandni grinned now, her pixie grin, as he called it, and sipped some wine – “So, what’s more important than money?” she teased, scratching an imaginary spot on her long legs.

Abhi grinned, and gave her the answer she expected in her heart of hearts, “I’ll tell you when I find out.”

Goodbye

2005-02-11T10:31:00.000+05:30

Goodbye

I'm not sure when I'll be back, and I say so. Tarun looks at me, and I can't tell what his eyes are saying, through his glasses.

"It's not my fault," I tell him, "This is the way it was meant to be - as corny as that sounds. We both knew that I had to leave."

He nods, and shifts his attention back to the task of preparing coffee, or so he would like it to seem. I can tell there's more. I want to say something more, too, but I can't. Maybe I'll leave it for later, when the vodka is uncapped and the liquor burns our throats.

************

I'll miss this place, and I say so. He knows it. As much as I may call Gurgaon a dust bowl, I like sitting out here on Tarun's balcony, straddling the banister like I'm doing right now. I've done it for ages, it seems, and I'm going to miss not doing it for a long, long time.

"Are you going to try to come back?" he asks, and I wonder what to reply. It all seems to hopelessly comic at times. We almost seem like lovers when we talk like this. We're not lovers. We never have been. But somehow, it's there. It's been there since the time I was dating his best friend.

"I can try," I say, "But obviously, I won't be able to come back immediately. I'll have to be there for some time. It's a job, you know. I can't leave it just like that. You're better that way. You decide your own work. I don't."

He nods, and I think he's listening to the strains of the music now. We keep quiet for a while, till I feel the urge to dance. That happens to me, whenever I'm drunk and they're playing something in the background. It could be the most god-awful track in the world, but my feet will soon start tapping, my fingers will start drumming, I'll be wishing I could twirl and whirl on the floor. Tarun calls me a social embarrassment; I always knew he loved me.

"I'm going to miss Delhi," I repeat for the hundredth time that evening, and I think the vodka is finally taking effect. Tarun grins at me, I think he's getting a bit drunk too, and he ruffles my head. I'm teetering on the banister, but I wouldn't get off for the world. I'm high, right now, and it doesn’t matter that six months in Delhi have seen me through two-and-a-half relationships and I'm still single. Tarun hasn't been in a relationship for the last two years, and we celebrate our single again-together again status like this, every week, over a bottle.

"You're getting very mushy now," he grins, and I know he's wicked to say so.

"You're wicked to say so. I'm being nice and sentimental. I'm going to miss you, you sodden old cow!"

"Refill?"

************

"I like the way Gurgaon winks at me," I say, leaning forward, my knees pressed together.

"Delhi doesn't wink?" he asks, bemused.

"It's too full of people and buildings to wink. It's bustling and jostling. Or it's empty. It doesn't wink like this." And I spread my hand to show the tall blinking lights from the call centre buildings and MNC towers that glitter in the dark and empty Gurgaon landscape. "A friend of mine once told me, she thought Gurgaon looks like Las Vegas at night, popping out of the desert!"

And he laughs, rich and throaty. "I love your friend! Do you have her number?"

"Save it," I retort, pushing up my left eyebrow in a gesture I do so well, "She's moving to Bombay, with the rest of us." (He shrugs.) "And anyhow, she's not your type."

"She's not the one I saw you talking with, outside your building? The cute, high-brow one?"

I laugh in a cackle. I wonder what my 'high-brow' friend would say, on hearing she's been noticed by him. She's the most darling creature you ever saw, the most unpossessing creature, who finds it so utterly ridiculous to think that there are men in the world who would find her attractive, the kind of women who usually have the most admirers. "No, she's not the one. This one's different. This one is the Big Flirt. Love her, hate her, bitch with her, bitch about her. Like Delhi."

Horrible joke, but we still raise a toast. The bottle is almost empty, I notice.

"I touched your board once," I say suddenly, pointing towards the lighted mini-hoarding hanging from the balcony, proclaiming Tarun's business to the outside world. "I got a huge jolt of electricity. I was surprised at first, and actually touched it again."

Tarun dissolves in laughter. He's pouring himself the last of the bottle's contents, and spills quite a lot on the tabletop. "I'm sure you were so frikkin' high!"

"I was! I was!" It's funny, and I admit that I'd laughed even then, when I'd realised that first time, it was a current jolt through my hand. Realisation takes her own sweet time. Sometimes, I plough ahead, even with her sage advice on my shoulders.

"Bull!"

************

Quiet walks bring reflection; that at least is a universal truth you don't have to be a prophet to discover. Dead of night, and the roads are empty. The bus ride back home to Patel Nagar from Gurgaon has been uneventful. The bus was almost empty, the driver was wrapped up in his private world, and I focused on the quiet trees rustling past the window. We made good time.

I love drives in the dead of night. I love walks in the dead of night. Would I were a wolf, I would howl. Would I were a human, I would hug myself to eternity, as I do now. Trudge in a world that is vastly different from the hustle and bustle of West Delhi that I know so well. This is the world I know best. I'm a pretender at times in my private reverie, and I have learnt to treasure these moments so much, all the more because I know Bombay will leave me so little of quiet moments like these.

Tomorrow (technically, today) I leave Delhi. And like I told Tarun, I don't know when I'll be back. I hate the feeling of not knowing. They say, it's good to not know, and let Fate take her course. I suppose I have an innate dislike and distrust for Fate. She takes me for granted, and the egoist in me cannot handle that. So this is my way of ranting against Fate. A walk in the dead of night, in a Delhi that has gone asleep, the night sky with a mother-of-pearl glow to the east if I crane my neck, and me silently brooding.

It's hard to leave a place where you had your first heartbreak. Love is easy, something tells me. Love can be re-found. But heartbreak teaches you so much, much more. Like when you’re riding on a bike and you pass this coffee shop where you once stood waiting for someone. Like when you're hanging on a bus and hear the song that was 'your' song. What can you do in such situations, but wince once and smile wryly? Heartbreak teaches you endurance, falling in love teaches you to let your guard down. I'm an old dog in an old town, sniffing for something to remind me again that I'm happy with my career move. An internal recorder replays all the things I told Tarun earlier today (technically, yesterday) - It's not my fault, this is the way it was meant to be, it's a job, I can't leave it just like that, You decide your own work. I don't - but it doesn't quite ring a bell. I have my cake, and suddenly I don't want to eat it anymore.

I remember standing in front of the Jama Masjid for the first time, and simply looking up. I stood at the floor of the stairs that led up to the huge structure and watched it awhile. Nothing else. After some time, I made my perambulations, took my amateur photographs, and settled in a corner of the mosque, watching the imam call the faithful to the prayer. It was an exercise in awe. To watch the people stream forth from the four main doors of the mosque and kneel before the great big dome in prayer. It was inspiring. I gave in to the temptation and clicked some more snaps. But then, I watched, patient. And I heard the chants of the faithful. The lone voice in the empty air, followed by the sounds that came from a hundred, thousand, (how many?) people shifting on their knees, their sounds as they bowed before their God. I watched the sun set over that great big dome and wondered at the magnificence of it all. The pigeons at the long trough of water before the Masjid remained as they were, playful, alert, energetic, thirsty, but in some way mindful of the somber occasion encircling them. I stayed till the sun set and then I had returned home.

I think of that first day in front of the Masjid now, even as I stand in a deserted West Delhi street, before the house I have lived in for the past few months. Already, there are signs of activity within, or so my hyperactive imagination tells me. It's time to go. I'm packed. It's time to go. I've said my goodbyes to all my friends. Well, all except this great big gigantic city that has an untouchable soul.

Chocolate/ Chocolat

2005-02-02T20:22:00.000+05:30

Chocolate/ Chocolat

Act I – The Dressing Room

I'm tired, but it's nothing a chocolate will not cure, I tell myself, and pop the little drug of instant contentment in my mouth. I wash my face, feel the cool spray of water from the basin, and the warm melting of the caramel at the back of my throat. It's strange to be so dual like this - completely fagged out to the dry marrow of my bones and yet so utterly raring to step out the door. That's where I want to be, so completely out on Page 3, so completely crass. It's so strangely chameleon-like of me: something that is not me wants to be a part of something else. And the part that is me, that part stays so outside of it all, observing, watching, hoping for a kill, hoping for some... contact to happen.

Spray of water, and I turn on the shower, feel the warm needles sting and surge, and watch the pool collect at my feet, the same water trickling down my body now configured in some strange way into a kind of effluent. It reminds me of worship. I scratch idly behind an ear and cup my hands to collect the flush of warm liquid below my neck. I feel my body responding in its own natural rhythm, parts creaking and wilting, aching and suffusing, drinking rapidly, trying to catch a glimpse of the succor that moisture promises. I wonder what people living in deserts do, how they live, and how they revel, and how they wash away their lethargy, their sins, their hopes - whether they have fluffy terry towels to calm their soothed tendons, and I laugh at myself, at my brand of strange idiocy reserved for my introspective moments.

It's funniest when you laugh at yourself, somebody once told me. Why do so few people remember that, I wonder.

I rub the bathroom mirror that has got all fogged up, and peer at myself. I do that a lot. People call me egoistic. I don't know what I stare for, but I do it anyway. It still looks blurry, despite my hand’s caress. It's hot and foggy here in the bathroom, and I feel an insane urge to giggle. They say, it's funniest when you laugh at yourself, but I don't see anything funny here at all. At one point of time, or so they tell me, there was something about me.

***

Act II – The Game

Drawing lines has always been easy for me, and I've always done it. I've been able to differentiate between love and pity, between work and profession, holiday and vacation, chocolate and chocolat, sex and love. You would hate me for it, to know how easily it all comes to me. I walk into a room and spy out the thing I want and I beckon, and it comes. Dressed in a black pinstriped shirt, open at the throat, exposing a tanned Adam's apple that I can taste even now, and can barely contain myself from biting into. They call me a vamp, at times, when they can think of nothing else. I can tell the difference, between the hate they centre on me and the envy they try to suppress. They want him as much as I do.

It's as simple as that. Simple as letting your hair down on a large velvet couch, reveling in the delectable decadence of life. This is where I can do and be anything at all. A masquerade. This, or the life before I strolled in through the door? Sometimes I lose the point. I'm only human – though they call me the vamp sometimes.

He's sitting next to me now, his dancing green eyes looking at my neck. I can tell that he wants me. It never takes too long.

I want love, I tell myself. Or I tell my alter ego in the mirror, the one who can't speak but makes these tired expressions through dumb eyes, dumb nose, dumb mouth, wide-eyed looks of pathos and mercy and pain that I can't feel. I crave love, and she knows that. She would help me find it, had I any idea about it myself. I thought I did, at one point of time. I know what’s not love. What’s not love is this -

He's lying on my bed, on his back, and I can hear him breathe. Ragged. He's tired. I can be a handful. Snigger. I'm proud of myself. I prod at his black pinstriped shirt on the floor with my toe, delicately. I wonder if I ripped it in my haste. Does he want me to take care of him, I wonder. Do I have to take him home every day, ask him how it was at the photo-shoot, treat him to some ice cream, pander to his ego, and tell him he fucks like the devil... and gift him a Rolex when it's time for him to leave. They wonder how I get them all, and sometimes I wonder the same. It's something inside me. Something the alter ego and I share, through our little portal, the mirror. It's not love, it never could be. But it's interesting, and she knows it. She wants me to see what’s happening to me, and I wonder if she knows more than she’s telling me. I need some more wine.

***

Act III – The Flashback

They say, I had love once. The mirror-girl whispers in my ears, whenever she has the chance, that they speak the truth. Maybe I've become too bitter to see that myself now. Bitter about why he left me and why I pushed him away. I can tell the difference, but I wonder why I still can't say what it was with him. Maybe that's a sign. That's what the mirror-girl would have me believe!

Hah! How stupid do you think I am?! Anymore stupid than he thought I was? Not likely.

Sometimes, the memories come flitting when I'm lying in bed, sipping my wine and sucking on a piece of mint. Standing at a shop window and waiting for him. Watching the yellow light of the floor spill out onto the sidewalk and touch my toes, and I wonder whether I've been touched by an angel. I wonder why he's late, but I'm glad he is. It gives me this time to think and pause and revel and feel. I'm in love, I'm in love, I'm in love, it has to be, it can't get better than this - I must be in love, so this is how it feels, this, this, this strange mushrooming of a cloud I can't tell what is made of, or the strange colour that's dancing in front of my eyes -

Bitter pill to swallow. And I tell myself stories. I eat chocolate and I cry. That's a horrible thing to have to do. So I dress. And tell myself to forget about what might have been. The girl in the mirror is a bitch. She's not be believed. She's a liar and a trollop who sleeps around with anything that makes a pass at her. She's loose. O my god, she's loose.

He saw me with the boy in blue one night. It was a mistake. I fell. I wasn't supposed to fall, but I did. It was a mistake. Shouldn't he have caught me? Shouldn't he have let me go and have another chance? I fell. I thought it would be fine. Love is love and sex is sex. I tried to tell him. But even the alter ego turned traitor on me. I was alone, and he left.

Boy in blue was still grinning sheepishly. He wanted some more from me. I was a slut. If that was what I was, it would have been fine. I could deal with it. What I couldn't deal with, was all the strange conflicting views in the mirror when I shattered it: one alter ego had been bad enough, a thousand million were terrifying.

***

Act IV – The Hook

But a life such as mine is boring, compared to the ones around me. There's a wild thumping in the background, and a crescendo in my brain. I've lost track of the number of times I've burned my throat at this bar, watching the strange Bohemian fantasy unfold around me. My world is in shades of fiery reds and enthralling blues and deep dark cloaks of purple. Somebody calls me a bitch, and I raise my pitch of laughter a notch so that they can hear me laugh, and know that I heard them. It's not as if I care. It's not as if I'm listening. I'm in love. With a man who’s gone. Did I actually say that? Was it the truth, or was I dreaming? Did I say that or was I joshing? Was it the caramel or the champagne that made me say it? The alter ego isn't here, so I can't blame it on her today. I wonder if I should be heart broken. I wonder what made me say that. Maybe it was the fact that I'm sitting in a corner here, watching him dance with a stranger in the middle of the room.

I wonder if I'm jealous and think I probably am. That might explain the casual diffidence with which I'm treating the sluts behind me who called me a bitch. I'm in love with this man. I'm in love with this man who I cheated on. He doesn't even see me. I'm not sure whether I want him to see me.

He's holding his dance partner very close, an arm around a waist, a chin on a head, a pair of lips closed but not tight, a smile at the edges of his mouth, a smile that has still not made up its mind whether or not to appear. He's thinking about something, perhaps dreaming of something, and his body is turning while he’s dancing. It's strangely fantastic, a smorgasbord of strangeness all concentrated on this one moment, on this one man. I'm ignoring his partner, I'm even ignoring myself - we don't count. He's the star. The Star.

His eyes have opened, and he's seen me.

***

Act V – The Hang-over

Perhaps Dialogue should follow. My alter ego gazes back at me, wondering at the look of contemplation I'm giving it. I'm tired, bone-tired, and I'm not sure the wine is working.

Tall, lovely, shining, glittering crystal, fluted with all the most pleasing proportions man can ask for. It seems to be able to promise something, but maybe deliverance depends on you. It's like some horribly shriveled apple that rolled down from Eden - it has a promise, it whispers a dream to you, and you feel yourself charged up, ready for action. The curse is in that it promises the same to all and sundry, so you think you're equal to a task even when you're not. So you try and try and you fail and fail, and you curse the fates for ever conceiving a feature such as you, but in the haste of your vanity, you tend to forget that little piece of apple that promised you so much and haunted you so much.

Turn the tap, and watch the water stream down from the showerhead, sizzle and burn on the floor, marble tiles writhing in water agony, tender heart trying to feel what else is made of stone. My bath is a plea today, as much as it is a longing - help me, help me, help me to understand what it is he wants! Help me to understand what it is the bitch wants. I'm not sure I ever knew.

I'm trying to let the fear flow out of me, trying to let the exhaustion seep and collect into the pools of destitution at my feet before they drain away into the gutter. I rest against the wall and watch the water jump and sparkle on my skin and I trace a finger over the crevices of my body. It's a very silly thing I keep asking myself, over and over: Is the fear going? Is it gone? Is it gone? My own adult version of that silly little thing the child-me kept asking my parents on a trip – are we there yet? Are we there yet?

I don't know. The facts, put squarely before me, are thus –

I turn the tap off. I scrub my body, taking as much time as possible. I glance at the alter ego, but there's a silence there that none of us can breach. I hold my breath and walk out of the bathroom. There's my bed. There's the fluffy blue slippers I must slip my feet in, before strolling over to the bed. There's the man I love lying asleep, one hand trailing on the soft rug of the floor, looking like some new-age Cupid some new-age Medusa has seduced into her den.

I know I should be elated that he came. There's something in this that troubles me, though, and doesn't leave, even when the customary caramel is ingested. I don't know what he's doing here. I don't know why he made love to me tonight. Why he kissed me, with his tongue making me touch heavens of self-discovery. Why he walked over to me in the club when he caught sight of me. Why he laughed softly, into my ear, when I told him afterwards how I had always loved him.

I don't know. Whether it's still a game, even when the player has thrown in the towel.

Exit

2005-01-28T10:57:00.000+05:30

Exit

A pox on the ex's of the world, she thought, and suddenly found herself giggling on the road at the idea, but then stifled her laugh after a moment's indulgence, becoming all too aware, amid shooting flushes of red on her cheeks, that a fat man with a balding pate and the door man at the store, where she had bought the full-sleeved striped shirt, had turned to watch her.

Of course, she had known that He was going to Malaysia for a long time. In a way, that was one of the reasons they had broken up. In a way, it had been far too much too handle even then, even that early, and the two of them had invented those reasons, those occasions, to look at each other, face each other across the bed with its triangular pillows as if it were some strange ocean that must be crossed and done away with - and they had decided to call it a day.

That's such a weird thing to say, she thought now, crossing the street - why 'call it a day', why 'broken up', why 'never saw each other again', why any of those euphemisms which signified the end of a bond that had threatened to swallow them both... she wondered idly all this, even as she opened the door of the cab and stepped in, and told the sharp-faced little cabbie which restaurant in Andheri he was supposed to take her to.

I never called it a day, she hummed, touching the steel lining of the cab window, I never meant to break up with him, though a part of me expected it to happen some day, I never did not see him again. He was always there, all through the two years we were supposed to have 'broken up'. Sigh. Maybe it should have ended that way, a long, long time back. Maybe I shouldn't have kept on expecting something to happen again, something special, something that would mean that the bond still remained.

But if I'm thinking about it now, still thinking about him going away, how can it mean that the bond is gone?

2.

They were playing something on the radio that made his passenger hold herself tight and sigh over and over, and that drew his attention to her. He was an ordinary little man, too short for his age, too stout for his size, too mild for his profession. Or so he kept on chiding himself about. He hated his wife, hated her mother even more, but was in love with this yellow-and-black cab that he plied across the vast regime of Bombay that he liked to think, in some small way, was a part of him. A part of his territory, a part of his fief. And he liked to think of all the people therein, in some small way, connected to him.

He was a self-important little man. He knew that too about him, but he didn't really care.

And that woman's silent sniffling drew his attention to her. So he looked into the rear view mirror and wondered what she was all about. She was like any of those women you saw on the road, too fair to be Marathi and so he guessed that she was one of those rich Punjabis from Delhi who had come crawling to the broad bad city to look for a job. Good family, he told himself, and he was happy - she was not like some of that other trash that came limping in from Bihar and Bangladesh and Uttar Pradesh, who would chew paan and stain the sides of his beloved cab, or steal jobs from the Marathis who were the air and soil and water of Bombay.

He was a racial snob in some ways, but he liked to think that he was a patriotic snob who cared for his people, other than the virago who bore my wife!

It was something to do with a child, of course. That's what all women were teary about. They mollycoddled their children, held them close and never let them fall or break. That was bad for them, he reasoned, because all things have to bend. Look at her - if her mother had ever made her work while she was young, would she sit there, at the back of my taxi and give these silly groans? Would she look sleepy-eyed at the man on the bike next to us as if he reminded her of some face she'd once seen in a dream, then? So there's a child at the bottom of it. A child is sick, a child is in trouble, and she's going there now, to make sure that the child is safe.

And he grinned to himself and sped past a red signal, hoping that the constable was too busy to pay attention. He may have been too mild for his profession (or so he chided himself) but he knew what it took to be a cabbie in Mumbai. He was no fool.

And so, his theory troubled him again, at the Linking Road crossing. If it were a child at the bottom of it, why would the damn song on the damn radio affect her so - they play only silly love songs all the time, or something to make you dance and wish you could pour a bottle of burning whiskey down your throat... It's not a child - could it be a man? The little cabbie nodded sagely, in his white uniform, still crisp and fresh after a whole day's work, and wondered why on earth he had not seen it earlier. Women were mad about men as well, he thought, and blushed when he thought about his wife at home. She was a beauty, with a tongue that snipped through air, and she could be a holy terror when she was on his case. To give credit where it was undoubtedly true, much of it was because of that old witch's prodding (which brought him back to the idea of women being devils about their children) - but women went crazy about their men, and that could not be denied.

Now he felt really proud about himself, and turned around to flash her a smile. "Madameji, shall I take the road under the flyover, or go from behind?"

She was not in her trance any more and was not looking out the window. She had expected the question, he noted, and answered a bit too loudly, as if he was deaf and had to be made to understand something. "Go from behind. It'll be less crowded." She flashed a brief smile and then settled back down, as if a major decision had just been made, and she was strong about herself again.

But that disturbed him once more. It wasn't just any man. It had to be somebody special. O good God, he thought and his eyes rolled heavenwards, was she pregnant and the father of her baby wanted to have nothing to do with her?! That would certainly explain a lot of things, and he wetted his lips, trying to hope that it explained nothing at all. Logic prevailed, however, and told him that his pregnant theory would straddle both the man- and the child-treatises. So it is a pregnant case then, and for a fleeting moment of mad panic he wondered what it would be like if she were to suddenly start screaming and have her baby right there at the back of his taxi, and he laughed in the next instant, telling himself that all of that was much too filmi for real life. Taxis and babies were a pole apart - two poles apart - and so he laughed again. She wondered why the strange man laughed like that, but thought it better not to ask anything.

But then there was the idea of it! She was pregnant, and she was sitting there at the back of his cab - obviously going through her fair share of repentance, but stil... some part of it shocked his conservative Marathi upbringing. But the Bombay-hardened self was not to be so effortlessly discarded either, and he joked to himself about how it seemed so completely out of the filmi celebrities’ filmi lives! She will run now to beg the father of her child to marry her - and of course, he will relent, fight with his mother (cold, stern, disapproving, like the bitch, his mother-in-law), the two lovers will be reunited, and their baby will have a safe, comfortable, legal life... !

He was an imaginative man. On the streets of Bombay, you had to be

"Lo, Madameji - " and he pulled the cab right in front of her restaurant, and watched her fumble out with a strangely lethargic haze over her. For a second, as she hunted through her purse for the change, he was tempted to reach out to pat her hand, smile warmly at her and say that everything would be perfect - but then she paid him and quickly turned away.

He watched her legs disappear behind the glass door of the restaurant, exchanged a matter-of-fact nod with the door man, and started the cab, feeling his beloved tremble below his touch as he shifted gears.

3.

"You're giving far too much importance to him. I wouldn't go, if I were you. Leave it with a simple phone call," Rucha had said, tossing her head of tight curly hair forward, over the bowl of chocolate mousse on the table. They were words that she had run over and over again in her mind, after that late dinner in Andheri, before coming here. But it was too late to change her mind, too late not to ring the doorbell now that she stood in front of His door.

Of course I'm giving him too much importance. I'm over him, I should be over him, I shouldn't be running every thing we did together in my mind like this, in my mind. He's over. He's a friend now, just a friend.

She sighed. And remembered Priscilla's quiet eyes, as they had coursed over her at dinner, even while Rucha's had widened with angry indignation. Priscilla never passed judgment, or did so while it seemed that she never did. She had screwed up her mouth at the goodbye-gift for the Malaysia-bound, but she had not said anything about him. She had met Him when He had dropped down to her flat some months back, she had liked Him, she knew that He was potentially dangerous, but she never said (in words) how important he was and how critical this phase was.

Priscilla had put her in the cab to Goregaon, and told her to take care of herself. "Give me a call when you get back home." Of course, it was unthinkable (and unsayable) that she should spend the night there, with Him. "Don’t worry about waking me. I'll be up."

She had nodded her thanks, and hugged Rucha, who had clung on tightly and said, "Please take care of yourself, baby. I hope you throw the damn thing in his face!"

But she liked stripes, especially the stripes she had bought for Him, blue with thin dark black centres, over a plain sheet of white that teased and hinted about something fugitive she couldn't quite fathom. She couldn't think of throwing them at His face, and so she pressed her index finger into the doorbell, so that soft, low, insistent buzzing filled her world.

"Hey! You came!"

Exhale!

"Hi, yea, I told you I would. I told you I would." Damn, damn, damn, damn, damn...

"So come in - that's right - hey, can I get you anything? Yea, you know Amit, right? Amit - Aparna - and yea, that's Nisha, I don't think you guys have met. Nisha-Aparna. So, what can I get you?"

"Hey, Amit. Nisha - hi. I had dinner, thanks. I'm quite full. So, you're quite packed, I can see."

"O, yea. These guys have been here from yesterday, picking up behind me (laughs). I dunno what I would do without them! Amit, you're not going to smuggle that CD away with you - that's going with me! Nisha - do something! (laughs some more) Shit - I guess this is it, huh, babe?"

(Aparna laughs) "I guess. But you knew this was coming. It's the best thing for you, remember? So, it's cool. You'll do great. (touches his arm) I'm sure you’ll do great."

"Yea, I know... but I'll miss all this. I'll miss Bombay, I'll miss back home in Calcutta. Will miss all of that stuff - and you guys!"

Amit: "Omigawd! Look at all the drama happening here! (laughs) Hey, hey, Mr NRI - that's enough out of you. You just get your greedy ass there and fuck some sexy chinks!"

(Amit ducks a cushion thrown at him by Nisha, who looks suspiciously sad about the departure, and Aparna wishes she could throw something heavier at him, like a boulder. Aparna laughs too, seeing that He is laughing now.)

Damn it - stop laughing, stop laughing! I wish I could claw your eyes out, bitch! "Anyway - I got something for you, babe. (thrusts packet out) I hope you like it (as he unwraps it)."

"Hey, wow - it's great. Cool. Nisha - don't you think it's cool? I love the colour. And, yea - stripes (laughs), should have figured you'd get something in stripes for me! (laughs some more)"

Nisha: "Yes, it's nice. Lovely colour... (murmurs something unintelligible) lovely stripes.. (more murmurs)."

Oooooo god, help me, help me. (smiles bashfully) Have I overdone it? Does he know? Has she guessed? O god, no, no, no, no, no, no… "I'm glad."

"So are you going home? Do you have a car or something? Why don't you stay over? Nisha and Amit will be here. We could have some fun."

Amit: "We're planning to hit the midnight buffet at the Radisson. Rich lady here (gestures towards Nisha) has daddy's little car, her very own Merc."

(Another pang, another giggle) "I won't be able to. I have work tomorrow morning. My boss will kill me. (to Him:) You know what she's like. I can't stay." Rucha will kill me!

"Awwww, screw that tight-ass. You can tell her, your maasi or somebody came down, and you had to stay over. No? You're sure? It would be a lot of fun... ?"

"Some other time," (he grimaces) He grimaced! "Yes, there will be other times, dumbass! So don't go all puffy-faced about it! Am sure we'll see you when you're this big hotshot! Then you'll come gloating about how good this is in Malaysia, and how good that is in Malaysia and -" (breaks into laugher, as everyone else does so)

"Shit, babe! I'll miss you! I'll miss you lots! (hugs her, takes her slightly by surprise) You take care, babe! You better take care of yourself for me!"

(Nisha shuffles uncomfortably on her feet)

"I will. I will. (smiles, brushes hair back from face, after the hug stops and they part) Ok, I have to run now. You take care - and call me sometimes." (pats His shoulders, then rubs them)

"I will, don't worry. (rueful smile on His face, as He opens the door for her) And I'll give your folks in Calcutta a call, and tell them that you're doing fine. Last I spoke to Aunty, she was worried that her baby daughter is all alone in the land of wolves. (laughs)"

"What wolves? You're leaving town! (laughs in the hallway - a tube light in the corner lights the place up well.)"

(Another hug.) "And do please wear the damn shirt!"

"(laughs) I will, babe, I will. You take care. I'll call."

It's over.

"What's important is how he takes the gift," Rucha had said earlier, "and it will all be in his eyes. So watch them, watch him closely. But please, please - don't read too much in it. Don't go overboard, please!" It had been confusing advice, and she had wondered what to do - whether to not read anything in it, or whether to stare at his eyes, with nary a blink, as he unwrapped the gift. In the end, she had done neither, her gaze had been somehow transfixed on his hands, as they had ripped the packaging apart and taken the shirt out. I didn't look at his eyes, shit!

"Be calm. Please be calm, baby," Priscilla had urged, rubbing her arm, over the dinner table. "You'll get through it in one piece."

I've gotten through it! Somehow, she knew she would - if only because Priscilla had said so. And because of the stripes. She had known that about stripes even before she had fallen in love with them. Stripes were safe. She exhaled. Tried to think of a memory, but nothing would float out before her eyes just now. It was as if some great big mental gap had formed. Tomorrow, they'll come, she thought, tomorrow they'll all come in waves and waves, and I won't be able to think of anything else, knowing that he's flying over some speck of ocean to Malaysia, and a part of me is going to wish that the damn plane crashes into the damn ocean. I'll cry tomorrow. But today, there was nothing. Nothing, and the realisation had its own subtle sedative for her.

She looked for a cab.

4.

He was an ordinary little man, too short for his age, too stout for his size, too mild for his profession. Or so he kept on chiding himself about. He hated his wife, hated her mother even more, but was in love with this yellow-and-black cab that he plied across the vast regime of Bombay that he liked to think, in some small way, was a part of him. A part of his fief.

He was sitting ramrod straight now in his cab, surveying the empty road around him, where the cab was parked. It was late, but a woman had come out from one of the great big colonies that lined the road like gigantic beehives. She looked around for a while and stood there. Remote, he thought, and he slitted his eyes.

The radio was playing a remix of one of his favourite film songs, and though he didn't quite care for all the groaning and moaning that seemed to be the staple of all the remixes they played on the radio, the original tune still held a vague attraction for him, like the memory of some long-ago pleasure he had partaken of and there was still a jolt of that thrill left in some new device he had unearthed. But the song was winding towards its end, and he was anxious to be gone from this place, he had to get back to Parel, and Goregaon was simply too far away to appeal to him.

But she would come to him, this night crawler who had crept out from beneath that vast worker colony. He was sure of that, and wondered what was taking her so long. She seemed to be thinking hard about something, and he ran over the usual suspects in his mind - something about a child, man-trouble, or... he chuckled to himself now - something like that poor pregnant bitch he had picked up earlier that night. She was pondering about something, but the call would come, he was positive.

Sure enough, she roused herself now, spotted the cab parked unobtrusively below the streetlamp in the otherwise deserted road, and yelled - "Taxi!"

A particular man

2005-01-10T14:49:00.000+05:30

A particular man

The boy out on the ledge next door stared back at the man in the window. The man in the window was contemplating that, contemplating the wide-eyed look of curiosity that gazed unabashedly at this strange new creature that had moved into the building. The man at the window was ordinary enough, the kind you saw strolling down G D Ambedkar Marg everyday, peering at the factory shops of the expensive brands, entering a couple of times, looking furtively at price tags and then walking out of the store within ten minutes to enter the shop next door. Not that he was cheap, he liked to think himself particular. I'm particular, thought the man in the window, sipping his coffee, looking at the boy out on the next-door ledge.

The radio was playing Downtown and he could almost nod his head in tune to that sappy, silly song that was so endearing to him. It seemed thoroughly out of place here, in this Parel colony building, the sounds of disquietingly loud English music, decidedly retro, blaring forth from the radio. A louder strain of Marathi film song would not have seemed so out-of-place, he mused, adjusting a book on the window shelf and sitting down on the seat beside the ledge. Not that he was a snob, not that he looked down upon Marathi film songs, he was simply new, with the curiously indifferent contempt that the new has for the established. He was reading a book about romance, about strangely found love among strange people, and he found that he couldn't really concentrate. He found that the little boy on the ledge simply would not let him, and so he let his open book remain on his lap and the music waft around him, but he looked out at the window, meeting the boy's eyes with his own.

They were exchanging notes that way, some sort of a grave confidence. He could hear the boy's mother busying herself in the background, not as if she was somewhere unseen in the next flat and he was on the other side of the building, but rather, as if he was standing next to the boy and the mother was clattering, crashing, cursing just a little way behind him, a little indistinct but so, so near. He almost thought it disquieting, because he knew that what he could sense about the boy, the boy could sense about him. He wasn't really sure whether it was a game, but he knew that they could both play it.

The man in the window seemed oddly familiar like that strange creature you see at 12 pm at night in front of the mewad ice cream man's stall, eating a faluda, which was fancy because it came in a glass mug and cost Rs 10, while everyone else merely wolfed down their Rs 5 kulfi cones. He would take his mug and his faluda and sit on the brick fence that was constructed over the flyover, so that he could eat while watching the cars whiz by. They were mostly taxis, because this was an out-of-the way area. Only if you were going towards Byculla, and there was a traffic jam over B A Ambedkar Marg, would you want to go through this road. They were building some skyscrapers on the other side, towards the main road, G D Ambedkar, and the man in the window, with his glass mug in his hand, would sometimes look up at the looming skeletons and probably wish he could live there. He would always have earphones attached, and you could hear the loud music from the little grey Walkman attached to his belt, as if he had lugged a heavy stereo with him out on the road. For the most part, he was ignored, but the boy on the ledge would never fail to gaze at him and wonder about him.

He never fails to wonder about me, the man with the book on his lap thought. The RJ was talking now and the music was interrupted. They were collecting funds for some orphans and wanted people to contribute. The man in the window smiled tightly and went back to his book, but he looked up again when the doorbell chimed.

"O, hullo, what are you doing here?" and he wondered whether what he had just said seemed rude to her.

The girl at the door smiled at him, however, so he supposed that she hadn't thought he was rude, and so he was glad. "I was just passing through, and thought I'd come in to say hi. Where's Tushar?"

"Ok, you were passing through? Ummm... Tushar's not here, though." Her eyebrows moved upwards, and so he smiled with a sigh and said, "He had some work at the office. I think, and after that, they'll have to run down for some interviews."

"Office? On a Saturday?"

"Yea - "

"Man, those bastards make you guys slog!"

"Yea - " Was she going to come in, was she going to come in, was she going to come in, was she going to come in - "Anyway, why don't you come in?"

Pause.

"Alright - " Her bright eyes flashed now, and she smiled that grin he knew so well. She pulled her handbag closer to herself for some reason and stepped into the flat with a somewhat longer step than was necessary, and brightened with a somewhat greater degree of animation than was necessary - "Alright, I will step in - for a moment... So this is the place, is it?"

He closed the door, it closed smoothly without a noise, and showed her the window seat. She sat. "Yes, this is the place. You've been here before, haven't you?" Of course you have, I know you have. I discovered your little spotted hanky here on the window seat one night when I came back home, and when I looked again five minutes later, he had quietly slipped it inside his pant pockets. I know you've been here. I know you've sat there by the window, and I wonder whether you know that I sit here all the time myself.

"No, no. No. I've never been to your place. Tushar never brought me here. This is my first time. Nice place, though."

Alright.

"So, what can I get you?" he rose and bustled towards the fridge. The radio was still on their Golden Oldies hour and Lynn Anderson was begging pardon about promising any rose gardens to unsuspecting and mistaken dolts, or something like that. The light from the fridge lamp seemed to warm his foot when it fell upon him, but that was ridiculous, of course. "We have Coke, and some sort of juice - " he squinted his eyes - "Orange juice. And of course there's coffee. I'm having coffee. Do you want coffee?"

He popped his head out from behind the fridge door with a comical quizzical look on his face. So she laughed and uncrossed, re-crossed her legs. "What - the 'boys' don't have anything stronger than coffee, is it?"

She was trying to make a joke. He hated the uneasy edge behind her humour, and tried to dissolve it by trying to appear as vulnerable and simple as he could. "No, babe. We're good little boys. It's you bad mommas who rob us from the cradles, remember?"

Squint. Bad joke.

But she still laughed. She was getting desperate. "No coffee for me, thank you. I'll go to the office now and catch your flatmate. I'm sure he'll take me out for coffee. Too much of that stuff and I'll become a nervous giggly wreck. I'll have some juice, thanks."

"Suit yourself. One juice coming up."

Tall glass. He would have liked to provide some sort of embellishment to it, but had no idea how. He was the strange man in the window, he remembered, and as he looked out of the kitchen window, he realized that the boy on the ledge was still there. The boy was nearer, it seemed, nearer even than the strains of Que Sera Sera floating in from the living room. He was gazing now at the pretty woman sitting on the window seat, and the man thought - how many other times has he sat there on the ledge, watching her sit on that seat, or perhaps lying down, with Tushar in the window. The idea was strangely voyeuristic, strangely thrilling, partly morbid and partly depressing. In the end, he was relieved. It was a link, a tenuous link, but a link nonetheless, between him and what he missed when he was not there and the two of them were together.

"I love this song," she said, when he handed her the juice. "It's one of my favourites."

He laughed easily now. It stirred a memory within him. "O my god, yea. Do you remember those evenings at the hostel?" and he laughed again, half afraid that she would say no and snub him, half afraid of a million other things, but then laughing all the same.

She squealed and licked her lips. "I always thought that Seema had this thing for you. As soon as she heard you sing Only You, she was gone for a toss! And you were like this major snake-in-the grass! You had such a major thing for her!"

She was pulling his leg, but he laughed along, content to let her believe in her own fiction. Seema was miles away now, and he hadn't thought about her since that last email where she had informed everyone grandly that she was going trekking in Gulmarg. He had no idea how good or bad the trek was and had never asked anyone about it. There were times Tushar tried to draw him out like this, too, but he never reacted. He always grinned, like this, and sipped a drink or looked at the wall clock for signs of Seema the Spider crawling up behind him.

Coffee was the ambrosia of the gods, at times like this. Billy Joel started singing Uptown Girl now, but the moment of easy humour and easy memories had passed. "So, were you guys supposed to go out today, you and Tushar?"

"Not really... this juice is divine. Dad was going into Marine Drive and I got down at Siddhi Vinayak. Hopped on a cab to surprise him." So she wasn't "in the neighbourhood" at all. "I thought he'd be home. It's a Saturday, for God's sake! I forgot that you guys are owned by a behemoth monster!" She grinned that lopsided thing that Tushar was crazy about, but which he found mildly patronising. "How come you're not at work too, by the way?"

"Different departments - " and he switched the radio off, because Golden Oldies was over and they would start making stupid jokes and handing out passes for movies soon, in return for silly antics on your part. He had done that himself once, and won two tickets to a play, for which had to sing a crass line from a crass Hindi song in a packed train. He imagined the boy on the ledge dancing wildly to that song, careening with laughter, wild and happy. Not on the ledge, where he still was, gazing fixedly at them.

"So what do you think about the flat?"

"O. O... it's - nice." He grinned. The stairs always took everyone by surprise. The flat was paradise, once you came inside the door and left the pan-stained stairs out of your life. But he was used to that now, and certainly, the children of the neighbouring flats who played in excitedly loud tones every evening on the landing barely noticed them. They would yell and scream and hide under the stairs as you climbed up and fumbled at the door with your keys, making you an unwitting and perhaps unwilling participant in the glorious drama of fairyland kings and queens that was being enacted there. The one of the ledge was always someone important in the game. He would be the king or the Superhero who had been waylaid, ambushed, trapped, betrayed, bamboozled by the evil minister of alien, whom he always managed to defeat in the end. It was fascinating, in a way, and sometimes he would purposely stand at the door, pretending to get his keys wrong, jangling them again and again, ears keenly waiting for the war cry that he knew would come and the bugle toots from the child designated the Imperial Footman.

"The crowd's pretty low-class, but the flat's cool. I like that. It came furnished. TV, Fridge, beds, chairs, tables, cupboards, gas stove, geyser. We hardly spent anything on that. Only shopped for food and supplies." He had no idea why he was talking to her like this. It wasn't as if she was interested. Her juice was finished and the empty glass was on the floor. He thought - do you want to see the bedroom? And then stopped with the thought, you've seen it already, I'm sure! And then he bit his lip. It hurt. He wondered if the little boy on the ledge could feel that too.

"Anyway, I have to leave," she got up now, gathering her silly little bag that was done up in absurd tufts of cloth and mirrors. "I want to catch Tushar at the office."

"O. Ok, then. Great to see you. Do stop by more often."

"I will. Bye. Love the flat. And the crowd's not that bad, at all - for Bombay" she smiled and he hated her when she did that. There was no music in the background now as they hugged and he thought there was something sad about that. There should be some grand finale to this meeting, he thought. There should be something that rent the air with some beautiful sad notes of a song that people died for in the days when they were young and remembered now only for their lost passions. "Goodbye," she said, and patted his hand fondly, and opened the door. A yell from the Superhero adventure filled the hall, and he gave an apologetic grin -

"It's like that, sometimes. Take care."

She stepped over the Imperial Trumpeter, all of two years old, sitting precariously on the top step with his silver paper clarinet, and hurried down the stairs.

The man in the window stepped away from the door and walked into the kitchen with a tall glass in his hand. The kitchen window was small and circular, and the little boy on the ledge could not see much through it. But he could hear the angry hiss of the opened tap, as if a volley of gnashing snakes had been let loose upon the man in the window, and he saw his hands furiously rubbing something, and so he imagined that he was washing something. His face was cold and passive, and especially so when he turned around to see him through the circular connection between them. They watched each other through wide eyes for a second, two, three, four, that dragged onto maybe a whole minute, and then he smiled, shook his head and walked away. Not in the living room, where the boy on the ledge could see him, but inside his cavern, his room, perhaps. He was a strange, particular man, the boy mused, who had strange particular desires on another strange particular man.

The Wrong Side of the Street

2005-01-04T18:01:00.000+05:30

The Wrong Side of the Street

I'm seeing you after what seems like years. And I feel none of the passion I did earlier. I love you, still, at least I think I do. But I feel none of the passion, none of the ache. I flirt with you still, I touch your arms lightly, I whisper in your ear, and am aware of the slight tremour in your skin, but I want none of that.

I am content to see you like this.

It was not always like this.

There was a time when I would wait, wait, wait, wait and then wait some more to hear from you. There was a time that I would take the cell phone when I saw your name on the display screen, and scamper away somewhere to sit in seclusion and talk to you, listen to your drawl, the way you told me you wanted to see me, be with me, love me. And then I would come back to my chair and my friends would nudge me, and ask me how fast the rocket that had taken me to the moon had gone.

It was something like that. Something stupid.

I remember that time we were lying in bed, a piece of sinful chocolate truffle cake between us. One fork. Chocolate cream smeared on the white china. My eyes liquid as I looked at you, my lips hungry for you. We talked about love, about what we wanted from each other. The boundaries were drawn, and I knew that. You were from the wrong side of the street, and I was from the never-never land that you outgrew ages ago. We were playing with each other, it was a god-given boon that the play was always so intricate, always so delightful, and always left us feeling slightly unsatisfied at the end, panting always. That was the way it was meant to be, you said, and I agreed. I was panting, I was sighing, I was in heaven, though I held myself back.

But of course, it didn't really work. When we went out for dinner with your friends, I would become this listless creature who is awaiting his last meal before he is shot. When we would be in the dark, in the movie hall, I would slip my hand underneath yours and squeeze slowly, and beg you to reciprocate. I would do little things in the dark, but freeze instantly when the intermission came on, and one of your brainless friends spied my red face and suggested popcorn. I think they wanted to know what the hell you were doing with me. I hope the answer wasn't that hard to come to you.

"I'm not sure where this is going," I would say, in unconcealed ire to my friend. He would stroke my arm in response. Sympathy, sadness, ire, I wonder if he felt any of those of my behalf... I would almost feel the salt in my eyes out of frustration.

"I haven't got any word as yet. I can't be the first one to call. I'll look funny. I'll look desperate."

"No, you can't. Wait, then. Wait. The call will come, don't worry too much," he would say, and I would hope that he was right.

Of course, the call would always come. You would always call and explain things away in a breezy enough way. There were reasons in the world for you to be delayed, and I was supposed to understand it. I told myself that I should understand it. You were from the wrong side of the street for me, for god's sake - everyone had warned me about you. They had pointed you out to me at parties and told me never to go within ten paces of you. I didn't. I believed my friends. I kept away from you.

You were the one who first came up to me.

It was my fault I couldn't resist you.

Not then, not when you first came up to me, a smile on your lips, and not when I found myself slowly slipping into you. I told myself, get your guard up again. That one is on the wrong side of the street, that one is not meant for you, you can't slip, you can't slip, but of course I did. And that was the end of it.

Because you caught on. And that was the end of us.

So, over another piece of sinful chocolate cake, you told me that I was on the wrong side of the street for you, and we should move on. I did. I listened to you, and reasoned with myself that you were right. That this falling business was likely to give me vertigo if I didn't cross to the other side of the street. I looked at you and nodded, and never cried, hugged you that night, and stayed awake the whole night, blinking away tears that refused to come, while staring at the shadows playing on the floor in the dark.

You wanted us to move on, and I did. I moved away to another city, and told myself that Thank God you had caught me before I had fallen wholeheartedly, that Thank God, you had had the grace to leave me my dignity. I suppose I thanked you too, in my mind, in my private reserve, so many times, thanked that you were on the right side of the street.

Noah's heartbreak

2004-12-28T20:04:00.000+05:30

Noah's heartbreak

Christmas Eve was the same. Party, loud music, loud women, women who wanted to get in his pants, drugs that went up his blood stream and morphed his brain. He was used to all that, he was above all that.

Somebody patted him on the back, near the swimming pool. This was glittering, something in his mind said, or whatever was left of it. He was laughing, he knew, because he could hear himself laugh. He was clinking glasses, eying women through his dark pupils, smiling slightly, in an effect that looked irresistible through the pencil-line of mustache above his upper lip. He could have anything he wanted that night, he knew. He could do anything.

When the ring came, it buzzed him, but he wasn't sure what it was. Not the drink, not the narcotic, not the woman pressing her lips in the back of his neck. It was his phone, he decided. So he pushed the woman aside, and rattled off a text message to that woman he expected to hear from. I'm not here, he said. I was never here. After you left me, I disappeared. I'm sorry I missed you. Tell me, tell me what you want.

And then he waited. Next to the pool. The pool floor was done in this horribly intricate geometric pattern of tiles that made him dizzy to look into it. So he didn't. He looked up, instead. Red sky. It was 4 am, and clouds had gathered over the Colombo night sky. There was going to be hell to pay for it later, he told himself, and looked deep and strong at the phone in his hand, willing it to ring, willing it to blink. Willing, willing to hear some word from her.

The woman who had been angling for his throat, in the short black dress, had given up by now. She had snarled drunk! under her breath, and tip-tapped away on her Italian heels, and moved to where a group of people were removing their clothes and thrashing in the pool.

But he was at the far end of the pool. And the ring that he had been expecting never came. So he decided to go for broke. Fast as lightning, his fingers tap-tapped other text messages, to people he knew who were in her city. He told them, tell her I'm at a party, I'm drunk, I missed her, I miss her so very very very much, tell her I'll call her, tell her I'll be there for her. And fast as a pixie, he sent them all. Like arrows, they would travel far and wide and all converge at the same place. In her heart. She would know, she would know...

One lone reply came back. I'll tell her. So he smiled to himself and lay back on the tiles, disregarding the squeals that came from the extreme end of the pool. It was Christmas Eve, something told him. It was the night of all nights. There was no hurry, there was no cause for it. She would listen to him. So he settled back down, and looked up at the red sky, and fancied that he could see the clouds move faster and faster... There was water thrashing in the pool, his trousers were wet, but he never noticed any of that. He could not see the moon, and wondered if that was a bad omen. Then he shrugged, and wished himself a Merry Christmas.

In the morning, when he checked his phone, he realized that it had never buzzed for him, and the voice inside his head that had been so sure she had called had been lying as well. The lone reply to his frantic messages, I'll tell her, seemed strained and mocking in the cruel sunlight. And he laughed. So, this what they call heartbreak, he mused...

***

When God set the Flood upon them all, it was too much for him to understand at first. It was strange, a sudden shifting of his ground, of his reality. Everyone else was also in that shift, and that was how he realized he wasn't actually in a nightmare. He ran. He grabbed his camera and his notepad and he ran. In search of ideas, in search of friends, in search of strangers, in search of so much more, he had no idea. He stood in front of the sea, and saw it rear its mighty head, and he ran away.

It had been a sobering effect. It had been a cause of much psychological discomfort. This was the mighty tsunami, someone had said on the radio, on his way over here. The fury chilled him. Yet, in some peripheral way, he was above all that. It reminded him of all the bad movies he had seen on television, Indiana Jones and the Whatnot, where the mass of hot boiling oil would seep slowly towards you, threaten you, taunt you, so that your eyes glittered in anticipation.

But this was worse, he suddenly realized. This was faster. It would lash you and drag you away before you even understood it. It would not taunt you, and your eyes would not remain open to shine at it, but close blindingly in a reflex action of fear on their own accord. He saw the trees lining the great seafront road topple to their bases, and the cars and the trucks tossed aside like matchsticks, and he let himself be pushed along by the tide of the crowd. He heard their screams, and he opened his mouth to scream, too. It was a hollow scream. He had work to do, so much more work than he could possibly imagine.

There was the friend who had his condo. The condo was gone now, the priceless books housed within, in tatters. The area was a swamp, dank and cold. What time was it, he asked somebody, but no one seemed to know.

"My house is destroyed."

"You’re alive."

"Yes, I am. I'm alive." That didn’t seem to cut much ice, so he persisted with his interview. "How was it? Did you see it from afar? What did you think about it? When did you think to run?"

The other man looked at him, his mouth dry from the salt water. He had heard of demon waves before, but never seen them. He had heard of demons possessing human beings before, and he had finally seen one. "Yes, I saw it. I saw it from afar. I stood there for awhile, thinking I was dreaming. And finally, I ran when I could not stand it any more. It was as if something hit me hard on the head - a coconut, perhaps."

"The hand of god?" Deliberate phrase. Drama was always good. It always sounded so much better on the front page.

A wry grin. "More like a scream from my wife. She had ventured down. And seen everything. She screamed, and pulled me back. I am alive because of her." A sigh and a slow sob. "But she died, trying to get the children out. She went back in. I was with the car. The wave came, and I was at the car. It was too fast."

He wrote that down. Was it drama enough for the paper? He would find out, when they paid him for the story.

***

He thought about the Flood often, and wondered when on earth Noah would come for them all. He was late, he was late, and there was a doubt whether he would come at all. He wanted saving too, in some oddly perverse way. His house was safe, his family was up in their lofty abode, his liquor was under lock and key, and yet he needed saving. He kept on looking at his phone now and then, while touring the country in search of victims, and often pulled the phone out in the middle of an interview, to see whether there was any news from her after all. There never was. Merry Christmas...

"The government will come for you. Do not worry. Tell me what happened." But they looked at him with mouths open in incredulity. He tried again, elsewhere. "Tell me, tell me. I need it for my story. Tell me what you felt. Who's dead over here? Who's in pain? Give me a picture. I'm here to help. My name is Noah."

There was the parting before him. Stories untold, stories waiting to be told. He sat on his rock, and listened to them all diligently. His notebook was filling up rapidly, his pencils were almost blunted away, but still he asked questions and took down answers, and told them his name was Noah. "What are your sins? Confess, confess, and the world will be whole again."

Confess, confess, and you will disappear, he told the bodies that lay before him, in the dark city street. This was a city that had seen its fair share of violence earlier. There had been guns and knives and butchery enough, but perhaps nothing as final as this. "Is there something especially final in this?" he asked the sad priest in the cavernous church. "Does this mean that God has ordained this?"

The priest was old, and toothless. He wondered, too, for himself the same thing and not for the very first time. The new-born Noah was not very original, and he knew it, too. It was a strange, sad replay of a strange, sad story.

When the government came with troops, and with supplies, he was there, too, snapping pictures, talking to soldiers, talking to NGOs. "I'm working for the paper. Tell me what you're doing. When will this get better?"

He got a bemused look in return, and suddenly he asked himself when on earth he had started to care. The old man was a story. His dead wife and his dead children were a story. The dead bodies on the road were a story. The old priest in his old hole was a story. Noah and his Flood was a story, too. And he thought to himself, so this is what they call heartbreak...

A Visit

2004-12-25T01:04:00.000+05:30

A Visit

I need an introduction, I think to myself. I need to tell this man something about myself. I need to sell myself to him in some way, and so I buy a packet of mince puffs from the corner shop, nicely warmed to a crisp, though I chide myself for the extravagance. They're a mite too expensive for my taste, but then I'm cheap, I always have been, and so I swallow down my cheapness, pick up the bag of muffins and walk over to the house.

I'm thinking over what I should do, how I should start speaking to him, when the door opens. Big smile on my face, and I say, hullo, how do you do? I hand him the muffins, and I get a glass of rum thrust in my hand.

Something sinful about rum. Like the fact that a single glug from a single glass will mark you with a discerning flavour miles and miles away. Or maybe that's not really the case, but that's the way I like to think. I prefer ice cubes, a lot of them, dark brown, swirling liquid with large volcanic rocks that fizzle and burn in cold rage and dissolve away. They leave behind that sexy taste in your mouth, in your throat. I lick my lips, like a 90's porn goddess, and laugh at the absurdity of my life. I'm a strange person, so many people have told me that, but I'm not strange enough.

I'm not a radical like him, at any rate. Not someone who needs to be there first, all the time, with the eyes, the voice, the ears, the touch, the power to propagate. I'm not like him.

So he likes the muffins, he says, and takes another bite. So do I. "It's from a shop right around the corner, you know," I say, beaming, "I'm sure you've seen it on your way to work lots of times. Maybe you've just missed it." Unspoken words: So, hopefully, you won't miss it anymore. Maybe you'll see it someday, and remember this evening, and remember that I brought something that was vaguely satisfying from this little shop in a corner.

"O," he says, his face breaking into a grin, "It's from that shop. O, yes, I've been there. I've ordered bread from there. I never knew they made little stuff like this, though."

"They have pastries too. Blackforest, if you like it. And apple pie, which looked very nice. All orange and crusty. Would be sinful with ice cream. But it's expensive. I think, something like Rs 45. Too rich for my taste." A grin. A sip of dark rum that shoots back into my throat. "They also have all these different kinds of bread. Garlic bread with cheese, masala bread, Parmesan, bread with coriander too. I pinched one. Very soft. Would be amazing with dollops of butter." I can picture the butter, melting, melting, melting. "And yes, they have a shop with cold cuts and frozen chicken inside." All in the corner shop. I don't know why I'm talking like this, non-stop. I should have been silent. But it's something I can't help. I may not be radical, but I'm quite strange, nevertheless.

The music is not bad, either. Something I cannot understand. In a language I cannot fathom. But, it's good, it fills you up, and I think that is what music is good for. To fill a space in your life. Like the way I wake up every morning, and switch the radio on in my flat. Incessant banter, I listen, Horrible ad jingle, I listen, Song flows through, Water splashes in the bath, I listen. It's a process that gets me out of my flat every morning, and sees me turn in for the night every time. I think, maybe it's the same about the music with him, too. The words fill him, and he talks to me, his eyes slightly red with the scotch in his hand, but his words making lucid sense. They have been filled out, given shape, as it were, in some unknown way, by the strains of the raga that float around in ellipses and circles around the room. I'm tempted to touch one of those notes, but then, I'm not radical enough to think that they are tangible. No more tangible than he is, at any rate.

"There is the past, you know. And however much, you tell yourself there is a present, you keep coming back to that past. So you have to keep on thinking. And you have to keep on hoping that there is a future out there for you, as well."

I listen, but somehow, it all sounds very wicked to me. I don't get that. I take another sip, and ruminate on how dumb I must be, if I don't get what he's talking about. I think about why I came here, and I try to listen to him again, as he resumes talking, as he uses the same words, the same lines, in his drunken loop. I'm glad that loop is there, I'm glad that there's a chance for me to listen to him again and again, so that I may decipher him, and say something to him. Something that will make him look up and look sharply at me -

"I don't agree with that. I don't subscribe to that view of yours."

"Explain."

And I try. "What you are saying is too simplistic for me. It is too simplistic for anybody. How can that be? You're saying, once a person has identified what he wants, he will move inexorably along that path, that unconsciously he is already on that path. That is too easy. It must be harder. I don't agree with that."

I don't agree with that. I spoke about my pessimism, my cynicism, and all this after I accused him of being a cynic himself. I'm good, a voice whispers in my ear, and I turn slightly to see the curtains billowing gently at the open window, where the conspiratorial voice came from. I turn back to see him looking at the curtains too. It is almost as if he can see the slight shadow there, behind the semi-transparent cotton. The figure is dancing now, a sappy little jig, and it is ridiculous to think that at any moment now, I expect him to start out from his chair, and emulate that happy little shadow dancing behind the curtain.

He doesn't. He sits. He looks back at me, and smiles. I smile back.

Soothing music, as we eat dinner. It is something spicy, goat's meat, mutton, lamb, all the same. Vegetarian's nightmare, and I wonder how on earth vegetarians can survive eating their plants and shoots and roots and fruits. I'm an animal. I was meant to devour another animal. We all were, somebody tells me. We make small talk, over the goat-meat.

"There was this person I met sometime back. She was mad. She used to come down to my apartment, and we used to talk together. We used to listen to music together. Sometimes, she would lie on my bed and fall asleep. Sometimes, I would fall asleep too. Sometimes, we would touch at night, fingers, toes, limbs, flesh, bodies. Sometimes, we would make love at night. But always at night. We would kiss urgently, under the cover, and hold each other with a strange idea of never letting go. And we would fall asleep afterwards. I would have my music on MP3, so it would play on and on and on. It would carry on, while we kissed, while we touched, while we climaxed, while we cradled together, while we breathed softly together. I would wake up in the morning, and then I would miss the music, and then I would miss the girl. She would never be there in the morning."

"You first missed the music, and then the girl?"

I smiled. "Yes, always in that order. Somehow, the music was a part of my sleep. I awoke when I realized that the thread had been broken. The song wasn't there anymore, and so I opened my eyes, and saw the music was off. I would yawn, and then I would sense that she had gone too. She was only there for as long as I could hear the music. She was never there, otherwise."

This time, he smiled. He stretched out his legs and lay back on the bed. I could see his chest heave. I could feel his fingers tighten around the glass. I could sense the friction on the bed. "And would she return?"

"O, yes. She would. She would be there again. Maybe not the very next night. Maybe not for another week. But she would come back, knock silently on the door, and smile at me when I opened it. I always had the music on. And she would come in and lie on my bed and smile. I always smiled, too."

"Do you still know her?"

"I do. I do. I think I do."

It is time to leave, and I say so. The goat meat was nice. The rum was sinful. The music was moving. But the mirthful little shadow behind the curtain has fallen asleep, I can see his little form there, heaving in slumber, and I know it is time I was gone. Crumbs remain of the muffins on the table, and I tell myself they were a good choice.

"Shall I drop you down stairs?" I say no, I can find my way out. He relaxes. He was hoping for a way out, and I am good at that. I give people an avenue, a lane, a direction. He gives people a vehicle. He is radical, I am merely strange.

The door to his apartment closes behind me.

Anonymity

2004-12-12T18:34:00.000+05:30

Anonymity

He was watching her across an ocean. It seemed small for an ocean, but the world was strange, he mused, scratching idly at the tiny brown mark on a spotless table. Strange things happened, like this for example, he was looking at her, watching what she did, in all the clear confidence of being anonymous, unknown, just another figure among millions, thousands, hundreds, tens...

***

Cool air blew from her lips, slightly pink, slightly plum, as they made their way through the froth on the coffee. It was a bright blue cup, large and round, cheerful simply by virtue of its rotund appearance, and the coffee within was dark and swirling, brown, with a lot of milk, remnants of cream that crowned an exotic nature... and the cool air from her lips blew through all of that.

She had a slight bent to her head, as she sat there, reading, reading, reading... too far too tell, to near not to feel. Her eyes were half-closed, half-open, something like that first sensation one goes through every morning when sleep drifts away, a bit of restlessness, a lot of desire, a hint of activity, suppressed by deep, dark contentment. It was content in her eyes, that was it, as they pored over her book. Not too big, not too fat, hardcover and yet it did not seem intimidating in some way - perhaps because of the manner in which she was reading it? - calm, content, focused, easy...

Legs crossed, but that was to be expected. No signs of mystery, no signs of the Madonna, no secrecy here, now, then, no little cliched gesture that hid so much more than she revealed. She could not be omnipotent, she was vulnerable, as she had to be, and there was that hint of a rebel within her too. Homely, perhaps - angry, quite likely - rested, without a doubt. Mannerisms were difficult to tell - somebody called them the mirror to your soul, or was that line about your face, never mind, never mind - mannerisms were difficult, but this was something that you felt sure on, seeing her. You felt sure that if the waiter bungled up, or she would drop something on the floor, caught up in her intense reading, she would look up, bewildered, smile with an embarrassing blush that threatened to go out of control, give a short staccato burst of laughter, and then settle back down, book, book, book.... fingernails tap-tapping on the wooden table.The blue mug was the key.

The blue mug said so much about her contrast. She was thinking - it was placid. She was calm - it contained the swirling black coffee within, bubbling, boiling, frustrated. Her lips creased into a smile - but the cup remained, blue and round, and heavy, and strangely, mildly cheerful, but strangely, mildly out of sync now.

She blew cool air onto the broth again, and for a second, her lips seemed to shimmer. Or simmer.

***

Green eyes hidden behind a black frame, slightly square at the edges, held at the nose with two tiny grips, they might have been missed had you been less observant. Those eyes were poised now, looking, darting, playing a strange game that refused to die down, refused to submit. They were teasing what they saw, looking alternately at furniture (dead wood in a bland brown store), or the pastries under the glass case (chocolate, chocolate, something red, chocolate) and then coming back to the chase. It was fun, a test to see what would happen, you could almost feel the pupils dilate, the iris quiver in a flash of emerald pigment, something was going to happen, something was bound to happen.

Adam's apple was bobbing, slightly, up and down, not really voluntary, and he couldn't have any idea about it at all. Or that his finger was now tracing idle circles, ovals, ellipses on the table, his thumb pulled back, slightly clenched for no apparent reason - or the fact that his feet were upturned now on the table, brushed softy against it, and his left knee was rocking slowly, almost silently. Yet, it spoke, as it rocked, softly. Will she, won't she, now she, not now, godawlmighty, pretend now, look away, little whispers carried forth on a strangely invisible stream, across the ocean.

A tall, tall glass of something blue stood there, half-full, half-empty, squarely in the centre of one of his table-ellipses, its frosty surface coated with little droplets of condensation, the ice cubes within melted by now, and yet, there are many more miles to go in his vigil. There was a thrill when you thought about him drinking that, then his Adam's apple would bob some more, involuntarily, and you could take cover behind your book, and stare back at, and examine in turn, things across the ocean.

Things like the speck of dark tanned skin at is throat, like some modern-day rendition of the legend of Nilkantha, like some modern-day ascetic who has braved the flings and fortunes of unceasing life, and has taught himself never to stop either. It is all in motion, you understand, the room, the ocean, the table with the brown speck on it, the tall glass with something blue, the boy with his teasing green eyes and his excited Adam. All in motion, and there is a sense that if once something, anything, pauses, the entire framework will collapse. The composition will be marred, and the ocean, though small, though large, will somehow be sucked away dry. His frames will clatter to the table, he will look around, hoping that he has attracted no one's attention, then quickly drink the remaining blue, and saunter away out through the revolving doors to the passive outside where he will disappear. The motion will be stopped. That will be the real tragedy.

***

A part of her smiled within, and the alphabet on the page before her focused in her brain to crystal clarity once more. She read another sentence, but was soon watching him again, discreetly, softly, across the room, the ocean that separated the two of them. It seemed strange to be doing this, watching someone, who you knew was watching you, pretending not to watch him watch you watch him, feel oddly secure and confident in the anonymity that comes with the feeling of being just one among millions, thousands, hundreds, tens...

Strange Poet

2004-12-06T20:48:00.000+05:30

Strange Poet

I remember how it used to be, at one point of time. You would send me messages on my phone, and I would suddenly stop, paw at my phone like an excited child with an unexpected Christmas gift that was not there under the tree earlier, and i click on the arrow keys to see your message. It would be something silly, as a rule. Some silly joke, some silly comment, and I would love it all the same, and send back hastily composed poetry to you.

Poetry. God, you made me into a poet for those split second-moments when I was trying to tell you how much you meant to me.

When I was on the bus during those days, and the road rolled ahead of me, ochre and green and burnished, and the sky yawned loud overhead, shots of purple and gold and angry grey, I could almost feel the tiny sting of the raindrops, and put my hands out, as far as they could go, to receive them. I think it's true, what they say. You get creative when you're in love, or when you think you're in love. Which one was I? I thought I knew, I thought I knew.

The cell phone was my hotline to you. I never imagined it could be so potent a device. I never imagined that my first conversation with you, over the phone, could be as electrifying as it was. Sparks, here and there, as you asked me little things. What I liked, who I liked, when I liked them. We talked about sundews and past lovers, and deserted fields ripe with corn and sunshine. We talked about walking in empty avenues and eating cold, wet, creamy ice cream till our noses turned blue. I swore I'd take you out and feed you rich, dark, chocolate mousse, but somehow, somewhere, that promise got lost, and I never did do that.

God, you made me a poet. You made me feel happy.

Silly little trips made swiftly back home from work, where I would see you waiting on the curb. We would take that last twenty-minute walk down the avenue, to my doorstep, and discover ten thousand things each day as we strolled. How the roach arched, how the fabric shimmered, how the rickshaw swayed, how my lips creased, how your eye brows twitched, how painfully long that road seemed to get, as we got closer and closer to our destination. So was it about sex then? Was it about that instant attraction that we knew was there, the first time we met? But if it was, how on earth did we spend six-seven-eight hours that time sitting on the abandoned car at one end of the galli, and talking...? We never even held hands that time, but it was so clear in my mind, the longing, the despair - maybe, the two should not have been there together - maybe it should only have been longing (less complicated), maybe it was too personal... how many more maybes can I add to that?

God, you made me a poet. I can never get over that one.

I can remember your little gestures as if you were still here. I can remember the subtle nuances of your voice as they ranged from mild disapproval to utter annoyance. I bled you to death - you worried for me ever so much, and yet, somehow, none of that mattered to me. What mattered to me was the now, the present, and I guess I never worried about the future, like you did. For me, it was enough to run my finger down your arm, to kiss you softly behind your ear, to brush your hair back, as I licked your lips. Was that my problem, the fact that I was too much involved in pleasuring you, I wonder, but if sex was all there was to it, would sex compel me to write a sordid tale of an affair to remember? Would sex alone make me remember you tenderly, and hate you vehemently when you told me never to call you again?

More importantly, how on earth, would sex make me a poet?

But you broke your promise to yourself the other day, when you called me. You said, you came here, only for me, to speak to me, to hear my voice. I felt angry at you then - why on earth would you do this to me now, why on earth couldn't you let this snarling dog lie asleep, and let me just go as I was… But I said hello, and I asked you how you were, how your job was getting along, the usual kind of crap that nobody ever cares for, but say nonetheless, and you answered in that quiet tone of yours, slightly hesitant, and I could actually picture you jerking your head slightly, voice slightly cracked... did you have a cold, I asked, suddenly concerned, and when you said no, all my hostilities returned - how was HE? I asked, and I heard the much-hated and much-expected reply: he's well, I’m well, we're good together, we’re happy together.

Fuck off, I roared. How nice, I said. I kept on staring ahead at the computer screen, the words I had been writing. They were opaque, and all I could see was you, you, you, wringing your wrists, talking about yourself, about how you were 'happy' with him, but called all the way from your city - our city - to tell me that you missed me. To tell me that you had broken your promise.

So you spoke, and I listened, and I remembered that night in Delhi, when you called unexpectedly and heard music in the background, and asked, where it was coming from since I had told you I was going home early. So I lied, and said there was nobody there, that I wasn't going to cheat on you and that you should trust me - if you love me, then trust me, don't put me through this because I can't handle it, I roared then - and you believed me. I won. I won. I lost. I won. So, no - you stay there, where you are - in our city - away from me - you stay with him, and you stay happy, but please, please, please... miss me, I thought. Miss me, please. That was when you said goodbye, and I said that too, and you said you'd call me later.

That was when I swore I'd never call you again, though you made me a poet for some fleeting moments, though you made me think about you, hate you, love you, possess you, cheat on you. Now why on earth did I do that? Poets do funny things, even though it's momentary.

Steps

2004-12-02T20:14:00.000+05:30

Steps

In my dream, you walked on through the battlefield.

There was smoke and there was mist - from the angry fires that raged around you, and from the cold wisps of nature as a new dawn uncovered herself. There were people all about you, some dead and some dying, and you walked on through them. You were in the long grey garbs of a monk, stained and lined with selfless giving. You had a bowl in your hand, cracked and weather-beaten, which held water from the pool down beyond the glen.

The water had been shining then, when you scooped it up. But now, as you walked through the ruin, it turned a deep muddy hue, and trickled down, leaving a trail behind you for me to follow.

In my dream, your eyes were half-closed and your lips shaped invocations.

You walked haltingly, like that eager young virginal bride who is forced to slow her gait in the cathedral. You walked like that, your arms amazingly steady, - save the lone murmur of your lips and the slight drop of muddy water, your world draped in silence.

You could sense the vultures up in the sky, too far as yet to spot with the naked eye. You could sense the lifelessness of the arm that lay sprawled before your feet and the arm over which you stepped to keep on walking. Did you have a goal in mind, were you there for a reason? My dreaming subconscious tossed and turned in vain to get an answer from you. You were silent, save for that continuous chanting for which I had no translation. I believed in your powers and I held onto my faith, wishing fervently that your chants were an invocation to renew life once more. But my dream belied my hopes. No hands twitched, no cries came, no bodies shifted. Your murmurs were of no use then, how could you justify yourself?

In my dream, you stopped as you came upon the great mound of stone before you.

The chieftain's severed head lay at your feet and a drop of your hallowed water fell onto his eyes. Was it my faith showing me things I so desperately wanted to see, or did his eyelids come down to shield him from the ravaged land. I can never tell with certainty. The images are blurred, reality was not forthcoming and eternity lasted for just that split instant. I saw you kneel there, in front of that tempestuous altar. The ravages around you faded away then, I don’t know where, and you were suddenly alone, encased in the womb of some dark limbo. There was no sound there anymore, not even your chants could be heard. I could see your lips tremble though, and I could see the endless rings form on the muddy water in your cracked bowl. Your eyes were closed as always, your hands hidden in the folds of your robe.

Tattered old mendicant. You would kneel now and pray - but for what? Your teachings were useless, your advice turned to naught. Men had died for you, and you were immune to their sacrifice. You upturned the cool serenity of that paradisiacal pool behind the glen into this, a brown liquid that made me recoil whenever I caught sight of it. What was there left to atone for? Who was there left now to receive your prayers? Who was now left there to deny you your salvation and kick you in the stomach…?

In my dream, I shook with rage.

I could see the darkness close around you now, slowly but surely, that deep dense nothingness through which not even my mind's eyes could pervade. I despaired one instant, and rejoiced the next. So this was the culmination of all your ramblings. You would be gone now, had so many others before you, because of you. Your hopes and tricks, your lies and truths, your salvation and your eternity would cease to exist now…

Why did I cry then? Faith - faith is a hard thing to relinquish. It takes eons to strengthen your beliefs, and it takes ages to abandon them, in spite of what Reason tells you. Is that why a part of me mourns your demise? Is that why, even as I concentrate on rejoicing your downfall, a part of me, unbidden and unwanted, clasped my hands in prayer and chanted your taught invocations. An un-asked part of me that cried for your mercy and cried for your forgiveness and cried that you may attain your dream…? A part of me that refused to lose that hope you had ingrained in me, even as the dark dense nothing collapsed upon itself, and enveloped you, altar and all, and consciousness left me…

In my dream, the first thing I felt was your soothing voice within my consciousness.

There were three steps, you had taught me once upon a time. Three steps to mercy or the sword that bleeds war, three steps towards love or in the end a motion in stone, three steps towards nature or a walk towards no hope, three steps inside yourself and to walk out alone.
I sighed in rapture and echoed your teachings now. In my heart of hearts, I could see that my faith held strong. I whispered almost unknowingly, Thank You Master, and I rejoiced in the gentle nothingness of undaunted white that caressed my mind.

In my dream, I could see that creation had just begun.

Longing

2004-12-02T19:53:00.000+05:30

Longing

If you had looked close enough, far enough, you might have spied her there on the icy surface of the lake. Her eyes were closed in remembrance, her hands were clasped in prayer. Her hair was open, loose and placid in the chill air, long and expansive, untamed and wild, and now lay sterile on her back. But you wouldn't be able to tell her apart from the icy wastes surrounding her by those tresses, for they were tired and fragile like her, the colour of white sun. You might have thought she was pure mirage had you spied her there.

Had you noticed her and walked over to her, slowly and silently, you would have been mesmerized by the fragile enchantment before you. You would have longed to gently unclasp her hands and unshadow that perfect face. In your heart, you would plead fervently with her to open her eyes, and had she done so… Had she done so, your heart would have stopped.

You would have seen your hopes and desires and all your longings crystallised in that face. You would have seen the burning embers of fire, and the placated remnants of ash. You would have seen the seasons pass by and taunt you with memories. The tallest glaciers with blue-white ice all around you would seem concentrated within that oval of her face… Nose, eyes, eyebrows and eyelashes, milky white skin, rose pink lips, chin - had she opened her eyes, your heart would have stopped.

Had you noticed her and walked over to her, you might have watched the lone tear drop take form below long lashes and slide ever so gently down her cheeks. You might have heard the sighs from within a thousand hearts that accompanied the fall of that teardrop. You might have seen it fall, eventually, down onto that clear white mirror, upon which she lay. The slight wisp of steam might have caught your eyes then, as the drop hissed onto the cold white plate, as it cut a hole in her ice. Had you been watching hard enough, you might have seen the rose bud there, young and gawky, which clambered up from the icy wastes where the teardrop disappeared.

Her eyes were open now, but you couldn't see because the long sun-tresses on her back didn't let you. You couldn't see how she gazed with empathy at the piece of dry birch that stood squat there, on the other side of the frozen lake. If you had looked up and spied the tree, its deep dark wood would have haunted you. The wood old and rotting, long dead, its roots broken down in the cold, its foliage nonexistent. If you had seen it, you would have curved your lips in a derisive sneer and turned away, searching for greener maples.

A robin flutters in and perches on the dead birch.

Had you noticed her and walked over to her, you might have seen her body tremble as her fingertips touched the blood red petals before her, as her cold eyes gaped anew at the red breast that heaved with life beside the dead bark. You might have heard the soft whimper that erupted from deep within her, and spied her retract her hands away within her closed circle, clutch at herself again, and her eyes squint themselves shut.

You might even have wondered why.

Had you not gazed at her, across the icy wastes for that split second, you would not have noticed anything amiss. A shrouded figure in white that clasped itself once more, unknown and invisible from the world. She was what the heavens cried for, and yet the earth was what she pined for.

There was no howling gale that day, no blinding blizzard, no terrifying spectacle. The air was silent and the snow gave way easily underneath your feet as you walked on. The sky was a pale white that led you up to the Gods and you were headed There. You trudged wearily, looking forward to a new fantasy. But you never looked askance, at the figure that had been doomed to live your fantasy her whole life.

You never looked close enough, far enough, and you never heard her heart groan in longing.

Arched

2004-12-02T19:26:00.000+05:30

Arched

An innocuous walk through an avenue lined with trees, late at night. It would seem ethereal, magical too, if only your heart was with the person walking with you. Arched doorways on either side of the road, old buildings that reared their heads at the turn of the last century, seem immobile, impassive, as the two of us can only pretend to be.

I told you once, how much I love old buildings, how I would lose myself in the lanes and alleys of north Calcutta, and suddenly come to awe-struck attention before one spectacular wrought iron gate, spangled with leaves, flowers and mythical beasts that numbed my self to the pavement. I remember I told you about that love of mine, and this love of mine smiled, and pressed my hand closer. And now, here we are walking at night, on an avenue lined with trees, and I stop suddenly, to stare up at the big dome atop the Taj hotel ahead.

I've heard stories about it of course. Vague, scary stories of a blueprint gone wrong and a suicide all because of a damn blueprint. Scary to think people can be that stupid, vague to think there is no other evidence to support that theory. And then, it took another walk at night, by the ocean, before the Gateway, to debunk that vague, scary theory, and get at the facts behind it. I remember I had laughed then, and nodded my head in relief. Scary to think of anything so scary and brief and vague.

But that dome is a monster in itself, a theory and a fact in itself. Can hardly look up at it, and not be transported to another century. There are no iron-grilled gates here, as they were in the lanes of the city I grew up in, but there is that something else. It is not so much about history, as it is about aloofness, or grandeur, or haughtiness. Of aloofness. For a second, I have a thought about touching that dome, whereon the moon glints in a smiling scimitar shape, and then I feel your breath come behind me, and your hands touch my shoulder. Your fingers close on my flesh, and the dome is no more my centre. It is a background. How could it ever be anything else, a lone corner of a mind in turmoil asks softly, drowned in the ocean waves crashing behind the Taj?

We walk on back into the avenue, away from the waves. I have seen them too often here, too often at this time of night, too often with other people, to see them now with you. I find it impossible to walk in silence to the car, and so I laugh, and try to make a remark designed to make you smirk, designed to make me think to myself - ouch! I never apologise for bad jokes, I toss my head and say, that's me, take it or leave it, and I pray inwardly all the time, that no one does leave ever. You reach out a hand and grasp me again, and even though I can sense you falling in love, I only feel myself falling into a comfortable alacrity. But I tell myself that it's alright, that I am not deceiving you, and that you are not looking for anything more from me than I can give you, and I lie myself to bed each night.

A left turn here, a kiss shared under one of the arched doorways on either side of the avenue, and then we get in the car.

The Gulmohar

2004-10-30T16:57:00.000+05:30

The Gulmohar

I saw you the other day, framed in the mirror of the croissant shop. As I watched your hair sparkle, your eyes gleam, my mouth curved itself into a smile. I reached my hand out towards the mirror, almost in a dream, and then quickly retracted it, as I caught his reflection too, behind you.

Was I jealous? I didn't think there was any need to ask me that, I would have thought the answer would be clear, as clear as the fresh sea-air breezing into you as you drive down the coast, the lush red strawberries in your father's little patch, as fresh as your breath as your mouth which reaches upwards as your eyes half-close, your lashes tremble slightly in anticipation… I want you so badly I can't even deny it anymore. Least of all, to myself. If you came up to me at the croissant shop, smiled your diamonds up at me, and asked how I was, I would have wept at your feet and made a sorry wretch of myself.

I watched you walk out of the store, your packets in his hands, his laughter ringing in your ears, my envy dogging your footsteps.

****

The crisp air of Mahabaleshwar is an aphrodisiac, a cunning wile that makes you believe that you're capable of everything in the whole wide world. You have absolutely no equal, no rival to snatch your prize away from underneath your nose, and just when you start believing in your own immortality, Memory comes wafting in, unannounced and uninvited, and the sound of Her bags hitting the floor jolts you back to Reality.

I can't come to this place, you know, without walking down to the Gulmohar Tree. He sees me coming, and holds out his boughs for me. He understands me, and my sorrows. You're not unique, he seems to say, but you're special. Comforted, I rest my back against the old bark, and listen to his slow, silent rumble. We stay like that for ages, He and I, listening to each other, consoling each other, and helping the other along. No explanations are necessary, for why should they be? He knows Everything. We swore by our love underneath those very branches, we witnessed the blooms tingle and tremble together in rapture, you clove my heart in two underneath Him. It all seems so, so long ago now, but not when I go to see my old friend. Seconds pass, then minutes, then whole hours, as I stand there, my eyes closed and my mind seeing. Memories, moments and epochs.

I must have spent close to three hours with Him this time. I remember marveling at the bright tangerine shots streaking the sky, and then at the cold greys setting in, and pulling my jacket closer around me. I sighed finally, and arose to walk back to the lodge. In a way, I was replenished.

***

I can't stay away. I can't understand how I've fallen back down the hill again, after seeing you that time. The boy behind the counter knows me by face now, the other day I think he even called me by name. I must have - yes, I remember now, I'd left my wallet there a week back. He gave it back, intact.

I know you come by often. Repeatedly. With him once a week, and without him once again. Sunday mornings at 11'oclock, and Wednesday evenings at 5. You buy those round jam-tarts and the chocolate boats. On Sundays, the donuts and the chicken puffs. The girl called Meghna handles the ice-cream machine, and you smile at her. She hands you a butterscotch cone which you nibble over, while making your rounds. A touch of ice cream sticks on the edge of your nose, and I'm dying to reach out and wipe it off. Dying to get you to look up at me, smile in politeness first and then cry in wonderment, clutching onto me and never letting go...

It's the same daydream, everytime. I snap out of it, when I see you pay the boy called Raghav. You smile up at him, and accept the change. You make space for the parcel in your packets, and after another smile at Meghna, you step out the door and I can see you through the glass now, as you shift all your packets to your right hand, walking down towards Colaba. I stay there for awhile, examining the breads intently. My heart yearns to scream out something, but I finish making my own choice calmly without a single cry, and walk over to Raghav. Unfailingly, a loaf of brown bread and a pie. He looks at me, cheery and glad to have a moment alone with Meghna at long last, and bills me.

I leave, only to return the next day.

***

There are times when I wonder if it's all really worth it. Tell me, was it worth it to give you your freedom at the cost of my life? Who decides these things? Who decides what's wrong, and what's right, what should and what should not be? Can He ever truly not be biased? Who made up that despicable lie about Love being all about Sacrifice? I loved you, and let you go - if my love was the greater one, shouldn't I be the one with the greater reward? Who says that it's mean-spirited to talk about rewards, as far as love is concerned? Who says that love is a Many-Splendoured-Thing?

But most of all, I wonder about You. About whether you're the same person anymore. I gave you your freedom, is this my punishment then, for not trying harder? And you, do you ever regret coming up to me that balmy afternoon under the Gulmohar, with expectation in your eyes and the divorce papers in your hand? I wonder time and again, whether you're ever as happy as you believed you'd be? Has it worked out for you then, the way it hasn't for me?

You haven't been coming to the shop for a long time, and all these questions whirl at topnotch speed inside me. In the mirror, I can see Raghav bore into my back with annoyance plainly written on his face at my extended stay, see Meghna give him coy shrugs, but they don't understand how I just have to stay here, waiting for you… You haven't come for days, and yet I'm here again. Everyday here for the last two weeks. Only the pie now. I choose, taking longer and longer with each passing day, waiting to hear your footstep. I never do, I take my wrapped pie, and stand out on the street, waiting under the bus-stand, hoping to catch a glimpse of you. I never do. I gaze towards Colaba; the shimmering haze clouding my vision doesn't endear itself to me, but I stay on, determined. I've learnt my lesson, you might say, learnt not to give up on you all that easily anymore.

But I'm not an accomplished liar. I never was, and who knows that, better than you? I lean against the bus-stand for hours now, and I can see Raghav looking out through the glass door, looking out at the crazy old man who's been standing under the bus-stand since morning. I can sense his pique, his bewilderment, and his hesitation. I lied to myself that afternoon under the Gulmohar when I told you bitterly that I could do without you, that I was my own man… I lied to myself when I said that you meant nothing to me, when I reasoned with myself that I couldn't be broken by you. And that lie has cost me so much. No, I can't lie well - maybe I should just stop. Stop telling myself that you're coming back to me, that I'll see you again.

Stop lying.

Like a great big Gulmohar myself, I turn, shoulders hunched, ready to walk away from Colaba. The sun hurts my eyes. Like a giant who must return to his castle high above for slumber, after having renounced the world, I turn.

My shoulder knocks off somebody's briefcase. I mutter a sorry, and bend to retrieve the fallen file, and my head hits another. Slightly stunned from the sharp rap, I pull back, and look into a pair of eyes. Gleaming, sparkling eyes. Eyes tinged with sorrow and joy. Eyes radiant with laughter and eyes drooped in despair. Eyes that mesmerize me.

Eyes that recognize me.

Quibbles

2004-10-30T16:08:00.000+05:30

Quibbles

Falling out of love is as big an eye-opener as falling in love. Actually, even more so. There you are one day, sitting under a gigantic tree, and all sorts of doubts come creeping up on you. Do you see yourself spending your whole life with this one person, does she actually see spending her whole life with you? If she doesn't then you ask yourself why you ever wasted so much time, and so many sighs on her, - and even if she does, then you feel scared. Insecurity is very much a part of love, at least in the beginning and at the end, but then someone wise enough may quip that, if you're insecure, then there was never enough love to begin with.

Quibbles, really.

But it's an emotion that you felt, a rollercoaster ride you've never been on for quite so long, or for quite such a distance. There was a time you swore never to leave her, to come back to her, whatever the odds. There was a time when a night without her was torture, and a night with her was a tease of more beautiful things to come. It was a question of being hungry all the time for her, of wanting to love her with every beat of your heart. But then, someone wise enough may quip that if you were ever that hungry, then there was probably too much lust to begin with.

Quibbles, really.

What you have now is a strange state of mind. You still love her, and yet cannot see yourself spending your whole life with her. You want to be with her, and hold her hand, and nuzzle her neck, and feel safe in her arms, but no, not a whole lifetime - a night will do, maybe two at the most. Maybe telephone calls, maybe sms messages, maybe sweet, soft kisses in the dead of night. But it is an unwritten understanding between the two of you: not a whole lifetime, a moment is good enough for the both of you. But then, someone wise enough might say, a moment was all you ever had, really.

Quibbles.

Make-believe

2004-10-30T15:44:00.000+05:30

Make-believe

Was walking down the road the other day, and soon matched steps with the fair damsel in distress walking a few paces ahead. It seemed strange to be doing that, but I chided myself that it's always good to be taking chances in life. A chance earned is better than a chance lost, and I told myself many other silly things as I matched steps behind her. She may have noticed - I think she did, because she looked back sometimes, and I could see her eyebrows arch upwards slightly. Very Sphinx-like... not that I've ever seen the Sphinx.

So, anyhow, let me desribe her to you. She was one of those women you see on the muggy roads of Delhi every now and then. Very good-looking, and yet, somehow manages to beat that generic curse, if you know what I mean. Anybody who has lived in Delhi will, in fact, know what I mean. This place has the best-looking women anywhere in the country - very well turned out, very sexy, very cat-like, very bitchy - straight hair, peaches-and-cream complexion, but o-so very in-the mould.

But, no, she wasn't like that. There was the standard peaches-and-cream and the hair so straight you'd think she stepped out of one of those computer-generated images Sunsilk employs for their ads, and she had these thick black rimmed spectacles atop her nose. Very fine. Very fine walk, very fine sashay, and I couldn't but help admire her butt, as she walked... and I couldn't but help remember that other girl friend of mine who says all men are hopeless, cuz we rarely progress beyond a woman's boobs and butt. But hell, I chided myself again, it's all a chance, right? and it's good to take a chance once in a while, right? I mean - what could it possibly land me in - some gruelling moments in a police station?

Ho hum, been there, done that.

But no, this babe - she didn't mean to take any business to the police station. She was looking back, like I said, looking back sometimes, with just a wave of her sexy hair, and a slight upturn of her winkly nose. She reminded me of Elizabeth Montgomery - you know, the hottie who used to do "Bewitched' on TV eons ago - and I half expected her to wink her nose at me, and turn me into a frog or something. Whatever... I was going through a phase, and I was having all these weird inclinations... a chance, they say.

So, she turns, this babe.. and with the classical hands-on-hip gesture, I can see her tongue dart out and lick her lips... she's interested, I can tell, and I smile too - one of those beguiling ones, with just a hint of teeth, lips creased back, forming just a hint of dimple. I'm hot too, and she knows that, and I open my mouth -

"Do I know you from somewhere?" she asks, and I'm almost blown away by that voice... the exact tone you'd expect a Perry Mason heroine to use, and of course, that reminds me where I know her from... so I reply, sauvely, smoothly, coming up closer, so that there's only a couple of centimetre's between us, "Only from a novel... But see, we've met now."

Tinkle bells - yea, yea, very cliched, but hey, that's how she was, remember - cliched, but not so... Here she was, just out of that novel, devoid of raincoat and sexily tilted hat, but her lips were ruby-red all the same, and behind those dark-rimmed glasses, her eyes were wide and sexual. I was in heat, and I could feel the heat reverberate of her... and she says, o so coyly, "I'm glad... I thought you were a stranger."

But, o babe, I'm not, am I? So take my hand, will you... Cleverly coloured nails, expertly manicured to a neat oval, not so sharp, not so blunt, and I lead her into the bar... something tells me that it's started to rain, but hell, the drops just splatter away from my shoulders... something tells me, it's late, but hell, I can't hear no wolves howling as yet.

Carried away

2004-10-30T15:34:00.001+05:30

Carried away

Get carried away in love, the novels urge, and yet I wonder what they all mean, she thought, smoothening out her dress, straightening out her hair, arranging the flowers on the table. How do you get carried away in a love that is supposed to sweep you off by its own swift accord, pulling and tugging, till you have no breath left to resist, she questioned, untying the apron that clung to her starched grey dress. It was a gimmick, an illusion, she decided, and yet, how I long for that myself.

***

How I hated her for telling me she loved me, he thought, tugging on his tie, arranging an intricate knot around his throat. It was never meant to be, hours of conversation, yes, and hours of love-making, but never anything more than that. And yet, she moans out in my arms, when I least expect her to, she moans out, breathes out, whispers out, and worse, she means all of that - those three dangerous little words.

Terrifying, he thought, tying his shoelaces now. Terrifying, he thought, looking at the maid set the dahlias straight on the breakfast table outside. Terrifying, he thought, listening to his wife singing that croon of hers in the morning room. Why on earth did she have to do that?

She made me believe, and that was the problem, he thought now, frowning in the mirror. A hair was out of place, and he carefully, delicately, set it immaculate. Gleaming, glittering, that was how she had made love to him, how she had seemed to embody all of that he had never hoped to have... and as she went on, telling him, day after day, night after night, she loved him, she loved him, o, she loved him, I began to believe - he looked at himself in the hall mirror. I began to believe. And my crime was, that I did not really, truly love her, but I told her I did, and when I left her, I broke her heart, but I broke my own o, so very much. He plucked a dahlia out from the bunch on the table.

***

It was a lark, a joke, a fling, that liberated me, because it showed me a side of myself that I never thought was there, she thought, drinking vodka at nine am. I never wanted to do all that, but no, I did, because I loved doing it all with him, she faltered, staring out of the window, a glorious June morning, that even had that o-so cliched bird singing outside her window.

He was good looking, and I could not believe it when he showed such an obvious interest in me, when he wanted me, when he asked me to kiss him in the back of the cab, back from the party, when he asked me to be with him till the next day, when he wanted me to come to him, just then, just now, no delays, no putting off.

It was a kind of urgency we had, because we knew from the beginning it was not meant to be, and even though I knew it was not meant to be, never meant to be, I could not stop myself from tasting his self-assuredness, touching his frivolous peacock feathers and feeling the thrill that comes with exhibitionism. She touched the lace of her curtain, and sipped at the cold tea that lay on the low stool. The vodka bottle, small and silver, shaped like a bullet, with a sting that burnt and enflamed her core stood there like a burnished placebo now. And here she was, looking out of the window at a perfect morning, wondering whether she had ever been in love, whether she had lied when she had told him and herself that, given a few more weeks, she might have ended up being....

The car revved up and roared away, and she saw her husband's head of gleaming, immaculate hair through the half-open front-seat window. From somewhere, she could smell dahlias, and she thought, aaaa, thank heavens for that girl.

***

Get carried away in love, the novels urge, she thought, and yet here I am alone, because I was getting to want him too much. She took the leaves and the too-long stalks she had snipped with her little pair of gleaming scissors and went out into the garden to dispose of them. A beautiful morning, and a bird singing, and a world of sunlight, and yet, how does all of that measure up to the fact that the novels got it all wrong, she mused.

I told myself to be on guard when I first met him, I knew that he would go, that he would flit, and I would try to float along too, but would probably not manage, and so I warned myself to stay disaffected, away from him, away from what I could feel, what I knew I was capable of feeling. Was it that I was suddenly attracted to the idea of being with someone, doing things with someone, seeing movies, dark halls, holding hands, linking heads, touching in the dark, sipping coffee together, eating chocolate together, talking late into the night, pressed against his body, so that I could feel his heartbeat even louder than my own - when did all of that suddenly become so important to me, she mused.

She frowned now, and slowly sat down on the steps that led into the house, straightening her grey uniform, brushing her toes against each other inside her tapered black shoes. It was morning still, early morning, she meant to say, and she still had a single dahlia in her hand. Bright pink, furry, like an animal, slender like a rose, living like her heart.

He said he was not in the same space with me, as I obviously was so ready to be with him. He said, he could not imagine being serious with me, and yet when he said all that, I did not even cry a tear, while I cried buckets for that other young man who met me daily and took me to the movies and then to his bedroom. I had cried a lot then, she remembered, and her features softened suddenly at the thought of remembered emotions, and yet, why did I not react like that when he told me, last night, that it was over? I laughed then, I hugged him, I told him, I knew it would never work out long before – perhaps, because I did - and I left him. He called me, and I spoke to him, he called me his 'ex' and I asked him when we would go for that other movie at the Bistro, and yet, here I am, sitting on the steps, with a dahlia in my hand.

When, o when, will I get carried away in love, she wondered, sniffing the wan smell, hearing the woman on the first-floor landing snuffle slowly in her dressing gown, recognising the faint whiff of the vodka in the silver bullet.

My stop

2004-10-30T15:34:00.000+05:30

My stop

All those words that I never assocate with myself come rushing back to my ears: nightcrawler, solitarist (is that even a word?), pretender, magician, mysterious. It is a different kind of trip I get when I'm like this, rushing through the city streets at night, and it doesn't matter if there are people around me in the bus or not. I live by myself on these trips, through myself. Sometimes, something in the trembling yellow light awakens me, and I look at the object that struck me, and I smile, or I wonder, or I stare.

That little girl in the red and gold lehenga, for example, one day in Chennai - it has been so many months since I last saw her, and yet, I cannot alight a bus without wondering about her, what she's doing, whether she's still pulling and punching at her dad's pock-marked cheeks, the way she was when I first saw her.

And over here, there is the music. A strange kind of background, jarring and yet, so completely melting into what I'm feeling. Harsh punjabi bhangra, mingled sometimes with the raunchiness of a Bollywood number, all of which are punctuated by the saucy voice of the deejay as she speaks in English to the turbaned bus driver who has just dipped his moustachios in a pitcher full of creamy lassi. Like the way I have just sucked the juice from my rabri-stuffed parantha... delicately, holding the steaming delicacy in both hands, nimbling at the crust, and then probing with my tongue till I feel the hot sweetness ooze into my mouth, and then I suck slowly, pulling in some more of it. In some strange, undecipherable way, I think of the parantha that I'd eaten just minutes before alighting this particular bus, and no, I would not have it any other way.

No other way, but to hear the fast tempo of the young men, tired and haggard-looking, in white pinstriped synthetic shirts who get on the bus and start chanting - they're selling a part of themsleves, I think, and cannot but help peer closely, almost indecently. A map of the city, complete with the knowledge any blue-blooded vampire would want to know of where the city's blood banks are, what any tireless sleeper would want to know of the bus routes that criss-cross the metropolis, promising always of something greater, more magnificent, more awe-inspiring - like this simple ride, next to a young man who looks old, tired from his day, who sits slumped in his seat, and I'm dreading the fact that, any second now, his head will fall onto my shoulder, and I still don't know how I'll react when that happens.

But I have my window. And my window has me. My window has memories for me. Of so many other bus rides in another city, where I sat there with a girl dozing next to me, her shoulders also slumped, her head tilted slightly back, resting on my torso, and my arms around her, holding her close so that she doesn't fall, so that she doesn't wake, and I am content merely to watch out of the window, at the waves in the distance, rolling by under the watchful blue moon, making little rustling noises as they kiss the shore, that I can hear even above the solitary roar of the bus, as it rambles its way through the dead of night, through the dead of the countryside.

Another time, another city, no other person next to me. I watch the clouds gather in battle formation overhead, grey and black and silver and blue and a strange shade of ochre, and I message the person I'm thinking of... I wish you were here, I punch in my cell phone, I wish you were here with me, and we were out in the rain, I wish I could kiss you, and then we could make love... as the imagined rain softly patters on the grass outside the bungalow. I wait for an answer to my message, that never comes.

What does come is another emaciated-looking young man, in the trademark white pinstriped synthetic shirt that sticks to his body, replete with the odor of a long day's tediousness. He's chanting those same lines again, about blood banks, and bus routes, and shopping malls, and old historic buildings in this old historic city - all of which can be purchased from him at the behest of a crumpled piece of paper bearing a bald old man's face on it - and I smile almost in mean spite to myself. You're too late, I want to tell him, the other one has already come and gone, you're just too late - and I'm mean, yes, but I melt too at the thought, and I wonder what it is he will do now, after his brilliant oratory is over, and he has finished passing his little books around, but they all come back to him, with nary a crumpled piece of currency?

Maybe he'll sigh, like I did, and hop off the bus, and try his luck in another one - 53A, from Uttam Nagar to Lal Qila, green and white and grey, DTC, Propelled by Clean Fuel, say the painted blue letters.

Damn! I ripped my pants on a nail, as I hurried to my feet.

I think this is my stop.

The question

2004-10-30T15:33:00.000+05:30

The question

Consider this, she said, leaning over the table, a smile curled around her lips as she did so, consider all this around us, and tell me that you wouldn't trade all of it for just a few seconds of bliss?

He was leaning back on the velvet of the iron grilled chair, as he observed her. He wasn't quite sure what to make of her, when she said that, and then settled back into her seat, re-arranged an imaginary stray strand of hair behind her left ear, and looked back at him. She was playing, he was sure, but how serious was her game he could not tell. If he answered yes, then would she take his hand and then repair outside in the balcony, or maybe to his car, where she would let him kiss her? If he answered no, would she marvel at his control, and then forego the kiss in the balcony for a nightcap - and more - when he dropped her home that night?

The question was: which one did he want more?

The question was: how ambitious was he?

***

She waited for his reply, all the while feeling the satin coverlet brush smoothly against her back. There was a strand of hair she brushed behind her left ear, but that did not distract her from the objective she had. It was him, she knew, he... he... he was the one, she knew beyond a doubt. But would he answer yes, and then she would lazily flick her cigarette ash in the ash tray, pretending to be unconcerned, all the while trembling like a leaf inside, wondering how his tongue would probe her soul later...? Or would he answer no, and she would sigh inwardly, but feel strangely secure, that he was not ready as yet (though he was very much the one), and she would re-assume her role as protector, priestess, mystery, ice all at once?

The question was: how weak was she really?

The question was: which role was her forte?

faith, sorry, Faith

2004-10-30T15:26:00.000+05:30

faith, sorry, Faith

Grab a piece of the rainbow, the old lady with the gold tooth said, as she shuffled up the stairs to the church. Absurd, of course, as there had been no rain for the last week or so, Nashik was water-starved, and a rainbow was beyond reckoning. But she was adamant, as she got down on her haunches now, and clasped her hands together. She was speaking to the statue of the Infant Jesus at the far end of the church, hoisted up above the altar, a perfect imitation of a miniscule Bal Gopala. This was the heart of Maharashtra, in a town that titles itself the City of Pilgrimage, with a board proclaiming the same pinned on the wall outside the Taj Residency hotel, that in turn announces to all and sundry that they are welcome to the industrial heartland of Maratha-land. Mixed signals, perhaps? But that was altogether beyond me, as I spied the old woman, wrapped in brown, with a scarf the deep dark shade of ebony atop her head, and her spectacle frame glinting a glassy ochre, as she now started moving towards the statue of the Infant Jesus, on her knees.

Maybe I was imagining it, maybe she wasn't really saying 'Praise the Lord' as she moved on her knees, maybe I had imagined her advising onlookers to capture rainbows in mid-flight as well. Maybe it was all part and parcel of the age-old gag about perceptions moulding and deciding how you see (and hear, doubtless) things. Ho hum... Bal Gopala, or Infant Jesus, or Bala Yeusha, as the old Marathi man at the corner put it.

She was moving now, and at a pace incredibly faster than I could have imagined anybody her age doing, but then I could see another man buying candles (a whole dozen of them) at the corner shop, which he was going to set up below the altar, and there I was, myself, hunched up on one of those smooth rosewood benches, sitting forward, watching the old brown woman, the tall candle man, watching the frescoes on the wall that depicted the crucification of Christ, and I remember thinking - wasn't this a bit too gory for a church dedicated to the infant Jesus, all these gory scenes of crucifcation? And I wondered, too, whether it was sacriligeous of me to recall the astonishing charges set forward by Dan Brown in his Da Vinci Code, while among the pews of a gleaming church - but shall I ever be able to think of Christianity in the same light again, without thinking of Da Vinci and Dan Brown, and the rest of the rigmarole? But enough said, and not enough done. Isn't it time I got along with my prayer?

So I say my prayer then, and I arise from my rosewood pew, and I walk toward the door. The brown woman is trundling through the pages of the fat bible placed beside the altar, her crawling is over, and I can distinctly hear her say things about where rainbows can be found if you look hard enough for them. The candle man is gone now, but as I leave the church, I can see his dozen candles all set up in a line, twelve equal brothers, flames licking, flickering in the semi-dark below the altar.

Bal Gopala, or Infant Jesus, or Bala Yeusha, as the old Marathi man at the corner put it. Maybe it's all a matter of faith, sorry, Faith.

The Eternal Moment

2004-10-30T14:16:00.000+05:30

The Eternal Moment

I'm nervous. I've probably never been this nervous before in my life, and but for the type of person I am, I would never (ever!) admit that to anybody but myself. Actually, barely even to myself - I'm sitting here, looking straight ahead, a dazzling smile on my face and nary a bead of perspiration atop my forehead, that isn't lined with a single furrow. So, if you were somewhere other than where you are, if you had anything open before you other than the window to my soul, you'd never be able to tell my nervousness.

She smiles.

My heart stops.

But I keep on smiling, even as my mind spirals back at a pace faster than lightning to that first moment I spied the glitter of that particular diamond underneath the glass. That particular ring in that particular velvet case that she's handling right now before me. I can see that moment clearly as if it had lasted only seconds ago. All that planning and all that fussing. All that debating and wondering as to what she would say or do. And then, I walked out through the glass doors, my pockets weighed down, my head turned this way and that, and a tiny voice, the kind you hear about in fairy tales, squeaking in my head. The kind that I never knew existed before I laid eyes on her. What was that voice - higher karma... conscience... or just plain dumb-stick talking?

This is another defence mechanism, you see, this inane, nonsensical chatter in my mind. Anything at all to take away the feeling of those wildly careening butterflies within my gut. This is not just any old denial involved here, you know - my infallible ego is at stake! I suppose that sounds pretty petty of me - the love songs never talk of paeans to the Self, do they? They're all about eternal devotion and sacrifice and silly things like that, ignoring the really important issues like costs and jitters and sex. Listening to me, you'd be at odds with yourself - I'm hardly the model case you'd expect to come about, with your preconceptions about the Lover About To Stick His Neck Out. But I'm also a person here who's very obviously conscious of the single fact that he's just pushed his neck inside the crocodile's jaws. I'm waiting, waiting and watching, while the reptile yawns, making up her mind whether or not to drop the guillotine.

All of a sudden, I'm very conscious of the fact that I kept her waiting in front of the cafe last Friday for an hour.

She's lifting the rock up to her eyes.

Is that a jeweller's lenses there, held ever so delicately between manicured fingers?

(And to think: the song I was drumming my fingers to last night in the car was 'Love don't cost a thing'.)

Panicking, panicking!

She loves me, yeah! Yeah! Yeah! Just think that, and you'll be all right. She's been hinting for ages, so you're really just following orders here. There's nothing to be afraid of - she'll smile, wear it, and thank you for it. And yes, if she thanks you for it, that means she'll marry you. (There's never been a case in the annals of rejection where the bitch drops you like a hot rock but prefers to keep the ice instead, is there? Fingers crossed here!) Think positive! No panic! No panic! Cool.

I can see her eyes glitter at the ice. She likes it. I may be inept at reading women's minds, but I can tell obvious pleasure when I see it... She likes it.

Her mouth opens slightly to an 'o' and then purses up. She wants to say something.

She's lifting her head up, her eyes are definitely shining! She definitely likes it! Loves...?

She's going to say something now...

Smile, smile, smile... You're not nervous, not nervous, not nervous...

"It's heavenly!... "