Love And I

I don't particularly like Bollywood movies. Still, I have grown up watching them. I have often wondered why all of them revolve around a love-story and why half of those love-story reach their climax on railway-stations or airports. What is so special about a train whistling away or an announcement of the departure of a flight? I always believed that there was something special in every cliche but my mind could never fathom the reasons behind this strange liking for airports (or railway stations).

Even before railways came into existence, love had become the favorite cliche of all artists. At the age of 17 or 18, I fashioned myself as The love-poet on Orkut forums. People often commented that I have endless topics related to love to write about and I knew that they really questioned my ability to write about anything else. I wasn't offended by that question. I will tell you a secret. I think they were right. It wasn't a handicap to my limited writing talents, it was an inspiration. Love and the pain it had brought in my life. Love and the other word it had added to my silence: rejection.

I had a score to settle with love. Love, that was always present in my poems and conspicuously absent from my life. On that bronze colored afternoon, she was talking about love and I was sitting near the stairs, listening to her. She told me, her casual voice belying the seriousness in her light brown eyes, that she didn't want to find love, she wanted love to find her, she couldn't take the risk of "rejection". She wanted the perfect love. I wasn't listening to her after that. I was just looking into her eyes and they didn't shy away. She was one of the few friends I had in my new college. I knew the language her eyes were speaking. I thought of my own little tussle with love. Love finds its strength in its ability to catch you weak on your knees. I had a plan. To rob love off the surprises, the sweet tickles, the flush of emotions it can cause. I loved her like I woke up every morning, like I breathed, like I went through the daily chores of my day. I gave her love that she deserved; that I had also deserved... I had decoded the secret of love. I had made it a deliberate indulgence and a conscious decision. Commitment needs an honest will, not a malfunctioning heart.

I know she would never like what I did. But she could never know. She is happy. For three years, I have been trying to make (not "keep") her happy, every day. I tried, not with the blind faith of a sufi-devotee, but with the consistency of an honest bank-clerk. I mingled my love with thousands small  insignificant moments. I failed too, at times, but, only briefly. I made sure every night to say everything she wanted to hear before she went to sleep. It worked for us.

And then the time came for the college days to be folded neatly and to be hidden in the photo albums and telephone directories. I told her not to be sad, that the distances don't matter, that we would stay "in touch" and that we would meet (for the perfect ending). She kept fearing, she cried often and time kept slipping between our fingers. It was time for "the" good bye. I hugged her tightly. I stood smiling as she went into the airport. She looked back from across the glass. My voice couldn't reach her. I touched the wall of glass between us but I couldn't hold her hands. My mind had gone blank. My calculations were blowing in some unknown storm. I could hardly breathe. And then she disappeared to collect her boarding passes, to catch her flight. And I sat down on the sidewalk. I cried silently and love smiled. Now I know, all the while, love had a plan too. To make every insignificant moment of my life wholesome, magical and love-like. And what better place than an airport for me to end this war and accept my defeat happily.

(c) Ankur Srivastava

Merchant of Dreams

Photo: courtesy Kirti.

PART 1

It was that time of the day when people came back from offices, tea shops became abuzz with discussions and women rushed back to their kitchens after what had initially started as an afternoon gossip. The hard sun had wilted in its own heat and fallen in the dust which was in the air, on the street and in the silent sobs of one more ordinary day coming to its jinxed end under the scrutiny of large street lamps. In the old park of the neighborhood, last ball of the last cricket match had been bowled; the kids, covered in sweat and mud, though were still debating over something. A group of elderly men was going back to their homes after their evening walk. A young girl on the footsteps of teenage was sitting on an old wooden bench and still blushing about something that happened in school that day. A man, not older than 40 but certainly not too young either, caught their attention. He stood near the entrance of the park, smiling at passers by. There was something ridiculous about him, something that was intriguing and fascinating too... Something other than his dark red jacket with large metallic, golden colored buttons. Something other than his thin and dramatic mustache. It was the serenity in his eyes, the grace with which he held up his hands to greet everyone, the all-knowing smile he flashed.

They waited for him to say something. There was soon a little gathering outside the park. Men and women, young and old, and a few kids looked at him with intrigue. After he was convinced with the size of the audience, he started his speech. His voice was child-like but sounded convincing, "Good evening my beautiful people! I once lived in this very neighborhood when I was a little boy. When the grass of the park was greener and the flowers smelled sweeter, I played here too. You must be curious where I had been all these years.. Why haven't you seen me? In my childhood I was an ordinary boy, like the ones you see everyday on the bus-stops, traffic lights and side-walks. Do you remember their faces? No! And so you have forgotten me too. My name is Salesman. I am here to sell you something."

A man in suit-coat and trousers wanted to turn away and go but he saw that the Salesman was looking straight in his eyes. Instead of going, he asked the Salesman,"What do you want from us?". The Salesman replied with a sigh," I don't want anything. I am here to offer you something. But since my experiences with this world tell me that for something to be worth having, it must cost something to own it so I want to sell you something." A bespectacled young lady in her neatly pressed shirt and trousers interrupted him," Look, we don't want anything and you have no bags or catalogs either...". The Salesman turned back sharply and climbed on a small rock near the park. He raised both his arms and cleared his throat," In the times of insurances and money-back guarantees, all I have to offer you is a dream. A dream that you have lost, a dream that you need. A dream that you have ignored, a dream you have once talked about and cried upon. A dream you can't refuse. Do you want to buy your dream? I am here not for you but for the dream."

To be continued...

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PART 2

An old boy in his twenties sat in the grimmest layer of the darkness and quietly allowed himself to do the unforgivable sin of being weak and cried. Nobody saw him crying but we all knew. He was left stranded in the race of everything. He had been dreaming for a little too long and now he was left in the cold silence of being oh-so-alone with his dreams. He wanted to buy death but he had nothing to buy it with. Life is cheap but death?
He had nothing except a fragile hope in an unvisited corner of his mind. He knew what had to be done. That very day which has been now erased from our memories, he sold the little hope he had and bought a small slice of death.

End of part 2.

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PART 1 continued...

The crowd looked bemused. A man whose eyes looked as dull as the muddy waters of a drying local river asked the Salesman,"What is the price of my dream? How can I buy it? And how do I know that you aren't fooling me?"
The Salesman, now looking like a monk dressed as clown, closed his eyes and spoke out,"You have to trust me here because I have been in your shoes. I have sold my dreams to buy me tired days and sad evenings like this. I have bought them back when I could, to light up my nights. You have to pay a dear price too." He thought for a second and then paused  so as to hold the secret, the price.
The crowd, tired of this game now and reluctant after guessing what the price might be, asked in a hush, "What's the price anyway?" The salesman, now looking like a boy who has just got a new gift, said,"The price is hefty as it should be. You have to give something you have held so close to your heart for all your life. You have to give me your greatest fear....

The crowd dissolved, knowing too well that he was trying to  trick them. There had to be some conspiracy in it. It was late too and dinner had to be made, works had to be done. What a waste of their precious time?

But a man stood there, thinking. The same man whose eyes looked as dull as the muddy waters of a drying local river. He asked silently, "How does it work? You are talking as if there is some.....". The Salesman smiled and completed his question,"..... as if there is some MAGIC? " The man nodded his head,"Yes, how do I trust you?" The Salesman said,"There is a Magic. You have been seeing magic all you life but you have never believed it. You have dismissed it as a trick. You have been wrong. You can trust me... For one, the shine in your eyes is back...

(c) Ankur Srivastava

Dream

Dream...

Through the open window beside my bed, pain comes in quietly on measured steps in moonlight. It touches me in my slumber and my heart is lost in a dream; a dream I have seen many times and have often forgotten in the morning. Rightly so, because the mornings never had a clue. Only the nights had seen me pacing on the terrace of my hostel and stealing a glance at her every time she buried her face in the book, every time her dark tresses fell over her face, and looking away just as she looked up and tucked them back cutely behind her ears.

My student days in New Delhi showed me a view of life that I had never seen in my home town; the way life ran with frenetic speed on the smoothest and busiest roads and I waited endlessly for it under the shed on the sidewalk. I remember losing my footing in the crowd and the fear in my heart that I will be run over. I remember coming back to my cheap, lonely room. I kept tuning and retuning to my favorite radio stations so as to find a familiar voice, a familiar name that I could listen to every day, even if only on a radio. Those were not the days for a romantic dream. And then I found her in the quiet and dusky subway under this road on which life ran. I walked behind her slowly with unhurried steps in my slumber and I lost her just as I reached the other side of the road.

She lived in one of the flats in the building opposite to my hostel. She was perhaps a little older than me. I first saw her when I had come to my terrace in the night to escape the mugginess of my claustrophobic room. She was studying with her friend. In a few days, I discovered she used to study there every night until dawn. I knew her name one day as one of her friends called out for her, "Anjali". I gave the name to my nights, "Anjali". I never stared or smiled at her. I just used to steal a discreet glance every now and then. Her face might not have been the prettiest, but her eyes had a calmness that gently stroked my heart into a sweet rhythm. She smiled rarely but whenever she did, time used to freeze around her; and in that moment when time remained blind I used to smile too, cheating all my pains and fears. I never felt any need to talk to her.

One night, she acknowledged my presence. While I was busy listening to the radio, I felt her gaze tenderly roam around me before settling on my face with love. I turned slowly and for the tiniest fraction of time, our eyes met and shied away leaving a ruby bliss on her pale cheeks and a sweet pain in me. Since that moment, love paced restlessly on that terrace every night, hand in hand with me, aching for her gaze to stretch its tender fingers again. But the distance that separated her world and mine, the silence that floated in the breeze that come to me from her terrace remained. I never tried to transcend it. I let the dream remain a dream for it was so perfect.

Like a day always comes when a little paper boat delightfully floating in muddy pools of sweet rain water has to be lost, that day also came. It was evening and as if in harmony with the moment, the sun was melting into darkness, in the background. She stood on the terrace and looked around, her hands rested on the railings. Her eyes traveled the emptiness of an infinite sky that was losing itself in the arms of dusk. Then she looked at me, I could not have missed as she blinked, a window of dreams opened and closed in her eyes, her lips twitched a little, trembled and love glittered brightly in my faint smile. Perhaps, the longing of the moment could have transformed itself into a few sweet words by its own, if that moment would have lingered a little longer. But... her friend called for her, "Anjali, the taxi is waiting." She went away, forever into the memory lane and she left her address somewhere that could only be reached in my dreams.

Yesterday, those dreams, those nights, the love and the longing broke away the shackles of years and stormed into my office in broad day light. She was sitting across my desk. Her hair were now pulled back and not a single strand fell over her face. Her eyes were a little nervous. I might not have recognized her at all but her old, familiar face smiled at me from her job application that was in my hand. And the first column read the name I had given to my nights, "Anjali". I can't recall how the interview went, my mind only remembers the last question that I put across her nervously, "Do you remember me?". And I continued without waiting for her answer, nervous, without even trying to hide it,"I lived in that hostel, opposite to your apartment in Delhi, 2004?" She shrugged and then smiled,"Ah...hmmm..yes sir, I do. I was doing my masters there.....". As she continued ahead about Delhi and her course, my eyes looked in her eyes, searching. I don't remember what happened next....

Those eyes were stranger's.

I wake up, jolted, tonight, just as I see her dream again. I try to remember where did it go so wrong.

The dream was so perfect!

(c) Ankur Srivastava

Canvas

Slowly, Suvesh gets up from his bed and stealthily walks out of the room. The clock strikes 3 in the morning, it’s still dark. He walks out to breathe in the open air. He shuts his eyes for a moment and his entire life flashes before him. It was not meant to be like this, he shakes his head but there is no escape from that terrible feeling.

Reema pretends to sleep, like every night. She feels unnerved to ask him any questions now. It’s not that things were any better before but now the damage seems to be irreparable. She lets out a heavy sigh as she watches her husband go for his daily walk… in the middle of the night! She feels she is quietly letting him slip into the dark but she can’t help it, can she?

Suvesh left college with just one dream, the only dream he saw ever since he first held a pencil- to leave an impression on the beautiful white canvas of life. It has been a year since his last painting was rejected by the galleries. He remembers when his first painting was displayed, nine years ago when he was 22. It had gone unsold, like his next seven paintings. He sees the portrait of a sad and ugly painter who lived in the illusion of a dream. Terrified, he scraps off this image and tries to splash some new colors but colors are fading now. They can no longer hide the face of the ugly painter.

He still paints, for a living, making posters for a local theater. Most of the times, he is asked to draw the same images, a tempestuous girl with playful eyes. Sometimes, he mixes a little pain with the colors as he paints the curve of her smile. He hides a little anger at the corner of her lips. Often he draws thin lines of worry on her forehead or merges her blush with a light of hope. He chuckles at the fact that no one has noticed, and you can feel the heart breaking pain in the humor. (No one has noticed!)

Reema tries to close her eyes… to life and Suvesh… to sleep. But sleep has evaded her … like smiles and joy… and love? She decides to follow him, instinctively or out of love, she knows she has to. She had known it that day, when she left his father's home to be with him. He wasn’t ready to let her come with him but she had sneaked into his life. And today she has to follow him again.

Reema walks out of the door into the sidewalk but Suvesh is no where. “How far could he have gone?” Indeed, how far could he go? She sees a dim light coming from the guard room. It is strange as there has never been a guard for the apartment. She peeps through the tiny gap between the doors.

Suvesh is standing in front of a huge canvas. The sky is murky. Its darkness is terrifying; layers of black merge into each other and dry like a clot. Shades of gray hint a storm that had died in its stride. Stars have lost their shine; they remain helplessly suspended in the mist; hanged in the darkness. Moon is alone, robbed off its beauty. Its flaws are obvious and grim. Its sadness is like the pain of a yesteryear's heart-throb who is now old, ugly and undesirable. The earth is a huge mass of ice; cold and frozen. Still, a little green twig has grown, staunchly, from its infertile womb. It's fragile but unperturbed by the torture it has undergone, the effort it has made to break the layers of silence and coldness. It wears the green of the brightest dreams, ecstatic joys and undying hopes. It is so unreal and yet when you look at it, you feel that it is meant to be. The painting is a mosaic of sorrow and hope. 

Unaware of Reema’s presence, Suvesh tries bit by bit to perfect the painting, adding colors, layers by layer. His brush strokes not only the canvas but also his heart; soothes and heals it. His heart and soul are, for a moment, in harmony with the freshness of the green twig. 

The painting isn’t an expression of the painter; it is his escape from everything he has been.

 Reema smiles. 

(c) Ankur Srivastava

My Last Letter

I can never forget that day, 27th January, 2005. Sitting on that bench outside the hospital room, I could helplessly see you fighting between life and death. But what really broke my heart was the fact that you were fighting for death. An attempt to commit suicide at the age of 16! It was scary for me. I sat there, shocked, with not a single word to offer... You had lost your mother, a pain only you could understand, perhaps you had every right to say goodbye to this life which has been so brutal to you.
We were just friends then, classmates, but secretly I always liked you. The first spring of my teenage, the first honey drenched dream of my life! I always thought of you as an angel I could only dream of.

Through your illness we grew closer. You objected my staying with you for long hours in that hospital room, but I refused to leave you alone. Lectures and notes became our excuses of staying together. We had no romantic beginning to our love. When I first held your hand, it was feeble and pale, when we first looked into each other's eyes, your eyes were shattered and frozen.

Your room was always gloomy, and I hated the darkness reflecting on your face; I remember opening that window when you first shouted at me, when I first made you cry. The harsh sunlight flushed your eyes, too hard for you; I had opened the wrong window. I understood that day that to take care of you I had to grow up, soon.

I learned to stay quiet, to listen to you, to just sit beside you, to let you feel your pain. It was the only way you could come out of it.
Things changed, slowly you were coming back to life.... My diary has got every detail, of not only our first kiss, but also our first trivial talks and pjs, your first smile and giggles.
It was dream coming true for me, you said you were in love with me. We made promises of staying together forever. Ah, that was a life I would miss for an entire lifetime!

Slowly, you have grown out of me. You have rediscovered yourself, and I have become just a reminder of your depressing days. I can see the change in you. When you date those spoiled punks, I am left with no right to even complain. You call it my "possessiveness"; but ain't I supposed to feel protective for you.

Perhaps, you want me to leave you, so I quit today. I once held the paintbrush to paint a perfect life for you, but you have decided not to have me in the picture; therefore I am handing over your brush to you. Paint it in your way.

You are happy today and I would have loved to say that I am happy too. But sadly, I am not; I miss the days when you were depressed and lonely and you had no one but me. Ah, it sounds bad, I am sorry.

copyright (c) Ankur Srivastava