Lusting after life

To her husband, she was Aabha. She was the only spot of balance in his volatile life. Him with his long hair, tied back with a rubber band that always pulled out hair. I have heard him screech at her, for not helping him out untangling. She stood laughing at him, while she poured out coffee for me. Extra sweet, and light. Just the way she hated it. Just the way I wanted it. 


He left her for months, but she always knew when he would be back. She re-painted their room, got a new haircut, threw out her running shoes, and waited for him. He came, and then he stayed. I have seen them together. And I could never call what they shared, love. At least, I was not prepared to do so. The last time I saw her, she had a cut lip, from a saucer her had flung at her. I had jumped up in indignation, rolling up my fists in anger, but then he came into the room; his face, well and truly scratched. She showed me her new nail paints. 


Once I walked in on them doing it. I hate to call it making love. He laughed at my embarrassment, threw his large shirt over her, and reached out for a smoke. I've heard her singing to him while she cooked, and he painted. I meant to hunt for those songs and learn to sing them, but I think they were just their songs. It was a world they knew, and I wasn't a part of it.




To Mukul, she was Neeyati. I don't know where they met, I believe it was at one of her husband's exhibitions. Mukul was a boy. Why, he must have been at least seven years younger than her, and he looked fifteen years younger. She took him with her on her library visits, and he got her second hand books which had inscriptions on them. She told me once that she had taught him to kiss. And that she was quite sure she was a good teacher. Would I know anyone who might be interested in him? The poor boy is too shy to find one on his own!


Neeyati was Mukul's idol. He got her flowers, though I'd told him that she was not one for clichéd daintities. I scoffed when he spent his monthly stipend of 3000 rupees on some fancy flower arrangement he'd seen somewhere. I told him to take it in his stride if he found the flowers waiting for him in the wastebasket the next time he saw her. I ate the flowers. When they wilted and shriveled, and decayed and blackened and stunk. I would have earlier, if she hadn't kept it in her room, on a new stool she got especially for it. 


She came to see me once, wearing his shirt and giggling like a teenager. I closed the door on her face, and din't open even when she screamed abuses I had read in books, and knew she was capable of, but hadn't heard it ever. I called up the watchman to take her away, she was crazy. She threw her shoe into my window. It broke my mirror. And I fumed.


When Mukul told her that he had to leave, his scholarship papers had come through and though he hated to leave, he had to. She wont forget him would she? She smashed the porcelain girl-boy ugly figurine he gave her as a "will miss you!" gift and spent a whole week drinking. I know. I was drinking with her.


To me, she was not Neeyati, not Aabha. She was something more, but what, I cant say. She hasn't told me what she is to me, or what I am to her. And if she hasn't put it into words, then there might not be any name for it. She was my yin, and I was yang. No we weren't the Chinese opposites. I just picked the name because every time she mumbled in her sleep, she went yiiiinnnn ymmmmm nyyyy yeeeee. 




Mukul dint know that Neeyati was Aabha. Her husband thought she was Aabha. I knew she was neither. I have seen her cry with rage, pull out each and every photo of her husband's, and burnt it to ashes. I have seen her run from studio to studio, retrieving the same, framing it and placing it on the wall for him to see when he came back to her. I have seen her wince when I touched her, laugh when I tickled her tummy, sleep with her specs tangled in her curls. I have seen her make omelette, and eat it with her hands. I used to lick her fingers clean. 


I have seen my yin read five books a day, seen her write for three nights straight, got slapped for walking on to her taking a bath, been teased for getting drunk on beer, shouted at for mimicking her. I have seen her looking lost, and shrug it away when I asked her the reason. I have had her wrapped around me at nights, the smell of medimix and coconut oil on her. 


I've been the jealous lover, (was I her lover?) I've asked her to leave her husband and come to me, and like always, after a fight, she walked away, only to come back later, with something new she'd written. And me the fool, read it, hugged her close and kissed her. Having her next to me was all that I cared. To hell with Aabha and Neeyati. She chopped of her hair once and gifted it to me. I painted her shaved head with tomato ketchup. 


I am leaving I told her. She was driving me crazy. It was not healthy I told her, for me to wait for her always, and for her to run away from one man to be with another. She did not say a word, kissed me hard closed the door softly and left.


Damn it! She kisses so well...

The silences in between

“I’ll just be back.”

She stopped midway into her packing, grabbed a duppatta and rushed out. Her roommate had hardly enough time to react.

She came to room A-4 and stared at the door. Two hand prints stared back at her. One blue, big and sprawling, and another orange, a little smaller and a little distorted. The two thumbs overlapped each other. She hesitated and then knocked.

“yaaaa”

She knocked again

“Come in...it’s not locked.”

She pushed the door a little and slid inside. He was lying tummy down on his bed, his head hanging out and was reading The Hindu. A mug of coffee stood beside, and what remained of a pack of Hide-and-Seek biscuits. She stood there looking at him. He was reading the sports section and dint look up. When she dint speak, he looked up.

His hair had grown longer, and brown-er. He’d changed his specs. The frame was thicker now, and she noticed, the glasses too. He was growing a beard, and as usual, the two tiny places at the crook of his lower lips were uncovered with hair.

“They just don’t grow there. It is irritating. I can’t have a decent enough bulgan”

She remembered a conversation with him earlier. She was sipping coffee in his room and he was examining his new goatee.

“you know, I saw an old Malayalam movie yesterday where there is a boy who applies karadi neyyu to grow moustache. Do you think it works? Is it even available?”

“I’ve heard that it works.” She grinned.

“sigh. But knowing me, it would probably take the rest of the hair on my face away. I’ll just grow my moustache longer. It might just cover the stupid hollow”

“Abdu told me he saw you around yesterday near Sagar.”

His voice took her back to the present.

“I had to meet ma’am”

“You submitting your thesis?”

“Nope. Haven’t been working much. Wanted to get out of home. And had things to take back....”

“hmmm...sit down. Don’t stand. The chair is clean enough. Just shift the newspapers.”

She heaved about 30 newspapers and wondered where to put them. While she was contemplating the bed he jumped up.

“Here, give me”

He took them from hers, and pushed them over on to his cupboard. Something else fell through the crack between the cupboard and the wall, and by the sound of it, broke.

He turned around to face her. And grinned a little sheepishly.

“I have no clue what that was”

“Do you never clean up? Unless I am here?”

She remembered asking him once, folding his shirt.

“Well I do. I clean the table when I want to paint. I clean my bed to sleep. But I like the floor better. And yeah the cupboard. I have 3 decent shirts and 1 decent pair of jeans. I keep it folded. Yes folded means folded and not opened. Your method of folding is too complicated, serves no purpose. Those are wrinkle free shirts anyway.

And yeah. The rest of my cupboard holds paint brushes and paint, and paper and books. They are clean.

My desk holds books. I read them. So they are neat. That corner table is where I work. But as I hardly ever do that. So it is ahem..a little dusty.

The maid sweeps the floor every day. So I sleep on a clean floor.

So you see, am basically a clean person.”

He stared back defiantly. And she laughed.

“You have beautiful hair.” He’d said.

“It’s a little messy”. He said. Hunting about behind the cupboard to see what it was that broke.

“Ah! Forget it.,” he said giving it up and seated himself on the bed.

“You look good” he told her.

Normally she would have retorted with “one of us has to” but today she just smiled back. “Thank you,” she said.

“hmmmm”

She looked at the calendar flapping about near the window. He’d furiously marked almost all the dates. She tried reading it from the chair.

He saw her looking at it and said “random things. Calendar makes up for a diary”.

“hmmmm”

“I got new specs.”

“I noticed.”

“hmmmmm”

“hmmmmm”

“I guess I’ll leave then. Your coffee is cold.”

“It is. Meant to be that. I usually have it like that now, like...” he left it at that.

“I like cold coffee more than hot ones. She had told him. One heaped teaspoon of Bru coffee. 1 tablespoon of cocoa powder. 1 ½  teaspoon sugar, 1 mug of milk. Heavenly.”

“hmmmmm....”

“.....hmmmmm”

“My flight is at 7. Its 3. Have called taxi.”

“...hmmmm. I’ve been accepted at Notre Dame. Will leave in October....meant to mail etc..but....hmmmm...... “

“oh. Congrats....”

“thanks”

“bye”

“yeah”

the day...

I wished to have a moment of peace in my home. But that I think is the least I could hope for tonight. There's music blaring from the speakers. The sound of people talking to each other at the top of the voice came from all possible places-inside, outside, the living room, kitchen, bedrooms...everywhere. The phone kept ringing...and no one seemed to pick it up...

I am sitting in my bedroom. There are people all around me. Aunties, grandmothers, babies, little imps of kids...everyone. I want a little peace, a room of my own. But of course am not allowed that. I have to smile, and exchange pleasantries with the million faces that present themselves before me. I cringe inside and keep smiling and nodding my head to the aunty who keeps rambling about my childhood antics to anyone who'd listen. In between wanting a little silence, and trying to ignore the pain in my cheeks from excessive smiling, i wonder how this 'aunty' knows so much about my childhood, when I don’t seem to remember seeing her at all.

My sister, the ever welcome whiff of fresh air comes in and declares. "Amma says Chechi has to sleep early. The function begins early tomorrow". A sudden outburst of "is it time already?", "Look at the time", "poor girl, she must sleep. Dark circles wont do tomorrow" was followed by my sister shepherding the twenty or so people crowded in my room, out to the hall.

I sigh and sit at last in relative silence. The speakers are still blaring.

I open my cupboard to pick out something to wear for the night instead of the heavy Kanjeevaram saree that I am wearing and my eyes fall upon the dozens of velvet boxes sitting on my shelves. Slowly I pull each out and lay them open on my bed. Nagaphanam, kaashi maala, poothaali, palakka mothiram, pearl and ruby, garnet necklaces... and other boxes full of bangles. Some new, some old, yet polished so that they defeat the new ones in their brightness...

I looked at the red Kanjeevaram silk saree that I was supposed to wear tomorrow.

I had longed so long for this day. This hullabaloo happening in my home, the guests, the noise, the colour of the mehendi, now deep on my palm. I had seen myself adorned and bejeweled, looking happy and content beside the man of my dreams. This had mattered so much to me...the wedding, the preparations, the dressing up, the invitations, the fragrance of jasmine flowers, and the scent of the incense sticks, everything...

And yet, today when I should have had genuine smiles on my face, instead of the plastered one, when I should be delighted at how dark my mehendi has come out, all I feel is numbness, a vague fear at the back of my mind, a wild desire to run away...

Tomorrow is my wedding. With the man I love with all my being. I should have been happy….but am not…

in darkness and in light

I opened my eyes to white. White walls, white sheets, white everywhere. There was a faint beep- beep somewhere in the room. I couldn’t see what it was that made the noise. My eyes struggled to keep open.

Blackness.

There was a little girl running behind her grandfather, clutching a plastic bag behind her. Every time the bag filled up with air, the girl whooped in joy and the grandfather laughed at her, his completely white hair glistening in the sun…

There was that little girl again, rocking her baby sister to sleep, singing like she had seen her mother do. She prised open the baby’s eyes, to see if she had properly slept. The baby slept on, and girl sighed in exasperation! When would she grow up?

My eyes opened again. The vision seemed a little blurred than before. There were dark patches around my eyes. I couldn’t understand why the beeing wouldn’t stop. It was slightly irritating and was adding to the heavy throbbing at the back of my head.

Blackness again.

There was that little girl again. She looked older now. She was sitting with her father, brows knitted together as they when her father clicked his tongue and put his bishop on the black square and said- “check mate!”

Why doesn’t the throbbing stop? It’s getting worse by the minute. And the beeping has become an impatient one now. Beeping faster and louder than before. If I could just get some sleep.

The little girl has grown up. She is lying on her back on the terrace, her mother with her. They enjoy watching the clouds, except that they don’t get much time to do it together. And so this moment is special. The girl lies back in contentment and asks her mother to sing. A soft song fills the air and the girl smiles in abandon.

The white room is not so white anymore. I lift my hands to massage my head, only that I can’t lift them. They feel like rocks. I try moving my fingers- they feel like boulders. I panic. The beeping is getting on my nerves.

The grandmother is making pickles so that the girl can take it with her when she goes back to the hostel. The girl asks her grandmother to teach her to make pickles. Her grandmother explains the art of making pickles in her gentle voice, while the girl looks on fascinated.

I see people all around me. Curiously, all the people are white too. Only their eyes are black. Even their hair is white. I wonder why. I realise they are all wearing bandanas. But I’ve never seen men wear bandanas before. I try to recollect if I’ve seen men wearing bandanas before. But thinking makes my head pound harder still. I want to scream. But I find I cant. I am wearing some kind of a mask over my mouth. There are tubes poking my nostrils. Now this is ridiculous. I don’t know why I am dressed in this peculiar fashion. I am angry, but I find I don’t have the energy to even be angry.

There is a boy waving to the girl. His dimples wink at her as he smiles. She runs into his arms and hugs him tight. They walk together along the beach, hand in hand, the girl jumping in glee whenever the waves tickled her feet. He holds her by the waist and pulls her closer to him and kisses her on her soft lips. The sun sets behind them, giving them their moment of togetherness

I now feel a shooting pain down my legs. There are tubes there too. The number of people seems to have increased. I black out.

It’s the girl’s wedding. She is standing with the boy, smiling and laughing. Sometimes her husband gently brushes his fingers over hers. She blushes while he grins wickedly.

There is a small home with lots of trees around and a small garden. The inside is just how a home should look. Its neat—in a very untidy sort of way. There are photographs all along the wall. Of him, of her, and of him and her. There are books everywhere, papers flying about. A coffee mug stands alone on the table near the couch. The boy and girl are sleeping on the couch, cuddled together in sleep.

The girl is running around packing her bags. Her husband keeps dumping things in the bag and she takes them out again, and puts it the way she wants it to. They jump into the car finally. She is laughing away to glory in the way she always does. The boy laughs and leans over to stop her laughter by kissing her full on her mouth.

The white walls stare back at me. I am drenched in sweat. I feel myself being transferred to a bed, which is rolled down a long corridor. I want to cry.

I remember the crash. The way the truck hit our car. The way both of us was thrown off. I remember him trying to reach for my hand. I remember someone lifting me into a van. I remember not seeing him beside me. I remember the doctor telling the nurse about how he could not be saved. I remember hearing someone tell someone else as to how difficult my condition was, and how they were trying hard to keep me alive.

I don’t want to live…not like this. When I know the best part of me will not be with me anymore. Why don’t these people in white understand…I don’t want to live. You are all fighting a losing battle to keep me alive.

My eyes cant see anymore. But I see the little girl running. I see her growing up into a woman. I see her long hair flying in the wind. I hear the sound of her laughter. I see the boy waiting for her…his arms stretched wide….

I know you’ll be waiting for me outside this world. Am coming to you my love, my life here was perfect because of you and the love we shared. And so am coming to you, to be loved by you—once again.

My eyes close—coloured darkness.