Why cant people accept that others can be happy outside their brand of happiness?
Wednesday, October 10, 2012
Wednesday, October 3, 2012
Wednesday, May 9, 2012
Turn-Table
Disclaimer: Resemblance to any character living, dead or half-dead is purely coincidental: Or the fruit of my phenomenal powers of clairevoyance.
"Please don't tell May I asked about her"...he said somewhat hesitantly - almost as an afterthought - as the three of us sat finishing our coffee, waiting for the bill.
"No, of course not", I reassured, my voice sounding forced to my own ears. Ranja and I exchanged quick glances in understanding of the secret pact just made. This was the first time that Ranja and Bobo were meeting, both having fair ideas about each other from how much I'd told them!
We got out and took a cab. The three of us were headed in the same direction. But Ranja had to be dropped off first. She got in first and I squeezed in beside her, gesturing Bobo to hop in next.
"I'll sit in front", he quipped and settled beside the cabbie, lighting his cigarette. It felt strange. The seat next to the cabbie's had always been MY place for all of the past twelve years.
We dropped Ranja off. Bobo said he really liked her: Which was saying a lot, considering he had always - without fail -written off all the ladies I had even remotely been interested in, citing reasons of disapproval that were frankly beyond my comprehension. Always. Bobo got dropped off a little ahead of his home; he had to buy cigarettes, he said. He forced a hundred rupee note in my hand, and gave it a tight squeeze, before turning to walk away down the narrow dimlit alley, where we once played cricket. About eighteen years ago.
Yes, eighteen long ears had passed since Bobo and I first met. I used to be this geeky gawky kid with thick-framed glasses, that made it uncomfortable for me to play for as long as I would have liked to. Needless to say, I wasn't a favourite in the group. But Bobo and I - as different as chalk and cheese - bonded nevertheless. Over books - Phantom comics, Tintin, Asterix, Saradindu, Satyajit Ray, Tenida; music - Suman, Anjan Dutta, Michael Jackson, AIR Radio, Phil Collins, Pink Floyd, Genesis, Coldplay; over the same tuition classes, over porn, over years of Durga Puja, piles of photocopied notes, boxes of borrowed cassettes, and of course, girls.
Girls became an integral part of our growing up, and we spent increasingly longer hours sharing stories of heartbreak on the terrace, even as we puffed away on the surreptitiously stolen cigarette or two, followed, as de rigeur, by chicklets. On one of these summer evenings, Bobo told me about May.
May? You like May? Truth be told, I found it hard to imagine May as a love-interest for anybody, LEAST of all for Bobo. She'd grown up with us, playing, fighting, cheering, and even smoking with us. So MUCH around us, in fact, that to actually visualise Bobo and her as a mushy couple-in-love wreaked havoc with my senses. May? I asked again! Yes, he laughed indulgently, wiping his glasses with the hem of his kurta. I had no inkling of this affair that had apparently been brewing behind my back for the past three months. May's father did not obviously approve of this romance; after all these were school kids! May had not been allowed to go out alone since the last week, and my poor friend Bobo had been reduced to the very picture of Romeo. What could be done? We plotted and schemed and racked our brains till I suggested they elope. An entire diagram for the elope route was chalked out on the last pages of Bobo's mathematics copy. All that remained to be done was to work on a few minor details. Minor details like how to convey the very idea to May (no cell phones, remember), where to go after eloping, what to do after that, and oh, most importantly, what to do on the 2nd of the next month - the date the Board Exams were slated to begin. Minor details. They would work themselves out, we convinced ourselves. Thoroughly pleased at the ingenuity and brilliance of our efficient and resourceful selves, we went home: Bobo, with the sweet pain that only the uncertainty of first-love can cause; me with a puffed chest and a rock solid resolution to get and keep these two together at all costs. May and Bobo.
Much to our disappointment, however, the episode of the brutal father fizzled out rather undrammatically, giving us no scope to prove our first stints at gallant machismo. May was allowed to go out again, on condition of a very strict curfew time, as her father realised it was pointless using archaic (or any other) methods of blackmail on her. From that point on, the three of us went everywhere. There was, however, a slight difference in our outings henceforth. The two of them would deliberately lag behind as I walked ahead awkwardly alone. They would look at each other and smile silly smiles, as I sat plucking blade after blade of grass, not having the barest inkling of how and why a blaring midday Sun could induce such mush. After two or three embarrassing lessons, I learnt not to turn back to talk to them as they cosied up in the backseat of the taxi. I learnt to join in much much later for our evening addas at the terrace. I learnt to keep secrets - his, hers and theirs. I learnt to invent newer methods of reconciliation, when they fought. I learnt to function as a go-between. I learnt to act as postman. I learnt to lie to the parents - his, hers, mine. I learnt to never take their ritualistic 'break-ups' seriosuly. Gradually, slowly, I learnt to find new friends. Finally, I learnt to leave nest. My room, my home, my parents, my friends, my city, my May-and-Bobo. Funnily enough, however, I never learnt to really 'get' a girl. So even while a whole range of emotions rushed through my mind as I tagged along with these two - anger, betrayal, hurt, envy - I never once had anyone that could be the equal of May for Bobo. Twelve long years - this is how it went, even as we kept in touch across different cities.
When I returned home this time, however, I learnt of a wedding-to-be. May's. Not Bobo's. It had been a while, he said over coffee. It had been two years since May-and-Bobo had become May and Bobo. Two separate people with separate lives and phone numbers, to which I had to call separately to fix up separate appointments. And yes, I had to introduce Ranja to them - separately.
It felt uncomfortably strange, I realised, to be sitting alone in the taxi, as it sped along the now-empty streets of my city. It felt strange not to be sitting in the front.
"Please don't tell May I asked about her"...he said somewhat hesitantly - almost as an afterthought - as the three of us sat finishing our coffee, waiting for the bill.
"No, of course not", I reassured, my voice sounding forced to my own ears. Ranja and I exchanged quick glances in understanding of the secret pact just made. This was the first time that Ranja and Bobo were meeting, both having fair ideas about each other from how much I'd told them!
We got out and took a cab. The three of us were headed in the same direction. But Ranja had to be dropped off first. She got in first and I squeezed in beside her, gesturing Bobo to hop in next.
"I'll sit in front", he quipped and settled beside the cabbie, lighting his cigarette. It felt strange. The seat next to the cabbie's had always been MY place for all of the past twelve years.
We dropped Ranja off. Bobo said he really liked her: Which was saying a lot, considering he had always - without fail -written off all the ladies I had even remotely been interested in, citing reasons of disapproval that were frankly beyond my comprehension. Always. Bobo got dropped off a little ahead of his home; he had to buy cigarettes, he said. He forced a hundred rupee note in my hand, and gave it a tight squeeze, before turning to walk away down the narrow dimlit alley, where we once played cricket. About eighteen years ago.
Yes, eighteen long ears had passed since Bobo and I first met. I used to be this geeky gawky kid with thick-framed glasses, that made it uncomfortable for me to play for as long as I would have liked to. Needless to say, I wasn't a favourite in the group. But Bobo and I - as different as chalk and cheese - bonded nevertheless. Over books - Phantom comics, Tintin, Asterix, Saradindu, Satyajit Ray, Tenida; music - Suman, Anjan Dutta, Michael Jackson, AIR Radio, Phil Collins, Pink Floyd, Genesis, Coldplay; over the same tuition classes, over porn, over years of Durga Puja, piles of photocopied notes, boxes of borrowed cassettes, and of course, girls.
Girls became an integral part of our growing up, and we spent increasingly longer hours sharing stories of heartbreak on the terrace, even as we puffed away on the surreptitiously stolen cigarette or two, followed, as de rigeur, by chicklets. On one of these summer evenings, Bobo told me about May.
May? You like May? Truth be told, I found it hard to imagine May as a love-interest for anybody, LEAST of all for Bobo. She'd grown up with us, playing, fighting, cheering, and even smoking with us. So MUCH around us, in fact, that to actually visualise Bobo and her as a mushy couple-in-love wreaked havoc with my senses. May? I asked again! Yes, he laughed indulgently, wiping his glasses with the hem of his kurta. I had no inkling of this affair that had apparently been brewing behind my back for the past three months. May's father did not obviously approve of this romance; after all these were school kids! May had not been allowed to go out alone since the last week, and my poor friend Bobo had been reduced to the very picture of Romeo. What could be done? We plotted and schemed and racked our brains till I suggested they elope. An entire diagram for the elope route was chalked out on the last pages of Bobo's mathematics copy. All that remained to be done was to work on a few minor details. Minor details like how to convey the very idea to May (no cell phones, remember), where to go after eloping, what to do after that, and oh, most importantly, what to do on the 2nd of the next month - the date the Board Exams were slated to begin. Minor details. They would work themselves out, we convinced ourselves. Thoroughly pleased at the ingenuity and brilliance of our efficient and resourceful selves, we went home: Bobo, with the sweet pain that only the uncertainty of first-love can cause; me with a puffed chest and a rock solid resolution to get and keep these two together at all costs. May and Bobo.
Much to our disappointment, however, the episode of the brutal father fizzled out rather undrammatically, giving us no scope to prove our first stints at gallant machismo. May was allowed to go out again, on condition of a very strict curfew time, as her father realised it was pointless using archaic (or any other) methods of blackmail on her. From that point on, the three of us went everywhere. There was, however, a slight difference in our outings henceforth. The two of them would deliberately lag behind as I walked ahead awkwardly alone. They would look at each other and smile silly smiles, as I sat plucking blade after blade of grass, not having the barest inkling of how and why a blaring midday Sun could induce such mush. After two or three embarrassing lessons, I learnt not to turn back to talk to them as they cosied up in the backseat of the taxi. I learnt to join in much much later for our evening addas at the terrace. I learnt to keep secrets - his, hers and theirs. I learnt to invent newer methods of reconciliation, when they fought. I learnt to function as a go-between. I learnt to act as postman. I learnt to lie to the parents - his, hers, mine. I learnt to never take their ritualistic 'break-ups' seriosuly. Gradually, slowly, I learnt to find new friends. Finally, I learnt to leave nest. My room, my home, my parents, my friends, my city, my May-and-Bobo. Funnily enough, however, I never learnt to really 'get' a girl. So even while a whole range of emotions rushed through my mind as I tagged along with these two - anger, betrayal, hurt, envy - I never once had anyone that could be the equal of May for Bobo. Twelve long years - this is how it went, even as we kept in touch across different cities.
When I returned home this time, however, I learnt of a wedding-to-be. May's. Not Bobo's. It had been a while, he said over coffee. It had been two years since May-and-Bobo had become May and Bobo. Two separate people with separate lives and phone numbers, to which I had to call separately to fix up separate appointments. And yes, I had to introduce Ranja to them - separately.
It felt uncomfortably strange, I realised, to be sitting alone in the taxi, as it sped along the now-empty streets of my city. It felt strange not to be sitting in the front.
Wednesday, March 14, 2012
Ten
On a particularly sweltering evening in May, when not a single leaf on the trees stirred – the standard method of gauging the degree of humidity in Bengali homes – off went the electricity supply. As it went to shed its load, we too were left haplessly sweating it out, drowning in pools of sticky salty perspiration.
To calm my frayed crankiness that rose in direct proportion with the mercury, my father, the victim-by-default of the tantrums of this four year old daughter of his, devised a plan. Count up to ten, he said. But not in any harmonic order, he specified; spacing each number randomly, instead. See what happens when you reach ten, he assured with a mischievous grin. Impatient, I began ranting one, two, three in quick succession, when he stopped me to show how to really go about it.
One, he said and went back to humming the Manna Dey song he was singing, staring out of the grilled window, billowing grey smokes from his cigarette.
Two was followed by ‘Did I know what instrument Ali Akbar Khan played’: Sitar, I said in half-confidence. Sarod, he corrected me – the same instrument that Amjad Ali Khan played. He knew I’d know Amjad from the video I had watched last week on Doordarshan. Sarod is the instrument that looks much like the one the Goddess Saraswati plays, he went on; only that hers is called a Veena.
Three, he reminded me and I realised I had to go to the loo. Even though the bathroom, with its broken planks for doors, its moist walls the haven for tiny ugly insects, the latch to which I couldn’t reach, was in the next room – I had to be taken there by Baba, especially when it was dark, either in the middle of the night or in situations of loadshedding like it was that day. As he stood waiting outside in the dingy red-floored veranda, still smoking away, I heard him go four, then slowly, five, in a bid, I realised to hurry me up!
I joined him and in spite of the unbearable heat, snuggled up to his six-feet lanky frame, waiting for number six, waiting for the fan to whiz back with a lazy clunky thud. Seeing he was lost somewhat, semi-hunched on the railing dotted with bird-droppings, “six”, I enterprised, tugging on his khadi panjabi, egging him on to take the game forward. He looked down at his two-and-a-half footer, gave a half-smile and said, almost to himself, “That’s how long ago I’d met Anasuya. Six years ago. You know Anasuya, don’t you?”
-“Hmm, Ma”, I replied in a staid sombre grown-up tone.
-“We met at college, you know right?”
-“Yes, Presidency College”
-“Which was originally called…?”
-“Hindustan College.”
-“Hindu College.”
Seven, he stood back ramrod straight – back in form, back in the game. “Do you want to go out for a walk and call your mother?” he asked casually. I went over the whole process in my mind. Changing into my frock from the soft white cotton penny I was wearing with red and yellow ducks run-stitched on them; walking up to the end of our alley, turning left from Mahakali Sweetshop to finally reach Arun Dada’s phone booth; dialling Ma’s number (which I knew by heart), have Aneesh pick it up, chat me up with saccharine inanities, before finally declaring that Ma was in the bathroom. The only good thing about the whole stroll could be a bottle of Coca-cola that I might coax Baba into buying me on our way back. But no, I decided, it wasn’t worth it. The heat, the changing, the walk, Aneesh, and the dicey bait of Coca-cola. Plus I didn’t want to miss this game. I was eager to see what happened at ten.
“No. Eight” I flashed a grin!
-“That’s the double of your age right now!” quipped Baba.
- “Double…?”
-“Yes, four plus four”
Realising we were getting into the dangerous terrain of arithmetic, even if playfully, I pleaded, nine! “Clementine’s shoes were number nine, remember?” Of course I did! We’d been taught ‘My Darling Clementine’ at school last week, and I’d been singing it ‘in the cavern, in the canyon’, and in every other conceivable place, NON-STOP!
My father laughed his throaty laughter at how readily I had launched into an instant rendition, forgetting to whine about the heat and the dust. “Ten”, he announced with confident finality, as he took his last long puff before flicking away the butt on to the terrace of the next house: And ‘clunk’ I heard, almost immediately in the next room, as the fan groaned back into action.
This was unbelievable! Stupefied, I had even forgotten to rejoice and dance like I did usually once the power was back. What I had just experienced was beyond reason, beyond rationale, beyond gimmick, beyond magic – the closest it came to, was divine miracle! And my father had performed it with the surety of God himself! How was I to convince my friends at school tomorrow, that this man – my father – was God himself? That when he pronounced, “Let there be fan”, there indeed it was! That too at the exact moment he wanted it! Oh what would I have not done to have Aneesh right then to show him what my father was capable of, and to see his white face, with green veins popping out visibly like onions in an omelette, go ashen!
Hero – God, actually – in the eyes of his daughter, Baba gave a smug smile and ordered, “Go finish your homework now!” Homework? I could have jumped from the veranda if he’d asked me to that day, knowing my ‘Godfather’ would have me safe! What’s more, I could have touched the dreaded lizard behind the mirror, in the assured knowledge that Baba would turn it into Puff-the-magic-dragon - all pink, furry and playful!
Every time there was a loadshedding after that day, there was an unsaid code between us to go back to this game. Not that he agreed to indulge always, saying miracles are to be used sparingly and in extreme cases only, every time Baba did actually concede, the power would be back at the stroke of ten. Sometimes, when I tried to imitate Baba’s method on my own – perhaps to enthral friends - spacing the numbers out as randomly as I could, reaching ten at a long sweet pace, the power didn’t come back. My belief in my father’s sole powers to make it work therefore, deepened further and further. Gradually, my faith and reverence for what he said, what he believed, what he thought, what he did, began to percolate to other – almost all – spheres of life. My father could do no wrong; there could be no plan B for Baba’s plan A, I was convinced.
This is how it went for several years. Each number would bring with it, its share of trivia; its own peculiar memories – dates, addresses, numbers of letters, years piled on, years to come, years to wait for; and with each day of growing up, I would deliberately prolong the time-space between the numbers, so that newer stories could be sewn in between them, stories that would fill in sultry evenings of loadshedding. But for all these interruptions, these fillers, my fascination with the magical game –whenever Baba obliged, that is - never ebbed.
********
It was the final set: the score read thirty-forty. As Steffi bounced the ball up and down, looking up to fix her stare on Monica Seles in between, her lips pursing in visible anxiety, beads of sweat making a transparent moustache over her upper lip, off went the television tube. Roars of disappointment rang out in unison throughout the locality. Loadshedding.
And I was ten.
In a fit of urgency, I implored Baba to start the game; I was in no mood, moreover for uneven arbitrary languorous intervals, peppered with stories, reminiscences or lessons. It had to be fast, and it had to yield results. If this wasn’t a state of emergency, nothing would ever be!!!
Baba, however, such an ardent tennis enthusiast, had been a little aloof the whole day; and beyond an occasional “Advantage Seles”, or “Tch! clumsy shot, Steffi”, he had been more or less quiet throughout the game; not even commenting on the pretty ball-fetcher girls or Peter Graf’s stylish shades through which he kept a hawk eye on his daughter’s every move.
I can’t place a finger at which point exactly I’d stopped praying to the elusive, illusive, invisible God to rescue me in times of utter despondence that fluctuated in degrees of intensity; and prayed instead – pleaded, rather, with all my heart – to the unerring, unfailing miracle-man closer home; at home in fact, to rescue me and salvage the situation, no matter how impossible. In a way, I’d learnt to scoff in the face of difficulties – and when they remained unmitigated, I learnt to come to terms with the fact that there must have been some loophole in the earnestness of my praying. My godfather or his powers were not to blame; could not be blamed.
And though I understood that miracle-workers had moods that might not necessarily be in sync with my demands or tantrums, on that particular day, I wasn’t ready for reason. Much against his wishes therefore Baba started his counting: absent-mindedly and looking downwards at his own shadow on the red stone wall, made by the moonlight that trickled in through the grills of the green windows.
…Seven, eight, nine tumbled out quicker than they ever had, as did “ten” in a similarly careless, disinterested and perfunctory tone.
And there we sat, in the same darkness, in the same humidity. Nothing changed.
Elevens and Twelves made their silent, unuttered entrances and exits while the darkness and the humidity clung on just as obstinately.
The debut of this ineffectiveness numbed me. The match, Steffi Graf, the heat, the promised coca-cola…nothing seemed to matter anymore.
Something snapped inside and I can’t recall today if I’d imagined it, aurally hallucinated or had actually heard the sound of that snap. But I’ve never gone back to counting till ten for light to come back. I like loadsheddings now.
To calm my frayed crankiness that rose in direct proportion with the mercury, my father, the victim-by-default of the tantrums of this four year old daughter of his, devised a plan. Count up to ten, he said. But not in any harmonic order, he specified; spacing each number randomly, instead. See what happens when you reach ten, he assured with a mischievous grin. Impatient, I began ranting one, two, three in quick succession, when he stopped me to show how to really go about it.
One, he said and went back to humming the Manna Dey song he was singing, staring out of the grilled window, billowing grey smokes from his cigarette.
Two was followed by ‘Did I know what instrument Ali Akbar Khan played’: Sitar, I said in half-confidence. Sarod, he corrected me – the same instrument that Amjad Ali Khan played. He knew I’d know Amjad from the video I had watched last week on Doordarshan. Sarod is the instrument that looks much like the one the Goddess Saraswati plays, he went on; only that hers is called a Veena.
Three, he reminded me and I realised I had to go to the loo. Even though the bathroom, with its broken planks for doors, its moist walls the haven for tiny ugly insects, the latch to which I couldn’t reach, was in the next room – I had to be taken there by Baba, especially when it was dark, either in the middle of the night or in situations of loadshedding like it was that day. As he stood waiting outside in the dingy red-floored veranda, still smoking away, I heard him go four, then slowly, five, in a bid, I realised to hurry me up!
I joined him and in spite of the unbearable heat, snuggled up to his six-feet lanky frame, waiting for number six, waiting for the fan to whiz back with a lazy clunky thud. Seeing he was lost somewhat, semi-hunched on the railing dotted with bird-droppings, “six”, I enterprised, tugging on his khadi panjabi, egging him on to take the game forward. He looked down at his two-and-a-half footer, gave a half-smile and said, almost to himself, “That’s how long ago I’d met Anasuya. Six years ago. You know Anasuya, don’t you?”
-“Hmm, Ma”, I replied in a staid sombre grown-up tone.
-“We met at college, you know right?”
-“Yes, Presidency College”
-“Which was originally called…?”
-“Hindustan College.”
-“Hindu College.”
Seven, he stood back ramrod straight – back in form, back in the game. “Do you want to go out for a walk and call your mother?” he asked casually. I went over the whole process in my mind. Changing into my frock from the soft white cotton penny I was wearing with red and yellow ducks run-stitched on them; walking up to the end of our alley, turning left from Mahakali Sweetshop to finally reach Arun Dada’s phone booth; dialling Ma’s number (which I knew by heart), have Aneesh pick it up, chat me up with saccharine inanities, before finally declaring that Ma was in the bathroom. The only good thing about the whole stroll could be a bottle of Coca-cola that I might coax Baba into buying me on our way back. But no, I decided, it wasn’t worth it. The heat, the changing, the walk, Aneesh, and the dicey bait of Coca-cola. Plus I didn’t want to miss this game. I was eager to see what happened at ten.
“No. Eight” I flashed a grin!
-“That’s the double of your age right now!” quipped Baba.
- “Double…?”
-“Yes, four plus four”
Realising we were getting into the dangerous terrain of arithmetic, even if playfully, I pleaded, nine! “Clementine’s shoes were number nine, remember?” Of course I did! We’d been taught ‘My Darling Clementine’ at school last week, and I’d been singing it ‘in the cavern, in the canyon’, and in every other conceivable place, NON-STOP!
My father laughed his throaty laughter at how readily I had launched into an instant rendition, forgetting to whine about the heat and the dust. “Ten”, he announced with confident finality, as he took his last long puff before flicking away the butt on to the terrace of the next house: And ‘clunk’ I heard, almost immediately in the next room, as the fan groaned back into action.
This was unbelievable! Stupefied, I had even forgotten to rejoice and dance like I did usually once the power was back. What I had just experienced was beyond reason, beyond rationale, beyond gimmick, beyond magic – the closest it came to, was divine miracle! And my father had performed it with the surety of God himself! How was I to convince my friends at school tomorrow, that this man – my father – was God himself? That when he pronounced, “Let there be fan”, there indeed it was! That too at the exact moment he wanted it! Oh what would I have not done to have Aneesh right then to show him what my father was capable of, and to see his white face, with green veins popping out visibly like onions in an omelette, go ashen!
Hero – God, actually – in the eyes of his daughter, Baba gave a smug smile and ordered, “Go finish your homework now!” Homework? I could have jumped from the veranda if he’d asked me to that day, knowing my ‘Godfather’ would have me safe! What’s more, I could have touched the dreaded lizard behind the mirror, in the assured knowledge that Baba would turn it into Puff-the-magic-dragon - all pink, furry and playful!
Every time there was a loadshedding after that day, there was an unsaid code between us to go back to this game. Not that he agreed to indulge always, saying miracles are to be used sparingly and in extreme cases only, every time Baba did actually concede, the power would be back at the stroke of ten. Sometimes, when I tried to imitate Baba’s method on my own – perhaps to enthral friends - spacing the numbers out as randomly as I could, reaching ten at a long sweet pace, the power didn’t come back. My belief in my father’s sole powers to make it work therefore, deepened further and further. Gradually, my faith and reverence for what he said, what he believed, what he thought, what he did, began to percolate to other – almost all – spheres of life. My father could do no wrong; there could be no plan B for Baba’s plan A, I was convinced.
This is how it went for several years. Each number would bring with it, its share of trivia; its own peculiar memories – dates, addresses, numbers of letters, years piled on, years to come, years to wait for; and with each day of growing up, I would deliberately prolong the time-space between the numbers, so that newer stories could be sewn in between them, stories that would fill in sultry evenings of loadshedding. But for all these interruptions, these fillers, my fascination with the magical game –whenever Baba obliged, that is - never ebbed.
********
It was the final set: the score read thirty-forty. As Steffi bounced the ball up and down, looking up to fix her stare on Monica Seles in between, her lips pursing in visible anxiety, beads of sweat making a transparent moustache over her upper lip, off went the television tube. Roars of disappointment rang out in unison throughout the locality. Loadshedding.
And I was ten.
In a fit of urgency, I implored Baba to start the game; I was in no mood, moreover for uneven arbitrary languorous intervals, peppered with stories, reminiscences or lessons. It had to be fast, and it had to yield results. If this wasn’t a state of emergency, nothing would ever be!!!
Baba, however, such an ardent tennis enthusiast, had been a little aloof the whole day; and beyond an occasional “Advantage Seles”, or “Tch! clumsy shot, Steffi”, he had been more or less quiet throughout the game; not even commenting on the pretty ball-fetcher girls or Peter Graf’s stylish shades through which he kept a hawk eye on his daughter’s every move.
I can’t place a finger at which point exactly I’d stopped praying to the elusive, illusive, invisible God to rescue me in times of utter despondence that fluctuated in degrees of intensity; and prayed instead – pleaded, rather, with all my heart – to the unerring, unfailing miracle-man closer home; at home in fact, to rescue me and salvage the situation, no matter how impossible. In a way, I’d learnt to scoff in the face of difficulties – and when they remained unmitigated, I learnt to come to terms with the fact that there must have been some loophole in the earnestness of my praying. My godfather or his powers were not to blame; could not be blamed.
And though I understood that miracle-workers had moods that might not necessarily be in sync with my demands or tantrums, on that particular day, I wasn’t ready for reason. Much against his wishes therefore Baba started his counting: absent-mindedly and looking downwards at his own shadow on the red stone wall, made by the moonlight that trickled in through the grills of the green windows.
…Seven, eight, nine tumbled out quicker than they ever had, as did “ten” in a similarly careless, disinterested and perfunctory tone.
And there we sat, in the same darkness, in the same humidity. Nothing changed.
Elevens and Twelves made their silent, unuttered entrances and exits while the darkness and the humidity clung on just as obstinately.
The debut of this ineffectiveness numbed me. The match, Steffi Graf, the heat, the promised coca-cola…nothing seemed to matter anymore.
Something snapped inside and I can’t recall today if I’d imagined it, aurally hallucinated or had actually heard the sound of that snap. But I’ve never gone back to counting till ten for light to come back. I like loadsheddings now.
Sunday, February 19, 2012
Criminal Fiona Apple
I've been a bad bad girl
I've been careless with a delicate man
And it's a sad sad world
When a girl will break a boy
Just because she can
Don't you tell me to deny it
I've done wrong and I want to
Suffer for my sins
I've come to you 'cause I need
Guidance to be true
And I just don't know where I can begin
What I need is a good defense
'Cause I'm feelin' like a criminal
And I need to redeemed
To the one I've sinned against
Because he's all I ever knew of love
Heaven help me for the way I am
Save me from these evil deeds
Before I get them done
I know tomorrow brings the consequence
At hand
But I keep livin' this day like
The next will never come
Oh help me but don't tell me
To deny it
I've got to cleanse myself
Of all these lies till I'm good
Enough for him
I've got a lot to lose and I'm
Bettin' high
So I'm beggin' you before it ends
Just tell me where to begin
What I need is a good defense
'Cause I'm feelin' like a criminal
And I need to redeemed
To the one I've sinned against
Because he's all I ever knew of love
Let me know the way
Before there's hell to pay
Give me room to lay the law and let me go
I've got to make a play
To make my lover stay
So what would an angel say
The devil wants to know
What I need is a good defense
'Cause I'm feelin' like a criminal
And I need to redeemed
To the one I've sinned against
Because he's all I ever knew of love
What I need is a good defense
'Cause I'm feelin' like a criminal
And I need to redeemed
To the one I've sinned against
Because he's all I ever knew of love
I've been careless with a delicate man
And it's a sad sad world
When a girl will break a boy
Just because she can
Don't you tell me to deny it
I've done wrong and I want to
Suffer for my sins
I've come to you 'cause I need
Guidance to be true
And I just don't know where I can begin
What I need is a good defense
'Cause I'm feelin' like a criminal
And I need to redeemed
To the one I've sinned against
Because he's all I ever knew of love
Heaven help me for the way I am
Save me from these evil deeds
Before I get them done
I know tomorrow brings the consequence
At hand
But I keep livin' this day like
The next will never come
Oh help me but don't tell me
To deny it
I've got to cleanse myself
Of all these lies till I'm good
Enough for him
I've got a lot to lose and I'm
Bettin' high
So I'm beggin' you before it ends
Just tell me where to begin
What I need is a good defense
'Cause I'm feelin' like a criminal
And I need to redeemed
To the one I've sinned against
Because he's all I ever knew of love
Let me know the way
Before there's hell to pay
Give me room to lay the law and let me go
I've got to make a play
To make my lover stay
So what would an angel say
The devil wants to know
What I need is a good defense
'Cause I'm feelin' like a criminal
And I need to redeemed
To the one I've sinned against
Because he's all I ever knew of love
What I need is a good defense
'Cause I'm feelin' like a criminal
And I need to redeemed
To the one I've sinned against
Because he's all I ever knew of love
Saturday, February 11, 2012
Sparkling you
I lie awake in my little dark corner and watch the silhouette of your body sparkle with every glow of my drag...till you vanish again
Tuesday, January 31, 2012
Thursday, January 12, 2012
"Some Regrets and Some Mistakes: Death
I was 15 when my grandmother – my mother’s mother – passed away.
15 - A queer age that is sandwiched somewhat uncomfortably between matured sensitivity and naïve rashness. Bultama, as I called her, was the first woman I remember having set eyes on, and learnt therefore to regard as my own mother; not entirely an odd scenario, considering the fact that it was she who literally brought me up, with neither of my parents even inhabiting the same physical space for the first four years of my growing up!
Naturally therefore, I was attached to this woman like I was never again to be attached to any man or woman. It was a blissfully wonderful sort of attachment, for even though a mother-figure, she was, at the end of the day, not my mother, but grand-mother: And grandmothers are supposed to spoil you. And spoil me she did! AND how!!! I’d like to believe now, with all due modesty, that I stopped just short of becoming rotten, even though I’ve been seriously disputed later!
Bultama was not just the first person to nurture my world of fantasy with fairy-tales sourced from across the world (which I guess is wont to all grandmothers), but she was the first (and only one) who led me to believe – actually believe – in my world of make-believe. She indulged me into being thoroughly convinced that they were all in fact my stories where I could be anyone I chose to be; and my range being marvellously broad, I hopped-skipped-and jumped from pansy damsel-in-distress to daredevil shikaari who could hunt tigers, bring them home and tame them down to Tracey, Bultama’s Lhasa apso! You see, therefore, it was not any world of fancy, but one that had to be realistically tempered with very persuasive, and tangible evidence, even if logically questionable!
As compulsions such as schooling, education etc neared, I needed to be moved out of that world and be with my parents, who I came to regard as unfriendly strangers; who, with their best efforts, could do nothing to make me happy the way Bultama could. But naturally! This was the time when I began to realize what heartache would feel like - for there was nothing that would leave a desolate hollowness in my heart than the moment I would have to part with her. I began to dread all such inevitable moments that would necessitate either her returning home from our place, or us having to leave her behind.
As I grew even older and was informed about such things as death (sans any sugar-coating, thankfully), my feeling of despondence began sinking in deeper. Even the suggestion of an imminent separation would make me cry; would want me to hold on to the moment and freeze it if I could, if only to let Bultama be with me forever. The more I realised it was not to be, the more I held on to her mortal self for as long as I thought I could – hovering around her from kitchen to bedroom, from banks to saree-shops, from homes of old relatives to the local markets, I wished to be around her constantly so as to soak in and store, if possible, the warmth and smell of her soft milky white skin. Unnatural perhaps, but I would spend hours sometimes thinking of a world without her and pray with the most fervent sincerity to the greatest powers that be, to never let that hour arrive. Death, for the first time, began to scare me – if only for the fear of Bultama going away from me never to come back. The constant refrain in all my prayers would therefore be the most earnest promise to do all that was in my power to avert the moment, when it came.
Luckily or unluckily, I was around her in her last days. She was severely ill, with multiple-organ failure and on dialysis. Her body had shrunk to the size of a child and her long beautiful tresses chopped off like a schoolboy’s. Gradually but surely, the charm she held for me, began to wane somewhat, even as I consciously tried to reproach myself for it. In the very last week, she had become unusually restless; and wouldn’t/ couldn’t sleep at all. And while awake, she wouldn’t let others around her sleep either: Others that included a little girl who was hired as attendant, and me. We would be woken up at all odd hours when we had just about dozed off after an entire day’s work. While I would do my best (which at that point, I thought to be my extent possible) to somehow lull her back to sleep, she would be up the next minute and want me to keep talking to her. Irritated at one point, I remember leaving the room to go and sleep beside my father in the selfish belief that here at last I would be at peace. Poor soul, she came looking for me hobbling across the dark hall and called out for me feebly, even as I kept my eyes firmly shut and refused to answer. She walked back the way she had come. Alone, lonely and scared of death. Scared of her imminent separation with me.
Me: who had promised with all sincerity to do whatever she could to ‘protect’ the soul dearest to her. Me: who couldn’t avert the temptation of sleep for two earthly hours.
Bultama passed away without me around her two days later. She was cremated before I could reach. The last I had seen of her was the shadow of her bent body as she walked away with no answer from me.
I lost two souls dearest to me in the span of a month recently: my two dogs who saw me through laughter and tears for sixteen long years. Nothing I say about them will be enough to describe what they meant – mean – to me.
Piku, the elder one, was the gentlest soul I’ve ever known. Truth to tell, she was an embarrassment to the canine species, knowing neither how to intimidate strangers with a snarl or at least a dignified distance; nor how to bite, even if necessary! Not just a dog I affectionately regarded as my sister, she was, for all practical purposes, the first child I had. I watched her take her first tottering steps, crawling beside her on all fours to ensure she wouldn’t fall. I watched in amazement when she lost her first tooth, and was equally surprised to find a new one growing back! I waited with bated anticipation before she finally let out her first yelp at eight months, hugely relieved to know she could ‘talk’! I took her for her vaccinations and held her scared shivering self snugly every time Dipankar da, her ‘groomer’ would arrive to clip her nails! Piku, on her part, was nothing short of a Godsend. Staying with me through every hour of sickness, licking away the silent tears I cried in dark lonely rooms, sharing my ice-cream, tearing my school Report card because she thought it was funny (!!!), gleefully flaunting the tiny sweaters that I bought for her every winter, kissing me every time I returned home (even if from downstairs), she was everything and much more that made a life out of my mere existence.
Jhoru, the younger one was brought home three years later, when he was barely two weeks old. A brat right from the word go, he was the quintessential mischievous antidote to his tormented shy elder sister, Piku! Keeping with the P’s in the family and my own addiction to the product, even though he was initially christened Pepsi, he’d decided to respond only when addressed by the more rustic Jhoru, that somehow fit in more aptly with His Wildness! Let’s just say, Jhoru was a darling! He wasn’t as welcoming as Piku, but that’s because he guarded his space only too zealously. You had to let him be. Neither would he bother you with overt affection, nor would he expect you to mollycoddle him beyond a point! He had his won ways of showing his love for people he loved, and there were only a handful that he truly warmed up to; strangely enough they were mostly men! He was distinctly dismissive of my girl friends and made it a point to plonk himself right in the middle of an adda that took place over alcohol maybe, the prime participants being my male friends and cousins! Guess it’s a guy thing!
Despite all his starry airs however, I know he loved it when I would hug him tight and kiss him endlessly asking him if he was keeping count, in spite of the ‘I’m-very-irritated’ noises he would make! He was never irritated; it was all just a show!!!
Even as I write this at this ungodly hour, I still can’t believe they are not here somewhere, keeping a watch over me as I study, or snoring away to dreamy glory. But while they were here, I knew I wouldn’t let them slip away from me the way I had let Bultama go. Although it will be a regret that will gnaw me for as long as I live, it taught me to regard a cliche with precious seriousness - not ever to take anything for granted. Life, most of all. I spent sleepless nights for both Piku and Jhoru in their last days – as they went through the same cycle of restlessness that Bultama did, only worse, because they couldn’t speak. No, I hadn’t learnt to master sleep, I hadn’t grown a halo overnight, and I was very cranky when I went to work, as my boyfriend very patiently bore the brunt of it: But, yes, I had learnt to realise the value of ‘now’. Agreed it isn't a realisation that requires you to be rocket-scientist material, nor perhaps one that merits unnecessary brouhaha. But yes, it was a lesson I learnt for a very heavy price. Cathartic? Some of the people closest to me, who I know have had similar experiences should know...
15 - A queer age that is sandwiched somewhat uncomfortably between matured sensitivity and naïve rashness. Bultama, as I called her, was the first woman I remember having set eyes on, and learnt therefore to regard as my own mother; not entirely an odd scenario, considering the fact that it was she who literally brought me up, with neither of my parents even inhabiting the same physical space for the first four years of my growing up!
Naturally therefore, I was attached to this woman like I was never again to be attached to any man or woman. It was a blissfully wonderful sort of attachment, for even though a mother-figure, she was, at the end of the day, not my mother, but grand-mother: And grandmothers are supposed to spoil you. And spoil me she did! AND how!!! I’d like to believe now, with all due modesty, that I stopped just short of becoming rotten, even though I’ve been seriously disputed later!
Bultama was not just the first person to nurture my world of fantasy with fairy-tales sourced from across the world (which I guess is wont to all grandmothers), but she was the first (and only one) who led me to believe – actually believe – in my world of make-believe. She indulged me into being thoroughly convinced that they were all in fact my stories where I could be anyone I chose to be; and my range being marvellously broad, I hopped-skipped-and jumped from pansy damsel-in-distress to daredevil shikaari who could hunt tigers, bring them home and tame them down to Tracey, Bultama’s Lhasa apso! You see, therefore, it was not any world of fancy, but one that had to be realistically tempered with very persuasive, and tangible evidence, even if logically questionable!
As compulsions such as schooling, education etc neared, I needed to be moved out of that world and be with my parents, who I came to regard as unfriendly strangers; who, with their best efforts, could do nothing to make me happy the way Bultama could. But naturally! This was the time when I began to realize what heartache would feel like - for there was nothing that would leave a desolate hollowness in my heart than the moment I would have to part with her. I began to dread all such inevitable moments that would necessitate either her returning home from our place, or us having to leave her behind.
As I grew even older and was informed about such things as death (sans any sugar-coating, thankfully), my feeling of despondence began sinking in deeper. Even the suggestion of an imminent separation would make me cry; would want me to hold on to the moment and freeze it if I could, if only to let Bultama be with me forever. The more I realised it was not to be, the more I held on to her mortal self for as long as I thought I could – hovering around her from kitchen to bedroom, from banks to saree-shops, from homes of old relatives to the local markets, I wished to be around her constantly so as to soak in and store, if possible, the warmth and smell of her soft milky white skin. Unnatural perhaps, but I would spend hours sometimes thinking of a world without her and pray with the most fervent sincerity to the greatest powers that be, to never let that hour arrive. Death, for the first time, began to scare me – if only for the fear of Bultama going away from me never to come back. The constant refrain in all my prayers would therefore be the most earnest promise to do all that was in my power to avert the moment, when it came.
Luckily or unluckily, I was around her in her last days. She was severely ill, with multiple-organ failure and on dialysis. Her body had shrunk to the size of a child and her long beautiful tresses chopped off like a schoolboy’s. Gradually but surely, the charm she held for me, began to wane somewhat, even as I consciously tried to reproach myself for it. In the very last week, she had become unusually restless; and wouldn’t/ couldn’t sleep at all. And while awake, she wouldn’t let others around her sleep either: Others that included a little girl who was hired as attendant, and me. We would be woken up at all odd hours when we had just about dozed off after an entire day’s work. While I would do my best (which at that point, I thought to be my extent possible) to somehow lull her back to sleep, she would be up the next minute and want me to keep talking to her. Irritated at one point, I remember leaving the room to go and sleep beside my father in the selfish belief that here at last I would be at peace. Poor soul, she came looking for me hobbling across the dark hall and called out for me feebly, even as I kept my eyes firmly shut and refused to answer. She walked back the way she had come. Alone, lonely and scared of death. Scared of her imminent separation with me.
Me: who had promised with all sincerity to do whatever she could to ‘protect’ the soul dearest to her. Me: who couldn’t avert the temptation of sleep for two earthly hours.
Bultama passed away without me around her two days later. She was cremated before I could reach. The last I had seen of her was the shadow of her bent body as she walked away with no answer from me.
I lost two souls dearest to me in the span of a month recently: my two dogs who saw me through laughter and tears for sixteen long years. Nothing I say about them will be enough to describe what they meant – mean – to me.
Piku, the elder one, was the gentlest soul I’ve ever known. Truth to tell, she was an embarrassment to the canine species, knowing neither how to intimidate strangers with a snarl or at least a dignified distance; nor how to bite, even if necessary! Not just a dog I affectionately regarded as my sister, she was, for all practical purposes, the first child I had. I watched her take her first tottering steps, crawling beside her on all fours to ensure she wouldn’t fall. I watched in amazement when she lost her first tooth, and was equally surprised to find a new one growing back! I waited with bated anticipation before she finally let out her first yelp at eight months, hugely relieved to know she could ‘talk’! I took her for her vaccinations and held her scared shivering self snugly every time Dipankar da, her ‘groomer’ would arrive to clip her nails! Piku, on her part, was nothing short of a Godsend. Staying with me through every hour of sickness, licking away the silent tears I cried in dark lonely rooms, sharing my ice-cream, tearing my school Report card because she thought it was funny (!!!), gleefully flaunting the tiny sweaters that I bought for her every winter, kissing me every time I returned home (even if from downstairs), she was everything and much more that made a life out of my mere existence.
Jhoru, the younger one was brought home three years later, when he was barely two weeks old. A brat right from the word go, he was the quintessential mischievous antidote to his tormented shy elder sister, Piku! Keeping with the P’s in the family and my own addiction to the product, even though he was initially christened Pepsi, he’d decided to respond only when addressed by the more rustic Jhoru, that somehow fit in more aptly with His Wildness! Let’s just say, Jhoru was a darling! He wasn’t as welcoming as Piku, but that’s because he guarded his space only too zealously. You had to let him be. Neither would he bother you with overt affection, nor would he expect you to mollycoddle him beyond a point! He had his won ways of showing his love for people he loved, and there were only a handful that he truly warmed up to; strangely enough they were mostly men! He was distinctly dismissive of my girl friends and made it a point to plonk himself right in the middle of an adda that took place over alcohol maybe, the prime participants being my male friends and cousins! Guess it’s a guy thing!
Despite all his starry airs however, I know he loved it when I would hug him tight and kiss him endlessly asking him if he was keeping count, in spite of the ‘I’m-very-irritated’ noises he would make! He was never irritated; it was all just a show!!!
Even as I write this at this ungodly hour, I still can’t believe they are not here somewhere, keeping a watch over me as I study, or snoring away to dreamy glory. But while they were here, I knew I wouldn’t let them slip away from me the way I had let Bultama go. Although it will be a regret that will gnaw me for as long as I live, it taught me to regard a cliche with precious seriousness - not ever to take anything for granted. Life, most of all. I spent sleepless nights for both Piku and Jhoru in their last days – as they went through the same cycle of restlessness that Bultama did, only worse, because they couldn’t speak. No, I hadn’t learnt to master sleep, I hadn’t grown a halo overnight, and I was very cranky when I went to work, as my boyfriend very patiently bore the brunt of it: But, yes, I had learnt to realise the value of ‘now’. Agreed it isn't a realisation that requires you to be rocket-scientist material, nor perhaps one that merits unnecessary brouhaha. But yes, it was a lesson I learnt for a very heavy price. Cathartic? Some of the people closest to me, who I know have had similar experiences should know...
Monday, January 9, 2012
Collarbones
I loved his collarbones more than anything else in the world. You could see them peeping through his shirt when the top two buttons, and not a single extra one, was kept open. Not jutting like famine victims', they were however, solidly prominent. They revealed more than what they hid and I could easily picture his incredibly chiselled rib-cage. Reminded me of Jesus Christ, they always did. Not an ounce of extra flesh clothed those exquisite bones that seemed crafted out of rock. Rocks that bore diamonds.
The softness of my femininity yearned to be framed squished and destroyed in the rawness of that hard primal primitive and timeless stolidity.
And when sweat glistened on the surface of that bronzed chest - the chest that hid his pulsating throb - yes, I was crushed. And ruined for life.
His collarbones ruined me.
The softness of my femininity yearned to be framed squished and destroyed in the rawness of that hard primal primitive and timeless stolidity.
And when sweat glistened on the surface of that bronzed chest - the chest that hid his pulsating throb - yes, I was crushed. And ruined for life.
His collarbones ruined me.
Winter of my discontent
It’s difficult not to think of her - especially in winter.
...Her paper-thin hands that crumbled in my grip like dried brown leaves, leaving behind a whiff of moist sweat.
...Her veins that stretched from her breasts to her face like rivers drawn on text-book maps.
...The soft beating of her heart, that I stayed up all night trying to harmonise with mine.
...The pink of her cream that merged with the grey of my cigarette smoke.
...Her freezing cold toes that tingled mine under the blanket, till they had mingled with the all the warmth in my blood
...The transluscence of the skin on her neck that made the act of drinking water seem like the playing of some ancient musical instrument
It’s difficult…
…One of these winter afternoons I would like to look out of my window and have the tree look back at me, defrosted clean of the icicles of memory.
Soon…
...Her paper-thin hands that crumbled in my grip like dried brown leaves, leaving behind a whiff of moist sweat.
...Her veins that stretched from her breasts to her face like rivers drawn on text-book maps.
...The soft beating of her heart, that I stayed up all night trying to harmonise with mine.
...The pink of her cream that merged with the grey of my cigarette smoke.
...Her freezing cold toes that tingled mine under the blanket, till they had mingled with the all the warmth in my blood
...The transluscence of the skin on her neck that made the act of drinking water seem like the playing of some ancient musical instrument
It’s difficult…
…One of these winter afternoons I would like to look out of my window and have the tree look back at me, defrosted clean of the icicles of memory.
Soon…
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