Love story I’d thought it would be. Solid, sensual, earth-shattering and tangible. But it was all smiles and pretty hair and smatterings of borrowed scenarios from the best of Mills and Boon, but because it tried to be better than that, it ruined any chance of the real romantic. I tried you know. To feel something. Anything - But it left me cold. Cold. Yeah very pretty it was. Very. But that’s it. That’s that. She smiled too much. Too easily. Her smiles should have been in spite of herself and the situation she was in. Instead it was readily given. Toothy, wholesome - Completely inappropriate. His veins stood out, nostrils shivered, voice shook, eyes watered, but, but….. Nah! Where was the love. I saw nothing that made empathise with them. I didn’t necessarily root for them. When they died for apparently they couldn’t live without each other, I laughed at the absurdity of it all. It could have been my cynicism. My belief that, ‘come on! Get over it!’ and ‘Life goes on.’ But it wasn’t that. Cos I don’t feel that all the time. Somethings are worth waiting for, worth pining for, worth may be even dying for. But with those two, I didn’t feel it. Believe me! I was primed to cry for love or its loss. Instead I yawned, ate pop corn, then Thai food, and then played out some scenes of my own. But that a story for some other day.
I’m probably just repeating myself. I do that. Life is a long series of the same and co-incidences. I am probably repeating myself. Have I said ever before that the summer in my city is everything superlative? Quite literally, it is awesome, it is brilliant, and it is severe and probably quite beautiful, if you have a mind open enough to accept it, to even embrace it. The mornings shine like the mirror. Every reflective surface will blind you with its one wink in your direction. Within a closed room, a strange sultriness will embalm you. And then there’s the hot hot breeze, which will cool the sweat off your brow and then proceed to suck the last drop of anything hydrating from your body. It is demonic. We stand powerless in its grip. We stand hypnotized by its stern gaze. In the afternoons, the sun glares you down, no matter what protection you took, or how brave you are. Your face will burn, your nostril too and your eyes will water and the tears will dry on your face even before they had the time to disengage from your eyelashes. The remnant salt on your red brown face will taste less salty, more hot and bitter. No matter how much you try, how many times you wash yourself, you will always smell of the summer. How does the summer smell? Like dust. Dust in a dry jar. Your pores will spew ancient dust. You’ll be so dry; you’ll begin to wonder if the summer is outside you or within you. There will be this unanswered, even unqueried question on everybody’s tongue. Nobody but an outsider will ask it. We denizens know giving voice to it only increases your impatience. You’ve sat in a sauna like room, with no power, at 1 in the night, with no breeze in sight or touch. When the sweat pricks your eyes and there’s a puddle beneath you and you are still able to thank the fates that at least there’s no sun, we are insiders. We the real insiders never ask each other, “where, when are the rains?” we instead maintain stoic, severe silence and pretend nonchalance. In the privacy of our balconies, we sometimes look up at the sky and check the cloud formation and look far into the horizon, to search for that first loaded pregnant nimbus cloud. But we never rejoice before time. Sometimes, a quick summer shower catches us unawares. We look outside the window expecting to see the mirror, and instead we see fleeing delirious dogs and gray leaves slowly turning green, clean and the roads a dark black, we quickly leave everything else we were doing and go for a walk. Our summer footwear unsuitable for puddles and slippery roads, we roll up our pants and start walking. It’s indescribable, this relief, it’s difficult to put into words the joys of discovering unknown lanes and turns. New clean gleaming houses almost welcome us in; we scared of their human owners hurry on ahead. We meet several dead-end s. But the weather, the evening will last just a few minutes, so we brave up and tackle them too, and discover forgotten dead lakes and find trees, which give us privacy and some moments which are not new and not original and indeed are as old as time itself, but which this rain washed evening feels quite new and completely and unabashedly our own.
Today, I got molested by an autowalla. He kissed my left knee. As soon as it happened, I thought of putting it up as my FB status message. And then I started thinking, what happenned? I have been in this city for the last 16 years. Travelled alone by auto for at least the last 14 years, sometimes as late as 12am, and more than a little drunk. And noone, noone, even made a suggestion. How was it different today? How did I allow my left knee to be kissed by an autowalla? One, I took it from Basheerbagh at 6:30pm. The time was most decent. The place, usually busy, on this curfew laden day was pretty deserted with truckful of policemen loitering here and there. Signal 1
The said autowalla struck up a conversation with me, and I responded. Signal 2. Then he complained about, how many petrol pumps through the city have been shut the whole day and he wanted to fill petrol at the closest one. I very politely and nicely said, “Koi baat nahin.” But as I was entering the pump, I realised I was smoking, so did the petrol pump attendents. They signalled me to stub it. I did. Within the auto, cos I thought stubbing it outside, won't be safe. It was then that the autowalla realised that I had been smoking. He was outside the auto, he put his hand on my knee. This had never happenned before. And I wasn't expecting it and before I knew, on the pretext of picking up the cigarette stub, he leaned over my knees and kissed them. After 4 of them kisses, I pushed him away, asking him, “Kya kar rahe ho?” He says, that smoking is not allowed in petrol pumps. By then, I had already given him Rs 100. It's a common practice to pay the autowalla in advance if he's going to fill petrol. So, he gets back into the auto, and starts, and I sit clutching my bag to my chest, stunned. It's been long since anybody has touched me without my wish. It was creepy! And I was so disappointed with myself for not having shoved him harder or slapped him. But the first thing I wanted to do was go home. Be safe. I considered my options. Get out of the auto, I would have, if I hadn't paid him already. To let him violate my knee and pay him 100 bucks for it, was insult to injury. That wasn't an option. I could have fought with him for money and screamed at him, but that wouldn't have hurt him. I could have slapped him, but I wantedto hurt him more than a slap. Also, violence begets violence and the petrol pump attendants were his friends and the roads were deserted. The truckful of cops were more scary to me than a lone autoguy. I thought, I thought. I wanted to hurt him. Whats the only place where it hurts human beings the most? I thought. Ego. I decided. How to hurt his ego? I wondered desperately. He kept talking to me about the curfew. The same topics as earlier. I didnot reply. Stoic face and silence. Then he started asking direct questions like if I wanted to smoke now and if he could buy me some. More stoic silence. It helped me. This few minutes of silence. For we were by then on busier roads and my anger had become more finetuned and I was replying to him in my scariest, rudest voice. Just saying, “Nahi” and “Chalo.” Then at the khairatabad junction he stopped the auto and got off and I asked him, “Kaha jaa rahe ho?” and he came towards me and said, that just a minute and then asked me again if I wanted to smoke. I said “Nahi.” again and he asked again. This time I screamed. I have this Inhumanly loud, screechy voice which sounds almost insane. It sounds like the next thing I might do is kill you with my bare hands. I said, “Nahi!” in that voice. Then I think he got a little unnerved. He got into the auto and started driving. Real slow. I could feel that he was itching to turn back. But he had stopped speaking. He asked for the time once and I said I dont know. By then we had reached Ameerpet and I still didn't have a plan. Out of habit, I asked him to take a left towards Sri Nagar Colony. I usually take that diversion cos the traffic is better that way. Today with the curfew it didn't matter, but I asked him to take the left anyway. When I say ask, I actually mean I screamed at him. He sounded really hesitant to do that. He kept saying, “But Kalyan Nagar is that way, where are you taking me?” Then I realised that he is thinking that I am going to take him to a place and get him beaten up by my friends or the police or something. I played on and kept ordering him to just shut up and go straight. 30 more seconds on that road and he stopped,saying that I am speaking so rudely to him that he doesn't want to go any further. And he offered to give me 50 bucks. I still sat in the auto. Then he insisted and thrust the note in my hand. Then I got off. I wasn't sure which way to start walking, so first I went behind the auto and then I went passed him and started walking ahead. Now, I know he thought I did that to note down the number plate. Believe me I wasn't thinking about it. I was just happy. I was smiling widely. Bennet called and while recounting the incident to him I started walking towards home. A few autos stopped, but I just couldnt get in. I wallked almost an hour to get home. My feet have blisters. And I was so upset with myself. I felt that I had internalised intellectualism and feminism to such an extent that I'd lost my primal reaction. But as the hours pass by, I think I handled the situation very well. There may have been other things I could have done, like walked off from the petrol pump itself without asking him to return the money, or screamed and cried and hoped some men would have roughed him up. But, I couldn't cos I would have been doubly upset then. First, at what happenned and second at how I had to depend on others to help me. Also, I was too angry to cry.
Strangely. 2 weeks ago, I had had a nightmare, where an auto driver I was talking to very nicely came and sat on my lap and then went ahead and tried to rape me. I dont know if he succeeded or not, for I had woken up.
Over the 5 years that I've been writing in here, all the comments my posts have received have been appreciative. (Mostly cos they were made by friends). Because of these kind comments, I now believe that my writing appeals to some people and that i may be a good observer and expressor of emotions, or even a good writer. However, before my blog happenned to me, pre 2005, when i wrote offline, in my diary, there was one person who really enjoyed my writing. Me. My words seduce me.
Till my first standard (or till I was 6) I studied under the W.B board in a bangla medium school in Calcutta. I was being tought long division and geometery at the age of 6. As a direct result of that and the long hours I had to spend in school, I hated school. I was learning english too. We were being introduced to meanings of all words english. The book, i still remember very well, was this bangla-english dictionary. And it was my favourite book. I would study english all the time. I was great at spellings. At the last exam i had in that school (we had 2 hour exams with 100 mark question papers, yes! At age 6!) i scored 99/100 in English (don't ask me my maths scores, i dunno i donkare)
The next thing i knew, i was uprooted from W.B and placed in LilavatiBai Podar High School, Santa Cruz, Bombay. I.C.S.E saved me. For the entrance interview, I remember, I sat with my father while Mrs Marker, the then principal, asked me questions in english. I only half understoon what she was asking. When she asked me, “What is your favourite subject?” I replied, “ Maths, english, history, geography, bangla...” Because I knew the meaning of the word subject but not the word favourite. She was so kind. She asked my father to set me some sums to solve, so she could check the standard I was used to. My father did. Thankfully, he left out the long division. I did the addition, subtraction, multiplication, division easliy enough. After another 10 minutes discussion between Mrs Marker and my father, I learnt that this was to be my new school.
When school started in June, I saw that my class (the 2nd std) hadn't reached division yet.
I remember not being able to understand a word of what was being said in class the first day. Hence, I dont really remember the first day at all. On day 2, i sat next to this girl, whom i heard humming a bangla song. I eagerly asked her, “Tumii Bangaali?” She nodded and she became my best friend and interpreter. Nivedita translated everything for me.
I remember, the whole class, after finishing what the teacher had set for us, would turn to the teacher and ask her if she liked what they had done. My fiercely independent 7 year-old self would baulk at this. Why did she have to like what we had done. It took me 5 days to realise what the class was asking her was, “Is it like this?”
The first year i received some after school coaching in english. And slowly i was at par with the rest of the class. Much later, when my family moved to Hyderabad, and I joined Gitanjali mid-term and yet scored much better in english than most of the class, I think came a full circle in some way.
Slowly, however, my written bangla became rusty. (My handwriting even now looks like a 6-year old's). I still read bangla and I still thought in bangla. In the mental arithmetic classes, i would do so badly, cos i knew my tables in bangla and it would take me some time to go, “7 8s are? (Shaat aashte chhaappanno) 56” [in fact some things you can never relearn, and I still multiply in bangla]. But whereas the rest of the class was still at 10 times table, i had learnt till almost 20 in Calcutta.
My parents were such bookworms, especially my mother and so i had learnt to read bangla at a very early age. My grandparents would parcel loads of bangla books for me to read after we moved to Bombay. When I would be done with them, i would start with terribly inappropriate (for 7 year olds) adult books by Shooneel Gangopadhyay and the rest. I would hide and read them in the loo (hmmmm so that's where that habit came from!) and get caught all the time. Thankfully, my parents wouldnt make a big deal of it and my mother and her mother were so appreciative of my thirst for knowledge that they would try to answer whatever questions I had. (I now return the favour and explain the more new-fangled things that they dont understand). I never asked them, “Where do babies come from?” cos I was precocious enough to know that that was a secret and i'd made it my mission to find out on my own. The 'India Today' and the dictionary helped.
Now, I think in english. And no I am not sad about losing bangla as my natural first language. I was so young when i left W.B that i never picked up any bad language. And everybody knows, your first language is the one in which you can curse the best.
The wait is always the same. Don't get me wrong. For an impatient girl, I enjoy waiting. The nothing-to-do ness of the wait has a very calming effect on me. My mind rushes on with images of what can be. I practise imaginary conversations which in a few minutes or so may come to fruit. The drama at the end of the wait, especially if of a romantic nature, always fulfills its prophecy. The one waiting, the Waiter, is a step ahead of course. She has come on time and encountered stray gazes. She can now set the stage. The legs are perfectly folded, the hair tucked behind her ear, the half-finished cigarette between her pink-tipped fingers perfectly poised over the fresh ash-tray. If the wait is longer than a few minutes, her fingers now entwine the crook of a tea cup. The moment's arrived for the waitee has too. Is she facing the doorway or did she have it in her to expose her back to the door and win at the game of not caring. If she has seen him come in, catching his gaze and holding it, with or without a smile, is a good way to begin an episode. However, waiting for him to approach her from behind has its perks. To keep her neck open to prey, albeit, the romantic kinds, takes courage and shows her lack of fear of the future, of the unknown and her non-chalance.
The uninnitiated to the wait, resort to a book. The feiging hasn't been mastered yet. Pitying glances from fellow revelleres worry them still. The mind has not been honed to accept the fatality of a wait.
The wait. An oasis of me-time of nothingness in between a day filled with moments of purposefulness for others. Next time you are awaiting, treat yourself to the glorious drama of it. Spectate yourself. Order a cup of tea, light that cigarette, take a deep breath and wait with me.
She waited. She'd arrived a minute early. He would be 17 late. She doesn't know that yet, and she doesn't mind. Arriving early is noble and she does it with a practised ease. She pities the late arriver, of course, for he starts with a disadvantage, but she never admonishes them. She has always graciously brushed aside apologies for lateness. It's tough to be punctual, she knows. No, she didn't mind. She wasn't bored. Nobody is bored around her, least of all, herself.
She waits still. Quaint blue tea-cups on mis-matched orange saucers arrive. Earl gray at 8. She takes a deep breath, exhales and takes a sip of the tea. All's right with the world. She lights a cigarette. Stray glances, at a woman smoking in public, hit her face and slide off at her non-chalance. Lookers-oners look away. It hurts them to try and penetrate her private bubble. Her oasis of solitude affects the cheerful mood at the next table and the converstaion dies down a bit.
She waits still, now contemplating her next move. Should she smoke her last cigarette? She let's it be. Play SuDoKu? She doesn't feel like rummaging through her vast green bag to look for her phone. Instead she gazes ahead and tries to concentrate on the noise around her. The collective hum of the conversation of the 17 tables around her gathers her in and soothes her with its benignity. She looks for a rhythm in the voice of the crowd and smiles to herself. It is so easy to feel alone, to experience solitude amidst a crowd. The urbanity of the in-comprehensible hum lulls her to comfort like it always has. It reminds her of her childhood mornings when she would wake up to her mother's chants. The noise of the chants spelt Morning, God, Clean Room, Incense and a Mother Smelling of Sandalwood. She had never known the individual meaning of the sanskrit words. Suddenly, she catches a few words from the table closest to her. She frowns. She turns the other way and starts humming to herslf as if to shut her ears. The table laughs in unison. She smiles and her palms unclench. She lights the last cigarette in the pack and awaits.
'What does it even matter what he has to say, really,' she thinks, 'I know why he wants out of this....' She stops to look for an appropriate word. She looks around to stare at the Jackfruit tree. Her friends would have provided 'Relationship,' she settles for 'Entanglement.' 'He is scared of course.' She continues to talk to herself, her tongue actually moving behind her clenched teeth. Her jaws tighten with the effort of not speaking aloud. She laughs at herself.
'I need to keep a blank mind. I can't let him know what all I presume for all my presumptions are right and he will get more scared at being so transparent to me and run faster. I'll keep the topics neutral. I'll talk about my sister or the Weather.' She decides and pulls the scarf closer around her neck.
She looks around now for him. 18 minutes have passed by.'Where is he?' She spots him entering through the door, with a phone in one hand at his ear, calling her and a book in the other. Her phone rings in the vast green bag. She ignores it and instead looks at him frantically searching for her. She smiles. He looks so young. So vulnerable, So his age. She waves at him and beckons him over, relieving him of his fear of having to wait for her alone.
Rolling in the dark has its own joys, thought the lil boy of 17. marijuana dice fall free, the room starts smelling of winter nights; men and their wood fires, burning rubbish in my ignoble city. Rolling in her dark room, with a sliver beneath the door, has its own joys, Sundays finish up my new freedoms, and the cup now tilts; she clucks like the mother hen, admonishes me. The lil boy of 17 in me chuckles in glee.
The cigarette meant more than a precursor for disease, although that thought nagged at her too each time she lit up. It was always a support. A cure for loneliness. Every time she lit her Classic Milds, she had something to look forward to, even if it was just for 5 and a half minutes. Whenever she smoked alone, it was her friend. With a lit wand, she could start conversations with herself. Interesting, self-indulgent, neurotic monologues she kept up for far beyond the 5.5 minutes. Sometimes the soliloquy tired her, sometimes it upset her and then she reached out for another cigarette. The second one always made her feel more grown up. When alone, the second cigarette gave her, to herself, an aura of cynicism, of worldliness, of boredom that she always associated with other women she admired in the world. When with others, as was the custom, she had to pass her cigarette around. In the earlier days of scarcity, she did this without a grudge. Nowadays, she loathed to share her lifeline, especially around men who wet the bud. She never did, she never had. Even in the days under tutelage, she would maintain complete dryness of the budular region. She remembers some guy who was sharing a cigarette with her say that it was so wonderful that she didn't wet the bud like other girls sometimes did. She forgets who the guy was but remembers the feeling of inane pride and accomplishment at that achievement. More so because it was intuitive. Like she was born with it. Not wearing lipstick also helped. At least in this area. It didn't perhaps help in any other region of her life. Her fellow smokers nowadays complained that she smoked too much. “I have nothing else in my life, Don't take this away from me too,” she pleads every time. They give up. For they were friends too and fellow sufferers of the lengthiness of life and the abundance of time on their hands.
The cigarette indicated a lot more if you ever cared to notice. She had changed her brand some 4 times in her short life. Each time for love of some kind. Each time she realised her sacrifice after her heart or ego or both were squashed beneath some manly or dainty footwear. Every time she reverted to the one that tasted the best. Ever the good learner and a strong follower of the adage, “Learn From Your Experience,” she stuck to the one which tasted better. Or really which gave her the best high. There were some mysteries she couldn't fathom. Gold Flake lights were for sissies. But the two men she'd been most attracted to, and hence the most good-looking, broad-shouldered men she knew, smoked lights. Whereas, this dainty dyke (yeah I know) she was conversing and smoking with, smoked Navy Cuts. Yes, she switched her brand every time. Now she smokes Wills Classic Milds. Friends bought packs at a carton rate. This taste too had been borrowed, but it troubles her the least. At least her heart is alive. And sometimes, when she has finished smoking even the bud, conversations, real and warm and light and full of love and of a shared life prevail. And sometimes, she forgets to light the second cigarette.
Saturday, October 03, 2009
At 27. I have seen it all. I know how it ends and I know what to not say and what the signs are. But I am not yet old or cynical enough (some would say Wise) to control my tongue, my fervor or my hormones.
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Secrets make little pitter patter paths
Blue green and yellow, all colours of the
Rainbow. I follow in its footsteps. From the
Glass rooms, from the woods, from the
Concrete. Sometimes I tire, sometimes I admire
But always I die a little more death. Till my
Heart smells of mothballs. Its Time I stop and
smell out different kind tree for me.
Bye bye my secret world. Bye bye and good riddance
you beautiful monster.
Saturday, June 06, 2009
It’s as if 3 years have passed and I was asleep all this while. And once the decision was made, I just woke up from a fretful and cold slumber that had morphed me into something staid and intimidating and scary. And once more I wish to be free. Once more I need to be open and out and loud and loving and wanting. Are you ready for me? Am I?
Tuesday, September 02, 2008
Orange blossoms cling onto my morning skin. My very intelligent dog lies, panting after a walk with her father, my father. My mother is trying to time the tea, so as to coincide with my coming out of the bath. My sister enjoying the sleep i awoke from. My extremely disgusting cabmate gives a missed call. Orange blossomed haze helps me refocus. Till i reach work and the day begins to unravel.
I have read the Mahabharata only once and people were always sleeping with lots of other people and then dying or cursing others and causing there penises to fall off (I am only half joking). I have also seen the Doordarshan one. In fact my early memories were of watching MB on Sunday mornings sitting on my Grandmother’s bed (which was also my bed)
I have looked forward to Ekta Kapoors’s version of it since I saw Chetan Hansrajs’ Bhim on a poster everybody on my way to work and everyday I try to memorize how his body looks naked.
Coming back to it, after 2 weeks we are proceeding beautifully.It is the same story but beautifully divided into 30 minutes episode. It’s grand and well characterized and filled with beautiful people who worked on their bodies for a year or so and I wish people who don’t like Ekta cos she is Ekta watch this and learn Mahabharata, like my sis is.
I met some people this weekend. Some people I knew about 5 years ago. And they said I have changed. For the good they think. 1- My phone voice is sexy as hell. 2-I have longer hair. 3- I am all lady-like and gracious, (I think he meant graceful)
I hate this post. I think I have changed too, I am now 1- conceding to the fact(concept, I still wanna believe)that women should dress like women. 2- growing my hair so that it matched the rest of my body, ie, BIG. 3- spending money and time on my appearance. 4-Less happy and attractive than I was then.
P.S: I hate this post as its one of my those posts, wherin I talk about my feelings and show the world how i was a better person then.
P.P.S: I am writing prose for premankur, I hope he is reading my blog now. :(
Last year or so I have been leaving for home at exactly 5:30 or 5:45 unless I had to go to the gym. And these days I just stay back, like I used to, my first year at Google. This is all cos I just cant be home anymore. My lonely desperation has reached its new heights and this time I am quite happy with it. I have to move out of home and I don't want to be able to slip back into the comfort. I want some prickly heat in my life..I need to take some risks, meet new people, set some tough OKRs.
I need to get off this seat and get back home and spend some time at home with people who I feel are starting to think that I am some kinda emotional burden to them. And all this is making me eat more and buy new clothes, and soon they will be mutually exclusive as I wont be able to fit into them. But then I have discovered Revolutions...so I guess I am safe for another 50 KGS................I just scared myself shit...I need to also stay healthy and these are not like resolutions but what I have realised I need to do like 7 years ago...OK 4. And I can hear this boy and girl next door murmur to each other...and am getting a little turned on.
Anyhooo...I have miles and miles to go before I will be able to look myself in the eye, but Soul is a lil rested as I am writing here at;east at last :D
