It was a Long Walk

This is what I remember of her. This diary entry is about her, her royal nose, her childlike demeanour and some mental notes.

X
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"I don't know where this is coming from! Why can't you stop digging into the past?"

"You have always been like this! You have not changed at all!"

I walked to the phone booth. I was short on money, and I needed to make an urgent call home. I dug into my pockets to get a few coins out. Outside, the two people kept their voices loud enough for me to hear.

This isolated, broken down booth was the only thing left besides the architecture as heritage in this town.

"I can't be held responsible for things that you think are wrong, but clearly aren't so!"

I dialled.

The phone kept ringing. After four rings, a young womanly voice answered.

"Hello?"

"Kirti?"

We spoke for a few minutes.

After I hung up, I stared outside the booth. The young couple was still fighting, and I stood there, looking around.

The paint had chipped off from many places, and the glass was yellowed and patchy.

"I can't just go on like this!"

"Obviously! Look for the easy way out!"

I decided to stay on for a while, but then decided against it.

I walked towards the end of the lane. The book shop was nearby, and I always paused there to gaze at a few authors like I found them loitering in stacks, under each other's weight.

Just when I was about to turn from the bend, I looked back, instinctively to see if the couple was still there. I couldn't see them, and for a moment I was tempted to go back and see if everything was okay.

Within a minute I was back at the phone booth, looking for them. It was a foolish thing to do, but I had had a very difficult morning that day, and my nerves were rankled. I saw the girl stepping out of the adjacent lane, crying.

She looked at me once, and looked again. She must have thought this funny man likes to be in the booth. After a few seconds, I stepped back and started walking in the opposite direction.

The conversation I had over the phone was still in my ears and my head began to hurt. I had no money, no job, and I was losing someone very important to me. I tried to piece together the conversation again to possibly interpret it again before a voice behind me jerked me out of my trance.

"Hello..?"

I stopped and turned around to see the girl, standing behind me, her eyes red, her nose a cute cherry red.

"Helluh" I said awkwardly, as my throat gave away.

Her gaze kept shifting on the road, as if she was about to confess something.

I tried to read her face, and just before I could say something, she blurted, "Can you sit with me for sometime?"

I am probably the only stranger that day to have been witness to their fight, and obviously, she needed someone to talk to, to pour her heart.

"Sure, no problem. Except, that I am broke right now and I cannot be in a coffee shop, and as you could have seen, I was calling someone from the booth," I said. I immediately regretted it.

"Yes, I saw. But, it's okay. I need to sit."

As we walked quietly to a coffee shop close by, I sensed an easy calm around me. The day was clear, there was a slight breeze, which had gone unnoticed in the tumult that had occurred.

We sat in the open verandah outside the café, it was quiet. Her nose had sobered down or so it seemed to me it had peaked out. It was long and round at the end, giving off a bored smugness to the world.

She gave an irritated look, and I stopped and looked away.

I adjusted myself in the chair again. She kept silent for few minutes, possibly trying to disentangle her emotions, which seemed to have hobbled off in a hurry, outside of her control, the result of it all being me, a stranger sitting next to her. Or, so I imagined.


She apologised for her behaviour and spoke about how awfully low she felt after the altercation in the lane. She didn't mention much about what happened, neither did I ask. I simply watched her speak, her hands move, her eyes slow and heavy with confusion and sadness.

She bought me coffee and soon after asked me if I wanted to leave. I was jolted out of my reverie again. I hurriedly said that it was unnecessary to apologise and feel guilty.

That moment, her cell phone rang. Someone obviously wanted her somewhere else, and she immediately got up to leave.

We didn't even wish each other adieu. She gestured thank you from a distance before calling out to a taxi. I smiled and dug my hands into my pockets to hear the jingle of a few coins.

A Life Less Ordinary

The June sun was furious. Its ruthlessness was evident on the light and dark skin tones of boys and girls waiting for the University-special. At the bus stop outside Patel Nagar market, Sushant Banerjee preferred to roll his eyeballs around some neatly waxed legs, his eyes admiring their sheen, his heart craving to feel their softness. Personally, Sushant disapproved of clothes that revealed one’s body parts, but the voyeur in him couldn't resist to take a look. He himself was happy in his regular refuge of a full-sleeved shirt and trousers, a gift from last year’s Durga Puja. This was but a part of the act he put up as a Mathematics lecturer at the prestigious Lord Stevens College.

Fair enough for his secret indulgences, his life, he believed, was everything except extraordinary. And even as he turned 30 today, little had changed in his world, despite his mind embarking on an Odyssean journey to the past. A cherub-like face had always betrayed his potential to assert his manhood, so he thought. But being thirty was a landmark. In his mind, Sushant kept convincing himself, "Today is just another day." He had spent many birthdays trying to solve tough problems --- both in mathematics and his life. He owed loyalty to the subject as it saved him from realising several truths. And he found peace in this imposed ignorance. Be it the screams coming from the adjoining room, his mother’s tears that fell on the pages of his books when she taught him or the urgency to pay the school fee, no factor was factor enough to intervene in his love affair with Mathematics. On his fifteenth birthday, the mother insisted on a small celebration at school. Sushant, however, was reluctant. He loathed the idea of selling old newspapers to buy toffees for classmates who did not even care to speak to him. But his resistance wasn’t strong enough.

Later that evening, as Sushant rejoiced the last Kismi in his toffee packet, he felt jubilant. He looked at his unshaven chest in the mirror and felt the freshness of adolescence. The joys of boyhood, he grinned. The narcissistic indulgence would have continued for a while had the mother not called. "Baba modey daariye aache. Niye aashte paarbe, shona? Aamaar shorir khaaraap laagje." (Father is standing across the street. Would you get him here, dear? I am feeling sick). Sushant evidently had no choice. He hated helping an intoxicated father find way to their house. On several sleepless nights, he had seen his mother waiting till midnight for his father. Sushant wanted to contribute to that little gesture of care, but couldn’t. He didn’t seek any reason for the detachment, just felt it. Fifteen years later, things were different. The ageing father had surrendered to what he believed was cruel fate, and Sushant took over as the breadwinner of the family.

Lost in the memories of a joyless childhood, Sushant noticed the U-special making its way to the bus stop. As he stepped in to see bright young faces and all-sized figures draped in branded apparels, the excitement of turning 30 took a backseat and the anxiety of a lecture with Maths Hons second year took over. Sushant perspired once again. For a reason unknown to him, he had forgotten to prepare the third chapter of Mechanics. The over-enthusiastic second year students were known to be the inquisitive lot---the kind that often left the teachers breathless in their quest for knowledge.

To deal with the unpleasant challenge that these students posed, a lecturer needed a sound strategy. A STRATEGY rather than a teaching skill. As the U-Special reached Maurice Nagar bus stop, he climbed down. Making his way to 39 A, he nodded many times as a young group of girls and boys wished him. "Being wished good morning is much better than being wished Happy Birthday," he thought, his mind refusing to accept that he liked being wished on his birthday. As the mathematician entered the classroom, his probing eyes scrutinised each and every student. "I'm planning to take a surprise test today on Mechanics Chapter 2. I hope all of you are ready," he announced, with a grin so wide that it exposed the last tooth of his lower jaw. "What the f*** !" Sushant's hatred was matched by an irreverent student. Though the Mechanics teacher pretended to ignore the comment, he knew it was Charles Eapen, the rebel who was also the class representative. As the CR, Charles had asked the class to contribute Rs 100 each to buy a Reebok t-shirt for their ‘favourite’ teacher. But surprise tests have a way of bringing out the worst in students, and Charles was no different. With the ‘burden’ of  conducting a surprise test, Sushant Banerjee can very well do without a Reebok tee, he thought.

Fifty-five minutes passed when the bell rang and Sushant snatched the papers from his students' desks. Will these papers be checked? This was a question in each student’s mind. Sushant’s sloth had the answer. As he entered the staff room with a pile of papers, the entire department greeted him. And such was the excitement that he feared an impending demand for a party. "What if they ask me to order a cake? 500 taka joley jaabe! (Rs 500 will go down the drain)," he mumbled. Sushant’s miserly ways, however, were no secret to his colleagues. A gentle handshake and chapter was closed for a year.

The clock struck 2.55 pm as Sushant’s last lecture got over. He wouldn't have to feed to anyone's culinary fancy. As he boarded the U-special once again, the 30-year-old 'man' felt the tiredness his work brought to him. His sister, a journalist at Bharat Times, worked almost 14 hours every day. Sometimes he couldn't thank his stars enough that he chose lecturership. He may not have become a permanent faculty yet, but the eighth year, according to the family astrologer, was lucky one. A smile lightened an otherwise pale face at the thought as the bus stopped.

Hoping to take a quick bath, Sushant rang the doorbell, only to be informed by the mother that there was no water in the tap. In the absence of a shower, a sleep would do some amount of good, he thought. A dreamless sleep was not unusual to Sushant. He had spent many nights seeing nothing but darkness. "Please get aata and cheeni baba," mother woke him up from what was a deep slumber. The frown on his face was true to the anger he felt at being woken up at 7 in the evening. But the mother’s knowledge of his slothful ways only helped her remain calm on such occasions.

Seven to nine pm was a time that Sushant dedicated to Mathematics. As he saw the clock striking seven, hunger took precedence over Mechanics. Mother was quick enough to lay the table with a glint in her eyes that gave her an assurance of being complimented for her culinary skills. As Sushant made himself comfortable in an old wooden chair, his disapproval of the elaborate dinner was evident."Pomfret? Do you know how much it costs? Rs 400 a kilo," screamed Sushant, aghast to see a seemingly sumptuous but expensive meal laid out at the table. On occasions like these, Sushant couldn't help but brand his mother a spendthrift.  “Kintu onek din pore baanalaam,” (But I cooked it after long) was her explanation for cooking her son's favourite dish on his thirtieth birthday. When he threatened not to eat, the helpless mother offered an assurance that the money was spent from her own savings. Sitting next to Sushant was the speechless father, who often blamed himself for Sushant's irreverence towards his wife and himself. He had conditioned himself into believing that the son loved them despite the irreverence that his agitation and miserly ways exhibited. Silence, on such occasions, was the father's defence against an arrogant yet lovable son. Finally, Sushant decided to sleep hungry on the special day to prove that he was by no means to be taken lightly.


The lazy alarm was the first sound Sushant heard every morning. As he woke up, he found an unusually silent mother preparing lunch and tea for him. Fresh from last night’s hurt, the mother laid down the breakfast. Sushant’s apologetic gaze towards his mother defeated its purpose as she chose to look at everything except her beloved child’s eyes, the child for whom she had decided to stay in the marriage. They sat quietly, finishing the last crumbs of bread on their plates. “Durga! Durga!” the mother mumbled as she picked Sushant’s bag and offered it to him. Leaving for the bus stop, Sushant felt compelled to look at the verandah of his two-bedroom flat. This was an indulgence that had transformed into a habit with time. Like always, the mother stood there, her vision blurred by the tears that gathered in her eyes. The tears complained and mourned a rejection that she felt first from her husband and now her son. Several minutes of guilt passed. At the bus stop, new pairs of glistening legs had replaced the guilt the mathematician felt till about few minutes back. As the U-special stood in front of the dusty lanes, Sushant was, as usual, the last one to climb up. "Today is just another day," he assured himself.

Ends

A night to remember

It had stopped raining by the time Rahul Seth stepped out of the movie theatre. He felt a cool damp wind caress his face. These had been brutally warm summer days in New Delhi. It wasn’t the heat but the humidity that knifed through him. His clothes were perpetually drenched and clung to him like ghosts resting on Peepal trees in his grandmother’s tales.
The humidity that morning had crushed his clothes and his ego as he walked into work, wearing that silly blue tie, wiping his face with a handkerchief, creased and crusty with salt after numerous attempts at mopping his forehead and polishing the sides of his nose. His boss had called him over to his office. He told him he was fired. While Rahul was clearing his desk, someone called him ‘Mister Knuckles’ playfully and he punched his face, and the guards carried him out.
He could only grapple with one thing at a time; it was the way his mother had cried when he called to tell her he had lost his job.
The darkness of the night hung like a wet quivering blanket in the sky. Dark clouds shifted above. They rumbled like some stomach growls, and the city lights flung red copper dust at its bosom.
Rahul lit a cigarette and meditated unknowingly on three people sitting on the steps of a coffee house smoking cigarettes across from him. They were talking loudly about marriage and commitment.
A man in his mid-twenties with crew cut hair, sat between two girls. He seemed effeminate, for some reason, his stooped back lurching forward, his locked knees and the way he would throw up his hands up or meet his wrists at his chin and spread his hands against his cheeks. His laugh troubled Rahul.
The dusky girl, on the man’s left, wore thick-rimmed spectacles, sported a maroon kurta and was loudest among the three. She was overweight, dark and her arms were chubby. Her friend, who crossed her legs as she arched her back, was slim and awkward with short brown hair. She wore a sleeveless shirt, a pair of faded blue jeans, and smiled nervously.
It was eleven. Some shops were pulling their shutters down. The common folk, the uncles and aunties, the mummies and daddies, were slipping out with shopping bags and packaged foods. The entrances of nightclubs were filling in with unshaven men and scantily clad women. Noisy Bollywood numbers and catchy thumping beats were slowly lifting the veil of pretense of the night.
The entire market complex seemed as if it was undergoing a silent makeover. It was as though the moment was caught between two acts of a play with a swiftness and subtlety that even those who shifted the props had no idea of what they were preparing to see.
Three street urchins carried a wooden box, filled with shoe polish and brushes, and settled beneath a tree and began to sniff a dirty cloth and share a cigarette. A dog started to howl. Somewhere in the parking lot a car alarm went off. The parking attendants were laughing and drinking beer. A tall girl in a short dress with long legs stopped, peeked into her bag, pulled out a lipstick, and then walked on. Two men in coats and ties talked about morning meetings and a deal gone wrong.
Rahul felt stress accumulating in his forehead. One street urchin stood up with fire in his eyes and threw stones at his compatriots. The other two got up and started to chase him shrieking in a child-like frenzy with peals of laughter.
At eleven-thirty, Rahul wondered why he hadn’t gone home, to the flat, his parents owned, where he lived just a walk from the market. Why was he still sitting on the steps of the theatre hall? His mouth was dry, and he could feel a fresh coat of sweat precipitating on his forehead. The humidity in the air had stirred up again. Who was he waiting for, he asked himself.
‘No one,’ said the girl on the steps of the coffee house, the one with the thick rimmed spectacles. ‘No one understands me when I tell my parents I don’t want to get married. But they keep insisting. What’s more, every Sunday, I find some boy with his parents sitting in our living room for tea, waiting to see me. I can’t take it anymore.’
‘Don’t worry, silly, I’m sure you’ll find someone,’ the man said stroking her arm.
‘Oh, it’s killing me. What is it with guys and slim girls? My parents tell me that if I lost fifteen pounds I would get married in a month. My mother gets so carried away at times. Then she gets after my case to be on such-and-such a diet because it worked so well with so-and-so’s daughter that she got married last year…. ‘They want me to starve,’ she added quietly.
‘Maybe you should take it easy on those dark temptations,’ the other girl said, ‘the melted chocolate syrup on brownies with ice cream tend to get heavy you know…’
‘Chocolate helps me release stress,’ exclaimed the man. ‘Let’s go inside.’
Rahul got up and started to walk along the rain-drenched lane that looped in and around the market complex. He felt miserable.
The marketplace in the past had been a refuge for him. Tonight it seemed to distract him more. Each year a new seedy nightclub would open and some young school kid would bunk a class and be wooed by peers and then prepare to be debauched; new fashion brands would set overrated and expensive trends; the McDonald’s that once seemed a treat now smelled of phenyl and offered tasteless food; young girls from smaller towns dabbed in cheap make-up would strut about releasing the sexual frustrations of the night for a handful of rupees – attracting the filth of the city to accumulate.
The film Rahul had watched sank him further in his mind. It was about a teenage boy who murders his girlfriend. The story unfolds in the wake of the murder, when the boy’s teacher in the prison tries to understand his senseless crime and the families of the victim and the boy cope with the aftermath.
Rahul had had a hectic week at work.
He slowly gulped the sadness in his throat. He wanted a release – maybe he got it now. He consoled himself and felt almost glad he had lost his job. How long did they expect him to make those countless calls and convince people to switch their bank accounts or consider their loans?
He felt his twenty-three-year-old weight double with each step he took. He shifted his gaze from one person to another in search of an answer, a cure, a meaning to yank him out of the misery of his mind.
He felt alone. He had 600 friends on Facebook, and yet had no one to call or exchange casual details of his life. He felt invariably awkward whenever he would speak to any of them. He felt that while some of them pretended to have caught some nuance of life that his sensibilities couldn’t reach, others around him seemed to speak in a rhythm of platitudes.
Why had he felt so ridiculous and odd all his life; why couldn’t he articulate those facile impressions of luxury cars, cell phone models, and actresses that others so easily could go on and about? It seemed so pointless. It wasn’t that he didn’t have an opinion. He most certainly did. He just felt misplaced and different to most people around him. Perhaps it was because he understood the absurd irony of life.
Rahul decided to step into the Shenanigans, a dimly-lit bar, for a drink.
At the entrance, he was stopped by a bouncer, who wasn’t really muscular but had bruises on his face and the build of a pot-bellied hulk.
‘No stag entry,’ he said and crossed his arms.
Two girls slipped in front of Rahul and smiled at the bouncer. The man returned the smile, exposing the scar on his upper lip, stamped their wrists, and let them enter.
‘What about them?’ Rahul asked.
‘They are girls. Now will you please step aside,’ the man growled.
‘Look I have friends upstairs,’ Rahul said.
By this time a motley crowd had gathered behind him and the bouncer, half with a whim and, perhaps, half a need to take a leak, signaled him to get inside. ‘If I catch you fooling around,’ he said, ‘I will throw you out.’ Rahul didn’t bother with a reply.
He walked up the narrow stairs and felt the ethereal flow of sweat fumes, booze, and cigarette smoke wrap around him. It sent him into a trance. He could hear the music grow louder with each step. He felt nauseated and yearned for a rum and coke as he drew closer to the floor. That would set him right.
He passed two girls smoking and overheard one of them talking about a pervert who was drunk and had wandered into the women’s loo several times in the course of the night. ‘Poor bastard,’ Rahul thought. Against the backdrop of yellow light, he saw their eyes, the sweat on the backs of their necks, the strings of beads around their necks and the thick solemn cloud of smoke suspended above them.
When he stepped inside, the band on stage was in the midst of a song. The vocalist wore yellow shades, had long straight hair and was grinding his groin against the mike and growling the word ‘hate’.
A pamphlet nailed on the red wall announced that Supersonic Sandman were in session. The band appeared to have a following from the sizeable crowd that stood in front of the stage, moving their heads jerkily but wearing mainly stoned expressions. The performance lacked the integrity of a gig. The drummer and the bass guitarist sounded off, the vocalist sounded shrill and the lead guitarist was constantly signaling to the console to increase the volume, while the acoustic guitarist played goofy.
Rahul reached the bar and ordered a large rum and coke.
‘Man, these guys suck tonight,’ he heard someone exclaim close to his ear.
He turned around to see it was a girl with black hair tied in a ponytail and a short skirt that exposed her thighs.
‘Are they supposed to be good?’ Rahul asked taking a large sip of his rum and watching the drink rise above the glass.
‘Oh totally,’ she said.
Rahul finished his rum in two large sips and asked for another.
‘I hope these guys don’t play another set,’ she said as she swigged her beer and wiped her forehead with the back of her wrist. ‘I want to dance. Interested?’
‘Sure. I’ll join you in a moment,’ Rahul said.
At that precise moment, the band called for a break. The crowd didn’t seem to care and moved towards the bar. Someone helped a drunk who had fallen. He got up, attempted to find support and took a chair with him as he fell again.
Rahul released his grasp on the drink and staggered towards the toilet. There was a fight taking place. A man had been spotted in the women’s toilet and had made a pass at a girl. Some guy, possibly the boyfriend, took offence. But, by the time, Rahul had closed the door behind him, a scuffle had broken loose.
Inside, when he switched on the light, he saw a cockroach scamper from underneath the washbasin and hide behind the pot. He lifted the toilet seat and saw the most jaundiced-looking piss, and on the seat-lid it read: ‘fuck you’.
He turned around to the washbasin and began to wash his face. Outside he could hear abuse being hurled at one’s mother, sister and, and possibly the entire ancestry. He heard thumps of someone being pounded against the door could. A girl screamed a few seconds later, and angry shouts started to erupt.
The Old Monk rum inside of him began to settle. The cold water splashed on his face was helping him recover his composure. He looked into the mirror and saw his eyes had turned blood red. He saw two heavy bags under them that contained at least three months’ worth of unsettled sleep and a lack of character.
When he stepped outside, the bar had resumed its business and the scuffle had been cleared. The bouncer was around and looked at him straight in the eye to measure some guilt. The band seemed to have cleared away their instruments and equipment, and the DJ had taken over the console. ‘Mustang Sally,’ screamed Buddy Guy from the Ahuja speakers. Rahul felt an impulse to scream the lyrics but decided against it. He felt an odd chill in the draft of an air conditioner.
He saw the girl grinding her bum against a wooden pillar that stood in the middle of the dance floor. There were four men dancing ludicrously around her but she seemed to take no notice of him.
He headed to the bar instead, downed another drink and ordered another. After he had consumed three in a flash, he found and downed vodka that sat unattended on the bar. The strange delight of alcohol and its subsequent effects quelled his mind. He floated in the moment like a rubber dinghy in a swimming pool. His mind flickered light into his eyes. He smiled an odd grin.
By the time he reached the dance floor, George Thorogood’s Bad to the Bone was booming from a hammering wooden box a few inches above his head from where he stood. He jauntily approached the girl.
‘What took you so long,’ she hissed in his ears.
‘Rum and tired bones,’ he said not looking into her eyes.
They danced sluggishly close each other; his awkward steps didn’t compare to her graceful movements. When he moved closer he felt the warmth of her body. She was definitely three steps a better dancer than him, but nothing seemed to slow him down either. The room spun with each turn he took, and he stepped closer to her.
There were not only people on the floor. A large group of men danced in a corner, the stench of their armpits conspired against the cologne fumes of the crowd, as they slowly inched towards a stray group of coquettish girls who danced with closed eyes and pouted lips and didn’t seem to mind company.
The song switched to This Town by Frank Sinatra, shifting the tone of the night. Rahul felt an odd sensation of excitement heighten the seductiveness in his mind as he thrust his pelvis into hers, which she accepted and turned around and wiggled for more. He was not dancing in any coherent manner but was merely following every whim of his body, jerking all moveable components, with a look that could’ve frightened him if it was being recorded.
He brought his mouth closer to be met by hers. She had the wildest eyes and a look that weakened his feet and wobbled his knees. He bit her lower lip lightly, as he looked into her glazed morning eyes.
She bit his lower lip. He felt better, he noted. Happiness of the vaguest sort ran through his veins and short circuited in his mind.
‘You don’t understand’ she said.
‘I don’t understand what,’ he whispered.
‘I’m not that kind of a girl,’ she softly said.
She spun around and walked briskly across the floor and lost among the crowd. He waited for her to return. In a matter of a few stretched out seconds he knew she wouldn’t. He couldn’t justify why she had left or what had set her off. He felt a blow to his stomach that began to swell in pain. His eyes started to water. A feverish heat of mortification took him over and the bar began to spin. Every light danced around him. Somewhere inside of him, he could hear a moan.
When he dragged himself out of the building, later that night, falling from one set of steps to another, he remembered his job. Outside it had begun to rain.

The Idea of Love

Love or the idea of love brought them together. He, a young boy, who dreamt of everything except her; She, a young girl, who dreamt of nothing except him. A destiny more cruel than evil itself had conspired their meeting, and when they did He spoke of many nights he spent thinking about how he would rise and shine, the nights that were only his, the nights she wasn't allowed to be part of. She, on the other hand, was living the joy his innocent laughter and uncaring love brought to her. A young girl She was still, yet felt like a woman. That he had become a part of her was a myth He endorsed and she readily surrendered.

They met often. Often enough to keep the pretence of 'love' alive in each other. And when they did, her eyes beamed with a joy that seldom greeted her eyes. His had guilt. She wanted him to look at Her, feel Her breath against His chest, feel the fear she had nurtured ever since the tight of their hands loosened. He couldn't feel. His gift of detachment became her curse of a lifetime. She knew that she had come close to losing Him. "Why?" was a question that haunted her. She hoped to have a part of him, but hopes she knew were as fragile as dreams. He had sold his soul to the strangers en route to nothingness. Now it was her turn...

... She spent nights, her eyes, filled with tears, mourned the loss of self that she felt. He loved this lowness in her. It gave him strength. Yet she liked to be joyous and giggled at times, even though he had stolen the happiness in that laughter. But she was an actress par excellence. Sometimes, curled in her mother's arms, she lied about Him, lied about the happiness that the mother had seen in her eyes long back. He and She learned to live with the lies and a fatal denial that they were consuming each other.

Intoxicated by their newfound ugliness, pain became an obscenity they celebrated each time they met. He, in the satisfaction that She was deprived of his affection. She, in her aspiration to become what she had been to him once.  Hurt was not an emotion they felt any longer, it was passe.
Their inherent monstrosity benumbed them. Out of love, they preyed on each other. They were half human half beasts, but performed the act of togetherness to perfection till the very end. In this lifelessness, they lived or pretended to live unhappily ever after.

Ends

"खाने में क्या है???..."

"Everything changes", said a wise man I do not know! While I hoped that a few things wouldn't, one evening, spent a while back proved the wise man correct once more, much to my dismay.

There I was at one of my favourite food adda at Mahim, Mumbai after almost a year and not dramatically speaking, my heart broke.

Any non-vegetarian Mumbaikar worth his bread (no puns intended) would probably know of the Mahim "khau-gully" and it beats me how every second street with a bunch of food vendors is christened so in this city. If Bono would know of this phenomenon, he would be proud U2 sang, "Where the streets have no name"!

And while I'll spare the introduction (of the gully), I can't do without splashing a bit of personal history.

Not too long ago, when one of my early bands practised at our then drummer's place at Mahim, this almost a skid row in front of the Mahim dargah was a huge hit with us for our dose of kebabs, rolls, baida roti, tandoori chicken and some such. We rockstars get hungry easy!

So that lazy Sunday, when my pals had more "happening" things to do and the band I was the vocalist of then didn't have a place to practice, I decided to walk down memory lane (for the lack of a less clichéd phrase).

Late evening, me, bass boy Kamdar and guitar hero, Joy met up at that much familiar and even dirtier food stall; one of the many, of course. Who runs the place, what is it called; do not bother to ask me. More often than not, we were too stoned or tired or simply spaced out to worry ourselves with such details.

So while Kamdar began mooching cigarettes galore off me, Joy made good for the birthday party I never invited him to. Kicking the "celebrations" off was a couple of plates of chicken roll, one chicken baida roti (roti coated in egg, stuffed with chicken and fried) and two plates of tandoori chicken.

Much to Joy's disappointment, there were no chicken breasts available and we had to be content with "leg pieces" (and I am not being pervert at all!)

As the "delicacies" were placed on the jittery plastic table, I rubbed my hands together. Gluttony could be sin but I couldn't care less.

My eyes popped out at the green thing passed off as "chutney". To the regulars, it could be what it is, to the first timer, just a generous serving of green coloured oil. And though it wasn't the first time for me, that chutney makes me sigh every other time.

I hesitantly dipped a piece of the greasy baida roti in the chutney and "savoured" my first bite. I swore not to touch the chutney for the rest of the evening. The roti wasn't bad, if you ask me and compared to what was in store ahead, it wasn't bad at all.

While Joy and I finished the roti and Kamdar further emptied my cigarette pack, I moved on to the chicken legs, which Joy had refused to part with so far. As I took my first bite, I wished he never had. To be kind to the chef, it was not cooked enough, bland and I was scared, it would fly off my plate and into Joy's face if I tried any harder to tear a small piece.

I turned to the chicken roll that is chicken wrapped with a greasy (now this should be taken for granted) roti for the unenlightened ones. It turned out to be the only saviour. Oil aside, the roll tasted just about wonderful as it melted in your mouth. You'd be satisfied, as being roadside food, you wouldn't think much for the lack of fancy garnishing. Add a pinch of chat masala like I did and you wouldn't mind it at all.

Needless to say, we ordered some more. If not for the fact that I actually liked it, then surely because Joy was on a roll (no puns intended, once again)!

We also asked for some boti kebab, a boneless lamb preparation, the worst order of the evening! It looked strange from the word go and it would be fair to say that it was the worst kebab I ever tasted (tried to taste, really).

Pat came the first reaction. "Boyses, this feels like bubble gum in my mouth!!!" Joy went a step further, "Dude, it's worse. Did I just eat latex?" Need I elaborate any further?

I called it a day right there. There were other stuff that place is quite known for but I couldn't dare anymore. If you could leave inhibitions aside, you might want to try what is called "kheeri", which is basically barbecued cow udder. And of course, the paya (lamb leg) soup that slipped my mind.

A word of caution - DO NOT dare to touch the "drinking" water served. After the unmentionable things, I was told the water is used for, I had 7 bottles of "Mirinda" to wash down the meal.

The experience was not kind on the pocket either. When did you last hear of spending almost half a grand of rupees on street food? Though I suspect Joy's gluttony had a huge role to play there and he sheepishly contributed two hundred.

For dessert, we headed to "Baba Falooda". One wouldn't want to miss out on this while in Mahim's khau gully and thankfully, the falooda, a drink made of syrup, vermicelli, ice cream and tapioca seeds was just how it was since I tasted it last. Just so one knows, I completely dote on the "kesar pista special falooda" they make and I think it's worth the 60 bucks it comes for. I might have even licked the last bit off the glass had it not been for all the soda bubbling within me.

And while Kamdar finished the last cigarette I had, and Joy was done cracking the last sad joke for the evening, I took one last look at the street before hopping into a taxi.

It's a shame. As much as I would have loved to come back for another round of kebabs, rolls, tandooris and the works, I think I just might be short of excuses with the band having moved to another suburb (and me having decided to go solo :P). "Good food" for now at least, would be the last one on the mind. So much for wise men!

---

All things bright and Biprorshee

Mr and Mrs Seth

Mr and Mrs Seth

Mr Seth woke up this morning with his head spinning furiously. He had to almost tap his head thrice to get Rumpelstiltskin to stop creating such a ruckus and consider normal things like paying him rent for a change. It was also quite remarkable of Mr Seth to note that it was as though at any minute his brains were about to pop out like an eccentric toaster taken a recent unfounded dislike of the living room upholstery. For him dreams were like merry-go-rounds and sleep an unconditional submission to a carnival land where drinking tea on the sidewalk was highly unadvisable.

Mrs Seth took one look at Mr Seth and shook her head in disapproval. Mr Seth, meanwhile, had crawled out of bed and was caressing his stomach with his hands in order to clear the final belch of the morning, looking quite the other way.
‘What time is it?’ he asked without realizing the slightest hint of redundancy of his question or for that matter turning around. Mrs Seth muttered, ‘seven’, as she rubbed her pale green eyes without casting a single look at the tireless clock that had stayed put on the mantelpiece in their bedroom for more than half a century. She had also been accustomed to the art of time-telling to her husband, who, for the last 20 years, had been repeatedly asking the same precise question at the same precise moment.

‘I’m late then, I suppose,’ he said as he slipped his feet into a pair of blue bathroom slippers. This would have been a clue, but to Mrs Seth it was one of those things old people said to one another, besides she had a long time ago given up the will to read between the lines. She felt it was as pointless as watching television or for that matter knitting.

‘What are you late for?’ she asked as flipped open the Times of India, to the editorial section, an old trivial pursuit of hers to find an opinion that would set the precedent of her day and sprinkle meaning and reason to the canvas of her evening society conversations. An act she had refrained from for a week.
‘I have some writing to do,’ said Mr Seth knitting his brows and avoiding all possibilities of an eye contact.

It was a peculiar moment indeed. And by having said this, it only began to mildly fracture the 20 year old plaster of monotony that the Seths of Mumbai had sustained. There was also an opportunity to split open a vacuum that could suck both of them irrespective of either Mr or Mrs Seth’s sense of immorality or intention. But all this Mr Seth gravely grasped as soon as his words left him.

He felt weak and wobbly as he peeked towards his wife searching for a reaction. He couldn’t help but notice how beautiful she looked after all those years. That despite having been together for long, it was as though he was looking at a stranger in his bed. Those deepening lines on her face somehow traced the map of his life. That he had lost and regained love so many times, the word itself had no meaning for him.

It was one of those days. He had to make up his mind.

It had been a week since the general election results were announced. Mrs Seth had been keeping a bit glum about it, and even though the party she had supported won the consecutive term, the film star candidate of her constituency, had lost, in fact, quite poorly. For most people these were arbitrary facts extremely reflective of the whimsical nature of politics. For Mrs Seth, however, in a fit of declaration she pronounced his win quite confidently over a card game among her kitty party friends.

With age she had commanded a certain dignity and respect among her peers but now the chip in her pride seemed to shatter her glass impression of life. Her stature, she feared, would be reduced to nothing in front of those ever-grudging eyes of her neighbour Mrs Khanna, known to be quite cheeky at times, among others.
Perhaps it’s another fair reason to why her usual dose of anti-depressants had doubled over the course of week. Thus contributing and heightening the effect of her staggering inefficiency in paying close attention to what her husband meant when he said ‘he was going to write’ this morning.

She had practically stayed indoors all week, drinking an Australian white wine, smoking Classics ultra-mild cigarette dangled from one corner of her delicate lips – and now that she had mourned enough, she wanted to arm herself with an insight, hopefully not all had been lost.

It was around at ten, when Mrs Seth heard from the voices on the street what she had assumed was her husband. She was in the kitchen, helping herself to another cup of lemon tea, while listening to old Hindi songs on the radio.

‘Arvind?’

‘Arvind are you there?’

A tide of sadness overwhelmed her, she didn’t know whether it was having used her husband’s first name after twenty years that unsettled her or the fact that he didn’t respond. But it was her hands that gave her away at first. They began to tremble and knot. She felt frail, lonely and cold as she closed her eyes and opened them softly. It took her a couple of minutes to somewhat compose herself, enough to light a cigarette and yet not quite know what to do.

She crept softly up to Mr Seth’s study door, left half-open – the way it had always been. It was the smallest room in the apartment, but it was also the nicest, and perhaps the coolest. And as she entered, she felt as though she was lost in some corridor of time. Of course, it had been twenty years since she had been in this room. The smell of her husband’s aftershave, books, perfumed candles and cigarette smoke caught her in some ephemeral rapture.

The window was open but she decided against rushing to it. She could hear voices of a large congregation below, more clearly somewhat now. She couldn’t bear to see the mess on the street or the faces of people looking up to her.

Something brushed passed her legs. She looked below to see that it was her cat, Margarita, sauntering in with careful steps. Something caught her eye. It was a book, an open book with Mr Smith’s spectacles behind. She slid her hand against the polished oak table that her father had gifted them when they moved in the house. She looked closer to the page, it had a quotation.

‘He discovered the cruel paradox by which we always deceive ourselves twice about the people we love – first to their advantage, then to their disadvantage.
-- Albert Camus

The doorbell rings. The whistle of the kettle blows.

The Four Horsemen

I came across a discussion on YouTube, a must see for anyone who is vaguely interested in the debate of religion. The video showcases a rare coming together of contemporary intellectual heavyweights, the bastion holders of rationality in our times, exponents of what is called the movement of "new atheists". These are Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris and Daniel Dennett. Apart from Dennett, I had already seen a good number of debates featuring the others, and had a fair idea of what they stood for. For a measure of their eminence, Dawkins is a renowned biologist, best selling author, voted the 3rd most influential public intellectual in the world in 2005 and one of the 100 most influential people in the word in 2007. Hitchens is a journalist and best selling author, voted the 5th most influential public intellectual in the world in 2005. Sam Harris and Dennet are also best selling authors. These are the Bertrand Russelian figures of our age, the men one supposedly turns to, for perspective, when one feels sickened by an irrational, power driven world.



The four are best known in recent times for their scathing attacks on religion, which they see as the root cause of all the evil in the world today. I have frequently seen them tear to shreds priests, rabbis and mullahs, who try to argue for the cause of a God. The thrust of their arguments is to decimate a literal belief in a greater power which created the universe, in all forms the belief may be expressed - at one end the assertion that there is a disinterested god who created the world and never interfered thereafter, and on the other end a god with all possible theological trappings - a god interested in personal human fortunes and god of miracles, one who rewards prayer and punishes sin etc.

They have also been accused of going for the "soft target", i.e., literal belief in god and the contents of holy books (that was my impression as well before reading Dawkins "the god delusion", and the feeling although somewhat dispelled wasn’t completely got rid of). Someone who argues for God as a real entity is always on the losing side, because it a forever un-provable proposition. I partly understand their attacks on religions underbelly, because that's how debates are, and the fact that people who believe in religious dogma word for word comprise a vast political force, and are in the majority rather than minority around the world.

I hoped this discussion between these four intellectuals supporting the same side would unravel some deeper questions, which the question of religion leads to, which touches upon the very essence of the human condition, and the subtlest questions of philosophy – is it more important to know or to lead a wholesome life? Can one be without the other? What are morals? Where do they flow from? Religion? Human nature? Or is it a fundamental psychological need as Jung suggested? What role is faith to play in our lives? Why the universality of religion? Has it been a positive force of good rather than evil? Why is a philosopher’s misery better than ignorant bliss?

And very importantly, I wanted to know why they felt it worthwhile to devote their intellectual energies to the critique of religion, as opposed to the vast political forces at play in the world, considering the current strife around the world, the danger of nuclear war. In their world view, how come religion was the main culprit? I detected a subtle underlying discourse of something else, which i also wanted to verify.

To be continued:-

One Summer

THE MEETING

The ugliest hour is not when you anticipate the worst, but the hour after the crisis. When the story is settling in the mind, piercing each time you attempt at a bit more of understanding of it and its aftermath. It's only when the dread passes through your senses you begin to see formless beings inside you. When I hung up the line, I could only feel the wall's stillness bending, breaking. I felt like a firefly, the light just falling limply aside, the softbody breaking the intestines within. He said he will never call after that. He simply said he will walk away, or some such, nothing more than that. I was moving, I felt, though everything beside me was silent. I took the photograph from the table, looked at it again, with absolute indifference, like a crime scene at first sight.

I walked a few steps, turned around, and the phone rang again with a sound so shrill and insolent, I nearly gnawed at it. It was my mother. She asked me if I was meeting my cousin today. I said I will, and quickly ended the conversation saying I had work.

At 3PM, there was a knock. I felt someone was scowling inside my mind, I winced and tried to look for something to hold. There was a knock again. I went forward to the door, each step weighing heavier than before. I looked out and saw my friend, and his bony frame appeared shapeless. He paced slowly inside, and seemed to have realized a mess, looked at me like a mother looks at her kid, and looked around.

"Bro told me what happened," he said.

I nodded.

He kept looking around, as if trying to visualize what must have happened. He might have been looking for broken glass, or maybe looking for that spot where the hurt and the pain collided to form a pool of red. I callously gazed at him, wondering if his next words were about the phone call.

"I have to take you out."

We ate and spoke for sometime. He told me his research was coming along well, and that he had plans to start taking tutorials at home. He asked me once if I felt like taking a short trip outside. I shrugged and said that if weather could change my mind, I will be fine tomorrow. He didn't ask any questions later.

When you start to tell the world about a heartbreak, there isn't much to say really. It's either a sympathetic nudge to the bones or a softer condolence through letters from friends outside the city. It seems superficial to sell your story sometimes. Like an old tale at bedtime, to feel soft and cosy listening about a ghost story, shivering if it ever happens to you. You feel for the patient, as if that's what a person becomes, almost naturally.

A week later, a friend wrote to me saying he will be in town the following week. I had known him since the last few months, someone who cajoled me to take up writing seriously, since I could write a few stories really well, as he would often say. I hadn't told him about the heartbreak, because I didn't want another shoulder to carry me somewhere I really didn't want to be. I waited.

CLOSURE

"We'll take a little step at one time," he said, holding my hand, as if I was about to stumble and fall. He had become leaner from the last time I had seen him. We were sitting in a cafe, pouring out our woes. The cup stirred and the foam reached the edge as I slipped my hand out of his grip. I looked at the coffee mug. It showed me the boiling point where my emotions were, and the storm still rumbling beneath. I took it as a sign in my heart that this was it. I either let it settle or go for the plunge!

I started to shift a little in my seat, still uncertain about where this was all going. I wanted to know here I am, this is how things are, but none of that was happening. Since I was in the fray myself, I was in charge of all decisions. It took me a minute to step outside this confusion and look back at my friend. He was staring at the ground, lost in a daze. I felt like touching him on his shoulder, but decided against it. We sat in complete silence with the coffee mugs, untouched, and still hot.

I told him how I still slept uneasy, driven crazy by these aimless thoughts that kept me fettered. All this while, he said, he felt I was one of the most saner people he'd come across. He smiled when he said it, and the sunlight nearly missed his face. That could have made for a brilliant picture, I thought. Looking away, I simply nodded my head saying, "You were off from the very start!" I laughed.

He looked puzzled and sipped his coffee. And then, catching me unsuspecting, he asked, "So do you like men with crazy minds or just crazy sense of humour?"

Perhaps, I was right. This mad man knew me well, alright. We walked out looking in either directions. "We're meeting tomorrow," he said. "Of course." - Neha A