As good as fiction

Every day I wake up to the hope of hearing from you. And you don’t even know.

In my mind, it involves us turning over a gigantic, blank page that holds umpteen possibilities and fresh starts. I can’t think of a plausible way how it will happen though, a text message maybe or (God forbid) a phone call. There is every likelihood that the phone would be flung out of the window in nervous anticipation of hearing your voice. And if I were to run into you someday, say on an ordinary day, I would most likely flee in the opposite direction or hide behind the plastic foliage of a tall potted plant. Your presence makes me giddy and regresses my mental capabilities and instincts to that of an awkward, lovestruck adolescent. But I love that love can still create in me that clumsy, good nervousness; the sudden paralysing inability to vocalize or saying more than I had intended to; looking everywhere but at you and resorting to sneaking shy glances; the joyous somersault and quick jig that my heart performs at every memory of yours; the inevitable turning back at the sound of your name; the way my eyes search and pick, like a magpie, pieces of ‘you‘ in the crowd, that intense gaze, the familiar walk, your smile; and the inconceivable but infinitesimal possibility how every ring of the phone or doorbell could have you on the other end.

But then it all happens in my mind, doesn’t it? In the real world, I lurk in the no longer accessible fringes of your memory. I won’t ever see or hear from you. And as I don’t want anyone to misinterpret and trivialize my feelings and consider me a burden or nuisance, I won’t ever reach out for you too. Some day (hopefully soon), I will let go of this impossible love that never existed beyond the confines of my mind. I will wake up without the hope of hearing from you. And you won’t even know.

(Note: this was written nearly a decade ago and remained forever in the drafts folder. No longer relevant and is as good as fiction, hence, reposting.)

3am

On a rare occasion when she was awake at three am, unable to decide whether to continue reading the novel or risk sleeping off only to wake up groggy for an early class, he crept into her mind. It was not him per se, having obliterated his existence from her life years ago with a determinedness that turned out to be self-perpetuating, but flashes of a period when it was impossible to categorize what they were, friends sounded inadequate and lovers petrifying.

She knew only what he wanted her to know. He remembered things she forgot she had told him. They had never ventured beyond apparently normal conversations and genial vibes. And eight springs ago, at 3am when the two insomniac quasi-friends had stumbled onto each other online, he suggested “Let’s play a game“. She snorted, but comforted that he couldn’t have heard it asked politely “Trivia?” “Hmm. Let’s talk like lovers. It’d be so funny“, he quipped. She could sense the fake spontaneity and forced (and negligible) humour of the sentence the moment he wrote it.

They had met a year ago and after some unsuccessful and awkward flirting, he gave in to her offer of platonic boundaries. She was eighteen and socially inept, he was twenty-four and an effortless conversationalist. They were strangers whose only mode of communications were infrequent chats on Yahoo messenger and the single text message that he sent everyday that unknown to both had become as essential and routine and taken for granted as breathing. “I watched this movie last night. And I died.” “Sending you one of my favourite songs about love. Strangers in the Night by Sinatra. You might have already heard it. But I don’t care.” “There’s this book I read…” “I got a little drunk tonight and walking on the rail tracks with a few friends.”

It was just clumsy sharing of everyday moments and occasional exchange of songs or stories that he thought she might like. She found his unpretentiousness charming. It was insomnia that bonded them over books, music, childhood memories, movies, dreams and hopes, innumerable infatuations, significant  individual banks of embarrassing stories and also acted as outlets of ideas and experiences they didn’t share with their friends. They were each other’s talking diaries. At the end of the day, it felt good to talk to someone whose thoughts were on a similar wavelength and with whom there was an undeniable emotional connect. It almost felt illicit to contact each other during the day when they are supposed to be relatively occupied with college, exams, family and the real friends that crowded their lives and barely left any room for interaction.They dared to do so mostly on the pretext of small but relevant queries. An inconsequential text during the busy mornings carried the subtext I am thinking of you but it’s awkward to say so, therefore sending a  lame joke even though we both abhor them.

They cautiously skirted around the word ‘love‘, it could only create complications. Yet there it was, out in the open, he had supposedly joked about talking like lovers; but the words had expanded abruptly in the two rooms separated by a thousand miles and flung them both against the walls.

In the cover of a mocking put-down and ‘😛‘ emoticon, she had fled. He too had retreated aware of crossing some invisible boundary. After two awkward months of dwindling conversations and nervousness, they could no longer ignore love. A good year followed. Then in the cover of a flimsy excuse, he had fled. She too had retreated unaware of the void that would show up unexpectedly seven years later, on a spring day at 3am.

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The One About Skinned Knees, Distractions and Absent Lovers

Two decades ago I barged into a class and under the scrutiny of fifty pairs of eyes that had turned towards the door, I tripped and fell. I didn’t pause for a single second on the ground, and dashed towards my desk, trying to overlook the classmates who sniggered. And it was only when the teacher shrieked ‘Your socks are soaked with blood!’ I looked down at my bloodied knees. The wounds gaped wide enough to require sutures but I was too preoccupied with my embarrassment to feel even the slightest stab of pain. As everyone fussed over my injury, caressing my head, and offering me a glass of water, I felt the pain in my legs explode. That’s what I remember from that day. If you don’t dwell on it, the hurt is negligible. I took to suppression as a coping mechanism against injuries and setbacks; I don’t conceal or run away from hurt, but face it with an essential detachment, like events unfolding in the life of a close acquaintance where I have a ringside view of everything but I am spared the pain. I don’t dwell on the ground to look at my bleeding knees.

February was tough. I lost a sister, an important plan fell through, a close friend disintegrated into depression, and I witnessed (and still witnessing) a career-related legal drama. If I allow myself to take it in all, the chaos would choke me. But over the years, my mind had adapted to detach and distract itself from the dreams that crumble, the people I lose or the ennui of everyday existence, filing them away in neat little cabinets. Life is too short to mourn about what happened and what didn’t. I am yet to be loved; I am yet to achieve my goals. There are so many places I haven’t visited yet; there are so many books I haven’t read yet. I go from one day to the next, concentrating on what is and what would be. The past can’t be crammed into my life.

I extrude the unpleasant by replacing it with small moments of pleasure. A day after my elder sister died, I felt guilty about the happiness that bubbled up in my chest on seeing the new and vivid bougainvillea blossoms near my home. On the days when love disheartens me, I write about love. I read wherever and whenever possible. The calming monotony of laps in the pool or feet pacing on a long walk is something else that I look forward to. My ambition had blunted in the recent years, and I am trying to revive it; but all the while reminding myself that it is just a job. I am not one of those revoltingly joyous and perky individuals brimming with optimism, but I refuse to drown in despair too. Life is just normal; sometimes I create my own happiness, and sometimes it creeps in unexpected.

 

I take solace in the unusual; even the absent lover has a peculiar charm. It can sometimes morph into a constant and subtle longing for him to witness the world with me, to witness me, to let me witness him. These are the moments when I walk about interposing minutiae of my idea of him into the world around me, blending the two seamlessly. Today I drove to IITG and spent few delightful hours walking the large green grounds and catching up with old friends. All throughout I carried him around to hear that song on the car radio, to see that lone black bird on a tree with red blossoms, to be enthralled by that sunset over the vast river, to hear the conversations I had, or to laugh over my hair fanning out weirdly in the wind. Sometimes an intangible absence makes me feel more alive to the world than the tangible objects that crowd it.

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Love In The Translucent Wrap of Ambiguity

“I cannot fix on the hour, or the spot, or the look, or the words, which laid the foundation. It is too long ago. I was in the middle before I knew that I had begun.“~Pride and Prejudice

She is in love with him; somewhat tentatively, a little defiantly and so utterly. It is funny that she missed how and when it all began. It is funnier, the dumb things she does to be crammed in a tiny nook of his mind and linger, even if just for a moment. And it is positively hilarious that she takes solace in sentences like ‘at least he knows my name’, ‘once upon a time we had stood breathing the same air’, or ‘tomorrow is another day’.

She doesn’t conceal it; although to avoid awkwardness on his part on seeing her naked heart and mind, sometimes she covers it in a translucent wrap of ambiguity. She allows him a convenient escape under the pretense of never having known, stamping all over her vulnerabilities. She knows it is not his fault; he hadn’t asked for it. And it isn’t her fault too. Over the years she had built up her fortifications and defenses well, to ward off anyone from messing up her life, but he had walked right through those walls without ever intending to. He must have gone about living his usual life doing the usual things he does, and by some dumb accident ended up taking her hostage within her own life, completely unaware. And by doing just that, he had rooted her to him.

 

Unintended events remain undeclared, but in the mind and heart. She is not articulate enough to say it in clear, precise words; nor is she brave enough to withstand another blow of indifference. But inactivity is equally frightening, as is the thought that he knows how often she thinks about him. So she dons the translucent wrap of ambiguity, to allow him to walk away; or in a world of wishful thinking, to come to her someday.

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Sentimental Reconconstructions

This summer Sameer is in love with Carol, and Ayush is in love with Priya. Last summer Sameer and Priya had gone on long drives, and Ayush had kissed Carol on a moonlit beach.

Sameer had etched in his memory the exact moment Carol had let her gaze linger on him, when they were in the arms of their respective lovers on a dance floor. He was seventeen and a purple skirt fluttering around honey-colored calves, delicate eyelids lined with kohl, and slow laughter rising in a throat had engulfed his young heart in the throes of passion. When the one in his arms knew, she had shed copious tears on his handkerchief but recovered surprisingly fast when she learned it was Carol. It took him a week to realize the swapping that had occurred that summer; he had seen Ayush’s arms around Priya on a night he was out with Carol, and wondered whether they had waited for him to confess first.

                                                ————————x————————-

He has been in love with Carol for four years, two months and six days now. In between classes he waits on a mound of soft grass and waves to Carol as she squints against the sun. They share a strip of mint gum and sit with books on their laps. They go to the theater on Friday evenings and to the beach on Saturday afternoons. They have their Sunday brunch sitting at their favorite table in a dark bistro. They rent a movie on Sunday nights and on the couch she lets his hands roam. They read late into the weeknights over cups of coffee in the college library. He gifts her flowers and non-fiction, she gifts him records and fiction. He makes long phone calls at night; she sends short texts throughout the day. They are used to this predictable companionship, the effortless love devoid of jealousies and mind games and insecurities.

                                               ————————x————————-

Graduation is over and jobs await them in different time zones. They are anxious about the separation and compare their schedules, install Skype and promise to write or call every day. Sameer watches her hair that falls neatly across her forehead and rests on her jaw replace the messy bun, and the three inch high pumps replace the ballerina shoes. He panics when Carol packs a black dress with sheer sleeves and a low back, pencil skirts and bright cardigans instead of her brown trousers, black sweaters and gray shirts. He doesn’t waste time and proposes marriage that weekend. She has a fit of nervous giggles and waits for him to join in the joke. She had never been able to resist petting stray dogs and babies in strollers; so she extends her hand to watch the rush of relief in his pleading eyes. A glint of a promise to fulfill rests on her finger when Carol boards her flight two days later.

                                                 ————————x————————-

She was browsing magazines at the newsstand when Ayush shouts her name. It makes her happy to see the familiar face from her past in a crowd of strangers. He is taller now, interned at an architecture firm and has an apartment fifteen minutes away from hers. Carol doesn’t want to fan any distance-induced insecurity and avoids mentioning the meeting when Sameer calls her at night. They have worked on re-establishing their predictable companionship across the time zone variance. He slept early and put an alarm for three am to call her up at her bedtime. She inquired about his lunch and the day so far as she flossed her teeth every morning. They used video chat and wrote long emails on weekends.

On evening Ayush invites her to a movie. She shows him the ring and feels stupid when he laughs and assures her that it was just for old time’s sake. They meet every Friday for a movie and later he takes her to eat at quaint little eateries. They talk incessantly about missing homemade food, the work they want to do, the books they read, the movie they just saw and occasionally they talked about love. Priya and his romance had lasted just a summer. She had invited him to her marriage a year ago; her husband is a businessman who looked twice her age. Ayush is dating someone from work and adds with a laugh that it isn’t anything serious. Carol rushes through her conversations with Sameer on Friday nights and wakes up with an inscrutable guilt the following morning.

                                                ————————x————————-

Priya walks on Manolo Blahnik, lets Versace silhouette her curves and is forever finding her car keys in her pink rose Birkin. She travels abroad every season to attend fine art courses, film appreciation seminars, photography exhibitions, wine tasting events, shopping festivals, international fashion weeks and if she played her cards right, she could get away with spending less than three months every year with her husband who spent his time cooped up in boardrooms and conferences all over the world. She felt flattered by the unwavering love and attention he showered on her and felt affectionate towards him in her own way; she enjoyed the privileges of being his wife.

She had stepped out of her origami class when she sees him smile at her from the opposite sidewalk. He has a beard and wears glasses but she recognizes the boy who pursued her relentlessly for a single date five summers ago, and they hug. She tells him of her husband in a conference somewhere in Seoul now and congratulates him on his engagement to Carol, who she had talked to when she had called up Ayush a month ago. Sameer senses the sudden heaviness in his chest but keeps exchanging banalities with Priya. They promise to meet for dinner the following weekend. That night he confronts Carol about Ayush and couldn’t curb the accusatory tone; she hung up on him. She calls him two days later and explains that Ayush is just a friend who makes her feel at home in this new country. He apologizes and they laugh at their first major argument. He doesn’t mention the dinner he would have with Priya in less than five hours.

                                              ————————x————————-

They are unsure who started it but in six months Priya’s clothes and shoes occupied three quarters of his wardrobe and an assortment of tubes and jars crowded the cabinet over his bathroom sink. He got used to waiting in a car outside the airport every time she could cook up a suitable excuse for leaving the country. She wore dark glasses and large hats when they went out for a stroll. They avoided restaurants and ordered in food; she was too popular for her own good. She talked to her husband when Sameer was at work, and he talked to Carol from the balcony as Priya slept on his bed. The obligatory night-time calls to Carol wearied him now; a part of him wanted her to detect the love he was faking, but he was scared of the aftermath too. They had been inseparable for six years; he was the one who had proposed marriage, he was the one who had sought constant re-assurance of her love and trust. It broke his heart that his Carol, with her warm smile and her good heart, wasn’t the one he envisioned a future with anymore. He rationalized that destiny had its own ways and meeting Priya after so many years had raked up a lot of dormant feelings. He watches the waif-like creature on his bed and her soft curls fanned out on his pillow and his lips brush the ivory arc of her shoulder. He has an intense desire to protect her from every hurt and sorrow. She had assured him that she would file for divorce soon, but she had to talk it over with her parents, who would be devastated by the news.

                                                   ————————x————————-

She didn’t go home that Christmas; he had sounded a little distant lately and she planned on a surprise visit to cheer up her fiancee. She had dismissed the sense of foreboding when she had heard a woman’s laughter during one of his late night calls. He explained that he had let out his spare room to accommodate his neighbor and his wife who got locked out of their apartment, and they were just enjoying a few drinks. Her worst fears were confirmed in Sameer’s startled eyes when he opened the door on Christmas Eve. She wanted to see the woman but couldn’t stop laughing at the absurdity of it all when she barged in on a flustered Priya sprawled on his bed. She didn’t speak another word, walked into the bathroom and flushed the engagement ring down the pot in front of her bewildered spectators.

                                                  ————————x————————-

On a walk in a moonlit beach seven summers since the day he had first kissed her, he slipped a ring on her finger. She was reluctant but he had persisted. Carol and Ayush got married in an intimate gathering of family and friends later that year. Two months later Priya had mailed him a photo announcing the birth of her baby; Carol noticed a large family huddled around her hospital bed and a bald man, Priya’s husband perhaps, proudly holding the baby.

                                                   ————————x————————-

Years later they meet Sameer in an airport lounge; he has a slight paunch and a wife with a hugely pregnant belly. They exchange few awkward pleasantries before he disappears behind a copy of Fortune. Ayush and their five year old daughter double up with laughter on seeing the enormous bouffant of a lady who sat beside them. As Carol watches them she wonders if Sameer knows about the child born with his dimpled chin and who must be tottering behind his mother’s Manolo Blahnik heels now.

(Note: I read the phrase ‘sentimental reconstruction’ in Mario Vargas Llosa’s novel, ‘The Bad Girl’, and it led me to weave the above story on the sentimental reconstructions of intolerant hearts, passionate hearts, forgetful hearts,malleable hearts and loving hearts.)

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The Years

Every morning she wrung the last drops of water out of her husband’s shirt and her daughter’s ink stained bed sheet and hung them on the common clothesline. She looked around at the wet clothes of her neighbors and became wary of the intimate glimpse into their lives through faint patches of vermillion on a white kurta or the hole in the blue sock of the professor downstairs; so she took to staring at the sky instead and thinking about the clear skies of her childhood, the myriad shades of brilliant blue interspersed with cottony clouds that seemed to follow her as she walked along the narrow path that snaked through tea gardens to reach her school. Life used to be simple and full of hope that the years will be kind to her.

She was given to bouts of incessant staring. In the mornings she watched the wobbly flesh on her husband’s thighs as he walked around the house in his over-stretched and over-starched shorts with tiny threads dangling from the fraying hem. During mealtimes she stared at the hair on his knuckles curling into rings as he dipped his hand in the dal and frenziedly mixed it with rice, the turmeric staining his palm. She watched the grain of rice sticking to the corner of his lips and the revolting sight of the half-chewed morsel of food in his mouth as he told her how tasty the biryani was. At night he burped aloud as he got into her bed and she watched his greasy hair roots, the large shiny forehead and his hands with the hairy knuckles.

She stared at her son’s collection of comic books and tried to remember the exact moment when he started stringing letters to form words. She noticed his long fingers strumming his father’s old guitar and sometimes struggling to create perfect spikes in his hair. One day he had flung at her the pants she had so lovingly chosen, in a time when he still needed her, because it now showed too much ankle. She stared at his “Trainspotting” poster while dusting his desk and the discomfort on his face when she opened the door to greet his friends.

She stared at her daughter’s thick-rimmed glasses obscuring the large dewy eyes that she used to trace with  a home-made kajal. She had felt a slight shiver when her daughter started braiding her own hair, shopped on her own  before Durga Puja, planned her birthday menu; the slow and steady snapping of the umbilical cord remnants. She stared and involuntarily mimicked the look of painful concentration on her daughter’s face as she painted her nails black every weekend, and the wince when she dabbed antiseptic on nicks and cuts after shaving the hair on her legs. She watched her daughter potter around the house on Sunday afternoons humming unknown tunes and she tried to re-create these in her mind when she strained the pulp from the orange juice for breakfast the next day. She gazed for long at the neat rows of books in her daughter’s small library, at few of the volumes to which she had devoted hours of her youth. She stared as her children typed rapid lines on the computer or twirled the telephone wire, folding and unfolding it, as they shared their lives with faceless strangers and dropped subtle hints of impatience if she lingered a tad too long in their rooms.

Once she had waited for her daughter outside a shopping mall and an old lady in a faded green saree had stared at her from across the glass walls. She had wondered why the woman seemed vaguely familiar. It was the shadow of someone from her past; calloused hands that might have been silken soft, unruly hair wrapped in a messy bun that might have been a thick black cascade, droopy breasts resting on a paunch that might have been an ample bosom over the slender curve of a waist, and a blur of a face that might have adorned a sharp nose and full lips. She managed a half-smile and the woman’s lips curved into a half-smile too. She didn’t sleep that night and she didn’t cry. 

It exhausted her that there was so much to mourn about-the small but earnest hopes, the taut flesh of her youth, the books that offered solace, the travels she never undertook, the blue skies of childhood, the laughter lost in her throat, the father that saw a spark in her and the mother that hid it like a disease, the hands that kneaded her fingers in promises that she naively believed, the hands that touch her now without permission, the disappointment and indifference in the eyes of the ones she brought to life, the lost years of her life. 

The years were not kind to her.

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In A Perfect World, On A Perfect Day

The curls dance on her forehead, wild and untamed, to the rhythm of an autumn zephyr. She spreads the blanket and sits down leaning against a rugose pine tree. The earth is still soggy from last night’s rain; she sinks her palm into the dewy grass and her short red nails sparkle in the sunshine. She sees him in the distance walking towards her, carrying the lunch basket from the car. She tries to remember the last time they were alone, undisturbed and with ample time.

It was two months ago when he got a day off from work and had ordered lunch from the Chinese eatery near his home, eating spoonfuls of oily noodles from each other’s plates, and they had let the sauce dry on the dishes as they talked for hours comparing notes on their childhood, travels and books. Later they sat cross-legged on the rug watching Woody Allen’s “The Purple Rose of Cairo”, and at dusk he had kissed her for the first time, as they stood on the balcony and watched the sun go down in the distant hills. They talk on the phone every night, pass each other in the hospital corridors, share rushed lunches in the canteen, strain to hear each other’s voices in crowded cafes on weekends, and feel the quiet assurance of interlinked fingers as he drives her home after long days at work.

He suggested the picnic two weeks ago but had to wait for their work leaves to coincide. He picked her up at five in the morning and had stood grinning as her father shouted a list of ‘dos and don’ts’  from the second floor balcony. They rolled down the windows, fought about the choice of car music, bought bottles of water from a shop on the highway, sneaked sidelong glances at each other when they were overcome with sudden bouts of coyness and tried to mask the shiver of excitement on their first outing together. He swerved the car through the narrow hill roads and after a few hours stopped near a forest resplendent with dappled autumn foliage.

He flops down on the blanket and she takes the basket from him. She notices with some amusement the work he has put into planning this picnic; carefully folded napkins, sandwiches with neatly removed crusts, snacks with hummus dip, cream puffs, three apples, a pulp fiction novella, an iPod dock, a camera, two wine glasses and a bottle of red. She plucks twigs of grass, aware of his eyes on her. He laughs at her discomfiture, stops the assault on the grass and takes her hands into his.

They laugh at the awkwardness of being a new couple, and decide not to let it mar their day. They explore the nearby woods; run their fingers over moss-covered tree trunks, photograph leafy canopies, soak in the sunshine and dip their bare feet in a stream that runs through the woods. On the walk back they come upon a pair of brown puppies curled up on a rock and sunning themselves. He picks one up for her and she recoils in fear; and it is then he learns about the day when she stepped on the tail of a neighbour’s dog with hitherto unused fangs! With mock solemnity he speaks of discarding his plans of rearing eight full-grown Alsatian dogs in their home. She blushes at this offhand remark of setting up a home together, in a future of yet unspoken promises and possibilities.

At brunch they are ravenous and the sandwiches, cream puffs and apples disappear fast. He puts on some music and they read out passages from the 1930s hard-boiled detective story populated with ‘moustache-twirling, cat-loving, trigger-happy’ gangsters and sly, buxom molls who are secret agents in disguise! The racy narrative and the absurd characters delight them, and their laughter scares away a pair of birds from the tree under which they lay sprawled. His fingers brushes away the curls that hide her eyes from him and they watch in companionable solitude the blue shards of skies through a cover of pine leaves.

He tells her about his dog, his first car, his old school, his brother and a predictable Star Wars obsession. She tells him about her total lack of cooking skills, early morning swims and her fascination for Pamuk and Nabokov. Later, her cheeks are flushed, and she can’t tell if it is the jubilation bubbling in her heart or the wine. 

They pack up the blanket in the basket and walk towards the car. She doesn’t want the day to end, and trails behind him. He turns back to look at her and she knows he feels the same, and her heart overflows with endearment. On the drive back home they park the car on the side of a busy road and watch the sun go down behind a grove of trees and the birds returning home in the evening sky.

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Where is a good crow when you want to follow one?

A bowl of crisps, rain outside my window, a soft bed and the cinematic pursuit of five nights.

The Color of Paradise (Iranian): A blind boy gifts his grandmother a green hair clip and she lovingly pins it onto her dress, the sisters accept a necklace made out of tin bottle caps and a comb; treasuring the gifts of love thoughtfully selected by one who couldn’t see them. Traipsing around the Iranian countryside, Mohammed’s life is colored by the same joys that occupy the lives of ten year olds. He wonders what lay beyond the forest he couldn’t see but knows is near. He is exasperated by the questionable reading skills of the boys of the local school. His fingers move fast across the notebook in Braille as a curious teacher looks on, and the same fingers study the rhythms of nature. He wonders what the birds talk about, and the call of the woodpecker fascinates him. He touches his sister’s face and is amazed at how much she has grown up in the past year. He adores his grandmother and craves his father’s acceptance and love. He has his moments of grief, breaking down the wall of joy and self-reliance he has created so painstakingly. He doesn’t expect much from this world, but his father does from him. The man’s insistence on a ‘normal’ life free of responsibilities of taking care of a blind child, and hopes of getting re-married bring about a slew of personal tragedies abruptly overthrowing the veiled paradise he inhabited but failed to recognize. It’s a cornerstone of cinematic excellence, yet the end left me in dismay.

My Neighbours, the Yamadas (Japanese): Pimple-faced, overtly self-conscious and perpetually lazy teenager, Noboru, receives a phone call from a girl. Now, that’s a first in his life and also in the family’s collective set of events. Grandmother, mother and sister lives up to their uncontrollable levels of curiosity and eavesdrop shamelessly on the phone conversation.

Grandmother: “Does he have a girlfriend? With his looks?”

Mother: “A real girlfriend?”

Sister: “His face is red!”

Boy tackles the huddle of curious women with a few menacing glances, they cower away. He rushes back to his room.

Mother: “You insulted him, Mother!”

Grandmother: “And you are the paragon of motherhood!!”

 The movie is filled with vignettes of the life of a middle-class family in Japan but rings true for families across the world. The panic of losing their little daughter in a crowded shopping mall, confronting hooligan bikers in their neighborhood, finding the black hole that shelters lost socks, the politics of deciding dinner menu, the fight over the television remote that can shame any Kung Fu enthusiast, the frisky and headstrong grandmother with a disposition for cooking unpronounceable dishes, the ever-frazzled and clumsy mother, the aimless and all knowing teenager, the smart sister, the dynamics of a ‘real’ marriage of a tough and harmonious couple; the movie chronicles what it is like to be a family, cruising on the same boat of Life, and not always steering in the same direction. Witty and endearing, this movie is a delight.

A Separation (Iranian): Sometimes it’s nobody’s fault, but circumstances need only a tiny shove to spiral into the bounds of no return. A dutiful son taking care of his Alzheimer-afflicted father, a wife who needs some fresh air out of a monotonous life, a precocious eleven year old daughter anxious about her parents imminent separation. And then there is the family of the caretaker who is hired to take care of the Alzheimer patient. There is a lapse of duty, a fit of anger, a scuffle and loss of the caretaker’s unborn child. There is anger, legal complications follow, love is tested, distrust ensues and facades fall as each person struggle to hold on to what they dearly love. And just when things settle down to an amiable decision, befitting all involved, mere words destroy it all,  unraveling what binds them together. It’s a slice of life movie with achingly real characters. Sometimes despite every effort, things fall apart. And we wish life wasn’t so complicated. And we wish communication was easy. And even compromise.

How to Make an American Quilt: She followed a crow’s flight at the wake of dawn, wrapped in a quilt to shield against the autumn chill, and true love awaited her at the end of it. Was the crow a symbol? I’m still working on that. Finn is flighty when it comes to completing her Masters thesis, and her boyfriend has just proposed. She accepts because it isn’t an unreasonable age to get married. She goes to live with her grandmother and grandaunt to work on her thesis, and encounters a motley bunch of quilt-makers who are all set to make her wedding quilt. And while Finn struggles with her ideas of the impermanence of marriage, monogamy and the charms of a local boy, the quilt-makers each bring their distinctive pattern into the quilt and the stories behind these quilt patches help Finn course her way through indecisiveness, infidelity and finding love. Six stories of love, loss, passion, tolerance, togetherness, trust and hope. It’s a pleasure to watch the lovely Winona Ryder, and Maya Angelou too (bibliophile hangover). I am always on the lookout for crows now, but where is a good crow when you want to follow one?

 

 

Where is the Friend’s Home? (Iranian): This movie is about a eight year old boy, Ahmed, who accidentally slips in his bench-mate’s copy in his bag and is traumatized by the thought of his bench-mate’s expulsion from school on failing to hand over the homework the next day. The film chronicles his search for his friend’s home in a nearby district and the people he encounters in his search. It is a simple story, nothing superfluous. And this lack of a crowded plot and interesting deviations can be a killjoy for a certain section of audience, but it’s a delight for my heart overflowing with the love for Iranian movies. One gets the feeling of running alongside Ahmed in his quest for his friend’s home. A lovely watch.

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The Dirty Word

I visited the Sunday Book Bazaar at Daryaganj recently, and I felt faint with excitement at the awe-inspiring treasures in front of me, rows and rows of books scattered in the pavement, waiting to be picked up by readers for less than the price of a cup of coffee. I did what any self-respecting book lover would do, ignored the mortified glare of the people who accompanied me, and sat down at the pavement next to a huge pile of books that included New York Times best-sellers, rare editions with yellowed, well-thumbed pages, translated works from all over the world. I looked sadly at the size of the two totes my sister and I carried; and considered dialling a taxi to take a greater haul home. I added twenty new books to my library that day. And one of them was Joyce Carol Oates’s ‘We Were the Mulvaneys‘.

It’s the saga about a perfect American family; a Dad with a flourishing roofing business, a cheerful Mom who was more of a friend to her children, three talented sons, an angelic daughter, a quaint farmhouse, adorable pets, a bustling social life, devout God-fearing hearts and the happiness of making a perfect little world for themselves, the perfect world of the Mulvaneys. Then ‘it’ happened. The incident. That dirty word. And the world sided with the ‘rapist’. The Mulvaneys fell apart, the family disintegrating gradually, time playing a cruel trick of engraving the hurt deeper each day, the knife turning in their hearts a little more each day. Each individual of the family, Mom, Dad, the three brothers and Marianne Mulvaney herself, the angelic girl to whom ‘it’ happened; were a ‘casualty’ of the incident. They didn’t crumble immediately, but the helplessness and the frustration of justice denied, falling prey to social stigma, disappointment at each other’s reaction to ‘it’; the failure to protect the lovely Marianne, their world, ‘The Mulvaneys’. How it breaks your heart! Knowing the Mulvaneys at such close quarters, having been handed such an intimate view of their lives, their goodness, their love, their perfect life; and the slow destruction of everything they treasured, the love fading behind uneasiness and their misery. Oates’s is at her finest, describing the trauma of this family, turning to obscurity. But time heals the scars, or at least makes them strong enough to endure it.  There is reconciliation, triumph of hope and compassion at the end. But, why? At what cost? Why them? Why anyone at all? It’s fiction, yet it can be anyone. It can be about me, about you. I couldn’t help the tears brimming in my eyes, as I leafed through the final pages of this remarkable book, this moving account of human emotions, flaws and redemption.

And in the evening, I watched Barkha Duttinterview a rape victim of the 2002 Gujrat riots and sat listening to the trials of her family. It’s a ten year old trial of her family fighting for justice, fighting for survival, fighting to bring up two daughters unscathed. The husband’s eyes gleaming with tears as he talked about the troubles they had to face, the threats they had to endure and how they kept it all aside for what is right, what is just.

I remembered the various accounts of sexual abuse I’ve heard through the years. A friend’s sister, who had a problem of bed-wetting till the age of 23, was a victim of incest at the age of 3 years. A neighbour was a victim of marital rape every time she had an argument with her husband. A classmate was groped by few men during a Durga Puja crowd.

Many women. Many stories. A dirty word in their lives; Abuse, Incest or Rape.

It had been coming for a while. I couldn’t see it outright, but the signs were there; creeping along the subconscious, an occasional peek now and then; the dirty word glaring at me from the front page of the newspaper as I nervously flip it over to the light-hearted page 3 gossips, a scene from a TV show-the girl running, thinking ‘will she escape?’ and the helplessness of knowing she won’t; the muted paranoia of letting my sisters go out into the world where unknown dangers lurk at every corner and I’m not there to watch over them every moment; the constant efforts to ‘blend in’, worried of being singled out, of sending any wrong signals, not ‘too quiet, too shy’ any more, as I try being social, to blend in. My mind tries to remind me of ‘it’. There had been too many signs recently; a newspaper headline, TV shows, this book. And I unconsciously shut out these triggers, not dwelling on them out of habit. My memory is remarkable, not in retaining, but in ‘forgetting’, in ‘undoing’, in convincing myself ‘It never happened’, congratulating myself on moving on so effortlessly, dreams and hopes in life still intact, nothing ravaged. My memory saved me, burying unpleasant details, hushing out any voices from the past, those words in the newspaper, that helplessness of the girl running, that muted paranoia.

I too had been through it. I was led to believe I had been lucky. I was ‘only‘ molested. Once that tricky portal of thoughts open, the sentences from my past escape and crowd in, vying for my attention. “Only molested”. “Not raped”. “It could have been worse”. “It happens to every woman at some point of her life”. “Girls get molested in crowded buses every day: a pinch, a rub”. “If you don’t dwell on it, it’s like it never happened”. There are rare times when I wonder how I got so close to being another Marianne Mulvaney, but I didn’t. I escaped; from the bad things that a man can do to a woman. But I had a narrow escape. Was I lucky? Hell, yes. I thank God for sparing me the trauma, and my life. But the questions like “Why did it even have to happen?”, “What could have been?”, “How can my parents not protect me?” still haunts me when I lessen my guard over my subconscious.  Family support and therapy can go a long way, I have heard. I can’t imagine what rape victims must go through; their feelings towards self, towards family and friends, towards society at large, and towards the unfairness of being singled out, disrupting their life’s course; the life that wasn’t supposed to include ‘it’.

My family had supported me through my jittery nervous existence, through the bouts of depression that followed, but I was disappointed that nothing could be done to punish the guilty. I consulted a psychiatrist and all she said was, “so, the lesson is to be cautious. And never to use a shared auto.” And nervous laughter. As if it was a joke. As if we are discussing a trivial matter, as if it was a moral science class in school with a ‘Lesson’ at the end. I knew she couldn’t help me, only I can heal myself and move on. Only I can trick my memory, bring my life back on track, and make up for lost time. I have done it, I don’t think about it anymore. I can write about it now, even though I don’t bring it up in conversations. I can watch the scene of a girl being molested on TV without wincing. I can watch my reflection in the mirror and not feel self-disgust. I can talk to people, chat with friends, fall in love, and enjoy life every moment. Sometimes I am aware of it being a little forced, this determination of mine for an untainted memory. Few aspects will take time to get used to; like to trust someone.

 

It’s still taboo in our society. Sex in movies, live-in relationships, homosexuality etc is being accepted gradually. But the uneasiness of society when dealing with sexual abuse is still prevalent. My heart goes out to those women who have suffered ‘it‘. Not just the street hooligans, there can be a beast lurking in that friendly neighbour, that teacher you idolize, that man sitting next to you on a flight. Who knows? Who can say? Where can a woman be safe? In homes where incest is “not seen”, wife swapping among brothers still prevalent in certain communities, and maintaining family relations triumphs over moral justice? In offices where lewd remarks, sexual harassment-outright or suggested, uncomfortable male gazes prevail and again “not seen”? In a society where news of ‘a woman raped at 1am after a party’ gets out and all one hears is the contempt for the careless woman staying out so late at night and questions about her character? On the streets where a young school girl returning from school is stared down from head to toe by road-side loafers who comment on her breasts and thighs?

  

Who has given men right to abuse a women at whatever time of the day it might be, at however lonely a place it might be, and however skimpy her clothes may be? How can one say ‘she had it coming for her’? How can one violate another person in such a brutal way just because she’s a woman, correction, she has a vagina? Who defines these moral codes? I know I am being too hopeful in wanting a society where a woman’s dignity is never unduly violated just because she’s there, within reach of groping hands.

The best we can hope for now is looking after ourselves and being cautious, fighting for justice, and support victims of such crimes-be it incest, sexual harassment of any sort, molestation or rape.

I pray for a world when this dirty word vanishes from the surface of the earth.

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She defined it

The morning rush of patients was over; monitoring vitals, sending laboratory investigations, prescribing medicines and all the relatively small yet hectic duties that internship brought were done with for the day. The patients were in their beds and that provided her some rare quiet moments. She pored over the books that would enable her to cross yet another threshold of her medical career, a postgraduate degree. She concentrated on the questions, mentally eliminating choices and zeroing on a single answer. Confidence surged and ebbed with every guess.

Two hours passed by. Apart from a casual chat with the nurse on duty, there was nothing to interrupt her studies. Few seniors came by later in the evening, and she updated them about any changes in the patients’ conditions. Her duties lessened and she closed her book and waited for nine pm when she could finally go home. Everything seemed dull. She looked at the clock, the minute hand mockingly refused to budge even after what seemed like an eon.

Then he walked in, a confident stride. He had come for his evening shift. Suddenly she became aware of how heavy and awkward her hands felt; and not knowing what to do with them she picked up the book in front of her. Emoting a bilaterally equivalent expression became impossible and she was stuck with the right side of her face trying a hesitant smile, while the left eyelid drooped and the nostril flared. She took in furtive glimpses of him without being too obvious. She was acutely aware of the fact that he stood a few inches away from her and that was her cue to freeze. The simple task of handing over a patient file to him made her sweat glands go into an overdrive. He was totally oblivious of what his presence was doing to her, he probably didn’t even notice that she existed. Time seemed to gallop now, and soon it was time for her to go home. She cursed this relativity of time!

He used to be just another face, another acquaintance. The words that came to her mind when she had first seen him were, “Oh My God! What Acne!” It might have been sudden or gradual, it’s a blur now, but she had looked flustered every time he looked at her or the rare times he talked to her. He hardly knew her, nor did she. And there was no use of harboring any romantic notions for him as it wouldn’t have led to anything. Be reasonable, she chided herself repeatedly. But the heart had stopped taking orders from the reason-seeing-logical-thinking brain. There was a visible disconnect between what she thought and what she felt.

So here she was, acting like an over-enthusiastic teenager, feeling elated every time she caught a glimpse of him or saw him smile; when she had firmly decided that falling in love wasn’t a consideration in the near future.

What was it?

It wasn’t love, it’s too deep a word to assign to her feelings for someone she hardly knew. It wasn’t lust, she didn’t obsess or fantasize about him. It wasn’t an infatuation, he was not the most eligible guy around. It wasn’t the want to be in a relationship, she knew and accepted that he would never reciprocate her feelings. She didn’t feel the urge to see him, or be with him constantly.

She was just happy that there was this boy out there who made her smile every time he crossed her mind. And that’s that.

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The Misunderstood Insomniac

She noticed the whirl of the ceiling fan in the faint glow of the light streaming through her window. If she peered closely she could distinguish the individual blades of the fan; and resembled a spinning top when she half-shut her eyes. She checked the time. Eleven pm. For the next half an hour she tossed and turned in bed, but sleep eluded her.

She checked the bedside stool for a bottle of water. Empty. Reluctantly, she got out of bed and walked towards the kitchen. The icy gulps of water felt blissful. Humidity made the night unbearable. She felt sweat trickling down her neck and headed for the shower. A refreshing shower might help her sleep better. Once in the bathroom, she took off her sweat drenched t-shirt and examined it. The colors were fast fading; the material over-stretched yet soft, and a clumsily stitched patch of cloth on the sleeve was quite distinct. It was a decade old but she couldn’t bring herself to get rid of it. Every night she slipped into it; the soft feel and the faint, powdery smell of the fabric was a source of comfort. Her mother teased her about it, called her a pack-rat. She smiled thinking about it as she stood under the shower, briefly shivering as the first drops of the cold water fell on her. Drying herself off, she stood in front of the mirror and checked her reflection; she loved being curvaceous, but resolved to shed the few extra pounds off her waistline. Chuckling at how often she made this resolve and its earlier feebleness, she slipped into the first t-shirt she could lay her hands on. It was bubble gum pink, a color she wouldn’t be caught dead in. But with no one around, she put it on and cursed her sister for gifting it a couple of years ago. Her mother is right; she is a pack-rat hoarding even the stuff with the least sentimental value. She checked the time again. Midnight.

She knew she had to leave for work at six in the morning for a 24-hour shift at the hospital, but sleep still eluded her. Maybe she can utilize the time she is awake to surf the net and gather information about the obstetric procedures she might get a chance to assist. An hour of peering closely into the computer screen and scribbling tiny notes on her obstetric and gynaecology text followed. She even updated her blog and checked her mail. One a.m.

She hurriedly got into bed, and desperately wished for a meagre four hours of sleep! Lights dimmed, pillows fluffed up, fan on full speed, few drops of lavender oil on the pillow, a glass of warm milk; she didn’t want to miss a single trick in the book. After half an hour of eyes tightly shut, she sat up wearily on the bed. There wasn’t any use pretending, she wasn’t feeling the least bit sleepy.

Her stomach grumbled. That wasn’t the sound she wanted to hear. She wanted to hear a yawn! Maybe she would sleep better on a full stomach; noodles for dinner are hardly filling. She made a mental note to strike off Maggi from next month’s grocery list. A frantic search for mustard sauce to make her favorite sandwich followed. Plopping down the couch with sandwiches in hand, she thought about the sleepless ordeal before her. The professor who would be on the rounds was infamous for terrorizing the interns; and tomorrow would be no exception. No sleep and a tough taskmaster prodding all day would literally be a lethal combination! She checked the time again. Two a.m.

She picked up the TV guide; and was torn with indecisiveness about whether to watch “American Graffiti” or “Annie Hall”. Never being good with decisions she alternately surfed both the channels watching bits and pieces of both the movies. Woody Allen isn’t half as amusing when one is struggling to sleep. She thought of how closely the gum-chewing dude, driving around town in the first movie, resembled her first crush in high school. And instantly fell into reminiscing those days. Bliss! She was snapped out of her fantasies by the ZooZoos giggling in the new Vodafone ads; and she burst into a fit off giggles to how these egg-headed characters resembled her next door neighbor. Drawing resemblances is something that comes to her instinctively, a secret pleasure that delights her often.

She walked into the balcony to watch the sunrise two and half hours later; basking in the first rays of the day and also enjoying the slight chill of the morning breeze. She dashed into the kitchen for a quick cup of green tea and sat on the balcony again, enjoying the calmness and serenity of this part of the day. A few people were out on the streets…the joggers heading for the nearby park, the vendors on the way to the market, and even few teenagers grudgingly setting off to early morning tuition (the gawky, tall one slouching all the way resembled a character from “The Corpse Bride”).

Five a.m. She had bath again, breakfasted on milk and cereals, and then got dressed for work.

Five-thirty a.m. She lied down on the couch, waiting for her colleague to pick her up at six. A thirty minute long wait.

*Rrrrrrrrrrring Rrrrrrrrrrrrrrring*

She rubbed her sleepy eyes, picked up the phone and mumbled groggily, “Hello”.

“Wake up you sleepyhead! We’ll be late. I’ve been waiting for you downstairs for the past ten minutes.”

“Oh sorry! I must have dozed off.”

“No surprises there. You ALWAYS oversleep!”

“But I…”

“What?”

“Nothing. I’ll be downstairs in two minutes.”

Photo Courtesy: https://dialectofheartcom.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/19ba0-01ainsomnia.jpg

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Interpreting the silence

Tell a Tale prompt for Week 7: Silence

She smiled imagining Arjun’s delight on hearing the news of her pregnancy, and had a sudden desire to be near him. Cuddling up in the couch, running her fingers through his hair, a quick kiss by him and although secretly delighted, she always feigned anger at this. She longed to be with him; recreating images of their last meeting repeatedly, relishing his presence as if he were actually there. Her mind was full of his thoughts when she felt an arm around her waist, “Don’t, Arjun”, she cried out in mock anger, the words slipping out of her mouth even before she realized she was in her home, not Arjun’s. She turned; and although she had imagined this moment of truth and confrontation a million times in her mind, nothing prepared her for the look of sheer disbelief and hurt on her husband’s face.

She was at a loss of words. What can she say to soften the blow, and ease his pain? A gamut of emotions engulfed her. Shame, guilt, defiance, anger, fear, impatience, grief. Guilt predominated. The gut wrenching silence that followed her words seemed to shake her very existence, the existence of their marriage of seven years. The tension prevailed, and she didn’t have the courage to break it. He left the bed to wait by the window. The seconds ticked by and all she could do was wait. Life never seemed so uncertain.

Seven years ago:
Her family fixed a suitable match for her; and after meeting him a few times in company of numerous relatives, they were married. As she sat on her new bed awaiting the man, whose preference of reading old English classics is the only personal detail she overheard apart from his name; and to whom she’s married now. He came into the room and sat next to her. She could sense his nervousness, the silence punctuated with occasional clearing of his throat. He was waiting for appropriate words or moves to initiate their first interaction alone. She smiled at this endearing cautiousness on his part not to ruin the moment for her. Emboldened by the shared nervousness and indecisiveness, she put her hand over his and looked at him. They smiled. Shyly at first, and then burst into peals of laughter sensing each other’s nervousness on their wedding night. And then they talked. Sharing bits and pieces of their lives, sowing the first seeds of love. They talked into the wee hours of morning. Then they made love, collapsing into each other’s arms. They laid there in a warm, companionable silence; embracing each other; contemplating this new start, the future, and the delightful promises and hopes it held now. Marriage was a plunge into the unknown for them, and they were ecstatic at their good fortune of finding each other. Love, laughter, passion tinctured their days. Life was blissful.

Four years ago:
He explored new ventures at work; frequent travels became a part of his life, and the heavy work load began eating into his time with her. She tried to be understanding, vainly convincing herself that this phase won’t last long. But she was wrong. As time went by, the tenderness and love that marked the initial years of their relationship vanished. He seemed like a man possessed to achieve the heights of success at any cost, even his marriage. She tried to talk it out with him, remind him of his responsibility towards her; but to no avail. She expressed her desire of having a baby, but he didn’t have time to take care of a child at this stage in life. He called it nagging and said she was too insecure and dependent on him. He considered her lack of ambition a shame, and ridiculed her for being “just a housewife”, nagging and creating obstacles at her husband’s work. The insensitiveness that marked his remarks that day convinced her of how much he has changed; the man she had grown to love so deeply seemed to have disappeared all of a sudden. She got a job, and started working to fill the void in her life. She worked at a pace that defied fatigue and time, because the deafening silence that prevailed at home, even in the company of her husband filled her with the dread of her life passing away in such horrible monotony, and devoid of the love of the man whose bed she continued to share. Life became stagnant.

A year ago:
She had met Arjun at work, the new trainee under her. He was a couple of years younger than her, but she couldn’t help blush each time he set his impish gaze on her. He was attracted to her and he didn’t try to conceal it, which made her more resolute to avoid familiarity with him. But the more you try to resist something, the more it plagues your every waking moment. She found herself charmed by his youthful enthusiasm, infectious laughter, and his eagerness to listen to her. They talked for long at work, and slowly the meetings shifted to venues outside of work. And even though they shared a platonic relationship, she found herself concealing these meetings from her husband. Friendship serendipitously transitioned into love and soon they were inseparable. He cherished her, and it awakened new emotions and passions in her. Soon the dual lives she led with her husband and Arjun became a burden. She wondered why she was holding onto a marriage when her husband considered her as a piece of furniture, and refused to acknowledge that she harbored dormant feelings of love and care towards him. But as Arjun lay sleeping in her arms, the silence of the night breathed a new whiff of love in her dreary life. She decided to leave her husband. Life was about to change soon.

The present:

She waited for her husband to say something. Nothing came. She tried to justify to herself the circumstances that led to her infidelity. This time it didn’t sound convincing to even her. The hurt in her husband’s eyes seemed to have erased her former convictions about her relationship with Arjun. It was the longest night of her life, and in the morning her husband left for work. She packed her bags and drove off to Arjun’s home. Cocooned in his arms, she told him about the previous night and then about her pregnancy. The way his body tensed on this bit of news, made her instantly realize that the worst is far from over, it is yet to come. The numbing silence that greeted her this time didn’t shock her. It was as if deep in her heart she always knew and feared this possibility. After what seemed like ages, Arjun tried to calmly explain to her how he wasn’t ready to start a family, or even get married. She nodded and left his home. This can’t be happening to her, this is not how her life was supposed to turn out. She didn’t know where she was driving, and when she finally stopped the car; she saw that she had driven herself home, the only place she had associated with love and comfort. When her husband lied next to her that night, she turned towards him. No one spoke a word. And then the tears came, as the unspoken apologies poured out of their hearts, the regret of the years lost, mourning the setback their love suffered. She waited, wondering whether he could ever love her again; and this time he put his hand over hers and smiled. They embraced, remembering and renewing their love. This time the silence of the night spoke of realization, and an unspoken promise.

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