*See Krishno - I
Asma was born to a wealthy family in Dhaka. Those were days of plenty. Her mother came with land, and her father with a temper. The in-laws mistook his temper for ambition and fussed little, marrying their daughter off.
Asma was besotted with cinema for as long as she could recall. She had an uncle on the seas, Shahadat, who went shore to shore collecting films for his niece. She'd write him about how her interest in the craft had shifted from curiosity to obsession, and he'd gladly ship back new movies and lamps for her projector. She had dog-eared American cinema, and had dissected all that Europe had to offer, from Hitchcock's works to Rene Clair's movies with music. She loved mainstream with a passion and had written several screenplays of her own, ones she hoped to someday direct.
It wasn't an understood thing, this passion for cinema, among girls, less among the aristocracy Asma belonged to. And who'd believe her if she said she was simply interested in the process, in the storytelling, not in fluttering her lids in front of the camera.. "She's just got stars in her eyes.."
When she turned eighteen, the wheel had come full circle for her mother who began preparations for a wedding. Any of the suitors, young lawyers who'd studied across the oceans, would be blessed to have her. Asma was a delicate thing, she'd say. A porcelain constitution, an unhurried disposition, just so used to the good life, you know..Your son looks like he'd take good care of
her.
Asma was distraught. She had known the day would come, but there was something crushing about its momentum, the product of its consequences and the suddenness of its happening, that trapped her. She was scared for the first time in her life. All her conceptions of the world, of cinema and people, were suddenly reduced to a marriage she'd seen innumerable times, where young aunts and cousins were shipped off to foreign lands, only to be heard from in letters when they delivered babies.
The uncle returned to Dhaka for the wedding, wondering how Asma was coping with all of it. Shahadat had always been a romantic, hoped that Asma would do a dream turn someday and join India's burgeoning film industry. He entered her room and saw her in front of the mirror. She had never looked more beautiful. He recognised his sister's jewelry on Asma, still as golden as all those years ago when he had prayed for her happiness at the nikaah. Asma's reflection though was prayerless. It stared back at him, blankly, with a soullessness that frightened him.
Shahadat had seen this beauty before. It was fragile, fleeting, but it had fossilized in his brain. Thirty years ago, his mother's sister had visited them at home. Shahadat was a young lad, but not much younger than this aunt. She had dazzled him then, her skin whiter than he remembered, her eyes deep wells. She hugged her sister, Shahadat's mother, and gently shut a door behind them. The sisters talked for hours. The voices never rose enough to slip under the door. Later that evening, the doors opened, and the young lady stepped out. Her shoulders were stiff and jaw firm, her eyes newly cold, but her stride strong. She carried the weight of her beauty purposefully out the house without so much as a glance back. After the last handfuls of earth had been poured on her grave, the family issued an obituary, mourning the accident.
Shahadat saw this beauty and all its spite in Asma, as she looked at him unblinkingly. He knew then what needed to happen. He smuggled her out to the railway station that night and onward to the Chittagong port. The families searched her friends' houses through the night, while Asma and Shahadat set course for England at dawn.
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Krishno - I
In 1936, Krishno was 16, and if only you could've seen him. He was athletic and looked dapper in a shirt and the trousers he'd had tailored that year. He spoke English like it was his to speak (thank you Radio BBC) - was often interpreter for when the English had bulletins for the village. He was a good son, and he helped run his family, making money off of the Britishers at the local cantonment. He'd run errands for them, some shadier than others, the rest sunnily English. At times, they'd send him to hunt down the district talukdar, or to tend to the Cantonment library. Other times, he'd take the white children over to the waterfall at the jungle's edge and play a game of footie with them. The younger officers - they took to him because he was also the Cantonment's supplier of all things smokeable.
The Lt. Col.'s mother made her first sortie into the village the very day she arrived at the Cantonment. Parasol tucked under one arm, cheeks flushed from the effort under the unforgiving sun, she climbed the hillocks to the village. She had sneaked out of the cantonment, and so managed to be unaccompanied. Krishno was on his way back to the village himself, from Calcutta, where he'd been to visit his brother at school. He saw her ahead of him, still a distance from the village and caught up with her soon enough. He hadn't ever spoken to a British lady before and wasn't about to let the opportunity pass. Drawing up beside her, Krishno offered a drink of water and thought it quite a bargain in exchange for the conversation.
As they continued, village-bound, they got talking about public transport in the city, and how it left one soft in the middle. She was surprised to hear he'd lived his whole life in the village ("Well, how is it I can understand what you're saying?"). He showed her around the village, and eventually brought her home to dinner. She was taken by the food, simple fare, but wholesome in a most settling way. Later that evening, the lady Trebblewood asked to be walked back to the Cantonment. Krishno obliged. She insisted he visit often.
It was when she fell sick a few months later that Lt. Col. Trebblewood decided to have Krishno escort her back to England. By the time their liner docked, it was December, and Krishno saw both England and snow for the first time.
His first few months there were spent helping her settle back in. It came naturally to him, this care-giving. He looked after Lady Trebblewood delicately most days, but she was a hardy woman, and on the days she looked pink, they'd land up at watering holes where the older pubbers knew her. Krishno wasn't sure what to make of this at first. Surely Ladies didn't just walk into pubs, much less those ladies with titles, much much less those accompanied by brownies.
For Lady Trebblewood's friends, Krishno was an exotic treat. His skin, his hands, the calluses, the branched veins on his palms, his barefoot life - all of these were captivating. Ironic that in India, Krishno gained ground with the British when he took on the airs of the pawns at the cantonment, while here in London, each striking dissimilarity, each novel un-British experience from his old life lifted him from pedestal to higher pedestal in Lady Trebblewood's circles.
From among the friends that visited, two had daughters only slightly older than Krishno. When the girls heard from their mothers about this dapper brownie, they were beyond intrigued. London, in all its greyness, could soon become boring. The eligible men were serving abroad, and those that remained were strangely affected. These men were english, certainly, and bore every appurtenance, but perhaps that itself was the problem. Krishno on the other hand was a delectable misfit. Where he went, people stared. How held he his head that high, back that straight? Why was he lithe, why not underfed? How spoke he english? And the girls wondered how naughty it would be if they linked arms and walked down Knightsbridge? Their mothers were sure to hear of it. Oh, this'd show them!
Soon, quite blasphemously, Krishno began to receive invites to dinners and cottages by lakes. London's snow melted early that year.
**To be continued
Within a few months, Krishno learnt nuances about the British as a people that even the city-bred babus hadn't caught onto. He learnt their intonations, but stayed clear of the accent. He used colloquialisms sparingly so that they didn't think him just another johnny-come-lately (*the author has noted the irony here*).
Krishno absorbed subtleties of the tilts of head and the stiffened lip, of plain food and small talk, of the Country and the City, of lawns and schools, tennis and plimsolls, of the unmarried ladies back home and their mothers. The more he imbibed, the more curious he grew. The phirangs at the cantonment wouldn't mingle with just anybody, so over time, Krishno learnt how to hold up the right mirrors to his British acquaintances. This way, for the most part, they'd just be talking to themselves; they could revel in the impression they must've made on those around them. Krishno would be careful though not to show them so much of the mirror that they'd be embarrassed. Sometimes, they'd like the mirrors turned just so, to light up the spots where they stood. These were their moments of glory in the colonies, when even the most discerning native would doff his hat, had he one.
The Lt. Col.'s mother made her first sortie into the village the very day she arrived at the Cantonment. Parasol tucked under one arm, cheeks flushed from the effort under the unforgiving sun, she climbed the hillocks to the village. She had sneaked out of the cantonment, and so managed to be unaccompanied. Krishno was on his way back to the village himself, from Calcutta, where he'd been to visit his brother at school. He saw her ahead of him, still a distance from the village and caught up with her soon enough. He hadn't ever spoken to a British lady before and wasn't about to let the opportunity pass. Drawing up beside her, Krishno offered a drink of water and thought it quite a bargain in exchange for the conversation.
As they continued, village-bound, they got talking about public transport in the city, and how it left one soft in the middle. She was surprised to hear he'd lived his whole life in the village ("Well, how is it I can understand what you're saying?"). He showed her around the village, and eventually brought her home to dinner. She was taken by the food, simple fare, but wholesome in a most settling way. Later that evening, the lady Trebblewood asked to be walked back to the Cantonment. Krishno obliged. She insisted he visit often.
It was when she fell sick a few months later that Lt. Col. Trebblewood decided to have Krishno escort her back to England. By the time their liner docked, it was December, and Krishno saw both England and snow for the first time.
His first few months there were spent helping her settle back in. It came naturally to him, this care-giving. He looked after Lady Trebblewood delicately most days, but she was a hardy woman, and on the days she looked pink, they'd land up at watering holes where the older pubbers knew her. Krishno wasn't sure what to make of this at first. Surely Ladies didn't just walk into pubs, much less those ladies with titles, much much less those accompanied by brownies.
For Lady Trebblewood's friends, Krishno was an exotic treat. His skin, his hands, the calluses, the branched veins on his palms, his barefoot life - all of these were captivating. Ironic that in India, Krishno gained ground with the British when he took on the airs of the pawns at the cantonment, while here in London, each striking dissimilarity, each novel un-British experience from his old life lifted him from pedestal to higher pedestal in Lady Trebblewood's circles.
From among the friends that visited, two had daughters only slightly older than Krishno. When the girls heard from their mothers about this dapper brownie, they were beyond intrigued. London, in all its greyness, could soon become boring. The eligible men were serving abroad, and those that remained were strangely affected. These men were english, certainly, and bore every appurtenance, but perhaps that itself was the problem. Krishno on the other hand was a delectable misfit. Where he went, people stared. How held he his head that high, back that straight? Why was he lithe, why not underfed? How spoke he english? And the girls wondered how naughty it would be if they linked arms and walked down Knightsbridge? Their mothers were sure to hear of it. Oh, this'd show them!
Soon, quite blasphemously, Krishno began to receive invites to dinners and cottages by lakes. London's snow melted early that year.
**To be continued
Sunday, February 08, 2009
India Series update
The India posts end here. I've created a too-large canvas for the story, one unsupported by the blog format. Watch for a book. The plot involves espionage, heinous villainy and much in the way of romance, all in the garb of an updated Therouxian guide to the country's riches.
Thursday, February 05, 2009
India V
It was many years ago, I might have been about 10 at the time when I had walked into this run-down building at the end of the road from where I lived. I went there because I'd been told not to go near it.
It was mostly dark inside and the floors were greasily dirty, hadn't been mopped or swept in years. I could feel the grime even through the soles of my shoes. The stair corners had paan stains and the cement walls were bare.
I was in the elevator when the power went out, trapping me inside. The lift had stopped where the floor outside, beyond the lift gates, was at the level of my eye. I didn't call for help. I'd gotten myself into this, and I'd damned sure get out of it myself.
The yellow-red evening sun streamed through rusty grilled windows, lighting up the floors, drawing obtuse shadows that grew every minute, all angles and blocks. These slanted columns of sun were made distinct by the shafts of dust they illuminated. Glittering dust that seemed to flow this way and that within the light, that would suddenly disappear behind shadows, where the sun was quiet. As though the Sun and the dust were playing a game of seek & find, as though the dust moved because the Sun permitted it, as though the dust was simply preening before the Sun called it back to the heavens. Angel dust.
The dirt on the floor was now in front of my nose as I stood trapped in the cage. I knew grime, sweat, sand, insects, all played together here and I'd become an unwilling audience. It was strange though, watching the game from as close as this. Each player had grown larger than life at this distance. So much so that I felt I could throw a hat into the ring myself.
The sand wasn't the dull brown colour I'd expected. The grains were distinct at this close distance, each glistening like a crystal ball, lying quiet on the floor, as though they were done telling fortunes. A spider walked tent-legged over these grains, an elaborately improvised dance over crystal glinting in the setting sun.
The stains on the floor had disappeared now, in my two-dimensional world. I could see length and breadth, but couldn't conceive height. When a dried leaf fluttered to the floor from above, the ants and I were equally surprised. I let them examine the leaf for me, because I was still caged, my eyes now two limbless points, hungry to learn about this new world. Life in this microscale played out harmoniously, rhythmically, so different from our chaos-infested world of giants. Every particle, every creature had its own flow and its own rules. There was an invisible stream here that floated each entity, carried this world from age to age, independent of ours, oblivious of us, except when we interfered, when we played god and decided to stamp out life or simply to sweep the dirt.
Back here in Bombay, I looked hither, tither, idhar, udhar, at the life all around me as Ranjit led me to his house through the galis of Dharavi.
It was mostly dark inside and the floors were greasily dirty, hadn't been mopped or swept in years. I could feel the grime even through the soles of my shoes. The stair corners had paan stains and the cement walls were bare.
I was in the elevator when the power went out, trapping me inside. The lift had stopped where the floor outside, beyond the lift gates, was at the level of my eye. I didn't call for help. I'd gotten myself into this, and I'd damned sure get out of it myself.
The yellow-red evening sun streamed through rusty grilled windows, lighting up the floors, drawing obtuse shadows that grew every minute, all angles and blocks. These slanted columns of sun were made distinct by the shafts of dust they illuminated. Glittering dust that seemed to flow this way and that within the light, that would suddenly disappear behind shadows, where the sun was quiet. As though the Sun and the dust were playing a game of seek & find, as though the dust moved because the Sun permitted it, as though the dust was simply preening before the Sun called it back to the heavens. Angel dust.
The dirt on the floor was now in front of my nose as I stood trapped in the cage. I knew grime, sweat, sand, insects, all played together here and I'd become an unwilling audience. It was strange though, watching the game from as close as this. Each player had grown larger than life at this distance. So much so that I felt I could throw a hat into the ring myself.
The sand wasn't the dull brown colour I'd expected. The grains were distinct at this close distance, each glistening like a crystal ball, lying quiet on the floor, as though they were done telling fortunes. A spider walked tent-legged over these grains, an elaborately improvised dance over crystal glinting in the setting sun.
The stains on the floor had disappeared now, in my two-dimensional world. I could see length and breadth, but couldn't conceive height. When a dried leaf fluttered to the floor from above, the ants and I were equally surprised. I let them examine the leaf for me, because I was still caged, my eyes now two limbless points, hungry to learn about this new world. Life in this microscale played out harmoniously, rhythmically, so different from our chaos-infested world of giants. Every particle, every creature had its own flow and its own rules. There was an invisible stream here that floated each entity, carried this world from age to age, independent of ours, oblivious of us, except when we interfered, when we played god and decided to stamp out life or simply to sweep the dirt.
Back here in Bombay, I looked hither, tither, idhar, udhar, at the life all around me as Ranjit led me to his house through the galis of Dharavi.
Tuesday, February 03, 2009
India IV: Bombay
Ranjit lived not far, in a chawl that he paid 15 lakhs for. He lived there with his parents, who had grown old in the city. It was a one-bedroom affair, and had its own bathroom. And they'd hung a nameboard on the door. Patels. They owned the land now, a piece of the earth that wasn't the government's, nor the police's to raid. Even the local bhai wasn't going to stake a claim, so slickly had Ranjit greased every proferred palm.
The politics of land-owning, in the thick of the city, are complicated. There's no paperwork to speak of, no documents that will deter an encroacher. Ownership is never absolute, it only grows as generations hold on to the land. A newly settled couple can be ousted overnight from the basti, pans and almirahs flung out, onto the galli. But with a family that's lived there two generations, it's much harder. The mastans might scare the family, but there are neighbours to deal with. Neighbours who've shared salt with the family for decades. These neighbours are spokes in the wheel the mastans turn. The mastans can be young, their arms puffy, but their Bhai takes hafta from the bastiwalas. The bhai is sheriff and dictator, ernesto and castro all in one, but he isn't absolute, he's the thread that loops through the basti, in, out, in, out. In fact, Bhai is pixel art, each pixel a beating heart from the basti. There's a grand order in this universe that even the next Bhai will toe. Age, caste, money, all will be accorded gravity before the Bhais, present and future, order action.
And Ranjit, at 19, has played this game remarkably well to buy his chawl. The other bastiwalas rent, and do so indefinitely. Bhai splits these rent amounts into several piles. One for the Deputy Inspector in charge of the area, another for his minions, one for the MP who contested polls at the basti, another for the city to bring their sewage and garbage clearance machinery by once a month. It's a country within a city. The rent and the hafta support Bhai's fiefdom by funding defense budgets, diplomatic offices, infrastructure, and relief funds.
Ranjit is free from all of this. There are no sluices to drain his money every month. He's paid his dues, all black, but all cash.
Ranjit's father, toothless now, grandparent to Ranjit's many nieces and nephews, appreciates the land more than anyone. Three strides and you've covered the area of their home, but the old man finds an infinity hidden in there. He once explained it to Ranjit "Yes, I can see the walls of our house, here's one and there's the other, and they need a coat of lime. I can see why you think this is small. But look through the ceiling. Look up at the square of sky you've bought us. How many miles is it to that sky? I don't know. And how deep below the earth does our land run? I don't know. Look from that square in the sky through the floor, to the center of the earth. That is what we own. No more these debts, those vacant stares into bombay's traffic, that talk of home and the world. Son, you've freed us from the cycle..."
I understood then where he learnt to grin like that. Within his four walls, Ranjitrulez was king.
The politics of land-owning, in the thick of the city, are complicated. There's no paperwork to speak of, no documents that will deter an encroacher. Ownership is never absolute, it only grows as generations hold on to the land. A newly settled couple can be ousted overnight from the basti, pans and almirahs flung out, onto the galli. But with a family that's lived there two generations, it's much harder. The mastans might scare the family, but there are neighbours to deal with. Neighbours who've shared salt with the family for decades. These neighbours are spokes in the wheel the mastans turn. The mastans can be young, their arms puffy, but their Bhai takes hafta from the bastiwalas. The bhai is sheriff and dictator, ernesto and castro all in one, but he isn't absolute, he's the thread that loops through the basti, in, out, in, out. In fact, Bhai is pixel art, each pixel a beating heart from the basti. There's a grand order in this universe that even the next Bhai will toe. Age, caste, money, all will be accorded gravity before the Bhais, present and future, order action.
And Ranjit, at 19, has played this game remarkably well to buy his chawl. The other bastiwalas rent, and do so indefinitely. Bhai splits these rent amounts into several piles. One for the Deputy Inspector in charge of the area, another for his minions, one for the MP who contested polls at the basti, another for the city to bring their sewage and garbage clearance machinery by once a month. It's a country within a city. The rent and the hafta support Bhai's fiefdom by funding defense budgets, diplomatic offices, infrastructure, and relief funds.
Ranjit is free from all of this. There are no sluices to drain his money every month. He's paid his dues, all black, but all cash.
Ranjit's father, toothless now, grandparent to Ranjit's many nieces and nephews, appreciates the land more than anyone. Three strides and you've covered the area of their home, but the old man finds an infinity hidden in there. He once explained it to Ranjit "Yes, I can see the walls of our house, here's one and there's the other, and they need a coat of lime. I can see why you think this is small. But look through the ceiling. Look up at the square of sky you've bought us. How many miles is it to that sky? I don't know. And how deep below the earth does our land run? I don't know. Look from that square in the sky through the floor, to the center of the earth. That is what we own. No more these debts, those vacant stares into bombay's traffic, that talk of home and the world. Son, you've freed us from the cycle..."
I understood then where he learnt to grin like that. Within his four walls, Ranjitrulez was king.
Friday, January 23, 2009
India - III
My room was sparse, but it had a rickety ceiling fan. The fan was old, and the years hadn't been kind. Its blades had curved downwards over time, and the plaster where it met the ceiling had broken off revealing concrete and iron rods. As the night grew still, the heat settled on me like a fever. I couldn't crank the fan up higher than a slow spin, lest its ties to the ceiling gave. I sweated just lying on the hot bed and couldn't see how I'd manage to sleep that night. I had absorbed every last patch of coolness from either side of the pillow, and now there was just me and the sweat. My sleep that night was more a departure from a state of awakened alertness than a night of rest.
I was up and about as soon as the sun broke. I made my way to the reception downstairs where I found a familiar face. A thin, reedy character, face all pimples, moustache all mousy was busy stacking ledgers into a drawer. It was Ranjit Rulez. Perhaps it was just me, but Ranjit always struck me as the name of a brawny, truck-like character. That and the fact that this Ranjit claimed sovereignty over some unspecified kingdom had led me to believe he'd be more than he was, despite the grainy webcam capture I'd seen on the net when I booked a room here.
He turned to face me and gave me the widest grin I'd seen in a long time. He looked like he was in his late teens. He wore gold chains around his neck and had a flashy mobile clipped onto the front of his shirt. The shades were flipped onto the top of his head. I'm not sure he wasn't simply compensating.
"Aaiye, aaiye, thik thak soye aap? I hope everything was to your liking?"
I replied that it was way too hot and that the fan just didn't cut it.
"Ah..well, anyways, I'm sure you haven't come here to sleep. What can I get you?"
Well...a wife really...but I couldn't tell him that just yet. There was still so much to do before all of that was allowed to happen.
I was up and about as soon as the sun broke. I made my way to the reception downstairs where I found a familiar face. A thin, reedy character, face all pimples, moustache all mousy was busy stacking ledgers into a drawer. It was Ranjit Rulez. Perhaps it was just me, but Ranjit always struck me as the name of a brawny, truck-like character. That and the fact that this Ranjit claimed sovereignty over some unspecified kingdom had led me to believe he'd be more than he was, despite the grainy webcam capture I'd seen on the net when I booked a room here.
He turned to face me and gave me the widest grin I'd seen in a long time. He looked like he was in his late teens. He wore gold chains around his neck and had a flashy mobile clipped onto the front of his shirt. The shades were flipped onto the top of his head. I'm not sure he wasn't simply compensating.
"Aaiye, aaiye, thik thak soye aap? I hope everything was to your liking?"
I replied that it was way too hot and that the fan just didn't cut it.
"Ah..well, anyways, I'm sure you haven't come here to sleep. What can I get you?"
Well...a wife really...but I couldn't tell him that just yet. There was still so much to do before all of that was allowed to happen.
Monday, January 19, 2009
India - II
Mumbai
Even though I've just gotten off a flight from Toronto, I don't qualify as a 'Saab' for several reasons. One, I look no different from the teeming crowds, Two, there's an age factor intertwined with the concept of Saab. You need to look 35+ before the epithet is accorded. Three, I didn't feel the part. I wasn't going to play tourist here. I was here on a gritty, nose-to-the-ground mission. Saabs beget obsequence, the non-saabs do not. So the taxi drivers did not fawn, and in the wet steam-heat of the mumbai afternoon, I turned to the rickshaws.
I'd made reservations at a guest-house in Andheri before I left Canada. I'd found them earlier while googling for places to stay in Mumbai. The guesthouse's website had a link - "Reserve online now!". I was duly impressed. I clicked the link and was shown a picture of a man with a mousy moustache looking away from the webcam that clicked it. Below the capture was a piece of badly aligned text that said "For room booking, send email letter to ranjitrulez@....com". The short of it is that I received a reply within minutes, and a room had been reserved for me simply on good faith. There was no talk of credit cards.
The auto ride was eventful, but not a new experience. I was used to the concept of stop lights being treated as driving suggestions rather than law. I was accustomed to policemen flagging down my auto to 'urgently' get to a chai stall. And lastly, I had mastered the art of small talk with autowalas. You want to shoot the breeze for the most part, but every once in a while, garnish the conversation with a common frustration and round it off with a small, personal vulnerability.
The conversations go like this - "Nahin, bas gharwalon se milne. Bangalore ka train pakadna hai kal. Aap kahan rehte ho? Oh Borivli?....Haan, India ko cricket chhoDni chahiye. Hockey mein toh kuchh hona nahi, ab cricket mein bhi zero. Sirf shatranj raha.....Nahin, shaadi toot gayi, usey meri tankhwa kam lagti thhi."
This one-two-three strategy ensures that the autowala empathises with you and doesn't take you for too much of a ride. Has worked well for me.
I found the guesthouse desk empty. It was dusk, and there was no sign of ranjitrulez. I was about to ring a bell placed on the desk when I spotted an envelope beside it. There was a letter in it, enclosing a key. It asked for me to head upstairs to Room 202, and that money matters would be handled in the morning.
Even though I've just gotten off a flight from Toronto, I don't qualify as a 'Saab' for several reasons. One, I look no different from the teeming crowds, Two, there's an age factor intertwined with the concept of Saab. You need to look 35+ before the epithet is accorded. Three, I didn't feel the part. I wasn't going to play tourist here. I was here on a gritty, nose-to-the-ground mission. Saabs beget obsequence, the non-saabs do not. So the taxi drivers did not fawn, and in the wet steam-heat of the mumbai afternoon, I turned to the rickshaws.
I'd made reservations at a guest-house in Andheri before I left Canada. I'd found them earlier while googling for places to stay in Mumbai. The guesthouse's website had a link - "Reserve online now!". I was duly impressed. I clicked the link and was shown a picture of a man with a mousy moustache looking away from the webcam that clicked it. Below the capture was a piece of badly aligned text that said "For room booking, send email letter to ranjitrulez@....com". The short of it is that I received a reply within minutes, and a room had been reserved for me simply on good faith. There was no talk of credit cards.
The auto ride was eventful, but not a new experience. I was used to the concept of stop lights being treated as driving suggestions rather than law. I was accustomed to policemen flagging down my auto to 'urgently' get to a chai stall. And lastly, I had mastered the art of small talk with autowalas. You want to shoot the breeze for the most part, but every once in a while, garnish the conversation with a common frustration and round it off with a small, personal vulnerability.
The conversations go like this - "Nahin, bas gharwalon se milne. Bangalore ka train pakadna hai kal. Aap kahan rehte ho? Oh Borivli?....Haan, India ko cricket chhoDni chahiye. Hockey mein toh kuchh hona nahi, ab cricket mein bhi zero. Sirf shatranj raha.....Nahin, shaadi toot gayi, usey meri tankhwa kam lagti thhi."
This one-two-three strategy ensures that the autowala empathises with you and doesn't take you for too much of a ride. Has worked well for me.
I found the guesthouse desk empty. It was dusk, and there was no sign of ranjitrulez. I was about to ring a bell placed on the desk when I spotted an envelope beside it. There was a letter in it, enclosing a key. It asked for me to head upstairs to Room 202, and that money matters would be handled in the morning.
Saturday, January 10, 2009
Portraits IV
March 4, 2019
At 5:00am this morning, I woke up to find my pillow damp.
It's been over a decade since I saw her last, but she's imprinted herself onto me, perhaps at a cellular level, or somewhere in my bloodstream, or maybe she's gone so far as to dissolve some of herself into my spirituality. It's certainly somewhere further than the rational me can get at.
We went to school together. She didn't know it then, but I was crazy about her from way earlier than is comfortable to admit. I met her for the first time four days into March when I got off a rickety stage at a student function. I had just croaked my way through a song, and was putting my guitar away when she came up and introduced herself. I must've stood there five minutes, mouth open just wide enough to signal challenges. She pretended not to notice.
I found we had a couple of classes in common that semester and I ensured that I plonked myself beside her at every opportunity. As I got to know her better (and as my babbling regained its coherence), I found that she could be the picture of composure one moment, and the next, laugh so loud that it'd ring through the street. Her smile could be so soft, and yet so warm, that I'd have to hide my popsicles away. More than that though, she could be so giving of herself to all those around her that it turned my world. This was the girl for me.
It took me long enough, but I eventually asked her if she was seeing anyone. She said she had a long list of boyfriends. In all earnestness, I asked to be added to the list. Turned out she had a sense of humour too. No list, is what I'm saying.
There are relationships where, over years of living with someone, you begin to read their physicality, and then their minds, such that there's none that can know this other person better than you. And then there are those of us that are luckier. I'd been seeing her for a handful of days when I realised she knew my ins and outs, my fears and joys better than any one before or since. Cue a hindi film clip here, something about how there's a singular someone out there for each of us, or how when the gods play matchmaker, they do it to perfection.
When we fought (and we did a lot of that), it was over the most trivial things. Perhaps I'd kept her waiting five minutes. Or she, me. And these fights were explosions. We'd need to keep away from each other for days at a time, so that we didn't get at each other's throats. I guess I handled it better than her. And not because I was detached. It was because I knew what bound us together was stronger than any fight we could manufacture.
I didn't attend her wedding when it happened all those years ago. I saw her last some months before the day, and haven't seen her since. There was no tragedy, no crisis between us. It was just how it needed to be because we weren't the only players involved. There were other happinesses at stake, some so important that a mere love lost just didn't compare.
The consolation back then was that we were young, and our love, a first blush. There would be more mature loves to come later. Best of all, we were always going to have the memories of our time together. Surely those would see us through till other anchors entered our lives.
The other anchors, the loves in times more mature, they've filled up my head over the years. They've made the winters seem easy and the summers breezy. But we never fight. Nothing they do upsets me.
I've learnt she has two kids. They're going to enter their teens soon. Ordinarily, I'd feel for her. The kids' adolescence will bring tantrums and demands, insecurities and rebellion, discovery and selfishness. There will likely be crazy love too.
My story remains incomplete until I tell you about how I still see her. On the street and in the subway, I run into so many people that look nothing like her, but my imagination, or just an unfettered longing, fills in familiar colours, sounds, perceptions into the empty frames that these people present. I know it isn't her I just saw window shopping, or getting off the streetcar, but I can't keep from smiling, because I'm never *entirely* certain it wasn't her.
It's been many many years since I spoke to her, and you'd think that natural forces would've corroded the memories by now, but these forces compete against an unnatural love. Others that I've lost touch with have floated away into the ether. Their statistics are archived in my head, but they remain cloudy, hazy constructs. She, on the other hand, lives and breathes inside me. I take her to shows and dinners. She offers advice when I'm taking decisions, and she still laughs with me. That warmth is so pronounced that I sometimes turn around expecting to see her. It's so pronounced that sometimes my pillow is dampened by the tears.
At 5:00am this morning, I woke up to find my pillow damp.
It's been over a decade since I saw her last, but she's imprinted herself onto me, perhaps at a cellular level, or somewhere in my bloodstream, or maybe she's gone so far as to dissolve some of herself into my spirituality. It's certainly somewhere further than the rational me can get at.
We went to school together. She didn't know it then, but I was crazy about her from way earlier than is comfortable to admit. I met her for the first time four days into March when I got off a rickety stage at a student function. I had just croaked my way through a song, and was putting my guitar away when she came up and introduced herself. I must've stood there five minutes, mouth open just wide enough to signal challenges. She pretended not to notice.
I found we had a couple of classes in common that semester and I ensured that I plonked myself beside her at every opportunity. As I got to know her better (and as my babbling regained its coherence), I found that she could be the picture of composure one moment, and the next, laugh so loud that it'd ring through the street. Her smile could be so soft, and yet so warm, that I'd have to hide my popsicles away. More than that though, she could be so giving of herself to all those around her that it turned my world. This was the girl for me.
It took me long enough, but I eventually asked her if she was seeing anyone. She said she had a long list of boyfriends. In all earnestness, I asked to be added to the list. Turned out she had a sense of humour too. No list, is what I'm saying.
There are relationships where, over years of living with someone, you begin to read their physicality, and then their minds, such that there's none that can know this other person better than you. And then there are those of us that are luckier. I'd been seeing her for a handful of days when I realised she knew my ins and outs, my fears and joys better than any one before or since. Cue a hindi film clip here, something about how there's a singular someone out there for each of us, or how when the gods play matchmaker, they do it to perfection.
When we fought (and we did a lot of that), it was over the most trivial things. Perhaps I'd kept her waiting five minutes. Or she, me. And these fights were explosions. We'd need to keep away from each other for days at a time, so that we didn't get at each other's throats. I guess I handled it better than her. And not because I was detached. It was because I knew what bound us together was stronger than any fight we could manufacture.
I didn't attend her wedding when it happened all those years ago. I saw her last some months before the day, and haven't seen her since. There was no tragedy, no crisis between us. It was just how it needed to be because we weren't the only players involved. There were other happinesses at stake, some so important that a mere love lost just didn't compare.
The consolation back then was that we were young, and our love, a first blush. There would be more mature loves to come later. Best of all, we were always going to have the memories of our time together. Surely those would see us through till other anchors entered our lives.
The other anchors, the loves in times more mature, they've filled up my head over the years. They've made the winters seem easy and the summers breezy. But we never fight. Nothing they do upsets me.
I've learnt she has two kids. They're going to enter their teens soon. Ordinarily, I'd feel for her. The kids' adolescence will bring tantrums and demands, insecurities and rebellion, discovery and selfishness. There will likely be crazy love too.
My story remains incomplete until I tell you about how I still see her. On the street and in the subway, I run into so many people that look nothing like her, but my imagination, or just an unfettered longing, fills in familiar colours, sounds, perceptions into the empty frames that these people present. I know it isn't her I just saw window shopping, or getting off the streetcar, but I can't keep from smiling, because I'm never *entirely* certain it wasn't her.
It's been many many years since I spoke to her, and you'd think that natural forces would've corroded the memories by now, but these forces compete against an unnatural love. Others that I've lost touch with have floated away into the ether. Their statistics are archived in my head, but they remain cloudy, hazy constructs. She, on the other hand, lives and breathes inside me. I take her to shows and dinners. She offers advice when I'm taking decisions, and she still laughs with me. That warmth is so pronounced that I sometimes turn around expecting to see her. It's so pronounced that sometimes my pillow is dampened by the tears.
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