If presented with the opportunity to do such a thing again today, I would like to make only one change. I would list some of the aphorisms I mentioned, like, Consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative, Conversation about the weather is the last refuge of the unimaginative, Seriousness is the only refuge of the shallow, Ambition is the last refuge of the failure, etc etc. This reminds me of Salver (or was it Salvor?!) Hardin from Asimov’s first foundation book, who was famous in later foundation books (particularly the second and the third) for his aphorisms. I think it was Hober Mallow who quotes him thus – Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent!

Rainbow was certainly not incompetent. After elaborate explanations of why my action was equivalent to stabbing him in his back, not that he minded it too much, I have done that a lot to him, and I can tell you that he usually enjoys it, because sometimes it ends up with breakfasts with really pretty girls (not on his bed though, and I know he is going to murder me for this comment if he ever read this blog, because sometimes those girls go on to be serious girlfriends of close friends!), but as I was saying, I agreed that the least I could do was to delete all my scraps. Going by my previous habits, I deleted all my scraps and all her scraps and then apologised for that and promptly disappeared. :)

(2) This is not autobiographical at all. I imagined a guy very different from myself writing this; so those of you who know me, don’t think of me when reading this, because the intended mood of the story is quite different. But had this piece been any good, I guess I would have claimed autobiographical influences. :)

(3) God knows that I have had enough trouble people reading themselves into my stories! Did I mention three unjustifiably broken friendships?! All girls! And it is not even me, always. Twice, the girls read my story and broke up their friendship(!) with other people!!! I guess they didn’t broke their friendship with me because we were not friends to start with (which, I’m ashamed to say, I have been thankful for). :)

Stump
———-
It is a stump now,
Its art gone,
Its ornaments all gone.

It does not stir with spring
Nor bend like a bow when green
Nor from its flowers fly KamaDeva’s arrows
Nor in its shades are sighs of travellers heard
Or tears of lovers seen.

Only one old bird
Sits remembering something.

‭(‬Translated from the Hindi of Suryakant Tripathy’s‭ “‬Nirala‭” ‬by Vikram Seth.‭)

(1‭)

A speck of fire rose along with the pile of ash and went up in small circles until it collided with the roof above and went out.‭ ‬I was trying hard not to burn my rectangular chapati and all I could manage was to spread hot ash throughout the verandah.‭ ‬Sipa’ni and Lipa’ni were laughing nearby and Rupa’ni was still insisting that I leave it to her.‭ ‬Dipa,‭ ‬as always,‭ ‬was standing some distance away with a detached look on her face.‭ ‬She never understood what she didn’t experience,‭ ‬and being happy was one of them.

It was a quiet evening.‭ ‬There was a musical loveliness about the crackles of the burning wood coupled with the indistinct hum of the fire.

I had just baked something frightfully similar to the rags nearby when I was told of my waiting call.‭ ‬I dashed through the pond and the gate and the grass and the theatre and the salt piles and picked up the receiver.‭ ‬A dog was barking in the distance,‭ ‬and held all my attention for the moment as I listened through the receiver.‭ ‬Finally,‭ ‬I put it down on the cradle.‭ ‬I was wondering if I was going to cry when a drop of tear fell down on my palm.‭ ‬I heard the dogs bark in the distance and remembered that I was yet to roll a round chapati.‭ ‬I ran back as fast as I could.

‬Suresh ka‭’ ‬was getting married the following week.‭ ‬I don’t remember everything that I went through that night,‭ ‬but I was weeping for her and for myself at the end of that night.‭ ‬And all these years I had thought that I had gotten over her‭!

(2‭)

Waking up in her house is an elaborate affair for men and a tedious routine for the women.‭ ‬To avoid waking up into a world that I hated,‭ ‬I tried to sleep as long as I could.‭ ‬But Tapan’s offer of the breakfast was irresistible and I finally woke up.

I walked out and sat down in one corner of the verandah and lazily started turning the pages of a Wodehouse while waiting for the others to come down and join me on my way to breakfast.‭ ‬The pond in the front yard which I had always remembered for rising mists in winter mornings was now being dried in order to catch the fishes for the marriage.‭ ‬For a moment my ears filled with the sound of rain pittering pattering on the surface of the pond as I lay their remembering the times I had been there trying to push her into the puddles of mud while we raced to jump into the pond every time it rained.

Then,‭ ‬I heard a familiar laughter and stood up to turn around and see if everyone was down.

Had I been more attentive to the occasion,‭ ‬I would have realised that she shouldn’t have been there at all.‭ ‬But I was so glad to see her grinning from ear to ear that I did not remember that it was the marriage of the man whom she had come to love so much in her downfall.

I might have remembered,‭ ‬eventually,‭ ‬given enough time,‭ ‬but the inchoate realization that she might have been smiling at the cousin standing in front of me wiped out all thoughts other than the one of humiliation from my mind.‭ ‬My face felt hot and my eyes started watering.‭ ‬I turned back and sat down on the verandah in the middle of‭ ‬all the hustle bustle to continue with the book I had been reading the moment before.

I never let the smile go off my face though.‭ ‬With great weakness come great will and enough power to hide it.

Then she surprised me with an embrace and a pat on my cheek with that grin of hers still on her face.‭ ‬Her eyes shone and I knew that they had been for me all along.

Hands on our hips,‭ ‬and carefree smiles on our faces,‭ ‬we talked for some time.‭ ‬She didn’t seem to mind the marriage any more.‭ ‬So many years,‭ ‬and she hadn’t changed on the surface except for getting thinner.‭ ‬The last time she had been to see me,‭ ‬it was to give me a small teddy bear which she said reminded her of me and to tell me to go win the world and find a decent girl to make love with who could play both the violin and cards.

Everyone was invited for the breakfast except for her.‭ ‬Probably she hadn’t been invited to a breakfast for the last six years.

She was a stranger in the house that she had every right to call her home.‭ ‬I couldn’t have helped her no matter how much I tried,‭ ‬and I certainly didn’t want to do it at her expense.‭ ‬I kept my remarks to myself and had a very nice breakfast.‭ ‬These days I had excellent breakfasts,‭ ‬because I had finally lost the illusion that I could change the world around me.

She tried to lie,‭ ‬but I knew everything already.‭ ‬Perhaps she needed the assurance that I loved her as much as I ever did even though she had once brushed it aside.‭ ‬Even though it didn’t mean a thing now to anyone except for me.‭ ‬I realised that finally it means something to her too.

‭(‬3‭)

We had first met in a musical concert.‭ ‬We were playing Pachelbel’s Canon; ‬violin and guitar,‭ ‬she and I.‭ ‬She was a terrible player and couldn’t be bothered to play her violin with any amount of attention.‭ ‬But what she lacked with the violin she more than made up for by her expressions.‭ ‬She looked so goddamn serious and passionate while playing in spite of all her frivolity that she made me want to walk up to her and kiss her every time she got that stage look on her face.

‭I couldn’t help but figure out that we were distantly related.‭ ‬And then there was the rain and I had to drop her home.‭ ‬Numerous card games and dinners at her house later,‭ ‬I told her that I was in love with her to the point of distraction and that I couldn’t possibly be expected to spend the rest of my miserable life without her.

Of all the things she could have done and said in reply,‭ ‬she laughed and told me not to be a silly ass.

‭(‬4‭)

It is always like that when you are young and fall in love.‭ ‬She means the world to you and she doesn’t want to deal with it.‭ ‬I grew up with a wounded heart,‭ ‬not knowing if I would ever live again.‭ ‬I did live,‭ ‬but I was never young again.‭ ‬And love though I did,‭ ‬it was never with my heart again.

And letters from her piled up in a corner to be picked up randomly to be cried over during the lonely nights when I wake up silently from the monotony of my sleep only to be reminded of her,‭ ‬to find no one sleeping next to me,‭ and ‬to stare at the rain crashing silently against the glass windows for the rest of the night.

‭(‬5‭)

I touched her hair and listened to her and held her hand in my hand while she told me all about the marriage that happened and the one that did not happen.‭ ‬Oh‭! ‬How could she pour so much of her affection where it was not cared for‭? ‬The man did not love her,‭ ‬and she didn’t know it.‭ ‬She didn’t know so many things‭ – ‬but I spared her the suffering of knowledge,‭ ‬for all her sacrifices had been a waste.‭ ‬She had suffered greatly,‭ ‬and she had suffered for nothing.

We played cards after the breakfast.‭ ‬Everyone insisted that I be paired off with her,‭ ‬we had been great partners in the old days.‭ ‬I didn’t see how much it was going to affect me.‭ ‬Every single movement of her brows brought back to me the memories of my happiest days with her,‭ ‬which made me only sad.‭ ‬Every time her lips trembled,‭ ‬uncertain whether to part or not in the moments of indecision,‭ ‬I grew more and more restless,‭ ‬for I had forgotten all about them in these years.‭ ‬She acted with all her gracious gestures as I remembered them,‭ ‬but the spontaneity and seriousness of her adolescence had been replaced by the indifference of her maturity,‭ ‬and it made me melancholic.‭ ‬I found that I had stayed back with the girl I fell in love with,‭ ‬and life had moved on.

‭Over these years,‭ ‬I have thought less and less often of her.‭ ‬She is like a scar that doesn’t hurt any more,‭ ‬one that I remember only when I see myself in the mirror or touch it by accident.‭ ‬Sometimes I think of what would have happened had my love been answered with love,‭ ‬but it doesn’t make me very sad.

I never stopped playing cards.‭ ‬I have come across many other gracefully exasperated women playing cards,‭ ‬but I have always associated those gestures,‭ ‬the slightest of which was enough to bleed my heart at one time,‭ ‬to the one who really made my heart bleed dry.‭ ‬It doesn’t bleed any more,‭ ‬and I never see anybody but her.

‭(‬6‭)

For sometime I was lost between my cousins,‭ ‬almost all of whom are would-be engineers,‭ ‬talking about their lives,‭ ‬studies,‭ ‬movies,‭ ‬stupid profs,‭ ‬booze,‭ ‬girls,‭ ‬all the usual topics.

We went for a walk and had all the kids for company.‭ ‬Half of them didn’t even know the poor fellow who was getting married,‭ ‬which I thought was sort of funny and appropriate and nice in a way.‭ ‬Tapan displayed tactfulness for the first time in his life and took care of the children so that we could have the walk to ourselves.

I am perpetually out of cash.‭ ‬I don’t mind it that much,‭ ‬really,‭ ‬except when I can’t offer to take the girl I am so desperately in love with to a dinner.‭ ‬She is never short of admirers,‭ ‬and she has been kind to everyone but me.

I didn’t sleep till she was back from her dinner.‭ ‬I am in my bed right now.‭ ‬I could have kissed her good night,‭ ‬but that would have embarrassed me.‭ ‬I am too conscious of all that I feel and it always shows up.

I wonder what is there for breakfast tomorrow.

I couldn’t agree more! And then I said that love seems like bipolar disorder, to sum up everything that he didn’t sum up. :)

Everyone who learns that I’m “open” to seeing a girl (not everyone is as well informed as my blog readers :)) has advice to offer, and more often than not, it is useless and weird.

My brother thought I was dating a guy until very recently.

The only male cousin who had to know told me this – “No matter what girls will tell you, in the end they want to be taken care of. They want to be dominated. So make sure she is always under your control!!!” If any of what he said is at all true, then I have to admit that I have completely botched up my job. :(

When my sister first learnt of it, she stayed conspicuously silent, declining to be happy, unhappy, obnoxious, excited or disappointed by the idea. That was not a reaction I understood. A few days later, I confronted her, and she told me that it was my life, and I could do whatever I wanted to, but this was going to break my mom’s heart!

Turns out that she thought I was dating a 30 year old divorced woman from Boston with two kids. And there was actually a valid excuse for that wrong impression! After she was set right in that regard, she told me that after the kind of attitude I have lived with so far, I don’t deserve to fall in love with anyone.

That reminds me of The Wise One, who happens to be the closest person to me in the last five years. He said that he believed that I would never get into a relationship, but hoped that he was wrong. Two years back, once while taking a walk next to CrossWord, he had said that given how romantic I am, usually, I would definitely fall in love with someone some time all my ideas not withstanding, but then I was too much of a closed book, so falling in love would take finding a girl who would have the patience to chase me. Well, all I know is, love or not, closed book or not, I am the one chasing the girl now! Like that crazy lady says at the dinner table in “The Happening,” someone always has to chase the other!

And I think The Wise One’s description of me as romantic is slightly misplaced too. I usually feel so damn romantic (and happy, and sad, and aroused, among many other things) listening to songs or just walking on roads (books and movies only ever make me sad). The point is, I have always felt romantic by myself. Introduce a girl (or a guy, for that matter :)) in the picture, and you have spoiled everything. I am always somebody else with people. :(

Which is something I wish I could have stayed as. I seem to get sillier by the day. The last time we chatted, at one point of time, I felt so awfully fond of her that I told her that I love her pimples too, and then I started listing all the pimples on her face (not that she has many, and I am probably responsible for most of those! :)).

I have a broken sail and a roaring sea.
My Herculean muscles
And this feeble oar.

An endless struggle.
And a futile resistance.

After a hundred strangled pleasures
A sweet sigh of relief.
Till the next gush of a devastating storm arrives…

Beyond these
Beyond all these… there lives someone.
For whom I bleed. Everyday.
I fight a knife that I cannot see.
My wounds get deeper and deeper.
I bleed, I bleed and I fight again.
Too tired, too drained
I make love with Death.

I could touch you
If I just stretched my hand.

I could smell you
If I just took a breath.

I had you all around me
So much of you
That I couldn’t kiss you.

The windows are open and the lights have been switched off. The few rays that manage to come in get lost behind her hair and you have difficulty in figuring out the details of her face. You are lost. Everybody around has forgotten you and you are lost.

There are a million thoughts in your mind and you can’t concentrate because you are listening to her. She doesn’t want you to think of anything. She doesn’t want you to think of anything else.

You gather the courage and kiss her cheeks. She doesn’t stop talking about her boring friends. You kiss her neck where you feel her skin to be the warmest, and she doesn’t stop talking about her teachers. You touch her lips. She still doesn’t stop talking about the stupid girl next door. Then you kiss her eyes, and everything stops abruptly. You feel the warmth of her body spreading through your own body and reaching your guts. She is tender and soft.

In that forgotten room surrounded by silence and light and darkness and a few human beings in the next room who never knew what it is to be young and kiss a girl, you believe you have been kissing her for ages and yet when overcome by the silence you remove your lips, you know it must have been for a few seconds, so touched you are by her unexpected silence. She resumes talking about that stupid bitch in her class at once.

You take a stroll on the roof together. It rains.

You feel there is something that needs to be said, or done, and you don’t know what it is. Perhaps it is something she wants you to do. You feel worried.

In the meantime, she wonders what are you going to do to her that night.

She wants you to see her new dress, a pink one. She is happy being there with you. You take her hand in your hands and look at her unusually long fingers.

Long after she ceased loving, and long after you ceased knowing what it is to be young and kiss a girl, you know the both of you’ll share an intimacy the reason for which she will not remember.

You feel sad and you look at her. She is so beautiful. You imagine what it would be like to hold her soft and tender little breasts in your hands.

You keep undressing her in your dreams but you are frustrated because you don’t know what to do next. You want to know if sex means holding her breasts in you hands, but you are too shy to ask.

Then, one day, you discover all by yourself that you can do a lot more than just fiddling with her breasts, and you feel you have grown up.

With a single purpose in his life, he set out to be somebody. He toiled day and night, he lost all his friends, he lost all contact with humanity, he lost the last few human traits that he had. And then one day, more machine than human, he emerged victorious. In one single stroke, with one single achievement, he proved his worth to all around him. They spoke highly of him, but it all felt very empty. He brushed them aside, and did one last thing. He spoke to her.

He did not want to feel rejected.

She was young and beautiful. She knew who he was. She smiled. And she spoke to him.

She had the sweetest smile in the whole wide world. She talked about his accomplishments, she talked about her boyfriends, she talked about their schooldays, she talked about her present life. He just stood and stared.

He thought nothing. He didn’t care to speak.

He felt dejected.

So he returned to his room and pulled out a great dusty book, and began to read.

You are sitting next to her. Her fragrance reaches you, and you can tell there is some exotic scent on. You are explaining to her some dumb Newtonian equation the solution to which you think she knows already. She is all smiles and excited. You can notice each vibration in her voluptuous body, and perhaps she can in yours too.

But that is not the point, because you are looking at her face, at her steep nose, flushed cheeks and beautiful mouth (and you notice her lower lip in particular). You keep avoiding her eyes, and eventually you look down to her lovely bosoms, and you suddenly look away, or into the book, or at the end of the pencil that you are chewing. You don’t want her to catch you looking there.

God knows where she has been looking at!

You spend the next few minutes talking about the laws of motion, and now you look up at her. She looks back at you, drinking every word you say. You love it. You love her too. You love her rosy cheeks and lovely bosoms and you love her lips too, but you can’t tell her because she is supposed to be in love with one of your friends, or so they say, or so she should be.

You shrug off and tell her all about definite integration, though you think it is pointless. She suddenly coughs. You look up and and catch a glimpse of her nipples through her blouse and you look up and find her looking at you. You struggle with yourself to decide if you saw a hint of invitation in her eyes. You believe you did, but you are afraid of being rejected and you think you are too young for that.

She coughs again. You find yourself wondering if you could know what is going inside her mind. You stand up to leave and hope that there will be a better tomorrow.

But the tomorrow you have been waiting for all these evenings doesn’t come. She doesn’t ask you to come again the next day.

And you spend your nights undressing her in your dreams.

Take 2

You two talk for a long time. She loves telling you all about her life, though she never mentions Jay.

The windows are open and the lights have been switched off. The few rays that manage to come in get lost behind her hair and you have difficulty in figuring out the details of her face. You are lost. Everybody around has forgotten you and you are lost.

There are a million thoughts in you mind and you can’t concentrate because you are listening to her. May be she doesn’t want you to think of anything. May be she doesn’t want you to think of anything else.

You kiss her cheeks. She doesn’t stop talking about her boring friends. You kiss her neck where you feel her skin to be the warmest, and she doesn’t stop talking about her teachers. You touch her lips. She still doesn’t stop talking about the stupid girl next door. Then you kiss her eyes, and everything stops abruptly. You feel the warmth of her body spreading through your own body and reaching your guts. She is tender and soft.

In that forgotten room surrounded by silence and light and darkness and a few human beings in the next room who never knew what it is to be young and kiss a girl, you believe you have been kissing her for ages and yet when overcome by the silence you remove your lips, you know it must have been for a few seconds, so touched you are by her unexpected silence. She resumes talking about that stupid bitch in her class at once.

You take a stroll on the roof together. It rains.

You feel there is something that needs to be said, or done, and you don’t know what it is. Perhaps it is something she wants you to do. You feel worried.

In the meantime, she wonders what are you going to do to her that night.

She wants you to see her new dress, a pink one. She is happy being there with you. You take her hand in your hands and look at her unusually long fingers.

Long after she ceased loving, and long after you ceased knowing what it is to be young and kiss a girl, you know the both of you’ll share an intimacy the reason for which she will not remember.

You feel sad and you look at her. She is so beautiful. You imagine what it would be like to hold her soft and tender little breasts in your hands.

You keep undressing her in your dreams but you are frustrated because you don’t know what to do next. You want to know if sex means holding her breasts in you hands, but you are too shy to ask.

Then, one day, you discover all by yourself that you can do a lot more than just fiddling with her breasts, and you feel you have grown up.

Take 3

She is in her pink dress and she is sitting next to her mother who is sitting next to you. But you do have some space behind her mother (who is leaning forward so that she could talk to your parents who are sitting at the front) where you can talk to each other. You are headed for a marriage party. You are glad to be back after such a long time in spite of the frivolous pretext.

You look at the back of her ugly fat mother and wonder how somebody so beautiful could be born to someone so unbecoming. You look at the revolting flabs hanging at the back of her mother and you can’t help feeling disgusted. But then, you look at her eyes and then feel her warm breath on your cheek and you loose track of everything else.

You draw yourself still closer to her and in the meantime check if you can see your parents. You can’t, and there is no way her fat mother can turn back without the two of you back in your seats first.

You look back at her. She has large brown eyes and she is giggling and saying something that you don’t hear. She loves your attentive silence and you love her torrent of words which you don’t listen to. You reach her and take out the hairbands so that her curly hair falls on her face. And then, you kiss her on the lips.

You pull back the moment after because you are afraid of being caught. Your heart is beating very fast. You can’t think straight for the next few minutes. But something tells you that you mustn’t think and before you could calm down, you are kissing her again.

You think it is wonderful.

You are feeling her lower lip in your mouth and you want to feel as much of it as you can. You feel intoxicated by the smell of orange on her lips. You are trying very hard and she suddenly pulls away.

There is a small ‘pop’ but it is drowned by the roaring engine amongst the noises around you. You are so much lost inside your mind that you take a few moments before you could register that noise as conversation. She is saying something to your parents about her academic plans. They turn to look at you and ask some empty question that you don’t understand. You just nod your head. They are used to it.

You look at her lips and notice the dark flushed red they have become. You become aware of your own lips which she had been kissing a few moments back and you feel frustrated.

She turns back at you. You lean towards her but you don’t say anything to her. You are looking away at the moon through the window and she also doesn’t say anything for the next half of an hour.

You are not thinking of anything. You try to avoid all thoughts but by the time you turn your gaze from the window back to her again, You have already been through all those moments you lived a short while back.

Before you become conscious of anything else, you find yourself kissing her again and this time you are careful to be soft, taking turns at her upper and lower lips. They are so soft and you have never felt anything like this before. You can feel her tongue around your own lips. The harder she squeezes, the better you like it. You try to feel the inside of her mouth with your own tongues.

And it never ends.