METAL

But of course

She's heard the song before

In garages,

On unmade dorm beds,

Over pepperoni pizzas at one a.m,

Over reheated pepperoni pizzas at three thirty;

Outside shower curtains,

(Sometimes inside),

In snatches,

In coherent hums,

In his eyes,

Instrumental,

In memories,

Sped up, slowed down, played backwards, remixed

She doesn't quite remember the song after that one

But “Maggie Noodles” wasn't only a song

Looking back, it was a moment in her life

When one possible future ended and another started

And she let it pass her by

Only once again in her life,

Years later,

Would she witness something as amazing

But even more painful

Years later, she would hear this song again

On the grainy VHS Reva is taping this in;

Strangely then, she would also smell the misty, dusty, library books

Rumki and her glass bangle laugh....

Watching the tape now

The florescent lights still make her eyes squint from their memory

She can still taste the vodka (it had too much ice) camouflaged in the Nescafe cup

She remembers being tickled slightly

By Maqbool's warm, sweet breath around her neck

Earlier that semester

The unmistakable Imperial Leather in his palms

That cupped her ears to keep them warm

She remembers having had a pimple on her upper lip

Having been afraid that he would never kiss her again

She had been wrong

…............

Life, Calcutta, that moment in February;

Vineeta turns the corner near the Admin block

She carries the burden of Joyce under her arm

And the love leftovers in her eyes

Into the freezing cold of the night

It's the time of the night when its at its darkest, most mysterious

1:30 a.m

She's late

But she's there

She stands on tiptoes, to catch a glimpse of 'Youthinasia'

(Such a corny name, in retrospect)

Her shirt is faded; her jeans too tight

Baby, you're old fashioned

But the boys haven't really changed-

Aniruddha, the cute one,

Akshay, the smart one,

Nakul, the funny one,

Maqbool, the one.

Anir starts it as a slow ballad

With his Frank Sinatra impersonation voice-

“People often ask me about Maggie

It's true that there is no one

There would never be anyone

Quite like her

I miss her unformed nose

Her upturned earlobes

Her chipped front tooth

I miss the way we were....”

And this is the portion where Max and Anir trade licks

On their Rickenbackers

She wonders why Max hasn't started singing yet

Wasn't the first stanza supposed to be his?

Why did they change the name?

The bashful, the mysterious;

In his long hair and raspy voice....

Maqbool has seen her

The lights dance on her face like ocean waves

Now, he just can't sing

His thoughts that moment flicker in her eyes

Like the crackling voice from a distant FM station

They jam beautifully for a whole minute

And then, when Nakul joins them on the percussions

Winnie thinks of the word, “Exhilarating”

Nakul, the skinhead, in his military prints

Molests the drums until Anir takes over again....

“I want to be unhappy

And think I'm something profound

I have spent a lifetime playing it cool

But that doesn't really count

It has changed me and I don't know how

Tears don't come more easily now

And on some morning in the near future

I will wake up from my dream

And remember that I haven't really grieved”

He gets the last high note just right

He didn't sound this great in the rehearsals!

Half the song is over

Max still hasn't made a move

Still standing in the shadows

Fingers bleeding his heart shaped guitar

Akshay, in his black tee and rockabilly hair

Now on the keyboard

It's more Michael Nyman than Beethoven's Fifth

And then finally,

Finally,

Maqbool's voice drones the open air theater-

“You were my mother, planet, ink, tear,

word, thought, rush, savior,

habit, fire, forest, sin,

soldier, silence, shot, skin,

toy, pain, pulse, passion,

lithium, rain, dimple, fashion,

memory, painting, ache, spasm,

chocolate, soul, fake, orgasm”

The crowd has stopped swaying

They suddenly feel this interlude;

This brink of a revolution-

Greedy lips
Renaissance eyes

Love making

Under skies

Maqbool knows

They will not remember this song

They will not remember a line

Their name too will be forgotten

In the course of time

All of them

Except one

They start what would become the last stanza

Aniruddha speaking the first line

Nakul speaking the next

Akshay taking on the third line

Maqbool singing the rest-

“You had the forget me not eyes

She had the Mercedes Benz

You had all the pretty, pretty boys

She had common sense

You had Hotel California

She had the loudest grunt

But every now and then, Maggie

You could be such a c*nt””

THE MAN WITH THE HEART SHAPED GUITAR....

His entry in her life wasn't at all dramatic

It was the July after she'd gone back to Calcutta

And Amar had remained in London..

She'd first seen him strumming a guitar in 'Peter Cat'

(Where she'd gone with her three girlfriends on a Saturday evening)

In a pinstriped shirt, shoulder length hair and loafers

At first glance, he had looked fleetingly like Maqbool

In fact, if not for the diffused lights and the margaritas on her pulse,

Winnie would be certain

For now, she looks on

Those night music eyes; that close in that familiar way when he smiles

That familiar raspy, droning, tragic, broken, early morning voice

That make you want to cuddle him like a child

The same way his hair ripples on his forehead

And the way he subtly, occasionally, tosses his head to the right,

To move the long black hair out of his deep brown eyes

His fingers too busy, too important, to move from the heart shaped guitar

He's maybe a shade darker than Max; definitely slimmer

But then she gets this strange feeling

Like whatever that's happening

Isn't really happening

But is only, symbolic

And that Max isn't really Max

But is a metaphor for something else

As though he has jumped out of the pages of his own book

She's scared that

Even now

She can see him

Standing like a man, in flesh and blood, in a pinstriped shirt,

But any moment now,

Dressed as he is, as one of the twenty first century new romantics,

He will jump up and introduce himself to her,

“Hi, my name is Maqbool's pain;

Love me,

Eat me out

Hide me now

In the lump in your throat

Beneath your glimmering sunglasses

Despite the twitch in your voice

Sometimes during his embrace

On the traces on your pillow

By writing about old times

With a little help from your friends

Under your bed

Around your dreams

Where no one else can reach

Because I'm yours

And you love me”

Moments after capping off 'I want you (She's so heavy)' with that rousing guitar solo,

And segueing comfortably into the strains of 'Lake of Fire'

For the first time, in just over seven minutes

He looks at her

There can be no mistaking him now

FOREPLAY

Yes, she's the woman in the prose-

“Appearing nine years ago, in her brother's snake-skin jacket

And then on, in dreams”

Winnie's first impulse is to tear apart the page

That seems to have ripped apart her soul

But she is restrained only with bewilderment

Or something like that

How, she wonders, could anyone so gifted,

Anyone who could write a sentence like that,

Be so enormously sad

Maqbool, the wistful, who made the two incomprehensible films

And then nothing else

The boy of such genius

But also such strangeness, such raving madness and unfathomable sorrow

And to tell the truth, Winnie is also, terribly flattered

“He insists on a version of me that seems so tempting to believe really”

He makes her ingenuous, funny, enigmatic, profound, beautiful

Something she is

And she isn't

So much so that one can't help but admire that he is the only one who appreciates the intrinsic her

That only he can

“See through the very folds of my soul”

But then she realizes it's not about her

At all

He sees everyone like this

Like a fictional character he imbibes certain attributes with-

1. ingenuous, 2. funny, 3. enigmatic, 4. profound, 5. beautiful, etc.

But even then, for the few moments that linger after reading,

She starts believing in them

She reads on then

Not to lose herself

But to keep herself

She knows that like those before, this moment of weakness too, shall pass

She knows that the half hour trek has lasted eight years, a chapter and fifty pages

She knows that in ninety seconds from now, she will close the book and join Amar in bed

She knows that the possibility of another future had got over, nine years ago

She knows that he too, in his own way, is slowly but undeniably, getting over her

She knows that at this moment, he is most likely, fucking some impressionable intellectual in LA

She knows that he will win at least the Pen/ Faulkner for this one

She knows him too well

She knows that they will never again make love to each other

She knows that the relationship they have left now

Is only

Metaphysical

MONDAY- "PARIS"

No body
Greasy hair
Nasal voice
Long face
Bedroom eyes
She concludes he's not all that handsome
“I know I'm looking for imperfections”


There is a moment there
When she feels his gaze burning her
It is for some reason, humiliating
Vaguely embarrassing
She, of course, could have looked away
But for the sky blue of his eyes
It's then that she betrays herself
By looking at him


“She is looking at me
Each of her movements, is precise and languid
But her eyes are directionless
Dark circles
Acne prone skin
Unformed nose
Ferrero Rocher lips
Gummo smile
Bloated hips
Asymmetrical hairstyle


And by the way, black doesn't make her look slimmer;
But even then
I've never met anyone
Quite like her“

TUESDAY- "THE OTHER SAINT-GOBAIN GIRL"

She stops and looks at her reflection in the rather ornate (his taste, not hers) bedroom mirror

Her reflection never refuses to startle her, even now

Thirty Four

Almost six feet and seven kilograms lighter than pregnant June

Still capable of lending fantasies when smiling lopsidedly at jokes (she practices her dimple as I write)

Or touching thighs or shoulders or ribs;

Accidentally, casually and perhaps flirtatiously

Or wearing sleeveless blouses that always, inexplicably,

Seem to be a size smaller

No zits

Good

Laugh lines and crow's feet

But nothing a few hours of sleep and make up can't handle

And men don't really care about stretch marks

Black makes me look slimmer

Blue also looks good on her, she decides slowly, nodding her head with finality

A sexy body and great clothes on a Sunday afternoon

A husband and a child, madly in love with her, waiting downstairs

And present here, in the framed photograph in either Maldives or Bahamas (she forgets where exactly)

The new house and its four, still smelling of enamel, walls and its thousand unopened cardboard boxes

A hot cup of Darjeeling Tea, with thin arrowroot biscuits

Gulzar’s Sunset Point on the radio, somewhere in the background

A stray canary by the window, a good omen

It is almost enough to be herself

It is almost perfect

Almost

WEDNESDAY- "LOVE ON THE SIDE"

Shooncho invited him over for dinner

My wife's an expert in Italian

She feels as nervous as before her matriculation exams

And why does the fact that he's brought a date, not upset her but torment her?

So, no matter how rude I came across as

I refused to kiss him on the cheek or shake hands

Because I felt I had to be careful with him

He's one of those

With all that mysterious confidence

With a face that is sometimes handsome, sometimes just strange

Who you feel can read your mind and doesn't let on

And occasionally smiles to scare you

He can look deep into my eyes, my lips, the very folds of my soul

He strips me

He's infuriating

Cerebral palsy has mildly distorted her lower lip

Making the left side of her mouth curve sexily while speaking emphatically or smiling

A face like a rainbow

So beautiful that it almost hurt to look at it

Knowing that such perfectness would be hard to experience again

The two slightly protruding canines that lent her a babyish innocence at thirty four

I want to keep looking at your face

With the edible, pouting lower lip and the hazel eyes and that chandelier smile

I'll eat you for breakfast

His love, at that moment, resembled his appetite; voracious, insatiable

He could actually, really, devour her

I'm with her

He's with you

But you get it

And I get it

Let's want to fall in love

For the things we now know

Let's misbehave

I still remember

Our first touch

Playing footsie under the table for four

THURSDAY- "THE YEAR OF KISSING"

Your mouth
on Mine
Your lips
dripping with poetry
Wet
Your spearmint tongue
Breathless

Some of your
Fiery Amber (or is it Moulin rouge?)
Swallowed whole today

With a tear or two

And saliva strawberries

At two hours, nineteen minutes and forty six seconds exactly

And broken only because of the long distance from France

It's not quite the Guinness book kiss

But it gives us

one hard on,

two parched mouths

an adrenaline rush,

something to write about,

scandalized neighbors,

sweet weariness,

Lipstick on my collars
And Hickeys on your lip

Now you'll not be able to show your face for a week

She parts her lips another centimeter, so that her mouth twitches slightly

She closes her eyes

The moment is suddenly, unexpectedly perfect

He aims his lips for hers,

But she instinctively (As a reflex action) turns her face so as to evade them and offers him her cheek instead

Then guiltily, she catches herself and tries turning back

But it's too late and she ends up grazing the side of his lips with her own

It's an awkward moment

She's relieved, giggling; he's surprised, then perturbed and then slowly, furious

He thinks

She's either too conventional

Or a little reluctant

Or too scared to reveal herself

She thinks

If you look closely

You'll see that my lips are not saying what I want to

She liked the way he always smelled of a familiar morning

Brut aftershave, Keo Karpin coconut oil and strong filter coffee

And of old editions of Ananda Bazaar, Mogras, morning breeze at Kalighat, and Hemanta on the radio

He smelled like their childhood, lived in a two room affair somewhere in Rippon Lane

He smelled like Calcutta

Like '93

Like home

Like love

Like her

That moment now appears definitive

When one possible future ended and another started

Here, fifteen years ago, they'd stood and argued

Whether he had kissed her or she had kissed him?

That doesn't really matter now

For they had kissed

Or hadn't

FRIDAY- "BREATHLESS"

Andrew, the indefatigable

Going down on her

In the elevator

Mouthing poetry in between inventive sex

And my chunky black Scorcese spectacles dangling on my (then scrawny) nose

Words flowing with as much irritating reluctance

As my second orgasm that night

I don't know where to start

I love every millimeter of her

Her body like a map that shows too much and is therefore useless

But do you want to fuck her Sir?

Eventually, yes

I'd love to turn you on

They're just a little bit stuck in the middle for now

Elevator Music

Their darkened reflections in voyeuristic opaque mirrors looking back at them

And always a vestige of Mr. Aniruddha Kanti Sen

His horn rimmed spectacles

His Holmesian pipe

His barrister books

As though silent, testimonial witnesses

She's afraid that

Just like Devdas, he would barge into the room anytime and say,

“Daurja Kholo Paaro”

But he doesn't

It's like they've managed to stop time somehow

Somewhere between the eighth and ninth floor

There's just enough time

For a sixty nine

SATURDAY- "THE METAMORPHOSIS OF REVA"

It disturbs me that I, am writing this hurriedly, secretly, guiltily

Glancing intermittently at the bathroom door

Inside; he's brushing his teeth

He's coming back

More later

False Alarm

It disturbs me that after a couple of months,

I'm suddenly looking forward to sleeping with him

Sleeping with him while thinking about

Him

It disturbs me that today, amidst the night music and the Italian food,

For a split second I felt that I could have given up everything for Andrew

Anir, Buchkun, the house, the jewelry, the bank accounts; everything

Everything that my life has amounted to so far

For someone I've seen for the first time today

Of course, that feeling lasted only an instant

But the fact that I could be capable of such thoughts

Horrifies me

It disturbs me that I, a mother of two, was not annoyed

When being touched by someone other than my husband

Slutty as this sounds

It is all true

SUNDAY- "ENDLESS, NAMELESS"

Yesterday

Only you asked me about my earliest memory

Only you wanted to know what dreams I remembered

Only you were more fascinating than I was beautiful

Only you could tear apart my writings and still make sense

Only you could wipe my tears without being intimidated

You were clearly besotted with me

You were at the same time, comic and tragic in your love

You were saved, moved, cured, defined, with mine

You looked at me expectantly, like a child, anticipating my next move

You were the last one who truly, unconditionally, loved me

Today

Alone with him, I might lose my direction

He courts me, pleads with me, ignores me, hurts me

He cries mysteriously, makes undecipherable demands

And is so entirely, persuasively, selfishly, unapologetically, inexhaustibly, himself

I love the way he looks at me with his slow breath

I love the way he says my name with the slightly accented clipped consonants

I love the way he makes me feel beautiful when he smiles

I love the way he weirdly reminds me of my first schoolboy crush

I love him

And I loved you too

But frankly

I was bored