Outside the ICU, Blindingly white; flavors: antiseptic and phenyl
Indraneel Chakraborti has spent the last two hours pacing here
Delicately balancing the vending machine coffee in the Styrofoam cup
Inside, Binodini lies
The lines on the monitor keep fluttering like musical notes
Please don't die
Only yesterday, he had screamed at her for buying a seven hundred dollar wine
He would never scream at her again
He would never wear the yellow jacket again
He would never watch football at nights
He would never say Srikanto was stupid
He would never complain about her prawns
He would never make fun of her feet....
A tear trickles down his cheek, spills his instant coffee
Though he's never admitted to before
He actually remembers the way her skin felt above her eyebrows.
Cold and smooth and stiff like thermocol
How dry her palms usually were
How small her feet looked, like a child's feet at night
The faint traces of talcum powder on her neck in the mornings
The corrugated texture of her starched dupattas
The multicolored moles on her back
For hours, Neel has been thinking about the small things like these
That only he knew
That made her his wife
As ordinary as they all appeared individually,
Together, these things made up his life
And theirs
Just then he hears a girl's voice,
That tells him to go inside
He looks up at her and says, with great difficulty
“I can't see anything;
Have I gone blind?”
To which she replies,
Sympathetically,
“Wipe your tears, Mr. Chakraborti”
Saturday, December 26, 2009
BECAUSE
One day, while ironing your skirt, I tell you,
"Today I don't love you
But you'll always have my poems"
One day, while serving dessert, you confide in me,
“I know what you suffer
My heart too
Was broken Maqbool
And his name was also Amar”
One day, while changing channels, you say, indifferently
You say she didn't look good in jeans
You say she never really loved me
You say her eyes were actually chocolate brown
One day, while sleeping with you,
I wish they were blue though
And I wish that if I call her now,
I would hear her newscaster voice
With its call center English and broken Bengali....
But that
I know
Will never happen again
And I'll have to
THE NAJDORF VARIATION
She walks in on the twenty third
In braided hair and pleated short skirt
That finishes just above her knees
All hormones and scented jasmine
During the entire thirty seconds (we know because she keeps looking at her watch)
He steals nine glances at her
He thinks she looks like....like that girl from that....that English movie where...
He knows how to spell her name on the ceramic walls
He imagines making love to her.... twice
He realizes he has forty two rupees in his pocket
Then they lurch to a stop
And she says, "Thank you"
Then for the first time in two years
Xenia smiles
Though she walks away
The jasmine dust and the memories of her smile
Get left behind
At that moment, poor Bahadur is the happiest one in all of Calcutta
Since the nineteenth of this month
She has started putting on lipstick (sshhh..) to school
She has started sleeping with a curled smile on her lips
She has started appreciating Tennyson now
She has started thanking her elevator boy
She has started enjoying the winters
Nowadays, she suddenly starts laughing in the Biology class
She startles Rumki by hugging her at every opportunity she gets
When she sees an urchin, she doesn't hesitate to give it a hundred bucks
She doesn't mind her parents any longer (she thinks they're 'awesome')
And Ma is worried why she doesn't complain about her lentils anymore
Aar eyi maasher unish taarik thekei
Proshanto has started humming in the shower
He has started driving his motorcycle that bit faster
He has stopped playing football with Subrato on Sundays
He has started stopping on his way and admiring the cacti
He has started writing passable poetry in foolscap notebooks
Nowadays, he's the first to stand up when an old man gets on the local train
He has suddenly discovered that yeah man, he loves Rabindra sangeet
He's even praising Lal kakima's greasy 'kobiraajis'
He's speaking less and smiling more
He's waiting for Xenia outside her home
And Lennon is saying,
"It's only love"
In braided hair and pleated short skirt
That finishes just above her knees
All hormones and scented jasmine
During the entire thirty seconds (we know because she keeps looking at her watch)
He steals nine glances at her
He thinks she looks like....like that girl from that....that English movie where...
He knows how to spell her name on the ceramic walls
He imagines making love to her.... twice
He realizes he has forty two rupees in his pocket
Then they lurch to a stop
And she says, "Thank you"
Then for the first time in two years
Xenia smiles
Though she walks away
The jasmine dust and the memories of her smile
Get left behind
At that moment, poor Bahadur is the happiest one in all of Calcutta
Since the nineteenth of this month
She has started putting on lipstick (sshhh..) to school
She has started sleeping with a curled smile on her lips
She has started appreciating Tennyson now
She has started thanking her elevator boy
She has started enjoying the winters
Nowadays, she suddenly starts laughing in the Biology class
She startles Rumki by hugging her at every opportunity she gets
When she sees an urchin, she doesn't hesitate to give it a hundred bucks
She doesn't mind her parents any longer (she thinks they're 'awesome')
And Ma is worried why she doesn't complain about her lentils anymore
Aar eyi maasher unish taarik thekei
Proshanto has started humming in the shower
He has started driving his motorcycle that bit faster
He has stopped playing football with Subrato on Sundays
He has started stopping on his way and admiring the cacti
He has started writing passable poetry in foolscap notebooks
Nowadays, he's the first to stand up when an old man gets on the local train
He has suddenly discovered that yeah man, he loves Rabindra sangeet
He's even praising Lal kakima's greasy 'kobiraajis'
He's speaking less and smiling more
He's waiting for Xenia outside her home
And Lennon is saying,
"It's only love"
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
INCOGNITA
She landed up at his door one Sunday morning
Just as he was trying to begin the second chapter (after pages of false starts)
At first her knock had seemed like poetry to him
Midway between an irregular heartbeat, a throbbing wound and a morse code
Full red lips and eyes of blue
At first glance, she was another beautiful woman
But then, she wasn't;
For here was a mirror image of Vineeta
Those oversized eyes and slightly tilted lips
Stuck on the same landscape of a Californian sunset
He would have felt akin to falling into a dream
Had he not known who she really was
In the subdued sunlight in the room, he observed her more carefully
Her immense, copyrighted forehead accentuated even more by the hair swept back
An overdone mouth
She had deliberately created dark circles under her eyes
Even today, she sometimes made him smile
Then she spoke
Like all his women with their thick, distant, un-virginal, radio jockey voices
That swooped effortlessly through a man's legs
“We have the same toes
The same handwriting
The same earlobes.....
Tell me Shona, am I her?”
He couldn't bear to tell her the truth
“That you don't have to do the dark circles
Because you two have the same upturned nose
You too have the same housecounting eyes
And the same way in which you blink them when something interests or perplexes you
The only eyes I've ever seen which one might truly describe as, violet
I look in those tremendous purple eyes
But I see nothing there
And yet I used to know a girl who used to live there
And she is the most beautiful girl I've ever seen.
That I see pieces of her all the time
Every time, a girl with Cappuccino skin and low rise jeans walks by, fast and straight
I see images of her flashing me by
So, you too could be her
For all I know”
But to her he says, more reassuringly (and eventually in glib South Calcutta Bengali)-
“There's more than a passing resemblance
Khanik ta bichanaar paashe
Khanik ta tomar daan chokher kaache
Khanik ta aamaader dujoner majhe
Khanik ta thake shei meghla akashey....”
Translated, it (more or less) stands:
One part of it, near our bed
Another on the corner of your right eye
A bit of it between the two of us
Some falling down the grey skies.....
So, arching her eyebrows and blinking her eyes, she asked him again
Her words with the effect of a familiar song floating by
“Am I her?”
And he looked straight at her and said, with the clarity of her blue eyes
“No
You're not her”
(But all things considered da'ling
You did come
Pretty damn close)
Just as he was trying to begin the second chapter (after pages of false starts)
At first her knock had seemed like poetry to him
Midway between an irregular heartbeat, a throbbing wound and a morse code
Full red lips and eyes of blue
At first glance, she was another beautiful woman
But then, she wasn't;
For here was a mirror image of Vineeta
Those oversized eyes and slightly tilted lips
Stuck on the same landscape of a Californian sunset
He would have felt akin to falling into a dream
Had he not known who she really was
In the subdued sunlight in the room, he observed her more carefully
Her immense, copyrighted forehead accentuated even more by the hair swept back
An overdone mouth
She had deliberately created dark circles under her eyes
Even today, she sometimes made him smile
Then she spoke
Like all his women with their thick, distant, un-virginal, radio jockey voices
That swooped effortlessly through a man's legs
“We have the same toes
The same handwriting
The same earlobes.....
Tell me Shona, am I her?”
He couldn't bear to tell her the truth
“That you don't have to do the dark circles
Because you two have the same upturned nose
You too have the same housecounting eyes
And the same way in which you blink them when something interests or perplexes you
The only eyes I've ever seen which one might truly describe as, violet
I look in those tremendous purple eyes
But I see nothing there
And yet I used to know a girl who used to live there
And she is the most beautiful girl I've ever seen.
That I see pieces of her all the time
Every time, a girl with Cappuccino skin and low rise jeans walks by, fast and straight
I see images of her flashing me by
So, you too could be her
For all I know”
But to her he says, more reassuringly (and eventually in glib South Calcutta Bengali)-
“There's more than a passing resemblance
Khanik ta bichanaar paashe
Khanik ta tomar daan chokher kaache
Khanik ta aamaader dujoner majhe
Khanik ta thake shei meghla akashey....”
Translated, it (more or less) stands:
One part of it, near our bed
Another on the corner of your right eye
A bit of it between the two of us
Some falling down the grey skies.....
So, arching her eyebrows and blinking her eyes, she asked him again
Her words with the effect of a familiar song floating by
“Am I her?”
And he looked straight at her and said, with the clarity of her blue eyes
“No
You're not her”
(But all things considered da'ling
You did come
Pretty damn close)
2BHK
Slowly, carefully and slightly out of breath
He entered her
Her 2BHK, somewhere in the downtown
He had come in through the bathroom window;
Using a jack-knife
For breaking and entering, unlawfully inside
And wearing a mask
To protect his face
After all, he had come
Not only to rob her
But also, to kill her....
Inside it is
Pitch dark
He uses a flashlight
To look for her
And opens the door on the right....
He remembers having been here before
This is the kitchen, isn't it?
“Yes, once we used to sit a talking for hours at the table
Talking about Bombay, Salsa and Dominique Francon
Till the gravies on our fingers dried
Later, we didn't
We just ate as a chore
You became allergic to mangoes and I to lobsters
But even today
You make me hungry”
He closes the door, silently and tiptoes into the next room....
His eyes are slowly getting used to the darkness
He can recognize the Bedroom at once
“Our life
As though hastily stitched from curtain leftovers
And pillow fights
I can feel you still,
Faintly, distinctly,
And alive
In the ripples of these bed-sheets of
Sandalwood, cardamom and naphthalene”
He tries turning the knob of the guest bedroom on the other end
But the door is locked
So, he goes back to the hall to lurk in the darkness
And wait for her to walk in
“I can still see you, in those black and white photographs on the walls
I can still feel your eyes upon me
But it's only now that I can see the hope in those eyes
Oozing through the slips in the cracked glass....”
It slowly dawns upon him, in the sweaty, August darkness
That in all its gloom, all its imperfectness
It was still a place that had once been, his own
That home was nothing but a couple of people
Who loved ciphers and sukiyaki and missed the same arbitrary place
But this home-
This home didn't belong to them
And that's when he decides to leave....
Once out in the street, he permits himself to turn around just one more time
And look back at the balcony where she had once stood
Amidst the distant sounds of traffic and her tall delphiniums that morning
She hadn't been doing a thing except standing there leaning on the railing;
Holding the universe together....
Well, like they say
Perhaps for every man
There is at least one city
That sooner or later
Turns into a girl
She was there
And she was the whole city
And that's all there is to it
…......
Moments later, she opens the door
In one second, she can make out
That someone had come in
And he had stolen something
But she doesn't know this-
That he is outside now, watching his steps, walking in the cold,
Hunting for another address
He can call his own
Yes, he will let her live
But in his life, he will never come back here again
And eventually he'll realize with a wry smile and a shake of his head
That anyway today
There's no city called Bombay anymore.
He entered her
Her 2BHK, somewhere in the downtown
He had come in through the bathroom window;
Using a jack-knife
For breaking and entering, unlawfully inside
And wearing a mask
To protect his face
After all, he had come
Not only to rob her
But also, to kill her....
Inside it is
Pitch dark
He uses a flashlight
To look for her
And opens the door on the right....
He remembers having been here before
This is the kitchen, isn't it?
“Yes, once we used to sit a talking for hours at the table
Talking about Bombay, Salsa and Dominique Francon
Till the gravies on our fingers dried
Later, we didn't
We just ate as a chore
You became allergic to mangoes and I to lobsters
But even today
You make me hungry”
He closes the door, silently and tiptoes into the next room....
His eyes are slowly getting used to the darkness
He can recognize the Bedroom at once
“Our life
As though hastily stitched from curtain leftovers
And pillow fights
I can feel you still,
Faintly, distinctly,
And alive
In the ripples of these bed-sheets of
Sandalwood, cardamom and naphthalene”
He tries turning the knob of the guest bedroom on the other end
But the door is locked
So, he goes back to the hall to lurk in the darkness
And wait for her to walk in
“I can still see you, in those black and white photographs on the walls
I can still feel your eyes upon me
But it's only now that I can see the hope in those eyes
Oozing through the slips in the cracked glass....”
It slowly dawns upon him, in the sweaty, August darkness
That in all its gloom, all its imperfectness
It was still a place that had once been, his own
That home was nothing but a couple of people
Who loved ciphers and sukiyaki and missed the same arbitrary place
But this home-
This home didn't belong to them
And that's when he decides to leave....
Once out in the street, he permits himself to turn around just one more time
And look back at the balcony where she had once stood
Amidst the distant sounds of traffic and her tall delphiniums that morning
She hadn't been doing a thing except standing there leaning on the railing;
Holding the universe together....
Well, like they say
Perhaps for every man
There is at least one city
That sooner or later
Turns into a girl
She was there
And she was the whole city
And that's all there is to it
…......
Moments later, she opens the door
In one second, she can make out
That someone had come in
And he had stolen something
But she doesn't know this-
That he is outside now, watching his steps, walking in the cold,
Hunting for another address
He can call his own
Yes, he will let her live
But in his life, he will never come back here again
And eventually he'll realize with a wry smile and a shake of his head
That anyway today
There's no city called Bombay anymore.
POLYTHENE PROSE
Once I had written a poem
About the time I had got lost in the jungle
Every pebble was the same, every tree, every leaf
And I couldn't find a way out
So, I tore the poem into pieces and made a trail
I followed it back to you
I saved myself
But I lost the poem
I’ve never been able to write poetry anymore
Now the jungle’s got all the polythene
And all I’ve got left is prose
(An ode to "Bangla Kobita" and civilization, I guess)
Friday, December 4, 2009
NUCLEAR NIGHTS
Some evenings, her fingers would hesitantly find mine on the couch
Some nights, less bashful, she would snuggle closer
Touching my hip with hers
Lean forward when speaking
Her voice would get a trifle more, shrill
She would scratch my neck with her cat like nails
She would snatch my magazine and throw it away
Or doodle on my forearms
Or softly hit me on the head with the pillow from the couch
There were days when he would get me white tulips on the way home
When he would sulk after every game Chelsea won (and they won quite a few)
When he would have an argument with AD in the afternoon
When he would take a half hour hot shower in the middle of an April evening
When he would wake up crying at three having just remembered his mother
When he would sit around and do nothing but re-watch Notting Hill on HBO
When he would have that third screwdriver
And without fail on every New Year's Eve
Some days were like this
Some days were not
Today, after nine years
Whenever Shrilekha sees white tulips in a garden,
She thinks of the sex on the balcony
And whenever Dhritimaan sees a doodle on a newspaper,
He can't help but be reminded of Shri
She carries the memories of that night with him
All her life after that
She's never had the kind of bliss
That one night seemed to promise
Someplace else, when he switches off the TV after every Chelsea win
He half expects to see Shrilekha
Seductively beckoning him to bed
With her mischievous smile, no bra, husky voice and broken Bengali
"Kaachey Esho
Come
C....l....o.....s....e.....r"
Some nights, less bashful, she would snuggle closer
Touching my hip with hers
Lean forward when speaking
Her voice would get a trifle more, shrill
She would scratch my neck with her cat like nails
She would snatch my magazine and throw it away
Or doodle on my forearms
Or softly hit me on the head with the pillow from the couch
There were days when he would get me white tulips on the way home
When he would sulk after every game Chelsea won (and they won quite a few)
When he would have an argument with AD in the afternoon
When he would take a half hour hot shower in the middle of an April evening
When he would wake up crying at three having just remembered his mother
When he would sit around and do nothing but re-watch Notting Hill on HBO
When he would have that third screwdriver
And without fail on every New Year's Eve
Some days were like this
Some days were not
Today, after nine years
Whenever Shrilekha sees white tulips in a garden,
She thinks of the sex on the balcony
And whenever Dhritimaan sees a doodle on a newspaper,
He can't help but be reminded of Shri
She carries the memories of that night with him
All her life after that
She's never had the kind of bliss
That one night seemed to promise
Someplace else, when he switches off the TV after every Chelsea win
He half expects to see Shrilekha
Seductively beckoning him to bed
With her mischievous smile, no bra, husky voice and broken Bengali
"Kaachey Esho
Come
C....l....o.....s....e.....r"
WHEN SHALINI DANCED
Manasvi knows she's not beautiful
Bradley strums his guitar to a tune from a memory, seven years old
Maneka rests her head slowly on his shoulder
Shalini gets up and dances with abandon on top of the borrowed Chevy
Tejpal is scared that she will fall down but doesn't mind her swaying, impromptu hips
Rhea gets down on one knee in front of twenty people and Digby rolls his eyes
Mandira scrapes her knees while getting down in front of Manbir
Niharika fights with Vishal, again
Piyali reads Pynchon in the darkness
Farinoush stops traffic
Jahanzeb hopes for a yes
Anuj contemplates murder
Hans looks longingly at Manasvi from behind the wall with unmentionable graffiti
Siddharth stares at the same wall with vacant eyes and white nostrils
Vishal applies the finishing touches to his make up kiss
Fari cries over Manbir when no one's looking
Vatan smiles at Jahanzeb for the first time in two years
Piyali pretends reading Pynchon while glancing surreptitiously at TP in between the lines
Digby misses home and the cardamom tea to go with it
Dhrubo dreams of a revolution with his unfathomable plays
Vatan sleeps besides Manasvi for the first time
Patil watches Oberoi burn
And no one loves you Varsha
No one but me
Bradley strums his guitar to a tune from a memory, seven years old
Maneka rests her head slowly on his shoulder
Shalini gets up and dances with abandon on top of the borrowed Chevy
Tejpal is scared that she will fall down but doesn't mind her swaying, impromptu hips
Rhea gets down on one knee in front of twenty people and Digby rolls his eyes
Mandira scrapes her knees while getting down in front of Manbir
Niharika fights with Vishal, again
Piyali reads Pynchon in the darkness
Farinoush stops traffic
Jahanzeb hopes for a yes
Anuj contemplates murder
Hans looks longingly at Manasvi from behind the wall with unmentionable graffiti
Siddharth stares at the same wall with vacant eyes and white nostrils
Vishal applies the finishing touches to his make up kiss
Fari cries over Manbir when no one's looking
Vatan smiles at Jahanzeb for the first time in two years
Piyali pretends reading Pynchon while glancing surreptitiously at TP in between the lines
Digby misses home and the cardamom tea to go with it
Dhrubo dreams of a revolution with his unfathomable plays
Vatan sleeps besides Manasvi for the first time
Patil watches Oberoi burn
And no one loves you Varsha
No one but me
TROIS COULEURS
1
They sleep close to each other of the four poster bed
Deepti, aware of Mr. Walia's scent and his tousled dark hair
Nestling against her right shoulder that she holds very still
So as not to awaken him
She keeps glancing at him-
A slim turn on, barefoot in his drawstring trackpants, heavy stubble and slightly dribbling mouth
She carefully moves his right arm
That is wrapped around her (the other close to her right breast);
And gets up on tiptoes
She isn't wearing anything yet
In the kitchen, she tries not to dwell upon the tattoo on her right forearm
Only visible between her bangles, now that her loose nightgown has been rolled up at the sleeves
While straining the morning tea into the Pearlpet flask
The steam rises lazily from the kettle
Splaying cardamom on the kitchen walls
And Carmel college...
She had first met him during those days
Those days of tomfoolery, boredom, lethargy and high summer, blue rains
Which carried them all blissfully throughout the three years
Or, she admits ruefully, it might have been
Just him
The tattoo too, a product of a foolish summer on Candolim beach
Although a lot of it had to do with what went on between them
“This is art baby”,
She had told her mother, in low slung jeans
Today, she has trouble explaining it to Gubloo
She has received the invitation, only yesterday
She had recognized at once
The unmistakable handwriting on the envelope
She had guessed at once
The contents inside....
Today, Deepti's awake at dawn, earlier than usual
She hates these days, when she wakes up having dreamt of him
She decides she will make Mr. Walia some french toast to go with the tea
And then she must pick what to wear in the evening....
2
Neeta can't seem to feel her body, though she knows it's probably there
She hasn't been able to move her car an inch in the last seventeen minutes
She's running late now for the marketing seminar
Around her, an ocean of people and around them, another ocean
The city like a brain's neural network
The people blinking like corpuscles
Eyes closed and moving lips,
She memorizes the slides for the eleventh time
Her hair, colored auburn, parted on the right,
That she holds away from her face to look at the printouts on the front seat, from time to time;
This is so not what she wanted to be
She tries to see the beauty in haggard people and blaring horns
Because she knows she's different
A thin line sets her apart from her colleagues
She keeps Nabokov in her desk drawer
After all
Often during board meetings,
She's either in the middle of a sentence in Howard's End
Or in one of Leonard's midwestern landscapes
Some afternoons, she wants to just lie down on a pavement
And go to sleep
But she can almost see her own self, fifteen minutes from now,
Bent over mineral water bottles and laptop screens in conference rooms
It's at moments like this that she feels that she should've had a peg leg
Then it would've been enough to just live
Without it, she's supposed to make something
Of her thirty one year old life
She watches the time on her left wrist
She can't help noticing the faint scar besides it
It's been too long
Still, it's a reminder
That although she's a sexy, successful woman today
She's the same woman who once tried to die and failed at it
But she's a survivor
Time had stopped there
Not here
The second hand of the watch is still parading on its dreamy dial.
It's an Omega afterall
3
Susan D'Souza feels the lump on her stomach
Her electric blue gown hides it rather well
Just one hour remains before the dinner
Her lips curve into a smile in the mirror
Her laugh lines only faintly visible
She looks like a woman of sorrows
And her breaths are becoming shorter
He isn't here yet
She wants to say, “Give me some space
So that I can reach you”
Hot chocolate at Keventer's,
Old Tintins rediscovered,
Lamb Curry at Dada Boudi,
Duran Duran on the walkman,
Sunrise from the Bodega Bay,
Dostoevsky around her neck,
And his endings
She doesn't want anything else today....
….
It is Susan who recognizes Deepti first
The girl who didn't look beautiful
Until she smiled
The dimple like a tear running down her cheek
Her face, coarsely handsome than really pretty
He has still not come
Is he still looking for his navy blue suit?
The waiters serve them more food for thought in the meanwhile
Deepti nudges Susan with her right elbow, almost spilling her Pinacolada
In another corner of the room, they watch the girl with the prose-like poise
The girl with the dark circles
The girl with the flat top hair
The girl with the chipped front tooth
The girl with another man
It was always only her eyes
It is the time of the night when a new day is about to begin
It is the 26th of November
It is time
They sleep close to each other of the four poster bed
Deepti, aware of Mr. Walia's scent and his tousled dark hair
Nestling against her right shoulder that she holds very still
So as not to awaken him
She keeps glancing at him-
A slim turn on, barefoot in his drawstring trackpants, heavy stubble and slightly dribbling mouth
She carefully moves his right arm
That is wrapped around her (the other close to her right breast);
And gets up on tiptoes
She isn't wearing anything yet
In the kitchen, she tries not to dwell upon the tattoo on her right forearm
Only visible between her bangles, now that her loose nightgown has been rolled up at the sleeves
While straining the morning tea into the Pearlpet flask
The steam rises lazily from the kettle
Splaying cardamom on the kitchen walls
And Carmel college...
She had first met him during those days
Those days of tomfoolery, boredom, lethargy and high summer, blue rains
Which carried them all blissfully throughout the three years
Or, she admits ruefully, it might have been
Just him
The tattoo too, a product of a foolish summer on Candolim beach
Although a lot of it had to do with what went on between them
“This is art baby”,
She had told her mother, in low slung jeans
Today, she has trouble explaining it to Gubloo
She has received the invitation, only yesterday
She had recognized at once
The unmistakable handwriting on the envelope
She had guessed at once
The contents inside....
Today, Deepti's awake at dawn, earlier than usual
She hates these days, when she wakes up having dreamt of him
She decides she will make Mr. Walia some french toast to go with the tea
And then she must pick what to wear in the evening....
2
Neeta can't seem to feel her body, though she knows it's probably there
She hasn't been able to move her car an inch in the last seventeen minutes
She's running late now for the marketing seminar
Around her, an ocean of people and around them, another ocean
The city like a brain's neural network
The people blinking like corpuscles
Eyes closed and moving lips,
She memorizes the slides for the eleventh time
Her hair, colored auburn, parted on the right,
That she holds away from her face to look at the printouts on the front seat, from time to time;
This is so not what she wanted to be
She tries to see the beauty in haggard people and blaring horns
Because she knows she's different
A thin line sets her apart from her colleagues
She keeps Nabokov in her desk drawer
After all
Often during board meetings,
She's either in the middle of a sentence in Howard's End
Or in one of Leonard's midwestern landscapes
Some afternoons, she wants to just lie down on a pavement
And go to sleep
But she can almost see her own self, fifteen minutes from now,
Bent over mineral water bottles and laptop screens in conference rooms
It's at moments like this that she feels that she should've had a peg leg
Then it would've been enough to just live
Without it, she's supposed to make something
Of her thirty one year old life
She watches the time on her left wrist
She can't help noticing the faint scar besides it
It's been too long
Still, it's a reminder
That although she's a sexy, successful woman today
She's the same woman who once tried to die and failed at it
But she's a survivor
Time had stopped there
Not here
The second hand of the watch is still parading on its dreamy dial.
It's an Omega afterall
3
Susan D'Souza feels the lump on her stomach
Her electric blue gown hides it rather well
Just one hour remains before the dinner
Her lips curve into a smile in the mirror
Her laugh lines only faintly visible
She looks like a woman of sorrows
And her breaths are becoming shorter
He isn't here yet
She wants to say, “Give me some space
So that I can reach you”
Hot chocolate at Keventer's,
Old Tintins rediscovered,
Lamb Curry at Dada Boudi,
Duran Duran on the walkman,
Sunrise from the Bodega Bay,
Dostoevsky around her neck,
And his endings
She doesn't want anything else today....
….
It is Susan who recognizes Deepti first
The girl who didn't look beautiful
Until she smiled
The dimple like a tear running down her cheek
Her face, coarsely handsome than really pretty
He has still not come
Is he still looking for his navy blue suit?
The waiters serve them more food for thought in the meanwhile
Deepti nudges Susan with her right elbow, almost spilling her Pinacolada
In another corner of the room, they watch the girl with the prose-like poise
The girl with the dark circles
The girl with the flat top hair
The girl with the chipped front tooth
The girl with another man
It was always only her eyes
It is the time of the night when a new day is about to begin
It is the 26th of November
It is time
WOODSTOCK FOREVER
Looking back, I feel you were rather ordinary looking
Your nose was too long, for example
Your shoulders too narrow
Some of your anecdotes were not as funny
Ok, so you had those raccoon eyes
And the accent (and a PHD....) from Oxford
You could get away with silk scarves in the middle of July
You seemed taller than 5'10”
You seemed like the tallest man in the world
You've heard this before, I know
Then one day
You left
You left us for that Gwalior job
Today, my memories of Woodstock
Have been reduced to that fifty minute discussion in your office
During which I decided that I wanted to attend Oxford too
And where I had gone to stop you for going
“I’m petrified of my future without you....”
I had thought that would be enough
That, and my tears
Your long, black locks (with an abundance of brown in them)
Now visualized as you sat opposite me in that twilight room somewhere in 1988
Your warm, bony hands, caressing my hair
“Don't look back, kiddo..
Look ahead”
There's so much I haven't told you
That I had stolen two of your embroidered handkerchiefs that year (one blue and one light brown)
That I still have them, underneath my old lingerie, in the bedroom almirah
That so what if I was fourteen?
That I would've runaway from home with you
That we could've lived in a wood cabin in the middle of nowhere
That I would've given up basketball for you
That I would've given you my white K-mart panties anyday
That I know that you loved me too
Because you liked to occasionally pat my head when you crossed my desk
Because you said that my mid term essay was better than Paromita's
Because you only looked at me when you explained Hamlet....
For three days after you left
I didn't go to school
And it wasn't because of the periods
For two weeks after you left
I cried every night
For six months after you left
I waited for your letter
Even twenty two years later
I still open unmarked envelopes, expectantly
But most of all, I never read Hamlet
Ever again in my life
What would Shakespeare have said anyway?
That today, I'm standing here
But I can't even cry
And yet
Is there a sight sadder than me?
You knew me from before I crossed eighty kilograms
Before I became a mother of two
Before I became the most vindictive senior manager in the North West
Before I stopped feeling happy during unexpected rains
Before I stopped reading good literature in my spare time
Before I lost faith
My life
As it is
Even today
Derives itself from your lucid expositions
And yet I know if you were here
You would've said,
“It was just an
Infatuation”
Your nose was too long, for example
Your shoulders too narrow
Some of your anecdotes were not as funny
Ok, so you had those raccoon eyes
And the accent (and a PHD....) from Oxford
You could get away with silk scarves in the middle of July
You seemed taller than 5'10”
You seemed like the tallest man in the world
You've heard this before, I know
Then one day
You left
You left us for that Gwalior job
Today, my memories of Woodstock
Have been reduced to that fifty minute discussion in your office
During which I decided that I wanted to attend Oxford too
And where I had gone to stop you for going
“I’m petrified of my future without you....”
I had thought that would be enough
That, and my tears
Your long, black locks (with an abundance of brown in them)
Now visualized as you sat opposite me in that twilight room somewhere in 1988
Your warm, bony hands, caressing my hair
“Don't look back, kiddo..
Look ahead”
There's so much I haven't told you
That I had stolen two of your embroidered handkerchiefs that year (one blue and one light brown)
That I still have them, underneath my old lingerie, in the bedroom almirah
That so what if I was fourteen?
That I would've runaway from home with you
That we could've lived in a wood cabin in the middle of nowhere
That I would've given up basketball for you
That I would've given you my white K-mart panties anyday
That I know that you loved me too
Because you liked to occasionally pat my head when you crossed my desk
Because you said that my mid term essay was better than Paromita's
Because you only looked at me when you explained Hamlet....
For three days after you left
I didn't go to school
And it wasn't because of the periods
For two weeks after you left
I cried every night
For six months after you left
I waited for your letter
Even twenty two years later
I still open unmarked envelopes, expectantly
But most of all, I never read Hamlet
Ever again in my life
What would Shakespeare have said anyway?
That today, I'm standing here
But I can't even cry
And yet
Is there a sight sadder than me?
You knew me from before I crossed eighty kilograms
Before I became a mother of two
Before I became the most vindictive senior manager in the North West
Before I stopped feeling happy during unexpected rains
Before I stopped reading good literature in my spare time
Before I lost faith
My life
As it is
Even today
Derives itself from your lucid expositions
And yet I know if you were here
You would've said,
“It was just an
Infatuation”
THE MORNING AFTER
She hopscotches the distance between them;
A bundle of flying clothes
And out-flung arms.
She closes her eyes
And clasps her fingers
Around his neck
Draws his head down;
Her savage lips
Seeking his Finding them
Holding them
In a clinging embrace
And then she releases him
Shaking the rice out of her gown
That threatens to trip her every now and then
She decides that
They don't have the same taste....
The morning after
She takes in
From their rented rooms-
The tear reddened tableau
The tranquil silhouettes
Of the southern sun
Slanting into the Indian Ocean
She contemplates
Ponders over
The meaning of his actions
He's left her today to attend to his affairs
Now they've got their lives ahead
She begins to miss him again
She looks out of the window
Imagines his face
Just like yesterday
In the meantime
Someone else, 27, chemical engineer, wildlife enthusiast, lanky, from Marseille;
Has come along and taken her away
Even with the rooftop view and the warm bathtub
She admits feeling a little touche
She tries to shout out aloud
And nothing comes out
But boy, what a beautiful day!
A bundle of flying clothes
And out-flung arms.
She closes her eyes
And clasps her fingers
Around his neck
Draws his head down;
Her savage lips
Seeking his Finding them
Holding them
In a clinging embrace
And then she releases him
Shaking the rice out of her gown
That threatens to trip her every now and then
She decides that
They don't have the same taste....
The morning after
She takes in
From their rented rooms-
The tear reddened tableau
The tranquil silhouettes
Of the southern sun
Slanting into the Indian Ocean
She contemplates
Ponders over
The meaning of his actions
He's left her today to attend to his affairs
Now they've got their lives ahead
She begins to miss him again
She looks out of the window
Imagines his face
Just like yesterday
In the meantime
Someone else, 27, chemical engineer, wildlife enthusiast, lanky, from Marseille;
Has come along and taken her away
Even with the rooftop view and the warm bathtub
She admits feeling a little touche
She tries to shout out aloud
And nothing comes out
But boy, what a beautiful day!
PRIVATE LIMITED
Bombay, Yesterday, 4:15 pm
She touches her lips, where his kiss had briefly resided
She doesn't know his name
And neither do we
They had agreed, four weeks ago
That the sex would always be
Anonymous
Although she has, by now, begun to recognize
The two moles in a straight line on his chest
The vaccination mark on his left upper arm
That he hums, rather tunelessly, Coldplay when he dresses
That he's not like a 1-800 number
“Because last Wednesday, he'd brought me a box of Sandesh
Because every time he touches me, he makes me feel sexy
Because he reads Stanislavski while waiting to pick me up”
She watches him dress
Fuchsia Pink suits him, oddly
The doctor's apron, is however, grossly out of place
Only four hours ago, he'd performed a striptease in them
Just for her
She's mad at him
Not because she knows that he's going to Mrs Krishnan's house from there
But because he told her so
She knows she can't accuse him
They had agreed on the rules
But it is hard not to resent his freedom
As always, she would leave ten minutes after him
Maybe that's why
Even after eleven 'dates'
They've never slept together
That was her idea
Because somehow she felt
That would be
Too intimate
That if she woke up with someone else's eyes
She'd never be able to face anyone again
“I hate you
For it's you I'm falling in love with
But I won't tell you
And you'll never know”
But her silence says-
Don't you know me?
Don't you know me by now?
Don't look away
Don't stand aside
Don't let me fall in love with you....
…...
To him, she's just another customer
'Do I know you?',
He had said when they had first met
He had known at once that she had never done anything like this before
He knows now her erogenous zones
He knows she likes to be spanked like a nine year old
He knows how she looks, naked
He knows how she kisses
The Sandesh thing he had found out from facebook
Yes, he is beginning to get fond of her
But he will not get involved
Maybe in the next meeting
He would throw in a lap dance for a discount
Because when he was just nineteen and a half,
He had learned that
Love hurts
But
Sex sells
She touches her lips, where his kiss had briefly resided
She doesn't know his name
And neither do we
They had agreed, four weeks ago
That the sex would always be
Anonymous
Although she has, by now, begun to recognize
The two moles in a straight line on his chest
The vaccination mark on his left upper arm
That he hums, rather tunelessly, Coldplay when he dresses
That he's not like a 1-800 number
“Because last Wednesday, he'd brought me a box of Sandesh
Because every time he touches me, he makes me feel sexy
Because he reads Stanislavski while waiting to pick me up”
She watches him dress
Fuchsia Pink suits him, oddly
The doctor's apron, is however, grossly out of place
Only four hours ago, he'd performed a striptease in them
Just for her
She's mad at him
Not because she knows that he's going to Mrs Krishnan's house from there
But because he told her so
She knows she can't accuse him
They had agreed on the rules
But it is hard not to resent his freedom
As always, she would leave ten minutes after him
Maybe that's why
Even after eleven 'dates'
They've never slept together
That was her idea
Because somehow she felt
That would be
Too intimate
That if she woke up with someone else's eyes
She'd never be able to face anyone again
“I hate you
For it's you I'm falling in love with
But I won't tell you
And you'll never know”
But her silence says-
Don't you know me?
Don't you know me by now?
Don't look away
Don't stand aside
Don't let me fall in love with you....
…...
To him, she's just another customer
'Do I know you?',
He had said when they had first met
He had known at once that she had never done anything like this before
He knows now her erogenous zones
He knows she likes to be spanked like a nine year old
He knows how she looks, naked
He knows how she kisses
The Sandesh thing he had found out from facebook
Yes, he is beginning to get fond of her
But he will not get involved
Maybe in the next meeting
He would throw in a lap dance for a discount
Because when he was just nineteen and a half,
He had learned that
Love hurts
But
Sex sells
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