I'm Avi's Prachi and Farzaan's Chitra
And Upamanyu's Buchkun
All of them
I am
I can't read without my +4 prescription lenses
I can't do without my morning cup of south Indian coffee
I can't make the first move
I can't stand cats, mayonnaise and white lilies
I can't comprehend advanced Java
I can't switch off my old laptop
I can't help but notice your constant gaze
I can't give blowjobs
I can't eat sushi and not throw up
I can't live in Bangalore anymore
I can't sleep alone at nights
I can't look down from the seventh floor
I can't fix a puncture by myself
I can't differentiate between purple and blue
I can't use public lavatories
I can't love you
But
I can write about it
Oh yes
I can
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
CHARULATA 2010
Afterwards,
Dolly lies on the leather couch,
Long and limp and sprawled;
Dibyendu feels that she is so great
That she's not really a girl
In fact, he suddenly concludes;
She might not even be human....
At her mother's place, Charu contemplates-
“Can I go mad, just stark, raving, mad?”
Then she realizes that she can't afford it
She has known about them for eighteen days now
But he hasn't called her still....
He feels as if he can touch her halo
While brushing his hand through her unruly hair
Feel her pulse
As if she carries, electricity or something
In her purse
Charulata stands alone on her Ekdalia Road balcony
Gazing outside with her nineteenth century opera glasses;
She's like a voyeur
Peeping in from a keyhole at someone else's life
Tonight, she just wants to be loved
In fact, that's all she ever wanted
So finally, but surreptitiously,
After waiting for four hundred and thirty eight hours for Dibu's call
And then delaying herself for another ten minutes
She reaches out for Amal....
Sure there are other girls who're six feet tall
Who taste electronic
Who have lips this cute
With their voices automatic
Who possess eyes so shiny
And souls so plastic
But yet, Dibyendu concedes that there is only one Dolly
Plus, she also bends better
There aren't many things that are ten inches tall
Charulata calculates that she probably likes Amal more than Dibu
For he doesn't care if her legs aren't waxed
He doesn't answer her back
He doesn't make her feel guilty
He does exactly what she wants
He comes with a guarantee
And lasts longer.
Dolly lies on the leather couch,
Long and limp and sprawled;
Dibyendu feels that she is so great
That she's not really a girl
In fact, he suddenly concludes;
She might not even be human....
At her mother's place, Charu contemplates-
“Can I go mad, just stark, raving, mad?”
Then she realizes that she can't afford it
She has known about them for eighteen days now
But he hasn't called her still....
He feels as if he can touch her halo
While brushing his hand through her unruly hair
Feel her pulse
As if she carries, electricity or something
In her purse
Charulata stands alone on her Ekdalia Road balcony
Gazing outside with her nineteenth century opera glasses;
She's like a voyeur
Peeping in from a keyhole at someone else's life
Tonight, she just wants to be loved
In fact, that's all she ever wanted
So finally, but surreptitiously,
After waiting for four hundred and thirty eight hours for Dibu's call
And then delaying herself for another ten minutes
She reaches out for Amal....
Sure there are other girls who're six feet tall
Who taste electronic
Who have lips this cute
With their voices automatic
Who possess eyes so shiny
And souls so plastic
But yet, Dibyendu concedes that there is only one Dolly
Plus, she also bends better
There aren't many things that are ten inches tall
Charulata calculates that she probably likes Amal more than Dibu
For he doesn't care if her legs aren't waxed
He doesn't answer her back
He doesn't make her feel guilty
He does exactly what she wants
He comes with a guarantee
And lasts longer.
WHITE TULIPS MADE HER SNEEZE....
All through life, there are so many things that have remained unsaid
For example, Dhritimaan still doesn't know
That Srilekha actually likes white lilies rather than white tulips
Because tulips make her sneeze
But he continues making the same mistake even now because of a
Mondegreen
And which if I remember rightly was the direct result of 'Hey Bulldog” playing too loudly
On their first date
But that's ok; Srilekha has stopped minding since 2003
Today, it makes her think he's 'show shweet'
It makes her feel grateful that he still desires her
It even makes her remember that first date;
The night music, Tito's lobster and that botched kiss on the porch
So, now whenever Dhrito gets her white tulips
She just holds her breath and smiles at him
For example, Paripriya never found out that Aunindo loved her back then
That he wrote so, under his desk, in the maths class
That he learnt French only to impress her
That he wrote her two letters; one short and one really long
The first he tore into pieces the day he saw her with Indraneel in JU's Library
The second he carried for months in his wallet
Reading it by himself, and occasionally to Dhrubo
After a martini, before Chemistry and during sleepless nights
Till it became a year old, yellowed and kind of frayed around the edges
Ultimately he tore that one too
But Dhrubo never told Paripriya any of this
Not even after the “incident”
Because by that time, he had made up his mind that PD was an arrogant bitch
She wasn't
She just didn't
Know
..
Similarly, Aniruddha isn't aware
That, moments after he left for the airport that morning
Reva had been back at his condo on the 14th Arrondisement
And that finding it locked
She had cried for hours at the stairs outside
She had contemplated hanging herself by the doorknob (and for a while, even fiddled with her scarf)
She had contemplated drowning herself in the Seine (thinking it more romantic)
She had missed him like mad that afternoon
She had missed him by thirty seconds
Further, Bahadur has not yet told Xenia
That he frequently thinks of her in the nude
That he often fantasizes about her at nights in his uncomfortable bed
The anonymous woman in Private Limited hasn't confessed to her husband
Yet;
Her inclination for threesomes and bondage
……..
Vineeta doesn't know that her real name is Pooja
She has the sexiest dark circles ever on a woman
She still lives in Mumbai and calls it Bombay
She has told me (in separate conversations, of course)
About her first memory, her recurring dream and her adolescent fantasy
She has written just one poem that only I have read
She last spoke to me last July
She is trying to fall in love with her best friend
She is beautiful and she is funny
She is a metropolitan city
She is my early twenties
She is....
She just
Is
For example, Dhritimaan still doesn't know
That Srilekha actually likes white lilies rather than white tulips
Because tulips make her sneeze
But he continues making the same mistake even now because of a
Mondegreen
And which if I remember rightly was the direct result of 'Hey Bulldog” playing too loudly
On their first date
But that's ok; Srilekha has stopped minding since 2003
Today, it makes her think he's 'show shweet'
It makes her feel grateful that he still desires her
It even makes her remember that first date;
The night music, Tito's lobster and that botched kiss on the porch
So, now whenever Dhrito gets her white tulips
She just holds her breath and smiles at him
For example, Paripriya never found out that Aunindo loved her back then
That he wrote so, under his desk, in the maths class
That he learnt French only to impress her
That he wrote her two letters; one short and one really long
The first he tore into pieces the day he saw her with Indraneel in JU's Library
The second he carried for months in his wallet
Reading it by himself, and occasionally to Dhrubo
After a martini, before Chemistry and during sleepless nights
Till it became a year old, yellowed and kind of frayed around the edges
Ultimately he tore that one too
But Dhrubo never told Paripriya any of this
Not even after the “incident”
Because by that time, he had made up his mind that PD was an arrogant bitch
She wasn't
She just didn't
Know
..
Similarly, Aniruddha isn't aware
That, moments after he left for the airport that morning
Reva had been back at his condo on the 14th Arrondisement
And that finding it locked
She had cried for hours at the stairs outside
She had contemplated hanging herself by the doorknob (and for a while, even fiddled with her scarf)
She had contemplated drowning herself in the Seine (thinking it more romantic)
She had missed him like mad that afternoon
She had missed him by thirty seconds
Further, Bahadur has not yet told Xenia
That he frequently thinks of her in the nude
That he often fantasizes about her at nights in his uncomfortable bed
The anonymous woman in Private Limited hasn't confessed to her husband
Yet;
Her inclination for threesomes and bondage
……..
Vineeta doesn't know that her real name is Pooja
She has the sexiest dark circles ever on a woman
She still lives in Mumbai and calls it Bombay
She has told me (in separate conversations, of course)
About her first memory, her recurring dream and her adolescent fantasy
She has written just one poem that only I have read
She last spoke to me last July
She is trying to fall in love with her best friend
She is beautiful and she is funny
She is a metropolitan city
She is my early twenties
She is....
She just
Is
"KEANO"
ONE
She considered her beauty to be like a disease
Transmitted by her ancestors
And her own good fortune
For didn't Prabalika have a bad case of acne?
And why was it that she couldn't possess that melancholic ugliness
Of Mrs Ahuja of 15-B
But Paripriya just didn't have any imperfections
No dark circles, no visible gums on smiles,
No upturned nose,
No dry palms, not a single mole
All her life, she had been sun-burnt by men's long, uncomfortable glances
All her life, she had been judged
All her life, she had wanted to shed her skin off like a snake
Or peel it like a cucumber; or hang it like an overcoat after the rains
But she just, couldn't
Was it because of that, that she could find no satisfaction?
Was it because of that, that she couldn't sleep at night?
It was perhaps because of that
That she fell so hard for him
TWO
Funny it is that I should have fallen in love with your voice
Before I even saw you
I remember it was a slight cross connection off Aligarh East
Those were still the days of those analog instruments you needed to hook your fingers in to dial
And shout into to get your voice heard over long distance
I really needed to speak to Captain Mehta that night
But it was just a matter of a seven in place of an eight
That led me to you instead
You had not said, “Hello” in any of its variations
You had just said, “Hmm?”
With equal parts of sexiness
And pain
Through the seven months that followed, you answered every call with a “Hmm?”
Giving away, absolutely nothing
So it became one of my passions to try to imagine you exactly
For example, during our last conversation
I had pictured you-
The exhibitionist on the balcony
Wearing the black cardigan Randy had given you
With your bare legs dangling from the railing
You would be cradling the receiver between your left ear and shoulder
While elaborately painting your nails
In any of your eighty three shades of red
By then I had begun to recognize your breath
The vertical, hot, cutting- tea sound of it
I don't have that sound with me anymore
But just the memories; reinvented as pain
Of conversations, stopped in mid sentence
And the voices in the dark
THREE
“Or should I rather tell you that I'm feeling very Keano today?..”
That's how he usually started his conversations
In mid sentence; without pretext or preamble
So the listener would start to grope for clues
To unlock the genesis of one story
While listening to the next
He was always like that
Till date, I don't know whether he did it intentionally
Or on purpose:)
And his endings were as abrupt
In fact, I used to dread each moment of his calls
Not knowing when they would suddenly end
Because of a slow response or after a silly question
He would leave the dial tone screaming in my ears
Like the trepidation of a heartbeat
I recognized his silences
The silences-
That seemed interminable sometimes
His feudal, obstinate, passionate silences
And the scream in them
Sometimes, he would often ask me to describe the room
To describe what I was wearing
And I would do exactly that
Like the night I said I was in a black cardigan
I was really only in my shorts
FOUR
And then, as suddenly as they had started
The phone calls stopped
For days after that,
PD wondered if she had done anything wrong
Said anything offensive
For nights she couldn't sleep
She picked up every call before the third ring
She didn't even know his name
Or what he did or where he was from
But she did tell him all about her love for methadone
And her hatred for Pooja's photographs
In turn, he told her all about Keano
And the history of mankind
Sometimes, exasperated, he would just say to her,
“Gigsy, I'm giving up”
Paripriya would like to think he didn't
She would like to think he found peace at last
She would like to think
He survived
Whoever he was
She considered her beauty to be like a disease
Transmitted by her ancestors
And her own good fortune
For didn't Prabalika have a bad case of acne?
And why was it that she couldn't possess that melancholic ugliness
Of Mrs Ahuja of 15-B
But Paripriya just didn't have any imperfections
No dark circles, no visible gums on smiles,
No upturned nose,
No dry palms, not a single mole
All her life, she had been sun-burnt by men's long, uncomfortable glances
All her life, she had been judged
All her life, she had wanted to shed her skin off like a snake
Or peel it like a cucumber; or hang it like an overcoat after the rains
But she just, couldn't
Was it because of that, that she could find no satisfaction?
Was it because of that, that she couldn't sleep at night?
It was perhaps because of that
That she fell so hard for him
TWO
Funny it is that I should have fallen in love with your voice
Before I even saw you
I remember it was a slight cross connection off Aligarh East
Those were still the days of those analog instruments you needed to hook your fingers in to dial
And shout into to get your voice heard over long distance
I really needed to speak to Captain Mehta that night
But it was just a matter of a seven in place of an eight
That led me to you instead
You had not said, “Hello” in any of its variations
You had just said, “Hmm?”
With equal parts of sexiness
And pain
Through the seven months that followed, you answered every call with a “Hmm?”
Giving away, absolutely nothing
So it became one of my passions to try to imagine you exactly
For example, during our last conversation
I had pictured you-
The exhibitionist on the balcony
Wearing the black cardigan Randy had given you
With your bare legs dangling from the railing
You would be cradling the receiver between your left ear and shoulder
While elaborately painting your nails
In any of your eighty three shades of red
By then I had begun to recognize your breath
The vertical, hot, cutting- tea sound of it
I don't have that sound with me anymore
But just the memories; reinvented as pain
Of conversations, stopped in mid sentence
And the voices in the dark
THREE
“Or should I rather tell you that I'm feeling very Keano today?..”
That's how he usually started his conversations
In mid sentence; without pretext or preamble
So the listener would start to grope for clues
To unlock the genesis of one story
While listening to the next
He was always like that
Till date, I don't know whether he did it intentionally
Or on purpose:)
And his endings were as abrupt
In fact, I used to dread each moment of his calls
Not knowing when they would suddenly end
Because of a slow response or after a silly question
He would leave the dial tone screaming in my ears
Like the trepidation of a heartbeat
I recognized his silences
The silences-
That seemed interminable sometimes
His feudal, obstinate, passionate silences
And the scream in them
Sometimes, he would often ask me to describe the room
To describe what I was wearing
And I would do exactly that
Like the night I said I was in a black cardigan
I was really only in my shorts
FOUR
And then, as suddenly as they had started
The phone calls stopped
For days after that,
PD wondered if she had done anything wrong
Said anything offensive
For nights she couldn't sleep
She picked up every call before the third ring
She didn't even know his name
Or what he did or where he was from
But she did tell him all about her love for methadone
And her hatred for Pooja's photographs
In turn, he told her all about Keano
And the history of mankind
Sometimes, exasperated, he would just say to her,
“Gigsy, I'm giving up”
Paripriya would like to think he didn't
She would like to think he found peace at last
She would like to think
He survived
Whoever he was
Sunday, January 3, 2010
EXPOSED
Here you are standing on the shore in Maldives
Hair blowing in the wind
You're in the foreground
Looking not at me, but to the left
At something, out of the frame
You are squinting at the camera in the winter afternoon sun
Trying to read a book that you snatched away from me
I think it was PGW
I remember
This was the day just after the college exams
You look sleepy in the third one
I really don't remember where this was taken
I only recall being mad after this had come out
Why did you always have to blink
Just at the wrong time?
Now, this one; this is my favorite
This is when Buzz had come to India
It has you in the peacock blue cashmere
You're standing with your arms folded
And head, tilted defiantly to the left... no, no,... right
You're not smiling
But your eyes have never looked as blue
This fifth is either in Rishikesh or Rudraprayag
I forget where exactly
But it's the place with the delphiniums near the market
That 'grow so incredibly high'
This was the time I was falling in love
I don't think I've ever told you before
That you look smashing in pink
And here's one taken at Holi in our old house
I think it remains one of the few times
That you ever posed for a picture
Even during this, you kept saying how pretentious you thought it was to pose
And I remember trying to convince you for hours
To just look at the camera, decently
(Without you scowling or throwing your tongue at me)
But even here, your face is camouflaged
By your twenty two colors
Then we come to the seventh picture
Your arm is half raised, in protest
You had been angry about this particular one
Your hair is unkempt
Your lips ill defined
And this is when you started putting on weight
But you still ooze a certain, good witch charm
And incredibly,
You manage to look beautiful
Even in your morning face
Here's a rare one of you
In black and white
You had cut your hair short like a boy
I think 2003 was perhaps the year
You looked the sexiest
There are five of you in this photograph
I suddenly realize now, three are dead
I think the ninth one marks the beginning of the end in some ways
See, for the first time, your eyes; your normally talkative eyes, are forlorn
And I don't think you love me as much anymore
You're standing on the Howrah bridge in the night
And the city scattered behind you
I think the lighting is amazing
I remember the last one was taken hastily to get your passport made
At Sweetie studio in Mugalsarai
With an artificial forest background;
This, in keeping with the very nature of passport photographs
Doesn't look like you
At all
SOMEDAY MONKEYS WILL PLAY A PIANO SONG
For a moment
For just a moment- she looks at him as if he were a stranger
And that familiar fever of melancholy catches up with him again
Whenever in the past, such moods have struck
He has pretended that they didn't really exist
But today, he lets himself travel back in time
All the way to the beginning
FIVE
It is before sunrise in Bishtupur
The darkness half-hides her face in the mosquito net
He has to catch an early morning flight to Bombay
He can sense her warm silhouette shift besides him
Lip dry
Puffy eyes
Her sleepy voice doesn't call him back
In the morning
But she turns towards him instinctively
And puts her arm lightly on his chest
As if to say
By not saying
“Don't go”
For in her sleep they are now
No longer
Strangers in the night
FOUR
It is late evening in Charring Cross
He comes in and as if by habit,
Kicks off his shoes, rolls up his sleeves and reaches for the microwave
Abruptly, he stops in his tracks
Because it's then that he notices the dining table
And the dishes and the two plates, lying upside down on it
That's when she walks in from the bedroom
She does nothing
She just stands there, looking at him
With her cups of tea for eyes
But he's overwhelmed to see her
He has not known such happiness since he heard the Beatles for the first time
And he tells her so
And she lets him kiss her all over her face
Until she starts laughing
That night, in his dream
She tells him that his snoring (something he has never admitted to)
Has the rhythm of a heartbeat
But he knows she is only
Fooling with him
THREE
It's past midnight, somewhere in Italy
Their rented '79 Beetle has broken down in the pouring rain
Raindrops tumble down the metallic hood of the car
And slither across the windscreen, like tears
All through the drive back so far
He hasn't spoken to her
He gets out of the car to see what the problem is
And not bothering for one moment that her make up isn't waterproof
She too goes and stands besides him
He screams at her
“Didn't I tell you to stay inside the car!” (or words to that effect)
She says she wants to help
He screams at her
“Don't disturb me while I'm working!” (or words to that effect)
She asks him, on the verge of tears, why he's being so 'difficult'
And he of course, doesn't say anything
All throughout the forty minutes that he fixes the carbuerettor
He keeps on crying
For there was something in the way she didn't look at that man
The man they had met that afternoon in the revolving retaurant in Florence
That night, back in their suite
After a change of clothes and a hot bath
He experiences jealousy for the first time
TWO
It's the day after their marriage
Several matronly women stand just outside their old Rippon Street apartment
For supervising a complex ceremony that he can't be expected to follow
Only that it involves a coconut, a plate of rice
And her feet
He feels rather embarrassed in his silk clothes in the summer
Just then she arrives, in layers and layers of Benarasi silk
The winner of two beauty contests as a child
The owner of a color changing pair of eyes
As she enters his life officially
She, under the directions of the matronly women
Ensures that she places her
Right foot first
ONE
It's early afternoon in Ekdalia Road, Calcutta (Salil Kaku's place)
He's just seen her for the first time
And her eyes that like her tea, could be sometimes brown
Sometimes, just black
As he's talking to her
He notices her pupils; the dual colors of them
Take on a far-seeing sharpness
It's as if she is in the middle of a paperback
Or wondering whether she switched off the porch lights or not
And then perhaps he says something funny
Because he looks up and notices
That for the first time that afternoon
She is smiling
Selfishly he pretends he doesn't notice
That the smile doesn't reach her eyes
And for that whole night, back in his room,
He imagines her naked
ZERO
For a moment
For just a moment- she looks at the man she doesn't love
He looks more incongruous than ever
But it was a different her back then
She has changed now
She thinks someday
She'll fall in love with him
Someday
There will be peace in the world
Someday
Monkeys will play a piano song
Yes
Someday.....
For just a moment- she looks at him as if he were a stranger
And that familiar fever of melancholy catches up with him again
Whenever in the past, such moods have struck
He has pretended that they didn't really exist
But today, he lets himself travel back in time
All the way to the beginning
FIVE
It is before sunrise in Bishtupur
The darkness half-hides her face in the mosquito net
He has to catch an early morning flight to Bombay
He can sense her warm silhouette shift besides him
Lip dry
Puffy eyes
Her sleepy voice doesn't call him back
In the morning
But she turns towards him instinctively
And puts her arm lightly on his chest
As if to say
By not saying
“Don't go”
For in her sleep they are now
No longer
Strangers in the night
FOUR
It is late evening in Charring Cross
He comes in and as if by habit,
Kicks off his shoes, rolls up his sleeves and reaches for the microwave
Abruptly, he stops in his tracks
Because it's then that he notices the dining table
And the dishes and the two plates, lying upside down on it
That's when she walks in from the bedroom
She does nothing
She just stands there, looking at him
With her cups of tea for eyes
But he's overwhelmed to see her
He has not known such happiness since he heard the Beatles for the first time
And he tells her so
And she lets him kiss her all over her face
Until she starts laughing
That night, in his dream
She tells him that his snoring (something he has never admitted to)
Has the rhythm of a heartbeat
But he knows she is only
Fooling with him
THREE
It's past midnight, somewhere in Italy
Their rented '79 Beetle has broken down in the pouring rain
Raindrops tumble down the metallic hood of the car
And slither across the windscreen, like tears
All through the drive back so far
He hasn't spoken to her
He gets out of the car to see what the problem is
And not bothering for one moment that her make up isn't waterproof
She too goes and stands besides him
He screams at her
“Didn't I tell you to stay inside the car!” (or words to that effect)
She says she wants to help
He screams at her
“Don't disturb me while I'm working!” (or words to that effect)
She asks him, on the verge of tears, why he's being so 'difficult'
And he of course, doesn't say anything
All throughout the forty minutes that he fixes the carbuerettor
He keeps on crying
For there was something in the way she didn't look at that man
The man they had met that afternoon in the revolving retaurant in Florence
That night, back in their suite
After a change of clothes and a hot bath
He experiences jealousy for the first time
TWO
It's the day after their marriage
Several matronly women stand just outside their old Rippon Street apartment
For supervising a complex ceremony that he can't be expected to follow
Only that it involves a coconut, a plate of rice
And her feet
He feels rather embarrassed in his silk clothes in the summer
Just then she arrives, in layers and layers of Benarasi silk
The winner of two beauty contests as a child
The owner of a color changing pair of eyes
As she enters his life officially
She, under the directions of the matronly women
Ensures that she places her
Right foot first
ONE
It's early afternoon in Ekdalia Road, Calcutta (Salil Kaku's place)
He's just seen her for the first time
And her eyes that like her tea, could be sometimes brown
Sometimes, just black
As he's talking to her
He notices her pupils; the dual colors of them
Take on a far-seeing sharpness
It's as if she is in the middle of a paperback
Or wondering whether she switched off the porch lights or not
And then perhaps he says something funny
Because he looks up and notices
That for the first time that afternoon
She is smiling
Selfishly he pretends he doesn't notice
That the smile doesn't reach her eyes
And for that whole night, back in his room,
He imagines her naked
ZERO
For a moment
For just a moment- she looks at the man she doesn't love
He looks more incongruous than ever
But it was a different her back then
She has changed now
She thinks someday
She'll fall in love with him
Someday
There will be peace in the world
Someday
Monkeys will play a piano song
Yes
Someday.....
DARJEELING TEA
The man with the emerald eyes and the quite prominent Adam's apple
Drives silently on the winding, teeth- chattering road to Darjeeling
Landscapes pass him by like a collage of memories
It's been such a long journey
But he is almost there
It won't be long now....
He has seen this road before
He seems to still remember
Every speed-breaker, every signpost
Every rough patch, every milestone
But even then, she reveals herself in new ways to him
Like a young bride or a Bergman film
And still, despite being precarious, even treacherous; she retains her ability
To move, astound and physically exhaust him
With the sheer nature of her melancholic beauty
Because this road has a face, a personality even;
Rose cheeked, milky thighed, big breasted, blackberry eyed
He can taste her on his tongue
This road reminds him of another journey five years ago
She had been riding pillion with him then
Reading maps so that they wouldn't get lost
This time he wants to lose himself
To find himself
Nowadays he can be anything he wants
For the last couple of weeks, he's been traveling
Incognito
He and his twenty- seven suitcases
And the thousand aliases
For example, last week in Devprayag, he was Dr. Sampoorn Singh, MD
Wildlife photographer Anjan Dutta in Bagdogra on Saturday
And yesterday in Siliguri; Rajen Raina, travelling salesman of women's underwear
He has levitated in Gangtok
He has eaten a snake in Kalimpong
He has met dying soldiers along the way
He has lived without food for forty- two straight hours
He has almost been eaten alive by a leopard in Joshimath
And then he sees Kanchenjunga for the first time
Although it is said that Kanchenjunga appears very rarely
And only to those who believe they can see it;
It's not a dramatic statement by any means
But rather, much like Salinger's endings
It's just
There
Elusive, insurmountable, matter of fact....
He parks his motorcycle on the roadside
The remaining distance will have to be walked
Perhaps deliberately; perhaps by oversight
He leaves the maps and compasses behind
And the road
Once, just once, he looks back at her
Long after he's left
The road will remain
And she will whore herself out for other drivers to use
Again and again and again
As he walks on, he reflects at the life he is leaving behind
The morning alarms, the violet eyes and the ATM machines
But he has no regrets
He only wishes
She were there
Drives silently on the winding, teeth- chattering road to Darjeeling
Landscapes pass him by like a collage of memories
It's been such a long journey
But he is almost there
It won't be long now....
He has seen this road before
He seems to still remember
Every speed-breaker, every signpost
Every rough patch, every milestone
But even then, she reveals herself in new ways to him
Like a young bride or a Bergman film
And still, despite being precarious, even treacherous; she retains her ability
To move, astound and physically exhaust him
With the sheer nature of her melancholic beauty
Because this road has a face, a personality even;
Rose cheeked, milky thighed, big breasted, blackberry eyed
He can taste her on his tongue
This road reminds him of another journey five years ago
She had been riding pillion with him then
Reading maps so that they wouldn't get lost
This time he wants to lose himself
To find himself
Nowadays he can be anything he wants
For the last couple of weeks, he's been traveling
Incognito
He and his twenty- seven suitcases
And the thousand aliases
For example, last week in Devprayag, he was Dr. Sampoorn Singh, MD
Wildlife photographer Anjan Dutta in Bagdogra on Saturday
And yesterday in Siliguri; Rajen Raina, travelling salesman of women's underwear
He has levitated in Gangtok
He has eaten a snake in Kalimpong
He has met dying soldiers along the way
He has lived without food for forty- two straight hours
He has almost been eaten alive by a leopard in Joshimath
And then he sees Kanchenjunga for the first time
Although it is said that Kanchenjunga appears very rarely
And only to those who believe they can see it;
It's not a dramatic statement by any means
But rather, much like Salinger's endings
It's just
There
Elusive, insurmountable, matter of fact....
He parks his motorcycle on the roadside
The remaining distance will have to be walked
Perhaps deliberately; perhaps by oversight
He leaves the maps and compasses behind
And the road
Once, just once, he looks back at her
Long after he's left
The road will remain
And she will whore herself out for other drivers to use
Again and again and again
As he walks on, he reflects at the life he is leaving behind
The morning alarms, the violet eyes and the ATM machines
But he has no regrets
He only wishes
She were there
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)