All the Missing Heartbeats

Disclaimer: Turned out way more abstract than intended.

“I am missing heartbeats, Madame”, he said in his usual laconic style, much to the surprise of his unlikely companion. A look of un-dawning comprehension on her face made him to add to the all-conveying remark. (Though it hardly served any purpose, as she found out soon enough).

“Not that I am complaining of course. I have often skipped them in less careless moments and swallowed an odd one every now and then (in not so careless ones). But I am bit concerned now. My years are advanced (I don’t look the part, na?) and that gets me all worked up, you know. These greying, falling hairs and the failing memory. Before too long, I will be gone. All these heartbeats – I wonder where they are. I wish I could have at least saved them up in a jar or something like that. It would have been my museum of broken beats. Out of rhythm and isolated from one another. Still alive, but only just. A tin can of olive oil would have been just perfect. A gusty wind bellowing the sails of a ship on its cover. Don’t you think? An old man’s tool for retrospection when his grey cells begin to fail him. Ah, memory! How I thought it would never desert me. But I am talking words right now. You tell me. What’s bothering you these days?”

Akanksha had been quiet today. She feared that she understood less than what she didn’t. (But wasn’t that always the case?) So she swayed on her feet, shifting her petite frame from one side to another, and made weird noises every now and then, as if her intellectual capacity was somehow linked to her bowel movements. He had, however, been his brilliant self – unconcerned, absorbed, rude, intellectual, and arrogant – just the way she wanted him to be. He had grumbled while rolling his cigarette and had smiled when he finally got to smoke it.

“Didn’t you have a notice board for all those skipped heartbeats? A thumb-pin on it for each of them missed or skipped? I recall several colours and faces on that board. You never got around to giving me all the details though. I might not be too good with numbers or dates. But I remember conversations pretty well. And by the way, why would anything bother me? Someone has been putting ideas into that big head of yours. I am quite happy and content ji.”

The premature grey streaks in her hair belied her age. However, and he wondered often if that was true, not her wisdom. He did not fail to notice, either, how simple she looked. No makeup to botch the unmade eyelashes. No fancy colour ruining the dull shine of those softly pink lips. No mascara or kajal masquerading as a grace for eyes that did not need any. “She has been brought up well, this girl”, he thought. He smiled at the thought and coughed a bit before speaking.

“Yes, I do remember that. But although you remember my words, you confuse the context, darling. And I agree the difference is subtle. I appreciate your confusion. Those pins were for all the worthwhile things in my life. Days, dates, events, people, and kisses. Milestones in an adventure, slowly unfolding in front of open eyes. Yes, I had my fair share of all of them. Hey, I still have my eyesight intact……I can see you shaking that head in that very condescending fashion. Can you stop smirking? Please? The board is still there….do you see it in that corner of my room? Yes? Good. I want you to take it with you when you leave today. Ok?

I have lived a life in each one of them. What? Oh, what else? Those darned pins! If I were you, I would do well to make sure that I have scores of those pins on my board. For you can go on eking an existence for eternity. But when it has all come to pass, the crux, the gist of it, it’s there on that board. And if you don’t have enough of those pins dotting your life-scape, in varied colours, textures, shapes, and with so many different flags, you begin to realise it was just not worth it. That’s what I think. You tell me. What’s bothering you these days?”

He had mastered the art of being elliptical without sounding evasive. Akanksha had just gotten used to it by now. It came to her as second nature. It would have been terribly difficult to suffer him otherwise. Suffer, mind you, and not endure. So deftly ignoring any uncomfortable questions, again, she decided to ask some of her own – precisely why the reason why she was enduring his capricious mood.

“Tell me more, O wise one. What are these heartbeats you talk about then? Not the time you had that massive heart attack I am sure. (Dirty looks from him ensue). Not even that lady after which you made my folks name me. Oh, or can it be? Is it Akanksha? Mom?”

“Don’t be this foolish young lady”, he snapped. “It doesn’t befit you. And what is much more important, it does not befit me. To even think of it. Stop butting your head against a wall. It is not going to do you any good. You’re not going to wring out any scandals from me. Not now. Coming back to your stupid remark, I can’t have anyone stealing my heartbeats that easily. Not when I know I am not going to live to see my 40th year. But all this wisdom does indeed come in hindsight. Anyway, where was I? Yes, those heartbeats. As I said…well….or did I? Oh, whatever. These damn beats. I don’t even to talk about them. You tell me. Why are you bothering me anyway?”

“Huh? Didn’t you agree to have me here today? Don’t you go about making lame excuses. I deserve something better than that. And no matter how grouchy you act today, I am not leaving without your abstruse answers. Trust me on that one.”

“Fine. Have it your way then. Don’t tell me later I did not warn you. Well, I lost them all the while. They say I am dying now. I have been dying all this while. I missed them each time I was happier than I should have been. Each time I loved more than I was loved. I lost so many of them when I met Him. In dreams and for real. There were times when I was tested, and failed gloriously. Several gone down the drain each time my ship was raided by pirates or sunk by marauders. When I was alone when I should not have been or when I climbed too high on my pedestal of ideals. Times when I glowed in the warmth of success and smiled too much or hoped too much. And also times when I was flying in and out of clouds, insomnia, reality, and perception. But surprisingly, I lost them while I was enamoured by Knowledge, the single most captivating of all my love affairs. I still believe the docs got it all wrong there. It’s not possible, no? You’re shaking your head again…..

It was all involuntary, you must understand. Even when I gobbled them whole, it was more often than not in reflex. A heightened state of existence, working for and against me alternately. I would have been a bit more careful had I known they would run out too soon. Not that I am complaining of course. I don’t have any regrets….just look at my board. I just wish you could have been wiser for all that I have been through. Decide what’s important for you. Existing or living. Heartbeats or thumb-pins. Often, you will gain both. Sometimes, as I have come to realise, you can lose more than you win. But, but, but, looking at how things are going for you, I don’t think you need all that gyaan. Not from a doddering shaky senile old man anyway. You tell me. What’s bothering you these days?”

“You really get a kick out of all this, don’t you? Distorting reality and crafting a dream world to explain your inadequacies? Your thumb-pins were your heartbeats. They are all the same. Giving them different names won’t suffice to undermine the failures or advertise the successes. You should be giving proper due to why you got what you got.”

“I would have thrown any other person out of the room by now. But you’re my weakness. And I guess you already know that. Well, there comes a time when fact coalesces into fiction. You start living your dreams while reality fades into sub-conscious. However, until that time arrives, you need to distort, this reality as you call it, in order to stay sane and alive. Beats, pins, or whatever name you give them, you need to make a choice and stick to it. I made mine. You don’t find me complaining. I knew it all along. And they tell me I am dying now.”

Alphabets and Underscores

Ritwick lay stark naked on his bed, the sweat persistently clinging to his body. The fan was idle. He hated the noise. It distracted him. Disillusioned by the silence, however, he stared at the ceiling and then his chest. In quick succession. The ceiling was devoid of any features except for the lone lizard that was chasing itself in never ending circles. Bored by the monotony of its uninspired regularity, he had found solace in the fact that the hair on his chest had somehow begun to trace an abstract Ganesha, and felt better because of it. It made him believe that he could be a better man. Better, yes, and special. Made him believe that he could resist the temptation to give in and the tedium that would entail.

A lone beam of sunlight suddenly managed to evade the fortification Ritwick had set up and lit up the dust motes in the room. Earlier, they had been dancing around in the room, happy in their conjoined obscurity. Now, they scurried about in mid air, ashamed at their sudden nakedness and the immediacy of its unfamiliarity. The abruptness of the intrusion upset Ritwick. It reminded him of the ease with which a lone thought had suddenly made him so restless and weak. So he got up to tame the rage of the sun by means of the thick curtains in the room. Having successfully done so, he even switched on his table lamp to prove this point to no one in general. He flopped down on the bed and closed his eyes. This time he did not try to sleep. It had started with him meeting her the last time for the last time….

Akanksha had looked singularly sensual wearing the nose ring. And the mole on her exposed shoulder had only served to arouse him even more. A few wanton curls got caught in the gentle breeze and streaked across the skies like black thunderbolts in a summer storm. She seemed mellowed and quite, hardly a shadow of the playful thing he wanted to remember her as. He remembered that her lips had quivered when she said “Hello”, as if weighed down by the enormity of that meaningless word. The word itself, having fallen off the edge of her lips, had left the slightest smudge of lipstick on her face. He had thought about wiping it away for her. But had decided otherwise. It was not yet time.

Meanwhile, Ritwick had shifted his frame one foot to another, trying to ascertain his stance on them. He wanted to be with her. But he was not sure of anything else. Or what that would mean. The only thing he was certain of was the alarming regularity with which his insufficiencies plagued his relationships with the few people he deigned to talk to. The morbid desire to turn his life into one long dream sequence. The vehemence with which he had begun to detest the conventionality of a routine existence. The apprehension and nervous was palpable. Yet both of them chose to ignore it. It had hardly been a month since they had confessed their feelings for each other through some awkward modes of communication. The novelty of the entire thing had fascinated them. More him than her. And in a time when everything else seemed to be going against plan, her un-proclaimed affection became the bubble that shielded him for life’s disappointments and claimed control over his consciousness. What he did not know was that it made him soft as well.

Ritwick had been unable to fathom her thoughts that day too. Even when everything necessary had already been said and done. Her feelings had always been the crossword puzzle that was just a bit too complex for his mental faculties. And her subtle signs, if any, were wasted on him. Just like her sarcasm. Both of them felt for each other in surprisingly different ways. And expressed it in even more contrasting ones. But what he could tell was that there was a nervous excitement that hung around them like an adoring cloud. It was evident in the way he found her face very simple and graceful. Graceful, not beautiful. It was evident in the way he found her stealing a glance at him when he was pretending to be lost in thought. It was evident in the way he loved her while trying to distance her from him at the same time. As if he wanted her that way but knew it could not be so. There was a certain common longing in the association. But he attributed it to the freshness of their romance and made himself believe it would lose its sheen with time. Exactly like the cynic in him would have him believe. Ritwick. He was like putty when it came to tragedies.

Looking back now, he could tell that she too was a romantic who had been so far trying to pass herself as a cynic. She was a lot like him. Akanksha. The signs had begun to show. He could tell that. But unfortunately, with the gradual telling of a lie, he had begun to believe in it too, while she was probably just getting there. So while he pondered over the temporary nature of their relationship and its pitfalls, she longed for him in a manner that had previously been alien to her. “What if their relationship consumed them? Left space for nothing else?” thought he. The temptation to give in and strike a compromise with life had become too overpowering to be ignored as a passing emotion. Failures, if any, would only precipitate the downfall of their ambitions. What with love being there to save the day. It was almost as if he had started fearing something being too good for his own good.

Akanksha and Ritwick. They were these two weirdoes who had come together in order to feed on each other’s excesses. They were proud, arrogant, and ambitious. But with a twist that was unique to both of them. Unfortunately, they were hopelessly in love. Ritwick was afraid that with time, both of them would pull each other down. Keep each other from becoming what they could be. He feared that it would be easy to get lost in the meanness of routine when love is all you have. And it becomes all that you desire. He knew, what with his indecision plagued mind, that it would be too easy to give up. And then repent over it when it all too late.

But this was only the good part. What he was really apprehensive of was the fact that, fearing such consequences, he would distance himself from everyone (and everything) important and begin to revel in his misery. Again. And that too at a time when she had just begun to teach him that it was not imperative that it be that way. The more he thought about it, the more he believed in it. Her memories would suffice. The scars would have surfaced anyway, had he lingered long enough. He knew he had it in him. The ability to poison anything beautiful and glorify the pain when it has shrivelled up and withered away. So he wanted to leave before the venom began to creep into their alliance. He felt selfish thinking so. Now when he knew she needed him more than anyone else. Now when he knew that a lot of alphabets that needed to be said had been replaced by underscores. Now when he knew that he had begun to find happiness in her and not himself. These were the first signs. Telling ones too.

But while he wallowed in self pity, he wished that perhaps it could be worked out. That they could learn from each other’s excesses instead of stumbling because of them. The hope made him weak. It was a sickening feeling. So, Ritwick opened his eyes and resumed his fascination with his Ganesha. However, when even the holy one failed to capture his interest, he tried to find whether he could cloud his senses with smoke. But none of this helped him take his mind away from what it had decided to dwell upon. So, he began writing her a letter. In his mind. Still stark naked. The sweat still persistently clinging to his body.

PS – The phrase Meanness of Routine is attributed to Krishna and the Horny Hippo. Thanks.

In Another Universe

I guess, sometimes, acceptance of facts and bending over to take a bow only serve to make one humbler, and wiser. I will try to find out if that's true. And I will try to swallow my pride in the meantime. I assume I stopped writing, for some time, because I found it hard to digest criticism in the guise it was dished out to me. Someone even went ahead and said that it was a cheap publicity gimmick to increase the dwindling number of readers. Gimmicks for a damn blog? What next? I do not even know how to respond to such a vile comment. So I will refrain from retaliating.

The Writing. Someone said it was too inane, others found it lacking quality, while the majority just stopped giving a damn. I decided to give it all a break. And I had meant it to be for good. Perhaps I was foolish and, yes, naive. But maybe I have realized that none of that should stop me from doing something I like much more than a lot of other important things. At the same time it dawned that while writing, it is very important to be honest in depicting the emotions we talk about. I am going to search for that honesty. Give it a try again. Strive for the benchmark. I hope for the best.

In case you didn't understand this, do not worry. You probably were never meant to :)

He felt the ink of her name, gradually moving his fingertips over the word and smoothening out the rough edges of the letters. They shifted uneasily in their slumber, not wanting to be disturbed. However, he continued stroking them, just like he would have petted his cat. This time they purred in approval. He smiled and let the reverie take reign of his senses.

He tried to imagine what she would have been like in a different life. In another universe. Perhaps he believed that if he could feel her soul through her name, he would be able to rid himself of all the preconditioning that had accumulated like soot over his instincts. In this parallel universe, he would be one with her, with none of the inhibitions camouflaging his affections. His passion would not be mellowed or reserved, but pure and unbridled. She would be his consort and he her lord, he thought, giving an almost divine touch to his itinerant feelings. Surprising himself with his own eccentricities, he began to whisper to her name, half excepting it to come alive any moment and begin telling its tale.

For a second, the alphabets did not feel right. They were dead and callous. How could they tell him about her lively past? How could they talk of her ravishing beauty, or her vivacity for that matter? The color of the ink did nothing to help matters. It was jet black. So offensively monotonous. He hesitated in feeling them, as if the pristine beauty of her name had somehow been corrupted by writing it down. Then his curiosity got the better of him and he relapsed into the daydream.

He called out to the well formed shapes gracing the ruled pages, just like a tantrik mumbling his incantations. Slowly, he saw them shed their shyness. One by one, they started jiggling their toes, shaking off the dirt that had accumulated over the decades. They blinked in surprise when they saw who had summoned them. Then they chuckled with delight at the prospect of the sacrilege they would incite. Finally they gathered round and began.

Did her hair curl cheerfully over her forehead? Is that what the k told him? “Did the illimitable love in her eyes show so conspicuously even then?” he asked an a matter-of-factly. And her lips? What about those lips? Did they convey an unfulfilled longing? Or were they much too innocent to give away any telling signs? Her lissome figure? Had it only accentuated with age? What about her bosom? Was it just as comfortable as it seemed now? The s preferred to keep quiet this time. Each time he asked them the questions, they giggled mischievously, never giving away too much. They were aware of the repercussions their answers. Eventually, he got tired of the game, accusing the name of cheating on him. Akanksha just shrugged off and went into hiding in the pages. Realizing the ramifications of his misdemeanor, he called out to Akanksha, cajoling, pleading, and even begging. But it had already vowed to never again tell him the story of its bearer.

He looked at those letters again, now as lifeless as the dust that had once again settled on them. He looked at them wistfully, hoping they would someday complete their tale.

“Ritwick”, he heard his mother call out. He hastily shut the covers of her journal and slid it back into place, as if it had never been touched. As if its confines had never been defiled.

Parched Lips of Desire

Inspired by the television drama, “Tell Me You Love Me”.

Akanksha demurely fussed over her skirt as she waited outside the closed teak doors. She had been, for some time now, pretending to straighten out a few imaginary creases. Or plausibly not. One couldn’t be too sure. The fidgeting had caught the attention of the small urchin who was trying to serve tea to the victimized faces in the waiting room. He looked at her expectedly, smiling his most affable grin. She politely turned down the offer and shooed him off. “This is no time for tea”, she reprimanded herself. The urchin loitered off, disgusted, and the fidgeting resumed after a moment’s notice.

Her pale blue blouse was in sharp contrast with the black skirt. A necklace of perfectly white pearls and a pair of modish sandals completed the guise. The dress had seemed so somber that she had thought about changing into something livelier more than once. She didn’t want Shlok suspecting anything. Not now at least. However, deciding that the purpose was probably just as gruesome, she had gone along with the prior choice.

A sign on the door, in golden letters, proclaimed the presence of Dr. Renu Makhija, Psychotherapist within the hallowed confines. She waited for it to devolve into something less intimidating. When she started smarting with the lack of consequence, she chose to look away. Another couple shared the waiting room. It would be some time before she would be called in, it dawned on her.

The leave from work had been difficult to explain. But she had handled the situation deftly. Shlok did not know. Of course. It was best that way. Akanksha had deliberated over this visit for some time now. He had been apprehensive about the whole idea. His unwillingness had even metamorphosed into an altercation that had seen him sleeping in the guest bedroom. He had held onto the opinion that once they accepted the idea they were a couple with problems, they would become one too. She had been a bit more open minded. Or maybe plain ignorant. Ultimately, she had decided to proceed on her own.

Five minutes later, the couple went in. They somehow seemed a bit ill at ease for people who were going to share their best kept secrets with a total stranger. Secrets about their troubled relationship. Taboos about their sex life. Squabbles over in laws and what not. Maybe theirs was a first time too. And mulling over that line of thought, Akanksha began to retrospect on what had gone wrong.

It was a ritual she had indulged in often. Without much consequence. A money plant in the lobby caught her wary eye. She smiled absent mindedly. Shlok and her were comfortably well off. But affluence can not guarantee everything. She had only now begun to comprehend the beauty of the cliché. Their busy schedules hardly gave them time for each other. The problem was, neither of them complained about it. But that was just one of the reasons, some obvious many indistinct.

What had started off as a picture perfect love affair, had now managed to assume a much more sinister form. Conversations had assumed the garb of a compulsion with alarming ease. As long as they possibly could, they avoided every mention of everything. It had been almost a year since they had made love to each other. It was not like any of them was having an affair. They still loved each other. Very much. But the spark had somehow fizzled out. She questioned whether loving each other was enough. Shlok simply chose to ignore the questions, fearing the answers might throw up more demons than he was prepared to face. Their life had turned into one of the clichés they had once abhorred.

The daytime reverie breathed its last when it was finally time for her to see the therapist. Akanksha thought about running away when her name was called out. About giving Shlok another chance. About crying and hoping everything would be set in order. About somehow resolving their differences just like they had managed to as a young couple, madly in love with life. And with each other. Maybe even she had come to believe that there was no coming back from this. It would just be a desperate attempt to salvage something that had already been lost. A fight against a few evens, and several odds. But she was not willing to witness the downfall like a mute spectator. So she steadied herself once again and walked in.

Dr. Renu turned out to be a wizened old granny who had somehow managed to hold on to the glow of her youth. Her face was comforting, as if she knew the cure. Already. Without even listening to her problems. The beige couch was frighteningly comfortable and Akanksha made it her oasis in the desert of the office.

Dr. Renu spoke nothing for the first few minutes, probably trying to weigh the gravity of the desperation she would be confronted with. She had, as a marriage counselor, managed to salvage several wrecked relationships. Hopefully, this would end up as being another one of them. Once the introductions were over, she asked Akanksha why her husband wasn’t there.

“He, Shlok, has some misgivings about this rigmarole. His apprehensions. We have our differences.”

“The sad part is, Shlok’s apprehensions probably have more weight than you give them credit for. It won’t be long before you both start arguing over this, well, rigmarole. Your husband will feel misrepresented and outraged that he doesn’t have a voice in something that’s so important for your relationship. He will feel angry and would invariably end up on the same couch, beside you, hyperventilating about how unfair all this has been. Then we might progress to the next phase of this therapy. Is that how you want it?”

The wily old fox seems to understand this, thought Akanksha. It’s her job after all, thought she again. “I guess he will understand”, she ended up muttering, more under her breath than over it.

“Let’s forget about your husband for a while. What do you want?”

“I don’t know. I guess I want to be close to him again. Like we used to be.”

“Do you think something like sex would make that happen? Or is it connection on a philosophical level that has gone missing? Do you feel that you want to have the same kind of romance that you enjoyed when you guys first started off?”

“I was hoping you would be able to sort out that tangle.”

~~~~

A few days into therapy, Akanksha decided to break the news to Shlok. Office had not been pleasant for him that day. The traffic even more so. Common sense dictated she postpone the trauma for some other day. However, she decided to pile it on him all at once. The melodrama turned out to just as she had expected it to be.

“Shlok, we don’t try out anything anymore. I mean it’s been almost a year. Not that I am hinting at anything. But still. We sometimes need to get out of this mess we have landed ourselves into. Get it out of our system.”

“You know, we do my version of things.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“That means I love you. And that’s what matters. We have been around for a while now. We are not going anywhere. Not me. Not you.”

“This is not who I want to be Shlok. Or not what I wanted to be. You never help me.”

“Akanksha, all I do is help you. So much so, I am sometimes sick of helping.”

“I just feel we need to talk about this with someone.”

“Oh, that. Oh. Oh! So you have been seeing a therapist? Haven’t you? And you did not think I was important enough to be included in the decision? Since when have the sessions been going on dear? Since when? And when did you plan on letting the cat out of the bag?”

“It’s just been a few days. You don’t need to get paranoid and start getting hyper about this. I was sick of all the things that kept going around in circles in my head. I needed a way out. You were not ready for it. So I decided to proceed on my own.”

“You really want to do that? Turn us into a couple with problems? That’s a slippery slope you know.”

“So is this. Well, I just did. I am just gonna see how this goes.”

“You talk about me?”

“A little. Not really. It’s mostly about me.”

“Why are you doing all this?”

“Why do you care?”

“If we have sex, will all this go away?”

“Are you kidding? Please don’t dwell on that subject.”

“No. Maybe this was needed for me to know how much it matters to you.”

“Please don’t. Please.”

~~~~

A month later, Akanksha chanced to meet Nethra, a friend from college. Over a cup of coffee and two sugar free pastries, she opened up to her. The incessant battering of her emotions over the past few weeks had left her considerably weak as far as restraint was concerned. Even things not meant to be discussed over coffee were debated about with abandon. For a second, even Nethra was stumped. But she must have sensed the plight in her friend’s voice. So she chose to just listen. Sometimes that is all it takes.

“Do couples start hating each other if they stop having sex?”

“I think they stop having sex, and then they realize they hate each other.”

“No, is it like they start hating each other because they stop having sex? Or the other way round?”

“Sex is a great thing to hide behind, you know. Do you get what I mean?”

“I am not that sure. It should be more than just that. Love was a beautiful experience.”