The Boy Who Never Told Anything

This is about a girl I knew not so long ago. That she had the ability and not the craving to be happy was what I’ll always remember about her. Needless to say, it was she who wrote this and not me.

* * *

The arm beneath her head was falling asleep and she wiggled her legs a bit. She always slept with her legs thrown about in gay abandon as if they were breaking free from the shackles of being prim and proper the whole day. There was a slight chill in the air and the blanket felt warm against her body. There was some grit on the sheet. A full moon was smiling cherubically, her battalion of stars fading in the glory of her pale light. Sleep was a few groggy breaths away so she turned to lie on her stomach, propping up her elbows so she could look at the moon better. She smiled at the imperfect circle it was today. One side looked slightly worn down as if the sun’s fury had melted her to make the stars.

Thoughts often rummaged through her mind like inquisitive children. Poking through the carefully stashed away memories, their grubby hands undoing the covers she had draped them in. Sometimes those fingers tickled up a laughing anecdote. She had read about people smiling into nothingness. The first time she did it herself she self-consciously shrugged her shoulders. But then some people, some weird little things often made her mouth dance into a crazy little curve, those laugh lines giving her a look of wry abandonment. He used to find her laugh lines infinitely attractive. She didn’t even notice them before he mentioned it. And now each time she looked in the mirror, she made it a point to smile, just to see those lines crease around her mouth.

Thinking of him saddened her, her spirit suddenly weighed down by her heart. And with nothing better to do, she reached out for her journal, flipping through its pages, covered in her scribbles. Pages of doodles and psychedelic designs. No matter how many dogs and flowers she started off with, she always managed to end up making concentric circles – an indication of her eddying thoughts? There were realms of angry outpourings, strings of quotes, cuttings of interesting ads and passages of mundane nothings.

Her journal. Her closest friend, her stubborn conscience, her cruelest critic. Often uncomfortable around her closest friends, she managed to talk to this inanimate book with unnerving enthusiasm. With fierce loyalty. With unbridled passion. She carried on rummaging, reading a quote, seeing a long-forgotten picture, some calculations of her monthly expenditure gone awry. The stars were beginning to fall asleep. She felt peaceful. The hammering of her mind was gently soothing itself into slumber. With a smile she hummed a silly tune.

The Man in the Library

A man cleans the books he might never be able to read himself. He is meticulous in his efforts, taking care to pull out each of the hard bound volumes one by one from the shelf, cleaning them with a soft cloth, and then gently pushing them back into place. Does he abuse his blatant inadequacy? Or does he revere the wisdom he has been unfortunate enough to forfeit?

The supervisor whispers some instructions in his ear and moves on. He makes sure they are not ignored and goes back to what he was doing. He is sitting cross-legged on the floor, oblivious to my constant oblique glances, and my preoccupation with him. The knowledge and wisdom he polishes so dutifully benefits people like me, who try to gauge his thoughts, and write them down; so that eventually one more volume may be added to the shelf he has moved on to.

If life wasn't meant to be ironic, he wonders, then what was?

Shadows, Lines, and the Paranoia

Well, I had a dream I stood beneath an orange sky. I was looking up and staring at the stars. There were so many of them that night. As if they had all gathered to celebrate some iconic achievement of one of them. Even when pinned to that orange sky, I could count so many of those small red dots. Yes, there were red stars that night. They were like small pieces of cherry someone had used to decorate a huge orange pie. They winked at me and I smiled some. Like a school boy who had just been handed his favourite ice candy. I wished they would wink at me some more. Occasionally, one or two of those red stars came loose and streaked across the sky in a brilliant flash of purple light. But all this happened so quickly that I never got the chance to complete my wish.

I looked around eagerly, looking for something else, just like I was in the habit of doing. Everything had to be made picture perfect, isn’t it? There was a lone tree in the distance that almost gave the scene the look of an Impressionist painting by Monet. But the sky was now slowly turning into a dark shade of crimson, subsuming all the stars within it. I grew somewhat apprehensive of the change and waited for something to happen. It was just then that a dog started howling in the distance, signalling everything ominous that would happen. I cursed him with all my heart, and willed him to silence.

Then you came. And the sky turned a dark shade of orange. Very dark. My smile turned into a frown. I wanted you to go away. You, with those jet black hair that swayed gracefully at your command. You, with those almond eyes whose expression I had tried many a time to fathom. You, with that almost perfect smile and the less than perfect husky voice. You, who marched to the tune of your own beat and seemed to me the perfect balance of elegance and simplicity. You, who had always been the one with the eagerness (and quotient) to make the most of all things small, short-lived, and meaningful. You, who reminded me of everything that was imperfect in my own life. You, who made me think of reasons why I was not smiling anymore. You, who had caused my lovely orange sky to turn into a dark gloomy shade.

I tried noticing more things about you. So that I could use the right words. But my faculties failed me once again. I had never been the one with an eye for details. It had always been you, the silent observer of all things mundane and majestic. I just pretended to go along. So that I could make conversation and engage your attention, even if it was for a small while. And yes, I wish I had said all this before. But I never really got the chance. I was too busy catching up with the scheme of things and working them out to my own advantage. But we digress too much from the dream. The one in which I stood beneath an orange sky.

You came to me, smiling vivaciously. Why was I so cynical in that moment? Was it always the same? I was thinking again, and I cursed myself silently for it. I waited for something dramatic to happen. For something to pop out of the now ominous orange sky. It was a dream after all. But nothing happened. You just came up to me and ran your fingers through my hair. You talked about how beautiful the sky had looked just a moment ago. That lovely orange sky. And how the red stars had now almost dissolved into the huge canvas painted right across our eyes. And how you toohad been unable to ask for a wish from the purple shooting stars.

You talked as if you had been hiding behind somewhere all along, watching me stealthily and softly chuckling to yourself. And slowly talking about it, we lay down on the soft, perfectly green grass to soak in the view better. I was still wary of your presence but your smile erased all doubts. I noticed how the sky curved around us and enveloped all that we could see in its ethereal glow. We were careful not to touch each other for we had still not mustered enough courage. And yet, some higher power commanded that we should. So I took your hand in mine and told you I had things to share. Things that had been left unsaid for so long. Things that would make you revile me. I told you your worst fears might come true today. When you had come smiling to me. Beneath the lovely orange sky. When I could not be sure whether it was night or day, dusk or dawn.

You seemed a bit uneasy at the prospect of having to listen to one of my tirades once again. How was I to know you had a different agenda on your mind? I am not psychic or anything. So I jumped headlong into the quagmire and made you indulge in myvanity. I told you how I had lostthe secret to my happiness and how it was slowly eating me inside out. I told you everything. Even the Paranoia that had been subsuming all that was me, steadfastly. How I had cried one night and stifled my sobs so that they did not wake up others. Yes, I even told you about my fears and what those fears were keeping me from doing. I told you about dark, depressing things I had so far revealed to nobody. So that they were unharmed by its pernicious influence. Yes, I told you about that too.

And when I had done everything, you turned your face away from me. I realized it then. With a pinch of salt to go along with the understanding. My stream of conversation had been consumed by my insecurities and fears. It had been a relentless assault on your patience. The gravity of my words had been a load I was not willing to shed. I had taken the hammer and badgered it time and again against your tolerance, being too uptight to notice how I was stymieing your free will. How I was jealous of your vitality and spirit, and yet was afraid to accept so. How I was slowly poisoning the very thing I had come to adore about you.

To compound my guilt, I had never even asked why you had come here. To meet me beneath that lovely orange sky. Your face turned a deep purple. I looked on aghast, wondering if it would change its hue to something more ugly and sinister. But no, it just remained that sick shade of purple. And then you spoke. You spoke the foul words I wished I had never heard. They burned me in places I did not know existed. I am sorry for being so poetic but I can not think of anything else now. You spilled venom at the weakest moment of my life. I had feared that all along. Perhaps it was the only reason I had been keeping you and others at a distance. Wanting something and fearing it at the same time.

I tried lifting a stone, to chuck it away in disgust. But I could not even throw off the weight of that crazy stone. I saw myself wasting away as your shadow began to dissolve into the soft perfectly green grass. You were smiling, almost mocking my incapacity. And I hated you for it. I turned away from you but your laughter started ringing out in my ears. It was then that I did it. I gathered whatever was left of my strength (and confidence) and used it to hurl the stone your way. However, before it could have hurt you in anyway and made me feel guilty about it, your face dissolved into that lovely orange sky. Your eyes became two big red stars. Your lips became some constellation, the smile on them the sparkle of a shooting star. In a split second, all that was left were you stood was the contours of your face, some lines.

And then it was all dark. No red stars. No lovely orange sky. There was no moon either, red or white, to bath the lone tree in its silver light. I was afraid then. I was afraid I had let my fears haunt you as well. And so many others. In the pitch black dark of that starless moment, I stood silently. I listened to my heavy breathing, now very sporadic. I called out to the people who cared for me and whom I had ignored. I repeated out their names, as loud as my fear would allow. Yet, nobody answered. It was scary. It was as if I had been put in a painting I did not know the way out of. But something even terrible was about to happen. Suddenly I could no longer hear my own voice. I wondered whether I had gone deaf or mute. I had no way of knowing. My voice gone, I began to grope around in the darkness. I could not see my hands. Not my legs for that matter. For an incredible second I heard you call out my name from somewhere close by. I stopped, hoping to hear your reassuring voice once more. Nothing. I heard a faint giggle then. Was it yours? I knew I had to find out. But as soon as I took a step in that direction, I fell into an endless tunnel. The proverbial rabbit hole. I kept falling for what seemed like an eternity. No sound. No light. With a dull thud I felt solid ground beneath my wasted self. I wondered what place I had landed myself into. Almost as if someone heard my thoughts, a pale yellow light bathed the ground beneath my feet. And I saw something diabolic then. Your name had been spelt out on the ground. With my bones. I cried. I shouted. And the very next moment, my dream ended. Well, the one in which I stood beneath an orange sky.

Ram Ke Naam

An unlikely conversation between two people on the morning of October 30, 1990. The venue is the Saryu Bridge, which leads into Ayodhya.

Anand Patwardhan: Aap kahan se aaye hain?
A Ganges Priest: District Eta.

AP : Aur kya karte hain aap ?
GP : Hum panda (pujari) hain Gangaji ke.

AP: Aap kya karne aaye hain yahan?
GP: Parikrama dene.

AP: Parikrama dene aaye hain?
GP: Haan.

AP: Aur Kar Seva ke liye bhi aaye hain ya nahin?
GP: Nahin. Uhun.

AP: Sirf parikrama karne aaye hain?
GP: Sirf parikrama dene.

AP: To aapko ye maloom tha ki yahan kar Seva bhi kar rahein hain Ram Janmabhoomi ke liye?
GP: Ye maloom hai. Par humko jab curfew khul gaya...aur jo humko...kal bhi humne suna ki parikrama lagegi, to phir hum aaye.

AP: Yaane aapko ye mandir ke aur masjid ke jhagde se koi lena dena nahin hai?
GP: Koi lena dena nahin hai.

AP: Apko farak nahin padta ki masjid bhi rahe ya mandir bhi rahe?
GP: Koi nahin. Hum to jake mandir mein thehrenge...ek mandir mein....yahan ek mandir hain....sagirapatti mein....wahan thehrenge.

AP: To aap ye nahin keh rahein hain ki "mandir wahin banayenge"?
GP: Hum to kuch nahin keh rahein hain. Hum to apne chashme ko khoi gaya to andhe aur ho gaye hain. Hum kya kahenge.

AP: Toh…..toh….chaliye.

A Policeman escorts the priest to the bus which will take him away from Ayodhya.

Policeman: Chasma aapka gayab ho gaya?
GP : Haan. Chasma gir gaya yahin kahin dhakka mukki mein.

Vote of Confidence

In general, people have immense potential for good. Possibly, it is inherent in each and every one of us. However it lies untapped because of our lack of confidence in others. Our inability to say good things about them. Our inability to put our confidence in them. Our inability to confess to the transformations they have set off. Our inability to be frank, humble, and honest about it all. Our incapacity to confess to our weaknesses and emerge a better person out of the act. We choose to dwell upon the insufficiencies and derive conclusions from them. We spit spite and think that it can be justified because we have been blind to each other. We survive on the bitter concoction of jealousy and pride, our jaded appetites intolerant to anything more humane. As I observed some time back, the unease seems so palpable that we can taste its bitter tang in our mouths. We qualify humility as an obsolete virtue instead of accepting the truth and letting others know about the same. Instead of making others feel better because of it. Instead of at least sometimes ignoring those pitfalls. Perhaps, that is not how things ought to work. Perhaps, we need to be a bit emotional for once, without preconditioning misguiding our reason. Without ridicule leading us astray. Without indifference making us shrug our shoulders and settle for anything less than that. Let it not be so this one instance. If possible, hear me out.

Should we, thus, move a motion to instill confidence in others? A Vote of Confidence in their potential and not ours? It’s worth a try, if anything. If nothing comes out of it, we can all go back to being ourselves. No harm done. After all, we must walk down that road; the one which runs through ‘The Forest of The Night’. The one which compels us to face our demons. The one, which in turn, helps us in finding our angels. So, in order to start a process, I would use this platform to say certain things to people. Good things. So that they can take something out of this. Perhaps for the better of both of us. Yes, I do intend to be selfish, but not at all self-centered. I might miss out a few people and I sincerely regret that. Rest assured that shall happen only due my inefficiencies and not yours. Due to my inability to mould words around the good that is yours. Due to my blindness which has prevented such a disclosure so far. Due to my incapacity to see something that is inherent in you. Due to the foolishness that had prevented me from looking beyond perceptions. Due to everything me and nothing you. Please forgive the bias, if any, which creeps into this narrative. The order of this monologue is one which is the least biased of them all.

To Ghar Parivar – The debt that I owe you eludes normal statistics. So it is futile to even try making a mention of it. All I can say is that I am indebted to you for accepting me with all my weaknesses and strengths. For accepting my rudeness when it had seemed unreasonable even to me. For accepting my failures in the same vein as my numerous accomplishments. For accepting me for who I am, without any pretensions or complaints, whatsoever. I owe myself to you.

~~~~

To Chacha Chaudhary – There is something in the composure that you carry about you that tells me that no matter what, everything will turn out to be well in the end. I have been inspired by the way you have donned your responsibilities, regardless of their repercussion on your own ambitions or desires. I would go on to say that you have been an idol of sorts. In some ways. It’s strange, thus, that I have been a mute spectator with respect to everything ‘you’ in this comradeship. Let me think about it. Your capacity to love has been a subject of conversation between I, me, and myself. Someday, I wish to emulate it in a fashion akin to yours, without being misled by any preconditioning whatsoever. But most of all, I wish you luck in your endeavours. I am sure you guys will see it through and emerge out of it wiser, even if harried.

I am glad that my initial impressions of you were proved to very wrong soon enough. The only reason why I have failed to describe you is because you remain something of an enigma to me. I have still not been able to understand why we got along well. Or maybe we don’t. Would you care to hazard a guess? You are one of the few people who have given me more than I have returned back to them. I appreciate your efforts in fighting for a lost cause. And I apologize for not being there when you might have needed me. But, please, keep at it. We need more of that. For there might be few people like you. And more like me.

~~~~

To Gandhi Baba – I have known you as a pillar in my life from the time I understood the full implications of the term friendship. It’s another matter altogether that you have been at the receiving end far too often. The patience with which you have heeded to my grievances has been astonishing. Especially since it was never reciprocated with the same fortitude. Your advice always bordered on being labelled abstruse. However, with time, all of it has made sense. I have realized it was lack of comprehension on my part which prevented me from understanding your perspective. You were just ahead of your times. The support you have extended whenever I have needed it has not gone unnoticed. I have just been shy about accepting the facts. I love it when I can talk to you without even looking at you, something rare and special for me. I know you will understand everything. Thank you.

Your idealism might seem eccentric to some, even to me at times. But that is something you must pursue with all your heart. What are we if not the victims of our ambitions? I say victims because we suffer because of our aims, as you have. But please do not think that a battle lost is a war never begun. You know that even though you lost it out to her, it was not because she deserved better, but because maybe you did. Perhaps you should think about being a bit more carefree and gullible than you are. There is fun there that you are missing out on. I have heard stories being told about that faraway land. Pay a visit sometime. I am sure we will have a lot to talk about.

~~~~

To Professor Saab – You have more potential for good than any person I have known. Unfortunately, I have not been able to imbibe most of it. Perhaps not even a tiny little bit of it. But that only speaks about my inadequacies and not yours. It seems that humour comes almost as naturally to you as grumpiness to me. However, let that laughter not be at the cost of others’. The support that you extend to others is something of a miracle in itself. The time, the patience, the effort, the concentration, and the impartiality. All of it is commendable. I have tried a hand at it myself, to no obvious gains of course. Your respect and devotion to family and friends has sometimes made me feel inadequate in the same perspective. However, you inspire, and so there is still hope. Let it never be otherwise. Your diligence inspires awe (and perhaps bits of jealousy) in me and I hope that one day you will get what that merits. Perhaps the desserts might come a bit later than expected. But they will. Have faith.

As far as everything ‘love’ is concerned, look no further than where your memory takes you. You dwell upon the past way too often for comfort. I am sure you deserve to find whatever you are looking for. It will find you before you do. For there must be someone out there with as much you in her as yourself. We can not settle for anything less than the best. Now can we? And remember, being selfish has become fashionable again. Perhaps, you should give it a try. Sometimes, and only sometimes, you can rely upon my fashion quotient as well. Take care and all the best. I shall see you around.

~~~~

To Salim Sinai – You have been a strange acquaintance (friend?) in many ways. I have enjoyed the conversations, the generalizations and the abstractions we have indulged in. Often, if not always, I have wondered if I would miss out on them. It seems that self deprecation is an art that you have not only mastered, but also made contagious. I should refrain from indulging in it too often. If being disillusioned is cool, I wonder if you can take coolness to any new heights. There is this strange mix of worldliness and innocence in the way which you go about life. I love it. Honestly. Your inadequacies have amused me more than once. But only in a matter-of-fact innocent way. Perhaps you will be able to overcome them someday. Or maybe we can endure them alright. We will drink to that. And we will smoke to that.

I have a grouse as well. Something which I have mentioned a few times. You underestimate yourself way too often to realize your merit. So, I must quote Shakespeare here:

But what my power might else exact, like one
Who having into truth, by telling of it,
Made such a sinner of his memory,
To credit his own lie, he did believe
He was indeed the duke;
- Prospero, Act I, Scene II, The Tempest

Roughly translated, Shakespeare means to say that just like a usurper of the throne, by the constant wielding of power, begins to believe he is the king himself; when a person repeats a lie often enough, he begins to believe it is indeed the truth. You get the hint I presume. But then again, it is probable we have been putting up a charade. I say “we” and not “you” because I am as much a part of it as you. As much a culprit, for we look at it as a means for escaping out. A medium for reaffirming our worth. But no more on that.

You quote senseless psychics way too often. And probably you seek to find ratification for all that you do in their ramblings. But who’s complaining? As befits the scheme of things, let me do the same. For I share a weakness I am not willing to get rid of too soon.

Everyone I come across, in cages they bought
They think of me and my wandering, but I'm never what they thought
I've got my indignation, but I'm pure in all my thoughts
I'm alive.
- Eddie Vedder, Guaranteed

And do not worry. I am pretty sure you won’t go bald before you get married. Even if you do, you can always woo the lady in question by means of the pseudo-intellectualism and intellectual chutiyapa we have been practising and perfecting. Moreover, I have heard that ladies with an altruistic bent dig men with receding hairlines, a perspective on communalism, and a penchant for writers like Saul Bellow. Your Shobhaa De is safe. At least for the time being. We will drink to that too.

~~~~

To ‘The’ Med – I have been inspired (affected?) by you in ways you can hardly imagine. If I were to start enumerating the changes that have crept into me because of you, I would perhaps do injustice to others I wish to speak to here. So none of that. I am sure each and every one of those changes has made me a better person. They have not only made me humbler, but more tolerant towards the insufficiencies that plague my character. Pushing me to improve and enhance. Your talent, and the humility with which you ignore it, has motivated me to reach its heights someday. Oh, did I tell you how ambitions have proven to be double edged swords for me? I must keep away from them. Now will I?

I have been a weaker person in your company, something I had not known myself to do. I appreciate the fact that the conversations have not come out of compulsion, but a suppressed willingness. Maybe it’s your skill, and not my inability, that serves the process. I will miss it if we were to part ways sometime in the future. But only in a good way. I would, anyway, have my ‘memory mines’ to serve me in its stead. I say so because I have come to believe that good things do not last forever. Maybe that’s why I have chosen to write about it. To perpetuate it before it fades into oblivion. But I have been known to be eccentric and delusional. Never mind.

The grace that comes so naturally to you has not only amused me time and again, but has also been a subject of thought. That being said and done, your ability to switch from elegance to tackiness with such practised ease has often engaged my attention. I sometimes wonder if the skill has been rehearsed, well in advance. The knack of dwelling upon tiny details in your life, and making the most of them, has amazed me and I wish to someday imitate the feat. Till then, I shall be content in trying, and failing. Compassion. I see it inherent in you even though you have oft claimed otherwise. I expect you will wake up to the fact, more sooner than later. Or were you pretending all this while? I wouldn’t know, right? As a parting wish, I hope that selfishness comes to you as a grace and not as a vice. I say so just because I want you to get whatever you had wanted out of life. Please do not let compromises get the better of you. Do not. We all deserve better than that. Be good. I shall wait and watch.

~~~~

I steal some lines. Let it be so for all of us.

I'll take this soul that’s inside me now
Like a brand new friend
I'll forever know

I’ve got this light
And the will to show
I will always be better than before

To Everyone Else – I wish I were competent enough to mention all the people who have affected me, however subtly. Yet, as you might have realized, that is not possible. Not because I do not wish to do so. But because I stand incapacitated in such a situation. I hope you won’t mind, for that was never the purpose of all this melodrama. Would you like to carry on from here? Take care. Everyone.

PS – Yes, there IS a Calvin strip for each post one can ever think of.

Memory Mines

The past several days have been spent in stepping over several of the memory mines that had been planted a few ages ago. They were both familiar and alien. Some welcome, some not so. Few balmy, while most listlessly nostalgic. In the process, some new ones were also planted for future reference. They will prove to be like milestones in my life, amplifying the whispers when they become too weak to be comprehended. Rubbing in the wounds just when they have begun to heal. Blowing air over the cinders just when they have begun to die out. At least, that’s the idea.

Visiting home was like getting in touch with oneself, all over again. Being haunted by old fears, reveling in the familiarity of known furniture, getting ridiculed by well-known faces (and surprisingly not minding it at all), fretting over the same insufficiencies, and basking in the glory of a now alien success. What struck me as the most peculiar thing about my place was its absolute stillness. The afternoons seem to be so lazy that time itself appears to be dilating. I can look out the grilled windows and still see the banyan tree across the road, holding its ground. The leaves have been mostly shed. The ones that do remain offer a shade that is as inviting as an age ago. Yet, as before, the invitation remains unaccepted. Irony almost stands personified.

The pin drop silence is often shattered by the occasional horn of a passing motorbike. But that seems a part of the scheme of things. Not something incongruous. The motes dance around in the sunlight that has managed to escape the umpteen curtains in the room and trace abstract figures on the carpet. Dad leaves his things lying around in the same careless fashion. On the other hand, Mom gathers them with a recognizable unease that borders on being labeled comical. And while the friendly (albeit a bit mysterious) neighborhood dhobi continues to occupy the same nook in one of the streets of Vishesh Khand, the ghar-ke-diagonally-opposite-paan-wallah refuses to budge from his favorite spot on the main road. (Rumours abound that several young helps in the locality have fallen for him and, in turn, fallen from the grace of their employers. But that is way beside the point.) Things are best when familiar and better when rustic. Yes?

But even in the stagnation of the place, change is managing to keep up. There is this new shopping complex nearby which seems to have become the one stop destination for my mom’s provisional needs, from internet to raita masala, hair cut to plastic glasses, from betel leaves for puja to desi eggs for the yummiest omelets, and from Cetirizine to mosquito repellents. Then there is the mall close enough which, like a modern mela, is gheraoed every evening by an alarmingly high number of Lucknowites in halter necks, tank tops, and jeans. Often, there is a desire to become a part of the milling numbers and pay homage to a borrowed culture. But I try to reserve that opportunity for desperate times.

Closer home, I notice that the color of the walls has changed. Some lamp shades now add to the décor. The number of plant-pots in the garden (and around the house) has increased alarmingly and it’s slowly becoming difficult to maneuver your way to the door without knocking off some of them on the way there. The television has been moved to my room which means that I won’t be spending my nights in the dining room, watching late night movies on HBO. The in-house-temple, though, occupies the same reverent position in an auspicious corner of the house.

Bosky sleeps where Buddy used to spend her lethargic after-hours. He looks just like her, albeit the color and the size of course. There is the familiar patch of black skin over the eyes and the mole on one of the cheeks. Discipline in his life is conspicuous by its absence and its lack doesn’t fail to elicit a mention from Mummy every now and then. I take a liking to him and tickle his tummy just like I used to pamper Buddy. He rolls over and allows me to indulge him.

When rifling through the cupboard for some old paperbacks, I chance upon even older grade reports. They came in various colors – pink, yellow, white, green, and even blue. Regrets flare up with an alarming ease. Even now? Their persistence is both, surprising and pathetic. But I smile soon enough and disarm them. The art of doing so demanded nothing less than perfection (in indifference), something which had already been attained by means of relentless practice over the past four years. After all, we don’t want to live in an age gone by. We want to dwell upon it just long enough. Leaving that aside now.

The cupboard is a veritable treasure house. There is this box with all my sports cards, cricket paraphernalia, knickknack, odds, and ends. The green polythene bag with the precious letters still intact. They reek of the years spent in carefree abandon. I move on. Next up are the paperbacks. Ones Papa bought for me each time he went on a field trip to break stones and dig for exotic minerals in remote corners of Bhutan. They are all in there – Hardy Boys, Harry Potter, Sinbad, Scooby Doo, and even Jules Verne and Swiss Family Robinson. Some of the thick, hard bound Reader’s Digest volumes (purchased after much persuasion because of their sky-high prices) have been pored over zillions of times, their facts and figures all memorized long ago. I turn the pages, but then soon shut them, lest a reverie start in mid afternoon. There are several other mines waiting to be disarmed. Moving on.

The photo albums are virtual disasters in the making. Mom can never bear to have a look at them without being on the verge of tears. So I smuggle a few into my room at night and pore over them. The yellow light in the room only serves to help matters. It’s a bit bright for my taste but is still better than the clinical white light of the CFL. There she is. Mom. Cradling a very small version of me in her arms. Dad looks on with an expression of suppressed amusement on his face. They are standing in front of one of the tombs in Lucknow. Amma dotes on each of us in turn while Baba is his reserved self. There is this picture with the entire family in it, all the kids very small and shitty looking, all the parents very smart and proper, and all the grandparents very smug and satisfied. Not much subtlety there either. My sister smiles at me from the confines of a few other sepia colored frames. She is looking silly in almost all of them and I long to tell her that. I long to tell her how much I miss beating her up and getting thrashed in turn. I long for a lot many things but instead prefer giving in to her demands. She speaks in hushed whispers. I just listen.

Her hair is looking so pathetic that I wonder how she agreed to getting a hair cut that obscene in the first place. Then she is racing and finally standing third, just managing to outrun the fourth placed. I see her on the podium (wearing a skirt so long one could almost mistake it for a gown) and smiling, positively beaming as she receives the medal. Often, I see her doting on me on each occasion I cried a bit too hard after bring scolded by Mummy. I see myself sulking in the rain just because she had taken my favorite Mickey Mouse umbrella. I see her holding onto her birthday present so that she was the first person I gave the cake to. There she is, all decked up in a red lehenga and dancing to the tunes of a track from Guide. I see her all dressed up for her first farewell, in the company of friends who are boys and boys who are friends. She is married then, and the distance mellows the discord that had seemed so unreasonable. She has a kid now and seems so grown up and responsible, hardly a shadow of the playful thing I want to remember her as. I see all this and I smile. I see all this and I try. To no avail.

I switch off the light and try to find comfort in Floyd. A lamp flickers nearby and sheds strange shadows on the wall. I try deciphering their pattern for a few minutes, probably inspired by Waters and Gilmour. Then I give up, realizing that even Freud must have abstained from such a pastime. I must be losing it. Why does Lucknow do this to me? Why does it engage me in a conversation that happened so far back in time that even the voices seem blurred now? Why is it so static? Why do I claw at those receding shadows and still strive to derive comprehension in their whispers? Why do those memories never fail to fascinate me beyond reason? Why do I always try to find familiarity in their alienation? Why has it been so hard to let go? The questions never cease to exist and their answers never seem to appear.

As we journey through time, new mines keep getting entrenched. The visit home did not prove to be anything different. New reminiscences evolved and were safely ensconced in the backwaters of my psyche through various means. Possibly for reference in a time less favorable. The gestation period of these memories always follows the same predictable cycles.

When actually living them in their entirety, we hardly notice their wholeness, blinded by a shooting star of the time ahead. Enamored by an eluding phantom. Wanting things we could have now and yearning for people whom we love instead of those who love us. But once there, we can not help but be fascinated by the innocence of the moments we have just lived. Our fertile imagination only assists the process, filling in the gaps in those memories with agreeable details, soothing the transition from now to then. Helping us to dwell happily on the past and always making sure that the present never seems that perfect. This when there and that when here. A vicious circle if you may (forgive the cliché). But perhaps, that is how it is supposed to be. Who knows? All that is needed now is a lazy winter afternoon with the ceiling fan creaking at the slowest possible speed. Rest is, as Barney would say, ‘legendary’. I wish you all the best.