One quarter please.

Courtesy: Ankita Shreeram

If I asked you to describe yourself first thing in the morning, before anything had befallen you, you'd still do it without skipping a beat. You'd probably give me the same answer every single morning. Perhaps you'd say "I'm a friendly, amiable person who likes going out and meeting new people. I like black and I love jazz. I like to dress comfortably and my favourite travel destination is Ibiza. My idea of a holiday is to relax on the beach with a beer by my side." In this vein, you could probably go on until I asked you to stop.

On the eve of my 24th birthday, I ask, what makes us such great authorities on who we are? Is there any law that stipulates that one's likes and dislikes must remain constant all through one's life? Why do we wake up every dawn with the burden of our memories - with voices of a dead past telling us who we are, what to do and what to wear? I don't want to get into a relationship because memory tells me that I have difficulty communicating and sharing my life beyond a point. Memory tells me that true intimacy scares the living daylights out of me. But what if I chose to discount all of that and make a decision based on instinct alone? Instinct comes from the heart, perhaps even a primitive knowledge of the soul. It does not come from colourless knowledge of facts that have long since breathed their last.

Memory is grossly overrated in our nostalgic, reflective times. We go over events and statements with a mental microscope like detectives seeking clues to an unsolved mystery. We ignore the present and choose to stay cloaked in a secret world built upon the pillars of things we've seen, heard, smelt, touched and experienced already. Sometimes, we shake off the cloak to find more fodder for this world. But we always go back. Always.

On 13th September, I shall celebrate Independence Day. Independence from the shackles of my own memory; from that strange soulless identity that tries to teach me what my fabric is made of. My fabric is a mutating, magical thing. It never remains constant and it is certainly no slave to yesterday's events. My fabric can be sewn into a different pattern every single moment of my life. And I can change the colour of the threads with a single thought; with the simple flick of a switch called intent.

I am completing nearly a quarter of the century that most humans these days seem to live and I'm still bound by memories of childhood, of innocent fears and baseless reservations. Hiding in a dark corner is a scared little girl who refuses to leave the safe confines of my head. This birthday, I must release her. I must let her walk away into the sunset of my past. While I stride forth into the sparkling future. Adulthood, unlike memory, is sadly underrated. Adulthood is confidence, freedom and the sensibility to absorb and appreciate art. Adulthood is indeed a doorway into everything that's miraculous and beautiful. 

Monsoon goddess

Courtesy: Ankita Shreeram

The sky peers at us

Through half-closed eyes

Irises a soothing silver-tinged gray

A gaze that wills us to believe

In the charm of a glow-less day

Darkening canopy of cloudless firmament

Somehow muting the downward sounds

Causing us to move with somnambulant ease

Slowing our heart-beats

And the pace of our ever-rushing feet

Birds – oblivious

Trees – felicitous

And humans? Humans – ignorant

To the warning of imminent storm

The sky is a crystal ball

But we choose not to see

Our innate clairvoyance submerged

Under layers of careless thought

Spotted aloe plants look on stoically

As sheets of rain dance violently

On tar roads and peeling windows

On bald heads and rusted, tin roofs

With every step, she seizes a little memento

No, the rain never returns empty-handed

She will scrape away tiny bits of you

But she will also leave behind

A precious whit of her own soul

A fair barter, in her swirling eyes

Sometimes, she comes wearing bangles

Their raucous jingle jangle

A worthy accompaniment to her primitive music

She is both musician and dancer

Both puppeteer and puppet

Some babies press their noses

To misted windows in glee

While others scream in terror

Pressing against their mothers’ breasts instead

Some would like to pirouette along with her

On diamond-strewn streets

Others wish murderously

For the music to be silenced forever

Today she dances a tribal dance

Her movements feverish

Her music unsettling

But yesterday, she performed a measured Kathak

Her lashings graceful

The thunderous rumblings almost poetic

She is a woman of many unpredictable moods

But I am swept away by every single one

For I am her daughter,

Nestled in her bosom when I was born

On a glorious monsoon morning in September

The city plump with its fill of rain

Belly positively bursting with stormy goodness

I drank from that fountain as a babe

I drink from it still and guess what?

It still tastes the same. 

Of broken glasses and beer.

Jagged edges.

When glasses descend

kiss the ground

with  stunning brutality,

their edges acquire a unique beauty.

Broken shards surround their romance

collateral damage

in a quest to stand out.

Once smooth

glasses are now instruments for damage.

Poke them into your palm

and you might draw blood

glistening beads of life force

the very colour of the wine

that once rested in those glasses.

But now,

jagged edges

are all that remain.

The beer and the sun

Courtesy: Ankita Shreeram

One glass of beer and a walk in the sun

All we wanted was to have a bit of fun

Cobble-stoned paths and shuttered shops

One canvas beneath and one besides us

One to tread on, the other to run fingers by

We had shut out the sun but it continued to burn

In a dancing flame in the pit of our stomachs

And when we felt the flame diminishing,

We abandoned cool cobble-stoned causeways

Hopped on to a black and yellow magic carpet

Ands sailed apace to have another sip of sunshine

Two glasses of beer and another walk in the sun

This time my feet wanted to dance, not to run

Shadows of overhead leaves danced on our arms

While the monsoon sun kissed our beer-warmed fingers

Golden warmth smiled through my lips

And voices of joy sang through my eyes

When the sun went down, so did the fire in our bellies

This time we let it die, happy to cradle the ashes

There would be another walk in the sun

Another look at children's toys and posters that promised to brighten your days

Another stop at raucous bars and another dance on rain-kissed streets

On a day not too distant from this one.

Harbour view

Courtesy: Ankita Shreeram

 Bright golden stars

Float upon the distant sea

Like jewels strewn with a careless hand.

A reluctant moon spies on their asymmetry

Perhaps plotting a tidal wave

That would reassemble the jewels

Into a perfect half-circle

Cast in the moon's image - 

Ode to it's narcissistic beauty.

As the sea joins hands with the blackening sky,

The golden stars acquire a salmon halo

Like a scarf made of spider web strands

And then steeped into salmon-hued glue

To keep the golden warmth safe

From the hungry water,

The moon's covetous eyes

And distant observers ashore.

Silence.

My feet

Sing songs of sweet agony

My muscles

Tell tales of disharmony

But my mind

My mind is in deep slumber

A nudge

No answer

Don't desert me, thought-buddy

Silence and I, we're awkward strangers

But now we're left alone

Like a man and a woman on a first date

Hesitant but fearfully hopeful

I take a tentative sip

From a glass full of stillness

Silence fidgets, then relaxes

The room darkens

Quietens

We smile, hands lying on the table,

Uneasily

I keep looking around for familiar intruders

Memories, regrets, analysis

But this is thought paralysis

Silence begins to melt

Though the room is cool

Melds into the velvety darkness

Leaving me alone

A heavy serenity

Wrapped around me like thick smoke

Inescapable, strangely comforting

Now I don't want my thought-buddies back

But I know they will come

Already, the door is opening

Inch by inch

Silence, she won't stay too long

A hard woman to woo

Maybe next time

I should let her take a sip instead.

Blur for clarity.

Let's crush the paper

bring the corners together

the world folding up

maps shrinking

distances blurring

let the sun shine on all of us equally

At the same time

let it illuminate all our eyes

at once

let seas heave into mountains

and mountains collapse into cornfields

let the world fold up

maps going up in flames

forests melting down on us

continents merging

boundaries blurring

let it all end

come together

fire and ice

deserts and icebergs

a storm unimagined

a tornado unforeseen

let it take our smiles and our tears

Our dreams and our fears

And hurl back at us

Something more honest, purer

More magical, truer.

Thank you, Robert Frost, who wrote, 'Some say the world will end in fire, some say in ice. From what I've tasted of desire, I hold with those who favor fire. But if it had to perish twice, I think I know enough of hate To say that for destruction, ice is also great, and would suffice.'

The Girl Who Died Next Door - 9

Almost blue.

(Story so far: A new neighbour moves into the vacant apartment next door to Kavya, a television professional. His name is Shayan and he's an artist. The apartment had been abandoned after Suvarna, the teenaged daughter of the family that lived there, committed suicide. Shayan becomes obsessed with Suvarna's spectre and paints her day and night, allowing her to age and live through his canvas. His obsession comes in the way of Kavya's strange fascination for him, and keeps their story from ever becoming something more than a neighbourly friendship.)

I saw Shayan so little these days that it almost felt like I'd gone back to my neighbour-less days. I was almost blue, because I wasn't sure that it mattered whether I saw him or not. Chet Baker's Almost Blue seemed the perfect choice for the moment. As the mellow notes caressed my weary, melancholy soul, everything seemed clearer; all those times Suvarna had averted her eyes from me, in fear I had thought. But suddenly, I was reminded of a woman in the train who bore burn scars all over her neck and arms. Her eyes had held the same furtive, frightened flutter. One might have perceived it as hostility but fear was what it really was and perhaps, a call for help. Was Suvarna's seeming avoidance of my company a convoluted cry for help? Were the rumours about the servant true after all? And if so, perhaps she was having her revenge on me for not coming to her aid; for not hearing her silent, veiled pleas. Perhaps that was why she had chosen to monopolise Shayan's canvas - both physical and mental. That canvas seemed to have become her playground; a sorry substitute for life. Sorry? Really? My mind whispered. It was right of course. There was nothing sorry about the medium Suvarna had chosen. Within his palate, Shayan possessed every fathomable colour; every hue known to mankind. Did life offer such a wide choice? It does, but the tragedy is that much of this choice is out of reach. If our lives were paintings, there would be a dominant spectrum of colours in each but none would boast of every colour in the kaleidoscope. None would be able to say - "I've seen it all." Perhaps, living within Shayan's brush-strokes was not such a bad idea after all. Idly, I contemplated haunting Shayan when I died.

***

The doorbell rang one Saturday morning, while I was deep in alcohol-induced slumber. In my dream, I missed a step but before I could plunge headlong into nothingness, my eyes cracked open. For a moment, I thought I was suspended in mid-air in a land of no-return. Sometimes I think I had a narrow escape from being marooned in that world of no sensations except heart-stopping dread. My head spun when I stood upright. It seemed that the phantom of last night's inebriation was still determined to haunt me. I decided not to fight it. With the honey-brown phantom's arms wrapped snugly around my neck, I walked unsteadily to my door. When the clouds cleared, quite unlike the stubborn monsoon sky, I saw a dishevelled Shayan shuffling on my doorstep. His eyes simply wouldn't focus on one single spot and I wondered if he could have possibly downed more whiskey than I had the previous night. And then he surprised me by reaching for my hands. "Kavya, you have to help me. She's going to die and I have no idea how to stop it! I simply cannot stop painting." I watched his features contort with pain and desperation and contemplated upon the warmth in his fingers. I like people whose hands are warm and heavy with something pleasant. People with cold, clammy hands make me want to jerk away with a combination of distrust and repulsion. "Show me," I said, and followed Shayan into his apartment. Our hands were still entwined and I had to hold my breath so stop his warmth from seeping into me.

His apartment looked even worse for wear than the last time I had set foot in it. And yet, the blasts of colour that emanated from the portraits carefully stacked all over, somehow made the rooms beautiful. And I hated them for it. I hated the fact that every stroke resonated with careful deliberation and loving perfection. I despised the softness in her features and the dreamy wistfulness in her eyes. I wanted to shut my eyes against the realisation that that was exactly what Suvarna might have looked like, had she made it past the turbulence of her youth. "I wished I'd known," I found myself saying. "Known what?" "That the servant was molesting her. I'm sure of it. She tried to tell me, many times. Not in so many words but in several other ways. I wish I hadn't been blind." If I had bothered to listen, Suvarna would still be alive, Shayan would have never been a part of my memories and he would still be smiling and sane. He would still be himself and not this raging mass of despair that now stood over me, refusing to let go of the comfort of my skin. I jerked my hand away and for a moment, enjoyed the hurt that crossed his face. Of course, that was immediately followed by regret. That seemed to define most of my life - impulse followed by regret. "Where's the last painting?" I asked and followed the motion of Shayan's pointing fingers. There she was, Suvarna, in her twilight days, her beautiful features wizened by the curvature of years and her milky glow dimmed by the shadows of approaching oblivion. "I don't want her to die," Shayan whispered, the thickness in his voice like a coil around my bones, pressing until they threatened to snap. I made the mistake of speaking my mind. "Isn't it a good thing? You'll be free, at last." Bony hands were gripping me by the hands and enraged eyes threatened to set my face aflame. "Free?" Shayan said, the low decibel of his voice pooling at the bottom of my heart like inky fear. "These have been the best days of my life, Kavya. I have never felt so absolutely absorbed in my life and my art as I have felt these last few days. With every wrinkle and silvery strand that I paint, I find my soul shrinking. I fear there may be nothing of me left when she's gone." With a start, I realised that my eyes were moist. This was unexpected. It struck me that Shayan had spoken of Suvarna as though she were his soulmate. "Why don't you ask her what to do then?" I said coolly, wrenched his fingers off my reddening arm and managed to walk out of his apartment without shivering once.

I spent the next hour staring vacantly into the morning, from my perch on the balcony, resisting the strange moisture in my eyes.

(To be continued)