The Metropolis

When he woke up, it was still raining outside. The sky was cloudy and purple, the trees looked grey and wet and cramped. Littered with innumerable pot-holes with little pools of brown, muddy water swimming in them, the road looked all worn out and desolate. The narrow shanties that lined it looked restless and edgy like a cornered dog in heat. He looked outside his window. The drains were open and over-flowing. The garbage-dump was now an intimidating pile of all sorts of nasty filth that even the stray dogs stayed clear off. Barely twenty metres away from it was the street-market where everybody brought vegetables. Tomatoes, cabbages, lady-fingers and brinjals all muddy and slushy, being sold there on the dirty road on nothing more than a bare, blue plastic sheet; right there amidst the unbearable stench and blood and feathers from the chicken-shop behind. And people were buying that stuff and feeding it to their children and living as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

He closed his eyes for a second in a silent prayer about nothing in particular. He looked away. As a daily practice he avoided eating a heavy dinner so that he did not need to use the lavatory in the morning. It was a public lavatory that everyone on that floor shared… all four flats and their twenty-three residents. He went to the pay-toilet next to the station. To say it was cleaner would mean that he had enough water to flush his shit when he was done. He generally did not brush his teeth for there was not enough water for it. His living area was a tiny room partitioned by thick card-board material. He shared that small flat with four others. The roof was generally leaking and the walls were always damp from the pipes outside. It was impossible to keep anything dry inside the house, and all his shirts carried the faint odor of moist cement. It was a funny kind of odor, but one which you would not mistake for anything else in the world except moist cement. It made him nauseous and he was now addicted to headache pills.

He left while the sun was still beginning to rise. The rain was now a mere drizzle and clouds had scattered for the time-being. The narrow lane to the station was already abuzz with the daily passengers. It was a daily migration. The local train from the sub-urban areas ferrying millions to the heart of the metropolis’ commercial areas to keep money flowing through its veins, then returning the same people back to their cramped dumps in the same fashion it had brought them… without compassion, without empathy and most of all without dignity. They went forth packed like galley-slaves in those train-compartments bursting out from its seams, shunting along with this tremendous surge of humanity on it that never asked any questions and always had the same forlorn faces. Long and tired and devoid of any life or hope. He was one of them.

Angry and silent and waiting.

‘Any moment now all of this will explode’, the fiery leader of an orange rightist party wrote in his political newspaper. ‘This city cannot let itself be overrun by migrants. They have reduced it to a garbage heap. They have stifled us, the people of this land and they have taken our jobs and rightful livelihoods. It is they who are to blame for this big mess we have all landed up in.’ He folded his Re 1 copy of the newspaper as his daily breakfast arrived. He ate a budget meal at the same cheap hotel everyday. It had filthy tables and lost, immigrant bhaiyyas from Bihar dressed modestly in their baniyaans as waiters. They were always sweaty and their sinewy black bodies looked hardened and over-worked. Their eyes were dead and they used to dig their nose a lot. It was impossible to hold an intelligent conversation with them, as they barely ever understood what was being asked of them on the first instance. He ate quickly and left the place without drinking the hazy water they poured out for him, leaving no tips behind.

The walk to his office, if you could call it an office, was through another narrow lane before crossing along the length of one of the main arterial roads. The way would be choked; man and car stuck together, inching forward together, jostling, pushing, cursing, honking… together. The flyover overhead was jammed with traffic and an inertia of silent rage, crippling frustration and pending chaos and anarchy hung in the stale air. All around were hoardings with strangely smiling faces, screaming about something or the other. Nothing seemed to make any sense, not the snaking queues outside the ticket-counters at local stations nor those at the joke of a security-check at the mall entrances. Everything was suddenly a Big-Bazaar. There was a sale on everything. The hoardings, the intersections, the traffic jams, the sales and the smiles – all amalgamated into a strange oneness celebrated in its morbid monotony everywhere across the metropolis; a symphony of the diseased, an opera of the strange… a land with moving people, millions, each without an address.

He fished into his wallet and pulled out a one-rupee coin. It slid smoothly down the slot on the pay-phone once he had dialed the number on the slightly greasy and stubborn dial.

“Hello, I am calling from Dhanraj Chemicals.” Baba, I want to be a hero when I grow up. ‘Like Swami Vivekananda?’.

“Yes. Collect the consignment from my Godown.” No. Like Amitabh Bachann

“Ok.” A static on the other end made him realize that the line had been disconnected. A few crows screeched raucously at each other on a wire overhead. The rain had stopped. An obscenely bright sun broke from behind the clouds and in a garish display of its vanity, made the wet, almost grey-almost brown road, glisten. Umbrellas looked stupid. You squinted as the glint from the sunlight on the vehicles hurt your eyes. It was suddenly too bright. Too loud and too obscene… well, almost.

“One navy-cut cigarette.’

“Chutta nahi hai saab.” He put the fifty-rupee note back in his pocket and gruffly walked towards the taxi-stand. It took him twenty-seven minutes and thirteen refusals before someone agreed to take him. They just parked their taxis and lazed in them. Everybody wanted a long fare. Everybody wanted an extra buck. Everybody wanted to race and wanted to be the first. Too many people running, he thought to himself. He wished he had gun. He wished he had a lot of things.

Another jam. Another beggar. Another hijra. A painfully young hijra with her curly hair worn long in an untidy braid and the faint beginnings of a stubble crowning her face. Long, shabby earrings hung from ears. He couldn’t listen to what was being said to him. He kept blinking as the hijra felt his face all over with her rough, manly hands. A cheap, faded watch on her wrist told him it was one in the afternoon. The lights turned green. Last of the jaywalkers skipped away from the roads and the watch and the untidy braid were left behind. Another signal, another jam, another beggar… a little girl with a shivering baby in her hands.

He paused. He did not have change. The taxi-driver shooed the kid away. She screeched at him before leaving and called him a son of a whore. The taxi-driver swore back at her, but she was gone. He turned back to explain to him that these people were ruining the metropolis. They swarmed to it in droves from their villages seeking to make a fortune and make it easy. They had reduced everything to filth. They had reduced the dignity of a common man’s hard-earned day’s honest work. They… they… they…

“Just look at the records saab. The jails are full of them. Wonder how they raise their children?”

“Why is the road so jammed? At this time usually its free?” He asked without offering a comment.

“There is some accident up ahead I think.”

In about ten minutes time, taxi number MH-A-781 crawled past the accident site and he saw it. An old man with his face squashed, reportedly by a bus. “The back-tyre went over his head saab. No chance. Spot-dead.” The taxi-driver offered before entering into a rambling about how he once escaped a life-threatening accident situation with nothing more than a scratched car and a few bruises. Everyone has one of those stories to tell. The ones that you absolutely don’t want to listen to because you cannot relate them to the sight you’ve just seen. A man dead… crushed skull, eyes squished out of eye-balls, blood thicker than you’ve ever imagined blood to be. A mangled body still stuck to a mangled scooter. Arms distorted in ways that will give you nightmares for a week. A crowd of people just standing around in sickening silence and apathy…

Some distance and time away, it is the same taxi in another jam. The road is lined with all sorts of small shops selling umbrellas, wallets, incense-sticks, cheap clothes and curios. Hundreds of people walk past them every hour and nobody seems to stop. The shop-keepers all look tired and lost. They seem a part of their crowded displays, like exhibits in a museum, slotted and behind glass-panes… And now presenting our latest exhibit ladies and gentlemen – The Man of the Metropolis.

Nearby a smart-looking church stood on the road. It was not big or imposing or beautiful so to say, but was a handy-little place to go to. A sign outside announced in bold letters, the sermon for the day – “ONLY JESUS CAN TRULY FORGIVE THE SINS OF MAN”

He looked at it for a few seconds, then he hissed “Fuck you” under his breath. He didn’t say another word for a long time. He just sat there – angry and silent and waiting.

Me and Cinderella

“C’mon drive a little, nothing is forever…” – She loved The Wallflowers. She smelled of roses and drank white wine every Easter. She spoke like the early morning breeze and had hair that felt like the loving caress of a passing meadow on your face. She loved poetry and adored Shelley. She is now dead. And I cannot get over it.

It’s been five years and one month and nine days – and eleven hours and fourteen minutes and twenty-one seconds… twenty-two… twenty-three…

I always thought TS Elliot was more romantic. She blamed it on my ignorance and lack of ‘technical education’ in English literature. I accused her of being a cultural snob saying that one didn’t need a degree in English language to appreciate poetry. She smiled. She always did, and tossed her hair back with a flourish that was neither too exaggerated nor underplayed, with a soft pout on her lips and subtle tease in her eyes – she said she loved me. I swear she did. She always took my breath away when she did that.

I lost my breath a total of four thousand, seven hundred and sixty-five times.

I have her loving memory by my side, like a burning reality that stokes my words. And my words are all I have left, when everything else that I once knew to be real and tangible and material, just slipped out of my grasp. Now, I cannot touch anything, feel feelings, smell rhymes and drink the songs that once were the world on my walls and looked back at me from my frozen mirror, excitedly welcoming a new day. Now I stand frozen as my mirror, like my mirror… I have become my own mirror. I don’t hold images, I just watch them pass me by; their stories now irrelevant to me… their meaning beyond my definition or concern.

I just have my words now. But my words are limited. No one reads them, no one hears them… so I just limit my words to her.

I once believed that my words had passion. I once believed that words were strong, powerful creatures that no one could or should mess with. Words could bring down Gods and raise civilizations. Words could reside in infinity and from infinity to nothingness, they could cover everything. They could see everything and destroy or create as they willed. They were potent and benign giants with a crazy sense of humor.

I tried to tame words. She said I could. She said I was the craziest writer she had ever read or met. She said I didn’t write words, I didn’t speak them – I saw them. It was a ludicrous idea, I told her. It was exactly one of those exotic permutations of the language that made something sound like an exquisitely profound assertion when in reality, it meant nothing. She smiled, every time I said that. She smiled, and took my breath away.

A total of four thousand, seven hundred and sixty-five times.

Now, only photographs remain, buried in the bosom of some yellowed book on the shelves with the dust of ignored chores and scared memories. I wake up. I sleep. I eat and I make tea. I submit myself to my husband so he can ravage my body in search of that little moment of peace for his insatiable hunger. Then, I smile. His son tugs at my saree when we pass a bakery. He likes pastries. He likes sweets. He likes Easter-eggs. I cringe.

I secretly pass her house sometimes after I drop him off at school. I keep tabs. There have been lovers. Many. Father had said consider her dead. Threats. Beatings. Locked-in. Tears. Many tears. The gnawing emptiness. Therapy. Marriage. Pregnancy. Simple words… It’s been, five years and one month and nine days – and eleven hours and seventeen minutes and thirty-four seconds… thirty-five… thirty-six…

The fireman & the fishbowl

"Don’t tire yourself out” called out Meena chuckling to herself, partly out of habit and partly out of humour, as she closed the old door behind her with a bang. She hadn’t seen her father tire himself out for quite some years now. Back in her school days though, he often complained of being exhausted when she would demand being taken to the park. Her friend Neelima would often tell stories of how her father had raced with her or been on the see-saws and swings. It all sounded like a lot of fun. So, Meena could not help but feel disgusted at staid image of her father sitting passively and having his breakfast, head down, his briefcase next to his feet and always ignorant of her presence on the table. Yes it was either that or him fighting with mother over some things they thought best to send her to her room for. She hated him absolutely. She wanted him to die, for making mother cry so much… for not taking her to the park. One day, she thought, she would get back at him and she would lock him up in a room and not let him anywhere. “Don’t tire yourself out”, she would chuckle to herself as she would imagine the scene. It made her feel a little happy. But that was a long time ago and a lot of fish had died between then and now.

One thousand, five hundred and sixty seven to be more precise.

The goldfish lived longer of course, and the longest survivor to exist in that crammed, dirty and smelly bowl lasted about two whole years. Twenty two months and seventeen days to be more precise. It had even been named or something, but he couldn’t recollect it. So, Mr Somnath sat on his chair and stared out of the window all morning trying to remember what it’s name was.

He wasn’t really trying to think though. But if his brain were to be suddenly jolted back to the realm of spontaneous, real-time existence, as it had been now with the noisy bang of the door closing, and then confused if it would look to seek an explanation from his senses as to why they had been in suspended animation for so long… this would perhaps be his alibi.

‘Ah, now I remember… I was trying to remember the name of that god damn fish’

Assured by his brain and senses that all was fine, that he did indeed have a purpose for sitting on that chair and waste away the entire morning, he smiled a momentary satisfied smile. Then resumed ‘thinking’ again. In the background the television was droning on and on about some natural disaster here or a political crisis there. Meena had a habit of leaving it on for her father fully aware of the fact he did not take a liking to it. Perhaps that was one of the reasons she did it anyhow. The television, it seemed, was forever ready with some calamity or the other either happening or waiting to happen around the world. It depressed the hell out of old Mr Somnath, so he preferred not to watch it at all. The fish were far more comfortable and peaceful. Nothing ever seemed to happen to them. They just kept swimming around till they died. It was as simple as that.

‘Ah, what was the name again…’ he wondered out aloud at sporadic intervals.

Outside, it was a beautiful sky… beautiful only through its ordinariness. Brightly blue and draped in sunlight, held together by a few irregular clouds… it seemed a day, like any other day. It was in fact, any other day. Inside the fish bowl, it never seemed to be too different outside but Mr Somnath tried not to think about irrelevant things such as death and darkness. Light was always sporadic. It was intermittent. But it did not prevent birds from singing or trees from growing. Everything seemed to be in a state of continuous flux. Everything except the fish and Mr Somnath that is.

“…In a separate incident of violence in the capital today, a sixty-five year old woman was stabbed to death by two petty thieves. She had been living alone at the time. This new incident has shocked a lot of people because of the brazen and casual manner in which the entire crime was committed. The police have ordered an enquiry and now more questions are being raised on the security of…”

The television was utterly depressing.

He must have had a job at some point of time, reasoned Mr Somnath. Only he couldn’t remember what it was. He could have been anything. ‘Maybe I was a fire-fighter’. He chuckled for a moment and then pondered deeply on the thought. ‘Of course I was fire-fighter. Either that or a sales manager’.

He looked over at the bowl again. Two fishes, a red one and a blue one were swimming about merrily. They didn’t seem to think of themselves as anything else apart from a red fish or a blue fish. Maybe they didn’t even know what red and blue was. ‘Then how the hell do they recognise each other?’ They must have names or something. All the men and fish have some sort of a name. ‘What was the name of that goldfish again…’

He had a wife once too. He remembered her of course. She had long hair and brown skin. She was an ordinary soul, the kind of woman who wouldn’t register on your head when you looked around the room. But she had a clear and sparkling laughter. It was simple, heartfelt, innocent and radiated joy and warmth. She didn’t often laugh like that, but when she did… it seemed special. He didn’t remember much of his wife of course, except apart from her laughter. She had a name too. Of course she had he remembered it. It was Jaysree.

Maybe it was easier to remember the fish if they had something special about them. The goldfish was pretty special too. It had lived a long while. But then again, so had Mr Somnath. And he couldn’t entirely remember a lot of things about himself.

‘Drat! What was the damn name of the fish?’

*

Meena returned a few hours later to the familiar sound of the television left on its own in the background. She would not bang the door when she came back like she did everyday while leaving, for he was usually sleeping by this time and she didn’t quite fancy waking him up. Quietly she tiptoed across the room to her father, her mobile phone still pressed to her ear (it was Raja of course), to check if he was still breathing or not. She did that everyday.

“Well?” asked Raja.

“No. He’s still here, sleeping.”

“You are kind of weird you know that” he chuckled.

“Really?” Meena was a little irritated. “Well, I get it from him. He’s such a stupid old man… lousy father. I never once saw him make Ma smile. I bet he was lousy in bed too”

“Now, now…”

“No really check this out. He’s been scribbling in the telephone diary… ‘I am the fire-fighter’. Yes right! You wish!” she mumbled slightly miffed and slightly amused, before flipping the pages over. “God, he’s just doodled over five pages of my telephone diary! Jaysree… Jaysree, five pages of this! God what do I do with him” she almost shrieked.

“Jaysree isn’t she the same…”

“Yes” she interrupted his sentence curtly.

“Oh”

“He’s ruined my telephone diary as well” she exclaimed excitedly and then immediately checked if her voice had not woken him up. Assured, she sobered down a bit. “I know he’s ill and all but…”

“No buts. Just relax. Get him a writing pad or something. I’ll buy you a new diary. There! Happy?”

“I love you so much” she gushed.

“…The European Union has expressed concern over the deteriorating condition of human rights in the middle-east and has…” Meena moved across the room and turned the television off.

In the other corner of the room, the blue fish had died. The red one continued swimming around merrily, oblivious of the other’s existence, waiting to be fed.

A long time ago, on a play-ground somewhere...

I must have been in class eight back then I guess and I never really went to the playground at recess. They played those games there – hand-cricket, where you substituted the bat with your fist and there was soccer with those small tennis balls. I was never really good at those playground-games actually. I was good at cricket though, the one where you played with a bat and all. In fact, I thought I was good enough for the school team, but somehow I never made the grade. Anyways, I thought hand-cricket was stupid and therefore I never really wanted to play it. I liked reading Tintins at the school library during lunch, although I had finished reading the series a year ago.

It was one of those rare days I guess when I had ventured onto the field. I wasn’t playing or anything, just strolling about. Sometimes I just like surrounding myself with chaos, I guess. The ground seemed very small and the boys were running about everywhere. There were so many of those tennis-balls flying around that it was really difficult for anyone standing at a distance of more than ten yards to keep track of the game he was in. Lots of yelling, pushing, shoving, and good old fashioned sports… and right in between all of that, Karan Singhania, looking silly in his grey shorts, was strolling about with his fists buried deep inside his pockets when a ball gently came rolling by his feet.

I did the most natural thing that one does when a ball comes rolling onto your feet on a playing field… I kicked it away. Almost instantly, I felt someone push me hard from the behind.

“Bastard, what did you do that for?”

I recognized him immediately, it was Arjun Jaiswal. He was one of those boys who were taller than the rest and who had started shaving already. I too had wanted to start shaving but apart from a soft little growth from my side-locks, I did not really have much of a beard. It made me depressed as hell sometimes, but I didn’t really have a choice.

“I asked you something asshole, just who do you think you are?” He gave me a menacing look.

I must have been thinking something because I was too busy with myself to bother answering his stupid questions. A few boys had already gathered around smelling some trouble. Back in school whenever someone swore in anger, it was supposed to be the sign that a fight was about to break out. And people like Arjun made a living picking fights at ground and showcasing their heroism in beating up just about anyone. I wanted to swear back at him too, not because I was getting angry or anything, but just for the heck of it. The problem however was I did not know too many swear words so I just stood there silently looking at all the boys who were gathering around.

“You stay away from our game you rascal, otherwise I am gonna box your nose in. You get that?”

Rascal, Arjun had called me a rascal… now that was the genius of the kid. I mean we all knew the word ‘rascal’ was a swear word because we had studied it one of those O. Henry stories back in class seven. But no one would have had the presence of mind to work that into his speech. Stuff like that just didn’t occur to us and I am sure a lot of boys standing around us then, must have been impressed by Arjun because he had called me a rascal. Why didn’t I think of that? Maybe I did not swear often.

“Not really rascal” I replied nonchalantly.

Arjun immediately socked me in the ribs and I just bundled over. He was one of those kids who were not afraid to let one loose just for kicks you know. And I had got it… straight and swift, and had the wind knocked out of my chest. As I collapsed, I just lay there on the ground clutching my chest and gasping for air, when Arjun triumphantly yelled at me something about minding my own business and all. But when I did not get up, they all started getting worried.

I just lay there you know, dying I think. And I was thinking that it was such a stupid way to die getting punched in the chest and all. I was sure I had popped a rib or something because I just couldn’t move. Within a few moments there was a big crowd around, and they all panicked when I think I started coughing up some blood at my mouth. It wasn’t a lot of blood really, it was mostly spittle but the whole thing was funny really, because I wasn’t really in much pain or anything. Only I couldn’t breathe or move, but you should have seen the look on their faces. Especially Arjun, he didn’t look so tough now.

In fact he had started crying by the time our games teacher had arrived on the scene with the school nurse. I felt kind of sorry for him and all. They were sure to suspend him or something because our principal was like very particular about student discipline and shit. I wanted to help him then, I wanted to tell them that if I had not been such an asshole I would not have got punched in the first place. You don’t call someone a rascal back unless you want a fight. I mean shouldn’t have called him that if all I had intended to do was just bundle over and lie helplessly on the ground gasping for air. No, Arjun didn’t deserve to be punished so harshly. I am sure he didn’t want to pop my ribs or anything. He looked back at me, with pleading tear-filled eyes, to say the same to the teacher who was dragging him away to the principal’s office.

I did try to speak. Honest I did. But the words just wouldn’t come out. I felt really helpless then, caged and suffocated. As the nurse lifted my head up a little and wiped some blood off, I tried to speak again. But nothing happened. Then I started crying too. I wanted to speak up and save Arjun’s ass, and that feeling of gagged powerlessness to change the way things were going to unfold even though I knew I could, made something inside snap. I swear I didn’t cry because of anything else.

I cried because I knew that sometimes even though you think you can stop the march of destiny, you actually never have a choice.

Suspended Animation

Stories and poems get all but forgotten when the wheels of a mundane profanity dripping from the salivating tongue of a world gone horribly wrong on the virtues that it chose to sustain itself on, come forth in a random, naked dance of its own wild choosing to paint the moods and aspirations of young impressionable souls locked between romance and purpose – a chasm, deep and divided, further multiplied by the villainies of fate and other such things, finite and complicated.

Music blared from the speakers as Karan sat on his chair, his eyes closed and a cigarette tucked between his lips.

It is indeed a trance that envelops his senses. He fights his own mind. Lethargy. Depression. Manic. Frustrating. Pendulums. Swinging wildly, to and fro between the extremes of a joyous existence encumbered by the posturings that pretend to be sourced from the deeper and more profound things that come about in life, yet bereft of the substance that makes the intellect of an individual rest within its confined barriers, not in ignorance, but in peace and completeness. The pendulums do not break barriers. It’s not their ‘purpose’, it never really was. The wiser saints, the blessed ones stop by sometimes drunk on their own condescension and the mock illusions of their invincibility, and then they tell him that the pendulums are the law and the pendulums are the order and the pendulums rule the world and nature and everything that has a purpose as nothing can really exist without a purpose and nothing can really exist in suspended animation.

But structure and symmetry are the fascinations of the weak, mused the weakling to himself.

When the dawn bleeds the morning sky virgin from its night stars and a glowing radiant moon, it does not take sides. It does not take decisions. It is spontaneous. It is natural. It is random. It is how the universe conceived it to be. It is independent of time and it is independent of all the obligations of suffocation that come to suffocate the ones who are suffocated beyond the suffocated limits of the an asphyxiated mind already suffocated on its own constraints and with the suffocating burden of inventing ever more newer suffocating constraints for itself.

Another match-stick. Another cigarette. Another day. Another life. Karan, stands and waits.

Love and loneliness and lust and loyalty – phantoms which prey his stagnated consciousness, beyond the redemption of rationality or romance, beyond even the comprehension that is the luxury reserved only for the ones who are smug enough to not realise the pathos of the eternal cycles that the throes of sanity sends one through. Sitting by the windows that refuse to ever open, that refuse to let the sunshine ever wash the room clean from its years of dust and hued cobwebs – the confused one contemplates of the confusions that confuse the muddled definitions of what constitutes confusion and what constitutes definition.

Memories, he called them. Haunted and harried, he choked on his own breath; coughing violently.

Walls and friends, ornaments of daily wear that never seem to grow beyond the ambits of that defining ceiling – whitewashed in a shabby way, rule the days and the nights of the walking people. Then of course there are the ones who sit by themselves, or atleast the ones who always seek to do so; questioned the naïve one – what of them, what becomes of them, who finds them or do they die trapped inside their own elaborate labyrinths suffocating on recycled air passed on down through the generations of broken hearted and disillusioned lovers and loners. There must be a revered deity of such people too. A deity who gives them the pleasure of the pain which inspires them to find the epiphany which shall through its tragedy sustain not only an entire lifetime, but also the beyond – if indeed there is a beyond for such people. A deity without whom the pain would cease to be meaningful, a chronic ailment subject to cures based on simplified algorithms of finding ever new distractions to create ever new meanings of pleasure.

She still stays frustratingly out of his grasp to either forget or forgive.

Culling the chicken

“So you think you like peanuts?”

“Huh?”

“I said, do you think you like peanuts?” He repeated just as innocently as he had first put forward the question. And it was perhaps the innocence which got her to respond.

“I guess so”, but she immediately regretted saying so. She had been taught to know better than to speak some random, slightly-odd looking man sitting on a park bench by the lake. Another girl, another time would not have even sat on that bench next to him. But Megha was tired today, as tired as someone not used to wearing high heels for six straight hours while walking in the blazing Kolkata sun. Arun said he would be there on time, but he wasn’t. He never was. It was very frustrating to have to wait nearly half an hour for your boyfriend to come and meet you, and as usual she was absolutely livid about having to do so. This time of her day was usually spent in calling her boyfriend all sorts of names that were absolutely unlike the mushy ones they were prone to address each other with during their more intimate moments.

But she did not really fancy being livid and calling her boyfriend all those names while standing on her high heels in the blazing albeit slightly more comfortable evening Kolkata sun. All the other benches in sight were occupied by noisy and sweaty school children after a dirty game of soccer, local hoodlums who passed rather predatory looks at anything passing by in a skirt and couples two or three of whom would squeeze together on a single bench (for the lack of space elsewhere) so closely, that it is really a wonder how they could carry a conversation between themselves without overhearing the others.

“See that’s the problem, nobody’s really ever sure of anything” He said with eyes that were so dead and devoid of emotion that it almost made Megha sad. But it was an odd comment to make. You don’t really expect the unkempt timid looking guy, who has not shaved for what seems like more than a couple of days but less than a week, sitting next to you on the park bench to really say anything to you. And when he does you are bound to be a little apprehensive of sitting on the bench in the first place even though you know it is probably not as bad as sitting next to three loving couples or hoodlums with x-ray eyes. But you should know better nonetheless especially if you are girl and have been taught to know better.

So naturally Megha’s first instinctive reaction was to dissuade the person by being cold and aggressive

“What do you mean?” she enquired sternly.

“Nothing” He immediately squealed and turned his gaze away from her to a point on the ground maybe two or three feet away from where he was sitting. He looked very timid and fragile. You could sense that he had suddenly become very nervous, his fingers were twitching in a weird fashion and his eyes squinted for a few moments as if someone had just presented a tight slap on his flushed cheeks.

“I am sorry… I didn’t mean to startle you” she said somewhat apologetically.

“It’s… it’s ok” He replied easing up a little. “I get nervous very easily”.

“Oh, well I am sorry again” Megha spoke again, this time in a patronizing maternal tone prompted by his nervous demeanor. “You were saying something about peanuts. Are you hungry? There is a peanut-seller right there on…”

“No, no… I am fine” he interrupted. “I don’t want to eat peanuts. I just wanted to know what they looked like today”

“You mean you’ve never actually seen peanuts?” She asked incredulously.

“Of course I have. Peanuts, walnuts, cashew nuts… what’s the difference? I’ve seen them all. In fact I’ve seen everything. ”.

“Then why’d you ask me that?” she questioned somewhat softly, still unsure whether she should just shut up and ignore the person or continue the conversation.

“I wanted to know if you like peanuts, so you could describe for me what they look like today”.

Hearing this, Megha thought it best not to respond. She gave a polite smile and turned her face away. He was a weird looking man, conservatively in his early thirties. His hair was unkempt and his shirt, a couple of sizes too big for him, seemed to float on his thin, wiry frame that sat on the very edge of the concrete bench. He looked very fragile, in fact almost so fragile that it would have scared you. It seemed if even the wind blew into a bit of a gust, it might cause him to crumble and fall into little pieces. But his eyes were absolutely dead, and his left arm kept fidgeting with a small piece of coloured chalk with which he kept on scribbling on the bench. Megha, sitting on his left, tried to notice what he was scribbling out of the corner of her eye but her curiosity could not sustain the efforts it warranted and she gave up very soon.

As far as she was concerned this was just some random person speaking gibberish on the park bench by the lake, where she was waiting for Arun. She could very well ignore him from this moment on. Arun should be here anyways. She glanced at her watch again and cursed him again.

“That’s a good watch you know” he observed. She ignored.

“I used to buy Sara watches like it. Of course not entirely like that you know. They were made of plastic and did not really tell the time, but Sara could not tell the difference. It’s easy with kids you know… sometimes you can get away with stuff like that”.

He scratched his bearded chin with his right hand and looked around at random, but nothing of consequence arrested his attention.

“Of course I did not really want to cheat my daughter forever you know. I would have brought her one of them real watches when she would’ve grown up. But they burnt her. I was wondering yesterday though, if I had to buy a watch for her where should I get it from… I don’t know any good shops”.

“You mean your daughter was burnt?” She asked shocked.

“Raped, disembowelled and then burnt” He replied matter-of-factly. Then suddenly became nervous again and started casting furtive glances to his right and kept scratching his chin. “You see I am new in Kolkata…” He stopped again to cast another quick glance to the right before continuing “… and, I don’t know any decent watch shops”.

“How awful” Megha cried. “Where are you from?” She asked now absolutely concerned.

“Dinajpur Colony of course”

“Where is that?”

“Baroda”.

“Godhra?”, She asked almost in the same concerned tone as a terminally ill patient would enquire his doctor prior to receiving his reports.

“No. Dinajpur Colony, Baroda”

“What’s your name?” She asked eagerly.

“Murad Hussain”

“Where do you stay?” She asked eagerly.

“At the Kolkata Communion for Communal Peace, near the …” he stopped abruptly and looked straight into Megha’s eyes. It was the first time he had done it so far. It was a cold look; nervous, violent, scared and implosive. Suddenly his face contorted and his cheeks started to quiver.

“What happened?” She asked eagerly.

No response. Her mobile phone rang. She ignored it.

“What happened?” Silence. The phone ringing. “Hello?”

“Darling, sweetheart… I am sorry, I am sorry… I am so sorry” A voice exploded very fast, perhaps so because it anticipated a retaliatory barrage from the other end. Finding only a confused silence instead, it slowed down to a more comprehensible tone. “I got stuck with some work at office and boss just would not let me leave. I know I am already very late. But I am leaving now. Are you still at the lake?”

“Er… yes, I am” Megha responded.

“Good, I’ll be there in about ten minutes. Got to go now, love you honey… Bye”.

Click. Silence. Tension. Confusion…

At that very instant a couple of men, easily in their early twenties and dressed in cheap and colourful shirts and caps, passed by. Seeing Megha they proceeded to sing some rather suggestive Hindi film songs. They seemed amused at their own attempt of having thought of something as innately clever as singing a song to illicit a tailored response of practised ignorance from Megha. After having exhausted their intellectual faculties in this endeavour, they soon proceeded to move in a different direction where one of them had just spotted a couple get a little cosy. They left amidst much laughter, in fact almost rolling with it… still singing the song.

As the sound however, faded further and further away, Megha relaxed and looked over to Murad. He sat there on his bench, with fists clinched so hard that the knuckles had almost become white. His gaze was directed firmly at the ground and he looked as if he was going to explode any moment.

“Are you alright?”

“I would’ve killed them” He hissed, his fists and teeth still clenched.

“Who? Them?” Megha enquired referring to the singing road-side Romeos

“Yes them. I would have killed them, wrung their necks with my own hands” He paused for a moment, easing a little but becoming more nervous “… if only they did not have knives”.

“But they did not have any knives” said Megha, while trying to recall if either one of them was indeed carrying one.

“They looked like they were carrying knives”

“Oh”

“You see, I am not scared of dying. I think everyone should die. But there should be a method to it. Something inspirational. Something which shows the way forward.”. He paused for a second. “Everyone notices that kind of thing. Getting knifed in the face in a park is a stupid way to die won’t you agree? That’s what I am afraid of… dying in a stupid fashion”

“That and of course, long knives” he added after a short pause. “I am very scared of long knives”.

“Who else was their in your family” She asked sympathetically.

“Everyone”. She left it at that and did not push it further. There was an awkward silence for a few moments. The evening sun was dying on another sky waiting to be washed anew by a starless night and a lazy moon. The clouds seemed bored with everything else and spread themselves out at random across the entire expanse of the vast, orange sky like grazing sheep left alone on a desolate hillside. All of a sudden a cool breeze picked and combed through Megha’s hair. It passed on caress Murad’s face, as the last glow of the evening sun on its way to tomorrow’s history painted his cheeks a fiery red. His eyes were dead. Hair ruffled, and shirt loose… but his gaze was intense. Megha felt dwarfed. She wanted to ask a thousand questions but groped for meaningful words, wanted to give a thousand assurances but lacked the commitment… she wanted to do a lot of things, but just impatiently looked at her watch, reminding herself that Arun was just on the way.

“What do you want to do in your life?” asked Murad all of a sudden, his face determined and intense still. He had stopped fidgeting with the chalk and was staring at his hands.

“Law… I am studying law”.

“No, no. I am not asking what you will become. I am asking what do you want to do?” He spoke slowly in clear and precise words, measuring out the whole universe in his palm with his intense gaze.

“Er, I don’t know what you mean”

“I want to cull the chicken” said Murad ignoring her words.

“Huh?”

“Arrange all of them in sixteen rows, ten deep and wring their necks with my bare hands… one by one, throttle them and twist them…” his voice petered off.

“Why one-sixty?”

“One-sixty, One thousand… One million, it’s all the same! I just want to cull the chicken”. He repeated even more firmly this time.

The phone rang again. “Where are you sweetheart?”

“Have you reached?” fumbled Megha. On receiving an affirmative, she twitched in her seat for a moment and looked around nervously not knowing what to do or say.

“Ok, you just stay there… I’ll come in a minute” She finally managed to instruct.

“I’ve got to go Murad. I am sorry for leaving so abruptly, but my boyfriend is here. But I would love to come visit you again sometime. Where is this Kolkata Communion thing?”

“I am not really sure I will ever know” replied Murad honestly.

“Huh! What do you mean?”

“I mean things keep changing everyday. Peanuts, neighbours… the whole world. So, I am not really sure”.

“Oh tell me Murad where do you stay now?” Running out of patience.

“Do you know any decent watch shops?”

“Oh, forget it. Kolkata Communion for Communal…” She tried remembering. “I’ll look it up”. She turned around and quickly walked away down the path. While walking down, she adjusted her hair unconsciously with her left hand, fidgeted with her watch and put her phone in her bag.

“Hey honey, I am so sorry you had to wait for so long” Gushed Arun as soon as he saw his girl walking towards him.

“It’s ok, I found an interesting person”. She said while walking towards his bike.

“Interesting person, eh?” He said while getting on it.

“Yes, he’s some kind of riot victim or something. Speaks mostly gibberish though”.

Arun kick-started his bike and Megha hopped on clinging tightly to his firm body “We must visit him sometime”

“Of course we shall. These riot victims and all… we must do our bit to rehabilitate them and everything…” He mouthed the words while speeding his bike.

“Oh Arun, you are such a sensitive baby. That is why I love you so much” Squealed Megha, her words barely reaching Arun as the bike picked up speed.

“Where does he stay?”

“At this Kolkata Community thing…”

*

Meanwhile the vision of Ramsukh Desai, the man who had virtually raised Sara in his arms closing the door on her face as three men with long knives chased her… played itself for the umpteenth time in front of Murad’s dead eyes.

“I just want to cull the chicken” he muttered to himself, as he nervously and agitatedly scribbled away anew on his seat with the piece of coloured chalk.

Somewhere beyond the calm and placid waters of the South Kolkata lakes, the sun had settled for the night. Only a few dying embers of it remained now, a few tinges of purple in a fast darkening sky… …

*

पुरानी बातें

आज कल फिर वही मौसम है
जब बीती बातों का आलम है
चारों और वही उदासी
वही सन्नाटा, वही तन्हाई
वही मैं और वही परछाई
वही रात और वही दीवांगी

कहीं दूर एक तूफ़ान उठता है
अपनी मदहोशी के आगोश में लिए हजारों बातें
शायद अकेले में कुछ कहना चाहता है
शायद... कुछ याद दिलाना चाहता है
शायद... कुछ भुलाना चाहता है

रात के काले सन्नाटे में,
एक मदहोश तूफ़ान नया आघाज़ करना चाहता है

पुरानी किताबों के आँचल में जडी कुछ तस्वीरें,
अचानक फ़िर सजाई जाती हैं.
मंजिलें तो काफ़ी आई, और रास्ते हर मोड़ पर बदले
लेकिन याद उनकी फ़िर भी आज सताती हैं.

क्यों न दी जाती है दीवानों को
छूट उनकी हसी की गूँज से.
सदियों से वीराने, भूली बंजर हकीकत पे
क्यूँ न मिलती है दीवानों को बसाने की इजाज़त
आशियाने यादों के फूलों से.