Boy, what boy!

I could not find this boy funny ever. Seriously. He buzzed into my life a number of times. And it has been a trouble to put him aside that many times. He was a mosquito. Nothing less.

He had two mouths. Whenever he got tired of speaking with one, he’d put on the second one. He never told anyone about this trick ever but I knew it. He used to replace the first one when no one looked at him. But I saw him doing that once. He opened his eyes this big then as if he was surprised but quickly posed a smile. I smiled a big one at him then, too. He talked a lot, I tell you. And if you went ahead thinking that he used the two mouths for sucking more blood out of people, then I won’t be scolding you. I am not of that kind, anyway. People called him Nayan by the way, for his name was that. Friends called him Nepu. I preferred not calling him at all.

Thankfully, we were not friends. I mean he lived in my building, precisely three floors above me, but we were not friends. Not of best kind of friends, I mean. More thankfully, he was not in my school for then if he were of my age then he might have been in my class even and I don’t want to imagine that. He was two years older than me. He never bullied me, though. Or anyone! But that’s the only good part about him, I should warn you.

I remember once he came to play badminton with us in the winter last year. We had one badminton court which I forgot to tell about you until now. It had broad, white lines painted, light-bulbs all around and a very beautiful net right at the centre of the court. The white seam of the net matched precisely with the white lines of the court. Oh, it was one good-looking court that I forgot to tell you somehow.

So that winter he came, for a change, to play with us. He was not that bigger than me and my friends. Just a tiny bit taller. Put-a-shuttle-over-my-head kind of taller. So, my best friend and I were on this side of the court and two of my other best friends on the other side. He came and started talking with us. I told you, he could talk with grasses even. So we talked. Then he asked us if he could play with us. Few rallies only, he had said. With the side of my eye, I saw him coming towards me. I prayed then that shuttle doesn’t fall for some years. Was I supposed to hand over my racket to someone? Anyone?  It fell the next moment anyhow. We were that good- the players, I realize today.

‘Racket?’, he shot at me.

I saw his face. It had a smile. What a wonderful smile. Lips pointing to the left and the right direction precisely parallel to the court. Some have downward smile, people like me. His was the perfect horizontal one. I liked that.

‘You can play with us every day. You get a racket and you can play with us anytime. We all have our own racket, you see. Do you have a racket, by the way? May be at home?’, I pleaded, one after the other.     

‘Yes, I have one. But who had thought that I would come here and play, as well. I saw you folks playing, so just thought to hit a few. Racket?’

‘Oh! Then, I can get it for you. See. No issues.’ And before I could finish speaking it, I ran. He always makes me run. Few years ago, I remember quite clearly the evening he left his dog after me. Though, it was not that he really wanted to do it but it did turn out that way somehow. He had not put the leash over his dog, and unfortunately, said something that his dog comprehended inappropriately and came to me to fetch me for him. Though, I was not that fat that day to be assumed as a ball or thing like that. Nevertheless, I ran that day. Without a question!

So I ran today too, and got his racket, so that he could play with us for his change. He had waited quite patiently till I got his racket, I must say. But he had said something to me when I had just begun to run which I did not hear then. My friend told me later that he said how pathetic I was. It turned out that his racket was more pathetic. He ran to the net for a shot but the head of the racket hit the floor and broke before he could go further with the shuttle. So, he went away soon. I was still helping myself with the panting.

With panting I remember, he hasn’t been good to me in any season of the year. Even in the month of October which I like the most. I liked this girl who lives in the next building. I haven't told this to anyone though, not even her. But I did like her somewhat. And, during Durga Puja  that incidentally falls in October mostly every year, she used to dance in the local festival. I don't say local just because she danced in that, I say it just because it was local. I mean it was not that popular and only local residents visited or may be their relatives or the passersby, sometimes. And she had been dancing there since time immemorial. She was in my class in the school as well. So, I had no reason that I could see to unlike her. If I remember correctly, my mother loves those pandals and activities running under it, so she pushed us every night to go along with her there. One of those nights has to have her performance, so it was fine for me.

But this year, the October that just went by, that boy did the most atrocious thing possible on the earth. He took part in the same dance performance as hers. It was the most ridiculous thing I had ever seen. The fact that he danced with her didn't hurt me much though. What hurt me today, just now, as I lay in this hospital, is the fact that in the performance she had to impress him so that he ends up marrying her. And all this was to be done publicly. Illogical, actually. We know that a boy has to impress a girl and they were doing it the other way. I asked her about this one evening, without giving her much indication of anything obviously, and she said it is one of the stories from our holy books. I wonder how holy was that book. Thankfully she did not tell me the name of the book or else I might have found that I had read or even liked that book. It would have been somewhat ironical, I believe. Anyway, he did end up dancing with her that night. Or it was only evening, if I remember. I should be telling him as well someday soon that it was not very logical.

I remember all this as I lay on this white bed. They have to put needle inside me right now, so I will have to take your leave. Before I leave you let me add that I don't like this boy even now as he sleeps on the next bed, he being stung by a mosquito. That might seem awkward and funny but I would advise you against it. Mosquitoes are terrible at putting you on beds. Anyway, as I was telling you, I do not like him as he doesn't even care to wake up now, and smile his perfectly horizontal smile at least, when I am giving my blood to him even when he hasn't asked for it, for a change. Such is the world, I tell you.

Pa

The checked-shirt hung loose over his body, clinging to the shoulder bulbs as he bent down to pierce four little holes in the kite. Two towards the upper frame and two towards the tail. A little boy behind him looked over his shoulders, playing with the tip of the thread hanging from the lataai, the wooden-roll carrying the thread.  

‘Amu, maanjha’, the old man said, tying the final knot on the soft white thread. Picking at the knot, he now formed a triangle with the thread and kite to check the balance. Perfect! He tied another knot at the apex of his triangle. The third! The hands firm, betraying his sixty-some years. He has always believed that he has seen what many do not see in their lifetime. He regretted this though.

He always tied three knots. ‘People say three is not good, Papa. I don’t want to fall for them’, the boy would say.

Meanwhile, he broke a little piece of the maanjha and held it for a second. Almost in a prayer. The hands were shivering a little as he now tied the maanjha from the roll to the kite. And looked at his playground above.

A little smile was playing around the child’s lips. Joy trying to find a face. It appeared.

Holding the kite across his face, Ameya jumped his bright-little-jump and the kite flew for the sky. The black kite with little circle of red in the centre went up. And up. Far from Ameya’s hands’s reach, into the sky, unlike his paper-kites that usually hovered above the ant’s head. His Baba holding the thread, he held lataai.

‘Baba.’

‘Come, Amu.’

Amu felt the weight of the kite. A sweet red has appeared in his little palm. Profuse smiling had leaked red on his creamy cheeks.

‘Lo, Baba!’, and he ran towards the stairs.

Ma, Ma, Ma….echoes pouring out from the stairway.  

*

Ameya wiped at the sides of the lips of his grandfather.

‘Chacha, just when we started, a lost kite came our way. Baba caught it with our thread mid-air.’, Amu recounting bits of the day.

‘So did you learn something as well, Amu?’, mother left Ameya wondering.

‘Hmm. Thoda sa!’, Ameya hesitantly answered looking at Baba.

‘There was one peacock-kite, Sheenu’, Amu whispered to his little cousin sister who was looking at Baba’s fingers. Cut marks strewn on the fingers. Baba was finding it difficult to hold the morsels. Often something stuck to the sides of the lips. Ameya and Sheenu would smile at Baba. And Baba would wipe the sides and would return to his little angels his ever beautiful smile.  

‘Ma, did Pa know kite-flying?’, Ameya broke the silence.

*

‘Mamaji, do you know how to fly it?’ asked the frustrated little Anjan.

Mamaji, over his huge paunch, smiled and looked at the kite. ‘Nahi beta.’

‘No one with even a single drop of blood of ours has ever held a thread of a flying kite.’ And with this spewed a laughter. Anjan crushed his anger. Krishna smiled along with the Mamaji albeit helplessly.   

Anjan dropped the lataai on the floor and stood near the iron ladder. Afraid to climb it down alone, he just looked down, away from them, muttering to himself, ‘No one knows it. No one in my family!’

Years later, when in high school, he found a lost kite. He kept the kite with maanjha for the next day when fewer people will fly kites. He went up the ladder next day. Alone.

Two hours later, he was sitting on the platform between the water tanks. Above, a tiny little orange spot dotted the sky. That spot kept getting smaller. His kite was cut.

But he knew how to fly it, now.

Every year after that, Anjan would fly kites. Krishna would often come to the terrace when he flew them. He would look at Anjan, moving his hands rapidly sometimes, sometimes just letting the thread go. Anjan would have kept a brick on the lataai at a particular angle for the thread to come out when the kite needed it. When Pa was around, Anjan would ask him to hold it for him sometimes. Mostly when he wanted to strike another kite. And Krishna would prevent the thread from mingling, wrapping the thread whenever it pooled on the ground, helping his son. He would feel an arc of pride inside him seeing his son do the tricks in the sky.

Why three knots always, Anjan?

People say three is not good, Papa. I don’t want to fall for them.

A fiery nineteen-year old mind, he thought. An arc shone over his lips.

*

The well-built man laid on the white bed.

Anjan Pandey, 28 read the note-pad hanging from the bed.

Krishna stood, slowly went past the lobby. The tremble in his legs would not leave him. He still went ahead. Neurological department, Operation theatre I, Operation theatre II. Through the huge atrium, where people slept now, hours after the midnight, waiting. Waiting for something or the other. Past the huge revolving door, out of the hospital. He wished the tremble in legs was only because of the cold. He knew but how wrong he was, tonight.

He sat on a pipe that ran along the footpath. He stared blankly at the road. The vapours from the glass of chai rising unwittingly. Like memories in the mind.

 

Beta, hold my hand. Yes. Now walk. The foot should be round, see.

The mother, adeptly holding her affection behind her precisely arched lips, looked at them as the father helped the child walk on the pipe.

Krishna, it is ok! The time does bend and straighten things on its will when it has to, no?

He felt the cold metallic pipe under his palm.

*

‘And Amu, where is the lataai?’, Ma asked as she put the mosquito coil in his room.

We lost it, Ma. Baba was holding the thread then. We were up in the sky. We had cut so many kites. There was no one near us, Ma. I had asked him then, “who taught you, Baba?” He did not answer, Ma. The thread left his hands and the lataai tripped the brick and it went away into the air. So quickly.

Oh.

Ma, who taught kite-flying to Baba?

Pa Baba says, Amu.

  

A dream not lived

I was born, nights ago,

beads pulling me from below.
Arrays of rays swiveling,
origin spineless, furiously compelling.

Of a single parent, greedy,  

in a cave, cramped already,

no periods of pain or joy,

neither a girl, nor the boy.

Am that dream, dream of dusts,

black-o-white, oh! so hard to buy.

Am a dream dying everyday,

for I was born, and that was the fault.

You gave me birth. Thank you.

You didn't run for me. Thank you.

You don't die with me. Thank you.

Don't make a brother for me. Thank you.

Million questions

I am there in the back aisle,

waiting for you to see them all.

I have been sitting on the steps,

flowers besides me, and a bit of love wrapped.

Those black eyes have a million questions,

for I wasn't a good guy, the good guy.

I have never rushed for the moon, won’t.

Might fall and fade but remember the wrap, if nothing else.

Chalo yaar, phir khel khelein

Dhundhli ho gayi hain wajahein ab,

aadat hai ki na baat hoti hai,

lakeerin ab bhi tiki hain, dost,

chalo yaar, phir khel khelein.

Do haar jo humne di tumko,

baarambaar jeete tum humse,

kisse ab main haar jaaun, aur kisko nazar lagaaun,

lakeer ke us paar koi yaar nahi milta.

Aawaazon par bas kood padna,

samay se sikke tod lena,

badi umr tujhse sanwri hai meri,

phir ik eent thamaane ko haath badha.

Khidki puri khuli rehti hai,

koi par ab bulaata nahi,

mere gharaunde mein kyun ab,

paani peene koi aata nahi.

Wo lakeerein ab bhi khinchi hain

chalo yaar, phir hum wo khel khelein

Wajahein phir mil jaayengi shaayad,

un wajahon ke liye hi aao phir khel khelein.

Memories

His mind was tasteless now, being stung by the memory.

Steam was escaping from the arches of his body. Warm water flowing down in streamlines over his body. He felt the water hitting at the back of his head. He could feel the tiny drops landing on the nape. He could see the grey water leaving his body, and hoped that the memories were grey as well. 

Somewhere, far from the hills, a pyre held the body to free it forever. He was crying for the father he wanted to love. Time, before the heart could melt, had melted away.

He tore the drops apart from his body, put on the clothes and took the road for he needed something to put off the fire the memory has started. He went inside the church, a place with stern outlook but large and soft insides. He often found the Hindu gods too busy for the confessions. He sat on the bench just at the right of the entrance. Alone. Hundreds of meter cubes produced no sound and offered the ideal stillness he needed to speak. He spoke, without sound.

There are times when one's own body feels incomplete, suddenly. It becomes the prey to its own master, the mind. And is, then, left alone to feel the pain. Then the body, the heart seeks something. A certain shoulder, a certain eye, a certain touch. The touch of the crucified, however, proved helpless this time. The wooden floor of the church was providing a sweet chill that he liked. 

The hills were offering nothing but resistance. He found it a little hard to walk up the road of the little town on the hills. There was piercing chill in the air. The hills were this cold some years ago, they said in the shanty tea-shop in which he sat for a while. But for him it was a first in his six long years here. Few people, few open shops, few lights as the evening was about to set in. One little moon, across the hills, was fighting to go up in the grey sky. He moved forwards, now looking for a known face hoping for the unknown.

Few meters ahead, a bonfire was dying down. He asked for tea from the shop across the road where the fire was. He came back and sat near the fire. A little boy came and put some wood in the fire. The fire rose. The valley below could hardly be seen. The cold had wrapped the white shroud around the hills. The warmth, however, was near his body. The orange was comforting. 

He could see her while she was making the tea. Though, the sale must have been less in this weather, she was not heavy. She was floating in the kitchen. Or did she see him when he asked the boy for the tea? She poured the tea in the white, thermocol cup, and sent it to him. She turned back and looked at him. Few lost smiles were found.

He asked for a cup of tea, again. ‘A bigger cup, if possible’, he added. The boy went and repeated the request. She raised her brows a little but they could not go across the road. She wanted them to, and sensed the feebleness of the body. She poured the tea in steel mug this time. She put two cups in the tray and went out with the little boy. The boy handed the bigger one to him and took a small cup and sat along with her on the bench on the opposite side of the fire. He glanced at her as she cupped the hands around the tea-cup.

Now, they looked at each other, again. The moon looked tired. The sun was trying its best to shine behind the ruthless clouds. She rose and went in for she expected few to come in as the chill was rising. So, it was time she close the shop for the day.

He stood, paid to the boy and left. Only few, the natives, could be seen, walking up and down the street. He still preferred his shivering self in the open than his lone self in the comforts of his home, today, as if hopes flourished in unbolted volumes. He found, few steps ahead, a bench and thought to spend some more time there.

He sat still- absolutely still- for about half an hour, with his arms clenched to his chest. 'What is it?', she whispered as she sat on the bench with a besides herself. He did not answer. He looked at her but did not answer. He wanted to; he had the answer but could not spell it.

She did not ask again. She pulled off the black muffler and tied it again, tightly. 'Can you walk with me? To my home?', he asked. She saw the pleading eyes. The answer was never sought.

He set up the pan on fire to make the coffee, almost as a routine on her visit to his place. And he hoped that words could be filled in coffee cups. She smiled.

She took the notepad and started flipping pages. She knew the pages by now. They held months in them. They had been the witness to their thousand minutes together. And she was the witness to their turning blue, rather slowly.

She read the most recent lines. Somewhere, far from the hills, a pyre held the body to free it forever. He was crying for the father he wanted to love. Time, before the heart could melt, had melted away. She, now, understood the pain he brought to her shop, today. He had killed a father in his novel. But he had remembered his own and their lives that were apart. She went inside the kitchen and put her hand on his head. He dropped his hands on the rack and the shoulders melted. He did not cry.

'I touched his feet every day. But I could never touch him, Meera. Love always dissolved when we were together. And hatred never outreached. Both, do not soothe, Meera. I wish I had a mouth more and, perhaps, an eye less.' The sound had gathered the weight of the ages, it seemed. He broke, as if words had now cleared the channels inside him.

She held him. With eyes, with arms. An unknown touch, a first, they shared in three months since they got to know each other. The words were left behind. The unknown language reigned then. The steam from the cups were becoming indistinguishable above them. And the fire within him was being vaporized, he knew.