GENRE: Complex relationships
“I hope love hurts you as it hurts me.
I hope you love, and aren't loved back.
I hope you choke on your passion.
I hope you yearn, and are never reunited.”
Fingernails. Clung tight to the railings of the windows. Head is tilted, and the hair is touching the metallic grill. Eyebrows are curled, nose in the direction of wind…season wind that is. The cloud has left sad and greyish impression in the eyes. Monsoon is on its way... as I grip the cold grill of the windows in my bedroom to reach my eyes on the road.
“So what do you want from her?”
“I am trying to create a new writing style. A style that will redefine the way literature is presented… A word comes first, it defines the surroundings. Human behaviour included. Nature shows you which way the character is going to react. You add all these and make a paragraph where the last sentence shows you the outcome…that is the activity done by the character.
Also, a dialogue comes first...maybe a person talking to oneself, or to another, it leads to an atmosphere where the situation is tense... where the expressions find their way out. The speech is followed by a series of actions taken by the character, also shown in a passive way."
Eyes. Lowered. And then it follows a way. It ends to another pair of eyes. Smiling. Lips glistening in the neon. Talking something… cannot fathom what. Some of her hair fall on her forehead. Flying high. A mole on her right cheek and another on her left forehead. Eyes dance in the tune of happiness. Pain finds its way in silence. I keep looking at her.
“The bus took him to a place fifteen kilometers away, to his college. And when the college ended, he became hungry. But he was a person who could withstand a few things, even the primitive needs too. He had an institution to visit for some reference studies. He headed for that. And these visits took long enough to call the September evening. It was eight in the evening as he headed back to his home. He walked across colonies thinking about the vegetables his mother was going to cook for him in dinner. He walked thinking how tiring day it was. And then he uttered those words…
“I hope love hurts you as it hurts me.
I hope you love, and aren't loved back.
I hope you choke on your passion.
I hope you yearn, and are never reunited.”
Fingernails. Clung tight to the railings of the windows. Head is tilted, and the hair is touching the metallic grill. Eyebrows are curled, nose in the direction of wind…season wind that is. The cloud has left sad and greyish impression in the eyes. Monsoon is on its way... as I grip the cold grill of the windows in my bedroom to reach my eyes on the road.
“So what do you want from her?”
“I am trying to create a new writing style. A style that will redefine the way literature is presented… A word comes first, it defines the surroundings. Human behaviour included. Nature shows you which way the character is going to react. You add all these and make a paragraph where the last sentence shows you the outcome…that is the activity done by the character.
Also, a dialogue comes first...maybe a person talking to oneself, or to another, it leads to an atmosphere where the situation is tense... where the expressions find their way out. The speech is followed by a series of actions taken by the character, also shown in a passive way."
Eyes. Lowered. And then it follows a way. It ends to another pair of eyes. Smiling. Lips glistening in the neon. Talking something… cannot fathom what. Some of her hair fall on her forehead. Flying high. A mole on her right cheek and another on her left forehead. Eyes dance in the tune of happiness. Pain finds its way in silence. I keep looking at her.
“The bus took him to a place fifteen kilometers away, to his college. And when the college ended, he became hungry. But he was a person who could withstand a few things, even the primitive needs too. He had an institution to visit for some reference studies. He headed for that. And these visits took long enough to call the September evening. It was eight in the evening as he headed back to his home. He walked across colonies thinking about the vegetables his mother was going to cook for him in dinner. He walked thinking how tiring day it was. And then he uttered those words…
'I am tired tonight.'
He was hungry. He was thirsty. The place he used to live, they would call this wind a strange one that blew from the southern part of the city, and it had started blowing now. It made him look tough, and then it made him tough. In the midst of a dark evening, the boy became one of the fewest wanderers in the streets. But the boy hurried. He was hungry. He was thirsty.
He reached home. And then he realised the atmosphere was warm. Whenever there were arguments in the house, it would become silent. No one asked for him. No one gave him a glass of water. No one talked to him. He became deserted. He silently started to put his shoes off. And then he heard the argument starting again.
I have not seen many people who can control tears in the presence of others. But this boy, on the other hand, had a rare gift of that. He looked at his parents vacantly, who were fighting over the case once again. He looked at his feet, on which he believed, he put on the shoes, and got out once again, as he entered a few minutes ago, silently, getting merely noticed.
The boy headed towards the same road he travelled in the morning while going to catch the bus. It was the same road he travelled while he returned home. And it was the same road on which he was walking now.
He walked towards the lake place for no reason. The wind from the southern part drenched him thoroughly, increasing his hunger. He looked tougher. His eyes narrowed. He shivered, and it came from his hunger. He looked at the still water of the lake. He looked at the chhatim trees nearby. He looked at the large flats and other buildings around. He reached the avenue which was at the southernmost part of the city. He took a turn, and started walking towards the well-known bridge. He kept walking until he felt the colour. He saw red in his hands; he saw red on his face, in his nose. He tasted the colour, and found it to be salted. He tasted blood."
A girl comes in mind... a girl from Varanasi. She is beautiful. She is serene. She loves classical dancing. And she has a habit of writing poetry. One of the very few occasions when I tend to like a girl intensely. We don’t talk, however. It’s seldom we look at each other, an occasional nod perhaps. People start calling us together. A few phone calls, another few words exchanged…and within nine months we fall apart.
She is beautiful. She loves dancing. But there is a mishap. She has lost her right palm in an accident. She feels embarrassed. We talk about life, about feelings. Within a few months I end up writing a story on her. She realises I pity on her. She walks away from my life.
She is beautiful. She loves classical dancing. She loves painting. And she has a passion for writing. She understands I love her, I understand she loves someone; she understands that, that someone loves someone else. She wants to have it with someone else. I call her confused. She argues back. I let it go.
“June won’t be the story of your success.”
“But it won’t be the story of my failure, either.”
“What makes you say that?”
“It’s true I won’t get her. But it’s also true that she will change.”
Lakme-Sananda organises a beauty contest. She becomes first at it from the city. The beauty that all girls want. Like the peacock’s feather brings pride to a head, applauded beauty does vanity to a girl’s heart. She goes away. I praise about her poetries. She doesn’t answer. No words... Nothing at all. All that remains… is a memory of a few words. It’s really a happy new year.
She is ashamed because she is handicapped. I call her special a couple of times but she refuses to believe it. I collect a few information and come to know that her passion lies in dancing. I try to cheer her up. One day while chatting I insist her to let me see her blog, as she refuses. I insist more and she keeps refusing. I get annoyed, and tell her that in order to make the world believe that she really is special; she has to share herself with people. I tell her a few more things, in a harsh way. She becomes silent. Suddenly there is a distance that starts growing between us. And then it broadens. She goes away…once, and for all.
The way back home is a legend. And tonight, it is broken by a boy brought by her. Three shadows move in the murky evening. Two are close, other moving apart. It seems they have known each other for over a decade. They talk about several things, as I continue to struggle with my thoughts of gifting her a rose from the nearby flower-market. Anger and agony makes me wonder…as we part from a juncture where he takes her number in front of me, touches her cheeks and I become dejected.
After four days, same thing happens again.
"His nose bled. He searched his pocket thoroughly but didn’t find a piece of cloth. It was clumsy. People were starting to notice him on the road, with the bloody nose. So he went to a shade, stood there, as the blood kept oozing out and he kept dropping those blood drops in the mud…until it stopped oozing altogether. His clothes were full of blood stains. But he started walking once again.
He found the tube-well at the end of the Southern Avenues, and left the deep sigh from his heart. He washed his face thoroughly. He splashed water on the upper part of his body. He kept on drinking the water until he didn’t feel hunger anymore. It wasn’t the source of drinking water, but he didn’t care. He was a boy from the hills… not literally, but he was tough like them. He could eat, drink or live on anything in the world. Little were his needs. And he knew how to fulfil those. He gulped down another mouthful of water. And then he felt satisfied. He saw this tube-well building, couple of years ago. Just as this evening, he was on his way here that day. As he saw those workers digging deep. He saw through what was happening. He stood, waited there for a long time to see. He admired those workers for building up something like that which helped him today profusely. And then he started walking again. He thought of going back home, but it could’ve been that the dispute wasn’t over yet, he thought in his mind, so he continued walking.”
Dust. It flies in the air. Sound of air…like a forthcoming tempest. Stretched fingers trying to cover the eyes; lowered and wrinkled in pain…and in silence. Tiring legs dragging a body towards home.
A sound comes floating in the air. Sound of thunder from the distant horizon. Sudden flash in the sky. For a moment, it is daylight all around. One, two, three... a few seconds, and then the thunder strikes. It strikes hard, on the earth… and on the mind of a boy walking on the road.
One drop of water. Then the second, third…and it follows. Road becomes empty in quick time, as a lonely person keeps walking…drenched thoroughly in the rain. Sky pours it heart out on a person who tries to do the same. Difference, one does it public, other does it in silence.
I catch a fever that night. Tears, the evening shower and pain do their job well.
We don’t talk. I fall apart. I hear some news that they are close. Close enough for me to stay away.
Two hundred days pass.
“I could say that I would be your aegis. You can come to me when you need someone. I will try and take away the loneliness. But I guess I will end up hurting you even more. I am sorry I couldn’t be there beside you when you needed someone. ”
We agree on a meeting.
It’s her birthday. It’s a date for me. I am happy. But maybe she is not. I am confused.
She confesses that they got physical, in the end. I become silent. It feels like a dagger is piercing my heart. She calls herself bitch, she calls herself slut. A smoke comes in my notice. Something burns…inside my heart. I am silent, half the road. The way back home becomes the saddest part of my life.
A few days pass in thousands of thoughts, thinking about a person I love, the decisions she made in the circumstances she was in…and I decide to stay beside her.
“So, what do you want from her?”
“I see a fire. A yellow one. It will become red once she is with wrong person. I just want to turn it into a holy fire.”
“Is she a witch?”
Silence. Eyes. Narrowed, filled with tears. A few long hair fall on the forehead. Pain strikes the heart. Eyes remain vacant.
“What do you want from her?”
“Warts and all. Virtue and vice. Love and lust. Caring and satisfaction. Bonding and the power to let it go. Life. Physicality, I won’t lie. But not without the mental consent.”
Wind. Love. Loneliness. Always there.
I wake up at dawn. Take my backpack, the same one which I carried to Chennai when I visited the place for an interview, alone. I put my diary inside it. The same diary on which I was taking notes for my upcoming story, June. June is finished, last night. I bring the diary out again, put my right hand on the pages of the diary where I wrote it down. Eighteen pages, written with my old blue pen. I put it inside the backpack again.
I take a taxi. It’s 5.45 in the morning. The car speeds on the highway, as I lose myself with my thoughts again.
“So, what are you going to do about it?”
“I don’t know. Maybe forget her once and for all. It’s not easy with a person who keeps herself entangled with a person she has left behind, willingly. Nobody would want his Zahir to be committed to someone else.”
“What about you?”
“What about me? Well, I don’t know… maybe I will keep chasing my dreams, as usual.”
“You are hurt again, aren’t you?”
“It does not matter anymore, you see…people who have a reason to come close to you when they need you and go away when they don’t, will keep hurting you. All you have to do is keep an eye on people and try to understand whether they really are worth you.”
I leave the taxi at the bridge entrance.
Before me, lies the Howrah bridge, big and proud…like a demon. Hundred and fifty meters of walking and I will be at the middle of it. I adjust my backpack and take my first step. And I keep walking. Thousands of thoughts gather around my head. The first day I met her. Then her. And then her. And I lost them all. My jaws stiffen, as do my hands, when I remember them in someone else’s arms. My eyes get narrowed.
I have reached at the middle of the bridge. It is early morning. The Sun is all set to rise in the east. A few minutes, maybe. And then it will stretch its first lights to the world. A pigeon comes flying in, and sits beside me, on the railing. I look at it, and start thinking. Before me, lie two options from which I have to choose one. First, to kill the main protagonist as I do with every character in my story. Maybe a suicide. It’s too easy. A person who has lost everything. Nobody would even know about him. A small leap now. leap of faith. And he is out of this mortal world within a few seconds. It would not be a happy ending. But a suicide makes a mark in everyone’s mind. Empathy. Feelings. A story to remember.
But then, I gave some thoughts about the second option.
I take out my diary from the backpack. I open the pages where I wrote down the story ‘June’. I tear the eighteen pages off the diary. I place my diary inside the bag again. I hold the pages of ‘June’ in my hands and I keep looking at them. All of a sudden a few birds fly past me chattering. The east is red as climax. Within a few seconds, the Sun will come out. The world is coming to life. And I am standing highest above the holy Ganges.
I fold the pages half. And tear them from that folding. I fold the torn papers half again. and tear them again from that folding. Seventy-two pieces of my story. Seventy-two pieces of my heart. My precious heart.
And there they go in the air..! Papers in the sky. Papers in the air. Floating free, dancing in joy, in the tune of happiness. Within a few seconds they will touch the water. The Sun will come out now. The first colour in the east makes the Ganges bleed. It frees me; from human bonds, from the sufferings I endured.
I keep standing on the bridge. I look at the Sun. The world is coming to life. A few cars on the bridge, a few buses, and a few people looking at me in surprise. A few more birds coming out chattering beside the hotels near Howrah station.
With the Sun rising in the east, I see June coming.
- May '11
He was hungry. He was thirsty. The place he used to live, they would call this wind a strange one that blew from the southern part of the city, and it had started blowing now. It made him look tough, and then it made him tough. In the midst of a dark evening, the boy became one of the fewest wanderers in the streets. But the boy hurried. He was hungry. He was thirsty.
He reached home. And then he realised the atmosphere was warm. Whenever there were arguments in the house, it would become silent. No one asked for him. No one gave him a glass of water. No one talked to him. He became deserted. He silently started to put his shoes off. And then he heard the argument starting again.
I have not seen many people who can control tears in the presence of others. But this boy, on the other hand, had a rare gift of that. He looked at his parents vacantly, who were fighting over the case once again. He looked at his feet, on which he believed, he put on the shoes, and got out once again, as he entered a few minutes ago, silently, getting merely noticed.
The boy headed towards the same road he travelled in the morning while going to catch the bus. It was the same road he travelled while he returned home. And it was the same road on which he was walking now.
He walked towards the lake place for no reason. The wind from the southern part drenched him thoroughly, increasing his hunger. He looked tougher. His eyes narrowed. He shivered, and it came from his hunger. He looked at the still water of the lake. He looked at the chhatim trees nearby. He looked at the large flats and other buildings around. He reached the avenue which was at the southernmost part of the city. He took a turn, and started walking towards the well-known bridge. He kept walking until he felt the colour. He saw red in his hands; he saw red on his face, in his nose. He tasted the colour, and found it to be salted. He tasted blood."
A girl comes in mind... a girl from Varanasi. She is beautiful. She is serene. She loves classical dancing. And she has a habit of writing poetry. One of the very few occasions when I tend to like a girl intensely. We don’t talk, however. It’s seldom we look at each other, an occasional nod perhaps. People start calling us together. A few phone calls, another few words exchanged…and within nine months we fall apart.
She is beautiful. She loves dancing. But there is a mishap. She has lost her right palm in an accident. She feels embarrassed. We talk about life, about feelings. Within a few months I end up writing a story on her. She realises I pity on her. She walks away from my life.
She is beautiful. She loves classical dancing. She loves painting. And she has a passion for writing. She understands I love her, I understand she loves someone; she understands that, that someone loves someone else. She wants to have it with someone else. I call her confused. She argues back. I let it go.
“June won’t be the story of your success.”
“But it won’t be the story of my failure, either.”
“What makes you say that?”
“It’s true I won’t get her. But it’s also true that she will change.”
Lakme-Sananda organises a beauty contest. She becomes first at it from the city. The beauty that all girls want. Like the peacock’s feather brings pride to a head, applauded beauty does vanity to a girl’s heart. She goes away. I praise about her poetries. She doesn’t answer. No words... Nothing at all. All that remains… is a memory of a few words. It’s really a happy new year.
She is ashamed because she is handicapped. I call her special a couple of times but she refuses to believe it. I collect a few information and come to know that her passion lies in dancing. I try to cheer her up. One day while chatting I insist her to let me see her blog, as she refuses. I insist more and she keeps refusing. I get annoyed, and tell her that in order to make the world believe that she really is special; she has to share herself with people. I tell her a few more things, in a harsh way. She becomes silent. Suddenly there is a distance that starts growing between us. And then it broadens. She goes away…once, and for all.
The way back home is a legend. And tonight, it is broken by a boy brought by her. Three shadows move in the murky evening. Two are close, other moving apart. It seems they have known each other for over a decade. They talk about several things, as I continue to struggle with my thoughts of gifting her a rose from the nearby flower-market. Anger and agony makes me wonder…as we part from a juncture where he takes her number in front of me, touches her cheeks and I become dejected.
After four days, same thing happens again.
"His nose bled. He searched his pocket thoroughly but didn’t find a piece of cloth. It was clumsy. People were starting to notice him on the road, with the bloody nose. So he went to a shade, stood there, as the blood kept oozing out and he kept dropping those blood drops in the mud…until it stopped oozing altogether. His clothes were full of blood stains. But he started walking once again.
He found the tube-well at the end of the Southern Avenues, and left the deep sigh from his heart. He washed his face thoroughly. He splashed water on the upper part of his body. He kept on drinking the water until he didn’t feel hunger anymore. It wasn’t the source of drinking water, but he didn’t care. He was a boy from the hills… not literally, but he was tough like them. He could eat, drink or live on anything in the world. Little were his needs. And he knew how to fulfil those. He gulped down another mouthful of water. And then he felt satisfied. He saw this tube-well building, couple of years ago. Just as this evening, he was on his way here that day. As he saw those workers digging deep. He saw through what was happening. He stood, waited there for a long time to see. He admired those workers for building up something like that which helped him today profusely. And then he started walking again. He thought of going back home, but it could’ve been that the dispute wasn’t over yet, he thought in his mind, so he continued walking.”
Dust. It flies in the air. Sound of air…like a forthcoming tempest. Stretched fingers trying to cover the eyes; lowered and wrinkled in pain…and in silence. Tiring legs dragging a body towards home.
A sound comes floating in the air. Sound of thunder from the distant horizon. Sudden flash in the sky. For a moment, it is daylight all around. One, two, three... a few seconds, and then the thunder strikes. It strikes hard, on the earth… and on the mind of a boy walking on the road.
One drop of water. Then the second, third…and it follows. Road becomes empty in quick time, as a lonely person keeps walking…drenched thoroughly in the rain. Sky pours it heart out on a person who tries to do the same. Difference, one does it public, other does it in silence.
I catch a fever that night. Tears, the evening shower and pain do their job well.
We don’t talk. I fall apart. I hear some news that they are close. Close enough for me to stay away.
Two hundred days pass.
“I could say that I would be your aegis. You can come to me when you need someone. I will try and take away the loneliness. But I guess I will end up hurting you even more. I am sorry I couldn’t be there beside you when you needed someone. ”
We agree on a meeting.
It’s her birthday. It’s a date for me. I am happy. But maybe she is not. I am confused.
She confesses that they got physical, in the end. I become silent. It feels like a dagger is piercing my heart. She calls herself bitch, she calls herself slut. A smoke comes in my notice. Something burns…inside my heart. I am silent, half the road. The way back home becomes the saddest part of my life.
A few days pass in thousands of thoughts, thinking about a person I love, the decisions she made in the circumstances she was in…and I decide to stay beside her.
“So, what do you want from her?”
“I see a fire. A yellow one. It will become red once she is with wrong person. I just want to turn it into a holy fire.”
“Is she a witch?”
Silence. Eyes. Narrowed, filled with tears. A few long hair fall on the forehead. Pain strikes the heart. Eyes remain vacant.
“What do you want from her?”
“Warts and all. Virtue and vice. Love and lust. Caring and satisfaction. Bonding and the power to let it go. Life. Physicality, I won’t lie. But not without the mental consent.”
Wind. Love. Loneliness. Always there.
I wake up at dawn. Take my backpack, the same one which I carried to Chennai when I visited the place for an interview, alone. I put my diary inside it. The same diary on which I was taking notes for my upcoming story, June. June is finished, last night. I bring the diary out again, put my right hand on the pages of the diary where I wrote it down. Eighteen pages, written with my old blue pen. I put it inside the backpack again.
I take a taxi. It’s 5.45 in the morning. The car speeds on the highway, as I lose myself with my thoughts again.
“So, what are you going to do about it?”
“I don’t know. Maybe forget her once and for all. It’s not easy with a person who keeps herself entangled with a person she has left behind, willingly. Nobody would want his Zahir to be committed to someone else.”
“What about you?”
“What about me? Well, I don’t know… maybe I will keep chasing my dreams, as usual.”
“You are hurt again, aren’t you?”
“It does not matter anymore, you see…people who have a reason to come close to you when they need you and go away when they don’t, will keep hurting you. All you have to do is keep an eye on people and try to understand whether they really are worth you.”
I leave the taxi at the bridge entrance.
Before me, lies the Howrah bridge, big and proud…like a demon. Hundred and fifty meters of walking and I will be at the middle of it. I adjust my backpack and take my first step. And I keep walking. Thousands of thoughts gather around my head. The first day I met her. Then her. And then her. And I lost them all. My jaws stiffen, as do my hands, when I remember them in someone else’s arms. My eyes get narrowed.
I have reached at the middle of the bridge. It is early morning. The Sun is all set to rise in the east. A few minutes, maybe. And then it will stretch its first lights to the world. A pigeon comes flying in, and sits beside me, on the railing. I look at it, and start thinking. Before me, lie two options from which I have to choose one. First, to kill the main protagonist as I do with every character in my story. Maybe a suicide. It’s too easy. A person who has lost everything. Nobody would even know about him. A small leap now. leap of faith. And he is out of this mortal world within a few seconds. It would not be a happy ending. But a suicide makes a mark in everyone’s mind. Empathy. Feelings. A story to remember.
But then, I gave some thoughts about the second option.
I take out my diary from the backpack. I open the pages where I wrote down the story ‘June’. I tear the eighteen pages off the diary. I place my diary inside the bag again. I hold the pages of ‘June’ in my hands and I keep looking at them. All of a sudden a few birds fly past me chattering. The east is red as climax. Within a few seconds, the Sun will come out. The world is coming to life. And I am standing highest above the holy Ganges.
I fold the pages half. And tear them from that folding. I fold the torn papers half again. and tear them again from that folding. Seventy-two pieces of my story. Seventy-two pieces of my heart. My precious heart.
And there they go in the air..! Papers in the sky. Papers in the air. Floating free, dancing in joy, in the tune of happiness. Within a few seconds they will touch the water. The Sun will come out now. The first colour in the east makes the Ganges bleed. It frees me; from human bonds, from the sufferings I endured.
I keep standing on the bridge. I look at the Sun. The world is coming to life. A few cars on the bridge, a few buses, and a few people looking at me in surprise. A few more birds coming out chattering beside the hotels near Howrah station.
With the Sun rising in the east, I see June coming.
- May '11
