and when it stops pouring,

the wind evaporates
between buildings,

stealing the traffic
to suburbia.

wet socks and dripping

umbrella, you find yourself

square in the middle
of a bombay puddle,

with no ride back home.

6:22 Slow to Borivili

the train worms its way
into the mouth at Dadar,
wheels chewing in and
chewing out suburban track;
stations speck the distance
one route or the other.

the platform seems to float,
half-empty, like early morning
dreams or the inside of
a church after mass, bathed in
an aftermath of quiet, buoyant
with breathing-space.

the engine ploughs to a halt;
a slipshod crowd steps
back from the concrete edge,
converges quickly at the equally
spaced mobs hanging from,
and hiding, the doors.

sunlight surprises faces
spent looking out years
of locomotive windows.

the 6:22 travels at the pace
of a footnote, tunnelling
the collapsing slipstream
of the 6:21 fast, a lesser twin
trailing the trembling shadows
of speed, an afterthought

on sedatives shunting
through quicksilver evening,
trundling into sanatoriums
for the straggling, where
commotion is thin and
withdrawn, where the air

is already stale with the
distress sweat of waiting.

milliseconds later, it mows
onwards, motors humming,
to Matunga. inside, subdued
acceleration drums
the ears; electric smoke
shrills the nostrils; commuters

pinch inches, eyeballs
slapped stuck together:
slow-and-steady tortoises
squeezed inside a glove
compartment, shoving,
elbowing, climbing, testing

each other's shells, cajoled
into a play for patience
in this caravan of twelve
aluminium cages that
at least doesn't flee
before it arrives.

Wish you were here

I keep feeding the darkness my loneliness and soon, the night morphs into a monster, one with a hundred eyes.

Because silence can eat
only so much.

Nowhere to hide now. No use pretense. No escape. Nothing to do but lie back on the grass, hold on to my shadow, gnaw my knuckles and stare these fears down.

I'm so tired.

Because patience wrings
the heart dry.

Every minute is an exercise of tongue-biting will, every hour a recurring nightmare, every dreamless day a deliberate act of absurdity. Time agonizes, admonishes, apologizes, but it goes about its routine like only time can, quietly counting, one second at a time. Every night, I fall asleep out of sheer exhaustion.

Never knew this could be this hard.

One touch. One whisper ...

So bloody goddamn hard.

... of eternity together.

I hug myself, trying to feel you in the space between my arms, searching for the memory of holding you till dawn came looking for us. I try.

One hug. One wish ...

So hard, so hard, so so so so ... hard.

... for lingering bliss.

Why is it that two people travel best hand-in-hand? Maybe I'm a little ahead of you on this road. Maybe, I'm a little behind. How would I know? You seldom call out. And so, my confessions are all a little tempered; my need carefully calibrated. Lest I get ahead of myself. Lest I lose you in the distance.

When I was little, my father bought me a pair of binoculars, the green of a billiards table.

Because distance breeds
demons and doubts.

One summer afternoon, I discovered that if you looked in the far end, where the black eye-pieces were smaller, the clouds no longer became bigger; they just grew tinier.

Because truth is a trickle
too little, too
fickle.

And if you turned the knob, the birds flew farther and farther away till all you could see was just the blurred outline of the horizon.

Because evenings grow purple
with twilight dread.

Have you ever done that? There was always this brief moment, before I turned the binoculars around and looked in the right end, the right way, one infernal instant when I used to think "What if ...?"

Because tomorrow will come
crashing through the curtains.

Have you ever been caught in that moment when you didn't know if your world was coming back?

And I will wake up
wishing you were here.

Well, have you?

Age is a quiet shutting of doors as day deserts.

Turn your back, knot your robe, shuffle around the house, lock the windows, draw the curtains, turn on the light and wait for the lizards to come out of hiding.

Age is renewing the newspaper subscription, feeding the cat when it isn't hungry, watering the cactuses shrubbing the porch.

Plumber fixes leaks for free. Neighbours make excuses to check if you're still alive. Careful : don't bore the kids.

Age is valium, bed sores, wispy hair, sagging breasts, oatmeal memories, cataract evenings, cancer lurking around the prostrate.

Fall asleep in the arm-chair. Drool on your shoulder. Forget dreaming. Forget worrying.

Age is a phone call nobody makes.

Watch the world shrink. To the street. To the door. To the puddle of urine around your feet. To the hardened lines on your nails. To your thoughts. Feel it shrivel inside your pajamas. Feel it warp into the furrows on your forehead and trickle down the wrinkles around your eyes.

Age is a dusty calendar two years old.

Slice a vein. Inject an air-bubble. Slip in the shower. Drown in the bath-tub. Easy does it.

Age is an ache for life that refuses to go away.

sometimes
the only way back
to the beginning
is from the end
forward

***

how are we to see
each other
if we are both
invisible?

***

he eats
the newspaper
and reads breakfast

***

the staircase
is silent
upstairs or
downstairs

***

why does it
still rain
if all of us
carry umbrellas?

Emptied

where love arrived
on the prairie that summer,

gallopping down the hills
on fourteen hundred hooves,

a lone wind-whipped willow
now stands quietly,

rooted in tallgrass,
silhouette dissolving

rapidly into the welts
of a scarlet-scarred sky,

broken branch fingers
pointing
towards the sunset

she left chasing.

FM

needle sweeps
the bandwidth bare,

seeking to flood
the radio's circuits
with a station's soul.

needle -- lissome, steely,

lonesome --

glides down the glass dial,

aches across the numbers
of these deserted frequencies,

tuning through the wilderness
of dry raspy static,

yearning,

feebly feeling

for a crackle of life
from the atmosphere:

a probe

night-hopping between

planets plumbed in
linear megahertz space,
scanning the heavens

for signs of love.

Stretch

Note: Reader discretion advised.

Nobody told you this.

That the desert will feel this cold at night. A cold that permeates through to the marrow of your consciousness. Till you can't feel anything else but a dense blue haze freezing the behind of your eyes. Till your thoughts start chattering about inside your head, like icicles inside a matchbox.

That you won't know how far you've come until you're too far out to go back. That then it is but natural for you to feel vulnerable. That having experienced your vulnerability, it is a logical progression to pretend otherwise. That pretty quickly you grow into a routine of pretend and feign. That then, one day, tired and weak-kneed, you will give in to feeling whatever it is that you've not been permitting yourself to feel. That whatever it is, it will leave you crying, heaving, retching, will make you want the night to open its arms and take you in.

Nobody taught you anything.

To walk that emotional highrope between overconfidence and depression. To play shadow chess with pieces of yourself. To weave light from drops of darkness. To plunge a knife straight into your heart, watch the blood drip, then pull it right out and bring yourself back to life.

I'm teaching you this.

Fuck around with your mind. Turn it inside out. Try it on now and if it doesn't fit, keep fucking till it does. Feed yourself bits of your heart. See how they taste. Let your feelings simmer on a hotplate till they suit your palate. If something doesn't, spit it right out and pick the next one. In case you thought otherwise, you don't need a soul. Souls are for suckers.

I'm telling you this.

There is no desert.

There is no cold.

There is no you.

Everything's changed.

Nothing's the same.

Go now.

Every evening, the sunset fills up my room.

No, make that: Every evening, I let the sunset fill my room up. It's a very deliberate act, delusive, egocentric and narcissistic.

Tchaikovsky starts to play on my Nokia at 3 'o' clock. I switch off the fan, reach for my mobile phone -- a little amused at the thought of the eternal inside a box, switch it off, reset the alarm from 1500 to 0700. I walk over to the windows on the western wall, pull aside the curtains thereby diluting the darkness, unlatch the panes, swing them open and stand back.

I watch how sunlight instantly floods the room, how its fingers seem to intimately know every nook and corner of my room. Like the caresses of an old lover. Well, almost.

I then plod back to mulling over information asymmetry and the marriage market; or plunge right back into a conversation about Chitrangda Singh on GTalk; or come back to a high-pitched argument with Mr. Schopenhauer about women ... sometimes I just listen to Atif Aslam and sit in my chair, doing nothing.

Self-improvement is masturbation.

Sometimes I talk with a certain Tyler Durden.

Self-destruction is the answer.

Presently, the superstar in the sky dips below the sunshade, swinging down his chosen longitude for the day.

Sometimes I wonder how it must feel to stand somewhere on that precise geographical minute, in the full glare of the setting sun, at that confabulation of space and time.

Sometimes I think about a ball of sunlight, bursting out of the sun's core, unravelling untrammelled through millions and millions of miles of nothing, the photons then tumbling through the atmosphere and a convenient hole in the ozone, thrashing through all that smog, past the grill on my window, all that distance, only to be stopped flat by a puny plank of wardrobe wood. Sometimes I think about how it's happening all the time and I'm depressed. Sometimes I think it must be lousy being a sun. Who'd want to be a sun? Not me. A meteor shower -- now that would be cool.

Dad comes in to ask me something and starts clamouring about how hot it is in here. I tell him I'm meditating and silence his protests. Sometimes I think parental salvation lies in being outsmarted by one's kids.

The room is turning a shade of ripe summer yellow. The marble flooring starts to heat up. My skin feels like a flame has been drawn across its surface. Naturally enough, I'm sweating now. Trickles start to crawl down my forehead and my temples.

Sometimes, I think of sweat and the travesty of its colourlessness. Would sweat be any precious if it was the colour of blood? Or would blood be any trivial if it looked and smelt like sweat? Sometimes I remember asking my sister if sweat evaporated and became rain. Sometimes I can recall the look of disgust she shot me across the dining table.

The window panes gradually blush a flaming orange, and I think of the rasna kid. Sometimes I wonder what happened to her. Sometimes I wonder if executives at Coke and Pepsi are involved in efforts to accelerate global warming. Sometimes I think of frisbees on the beach, of budding biceps and capri calves. Sometimes I think of our dog, Tiger. Sometimes I think of coming back home after kindergarten and tumbling with him in the yard. Sometimes I think of how he died in a pool of his own blood. Sometimes I don't think at all.

A twilight purple on the walls announces the arrival of a violet dusk. I'm drenched now. Hair roots, arm-pits, t-shirt, shorts ... I get up, shut the windows, flick on the compact fluorescent lamp, grab a towel and head for a shower, gently closing the door behind me, a little satisfied at having boxed the eternal. For today.

Untitled

along the sun-drenched roadside*
memories bathe in shimmering gold;

i pick one, turn it around:
a coin between my fingers

you - taunting the stars one dark night,
screaming how they will never know the gleaming road,
baiting them to walk down;
cardsharp gaming the heavens.

you - who became the game
of roaring rolling stars along this road;
us - a pair of roaming dice, rolling
under reluctant stars, watchful skies.

the coin of memory flashes gold,
light spilling from my fingers -
you of yore

your rebellion on the road, imprinting itself
like the warm smell of summer on skin
three years ago -

that night along this sun-drenched road
the stars you rebelled against
rebelled against you.

---

* - This line from here

Unforgotten

your words lie
littering the floor,
like newspapers
flung here and there.

they lounge lazily
on the couch, crowding,
cramping
the spaces of my soul,
confusing
the way i see myself.

my patience bends,
sweeps them up,
stacks them in a corner
of my memory,
to read later, at leisure,
when i’m tired of us.

i close the door
on you,
slip the latch in place,
locking within
a roomful of anger
that could burn
photographs and promises.

i cook lunch,
wipe the windows clean
of our arguments,
watch the news, and
take out the trash
from my mind.

when evening balds,
i stand on the porch,
anxious for you
to return
your love
at night.

but up in the attic,
newspapers lie
piled up,
awaiting
a whiff of disillusionment.

Rite of passage

Years vanish down the drain without as much as a blip on the memory. And then one night, or one day, can hold enough memories for a lifetime, memories which mould your identity in ways you don’t understand. After all we are not the day-jobs we hold, the clothes, the electronic cards and the annual vacations; defined by all those places inside our minds we secretly visit, shaped by all that we feel but can’t articulate, we are ultimately a zero-sum of our days and thoughts and actions. And, of course, our memories.

The TV plays in the otherwise dark room, casting flashes of uncertain light. A commercial break. A little girl appears, all milk teeth and pony-tail, dressed in a doctor’s coat. Her father smiles at her. Insurance policies. For children.

He reaches across the divan for the remote control, his thumb already on the mute button before his mind can record the need for silence. It’s like that sometimes. You know what you want before you can think it through.

There are times when I have no questions, times when I seek no answers. These are times when there is no trepidation, when peace stretches every second into a tranquil eternity, when life is a maze without walls, holding no more mysteries, when I am the tongue that speaks every language, the hands that reincarnate, the eyes that see everything.

She lies silently beside him, her round face looking – and not looking – at him. The TV lights one half of her face, the other half in the shadows equally delicate and beautiful. His fingers trace the ridges of her cheeks, the bridge of her nose, the symmetry of her lips, engraving on his memory the geography of her face, the contours of her body. He ventures north – to the arrows of her eyebrows - and then south – to the cleft in her chin, to the undulation of her throat - and then back up into the soft mess of her hair. He kisses her eyelids, her neck, her shoulders … she pulls him up towards her.

Every now and then, a story settles in the corners of your mind,
In the corners of your mind like cosmic dust caught in a cobweb.
And then you have to write,
Write about eagles and hunters and deserts and gypsies,
About old men and young women, about love in the afternoon sun …
And when you’re done writing,
Done writing the story, you don’t know.
Don’t know if you lived and wrote,
Or wrote and lived…

She breaks away, a little breathless, her lips a little softer now. The game-show is back on. She turns away from him, pulling the woolen blanket up to her chin, and reaches for the remote.

“Shall I lock it?”

The host’s voice booms into the room, the glassy silence shatters into a thousand tiny slivers, retreating to the four corners of the room. Reality intrudes into the privacy of their physicality, pounding at the tenuous link between their heartbeats.

She looks at the screen without registering, without acknowledging the truth of the past few minutes. She ignores the warmth she can feel rising inside her. She had been there, had had the choice and she had made it. Made a choice she thought she wouldn’t choose. Now she had another choice to make.

The audience laughs; another contestant done away with. The host simpers, and ushers in another commercial break. She switches off the TV, turns, and looks at him.

There are times when questions plague my heart, when the answers ravage my carefully developed certainty, when the rat race becomes a refuge. These are times of anxiety and anticipation, a period of doubt waiting for my faiths to turn into my future, when life lies thrown open riddled with choices, when my courage seeks companionship, when I am the sheep that could so easily get lost, when I am the shepherdess who doesn’t know if she wants to be one.

She can see him in the dark, smiling at her, his eyes all crinkled up. It gave his face an odd mixture of youth and experience, an attractive blend of the sanguine and the sad. She lies on her side, facing him, feeling him under his shirt, running her hand along the side of his face, playing with his hair. She is amused by how familiar their bodies have become to each other, how some places are visited as a matter of routine, how certain touches are expected and received, amused by how natural it is to want without knowing.

He caresses her body under the blanket. They kiss again, eagerly, tongues and lips, hands and fingers, legs and thighs, teeth and nails, exploring, engaging, exhuming long-dead emotions. The clothes come off quickly. And they make love. Man and woman.

There is time, I tell him,
To ponder theory and technique and perfection,
To discuss postmodernism and Neruda and evolution.
But hurry now, for it will soon dawn,
And the night, quickly gone.

Tell me a story, sing me a song,
Make it haunting, make it long,
And wait for me to sing along.

Tell me how the earth smells where you come from,
How it rains, how the roads lead up into the hills.
Tell me about forest fires and famine and fever,
About your lovers and the temperature of your evenings,
Tell me about old men and young women,
About wine in the afternoon and lazy love under the sun …

He stops. They are making too much noise, he realizes; the landlord might wake up. He reaches urgently under the pillow for the remote, switches on the TV, turns the volume up, watching the green counter on the screen increment from right to left. 30 … 42 … 58 … he turns towards her.

Kaise Bataaoon Kis Kis Tarah Se Pal Pal Mujhe Tu Sataati …

Kishore Kumar sings. Dev Anand. Waheeda Rehman. Prem Pujari. She giggles, breathing under his weight, shifting to help him settle comfortably on her. He grins at her, at the ridiculousness of the moment.

Tere Hi Sapne Lekar Ke Soya Teri Hi Yaadon Mein Jaaga … he whispers into her ears, singing softly, tickling her ear-lobes ... Lena Hoga Janam Hameh Kayi Kayi Baar

The TV goes off the blink -- power-cut. The fan grinds to a halt. They giggle, unmindful of the interruption and return to their love-making, oblivious to their noise.

Be patient, my dear.
Did I tell you I once was a sailor? A voyager
Into the vocabulary of the heart,
Dropping anchor in time-trapped islands;
Islands populated by mermaids with long green hair
And unblinking eyes.
Mermaids who looked inside you and sang in a strange tongue,
Bewitching sailors
Who lost their way and never returned home.*

Be patient, dearest,
While I say my story and sing you a song.
I’ll make it enchanting, I’ll make it long.
I’ll wait for you to sing along.

Let me tell you
About boats and broken nets, about storms and sticky seaweed,
About men trapped
In the nobility of their ambitions.
Let me explain my secrets, my promises,
The bargains I struck with my dreams.
And then let me tell you
About wheat fields in the wind and rain-rusted ploughs,
About forgiveness in the dusty shade of a church,
About the flame in the villages that never dies,
About the songs of old men and young women,
Who sip wine in the afternoon and make love under the sun …

They lie on the mattress, a mass of naked skin, sweat and urgent breathing, engulfed in the quiet afterglow of their union, sated, spent, speechless, love-bites all over their bodies.

She lies on top of him, her hair sprawled across his face and chest. She tells him she thinks their bodies fit well. Like always. And he, like always, laughs at her.

He lifts her gently from him, sits up and reaches for the alarm clock. She reaches out swiftly, grabs his wrist and pulls him down. He looks at her quizzically.

“What is it?” he whispers.

“Happy Birthday,” she says, and smiling weakly, plants a kiss on his forehead.

***

* - The Mermaid reference influenced by Ulysses, with all due respect to Homer.

Bad Music Junkie

“Picture of you in my mind” plays on the ipod. It’s a nice song when you’re walking. I wouldn’t admit listening to it normally. I have taste, you know. But yes, I like that part where it goes, “Why did it take me so long …?” Know what I mean?

I swing out of the office gates and stride right into rush hour on Mount Road.

Mount Road at twilight. Surreal. Gemini flyover dominates the landscape, soaring in and out of glitzy billboards which make me giddy with their glare. The people, the cars, the purple, the lime green, the nylon white, the breeze that dips and lifts, the fast food joints and the smell of oil, all that light and noise … totally hypnotic. I could stand there all night, watching the traffic go by and not get bored. That said it is so unlike Madras. At least the Madras I knew once. Someday I’ll show you a picture.

Bipasha Basu beams down at me from a height of hundred feet. “Cruise with me,” she invites. Thanks lady, but no thanks. Don't let hair-care advertisements take over the imagination, I admonish myself and join a waiting group at the pedestrian crossing.

I see her straightaway.

“Words” shuffles itself nicely into play. She’s looking from right to left, assessing the traffic. Shapely eyes. Nice swing of the head. Pretty. Instant heartache.

She’s almost as tall as me. Short hair falls gracefully on her swimmer-like shoulders; a few strands are a little frazzled at the top and the sides, but nothing a shampoo can’t fix -- Bips would vouch for that. Mustard coloured short-top, “wheatish” complexion, dark jeans that hug her hips and flare out fashionably at the bottom.

The light turns green and I fall in line behind her. A silver-coloured watch hangs daintily on her wrist…and she can walk, oh yes.

She’s talking into her mobile phone. I hear her voice rise above Boyzone. “No, I didn’t” … “When?” Nice voice too, I nod in appreciation. Not too girly. A little more base and it would be perfect. But then you can’t have everything. She ups the pace and I quicken my step.

The breeze picks up and that’s when the perfume hits me. Christian Dior. Poison. So, she likes to be classy, but not too classy as yet. I hesitate and then go right ahead with a deep breath, losing a little bit of myself in the process. Yeah, right! Poison, indeed. I slow down a little, letting her get ahead of me, shaking my head free of the scent. “From the coast of Ipanema to the island of Capri”, Enrique quavers into my ears and I grin sheepishly as I start following her.

Who is she talking to? Is it her boyfriend? Guilt grabs my throat and jealousy sprouts its green weeds somewhere in my heart soil. No, she looks like a level-headed woman. She would know that love is too much trouble. Probably reads more than one newspaper and wants to head her own business before she starts looking around. I cheer up, and start catching up with her. Maybe there’s time yet. Hope is an eternal spring, you know. Maybe she likes Enrique too. I say hi to Mr. Christian Dior again.

“Where does mom want to go?” Ah, it’s her dad probably. I picture an old man with gold-rimmed glasses who wears Polo shirts and goes golfing on Sundays. Yes, it would be her father. Has to be. I'm certain. She’s too sensible for boyfriends. They’re leaving on a trip tomorrow. They even have an SUV parked in the garage. I bet she has a dog as well. She looks the type.

Traffic on the other side of the flyover. We stop. Now it’s just the two of us. And she starts to step back as the traffic roars by, too close for comfort. My pulse quickens and starts to race. I don’t think she’s noticed me yet. That gives me a stupid little thrill. A yellow blur of an auto-rickshaw whips past nastily, and she jumps back, almost bumping into me. I hold my breath. Poison can wait. “I will stand by you forever … you … can … take … my breath away”. Enrique again. The idiot. Shut up dude.

We stand in the shadow of the flyover, watching the headlights whiz past, immersed in our own worlds. She’s at the edge of the kerb and I’m on the impossibly little footpath, playing stalker. The traffic thins and she ventures forth again. The sodium vapour lamps light her up, like sentries paying tribute. Christ, she’s beautiful.

I stand on the pavement, wondering what to do. Maybe I should go after her. Do I know you from somewhere? Oh sorry, you looked like someone I once knew. Where are you going anyway? Oh, I‘m from there too. Mind if I walk with you? Naa, that’s too old, wouldn’t work. How about I thought I should let you know that you look stunning? Might work if I just walk away abruptly; she might get curious about me. Like hell she would! Might get a tight little slap as well. Oh, she’s getting away. Quick! Do something! Where’s a poem when you need one? She’s near the median. I jump right out onto the road and a bus screeches to my left. Rubber burns. Curses mount. I can hear my origins being questioned. I run out.

Too late, she’s already on the other side, a sea of traffic sandwiched between us now. I'm stranded in the middle of the road, watching her white slippers turn around a bend.

And then she’s gone. Just like that. I stand with the drone of the traffic drowning the music in my ears. What are the possibilities of you seeing her again? I rue in hindsight.

Bye bye Poison.

That’s when I see her.

Long hair, proud jaw line, purposeful stride.

I catch her eye. “There’s a truth in your eyes saying you’ll never leave me...” -- Ronan Keating purrs into the earphones. Man for the moment.

I laugh into the night and quickly cross the road. Maybe there’s time yet.

err ... Haiku?

billboards illuminate
a neon night.
the city sleeps.

*

unpressed uniforms
on a monday morning.
wrinkled dreams.

*

summer load shedding.
dinner on the terrace
with the moon.

*

sparrows nest on the roof.
wheels rumble
through the station.

*

before sunset,
writing love letters
beside the lake.

*

Interested?

Recollection

Late afternoon. An unforgiving sun, oppressive heat and a salty breeze. Crabs lie frying on the sand.

He's sweating - around his neck, under his armpits and at the waist, where the elastic bites into tender skin. His languid body lies writhing on the beach-towel with the peculiar discomfort of those half asleep.

Waking up is always a compromise, he thinks, rolling his eyeballs underneath his eyelids. A compromise between freedom and choice. A choice made is a freedom relinquished.

He opens his eyes.

Sky. Bare, brilliant, blue and overwhelming. A compromise between space and light, between emptiness and enlightenment, between the physical and the surreal.

He removes his tongue from where it's wedged in a corner of his mouth. Rolls it about. Swallows hard, letting the bitterness of his sleep permeate his insides. He blinks into the distance. The light hurts. His eyes crinkle up. So does his nose. The sky breaks into fragments.

He can sense that something is wrong.

He rolls onto his side and rests himself on an elbow. The beach is empty. Not a soul around. The sand is a funny colour, he notices, black at certain places, a grainy brown at others, sheer white otherwise. A crow flies from atop a palm on the shore, swoops down to the foam and picks something up. He can't see what. Probably a dead fish. Or a snail. Or something which caught its eye.

The feeling builds inside him slowly. Like mercury inside a thermometer on a hot day. He falls back. Looks at the sky again. Where is this ...

He sits up abruptly.

Where is this place?

He laughs. The very thought preposterous and amusing at the same time. He shakes his head, clearing his mind. And thinks.

He can't remember. Tries again. No. Not working.

He looks around in panic. There's a bottle of beer lying nearby, in a stubby with pictures of naked women on it. The stubby is familiar. He remembers buying it. Buying it - somewhere, for someone ... Where? For whom? And why is it with him if he bought it for someone else? He strains his memory, staring hard at the crimson stripes running along the length of the towel. Where? For whom? He notices that the stripes have smaller white stripes running inside them. Who ...

Who was he?

There's sweat in his eyes, his breathing a combination of heaves and spasms.

There's something wrong here. He looks around again. He can see a woman far off, walking along the shore, towards him. From where he sits, he can see she's tall, and pretty in her fluttering frock and coolers. She's carrying a bag. He wonders what she's doing here. Maybe he should ask her about himself.

For chrissakes ... get a grip, he curses silently. Think. Focus, he orders himself. Or maybe you shouldn't focus, he reconsiders. Maybe you shouldn't think. Maybe you should let your consciousness wander. Yes, he agrees. Falling back, he closes his eyes.

There's nothing on his mind. He can feel the threads in the towel eating into his sweaty back. There's a sharp pain in his wrist. He then realizes it's been there all along, ever since he woke up. There, he kids himself, there's a memory for you. A painful memory, he laughs at his own joke. He rotates the wrist masochistically, relishing the pain, clinging onto it like one would cling onto a ledge when pushed over a cliff. He then starts moving each of his joints, searching for pain ... somewhere, some memory, some trigger. It's a bizarre sight. There? He feels his knee-cap. Wasn't that pain? He rubs it vigorously, almost sadistically, wishing there was pain. But no, he moves on. The ankles, the shoulders ...

And then, like fireworks on a night sky, an image bursts inside his head, like ink splashed violently on paper.

The fireworks die. The ink clears. And he sees an old woman, wrapped in a shawl, with graying hair tied in a knot. She's buying fish. There's a small kid standing beside her, holding her hand, pestering her. He concentrates on her face. And the old woman disappears, dissolving inside his mind. But the kid is still there, looking up at the old woman who's no longer there. The kid's now crying. He focusses on the kid's face. And presently, the kid disappears too.

The ink draws in quickly and clears away. Another scene. This time he sees a boy swimming in the sea. The boy looks like him. He wakes up. The boy looks like him! He closes his eyes quickly, and the image forms again. The boy's swimming. Eager for a clue, he looks into the vision. It's a race. There are other boys swimming besides the boy who looks like him, but they are ahead of the boy who looks like him. There's an island a few hundred metres ahead, with yellow breakers and red buoys and people cheering. The boy who looks like him is striving, stretching every muscle, but with every stroke, the others seem to surge ahead. He finds himself urging the boy ahead, exhorting him to swim faster. He looks up into the vision and sees the island nearing. He looks down and the boy is no longer there. He focusses into the sea, scanning the waves. And the vision breaks.

He opens his eyes again. Frustrated. His back is itching, and the pain in his wrist is irritating. But he knows he must try again. And he closes his eyes.

He sees a man and a woman making love. He looks around them, and all he sees is darkness. He realizes that the darkness is not in his vision of them, but around them in the dream. The woman is pretty. Not beautiful. Just pretty. He looks at the man, but the man's back is turned towards him. He realizes he can't see who the man is. He tries rotating the vision. But no. It's stuck in his head. It doesn't change any more. The couple is frozen. Suspended in his imagination. Locked in an eternal embrace. And he keeps looking at the woman, expecting her to disappear. But no, she stays there, her face serene and divine. And just as it seems as if she's going to smile at him, the vision breaks into a million little pieces, and the ink draws across. He waits for it to clear, but it stays that way.

He opens his eyes. Waking up is such a compromise. It's like you know where you are and where you want to end up, but you still have to look up the map and make the journey. It's like building a bridge just for the sake of it.

He turns over on his back, thinking. Of the old woman. Of that boy who looked like him. And of that couple locked together.

Who are these people? Do I know them? Or are these just images from some B-grade movie I might have seen recently? Like yesterday? Oh damn ...

He sits up, looking at the sea in front of him. The waves break, advance and retreat, break, advance and retreat.

What have I got now? A beach-towel. A half-drunk bottle of beer. Do I drink beer? I don't know. Hell, I don't remember! Add to that a few stupid images stuck inside my head. Where do I go from here? I don't know where I am, don't know where I want to go, rather I don't have a clue where to go, and what's worse, I don't have a map. Big journey!

He spits into the sand. The spittle rolls into a ball, gathering some grains before it stops.

Maybe it's all for the good, he rationalizes. Who knows what I was? And why should I take the trouble to find out? Maybe this is a chance to start all over again. I just have to decide not to choose. Choose not to remember. Choose not to be what I was. Choose not to go where I should go. Choose to see everything in a new light. Make new memories, start a new life. He feels his thoughts fleeing.

Maybe I'll go work in a restaurant, save money, travel around the world. Or maybe I should make a movie. Or, or, maybe I'll go live in a faraway island, and fall in love with a native girl. He catches himself fantasizing. Rubbish. Need to remember, need to get my bearings, he reminds himself. He feels tired all of a sudden. He plops back on the towel, and closes his eyes.

And almost immediately, the couple reappears. Almost as if they were waiting for some imaginary curtain to part.

The woman is smiling at him now. Again, he's curious about the man. This time, however, the image yields as he tries to rotate it. Slowly, the man's face emerges. The jaw, the straight, long nose ...

"...jaaaaaayyyy!"

Someone's tugging at his shoulder. He wakes up.

"Ajjjjjaaaaaay ... wake up. Let's go. It's getting late"

It's her.

The pretty woman from his vision.

The tall woman in a frock. A pair of coolers on her head, and a bag of shells in her hands.

"Ajay, what's wrong?"

Ajay.

He feels like a man who fell off a cliff and discovers he has wings.

Ajay.

Images whiz in front of his eyes. ID cards, driving licenses, mark-sheets, people, places, a beer stubby bought for a friend who died, badminton and an overused wrist, voices calling out - AJ, Ajjie, coffee machines, credit card bills, mobile phone numbers, parties at work ... and amidst all these there are other images and thoughts. Images of an old woman buying fish, of a boy swimming, of a couple making love. And thoughts of a faraway island and a native girl.

"Nothing Anjali," he says, smiling at her, "Let me go get the car," and reaches under a corner of the towel for the keys.

Waking up is a compromise.

A compromise between freedom and choice.

The choice to dream.

And the freedom to live.

The break

It' s been raining intermittently since morning. A mug of dark, black coffee grows cold on the table. An abandoned cordless beckons plaintively from a forgotten corner of the small, one-room cabin. Newspapers lie in scattered sheets on the wooden floor, vestiges from a session with the cartoons and the crossword.

He stands in front of the glass wall that overlooks the dark, green jungle underneath, watching drops patter the verandah, bouncing off the hard teak like pearls dropping from an unstrung necklace. The bluish-gray sky lies lazily above him. The clouds are today heavy with rain, and lumber across purposelessly. He'd woken up at dawn and had made good progress before it started raining. And then, like mice lured by the piper, the rain had drawn him out.

Sunlight soldiers through the shaggy, thatched roof from over and behind his head, catching drops in mid-flight. A delicate warmth suffuses the nippy air, which now smells of dead, and wet, leaves. A mini rainbow struggles on the glass. He can see his tall frame in it now, bare-chested, hair dishevelled, unshaved, his khakis falling from his slim waist to just below his ankles. The cordless continues to wail.

He plods across the verandah to where the glass wall ends and the ladder begins. The drops have formed a small puddle here. Balancing himself on his left leg, he stretches his right out, and with the big toe, writes her name on the water. The water cedes as his toe scrawls, and then spreads back to erase. He carefully draws each letter on the surface, watching them vanish even before he finishes, but the image of all of them together is firm in his mind. Just like her memory.

The cordless goes silent. He notices it. In the jungle, it's not the noise, but the silence which catches the attention. It rings again. He walks bare-footed into the cabin; looks around for the cordless. He checks his writing table. A sheaf of notes, papers from the morning's work, a box of cheap ballpoint pens, with one missing, the one he's been using. But no cordless. He can hear it nearby.

He bounds across the mattress, homing on the sound. There's a backpack in the corner, filled with supplies from his latest visit to the village. He flings it aside. The cordless blinks at him in innocence, its tone now louder and adamant. He grabs at it.

"Hello?"

"Daddy?"

Weekend

Stairways shake,
Little feet
Run unleashed.

Work & worry
Locked away,
Farewells bidden,
Ways part.

Fallen mangoes
Lie unpicked.
Hope reconciles
Drained souls.

Grumpy faces
Display cheer;
Festoons flutter,
Shoppers surface,
Evening smiles...

Dusk fades,
Last bus
Empties out,
Dogs laze
Under lamp-lit corners.
Bag lighter,
Heart easier,
I stroll home.

Desperado

Desperado, why don't you come to your senses?

You been out ridin' fences for so long now

Oh, you're a hard one

I know that you got your reasons

These things that are pleasin' you

Can hurt you somehow

*

He stands waiting, outside, chewing gum. On time, as always. Impeccably dressed, as always, in a throw-away shirt and jeans and matching shoes, car waiting nearby. He looks the same, that five o' clock shadow, that twinkle in his eyes women fell in love with, that sly smile playing on his lips. A quick hug later, we drive away.

*

Don't you draw the queen of diamonds, boy

She'll beat you if she's able

You know the queen of hearts is always your best bet

*

(A few years ago)

She plays too much of the helpless female with me you know, he told me. We were walking. It was that period between winter and spring when trees look gawky in their half-bloom. The ice was still melting.

But aren't we all helpless? I'd asked in return. The sun peeped shyly from above the clouds. A car drove by, kids in the back seat making a ruckus.

He shrugged, hands tucked into the pockets of his coat, and gave me that silly smile he reserved for moments when he wanted me to know that he wasn't changing his mind.

I don't think she's my type you know, he remarked. If only he'd known. We walked on.

*

Now it seems to me, some fine things

Have been laid upon your table

But you only want the ones that you can't get

*

Dear Ajay,

Sorry for not writing in earlier. Life is just too hectic here, what with one thing or the other demanding my attention....you know how it is.

Just wanted to wish you all the best in life buddy! Sorry for not making it to the wedding. Give the missus my best regards.

Sorry again.

Yours,

V

PS: Oh, she said yes, by the way ;)

I've never sworn so much as I did after reading that email.

*

Desperado, oh, you ain't gettin' no younger

Your pain and your hunger, they're drivin' you home

And freedom, oh freedom well, that's just some people talkin'

Your prison is walking through this world all alone

*

Dear Ajay,

The fridge is all yours. Help yourself! Something came up at work.

-V

I stare at the yellow post-it all bleary-eyed while I brush. He'd pasted it on the spotless bathroom mirror where he knew I wouldn't miss it. Always practical. Always methodical. So unlike a romantic, which he most definitely is.

Practical and methodical. Even with his women. They never could see what he truly is. Thing is he never wanted to show them, if you ask me. He wanted to be very sure before revealing, he once told me. Self-defense, in my opinion.

And he regretted it. Always. After the break-up. Not before.

I knew something was amiss the minute he'd said 'hello' when I'd called up to tell him I'd be flying over for the weekend. Gentle pressing and much cajoling later, he'd confessed.

We broke up, he'd whispered over the phone.

I shave quickly in the dim light of the bulb above the mirror. The razor slides smoothly over my cheeks.

She was not my type, you know, he'd added.

The after-shave stings as I dab it over where I nicked myself. It doesn't matter even if you see it coming. It still hurts.

I felt caged all the time. No space man. Zero freedom, you know. It would never have worked, he'd said with a sigh.

I look at the note again, and make my way to the fridge.

*

Don't your feet get cold in the winter time?

The sky won't snow and the sun won't shine

It's hard to tell the night time from the day

You're losin' all your highs and lows

Ain't it funny how the feeling goes away?

*

(A year ago)

Dear Ajay,

It's all over.

We broke up. I told her yesterday that I couldn't go on with this farce. She cried. A lot. But I hope she gets over me. I know she will. She's strong that way.

So why did we break up? It's got to with a lot of things. It's always about the little things, you know. The bigger issues you can always resolve, but not the little ones. Like the way she folds my books when she reads them and leaves smudges all over the pages. Like the way she has little patience for words and their meanings. Like the way...oh, never mind! Who am I trying to fool here? It was always about one thing. Just one thing. You've known me through all these years and through all these women. You know why I've never found what I'm looking for?

I'm too self-sufficient, A. Emotionally and intellectually. That's my problem. I guess some people classify me as a loner. So why search for love? Why look out for that elusive companion? I don't know how else to put this but there's this void inside me that's been unfilled all these years. I guess you might have known all of this all along.

A void which engulfs my soul when I stand by the sea at dawn with the moan of the waves in my ears, the wet sand crumbling under my feet, the water lapping around my ankles, the breeze flirting with my collar, the salt-spray stinging my eyes, when I see the sea shimmer with a golden gleam and the sky come alive as the sun squeezes itself from under the horizon and leaps out onto the sky above. I would like some company when I see that. Someone I can turn to and smile, someone I can hold hands with right then, someone who will smile back with the understanding of the emotions that run through me at that instant, someone who would travel with me through Life and yet weave her own path. Is that too much to ask? Maybe it is. Or maybe it's too less.

And all these women, who seemed to promise so much, are content with the tangible and the material. I don't blame them for that. Nobody wants to seek that which can't be sought, that which seeks you out only when you're ready for it, that which I find in the calmness of night looking at the stars lying with my back on the grass. Don't know if that makes sense. Does it?

Sorry to bore you, A. So tell me, how have you been? And how...

*

Desperado, why don't you come to your senses?

Come down from your fences, open the gate

It may be rainin', but there's a rainbow above you

You better let somebody love you, before it's too late

*

"So any chance of you coming back soon?" he asks me.

We're on our way back to the airport. It's raining outside. Soft music plays on the car radio.

I reply in the negative. And turn to look at him.

I can see a thin veneer of disappointment glazing his eyes, as he steers into the parking lot. I can sense the loneliness shrouding his being. And there's not a thing I can do about it.

I remember something he once wrote in an email.

You know how you feel when your finger reaches out and tries to touch a raindrop sliding down the other side of a window? That's distance for you. Something which can never be bridged without breaking whatever's in between.

***

Note: Text in blue - Lyrics from the song 'Desperado' by the Eagles. Title and post inspired by the same.

And yes, this post is fiction. If anyone asks me otherwise, they're going to get it.

Untitled - 1

Where will this end? And pray, at what price?
Of what use incessant progress and inhuman might,
When we can't realize a life can't be taken twice?

Smoke from our fires spirals towards the skies
While we burn and rape everything in sight.
When will this end? And pray, at what price?

A tattered woman weeps alone; untended, a child cries.
Their dreams carpet-bombed; their nation, in blight.
Why don't we realize a life can't be taken twice?

We wallow in greed; our lives, complicated lies.
Our pens dripping blood, a crimson history we write.
How will this end? And pray, at what price?

Souls muted, we spectate as humanity dies.
We war over the petty; for the meagre, we fight.
Do we even realize a life can't be taken twice?

Beauty lies dead, her corpse swarming with flies.
The pall bearers come to carry her away into the night.
Where will this end? And pray, at what price?
When will we realize a life can't be taken twice?

***

My first attempt at a Villanelle.

Recounting numbers

A soul. A singular silence. The first time, when nothing is known, and everything is sublime, untouched.

Creaky doors swaying in the wind, their hinges loose. Soiled sneakers. Wet, evanescent footprints on the mosaic floor suffused with light from the slanting rays of the evening sun.

Maple leaves, falling in slow motion. Traffic lights that don't work. Two lies and a truth.

Walls. Hands. An ignored alarm.

Dawn that filters through the curtains. My senses that lay overwhelmed. The final dimension, now realized.

Six dried roses in a brass vase. Twilight. Red dice with white dots, showing twelve.

Unreal weeks. A sad sonnet stopped midway. A rainbow imprisoned by the rusted bars of a cobweb-ridden window.

Spiders on the wall, eavesdropping. Chess. Black coffee at 8.

Separation. Cats at home, waiting. Work and routine.

Nothing. Everything. Infinity inversed, but still infinite.