In Conversation

Suketu Mehta

Tonight, I thought
I should write you a poem
Not one of those
That borrows
The deep blue
From the sky
Or the dusty brown
Of an impending summer

I thought
I should coat your eyelids
With the tickle
Of dandelions
And bottle away
Your fragrance
In a lachrymatory

I can feel
The precise point
Where your fingers
Rested on my back
When we smiled
For posterity

That night
Is long gone
The poem
May not really be here
But the ache inside
Is real
Even after
You touched me
The way you did.

Amber

Amber
Softly bright
Steadily
Burns

A lone moth
Potters
Flapping
Its wings

The night
Is long
The fluttering
Retrograde

The base
Of your neck
Far away
Inviting

I am
In a bottomless abyss
I fall
And fall
Freely

From the edges
Your voice
Gently permeates
The night

If only
In my head.

Indestructible

Life is mostly froth and bubble. Time is the best healer. Light at the end of the tunnel ya da ya da. Shining pieces of in your face optimism. The utter triviality of it all. Inconsequential drivel.

It’s been over a year, she thought. It can’t be that tough. Already, one of those warm comforters that set in at a time when your stomach goes round and round like the washer, surfaced. The stained coffee cup making its almost circular mark.

See, not everything changes.

She drummed the table, played with the coaster, thought about some inconsequential conversation she just had with a stranger. Wondered about the time and why he had not yet made it. Not like him at all.

There was a new eating place that had come up bang opposite this one. Shiny and colourful. She looked at the traffic through the glass door, and the logo of the store yonder. It had been a year. Full one. More better than worse. More worse than better.

He then appeared, out of nowhere, infront of the door. Like the insane in a happy sweet bubble way that he was. That he was to her. Him. Her. Was.

One brief moment and she caught the laughter in his eyes. How grey looked lovely on him. How that moment was killing her. She wanted to disappear that very minute. Not have to be. The file, she thought, was magical stuff. Her fingers rummaged through some papers. He found her. So much for hide and seek with a blue file.

He sat himself down. Said something sweet. She could not bear looking at him. Allowed him to have a monologue. He knew. No cartographer to save her, no delusions that each of them could pocket. The chaos, the ache. The tears that poured within. The peace.

They walked out of there soon. Together. Apart. Chords cut. Belonging. Laced fingers. Him. Her. Was.

Maps

It was on a late muggy evening that I landed in the southern Indian city of Hyderabad. I decided to travel with S to India and do some travelling around the country that holds so much awe, as he went ahead conducting business. He had been there many times before, but it was my first trip. Inspite of all the help, pointers and guidance I received, nothing prepared me for the next few weeks.
Getting packed off by myself to Hyderabad wasn’t exactly my idea. But I did crave for the true blue Indian experience, yes, guilty as charged.
I spent a sleepless night on a hard bed with mosquitoes singing odes in my ears and rashes that never seemed to stop lusting after my hands. Just as I managed to drift into sleep, I woke up with a start to a sound.

Allah….

The Mullah offering prayers at the mosque close to my hotel. These are things they don’t prepare you for on your passage to India. The little things. Over the next few days, I was a bit grumpy at having to go through this and I kicked myself many a times at the thought of my clean apartment overlooking the Hudson. The rashes never got any better.

The sites around the place were pretty interesting and colourful, and very unique from what I saw in other cities. This city somehow seemed more carefree, and had its own pace with things. I made many trips with my camera to the bangle bazaar which is at the older quarter of town. The colours that fill this land of mystique slowly inched towards bringing life into me.

One thing that by now I grew accustomed to apart from the Mullah offering prayers was how a vast majority of people left things of consequence to the one above. For instance while planning a party someone would give out an elaborate scheme of things and then top it off with “Insha Alaah”, meaning Allah willing. The name of The Big Guy Upstairs varied accordingly, but I bet you got that already.

One morning, as I was sipping my upteenth cup of chai, I noticed there was a little girl at the door of our hotel. She was dirty, brown and her nose was running. She had my attention because she was too little to be begging- barely a year old. I looked around.

Over the last few days I had noticed similarly dressed kids round the corner. They belonged to a tribe that had just moved into the kerb. The older of the lot made a living selling toys for kids, balloons, caps with multi-coloured feathers and such odds. The kids played around and did not seem to take to begging. They lived and conducted all their business right there.

I picked my camera and went pottering about my day. Visited a gorgeous marble temple, sipped some more tea and punched some emails back home. On my way back to my room, I noticed that the little girl was still on the street and had barely moved a few feet from where she was in the morning. I decided to put off my shower for a bit, and strolled down the road instead.

The tribe I had noticed earlier weren’t there any more. Worry for a little stranger slowly began to trickle in. I made some enquiries in the shops around the place and with the couple that owned the hotel. They did not seem to know where the kid came from, where the tribe vanished, or if someone would come back for the child. However, they seemed to concur that she looked like she belonged to the aforementioned tribe.

Night began to fall, and I grew increasingly agitated with the system and the callousness around me. I worried about the little girl being hunted down by stray dogs or being taken advantage of. The owners would hear none of letting her sleep in the veranda.

I had to take a call.
I decided to let her sleep in my room for the night, and let her back out early the next day. Who knows, someone might come looking fir her. By now, we were even slightly familiar with each other thanks to the milk and bread I had given her earlier. I lay out a pillow on a small bed made from a few towels and sheets on the floor. She barely spoke, and slept through the night peacefully.

A coupe of days went by and it became obvious that nobody would get her. All of a year old, she was left to fend for myself.

I called S in the middle of the day. We had to talk. I was getting increasing involved with her and did not see any reason why she should not be helped. Asha, I used to call her.
Hope.

I asked him to pull a chair and told him all about her- how she seemed occupied in her own little world, her little fingers, how she never cried. How little by little, with baby steps, she had begun to capture my heart.

“What do you want to do?” S asked. I told him I would probably stay a while longer and figure that out. The next morning, he flew down to meet her. He knew where this was going. By then, I began to make rounds of NGOs that worked with destitute children and also researched on adoption laws.

Things were not simple at all. First, there was nothing we knew about this child. We could have very well kidnapped her, in the eyes of the law. After a lot of running and emptying our pockets a little, we found an organisation that decided to take her.

This was only one small victory among the many battles coming towards us. Shopping and caring for her gave me the strength required to fight. We were increasingly getting fond of each other. Language is not really a parameter when you have to communicate unconditional love. A tight hug, warm smell, delirious laughter, crazy games, that can be language in itself.

Time was running out and the processing and getting Asha an identity and the million other laws kept me busy and my brows knitted together. All this at a certain point got too overwhelming for me to handle. On another weekend trip, S broke it to me.

“We can’t stay any longer”.

Tears flowed, and through the denial, at some point I knew he was right.

We paid the NGO enough for her maintenance, and also made arrangements for play school. We would continue trips as and when possible till the time came when she could come home with us.

My bundle of joy. My raison d’etre.

That afternoon, we went to say our goodbyes. For now.
Asha knew something was up, a smart little kitten. She did not let go of me for one brief moment, and finally fell asleep in my arms. When the caretaker finally took her away from me, and held her close as our taxi pulled away, I could not help but mutter- Insha Allah.

The Sufi in Winter

"A frosted beard
a whiff of musk"

Ranjit Hoskote reading out from his latest volume of poetry, Vanishing Acts.
Hyderabad, India.

When Rumi came alive - II

The first part of this post can be found here:
http://apurplebreeze.blogspot.com/2006/09/when-rumi-came-alive-i.html
Please come back and read the continuation!

That’s just what it is about the past. Your past, my past, a nation’s past- they say things like these repeat, and also that it is not going to go away till you sit down and deal with it.

I had another way looking at things. Another way of looking at Brian, even. I saw him the way nobody else did. We grew up together playing marbles, cricket, soap bubbles and all other assorted games. I would wear his clothes and paint his face with my make up even as a teenager, out of sheet boredom. Most of the time he let me do that. There were also the fights- about inconsequential things such as who should turn which lights off, to things on the heavier side of life such as should we be going to war.

He would send me cards during my birthday that read as if he sent them to a brother or a buddy, he knew all the infinite little ways to make me smile even when I was hopping mad. That is Brian, light of so many eyes.

Many summers ago when we were in elementary school, he got this new shirt that was stripped like the army camouflage uniform. He threw up quite a fit for that, which is not normally like the undemanding him. We were walking around the neighbourhood, with my red trolley in tow. We passed a construction site and soon enough we were building something out of the little stones in the rubble. I don’t really remember what it was- could have been a castle, a pit, or maybe just a little hillock of sorts. Then we decided that we needed something just like this in our backyard, by the little inflatable tub with the yellow ducks. So we began to throw out the contents of the trailer- that included my rag doll, a broken comb and the little plastic cap that comes with cough syrups bottles- the ones that have volume marks on it.

Just as we were ready to head back home, I could not find my rag doll and went into hysterics. It was the queerest doll of all- made from cloth that had this sunny print on it and a yellow scrunchie around its neck. Brian found it a few feet away, at the footsteps of the construction site. While sprinting to get it back, he tripped and landed on his face. The wound was not like anything I had seen before- it was across his cheek, and was bleeding profusely. I began bawling my head off, at the sight of all the blood. Maybe also at the thought of him being in so much pain. He just got up, dusted his muddy hands and the sand that was stuck to the scraped palms, took my hand and asked me to cart the trolley with the other. The trolley had my rag doll in it.

I still can’t help but smile with warmth that floods all over my being at the thought of that summer afternoon. The images are so clear, the red wagon, the rag doll, and Brian as he was sprinting to get it back. The wounds were cleaned soon enough, but the there was a little scar tissue that had formed and that almost became like a mark of identification.
Time rolls on, it has its own sweet course to follow, while we are left here in a future we don’t always want to see and a past that still lingers behind eyelids, like it has just happened, refusing to go away, refusing to let you go.

We grew up, sure enough, but into very different people. I loved the idea of non-violence- from the life and teachings of Mahatma Gandhi, to Flower Power, and I must admit even vague, non-descript stuff like making beads an essential part of my wardrobe. I made my vision very clear, and made sure that I wore every bit of it.

Brian grew into something totally different- he was tall and muscular before I realised it, and loved sports. I always thought that it was one of the few times he came out from his solitary shell, and laughed, played and made strategies with other boys. He went on to enlist in the Army.

The paths we chose for ourselves were completely different. I sometimes even think that one of the two must have felt left out while thinking of the other. Like leaving the comfort of your oldest blanket behind, and turning up the heating so high that you will never need it.
However, in relationships where the bond is from the heart and the love so deep and pure, things like this do not really change how you feel. He would always ask about me even on those briefest of calls home during the war, and I would still make him silly smiley cards for no reason at all. That’s how it is, with people you love. Even if it has been years since you saw them, even if the television blares reports of the wonderful job the boys are doing on the front and all the ecstatic things this war means. My thoughts forever hovered around Brian. Around how this is the classic recipe for disaster.

Demons have this way of shocking you around corners when you least expect them. Maybe that’s why they are called demons, even. My demon- my entire family’s demon infact, also caught up with us. A telegram. Followed by the light of our eyes, my little brother Brian in a wooden box.

The next few months went by in a blur. Just the pain remains in my memory. Like how some film makers put a lady in a bright red dress in a black and white movie, so that no matter what and no matter where you think of the film, the image of the lady in the red dress surely flashes across your mind.

That’s what the pain was like. Always there. Sometimes rising from the pit of my stomach, sometimes lulling me to sleep when I could not take it anymore. It’s funny, now to think of it, that pain and memory almost seem as if they can be transposed.

I earnestly believe that life, or whoever heads the department of cosmic intervention in the sky, sends you messages. Messages that are vague, out of the blue, and yet in that moment hold the key to a flurry of events, unlocking things from memory that you carefully stored away, never to be reopened. The message in itself may not mean a thing to anybody else, but to you, it seems like a customised page cut out and sent to you from the destiny handbook.

Here I am after all these winters and summers that have slowly slipped by, here I am still wearing my beads, sitting in at a café in a foreign country in a green skirt. The boy in the University sweatshirt and the grey green eyes has stopped talking. He is just looking in my eyes. All of sudden, I just reach over and touch the scar on his cheek.