The Other Side Of The Wall - Brick 2

I am facing a lockdown, for the first time in life. It has done a lot of changes:

My mother, who always thought she has my back, is paranoid for the first time. For starters, I have never ever seen that woman paranoid. She is independent, fully financially stable, takes care of the whole house all by herself, takes the decisions, she can come home from work at 9 in night, wash her face and wrap a saree again to go to the market because, I wanted brinjal fry and we have run out of brinjals - that woman is shaking and calling every day and asking me if there is some way I can come home. She is a healthcare professional and she knows the better - I guess we all ditch logic for the ones we love.

My father - a fiercely liberal man who can make some phonecalls and arrange for eggs for my home in Delhi, sitting in Durgapur, Bengal is helpless. Last time he called me, he spoke about how much he hates the Government. He spoke about his helplessness because what if I run out of satinisers now, how will he arrange. He spoke about how he thinks we will get a cure soon - how can humans reach the moon and still not come up with a cure. Crazy! But most of all, it makes him mad to think he doesn't have the option of arranging a ticket for me to go home. Classic dads!

My grandmother smiles the most when I call. When I video call her, she cries the most, too. She wants to tell me all that she knows - how in the recent storm, the neighbour's tree fell on our terrace, how she wants to play ludo with me but she can't find the dice, how badly she wants me to go home and cook for her. This woman who spent all her life either feeding her kids or her grandchildren, and now her grabdchildren's dog, has no clue where to put her anger. But she wants to - so she cries. She wants me to 'video casette' her every night, because she can hear my voice and see my lips moving. God I miss her and how! I ardently remember, everytime my grandmother used to cook fish, she'd smell of this stench of fish from her saree. I'd be asleep by the time she'd come to lie down beside me, and the stench would wake me up. I, who can't take that stench and also didn't want to hurt her saying that, would tell her to play ludo with me instead. Afternoons, I'd let her win. Night, she'd win it herself. My grandmother, who spend all her life feeding kids and her grandchildren, waits for me to go home and cook french toast for her. She says, 'Your mother makes them fine, but nothing like you.' 

I, stuck in an unfamiliar city that's slowly settling on me, try to take things one day at a time. The affected cases crossed the 20,000 mark. I made a mental note recently, the day the official records show 4,000 deaths in India, I'll lose faith. I'll finally settle for the fact that India has officially come to the road to Italy.

__________

I can't stop dreaming though. Sometimes my work gets tougher than usual. I cry more than I work, on days. I live for the weekends, I love for the time outside work, I can't think of shutting my laptop when I start to work. And I can't stop dreaming. This other day, I had a major daydream attack - it's a thing.

I was writing a story, and in the middle, I couldn't shake off a scene from the hills. I kept walking in the cold studded roads of Lava, extremely uphill, panting, the snow-cold air hitting my face, my teeth shivering and flushing my face of the cold red, I kept walking uphill. I was out of breath, I could see the Buddhist colourful flags swaying in the wind from far, some dimly-lit souvenir shops open on my both sides, like the smell of rain on a summer night the smell of pork thupka kept hitting my nostrils, I kept walking uphill.

I can't stop dreaming of Kolkata. My well garbaged lanes, the vegetable vendors screaming out the rates, the sun hitting the top of your heat and making the sweat drip from your eyebrows, men and women pushing you out from the sidewalk, the rickshaws blaring their honks, the cars stuck in a jam, I kept walking. Through that vegetable market, the smell of well crushed wheat from a nearby mill hit my senses, the traffic signal gets more confusing, the buses come and stop right next to me, I kept walking.

I can't stop thinking. I can't freaking stop dreaming in this pandemic.

(Rest for another day..)

The Other Side Of The Wall - Brick 1

I shifted to Delhi in the heat of a moment. I was done with Bangalore, its rush, its no old world charm, its busy traffic, hustle and its food. I was done. I would have shifted long back if I wouldn't have fallen in love.

It was beautiful for a while. This guy, I knew from an University entrance day, where neither of us got through - but we got through to each other.

2016- I tried for this University and failed. In the sturbborn-est of decisions, I ended up for a waiting list call, far off in Hyderabad. I didn't get through, though I walked till the last 4 people to have got rejected. But I met this guy, a nice guy from Kerala - literally the first Malayali I ever befriended. Though the years we kept in touch.

I enrolled myself in Santiniketan while he got through another University in Kerala. I fell in love here, another Malayali. And it was so intense, I rose in that love for a while. But sometimes, things get better only to get worse. It fell apart. Thats for another day!

Anyway, jump to 2018. I had just finished my Masters, I was struggling in an unfamiliar city, unfamiliar people, a start-up job where people didn't know basic things like 'modesty', 'respect' and everything that comes with it. And we met again, this University guy. We have ever since been together.

I had this old friend in Bangalore, literally a stone throw distance from my house. Like at midnight, I'd call him up to lend me his toothpaste. When my boyfriend moved out of Bangalore, me and my school friend would always hand around together. Midnight coffee shops, long walks, smokes, complain about bad South-Indian dinner. I guess he was the worst hit when I moved to Delhi. I remember he came to drop me off to the bus station and for once he didn't smile. I was his only friend there. That guy worked like an animal the whole day, only took a break to walk to a teashop with me. I think he was the worst hit.

When I moved to Delhi, I loved it for a while. All touristy, finger smacking oily food, huge monuments whose top we could see from our terrace, I struggled with the language though, I still do.

2020- I joined a new job - for the first time ever, my parents were happy. I moved on from Public Relations finally. I joined journalism. Now either you can say I'm whining or you can hear me out. I sometimes wake up in the middle of the night, stuttered by my nightmares - I dreamt of my office.

(Rest for another day..)

Little girl in that wooden house

The last time I went to the Himalayas was in 2017.

With a lover I don’t call mine anymore, with friends I don’t talk to anymore, with a camera I didn’t touch for a year now, with a love for frames that is choked by its throat in my small corporate desk now.


Last time I went to the Himalayas was in 2017.


The first time I went there, I was a kid, trading the age of 5-6, on my father’s lap, in the seat beside the driver of the jeep that snaked to the top. I vaguely remember.
I vaguely remember the hairpins, the rocks, the cliff that I hung my head out of the window to, the never-ending rocks on the other side with mosses, plants and flowers, the clouds that would just enter on the way and turn the view from the windsheild white. Perfect surrender to nature.

I vaguely remember the car would stop once in a while for the driver and my father needed a smoke and I would hold my mother's hand and walk near the cliff. We had a old reel camera then, my mother would pose with me, I'd smile.

I vaguely remember we passed localities, wooden houses half made, the dwellers walking with huge logs, sometimes a gang of goats would crowd the road ahead, the car would go slow following them till they dispersed. Perfect surrender to situation.

I remember the whole trip vaguely, but there was this small girl, perched on top of one of the wooden house's half made first floor, I saw her through the bamboos placed straight, waiting to be made into a room, with her sister or maybe mother with a book and laughing. Somehow our jeep slowed down there infront of her house, I saw her face distinctly. A small girl of most likely 1 or 2 years, still growing her mouthful teeth, her dangerously straight  hair sticking out of her two polytails on both sides, wearing a frock that had wild flowers printed, small hands holding the book, laughing with the women beside. I remember her eyes, small eyes with big eyelashes, hardly visible through ber wide eyelids. And in that wisp of the moment when my car passed and she looked up, she smiled. By the time I could smile back, the jeep has picked up speed again, and I lost her. And in my heart of a 5 year old, it brought a surge of sadness. Then we went places, villages, we came back, I grew up, I went to the hills many a times, but she stayed in my head.

I passed that roadway to the top some three times from the first year I visited, I never saw that house, or maybe I did. Maybe the house has changed it’s colour, maybe the first floor was no more a makeshift of bamboos but a room, maybe she grew up and looks different. Or maybe she left.

I vaguely remember, but she never left my mind.

I passed people cutting logs of wood, and wondered, is that her father?

I passed sheep crowding the way ahead, and wondered, does she own them?

I passed houses, hairpins, sunsets, cities and she never left my head.

Eighteen years from then I went to the hills, and made newer memories. I lost the people, passion, the love, the friendship. Two years from losing everything that I once went to the hills with, it still doesn’t affect as much as that little girl does.

What happened to that little girl in that wooden house?

Inter-caste

In this country of imposed Hinduism, I was fiercely in love with a Muslim.


I have got nothing against Hinduism. I have got nothing against religion.
I have, however got everything against the vandalism circling it.

I had just joined a course where I chanced upon this guy. A muslim, an announced anti-nationalist who'd been through prison only because he refused to stand up for national anthem in a movie theatre; because patriotism is real, only when it is shoved down your throat.
A muslim, I didn’t realise when I fell in love with.
A human, who the world doesn’t realise the Muslims to be.

We were in our own world, a room in Santiniketan, a roof with windows on all sides when it rained.
I was trying to stare at the rainclouds when he brushed my hair off my face and said, ' You know what our love is like?'

I said, 'Rain?'

He smiled, 'No. Petrichor. Rain is usual. Petrichor is the smell that the soil gives out as a thank you for saving it from breaking down. Rain saves the soil. Petrichor is the announcement.’

I smiled.

He murmured randomly, 'Can we name our daughter, Petrichor?'

I sat, jumped up on the bed,' Are you thinking of..?'

He cut me short, 'A future? Yes. So?'

And I remember I broke down. I cried and told him, 'We can't. Maybe in a parallel universe where there is no religion, where there is no riot when a Hindu and a Muslim marries, there we will have a petrichor and let her thrive.’

He didn’t say anything. He held me and kept staring at the rain.
________________________________

I had just joined as an intern in a company, a friend of mine worked there. We had been friends for a long time and she knew of my lover; she knew all the insecurities I was trespassing on to be in love.

It was my first day in that office. She took me out with her colleagues to a coffee shop, and dare me call that a mental abuse, made me say the name of my lover, and repeat his surname like thrice, so she can ridicule me infront of her colleagues; people I was meeting for the first time in my life.


This same friend, called me on my birthday, and even before wishing me, asked, 'Is your lover with you? Will your father get a heart attack when he comes to know of him?'

Now I don’t know if I am patient or self demeaning, I still didn’t cut her off from life, only before a month.
______________________________

I still remember the first night I stayed at my lover's place. We were sloshed, very close and I remember he pressed my face into his chest and cried.

When I asked, he said, 'Why did you have to be from another religion? Why can’t we be together?'

I don’t remember what I said, only that I pressed my face deeper into his chest and cried.

______________________________

I had a classmate, the kind of guy who’d say I'm sinful if I had pork, who'd say I'm going to go hell, if I fancied having beef.

That same classmate, I hated with all my might, not for being ridiculously religious, but for priding upon his pea-sized mentality; he told me once I'll die painfully if I am in love with a Muslim, being a Hindu.

When I asked him to give me a elaborate explanation on his stupidity, he couldn’t.
Mind you, he holds a Masters degree from the same Central University I studied in.

Guess you can’t judge education in degrees or universities.

_____________________________

In this country of failed Hindus who preach of the religion and don’t even understand any bit of its meaning, I was fiercely in love with a Muslim.

Bolpur Blues: Episode 15

Next day was Holi.

I had done the usual, played along, got crushed on a crowd-choked street, faced food crisis, and felt absolutely lonely. The quirk was at home all this while, completing his quota of sleep.

We met in the evening, and he took out a half bottle of Fenny from his bag.

'All the way from Goa. It took me a lot of self-control to save this much for you.’

We drank the fenny sitting on the porch, with chilly pickle as the side dish.

Malayalis, I tell you!

Anyway, few gulps later, and with red eyes, thanks to the chilli, I got a phonecall from a friend.

'You want Bhaang?'

I turned to him and repeated the question in the same tone.

'Yes, ofcourse', he looked at me as if that's some sin to even ask that question.

A hour later, it was already starting to get dark. We met my friends in the Poush Mela ground. The moon was vermillion red and the horizon with its silhouettes looked right out of a Picasso painting.

Me and the quirk were already high on the Fenny, and we held hands and kept looking at the moon. He came out with Nietzsche references, and I with Neruda.

After a hour from then, we saw a lean guy walking in circles to us, he was trying and still couldn’t reach. I didn’t know the guy.

I brought that to my friend's notice, and she said suddenly, 'Arey, he is the one who was supposed to bring us the Bhang an hour back. Let me get that.’

She came back with a big bottle with white drink and laughed out, 'You know why he is walking in circles? He's ten glasses down on the same Bhang. Good luck to us,' and took a large gulp and passed the bottle around.

We took gulps in turn and kept talking.

Aftersome time, me and the quirk couldn’t feel a thing and decided to leave.
We needed some time for ourselves.

We were sitting in a ramshackle hotel and waiting for dinner when suddenly I felt my head was spinning, and it was nit a good kind of spin. I grabbed quirk's hand and tried to say something, but I couldn’t.

The quirk crossed his fingers with mine and laughed, 'It has started, hasn’t it?'

I don’t remember if I said anything, but things started turning blur, the streetlamps were blurred tiny lights twinkling, dancing around. The world around me started spinning in good speed and the next thing I remember was I was in quirk's bed.

I woke up to see the quirk walking. I checked my phone.
2:30 AM. Fifteen missed calls.

'Why are you walking? Come sleep.’ I was feeling better.

'I can’t. I feel haunted. I feel sick if the bed touches me', he turned and I saw his blood shot eyes.

I was scared. Too damn scared to think of anything to do.

I got down from the bed and hugged him. I didn’t know what else to do.

I brought him to the bed and made him lie down. Closed the lights and tried to talk to him, so he could sleep midway.

But I was forgetting that the worst thing about Bhang is, it’s high is recurring. It would fool you that the trip is gone and right when you're comfortable, it’d come back.

I was still talking and I think I've talked him into sleeping, when the world started spinning again. I wriggled on the bed, I wanted to puke, I wanted to scream and cure it but I couldn’t do a thing.


When I woke up again, it was 6AM. The quirk was walking in his lawn.

He looked at me, 'We're never having Bhang. Promise me?'

'Never. I hate this trip.'

We held each other and sat down in the yawning morning light.

I still don’t remember what happened for the next 24 hours.

To be continued...

Bolpur Blues: Episode 14

I was counting days.

You know when you're excited for something and the bloody time just wont pass?

Goddamn relativity!

Anyway so,on the morning his train reached, I was already on the platform.

It was March already, and next day was Holi.
Santiniketan, for world famous reasons celebrates holi in a gigantic format. People from all over come and usually the roads are blocked, the totos won’t move, you find crisis in getting food, vehicles charge three times their usual rates, and it’s a misery for the dwellers.


Anyway, the platform was swarming with people. I saw him coming from far, and I didn’t know how to behave.

You know that strange feeling when you feel miles of distance with the person you're most close with?

I stared into the crowd and pretended to have not seen him.

He came right beside and hugged me sideways.

That smile. I had melted. All distances have shrunk.

I looked into his eyes. He held my both hands and faced me, 'Let me see you.’

I laughed.

He let out a sigh, 'It's been so long.’

'It has', I looked away.

'I'm sorry for being such an asshole. You know I'm like this.’

'Like what? Asshole? I know, bro.’ I pushed my palm on his face.

'Hungry! Let’s get breakfast. I didn’t sleep for two days. The train was so congested.’

'Come.’

We got food for us and he went to his room to sleep, I went to class.


He didn’t wake up for the most of the day, and called me at night, just when I was coming back to my room.

'Can you come to my room once?'

'Its late, I'll see you tomorrow?' I was in hurry. My PG shut its doors by 10.

'Please? For just few minutes? I have something important to tell you.’

So I rushed. I reached his room and was banging his door, 'Tell me what. Tell me what. I've to go to my PG.’

He came outside. He had a packet of gulal in his hand.

He smeared red gulal on my cheeks and kissed my forehead. 'Just wanted to wish you Holi. Go run now, you're getting late.’

I hugged him and rushed back, and I'm sure the blush on my cheeks was giving a good competition to the red gulal smeared.

To be continued...

Bolpur Blues: Episode 13

By the end of the month, strangely I was doing fine. The lingering aftertaste was strongly there of that short-lived love and the togetherness of the days you could literally count of your fingers, but I was doing fine.

By the end of the month, I was doing quite fine.

I got back to Santiniketan by the beginning of the next month. I didn't want to. I never had reasons to go back to that place, and with the quirk away, literally, I had strong reasons to not to. But the course, projects and whatevers push you to do stuff sometimes.

I was no less a victim of deadlines, having to shut my heart down and pack my bags and leave for the place.

And surprisingly, he kept shifting his return. Sometimes with the excuse of hating the place, and rest of the times for staying at home for some more time.

Never, for once did the excuses overshadow his reason of meeting me, and made him change his decision.

I stopped complaining. I was done with pushing stuffs and forcing people do things when they clearly showed no efforts.


'Know when to leave the table, when love is no longer being served'.


After a month, I was alone in my room.

A nyctophobiac, a flickering night bulb, an otherwise dark room and a winter night.

I contemplated of things, train of thoughts that forgot where it started from and ended at somewhere totally irrelevant, and I don't know when I slept.

I woke up around 3:45am, the last few minutes left of the devil's hour, with a hauntingly loud phonecall and a strange sound above my head.

I squinted at my phone and the quirk was calling. I looked up and there was a small bat in my room, batting with the stagnant blades of the fan and flying around.

I could literally feel my heart stop, when I picked up the call, and came down, ran to my bathroom and locked the door.

'There was a mob violence on one of my friends', he said in a low tone.

'There is a bat in my room', I screamed.

'I am coming. I hate this place', he was not listening.

'There is a fucking bat in my room', I cried out.

'What?'

'Whatever. Bye', I cut the call, and peeped through my bathroom door, still ignorant of what he said.

The bat was right beside my pillow, dead. I, sure and also cringing at the sight, came and cleaned the body off my bed.

When I had set my bed again and was preparing for another round of sleep, that's when I realised what he had said over the phone.

I called back.

'You're coming? When?'

'So now happy hormone has understood. Where is the bat?'

'Dead. Right beside my damn pillow. When are you coming?'

'Train's tomorrow. What should I get you from Kerala?'

'Just yourself.’

He laughed from the other side of the phone, and literally from the other side of the country and said good night.


I slept that night like I hadn't slept for a very long time.

To be continued...