Letter to Self IV

A letter to the Lady of Letters,

Does that addressing make you feel good? Then do. This letter too needed to be drafted, spontaneously, without much planning, like the rest. Yet, as I went through the other three to Self, the content seemed devastatingly and uncannily similar. This need to write to you is propelled each time their is a deficit, as if someone else living within finally finds her voice and takes over. It is scary, but believable. It is mad, but then who is not. And it is repetitive, but, like the spelling error I inevitably make (of repitative which becomes repetitive by auto-correct), isn't life but a series of concentric circles converging crazily at a same beginning, and ending differently?

This, woman, will not be about a complaint. Lament is more specific. I scrolled down the series of posts you made over the last few months and right after your highest high of 'Thirty-one in July!' the downfall is remarkably bottomless. I understand your deliberate detachment from tortured living and getting busy with happy nothings and now in this newness of yesterday where you were never interested yourself, in books. Yet, the column which speaks of the numbers look seriously short, that is all. And your life, being quite filled up in all its time-slots needs to have a section devoted to what you do best. That is all, too.

Perhaps sorrow is the cause of all expression, and the tension of existence and identity brought about the best in you. Yet, it is not at all fetching that a bit of content cannot do what mighty sorrow did. Content, after all, is the king!

Tomorrow marks a new month, as you say, one of your favourite. You will do things you like -- travel, be part of a vacation, earn to spend and, and? Yes, that 'and' bit needs this little push. And, you will write. Allow October to become your fest of words. Your untouched canvas has remained unattended too long now, and vacations must end for vacations to be longed. So, revive the germ of 'obsession', and swim along. Play some music if you must and hit the keyboard! For all you know, the letters are waiting to sing.

Compose yourself to your characters,

K.

One for Love

Ahmed Qureshi was taken aback by the roadside brimming with banana leaves and flowers yelling to be bought out by the end of the day. Yet another puja and yet another end of reason on the streets. He was bankrupt, his only living relation in this world, his mother too, died last month, unoperated upon. And still, he could not get over the time when things were merrier in his community school, as he struggled for the pass marks and for Nita's attention. 

Nita Das was the daughter of a tailor. When they were in the tenth standard, she had confided in him that all she wanted to do in life was to become a beautician, visit rich people's houses and touch rich people's wives and beautify them with rich creams. She never obliged that she loved him too. He was clear he did. It was a mismatch of the first order, of course. And it turned supreme with the rising debts and death of his mother.

Somehow, he thought, as he saw the people bargain over offerings, no one ever took his love seriously. Perhaps because I never thought it is necessary to make believe. Qureshi wanted to fetch a work, quite desperately. He wondered if one of the sellers might need him to get more leaves. In the process he overheard strange things. Of which, the one which struck him the most was the one he set to work up on immediately.

He ran back home and fished out from his broken jar some remaining notes kept away just for the cause of a deluge, or something more worse than death by hunger. He counted eight rupees and ran to the barber. 'I have eight rupees, Babu. Tomorrow I will give you five more. Trust a true Mussalman. Please.'

The barber was bored. Qureshi had nice hair. And this promise made the afternoon interesting. He was in no mood for a brawl and could do with some practice. Qureshi was a happy man. All evening and night he thought of Nita. Courage made him a different man.

With twelve rupees, Qureshi borrowed a cycle ride from Bhaskar bhaiyya. It took Bhaskar a while to recognise the bald Qureshi. He was even more fascinated when he saw him ride away. Funnily, he had a drop down of a hair like a tail extending from the centre of his head. That evening, having performed pujas at about six houses, Qureshi was eighteen hundred rupees richer than his wildest dreams. Plus the grocery and the benefits. He dealt in mute chanting of prayers, and sincerely offering a pure prayer at that.

That night, having faked people, he felt original. He found his true colour, his calling. He could not think of a time he felt more livelier than the lie he lived.

Letter to Delhi

Capital Joy, dearest!

And how do we get to know when one becomes a part of us? When I left you last, I was delighted. I returned to known terrains. When I ran to you, I was fascinated. You were like the space, foreboding yet entrancing. I never quite got used to you, cocooned inside the red-bricked campus brimming with extreme intelligentsia. I saw two lives -- one mine, stagnant, and one of those I knew outside the campus -- fast, upwards. Admirable, may be not desirable.

When I was taking the road to the airport last evening, the familiar landscape of millionaire bungalows, luxury living and poor, priceless academia filled me up. The airport was newer only with names, but the gates was to lead to the same skies of sad returns. I sat there, wondering when is it that we begin loving something, someone. One never really knows I guess. 

You are that endless affair for me, dear one. I like the ambition you stir in me, no longer the hopelessness that success cannot come my way. Your beautiful winters, your crazy getaways and your way too many opportunities -- it builds courage. Getting back to my city last night, after a thoroughly illumined landing, thunderous with thoughts, I realized it is not mine. Neither are you.

It is just the way we comb on a given day that gives us a good hair day. Or, a messy, messy one. I wanted to leave you this letter at the airport last evening. And then I got carried away by the various final calls being made for various departures. In a fit I felt like taking a different flight, with a different name on the boarding pass, ready to fly to Jaipur. Jaipur, of all places?

Perhaps that is what you always do. Induce an adventure in me, dear Delhi. Today Jaipur, tomorrow Warsaw, day after Melbourne.

See you!

K.

In the Next Room

How long ago was it exactly? Ten, may be fifteen years? No, he would not know. He would never, never know. Nalini was feeling exactly like she felt then. Apprehensive, excited. Varun was in the next room. Preparing for his Big Exams, while she was holidaying in the other. In tin trunks pushed deepest down, the not very self-conscious Nalini bundled the thoughts of an absolutely aware Varun away. He stirred emotions in her which were carefully kept forbidden, like pickles were. Afternoons were adventures when she would dare to think to tip-toe into the kitchen limits to trespass into the pickle jars stacked high above.

Like now. As she, way more attractive with age, smelled in his room. His smell was just like him -- elusive. Stinking of a high taste she knew she could never achieve in this lifetime. Being his cousin was an advantage, but she never quite made it to being the cousin he would look twice at. His room also smelled of loneliness. And loomed large in its incapacity. Voices echoed from the basement. Everyone was anticipating his stay-over. Nalini swallowed the moment of solitude and went inside his room. Opened his wardrobe, ran her fingers through his business suit. Nalini went inside his bathroom and touched the open toilet-bag. The Hermes essence was unmistakeble. She came out in his room, his Tumi suitcase on the floor, open. There was no visible sign of life in it, only a large living. She was immediately saddened. This could be so different if only...

Varun found her dozing in the floor of his bathroom, quite unpleasantly taken aback. And then he paused. Nalini had changed. He gave his hand and called out, 'Here...get up...'

Shaken to disbelief that it was a intense wishful hallucination, Nalini was further stunned to find ruthless tears filling her up. She was angry at herself. The tin trunk had opened and out flew the forbidden flights. This would hurt, she knew. Varun would never know, he never did. As for her, she would take yet another course of life resigned to 'if only's'.

She walked down the stairs, deliberate slow step after slow step, taking in all of the invisibility of Varun.

Too many courageous ideas flooded her instincts, yet she was governed by one -- she would follow none.

Name-Game

How do I introduce her? What do I endow her with? Damn the readers who are waiting. Through the year I have served them a platter, yet they refuse to be satiated. Thank God they don’t. No time to kill, even the damned yellow submarine packet has a story, and a beautiful one at that, around it. What have I – good girl, done; bad girl, overdone; crazy girl, somewhat covered; wicked woman, all over; creative woman, touched upon. How about the men? I guess I have thrown in a couple of rare, kind husbands and done good to do with what the mean ones deserved. The sub is really done well. I wish I had it in a cobbled-street-side café in one of the European countries instead. Poor Europe, to be reduced to roadside cafes. Long way from the romances one would anticipate instead. The coffee steam would wait to dissipate with the frozen bites the air would attack with. The eyes would wander to find a face that would yield a story. They all seen alike, don’t they? Fair-skinned, tight upper-lipped, fair haired in their black jackets over blue denims, sipping an overload of caffeine even as they are over the phone, rushing, always. Anyway, my character. So, who would it be today?

Firoza makes it so difficult for me. Each time I wish to tell a story, she peeps out of a curtain swaying in nowhere, smiles the smile that probably ruined the fate of many of her business associates and leaves. Character against author. Difficult.

Nayantara never quite got used to the commissioned writing she was now making a name in. Deadlines suited her best. All she ever wanted was to introduce a new kind of project in the newspapers – a column dedicated to an author for a fixed time, to keep writing whatever she wished to; no, not a columnist. She could write anything she wished to. She knew exactly what she would – letters on certain days, and flow of thought on others. On precious days of trapped rainy indoors, she would further the Firozas and Iravatis. Or give Shashank his chance to live the life of a patron. Sundays she would write about food. How many times in life does one get to do what one wishes though? Not Nayantara Bharadwaj, nor her characters.

Thirty five thousand feet below, worlds awaited her expertise. Yet, as she looked out, not for once concerned about what and how to deliver, the cottony clouds of desire pulled her. She was in Haroun-land. This was not a time for characters. She was one.

A quick brush through her hair, a rushed straightening of the hour long creases on her clothes, and her unmissable dab of lipstick – she was ready for the day. She would not be writing about food this Sunday, nor in the near Sundays that she could see. But some Sunday, she would. And she promised herself that people would eat, err, read.

Now that’s a character I hadn’t thought of before. Let me save her before she chooses to run out on me too. Control-S.

A Sound Story

Somehow, sweetest, it feels sad to leave your sad face behind. It is sadder that some years later, you will jump in joy at the advent of a non-guardianed time of being. As bells go off in Momie's Big School, Momie counts the time to when it would turn around to you. How long has it been that you have told me a story? How long has it been since I have? The day is different, with a lilting breeze entering through the heritage windows of this heritage institution. The approaching-holiday feeling refuses to diffuse. The day asks for a story. One for us:

Sound was growing silent with the day. His parents were concerned.He refused to allow anyone around him, but Story. And Story, diligent and sincere that she was, would meticulously appear in front of him regularly for the only exchanges he had. In those instances, one could sometimes hear Sound say aloud, 'Wow!', or a more resigned 'Oh!', or rarely, the devastated 'Why?' With such gratifying responses, Story, on the other hand ripened wilder, deeper and more passionate than ever. She needed Sound's ear as much as he needed Story's shoulder.

In this way, erasing the world around, they sketched their own lines of identity. Then on one such slightly drizzly, slightly murky afternoon, Story, as she opened her mouth to tell him more of Episodes and Chapters -- they were introduced last week in Story's dazzling Who Murdered the Detective? -- found to her utter disbelief a vacuum to have cloaked her. She fell short of words and became a victim of silence. Much that she tried, and Sound too, to bring back Episodes and Chapters, they were no where near to be seen. 

At this point, it began raining heavily, as if the heavens were moved to tears too. On such an occasion Sound grew furious at the fate of Story and at his own incapability to help her. He growled out aloud. You know the name of course, of what followed? Thunder, of course! And with each Thunder, Lightning was released. He realized, as did Story, he could now whip up words as well. In joy as in relief, he embraced Story.

That was when she began speaking too! His touch emanated a kind of compulsion which made this possible. Together, they thus make A Sound Story, story after story, and quite sound too!

PS: In Who Murdered the Detective? Lightning was later revealed to have hit upon the Detective. Their next edition is being called Who Stole my Thunder?

Tonight when you curl up to me, or me into you, when Thunder and Lightning are playing in the Sky, we will have secretly known it was nothing but a celebration of solving a mystery, won't we? If we are still scared, we will whisper into each others' ears A Sound Story. At least Sound and Story breathe fearless.

Tip-Top

'One fish finger and two Budweisers.' Her tone is premeditated. She must be the modern woman, studying theatre in JNU, back in Calcutta to her parents for the puja-vacation, meeting school friends. The waiter scribbled down the order as he built up the person behind it. 'Anything else, Ma'am?

'No, that will do for now, thank you.'

Anthony has been waiting at the tables of Johnny English in Park Street since the time Mr Kapoor's father bought it from Mr Heckles, in 1976. He joined as a dish washer at age fifteen. Johnny English saw him grow into the head butler and to become the wisest of them all. These days, the boys who join are from one of the many hotel management institutions mushrooming the city and have no sense of hospitality in them. Openly, they tug at the tip. 

'Number twelve. Table two. Two Buds.' Having delivered his note, he went out to attend to the table with casual refilling of the glasses. This was his favourite time. He managed to overhear the guests discuss what to order for the main course, and this was where his assumptions either crashed, or swelled. For this many years, this was all he lived for, this moment of sheer self-victory, or shame. He prided himself on being a master reader of character.

As he stooped to pour the water, Gautami surprised him by looking straight at him. 'Mineral, right?'

'Yes, Ma'am.'

Gautami straightened her collar and got ready to put forth her next question. 'Er, what is your name?'

'Anthony DeSouza.'

'Anthony, would you mind working for us in our movie? We were looking at a face like yours.'

Is she already high? Or does luck always snap such? 'Sure, Ma'am.'

Thirty nine days and a first of such a leave later, Anthony returned to the familiarity of awaiting at Johnny English's Italian marble table tops. Last night there was a hullabaloo when he, along with his team of documentary directors had come to Johnny English to have the celebratory dinner. Initially, he was a little jittery. He was expecting an uproar from the authorities and believed he would not be allowed -- that the other waiters would refuse to serve him.

It was the most memorable night of his life, ever. He was one documentary old. But what made him the real achiever was when Gautami clapped the team silent and faced him. 'Tony, order what you feel like.'

Anthony wished to freeze that moment when he said 'Chicken a la Kiev' to Ram Singh, a fresher. For so long he had judged those who ordered it to be confident and sure of themselves. And he tipped smartly. Ram Singh was going to be one happy man, maybe feel inspired too.

This evening felt different. As he scribbled the order, he missed last night and the last forty days. As it turned out, in a series of firsts, he misheard the order. He was excused, of course. And he still earned a handsome tip.

He lost his sleep forever, though. Lights, many said. Melancholy, others.

Letter to You III

Hey You!

Hi!

With all that I have, I return to you, in complete gratitude. Of having held me so firmly, when not even faith did. Of being with me so wholly that I am yet to know another to have. Of loving me, these words of mine, almost living alongside, as I do. After a month of very many nothings that kept me mostly busy and more so at peace, I am greeted with a good news. Allegedly, too much peace and air-conditioning increased my weight. Apparently, I have the luck to hit the jackpot, always. In either case, having returned home from an official outing to a government place, and a fabulous lunch with some favourite people, I got back not to a drink to cheer my own success, but to words such are these. To thank you.

So, drown, you, tonight. Drown in this. For my words may lack the richness of chocolate or the lusciousness of spices but, from where they come, a genuinely touched heart prevails. It feels at home with you. You. Not with the other good news of another job that greets me, not with the travels that may or may not be, not also with the dinner I effortlessly (excuse my modesty) cooked. Through thick absences and thin appearances, through abstract wishywashy clouds to concrete torrential outpours -- it is purely you who has kept me alive.

I cannot build a pool of dollars for you to swim in, no, not yet. Nor can I buy you a mansion. But if I could, I would, to each one of you reading me and lending me a life beyond the economy and geography of it all, grant you your immediate wish. Alas! I truly cannot. Instead, I remain a click away, your companion. Foremost, not a lover, not a teacher -- I am a wordsmith and you are the wearer.

Virtual is truer than real I say.

Thank you,

K.

Performing an Act

Inspired by a true story.

 

Narendra was a dynamic man, known far and wide for his gift of the gab and his dazzling, well-kept beard outshining his minimum academic degree. Defeating a rather impoverished, fatherless background, he managed to build a reputation for himself in influential circles outside his own professional one. 

When he came of a prime age, he was married to one Geetika, of the Mukherjee clan. They were renowned caterers of the town. Of the four sisters, this was the most charismatic. She wore sleeveless blouses with her sarees and tied her petticoat well below her navel. She sang songs from hindi films and sat behind the cash counter when her mother could not manage the shop. She had agreed to Narendra because of that strange thing called love. They met, and their respective hormones underwent an upheaval. They married and were happy, truly. Till one of her kidneys failed, without a warning.

In such times as those, Vellore was the place for magical recuperation. Unfortunately, even Vellore failed to help her survive. The marriage thus, died. It didn't get to last a year. Narendra was crestfallen.

Today, he is a good husband to Gitanjali, Geetika's immediate younger sister. They fight, but not as much as in other households fights are known as. Their marriage is nearing its thirty fifth year. And they are good parents to their only daughter.

Over a survey conducted on Gitanjali, concerning retirement plans, held from Hague over phone, the daughter was surprised to find out that her parents were actually in love with each other. Even though she had so long believed it to be a mere habit. This she found out because of the blind faith her mother had on her father over finances and investments and the little she knew about how things ran.

'Wow Mom! What love!' joked Sunayana.

'Do I have a choice?' replied Gitanjali. In good spirit.

A lifelong act. For, what is life, but a long act?

Letter to Daughter X

PS: Yes my love, yes. I return to write to you. And yes, do not learn this trait of putting the PS at the beginning of a letter. This is not how it is done. Please.

Dearest C,

Today I will share with you one of the world's biggest myth, and attempt to break it. Yes darlingsome, myths like Ram, Ravaan and Cleopatra. No, not Tom and Jerry and Nibbles. That supposedly deadly thing is called 'writer's block'. Right, love, the same that Granny-D says you have to save your skin when you do not complete your homework (of course because you play extra and sleep extra and are spoilt extra when she is around). So, what is it, and why am I telling you, of all people, about it?

Let me begin with the latter, first. Why you? That's a biiii---iiig question, completely opposite your pillow-size. You see, little one, excuses are convenient things, I agree, but not very nice. And two, there is no substitute to honesty (especially for lazy daydreamers). So, when, on certain guilty evenings you try and convince me, with eyebrows all over you in a geometric semi-circle -- 'Momie, Tucks choo'd mah pincil', or, faking with your tiny hand over your chin -- 'My teeths are paining', or the more trending one, your sharp brown eyes rolling -- 'My life is a mess!', let me tell you at the start dearest, that the right pronunciation is pen-cil and there is no plural to teeth, it being the plural to tooth and that I am impressed at how you pulled that last sentence through. That is perhaps why too much grannying is not good!  Well, it is thus why I tell it to you -- each excuse stands the tallest chance to expose its loophole in the most unreliable manner at the most unpredictable time. Why face the brunt, loveliest? It is only a crappy piece of homework you are way grander than. Just defeat it enthusiastically and you will never need to learn up Granny-D's 'writer's block' excuse, sugarcoated in your extremely distinguishable spelling, or pronunciation -- 'raaitar's blog'. Sweetheart, it does not exist. Period.

And now for the more important part-one of our topic, what is it? It is a myth, mostly. No, totally, as I believe, a fancy phrase to catapult an expression to a distant land from where it would take some considerable time to reach articulation. A writer's block is an idea that has passed on for generations across cultures trying to explain one's lack of productivity. Darling, on the contrary, it is a habit which we fall off from. Should we just decide we will write today, what (or, who) on earth can stop us? Our minds are rat-racing with millions of images, some real, some not very. Put them in words. How difficult is it? Put them to music, put colours on them -- regularly. And then you would see, there is no such thing as a writer's block.

Look at what Momie did the entire last month. She didn't that is, write. How pathetic, and more so, the reasons which she was trying to give herself. Like we poop, like we brush, we must do once a day (at least) that one thing we love the most, make it not a habit, but a part of life we do not even need to spare a thought about. And you will have found the not-so-secret route to bringing back emotions, their articulation.

Like this.

Thank you for helping me break the myth.

A kissie here, and a kissie there,
Momie.

A Starry Story!

Day and Night were great friends.

There was no darkness because they were always together.

Kids played the whole day, without feeling sleepy.

No one in the world knew anything about pillows on beds or sleeping.

One day, as they swam together, they met the Sea.

She was the most beautiful thing that they had ever seen.

The Sea enjoyed the Day's light, and the Night's blanket.

She loved the Night more than the Day.

Whenever her eyes gazed upon the Night, she created waves and tides in excitement.

This made the Day very jealous.

One afternoon, as the Sea slept, the Day did something terrible.

He slowly lifted the Night, and threw him against the wall of the Sky!

Instead of breaking like glass, the Night created millions of sparks which couldn’t go out.

He called these sparks “stars.”

The Stars knew what the Day had done to the Night.

Angry at the Day, they formed an army and attacked him!

Before they could attack the Day, the Sea stopped them with a question.

“Where are you going little Stars?” she asked them.

“We are going to destroy the Day!” they replied.

The Sea did not want either the Day or Night to be hurt in a fight. She liked them both you see. This made her think of a plan.

“I have an idea!” she told the Stars.

The Sea called both the Night and Day.

She told them to share their time with her.

Day would visit her when the sun was out, and the Night when sun had set.

Both of them were very happy with the idea!

This made the Sea very happy too!

The Stars followed the Night everyday, to protect him from the anger of the Day.

From that day onwards, people saw Stars at Night.

Letter to Chhuti XVI

Chhuti,

Why do I write letters to you? The reasons could be finger-counted as many. Then again, the same many could be cancelled as no reasons at all. The repertoire could include all that imagination is and more than what reality could ever be. It anticipates a time that I am in and it forecasts things that may never be. I write to you because I write to you. When the ink blots and the narrative unfolds, they become you. An inspiration? A conspiracy? I always like keeping it to friendship.

Too much time, Chhuti, what does one do when in it? One is blamed for forgetting others, and overseeing the normal course of things and not knowing how to boat back to the banks of schedules. It is difficult, tell them, love. To be in the center of a sweet, enticing nothing, holidaying with the endless days and romancing away the nights, absolutely non-cinematically and nonchalantly. To knowingly dive into this whirlpool of non-doing -- it is a metred whimsy -- one which only perhaps you would understand. I have allowed the blame to surpass my conscious. Often I sway by it, only to return to you. It is not easy to live in a tale. It is easier to create one instead.

Very soon, you won't be in this extravagant indulgence that you are now. And whilst at it I am immersing myself in you. I wonder if you ever had another one seep up so much into your flavour. The dailyness of a day is very near, I know, I can say, even though pay-cheques disagree, yet, I write less and live in more stories today.

In good faith that tomorrow I will create another.

A tale with you,
K.