Category: Writing

Procrastinator’s Pride: An Incomplete List Of Unfinished Books In My Shelf

Since yesterday, I can wax eloquent about Kiran Nagarkar’s Ravan and Eddie. Shamefully, it is my first Nagarkar read. Arguably his best work, (1.) Cuckold, was one of my gifts when I turned 25. And I turn 30 this year. A procrastinator’s pride, I have been meaning to read that book for half a decade!
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That’s how I thunk up this list. These are books I should have read MUCH earlier; I own copies of these, have read some of these, but haven’t completed them yet.
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I’ve had a copy of this Malayalam must-read for over 10 years now.
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I remember the first time I read the premise of this book. It was the summer of 2010, a period when i had all the time in the world to read. I was skulking around Blossoms hoping to meet “the rich man of my dreams” who would buy me as many books as I cared to read! Oh, for life’s simple needs! I ended up buying a lot of obscure books other than this one because they were cheaper.
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The year was 2007 and I was very excited about debut novels. Right up until I got myself a copy! Never got around to either of them.
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Of course there was a Marquez phase. The tragic end to that was marked by a thesis that exorcised the Marquez fetish. This book came to me right after the exorcism. I had no energy left for one more ecstasy. I read the first 20 pages from time to time but never again found the urge to finish it.
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I was in the eucalyptus stillness of the mountains. A chill rose among the plantations along with the potent smell of coffee. I remember I was reading Everything is Illuminated short on the heels of his other book, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close which was A-M-A-Z-I-N-G!! All I can say is the woods had me in their hold and a warm cup of freshly brewed coffee did me in!
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I don’t remember who introduced me to this one. I remember reading more than half way through this. And I remember it being very engaging. But then I did put it down.
Hmm, 8 is a good number, don’t you think? How about we make this a running list. I have a feeling I hide books I own but haven’t read, both from myself by double lining the bookshelves and from my conscience by not acknowledging them even when I see them. Watch this space for more in this list.

Long Before There Were Names

1997 was not a particularly memorable year of what was my awkward childhood. However, a single memory stands out in all its pre-teen awkwardness. It was November, my birthday month. Being 11 still felt new against my skin.

It was a Children’s Day like none other. That year, 14 November fell on a Friday. And our Principal had had an English-medium brainwave!  What does one bunk school and do best on a Friday? Watch a movie, of course. And it was decided that the entire school would watch, not just any movie, but Star Wars Episode V — The Empire Strikes Back, which had just been rereleased. In our small town, as an upper primary kid, no one asked me for my opinion or interest. Things were decided, we were told and obeying came naturally to us.

That’s how the entire school landed up at Jos Theatre that Friday morning at 9:00 am. We were sorted into batches and filed into the huge standalone theatre, which little me thought seated well over a ‘thou—uuu—sand’ people because that was a huge number back then.

Days leading to this momentous event buzzed with excitement. S-E-X! That was the word my classroom was channeling. An English movie—most of us hadn’t watched one. The ones who had were all sniggering, chuckling, whispering or acting important. Of course you were a lost cause if you didn’t know English movies were all about sex. Thank god I knew that much! The collective intelligence of 11 year olds wondered what had gotten into the adults to take us to an English movie!

I wasn’t entirely sure what everyone was excited about. Of course it was uncool to admit that. Back then, I didn’t know what sex was. There, I said it! I believed that when men and women reached a certain age, they got married and babies were born as a result of them sleeping beside each other on the same bed. Years later, when I was told the unique fitting required to make a baby (why else would you have sex? We are Indians!), I was sure I was being misinformed. Goes without saying that it took me a lot more years to QED why sex is awesome.

Anyway, when Children’s Day finally dawned and I wore my brown box skirt, I had no idea this movie was going to change my life. Once we fell in line, began a long wait—of standing, shuffling, staring and inching to get all ‘1000’ of us, some too young to understand anything useful in English, seated. Two hours later, we were finally in the cool darkness of wilful suspension.

By then I was bored to tears. And then the movie began. I wasn’t sure I understood anything. I strained to catch all the accented English floating around, but to no avail. The most disturbing question for me was—what is sex in this? I was sure I understood all the actions the actors were performing. I was equally sure that I hadn’t missed anything. If I understood all the actions, it automatically meant that none of that was sex. So if all English movies were about sex, I had understood all actions and hadn’t missed anything then…things weren’t quite matching up. Asking my classmates for confirmation was out of the question. I didn’t want to be ‘that’ kid. I was beginning to get anxious.

The movie was over 2 hours of concentration, frustration, disappointment and confusion. Then it was over as abruptly as it started, and we were waiting for our journey back into the real world to begin. When we escaped that air-conditioned cocoon, I was supposed to become a butterfly, colourful in my knowledge of what sex was. But my mind was still racing to find the answer.

And I did. In the 25 steps of madness from the theatre to its gate, where our school uniforms ran into the ocean of movie-goers, I became a woman; in the most practical sense of the word.

A hand broke the cover of my skirt and reached firmly into me. That unfaltering finger knew where it was going and what it was doing, though I didn’t. It was crowded. Anyway, why would anyone want to touch where I pee?

I turned around to look behind me. I expected someone to be smiling or waving or looking embarrassed — basically acknowledging the act. Well, that’s how young I was. When nobody owned up, I went back to wading through the humanity.

There it was – the hand … in and out and … again.

This time I was sure someone I knew was playing with me. So I didn’t react immediately. I waited for it to happen again. There …  and … just missed. I couldn’t place the prankster.

I tried that stunt twice more. There … again.

By now we were in the middle of this quicksand of people. I was a child who happened to be a girl and not a girl who happened to be a child. And that’s when innocence left me. I didn’t know what ‘this’ was called but I knew ‘this’ was intentional.

Should I call out to Amma to check what ‘this’ is? In that rush … can’t it wait? I can see that she is trying her best to get me out of here. Shouldn’t I behave and tell her once we are back home? There it was again.

In those 7 minutes it took us to get to the front gate, everything changed. I, who knew nothing about sex a couple of minutes back — even after watching an “English” movie — suddenly knew what violation felt like, long before that word joined my vocabulary. Long before there were names, I knew who and what to protect my sex-less body from, but not why. I knew I didn’t want anyone making me feel as confused as I felt that day.

Those minutes slowed into hours over the years, as I began processing that event. All the way into my late 20s, I continued to ask myself — what should I have done that day? Deep in my consciousness, I know the answer; no 11 year old should have to know.

A Wishful Thought

A long time ago, a man named Tee lived in New York City. He was like every other man in the whole world except that a forest grew on his face. Living in temperate America, the trees in his forest were all conifers. They were thin, tall coniferous trees that grew down his face towards the Adam’s apple forming an incredible upside down valley.

Unlike tropical trees that spread their gregarious, friendly arms wide, conifers grow single-mindedly tall as if to meet the sun. From a distance, all the trees in Tee’s forest gave the impression of a velvety beard. But when you took a closer look, you would see that all the trees with their prickly leaves believed strongly in choice and grew in all directions you could imagine- North South East West and more!

The velvet forest wasn’t clean either. Since Tee ate at least three times a day, the forest was littered with breadcrumb rocks, spinach graffitti, rice twigs and chip shrubs. And since he drank coffee at least twice a day, it rained black drops of strong coffee on the unsuspecting terrain. Such were the days and nights in Tee’s forest.

Every other month or so, a razor-sharp plague would come to haunt. A plague so sudden and deadly that the next morning Tee would wake up to a cleared forest, only stumps reminding him of the marvel that grew on his face the night before. Tee always took consolation in the fact that the forest would grow back. It was the law of nature. With every passing day the stubs would grow a teeny-weeny bit and before you knew it, the forest would be a menacing presence again.

Always a stickler for decorum, Nature had other plans, this time around.
So the next time the plague shaved the forest clean, it did not grow back. Tee waited—confidently for the first week, optimistically for the next and hopefully for a third. When the forest showed no signs of growing back, he began to worry. As he wondered what could have gone wrong he looked around him to take in the plight of the forests on other faces. Wait a minute!

Those were not forests. Other faces had gardens—trimmed and groomed gardens where not a single tree grew out of line. There was no coffee rain or other garbage on the garden floor. Some faces grew grass into manicured lawns. Others grew raised beds of uniform plants. The swankier ones had fences with identical sycamore twins on either side. The spiritual ones groomed their garden into ethereal cascades.

The air of grace around the gardens had taught him the folly of his forest. When he woke up the next day, he was in for a surprise! The stubs had grown a teeny-weeny bit. Tee jumped with joy and promised to groom himself every week. The next Monday, true to his promise, Tee stood before his bathroom mirror, talking dearly to his erstwhile forest and trimming them down beautifully.

It All Makes Sense

When my time-traveller stopped responding one fine Sunday morning, much jet fuel was burnt to get me home. My giant carbon footprint seemed to be stuck in my throat. On the ride home I prepared myself to console my marshmallow matriarch, the time traveller’s better half, who stood to be dulled by the death of her beloved. He was the breadwinner, she the breadmaker. They had been for 61 years. I was their bread-eater, have been for 28.

What was it like to lose the one you shared your life’s journey with? Without him would her memories fade? They had always stepped out with a purpose. A walk was to the temple, a taxi ride to visit her sister, a train journey to complete the circle of life. Their stories of travel, never little escapades, never a holiday, filled my ears for years; they still do.

It was soon after my parents got married that the duo went to Kashi. A town along the banks of the Ganges, a visit to Kashi is said to bring life full circle — a sacred pilgrimage for Hindus. In my bedtime tales, following the homemaker avatar of grihasthashrama, sanyasa always saw people denounce their families and go to Kashi to find God.

My grandparents just took the guided tour. They called it a pilgrimage, came right back home and it’s been 30 years since. A trip to be taken and thought of in utter piety, always and only reminds my marshmallow matriarch of the filthy narrow roads of the temple town and its omnipresent cows. How the betel-stained mouths of priests accosted them at the railway station making deals to perform the last rites of our ancestors!

They brought back Gangajal, holy water of the Ganges. I’d say Gangajal has a tough life, even in a bottle — nothing short of salvation is expected from it! My time-traveller was duly administered the same. She jokes that one could die solely of drinking that dirty water because of how polluted the Ganges is these days.

She was the memory collector, if he were the time-traveller. She grounded him. He’d go to her when he couldn’t remember and she would recollect till he caught on.

If you didn’t go anywhere and the world travelled to meet you, would you be well-travelled?

It’s been 68 years since her younger brother, at the age of five, had one of his kidneys removed. World War II had incapacitated even the far-away world they lived in. Without reservations available on the train, their father had held him in his arms all the 600 kms to Madras. The ‘Madras to be bombed’ rumour loomed large over them and they returned – after 45 days of blank noise- in a bullock cart from the railway station because their home wasn’t on any bus route. Operation successful. She never mentions that he went on to become a renowned cardiac surgeon. His life, all of it, as she experienced it, through hand-me-down details, is incredible and its destination was never the point.

If your experiences are only as good as your memories, and you are a memory-collector, could you be well-travelled?

Catalogued under his experience but with full retelling rights resting safely with her, the story of her nephew’s Rajasthani wedding is a marvel. The groom’s wedding party consisted all of 11 members which included my time-traveller and my marshmallow matriarch’s sister. Rajasthani weddings are all about sweetmeats. The story goes that after seven days of sweetened food, my marshmallow matriarch’s sister’s daughter, who was four at the time, finally pleaded with her uncle, “Please get me some good old rice and curd, please don’t make me eat another sweet, please!”. Our heroine wasn’t at this wedding. However, her sister who attended retells this story with these exact details; and that’s how memories travel – through storytellers.

Could the well-travelled bring back from faraway lands only perceptions that reinforce their beliefs?

On a visit to Chandigarh, they stayed over with a relative. The morning they were to leave, she offered to make them Upma, an easy semolina dish, for breakfast. Chandigarh is one of India’s only planned cities. From this hub of town planning, she chooses to remember this: that the lady realised there was no semolina at home when she got to the end of preparation and the water began to boil; that she sent her husband scurrying through the well-planned roads of Chandigarh that Sunday dawn, in search of semolina; that they had toast for breakfast.

If yes is the answer, if the world could travel to meet you, if travel is a collection of memories and if your perceptions rarely change, then it all makes sense. ‘They’ is no more. It’s been a month since my time-traveller left her to curate their memories.

A Coffee Table Book

I remember, it was a Saturday. What should have been my day off the clockwork city was wasting away in that most crowded mall; one that I would have easily mistaken for CST or Grand Central or some such-not that I’ve been to either. By then, I was used to waiting for her; her time was never linear. It was more like a sheet of paper-fold it and put it in your pocket and it disappears.

Her pocketed time left me staring blankly at the maddening crowd wondering how quiet my toilet was; after all it’s truly the only place in the world where one could be alone in peace. When the 2nd coffee drained my wallet and in fear of my contents tipping the scale further, I chanced upon a couple at the far end of the room. They sat directly ahead of me but behind a wall which made them curiously inconspicuous. And they were engaged in the most unusual activity that nobody seemed to notice.

Planned by someone in love with the time-wasting tactics of an open-office floor, this coffee shop was just a space cornered against a wall with nowhere to go. While they were lucky to have the coffee counter guard the other free side, the last side was what I came to believe was the “view”; of hundreds of people buying random things they will never use simply because there seemed to be so many of them for one paise cheaper. That’s to make you appreciate better that overpriced coffee you just downed.

There were children, the annoying sorts, crying from exhaustion, grumpiness or purely bad upbringing; tech-savvy iphoners trying to “catch” range with their voices in this basement floor; families whose decibel levels were not monitored by anyone, others who just spoke loudly because they were kindred spirits and to top it off announcements that everybody heard but no one understood.

Amidst all this, the couple sat at that low table on cushions facing each other and between them was a red notebook. One would write something and pass it on to the other. Then the other would read, think, scribble and pass it back.

Siblings. I was sure they were brother and sister whose mother was a force to reckon with. She liked her home best when it was quiet. And she liked her home best, always. These two DNA mutations, like all of us, had their share of quibbles but didn’t dare make a sound. They had taken to writing utter filth to each other. And after their ferocious pen fights they refused to talk to each other; in that silent house indifference had easily gone unnoticed. As children they fought a lot because no one had intervened. But they had been silent for so long that they forgot they could speak to each other. They grew up but never shunned that habit. All their conversations were written. And it was a joy to watch.

This week’s writing exercise, the trainer at the workshop had spoken in his animated ecstatic voice. You will pair with the person to your right, go to a crowded place and write a descriptive narrative of the scene. You will write in different coloured inks and each of you will write one line. During the course of this exercise you will refrain from talking to each other or lingering too long over the scenario. This is partly a word association test.

They really like each other’s company. But he or she was being childishly ridiculous. They knew each other since high school. She had befriended him because they both loved cycling. The real reason was that he looked friendless and she was friendless too. They had clicked instantly; they watched Dexter’s Laboratory, hated oats for breakfast and resented the PT master. She was the one he called in panic after he had slept with a friend in college; he was inconsolable. She had called him and bawled incoherently when a friend she had avoided had died in an accident. And now after all these years, here they were sorting out this insurmountable hurdle. They were both as stubborn as a mule. They had hung up on each other and she had texted to meet here. Bringing the book was his idea and they wrote endlessly about how the other was a moron for being blind to the alternative. The swelling crowd, it seemed, helped circulate the air around their heads, for otherwise, they surely would have exploded.

He and I work together as associates. I hate his fucking guts. Like I care that he hates me too. The trouble began when our animosity came to a head at a meeting with our boss. I don’t remember what really went down; I was red with rage. He had made a condescending comment at my work. As if she were the only one who worked on it. It was my project too. We were supposed to work on it together. I hate her fucking guts. The meltdown had cost them their ego. The Boss had put them up to this task. Take the Saturday off, go to the nearest mall and finish writing that newsletter copy. You needn’t speak to each other if you can’t mind your language. You could write it, yes, only write it. These minions of marketing had no choice but to act out this charade. They didn’t stand a chance to hoodwink the Boss. Had they tried, the other would most definitely tell on them. Also a Saturday off was an impossible privilege for these twenty-four-seveners. They were in a fix.

Is that invisible ink they are writing with? Are those UV glasses that read invisible ink? They had to be with the Intel services. No wonder they had found that spot behind the wall; out in the open but away from the cameras. Of course they were writing in a book. It was the most low-tech technique in their skillset. Yes, right next to chopping vegetables in morse code. They were discussing the government’s underground bioweapon trials. Yes, it was true. A country as battered by epidemics as ours was indeed testing Chikunguniya on its unsuspecting slum dwellers. They were scientists and lovers. They wanted out of this maddening research that took innocent lives every day. But there was no safe house where they could talk. Talking was out of the question. They had briefly written on steamed up mirrors and cubicles in their bathroom. But that was mighty dangerous with the security arrangements. This was a spot far away from their canopied university, writing in a book wouldn’t alarm civilians and they could easily destroy evidence.

As I stared at the couple, I imagined it was him and me. There in that crowded madhouse, submerged in a sea of voices that smelled of coffee. We were writing to each other what we could never say better. I had the annoying habit of repeatedly asking the same questions. We were trying to capture the essence of these questions on paper before he grew tired of answering them. I wrote the first question and passed it on. He answered it diligently in half a sentence. Then he stalled, thinking. I will never forget that smile he smiled. His smile continued to fill that almost-fresh page with his thoughts. I knew he saw the joy he had anticipated on my face. The written word was an incredible high for me. Then he wrote a question. And it was my turn. But I love reading better than writing. At one point, I made him draw. I imagined and he drew. Then we both drew on the same page, facing away from each other’s halves. It was a banyan tree with our dreams etched on every leaf.

Right then, enters friend running; her curls laughing wildly and uncontrollably; a private joke perhaps. As she hugged me tight I forgot about the couple, their space I had invaded to create my own and that my time was folded in her pocket. She was just what the doctor had ordered; a ball of energy.

Puke: A Valid Response?

The validity of a physical retching sensation in response to life and all things it entails.

There are days, many more these days than acceptable, when I lay awake in bed overhearing the tiresome morning sounds of a geriatric household.

The deaf one is shouting at the lost one; he simply stares back, a stoic sculpture of incomprehension.

The authoritarian know-it-all is being himself, snubbing even the lizard under the dining table with derision.

It’s dark. Lovely cool darkness.

It’s early. Too early for me.

Snow Crash.

I am awake, my late-night long forgotten, sleep has slouched away not once complaining of insufficient attention. I want her back. Back in my blanket. As I try to shove my face down into my pillow within the darkness of my blanket, I want her to kiss my eyes back to peaceful oblivion. But she won’t hear of it. She is gone, long gone. I will myself to switch off instead.

Drifting.

In and out.

A throbbing thought loops around my mindspace like a news ticker—I wish I were dead—it’s on repeat. Along with its monotonous drone, unawares to my senses, there is a rising discomfort; now in my throat. I wake up to the realisation that on early mornings like this one, life makes me want to puke.

I don’t mean puke metaphorically or metaphysically. I don’t mean it in a shouting-from-atop-my-literary-high-horse sort of way. I mean the physical response of throwing up when met with highly disagreeable content.

That can’t be normal. Or maybe I just like slow, peaceful mornings. And I don’t remember the last one.

Wordless Poetry

A post arrived this afternoon. I rarely receive unexpected mail so a smile opened the door to the postwoman. Strangely, it wasn’t addressed to me. Playful as always, rain had smudged the sender’s name to an unrecognisable blur. What he had done to the mailing address was worse. Only the phone number remained. It’s what I like to call elemental drama; for no particular reason. Postwoman, a hopeful new entrant to the field, who was still committed to the sanctity of snail mail reaching its destination, argued for the cause citing the evidence of the salvaged phone number, which clearly someone had gotten wrong.

Needless to say, I was willing to be cajoled into accepting it; I could barely stay still while I signed for it; I was thrilled to bits. My jobless mind had already filled a worksheet with possibilities, rationales, elaborate narratives and more. Aside: In small-town homes like mine, bombs arriving by mail aren’t even considered a threat. Who would want to kill You?-being the logic.

I felt a far away tinge of sadness or guilt, I couldn’t fathom which, for the beloved whose eyes should have been the only ones beholding the contents inside. Nevertheless, as outwitting fate wasn’t my hobby, I closed my eyes, breathed in the pleasantly stale travelled smell of mail, imagined myself to be that beloved and opened the package. Oh, and I remembered to shut Reason out of my head the minute he began with his taunts of how I knew it was a gift to a beloved! Pah, live a little!

Inside, written in illegible scribble was a proclamation of love; a whole book of it. Signed in someone’s endearment, it was the most amazing gift anyone in love could receive. It was an offering of love from someone, I imagine, to whom words did not come easy. Someone to whom the earnestness of his ‘I LOVE YOU’s didn’t fade with use. Someone, who therefore didn’t understand the concept of mixing it up for variety.

For him, his inability to write creatively was just a technicality. He wanted to write her something and he had decided to woo her with sheer hard work. The book contained Neruda poems copied by hand. It was a labour of love and my heart soared at the affection, though usurped, of this thoughtful lover.

His handwritten book was an immense work of poetry where the poetry was in the gesture than in the words. I guess he did manage some ‘creative’ writing afterall. It was the humble submission of someone who knew he couldn’t top Neruda when he says,

“love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.
I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;
so I love you because I know no other way

than this: where I does not exist, nor you,
so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,
so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep”

And he didn’t see why he should try.

From the new curves of the altered ‘r’s, the intentionally dotted ‘i’s, loops closed as an afterthought and many such inflections, the effort to make it legible lay thick on the paper with exhaustion. I know he re-read it for all the missed words, thumbing the corners where I now hold.

Ecstasy is silent in accepting from a lover, poems as a gift of wordless poetry. Not ‘a’ lover; he is my lover, for who else could have chosen ten of my favourite poems?

Of Stories Like Rain

Glass Boys, the book I am currently reading, was picked up for its resemblance to family feuds I’ve grown up with. Until the first time I heard about this book, in my head faraway places like Newfoundland, Canada could not possibly have family feuds.
I’m barely 20 pages into the book and each page with its bleak yet hopeful imagery, seemingly simple language and dextrously written dialogues makes me want to write. Write about how the wind blows outside my window-playful- how the elderly fans talk to themselves- loudly-how a certain philanthropist barber in my neighbourhood spouts English when drunk-friendly- how electricity hides in the dark when lightning plays hide and seek with thunder in the sky above my house-coward. But I’m out of adhesive; what will glue my lines together to form a cohesive chronicle?
Lines, strangely, brings me to rain. Where I come from, rain is a celebration. A yearly purging of the land, necessary to offer a clean welcome to a new generation of Spring.
It’s now the dying vengeance of summer; it’s blistering, parching and scorching, the heat. Even in the middle of the day, when sunlight blinds your eyes, bakes you wrapped in your own skin and that last litre of water you drank seems to have died in your mouth leaving your innards stuck together, I am sure of rain. I know rain will find me in a week or I will find rain. Then for months there will be a humbling of everything other than that immense downpour; a rather literal dampening of spirits so as to bounce back resplendent with the first new leaves of spring.
In the pop culture of my constitution, rain is a miracle, a symbol of hope and new beginnings. It is open-throated singing, the song of the gods and unapologetic pleasure. It is also nature’s fury, a purifier or a dramatic interlude. Most importantly, it is prosperity, a way of a life and always welcome in any measure granted. By contrast on the other side of the equator, I have found that rain is often described as being morose and despondent, poking fun at miseries, falling in icy sheets or adding insult to injury. I often wonder how my jubilant rain could do something so out of character.
I wish story ideas would come to me with the certainty of monsoon, easy and natural, unending and prosperous, like a habitual season, providing for all my needs.
The only idea I play catch with is family. Their eyes, their words, their hands, told through my eyes, my words, my hands. In writing about them, I stand to lose my only idea; becoming a one hit wonder who will never outwrite that lived narrative.

Irreclaimable Innocence

An unplanned beach getaway to rid myself of the politics of everyday life.

A barely affordable sushi experience to quell the ‘sense of adventure’ in me.

The exorbitantly priced ride I take home post a tiring day of shopping…err…‘retail therapy’ simply because I can’t wait around for a metered fare.

The ka-ching does come from my very own ‘deep’ pockets that I dug sacrificing my eyes and back to a computer screen.
Of course I am entitled to spend it the way I choose without having to justify myself. I think ‘hard-earned’ is the adjective they use.

Then, I came across a little girl, barely in her teens, an A-grader in the 7th standard. She loves Maths and dreams of becoming an Engineer. And her father, a casual labourer, ‘casual’ not an adjective of his choice but a hand-me-down from life.

For their family, electricity is a luxury like sushi; kerosine, an expensive alternative, like an overpriced auto ride is an avoidable indulgence.

I came across her life on a leisurely Sunday afternoon, having eaten my fill; lethargic to even switch on the tv, I read about her life from a page that the fan chose to open for me. It was Coincidence in her Sunday best.
I am not a social worker, I don’t like the implications. I work for myself, to cushion my life.

Real knowledge is to know the extent of one’s ignorance-Confucius

Now that I know, I imagine what a 1000 rupees, pocket change really for one of my ‘fun’ weekends, could give this girl, who dreams from the darkness of the room she calls home-a month’s expense and more considering her family of five earns 5000. For her father who knows no magic to make those 5000 rupees stretch over books, uniforms, sick days and the big dreams of his little treasures.

“Poverty is not an accident. Like slavery and apartheid, poverty is not natural. It is man-made and it can be overcome and eradicated by the actions of human beings.”-Nelson Mandela

To imagine that a thousand rupees that I could add ‘mere’ as an adjective to if I thus chose, could help a little girl achieve her dream. I was a little girl a while back and I had dreams that I didn’t necessarily follow but I never had to worry about how my parents would manage the logistics of. I now remember the freedom of dreaming without logistics. But that’s an irreclaimable innocence.

Something Else

Yes, I am a dreamer. But not one that dreams while sleeping. Maybe I do, it’s only natural, but I rarely remember them. I love dreaming while asleep because they are mostly pointless. They have no beginning and definitely no logical end; however they seem to have a body which is truly captivating. Seems like a beautiful exercise for a universe on a tea break.

A pond, that’s what this post should be called but its going to be called something else.

Laughter of the raucous kind, the one that sneaks in when you are in truly comfortable company. Splashing of water, joyous, like squealing children let out of school. Adventure glints in our eye, when caught by the sun above. Emerald, that’s the colour water wore to work today. Emerald, powerful in her capabilities but elegant in her demeanour.

Grace, mesmerised, twirled with water around us to the quiet music in his head. She dances along, smiling at us, an unshakeable confidence-that smile.

We swam effortless. I swam weightless. I held my hands out of the water and looked up at the water peeling away simply to check if I’d grown any thinner. No. My hands were just as chubby. Glee is what I felt, I never knew I could feel something as pretentious as “glee”. Years of accumulated fat like memory seemed to have melted away…no… dissolved in the all-consuming emerald around me.

I felt light, I felt great. I haven’t felt light unless I skip breakfast and lunch, but that’s a different light altogether. This felt like possibility to the touch. A vast expanse of possibilities where I could ride this laughter and surf the waves of absolute happiness. Even when I thunk it I knew it to be a fallacy, this business of the absolute. But I was impressionable, afterall I was feeling glee and my light self was laughing with friends in an emerald pond.

The land above was a grove of fruit-bearing trees laden with cashew, jackfruit, mangoes, tamarind and rose apple. An enormous banyan tree stood leaning, investigating the traffic in the pond. He watched us languorously with the air of someone who had seen many such rendezvous. He didn’t mind it. He liked the gentle distraction. Countless years of standing and shaking his leaves like jazz hands had made him gregarious.

My orchard wasn’t a jungle. It was a cool haven, a dream place for the lovers of fruit and shade. In the middle of the day when the tropical sun slapped you hard for stepping out, my orchard was the serene colour of dusk with the serene feel of dawn.

Just as the temptation to explore the orchard came over us we realised the difficulty. It was impossible to get onto the land from the water. They were like a discordant couple, living in the same house, but both aware of the lines not to be crossed. The banyan tree had let down his hair of roots into the water through the earth. That was the secret of his perfect jazz hand-leaves. These root-hairs had now acquired a mind of their own. The root-hairs had formed what seemed like a dangerous maze of a sturdy root-trap which came alive to get you stuck in them. Earth, who could not bear to watch this torture had collapsed a long while back giving way to an even more cavernous and indistinguishable ruse.

Adventure that glinted in our eyes had made its way to our hearts and without much thought we set forth to gauge the real danger of the root-trap.  When it was noticed that the root-trap, if we could circumvent it, held shimmery things, we stepped over each other to volunteer for that epic voyage.

The plan was simple. Take a deep breath, dive as far down as was required to get around the root-trap, check on the other side and be right back. In theory, this was child’s play. In practice we were all children of the swimming pool, with its chlorinated water and a lifeguard on standby.

One of us went forth with much gusto and was soon a bubble in the greenish darkness. Panic, on her way in, made way for Logic to leave. I walked straight into the root-trap to “save” my friend. Thankfully this was a dream and no man, woman or animal was harmed in its making.

Life on the other side was literally breathtaking. We forgot to breathe. Roots-tiny, thin, long, juicy, sturdy, purposeful- roots were in full attendance. The light too was different. There was a brilliant light, much like a wet sun, diffused yet luminescent, shining below us. The roots weren’t lit, they were glowing, like series lights. We were glowing, our skin translucent and orange, our mouths pale and our smiles bubbly. Eyes, all eyes in the vicinity had caught the light. The source of it, however, was far away and like the sun could not be stared at directly.

Roots, clean and pastel, were having a good time. You could make out how genuinely happy they were from the way they touched each other’s arm before stretching into the vastness and coming right back to share some naughty titbit about going south. They belonged. That’s when the thought crossed my mind like a certainty. This was root heaven. We were in root heaven.

The more industrious among us were sure that the light was from a hidden treasure. A trunk of gold, perhaps, maybe more. Before I could log away that thought as silly, we were making a beeline towards that light.

But as we got closer to the light, I felt myself sweat in my underarms and in the crook of my neck. Is it possible to sweat under water? I thought not. The light shone brighter and I tried to forget the evil feeling that I was somehow being wrapped in the water around me. Then came the high pitched deafening voice like thunder had caught a cold.

Then I felt the touch. Of something living on my shoulder. I could feel myself turn white with fear. The distance to my home seemed to flash before my eyes like a digital clock: 00:37

I saw myself turn around to look at it, and that meant yes I saw what it was that touched my shoulder.

It was Amma, shouting her usual high-pitched rant about my sloppiness and general lack of discipline. The lecture was into B-side after having switched on the light, switched off the fan and tried to pull my blanket off.

I sat up groggy and thinking I should wear green to work today.