Ache

“Last 1000 meters of the 5k run for males. Rolab, the state champion is leading, closely followed by the teen sensation Noku!”

There is nothing fancy about running. All you have to do is lift your leg. The rest is all done for you. You lift your left leg, then it goes down on its own. Then give it some time to acknowledge that gravity is a bitch. Now the right leg- lift. It goes down. It’s all about fighting this urge to go down, which inevitably wins. Winning is however overrated; there is nothing new about wanting to win. But to keep losing is an art in itself. Again, there’s nothing fancy about losing per se, except when done in succession. Then it has a charm of its own. It always makes sense losing for love. Or revolution. Those losses border on pleasure almost. I digress.

“800 meters left in this race. Nothing has changed upfront on the track, Noku shadowing Rolab like a bloodhound on trail!”

It is all about man’s inability to fly. As a thin, dark, poor and inevitably malnourished lad of fifteen, running became my lifeline. This was a time when letters meant a lot to people. Handwritten letters filled with words of love. Telegrams were too swift, too short and too troublesome. The post had personality. I was a postman’s son, his assistant and on his untimely death, an unenthusiastic substitute. I hated delivering letters, and it didn’t pay me enough. I hated that I never received one. I was the oyster, whose pearls got stolen. I felt bad, sad. I was young. A sweet summer child. Not anymore.

“500 meters left to go. Tiring legs, sweat pouring down as though from pipes. Rolab still leads… Noku playing second fiddle… he looks too comfortable for the last minutes of a long race! ”

But the pangs of hunger were always very real. Letters alone couldn’t get me food. Not enough anyway. So I started delivering milk in the evenings. It wasn’t tough. The farmers were real sweet darlings. As long as you overlooked the occasional addition of water. It was all sunshine and rainbows, till the Government decided to cut down the staff in the Post Master’s office. Now they needed just one postman, in place of three. And ‘the one’ would get twice the salary. The Government was smart. That’s probably why it became the Government in the first place. But this did put me in a spot of bother. Of the three of us, Haku, the oldest friend of my dad, was almost ready to retire and take his well-earned pension. Misa, the second, though, was a prick. To complicate matters, he sold his wife’s ornaments and bought a cycle. I was really not into marriages, so I didn’t have a wife, and hence no ornaments to sell. Not that I regret it.

This left with me no choice, but to deliver letters faster than Misa, the two wheeled demon. I chose to run. And run I did. All morning I would run and finish off the letters. All evening I would run and deliver the milk. Misa, soon decided to sell his cycle. I loved the bee stung look on his face.

“200 meters more… Rolab seems to be struggling in the heat but, the champion that he is, has found unfathomable strengths to carry on and lead. Noku though seems to be in no hurry…”

All that is history now, rags to riches is such a cliche. I am not rich. Yet. But I am better than before. I wear my country’s colors. I don’t run barefoot anymore. In fact, people want to pay for my footwear. If I let them, they’ll sew their initials in my briefs. Bloody bourgeoisie. But I don’t give a damn. For me it is not about the gold. It is not about the podiums. It’s all about that look on their faces. When a thin, dark, poor and impoverished monkey of a man, beats their icons at their own Meccas. The fancier their names, the shinier their labels: the faster I run past them. That bee stung look. I can feel my lungs burn, gasp, and sputter at times. I know they feel it too. Knives are plunging into my calves, or so it seems. I can’t feel my knees. I can’t feel anything now. But I know they feel it too. But they can’t see in on me. I won’t let them. I make them sell short and wither and die. I am beyond everything.

It’s time to run.

“Rolab is still on the lead folks as we pass into the last 50 meters of… AND NOKU BOLTS OFF. Two strides and … HE’S LEVEL. He is WITH ROLAB now. Did he just… TURN AND SMILE?  The struggle is real, Rolab seems to drift off. Noku is running the race of his life, and has probably mistaken this to be sprint event. He just finishes 20 meters ahead of …”

Rolab has been stung by the bee.

 

–  Sr Ja [05/11/2017]

 

Whore

 

He climbed up the dirty set of stairs and reached the corridor. The lodge looked dingy from the outside, but the hallways were spacious. There were rooms on both sides of the path, and a verandah on either side after every five rooms. The whole building was rectangular- running much longer than its width. He stared into the pathway- the lights didn’t work, and at night there was just infinite darkness.

266. He had to go to the room on the left, right before the first verandah. That way, if you had entered the building through the back door, like he had- nobody could spot you at night. You climb the stairs, walk into one of the ten rooms and slam the door shut. None in the world would know where you were. Precisely why she wanted him to come here. Who knew, he was none the wiser five minutes ago, standing in the street.

He got inside and shut the door. He found the switches near the door. A dull yellow light filled the room. There was no plug point, no fan, no mirror– nothing. There was a short table in the corner, but no chairs. The bed was short but wide, and lower than what he’d have liked. The mattress was new, but there were no pillows or bedcovers. He sat on the bed and tried to pry open the lone window.

“Don’t bother, it’s locked from the outside”

He turned sharply to see her standing by the door, a bag slung across her bounteous front and a bottle of water in hand.

She walked in. Strong, long, calculated strides to the table and put down the bag.

“Do you fall asleep quickly?”

“Me? I’ve had trouble sleepi…”

“No. Not that. After you jack?

“Ehm… I guess…”

“Alright, would you like a bedsheet?”

“…”

“Take it- too many mosquitoes. Here, it’s on the table. Take it after I leave. No stains. And leave them here in the morning. Bucky will make sure that they are otherwise when you pay.”

She took a mirror out and started putting on lipstick. He lied down on the bed, unsure of what to say or do next.

“Take these”, her outstretched hands – shapely and embroidered with mehndi, had a packet of condoms and- for lack of a better word – a metal piece – strangely shaped like a lock bolt. He pocketed the condom and held the other up in the light.

“For the door”, she said taking off her sari.

He hadn’t noticed the door lock- or its lack thereof. There was no latch inside that could be locked. There was a lock for sure, but it had no metal bolt that could lock it shut. He pressed the wooden panes together and bolted it shut.

Four minutes. She stood up and drank some water from the bottle. Then washed the semen off her thighs, in the corner of the room.

“Need some?” she asked, pointing the bottle at him.

“No.”

She poured it down her face and started pulling on the petticoat.

“Thank you”, he said raspy-voiced. Like a love-lost, pimpled teenager.

She nodded and started packing her things. “What do you do?”

“I sell fish…” he stopped short, as if ashamed to keep talking.

“And…?” she probed.

“I write poems.”

She pulled a face, to show she couldn’t comprehend.

“Poetry. Poems. In a book. I mean, I write poems and I get the book published and then I carry around the books with me.” He explained, sweating now; more than what he was about five minutes ago. “When they come around to buy fish, I offer them to read. If they like, they buy.”

She laughed. A full hearty laugh. The laugh of someone who hasn’t sinned. The laugh of the brave. “You make a lot of money?”

“I made ten last month” he announced, proudly.

She raised an eyebrow in mockery and headed towards the door.

“Thousand. Ten thousand. In a month”

“So that’s why you are here tonight!” she laughed again. The laugh of the truly content.

She stepped out and adjusted her bra. “Pay downstairs before nine tomorrow. Don’t forget the sheet.” Before closing the doors, she peeped in –“Write one about me. I am a vegetarian, but I can read”

“I will”, he said as he closed his eyes.

***

In your eyes

And the fish’s, I see the sighs.

Looking at them, I whisper

“I can hear your silent whimper.”

The fish and you

Cost me so much, but I never knew

If you or them,

Would rot first; like phlegm.

But if you do not-

When death tightens its knot

Remember that you fought;

But you just forgot,

That life was worth a shot.

***

 

-Sr Ja [4/1/2016]

Inspired by a poem in a weekend newspaper. For those who can read Malayalam – http://digitalpaper.mathrubhumi.com/681913/Weekend/JANUARY-03-2016#page/1/3

A Wine Woman

 

He climbed out of bed, all drowsy and irritated. The room was a mess. It wasn’t a classic Iranian film shot with sunlight seeping in through a window and the hero lying awake. Deep philosophical thoughts weren’t plunging through his head like a Bombay local.

However, a girl was lying on his side half naked- he could just see half a shapely ass. Not a bad start to a day, except that he didn’t know where her clothes were. Or who she was. Or why he was fully dressed.

He pulled his completely covered self out of bed and walked to his kitchen. No sugar. Lots of milk, but of the sour kind. He boiled some water and added all that was left in a sachet of Nescafe. It tasted horrible, but he was never good at making things. He walked back inside, stirring the cup hoping that it might taste better if it cooled down. The girl had turned to the other side, the ass was now fully visible in all its glory.

Should he wake her up? He wasn’t very sure of that. She could react in a thousand different ways. He might not like all of them. He had an attitude of taking life very seriously. Every moment and every turn had a meaning. So did every word he penned down. He was a small town writer.

He coughed gently and waited for her to respond. Not even a flicker. He gently set the coffee down, stretched his hands, stood up. And whipped the sheet off of her in a swift single movement. A fair maiden rolled out onto the floor like a mythical figure. But she scrambled up too clumsily to be Cleopatra. Nakedness was the minimum he was willing to accept as rent. Beauty was however a welcome bonus.

“What is wrong with you?” she asked climbing back into the bed, as if she owned the place.

“Nothing. I’m just taking advantage of you.”

“Are you going to rape me?” She hid her face underneath a pillow, still not taking an effort to cover her- he had to admit- flawless body.

“I’ve not dismissed the idea completely. The neighbors are away, and I could just blame it on the drink, and also that you turned up unannounced.”

“Can you pass me the bottle?” continued the girl, flicking a thumb down to indicate something under the bed.

He got down on all fours, and rummaged under the bed. The floor was filled with a viscous liquid and he had somehow not noticed the smell until now. Persistence of odour maybe. His fingers wrapped around a thin neck and he pulled out a bottle. Of wine.

Madera. Nashik valley red wine.

“I walked in after you yesterday. After I saw you park your bike. Just on top of my scooter, like literally”. She took a swig and passed it back.

“You couldn’t tell me so, then?”

“I did. I mean, I tried. I was talking to you, and you were staring through me for a while, like I was invisible. For like minutes. Then you walked away to the bedroom- I mean here. You have a nice place, and I didn’t have one to stay. So I switched off the lights after a while”

He took another sip from the wine. It was horrible, but the after-taste made his tongue buds forget the coffee. She looked at him as if the whole conversation was a normal part of her daily humdrum life. He wasn’t the least bothered by her attractiveness either. There was an inexplicable comfort in the silence that wrapped them both. He would hate it if this wouldn’t lead up to a good story. He was a connoisseur of time, though he didn’t earn his living from his writing. He was too smart for that. He wouldn’t delude himself by hoping that his passion would fetch him bread. Art for money was a notion for the rich. To him art was made when he wished. Writer’s block, draught of inspiration were all alien to him. Abstract concepts limited to mediocre individuals who wanted to draw a ‘creator’ image for themselves. He was beyond all that. He was pragmatic, soulless. A bottle of wine contains more philosophy than all the books in the world.

“No. We didn’t have sex. I just couldn’t find the A/C remote. And it was too warm, even for underwear”. She stood up and started gathering her clothes. She walked out of the room after a few minutes. He gently closed his eyes.

When he woke up again in the afternoon, he couldn’t recall her face. There were three- hundred rupee notes left beneath the wine bottle near his bed side. She was real.

He could have asked for her name, that ass could not have been a figment of his imagination.

 

-Sr Ja [14/02/2016]

Cigar

“Have you been fucked… Neel?”

The question lingered in the smoke that had ejected with the words, and it seemed to hang there forever, before– “No.”

The pause should have been awkward, since there were just two of us in the room, and my name wasn’t Neil. Or Nilak. Or Neelakanta, or anything that could be shortened to Neel. Still, the name wasn’t as important as the question. Maybe the wrong address, quickened the lie.

“I’d thought so…. Ever…..  Ever smoked a cigar?” the voice was dreary and rugged, and had seen its share of fire and ash to get that rasped edge. Blunt but not broken, sonorous yet not strong.

“A Cuban? No. I don’t think so.”

“No thinking, on these terms, Steve- go on, take a bite- and don’t worry- these ain’t Communist! Hahaaahhh…..”

The laughter was a full one, one that rung in the air and forced you to join in, even if the idea wasn’t remotely funny. The wrong name did not bother me this time – not enough to refuse the offered packet. A pleasant hour of silence passed. Red light seeped in through the broad tainted glass. The windows were fastened, but transparent. There were hardly any furniture on the floor, unless you counted a broken sofa. It must have belonged to an old lady, downtown. She must have made that embroidered sheet- pieces of it still clung on- as if reluctant to leave a carcass. She must have sat through the monsoon, with her cat by her side. The cat might have died, and it was probably still inside the sofa. Nothing else would explain the room’s odour.

“You know why they banned these? Hah, Reed? All these……? Alcohol…. And cocaine, and….. Smoke….and cigarettes and … whiskey…. And women… and whiskey?”

“Women aren’t ba-”

“YOU know why? Because these- make us men- make you, alive. And they are all afraid of the living. They all want you dead and broken and …. Lifeless. Not the live ones, Oh no no, never, ever-”

The clock chimed ten times, and he kept muttering through it all, and while it subsided- I couldn’t wrap my head around his words. There was no pressing need to clarify, or any assurance that he’d remember whatever he had blabbered. He took a long draught and let a sheet of smoke rise up through the nostrils, clouding his eyes. That technique-It was called something fancy, something after France- I could never recollect the trivialities. It was terribly annoying.

Another hour of sullen silence, yet the train of thought hadn’t past the last bridge, fully. Oblivion and pleasurable bliss were banned to keep us dead inside? Couldn’t be. How could something dead, care? Be cared for? How could something dead fall in-

“You fallen in luv, Bran? Ever? Huh?” The gruffly old beard, could read my mind now. Great.

“Yes, Guv’nr. Yes. Over and over and over again- a hundred times the very least.”

“Hahaaahhh! Good for you, son, good for…..”

It was true.  Every single day, every single time I killed the ones I was paid to – I fell in love. Especially the brave ones. I had a choice. Indeed I did. To walk away and meet a wife and kiss her and cry on her lap like a baby. But I wasn’t a strong man- I could never cry. Couldn’t shed a drop, even when they slit her throat and dropped her at the doorstep.

That was the second time I’d fallen in love. And since then, every single time I let the crimson warm color drip, I fell in love. It was magical.

The clock struck twelve.

“Mind if I borrow these, Guv’nr? You won’t be smoking no more” He nodded drunkenly.

I stood up.

Next morning while washing the blood stained shirt, I got it. French Inhalation- that’s what it was called.

-Sr Ja [22/12/14]

A day outside the web

Unlike my usual writing endeavours (Oh yes, I am now a self employed (read o/w jobless) writer) this piece was fortunate enough to garner a title prior to its completion. Points directly to the fact that, this time, I’m not a rudderless ship lacking in aim and direction. I do have all my thoughts, though sans order, ready to be pinned down.

It has been approximately nine years since the World Wide Web, captured my attention, and I’ve grown to become a fervent consumer of its many useful, not that-very-useful and absolutely-frivolous facilities. Social networking, despite its many negatives; does hold the lion’s share of my time spent online. Notifications, messages, interactions, mentions and friend requests- are observed and are decided upon with caution and deep thought. Though I do hate to admit it, I’m concerned about my thus generated internet-social-image. Sigh.

Anyway, all this would have gone along the normal course– the sun would still have risen in the east, birds would still have chirped every morning, everyone would still have continued to ‘tweet,chat,text and like’ in mirth-if it wasn’t for a fresh wave of  thought that I’d shared with a dear one the day before. My apparently short-sighted challenge to the aforementioned was to step out of the grasp of the Cyberspace for 24 hours- an earthly day. I offered to join in, taking pride in the fact that my will power and determination was second to no mortal. So, out of the blue, and quite unplanned too – I “logged” out today morning at 12:01 a.m. and hit my bed. I distinctly remember my last thought, “A day without Chrome? (*smirk) Please, in my hand. So easy!” How wrong was ! How very wrong.

The day began in earnest. 8 O’ clock, I was ushered off bed, by a busy looking brother who wanted to use the bathroom. (“Stop knocking down the door will you, bloody son of…”(the rest was muted in self interest)). 9 O’ clock, after a post-sleep-nap I woke up, brushed my teeth, got my food from the kitchen, and immediately proceeded to my room. Switches on the PC, switches on the modem, right clicks on ‘Connect’ and then, it struck me. Oh bummer, I almost forgot. Well. Alright .Koyi nahi. Alt + F4.

A change in daily routine does alter your balance. Especially when you are so set in your habits. Out of mere joblessness at that particular hour of the day, I took out my camera and roamed the neighbourhood, and tried taking a few snaps. After ten minutes, the decision of not joining the Photography club back in college seemed very wise. I soon returned to my room, in search of something to burn time.15 minutes of sitting on a warwick chair, did me no extra favours. I realised with a pang of guilt that I was short- alarmingly short- of ideas at that moment. Suddenly the phone rang. “Buddy, ‘Aurangzeb’ at SL theatres, coming?”

3 hours, 80 bucks, a can of Pepsi and a pack of pop corns later, I emerged out of the theatre complex-yawning. Remarks? Been there, seen that. Bollywood, let me assure you, does not believe in the idea of redundancy-or the mere absurdity of it. A climax which was quite evident right from the start did not however overshadow the brilliant performances by Arjun Kapoor, Prithviraj Sukumaran, and the veterans Jackie Shroff and Rishi Kapoor. Issi liye paisa vasool, aur time bhi.A bumpy bus ride home. Lunch. Another short nap and I woke up between a weird dream – guns, tigers and camels. I did say weird.*Shrug

 Maybe it was the idea of 8 hours that still stretched out before me, but I found myself lacking in interest in anything substantial. I tried to decipher the crude way in which human mind works. Ask yourself not to think of an elephant wearing pink shoes- Boom -there you have it- in HD- an African male elephant complete with perfect white tusks- wearing those bright pink ballet shoes. Imagination, when curbed, knows no boundaries, I thus deduced. Trying to push out that gruesome scene that you saw in a movie last week? There, floating into your brain, exactly when you were about to dig into that delicious Paneer tikka! Ew! I swear you can almost hear the sharp whisper- “Not very hungry now, are you?”, if you listen carefully.

So quite along the same lines was I. Walking here and there. Aimless. Seeing no point in particularly anything. Television channels seemed adept in making TV live up to its nickname-the idiot box- though these days I feel like one, for turning it on. Songs- the old ones had nothing new; and the new weren’t as appealing. Picking up a book seemed fine. So I sat down with a copy of “Five people you meet in heaven”. But blow the bloody time, I couldn’t concentrate. Saw myself reading the same page twice, without taking in a word- and I quit. I was almost about to find solace in another movie, grudgingly again-when the power went off. Cursing my ill luck, I stamped my foot.

“Etta (Brother), what is the log of log of x?” Huh? I had dozed off again. Rudely waking me up for the second time this day, was my younger sibling. A small brotherly scuffle was now inevitable. This time for lack of anything better to do, we tried our very own forms of martial arts at each other, complete with sound effects. Details were hard to keep track of, amid lightning quick moves and shadow strikes. The ‘battle’ was cut short unceremoniously by my mother, who came running when she heard a miniature explosion, from the living room (It was nothing really, a badly aimed plastic pot hitting the plywood door).In a single, long, continuous and fluent sentence (minus any cuss words-I was impressed) she gave us a piece of her mind. A compliment seemed out of place, as she commanded on an immediate cleaning up of the room. Leaving us bros together.

A broom in one hand and a dust-bin in another, we didn’t exactly symbolise masculine power, but as they say; hell knows no fury like a women scorned. So we complied without complaint, and quickly finished it all off. Adhering to his previous request, I proceeded to help him with his homework. It was fun, mind you. To see it all from a point of someone who had gone way past the expansion of (a+b) the whole squared- at least from a mathematical point of view; was different. Amidst the laughter and frolicking I did manage to teach him something. Or I think so, for the latter seemed to be enjoying himself, doing those perky math problems that have so become a part of our childhood. 6 years ahead of him on the life scale, I did have limitations on talking topics that I shared with him. But he, to my delight, had none. Unaffected by my lack of interest and enthusiasm(it was boring at times),he kept rambling on- about school, sports, cartoons,movies,heroes and what not. Conversation never seemed to follow a logical order. Unexplained jumps from “Why do you have three month vacations?” to “I think your hair looks stupid!” were to be tolerated. Yet it was amusing to say the least. Being elder, I did have a very rare gift of watching myself grow up, albeit in a different way. Raised by the same pair of humans, in the same environment-yet so different. The magnitude of myself being there, just struck me then. Did he look up to me? Nay, that sounds too uppity, I’m no role model. Jeez, I don’t even know where I’m heading. Do I even..? It was at this juncture that I saw the wall clock- 11 10. Time had flown. I had survived the day-nay, I had seized the day. Outside the web. The mere joy has led me to pen these words in 17 odd minutes. No higher purpose was served probably, but I’m content, and guess that’s what matters, the most.

 

To a wise man, every new day is a new life. I am waiting for tomorrow, hoping to sleep again today, with a smirk on my face. 😉

-SrJa