Breakup Story

I am leaving you house,forever, and its okay if you don't miss me.Even if you unconcernedly make new memories with strange people its fine by me.For it is but natural that others should love you as well.

I just hope they notice how your walls and ceiling have the power to let be.How they don't crowd thoughts in so they are left jostling for space.How they don't shame you into inaction with their hauteur .I wonder if it left any mark on you when my mind grew along your walls.

Wouldn’t it be a pity if no one again realized that the corner of the verandah where the crows mass at dusk is a perfect hideaway. That cushions fit in there with a peculiar snugness and the ledge ends at shoulder height exactly.So you can sit and look out.The ghost of an eight year old me with mango juice dripping off my chin onto the pages of Famous Five will haunt this place always.Or maybe one a decade older in striped nightshirt and tousled hair.

I hope they appreciate your endearing gawkiness.The look of having grown too tall too fast.Awkward and yellow, looking around unsurely at the surrounding not-so-high-rises.I promise a mental hug everytime I pass by on the flyover.

They will of course never know about the blue sofa under the charcoal sketch.For both will be gone.The latter to a warehouse subjected to some exchange offer.Goodbye to you too.Perhaps you don’t know it but you held me through fears and fevers silently whispering-Don’t be stupid child, it doesn’t happen that way.

Forgive me for I never learnt the what the switches on the board corresponded to.Utterly illogicall they were.Little bit of mystery in an otherwise completely unmysterious house they were.Please do be the same.

I’m leaving.Off to house with plasma TV and Mercedes in the driveway.And you un-posh house didn’t even have a driveway.And I,silly creature, didn’t even care.

There is a reason why I’ve never told you the above .You would feel perfectly uncomfortable with such extreme oversentimentality,look sheepish and not know what to say.So I shall tear this up and part on the usual terms.

*A stiff hug*
Bhalo theko.

Friends

The night before the ISC history exam I got a panic attack.

"Shitshitshit."
Jayatri continued looking over chemistry formulae knowing I'd elaborate soon.
"Listen man.This scope says Nassers role in NAM is to be studied in detail
"Okay Joey.So study it in detail."
"Its two o clock at night!But thats not the problem...Khan had asked me to photocopy her notes on it and distribute it in class.There was a bandh or something so I thought I'd mail it to people later.."
"And you forgot?"
*Guilty look* "Ki kori ebar?I mean if a question on that is in tomorrows paper I will be crucified."
"Do something.Go to school early tomorrow and tell people whats in the note.They can then attempt the ojectives or whatever."
"I can't do that.I dont know anything about the NAM except what the acromym stands for.I left out the entire segment re."
"Wonderful.Then you will just get screwed tomorrow."
*Feverish nail biting* "I know..royally."
Then I performed my usual stress routine.Walked around the room jerkily.Took large gulps from the coke bottle.Desperately crunched on soya sticks then went to the loo.
After that there was simply nothing left to be done.All the while oblivious to the fact that someone else was trying to study in the same room.I mean I had a problem with a capital p, did no one in the whole wide world care??
Yes thats how selfish I can be.
"Jayatri..."
She shut her book and looked up.
"Joey stop freaking out!You'll do have choice in the paper,don't you?"
"Ye-es..."
"Besides it not your fault.."
Weak protest from me.
"She just shouldn't have given it to an irresponsible dumbfuck like you."

I'd always believed that friends were for JUST this.

Load shedding.And something in me would be smiling inspite of the complaints.I'd sneak into a corner,lean thin shoulders against a rough wall and savour the silence-time.The mind would pick up a stray thread of reality and build around it.Any number of pleasant falsities.And nobody would interrupt with a jarring-Dinner khabena?It does not matter that the object in question was an idiot.I didnt know that then and rather liked my softly trembling reveries.
Of course it was sheer inexcusable nyakami.So when I look back I am filled with contempt and perhaps also ...a little envy.For Load sheddings aren't the same anymore.
I once tried to simulate the environment.Placed myself next to a window and played some suitable music.Then waited paitently for it to happen.Nothing happened.The moon looked down at me insipid,cynical.Feeling an utter fool I tore the earphones off and flung the blasted thing away.
Idiot me.

Buddy is a handsome dog.His back arched like a bow ,head proudly set,listening.I thought he led a charming life.Rushing after sparrows,reclining on sofas .But primarily I envied him for he has not been socialized.No stupid inhibiting ideas drilled into his noble head.
So trots up and tucks his head into your lap-I want love.
And positively bawls when he’s excluded from some activity or locked out.
Drools when you eat around him –You’re not going to eat all of that yourself ?...
When a guest arrives he goes straight for the crotch.-Wuff Wuff.Nice legs…
And it need not be advertised further that he pleasures himself ,most unashamedly, in public.
So here I was thinking he is the ultimate flower power ,free love, free-spirit.

Then it happened.

A wire was strung across the door and he on the other side.I’d originally locked the door to keep him out but he butted his head against it repeatedly till the glass nearly shattered.So I opened it ,expecting him to come bounding in.But no.Tottering on uncertainty he lifted a paw but retracted hurriedly.Whined some then began barking loudly ,insanely.Like the wire like a sparrow would take fright and fly away.
To be honest at this point I was head scratching confused.Intrigued.For gods sake I had seen the damned dog leaping over a couch then why this wire?
But then he started sniffing it.The entire length-What are you strange thing?
I might have imagined it but I thought I saw him arching back ,preparing to soar past the hurdle but at the last moment he sank back .Then went and sat in a dark corner ,whimpering.
Jayatri arrived then with the bhelpuri and walked in over the wire,without a thought.
“Did you study?Where’s the dog?”
Who now came bounding in ,having watched her cross it once,flooded with relief.

Poor devil.He’s not all that different from the rest of us.

And Always

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood
So I climbed a yellow tree
And ate an apple.

My head,nestled,peacefully
On the warm leaves
I looked up, relieved
But two roads diverged in the blue sky…

Foreign Territory

Almost voyeuristic
The way I parted the chintz curtains
And crept into your hearth
To watch you play Snap!
What is Snap?

Something that fair haired children play
Who pat each other on back
And say 'That was very plucky chum.'
Who eat beef cuts and tongue.
What is tongue?

Is it that tongue.
Of Disney love and bubblegum?
How big is Disneyland?

Funny that I should know
Their rivers
And who designed their flag.

Aimless

I've become a walking-addict.

And everyday for hours I go nowhere and back.Buy myself a coke on the way.Chilled coke which you can feel going down your throat in the heat.Sweltering heat may I mention.And I don't even notice much on the way.Its really quite mad.
It happens like this.With a faint buzzing in my head and i wear my shoes and start out.Then the energy of the buzzing in my head.So loud I can almost hear it.Then the energy of my pace.Pulsating heels which begin to hurt.But never mind.
At the end of an hour or two it begins to settle down,a calmer version of the brownian motion sort of thing in my mind.Then I get back.
Am I unhappy?
I remember forrest gump did this when he was deeply unhappy and didn't even know it.
Am I too happy?
Otherwise its hard to explain the strange lightheadedness I feel.
Am I in love with the people on the street?
That's it I think.They who allow a strange creature to race along mid afternoon unquestioningly.No,I get none of the usual attention accorded to women out alone.
Everyone probably thinks I'm a boy.Who cares?
Being a nonentity gives you the greatest freedom.
I enjoy my freedom.