goodbye

You're facing her, in a bus terminal, or a train station maybe.
You forget sometimes, but you're both holding suitcases and you're talking and laughing, and one or other of you will remember when it's time to go.
This is how it always is, stranger-talk understood familiarly, on the way to the same place.
People criss-cross the station, shouting in bunches and singing and hurrying, even passing between you sometimes.
You get up to get some coffee from the stand, fresh from laughter, wait in line, and think about the conversation.
Talking and silence, and talking and silence, and you can't remember any more what it was about, as always.
It's like it never happened, the gap; or rather, like you'd always thought it'd be- the gaps didn't matter.
Ha.
After refusing to shove people at the counter for long enough, someone finally gives you coffee.
It's the wrong kind, and they charge you too much, but you don't have the heart to fight for the right kind.
Walking back, you realise you were carrying the suitcase all the while.
When you reach the benches she isn't there.
And you know that she's gone to catch her train, that it isn't the same one as yours, that she'll learn to manage to catch it on time, as you will.
Is it alright ? you ask yourself, sipping the scalding wrong coffee, blowing on it, whistling in between.
It isn't- you swerve to avoid a little girl insistent on running pell-mell into you- but it will be.
You pick up speed as you catch sight of a terminal clock, running onto the platform as the conductor starts yelling, get into your seat.
Everything is, sooner or later, and you will be.
Rummage for a napkin in a pocket, and wipe the coffee from all over your coat while drinking what's left of it, straight up.

The people clap, rather a lot. The announcer clears his throat, waits to say yet more pompous-sounding, adulatory things. He supposes he's earned the right not to be embarrassed.
"And So, for the Brilliant and Courageous Leadership that has Finally brought Us Victory, today, Ladies and Gentlemen, we the People would like to Honour-"

Applause rattles the asbestos roof of the massive stadium, hastily nailed on because the Victory Day Celebrations couldn't be held the way Victory was won in the first place- open-air.

He hadn't ordered the tribute, merely known it was inevitable. He accepted it, to an extent. The announcer reiterated for effect, and the words of unaccustomed formality penetrated to him through the roar of applause and beginning rain- 'Valour that has brought Honour to the Nation...'

In the meanwhile, he is being scathing in his head about the elite lot who are suddenly clapping their hands as loud as eliteness allows, who'd been virulently opposed to the Cause not too long ago, who by economics and education were no different from The Oppressor, whose exclusion of him had been part of the reason, he was free to admit, that he'd done what he had.

He was faintly irritated, though, at the repetition of the bravery theme, wished the announcer would stop. He wondered whether, if he raised his hands in addition to the standing up and smiling winningly-yet-humbly, the announcer would stop talking. On the other hand, that might've entail his having to talk instead.

Why this growing irritation? Shouldn't it have been lightheaded joy at the victory and recognition that he had earned in sweat and blood ? And it had come duly second to the acknowledgement of Those Who Fell, all ceremonial and correct.
Well, talking of their bravery was true enough. The torture in jails and police stations, the nightmare wounds they ignored in order to fight to the death... he shuddered, and wondered.

Wonders a thing he has prevented himself from unproductively wondering before, replacing it with immediate concerns, but there's nothing to stop him thinking it now.
He does have a talent for strategy, a brilliance maybe. The brilliance that led him to predict the enemy's moves, to mastermind unstoppable operations, to protect the core of the Organisation from brute force and infiltration. It was his brain that had kept him alive and virtually unharmed, and he was grateful to or for it. He'd never had any need for valour, really. The fight and chase scenes he'd been in had always gone according to plan.
And he'd wondered, of course, what would have happened if they hadn't. If the highly improbable had taken place, if he'd been caught and tortured, like Number Three, or made a Public Spectacle, like Number Six, or... or any of those things- an arm or a leg or an eye lost, brain damage or napalm burns... he shudders, suppresses it. Would this courage, this thing that every common soldier had, would it have come to him ?

A silence in his mind. His hands accept an enormous bouquet being handed to him, his smile hasn't moved. In front of these people, he is suddenly afraid of being found out- fraud, un-hero. He longs for his foot-soldiers, for those who are too close to the fighting to idealise war, to prate about valour. He clutches the flowers close. Those men sing only of victory and he is glad of it, desperately grateful as he crushes the stalks in his trained fingers- it doesn't matter how we got it, it doesn't matter, it doesn't make a difference. What do these bastards know of War ? Its historical significance, its moral dilemmas, its socio-economic something.
But how you win it ? How easily it's lost- how it isn't won by uniforms on white horses with silver swords- How difficult-?

Once upon a time, there was a little girl, who was all blue.

Her ears were blue, and her hair was blue, and the skin all over was blue, and even her eyebrows were blue. Different shades of blue, but all blue.

Only her eyes were black, and her teeth were white.

Or atleast, they used to be white, until she stopped caring about brushing them- 'Nobody likes me anyway', she thought.

And it was true, too.
All the other children were coloured in many colours, brown eyes and black hair and pink or cream or brown skin, and pink lips, and still-white teeth, and when they got cut or hurt it went red or brown or purple.

And they didn't think it was- nice- no, right- no,- [the word they were looking for was normal, but they didn't know it] -that someone should be one colour, just one colour, all over.

When they got older, they learnt the word, but they learnt how to make not liking her sound nicer. It's not interesting, they said. Everyone is many colours for a reason.

She didn't want to cry because it looked so silly, as though she were leaking out of her eyes.
And she wasn't much into crying anyway- she tried looking sad instead, but she saw herself in a mirror and started laughing.

She didn't even have any of those talents which make you popular even if you are weird. She wasn't a genius, she didn't sing brilliantly or play the guitar or run very fast or talk very wittily or look beautiful despite the colour. She was just okay.

Nobody notices okay people, she notices.
Everyone left her to it.
Which is a good idea, you know, with children- because they think about it, and wonder why, and get to understand things.
Which is a lovely thing, because then you get little girls like this one-
a little blue girl who refuses to be blue. And almost makes you wish you were one too.

Samaypur it was called. The place of time.

The student visited it with articles in his eyes, Inverting the structures of Dimensions, the dimensions of Structures. In between the hardworking huts he found a truant dangling his feet in the river who could've been subverting hegemony.

The government official visited it with the census clipboard, recorded what he could've been finding. Literacy rose, some huts were repopulated, but not overpopulated, especially among the castes on the Scheduled side of the pond.

The tourist visited it with hi-res camera and chlorine tablets, relied on its hospitality and recycled its cliches. Would remember a genu-wine tenth century temple and not the face of the urchin pointing it out, who relieved him of a wad or two.

The social activist visited it with a video crew and a rolling-pin, rolled up her sleeves and pitched in. The women discussed it in early morning hand-pump vernacular- good when working was the verdict, but a bit of a pain when she opens her mouth.

The headman, chewing reflectively, rocking back and forth on his haunches, waits for the sun to sink, the smoke to rise and congregate, the stories to tell themselves into question, over tea and coca-cola. Coke better in this season, upon consideration. Spits; a paan-stain shaped like a comet glistens, the sly last light winking before it dies in a last desperate secret.

"Kuch toh samai ka khayaal rakho!" his wife will say when he returns.

Par Samai toh apni hi khayaal rakh leti hai.

I am always watching.
Peering through windows, peeping around the side of the house, even a flash of a glance out across the street before I collapse into bed and turn out the lights and pretend that was what I wanted to do.
Watchful, waiting, convinced of disappointment.
And what else should I deserve, to what else will I give credence when it happens ?

If I were now to display the badges of my empowerment-
to flip fresh-cut hair, wear the come-hither and let lilting, hearth-warming laughter fill rooms-
Would they believe- and would I believe- that I was secure ?
But then,
I know that when the world meets my stare with interested eyes,
I blink, long-lashed, abashed.

one girl, missing.

Where o where has the little girl gone ?

Empty seat and tousled bed
Shake their heads, it's worrisome.
Let's worrisome.

The doll's hairbrush just smoothed her hair,
The pins were dropped- now she's not there.
No, she wasn't just hair.

A little lamp has toppled down,
The pen and exercise-book frown.
So small the girl, so big the frown.

Window is open, door is shut,
She cannot go out, cannot soar up.
She tried, but she didn't go up.

for D.

They reach a circle, encircled by the path, walk away in different directions, meet again on the other side, at the same time, sometimes even in step, which she loves. which reassures her.

Sitting there, he talking of mountains. She asks how people live without beauty, the utterly external kind. He says they don't, don't have to. "That's why photographs- I want to make them see it, the beauty in ordinary, real things." She watches him, both still, his chin against the light. She wishes she could.

They walk back in complete silence. Her footsteps irregular, a slow, deep, crunching on crusty tarred road; his steps light, regular, firm, with a whisk of jeans-legs against each other. She wonders if this quiet is uncomfortable- She cannot be, she never is.
What can she do ? He is beneath her skin, embedded close to the bone.

The thunder lilies are massacred.

Severed sunshine heads loll on the grass.

And then the rain comes and stomps them in the mud.

When they are brown, like old blood, you will not even notice.

A cellphone is ringing.
Buzzing on the table, against the table, and screaming stereophonic.

Shall I pick up ? she asks, simply,
It is the only one, and perhaps will be for a long, long time,
Perhaps forever.
Though it hurts, I know it hurts.
I am alone, not lonely but I might be.
And not a message. This call or nothing.

The phone plays on her nerve, trouncing nasally on a note,
Sounding in her brain-
She thinks of cold nights and the fear of herself.
Of pitiful anger, aimed at nothing.

She steels herself and picks up.

I do not want to beg
For emotions.
To stand at the door and look
Timid, eager, perhaps a little guilty,
And knock. And wait.

And how much good would it do
Anyway? -Would you notice,
Look up from your scribbling
One impatient moment,
Or raise a hand to wave me away,
Or look inquiringly-
Polite but hardly interested-
and wait for my question ?

Does it matter ? I smile at myself;
Would I not rather
See you from the door than not at all,
Happy that something so interests, holds you;
Feel a need that needs no answer, holds
No pride, and so, no shame ?

She waits, has been waiting, has waited.

How long ? Since a long time.

She wonders, on storm-clad evenings, what she will do if he returns.
Now.

If he walks through- no, no, rings the doorbell and waits, seven-forty-five as always, and night begins.

She’d move- unsuspecting like the movies ? instinctively certain, like the books ?- to the door, unlatch it [peered through the eyehole-thing, couldn’t see anything], peer out, stop.

Unbelieving? Instantly relieved of all life’s burdens ? A surprising anger swelling up ? [Probing it, she finds that it is real, like a blister or a fester] Tired, does she give up thinking about it, accept just the release from the sympathy lists, from the endless talking to get around her aloneness, getting away from the nights alone in the double-bed, stealing warmth from the bodies of men she’d seen that day to stuff the side-pillow she slept with ?

He is still standing there, she remembers. He will have to say something. Something about having missed her ? Being glad to be back ? Meaningful silence? Meaningful small talk ? Meaningless phrases, heavy with emotion ? A mannish sound of never-to-be-articulated need ?
And what will he look like ?

The same ? Heavily changed, wasted and thin, tough from the knocks of the world ? A scar across his eyebrow [she loves those] from where a girl threw the razor at him to hurt him howevermuch at shouting-parting ? Or peaceable and prosperous… in the way they’d always scorned ? Corpulent, even. Hm.

And what would she do ? Shrink back, move unseeingly forward, hit him ? Cry, a moan of despair, or of longing... after all he was so beautiful, she’d always wondered how- Would she open the door and fully face him ? Throw up her chin, droop her head quietly, scrutinize him, his expression, his look? Break into a long-lost smile ? [the fake one?] Invite him in like a stranger, step back and let him enter, draw him in, slam the door in his face, shake her head slightly and step back and close it with a soft click and a sigh, turn away ?

Walk into the drawing room, bedroom, kitchen, to the drinks cupboard, out the bathroom window, off the balcony ?

She stops; looks out into the rain, feels the rush of it speed her blood, spray her skin, kickstart her brain.
And remembers that on still summer afternoons she cries.

She waits, has been waiting, has waited.

How long ?

Since long time.

On pearl-grey mornings, she wonders what she will do.

On stormy nights, she is brilliant, wild.

In the sultry afternoons, long, slow tears trickle down.

I tried to avoid myself, one day.

Dodged mirrors, glossy cupboards,
The computer till the screen lit.

Tried not to see the body
Always bordering my vision
-Especially sitting down-
So I wandered the house
Madly
Slamming hands and feet
Against door-jambs, window-bars,
To make it stop following me,
Leave me alone.

But she was always there-
I, I should say- Always
Watching when I turned my eyes
Ever so slightly, to check.

But the pain I caused
Made me hurt;
Wondering, I
Washed my grazed knee,
And said, There-there,
And felt better,
And looked up, to see
Nobody watching.

Sitting at breakfast.

Us, in our bermudas and other
Appropriate holiday clothes,
Them with anything on that
They could find, even nothing
If nothing came to hand.

Us rubbing our full bellies,
Content with the obscene amounts of breakfast
That we ate, smug in the conscious innocence
Of our chosen pleasures,
While they, with the plates of connoisseurs,
Go back and forth under our scrutiny,
Too many women in this couple,
Too many tattoos in that one,
The races suspicious in that family of four.

And yet it is we who are the weak ones, I think;
Fearful, though we too want the company,
Sex, comfort; defensively smug
Because the only other thing to do would be envy
That they went out and asked, got, laid,
While we sat here and smothered ourselves
With cheap clothes and tourist-spot snaps,
And some of ourselves, to prove we'd been,
And peered into strip-clubs, sideways, on our way past,
And speculated.

They are getting off the bus now. A silent world. Made complete by the earplugs. His have a hole, a rebellious prick with a pin. He wants to hear.
But there is nothing. The silence of the bus, and before that, of the hotel, and of the practice grounds all through.
He doesn't think of this then. Only later, when the pounding begins.
In the dressing room, he pulls on his shorts, snaps them round his waist, pulls at the shirt to loosen it.
Mechanically. He can hear a rustle-drone, a faint sound leaking through the cracks, and before the assistant coach has completed the signal to remove the plugs, his are out.
Like the Channel Tunnel, he thinks, a sea on the rampage. Some kind of deep, nasal horns, trumpets. They have been forewarned at multiple briefings.
Concentration must not waver. Not today.

The pitch is a light at the end of the tunnel.

When you breathe again, you snort it all in. The hormones, the excitement, lapping against their faces, the national anthem hovering just above, severely.
Then the other anthem begins.
A sheet of water ripples, then breaks into dancing waves in gaudy sounds and raucous colours.
Then kickoff.

The Best Team In The World [By History] assumes possession.
Moving forward jauntily, but with quick, precise passes that allow no penetration.
Exemplary. He can even almost hear Coach’s grudging commentary in the background.
Clothed in his own discipline, he responds to the pitch as he always does; his eyes see line diagrams, possibilities, snaking out across the field of vision.
They move, the lines change, he moves. Like chess, comes a flicker in his brain, but he doesn’t really know about that.
And now this strikes, upsets him. He is thinking. Being influenced by the conditions, the stadium, the play. Distracted, just as had been drilled into him many, many times, that he must not be.
The ball whisks to him, cuts him off. He drives forward, the blood begins to run, one-two, man by his side, he passes hard.
Watches the striker collect, turn- watches it soar- over the bar.
An old voice comes, as he watches the forward clutch his forehead in frustration-disbelief.
‘Even our blood is loyal to the cause, see ? See the colour. See the exact shade.’

Opposition takes possession; he retreats. Swift surging counterattack- a half-admiration rises- clenches his teeth- why is it there ?- The ball comes closer- a desperate jab- it’s out of play. A breath, and a corner kick.

In the pause, he breathes hard, looks round, jostles to stick to his player, tries to fix a thought of that rising, perfectly curling ball, and himself against it, to steel himself.
But an elation bubbles across, breaks out- Here, in the smell of sweat and the sound and rush that is adrenaline, against the best team in the world, he feels laughter pulsing through him, pounding in his head, racing madly, making him shiver- what could be wrong ?

Goal.

Are there words to describe an afternoon
Heavy with sweat, stained right across with the smell of horse-shit,
When, emerging from the fashionable cafe filled with
Self-consciously defiant adolescents,
Kitty parties, matte-lipsticked by occupation,
Kids squealing from delight and perversity,
Corporate lowlifes ascending the stepladder,
Old acquaintances indulging nostalgia and immodesty,
And waiters padded with airconditioning,
To a tossed-up, breathless day,
With vendors at streetcorners cooling off by
Masquerading as louts before unlikely customers
While crows fly intensely by, missing your head entirely by chance...
Strolling along demarcated pathways
Alone, which neutralises the clichés, and
Habitually looking past lovers who glare suspiciously at you,
But miss the other walker who is feeling himself up while
Peering around a shrub at a couple kissing under a tree,
Utterly unselfconscious.
Another, behind, circumventing his own aim even in his head,
Loiters purposefully after you,
Except to where you navigate dung-clumps
To stare up through the branches of a fifty-foot tree,
Or stop to wonder whether you know people you recognise.
Lazing along businesslike roads to read a poem engraved
In an economically-semi-painted wall, sipping
Plum gin from a coffee thermos, eyes sly-sided and watchful
For the man who yells, suggestive, from the gas-cylinder truck
At midday, when the sweat rides to the point of the chin,
And another man blushes, asking the way to a children's park
When what he needs is a 'urinal, Iamspeakingfranklymadam,please
Don't mind, hein ?' While you, overjoyed
That he is not going against a wall, direct him
To an all-women's petrol pump for more blushing.
Crossing roads while looking back,
Feeling tips of raindrops delicately press the point
That water turns white transparent, and walking home
At a pace that defies the shower of
Incredulous sheltered looks, and the angry exclamation-question
That did I have to do all this walking, put on this show of bravado, just now ?

glister

Today, An Inventory of Treasures.
Everything, she prefaces, is two. One for you, and one for your sister.
Even the man in the shop knows now. For years, when we buy,
Always gold and everything two.

And so we begin.
From within a locked section of the locked steel almirah,
A faded, peeling red leather box is clicked open.
A blue velvet pouch parts velcro hesitantly: One Gold Necklace.
And then Two.
And Two pairs of Earrings to match,
Two Bangles.
Several bangles. Thirteen Gold Bangles.
[Two sets of Four, one Pair, three Singles.
A picnic party.]

In between, a few boxes of worthless multi-coloured, coloured beads.
She runs thick, stiff, crinkled fingers over them,
Settles them like she settles all the others, but a little defiantly.
Looks close, pushing up her spectacles and peering through the bottom.
'-I used to wear these. Then I stopped wearing, kept everything for you all.
But when I wore, I used to wear these.'
And then they are put away- 'No, you don't need to write them down-
These aren't worth anything.'
'Several chains of beads' I obstinately write, at the bottom of the page, in small.

From one little box, she pulls out two coins.
'Gold Coins', she says, with a glint.
A five-rupee coin, 2009, and a ten Euro-cent piece.
‘But these aren't gold, these are just coloured-‘ I cut into
Her grim, satisfied telling me that these could be made pendants of, someday.
What? she says, and pushes up spectacles, wipes sweat from her nose, peers close.
Maybe, she says, chuckles a little, self-indulgently, reluctantly.
Puts them back in the box, softly puts it aside.
Later on, repacking,
She puts that one back in too.
I point it out, but she smiles, an appeal.
Says Let it be, maybe even gives it a fond parting look.
Clicks the box shut, I help her put it away, lock it up.
All that glisters.

dropping out.

[inspired by Marge Piercy’s ‘Breaking Out’]


My first big mistake ? Seeing
A pair of doors that usually stood shut
As open; As a doorway
To actually going somewhere.

Row upon row of desks stood there
For storing things I never thought I’d use-
Blank pages, and written, and pens, for writing my own;
An upright gasbag who deflated in a drone,
And sighed, as weary of homework as was I,
Who could’ve sworn- I mean, it was unlikely as Hell-

The home I came from, one where daily
Men went out to bring home food and hope
In regular portions- something smaller, but sooner
To fill the pot than what I was doing.
So when I heard, in whispers, of Marx, it was
Brother I thought of, equal and yet unequal
To every boy there that was seventeen-and-some.

In the corner always stood the rule
For walking the straight and narrow, the scale
That measured in bright red marks how far I’d get.
But it held no terror of its own, no threat
Worse than the nagging fear, in my stomach,
That there’d be nothing left to weigh, or only that
With no scale such to weigh it by.

When I was fourteen, after a day
Of groaning stomach and grinding teeth
And more pages left blank than there ought to have been,
I snapped. Emptied my desk,
And followed those before me out into the world.

Touching those sheets later, I could scarce believe
That I’d thought they’d save me, somehow,
‘Unlikely as Hell’, but possible; But I proved weaker
Than the rod of which I’d never been afraid.

"Fat, chinky kid. Bossy as hell. Whatta pain, dude. Never shuts up. But she's on all the teams."
And she was, too.
So we all bore bullying, and let her, teeth all askew and grinning stupidly-fiendishly, steamroller us into orange icecream and letting practice off early.

But at Inter House Swimming, when I feel a tug on my skirt from out beyond all the towels and bathrobes I'm holding, it is her.
Plump face screwed up a little- Didi [she doesn't know me well enough to remember my name]
-Can I use your cellphone ? My mother hasn't come.
She does; Where are you mamma? I'ts going to start. And my races are all now.
Hands the phone back with a sedate thank you didi.

I watch her, she looks at me and replies that her mother is going to come, but late.
So she must win everything, so that her mother can see her getting the trophy, at the end.

She doesn't win. Competes honourably, but nothing.
After each race, she climbs out, stands back and looks on tiptoe through the crowd.


One of us had to drop her home later.

delhi time

She gets off at her stop, the doors slide snugly shut and the Metro moves on down the line, destined for Central Secretariat. I eye suspiciously the oldish, bellied man siting across from me, and with a slight tinge mentally rehearse getting up from the seat at exactly the right moment, out onto the platform, up the stairs and out, into an auto that does not charge more than fifty rupees, to Chanakyapuri. The pull in the stomach and screech of the brakes, and the train eases into the station; People gather at the doors, when they open, a crowd rushing in so as not to be left behind dodges past a crowd rushing out so as not to get swept off to where they don't want to go. Everyone gets what they want eventually; the doors hiss shut right behind the latecomers who slip down the stairs and dash into the train. I tramp heavily up the steps and at the top pick an exit at random out of a similarly unknown four or five. Still glancing suspiciously around, step gently onto an escalator that is constantly smoothly rising to the glaring day above.

I am standing calmly at the corner, complacent in my superiority because I have arrived at the corner of the right street, and for the stipulated fifty rupees, albeit twenty minutes or so off the given time. But still, there and in one piece, and without having to admit defeat and ask for help, even though I did not know the place. So I stand calmly and observe a scarecrow in the garden of D-II/305 with a silly black pot for a head.
White Esteem-car roars up the lane, screeches to a stop at the corner. Complacence fled, I hop it into the car, for the driver has spared me only one brief, impatient glance, then revving up to roar off again. Like the Metro, only louder and less mature and steel-shiny. Obviously impatient- Silly child, dawdling under the tree there, while we have a Harry Potter movie to get to.
I slam the door in agreement, car dashes around the corner, and tears up the sedate residential avenue.
"We're late ! We're fucking late." I apologise meekly. Airy dismissal of my claim for fault. Cousin has organised badly, now where to pick up the Frigging Girl, need a smoke, and then to get there in time, we're so frigging late. Weaving hot-and-botheredly through traffic, whatthehellCan'tthemotherfuckerseewherehe'sfuckinggoing, and the girl isn't at the AIIMS bus stop. Isn't at the next one either. Cousin idiotically calls her, twice, elicits no useful info. Here You talk to her, Sure I will Mallu Dumbfuck and she's actually on the Ring Road already. Then a mile to the U-turn with all the Metro construction, the Cousin who can't take some simple Goddam directions, and Women, who can't give them, getting it bad all the way. I should stick up for women, but I'm too busy agreeing with that bit in particular. She's in front of Safdarjung Hospital- 'Why couldn't she just say...'- and then not even at the busstop, so we grab her and the smokes from in front of the hospital and tear off. Every red light possible. Every single fucking one. When not cursing Murphy, fondly reminiscing of egg-pelting police vans, never getting caught drunk-driving- 'What are the chances, man, considering..?' and we'd'a got belted man, only we freakin' belted off..'- and all the What Bull we've been upto, man, especially when we were, like, pissed-out-of-our-fucking-minds-man. Idiotic girl and I, after a one-glance-one-sentence introduction-cum-judgement, look out of our own windows.
Driving like friggin' lunatics, man, down the Ring Road in hot, dusty summer afternoon, cursing and laughing and rebelling and holding on tight, fags at windows and pounding music belting out of the radio, and hot highway wind in our faces, we parked the car, flung the keys at the attendant, ran in- just 20 minutes late, and we were satisfied with that.