Homosapien-ity

The Friend of a good friend. The Never-met-before person. That Much Talked-About Friend.
I was that, recently, and found my faded doppleganger and some minus points for humanity along the way.

I d blame it on the talk, if I didn't know better. Beacuse it was through all that talk that the goddamn love grew. That curious kind of love lavished from second-degree association. Through it all, I had developed into a doppleganger - someone they knew. And liked.

Like a long absent old friend, I had become a phony part of their universe of connection. Over many evenings, my doppelganger had matured from a ‘good friend’s good friend they didn’t know’ to a ‘good old her’. They had laughed and nodded along their gradual journey of assimilating me from an arbit ‘her’ to “she’s so that”.

But unhappily for this warm get-together, we don’t know each other from Adam.

Facts have an uncomfortable knack of getting in the way of mediocre make-believe. And so it was... as I burst upon the scene, in-the-flesh, so to speak... with an offensive alien air.

Shockwaves.

Here I was - a trespasser on their hither-to happy, make believe perception of me. My uncalled turning up in person was blowing it. I had intruded. And caused communal unrest in this happy, warm gathering of friends.

I was almost apologetic as I watched my doppleganger slowly melt like the snowman in summer.
‘She’s so tall’ I heard them whisper. They had certainly not expected it.

An abandoned rocking chair, on its last legs stood on the balcony and I tried to hide my abnormal span behind it. I hoped it presented a less offensive length of me for scrutiny.
It didn’t.

But they were large hearted and forgiving, as we ploughed ahead and communed, the doppleganger faded away.

But thats not the point.
The point is that I m quite sick of having to experience, first hand and repeatedly, that which makes us all so hopelessly human.

It’s categorically the vilest part of what makes us people. Connection at all cost. This depraved, urgent need to form a bond – of whatever kind. I can feel those eyes searching for a fix to fasten a belief. I can hear it: ‘yeah but she’s kind of bitchy, right?’ or ‘isn’t she sweet?’

It’s not so much them or me … the shame is in its need. Its thirst. In that solely human sensation to want to connect. I can feel it sucking at me like that goddamn Under Toad.
Like garbage on the road or exhaust fumes – a reminder of the intrinsic sham in everything we do and think - of everything that is so awfully human.

It kills me.

The diameter of the bomb

The diameter of the bomb was thirty centimeters
and the diameter of its effective range about seven meters,
with four dead and eleven wounded.
And around these, in a larger circle
of pain and time, two hospitals are scattered
and one graveyard.
But the young woman
who was buried in the city she came from,
at a distance of more than a hundred kilometers,
enlarges the circle considerably,
and the solitary man mourning her death
at the distant shores of a country far across the sea
includes the entire world in the circle.
And I won't even mention the crying of orphans
that reaches up to the throne of God and
beyond, making
a circle with no end and no God.

- Yehuda Amichai.

Heartfelt and then some.

The Solitary Reaper

So then that superhero bully brother of mine got married. I mean, good for him. People who want to get saddled should be allowed to. Freely. I’m for things like that.

But what I m NOT for is making something so intensely personal into this ‘come over, gawk at my family and interrogate them for free’. It’s a malevolent antithesis of everything a marriage is supposed to be - in the whole friggin universe.

So for 3 whole days, an army of relatives personally subjected me to an on the house back poking and cross-examination exercise of the worst kind.
What’s shocking is that these people have the time and the energy to swathe themselves in various saris and muscle their way across town for 3 bloody days – for what? To turn up and comment on why I should get knocked up right away and present myself with the token baby in tow for their viewing pleasure next time…and put on more weight while I’m at it. Killing 2 birds with one stone, see?

They chuckle, poke and ask me to recognize them at command.
Oh my god.

The whole thing left me foaming at the mouth, wanting to subject frail creatures to pain and express rage in short bursts of incoherent speech – for days. My faith in humanity would have packed up and left for good if it weren’t for this one beautiful moment of unqualified redemption.

I was at my weakest on the third day of this epic ‘coming together of man and woman’ … and among the assorted ghastlies that presented itself in a dizzying array to my dimmed consciousness – this one stood like a sharp wet slap of reality. A completely out of place Accordion player was belting out an incongruous rendition of The Blue Danube, while all around the fury of a south Indian wedding raged on at full power- a mass of fast talking aunties caught up vigorously. Small children, high on sugar, ran round and round, screaming at the top of their lungs. The bride’s friends giggled sharply and continuously.

What on earth was this guy doing here? In the middle of this merciless battleground, in a tux, playing a friggn accordion for cryin out loud? Will somebody please step up and explain?

Before another second passed, a few spare aunties bore down upon me and poked my nephew who screamed loudly and started banging his head against my shoulder in protest and almost by cue a wizened old man jovially asked me to recognize him and a small child repeatedly asked me for food.

Tears of rage welled, obscenities welled, impotent ire welled… I’d have thrown myself on the ground and cried in long bitter sobs and then died instantly if it wasn’t for that accordion player.

A sense of calm descended amidst the chaos as I saw him … in the background…playing away like his ‘song could have no ending’, alone and oblivious, while the wedding raged in deep red and furious all around him.

‘O listen! For the Vale profound, Is overflowing with the sound’.

God bless him, whoever he was.

Where’s your drive?

It’s the highway to hell. Officially. There are no signboards calling it out, you’re just expected to know it and abide, or get the hell out of the way.

Every road in every Indian metro is a do-or-die dash to the finish line. There are no prizes for winning - the winner is the guy who stays alive. That’s the incentive.

“Wanna play?” asks the inviting stretch of jam-packed, smoky road with curses and loud horns renting the air – it’s a war cry: “Wanna play? COME ON then”, they say… “There’ s absolutely no space, but come on anyway”.

Assorted automobiles vie for 3 inches of space between the large smoke belching bus and the local cow. Death defying moves are made on-the-house. Red lights, stop signs, pedestrian crossing and lanes are things of the past. Don’t let them stop you from Getting Ahead.

Sign of having humanoid scruples - any dithering or an iota of fear is honked at, overtaken, cursed and sniggered out of the way. Any attempt to put your life or basic decency above the GOAL is not acceptable. ‘Get Ahead, Proceed’ yells the impatient public. ‘Make your little polite speeches and bows later on. We have no time’.

Welcome to the Indian roads – welcome to Hell. Out here, no rules apply.

When you make the decision to get on the road, you’ve automatically agreed to risk it all. Partial hearing loss, smoke inhalation, loss of limb and sanity is all part of the deal. Once accepted, the arms are thrown wide open. Senior citizens, candy seller with dog in tow, techies, college kids, fruit vendors, socialite aunties, who-the-hell-ever in whatever state of inebriation or sobriety. All are welcome. Age, gender, caste, status, time of day or night, physical condition and mental state and the weather are of absolutely no significance.

If you’ve chosen to be on the road - you’ve chosen to fight, chosen to reach point B from point A, chosen to risk it all. That’s enough. You’ve chosen life.

Welcome aboard!

Checked out.

I check. Every 21 st of a month at an auspicious time. Looking for an update. Its never there.

'Outer reaches of Alaska’ features. ‘Xinjiang experience who can speak Uighur’ features. Where on earth is the name of the goddamn country I LIVE in? Its just NEVER THERE.

In my lifetime I have:
Owned a goat...
And a cat with the sex drive of a rabbit - and therefore 54 kittens splattered across the length and breadth of my childhood.
Tolerated several Choms - one of whom infiltrated and became a friend.
Wore my brother's hand-me-downs till the age of 15.
Tolerated very old people give me advice at several doorsteps. Really long advice. Really slowly. And none of them were knifed. By me, ie.

So I qualify. Unconditionally and in flying colours.
But no goddamn feature. Ever.

They're right. It IS a bleepin’ Lonely Planet.

54, Gandhi Bazaar.

If I rack my brains, most of what I can remember of it is wood. The whole house reeked of wood. Wood when it bloomed, when it was burnt, when was framed, hung, drawn and quartered. Spooky wooden flooring in the room upstairs, storage rooms that smelt of pickles and stored wood, burning wood that heated the large copper boiler, wooded trees falling from which, several generations had enduring scars on varied body parts. Wood banister polished with the friction of assorted backsides sliding down it. Horror stories of children just like us who died painfully doing this Very Same Thing didn’t stop the practice. Risks of hideous deformities were taken in one’s stride.

– The wood gnarled itself into the house, spreading its roots, holding it together, breathing into every corner of it. Almost alive – listening to the slow passage of time through the black stoned corridors of 54, Gandhi Bazaar.

And there was plenty of cruelty to boot - we regularly wished each other dead, pushed each other down the stairs, abandoned the runt of the pack to run away and hide, laughing gleefully in our sleeves. Fell into wicked looking storerooms through holes in the tiled roof. Chocked on 5 paisa candies and fought over who will ride an old abandoned bicycle - 5 feet taller than the tallest amongst us. We lived through moments of impotent anger and selfless generosity. The years grew into the house and as the house grew into us – inextricable woven into all the rage and calm of being alive.

Cousins from ‘abroad’ landed in regular irregularity. Speaking in unfamiliar twangs, leaving bathrooms smelling gloriously of ‘America’, brandishing gadgets and promising to curl our hair – what a treat! We lined up before them at the crack of dawn, all heads sporting 2-inch tufts of wiry hair – the result of a wholesale summer-cut that disregards age and gender. Missing teeth, semi bald and fist fighting for first place at the salon table.
So…cousins came and left, bruises were made and healed, Enid Blyton was discovered and life was not the same again. Time passed… Summers passed into monsoons-

And that year, it was particularly vicious monsoon. People shook their heads at the rain... The wind howled and in the backyard, the amte-kai tree’s old roots groaned in the vicious wind. After much ghostly creaking and groaning through the night, it fell across the sweetwater well that contained a turtle. We ran to see it in the morning, me clutching on to a smaller cousin who in turn clutched on to his beloved blue bunny. The tree lay, sprawled across the huge backyard, the old sap from its roots mingled with the misty morning air.

Grandmothers, fathers and aunts were gathered around it – they were talking about the tree - when it planted as a baby sapling and how it grew through the years, the millions of jars of pickles it had provided. An unintended obituary for something that grew in the same soil as the rest of us and died where it was planted – surrounded by its kin. Through its monstrous size, through its fight with the lashing rain - when it finally lay there, uprooted and felled …there was gentleness in its death.

The wild monsoon passed into quiet drizzle and faded into the clear light of another day… Time passed… unobtrusive and trackless.

The little cousin with only 2 halves to his face – one half a large forehead and other half a pair of humongous brown eyes – slowly grew into the vast expanse of his face. His beloved blue bunny ceased to be the center of his Universe. He went to college.

Time passed…

54 Gandhi Bazaar is now a brand new Bank – ‘a friend you can bank upon’. And in what was the old backyard, devoid of most of the old trees is an swanky apartment. Its doors and patio is fitted with wooden panels from the old house. They look strange on the new whitewashed Asian painted walls.

I don’t go by there if I can help it.

Shoebox reflections

Everything I ever owned which is of value – it fits in a shoebox shoved under my bed. There is a Time and Place for things made up of nothing more than useless sentiment – under the bed is a good Place. And Time…well that’s the tricky one.

Shoebox delvings are meant for certain type of days- when the sun shines a little gentler – when the current road seems too beaten to death and its time to blow the cobwebs off on things that cannot be supported by 4 pieces of cardboard. A guided tour down memory lane requires environmental support.

So I yanked the old box out one morning.

An old postscript to ‘my little lady, from Grandpa’
Reams of angst ridden poetry in support of a current love interest.
Play tickets.
Newspaper write ups cried over and loved.

Suddenly…an email.

A sign of modernity - an email worthy enough to be printed. Proof of the early days of distrust in the transient cyber world where one click can destroy – that’s where I found him.
Immortalized in low quality jet print on file paper.
Forgotten in a shoebox.

All I could remember of the writer is this vague combination – of laughter, elaichi tea and a cheap paratha place with red plastic chairs… throw that in with some indistinct pursuit of artistic endeavor- and that just about makes the cut.

That’s it.
Nothing more.
In complete shock I realize that I can’t remember anything else.
Zilch.

There’s a sickening quality of a Hannibal Lector about Time. It creeps up on you and slowly erases, in parts, a lifetime filled with sensation and action. And one day, out comes a shoebox and you hit pause mode, turn back and it’s a wall of blackness. You’re left to grope and snatch at what was so intensely alive and all you can get … all there’s left are a bunch of dull freeze frames randomly strung together, with an insipid sepia about it.

Time wrecks havoc.

I sat there, clutching at this piece of paper …watching another day draw to an ominous close... Another day of consequence and events that will slip behind that iron veil…into the wall of Time. Unrecoverable.
Inviolable.
Gone.

"You once said to me: 'If we never meet again - it wouldn't make a difference'. But you didn't say it wouldn't matter. Do you know I understood the nuance. It was really long ago, but but did you know?"

The email ended with the day.