Gwalior Days

Indian Summer, is usually not half as beautiful as the song in its name. And it is often the perfect recipe for mirages, even hallucinations. It is infamous, in the villages and small towns of India, for making people lose sanity.

Everybody I saw on the streets that day, had a white cloth wrapped around their faces. 25 minutes of a tuk-tuk ride, in over 45 degrees celcius temperatures later, I had begun to imagine double barreled rifles slung across their shoulders, as if they were bandits, all of them. The hot wind, or lu, as it is called here, came in gusts, slapping me awake. In my mind, I pictured the train, its cool railing that I found hard to let go of, as I stepped into the hot Gwalior morning.

I could’ve slept all the way to Bhopal. I was tired in my bones. I wanted to be home already, and I had 4 more days of work ahead. The day seemed interminable. It was almost 7:30 in the evening when I wrapped the day’s shoot. My hosts asked me to stay for dinner after work. I needed to shut my eyes until tomorrow. I wasn’t looking forward to the long drive back to the mess, the lime walls still hot from the day’s sun.

I was surprised to see the lights on in my room. Did I leave them on? I couldn’t be sure. There was nobody in, the room was locked. And cool, as if the air conditioner had only just been turned off. A glass of lemonade sat on the side table, the cubes of ice in it, just melting. Could I smell his cologne? No, it couldn’t be. He couldn’t. He shouldn’t be here. He kept insisting that he should come along, even if just for a day. I cursed myself for insisting that he rather not.

I was alone in my room, not a soul around. I walked out into the garden, nobody there either, except the mosquitoes that stung. The caretaker came looking, asked if I’d have dinner. I asked him about the lights, and the lemonade in my room. He answered that he had ‘instructions’, and was told of my tentative schedule.

The dinner with the freshly made phulkas being served to me, cleared my mind a little. I could even laugh at myself and my imagination. Of course he wasn’t here. I had a second helping of the plain vanilla ice-cream before turning in. I’d read a little before I hit the bed.

The fort walls looked beautiful, lit, against the inky sky. And Shamsur Rahman Faruqi’s ‘Kaee Chaand Thay Sar-e-Aasmaan‘ seemed to compliment the setting. It seemed to be made to be read on such an evening, against the backdrop of such a fort’s walls.

He’d laugh at the romanticism.
And just like that I saw him smiling at me from outside the window. For a second, I froze. And then I ran to the lobby outside. He didn’t come. He wasn’t there in the garden either. The watchman hadn’t seen him, or anyone else. And the caretaker wasn’t even smiling anymore when he said that nobody else was there.

Coming back to my room, I was furious at the tricks my mind was playing at me. I was furious at myself for falling for those tricks. And yet, I could swear that someone had been in my room, just moments ago. The bed was warm where he sat. My book was on the side table now. I had left it on the study table. I hadn’t progressed so far as where the bookmark was now…

“Hai zulf e yaar halqa e zanjeer hoo ba hoo
Rakhti hai aankh sahar si taseer hoo ba hoo…”

I read, and reread the poem attributed to Wazir Khanum. I double and triple checked my room, for him. There was nobody anywhere. Not even at the window. I didn’t realise when I fell asleep. The room was really cold when I woke up, mumbling, clutching his shirt.

I didn’t remember waking up in the night, and taking it from my bag… In fact, I didn’t even remember packing it along with my things, yesterday.

It was impossible to sleep then. The sky was getting lighter, and I felt that a morning walk would be about the right thing to bring me back to my full senses.

The morning breeze was beautiful. And the fort walls looked like gold in the light of the rising sun. I returned to my room, its door ajar, and the caretaker scowling at me, muttering how careless I was. I saw the keys in my hand, and fresh from the walk, I remembered clearly this time, that I had locked the door when I went out. I panicked for my gear, but nothing was missing from my room. Except, his shirt. I looked everywhere for it. It was gone.

I was late getting ready for the shoot. My hosts had sent their car with the chauffeur to save me the trouble of travelling in the heat. I decided to pack my bags and check out as well. The previous night’s events had me out of my depths. I’d ask my hosts for a business hotel closer to the venue.

The chauffeur seemed to be in a hurry to leave there as soon as possible. Driving towards the city, he asked me why I chose to live in that run-down mess when there were so many nicer options available in the city. I told him my friend had made the arrangements for my stay, but I had checked out.

I quickly apprised my hosts about my unnerving experience the previous evening. They looked worried, and asked me about my friend who made the stay arrangements. They were shocked on learning his name.

Capt. Shivendra Singh Chauhan had died of injuries during an encounter with infiltrators near Budgam, last year. In fact, yesterday was exactly one year since his death. Gwalior was his home. Yes, it was him in our picture together…

But it couldn’t be.

I’d taken the picture just before starting for Gwalior. And that was the last day of June, 2014. The time stamp on the picture said March 2013.

It took me all of my will power to focus on the work at hand.
I managed to complete the assignment without disappointing my hosts.

I returned to Delhi, on the verge of a breakdown. It was July, and there was no sign of rain. The night air singed everything it touched. I wanted to ask him what was going on. But he didn’t reach the station to receive me. I was all nerves and I wanted to cry.

I reached home a full hour later. It was quiet like a December night. But I was too tired to feel fear. I opened our cupboard for a change of clothes, and I saw all his clothes were gone. Every one of them. All except a crisp white linen shirt, on a hanger. The one I’d woken up with, in Gwalior.

Φ

A Calcutta Story

When the haath rickshaa turned towards Dhaka patti, it felt, as if, for a long moment, that time was fluid and this moment suspended mid-air, waiting to drop into an ocean of other moments like this one. The momentary realisation atop that mobile throne, that here, humanity moves like one giant ocean wave, was all it took to break the spell that Bada Bazaar cast.

A not-too-quick halt at a relative’s and then onwards to bring Isar and Gaura home. The bazaar itself was a perpetual celebration of sorts. Everywhere you saw colour – bright, festive, happy. Thousands of Isar and Gaura dolls waiting, in hundreds of shops, to be taken home.

“Is that where you got this from?”, I asked her, handing her, what I thought was Isar, intact in his bride-groom glory; smelling like everything in Naani‘s cupboard did – a curious mix of lavender and well, of Naani; of everything sweet about my childhood.

And then, that phenomenon I’ve not understood yet – tears of joy – happened on my mother’s face. She hugged her new-found treasure.

Sixteen days. That’s how long it lasts – the Gangaur festival. And those sixteen days passed in a daze of laughter, songs, jokes about future-husbands, and all the finery – see this?

She handed me a stack of pictures from a metal trunk. The lack of colours of the photograph did not dull the happiness bursting through. It never ceases to amuse me to see my mother as a girl, a child. Here, singing with all her sisters, and here, meticulously dressing up her Isar and Gaura. She hummed and then her singing filled the empty house with a burst of sunshine

Isar ji to lyaaya bataasa,
Gaura bai karay tamaasa o raaj,
Mhey Isar thaari saalli chhyaañ

(a marwari song sung on the occasion of Gangaur, teasing Isar about Gaura’s tantrums.)

She was smiling now as she cleared all of Naani‘s sarees, she found a little potli with Gaura‘s jewels. She stood the dolls near the old dressing table and got busy decking Gaura up in all her finery.

“Didi, ukil babu aeshechhen“, (the lawyer’s here) Ramji informed her. Ramji was the 60-something-years old domestic help at Naani’s home. I wonder what would Naani think of the empty silence shrouding her bustling grihasti. With Naani gone for so many years and my uncles having decided they wouldn’t again live in that house, it fell to ma to clear it out before they proceeded to sell it.

“What would you do at the end of this fest then?” I asked her when she came back, carrying a big folder of the house-papers. With the last of the furniture gone, and the house cleared, it was time for us to leave Hindmotor, and Calcutta.

“A reluctant, teary, farewell, mostly, from the Howrah bridge”, she smiled. “It’s as hard as letting go of your daughter, when she’s all grown up, and would leave home. Like the time when you left…”

“Why, do you think, Naani would’ve saved these two?” I asked, afraid, as our taxi neared the newer, Vidyasagar Setu, that she’d stop that cab and bid farewell to these last remnants of her childhood too, as she had done with all the rest of Naani’s possessions – donating to some charity, or passing on to an eager cousin or neighbour.

“So I could see you living my childhood for me someday”, she said. And to my relief, and joy, we drove straight on.

I love you – II

You see the little crabs scuttling away – you’ve noticed how they always walk sideways? And it’s so magical the way they go gupp inside their little holes in the sand. I wonder if they’re dancing perhaps, and not walking. 

I like to see you in whites. Your linen pants rolled all the way up to your knees and your soft cotton shirt and the indulgent smile – like living inside this moment, in the now is all you know. I just want to run back to you and put my arms around your neck and rest my head on your shoulder while I wonder if it is the ocean smelling like you or you smelling like the ocean. 

I do this while you try and hold my hair back. The breeze is making them fly away in dementia. I do look nice with long hair. 

I want to collect some shells from over there, you let me go and watch. Perhaps you’re wondering what will I do with them. Perhaps I will forget all about them as soon as we’re home. 

We’ve tanned so much in these past few days, soaking up all the sunshine to keep winter away from our bones. I have a vague memory of times when I’d never want to go home from a vacation. I don’t know if it was me really. 

I know you will ask me tomorrow, tease me if I’m ready to go home. I just want you know, I’ve never been readier than this, to be home. 

Paper-Cut

Phone calls are so usual, unending silences fill them. Texting is now widely regarded as the best way to propagate misunderstanding. Yes, we had letters. Now we converse in dreams.

In a particularly strange dream last night, I found myself hovering over the sand, at the beach where we walked, wiping away all of my footprints on the path we walked. The ocean did nothing to help. You saw me and smiled; asked me how would I remove the imprints of my letters from your skin where you’d held them. I said I’ll tear up all the letters and you looked away angrily.

This morning, I woke up to find my fingers smarting, covered in paper-cuts.

Cliché

Yun na mil mujh se khafa ho jaisay
Saath chal, mauj-e-sabaa ho jaisay
[Meet me not in anger, beloved,
Walk with me, like the morning breeze walks with spring]

Φ

A Mehdi Hasan rendition of the famous, Ehsan Danish ghazal, playing from a vinyl record, whitewashed walls, indoor plants, a carved lamp-stand, with a shade to match its elegance, teapoys and corner tables covered in muted shades of formica, plain wooden shelves containing all our books – our, yes – we couldn’t have been more proud than if they were our children – well-mannered, quiet, dignified, you could never guess the energies each of them contained, and me – all of us wait for him to be back. He has never disappointed us. 6:30 pm for me, or 1830 hrs in his language, he is home; rather, his presence makes it home. Somehow, everything seems to don a smile, when he returns – even the plants. Sirius and Laila laze contentedly after welcoming him home with hugs and kisses as if he’s been gone a whole week! Though, it was my bright idea to bring the puppies home; when they mewed and I doubted about their being canines; they would always have the first claim on his affections, on him, always getting the first hugs.

He was like a schoolboy in a sense. Rattling off what happened over the day, at work, over chai, never sitting down, fiddling with the vinyls, before he went off to play squash, coming back just in time for dinner. A post dinner stroll for all four of us, and we’d retire to quietude, always with a book. Yet, never alone. He called from work, thrice, sometimes, four times a day, always careful to not disturb my classes. There weren’t any long drawn out conversations, except, him saying that he was thinking of me. I could only smile and quickly ask him if he had nothing else to do at work.

He came home for lunch in winters. 6:30 pm seemed so far away! I’d smile to myself, dreamy-eyed sometimes, hassled sometimes, that I always had to plan ahead, making sure lunch was kept ready by the time he came home from work, and I came back from school.

He didn’t say a word through lunch that day. I didn’t know what, but I knew some trouble was brewing. In the evening, he said, he’d be gone for a while. A while could mean anything upwards of a month. I would have to take care of myself, and be strong were his only instructions to me as he packed. Waking up, getting out of his embrace and the warmth of the bed that morning was probably the most difficult thing I’d done in my life till then. I was as much in love, and as nervous as I’d been on my first date with him. He promised to write when he could. Phone calls were a luxury not for young captains.

That day, Sirius and Laila let me have the last hug.

[Note: the translation of the opening lines of Ehsan Danish’s famous ghazal are my interpretation of it, not necessarily an exact, correct translation of the verse]

J’ai Oublié

When I wake up, I feel the soft quilt and the coating of warmth it layers onto my skin. The soles of my feet feel the cool floor, in the kitchen, the skin on my face feels the moist warmth of the steam as it rises off the boiling water, my tongue, tentatively feels the comfortably hot sweetness of the honey and the tang of lemon in my morning tea. The worn china cup, sits warm in my cupped palms.

My skin has a memory of its own.

There are sights and sounds and smells that have become a part of me; and there are some that I’ve forgotten. But my skin records its own version of my history. Between the wrinkles and loose folds of my skin lie memories of hands held, my waist carries the imprint of his rough fingers, the skin on my neck remembers the harsh brushing of his stubble-d chin. The soles of my feet remember resting in his palms.

J’ai oublié

I don’t remember what he looks like , or the colour of his eyes. But I remember what he felt like. Rough, like the sand in my clothes after a day at the beach. And surprisingly soft at his shoulder – just where I would rest my chin, at a little hollow, as if it was made to the size of my chin. I remember how the frown lines on his forehead smoothed away  under my fingers. I don’t see us anymore, sitting together, or looking at each other. But my skin would know him if it met him again.

∞

“Why does your skin shine there?”
“Where?”
“At the back of your hand”
“It must be proud of itself…” I said, and smiled teasingly at him. His thumb passed over it many times then.
“And the other scar, does that shine too?”
“No.”
He made me tell the stories of my scars over and over again.

His fingers stopped wandering the length of my spine, halting at the little dot-like depression.
“How did this land here?”
“That’s from a biopsy.”
And I launched into the tale of the painful night and how I ended up calling my doctor at 4 am. Not even halfway through the story, I noticed he’d slept, his unbelievably soft head resting on my arm. The skin on my arm remembers his face.

Over breakfast that Sunday, the last time that I saw him, we barely touched. We were too busy leaving.
That last day, he looked at me so intensely, I felt his eyes had touched my soul. é

Do You Love Me?

“I love you.”
“…”
“I love you a lot.”
“Thanks”
“What sort of a reply is that!?”

He couldn’t possibly mean what he said. There was no reason for him to love me. He doesn’t even know who I am, what if I’m a kleptomaniac? Well, what if he is one? What if he has weird hobbies like, collecting spiders?

“Will you run away if you don’t like me?”
“I might, yes.”

I saw him like I’d always known him. There were no first times with him. No first date, no first kiss, everything felt like that’s how it had been for as long as I could remember being in, no I couldn’t be in love, this was too soon.

“Why do you fight with me so much?”
“Because you give me reason to. Everyday. “
“What if I don’t? Will you still fight with me?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“My day feels incomplete without a little fight with you.”
“Really!?”
“Did you have dinner yet?”

You’ve to be out of your mind to love.
You’ve to be out of your senses to love a complete stranger.
You’ve to be crazy to love a complete stranger who promises to fight with you everyday. He is rather demented. Why should I love him?!

“You love me a lot, don’t you?”
“No”
“You love me beyond everything you know”
“How long have you known?”
“Always.”
“Why do you ask then?”

I’m a citizen of the nation of denial. I’ll always deny things like I’m upset, or crying, or missing someone, or in need of help, or I’m in love. He loves to hear me say everyday that I do not love him. He asks me everyday if I do.

“Tell me…”
“Yes?”
“Since when?”
“Since the day you said you’ll steal from time to be with me.”

No, I do not love him.

Recipes With Leftover Love – 3

اب کے ہم بِچھڑے تو شائد کبھی خوابوں میں مِلیں
جس طرح سوکھے ہُوے پھول کِتابوں میں مِلیں
احمد فراز ~
Ab ke hum bichhde toh shayad kabhi khwaboñ meiñ mileiñ
Jis tarah sookhe huay phool kitaaboñ meiñ mileiñ
~ Ahmad Faraz

∞

She evoked memories of another time, another person. She wasn’t reticent, she asked her questions however silly they might seem, she was there to learn. He was glad to teach. He might redeem himself yet.

His sessions were carefully placed baits, designed to make his students curious and disarm them of doubt and fear and encourage them to secure their chopping boards and create that natural almost fluid motion of the knife, slicing and dicing and chopping away to glory; to toss those sliced and diced and chopped ingredients into a pan; to find the strength of a spice and to season their meal and transform it, as if by magic. Their reward at the end of a good session was some fine wine.

She was making rapid progress in class as in life. Her kitchen shelves were no longer subject to the monopoly of packed foods. There were spices, oils, sauces and seasonings. The mostly empty drawers were peopled with pots and pans and she looked at cutlery with a new interest. The fruit and vegetable and meat in the fridge was used and replenished and no hours were empty anymore.

She surprised the class and most of all, him, one day, when she turned up with a chocolate cake she’d baked. It was her father’s birthday. And a year since he’d passed away after a painful struggle with cancer. There were years filled with sadness, rancour at fate, life perhaps. But she chose her memories carefully. The class was extraordinary that day. An impromptu celebration, happiness and memories shared.

What surprised him wasn’t the cake. It was the ease with which she could remember, she could evoke the memory of her father with only happiness and gratitude. Would he be able to remember without pain?

That night after class, he thought of her, the one that stood at the edge of the sea, a hollow in the world in her place now. He thought of the promises of half a century ago. He did not know then, that forever existed only so far as the next turn on the road. He was angry, sad. She was gone forever. He hoped to see her when forever ended. Theirs had been a particularly short one.

Fifty years could not dim the pain.

All the travel of those years, all the love and warmth he received, all the wealth and fame could not replace that emptiness that was her’s alone.

Food alleviated the pain of memory to an extent he found it easy to live and love again. But never found the courage to turn back and face his demons. They might catch up with him someday sooner than later. That night, for the first time in fifty years, he’d dared to look. His demons were there where he expected to find them alright.

They sucked out the life from his blood and left him gasping for breath. He remembered the chocolate cake from earlier in the day and dragged his feet over to the kitchen. It was cool, sweet, and just the right amount of moist. He felt life return to his blood slowly and he poured himself a measure of bourbon.

When he returned to his room, his thoughts, and his demons, were waiting for him. They looked less menacing now. Perhaps it was the bourbon. Perhaps the chocolate.

He’d sold off all of his fancy cameras and lenses at the prime of his photography career and taken a long holiday, travelling the world, searching for answers, avoiding questions that haunted him. He fell in love with Spain. The colours, the aromas of the streets of Madrid, the colourful dances, the full-bodied music and the heady wines, the fiery food, and even more fiery women. Spain felt like the home he’d searched for all those years. Spain helped him forget.

He searched his cupboard and found it. He hadn’t used it in years but it worked just fine. It was an old manual SLR that belonged to her father and she’d gifted to him. It was the only camera he didn’t dispose.

It was his turn to surprise the class with an impromptu portrait session. It was his turn to surprise himself with his ease at a skill he believed he had forgotten.

His demons seemed smaller and weaker that night. He thought of the sunset and sea and her. She no longer stood at the edge of the water. She dared herself to wade in, to submit to the waves. She turned and smiled at him as she waded further in.

The last day of the sessions, his students didn’t need anymore baits. Food wasn’t just a necessity anymore. It was an extension of their personalities. A part of their lives. They were grateful. The portraits were moments frozen in the safekeeping of time. There was happiness.

That night, he found mere shadows where his demons had once lived. That night, he remembered her laughter mixed with the waves of the sea and he wept.

Recipes with Leftover Love – 1

. Sun Dried Love & Tomatoes .

This is a post-modern take on the traditional recipe of sun-dried tomatoes.
Slice the tomatoes and love, sprinkle with dried oregano, or any herb you like, olive oil would be the magic ingredient. Let them soak in the glorious sunshine for about a week and you shall have an eminently usable gourmet addition for other dishes.

. Love & Pesto Sauce .

When you want a break from the red sauce, for a low-fat version, just replace the shredded parmesan cheese with some shredded love, and just blend in together with the walnuts, basil leaves, chopped garlic and olive oil. Do add salt and pepper to taste.

∞

And many other recipes she’d seen on his blog. He seemed to be od-ing on his own sense of weird humour she felt. He was conducting a special month-long course for people who felt like aliens when facing a kitchen, and he seemed to be an amiable personality from his Facebook and twitter posts and interactions. 

She’d been struggling with her weight issues for a while now and all the restaurant food wasn’t going to help. Her grandfather’s friendly advice often rang in her ears. The voices in her head were fond of repeating it she thought, ‘learning to cook isn’t a gender specific role’, he’d said. ‘After all, you’d be living with yourself at some point of time, what would you do then? You can’t always be eating out of cans and cartons, or restaurants.’ She always felt he was  trying one of his lawyerly tricks to get her to cook a meal and this argument was nothing but a strong bait.

She somehow managed to crawl her way through post-graduation. This was the first time she was going to be away from home after 20 long years of being born. She hated the canteen food. It was over-priced, undercooked, loaded with red chilli and sugar, like most of the food in the city she came to think of as a second home. So, the idea of taking lessons to acquaint herself with the kitchen did seem like the right thing to do.

It troubled her a bit that he was such a popular figure and there was a great possibility of finding herself tongue-tied, unable to ask her questions; what if he thought they’re stupid!

No question is stupid, her grandfather used to say. He might be proud of this prodigal granddaughter act. She couldn’t help but smile to herself as she got ready. She wore a loose mulmul-cotton top over the frayed and faded pair of denim pants, and tiny pearls dotted her ears. Her father’s wrist watch boldly stood guard against the dainty look she was trying to create. But she stubbornly refused to trade it for an elegant, more lady-like time piece. She didn’t want to be late for her first lesson.

Crosswave

“You know who would’ve met you halfway?
A worm whose tail wasn’t caught in a trap.
And I am a worm that is bait.
If we must meet, you have to cover the entire distance yourself. On foot. There will be patches of grassy land and there will be miles of white sands scorching under the sun. And no direction.”

She said this and other such profound sounding words which struggled to create meaning while concealing absence of thought.

He heard naught.
He only stared fixedly at the patterns her voice made – sometimes scattering about in the sunshine like droplets of a fountain, sometimes, taking on the sun itself as a giant chicken-cloud, sometimes, creating whirlpools of sounds one would be wary of going near. He just sat back in the wicker chair watching as each new shape emerged and vanished. Sometimes, he held out his hands and let the shapes come and rest in his palms, and the would invariably vanish the moment he thought of holding them a little longer.

He started thinking of ways to make those shapes stay. Would they like to live on in a glass bottle; a wooden box perhaps; or a canvas maybe.

He liked the idea of a canvas, and he set up his easel and the palette of colours – fields of poppy, of mustard, of cotton, grapevines – waited for her voice.

The force of her arrival pushed him back a step or two. He called out to her and she only smiled in reply. He asked her if she was well, and she smiled some more.

He knew that those fields of poppy, mustard, cotton, would now lie in wait forever. That the canvas that lay in wait for her voice would be blank; perhaps the ghosts of those shapes will continue to haunt it. It troubled him.

It troubled him more because he knew.
He knew that there was nothing more beautiful about her than her departure.
She snatched a fistful of earth from beneath his feet as she left. His world shook in wonderment of what a little wave could do.