Affliction

Have you ever faced those nights, he said, the ones
that seem to surround you like ashes swirling
in a storm, sucking away all light
and hope. Have you laid awake when
everything is silent, wondering,
gnawing away at your own soul, staring hopelessly
at your dreams, as you tear them
into tiny little shreds. Have you felt your bones
ache, as you stare at the ceiling, desolate,
awaiting release or redemption? Do you
question your very identity then- How do you
cope with those nights when you audit your dreams,
when dry objectivity leaches into your heart,
hot and bitter and red like blood? What do you do
when the disappointment becomes too much to bear,
when the heart becomes the cause of the heartache?
How do you deal with the pain of being numb?

Every one of those nights, I tell him, I
let myself simmer, scalding everything inside. Every one of
these nights, I let a little bit of myself die,
Convert what matters most into a distant memory.
Every morning I wake up, a little bit lesser.
There is no coping with this.

The Wanting To Fly (Part-1)

‘You are looking seriously lost. Do not like the prospect of flying in an ATR?’

‘…’

‘Either that, or you are practicing reading English upside down.’

He starts and looks at the Lonely Planet he has been holding open in his hands, upside down for what must have been five minutes now, and not realized at all.

‘Sorry. Just one of those things.’

‘Ahh.’

He looks up into the eyes of the old man, mildly irritated at what he perceives to be a mild intrusion into his privacy, and maybe also because of the fact that he has been caught in an embarrassing situation. This is a spry old man quipped with thinning hair, a wide forehead, a gentle smile and eyes that seem to convey intelligence, warmth, humor and sadness at the same time. Some of his irritation dissipates, but he does not respond to the conversational gambit.

‘So…pardon my saying so, but you do not really look the backpacking type, really. You came here for sight-seeing? A bit underwhelming, this town, for all the history it has, if I may say so, having lived here most of my life.’

‘No, not really. I have been visiting my hometown….my parents’ he adds, almost apologetically.

He looks around the lounge, which is filled with the usual agglomeration of air-travellers, mostly business people, some few families, some kids- all wearing the patented bored-with-world, anticipating-endless-delays kind of frozen face which warns the onlooker to keep his distance, to remain at arm’s length. He wonders what it is about an airport which pulls people apart into their respective shells. The old man is talking again, telling him about how he is flying to Bangalore, to be his wife and daughter-in-law who works there, about how both his wife and he make these annual visits. He feigns polite interest, despite sensing the genuine warmth behind the words, dreading the inevitable questions which will follow these voluntary declarations which the old man is making; wonders why is it that whenever we confide in someone, we expect to have their confidence as well, whether there is some kind of quid pro quo which applies to the basic rules of human confidence sharing, of need- why it must follow that need be felt both ways. The question duly arrives. “Why are you looking so zonked even after a trip home?” The old man actually uses the word zonked.

He looks around the airport, observing people, buying time for himself, trying to arrange suitable words in an order appropriate enough to be bland and evasive, and not offensive at the same time. He looks at the people sheltering behind the walls raised by stony faces and dead-blank eyes, safe in their solipsistic comfort, covered in their own farrago of emotions- businessmen absorbed in excelsheets, tired execs who look like they are falling asleep in their chairs, the odd recently married couple, the mom of three trying to keep her kids safely contained in their chairs and quiet, who is clearly fighting a losing battle, bored looking airline staff- everyone. He sees all this, he sees the old man with the thinning silver hair and attentive eyes who is old enough to have been his father, or biologically, even his grandfather, he tries to think of a suitably evasive, non-offensive, bland answer which will be enough to satiate the solicitous old man, and not open him to areas he is trying to keep locked inside of himself.

‘I want to be a writer of short stories.’

*****

He is going home after three years. More specifically, for the first time since he got a job, straight out of B-school. A lot seems to have changed in the three years. He is clinging to the window in the three hour bus journey home from the airport, gawking at everything like an excited teenager, eagerly drinking in the air, the sights, the sounds, the indefinable something which always seems to be there in the air once you realize it is the air of what you call home. It is not one of those insulated, air-conditioned buses which breeze over even potholed roads as you relax in your reclined sofa like seat, breathing the tasteless, odorless recycled air, the only sounds disturbing your peace the gentle thrum of the bus’s engine and the soundtrack of the movie playing on the LCD screen fore.

This is an old bus, mildly rickety. The seats are slightly hard, the coir filling having impacted under the collective weight of the thousands of bums which have rested on it in its serving life. There is an old fashioned CRT television screen in a box like structure fashioned in the partition that separates the driving cabin from the main body of the bus which is playing a regional language movie at blaring, overly loud level of sound which is almost physical. There is not a single vacant seat, and the bus is alive with noise, conversations being carried out over the overly loud soundtrack of the movie being played. He inhales everything- the slightly rancid smell of coconut oil emanating from the pleated braids of the women, the sour smell of sweat, the raucous laughter that follows a joke which has mostly remained unheard and probably was not funny enough to merit that amount of mirth anyway, the smalltown businessman shouting in his mobile trying to make himself heard over this racket fitting of Babel, trying to close a deal, the couple of children running around in the aisle emitting yelps of joy while displaying virtuoso levels of physical balance as the bus swerves to (mostly) avoid potholes. Occasionally, they pass a market and the noises from outside intrude into their little bubble, sometimes they pass an orchard or a field cropped with crops he cannot identify, and their odor pervades the bus, a soft, earthy smell which is pleasant and poignant at the same time. He absorbs everything, assimilating the bits of himself which he never quite left behind, joining one with one. He has quit his job, and is about to embark on a new career. But before that, he is going back to where he came from. He is going home.

To Fever

Recline on my bed,and let my forehead burn,

Stroke my forehead,and make my eyes sting and water,

Fever,burn my body.fever,talk to me!

Take my hand,and enter my brain,

And show me sweet hallucinations,

Bizarre dreams that i will not remember,

Kaleidoscopes peeking on tortured images,

Fever,take my hand,and enter my head.

I wish you would take some time,

Stay with me;i love this feeling,

Of gentle tiredness,this hollow loss of energy,,

The lack of hunger or desire,

I like-

The hot blood which raises no passions,

I wish you would take some time.

And so,fever,take my hand and lie with me;

My sheet is cold,caress my brow,

I havent slept for a long long time,

Tired,desolate,growing lonely and irate,

I yearn your company,fever,hold my hand,

Make me sleep;and erase all dreams.

Seven Rupees

Someone called me a cynic, tonight. It

hurt. I am not a cynic, I tried to say, I am

still what I was, eight years ago. I am still

the same guy you scolded for smoking. Whose just-lit cigarette

died under your resolute sandal.

But then, we changed. You went, and I

learnt. How to cup the light of the match

in a strong wind, how to unerringly light the cigarette, at

the tea-stall; our egos grew faster than the price of tea, so

now, tea costs five bucks, and sharing a cup with you-

infinity.

Remember the nights I would wake you up, at

five, throwing pebbles at your window, just

for that walk and the tea, cigarettes cost three rupees, then, and tea

two. Seven rupees, three of irritation, and warmth

in a cold morning. Sometimes I wonder-

It has been months since I have seen the sun. It

has been ages since I have irritated you. Seven rupees,

my most precious amount. And my priceless thing-

lost.

Long Road Out of Nowhere

Keep walking, she said; keep going on, no matter what,

keep walking, even if you do not know where the road ends, one day

you will come to a place which will speak to you, and you will know

that this was what you were looking for.

Stop reading too many stories of lost people trying to find

themselves. You are not lost, she said, a few words and things and

people do not matter; maybe you were checked in at the wrong motel.

That was a long time ago.

That was before I left her.

I have been walking a long time, now. I have seen

old men whose faces sink in bottles of scotch at sundown, walking in

relentlessly straight lines, their despair burning their hearts

like guilt. I have walked with them, and with middle-aged women,

faces cast in stone, grim determination beating out like hammerblows

from the crow’s feet around their tired eyes. Strangers’ wives, sisters, daughters,

who find themselves on a dusty pathway, too tired to grieve.

Sometimes, the wind becomes opaque, as hard and resistant as boot leather, and

I stop, dust in my eyes. I see then, melting flowers, a sky dripping color, and

a road marked by its absence. Fleetingly, it comes-desire, and goes away,

and before moving I ask myself-where is she? Has she found

the place that will speak to her?

All around, there is only dust, and dirt and sad stories. Old men

of thirty summers will never stop. Their optimism turns grey

blended with loss- but catharsis always remains only a dream.

1Q84

(This is not a book review. I have no pretentions to the literary nous required for writing a book review. These are just some thoughts which ran through my mind while and after reading the book. I have tried to not include plot-spoilers, but when one talks about a book, some details of the plot, of necessity, are given away.)

I had never heard of Leos Janacek or his Sinfonietta before I began to read about Haruki Murakami’s new novel, 1Q84. But once I started reading the novel, the urge to listen to the piece grew, and one night, when I was about 600 pages in the novel, I set it down, went to youtube and listened to a performance of the piece by the BBC Symphony Orchestra. It was a warm, beery night, and I played that music again and again for nearly two hours and still could not find proper words to describe the music, or the sensations it was causing. It is feisty, bold, joyful, melodious. I am listening to it again as I am writing this.

When we are talking about 1Q84, it is important that we talk about music. Sinfonietta pervades the novel, it is music with which one of the lead characters grows up, it is the prelude to the most important plot turn of the book, and pops up quite frequently in the course of the story. I don’t know why Murakami picked up this obscure piece of music as a key thematic element in his novel, what was running through his mind as he must have sifted through compositions of other musical greats, but for some reason, after having read the novel and listened to the music, it seems an apt choice. Though, of course, it feels slightly ironic that a small symphony, one that hardly lasts for 20 minutes, be the key element of a novel that runs for 925 pages.

With Murakami, it seems it is not so much what the story is, than how it is being told. There is a celebrated story about how Murakami decided one day while watching a ball game that he could write fiction, and so he does. There is a parallel in the novel, where the two lead characters who have not met each other for twenty years (not since the time they were ten) decide that they love each other, and each sets out to find the other.

Tengo Kawana is a mathematics prodigy who has lost interest in math, and who decides, much like Murakami, that he wants to write fiction. So he teaches three days a week at a cram school, and spends his time writing fiction which never seems to go anywhere and pre-screening entries for literary prizes before they go to the jury. In this process, he comes across a very powerful story called Air Chrysalis which has, sadly, not been very well written. It is a novel about a young girl’s life at a commune, an incident involving a blind goat that has died and the enigmatically named little people. In a literary scam of sorts, editor Komatsu has him comprehensively rewrite the novel and it becomes a bestseller.

Aomame is a sports instructor/physical trainer, who sometimes plays avenging angel. One day, on her way to an appointment, she gets into a traffic jam at the elevated expressway, hears Sinfonietta on the radio, and is informed by the traffic driver that there exist special stairways used by maintenance people which go down to the street level, and she might prefer to go down and take the train if she is getting late. With it, comes an ominous sounding warning: ‘Things are not what they seem’. So, Aomame goes down to the street level, and just like that, the world changes.

This is not the regular world in which the story is set, it is Murakami’s world. It is a world which has transformed itself into a world with two moons, little people, secretive communes and air chrysalises. Things are not what they seem, indeed. For it is the world of a novel written by a dyslexic girl, Eriko Fukada, or Fuka Eri. This world is also 1Q84.

I have always felt that Murakami’s writing is not so much action driven as reflection driven. Important events happen, yes. The plot does contain twists, but mostly you can see them coming. If I were to use a driving analogy, it is not a winding drive on a road that passes through mountains; it is more of a languorous drive through rolling plains. Getting somewhere is important, but equally important is the pleasure is to be had in the process of reaching there. In that sense, 1Q84 is a beautiful book. But precisely because of that, it is a bit overlong. It runs to 900 pages in a 600 page plot. The other part is that while Murakami is a brilliant writer, the fact remains that in terms of virtuosity of language, he is no David Foster Wallace. Or maybe it is the translation. So, some sections feel too long, sometimes the reflection of the characters seems pretentious, and frankly over-indulgent.  Thankfully, such spots are very rare.

On the whole, while 1q84 is not another Kafka on The Shore, it still is an eminently readable novel and one of the better books you are likely to read this year.

Tonight

So, this is a winter night, past

the witching hour, I am sitting here, somewhat

drunk;  my hands are moving, not always

where I command them to, they seek out your

form in the night, my fingers rustle on the air, or

the dimple of your smile. The wind that blows

in my hair is probably your breath.

This night, I hold you close,

run, again, my fingers through your hair, and

breathe your presence, tonight, I will

just accept that you are around me, and my

senses will absorb you, much like if

we were making love, I embrace you, and feel

all the contours of your body, I feel your voice

rather than hear it. Tonight, I just let it go, hoping…

It is long, since we hoped. Long, since

we spent a humid afternoon, listening;

since we actually heard the clumsy noises we made when

we drank our coffee, that uneasy rattle of spoon against cup, that

disdain for saucers. Those sugarcubes, lying unrequited,

and the bitter coffee, tasting just like our love. Tonight,

we will have all of it. Tonight, we will have…