Carpe-diem

I think you like it, that you

have so much of my time. Every evening

from work to sleep, my every night of despair, you

keep me; happy, unhappy, lost, tired, in the morning

you are just a tinkle of glass on my frontdoor. But

you run my life. Not anymore.

I am not giving up, I

am finding control, tomorrow I will

forget you; and there will be a silence in the morning,

and you will

no longer be

part of my life. Soon, I will spend my spare time

reading, or writing about things I feel, not

those you want me to feel about. I will

not write about the night

you said goodbye, anymore. There will be no more

descriptions of the Acacia tree whose thorns

were blunter than your words that night, or the cop

I hit as I drove home. That TV whose screen I kicked in

Is anyway gone, what I miss is the carefully underlined

collection of poetry- Yeats, no less. Can you

courier it back to me? Tomorrow on, I take control of my

life, and there will no more be the tinkle of beer bottles every

morning. And that book was part of my life

before this was. Please return, if you can

those evenings I drove you home. Please

return my alone-ness.

Ever blue

There is a song playing

somewhere,

a background music of soothing, lost

desire. All around me, there is a mess, half-unpacked

bags, a forest of beer bottles, an ashtray

full of half smoked cigarettes, remnants of

a life slowly, desperately clinging

to hopes of death.

I do not know you, anymore. Nor

myself. A strange sadness this is, one that

begins in the mornings, and melds with alcohol fumes

every night. How alive am I? How much will I live

when I am dead? I do not know your face, your smile,

when I look in the mirror

I do not see you anymore.

The skies turn colours I cannot name, in the evening

seen from the windows of my cube.

This mundane life is killing me. But until you come

I will damn well die whichever way I want to.

Infinite Guilt

Well, that’s it then. All that is left is to pay the rickshaw off, and then I have to go inside the house. Which I do, and I ring the bell and I walk in and she opens the door, and she knows that I would be coming sometime around now, something still makes her freeze in the doorframe, and then she clasps me to herself in that way I hate, that way which always makes me feel I am still thirteen and not thirty. I disengage myself and let the bags plunk to the floor.

In the middle distance beyond her, he stands watching both of us, a half-smile on his face that does not quite reach his eyes. He stands there watching half-mockingly as if this was a little comedy being played out for his benefit. I say nothing to him; nothing seems to be adequate, not sufficient.

 I change, and she leaves us to the TV and goes off to mind dinner. The evening news is moderated by the clinks and rattles of steel against steel, as we sit side by side and do not converse. 

Dinner is to be served; he and I sit on opposite sides of a small table, much like two gladiators sizing each other up: the table is the warzone, place mats defensive positions, and spoons are swords which will be waved during the conversation. She is the arbitrator neither side is willing to listen to. 

Predictably, she serves the chapattis, he serves the guilt.

‘I hear you have quit this job too.’

‘Yes.’

‘Why?’

‘I did not like it.’

‘You did not like it? What is there to like about a job? You do it, you earn a salary and you live a life. Did not like it!’

That puts me on the defensive.

‘I cannot spend the rest of my life filling forms in triplicate and covering up other people’s errors in whitener.’

That stings. I can see it in his eyes, even though his face is neutral.

‘I did not spend my life just filling forms in triplicate. There was a purpose to whatever I did something larger than what you are ever going to understand.’

I do not reply to this obvious mistruth. She serves me another chapatti, and a conversation restarter.

‘But this time you will stay for a few days, no? Go to the village, spend some quiet time, and figure out what you want to do.’

‘Figure out what you want to do’, he mimics her, ‘what has not happened in thirty years will happen in three days. What do you want to do, after all?’

I am not hungry any longer.

‘I have told you a hundred times. I want to write. And I will make a living doing that. I will be going back tomorrow morning.’

And I leave them, him to his unfinished dinner, and her to a hungry night. In wars between two people who love each other, the one who arbitrates should be prepared for a lot of injury.

_____

It is morning, now. The not unpacked bags are slung on my shoulders again as she clasps me to herself as if she wants the very essence our beings to meld together. Her eyes are sad like dusk in the mountains, and tired like a long day’s end. I can tell she has not slept, her hair is tangled, and her face tells the story of all her years, all the battles she has been spectator to, the crow’s feet around her eyes the silent scars gifted her by our egos. I hold her tight, as if I am not going to see her again. There have been too few of these embraces, I realize, and now, there will never be enough.

He stands in the middle distance, watching us. The half-smile is nowhere in evidence. I notice for the first time that in the half-light he looks very, very frail; almost all his hair are silver now, and his eyes promise stories of valiant defeats that I will never share. As I release mother from my embrace and move towards him, I notice the peculiar way he is holding his left arm, the hurt from the accident must still be there. I stand before him, and we say nothing to each other. And then I turn and walk out of the door.

‘Goodbye mom. Goodbye dad.’

Remembering you

I forget the last time I saw your face, was

it under an acacia tree I last saw you? Was it

just drizzling, or was it, like in memory,

a relentless torrent, the ones poets say they walk in

so no one sees them crying? (As an aside, was I crying, did

you think so, too?). So many details, colours now faded, I

have grown older, and my grief is now more

narcissism, really- self centered, and monotonous. What

would you make of me, now?

I still complain, you know- carry some regrets, some

residual (speaking scientifically) effects of having known

happiness, for once- (remember that time we went to that

restaurant- authentic Chinese, was that a hungry lunch or

what!) – and the hundred laughs that came from one ruined

afternoon. And then, one bright evening,

one sudden decision, one character’s change of

act- and the whole play moves to tragedy.

I think of you, now (only when peaceful), on

sunny afternoons, I see your smile- in the cold silence

interrupted only by birds, I still hear you going

on and on about the cold winter, the newspaper, the

ad that was on TV. Some afternoons, I can

feel your smile on my face. And those days,

there is not a cloud to be seen.

Revenge

How very difficult it is to understand

other people. For example, I know

six hours from now, you will wake up and fire up

the stove- that you need that coffee even before

you have brushed your teeth. I know

that you will find you favorite shirt

has an ink-stain, and is unwearable now, but

you will give it one more shot.

You remember, that one time we

went atop that ferris wheel, how

I loved the ups and downs; how you hated

it all. I can imagine your screams of fear

mingled with the tinkling of steel

on porcelain. Every morning

I wake up to a cold bed, and

hope six hours from now

you will be on a ferris wheel. Because

You tell me what do you think I am doing right now.