The What-If Store

I find myself thinking of you
Suddenly,
Unaccountably,
Well, not so much
I only think of you when I’m dissatisfied with how my life has gone

It’s fun to fantasize
Remember,
Not it all,
Selective recollection’s a wonder
In my memories, you and I are pristine, even golden

Your charm, your wit, your smile, your essence,
You, us,
Your rightness,
Even your wrong,
Is right because you’re in the past

Every woman needs a what-if man
She says,
Looking back,
It’s comparison shopping
But also just window-shopping, I sigh

I shrug, shake my head and smile
That moment,
Away,
Knowing though,
The what-if store is always open

Tiny Tales: The Day You Should Have Stayed In Bed

The day stretches on like a chewing gum that’s lost its flavour a long time ago. Yet, you won’t spit it out. Maybe you’ll swallow it and feel a twinge of guilt as you remember your biology teacher telling you that it’ll stick to the inside of your stomach and ruin your digestion. Memories of school always depress you. How can anyone call them ‘the best years of their lives’? Such horrible lives those people must have now. They must be lying. All you remember of school is sarcastic teachers, leering bullies and the breath-choking fear that a single red mark can produce.

It’s a hot day, the kind you’ve missed the past two months, feeling awkwardly guilty about it since the whole world is waxing eloquent about how nice it is to have winter in this city for a change. But all it makes you want to do is close your eyes and go back to sleep. If only the blanket didn’t feel so prickly. The delicious comfort of the woolen blanket is gone with January. Now you feel slightly disloyal to summer.

With massive effort, the kind that no one else could possibly understand or appreciate, you heave out of bed and brush your teeth. You remember to water the plants, trying hard to smile at the fact that the basil leaves planted a week ago are finally taking root. But as you move away from the window, your smile drops like actors must drop their costumes the minute they’re off-camera. In the brooding non-thinking that follows, you manage to tidy up the room, make the bed and run a load of wash. Enthused by the thought that maybe that was just waking up grumpiness that ailed you and that activity will make you feel better, you run a second round of wash on the cotton sheets. Time to clean them and get them ready for summer. Yeah Yeah! Yeah! The washing machine rings and gets running and shows that it’ll take 67 minutes for the ‘Blanket’ cycle of the wash. *Sigh*

Twelve minutes are successfully wasted checking email, messages and comments. When the phone rings, it’s forty minutes over already. And you’re trolling weird articles on random sites, feeling shittier at the thought of the scumbags who share the online world – and the offline – with you. The phone is jumping up at you, admonishing you for your useless, wasted little life. You stare at it, defiance being all that you have the energy for. And you hit ‘Silence’ vindictively. But the flashing light even on the muted phone gives you no sense of real satisfaction.

Satisfaction, that’s an elusive concept. Do you even remember what that felt like? You must have been satisfied once. You must have been happy once. You’re usually a happy person. That’s how the world knows you. And does it?

You’re all alone in the white-yellow brightness, in the throbbing aliveness of summer. Then the doorbell rings and you know you’re not. You’ll never be alone just when you want to be left alone. Enough already. Defiance deepens to something else. The heat behind your eyelids is sinking down into your breath. And suddenly you remember how to turn that into energy. You could be a poster-child for both, Freud and Einstein.

The doorbell is still ringing, the sounds getting closer. You imagine the doorbell getting pushed…the finger that pushes it…jabs it…RING….RING…RRRRIIINNNNNGGGGGGGGGGGG.

That’s the last thing you remember.

“No more questions, milord.”

This post also appears on Social Mantra.

Time Travel

Channel-surfing. Wait. Stop. Backtrack.

The Time-Traveler’s Wife is on, just started on one of those channels that comes and goes. Just like the protagonist in the movie. Hmm.

Odd flashes of nostalgia. The book was a birthday gift from my parents in 2007. Birthday gifts are special. Books are special. A good book on a birthday is well…you know. It was a Friday the thirteenth (just like the day I was born) which curiously enough, always bodes well for me. My birthday (just like my boyfriend and other friends) had been hijacked by another closely-birthday’ed person whom I loathed. I spent the weekend following, curled up with the book, the rain pelting down outside the window behind me. I’ve received books for every birthday of my adult life but I think this was the most memorable one.

Flash forward two and a half years. The movie came out without much fanfare, at least in India. I spotted it in an ad, by pure chance. The only show I could find was at 11:30 p.m. Normally, I’d probably have watched this particular movie by myself. But given the timing and the opportunity that it presented, I did something different and asked a guy I’d met recently, out. It was the first of what I thought of as pleasant conversations. And this is how that story turned out. Well, then.

Snap. The screen’s gone blank. The channel’s vanished on another of the cable-operator’s mysterious whims. And just like that, The Time-Traveler vanished.

Completion

Head on your lap
One leg crossed over the other
And lying on the sofa,
Watching TV

I was picking at an old scab
A wound that left an ugly mark
To remind me of all that I desperately try to forget
A strangely satisfying activity, that.

And I was telling you
Of things that I should have done, and said
Vindication! Revenge! Justice! Satisfaction!
But I was really just talking to myself.

Until you broke into my reverie
And you said,

“But that wouldn’t be classy.
And you’re always classy.”

And that was all.

Reverb 10.15: Five Things To Remember From 2010

Here’s another Reverb10 list-prompt! And this time with a fantasy-time travelly theme to it!

December 15 – 5 Minutes

Imagine you will completely lose your memory of 2010 in five minutes. Set an alarm for five minutes and capture the things you most want to remember about 2010.

(Author: Patti Digh)

1. Mr.Everyday (of course!) – Specifically, I never, ever want to forget that one magical autorickshaw ride in June. We’d been on nodding and smiling terms with each other for months, even spoken on a couple of occasions. But that 30-minute ride changed the course of both of our lives, hopefully forever.
2. The first week of October – September ended gloomy, grouchy and with no promise of better weather (which always impacts my mood). Then October came in with writing projects. A column. A commissioned article. Another writing commission. And the book, again. Magical week.
3. The best friend moving across the world – Goodbyes are never pleasant memories for me. But this move marks an important milestone in my 16-year friendship with Lady P. She moved to a new country and a new life, one she had been needing for a long time. We fought, we cried then we made up. And true to our history, we came back stronger than ever.
4. First draft – If I never manage to get the novel published, if I have to go back to working with that horrible tag of ‘failed writer’ looming over me, it will not take away from the fact that I managed to plow through and toil over a complete first draft. YEAAAHHH!!!
5. Swimming.

And….there’s the timer. That’s that. Five wonderful things about 2010.

Kite

In the midst of a crowd
And imprisoned behind the bars of indifference
You still reached out your heart to me
Through the tiny windows of your eyes

And in that look, that one look,
I caught hold,
swearing I wouldn’t let go
Till I’d traced it to its source

At the other end of that glance,
What I found,
Tied me to you
Profoundly, irrevocably

But know this,
My memories of freedom come with me
And someday they’ll be yours too
And till then, the dream of wings will carry me out

You with me.
Because, like I said,
I won’t let go
Irrevocably, profoundly

Tiny Tales: Emderatology

Close to midnight on Saturday, the coffee server on duty reported two dead people in the shop. The couple had been seated in the back booth of the cafe for over three hours, he recalled. When asked why she didn’t report it earlier, she said that she only noticed when he went over to tell them that it was closing time.

Inspector Clue-so deduced that the death must have happened a few minutes prior, when the couple was presented with the bill, since the bodies had not started ‘to steenk up the place and were probably ‘fresh’. This theory however, was dropped when the young server pointed out that both bodies were freezing cold and rigor mortis had set in. The lady, who admits to being a investigor in her sparetime (which she says is more than the time the job takes), was quoted as saying

“They were just sitting there staring at each other. For all I know, they had died ages ago but I just thought they were in love.”

Investigating experts were confounded by the abnormally red colour on the cheeks of the deceased. It was surmised that the excess rush of blood to the face caused the brain to stop functioning. Two slimy, fist-sized objects were also found fallen between the table and the wall, which were later identified as human hearts. Speaking to this publication, the coroner said,

“I must admit I was surprised to see two bodies without hearts inside them. How they came to remove their hearts I will never be able to tell. No wonder they died. Poor things.”

It wasn’t until the police began interviewing the friends of the couple that the truth emerged. The first to come under suspicion was Mr.McMohan, a close pal of the male victim, aided by the fact that his first reference to the victim was that he was staying at his place but was in the toilet at that moment. This charge was however dropped when it was revealed that the victim often used this as an alibi to explain his social activities to his family. On hearing the charge, he confessed that he himself had been in Pune all weekend (even at the time of the call) and could present an alibi but which he requested not be revealed to his family.

Following this train of thought, Inspector Clue-so next went to the best friend of the deceased lady. This was the turning point of the case (and also what salvaged the good Inspector’s career from the wreck of the first hypothesis). The best friend (name withheld on request) explained the history of the two dead people.

“I didn’t even realize that they were still in touch but it must be recent. They haven’t met since they broke up ten years ago. After all the drama is over, you really don’t want to face the person you shared your first awkward kiss with. It’s dreadfully embarrassing meeting that one particular ex-, you know.”

Wrapping up the case, Inspector Clue-so was quoted as saying,

“And ze key to ze mystery was found zere. You see, ze two people entered ze shop separately but it was very crowded. Zen ze spotted each other and thinking eet rude to do ozzerwize, decided to share a table. Zat is why our esteemed young friend behind ze counter does not remember zem coming in together. Ze got to ze table and discussed ze weather and how heeedeeous zis year’s fashion week was.”

The reporter interrupted this account to ask how he arrived at this conclusion and was rewarded with the following explanation.

“Because of zis.”

said Inspector Clue-so holding up a promotional leaflet whose copies were on all the tables of the shop. The image showed a boy and girl both wearing jeans. Both characters bore penmarks on them, depicting a different set of clothing.

“Obviously zey had good taste.”

said the Inspector with a distinct sniff.

“After zat, zey must have run out of topics. Ze young man had just broken up with his girlfriend, as was told to us by his friend in Pune. Ze young lady in turn was considering breaking up with her boyfriend. Zen zey found each other. Eet was like fate! But memories prevailed. Ze embarrassment of zere last encounter and all ze memories of the years after zat. Ze emotions must have been overwhelming. Hysteria built up inside both of zem till zey could take it no more! Both of zem blushed and blushed till zere hearts could take it no more and then zere hearts jumped out of zere mouths at the same time! And zey died of extreme embarrassment!”

As a reward for her help, the young coffee server has been deputed to be a trainee under the brilliant Inspector, starting next Monday.

————————————————————————

Note: The science of embarrassment is called emderatology.

Eemohzuhnn

You know those deep, dark patches of emotion that you could step into and be engulfed in a second so you thought you were actually drowning? Or the ones that explode right next to you and by the time you pick yourself and everyone else in the vicinity, up, there’s a pathetic little blackened wick lying there, so puny, you’re flummoxed. How about the pitchy puddles of memory that leave dirty scars on your fingers, your clothes, your eyes and lungs?

If you have no idea what I’m talking about, you’re either too young or way too old. If it is the former, I get to be smug and protective at the same time, while telling you not to fret, life gets ugly and pretty at the same time and when it gets to you, you call it art. If however, it is the latter, then you have both my envy and my sympathy…and is that a touch of bitter humour? Irony, I think it is called.

I’m old enough to write about emotion and young enough to fumble when identifying one. Just right to write.

Piano

Piano, sweet piano
singing melodies
that make even words
with bad associations
seem soothing.

The power to alter sensations
left by memory
is given to a few.
Fewer still that do it
with gentleness rather than force.

A New Life

My phone buzzed with a message. It was from a classmate who had once been a friend and then done something that made me not want to be friends with him again. He said he was sorry, asked how I was doing and said he was missing true friends. I replied,

I know the feeling. It’s early mid-life crisis. We’re all going through it after the disillusionment of the 20s, so don’t worry.

When I replied, he sounded so happy that I felt bad I hadn’t done so earlier. I sat back and thought about what I was saying.

I started the 30 diaries a few months before I actually hit the big figure. A month before my 3oth, I quit the job I’d spent ten years studying and working hard, toward. And more than a year later, I still don’t know where things are going. But I’m happy, I think.

I spent a long time wanting a lot of things, very much. But I don’t really think I regret that anymore. I’ll never trade the sense of achievement I got from the highs of my career. I wouldn’t exchange the confidence I built brick by brick. And it would be unrealistic to want to hold onto these things but not the things that made them possible.

Yesterday, in a conversation that has nothing to do with this, it suddenly struck me. I had some bad stuff happen to me and it messed up my head for sometime. But those people are not connected to me by anything but the memories. Even the scars have fallen and I don’t have to punish myself by holding on to them anymore. It wasn’t my fault they were bad people (or bad actions). And that’s all that needs to be said.

I think the 20s are a maniac’s dream. Everything is available and possible. There is a slightly unrealistic shine on everything and it takes a few knocks before you realize that shiny reality is hard and uncomfortable as well. I look at my life and then all around me. There’s divorce and heart disease and death and suicide and career failure and drug abuse and eating disorders and financial crises and abortions and deadend jobs. There are also reunions and catching up with people who were close an eon ago. There are healthy diets and cutting back and exercise regimes. There is budgeting and tax planning. A decade ago, that would have sounded like boredom/settling down/old age to me but now it sounds like a new life.

Coming back, when I read this message today, I realised something. I’d become harsh and unforgiving on the world because I couldn’t cope with the insides of me feeling broken and jagged. So I turned judgemental on myself and the world. I don’t know if it is age or healing or both but I don’t feel quite so raw anymore. And it makes me think, people make mistakes. Sometimes they get lost. It happened to me and heaven  alone knows how many bad things I set in motion for other people, as a result.

It just hit me, the profoundity of the adage, “Shit Happens”. If you’re lucky, you have a chance to regret it. I say lucky, because if you realise what a mistake you’ve made, you just might be in a position to remedy someone else’s mistake. Or not; maybe you’ll just cope better the next time. There is nothing to be done about that. Except to inhale and hope that the next breath will be better.

We chatted a bit and he said he had wanted to be a blazing success but it felt so lonely at the end. I remembered that feeling too and told him I didn’t spend enough of time on the things that I now know as important. He asked what those were and I said,

Love. Friendship. Family. Good health. A body that works without medication. Food in my stomach even before I’m hungry. The safety to walk on the roads by myself.

He smiled, saying that was like a true MBA. So I replied with another smiley and said,

That’s just one more thing on my resume now, not my identity.

And what is my identity now? Who knows? I have a new life out there to discover and shape it now.