Under revision
Offline indefinitely
Friday, July 14, 2006
Wednesday, July 12, 2006
A pretty Starbucks regular: glad Not to know her
She is so pretty that everytime I see her
she is with a different, happy looking face.
I am just happy to see her so often.
Since I don't know her, I don't know those happy faces.
Those happy faces are false images.
Ask their humid eyes if you want to know.
Though facts can change, depending upon the day.
In this story there are only two constants.
But we don't know each other and everytime
I see her, I think, she is so pretty that
everytime I see her, she is with a different face.
I am pleased that I don't know her.
I have no happy face masks and she wouldn't
seem so pretty if I saw her with someone I knew.
7:15 pm,
July 03, 2006
she is with a different, happy looking face.
I am just happy to see her so often.
Since I don't know her, I don't know those happy faces.
Those happy faces are false images.
Ask their humid eyes if you want to know.
Though facts can change, depending upon the day.
In this story there are only two constants.
But we don't know each other and everytime
I see her, I think, she is so pretty that
everytime I see her, she is with a different face.
I am pleased that I don't know her.
I have no happy face masks and she wouldn't
seem so pretty if I saw her with someone I knew.
7:15 pm,
July 03, 2006
Sunday, July 09, 2006
War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
Masterpiece epic about Love, War, Peace, Life, Everything
Tolstoy's War and Peace rightfully ranks amongs the best novels ever written in any language. The master novelist uses Napolean's Wars with Russia as the context against which he narrates the story of four families. The four families, along with several timeless characters, live through the times of War and Peace to provide us with a representation of every aspect of Russian life, Russian thought and imagery of both cities and villages.
Tolstoy's great talent was in providing insights using his extremely good sense of seemingly trivial. The details, be it of the functioning of clock or steam engine, or of the idealogy and rites of Masons, or the charge of cavalry in war or the thoughts of a man on his death bed, the details, the insight, the lucidity of expression of such varied themes in one book requires Tolstoy's genius.
There are innumerable unforgettable characters in this mammoth novel. Each one brings out different characteristics of human pysche, each one is made into a being of flesh and blood, strengths and weaknesses. Prince Andrey Bolkonsky, the dashing gentleman who shuns his boring high society to fight in war to achieve glory, is as compelling as a soldier as he is a wounded person, wounded both in love and in war. His death scene, touted as one of the greatest scenes in Russian Literature, is perhaps unmatched in its ability to engage a reader and his tears. The other equally important character is Pierre Bezukhov, who is a close friend of the Prince. Pierre is always so unsure, so uncertain, dabbling with different ideas and ideals, falling, failing, has a wife who nearly ruins him, and yet Pierre by the end of the novel comes of age, redeems himself, and in the climax attains Natasha in marriage. Natasha is the heroine of the novel. She is a bright spark, the resplandent laughter, full of energy and life, beautiful and engrossing female character. Whenever she breaks into the story, the tale becomes a remarkable love story. Music and smile pour in, dances start to occur.
Be it Natasha's family members or those of Prince Bolkonsky's or any of their acquaintances, the characterization is such that one can visulaize each one separately. If there is villaincy in Doholov, Natasha's brother Rostov has his inexperience leading him into a near ruin. If Marya, Bolkonsky's sister is god fearing charming but simple looking girl, Ellen is seductress, souless counterpart who possesses a father and a brother equally despicable. The whole array of characters are present in this novel, which of human characteristics be different species of animals, makes Tolstoy's War and Peace a Noah's Ark.
The novel is at the same time a swashbuckling romance, family saga, philosophical query, a historical fiction, a war memoir and more. It is a timeless classic that through its pages develops a whole crop of humanity, representative of our passions and traits, and chronicle of our deeds and choices and what guides them. The novel has one of the best last quarter I have ever read, where the climax arouses so strong feelings at every page, that I was laughing joyfully on one page and crying inconsolably on next page. (This is before the epilogue).
I have often stressed that classics deserve respect, slow and patient reading, and War and Peace is no different. There are sections where I was forced to move like a stream of water going downhill, and other places where reading each page was an effort. Yet once the plot is set up, once you have finished reading over one third the novel, once the Russian names and their universe is created in your head, the novel becomes friendlier. It fills your head with images, emotions, ideas and you are carried to Tolstoy's world. For anyone seriously interested in reading great literature, Tolstoy is a must. Inarguably, War and Peace is one of the brightest prose pieces ever written and I heartily recommend it to one and all. Again I have figured that Constance Garnett must have been a great translator, and like other great Russian Novels I read translated by her, this one also calls for my gratitude to her. But above all, all credit to Tolstoy for creating this epic saga. Must read it.
Tolstoy's War and Peace rightfully ranks amongs the best novels ever written in any language. The master novelist uses Napolean's Wars with Russia as the context against which he narrates the story of four families. The four families, along with several timeless characters, live through the times of War and Peace to provide us with a representation of every aspect of Russian life, Russian thought and imagery of both cities and villages.
Tolstoy's great talent was in providing insights using his extremely good sense of seemingly trivial. The details, be it of the functioning of clock or steam engine, or of the idealogy and rites of Masons, or the charge of cavalry in war or the thoughts of a man on his death bed, the details, the insight, the lucidity of expression of such varied themes in one book requires Tolstoy's genius.
There are innumerable unforgettable characters in this mammoth novel. Each one brings out different characteristics of human pysche, each one is made into a being of flesh and blood, strengths and weaknesses. Prince Andrey Bolkonsky, the dashing gentleman who shuns his boring high society to fight in war to achieve glory, is as compelling as a soldier as he is a wounded person, wounded both in love and in war. His death scene, touted as one of the greatest scenes in Russian Literature, is perhaps unmatched in its ability to engage a reader and his tears. The other equally important character is Pierre Bezukhov, who is a close friend of the Prince. Pierre is always so unsure, so uncertain, dabbling with different ideas and ideals, falling, failing, has a wife who nearly ruins him, and yet Pierre by the end of the novel comes of age, redeems himself, and in the climax attains Natasha in marriage. Natasha is the heroine of the novel. She is a bright spark, the resplandent laughter, full of energy and life, beautiful and engrossing female character. Whenever she breaks into the story, the tale becomes a remarkable love story. Music and smile pour in, dances start to occur.
Be it Natasha's family members or those of Prince Bolkonsky's or any of their acquaintances, the characterization is such that one can visulaize each one separately. If there is villaincy in Doholov, Natasha's brother Rostov has his inexperience leading him into a near ruin. If Marya, Bolkonsky's sister is god fearing charming but simple looking girl, Ellen is seductress, souless counterpart who possesses a father and a brother equally despicable. The whole array of characters are present in this novel, which of human characteristics be different species of animals, makes Tolstoy's War and Peace a Noah's Ark.
The novel is at the same time a swashbuckling romance, family saga, philosophical query, a historical fiction, a war memoir and more. It is a timeless classic that through its pages develops a whole crop of humanity, representative of our passions and traits, and chronicle of our deeds and choices and what guides them. The novel has one of the best last quarter I have ever read, where the climax arouses so strong feelings at every page, that I was laughing joyfully on one page and crying inconsolably on next page. (This is before the epilogue).
I have often stressed that classics deserve respect, slow and patient reading, and War and Peace is no different. There are sections where I was forced to move like a stream of water going downhill, and other places where reading each page was an effort. Yet once the plot is set up, once you have finished reading over one third the novel, once the Russian names and their universe is created in your head, the novel becomes friendlier. It fills your head with images, emotions, ideas and you are carried to Tolstoy's world. For anyone seriously interested in reading great literature, Tolstoy is a must. Inarguably, War and Peace is one of the brightest prose pieces ever written and I heartily recommend it to one and all. Again I have figured that Constance Garnett must have been a great translator, and like other great Russian Novels I read translated by her, this one also calls for my gratitude to her. But above all, all credit to Tolstoy for creating this epic saga. Must read it.
Thursday, July 06, 2006
O cofee, if you were a woman
O coffee, if you were a woman
bitter and lonesome, dark and handsome,
Would you too scald my lips
mess my head, fill me with acidity
and be different in flavor each day
and be sweet only when I was buying you?
O coffee, if you were a woman
turbid and irksome, adamant and troublesome,
Would you too torture my tongue
sap me to your satisfaction, to dehydration
and be hard to get, or get rid off
and be nice only when I was serving you?
July 03, 2006
7: 45 pm
bitter and lonesome, dark and handsome,
Would you too scald my lips
mess my head, fill me with acidity
and be different in flavor each day
and be sweet only when I was buying you?
O coffee, if you were a woman
turbid and irksome, adamant and troublesome,
Would you too torture my tongue
sap me to your satisfaction, to dehydration
and be hard to get, or get rid off
and be nice only when I was serving you?
July 03, 2006
7: 45 pm
Saturday, July 01, 2006
Two Lives by Vikram Seth
A memoir spanning the whole of twentieth century
Vikram Seth's Two Lives is a biography, a memoir, a novel and a collection of letters rolled into one. The landscape it covers includes India, Germany, England and America, and the timespan includes most of the twentieth century. An Indian Hindu, Shanti comes to Berlin, Germany in the beginning of 1930s to study Dentistry, forms friendships with both Christians and Jews and Henny (who is of same age, and his landlady's daughter) becomes his particular friend. After finishing his studies, Shanti returns to England, where his degrees are not recognized, and he takes exams again. He enlists and fights in second world war. Loses his right arm, and yet battles on with his left hand to become an able dentist again.
Henny must part from her family and make her escape to London. Throughout 1940s she bears the news of one killing after the other, as under Hitler, Germans seek out the Jews and exterminate them. Henny corresponds with Shanti who is fighting in the War, and corresponds with friends left in Germany. The stash of letters that Vikram Seth uses and copies in this memoir is a telling tale of what millions of Jews suffered through in the 1940s and thereafter. Henny meanwhile works her daytime job, and in beginning of 1950s marries her lifetime friend and companion Shanti.
Henny and Shanti are two lives in focus here. The lives are inspirational, while their times full of war, misery, deaths, separations, and treachery. Through their life stories one comes face to face some of the greatest horrors from previous century. The World War II and action against Jews feature as the backdrop in which the valor of the protagonists and the depth and sincerity of friendships they had with people is tested. Historical perspective provided by Vikram is well researched. The story puts you face to face with not only the pre-1950 horrors, but also raises some important questions about present day world, say Israel-Palenstine conflict and US-Middle East divide.
In some places, the book is almost auto-biographical. In the beginning of the story, a teenager, great-nephew Vikram Seth arrives at the house of Shanti and Henny. He sets up his personal association with the two lives in his characteristic witty, simple but effective writing. Vikram Seth is one of my favorite living poets and writers. Having read all his novels, and nearly all his poems, I loved the beginning for it describes the writers own struggles and coming of age as well as how and when his various works were written. While the main story is of Shanti and Henny, Vikram's own story is an interesting third element that makes this memoir worth picking.
Yet maybe because the theme is so complex, maybe becuase it is a memoir, maybe becuase it speaks of such turbulent times and for Heeny's life progresses through her own correspondences, Vikram Seth's Two Lives is not as easy and straightforward reading as his previous novels. The story of Henny during 1940s has too many characters, and these come in and go rather quickly. Perhaps the idea there was to emphasize the events, rather than personalities (quite unlike in Suitable boy), and the letters, the narrative weaves a heart-wrenching description of Berlin through racial hatred, through bombing, and through division after the war.
Vikram Seth strives to provide a lifelike potrait of both Henny and Shanti. Hence, he strives to outline aspects from their daily routine that he witnesses himself, his other family members perceive by themselves and what he gathers from his conversations with Shanti and from letters of Henny. He is telling the tale of real people, related to him. Only an author of his calibre can create such a rich, likable, must read memoir using these tid-bits of information and working with and against his own personal relationships. Vikram doesn't make Shanti or Henny into just heroic survivors of various tragedies and catastropies. Neither does he magnify their life sagas or characteristics. He provides snapshots of their successes and failings, of their quirks and habits, of the complexity of relationship and marriage, and of their painful approach to death.
Two Lives is overall a great memoir that one ought to read to feel inspired by the protagonists, to become aware of horrors that our grandfathers faced, to understand our present world and to appreciate how well a writer like Vikram Seth can weave a saga from such varied elements. People like me who have read other books by Vikram Seth might be surprised by presence of some obscure parts in the book, but the story itself requires a degree of uncertainity, of vagueness, of incompleteness. If it were fiction, one could have reproached Seth for spending too much time on deaths of protagonists and on their life after 1960s. Especially some of the family disputes could have been pruned. Here in the biography, he needs to pull all elements of their life together, and like he must, he describes events in 1930s and 1940s in greatest detail.
The narration of events in Germany from 1930s and 1940s, the copies of Henny's correspondence during that time and Shanti's personal reminisces about the second world war and dentistry with left hand are transformed into a must read biography by one of the greatest living writers of our times. Go, read it.
Vikram Seth's Two Lives is a biography, a memoir, a novel and a collection of letters rolled into one. The landscape it covers includes India, Germany, England and America, and the timespan includes most of the twentieth century. An Indian Hindu, Shanti comes to Berlin, Germany in the beginning of 1930s to study Dentistry, forms friendships with both Christians and Jews and Henny (who is of same age, and his landlady's daughter) becomes his particular friend. After finishing his studies, Shanti returns to England, where his degrees are not recognized, and he takes exams again. He enlists and fights in second world war. Loses his right arm, and yet battles on with his left hand to become an able dentist again.
Henny must part from her family and make her escape to London. Throughout 1940s she bears the news of one killing after the other, as under Hitler, Germans seek out the Jews and exterminate them. Henny corresponds with Shanti who is fighting in the War, and corresponds with friends left in Germany. The stash of letters that Vikram Seth uses and copies in this memoir is a telling tale of what millions of Jews suffered through in the 1940s and thereafter. Henny meanwhile works her daytime job, and in beginning of 1950s marries her lifetime friend and companion Shanti.
Henny and Shanti are two lives in focus here. The lives are inspirational, while their times full of war, misery, deaths, separations, and treachery. Through their life stories one comes face to face some of the greatest horrors from previous century. The World War II and action against Jews feature as the backdrop in which the valor of the protagonists and the depth and sincerity of friendships they had with people is tested. Historical perspective provided by Vikram is well researched. The story puts you face to face with not only the pre-1950 horrors, but also raises some important questions about present day world, say Israel-Palenstine conflict and US-Middle East divide.
In some places, the book is almost auto-biographical. In the beginning of the story, a teenager, great-nephew Vikram Seth arrives at the house of Shanti and Henny. He sets up his personal association with the two lives in his characteristic witty, simple but effective writing. Vikram Seth is one of my favorite living poets and writers. Having read all his novels, and nearly all his poems, I loved the beginning for it describes the writers own struggles and coming of age as well as how and when his various works were written. While the main story is of Shanti and Henny, Vikram's own story is an interesting third element that makes this memoir worth picking.
Yet maybe because the theme is so complex, maybe becuase it is a memoir, maybe becuase it speaks of such turbulent times and for Heeny's life progresses through her own correspondences, Vikram Seth's Two Lives is not as easy and straightforward reading as his previous novels. The story of Henny during 1940s has too many characters, and these come in and go rather quickly. Perhaps the idea there was to emphasize the events, rather than personalities (quite unlike in Suitable boy), and the letters, the narrative weaves a heart-wrenching description of Berlin through racial hatred, through bombing, and through division after the war.
Vikram Seth strives to provide a lifelike potrait of both Henny and Shanti. Hence, he strives to outline aspects from their daily routine that he witnesses himself, his other family members perceive by themselves and what he gathers from his conversations with Shanti and from letters of Henny. He is telling the tale of real people, related to him. Only an author of his calibre can create such a rich, likable, must read memoir using these tid-bits of information and working with and against his own personal relationships. Vikram doesn't make Shanti or Henny into just heroic survivors of various tragedies and catastropies. Neither does he magnify their life sagas or characteristics. He provides snapshots of their successes and failings, of their quirks and habits, of the complexity of relationship and marriage, and of their painful approach to death.
Two Lives is overall a great memoir that one ought to read to feel inspired by the protagonists, to become aware of horrors that our grandfathers faced, to understand our present world and to appreciate how well a writer like Vikram Seth can weave a saga from such varied elements. People like me who have read other books by Vikram Seth might be surprised by presence of some obscure parts in the book, but the story itself requires a degree of uncertainity, of vagueness, of incompleteness. If it were fiction, one could have reproached Seth for spending too much time on deaths of protagonists and on their life after 1960s. Especially some of the family disputes could have been pruned. Here in the biography, he needs to pull all elements of their life together, and like he must, he describes events in 1930s and 1940s in greatest detail.
The narration of events in Germany from 1930s and 1940s, the copies of Henny's correspondence during that time and Shanti's personal reminisces about the second world war and dentistry with left hand are transformed into a must read biography by one of the greatest living writers of our times. Go, read it.
Monday, June 19, 2006
Kaavya: Episode VI (Finale)
VI
After we returned from the park, Kaavya was anxious to get through all that was tormenting her. She told me that she tried to be cheerful around Rishi that evening, but he carried a steady swollen look on his face. “I just went to my room, for I did not wanted to spoil my mood after such a pleasant evening with Videshi. Rishi talked to Ruchi for a bit and left and then came Varun. He looked extremely distraught. I was scared by the anger he displayed. His fist was taut; his six feet frame held tremors of rage and his words fell like whip lashes. He was particularly cruel in his choice of accusations and I just froze, entranced by the ferocity in his body language. Now I know why they say, passion can turn men into beasts.
I have had known Varun as this delightful person, whose jokes are measured, words are well chosen and actions reveal an innate goodness. I have heard you used to call him girl shy, though I know that he is the best company a girl can have. Maybe having two sisters, made him so particular about knowing and attending to the needs of girls. Actually, I guess I never even thought about how much better I felt around him compared to other people. His presence always had this sense of security and sensibility about it.”
“Exactly, my point Kaavya! How many times have I asked you to give at least sometime between meeting acquaintance A and B and C? How would you ever figure at the end of the day who made you happy or miserable? More so, when you have Rishi breathing on your neck like a dragon in heat, unable to contain his fire, seeks to burn the very thing he cherishes by bring it in direct contact with his irresponsible passion.” I guess as soon as I got an opportunity to say what I had often repeated to Ruchi and suggested to Kaavya, I jumped the gun. It backfired.
“Well Vivek, if you want to listen, listen. I don’t want either your witticism or satire at present. If you really think you can fix anyone’s life’s romances, fix your own.” She paused for a moment or two, while I was tired enough of it all and anger was building up inside me. She continued, “I am sorry, Vivek. I am not in the best of my moods to be courteous right now. But you should have seen Varun. Varun was angrier than anyone I have ever, ever known. He couldn’t stand still. His fists pounded his hands and kept shouting at me.”
She told me, some of the things that Varun said were: “You are only concerned about having a good time. All you care about is having your dance, your dinner, your imaginary romances. It is only about you, the whole world must think about you, work for you. I am such a joke for you. My words have no meaning for you. If I help you in shopping or watch a movie with you, I do it because I like spending time with you. But you don’t give two hoots about who is with you, for if it wasn’t me, it would be Rishi, Gandharav, Mahadev, Pathan, Kulkarni. If not these, you would pick some Jamaican rag seller or I don’t know, any prick on the street would work. You let those lechers feed on you, take advantage of you and talk of you as if you were a shameless whore, and you don’t even notice. Don’t you know what a woman who spends so much time with so many men is called? I know that Rishi has spent five nights here in last two weeks, and I know he slept on this couch. How do I argue with Gandharav when he says what proof I have that you are sleeping alone? Even Sita was not pardoned by this world. How do I silence them when they talk about the curves they savor when you decide to look pretty in your skimpy skirts or sleeveless tees?
But well, I very well realize now that you cannot tell between apples or oranges. I realize now why Vivek says that every female has a Madhu-Makhi (Honey bee) in her, and one must always be ready to be stung. O how I have adored you so far, and how I despise you now. I should have known it is not worth the trouble. I have too many things in my life to take care of anyways. You are just like the tricycle I never owned, and now I don’t care about you or the cycle anymore.
I ask you to not dance with someone and you just don’t get it. I have known this person for eight years and I know what goes on in his head. He has no shame, no respect for woman. But why blame him? When my words, my being, my presence has no meaning to you, why am I even bothered with this bull crap? I guess I might regret saying this later. (Kaavya had been sobbing for a while when he was uttering all this, but like a tornado, he couldn’t have stopped before the damage was complete.) But I need to end it here today. You are not worth my craving or attention or time. You can never appreciate what I have to offer, and I don’t think you can change, or at least I am not willing to wait till you realize my worth. You have too many admirers for you to realize that you are not as perfect as their compliments make you seem to be.
Honestly, I never told you, but Kaavya, I really have pined for you. Remember the poem “If I were to live only one day more”. It was written about you. I loved you, but I now see how pointless it is to care for someone who is too busy to notice and appreciate it. I don’t have heart to see you cry like this, and I cannot change whatever I just said. O why is this so hard?” According to Kaavya, his words came with a lot of effort, for by now his anger had subsided and his immense heartbreak ceased him. At that moment entered Gandharav and Mahadev, who were let in by Ruchi.
Gandharav was dressed nicely, as was Mahadev. They were leaving with Ruchi, who had changed into jazzy black trousers and a light pink shirt with frills. As soon as Gandharav saw Varun, he guessed something was up. Varun stared at Gandharav with all his anger that resurfaced now on seeing his nemesis. Gandharav made a small talk with Mahadev saying, “Bloody beer was too warm man. If Ruchi hurries up, we will get a good table at the tavern, and then I will win tonight’s drinks from her at the pool table.”
Gandharav basically looked everywhere except in the direction of Varun, and even before Ruchi came out again, he had walked out of the door on excuse of going to get gas filled in the tank. You know how even after Ruchi is seemingly ready, she walks back into her restroom and spends extra fifteen minutes of the finishing touches. Vivek could visualize the scene, and had never understood the importance of curling eye lashes, almost invisible lip gloss, a brush of little color that Ruchi explained formed the last rites in her dressing up. While Gandharav was gone, Mahadev went out for a smoke and Varun said, “Kaavya, I’ll see to it that our paths don’t cross again. It was good knowing you, and I guess it is a goodbye. I won’t wait for your words, for they will make me weak or stay. Tell them to Vivek later, if you wish. Before leaving, he was nearly crying, and like so, he slipped a note into my hands. As he did so, a saw a tear tumble down his face, running down from lowered eyes, and here is that piece.” I read Varun’s nearly illegible handwriting on a crumpled piece of paper:
“Many sparrows will chirp on your porch,
Many will fly in and away,
But forget not him who loved and loved
But forgive him who migrated away.”
Kaavya sobbed for a bit, and said, “See, Varun had come prepared for it. I am sure I missed on many things he said. He said something about Gandharav’s way of treating these foreign women he dated and mated with. He said something about how ridiculous Rishi’s face and demeanor is when he is about me. O Vivek! He said more mean things but neither can I recollect them in right order, nor do I have the heart to repeat them. Plus as we know him, he is gone forever. The one guy I could have liked to love is gone forever. But Vivek, never mention this to him. Tell him from my side, to have a good life.” The rest of the story is known to people. After Varun left, Gandharav and Mahadev came back, took Ruchi away, met me on the way, when Gandharav’s swerving car scared the daylights out of me and then rest of the night I talked to Kaavya, while Ruchi was missing. Yes, at this point of time, Ruchi is missing, Kaavya has just gone into her room, and I am sleepless on their couch.
I was thinking about the repercussions of what happened today. I knew Varun loved this girl, and I knew what agony unrequited love can bring. More so if the person is in the same town, and is seen happy in anothers company.
***
I had often talked to Varun about how Kaavya was one of those highly self conscious females, who would not stand a moment of criticism. If exposed to some, they just lash out back at you with whatever fangs they hide. It was only a week ago that during a similar conversation, Varun rationalized this by saying, “Come on Vivek! Don’t be so harsh on her. She is a nice girl with a male ego. Perhaps therein lays her biggest charm.”
I put my arm around his shoulder, drew the last, prolonged puff of my cigarette, and released the smoke facing away from him, while my foot was mercilessly pressing the stub that I was kissing just a moment ago. “Charm or harm, time will tell. I don’t know if I burn the cigarette or the cigarette burns me, but at least I get to extinguish it and throw it away. Ah! Women with ego, in the beginning they are like a cigarette, but somehow the smoker becomes the stub and find himself being minced by the heel of the same woman.”
Varun was smiling now, and said, “Madhu-makhi again. Sometimes I think she got all your nectar, and don’t know who gets the honey now.” He knew how I still despised myself for a childhood fancy that had unsettled me absolutely.
If I hadn’t got the rude shock in X grade, when I was too sick to even write the board examination, I would have ruined my life completely. My smoking, capacity to drink six pack of beer without flinching and an avalanche of useless giggle at every opportunity were infused into me at fifteen. She wasn’t the prettiest face in the class, and I wasn’t so bad looking either. In fact, she was the one who was like a house-fly that buzzed about me all the time, “Vivek, help me with this drama please? OR Vivek, why don’t you reply to my letters? Or Come home someday. I’ll make tea and pakoras.” I never understood why she wrote me those sugary letters, even though we met everyday in school. She had this everyday wink as a salutation for me, and followed it with some typical high-school sigh, saying, “You look so tushiony today. Ah! There you go, shattered a heart!”
With some encouragement from my friends, I finally managed to fall for her. Perhaps she just wanted that to happen, for within a two week she turned into a cold stone-hearted female. She stopped talking to me, made faces if she saw me staring at her, and what was most painful to me was the way she maligned me in front of all classmates when I gave her that birthday card.
She tore it without opening, and said in the loudest voice, “I don’t like you, and I don’t want to have anything to do with you. Is it so hard to understand?” For weeks our class surmised what was going on, no one still knows why she changed that way. Everyone suspected that I had done something, and hell, I should have, to deserve that trauma I went through. The class episode was trivial compared to the later events.
The icing on the cake was her clumsy romance with a guy, nicknamed Makhi by his parents (what vision parents have) who had passed out of the school four years ago. This loser was now a shopkeeper, and left his shop twice a day, for spending the half hour in bus with Madhu. The bus was usually overcrowded, and these two would stand facing each other, letting crowd push them closer and closer. The guy would steal a kiss every so often, and sometimes his hand would be seen at a place that allowed all the school children to talk about the Madhu-Makhi.
My parents left me in care of house servant and went away to Saudi Arabia for six months, where my father had worked for fifteen years, while my mother went there every two years for six months. So I was all alone, and heartbroken, and had enough money with me to savor every cheap rum and whiskey in that time. The worse my state got, the stronger Madhu’s romance became. In October, my friends started advising me to stop drinking, in November all my teachers took turns to talk to me about it. By December, I had received warning from the principal, but my drinking continued unabated, as did her bus travel. I memorized whole of Harivansh Rai’s Madhushaala, and I talked in shers (couplets) I picked from Jagjit Singh’s Ghazals (songs).
By the beginning of February, I had lost ten kilograms in four months, my parents were returning two months early for they received too many phone calls urging them to come and save their son. Thankfully before they arrived in shock and anger, I was in hospital diagnosed with jaundice and stayed there for nearly two months. I had killed my one kidney, my liver and digestion were strained to their limit, and of course, the question of writing exams in that condition never arose.
On Fools day, I was released from the hospital. I went home, cried like a new born baby for hours, and vowed to my parents in front of small temple in prayer room, that whatever happens, I will never ever let them find me in that situation ever again. The day Madhu turned eighteen, she eloped with the shopkeeper, and soon after Madhu-Makhi have left the country to work in Kenya. Her twenty or so emails and several phone calls that I missed tell me that she regretted whatever happened. I pity her now, and the memory still sends shivers down my spine.
*****
The noise at the door was followed by Ruchi’s stumbling in. I covered my face, and lay still. Mahadev was saying, “One quick kiss before I go.” Ruchi said, “Sshh! Rishi is sleeping here. He’ll wake up.” I was amused by the thought that Ruchi thought I was Rishi and for some reason, it did not sink in that Mahadev asked for a kiss and Ruchi did not say anything. I heard a loud kiss, and it was followed by two more long lasting kissing noises and “umm, ummm” from Ruchi. My whole body was trying to lurch out of my throat, and I heard Gandharav’s voice, “ Oh Ruchi, You will easily give Mallika Sherawat run for money.” Ruchi laughed aloud and said, “What Mallika? Is she even a competition?”
Gandharav jumped the gun, “But yaar (friend), why not drive Vivek away? Why have him around you when you don’t love him?” Ruchi growled, “Who said I don’t love him? Ok yes, I haven’t made love to him. Man, I am so drunk, and Mahadev is so sexy. Vivek fulfils me spiritually and emotionally like no other. He is the take to home, make the parents happy, kind of person. Mahadev, like you, is only a good fuck, though don’t you dare tell Vivek anything about this and don’t you dare laugh at me.” Gandharav said, “I’ll leave you two along, but don’t make too much noise. Even walls have ears.” Ruchi said, “Run along with him Mahadev. You had enough fun on dance floor already.” I heard another quick kiss and then a dead silence mingled with drumming of rage ran through my heartbeat. I waited till I was certain that Ruchi has dozed off, got up and left.
Epilogue
This was the story of one night that changed the course of our lives. I raced home, and woke Varun up. We talked for two or three hours. By then, my anger had subsided, Varun’s had tired him out. Gandharav came into the room then yawning, saying, “Vivek, I thought you were sleeping on the couch in Kaavya’s home?”
“You son of a mother, you saw me there.” Gandharav smiled, and said, “You have more body mass than Rishi, and you sleep lying straight. Rishi is always coiled up like a baby in the womb. But that’s not what I noticed first. What I saw was the shoe that Ruchi stumbled upon as she entered, and I have seen this rotten sneaker for so long, that I could tell.” I looked at him in awe, while he just shrugged his shoulders.
I asked him to sit down and after some effort on my part, Varun and Gandharav hugged each other. Varun proposed we needed to celebrate our new found singlehood. Gandharav suggested we go to the beach. Two hours later, we were on the road to one of the most enjoyable trips I have ever been on. At night we had camped on the beach, and after getting dead drunk, cried and laughed for hours. It actually took us months to recover and forget the agony of it all, but that one night had changed our lives.
Whatever happened with Madhu had nearly destroyed me. Somehow, the Ruchi episode made me stronger. It also took away some anger I had against Madhu, and I became more peaceful within. My catharisis was unusual, but I am happy that it came about.
***
What happened to Kaavya? I stayed in touch with her for a few years. That is till she got married. Rishi actually changed quite a lot in the months that followed. He looked lot happier as he got to spend much more time with Kaavya. But Kaavya insisted that the relationship with him was a platonic friendship. After graduating in next summer, she found work on the other coast. The time difference and the distance, plus appearance of new characters in Kaavya’s life slowly, but surely killed Rishi’s hopes and dreams. He underwent a brief alcohol problem, but later moved to New York and became a reporter with India Abroad.
Kaavya eventually married a person she met at work, and her parents approved of. The fated meeting was part of the dealing through which her dad had found this job for her. I still don’t see why it happened so, that eventually the sexiest person I met in graduate school, went on to marry this corpulent, bald person. She was pretty, and she was smart. And yet, when it came to marriage, she chose him, who appeared so boring in conversation, never did any outdoor activity and wasn’t the richer or smarter option either. I asked Kaavya if she knew why she married him. Kaavya’s response, “He loves me and I respect him for all he knows and for how much he cares about me. In any case, marriage is about more than having a spouse who is picture perfect. It is about having a spouse who makes you complete, who makes you happy.”
Varun went on to do a PhD. After figuring that Varun was trying to graduate fast, his advisor offered him the opportunity of doing a one year co-op internship that paid him handsomely. This took care of his financial worries and provided him money for his sister’s marriage. Gandharav and his family insisted on paying for the marriage reception. The internship brought in money for him to buy an used car. Also, it kept him on the other coast, which helped as Kaavya graduated before he returned back. I graduated about the same time as Kaavya, for having been in graduate school for five years, I was too eager to get on with my life.
Gandharav was later instrumental in my marrying Varun’s younger sister. He himself settled down with a Japenese female, and we still tell him that just having a Yoko Ono is not enough to make him into a John Lennon. She is an excellent cook and I often joke that she is a perfect example of idealized Indian wife. Ruchi’s relationship with Mahadev went into a charismatic climax, and ended like most one night stand’s do. Theirs had lasted a year, primarily due to the ecstasy the hide and seek she played with me provided her. Once a fear of my catching them was gone, the fun was reduced to a fleshy endeavor and after a series of interesting twists, Ruchi married the Videshi. But that is another story.
After we returned from the park, Kaavya was anxious to get through all that was tormenting her. She told me that she tried to be cheerful around Rishi that evening, but he carried a steady swollen look on his face. “I just went to my room, for I did not wanted to spoil my mood after such a pleasant evening with Videshi. Rishi talked to Ruchi for a bit and left and then came Varun. He looked extremely distraught. I was scared by the anger he displayed. His fist was taut; his six feet frame held tremors of rage and his words fell like whip lashes. He was particularly cruel in his choice of accusations and I just froze, entranced by the ferocity in his body language. Now I know why they say, passion can turn men into beasts.
I have had known Varun as this delightful person, whose jokes are measured, words are well chosen and actions reveal an innate goodness. I have heard you used to call him girl shy, though I know that he is the best company a girl can have. Maybe having two sisters, made him so particular about knowing and attending to the needs of girls. Actually, I guess I never even thought about how much better I felt around him compared to other people. His presence always had this sense of security and sensibility about it.”
“Exactly, my point Kaavya! How many times have I asked you to give at least sometime between meeting acquaintance A and B and C? How would you ever figure at the end of the day who made you happy or miserable? More so, when you have Rishi breathing on your neck like a dragon in heat, unable to contain his fire, seeks to burn the very thing he cherishes by bring it in direct contact with his irresponsible passion.” I guess as soon as I got an opportunity to say what I had often repeated to Ruchi and suggested to Kaavya, I jumped the gun. It backfired.
“Well Vivek, if you want to listen, listen. I don’t want either your witticism or satire at present. If you really think you can fix anyone’s life’s romances, fix your own.” She paused for a moment or two, while I was tired enough of it all and anger was building up inside me. She continued, “I am sorry, Vivek. I am not in the best of my moods to be courteous right now. But you should have seen Varun. Varun was angrier than anyone I have ever, ever known. He couldn’t stand still. His fists pounded his hands and kept shouting at me.”
She told me, some of the things that Varun said were: “You are only concerned about having a good time. All you care about is having your dance, your dinner, your imaginary romances. It is only about you, the whole world must think about you, work for you. I am such a joke for you. My words have no meaning for you. If I help you in shopping or watch a movie with you, I do it because I like spending time with you. But you don’t give two hoots about who is with you, for if it wasn’t me, it would be Rishi, Gandharav, Mahadev, Pathan, Kulkarni. If not these, you would pick some Jamaican rag seller or I don’t know, any prick on the street would work. You let those lechers feed on you, take advantage of you and talk of you as if you were a shameless whore, and you don’t even notice. Don’t you know what a woman who spends so much time with so many men is called? I know that Rishi has spent five nights here in last two weeks, and I know he slept on this couch. How do I argue with Gandharav when he says what proof I have that you are sleeping alone? Even Sita was not pardoned by this world. How do I silence them when they talk about the curves they savor when you decide to look pretty in your skimpy skirts or sleeveless tees?
But well, I very well realize now that you cannot tell between apples or oranges. I realize now why Vivek says that every female has a Madhu-Makhi (Honey bee) in her, and one must always be ready to be stung. O how I have adored you so far, and how I despise you now. I should have known it is not worth the trouble. I have too many things in my life to take care of anyways. You are just like the tricycle I never owned, and now I don’t care about you or the cycle anymore.
I ask you to not dance with someone and you just don’t get it. I have known this person for eight years and I know what goes on in his head. He has no shame, no respect for woman. But why blame him? When my words, my being, my presence has no meaning to you, why am I even bothered with this bull crap? I guess I might regret saying this later. (Kaavya had been sobbing for a while when he was uttering all this, but like a tornado, he couldn’t have stopped before the damage was complete.) But I need to end it here today. You are not worth my craving or attention or time. You can never appreciate what I have to offer, and I don’t think you can change, or at least I am not willing to wait till you realize my worth. You have too many admirers for you to realize that you are not as perfect as their compliments make you seem to be.
Honestly, I never told you, but Kaavya, I really have pined for you. Remember the poem “If I were to live only one day more”. It was written about you. I loved you, but I now see how pointless it is to care for someone who is too busy to notice and appreciate it. I don’t have heart to see you cry like this, and I cannot change whatever I just said. O why is this so hard?” According to Kaavya, his words came with a lot of effort, for by now his anger had subsided and his immense heartbreak ceased him. At that moment entered Gandharav and Mahadev, who were let in by Ruchi.
Gandharav was dressed nicely, as was Mahadev. They were leaving with Ruchi, who had changed into jazzy black trousers and a light pink shirt with frills. As soon as Gandharav saw Varun, he guessed something was up. Varun stared at Gandharav with all his anger that resurfaced now on seeing his nemesis. Gandharav made a small talk with Mahadev saying, “Bloody beer was too warm man. If Ruchi hurries up, we will get a good table at the tavern, and then I will win tonight’s drinks from her at the pool table.”
Gandharav basically looked everywhere except in the direction of Varun, and even before Ruchi came out again, he had walked out of the door on excuse of going to get gas filled in the tank. You know how even after Ruchi is seemingly ready, she walks back into her restroom and spends extra fifteen minutes of the finishing touches. Vivek could visualize the scene, and had never understood the importance of curling eye lashes, almost invisible lip gloss, a brush of little color that Ruchi explained formed the last rites in her dressing up. While Gandharav was gone, Mahadev went out for a smoke and Varun said, “Kaavya, I’ll see to it that our paths don’t cross again. It was good knowing you, and I guess it is a goodbye. I won’t wait for your words, for they will make me weak or stay. Tell them to Vivek later, if you wish. Before leaving, he was nearly crying, and like so, he slipped a note into my hands. As he did so, a saw a tear tumble down his face, running down from lowered eyes, and here is that piece.” I read Varun’s nearly illegible handwriting on a crumpled piece of paper:
“Many sparrows will chirp on your porch,
Many will fly in and away,
But forget not him who loved and loved
But forgive him who migrated away.”
Kaavya sobbed for a bit, and said, “See, Varun had come prepared for it. I am sure I missed on many things he said. He said something about Gandharav’s way of treating these foreign women he dated and mated with. He said something about how ridiculous Rishi’s face and demeanor is when he is about me. O Vivek! He said more mean things but neither can I recollect them in right order, nor do I have the heart to repeat them. Plus as we know him, he is gone forever. The one guy I could have liked to love is gone forever. But Vivek, never mention this to him. Tell him from my side, to have a good life.” The rest of the story is known to people. After Varun left, Gandharav and Mahadev came back, took Ruchi away, met me on the way, when Gandharav’s swerving car scared the daylights out of me and then rest of the night I talked to Kaavya, while Ruchi was missing. Yes, at this point of time, Ruchi is missing, Kaavya has just gone into her room, and I am sleepless on their couch.
I was thinking about the repercussions of what happened today. I knew Varun loved this girl, and I knew what agony unrequited love can bring. More so if the person is in the same town, and is seen happy in anothers company.
***
I had often talked to Varun about how Kaavya was one of those highly self conscious females, who would not stand a moment of criticism. If exposed to some, they just lash out back at you with whatever fangs they hide. It was only a week ago that during a similar conversation, Varun rationalized this by saying, “Come on Vivek! Don’t be so harsh on her. She is a nice girl with a male ego. Perhaps therein lays her biggest charm.”
I put my arm around his shoulder, drew the last, prolonged puff of my cigarette, and released the smoke facing away from him, while my foot was mercilessly pressing the stub that I was kissing just a moment ago. “Charm or harm, time will tell. I don’t know if I burn the cigarette or the cigarette burns me, but at least I get to extinguish it and throw it away. Ah! Women with ego, in the beginning they are like a cigarette, but somehow the smoker becomes the stub and find himself being minced by the heel of the same woman.”
Varun was smiling now, and said, “Madhu-makhi again. Sometimes I think she got all your nectar, and don’t know who gets the honey now.” He knew how I still despised myself for a childhood fancy that had unsettled me absolutely.
If I hadn’t got the rude shock in X grade, when I was too sick to even write the board examination, I would have ruined my life completely. My smoking, capacity to drink six pack of beer without flinching and an avalanche of useless giggle at every opportunity were infused into me at fifteen. She wasn’t the prettiest face in the class, and I wasn’t so bad looking either. In fact, she was the one who was like a house-fly that buzzed about me all the time, “Vivek, help me with this drama please? OR Vivek, why don’t you reply to my letters? Or Come home someday. I’ll make tea and pakoras.” I never understood why she wrote me those sugary letters, even though we met everyday in school. She had this everyday wink as a salutation for me, and followed it with some typical high-school sigh, saying, “You look so tushiony today. Ah! There you go, shattered a heart!”
With some encouragement from my friends, I finally managed to fall for her. Perhaps she just wanted that to happen, for within a two week she turned into a cold stone-hearted female. She stopped talking to me, made faces if she saw me staring at her, and what was most painful to me was the way she maligned me in front of all classmates when I gave her that birthday card.
She tore it without opening, and said in the loudest voice, “I don’t like you, and I don’t want to have anything to do with you. Is it so hard to understand?” For weeks our class surmised what was going on, no one still knows why she changed that way. Everyone suspected that I had done something, and hell, I should have, to deserve that trauma I went through. The class episode was trivial compared to the later events.
The icing on the cake was her clumsy romance with a guy, nicknamed Makhi by his parents (what vision parents have) who had passed out of the school four years ago. This loser was now a shopkeeper, and left his shop twice a day, for spending the half hour in bus with Madhu. The bus was usually overcrowded, and these two would stand facing each other, letting crowd push them closer and closer. The guy would steal a kiss every so often, and sometimes his hand would be seen at a place that allowed all the school children to talk about the Madhu-Makhi.
My parents left me in care of house servant and went away to Saudi Arabia for six months, where my father had worked for fifteen years, while my mother went there every two years for six months. So I was all alone, and heartbroken, and had enough money with me to savor every cheap rum and whiskey in that time. The worse my state got, the stronger Madhu’s romance became. In October, my friends started advising me to stop drinking, in November all my teachers took turns to talk to me about it. By December, I had received warning from the principal, but my drinking continued unabated, as did her bus travel. I memorized whole of Harivansh Rai’s Madhushaala, and I talked in shers (couplets) I picked from Jagjit Singh’s Ghazals (songs).
By the beginning of February, I had lost ten kilograms in four months, my parents were returning two months early for they received too many phone calls urging them to come and save their son. Thankfully before they arrived in shock and anger, I was in hospital diagnosed with jaundice and stayed there for nearly two months. I had killed my one kidney, my liver and digestion were strained to their limit, and of course, the question of writing exams in that condition never arose.
On Fools day, I was released from the hospital. I went home, cried like a new born baby for hours, and vowed to my parents in front of small temple in prayer room, that whatever happens, I will never ever let them find me in that situation ever again. The day Madhu turned eighteen, she eloped with the shopkeeper, and soon after Madhu-Makhi have left the country to work in Kenya. Her twenty or so emails and several phone calls that I missed tell me that she regretted whatever happened. I pity her now, and the memory still sends shivers down my spine.
*****
The noise at the door was followed by Ruchi’s stumbling in. I covered my face, and lay still. Mahadev was saying, “One quick kiss before I go.” Ruchi said, “Sshh! Rishi is sleeping here. He’ll wake up.” I was amused by the thought that Ruchi thought I was Rishi and for some reason, it did not sink in that Mahadev asked for a kiss and Ruchi did not say anything. I heard a loud kiss, and it was followed by two more long lasting kissing noises and “umm, ummm” from Ruchi. My whole body was trying to lurch out of my throat, and I heard Gandharav’s voice, “ Oh Ruchi, You will easily give Mallika Sherawat run for money.” Ruchi laughed aloud and said, “What Mallika? Is she even a competition?”
Gandharav jumped the gun, “But yaar (friend), why not drive Vivek away? Why have him around you when you don’t love him?” Ruchi growled, “Who said I don’t love him? Ok yes, I haven’t made love to him. Man, I am so drunk, and Mahadev is so sexy. Vivek fulfils me spiritually and emotionally like no other. He is the take to home, make the parents happy, kind of person. Mahadev, like you, is only a good fuck, though don’t you dare tell Vivek anything about this and don’t you dare laugh at me.” Gandharav said, “I’ll leave you two along, but don’t make too much noise. Even walls have ears.” Ruchi said, “Run along with him Mahadev. You had enough fun on dance floor already.” I heard another quick kiss and then a dead silence mingled with drumming of rage ran through my heartbeat. I waited till I was certain that Ruchi has dozed off, got up and left.
Epilogue
This was the story of one night that changed the course of our lives. I raced home, and woke Varun up. We talked for two or three hours. By then, my anger had subsided, Varun’s had tired him out. Gandharav came into the room then yawning, saying, “Vivek, I thought you were sleeping on the couch in Kaavya’s home?”
“You son of a mother, you saw me there.” Gandharav smiled, and said, “You have more body mass than Rishi, and you sleep lying straight. Rishi is always coiled up like a baby in the womb. But that’s not what I noticed first. What I saw was the shoe that Ruchi stumbled upon as she entered, and I have seen this rotten sneaker for so long, that I could tell.” I looked at him in awe, while he just shrugged his shoulders.
I asked him to sit down and after some effort on my part, Varun and Gandharav hugged each other. Varun proposed we needed to celebrate our new found singlehood. Gandharav suggested we go to the beach. Two hours later, we were on the road to one of the most enjoyable trips I have ever been on. At night we had camped on the beach, and after getting dead drunk, cried and laughed for hours. It actually took us months to recover and forget the agony of it all, but that one night had changed our lives.
Whatever happened with Madhu had nearly destroyed me. Somehow, the Ruchi episode made me stronger. It also took away some anger I had against Madhu, and I became more peaceful within. My catharisis was unusual, but I am happy that it came about.
***
What happened to Kaavya? I stayed in touch with her for a few years. That is till she got married. Rishi actually changed quite a lot in the months that followed. He looked lot happier as he got to spend much more time with Kaavya. But Kaavya insisted that the relationship with him was a platonic friendship. After graduating in next summer, she found work on the other coast. The time difference and the distance, plus appearance of new characters in Kaavya’s life slowly, but surely killed Rishi’s hopes and dreams. He underwent a brief alcohol problem, but later moved to New York and became a reporter with India Abroad.
Kaavya eventually married a person she met at work, and her parents approved of. The fated meeting was part of the dealing through which her dad had found this job for her. I still don’t see why it happened so, that eventually the sexiest person I met in graduate school, went on to marry this corpulent, bald person. She was pretty, and she was smart. And yet, when it came to marriage, she chose him, who appeared so boring in conversation, never did any outdoor activity and wasn’t the richer or smarter option either. I asked Kaavya if she knew why she married him. Kaavya’s response, “He loves me and I respect him for all he knows and for how much he cares about me. In any case, marriage is about more than having a spouse who is picture perfect. It is about having a spouse who makes you complete, who makes you happy.”
Varun went on to do a PhD. After figuring that Varun was trying to graduate fast, his advisor offered him the opportunity of doing a one year co-op internship that paid him handsomely. This took care of his financial worries and provided him money for his sister’s marriage. Gandharav and his family insisted on paying for the marriage reception. The internship brought in money for him to buy an used car. Also, it kept him on the other coast, which helped as Kaavya graduated before he returned back. I graduated about the same time as Kaavya, for having been in graduate school for five years, I was too eager to get on with my life.
Gandharav was later instrumental in my marrying Varun’s younger sister. He himself settled down with a Japenese female, and we still tell him that just having a Yoko Ono is not enough to make him into a John Lennon. She is an excellent cook and I often joke that she is a perfect example of idealized Indian wife. Ruchi’s relationship with Mahadev went into a charismatic climax, and ended like most one night stand’s do. Theirs had lasted a year, primarily due to the ecstasy the hide and seek she played with me provided her. Once a fear of my catching them was gone, the fun was reduced to a fleshy endeavor and after a series of interesting twists, Ruchi married the Videshi. But that is another story.
Wednesday, June 14, 2006
Kaavya: V (Second last in this series)
The Maggie boiled on, as did the tea. I had a few minutes to think but my head was full of noises. Where is Ruchi? What happened here? Why was Varun so anxious on the phone? I called Varun, and found him awake. He urged me to stay back and put Kaavya at ease. He was too agitated, but said that if Kaavya had called for me, it meant she had some sense left. He said he would tell me stuff, but I should hear her version first. I think I convinced him to sleep. But I doubt he could have dozed off in that state.
***
While Gandharav Gandhi was a rich kid, Varun Bhardwaj was a son of a poor, dead father. His Police Inspector father was taken by the bullet of a terrorist, leaving him fatherless when he was only fourteen. Gandharav’s father was the SP (Superintendent of Police) in command, and even though he was corrupt himself, he respected Bhardwaj for his honesty. His mother had obtained the job as an office clerk, thanks to the policy of the government that provides a job to a member of employee in active service, and Mr. Gandhi’s active interest in the case.
Varun was the eldest of three siblings, and knew within his heart that he needed to provide for the education and marriage of his two younger sisters. He had come to United States with the aim of finishing with a quick MS and finding the highest paining job. In school, he had thrived on various scholarships. After his selection into the engineering college he paid for his education using money he earned by being a private tutor for four students. Gandharav’s father paid for the room for two years that Varun and Gandharav shared when they were preparing for the engineering entrance, and were in pre-college school. Varun was vaguely aware of this, though his mother had denied it, for she knew he was too much like father, who would die of hunger rather than take even a penny from anyone.
Gandharav’s parents loved Varun like their own son, and knew that his company had ensured that their son, in spite of himself, studied and cleared the engineering entrance. Gandharav owned the guitar that Varun had mastered. Gandharav bought the books, Varun read them. Gandharav fell in love every week, Varun gave him choicest dialogues to impress the girls, for somehow Varun read the pulse of girls quite well. Gandharav would sometimes drink a bit too much, and whenever he did so, he insisted on going home to Varun. Varun would nurse him through the night, cleaning away the vomit, listening to Gandharav’s incessant talk about “how a certain bitch had behaved” or about “how he will kill Ms Paramjit Kaur, the widowed teacher whose his father was long rumored to have a illicit relationship with, though outwardly she tied him Rakhi every year”. When they would eat out, (Varun would come only once in blue moon), Gandharav always insisted on paying saying he owed Varun a hypothetical treat for this or that. Poor Varun found a remedy to this by refusing most of the invites. During their Ragging in the undergraduate college, Gandharav had bailed Varun out from hands of tormenting seniors, by taking upon himself to entertain them with his limitless supply of Little Johnny and non-veg jokes.
Living with Gandharav and Varun meant that I became aware of their several secrets, stories and idiosyncrasies. The friendship that Varun and Gandharav shared was marred by these weeks where they would only mumble the most necessary trivia to each other. They resented each other with the depth of the passion that they had for each other during the happier weeks. Any trifle could set them on this war path. Then with some intense effort on my part, I put them together. Rather, my attempt was only an excuse, for both were in some sense incomplete without each other. Even in those times, they would cook on their respective turns, Varun would wake Gandharav up in the morning, and Gandharav would go through the motion of making evening tea for all of us. After days of separation, they would then meet like long separated lovers. They would hug, sometimes shed some tears and in days that followed would behave as if they were inseparable twins. I often hummed the song from Amitabh movie: Kab ke bichre hue hum aaj kahan aa ke milay (We separated from dunno when/ah see where we meet again) at their highly melodramatic reunions.
When Gandharav had an accident in third year of their undergraduate study, Varun missed his final examination to take him to the hospital. The professor gave him a C, due to which he missed out on President’s Gold Medal. He never said anything about it to anyone. They both had improvised this special chappal dance, done by holding their bathroom slippers as dandiya sticks, swaying their heads and jumping around an imaginary fire like adivasis and singing, “Hum bewafa hargiz na thay (we weren’t unfaithful at all)” and going on in unison with “furr furr” as was in the song. Especially after a few shots of Vodka, the song dance sequence seemed surreal and ended with all of us falling upon each other laughing. When they both went mountain biking, they would sing Queen’s “I want to ride my bicycle” in highest pitch, with words sung in pronounced North Indian English accent. In moments like these, I was an outsider, but I was always too overwhelmed by their field of happiness and laughed heartily with them. Everyone else present got infected by their joviality too.
****
Kaavya sat pondering about something. The Maggi noodles and tea vanished in a flash. We had walked out of the house, for Kaavya felt that the house was stifling her and sat near the pond in a park near the university. She complained that the bathe always soothed her, but today she felt only more scared and uncomfortable. It is hard to bath when your eyes are overwhelmed with tears. She had taken hold of my hand, and asked me if she was allowed to hold it tight and close. She proceeded to lift it to her heart, and we sat through a silence of few minutes. Her heartbeat against my hand thumped louder than my own heartbeat, and finally she stated the following in a clear, measured tone.
“I came here three months back and as you might remember, you, Varun and Ruchi came to pick me up. You were the first three friends that I made. Then at your home I met Gandharav, and since he was your apartment-mate, and Varun’s legendary friend, I talked to him even more openly and easily than I had talked to Varun and you initially. He has his charm, and he is a capital dancer. But I have no feelings for him, and he has none for me either. We both agree that we are not each other’s type. Plus he loves respects and admires Varun like he does no other, and he calls him his gentlemanly half. I think last week, he said something to Varun, for which Varun slapped him. I found out about it the very next day, for Gandharav came to apologize to me. Of course, he never told me why, and he insisted that he will tell Varun at the right time.”
“My goodness”, I said. “Go on.”
“You guys think that we girls were born yesterday and cannot distinguish between who respects us and who doesn’t. You think we are morons who can be won over by some stupid gifts or plagiarized poems. You think our actions are crafted to either seduce favors from you or to keep you interested in us. You chase us with sweet words, niceties, showing pompous promises, giving chivalrous excuses for opening the door here, you offer knight-like dedication, and you avow all this is just the way you are, your characteristic way of showing friendship. You insist that it is so, try to believe in it and want us to believe in it, and of course, either way you call the women the heartbreaker. Guess what mister; it is too easy for you guys to hold both your heartbreaks and your successes as mementoes and it won’t make any difference to your future prospects. We have to bear the brunt of your actions and your propaganda. A female’s reputation is destroyed so easily, a male with a bad name only rises higher.”
My hand had been released while she had this outburst. I knew that it wasn’t the right moment for me to dispute the allegations, and listened with a patience that only writers can have. “Everyone accuses me of flirting with too many people. What do I do, I ask the girls? The girls announce, that I encourage the guys or that I don’t act to announce a winner soon enough. Why am I supposed to pick between them who have fallen for me? Why can’t have the luxury of falling for someone myself and hoping he accepts me? The girls dismiss this with a smile that infuriates me, for it says that I will live and learn. The guys, each one wants to show that he is better than the other. The same actions done by them that are justified by the argument of “Crazy little thing called love” are considered a mark of deceit and conceit when they come from the others.”
“We gals are considered inconsistent and indecisive, and all my experience with men tells me they are weak, selfish and egoists. Why is my trying to have a good time, say a nice lunch or dinner, or watching a movie or play, considered flirting? I am usually just driven by the activity, and the person, as long as he creates no trouble is of secondary importance. But every man wants to be at the center of the world. Even when he knows how I think, he does not accept the facts, the reality. And then, we girls are termed romanticists. We are called dreamers. It is all also unfair. You are all the same. You are really, all of you are just Male Chauvinist Pigs.”
My lips were pursed in an uncomfortable way, and eyebrows knotted in disapproval. She looked at my expression, looked as if she did not know who I was and why I was there. Then she collected herself, and said, “Ok! I am coming to the story now. I am too pissed with how people blame me for everything. Take the case of Rishi. Everyone tells me he was so jolly and outgoing before he became obsessed with me. He was known to give these gala dinner parties, where two dozen Indians and others collected together for weekly entertainment. You know all that, and you took me to one of those.
It was first time that I found that someone liked Hrishikesh Mukherjee and Basu Chatterjee movies as much as I did. He remembered every movie, every song, every dialogue that I so treasured. Then we loved the same old songs, the same old television serials formed our shared nostalgia. He did not mention any book-shook that day. (She smiled and flushed, and then reverted to angry, but pained tone). Next day I ran into him, while coming back from a class, and he invited me for a coffee and I accepted.
He was quite funny initially. But them some ghost seized him. He started becoming so irritated at the mention of any guy, that so many of our coffee conversations ending up as arguments. Then he would come to my house and just wait for my return to apologize. Every time he would promise that he trusts me and he has no objections to anyone. Sometimes I gave in to his tears, sometimes he won me over with display of his former self. But of course, as we all know, he has become so obsessed with this idea of being with me at every opportunity that now he sits in a state of perpetual readiness like doctors on a war duty. I cannot spend all my time with him.
He has become so unstable, that even my best attempts cause pain to both of us. On top of it, everyone either asks me to cut him off completely, or cut everyone else off. Is that possible? I respect him for certain qualities he has, and I can believe that he was not like this earlier, but Vivek, on present analysis, I cannot bring myself to match his passion or affection. I have to be purposefully rude to him, though I treasure his friendship, his care. But he seems like a dog, who keeps wagging its tail, and even after your kick him and shout at him, returns to your door for food, with the same pitiful look, and same wagging tail. Oh God! I don’t think of him like that, but he leaves me with no choice, and mind you, I love dogs. I know you hate them, but lets not get into that.
Then on this Valentine’s day, Varun and Gandharav had their annual “Only for broken hearts singing drinking party.” I know you had finished your own date with Ruchi at seven in the evening to join them. I wanted to sit alone at home. I had refused Pathan, the Pakistani who somehow thinks his Urdu Nazms can bridge over the differences and animosity in our communities and country. I had laughed off Mahadev’s suggestion of going to dance club with him, and guess what, Kulkarni had sent me those dozen roses that I lied came from my distant cousin Vikrant.
Vikrant, who I have had portrayed as one distant, distant cousin who was head over heels with me, is my extremely affectionate cousin, and cares for me as a brother must. He knows all about the fiascoes here and he asked me to misuse his name to stop the bother. Of course, I never thought what I mentioned to you and Ruchi would reach Varun and Rishi so easily. Anyhow, I was sitting quite melancholy that day at home and then Rishi came all dressed up. I saw how much that evening meant to him and I guess I was too bored and displeased with the idea of spending my first Valentine’s day in US all alone. I hadn’t the heart to refuse him the dinner he asked me out for. All through the evening he fumbled, mumbled and made such an entertaining fool of himself. I wish I could do something for him, but at present he is in a state that arouses a mixture of fear, guilt, pity and confusion in me. He leaves these half sentences hanging in air, and I can well guess how they can be completed, but for our mutual sanity and peace, I purposefully ignore them. Who asked him to get into such madness?
But let us not talk about him for the moment. Oh! That cursed Varun! (She broke into sobs now.) How he broke my heart today! How could he say all that he said? All this while I considered him as the only understanding and sensible fellow! Everything is so messed up. I cannot sit here and cry on like this. (She sat up wiping her tears, and yet shaking all the same.) Plus it is getting chilly and these university cops have already passed by us twice. Let us go back to the apartment and talk there. What time is it anyway?” I saw the time. It was four am.
We reached home, walking very silently again. I was going over whatever she had said so far. I thought that like most girls do, she spent too much time on talking about trivial details. She hadn’t told me squat about what happened that night. Ruchi wasn’t back yet. Kaavya mentioned that she’ll tell me something about why Ruchi was graduating in December after I hear her story to the end. I did not press the issue.
We again sat down on the couch, and she sprinted through rest of the details before breaking down into soft sobs again. But she was too tired to cry for long and by five she decided to go to bed. I was asked to sleep on the couch, for she was scared that she would wake up and start crying again. As I lay down thinking about what she told just me (and it appears in the next episode, which is last, the finale in Kaavya series), I heard key being turned in the doorknob. I covered myself with the bedsheet, and I was planning to scare Ruchi by suddenly jumping off the couch. I heard a drunk Ruchi enter through the door with Gandharav and Mahadev. Kaavya’s outburst and events that led to it were still ablaze in my heart, when what I heard this whispered talk that annihilated a whole realm of my understanding and existance.
***
While Gandharav Gandhi was a rich kid, Varun Bhardwaj was a son of a poor, dead father. His Police Inspector father was taken by the bullet of a terrorist, leaving him fatherless when he was only fourteen. Gandharav’s father was the SP (Superintendent of Police) in command, and even though he was corrupt himself, he respected Bhardwaj for his honesty. His mother had obtained the job as an office clerk, thanks to the policy of the government that provides a job to a member of employee in active service, and Mr. Gandhi’s active interest in the case.
Varun was the eldest of three siblings, and knew within his heart that he needed to provide for the education and marriage of his two younger sisters. He had come to United States with the aim of finishing with a quick MS and finding the highest paining job. In school, he had thrived on various scholarships. After his selection into the engineering college he paid for his education using money he earned by being a private tutor for four students. Gandharav’s father paid for the room for two years that Varun and Gandharav shared when they were preparing for the engineering entrance, and were in pre-college school. Varun was vaguely aware of this, though his mother had denied it, for she knew he was too much like father, who would die of hunger rather than take even a penny from anyone.
Gandharav’s parents loved Varun like their own son, and knew that his company had ensured that their son, in spite of himself, studied and cleared the engineering entrance. Gandharav owned the guitar that Varun had mastered. Gandharav bought the books, Varun read them. Gandharav fell in love every week, Varun gave him choicest dialogues to impress the girls, for somehow Varun read the pulse of girls quite well. Gandharav would sometimes drink a bit too much, and whenever he did so, he insisted on going home to Varun. Varun would nurse him through the night, cleaning away the vomit, listening to Gandharav’s incessant talk about “how a certain bitch had behaved” or about “how he will kill Ms Paramjit Kaur, the widowed teacher whose his father was long rumored to have a illicit relationship with, though outwardly she tied him Rakhi every year”. When they would eat out, (Varun would come only once in blue moon), Gandharav always insisted on paying saying he owed Varun a hypothetical treat for this or that. Poor Varun found a remedy to this by refusing most of the invites. During their Ragging in the undergraduate college, Gandharav had bailed Varun out from hands of tormenting seniors, by taking upon himself to entertain them with his limitless supply of Little Johnny and non-veg jokes.
Living with Gandharav and Varun meant that I became aware of their several secrets, stories and idiosyncrasies. The friendship that Varun and Gandharav shared was marred by these weeks where they would only mumble the most necessary trivia to each other. They resented each other with the depth of the passion that they had for each other during the happier weeks. Any trifle could set them on this war path. Then with some intense effort on my part, I put them together. Rather, my attempt was only an excuse, for both were in some sense incomplete without each other. Even in those times, they would cook on their respective turns, Varun would wake Gandharav up in the morning, and Gandharav would go through the motion of making evening tea for all of us. After days of separation, they would then meet like long separated lovers. They would hug, sometimes shed some tears and in days that followed would behave as if they were inseparable twins. I often hummed the song from Amitabh movie: Kab ke bichre hue hum aaj kahan aa ke milay (We separated from dunno when/ah see where we meet again) at their highly melodramatic reunions.
When Gandharav had an accident in third year of their undergraduate study, Varun missed his final examination to take him to the hospital. The professor gave him a C, due to which he missed out on President’s Gold Medal. He never said anything about it to anyone. They both had improvised this special chappal dance, done by holding their bathroom slippers as dandiya sticks, swaying their heads and jumping around an imaginary fire like adivasis and singing, “Hum bewafa hargiz na thay (we weren’t unfaithful at all)” and going on in unison with “furr furr” as was in the song. Especially after a few shots of Vodka, the song dance sequence seemed surreal and ended with all of us falling upon each other laughing. When they both went mountain biking, they would sing Queen’s “I want to ride my bicycle” in highest pitch, with words sung in pronounced North Indian English accent. In moments like these, I was an outsider, but I was always too overwhelmed by their field of happiness and laughed heartily with them. Everyone else present got infected by their joviality too.
****
Kaavya sat pondering about something. The Maggi noodles and tea vanished in a flash. We had walked out of the house, for Kaavya felt that the house was stifling her and sat near the pond in a park near the university. She complained that the bathe always soothed her, but today she felt only more scared and uncomfortable. It is hard to bath when your eyes are overwhelmed with tears. She had taken hold of my hand, and asked me if she was allowed to hold it tight and close. She proceeded to lift it to her heart, and we sat through a silence of few minutes. Her heartbeat against my hand thumped louder than my own heartbeat, and finally she stated the following in a clear, measured tone.
“I came here three months back and as you might remember, you, Varun and Ruchi came to pick me up. You were the first three friends that I made. Then at your home I met Gandharav, and since he was your apartment-mate, and Varun’s legendary friend, I talked to him even more openly and easily than I had talked to Varun and you initially. He has his charm, and he is a capital dancer. But I have no feelings for him, and he has none for me either. We both agree that we are not each other’s type. Plus he loves respects and admires Varun like he does no other, and he calls him his gentlemanly half. I think last week, he said something to Varun, for which Varun slapped him. I found out about it the very next day, for Gandharav came to apologize to me. Of course, he never told me why, and he insisted that he will tell Varun at the right time.”
“My goodness”, I said. “Go on.”
“You guys think that we girls were born yesterday and cannot distinguish between who respects us and who doesn’t. You think we are morons who can be won over by some stupid gifts or plagiarized poems. You think our actions are crafted to either seduce favors from you or to keep you interested in us. You chase us with sweet words, niceties, showing pompous promises, giving chivalrous excuses for opening the door here, you offer knight-like dedication, and you avow all this is just the way you are, your characteristic way of showing friendship. You insist that it is so, try to believe in it and want us to believe in it, and of course, either way you call the women the heartbreaker. Guess what mister; it is too easy for you guys to hold both your heartbreaks and your successes as mementoes and it won’t make any difference to your future prospects. We have to bear the brunt of your actions and your propaganda. A female’s reputation is destroyed so easily, a male with a bad name only rises higher.”
My hand had been released while she had this outburst. I knew that it wasn’t the right moment for me to dispute the allegations, and listened with a patience that only writers can have. “Everyone accuses me of flirting with too many people. What do I do, I ask the girls? The girls announce, that I encourage the guys or that I don’t act to announce a winner soon enough. Why am I supposed to pick between them who have fallen for me? Why can’t have the luxury of falling for someone myself and hoping he accepts me? The girls dismiss this with a smile that infuriates me, for it says that I will live and learn. The guys, each one wants to show that he is better than the other. The same actions done by them that are justified by the argument of “Crazy little thing called love” are considered a mark of deceit and conceit when they come from the others.”
“We gals are considered inconsistent and indecisive, and all my experience with men tells me they are weak, selfish and egoists. Why is my trying to have a good time, say a nice lunch or dinner, or watching a movie or play, considered flirting? I am usually just driven by the activity, and the person, as long as he creates no trouble is of secondary importance. But every man wants to be at the center of the world. Even when he knows how I think, he does not accept the facts, the reality. And then, we girls are termed romanticists. We are called dreamers. It is all also unfair. You are all the same. You are really, all of you are just Male Chauvinist Pigs.”
My lips were pursed in an uncomfortable way, and eyebrows knotted in disapproval. She looked at my expression, looked as if she did not know who I was and why I was there. Then she collected herself, and said, “Ok! I am coming to the story now. I am too pissed with how people blame me for everything. Take the case of Rishi. Everyone tells me he was so jolly and outgoing before he became obsessed with me. He was known to give these gala dinner parties, where two dozen Indians and others collected together for weekly entertainment. You know all that, and you took me to one of those.
It was first time that I found that someone liked Hrishikesh Mukherjee and Basu Chatterjee movies as much as I did. He remembered every movie, every song, every dialogue that I so treasured. Then we loved the same old songs, the same old television serials formed our shared nostalgia. He did not mention any book-shook that day. (She smiled and flushed, and then reverted to angry, but pained tone). Next day I ran into him, while coming back from a class, and he invited me for a coffee and I accepted.
He was quite funny initially. But them some ghost seized him. He started becoming so irritated at the mention of any guy, that so many of our coffee conversations ending up as arguments. Then he would come to my house and just wait for my return to apologize. Every time he would promise that he trusts me and he has no objections to anyone. Sometimes I gave in to his tears, sometimes he won me over with display of his former self. But of course, as we all know, he has become so obsessed with this idea of being with me at every opportunity that now he sits in a state of perpetual readiness like doctors on a war duty. I cannot spend all my time with him.
He has become so unstable, that even my best attempts cause pain to both of us. On top of it, everyone either asks me to cut him off completely, or cut everyone else off. Is that possible? I respect him for certain qualities he has, and I can believe that he was not like this earlier, but Vivek, on present analysis, I cannot bring myself to match his passion or affection. I have to be purposefully rude to him, though I treasure his friendship, his care. But he seems like a dog, who keeps wagging its tail, and even after your kick him and shout at him, returns to your door for food, with the same pitiful look, and same wagging tail. Oh God! I don’t think of him like that, but he leaves me with no choice, and mind you, I love dogs. I know you hate them, but lets not get into that.
Then on this Valentine’s day, Varun and Gandharav had their annual “Only for broken hearts singing drinking party.” I know you had finished your own date with Ruchi at seven in the evening to join them. I wanted to sit alone at home. I had refused Pathan, the Pakistani who somehow thinks his Urdu Nazms can bridge over the differences and animosity in our communities and country. I had laughed off Mahadev’s suggestion of going to dance club with him, and guess what, Kulkarni had sent me those dozen roses that I lied came from my distant cousin Vikrant.
Vikrant, who I have had portrayed as one distant, distant cousin who was head over heels with me, is my extremely affectionate cousin, and cares for me as a brother must. He knows all about the fiascoes here and he asked me to misuse his name to stop the bother. Of course, I never thought what I mentioned to you and Ruchi would reach Varun and Rishi so easily. Anyhow, I was sitting quite melancholy that day at home and then Rishi came all dressed up. I saw how much that evening meant to him and I guess I was too bored and displeased with the idea of spending my first Valentine’s day in US all alone. I hadn’t the heart to refuse him the dinner he asked me out for. All through the evening he fumbled, mumbled and made such an entertaining fool of himself. I wish I could do something for him, but at present he is in a state that arouses a mixture of fear, guilt, pity and confusion in me. He leaves these half sentences hanging in air, and I can well guess how they can be completed, but for our mutual sanity and peace, I purposefully ignore them. Who asked him to get into such madness?
But let us not talk about him for the moment. Oh! That cursed Varun! (She broke into sobs now.) How he broke my heart today! How could he say all that he said? All this while I considered him as the only understanding and sensible fellow! Everything is so messed up. I cannot sit here and cry on like this. (She sat up wiping her tears, and yet shaking all the same.) Plus it is getting chilly and these university cops have already passed by us twice. Let us go back to the apartment and talk there. What time is it anyway?” I saw the time. It was four am.
We reached home, walking very silently again. I was going over whatever she had said so far. I thought that like most girls do, she spent too much time on talking about trivial details. She hadn’t told me squat about what happened that night. Ruchi wasn’t back yet. Kaavya mentioned that she’ll tell me something about why Ruchi was graduating in December after I hear her story to the end. I did not press the issue.
We again sat down on the couch, and she sprinted through rest of the details before breaking down into soft sobs again. But she was too tired to cry for long and by five she decided to go to bed. I was asked to sleep on the couch, for she was scared that she would wake up and start crying again. As I lay down thinking about what she told just me (and it appears in the next episode, which is last, the finale in Kaavya series), I heard key being turned in the doorknob. I covered myself with the bedsheet, and I was planning to scare Ruchi by suddenly jumping off the couch. I heard a drunk Ruchi enter through the door with Gandharav and Mahadev. Kaavya’s outburst and events that led to it were still ablaze in my heart, when what I heard this whispered talk that annihilated a whole realm of my understanding and existance.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)