Conflict

We were talking about conflicts. He and I. We started with discussing the political kinds and moved across religion, love, marriage, society and finally settled on internal kind. I was lying diagonally on mattress beside the bed and he was lying on his stomach, on the bed, looking at me. I was meeting him after nine years. A lot has changed since we last met…

“What are you thinking right now?” he asked

“Hmmm… how do you handle if you body, mind and mind are in conflict?” I replied.

“Mind and Mind?”

“Yes, some people may say heart and mind, but I prefer mind and mind cause that is what is happening right?”

“I don’t understand… explain.” He said adjusting the pillow under his chin.

“Let me try. Now that X and I are no longer together and it has been some days. One part of my mind congratulates me on handling it so well, keeping it neutral, some resemblance of moving on, but other part still stays there. It is like there is a conflict going in me. The ache stays. My life is divided yet running parallel. What I don’t understand is why the mind easily tricks you to coexist with two sides. The dull ache stays with the world fading in and out. He has become like the aroma I get every evening as I stand in my balcony from my neighbour’s kitchen. It wafts through, even when I desperately don’t want it to, envelops me and makes me crave for food. I can’t see it but it tempts me, even irritates me on my inability to stop, not to smell, not to feel hungry. It scares me. What if this will never become better? The heartache will creep up on me and rot me… like a wall with termites. Slowly but steadily.”

He turned on his back and stayed silent. I could see his cigarette smoke going up and disappearing but at the same time suffocating me with the pungent smell.

“And…?”


“And the next moment I feel as if I am really moving on, life feels more cheerful, I hum to myself, smile at strangers and feel tres passionnée towards Y and feel at peace with myself for doing the right thing. If it’s so right, then why does it hurt so much?”

“You have really started thinking too much. I never knew you were so profound,” he replied keeping a poker face.

Unsure of taking it as an offense, jibe or compliment, I asked with a smile,” If I am boring you so much, why didn’t you say so?”

He removed the pillow from under the chin and spoke staring at me,” You know Coco Chanel said – ‘Jump out the window if you are the object of passion. Flee it if you feel it. Passion goes, boredom remains.’ But to answer your question, no, you are not boring me and you have not become a bore. Yet.”

I turned on my stomach and replied staring back at him,” Then I am sure you must also know what Confucius said?”

“What?”

I smiled at him. Again

“He says ‘Virtuous people often revenge themselves for the constraints to which they submit by the boredom which they inspire.’”

He threw the pillow back at me.

Rain on my window

I woke up to the sound of water. It was raining. At first I thought it was the terrace water tank overflowing again. My landlady has this habit of putting on the water pump at oddest hours, sometimes in the middle of night and suddenly you are jolted awake to the sound of falling water. I yawned and looked at the watch 11:45 pm. Well, not that late. The sound was much softer than gushing water and pulling the curtain, sitting on the elevated verandah next to my bed, I saw minute droplets of water spraying on the glass window…

I love rains. They make me nostalgic, happy, pensive and romantic in equal measures. My earliest memory of rains is jumping deliberately into water puddles in an oversized raincoat (to save my school bag as well from getting wet) and splashing the brown muddy water all over the white uniform. I used to love the fact that we were allowed to remove our wet and queasy shoes and socks at school on rainy days. The rough school floor always had a strange comfortable feel to it. The phone beeped, breaking my thoughts.

X had messaged asking if I was sleeping…

“I am a one man woman, I can’t even think of breaking someone’s trust”, I retorted to D. We were lying on the bed, too full after lunch at my place. The stillness gave some time for the food to settle into the inter-molecular spaces and allowed us to move again. “Hmmm… it is hard to remain in one state, be it for a human, or a feeling. You never know…”
That was four years back.

Now I surprise myself into wondering how can one person love two people at the same time? And if it’s wrong why doesn’t it feel wrong to be with X, why does his touch feels so good, or why when he kisses me, my knees give a funny feeling? I feel the same way about Y. Sometimes I wonder is this what it feels like…bittersweet… when you have tiny cracks in your glass wall.

“No, I am awake. Looking at the rain.”
“I miss you”
“Me too”
I wish I could kiss you X, feel your lips over mine, feel your skin, the way you smell immediately after you shave, the mixture of aftershave and soap, I wish I could hold you tight. I also wish I could go back in time and have my perfect glass wall again.

I sighed and went back to bed… Y was snoring softly. I spooned into him and snuggled into a deep comforting sleep.

Tale of two cities

I was looking out of the small window and saw rain striking the glass obliquely, making slant watery lines as they got washed away due to high speed. It was shaky and I clutched the handles of my seat inspite of going through the drill innumerous times. I always get butterflies when a plane takes off. It is the mild version of the giant wheel for me. (It is also a scarier version, since have seen enough programmes on Discovery Channel on airplane crashes). I was flying from Mumbai to Kolkata. Nowadays I try to live a double life in its truest form. Shuttling between Kolkata and Mumbai. Work is divided, friends are divided, love is divided and even lovers are divided between these two cities…

“God I missed you”
“Well… doesn’t feel like it. You hardly call.”
“I always reply to your messages”
“Should I say thank you?”
X kissed me on my forehead as a reply.
“You know I am a married woman”
Kiss on the cheeks
“You also know that I have a low opinion of men”
Kiss on the eyes
“I have decided, I am going become a nun”
He silenced me with a kiss on the lips.
“You can’t become a nun dear when you kiss like that”
“Hmmm”
“Feeling guilty?”
“Hmmm. Lets go out; sitting with you here can only lead to one place.”

I just looked at him while sipping my tea. I think we both realized how much we missed each other. I was leaving in an hour – to Kolkata. I said, “So, till we meet again. Miss me”.

Is there a way I can have my cake and keep it too?

SexyKnees.com

This is not a link to kinky site (all you perverted oldies out there you), not a fashion site, not even a site dedicated to arthritis where they give tips on how to relieve knee pain and make them look sexy again. This is just an account of a girl who has just realized that she is really low on all the moral values ma taught (sorry ma, but I really was never made out of sati savitri material) and has just discovered the best function of knees—how they turn into jelly when you are being kissed. There are guilty pleasures everyone has, some secretly enjoy all those bitchy and regressive saans bahu serials, some enjoy kinky sex, some like reading M&B novels on the sly (mostly men who sneak with one from their wives enroute the loo). Mine is being kissed, by X. It gives me goosebumps, prickles my skin, gets my hormones racing and most important gives me jelly knees. He may be a bad lover but he is a good kisser.

I missed it so much with you Y, why the hell don’t you just take me in your arms and give me sexy knees again?

Ear to Ear

It started as a slight flicker, a strange sensation as if a mosquito is moving its wing at high frequency. I ignored it. Next day it increased, it felt as if the passageway inside is as bad as western express highway. Then it hit… with all its force. The bloody cold choked my ears and there I was … half deaf and howling with pain. Everyone was coming with their own advice ofcourse. It has ranged from “Don’t take anything, it will go away” (yeah, right, easy for you to say. I am the one who is already dead with these demons banging their hammers into my ear drum), “take Otec and these antibiotics and follow the whole course beta” to “just put some warm brandy into the ear, and it will clear”.

Personally I liked the last option (due to my inherent attraction towards alcohol I guess), but didn’t have the guts to try it, so stuck to second one… not that it is helping. It is surprising what all comes to your mind when you are lying in a corner howling with pain and can’t help it. At that point of time, precisely these thoughts came into my mind in chronological order:

Ma: Yes, very natural, childish and immature but I wanted Mommy! Nothing more, but just to rest my head on her lap. Sometimes I wonder what I will do when she is gone. Ofcourse she lives like 500km away, but still it is like when love is gone, there is force. When force is gone there is chocolate, and when chocolate also goes away… there is Ma.

Marriage, Babies, X and Y: I am petrified of marriage and contrary to all my friends, who simply adore babies, I am not so gung-ho about them. I like babies for exactly 5 minutes, after that they usually cry, pee, shit or poke their finger into your eye. If I ever made a movie starring me and X and Y what would my picture look like? D says we will have original starcast: sure the credits would run something like starring “me” (fat but can dance well – very important in Hindi cinema), X (balding hero, can deliver mean dialogues) and Y (good looking, in an unconventional sort of way, but needs some practice in romance dept). Hmm… won’t work. Sigh!

What is the first memory I can remember? I back tracked and found out that surprisingly, it neither has my mom nor dad but my grandfather’s brother scolding me in the rain! I don’t remember my age… maybe 2-3 years old and it’s pouring with hailstones and I think I went outside started eating them (hailstones). Maybe it stems from childhood, but I always find hailstones fascinating. When science was a mystery, always thought god is having a snow fight.

No good programme comes on TV when you most need it and lastly

Where the hell is my phone!

Taxi

It was raining heavily. I could see the driver wiping the foggy windscreen of the taxi frequently… his wiper was not working. Inspite of the dirt and filth lying around in Mumbai, rains always manage to give the city a clean look. It looks as if the city is taking a bath after a long and dusty playtime outside. Contrary to the soothing feeling I get by the sound of falling raindrops, today it hardly made a difference. My heart felt as if it was going to jump out of my chest.

He called me yesterday night, asking me to receive him at the station. It was the first time he had gone ahead of his deliberate casual attitude towards everything… towards me. I would be lying if I say it didn’t please me. I looked at the rearview mirror and did a mental check – Kajal, check. Lipstick, check. A little of cleavage was showing… I didn’t care. I was wearing blue and smiled when I realized it was his favourite colour (God! I was acting like a funny teenager). I was sure he wouldn’t even notice it. A loud screech of brakes and sound of the taxi splashing through a huge puddle jerked me out of my reverie.

He had met me a year before… can’t even remember what attracted me towards him in the first place. Doesn’t have the looks or the disposition. He says he doesn’t love me, neither do I. But I did miss him a lot when he was away. Should I tell this to him or not? The rain had stopped and I jumped over the pools of muddy water that had formed everywhere to reach the platform and do what I could … wait.

I spotted him struggling with his 2 bags and walking towards me; we searched for a taxi and just bundled up…luggage and all in the back seat towards his home. Sometimes I think if he never lived alone, we would definitely not be meeting like this. Not a time for self reflection I thought and turned towards him. The first thing I noticed was he had mosquito bites on his neck

“Well, I thought there were fewer mosquitoes at home than here in Mumbai?”
“Well, since you were not there to leave any marks, the mosquitoes did”
“Very funny!”
“Do you want me stay?” I asked
“Upto you. It is always your choice”
“Ok”

I decided not to. Stay that is. Even when he kissed me and asked me to stay.
“Station chalo”, I told the cabbie to catch the nearest local to my home.

If it was just a passing thing, why did it hurt so much to hear those words? Was I going back on my own resolve? That I wouldn’t take this seriously, I wouldn’t take him seriously. Where does that leave me? Was I being true to myself? Is the emotion I see flickering in his eyes for it vanishes just as quickly – love? If not then what? Why are we still together? It was not suppose to last for more than a month and yet here we are, not able to break away. I am going insane? Too many questions and no answers I thought as I left one train of thought to catch a real one.