THE IMPOSTER

The letters brought in a whiff of fragranceful romance long awaited and craved for but never really experienced in its complete veracity. Life had been a never ending march of Draconian drudgeries where emotional entanglements were perceived as luxurious extravaganza and hence kept at bay. Habits of a middle class existence die hard! This chance penmanship, though a refreshing and much needed change, could not, therefore, bypass the scathing scanner of heavy handed pragmatism and hard hitting realism. In the beginning, the words, however endearing, seemed superfluous. Every letter was carefully weighed and each alphabet critically evaluated by the recipient. The intent and pros and cons of every message minutely delved into and analyzed.

But heart subscribes to no rules. It took much cajoling and coaxing on the part of the writer to disarm the warrior and initiate a soft, supple symbiotic rapport. Of course! The full credit for this strenuous exercise went to the writer’s literary acumen who could at last drag the carcass out of the ashes of a dying fire. The inked words soon overcame all inhibitions of prolonged spinsterhood and lackluster lifestyle. Gradually fond imageries intercepted the magical expressions. The missive became the voice of a faceless persona. Every intonation and inflection of unspoken promise reverberated with intricate acoustics and silence assumed heightened significance and imaginary feel. The time was now ripe. Distant dreams nurtured in the seclusion of lonely nights were soon to become the truism of life. Friendship could not remain subservient to postal fancies any longer. A rendezvous was imperative. Much care was taken to make the first impression favourable and memorable. Though the minds had already met but physical deception could not be allowed to mar the intimacy of consensual thinking.

The wait in the midst of a busy market place was too protracted and attracted attentions of the curious passers by. The hot humid summer’s day rolled by in languid pace. Dusk descended bearing a premonition of ominous doom. The moon drooped down with a fading sheen and tired steps returned home.

The letters stopped. The end was as abrupt as the beginning. A foggy mind exhausted its last remnant of rationale figuring out why it happened the way it did. Days passed by. Days of lonely lingering lament and apathy! The scorching sun breathed a sigh of relief as rains gushed in and flooded the vagabond roads and gullies. It was again a chance occasion that one of the missives, slightly blotched and blurred in places now, carrying a faded address, popped out of a box, stowed away in a dark corner of the store, in a fit of anger mixed with despair.

Hope snuggled once again in a broken heart. An irresistible desire of a second visit could not be suppressed. The journey was too long and tiresome, leaving the comfort zone of a much accustomed cityscape and venturing into rustic mediocrity. At last the destination was reached. A dilapidated shamble in the midst of a desolate landscape; a languishing reminder of an indolent, feudal past stared at the face. The entrance door dangled precariously from broken, corroded hinges. An untended garden with overgrown grass and weed, almost overshadowing the ruins, completed the picture of desertion. A light push drew strange eerie sound. A lazy, brown cat, disturbed out of his nap, let out a contemptuous meaow and strode past. The place looked uninhabited for ages.

A few moments of indecision and a pair of hapless feet were just about to retrace back when somebody spoke from behind,”Who do you want, Didi?” An old man, hunched back and tattered and torn, had appeared out of nowhere. A hurried spate of queries and explanations and the truth spilled over. The abandoned residence belonged to the erstwhile village overlords. Nobody resided here anymore except him, a self appointed caretaker, who had once served the feudal masters.

A few months back a stranger from the city did come over and frequented the periphery for a while. He said he was a writer desperately wanting to have the feel of an isolated existence. The old man pointed a gnarled finger at the cool shade of an ancient tree with thick foliage, “The Babu would sit under that tree and write long letters for hours. Later he would ask me to post them from the village post office which was miles away. I would take the pain in return of a few extra coins. I once asked him who he writes to. He would generally evade an answer but one evening in a state of inebriated leisure he confessed he did not know who he was writing to. It was just that he was building the plot for his next novel which revolved round a lonely lover pining for his beloved. It was important for him to find the long lost lover in his own self to give realistic hues to his fictional maneuver. That is why the letters. It was not at all relevant who it was written to. The choice of recipient was just random. More important and meaningful were the feel, the mood and the temperament. So said the Babu! Strange are the ways of the educated city dwellers!” Sighed the age-worn man and limped inside.

The dark clouds gathering in the horizon gave hints of a torrential downpour. The initial bout was hesitant giving way to a vigorous pour. The aqua bristles were like darts pinching the cold body. But the figure neither moved nor stirred but stood erect in the lashing rain. An almost palpable shame of being used and betrayed crept up her spine and coursed through her limbs spreading through her veins and scalding her skin. Infinite minutes ticked away in the swallowing darkness. At last the dark silhouette swayed and bowed like the blades of the trees bending reluctantly to the whims of a cyclonic storm. She bent over and stooped low. Her body racked with endless sobs. The saline tears mingling in a puddle of muddy water below her feet, seeping into the soil that her toes clutched desperately for support. The thirst-ridden cracks of crusty layers were satiated by an interminable swig of rain and tears.

It was after many, many years that one fine afternoon a bonfire in the kitchen corner saw the end of the luckless affair……….

SPEAK YOUR HEART OUT: IT'S DIFFERENT

http://vanderloost.blogspot.com/2010/04/its-different.html

HOMEBOUND............AT LAST

I do not know why Mr. R always takes the wrong turn and looses his way at Gyaraah Murthy. It’s late and the roads are almost empty except a few cars zooming past. Not a single passer-by whom we can ask the route or the right direction.


Mr. R looks confused and squints into the darkness. There’s light afar, right at the end of the road, where it merges into another famous roundabout of the Capital. All roads look similar here. Dark parallel stretches of tree-lined avenues merging into these merry-go-rounds – the circular green oases heavily dotting the cityscape at regular intervals.


The high beams from the vehicles speeding past intervenes with the darkness. But these are sporadic, shifting patches of light desperately trying to fight with but in the long run getting sucked into the all engulfing black cesspool of the moonless night. The road is wide flanked by open land, green in daylight, now merely dark silhouettes looming large against the night sky.


Its mid December. Bitterly cold. Sitting late in the office is not my choice-work-culture but Mr. R, in whose car we all pool in, leaves us with no other choice as he loves to pretend hard work after office hours. Alternate transport is next to nil. Result - stuck up at Gyaraah Murthy, hungry, angry and late.


K sleeps peacefully. It’s cozy inside the car. The windows are pulled up. We are five of us in a Maruti 800 including Mr. R who myopically scans the desolate landscape and suddenly asks “Isko Gyaraah Murthy kyon kahate hain?”


What difference does it make Mr. R whether it is Baarah Murthy or Teen Murthy once you have lost your way!!! I curse the Government silently and its decision to decentralize the commercial and office areas of the city without sufficient transport network connecting to the residential suburbs.


Mr. R rotates the steering wheel indecisively. A, his secretary, tries to guide him to the right direction. A futile exercise as he is as knowledgeable as our driver is. I, who is famous for loosing my way home, do not want to enlighten Mr. R with my superior road sense.


A few more minutes pass by in indecision. Mr. R takes a turn. We move on in the darkness knowing not whether it is the right way. I try to lighten the atmosphere with an “amusing anecdote”.

Another desolate, winter night. A long, winding stretch of dark road. An autowallah is returning home when he is stopped by a beautiful girl dressed in bridal attire. She flaunts a cascade of long mane rippling down to her waist and a beatific smile to compliment her breath taking looks. She requests the auto driver to drop her home a short distance away as her car has suddenly broken down and the thoughtful driver has toed the vehicle away to the Workshop leaving her waiting in the darkness. She is scared and pleads help. The driver takes pity and agrees to drop her.


Although it’s a short run, the journey seems interminably long and the end of the road progressively distant. It is odd the way the young girl is left alone on the dark, discarded road and the driver disappearing with the car before finding her a suitable transport. The drivers, nowadays, are irresponsible and do not have any sense of propriety, muses the auto wallah.


It is also surprising the way the girl is dressed. Her adornments twinkle in the dark interiors of the auto. Is she running away from her home? Or planning to elope with somebody who has failed to turn up at the last moment? Disheartened the girl has decided to return home to her parents….or perhaps……something else…..something more ordinary, mundane, least exciting. The autowallah races on as does his mind. Whatever the reasons may be he feels sorry for her. He has a daughter too. A young girl of her age. The girl seems upset and perhaps uneasy too. There is a kind of restrained remorse about her. As though she is in mourning.


The auto-driver tries to pick up a conversation with her to alleviate her uneasiness. But the girl seems reluctant to talk and replies only in monosyllables. The driver still carries on. A kind of soliloquy. At least the journey will come to an end faster if a dialogue, nay a monologue, is struck, so thinks the autowallah.


He talks of the latest price hike…. the rising price of vegetables…. the survival of the poor is at stake…. the Government is doing nothing……the politicians are just making money and filling up their pockets…..and then the disparities……look at the way people squander money!!!!!!!!!…….the film stars, the politicians……the rich and the famous…………and of course these serials………….spoiling the children……he has bought a new TV on installments……but now he feels it’s a mistake……the children only want to watch serials and refuse to study…..and what serials, mem’saab…..the other night they show a girl stopping a car in the dead of the night…she beguiles the driver to give her a lift…………..and takes him away to a jungle and suddenly vanishes into thin air………….but before the disappearing act as she picks up her long dress to disembark from the vehicle her feet are visible ………………”woh chudail this uske paaon ulte the!………(she was a witch with upturned feet!)”


At this juncture of this one-sided conversation, the young girl suddenly puts forward her feet. and asks “jaise mere hain?(like mine?”………………………The auto takes a sudden wild turn, lurches forward and almost does a vault on its rear wheels and then blank…..nothingness……… Regaining consciousness the driver finds himself at the ridge in the other end of the city, lying spread eagled on the rugged terrain hidden by a cluster of thorny bush, his uniform torn and his wallet gone; his auto lies at a distance upturned, the front wheel of the three wheeler almost stuck into a scraggy tree.


Mr. R, who has been listening to the story intently, is unusually quiet. He turns a bend and almost rams into a lone figure standing in the middle of the road. He jams on the brakes. A girl frantically gesturing for a lift. Her long hair sways in serpentine coils against the backdrop of the night sky inadequately lit by the distant stars. Her face is almost invisible in the half light. Mr. R swears under his breath and swerves the car to the left with a jerk. A fraction of a second. The girl is missed by an inch of a space. Narrow escape!! K jolts up with a start and asks where we are. We fill her in. She responds quickly and points the right direction. Mr. R takes a screeching U turn and accelerates. We speed up at last homeward.



Post Script: Mr. R. is avoiding Baraah Murthy since then and we are leaving office an hour early now.

IT'S DIFFERENT

The old man leans heavily on the rickety stick and limps his way to the park in the early morning hours. He staggers on his arthritic legs and balances his scrawny body with measured care so that the small packet which he carries in hand does not spill over on the road. Once he reaches the park, he stoops down painfully in one corner over a bald patch of land which has been deliberately kept like that by the meticulous gardener. He puckers his lips and makes beckoning sounds and sometimes he whistles softly. At the same time he slips his hand inside the packet and brings out a handful of green and golden beads of grain letting them trickle through his gnarled fingers slowly and spread over the patch in an elliptical pattern. This goes on for sometime till the cluster of birds hovering up, but close to the ground, finally decide to swoop down flapping their wings and settle quietly on the green-golden mound; one or two perch on the old man’s shoulders; at last they begin pecking the grains slowly, steadily, unperturbed and unafraid.

The half blind gardener with an injured leg, who has a make-shift hut in the corner of the park, is often seen chasing the wicked gang of mischief mongers. The rogues pluck the flowers off the trees, plunder the flowerbeds, catch the butterflies and squeeze them between their thumbs and forefingers whooping with wreckless joy. He roars and runs after them brandishing a rugged log pulling his fractured leg along (which I’m afraid may never ever heal completely again) as fast as he can. The onlookers have a good laugh at the oft-repeated enactment. Some come forward with a word of advice or two when they see him doubled up under a tree gasping for breath after a futile chase. But the gardener says he can hear the plaintive cry of the flowers when they are torn off the branch or trampled under careless feet. He says he has heard the butterflies screaming in pain when they are squashed between ruthless fingers and the trees stifling a sob when the sharp silver edge of the axe strikes a blow. Neighbours think he is off his head. But I know he speaks the truth.

My aunt Philomena! She picks up the bundles of dirty, oozy fur-balls and brings them home. She tells them stories and sometimes croons softly while applying those red, yellow, dark brown liquids and pastes on their wounds. When they slip out of her clutch she runs after them with the spray can in hand. Interminable arguments on hygiene and sanitation and the neighbours have given up. But not my aunt Philomena!

The boy lives down the lane. The boy with the dreamy eyes loiters aimlessly in the sun. I have seen him playing hide and seek with the jumpy squirrels. He picks up the tadpoles from the puddle caressing them with delicate warmth. In the blazing afternoons, he bathes the skulking mongrels in the alley with a gushing hose pipe. They sprint away and he after them flooding the streets and the pavements. Sometimes he squats on the mound of dried leaves and looks on with vacant eyes. At other times, he rummages the garbage looking for the truant kitten that has missed her daily grub of milk and bread. His mother pulls him by the ears and drags him home. The next day he is back again amidst his vagabond friends.

The scatter-brained professor stares absently at the ripples laced heavily with foam. An obnoxious odour rises from the waterbed and fills the air. After a while it is suffocating. The scorching sun turns a blinding ball of gold and the stink spreads like an incurable disease. The foams coagulate into a kind of floating islands of waste and stench. At this bend, the river has a hesitant, almost halting gait, as though exhausted by its course of journey. Passers by sometimes stop short and look at the still figure curiously. A few pat him on the back and ask what it is that troubles him. The man’s face contorts in pain as he whispers pointing a finger at the tired flow “Can’t you see? Why don’t you let her off the burden?”

They are sneered, jeered snorted at and sometimes feared. The old, bent man in the park is often told not to venture out alone. He may slip and fall. The gardener has almost been written off by the residents. My aunt Philomena is a constant threat to her sterile neighbourhood. The boy gives sleepless nights to his parents. The mad professor has more than once been caught accosting the factory owners, shouting wildly “Let her off the burden! Let her off the burden!”
The misunderstood lot!

Those who tiptoe on the grass with careworn steps lest they trip on a dozing ant. Those who place their ears against the breeze and listen to the murmurs of the surround. Those who look at the sky and touch the clouds, smile with the moon and sing with the stars. Those who pick up the dew drops in their palms so that they don’t fall on the dusty ground. Those who speak to the bees and caress the trees and place their cheeks on the leaves and tickle the river with tingling tips and sing a lullaby to the snoozing beasts. Those who have not waged wars, pillaged lives, marauded lands and squandered wealth.

Those obscure, unknown, unrewarded souls who have suffered ironies of fate in their own obedient ways. Those who have never stamped a foot on the ground they tread on and bellowed “Its mine” and left the rest behind in a whirling rage. Those who have relented to human arrogance without a protest and never complained or shown regrets. Those who have never lamented of unrequited love or the rest of the sorrows that have come their way. Those who have found solace in kind words, a petal hug or in the whimpering dog. Those who have slogged, soiled and toiled hard and wept with joy when the rains lash after a scalding summer’s day. Those who by their little deeds have sustained what little is left and rare. Those who have bestowed a new dimension to nurture and care. Those who are the healing hands of God the silent crusader of compassion and sublime love.

A STROKE OF BRAINWAVE

I want to inform all the dog-lovers and pet-owners that Neosporin Eye ointment works wonders for dogs with opthalmic infection and heavy discharge. Mr. Boots had red eyes for a very long long time which refused to be cured even after course of antibiotics not once but twice and innumerable canine eye drops and boric powder wash.

Then I had a brainwave and one foced daub of Neosporin the redness mellowed to a husky pink like a wisp of memory left behind by the melting evening sun. Applied two-three days more, the discharge stopped.

So dog lovers and pet owners of the world unite and unitedly use Neosporin E.O you have nothing to loose but the soreness of your adorable pets' eyes but of course under advice of the Vet!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

DISTANT DREAM

The moon is breathing down my neck
A slender piece of moon
Like a half eaten slice of water melon
White, snowy, sliver of icicle
Slides down the cheek of the sky
Closer to me, so that
I can lick it drop by drop
With my tongue of flame
Till I burn it down to ashes
And make her mine
Completely
So that there is no disc
Of silver
Tickling me from atop
And breathing down my neck
So says the Sun of the North Pole

GRIEF'S LESSON

When RM lost his mother he howled like a child over phone. I was “pleasantly” surprised as I could never associate crying with men folk. The patriarchs of my family are generally the undemonstrative kinds reticent in their grief and super dignified n composure under bereavement. The ethos of my family ethics is never to show any weakness in public especially tears. Breaking down or talking about one’s woes is simply something which can at best be done behind the closed doors of the bathroom with one’s “ownsome lonesome” self with the tap opened in full force. Being the product with such familial traits I have a natural (genetic?) tendency to recede into a shell when I find myself in the “anguished” mode.

It was therefore a novel experience for me when RM spoke to me at length about his mother, how kind and affectionate she was, the large number of people who came to pay their condolences (half of whom he did not even know) on hearing about her demise, the incidents of her kindness and affection that they recounted which made him proud of his parentage and at the same time remorseful and repentant that he could not spend some more time with her when she was alive, the stray moments when he had been a little impatient with her, the last hours when he incessantly chanted prayers for peaceful departure of her soul. He said he was sure his mother must have found space at the feet of Lord Krishna (RM is a staunch Vaishnavite now). He was glad too that during her last hours she was surrounded by all whom she loved dearly and who loved her dearly in return.

The usual thoughts which give solace to a grief stricken soul. But how important these thoughts are! How important it is to vent out your feelings of guilt, pain and pathos. How important it is to emote and express and accept the irreparable loss one has experienced even if it is to a chance acquaintance.

I was surprised at myself too. Generally, I am completely at a loss for words on such occasions. What to say to ameliorate such unbearable pain and isolation that passing away of a near and dear one cause? But here I was soothing him, consoling him, saying the right words which flew out as though an experienced adult was speaking to a child. We spoke for fifteen minutes, nay, exchanged grief for a quarter of an hour, at the end of which he said he felt relieved and unburdened. He cried unabashedly and confessed he felt better after the outburst; he said he felt nice talking to a person with whom he had had a long association (truth is I can count on my finger tip the number of times we have even nodded a “hullo” to each other) and shared lunch (extremely infrequently).

I was touched that he could relate to me at a time like this. In our family grief means presenting a stolid façade and pretending that everything is perfectly normal. While talking to RM I realized that it is extremely important to accept and embrace grief and loss; it helps one to get over the chasm more easily. Nurturing pain does not help and the “getting over” process becomes more painful and takes a lifetime. Though habits die hard, one can always pick up wisdom whenever life is kind enough to distribute some and mend one’s ways little by little.

RM’s outburst made me realize that there is nothing shameful in tears. Rather it is the need of the hour. I am sorry that RM has to go through this unavoidable pain which is an irrevocable truism of life. At the same time I am glad that I could touch his heart and reach out to a stricken soul when it needed the balm of consolation the most.