Arranged affair

Bijith Nair furtively tossed a sugar cube into his insipid tea, and tilted his head towards the right, from where he could get a clear view to the door of his kitchen.

He could see the slouched back of his wife; her round figure taking up every inch of the viewing space that the doorway allowed. The way her arms and elbows moved in measured swings, he predicted she was chopping something.

Noticing she hadn't been keeping an eye on him, he quickly added another white lump to his tea and stirred it delicately, ensuring that the spoon didn't hit the bottom or the circular-frame of his ceramic cup. The clanging would draw her attention.  

Somehow, today, he did not want her to know that he was finding it difficult to resist this sweet temptation that diabetes had long denied. Sugar reminded him of love and may be that’s how he felt now, but she didn't need to know that, not yet. 

He was about to reach for his cup, when she called out to him, “Biju! Should I give you porridge or cornflakes for breakfast?”

“They both sound hmmm…,” Bijith struggled for a word, and after a few seconds of vacuous thinking, came up with “…very delicious! I can’t decide. Why don’t you choose my poison?”

It was meant to be sarcastic, but it almost, came across as complimentary. Why else, would she mutter a polite “Thanks”.

Krishna never got his sarcasm, but even after 42 years of marriage, Bijith hadn’t stopped trying. It made him feel accomplished and more involved in the decision-making at home. If Krishna ruled the house with an iron hand, Bijith liked to believe that he ruled the house with sarcasm, one that was mostly lost to her and his kids’ untrained ears. Nonetheless, he had made his point, and to Bijith that seemed more important. 

Now, sipping into the sweet concoction, he was reminded of the heady days of his youth, when love was not singularly bestowed on any one woman. Though most of them had either ended tragically or comically, except for the arrangement his parents had fixed with Krishna. Their marriage had always seemed like an amicably agreed upon deal. Nothing of real consequence, especially romantic, had ever been exchanged between Krishna and him. Suresh and Shiva happened to them during those rare occasions when they were overcome by passion or call it lust. Love was a word only hanging in the air; it all felt more like comfort. And yet in all these years, she had been the only one who mattered. Though, something always felt amiss. And until yesterday, he had never figured out what.

He smiled and got up from his dining seat, moving towards the large French window, which opened to his balcony.

Bijith never drank his tea at the table; it was always outside from where he could see the compound. And because his building shared space with a school, the ground was always home to children running amok either during PE class or recess.   

“What happened? Why exactly are you smiling to yourself?” Krishna asked, interrupting the string of thoughts running through his head.

“Nothing…just remembered something amusing,” he said, his mind straying again.

“Since yesterday, I have been noticing you…suddenly behaving strange.”

Krishna was sly, he knew. She could read him easily, or probably, he gave out too much. This time around, he had to act with caution or he’d risk letting her know.

“Stop over-thinking,” he said, “Breakfast ready? I need to step out in a while.”

Walking on the jagged pavement of Mumbai’s Fort area, inside the arched stone-walled gateway, Bijith thought of what happened yesterday. He met Sharda right here, while he was out on a stroll, like he was today. Sharda looked just like she had when he last saw her over 40 years ago. They had dated briefly, before she was married to an Army man. Though it had been a long time since, meeting her hadn’t felt strange at all. It all still seemed so familiar and fresh. It was hard not to draw comparisons with Krishna. Especially since the two women had once been close friends in college. Unlike his wife, whose skin fell into lose folds on her face, Sharda’s was still taut. The passing years had barely done her any damage. Only the silver strands that intermittently emerged from the long black of her hair, told the story of her ageing. She had been widowed five years ago, and lived alone in the city after having lost her only son in the battlefield.

They had promised to meet again today. He had been anticipating this moment since last night. She would come. They would smile. Somethings would be exchanged. An untold story would bloom again.

Sharda hadn’t disappointed; in fact, she had come before time.

“Hi,” he said. She could make out that he was nervous; Bijith was toying with his own hands. “I have been thinking about us since yesterday,” she said.

“So have I,” he muttered.

“Strange…we met again.”

“There’s always a reason,” he interjected.

She handed him a small note.

“This really helped me,” she said, “but I don't think, it was meant for me.”
"Thank you Sharda.”
They hugged awkwardly. “Hope to meet you again,” he said, before they parted one last time.

That afternoon, when he got home, he slipped the note into a book that his wife had been reading. She would find it later; he cared little about her reaction. He just wanted her to know something that he himself had forgotten.

It was dated July 19, 1971. It read:

Dear Sharda,

Thank you for the wedding invitation. Am glad you are moving on, and marrying that Army guy. I hope you have forgiven me for breaking your heart. I was so foolishly infatuated with you, that I had forgotten what it was to love. It’s funny how my wedding was eventually fixed with a friend of yours, who I didn’t bother to give a second glance while in college. We have been married for a month now and for once, I think am really in love. 
Am just saying that love happens, and mostly when we least expect. It doesn’t need to happen the way we would have wished it to happen, nor does it have to feel like how we want it to feel. I am so comfortably in love that Krishna doesn’t even know. May be, she might never know, but does it matter. I hope the same for you and your husband.   

Best wishes,

Bijith (and Krishna)

Love magnet!

Sometimes, love outsmarts you. Or rather, the people who love you, outsmart you. Especially, when you feel that there is only this much "love" that you could possibly receive in this lifetime, (may be a little less or more) and then suddenly "Love" comes knocking at your door and won't leave until you realise that love in itself is limitless and that "people who love you" will ensure that you always have an appetite to receive more love, regardless of how much you think you can hold.  

Okay, so much said about love. (Already repeated the word eight times in one paragraph). Sigh! I am so overwhelmed that I think am going loony. 

Cutting my 27th birthday cake with baby Adya. If mom saw
this, she'd have some "wise words" for me.

But sweet things have happened over the last couple of weeks and the ones who have gone out of their way to make me happy (they know who they are...am not dropping names) probably realise why I am writing this particular post. Yes, because they were the source of all this love! And now that I have turned 27 - my number "9" year - it just feels like I owe them so much more than just a "thank you". So, I shall pen down all that is running in my head because this influx is making my brain go numb.  

Well, it all started on July 24, the morning I was to arrive in Mumbai for a week-long break from Muscat. Two of my really close friends and my brother, welcomed me with hand-made garlands that they had meticulously stitched together while waiting for my predictably-delayed Air India flight to reach base. Since that day on, I've had little reason to not smile...thanks to all the wonderful and special people I met in my home city. It all seemed magical till it lasted and I really owe them for that.   

And yesterday, my friends in Muscat sealed this state of mine and gave it a sense of permanence. So, no matter what happens, I will never forget this day. I finally have an amusing "birthday story" to tell my kids, of how an "entire mall" conspired to wish me on the eve of the 27th year of my birth.    

The August 8th - one friend called it Jane Jayanthi and strangely, it turned out that way - surprise began with my close friends cum colleagues, asking me to join them at a mall to shop for an impending baby-shower of another co-worker. So I headed to the retail outlet at the mall with my lovely friend (the lady in red), and we were scanning through baby items while waiting for the rest to join us when a nine-year-old boy approached me from nowhere, asking: "Are you Jane?" 

I nodded, confused. The next second, he popped out a rose and an envelope: "Happy Birthday," he said and sneakily escaped. 

I read the letter tucked inside the envelope. It said: 

"Jane is gonna go crazy...Seek the store where creativity meets cocoa. Linda and Elaine have something for you."

With the surprise party, after the surprise

I looked at my friend; she stared at me blankly, trying so hard to look shocked and feign ignorance (great actor, must say). 
By now, I realised this was no "baby shower shopping". "Well, you are on a trail birthday girl," she warned. 

What followed was me hopping from a chocolate shop to a coffee house, then an Italian-stationery store and cake shop, before finally landing up at the food court, collecting clues, gifts and birthday wishes from store keepers on my way. 
At the end of it, I looked like a walking-talking goodie bag with a "Happy Birthday" balloon in tow, making all the kids at the mall envious of me. (For a change, someone was checking me out, even if it were babies...okay, very cougarish...sorry!)

The icing on the cake quite literally was the Irish coffee cake that was waiting for me, along with the "baby shower shoppers". Apparently, the boy who handed me the rose recorded my entire treasure trail on the Nikon camera. I know now that he'd do a good job, when he has a girl friend. All in all, it was such an incredible day that it needed to be saved for posterity on this blog. 

To top it all, I received a message from "Notes from The Universe" (Read: www.tut.com) in my inbox last night; it read:  

"See, Jane? 
I told you everything was lining up for you; that the right people were headed your way; that the right things would be said; that you'd become a total love magnet; and that very little of this would be apparent as it was unfolding, yet in hindsight you'd see the stunning perfection. 
It's just that right now, you're mostly in the unfolding part. 
All is according to plan"

P.S. At the back of my head, am thinking, well...I think I am a "love magnet" after all!

Paper Hearts

It's 2'o clock in the morning; too late to hit the bed, and too early to rise. Outside, water from tonight's downpour drums the aluminum awning of my balcony, jarring my weakened ears.
There was a time when I spent the wakeful hours of my night watching the rains from across the balcony; now, I liked staying in bed, even if I was sleepless. Because I feared that if I stood on the rain-wet mosaic tiles, I would probably fall. Old-age had killed small joys.
My neighbour, this ravishing woman, loved the rains more than me. When we were kids, she would knock on our door on rainy evenings and plead and beg mother to allow me to come down with her.
“Aunty, aunty...Michael promised to sail paper boats with me. Please let him come,” she'd say
My mother agreed, though reluctantly. She knew that I would catch a fever soon after, but “if the rains bring you both closer” she'd tell me, “let the fever be the sacrifice.”
“Someday Tracey and you will get married and I will be a happy woman,” she'd joke.
“Lady, stop messing with my son's head,” my father would butt-in, “The D'lima queen wouldn't allow such a union...over her dead body.” My mother always ignored him.
You see, Tracey was “aspirational”. Her father, Dr Ralph D'lima, was a renowned doctor during my parent's time; one of those, just short of having a street named after him. His stories of bravado and kind-heartedness were told to children as bed-time stories. The local hero, he was most remembered for saving scores of dying men during the plague that hit Bombay in 1897.
Mother never spared a day reminding me how Dr D'lima had once made room for plague-ridden patients in his own house – much to the disapproval of his wife Linda – when there was a shortage of beds in the hospital. Mother's brother David was one of those who had found refuge in the D'lima home. He died soon after, nestled in the arms of Dr D'lima – it was a good death, she claimed.
His wife Linda, on the other hand, was the local anti-hero. One belonging to the crème de la crème of the Goan society, and boasting of lineage to a mayor in the city, she kept to herself and never once indulged in empty conversations with her neighbours. 
The only time she spoke to mother was to reprimand her, when she thought I had kissed her six-year-old daughter.
“Keep his filthy lips off my daughter's,” she had warned mother, after she had seen Tracey scribble something in her Math book. “Michael + Tracey = Kiss,” she had written.
“Is this what you teach your son Mrs Coutinho?,” Linda had asked mother.
My mother was unaffected. In fact, she considered it a personal victory and later, gifted me a chocolate bar for hastening her plans of seeing me as a D'lima son-in-law. “But I didn't kiss her,” I clarified.
“Son, let Linda believe that you did,” she said.
Though after that incident, I really saw very little of Tracey. Except during the monsoons, when her devil mother escaped for a break to her hometown in Calangute. That's when her father allowed her to play with me. 
As far as I remember, monsoon is the only memory I have of Tracey. We sailed paper boats, and Tracey almost, always won. My boat would drown somewhere, mid-way, causing her to break into peals of laughter.
“Loser!” she yelled. I wouldn't say anything in retort. All I did was to muster a smile, which I knew, kept her from teasing me further. But she got so nervous that she'd quickly add, “Stop smiling will you...I hate your smile.” That girl couldn't even lie with a straight face.
Post monsoons, Tracey and I would behave like we didn't know each other. When our eyes locked briefly at church during Sunday service, she'd put her head down immediately. Whom were we appeasing? Linda, I presume.
Then, in the summer of 1909, Linda suddenly vanished with 12-year-old Tracey. Nobody knew what happened. A rumour doing the rounds was that Linda had found love again, in a local Goan musician, and the couple had eloped to England fearing wrath from family. Dr D'Lima never denied or confirmed the rumour. “It could be true,” he casually told me once, when I innocently asked him, while trying to fish for information on Tracey's whereabouts.

Nine years later, when Dr D'Lima died of a cardiac arrest, Tracey surprisingly returned home. This time with a young man Luis and an infant. She had been married for two years. I smiled when I saw her. She didn't react. Since then, Tracey has been living next door. We never smiled, we rarely spoke.

My mother, before dying, thanked her stars for not praying too hard for a union between me and “that Linda's girl”. “She turned out to be just like her mom,” my mother said, “She would have left you one day...I swear on Jesus Christ, she would.”
But Tracey wasn't anything like her mother. Why else would she stick around with a drunkard-of-a-husband for 45-long years. Luis died last month. I didn't attend the funeral, so I don't know whether Tracey cried. But word has it that she did. Her daughter, who lives in Australia, hadn't come on the occasion. And poor Tracey grieved alone, I was told.

Why am I telling you all this? No idea.
Because had I known that Tracey would knock on my door a little while later, this would have seemed like a perfect prequel to the end, right?

“Can we sail paper boats?” she asked, when I opened the door of my flat.
“Now! This late in the night?” I was shocked, but could do little to hide the smile.
She looked at me nervously, her hands fiddling with the few lose sheets of paper she had brought along. “I hate that smile of yours.”
“We can go on lying Tracey....we can go on lying.”
“Or,” she interrupted, “...We can sail paper boats.

The inevitability of possibilities

While sipping into my mug of coffee, I wondered how it would be to see you, right now, in front of me, like you used to be, in the world that was five decades younger. I spared a moment to feel how you felt, when my fingers reached out for the strands of your wispy brown hair; I remember then, how your pale skin would redden; but was it blush or an embarrassed glow, you didn't tell.

But then you didn't say a lot of things. I probably, always assumed you said them - often imagining them to be good - because it made “me” happy and “us” seem perfect.

I forgot that every coin has an another side, one that I, out of habit, rarely flipped to see. So when you didn't show up one day, I had to go back to the coin, you once gifted me. "It was a rare one," I remember you telling me. It had a lion's emblem on one side and it just seemed like anything ordinary. That day when you left, I turned it around...It was blank. Only the copper base was slightly roughed up, as if someone had on purpose, hammered the image that had been embossed. It was rare, I joked to myself. And you were so foolish, I wondered.

It's been such a long time since it all happened. So much water has flown under the bridge of time. So much water, so much...that now, you seem like a memory so vague that all I can think of is your brown hair and the white of your skin. I don't know nothing, otherwise; not even when we first met. May be, if I knew when exactly you came into my life, it would have been easier to remember when you walked out. But this "may be" was only a “possibility”, something I had stopped believing in after you went, until she came.

Now, when I see her feed me the last sip from my mug of coffee, I know the inevitability of possibilities. I want to reach out to her hair, but my hands have given in...aah failing nerves. But when she observes the way my waisted hand moves restlessly on the arm-rest, she lifts it for me, cups my fingers in the palm of her hand, and then slowly slides them into her greying strands. They are not as soft as yours...that I know. She does not even redden enough for me to discern. But another miracle happens, and only, I have seen. The wrinkles on her face disappear, and I can tell you, it is out of an odd pleasure. The pleasure of loving and being loved. This is rare, rarer than your battered coin.

The danger of a single story

I love this writer for the sheer simplicity of her arguments; whether it's in her narrative or in her talks, she conveys her point without the artifice or pretense that saddles a good writer. Here she tells us the "danger of listening to/reading a single story." For all those, who are often quick to form opinions, here's something worth your ears.