Sauria

Sauria are the true lizards of the lizard family. Geckos, which are the most common form of these lizards, frequently hang out in my room. They hang upside down from the ceiling, always keeping a wary eye out for me. Were they here during the time that I had been away as well? I remember hanging like they do, precariously from tall trees made slippery by the constant rain. Scared, silent and still, we stayed there clutching our guns as if they were life jackets. Two days it took for the rest of the platoon to clear the route for us, before we could climb down from our ‘strategic positions.’ We could be people once more, instead of lizards. Maybe that’s why I feel closer to the geckos now that I’m back – I’ve somewhat seen the world from their vantage point.

Or, maybe they’re like the surrogate pets that I’ve never had the courage to keep. I hope they don’t let go and disappear after hearing about them being the surrogate pets. The truth is, to put it rather bluntly, I’m scared. I’m too scared to live; too scared to breathe; too scared to exist. War changes you; it distorts reality.

For instance, I still have trouble walking down the alleyway. Even in broad daylight, I am skittish. It has nothing to do with darkness. In fact, it is the light of day that scares me. I am too well lit, too exposed. There are far too many windows all around me to keep track of. Looking up, I am scared of clear blue skies and the dangers of the drones that may be lurking, invisible. I am scared of construction noises, the grenade like booms of the sledgehammers and the machine gun rat-a-tat of the drills. I fear the day for making me a sitting duck in the spotlight, and I fear the night for the unknown that presses in from all sides.

But most of all, I fear that which never leaves me – loneliness. It is the only thing that stays faithful when everything else has left. It is the one thing that never deserts, but snuggles up close to your heart, cold and menacing, hissing threateningly like a wiry felid. It followed me all the way back from the trenches, and chased away all that was dear to me.

Alcohol used to help, but now my body craves too much for it. Just as the tides, it has eroded away the remnants of my life that I came back to. My wife – my beautiful, loving, generous, forgiving wife – could not bear to look at me while I stared back at her through an ethanol haze. My feline companion hissed and growled from my chest, and I craved to destroy that which I cared for too much. It was the fear of losing her that made me want to hurt. When she inevitably did leave, the cat shook himself gently, yawned wide, and curled up against the crook of my neck, and slept. Once, he purred too – a cold, sinister purr that no living being should make.

My sleep has become fitful. While she was here, my cat used to sleep between us, and every night would take me back to the battlefield; the cold, the damp, the mud; the constant hum of mosquitoes around us and drones and jets above us. And as I slept, he would claw his way into my dreams and grow bigger and bigger, stretching out in front of me, his hiss becoming a roar, his purr a snarl. He could swallow me whole if he wanted to, but he didn’t. Like a cat, he toyed with his prey, played the deadly game, and just before I would be devoured, he would shake me violently. I still wake up in a cold sweat, shivering, reaching out to where my wife slept. But, of course, she isn’t there anymore.

Before the war, I used to write. I wrote about soldiers too, sometimes – the romantic tales of valour and dignity, of courage and brotherhood. All that died with my friends on the field. And amongst that carnage, out of the smoking craters of mortar shells and walls ridden with bullet holes, slinked out my feline friend. Before the war, these stories used to fill me with pride. Now, there’s no one to listen to my stories anymore. They don’t come as easily to me anymore either.

So, I read what I wanted to read to her to the sparrows. The ones that heard me flew away, but there were always more. And then there were the pigeons, the parrots, the mynahs. When she left, she took a lot of the stories with her. She took the sparrows and the pigeons and the parrots and the mynahs too. Both of us had been scared that I would hurt them all.

The felid remained.

There were big rats that looked like hand grenades that lived in the alleyway, but my scrawny feline friend never chased them. The owls swooped in and picked them off one by one, while on some nights the two of us would stand still and watch. We imagined the crunching of the rat’s bones between the jaws of the owl that swooped low, and the cat purred with joy.

But he is too scared to do the deed. A coward at heart, he is. That’s why he doesn’t touch the geckos living in my backyard, the ones that visit me sometimes at night. He doesn’t dare go after any of the rats that find their way indoors. He is content to snuggle in the protection of my chest, hissing menacingly from time to time, reminding me that he is always there, always present.

Would my wife come back had it not been for this stringy cat that sits heavy upon me? Some days, I find myself asking myself that question over and over, while other days I do not dare to. My days are empty, my nights hollow, save for the horrible company of my loneliness and the weight on my chest. Memories should never weigh so much, but more often than not, they do.

Today, I found a broken compass lying forgotten beneath my bed, its needle stuck permanently south. I don’t remember breaking the compass, and found myself wishing that it worked again. Maybe it was the cat. It could have been the rats. The owls might be guilty. But the geckos? They wouldn’t. They understand. They would not leave. They wouldn’t take what points me the right way away from me.

In light of this, I think it’s reassuring to have something stable in life – even if it’s the familiar sight of Sauria hanging upside down from the ceiling.

~

Image Credits: Yintan / Wikimedia

Conversations with the city

Every day, Delhi expands and shrinks. It took me a long time to get used to such a paradox and learn to enjoy it instead. There are parts of the city still frozen in time, while the rest of the city races past. She is a city that grows on you, the more time you spend with her. You can hear her whisper stories about the broken walls that dot her landscape.

Delhi always seems to surprise me by how much smaller she seems as the years pass. Like watching children grow up, you never realize before it's happened. Maybe it's us who grow up faster than her.

I spent an afternoon with a friend once, meandering the roads of Chawri Bazaar. She had introduced me to the hidden facets of the city a long time ago. Now, she had returned, and I wanted to show-off how much I had come to know Delhi during that time. So, we walked down the road from the metro station and headed right into the heart of the old city. As the road turned a corner, we caught glimpses of the past, both ours and the city's. Up ahead, we saw a familiar wall, but my friend asked, "What's that?

Her question took me by surprise. It was the Jama Masjid, where we spent many afternoons and evenings. We would visit the older city only to spend some time beneath the chhatris of the walls. We would climb the stairs of one of the minarets and look down at the busy streets. She looked from me to the mosque and back, and said, "Seems smaller than I remember it to be."

In all the years of visiting these same streets, I had failed to notice it. Maybe in those years, we grew up. While New Delhi had expanded, maybe the ancient Delhi had shrunk inwards. The metro stations, the new shops and the crowds seemed to spill onto the narrow lanes. The new Delhi grew.

I took the bus home that day. I wanted to look at the roads instead of zipping away through underground tunnels. I blessed the snarling traffic which allowed me to take in the sights. I savored the parts of the city that I had grown to cherish, but had forgot to remember in a while.

Catching the bus from the Red Fort, I passed the Lahori Gate. Leaving behind the Jama Masjid, the bus rolled to a stop at the Daryaganj crossing. I noticed the roadside chicken shop, one of our favorites from back in the day. Our pocket money only allowed us the luxury of cheap chicken from a roadside shack. But in those years, even that shack had grown into a restaurant. I doubt if the taste of the chicken has changed though; some things stay the same.

We went on, past the Dilli Gate, Feroz Shah Kotla and the remnants of the Shahjanabad wall. Dusk slipped in as we headed on towards the southern side of the city. We reached the Old Fort, the broken walls of an even older city lit with warm halogen lamps. A slight left along the old Mathura Road led us straight to the Subz Burj with its iconic blue dome. I got off here on impulse, wanting to taste the famous kababs and tikkas of Nizamuddin. This old settlement takes on a new life as the day slips by. With the smells of sizzling meat hanging heavy in the air, I know I am home.

Growing up in Delhi, history surrounds us since childhood. We grow so accustomed to it that we miss what's right in front of us. We pass our jaded eyes over the intricate architecture of Mehrauli. We tend to skip over the stories that lay dormant in the stone walls of Hauz Khas. But these are timeless tales buried beneath mighty walls. They have stood guard around the city for centuries. These are the vivid stories that make me love this city.

College life brought with it its own sense of freedom for us. Travelling long distances became second nature. It was just a matter of time before I started feeling at home anywhere in the city. I started venturing out into parts of the city that were hitherto unknown to me. Such was the allure that it took us little time to get acquainted. Sneaking out of classes, we would hop on to the new metro trains and be out exploring. 

We spent a significant part of our college days aboard the DTC city buses. The buses were the best option for cheap daily travel from one end of the city to another. For me, the buses also proved to be my window to the city that I knew little. Every day, I learnt more about Delhi and her people from the vantage point of the bus window. As time went by, the city took on a familiar look. Thanks to those big green buses rolling around, I always knew I was never too far from home.

Thus, many warm afternoons gave way to cool evenings. We spent hours chatting with friends amidst the imposing masonry of the Agrasen Baoli. The cheap Kulche-Chhole found all over the city became our staple food. We took siestas beneath the cool shades of the chhatris of Hauz Khas. We discussed art, history, sports and politics over cups of coffee. And almost always, coffee led us straight over to Coffee Home of Connaught Place.

Connaught Place sees the duality of progress and preservation as well. Perhaps the best example of this is the Agrasen Baoli. Tucked away amidst modern buildings of the capital's commercial center, it is well hidden. Yet, this juxtaposition makes the sheer depth of the step-well all the more fascinating. With every step down the well, the busy world that surrounds it seems to recede away. Even in the heart of the city, this ancient well proves that history is never too far in Delhi.

Step-wells such as the Agrasen Baoli used to be a popular feature in Delhi. They conserved water from run-off, providing easy access to fresh water across the city. Land slope and underground water channels were strategic indicators for their location. Agrasen Baoli functioned as a rain-water harvesting well. Hazrat Nizamuddin Auliya's baoli is another familiar step-well in the city. Named in his memory, it taps into an active water spring that still feeds it today. Over the years, the passages leading to the underground springs choked. The well dried and was soon wiped from memory. In recent years, a massive clean-up exercise repaired those choked passages. Water from the active spring gushed in to reclaim the step-well. Today, the Baoli stands restored to its original glory, fitting for its impressive age.

Delhi is an aged city. She has been home to her people long before becoming an important urban center. She has seen the rise and fall of countless rulers, shared the ambitions of kings. Yet, through it all, Delhi continues to welcome us with open arms.

To understand Delhi, we must peel away the layers of history and see underneath. The most compelling site for ancient Delhi lies near the Kalkaji Temple. Historians uncovered an edict carved during the rule of Emperor Ashoka that dates back to the 3rd Century.

Near the Purana Quila excavation sites, village habitations are dated back to 300 BC. Archaeologists have found evidence of late-Harappan culture in some old villages of Delhi. These artifacts take us back to 1,000 BC. Folklore takes us even further back. According to the legend Mahabharat, Indraprastha stood on the banks of the Yamuna. The Pandavas laid the foundations of the ancient capital city around 3,500 BC.

These stories about Delhi aim to look at the history of this imposing city. They aim to look at these half-remembered tales, lost in the cracks of time. It brings to life the ancient story that still surrounds us. To read all Delhi Stories, click here.

~

Of Silent Chairs and Mute Memories

Her name was Chameli. Once the jasmine flower she was named after, she had folded back into the bud that she had been a long time ago. Against the misty morning, in her delicate white dress, she looked radiant. She had been beautiful, and there were those who remembered that. Time had flown, though, and she had been trapped in her memories, and become that delicate flower bud once more. She had laid out the chairs in the field just the way she remembered it. Li’l Jo Singh, Mr Bakra, Mowgli Man, Alice Kumar Chautala, Maikalal Jaikishan, all members of the short-lived A-Team. She had long forgotten their real names, but their strange faces were still as vivid as the quirky names she remembered. That’s what they remembered her for, coming up with strange names. So lost was she in her memories, that she had forgotten her own name as well. She was Champa Chameli, presiding over this morning’s meeting on the dreary, bleak, misty morning.

I had hoped to catch her off her guard, so I moved through the empty chairs as silently as I could. Past experience had shown me that the trick worked – take her a bit by surprise, maybe startle her just a little bit, and she’ll suddenly become a lot more relaxed. Give her the illusion of being in control of me too, at just the right moment, and suddenly I would find myself a part of her little game, her periodic dance with the past that haunted her so much.

I crept closer and closer, and just when she was standing up after straightening an imaginary chair cushion, I leapt forward and whispered ‘Boo’ right into her ears. It didn’t have quite the effect that I had hoped. Instead of being startled, she turned around with a smile and said in her cute, little-girl manner, ‘I knew you were right behind me. You’re not good at trying to be a ninja, Makdee. You’re late for the meeting.’

‘I’m sorry, Chameli,’ I said with a smile. ‘I got caught up…’

‘In a web?’ asked Chameli, but I knew it was a rhetorical question. It was a joke at my expense, something that she found incredibly funny. I had no idea why she came up with the name Makdee, a spider, for me. I wasn’t a member of the imaginary A-Team, so Chameli didn’t really need to give me a name. I could have been me; but I knew she was scared of reality now. She preferred this dream world of nonsensical names and silly, childish games now. Somehow, I had become a part of that as well.

The chairs were laid out in the same way as they had been since I had known her. It had been so long ago that I don’t even recollect how and when I met her for the first time. Maybe it was at one of these meetings. Maybe we saw each other from a distance at a café. Maybe we met over lunch, and shared a meal a long time ago. I didn’t know anymore, and she was too lost in her delusions to care too much about those trivial things.

I had a job to do, though. I had to shake her up a little bit, give it another try. Maybe the infinity-plus-one-eth time would do the trick. I wanted to be tactful about it, I wanted to stall for a while, and I wanted to not tell her the things I knew she didn’t want to hear; but these were things that weren’t in my hands anymore. I existed only for Chameli now, and she had made me up for a reason.

‘Who’s the guest of honour today?’ I asked her as I took my seat next to her.

She giggled shyly, and said, ‘It’s Jaikishan; he finally told me that he loves me. Alice was wrong; didn’t I always tell you that?’

‘Why do you call him Alice? I mean, he’s a guy after all!’

‘You look at him! I’m sure he’s gay; he’s so effeminate after all. Besides, he likes it if I call him Alice,’ she said matter-of-factly, running a hand down her beautiful white dress.

‘Chameli, there’s something you should know,’ I began again, knowing well that it would be a fruitless endeavour. I had done this enough times to know it, but it was my job. It was precisely why Chameli had conjured me in her mind – so I could try, time after time, to snap her out of her hallucinations and back into the real world. ‘Chameli, are you listening?’

‘Yes, yes. I’m listening to you, Makdee,’ said Chameli absently.

‘You’re dreaming again, Chameli. It’s time you woke up and went back to your world. The people in the meeting, they’ve all gone, they’ve left. Don’t you want to know what happened to all those people? Wouldn’t that be good, to know them in real life, instead of inside here, only inside your mind?’

‘Oh, Makdee,’ she said exasperatedly. ‘Why do you come up with the same story every time? Look, Jaikishan will be coming soon; it’s going to be our first date. And Alice told me it would never work out!’

‘Chameli, Alice isn’t real,’ I said, taking another shot at it. ‘Alice lives inside your mind. Jaikishan exists only in your head. They’re not real, not here at least.’

‘Shush, Makdee!’ said Chameli, standing up suddenly. ‘Jaikishan’s here! You stay here, Alice will keep you company. I’ll see you later, ok?’ Another sudden smile and she ran off a little way off the cluster of chairs. I was sitting alone again, surrounded by phantoms just like me. They couldn’t see me, and I couldn’t see them – it was an arrangement that seemed to work just fine. My job, my purpose, my destiny, that wasn’t coming along so well, though. I could see Chameli animatedly holding a conversation with the thin air in front of her, no doubt speaking to Jaikishan. Things were going exactly as I had always known them to be. In a bit, Chameli would be lost, and there wouldn’t be any purpose for me to stay for the day. Would I leave then, though? Would I be able to walk away?

Chameli was taking Jaikishan’s invisible hand now. I knew I shouldn’t be watching this, but I couldn’t help it. She was putting his imaginary arm around herself, and getting lost in his warm embrace. I wondered, as always, if I should stop her or not. I knew I wouldn’t in the end – I never did. That wasn’t a part of my reason for existence.

She melted in his arms, invisible as they were. She crumpled to the floor, and lay down still. It would be over soon, I told myself. This day would end soon, I told myself. Beyond the circle of chairs, I could see Chameli kissing a phantom lover, a ghost-boyfriend from the past. I could see the beads of sweat glowing on her skin, could see her writhing with pleasure in the soft grass underneath her. It would be over soon, I told myself yet again.

But it wasn’t Chameli who had complete control. I knew it would last yet another lifetime; I knew Chameli was lost just a little more, yet again. While I could do nothing but sit and wait, and watch her falling in love yet again with Jaikishan – the imaginary, invisible man Alice had been wrong about.

~

Inspired by Magpie Tales. I looked for the source of the image, and found that it's by Rosie Hardy.

‘An Eulogy’ or ‘Laughing in the face of Death’

Geoffrey wasn’t a deep guy. Not by a long shot. Maybe it was this that made Brad chuckle when he wondered if it would be better to have buried him in a shallow grave. He stopped himself from chuckling though – he was, after all, at a funeral. ‘I’d probably been hanging out too much with you, Geoff,’ thought Brad to himself, while Geoff’s smiling face twinkled behind the glass of the picture frame. The candles reflected on the glass gave him a holy look, which was ironic when Brad thought about the situation in which the picture had been taken. It had been anything but holy; the thought of it made Brad chuckle again.

‘Stop it, Geoff! You’re killing me – which is weird, considering that you’re dead now! I won’t be able to read out your eulogy if I go on like this,’ thought Brad, as the priest finished with the prayers. It was time for Brad’s last words for his best friend.

“Ladies and Gentlemen, thank you for coming here. Geoff was my best friend, we grew up together, and we knew each other like brothers. There’s a part of me that still has to come to terms with the fact that he’s gone, but right now his memories are still alive and kicking.”

Brad took his eyes away from the piece of paper in front of him, and looked at the crowd sitting in front of him. There was a hint of a smile even now on his face as he said, “It’s probably because of that, because of the fact that I still haven’t come to terms with the fact that he’s gone, really, that I was chuckling sitting back there. Call me crazy, but it still seems that he’s around me somewhere, whispering his endless line of silly jokes in my ears even now!”

The crowd laughed softly, nervously, and Brad went on reading from the little piece of paper.

“Geoff was a clown. He had a slightly sick, and a very weird sense of humour. Unfortunately, I was one of the few who got that sense of humour, which meant that while others were getting revolted or getting offended or getting ready to bash Geoff’s head in, I would be rolling somewhere, clutching my stomach in pain. He got beaten up a lot because of that as well, because I was too busy laughing at his jokes than standing next to him to save his ass.

“I’ve borne the brunt of his sense of humour at a number of places as well. I know neither of us can visit the local sandwich place anymore,” said Brad, and was smothered by a fresh bout of giggles. “That day was funny on so many levels! I don’t want to get into the details of it, and I don’t think any of you would want me to, either. Let’s just say that it had something to do with a BMT Sub, shall we? It was on that day this particular picture was taken, in fact – moments before we were thrown out of the establishment, and asked never to return…”

An uncomfortable silence filled the space while Brad stifled his laughter once more. The people sitting shared disapproving glances with each other. Most of the people knew Geoff as a young man full of potential, on the brink of his bright future. His sudden and unexpected death had reminded them of the fragility of life, and the overpowering stillness and finality of death. And yet, here was a boy, Geoff’s best friend, talking about his memories in such petty terms.

Brad didn’t care, though. He composed himself as best as he could, and went on reading from the little white, slightly crumpled sheet in his hand. “Geoff, you were a swell guy. You knew just how to cheer your friends when they were feeling low. You always knew just what to say in every situation. You always had a witty retort up your sleeve, and tried as we might, we never could figure out how you came up with those. You might have seemed to be a smart-ass, Geoff, but you cared about us. You cared about your friends. You cared enough to make us laugh, and you did that so well! I’ll miss you, my friend, for the rest of my life. I know this is farewell, but it doesn’t feel that way. Maybe that’s because we’ve never had a goodbye. We’ve always shared jokes instead, something that made us laugh through even the toughest days – when I left town, when you went to college, when our little group of friends was scattered all over the country. Those silly, shallow, and sometimes rude jokes were our way to say goodbye, Geoff. I’ve tried to do that here, but I wonder if it’ll work or not. Here goes…”

Brad’s voice choked up as he reached here, and he sniffled loudly. A fat, potent teardrop rolled heavily down his cheeks, followed quickly by another.

“A man walked into a bar…” he began, but the teardrops fell on to the nearly white, slightly crumpled piece of paper, washing away the rest of the joke with it.

~

Inspired by Magpie Tales

The Little King

“What will I be when I grow up?”

Growing up in the orphanage, this was a frequent question that came to Ekayan’s mind. It’s ceased haunting him in recent days, but every now and then he remembers the ayah’s voice telling him about his future.

“You’ll be a little king someday,” she would say while straightening his tie as he got ready for school. He adored her, and in his heart he knew that she liked him better than all the other boys. Thinking about that now made it sound foolish, since he was wise enough to know that it was her job to adore the little boys in the orphanage, and make them feel loved. He was wise enough to know now that she didn’t like him any more than any of the other boys who lived in that dingy room.

He was wise enough to know what life is, and therefore knew what he had to do as well. Wise enough to know that the ayah had lied, that he was not going to be a king – not with the name Ekayan.

As far as he could remember, he hated his name. The boys had always made fun of it, but he didn’t hate the name because of that. Maybe it was his link to the past, and he was desperately trying to run away from it. Being an orphan, he knew he could never get his past back, never have his real parents back – so he hated the one legacy they had given to him; his name.

For a long time, he waited for the day he would become king, because he knew that he could change his name to something better, something that he liked. After all, he would be king, and could do as he pleased. With that comforting thought, he went back to his quiet life, and learnt to take the abuse – verbal or otherwise – of the boys he grew up with. One by one, he saw the boys around him leave for a better place than the orphanage, always accompanied by grownups, but he knew he wouldn’t go with people like that. The king would be coming to take him someday, and he waited patiently for that day to come.

And so the years passed, with the little boy growing up at the feet of the caretakers and under the care of the ayah. Every morning, while the boys got ready and lined up for school, the headmaster of the little school sat regally on his chair reading the newspaper and sipping his coffee. One day Ekayan asked the ayah, “Does the King look like the headmaster? Does the King also read the newspaper and drink coffee every morning? Will I do that someday too?” but the ayah didn’t hear his question. Ekayan, however, took her silence for assent, and the image of the king changed in his mind since that day. Here was something tangible to hold on to, amidst all the dreams that he had conjured on the basis of the ayah’s simple answers (lies as they were); when he was a king, he too would read the newspaper and sip coffee every morning.

As with every group of children, secrets seldom stay secrets for long. Soon, everyone in the orphanage had heard the story of Ekayan and the Little King, and it wasn’t long before they started making fun of him for yet another reason. But Ekayan wasn’t the type who would rebel. Instead, he endured, holding on tightly to that dream of being the Little King that the ayah had promised he would be one day.

A smile escaped his lips as he thought of those moments, so far away into his past and yet so fresh in his memories. He wondered if he should have believed the boys instead of the ayah; maybe then his life would have been a little simpler. Maybe then, he might have realised how much his name held him back, and how much he wanted to escape it. Sadly, he didn’t possess the wisdom back then, and didn’t know how he could escape his name. But things had changed now, and he knew exactly what he had to do. He had all the things he would need for running away in the old tattered school bag – the headmaster’s chipped blue cup for drinking coffee (the one that he had stolen) and an old yellow copy of a newspaper (one that the boys had used to beat him on the head with, incidentally) for reading in the mornings when he would be the king he was supposed to be, had he not been born with the name Ekayan.

He slung the bag above his fifteen-year-old shoulders, and possessed with the wisdom that plagues teenagers looking for a way to escape, climbed the rickety stool in his room. One step closer to the ceiling; one step closer to getting away from his wretched name; one step closer to being the promised little king.

~

Inspired from Magpie Tales.

The Green Stone Eye

Apart from his imposing height, strong jaws and the one stone eye, he looked like a very usual man. He blended in well with the crowd, too – so well, in fact, that it was hard for others to notice him unless they were actively looking for him. This was a little strange, in my opinion, considering the fact that he wasn’t trying to hide, or trying to get by unnoticed. He just stood there by the wall, unnoticed by the flurry of activity that surrounded him. The hosts and the guests of the party moved all around the room, fluttering from one end of the room to the other, always accompanied by a joke or an anecdote, while he stood like a lone rock among a large school of fish; stoic, silent, immovable. He took it all in with his eyes, and stood there propped against the wall with a small glass of whiskey sitting comfortably in his hands.

The party was on in full swing, with small groups congregated across the rooms, and there was something common between the both of us. We were both standing alone in the midst of activity, but while I was uncomfortable being in that position, he was confident in his solitude within the crowd. There was a part of me that wanted to be able to go up to him and talk to him, but there was another part of me that was hesitant. Of what, I’m not too sure – maybe that part of me wanted to be as comfortable in my alonedom as he was with his.

And then there was the part of me that was scared of him. You see, it’s not every day that you see an imposing man like him with one eye made of stone, lifeless and unblinking. So, although I knew it to be an irrational fear, I was terrified of approaching him. The more I stayed uncomfortably on my side of the wall, the greater the fear grew. I started wondering how he had lost the one eye, and what adventures that eye had seen before it was taken away from him. I found myself spinning adventure stories, one after the other, in my head. Of course, there was no way for me to know if any of that was true or not, but I still couldn’t stop. I had resigned myself to stand there all through the evening, smiling uncomfortably every time someone caught my eye, and look on jealously to this lonely stranger enjoying being ignored so much. I found myself wishing that I could be like him as well.

He drained the last of his whiskey, and with that done, started moving towards the bar to get another refill. My discomfort on the rise, I realised that he would pass my way while going to the bar. I quickly looked away, avoiding all sorts of eye contact with him – stone or natural. It wasn’t easy, though, as focussing on anything else seemed something of a challenge at the moment. The dancing couple couldn’t hold my attention, the flashing jukebox didn’t seem flashy enough, and all the while I could hear his heavy footsteps getting closer and closer. I wanted to flee, and hoped that my brain would be able to make up an excuse and run away from the party at that very moment.

“Man, lame party, isn’t it?” he said in a low voice the moment he reached. The green stone eye was staring right into me, but from close up, it didn’t seem that terrifying anymore. “I don’t think I’ve ever been this uncomfortable in my life. I don’t even know anyone out here! And from the looks of it, neither do you,” he added with a smile.

It took me a few moments, but then I smiled and shook his hand, and walked over to the bar with him for a refill myself.

~

Inspired from Magpie Tales

“Say ‘Cheese’!”

I hated antique shops. I hated the concept, the idea, of owning something that was previously someone else’s. Almost as though it was an encroachment on their private lives, and their memories from such a long time ago. Anyway, I’ve never had an eye for antiques, and paying to buy old grimy black things that stand out ostensibly somehow didn’t seem to be for me.

Even so, when Carla told me that she wanted to go to the antique store down the street, I couldn’t refuse. Partly because, in the few weeks that I had spent in America, Carla had been my only friend. And in those few weeks, we had fallen madly in love with each other. I knew going with her to the antique store would make her smile, and so I went with her.

Carla had a way with things like that – old letters, old furniture, old books, old photographs. In her life, memories were the most powerful component, and although I didn’t quite understand the importance those memories had for her, somehow, I knew they were important to her, and made her just the person who she was. She was a romantic, a young passionate woman with a raging and wild imagination, and she loved weaving stories around the little things that she found in her favourite antique stores and flea markets and pawn shops she always seemed to know about. We never really knew if any of her stories were even close to the truth, but it was fun nonetheless. “Memory is a way of holding onto the things you love, the things you are, the things you never want to lose,” she used to say, and even though it was just a cheesy line from an old TV show, I thought I knew just what she meant.

Now that Carla and I aren’t together, I understand what she meant about memories. It’s also one of the reasons why, out of all the forays into the local antique store, there’s only one that stays persistently on my mind. It was a usual drizzly day, and we hadn’t really planned to go and check out the antique store, at least not for another week or so. Still, there was nothing better to do as we were caught in the drizzle, and somehow the thought of dancing in the rain didn’t quite seem very alluring in that moment. So, Carla dragged me into her favourite little store, and I followed silently.

The shop didn’t really look very different, and as always, I felt like I was in a strict library, not allowed to speak one word. “You’re in the company of memories now,” Carla told me. And then we spent the rest of the evening in silence, lost in the past of the strangers who had left their possessions there, in the company of second-hand memories.

There were a lot of things in the store that day – an old wooden cupboard, grimy chairs with dirty cushions on them, letter holders stuffed full of old letters that the previous owners hadn’t bothered to throw out. I also found an old diary, one that belonged to a 13 year old boy named Brian McWallace. I wondered if I should read through the diary, contemplating the morality of the issue, but it had been taken care of Brian in his boyhood – he’d never written a word in the diary. The first time when I had wanted to be a little like Carla, and wander into the world of imagination, and making up stories befitting the lives of the former owners of the things we held in our hands, Brain McWallace had thwarted that desire, by leaving the diary entirely blank. I threw it back on to the shelf, surprised to find myself so frustrated for something as insignificant as the inability to think up a story. I wasn’t Carla, and I knew I couldn’t make up a story for the fantastic life of Brian McWallace, so I left the diary back on the dusty shelf and went about looking for her amidst the old junk.

I think back then, I was immature to think that there was no value to old violins and old guitars, and was a bit too quick to judge them based on the amount of grime they had acquired over the years. Maybe if I knew everything I know now, I might have been able to see those old things in the dingy shop in a better light. However, I didn’t know anything about the value inanimate things absorb over the years, which can make them seem priceless to some people, even if they seem worthless to others.

But Carla knew. She knew just what every single one of those grimy little artefacts were worth, because she knew how to calculate something’s worth in more than just monetary terms. I found that the slight bit of allure that I had felt a moment back had faded off, and I was bored. I wanted to sit with Carla again, even if it was just to hear one of her little stories. I picked up the first thing that I passed by – an old, faded violin with just one string – and went to Carla looking for a story.

I knew she would tell me all about the violin’s incredible journey, and the applause it had received (maybe at the Carnegie Hall?), but she didn’t. When I found her, in the back of the little shop, she had already found her treasure for the day, and didn’t really seem too interested in the violin I had so painstakingly picked out for her. Instead, she was looking at an old, faded picture.

It was a normal looking picture, something that can be found in any old family. Three people, looking out of a car. Nothing great in that, right? Sure, they looked happy, but then, isn’t that how most people have their pictures taken? Don’t their faces automatically go into the ‘smile, there’s a camera pointed at you!’ mode the moment they know someone’s clicking their picture? I didn’t know why Carla was looking at that picture, and sitting there waiting for her story to come out, I felt a little bored. And a little stupid, too.

But the story didn’t come that day. For some reason, Carla didn’t want to venture into the lives of the people who made up that picture, and she didn’t want to talk about the travels they may have had in the car with the window rolled down. She didn’t want to know the reason why they looked so happy in the photo. She just sat there, silently, staring at the picture in her hand. So, having nothing else to do, I started looking at the picture, too.

And then, a very interesting thing happened in the dark, dingy shop. From looking at the picture, I went to looking at the people instead. I started wondering where these people were, the two women and the young man, all of them so full of life and laughter and happiness. I found myself wondering if the photographer had said “Cheese!” before pressing the button that bottled their moment of happiness forever, capturing them on that little piece of paper that Carla was holding. I wondered what they were so happy about, and if those dreams, those fantasies, they came true. I wondered if they made any memories that day or not, and how long they were together after that picture was taken, to cherish those memories. I wondered why the photograph, the tangible proof of their intangible memories, and their intangible happiness, lay forgotten in this old Missouri antique shop. And I wondered who these people were. Even then, as I sat there with the girl I was so crazy about, holding a photograph that had neither of us in it, I knew I’d always remember this moment.

“We can ask the store manager who these people are, can’t we?” I asked.

“No,” said Carla. “Let’s not do that.”

“Why not? Maybe he knows these people,” I said.

Carla looked strangely thoughtful, and finally said, “Because life – both ours and theirs – deserves a sense of mystery.”

In the end, we bought just the picture of the three strangers sitting in the car with their happy smiles that day. She said she would want me to keep it. She thought maybe it would help to get me started building some memories (second hand though they were), and start living life the way she did for a change. I never thought it would work, but in a strange way, it did.

Carla and I broke up six months later. It wasn’t a pretty break up, and I returned to India soon after that. In the wake of the fights, and our fallout, I had thrown away all of our pictures. It’s been many years since I last saw her, and I’ve sometimes found myself wondering where she is, and what she’s up to these days. In those moments, I take a look at that picture, the one that we stumbled upon all those years ago in her favourite little antique store. And even though I have nothing else to remind me of her, that old picture is all I’ll ever need – even though it doesn’t have Carla or me in it. Because I understand now what she meant when she talked about memories – how they really are a way of holding on to the things that you have loved in the past, the person that you were in the past, and the things you never thought you would lose, in the past.

~

Inspired from Magpie Tales. They asked for a poem, but I’m no great shakes at that… so, I wrote this one instead.

The River

Part One: The First Look

A slight way off the road, in Rishikesh, a set of stairs ran down to a secluded Ghat, waiting for us like an old man waits for wanderers, hoping that they have a few moments to spare. We did have those few moments to spare, and so we stepped away from the planned route, and went down the ghat. She was there, at the bottom of those stairs; one look at her majestic charm, and I knew why people respected The Ganga, and loved her so.

As was customary at all ghats, a few steps separated us from the gushing river below. Each step I took, the river seemed to sigh back, as if nothing pleased her more than having me beside her – like old friends catching up after a long time.

My friends joined me; an old man sat and lit a beedi while observing us; my friends took about a zillion pictures of each other, of me, and of the river – but I was so mesmerized by the indefinable attraction the river held, that I failed to notice most of it.

The silt from the river had been deposited on the steps, and the places the river had visited were all marked out; like familiar footprints on wet sand.

Soon, it was time for us to leave for Harki Pauri, another ghat on the banks of the Ganges. I didn’t want to leave this new friend so soon, but as my old friend put it very rightly, the more time I spent there, the more I’d want to linger on.

With one final look at the river, we left, while the murmur of the river followed us. I wanted to return, and desperately cling on to a few more moments, and was looking for an excuse to run back. In a flash, I had the excuse. I wanted the name of the ghat we had visited, and since I didn’t remember it, I had to turn back.

Telling my friends to carry on (of course, with a bit of resistance from their side), I turned back and ran to the ghat. Down the steps, almost slipping, I dipped one hand quickly into the ice-cold water, and a smile escaped my lips.

In my haste, I had failed to notice the old man sitting there, still smoking his beedi. He was observing me, and had seen the smile on my face that reflected the strange calm spreading inside me. He took a long drag of the beedi, exhaled, and said, “Haan beta, ek ajeeb sa sukoon milta hai.”

P. S. The name of the ghat was Sri Vishwanath Ghat, and it had been inaugurated in August, 1947. I knew this all along.

Part Two: The Last Look

Harki Pauri is one of the most famous ghats of Haridwar. Thousands throng this place daily, and during the peak hour of the Aarti, it becomes almost impossible to see anything but human figures all around.

It was at Harki Pauri that I met the Holy Ganga again. I knew I was in love the moment I saw the river. Little green leaf-baskets, each of them decorated with rose petals, marigold petals, a single lotus, and one diya, floated downstream, gently rocking along rhythmically, dancing to the waves caused by the river’s flow.

One step down, two steps down, and the water welcomed my toes. I groped around in the murky water, and with my friend’s help, finally managed to go down two steps, and was knee-deep in the water.My feet were numb with cold, my jeans were soaked with the river, and I was standing in a strong current, and yet I knew I never wanted to get out.

Nightfall was coming, and we had to make our way back to the hotel. By this time, it seemed every one of us had somehow been infused with that intoxicating something this river held in great quantities. As one, we all sat down on the stairs leading down to the ghat, to catch the last few glimpses of the river before we left.

Finally, we got up to leave. The narrow lanes back to the bridge leading to the auto stand allowed a few flashes of the river I’d begun to adore. Between the buildings, through cracks in the walls, I could see her flowing beyond. A few final steps over the bridge, and we had reached the rickshaw stand. It really was time to say goodbye.

As the rickshaw slowly navigated the streets of Haridwar, the night life on the banks of Ganga greeted us from afar. Soon, however, these few sights were all behind us, and I had already begun to miss her.

We came across a bridge, a surprise the little town had sprung up for me. The river gushed on from below, and even over the hubbub of traffic, and the crinkle of the rickshaw chain, I could hear the river whispering three magical words to me. “Come back soon.”

I know I will.

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