Begnning, Middle and End

Stories are no more written-in or turn-out to have an Aristotelian formula. I miss that, the feeling of certainty, of a predictable beginning, middle and an end.
Some have an alright/ happy/ whatever/ sad/ haven't-a-clue endings. The beginnings, as I've realized are always 'super'. Like an idea conceived, a project begun, a novel's start, a crazy meeting, however, the fantastic element eventually disappears.

"He had come into my life uninvited and was now unwelcome to leave it."

Like the Oyster Seeker or the Monk with beads... it's the distasteful incompleteness that i wish to avoid.

It often surprises me how friends/ lovers/ foes have moved on, and how I have. The cordial hellos' also do not matter anymore. Only a faint imprint of that relationship is retained, is re-told as funny or nostalgic instances in conversations with random people.

How did I arrive to this? Monarch is in the country, in my backyard and he being himself saw to it that I was oblivious of this knowledge. It was not supposed to be passed on to anyone - especially me. What affects me is not his adamant nature or his nerve, or the fact that hates me now. We will not forget us or our friendship or the hilarious conversations or the letters or the body-art. I know this and hence never bothered to 'feel' anything about his annoyance.

A question that does not leave me is - How could he vaporize all that we put into a 9-year relationship?

I do not want us to end-up in the cold cordial texture that now defines most past relationships. It makes me puke to remember 'the way we were' and the way we have become.

This is a punishment of sorts, I am suffering. I hope he is happy with his decision making skills.

Adios - if that is what we say - then so be it.

Of a Boy and a Beer Pitcher

On a pretentious weekday evening Oyster Seeker and K went out to shop for Enlightened. In an attempt to show the futility of Oyster's challenge, she was wielding her way into killing the mystery that he thought surrounded her.

Truth, as she believed, was a detonator of romance or sexual intentions. As the curtains dropped - it was fantastic to find a shame-less, matter-of-fact person who (at least on face value) appeared genuine. Honest, skin peeling laughter surrounded them as cordial barriers shattered into a million pieces. Aware that he would never see her again in the same light, with the same intentions and the same curiosity of a man walking in wild woods - she gave in. It was a victory over something far beyond a man. It was like facing herself in full mental nudity and liking it! Their conversation was animated and as his hands swung all over the place - she knew she would bite them off someday!

They were sharing naked moments - both had involuntarily stripped bare their inner lives, thoughts, desires and self-concealing worldly acts ... just that one time - there wasn't a gender game being played.

K found the something very familiar with the way they were - like Hank and Dagny. There was raw filth in what they spoke, the way they unconsciously held each other for fractions. There was an open display of sexuality - a challenge of each others smart-ass natures... both weren't born yesterday. He realized that he was in for someone worth the effort. In his abandoned laughter, she saw a man that was and a man that could be. It was a familiar flash that changed the way she looked at a man and the way he looked at himself. She knew he would drown, but that was a story for another day.

While they walked through her favorite lanes, crossing Ravissant, she recalled the first sneek meet and how she had felt as if she had returned to college. The juvinile game of 'hide-and-seek', of stolen kisses, of bum-chum back-slaps... How the familiarity of knowing a different side of a person changes the parameteres of looking at the same person as the one one knew before.

There was a politics she was experiencing - it was what Stanley Fish had said in one of his essays. There was an over looming umbrella objectivity and beneath that a sensual hiding of a secret. A secret caught in a glance while walking across a clinical space. They would look into each other and 'know' the space between the line of vision made everybody around them invisible.

It was a night she enjoyed, it was a night she would eventually not remember, but there was something K did not want to forget about this man. She did not want to waste her time, and he in all probability would turn out to be that - an interesting adventure with no goals to achieve, no point to prove.

For now, she licked her berry gelato and smiled at the thought of Drama King knowing her whereabouts he would be screaming "Pfone Seaxxxxx."

Physical Abuse - Part II

K felt her day was wonderfully spent. Her work was in order, her 'attraction' war with the Oyster Seeker was upbeat and she had met Talkathon without Drama King for a subway dinner, a long walk and line of her fav. smoke. They spoke of sex, boys work and freedom form the shackles of commitment.

Talkathon dropped her to the station and as K walked along the length of a newly constructed bridge for pedestrians, dodging slow and swift walkers who pretended to bump into her, listening to blaring music, ignoring eyes that stared at her chest or a comment that was passed on her butt. K was too happy to let anything spoil a good day.

Then it had to happen -

A haze of shudder crowded her mind. Somebody had whipped her mind into a frenzy, had lashed her skin and blood streamed out of her. Acid hands had moved around her waist, arms, back , arse and culminated to brush against her breasts. Her skin was burnt cold, stretched tight, her stomach churned and her jaw hurt so bad that she wanted to smash herself against a steel rail to ease the pain. In her reflex, she rammed a her Ayan Rand in the face of a man behind her. K did not know how tall, short, feeble or strong he was - she was very hurt to realize any of that. It was senseless act of courage - she was alone on the bridge and she did not care if things got out of hand. K's sense of space, the stretch of lemon yellow bridge, her mode of escape, her ability to run in her shoes - none seemed to count.

K turned around to face him, whack him but he was gone - there was no one. She felt an elbow smashed into the side of her left breast, her fist clenched and she shirked, the last thing that she saw of her hand - was her diamond sparkling in the stale light of a dutifully gleaming tube-light. Then there was blood on it - the fine edges had torn his skin below his chin. He looked at her in pain and she cursed - he cursed her back, trying to grab the steel bar on the side - he yelled "Miane kuch nahi kiya, aap pagal ho..." (I did not do it, you have lost it).

K turned, not believing him, quietly she just walked on - a part of her mind was going numb, she refused to allow herself to think or feel think. She walked straight into the compartment, into the rick, then into her room, ignoring her father's presence. He had waited to have dinner together, he was cooking the whole day and wanted her to be a part of it. K lay on her bed, abandoning herself in strange awkwardness of a street child. He walked into her room, " Hey, I thought you were changing-up or so... let's have dinner, I am waiting. I made your special dal. I wanted you to make my favorite rice - I have cooked it - just give it the tadka I like. You okay beta? You look tired, lost and... what is wrong? Lets talk... " K never liked those words - 'Lets talk' - what was she doing to tell him? Some pervert felt-up your daughter in the most ugly way? That she hates her body and that she does not know why men behave the way they do? He tried to hold her arm but she sat-up with a jerk - "Nah, dad, just closing. work. I am exhausted. Did you enjoy yourself? Give me a minute, I'll have a bath later - lets eat!" K promptly changed into pajamas and tee, instead of her regular singlet and shorts. No part of her skin had to be seen. "What if he notices? Do I have a marks?" She knew it was late... her clock struck 10:30pm and he was late for dinner.

In the quietness of her mother's kitchen - she cooked, cleaned the mess he had happily created and heard him narrate his day. K wished him goodnight and he was reluctant to ask why, and hit the shower. She scrubbed her body, it started to burn and she ignored the redness that was surfacing. K was lying around the bed looking at the white overalls of her walls, her bed linen, blocking all sensation from her mind, she turned around to hold her teddy. Talkathon's call ringing in her face - K cut the call and messaged her good night. She could not afford to put their night to waste.

She tucked herself in bed, but the anger did not seem to go, she could not concentrate on the book, she refused to flirt over the phone. Refused to let another man into her mind. Not that night. He was being kind in the message - wanting to know if she wanted to talk. She did not. He was a man and he would not understand. He would feel bad but the magnitude of hurt, anger, filth and guilt she felt for being born - for being called gori chamdi, for being treated like a cheap piece of meat - he would never feel that. There was nothing she could tell, words would not sooth her - he would not know what to say. Mushy had once apologized on behalf of all the dirty men in the world and it had not helped. Sometimes he was sorry that he was a man, just as K was now - she was sorry for herself, for being born a woman, her her body and her mind and the feeling she felt.

She turned to put her mind to sleep and then she realized the pain in her chest. The elbow.
The chill had started to make her feel awfully cold, she needed to hug someone really bad - someone very strong, very warm and very pure. She missed Childmom. K knew she would need to strengthen her shield. She swore she would not cry. She had to wipe this muck from her mind tonight. It would be unfair to carry yesterday into tomorrow.

Phyiscal Abuse - Part I

Two incidences in the past weeks that made K feel like a Mimosa plant. She shuttled between her moments that had made her feel like a lesser mortal and crouch into a shell that banned every human, every touch and every thought.
~
K walked in a hurriedly over the bridge that was supposed to flow sweet water - which had now turned into a gutter of sorts. Her mind raced through everything that this bridge and the park was supposed to mean and what it now meant. She felt her jaws clench in a thought of the flaming tree that had gone missing years ago and that she had done nothing to save it.

She walked through only to bump into a friendly neighborhood grand father who makes her day by cracking inane 'old-man's' jokes. She laughed with him for a few seconds till his accomplice walked along and she was asked to touch his feet in respect. Politely as K bent, she felt the man's palm on her back, pressed through the cotton garment. He had felt-up her brassiere belt, she wanted the steel hooks to melt into his fingers and leave a mark that he'd have to explain every time he held them in his face. Startled, K looked up straight into his eyes with a fury of an abused child questing "Why?, why did you have to do it?" The man's eyes caught her and he sneered in a distasteful way. A way that lost youth looks at young love - with hateful lust. There was anger for his obscenity and for my youth. Grandpa had not noticed, he was busy chatting with an old woman who had just begun her walks and felt the test of her age and fatigue.

Something struck in her. K with out a word walked back home. The thought of being late for work and the that things more urgent awaited her presence, she just walked thoughtlessly, strolled into her house and walked into the bathroom. Her mother was questioning from the drawing room, she heard sounds - not speech. The water trickled down her body, hot, holy water. She needed to clean her body of that touch, she needed to wash it out of her mind. She had to head to work and with a clear head.

Why do we need John Galt?

I have been drowning in the whirlwind of question marks... but there is some kind of security in utter chaos.

~Why do we attach so much importance to a published word?
~Why does it hurt you the most when it is actually supposed to comfort you?
~Why are empty hugs as painful as an expected parting?
~Why do we nurture dreams and then challenge them?
~Why does the twilight/dawn sea make you rethink, revision and reconsider the nonsense called 'Life'?
~Why do we know certain things are worthless in the long run, but still work towards gaining it?
~Why is it so difficult to find love, and why is it so easy to lose it - over and over again?
~Why does happiness not become an addiction like grief?
~Why are momentary joys deeper than a long term commitment?
~Why are ambitions so blind? ~Why do they drive you like nothing other?
~Why does everything appear futile - just when the impossible has been achieved?
~Why do we often bring success to others and foul play ourselves?
~Why when 'one man' can stand-up for himself, it hurts the most to see him do it and say -
"See, I did it!"
~ Why do listing your inadequacies help your self- confidence no more than what sugar-free chewing gum does for your teeth.
~ Would GODOT have come if V and E had waited longer?
~ When things aren't right. What is wiser - do we wait or do we change tracks?
~Why do we need a John Galt to explain our relationship with the universe?

Silent Betrayal

Nothing Happened.

It was her 5:30 am alarm, K woke up and found herself drenched in tears. She did not understand what was happening to her, what had gone wrong, so suddenly, so much unbearable pain... where had it all come from?

As she sat-up in her bed, tracing the light from the slightly parted curtains, she was clueless. Then her cell snoozed a reminder. Turning to silence it, she opened her message box and found an Adios from an international number. She read, re-read and shrieked... "He's gone, he's gone, he's gone, HE'S GONE!" She kept looking around, as if searching for an invisible sin in darkness. Heat surged her lungs and they went breathless.

It was like an invited stab, one aimed straight at the heart. She held her phone close and crushed it in her bosom...instead wanting roses with thorns, slyly sinking into the skin. "How could he?" "Why did he?" He was going to do it, you knew it all along, why are you so upset now?" . K didn't know whom she was more angry with... herself or him. He thought he was being sweet in the sms, being thoughtful that 'he'd cherish everything...' she knew he would, but it did not matter if he did. It did not matter right now. Too much anger, pain and a sense of expected betrayal filled her head. Her nerves beating at her wrists, her neck, her ankles... her knees heavy with pain. She wanted to release them, relieve the pressure, let them flow-out and calm down.

K looked into her wardrobe mirror and saw a doped-looking woman with horribly pale
complexion, swollen red eyes with blood lines appearing - like stripped naked roots, cursing red lips... A ghost out from nowhere, going nowhere... The tissue box emptied out, she had spent 45 mins crying, visualizing him on the airport, in the lobby with family, possibly a female friend, with bags tugging along, a packet of Benson kept handy. His face - straight, cold... expressing spurious affection, conveying heavy goodbyes. The aircraft taxied over the muck of this emotional volcano called Bombay, sometime before dawn, at the sinful hour when Lucifer rises and prepares to torch the skies.

It had been less than a week when they had met. K wanted to avoid him but wanted to see him in an elusive way. She called-in to postpone and then cancel, but changed her mind. She knew it could be their last meeting, in all probability. He was late, she mocked him and he accused her making it her habit. He had hugged her unrestrained for the first time in years, she felt it. Maybe she was wrong, maybe she shouldn't have felt so terrible about him going. They traveled together and when about to get off, he hugged her again, in an unsaid finality.

K didn't think of it as a finality, till all weekend plans stood paralysed in the face of his packing-moving-organizing scheme. She called him, then messaged him with urgency and he spoke to her in his atypical concerned tone, a tone used to talk to retarded children. She knew then that it was done... she mailed him in his 'style' and bade adieu.

Crouched on the floor, she recalled every word, every touch, every hurt... he was a cruel man. And he would continue to abuse her mind, with his presence and especially his absence. She wanted to call people, scream into their ears - scream into her unbelieving mind that he was gone! Not that he had been around so much that his going would've mattered, but what she felt right now was something ugly, and it was only a surging Amedee.

K was late for her yoga, the sky was turning saffron, the neighbour was talking to his dog, below her balcony, behind her back. She rolled out her mat, finished her pranayam, her yogic positions - blocking everything from her mind... Recalling random Bollywood songs, concentrating on her counts. The tough positions failed to cause any aches, she had pushed her threshold and could now hold her ankles bent backwards. The pain had left her body...