aisi barsaaton mein

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MY UMBRELLA

Changed my workstation in the office today. Now I sit by a window with an Epson printer keeping me company. She has been out of service for a while now; during our last five hours together I have grown a slight level of attachment for her… she is my angel watching over me. My boss has an espresso machine in his office – cold, steely, full of hellish warmth. I wonder if these two angels in the office ever had an office romance, maybe the Epson was a coveted piece in the boss’s office during her prime years, and maybe the espresso machine was a newbie, eager to learn the tricks of the trade and then some. Perhaps they had a torrid affair, and she realised she wanted somebody more mature and less eager to please, with the hotheadedness toned down by a few deca degrees.

The window is exactly what it is. I look outside right now and it is already dark. It is merely past four. Heavy, torrid rain warnings lighting up everybody’s phone screens right now. I am wondering about the eventual journey that I have to make back to my flat. My kittens have not been eating well since yesterday, the most affordable explanation was that they were bored of the same tuna wet food everyday. I hope it is true, and nothing else; nothing too serious. I cannot do more than that for them right now, and I still love them to death. I think I did end up turning into my father after all.

The rain is loud, louder than all the keyboard clacking away right now. Everybody wants to leave early. Logically speaking, we should have left when thunder and lightning announced the onset of this downpour right now. The tendency to wait, of curiosity, of staying and lingering – that’s what makes us human and kills humankind eventually.

During the quieter hours of morning, somebody’s phone started ringing. It was some Motorola ringtone, and it was abysmal. An abomination. It filled me with inexplicable anger, boiling hot. Inexplicable because who was I angry at, really? The caller, the ringtone, the lack of basic courtesy of keeping your phone on silent? The owner of the phone was in a meeting with the boss, and he couldn’t just slip out. One of us could have silenced it, I suppose. Nobody did. Maybe nobody else was as furious as me.

The same coworker ended up sharing a guava with me later on. Nothing to meditate upon there, sorry Wendy Cope apologists.

The rain keeps weighing heavy on the air, I cannot see anything anymore. I look at the printer, half hoping she will light up, flash a message for me on the tiny screen. The only buttons that make sense are Stop/Reset, OK, Redial/Pause, Start. All of it applies to all of us in all of our situations. Hero’s journey, keep going on and on and on and on until.

I think of going out, standing under a building and smoking a cigarette right now. Okay Kaya would sound so lovely right now. This void is showing, and I have a blessed life, I toss and churn, I can’t sleep at night.

All screens shine bright again. Nobody is advised to leave their places for the next two hours. People are already wondering what they will eat, and which movie should we watch on the big screen in the big guy’s office.

I left this midway to go out with my sturdy pink umbrella and smoke a cigarette under a huge tree. I can see my cubicle window from there. I put my cigarette out on the trunk, water running through its crevices. Now I am back on my desk, waiting for auto fares to go down, for the submerged city to unclog itself, praying for the first time in ages. My prayers are mostly going out to people whose home is the city in its vastness, the couch I see everyday on the footpath a cruel reminder that I can only observe and look away from. I pray for my kittens, I pray for myself in the way that I won’t have cat poop and piss to clean when I go back home. I pray for the days to move by steadily but full of experience. I want to live all my days out, but I want someone badly and he is away away away, until a certain unknown day.

I texted people back right now, a bunch of them. I am now sitting alone in the office, everybody else cooped up watching a film with Jim Sarbh in it. I can hear the dialogues in a language I refuse to learn yet.

My knee was also wounded internally a week or so back and it is flaring up right now – something to do with the rain, I think. I still get up and walk to get coffee, I sit under the makeshift roof fashioned out of green polyester. The rain drips and forms a curvature in this fabric of time and space. It is past the hour of clocking out on a Friday, and I am stuck.

My shoe squelches on the wet tiles, and I make my way back to my desk. The window is open; the breeze is unpredictable yet welcome at all times – a maxim that should be followed in all friendships.

It is about to be seven. The movie is still not over. Prayers seem futile right now. I read something on Instagram about being needy. I think I am a monk in this way that I understand I am needy, but I never forfeit my affection for people even if they fail to understand my needs. It is a painful procedure, and I endure it all the time. Small things prick so much (needles thorns pens sticks injections teeth nails rusty nails) and over time the wound is big enough to add a chapter to my Hole Theory of Suffering and Existence. It is okay though, I like it when I get hurt. Until one day somebody corners me in an alleyway and breaks my jaw, I am fine getting hurt this way – if not cocaine, why not codeine?

I am going to pack up my things now. I don’t think I will text anybody much now, I am done. I hope my kittens are okay, and more than that I hope I don’t have to clean shit. There must be food on the horizon, but I am the one steering this ship so we never know whether we will reach there.

First, I need to leave.

some rain playlists i have made —

baarish | the rain keeps me company | coffee and rain in make pretend nyc