taaza gire patte ki tarah
mausam, mausam, haste rehna
The pink trumpets lined the entire street, a call for the summer that was about to come. I would see them on weekly bus rides, exhausting and three hours long; a journey I would take half unwillingly, but there was nowhere else to escape to. Throughout the ride I would picture a different, bigger life, away from the mess of all of the places I had lived in. I hated the food, the place, and the weather on most days. The fan in my room was not fast enough, friends were not close enough or real enough, and I was not eating enough.
The end of the journey would usually be in a messy room with alcohol around, and reruns of conversations that had become a solace at this point, to all of us. I would sleep in uncomfortable places, at ungodly hours, and dream of evaporating.
Ever since I could think of being, I wanted to be mist, or smoke. No matter how much you exhale, you still get left behind, solid. The vacuousness of my life was becoming a boulder heavier than I could roll up any kind of hill. When did I become so backward in my own sense of being? Nothing was pleasing me, and nothing offered solace or solution.
During March I went to visit my brother. After that, we went on to a coastal town for a few days. Seeing the sea after so long reminded me of how young I was, when I saw it for the first time, with my family. I had the ugliest haircut known to mankind, and I was still treated like a boy. We spent that day on the beach, me in my brown underwear and nothing else, a skinny brown child unaware of everything that was yet to come. I don’t remember much from that trip. The zoo. My mother and her sister are wearing matching suits, rich chocolate brown. I wanted her dupatta to be mine when I grew up. I had already started making decisions regarding growing up. I also remember we couldn’t see the dolphins, something that did not hurt much then, because whatever I did see was more than anything else I had ever known in my small life in Delhi.
The small coastal town offered us languid afternoons, and a small room with an old TV that only had the news. The bed was big, and it had enough space for me to uncover things about me and you both. For once, I felt rearranged in a manner that would fit my seams. It didn’t last long.
We went ahead on the east coast road, in a bus, again. But this time it was different. I wasn’t alone, I wasn’t going somewhere small. After a bad night in a place we clearly couldn’t afford, we shifted to a bigger place – bigger than anything we had spent the last decade of our individual lives in, perhaps. You would stand in the hall while I peed, the translucent brown lizard scaring me to a state of bladder closure. The room opened to an empty terrace like situation, akin to houses I had back in my childhood. I remember sitting on the wooden sofa, waiting for you to come back from somewhere, and conjuring whatever superpower delusion left behind from adolescence to freeze this time, freeze you and me in this lovely, big house with a big bed and an empty kitchen and so much space to walk around. I wanted to read ten books right there.
Not a lot of reading happened on this trip. I rewatched Parks & Recreation while lulling you to gentle sleep, and when we stepped out, we headed straight to the beach. I knew I would never be able to journal about this, or write or talk about whatever I was feeling then. We listened to music of all kinds, and you taught me how to drive a scooty on the empty, dark stretch of tar. I learned nothing. I was too busy questioning whether this was an answer from some god for some prayer I had let out a long ago.
Much changed after that trip. I gave up on the concept of the current life I was slugging through. I knew I would leave this job, whether by hook or crook. Prayers were answered once again.
The pink trumpets are now gone, replaced with lush green everywhere. The rains are infrequent, sometimes torrid, as if making up their mind. I think I am like that, as well. I speak up and it’s harsh, but nobody knows the inner workings, only the aftermath is out there in the open for everybody to see. I still want to be mist.
I moved cities, back to an old friend. I found an expensive, dingy flat. I read Mother Mary Comes to Me, and it gave me a bit of strength to get through this. I am trying to not worry about how I appear to anybody else. Permeation via affection is the law now – you are only allowed in if you truly do love me. How would I know that? I don’t know, but I am not going to spend nights toiling for nothing.
The flat has green and pink walls. I am thinking of painting the pink as white. The bathroom is very small and frankly ugly and inconvenient, but there’s only me who lives here. I think it is okay. There is no audience here. No balcony either, but I am getting more reading done.
I don’t know what is going to happen. Ever.
a video abt this trip. i will never be able to talk about it in its entirety.
never stop writing