Sweater
“3rd of December, 57 years back, you said this sweater looked better today.” I wonder if my grandfather, a walking library always poking a book on my head, would say a wrong sentence. He is sitting in the grass by her grave and he nod to me to sit down so I keep my thoughts to myself for now.
“I thought to correct you, but I knew what you were doing. You saying a wrong sentence happened only just few times and this was not one of them.” I look at him, his eyes forget his age talking about her and become of a teenager again.
“I wore the sweater that day without knowing it’s 3rd, even though I was thinking about it from one week. I still remember the day distinctly. I was late as always and you made me wait, as always. You walked out dressed black from head to toe, the song by our favorite band played in my head better than they had ever sing it, better than when we went to see them live and kissed each other on this line. It took me a second to speak seeing you. I put my shoulder on the tree imitating dying,” he scoffs.
“You took my hand with a smile and pulled me from the tree. You pat my shoulders with your hand and dusted off the wood dust, and said, see just like this you ruin all your good clothes. I laughed thinking how I couldn’t care about anything else in the world but you. Then we started walking under those orange lights by the trees in the moonlit night, your hands in mine.”
“I loved walking with you and reaching nowhere, but you, love, took it for me being indecisive. And you were the only person I never cared to justify my flaws with…” I had never experienced loss in my life, but tears overflowing from my eyes and my heart could not take listening to him anymore. Not because of the things he said, but when I understood how much can love persist even without the person for 57 years.
Projector
Is getting on escalator harder for a 60 year old or a 6 year old, I wondered. As a 60 year old myself, I think physically it’s harder for me. Mentally? Well, also harder. But they did not had escalator back then so I would not know if I could go on it. I always wondered how to adapt to new innovations of the world.
I do think every time with each new innovation that this will be last thing I’ll keep up with. But I always find myself getting adapted to it. Escalator is one of them. As the one I am on right now ends right outside the box office, I step in to buy tickets for new film of my favorite filmmaker Martin Scorsese. It’s been few years since I have seen movie in a theater. For some years, world shut down. For some, my left side of the body.
I come out of the movie loving it. Anyway, it takes a lot to be disappointed at this age. This guy made it at the age of 81, it gave me hope! There were some annoyance of a kid with her parents, crying over popcorn getting stuck between her seat. How did they let it 8 year old in a R-rated movie, firstly. But well, in India, anything can happen. I finished the movie. I was just about to put my foot on the escalator down, I push back, I should go meet the projectionist for the movie. It’s always fun to chat with them. I went to back to the box office, asked the manager if that would be possible. He said, “everything is satellite now.”
I could not understand, he saw my confusion and said he can take me to the projector room. I agreed. The room was eerily different than ones I had seen. It used to give me joy entering the projector room, this frightened me. There was no one. I asked, “Where is the projectionist?” “There is none sir. Everything works from satellite now.”
“How? Who changes the film roll?”. He laughs, with forced humility, says “There is no need to change it sir anymore. There are no film rolls.” he continues. “What do you mean there are no film rolls, there is a reason it is a film, you-” I think to myself but refuse to say. “Everything comes to this computer and gets projected to the screen automatically sir.”
I am going down the escalator, it ends and I step out of it. In the end, it becomes one with the floor by adapting. Goes on somewhere where I cannot see, changing shape how, I cannot understand. But I did know this is where I stop to keep up.
Landline
This afternoon I was thinking about the lost art and pieces of memories scribbled on the wall above telephones.
I still remember the day when a man painted over my memories. The lower part of his jeans had stains of yellow, white, green, and burgundy paint. Who is painting their house burgundy, I thought. For a woman, I understood early on, never let a man choose color for anything.
With first stroke of our Nerolac Picasso, restaurant name for my first date faded. His second stroke made my dentist’s clinic name translucent that my aunt had suggested and the pain of my root canal visited me just for a second. I couldn’t see his masterpiece anymore and my nose made me aware about fragrance of new wall paint. I sat in silence for two minutes for all the cafes, friends’ new numbers, teachers’ complaints, timings of thousand appointments, landmarks for millions of destinations — everything that was on those walls and cupboards where the muscular hand of the telephone rested.
The corner with the telephone was the corner of solace. My free hand played with the coiled black wire as I smiled listening to the sweet voice of teenage love on the other side. And I remember pulling that same wire with all my might and throwing the telephone, at 16, when he broke up with me over a phone call. I thought, there was no worse way than that to break up with someone. Until I found the normal behavior of breaking up over text in my daughter’s generation.
She is 16 now. She is standing in the same corner that I stood when I first started talking to her dad. But the wall by her is completely white. The cabinet has no pen marks. She isn’t holding anything in her hand, but white plugs in her ears are doing the job. It took me a second to adjust when she just walked out of that corner freely to perhaps remind me of the difference in both of our sweet sixteen freedoms.
Her Hands Are The Best Poem Ever Written
He made his coffee and eggs himself today. Because he knew there was no other choice. Everyone, except him, moved on. This is the strange thing about the silence of afternoon it tells us what we are doing with our lives loudly right by our ears. The afternoon neither has the freshness of the morning nor the excitement of evening. Silence of afternoon forces your mind to see things as they are, just like depression does.
Clink! the toast was ready, as he poured his coffee into his mug. Eggs were half made, half yellow, half white. He started spreading peanut butter on the bread, just in case eggs were not good enough to eat, from the edge of his eyes he could see her. Standing elegantly withholding a beautiful smile on her face. Smiling even more beautifully with her eyes, back straight and one shoulder leaning over the side of the refrigerator. She has cup of coffee in her hand. He often thinks her hands must be the best poem every written, they are definitely the most carefully crafted thing in the universe. Her hands moved with care, with love, with elegance, he could see them for hours and hours. He smiles thinking how annoyed she used to be before first cup of her coffee. He can't remember the last time he smiled. It may have been yesterday when he saw her, he thinks. He walks to her, gets very close, facing her. He can feel the steam coming out of mug on his chin. He looks down, the cup is empty. The hands holding them are not so elegant, they have unbearable bruises on them. There are no hands holding the cup anymore. It falls.
With his breakfast, he comes back to his room. Pulls back chair from his study and sits down. Eeriness of the afternoon persists as he gulps down the hot coffee. Outside the window, bulbul is resting at the branch of the tree. Just right by it, there is a nest with few eggs in it. She was standing aloof to protect those eggs. From the noise of it, you could hear there were lots and lots of birds chirping that day. Quite pleasant music, but it was noise for him. Trees, birds, bird's chirping, dogs barking, nothing was visible or audible to him. Just white noise. Everything was around him physically but in his conscious, he was aware about nothing. He didn’t even remember these are all the sounds he used to love. Not after her.
He took bite of sandwich and a sip of coffee to wash the sandwich down. Clock was striking fifteen as he finishes up the breakfast, stands up and goes back to kitchen. She was not beside the refrigerator anymore. Just like every day. He has gotten used to it now. But her picture came to his mind. Last moment what she must have been thinking, that was only thing he was conscious about from last three months. From 29th August 8:30 PM on MG Road, he could never forget. Even if he tried. Not a day has gone by where he wished he was with her.
Ciao,
Neer🐋
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