Lost. Won't be found.

There are few things I hate more than running a comb through my hair. With every stroke, it rips out reluctant black tresses and at the end you’re not left with the same head of hair that you’d started with. It’s a little bit like falling in love.

You’re not left with the same head you started out with.

Do you know how heavy the loose change of irretrievable loss feels in your pockets? It’s the bewildered droop of an unreturned smile. It’s the flicker of irritation at seeing a half-forgotten dab of pink, the day after holi. It’s the groan that accompanies the 361^st SMS when you’re down to single digit balance. It’s the menacing insistence of a borrowed book waiting to be read. It’s the lingering sadness of forgetting a line in a favorite song.

Of course, for me the sound of loss isn’t the feeble clink of small-denomination coins. It’s the wary hush of a chest of currency wads hoarded over a lifetime. I’ve lost innocence with the naïve consent of a foolish backward glance. I’ve unclenched unwilling fingers over stubborn dreams to lose them to the greasy palms of defeat. I’ve given away truth many times over, asked and unasked to the acquisitive collection bags of convenience, to the outstretched vagabond arms of transient indulgence, to the gagged excuses of my amputated soul. I’ve abandoned reason in the small black silence unseeing eyes of victors. I’ve cried over the anonymous thievery of faith and over misplaced keys of illusive invincibility.

It’s not easy to hold on to memories of losses. They dissolve deceptively, like soap bars in the summer indulgences of evening baths. You have to unearth them carefully, a stray yellow Leaf rescued from the mess of your hair. You have to wait for its footsteps vigilantly. It flees like fleet-footed spring between winter and summer, hopping over Pilani with a quick leap. Like a dainty young woman sidestepping a muddy puddle as she laughs at it fondly, all the while drawing up her satin skirts and staving off the puddle’s grimy embrace.

I can’t lose myself to the blistering glare of love. There’s no sunscreen for heartbreak.

I’ll lose myself to lies, a little at a time. I’ll hammer out tiny chips of lies from my monolithic monument of duplicity. Tiny marble chips, small enough to carve piercing letters of contempt on the blank smiling façade of my existence, but not big enough to lacerate my soul.

I’ll lose myself to life, whatever is still left of it. I’ll lose myself to work, for that’s the only numbing needle of comfort I haven't lost in this cruel haystack yet. I’ll lose myself to what has been irretrievably lost for there is nothing left to lose myself to now.

Close your eyes

Ah. This story should have made it to CF 08. Maybe it's safer this way.

Isn’t it strange that I’m thinking about you here, of all places? I’m curled up within a foam embrace, watching the knife tremble between her practiced grip, as she brings it towards my arms. It’s almost like buttering toast, I think, as golden brown stripes sweep my skin, suffusing it with its amber glow. Soon, her rough blue cloth sets out to undo the caresses of that sharp silver tongue, and my hair is evacuated and they cling to their cotton eviction notice in silent protest. I’ve always told you this doesn’t hurt. It stretches beyond the confines of normal pain. It’ got it all together-the sting of a slap, the piercing twinge of a knife wound, the raw smarting of a scab, the tingling of a broken bone. But why is this place is still filled with so many women? You can see them waiting in swank chairs, reading three-month-old copies of Femina, on couches, throwing impatient glances at the glossily efficient attendants, paying in hundreds and thousands to be stretched on the cushioned torture racks of parlor couches. Perhaps, this elopement with physical pain is merely a means of getting away from a more sinister pain. You know, in spite of all the remedies they offer here- massages, facials, and treatments the malaise is the same. We’re all ashamed of looking at ourselves naked in the light.

No, we’ve not always squirmed with naked discomfort. I remember a time when I believed that I was beautiful, just the way I was, when I didn’t notice the hair above my lips, or beneath my arms, the hint of flab around me hips, when I didn’t fret about the shadowy lines on my face or about the grey alphabets of death steadily scratching themselves into existence on the black slate of my head.

When I was ten, the morning after a rainy day, I saw mushrooms for the first time, in the shade under our neem tree. Of course, I was fascinated, as most kids are, when it comes to trysts with nature that aren’t sullied by the presence of adults. Among the rain-sodden earth and the putrid wetness of fallen neem leaves they became more attractive to me incongruously, ridiculously more attractive. But I didn’t want something that beautiful to be wedged within the inadequate grasp of grimy earth forever. Wanting to rinse off the mud, I removed them from the ground, wrapped them carefully in a knot in my handkerchief and went to school. And by the time I reached the washbasin, the mushrooms had crumbled into a reeking black mass.

Women’s bodies are like that. When you try to dislodge the grits of imperfection, they wilt with insecurity; they bloat with vain paranoia, and then fall into pieces with the kind of elaborate terror that only a blemish can engineer. But imperfect relationships are more terrifying than imperfect bodies.

You know the Humpty-Dumpty rhyme always reminds me of our marriage. Imagine we got Humpty-dumpty to sit on an inflatable wall. I would have wanted to pump the wall higher and higher up so that he’d reach the breathless altitudes of a fully formed flawless intimacy. What you’d have done is to push him down when the wall’s at the lowest possible height, say “At least this fall won’t hurt as much as the fall he risks by going higher.” And then you’d immediately set out to put the broken eggshell of his head together. When did my eggshell break?

Do you remember the first time we kissed? Do you remember what I’d said then? “In fairy tales, the kiss usually happens at the end, after the curses have been lifted, after the dragons have been slain, and when the Princess knows she’s found her true love?” You’d laughed out loud. “ But don’t you have to kiss a frog to have him turn into a prince?”

I used to believe in sexless love, how do they describe this myth? Pure love? That was before I reconciled myself the reality of loveless sex. The fairy tales had never talked about that, or am I recreating their stories end to beginning instead? What comes first? True love or the kiss? Is the kiss the fulfillment of true love, or does the kiss lead to true love? I haven’t found out yet, all I’ve gotten are kisses, anesthetic kisses – syringe like lips squirting out their medicated discharges, with their needles gently deflating hope and numbing the ache of defeat.

Ah, I disown my dreams now. The dream of true love I’d pressed them lovingly like flowers between the pages of my fairy tale books. Flowers that had been breathing in those incredible words, snuggling against the watercolour visions of turrets and Princes, sighing blissfully as the pages speeded towards the certainty of true love. As if that certainty would come alive in my life. And you turned those books upside down, shook them up till the pressed flowers fell out of their pages to be pulverized into colourless floral dust in derisive strokes between your deft fingers. And you shook them so hard that the pages broke loose from the binding and flitted away, leaving me with a torn book bereft of its most cherished words. “…and they lived happily ever after.”

“Aren’t you closing you eyes, Ma’m?” The attendant is incredulous, as she holds my arms up. Everybody expects me to close your eyes in the face of pain, as if that might allay my fear of the pain. But shouldn’t pain be looked at straight in the eye?

But you used to keep saying , “Close your eyes.” whenever we kissed. I suppose everybody expects me to close my eyes when you’re engulfed in pleasure as well. Close your eyes. Shut out the world. Because when we stand too close, our illusions about each other are punctured. The Prince becomes a beast. The Princess an ogress. Yes, I’ll close my eyes. To every shiver of pleasure and every spasm of pain. I’ll close my eyes. To the heartbreak of being wanted but not loved. I’ll close my eyes. To the tragedy of believing in fairy tales but living outside their enchanted gates. I’ll close my eyes. I can’t bear to see you, you who I don’t love, won’t love, ever. You’re my mangled fairytale. I’ll close my eyes. To the distances our abrasive unloving hands have traveled together across each other’s bodies, to our corrugated fingers probing beneath our clothes, and under our flawed skins in this callous, callous darkness. We’ve traveled so far together in silence, that inert silence that obsessive physical desire can implant, so far that I’ve lost my voice. Words rise like bile in my throat, but I feel clogged, I can only swallow them back and retch.

“You can open your eyes now Ma’m. I finished long back.” Her voice is polite, but I can sense undertones of sneering impatience. I get dressed quickly and pay. Why do I refuse to close my eyes?

Your fingers dance around the base of my throat tenderly, imperceptibly tracing the harassed ascent of my words up the hills of speechlessness. Finally they arrive breathless at the crest of vocalization. My mouth is half-open, as I start to say something, but your lips are too quick for mine, they clamp down on my mouth, like an iron muzzle on a horse’s snout. A kiss can rescue shipwrecked princesses bobbing along on a raft of enchanted sleep from gale-ridden seas, to the safe shores of true love. A kiss can also unloose treacherous groping hands, which push her into a fathomless well of silence. Your tongue is locked against mine kicking my dying words further down; they are thrashing about in asphyxiated agony, abortive attempts at staying afloat in the well. But its waters are frigid and my words are gradually paralyzed into a frozen silence. The cavernous depths of the well muffle the hum of verbal breaststrokes.

As I wrench away from you, your hands loosen around me, you look peeved “Close your eyes.” You say. I close my eyes obediently, silently. And then I sense my skin becoming vaporous, my body smudging into an anemic invisibility in your unyielding arms. I don’t exist anymore. As my body dissolves into a wraith-like mist in the well of silence, within your oppressive embrace, my soul is dragged along in its condemned wake. Why can’t I severe my soul from my body?

The grey dawn light seeps in through the coarse whiteness of the woolen blanket. I turn towards you anxiously, willing the nightmare to go away. I pound your shoulders with my fists, but you don’t wake up. Won’t you wake up? I want your hands to clasp my clammy ones, and coax out my amorphous fears. I want your wide flat lips to curve into a mocking smile of reassurance; I want to hear your slothfully comforting voice, to hear you say that it was just a nightmare, that I’ll wake up to a tranquil ending, even if it’s not a heady fairy tale ending. Finally, you stir, but then you mutter incoherent words, and roll away, the blankets slide off me, leaving my tear-drenched face exposed to the chill.

I get up and crouch close to your face. I run my wet fingers along your broad nose, through your thinning hair, along your dark chapped lips, around your tiny eyes bordered by dark crater-like rings. Why, you’re blind. Yours is a self-imposed blindness, a blindness that wants to infect my reluctant eyelids, eyelids that had refused to cloak the naked helplessness of my eyes opened wide. Your eyelids tremble under my fingers, but they are resolutely closed. I can’t unbolt locks where there are no doors, only walls. It’s a claustrophobic’s nightmare. Four eyes firmly shut, four walls closing in on us. Has it been nothing but a squelchy garden clay companionship? Clay laden with unhappy debris - withered stalks of shiftless passion, the fallen leaves of my frigidity, and the sullen pebbles of disappointment. Clay that can never be sculpted into a semblance of love.

I tug the blanket closer to my mouth, suppressing phantom sobs that haunt my throat. Soon, like you I’ll shut my eyes and descend into an uneasy slumber, falling in tune with the orchestrated rhythm of your breathing. After all it’s perfectly silent, a flat, drowsy silence. It’s not the strangulated silence of the drowning, but the trampled silence of the dead.

Version One:

For me, even semesters are like axles. It’s held the spoked wheel of routines in place as I’ve rumbled through the complex terrain of three BITSian years . For some, even semesters herald desperate hope. “It’s okay. I’ve got one more semester left. I can still make that dual/transfer.”

For some others, it’s a semester of extinguished desire. “This semester? Doesn’t mean a thing to me. It’s just like every other semester. Another cross on the wall- one less semester to go before I’m rid of this place.”

“So what are your new year resolutions? ”

A new year? I stared at the calendar without replying- the page still said October, 2007. “Still holding on to the past, eh?” My shrug was a declaration of guilt, guilt that stemmed from desperation, not deceit. Sometimes we have to live in the past, if we have to live at all.

This is semester that is beyond the reach of resolve. I can’t believe I’m saying this, I who have been eulogizing resolve throughout my life. Ah, Resolve. Resolve that shakes off perverse pessimism. Resolve of an austere kind, without the transient shine of new-year-resolutions. Resolve that crystallizes when you see that number on that blue-grey card on registration day, resolve that is wrung into existence without being serenaded or even acknowledged, resolve that melts into nothingness in the fiery face of temptation, resolve that is reinforced like ceramic, hardened with the heat of renunciation. So many dragons has resolve slain for me, and yet it fails me when I’m alone with the final many-headed monster.

“How are courses this semester? Ghoting already eh? Anyway you’ll make another nine.” It might be a semester of fruitless transition, from one set of futile expectations to another.

“Which semester will you be on? 4-1 or 4-2?” It might be a semester of goodbyes.

“What? You aren’t preparing for anything? Neither CAT nor GRE?” Or a semester of hard decisions and harder consequences.

A semester of disillusionment- I can already hear tunefully tittering sounds within every note of the incomplete melodies that batter my ears. The barbed laughter of derision. Contempt of promises that were made long back and were now lying unredeemed- like bounced checks. I’d overdrawn on my reserves of resolve. My account of resolve didn’t offer me unlimited credit after all.

A semester of irretrievable losses. A semester of fear. And a semester of defeat. Why did I even come back? To be a phantom enacting a make-believe version of life? With a false smile on my lips and a lament resounding within? The dagger of despair had dug into my heart long back, a strong-willed sickle plowing though parched cakes of land. Pilani pulled it out, only to leave melancholic shards writhing inside. Shards that tugged at my innards and stung painfully, whenever I groped and stumbled through my green room of solitude. I’d rather have the curtain drop and the play slink towards the fickle climax right away- A farcical engineering degree. An accidental six-figure job. A trashcan of memories. And a putrid compost of rituals to deal with it.

A forlorn cry pierced the sharply, tearing down the wintry veil of silence to shreds. From my corner in the classroom, I could see the source of noise- a molted grey bird, “I thought these peacocks had died in the cold. Looks like they have survived the winter.”

“What?” She gasped as I flung away my jacket. “You’ll freeze to death.” I smiled back, my glance still lingering over that miraculously air-borne grey shape. “No. I’m not feeling cold anymore.” What was frozen within me had started to thaw. The play was over; the hecklers had left. Among other things, this would be a semester of life as well.

Version Two:

The frames in the third reel were running out-the black loops of film wound around the top were thinning stubbornly. The movie, till now, an unbroken strand of honey clinging to a hive, suddenly seemed frail and strained under the threat of a disruption. The very instant the final length of film fell away from the top wheel, the second machine took over nonchalantly- beaming an uninterrupted ray of flickering light. It was like the awe that a flawless relay team might inspire, while we watch their baton change hands in milliseconds.

Everybody remembers their first RAF movie. And we would probably describe it in the same terms. The petulant wait for the stubs, the crowded counters at mess tables, the frantic pleas for those little coloured square chits, the whistles and cheers accompanying the descent of darkness, and then a communal cacophony of enthusiastic heckling and inappropriate applause. And of course, navigating your way through dense chattering crowds that would line every road that leads away from the audi. Has this picture changed? Or has it vanished altogether?

My companions listened enraptured, while the technician pointed out the frozen images and the Audio-tracks on the layer of black plastic. I was more interested in the disconnected audio-tracks that was playing within my mind.

“…we need more membership this semester to make ends meet.”

“RAF? I used to sign up regularly. But then, what’s the point in signing up? I don’t go anyway. And I can watch much better movies on my computer.”

“How am I supposed to go? They seem to screen movies only during tests.”

“RAF is a tradition. It would be sad if it shut down.”

“Come.” I snapped out of my reverie. “Let’s get out before we get caught in the crowd.” My friend said absently as she glanced at the door. “Crowds?” The man laughed. “There are no crowds anymore.”

Do we await Music nights purely for the “music” performance? Does “Sky” translate literally into “I’m hungry and I’m just looking for a burger”? Are batch snaps strictly confined to “getting a framed picture with your CDC-mates” and nothing else? Does the clock tower exist for the sole purpose of displaying time?

Throughout our history, we’ve shown a knack for transforming simple routines, seemingly plain events and the bare chores of existence into potential adventures, hallowed rites of passage, and yes, traditions. That’s why Sky, Music nights, batch snaps, the clock tower, RAF and a thousand other things have become unique BITSian symbols and rituals. Seemingly mundane features of our humdrum existence become enshrined within the portals of coded meaning, ritual and sentiment. And we’re in danger of undoing this process, of hacking away at these shrines, of wiping away that sacred dust of legacy. It’s like looking at the clock tower while it’s slowly stripped of its numerals till it won’t show us the time anymore. That’s what we risk- watching some of these symbols disappear in our blasé silence.

As we stepped out of the Audi, we glanced at the cardboard carton lying at our feet- upturned. Torn blue stubs flew out to litter the road. And soon, they vanished- some in the winter breeze, some between the thorns of dark green hedges and some under the heavy thuds of unseeing feet.

Version three:

The Fine Print, Issue six, Page one.

PS: I've always been conscious about the quality(but not the brevity ;) of the editorial, and four of my editorials, on six have turned out with coherence, consistent style and tone, and of course with impact. A general thumb rule I've adopted as a writer- give yourself as many choices as possible, hasn't worked. After three drafts for a possible editorial, I chose the worst written one for the issue. Note to self: keep your personal traumas out of a piece that is supposed to inform, entertain, stimulate thought, provide insight, and err I'll stop. I've mentioned all possible connotations contained in the cliché "editorial food for thought" What I seem to be producing instead is "editorial purgatives for a confused adolescent (me.)"

“I want a new pair of shoes, Amma.” Her mother’s matter-of-fact eyes went over her tiny eight-year old feet in a quick glance of appraisal before replying. “They seem to be in good shape, chellam, wanting nothing but a wash perhaps. Why do you want a new pair?” she sighed. Some explanations wither in the face of maternal reason. That’s the perennial blight of the frisky meadows of childhood, the bleak inevitability of having to convince obstinate adults about a cause that marches within the rules of your infantile logic. “Because…” she tried again, her voice shrinking into a whimper as her mother’s arms encircled her. And then the truth came out in a wounded whisper. “Because I want shoes that make me run faster.” And an invisible stream of deeper reasons that flowed along the banks of her teary hiccups, unnoticed. Because I’m tired of being the slowest in class all the time. Because I take ten seconds longer than anybody else. Because I want to be like everybody else, not someone singled out for ridicule for forty seconds of athletic ignominy…

“Ok. Manu. Stop Crying. You want to run faster, so you want new shoes? No problem. Just wait till tomorrow.”

Her smiles didn’t dampen at the sight of an ordinary cardboard carton, but when her fragile feet were eased into the hundred-rupee comfort of a shoe-laced sanctuary, she started. “But…’ her black eyes ignited with protest, fuelled by the mocking phantoms of parental perfidies peeking out from every steel-rimmed shoe-lace hole. “It’s only a size-10 Bata white-canvas shoe. It’s the same thing as what I’ve got. How will it ever help?”

And the swift pledges and rebuttals of her mother. “Of course not, Manu, it looks the same, but it’s a very special pair of shoes. It’s a magic shoe.”

Magic. Its familiar limpid contours. And it had winked at her more than once. The colours that appeared out of nowhere on the blank sheets of her magic colour books (“Just wet your brush and see the colours run. It’s magic.”). The obedient jerks of the car wheels under the remote-transmitted waves of the magic wand in her brother’s hands. The fabulous shuffling dance of red and black playing cards that seemed to puncture the rules of probability with an innocent ease. Nothing is easier to believe at the credulous age of eight, than magic. And magic is never more real when the package bears the ultimate seal of parental guarantees.

“ But it comes with a special instruction. Of course, you’ll run real fast and win any race with these shoes. But this will work only if your mind is focused on one thing.” She paused. Manu waited with bated breath. This was the crucial bit.

“You’ve got to keep thinking about the finish line, nothing else. You shouldn’t look feel, hear, and see, anything else while you’re running.”

“Why, it’s just like the fairy tales, it’s got to work then.” She marveled. “After all, every implement of magic has a catch, a condition. Like Cinderella’s midnight deadline.’ And Manu was off with her shoes clasped against the feral gallops of her tiny overjoyed heart.

“OK. Stand in line all of you. Height order, as usual.” The P.T master’s brusque booming voice was a deliberate deception that still didn’t succeed in hiding a yielding kind nature. He’d ignored school guidelines and surrendered to the girls’ constant choruses of “Please Sir. Please.” To let them play on that grey afternoon, when the rain and sun seemed to be taking turns in going undercover in an elaborately rehearsed stratagem of frustrating the citizens of Madras. The playground had turned from a crisp brown cup cake to a soggy cake mixture that had been deserted in an oven that had powered off midway.

The PT master stalked past endless pairs of muddy shoes, shaking his head at the culpable owners, and ignoring cries of “But it’s been raining the whole day”. “Cleanliness is Godliness.”, one of the key school dictums, scowled menacingly from their sanctimonious heights on the signboards at the squirming feet within the muddied shoes. Shoes like ravaged canvas sails that had been buffeted by the slimy currents of roadside puddles. Shoes like despoiled defeated shields that had suffered the thrusts of victorious feet upon their faces- to accept parallel brown imprints from an identical sole- footprinted scars that wouldn’t leave for a long time. And shoes that bore the unmistakable odour of a quick-fix mixture-- chalk and Kiwi shoe white, faithfully (and hurriedly) rubbed over mucky shoes, as if a genie would materialize from the shoe to banish the squalor.

“Aha, new shoes, Manu?” His eyes swallowed the untainted expanse of the white spotless scabbard enveloping her tapering feet. Swords that slashed their way through dirt without staining the scabbard. His pleased smile seemed to reignite in her, that glow that the new shoes had spawned. The rest of the class tittered. “Well, new shoes are not going to make slowcoach Manu run any faster.” Somebody remarked, and the entire class burst out laughing. But Manu smiled back at him, bravely with her tiny head aloft.

“Now there.” He continued kindly. ‘I’m sure you’ll do much better this time. Would you like to take the trials first?”

Manu took in the familiar sight of the small ground in a single scouting glance. There was the principal’s room and the huge slushy pool outside her door, the cricket nets, the playpens for the KG kids, the long jump pits, and then back to base. “I shouldn’t get mired anywhere, hey wait, I shouldn’t think of anything else but the target.” She concentrated as hard as she could on the finishing line, which had been drawn some distance away from the starting blocks and she managed to stow that image in some upper decks of her mind. A circular object of erstwhile doom emerged from the PT master’s pocket on a black leash and he adjusted the timer to zero, ignoring the remarks that this action invited. “Why take so much trouble Sir, she’ll take exactly forty seconds anyway. Imagine, forty! I complete the course in twenty point three…”

His long brown fingers were poised over the red button, inconsequential accomplices in this conspiracy, ready to dispatch Manu on a sprint, to match the tick-tock ticking sprint of the cunning contrivance of time in his powerless hands. “OK. Manu. Ready?”

Her shoes seemed to laugh at her, the pristine tinkle of the white laughter of magic and the certain victory that always came in its wake and suddenly she smiled. She nodded her readiness. “One two three.”

Manu shivered as the water entered her eyes, and the antiseptic odour drifted into her nostrils. The mud slithered off her skin slowly and snakily made its way into the soft secret folds of that wet turkey towel instead. The knotted spheres of cotton thread rubbed against her hair vigorously, threatening to pull her hair out along with the threads.

Like Velcro.Velvet of her black hair against the crotchety towel.

She opened her eyes. A lopsided obscured view. Between the gaps left by the towel-edges between she saw her mother leaving her umbrella outside the Headmistress’ room. As she entered, she rushed towards Manu. The ayah stopped toweling her immediately, and as it lifted Manu felt a fresh wave of devastating disorientation bleed into her. And as she hugged her mother weakly,everything seemed to vanish- her pounding aches and the fiery blaze around the edges of her sore wounds.The deadened sensations within her head should have anaesthesized her bodily pain, but curiously, it strengthened her awareness of the pain. It reminded her of what her cataract-ridden grandmother used to say while being blindfolded- “Ah.Everything’s so much sharper now.” As if blind man’s buff offered a much better field of vision to cataract-clouded eyes. As if a frozen consciousness could sedate unbearable pain.

She caught fragments of the HM’s soothing voice as the two women spoke. “I’d suggest a nice hot bath. She needs to be cleaned up a bit. Lots of mud, yes terrible weather, isn’t it? And then a couple of bandages and a bit of rest. And she can come back to school tomorrow good as new.”

“Yes. She’s had a bad fall. Poor girl. It’s shock more than physical injury. I’ve already had a word with the PT instructor. I’m surprised he let the girls run about when the ground is so slippery. Thankfully, it was only the long jump pit that she fell into. Soft, but it’s made her all muddy. Nothing serious, really.”

She limped her way towards the school gate towards the waiting auto, on her mother’s arm, and they walked through the now desolate playground, half-drenched under the inadequate protection of an umbrella each. The brown cascades surging from puddles lapped on to their feet without any warning. Her mother trod cautiously on that slick path, her toes, in the clasp of a rubber-hawaii embrace, shunned the inundation She looked at Manu’s hopelessly submerged feet. One foot swathed within the grubby confines of a decrepit shoe and the other foot shuddering within navy-blue socks slowly turning brown as more and more sand from the stream plugged its weaves.

Manu’s mother looked at her solitary unprotected foot. “Where’s the other one, Manu?”

Manu’s hand stretched out of the confines of her umbrella into the icy shower, pointing soundlessly towards the long jump pit. “I’ll get it. Her mother said tactfully. As she walked to-and –fro across the length of that muddy mess, the sight of that runaway shoe eluded her with the doggedness of an errant puppy. “OK. Let’s leave” The words rolled out with absent-minded ease, with forgotten frigidity in a pitiless murmur. “It’s just an ordinary pair of canvas shoes anyway.”

“Manu?” She sighed impatiently as she waited, with her arms folded.

Manu winced with pain as bent down on her knees. Slowly, she undid the discoloured shoelaces, though wet, still stiff and new between her frozen fingers. As the lace wobbled out of that taut knot, it might have felt like untying the knots around a gift- kinesthetic memory counts after all. But she was actually ripping open the curtains of a performing magician, to realise that abracadabra was a mythical falsehood and he that the Wizard of Oz was a fable. The spell hadn’t bamboozled the gaping spectator, the enchantment was a deception, a con-trick. And the enchanted became the disenchanted. She flung it away-launching into an irritably brief trajectory of betrayal, and it lay suspended mid-air like a visual premonition for a single furious moment. It landed softly into the pit. But Manu’s mother, busy waving away the dripping annoyance of the sodden auto-driver, didn’t notice. She turned towards a now-erect Manu with sharp relief. “OK. Let’s go. Walk carefully.” Manu nodded. She was going to tread slowly and carefully for the rest of her life. She’d never shoot forward with that facile fluency of motion- a dream that had flown forth in a unrestrained flash and had evaporated with a piddling puff.

Ah, the dreams of childhood, they are spun out of glass. And like a skilled glass blower I’ve blown many-hued globes of triumph, drawn flimsy glass strands of hope, and shaped clear cylinders that were to enclose potions of enchantment. I’ve worked away steadily with my inextinguishable gas-torch of hope, those flames of faith cutting and blowing glass, my soft mouth encircling endless burning tubes of hot new glass. Broken. And all I have to do now was to walk carefully, avoiding the pointed edges of the sullen invisible pieces of my figurines. In the dark, where they won’t even beam at me under the sun, their sunlit smiles promising magical resurrection.

They walked carefully away from the long-jump pit. From that squelchy grave. A futile childhood dream was buried there- sullied, abandoned and torn to shreds.

The last circle...

Not enough. To harden my heart and smother my desire. Not enough. To close my ears and blind my eyes. Not enough. To avert my face and turn my back. I've started, started walking on this road, this terrible winding road, crossing each circle, the anticipation of finding the center dying with the sight of yet another circle to defeat. Our doomed quest. For that elusive dot , the singularity, the pole, the zero, the point,the center.

I know I'll die. I'm not afraid. It feels like surrendering to an embrace that's been held back for a long long time. We're not strangers anymore, are we?. Fear. It was all a dream. A premonition that I beheld and you'd laughed at. A vision that I'd shaped and you'd crushed laughingly between your nimbly cruel fingers in a swift contemptuous movement . A death that I'd foreseen and you'd dismissed with every circle we'd crossed. A reality that will never be real to you. Ever.
I love you. Your foolish faith. Your unseeing eyes. Your endless capacity for joy. Your infallible spirit. For being my only constant of reality in the unresolved domain of my life. I love you. You are my final shield. You are the last barrier. You are the defiant herald of my fading resistance. You'll conquer it all- my powerless melancholy, my overpowering renunciation, my hopeless resignation. We don't really need to reach the center, I'll be happy if we keep going around in infinitely concentric circles together. Forever.I can keep going around in circles with you, after all, we can never reach that point. Ever. It's pointless when you're around.

Today, we've reached the last circle. Only one more battle remains. The enemy lies there in the center, like a king poised for checkmate. Smiling. A careless smile of welcome. We're home. A smug smile of recognition. A smile of submission. She's already made her peace with defeat. We see her there, victory doesn't stem that throbbing stream of curiosity. The illusion breaks gently, like a disguise lifting to reveal a familiar face. We've seen the enemy and She's me.


PS: Phew! It's over.Quite a rant.Sources of inspiration (and sometimes desperation): P.H.Pearse, A1 CDCs, English Press Club, third year first semester (probably the most difficult sem yet) at BITS, Pilani, being Ramya Kumar (again, quite difficult.).

Stranger in my backyard

This is the tale of a stranger- she’s a perfect stranger to me at least. A defiant stranger who dared to trespass into my backyard. She came in the afternoon when the sands were boiling with heat, its muted hues glowing in the two-o-clock sun. She turned hesitantly towards the ocean, after all she didn’t know that two is the most awkward time of the day to come- the beach was completely deserted save cosseted couples strewn all around- in the shadows cast under rusted broken down joy rides, in the shade of fried fish stalls, between the fishing boats- lying down on beds of nets in the narrow gap. But she was no voyeur- as she walked self-consciously towards the shore, the angry stares scorched even more violently than the Madras sun did. But once he reached the shore, all doubts vanished, she forgot about the sun- which seemed to be walloping her with a red-hot whip, she forgot about the drops of sweat fighting low surface tension to cling to her skin, she forgot about the attention she was receiving- why would anyone walk without her shoes on- on a hot afternoon like this. And the shore isn’t exactly the cleanest area of the beach- your feet wont thank you to venture there barefoot, all kinds of debris was delivered to the loving lap of the beach by the persistently unbiased waves-bizarrely chosen refuse, the sea sure had an eccentric streak- banana skins, flower garlands from corpses, stray single pieces footwear (sandals, rubber chappals, a child’s shoe with red lights.) that had deserted unfortunate feet, and of course the ubiquitously present piles of dung- orange reeking masses waiting for waves to carry them away into the sea floor. She picked her way gingerly between these objects, wincing occasionally at the bite of tiny transparent crabs that scuttled up between her toes from small perfectly circular holes. But she was happy, she was perfectly deaf to her thoughts, the only sound that carried through were the waves growling gently in her ears, like a veiled warning- “Don’t get too close. You can’t even swim.”

But she didn’t care; her feet felt cool on the freshly wet sand that hungrily devoured the froth of the ocean to leave behind a lingering trace of foam. Sweat kept appearing and disappearing in a condensation- evaporation game between the sun and the sea- the breeze seemed to swallow those drops immediately after the sun commanded them to ooze out.

She had gone a long distance from Elliot’s, but she didn’t turn back to check, rather she looked forward. The colony of fishermen stood before her, their tsunami-reconstructed apartments- spanking new and tall besides the row of humble huts, their bright coloured fishing boats proudly bearing the names of the donors, the fishing nets hung between palm trees, the narrow gully of waste water that made its way quietly into the sea. She looked around at their leering faces in fear. They were men of the sea- the sea was their perpetual source of survival, their all-consuming sewer, their tolerant sanitation system, and their merciful cemetery. They were dangerous as dangerous as a tempestuous sea could get -these burly men in their lurid lungis fiercely proud of their tiny huts, their precarious lives, their perilous existence.

As she turned around in regret she shot a last look at the stretch that she hadn’t covered,would probably never cover- The Theosophical Society and the dense green foliage within its high walls fighting the infiltration of seaside weeds-their green lotus shaped leaves flapping in protest, the Adyar River mingling into a union with the sea with a joyous serenity that pierced her heart chillingly.

The towering hoardings on the beach seemed far away now like a distant haven of safety she was dying to reach- their smiling images were beckoning her forward – faster, faster, and faster. As she walked back, she smiled fondly at the footprints she’d made on her way forward- her large feet had made yawning cavities in the sand- her stride had been a forward thrusting motion that had the physical impact of a powerful punch- a punch in the sly face of alienation. Her footprints were so beautiful, she stopped to trace their pattern- they looked harmonious- a sinusoidal waveform flipped vertically in a right angle. He turned to gaze at the effect that both sets- from the forward and backward journeys- made together.

She staggered forward in surprise- the sea was obliterating her footprints gently wave after wave; and then a particularly resounding crash later they were gone.

The stranger sank into the sand, oblivious to the water entering her clothes. Her tears made ripples in the sea, ripples that distorted her reflected face. As the water engulfed her lovingly again, she spurned this wet embrace of consolation and walked away- still a stranger.

Harry Potter and the deathly hallows- hollow or what?

After those excruciatingly restless 6 hours were over, I just wanted to sleep, to stop thinking. Potter has always been given me hangovers throughout these 7 odd years- the 5th book was an exception. Every other time, the weight of what I read would sit over my consciousness smugly, haunting my dreams, creating tempests in my thought patterns, dulling my ability to focus, drowning my hopes - well, you get it, every kind of distraction. Of course, I'd be able to shrug it off after a week or so, and after LOTR I desperately wanted to shift loyalties. Tolkien's universe was unfathomably perfect, you can instantly recognize the glint of genius blinding you, it's slickness skidding you while you're on your way to unraveling the mysteries of his smoothly contoured terrain- after all it's got optimum quantities of drama, more depth, and a wider expanse of fantasy that breaches more and more limits as the plot unfolds. Rowling on the other hand made sure that the gates of her world stayed open to anyone willing to whoop with joy within those- mediocrity has its bright side after all. Basically all you need to enjoy Potter is the capacity to suspend disbelief, logic, and to overlook inconsistencies and constant swings in direction. The plot constantly threatens to spin beyond the realm of credulity, but Rowling's always managed to drag it back with a straightforward ease that's always managed to keep the reader in her place- twitching with anticipation.

In the beginning, I used to analyze HP to bits with my friends, but when all our hopes about carefully thought out predictions dissolved, we gave up. No I gave up. I gave up when I realized that Harry had stopped appearing real to me. Like every other HP fan what hooked me (I was never a sucker for fantasy) was the "Hey. It's me." moment that we experienced when we first met Harry (OK- or Ron or Hermione for that matter.) When I stopped seeing myself in him, when I couldn't understand their motivations anymore, it stopped pulling me along its haphazard course.

The seventh book is different. OK it s a typical potboiler. Perfect Ending. "What the heck" sequences that would make any other author blush about the weaknesses in her plot. Fantasy writers can get away with all this. I mean you're supposed to overlook (basic) defects in their craft because of the way they weave their magic carpet stories- spun in such a way we're transported from our reality.

I liked HP 7 in spite of everything because Rowling hasn't betrayed some basic principles of story -telling, a quality that's becoming rare in modern writers -most of them are bent on outdoing each other in writing stuff with the most shock value- under the mask of innovation.

She has stayed true to the spirit of story-telling in the following ways-:

a) make your protagonists lovable- shouldn’t the reader care about your central characters, their problems, understand what s troubling them and why, their dreams, hopes, fears, loves etc.
b) your character has a problem to solve, he might have a few conflicts to sort out. Ultimately, the reader should be persuaded to hang on till all this gets resolved.
c) But then the reader will get bored/stop reading if our hero finds it a little easy. Throw as many obstacles as possible in his path- physically dangerous stuff, emotionally disturbing realizations, mentally destabilizing discoveries, difficult relationships- the works. And when all seems lost, and our hero seems destined for certain doom, hey presto, he pulls out the last ace and triumphs
d) keep repeating all this nicely with appropriate style/structure/dialogue/description/characters/ACTION and you have a well-balanced story that makes you go "Aww. That was a brilliant tale." and then you flip back to the first page and...

While all these classic rules have produced clichés (quite prominent in this series) opposites attract (Ron- Hermione) love can impart strength to perform miracles (Mrs. Weasley's impossible feat- "not my daughter you bitch!" lol.) overlooking opportunity right under you nose. ( "We might have had years together"- Harry and Ginny’s future. yuck!) And those typical "Whatever you've been searching for. It's there. It's always been there. You’ve been ignoring it all the while." epiphanies that occur to Harry whenever he struggles to crack some clues that lead to horcruxes, the perfect double agent (well he s elevated to saint status here. sigh. all the cards come crashing down together in one moment of truth. an explanation that leaves you wondering how she cobbled together this theory without planting any clues in previous books.) then the usual death-despair-revenge-healing-strength to overcome circle, and lessons about appearances and their deceptions. Certain exalted personages can have skeletons have skeletons in their cupboard as well- this doesn’t lessen our respect for them though the illusion of their impregnable perfection lies shattered. Rather, it lessens the foreboding effect of their enigmatic aura - makes the more human and easier to like. And the characters I’d dismissed lightly in the earlier books grow in stature, and some have managed to lessen my dislike for them. And then moral dogmas like loyalty, respect for life, the evils of prejudice, concepts of equality etc, which have been highlighted repeatedly in the series.

I don’t like this absolute soulless evil vs. pure good conflict. Voldemort and his gang are made to look worse than the Taliban (an ideological intolerant tint to his personality and actions?) or Idi Amin. I mean you can’t go all the way to create the archetypal despot. Grey shades work best.

Right there might be a million things that are wrong with this book, but it's kept me engrossed till the end, and I couldn’t have created something as absorbing. So it's been one heck of a journey for this gritty woman, she’s worked quite hard for all the media attention, money, glory she’s earned. It’s difficult to end a story of this kind (Hmm. When Most of you fan base is made of kids) on a satisfactory note, tie up every loose end, complete every character's journey-but she’s done it. Not spectacularly, not stylishly, not reasonably, not admirably, but creating a climax that makes you want to cry and laugh at the same time, say “Oh. How wonderful” and “How lame” together, an ending that makes you go weak in the knees yet leaves you capable of a hollow laugh at its predictability, and corniness.

Well, ok why should I spoil this moment with feeble criticism? I’ve grown up with this book; I’ve read its last installment two days after the crushing realization that I’m 19. This thing is supposed to be a vital part of my childhood- the bouncy excitement of the sleepless nights-before, the reading marathons on the three release-days (5,6,7) that always exasperated my parents, my disillusionment and the distance that crept up, only to be replaced by reassuring comprehension, And the numbed heady silence that follows the last page…

It’s been quite a journey for Harry as well. And quite a story.

End of story.