Hey you! Do ask me things. How I am doing. What I am doing… anything. By the way how am I doing? eh darling? good? excellent? spectacular? Do I represent a shining example of womanhood? Here let me tread by invisibly; let me wave my magic wand. Do you know if I am well? I long to fall sick, a delirious fever so that you might stick around. I don’t sleep much, have you noticed? Waking at odd hours, the dreams that mingle with the wakefulness, I prowl around the house feeling the bumps on the wall. Do you know when I sleep? The elusive sleep which, when it comes, comes in annoying jerks. The sticky sleep, freezing legs, sweating neck, nausea, a kind of horrible oppression. And then, and then, there is the dawn… the dawn that falls like a brilliant blob of lucidity, a tear drop, a splash from an old perfume bottle, a melted piece of ice. It’s so edible, these mornings, a swirl of lights and smells, so limpid that if you touch the air, it trembles, like a butterfly’s wings. Do you notice them? I wish I could tell you all about it, I wish I could scoop up a piece of dawn in my cupped hands and show it to you. It rained yesterday while I was waiting for you, and then all night while I was grappling with a nightmare that was wringing my throat. Have you tried choking yourself? The pain on your throat is unbearable, but there is a bizarre, peaceful silence in your ears, a kind of numbness of the cheeks and if you look at the blank white wall, you can see a swirl of colours, your finger tips turn cold. Darling, shall I strangle you?
Here
rains are eerie, not like the ones back home. The is no roar, no slow build up
of pitter-patter turning to a torrent, no thunder, no lush abandonment. Rains
here fall with an unnerving persistence, quietly, furiously making the air grow
colder, colder, and it clings to you, even when curled up inside a blanket, it
gets in, crawling up your legs and your ears hurt in the morning.
You
are late, and you slide in through the window. I am always reminded of a
thundercloud, an impending storm looming in the air when you enter. I smile my
carefully practiced ‘I-don’t-give-a-damn’ smile, the detached smile the half-wit
smile, the mirthless smile.
Its
green gram again, ‘Cheru payar’ that you love so much. Pressure cooked and tossed
into a mixture of sautéed onions and tomatoes. There is something about
coarsely ground red chilies. They have a rustle. They tickle my fingertips when
I grab them, their whispers make my hands laugh as I sprinkle them over the
bubbling woks. The myriad spices slowly
dying, releasing their aroma into the hot oil, embracing the flavours, singing
in that silent language of smoke, flames and simmering plethora of smells. Everything
is perfected through practice, who needs measuring spoons and recipes, these
hands and fingers have memorized everything. A pinch of turmeric, a scoop of
pepper, two pinches of cinnamon, 8 crushed garlic. The method, the whole order
of things around me. I am both queen and slave. I command what only I can obey.
Funny, the rain has shed the last of the yellow leaves on the trees. A
brilliant golden carpet. I long to roll on it. Do you know. If I was understood,
I would never have written poems? are you listening?
When
you got up today, coins tumbled out of your pocket they lay on the carpet like
faded stars. Have you licked a coin? they taste of rust and sweat. It amazes me
that you can pass through walls and crawl up to the ceiling. You taught me to
say ‘maybe’ in three different languages and cry in six different colours. I am
also mystified by your ability to completely shut down and just emit sounds in
a few pitches, like a warning for a low battery or something.
Do
you know that the tv is jealous of you? It watches you silently as you walk
about sipping that sickly sweet, tepid tea. It creaks deep in the night a
tired, complaining groan. Maybe we should throw it out, it looks at you so
accusingly all the time. I worry for you.
Do
you know, someday I fantasize waking up on a canvas, a lovely white stretch,
bed-sized. I shall go to sleep covered in acrylic paint, sparkling purples and
iridescent blues and yellow, lots of yellow. And thus maybe I may be imprinted,
an abstract of smudgy arms and legs. I can’t wait to see my hair, a splash of
streaky lines on the sheet and then I could tear it up and reconstruct it on
the wall. Will you help me stick it up? do you have ideas on how to do it?
Maybe we can do it together, roll on a white sheet covered in paint, or dance.
Lets dip our feet in paint and dance over a sheet of newspaper, lets fold it
and keep it away as a memento of those moments of sheer abandonment preserved
in paint. Shall we? darling?
I
have another idea, lets drag this mattress into the forest and lie on it. Or forget
the mattress, let’s just run to the forest and lie on the mossy, twig-covered
floor, let the dry leaves crunch under our bodies, let’s not care if the ants
and insects bite our bare backs, or the twigs bruise our elbows, let only the
wavering shadow of the trees cover us. Let us be another Ada, another Van, lets
loose to each other in a daze of ecstasy, let’s burst into poems and glide with
the dandelions. Let’s cry, giggle, watch the dust motes winking in the light, the
sun in your eyes, my anklets laughing, the blue feather falling on your
shoulder, the breeze cooling our necks, our tangled leaf-knitted hair, the
sudden drizzle, the crickets and the distant frogs, lets do…hello? darling? are
you listening? hey? you left already?
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