The Man

Every day he crossed paths with his “Man”. Watching him walk down the lane, exchange glances, nod, smile and move away, while he turned around for a view of those gorgeous butts, made his day!

An honest appreciation of beauty now turned into a mix of erotic fantasy and innocent crush! The tanned face, thick trimmed beard, slender nose, full pink lips he pursed as he smiled, fiery eyes adorned with a pair of thick rimmed glasses got butterflies flying in his stomach! Long legs, broad shoulders with modest biceps bulging through the shirt- an athletic body, his perfectly tailored clothes could hardly contain- got him weak in the knees!

Blame it on the heart, each day he found hope! He felt the nod suggested more than just a hello! He wondered if he could hug him, or kiss those full lips! Each day, desires soared higher! He blushed pink as they passed through! “He wants me to initiate,” he thought walking up!

He waited for the guy to appear, a little longer, and as they got closer, he gave out a wide smile and winked!! “Your Turn ” almost blurting out! The smile gave way to a perplexed scorn and clear anger! Mouthing a curse or two, straightening up menacingly, he shook the head as if to ask “What was that?”.

Throat growing dry, thighs shivering, he looked away! Walking faster, not turning back, stopping only at the bend of the road, he let out a gasp! He never took that route again!

The Cinephile

Movies were always a matter of pomp in the family! It was the eldest daughter who was the most infected by the cinema bug. There were times when the entire family of six siblings and the parents would go watch every cinema that came to the town! At times she watched them alone and narrated the entire script back home after the lights went out!

She was then married off to a family, which wasn't particularly interested in movies! The husband's disdain in the matter was most appalling! Nonetheless, she never let the love die down. She would drag the poor man along to the movies where he either dozed off or pacified her wailing infant, while she drifted into utter euphoria once the theatre lights went off!

Years passed and they aged! The hubby was no longer obligated to give in to the demands of the aging wife! She had to make do with the movies that were aired on Doordarshan every Friday night! She considered it a disgrace, watching cinema on TV, but had no choice!

She now pins hopes on her son who she finds mirrors her taste! He gets her the DVDs now and then, even takes her to the nearby PVR a place she finds glaringly misfit to be a cinema hall! There's still hope she thinks, this boy will carry on the lineage, she hopes as he sits narrating her new a movie she could not watch

Ajji

Ajji had been ill for more than a week! It had all started with a fall she suffered in the bathroom. The external bruises healed, but her health went for a toss. The boisterous grama was now a quietly aging creature with bouts of vomiting and bad appetite which rendered her fragile. Even the doctors were of little help.

And the housemaid intervened! "It must be an evil spirit that’s bothering her", she said. "I will take off the Drishti (the ominous sights of the demon) off her, just get me a handful of chillies and salt" It must be a baby demon, he mused. It was probably a spirit of a child that’s been haunting Ajji for she had transformed into a cranky toddler since the fall! She would call out to him for the simplest of tasks, pee in the saree, steal almonds and cashews from the shelf and would throw up all over herself right after eating them.

She had mellowed down a lot, obeying to whatever he said, and smiling for no reason. She would sit at the balcony for hours waving at the passersby until they disappeared down the street. He had surprisingly grown fond of her now.

"There! The spirit should stop bothering by the evening and would vanish by Amavasya", said the maid, drowning the chilli and salt into an urn of turmeric water. Though hopeful things will get better, he was scared! He seriously did not want the baby spirit to leave, which meant Ajji would get back to her bossy, quarrelsome and cunning self. He had a feeling he would lose her, the moment the spirit was gone!

Venting Out

The women in the family had a strange way of venting out! While attending to the daily chores, in the midst of mundane conversations, one of the ladies would break down cry her heart out while the others just patted her back and made comforting noises- “its okay!” or “enough now!”. No questions would be asked and no details sought as if it was a collective ritual and the intensity of the episode varied with the seriousness of the issue!

He had witnessed it so many times such scenes never bothered him anymore! And one day, it happened to him.

Unable to handle relationship troubles, Amma’s mounting pressure to get married and career issues, one day he saw it coming to him with full gusto! He was in the kitchen to fetch some water and he wept! And like never before! It was a full-mouthed cry, his face wet with tears and snot which lasted for more than five long minutes.

When it was over, he felt better and even better on realizing that one of the Akkas had been patting his back all this while saying All shall be well! All shall be well! He felt strangely close to the women of the family as if he was one of them! He felt light!

Forever

She watched Arun smile at his phone as she sat sipping the tea in the little stall en route Mussoorie!

"It must be her" she spoke to herself! "It's only for Reva's texts that he smiles so much!" she went pale for a moment and recovered

"What is she to him?" "Is he having an affair with her?" she laughed at the thought! "Hell no!" she said aloud! "I know him better! And Reva is an absolute gem! Everything in the world needn't have a name! I am being so stupid", she smiled!

Beep! Beep! Her phone buzzed!

"Happy Anniversary Sweethearts!" it was Reva!

"Six years and going strong! Love to you both!

PS: Your stupid hubby doesn't remember the day! Be good to him"

She looked at the message and repeated

"Six years and going strong!"

With that, she hurriedly gulped the tea and rushed to him as their car was repaired now and she was dying to get in!

She never kept count of their days together! Coz it was going to be forever!

The Relief

He was the blue-eyed boy of the family! Well behaved soft-spoken and docile! The only child to land a “Secure” job while the other kids "experimented” with careers! He had no demands as a child and his education didn’t cost much! “He will be a perfect husband” his mother would beam! Not to forget the prospective matches that were being made!

One day, It was all over! He was found “kissing” somebody! To add to it, it was a boy he was philandering with. With that, he came to be called as “that” with a wink!! His popularity sagged with the news and the aunts had their tongues wagging! 

His abnormality was attributed to the “Caste-less Marriage” his parents had.  All his virtues turned into vices overnight! Soft-spoken? Well-behaved? Very quiet? Oh! that was because he was a faggot in the hiding! He was never “clean”! His “good boy” rating reduced to a third and his hitherto useless cousins were “normal and fine”!

Strangely, he was unmoved by the decline! He took the mockery with an unusual grace as if he was waiting for the “dethroning”! Bereft of all the pretense and unburdened! He felt alive!

To the fourteen year old me!

Dear fourteen year old me,

A big hug to you! Tell me, how does it feel to be a fourteen year old in the early 2000s? Oh come on! Don’t be such a spoilsport, talk to me! I know you do not quite appreciate strangers but I am not a stranger sweetie! I am you! I am who you will be fifteen years later! There, I so remember that sweet smile of yours and I wish it stays like that forever! Umm, so can we have a small chat?

As I write to you on this cold overcast July evening, all I can think of is the Chikmagalur rain. My god! It would rain incessantly for four months and how! You live in the times before the mobile phone and the internet (they are around, but aren’t accessible that is) and your life is so much simpler. You cannot imagine how endearing it is to imagine that those days still exist somewhere in the past. That YOU are still THERE! Still growing up, still hoping for life to get better!

Let me make this clear, you will not get to know what is going happen in your life in the next fifteen years. NO! THAT is not why I am writing to you. Come on now! You watch so many Bollywood movies and you know how bad spoilers are! All you can be assured of is that your life WILL get better, you will mature a little bit and you will fall in love (No! Not the love you have for that guy in the tenth grade, but something better than that).

Now, let us get back to the the business of the letter, love! I totally get what you are going through. I know you do not feel great about going to school anymore and I know it is not a kiddish tantrum of yours! I saw your shock when the other day, you entered the big school gate and someone on the bicycle whizzed past making a deliberate attempt to knock you down, but failed! Luckily for you! You knew right then that it wasn’t an accident! You were expected to fall, make a spectacle of yourself and entertain them! I know why you have stopped visiting the school toilet altogether, even if it means your bladder is so full you can barely walk. That pain is so much better than some moron peeping into your privates as you pee and yelling “Hey he has one”! This fear of being watched, specially while answering the nature’s call, still haunts me! So much that I still cannot do it in a crowded loo. Oh and those forty five minutes of pure horror called the PT class? You pull yourself out of that bunch of pushing-kicking-swearing idiots and hide in the sports hall, all the while praying your teacher does not fish you out, as you cannot endure another session of mockery and insult! In the lunch break you so wish you were invisible. You absolutely hate it when as you are walking back to the class and a gang starts calls out to you in unison, making all sorts of silly mimicry of how you talk, walk and run, calling you names - sissy, gaandu, chakka and what not! I get it all my little one! I get it all!

But you know what I do not get? I do not get it when after a particularly hurtful verbal abuse, you rush to the staff room and complain to the class teacher and all he does is laugh? He shrugs it off as a “boys brawl” and does nothing about it? Does he even know what he just did? He just paralyzed your hope of being in a safe place! I am baffled when the head master, the “father” as we called him, advises you to “adjust and toughen up” when he was actually supposed to handle the bullies!

Bullies! That is what they are! (were? I just hope!) You have already begun reading, haven’t you? Then you will know who they are. When you come across the word, you probably think they belong to the “foreign” countries but they are right there! Years later when you will read a little more about it, you will know you were “bullied” and you will be happy it did not kill you! You heard that right darling! People, young and old alike, have died in the hands of bullies, while the ones who survI'ved, people like you and I, have carried the scars forever! So my friend, feel fortunate, you have survI'ved, you have grown up to in your late twenties and you are writing to your younger self!

   

But hey, there are a few moments of hope in the school right? Remember the pals who you have lunch with? That new kid who is in awe of your Hindi? That senior guy who makes you laugh with his silly jokes on the way back home? That guy in the tenth grade whose smile gives you a funny feeling in the tummy? They have been good to you sweetheart and you should feel better! Do I sound too much like Amma here? Well may be! I have grown up to resemble her quite a lot you see!

I know what happened the other day after the “Independence” day (a pity) dance practice! You were pretending you did not hear what he called you, but I know your heart stopped beating! You tried hard not to react but your eyes welled up! He called you a …… never mind! Well I have good news for you by the way, that word he used? People are forbidden from using it now! (along with the other things of course) if that makes you feel better! That bastard is happily married and posts silly pictures on facebook (you will know about it later), blissfully unaware of what his words did to somebody.

You know what happened the other day? There was this young guy (was! sigh!) who was out shopping with his brother and he had spat with a bunch of bullies! He was trying to defend himself from being mocked and he was killed! They dragged him somewhere, shoved bottles up his anus and he died! I know this is too much for you but you HAVE to know what might have happened to you in the worst case! You would have died, the teachers who shrugged you off would have held a mourning meeting, your parents would have wailed and moved on and fifteen years later you would be remembered as that silly, sissy, mute kid who died in a “boys brawl”! Even as I write to you about that poor child, I shudder, my hands tremble and tears roll!

This is when I remembered you and this why I write to you!

You haunt me every time I happen to scroll through a post on bullying! I always thought I was over you! I always thought you were already ME! But NO! I realized that you are still there! You have remained forever trapped in that scary place of a school, forever surrounded by those bullies who have forever been laughing at you, peeping at your privates, “talking” about you to the junior kids, calling you names, groping on you, never letting you out of that whirlpool of insult and pain where you will ultimately drown and die! I left you there in the school, as I hurried home after that extremely irritating farewell function with all that fake hugging and smiling and ‘we will miss you’ ing. I left the scared fourteen year old that was me in the school without even assuring to return! You have been living so far away from me all these years making me feel incomplete, unfinished, blank!

So I write to get back to you! To walk into the big school gate, past that beautiful garden that has come up in these years, past the cycle stand, past the football ground, into the sports hall and into that dingy corner of the store room where you hide! There you are! Oh I remember the sweater you have been wearing all the year round, summer and winter, as an armour? Do you see me now? I haven’t changed too much except for the height and so you know I am for real? I have come to take you home with me! But before that, let me tell you why you need to get home.

You need to get out of this dark place in the first place! The world is so much a better place to be spent in the store room dear! When I say this, I never deny your pains, I do not think that because you were not physically harmed your pains do not hold water, I will never dare to call what happened to you a “brawl”. No it was not that simple. I totally know what you endured as a child! Those scars on the soul never heal but you have to let them be! You have to remember that you have lived through a very hard and torturous phase of you life. These struggles have made you stronger yet sensitive. You are certainly not going to forget those insults, but you have to forgive yourself for what happened as it was not your fault. Stop beating yourself up for having been different! It was not your problem that you were different but it was “their” problem that they were cruel! I am enraged when I see them pose to happy selfies with funny hashtags but I let that pass, they still have that weight of their deeds to carry, may be they do not realize, but it is their shit not yours, not mine!

You need to get back home, for life is going to get all exciting! Hell, it is already exciting! You do not have a slightest clue of what is to come into your life darling and that is reason enough to return home! You are going to make mistakes, you are going to screw up quite a lot things in life but you are going to have a lot of fun! Oh we have a lot to catch up on! Get back nah! That funny feeling you had when the senior guy patted your shoulder? don’t you want to know what that was all about? Don’t you want to see what you did at the college? Oh yes you have crossed your teens! You have fallen madly in love so many times you have stopped keeping count! You have done a lot of good and kind things in these years, which I am sure you would want to know! Please come home!

You need to get home for you need to see how it feels to be free! To be you, to be unmindful of what the others think about you! You need to get back to see what you did with your career! Man it is more dramatic than the daily soaps you were addicted to! You need to free yourself from the past my friend! Oh wait, let me help you with it! I free you from your high school memories! I free you from confines of this place you called school once! I free you from all the taunts, mockery, lewd remarks and all the pain! Your life is much more than all of that! My life is much more that all of that! You need to get home for me, your grown up self! Without you, without that fourteenth year of my life, I am not complete!

You need to get back for the sake of many like you! You heard that right! There have been people like you and there are people like you and you will one day take pride in being you! But for now, you have to let go! You need to let go, so that some poor kid, who is hiding in the store room of the school manages to get back home safe and unhurt, hoping for things to get better and the world to change.

You need to let go of yourself! You need to get back to me, to yourself! And you most certainly can!

And I will wait.

Love

Your ‘Almost Thirty’ self