Mandatory Chopsticks

A rather intriguing title, won’t you agree? Well without going round about, I would like to explain that in Japan, the art of eating almost every kind of food from cereals to vegetables and meat, even roti and dosa if they are cooked there, has to be mastered through a thorough knowledge of the use of chopsticks if one is to eat in public. Or privately, the spoons provided by God are most welcome. When I was told that even their most famous restaurants would provide you only with the option of chopstick or fingers if ever you were unfortunate enough not to know how to coerce food in between the sticks and then to your mouth, I thought of them to be an unsecured self imposing nation. Now come on, even the cold parts of Serbia boasts of Indian food even though the menu includes only Rice and curd and then goes on to include other delicacies, I have the misfortune of not hearing earlier. I must hastily add to some observant people that these tales are not mine to tell, they had been told to me by two foodies of my family who happened to be stuck in the above two countries separately in different time frames.

And then when I recently moved on to a metropolitan city to stay for good, I realized that it is tradition that all the people strive very hard to keep about them, even if it means to force the visitors to your humble abode to do some things very uncharacteristic of them, them being the visitors of course. In a country that has accepted all the varying kinds of traditions from across the globe to be embedded in their daily lives, I found this forcing or coercing a trifle disconcerting. I was ready to spread my wings and fly high in the sky with rebellion written all over me just to show them I am an individual who has lived life the way I have been taught and then learned through experiences and I am NOT a child to be molded in any other fashion, now of all times.

Immediately it was explained to me, “Sweetheart, it is the climatic and geographical differences that has led us to live the life we lead, the traditions we follow and that we insist you to catch up with. It is imperative that you must have rice all the year round at all the meals excepting a few. It is also essential that you forget vegetables are meant to be consumed in large quantities, since vegetables do not grow here sufficiently and have to be imported; they are equivalent to the cost of gold. And it is also very much needed that you put a bindi, bangles, earrings and a necklace at all times to distinguish you as a Hindu lady. This has been the way we have been protecting or risking our weaker sex for decades in case of religion feuds. You may insist on wearing western outfit, but do remember the outfit will only attract negative attention. And certainly you must wake up at the crack of the dawn and must complete your morning ablutions before the sun wakes up as the first sun rays have the most positive effect on a fully wide awake person. You may be interested to learn our language, it will help you in dealing with the local people, including the bus conductors, taxi walas, autorickshaw walas, electrician, plumber, carpenter to mention a few.”

I was not ready to listen to reason, as some of you must have guessed already. I reasoned they may well think for my good, but I am an independent adult female who has the fame for being quite formidable in her own right. I went about the city learning the numbers upto 10 in the new language and wearing modest clothes or so I believe, Indian as well as western with only one or two accessories to claim me a piteous Hindu lady.

Oh! The merriment of this was to be granted to the people who heard one or two of my rather infamous stories. You may enjoy few as well.

After a late dinner one night of spiced vegetables and naan, I had a huge ache in my stomach and the wish to retch horribly. My sister insisted we go to some place where I can be taken care of in case I needed someone instead of both of us returning to our respective hostels. So we landed on the door of a friend’s house. Early next morning I had to leave in haste as I had nothing with me to sustain the day. I went to the main bus stand of the city for the first time, waited for half an hour, and then found the appropriate bus to reach my place mentioning a landmark near my place to the bus driver before getting aboard. I was feeling quite elated over the fact that even when sleepy I can find my way through the big city. While paying the fare I didn’t have the exact denomination of money and the conductor didn’t have the money he needed to give me back. Instead he scribbled the amount on the back of the ticket and went off. As the journey progressed I was aware of the different route the bus was taking and was suddenly afraid that I have got up in a wrong bus after all. After few minutes I asked the bus conductor for my money. He actually raised his voice above the hum of the bus and told me a lot of stuff in his language. I looked about the people around me in case someone would rescue me after all. In the meantime the bus conductor had moved on to a distant and crowded section of the bus. When finally people started getting down I knew this had to be where I must get down too even though I didn’t recognize the place. I asked the bus conductor again for the money and this time I had seen him jangling a few coins in his pocket and he obstinately asked me to get down of the bus in again a loud voice, and told the driver to move on. I had to jump off the bus without the money. Alas! The fool I was to think I’ll manage to give him a tongue lashing of my own. Its ok dear, you might well manage.

I thought so and spiritedly went about a temple another morning. For half an hour I was left searching where to keep my shoes before entering. Then I learnt I had to pick a coir bag from a stand, put my shoes in it, and hand it over to a man who would hand me a token back. Ok. I have time to spend. It’s ok. Then when the other devotees saw me without a bindi in the temple, one of them pointedly asked me if I was a hindu, if not you may leave please, he told. I told him I was and he pressed a plate of haldi in my hand insisting I put a big patch on my forehead. I thanked god he didn’t have sindoor with him.

Now thoroughly browbeaten, I asked one of my friends to fix me an autorickshaw to reach my sister’s place one weekend. The driver asked for extra money on meter as the place was outside the main city. Then we told him I would get down at a place where he can get passengers for the back journey. This place I had heard from my sister but couldn’t place it and I just had to keep my mouth shut lest the driver knows I am ignorant about the road and take me in a circuitous way for high meter reading. But I remembered my sister had told me she walked down from this place to her house. So when the driver having reached one location asked if he might stop, I told him yes. Then I began walking searching for the elusive METRO where I should have got down. I walked on a straight road which I was told will pass through my destination. Having walked about 3 km, I was beginning to despair but could spot the building concerned about another half km away. I walked on determined. My sister seeing my haggard face was alarmed and asked after me. I told her the situation and she laughed out loud. Yes she did. Coz, one she had not told me she walked that distance, she had boasted of it. Two I had been brought ahead by another km in the autorickshaw at the meter fare than initially agreed to. I told myself you’ll sustain dear, you have to.

And I have. By listening to my elders and peers who had only the best of intents for me in the heart. When I move out I dress accordingly. I eat rice and less spicy watery daal with little vegetable at each meal to prevent a burning stomach. And yes I have purchased a book to learn the language in 30 days. Getting up in the morning… well… I sleep through all the sounds and disturbances that can be had at such times with an open eye, but by God, I do sleep.

Well, be a roman when in Rome.

THE IGNORE MODE

A DOG, that’s it. Why should I be concerning myself with it? Why should I even give it one minute of my day? Who knows the answers, maybe God, but I don’t know. Not that I wish to know, yet imagine sitting in my room at my leisure in its entire splendor, I am worrying myself over a DOG. The dog lovers may desist from entering into an angry tirade with me before hearing out my case. You simply must read on.

Well, here I am, living as a paying guest in one part of India where nature and man have striven, and still do, to live in harmony with each other. For a metropolis, it has quite heavy vegetation for most of its roads remain in the shade of huge trees for a good length of the day. The housing space is crammed up with hardly a meter space between the house wall and the boundary wall leaving no space for a garden, yet the roads are wide. When I was introduced to the ‘gullies’ of the city, I was left wondering that the speaker of such a word has never been to Kolkatta, Mumbai, Cuttack, Raipur or any place in this country to know that the gullies are supposed to have the breadth of a hair to be called so.

I think I am deviating. Coming back to the dog, I did mention I was staying as a paying guest, didn’t I? Yes, I did. So, the land owner of this housing facility has a DOG, the DOG. A Labrador, no less. Well considering now, I think Labradors and I have some kind of a thing going on between us for sometime past. One Labrador seemed a nuisance for almost the past year and another seems to take away… Ah! These Labradors. This is the third one I have the fortune or misfortune to know by name in this lifetime and I do hope this is the last. Dog lovers must still wait for me to present my case which I am going to present soon enough.

So, here’s the thing. This Labrador that the landowners here possess, Balto (I think that is name, though I have heard it being called Malto by the other residents here.), is a huge dog. Had its face been a shade of black and a bit sagging, it could have passed for the most formidable bull dog ever. But nevertheless it is a huge Labrador, and barks deafeningly when anybody approaches the house except the residents. Barking seems hardly harmful, but it actually growls and bares its teeth. For one moment that first time its eyes alighted on me, I was left wondering if I’ll survive to take the rabies injection at all. The landlady maneuvered Balto to sweets, yes sweets that were kept handy for just the occasion, for my sister already a resident here for sometime is still afraid of the dog.

And hence after the first encounter I was prepared to let it smell me over so that it would recognize me for future encounters which might happen when the landowners are away from home, though it meant standing in near vicinity of a large dog smelling my scent from all over me. I even proceeded to pat it on its head after that to become familiar. Those few minutes of scrutinized smelling over, I felt confident to move to and fro from my room upstairs to streets two storey below via the corridor guarded by Balto.

Confident I was, but was not prepared for what happened next. The next time I was supposed to get past it, it didn’t even give me the courtesy of glancing my way to recognize me. It happened four times in one and a half days. I was marveling at its smelling abilities, when I noticed it giving some sign of recognition to the rest of the residents. Maybe a bark, a sniff, a whoof, brushing against some, but for me it was ignoring my presence all together. So much so for trying to be friendly with a dog, I thought.

No, here the case of the DOG is not completed. It went ahead another step. Ignoring me, it continued. But for heaven’s sake, it even ignored anybody who was with me. No barks, sniffs or brushes for anyone who crossed the corridor along with me. It didn’t even rise to the occasion when someone wanted to play with it or cuddle and fondle it. This caught my curiosity and I wondered if it would be passive to my presence even when I irritate it deliberately.  

Afraid that I am of dogs, I cautiously set about causing Balto to metamorphose its reactions concerning me. I tried to pat it, it took it as if a tree trunk might from a human. I brushed past it, it went on to scratch itself thoroughly for all of six minutes. I closed the door on its face literally, it was protruding through the corridor to the stairs where someone unknown was standing trying to seek admittance to the hall along with my sister. I closed the door and stood looking at it. It didn’t even give me a look back and went to its normal sitting pose. Booh! The other day I came back with food, it came barking to the door, saw me or maybe smelled me and withdrew without a pause.

How bad! How degrading? To be ignored and ignored completely by a DOG, a DOG and that too a Labrador, no less. I tried to tell myself never mind, it’s a dog ignoring you. Then again ignored by a DOG. Arrgh.......!

So much so for being a dog fearing individual who for once tried to overcome the fear and be friendly with a dog. The DOG.

Resigned to destiny contd... (.)

“Hello,” he mumbled into the phone.

“Hello! Good Morning,” she chirped.

“God! It’s not even 7. I suppose our rendezvous was decided to be at 11. Why are you waking me up so early in the morning?”

“Ummm… Actually, I won’t be able to go out with you today. In fact I’m leaving for home in the evening.”

“What? But we were supposed to go shopping today and have dinner together.”

“Yeah, I know. I’m really sorry. Ma insisted that I go with her to get my clothes fitted and all my relatives invited me to their places. The decision was taken yesterday morning. I tried telling you in the evening but couldn’t.”

“You can’t be going off today. Please stay back for a day or two more. I had so many things planned. I’ll book the ticket for you. I’ll even drop you home if that’s what’s needed.”

“I know how difficult this all must be for you. First Viplav left and now I am going away. Hey buddy, even we are going to miss you. I’m already thinking how I’ll choose books to read without you. Promise me you’ll be in contact always.”

“Yeah sure. We’ll remain in contact forever. I’ll come to your wedding and then when you christen your first baby. I’ll come even for the second baby. We’ll meet whenever possible. You’ll have to cross this place to go to your parents and I’ll always meet you in the station.”

“You forgot to mention. I’ll visit you on your wedding and be there when you become a father. And if you don’t turn up in the station I’ll get down the train to find you and give you a nice tongue lashing,” she said sniffing.

“Well then, bye. Call me after you reach home. Safe journey and don’t irritate your fellow passengers.”

“I don’t irritate anybody. Ah, let it be. I’ll give a call when I reach.”

His sleep deserted him. She was going away today and he was not even getting a chance to give her a hint that he loves her. She was going today. He was not supposed to be Devdas nor Dutta nor Julia Roberts from ‘My Best Friend’s Wedding’. The next time he sees her she’ll be dressed as the bride of another man and thereafter somebody else’s wife. He had to get away. He had to stop his brain from analyzing the situation further. He walked over to his book shelf and picked up the recent fiction he had borrowed from the library. He sat in his couch unmoved for the next 5 hours immersed in the story. When he finished it, he cried, cried out loud for his heart was weeping.

*****

The D-day. Her wedding day. He was alongside Viplav in the wedding procession. Somebody urged him to dance and he stood at the same place for a long time. They reached her place. The wedding ceremony started. It ended and he was on his way back home. All he remembered of the fateful day was she looked angelic and she had smiled up to him before joining Viplav for the ceremony.

*****

It had been more than a week that he had lost track of his life. He walked onto the mirror and the man looking back at him had hollow cheeks, overgrown beard, red, puffy eyes and a ghost of a smile. He couldn’t recognize himself. Yesterday night he had promised himself that from that moment he’ll try and get over her. He hadn’t even talked to her in the last seven days, she was busy as a new bride. He had thought of getting a semblance of his life back.

And so he started. He shaved his face, ate gracious amount of food, pasted a smile on his face, and left for his office. At office everybody seemed pleased with him and he worked harder than ever to finish his pending jobs. After his working hours he reached his library and stood deciding which book to borrow. His eyes wandered to the couch together they had occupied. He averted his eyes and selected the first book his eyes landed upon. At the coffee shop, he looked out for his favorite table and reminded himself to forget all. After dinner, he switched on the TV. The program showing was her favorite and he changed the channel. When he found nothing worthwhile watching, he read the book he had with him. At 10 pm he was tempted to call her yet once more and she as usual didn’t pick up his call.

Fifteen days later he realized this had become a routine except that she picked up his call thrice and called once. The conversation time had reduced and was very impersonal yet personal.

Often he would sit at one place and think if he had done things differently, maybe she would still be in his life. If he had dressed elegantly rather than his funtoosh manner, if he had talked of better things, if he had laughed at the right places, if he had fought less with her, if he had smiled more with her, if he weren’t so shy, if he had not just met her.

 He wrote:

उसके गम में हमने जीना छोड़ दिया 

पर न उसका गम गया न ही जीवन गया

हम रह गए उसके तस्वीरों के संग 

हमसे वो पलछिन यादें भी मिटाए न गए

आखिर ये ही हुआ करते थे कभी जीवन के रंग

अब ज़िन्दगी के साथ फिर सुलह करना है

उसके जाने के गम में अब जीना है 

Four months later he still felt the same way when both she and Viplav had visited him and Viplav left for on-site work. His life had come back to normalcy. He went out, partied, worked hard, read, surfed on the net. Whenever anything remotely connected to her came up, he shifted to some other form of amusing himself.

Another two months later, he was walking from the office building to the gate while talking to her.

“It’s difficult without Viplav. I should have stayed where I was until he came back.”

“Is there a problem? Something I can do. Tell me and it’ll be done.”

“I guess I am missing him so much that every little situation infuriates me. Long distance relationship when you are married can be so tiresome.”

“Do you miss me?” He regretted the question as soon as he put it. He waited for the answer with closed eyes and slow deep breathing.

She said, “I miss Viplav. But with you, I miss the moments. I miss the library and the chats of the coffee shop. I miss the wrinkling of your nose when you smelled something offensive. I miss the sound of your laugh. I miss being with you. And I miss Viplav too.”

Resigned to destiny contd..

“She had been hiding there behind a book with puffy eyes and red nose. She had been crying in one of the corners of the library, as destiny would have, in my favorite section. As soon our eyes met, she hastily lowered her eyes, picked up her bag and dashed towards the exit. I still have to know why I blocked the way and stood firm when all she did was trying to escape from an embarrassing situation. I coaxed her into telling me her problem.

After much persuasion she complied. Sheena had been nasty to her. Both of them working at the same place and Sheena being her senior, she could do nothing about it. I was somehow not surprised at this revelation. Knowing Sheena I could sympathize with her. She gradually relaxed in my company though later she sure mentioned I must be a back-biter. We moved on to other topics like favorite books, authors, music, current affairs. We were so engrossed in our animated discussion that the librarian had to remind us of the ultimate code of conduct of a library, silence.

After this first encounter in library, we kept on bumping into each other many times, initially due to co-incidence and later because I waited for her there. I am not sure when it happened so, but I was living out the entire day so that I could talk to her in the evening. We had not yet exchanged phone numbers. I felt shy to ask and she never offered.

Then this other day, after almost three months, she invited me to dinner with her and Viplav. I had heard her telling so much about him, but not until I met him that I believed them all true. She loved him loads and he loved her with his existence. I could sense that from the first moment I saw them together. Till today, my observation is no different.

That day, Viplav insisted us to exchange mobile numbers. All three of us together went out many times after this and many a times we were joined by our friends. During other occasions we would walk out of the library together to the nearest coffee outlet and sit there discussing everything between the sky and the bottom of the ocean. We had outings and loads of fun. It had become a ritual for both of us to talk for around 15 minutes before she talked to Viplav and went off to sleep.

And somewhere amidst all this I fell in love with her, without knowing it. When she announced the date of her engagement and then told me that since Viplav has been transferred from the city, she will be moving out few days before the wedding, I realized it was not possible for me to let her go away. I tried talking her out of leaving the city, after all Viplav has to go on-site within this year. She is determined.

I love her and want her for myself. But she loves Viplav and he in turn her. I am the one out of place and will have to move. I just pray she will be happy in her new life and live life to the fullest,” he finished hurriedly and managed to keep the tears at bay.

“You are behaving like Devdas. Come on bro, maybe she loves you as well. But can’t say it because of Viplav and because you never mentioned love to her. Give it a try man. Try and steal her. We’ll back you up.”

“Ah! Friends, of course. But they have said already that loving someone means doesn’t mean keeping them for yourself, it means letting them do whatever will keep them happy. I know Viplav is perfect for her; that is my first hand information. I will not cause chaos and even though I can’t have her as a lover, I want her as a friend in my life always.”

“So that you will always be reminded of what you could have and didn’t.”

“No, because I treasure that friendship more than anything to lose it over something I can’t have.”

“Ok. Whatever you decide. Now complete your drink. Its late already and there is office to be attended tomorrow.”

“I can’t drink. I am not Devdas in that sense. Let’s leave.”

He walked all the way to his home, some 5 km. He needed to think. He needed to know why God would do this to him. He had been an ideal person all his life. He also had another food for thought. Even though he vehemently refused to admit his love to her, what would happen if he dropped a hint or two? Did she love him, just a little bit? Would she in her wildest dreams ever agree? Damn it, she got engaged today, he thought bitterly. But he should give it a try. After all he would be with her the entire next day. He was supposed to go shopping with her to find a gift for Viplav and then she was giving him a treat of a movie and dinner for her beautiful arrangement. Maybe he should try tomorrow. Maybe he will, he thought as he entered his apartment.

Resigned to destiny contd.

Three hours and many such visits to the washroom later he was finally walking into the bar to drink his way to oblivion without a care for the world. But it was not supposed to be so. His two closest friends walked through the door towards him and gave him knowing smiles. They were the only two people who knew he loved her too much to see her get married to someone else. They didn’t object to his drinking, rather ordered cocktails for themselves too. They had never asked him the story though they did know about his sufferings. Today they asked and he found himself speaking.

“Ironically, I met her the first time when I was introduced to her along with Viplav as her boyfriend,” he laughed at his own stupidity.

“You must be kidding. If you knew she was seeing somebody already, how could you develop tender feelings for her?”

“Even I’d like an answer to that. I knew she had a man in her life. I knew she loved him and Viplav, well, he loves her with his own existence. That is the reason I’m standing in the sideline watching.”

“What happened? She had a fight with Viplav and you felt a need to be around and fell in love?”

He laughed and lifted his glass of scotch to his mouth, immediately wrinkled his nose against the offensive smell of the liquor and left it untouched on the table again. Since the day he found she was averse to alcoholic beverages, he had been as far away as possible from them. His friends had often teased him saying he was getting soft. With a pang of sorrow he tried remembering how he got himself into such an absurd and impossible situation.

“Hey, man, I’m asking you. You won’t evade me tonight.”

“Yeah, I knew she had a boyfriend,” he said with a sigh. “The first time I met her all I saw was a girl who was just out of college and had a lot to learn about the world, yet had a remarkable insight to many things. Sheena, our hostess, also our common friend, had arranged one of those musical parties where you had to shout to converse. We exchanged a few sentences and that was all.

After that I saw her in two more parties Sheena and I both attended. It was a season of achievements of our friends, remember. On both occasions we exchanged a few witty remarks, laughed at them and got along with the rest of the party. And the next thing I know, the very next evening of the second party I bumped into her in my library.”

Both his friends quirked their brows.

“Save your imaginations, you’ll need them tomorrow morning for finding excuses for being late to the office after tonight’s hangover. She had been hiding there behind a book with puffy eyes and red nose. She had been crying...”

Resigned to destiny

An omnipresent love story

Had I known the depth of the waters,

I would have never plunged in the sea.

Had I known the difficulties of the battle,

I would have never waged one.

Had I known the turmoil of truth,

I would have never sought it.

Had I known I would have love you so very much,

I would have never let my path cross yours….

He thought of these self-composed verses for the fourth time in the last two hours that he spent smiling at various people in the engagement party of his love. The engagement of his love to the man of her dreams, Viplav. And he being her friend was supposed to be receiving people, seeing whether they were comfortable, and enjoying the party and the food. The party, he too would have enjoyed had it not been an ordeal to keep his eyes expressionless and his face smiling. It was a banquet hall filled with blooming gerberas, the flower she adored the most. The walls were interlaced with ribbons of blue and white, her favorite colors. The entire decoration was as delicate as her sensitive nature and as elegant as her poise. How could it not be when it was he who had supervised the decorations?

“Ah, look at them. They look so good together,” he heard someone say.

He forced a smile and kept going his way to fetch a glass of water for an aged lady. God, how much he wanted to run away from this place into the sanctity of his one bedroom apartment where he could open a book or work away in his laptop and forget the world he lived in, forget that his life had people he loves and cares for, forget that there were people in the world who might love him too.

No one noticed his inner turmoil, rather no one noticed him. All eyes were on Viplav, the man he could happily throttle and take his place. He would have throttled if only she didn’t love that fool.

“Oh! I am destiny’s fool!” he remembered the lines of some movie he had watched lately. And that was what he was he thought with a smirk. His chain of thought was broken by his love.

“Where are you? You certainly had walked into a different world where someone was torturing you.”

“Me, tortured! Sure, you were dreaming about it when Viplav slid his ring onto your finger. Viplav, dude watch out. She is having second thoughts already.”

“That was a good method to contrive your way out of my question. Yet I am waiting for the answer,” she said while Viplav was nudging her to turn the other way to meet some of his distant relatives.

He rushed to the washroom, to wash his face as well as walk back to reality. What did he speak aloud, that too to her? He was going insane and needed some intoxicant to drown his emotions. Once he is allowed to leave, he will buy himself a drink or two he decided. He had to celebrate, after all she got engaged, and he was still a free man. A very good reason to celebrate, it was a damned too good reason to celebrate.

Three hours and many such visits to the washroom later he was finally walking into the bar to drink his way to oblivion without a care for the world. But it was not supposed to be so. His two closest friends walked through the door towards him and gave knowing smiles. They were the only two people who knew he loved her too much to see her get married to someone else. They didn’t object to his drinking, rather ordered cocktails for themselves too. They had never asked him the story though they did know about his sufferings. Today they asked and he found himself speaking.

“I met her….”

(Would have continued the story till the end but it has become lengthy for a blog post. Will write further after you all have read and commented on the story up till now…) 

Coming soon

An omnipresent love story

It has been my general observation that one human being loves many of his species and in turn is loved by many... but life provides him/her with one partner on whom to lavish all the love content of his/her heart... 

All love stories concern the one man finding his true love through a series of heavenly mediated situations, gaining her love or rather ascertaining the fact that she already loves him, and then either a happily ever after or a premature death at the hands of fiends...

Some stories do talk about a guy falling in love with this girl whom he has to forgo and then again heavenly mediations take him to his love bug... the initial love is a matter of a few paragraphs or two pages at most... and often the lead lady has a friend who is a lover too and sacrifices his love for the love of his life... this side role character is lost in the pages and forgotten... we, the readers,might sympathize or even empathize with them but at the end of the story we neglect their existence... no book review ever gives these details a space in their limited word compositions... though in reality, these situations are the most longest and most remembered later either with a laugh or with a sad smile...

So, i concluded that i must give this lover a chance to be the hero of some story... my attempt might give many a forlorn hearts a chance to weep, and many a romantic novel fans to ditch my blog forever...

coming soon...