How do you learn?

Where did you learn about love?
My kid sister learnt about it from a yellow frock
A frilled frock with L O V E embroidered in red.
She called it "lovee" frock (greedy in Bengali)
She made the connection with desire early.
She only wanted her "lovee" frock on special evenings.

Where did you learn about love?
In the tenderness of your mother's words..
As you fell asleep on your big brother's lap
As you hugged and then missed your grand mom forever
In that smell of her wet clothes, in those veined fingers
That you played with in summer afternoons.
Or as you sat on that front rod of the bicycle of your favorite uncle
Where you were perched safely and rode humming "John Henry"
And imagined your uncle to be no less than the folk hero.
What if none of this ever happened to you?
How would you learn about love, then?
What would guide your idea ? Who would tell you about it?

Where did you learn about hugs?
Was it from that back thumping friend of yours
Who casually kicked your butt with a leg folded backwards as you walked side by side
Was it from him that you learnt you do not have to worry about your body to hug?
Or from that baby who after quietly lying in your arms for months
decided to raise his hands to give you an embrace in no unclear terms.
Was it from him that you learnt that hugs can be happy, unconditional and unhesitating?
Or was it from the woman who always "win"s?
She came from far east and hugged to change my world.
I wish I could hug like her. Always unconscious of my body!
I wish I could touch the soul like she always does.
Bodies do not matter!
And if none of this ever happened to you where would you learn about hugs?
Would you still learn about them?

Where did you learn about laughter?
Was it from that black and white shot of your mother?
It seemed she would come out of that picture, any moment
You can almost hear the laugh she laughed that afternoon.
What if your mother did not believe in laughing out loud?
What if she believed you are not to make noise?
Where would you learn about laughter then?
May be from that gang of girls? Nah! what would giggling girls know about laughter!
May be from those young boys? Nah! that hyena calling is very far from a laughter!
And if you do not...
Would you then look starry eyed at men who can laugh that full throat laugh?
Would you be at awe of those high-fiving women laughing their heads off?
Would you still find these...umm..them.. normal?

Now a days picture of a child forms in my mind
Who played with cars incessantly while others remained busy with knitting and pets
With their school and exercise copies, their so called work
As their own growing up did not get over....
They remained busy.
The child never made many friends and never looked for a hug
She knew none was coming!

I wonder would he ever learn about love, hugs and laughter?
Would he look for any? Ever?
Would she turn her head the other way
And doze off.....
I wonder...

The one you could send away

I am being sent away. 

Again!
For the umpteenth time.
Who was I this time?
Who did you send away?

That girl who sat with you all through your journey 
When you traveled from Sawantwadi to Pernem.
That young girl whom you’d love to see again.
You felt forever grateful to the booking clerk
For giving her a seat beside you.
You could view the beautiful Konkan landscape, together.
Through one wide carriage-window.
And you thought, "All my life beside this girl
I’d gladly travel through the world."
Alas! She never looked back.

Or that girl whom you met near your door?
She needed to know her way in Karachi
and lost her's into you.
You had told her, you were to marry someone else.
And you shared nothing beyond the oral pleasures.
"I am a shy man", you said. "Do not expect much". 
She persisted. But then one day, decided,
Downtown is not somewhere she wanted to go anymore!
She had made up her mind.
And this, even before you, yourself could actually marry and move on.
She did not care any more about your pleasures 
And pleasurable pains.
She sent you off! 
She went the way she came. Sudden. Just like that.

Looking for another way perhaps.
She defied every logic. 
Were you trying to send her away this time? 

Or, was I that classmate? Your first love?
She admired you with her eyes in a way that
Her eyelashes brushed your cheeks every time you looked at her.
She lit up the deserted streets in the spring evenings by simply walking through them.
Sudden showers seemed her forte.
They were at her beck and call. 
But then she grew up and realized you did not!
She studied hard. 

Moved to a bigger city. 
A city pregnant with possibilities...
Where you became a memory for her. 
Was I that girl when you sent me away this time? 

I came to tell you stories.
There are so many tales to tell you still.
A part of me wants to sit with you and tell you
About a wanderer at heart who built a peaceful home.
Unhurried. Sun and clouds take their time lazing there. 
And about these strong, upright women 

Who love being enveloped in friendly hugs.
A globe trotter who leaves herself in her motherland.
She comes back every time to find her, again!  
About a wounded heart who loves protecting others'.
About someone struggling to get out of a maze...
How they push inch by inch and do not give up!
I thought of telling you about dreams, 

About forests, and rivers...
And of course people.
Stories are almost always about people.

But I will tell you none of these.
This time, I will let you send me away.
I want to go away precisely when you ask me to
And I would hope that it helps. 
I hope it settles the score! 

One final time.

Although, I know scores can't be settled that way..

But still I would...

Because I believe, 
Once you see you can send away too,
And go away when you want to..
You will find a way of getting back.
To yourself.

The vanishing act

As a young girl I really wanted to learn the vanishing act!

I liked to think some day nobody will find me ever again. 

Nowhere!
I wanted to test whether my parents would be anxious for me.
I wanted to see whether my sister would stop eating.
But my wish could not be fulfilled!

It was not only about disappearance, right?
I had to be there somehow to witness 

All the things that could  happen in my absence.
The only recourse was the vanishing act!
And I was sure I could master it, somehow!

Some day!

"May be the secret of the vanishing act was some kind of a potion", I thought.
And of course, acted on that thought.
I mixed a popular antiseptic liquid in salt water
And added some broken egg shells for the effect...
I only ended up spending a few days in the hospital.
Parents did not cry...

They were angry!

And I was shared.

Playing in the beach during summer holidays,
I used to dig up the sand
and then go in and meticulously started covering myself feet upwards
bit by bit by bit...
I wished a miraculous knowledge would dawn upon me
And while covering every inch, every part of my body
I will find a way to cover my eyes and still see through the mist of sand.
But that did not happen.

I could run away from home,  I had thought about it.
I actually planned it in great details.
I even acquired a big bunch of incense sticks that I could sell for a living.
I calculated if they are sold per piece, I could live on my own for 2 full days!
But then it would not have been possible to see what was happening back home!
I had to abandon the project.

I came closest to vanishing, by climbing the overhead bunker at home one day!
I was looked for and not found the entire morning.
And I could see it all.
They just did not look up.

They did not think I could climb up.
I jumped from my hideout after some time to surprise them all.
I feared if I stayed any longer, returning to real world would not be possible

Without experiencing some real pain.

My fear came true though..

My mother made sure that
I felt it on my body; how she felt in her heart!

Or that was what I was told at least. 
That was the closest I got to vanishing!

It is only later, 

After many years, 
I learnt that every human being can vanish.
Every one actually know the vanishing act.
From the very first day. 
It is a talent that they are born with.
They appear and disappear at their own will.

Bodies have nothing to do with it.

And I? 

I can do that too.

In pursuit of a search

You tire me!
You and your meaningless blabber
I never thought I can get tired of words
Till I heard you in this Avatar.

I thought, words are my friends forever
They are my best confidante.
Words were my best bet in making a connect...
Until I heard you speak,
About loyalty and admiration
About celibacy and diversity
About feminism and filiality
About politics of sociology and sociology of politics.
(You gave these words a different meaning, altogether)
And finally, almost always, about us versus you, 
Which in reality turned out to be: 
You, versus the whole world!

Avatars they were...
You gave mythology a new lease of life!
It kept me amazed and intrigued for long.
Like the Loki himself, you changed from
A Salmon to a Mare, a Seal to a Fly..
And I kept scrambling from Roman to Vedic to Norse
To find some semblance, to get some meaning.
I found a new name and a new story every single day!

I also discovered my self (in the process).
Or did I just get confused about the real me?
Who was I, for you?
I, the whining one? Or the stony one?
The flirtatious one, or the stern one?
The well read one, or the dogmatist?
I, the humanist? or the feminist? 
(And wondered if they were so different from each other)
I realized, at last that you could just agree on one thing
I, on the whole, was never ever "the good enough one"!
And "that" was good enough for me, in the end.

You made me tired, till then, 'though.
With your lack of interest first and then the laments.
The laments that filled my evenings and the afternoons..
Like that "Pity to do it" bird in my backyard.
I could neither ask the spring to go away 
Nor could I tolerate this incessant lament.
Pretending dead seemed like the only option
For years...

As I rise from my ashes now 
And I look for myself, I know this search can take long.
This can even be lifelong, as I evolve everyday.
As I look for who I really am, I know one thing for sure
I am almost never the regretting one.
And that bitter broth, that you carry deep within
You can not make me take that. Ever.

My home town

Any motorcycle ride back in the streets of my hometown hurls me down the memory lane at such a speed that I hardly get time to breathe. How unfair! Why would it be successful even after all these years to make me relive my life 2 decades back? The cycle rides in groups, sudden rains that left us completely drenched, the long conversations about nothing in the street corners and all those forbidden things of those times that make me laugh now, the long rehearsals of a play that was never staged and the love that was not to be mine!

No, I would not say it was a time of no care. It was not. We had too many worries. Sudden tests at the tuition classes and more than that of the low scores that used to be announced in front of the boys one was trying to impress! The intense desire to chat longer with friends and show how one is not scared of the parents at all! And then worrying endlessly about reaching home later than usual and the scolding that awaited one there! Or the questions that I, wanted to ask my father and was not allowed to do so. And the answers that I had for my mother but had no way of mouthing them without causing the third world war in the household. All the restrictions and scolding did not make sense at all! They don’t even now! Therefore, most of my memories ask me not to go back. I love the freedom I have today. And above all I am happy I cleared my 12^th standard exam at one go. I don’t want to try my luck again!!

Then why the streets of my home town makes me want to go back to the friends who are not friends any more, to the houses which are now inhabited by unknown people, to the love that means nothing for me no more. Why the street next to the City library would without fail remind me the lines read and not read on the way to the library and back but not in the library? Why would it make me remember the filmy numbers that I hummed to the star filled sky while riding a motorbike with Baba? While passing through the street next my school, why should I always remember a particular evening when the street lights played along? This time I even remembered a long cycle ride with a few friends to my friend’s street just to get a glimpse. How silly! Yet how memorable! And then that morning when I noticed him on a scooter and he did not and hence came back looking for me. He bumped on to a divider and fell down from his scooter while looking for me. We both laughed a lot! All these and much more which have no relevance now. They are just memories of a distant life. So distant that it seems like another life!

My home town makes me way younger! And it makes me think everything can be started afresh! I feel confident to make mistakes again. Why do I want to relive all those sweet nothings? And arguing as if the issue really mattered! Is it because now-a-days when I forego fighting back even at the cost of feeling terrible about myself and tossing and turning in bed at night, I miss the spirit of that girl who lived in my hometown?

P.S. This was written in May, 2012. 

The inertia of wait

It feels I never learned to love.
I only thought love is a deep friendship
And caring for the other 
And that deep desire to prolong the meeting, 
as much as possible....
It seems I could not have been further,
from the definition of true love.

I waited for love, still.
Or that's what I thought!
I then started working towards getting some.
From the man, who was ordained by his social position to love me! (Poor him! in retrospect)
'Though they said, "Do not seek love at any cost
For love does not have a price!"
I still went ahead.
In your youth you are not supposed to learn from popular wisdom!
I kept trying and then forgot to stop!
In hindsight, it seems, it was inertia of motion.

Inertia of motion. That is exactly what it is even now.
I can not stop talking to you once I start.
I therefore try not to speak at all.
But you do not allow that, do you?
You want to talk but you do not want to continue.
You want to reach out but you can not be a friend.
You want me to stay but you can not love.
You lost that in you..
You have to have follies to be a friend.
You have to have the courage to be vulnerable, to love. 
Your sentences have to be imperfect,
Laced with emotions that you felt.
You could not be infallible then.
I miss that imperfect friend in you.

I missed the friend in him too.
The friend that he once was.
The desire of friendship that replaced the desire of love,
As the lack of love became a reality that I lived  with.
But the bar was set too low
And the disappearance was slow.
It took me years to understand I lost that too.
The temperature of the water was raised ever so slowly
And like the proverbial frog, I missed the danger signals.
I was boiled in the same water that I thought was my world.

Frogs we all are. 
We wait through the long winter nights,
Feigning ignorance about what is happening around.
Completely ignoring the signals, 
That we get through our skins
We count on the rains to come!
We forget there is El Nino and La Nina,
We forget there are thousand other possibilities.
We just wait....

As if wait will bring the desired..
As if it required just a bit more waiting..
As if waiting has been enough!! Ever!

I need a river

I need a river now.
I need to sit by it and see it flowing silently.
It may not flow so silently, because
I need to look at those whirlpools
And to feel the calm surface,
The strong currents deep within
I need to meet a river, again.

I have almost never lived without a river. 
From Damodar, across Ajay to the great Ganges
Rivers followed me all through my childhood.

But when you told me,
My eyes tell you tales of a river
Many many years later,
I started wearing my specs all over again. 
Tightly this time. 
No one should see the rivers that I carry within. 

You insisted,
"There is a river in each person
Damodar in you and Zungki in me.
The Sun rises and sets in it. Everyday.

Much like in each one of us. 
At times the river looks completely barren, but then it fills up again.
At times it is as little as a tear drop
And then becomes the universe in itself.
I, the fisherman, find that river in you.
It is your river that I live by."
I looked away and pushed my specs tightly up my nose.
"I can not let the river flow", I mumbled.  

But I need that river now.
My river has dried and the sandy banks show..
But I need to find the flow somehow, deep within.
I need the river that flows silently
And you can cry by it.
I need to find a river that can laugh on my behalf 
(Till I find it in me).
I need to see a flowing river that tells me
"Come what may...life goes on!"
I need it to reiterate, 
"We are all universe upon ourselves
We carry everything we need in us.
We are complete throughout our journey to the sea.
We all roam boundless yet bound
meaningless, aimless, like a wanderer
But meaningfully and with a greater purpose!"

And several times in circles too!
Sad but true....

But for now....I need a river to sit by...
Till it starts flowing in me again...