Swapna

I did not see her die. But I killed her.

Two days back, I asked her to accompany me for a neighbourhood meeting. She did not want to get involved in that. I told her that I needed her there, in case I lost my cool. She joked that that would hardly get her there. She came along anyway. The meeting took place outside in the idyllic setting of the tree-lined lane in this middle-class ghetto. On one side, there was a mob of about twenty frothing and fuming; on the other, I more or less like them and she rather detached. In between, there were two men and a woman from the local police station and also two officials from the Water Authority, they were all leaning towards the mob. For seven months, my house has not got water supply while the neighbours had it 24x7. I had complained to the Managing Director of the Water Authority about the corrupt who had screwed up the supply network in my area. I wanted the Authority to rectify the situation, place valves to reduce the supply downstream or put a new pipeline to ensure water supply to my house which was at a slightly elevated level. The mob’s view was that that would happen only over a dead body, theirs or mine. The officials there seemed to share the mob’s view that one loser was sufficient. 

Till then, my complaints had been general, without naming anyone. At the meeting, I changed tack. I accused specific people in the area; included a contractor and an engineer (now deceased) in the Water Authority; and, as if I was short of enemies, named a sub-Inspector of police too. I gave details of their misdeeds, told the mob I had photos and video recordings to back my claims. The mob reacted as expected. They lashed out at me. My sneer must have goaded them to attack her. “What else can we expect from an immoral guy who sleeps with her? God save our kids from such an influence!” the mob brayed. 

That was the cue to play my first trump card. I told the police to note the attack on a woman. I told them I was recording the proceedings with the smartphone in my pocket. I went for the jugular with the second card. 

“Are we going back to the Dark Ages? A hundred years back, my kind wasn’t allowed to touch water meant for forward castes and classes. That’s what I read in history books. Are you reviving that practice? Is this your version of cultural renaissance? The discrimination against my caste has gone on for too long. For ten years, I have begged for water enjoyed by these...” I listed out the religious and the caste groups that formed the majority, and the mob, there. I turned to the government officials. “I expected you to function without religious and caste bias. The government should be working for all, not just for the majority, and never at the expense of the human rights of the minority, even though that is the prevailing fashion in the country.” 

I had prepared that speech well in advance. All of them protested. Even she looked shocked. It was not that that was false or a half-truth. It is just not stuff to be said openly, like parents having sex or whatever. We are supposed to be a model secular cosmopolitan society. Our prejudices are supposed to be private, even though politicians can use it for their benefit, and our voting pattern hardly kept such views hidden. 

My third trump card was not in my hands but it got played right then fortuitously. A high-ranking police officer my family knew made a call to the police inspector at the meeting. The mob had their own high-ranking officials and ministers but just then, I had them on the mat, that too with allegations (and recording) of abuse against a woman and the unmentionable religious-caste angle, both issues that could snowball into social media viral frenzy. The officials decided quickly that it was enough for the day. The mob scattered silently but the hatred in the air was palpable. The festering wound showed signs of gangrene.

The attack will happen late at night. I will not be there. She will be on the balcony, her workspace these last few weeks she has been with me, finishing work or puffing the last cigarette of the day. The men from up north will drop down from the terrace onto the balcony and hack her to pieces.

The media might present it as a hate-crime, given her work and views attacking the establishment. Even the police might accept it as such and let the investigation lead to nothing. If I am questioned, I will say, “I did not see her die. But I killed her.” I will express regret about taking her for the poisonous meeting. I will suggest that the mob must have ‘given a quotation’ (common parlance for a contract-killing) to hit-men. “Such is their hatred. Why her? They should have killed me,” I would wail. Every day, the newspapers scream out such solutions to settle disputes ignored by the police and the courts: a lorry crushing people to pulp; gunmen on motorbikes hacking or shooting victims; the inconvenient bound and gang-raped and hanged. The hit-men, if caught, will not reveal the source of the contract. Multi-level deals via the internet provide such benefits. I will be the grieving lover without a motive to kill. 

“In which world are you?” she said.

“What?” 

“You have been staring at the ceiling for…”

“Weren’t you sleeping?”

“I was.” She snuggled closer. “I always sleep so well with you by my side.”

“Cheesy…”

She pinched my side.

I turned sideways to face her and kissed her forehead. I placed my hand on her waist, caressed her back, moved towards her breast. 

“Naughty boy,” she said laughing. 

I removed my hand.

“Now, don’t sulk.” 

She tickled my sides. I smiled.

“You have changed a lot, Arjun,” she said.

I raised an eyebrow. She raised one in reply.

“I had to, right?” I said.

“I wish you hadn’t.”

“Well, you were the one who told me to have a feel for everything.”

“When did I say that?”

“Long back…at least thirty years back…”

“Geez…” She rose a little and settled with half her torso on me, palms flat on my chest, chin resting on the intertwined fingers. She stared at me for a while. “I did not mean it this way.”

I was glad she did not say I remembered too much of the past.

“These bloody times…” she muttered, “we will all end up as murderers…or silent approvers of the homicidal bastards…we will be fellow-conspirators…for what…to preserve our…our culture…culture my bloody cunt. Everyone is so insecure. The imbeciles who make up the majority think everything is theirs. No one else can have anything. Not even a different thought. Decades of silenced hypocrisy and frustration, all coming up to the surface...they should fuck more.”

She could have been talking about me.

“Shhhh…you are not one of them…never you, Swapna….” I said.

She leaned forward and kissed my chin. I expected her to say you-neither-Arjun.

“Does my French shock you?” she giggled. “I can speak like that only with you.”

“Oh, you do enough without French…” I said.

“Never enough…”

After a long silence, she raised her head.

“I too have changed, haven’t I?” she said.

“Hmmm…”

“I had to…long back…” She moved her hands to my side, her head resting on my chest. My hand swept back hair from her forehead. “But…you didn’t have to, my dear Arjun…I still want that boy with a toothy grin…not this bitter angry old man.”

“Oh, thank you for stabbing...”

We laughed. Not for long. 

She reached for her smartphone.

“Nothing…?” I asked.

She shook her head.

“He will call,” I said.

“I don’t know why I can’t live without him. I have never felt this way. I must be getting old,” she said.

“You are…”

“Thank you, stranger.”

I gave her a bear hug. She was on top of me. She squeezed my sides.

“He must have decided to go back to his wife,” she said, “decided to stick to his generation.”

“And now you think this thing with him is ok,” I said.

She raised her head and stared at me for a while.

“When did you become a stickler for rules?” she asked.

I did not reply.

“I miss him so much,” she continued. “We had made plans to live together, to be totally exclusive.”

“No space for poor me in those plans,” I said.

She pinched my arm. 

“There’s always space for you,” she said. “In lots of ways, he reminds me of you back then.” That was supposed to be my consolation prize.

When did she decide that I would be happy with that little space, wherever, with whoever, for whatever? It had always been older men before. This new guy, so much younger than me, is a first. I just cannot understand why she never, not once, thought about me in that way, at least as a natural progression of our relationship. When we talk about it, she says the usual Arjun-you-are-different-and-important-to-me. Thirty years wasted. I am nothing to her, not even a toy boy. 

As I held her close, I hoped she would not hear the rumbling of impotent rage within.

She has to go. There is only one way to go without goodbye.

Maybe, she is right. It has something to do with the prevailing atmosphere, the dark gloomy despondence.

Maybe not… 

Nothing has really changed. Not the times. Not the people. Not the place.

Awareness screwed up everything.

Back then, when I fell in love with her, I did not give a fuck about who the PM was. It must not have mattered for most. That may not be true. There must have been the same proportion that cared for such stuff. After all, thousands or was it lakhs or millions were ready to massacre and kill even then...no, not just ready, they had killed and raped and buggered...for...exactly, that is the question...for god-fucking-what?

Now, why did I think of killing and raping and buggering when I thought of our love story?

The nineties and the decade after…was that not the time for animal spirits and selfish interests? No wonder the crazies who came later managed to spread their tentacles far and wide, feeding on the cynicism and the insecurity. I guess I am one of those crazies now. Back then, I did not give a damn about the world. They could have nuked my neighbourhood and I would have slept peacefully. I worked hard then. I was depressed when poor. I was not happy when I made lots of money. But, I had something in my life…she was there…I guess I was really alive only with her.

Yes, that is when I fell in love with her.

“I am finally in love with you,” I declared. Where were we that day, in my hostel room, or in her apartment?

“Didn’t you tell me that long back?” What was she doing then? Lying next to me or cooking for us? “I am sure you told me you love me.” I love the smile in her eyes, the affectionate tease.

“Well, now I have realized that I love you and that I am also in love with you.”

“Ah! So, you have started thinking from below your belt.”

“Don’t joke about it....”

“What else?”

“Oh, you know…don’t you?”

“I guess so. I too love you. I too am in love with you. But you know that I can’t cross some boundaries.”

“I know, I agreed to it, didn’t I?” I said. “But, at the same time, I disagree with you.”

“We will last long my way, my boy.”

I was in my twenties then but for her I remained a boy. When I disagreed with her, she smiled at ‘charming boyish petulance’. When I first saw her naked, she was surprisingly shy and also pleased, “boy, don’t look at me like that”. When she saw me naked, she seemed surprised, “you are still a boy”. It was not meant to be demeaning. She once mentioned that her husband’s cock is “very thick, unlike yours”. I think my response was, “well, it’s not size that matters, right?” “Oh, it matters,” she replied. I was not supposed to take it badly. In fact, I took it in the right spirit. Otherwise, we would not have lasted so long. I guess I was not a boy in many ways too. When she separated from her husband, she came to me. The whole world seemed to be against her. At first I played the role of devil’s advocate and argued against her stand. When I realized she needed my support, I gave it to her totally, without another question. I like to think I played a small part in her late blossoming. She started writing, that is, writing at a level I could only dream of. Consistency was not exactly her strongest suite. She left her own kids but she worked with differently-abled kids. She even attended some course on that. She was not a feminist but she became their activist. She used her parents’ connections to work with the UN (and claimed they had played no part), in parts of the world I will never see, with underprivileged people I do not want to meet. She attacked right-wing groups at home and abroad. She hated the ‘lefties’ too. She was going places, getting recognition and I was proud of her. I did not have to tell her about my admiration. “You keep me going,” she said. She needed men, women too. She told me about them. I too tried marriage for a few years. It never had a chance to succeed. While it lasted, Swapna and I remained out of touch. In that period, I did not write the pulp fiction and cheesy poems that seem to be my forte. I tried to be a family man, worked hard, saved lots of money, and had sex as and when required by middle-class norms. She told me later that she too could not write during that period “without my muse, my boy”. She is the love of my life but even back then I could not fool myself into thinking I was really special for her. I did not think too much about that or about why I had to be an ‘incel’. If she had died then, it would have been different. I would have become ‘the’ love of her life.  Death allows such distortion of facts.

Life was less confusing when our ‘thing’ started in the eighties. My friends were watching porn and ‘feeling up’ girls. That was not for me. I went to the temple regularly. I refused to enter churches or mosques, not even for weddings. My family, and close friends, joked that I was a fanatic. They must have realized later that I do not enter the famous big temples either. That was long before she and I stopped going to temples altogether.

I used to stay with her family during long holidays, or they used to come over to our city. The two families were closer than most relatives, close friends even before I was born. According to family mythology, my mother had taken care of her mother, every day for weeks, when Swapna was born prematurely and had to be nursed in the hospital. I too had been a difficult baby. She and her mother helped my mother then. ‘The League of Difficult Babies’, that’s what they called us when we teamed up for cards or anything else. Her parents did not try for a baby for a long time after she was born. Mine had enough with me.

Her younger brother is my age and used to be a good friend. Her younger sister is a few years younger and I think our families expected us to be an item. 

One year (I was in high school), there was some State-level competition in her city for nearly a fortnight.  I had to stay in the camp with the district team but every other day I hopped over to her house for a proper meal and a clean bathroom. I guess I got lucky that year and did remarkably well in everything, from quiz to debate, athletics to elocution, even drama. She attended some of the events and cheered for me. She was quite impressed with my grasp of current affairs. After my team won the quiz competition, she remarked, “You seem to know all about The Wall and the Cold War, Vietnam and all our wars too, even about Woodstock.” I must have given her my toothy grin. “I wonder if you feel it,” she said. “Feel what?” I must have asked. “Have a feel for everything,” that’s all she said.

I made the first phone-call on the second or third day of that stay. I did not have any competition event that evening and I was at her place for the night. Her parents and siblings had gone for a wedding reception. She wanted to prepare for some office-meeting and I had volunteered, “I’ll take care of her.” They had all laughed. I had tea with her and praised her latest attempt in baking beehive-cake. She smiled and ruffled my unkempt hair. 

“Why don’t you comb your hair?” she asked.

“Girls like you won’t touch it if it’s combed, right?” I was surprised with my reply. 

She playfully tweaked my ear. “I’m now going to work. What are you going to do?”

“Maybe go for a walk. Do you need anything?”

“Get me a ball-point pen, Reynolds, black ink, don’t forget that. Let me get you the money.”

“I have enough.”

“Oh, big guy…”

I told her to lock the front door after I stepped out.

“Yes, papa…”

It was meant to be a prank call, a gentle tease. I called from a phone-booth near her house. 

“Swapna...?” I said.

“Yes?” she spoke softly.

Her soft voice on the phone must have been the trigger. Not then, but many years later I wondered if she had been waiting for such a call, not from me of course.

I did not alter my voice too much. I let it come from deep within my chest. Nor did I put on some accent to be groovy.

“Can I talk to you for a few minutes? Please don’t hang up,” I said.

“Who is this?” she asked.

“I have known you for some time. You must have noticed me.”

“At work…? Who is this?” she repeated. She sounded more curious than alarmed.

“Don’t worry. If you don’t like it, I won’t call you again. I won’t trouble you at all. Promise. I just had to tell you that I find you simply gorgeous. Not just in looks.”

“Don’t be silly. Now, look here, tell me who you are.”

“Is that really important?”

“Of course…otherwise, you are just a coward. And I don’t like cowards.”

“True. I am a coward. I don’t even have the guts to face you and tell you that I find you wonderful. I am scared to lose you. But if you insist, I will face you…soon. Promise.”

“Guys who promise too much are not trustworthy.”

“Ok,” I must have been hurt, “bye for now.”

I browsed in a bookshop, bought her pen and returned to her house. She seemed a trifle distracted. 

I called again two days later, from another phone booth. Her parents were sleeping and siblings had gone for a tuition class. She had returned early from work and was having a late lunch. “Where are you going?” she asked when I left the house. “To Xerox these math questions…this Manickavachagom book is interesting. I found it in your collection. Hope you don’t mind me borrowing.”“Have you started calculus?” she asked. “On my own…” She had looked impressed.

She picked up the call on the third ring. 

“Hi, it’s me,” I said.

There was no response.

“Do you want me to hang up?”

Silence continued.

“Say something, please.”

“You are an idiot.”

“I agree totally,” I laughed.

She laughed too.

We talked for ten minutes that day. I told her that she looked lovely in the green kurta with cream pants she wore that day. She wanted to know where I had seen her. Everywhere, I replied. Cheesy, she said.

“What’s your name?”

“Call me Arjun.”

The fourth time I called, she asked, “How do you know when to call me?”

“What do you mean?”

“You seem to know when I am alone to take your call.”

“Are you scared I am a stalker?”

“Maybe…”

I remained silent for a while.

“Arjun…” she said.

“Hmmm…”

“I want to see you. I will not talk to you on the phone again.”

There was a long silence.

“Why are you scared to meet me?” she asked.

“I am scared to lose you.”

She remained silent. I thought I had already lost her with my weakness.

“Where can you meet me?” I asked.

“Tomorrow at the Devi temple near my house,” she replied without hesitation.

“Tomorrow…at the temple...?” The competition was in its last stage and I was not sure if I could make it to the temple. 

“Don’t you go to temples?” she asked. “You can stand outside…I will meet you outside around six.”

“Six in the evening…? I don’t know if I will be free then,” I said.

“No, six in the morning,” she said. 

“Ah…”

“Ok?”

“Am I going to be the sacrificial lamb?”

“Something like that…to start my day,” she said. I could feel her smile through her voice.

I was sleeping at her house that night. I had to be at the camp only by eight the next morning. I hardly slept. I got up early and had a cold shower. I went to the kitchen. Her parents were also up. I talked to them and drank a glass of hot milk. She came to the kitchen around quarter to six.

“Where to…?” her mother asked.

“To the temple…”

“Do a pooja for this little guy,” her mother said.

Swapna ruffled my hair, “Will do.”

“I will come along,” I said.

“Oh, don’t bother,” she said.

“No bother at all.”

“No, seriously, I go alone all the time.”

“Take him with you,” her father said. “Final days of the competition after all…”

“Ok,” she said rather blandly.

At the temple, I quickly made the round, gestured to her that I would wait outside. She waited for the pooja for me and came out after fifteen minutes. I was sitting on the platform beneath the big banyan tree. I pretended to be busy studying the tree. I saw her look around. She kept on chewing her lower lip, something she does when she is thinking or confused. She walked towards me. I remained seated. She stood in front of me. From the banana leaf with the temple offering, she took sandalwood paste on a finger and applied it to my forehead. Then, she took a slice of banana. I opened my mouth. She placed it in my mouth.

“Hi, it’s me,” I said.

She looked at me for a while, silent. Then, she said, “I know.”

“What?” 

“I am not a dumb girl, you know.”

I stood up. We walked back home. We talked softly, like on the phone. 

We talked like that only when we were alone. When others were around, I paid more attention to her younger sister. It was not always soft talk. We used to fight too. She loved to irritate me about my stance on issues, or rather my ignorance. She liked to poke at my fascination for traditional romance. She hooted with laughter when she read one of my not-that-bad heartfelt poems about finding a lovely lass by a lit lamp, all coy and sentimental, “bloody cheesy” as she put it.

She too was traditional then. She agreed to an arranged marriage. “I should have waited, but back then, girls didn’t really have that freedom,” she said later.

I was at her parents’ house for more than a week before her wedding, helping them just like her younger brother. I got her to myself only for ten minutes one of those days. I nearly cried. She told me not to make her cry. “We will never say goodbye,” she said. I think I told her that I love her. Or maybe, I told her that much earlier, or later. I did not have to say it. I asked her if I could kiss her. She said that she cannot cross that line. “Why are you such a stickler for rules?” I had protested. At least on your cheek, I pleaded. No, she said firmly. It stayed that way even later. She used to call me from her husband’s house. I used to write letters to her, just the innocent-younger-brother type of letters. We continued with our act.

I was Arjun only for her. She has been my Swapna. She is always the dream that has to end when I decide to wake up some day.

The Third Night

By the third night, we were a homogeneous, huddled mass cowering beneath the hanging rock. There was still hope, for a quick end.

It was different the first night. We were washed out of bed around 11 pm. Water entered even my apartment on the top floor of the three-storey building.

We had smirked when the media gave the disaster a grand name, ‘the Kerala flood-of-the-century’. In our castle guarded by the hills, that had seemed so far away, so manageable. Our two-unit apartment complex used to look like it was carved out of the hills. The fully residential block was interconnected by a pathway to another building at a lower level. That housed the basement parking, shops on the ground floor and, above the level of the pathway, a few apartments. Standing on our wind-swept balcony, we had leisurely marvelled at the breath-taking waterfalls and raging streams carrying away the torrential rain. For two days we had ignored the warnings and the red alerts. We had assumed the loud-speakers further downhill were for those people there. I had packed a backpack and a small suitcase, not for evacuation, for a trip after the waters had receded in the lower-lying areas, to help an NGO in the city with flood-relief. I took only the backpack when it was time to shift to the terrace. Later that night I thought about the precious papers and the old writing I had left behind. We could think of such that first night.

On the rain-washed terrace, beneath leaking aluminium roofing, deafened by the crescendo of rain and wind on those fragile flapping sheets, there were thirty four residents and about eighty from around who had set up camp on our grounds the preceding days. There was a stray-dog named Nancy too.

There were two deaths that night (not counting those who had drowned or were trapped within apartments or were washed away in the initial rush of water).

If the Kurups had stood outside their front door, someone would have remembered to carry the old couple from the adjacent block to our terrace. Instead, for whatever reason, they had locked themselves in and taken refuge on their balcony in waist-high water. The pathway between the blocks was already submerged. They were lucky we heard their faint cries for help. Two young lads, in their twenties, who lived together in a ground floor flat, claimed they were good at rock-climbing. They even had ropes with them. They quickly went down the side of the building to the top of the pathway, jumped from ledge to ledge and reached the Kurups’ balcony. We shouted directions from top. The Kurups were wrapped in make-shift cribs made of bed-sheets. The boys lowered the old couple and carried them over to our side. We pulled them up and cheered loudly. The boys were about to come up. One of them slipped and fell into the water, still holding to his rope. The other cautiously went towards his partner. For a moment, we thought he had rescued his friend. The two were in the water, just three or four meters from us, holding each other, looking up at us, grinning. There must have been another landslide or flash flood. The hungry water swept them away as if they were leaves. We pulled up the ropes.

In the faint light of dawn, we realized the scale of devastation. Our castle was like a raft barely afloat on swelling water. At times the water seemed calm enough for a long swim to safety. But the anger within was palpable. Whole buildings had collapsed, flowed, like Lego blocks. The hills had crumbled at two ends; all that remained of the green gentle slope and swaying trees was the portion in the middle, right over us, jagged edges and bare rock. It looked like a multi-headed serpent, guarding or waiting to strike.

‘When that decides to fall, we won’t feel it.’

‘We did this. We brought it on us, building on these hills.’

That first night and day, we were determined to survive. Leaders assumed responsibility; took stock of water and food (biscuit, coconut and banana) and decided on the rationing; arranged a make-shift privy near an outlet pipe; instructed people to save battery-power and take turns to reach the outside world, with calls or flashlight; in teams and shifts, we stood guard. There was no network-coverage. We could not have been more than a few miles from rescue centres. We were as good as marooned on a desert island in Bermuda Triangle.

The camaraderie in the first 24 hours was amazing. Men and women selflessly helped each other. Was it for social media or a record for posterity? Will they end up like me after another betrayal by the state, another helpless wait for a basic need like water or even life? Not that I was not doing my bit, in comforting or keeping that hundred-odd square meters of space liveable. I did not write then. That came later.

There were spots of bother. A group prayed loudly and urged others to join them. Some did not like that but no one dared to oppose any type of prayer. There were debates: was it man-made, a mismanagement of dams, or a natural disaster; did the state do enough to keep us safe; and, what is the way ahead. No one remarked on the irony in discussing the last issue.

We were a group of very different people then, a storehouse of information, characters and stories for a writer like me.

Anu, the thin pretty lady from first floor with a frail husband and a young kid, asked for my help, ‘Please, I don’t know what to do, whatever happens, please help us.’ I was not the only one she approached. I thought of a love story. It did not have to be tragic. There could be love, sex or assault, a bloody twist, drugs and liquor too. ‘In these circumstances on this terrace???’ a speech-bubble popped up. I was quite happy with the mind-games, anything to escape from the reality.

Mrs Mina, the obese Income Tax Commissioner from my floor, was not her usual self. She was one of the leaders managing the resources. She and her husband, a high-ranking police officer on duty and not on the terrace with us, were not the residents’ darlings. Once, the Mathews’ driver entered the lift along with Mrs Mina. She told him to step out and wait for the next lift. He protested. Later that day, her husband foisted on the driver multiple charges of public nuisance (drunk and disorderly conduct) and GBH towards his wife. There, on the terrace, Mrs Mina and that driver got along quite well.

The first afternoon, Mrs Mina briefly managed to get a call through to her husband. We crowded around her. 

‘Have you contacted the Navy and the Coast Guard?’ she asked.

‘We are in the queue,’ he said.

‘Even they are on the queue,’ someone whispered.

‘Just hang on…’ the husband said, ‘that area is one of the hardest to reach.’ He paused, ‘I am trying for a helicopter to get you out.’

The crowd dispersed. Mrs Mina did not try to convince us that her husband had meant a collective ‘you’. She, along with her ‘help’, returned to camp-duties.

I kept an eye on that ‘help’. She is ten years old or younger. Some of us in the Residents Association had wanted to do something for the kid. She worked all day and did not go to school. We feared even worse. She speaks Chinese or some language like that. I have seen her weep, all alone in the stairwell. What could we do against Mrs Mina and her husband? Her situation seemed better on the terrace. She and Nancy the dog had become bosom buddies. Someone suggested naming her. ‘Nancy and Pansy…?’ No. ‘Nancy and Fancy…’ The kid giggled.

That day, one more died, a young overweight man. He had been helping with a tarpaulin. Just keeled over and died. We had to make space for him too. Sadly, that was near the privy.

The second night, one of the leaders decided we needed entertainment. There was no dearth of singers and stand-up comedians. But, it was tough to shift focus from the heavy rainfall on the roofing and the sound of swirling winds. A loud crack from the top of the hill and a series of lightning strikes ended the cultural show. That sapped all our confidence.

Next day, we chose comatose slumber. No one spoke or prayed loudly. The phones remained dead. Anyone awake just stared at the serpent on the hill.

The third night was the worst. Water level rose even further, just a meter or two from the terrace. Cracks appeared on the side of the building. All our defences crumbled too. The stench of rotting carcasses in the water and outside got to us finally. More than thirty succumbed to fever. There was no doctor, only a few trainee nurses. They thought it could be rat fever. We thought it was psychosomatic. Those who had secreted a stash of biscuits brought it out, offered to all. No one was hungry. People woke up from fitful slumber sweating and shivering, blabbering about visions. We tried to silence them. We did not dare to slap anyone back to their senses. That could have triggered mass violence. The serpent seemed to lower its head, its cold dark stare on us, the forked tongue leaving deep scars. We submitted to its power, lay low, without a whimper.

Three died that night of natural causes, possibly fear and exhaustion.

Rain stopped for a while before dawn. No one had kept watch. No one had waved the flashlight. Around 10 am, we heard someone call, ‘Is anybody there?’

I think it was Nancy and Fancy who responded first. Those on the two rescue boats must have got a scare of their life when about a hundred rose from the dead.

One was a Navy rescue boat and the other a fishing vessel. There were policemen on both, looking official, like bouncers outside a club. They told us there was space for fifty; they had just made it; another rescue mission seemed unlikely for some time; some more dams were going to be opened. The news was delivered loud and clear.

Mrs Mina got onto the Navy boat. How do the privileged get privilege without anyone realizing it? Two families who lived on the first floor refused to go in the fishing vessel citing religious customs or diet. They got to share space with Mrs Mina. Some others were chosen too. There was some kind of lottery. Everyone obeyed the officials, not one raised a demand, not a single unruly incident. What was the point? Face a flood or life after defying the state? That was a no-brainer.

Anu, the thin pretty lady, did not need anyone’s help. She insisted that she and her kid would go only with her husband. He too was allowed. That was the only exception. One middle-aged couple left their differently-abled kid. Siblings, spouses, parents, children had to choose, one or the other. Choice was theirs, not the right to dissent though. Any group that expressed displeasure was left behind to sort out their issues. Willing or not, some stepped aside meekly, some formed silent queues. Some like me did not participate.

Mrs Mina’s help was not selected. Something broke within me. I held Fancy’s hand, pushed through the crowd, approached the fisherman, a dark burly man with blood-shot eyes and a grim face. How many times has he had to wage a battle against death, his and others?

‘What’s your name?’ I asked.

‘Anees.’

‘Anees, take her with you. Just keep her away from that fat lady there.’

I think Anees understood. I did not tell him that the Minas were high-ranking officers. The policeman next to him must have known.

‘Get her to an orphanage, please,’ I begged.

Anees scowled. ‘She will be with my family, not in one of those hell-holes.’ The official-cum-bouncer shrugged. They were not really bad. I lifted the kid onto the boat. She did not thank me. She cried a little for Nancy.

We were left with fresh supply of food, water and clothes. They need not have.

The situation does not matter now. We are able to stand, smile. And stare back at the serpent. When the floods are over, if it is still standing, they will bring it down. No serpent, no god can survive the onslaught of man.

I started to write then. All that I have is this pocketbook, wrapped in plastic, A7 single line 160 pages, without space or time for editing. Will I be the bottle carrying this message?

Flood artworks

Endings

‘Anand, what was the name of your first one?’

‘Sudarshana…’

‘That’s Sudarshan’s sister, right? Didn’t that come later… in the ninth or tenth?’

‘Hmm… true… got it… Archana… that’s the only one that ended well.’

‘Since she didn’t know you, I guess that was assured. After her, it was Tina, right?’

‘Gina, Tina’s sister. Tina came later.’

‘Oh yeah… Gina… those were the poetic days, I remember!’

‘Don’t remind me.’

‘You sent a poem by post every week or something like that, right?’

‘Twice a week…’

‘And she showed it to everyone?’

‘She did…’

‘How dreadful…’

‘I have not looked at poetry since then.’

‘I understand. Sudarshana was next, right? What went wrong with her?’

‘Nothing…’

‘Isn’t that when you claimed you lost your virginity?’

‘Hmm… and, you had to check that out with her.’

‘Oh yes, that just slipped my mind.’

‘That just would…’

‘Come on… at that age, it was a big thing. Who was next – Tina?’

‘Briefly… the poetry had a lasting effect…’

‘Wasn’t there some girl in college? Hey, that sweet one…’

‘Shereen…’

‘Ha…. Sweet Shereen, Sweet Sherbet…’

‘You should try her with her three brothers…’

‘You had to leave college, right?’

‘And town. Some idiot told her brothers that I claimed to have lost my virginity with her.’

‘Just anticipated your claim…’

‘Was it you?’

‘Hey, it was just a joke…’

‘A joke indeed… those three wanted to take my virginity…’

‘Then, there was a long break till the next one, right?’

‘Had to… nerves and all that…’

‘Then there was that girl in Mumbai, right? What was her name?’

‘Don’t remember…’

‘Come on, we went out for lunch to a Chinese restaurant…’

‘Hmm…’

‘What happened with her?’

‘She died.’

‘Oh… is that why you dropped off the grid?’

‘Hmm…’ 

‘Man, you should have contacted me… what are friends for?’

‘For such stuff…?’

‘You disappeared for three or four years… till your wedding… you didn’t share that either…’

‘Well, you did get to know…’

‘But, still… you didn’t tell me.’

‘Sorry…’

‘As if you mean it…’

‘Hmm…’

‘So, how is it going?’

‘How is what going?’

‘Marriage, of course…’

‘Going good… very good, in fact…’

‘I see…’

‘You sound disappointed… some affairs don’t end, you know…’

‘Anand, there is something you need to know…’

‘What?’

‘Your wife wants out…’

‘What?’

‘She requested me to talk to you…’

‘Requested you…?’

‘Yeah…’

‘Why?’

‘Why what…?’

‘Why does she want our marriage to end?’

‘Ah… I think there is someone…’

‘Is it you?’

‘Don’t be ridiculous!’

‘That’s exactly the kind of ridiculous stuff you would do…’

‘Now, don’t start taking it out on me…’

‘How could you…?’

‘How could I what?’

‘Speak on her behalf…’

‘I am not speaking on her behalf… she asked me because she thinks I have been there with you when each of your affairs ended…’

‘How well she knows me!’

‘Now, don’t be sarcastic…’

‘Get lost…’

‘Come on, Anand… let’s deal with it like men.’

‘Get lost.’

For Your Thoughts Only

The Council for Developing Studies in its 2014 Mid-Winter Report titled ‘Changing Society’ has gathered and analyzed data from the top 50 universities in the country. The conclusions of this study calls for an immediate rethink of the fabric and future of society.

It should be noted that the Council had earlier, in its 2011 Mid-Summer Report, observed: ‘Though the rate of growth is well below what it should be, probably influenced by global factors, it is encouraging to find that youth of both sexes are following similar professional trajectories and the gulf between men and women, by way of salaries or promotions and its associated ills such as discrimination or harassment, has reduced appreciably.’

The 2014 report emphasizes that the divide has diminished even further. The most startling revelation of this study is that the professional trajectory of the sexes has altered inexplicably.

In fact, the study reveals a mind-boggling divergence in the division of labor. Unlike the growing trend of conservatism in some developed economies as revealed by the reduction of women in the work-force and an increasing demand for stable and comfortable lifestyle, the situation here clearly indicates neo-liberal and postmodern influences.

In the top 50 universities, women show a clear preference for the ‘soft streams’, leaving the ‘hard streams’ colloquially referred to as ‘crap dip/dept’ for men. The dominance of women in the Arts departments is near total, averaging an impressive 92.3%. In the R&D divisions of science and technology departments, though the faculty still shows a slight bias towards males, the student population, from undergraduate to postgraduate levels, is mostly female. The rank-lists of the last few years clearly support this fact. Meanwhile, in areas such as management, business administration, politics and law, the absence of female students is startling with a meager representation of 4.6%.

The study mentions in passing that this development or divide could possibly explain greater awareness and financial security along with lesser frustration in society, shown by the dip in suicide and divorce rates in recent years, and increased stability of marriages, even though those entering that institution are fewer.

  

Dreams I Live

A few days back, in a dream just before dawn, I saw news of the missing MH370 flight, that it has been found. I woke up, rushed outside and waited for the newspaper boy. I tried to recollect other details, if I had seen any, the date, the dead or the survivors, the place.

When I was twelve, a girl came to me. Shoulder length hair, feather-cut I think, slender, she caught me staring at her, I must have looked surprised, she did not seem offended, we searched in each other’s eyes, there was sadness in hers but that could have been the reflection of mine, she smiled, she said something, I remember she walked away. Three years later, at a Cultural Festival away from home, in another district, I met her, I was surprised, it was as I saw, she did say something to me I cannot remember, or forget, I remember her walking away.

In my early twenties, an old love entered a dream, that she would surprise me with a visit. A week later, she turned up at the Institute, I was in a students’ meeting. Aren’t you surprised, she asked me. I shook my head. I laughed, I was damn happy. I had another chance, after years of exile, to tell her that I love her. But that I did not see and it never happened, just another love better left unsaid.

Then, in my late twenties, I saw the dream that changed my life.

It was me I am sure, a life strange though, a hundred or two hundred years earlier. I recognized my land, though I am not sure if it was mine, there was someone there who decided all for me and my lot. My hut had clay plastered walls and floor, it was dark, tiny windows that remained closed, a few mats and pots, privy somewhere, or in the open, I remember the darkness, the silence, the tiredness. Working in the fields, beasts of burden, from dawn till dusk, porridge or tapioca on a leaf scooped up with a leaf, animals sitting in the shade or under the sun, in the fields, away from houses and those folk, water from a well for my lot, a dip in the river where we were allowed. There was little time to be bitter, to think, to worry, just a life that was the same each day, every day, illness or death brought a break. The small kids slept inside with the women, others outside. I vaguely remember my wife. A girl, a good girl I heard some tell me. I do not remember talking to her, or giving her gifts, or taking care of her or the kids when they were sick. But I was there. I did not drink, well, not excessively before the bitterness took root. I did not hit her I am rather sure, before then. She looked nervous, with me. I saw her laughing and smiling, with others. Mostly, it was just silent labor for her too, just the usual. Once in a while, I went to her, I held her, with little to say, we buried our heads against each other, the quick thrusting and release over like ablution. Into that idyllic life entered a woman. Was she the girl I saw at twelve or the old love who surprised me, I wondered when I was awake. She walked past us in the fields, to the house of the lords. We muddy dirty lot disappeared into the slush, only eyes remained, peeping through the paddy or the pile of coconuts. I went near her house, feeling brave, a great hero, they let loose the dogs on me, they laughed, they thrashed, and they laughed and decided it was better fun to leave me alive. I worked harder, tired myself out, I drank longer, till I could not sense my tiredness, I disappeared into my shell, and when others tried to enter, I attacked viciously. I hated the moments of clarity, to think I can’t think. I hated life, with no love or hope or desire or thought. I woke up before I died, it must have been better fun to keep me alive to live that dream.  

Transformation

The lawyers debated about the length and nature of the alleged incident. Her side called it bestial brutality, his conceded that it was just a consensual affair. The accused seemed innocent, head down, admitting guilt about adultery, not rape, and when he looked at her, his eyes expressed hurt or dismay. He was described as a hardworking white-collar employee who lived for his wife, kids and aged parents, a mere mortal stumbling over wily seduction. Her lawyer described the abuse that went on for hours, moved to the evidence, including each object and method employed. The other side questioned her character. She looked like a victim then, shriveled, defeated, confused. Her choice of clothing, leading to the incident, was called inappropriate and suggestive. It was recorded that she was not a virgin. Her experience in matters related to sex was impressed upon the learned judge with the impassive face.

She looked up, stared at his lawyer, bewildered, flinching at the conjectures about her sexual life, her sad eyes turned to the accused, her lawyer, the clerks before the judge and then to the judge.

She changed then.

Her back straightened, chest pushed out, her breasts heaving, the shawl slipping, her legs parted slightly, in a wide stance, a hand on her hip, her ample curves visible, the other hand toyed with a charm on a chain near  her breast. His lawyer stopped the narration when she smiled, a smile that lurked on her smirking lips and teasing eyes, the eyes that seemed to have turned kohl-lined, dark and fearless. She stared at the lawyer for a while. Then, her seductive gaze fell on everyone in the room, daring people to speak. Her tongue flicked out to wet her pouting lips or suggestively poked within at her dimpled cheek. The judge wiped his forehead. Her lawyer appeared stunned. The accused kept his head down, fidgeting, nervous or scared.