An unfinished story

On this cold January night, 2nd January 2006 to be precise, Piya is standing in the middle of a desolate West London road wearing full red bridal dress and costume.

It is her wedding night. And here she is leaning against her Golf, smoking a long thin cigarette. That traditional Indian wedding dress is heavy but she is still shivering under the dark foggy sky. As she draws deep on her cigarette, she closes her eyes and lets her mind float.

Though Piya has been smoking for the last six years, it was only in London that she started smoking openly. Her parents separated 15 years ago. Her mother stayed in Kolkata and father moved on to London. Her father had been like a ghost in her life appearing suddenly and then disappearing again. When her mother died she came unwillingly to stay with his father in London. She never liked him but the thought of staying in the city of joy all by herself didn’t appeal her and her father somehow persuaded her to come and stay with him. That’s how Piyali Ghosh has been in London for the last three years.

Presently, in the wilderness of night, a phone rings and breaks the eerie, heavy silence. Piya opens her eyes and seems bewildered. Suddenly realising, she reaches for her purse, takes out her mobile phone and looking at the number, answers it reluctantly.

“Piya, where are you?” A male voice is on the other end. It seems she does not want to answer the question. The caller is persistent.

“Piya, are you there? Please answer me. I am worried, Piya! Where are you? ”

“The rendezvous” she murmurs and disconnects.

That was Darren- Derry for Piya. She met Derry two year ago. He helped when she had lost her wallet and could not produce a ticket on the underground train. He admired her taste in books and offered to buy her a coffee.

Piya takes the last puff of the cigarette and throws the stub. She looks around as if she is trying to comprehend how she got here and what is she doing here. Maybe it’s the cold or maybe she is tired of standing for too long, she opens the doors and gets in the car. She picks up the pack of cigarette lying on the dashboard and switches the radio on. A cheesy slow old love song starts floating inside the car. She takes out a cigarette but is in no hurry to light it. She leans back into the seat and closes her eyes. Either she is listening to the song or has gone into deep thought. But then suddenly, she opens her eyes, moves forward and shuts down the radio. There is silence again with faded echo of the song still in the air.

White floating wisps hit the windscreen of the car and turn into transparent droplets. It has begun to snow. Snowflakes hover in the air, glowing under the pale light coming from a distant street lamp. Piya is now looking at the snow or maybe through them at something in far distant. The unlit cigarette is still dangling in her hand.

A black big car appears from the fog and speeds past Piya’s stationary car. The fast moving car has suddenly changed the flow of the air and now the snowflakes are swirling in a quick circular motion. Piya also seems shocked and shaken by this disturbance. It’s like she has suddenly woken up from a deep slumber. And then her phone rings again. She looks at the phone but lets it ring. The music seems a contrast from the song which was playing on the radio. The ringtone seems a fusion piece with prominent flute notes. After a few seconds, the tone dies down leaving the silence breathing again.

Derry showed her London. He took her to museums, park concerts and Broadway musicals. Taught her to row and fish. In the daytime, he was studying political science in LSE and on weekends he taught painting in a art school. His studio apartment was their den. It was perpetually in the state of orderly untidiness. Books scattered all over. Music records and CDs. His studio space in one corner with several finished and unfinished canvases, brushes and colours. It was an eclectic intellectual heaven where Piya could spend hours and hours. Both would spend huge amount of time without speaking any word, happy just to be in that space with each other. Sometimes he would paint her while she read with jazz playing in the background. Sometimes they would lie on the mat smoking cigarettes looking at the ceiling listening to each other’s breathing.

The drift

The Doctor made a face as if someone had just died.

He was the youngest doctor out of 4 different doctors that Aakash consulted in the past 3 months. And despite all his degrees and qualifications, probably he was still not comfortable delivering the bad news to a patient. He had the same news for Aakash but in a tone as if he was talking to a dead man already.

Aakash pulled himself up, clutched the envelope containing pictures of his body in negative and moved towards the door feeling the pitiful eyes of the doctor pinching his back.

It was sunny outside. As sunny as it could be after six hours of incessant rainfall in the month of September. Aakash was walking with his head down. He hardly recognised when he saw his own face in the poodle of water on the road. He stepped on it and moved on. Another day was over. Aakash had been counting days and then unconsciously deducting them from the number given by the doctors. The result of the equation was always blurred but he knew the numbers were going down. Months turned into weeks.

He thought of his life he had built since the death of his parents. He thought of Maati, his wife of 2 years. What would she be doing right now? In their home. She would probably be thinking of changing the curtains. Or trimming the plants in the garden. Or making planning about dinner. Oh, he loved Maati. Despite all his efforts, he could not bring himself up to tell Maati about his condition. She would be devastated. He would be more worried about her than himself.

He hailed a cab and got in. Every time he sees Maati, his heart aches. He acts and behaves normally. He laughs, goes to movies, helps her chose the dress to put on as they go out for dinner. Sometimes he cooks and she watches him sitting at the dining table. On Sundays, they go to the park near the lake and lie down under the tree. Maati sings a song and Aakash plays with her hair. But when he closes his eyes, he only sees darkness. When he stops smiling, he wants to cry.

*

He is fed up of the rounds of the doctors. It’s of no use anyways. He has to prepare Maati regarding the future. He has to tell her. Today!

He quietly leaves the office even before lunch. He feels too tired. He takes a few steps down the road and he feels he just ran a marathon. He hands down a cab.

Knocking on the door of his home, he is holding the railing tightly. It has just started raining and he is getting irritated as the bucketing raindrops dampen his resolve to talk to Maati. He is standing on the stairway knocking on the door for 10 minutes now. Suddenly he remembers that he has a spare key. He has never needed it in the last 2 years of his mechanical life. Maati was always there on the door smiling as he got home from work.

Maybe she has gone to get groceries. He unlocks the door and gets in. He puts down his briefcase on the couch and looks around. Nobody! Something makes him go towards the bedroom. And he pushes the door open. Two pairs of startled eyes meet his.

*

He hurried past the last shop on the main road leading to the highway, always running. He can see now the valley except his vision is blurred. His eyes are burning as if he has not slept in days. His head is spinning. He cannot walk any more. He stops near a big tree on the side of the road and leans against it.

He closes his eyes as he tries to control his breathing and coughs heavily. His hands try to reach the left pocket of his trousers to take out handkerchief. The effort drains all his energy and makes him fall down on the soft muddy ground below awkwardly. Another bout of cough follows which he tries to shut out with both his hands. He half opens his eyes as he feels a warm fluid on his hands...

He feels drifting as he tries to recollect what happened during the last hour.

He is still lying there under the tree as a trickle of fresh warm blood on his hands merges with Maati’s cold blood already smeared on his hands...

What am I doing?

I am in a confused state of mind and state of being. Where do I belong? What am I doing? What is the goal? And if there is a goal, what is the next step?

Here I am so far away from the life I had been living. I know I would step into the same life some time soon. But this phase... am I not wasting it?

For the time being, there are so many things which I want to do. I want to read as much as I can. Meaningful books. Real books. Okay occasionally a Lee Child but more 'Mockingbird's.

Thankfully I can do it and I am doing it. But I still don’t feel satisfied. Reading the way I do seem like a detached exercise. I start reading the book, enjoy it. Stop reading the book. Start again and stop again. I read the story. I get the meaning. I read the words and understand the plot. I appreciate the language, the craft. But the whole exercise seems so mechanical that somehow I do not feel immersed. I do not seem to have forgotten the world while reading. And that’s not reading. I remember the way I used to read earlier. I would chose a book and then get drowned in it. I would forget the world. I still remember how I read Ayn Rand. It was like the book was my world for those days. And now? I feel I am cheating myself. Not reading at all is better than reading like this. Just because everyone else is reading on Tube does not mean I have to do this shit too. So now onwards I would pick 2 books to read at any time. One would be a munch book. Fast, anytime. No emotions attached. Just to spend time in Tube. And second- the meal book. Slow, thorough. Which I would read when everything else is switched off. Just me and that book. I can do it!

I want to move, explore, discover. And I am not doing it. Somehow the notion of being alone makes me hesitant to go for these weekend hikes and adventure walks. But then I sit down and question myself. Why do you have to be alone? It’s only up to me to reach out. The only thing that stands between me sitting home and me being out there is ME! I just have to overcome myself. Stop being conscious. Flow! What could go wrong? I resolve and when its time to register I somehow find some pathetic excuse. It has to stop. It can’t go on. I know it and still don’t do anything about it.

I love the fact that I have so much music with me. New music. New sound. Discovering artists I never knew existed. Genre I was not into earlier. More Blues. More folk-rock. More Sufi. Its so much fun to sit on the sill looking out as rain falls in the garden... rumbling of clouds merging with jazz music in the background.

Another thing that I have to do is push myself to paint. I have been wanting to paint for so many years. Drawing is not enough. I need to play on canvas. I have to stop being such a stingy when it comes to doing what I can’t stop thinking of doing. I will either learn that I can paint which would be great. Else I would learn that I can’t paint, but that can be tackled too. I am sure I would not be too bad.

The most important thing to do is find people who are supportive, who know life more than I do. Who are full of life itself? I might not fit in and struggle in their company. But I have to take this journey from inside to outside. Debate, discuss, share, and disagree with everything being said. Rejecting everything initially, leads to discussions. Discussions are good. Debates are healthy.

What else would I love to do? Take loads of pictures. Make new friends. Learn cooking. Blog more often. Write stories. Learn more CSS. More Flash. Make more music on eJay.

Its time to realise that time is no more. Its dying. Have to make something of it.

Gotta write something!

Its been long time since I posted. I have so much to share and talk about. Last week of the term is here. Summer break starts next week. I hope I will be more regular then.

Oh! The Wimbledon final was awesome!