CG Road

I sit down beside a chai-wala, on the pavement, the evening traffic rushing by in front of my eyes. I am tired, I have walked miles around the market in search of the shop Maa asked me to go to, and get this thing she so sorely wanted.

I feel like I’m half dead, the legs hurt and it takes considerable effort to keep my back straight. So I sit down on the pavement, without any thought for decency, place the tea cup on my side and light a cigarette.

Everything feels unreal, as if from a half-dream. The mind feels numb, the noise of the cars and their horns hardly proving to be disturbance.

There is an auto rickshaw at a few feet from me, and having convinced myself that I can’t possibly find the shop alive, I decide that I’ll take this promise of relief and go back to Income Tax, and then to the college. There are not many such promises to be seen around where I’ve sit, and I hope this one stays glued to the spot till I’ve finished my short break.

A few minutes pass by, and a dark man walks up to me. He is carrying several figures of clay, mostly of gods and goddesses, all for sale. This is the last thing that I need right now, and I try not to look the man in the eye, wishing that it puts him off and he goes away. But he doesn’t, he shows me a face sculpture of Ganesh, and asks me whether I would like to take it.

I try to get rid of him without any more conversation and not be rude at the same time, something that always requires a lot of effort. I say that it’s nice but I don’t have any money. He of course doesn’t listen to it, my clothes and demeanour betray me. He persists, saying that he could give me a handsome discount if I like the thing so much. I stop listening and concentrate once more on the traffic, the mind going numb again.

I give the rickshaw another look, the driver sits on the front seat, relaxed, doesn’t seem to be in any hurry. But I know I am stretching my luck, and its time I get going. The dark man meanwhile stops speaking, and instead just stares at me with almost accusing eyes. I look at him straight for the first time, pull both my front pockets out, showing that they don’t have any money, hoping that he would finally take pity on me and leave.

The tea is finished, and so is the cigarette. The auto-wala sits on his seat as before. The dark man stares at me as before. The cars rush by me as before. I get up, with some effort, planning to take the rickshaw.

But as if in a dream, a real dream this time, as soon as I rise to my feet, the dark man and the auto rickshaw leave, almost together, as if this was a joke they had planned on me beforehand.

The tea is finished, and so is the cigarette. The work is not done. The auto rickshaw has left, and so has the dark man. I am tired, and I now have to walk to the next red light almost a kilometre away, just to get a ride.

Have you ever felt that the whole world is against you in some dark, unbelievable conspiracy? I have.

Morning Blues

It’s Sunday morning. 11 A.M. Amir gets up, all groggy.

He totters to the door, in search of the newspaper, the only possible excuse he can think of to leave the bed. But it’s the 27th day of January, and as if the world had stopped functioning at all the previous day, there is no news to be found at the bottom of the door.

He unlatches the thing, but there is no milk packet left outside either. Seemingly, the cows and the doodhwala too had ceased to function in deference to our secular, sovereign republic. There won’t be any newspaper or tea today, thinks Amir, and feels like falling on to the bed again.

He switches on the TV, but its morning time, and they have nothing to show but old, stale news of yesterday, old, stale repeat telecast of yesterday’s game show, and the old, stale highlights of yesterday’s match, where India lost by more runs than they actually scored.

Cigarettes!, thinks Amir. There has to be a cigarette somewhere. He jumps for his jeans, but is heartbroken to find no packet there. He remembers distinctly that there was a packet, and there were at least a couple of cigarettes remaining. He runs to the living room, looking on top of the desk, on the sofa, on the divan, on the TV. But there is nothing. He goes back to his bedroom, searches all over again, keen, desperate eyes dying to be sated. But there is nothing.

What a torrid start to the day, thinks Amir, and lies down on the bed again, looking at the ceiling. No tea, no newspaper, no TV, no cigarettes – nothing at all.

Then, in a sudden surge of inspiration, he gets up, runs to his jacket lying on the chair alongside his bed. After all, that’s where he had left the cigarettes last night. He pats on the under pocket, and is overjoyed to find the thing after his heart, relieved to find his saviour.

There is just one cigarette left, but one should be enough for now.

He slides open the matchbox.

There is just one match left, but one should be enough for now.

He strikes fire with that solitary promise of relief, and brings it closer to the cigarette held in his mouth.

The promise burns with promise at first, then starts to die out slowly. Like a dying man - half hopeful, half believing - desperately trying to hold on to life, Amir hurries the thing to the tip of his cigarette. But only a part of the tip catches fire. He sucks frantically at the other end, still hopeful, still believing. But the all-too-obvious happens.

The foul taste of half-burned tobacco in his mouth is the icing on the cake.

It’s Sunday morning. 11:20 A.M. Amir goes to bed, all fed up.

Thoughts & Smoke

He always smokes in his room, sitting on the chair lining up music on the computer, or on the bed, lying down, staring at the ceiling, or standing at the window, looking out. Like the places, the moods vary too, from extremely upbeat to extremely melancholic and everything else that lies in between these two celebrated states.

His thoughts come out in fumes from his mouth, gently oozing out, reaching different parts of the room. The smoke is the carrier, his dwellings are the carried. That is to say, if you look closely enough, you’ll see him missing his home and his mother on top of the suitcase on the almirah, covered in a grey, thick layer of dust. If you observe the cobwebs in the corner of the room minutely, you’ll see locked between the shreds, him having second thoughts about his angry outburst the other day. And if you happen to look underneath the bed, you might just be surprised to find a few dreams – some nurtured and some murdered.

Etc Etc.

So in this way, everything that he thinks about stays close; it doesn’t disappear, drifting away from reach. It stays close, within two or three metres of where he stands, sits or lies. And in this little thought fortress he lives, like a king guarding all he has.