I Do Not Know

CHAPTER 1: THE THREAT

“But it is true. You ARE a whore. Sorry champ.”

Neena feels something tingling down her spine, literally. Her friend had slid down a cube of ice under her T-shirt while making her a drink; the chill brought her back to the present. She wanted to yell at her friend, but did not. Even her otherwise sharp reflexes didn’t make her remove the ice cube from underneath her T-shirt. The cool is good. As good as a whore. 

The doorbell rings. Her fears are coming to life. She will have to smile now. She wears her specs in order to conceal her eyes. Somehow the transparence of the lens did not matter; something is filtering her gaze and that seems sufficient for the moment. Her friend has already opened the door letting in a cohort of people; noisy humanoids…humans…human beings. She preferred the term humanoids. By dissociating them from human beings and still keeping them humane, is how she would be able to stay moderately empathetic to this seemingly warm, jovial, caring bunch of people. But she desired wit and challenge. She desired threat. These humanoids posed none. 

Hugs. Music. Whiskey. Smiles. 

Smiles. 

More smiles.

Hug again. Hug swapped. 

New hug. 

Deep hug. Dense hug. Warm hug. 

Warm hug. 

Who the fuck…is this?

The threat. 

CHAPTER 2: CELL PHONE

She can hear the sound of the train approaching, and the subway announcement. But she can’t seem to lift her head to care. She knows this is the train she is required to board. But she refuses to do it. She wants to sit at the station a little longer; staring at the tiny ant pacing up and down on the floor perhaps looking for its compatriots. She has barely seen a lonely ant, ever. She felt bad for the poor thing. She squashed it. Nobody noticed. 

She walks out of the underground station; she decides not to take the train at all. She needed some fresh air. Well, whatever air the city can provide - fresh or not fresh. She looks up to the sky to witness massive nimbuses making weird formations; one even looked like a giant penis. A drop of water splatters the lens of her thick black rimmed specs. Another one followed. And another one. And more. “Dayemn!” she thought. She was in no mood to enjoy the rain today. 

“Neena! I thought you were going downtown,” her friend called out from the third floor balcony of their house not very far away. Can she just call her a house mate? But that would hurt her feelings. So friend she is. 

“I was! Now I am not,” Neena tried to be as loud as possible. But she thought she just produced some muffled up sounds and a gesture that seemed to resemble lips of a fish blowing bubbles underwater. Thankfully, it wouldn’t hurt the sentiments of her ‘friend’. The sound of the rain has overpowered the space and nobody cared any more. 

She knows it is a bad decision; she will catch a cold not just because autumn is almost over and there is a nip in the air, but because November rains are merciless. She knows she will be hurt real bad, yet another time. She smiles at the sense of impending doom, sinking heart and the eventual haircut. Right time for caffeine. 

“I knew the moment you were out, that you’d be back all drenched,” said her friend.

“How would you know?” Neena rushed to the bathroom to change. 

“Oh! Come on, I know you far too well. And while you make your coffee, please make me one as well. Thanks!”

Really? Does she know her that well? Does she, really? 

She scrubbed herself so hard under the warm shower that she thought her skin bled. No it did not really bleed.

Coffee. 

Sunday coffee is good. Rain day coffee is good. Black coffee is good. 

She takes out her cell phone and wondered if she should call someone. But who? She wanted to talk to someone who was not sincere, someone who wouldn’t come rushing in the worry that she might be depressed or something. Someone, who’d just talk for the heck of it while he busies himself doing his chores; designing some computer shit, or writing their thesis, or jerking off to porn. She dialled her threat. 

“Hey sweety, how are you? Tell me! What’s up?”

“Your dick! Bye”

She switched off her mobile. How incredibly boring suddenly the otherwise supposed to be witty humanoid sounded. Human being. Demotion.

Four hours later, in utter nervousness, Neena turns her cell phone on. She doesn’t know what to anticipate. Perhaps, hanging up like that was rude. But she couldn’t help it! The monotone of the strewn up words just overpowered her brain cells and made her do such socially unacceptable things! There were WhatsApp messages - some 236 of them. Three from the threat, sounding as boring as the three lines he got to speak on the phone. 

Message 1: “Wait, what just happened?”

Message 2: “Did I do something?”

Message 3: “Fuck you, bitch!”

She rolled on the floor in laughter, again, literally. 

Still feeling the warmth of the rug on the floor, she looks at the mobile screen. Was there any message worthwhile to read, she wondered. 232 of them were from various groups - school group, college group, work group, why-the-fuck-am-I-a-part-of-this-group group. There was one message that made her skip a heart beat.

That was straight from the grim reaper himself. He is going to rip her into pieces and suck the soul out of her. They hadn't communicated in eleven months; they had decided that’s best for both. 

“You have put on weight.” 

THAT was the message from the fat bastard. From that attractive, incredibly intelligent, warm and cruel, fat bastard.

Response to an online friend's take on 'ONE'

You burped at the ‘one’
That spread the apron

of fireflies desiring to be seen

Glittering through the dark rain forest
in search of a svelte monochrome sheen
Lustrous, luscious, lumberjacks of divine ordeal…

The Log

I was uprooted in the last storm
that engulfed my land.
Since then I have been
Bruised, cut, touched, raped
My skinned body
Have lain inert
In the grey winters
And the orange summers;
Ants crawled over me

Maggots took birth

Termites hollowed me down

Then it rained

The Conquest (2008)

I heard the gleeful banter

Of the raindrops over the gushing river

They mated

Their liquids merged

Their souls played

They entered each other.

The forest watched

I watched

I envied

I burnt.

I looked at their bodies

The river danced to the song of the rain

Their vehement cry of pleasure

Their movement of orgasm

They gushed through the boulders

They wet the greens

They conquered the forest.

The Viper (2008)

I walk bare feet on those smooth pebbles,
And the wet sand,
The murky waters
And the dried leaves wet in the rain.

The river bed spoke a thousand words,
Silently proclaiming their existence;
The snails and the leeches moved
Slowly and silently,
Harmlessly.

But I am scared.
Scared of my existence in this terrain.
They call me the viper.

My hissing silences crickets
My moves freeze the rats.
But the flowers don’t stop blooming
The leaves don’t stop rustling
And the eerie sound of the wind over my slimy skin
Captivates me.

I stop.
I drown myself.
I crawl myself into non existence.

Freedom of Light - something written in 2008

As my eyes burn with the pepper sprayed over its wet wound, I rethink. About my equation with the minuscule micro organisms which crawled over it once. I am blinded now. But the wound still hurts. I cannot see my own wound though. It is funny.

How did the pepper after all reach my eyes? Nobody blew the fan. Or that’s what I believe. I am a neoteric blind. I am still getting used to it. My blindness I mean. I do not hear far flunked sounds, yet. Who made good films last in Germany?  The Golem was the last I saw.

Coming back to my blindness, the situation is funny. I sleep with my eyes wide open. And feel the peace which darkness used to give me when I could still see, all the time now. The lampshades have become antiques. The electricity bill I pay is only for the music system, the blender and the desert cooler that I possess in the name of electrical goods, or probably a couple of more which do not really require eye handling. I have finally managed to learn to fill water without anyone else’s help into the cooler. I still cannot figure out where the mouse is going on my personal computer. Hence that has almost become obsolete for me. I spend my time learning braille and listening to “Hey! Mr. Tambourine man play a song for me…I am not sleepy and there’s no place I am not going to.”

Formations

I was merely etching my own shadows
When it turned into some form of painting
One without hues; without any meaning
It became self sustaining
Growing into things I have not yet seen.

I was merely following the sound of my own footsteps
When it turned into some form of a journey
One without a destination; without an end
It became self sustaining
Growing into a geography I have not yet embarked upon

I was merely listening to my own heartbeats
When it turned into some form of music
One without a tune; without any symphony
But it became self sustaining
Growing into a ballad I have not yet heard

I am yet to follow my soul
One without any desire or the need to 'be'
But there is somewhere
A hole, a void
That has never asked for a filling
Simply because it was growing
To become a diffusing matter
Revealing the spirit underneath.

In absolute randomness
I live;
Then leave my body
With ochre yellow stains
On my shirt sleeve
From the clay that I molded at random
From the red of the hibiscus that I plucked at random
And I was punished for cutting short
The life of the flower that had its own dreams and aspirations
Of living through youth
Of wilting and reaching its final destination
In its own time
And not at random.

Reacting to a friend's comment on Delhi Gang Rape and Girls Venturing Out at Night

I do not disagree with you. I do live my life with as much caution. I just DO NOT LIKE TO. I do not believe in destiny. I do not believe in God. But I believe I should be able to live a life where my gender does not prevent me from being happy. And I feel happy when I am walking alone on the street, sitting alone in a coffee shop, travelling by the last metro...where you bond with people you meet at those junctures...people who do not rape you.

Moral Policing of Women

Yes of course, a woman's safety lies in her, not drinking, not smoking, not carrying a mobile phone, not arguing, not dancing her heart out, not singing to herself, not working, not having sex when she wants, being pregnant when the entire world wants it to happen but her, taking care of the dog that her children wanted so much, not writing explicit, not swearing, not walking alone, not complaining, not wearing clothes she feels beautiful and hence confident in, not getting promoted in jobs, not getting ahead of men her age and men in general, not living life in her own terms. Yes, a woman is safest that way, because she ceases to be human, perhaps she has become a spirit like that of a Murakami novel. Something deep inside the jungle with half a shadow. The entrance stone has been opened and the door is still ajar.

Provocation

My constant attempt has been to not to get provoked by vocally expressed intelligence; I need to keep reminding myself - keep calm, you are learning at every step; enjoy that process, and that vocal intelligence out there, is a product of naivete, because if it was not, it would not be so loud.

Real Time Memories

My real time memories slip into my subconscious, effortlessly. But the new raw material in my subconscious become predominant – as I grow up; become a man from a boy. While they say it is ‘sub’ conscious – it forms a new consciousness in me. Images and sounds, shrieks and wails, blood and gore – more gore. A memory taken for granted.

(A child encompassed by domestic violence). 

Even the Title was Empty!

You got what I am doing right?

I am going through my blog's draft articles segment to see if I left any traces of an article, perhaps inconclusive (they all are, but...) and if I could just add a word here, add a punctuation there and publish them. 

Since this was an absolutely EMPTY draft, I thought I'd utilize the space to tell you what is it all about.

Gravity

She pulled out one of the patterns. But it was glued to the rest, hence she could not quite separate it out. Instead she had mozzarella cheese like patterns clamoured to the cubes and cylinders. She decided to walk through. Her hair got sticky and was smelling of patterns. At one point she had to resort to crawling. The tunnel kept narrowing down. She clung on two symmetrical patterns and whoa! She was dangling in mid air space upside down. Somewhere there is gravity; but she had left the world far behind long time back.

She woke up with a fall.

At Random

Oh! This draft was empty!