New York is Far From Home

 It is different - not because of how the city has been built, not because of where it has been built, and also not because of where it has been built, and also not because of why it was built, but because of how it doing now. I've lived for an extensive expanse of my life in Mumbai, a metropolis of its own kind. Legend says that the more you know about Mumbai, the less you understand. That's the reason why strangers are welcomed with open arms in the city. If I had to, I would not be able to count the number of times I've been helped out by strangers, in various situations. As a matter of fact, those were friends at that particular moment. And in those moments, I've received wisdom from those strangers that helped me navigate the crowded local trains. My experience, my knowledge and life skills have benefited from the interactions with strangers of the city. But this is not about Mumbai, this is about NY, and it's different.

I was there for 72 hours, and except for the event that unfolded last 5 hours, the megapolis had been strictly whelming. I saw the square, saw the building, saw the park, saw my reflection in the glass panels of branded showrooms which I walked past wearing sunglasses to look expensive. I saw the rush and rust on faces, saw the steam rise from underground, saw the tourists soaked in euphoria of first world sights. But that was not what I wanted my memory to comprise of. And that is when magic happened, at the last night. 

Unlike in Mumbai where the cabs are economical by design and frugal in comfort, cabs in NY are a treat of luxury, even at their base fare. They gallop on the streets, like well-bred race horses, with the life of the city as the jockey on their back. I can't decide whether it's a cab I booked, or a business class experience. I exited a dinner meeting with a relative and got into by luxury ride. As I got in, was greeted by the driver in the customary manner, a code language shared between drivers and riders. After a while, however, he asked a question about my name.

-"How do you say your name?"

I knew where the conversation was headed. I gave the answer in the accent which conveys the originality of the name. 

-"Are you from India? Which part?"

For both the answers, I returned the favour with similar questions. The driver was from Chittagong, Bangladesh. After a few minutes of facts based questioning, the conversation proceeded to that space which immigrants only talk off in siloed and scant moments, with words and colloquial expressions that don't need to be watered down, with theatrics that defy the best of musicals, with the tone that doesn't have to confirm to a standard of speech filled with repetition. But only in few instances, and this was one of them. I came to know that he arrived in the United States in 1992, after having worked in the Middle East as a blue collar worker. He had left home even earlier. His journey could be the screenplay for another movie on immigrants in US, but that genre has been milked to maximum. Regardless of anything, his struggle of acquiring a living that could support his family back home, his ancestral memory, his wife and children in the States, and finally himself, was worth listening. I contributed with my small share of struggle in carving a space for myself in this alien land. As you read this, I should tell you that the essence of this conversation lies in the nativeness of the language we conversed, and that is where the beauty of the last night lies. We could understand what each of us meant, what each of us might have dealt with, without having to place a standardised word for each emotion. It was conveyed regardless of our command over diction. It was one thing to carve your life out in your own homeland, but that same effort amplifies in ways that one can't imagine at the outset when you set foot on an alien land. And that moment, when both of us hoped for peace for each other, remains the memory of NY, a city far from home. 

 

Midnight Melodies

 

Part I

The rumbling noise within had been disturbing her attempt to sleep for a prolonged period. She tossed to her side, upside, downside, left wing, right wing, pleased herself, yet the rumbling continued, rather increased. Finally, she could not take it anymore and jumped from her bed, in anger.

-  “What is that all about? It has not been even two hours since I cooked dinner and fed you! Do you know how much of a bother it is to cook? You’ve to think what you’ve to eat and usually you can’t decide, then you step out, go to the store, buy, pay, sometimes your card does not work, withdraw cash, come back, wash, chop, toss, sauté, serve, pour wine, all of that to make myself feel good about my job!! And all you can do is rumble in the middle of night?” She looked at her stomach while ranting.

It was mid-week and usually her supplies last till the weekend, but last weekend she was out, and then Monday started quickly followed by a house party on Tuesday and here we are now – a warm Wednesday night, a train whistle in the far distance, someone playing jazz on their yard, a yellowed darkness masked the streets, and a beautiful lady looking outside the window, recollecting her choices.

-  “Hunger does not work according to plans. What makes you think that everything or everyone will act and respond as you deem fit?”, her stomach growled.

-  “I can’t believe I’m having this conversation! Forget it. Bye!” and she paced to her living room, turned on the dim light, plays that song which makes her sway as she likes when wanting to shut out noises, her arms stretched out to expanse, the eyes glowing in the dark, her lips trembling a little near the edge but holding on, and her feet doing the talking. 

This is how he liked her the most. The Raag Hansadhwani starts to fill the room, her mind, her body.

Its past 1:00 PM and she has passed out in the living room. She is woken abruptly by the noise of the clock. The clock is methodological in its approach to work, moving in a steady pace, covering one unit of time with each step. Her life is a lot like clockwork; precise, planned, particular. She knew there was a time for everything and everyone. But not everyone follows your clock, do they!

-  “Tell me dear, when do you know it is the right time?” the clock quipped, the rotation of its dials giving its distinct mechanical melancholic voice. “And if there is a right time, is there a wrong time as well? I’ve never witnessed you this lonely, not even when you were alone. Even a wall clock like me has three companions who visit me every second, minute and hour”, the clock took a pause and then, “was he present at a wrong time?”. 

It was five minutes past one, and everything had fallen silent, even the night. Let me tell you something about midnight, my friend. The moment you reach midnight, you’ve arrived at a destination hoping that someone will be there to receive you, as you are. You’re disheveled, distraught, deranged and heavy with the baggage carried throughout the day. You hope someone will relieve you of your burden, walk you home, put you to bed, and sing you a midnight melody. Instead, you arrive at the same destination, no matter whichever train you take, call for the taxi and speed past the garbage trucks that are collecting the trash of the day. You watch them at work and wonder how much of it is trash and how much is just neglected time and space. That thought flies out of the car window as you near home, undress, gulp a beer and drop to bed. The next morning, it’s a new start, and everything that you felt last night is forgotten, only to reprise each night, again and again. 

-  “I don’t know if there ever was a right or wrong time. Now that I look back on the time we spent together, all of it felt right and wrong equally. And I chose to pick only the ones I liked. I guess, I was, or rather we, were never a story together. We were separate stories, trying to find a space for each other on a page,” she continued speaking while putting the lights out one last time. 

As she prepared herself to sleep, this time with every cramp, ache, and hunger taken care off, her eyes caught the attention of the half-read book, lying on the bedside table, wide open. The pages of the book fluttered and settled down with the wind. To her, it seemed as if the book was unsure on which page it will be, instead it chooses to be on each page for a while, until moving on to the next.

-  “Is this how we glide along life as well?” she wondered. “We keep reading between the lines till it’s interesting, and the moment a sentence comes up that doesn’t resonate with our vocabulary, we move on the next chapter, hoping to find a better plot. One day, we are at the end of the book, but haven’t read a single chapter,” she kept murmuring herself to sleep, as the pages kept fluttering through the rest of the night. 

Part II

He opens the fridge door the third time hoping for a miracle to happen. Unfortunately, truth is boring compared to fiction so nothing happens even at the third time. He kept staring at the open fridge for a good two minutes trying to conjure some snacking recipe. 

-  “What are you staring at for so long! Have you gazed with such intensity inside? Maybe that will give a recipe for the soul,” a voice came from the freezer. It was cold, dry and devoid of any excitement. 

-  “That is very rude, and also very true. But enough of soul searching. Tell me, do you have anything to eat,” he reciprocated with disinterest.

-  “There’s cheese slices at the corner of the third shelf, behind the oregano satches. That’s all which has not expired.”

He took out some crackers, and prepared some garlic cheese cracker spread, topped with blueberry jam. “I don’t how I prepared this but is definitely going in my late-night snack list!” he murmured. He began to clean to kitchen top, put the lights out and head back to bed. The fridge had a deep humming sound which at nights, sounded like heartbeat of the machine. As he was about to leave, the fridge spoke again, halting him in his path.

-  “Wouldn’t it have been more delicious if the both of you were sharing the crackers instead of you making a late-night snack list,” the fridge quipped and continued, “you have surrounded yourself with the habits reminiscent of the past with her. You’ve kept all her habits but not the person that made you come alive. Now both of us are empty,” and the fridge shut.

He drops on bed, plugs headphones and plays the music the she used to sing to put him to sleep. Her Raag Pilu used to be sung late in the evening when he would enter the room tired, and she would caress his hair, while humming the music in a scent that filled the room with the scent of lilies. He would doze off on her lap, and would not be awaken till she kissed his head. 

But this time he passed out, exhausted from nothingness. It wasn’t until a phone notification abruptly interrupts his coma. There was a message notification on his phone, but by the moment he got to read it, it was deleted. 

-  “That’s her typical behaviour. She will think of me at times but never take the step to say it,” he thought to himself. A loud yawn followed and he dug his face in the pillow.

-  “It’s okay right, to find a pillow to hide. I did her the same, ran and never came. I kept hoping that you’d call out my name, when it didn’t happen, I entrusted you with blame.” Many nights have passed like this. He tries to comfort himself, his misgivings, error in conduct, and after he was exhausted with his efforts, the pillow was wet with tears.

He slowly drowned the pillow in tears, sinking to sleep. Have you noticed that your tears are warm when the trickle down your face, and you can feel the path they follow, leaving a trail of parched land behind. The saline water drains into nowhere, seeping into the ground. It is said that crying releases locked emotions which you can’t say through words. I’d say that tears drain out your glacier of reason, as it flows it mixes with emotions, some transient, some permanent, it interacts with other rivers to finally drain out either in the ocean of abundance or parched terrain of scarcity. When you wake up next morning having shed a night of tears, you’re left with a wet pillow to be washed, night wear of sweat and despair and disheveled morning look.

The Ending

She looks at her phone; it’s 6:30 and her alarm is about to go off. She always woke up a minute before her alarm and then wait for it to ring. She would listen to the tone, the weather update, the automated good morning message before snoozing it away.

There was also a message notification. It was from an unknown number. She gets up, freshens, finishes her workout, selects the dress for the day and transforms to a better self for the day. As she is about to leave, she reads the message. The message read, “Was thinking about you” with a link to her favorite Raag, Hansadhwani. Before stepping out, she replied, “I know”.

The Long Table

Our body acquires the present memory of the situation they are in due to repeated events of the same activity over time. Current activities overlap the past ones till you cause a sudden change. 

I usually don't sit on the dining table in the living room because it is a long table in a wide room with four chairs where no one sits. I have my meals in my room sitting on the floor with my folded legs and an open laptop. Meals yes, not lunch or dinner because if I think of lunch or dinner, the urge of a company to share that experience takes prominence. I remember certain lunches I’ve had because there was a collective effort towards decision making on choice of food, choice of place; now it is a matter of convenience, and pricing (in reverse order!).

These meals I have on the floor help me skip that video clip where I’m bowing down, staring at a soup bowl, in the backdrop of a white wall with a window behind me at the top, and the only audio is of the slurps of me eating. I don’t want to know that.

The other night was an anomaly however. I checked for the rice, turned the stove off, and let it cook on heat to reach the perfect boil. Chicken curry from the night before, and onion slices from half cut onion that had survived on the side shelf of the fridge for two weeks. My body felt the need for a chair to sit and rest my back while I ate. For once, I obliged. At the other end of the long table was the half-shut window that looked on to the street, dark and drizzly interspersed by speeding headlights that were trying to reach home. At this end was me below a yellow lamp hanging from the ceiling. It was the typical space arrangement to create the visual for a solitary evening! Who is setting the scene?

There and then, as I ate while thinking of work tomorrow, the long table’s heavy baritone came to life. A thespian of its time, it had been silenced by the metallic noises which rose to prominence and cluttered our kitchens. But that night, we both were alone and had time for each other. 

“Are you comfortable in that chair?” – the table spoke.

“Is it any different from the other three chairs? Oh, you wouldn’t know because nobody sits here!” – I snapped back at his rhetorical question.

“Well what would you know of comfort as well. You’ve never had an evening without worrying about tomorrow.” – the table was in the mood for banter, it seems.

“At least I’m not stuck in the same position day after day looking at every other thing pass by!” The moment I said this, I realized how hollow it sounded. The words were a mockery on myself, and I justified my inertia as means to remain calm, whereas there was always a loose wire inside.

“I was meant to be stationary. I like being in one position and not thinking about moving or fearing falling behind. This is what my life is and I know it to my bones! There would be no alternative and even if there was I’d choose to be a table because I’m that, forever.” – the table was embroiled in emotions and its voice growled from below. 

“I’m sorry. Those words were not for you. You don’t deserve to hear that. It is I who is stuck, not knowing how to move ahead. Everyday I wish something will happen that is not regular and will take me by surprise. Maybe the road to work will be blocked, maybe the bus gets canceled, maybe my office will collapse. But nothing changes. Even the wind blows in the same direction, with same force!” – I was exhausted, weak in my muscles by the end of the sentence. 

“Don’t you like routine? The sense of surety that this place, these walls, the colours, the window are in the same place everyday. I like waking up to see my chairs beside me.” – the table tried to reassure me that change was beneficial, always. But it didn’t help.

I wanted to end the night and shut my eyes but the long table was in the mood to listen. Customary to the requirement of such occasions, I got up and left, only to come back with a beer. Then I sat down to share the story with the table that has stayed since the day I saw it occur and took me by surprise.

“I was waiting at the bus stop one evening at the regular time and my bus was to arrive in another ten minutes, like every other day. Usually there would be one or two people more at that time, each one glued to their phones, just like me. I stand the whole waiting time because the sitting space is extremely small for a rounded body of mine. I have this complaint against whoever designs bus stops – can you make it more commuter friendly so that people can use it for what it’s meant to be and not stand outside the shelter! The shelter is so small, more than four makes it look like a queue for free food. But yesterday no one was sitting and I was the only one standing till a person came along and sat. He had a slight hunch for his age and looked down on the cement footpath all the time. By appearance he seemed to be progressing towards 30’s but he behaved older. His shirt was half tucked out, buttons were in improper order, and sleeves were rolled up in unequal length. A bag clenched to his side, and while he was sitting, his head jittered from side to side, and his palms were always looking for a new place to rest.

Five minutes till the bus arrives. I’m thinking of various possibilities to understand his unusual demeanour till a woman approaching caught my eye. Walking at a brisk pace, she came and sat down beside this man. She sits right beside him and places her hand on his shoulder as a sign of her arrival. Her hands started talking. Her hands moved in the air vigorously, and many sounds accompany her expressions. She touched him, tapped him, played with him, all with her hands. He responded in equal measure by making symbols in the air and then went on to hug her, play with her hair, touch her repeatedly to draw attention to what he had to say. They both were engrossed in their play of hands and expressed so much, without a single word being spoken. I stood there as an inconspicuous observer, trying to get a grasp of their conversation. I was caught in their story, and for a while, I forgot the bus, the frozen dinner waiting at home, the bills to pay, that office I left, the stores I shop at, that playlist I was making, the people I’ve spoken to, and the people who haven’t spoken with me; everything. I felt guilty of being an intruder in their story which I didn’t understand but I could not help but relish the third person view of their love story be played out in front of me. No Broadway musical would have been able to capture the sound of their silence and the music in their eyes. When I realized that I was being intruder in their story, I turned away and walked back home.”

“That was an endearing story of two souls that had found the inertia of each other in love, isn’t it” – the table responded as I was catching my breath.

“But why did it affect you in any manner?” – it asked.

My beer was almost over and I had used the remaining of my strength for that day to sit through the night in the company of the long table, under the yellow lights, surrounded by dust layered walls, a dried-up dinner plate waiting to rest in sink, and weary eyes waiting to shut for the day.

“’Because I felt the weakness, the scarcity of words to convey what I felt after that incident. I used all the words in my arsenal to make people stay forever and failed. Only if I had showed up in action, in my smile, in my cries, in my restlessness, in my desperation; maybe I would have done better. And that is why I’m stuck long table. Unlike you, I don’t have any chairs for company” – that is how I end.

आकड़े

ज़िंदगी है बंधी कायदों मे,
हर शक्स की तारुफ़ सौदे मे,
बाज़ार ये ज़िंदा है मुनाफ़े मे,
समाज ये पनपता है दायरों मे,
लेकिन सब कुछ सिर्फ आकड़े है | 

जो आज़ादी मिली , एक आकड़ा ,
कितने मुहाजिर हुए, एक आकड़ा ,
जो दंगो के अंजाम हुए, एक आकड़ा ,
कितने कत्ल-ए-आम हुए, एक आकड़ा | 
कहीं थे बेरोज़गारी के किस्से,
किधर भुकमरी से भरी सड़के,
कभी जंग से बिखरे कारतूस,
कहीं कब्र में इतिहास मशरूफ,
सारे एक आकड़े || 
 

गरीबी की सीमा बनी, एक आकड़ा,
परिचय का सबूत, एक आकड़ा,
तालीम के हकदार, एक आकड़ा,
रोज़गार के उम्मीदवार, एक आकड़ा | 
कभी कानून था इंसाफ में नाकाम्याब,
कोई अर्ज़ी में दलीले बेहिसाब,
कहीं रिशवत से मज़बूत हुए सरकार,
किधर व्यापार ने बनाया काला बाज़ार,
सारे एक आकड़े || 

बिमारी की बीमा बनी, एक आकड़ा,
किसानो की क़र्ज़ मुक्ति, एक आकड़ा,
अस्पताल में दुर्घटना, एक आकड़ा,
पीड़ित परिवारों के लिए राहत, एक आकड़ा | 
कभी बाढ़ से बहे गए गाँव कसबे,
किधर बेघर लोग फुटपाथ पे हस्ते,
कहीं उद्योग ने किए खेत नीलाम,
हज़ारों को मुआफज़ा, और एक निज़ाम,
सारे एक आकड़े ||  

लोकतंत्र मे चुनाव के हकदार, एक आकड़ा,
प्रशासन की कुर्सी के दावेदार, एक आकड़ा,
ज़ात मुताबिक दाल में तड़का, एक आकड़ा,
सल्तनत मे  सज़ा-ए-मौत, एक आकड़ा| 

सांसें है बंधी किसी धुन में,
हर इंसान मशगूल है अपनी धुन मे,
धोखाधरी कायम है उसूलों पे,
जुआ तो खेला युधिष्ठिर भी महाभारत मे,
आखिर हम सब आकड़े है ||     
 
           

ताश का घर

तख़्त है ये तानाशाही की,
जिसकी हुकूमत बनी है ताबेदारों पर ।
जो सियासत आवाम ने थी चुनी,
सल्तनत है वो तकब्बुर की ।

तख़्त है ये तानाशाही की,
जिसका कर अदा किया है कोड़ो से ।
जो बुनियाद मज़दूरों ने थी बनाई ,
किला है वो अब शाशको की ।

किला है वो शान - औ - शौकत की,
जिसका ख़ज़ान भरा है फ़तेह से ।
जिस फ़तेह के लिए मिटटी को लाल किया,
रंग है वो अब शराब की ।

नशा है दौलत और रुतबे की,
जिसमे कोठे सजी है  तवायफ की पायल पर,
जिसे गिरोह के कायदे ने शर्मसार किया,
कायदे है वो ताश की ।

खेल है सत्ते और इक्के की,
जिसमे ग़ुलाम भी बिकाऊ हुआ।
बिकते है पत्ते बादशाह के इशारे पर,
बाज़ी है वो ताश की ।

तबाही है उस तख़्त की ,
जिसके किले बर्बाद हुए वक़्त की वार से ।
जो जीता था तरकीब से वो ढेर हुआ,
जैसे घर हो वो ताश की ।