Estranges

I’ve started this post so many times that I lost count. I’ve turned my MP3 on and off. I’ve repeatedly checked my watch, as if I was responsible for some incredibly important moment. I’ve done everything. Almost.

I have not written this post...



I


He started off pretty suddenly. Among a cacophony. He saw her and started off....

She was stern as usual with stone walls all around, a little flabbergasted and irritated. She paused and then exchanged the same ol' cold look! He - the Stranger from the Nilgiris, an innocent, secluded young spirit who doesn't know how to treat a cold blooded funeral director like her. Its been ages that anyone came to her abandoned castle. May be he saw that same asocial trait in her!


Well that didn't cost her as much as she paid this afternoon when she met the ghost of her past. It has happened many a times out of simple child-like pleasure she used to go back to her past and dig out one of those lost treasures. The Dreamer and she later relished that tiny little new found ol' piece of memory and ended up talking nonsense about it. Today, out of the same peculiarity, she once again travelled back to "that" part where even the bravest of the braves get scared to enter. Of all the pain she endured… the pain that comes from the loss of a loved one outweighs that of any physical pain by any stretch of the imagination. This is yet another piece of her heart that has broken off and flown with outstretched wings around. Somewhere it was whispering, this is IT..move on and never return.









II




Sternly she moves back and forth, informing the Dreamer about everything that she WAS and her bride-like glee. With vivacity, both of them took in and carried the dreams of many different kinds of worlds as they went through the wondrous spiritual alchemy of turning that iron ore of the mountains, the clay of the earth, and their pioneer hearts and hands, into dreams of alchemical gold. Threads of love and dream ran in their veins, nuggets of passion in their hearts, and shimmers of gold covered almost everything that any of them ever dreamed of. Yes, this time, the Mortician wasn't alone. The Dreamer was holding her hands, just the way he does while crossing the busy city streets.

The lost tune of  Paisley's "Whiskey Lullaby"  rushed in, the moment she opened the window of the mournful, felicitous past. She took a sip of that Bloody Mary once again, from the city's roof-top bar. A loner among the crowd, even the man whom she thought to know since time immemorial was just an 'illusion'. She remembered, once during the time when " the cows used to fly over the moon", she wrote "Confused memories of mutilated heart...Bleeding through the colored glass...With promises resting in peace...." - those little masochism that she used to scribble while He was cruising. Only, the time proved the reality of the entire frill.

A long list of the "Year that was..." to innumerable clip arts, from the Bollywood afternoon gossips to the late night tragic mobile conversation, those little memories of a "handful of sand" to the debate on who's the best charmer in the world, everything - all of them the Dreamer checked like a new father checks his child.




III



She desperately tried calling Maya, but even he was too busy with his little found love which made a father out of a bohemian spirit. She wanted to cry. She couldn't accept that yes, she has changed. Its like a spell that happens only in the fairy tales - one fine night a witch arrives at the door-step and transforms her into a heartless, mean and wicked  human being who lives only to curse and vice versa. She wanted to tell Maya, "When I hear about stories of loved ones losing loved ones, I get scared. But because life is frantic and carries on, I carry on with it. I try.

There are other scenarios that hit closer to heart. Moments when the word shattered aptly describes the state of chaos and emotion and loss that fills a room. A huge void and space. Left unfilled. To someone, everyone and all the people they know. Come back quickly as I have a past to gift and tears to shed. Come home soon as I wait every weekend to get your call just the way I used to wait to hear his voice. Let's drink black coffee in a 'take away' cup so that we can giggle some more and click memories.Sometimes I lose the ability to reason and think and let go. And those times I act vacuous. I stare and pretend that if I don’t give it my attention it might just go away. but they still remain there. Come to the city Maya, so that you can at lest hug me and share your new found love."

The Mortician creates the monologue all by herself and stare at the blank mobile phone. No, today, she is not expecting any calls like she used to even few years back. she is all alone in the sailor's paradise. She smiles quite unexpectedly and curses the Stranger! It was Him who forced her to find what made her to be a Mortician. His curiosity made her to time travel though the ignorant part of him will never realise.

She calls the Dreamer, like every time she does while finishing a task - to Live. With his dimpled smile he says, " I know within a few days we’ll all be caught back up with the hectic pace of life and we’ll momentarily forget about the true important moments and people in front of us. That’s what we do. We live and move forward. But no matter what, we’ll never forget. Never."

What we have once enjoyed we can never lose. All that we love deeply becomes a part of us.

Little Glass Windowpane

Its a cold windy night and she was looking at the grey sky from her little glass window. This window has been a witness of her million nonsense chats, bubbled dreams and nocturnal buffs. It is the only 'thing' in this world who has seen her emotions first hand, dead at night when the darkness envelops the city-scapers. Today is no exception. She looked at the empty by-lane and saw few dogs who are looking desperately for a warm space to end their night long saved up woof's and woo's.

She plays with the bubbles in her mind and tries to fathom the importance of this life-less companion. Yes, she is indeed indebted to this large, transparent rectangular block.Often, the Dreamer used to ask her why can't she write something about her long standing supporter. She always used to say, " yeah, some day. May be!"

...and today is the day when she decides to write. Write about those silly incidents, write about those heart warming moments, write about those sleepless nights when she knew how to cry. The time, when she wasn't a Mortician after all.

One by one, the shelved memories of her long life starts to flash in front of her eyes. Pale, mundane, dazzling, happy, gloomy and wet - just like this cold January rain. The window transforms her once again as a teen age brat with needled hair and red Converse. The Mortician shivers once again with the touch of His first kiss and starts humming "Another Day in Paradise" - their favorite song, once upon a time in the misty hills of the majestic Himalayas. A brand new day, the first nasty little dark corner, the new spring afternoon, smoke ringlets of an amateur joint - half baked and wasted, tender touch of the opposite sex, introduction to Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin and THE Nirvana. Their late music classes, silly window shopping and cheap liquor, their first possession of a Nirvana cassette as lovers et.al. - Life was known as Serendipity then!

The Mortician wipes that tear which rolled down from her desiccated eyes. She forgot those tiny pleasures and pains as if they have vanished into the thin air! That little glass window again, became the witness of her puzzled fleeting memories. The young love, painful vacations, silly notes filled with love quotes and lyrics, Kurt Cobain posters along with the Backstreet Boys. This window has seen her grow.

Snap! and there she is, standing amidst a crowd wearing black. Occasion : funeral, Venue: the cemetery. The pain of lost love, the Paradise Lost, eyes filled with dreams and now turned blurred, the first seed of the notorious Mortician. A deep sigh... she looks at the window, it was changing color then.

The mobile blinks, the Dreamer calling. She wanted to tell him everything that was happening in her weak heart. A cocktail of emotions started burbling from her though the Dreamer could hear nothing. He was too busy in his own tattooed dreams, fluttering like that moth which suddenly turned into a butterfly. He starts singing:


"Memory. All alone in the moonlight
I can smile at the old days
I was beautiful then."

The Mortician smiles and hangs up! Yes, she WAS beautiful then just the way the Dreamer IS!

Haphazard

The first day of chilled of November, when I first stepped on to the city, I clearly remembered it was Calcutta then. A city of celebration, a city of political upheaval, a city of immense joy, a city of ' Pather Panchali'. I never wanted this life, my careless and slaphappy life of Delhi was interrupted, all of a sudden I came in the city where my bunch of relatives stay. So badly I wanted to get out of it! So badly I wanted to rebel everything that was going right in front of me. No, this is not me and NOT my city definitely.


Today after 4 years when I look back, I just smile. 


Snap! Present year in December!


"You MUST write tonight." - he said with a commanding voice. She sipped her dark caffeine and looked at him. All this while she was too happy bursting her colored bubbles. The entire act vanished in the thin air. No, she can't write anymore. The thoughts evaporate one by one, very slowly; she tries to catch each one of them and fail miserably. The Mortician, with a silly smile looked at the Dreamer and said, " Yes, I will. Only once you're gone." 


Here she is, sitting in front of the computer, cursor blinks, page blank and nothing comes out from her churned out, frantic brain. She scolds the monkey inside that never stops jumping and thinks, thinks about the time she spent with the teary eyed Dreamer.


She lighted another cigarette, took a deep puff and blew the smoke. She needs peace, she always wanted that. The Dreamer makes the Mortician secured, like a father to a child. And now everything went off like the candle flame on a breezy night wooof !


The Mortician sits alone and read cards, trying to figure out a future that is as dark as a grave of a scatted prisoner . She looks at the Dreamer's face and try to read his thoughts. The sudden chill in the air with a perfect dimpled smile, takes her worries way like those little Cherubs. My Dreamer, my little masochistic angel , my - naughty elf!




Come the later half of the month and the Mortician is already busy chopping the dead bodies fondly called the ghosts of the past. She has been betrayed and this time, she stopped bleeding. Someone, some day told her to have enough choices. Now she chose to be indifferent, she chose to remain a spectator, she chose to be a brutal beast. This time, the pain became a rage, the victim turned to be an oppressor, the person with the deadly claws suddenly became an ant of boredom!


She struggles to write and re writes, but fails. She can't write anymore - she stopped breathing. looks at her final draft and collapses under the winter rain. 

Death of a Mortician

The day when she first opened the letter that the Dreamer sent, she was pretty taken aback! No, no one has the right to know her so well. Warm tears started rolling from her eyes she looked here and there to save herself from such crime. She wasn't supposed to cry anymore. Nothing can affect her, not even the love sick Dreamer.

She read and un-read that frightful letter time and again, trying in vain to find some faults in it. She wanted to be angry, she wanted to scream, she wanted to rebel against the world which rejected her long time back. She is now - The Mortician, for whom the only celebration is DEATH. For awhile, she returned to the world of flesh and blood, where love reigns, happiness exist, there is joy and sorrow, there is leave-taking, there is sweet nothings. She lived the years which she every day wanted to relive. Every night she dies and become a bit more of what she has become. The Mortician only had one companion, the stupid Dreamer. Woof !! and he has been exiled to a hopeless land.

Maya calls, asks her to take care of herself though they both don't know the meaning of 'taking care' ! After few careless gab, they bid each other good-bye. Maya puts balm on her deep wounds but like every other day, the contusions come back, like the monster in the hell - feasting on a wounded creature with sheer joy. She rolls another joint, takes the first puff and fumes with anger. She wanted to be happy, once upon a time, though she knows the 3 of them can never be happy like happiness could be !

She talks to the man with ' hope tattoo' she fights, she screams, she bleeds once more and he remains calm. He doesn't know what her pain is ! She doesn't know how to talk about it. The monkey starts jumping and the Mortician looks for the Dreamer like a maniac. The society disowned her, the Illusionist dismayed her, the colors red, blue and pink made her blind.

After the 'trip' she comes back to her senses, the mobile blinks and she reads the text. It's the Dreamer saying, " Rest are fine. Just.Fine".

She calls the Moon man and smiles, he finds her insane, disgusting and dour. She laughs at herself and recalls, what once the Dreamer sent.

"Two brunt neon night skies of the two far away cities…. The distance, the void between them is filled with songs; the notes float around in sepia undertones as they go back to the past again…."

"Rest are fine. If only. They were fine."