When Khel Gaon walls dry the throat, Arts Fac and long walks reappear in the brain. I shift the remainder of my possessions today, and at night a few cousins and friends are to come for a housewarming party, whatever that is to involve (2145 Shora Kothi revisited, I suspect). I am told that my flat covers 2080 but am yet to see a number plate to this unrecognizable dog. Last night my cousins took me along to Hauz Khas Village for this noisy and “yay free drinks” thing branded Ladies’ Night. Our hands were stamped with a ‘woman’ sign which was easily removed by our sweatit was that easy. Later, in my cousin’s bedroom, everyone ‘confessed’ to having lovers of some sorts, and thereafter everyone cursed their fathers, mothers, grandmothers, aunts and the like for expected castigations and prejudices regarding the same. Why had we chosen to invest in love? To stay in or visit this city? What did it mean? I listened politely, in between swapping tales about campus with my Stephen’s Shake Soc wali cousin . We had a nice chat about her visit to Hogwarts during her recent Euro-trip, her love for Monet and Cezzane, with bits of “where do you buy your morning bread?” thrown in. Another cousin retold childhood tales of a wedding where cute cheap salwar suits had rendered her cousin and her ‘inappropriate’ to exit the car after the journey to the venue, since both their suits came off in chunks during the car-ride. It’s laughable now but fascinating on some level too. It reminded me of a cucumber peeler, and then of the cucumber chat we used to have when we were little, with chillies, lemon slices and ample spoons of pepper and black salt. The tongue sizzles at this memory.
When I try to recall what you looked like, the first image that comes is of the back of your head. I used to have this memory testing cards set, where you had to match the back and front view of objects and people. Now, I will have to wait till August to find the matching card to my memory of you. What does Delhi look like from the back? Do you want to return? A night ago in Paharganj I saw an earring with multi-coloured beads with a tiger dangling in between. It was like my parrot earring—the one that reminded me of one of the first messages we had exchanged. “There is promiscuity in the fall of a parrot”, you had quoted, and so in Paharganj I tried to remember some tiger quote, but I was only reminded of The Tiger King story from Class 12. You know, the one where he met his end by a prick from a wooden tiger toy. My hands ache from lifting my phone too much, and I laugh now. This is an email, not a text message, I tell myself, not that either really has a designated length. This non-message contains far too many “me”s and some “you”s, more than I usually use when writing to you. I wonder if that means I’ve forgotten how we talk, or if the phone just confuses my hands and thoughts. May the leaves do to you what they did before. May they. May they… “Ouch!” say my hands. And my brain says bye bye. When will you return to Delhi?
You and your tummy are like mango peel cups placed one on top of the other. In some other world, I would have said that is perhaps the floor that rests on your stomach. Your poem claws at me dangerously and I get off with second degree cuts, if they so exist in a burnol-free jagat. Jaga jaga reminds me of Jaggadol the life-infused car in a short story called “Ajantrik” by Sarat Chandra/Banaphool. I, having read it many years back, try to remember some of it whenever someone mentions man-machine love and Her. A documentary that I watched on ‘objects that changed the world’ (read: America) showed Dorothy’s ruby slippers, and I thought of Tinman and his desire to have a heart. Perhaps we will make your virtual soldiers wear ruby slippers if not tin shoes. Their marching beat reminds me of some of my own lines: “Perhaps some other day I would have pretended not to care/but today the kisses came like poor rhymes/And I had to stop and make you listen”.
The steam rising from the overpriced café in 1D terminal gives tough competition to the missing arm of the steel chair of my traveller mother. My mother sometimes tells me of my family inheritance-to-be: cardiac problems, strokes, cancer, and worst of all, Alzheimer’s. Perhaps I already told you of this but Glenn Campbell, who was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, wrote a song about the things that will not matter anymore to him once the disease takes over. ‘Best of all/I’m not gonna miss you’, he sings. Best of all, my cousin beckons me now for some aloo pitika. She and I are visiting my usual hangout spots around town. Some Paharganj, some MKT, some Arts Fac, some Malka Ganj, then some Old Delhi. And lots of her South Delhi malls, Lajpat, Sarojini, South Ex. See, in my head we are already separate. As are our Delhis. Sometimes, this enthusiasm for brands is jarring to me, but she is a talkative creature. Certain emails carry the smell of lemon trees and crushed leaves. Care and uncombed hair are the attachments I send with this mail.
There is nothing.
nothing
that looks as loud
as a non-vibrating message
from your fingers.
*****
Revisiting Arts Fac is revisiting a part of Delhi. You cannot stay away. They switch on the lawn lights before 7 pm, so we try to leave before that. You save those moments for other people, you know. There is graffiti in a corner of this Delhi. It is neither bold nor overshadowed. He has cut his hair but you willingly do not comment. No comments. The cars choose to pass out quietly. No drunken goodbyes, nothing. It is a parking lot, you remember.
Is Tibetan food adored by everyone around here? You do not know. We order some cold ones in that rooftop place because they complement the buff balls. He chooses the vegetarian sizzler platter that we finish over gulps and sizzles and heat-tinged but saucy fingers. Someone has a car. I know it is his, but this car ride is faster than that one you took more than a year ago, cheekily hoping to encounter a policeman. You navigate the streets faster this time. You hurry into his open house and only remember waking up to the sound of Ashok Vihar chirpings and morning routines. He drops the both of you home, and over buttermilk and morning breath you only remember sleeping away the morning and the afternoon. You only remember that you are in 2080 Delhi because the box in the address bar on that vague online book website was very limiting. You remember writing 2145 Clock Tower in the tiny night stay register at your old hostel. But that was more than two years ago. Our Clock Tower is retired and chooses not to speak. You remember to tell people at the next party that your friend’s grandfather designed it. They smile in the way only Delhi can.
