I Am Me

by Ram Sundaram

  I too was there to dream.

  My story isn’t about vacation budgets or financial discomforts; nor is it about celebrity worship. I was there that night to solidify a dream I had long ago relinquished to the all-consuming chasms of pragmatic thought. On that night and perhaps on that night alone, I would be no different than a child: idealistic, ambitious, and filled with innocent expectation.

  “You’re such a dork,” a woman’s voice said, from just behind me.

  Ah yes, I forgot to mention that I wasn’t there alone that night. Through a considerable lack of prudence, I had brought my wife Meena along with me. When we’d first been married, Meena had been everything I’d ever wanted in a bride. Slim, tan and beautiful, she had charmed me with her elegance, sophistication and gentle personality. Of course, marriage had changed all that. The beautiful bride I had eagerly carried up to the bedroom on our wedding night had transformed into the Meena now standing beside me: she was still tan, though no longer as slim, and she would perhaps have still been beautiful if her features weren’t always arranged in some kind of a menacing expression. The elegance and sophistication had decayed into borderline crudeness, and the gentle personality that had promised me a lifetime of civility, had been ravaged into the kind of frightening disposition commonly found amid mobsters.

  She was glaring at me just then, her strong hands folded across her broad chest. It was funny how marriage had transformed our physiques: on our wedding night, I had effortlessly supported her slender body with my strong, muscular frame. But things were different now; Meena could have held me upside down by the ankles and shaken every remaining ounce of pride out of me if she so wished. It was why I kept a suitable distance between us now.

  “I don’t think you should call me names in public,” I told her.

  “I’m not calling you names. I’m calling you a dork, because you are one.”

  I thought Meena was being rather harsh, and that too in front of so many people. Two teenage girls in front of me were giggling, apparently tickled pink by the fact that they’d just witnessed a wife calling her husband a “dork” in public.

  “Would you keep your voice down, Meena?” I said, in a low voice.

  “Why? Afraid I’ll embarrass you?” she retorted.

  “I’m afraid that horse left the barn years ago, my dear.”

  “Oh? So I’ve been embarrassing you for years then?”

  “Your words, not mine.”

  “And you think I’m not embarrassed standing next to you?” Meena shot back, rather scathingly. “You’re single-handedly downgrading the reputation of immigrant East-Indians living in the U.S. and that in itself is saying a lot.”

  I glowered at her, but wisely thought better of replying.

  It’s not as if her point lacked validity. Even those who did not know me would have guessed from my appearance alone that I was a man well-acquainted with embarrassment. I was not gifted with a body that would look good in clothes. I was also not gifted with flair. Hair parted comically, wearing old sneakers beneath corduroy pants, while sporting a flannel shirt, a baseball cap, and the largest pair of horn-rimmed glasses in existence, I no doubt appeared the true portrait of a man who was estranged with the art of style. I will admit that my idea of “good fashion-sense” was simply to tie one of my bulky sweaters around my waist on long hikes. But my unfashionable appearance never bothered me, for it’s not a sense of style that I want to be defined by, but other qualities. Unfortunately, one of those qualities wasn’t foresight.

  For instance, the purpose of inviting Meena on this outing was rather straightforward: she always complained that I never took her anywhere, and in theory a trip to the celebrity capital of the world should have appeased her. But considering the fact that my personal motive for this trip was to gawk at a pretty girl, bringing the wife along had been a foolish idea.

  Now, I wasn’t a total idiot. I knew I was old, unattractive, and most undeniably married, so it wasn’t as though I had a chance of forging some kind of an acquaintance with any one of the beautiful starlets that would be gracing this red carpet soon. No, my actual goal was merely to see them in the flesh, up close, to solidify fantasies I had long ago surrendered to pragmatic thought. Incidentally, just to make things clear, the fantasies I refer to don’t involve whips and chains or role-playing, but the sort of romantic scenarios that logic and cynicism ensure reality will never possess. During my youth, I had naively assumed that such romance was not only possible in a marriage, but would probably be a frequent occurrence. Of course, wisdom and Meena had together cured me of that misconception.

  She was turned away from me just now, and was fanning herself with a magazine. I was momentarily distracted by the picture of a beautiful woman on the cover of the magazine: a dark-haired beauty, with coffee-coloured skin, long, slender legs, and a pretty face. She was smiling, with an expression that was at once seductive and innocent, a feat that I considered rather impressive. In fact, I considered the woman herself to be impressive: she was the celebrity I was most looking forward to seeing today. Actually, she was really the only person—

  “Pervert,” Meena said, and I realised that she’d caught me gazing at the magazine cover. She promptly flipped it over so that I was left gazing at an advertisement for toilet paper. What an odd choice for the back cover of a magazine, I thought. Although, I suppose considering most of these magazines are read in the bathroom, it’s—

  “You’re so perverted,” Meena said, with a disbelieving shake of her head.

  I pretended to ignore her.

  “You heard me,” she said, annoyed further by my refusal to take the bait. “I saw the way your eyes widened when you saw the magazine. The woman is half your age.”

  I heard a few snickers around me and felt rather sorry for myself. “I told you to keep your voice down,” I urged her, through gritted teeth.

  “She is 23 years old, and you are 46!” Meena said, with no change in her volume.

  “Yes, I understood what you meant by ‘half your age,’ thank you,” I said, as a fresh batch of giggling ensued. “And there’s nothing perverted about admiring someone’s talent.”

  “Well you wouldn’t have to admire her ‘talent’ if she didn’t always wear such short dresses,” Meena said, eyeing the magazine cover with clear disapproval.

  “I meant her acting prowess,” I said, as an old man with a monocle peered over Meena’s shoulder to catch a glimpse of the talent my wife had referred to.

  “Oh please,” said Meena, with a derisive chuckle. “You don’t give a damn about her acting. You watch her movies with the volume turned down, and you only ever watch the scenes when she’s at the beach wearing a bikini, or in some filthy club, doing—”

  “I get your point, thank you,” I cut across her, pointedly. Thankfully, Meena didn’t press the matter further, and seemed content to merely burn a hole through me with her glare. This luxurious moment of silence gave me a chance to ponder where this evening had gone wrong.

  Inviting Meena had definitely been a mistake. But perhaps this whole evening was a mistake. I was standing amidst a hormonally charged mob, with vocal capacities far beyond even the shrillest banshees, suffering personal humiliation at the hands of my wife—a woman who should have been looking out for my well-being—and I was left with the realisation that all this misery was self-inflicted. But, as Meena was unfortunately aware, my reasons for being here centered around one particular person: the woman on the magazine cover. If at the end of tonight, I could leave with the knowledge that I had gazed upon her in the flesh, from as near as a few feet away, then all of this suffering and humiliation would have been worth it.

  I knew she was half my age and that my “crush” was somewhat inappropriate, if not downright revolting, but in my defense she reminded me of a best friend I’d had when I was in college. Mona was the first girl I’d ever
had feelings for, and I’d been quite enamoured by her through all our years of our friendship. Regretfully though, I’d never mustered enough courage to confess my feelings to her. We’d gone our separate ways in our early twenties, and now it had been many years since we’d even so much as heard from each other. This young actress not only physically reminded me of Mona, but her personality was frighteningly similar. Whenever I saw her in a movie or even quite simply on a magazine cover, I felt like I was an impressionable, easily excited twenty-year old again. She renewed my decaying sense of idealistic love and filled my head with naïve dreams that the adult inside me frowned upon.

  “You’ll swallow a pigeon if you keep your mouth open like that,” said Meena, her voice slicing through my little reverie like a saw through a comfortable pillow.

  Fortunately no one seemed to have heard her, for the first of the night’s celebrities had just arrived at the end of the red carpet, and a volley of screams and excited cries were ringing through the air. I placed a finger on my lips to inform Meena that she shouldn’t speak.

  “Don’t silence me! I am a free-thinking, independent woman with a voice,” she insisted.

  “That can cut through a metal bar, yes,” I said. “But please, let’s not argue in public.”

  “Why not? Let the world know we are fighting,” she said, raising her voice even further. “I sit at home and slave all day, preparing your food, ironing your shirts, cleaning your house, and cleaning our children, but you spend all day ogling other women without a care—”

  “I do not ogle other women,” I hissed at her, as the old man with the monocle brought out an ear trumpet now. “Listen, every person in this crowd is here to see their favourite movie stars. I am no different from them, except that I suffer the misfortune of having my wife—”

  “Oh my God, look!” Meena suddenly cried, with a most unnatural squeal of delight.

  I looked to see what she was pointing at and comprehension dawned on me as I saw a tall, tan, muscly-looking thing stroll down the carpet in what can only be described as an “ape’s walk.” In his defense, he was definitely quite handsome, with strong features, thick, black hair that was sleeked back elegantly, and a smile that was at once confident and charming. Yet, despite his bronzed good-looks, there was something theatrical about his every gesture, as though he was in the middle of a performance even when greeting his loyal fans. Mind you, no one else seemed to have noticed this synthetic behaviour, for a cascade of excited squeals and screams flooded the air as he made his way down the carpet. People cried his name, sang songs from his movies, whistled, screamed, laughed, wept, and some even tried pointlessly to scale the barricade parting us lowly normal citizens from the stars on the red carpet, only to be tossed back by the ever-alert policemen. I had never glimpsed such madness before, and all for what? For a man that was no different than any other in this crowd, except through mere circumstance.

  I had never seen Meena so excited either. She seemed to have forgotten all about our argument, and for that matter all about me entirely, for she was busy trying to peer over the heads of the considerably taller people before her. But what she lacked in height, she made up for in a sturdy frame, and so jostled her way through the crowd determinedly to reach the barricade and scream louder than any of the shrill-voiced teenage girls gathered around us.

  I had to pause to consider the odd feeling in the pit of my stomach… was it jealousy? Could it be? I had always known of Meena’s crush on that Fabio-wannabe, but I’d never been bothered by it. But there was something distressing about seeing her express her infatuation towards him in the middle of a crowd. I was her husband after all—didn’t she owe me the simple courtesy of discretion? I saw her giggling and screaming till her Casanova sashayed down the length of the carpet and disappeared into the stadium. Only then did Meena return to my side, her face flushed with excitement and (I guess?) embarrassment. She avoided my eyes as she fanned herself with the magazine, not even bothering to keep the front cover away from me.

  “So…” I said, in a teasing voice.

  She still avoided my gaze. “What?”

  “You did a marvellous impression of a fourteen-year old girl that sees a poster of her favourite vampire or werewolf,” I said, and was glad to hear a few chuckles around me.

  “I admire his acting,” Meena replied.

  “How could you not? He never stops acting,” I replied, and looked around for more congratulatory smiles, but instead received a bunch of disapproving glares. Apparently Meena wasn’t the only loyal fan that heathen-in-a-suit possessed.

  Meena ignored my little jab. “Shall we?” she asked, turning to me.

  “Shall we what?”

  “Leave.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding me,” I said. “I’m not leaving yet.”

  “Waiting for your girl, are you?” she asked, waspishly.

  “I’m not here for any girl, Meena,” I lied, with what I considered a pretty impressive poker-face. “I simply want to soak up the experience of this night. Now just because you’ve had your hormonal fill for the night, doesn’t mean that I have.”

  “Look—”

  “No, you look,” I said, indignation giving way to rage. “I have had to put up with your torture for years now and I have had enough! Do you realise that—”

  “Will you look…”

  “Stop interrupting me!”

  Meena grabbed my face with her right hand and turned it towards the red carpet. “Look,” she said, nodding to a limousine that had just pulled up. I felt my jaw hit the floor.

  At once I seemed to forget everything, including myself, as I pushed the old man with the monocle aside, and fought my way towards the barricade. People complained, some groaned, others yelled, a few even tried to push me back, but I was relentless in my pursuit and my eyes were fixed solely on the woman that was now gliding gracefully down the length of the carpet. Dressed in a gleaming, pearl-white saree, atop a stylish, velvety blue blouse, she practically sparkled in the dull, twilight atmosphere. The saree, draped over her right shoulder, circled back around her to eventually rest stylishly over her left arm; not many women would have looked as sophisticated and as effortlessly beautiful as she did in an outfit that was the perfect blend of a traditional design reworked with modern flair. Her dress aside, the rest of her appearance was equally flawless: her long, black hair fell in elegant, wavy curls just below her shoulders, and I was greatly impressed that she wasn’t one of those women who used every special occasion as an opportunity to lacquer her hair up in some kind of a ridiculous shape. Her make-up, if there was indeed any upon her, was barely discernible, and served only to accentuate her already beautiful features. She wore simple jewellery in the form of silver earrings, which matched the colour of her saree, and a matching bracelet upon her exposed left wrist. Her look in its entirety was unassuming yet mesmerizing, for it allowed her natural splendour to shine through. Her radiant smile flashed brighter than the cameras that clicked furiously in a futile attempt to capture the full effect of her limitless beauty. Her eyes, large and reflective, conveyed more emotions and expressions than the faces of anyone else that had walked this carpet before her.

  In what can only be described in hindsight as a trance, I gripped the top of the barricade and pulled myself over in an almost unconscious effort to reach her. I didn’t even feel the sting of the police baton that rapped my knuckles, or the shove of the forceful arms that pushed me back repeatedly from the barricade. She paused at an enthusiastic group of children a few feet from me and signed their autographs for them. There were squeals and screams and whistles all around me, so I couldn’t hear what she was saying to them, but her smile and her expression suggested that she was being kind, humble and effortlessly charming.

  As she turned away from them and edged along the barricade to briefly touch the outstretched hands of her many fans, I felt
as though time had been slowed to a bare minimum. I held out my own hand, reaching as far out as I could, with as much desperation as I would have shown had I been reaching for my utility belt, with my arch-rival closing his hands around my neck. She walked closer, waving to people around me, smiling at them, touching their hands, and even speaking words of gratitude to some. As she came up to me, our eyes met for the briefest moment, a moment that nevertheless lasted a lifetime. I gazed hungrily into the face of a woman who reminded me of all the youthful qualities I had surrendered to the past. Within that one short instant of eternity, I saw myself married to Mona, leading a life of unequivocal bliss, where neither one of us were left wanting for affection. We were partners in every sense of the word. There were no fights or arguments, not even disagreements. Every moment was spent in romantic indulgence. We were just as life had meant for us to be: two people that were linked by love, and turned not so much into a couple, as into one, living, feeling being.

  Her hand, which had brushed the fingertips of many of her fans, now drifted near mine. I held her gaze as our hands touched and the illusion strengthened. She smiled at me, directly at me, and my fantasy turned real. But then her gaze drifted away, her hand passed beyond mine, and was lost forever. The illusion shattered, and my life with Mona became what it had always been: a wistful dream, built upon the feeble legs of an unfulfilled desire: the road not taken.

  I came out of my reverie, and saw her glide down the carpet, waving to fans, touching their extended hands much as she had mine, before she filed into the auditorium along with the rest of the celebrities. The fans remained outside, packed into thick crowds, deflated by the departure of their favourite stars, yet elated by the memories they would cherish forever.

  I turned to find Meena standing with her arms crossed, looking jealous and angry.