Acid

  Shaly was frustrated when she learnt that Kamala had left without a word of goodbye. When had the driver come? When had she gone? What exactly was happening in this house? ‘Can someone tell me something, anything, everything?’ Everything was the better word. Good for you if you know everything.

  ‘Ridiculous! She treats me like a slave these days.’

  She saw Shiva sitting on his bed, looking out of the window. He knows almost nothing, she thought. Maybe he was watching the man clearing the land. He looked surprisingly sad even after a nice bath and a dusting of talcum powder. It seemed he was afraid of the light outside, nonetheless he was looking at it. It seemed he was tired of the already long day, the maid who cleaned the dishes and prepared food in the kitchen, or maybe he was simply afraid of the afternoon sleep he knew would never come to him. ‘You didn’t have to be sad to get weak, my dear,’ she said as she climbed her stairs. Obviously she was thinking of him. She had even waited for some time on the landing before climbing the stairs, thinking he would call her.

  There were white trumpets in Aizawl too. They called them ‘hell’s bells’ and ‘devil’s trumpets’. The children of the forest who loved fruit, sweet or sour, stretched their arms towards the thorn apples. The elders warned: ‘Don’t touch, don’t go anywhere near them.’

  Aadi had not seen Vinita look so down and shabby before. Today was the eleventh performance of The Tenth Head. How long had it been since he had come to Bangalore? He had forgotten to keep track. Anything was better than living trapped in maddening silence. He was no pearl to suffer like that.

  The day after next, the actors would depart. It was like a festival, Vinita said, when they were there. Aadi was happy, for the actors had promised to take him along with them. The promise was made by the Tenth Head, the lead actor; Aadi liked to call him Molière, regardless of what his name was. On their way back from the theatre, he told Vinita: ‘Did you hear—it was Molière who invited me to join his group, to be a part of the theatre?’

  ‘Yes, I did. I was there too, but I didn’t hear him say anything about becoming a part of the theatre. I heard him inviting you, he has invited me too.’

  ‘But I am going with them, in their car.’

  ‘They have space in their car; you need not hitchhike, thank God.’

  ‘I don’t care, just two more days to go.’

  He was making gestures, using his arms liberally and she had to remind him that this was no theatre but a busy road in Whitefield.

  Sakthi was sadder than his mother to see Aadi go; he didn’t let him return to his lodgings that night. He wanted him to play with him, or watch him play. On the TV screen, the cricket lawn stretched out to its full length, waiting for the players. When Sakthi gave him the joystick Aadi realized he was not happy, after all.

  The next day they went out for a short drive.

  ‘Somehow I could never fit into a driver’s seat,’ Vinita said.

  Aadi also thought the same. She looked nervous and tense at the wheel. They ought to have hired a cab. She kept craning her neck awkwardly to look at the road, and honked even when there was no vehicle in front of them. He remembered the elegance with which his mother used to drive. He noticed to his surprise that the red Maruti Swift was moving in second gear. It seemed she didn’t wish to try the third or the fourth at all. His mother used to shout at Shaly, ‘You are not selling ice candy on the streets that you need to honk like this.’

  He thought he would repeat the same words to tease Vinita. Maintain class, the aesthetics of a beautiful road. Sakthi started singing already, ‘Pompom vroom vroom . . . Pompom vroom vroom . . .’

  She parked in the middle of a large parking lot. Aadi looked at the banners and posters around them. Dogathon. It was no dog show, Vinita told him. The dogs, she said, were going to run. He had seen elephants running in his mother’s native place, at the temple they used for such shows. But he hated to see the elephants chained and struggling under the sun, especially in the midst of the deafening roar of percussion instruments. People, especially those who were drunk, were crazy for the booming drumbeats. As a child, Shiva used to ask, ‘Amma, tell me, what if the elephants don’t like music?’

  He would say he didn’t like the sound, Kamala would say she loved it; he would say he knew some of the elephants in the row who didn’t like it, for he saw water running down from their eyes.

  All the dogs were barking. Sakthi said aloud, ‘Ma, barking dogs seldom bite.’

  They walked towards the dogs; they were on leashes. There were advertisements for choosing the right leash and collar for the dogs. Different breeds of puppies were on sale too. It seemed Vinita knew almost all the names: Siberian Husky, Dalmatians, Golden Retriever, Labrador Retriever, bulldog, German Shepherd, so on and so forth. Aadi wondered how she knew all this. Sakthi said he wanted one, a tiny one, maybe the tiniest. Aadi asked him to buy a Tibetan dog, a Lhasa Apso. The dogs used to be sentinels in the Buddhist monasteries. Vinita said no one was going to buy a dog there; they were there to watch the show.

  ‘Ma, I want him,’ Sakthi’s voice ricocheted around the ground.

  They went near the Buddhist sentinel and examined it closely.

  ‘Some sentinel,’ Vinita said, ‘look at him, can’t even see anything. If you let it loose it will run into something for sure.’

  What she said was true. The sentinel had long white hair on his body, covering his face and falling over his eyes. Could he possibly see through it? His eyes were hardly visible, but what if that didn’t matter? Aadi whistled to him, and he went the other way and stumbled when he bumped into the wall, just as she had warned them. They didn’t miss the smile on her face, all of them laughed except Sakthi, who was wailing by then. They had to go back to their car without waiting for the dog show. But inside the car it was a disaster: Vinita’s honks plus Sakthi’s screams. In the end she had to pull over near Vittal Mallya Road in search of a pet shop.

  Together, they bought two hamster pups. They were not even half the size of Vinita’s hand. They bought two pink balls too for the hamsters to lie in.

  ‘Ma, do I like pink?’ Sakthi asked.

  When the pups started moving happily inside the balls, he laughed and clapped his hands. He had not seen such small pups in his life, and neither had Aadi. Vinita bought a cage and a packet of food for them. The shopkeeper helped her load it in the boot of the car.

  ‘They will die if they are exposed to sunlight,’ the shopkeeper said.

  Aadi imagined Shiva sitting in his room, with no light, no wind and no air. If he does not get any more sunlight, he thought, he will die. He could not let the one who was a part of his body, the one with whom he had shared amniotic fluid and the dreams and happiness of being before birth, die. He dialled Kamala’s number. It was out of range. He hated the automated voice. He called Shaly.

  His concern for his brother touched her; she was also thinking about Shiva when Aadi called her. In fact, she was thinking of Kamala, Shiva and the concept of love. What was love? Kamala had once told her that love was the only way for miserable human beings to cross the threshold of adwaita, non-duality. It was a gift nature had bestowed upon humanity, a temporary space to forget the tree of maya, illusions. Once at the zenith of consummation, human beings became part of nature, they abandoned duality. At the pinnacle of making love, they embraced the blissful state of forgetfulness, the state of being thoughtless. They became simple and pure creatures, like snakes, crows, fish, cats and the like. Thoughts were the curse of humanity. Once they start thinking, forgetting the euphoric heights of no abstraction zones, men and woman started blabbering again, praising the act of love. They forgot the universe in which they had dissolved, temporarily; they forgot the air, fire, earth, sun and stars. But the memory of the short-term reality filled them with the energy to move forward, ballast, so they could keep their balance.

  Sex was just one of the many ways to reach the short-term destination—call it love, call it whatever you want to. There were a l
ot of other ways too. Overgrown with luscious undergrowth, they yawned, waiting to be discovered.

  Kamala was the most beautiful concept of love on earth. A touch or a glance would be enough for her to wake up, shaking off the scales of duality. Yet, who was it that kept devastating the happiness that was allowed, happiness per person? She pondered over the rights and wrongs of personal pleasures and temporary pleasures.

  She opened the bottle of eau de cologne and poured some drops from it into the big bathtub. She inhaled the perfume diffused in the coolness of the water. Thanks to the well attached to the kitchen in the backyard, she could have a herbal bath with water that was blessed by the fragrance of lemon clover and wood sorrel. In their bathroom in Bangalore there had been large, full-length mirrors that almost covered the walls. She remembered the reflection of her nudity, her splendid hips and slim waist. This bathroom, in which she was imagining herself, waking herself with the help of what she had seen or experienced, had the smell of wetness. She realized she was wet. It smelled of wet wooden frames and old red-oxide walls; she had the smell of wet flesh. She noticed a lizard watching her as she anointed herself with lavender oil, the insides of her thighs, the incredible softness of her supple breasts. There were lots of things to look at, the way the lizards did. For example, one could see in this bathroom that had a faint whiff of eau de cologne, lavender and the oldness of the wooden frames, the Indian version of the Venus of Titian. She leaned against the big bathtub and looked at her reflection in the water. Feeling happy, she mumbled, ‘I sing the body electric . . .’

  This was a no-movement zone. The spades fell continuously on the roots of the poisonous weeds; the flowers of the cannonball flew down in each breeze, and in the cremation ground skeletons happily exploded in the pyres. Still, the place remained deadly silent. The rhythms of the spade and the bones were not distinguishable from the rhythms of stillness.

  ‘Aadi, you know what? I could experience a sparkling city in this silence. You won’t believe me if I tell you about the things I see every day. Till now, there was a beautiful Czech girl in this room; you couldn’t take your eyes off her behind. Her name was Georgiana, she looked almost like a Brazilian pole dancer. Her skin is the colour of yellow sunlight. And inside, she is the same colour of the flowers that bloomed on the cannonball; I guess it was the same scent. I used to warn all the boring bitches not to come anywhere near me wearing ordinary white bras. Such a turn-off, I hate to see white ordinary stuff. But Aadi, Georgiana is an amazing bitch. She was wearing a blood-red PrimaDonna with lace work, brocaded around her nipples. The bitch, she killed me. I can imagine the wearisome wandering you are undertaking. But if you think it is good for you, you should carry on. Sometimes, I imagine you in a gypsy wagon. I have visualized you shouting slogans, of whose meanings you have no clue. You said you were part of the bandwagon. You were wearing clothes double your size. I felt like laughing. But sometimes I feel jealous of you, thinking of the wonderful things you are eating every day. I am sure you are having soup and starters before you try a variety of other cuisines. You are lucky! What Janu makes here sucks, her sambar looks like a bog. The same taste every day, the same feel, and the same smell. But recently she has been trying some new recipes. I loved it when she fried slices of bitter gourd last night. I must tell you, those were the sexiest chips I have ever tasted. I still have some in my pocket. I am sad you could not be a part of all this fun.’

  Inside her bedroom, Shaly opened the little bottles of perfume. She couldn’t decide what she wanted. She sat naked on her bed, musing for a while before dabbing herself with the scent of her choice.

  Like lightning that was struggling to escape the grip of the night, the scent of lotus flowers floated down the stairs, touched the pineapple carving on the handrail and jabbed him in his heart. The pigeons were cooing like never before. It seemed they were happy for no reason, or they were warning of something unknown. He was not aware of the cooing, on an afternoon that was frothing like mad. He touched himself but he couldn’t remember Georgiana’s face or her pert nipples no matter how hard he tried. He heard someone knocking on the door, the door which was open. He began to break out in a sweat and closed the windows against the flowers of the cannonballs.

  The police were having a tough time at the junction, controlling, giving instructions and redirecting the drivers. The jam was getting longer and uncontrollable. Amidst the chaos, the hawkers were coming with car screens and plastic toys, shouting the names of their products and knocking at windows, making helpless gestures. Kamala looked at the impoverished little girls, their eyes, faded clothes, cheap ornaments, sun-darkened faces, weak smiles, white teeth—everything about them was poverty-stricken and unpleasant. She yawned, for she was extremely tired and bored of the long jam. She had been thinking of Aadi and occasionally of Madhavan all the way from Cochin. She even feared that Madhavan would get mad at her for letting Aadi waste a year. She thought literature or economics would be the best options for him. She also wondered if she had ever been a good wife or not. When she was good and obedient, when Shaly had not become a part of her life, Madhavan was lenient and generous, though at times kinship poked its ugly head into nocturnal fumbling and vice versa. Then he had to drink (a habit he developed quickly) to banish the thoughts of blood ties and familiarity from his mind, before the desired–undesired nightly fumbling. A custom, he said, which youngsters could not agree with these days. A strange custom, she sighed. By the time the doors were opened they were all gone. And the wealth they wanted to amass so badly, that their parents longed for, the family fortune—swindled out of two young lives, trapping two new lives—turned out to be of no use to anyone. Most women her mother’s age were dead and his father would be dying soon. They realized they didn’t need money, money couldn’t buy them peace. Some not so distant day, they might be bedridden too. Invariably, all of us are born sick and die sick and live sickened by thoughts.

  She remembered their little expedition, how like warriors they had charged through grassy knolls and scattered hillocks towards the mountains. Madhavan used to be the hero of the pack—they were a super-excited group of eight boys and six girls, obedient and happy. They called him Comrade Madhavan. While they were still climbing Madhavan said, ‘No one is supposed to turn back until I say so. Watch out. Don’t step on each and every stone you see on the way, some could be shaky, you will end up in trouble.’

  He carried a long stick in his hand to keep the stray dogs at bay. No one else was allowed to use the stick. It was like the extension of his body, the symbol of his sovereign power. He whipped the air with it as if he had the right to do anything he wanted, and the children admired it all for god knows what reason. Sometimes he walked in front, sometimes in the back, threatening them with shouts.

  Kamala was tired by the time they had reached the top of the mountain. She squatted on the ground; her yellow skirt expanded in a balloon-like swell around her. Immediately he wanted to deflate it, he struck her with his stick; she jumped to her feet. Forgetting his instructions not to look back, she turned around to give him a bitter look of anger. He seemed frightened, the blow was harder than he had expected.

  But my dear Madhavan . . .

  Her eyes sparkled with fireworks of wonder. In the gleam of her eyes he saw his fear vanishing. She saw the green earth, down, much further down from where she was standing. It was her first bird’s-eye view. She was thankful to Madhavan for giving her such a splendid vision, for forcing them not to turn back, for the vast expanse of the green earth, the blue sky, the bridge across the river that extended like a child’s toy train, small, smaller than they could ever imagine. The children were not aware of what had happened behind them. Madhavan came closer to Kamala and whispered in her ear, his lips almost brushing her cheek, ‘There is another spot on the mountains I would like to take you to. Come, the view from there is unbelievable.’

  Sadly she turned back and saw the maddening queue of the vehicles. The people were tired of being jamme
d in, sandwiched in-between metal bodies. They honked mercilessly. Under the cruel sun, the policemen were also mentally cursing the beacon-lit vehicle of some minister they were all waiting for, for whom they were holding up the traffic. Something told her that Madhavan was also there somewhere in the long queue. He might be on his way to see his children, the woman he had left behind.

  The words of the prophet were true. Once, a woman sat down between two men, half of her face blushed with happiness and the other half pallid with bitterness. If Kamala were to climb that mountain once again and turn back, she would realize that Madhavan was walking on both sides of her, simultaneously. And that would frighten her.

  They went into the restaurant carrying the pink balls in which the hamster pups were running amok. They were not sure about leaving the pups in the car. They were afraid the little things would die. At first Aadi thought the restaurant had no lights inside, but slowly his eyes adjusted and he realized it was the heat and light outside that dimmed his vision inside. They were tired, they collapsed on the swivel chairs in the corner. Though the hamsters were small, they were a big nuisance. He immediately wanted to get rid of the scratching noise they made; it pissed him off.

  Sakthi started reading the words on the menu card aloud.

  ‘Oh my!’ Suddenly Aadi took a hamster ball and held it in front of his face.

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  He passed the ball to her hands and bent down as if to tie his shoelace. Even the hair on his head reflected the fear he felt within. From under the table, through the legs of the long line of tables, he could see his father walking in with Kuljeet. In the dim light he clearly saw his father’s unpolished shoes, and the brow marked by sorrow.

  He became lighter than milkweed, he started floating. He couldn’t differentiate his face from hers. Now his face her finger, his groin her skin. The abandoned love he harboured in his mind so far, grazed on her skin like a lamb in an enemy’s farmyard. He craved and feared all the same. She thought, he has the face of a newborn. With his eyes shut, hands fisted, head leaning against her body, he sought her and felt her nipples with his lips. His mother was banging her head against the door. She had to pluck him out of her body and run to help his mother. She thought she was helpless, he was helpless, and the mother was helpless.