It struck me
on the Metro Rail. A
thunderclap. Just as the
electro-pneumatic doors were about to close, a skirt-clad, short-haired
and bespectacled girl rushed in and banged against my
heart. I stared at her
for sometime but her profuse apologies did
not register. After fifteen
years since the fateful afternoon of a
fugitive childhood this was the
second girl, and, in a way, also the first.
The train began to accelerate, and so did
I, through the dimly-lighted
tunnel of my stretching mindscape. As I picked up speed, the thorns of
life
and time began to whir, like small tuning forks struck
with great force, until they melded with the enveloping darkness. Gradually,
at the far end
of the tunnel, a light emerged, like the teasing logo of a
motion picture
company holding viewers to the silver screen, and then the unfolding of
the
all-too-familiar episode:
A choppy blue sea lapping against a sparkling sand-shore.
Two children on
the foreground, laughing and giggling. Close-up.
There's me, as a little
boy, holding hands with a little girl, laughing nervously at
the prospect
of getting into the sea. The girl is more
daring, and keeps tugging the
little boy's hand seaward, even as
he dithers. I watch the two young
children, in the golden haze of a winter afternoon, gradually move
towards
the surging waves. The camera turns to the waves. My heart
cries out. But
it's too late. An enormous wave crashes on the little
children. Silence.
For aeons. Then, only one child emerges from the receding waters,
battered
and bruised, crying inconsolably.
I should have drowned then, holding her hand, in the salt sea
waves. I did
get her back, sometime later, but only as a bloated corpse that
the elders
would not let me keep.
Did that little girl love the little boy? Of course she did. But
that does
not answer the question. Did she want to possess me? Of course she did.
But
neither does that answer the question. She loved to possess her dolls,
even
the ones in rags that she owned as a girl of two. How did she love me
then? Just how?
These fifteen years, I have had only queries to answer the
question, even
as the elements have carried away her ashes from that
lonesome garden at
her ancestral home.
A train passes by, through the same tunnel, in the opposite
direction. My
thoughts take a turn. Round this girl on the Metro Rail, who, defying
time,
just banged against my heart, sweeping
me into the swirling waters of
mystic memory, resurrection.
Frantically, I began rummaging the drawer labelled "eternal"
in my heart of
drawers, scanning scores of images at
a glance. Until I came upon a
portrait. Her portrait in landscape. I looked closer.
A deep scar on the
left elbow, unlikely to heal with time. A way of
staring, betraying the
initial signs of hypermetropia, and anticipating intellectual
inclinations.
A half-smile, unprovoked, loving.
Back to future again. I cross-checked
immediately, peering over the
shoulders of co-passengers, my pounding heart competing with the
rattle of
the metallic wheels on the electrified
track. There was the scar, all
right. (The spectacles I had noticed earlier.) And
yes, she was carrying books ---Tennessee Williams. Sweet bird of youth,
who says you are dead and buried? There you are as real as my longings. As tangible
as the golden
grains of sand in the groove of a brief life-line.
The hiss of the rail-coach doors
opening muddles up my thoughts.
"Passengers are requested to vacate the train at this Esplanade
Station," a
female voice, polite but authoritative, announces from an overhead
speaker.
The coach spews out a sea of humanity. And the sea,
for the second time,
claims the girl. A girl who turned the clock back to bang against my
heart.
I look around, panic, and then give up. I let
the waves snatch away the
props of my life, leaving me
wobbling, desperate for a thunderclap. A
thunderclap to overturn nature's laws, to break up the
complicity between
time and space on the matrix.
I trudge to office even as the tenses dodge each other
right in front of
me?as if trying to gain control of an elusive soccer ball?blocking
my way.
I push through, reach my office building and slowly labour up the
stairs.
I enter my sanitised chamber, beside the absentee-chairman's (my
father's)
lounge, keep my briefcase on the table, hang my
carefully pressed coat,
loosen my tie and lose my heart all over again. My girl is
standing right
in front of me, wearing a
half-smile and wanting a job. Another
thunderclap.
"You are the one who banged against my hea.., my head, on the
Metro?"
"I'm so sorry sir?"
"How did you get that scar on your left elbow?"
"Oh that? Actually sir, when I was a kid, we had
once been to the sea in
Goa?"
"Stop! I know the rest? You read a lot isn't it? Naturally?"
"Yes, but sir?"
"Call me Ron! Okay, I'm the CEO of
this most creative ad firm, but I'm
almost exactly the same age as you are. You must call me Ron."
"Oh you are Ron?"
"Yes, the maverick Ron, as they say. But your Ron. From now
on."
"But sir, Ron?"
"I know you want a job. In my company. Naturally. And you are
Maya?"
"But how did you??"
"From two sources. The first I will not tell. The
second is the notebook
you're carrying. You have a beautiful hand. You always had
one (the brief
life-line notwithstanding)?. Well, now, what do you want to join
me as? My
partner? For ever?"
(The inevitable pause. Dreadful. I had overdone it.)
"Sir, may I get back to you later?"
I knew it. I have always known.
It's midnight. I'm leaving office, to return home, to frustration,
sorrow,
madness. Unless another thunderclap strikes.
(It
was previously published in "The Statesman". The
author is Senior Editor, ICRA Limited, New Delhi, India)
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