I’m not there yet. I can still see everything. I take another white sip and push the fire all the way down. I close my eyes yet again. Slowly, with clinical precision, I open them.
I see nothing. Then I can see nothingness. Let’s give it a colour. Black. I can’t know if I’m standing, floating or falling. Perfect.
Now for the Big Bang. I slowly trickle in some light (yellow) and adjust the knob till it reaches that of late afternoon in the month of May, preevening, if I may. I look up. Lend them a hue of blue with streaks of frothy white. I look around. I am in a mood for some vegetation. Trees, bushes, grasslands, foliage, potted plants and intrusive weed. And some concrete and metal. Houses, roads, lamp-posts, insulated wires, open sewers, metal billboards. Add some activity to the mix. Rumbustious machines, droning automobiles and electromagnetic induction. Switch on the amplifier and we’re ready to roll.
Now for the most taxing part. Life. Livestock, human activity in the background can be yawned out. I make cows that dump faeces in the middle of the road and then walk towards their assembly in the middle of a street. Not so far off, I make cuckoos ready to lay their offspring in alien nests. I make crows peeve and sparrows chirp, squirrels nibble and rats scoot. I make bullocks foam in their mouth as they serve their masters’ whims. I make masters whip them as per their whim. I make a child weep at the sight as he holds his mother’s hand that looks at the roadside underwear stall, making sure they are pink and have a Mickey Mouse on them just as her son likes them.
But protagonist to hold attention, beg exploration, entertain and enthral, gravitate audience towards them… Am I capable enough? But when optimism flows, a book emerges. And of that I am brimming.
Pick a letter. S. Sandy? Doesn’t fit in. Sulekha? Sounds like a handicraft brand. Savitri? Like in mythology? Sanjana? Interesting. Sanjana…Sawant. Alliteration. Age 30. Complexion? Wheatish. Why? Because that’s the first word that came to the mind. Plus, it doesn’t hamper anything. Married without any kids. Reason? Because…
I wait. I scratch my chin to induce a brainwave. I will pretend to get lost as I look around. Then I will come back with an, “Ah. That’s why!”
I pick another letter. R. Radhika? No. Rohini? Rohini. A dominatrix. A lady with influence. Sanjana doesn’t fancy her but needs her clout all the same. The second fiddle.
Pick our antagonist. Ha! Yusuf Bashir – it almost comes naturally to me. A kid with multiple layers. An enigma. Never speaks a single word. Of violent orientation. Was ousted from a madrassa for heinous torture of his friends. His folks can’t set him straight, nor can they stop his education. Consequently, a general public school.
Style of writing? Non-linear. Pseudo-elitist. Use multi-syllabled words. Will that conflict the narrator’s character? No, write as an outsider. Gives you a chance to shift perspectives, italicize first person narratives if so inclined and explore multiple mind-sets while being versatile.
Sample?
…and so I shall bow before the demands of an ever-so-impatient pair of eyes and expound on the tale of Sanjana. I shall give you detailed descriptions the excerpts of her life that I have carefully sifted through and chosen. I shall let you devour her existence and also brood over an ambience of human humdrum for you to soak in. But why Sanjana, you ask? Why anyone, I want to counter, when in the grand scheme of things, we are but an infinitesimal speck. True, there is drama in the life of a celibate necrophile and there indeed is a poetic beauty in the fantastic notion of a stairway to heaven. But someone has to make the unheard heard, the untold told. And that’s where yours truly comes in without entertaining any hazardous illusion of celebrity that plagues many an aspirant, fertile or not. However, one doesn’t beg for forgiveness if the tale doesn’t match up to the lofty standards of a refined intellect. One is here to do a job. Well or not, one shall have faith.
I smile. And I launch myself in a full-fledged verbal assault to assuage the pent up creativity in me. I check my blood. I check my quill. I check my parchments. I adjust my mortarboard, which is what I fancy wearing to crown the moment. Optimism, work thy magic.
“This gate creaks. She should do something about it.”
By now, she had mastered the art of being mute. Rohini looked at her.
“You’ll be fine,” Rohini said. She wasn’t in the authority to feel for her yet. The familiarity she claimed over her was disorienting.
We were in the heart of the city, with steady traffic humming from all sides of the wasteland-under-development beyond the gate. The peeling white oil-paint gave way to rust formation. There was a mound of dead undergrowth uprooted and kept at a side. Three acres of violated land bore testimony to the change.
Unevenly laid tiles directed us to the house on the left, about a hundred metres away from the gate. May month end was unusually soggy this time and the tiles sunk in with each step. I saw a few scattered workmen at the end of the plot, busily laying bricks over the almost complete first floor where steady rain competed with their sweat to drench them. The contractor barked orders, impervious to it all.
We walked towards a canopy attached to the double storied bungalow. The tile path gave way to shredded grass which in turn made way for pathway made of hexagon shaped marble, with neatly trimmed bottle green vegetation on both sides. There were tussocks for lawns and Darwinian plants guarded them. The only excuse for the mess was one wanted to capitalize on the early rains to give rise to new foliage. However, that involved stretching the promiscuous land to labelling it as ploughing-at-its-nascent-stage.
The bungalow clearly wasn’t any attempt at innovation. At most, it fit the bill of a habitat. Otherwise bare, the external walls had the chimneys and plumbing system clouding it. And of course, rectangular windows that stubbornly stuck out. The canopy lead to the iron mesh-cage painted lush white.
“She once told me the story behind the white doors.” Rohini asked, puncturing the silence. “This door was painted with black oil paint when she got it made. Just around that time, a new government regulation targeting Class 1 officers transferred her husband to Gadchiroli. For 2 years, they met only once a month when he came for an extended weekend after travelling 300 kilometres. Then one day, her nanand comes from Nashik to visit her during Diwali. The moment she sees the door, she goes – ‘I don’t expect to see her husband in.’ Raagu’s jaw unhooks and falls to the floor. She asks, ‘How did you know?’ And then her nanand tells her how Vaastu Shastra advises that the entrance door be painted white. She does and believe it or not, next year, her husband gets promoted to Collector and comes back to Amravati.”
Rohini. The cocky bitch. I wonder if I should attribute her constant need to intimidate the moment with conversation to her childhood. What events might have led her to developing a tendency of acting up at every leverage she got?
We walked in and came to a wooden door strictly capable of accommodating an average Indian stature comfortably. The windows too had spade mesh design. The doorbell was a cord one had to pull.
Rohini took over once again.
“This one always reminds me of my gaon’s toilet,” she sniggered, pulling the cord. We heard three gongs ringing inside.
A ragged servant showed us the inside of the den. Numerous wall hangings and self-portraits jostled for space alongside autographed paintings of obscure artists, not that I claim any command over canvas-art. The azure wall tone perfectly aided absconding cheer, thanks to the paucity of light. The peachy upholstery didn’t go well with the walls and the contrast created diffidence. The left had an exit amid inscriptions along the border of the door while the right had stairs running diagonally, with the space under the staircase reserved for footwear.
The servant had his priorities set. The store room ranked higher than us. The host was nowhere in sight.
“I bet on five minutes,” Rohini whispered. “You?” I admired the silhouettes that our wet feet made on the beautiful papaya whipped granite.
Ten minutes later, we found ourselves waiting on the couch, staring at their bloated reflection in the convex 29 inch television set. I ranged from thinking about the events that led to the two of them to this loony bin and the least number of footsteps required to scale the doorway.
“Welcome, welcome!” We heard a voice booming as it descended the stairs. That was the first time Sanjana laid her eyes on Principal sahiba. Endowed with a generous girth, the chiffon gown looked accidental on her. Of a fair complexion, the Principal sahiba had a stubby nose and a double chin sticking out of her face.
Rohini got up. Sanjana followed suit. I blended in with the walls.
“I noticed the sign outside,” Rohini said. “‘Rajeshwari nursery school’. Did you know you usually need to be a politician, businessman or dead to have your names up like that?”
Rajeshwari bloated up in pride, much to her friend’s chagrin. “Yes, we’re much more than just nursery now, aren’t we? The seeds are germinating.” She laughed a throaty laugh. I will have to get used to being subjected to that, God willing.
“I...,” Rohini stumbled on an explanation before dismissing it. “Never mind. I brought you someone.”
It was Sanjana’s call. She caught herself against the wooden table between them, stumbled and steadied barely in time.
“I’m Sanjana Sawant,” she said, her hands moulded in a namaste. Damned social conventions.
“Why, honour’s all mine,” she beamed. “Sit, please. I’m Rajeshwari Uchchal, not that you don’t know already. I’m sure Rohini must’ve told you plenty about me.”
Nothing you’d like to know, I stretched myself into a scrupulous smile as they sat down.
“You say you are...”
“I...er...Sanjana Sawant.”
“No, I meant...” she looked at Rohini.
“Your new second standard teacher,” Rohini said curtly. “And don’t you die on me, Raagu. Remember – I am smarter than you.”
“That can be debated,” Rajeshwari replied, pokerfaced. She turned to me. “Have you been a teacher before?”
“No,” she said and unconsciously sneaked a look at the door. Five steps, I wanted to whisper. Four if you take longer strides.
“Degree?” The interrogation had begun.
“B.A. Arts. Honours. From none other than Varghese College,” Rohini pitched in for me with unsuitable pride. “Passed with first class, she did.”
“Did you?”
“Yes,” Sanjana lied and wondered if ‘Honours’ meant being felicitated on stage. Even if it did, she had barely managed to wriggle my way out of the college like Abhimanyu might have tried his way out of the chakravyuha, albeit with a happy ending.
“Interesting.”
We all bartered silence for the next few moments. I counted hours off my heartbeat but its extension was intolerable for Rohini.
“Arre enough now. Are you or are you not interested?” Rohini asked point blank. Her impertinence was misplaced especially since the business end of the rifle was clearly pointed at Sanjana’s chances.
Rajeshwari now faced Rohini. Trigger time. “You know I have a reason not to trust you, right?” she said quietly.
“Why?” Rohini’s tone betrayed a wound.
“Because you are much smarter than me,” Rajeshwari said. “I’d never call off your bluff.”
The smile was mutual.
“Then again, that’s why the trust,” Rajeshwari’s tone erased the tension. “Besides, I can’t be the one to bother. You, of all the people, were the one to crack the real reason to build the school.”
Rohini yawned. “Best investment. Assured profits. Guaranteed respect.”
“Of course,” Rajeshwari seconded. “Had it been for my parents, there would’ve been sunflowers and cotton blooming here. Imagine that – in Erwind Chowk, the throbbing heart of the Amravati. These oldies, I tell you. No business sense.” She turned to me. “When I came back from the U.S...”
“America! How incomplete every conversation is without it,” Rohini remarked sardonically, taking a glass of Pepsi which the servant had brought for them.
“Back in the U.S., we had a lecturer once,” Rajeshwari went on. “Professor Gorgowich, we used to call him. Russian fellow. Very smart. Small eyes, deep voice. And that day he was lecturing us on economies of third world countries. He says to us, ‘If there’s one thing people wouldn’t mind to spend on in these countries, it is education. Reason – rising middle class. They might seem weak with their conflicting opinion and double standards but underestimate them and you’re done for. Yes, they are by-products of municipality schools, stuck in the dead end public sector. But every night on their leaking ceiling, they paint their dreams. And what are their dreams – their children. Take India, for example. The largest middle class. Over 600 million of them. That makes it 600 million fucks. The government’s child control motto ‘Hum do hamare do’, meaning two children per family makes 600 million children. 600 million dreams. If you have to build your brand, that is the class you are aiming for.’”
“That’s...” Rohini began.
“Offensive? Yes. True? Couldn’t be more so. And so when I come back, what do I find? Amravati in shambles, exactly as it was 4 years ago when I left for the U.S. But luckily, whatever little ‘development’ had to happen, happened around Erwind chowk. Rajeshwari nursery school was only fifty lakh rupees away. My future was staring at me - sell 10 acres out of 13, get the fifty and mint more for my own upcoming dreams.”
A non-linear conversation ensued as they drained a glass each. An hour later, it was time to excuse ourselves from the courtesy.
Sanjana looked at Rajeshwari as she put the parting vermillion on my forehead. “So...I...” Sanjana paused, hoping she would clarify her status.
“Don’t worry,” Rajeshwari smiled, effervescence pouring from her as she came to the door to escort us out. “You were cleared the moment I set my eyes on you. All we need is manpower. Teaching can always be taught. Besides, how hard can 2nd standard get?”
“Thank you,” she said. She meant it. She needed the job. A job. Finally the wailing could stop.
“21st June. Don’t be late, dear,” she said and disappeared back in the cave. ‘Dear’. Is sickening familiarity contagious for everyone related to Rohini, I wondered. I looked at her. She was beaming.
The incident is going untampered to Snigdha, Sanjana decided on the way back.
Three weeks later:
I am racked with doubts. No matter how many sips, white fire isn’t helping. I pause. I go over everything I have written. What does it serve? What can it be attributed to? I don’t like the progress I am making.
I am tempted to dwell back on the stream of consciousness, writers’ favourite resort to ramble. Looking around walls of my habitat I see books. Several colours, textures, patterns, of different shapes and sizes, of eclectic typography and composition, hardbacks, paperbacks, legitimate, pirated, bought, borrowed, and passed by lineage. Blurbs are pinned on them. “Captivating” says one. “Unputdownable” says another. “Unlike those who come howling in the world blind and bare, this author appears with nails and teeth. He is skilled and witty and energetic and performs like a virtuoso” says a publication which is accused of siding with the Republicans. “It’s time we redraw the literary map. Seems like another continent has found its voice” raves another, the owner of which fell prey to stimulants.
I have always felt the reviewers were trying too hard to compete with the books they’re supposed to opine on. Look, I use fancy words. I derive and quote references from Mexican to Eurasian art. I know what I’m talking about.
Living in an eggshell isn’t particularly stimulating. But that isn’t an excuse to churn out B.S. What’s that? Why an eggshell, you ask? To satiate your wiggling eyebrow, my oval Rorschach blot is an egg. The inside of my shell is made of books. Not shelves but books. I feed on them. And after a significant consumption, like the reviewers, I felt I could write too. So I took a syringe and drew my blood. I dipped my quill and filled parchments one after the other. But the ink runs out before you can add an exclamation mark after “Potent, hilarious and extraordinary”. It takes months to recover from the depression you plunge yourself into. But recover one does, steadily but surely. One consoles oneself. And then one hurls oneself back into the invigorating escapism ready to mesmerize, ready to draw something that “…has swashbuckling energy, vivid authenticity; that entertains, informs and intrigues at multiple levels.”
Maybe I should not force it. The essence hasn’t even been introduced yet. Yusuf Bashir waits to be revealed. And with the elaborate traits I have laid out for him to tread on, my fortunes shall change. Work, I must.
The yellow railing was a natural slide.
The house Sanjana lived in consists of 2 storeys divided into 4 flats. Sanjana and Snigdha’s house is on the first floor and they share a common wall for living room and kitchen. Their doors are adjoining each other and give way to stairs that open up to a panorama of the whole neighbourhood. The yellow railing that separates her stairs from Sanjana’s slope straight till the turn, hers to left and Sanjana’s to right, leading to different exit gates on each side. On the ground floor below Sanjana’s flat lives Arvind Deshmukh along with his wife Disha – both of them testing Yamaraj’s patience. His next door neighbour is Chittaranjan or Chaitu Pednekar with his brood of 4 children, wife and parents; and to top it off, an adopted pest dog Somu.
Snigdha’s family consisted of 3 members – a four year son and her husband Suresh Bhoir who was away on job duty most of the time. Amravati was his weekend base. A stubborn kid, Chiku continues to slide on the yellow railing in spite of admonitions, catching himself precisely in time before the precarious five feet fall. One day, the municipal menials made his day by pouring mounds of gravel and sand right below the railing to construct a speed-breaker, with the sand almost strategically piled at the turn so that even if he fell off the railing, he would land on the soft yellow cushion. Snigdha had a new warning to give out – “The pile has dog poop in it.”
Chiku, in turn, showed affinity to dog poop.
By the next evening, the rain had mellowed down to infrequent trailers. Sanjana and Snigdha sat on the second step below our doorstep, watching Chiku climb on the banyan tree along with other colony children. The tree was snared on the lane separating Ghorpade’s single storied house from Hardikar’s bungalow. Old grandma Ghorpade was spraying her courtyard with water, one mug at a time. Faint aroma of moistened earth wafted in the air as she readied her rangoli box to welcome Goddess Laxmi at her gracing hour of the evening.
Today, Snigdha had a bucketful of wheat grains to sift through. She spread out each cupful of wheat on the steel plate, blew at it to separate the flakes and then picked out granules of dirt, sometimes tiny pebbles as they came.
“Who speaks like that, especially when one is nothing if not a wife of someone,” said Snigdha, depositing a plateful of ratified wheat grains in another bucket meant to be taken to the flour mill. “What does she think of herself?”
“My mouth almost went dry when she said she was smarter than Rajeshwari,” Sanjana said, shaking her head.
“So would have mine,” said Snigdha. “Deva deva. But you got the job, no? That’s good enough. I always knew my Sanjana was meant for something more than massaging your husband’s shoulder.”
Her Sanjana? I noticed Snigdha flashing a motherly smile at the wheat flakes. Sanjana never massaged Kedar’s shoulder. He didn’t dare anymore.
“How are you and Kedar now?” she took a stab.
Sanjana took her time. “Same old, same old.”
“Nothing happening?”
“No. It has been a long time. He goes swimming now.”
She sniggered. “See what you’re doing to him?”
“I don’t care,” Sanjana shrugged. She really didn’t.
“Why?”
Why? Nice question. I’m glad she asked. Kedar ranged from hopeless to miserly in bed. All he wanted to do was get his beak inside Sanjana, go about the push-retract routine for half a minute and lay content, snoring the next minute. Since their post marriage holiday in Chikhaldara (or ‘honeymoon’ as they now call it), he hadn’t even bothered to undress her. And since that first night, I dreaded each next one. His routine involved hands grabbing her breasts roughly while on the top, heaving himself at her, crushing her every time he was done under that mound of belly of his. Every time she lay down beside him after the day’s toil, she expected his hands to dig into her breasts or hips, leaving marks for days together. It had been almost a year since she had thrown her baby in the garbage bin. It was that one time she had stood up for herself. Since then, there was a lull.
“Kedar has taken to distraction,” she replied.
“Playing with himself?”
She glared at her. Snigdha realized she had crossed a line. “Sorry sister, you know how excited I get.”
“See, that is the reason I don’t like discussing…”
“No no, forgive me. And let us not stop discussing this. I have told you nothing about Suresh. And you know you want to know about that.”
It was strangely liberating and that Sanjana couldn’t deny.
“He has started going to his vyayamshala parties.”
Snigdha stopped her sifting. “Don’t tell me.”
She nodded.
“Do you think…?”
“Who, him? No, of course not! He comes home late at night, very drunk and boasts how Dravid beat those motherfucking Pakis, as if he was the one who gifted Dravid his first bat.”
“That’s a relief,” Snigdha resumed her breathing and watched as Chiku carved a star on the bark of the banyan with a blunt stone. An equilateral triangle intersecting an inverted equilateral triangle on three sides at the centre. My mathematics was still strong, Sanjana congratulated herself.
“Are we now going to have to put up with that Rohini and her narcissistic stories for every bhishi?” asked Snigdha unveiling her disapproval.
“Do we have a choice?” Sanjana murmured dejected. Why do favours have to be reciprocated with gestures of goodwill? “What about Suresh?”
“Oh Suresh!” Snigdha exclaimed. Mr and Mrs Bhoir had entered into their fifth year of marital monotony. An RTO officer, Suresh was posted at Paratwada, the border of Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh. People wouldn’t have taken notice of him had it not been for his revolver, a possession the whole colony was proud of. Suresh got promoted to the post of the chief patrolling officer a couple of years ago when the grim metal first crossed the threshold into his authority. Nobody could be traced to the spread of the news but once it leaked, there was an epidemic. Young visitors poured in to congratulate while the old matted their forehead with creases at their seeds’ fascination of the morbid. Chiku, too, revelled in his father’s glory every time he shot pedestrians from his vantage point with his twin-battery powered plastic pistol.
“When he came back on Saturday a little later than usual, I questioned, of course,” Snigdha said in the conspiratory tone she reserved for special occasions. “He said he was talking to his parents back in his village. And here’s what he said next, word to word – ‘My father says he wants another grandson’.”
Tangy. Very tangy. “What did you say?”
“I told him if his dad wants another son, tell him to make one himself. I’m not doing it. Ugh, will it kill the vaani if he gave clean wheat for a change?” Snigdha pinched a pebble from her plate and flung it on the road.
Sanjana almost smiled before I spotted her father-in-law turning in her lane, holding a small packet wrapped of flowers in banana leaf to offer the Gods the next day during his morning ablutions. Snigdha spotted him too.
“Tea and khari?” she asked.
“You know the routine.” Sanjana sighed.
“Shouldn’t he stop already? My sister-in-law who is a doctor tells me one shouldn’t eat much of salt after 35. Her father died the same way.”
“Sooner…” Sanjana got up with a groan as a pang shot though her back, “the better.”
I heard Snigdha giggling as Sanjana dusted the back of my sari and went inside.
Two months later:
There is a line that has haunted me from the moment I wished myself bon voyage – ‘Slay thy darlings.’ To put it in context, there is a guide to writing that I read good old onceuponatime that talked about an author being his own editor. One, living with the perennial aspiration that whatever he writes will be quoted posthumously, fails to realize the gratuity of a number of incidents and ramblings. It is at such times that one is supposed to be brutal, dissociate oneself from oneself, and ‘slay’ his ‘darlings’.
I recall my primary sources that goaded me to this extent. “Whenever I get stuck, I pick up whatever book I have near me and start flipping through its pages,” says one. “Writing takes dedication. You create your own reality so you have to live in it. Every day if you can’t sit and write a few words, a couple of hundred for that matter, perhaps you’re not cut out to be one. Consider being a CEO. All he needs to pen is his signature,” says another. That’s harsh. “I exude write-ups. They are a part of my system. The day I don’t write, I feel myself falling down the myriad depths of hopelessness,” says yet another. Strange, I can pass off months in self-loathing.
What is my work? What is, to quote the marketing term, its USP? As one more says, “When is exposed to a lot of creativity, you don’t necessarily become creative. You only lose the ability to pin-point where you have derived your eureka from.”
These people make me think. In spite of my impressions and premonitions at the onset, I don’t particularly fancy Sanjana anymore. Hours tick by and anxieties creep in by the moment, I start wondering if anything is worth it at all when opinions are subjective and unanimity is mere Godliness; when perfection and art are mutually exclusive. But the immeasurable helplessness of an ego wanting to exact the projection of being a word-concubine, gratifying others for a greater purpose of gratifying self makes one pen on, flogging vowels and consonants at a jagged pace as the flow ebbs and surges with every word.
One moment I am a slave. The next, I am the master. I am my own empire. It is invaded by insecurities. Internal rebellion brews. But fight I will. I have to salvage my existence.
Bata was unequivocally the winner.
Shoes and sneakers, flip-flops and chappals – Kolhapuri to Jodhpuri, leather to rubber; and a lone pair of heels trampled the earth. Accustomed to the limbs of workmen by now, the Rajeshwari Nursery School ground was now subjected to poles erected the previous night for the construction of a dais against the backdrop of the school building. Loudspeakers stood like guarding knights on both sides of the stage, a red carpet leading up to the aisle divided twenty rows of rented Neelkamal chairs. And, of course, there was a shamiana with the open side facing the road so that the passers-by had a clear feast of the on-going ‘Orientation’, a relatively new word to the vocabulary of the town.
Parents and enrolled torchbearers came in hordes, so did many others reading the ‘Open for All’ standee outside the gate. Sanjana spectatored the gathering from a distance. You see a lot more when people don’t see you. The teachers’ meet was supposed to happen after the ‘Orientation’ so there wasn’t even a question of being recognized by any colleagues.
June morning shone in all its fury and the table fans provided little respite. As the time clocked 9, a hush spread over the crowd for a double chin trod on the carpet, ambling up to the dais, a sense of purpose dominating each step. The sound managers quickly checked the microphone and handed it over to a parched hand.
She tapped the microphone twice. “A very good morning to everyone,” a cheerful greeting rang in the air as residual sets of errant eyes descended on the speaker. “I shall take this opportunity to thank each one of you for taking out time from your Saturday morning siesta to be concerned about your child’s future. I am Rajeshwari Uchchal, the owner and Principal of this school.”
By now, she had managed to secure a majority in their attention span. Elders folded the pamphlets distributed to them at the gate and crumpled or neatly kept them in their pockets, laps and folders, as per their strata. I made one of the kids slapped on his nape by his father to induce concentration.
“I see many faces here – some new, some familiar, nervous, anticipating. So let me hurry up and tell you that I called upon each one of you here for one small story-session, for a story from my own life, a story that shaped me. Now for a little bit of background. You see, I completed my higher education in the America where…”
Rajeshwari took a deliberate sip of water. Smug, I reflect. By now though, the slapped kid had managed to wriggle out the pamphlet from his father’s kurta pocket and was folding the folds.
“…I stayed with my landlady, a mother of three. The youngest of her kids was the 5 year old Peter. One day, I spotted Peter busy with his colouring book. I went and sat by his side. The page he was colouring had a picture of a kid eating bread and butter. The standard American breakfast. The kid had a bowl of butter kept on a table, as he held a knife to slice the butter with and spread on the bread.”
Five. Sanjana watched irritated as the kid struggled with his sixth.
“Our Peter picks up a yellow colour-pencil and starts colouring the butter with it. ‘Arre arre,’ I try to stop him. ‘Butter is not yellow in colour’. ‘Yes it is,’ he insists. He is not completely wrong. They have processed butter there and it is yellow. But this kid wasn’t even aware that pure butter – the one we make in our own houses – is white. Now I want to reason with him that butter comes from milk; that milk is white so how can butter be yellow? Is paneer? Is ghee? So I ask him – ‘Where does butter come from?’ He tells me, ‘Supermarket.’”
Sharing Sanjana’s sentiment, the kid resorted to folding it diagonally. A few chuckles rippled through the listeners.
“Do we realize how much basics matter? Next story is about if we know that in the world today we can’t live without English. Do we realize that English is one such language where L-I-E-U-T-E-N-A-N-T is not pronounced ‘Lieutenant’ but ‘Left-a-nent’ and what we call a ‘kernel’ for C-O-L-O-N-E-L if written the way it is pronounced would mean grain of a cereal, usually enclosed in a husk or a nut, like a date? I learnt these lessons the hard way when I was giving the TOEFL exam, one that allows a person to fly out of the country.”
It was the turn of the soil to be toed with. The kid removed his flip-flops with blue straps and proceeded to draw non-geometrical shapes. Restlessness hounded Sanjana as she watched the rebel doing exactly what he wanted to. Repeated attempts at resolutely turning her head to the dais were betrayed by eyes inadvertently trickling to their corners.
“…and it is this very reason why I decided to start a school even if it meant sacrificing my father’s farm-land, the income from which allowed me to grow up and learn all these life lessons. So if there is one thing I can promise you would never have after enrolling your kids in this school, it is regret because I have had it and I have had enough.”
It was an interesting juncture that Rajeshwari’s speech had managed but the harried focal point of Sanjana’s attention was the boy. She wanted him to listen; she wanted him to be outclassed by hegemony. But the moment was crude and offered no immediate alternatives as I watched her dilemma in glee.
“However, there is a tricky part to it. Peter believed that butter was yellow because his mother never told him otherwise. Little Pinky here thinks that every night a bearded baba comes and stuffs naughty children who don’t sleep in his jute sack because her father told her so.”
‘Pinky’, sitting in her father’s lap, went red in the face even as her father smiled. Sanjana picked up a pebble.
“We never question what our parents say because they know best. And hence, for that very reason, this is not the school where you dump your kids during your office hours and pick them up after you are done.”
It had been a while since she had played gilli-danda or even tikkar-billa. Nevertheless, she aimed.
“This is the institution where each and every one of us here, we teach our kids. It is a place as much for parents as for teachers and students. So without any further ado, I wish to inaugurate our education.”
A pebble hit his forehead. Palms joined in in appreciation. Sanjana looked away quickly and Rajeshwari beamed as the kid wailed. He was dragged away and two slaps consigned to his left cheek for being juvenile. I was a witness and shall testify under oath. However, by later that day, Sanjana forgot her misdeed during the teachers’ meeting as she became one of many and the kid, too, drowned his sorrow in holding the chakri as his elder brother flew kites and deliriously joined in the victory-chant ‘Ooppaar!’ after downing a rival.
…
Sanjana looked at it. The spiral bound pages stared back defiantly.
Attendance Log
Sanjana Sawant
Class I
1991-92
White crisp sheets waited to be marked. She looked up and found herself staring at a sea of puny creatures buzzing, each voice culminating into the homogenous bustle. From digging into their bags to scratching themselves, the kids were tuned out to the presence of the authority, if not oblivious of it. Sanjana decided to test them and coughed. The front benchers stiffened. Sanjana…
I pick up and throw my laptop aside.
A week later:
Before journeying on to my emotional spiral, I had talked to my mentor. “Write what you know,” she had bottom-lined. Reeking of ambition, I made a broth of all my years, condensed the best bits and sprinkled my aspirations and desires in it. I recalled everything I had read, everything that was unpalatable with it and solemnly promised myself not to trample on their wrongs. But 2 weeks later, I realize acumen can’t be hunted for, it lies within and within me lies none. I can’t rid me of myself. Come to think of it, I have found an identity. Greetings. I am Nowt A. Wrighter. How may I assist you?
Writing makes stalkers out of nobles, voyeurs out of priests. For our own gains, we are to shadow each step of our puppets; for attainment of ‘depth’, we are to sink to their ignoble standards; and for avoiding myopia, we are to infidel our protagonist. We are pimps at best, peddling our bounty – measly to the lavish – hoping to extract literary orgasms for the price of your time.
I am grateful for the time you spent on me expecting me to lead you somewhere and scrupulously apologetic for the disillusionment. I am no wordsmith; I am no creative-whore. I resign myself to reality while simultaneously escaping into a haze of intoxication. I am packing my bags. I can’t do this anymore. I sign off. So long.
