Chapter 16 - Scribbling on Paper

She was scribbling onto her notebook. Beneath her pen, figures of different shapes and sizes came to life. On that piece of paper, among the horizontal lines with nothing to read between them and the company logo on top trying to escape from the boundary of the page, she could play creator. She drew a girl rather wiry and slender, standing with her hands hanging from the shoulders like sticks. In one hand she drew a beautiful ladies’ purse, the other one she left dangling with fingers reaching out for something she hadn’t yet drawn. She gave her beautiful long hair and a ribbon to tie it up neatly. On her face she pasted a sweet smile and to make her pretty she drew long eyelashes that would flicker in the most elegant and enchanting manner. She looked at the girl long and hard and felt her loneliness within the page. She gave her a nice home, some hills to go with it and the rising sun that would spread light into her life. In the white skies (oh how she wished she could color them blue), she created some clouds. Yet the wiry figure didn’t have a soul to share this happy scene with. So she drew her a companion, another wiry figure with dangling hands and pointy hair. The paper calendar with pictures of boats began to flutter with unusual excitement. Perhaps somebody had opened a window and let in some stray wind. The dates of the calendar popped out like bubbles and appeared before her like hovering helicopters.

“This is Tuesday, and I came to office and went back home. This Wednesday, and I came to office and went back home. This is yesterday and I had coffee with someone.”
And she looked around her instantly to see if anyone had heard her or seen the hovering dates in the air.
“Yesterday I didn’t want to meet him. He is a nice guy really.”
“Cough, cough”, somebody in the next cubicle coughed. Meenakshi decided it was too hazardous to try the Shakespearian monologue during office hours. So she penned her thoughts below the happy scrawny figures.

I don’t think I could describe him. I am not very good at that. I remember it was crowded at the coffee house. I feel so self-conscious going to the coffee house these days. I have been there so many times; I probably know every coffee cup in that place. But it’s the memory that place holds for me that frightens me. A bit like some of Mrs. Krishnan’s photo albums. Every time I go into her cabin it feels like I am encroaching into her family space. Two little kids play with balloons right behind her. The bald man sits next to her with his arms around her. She, looking at the bald man after every sentence, waiting for that practiced scratch of the French beard to indicate he was mulling it over followed by his serene smile of approval. And if I were to say something she didn’t like, I can almost see both of them scowling at me at the same time, even the kids running up to me trying to burst their balloons over my head. I get the same feeling in the coffee shop.

Even the waiter gave me that curious look, asking me what I was doing in that place with someone else. He took the orders with a smirk.
He said, “What will you have today?” and it sounded like a reproachfully avuncular “What’s wrong with the world today?”
He said, “Should I bring you the Iced Café Mocha?” and it sounded like “Should I tell him all about it?”
He asked, “What about you sir?”” and he silently added the “Who the hell are you anyways?”
He brought the coffee with a vengeance and even the coffee cups curled their lips and let out an “Ewww… look at her” and turned away their faces from her, like the plastic beauties at Sophia college.

In between we spoke some sentences to each other. Sentences like line graphs that rose up with rising investor confidence and dropped down when the earnings didn’t meet market expectations. Every sentence overlapping another, taking a different shape but always dipping down in the end, fading away into oblivion. I must have annoyed him a bit forever looking nervously to my left, as if Maan was sitting there next to me like he usually does, shaking his legs and knocking his knees against mine all the time. He glanced that way again and again. Sometimes it seemed both of us were speaking to an invisible Maan, with me looking nervously to see if Maan’s expression changed and he following my gaze every time. I could picture the invisible Maan enjoying all this with a sinister smile on his face. He has two different smiles you know. The beatific smile when he is looking at the sea or sometimes when he is just watching me do something else. Then there is the sinister lopsided smile with his big eyes the one that tells you that he knows everything you are thinking. Wish I could take a paper napkin and wipe that smile of his face, along with that speck of sandwich bread sticking to the corner of his mouth. Ram tried his best with the line graphs, but then eventually even he sat back and grew silent like me. After a while we were in different worlds I think. Atleast I was.

Until the waiter came back, placed the receipt and said, “Anything else?” but meant, “Hope you are done with this charade.” I don’t think I am going back to that place. But it has become such a habit, going to that coffee shop. It’s what happens to lovers having a tiff. They say they will never see each other again and then they are back again. It’s what happens to some married couples that have been married so long that both have learnt that no matter how much they quarrel they will still come back to each other. It gives them a perverse pleasure in saying things like “I am leaving and won’t come back ever” and the response, “Yes, don’t come back”. Then you hear the door banging and a long silence after which she is in her room sniffling and speaking with her sister or best friend and he is watching TV and thinking if he has been too rude to her. Hours later, after the mandatory dramatic scenes have been enacted they are back to that familiar status quo. Then there are those scary situations when it doesn’t really end in status quo. When one actually leaves and never returns. Both wait for each other and neither makes any attempt at reconciliation. They separate and live separately for so long that they eventually learn to live without each other.

We left the café and he asked to meet me on Saturday evening. I said I would think about it. I don’t think I noticed anything unpleasant about Ram. But then I don’t think I noticed him much. Kept thinking why Mom had pushed me into this. I told her I needed some more time, but then she said “Just meet him once for coffee, he is a nice boy.” This is it; I have seen him for coffee now. Does it mean anything? He did seem the proverbial nice boy. Something in his demeanor made one feel very comfortable in his company. He is not the one who would bowl you over by his charisma. No he isn’t anything like Maan. But he might be that nice, homely person, the very marriageable kind whom most girls would prefer to get married to.

I can’t blame Mom really. She has been worried about me. The last time we met I had lost some weight and had that puffed up face with an unconvincing smile plastered upon it that valiantly tries to deny what is so obvious to everybody else. She saw through the ruse with the same expert instinct with which she can tell the cook that the ‘dal’ needs some salt without even tasting it. It felt so nice going back to her and hugging her. Felt so safe and secure. And I could see the reflection of my sadness in her face. Like it happens when we find empathy and understanding, tears that had welled up in my eyes for days streamed down ceaselessly. I wasn’t crying so much for what I had been through in the preceding few weeks, but for what I had only just realized. That no matter what happens my mom and dad would always be by my side. Poor Maan never had that privilege. I don’t know why I am not so angry with him and despite all that has happened still wish him well. I know he never really intended to hurt me. That he was probably just as angry with himself as I was with him.

My father never understood that. He had inquired about me from Mom and heard it all from her and he proceeded to preach me with that familiar tone in his voice that I have grown so accustomed to hearing since I was a little girl. It’s a tone of voice so absolute that it permits no difference of opinion. I was in no mood to play the role of the rebellious girl that I have been playing for a few years now. I don’t want to hurt them anymore. He was really concerned about me, and even asked me to return from Mumbai. It is something I have been contemplating seriously. The impermanence and transience of Mumbai is getting a bit tough for me to handle. Mumbai doesn’t just move fast, it ‘moves on’ even faster. The beggar on the street cries out loud and the cars move on as fast as they possibly can. A girl is raped in the local train in front of so many passengers but people are too busy to even notice. The heavens pour in so much rain that many lose their lives and so many are rendered homeless. But the next day, Mumbai has already moved on and forgotten all about it. This city must have a very short memory. It is a city always looking forward, thinking about its bright future. A bit like Maan, I think. This city is not for people like me with immaculate memories. How every date sticks to my mind like a post-it note, complete with all necessary details. How all the things we did are so indelibly inserted into my memory. How even the coffee cups speak to me. How the rocks that hold together Nariman Point, seem to be falling apart these days. How the little boy who served so many cups of tea is nowhere to be seen these days.

May be I really should accept the job offer in Chennai and go back home to the warm embrace of Mom and the steady, unconditional permanence it has to offer. Even the heat and humidity of Chennai is so unwavering and relentless. It is something that would never abandon you. The perspiration never leaves you; clings to you so reassuringly like a motherless puppy dog. Chases you around wherever you go. Adopts you as its mother and sticks to you so that you can never shake it off you. What is it that they say about the Chennai auto drivers? Atleast the auto drivers would always be so consistent in their mendacity. They will always try to cheat you whenever you let down your guard and begin to trust them. Every election would bring down the ruling government. The new Government would promptly reverse all the policies. All work in progress would be promptly undone. New policies would be implemented which would, of course, again be reversed after 5 years. Nobody is even surprised by it. They all expect it to happen, like they expect it to rain during the monsoon season. Chennai is just so dependable. Even when it lets you down you somehow always knew that it would let you down.

Yet it feels nice to hold on to the memories. These are happy memories. And it is tough to run away from these memories. I like to be reminded of them these days. I might smile to myself while I am reminiscing and the person in front of me might grow unnerved and wonder if I was really smiling at him/her. The city of Mumbai is special perhaps because of these memories. So many millions live here, live through such hardship and all of them perhaps sustain themselves through the fuel of their personal happy memories besides of course of the hope that things will one day get better. You could call it a sea of collective memories. May be even I have my personal hope that I still cling on to. A vague, intangible thing, this hope is. It understands no logic. It ignores common sense. It would certainly flunk all possible tests in science courses in schools. Surely hope must be a student of the arts, vividly imaginative and so irrepressible. Hope is what the teachers in class call “a hopeless case.” You can imagine the parents of hope meeting up the teachers during a Parents Teacher’s Meeting. The teacher would say, “No future for Hope if he continues this way.” The concerned parents would mutter, “But, but, he is such a bright cheerful boy…” and the teachers would shake their heads grimly saying “No hope for Hope”. At home the parents would point at all the red marks on the report sheet and scold Hope left and right. They would try to beat some sense into his head. Hope would look at them teary eyed, refusing to believe a single word being said to him. Hope would admit no self-doubt. Hope would see amid the several red marks a few glistening blue marks. Hope would crawl back to his room and draw scrawny stick people on his science homework sheet.

Meenakshi scratched off the scrawny stick girl and boy she had drawn. She blackened every feature of her face ruthlessly with her pen. She scratched the pen so hard that it must have hurt the poor stick girl. Yet it was obvious from Meenakshi’s face, who was hurting more. She drew black teardrops leaking from the girl’s eyes. She drew a dark sky with dark clouds and big black drops of rain. As she stared at the stick girl she felt this indescribable sadness overwhelm her. She felt a sharp pain in her chest and an intolerable feeling of vacuity in herself. As if there was a hole in her. As if her whole world would collapse into the singularity of that black hole within her. Tears streamed down from her eyes and mingled with the black rain from the black skies in her drawing. The face of the stick girl dissolved into the dark cesspool along with her lovely eyelashes and beautiful long hair. The pretty, innocent girl who only knew happiness was now gone for good. Dissolved in the dirty cesspool of hopelessness. She had this terrible desire to cry out loud at the world. Her face contorted to let out a terrible scream of anguish. But there was no sound. Only tears dropping from her eyes.

The voice in the next cubicle went “Cough, cough”.
She crumpled the paper and held it tightly in her fist. Then she methodically tore it into pieces and dropped it into the waste paper basket. She wiped the tears from her eyes with a determined deliberateness and went back to her work.