Dead Worried

It has been four minutes since I died.

My wife sleeps next to what had been me, unaware of the corpse, which was once her husband that lies next to her.

She will be up in the next couple of hours. By habit, she will do her daily prayers and ablutions and set some tea on fire before coming back to wake me up.

Then I am afraid, all hell will break loose.

I hope God takes me away before this transpires. Nothing such has happened yet. I haven’t seen any light or any such thing. I am still here.

Formless and shapeless. Hopeful. Peaceful. Waiting.


One hour since death

My wife shifts slightly in her sleep. I want to reach out to her, hold her and comfort her. I want to tell her not to worry and that I am there for her.

I fear that she will awaken and ask for the bottle of water that always lies on my side of the bed.

We argued before going to bed last night – on some trivial issue. On lending some money to her cousin brother whom I never really liked. For someone who had taken voluntary retirement a few months back, it is difficult to take the liberty with money the way young people do.

My children take liberty with money. I have two sons. Both married, great jobs, on a high, and spending more than they should. I have tried to talk sense into them. They hear my ranting and respectfully ignore me. No one listens to an old man.

They take after me. I did not listen to my old man.

I married my wife against my fathers wishes. It was meant to be an arranged match. We had visited her house to see her. I, a London educated graduate, working with a bank in Bombay (as it as called then), was a price catch.

My father, a traditionalist with right wing leanings, would only settle for the best.

‘Best’ for him was defined by the size of my potential father in laws bank balance and his willingness to part with a large chunk of it in dowry. ‘Best’ was also defined by the colour of my potential wife’s skin. My father’s son had lived and dined with fair men and of course he had to have a fair wife.

The girl we have travelled to see that day did not qualify. It was a mistake. My father said he realised this the minute the taxi drew into the lower middle class suburb. He would have turned around right then if not for my uncle, who had recommended the match, and who had helped my father financially for my expensive education.

A grim father and an obedient son walked through an open door into a little house that announced aloud that it belonged to a mid-level government servant.

Sparse, minimalistic, functional and definitely not to my fathers taste.

We were greeted by many joyous, rotund relatives and a bald, sombre, humble father. The usual tiffin was served with laddoos wrestling with chaklis and chivda for space in the little plates brought out for each of us by rotound relatives.

“Where is the girls mother. Does she not have the courtesy to come and greet guests” my father whispered loudly to my uncle.

“She died when the girl was little”

“How can my son marry a girl that has not learnt the ways of women from her mother. Will she know how a good daughter in law is expected to conduct herself” my father must have thought. Thankfully he did not say it out loud.

The usual small talk followed with my father answering in monosyllables and sarcasm and I, Mr. London educated eligible commodity, cowered with timidity.

It was then, thankfully, that respite walked in the form of the eyes.

All I could see in her when she walked in were the eyes. She was all eyes and I was all eyes. Eyes met. Eyes spoke. Eyes explored. Eyes questioned. Eyes answered. Eyes were loving and tender and laced with dew. Eyes walked gracefully and sat opposite me. Eyes were bashful. Eyes were shy. Eyes were confident. Eyes told stories that no one else but me could see. Eyes hypnotised. I levitated.

Eyes could melt ice.

I melted.

The obedient son/slave of the father now enslaved by a vision seen through those eyes.

Vision of the eyes beholding me, tempting me and seducing me while I made tender love, each night, to the possessor of the eyes. A vision of them looking over me, lovingly, each morning while I slept. Eyes that would warn me of harm, comfort me in despair, guide me through life, and direct me when I wandered.

Eyes named Nethra.

While I was all eyes my father saw things differently. Nethra was dark and she was talkative and she was opinionated and her father did not own a bank.

My father walked out of the house in ten minutes. I followed meekly.

My soul stayed back and lingered.

For a month more I saw more girls than there were days. I saw all kinds. I found an excuse for them all.

My father was growing increasingly impatient and agitated.

I had to act.

I did.

When I wasn’t working or visiting sundry potential wives, I started frequenting the area where she lived.

Thank God I smoked.

Thank God I bought my cigarettes from a corner-store while I awaited the eyes to walk around the corner. On the eighth day they did. They walked into the store to buy bread and milk. Thank god for stores in India that stock and sell everything.

“Oh! Hello”

“Ha.. Hi” (I think I had farted out of shock.)

“What are you doing here”

“Nothing much. Had come to see a friend who stays close by. He is not at home so I thought I will wait here for him”

“Smoking is injurious to health”

“There are other things that are killing me right now”. (Shit. What did I say. I wanted to chew on the burning cigarette and make a hole in my tongue. Idiot. I was. I am.)

Giggle. (Oooh! She is soo cute.) “What???”

“No. Nothing. So you come to this store often” (Yeah. What a great conversationalist I am)

“Yes. We have an account here. So we pay at the end of the month. I come here every morning after I visit the market”

“What time??” (What an idiot. Go slow idiot.)

Giggle. (Please don’t do that… don’t giggle... It is doing things to me that you cant imagine) “Between 9:30 and 10:30”

Shit! Shit, Shit Shit…. I am at work at that time.

From the next day, I got to work two hours late each morning. Some in my office thought that my father was ailing. Others thought it was my mother.

And then it started. The wheel started turning and I could not bring myself to stop it.

I had to tell my father.

I did.

And all hell broke loose.

Then I broke loose.

We eloped. We got married at a temple with only a few friends of mine representing both the groom and the bride. Not, by far, the proper Indian wedding circus.

I also knew that I had to get out of the city. My father was friends with some right wing politicians (goons) and I knew his ego was bigger than his love for me. Another day and all the grime in the city would be hunting for us.

I took a friend’s old battered Fiat, most of his money and whatever little I had saved and drove out of the city. My heart beating a drum each time we passed a check-post.

We left the car with my friend’s uncle in Ahmedabad and took a train to Delhi. From Delhi we travelled aimlessly in cheap government busses.

I remember the first time we made love. In a bus stand lavatory at Gorakhpur. I know. It isn’t romantic. But we were on the move and too scared to stay for the night in any one place. We were young and our hormones got the better of us. And so in a foul smelling ladies lavatory at an isolated government bus stand, the newly wed couple consummated their marriage for the first time.

We travelled further up and I started breathing again only after we reached Sunauli, a border town in Nepal. We travelled further up to Kathmandu and stayed there, blissfully, in bed, for two months, till the money was nearly over. Then it was back to Bombay.

Back in Bombay, I realised that I had lost my job.

My father got me the job and my father took it away. He had not forgotten and he would never forgive. Thankfully he had accepted that what had occurred could not be undone.

The first few years still rankle. We stayed in a friend’s apartment until I found a low paying job in a textile mill. We then moved into a one-room ‘chawl’ in Byculla.

From Byculla, I rebuilt my life. I managed to find another job in a bank and in time, life blessed us with two sons, a larger house and reasonable prosperity.

My father never spoke to me till he died. My mother died a few months after I eloped. I would like to believe that she was probably tortured to death by my father for bringing a wretch like me into this world. Into his world.

I have never grieved for them.

I was too busy playing prisoner to the eyes.

I have been imprisoned for life.

Now even death has failed to secure a release.

And it is two hours since I died and its is time for her to wake up.


Two hours since death

I worry for her. Who would believe that the soul (or am I a ghost) worries after death. But I do. I wonder how she will live her life now that I am gone. I am not sure if she knows where I keep all my documents and information. She has never had to pay a bill by herself. She has never wanted to know how much money I have saved or about the insurance or the investments. I have never told her much.

My children lead their own lives. They live separately. They lead busy lives. They have no time for our middle aged bones. They do visit occasionally but I don’t think that they would be comfortable having their mother stay with them.

She doesn't even bloody take her medicines on time. She spent her entire life looking after me and the children and with time she has forgotten herself completely. Her health has been failing in recent years. She has diabetes and high blood pressure.

I took voluntary retirement only to take care of her. And since then she is completely reliant on me. She eats when I eat and I have to cajole her to take her medicines. She had become my baby for the second time in our lives. We were planning to go on a pilgrimage up north. I had booked our tickets last week. Our second road trip.

But now I am FUCKING dead.

And I have waited for two fucking hours for God to take me. To Release me.

And I have come to realise that there is no God.

The Sweet Taste of Salt

Shazia walked up the stairs. Slowly. Her heart pounding. She legs heavy, like tons of lead. She felt the shackles, that society had put on her, as a woman, dragging her down as she walked up. She felt her desires piercing her mind, one needle at a time. She felt breathless, claustrophobic. The old, dirty, paan stained walls around her appeared to move slowly and come together to crush her. She walked up slowly towards her mousetrap, her one room cage, with all its animals waiting for their banquet - eager to feast on her desires. She was scared. But she had to tell them today.

A thousand thoughts with each step taken. Her life flew by her. She could see her childhood and her father. A policeman stuck for perpetuaty in the bottom rung of the police force and imprisoned in the bottle of cheap whiskey he consumed each night, drowning his frustrations at his pint-sized-life in the gold coloured poison-nectar. He would drink his sorrows and then come home to beat his wife and his children. Two boys and one girl. The girl, his eldest, and, in his opinion, the inauspicious wretch who destroyed his destiny along with his whore of a wife. The whore of a wife who he would fuck each night, after beating her up, while the children pretended to sleep. He beat them every night. With his fists, his belt buckle or with any weapon he could find in his drunken stupor. They hid the knives, each night, in the neighbour’s house. The one time he got his hands on a kitchen knife, he cut Shazia’s forearms and let her bleed until the terrified and pleading neighbours finally took her to a hospital. She still had the scars. He beat them everyday until she was fifteen and till his liver finally, fed up of him, delivered him to his end.

After her father died, they moved to her grandmothers house. The tyrant’s mother and mother of all tyrants. Shazia’s mother worked in the houses of the rich, cleaning their grime and helping them shine. Then she came home and cleaned the grime at home while the tyrant's mother, in her chair by the window, said the rosary.

Shazia went to school along with her brothers and excelled while they just about managed. As a ritual, they beat her up every year on the annual results day to wipe the smirk off her face each time she topped the class. They beat her every year until she finally hit back at the eldest brother. She hit him with his hockey stick and cracked open his chin. They never hit her again. But her grandmother almost stopped her school because of the incident and Shazia’s mother had to fight, grovel and plead to get her back into school. The grandmother finally agreed but not before her mother agreed to hand over every rupee of her income each month.

Shazia’s mother, to her, came before God. God never suffered at the hands of men. Men, the cruel bastards’ had use for women only as a body that satisfied their carnal desires or as a womb that protected them. She had experienced the wretched life of women in her society. A woman’s life is never her own. She can never have her own mind. She can never speak her mind. When she is a child and before she is married her life is run by the father. After marriage, her life is run by her husband and after the husbands death; she is dependent on her sons. No one understood women and no one wanted to. God did not understand women either. God, after all, is not a woman.

Shazia could never say no to her mother. Her mother loved her. Her mother had fought tooth and nail to give her an education. She had fought the tyrant’s mother and the tyrant’s sons to allow Shazia to take up a job. Not that it was much of a job. She made peanuts. But at least she was away from hell for ten hours a day.

Shazia had only one more floor to climb. She had been preparing for this day for months now. But she knew that this one time, even her mother would not understand. She was, after all, a product of the same society. Speaking to her mother, was what Shazia feared the most. Mother had battled men, poverty and the society all her life. But this would be the last straw. This would hurt. This would break her mother’s spirit. Mother would never agree. And Shazia could never say no to her mother.

Shazia worked in an old part of the city in an ancient establishment and had an unfulfilling job as an accounts assistant. She could do so much more. She was made for so much more. If only she wasn’t to be born a woman. If only she was born elsewhere, in another family, in another society, in another land, she would have archived so much more. Yet, she felt, it was better than cooking and cleaning in that chicken-coop of a kitchen.

Most importantly, she had ten hours each day of her life at her disposal.

And she had found love.

It was nearly a year now. In her twenty years on earth, she had never felt the emotions she experienced in the last one year. She felt buoyant and exhilarated. She felt wanted in her lovers arms. Love felt like a steady drizzle on a hot and humid summer morning. Lemon flavoured raindrops. Consistent, wet, fragrant, and refreshing - washing away the years of pain, agony, fear, and unhappiness. Love was like a floating feather and Shazia had found herself levitating, her feet always a few inches above the ground. Love scorched – making love in hot summer afternoons. Love was naughty and tickled. Love was risky and asked many questions. Love made her lie - to her mother for the first time in years. But love was never guilty. Love was faultless. Love was her only desire and her only hope. Love was also her only fear.

Shazia found herself smiling, thinking of love, at her doorstep. And then she realised. She was home. The smile disappeared. She walked in. Her head bent low, her eyes searching the floor - with dignity and humility, she walked in. She dropped her bags on the table and paid her respects to her grandmother, who refused to die, and was always seated on her chair, close to the only window in the room, a rosary in her hand. She hugged her mother and went to the little space in the corner of the room, designated as the bathing area to wash her feet. Each time one of the women had a bath, everyone else had to leave the house. The three toilets, shared, by the other ten families who lived on her floor were in the corner towards the right end of the floor. Chicken-coop for the soul.

Shazia, went into the toilet and locked the door. The smell of faeces hit her senses but that didn’t bother her. She had grown up in this place and the toilet was the only place she had any privacy. Not in the morning though, when everyone from the ten families lined up for their chance, a bucket full of water in their hands. She closed her eyes and gathered courage. She had to tell them today. Tomorrow would be too late.

Tomorrow would bring home the suitor her grandmother had found her. He would come with his extended family and she would be required to cover her face and serve them sweet tea and salty savouries. They would ask a few questions which her grandmother would answer and then it would be over. She knew that the events that would unfold tomorrow were only a formality. Her grandmother had already decided her fate - she would marry the balding son of her distant relative. She had seen a photograph and the man looked, according to her, like a bollywood villain, with paan stained teeth and a potbelly. But no one would ask her for an opinion. It was decided and she would be required to comply - with the dignity and humility required of a young woman in her society.

Her only hope was her mother. But she knew that this time, even her mother would not agree. She had tried for months to gather the courage, and yet, if her grandmother had not forced her hand by trying to get her to marry potbelly, she would never have managed to muster the courage to speak to her mother. Now she had to and she was scared.

She did not care for what they would think of her or the names that they would call her. She was prepared for the beating she would get at the hands of her brothers. She was prepared for the trial that she would have to face at the hands of relatives that her grandmother would gather, to deliver her to eternal damnation. She could fight them all. But she could not fight her mother. She could not think of breaking her mothers heart.

But she also knew that she had to try. It was her one last attempt at life.

Slowly, she walked out of the hell-hole she had locked herself in and walked into the hell that was waiting for her. She saw God at the stove, preparing chapattis for the evening meal. The devil, on her chair, praying her rosary with eyes wide open, watching, on TV, a young couple running around trees in an old hindi movie. A little devil, having just walked in and flung his shoes in the corner, sitting on the floor with his sweet tea and glucose biscuits.

Softly she said “Mummy, Can I speak to you for a minute”

“Bolo Beta” mother smiled a mother's smile

“Mummy. I wanted to tell you something. Please tell me you won’t get angry”

“Jaldi bolo beta” said mother, now impatient, her attention taken away from the chapattis.

“Maa… I can’t marry… please ma….please don’t hate me…. I…. I am in love ma... I love this person from my office…. I can’t marry that man grandmother brought…. I…. I love…. I love this girl called Deepti ma”

Mother loves Jeremy

Jeremy was worried. The man was sitting right across him. The man had been looking right at him for the last half an hour. Every time Jeremy looked up, the man scowled at him. Jeremy glared back. He was at this swanky nightclub with friends. It was a friend’s birthday. It was his first time at a nightclub and he did not want to spoil it by getting into a fight. The friends were new. Jeremy was just two months into his first year in college. Everyone around him was new.

The music throbbed. Jeremy could hear it thud through his chest. He felt his heart pounding to the music. This was fun. Jeremy could never afford to get into a place like this by himself.

The man was scowling at him again. The man was running his fingers through his sideburns. Jeremy could feel the sweat on his sideburns. He was sweating but yet he felt cold. The smell of alcohol and cigarette smoke mixed with the odor of sweat, room freshener, cheap perfume and stale food. An assault to the senses. Yet exhilarating. Strange places, these nightclubs.

Mother had told him not to go. No wonder.

Jeremy had lost his father when he was thirteen. Jeremy’s father had married late. His mother much too young for his father. Much too young to become a widow.

She brought him up teaching kindergarten at a local school. They never had much. They had each other. They had enough. Jeremy had to do well. He was his mother’s last hope. Jeremy excelled at school. Jeremy got a scholarship. Jeremy got admission into the swanky college.

Jeremy looked at him again. The man was glaring now. Jeremy glared back. The man looked familiar. He looked like his father. No. He thought he looked like his father. Very peculiar similarities. But then the bastard was dead. The old bastard was dead.

“I will kill the bastard if he looks at me again” thought Jeremy and looked up again. The man was still scowling, a strange look on his face. Jeremy thought he saw a half smile. A sinister, sarcastic half smile.

Jeremy’s blood boiled. Jeremy stood up. The man stood up as well. This was going to be a fight. A full blown bloody fight. Jeremy had never fought before. Mother had told him not to. Jeremy was his mothers only hope. Mother was protective. Mother loved him. Jeremy could never afford to get into a fight. Jeremy never got into a fight. Until now.

The bastard looked like his father. His fucking father. His old fucking father who fucked his mother’s life. Jeremy had enough of his father. Jeremy had enough of his mother‘s wailing about how her family destroyed her life by getting her married to an old man. “Lets get this done and dusted with, you fucking son of a bitch. I want to fuck you motherfucker. I want to fuck you till you die motherfucker. Come get me motherfucker”.

This was it. The man rushed at Jeremy. Jeremy had never been in a fight before. There was something in the mans hand. Something rolled up. “Fight back” Jeremy told himself. “Fight the bastard and finish him. Do it for mother”

But Jeremy felt weak. He felt the music pounding inside his rib cage. The lights were blinding him. “I am scared” thought Jeremy. “I don’t want to die”.

The man was nearly upon Jeremy. Jeremy found himself frozen. His legs wouldn’t move. He raised his hands to cover his face. The man was now upon him. He shoved the thing from his hand into Jeremy’s nose. It felt like paper. The man’s face an inch away from Jeremy’s. Jeremy pushed the man away but it was too late. He felt something run up his nasal cavity. He felt it in his head. He felt his brain explode into many different colors.

Beautiful colors. Beautiful colors in formation. Beautiful colors forming shapes he never knew before. Beautiful colors never seen before. Beautiful colors running riot. Beautiful colors alight. Beautiful colors in the sky. Beautiful colors making love. Beautiful colors… orgasmic passion. Beautiful colors of God. Beautiful colors are God.

Something. Something happened. Something happened again. His brain coming together. His colorful brain coming together. Another explosion. His brain exploded. No stupid. The colors exploded. No. Wasn’t the colors. Something else. FUCK

Jeremy could see again. He could see the man’s face now. The man was looking at him. He wasn’t scowling. He wasn’t glaring. He wasn’t smiling. Was he crying? Jeremy’s vision was getting clearer. The man was crying. Blood dripping from his nose, forming a little stream from the nose to the lips and then dropping to the floor in the form of little red raindrops. Jeremy could hear the sound of the little red raindrops hit the floor. Pitter Patter rain drops. Sound amplified.

Jeremy’s vision was getting clearer. The man looked so much like his father. No. Wait. The man did not look like his father. The man was not his father. He realized. He finally knew. It was him. It was him all along. He had done it. It was him all along. He knew now. He realized. Mother was right. Mother loved me. He wanted to cry. He tried to cry. He couldn’t cry

He couldn’t cry. Something exploded in his brain again. He could see all the colours exploding again. This time exploding outside in and forming a rotating blob of red. The blob was moving. It was moving down his brain. No. It was not moving. It was spreading. He could feel the blob move into his eyes blocking his vision. The blob changed color. The blob was black. It moved into his nose. Christ… He can’t breathe…. It’s in his mouth now… turning his tongue down his throat. His tongue is in his throat…choking him. Its moving again… the blob is in his vertebral column…. he is numb now. Shit… it’s in his chest too… moving faster… gushing in… Oh… this is soothing… calming… he likes the blob in his chest… he can feel the throbbing of the music slow down…. he is getting better…. The throbbing is really slow now… slower… slower…. It’s so peaceful…. Its gonna be fine… he wants to sing… black is a beautiful color… slower… Jesus… Jesus is black… Jesus is slow…

The throbbing is slower…Jesus is slower…slower…slower… slow… slo… sl… s.. ss… sss… ssss…. sssss…. sssssss…. sssssss.. sssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss

Silence. Peace

Mother walked in silence. She walked up the stairs. This was the second time she walked up those stairs.

She walked up the stairs the first time to collect the body of her husband. This time..... She broke down. Jeremy loved mother. Mother loved Jeremy. He was her only hope.

And he was lost. Lost Forever. To drugs. His first time….. his own choice…and his last breath.

Making a Case for Singledom

I am now pushing the outer limits of what our society defines as being of a “marriageable age”. My friends who have grown up with me appear to be falling like nine pins all around me. As they fall, I see a number of these strong fellow dissenters turning conformists. At every given opportunity, on every given occasion, over every single drink, after every few sentences, these new born believers make all possible efforts to draw me into their ranks.

In no time have they moved from drawing up lists of potential downsides to sermonizing on the many apparent virtues. Non-acceptance and strong arguments against these sermons are now looked down upon as “poor” excuses of an unreasonably adamant mind.

And add to that mix a very strong portion of "concerned" relatives. If you dont get the picture yet... your possibly married...

But I refuse to be cowed down. I stand tall as a dissenter. And my rationale… Tim Harford has been able to articulate my thought process best in his book “The Logic of Life”, he writes:

“Imagine a young man who is thinking of trying a new drug. He knows that everybody who tries it loves it, at least at first. Then some users find their lives degenerate into an increasingly desperate and futile attempt to recapture the initial buzz, leading to the pain of cold turkey or the anguish of eternal, unfulfilling addiction. Others seem to enjoy the highs and remain quite content for the rest of their lives. He has no way of knowing into which category he will fall. Is it rational for him to ingest the drug?

Now, replace ‘drugs’ with ‘marriage’ and ‘quitting’ with ‘divorce’ in the above paragraph.

I am yet to know, with any degree of certainty, on the category that I belong to. And I am happy to wait patiently for enlightenment.

And while I wait, I am busy enjoying every minute of ignorance. I am free. Free to come and go as I please without having to answer to anyone. Meet, interact and love as many wonderful women as I can. Indulge in as many vices as my conscience allows.

Free from guilt and free from the sort of personal responsibility and accountability that, to me at least, appears to add little value. Free to put the most productive phase of my life to optimum use.

For those who make a case for the need for companionship in the long run - In the long run we are all dead. Why bother.

I am happy. I love my life mate… And I don’t do drugs :-)