Stalker

If I were to visit a psychiatrist with the mental state I am in, he might accuse me of being a voyeur, but believe me I don’t take pleasure in peeking into other people’s lives so I am not a voyeur. I just do it because I am bored and pretty much have nothing else to do. The story I am going to unfold took place over a year ago. Those were desperate times for me. I was sick and tired of being a loner back then and I was looking for a relationship of my standards, and quite frankly I had set myself very high standards. 

I love entering other’s lives, nudging their doors open in a quiet, noiseless way, being their uninvited, invisible guest. It really puts me on edge. Glancing at people through the peep holes of their social networks (especially Facebook) seeing their lives, their moments of happiness, their times of tragedies, making assessment of those and comparing them to the data of my own life tantalises me. It entices and invites me. It is my favorite and only pastime in a room radiating absolute boredom and dullness diffusing from every corner.

It was a chilly winter evening when it happened. I was preparing tea in the kitchen when I heard that irresistible sound of a Facebook notification. It was from a group called “WORD FIGHTER”— those kinds of groups where rookies with a very limited sense of rhymes and poetry judge themselves as poets and act as though they are Keats or Wordsworth. On a normal evening, I wouldn’t have dared to enter that group, but it was the dullest evening of my life so I checked it out anyway. There was a crappy poem from my friend Angela moaning about how her boyfriend dumped her and how love hurts so no one should ever fall in love and other depressing rubbish; I was just about to exit from that group when I saw something. Some girl named Alonika Sharma had commented on Angela’s poem. She wrote, “He was not your true love anyway. You should get over him and try searching for true love again. Say goodbye to minor bumps and be ready for the journey of life”. Such cheesy lines of consolations, I joked in my mind. It was not those lines that got me drew me towards her. It was her name. Alonika, what a weird name, I thought and within a few seconds I found myself looking at her Facebook profile.

Alonika Sharma, boy she must be alone then I chuckled. From her photos, she appeared to be in her late teens, with a fair complexion, and maybe had a height of about five foot two. Wow, I thought, exactly what I need in a girl. Marilyn Monroe was on her current cover photo with her quote, “ It’s better to be absolutely ridiculous than to be absolutely boring. Wow, we share the same philosophies too, I thought. A girl who suits me in every possible way. I thought my mind up would swell up any moment and if I did not stop thinking about her it might explode.

Flirting with fractions

One-eighth of me, or maybe a tenth, is acutely aware of the approximately 22 inches that separate your shoulder and mine. One casual shift later, I'm four inches closer. I can always just blame it on your magnetic force pulling me in.

One or two-fifths of me is analyzing your body language subtly. Have you inched closer to me, or is it just my wishful imagination? Oh I'm simply an academically inclined girl, dull next to your golden shine. The odds are not in my favour. Or maybe just a tenth of it is.

At least one-fourth of me is wishing something would happen already. There's a fair probability that all this waiting will amount to nothing. Is this all just a waste of time? I wonder. I hesitate to hypothesize.

A good third of me is now close to hyperventilating. Your arm is brushing mine. Either you moved closer or I did. It could be both. It better be. Only I don’t want to come up as desperate.

Define Love

1. "You can't put a price tag on love. But if you could, I'd wait for it to go on sale." — Hussein Nishah
2. "I thought I was promiscuous, but it turns out I was just thorough." — Russell Brand
3. "Eighty percent of married men cheat in America. The rest cheat in Europe." — Jackie Mason
4. "I love you no matter what you do, but do you have to do so much of it?" — Jean Illsley Clarke
5. "Love is telling someone their hair extensions are showing." — Natasha Leggero 
6. "I'm now making a Jewish porno film. 10% sex, 90% guilt." — Henny Youngman
7. "My friends tell me I have an intimacy problem. But they don't really know me." — Garry Shandling
8. "Honesty is the key to a relationship. If you can fake that, you’re in." — Richard Jeni
9. "If love is the answer, could you please rephrase the question?" — Lily Tomlin
10. "Marry a man your own age; as your beauty fades, so will his eyesight." — Phyllis Diller
11. "My best birth control now is just to leave the lights on." — Joan Rivers
12. "Love is grand; divorce is a hundred grand." — Unknown
13. "Love is a lot like a backache, it doesn't show up on X-rays, but you know it's there." — George Burns
14. "I was married by a judge. I should have asked for a jury." — Groucho Marx
15. "Women cannot complain about men anymore until they start getting better taste in them." — Bill Maher
16. "If you can stay in love for more than two years, you're on something." — Fran Lebowitz 
17. "Marriage is really tough because you have to deal with feelings and lawyers." — Richard Pryor
18. "There are only three things women need in life: food, water, and compliments." — Chris Rock
19. "Women need a reason to have sex. Men just need a place." — Billy Crystal

20. "Women love a self-confident bald man." — Larry David

21. "My brother is gay and my parents don’t care, as long as he marries a doctor." — Elayne Boosler
22. "My wife gets all the money I make. I just get an apple and clean clothes every morning." — Ray Romano
23. "I went to a meeting for premature ejactulators. I left early." — Jack Benny
24. "Obviously, if I was serious about having a relationship with someone long-term, the last people I would introduce him to would be my family." — Chelsea Handler
25. "My wife was afraid of the dark... then she saw me naked and now she's afraid of the light." — Rodney Dangerfield
26. "I know a man who gave up smoking, drinking, sex, and rich food. He was healthy right up to the time he killed himself." — Johnny Carson
27. "Love is the answer, but while you're waiting for the answer, sex raises some pretty good questions." — Woody Allen
28. "Being a good husband is like being a stand-up comic. You need 10 years before you can call yourself a beginner." — Jerry Seinfeld
29. "Real love amounts to withholding the truth, even when you're offered the perfect opportunity to hurt someone's feelings." — David Sedaris
30. "I love being married. It's so great to find one special person you want to annoy for the rest of your life." — Rita Rudner 
31. "Marriage has no guarantees. If that's what you're looking for, go live with a car battery." — Erma Bombeck

Coffee makes me nervous. So do you.

I’m an honest person, honestly. That’s why I’m telling you from the beginning that I’m not sure about coffee.

I hate coffee. I hate the taste of it. I hate the smell. I hate the way people get addicted to it, artificially almost, as if it were a trend. And they brag about needing caffeine to function. They even post bogus status updates on Facebook.

-I had three cups last night to pull through.  19 likes, 35 comments
-Should have taken coffee shots before the psychology test.  56 likes, 14 comments 
-Without coffee, my life would have been in the Mariana trench.  24 likes, 80 comments 
-Coffee is my rechargeable lithium ion battery! LOL  25 likes, 72 comments 

It’s stupid until you see these people without coffee—then it’s stupid again.

But for you, I’m going to try. I have tasted coffee before. I just haven’t sat down to drink it. Now I’m going to. I’m going to bravely face its nasty smell and bitter taste and silly stereotypes. Just for you. I’m not sure why. I barely know you. In fact, I’ve never actually met you. We’re meeting for coffee. I’ve never met someone for coffee. It should be normal and casual. Nothing extraordinary. Still, it’s wild and strange.  

Let’s not start this off with illusions or lies. I’m not sure what to think of coffee. A lot of people like it, but a lot of people like smoking, heroin, vegetable patties, porridge, Twilight, and QBASIC, too. Likes don’t make things great. Maybe a lot of people like you too, but I’m not sure what to think of you either. I haven’t tasted you. Are you too bitter, too strong? Are you unhealthy? I want you to be healthy. I want you to be sweet, even if it’s bittersweet. I want to like you. Maybe I already do. Maybe it’s just coffee that I’m not sure of. Or maybe it’s me. Crazy me. All my thoughts and feelings are mixed up with the past and the present and the scent of coffee in my mind.

Coffee made me nervous. Now it won’t.

“Let’s get some coffee.”

I utter that well-rehearsed line and sit across from you at the table, nervous, excited, overjoyed and totally terrified.

I don’t know why or how people meet for coffee, a drink that has no significance. I wish I could tell you how conceited this drink is, with all its complexities. And those people who fanatically crave for caffeine, who post bogus status updates, are all liars. I hate them. I hate coffee. I hate its taste and I hate its smell. It makes me nervous. Still here I am, with you, because I want to like coffee for you.

But what if I fail to drink my coffee? I think. I think too much sometimes. I overthink too, like ,what if I fail to impress you? I haven’t met a girl for coffee before. I don’t know the rules. Maybe that is the reason my world trembles even at the thought of it. Maybe, for some more inexplicable reasons, I have self-esteem issues, I cannot look into your eyes, I cannot talk without stammering, and I become dyslectic around you. Or maybe it is the coffee itself. Hot, steaming, bittersweet coffee lying on this table, making me nervous.

Even though many have tried explaining it to me, I cannot grasp the idea that is ‘coffee’. How anyone, no matter how deprived of energy the person might be feeling, can willingly fill themselves with copious amounts of an intoxicating substance—that only leaves them a craving for more, a bitter taste in the back of their mouth—is beyond me. And its musty smells hangs so thick in the air. There aren’t any good words I can attribute to coffee.

I guess ‘coffee’ is some kind of unapproved narcotic that spreads maddening, incomprehensible, hopeless feelings. Seriously, I can always feel it in the air when the scent of coffee is around.

She, who reads and writes

You will see her first at a bookstore, browsing the poetry or literature section. You will notice her because she will be beautiful. She will take her time among the shelves, reading slowly and smiling slightly. You will attempt to think of an excuse to talk to her but before you realise what is happening, she will be the one talking to you. She will ask you your opinion of a book she is holding, maybe Arundhati Roy’s God of Small Things or Samrat Upadhyay’s Arresting God in Kathmandu. If it is the former, you will sing its praises, marvelling at the language, the characters, the nuances and the beauty of tragedy. You will go on and on and surprisingly, she will continue to listen. If it is the latter, your criticism will be measured. This is still his best work, you will say. She will appear convinced.

You will continue to talk and you will discover that you both like Hemingway’s clipped, deliberate prose. She will adore Marquez (who you will hate) and you will love Miller (who she will hate). You will say Marquez is too romantic and she will say Miller is a misogynist. You will agree to disagree.

Eventually, you will find yourself sitting across from her in a leather couch at an expensive café. You will feel out of place. You will sip your coffee, which will remain bitter no matter how many sugarcubes you put in it. She will drop no sugar into hers. You will continue to talk and you will notice that she smiles when she listens and looks you in the eye. You will also notice that the smile doesn’t leave her face completely even when you are not talking. You will marvel at her hair, which will be thick and wild and everywhere. You will want to brush it away from her face. She will tuck her tresses behind her ears and grip her coffee cup with both hands. You will notice that her nails are neatly clipped and painted a deep red.

Your talk of reading will give way to talk of writing. You will tell her that you try to write but that you are no writer. She will respond similarly. You will ask to read her writing and she will refuse at first, suddenly shy. You will press and she will eventually agree. She will take out a notebook, bound in dark leather with a strap holding it closed, from her oversized cloth shoulderbag and hand it to you with a pen. You will flip through the notebook, sneaking glimpses at its content. You will see sketches in ink, flowing, cursive handwriting and neat, orderly poem stanzas. You will reach the last page and write down your email address in your awkward boyish handwriting. She will tear off a piece and write down hers, expecting you to reciprocate with your writing. You will think mentally to never send her anything if her writing is better than yours.

My dearest memory-occupant

She loved rain. She loved those plastic boots, some of them reached as high as the lower edge of her knees. Bold fashion statements, so she thought. The only pitfall was the two inch gap that existed between the tip of her toes and the tip of her rain boots. But, this mere 9 year-old knew how to borrow (or steal?) from her elder sister and make the borrowed appear like they were her own. Don’t believe me? Those boots were more hers than her sister’s with cotton balls stuffed tight in the front. Adjustment for a few sizes too big! Smarty pants!

It’s raining today. I am by the window watching the rain, remembering her, sipping my warm mug of tea. Among all the things I’m remembering, I’m mostly remembering her. That justifies the frame of mind I am in right now—her memories flood my being. Outside, I see the rose being beaten by tiny droplets. One strike, it goes down; it convulses, sheds the droplets that had been sheltering in its petal’s darkened red corners; in the leaves, in the thorn tips. It swings, up-down, up-down; a couple times more and it settles back to its upright position. Then another drop shares the kinetic. Fate repeats itself—up-down, up-down. Is it hurt? The rose?  She, I know she was. She was hurt, she was in pain. But the rose? I don’t know. I will probably never know.

I’ll tell you what I know. I know how great a friend she was. I know how she so loved to sing and dance. I know she laughed the hardest when I would stumble upon my own leg as I tried to catch up with her dancing steps. I know she poked me with her elbow striking outward whenever I wronged the lyrics. I did that often, and she poked me always. I know we were cool one moment and the next we weren’t talking to each other. I now know that was friendship; it was like the fate of that rose that stands upright even after being hit by rain. I know of the blissful ignorance we were privileged with then. If you didn’t eat, Mama Kangsa from Mahabharat would come to pick you up. If you fretted, the police would come and beat you up.  Of course, I never thought of those moments as ‘blissful’ then. That enlightenment came in at around the not so distant past. Now, memories are coming crashing down.

Crashing (memory) got a competition here. Heavy black clouds are clashing and coming crashing down. Nature suits my emotion. I could rain tears too. But nature is vigorous.  It’s raining continuously. It’s

Sudden drops

Rain drops

Sulochana strongly believed that whenever it rained in Shantipur—regardless if it was a light drizzle or if it was pouring cats and dogs— something unfortunate was bound to happen.

It had rained on her eighth birthday when she burnt her left hand while cooking, leaving an ugly scar on her fair skin. Her mother had died in a house fire on a rainy day. It had been raining the day her father’s car crashed leaving him crippled for life.  She has never liked rain, it was an ill omen.

It was raining and was at home enjoying its cold embrace, alone. Her husband, Navin was away on a business trip to Paris. “Take me with you,” she had said, but he declined.

He wasn’t the only one that had gone missing either. The beautiful jewelled poncho that was supposed to be in his work drawer was gone. He never gave it to her before he left; he never even mentioned that he had gotten something for her in the first place. Maybe he was planning to give it to her when he got back. Perhaps the poncho wasn’t for her in the first place. Maybe it was for another woman, possibly Ritu. “That would never happen,” thought Sulochana. Navin would never even think about cheating on her, even with his strange attraction to younger woman.

She moved away from the window and headed into the bedroom to get her mind off the rumours that she continually heard from the town folk. Although the rain still bothered her, she drifted off into a peaceful slumber. The last thing on her mind before she fell asleep was what kind of omen the future was waiting to let loose.

Tear drops

As Navin walked right past her, a light winter night breeze slipped into the house, chilling Sulochana to the bone. Navin stopped shortly at the door, turning to give his wife a simple nod of farewell and left without a word. “Goodbye love,” she whispered right as the door closed.

Miss sunshine

Damn this alarm!” He reaches out for his mobile and puts off the alarm.

“Ok! Yet another morning, yet another day. But I don’t want to go to college!” He does not want to wake up and spoil the perfect cool morning so wraps himself tightly with the quilt even more, pretending to be sound asleep. “Who are you to wave your finger…..” his favourite ring tone envies his warm bed as it irritates him every morning, so does it today. “Not again”, annoyance clearly in his face he unwillingly receives the call not even bothering to open his eyes, “Hello!”

“Hi!” It is his classmate, Rashik. “Haven’t you woken up, you lazy bum? Well, anyway, do not forget to bring your zoology practical file and remember the report is due today. I have made some corrections and we need to fix those in our final document.”

“Alright! Alright! But do you guys have to disturb me every morning?” He answers back drowsily. “I am going back to sleep now and will not attend the first lecture. Make sure you attend it and I will copy your note later. We will work on that report during lunch. Ok bye!” Not even bothering to wait for the reply he disconnects, switches it off and resumes what he was doing, he goes back to sleep.

As of now, he cannot seem to get back to sleep. All that alarm, unwanted call and cool breeze from the window must have done its work. His window, which he remembers to close only during the morning everyday when the cold air from it wakes him up.

“Damn that window! “ He murmurs, too lazy to get up and close it. He lies on his bed, staring at the ceiling or rather staring nowhere.

It is already Monday, a month and half since she proposed to Diwash. She, his childhood friend was the one he loved so dearly ever since he knew about love, at least he thought he knew. He had even dared to share his feelings to her after their high school. Then, she had just smiled and told him to be her friend, just friend. She treasured his friendship and did not want any other complexities. Things had been normal after that; they remained friends not wanting to spoil the perfect relation of friendship. Weeks and months passed and they joined their under graduate, as usual in the same college.

That kind of love

This is not an easy letter for me to write. For the last three years, you’ve been an integral part of my life. Had it not been for you, I don’t think I would have survived in that foreign land. You stood by me through my homesickness, my mood swings, and my search for an identity in the white world. Honestly, I could never quite figure out why you got interested in me, but I will always be grateful. So it is very difficult, but I have to say this -- I don’t love you.
I know this comes as a shock to you since everything was normal between us when I left. You may think that this has to do with my grandmother’s death. Yes, it does; but it is not about her death but about the love in her heart with which she died.

Almost a week before she died, she mumbled out a name with her feeble lips that left the entire family baffled. She had been unconscious for several days and we had begun to call our relatives and prepare them for the news. But, with that name, she sprung back to life.

So, we began to call back our relatives to assure them that grandmother might make it to Dashain. This news of her coming back to life was neither a joyous nor a sad one. Though everyone revered her, she was known to have her favourites even amongst her own sons. All of us, her grandchildren, believed that she loved our housemaid’s daughter more than us. She was what you might call rigid. She didn’t argue with people who didn’t share her values. She rather withdrew from them. And once you were on that list, she’d still smile at you but her cold eyes would make it obvious that she deems you to be a moron not worthy of an argument; least a conversation.

Next couple days, grandma kept calling out the same name. We tried to figure out who she was asking for. There was no one by that name within our family and close relatives. We went through the list of her friends. “May be she means our neighbour’s son, or her aunt’s nephew.”  Eventually, we ruled out everyone. We gave up.

But not my father, you see. He kept calling people, asking for any clue on the name. He spent a lot of time by her; caressing her forehead, rubbing her hands, pulling blanket over her. He didn’t seem relived by her improvement. He continued to be stressed and withdrawn. He seemed to know that my grandmother wasn’t just rambling, that this name meant something significant for her.

Do I even matter?

"Even I can make out the tense, anxious yearning in those eyes. My eyes. But I wonder if he can.”

“You ready?”
I look up, biting my lip distractedly as my eyes meet his, and I look away almost immediately, my breath whooshing out in a faint sigh.

Spending an hour alone with the guy who you’ve been hopelessly in love with since fourth grade is not and never will be—not even remotely—a good idea.

Yet I respond, “Yeah. Where to?”
He shrugs. “I thought we could do the shoot by the Physics hall.”

Too nervous to say anything, we leave the empty classroom following through flights of stairs to the ground floor. I slip off my backpack and pretend not to watch him as he paces the length of the corridor, searching for better camera angles and shadow gradients that only he can see.

Then he turns around. “Could you sit by the windows?”
“Sure.” I try to walk normally, even as my heart jumps at the sound of his footsteps escorting me. I take my position by the window. He observes for a few seconds; his stare open and direct, at me.
“Could you let out your hair?”

I wordlessly undo my braids.
“Cool.”

He exhales and cocks his head to the side, squinting at me in a way that instantly makes me feel unbelievably self-conscious. “Can you sit cross-legged … and maybe look slightly down and to your right?”
I comply, sitting on the floor, cross-legged, glancing down over my right knee.
“Perfect.”

There is snap-click of the shutter, followed by the whir of the Polaroid camera cautiously spitting out its product. I hold still, marvelling at the fact that this boy—the one I’ve been staring at longingly since I was nine years old, the one I’ve had to muster up courage just to talk to—has just taken a picture of me, an everlasting memory of mine. But I also wonder ruefully whether twenty years from now he’ll still have that picture, and if he’ll look back on it and ever realise that it’s the face of a girl who secretly loved him.

April the second

The date was April second; April the second was the day her life changed. It was the day my life changed. She found out she had Leukemia. And I knew we had very little time.

Carboxylic acid and its derivatives appeared in my nightmares. I hated ketones, hydrocarbons, benzene and alcohol derivatives.

Yet the very first class of my junior year in high school (I wasn’t condoned)  was Chemistry practical. The teacher stood by the door as I walked in.

“Name?” She asked.

“James.”                                                  

“James what?”

“Bond.”

“Stop kidding. Give me your last name.” She gave me an annoyed look.

Why can’t these people understand? “Ma’am, my name is James Bond and it should be at the second or third on the list.”

It took her a moment to check off through the attendance list.

“You see that girl with blonde hair? She’ll be your lab partner for the rest of the year. No substitutions. No swaps.”

Jeez! Now I get a girl. I sulked off to meet my lab partner for the rest of the year; no substitutions or swaps.

 “Hi, seems you’re my lab partner for the rest of the year, no substitutions or swaps?” I said. “My name’s Bond. James Bond.”