Choices

 

“Even the people that I most love, I only like about 80% of them. It’s a question of where on your personal intolerable scale the 20 lies.” She looked at him for affirmation. Hoping that he would feel her observation insightful, therefore her intelligent.  And therefore x 2 worthy of his love.

They were both lounging on comfortable chairs in her idyllic balcony. With gin, leisure and butterflies for company. The weather fairies were in a mood to dance. A plump, setting sun was painting the sky in all shades of crimson. She had loved him for so long, through his casual indifference, through his coldness. But she had been feeling the shift in him for a while. Today was the day, this was the moment that it would all turn. The moment that their relationship would shift and justify the years of undeserved worship. She could almost taste the words that she would use to tell this tale of love to all the doubters.

“I wonder what Sarika is doing.” He mused out loud as he stared out at the sea of tree tops.

Her figurative transformation into stone took about a moment too long. He turned to look at her with the impatience only a lover-in-the-wings knows, “Don’t you know?”

“Isnt she with Vikram this weekend?” If she couldn’t have him, they could at least be joined in the pain of unrequited love.

He exhaled his frustration out with his cigarette smoke, “Is she? I thought that was over?”

All Savina offered him in response was the loaded shrug of casual indifference, known to sharpen that particular pain.

He turned to her, “you look lovely tonight, by the way.”

She smiled as she wondered how many consolation prizes had been called lovely by their evaluator. She wondered which was worse; Walking away in a preservation of dignity or being a disposable consolation. She wondered if walking away was a measure of self-respect or could it be removed as a factor in that entire calculation. She wondered if she was ready to walk out of the station into nothing at all or go back into that sparse waiting room. She wondered if flat lining was better than pain.

“Really?”

Back up against the wall

"Rossssyyyyyyyyyy!"

When there is no response, Sweety Khorana's decibel level increases in proportion to her irritation.

"ROSY! Where have you died?"

A timid-looking Rosy brings in a tea-tray, complete with the morning paper and toast done just the way the mistress likes it.

She places it on Sweety's lap and gains a scowl in return, "Is my bath ready?"

Rosy nods as she starts the customary picking up of strewn clothes, glasses and replacement of the bottle in its bottom drawer.

"Is saab back from the hunt?"

"Yes, madam. A tiger escaped him today. He is not in a good mood." Rosy whispers in her secret-sharing voice.

"He asked for you, madam." She continues with a strain of caution colouring her tone.

Sweety opens the paper and says resolutely, "I'll read the horoscope and then decide whether I have a headache or not."

"Madam, the maali found your diamond ring in the Gazebo. He was going to saab but I told him to come to you."

Sweety acknowledges the unspoken message and nods towards the dresser where her wallet is resting.

After Rosy exits, Sweety mutters about the greed of 'these lesser people' as she reads her horoscope;

Past patterns will break. Dont invest money because it will not be fruitful. Chances of tension with your spouse. Take care of your stomach.

MEAT

We were near about famished when this new meat walked into office.

His ass was a magnet for our eyes. His voice, when overheard in the corridors was like a Bollywood dance sequence breaking out between a terribly intense Martin Scorsese movie scene.

We admired him from far, sometimes from near. Oh so near and yet so far.

We leveraged our relationship with the office admin head. Well, wrangled it out of her after much coercion and a very expensive sushi lunch.

His number was in our phones now and we were free to letch at his picture and debate his psychosis based on his WhatsApp status.

A couple of days later his display picture changed and my friend sent me this message:

Pz check out his dp. Is that his kid?

My hopes took a nosedive into my gut as I opened WhatsApp in the middle of a presentation to see his face scrunching at me with that of a delightful little girl who did look a little like him.

My hopes were now a puddle on the floor.

Seems like a niece, no?

Maybe I was wrong. As I was about many things in life. It would be nice to be corroborated this one time though.

They say that women can multi-task, the following will prove to you that they cannot. Yes, you’re thinking right.  I sent the message to him by mistake. In my panic to cover up, I made it worse by saying

I’m sorry, that message was for my mom.

My mother? MY MOTHER? One part of me wanted to thwack me and the other part of me was consoling me; what else could I have done? While I was toing and froing on this swing of consternation my phone beeped.

Yes, it’s my niece. J

I wanted to join my hope as a puddle on the floor.

Or.

Wait.

Shouldn’t both of us be rising to about 6 feet tall?

She’s delightful I replied.

And I’m sorry I added

You’re sorry that she’s delightful? You should meet her and tell her yourself. This weekend? He replied.

It was a great grand romance. I was his Michelin Star Steak in week one. On week 2.75 he told me that one can’t live on steaks, so he went back to the daal-chawal he had left behind. He’s left me with the distinctly uncomfortable indigestion that comes with consuming stale meat.  

Judger vs Judgee

“Mama, she is snarling at me.” The little gorilla nudges her mother’s knee.

“Let her snarl baby. She is behind bars; she can’t harm you.” Her mother pacifies her.

“She is so strange looking ma. She only has hair on her head, the rest of her is so bald.” The little girl sniggers in disdain.

“That’s the way God made them honey, we shouldn’t judge.” Her mother lightly reprimands her.

“But her face has no shape. And she looks so weak, I could snap her hand in a moment.” The little girl tries for her mother to see that there is enough cause to judge.

“We wouldn’t now, would we love. Not until she harms us. And look at her, she is so little. How could she ever? We must be kind to those who have lesser than us.” The mother tries to pass a life lesson as mothers are wont to do.

“I don’t like her.” The adamant little gorilla snarls at the human girl making her jump back in fright.

“Mama, she is snarling at me.” Cried the little human. 

The flea in Athens

My most private, precious memories were laid out for people to finger, judge, evaluate for, discard, take-away. The string of black pearls that my father had brought from his voyage to China. The only other gift he had ever given me besides my much thumbed copy of ‘Alice in wonderland’. I tightened my grip on it. At least one part of my life had deemed itself unworthy of being sold to support this physical body.

The flutes that my husband and I had drunk most of our champagne from; I don’t remember now if our first one was from them; I do remember the last.

“How much for this?” She asked, staring hard at my red wooden tulip.

‘A moment of unadulterated happiness’ I wanted to say, as I remembered the moment when it had walked into my life.

“5 euros” I said.

 “How much for this?” She asked, fiddling with my mother’s knitted shawl. I stared at her hands to check for food grease while my mouth uttered “545 euros.”

She stared at me as if I was mad and she asked the price of my Tibetan ring just to confirm. It went on. She asked for a price. I quoted a value. I was mad. There was a feeble voice in my head that was trying to reason with me. ‘I had signed up for this. They were just things. I was being irrational. If I didn’t have 30 euros by the time I reached home, I wouldn’t have a home tomorrow.’ It said.

“I’ll take the tulip.” She said as she reached her hand out for it. I touched her hand lightly to stop her.

“It’s not for sale anymore.”

Spilt Milk

“Now, all the men you like, like me better.” She wasn’t wrong, he was asking her if she was wearing purple panties. The night went away but left the anger & the despair behind. The morning made me wonder why my wrath was directed at her and not at the man who was wanting to add to the harem. It illuminated the fact that after 4 years of loyal service, I wouldn’t even be granted the first-queen status. My brain couldn’t handle the despair and reverted course to wanting revenge on her because a friend should know better. I wondered if I should drain her account of all her precious money or I should mix acid in her beloved face-pack. Maybe I should just send all her ‘bitching about x/y/z’ chats to the respective x’s & y’s & z’s. I should do all three and blind him while I’m at it; His blinded vanity would limit his chasing to what was Technicolor before; me. I smoked a cigarette and smiled to myself as I lived the future. I plotted and dreamed. My spirits were high and there was song in my heart, and my shower.  I accessed all the crime fiction I had gone through to fool proof the plan. I didn’t mind the wait; Imagination was almost as good as reality. She called just then to tell me that he had asked her to marry him and she had said yes because love had struck last night. That I would find it in my heart to forgive her as she had when I had stolen her boyfriend 12 years ago; in any case he & I were just friends because he had never seen me otherwise. I still got ready. I still planned my way to the acid. It’s just that the recipient has changed. 

The setters of examples.

“You know that shirking responsibility comes naturally to me.” Time had changed his voice, body, hair-line but he remained as feckless as ever. He laughed and expected me to show admiration at his nonchalance. I couldn’t even manage a fake one, the situation was too grave.

“Brother she is your daughter. You need to control her, make home-rules more stringent otherwise you’re going to lose her.” I tried the last parental distress call to shake him out of his reverie but one look at his expression and the pointlessness of my endeavour was clear to me. I still had to try, “Dude, she is hanging with the wrong sorts. I found them with the doobie but god alone knows what they will try next. The boy had his hand on her leg and her skirt didn’t cover much of it anyway. I’ve spoken to her but I am just the uncle of a long dead parent who she doesn’t give a flying fuck about. ”

His smile surprised me. He took a long drag of his cigarette and kneaded the stub into the ground with his foot and looked at me from under his brows, “Jealous, haan?”