The drunk babysitter

I should start this post with a disclaimer. I am not a drunkard. Sure, I spent an inordinate amount of time during a three week visit to Johannesburg, soaking alcohol like a sponge but that was me straining at a self-defined leash of abstinence.Knowing that I would spend two months in the alcohol free land of Sudan may have further contributed to the wild nights in Johannesburg and I may have gone overboard a couple of times. I however reiterate - I am not a drunkard - not yet.

Back to my story. 

I spent my last night in Johannesburg, predictably downing glasses of alcohol that were placed in front of me by a sweet and persistent waitress. A couple of shots and cocktails later, I was comfortably smashed and heading to the airport with a hastily packed bag having bid a fond farewell to South Africa. The airline staff were as supportive as I was generous, pocketing bribes that helped me take my excess baggage through to the flight. I even ended up paying a lady to wake me up in time for my flight and I really consider myself lucky to make it to  flight given the state I was in.

My flight to Khartoum on Kenyan airways was an 8 hour journey broken by an unfortunate 8 hour stopover at Nairobi airport.As I staggered through the corridor hauling my cabin baggage, I noticed to my dismay a burly lady tightly wedged in my pre-booked window seat. The middle seat was majorly unoccupied, if you discount the tiny tot that was bouncing in one corner of the seat. Chivalry,drunkenness and a realization that the bathroom would be my constant companion for the night lead me to heave myself into my corner seat for what I hoped would be a blissful siesta till Nairobi.

 If only I knew then how wrong I was.

As soon as I settled, I could sense a scramble near my feet. The tiny tot was pulling and yanking something that was lying on the floor. I shuffled around to help her, only to realize that she was yanking at an in-flight headphone packet - my in-flight headphone packet. The headphones was extracted in a flash and soon found its way into her mouth. It may have been a flash or my slow drunken responses exaggerated them but munch on the headphones she did.

It's then that I observed her carefully. A pink dress, curly hair, big eyes, cute smile and a nice little laugh -that's what made Bunny (my name for her) what she was. A little more than the age that required a separate seat for her, she was in stark contrast to her sober looking burkha clad rotund mother. Sensing my slow and wobbly drunken moments as an open invitation for friendship, she was up on my arms in seconds.From staking claim to my magazine, headphones and the book in my hand, to giggling and muttering in her baby tongue in my ear, she took to me in such a ridiculously short period of time.

I on the other hand, drunk and tired, could view all this only as an assault. I was getting bullied by 10 kg of soft pink brute force that chortled every 5 seconds. I put the squirming kid into her seat-belt the first chance I could get, using exaggerated motions due to inebriation and so that her mother could mimic my actions and put on hers. However the minute we were airborne, bunny had squirmed out of it, giggling laughing and drooling on my shoulder.

Noticing the kind stranger in the airline who was playing with her child,the mother did what any mother would in such a secure environment that I was a captive in. Leaning against the window, she was asleep in seconds leaving me to the mercy of her child. I ended up babysitting bunny all the way to Kenya. From letting her sip my water to playing a ridiculous game of peck-a-boo, we did it all.  As the night dragged along, my inebriation eroded as the effort needed to keep up with bunny began to improve my mental faculties.

Soon after midnight, she settled down leaning against my shoulder, all spent and cosy. Her mom lay in the nearby seat snoring to glory. With my blood alcohol levels returning to normal, insomnia kicked in and I ended up spending the rest of the journey ensuring that my hand was an effective pillow for the little one. To the outward eye, we would have looked like the perfect example of a travelling family. The mother asleep on one end, the father taking the first watch through the night and our child comfortably cradled between us.Of course we were a weird couple - Me wearing a black T shirt with a slogan extolling my inebriation, the kid a pink bundle and the mother a rotund black snoring pillow.

As the first rays of dawn hit us and the plane began its gradual descent to Nairobi, the kid refused to wake up, one hand obstinately clawing into mine. My plane-wife and I decided to let my plane-daughter sleep till the plane landed. The air-hostess helped us with the pram for the child and we emerged ahead of businessmen and irate travelers, the tired family moving on the wet gleaming tarmac of Nairobi.

At the end of tarmac, a beautiful lady with a board announced my impending separation from my African family. It was a quick farewell - the burkha clad woman may have expressed her gratitude for all the help in the flight. However all I could discern were her eyes narrowing into thin slits within that purdah. The little pink bundle gurgled and gave me a half wave, comfortably ensconced in her pram. I gave the lady a warm smile, held the little girl's hand for a while and set off in the opposite direction to my next flight to Khartoum.

I entered this flight sober, eager for some polite conversation, gladly noting that my co-passenger seemed my age. I settle into my seat and after a while politely ask

"What are you going to Khartoum for ? "

He looked back and solemnly declared - " I am a bomb disposal expert travelling to Darfur". He goes on to tell me how anything and everything could be made into a bomb and how unsafe a lot of things permitted onto a flight are, much to my consternation and to all the passengers around us.

At that moment, I suddenly realized how i missed Bunny,my little bundle of joy and did the only thing left to do.

"Ma'm Can I have something to drink? "

This flight cant reach Khartoum soon enough.

Heal a broken heart

The basis of this poem was not angst, rather the word play of cello tape, glue and clue. Random words that perched in my idle mind at 4.00 am today. I may revise this poem or scrap it all together but for now it holds my fancy.

How do i heal a broken heart? 

With cello tape and glue?  

They may initially play their part  

but will it last - I've got no clue  

So maybe i'll bind it together  

with rope, thread or twine  

depending on damage altogether  

will choose it coarse or fine  

But balance between loose and tight  

is needed for heart to beat just right  

And knots can hold only as much  

as the hand that created them by its touch  

So I’ll need to find a hand that's steady  

to loop the knots and get it ready  

A hand so delicate and with powers such 

that the broken pieces barely feel its touch  

So when the knots come undone  

all pieces stay together as one,  

neither stress pressure nor sun  

can weather the repairs done.  

And i'll look for that hand to clasp  

and move on with life

The healed with healer in his grasp

marching away from strife

The Bed

Been a while since I written a poem. There have been several false starts, drafts that gather digital dust in my inbox that would not see the proverbial light of day.

So this is one that did. It started out like a lament to the lonely but halfway through took a twist for the romantic. Not my best effort by any stretch of imagination but a poem it is.

This night has reached its end 

How much longer should I pretend

that the pillow resting beneath my head

Is pulling me back to sleep instead

I should get up and lift the shades

Let the light in, so the night fades

Watch the blue sky burst into light

And dispel all traces of lovely night

But its still warm and cosy in my bed

With you in it,your arms around my head

The day beckons and the hour hand turns

But it is to your smile my gaze returns

I try to rise but our bodies are entwined

My feeble attempts you have divined

Within you in arms I remain entangled

Any tighter and I might get strangled

Our eyes meet and you flash a smile

That tells me,I will stay here for a while

I cease all struggling and kiss you instead

And spend all day with you in bed.

-

Akshay

Baggage

"Hey, I've written something new on my blog and you should read it." I send her this message seconds after I punch the orange publish button on my dashboard.

There is radio-silence for a while and then I see a lot of typing and stalling going on. Maybe she is so stunned by the intensity of my blog post that she is seeking the correct adulation for me or maybe she is composing the worlds's longest WhatsApp message. This goes on for such a long time that I decide to switch over to the mobile version of my blog and admire my handiwork. As I pour through my post and marvel at my own genius, the message finally comes through and it's way too short and straight to the point.

"Is it about HER ?"

It was my time now to maintain radio-silence and ponder over an answer for her. Was it about HER ? Well the core context of that blog post was to establish my attempt at destroying all HER photographs but failing to do so and retaining a memorable album that did include HER. As I mulled over my options over how to communicate to her effectively the background of the post,  brainy vixen that she is, replies to her own question by saying

"It must be about HER. Anyways, will read it and tell you what I think"

While chat is one of most impersonal forms of communication and there is an inherent limitation on the range of emotion that is possible through it, I could sense the crushing disappointment in that message. There was no anger or outrage in the response, just sadness and acceptance.

With my deflated ego in place, I scroll through the few posts in my blog and realise that each post was either alluding to HER or  referencing HER directly.She must find it really difficult to read about HER and perhaps it is a tad bit insensitive of  me to go and on about HER like this.

However the truth really is that these are not just topics for me to blog about. These are experiences or instances that I would like to share with a psychiatrist on a couch but I am too lazy to find one. These are incidents that I would gladly drown with a good friend but unfortunately I don't have many of them either lately.In the end, these are painful thoughts that torment me to this day, filling my sleep with nightmares, my days with guilt and my heart with sorrow.

So in a way, through this blog, I sometimes attempt to get them out of my system. I have been carrying so much emotional baggage lately, that it has begun to impair my ability to function socially,emotionally and romantically.

So my dear,if you finally decide to read this, by writing it out, I am trying to clear out some of that emotional baggage that has accumulated over the last few years. There is a selfish purpose to it and I hope you do realise that by clearing so much space out, I am actually freeing up valuable real estate for you.

I hope that makes you happy and less inclined to beat me up the next time you read such a blog post.

To the others who do read my blog, thank you for helping me let go.

PS: Due to an excessive fondness of my privacy, please note that I do use more pronouns than actual names. So that you do have an opportunity to differentiate between the usage and thereby the individuals in question, I have used "HER" and her through the post. You will differentiate between them if you know me well enough. 

Photograph

There is a scene in a Hindi movie that I remember. The suicidal hero talks about his previous love to a random stranger he met on a train. She convinces him that he would feel better if he took a photograph of his former love and burned it prior to flushing it down the toilet. After draining the remnants of the photograph, said hero flashes a brilliant smile and proclaims to the woman how fantastic that crazy act made him feel. Watching that scene in that little house in Mysore, I never thought that years later I would try to enact something equally ridiculous in real life and the tragic unfunny outcomes it had.

Because when you are with someone for the better part of a digital decade, you don’t just have a few photographs conveniently placed with matchsticks adjacent for that burning ritual. You have albums and photos strewn over a digital wasteland of Google albums, hard drives, pen drives, phones and emails. And trust me, deleting a picture from a computer, is not as satisfying as burning one up.

My digital clean-up was such an extensive activity. It started off with me carefully selecting pictures of her and us from albums and patiently deleting them to avoid loss of photos of friends. However this sieve-through process had the additional disadvantage of forcing me to relive those long-gone happy memories and watch the smiles, hugs, laughter and happiness that seemingly dissipated from my life.

10 minutes of painstaking and pain taking effort later, I told myself- screw it and then began the bulk deleting process. Whole albums, folders, digital albums found themselves being gobbled up by my digital recycle bin as I went on a virtual spring cleaning session. Months later after all was said and done and the court finally snapped all residual ties, I still kept finding images in places I least expected. In my office laptop, in my computer at my home, synchronized Picasa albums in phones. I kept deleting them, without a second thought as I feared the consequences of ripping through the scabs of an ugly but healing wound.

Then in the month of December, during a visit home, I came across a photo album in my cupboard.Blue with an oval cut-out in front, to show a smiling happy and thinner me, the album lay in the shelf. I opened the album to realize that this was the album of my 18th birthday. Beside me was the woman who I adored and lovingly called my sister and in front of me was the woman, who I didn't adore yet and I had no idea would become my wife. Surrounding me, were friends - new ones and old who joined in the celebration and force fed me buttery cake.

In each photo were friends and loved ones, most of whom are not in touch with me any more. And in the midst of it all was me enjoying what was a delightful birthday. I sat gazing at the smiling visages, reliving that heavenly day aptly spent in a restaurant named Ambrosia. It was a beautiful birthday and the 10 birthdays that have spanned the decade in between had not yielded one with such beautiful memories. However when I was done reminiscing over them, I couldn't make myself tear and throw it all away.

Because It is really easy to destroy and rip things apart and run away from things that hurt and it’s really hard to find something you really care about to hold on to. Through my overzealous action of erasing her from my life, I had wiped out the better parts of a decade of my life. Gone with all the evidence of her, was unfortunately the existence of me. Pictures of friends, loved ones and pets, all now just reference points in the unreliable and ever fading repositories of my brain.

I looked back at the last image of me in that album. It had me posing, with a ridiculous cone shaped hat outside the restaurant surrounded by friends and smiling with not a single care in the world. By my side, she stood wiping her eye unaware that the photograph was being clicked by the woman who few years later was forced to sever all ties with me. I didn't know then that the woman by my side would marry me years later. I didn't know then that that beautiful wedding would end as horribly as it did. All I know now is that the smiling chap in the photo was happy and blissfully unaware of all the machinations that were sent in motion. It was his innocence that I wanted to hold on to, not having any left in my life. So I dusted that blue album and returned it to its rightful place in my shelf.

Life Assurance

The lady across the table, refused to meet my eye and that surprised me. This was the same woman who talked to me incessantly for an hour and nearly held my hand to ensure that I signed the papers. However this time, she seemed to shift in her seat and the conversation moved along slowly. She seemed aloof and the fact that I was abroad,making more money didn't seem to interest her the way I thought it should. Sensing the lull in the conversation, she makes an abrupt gesture and pulls out a wad of papers that she slams on the table.

Finally, I think the lady's back to business and I waited for the pitch that I had priming myself for the minute she called for a meeting. But that pitch never came and the awkwardness continued. Did she need help from me ? Was her new marketing style desperation and self loathing?? I was trying to focus my eyes so that I could read those papers in front when she finally drops it on me.

"You need to change your nominee !"

The statement takes some time to register and I look blankly at her face. Then it hits me and everything about the meeting makes instant sense.

"Your life insurance policies still have her as nominee"

She looks me in the eye for the first time and  I knew exactly what that look meant. It's been a year and I still get that look. Friends and family walk on eggshells around me, trying their best not to say something insensitive to me. When the conversation tends to meander itself to the previous year, the look happens. Its that intense search for a change in expression, stance or tone in me, to see if I stiffen, get flustered or lose my cool. Its a look I've learnt to counter and quite masterfully may I add. 

I look her back in the eye and keeping an even tone I coolly ask her 

"Are those the forms to update the nominee? "

"Yes, but since your premium was split over 21 policies, it will need you to sign that many forms" she apologetically replies.

"Lets get to it", I respond as I grab my pen and begin what was the most number of times I signed my name in an hour.Years back on the day of her birthday, I decided that there should be something that is immediately available to her if something did happen to me. That and terrible financial planning made me listen to this lady sitting in front of me who for a better commission sold me 21 insurance policies. 

Each change of nomination form required 3 signatures and as I went through them silently, she tried her best to strike a conversation. Something about her understanding my situation,asking me to stay strong, reassuring me that there are more fish in the sea and the usual spiel on moving on with life. She then brought up the story of own personal life and then I realized that she was divorced as well. Just when I felt that her eyes were turning misty,I questioned her regarding the signatures and I managed to divert the conversation from that path completely.

I know I should have shown more empathy at that point of time and listened to her story and taken her advice. However listening to people telling me to move on and live has started to sicken me a little. I do not have to prove that I have moved on and they have no right to assume that I haven't either. So I resort to my standard smile and thank routine that gets me through such conversation.

 I hand over the signed papers to her and thank her for coming over to fix this personally.

As she leaves she turns and gives me a crafty smile.

"Call me the next time you want to change the nominee" 

Diet

Like every other person with an eating disorder, I have my weaknesses when it comes to my metabolic intake. In times of stress and distress, I find solace in fast food and biryanis which I wash down with large bottles of aerated drinks. Roughly around November, 2012 when my personal life started to unravel, I embarked on what was an exercise in gluttony. Restaurant owners knew me on first name basis, delivery boys would greet me with a knowing smile as their fingers ached under the weight of my routine orders and friends would struggle to hide their dismay at my ballooning figure.

The year 2013 did not bring anything better in my fortunes.Work was hectic,my marriage was in shambles and I never felt lonelier in life.I took my binge eating to an entirely new level. The effects on me was more prominent than ever and I began to closely resemble the Michelin Man. 

Round about that time, an incident occurred that changed my perspectives for the better. During a lunch, while observing heaps of food on my plate and the large beef dish lying next to my plate, a friend casually asked me whether I'd checked my cholesterol lately. It was a simple innocuous question, innocently asked and without an attempt to sugar-coat reality and with the pungency of smelling salts, it jolted me up.

I went on a diet the very next day and it was the most faithful I've been on a diet. My No Carb - No Sugar-Low Fat diet went on for roughly 7 months and what a world of change it made to me and my life. I dropped 17 Kg, I shrunk 7 inches off my waist and I dropped a shirt size. My clothes began to resemble hand-me-downs and I fit into clothes I wore during my school days. Friends were amazed, foes turned green with envy and best of all I felt like a million bucks.I credited the weight loss to my amazing levels of self control and basked in the glorious world of narcissistic selfies which I sent to everybody I knew

Then in the month of October my divorce was finalized, my trip to South Africa crystallized and the thin healthy and happy  me made my way across the globe to South Africa. A week into my stay in the new country I found myself downing chicken wings,drinking soda and resuming gluttony again. 

How did I succumb to my old ways? What was the reason for my downfall ? Three months later, the answer is as apparent to me as my re-emerging tummy. No, I did not diet as some believe to look good for my divorce (Yes, that crazy opinion was actually given to me !!) The reason I managed to exercise  self control and lose this much weight and stay healthy was not what was on my plate but what was across the table. It was the people around me that motivated me to get healthy, who made the droll food on my plate palatable through their good humour,and egged me on to be a better version of me. Without them around, the only solace I find is in the food that I eat.

Yesterday I did realize that I cannot go on this way. I can't always depend on the people around me to carry me through life. I am on the look out for a fresh start and being a few stones lighter would be a great way to go about that.

Prayer

Neither am I a religious man nor am I an atheist. I find myself comfortably ensconced in that middle ground, where I decry that religion is at the root of most evil while I occasionally indulge in a quiet prayer to that unseen force. Don't get me wrong, I do not pray for personal gain : not directly. I visit temples and churches with family and friends to pray and its always the same prayer, a repetitive mantra I have indulged in for over 15 years.

You see, I learned something early on in life. Prayers for personal gain always go unheeded. When I have prayed for better marks or holidays or gifts, I somehow never got what I wished for. Therefore I decided to give up on my materialistic requirements and pray for others. My prayer would be just for friends and family, the flawed logic being that my happiness depended on them and if they are blessed, indirectly so am I.

So the last time I was in a temple, as usual I stepped in front of the deity to begin my one line prayer.

"Dear Lord, Please take care of Mom, Dad, Bro and ...". The name slipped out before I could stop it and suddenly I felt like the wind was taken out of my sails. It was a name I hadn't expected to say and yet the ease with which I said it shocked me and saddened me instantly.

As I made my familiar round around the deity, my mind was abuzz with numbing and lingering doubts. Deep down did I still love her or did I subconsciously care enough for her to keep her in my prayers, however short. I move on to another idol and I faced the same problem. My prayers were laced with her name. Each chant seemed to inevitably end with me praying for her. To say I was perturbed, would be putting it really mildly.

Its only when I left the temple and turned around to face the idol that I realized why. My path around the temple was a rigid exercise. I enter, pray at the main idol and then step out to every other idol till I finally end up at the main idol to complete my prayer. I leave the temple, face the main idol, pray again and I leave. The same path that I have tread for over 25 years whenever I made my way to the temple.

Similarly my prayer was altered over 8 years ago when she came into my life. An addendum to an existing prayer for someone significant enough to find her place in those few words : A practice that I developed over time, that has become more muscle memory than out of actual intent. And like every habit, unlearning it will take time and effort.

So I am taking that effort now to alter my prayers. Do not get me wrong : I don't mean her harm now that I no longer pray for her. It's just the realization that she should form part of somebody else's  prayer : just like somebody else should now form part of mine.

Love

A few weeks back, I was sprawling on the sofa and watching TV with a few colleagues. Since there was nothing interesting on TV, we ended up watching a chick flick. Of course, at the opportune moment, when everything was steadily going downhill, the hero makes this passionate appeal and swoops the woman off her feet to a rousing and lilting symphony of stringed instruments. They kiss, the crowd cheers and I just stared blankly at the screen, outraged. 

" That does not happen in real life, whoever wrote that script is proof that love is not just blind, its dumb !! " I ranted at the screen. That was followed up by an expletive driven tirade about the banality of love and so on and so forth. My colleagues patiently listened to the outburst and gave into the occasional chuckle at my very vivid rant which i completed satisfactorily with another innuendo driven joke on lovers. Pleased with myself, I leaned back into the couch, having spewed all my vitriol at the notion of love.

Later in the night, the absence of an audience and the cold comfort of my bed got me thinking.  When did I begin to hate love this much ?? How have I been so wronged by love ? And most importantly had the last year gone any differently would i have such a nihilistic approach to love ?   I have always been a romantic at heart and my poems always flirted with love or the notion of love. How could I form such a poor picture of love and share it with the rest of the world ?

Just because things went horribly wrong for me, does not mean that I should take my frustration out on what gives so many people so much joy. If  i wasn't in love, i wouldn't have taken the events of the last year so hard and if it wasn't  for love, I wouldn't be back on my feet.I have always been a lover and i always will be a romantic at heart. I may not wind up with what i expect out of love but i vow not to insult it ever again. No more puns on the institution of marriage, the foundation of love and the joy of being in love. A bad experience does  not give me such a license to sham lovers and love. 

So tell me your tales, of passion and heart

Of love long lost with now a fresh start

Of young love and hot blood that should and must

Fill heaving bosoms and warm chests with love not lust

And I hope in each story, the lovers will find

A man or woman for the ties that bind

That ends it all with happiness joy and bliss

Through a magical journey that starts with a kiss