Sunday, May 14, 2017

Praying For Rain [Part I]

    
Shrawan (July/August)



Rain, darling, is the most alluring of magic.

                I remember the quote from someone I met years back as I watch confetti of rain droplets buffeting my window pane right now. Well, the rain has me captive in my room, my cocoon, so I might as well regale to you the story behind that quote.

                The morning was damp with a light drizzle. Now, most people tend to describe rainy mornings with words ranging from sad to gloomy to boring, but, to me, rainy mornings were a blessing of seclusion. Everything, every unwanted noise, every unwanted interaction averted; for me rainy mornings meant I would skip school completely that day. Now I would take off from home for school, lest I be reprimanded by my mother but on rainy days school for me was the quiet solitude of Nadipur Park. I would sit down before a vista of tortuous Seti rendered sentient by the sudden downpour and the clear, actually sterile portrait of Manipal Teaching Hospital. And I would draw into my sketchbook whatever I fancied.

                The slick streets leading up to the park were deserted, a recurring theme, whenever it rained. I closed my umbrella when I reached the revolving gate and hurried inside as I spied a bus rounding the corner ahead. I like my sprays when they're naturally falling from the sky and not from under a screeching tyre.

                On most days, I would be lone admirer of the rain-gilded vista of Seti and Manipal from up here but today, it seemed, I had company; a woman.

                She was sitting in the spot I usually sat on and was stretching her feet out to feel the string of rain falling from the corner of the cemented awning above her onto her toes. Flummoxed slightly by the unexpected visitor I looked around for another bench to sit. She saw my hesitation, smiled and scooted over to make a spot for me. “I'm sorry. Come over, please.” Her voice had a laughter imbued into it, made more pronounced by the soft score the rain was playing in the backdrop.

                I smiled cordially and sat in the warm spot she had relinquished for me. The view infront of us was a xerox of every other rainy day that I had sat here. I was reluctant to take out my sketchbook, seeing that I was not completely by myself this day. I sneaked a glance at her. She was wearing a starched brown kurtha over a light sky-blue suruwal. Her hair was pulled back in a simple ponytail. I also noticed an ochre crossbody handbag resting against the bench arm beside her. I realized my school uniform must seem odd to her. She was staring intensely at the corner of the awning spewing those stringy beads of water. Engrossed as she was, I didn’t bother making small talk – and not discounting the fact that I was too mystified to utter any word – I fished out a sketchbook and a pencil from my bag.

                “So, you’re an artist, huh?” She flashed me a genuine smile. A smile that you’d want to keep remembering. A smile I’ve drawn and redrawn countless times since.

                “No,” I said embarrassed. “I just sketch from time to time. Usually it’s on rainy days.”

                “I see! What are you planning to draw on this rainy day, young painter? The deathly beauty of the hospital, the wet cleavage of the hills or the frenzied river below?”

                “The wet cleavage of the hills, that’s a good one,” I looked at her faint dainty features smudged against the rainy background. “Well, I could paint you, only if you didn’t already look like a painting.” I could not believe I said that. To my ears, those were the words my mouth could  not utter.

                “Well, thank you!” Her pursed lips were flushed pink. Suddenly, her black irises had gathered an unnatural depth and her cheeks effused with a slight vermillion as she said, “In that case, you could forge up a copy”

                This coy confidence of hers was as heady as staring down at a raging Seti. I knew my own cheeks to be burning up with a mix of embarrassment and confession as I replied, “Well, I cannot be done in one morning if I am to get all the subtleties done.”

                “If so then when will your next sojourn to this place be, my forger?”

                “I come here on rainy days, that’s when I skip school and sketch here.”

                “Only on rainy days? You sure you cannot persuade your artsy self on other days”

                “Well, only rainy mornings to be precise.”

                “Very well, then, henceforth, this park bench will be our rendezvous on rainy mornings.” Her shoulders convulsed as she feigned a haughty laugh. “So, tell me, o disciple of Indra, you only sketch on rainy days?”

                “Well, not always,” I shrugged. “But there is something about the rain that inspires me to create something.”

                “Rain, darling, is the most alluring of magic.” She said, with a flourish in her iridescent eyes.

                I nodded, admiring the slight whirl in the rotating cogs of her pupils. As I did, she without a pre-warning, launched into a soliloquy complete with lofty gesticulation. It took me a moment to realize that it was a poem she was reciting.






                “On a boat of love
                Let us ford this body of water
                Let us voyage, you and I,
                To the country of love, darling

                No one will dare stop us
                We’ll do as we please
                Let us go, you and I,
                To where there’s only our rules, darling

                Let us climb the uphill slopes together
                And likewise the downhill steeps
                Let us walk, you and I,
                Together this path called life, darling

                The world is a cruel place
                You can never trust anyone
                Let us be, you and I,
                Each other’s trust, darling

                Imperishable will be our hearts
                Love that exceeds aeons
                Let us impart, you and I,
                This wisdom to the world, darling”


               


Her face while she recited the poem was as beautiful and as animated as those depicted on the temple rafters. At the start of every line, her voice quivered with her lashes. Twin weapons of her enchantment. Even the stochastic rain was beating a rhythmic applause around us when she finished her poem.

                I was amazed. Among the countless things that assailed my senses all that I could manage to say was, “Wow – you’re a poet.”

                “Only on rainy days,” she said simply. “Like you, my friend,” The sky overhead was grumbling in a muffled cadence. “Now that I’ve shown something of myself, will you requite the favour and let me savour a peek of your sketches you got there?” There was a disarming childishness to her voice that rendered you vulnerable.

                “I don’t think that’s a fair trade considering how beautiful your poem was.” I yielded my sketchbook into her receiving hands.

                “I’m sure we’ll disagree on that.” She flipped open the sketchbook. I immediately felt a sudden dread inside my chest, I’d never shown anyone my sketchbook, let alone someone I’ve just met moments before. “I want to create whatever they say I cannot,” She read out the handlettered quote on the first page of my sketchbook. She followed it up with, “Do we have a sketch artist and a poet in our midst?”

                “Well, I won’t debate about the ‘poet in our midst’ part.” My insinuation elicited a laughter from her.

                The first sketch was that of knitting instruments and a loose ball of yarn depicting an abstract woman. “This is beautiful,” She exclaimed. “Don’t tell me you knit as well”
              
               “No, madam, I do not.” I answered not timidly.

                “Because that would have been an overkill.”

                Next page was a water colour painting of the vista infront of us.

                “This is amazing,” was her common refrain as she flipped through the rest of the random assortment of sketches and paintings. The paintings weren’t that good but she wouldn’t stop showering them with compliments.

                “Now you should definitely paint me.” She said after reaching the last page and reflipping back to the first page.

                “I – ”
               
                “I’ll make you a deal,” she said with mischief colouring her eyes. “You draw a sketch of me and I’ll write you a poem. How about that?”

                I pretended to think on it while all along I was just admiring her contagious zeal. “Okay, but on one condition,” I said after a moment’s pause. “Well maybe two. One: you cannot look at the sketch until I say it is complete. Two: I will sketch you only when you are writing my poem.”

                “Touché.” She picked up her handbag and took out a small notebook and a pen. “Let’s get started, young Picasso. And, oh, I won’t let you read your poem too until you’ve finished up my sketch.”

                “Don’t worry I want you to read the poem to me after I hand over this sketch to you.”

                “Alright mister”
               
                And that is how I befriended a poetess.


Praying For Rain [Part - II]


Bhadra (August/September)



                Time was lost to me when I sat with her there on that park bench sketching her portrait. I deliberately would take a world of time as I drew and erased the contours of her face close to a thousand times. You would think I wanted that picture to be the best among my preceding drawings. And that was true in part but I was just lengthening our time together, cherishing this proximity, engraving her beauty, her nuanced ticks and habits into my eyes. The way she bit the back of the pen and the way she squinted her eyes when she was thinking, the way her breast quivered when she concentrated hard – I wanted time to imprint it all into my memory. Some days, overcome by the prospect of no more rainy days, I wished this painting job of mine to be my solitary mortal task.

                Now, praying for rain was a habit of mine every night before I went to sleep and rejoicing a gift when it did rain the next morning. Although one particular question did keep nagging my mind during these days. How old was she and what did she do? Gathering up courage bit by bit I finally managed to ask her.

                “Twenty seven,” she said without any fuss and I felt stupid for feeling paranoid about inquiring on it. “But I have the smarts of a fifteen year old.” She added chuckling.

                “I don’t think that at all.” I said calculating in my head an age difference of a decade between us. “And what is it that you do?”

                  “I have a special job of ‘reception-ing’ at a language institute and also attending an IELTS class at the same place. I might fly off to Australia or New Zealand or the US of A any day I just want to travel the world really  – so you better finish up that sketch . . .”

                    "When you are travelling the world, don't forget to write poetry about the rain, about us."

                That monsoon was ours. We wouldn’t have known or cared if civilizations had been destroyed or revived while we were in that trance. It felt to us that the records of time will include solely the tale of her and me. So fevered was our passion that we didn’t realize monsoon was nigh about to breathe its last.

                The grass around was bedecked in dewy beads left by the recent shower this morning when she asked of me, “Have you finished it yet?”

                “No.” I replied tersely, smudging the grains of colour together to get the perfect complexion of her eye lids.

                “What’s taking you so long? Aren’t you afraid of the prospect of it not raining any day now?”
                “Perhaps it is fate slowing down my hand so that these few months would not be our last meeting.”

                “You know, we don’t have to meet exclusively on rainy mornings only. I feel they are spoilt – the rainy mornings – given our preference, maybe we should change that seeing that showers are so few and far in between nowadays.” Her indignation was a sight to behold.

                “No, we had decided on rainy mornings and it will be just those days that we can see each other. We have to protect the sanctity of that doctrine.”

                The sun was peeping at her through the clouds. It danced around her pupils as she turned to me. “Say it out loud that you do not want to see me meet me now.”

                “Oh, believe me I do.”

                “Yet you do not feel like it on mornings when it is sunny”

                “I don’t care if it’s the slightest squall of rain, I will be here. What more would you have me do. I want our meeting to be special, that’s all. That’s why we can’t break that rule”

                “Oh, can’t we?” Her eyes possessed insolation of a candid seductiveness. She was biting her lower lip, red this morning like the bruise on the clouds infront of the recently reawakened sun.

                Time slowed. My breath was suddenly shallow and my heart thumping a violent calypso. I leaned in toward her. I let my lips rest on hers. Her lips were downy like tepid rain. The red of her lips transmitting to mine until like a violent nightmare, she suddenly pulled herself away from me. Her eyes were overwrought with an intense apprehension about them.
She didn’t once rest her gaze on me next as she collected her notebook, her handbag and her umbrella.

                I realized I’d misjudged the whole situation. “Listen –” I tried abortively to redeem myself but what could I have said really? Sorry? I wouldn’t have said that. I could only watch wordlessly as she, eyes downcast, walked away and disappeared behind the swivelling gate. I looked up and could only curse the wretched sun.

                Quite conveniently, the rain stopped completely from the next day. She had taken with her the monsoon and our medium for interaction. On my way to school, every day, I made a point of walking into the park in faint hope of perhaps finding her seated there on that bench. But of course she wouldn’t be there. Why would she be?

                I prayed every night for the sky to tear up in the morning but instead the next day would laugh swelteringly at my ignominy.


                Like so, three months passed with no rain and not a shadow of my unnamed infatuate.


Praying For Rain [Part - III]


Poush (December/January)



My heart erupted with joy one afternoon in late December when I heard the sky waking up with a grumble. Memories resurrected with that call from the sky. I was in school and I still had two periods left but soon as I heard the first crackle overhead I gathered my bag and dashed out of the school.

A drizzle started painting the streets not long after. I ran harder as rain orbs started to seek refuge in my lashes. I carried in my bag my sketchbook and in it her sketch. I clutched my bag to my chest as rain began escalating. My only concerns right now included reaching the park quickly as possible and protecting the sketchbook.

The clouds seemed to be pouring out their three months reserve of tears right now. Soon, the rain sheets were blinding. The gutters flooded out into the street. I ran until my legs burned and my lungs gasped for breath. I tried to avoid all premonitions swirling in my head at that moment.

She will not be there.
She’s moved on from your stupid promise.
She’s might be in Australia or any other country that she had said she would fly off to as you vainly make your attempt.
She hates you for your untoward advancement toward her that day.

I didn’t care. I couldn’t care. I wanted closure. I wanted this. I just ran. I slipped. I fell. I rose up. And I ran.

My heart was threatening to explode when I reached the revolving gate of Nadipur Park. Lightening forked across the sky above as I walked in. Wiping the implacable rain off of my eyebrows I made for our fabled canopied bench.

And there she was. Soaking wet, like she had swam through a flood, like me. Amid the rabid scolding of the rain, I solemnly walked up to her, and she scooted over like did on the first day and I sat beside her. We didn’t say anything. We didn’t even look at each other. Just watched the rain wash the earth in ablution of its uncountable sins.

She led me to her house after the rain had let up enough for us to walk again. She lived in a two-storey building in one of the alleys of Gairapatan. She lent me her dry clothes and put mine in the washing machine. I, clad in her grey t-shirt and similarly hued trousers, was sitting on the carpeted floor infront of the sofa in her living room when she came in holding two steaming cups of tea.

I placed the cup she handed me on the tea table and stood up to look into my schoolbag. I fetched my sketchbook, soaked all around the corners. I flipped it open. The page I’d drawn her sketch on had stuck itself to the previous page. I peeled the pages apart. The pastel painting was now a smudged mess and her beautiful figure indiscernibly disfigured. I tore the page out and held it out to her.

“It’s barely recognizable now.” I remarked.
“Well, it is beautiful.” She said with ersatz admiration. Why does she do that? Pretend. She took the sketch, placed it in her palm and pouting her lips blew on it. She mostly seemed concerned about the part I’d signed my name.

“I’ll pace it above the washing machine,” she said. “It’ll dry quicker with the heat. Thank you very much.” She said before leaving the room.

She came back a few moments later, holding between her fingers, a neatly folded piece of paper. She held out the note to me. “Here’s my end of the promise.”

I shook my head. “I want you to read it out to me.”

She smiled, nodded and began unfolding the paper. She held her breath for a moment and exhaled. “Okay ready?”



“You gave me memories
And left after I couldn’t forget you
You exposed my heart of its hidden desires
And left them all unfulfilled
You filled up the pail of my heart
And left upsetting it at the end
You helped me taste hope
And left me choking on it
I’d kept you safe inside the tales of my heart
And you left scratching it from within
I try to forget you but
Forgetting means my heart shattering
What wretched moment you chose to walk away
That you could not return
In hopes of sweet dreams
I lay in your lap
You left me at the cusp
Of a cursed eternal sleep”



She choked up in many a couplets of the poem.

“I think you’re confused as to who left.” I said.

“The poem isn’t about you,” she said sobbing quietly. “I’m sorry. The poem is addressed to rain.”

“I love you.”

“I’m sorry. I can’t.” She broke down crying.

“Give me my clothes. I’ll take my leave.” I rose up.

I didn’t bother grabbing my clothes when I walked out. The rain was still in full swing outside and the sky a hunting ground of lightening. I was about to head out despite it all when I heard the door open behind me. I turned around. My heart was the mirror of the sky in the background, I couldn’t hold my words. Amid a gush of tears I spewed them out.

“Forget what I said earlier. I don’t love you I’m sorry but I actually hate you. I abhor people like you. You pretend. You sugar-coat your words. You praise falsely even though you know their skills will amount to nothing. When you saw me there, you thought you’d indulge a little kid’s fantasy. Tell me to my face that I’ll never live up to my expectation. I don’t want to hear it any other way. The rest of the world does it, so why can’t you?  And the sad part is that it is from you that I want to hear of my shortcomings and the truth but all you can spout is false complements, and half-assed commitments. And maybe you think you’re protecting me and some form of you showing your love but what you did was cruel not an act of love”

Bawling, she ran towards me and held me in her arms. She cried violently, wailing out into the rain. “It is the opposite… I led a purposeless life… I had no inspiration… no friends… I lied about going to IELTS classes… I do not work… I don’t ever leave the house… except for rainy days… and that day meeting you there… it changed my life… you gave me purpose… you gave me something to look forward to… when I proposed we meet on other days besides when it rained... I was steeling myself if I could finally walk out of the house... when the prize was you... those moments in the rain in the park… those were the only moments I lived for.”




I lived on with feelings frozen
Never expressed in words
And I clumsily held you in my arms
On that rainy twilight
Inundated streets and no lights
Everyone was rushing back
Lady, you started running
Through a deserted street
Unconcerned about getting soaked
From the pouring rain
The sight of you splashing
Through the puddles fades away
Morning comes late in the winter
So I need to hold you tight
And say, “Don’t go away!”
“Don’t go away!”



Autumn came and went and it was time to switch to our winter uniforms. I wasted who knows how many pages of sketch paper reimagining this final encounter of ours in different lights and settimgs. Before you suddenly disappeared. I couldn’t at first believe your neighbour’s account that you had your visa approved for Australia. My mind had imagined the worse.  But before I decided to go to the police I got a letter from Australia addressed to “The Forger” with the school address. It was from you though the sender’s name was “The Poetess.” I had a hard time explaining I was “The Forger” and even harder trying to explain who “The Poetess” was. Your letter was a poem. So, I was glad to hear you were in Australia, for real. Then I received another poem in the school mail. This time from New Zealand. Then another one from the US of A but the letters and the poems stopped after that. Never got another letter since. Maybe you’ve lost my school address. Maybe you believe now that I’ve passed my high school the letters won’t reach me but I still drop by my school once in a while if the school has received any letters addressed to “The Forger”. I sent back countless of my sketches your last address of Illinois. But wherever in the world you are, remember that every time it rains, I think of you.

Rain, darling, is the most alluring of magic.




To the sky welled up with tears
Oh, be strong like my heart
Believe you’re strong enough
Not to feel the hurt
Lady, you started running
Through a deserted street
Unconcerned about getting soaked
From the pouring rain
The sight of you splashing
Through the puddles fades away
Morning comes late in the winter
So I need to hold you tight
And say, “Don’t go away!”
“Don’t go away!”





*** The End ***