Miranda's words

T o write about something is to kill it, like imprisoning a butterfly in a killing-bottle and slowly watching it die, with the greedy anticipation of seeing it pinned on board. Actually, it isn’t anything as sensational as that. But the process, the very fact that impressions are milked of their aesthetic and literary connotations by freeze-drying them and wrapped carefully in cling wrap, changes their original properties; by trying to confine them, we can only maul them beyond recognition, so in fact, what we capture becomes something we didn’t want to capture. However, by employing the royal plural ‘we’, I’m only attempting to gain approbation for something that I personally perceive as my failing. In composing this anecdote, I’m in fact embodying the process, each word that I’m using is a further blow driven in the carcass. I don’t recognise it myself.

When writing about the failure of writing becomes a literary topos available to everybody like shops selling toothpaste, it does not retain its anxiety, does it? It becomes formalised, structuralised into a conventional form through which aspiring writers are expected to express their ballyhoo. Like elegies, pastoral or otherwise, which have served to structure the unwieldy emotion of grief, the ‘meta’ approach has dwarfed all efforts to interrogate a deeper sense of lack in language.

To tell the truth, if assessed critically, every incident in life possesses the ability to be transformed into the talking point of a literary circle. But whether we want to inflict such violence on our impressions is a choice that rests with us alone.

Mrs. Dalloway and fever

And there is this thing called fever. Somehow, ‘fever’ never seems to gain the appropriate amount of nullity that ‘jor’ stands for in Bangla. Jor is a numbness, a dullness seared with painful clarity. For it is then that the light from the tube light reveals its atavistic quality, strangely yellow and hurtful. The moisture dried on your cheeks seems to stretch the skin until you’re sure that it’ll tear. The television in the next room, perfectly innocuous when you’re normal, plays out like the brass band in the street, except that the sound has been distorted to resemble waves. The world’s physicality thrusts itself in your face when you’re lying face up, blinking at the light and trying to shake off the disorientation that threatens to sway you. But all this is frightfully linear compared to the true nature of these impressions when they are being imprinted on your mind. Whenever this happens, I feel immensely thankful for the activity that keeps us sane. The television, mealtime, coursework—all terribly trivial when considered in the clarity of detachment—acquire this central role of rescue, so at once they are derided and sought for. To leave all this and go back to...nullity, is a painful prospect. But then again, it isn’t completely correct to call it nullity, for as I mentioned before, we are then laid open to a host of impressions, mostly unfavourable.

These reflections take me away from the desire to pet cats, in general, or ruffle bird feathers. The undeniable defiance of the pale curve of their heads, and their refusal to be petted (stray cats, that is) adds to the vision of the physically satisfying act of fingering soft, warm fur. Birds, especially crows, otherwise brazen in their attitude, would instinctively shirk my contact. Even if I’m bringing them food. They would wait until I have placed the food and retreated a little before swooping down to feed. That’s why I steal long, lingering glances at them when they are preening themselves after a rainshower, pecking this feather and that, exposing pale grey bellies and pale grey rings hidden in the creases of their slate-coloured necks. Sleeping cats are a speciality. They tempt and they thwart a desire for contact. While it’s easier to pet a sleeping cat, it is not nearly as satisfying.

They also take me back to my fears as a child, fears of blue-distempered walls lit by ancient lampholders, of greenish-blue doors in the dark, of lights in general. A light here and a light there could evoke startlingly different responses. Artificial lights, mostly. Daylight never troubled me. But the tints and shadows produced by artificial light in generally unfamiliar, stark surroundings brought out these feelings of irrational fear and revulsion. Also, I remember dreaming of our bathroom, newly whitewashed and empty because it had been stripped for painting. Only a fat geyser near the top and nothing else. This fear of starkness lingered for a while.

Takeaway

The order was placed at the counter. Violent steam and a heavy stench of food enveloped the space. Everyone was in a state of mechanized frenzy, while some had dropped out of the order to snatch a bite or a morsel of gossip. It was a place that readily made your acquaintance, never renewed it. There were oil stains on the ceiling, a film of dust mixed with soot on the tables. You might get blackened elbows if you rested them on the makeshift ledge to enjoy your meal.

Maybe, truly

The gray insides of a girls’ school beckoned me, and I slipped inside, not knowing whether I was allowed there or not. Strangely, the room which I walked into looked more and more like my nursery classroom, with low wooden chairs that seemed to be as much for toys as for human babies. I was looking for somebody, I think. A young girl. A girl who on meeting seemed to be close to my own age. She was sweet looking, and had pretty hair. No, she was decidedly younger than me, even if by one or two years. She had a loving adoration towards me.

As I tried to know her better, I saw myself in my Amma’s two-beds-in-one. Beside me, in the next section of the bed, was the girl in the arms of her lover, who was all that good-looking with curly hair and dimpled face. As I looked at them, they looked at me, with the same loving adoration that the girl had proffered to me before. I noticed that the boy was tugging my hand, and that I didn’t wholly dislike it; his touch on my hands. He wanted me. He revered me, looked up to me and idolized me in every breath. His laughing advances were not checked by the girl. She smiled, a lovely beckoning smile, and didn’t seem perturbed at her partner wanting me. And I decided that it wasn’t such a bad thing. But as he tried to get me into his lap, I coyly drew the line. ‘I’m all for monogamy, you know. I have a boyfriend.’ He seemed disappointed, but not wholly so. He knew that his playtime was over. As I rolled out of bed, I wasn’t satisfied either.

Then there was this group of white musicians whom I bumped into, near the elevator, I think. One of them, (I don’t remember who, all of them looked about the same) with a guitar slung across his torso and cropped Bermuda pants, with a kind face, incidentally, who wanted me to accompany him. Or it could’ve easily been the other way round. And I did. I sat in his lap, or he in mine, and sang duets that needed two people, but he could sing for both. He could even produce vocal harmonies on his own, as I listened to the faint vibration in his back as he sang. As he sang, he kept caressing a sliver of flesh above my navel which my shirt didn’t hide.

Ramble

Walking down the forest path, we kept moving, never stopping, always moving, for fear of the forest engulfing us. The drone of the insects was a living, throbbing entity. Yet it wasn’t quite the fear which kept us from halting. We were caught in a frenzy of inertia; we couldn’t stop. Our feet kept carrying us until we could walk no more. As long as we didn’t stop, we wouldn’t have to acknowledge the reality of the moss-covered trees, the rolling slope that fell away from their feet, or even the road itself, unused, unpopulated. There were tyre tracks, that had bared the muddy foundation of the roads, but insects were breeding in those puddles, and we walked past, and they remained undisturbed. What are civilization, and custom and manners to this inhumane forest? What do clothes or food mean to it? What does it matter to it, whether we’re there? We only need to keep walking.

There was this peculiar sanctity, yet an unholy haunting in the atmosphere which we couldn’t ignore. It wasn’t sacred, it wasn’t profane. Even places where humans had dabbled with the inherent obtuseness of the forest were infused with a sort of nothingness, or a feeling too strange to be described. There were vermillion flags, nestled in the cleavage of the mountain, and one or two pictures of Hindu deities that were perched on a rock shelf. In spite of this intrusion, the place retained its obstinate, impenetrable aura, and the flags didn’t flutter, and the pictures lay, where nobody has ever laid his eyes. A thin, very thin trickle of water issued from the wall, and pooled in the road. On our way back, it wasn’t there.

The birdman

Another dream

The birdman had finally come. Someone had caught him and had let us know. We saw him waiting in the customary kitchen terrace. At once, I saw the white duck he had with him. It was disappointing. I had hoped that it would be the peacock he carried around on other days.

The birdman spoke. “Who would go?”

My brother pushed me aside and exclaimed, “I’m first! I’m first!” When I subjected him to an acrimonious stare, he said, “Because I’m smaller!” As he spoke, he gradually shrunk into the puny frame of his kindergarten years. Giving me a triumphant smirk, he mounted the bird. The birdman followed.

It was especially windy. The birdman only came on windy days. He kicked the ground and the bird started rising in the air, wings flapping. It wasn’t such a small bird as I’d thought. They advanced vertically for some time, and then relied on the wind to carry them backward and forward. Soon, the gusts blew them about, and they became a black speck in the sky like an errant kite. I still squinted and tried to locate them. My brother must have clouds in his eyes, I thought. They would stick to his ears and his temple. My feet ached. I sat on the steps, waiting.

Then I heard flapping above and looked up. They had returned. I jumped up.

“It took such a while because I wanted to go near the stars today. No matter how far up we went, it looked like they were in the same place; within reach.” My brother gushed. The birdman smiled benignly.

“Well, it’s my turn, in any case,” I said and straddled the bird. As we started rising, the lights went out: we were only a dark shadow. I still wanted to continue, but then the rain came on hard, and I ached all over. “You have to get down now, it is not possible.” With a sinking heart, I agreed with the birdman.

I retreated inside and sat on the bed with my brother and mother keeping company. The birdman stood in the terrace; a dark shadow.

Almost in a minute, the lights came back, and the rain stopped. I rushed to the terrace. “Could we go now?” The birdman nodded, but there was no wind. Still, I got on the bird and we rose in the still air, excitement mounting. It was such a long time since I had done this. I saw the clouds, but they breezed past, and I saw the stars, but didn’t want to go near them. In time, we returned, and my mother counted out the coins, and we could look forward to the last bit. Receiving the money, the birdman plucked two identical white feathers from the bird’s tail and gave them to us. It was our precious memento.

Dream

I often see myself passing out of the gleaming orange mosquito nets and rising through the ceiling, into the terrace above. Immediately, I notice that it is chilly. Compared to the comfortable stuffiness in the room, the terrace was almost windy, and it left me feeling exposed. I was hovering a few dozen feet above the ground, and it made me feel dizzy. There was the speckled terrace floor below, looking eminently serviceable, littered with burnt firecrackers and eucalyptus leaves. I longed to gradually lower my feet onto it, but the wind carried me towards the eucalyptus in the corner, and the leaves tickled my nose. It was a brightly lit night, I saw.