B+

I wait for you with falling night in my eyes
Taut, slender, dark, alluring
Life passes me by
Tie it up, your free flowing darkness
The light, it hurts...

The morning paper feels crisp. I take the inky smell. I love the smell of old pillows, yellow books and your discarded clothes. I love the smell of first rain, of damp earth and the dampness between the legs. I hate spines. All my books are spineless, split down the middle, just like me. There was a time when the pouring sunlight reminded me of a brand new day. Now it makes me afraid. Another day, fruitless, maimed, demented is about to be born. I am sorry I cannot write about all the positives. That marketing guy... what's his name now...? He tells me I should be positive. I should think positive, eat positive, even shit positive. Trouble is, I forgot his name.

Liar

There are some days when I don't want to be myself. There are some days when I wish I could forget how fat and thick I am and lie on the bed and with the agility of my two-year-old son, put the big toe in my mouth. There are some days when I wake into the mirror on a stillborn afternoon and wish my life was just like my hair, that I could fix it with a little bit of water on a bad hair day.
No. I don't want to write poetry, you fool. I don't want my words to sound poetic. In the middle of a nondescript day, with half desires buried in me, I try to make sense of it all. Curly hairs, svelte figures, sulky sexuality, spartan athleticism, petite, delicate, understated beauty, I have seen it all. I crave for roughness now. A dominatrix, maybe. Someone who will shake me off my stupor and rub red chilly powder in my eyes. Whip me into admitting that I am just as perverted as one of those six rapists. Grovel my nose into dirt and slap me hard so that I realise what a waste it has been so far.
But of course you won't understand anything. With the calm casualness of Mr/Ms know-it-all you will tell me what a brilliant post it has been. Liar!

Dark

I am a creature of darkness. I prefer to sleep during the day. The sun hurts my eyes. At home, I have invested in some heavy-duty dark fabric for the window curtains that keeps my room semi-dark even at noon. I feel drowsy and wander like a zombie till the sun sets. I don't have a real appetite at daytime and can carry on without a bite till evening. Maybe some juice or a glass or two of water. When the sun sets and darkness descends, I wake up. I come into my own. My senses sharpen as evening melts into the night. A strange restlessness engulfs me. I feel keener, taut, energetic. My heaviest, multi-course meal is the dinner which I usually have around 1am.
Ever since my college days, when I was no longer bullied into retiring early to attend the morning classes, I have never gone to bed before 2. But it is only after taking up journalism as a profession that I got a valid excuse to spend my nights the way I was born to.
In the early Statesman days, the poor souls couldn't afford an hourly drop at night and we had to wait till the earlier car came back. We usually let the married and the impatient leave early and after the day's work, sat and chatted over a blue sofa. "What do you do till so late?" my mother would sometimes ask as I tiptoed into the room. "There wasn't any car, ma... And you know we have to drop the girls first..." Partial truth. But isn't life a blend of such like?
We would ask the driver to halt at roadside dhabas near the airport. Angona used to stay near the airport -- bless her -- and have a rowdy, hearty meal. Kebabs and naans and creamy daals and drinks so cold that hurts your teeth and some good grass before and after... Hash makes you hungry.
Then mom passed away and my nights became a little more lonely. I would return really late and play Max Payne till the sun peeps out. When the city sleeps, my hero would kill thugs by the thousands and pump a trillion bullets. I would clinch my fist in excitement and roar in frustration at times. Max Payne was good. He didn't allow me to think.
Mumbai is so different from Kolkata. The smell, the colour, the drapes, the works, the glitz, the shapes, the curves. But as midnight approaches and she sheds her frills, I find her. She spreads out like a woman whose every contour I am familiar with. She whispers in the dark. I listen. I walk back home every night from the station. The main street, the sub-street, the lanes, the branches, the slight risings, puckered tips, the forked alleys. I walk like a man possessed. The stray dogs look at me with suspicion. The kulfiwallahs and rickshawwallahs look at me with interest. The leaves swish, stray voices pour out from multi-storied windows. Bored ATM securitymen, trapped in ill-fitting uniforms, doze off. I blend. Me, the darkness and the city.

Single in the city

Alone. In Mumbai. It’s been a few months. It was August last year when I first landed in Santa Cruz on a hot, steamy morning. I was to meet someone, sign an offer letter and catch a morning flight the day after. Since I had no prior booking, I had to go on a hotel hunt immediately.

I was looking for a room at around Rs 2500 per day. The amount, I was confident, would be enough for a reasonable room in a reasonable hotel.

Determined to be as near the airport as possible, I picked out what I thought were unassuming buildings.

With a slightly overdone courteousness, the receptionists politely told me that the “rooms, sir, start from 9000 INR.”

The guards respectfully opened the all-glass door for me.

Three walkouts later, when I was thanking my lucky stars for keeping a goatee since scratching it at these moments provides a welcome diversion, my guardian angel spotted me.

“Kahan jana hain, saabji?” He knew the answer, I suspected. “Aiye, baithiye,” the door of the AC cab held slightly ajar, he said.

“It’s no use looking for a lodging here,” he said, adding: “Let me take you to a cosy place nearby. The hotels here are mercenaries out to make a killing,” he warned me.

We wound our way through the lanes and by-lanes of Santa Cruz. Around 10 minutes later as the city became narrower, busier and shabbier, he halted.

“Wait,” he told me urgently, and disappeared.

It was noon already and I had an appointment at 3pm. Not knowing how far Lower Parel is from Santa Cruz and how best to reach there, I was perhaps getting a little impatient.

He came back after a few minutes and asked me to follow him.

We came to a lane just off the main street and he ushered me into a hotel which no one would notice unless looking for it. Two rickety side chairs and a damaged sofa sat opposite a reception table where a 30-something woman was busy talking over the phone.

My angel asked me to sit, went up to her and muttered something in a muffled voice.

“Bahut mushkil se ek room mila hain,” he came back to me.

After duly filling in the details, I grasped the key, took my bag and in my best Hindi, asked my angel “kitna hua”?

“Rs 500, saabji,” he said.

My palm started sweating. “Arrey!” I blurted, outraged. “Show me your meter”, I challenged.

My angel took pity on my ignorance. “Yeh AC taxi hain, saabji,” he flashed his betel nut teeth in a snooty grin. “You shell out the amount the moment you step inside.” He then reminded me that he has not charged a single paisa for his philanthropy! I handed the money.

I checked into the room. A large bed left little room for anything else. It was 1pm already but I ignored my watch and lied on the bed. The heat left me exhausted.

A cranky sound followed hot air. I don’t have an AC at home and don’t know how the damn thing works so I called up reception.

Shortly a towering, smelly attendant came and started tinkering with the machine. “Ab thik hain?” he asked me. There was a stream of cool air accompanied by a whining sound that grew louder by the minute.

“Off karna ho toh pehle lal button dabaiye,” he shouted over the noise, and went off.

I lay stubbornly in bed, determined to ignore the sound and squeeze out every bit of my money. Suddenly there was one mighty flash and then everything fell quiet. Acrid smoke started coming out of the AC ventilator.

By then I was getting desperately late for a very important appointment in a city which was new to me. I grabbed my bag and rushed out.

My appointment went off like a dream even though I was nearly two hours late. My would-be boss gave a warm hand-shake, a disarming smile and led me into a space filled with a young, vibrant crowd. For someone long used to the stiffness of a corporate hierarchy, it seemed refreshing.

It was the third birthday of the organisation I was about to join. The mock fighting to grab a small piece of the cake, the spraying of the bubbly, the infectious smiles of those around me caught me unawares. Pretty girls they were too.

I returned to my ground-floor room that evening thanks in no small measure to another taxiwallah who stubbornly went through the lanes and by-lanes because I had lost all clue. I lied on the bed after an exhausting day. The AC has been fixed. I had to catch a morning flight but suddenly I couldn’t wait for my date of joining. I was beginning to like this melting pot – this city.