A girl, a gun and a friend who pulled the trigger. (Monster review)
The girl Loving someone can be a virtue. Loving someone too much can be a crime. Love usually transcends age, religion, caste, colour and in this case, sex. But where does one go once you’ve crossed the line with your beloved? You simply draw new ones. Etched so firmly in the ground that you fail to see them yourself. So you draw them again just to be sure. More like concentric circles, they pull you closer and closer to your beloved, but at the same time, leaving her little space to shuffle her feet.
Then every morning, you revisit the lines, like a devoted gardener, making sure the plants are doing fine. “There! That one’s cracking up.” Just a little touch-up and it’s ready to scream at trespassers again. But slowly, the weeds start growing alongside the roses. The weeds are unwanted, so are the trespassers. And since both learn little from their uprooted predecessors, fingers wrapped around metal are kept busy.
The friend Money bought her a pitcher of conversation. Many refills later, it bought her a friend. One night later, it bought her love. But can the need to exchange words be misinterpreted as the need to exchange vows? Can a finger, after stroking her cheek just once, decide to hold her hand forever? She confused friendship with love. Some of us confuse love with friendship. So which is more confusing? If you share the bed after sharing a joke, and repent it, you haven’t lost much. Revisiting the crackling laughter can silence the previous night’s moans. But if you can't share a joke after sharing the bed first, you didn’t have anything to begin with that you could have lost later.
The trigger She killed him to keep her promise. She killed the rest to keep her friend alive. Did she refuse to sell her body because she’d had enough? Or because she wanted to reserve this privilege for someone special? Knowing what would make her friend happy was more important than what it cost. So she kept paying.
When does love stop being possessive and become protective? When does a kiss on the lips get replaced with a kiss on the forehead? When does love become maternal?
You can buy her flowers but can you save them from withering? You can buy her clothes but can you stop them from fading? You can love her all night but can you fight the dawn? You can talk to her forever but can you listen?
In a country where more people share their names than their love for cricket, my terrible memory does deserve some benefit of doubt. Besides, the human mind is immediately tickled out of its slumber when something interesting is brought at its doorstep. And since most people are not loved enough by their parents to be bestowed upon with an interesting name, my ill manners become even more pardonable.
A case in point being that no one ever seems to forget Rishabh.
Having scraped the surface of the problem, I am, but tempted to dig deeper. I would like to present a corollary to the statement penned by Shakespeare.... what’s in a name....
Seriously, what's in it? When someone introduces himself merely with a name, I tend to be sceptical. Does his identity start and end with a mere whim that his parents had when he was born? Is that identity enough for me to add another piece of information in my brain, which will elbow out what is already inside it?
I don’t think so.
I don’t know the names of all people working in my office; even in the creative department. 'Who’s he' seems to be my only contribution in an office conversation.
The recollection of someone's name is a mere testament to the fact that the person, in some way, is important or whom I deem to be important. In that case, even a whisper of that name paints his picture in front of my eyes, along with all emotions that I have experienced with regards to him or her. It’s more like a trigger that in an instant, displays the profile of someone whom I thought deserved to be profiled in he first place.
The more I think about it, the more I believe that my amnesia is just a filtration process that keeps out unwanted information and people out of my conscious or sub-conscious self. This theory is proven when I simply get pissed off with myself when I fail to recollect someone's name. This obviously implies that I ought to have remembered, given some special importance I have attached to that being.
There’s also another angle to this. I never ever remember the names of people and places that embrace the pages of a book that I have enjoyed reading thoroughly. This used to really bother me, especially if those characters have left behind an impression on me, why do their names fail to leave even a trace?
I think its because I get so engrossed in the story, the character and his activities that an effort to take note of the name would take away from the effort to remember what they did. The latter being more important, it seems pointless to pay attention to the former. Since the picture of the character, which is already framed in my mind, is absolute and poignant and compelling, I find it useless to define such an all-encompassing visual with a pithy word.
Sure, the flip side is that I can’t drop any names in a party.
Don’t praise me for being patient. I am not. Being patient is a matter of choice. But when all the doors seem shut, you have no choice but to wait for one of them to open
She tried to show me But I refused to see She tried to hold me When I thought I was free She tried to tell me But I wanted to talk She wanted to run When I needed to walk
Soon dusk broke to dawn And I noticed something wrong That when I was ready to see When I’d left me behind She said she couldn’t see me She said she was blind
Unsure, yet determined To peck at a god-sent morsel It inched forward And then backward It’s beak, hungry But eyes weary Tempted by impulse But wounded by the past Of morsels snatched And betrayals cast But faith overcame fear And a bite replaced the tear Free from the pain it never earned Crossing bridges it never burnt It had finally come home Where it could rest its tired wings And play with pearls Hanging from its broken strings Then did my smile Turn into a sigh Or did the rustles of nearby leaves Echo a familiar cry The morsel became a risk My shadow became a threat Faith bowed to fear And love lost the bet
Broken by the last straw It refused to eat Finding the only shelter under its wings It unburdened its shuffling feet That morsel was its very own Maybe too little Maybe too late But never unknown
If you fly far away To find a new morsel In a new land I wont chase your flight I will understand But if you can ever trust my shadow And if your wings bring you back home I promise I’ll feed you With my own hand
They say, when you can't say it, write it. But if you don’t know what to say, you can't write it either. If emotions are the first clues to your mind, then I guess I am completely clueless. I don’t know what to feel. It’s like going to a restaurant and being challenged by a menu card that throws dishes at you, the names of which you can't even pronounce. But indecision can't keep a man hungry. So I guess I too will aim a shot in the dark.
I wish every man’s actions, decisions and intentions came with a little footnote; stating the possible implications of each. Much like the statutory warning on a cigarette pack. At least then we can't we surprised and angry about not having been warned in advance. Innocence is the greatest weapon of defence against man’s guilt. But a defeated soldier has no option but to lay down his weapons.
I haven’t read Shakespeare’s ‘A comedy of errors’. But I wish mine were laughable too. I guess they are. When foolishness repeats itself, the only way to accept it is with a chuckle. That way it becomes a little more palatable. But this is strictly a privilege of onlookers. The fool can never smile. Because the day he realises his foolishness, he doesn’t find anything funny about it.
Jonathan Swift wrote, “ The latter part of man’s life is taken up in curing follies, prejudices and false opinions he had contracted in the former.” Suddenly I feel so old. And like all old people, I feel sad that in spite of changing my opinion, I can't change history. This belated wisdom comes with it’s share of wrinkles; a bleak reminder of the fact that you can't go back to the place you came from, but you’ll keep visiting and revisiting it much like a ghost. You can, when you have memories. Memories that you can touch, hear, see, feel and experience in a way you never did when they were alive.
Thanks for the memories. All of them. Even the ones that died an early death.
Parents’ anniversaries can be really confusing for kids. That’s when, at least for a day, they don’t see them as mom and dad but as husband and wife; two people, who were perfect strangers before they become perfect parents.
And I get a feeling that you too have slipped into the latter role far too much to notice how it all started. Remember the first time she smiled at you? Or the first time she cooked for you? The first broken button she sewed back on your shirt?
I’m sure you remember. These and many more memories that a bachelor can’t even begin to imagine. In the past 27 years, you must have built a sizeable bank of the same, many of which lie frozen in the photo albums. I’ll tell you my favourite. It’s the one that was clicked on Holi in Rajinder Nagar on the Grovers’ terrace. Both of you are painted in various combinations of CYMK. And you are flirting with her and she is blushing in approval. That’s probably the first time I saw you as a couple.
The greatest compliment a man or woman can pay to each other is, “I want to grow old with you.” And the two of you have already fulfilled that unsaid promise like few others have.
As someone who’s been a witness to 24 of those 27 years, this is what I have to say with a tinge of envy:
