“A dying man needs to die, as a sleepy man needs to
sleep, and there comes a time when it is wrong, as well as useless, to resist.”
– Stewart Alsop
It
wasn’t a dark and stormy night but quite the opposite actually. No lightning,
no rain, no winds, no flying curtains, no banging windows. Instead, all was
silent, dark and wet. Life often doesn’t imitate Art, or at least not all of
it. It borrows what is congenial and manufactures the rest. But isn’t that true
for Art as well? If it is, is it an endless exercise in imitation then? Art
imitating Life and Life imitating Art and so on?
But
it is not such philosophical questions that run through your mind when you are
lying in a pool of blood, naked and alone, on a cold marble floor, and you feel
as if you are falling like a ball tossed out from an airplane, and your mind is
fighting a losing battle with consciousness, and while a part of you wants to
let go of it all and slip into an enticing oblivion, the other wants to stay
awake and feel whatever and all of what is left to be felt. No, at times like
these, you want to go back to your past and retrieve all that was happy and
beautiful and serene from it; you want to gather all the peace of your life and
fill your mind with it, because they say that when it is finally time, you must
rest in peace.
For
him, her memories and the times that he had spent with her were the source of
all this happiness. And beauty. And peace.
The
first time he saw her. It was his first day in college. A small-town boy in a
big city; nervous, hesitant, apprehensive. She, a bundle of energy, comfortable
in her own skin; his classmate. He later liked to think he fell in love with
her even before he saw her, that even before she entered the room, he had felt
her presence in the air, like you can feel the sea when you are close by it.
She did not look particularly breathtaking but when he saw her he knew that she
was the one. He had seen her in his dreams; he had missed her all his life.
When she came up to him and shook his hand, he could not tell her his name and
she smiled. It was only after the first time he made love to her that he could
forgive himself for that error. That class was lost on him, like many other
classes later on.
The
first time they talked. Really talked. They happened to be alone in the class
and she asked about him out of courtesy. Where did he come from; how was his
school like; did he have siblings. He answered each question in great detail;
he had rehearsed well. He asked about her in return and wrote down whatever she
said, even the superfluous bits, even her umms and wells, in his head, like a
student taking detailed notes in a lecture by his favourite professor. He went
over the conversation many times in his head later on, and he could not sleep
that night, like many other nights after that one.
The
first time she laughed at his joke. They had become friends; he a part of her
group, she always near him, even outside the class. And, inside, she sometimes
sat next to him, and, whenever she did, he would fill his lungs with her
perfume, and her hand would sometimes brush against hers, and when it did, his
heart would miss a beat or two. It was one of his innocuous remarks about the
boring professor that she had laughed at; her pretty, vivacious laugh, like a
river gushing out from its source, an avalanche breaking out. She often laughed
like that at his jokes after that day, and, whenever she did, he would sink
further and deeper in the mire of her love, until all that he could think about
was the sound of her voice and the fairness of her arms and the innocence of
her ears.
The
day they first talked on phone. She had called up to ask what had happened in a
class she had missed. He could only tell her half of what had happened because
even in her absence he could hardly concentrate. They went on to talk about
other things after that and only disconnected when it was time for her to go to
bed. He sent her a self-composed good-night message to her before sleeping
himself; it took him an hour to write it. She replied with a good morning the
next day and this became a daily ritual: his calling her, their talking for
hours, his good-night message and then waiting till morning for her reply.
The
day he proposed to her. It was in college and he did it dramatically, like
Bollywood heroes, like the way he lived his entire life, until Life stopped
imitating Art and left him in a pool of blood on the cold marble floor of his
room. He went down on his knees, procured a rose, said I love you, people
whistled, she smiled, said yes, people clapped, and the fish inside his heart
found its ocean, and his mind acquired wings and jumped from a high cliff. She
said yes because she had always wanted to be asked out like that, dramatically,
movie-like; and she enjoyed his company, engaging, affectionate; and he looked
fine, average, above-average; and he seemed to like her a lot and called her
daily without ever asking her to call him; and he came from a decent,
prosperous family and was not very smart and demanding like the other boys who
read books and smoked cigarettes; and he looked like he could protect her from street
Romeos, unlike the other boys who read books and smoked cigarettes; and he could
take her to happening, expensive places and call her pretty daily in different
ways and get her nice gifts and weekly top-up cards.
Their
first official date. One of the most expensive restaurants in the city. He got
her flowers—white roses—and dark, luxury chocolates. She came in looking prim
and pretty, and he got lost in her lips, and they talked about silly things and
ordered dishes that cost twenty times more than what it took the chef to
prepare them, and he held her hand a couple of times and felt goose bumps on
his legs that tickled as things fell over each other inside his chest. She
enjoyed the evening because he listened to her banter attentively and ordered
all that she asked him to order without raising an eyebrow, and treated her
like a princess, like handsome men treated beautiful young ladies in the fairy
tales she had read as a little girl.
The
first time they kissed. They were in a cab, coming back from their third date,
and he looked into her eyes with a question writ inside them, and she leaned
forward and their lips met and he kissed her and she kissed him back and their
tongues met and it was all wet, and he held her in his arms and she embraced him
back, and they paused for air and got back to kissing, like fish pulled out and
thrown back into water. They stopped only when the cab pulled outside her home
and she smiled and said good night and went inside, leaving behind something of
her inside him.
The
first time they made love. They were in his room and knew what they were there
for and couldn’t wait for it to start happening. They lay together in bed,
cuddling, intertwined, and she started talking about her friends, but he had no
ears for that, so he shut her up with a kiss and she kissed him back and they
rolled in bed, slowly, then urgently, and soon lost track of time and the shame
about their bodies, and the moment came and he entered her and it was as if
there could be nothing else in life to feel and nothing more to pine for. When
they got up there was no blood, and he asked her if it was her first time and
she said no and he became mad inside.
Their
tenth date. She seemed upset and needed appeasing. So he got the live band to
play a song for her and ordered an expensive wine and told her she looked
beautiful and held her fingers in his hand and said he loved her like no one
else ever would, and she smiled and said I love you but added that she wanted
some space of her own and that he had gotten very possessive and that she also wanted
to spend time with her friends, both male and female, without him messaging her
every fifteen minutes and calling to say I love you every hour. He was taken
aback but apologized and promised to not repeat it, and she smiled and said
thanks and her eyes twinkled, and he was proud to have made her happy again and
delighted to see the smile on her lips. When they made love that night, it was
all passionate and pretty again, and he held her and kissed her and entered her
like the way he had held her, kissed her and entered her ever since the first
time they’d made love, with the desire to possess and obtain all of her, even
those parts that she had inadvertently given to others before he had felt in
the air her presence on his first day in college and had been struck dumb when
she had asked his name.
The
fifth movie they watched together at the cinemas. It was a romantic comedy and
they were seated in a corner in the platinum class—plush, velvet seats—and he
held her hands and could feel her pulse and count her heartbeats, and when it
was the interval, he went out and got themselves popcorns—hot, white, spicy—and
cold-drink—one glass, two straws, more love—and while he was imagining himself
as the hero of the movie and her the heroine, she was comparing him to this new
guy—handsome, richer, same caste—she had met in the neighbourhood a week ago and
whom she had ended up kissing—softly, slowly, romantically—the day before.
Their
twentieth date. He was going to pop the question and was the happiest guy in
the world; the ring ready in his pocket, the proposal in his mind, and he was
wearing his favourite shirt and his lucky jeans, and she wanted a break-up for
she had had enough of him. It wasn’t as if she could not see how possessive he
still was and how stifled he made her and how serious he had become and how
dumb he was. His theatrics had started annoying her and his perfume made her
want to puke, and the way he looked made her wonder why she had started dating
him in the first place. When he touched her now she felt like killing him. The
new guy was better in bed and looked delectable, decent, dignified and seemed to
be her perfect match and even her mother approved of him. When she hinted at it,
his eyes became wet, and when she finally said it, he broke down and asked her
why, and she told him why, and he felt his heart constrict and his mind go
blank, and it was as if he had been hurtled from the edge of a cliff into a
bottomless valley of despair and grief, and when she left the café, he felt
like running out into the street and coming in the way of a speeding truck.
That night he could not sleep, because when he closed his eyes he could not
breathe.
Their
last phone call. He called her. At 3.45 a.m. He had a dagger in his hand and bawled
into the receiver. She had been dreaming of a garden and was enraged on being
disturbed. He mentioned doing something drastic and at first she thought he may
kill himself, but then she remembered his camera and her pictures—bare,
vulnerable—and was forced to be good to him and talk to him till late into the
morning and calm him down and assure him that she would come to his place later
that day and love him like before, and that she would not leave him ever. He
asked her to stop talking to her new friend and she said okay, and he said that
they would get married in a temple and live in a house of their own, and that
they would have two children—one boy, one girl—who would grow up to become
either engineers or doctors and she said yes, of course. When they disconnected
he was able to breathe properly again and his heart acquired its normal rhythm;
she, on the other side, called her boyfriend immediately, and he asked her to
go to his place and retrieve the pictures, and sit him down to tell him to move
on, and to call him immediately if things got out of control. He would rush
immediately and finish the bastard if need be.
Before
allowing his mind to close with the peace of all these memories, he got up to
lock the door and then looked sideways at her. She lay there still, naked and
alone, so he laid himself back beside her in the wetness of her blood. He
noticed how lovely she looked now that she could not be anybody else’s ever,
the last man to ever make love to her, him. Even though she had not
reciprocated his kisses, he had not worried about it too much for she had lain
there as beautiful as ever when he had entered her, although her eyes were now
hollow and vacant and the blood oozed from her neck in a continuous flow, as if
the air was hungry and was sucking it out.
