Adab: Memory @ Baithak

Memory

Saturday, July 16, 2005 | 4 comments

Pathik Ibrahim

"Stop doing that!"

"What?"

"You know exactly what I am talking about."

"As a matter of fact, I don't."

"You are picking your nose again."

"That is the most ridiculous allegation. On second thoughts, I don't understand why I should classify your statement as an allegation. That would imply that I feel alleged, that I have to admit a feeling of doing something wrong, even if only as a possibility. But then, I did qualify my classification of your statement as an allegation by calling it ridiculous. So I think I am consistent. By the way, I was just scratching my nose."

"How do you manage, ever so invariably, to give the act of scratching a nose the appearance of a finger surreptitiously entering the crevices of that podgy, oily oversized thing on your face?"

"I think you are blind as a bat."

"O my god! Why are you such an ass all the time? Why do you start feeling guilty as soon as you realize that you managed to behave normally for the tiniest bit of time?

"Bravo, Bravo! Such astute analysis from this tiny little head of yours. Does it hurt with all the calculus? Should I give you a massage?"

"Just shut up. You disgust me with your petty retorts and your appearances."

"Dearie, dare not ask me to shut up ever again! I have had enough of you and your tantrums for the day. Since I have no interest in playing "golf" today, I will not stick around to engage you."

"You seem to fall below yourself everyday. I just want to linger on to find out, only as an observer, the depths to which you will stoop. And "golf", you will never play on my turf, you little piece of turd! How dare you? You still rate as the worst piece of meat I ever had."

* * *

We have known each other for almost ten years now. I was eighteen then, full of hope, rearing myself on everything from Eighteenth Century Romantics to French Existentialists and, as a result not surprisingly, struggling to find my own identity. I wanted to write, tell stories and explore the human condition with words — my only friends at that time. My hours, after and during college, were spent in remarkably exciting and challenging company — on occasions with Heathcliff's passion and others with Mersault's existential dilemma. I was supremely content with their worlds, always acutely aware that the distances between our worlds would never be bridged. At that time, most other people my age were busy experimenting with their selves, the other sex and whatever high they could lay their hands on; I respected their urge to expressly find their identity but never for a moment felt their efforts the necessary means to make a transition from being an awkward teenager to an identity-clad adult. But I could always sense that I made them uncomfortable, there was something in me that intimidated them. I did not spend much of my precious little time thinking about this mundane aspect of my life — after all, I always had another Gide or some such on my table waiting for me. But the mundane did reappear in different guises at times and intrigued me enough to spend a few hours, ever so occasionally, in introspection.

I did not seem to have any signs that most people consider alarming, the tell-tale signs of a damaged psyche. My parents were not dead or divorced. On the contrary, they nauseated me with their saccharine sentimentality towards life in general and especially towards each other. The one thing that could have had a damaging effect on me was the strange sound that used to escape the paper thin walls separating our rooms. I am not talking about a regular creaking of their bed — never violent, a dull monotonous drone of a creak — every night without fail at half past ten. I excused them for being human. However, within fifteen minutes of the keenk, keenk, keenk…, the shrillest of noises escaped the parched throats of my satiated father; a strange rejoice after the calm fuck. A celebration so uninhibited, it intimidated everybody within five hundred feet, undoubtedly pleasuring my mother more than my father's feeble attempts at the other "act" for its sheer bravado. After twenty three years of pious matrimony, she was used to sleeping between his snores and catching the rest of her beauty sleep in fifteen minute power naps spread throughout the day. One would often find mother snatch a moment while the phulka turned from the flat piece of dough on the griddle to a bulbous, feathery creature. At times I would have to nudge mother awake because the phulka was getting too dark around the edges. But she always recovered in time; her phulka, as she put it, was always 'just right'. But I digress; I could never fathom how this pale, middle class, distinctly average human — my father, of course — suddenly achieved the status of a giant and let out such an imperious battle cry every night. I had been trying to understand myself by reading Freud and I still had no explanation for the outrageous behavior of this average, average man.

* * *

"Do you snore?"

"No, not really. To be honest, I really wouldn't know since I am usually asleep in that state of the world."

"I guess someone will have to sleep with you to find out."

I was in college the first time I saw him — a strange looking boy-man, with angst-laden expressions, shouldering the burden of the entire mankind. He seemed like a natural choice for a friend; he did not care about most things that revolted me and it did not seem to matter that he was not terribly interested in anything in general. We had at least one thing in common — our mutual interest in me, especially the ants that invaded my pants. We hit it off straightaway, spending hours talking about nothingnesses and making love at every possible chance. I was having a great time, not having to think about a mysterious future, talking of the top off my head about anything under the sun and not getting judged by my only friend. I always marveled at his special ability of looking at relationships, people and events without pre-conceived notions. He would not judge, he would not want to be judged. We would read together, anything that would be available from the dilapidated college library, from Dostoyevsky and Camus to Murakami. We had a veritable personal library within the library, where we would hide the entire collection by a particular author we had agreed upon to be the flavor of the month.

And then, just like that, I was pregnant. He was in supreme command of his emotions, a sign of things to come. He was very clear that we should get rid of the unborn encumbrance. So we set upon the task of finding enough money just like Mathieu and Marcelle in Les Chemins De La Liberte. However, we didn't manage to get really far. I could not bear it any longer. I wanted to have my moon cycles so bad that I blurted out everything to my mother, who heard everything, managing I suspect, a little bit of a wink and nod while I wallowed about in self pity. Our families decided that it was in our — all of our — best interests to get rid of the baby. I was consulted for a brief moment, and told right about then about the entire process. I was scared, I was nineteen. My first love's love child's execution was planned with the minutest detail; and He was involved in that dastardly act. I could never imagine how insensitive he had been through all the torture that my soul was subject to. I had nowhere to go, I was asked to shut up, I was nineteen.

* * *

My parents moved to the city in 1995. My father told me about their decision in his very predictable, practiced and emotionless voice after dinner at a local Chinese Restaurant.

"How would you feel if we moved to the city?"

I had been with my parents for eighteen years now. The fact that this question had been asked meant that everything had already been deliberated upon — the apartment, the grocery store, the internet service provider and of course their jobs at the prestigious University. Getting the offer from the University meant a lot to them — two serious academics stuck in a provincial town's college. They were excited as only academics can get, as only my parents did. We went out for dinner that night and they spent the entire fifty minutes at the Chinese restaurant debating the virtues of capital controls in Malaysia. Their prognostication was that Malaysia would perform a lot better than other countries in East Asia because of these controls. Being very familiar with these episodes of heightened intellectual activity around dinner time, I had kept myself busy separating the fun from the Chow in my Chicken Chow fun. Although the level of academic discourse on our dinner table was always very comparable to any international conference on the Missed Opportunities for Development, the greasy MSG-laden food at the restaurant was a welcome relief for my palate, kept chaste everyday by the boiled vegetables and rice. I was expecting mother to break the news to me but I think they had realized that Dad asking the question would squash all possibilities of even a tantrum, let alone a minor revolt.

"So when are we moving?"

"Why do you always make it sound as if you are not a part of the decision making process in this family?"

"Because I am not. Dad, please, you really do not have to do this; I am excited about moving — big city, more girls and more than one place to get cigarettes — awesome!"

"Excellent!"

Dad stopped listening as soon as I had exonerated him.

* * *

It was almost summer when I first saw her. She was dressed in blue — the only color that showed on her was blue. I could almost scream at the very sight. Even her toe nails were painted blue to match her blue footwear. I had never seen anything so outrageous, audacious. And she had that smile on her face, her lips parted just enough to show her teeth and a little quiver over her upper lip. I felt a really strong urge to kiss her. After that strange sighting, we did not see each other for a while, at least I did not. But her sudden question about my snoring habits, one afternoon, did not in the least surprise me — she was the only person in my circumscribed world who could have asked that question. I answered her the only way I knew how to answer questions. She did discover soon after that I did not snore. We went together on a college trip to a hill station hundred miles from the city; some fifteen of us and we slept in one large room. She chose a spot right next to me, and the morning after pronounced me snore-free.

I was amazed at the interest she used to show in me. Everything I said turned magical as soon as I saw it reflected in her eyes. This was a remarkable change in my life — everything I said in front of my parents was invariably shred to pieces by their monstrously analytical minds. "Consistency and rationality above all else", my father would pontificate. She, on the other hand, would let me wander, search, create and be a constant source of encouragement. I was happy after a really long time, probably the first time in my life. We would spend hours together, listening to really old tapes from our parent's collection — from Talat Mahmood (her mother's favorite singer) to Chopin's Piano Concertos (my father's music). She had a remarkable facility for words when it came to music, she would gently colonize the space between two notes with her acute observations and then suddenly put her lips on mine. It was magical — the moment, her touch, the entire ensemble.

And then suddenly one day, she was pregnant. I was trying to think, calmly about things to come; who should we talk to, should we find ways of getting rid of it or should we keep it. I knew she wanted the baby but once out parents got into the act, all hell broke loose. We were just nineteen. I was never sure about having the baby, but I convinced everybody else that we should respect her wishes. She was nineteen, but she was also a prospective mother. The most challenging interactions I had on this patently emotion ridden dilemma were with my parents — their cost benefit analysis nauseated me. Not surprisingly, my parents were extremely calm through this fiasco. We had a dinner conference, to which she was given a guest pass and it was decided that till we turned twenty one, my parents would give us a monthly allowance but we will have to stay in their house. Everything was meticulously planned; no escape clauses and once the details of the contractual agreements had been mutually agreed upon, my mother laid out the boiled vegetables and rice. I decided to rebel, if she wanted the baby, we shall have the baby. We still had 7 months and together we started thinking about getting the money for the nursing home, a list of possible creditors and names for the baby. My parents decided to ignore this slight change in the "business cycle" — I could almost hear my mother say, "This too shall pass".

I was not with her when she got back from college that day. I saw her pallid face, drooping eyes and the blood on her jeans and stood petrified for a moment. Her mother was with her; we had lost our baby in a miscarriage.

* * *

'Heathcliff had knelt on one knee to embrace her; he attempted to rise, but she seized his hair, and kept him down.
—"I wish I could hold you," she continued bitterly, "till we were both death! I shouldn't care what you suffered. I care nothing for your sufferings. Why shouldn't you suffer? I do! Will you forget me? Will you be happy when I am in the earth? Will you say twenty years hence, 'That's the grave of Catherine Earnshaw. I loved her long ago, and was wretched to lose her; but it is past. I've loved many others since: my children are dearer to me than she was; and at death, I shall not rejoice that I am going to her: I shall be sorry that I must leave them! Will you say so, Heathcliff?"
—"Don't torture me till I am as mad as yourself," cried he, wrenching his head free, and grinding his teeth."'

"Ah! The wretched Bronte! Poor soul, she should have seen at least some of this fame. I hope she knows that she is being read. But Babu, why do you subject me to this?"

"Because I love you."

"I love you too, hon."

Saturday, July 16, 2005 | permalink | 4 comments

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4 Comments:

Enjoyed reading this - is this an excerpt from something bigger?

By Anonymous, at July 17, 2005 5:18 PM

Interesting read. Hope there is more to come.

By Anonymous, at July 31, 2005 3:23 AM

I liked it .Again,is it an excerpt ?

By Anonymous, at August 02, 2005 7:39 AM

I didn't have the time to read it all, but this piece is the best thing I've seen on this site. Whoever you are -- male, female, the middle sex, whatever -- you're clearly enormously talented. Wish you the very best.

By Anonymous, at August 04, 2005 6:05 AM