Him & Her

I’ve two stories - A relevant. An irrelevant.

I meet him every morning. I meet an emaciated, abandoned, barely alive old man begging in silent dignity to stay alive. I don’t know why he wants to. But he does, each day, he does. He dropped a coin this afternoon as he got up to leave for god knows where. He turned & looked down but couldn’t spot it. I quickly bent, picked & handed him a rupee coin. I didn’t make eye contact. Deliberately that. As I climbed up the stairs, my eyes did what they had done when my wedding at Niagara Falls was called off a decade ago.

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I met her two weeks ago. I met her again. I don’t know her last name & neither does she. I know she has a damaged toe nail. Left or right foot, I forget. She’s sly about her age. She looks 14 – born on Valentine’s day. She is an author. Published & all.  

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I choose to tell you the irrelevant story as no one gives a fuck about him. Part of me thinks I do. The tears & all you know. But I don’t. If I did, he wouldn’t be dying under a train station.

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Instead of the usual two dates & disappear or assassination attempt, she says she wants to meet again. I think she’s being kind to me given that I’m differently abled, a euphemism for Olympic-level retards. I know she’ll be baying for my blood by the end of this letter. But she won’t find me. I’d have already gone on one of the only two (Mars One is the other) one-way packaged deals to party-till-you-get-blown at the poshest clubs á la Afghanistan.

Here are some of my flawed observations about her.

Balding like Bruce Willis, heart like chocolate, busty like a two-year-old, beautiful like first kiss, bustling like orgasm, foot-in-the-mouth like McEnroe, blasphemous like a priest, chilling like sudden death, calm like earthquake, violent like 3am, infectious like aids, civilized like Pakistan, cute like Beiber, crystal like clouds, fiery like Tabasco, racist like Mahatma, cocky like the English, narcissist like Charlie Sheen, sexy like patterned stockings, raw like Mexican cock fights, docile like crocodile, awesome like one-night stand, stable like Greece, peaceful like Kill Bill, sober like cocaine, hilarious like dog bite, polite like middle finger, cultured like threesome, moral like extra-marital, serene like World War, romantic like Gone Girl, adorable like Hitler, real like trees, thoughtful like suicide bomber, exhilarating like baby’s first step, alive like Amy Winehouse, punctual like death, perplexing like perfect love & young like freedom.

I hate young people. They are so awfully optimistic, smiling with their eyes & laughing like a laugh should be. Their dreams are yet to be shattered, yet to read their first morning newspaper, breasts yet to sag, boyfriends yet to cheat with random drunk chic, and money yet to exert complete control & own all their dreams.

She says ‘Why are you looking at me like that,’ I’m barely listening. I’m seeing. She says ‘I wrote the book when I was in high school.’ 17. She says ‘I’m not really a writer.’ She says ‘I’m an engineer,’ I’m barely listening. I’m imagining who she is. Nobody is an engineer. Engineering is one of those things humans do to buy that shining three bedroom flat in Faridabad to impress his buxom bride. To give their daughters the biggest wedding anyone has given their daughter in Phagwara. To send their children to New York to study Medicine.

It is one of those achievements humans tell you about when they first meet you. ‘I’m an Engineer, MIT,’ Fuck you.

I also have those from a university in Australia. But, it isn’t who I’m. My degree doesn’t tell me who I’m, my heart does. I see you’re reading this. You may have realized I write.

Most people, who don’t know anything about writing, read & love my work. Those who know anything about reading & writing have never read anything I ever wrote.

I don’t write for anyone & I write for everyone. I write because this is the only thing that lets me sleep at night with a broken heart.

I don’t know if she’s a writer or the real murderer of Aarushi Talwar. How can I? But she isn’t an engineer.

The only time you’re an engineer is when someone asks you ‘what is the one thing you want to do if you had 23 hours & 59 minutes & 59 seconds to go,’ if you say you want to start building that bridge, write that code, make that video game, design that car, then you’re an engineer. Otherwise, engineering is just that thing we humans do so we can buy that SUV, for the family we never wanted, to drive to the french restaurants whose dishes we can't pronounce & pay the service tax for the service that never arrived.

If I had one hour left in life, I will find a pen, many papers & bleed my soul into them. I will write to all I’ve met & loved & run to the post office. Once I’m gone they’ll know they were the last thing on my mind before I departed.

That’s how I want people to remember me. Not my by the money I made or the degrees I grabbed or the girls I nailed.

I say to her ‘Don’t tell yourself who you’re. Let life reveal to you who you are. And if you’re a writer then everything you'll do to make money to buy stuff will kill you every day. Life will kill you till god saves you & calls you home.'

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I’m tucking myself into the blanket as the winters have suddenly broken in. I shut my eyes & my thoughts go to that old man who, where ever the fuck he is, doesn’t have a blanket. He’s cold. I’m warm.

Mom & Sis walk into my room to share a Whatsapp joke. Lights are on. They can see my eyes but not my shame. They hear my heartbeat, but not my broken heart. I laugh at the joke. And break inside. They say goodnight, turn out the lights & depart.

I dream of her & I dream of him. I don’t know if I will ever see her again. I know I will see him again. Between both thoughts I fall into a dream within a dream. And in that dream the world is beautiful & it will be till I wake again & get crushed by reality.