Room no. 209

The window of room no. 209 had a view, a serene view. Standing there behind the iron bars I could see vast expanse of lush green trees, heads straight, resembling those animated pictures of green hills of a fairy tale land, illustrated carefully in one of those lower primary English school text books. Away from the tiring city lights and ear-tearing traffic sounds, the hospital room felt more like a holiday retreat with a soul soothing aura of tranquility. I wish I could have stayed back for a few more days.

It wasn’t the first time I was hospitalized. Owing to pneumonia, I was admitted in the same hospital once before. Only then I had a smaller room with an even small bathroom, in the western side of the hospital, for I could see the sun slowly sliding down, making way for the dark night. That was a rather melancholy scene, one that is meant to pop up every time someone mentions something about a hospital. It was for five days, then; it has been seven days, now. And for some strange reason, room no.209 felt homely.

There was no dearth of visitors; doctor came and nurses also did, relatives came and so did friends. There was laughter, there was noise, there was whisper and then there was clatter. But nothing lasted so long as the two hours of silence and solitude that followed my mother’s departure, to home, did. Then, an inexplicable grief would tighten its claws around my arms, squeezing me, and would maliciously remind me of all loses and traumas I have had, leaving me breathless, weeping, trying to fight back the emotions that are a product of my own memory’s mischief. Every day when my mother begins packing her hand bag, putting back the flask and plates into it, the grief would come back, more or less like a certain kind of fear; the exact same kind that I felt when I was forcefully taken away from my mother to the lower kindergarten class, the fear I felt when I saw tears swelling up my grandfather’s eyes as we got ready to re-allocate ourselves to a place near to where my mum worked. And yes, that fear has many more dimensions, hence most unwelcome. Yet every day I surrendered, partly because I began finding refuge in those few moments of recollection and pain, because the pain I felt was so extreme that it was so real. Everything else was abstract and the pain only mattered. That way I re-lived, for a fraction of a second, those precious moments of my life.

Discharge sheet was signed and sealed; payments, settled. I smelled of antibiotics, the room smelled of mosquito repellents. Packing was almost done but Amma urged me to double check it all. When it was time to say good bye to the room where I spent seven nights and eight days, I had this bizarre feeling of having left something behind, something very important. And it took me a full good minute to finally convince myself that what I had left behind and couldn’t find out was a small part of my own self that had become so much in terms with the gentle ambiance of the room. I did not trouble myself with the task of taking that part home. The journey has only begun. Million more places to go and billion more faces to see and many more parts to be happily left behind.

On a 'Time-ly' note.

Time has this annoying habit of flying away with great pace when we most need it to just stop and pause for a few moments. When I was very young or little, I thought time never moved. It was hard to push a day away, especially if my mom was having a night shift at work or if my sisters were not home. A day, back then, used to last so long that I had to beg to God to make it come to an end and let me grow up soon. I thought it was cool to be older; to be considered more important, to express your opinions without being laughed at, to go by bus all alone to the town and so much more. But alas! It took me ten long years to be finally ten years old! And ever since then, I have no complaints. My only problem has been that I just can’t keep up with the tempo of time and the subsequent advancements.

This happens to me all the time. I would get enrolled in a school, now college for that matter, start mingling with my fellow students, find out who all comes under my ‘tolerable lot’ category, try to talk more with them than with the rests, and yet maintain a respectful distance, find out the best few who I can totally call my “friends” and then, all of a sudden, will wake up wide-eyed to the appalling reality that I have got just a few, countable more days to spend with them! That is how cruel time has been to me for the past few years.

In a matter of a few days my final year will kick start. Though I have been in that college for two years now, I still feel like a stranger. Well, the place is pretty familiar; there are a few good familiar faces too. But I feel like a stranger got lost in a familiar land. The campus, with all its flora and fauna was always more than welcoming. It has a soothing ambience anyone would fall in love with. The lake view ground is literally a heaven for someone like me, who likes to stay away from the buzz. The aquariums and ponds and the odd fishes it house are all evidently a part of my life today. But still I don’t belong to that place. I have absorbed what it could give, but failed to give back a piece of me to the place, I guess. Or maybe my college never really wanted to have a part of me. The corridors I pass through every morning to get to my class have always known my footsteps, but have been so indifferent. Even when I sit in my classroom next to some of the best humans I’d ever meet, I am almost invisible. There are times when I get confused as to things happening around me. I feel like I am dreaming, that it is all some sort of hallucination; college, class, friends, teachers, everything seems like a product of my artistic illusion. But then when the exams are closer, I know it is not. The feeling that everything happening around me is a misinterpreted perception of my sensory experience is itself the concrete evidence of how I have blocked my college life from entering that special zone of my heart; I am yet to accept it as it is.

Hence, today I feel more in need of some extra time than ever. Without actually knowing it, I have somehow begun to like “the college life”. And the painful realization that I have only a year more left to explore and experience it in the best way makes me sad and anxious. I hate myself for not being able to embrace the changes as quickly as the situation demands. I am afraid this year too will fly away, like all others have, and I will be left behind without so many feathers in my cap, totally unprepared for the unknown out there. 

The man of all times!

The room was tiny and dimly lit. There was barely enough space for the two of us. The man sitting on the chair opposite to that of mine looked intently upon the object in his hands. The curiosity in his eyes was palpable. He seemed to be in a state of meditative calm; body and mind focused on a single point amidst his fingers. Except for his occasional tilting of head, he looked like a piece of art carved in wax, completely motionless.

Jobless as I was, I began exploring the little space where we sat facing each other. In looks it was similar to an old attic, tightly packed with this and that, some of which could date back to the early days of this building.  The walls on all sides were full of time tellers, big and small. It looked like an interesting collection to me. Each one had a mark of a distinctive time period, a look that explained the fashion of the time. It all looked happy; smiling faces. Just a meter above His head was an orange-light filament bulb that flickered now and then. It was the primary source of light in this otherwise dark room. It was what helped the man do his work which seemed to be his first love for there was so much of passion in his eyes, affection in his approach and perfection in his movements. Though it was my first visit to this little place, its existence has definitely not missed my eyes. I have noticed this man before, sitting in an interior corner, often engaged in the work that he lovingly does; and very often have I wondered how he has managed to make living out of it, given the confinements of his establishment. Before I could venture my imagination further, he moved his hands towards the table that lay between us, an unanticipated movement that cut my thoughts short. The table was a wooden one on which he had his tools set. There were nearly a hundred of them, in varied sizes and shapes. I could not identify at least one though I shall swear there was something that looked like a tiny hammer. He took one from the right corner and did something to the object in his hand, replacing a round-shaped stainless steel piece which he had earlier removed for the convenience of his work.

The man. He must be in his early forties, fair and short with weary eyes. There was a magnifying glass attached to his left eye, to get a closer look at the things he dealt with. There was something in his air that would remind you of a distant relative or a friendly neighbor. After what seemed like a good few minutes, he looked up, smiled, and handed over to me my new watch, a gift from my father. It was a little too big for my small wrist, but thanks to this man who helped me with the size and some corrections in the timing. Taking the twenty rupee note from my hand, he commented, “Ladies’ watches these days look like that of men’s, big and bold. I guess this is the trend now.” I said nothing but smiled at the man who had been through the trends of all times. 

Evening Musings!

I sat there for a very long time, not realizing the sun has finally gone down the horizon, to bloom and shine in another land far away, where my sister has now found herself a new home. The veranda of my grandparents’ house was built in a quite old fashion, with black cement floor and a half raised wall on one side that was shaped like a bench to accommodate our immediate guests. The house itself dates back to the early 1970s when my mother was still a little girl in her petticoat. Today, after forty something years later, it looks like a tired old grand-master whose wisdom rests solely on the moments it had lived; the laughter it had gleefully listened to, the arguments that torn its heart, the happiness of togetherness that was warmly embraced.

My grandmother lightened the lamp and began her monotonous recitation of holy verses from various books. I looked at her. Behind the layers of weak and lined skin, there is a soul that was tortured and tormented before it was ripened, a heart that was mercilessly broken by words and deeds. But never once have I seen a trace of those afflictions passing her face, the mirror of her mind. I wondered what she would be thinking in her free times, but shall never have the courage to ask her about that.

Dinner followed prayer, an unconsciously initiated routine. My grandpa would only have porridge at night and my grandma only knows how much of salt and spice he would take. Theirs is a different love story; a story started probably after my own birth, and continues to be unacknowledged. My mother and her sister have unfailingly told me countless times how my grandfather used to prefer his mother and sisters to his wife and children; my great-grandmother and a great aunt were the villains and their death did bring some good fortune to the family, they said. Their accounts of their nightmarish childhood had made me weep to sleep many times. I was a very sensitive kid.

After dinner the three of us sat to watch some television shows. The T.V. was kept in a room that we called padinjaran muri, the western room. The room had a mosaic floor and a wooden roof painted white. It had a ceiling fan that often frightened me with its quaking sound and also had a wooden ladder that would take us up to the paththayam above. It was a comparatively bigger room of the house and on either side of it were two regular sized beds where my grandparents slept, respectively. When I was a small girl, I took turns to sleep with them. I remember sleeping with my grandfather more because only he did tell me stories. He told me the stories of Rama and Ravana and Ramayana. I don’t remember him telling me any stories from Mahabharata though I grew up to love the savvy Krishna more than the gentleman that was Rama. I don’t remember when and how did that habit of sleeping with them fade away, but today I was certainly not sleeping with either of them.

While on bed, I thought about the couple again. I have rarely seen them sleeping together. Even more rarely have I seen them touching each other or exchanging any gestures of affections. But somewhere between the chores of daily life, they found a definition for their being together, for their love story. And even though never once in their lives have they confessed this feelings for each other, their unsaid words would assume the shape of an unsung divine hymn, pure and powerful, for it has been so rooted in the place where it was born and would remain there, forever.

I don’t really know when these thoughts melted into the blankness of obscurity, but the next morning when I woke up to my mother’s call, in a room situated some 50 miles away from my grandparents’ home, all that was left of the previous night’s quick visit was a sweet reminiscence of two serene smiles.