The closet door opened in the evening and he struggled to open his eyes again. The 6x5 feet closet had been his jail for 2 years now. Solitary confinement was a way of torturing himself for the mistakes he had committed. Abandoned by his people, he had found solace and comfort in the darkness of the closet.
May be, it was an escape from the outside world. He felt he had done something wrong but whenever he ventured out amongst people more guilt was poured into him. He thought of killing himself but it was against his beliefs to run away from problems. But neither did he have any strength left in him to stand up and face the situation he had put himself in and to bear the repercussions of his actions.
Gradually he withered away and settled in his small dark world - day in and day out; where he didn't feel lonely as the place was too small. Time passed by quickly as he couldn't see anything and his mind was numb and blank. He ventured out of his confinement sometimes to eat when hungry.
This cloud was about to meet a silver lining. His good friend came to visit him and there was something she said which turned back the tide of his life.
"It's ok to make mistakes." "You don't have to be liked by all."
These lines wouldn't have meant anything to him in a different time and situation. It takes difficult times to truly understand the meaning of simple words.
After that brick by brick he re-built his life from scratch and he left his little dark world. Of course, the silver lining may meet a cloud again. But now, he does know how to get out of it.
“Come on. Let go”, Shubha said as she urged me to join them for the dance. It was 1 am in the Desi Party in Chicago downtown. I can’t dance. I could never relate to the idea of moving your body to the music beats.
It took me exactly 4 tequila shots to join my friends on the dance floor. Martin my teetotaler friend sat in the corner looking at everybody happy that he will not see them in heaven. Initially it was easy –
The kite dance – where you pretend that you are flying a kite looking towards the ceiling,
The snake dance – hold your hands together like a snake hood and go up and down in wayward motions,
The Amitabh dance – walk slowly raising your hands up alternately,
The train dance – form a circle, keep your hands on your neighbors shoulders and keep running till you are tired,
Ball catching and throwing – Imagine a imaginary ball and keep throwing and catching it rapidly.
And then my body had consumed some tequila, my brain had come back to normalcy, I did not find any meaning in doing these exercises anymore. So I joined Martin in the corner and I drank some whisky while Martin kept sipping at his lemonade.
It was just this morning that we had landed at the Chicago airport. The July 4th long weekend we were looking forward to. We were 9 of us. The names will appear in the order of appearance.
Our host Miss Sakshi was a very sweet girl. She left no stone unturned to make us feel at home. She treated us with her amazing cooking skills, which she claimed to have developed on her own. All her recipes have a flavor of the MTR rasam powder. Be it Pav Bhaji, Alu Mutter, or anything else. No doubt that she is the biggest fan of rasam powder. May be MTR made rasam powder just for her.
But I digress.
What I actually wanted to say was that we were treated to a sumptuous feast of Chole Puri, Hakka noodles and tea. And then at quarter past 12 we hit the road. The plan was very simple. Drive north 1 hour to Lake Geneva and jet ski, drive back 2 hours to downtown Chicago to witness the all important July 4th fireworks. And the fireworks might be like any other fireworks we had seen before. But for some reason we were not supposed to miss it.
And what great weather ! Clouds and clouds everywhere. It’s funny how even ‘good weather’ can be a relative term. I just love the rains. I am just so hard-wired to love them. I wished for it to rain any minute.But everyone else in the group of 9 wished otherwise. They had jet ski on their minds.
“The clouds are dense. I wish it rains”, a very excited me said.
“Don’t be a sadist da”, came the pat reply in thick Tamil accent from Rajeshwari.
After a smooth drive of 30 mins which was full of conversations about favourite heroines and movies, the traffic came to full stop. And with that the faces went sad again. My only interest in Lake Geneva was the beautiful water front and the Vanilla softy ice-cream which was sold on the pier. I had to retire from jet-ski prematurely, thanks to my friend who was showing me how to make circles in the water. The jet-ski toppled and we were stranded in the center of the lake for about an hour. Forget the huge fine which the jet-ski company charged for their damages. Now making circles in the water on a jet-ski is a nightmare for me.
After alternating my leg between the accelerator and the brakes for a few hundred times, the traffic began to flow again.
Damn! No signs of rain yet.
Now, Lake Geneva is not just a lake. It is a small town built around the big lake. Seemed like the whole Illinois was there for the weekend.
Now this place looked so pretty. Restaurants and lodges lining the one side of the main road and the blue violent waters of the lake on the other side. Wait a second. Did I say violent? It was unusually windy that day and the high waves looked very dangerous. It took some time to get all 9 people at one spot. And after depositing a layer of vanilla softy ice-cream and the “salty and not so tasty” pretzels we set out to shop for jet-ski rentals.
“We stopped renting for now. The waters are very dangerous now. Go and check ahead.”
The next shop – “Everyone has stopped renting jet-skis for now. We do have a speed boat available though.”
Everyone was understandably dejected. But the most affected seemed Preeti. Her ever smiling face and 32 teeth (this is an assumption) had gone missing now.
I was more than happy to drive back to downtown and have some fun. But Miss Sakshi, our host had not given up. She had other ideas. She made some calls, gave some credit card numbers and then.
“Guys, we are going to Fox Lake! They are open now and I have reserved a few jet-skis for 6 pm.”
An hour at the lake side beach, another layer of BK veggie burger and we were on our way to Fox Lake.
And the first drops hit the windshield.
And I controlled my joy and gave this one liner –
“If you really want it, the whole universe will conspire to help you get it.”
Fox Lake was a smaller and quieter lake. The “Fun Sports” rental company had no problems renting in the rains. Our guys were very excited. They filled out a few forms, became a little poorer and off they went.
I had begun to worry whether we would make it to the downtown in time for fireworks. The fireworks were scheduled for 9 pm and even if we left on time we would just make it.
Jet-skiing was done and we raced towards downtown hoping to make it. But none of us had taken it into consideration that the whole of Chicago would be going to downtown. We reached about a mile from Navy Pier and the traffic just stopped on a bridge. All guys except me started walking towards Navy Pier, the fireworks place. I sat in the car listening to some country music on full volume knowing very well that the traffic jam was not going to end soon.
It was 9pm and I could see the fireworks in the sky from the bridge. I realized that not all things are meant to be perfect and that’s what makes them memorable.
I hoped that the others would have reached in time. But they didn’t.
All sad faces returned to a restaurant for a nice dinner which was followed by the tequila shots and the dance.
In high spirits it took us an hour to find the car in the parking lot. Thank God, he/she sent us Martin. We had no one else to drive.
“Anusha, yett another marriage?” Lucy teacher asked me with her eyes popped out and shaking her face up and down, when mummy had come to request leave for Sandeep anna’s marriage. Two months back we had been to Kolhapur for Shekhar anna’s marriage. I never have to lie when I take a leave. My school is better than Amit anna’s. He always lies that he has fever when he takes leave. Wish he was in my school. My school is near our house and they always give leave.
Amit anna is my own brother. All the other annas are my cousins. Amit anna doesn’t talk much. He does not laugh also. But when he does he laughs without making any sound. I cannot laugh without making sounds.
For some reason Sandeep anna’s marriage happened suddenly. Mummy doesn’t tell me anything. But I know. Uncle and aunty were not ready for his marriage. Tanu didi is a Bengali and we speak Marathi. But I like Tanu didi. She always gets me chocolates when she comes home.
The marriage was in a place somewhere near Kolkata. It was called something like Kharagpur. Though some people called it Khadagpur. It was a very very long train journey from Pune to that place. Pune is our home town. But we are not from Pune. My native place is Athani in Karnataka. Papa has his office in Pune. He is a engineer and he builds buildings.
It was my first train journey. But mummy says it was my second. She says I went with her from Pune to Belgaum in a train when I was very small. I loved the train journey. It was like a moving house. Beds, food, AC and toilets. Chetan anna and I played cards on the top most berth where no one could disturb us. He can’t play only. I won all the times. I love climbing up and down the berths. We used to get down at every station and buy something, dip chai, samosas, fruits, idlis and Frooti. I love Frooti and I can drink it every day.
Rohan anna had come from the US. We did not know he was coming for the marriage. He told me he will take me with him when I reach 7th standard. So only 3 more years to go.
Amit anna was busy playing games on Rohan anna’s mobile. That phone has no buttons. We just have to touch it, it seems. They never give it to me because I will spoil it, it seems. Everyone knew about what Lucy teacher said and they would ask me to keep saying it again and again. I would pop my eyes out and say it in her style. And everyone would laugh.
My best friend’s name is Ayesha. She gives me her notes whenever I miss school. We eat our tiffin together and share it. I like her mom’s Biryani more than mummy’s pulaav. But she loves mummy’s pulaav and I don’t know why. She has never sat in a train and never gone out of Pune. I missed the lesson on Shivaji in the Hindi class. But I know everything about him as we have that lesson every year. Shivaji was born on 19th Feb 1630 in the Shivneri fort. His father's name was Shahaji and mother's name was Jijabai.
I have a lot of pet names. Shekhar anna calls me with many pet names. Dummi, Dummakka, Chimukli, etc. I don’t know if they mean anything. But I like to have so many pet names.
That lady who was Tanu didi’s aunty kept moving her tongue very fast and shouted loudly during the marriage. I used to laugh whenever she did it. We all tried to do it. But we could not. We ate a lot of rasgullas and pani puri.
I was in all the photos standing beside Sandeep anna wearing the new blue dress and the Baalika Vadhu jewelery set.
Rohan anna was about to leave to Mumbai for his flight and he asked me to do it again. I popped my eyes out, shook my head and said -
“Mujhe kuch kehna hai. Kaise kahu ?” that one line by Pallavi Joshi created an unprecedented surge of curiosity. What was she talking about ? ‘Whisper’, the name itself oozed a sense of mystery. With all the knowledge I had until then I concluded that - ' Boys could pee anywhere in the open. What about the girls ?' It must have been an extension of the baby diapers.
Few years later as one pretty girl on TV was about to set on a train journey, her bhabhi came to hand over a pack of sanitary napkins. Now trains had restrooms. The mystery grew deeper. And the peeing theory which I had come to believe so strongly had to be thrown out of the window. One day I found the answers. The ‘body column’ of the ‘Woman’s Era’ magazine cleared the mystery. It was the only source of sex education in those tough times.
Why didn’t we hear about all this before Pallavi Joshi opened the Pandora's box. Our society has a way of keeping things under wraps with secret codes of all kinds. I choose not to reveal any of them for fear of copyright violation. From ‘Kaise kahun’ to ‘Fly high with Ultra Wings’ it’s an indication of the change our society has seen.
In the mid 80’s this song was a rage, “Hum tum dono jab mil jaayenge. Ek naya itihaas rachaayenge”. My Hindi was all the bits and pieces I had picked up from the Hindi movies I had seen. I used to wonder why were these 2 guys going to this never before heard place called Jabmil and how would they create history !
We all have these mis-pronounced words when we are young.
While playing – 'templease' for ‘time please’ with the spit on the palm mandatory for the ‘time please’ to be valid. 'Hide n sick' for 'Hide and seek'.
‘Two two zaa four’ for ‘Two twos are four’
'Ambyasatter' for 'Ambassador'.
'Kinner' for the truck 'cleaner'.
And a brilliant idea struck me as I watched a balloon in the sky.
Just fly high in a big balloon or something. Hang in there while the earth rotates. And when you are above your destination just drop down.
Gravity betrayed me.
On an entirely different note, I liked to believe that all beautiful heroines from movies did not shit. They were too beautiful to get dirty. And I thought I was abnormal to like the rape scenes when I was supposed to detest them. Heavily influenced by the smuggler-police movies of those days I wanted to grow up to become a police inspector. ‘Engineer’ meant just building houses and I remember telling my grandma that I would build a house for her when I became one.
I also told everyone that my brother could run faster than a Maruti-800 car and I believed it too !
P.S. - I was tagged by Madhavi. Check out her post on the same topic.
It all began in the summer of 87, long before we were crazy for products starting with ‘i’ to hit the market, the TV had made it’s grand entry into the Indian market
.
“Neighbors envy and owners pride,” the friendly devil announced in the ad. It truly was our pride and the envy of the entire village. 19” Onida colour TV kept in our 'nav ghar' That part of the house was recently built. Probably the first TV in our village, it changed the way people ate, slept and talked. Every Sunday morning the whole galli would assemble in our ‘nav ghar’ to watch Ramayana. Ram became popular overnight and out of nowhere BJP rose to prominence.
It was one of those days when I started seeing this other TV which no one else saw. Was I special, I kept thinking. I had a hard time focusing on one of them and even if I could, I saw blurred images. Watching the TV had become a dreadful experience. And I was scared. Was something wrong with me.? Very soon I found that one of the TVs would vanish if I closed one of my eyes. And my miseries were over for then, until one day mom noticed my closed eye.
“Why have you closed your eye?” my mom asked me.
“I see two TVs mamma. Which one should I watch?”
D H L E N
C T P A L O
D N H O B U C
“Is this better than the previous one?” asked Dr. Patwardhan as he changed the lens again. The trial and error session was on for the last 20 mins.
“This looks better.”
“ D.... R... No.. Thats H.. “
“Okay. Good”, said Dr Patwardhan.”Go ahead”.
“L…. E…. N”
“Good, the next line.”
“C .. T.. P.. B. L.. U..”
And the test ended there even though I read it wrongly. It was true, I was born with special powers. The doctor scribbled some numbers on the paper and within a few days mummy gave me thick glasses in thick frames and I was told to wear them all the time. Of course I didn’t sleep wearing them.
My world became more clear after that. I could also see the sparks coming out of Ram’s special arrows.
Over the years I have seen through them all. I have seen them evolve from the thick glasses with thick rims to small fibre glasses without rims. And between them came glasses in all shapes and sizes. Square ones, oval ones, round ones – like Mahatma Gandhi, silver colored metal rims, golden ones.
And they became so much a part of me. Sometimes I search for my glasses while I have them on. And always was part of a taunt or a joke and the usual sympathy.
“Tereko chaar aakhein hai, phir bhi nahi dikhta.”
“Yeh kitna hai.” Someone would say holding 2 open fingers. And it didn’t matter what I answered. They said I was always wrong and then giggled.
“Itni choti umar me chashma lag gaya. Bechara.”
My heart broke every time they broke – it could be a cricket ball, football, a punch, a collision, someone would sit over or just stamp on them. My world would become blurred again and the other TV appeared, until I got a replacement.
Last year my glasses broke again. I was watching the same 19” ONIDA TV in our ‘nav ghar’. Yes, 25 years later we still call it the ‘nav ghar’.
The other TV did not appear. I had lost the special powers, may be forever.
I know the eye chart by-heart from top to bottom but in my annual eye checkup, I have never been able to get beyond the
“We are going to be the leaders of this group and you all will do as we say. Nahi karoge to nanga kar denge. Samjhe !”
After the talk we all queued up at the Camp office and we were handed khaki uniforms, trekking shoes and backpacks. The instructions were to fill the backpacks and assemble at the stadium gate. The backpack was to be shared among two boys and had to weigh more than 8 kgs. Arjun and I filled the bag with clothes and stuff we needed and rushed to the gate. Arjun and I decided to carry the backpack in turns of 15 mins.
We all lined up in a single queue wearing the misfit khaki uniforms, shoes and the backpacks all set to leave. There was a headcount followed by –
"Chatrapati Shivaji Maharaj ki Jai !"
"Sachidanand Sai Baba ki Jai !"
The terrain shifted from the busy streets to the countryside very soon - palm and coconut trees lining the roads and the ubiquitous football field.
Over the next 12 days we trekked south, by the river canals and jungles from Madgaon to the Chandreshwar hill temple, then west by the rice and paddy fields, coconut trees and small villages to Betul beach, north on the beaches of the Arabian Sea from Betul to Benaulim beach and then east back to Madgaon base camp.
‘From Ocean to Sky’ – there couldn’t have been a better name.
At nights we camped in tents put up by the army. Fortunately, we went without shitting for days. Thanks to 14 – 20 kms of strenuous trekking poweredby the army mess food - handful of poha, burnt rotis with rajma and “Tiger” glucose biscuits which were available even in the smallest of tea shops. And when we had to shit, we set out with torchs to the makeshift toilets dug out in the ground.
People on this trip were unlike I had met until then. Boys were stripped at the pretence of a magic trick, while some woke up with their hands wrapped around body parts which did not belong to them. India is truly a diverse country and this camp had provided an opportunity for cultural and linguistic exchanges. Some kept learning the word for penis in all possible languages while some became popular for their folk dance and songs
Meanwhile the BMS guys kept harassing us. Their questions ranged from silly to awkward.
“Abbey, Tujhe itne pimples kyun hai?”
“Din me kitne baar hilaata hai?”
I never answered any of them. Let them pass like a storm which would pass by.
12 days of strenuous trekking took us back to the Madgaon base camp, slightly darker and much more lighter.
The last 2 days we were taken around Goa for sight-seeing – the churches at old Goa, Mangeshi temple, Dona Paula. All the money I carried was spent on buying T-shirts at a shop in Dona Paula. I was very excited about the T-shirts.
The next day we boarded the white bus back to Belgaum. Reached home to find that the T-shirts were missing. I was furious with the BMS guys. They had volunteered to watch over our bags while we went to have breakfast on the last day. So dumb of us. The whole trip they had treated us like shit and then the sudden generosity.
In more ways than one it was much more than just ‘Ocean to Sky’. It was a window to the real world – somewhat like a movie trailer.
From Ocean to Sky to burnt rotis, make-shift toilets, strip magic shows to the stolen shirts. Life’s way of saying “ Welcome to the world”.
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