The Female Friendship Puzzle

I tie my hair into a bun a second time. I can’t cover that odd patch of hairlessness on the right side of my head this morning. I have been able to do this job, deftly, since the time covering a bald spot mattered to a teenage mind. These days with my eyes fixed on the TV, even. This morning is different. This morning I feel nervous. I decide to quit this pointless game and spray some dry shampoo, squeeze my eyes shut in an effort to make myself believe that my hair is frizz-free. Through the over-stimulated ride on the three-tyre auto-rickshaw, I cover my nose and mouth in an attempt to filter out the city pollution. I can sense the thumping of my heart on the roof of my throat, as my auto-driver swirls to a stop outside the building where my office is located. I take the first two flights of stairs, determined. I am chanting, “I can get past this. I know I can.”

I walk in through the single glass door of the building. There she sits. First one to work, headphones on, a dull residue of the beats of the song in her ear making a buzzing noise across the floor. I look apprehensively at her unsmiling face. Her eyes are fixed on her computer screen as if in a trance. She knows I am nearby, but she doesn’t move. Her inaction seems aggressive now. Last morning, we were best friends. Today, we are odd enemies? A woman can be another woman’s strongest advocate, but she can also be the most unforgiving adversary. Everything is fierce when it comes to a woman – the love, the hate, the win, the loss, the obsession.

Last night, it was around 9.00 pm when I decided that I wanted to go home. I had been working on documents for 13 hours, with lunch at my desk. My eyes were seeing two shades of black on the screen and my brain was refusing to interpret that into intelligible information. I looked over to my team-lead and apologized for leaving while she worked overtime. We were, after all, fixing her mistakes. She looked bitter. I had hardly opened the door to my home when I heard my phone beep. Three texts from her in succession. I skimmed through for the main theme of the texts – not done … unprofessional … feedback …

I knew what was happening. I responded in my usual impertinent, impetuous tone – the one I am notorious for among friends, switched off my phone and rolled into bed. All night, I processed the nature of the relationship I shared with this woman. Last week, she wanted to go out for drinks – I said yes. She held my hand and asked me in earnest, “Whom do you love more? Sue or me?” I love Sue, An, Srey, and all my girls. They are my strength and my weakness. Why would I love one more than the other? “Of course I love you more,” I lied. She fought for my attention like a lover would, but she was also the one who approved my vacation. It was complicated. It was going to get ugly, this break up.

I sit with my back facing her, our chairs almost grazing each other. My computer is booting up; my email is loading. I see a pop-up email notification and, of course, it is from her. I have to read the subject three times before I understand the depth of the situation.

Resignation. In bold.

Just Another Run

I take my usual route to jog today. No headphones, no cell phone, just the view of the trail running through the colours of summer, green, blue, white, lilac. I love this morning hour. It makes me feel connected with every moving muscle in my body. I can hear the irregular gasping for breath and the rhythmic creaking of the right knee. The first mile is the shortest, easiest. I have happy thoughts during this. My lungs have no difficulty filling up with air, and my calves work effortlessly to look good – I feel great.  I know there will come a point shortly after my second mile, where I have to turn right to get back to my parked car. I anticipate from a distance. I look ahead and see no sign of that turn. Good. I have some more time to let my mind wander. I am thinking of an unrelated melange of things – I am thinking of dancing, of writing, of reading, of kissing, of walking, of talking, of texting, of calling. I am enveloped by too many thoughts and suddenly I am aware that I am running too fast. I feel like a female lead in a TV show – theme music and all. Hair tied in a high ponytail, wearing a sweater despite the heat, and multiple thoughts with an ominous intensity that only she and her viewers can hear. I am looking ahead and I see no sign of this trail turning right. I panic. Did I miss the turn? Surely it isn’t farther down? I sense company. I see a young girl with a dog coming towards me from yonder. What a strange dog – I don’t want to lock eye contact for too long as I recall my old fear of dogs, in some sunken place in my mind. But the dog stops, looks at me and sits down low, as if he is prostrating himself, as if I was his master in some past life. I keep running, my pace is getting faster but the constant cramping on the right side of my abdomen is begging me to slow down. I ignore the begging for a while, until I can’t anymore. So I slow down and wonder what time it is. I don’t want to be a slave to my Apple watch, but I check it anyway. I have been running for 25 minutes. I was too caught up in my thoughts, I missed my turn for sure. I am in the half-second of uncertainty – the half-second where I am not sure if I should keep running straight or turn around. That is when I see her. My friend – I call her Beth - walks on the same route as me but in the counter direction. We cross paths twice, every morning. Beth doesn’t always say hi, though. She is mostly engrossed in her own thoughts. But today I wave at her, literally flailing my arms, short of breath from all the nervous running. She is taken aback and shaken. I let out a desperate, expressive interjection and a whole lot of panting. She stands frozen, staring at me, bewildered yet unamused. I run wildly into her, sweat drops splashing off the trickle down my forehead, and by now I am laughing. I bend over palming my knees, panting, happy. I say, “What a wonderful morning, Beth”. She replies, “It’s Trisha. It is a fine morning now, isn’t it?”

She makes two swift hand movements to brush off my invisible sweat drops from her left shoulder and walks away without looking back. My illusion of a friend called Beth dissolved as I watched her walking down that summer trail.

Sammu

Today, I am half-immersed in what I call pseudo-existential thoughts along with project templates and budgeting issue at work. Quite a spark-free combination – like oil and water. One of the fringe benefits of growing up as an Army man’s daughter was that I was the only kid in my class to receive real postal letters and postcards, apart from those that we were compelled to do as part of home assignments.

 I remember how my father had a God-like influence in my life. Bedtime prayers always ended with a thank you to him. All the values were developed through remote access via these letters. Even today, his mails are no different, except for them being electronic. The underlying thought is always: “Good job! But I am sure you can always be a better person”. There is no pleasing him.

“Sammu, you don’t always have to be so hard on yourself,” mom would insist. She would see me burning out the batteries of emergency lamps during regular power outages, struggling to keep up with exams, studies and a fierce battle for the first rank. I was always competing - not just with others, but with myself. Seldom ever happy with the result.

I would walk down the corridor decked with the most popular students, and almost hear their screaming thoughts - “Sammu is such a bore. Underdog. Underachiever.”

Those were the days I would go home and take slow breast strokes in the ocean of self-pity.   

Confessions after so long

There was a time when I felt sin free and then there is now.

It was also the first time I put my head on a friend’s shoulder, it was awkward, but it felt right. The memory feels very remote and near at the same time. 

A trip to the orphanage from school. Like a bunch of elitist babies, we were warned by teachers to take care of our belongings. I don’t remember the purpose of this visit. Did we do the ritual dance and song routine as our yearly Christmas act of kindness? Or did we pack up our old better-kept linen for the kids? More importantly, did we interact with them at all? 

I remember watching them from outside the gate, the bars of which were clutched tightly by tiny hands with curious eyes from inside. We didn’t understand why those gates never opened. From a distance, my friend and I shared our neatly packed tiffins from home, as these kids watched on. I remember feeling aloof and apathetic. I remember not being interested in talking to them, even with the grilled gate in between us. I remember acting baffled at their advances to talk in Malayalam. I remember running, falling and hurting my knee a few feet farther from the gate. I remember the curiosity in their eyes turning into worry and anxiety as I fell. I remember getting up flushed - not with the pain of the fall, but with the shame on my indifference. 

On the ride back on bus no. 8 and 18 years hence, I have considered that my first sin in discretion. 

The one where a simple sorry could not find its way to my lips. 

Do you have a story for me?

I have always found it hard to romanticize (well, at least intentionally!). Hence I am always fascinated by people sketching long poems on love, composing catchy music on life, stringing epics on beauty. It is amazing how it doesn't wear people out! I mean, far from it, people always yearn for more of this stuff. So, it is not surprising that I am now trying to find a connection between a queer tendency I have discovered in myself recently, and my apparent lack of imagination.

During my wee reading days, I was often attacked by what a few book-lovers had coined - a page-sixteen-syndrome. It simply means that the book you are holding is not going to take your mind through the fantastic journey it promised, beyond page number 16. This is because the journey it is currently taking you on is unbearable for that poor mind of yours. You need a halt and page 16 is the pseudonym. As a reader much in the green, trying to discover my comfort genre, I figured I would have to wade through a pool of seemingly boring books to thresh a few that would suit my taste.

Now the recent queer tendency that I had made a mention of earlier has to do with this page 16 syndrome. What had been a curious phenomenon witnessed during what we can call a book-reader’s puberty, has now started growing on me. I somehow cannot keep my mind to set sail and embark on the journey any book wants to take me on. I took a count of the books I had handled in the past one year and realized I had attempted 15 books, of which I may have reached page 200 of the highest scorer, the rest being discarded at an insignificant page number. Either my taste is evolving / maturing/ going through another book-reader’s puberty, or my mind is plain bored with the same dish offered in different plates! Mind you, I do not want to be misunderstood when I say same dish (I do believe no two books are the same).

What I actually mean is that I need someone to write me a magical book.

Someone to tell me it is ok to not embed a love story in a crime plot, it is equally beautiful to not sing songs about the nature, it is alright that the protagonist is dull, dim, distasteful, and one who hardly fulfils the definition of a contemporary hero, and it is lyrical to hear the punch line without the chaff. That way it will make me believe that a book can be written on you and me, our mothers and anybody. That way I know that everybody has a story to tell – some simple and some lavish. 

When he whispers sweet nothings

Every night when I put myself to sleep, I hold on to a book to help me glide through the purgatory - that is a miserable half-daze - and make my journey into the sweat heaven called dreamland smooth. Something like the last piece of reality I want to be in touch with before I shut my eyes to the world and let an unknown force take over.

Between those few moments of half-daze and deep sleep, there is this one short stretch of time where I feel enveloped by multiple thoughts all at once. More like a man whispering unrelated tit bits into my ear – strangely at the same time- but in different tones and from different locations. Picture this. You are on ground zero and you want to get to the top floor. You take the elevator. The elevator is mirror-walled on three sides. You have a co-passenger with you. You see infinite images of him on the mirror opposite. Each image telling you something different; each image showing you something distinct.  Such is the stretch before deep sleep.

Last night I pictured these sweet nothings: A Russian matryoshka doll; a girl of four with small, beady eyes, straight hair and a long skirt – she laughs every time you turn your head away from her and successfully draws your attention;  a long piece of cloth in cream with a red border; some pieces of shattered glass found on a school playground – little girls hovering around to collect the pretty shapeless pieces to play with them later; a wooden dragon on the shelf; a content Buddha head on a plain white wall... A view of the endless ocean from a ship’s cabin – an urgent feeling of “will there be land in sight soon?” ...

A few more thoughts before I am fast asleep.

Image courtesy: goodbooksforyoungsouls.blogspot

Where did my nights go?

I forget what a Starry Starry Night (Courtesy: Van Gogh) looks like. I remember climbing up to my terrace as a child, lying on my back and trying to read the hidden stories behind those constellations using a keychain telescope. I don’t look at the stars anymore and I have been seeing the morning moon for years now.

Some things I have missed all these nights

• Night star gaze
• stomach grumble
• Bedtime prayers
• Goodnight calls
• Mom’s rhythmic pat – pat on the back
• Dad’s slow breathing from the bed nearby
• Which invariably led to a mother’s womb security
• That hand that I could always hold when I wake up to a nightmare
• The happiness that the unforeseen gush of wind (ushered in by the light curtains) brought in
• Bedtime stories
• That book meant to be read at bedtime, but will never reach the second page

Those were the nights !