Long Long Ago

Madras sings heat and sweat. I spend the oppressive nights in my old corner, scouring through files of yore, now relegated as 'back-up'. My own writing of then amuses me. A letter singing the woes of unrequitted love. Composed and unsent tragi-comedy.

Circa 2001. One of my earlier autobiographical attempts, perhaps. :-)

Summer meant Thatha’s place, the abandoned school, ........
Most of my summer holidays were spent at Thatha’s place. Thatha lived in a big brick house in a remote village surrounded by green fields and coconut trees. It was an overwhelming ocean of green of different shades, interspersed with white dots. I later learnt that the white dots turned into cows when I neared them. They were milky white, kind and sad looking. Thatha’s brick house was on the Madras Road. It was a long winding road and coiled like a giant serpent as far as my eyes could see. Thatha pointed with his walking stick that the road led to Madras – back to my school and homework. I would climb on the high sand dunes on the sides of the road. The serpent shimmered in the scorching sun. Desultory buses with brown turbaned villagers on the top would chug along wearily. Opposite Thatha’s house was a gas station. My mother told me the day I am allowed to cross the road alone and reach the gas station is the day I would become a big girl. Needless to say I was looking forward to it – summer after summer – but the day never came. There was an old school on our side of our road. The solitary structure stood empty and desolate in the afternoons. I would walk from classroom to classroom searching for bits and pieces of chalk and writing on the board and teaching to a non existent class that 3+2=6. I would bang on the board to emphasize my point. After a few minutes I would get bored of my own voice and drift alone to other explorations.

But I looked forward to the evenings....

***

Another one from a past life, maybe.

I am sitting in my room, feet up on the desk, a sheet of paper on my lap. I am *supposed* to be working on something important. Instead I am staring out of the window at the rain, pencil held limply between my fingers, when I hear a snap of your fingers. On the other hand, you are holding a glass of juice. I see lovely fingers and a delicate wrist chained by a golden bangle. Carressing it is the colourful pallu of your cotton sari. I raise my eyes to see your light brown eyes and the maroon bindi on your forehead and... your frown. You are angry that I am distracted when I should be working. I had not realised that you had walked in. As always, you never knock. And when I politely ask you to, you say, 'We are not in America." I have always wondered what you mean by that. The snap of your fingers transports me from the reality of the rain to another reality - something that I should have experienced long ago.
When I came out into this world - a wrinkled brown bag - from your rosy white tummy... What did you think when you first looked at me? I had your husband's eyes, his mouth, his hands, his fingers, and his toes. What did you think when you saw my black eyes staring at your light brown ones for the first time? My earliest memory is of people remarking how like my father I looked and how unlike you. "If she had only taken after her mother, she would have been beautiful." And you used to smile that rare smile of yours - "But she is intelligent like her father..." - thereby negating your razor sharp intellect. Why did you choose to live in your husband's shadows? And why do you smile so whenever I ask you this question? Why did you take me to the terrace for my daily lessons every evening when I was in kindergarden, ignoring the disapproving gaze of your father in law. "She is a child. She doesn't know that she has to do her homework." I don't remember you ever displaying your affection. You have never hugged me, never kissed me. Why you have never held my hands. But one evening, when I sat in my room too weary to go on, confused, shattered, shedding tears over a long lost dream that i had mistaken for reality, you had stolen in on me - without knocking, just like today - and I felt your gentle hand on my head. Why did I feel like crying more? Why did I feel that i had let you down more than myself? I am 21 years too late. Or am I?