We Don't Make The Papers

The old lady does not want to be helped up. She glares through her thickset glasses and her daughter, now over forty, looks embarrassed. The girl sitting nearest, also embarrassed, springs up and disappears. There is a stray, unaccountable note of reproof in the air, and the bus, like any red-handed child, finds the shortest way to a flamboyant, casual exit.

Bringing up the rear are seven gentlemen, of average height. Their average, that is. One appears to be asleep, even through the frequent and violent sternutations of his companion. The third, also stern, glares at the clearly drugged boy on his left while the two nearest the window giggle at nearly everything, but the man with the briefcase doesn't mind at all.

Having the faculties of perception and imagination rather keen and muddled in her, the girl knows that this, this is how she was to live. Writing these histories of no consequence; warming up to the world's invisible things. The man next to her, also elderly, clutches his yellow bag under the sagging, now asleep, chin. He has on an iron grey suit, black tie and socks, with a vest of a between shade. He may be dreaming of school.

Exchanging frequent winks with most of his female passengers' reflections, hanging by a wrist, is the conductor. An amber traffic light does to him what red purportedly does to decorative bulls in Spain. The driver hurls out abuses at his lustful racking of the bus's haunches, but secretly decides to keep him.

Of the several thousand people one saw everyday, she remembered only the unlikely. The ones she loved, also the most unlikely, were not apt to get along. The girl realised all of this, of course, but thought only of the sun on her left that sped out of sight.

the sky could be blue, i don't mind

What storm today. Grit and garbage cartwheeling, coming at teeth like missiles - but the wind outdoes, who cares? And I was clucking tongue, sigh, just the perfect day for long, long bus-ride and longer walk to end in hot tea and fried chicken, with your stories, but you haven't been writing so long. Everything else came. And like the gust, you did too.

Tonight's almost too beautiful to be borne.

tie up stray strands and go go go

Dangling on the fence, opinionating mise-en-scène, there are mists. The lake, the grass, the pavement ten feet away, brooding; shrouded. Fog, I wonder, now? It was nice talking, he says. Getting that a lot lately. Goodbye, it was nice talking.

Promita Roy in the bus today. Promita Roy, with the always upside down pout that was last spotted in Class 8. I keep seeing you around, she says. Why don't you say hello; Strange, I think. But she smiles, Goodbye.

That strange simultaneity of being, being bubbled and being part of the furniture. Inside and out, at once. Included yet ex-. When just waiting, undifferentiated from backdrop, stray people with stray things to say turn up and disappear: spectral, is that it? Like today's dude on crack, with red eyes peeling off, shivering a little, Harold Bloom, look up Harold Bloom's Invented Man, heard you mention Shakespeare, thought I'd - well (shiver) Goodbye. Disembodied, is that it?

Much like compulsory lists of relatives who must be met before moving - running into old faithfuls and young faithless, after years, months, weeks - with the voice-over saying, speak now or forever-

A litter of five, circular puppies with underbelly rash, quibble like bacteria in the sand before suddenly giving up, snoring, their paw suspended, mid-step. Almost, almost a wave goodbye. Heartbreak, is that it?

Sir's fingers move in impossibly precise jerks. Mind of their own, I think, staring, as he births sounds of a train, rain on a window pane with the same languid intensity. With the cat smug in his lap, purring, what - you think I can't get with it? It's raining outside when he has to leave, time to say-

Three heads in a row on the gleaming tiles, ex-goats, I think. It's a dirge - elegiac, is that it? It's a dirge, this urge to rise above, forgive, be the bigger- It's the knowing that it's time, it's time. Hurry up, please, it's time.

-he says, tchah, you don't say Jachhi, Leaving. You say, ashchi, I'll be coming now. Bad luck to say. Leaving.

No one believes it, but I know this is coming to a close. Only hope the move is not only metaphorical - god knows I'm enough metaphorical - It's the winter, D says. It's the winter, everything begins receding, life in backward, people going eeyaab doog in that death metal voice.

I'll be coming now. (Fullmoon, is that it?)

experiments with truth; or write as it comes.

Sarfaraz (SR) has on a solid pink shirt, of which the sleeves, elbow downwards, have each a purple stripe. Sarfaraz (SR) has orange, sometimes ochre, hair standing on end; brilliantine now slightly dulled with the day's grime. Sarfaraz (SR)'s white-framed sunglasses hang from the back of his collar while the pink teddy bear trinket dangles from the end of his cellphone, spilling over the right pocket of his ragged jeans. Sarfaraz (SR) has his name tattooed on his pink and grey bag and perhaps unknowingly, has embraced metro-sexuality with just the right balance of indifferent flair. Sarfaraz (SR) stops twitching his gleaming white shoes and jumps up for the Senior Cetizen, who has the greater claim to the seat. Sarfaraz (SR) scans the bus modestly. He knows his chivalry is likely to cull favour with the ladies.

The Marwari in the white Swift speaks into a white cellphone while his left hand dexterously, alone, veers left, right, left, reverse and out of its parked space, only to be halted by the unmoving traffic. Unable to lie inert, the left hand, as dexterously, begins to empty The Marwari's nostrils of redundant pith. A motorcyclist rolls in behind, and smiling through the reflective, rainbow helmet, asks for an inch forward. The Marwari, who is not done talking yet, scowls while the orange tika on his forehead peels off some more. The traffic stolid still, the nose adequately aired, the left hand steers the Swift back along the same and opposite trajectory into Square A. The Marwari gets off, apologising for the goddamn noise.

Mrs. is very flagrantly Bangali. In times of such dubious identities proliferating like blind mice, one must do one's best. Mrs. clutches her handbag to her chest as she rocks gently with the bus over potholes and around circles, sleeping. Mrs. will probably not alight before me, I think, as my heart continues to fall apart in slow, violet petals and Glabicki continues to croon, Won't Be Long, Won't Be Long. Won't Belong.

of sugar, spice and boiled gobindo-bhog rice.

What joy, I cried today, plumb centre of 8B crossing that is free-for-all. What joy, to have cramps strike right when every chemist and every druggist has overdosed on itself and gone, oil in nose and shutter down, post lunch. Stop wailing, A tugs, stop wailing and walk.

But it is too much. Too much to bear, it has been so long and yet. Ten years nearly, shudder to think, says A, assuming I meant that and not, this. Wow, really? Ten years into puberty, of glorious womanhood, of radiant matronly virtue. What delicious feminine thrills run up and about our collective spine to think. That glow on the cheek, of love, of babymaker in waiting, of the potential harvest waiting to be seeded. Must you be so gross, we're about to be run over. A is not quite as giddy.

Of course, must. Like being reminded every minute that you've given your love away on things that don't even comprehend - wasted weak months on memories that were not even - living and being what they must make of you who don't even see - but I agree. I'm anything you want, it's easiest that way, easier than having to explain, clarify, dissent.

You're reading too much Woolf. This is not good. Lol, I say, Lol. Yesterday, she asks me if I want a shrink - worried, they are. But nothing to worry - those who talk about it don't do it. And you can talk. True that, that too. True. Cross, now! What the - that truck - why don't you just plant yourself there? Outraged, I. Not A. A is giggling. A is not giddy but A is bad, bad at crossing - more likely to get into an - accident.

But this too, too solid - I begin again but she, Oh, groan, stop, I'm going home. I pout - usually works. There's a six inch counter open - I say, I say, I say I don't think they have anything but Cerelac. I ask, could you - But the woman with the fifty medicine list says, Make sure I get mine first. I cough and blink before repeating, uh, need painkill - Yes uncle, he says; customary this exchange of endearments, grandpa calls you grandpa and so on - and then proceeds to divide two cups of lemon tea into three equal parts. I stare fascinated, beyond groggy now to care. A quips, better equipped than I right now, couldn't you just hurry? Man clucks his tongue, no appreciation for art, the exact tip of the balance - girls these days. Cluck, cluck, cluck.

Gulp down the inch long sulphur, two to be sure. And wait, wait for a miracle.

Except it's not a miracle - it's inevitable. Like roses, like Giovanni Allevi, like the midday sun - it's inevitable. Once it subsides and you're at peace with gender and generation - asl, please? - you'll wonder aloud, who exactly are? - it's inevitable.

the commute

Fifteen minutes into a traffic snarl, with the two o' clock sun and no rain, not a bit of rain: impossible not to despair. This only time, this transit, when no one knows or cares in particular, about anything in particular you might have to say or withhold, this only safe pause - the time is ripe to cry. Weeksful of woe begin to shrink and condense on brain. Squeezing it into necessity - must let it out now, before home turf hits. Kátharsi̱, tó̱ra!

If it weren't for the female's pursestraps which must fall on you again and, no matter how many times you twitch and cluck, and again. And then a tap on the arm, you stiffen, of all the nerve- if that wasn't- who does she- But turn and she's not even fifteen, the girl, clearly new to the concept of makeup - one can tell from the immense zeal. And she's asking - are those phone or ipod headphones? - and for a second, the eagerness - you haven't seen anything quite like it in a long time; the eagerness of each hair in place, of the glitter on the nail - takes you quite aback. But, mp3 player, you mumble, you get them here. White lies are usually held in contempt but one look at the smile that greets this, and you think, hell, anything to keep that going. And there's no reason for you to grin like that. Especially since a minute ago Grief, with hands folded in quiet anticipation, waited to enter - was now, coughing a little but taking it more than sportingly, overall.

Like the time, two nights ago while walking the dog, this thing cried out, auntiee! The -ee rising into a supersonic wail. Two probably, at most three, that kid at the window above - belly and elbows poking out from between the rods, hanging there in her bloomers: cuter than a monkey but not the kind to make you reach immediately for the cheek. The kind that cracks your heart open just a little. Ki, I ask, ki?

And ensues a most informative little chat, her being instructed by shyer, older relatives on proper questions and I, bawling from below, with a restless dog pulling jeans apart. Was dinner done yet, was I going to study, what were the dogs called, did I listen to Dev? Had my hair been an inch shorter, I'd probably still have passed of as Dada, but Auntiee it was for now - and grateful, I, for the passport it gave me.

It's impossible to begin to list the injustices. Of the people you've loved (and for what?) and the beliefs you'll always hold (and why?), of how the world refuses to retain a jot of what you looked forward to (and so what?) - impossible for the old train to break down, even though wheezing to its death, when you're hardwired as a sensible little girl - no longer little, never little.

But sometimes - stepping off the bus, bye bye, she waved back frantically, while reassuring Abba on the phone that she had indeed made biryani for him and it was right there, bye bye - 

the damndest little things make your day.