Around that time, writing left me. Every night I tried, sat there
with bloodshot eyes waiting for the morning, doodling distorted human faces in
my notebook. Mornings were unbearable. The brightness was too blinding. The
paper would still be empty. And the birds would start chirping. Poo-tee-weet.
That really annoys me. Birds chirping early in the morning. I don't feel that
there is anything worth chirping about the morning. It is way too bright, plus
you have to fight the sudden realization that there are others awake
now. Last night's mess is visible now.
Once it is morning, sleep comes almost shamefully. Like a rape victim. Mornings
come with cottonmouth and hunger and futility and the fucking chirping of the
fucking birds. I would just smother my head with the pillow and make it as dark
as I possibly could. And every morning, as I drifted off to sleep, I would think
about those bands they use to cover their eyes while sleeping. Sleeping masks.
That's what they're called. Sleeping masks. Every morning, I would think about
sleeping masks.
I close my eyes right
now trying to remember that evening in Zari. Well, one of them, really. They
have all melted and merged into a single representative by now. Of over-burnt
tea and cow dung and Old Monk and incessant smoke. Or the long lost nights at
Renusagar, on the dark little hill with the lake overlooking a million chimneys
reaching up to a million stars, filling the air with grey clouds of nocturnal
industry. Sad nights. Accumulating slowly but surely, coming to get you, little
child.
Dead dog lying in the
middle of the highway, guts spilling out, still fresh. I walk around the
carcass, minding the crows. I hate crows. Somewhere in Panjim, a car with
bloodstains on its grill must be pulling over by now. People come to Goa to
escape their sad meaningless lives. Where are the people already living in Goa
supposed to go to? I go to Zari. Sit down in Patil kaka's chai shop listening
to him verbally abuse his thirteen year old nephew. Watch the thin frail ghost
of Zari stand dead center on the little road, arms tied behind his back and
people driving around him, narrowly missing the possibility of another dead
carcass. Watch little kids throwing stones at passing cars. Watch the dark
concrete eyes of workers coming back from the factory. Watch out for all the
shit, piss, scum and cat litter in the universe.
There was a fair here
two days ago. The little village spiffed up. Most of the dog shit was gone.
Long strings of pretty flashing lights were put up. In the evening the little
street that bifurcated the village looked like the centre of the universe. So
many people! Buying, selling, negotiating. Little stalls of cotton candy and
ice cream and shiny metal trinkets. Footwear and handbags and little plastic
helicopters that fly twenty feet when you pull the string. Little kids crawled
like critters among sequoia trees; looked for their mothers. Balloons and
toffee and earrings studded with shiny stones. Today it is all gone. The
saffron on the street is there, though. The torn festoons are there. The only
remnants. Like spoilt make-up on a weeping woman’s face.
Patil Kaka’s stall
becomes dull at night. The feeble little tube light tries so hard, but falls
short. Little crevices of darkness here and there, the place seems smaller than
it actually is. A dusty calendar and a ritualistic photograph of some solemn
deity sit on the pink wall, overlooking everything- the equally solemn patrons,
Patil kaka telling his thirteen year old nephew how he will never be able to
fuck in his life, and me, a stranger here too. Only the nephew is friends with
me, for I buy him chocolate sometimes. And the poor little shack takes me, all
my companions, even the government issue box of free condoms into her rat
infested abdomen, with a surprising sense of complacency. It’s not like she can
do anything about it anyway.
All she does is wait.
Wait for a group of seven year olds, who come by every evening carrying pots
and pans almost as big as themselves, begging for food. The whole village waits
for them. For they go to every house, every shop and beg. And they take
everything they get and demand for more and mix it all into those huge pots and
pans that they carry; All of Zari’s leftovers into one. And they chirp around
like tiny little songbirds, poo-tee-weet, in a language you and I will never
understand. They brighten up every place they go, and the little shack waits
for them, for they give her, and us, the one elusive shy smile we’ve been searching
for the whole dastardly day. They take the loaf of bread Patil kaka gives them
and keep it carefully among the pan full of yesterday night’s rotis. And then,
tumbling amongst themselves, they fly away, leaving us utterly clueless,
utterly alone.
The little shack
darkens again. Utterly clueless, utterly alone. Like a lover, left behind.
