Ishaan and Aditi: Part Three

The Rain

“Perfect! Just the way I wanted it!” she said happily, looking at the painting he made.

Although it came months later, he finally did finish making it. She had to keep reminding him, because he was as much of a procrastinator as herself. But she wanted to see ‘Jyoti’ happening and she wanted Ishaan to paint it just as it were in her head. If he couldn’t, no one else could. She loved that about them.

“Okay then, I gotta run! You owe me a treat by the way!” he said, giving her a half hug and rushing out.

She stared at the door for a few more minutes after he was gone. Somewhere she had a weird feeling. She didn’t like the brief meetings anymore. She just wanted to spend more and more time with him, even if they did nothing. She liked it when he was around because she felt like she could talk to him about the strange and random things that went on in her head and he found them just as cool as she. Earlier, they went on photo shoots together. He would ask her help him with the setting of the place, sometimes hold the white paper in front of the camera and even ask her how the picture looked. She felt involved. Like, she knew what he was doing.

Of late, he was taking technical classes in photography from a lot of experts. He even had his photography group- a bunch of amateurs sharing their skills, knowledge, lenses sometimes and their ideas and photographs with one another. He often went on shoots with them. They all had become good friends and he liked spending time with them. They would go for coffee, exhibitions, seminars, editing studio visits, and interact with professionals in the field. He was getting close to especially two of them- Ram, a masters student, trying his hand at photography for about a couple of years and Natasha, a third year student, new to photography, but with a natural talent to take beautiful pictures. He spent a lot of his time with these two.

She missed him. A strange silence filled her room and her mind every time she thought of him. She stayed silent in class, trying to concentrate, trying hard not to let his absence ruin the moment for her. He always made time for her. Even if it were two minutes of saying hi and a hug and running back to what he was doing- he tried, she couldn’t deny that. She began thinking of the last time he stayed over and they spent some quality time together, it was while watching The Exorcist. She laughed out loud in the middle of the class thinking of how Ishaan screamed somewhere in the middle and sprung up, his fingers clawing her arm. That too cause she just tapped his shoulder from the other side! The class stared at her laughing hysterically. It was one of those rare moments where she was caught unguarded, being herself. They all smiled, she did look beautiful and funny laughing that way.

“Do you mind sharing the joke with me Miss Aditi? What is so funny that you’re laughing like a moron in the middle of my class?”

“Sorry ma’am. Please excuse me.”

That night it was chilly and unusually windy. The curtains in her room kept blowing. She sat near the window and thought of home. She loved this weather- she could almost smell the rain coming, an earthy, murky kind of smell. She just sprang up and rushed to the kitchen area and made herself a big cup of coffee. The cup and her laptop, she sat down near the sill and started writing. The rain, the best muse for an artist, especially a writer. She typed away without even reading it, the words were all pouring out on the keyboard. Once she was done, she looked at her work- it missed Ishaan’s illustrations. She looked out, the yellow street light colouring the street orange and the wind sweeping the dried leaves away and scattering them everywhere.

She took out her phone and began typing- “Where you? Please call me when you see this.”

Waiting for his reply, she started watching an old Hindi film- Padosan. It always cheered her up. It reminded her of her dad, and home. She missed her parents and their light-hearted attitude especially in times like this when she felt blue.

An hour past the film, the doorbell suddenly rang. Aditi sprang up. Her heart was beating so fast that she thought it would pop out. She ran to open it, she knew who it was. She opened the door and there he was, standing a few drops on his grey t shirt and his hair.

“What up? Something happened? Saw your text…” he looked a little concerned and in a hurry.

“No no. I wrote something.”

“Oh. Okay. Cool. Hey Adi, I’m sorry I gotta run again. I have just an hour before my hostel deadline and we need to take a few pictures just when it’s about to start raining. Perfect weather and we set up our cameras and stuff. Just came in to check on you.”

“Okay. Go ahead.” she said, almost half-heartedly.

“I’ll just drink some water” and rushed in to the kitchen area. He kept his things on the kitchen top and gulped down the entire bottle in one go.

“We need to catch up! Have so much to show you and tell you! I’ll call you, okay?” and gave her a hug and hurried out of the door.

She was getting used to this routine now. But somewhere she felt so lonely and alone that even the movie was failing miserably to cheer her up. She looked at the door for a couple of more minutes before sitting down on her reclining chair. She hugged her cushion and before she realized it, it was raining down.

“What the… What happened?” Ishaan ran and sat on his knees in front of her.

“What are you doing here?” she asked, her voice groggy and eyes red.

“I left my stuff here so I came back. What happened to you? Why are you crying? And why didn’t you tell me something was wrong?”

“It’s nothing. Just mood swings. You carry on. I’ll be fine in a minute” she said wiping her tears.

He took out his phone and made a call- “You guys carry on. I can’t make it… Just ask Ram to keep my stuff with him. Yeah, I’ll collect it from him tomorrow. Yeah, let me know. Okay. See ya”

She looked up from her cushion and stared at him, he was looking at her. Her tears flowed more vigorously. She tried to not cry out loud.

He cupped her shoulders with both his hands and looked at her, into her eyes.
“What happened Adi? Are you mad at me?” he asked, almost apologetically.

That was it. She broke down. She had held it within too long.

“I’ve missed you. I feel scared being so alone. I have nobody to tell my stupid little things to. We don’t even draw or write together anymore. You spend so much time with those two. I don't even like that girl so much. I don’t want you to go away. I miss my dad. I miss feeling joyful and bored. I just feel sad all the time. And I don’t like feeling like this.” She was sobbing. Her eyes were red and her nose and ears were bloodshot. She looked like a child who had cold. He had never seen her this way, so helpless and vulnerable.

Without a second’s thought he just pulled her into his arms. It felt the most natural thing to do. She buried her head into his chest and wept.

“I’m right here Adi and I’m not leaving you and going anywhere, kid. I could never do that” he whispered into her ear. She stopped crying and looked up at him, “I’m sorry Ishaan… I just feel too emotional suddenly” she said, wiping her face.

He held her face in his hands and smiled, “I have all the time in the world for you Adi. I’m sorry… Been a little busy. Tonight’s the night- tell me all you did past few months when I wasn’t around too much and show me what you wrote. We have serious catching up to do!”

The smile lit up her face again. It was the same gorgeous face and smile that had caught his eye the first day he met her. He sat down next to her and pulled her close. She poured out all that she did and he interjected all her stories with his sarcastic comments. She had to ask him to shut up every now and then.

She leaned back on his shoulder, closed her eyes and snuggled closer to him.

“I’ve missed you too, kid.” And he gently kissed her head. It kept pouring outside.

Ishaan and Aditi: Part Two

Muses and Maggi

Her room was filled with the many sketches they kept doodling over the months. Except in a few classes where they would both be attentively listening, he would be doodling on the sheets she gave him. He would draw, and she would look at him- busy at his task. Correcting him wherever she felt necessary and approving it in the end only when she thought it was absolutely flawless. It was like they were sharing the same picture in their heads.

She would title his pictures and sometimes write a few lines on them.

There was one which resembled a skyscraper personified with a monstrous head on the top, emitting balls of fire. “The fire of ascent, may burn you out.”

There was one of a girl. Her face split into two- one side, hair falling on her closed eyes, dimpled smile, and softness in her face. The other side devilish, dark, her eyes sinister, sending a chill down your spine. “You know what it is. Or, do you?”

Some were photographs. They often inspired her to write poetry. There was a picture of a red brick wall in a barren territory with a creeper slowly emerging from the bottom right hand side. It was one of her favourite pictures.
“The hardest of them- bricks,
Often, help you withstand
And rise.
Again. And yet again.”

There was one of the sunset- not in the sky, but as a reflection on the waters. Then there was one of the cafeteria uncle, grinning. Then there were pictures of chess boards, chairs, feet, eyes, insects, cobblers, cooks, rain and just one of them both- sipping their coffees. It was captioned by her- “Coffee and great minds- always come together.”

All of these were strung on a thick white thread and stuck on the walls of her studio room. Most were black and white, some coloured and many sketched. He believed that the beauty of most photographs lay if they were taken in black and white but the transition was happening as he learnt more and more about the technique, editing, the different lenses and colour settings his interest shifted to colours- he found them beautiful, experimental and fascinating. Like a new world just opened up to him altogether.

She was sitting on the window sill and sipping her afternoon chai thinking about an image in her head. She wanted to paint it, but drawing and painting was definitely not her cup of tea. She thought of asking Ishaan to make it. He hadn’t painted in a long long time. The image was of a girl wearing a red low necked blouse, with long black hair covering a side of her face, her eyes open, big and striking. She had a yellow champa flower tucked behind her ear. She looked daring and promiscuous. Something about her her half smile made the image more enchanted. She wanted to call it Jyoti. Jyoti. Powerful and seductive.

Just then the doorbell rang. She opened it.

“I’m bloody hungry! I got samosas and maggi. Can you please make me big cup of coffee and your special spicy maggi? Please… If I stay alone in that dingy room with my camera, I will start clicking depressing photographs and go into ‘the darkness’.”

She took the packet from his hand and smiled. She was half relieved he came over and half excited that she now had someone to talk to.

“Remember, I texted you about me wanting you to make a painting for me? I was just thinking of that… I can almost think of a story when I drew the image in my head” she said, pouring the milk into the saucepan and starting the stove. 

“Chai will do? Coffee powder just got over this morning”.

“Chai would be fantastic actually!” he said looking out of the window. He quite liked her place. It made him feel at ease and at home. They would sit together and listen to music, watch movies, talk, study and have maggi. She specialized in this different kind of maggi. Her recipe was a secret. He absolutely craved for it almost every other day.

“Here. Take this” she handed him a cupful of milky tea which had a strong aroma of cardamom and a plate with samosas. She then plonked herself down on the opposite side of the sill with another cup. They sipped it quietly and she told him in bits of ‘Jyoti’ and details like the texture of her skin, the way she imagined the hair, the yellow of the flower and her smile. He just nodded and listened.

“Adi, I wanted to watch the movie Transformers tonight. You up for it? I have it with me.”

“I don’t have anything else to do anyway. Not like I want to watch something like Transformers, but I think I owe you for watching the dumbest chick flick with me” she winked.

They sat and spoke about their college and teachers for some time.

It was quarter to 8. She just made the maggi and served it on a plate garnished with some coriander and a fried egg on top. His face turned into a bundle of happiness on seeing the plate. He hugged her tight and took the plate from her hand. “I lou you so much for this!”

They ate and watched an episode of Big Bang Theory and before starting with the Transformers. Somewhere in the middle of the movie she just yawned and got up. She washed the dishes and wiped the kitchen top clean, brushed her teeth and came and sat down again. She was awake since 7 in the morning. She began to feel weary. After fifteen more minutes of the film her eyes began closing and her head just tilted towards his shoulder.

The winds were cool and the curtains were flying. Almost instinctively, he put his arm around her and nestled her head against him so that she wouldn’t strain her neck. Without knowing when, he rested his head against hers and his eyes began to close. He felt at peace.

Ishaan and Aditi: Part One

Beginnings: The Coffee

She entered the classroom, late and with her head down. She hated being late, that too on her first day. She on the front bench because that was the closest within her proximity.

She didn’t know why she was there, she felt almost mechanical. After school got over, she found herself nowhere. She realised she needed to search, find out more, explore, travel- so she chose a new place.

She looked around at her class- new fresh faces- some smiling, some making conversation with those sitting next to her, some staring at others making conversation, some already flirting, some like her looking around too- she was enjoying this already. The walls, they were yellow. Yellow, it reminded her of the Coldplay song. She made a mental note to listen to the new album once she got back. The walls, again. They were yellow, with the paint coming off as one went higher up towards the ceiling. The cobwebs had made a small civilization there on the ceiling corner. Cobwebs, so intricate and tantalizing at the same time! She always found cobwebs beautiful and mysterious- they looked like a work of art to her. She imagined the dusky yellow light falling on the cobwebs, a photograph being clicked, the focus on the web while the shadow, magnanimous, formed a blurry background- beauty! From the ceiling the fan descended down, attached to the centre with a long pole, it reminded her of the busy, murmuring rooms of the dilapidated coffee houses back home. The pretentious artists, the college going band mates, the old men- rattling away, discussing political systems that were bound to fail, policies that yielded no good and sometimes, even crime. There was nothing under the sun that was not spoken of within the four ancestral walls.  It was ‘the adda’.

The teacher’s voice broke her reverie. “Here, class! Come on start introducing yourselves, beginning from the back. Yes, you- start”.

“Hi my name is Maya. I live here but I’m a Maharashtrian”.

“My name is Maria, from Kerala”.

“Joseph, Konkani, brought up here”.

It went on and she began losing interest or even getting people’s names. Just then someone tapped her shoulder from the back.

“Could you please pick up the pencil? It’s right under your bench- there”, he pointed. She bent down and picked it up and gave it to him.

“Thanks”, he smiled.

She continued looking at what was it that he was using the pencil for. He was sketching. It was a woman with hair like Medusa except that they weren't snakes, just standing upwards. Her eyes had a mysterious 

Durga like appeal and she had a joint in between her lips.

“Weed goddess?” she smiled and asked.

“Sort of” he chuckled and went back to his work.

His tongue was sticking out of his mouth and he was so meticulously sketching it. Putting the pencil behind his ears rubbing it every now and then with his thumb to smudge it. He kept looking at it and finding some flaw. He redid the one line that seemed just fine, erasing it and doing it again, then that slight stroke of the thumb, then blowing over it and looking at from another angle. This was fun to watch.

He went on for the next twenty minutes and she seemed as immersed in the picture as him. Now she felt satisfied every time he drew a fresh line and erased the older one- she knew why it didn’t look perfect. She even pointed at the eye and said “tch tch”. He went back and stared at the picture again, nodded, erased the tip and re did it. He looked up at her. “Hmmm” she said, approvingly. It was almost done. The ‘Weed Goddess’ looked ethereal. She had big almond shaped eyes, they looked cold and she looked knocked out. Between her lips was a half burnt joint that gave out a thin line of smoke. Her nose, like a Greek goddess- sharp and her face, chiselled and square. Her hair was long and stood upwards. She had a long, graceful, seductive neck. Just then the bell rang and the teacher picked up the books and walked out. Obviously, not remembering any of the names. For them it was like a routine practice. Every year a new batch would come, an old one would go and it would take them at least a couple of months before they got a hang of all the names.

“You been to the cafeteria?” he asked.

“Nope. I was late. But I desperately need coffee. Where is it?”

“Come I’ll show you, I’m going to get me some too.”

He took her downstairs to the cafeteria. The stairs were made of stone, the building was so old that it could have crumbled beneath their feet. The cafeteria was huge- the same old walls with cracks in the paint.

“Do coffee bhaiyya. Strong, medium sugar” he told the vendor and gave him the change. She offered him a ten rupee note. He gave her the please-keep-it-to-yourself look. He handed her the cup.

And they sat on the next table sipping it quietly.

“Weed goddess. Why didn’t I think of that!” he chucked to himself.

“You paint too?” she asked.

“I do photography actually. All this -is just a way to keep me awake during the day. I can sleep almost 22 hours at a stretch. But yeah, I paint, very occasionally though. You?” he asked.

“Well I don’t know. I write sometimes I guess.”

“I see.”

For the first time she actually looked at his face. He was fair and had a stubble. Thick dark eyebrows, long nose, roundish face and small eyes. His eyes- they were light brown.

“The coffee’s good. I’m Ishaan by the way.”

“Aditi” she smiled.

Her smile was gorgeous. He just stared at her face for a second longer. It lit up her entire face. She was dusky with shoulder length dark hair, kohl lined big eyes and high cheekbones.

They both looked at each other at the same time and smiled, then went back to sipping their coffee. 

For you, Mamma

I wake up everyday either to the sound of my alarm clock, a best friend frantically calling to wake me up or the cleaning woman's loud banging on my door. I wake up, moan, beg this universe for two more minutes of peaceful sleep... And the cycle repeats itself.

I wake up, finally and decisively. Fighting that urge to plop down back on the bed. But no ! I HAVE to get up ! She cleans the room and I watch her. I keep telling her, "Aka, udhar kachra hai... Wahaan theek se kar dijiye na"... I wonder how my mom would stand and make her clean this room. She would keep her hands on her hip and watch her and keep giving her directions... At the end of it she would probably take it from her hand and re do the whole thing herself. Yeah, well that is my mom.

I think of her. Her beautiful face. I never realised how pretty she is until now. I crave to look at her... See her with that frown, and that shy smile every time we gave her a compliment. She is beautiful. 

I pick up the bucket and go out to fill hot water. I remember how she used to keep hot water ready for me and my brother when we were in school. Even our uniforms would be neatly ironed and kept out. Yes, we were pampered children. She loved doing that to us.

I go upstairs for breakfast. I don't remember pouring tea for myself or ever packing my own tiffin. It would always be kept out there for me. Every morning from 5 the kitchen would smell of the food my mom would give us for tiffin. Nicely packed in foil with extra spoons, for my scavenger like friends.

I go to college. Completely absorbed in all that is around me. College gets over and I rush back to the pg. I almost call it home now. I rush back because I have clothes to wash before it gets dark. I soumd so much like my mom when I say things like that. 

I come back. To an empty room. Where nobody opens the door for me and gives me a glass of water asking me about how my day went... I sit down and recall her face again... I miss her. Her nurturing and looking after us.

I eat my dinner, my eyes watering with the excessive spicy food and I make a face at the semi cooked rice. I just shut up and eat the food. I wish she'd come rushing with a glass of water when my eyes water or  choke with the spicy food or I am coughing. The other pg-mates are kind. they offer me their water when they see me suffering and traumatized like that. And the cook kindly says, "kal se kam mirchi dalega".

She calls me up. Every day. I talk to her. I want to tell her how much I miss fighting with her and eating her food. I hate sitting in the pg during a festival. I want her to scream at me to hurry up and take a bath. How much I miss being around her. I miss being home.

I just quietly listen to her voice. She knows I am not fine. She knows it's hard sometimes. She sympathetically asks me, "beta, everything alright ?" I reply, "perfect, mamma. No problem".

I prepare to sleep and close my eyes. Her face comes to my mind again. And slowly in the darkness of the night, the strength gives way. I break down. A tear slowly flows out from the corner of my eye. I wish she was here. I want to be a kid again and run to her.

My friend very rightly had once said, "Home is where mom is.."

I miss you mamma...

A Cold Night At A Bakery

A shanty like bakery
Off the main road...
A cold dark night
Of stars and wanderers
Of strangers and mysteries...

Conversations... Over a cup of tea
Conversations... Beautiful and everlasting
Old hindi music adding to the scenery
One cup over another
Plate after plate of maggi...

Just like the very essence of life-
A little quiet, a little peace
After the hubbub of the day..
A small pause, a little stagnancy
After the rush of city life...

At the end of all the chaos
And the cacophony of the day,
After all the pain, sweat and tears,
A blanket of stars and fireflies...
A night of coldness and comfort...

Beneath the moonlit sky
Where everything else recedes into the background
Conversations- Over cups of tea
Conversations- Beautiful and everlasting
A cold night at a bakery...