Shamshera Review

Shamshera is an original screenplay that looks like a meek tweak of an Amitabh Bachchan movie that director Karan Malhotra remade a decade back. Malhotra who last directed Brothers and stars Ranbir Kapoor who comes back onscreen after four years, Shamshera is what happens when insipid, uninspired writing tries to mask itself under the garb of commercial, formulaic writing.

The story follows Khameras, a tribe that is termed as dacoits in 1871, British India. The tribe is headed by the titular Shamshera (Ranbir Kapoor) who makes a poor call, leading to the entire tribe being enslaved and forged into a world of an inhuman life, and how his son, Balli (Ranbir Kapoor) finds his way to redeeming the entire tribe beyond their tragic reality.

Written by Nilesh Mishra, the film has a story that feels dated by at least a couple of decades. The dialogues by Piyush Mishra are forgettable, and there is little to no character development. The same is true for the paper-thin dynamic between different characters and an antagonist in Shudh Singh (Sanjay Dutt) that is forgettable and unscary, and a love interest for Balli, Sona (Vaani Kapoor), who makes no impact on the story.

Malhotra’s direction is lazy, as is the structure of the film. A flashback that could have worked better as a reveal is presented right away, making the film redundant. A love story that only leads to one of the worst child-birth scenes in recent history, and a Saurabh Shukla character who still feels like he is stuck in the song-dialogue world of Anurag Basu’s musical Jagga Jasoos.

1871 was an interesting time in the history of Indian tribes, where many of them were shunned as criminals. But the writing does not depict any research being put behind that time of Indian history. A story set in a time period of such sociological importance comes with some responsibility that the creative voices behind the film shun in the name of trope-defined commercial cinema, and come up with a film that starts with some promise and ends with a depressing whimper.

Shamshera is a film that makes you wonder if time in Hindi cinema has moved beyond the worst of the 1980s. Malhotra went from remaking a 1990 classic to Brothers. Sadly, Malhotra’s third outing feels like a close cousin of Thugs of Hindostan, and its only redemption is that it is better than that colossal 2018 disaster.

Home

I had been outside now for almost a week.

But the week was coming to an end now. Sitting in the sleeper-class coach of the train, I looked at the crop-fields, passing villages, and the appearing and disappearing railway track a little more carefully than before. It was almost as if I told myself that if I focus on everything a little more – try to mark and memorize everything detail of the visuals more – the speed of time will dampen into a more comfortable rhythm.

“Oye,” I heard the voice of a classmate of mine, “you’re, okay?”

I turned my face reluctantly, smiling. I nodded, before returning to the act of trying to slow the natural speed of time. Behind my face, I could hear my classmates singing a popular song from the recent biopic of a military person who died during the Kargil War. It was a nice song, but I did not care for it.

My father has refused to have a Netflix subscription. In fact, we do not have any access to a digital platform. He says that these are mere distractions, an introduction to vulgar western content that takes us away from our roots. I used to argue with him earlier, but went quiet after a few episodes of nonchalant whips on my body.

The song was melodious, though. The kind that went perfectly with the visuals in front of my eyes. It is almost over, the words repeated in my mind like a hammer bashing against my head. It is almost over. The college trip is almost over!

I was in my third year now and I did not know anyone in my class. The trip was a lonely experience for me, much like how I expected it to be. It’s not that people did not try to befriend me. Early in graduation, they tried to include me in activities. But I either refused or participated with visible dejection that eventually made them give up on knowing me.

This is why I was not even informed about this trip during its initial framework. It was only later that I heard of the trip, the kind where friends make life-long memories and loners like me smoke cigarette after cigarette away from the madness of laughs, and games that is given a novel twist

But I pushed myself to come out for once. Not to make friends, but to give myself a week away from home. It is something that my therapist said to me the last time I interacted with her. “Go outside,” she said. “Spend time away from your family. With yourself.”

That is exactly what I did. I read the Penguin Classics edition of Anna Karenina, heard music that was not attached to a movie of which I did not have any memory, and smoked cigarettes like a child eating candies on a Sunday. I did not think about where I left my family once. But now as the train entered the edge of Delhi, changing the scenery from expansive fields to claustrophobic buildings, my heart started to beat faster.

Flashes from a week before reappeared like memories of a forgotten week. He remembered his father, standing like a tall statue in front of him as he held his bag. His eyes boiling over one of the many forgettable reasons he finds to be miffed at. My mother was in the corner, sitting on the sofa. I could hear the inaudible sound of her weep in the drop-less silence of that minute as I started walking towards the main door.

I heard my father speak. “I said you are not going.”

I stopped. My heart panting. I had never stood up to him. Until now. I turned towards him, trying my best to stare right into those demeaning eyes of his. “I am going. Period.”

“How dare you,” he chewed over his words in disgust. “You will stay here. In your home.”

I shook my head. “No. I am going on this trip. I will be happy for a week, and there is nothing that you can do about it.” I walked away from him resolutely.

“Huh. Happy. You don’t even have any friends,” I heard his taunting voice. “You will be happy. Huh.”

This time I refused to turn towards him. “Yes, papa. I will be happy, because I will be away from you. That is all I need to be happy. Being away from you.”

I think he continued to look at me, waiting for me to turn and acknowledge his silent gaze. I didn’t. All I did was turn towards my mother. The woman I was leaving alone with this monster of a man for a week. I worried for her, but I had to think of myself for once. I continued walking, slamming the door behind. An act of rare defiance that gave me the week I had just lived.

But here I was, back in the den. As the train halted at Nizamuddin my hands trembled. Everyone else hugged their friends. I am sure they were looking forward to home as much as they had relished this past week. They were smiling as beautifully as they were a week back when we first met at Nizamuddin.

There were promises being made of sharing the photographs as soon as possible. I did not care about any photograph. I was not to be found in any (except this one forced group photograph at the end). I held my bag, slid my pack of cigarettes in my pocket and held my copy of the novel in the other hand.

I knew the sight I would find once I am home. When a family forgets to have good conversations, the silence between them becomes a physical presence. It defines the family – the individuals – better than anything else. I know I will be welcomed by that silence. The kind that engulfs you into its grasp like a wealthy predator.

I sat in an auto-rickshaw, holding my belongings close to my body. I anticipate my father’s frowning face as I enter. Those daggered eyes that make you feel guilty for even wanting a minute of joy. The wait for the moment is worse than actually confronting him. There is something sinister about the wait – it makes you wary of the worst-case scenarios that then become your dreaded daymares.

As the auto-rickshaw halts a few metres from my building, the silent countdown in my mind begins. The dream is over, I tell myself, walking, before halting. I walk towards the play-ground that is hounded by children in the evening. This early in the day, it is still quiet. I reach for a cigarette in my pocket.

Sitting on the see-saw that was too small for my adult body, I lit the cigarette with my lighter. The see-saw made a creaking sound, as if telling me that I was too old to be here anymore. But I did not care. All I cared about was the silence of this moment, as I enjoyed my cigarette. The fear of what was to come was still there, lingering like a tiger lurking behind the bushes. But that did not matter, I said to myself. I looked at my cigarette as it burnt slowly to its death. I smiled, before holding it between my lips one last time before getting rid of it in the nearby gutter.

A Life Buried Under a Story

When I shifted to Delhi in 2010, I was grappling with fears that I was yet to discover in its full might. It was not just about moving to a new city. There was something more. It was the fear of confronting what life had tapered for me till then. In school and my colony, I had decent accessibility, and what was reduced by infrastructural limitations was overcome by people who had seen me grow – people for whom my medical condition was an accepted, assumed reality.

The fear in 2010 was not just about the cultural shift between two megacities, but of the potential of not finding acceptance in people I meet next. My friends in Mumbai had grown with my disability. People I was to meet in Delhi would be introduced to the idea of disability as a concrete reality when they were inching towards their adulthood. It was different. It has to be, my mind repeated as I boarded the flight from Mumbai.

Now, eleven-years later, I am returning to Mumbai. The fears are a morphed memory, a mutation of the very fear that stifled me like a hungry anaconda. Growing in Delhi has made that earlier inhibition of acceptance relax a bit. I do not fear platonic, friendly acceptance now (although I am always a little unsure of making new friends, of having the charm to make someone interested in me to give friendship a shot). The thought that I am continuously colliding with is the very plausible fear of failure, of wasting myself gradually, and lose all that I have in a downward spiral.

The fear of never finding a story that clicks, that turns into a published/filmed reality as I risk all my education for a career in writing is echoing in my head like I am a turbulent protagonist of a Shakespeare tragedy sensing voices of phantoms around me.It is that time of my life where vulnerability strikes the hardest. I remember this feeling of failure, of not being accepted, of a penniless, lonely life, that I experienced years ago. Today it has returned with an enhanced argumentative faculty.

My worst fears have become better at throwing arguments that threaten to topple me. They pose a reminder of stakes being higher now than they were in 2010. It is about a career that needs to work, for me to take the giant leap towards my independence from a father who has nonchalantly become the antagonist of my story.

It is about ensuring the gulf between the success of those you love, and the potential failure of yourself does not widen too much; not enough to impact relationships that are dear to you. I am aware of my fears now better than I was in 2010. But that has only made me vulnerable to my own streak of constantly giving voice to those fears.

I am shifting to Mumbai. A city I had lived in for seventeen-years before coming to Delhi. And yet, I have only now realised that moving to a new place, for me, has little to do with the city in question. It is about the dynamic I would go on to share with the people I meet there. It is a reminder that each city in this country is ableist in nature, and my luck of finding the right people, right opportunities might just collapse sooner than later.

The fear of change, the anxiety of a new life, of being forced to build new relationships, carve a career with you reaching an age where you are estimated on professional success, are all deeply personal experiences of a life with a disability in India.The novelty of a place comes with the fear of limiting accessibility. Exploring a new area comes with the fear of having to navigate the disappointing dis-familiarity with a hurdled terrain.

I have no qualms in accepting that I do not like changes – I do not like moving from a safe space. But it is only now that I realise that this behaviour is deeply connected to the experience of being a wheelchair user. Familiarity of places, and people brings an assurance. You know what to expect. You feel in control. Taking that away makes you uncomfortable, almost reluctant to go through the drill of familiarising yourself with new places, and cities in fear of disappointment.

It remind you of your disability in a negative way. And it is that thought that tenses my muscle at the very thought of repeating that drill I worked through in 2010.

Replica

Ten years after the Great Fall, the world experienced its first case of a Replica Model. It was a cutting-edge technology patented by Hara Nakamura, a Japanese billionaire. The idea was quite simple, really. In a world where loneliness was rampant and human relationships fractured beyond repair, Hara Nakamura’s technology offered people to have customized parents, partners, friends, without the faults and follies that made them tougher to live with.

Scientists across the world called this the closest humans could come to the idea of a “perfect being” given the relative idea of perfection. Sociologists had observed an improvement of relationship quality, and longevity, along with a significant reduction of toxic relationships and trauma birthing out of the roots of dysfunctionality.

The early success of the Replicas had brought a significant number of people to give-up on human relationships altogether. It was easy, albeit expensive, to have a customized Replica instead. Dealing with humans was too tough. There were too many downsides, blind spots, when it came to a relationship with a human. Too much of an effort for a reward that did not match against the probability of things turning sour for both individuals involved.

I did the same.

I decided to get my romantic partner Replicated soon after I breached into adulthood. She would be exactly how I wish my partner to be like. Her mind a mystery, her words deep and designed, her politics assured and enigmatic. The engineers at Hara also offered facial “perfection”, but I was never big on my partner being an unbelievable specimen of beauty.

As I wheeled through their store, looking at the different prices of Replicas, I was relieved to see that the market was still selling fair-skinned, sharp faced, skinny Replicas as the costliest at the Partner-Store. I did not care for any of these. What I demanded was for my partner to have a brain, something tougher for the engineers to work around, while also giving me an economical option.

I held myself together as the man at the counter asked me to return the next day to collect my customized Partner. I smiled courteously. A quick gaze around the store and I turned my wheelchair towards the exit. I could see a woman standing a few metres away from the corner of my eye. She looked around at the brochure for male partners.

I tried not to look at her. Humans are not worth a second glance, I remind myself. A quick recap of my failed relationships with them flash by my eyes. Women – human women – are never comfortable with a partner on a wheelchair. As a friend it is a beautiful thing to have. A reminder to yourself, and a visual testimony to the world of your proud allegiance to being inclusive.

But to graduate that love into a romantic terrain was where they stumbled. All of them. They all came with shallow, sorry responses. I had started seeing a pattern in their responses too. Designed to hide their ableism from me, and erase the very thought of it from their mind.

I cannot put myself through that again, I tell myself, continuing to wheel away. For a second there I feel her curious eyes checking me out, too. Ah, the curiosity of the able-bodied gaze, I remind myself. I am, after all, nothing but a prop in a circus for her. For everyone.

The exit gate is almost there. To distract myself from the urge to turn towards the woman, I think about my Replica. A vision of a woman, a partner, who would embrace me, love me, kiss me, without that look of wonderment, or narcissistic pity in her eyes. Someone who would be a true, inclusive, liberal. Not a shrouded ableist in the name of liberalism that is rampant on social media and protest rallies they attend to simply confirm their lie to themselves. She would be a truly accepting presence. My partner. The love of my life. A Replica. Not a human.

Just before I reach out for the door, I pause momentarily. An overwhelming urge engulfs me. I wonder if this woman would be different. After much deliberation I turn my face towards her. She has a kind, likable face. There was something about her face, about that nervous smile she gave me that told me that she was a good person. They are all good people, I remind myself. Good, friendly people. Good, ableist liberals.

I shake my head disapprovingly. Humans are not worth the risk. Not even the good, supportive ones. I reach for the knob and wheel outside. Memories of my old, optimistic self still there, bruised but alive. Yet, I knew better now. I would rather live a life with a Replica than risk the little crumbled remains of my desire to be loved, to be romanced, by giving another human a chance. Not anymore.

Father

The last time I heard from my father, he was a seventy-three-year-old man. He had just undergone a heart surgery and was hiccupping his way to recovery. He tried to contact me with the hope of a timely reconciliation. We had not been talking for over a decade now. The last I saw him was when my mother passed away.

She was a woman who had endured a lot of his tantrums in the name of keeping a lid on things exploding at our place. I wonder if she thought she was making things better for me by doing that. I guess not. But I also understand where she was coming from. She had not learnt to walk out of a marriage, and the one mistake she did was that she took years to unlearn things her parents (both locked in an emotionally abusive relationship themselves) had taught her.

For too long I blamed her as much as my father. It was only later that I started seeing the problem with that. We blame the victim a lot more than the victimizer. The narrative is hinged on the handicap of the victim’s reaction, more than the brutality of the victimizer’s actions. My mother came from a different world. She did her best. It was another matter that the best was not good enough.

She kept a link between my father and I. We talked because I loved her, and he was too big of a coward to openly abandon her. He had never cared for her. But he was in love with the institution of marriage. I often wonder if it is easier for men with an affiliation for narcissistic ignorance to be more involved with the institution than the people who turn it into a performative truth.

After she was gone, I did my best to erase his presence from my life. For years my biggest fear was to become a version of him. I had to do everything in my ability to be a better man. I had to escape his influence on me. Shrug off the little dusty particles of his traits that might have settled on me accidentally.

Initially he was too arrogant to reach out. He started living with his siblings, probably cribbing about how my mother had turned me against my own father. It was a sell-able narrative. One where he emerged as this unfortunate, wronged, wrinkled old man with a story to cry about and a life to be proud of.

“I did everything I could,” those words infuriated me in my teenage as much as they do now when I saw him, a man riddled with illness’, but holding on to that moral high-ground. “I gave all my life to him, and my wife. And this is what I got in response.” Huh. Forever the defeated, sympathized protagonist of his own story.

People believed him. It is easier to believe a feeble man with no reason to lie. I kept looking at him, trying to find some sense of remorse in those corrupt, obnoxious eyes of his. The man who had ruined our lives was getting the farewell he would have dreamt of. His son was there, standing against the farthest wall. Our eyes met briefly. Mine tipping with disgust, his too self-absorbed to read my angst.

I turned my face away, walking out of the room. I never saw him again. Apparently he survived that health scare and lived for a good few years before getting arrested in deep sleep one night. I woke up that morning with a headache from the previous night. I had drunk too much, I guess. My wife was sitting on the couch, a little nerved as she saw me coming. There were patches of wounds on her face. They seem to appear and disappear at will.

That is when I heard the blip of the WhatsApp notification. It was from my paternal uncle, informing me of his death. I typed a condolence message nonchalantly, before walking down the corridor and into the washroom. A quick bath and I was out again. My son, six-years-old, was still sleeping. He was up late last night, hiding behind the curtain as my wife sobbed in the bedroom, and I poured myself another drink for the night.

I gather my belongings and eat my breakfast in silence. My wife seems to be around, but tries her best to avoid any eye-contact with me. I do not care, anyway. My head is still aching. I take an aspirin, and walk out of the home. As I sit in the front seat of my car, I take a minute to think of my father.

I am a better father, a better husband than he was, I remind myself triumphantly. I nod in acceptance of my own assessment as I ignite my car into motion.

Home

What is love if it isn’t hope?

We all hope to fall in love one day. We envision it – a life with that special one – a montage of moments borrowed from romantic movies that have constantly defined and redefined love for us. We want what those characters got…and more. We want that little peck on the cheek; we smile at the very thought of someone caring enough for us to fight for us.

I dreamt too. When all felt gone, I held on to the hope of a better tomorrow. Today is lonely, but tomorrow will be better. I will find him – my Mr. Perfect – the one who will love me for who I am and not shame me for how I look. Someone who will not look at me accusingly when I tell him about the filthy comments those boys in college made when I walked past them.

It is tough to be an outcast in a world of rigid structures. I was not fat (or so I thought). I was just a little bulkier than the rest. That was enough for people to pick on me. There were the obvious ones who refused to look at me like a human. I was a joke, my presence a mad game of fate that gave them an opportunity to step back from facing their own failure and feel good about having the luxury of picking on me.

But the ones that hurt the most were my friends and family. When dislike is masqueraded by an elaborate lie of love, those little moments hurt just a little bit more. Those disapproving eyes of my mother; that imposing presence of my best friend, picking on me whenever she had the chance. It was a nightmare to live, and all I had to keep me going was to dream.

It is impossible to map your own resurgence when you feel down and out so early in life. To be bullied at school is one thing; but to be bullied in every sphere of life breaks you in ways that is impossible to describe. I had no safe place. Home, school, tuitions, it was all the same. The same dreary truth of my inability to match the unflinching standards set by the society to be an acceptable member of the world.

I had to look beyond me – hoping for a resurgence fashioned by someone else – a messiah; a protector. I thought he would come with a spotless personality. But only now I wonder if the Prince who fell in love with Cinderella was anything but another name for a life of subordination. The Prince had all the money and Cinderella was no Jane Eyre who inherited a vast property in the Caribbean from a distant relative. The disparity was too much and my adult mind is convinced Cinderella was doomed for life after marrying the Prince.

I felt great to begin with, as it would have felt to dance in that party with the Prince in open defiance of the world that she fought against daily. But slowly signs of authority came out. They always do. I wanted to feel protected. Looked after. But wishes like these do not come in isolation. When you ask for one, you always get two. Protection comes with power and power is a dangerous thing even in the hands of the best of humans.

The person we fall in love with is not a matter of chance. It sounds romantic and almost ideal that it is a spark of that moment that makes us feel that twitch in our stomach. No. That twitch is nothing but an unavoidable plot-point of a story that begins right from the time you remember snippets of your childhood.

The ones marred by words of disrespect and unacceptance are already on course to fall in love with the wrong person. They seek acceptance more than admiration; validation more than passion in their partner’s love for them. The downward spiral is unstoppable and somewhere in those harsh words by our parents, friends and teachers, the doom of our romantic life is sealed.

I did not mind the first instance of authority. It felt good that someone cared enough about me to argue with me about something. I simply nodded, almost adoring those early signs of aggression that were to turn into a compulsive need to control everything – even that table-cloth resting under the weight of his ashtray.

I think what fooled me was also the honest concern I saw in his eyes in those moments when I thought he opened up to me. The worst humans have the best eyes; I remember reading somewhere. It is true. Eyes can be deceptive like words and body-language. They can suck you in a vacuum that you misinterpret as love. It drags you tirelessly on a journey that only gets worse after every hour.

My Prince Charming (I hate these medieval terms they use for a romantic partner) came as a colleague in my first job. I was unsure and still reeling from the judgmental eyes of that girl at the reception as I stuttered my way to a simple query. It was a bad start. To stutter is to show that you are nervous, and humans are awful when they know you are nervous. They are scavengers, ready to pile on to your misery by showing how wonderful and perfect they are.

I saw him an hour later – the most staggering specimen of mankind smiling at me with earnestness. He navigated me through everything, cared to hear me out and gave me space to be comfortable. I know it was his job to make me comfortable, but it still felt good. I think he noticed it too. I admit, I am not good at hiding my emotions.

He took it slow (another thing I admired about him) and casually ensured that I was not in a position to say no when he finally asked me out. He pushed the question long enough to make me edgy, almost anxious. I still remember that date. It was perfect. I was floored by his charm and his concern for me.

Slowly he ensured he took control of me – my life lost its freedom, and it only got worse after I moved in with him. I think I took a long time to realize this trap. I remember the day I did. It was not a scandal, just a regular argument. The couple’s fight that are shown to be so eye-catching in those far-from-real representations of love in rom-coms.

I said something and the next thing I remember is lying on the floor, my left cheek burning like someone threw burning coal all over it. I looked up, he was standing right there staring at me. There was a red spark in his eyes as he grunted. I said something in anger – swearwords, maybe – and kicked me as tears started to blur my vision.

He walked a few minutes later, smoked a cigarette in anger. Meanwhile I recoiled, trying to fit myself in the space of one tile, my heart thudding against my breast. He came in again once the cigarette burnt to death. I feared he might yell again, hit those bruised shoulders again. But he did worse. He walked past me like I did not exist for him. In that moment I was dead. I think I did not go to the bedroom that night. I was too frightened to sleep beside him.

—-

I often wonder why I am with him even today. We are married now, and our relationship still suffers from those periodic episodes of aggression. Maybe it’s that heartfelt apology that I seem to fall for every time. On his good days he loves me exactly how I had always dreamt to be loved by someone. There is a sincerity in his eyes, a palpable honesty that gets to me every time.

Maybe I am stupid…. no. I know I am stupid. But there is something that keeps me close to him. Some might call it love, others obsession and a few smarter ones might recognize it for what it is – fear of being alone again. A stronger personality would have stood up, taken a hard decision. I couldn’t, because I knew how awful it is to be alone when the world is against you.

At least he is here now. A husband. A life partner. Someone who loves me. Sure, he has anger issues, but then he is fond of me. I know it is not easy to love me. No one else ever has. Not even my parents. But he does, and maybe the reason I am here with him is because a part of me feels indebted to him. I owe my presence to him. At least I have, in him, a home of my own.

Reflection

I was walking down the road yesterday. It was late – almost midnight, I think – it felt good. The silence that winter nights give you are beautiful. There is a thick, impenetrable fog that hides you from the rest. You are all alone, walking down through the fog. A hazy reflection of the reality that you are in person.

I take out my cigarette and smoke it like it was the last I will ever have. I have already finished the pack I got this afternoon. It feels good placing that cigarette between my lips, seeing the puff dissolving in the fog as if redeeming itself of its very existence in the monstrous density of a larger body of the same species.

A lot of people hear songs when alone. I don’t understand that. The whole point of being alone is to disconnect with the world. Songs – those scratchy voice of singers – are an unending reminder of the meek reality that we hope to escape when on such long, despondent walks at night. I look at the empty pack of cigarette, still holding the image of caution. It disgusts me how they have used grotesque images of cancer victims to fulfill a promise of a tobacco-free India. Cowards. All of them. Hiding behind those images.

They are everywhere. Humans. Some cladded in saffron, others buried under ideas that drag them to the tip of insanity. And there are those like me, living with dreams of changing the world but too lazy to really stand up. Some days I don’t even feel my legs as I walk. My ideas, my words feel disjointed. Maybe it is the cigarette. Dhwani said I smoked too much. She broke up with me because I smoked. Idiot!

But that should not be bothering me anymore. It was three years ago. I need to stop repeating our placid love-story every time I take a long walk. But it is tough to ignore love. In this world of rampant hate, there is way too much love to be seen. Like this couple I just spotted, probably out on a walk like me, but people in love never do anything alone.

They all say they are different. Everyone comes with the promise of being different. It is all a lie. When in love, their coy smiles and their obsession with that one visibly uninteresting person is exactly the same. No one is different. They are all the same, hoping to be different. Maybe in their head they are different. Every love story is special, they must say to each other. Ours is the best.

Maybe that is what that girl feels, who now lets her boyfriend feel for her waist, as if measuring her. How is that acceptable? Why the need for constant physical touch, you imbecile lovers?

They look at each other – look in each other’s eyes, some crazy romantics will say – murmuring things to each other before sharing a kiss. I wonder what do people say at that low, inaudible pitch to each other before they kiss. They often do, as if it is important to say something before you kiss your partner. A cursory ‘I love you’ just to remind yourself of it.

I hate the sight of people in love. It’s disgusting. They have followed me in these three years like a shadow. Wherever I go, there is one couple doing exactly what every other couple in the city does. They are all in the same mundane cycle. I abhor how happy they look, thinking this will last forever.

It is funny that all you see in the open – in public – are love stories at their frivolous best. They stare at you, almost strategically placed everywhere so that you are reminded that in this brief moment of bliss they have what you once had…what you might never have. I try to ignore them, but the fog has cleared out, somehow.

My cigarette is burning out quickly, I should be getting back to my room. There is no point looking at these idiots in love. They are not real. No one in love is real. People become props when in love. I cannot be affected by them. I am sure they will break-up soon enough and they will return back to being regular humans. Miserable and misguided.

I turn back. I cannot take it anymore. The phantom of love has ruined by walk, ensured that I return back a defeated, lonely man. The final glance of the couple turns them into a hazy reflection. One turn and their truth is a myth now. The fog is again my protective gear. I let it surround me like a fluff of a fantasy novel. I am in my world again. It feels good. I feel the need to smoke another cigarette but I have no power left in me to go out again and stand beside that wretched couple in love. I can live without a cigarette.

I close the door behind me, leaving the wintry fog outside. As I prepare to sleep, I wonder what that couple must be doing right now. Jostling for space in that tiny bed, probably. It must be tough being in a relationship when you cannot afford a good king-sized bed to sleep in with your partner. They might drink beer, watch a shitty romantic movie and make love while the lead pair on screen flirt their way into the meatier parts of the narrative.

In that moment, they’ll be the happiest people on the planet. And while they enjoy their little utopia, I will be thinking of them. Not with a creepy sense of reverence, but maybe a tinge of travesty. Love makes people happy; it makes them complete, and I have a problem with that. Their happiness haunts me. It stays with me for longer than it should. Maybe I feel the need to be loved again, or maybe I just need a few drinks to call it a night.

December

She snapped her fingers,

And it was December.

Almost a year gone,

Of stories to Remember.

– Rachit Raj

Sound of Death

Oasis

Jay was a writer by profession (if there was ever a profession like that to begin with). People knew more about him through written words than by interacting with him. His introvert nature and a home that stood in the middle of the city like a ghost-house, never showing signs of any sense of life, built an enigmatic aura about him that was impossible to penetrate through.

That aura helped him to remain closed behind his doors, never eager to have a social life. He didn’t need one. He had everything he needed in his library. From Marquez to Manto, he had all the writers alive in his library. They all taught him something that helped him become the best writer that he could be. He had written multiple novels under the pen-name Kamal. He preferred using a pen-name. It gave him a better chance of writing things that could otherwise land him in trouble. It still was, after all, tough to critique Nehru and his foreign policy when he wrote a devastating novel War and Words that could have become a part of the rich culture of classic literary texts that ruffle up some feathers and go through a tedious cycle of bans and court cases if it had been read by a wider audience.

As it turs out, the only readers of that novel were the three residents of the City who accounted for the writer’s illustrious fan-following. Yet, an intelligent man is one who does not take any chances. Jay knew that his words could turn him into an easy target and hence it was safer to use a name that would very soon be associated with anything that was opposed to Nehru and the Congress party.

He lived in a home that had little openings from where sunlight could come through, never constructing a window large enough for the outsiders to get any glimpse of what remained indoors. He believed that a public figure needed to keep the sanctity of his private life, even if eyeballs tried to find any hint of their private matters. Jay had no fans, curious colleagues or media persons trying to find the details of his private space, yet he liked to be safe.

The only person who knew him was a character from his personal favourite Affairs of Mr. Mehta, a novella that documented the story of its titular characters’ attempts of tying all the loose ends before he dies. One of the ends being writing a letter to his best friend whom he never told that he was in love with her.

Jay talked about Geeta sporadically in the narrative but he had constructed an elaborate life of this insignificant character in his mind. It fascinated him, how his mind could think of the character he had never found in real life – a character he connected with immediately, conversed with for hours and never felt like he was bored by stories of her life. She quite literally walked out of pages and manifested as a living, breathing experience that became Jay’s reality. She was dressed differently when away from her worded personality and responded to a different name. She was not Geeta anymore, when she walked in his house, knowing every inch of it like her own backyard. Urmila was the name she responded to, giving a coy smile that we only save for those we love in a certain way.

He found that a bit odd. Why would she not respond to her author-given name and react to a name that bears no resemblance to her real name? Maybe she was too smart for him, he thought sometimes; maybe this was not something entirely unimaginable. People do stupid things when in love and wanting their partners to respond to them by an entirely new name is one of the common practice. The words change with changing trends, each generation feeling they have done something extraordinarily unique, but all eventually find themselves standing exactly where their parents stood with the same benevolence thirty years ago.

So in a minute Geeta was Urmila and things continued smoothly. Jay had never felt a connection like this ever before. It was a thing of unimaginable joy. Maybe it is impossible to fall in love with someone like this if they come from a different space. Geeta was a creation of Jay, and it was the easiest thing for him to feel connected to her. He held her in his arms and felt like he knew every ounce of her. That gave his relationship with her a unique stability that few can dream to have.

He went on to write other novels but Geeta never left him. She brought tea for him at regular intervals, read his first draft and often giggled at any mention of romance in his narratives. She would give him a peck, repeat the actions he described in words to recreate an act of making love. It was her way of owning every romantic gesture that stemmed from his mind.

Their romance grew in the dark boundaries of his home, their voice never penetrating past the thick walls. Jay was happy, he had found his love, his muse from within his own creativity. Who knew that could happen too!

Maybe it was because he never saw her as a separate entity from him – never felt her to be anything beyond himself – that he did not mind when she told him she was pregnant with his child. The news left him ecstatic and in his joy he failed to see wrinkles of fear on her face. It was one thing to spend hours in bed everyday, experimenting with new ways of making love, and another to have a baby.

For Jay abortion was not an option. Geeta is not the person who will abort a child, he told himself repeatedly, failing to hear Urmila crying to have her body back. He housed her for nine months, being the perfect partner and never letting her needs go unattended. He still saw her as his, she, however, had grown beyond his love.

It is one thing serving someone, another to satisfy their needs in bed. Urmila had been doing both efficiently. It was not like she did not want to, too. But suddenly she knew this was going too far. Jay was not the one to commit, not the one to marry. He had more belief in their connection but that connection was for Geeta, not Urmila.

Urmila needed herself back, detached from the limits of a periphery character and thrive in being who she had been long before she met Jay. She delivered the baby, sure that she did not want to look at the child’s face at all. She needed to find herself back, her real identity that had no links with a non-existing character that Jay had confused her with for all this time.

She left the baby with Jay, making him a single father with a sudden drought of ideas. She went away exactly how she had entered the home years ago – a caretaker. The world knew that. The birth of a child also gave Jay the kind of limelight that his writing abilities failed to give him. He kept writing, but his words felt repetitive and unoriginal. He missed her, often sitting for hours thinking about their time together. He loved her, but for him Urmila never became anything more than another side of his beloved Geeta. He never believed what others said. He didn’t need to.