At lunch, the whole table almost profusely broke down to laughter –and somebody with the mouthful of morsel, miscalculated a bit between chewing and laughing, which kept the lady colleague right in front a bit wary. Other than the stern Madhulikaji, everybody had a hearty lunch. Even while packing the lunchboxes back in their respective oil encrusted plastic bags, and, counter appreciating each others wives and maids, who must have cooked and packed the lunch, Prabhu again resonated, trying to make his way crossing Shivangi, Anuradha and Pavithra ….So, why do men follow women, they don’t intend marry….for the same reason why dogs follow cars they would never drive…. Ha…ha...ha…the small poster in the corridor with the cute girl with a Shhhhh...... note, was nailed numb to the wall.
Pramod didn’t talk much in the whole interim. He was one of the few who, instead didn’t want to drag his lunch over the joke. An alibi of a meeting with some Infosys guys…and he briskly went down the flight of stairs.
Back to his computers, the 3D maze, screensaver, wobbling over, didn’t change the placidity of his nerves. He cushioned himself again to his revolving chair and gazed at those maze…changing colours…blue, violet, pink, red, green, yellow…and again the same all over again, till the whole screen was filled with a multi-coloured mesh.
There was still some more time slotted for lunch. None of his colleagues were seen around. He took a cautioned look around and leaned back to his chair, loosening his tie knot till the permissible limits in office. He looked up to the serrated ventilator right above his head. A grayish black pigeon is pecking on the glass of the window. He is not an amateur Salim Ali ..and thus turned off his head and tried looking at the other end of his cabin, having a five feet high jute board partition. On it are some colourful board pins nailing some appointments of the coming week, few phone numbers which Neelima must have noted down while he was busy in some meetings with clients. Right at the corner, a small Buddha engraved on a hard cover was pinned…a memento which Devangana had given him after her trip to Sri Lanka. His eyes got stuck at that Buddha, sending across messages through his half closed eyes. Devangana had insisted that it remains by his office table- for it would calm him down, lessen his androgens of anxiety ….and with a slight pause said…would remind of her too. Pramod was not much argumentative with this small aspiration of this chirpy girl.
It has been a couple of years now, of knowing her and revealing himself, though its just two months that he has been feeling that the comfort zone of companionship has been increasing.
He reminisced the table, in the terrace garden restaurant, round, with a white sheet neatly laid - for the first time…. he observed her meticulously - strands of copperish hair just beneath the earlobes, a small diamond stud on the first earhole and a golden fillickry carved peepal foliage shaped gold earring in the second earhole, a big bun which covered almost half of the bare back, visible above the broad round neckline of the black ikkat blouse. Pramod had never tried to see her so closely…..unmindfully, may be, his eyes went down, from the cascade of her bunned hair to the blouse….another thin streak of black, may be the strap of her bra, peeping out a bit where her black and orange Sambhalpuri silk was pinned neatly to the blouse. A thin gold chain, which she continuously looped around with her forefinger, seemingly, in the absence of right alternating vocabulary. Pramod concentrated on the candlelight on the table swaying directions with the wind, making parts of her face momentarily more visible ….. she had put on a black bindi today, adding more fullness to her face and a streak of kajal too….the black mole was very prominent adding more moisture to her lips. The restrained radiance of her face seemed to resonate with the rumbling of the dry round leaves of the sesum … pathjar ki bahar jaise chaiye hui thi …..
Pramod was still clueless, though enthused that Devangana had finally called. He had by then smoothened those anxiety stricken frowns which were initiated as he had a glimpse of Kingshook’s white Matiz in his rear mirror, while coming in. Devangana had hinted about their rifting. So why, …..but then immediated was ….So what if he was seen around…the frown streaks tried reverberating again, when, as he walked down the white pebelled way, viewing Devangana in the corner table, he saw the waiter clearing up the singularly placed coffee cup…By the time he reached her table he had consciously shrugged it all off –partially to keep up to his male ego that Devangana had finally called her, partially since she was in his favourite Black , but more so since he didn’t have much time to delve into situational and relational nittigrities today.
He had just flown in after a hectic fortnightful travel across the peninsular zone and tomorrow early he has to move to East Timor. In fact exploring and expanding the market there was his brainchild and he needs to do really well this time. There were some sloppy ends last time and he knows that he cannot afford to repeat errors at this juncture. There is something exciting coming up in Shanghai after this and he has his eyes fixated on that. For a couple of minutes he was back to the Timorous clients….
...not again…he knows, Devangana is a perfectionist in her relations. Very feminine with her emotions, honestly speaking, very fragile, as Pramod would ideate. Sincerely, he had never conceptualized of being in the company of such women…or may be any women for that matter. He, on the other hand, has been busy conceiving and delivering marketing plans for his company other than the intermittent gardening which has been almost a latent hobby with him these days.
With all his masculine endurance and trying to figure out the feminine essence of romance, he started grappling for the right words. Two months back when they were in a joint venture in Kerala, it was over some wine that she spoke about Kingshook …though in snippets. Pramod doesn’t remember much of that night for he had …well the obvious…was drowsy on his drinks. He fadingly recollects that he had almost forced a glass down her throat. Devangana had an early flight the next morning and when Pramod woke up a bit late, with a splitting headache, the lights of the night were still glowing. On the crumbled corner of the white bed-sheet there were a few strands of hair. He didn’t want to infer much on this. Devangana’s room was already checked out by then and Pramod after a day’s meeting had to go for a couple of days to Vijaywada…and then vagabonding across Mumbai, Hyderabad, Vijaywada again….China for a while….and… imageries of Devangana that night flashed intermittently, he had infact thought once to call her and apologise in case he had misbehaved in his intoxicated state, that night, but it just didn’t materialize.
A bone jarring silence prevailed between them for some time- may be spilling over a bit more than an hour now. Pramod took the last sip from the third beer and got up, still gesturing a blemishness as an uncanny incommunicable silence prevailed. Devangana’s forefinger, with faded design of the mehendi which she must have applied half a week back, was reddening a bit with the constant to and fro friction trying to knot the gold chain…..apparently, as if a clot was stuck in her throat. Whether it was because of the droning silence or because of the innumerable words fixated in the voice box was implicit in the swaying candlelight. …could be Kingshook…may be…..
Pramod niether endeavoured to break the silence nor dig our words from her end. Too many jumbled up contradictory feelings. He felt, irritation was overpowering gradually....what should he do now....in an open terrace restaurant the permissable limits to vent out was pretty low.....an of course he has always felt inapt to express his feelings.
With dexterity he moved towards his black Corsa, a couple of yards in the reverse gear till he swiftly changed chronologically from the first to the second and then third gear. He had barely four hours in which lots have to be done…offloading, packing, the official part has been neatly organized by Neelima, which would make things easier….but why was Devangana so queer…he didn’t have the time to ponder now…a push on the fourth gear and an acceleration to 80km per hour…there are no other options at this hour.
The car almost took a 360 degrees turn, and a screeching halt, when Pramod suddenly realized that he has left his cell-phone at the terrace garden restaurant. He had almost come 20 Km ahead. He had never been so obnoxiously frustrated and irritated with himself earlier. He almost flung back…oops..now what….a big vehicular caravan just at the gate of the restaurant …seems to be an accident…the white ambulance quite fluorescently visible in the dark, some jeeps…for once it suddenly struck him…is Devangana still there, looping her gold chain…or may be Kingshook has come back once again… there was no time to park the stretched Corsa now. He had to take the risk of sliding it in a tangent and rush in. Its around half an hour that he has left the place. Devangana might have carried the cellphone with her….with the ticking of the clock his cognition levels were zeroing down.
As he came out of the car….well there it lied, in the overlooked corner of the seat, camouflaging its black leather cover with the black seat cover…..might have slipped off the pocket of his black trousers. Gears were almost skipped rather than changed on his way back home. In a frenzy the rest was done till he again had to cut through the same black darkness, same black roads for a while, till he was on different roads and crossings… to the international airport. Pramod had dozed off in the flight..so hard that he didn’t take his dinner too….
Third night in Timor, a late night full swing dinner, when Kingshook’s call trembled him. it couldn’t be any other issue than Devangana, which Kingshook had to sort out with him. …but over the table he never had any word with Devangana…not just she was unassumingly silent, but even the right conjuncture and his conviction to say certain things weren’t there. So what was it now… Kingshook knows he is ina business trip…and at this odd hour????
WHAT !! not just his voice and his hands were shivering but others around this epicenter of the shock were also taken aback. Interrogative monosyllables followed---how, when, where, why. Other than the ‘why’ bit of it Kingshook roted the same as he had done to the other friends. She was a mild schizophrenic, though bouts of her suicidal attempts had frequented since the last couple of months…Kingshook was with her on the fateful day over a cup of coffee, but finally gave up on her melodramatic silence …..he shouldn’t have left that day…and then when he called up after a couple of hours…her cell was already in the safe custody of the Police Station.
Pramod came back to his room…listless, numb …..similar white sheets, similar white fluffy pillows, similar bed side lamps….like the cottage in Kerala…he was drunk tonight too….so much as that day or may be more…he can’t recognize this place…Devangana’s bare shoulders are in his arms now as he is trying to pour the whole glass of wine down her throat…her bun has loosened and she was breathing hard of a surrendering respite….he could feel her nails clawing to him…..he couldn’t recollect the rest. He couldn’t recollect much of what happened- with him, with Devangana after that……and couldn’t rationalize why that night she called both him and Kingshook???
Pramod was scheduled to return from East Timor the next night…Thursday…. and Friday he was back to office. Infact, Friday was Poila Boishakh and Vishu…and he thought he and Devangana could spend some time together. .…. and he had to go for atleast a spoonful of Payesam of Cheriamma akin to other years.
Lunch was almost over, spilling over some more today in lieu of the regional new year. The Buddha still stared with half closed eyes. Pramod gradually opened the slit of his leather organizer and took out a white envelope and pulled out the three folded piece of white paper from it….a letter by post that too in his residence address after a long time when he returned home yesternight…. Surprising…. The postal mark of the Lodhi Road Post Office….an address neatly typed….who could have….he had torn it off and fretfully unfolded the three folds… Mrs. Devangana P. Nair …….he couldn’t go much further. The stamp of Kukreja Maternity Clinic was clearly shown. …his head reeled….as if Devangana was looping her gold chain once again…he tore off the paper within the white envelope, into diminutive pieces, tinier than he was feeling for himself… and tucked it in the pocket of his white shirt.
It was Vishu today. Cheriamma would wait…past the terrace gardens….he nervously turned his black Corsa…the white ambulance was still there awaiting to stretcher her body numbed of shame…he didn’t have much time today too. The presentation for the Shanghai group has to be done … after he has his rice, Aveal and Payesam at Cheriamma’s place……he threw the torn pieces of white papers, lowering the stained glass window pane… but it seems he has lost his way the black road spiraling ….his toe slipping off the accelerator……his fingers shivering over the black steering running directionlessly…Devangana…stretching out his left arm he said “ask someone…which is the right way”….Devangana’s face turned towards the window…the window pane is lowerered at her end…her face not seen …she is not in his favourite Black…but clad in the crushed white bed sheet or the white cover of the table… the black long strands of hair significantly visible…flying in the Baaisakhi breeze… coming on his forehead…chocking his throat….paralysing his limbs…… Close the window Devangana…just close it….the viens on his forehead protuberated out in anger . What is she up to ?? The white pieces of papers are flying all over….no..not torn any more pieces …but collaged to a bigger chronicle almost cloaking him….a white blindness harping all over….the bedsheets, the table cover, the ambulance, the stretcher…Cheriamma’s widowed drape……and gradually as Devangana turns……he couldn’t bear her diabolic smile anymore…her white teeth…her white diamonds… white clad. Pramod gripped on to the black seat cover …struggling to reach out to Devangana’s pale palms… a streak of blood flowed down the ruptured vein of his forehead… one drop, two drops, three drops…on the white crushed sheet… he was ecstatic…the drops were BLACK…his favourite black, oozing out …
Memoirs of April 13, 2006
Pramod didn’t talk much in the whole interim. He was one of the few who, instead didn’t want to drag his lunch over the joke. An alibi of a meeting with some Infosys guys…and he briskly went down the flight of stairs.
Back to his computers, the 3D maze, screensaver, wobbling over, didn’t change the placidity of his nerves. He cushioned himself again to his revolving chair and gazed at those maze…changing colours…blue, violet, pink, red, green, yellow…and again the same all over again, till the whole screen was filled with a multi-coloured mesh.
There was still some more time slotted for lunch. None of his colleagues were seen around. He took a cautioned look around and leaned back to his chair, loosening his tie knot till the permissible limits in office. He looked up to the serrated ventilator right above his head. A grayish black pigeon is pecking on the glass of the window. He is not an amateur Salim Ali ..and thus turned off his head and tried looking at the other end of his cabin, having a five feet high jute board partition. On it are some colourful board pins nailing some appointments of the coming week, few phone numbers which Neelima must have noted down while he was busy in some meetings with clients. Right at the corner, a small Buddha engraved on a hard cover was pinned…a memento which Devangana had given him after her trip to Sri Lanka. His eyes got stuck at that Buddha, sending across messages through his half closed eyes. Devangana had insisted that it remains by his office table- for it would calm him down, lessen his androgens of anxiety ….and with a slight pause said…would remind of her too. Pramod was not much argumentative with this small aspiration of this chirpy girl.
It has been a couple of years now, of knowing her and revealing himself, though its just two months that he has been feeling that the comfort zone of companionship has been increasing.
He reminisced the table, in the terrace garden restaurant, round, with a white sheet neatly laid - for the first time…. he observed her meticulously - strands of copperish hair just beneath the earlobes, a small diamond stud on the first earhole and a golden fillickry carved peepal foliage shaped gold earring in the second earhole, a big bun which covered almost half of the bare back, visible above the broad round neckline of the black ikkat blouse. Pramod had never tried to see her so closely…..unmindfully, may be, his eyes went down, from the cascade of her bunned hair to the blouse….another thin streak of black, may be the strap of her bra, peeping out a bit where her black and orange Sambhalpuri silk was pinned neatly to the blouse. A thin gold chain, which she continuously looped around with her forefinger, seemingly, in the absence of right alternating vocabulary. Pramod concentrated on the candlelight on the table swaying directions with the wind, making parts of her face momentarily more visible ….. she had put on a black bindi today, adding more fullness to her face and a streak of kajal too….the black mole was very prominent adding more moisture to her lips. The restrained radiance of her face seemed to resonate with the rumbling of the dry round leaves of the sesum … pathjar ki bahar jaise chaiye hui thi …..
Pramod was still clueless, though enthused that Devangana had finally called. He had by then smoothened those anxiety stricken frowns which were initiated as he had a glimpse of Kingshook’s white Matiz in his rear mirror, while coming in. Devangana had hinted about their rifting. So why, …..but then immediated was ….So what if he was seen around…the frown streaks tried reverberating again, when, as he walked down the white pebelled way, viewing Devangana in the corner table, he saw the waiter clearing up the singularly placed coffee cup…By the time he reached her table he had consciously shrugged it all off –partially to keep up to his male ego that Devangana had finally called her, partially since she was in his favourite Black , but more so since he didn’t have much time to delve into situational and relational nittigrities today.
He had just flown in after a hectic fortnightful travel across the peninsular zone and tomorrow early he has to move to East Timor. In fact exploring and expanding the market there was his brainchild and he needs to do really well this time. There were some sloppy ends last time and he knows that he cannot afford to repeat errors at this juncture. There is something exciting coming up in Shanghai after this and he has his eyes fixated on that. For a couple of minutes he was back to the Timorous clients….
...not again…he knows, Devangana is a perfectionist in her relations. Very feminine with her emotions, honestly speaking, very fragile, as Pramod would ideate. Sincerely, he had never conceptualized of being in the company of such women…or may be any women for that matter. He, on the other hand, has been busy conceiving and delivering marketing plans for his company other than the intermittent gardening which has been almost a latent hobby with him these days.
With all his masculine endurance and trying to figure out the feminine essence of romance, he started grappling for the right words. Two months back when they were in a joint venture in Kerala, it was over some wine that she spoke about Kingshook …though in snippets. Pramod doesn’t remember much of that night for he had …well the obvious…was drowsy on his drinks. He fadingly recollects that he had almost forced a glass down her throat. Devangana had an early flight the next morning and when Pramod woke up a bit late, with a splitting headache, the lights of the night were still glowing. On the crumbled corner of the white bed-sheet there were a few strands of hair. He didn’t want to infer much on this. Devangana’s room was already checked out by then and Pramod after a day’s meeting had to go for a couple of days to Vijaywada…and then vagabonding across Mumbai, Hyderabad, Vijaywada again….China for a while….and… imageries of Devangana that night flashed intermittently, he had infact thought once to call her and apologise in case he had misbehaved in his intoxicated state, that night, but it just didn’t materialize.
A bone jarring silence prevailed between them for some time- may be spilling over a bit more than an hour now. Pramod took the last sip from the third beer and got up, still gesturing a blemishness as an uncanny incommunicable silence prevailed. Devangana’s forefinger, with faded design of the mehendi which she must have applied half a week back, was reddening a bit with the constant to and fro friction trying to knot the gold chain…..apparently, as if a clot was stuck in her throat. Whether it was because of the droning silence or because of the innumerable words fixated in the voice box was implicit in the swaying candlelight. …could be Kingshook…may be…..
Pramod niether endeavoured to break the silence nor dig our words from her end. Too many jumbled up contradictory feelings. He felt, irritation was overpowering gradually....what should he do now....in an open terrace restaurant the permissable limits to vent out was pretty low.....an of course he has always felt inapt to express his feelings.
With dexterity he moved towards his black Corsa, a couple of yards in the reverse gear till he swiftly changed chronologically from the first to the second and then third gear. He had barely four hours in which lots have to be done…offloading, packing, the official part has been neatly organized by Neelima, which would make things easier….but why was Devangana so queer…he didn’t have the time to ponder now…a push on the fourth gear and an acceleration to 80km per hour…there are no other options at this hour.
The car almost took a 360 degrees turn, and a screeching halt, when Pramod suddenly realized that he has left his cell-phone at the terrace garden restaurant. He had almost come 20 Km ahead. He had never been so obnoxiously frustrated and irritated with himself earlier. He almost flung back…oops..now what….a big vehicular caravan just at the gate of the restaurant …seems to be an accident…the white ambulance quite fluorescently visible in the dark, some jeeps…for once it suddenly struck him…is Devangana still there, looping her gold chain…or may be Kingshook has come back once again… there was no time to park the stretched Corsa now. He had to take the risk of sliding it in a tangent and rush in. Its around half an hour that he has left the place. Devangana might have carried the cellphone with her….with the ticking of the clock his cognition levels were zeroing down.
As he came out of the car….well there it lied, in the overlooked corner of the seat, camouflaging its black leather cover with the black seat cover…..might have slipped off the pocket of his black trousers. Gears were almost skipped rather than changed on his way back home. In a frenzy the rest was done till he again had to cut through the same black darkness, same black roads for a while, till he was on different roads and crossings… to the international airport. Pramod had dozed off in the flight..so hard that he didn’t take his dinner too….
Third night in Timor, a late night full swing dinner, when Kingshook’s call trembled him. it couldn’t be any other issue than Devangana, which Kingshook had to sort out with him. …but over the table he never had any word with Devangana…not just she was unassumingly silent, but even the right conjuncture and his conviction to say certain things weren’t there. So what was it now… Kingshook knows he is ina business trip…and at this odd hour????
WHAT !! not just his voice and his hands were shivering but others around this epicenter of the shock were also taken aback. Interrogative monosyllables followed---how, when, where, why. Other than the ‘why’ bit of it Kingshook roted the same as he had done to the other friends. She was a mild schizophrenic, though bouts of her suicidal attempts had frequented since the last couple of months…Kingshook was with her on the fateful day over a cup of coffee, but finally gave up on her melodramatic silence …..he shouldn’t have left that day…and then when he called up after a couple of hours…her cell was already in the safe custody of the Police Station.
Pramod came back to his room…listless, numb …..similar white sheets, similar white fluffy pillows, similar bed side lamps….like the cottage in Kerala…he was drunk tonight too….so much as that day or may be more…he can’t recognize this place…Devangana’s bare shoulders are in his arms now as he is trying to pour the whole glass of wine down her throat…her bun has loosened and she was breathing hard of a surrendering respite….he could feel her nails clawing to him…..he couldn’t recollect the rest. He couldn’t recollect much of what happened- with him, with Devangana after that……and couldn’t rationalize why that night she called both him and Kingshook???
Pramod was scheduled to return from East Timor the next night…Thursday…. and Friday he was back to office. Infact, Friday was Poila Boishakh and Vishu…and he thought he and Devangana could spend some time together. .…. and he had to go for atleast a spoonful of Payesam of Cheriamma akin to other years.
Lunch was almost over, spilling over some more today in lieu of the regional new year. The Buddha still stared with half closed eyes. Pramod gradually opened the slit of his leather organizer and took out a white envelope and pulled out the three folded piece of white paper from it….a letter by post that too in his residence address after a long time when he returned home yesternight…. Surprising…. The postal mark of the Lodhi Road Post Office….an address neatly typed….who could have….he had torn it off and fretfully unfolded the three folds… Mrs. Devangana P. Nair …….he couldn’t go much further. The stamp of Kukreja Maternity Clinic was clearly shown. …his head reeled….as if Devangana was looping her gold chain once again…he tore off the paper within the white envelope, into diminutive pieces, tinier than he was feeling for himself… and tucked it in the pocket of his white shirt.
It was Vishu today. Cheriamma would wait…past the terrace gardens….he nervously turned his black Corsa…the white ambulance was still there awaiting to stretcher her body numbed of shame…he didn’t have much time today too. The presentation for the Shanghai group has to be done … after he has his rice, Aveal and Payesam at Cheriamma’s place……he threw the torn pieces of white papers, lowering the stained glass window pane… but it seems he has lost his way the black road spiraling ….his toe slipping off the accelerator……his fingers shivering over the black steering running directionlessly…Devangana…stretching out his left arm he said “ask someone…which is the right way”….Devangana’s face turned towards the window…the window pane is lowerered at her end…her face not seen …she is not in his favourite Black…but clad in the crushed white bed sheet or the white cover of the table… the black long strands of hair significantly visible…flying in the Baaisakhi breeze… coming on his forehead…chocking his throat….paralysing his limbs…… Close the window Devangana…just close it….the viens on his forehead protuberated out in anger . What is she up to ?? The white pieces of papers are flying all over….no..not torn any more pieces …but collaged to a bigger chronicle almost cloaking him….a white blindness harping all over….the bedsheets, the table cover, the ambulance, the stretcher…Cheriamma’s widowed drape……and gradually as Devangana turns……he couldn’t bear her diabolic smile anymore…her white teeth…her white diamonds… white clad. Pramod gripped on to the black seat cover …struggling to reach out to Devangana’s pale palms… a streak of blood flowed down the ruptured vein of his forehead… one drop, two drops, three drops…on the white crushed sheet… he was ecstatic…the drops were BLACK…his favourite black, oozing out …
Memoirs of April 13, 2006
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