An Admission of Truth

There are times when you can control the weather around you. Sometimes the mental affliction plays a role so predominant that one sails through the sweltering heat outside without complaining. Similarly, the euphoria blankets you and your environment and colours it the way it looks through those rose-coloured glasses. La vie en rose! Without frittering it away, let’s explain away the control over weather as an unfazed response to the mind under siege. And it is definitely a stroke of genius on a subtropical day with high humidity.

He arrived at 12 p.m. Dot. I really don’t understand how one achieves this kind of punctuality. Did he first measure the distance between my house and his? Detailed all that could go wrong and cause delay and chalked out contingencies for each of them? He could do that! After all, the bond we have is worth that kind of effort. Or it is simple: the guy is punctual. 

We had talked about everything. The world, the country, the politics, the business ecosystem, the Sensex, hunger, poverty. We had eaten, we had laughed. We were done and after that, we were just drawing towards a lingering silence. A placid one. The affirmation of sitting in silence and in peace when your mind is resting against some unseen wall of support. It unwinds the nervous, ticked-off, attentive cells in your body. You can simply lean against the 'wall' without feeling burdened. Without feeling the need to pay for the beneficence today or later. All left there is the calm and the serene. 

And, that day, I was confident. There was nothing uncomfortable. That would have stood out most days but not that day. It was thirty degrees in the daytime. I was seated on a bench-box by the sliding door which opened to a slick green view, with brown clouds playing hide-and-seek with it. “Let the weather continue like this, without the rains” I kept wishing for. The rains could have added the unnecessary tinge of romance, which in turn could have encumbered the recklessness of words that were to follow.

He was sitting diagonally opposite further inside the living room. I could feel his stare like a laser pointer at the back of my head. But I didn’t want to interrupt the status quo. We did meet after three or four years and it was only that day, I had found the courage to say yes to him wanting to come over.

I don't like prevarication, so beating around the bush has never been the chore of my choice. The straight shooting in the moments anticipating awkwardness or the salvage by the plain solemn silence has always been the much desirable course of action. The silence to me is the respite from the noise and chaos of the world. The way a squirming, fluttering, desperate, fin-flapping fish would feel when thrown back into waters after surviving the ordeals on water-less land. It falsely, if not always true, perpetuates the belief that words aren’t always the food we need. 

And, then, the atmosphere inside the room suddenly turned conducive for a reckless blast-from-the-past story. One which needed telling for longer than it was hanging inside me. Longer than I was aware of it. It was going to unload the huge slab of rock of gratitude I was succumbing under. It was an ADMISSION.         

“You are the reason. You changed her, moulded her. You made her better. She became who she wanted to be. Or she is working for it while knowing she can”, I mumbled not too silently, “You may not even love her now. Or maybe you would because you had inspired her and you actually would like this new article. You saw the ‘her’ in her when she was blind to what her potentials were, who she could become. While loathing everything about her, she had ablated the hope that she was capable of change. The hope to become someone she wanted to and could love. She didn't know how to take the first step. You were in her corner. Admiring you from afar, all while you had thought she was reluctant, disinterested. Not interested at all”, I could not keep looking outside anymore. I needed to see his reaction. See if he acknowledged it. See if he understood it. He wouldn’t know about it, it would not be intuitive. Words could breeze past without rumbling any branch and simply titillate a romantic memory. Even worse, he could project it on another happy memory of his without seeing me at all. So, I knew I had to check if he acknowledged. Rightly. “But I still love that docile, credulous, un-skeptical little soul”, chirping while I could get him in my frame completely without letting my thoughts out. The thoughts were not selfish but inundated with gratefulness and needed to be let out.  

Unlike what I had hoped to see, I was looking back at a calm face. One which was not in shock nor surprise. He had changed in his seat a little. His mouth billowed “I can’t see the difference. She’s still the same. I just wish we had talked about this a little longer than we did recently. Remember? We had a talk. You must remember. I only heard from her then; I wished we had talked for longer than we did about that. She continues to be the only person who understands what I am saying. She knows that. I have told her.”

“She is who she is now because of you. She was witnessing a shift of realities in front of her eyes. She didn’t know anyone could ever experience anything like that. At first, it was hard to believe. She hadn’t seen anyone go through that, neither had she read about it. She was constantly criticized for who she was in flesh, let alone her fancies and the curiosities of her mind. She didn't even have the courage to speak what she was feeling, what was pricking her, prodding at her. She had no confidence to stand let alone crawl or walk to you. She was so beaten and thrashed. She had so many stings but didn't know how to pull any of them out. She didn't know why others didn't feel the way she did, she didn't know why she didn't feel the way others did. She didn't know why it hurt so much to be able to speak. All while she had the gift of gab. She didn't know what crimes did she commit whose punishments were avalanching down upon her mercilessly. She didn't understand how people spoke two languages with the same set of alphabets. She didn't know why she was so alone everywhere she went. She didn't know why she was constantly watching over her back. The shifting realities had become a popular notion, a regular theme for her at that time. She had split so many times, yet she didn’t know how to put her mind around those persistent contradictions. She looked the happiest when she was at her lowest, she was sparkling when she was dying. While she cried in her nooks all the time, so many times in one day, she found she had an effervescent smile. Confused, bewildered, worried if her mind really resided in the body or it was all a nightmare that would break only after a certain time has passed. Because there was no purpose to the nightmare, no object. But, thank God, you were there. She had to bid her time till time took its sweet time while centring herself around you.”

I think my voice broke while it coincided with the change in the track on the Old Songs mashup I had played in the background. The music is always a good idea. Somewhere in the background, almost nearly silent, yet an object to meditate upon in the times when you need to focus. The words affirmed themselves along their way to proper formations once again. Had it been anyone else, I would have worried about the situation getting complicated, people feeling confused. But it was nothing like that inside my own mind. And it was not going to be for him as well. The ties birthed in adolescence are elastic enough to countenance any stress and shear if they can be leveraged deftly, “Have you seen a whirlpool? I had seen one of those plastered on her mind. Straight from the textbooks, I can swear. So, something does assure me how intense they were.”

The sombre of my voice had reeled him in probably. I could twitch my cheek to apologise for the monologue but I was still not done. The farrago of words, the sentences were not to stop then even if a backstop was planted. “She was shedding her skin then. In the midst of the insecurities which had become so tangible, she could taste them. She could barely look at herself. I can barely comprehend how she managed to crawl around her room when she could not move an inch in her headspace. Can you?”, it was not rhetorical. I hoped if he would present a concurrence of thought, I could garner more compassion for her. He was probably about to speak but he didn’t. The train of my thoughts was not going to make space for him to speak yet either and he probably guessed so “She was becoming a new one. She just knew there was something that was gaining strength inside her. The hesitation and inertia to go look for that were extinguished. She had lost all her beliefs. She had only herself to figure out the mess. Can you believe an overnight transition from ‘believing just about everything’ to ‘believing nothing at all'? Pardon the small exaggeration! She was out of option and was forced to go through this metamorphosis all by herself. Can you imagine a human mind restored to default factory settings? (I tried to chuckle) Forced to build new memories, find new beliefs, develop new interpretations, see every relationship in a new light. All in the restricted timeline. She didn't have the luxury to take her own sweet time. It was as if she was already behind on delivering her milestone deliverables. But, the upheaval left her body undented. Thank God. She could at least prevent the stares and glares from any random passer-by who would otherwise snatch her body for the blemishes. Yet, anything so abstract as a bloody art piece in the minds of an artist who cannot draw it from the memory kept her sleepless for nights which she couldn't count anymore. All this was happening while she was re-upholstering. May God have mercy!                                                                      

The new layers of reality, new tangibilities, new beliefs, new senses, were being grafted on her. She was building her character, her temperament, her nature. From start. The right cast to accommodate the new person. And that’s where you came in. You were her pole-star. Only anchor, only something that she could touch and wouldn't get lost. Only something which would be there even after she had turned around.  She knew you had loved him, truly. And that was not going to shift. She tried and erred repeatedly. Audacity here, arrogance there. Impatience here, turmoil there. Rudeness her, discourtesy there. Nitpicking on these traits because they felt so negative. And so needed to be dealt with and warded-off while putting on the new garb.  She tried with each of them. Tried to get comfortable in the new skins always knowing there was at least one person who would not need convincing that these were experiments. Merely. She had not the last sliver of trust in her to presume you would know. She knew you may not know about this transition but would certainly understand. Such a callous world we live in! You were possibly the only truth she could hum. Her anchor. To know between the innumerable dimensions she was caught in, which was real. The one thing she grabbed on to. Then there was: confidence here, belief there. Empathy here, compassion there. The arrogance here, pride there. And so much more. And a new vital force had descended. The whole was greater than the sum of its parts. Fluid, instinctual. The chimera in the new skin, she did not want to be stopped and she would no more.                                     

Between all of that, you had moved on. But, she was only and always grateful. The only other thing, she did want was to tell you all of this.  This journey of hers, small as it may appear now. She wanted you to know this. For one reason and one reason only: that in those if darkness beseeches you, (May that never happen!), you could know what light you are capable of!”, the music in the background was taking over. Apparently, not even the earnestness of the situation could dither me from singing along … Ye Raatein Ye Mausam, Nadi Ka Kinaara Ye Chanchal Hawa.”

The interlude between the paras had just started and the words came out. Not strong as I would have wanted, but not a whimper, “I have shed her! Finally. The relics I preserve but it is a new artefact. New ‘me’”, I thought in case if he was thinking, he should be left alone. Had I been in his position, the revelation could have absorbed me.

But the drama of the uncertainty and anticipation are passè. He joined in with a plain-sailing segue, ever so smooth, “Yet what you are is only ‘more you’ than you ever were”. There it was! The tranquillity and the confidence of that voice that had kept me running, surviving for so many years, just beaming across once again. 

The connection we used to have to the connection we have. I had left it to him to define.

The ‘gulp’ in the music like it would be on if the vinyl player were playing filled in for the new silence that was to pursue. A lovely, comfortable silence.

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