The Mistress, Part 1

Honestly, readers, I am in no hurry to begin this story, indeed it isn’t a story, but a mere observation of this blogger, connected with that interesting time of the early 90s, when I was about seven or eight, trying to learn the ways in which society functions and expects us to function, and more importantly, that there can be relationships out of the wed-lock, apparently, one which society condemns, and that the world isn’t just ‘husband, wife, son, daughter’, and other names of the relations that issues out of the primary ones, but there are a million other relationships that flutter our brains for a moment or longer, because we’re too ill-equipped to understand the mechanism in which the adult world functions!


As long as I can remember, it was in 93 when we had shifted to this house, and although I cannot recall everything in its entirety, but the thing that makes the years of 93-95 worth a blog post is because those were the years that saw my association with The Mistress.


The earliest impressions which I received in this matter, are certainly not attended with anything painful, or very humiliating, but are in the nature comical in the recalling, but it is difficult to keep the account distinct without blending.


Since we were the new arrivals our immediate neighboring aunty began to brief mom about the other families in the colony, which I guess was some kind of ploy to focus attention on house number 6 (opposite to ours) where the Mistress used to stay with her daughter. I bet she had spiced up the details because nobody ever knew anything about the mistress, it all depended upon the speaker who altered the details as and when he required and presented it as creatively and appealingly as possible, and as it turned out we kept hearing different stories about her in the course of two years.


At that age I could never understand what made the women hostile towards her but the fact that they so incessantly bitched about her generated enough interest in me and I longed to meet this woman. She rarely ventured out of the house but I would occasionally catch glimpses of her strolling in the garden or when we went to the local temple and all. I still remember it was diwali of 93 when I saw both the mother and daughter lighting those little earthen lamps and then silently closing the doors on the noise of the outside world. My mother somehow pitied on their lives but she was primarily a wife and no wife ever takes sides with a mistress! Even then mom had nothing against her and by the spring of 94 we saw mom trading varieties of hibiscus plants with the mistress, which in a subdued manner led to afternoon gossips amongst the other aunties. Having sensed this, mom grew careful of her dealings with the mistress and she was glad that she was working as that kept her away from home for most part of the day, a sure respite from the gossip-sessions.


And then the summer of 94 saw me at the door step of the mistress holding a bag of mangoes from the twin mango trees of our garden. It was then that I actually ‘saw’ her. Man, I can never forget that face. She looked like some actress straight out of the silver screen and with that big bindi-like the one that Bengali women wear, she had that whole artistic appeal in her, enough to make you fall in love with her. Presently, she pulled my cheeks and invited me in and before I could take notice of things around me, I was feeding on biscuits, sweets and Rasna. (hey we all remember rasna don’t we?)


Well, readers, the story’s not over yet and the remainder will be posted ASAP……


Now Playing:: Ye din kya aaye…………..Chhotisi Baat

Re-tracing....

I was meeting new faces, new thoughts, new appreciations, and new voices, and for the first day or two I felt literally stunned and overwhelmed. I could only apprehend my felicity but honestly I was too confused to taste it sincerely. I wandered about, thinking I was happy, but indeed I was not. I realized that it is easy to forget people, but replacing them takes a lifetime.


It’s an awkward feeling, when you go about meeting new faces, pretending that you’re enjoying every moment of the conversation, and have convinced yourself that you’ve indeed replaced your old cronies, but somewhere deep within, a part of you is still on the look out for an old joke, or a mere gesture that you could relate to and feel that you ‘belong’………but, the past hardly ever reacts!


So how does one dissipate this awkward feeling?


One simply revives the old feelings. One takes a positive swerve into bygone days, no matter how rugged he/she might have been, or one simply chooses to be a coward like me, waiting for an insane stroke of fate that would bring old life out of dead protoplasm!


Well, it is too late to repent; especially when I had violently broken the bonds between us, returning would be equally painful as going forward has been.


Lost in the dark!


Reader, you might think I am singular, but the real point probably is that there is this widest gulf between my ‘friend-making’ and yours. Yours has always been poetry, and mine has been prose. And prose no matter how well considered and well thought-out it may be, it still remains inferior to poetry!


It’s usually believed that the more people one knows, the easier it gets to replace them. But how could I ever replace the guy who taught me how to punch, or the guy who would play the guitar every time I called, or the guy who would prefer vying with me over solving physics numericals, and numerous others who were a part of my growing up years!


It shall be sometime before I get quite reconciled to this separation and until then fare thee well old cronies, yet not for long, because you’ll be remembered again and again……


Now Playing:: Aur kya ehede wafa hote hain………….Asha

Size Matters!

“Worrying about the size, baby?”

“I don’t think I’ll be able to take in all that!”

“The initial lunge is always painful, but believe me, you’ll ask for more afterwards!”

“That’s enough! My wrists are already paining!”

“I can’t help it; you are holding it the wrong way.”

“But, I hardly know any other; have always held it this way!”

“Oh, come on now; stop being such a doll…..your Suitable Boy demands a cohort!”

“Yeah, the Boy would probably take Ulysses as his midnight darling!”



Now Playing:: Tera mujhse……………Kishore Kumar

Amrita

I once had the key to his apartment, where the veil of my weaknesses were lifted up several times. Inarticulate moments that shut the nonsense-noises of the world except for the chimes jangling to the rhythm of our pulsating breaths. If you ever get to visit that house darling, you’ll find me there, the musk of my scent still blooms at night! In my dreams I still at times fancy the cool floors purling beneath our burning bodies. But my waking stomach rejects it! Oh if a wish could transport me back to that house, every corner of which had echoed with our music...if I could only pick up the remnants of that music and bring it here with me...

What do you think darling that I didn’t try...I did...I did, but you won’t believe darling, he turned me out like a dog, or some profane person, into the common street, I still begged him to re-consider...I was in love, I had no shame.

Looking back, I still have a vague notion that it could not all have perished, that so much love and magnificence could not have been crushed all at once into the mere dust and rubbish which I find it now...but its not over darling, I want that man back...I want him back for I’ve lost my way, I’ve lost the key to my apartment...

You’re right darling, ‘I’m a freak.’


Now Playing:: Silli hawa………..Libaas