ENOUGH SAID

It’s a question mark, you know. Every time I sit to write something that’s not relevant and yet is strong, or I don’t know… I’m not able to sit this time, and I don’t know what this is about. I mean, I do know and I do understand, or maybe I don’t understand but I know all the same. I wouldn’t call this a poem, aesthetic or not, it’s just… completely irrelevant.

Fired up to spark a smile,

what I found in hers,

she found in mine;

a window to the outside world,

silent treatment to what I heard

…ten minutes of blankness past,

I’m sorry I can’t spit a word;

never have I felt so choked,

teller of the stories told,

and what would happen to me in mine?

Where’s the niche, where’s the sign?

Or should I refrain to “How many times?”

in angst against the angst provoked?

‘Inconsequence’ be my teasing find,

the edge into a depressed rhyme;

and if I turned to words, to sell,

the virtual pair of hands we held,

for all at once she took them all,

my hands, my head, my mind, my heart,

and I doubt if I can make some sense,

stringing this with what she left;

so I guess I should stop for now,

and ask my wind to open out…

I saw this girl, I saw her smile, I didn’t have a reason to not see the same, but I don’t think that’s why I looked in the first place. And there was this huge surge of feeling secure, an at-home kind of thing, and I don’t know, I thought she was giving that, I really had no part to play. And then ten minutes later, I won’t ever see her again? I don’t know, man, it’s… there’s just been too much of compliance, too much of standing still, watching things go by.

Did I think she’d not get down, or did I think she’d ask me to get down with her, it’s just… Life’s no ‘Before Sunrise’, I guess. But she was still looking and still smiling and still connecting, and I guess I didn’t play Jesse well.

I think I'm counting my six months till tomorrow. Period.

THE GOOD MOTHER

“You sure?”

“He has her lips”, he observed. “Don’t you-”

“You look at her lips?”

“Oh, don’t tell me-”

“I’m positive.”

And he pulled out a page from a magazine folded into eighths from inside his pocket, unfurled it for him to see and held it beside the face of the one in focus, who closed his eyes, unable to bear the effect anymore.

“See?”

“Wow.”

“This is insane…” he remarked.

He turned to leave, apparently having had enough of the whole thing, seeing it was no fire-drill for him to get out of it unscathed. There were emotions (as ironical as it could sound) and emotions can get hurt wherever they exist, needless to say. He was addressed before he fled the scene, forced to turn around fighting tears of frustration.

“Can you…?”

He was extended a pen along with the piece of paper, now back to being folded. What was intended needn’t be said for it was more than understood. They stood up to leave.

“So…” the politer one hesitated. “We’ll see you tomorrow, then?”

The boy looked down, biting his lower lip.

xxxxxxxx

“So… Good day today?”

“Mhmm.”

“That’s nice to know.”

He stopped for a moment before he made a move on it, thinking he could probably lie to them the next day saying she refused. But maybe the world knew more about her than he did so he decided to give it to her all the same, a nicety in gratitude to her for collecting him from school that day. He thrust his hand down his pants.

“Mom”, he said.

She knew what was to happen for she didn’t quite seem alien to the whole thing. She sighed.

“Honey”, she shook her head, squeezing her brow (or what was left of it). “Haven’t I-?”

“I swear…” he said, handing the pen and the page to her. “I haven’t seen it.”

She took it in hand, a worried look playing around her eyes. It wasn’t the first time that she had felt that particular piece of paper in hand. It wasn’t the first time she had seen what was on it either. She almost smiled.

xxxxxxxx

“I’ll be back in a couple, love”, she said as she dropped him home. “Take care.”

The boy tucked the page (that now had her clothed in her autograph and a pair of hearts) back where he brought it out from and as he walked towards home, the door was slammed shut and the car sped out through the gate. There was quite a bout of silence before she exclaimed, looking at her watch.

“Shit!” she said. “I’m late.”

FIZZ

He leaned to his right and that wasn't a bias or bad posture, it was just where he could find some glass to stop his fall. And it wasn't like he was falling already, neither can I say if he's back from being down, but as much as I'm allowed, I could see him wetting the screen. Not really an exaggerated gush of tears but just a trickle that found its way somehow. Phones in his ears, but I can't say why, maybe his mind was so loud that he didn't want more; or maybe he just wanted the steam to stay where it was, not wanting out at all.

He got his ticket, nothing big or maybe not because there's no real time and place to kill oneself; there's no time and place to find it all either and I could claim to know more about it than I'm allowed to boast about and I'd be right about it too. I didn't know if he'd welcome conversation, I'm not a woman. And he was just a boy, I needed intention. Didn't take me long to find one anyway.

I debated a while on touch or call, but then I thought I'd wait till he looked this way, a gamble worth fifteen minutes of my life. I simply had to make sure.

xxxxxxxx

I read his lips, he was talking to me. I was sure he wasn't the one singing 'Edge of Desire' inside my head and that's not because I knew John Mayer came without a beard. It was mere impulse and some sort of pragmatic thought, and I don't know why I started trying to explain it in the first place. I had to pull my earphones out to make out what he was saying.

"Which college?"

"IIT", I said. "IIT Madras."

He questioned me no more, neither did he react in any fathomable way to what I said (not that I looked for it, though) but he managed to put me in a self-analytical (maybe self-deflating) state of mind as I tried to find what could possibly have made him ask what he asked me. Maybe that totally wasn't what he intended to throw my way, being just a residue of some screwed up thought that beards like him could be capable of. Maybe he was gay and I had long hair, and no I'm not American enough to get there upfront, there could be more tangible, yet relevant explanations to that than that.

Maybe the tears, yeah, that could be it. Dress sense, listening to music, lips that phrased English words, he could have thought I had a breakup or something, as absurd as it sounds, I was just misty eyed on a humid day, or maybe he was sick of seeing a grown man 'cry' and so he prodded me out like how you feed the child to shut its mouth. No, I still can't be sure about that. I don't know if or if not I was crying the first place, it's the kind of time when you think about something and it gives you some emotions and then you think about something else that turn your previous emotions to something very alien that a revisit would only make you all the more surprised, I really don't know. Or maybe it's just me.

I flicked a tear on glass because I liked to see it on something else, or maybe I just wanted to see more of myself in a sort of non-self way. He had a shoulder bag that hung to his side at the height of his hip to his right, and there could have been a million things that he could have held within, most of which would have to stay outside to leave some space for those within. As much as the mind can rave, I happened to think of a couple of things.

I thought Laptop, Brassieres, Cash Register, Milk Powder. And Detonator.

xxxxxxxx

Needless to say, even lesser so to emphasize, he got down at the next stop and 'he' got down at the one after that. The bomb blasted in Baghdad.

THE LAST STAND

“The Left that’s left”, junior read out loud as wincing at the sound of a gun fired too close for comfort. He then went on to read the main article, or parts of which he thought made sense.

“You never said-” began a voice next to him, as close as the gun. The Captain.

“Did I have to?” he responded.

Gunfire again. “You have to if you have to”, the Captain said, clearing doubts on faking. “Don’t let me stop you.”

“It’s not an uncommon thought to have thought that Marxist ideals took the ultimate plunge into obscurity when Latin America fell, the tale of heat from the cold needn’t be told again. But what the UCA (United Continents of America) knows not is that while the communists have been thrown out to the sea, they happen to have had vessels enough to save some spirit…”

Gun fired again, this time followed by a fading moan – The Captain had missed his mark. However, it didn’t take him long to correct his mistake, this time giving way to quiet after the ammo.

“Yes, I’m talking about the Atlantic. Ever wondered why the UCA flies? Ever wondered if the Airbus was anything more than just a cruise (or cargo) vehicle? Ever felt that the S.S.Obama is not just the wreck it’s said to be? If you have, you haven’t been just alleging: You’re closer to reality than the totalitarian can ever get, you’re hitting it right”, he paused for a while. “Have we made-”

“Yes we have”, came the interruption.

“Did he-”

“Yes he did.”

“Wow”, he sighed, mostly in relief. “Thank the force for that!”

The men then went ahead with what they were doing, although the Captain never really stopped.

“Post-modernism helped identify with them, even empathize perhaps. But a wider eye helps one see that post-apocalyptic is hardly the case here where revolution is concerned, because there’s a tag-team of proprietors of a movement that only just showed its first fa-”

“Wait a minute.” The gunfire had paused too.

He turned to face him. “What?”

The Captain pointed a finger at him. “You”, he said, slightly perturbed. “You could have-”

“The name was on the other side”, he responded coolly. “I can’t have.”

He thought for a while and then remembered, in the mildest of flashes. The boy was right.

“Shit speaks for itself”, he said, resuming business. “We’re just the calling card.”

“Have a look at this”, Junior said, pointing at a photograph next to a name obscured. Both of them looked down to their left, at a man who was trying hard to stay still, his tears signifying life.

“I missed that one”, he said in awe. “Of all my American a-”

He gripped the man hard by his collar and propped him against a cabin wall, the latter’s shudder strengthening his give-away.

“The last stand”, read Junior, his eyes fixed almost entirely on the faking man. “Of Marxism.”

He was in tears with tantrums to come. We need to note here that his nationality is of least importance, for it would mean kidding ourselves if we said the term ‘Nation’ was still in existence, even in the vaguest possible way. He wept, not out of fear but out of frustration and anger at his act of stupidity, at his firmness of opinion now made absurd.

“Doubt if you understand”, the Captain sneered. “We don’t speak bullshit over here.”

A splutter is all he received in return.

“If you mind”, Junior piped up, “can I-”

“I’m not going to kill him”, he smiled. “I counted a hundred, know nothing beyond.”

Silence, two pairs of wide eyes and one pair of slits.

“This man can swim”, he said, 'patting him on his back' before the splash. "And now, the resistance has the Atlantic for itself."

A GOOD MAN - PART TWO

What’s defeat?

Now, if you’ve got to sink that shit, you’ve got to sink this one too: What’s winning? I guess that could leave you with a fleshy third – Where’d you place what I did? Well, let me tell you something, the bastard was only down on his knees, I’ve been in deeper shit and I mean shit, rolling in shit, face-down in shit, licking shoes clean of shit and that’s a heck of a pair of shitty shoes I’m talking about. And you think that’s low? No. Low’s only when you dig it, when you eat into it. I knew I wouldn’t spare every single of those pairs of shoes that I’ve shined before and I knew that this shining was just a part of it, a part of seeing a head on the ground or a face made plane or a greasy heart that I’d eventually put a squeeze on. And you know what? I remember my shoes. I’m the footwear man.

So what’s there in a name, right? Everything. Everything, that is, if you’re me and if you’ve really got no wax at Tussaud’s, no square jaw, wavy blonde, gold-plated teeth or tattooed lower back. Everything, if a snap’s enough to snap him back and get him burned with his Polaroid. Everything, if that’s been all that’s ever worked out, everything, if that’s what your kids need to live without.

Everything – That’s what my name means to me.

There’s this kind, your kind, who need to be there to be there, you know, menials, and you’ve got your tag and that’s just a tag, it’s just meant to hold the alphabets next to the display cage and if you’re gone, then they’d just scrape the shit, pull the tag off and stick the next sucker that surfaces. But, I’m not my tag. The tag’s me and that’s all there is and I don’t need me for my sake; I don’t need you either.

‘Joel’.

Maybe your dictionary could say it better, but I’d say it right: This isn’t winning. The knees hitting the ground, no that’s not winning, that’s consolation. I’m missing the real deal here and that’s what I want you to see, to think about why this man who’s been hell bent on marking existence to whim suddenly got his wet-suit out in the sun, and that leads to think if I am, for real, doing what I don’t want to do. Am I standing against myself, is there the slightest chance of that absurdity to ever show its face, because heck I’ll never show you mine, will I?

I see their point, never said I didn’t, but that doesn’t mean giving in, I’m never giving in. I’m giving him his closure and I’m giving myself my count. Bullshit though, this change of name, the action hero loves the bruise. And my nostalgia is but right now and I guess I’d like some memories back, but this time I guess I’d need a fast-forward because I find that the anonymity could kill me.

And of all things, I can’t let him have that.

A GOOD MAN - PART ONE

“What’s in a name?”

“Look at your plate.”

“You’re equating me and you?”

“No”, he took a deep breath. “I’m just stopping you from making me do that.”

The commissioner stared into his face. Whether or not into his eyes was tough to tell because black in black can cause illusions. An equal match of power, shameless to say, had both of them agree against the prospect of participation by entities other than themselves in this discussion-to-be, and it was indeed unorthodox on the policeman’s part having wanted this in the first place. A drink refused citing reputation more than poisons, he found he had to spend the interstices of conversation staring at his counterpart down the only thing that could ever get him anywhere close to ‘vulnerable’. And although not a Sean Maguire idea, the commissioner did attempt to replace his moments of silence with rhetoric.

“You won’t do it?”

“I just don’t see why.”

“For once…” began the policeman, fighting to keep himself subdued.

“Hmm”, he smiled. “You’re not getting me interested.”

The commissioner heaved again. “Do you know-”

“So I’m going to stand trial?” he asked, testily, with more than just a hint of sarcasm.

There was silence where the commissioner’s face turned menacing, his anger being confronted by the battle he staged to channelize it to something constructive. The opponent took another gulp.

“If I weren’t representing the interests…” he began, his hand moving instinctively to an empty holster.

“Why can’t you, even for a second, admit”, he raised his voice much higher than the commissioner to ensure that the latter stopped with his remark, “that what is, is, and there’s nothing you can do about it, like there’s nothing you have ever done anything about it before?”

There was no bang on a table simply because there was no table in between, but there indeed was a pause that could be compared to the aftermath of such a deed.

“You”, he gestured, “are so flawed…”

“No I’m not”, the commissioner shook his head. “You have no-”

“Oh yes you are!” he laughed. “You farm dogs, you great Danes…”

“That’s enough.”

“Is there even a you to you?” he bit his lip, narrowing his eyes. “You’re moving the shit that moves with you only because you’re let to, and that’s only about the shit!”

The echoing room could be a cliché, but it still was so. The commissioner squeezed his nose and looked down as he, calm as he forcedly was, spoke again.

“Look”, he gesticulated to the ground. “I’m not here to discuss your philosophy of wrongdoing and you’re not signing my picture-book!” he shouted, anticipating interruption. “I’m here with a proposal… their proposal, and-”

“Get down”, he cut him short again. “On your knees.”

He took out the antique lighter that was a gift, took out the cigar he had on him, put it in his mouth, lit it with the loudest click, snapped it shut and took a puff as the policeman obeyed orders: a sight in itself.

“Now…” he said, blowing a hefty amount of smoke around him. “Beg.”

HEDWIG

It is not my responsibility to tell someone else’s story, but I do take up this task of telling how I’d say it if I could, and that’s partly because I don’t approve of certain details, or because I wish there were others instead of those established and that in turn would mean acceptance of details other than the ones I object against, which should make it clear that with the forthcoming effort I’m in no way demeaning or plagiarizing an existing franchise, but merely developing on what I thought could be a worthwhile elucidation of an unintentional fact.

“His sleep is but the hours”, she sighed.

Long, dark, unkempt hair, round-framed glasses, skinnier than she’s fed to be, she floated out of her allotted space leaving the door open. Others of her kind could consider this to be a decent level of disobedience, of neglect of such a thing as curfew but under his possession she had never had the slightest of feeling of bondage, or of being owned. Owned, maybe, but never by him, you know, it was like she owned him and he owned her and they co-owned each other, which meant that she couldn’t care lesser about herself than she cared for him and not that she shouldn’t care for him at all. And although the reason why she was out of her cage was more selfish than noble, she was also perturbed that the boy had started to eat his sleep with dreams and that she could find no tangible way by which she could do anything to help him out.

“Look how he sleeps!” she chimed, excited.

“He sleeps?” she queried.

“Yes, he sleeps!” came her response.

“Good”, she said. “He should.”

She sat herself at his bedside, clawed her way to that old photograph he so treasured, that which adorned the gloom he resided in solely by being distinctly out of place and that was what marked its charm; that was what marked the charm of those inside it, within the frame for it showed a couple of people who liked being out of place even when alive. What did she know though, about death and what awaited beyond? What did she know about sacrifice, or having to live without the ones one’s supposed to be living with on a permanent basis without the slightest of contact? Or what could she ever possibly know about love or the slightest sensation of the same, in its multiple forms ranging from the obvious to the obscure or about being deprived of it, that which the boy painfully had to live every day?

“You carried his letters”, she said.

“You took them even to ones you shouldn’t have”, she asserted. “You took them to her!”

“And how many times you have cried!”

“It rains!” she exclaimed. “He doesn’t know.”

“Is that the sun?” she gasped, suddenly aware of extending shadows. “It is, isn’t it?”

“Back to bed, then!” she ordered herself, but not before she lunged and kissed him swift on his lips.

“The boy won’t know what he doesn’t know.”

The cage was shut, the girl within, and the sun woke him up to a day that promised nothing but solitude. But she still smiled; smiled at the thought of him not knowing that love sat closer than he thought it to be and that it always came from where he’d least expect it. She smiled at what had gone beyond, all sobriety of tragedies past and with hope at the ones to come, and at the thought that there would particularly be a point where he’d see her for she is and it was that acknowledgement that was the goal and not the acceptance itself.

Until then she would have to live with the pecks she occasionally endowed, and the fondles she received in return, which she found to be more than what she could ask for.

'WHAT DO YOU THINK I AM?'

where aphrodite is

live in los olimpo

I’ve always had this vision for a long-form concert. Goes back to when I was the backdoor anvil boy who dreamt Aulos, and I guess I could dream even now. But music is not a dream, it’s beyond a dream. It’s what’s there, it’s real and it’s all there, except that you don’t hear it because the door’s shut and she’s got the key. Same as the key to poetry: She holds it all.

I took my time. Still didn’t get it, though. She’s just giving me sneak peeks, inches of progress. I’d get full-frontal when I’ve got my foot, but for now, here’s the inch that I managed.

I got half her mind but a zero claim,

‘cause of a distinction of a ‘different lame’,

like I was born to lose and I can’t sustain,

What do you think I am?

A little closer when the day begins,

a look at my mind, you turn your back again,

a shifting road’s the shape you’re in,

What do you think I am?

You have me number but it’s always you it’s for,

What do you think I am?

Am I the fowl you flayed, for a feast that’s on?

“Get us a plate to serve Hephaestus on”,

better be sure before you taste me, son!

What do you think I am?

You have me number but it’s always you it’s for,

What do you think I am?

Burn me some light as you tie to this stake,

the fire could be mine, so see what you take!

Let me wave to my world,

she won’t mind that you’re late:

What do you think I am?

What do you think I am?

No one to listen to the blues anymore. No one to sing the blues, it’s all just ‘I shit you because you’d shit me back sometime’ and it’s sad how people don’t actually get sad and fall into this… moody depression, where you write her to fight her, and that’s what I’d like to be doing, because that’s what I’m all about.

First prospective single from ‘where aphrodite is: live in los olimpo’. Cry with me.

'N'-THINGS

"See, I refuse to believe
that my life's gonna be
just a string of incomplete
never to lead to me anything
remotely close to my home life..."

- 'HOME LIFE', John Mayer.

'Heavier Things' - An album that happened to set the stage that he stands on, right now. Back then, you know.

Not the same man, no, I do know that. I'm not kidding myself otherwise, either. He said he's waiting on the world to change, I guess I'm waiting on him. A lot of things past, a lot of things said, it's said people crack under the strain anyway, but it still hurts, for I've never seen him as 'people'. Maybe I should. Maybe then, he'd prove me wrong. Either way, I'm still here. I doubt if there's the remotest possibility that he'd be reading this, but I'm still here.



I guess we're 'In Repair', now. Not together yet, but we'd be getting there. I hope.

THE BOMB - PART TWO

I stood for three-quarters of the journey on my way home today, losing three opportunities to sit down in the process, pretending that they didn’t slip away without me letting them to, although there was no need to pretend, the world can’t care. I was frustrated, though. Painted a grin on my face to cover-up the fact that I was freaked out by this really oily-haired boy who was determinedly bumping his head against my pants, falling asleep. I tried to not think of the act as deliberate, but I couldn’t bring myself to try to try. I rescued my backpack a couple of times from a couple of people who almost stepped on it as I listened to ‘Draw the Line’ by David Gray, because I couldn’t afford that, it had my laptop in it. And I can’t afford my laptop, it’s a fact.

Crowd cleared a little at the CMBT, but it’s always the place that never makes a difference, for they get in as they step out, it’s a real life scenario of John Mayer’s ‘Wheel’, and one can’t help but eat when force-fed, because spitting out only makes the world dirtier. I counted five: five men, five suitcases, four made of wood and one made of leather. And I’m talking about the suitcases, and they were fairly big, so they occupied about half the length of the bus; half the place that’s there for standing. I’m not being the stickler over here, and I wasn’t, either. I was too busy watching the men and studying them, to be one. Beards. Paan. Safaris, slacks and Kurtas too. Exotic. ‘Same old, same old’.

I wished the bus weren’t speeding. I wished I could get down.

I started to ponder about who would survive. I wondered if I’d make it, I wondered if it could be the turning point of my life, where they get to find that I’m like David Dunn (from ‘Unbreakable’) and that I can’t be broken, and that a list of people who didn’t make it through would never have me on it, unless it’s a list of those who drowned, because I know for a fact that I can’t swim. I thought about Matt Damon’s emphatic monologue from ‘Good Will Hunting’, the multiple references of ‘shrapnel in the ass’ (weird, because there was a box right behind me), I thought about comic imitations of a blast, where the victims stand in rags, covered in soot, blowing smoke which they inhaled just a second ago, I wondered if I could get away with nothing more than a puff of smoke, except that I don’t smoke and the world’s no stage either. I thought of how the heat could scald my skin, how I’ve never felt anything more than ‘tolerable’ before, wondered how it could feel to be pounded by nails and bolts and bits and pieces of metal, and I thought again if I would die or if I’d survive and I remembered how I’ve never died before, and that it’s always dilemmatic as to whether one could wish for what he hasn’t felt already, but then again, there’s no one around who can tell me not to, and get away with it convincingly. A kind man then put my face at risk than my behind, by asking me to take the seat beside his, for he had seen me stand for too long. And then, as I sat, I secretly resolved that if I don’t get down by the time this song (‘Jackdaw’, David Gray) ends, I might possibly not get down again. Consciously alive, that is.

I got down before the bridge of the song, having replayed it twice on my way. I guess I can’t do much about metropolitan traffic.

xxxxxxxxxx

I’m not John Carpenter, for heaven’s sake. I’m not for cheap thrills, especially if I’m involved in one (I doubt if he’d be, either, if the thrill’s on him). I don’t fear blood, I just don’t like to see it flow out of me in amounts that I wouldn’t appreciate. Cuts are nasty, bruises last for weeks, broken bones stray out of control, and death is too permanent for me to desire it.

But I swear that both of the times that I got down, I wished, that on its way down the road, the bomb would burst just to prove me right. And I don’t know what that makes me.

THE BOMB - PART ONE

Keeping in mind the fact that half of our life is an extrapolation of the other half, and that you always want to see what you want to see, I take the liberty to state that the following is a compilation of real incidents. A ‘true story’, to follow cliché.

I had the impression that this share-auto might start before the rest, and although I never really had a time constraint, it so happens that one always wants to be early just to avoid being late, for ‘right in the nick of time’ is something that not many vie for. And I was in no mind to try to differ. And yes, to differ, one must always try, because the world always makes a man be what ‘it’ is, what everything other than that man is being, so it takes a considerable effort to be otherwise. And I wasn’t willing to take that effort, that night. No fatigue, no loss, no fear, no reason in particular, except for plain unwillingness. And I’m sure I can’t be sued for that.

It’s funny how everyone is so giving at all times, except when it comes to themselves, except when it’s your glass of water, when all of a sudden, you wished you were dying too, so as to not part with what you have, because you think it’s unfair for someone to gain while you lose, and gratitude is hardly a possession. Heck, you can’t keep it, you can’t flaunt it (you’re not ‘supposed to’), it just floats around; hovers about. And I’m not detaching myself from this actuality, I admit that I have been, and I am part of this ‘everyone’ that I speak about, except that it’s a part of ‘me’ that ‘I’ despise right now. A Hyde I want to hide, and he wasn’t that different, either. One bad leg, rags sewn intact, a plastic bag in one hand as he clung on to a stick with the other. He was bearded, and I’d say he was young, because I didn’t spot much of grey, but then again there’s grey at places where it’s not supposed to be, so I thought I’d dare not deduce. And he didn’t enter already, he was lingering outside, waiting for the auto to get filled, for he was only used to hanging on and ‘convenience’ could kill him. And I let a couple of people pass me on their way inside, I told them I’d be getting down before, it took some time and then he got in and sat beside me, set to mate the wind. And I got to see him up close.

He was fair-skinned. He had pink lips. He smelt of ‘paan’, and I suspected alcohol too. He was wearing a ‘Kurta’. He looked exotic, even out of place. He was casual, yet focused; grave. I got down before it could start, telling the driver that I would take a bus instead, and I pointed to a bus that arrived just then, gladly. I ran.

I got into another share-auto parked behind the bus, one which had a family in it, distinctly Tamil, and hoped it wouldn’t go too near to the one I had just abandoned. Guilt nauseates me, I’ve nearly passed out a couple of times before. Not this time, either. He had left.