Coding is an act of faith.

Vishnu Talkies stands lost, like a piece from ancient times, among the crowd of towering buildings that have mushroomed in past few years when the world of India’s Capital chose to move upwards. There stands a curved metal hoarding upon a narrow opening which reaches to its narrow entrance gate. We walk into the street, past a pirated video store, a beauty parlor, a cheap restaurant where a huge potbellied man sat frying samosas at its door in a huge black pan bubbling with overused overheated dark oil. I take her hands in mine when we reach the Cinema’s iron grilled gate. On our left there is the ticket window, closed. On right, however, they are selling tickets, in black.
        Inside, a grimly thin man waits at the balcony door, an Eveready Steel torch sewed around with frayed cotton dangles around his neck. With a haunting screech he pulls the door open, and ushers us in the dimly lit hall and focuses his torch upon our seats. I walk behind her, holding her by elbows, between the rows of aged wooden pushback chairs with coconut cushions, striped covers.

“Why were you staring at her?” She asks, when on the screen a young lady – her Vaseline-lacquered skin shines incredibly against her frazzled clothes – has just escaped her perpetrators, and has taken refugee in this similarly frazzled backyard of a temple. I strain my eyes. Pitch-dark, popcorn-punching-dark hall bars my vision. Time for rape.
“Who,” I ask groping for her face.
“That whore. Outside the video store.”

The scene has moved on, like life always does, to a brighter frame where an old man is holidaying with his family in an exotic country, Switzerland, or Ireland, or may be Holland, whatever… they all seem to have snowsnow and more snow, and castles and castles and more castles, and grass green until the eyes go, and people, all very good, always helping, ever tolerating you knocking at their doors in the middle of the night for shelter and happily granting the same, fuckers, where do such people exist? But then, a movie is not a movie if it’s all about what you see in your real life. It must be larger than life. Villains more villainous. Heroes more heroic. Beauties more beautiful. Life more peaceful. People more generous. And blah blah.
Well in this scene, the old man throws flakes of snow at the kids, they return-fire at him at once, and they all laugh in their heavy jackets and long hoods. Heartily. A little far away, this old man’s daughter skis with her husband, taking turns to skid ahead of the other, coltish rivalry, both laughing their hearts, eyes. Happiness it seems – as they sell it – to be a gift package of return tickets to these snowy hills and laughter and more laughter.

We should buy it once, “Let’s go to some place like this,” I stroke her palm, and on them plant an unusually soggy kiss. She blushes. I know. When she does, she lets her hands loose, almost like giving in. “And what would I tell to my folks?” One curt touch of reality and here goes all the dreams rolling down the hill. Large Reality skiing on even larger fantastic snow. What is large can not be made fit in what is small.

Like a thunder in a rainy night,
Who doesn’t know, what t’show, what’hide.
You seem to be asking every moment,
Baby, you wanna stop, or take’ride.

You never open the door by my side,
Never step out to say, goodbye.
Never see a drop when I cry,
How could it go when you always keep me so dry…

I know I am gonna miss you
And it’s going to hurt…but I am sure to do
I’m gonna teach myself how to fly
And catch a cloud to drift away

O baby don’t pretend,
You wouldn’t die
The pain will pass through…

Pull over here and bid me adieu.

I am borrowing ideas these days; nothing left with of my own. It’s a translation of a Hindi song I am listening to for almost all the time these days.

Let’ go home, my love!
Let’ go home, my love!
Let’s walk to a lonesome place,
empty of city’s rush,
of these thousands of people, and their pace.
For a while, you, take me away,
Let’ go home, my love!
Let’ go home, my love!

Come close, close to me,
Bridge the distance, whatever may it be.
Hold me; diffuse inside.
Hug me; unto our hearts.
Drown me, into your love endless,
End the tortures of lone nights.
Break the chains, and their rules,
Come close to me, into me.
Let’ go home, my love!
Let’ go home, my love!

Original Lyrics:

na jaha bheed ho.
na jahan bhar ke log.
na shaher mein base lakhon logon ka shor.
chand lamhe tu inse mujhe durr kar.
chal chale apne ghar, hummsafar

duriyan de mita, jo bhi hai darmiyan.
aaj kuch aise mil, ek ho jaye jaan.
bhar mujhe baahon mein. le duba chahaon mein..
pyar kar tu bepanah…khatam bechain raaton ke ho silsile..
yun laga le aaj apne gale..
thod har bandishein, aaj mujh me utar.

Make me free
Make me fly
high high high
high in the
sky!
Angels Angels
take me away
with you
far far far
far-beyond the blue
sky!

My throat is chocked
My things are done.
I am in the queue
waiting my turn.

I look,
now
past my past,
and find the brightest
of my moment
bidding me, and
cry!

Choose me.
Choose me.
Don’t leave me,
dry!

No pain
No joy
and not a certainty
of life or love
there I will
die!

Dreams chase me here,
Hopes cage me here
and I fall short of breathe
gasping,
I utter my finality
slowly, closing my
eye!

I hesitated
the first time,
I took you in my arm,
And the first bow
I hit
At your green charm.

I fumbled in the dark
Around you,
the first time
I entered you.

I hesitated
in believing
what was true,
in the light far
far-inside you.

And when I came out,
I couldn’t un-enter you.
indeed I could not.

Living inside-out
or altogether in?
it’s only you
wherever I’ve been.

The strings
you tied the first time,
time when I hesitated
hangs around
telling tales-of-your-love,

Your light
brightens up my day,
outliving the sun
shines my way,
in little sparks, in its play.

I hesitated then,
to accept it.
I hesitate now,
to acknowledge it.

My hesitation is my proof
of my naivety.
Your acceptation of me,
of your nicety.

Love is not in making it believe,
Love is in believing in it to conceive.
“I love you” I say
“Me too love you” I receive.

That’s a big thing to say,
b’cos love is not an easy play.

It’s wonderful. Falling out of love.
Long time ago, people tried hard, damn hard to keep the flame intact, keep the persons glued, love burning, but times are different now, burn hurts, love hurts, they want freedom, freedom of responsibility, answerability. They don’t want anyone to poke them for anything. They are different now, and with each passing moment, they grow more distant, more different. And eventually comes a day when you find them so far away that you wonder if you ever knew them; if they ever cared for you; if they ever went awry so much so that they grew angry over mundane things, like your missing a dinner, or leaving your clothes unwashed in a bucket, or mess of your room, all out of pure innocent concern, love. And then life starts falling apart into pieces, gnawed at by bitter teeth of some past reality, of some past relationship, of some long ago commitment – so what if that commitment didn’t charge you up now, you had made them once, now you owe them your life…right honey? So what if people of your recent acquaintances are left behind on mud of hurt, abandoned in dirt to die slowly, minute-by-minute, in futile trial. So what if they had claimed love to them once, their past loves had to reclaim them, their past had to reign their present, and people of recent past – I mean a month or so old – don’t mean a thing, they were there just for the sake of being, cursed of existence, of desertion.

Initially survival seems a distant dream, gradually you learn to live with all this, convincing yourself with each passing moment that that was just a dream, a hollow dream, an abyss, like a black hole, the more you want to come out the more you are trapped in, and try to keep that dream at bay, far, far away from yourself, just like those people have kept themselves so far away from you, and then gradually the image starts to fade, and normalcy reclaims itself. But it doesn’t happen every time. Sometimes you can not differentiate reality to dreams, and you give in, yield to the pungent taste of what has been thrown at you, and the only oasis – not to save your life, but only to assuage the pain a little with slippery fluid that makes your past slip away, as if rolling down a mountain – appears as alcohol. And you booze and booze and booze, for whole nights, 16 hours in stretch, until all senses of time and space translate themselves into some hazy, dull colors, the events of past seem to lie in some long ago, earlier lifetime, not connected to you directly so that you can comment on them like an spectator, not as a victim; until all your ego, your pillars, your means to exist slip past the present moment and you slouch in front of them, almost begging them, to take you back in their lives, but – alas! – there is no such thing as pity, they just don’t know it, they are as cold as ice, as hard as iron, and you are once again thrown on the streets. This time your ego doesn’t hurt, it can’t, it has become inured to insults, it wants that person, and only that person. It abets you for another try, and you follow it hungrily, hoping to see a flicker of sympathy, and may be love. That too eventually dies out but you keep repeating it as a ritual – sacred out of sheer repetition – and that person becomes venerable to you, almost like a god, you standing out of a temple, and the god shooing you out of the premise. Are you cursed? No, only ignored. Not worthy enough of existence. But, devoid of your ego, you look at your god eagerly, merely to hear him say something, any tripe, any silly excuse, any stupid rationale, and you gulp all in, whipping your tongue out, hungry for more silly things.

Then the god says, love is like a puddle of dirty water, one falls in, one falls out, no one wants to remain in. Great philosophy! Philosophies are for losers, only to keep their head calm, and away from action. Drink in the theory and forget the reality…eh!

“God, but…why are you leaving me?”

“Because I have to.” God replies. And he thinks he is right, have said enough to make sense, and alleviate the agitating brain, and heart of yours.

Well, we morons are not to raise a finger at him; he does what he pleases. And yesterday he had his reasons for it. A long time ago relationship, and a long time ago commitment. He can’t live with the past and the present at once. He chose his past, fair enough, seniority matters, depth ness?, ah…who cares? Whatever. It’s a wonderful feeling, you know, falling out of love. To shatter everything that you held so close to your heart, with such rudeness, and so suddenly, that it takes a lifetime to rebuild them again. Brick and mortar, slathering the ruin, in the last vestige of your once-upon-a-time love story, how can you pick them, each for its respective position and put them again in order? There is no way. No way.

People find different ways to deal with it, to head off the frustration of loss. I do it by boozing, smoking, and of course writing. In distant hope that perhaps god would read it someday, and if any pity has left in him, he would probably let me in into the temple, not to love me – I know he will not, he can not, perhaps he never had – just to share my existence, rebuilding my confidence in life. But can you stop loving god? No. With each heartbeat of yours, your heart would utter only his name, only his love.

It’s like the taste of pain. Wonderful, enthralling, but sordid.

“Here comes your turn, enjoy ani.”

“Yes…yes…thanks honey.” I mumbled, as he kicked me to the hell.

Ever tried turning a normal stuff into sinister, a benign concern into treachery, a pure love into hatred, may be pogrom?

People do it, everyday, everytime, everywhere, and assert that they are right. Of course, they are – things you do – and if you can defend them, they are right, and you righteous.

But what does the whole essence of whole business of whole life remain then? We take birth, we make birth, and we are gone. Just like that. Mechanical. Robotic. He came, he saw, he went. Why did he come here? To make children, or to make a living, or to make a relation, or to make money, or name, or fame, or home…what? What did he come for? Nothing stays, neither he, nor his creations, his assortments. Nothing. What does he endeavor for then? The whole business looks like a game of puppet. Where the control of our master chip is in someone else’s hands. And we just act; just move here-there-here-there. Who is the director of this play? Who…God? He is the one who makes us feel what we feel, makes us dread what we are scared of, make us want what we desire? He is the controller of my life; my world; my desires. Foolish. Who gave him these rights, these powers? Is there a bigger God than him? And then another big one…then another…then another…and another. Does it stop anywhere? No, not at all.

So, much to my chagrin, I deny the existence of any God.

So, much to my ease, I tend to breach the laws, the codes of morality, ethics, principles and all the bullshit.

So, much to my delight, I live life without any logics, rationalities, expectations, planning. Only on impulse, by whim.

Now, back to my question, did you ever try going beyond the fences, trespassing the boundaries, breaking your image that people have in their heads?

I did. Last night. When I asked her about love. “Is it flat or circular?”

Oh, love again. Can’t you think of any other thing? Who….me? why should I think of anything else…why…when this is intriguing me for…I don’t know how many days…one problem at a time…one…single…the lesser the easier…only one at a time…I will solve love first…then my life…then the world. But first, love. I know she will help me, she has to, who else will if not she…who?

“Certainly not flat. It has many ripples, many ups-and-downs. Can’t be flat. Circular…no. Love can’t be circumscribed. No boundaries please.”

And she chuckles; her benign smile that can alter the course of stars, dripping down from her eyes, in small droplets, held at the edge, between the flickering lashes, glued with kajal and dreams, ready to fall, and then a moment later…air-borne, flowing in the air, her smile flying without wings, by the sheer force of love, of hope, of a life after this moment, of intimacy beyond this distance; fixes her eyes that held several questions onto mine, and incites the dormant passions.

I move towards her…closer and closer…Love is no geometry, it is chemistry. I understand the basic principles in her arms. Here remains no complexity, no weird equations, no rationalities, nothing…only me and her and love…fixed to each other…clung to each other…lost.

She is the panacea I was in search for so long. She is the home, my home.

It is a mistake. Love itself is a mistake. It hides the reality, the cruelty of the real world, real people, real adversaries, and preens the world around us with white, snow white, bridal dreams and fictions. Love is an escape.

“Only love is real, rest is a fallacy.” She murmurs, half asleep.

It’s a strange thing. She is so real, so close, so mine that nothing else seems to be true but only she, yet there lurks a strange notion of discomfort…what if everything turns out to be a dream and…no, it can not be like this. It has to be the truth. It has to be.

Love makes you belligerent…eh?

But sometimes love makes you weak instead. What do you do then when you find no strength to face off the brutal world? Where do you retreat: recluse, solitude, dark, or death? Suicide…hmm?

No way, it’s the greatest cowardice…Why? When I have a right to live, don’t I have a right to die? It’s my life after all…No, the life is precious, you can’t chuck off something precious just like this…why not? I own it. I can make it, I can break it…stupid, once you have broken it, you can never un-break it. You are free, but not as much as to end you freedom. You die, you end everything. Even your freedom to love…Stop it. Don’t preach me. I have had enough of you all.

Death is not free. You can desire it; you can’t claim it.

Love is not free. You can desire it; you can’t claim it.

…and life?

May be a constant struggle to make things our way. “Isn’t it darling?”

“We will make it…will make it together. Come here…” And she slips into slumber.

“I love you.” He said, “I mean I love talking to you.” oh! But things were conveyed, said, and the mask was discarded.

Surprise…yes…else how would you lose your heart beats; how would you find yourself flummoxed over a relation that is only a few days, or rather few hours – can I say, old yet few lifetimes seem engulfed in it; how would you lose your control to control your thoughts, feelings, rationalities, and all your expedient plans for your life, your future and end up falling in love with a person you barely know, except of some kind of illusionary connection, attachment screaming: you-are-made-for-each-other. This is how miracles happen. This is how you are taken by surprise and thrown up, upbeat, buoyant, among those sparkling, blissful stars. And you realize – yes! – this is what you were waiting for so long, for all your life, passing through so many mundane day-today-ness that you had almost forgotten about it. So, a miracle was needed. A surprise was needed.

“Life is made of crisscross squares. And every cross has its own rule.” When you cover a long distance in just few hours, blink-now-at-moon-blink-again-back-on-earth, as if some infinitely powerful gadget has ordered time to stop, or as if you are made less aware of time as it passes by, whatever may it be, you lose the sense of time-and-space when you travel such an expeditious journey and finally in the end, you see things your eyes wouldn’t believe in, you feel feelings your heart wouldn’t give in, and the world would turn hazy, its eyes drooping, limping upon you, as though it hasn’t slept for nights awaiting your arrival. This is a strange thing to happen. But what else would you call a miracle then? Her world had roads, infinite roads, never ending, from one stop to another, all brief and straight, and today, after her long journey, she, anticipating yet another road to cross hers, grew little weary about losing grip over her own life. She had to make a decision, and making a decision is dangerous. She continued, “You have not seen me, do you realize it?” Why so many strange things were happening to him today? What realization could he achieve, had he seen her? How did she look, or how did she walk, or how did she dress up? Realization is a strange concept. Ah! “You haven’t understood me yet.” What else could he have replied?

Love, where it spawns, scatters a vague delusion around it. You wouldn’t understand what’s going on with you, so to ease you, love projects a special melodramatic show and you fall into its trap: make-believe trap. Besotted as they were, now for the making of love was on, they had to collaborate. The tongues were to slip, the covers were to unveil, the desires were to fly – the forbidden was to set free. Now there was no escape. Things started to swoop down on them, and they were dragged along. And words, those enchanting but interdicted words, came out, in shed, hidden behind a mask. And after a while when all covers matured redundant: “I love you.” He said, “I mean I love talking to you.” oh! But things were conveyed, said, and the mask was discarded.

It took her a while, however, to divulge the sudden spurt of her heart beating. And by the time, normalcy reigned again, she was in love. In spite of never having seen him, or talked to him, or heard his voice, or known his disposition, or read his past, present, in spite of everything that should have been done, as rules say, as the love-tomes say, as those deified lovers say, in spite of un-normalcy, of breach in traditions, she was in love. Love doesn’t ask what-where-how-why-who-when, it just takes you over and things are set. Just like that. Straight and simple! Until then silence prevailed above the fogged suddenness.

And after a brief pause, soundlessness, because a great many words, puissant words, efficacious words, capable of altering the course of stars as they fix their path with other stars, potent to make a life, were imminent, she replied, “I love you too.”

Surprise…was it a surprise?

“When did it start?”

“The day I read your poem for the first time, there was something terribly appealing, and I wished they were written for me.” It was now safe for her to travel back on time, and watch her past unveiling before her, telling tales of that turmoil she was in few days ago, revealing that feeling, that moment of utter confusion, that longing, that desire, that hope to herself, and find peace in the newly found love of her life. “I prayed it to come true.”

“And it did na?”

“Oh! I can’t express it, this is wonderful.”

And a story spawned from the there….

Though they say, everything is preplanned, peremptorily written, still, life doesn’t come to us like in a play a scene comes to an actor performing on stage, life has different rules; it takes us by surprise. That’s why life is alive. For so many years. And love too.

All of a sudden lights went off and the hot summer night seemed nearing him. The dark glued, the sweat enveloped; the trails of little past lost. Trickles of sweat, his own sweat, came out not after a heavy toil but…just came out, made their way from every ups and down, every curve, every possible bending of his body, going nowhere…still going, like the trails of his past. Going nowhere…still going!

He moved sideways. Their entire course changed. He could control the flow of his sweat. But his past? Nothing could move his past, unyielding past, a stubborn sap, his past. Even the Dark – the great egalitarian – now, when the electricity is gone, with his own sweat drowning him, with his eyes turned mute and deaf, this Dark, this indifferent Dark is hiding everything from every other thing – could not hide it.

But it pacified it. Helped him in deferring the real confrontation. So, he loved the Dark. He loved what it made out of him. Made out of her. She was more ‘mine’ while in dark, he thought. The other truths, the other men, lay cornered. He loved it enveloping him, his existence, his love, everything. It was his ally. It hid his enemies. It was his friend.

He asked her once, “Do you love dark?”

“Nahin,” she replied, “I love the sunrise, the sunset.”

“But, after the sunset, it’s all dark. Isn’t it?”

“May be…whatever, I don’t like it.”

She probably misunderstood the Dark, saw it as a cover to the light, to the future of her, to the possible paths of her, but not as a balance, not as a friend, not as a pacifier, not as an ally.

He tried to make her understand. “It’s pessimistic,” she said.

“Seeking peace is pessimism? After all the fighting, a desire to return home is pessimism? Returning to your loved one…is it pessimism?” His confusion – ah! the confusion. What does he think, that Dark is his home, his lover?

Silence!

The eternal silence. They say, words never get lost. Uttered once, uttered for all. But only words, not an utterance devoid of words. Not a gaze of her deep oneiric eyes. Not a tender movement of her svelte fingers against him. Not a light brush of her silky hairs on his face. They are not the words, they will be lost. But silence? It will remain. They are wrong, when they say, the beginning happened with a sound, ohm. It must have been the silence. The uncontaminated sound.

Between them, there was no contamination, no pollution. Between them, there was no sound, no word. Only little vibrations. Only little love.

She moved sideways. He listened to the ruffles, imagining the wrinkling crease of the bed sheet under her, cloths around her, hairs, falling on the pillow, layers in layers, like the stratum of river flow, violent, enraged, yet serene, calm.

She hissed, Ani, sounding dreaded.

Dread of what, he thought, of the Dark, of him, of their connection, of what? He couldn’t figure out except palpable quotient of fear.

She continued, “I like dark when I glimpse rays of hopes, serenity, calmness, when it supports me after a long tiring day. But it’s dubious, Janus-Faced, scissoring you from both sides, it takes away the sun light, I hate it then, it blanks my vision, I hate it then, it takes you away from me, I hate it then.”

“Dark is dubious, manipulating, like men. It is human.” He replied.

“I love holding your hands in dark, walking in a blind sea with you beside me, my head on your shoulder, my fingers holding yours, and you taking me away from…”

“…familiarity.” He finished.

She looked up at him, ensuring; now for the light had come she could see what his eyes held in themselves. Light brought back the reality. Fiction lay back. With familiarity returning back to them, they would now feel safer, at home. Unfamiliarity tempts you, but doesn’t retain you for long.

The tempting of unfamiliarity was not yet done. Some stones were still undone. Now perhaps was the time to tackle those unfamiliarities, to turn those stones upside down.

“Who did you write your poems for?” She asked, gasping on the first word, releasing on the last. In a kind of an ancient rhythm, poignant, concerned, ready for the answer, whatever.

“For myself perhaps…for none perhaps.”

“You mean that there is no girl behind them?”

“No”

“I thought…I…anyways…”

“No. nothing.” He replied curtly, smashing those stones back to conceal the real point.

“What is it that keeps you tickling all the time?”

“Prospect.”

A stare. A confusion. A blank.

‘Lust is only skin deep; love is profound.’ They say in holy books.

You lose your sight, your vision along the path, but only if you retain the burning flame, retain the fire in you; you will reach your end. But how to keep that flame flickering? How to keep it alive?

“With a belief in your future, in your prospect, you can segue from nadir to zenith like you do in a roller coaster, smoothly, easily. And this keeps me on.” I smiled.

She winked at me, confusion flailing in her eyes, fingers glued together, hairs brushing against the vortex wind by the fall, face straight, lower lip part between her teeth part dropping outside, and the ecstasy drove me awry. Isn’t it her black, kohl eyes, her svelte gesture, lost countenance, divine beauty that steers me all the time? Isn’t it she, who keeps me on?

But truth is not always a truth, at least not always eligible for acknowledgement.

“Why are you staring at me like this?”

Because I loved her. Because I lusted her.

Love? or lust?

What’s the difference?

‘Lust is only skin deep; love is profound.’ They say in holy books.

She moved to gape at water falling steeply from the hill, all the way down to meet earth, happily, wistfully, obediently – destined to demise.

Like I do. To meet her.

Do I fall? Do I rise?

Or do I just travel at level?

“ah…Animesh. You and your thoughts. Now what is it?” she shot suddenly finding me lost in her revere.

“Nothing… The body and the soul. Are they really apart?”

“Yes. Body is only skin deep; soul is profound.”

The circle is complete.

So body is lust; soul is love? Now, what drives me?

The body or the soul?

The lust or the love?