Hope Everyone Dies

I have returned to mallu land after ten years of living outside it. Broke up with my partner of 6.5 years, had an affair or something less than that (for him, not me), got my goddamn heart broken in it, at the verge of self harming again, made a film. 

It was five years ago, that i landed in Bombay with all my stuff from Calcutta. In LTT (Lokmanya Tilak Terminus). Vai Vow, my ex partner, was already in Bombay, waiting for me. He had been house hunting and had almost finalized a flat. Like all new comers in their first week there, i stayed in a friend's friend's place in D.N. Nagar. It had three females, one of whom was pretty rude to me, for no reason. 

I went to see the flats that vai vow had seen and decided all of them were crappy, including the one he had almost finalized. We started house hunting together and i finalized our first flat. Again, as is the case with most new comers in Bombay, it was a MHADA (Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Authority) building. 

I was reminded of all these when i headed to LTT a day back, to return to mallu land. Vai Vow came to see me off. 

I haven't got over the 'may-be-less-than-an-affair' and can't stop crying when i am not doing something else, like binge watching shows, writing or reading or playing wordle. Oh wordle happened in between, didn't it? It is one of my fondest memories with Appachan, this game which just got popular. Yes, we used to play it more than a decade ago. My sister had picked it up from school and passed it on to Appachan and me, who pretty much got addicted. 

I wish for appachan's smell, touch, love. I wish i could have had the life i promised to have, with Vai Vow. I wish i was loved by Dee, my may-be-less-than-an-affair. Most of all, i wish for everyone to be dead. 

Shrink Tales #7: When it was Time for Cal-Calcutta Kiss

Appachan used to tell me that the best way to inculcate the habit of reading in somebody was to introduce them to detective fiction. Whodunnits. That worked with me and failed with everyone else i tried that on. I shifted to giving children's books. I have a definite list of them which includes Totochan, the Little Prince, Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass. At home since both Kunju Thalona and Appachan were always talking about this book or that and because they seemed to be having great fun doing that there was no choice left for me but to start reading. I started with children's literature in my mother tongue, Malayalam. Pretty soon from Appan Thampuran library in Ayyanthole, Appachan lent me Enyd Blytons. I loved them. But by then Kunju Thalona and he were talking about more serious stuff. I was always lagging behind. May be that was why i decided i would start reading Perry Mason in class 8, the same time when Kunju Thalona started reading it. Sibling rivalry worked in strange ways at our home. I loved Perry Mason. Even now when my reading hits a hiatus i turn to the good old Erle Stanley Gardener to revive it.

When Kunju and i were engaged in talking about the beauty and thrill of Perry Masons, one day Sethuvamma timidly entered our conversation to talk about Byomkesh. I read my first Feluda after reaching the institute and Byomkesh was out of the question. On one birthday when Kunju gifted me a Feluda, writing 'so that you remember we had our own mysteries', i had only kept the book in the shelf and thought it would be boring. In the institute i finished the Complete Feluda in less than a week. I got a Feluda tee shirt fron Anand bookstall, Gariahat. It got stolen. Byomkesh was Sethuvamma's favourite sleuth on TV. That was why i took her along when i went to watch Dibakar Banerjee's Detective Byomkesh Bakshi!

I didn't like the film much. Sethuvamma herself said that the TV series she used to watch was much better. There was, however one concept that i loved from the film in addition to the lead actor. It was that of Calcutta Kiss. I liked how the paan made from the secret recipe was called Calcutta Kiss and also liked the part of the song which said that it was time for 'Cal Calcutta Kiss'. Could be because my female intuition (i believe women's intuition is better than males'. Yes, i am a sexist bitch) told me that i was going to have one soon. A kiss. In Calcutta, of Calcutta and therefore my Cal-Calcutta Kiss.

We kissed in a dark alleyway where we thought no one was looking. I am sure someone saw us. We kissed and kissed and kissed till we ran out of breath. I kissed my sadness into him and he kissed his fear into me. We moved to the bathroom where the exhaust fan and the light were connected to the same switch. I hated the sound of the fan and so we kissed in the dark and dampness of it all during the summer in Kolkata, 2015. Both of us broken souls and one kiss broken into pieces like shards of glass. It hurt.

I hid it from her for two days. When i told her after i realized it was impossible for me to hide things from her she said it was okay. Later she asked me how he was kissing me with all my cigarette taste. I felt like banging my head on the wall. She was good at that. Making me feel like an idiot.

Well, i was being one. I was jumping into something which i knew would ruin me. The same old pain. Pain over pain to get rid of other pain. Both of us kissers knew it was our end. We kissed still.

That was why i had to tell Ms Mullick about it in that session. This was before i told her so i was surprised when Ms. Mullick told me that it was okay. She noted that i was 'doing better' and asked me to take things as they came. Which meant i didn't have to be worried about what was going to happen because i kissed someone. I only had to kiss.
The previous week she had set the agenda of the session as forgiveness. She told me that i was to grant myself permission to make mistakes.This was going to be difficult for me because i considered pain as part of my identity and forgiveness would mean that i couldn't be hurt by my own mistakes. I said i would try.

The whole week i thought only of my Cal-Calcutta kiss. I thought of the other kisses i had had here and why they weren't Calcutta Kisses. That was when i realized that all kisses had to be documented. It's like history. It doesn't exist unless it's inscribed somewhere other than people's minds. In other words i am scared i would forget them myself.

My first kiss here was in the verandah of D11, the staff quarters where six of us girls were staying for a semester. NN and i both had the habit of sitting on the parapet. People would get scared seeing us that way on the second floor but we knew we were safe. He and i were having tea and he put his cup away saying 'I am no longer interested in the tea' before kissing me. I loved drama. So i liked how we kissd on second floor of D11, me on the parapet, him leaning on to me. Why, i even loved him for some time, i think. It's hard to tell now.

The second one also, following some strange tradition was on second floor. It was morning, neither of us had slept the whole night. We were talking holding hands and then i felt like kissing him. I did. It went on to create problems for both of us and we ended up breaking hearts of some people we loved so that was our first and last.

The next one happened under a Wim Wender poster i had stolen. He forced himself on me and i felt humiliated and bad. Our friendship itself was broken off because i was kissed when i didn't like it. Wim Wenders stayed.

Once in a party when both of us were drunk like everyone and when she was gazing the stars lying on the terrace, i placed a small kiss on her lips. She smiled. I smiled too and we went our ways.


But my Cal-Calcutta kiss was nothing like any of that. It was different because it was Calcutta. It was different because it was desperate and sad and all things the city was to me and all things a kiss was to him. I hope we never stop kissing. But i know we will and when that happens i hope Calcutta weeps.

Good Friday Gone Bad

When i went to bed on Maundy Thursday i asked Sethuvamma to soak some rice in water. I had made up my mind to make Pesaha appam the next day. The only time Pesaha appam was made in our family was when we were with Amma, my grandmother. She called it Inderi ഇണ്ടേറി (some call it INRI appam or indri appam) appam. I liked the name but had no memory of its taste. I decided to try it out even though i was late by a day.

So on Good Friday gone bad because all days are bad when you are not working, i made the bread and milk porridge which was to be made on Maundy Thursday. I had two recipes with me. One was from Ria's Collection and the other was from her. I knew that she liked making food from scratch. If she liked it that way i liked it that way too. Sometimes i think i need no evolution. My likes and dislikes which were formed in the course of years matched hers so much so that i felt it was better to ask her what she liked and didn't and just copy it blindly. So many years saved. But you know what they say, that the process is important. So i rebel against her likes and in two years end up exactly there. Dare anyone question me about undergoing the goddamn process.

Speaking of rebellion i am reminded of the first year after losing belief that all atheists have. They feel liberated all of a sudden and want to rebel against everything they gave up. They would oppose everything religious around them in that first year. I was there once. It was the long break of uncertainty after SSLC (Secondary School Leaving Certificate) exams. Till then every year i would observe lent before easter. No chicken, no meat, no eggs no fish and all boring veggies. It was hell for a person like me who loved meat and fish. The whole of that year i went vegetarian. Food was where i wanted a rebellion first, i must have thought. By the time i was in +1 (higher secondary school) my folks had stopped being surprised at my vegetarian phase. They had other things to worry about anyway with the principal calling Sethuvamma to say that i had 'killer instinct'. That wasn't true, i was only throwing calculators at my Chemistry teachers not stabbing them with a knife... What my folks didn't know was that on the very first day of Lent i bought a very bad chicken biriyani from the nearest restaurant and ate it while no one was at home. I buried the plantain leaf and bones in our backyard. I placed a stone over it so that dogs wouldn't dig it up. My folks would be devastated if they knew that i had not observed lent i thought.

The only thing in my life that i am absolutely happy about is my atheism. I am glad that it happened during my teenage and therefore i got more time to be in it. I am not hard on believers now. I don't rebel against them. My rebellions happen without noise and without chicken bones being buried. No energy expenditure. You could even think up revolts. You were a revolt by yourself. [Nothing of the sort. Just a plain girl, alive]

The reason why i decided to make Inderi appam was so that i had her year in food. Steal her memories and make it mine. Her mother was fidgety in kitchen and used only new cookware to make it. The children were asked not to waste any of the paal because it was all holy. I would imagine myself as a child and being told all this by Amma. Replace her with me and her mother with Amma. There! I had my childhood memories of Maundy Thursday albeit stolen. I could steal from her like how i could steal from Appachan. I felt good stealing.

To steam the appam i had to use a pressure cooker and a vessel with holes.

Pesaha Paal/ Milk Porridge

The appam didn't turn out to be perfect. I didn't lay the cross made of palm leaves either. May be next year when i think of Maundy Thursday on a Christmas day or something. Seasons came for no reason other than food.

Monday Morning Bombay Toast

France is my dream country. Paris is my dream city. French toast is the first thing i learned to make. I was only a child. That's what i like about it. Even children can make it.

French toast, but was called Bombay toast at home. I don't know how either of the names came about. In first year us girls were given accommodation in a staff quarters called D block. I loved those days in D 11. I had my bed near the window, a grand kitchen and many cups of coffee. I started cooking by making egg curry. It had too much oil in it and while making it the pan caught fire. It was an induction cooker that Sethuvamma bought that i was using and was yet to learn the heat dynamics of it.

NN lived in another room in the same house. She was from Bombay (now Mumbai). When i made Bombay toast for the first time i realized she loved it. It soon became one of our common snacks there. There were times when i made it on all days of the week.
We came to the conclusion that it was called french toast by people from Bombay and Bombay toast by everyone else. 
Bombay made me think of Appachan. That was where he was posted on his first job. I remembered his tales of tailors on the pavement who stitched pants. That was were he graduated to pants from mundu (dhoti). I thought of her (uncle's) Bombay beef fry.

Then she called.
When i told her about our Bombay toast making spree she whispered a cooking tip in my ear. It was to add a little meat masala in the egg milk and sugar mixture. I did and i loved it.
Recently she gifted me a lot of cookware, an induction cooker, and an overn-toaster-griller. I couldn't cook. You know how it is. If you don't have mouths to feed and are cooking only for the joy of it then you cook when cook.

I had stopped taking my lithium pills and had gone back to my usual sleep pattern. It was almost 7 a.m when i got some sleep. She called me before that to impart what she calls 'scientific temper'. Gave a lecture on how sleep pattern affects almost everything in a person's life. Sounded like a lullaby. When i got up 4 hours later i cooked.

NN woke up to the smell of Bombay toast and i was happy. Monday morning Bombay toast in memory of D 11 and its girls.  

Appachan Dream

I had to write about her because i loved her. When in pain i mostly think of her and her pain. Love always came with pain. She was love the way she was also pain.
There was, for me, one love which did not hurt except in death. I never speak of it to anybody. Even when in love i hesitate to share Appachan. Appachan was mine and he was not to be shared with anything related to pain. He never hurt me and his love was precious.

For the past two days i have been dreaming of Appachan, my grandfather. Appachan, who gave me reading, his many word games, who said that i could use his lines and it still wouldn't be plagiarism (he chucked copyright away much before i learned the term), who knew meanings of all words i asked him while i sat with a book and he with another, who said gadget meant കുന്ത്രാണ്ടം and made me laugh yet understand what it meant, who sung me to sleep, who read me to sleep, with whom i slept for the most part of my childhood, who said that my arm on his back was like a feather.

Appachan, who grew up in Veethulikkunnu, Kunnamkulam, Kerala. Twenty years of his life there before he left for Bombay. Like how later his grandchild left for Kolkata after twenty years in Kozhikode. He gave all of those twenty years to me with his stories of Veethulikkunnu which got its name because of the shape the hill was in. A broad chisel. He lived in a house which was named Hillview by himself and his brother. They had a sister who died of cancer when she was 20. There was a cemetery behind the house which was close to the church. All of my dead are buried there. Most of my love went to people there.

When Appachan was a little boy one of his uncles gifted him a tennis ball. Yellow and bouncy, the children loved it. Their evenings which were usually of football turned around to new games with the little yellow ball. A happy little thing, unlike the tattered cloth ball they had earlier. One of those days the happy ball bounced up a path they failed to foresee. It bounced its way to the cemetery. Past the Kanjiramaram (Snake-wood) and the iron gate which must not have been rusted then. They looked for the ball, all of them and Appchan did in increased desperation. He loved the ball so. They never got it.

When he told me this story i tried comforting him saying 'It's a vast place. It could have been anywhere in there. Not your fault that you couldn't find it'. He smiled. His upper lip had a small bump. I once tried getting one such by biting my lip ritualistically. It bled and gave me no bump. I got in the habit of biting my lips till they bled. Still no bump. So he smiled his bumpy lipped smile and said 'No, it's not that. Nothing and nobody who went in there ever returned'.

His sister didn't. His brother didn't. His son, my father, didn't. His wife, Amma, didn't. He didn't, like how his tennis ball didn't.

Kaanjiram (കാഞ്ഞിരം) bears poisonous fruit. That is the tree which stood guard to the cemetery. It has been a few years since i visited the place but i can feel its shadow on me. Once when we visited the place with Appachan and Amma we spotted a peacock there. It cawed and fled when it saw us. On that hill where a man spent twenty years of his long life of 89 years was where his perakkutty (grand child) sprouted wings to soar her skies of sadness. Kaanjiram shed its fruit. I was earth and took the poison in. The casuarina trees (ചൂളമരം) up there made for the strange music to which i danced. Oh all my life was one stolen line which Appachan wrote. No copyright. A captain-less ship.

Kunju Thalona once made a painting of me and Appachan which said everything about us. That was how i slept beside him. I would place my arm around him and ask if it bothered him. That was when he would say it was light as a feather. That was why i asked him that every time i hugged him. He kept a torch beside him on the window sill. On it were other things as his medicine box, his fine toothed comb and always a book. My years of blissful sleep were the ones in which i slept beside him. Never after that have i had unperturbed sleep.

Appachan and i. Painting by Kunju Thalona

Last night i had the second consecutive dream about him. I don't remember the first one. In my dream i had made a music video with some of my photographs on instagram. There were a lot of dogs and cats. I was shooting. I shot a lot of footage which i could use in some film i was making. Later i saw that one of the kittens was killed by a dog. I witnessed that murder. I shot it. I held the dead kitten and i was bloody. A lot of animals were dying around me and the Pink Floyd like music was playing all the while. Then i saw my photographs being projected on sky. The closest to the music i heard would be High Hopes by Pink Floyd. I ran. I ran to Appachan like how i used to in my childhood when i got the spellings wrong and Amma ran behind me with drumsticks to spank me. Appachan was on a chair in a room under the ground which i learned was where we lived. There was a film camera there. Purnendu da who took care of cameras in the institute was there too, dusting it. Appachan spoke to me and i started laughing. I saw D Jeet there in some time.

When i woke up i only had blood in my head. All that blood from all those dead animals. A trail of blood which led to our house under the ground. We were marked, Appachan and i. Oh my!

Jesus Wept

There was a time when i was a staunch believer. On sundays was 'sunday school'. I had a crush on a boy there. His name was Ryan. He was in the choir and the last memory i have of him during teenage was that of his voice breaking and him being upset about not being able to sing. 'It would never have worked between us', owing to my absolutely poor sense of music, i used to tell myself, back then. Now when i think of it i feel like Mouchette in Bresson's 'Mouchette'. Always getting a note wrong, ridiculed and later pelting stones with a vengeance at her classmates. Later i learnt that Ryan had got in some college in US. I just went 'oh!'. I felt nothing. Same old crush story. It peters out. Always.

Sunday school was also where i learned the shortest line in the bible. It was 'Jesus wept', we were all taught. The question was sure to pop up in all tests. My favourite exercise in faith during those days was to impress my grandparents; appachan and amma with all the stories i had leared and in particular the ones at sunday school. Both of them were believers and liked it when their children or grandchildren talked bible. I would write letters to them describing my adventures in school and give constant reminders to amma about the ice cream that i wanted to be ready during Christmas holidays. And thus it was that amma's freezer had three tubs full of ice-cream during every christmas. Scooping out my third helping from one of them and watching appachan wash dishes because 'amma's arthritis means she can't wash dishes', one day in december i decided to impress appachan with 'jesus wept'. Out of the blue i sprung the question 'Do you know which the shortest line in the bible is?'. 'No?', he said, trying to put on his best histrionics coat. 'It's jesus wept', i said, proudly and gulping another spoon full of vanilla and milk. But when he asked me if i knew when it was that jesus had wept so that the line could be there in the first place, my mind went blank. I didn't know. 'Hey, that wasn't the question we were taught', i protested in my mind. Appachan then told me the story of Lazarus and his sisters and jesus' friendship with the family. He never stopped telling me tales.

Appachan and amma died years ago. I am an atheist now and proud of it too. During december, however, i still think of amma's ice-cream in the old godrej refrigerator. Nothing fancy. Full of love.

It was almost December when i first came to Kolkata. As a madrasi, and moreover as a bloody mallu, i had never lived in a place which was so cold. And kolkata winter hadn't even started! In kozhikode, kerala, during 'winter' we would just have pleasantly cold mornings and evenings. A jacket while riding, may be. In my room which i was sharing with a bengali from delhi, i was quick to station my bed next to the window. People try to make any place they are in as close to home as possible. Only natural, survival mechanism. At home i would leave a window by my head open and the other closed. I thought it was a clever move so that burglars couldn't lay hands upon my phone, radio etc and yet i could have all the wind and light come in. Grumbling about what a ghastly sight the mosquito nets affixed there was, i let all three windows open on my first night in Kolkata. I tried sleeping and couldn't because i couldn't even stay still because of cold. I was shivering and still not thinking of the open windows. How could windows have anything to do with cold! Cold was only in the morning. Till 3 am, i was in foetal position, trying to enfold my body in my body, occasionally clutching my feet tight with my palms to make it warm. Nothing worked. Then there was a gush of wind. Then i felt the cold which the wind brought in. And then i realized why it was so cold. I shut them goddamn windows.

January was colder. I really thought i was going to die. My blanket was flimsy. I had a huge thick jacket which a friend had gifted but even with that on i would always, somehow be cold.

Then she called.

After telling her all about the people i hated- which was everyone on campus, about how i had started cooking, how i felt even the curry masala in bengal was slightly sweet i told her my problem with winter in kolkata. She had seen many a winters. Much colder. She had seen snow. Then she gave me that priceless piece of information. It's through your feet and hands. That's the path through which cold enters you. Damn! She was right! She was always right. Why didn't i think of it. How stupid could i be. Cursing myself i started wearing socks even with slippers. Forget fashion, warmth is the key word. The coming year Calico gifted me woollen gloves. By then i had a smart phone and it made typing a little problematic. I stopped texting people. Warmth, remember.

This is my fourth winter in Kolkata. I am equipped like never before to fight it. My blankets are thick. Jackets are plenty. Steaming coffee, hot water baths. I ask appachan in my mind 'Do you know what the shortest line in my kolkata chronicles is?' Now he is genuinely at a loss. He adjusts his thick framed glasses. Dramatically i deliver a high pitched 'Winter wept'. He loved alliteration. Should be impressed.

Oh but for the heartaches and cold sting of grief, there are no gifted mittens or socks. I don't think even she knows where that enters me.