WINKING STARS

>> Thursday, March 20, 2008

"Agar aapki beti hoti, to aap usko bhi ‘raand’ bulate? "

Drunken people have the knack of making sense ever so often, and I was soon to learn how much. Seven shots of whisky and a not-so-womanly gait (ok, she walked like a giraffe on skates) had made the taxi driver address my dear Aseema as a prostitute.

She stumbled away from the taxi as I trotted next to her.

“Let’s walk. I wanna see the stars tooooonite…” she crooned.

Wise of her, wasn’t it? Like the smartass had a choice.

She looked up at the velvet sky and remarked “So many stars!” I looked up to find the dark horizon staring back at me; the girl had an amazing imagination to create universes and galaxies to her whim. She began, “You know when I was in the seventh grade I made a project for the science Exhibition where I placed a pea next to a football to show the comparative sizes of the Earth and the Sun.”

She grinned. “I won second prize!”

Her face darkened as she continued. “And that bloody Jay showed his fancy temperature controlling shit and he danced away with the first prize. He probably Googled that fancy idea…rascal thief…”Generally I support Aseema even if I were threatened to have dinner with (for) Dr.Hannibal Lector but the fact that
A)Google had not been invented then,
B) Our heroine herself had stolen the idea from a lesser known beat-up weekly and
C) She was an incredible liar, made me give my unquestionable integrity a rest.

“Even Dad had that fantastic addiction to Google. Yeah, Dad loved Google more than his little daughter.” She sniffed,” Oh! I remember the day he almost threw me out of the house and chose the computer over his baby of 18years.”
Yes, you see the ‘baby’ had considered her father to be a drooling brain-dead antique (with all due respect) and tried to bluff her way that the computer had apparently accessed his Credit Card and purchased fancy shoes and jeans which (according to Miss. Einstein’s love-child) was a sign that robots(?!) were taking over the world. The fact that her patriarch was a software engineer didn’t encourage her to strain her grey cells a tad bit more but by mercy of my prayers, a really really long wail by her mother and the Indian Penal Code against murder she continued to receive free food, shelter and love for the next couple of years.




“Dad even hated all my boyfriends: Raj (a class 4 dropout who addressed her father as ‘Yo!’), Mrigesh (his scalp is colonized by an alien multi-colored life-form that he still has the habit of calling ‘hair’), Wyomesh (he cried while watching the last season of F.R.I.E.N.D.S. Period)…” Her friends, family and I could do nothing more than watch a star explode time and again with colorful trails; but I loved her all the more ‘coz at the end of the day she always came back to me.
“You know Tanmay was the only one who came closest to being The One, but I suppose it wasn’t meant to be. I mean his with his wife, kids and everything; it wasn’t exactly the kind of adventure I was looking forward to. And then I found this perfect job to get over him and pay that big-mouthed, mustachioed landlady of mine. I mean, can’t a girl live decently and call some friends over once in a while? No! She has to ask the name of every guy who wears a skirt, question every carton that comes in, wonder why the parcel they carried out ‘looked like a corpse’, why two female friends were snuggling etc etc.” She looked at me, “Arey, you drive her insane at times but my love is your protection.” She winked. My poor lame heart skipped, hopped and jumped many a beat. The most beautiful things in life can’t be named or explained. It’s also a very good excuse for my pathetic vocab.

The first time I saw Aseema was when she had stomped out of the car in her killer boots, swearing at her car dealer on the phone and turning her key every wrong way possible in the key-hole (I know there are only two ways but she can be a tad ‘overwhelming’ at times). I waited for her at her door almost everyday after that: to see her drive like the Axe-Murderer on substance, watch her rip important documents to shreds and wail like a banshee in hindsight, see her desirous eyes pop-out when she discovered she had lost yet another pair of keys, the horror in her mesmerizing face when her car was stolen, sitting with her on her doorstep on warm nights and nibbling on Parle-G biscuits, her dainty hands smashing into a cousins face when she told her she was in love with her (yes, ‘she’ & ‘her’).

“So what’s up with your bitch?”She broke into my thoughts as I shook my head. Not well. My gal didn’t understand the enormity of the responsibilities I had, for her I was just wasting my time bothering people who didn’t know who I was and didn’t believe in me either. But we still made out and had a good time with common friends. Just last night I was telling her about…“You know, yesterday I went to office and I saw this really grotesque vase on Swaroop’s desk.”

I thought we were talking about me.

She continued unashamed, “It looked like it had come from the backside of a constipated beast that had eaten my cooking. And compared to the sophisticated stuff that adorns his Oval-Office like room, I thought the Al-Qaeda had threatened him to exhibit there as a symbol of their tyranny or something.”

It’s never about me is it?

“Anyways, turns out it was his wife’s little pottery labor that had churned out this bastard monster. So I decided to take my chances and I started praising that ugly ‘whatever’—I think it really talks about the Existentialism that has started to govern our lives these days and how ephemeral our lives are has brought a divide amongst those who live like life is mere tool in the hands of a greater being…”

Selfish brute.

Swaroop doesn’t fall for that kind of tripe. He’ll never offer her a raise with that kind of shameless kissing-ass. I think the disgusted expression on my face said it all because she sighed and said, “Oh! I know he doesn’t fall for this kind of trash. He’ll never offer me a raise if I talk like that. And he gave me such a dirty look during my sermon; it was like I was like his granny was doing a striptease or something! Ugh! ”

Serves her right! Doesn’t she ever think about me? I mean I’ve seen her through thick and thin (not like I could do much about it), and she can’t even listen to me continuously for 15 seconds! Of all the people I could go to, I came to her to help and she behaves like a drunken fool! Why I should have…
“You are my hero, na! You can always find better ones around the corner! And with mind-blowing looks like yours, you won’t be in the single bracket for long; even if you don’t like it!” her hand moved gently across my spine and rested there for a while. She straightened up and fiddled with the keys before unlocking the door. She stood awhile between the door and its frame with her back towards me. Then she turned, gave me an incredibly grateful and innocent smile and cooed, “Good night handsome!”

I stared at the door for a few moments before I gathered my wits and trotted off to meet some cronies. Neither of us could explain what went on between us: a mere friendship or some absurd bond. Whatever it was, I hoped it wouldn’t be explained.




* * * * *

A woman with a caterpillar resting on her upper-lip (oh sorry! It’s just her facial hair) spied at her tenant through her blinds, “Look! Look! Aseema is back at 3! I told that scallywag not to come late and that useless…She’s talking to that dog! Why in the world does she talk to that rag? Oh and she’s patting it now! It keeps waiting for her EVERYDAY! Oh it’s staring at her door! Wretched dog! And she feeds him biscuits! It always pees on my car, never did anything to hers! Once I get enough money I’ll write a book on all the rascals who’ve stayed here and send it to their parents. Oh the look on their faces when they know what their precious kids are up to…”

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