The Keepsake.

A dusty summer afternoon. His head was inclined sideways, his scant stubble catching the tired sunlight. Gold and red. Like the mahogany table his tissue rested on, the ink on it still wet. A deep azure. We were never to speak, him and I. Regulars at that forgotten, quaint cafe. He always scribbled on those pieces of tissue, smiling to himself at some private joke, balling them up, aiming at the wastepaper basket on his way out. "We daydream too much, such cheap corruption. All our banal brain is capable of doing is modifying reality." He missed often. I was curious.

That day I stayed till past midnight, working on my 16th century theatre assignment. He kept a brown paperbag on the table, for 6 hours. Every few minutes, he would peek in, grin absently, nod a little and get back to whatever deep lyric he was working on. Whatever deep lyric he would throw away, again. Over the last few months, I'd developed the unconscious habit of flashing interested, intrigued glances at him from the corner of my eye, every few hours. We were comrades. We were both escaping the reality our brain could only modify.

After downing his 50 somethingth cup of espresso, his hand inched closer to that curious bag. He seemed to hesitate, fought a mental battle, lost, and gave into the temptation again. He looked in. That familiar hue of subdued glee seemed to paint his face, before he guiltily wiped the expression off his face. I wanted to give up all pretense of indifference, to go upto his table, pull out a chair and demand to share his fascination. I didn't. Our tacit code of brotherhood was too precious to be violated by even awkward hellos, and such an overt acknowledgment would absolutely shatter it.

The evening passed on. Growing frustration on my part, the same absent joy on his. I was struggling to dissect Restoration Comedy, the multitude of cups on his table grew in number with each passing hour. At some point, he nonchalantly reached over for the paperbag. My pen stopped mid-sentence, his established routine for that night was far from getting old. This time, he flattened the paper, and worked his pen into great swishes all over it. Anxious crossing. More scribbling. This, he followed by pulling out a weathered LP and balling up the paperbag. With one swift, disinterested motion of his wrist, what once held a world of attraction, now lay in a languishing, inconspicuous mess by the dustbin. He left the cafe, humming to himself.

I still have that paperbag, the years have deepened the creases on it, the ink on it is beginning to fade. It smells like parchment and coffee beans and decaying wood, like an Englishman's old piano. A relic.

The shy ink reads: "We're strangers and lovers, poets and brothers.
We're actors in someone's play, we're characters in a book someone is reading out to a drowsy child.
We will but be a hazy memory when this night dissolves into dawn.

Isn't that a relief?"

Grey.

Overt schmaltz perhaps, a story of hope, or love or hate or consumerism or communism or all of the aforementioned woven intricately into the autobiographical recapitulation of the life of old-lady-with-three-cats Mrs. Pinto and her objectophillic obsession with a particularly pretty digital clock. Imagination fails me. The clear dichotomy between yesterday and tomorrow. Between The Before and The After. Today, right now is the thin white line that separates the two.The exact second when the dark tresses of night break into dawn. That grey area inspires.

The Lady of Shalott will tell you that for a writer, reality must be divorced from life. That to be able to imagine, he must shut himself off in an ivory tower and avoid the transgression from the mind to the mundane, that the political and the aesthetic must be kept separate. We all construct ivory towers. Mine's bricked with The Shins, steaming black tea, torrential rain and William Blake as of now and that's precisely where the paradox emerges. My dilapidated ivory tower finds reality's cement. It transports, isolates and engages, as it lies corrupt. My psyche, it languishes in the greyness. "Four grey walls and four grey towers."

Another conundrum I struggle to unfold is the poetry of everyday life. The luscious mix of conversation, nicotine and walks around North Campus. That's art right there, not divorced, not independent but snugly knitted into the fabric of platitudes that constitute my 19th year.

The assessment leaves me restive. The mind remains shackled within the confines of Life and its bromides. Unsettling, disturbing, consuming. To produce a work of literature from the viscous, brown mass of inexperience, immaturity and a chained imagination.

Or if your glass is half full? To produce art from dried paint.

Torrential rain, a steaming cup of black tea, Hello Saferide and eyes made of sleep. Every six months or so, motion forces planted in my fingers guide me to type the living shit out of my keyboard and the blog normally bears the brunt of what results. The last half annum has been.. compelling. You know how every birthday you wake up and wish you felt older and you don't. There are those times and then there are times when every inch of metaphysical growth is tangible, when you can feel your maturity flourish, when you pass a finish line or complete your thesis on 16 century poets. Or listen to the rain interrupt the Swedish twee pop that's going to kill your ipod in two songs.
The clear division between yesterday and tomorrow. Between The Before and The After. Today,right now it's the thin white line that seperates the two. I'd like to pretend I have something consequential, revolutionary to write about. Heh. Overt shmalz perhaps, a story of hope, or love or hate or consummerisim or communism or all of the aforementioned woven intricately into the autobiographical recapitulation of the life of old-lady-with-three-cats Mrs Pinto and her objectophillic obsession for a particularly pretty digital clock. Imagination fails me.
So I'm just going to tell you about this fun thing that happened to me day before. Person A (who would probably castrate me( oo parantheses within parantheses oo! anyhow, in brutal, tribal ways) if I told you who he is)

Haze.

Every shining fortnight I leave my new, nebulous life in north campus behind and return to the seemingly inanimate life of rural confines. Seemingly. There's something that holds me here, snug and warm. My own little dream world that I escape into every two weeks when college becomes too real. A dream world that took four years to construct, to adorn, make it homely. Less gray, less ivory, less cold. Less tower, less wall. More home, less house. Music. My personal little cubby hole. Most people would regard this.. reverence.. for music as juvenile. In more hipster terms? Wannabe. Needing to be cool, a part of it. A vehicle that carries my leo trait of ostentation? Most people would be wrong. Its something else. Something different, perhaps, something stronger, shakingly stronger than the normal, healthy respect most people harbour for melody and harmony. Reverence. Gratitude. There's something very tangibly identifiable about indie. About Gibbard and Mercer. It takes possession. And it's hardly normal. This blind-eyed.. losing. Transportation. Losing. Dissolution of reality. My personal fire-exit. Like the earth is not a cold, dead place after all (and if you point this one out, I'll consider marriage =) ). Like the first breath after coma (hah, yes, repetition). As I type this out, I have a sinking feeling I'm not doing the adulation justice. To put it simply, after a whole year of losing touch with this one best friend, these voices, these pieces of melody, it feels good to be back. Like therapy after withdrawal. Or like the rush of adrenalin after you first inject in the drug after a long period of restraint. A frenzy begins. A chaotic, all-consuming pandemonium that expresses sheer bewilderment. "Wow, how did I stay away for so long?" Music. The word doesn't do justice to everything it encompasses for a small town girl. When reality doesn't offer you the fluctuations in emotion and feeling that you crave, when you're 18 and in Faridabad. You turn to other people's higher experiences. To live a little, vicariously. And that's what music is, really. My feet planted in underground New York and my ear an inch away from Kevin Drew's guitar. Acoustic and easy. Heady and relieving. Most of all? This.. intoxication.. gives me reason to believe my made up world could be real one day. Because its made by real people. They're just a few continents away. But it's their world. And it could be mine.

Air.

" Dude, please wax your freaking legs once in a while. This after-shaving stubble business is okay for emergencies, but I'd like to feel like I'm dating a girl. Once in a while. "

He's not a jackass. No. He's not. He's the progenitor of the fucking species.

Yawn. "I love you too, M. Fetch me a newspaper?"

He's lying in bed, rolling his eyes, trying not to come over some new bike that I don't care enough about to remember the name of. Quite a prince, my jackpot.

"You know, I like fighting. I've decided. You're boring. This keeps it ALIVE. You know? Like spices it up and all that jazz. Drama is good." Very southern-American drawl there.

Its his I'm-gonna-be-a-cunt-coz-I-can-be day. Ah well. I'm adoring him today, its allowed.

"Yeah I heart drama. Willya fetch me the newspaper?" I'm trying to keep the smile out of my voice. And failing. Its infuriating the living muck out of him.

Mission accomplished.

"Fuck you too. "

"Gladly. Have you decided not to save yourself for marriage then? You're GIVING UP ON YOUR MORALS FOR SEX?!" I hid the insinuating chuckle behind a low cough, struggling to keep my face straight.

I looked up from my laptop to see if he was still bent on trying to be an asshole.

He was.

Dang. Something was up.

"Alright, out with it."

"I don't know. You're just annoying me more than usual today. "

"I'm supposed to be the girl remember? Tantrums are supposed to be MY thing."

"I'm supposed to be the boy remember? Body-hair is supposed to be MY thing. "

"GAH. K. No more body-hair. Now what's the real reason you're not letting me obsess over Edward Cullen in peace?" The adoration was definitely subsiding. I hate beating about the bush. And he knows it. Get to the point already nig.

His expression is serious now. Something is UP! And from teh look of it, its not going to be much fun.

He sighed loudly. Fought a mental battle in about 3 seconds flat, I saw the turbulence in his eyes abate. His hand was in his hair, it's this little worried scratch thing he does when he's rehearsing a speech or something, in his head.

He seemed to give up.

"Baby. You know this isn't working right? " He was kidding. I knew he was.

"Because I'm BORING. Yeah, that's real cute M." I chuckled. " Get to the point, Edward awaits impatiently for my reverence. "

"Will you listen to me for a second? I.. need you to. You're gonna hate me"

"Nice try, skank."

"Baby, please.."

The silent desperation in his voice had my stomach churning. I knew he was kidding. He HAD to be. But this was not good.

"What, can't we have a clean month without breaking up 18 times and getting back together?" We've been together for 6 years. We've never broken up. Not once. I knew I had to quit trying to make light of this. I just didn't feel like it.

"What if I told you I don't feel the same way?"

I was starting to not breathe. "Then I'd have to kill you in slow, painful ways, repeatedly. So don't make me. " Be serious, woman, be serious.

Silence.

And then I knew it. This was.. well. He wasn't kidding. He was being crazy, sure. I'd have to shake him out of it. But he wasn't kidding.

"Why? What did I do? What's wrong? We'll fix it, I promise. " See. Nice and easy and calm. We'll fix it, whatever I was doing wrong. And it would be okay.

"Nothing.. its not you. I.. goodfuckingLORD why is this so hard?" He took in a deep breath. There was a voice growing louder in my head. I was just going to ignore it, for a bit.

"Baby. I'm in love with someone. I've known her a year. I NEVER thought it would turn into.. this.. stupid..LOVE thing. You're the one. You're supposed to be the one. I don't know what this is about!"


Plug your nose, stop breathing. Hold it. 30 seconds. Breathe. Nothing like the oxygen rushing through your lungs, now, is there?


What if someone took the oxygen away, forever?