scalded cat
nimmy joshi
Narcissism settles in one day after I wash my hair; never the same day. I look at myself and I desire him. He desires me the same I know. But I’m not going to be his dirty little secret anymore. I can do a lot now with how much ever I can dance. I can be one of those dancers in the nightclubs. I have always found pole dancing quite intimidating and intoxicating. I will be shunned I know, but I am shunned as it is anyway. When I sit on the pot for 20 straight minutes just because it is too noisy outside, too many people, too many thoughts and static. It is in the toilet that I cannot hear the party. I feel safe. So I can finally fall asleep.
He’ll always go for the tall, thin and fair types and call me complicated. I’m the simplest there is. I do NOT always think about marriage from the beginning. In fact I do not think about it. Far from it. I want kids. I have always wanted them. I do not have the courage to bring them to this world though and meet men like you with sperms to spare and condoms ready in the wallet. I think about the times when you disappointed me; gel in your hair, ring on your finger. But so religiously you keep the Hanuman night lamp in your blue room with funky glow-in-the-dark stickers that your mother got you.
How do I stay away from the heady smell of perfume and cigarettes. I told King, a mixture of fact and fiction just like the Long Island Ice Tea that I was drinking, Profundity doesn’t get you anywhere. My wise friends would say, don’t complain, it gets you high. Isn’t it what you want?
No. It’s such a disfigured ogre of a thing to claim.
I have the hair of a gorgeous bollywood actress from the 70s. And I can remind you of her, all Nakhras intact. But when I put on the Bindi and the Toe-ring I am either married or a slut.
15 minutes. Back in time. Heart is thudding. The bulb becomes a hundred bulbs sliding on the drops of water on the shiny ceramic walls. I’m dozing off. About to slide from my throne. I rest my head on the flush compartment.
The dogs bark so loudly I wake up in the middle of every night. I scribble things on my wrist. I know it is over with you. I will meet someone better. I wanted you to be better than this. I wanted you to be a man. Oh finally, strength would have meant something. It would not mean being alone when you go chasing the Women of Light. I’ve ivory skin too, Sa’ab. I have light eyes. And I scrub myself every night with the Soap Amma gave. And with an expensive brush. I want to smell good always. Just like you.
You’re worse at acting than Raj Kapoor in his own movies. I want a Guru Dutt now. And I want my own story. No supporting actress when a Sati Savitri takes away my man who loved me for being bold. He hates it now, as much and in the same way you’d hate it after this charade across the table is over and we exchange long unpleasant glances. Over wine.
You were always classy. And I know being naked in the mind is far worse than being naked for everyone else to see my skin. Beneath it even.
Oh yes! The table will turn someday and I am going to make you wince. I’ll make you sorry you were ever born. Of course, I don’t count favours as sincerely as you count the words when I speak. With that soft-porn style whisper of yours. You look at me and you want to do dirty things. You played a wrong move then, when you made me a one-man woman.
You fall on me like broken shards of mirror from a rainy sky. Someone has made me happy today. Very happy. You’ll pay for it with your credit card and feel sorry for your life. And say ‘Thank you ma’am’ and walk away. These young boys with tiny hineys are the ones that call for an encore. YOU only obey MY command. You will be my cancerous cell.
black coffee
0113 HRS
Bombay
So let me tell you a little story of the one night I was preparing to spend alone. In a city that was quite strange to me. I must have been equally strange for the city. Maybe. Not being a good sleeper didn’t quite help.
So I watched some ‘classy’ and ‘sophisticated’ almost pornographic movies,- Gandu (Bengali) and Sex and the Other Man (English). Then I watched some clichéd ‘girly’ soft porn,- Excused (In bad taste), and Sex in the City (In not-so-bad taste).
Still couldn’t fall asleep.
Not even close.
Sigh. Really might have to spend the night alone. Not a pleasant thought at all. I would definitely need to go for a walk in the morning! What then?
So like always, I hoped, books would distract me. Although I hardly believed it myself, as the thought even brewed in my mind.
I rose from the bed, half-naked and alone, went up to the tiny kitchen which had a switch control from the tinier bathroom next to it. Put the lights on. Put some water on the stove to boil. Switched on and off the lights of the whole house a couple of dozen times out of sheer restlessness. Let me tell you I had no hopes from this exercise, or from this time I am spending on my own. I particularly remember that and knowing that made me feel like I should probably see how beautiful I look in the mirror. Bindi and all that!
Finally, the water boiled and I first poured some into the cup but then I thought if I put the coffee straight from the coffee jar the rest of the coffee might be ruined from all the steam. So I put some coffee on the plastic lid of the empty and old coffee jar kept beside the sink flipped it inside my mug. Then I switched the lid on the old jar with the one on the new one and placed the old jar back near the sink. It might be washed or thrown.
No sugar. No milk.
I thought I knew how horrible it would taste. So I settled into the bed and after 5 minutes of fiddling and flipping around with the pillows and the mattress I found a comfortable position to read. I was struggling to remember which page I had left the book on. And absently took a sip from the mug. I think I had assumed its taste to be so bad and dwelt on this thought for so long, I had achieved the miraculous feat of having imagined it more horrible than it actually was.
Life has been very kind to me ever since.
I could almost say it’s been glorious.
And then it hit me - in Bombay - one man’s roof is another man’s garden. I can hear the neighbour’s Nokia beeping with texts.
Someone’s getting fucked. Well at least someone.
And here I am standing at the window of a strange boy’s flat, with the best possible combination of dim lights, faraway street sounds and smells of the night merging with my coffee.
And with the noise of the lift, my head switched off.
more by nimmy joshi