Dissolution

On the train to Chennai, as I sat looking out the window at the swathes of brown, green, and pale blue ribboning along, there was a moment when the lines between the land and sky began to blur, and I blinked. The image resolved itself as the sounds of an elevator ad in Hindi, a woman screaming at her captor to let her go in Tamil, and a one-sided conversation in Marwari jumbled up, slapped me awake. For a few seconds after that, I remained still, inhabiting that moment on that seat, on that train, where nothing that happened before or after seemed to exist. If it sounds like a state of philosophical fugue, it was; I felt unmoored, untethered from what had happened before, and what was to happen after — will we get auto, will we take the route by the sea, will the summer warm the night air — nothing intruded. It was as if everything that came into contact with this pool of stillness dissolved within it.

I read the rest of Em and the Big Hoom in the train, and when I finished, I messaged K. that I had fallen in love, both with Em and the Big Hoom. I had resisted reading the book for a long time because I was miffed with Jerry Pinto. No, I have never met him, of course, he doesn’t know me (ha!); rather, it is one of those random grudges that I nursed all alone inside the cold dark dank recesses of my narrow heart. Sometime ago, Jerry Pinto wrote an A to Z ode to Mumbai and all that he chanted about in it as familiars were distant, faces I only knew as photographs, and places as postcards. My Mumbai was was tucked deep into the Western line, and so, miffed, I made my own list, shaking a typed fist into the internet void. As I teared up after finishing the book, looking away at the window, now blurred again, I was glad to pay this salt tax the best books demand of you. Everything dissolved into those droplets, petty grudges and pointless lists.

Why did I fall in love with Em or the Big Hoom? Was it because of her ambivalence toward her motherhood, her sniggering ‘mud-dah’? Was it because of the familiar confusions over adulthood’s demands, the muddling over money, her love for sweets (I don’t even have a sweet tooth, but it felt so right that she would). Was it because of the darkness that leaks out of her, something I have witnessed friends and loved ones growl and grapple with? And the Big Hoom, whom I began to think of as the beloved Hornbill, mating for life, guarding an entire forest). It was of course silly to think of it as one or the other, for it is all of it, everything blurs, all of it, dissolving and seeping with every scene, dialogue, snark, and sob.

In the morning, the one I love asked me, “What are you doing now?” She was tucked inside a nightie, her head sprouting out of that tent, her hair now grown into thick, steel gray sheaves. (I had hated it when they had chopped it short; lice, they said. Lies, I wanted to snarl.) I started to answer her, and then paused, for I did not know what to tell her. That was not the script; the confusions were hers, mine was to assure her everything is ok, all is well, and everyone is ok. It was what we did on the phone every morning; she would ask, is everything ok, and I would assure her, yes. Suddenly, I wanted to tell her about all my confusions, how the definitions I had stood on seemed to be blurring and dissolving. I felt dissolute — indulging in stories when the world, well, continued to be the world.

One afternoon, standing at the entrance counter of the Madras Literary Society, staring at an application, once again, I felt this moment of dissolution. There it was, a form, with lines where I had to fill in name, occupation, address, and for a while all the lines and words seemed to hover uncertainly in the warm post lunch air exhaled by the brick walls. As the words dissolved into each other, I giggled, silently, for I realised I needed my glasses.

—

And dear Jerry Pinto (I feel I can’t yet take the urimai to call you Jerry), here is my love letter our beloved:

A is for Andheri, rather the dog that used to sleep in the middle of the foot overbridge. Every morning bleary eyed, for four years, I stopped, looked at it sleeping and thought, I envy you.

B is for batata vada, the kind A. made one day as we sat in her house chatting. We were supposed to be studying together, tenth standard and all. We didn’t. I never kept in touch with her*.

C is for Chunabhatti, where D. lives, who now has a music studio in a room in his house. Mumbai is edgy like that, you have secret rooms in bylanes of Chunabhatti where D for Dopeadelicz has recorded their music.

E is for Elco Arcade, where everyone bought nighties. When feeling adventurous they bought batik kaftans.

F is for falooda. Rose falooda.

G is for Goregaon. My always.

H is for Hiranandani, the place, not the builder – a place I knew of watching all those 90s songs. Then Dil Chahta Hai happened and everyone suddenly wanted to go to Australia to nurse a heartbreak.

I is for Inorbit in Malad – the mall that is built on top of a landfill. Till some time ago, when you flushed there, the scented memories of the buried khaadi floated up. Such a terrific sci-fi location.

J is for Jogeshwari. S. used to stay there and we went by the same bus to junior college. Her handwriting was like cursive print and she liked Lucky Ali. A lot.

K is for Kalina. Site of my first protest.

L is for the Local.

M is for Mankhurd. The station I always wanted to explore.

N is for Nerul. The steps, the vada paav shop, and the platform were second home.

O is for, what else, Oshiwara. More stories ought to be written about Oshiwara. It is an unsung star.

P is for popat. And R is for rokda. The twain never meet for there is Q in between.

Q is for Qasim Khan Qayamat – the best on-screen don. If you are not asking ‘Kaun Qasim Khan’, you don’t know your Hindi cinema.

S is for Shree Vachanalay – smells like a prayer room with all that agarbatti, and stocks mostly raunchy books. Mills and Boon being an exception.

T is for Topiwala where I saw both Hum aapke hain kaun and DDLJ. It feels like my generation’s adolescence was signposted by those two movies.

U is for made in USA urf Ulhas Nagar Sindhi Association.

V is for VJTI – once Victoria Jubilee Technological Institute, conveniently changed to Veer Jijamata Technological institute. Naam change ho toh aise. No kitpit.

W is for Wadala and allllllllll those memories of the station.

X is for Xavier’s quadrangle – every year that all night music program, where you breathed the same air as Gangubai Hangal and Kishori Amonkar.

Y is for Yaari road – somehow I always imagined hordes of people in those twin scooters choc-a-bloc on the road going yeh yaari hum nahin bhoolenge.

Z is for thoda Zyaada ho gaya na.