Sights, sounds and smells of “Ente Keralam"

                                                      

‘Beep’. I heard a message alert on my phone. Of all the million  messages I have received and continue to receive from my loyal service provider, this was the best in a while..probably the first ever that I was happy to read! “Welcome to Vodafone Kerala”. My train from Bangalore had crossed over to Kerala. The Bangalore- Kanyakumari express that I was on had reached familiar terrains.  It felt like bliss. My joy knew no bounds!!

 And I was welcomed by droplets from the skies above.

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I couldn’t balance myself and it felt as if every cell in my body was being tossed through a blender or a washing machine. Struggling to maintain my status quo, my efforts to cling on to the metal bar were in vain and I jerked in all directions; practical implementation of principle of inertia taught in Physics classes in school. I hadn’t been through a comparable feeling for quite some time now and it took my senses a while to comprehend this phenomena.

Eureka! I was back in one of the private transport buses in my small hometown in Kerala. Being away from the state for an year, my body had grown out of habit of this balancing act. Despite this momentary struggle, I was smiling to myself; for reasons I’m not quite sure of. I guess I missed this ride during the past year and the experience of being back on the same had brought out a smile from its hideout.

When I left the state an year back, I was not very fond of returning.

However, during my year long stint in Bangalore, I fell in love with “ente Keralam” and realised that there are certain sights, smell and sounds of God’s own country that I missed unknowingly.

The rush of adrenalin while on private transport buses that are participants in a crazy race popularly referred to as  a race towards death, the ‘ting-ting-ting’ ringing sound of the bell in the buses that marked each destination of this crazy race, the familiar call of the bus conductor “chengannure, chengannure” or the even more interesting “aluva aluva, nere aluva”, the sight of a coconut tree( a proud possession of every Keralite) in the front or back yard of every little house, the sound of the plunge of the metal bucket into the deep water of the open wells, sound of mustard cracking open in hot coconut oil; the aroma of this seasoning is one that brings you home...and do I even need to say I missed my "Kerala meals"?

The other day, during a walk with a friend, a thought popped up in my mind. “There is something else that I missed about Kerala,” I said.

As she looked at me eagerly, I continued, “The art of preparing a lime-soda drink. The beauty with which the shopkeeper beats salt in  the lime juice with a steel spoon, slowly adding soda, the fizz, the sound of steel hitting the glass and intermittent ssshhhh sound of soda. It’s a beauty.”

She laughed out loud. “This is the weirdest thing I’ve ever heard someone say they miss!” she said.

Well, it is true. Nowhere else have I ever seen such passion in making a drink of lime soda!! And I’ve always  been an admirer of the process.

It is difficult to explain these simple feelings to my city-bred friends in the metro, who may not understand the close- knit association between these sights and sounds and a so-called Mallu’s soul.

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The summer rains have been a relief that drenched the soul. The sounds of heavy torrents at night, lying down on a bed listening to those torrents drain down from the slope roof with clay tiles into the puddles again, watching it through open wooden windows of the old paternal home...an experience of rain that can never be compared to the same from the balcony of a high rise.

And now it’s a wait for the monsoons....and many more sights, sounds and smells that connect my soul to home.

He came, He saw, He conquered… and then?

“Is it possible to fall in love with two persons at the same time?” he asked her. She smiled. She had pondered over the same for a long time over the years. But all through these years, none had popped this question to her except her own conscience.

“Yes, it is possible,” she replied.

“I’ve been through the same situation a couple of years ago, but realised it only later.”

There was a moment of silence which was broken again by his voice that she adored since the first time they had spoken, years ago.

“Why is it that everything is same for both of us always?”

She wished she knew the answer. She knew she was attracted to this guy…his aura, the strange chemistry they shared.

And it wasn’t different with him either. The planetary forces that had pulled him towards her, the forces that didn’t let her go in the middle of that crazy bus station that day; they were still playing along somewhere.

Both their senses put together couldn’t comprehend what they felt for each other...it was not love; it was not desire...what was it?

There was magic in every moment she spent with him, there was magic in the conversations she had with him. And forever she wished time wouldn’t race so fast.

He was already committed. He was in love with the lady of his life, the “leading lady of his life” as he’d put it.

She knew it, she didn’t deny it. It didn’t bother her either.

But what did spring up in her mind, in her own thought cycles is a struggle to define; to put down what is this feeling she had for him.

It wasn’t fascination...it was of course not a high school crush.

It probably was adoration...self-discovery...the unexplained joy of an encounter with the reflection of her inner self. A different kind of magic that no romantic odes, none of the best romantic movies made could ever unravel.

She loved having him around. “Sometimes I wonder when this bubble will burst,” she said.

“Why do you even think of the bubble?!!” he asked instantly.

She had her answer. It is because life is a bubble. She’d probably gotten used to bubbles, bubbles that rose high in the sky, bubbles that reflected hues of the rainbow as they kissed the sun’s rays, bubbles that burst!!

“Enjoy the moment, dear,” he said.

And she did....she stopped disturbing her mind with questions. And she let it wander, “free thinking” as he puts it.

There are certain relationships in life that cannot be categorised or classified, there are emotions that cannot be defined. These cannot be stacked onto a labelled bookshelf in life’s library.  To the whole wide intelligent world, it doesn’t make sense. To those who think with heads, it is nonsensical.

But it doesn’t matter to dreamers, dreamers like him and her who could love without reservations, who were not bound by social stigmas and definitions.

These are moments that just need to be lived, to be felt, not to be understood.

                         

Pink Buses……

The bus was jam-packed with people. I wondered where the whole wide world was heading on a lazy Sunday morning. I’d rather they stay at their homes and spend time with families. 

The hot summer air and stuffiness in the crammed bus was getting onto my nerves. But what irked me more was the presence of men sticking onto me; by chance or by choice, I’d rather not speculate.

 The destination was still an hour away and I happened to be one of those lucky folks who got a seat. As I sat there lost in thoughts and playing out my version of the day ahead in my head, I felt something on my arm. (I was wearing a half sleeved top.) In a flash of a second, my imagination ran wild, thanks to the record of experiences I have had on public transport buses.

 Trying to figure out what’s touching my arm, I looked at the man standing close to me. Nothing. It was just the flap of his shirt below the last button. He stood facing me and the forces in the bus pushed him to stand so close to me. I twitched in my seat, tried to move in, move forward to the edge. Each time that piece of cloth touched me, I’d get the jitters.

I kept looking up at his face from time to time…also at the part of the shirt making me feel uncomfortable.      

  

The entire journey passed with me counting every tick of time. The bus reached its destination, also mine…Majestic bus station. I stepped down into yet another “testosterone-charged” environment which tickled my senses and hormones within me behaved weirdly, none of which felt good. I wondered why is it that the sight of opposite gender, their massive presence annoyed me. No answer. Or maybe, no single right answer “jisko lock kiya jaye”.

I met my friend. And we continued our journey and conversations together.

Me: You know what I’d do first, if I reached a position of power where I could change things in the city or state? I will introduce buses exclusively for women.

My friend looked at me with the least amount of respect I’d ever seen on his face for me. Not that I was expecting him to pat me on my back and appreciate my efforts for the “greater good” of my gender, but this was the most unexpected response.

He: I will be the first one to stone that bus.

Whoa!! Now that was not what I was looking for.

He: why do you want to start a bus exclusively for women?

I had my answers clear and sorted out this time.

Me: Because I want them to travel comfortably, without having to put up with hands that can’t stay put and x-ray vision eyes that glare at them.

He: Just because you cannot deal with it, you cannot run away or introduce buses for yourselves. This is not revolution, this is ESCAPISM.

“ESCAPISM” !!…that word kept ringing in my ears. Every cell in my body screamed.

I swear if it was not him, I would have hit this guy sitting next to me, throwing shit at my self-esteem.

Me: If you had a daughter, would you say all this to her?

He: Of course, I would say the same to my daughter. If she doesn’t face it, she’s not my daughter.

For the person I knew he was, I was sure he meant what he said. I respected him for that statement.

I tried to lighten it up and stood firm on my decision to roll out buses for women.

Me: So, you’ll stone one of my buses. What would you do if I bring out a fleet of buses for women?

The response was instant. He never had second thoughts, I guess.

He: I’d buy a quarry for myself and keep stoning all your buses!!!

I broke out into laughter. I’m not very sure if I was a little irritated with him, but I laughed my hearts out.

……………………………………………………………………………………

On the bus journey back home, I thought about what he’d told me. Is it escapism? A faint voice inside me agreed it truly was escapism. The voice inside me raised a question, “Why do we have to move away to separate buses? Why is it that we cannot share the space with men? We do not have to move away or compromise because somebody else can’t get their hormones and thoughts sorted out.”

Well, agreed.

Bingo! I got another idea. I messaged him.

Me: I’m not going to start buses for women. I’m going to start self- defense classes and encourage girls and women to take it up. What say?

He: that’s more like it J

So, there ends my aspiration for buses for unfortunate women who cannot give it back…there ends the saga of my “pink buses” even before it began.

I’d rather we share the same public space and fight back when it is encroached upon…not move away comfortably. What say??

He came, he saw, he conquered... ....reporting from platform 19 A!!

“Church...church...”screamed a drunken beggar, as he dug into his trouser pockets to pull out an old faded rosary. Petrified, she jumped off her seat. He came closer to her and furiously muttered something in Kannada. She froze on the spot and couldn’t speak a word, as if she was caught in a flash of black magic. A few young men came to her rescue and shooed him off to a church nearby.

Still cold, she returned to her seat on the bench on platform 19 A. She opened the Deccan Herald dated March 11; tried to read about the glories of Akhilesh Yadav and his chances of becoming the CM of the most populous state of the country...

“What the hell am I doing here,” she kept asking herself. “Why did I agree to meet him?” Deep inside she cursed herself for this wild idea of meeting a guy she’d never met before, on this bizarre platform in the city’s biggest bus stations.

Lost amongst the madly racing crowd, she sat there. It seemed as the whole world was passing by staring at her eyes...People on either side of her seat kept changing. Old ones left and new people came, waited for their turn to hop onto those crammed buses that took them somewhere far...she wondered where.

With all her mind and vigour, she struggled to focus on the paper and the stories it had to tell her. But it didn’t help. Without her consent, her eyes would wander off...wander off in either direction...piercing through the crowd, to see if she could catch his face....a face whose appearance she wasn’t really sure of.

It’s been a few years... and a few online conversations. He was a friend that just came her way, but special in a way...she had forever evaded a meeting, for reasons only her foolish mind knew but perhaps couldn’t unravel the mystery behind. She always knew she thought different, felt 

different and lived in a fantasy of her own. But this was a little over the edge.

Every second of the next hour counted....and then the clock struck one.

She doubted if she had missed him. She had seen enough of his photos with “unshaven bit of attitude” and many more on social networking platforms, but doubted how he’d look when he walked out of that virtual world behind the screen.

It was not long before she recognised him, standing in a corner, scanning his phone with the same grave look which she could recognise from somewhere...

A deep breathe...And she walked towards him...

The rest was a fairytale...magical…special, adjectives seemed to fall short.

They walked...on the footpaths and busy city streets, walked aimlessly  through shops that sold books, ethnic clothes, handicrafts, read horoscopes, ate together and continued to wander. They observed, made fun of people, commented. Topics never ran short...and much more was spoken in intervals of silence.

Hours passed...but they found reasons to stick around and talk, places to stroll around, places to sit for a while and places to stand and stare.

It was a feeling of having known each other forever, not a trace of unease...not even when he stood close, not when she would look into his eyes, not when he held her hands, not when she patted him on his back and joked…It was full of life…each “exclusive” moments like never before.

It was time. She had to leave. It seemed like the ‘Cinderella moment’ where the clock struck 12. The magic would soon come to an end; coaches would turn back to pumpkins, coachmen into rats!!

Time couldn’t be pushed forward eternally...they were back on 19 A.

She knew she couldn’t go...it was like pull by planetary forces....a great conflict…an internal battle...to leave or not to leave...what to say? There were still lots to be said.

She gazed into his eyes through his glasses which he never took off whole day...and she knew he too could feel the conflict, the pull of heavenly forces...his lips would curve into a smile...which seemed helpless.

Lost in the moment, they talked again...probably trying to push time forward; hoping time would crawl or even freeze.

But the battle had to be lost...a hug marked the farewell.

“Bye,” she said and walked away, promising herself not to turn around and look...but she did.

He was gone. As she pushed herself through that mad crowd, her eyes turned around and raced through trying to catch a glimpse again.....But he was gone...

It was magical, she knew as she smiled on her bus journey back home.

There was much more to be said....a feeling lingered around and all the craziness in her couldn’t define that feeling.

Some things are better left undone, unsaid...some moments are captured onto a time frame in our minds; we shut them out in a secret corner or a treasure box hidden away...and forever it remains locked and treasured.

Will she meet him again? No.....hypothetically?!!