Love and the Dark Night

PART TWO, SIX

Firdaus walked sometimes in a fox-trot fashion, then suddenly firmed his steps to a casual walker’s, at times he paused, moved his head to the left and tapping his finger on the cheek, nodded to an invisible being and resumed walking.

I had reached within hearing distance. Digging his hand into his pocket, he drew out his cell phone and said hello. “Yes, my girl,” he said and nodded again and nodded, then, “no Damasque. But I’ll pull him into the conversation and softly make him come out of doors.” Pause, pause. “Leave informing David to me.”

I stopped short in the middle of the road. How did Firdaus know Damasque? What information did he, of all people, have to convey to David.

Firdaus continued walking ahead till he turned and vanished in Bond Street.

I returned to my class.

“Let your imagination run riot, boys and girls.” And as they began to chew their pens, I left. The four crossing ahead would make me feel nice and this claustrophobic feeling might leave my throat. A child stood outside a general store biting into a chocolate, his mind transported to a world of chocolatey streams. His father now and then looked at his little son in the midst of digging into his purse and talking to the shopkeeper. The college across was brimming over with freshers as they loitered outside the gate, smiling, laughing. Some were biting into tidbits. The general freshness was all over.

The e-mails. How strange. Damasque could read my thoughts. And no sooner that was done than Plink, up came an e-mail from her. Isn’t that a unique way of conversing? Conversing with our mind without using any audible words?  

The students were half way through with their writing, so I walked about in the aisle between the rows of desks. I once sat at the first table, then got up very soon, walked again and sat at the other table. I looked here and there and then everywhere. I suddenly realized that anyone even casually observing me would remark that I was suffering with the sickness of restlessness. Slow down Rudi, slow down.  And I began breathing in and out deeply.

At last when I began reading through the students’ writings yes I breathed softly. Calmness floated around with wings gliding my thoughts. Second by second. And minute by minute and one hour passed by then and the students left slow and steady like beans out of a can. A new text and the Joanne said she won’t be attending today’s class. Am I that bad, am I not being able to teach well. Have my thoughts and the voice in it reached Olivia, Richard, Glen, Godfrey, Neil and Annabeth by now? Had they jointly decided not to attend my class?

The next set of students sent me a text informing that they would be unable to come as they had basketball practice. With one hour to kill, I went across and sat on the bench of the chai shop. The owner was not actually friendly, but it seemed he had resigned to his lot and had accepted the life he was leading at present – that is, serving tea and biscuits to customers and selling lunch of rice, lentil, some vegetable curry and fish or egg curry.  But whatever he did, he seemed to have a disgruntled attitude towards life.

Will I also become like him one day, insensitive, and feel life is futile? Am I heading to the right destination? Am I on the right track? A poet had said that while in the destination of our life, destiny might take us somewhere else. Yes, it was true. Passengers travelling somewhere may not reach their destination because destiny might take them somewhere else.

But… that that did not mean one will not travel, one will not take risk… A sudden ring in my cell phone and I was pushed out of my thoughts. It was Hermen: wait in my house till I return from the dentist.     

Hermen stayed in the southern side. Shasht and I met at Statue Crossing at five. We hung there for a while. I had insisted Shasht to have chai near the Alipur and Chetla crossing but he insisted we have here and later we could have it there. He emphasized on the word we. Then I understood the emphasis soon for Alex, Simran, Ranee and Anais were crossing the road and coming towards us. Before I could say anything, Shasht said he had told them to come over and they might hang out there as well while we would dig into listening to each other’s compositions; and if they wanted to they might as well go out for a stroll or get some snacks for all of us; or the girls might prepare a dish for us. Hearing this, the girls stood smiling and giggling. Then very soon all of us boarded two autos and reached our destination. Was the weather poetic? Umm… I couldn’t comment. But, at the same time, perhaps it was.

We got down at the crossing and walked down Raja Santosh Road. Hermen’s house had a big garden. Simran sent him a text that we were in the garden. He came down with his laptop and we sat on a concrete bench with a shade. A cuckoo’s voice filled the air and a few sparrows hopped about several metres ahead. We opened our notepads, fed the pen drives and opened the pages. First to decide on were the number of poems the book would contain. Fifty poems were good enough, Hermen remarked. We agreed to that and Shasht said that some of the poems would run into the second page.

“That’s true,” I said, “so we could have sixty to seventy pages in total.” Anais gave my arm a gentle squeeze at the same time looking at me with the gentlest of looks.  

“At the max seventy-five,” Hermen said. “Don’t you think so?” and he nudged me.

“What?”

“No pal, where are you, Rudi?” and he gave me another push with his elbow. “Are you in the half-blood camp fighting with Percy Jackson or something?”

In the midst of our discussion one of the domestic helps came to ask what we would like to eat. Simran immediately said she and her two friends would prepare some snacks.

Anais released her arm from mine.

“Will be back soon,” and she looked at me.

I nodded with a smile. Just then the voice in my head stirred, as if waking up from deep sleep, crawling out from the centre, slowly spreading its tentacles till the edge of my brain. My eyes were still on Anais. But she was becoming hazy. She was half way up from the seat by now. Suddenly I fell on her. Trying to hold me, she too fell and we rolled a few feet away. And at that fleeting moment a crackling from overhead filled the air. And something landed. Something thick and huge, and black. A branch of a tree was lying close to Anais on the grass. The others had crowded around us by then.

“What the f**k?” one of our friends said.

They were lifting up Anais. I sat up on the grass.

“My god,” Simran panicked, her hand on her chest. “What a close shave from that goddamn filthy branch.”

“What actually happened, Rudi?” Hermen asked, helping me to the seat.

“I dunno,” I said, my mind half in mist. “I suddenly had a head swing and fell.” But a dullness in the head and the voice. You are safe, Rudi.

But, I fail to understand why you are leading me wherever you are leading me. And why, Mr Voice?

“Thank God you fell on Anais, or else that heavy s**t would have landed on her,” Ranee remarked.

We moved away and sat on a different bench without any tree close by. Very soon the snacks arrived. We tucked into the chicken nuggets, vegetable fritters and the French fries, dipping them in tomato ketchup and mustard sauce. Some sparrows flew down from one of the trees and headed straight for the birdbath. They went to the edge of the water, then gradually settled themselves into it and, spreading their wings, began a constant vigorous flutter. Soon the others followed. Above the birdbath was a small container filled with grains. Some flew up there, busy picking grains. It was nice to watch them in their activity. It was close to dusk and several cuckoos began cooing from one tree to another. Sometimes it was more of an answer of one cuckoo to the other. As everyone watched the behaviour of the birds and had similar reactions, I pondered over the fact that the birds were doing their duty because they were trapped within the natural duty of nature’s habits within themselves. But how much of this duty was sensitively done was the question.

What duty did that dullness possess to appear and push me away?

Was this only a prequel to what may follow next?