Broken Hug

Dream Conversation

Rohan locked up and took the stairs, and while stopping and buying a tetra pack of iced tea from the cafeteria, he saw Inthira, Aman and Sheena at one of the dining tables chatting, with a plateful of French fries and colas on the table. Charoen was at one of the counters, her arm outstretched, loosely holding some currency notes.

Very soon he was out of the school gate.

Charoen met Shyam, the driver of college bus number eight.

“I have some purchases to make from this side of the town,” she told Shyam. “I’ll cab it home today. And you will see,” she added, “I will reach home before the bus can even reach the toll plaza.”

Shyam chuckled. “Well, we’ll see that miss,” and chuckled again.

Charoen walked up to the gate, remained there till all the eight buses left and turned left. Her satchel bounced in rhythm to her walk, perhaps also to her thought. The key chain on her bag with tiny bells went jingle-jingle in the same rhythmic fashion to her pace. She stepped over the little puddle, and she skipped over the lump of brick lying carelessly on her path. She moved ahead with a purpose in mind. She crossed the half-constructed building. Then all of a sudden, the jingle stopped. She turned. Ravi’s hand came down from the bag. He smiled.

“Hi Charoen.”

Ravi was in her class, wore his hair semi long and chewed gum. His shirt front was open at the chest. He smelt of fresh deodorant. He smiled once again, and offered her a gum.

“No thanks.” Charoen smiled and continued walking. “See you.”

“You busy?” And before he gave her a chance to respond he said, “I’m going to the mall,” and began walking beside her.

She was silent and looked ahead. Ravi gave her an occasional glance. They came to   the end of the pavement where she stopped.

“Ok. Bye,” she said and turned into the condominium to her left.

Ravi kept staring at her. “You don’t stay here.”

Pretending not having heard, she vanished inside.

The condominium was a twelve-storey building with eight rooms in every floor separated into four rooms by a corridor running in the middle. Every room had a balcony. On one end of this balcony was the washroom while on the other end the kitchen.

The first room to catch your eyes as one entered was the one to the left. It was a room turned to a*****e. Hunnie owned this store on the ground floor besides two more rooms on the same floor opposite to her store. These two rooms were situated directly across her store, and separated by the corridor three and a half paces away. The store sold provisions: cold drinks, candies, biscuits, meat sandwiches, and liquor and a few other everyday household items. Hunnie was a buxom lady in her early forties, Mongoloid featured, with an amiable face, and little prominent eyes that radiated intelligence and humour. She knew Rohan and he had spent many a time in her store, chatting with her.

Charoen now entered the building, found him sitting at the store, chatting with Hunnie, munching a sandwich.

Before Rohan could get the opportunity to introduce the women to each other, Hunnie said, “Have a sandwich,” stretching her hand with the snack in a transparent wrapper.

“Hi,” and Charoen gave her an amiable smile. “No thank you.”

She sat on the small wrought-iron stool, staring out at the half constructed building she had passed on her way here. Two of its floors were already constructed and two more yet to be done. The jingle of the tiny bells of the key-chain still rang in her ears, but did notit come from across the path? From the corner room on the second floor of the half-constructed building? The uneven floor and its grey walls brought some past pain into her mind – she struggling in a hazy dream, the tiny bells trying their best to awaken her from her dream and someone above her in bed, someone’s strong hands pinning her down, someone closing in above her.  

This room of the half-constructed building was a darker shade of the sky covered with cumulus clouds stretching from the horizon to the zenith. But the faint sound of the bell had reached her ears, lingering there, though the key-chain was at rest and so also were the five tiny bells, like our five sensory organs. With the jingles in her ears Charoen glanced at Rohan. He smiled a small smile in return, gently squeezing her right forearm and nodding, and in a way telling her with immovable lips that he too had heard the jingle. 

“Life is a building,” Rohan said seeing her staring ahead. “It is constructed bit by bit, and then each house becomes a household.”

She turned her eyes and smiled.

“A household cannot be made by one person,” he said.

She smiled, and nodded, and Hunnie too nodded.

“Where is the washroom?” Charoen asked.

Hunnie pointed out to the room across the corridor. Very soon Charoen was back with a sky-pink T-shirt and a white skirt and half-inch earrings dangling from her lobes. Her finger nails flashed with gentle fluorescent pink and fluorescent orange polish. She was transformed into a young lady.

Rohan was sipping coconut water. He had barely rested the can to his lips when his hands froze. “Fai! My Fai!” He stopped short. “You right here in front of me? Your slender hair. Your soft touch. You with the fragrance of an orchid washed with the lips of a mermaid. Your gentle eyes, waves sleeping in a cove! My mermaid you are. Yes Fai.”

Rohan stared on at Charoen, his mouth open, still as a statue.

Charoen continued standing, her body weight on her left leg, her arms behind her, her head tilted to her left, her eyes casting soft silent messages to Rohan. 

“Hunnie, please keep my bag,” and Charoen kept her bag on the table.

Rohan peeped out from his dream bubble. He stood up, his eyes still on Charoen, then her went back again.

“We’ll be back soon, Hunnie,” he murmured still swimming in his dream, to the amiable store owner.

They walked down and Charoen said that there was only an hour of preparatory class for her section which was completed in the last period itself.

Still in a world of daze, Rohan’s eyes were transfixed to Charoen as he walked beside her. He understood the extra time they had so they could be together. They headed down to the left for about some minutes and turned left again. Relax, the roadside eatery stood to the left with its red and blue parasols scattered, their drooping ends gaily fluttering in the breeze. Huddling around each table were red and blue blow-plast chairs. A young man and a young woman with red jockey caps, black trousers and red T-shirts stood behind the fibre glass transparent case. Though Rohan and Charoen’s eyes fell on the four shelves of the covered case, on the vegetable and chicken burgers and vegetable, chicken and cottage cheese sandwiches, their minds were not here.

The professor and student sat at the table to the right corner. This was a by-street and the best part was whenever pedestrians passed by here or vehicles went up and down, peace entered into their minds and hearts and they slowed down by instinctive decision.

Rohan looked at Charoen, and she at him; and he could make out a bothered corner in her mind.

“There is a slight drizzle, and a slight breeze,” she whispered, as if she were talking to the breeze. “The breeze is soft and it tickles the point of my nose; and I allow the breeze to pamper it.” She paused. “And this play of breeze makes me smile; it stretches my lips, showing my white teeth.” She paused again, looking at the silent road. “The pampering shuts my eyes.”

“What?” Rohan asked from the midst of a dream. “Who is she?” He rests his eyes on her. “Fai had told me this. Five years ago.”

But Charoen continued, unruffled with her words; her words soft; her words that came from far away.

“This dream has been appearing to me since the last three months. I stretch my palm in the dream out of the window and the soft drops of rain fall on my palm. I want the drops to remain as drops,” she continued, “but of course they don’t. Then I find myself zooming past on the second Hoogly Bridge. I cannot count the cable wires, and very soon our house comes up into view, and quick as a wink it changes to a billboard, and I see myself in the billboard with the outstretched palm, and raindrops falling on it.” She continued looking at him. “But I often feel something heavier than the soft drops landing on my outstretched palm. The weight of the falling things opens my eyes and I find, to my utter surprise, bits of navy blue. I draw my hand inside the window and inspect the items. I feel them. They are blue bits of cloth. Some of these have daubs of white, while some others are light green. Once a metal button also plopped on my palm.” Pause again. “And in the dream last night there was the end of a zipper handle.”