Deliah

No-one mentioned Deliah but that way, everyone talked about her often. Deliah was present in her absence, a feat only a few people achieve. Her villa was vivid colored and weird with quirky sense of furniture in her verandah. All day she'd sit on a couch in her yard, with painted lips and silk saree. Till then I had seen only my cousin Anu with painted lips before people came to see her in her father's home and she was married off. I wondered where Deliah would go if she ever got married since I wasn't even sure it was her father's home.

Uncle Laxman would always spit on the ground when her topic surfaced while talking to his friends.

'She is a witch! Have you seen her eyes?!' He would say.

Although I could tell, what dripped from his eyes along with spit dripping from his mouth was something more than hatred. I would cringe at that look and wished my mother came to pick me up from school instead of him.

If you could see beyond her painted lips and silk saree, Deliah had auburn hair that shined like copper when sun caught it. She would sing alone in her yard, for hours.

On many such days, Shiva would be summoned to her yard and he'd climb coconut trees to remove their dried leaves and bring tender coconuts down. He would sip a cup of tea with his back against a mango tree and listen Deliah sing. I could tell only he understood her songs since even with that toxicity that numbed Shiva's senses and made him stagger and stink, his inebriated tunnel-like dark eyes twinkled when she sang songs of sea, flowers and love.

In our entire village, only Deliah's yard had a guava tree that bore the sweetest variety of pink guava. I stole them a number of times until she caught me once.

Yes, I have seen her eyes, Uncle Laxman.

Her eyes sparkle emerald green when sunrays slipping through tree tops spill into them.

She ushered me in and placed a warm cup of milk and cookies in front of me wordlessly. She eyed me till I finished the milk, the way my classmate Chiku and I watched ants carrying a sugar grain or dogs chasing their tails. She handed me five guavas as I left and hugged me just like my mother hugging me the day I had nearly drowned in the river.

When my mother saw me come out of her villa, she squeezed my ears angrily.

'Never go there! She is sad and bitter.'

I wanted to ask my mother if one could taste people but my ears still hurt.

Next day Chiku and I discussed what could make people bitter. We concluded that we would never eat bitter gourd again because 'why take chance?'

Deliah died a couple of years later, people whispered that she killed herself. When people discovered, police came and moved lazily all around her villa.

Shiva, who looked more sober than any of his days, stood glued to the mango tree, ignoring a huge red ant biting at his ankle.

No one cried that day and no one banged their own chests, like people generally did when someone died.

Shiva, too did not bang his chest or did not scream.

He existed, for twenty more years before he died of liver cirrhosis. People said he died at 50. People who know about loss and grief would know he died at 30.

Sky Colors

When he hurriedly calls me up at the kitchen window, to show me an September evening sky, I take my time wearing my tangarine shirt and dragging myself off bed.

He ushers me to kitchen with his hands on my shoulders like an excited child who has caught a firefly.
It's sunset and untimely grey clouds have crowded the horizon like a threatening mob. Every other moment clouds brandish their naked blades of lighening. Everything is bright orange- roads, cars, people, buildings, as if skies have crushed a huge orange to pulp and spilled it over the entire city.

'Beautiful, isn't it?' He whispers from behind, squeezing my shoulders gently.

'Gloomy!'

A couple of clouds give out distinct rumbling as a sign of protest.

'You know,' he says, wrapping his hands around my waist, 'it's as if the sky is basking in the glory of this shirt of yours!'

We experiment with the colors of sky the entire evening. We try if we could rob it off its tangerine hues.

Unguarded

For someone who always checks for exits after entering a room, carries an umbrella even in the month of May and dusts their shoes before wearing them, she is so out of character now.

Here we are- chasing pigeon out of my kitchen, dancing to romantic tunes in hot May afternoons and taking turns sipping lemonade from the same bottle, shoving serious topics under the carpet.

She isn't asleep when we lie on bed on lazy afternoons. She fidgets; she fidgets a lot.

Monsoon arrives that afternoon, before its time.

I know she isn't heading towards tragedy.
Since I don't see the blue handle of her umbrella peeking from her bag anymore.

She isn't heading towards tragedy.
She is becoming one.

Memento

My memory is failing me. Details are getting lost and hazy snapshots remain, like incoherent words of a dying man. I try to reform entire pictures on some days and sit helpless after a while, like an artist missing his essential shades while painting a masterpiece.

A stretch of lush green where you and I watched silhouettes of tall buildings at sunset
Hot coffee that we both hated on the day we were drenched in the rain
Little insects that we baptized in your living room

We should have clicked photos.

Because now that everything has been said and done, when sky has turned a boring shade of periwinkle blue and when living has come to less reasoning and more habit, I could do with something to remind me that

I lived.