The Elephant In The Room

         The Elephant In The Room

 

“I’d like to be in a hot air balloon with you. Someday.”

My thumb hovered over the backspace button of my mobile phone. No changes.

Send.

I had settled on a statement that seemed positive. Affirmative. I didn’t want it to be a question. I didn’t want room for doubt. Or ambiguity.

In a quiet and crisp guest house in Kochi, lying on a couch which had a coffee stain hidden behind my feet.. my feet which suddenly seemed swollen and unadorned and not tanned enough… I knew it was futile to wait for a reply. The message was handcrafted to create polite befuddlement. The message was a hangover from a Bollywood song I had put on repeat. The kind of song that inspires you to call up a colleague and muster enough courage to tell him how you feel about him. And not know how to feel about his reply. The message was evidence that I thought I had a choice.

I liked to believe that I was from wherever I lived. I liked to believe I was from Bengaluru. My parents were in the next room, still trying to believe that their Hindu daughter had casually picked up beef biryani for lunch and nonchalantly placed it right next to the idol of one of the Hindu Gods they worshipped.

But Kochi didn’t care.

Kochi was like a tree-house.

Kochi was perfectly alright with me sneaking out with pictures of the Synagogue in Jew Town, only to grow a sluggish conscience and then delete all of them. Kochi would smile at me as I paused next to bookstores with enchanting names and forgive me as I chose to pass them by. I’m not foreign enough. And as a banker’s daughter, had been brought up to believe that I would never be rich enough.

Kochi had cathedrals that made the life of Jesus look like a carnival. (My parents wanted to know what he’d like to have for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Like the other people they cared about.)

We browsed through jewellery shops, pointed at misspelt names of snacks at roadside vendors’ and went ahead and bought food from them nevertheless. We stopped at waterfalls, marvelled at quaint looking women selling fruits that looked like they had been massacred by martial arts enthusiasts… and then there were museums. And palaces. And wayside restaurants with needlepoint wrought iron chairs that I wish someone would sit on.

I knew exactly who I wanted in those chairs. And what I’d like to say to them. Each and every word that was bottled up inside me.

Which brings me to Shanta. Shanta was 30. She moved like a queen. She had the loftiness of a seasoned spice-garden tourist, pun not intended. Shanta would never get lost inside that trail. She had the memory of an elephant.

Hardly surprising, since she was one.

I needed her to sway and lull us into a world with its own rotation and revolution. Physics, as I knew it, was about to change. Her wizened, leathery skin under my palms made me want to close my eyes and wish her tusks would never leave her while she was alive. In my mind, her tusks were the reason behind the hypnotic, southern smile of a Malayali aunty who loves oiling her braid and walks, knowing that the sway of her hips entices her followers. Her hair is a tale in itself. (It is also a tail in itself.) Her toothy grin is confidence that it will be told in time. What’s the rush?

But the nights were cold. The glass windows in the Executive Suite of the hotel at Munnar didn’t keep out the dread that descends once your loved ones fall asleep.

I wanted to wake up really early and go for a full body oil massage that Kerala specialises in. The body has memories. Touch is a clean slate. My mother, the teacher, would approve.

I wanted to call up all my relatives who had been to Kerala and ask them where all they had gone and how little they had spent. My father, the banker, would approve.   

So, naturally, I did neither.

I took my phone and quietly crept out of the room. It was time for a walk and time to call my colleague again. Empty chair. Number 2. 

It seemed like he would never pick up. I waited with bated breath.

“Hello”

“Yeah hi… it’s…”

“I know. So what’s up? What’s going on?”

“Nothing. That’s a lie. You were supposed to recognise how brave I have been by asking you, despite being the girl. You were supposed to say yes! Umm.. Nothing.”

“Where did you call from the other day? That night when you called and said…”

“Yeah. Bangalore. Terrace.”

I spoke like a telegram.

“Terrace? Nice. And where are you now?”

“Kerala.”

“God’s own country. Wow. Holiday. With family. Nice!”

Stop it. Stop. I know what you’re doing. I know what you’re suggesting. I didn’t get swayed by the weather. By the beauty of Kerala. I didn’t let the breeze on the terrace make the call on my behalf, back in Bangalore. I would do it all over again. Stop it. Stop saying “Nice”.

“The.. other day…”

“WHY CAN’T YOU EVER BE WHERE YOU ARE?? WHAT OTHER DAY?? HUH? WHAT OTHER DAY?”

“You’re yelling.. you’re..”

“I AM ABOUT TO GET MARRIED. I HAVE A GIRLFRIEND. YES.. WE HAD A FALL OUT.. BUT SHE HAS ALWAYS BEEN THERE FOR ME AND I LOVE HER.”

“You love her..”

“I LOVE HER. IT WAS A BAD PHASE BUT IT’S OVER.”

“A bad phase..”

“You and I.. we are.. we are acquaintances. We are friends. We hardly know each other.”

“Really? It’s all the same?”

“DON’T GET TECHNICAL WITH ME!”

“Can I speak? May I? You are going to wake everybody up. Everyone in Mumbai. And everyone in Kochi. So please, just hear me out. I know it’s complicated between the two of you. But what I hear is you trying to convince yourself that you love her. Trying really hard. So if you want to go ahead and..”

“WAS IT THE SEX?”

“Excuse me?”

“You keep saying you got carried away when you were with me. Did you get carried away in bed?”

Something snapped. I found myself a creaky swing and sat down on it. In a nanosecond, I had lifted off. Escape velocity. Outer space. We were still talking. But we might as well have been looking at a pie chart in the conference room. Cold analysis. Statistics. Open to interpretation and always revealing everything but the essentials.

“That’s how you see it?”

“That’s how I see it.”

“Look, I…”

“LISTEN TO ME. LISTEN. YOU ARE FINANCIALLY INDEPENDENT. GET A BOYFRIEND. GET A PROMOTION. GO ON A HOLIDAY AGAIN WHEN YOU CAN.”

“Stop shouting, please.”

“I don’t want to be the bad guy here. I can’t… be…”

“You can’t be there for me. It’s too late. I get it.”

“See.. it’s.. I wanted to ask.. I intended to.. you went away for work to Manipal and I…”

“And you could have waited but you chose not to. You chose to let her brother come and talk you out of it. I get it.”

“You don’t see how..”

“I get it.”

It’s funny that I hadn’t noticed the fog creeping up on me. It had a distinct scent. The crickets were loud. There was a guard on duty, trying not to make eye contact. Trying to pretend he hadn’t heard what was going on. I took off my shoes and let the blades of grass on the lawn take over. Barefoot. And in a deep reverie. I didn’t notice the sun coming up the next morning. I didn’t notice the dew. I didn’t notice the flecks of green all over my feet. I didn’t notice the ladybirds and the grasshoppers. The dimly lit lamps that slowly gave way to the sun. I didn’t notice the missed calls on my mobile phone as my parents woke up and noticed the bed that hadn’t been slept in.

I was struggling to come out of myself.

I was quiet throughout breakfast. The coffee. The eggs. The toast. The lake. The banter. The social pressure to be a happy tourist. To be pleasant. To smile.  

The desire to break the fine china. Yes, that too. Pulsating inside me like rhythmic rage.

And then, in God’s own country, his angels heard me. Someone mentioned Kalarippayattu.

Swords. Spears. Fire.

Kalarippayattu is a mesmerizing martial art – Kerala’s oldest art form. And while people picked up flyers and leaflets and read about the years of training the artists go through, I just wanted to watch the dancing flames and the dazzling steel.  

From the moment the artists greeted each other and took stance, those of us who were watching from the balcony leaned forward on the edge of our seats. A hush descended on the audience. My father took out his digital camera again. But in that one instance, I remembered the words from the night before, hollered and hurled into the controlled chaos that my mind was, here in Kerala.

Why can’t you ever be where you are?  

I watched the dance as fear gripped my innards. It was as if someone had repaired the clock that ruled our lives. Our time. Every move. Every leap. Every swerve. Steel contacting steel. The spears slicing the air and the swish of confidence, practised perfection. The camaraderie. The teamwork. The frenemy that you fight with, play with, bond with as the fire leaves behind a golden arc.

Kerala was that effortless arc. That arc between power and devastation. Between beauty and destruction……..

As Suneel, our driver, would say, “It’s easy to slip. The roads were wet last night. A Scorpio drove itself over the cliff, killing all the tourists inside. Have you been to the tea plantation? The white tea is to die for.”

All in the same breath!

Of course, I wasn’t quite done with Kerala. Or maybe, it was the other way round. I reached the airport horribly late, convinced that my flight back to Bengaluru was now a distant dream. I was panicking, because the next day was a working day and I was dreading the explanation my office would receive. Multinationals don’t care where you holiday. They care whether you come back. I wasn’t willing to pay for another flight. My father had etched a permanent “save” button in my mind. 

And then, a nanosecond before I could make that wretched phone call, out of nowhere jumped a tall, burly fellow with a violin case in one hand and a rucksack in another. My eyes adjusted. Adapted. And before I could offer to help him carry either, he gasped, “You’re in the same flight as I am. Hurry. We can’t miss it.”

“Yes.. I mean no.. we can’t.. hey wait.. how do you…?”

“HURRY! Screw the queue. Go get the boarding passes. Here’s my ID. I will talk to security.”

“Passes? What do you mean?”

I thought it’s a joke. I thought he’s lost it. But the thing with strangers is, judgment is a given and all your arguments are invalid.

The voice came back to me.

Why can’t you ever be where you are?  

Incredibly, I found myself doing exactly what he asked me to. And just as unbelievably, the lady at the counter was now smiling, cooperating and handing over the boarding passes.

He had snatched his passport and his ID out of my hand before the clock had ticked. We were running again. This time, towards security check.

“No laptop. No jacket. Phones out. Purse. Wallet.” – he mumbled as he ran.

“Got you.” – I kept up, panting.

The conveyor belts, the stamps, the security were a blur.

When we finally boarded the bus on the way to the aircraft, I decided to venture off the script.

“Umm.. music?”

“Trinity. Classical. Been playing for ten years.”

“Prodigy?”

“You’ve got to start somewhere.”

Every ounce of me wanted to gauge the silence that followed. Psychologist to the core, I settled for sentence completion.

“So Bengaluru is…”

“Not the destination.”

And then he smiled.

And, to my surprise, so did I.

We didn’t need names or numbers. We were done.

It’s funny how maudlin airport stories tend to get sometimes. I was happy to let my trip go. Come back home. Unwind. Get up really early next morning and take the familiar route back to work.

Share a few water cooler moments with my colleagues. Try not to attract too many questions about the colleague who was headed towards marital bliss, or so he thought.

It was only much later, when I was going through the photographs, that I realised what I valued the most about Kerala. Somehow, in the candid, unedited, un-photoshopped snaps of my parents, I could see that they are talking again. Talking to each other. And to themselves. Talking without words.

And whether it was a snap of me hugging a wayside goat, or one of Mom as she slid down a muddy trail, the joy was palpable. The laughter, radiant. 

It was late one night, shortly after my return, when my phone buzzed unexpectedly.

Empty chair. Number 1.

“Hello?”

“You’re back.”

It was his turn to be positive. Affirmative.

I felt a sudden, inexplicably awkward pang of guilt.

“About my message… I can explain.. “

“You don’t need to. So listen. Kerala, huh? Awesome! Send me the pics, dude!”

“Do you want me in them?”

It had come out before I could stop myself.

“Do I want you in a pic? No.”

In the recesses of my mind, the song had changed. This time, it was Pink Floyd. Coming Back to Life. And it took me every ounce of determination to shut out the wail… “Where were you.. when I was burnt and broken..”

I tried my hand at a comeback.

“So should I send you pics without me in them?”

“That would be horrible.”

The song was growing louder.

“I think.. I think my flatmate is calling me. I got some white tea from Munnar if you’re interested. I could.. I could courier it or something.”

“You’re with Human Resources, right?”

“Yes.. why do you…?”

“There is a CV that needs to be pushed. He has a good profile. Keeps his head. Works well by himself as well as in a team. Knows the importance of visibility. Wants to be at the right place at the right time. Let me know if there is a vacancy in Marketing?”

“Marketing.. yeah well.. one of our employees might leave.. he is getting married.. I don’t know.. let me see.. who’s this guy?”

“Me.”