A Transit Date

As Kingfishers Catch Fire​

The Nilakantan would-be-couple have set up their residence in a duplex house fronted by an iron-hewn gate which flies open to a small garden and bentwood chairs in the patio that further leads to a stylishly carved oak door to be accessed from a squishy bell-chimer above the brass nameplate that inscribed “Beware the Nilakantans”.

Aditya heaves the duffel bag, swings it around his shoulder and rings the bell.

Poorni opens the door. “You must be the only executive who travels abroad with a rugged duffel bag in which men your age would not even dare to pack their iron golf clubs let alone travelling to Tunisia with such a thoughtful sack”. Poorni hugs him and nuzzles his ear.

“That’s my auteur style to go through the Customs and brag that I have nothing to declare but a genius grey bag that can accommodate six pairs of trousers, two striped shirts, three plain shirts, a shaving kit, other toiletry, Carl Sandburg poetry and this month’s instalment of a hideous orange towel that my would-be ecstatic father-in-law has unforgottenly, rather unforgivingly, gifted”, said Aditya in a drained voice as he wiggles past Poorni’s embrace and settles in the leather-tufted sofa, “Poorni, any good food? I have dragons thumping in my tummy.”

Poorni is mildly lost in wild thoughts. She feasts at his slick hair and bronzed skin bathed in sun-kissed tan, and sweeps her gaze across his broad shoulders and lean hips which seem more muscled and tautened than she remembered sighting at the airport when he boarded the flight.

“Have the Claudia Cardinales of Tunisia made you sweat in the gym everyday? You look different, erm, slightly more attractive ...”, she drawls admiringly.

“My girlfriend ravishes the man in me for the first time. I wonder who she has been sleeping with for so many months then.”

“Adi, do you find me beautiful? You didn’t even hug me properly. No poohkins or pooh-bear. And we are not even married. Have your senses knocked down my whatsoever enchantment I commanded till last week?”, she flicks her sensual eyes on his bemused mouth.

“Woh! Where is this going?! Have you been watching too many Dove or L’Oréal advertisements?”, he jerks aback and stares at her dark eyes fringed with self-doubt. “OK, I know that I won’t be treated to even a dog’s leftover bone if I dodge this forceful inquiry. So, here it is. You are pleasant, not electrifyingly stunning and not repulsively ugly. You look okay. However, when I see those sparkling eyes of yours, I don’t look for the pantone color of the year, but I seek a witty and fun-spirited glint in those eyes, and that skittish nose deserves full-on pamper, and the pout and smile alike which hover on your hungered mouth is a tantalizing cove. Have I given a ten out of ten answer?”, he inquires while raking his fingers through her languid hair.

“Well, they teach you such gratifying tricks in IIM and Wharton”, she shot a sidelong glance at his amused eye, “don’t they?”

“Last I remembered, I was expelled from IIM and kicked out of some War College and your parents are fielding the fallout from this infamy I brought on your orange-devoted clan.”

“That is so clichéd beauty-in-the-beholder stratagem.”

“No, it isn’t. It is, one seeks what one hunts for. I have always wanted someone like you, not someone with conventionally admirable proportions. You find me attractive, right? Have you ever wondered whether I am attractive to the rest of the world? Not really. I am plain and normal just like you. But I believe you when you say that you find me swoony attractive because I feel the same about you, we might be two ugly ogres by a conventional measure but we find in each other mutual attraction.” He strokes her cheek.

“Nah! You are lying. If I am not conventionally beautiful, then I cannot be constructed beautiful even through smitten lens.”

“Man! Don’t I have a plucky Bathsheba Everdene for a girlfriend to convince her of the invisible charm she has secreted away in those wanton eyes.” He tilts his head and beams his mellow gaze on the speckled flush on her cheeks. “Pooh, you are not beautiful or pretty to me. Because I don’t gauge you in those terms. You are striking to me in my own way. When I peer into those eyes, I don’t know what colour they shine unless I accompany you for an eye check-up to record the retinal metrics, but I notice a spirited fire in them. When I touch that nose, I don’t know whether it is sharp or snubbed, for I feel its softness regardless of its shape. And, when I pinch these ears that hold me up with silly questions — not feeding the man whose belly is growling for your outlandish Maggie made from all the roots and herbs from marshes to woodlands, I feel the crest of sensuality in that ear. I love you, for what I care to see as lovable assets in you. Remember that poem of Hopkins – as the kingfishers catch fire? What I see is not merely what you show but what you possess. May I ask what has gotten into you while I was having betrayed fun and philandering behind your back with the Claudia Cardinales of Tunisia.”

“I am scared of marriage”. Poorni takes a deep breath.

“So am I. But I am willing to take that risk with you. We will be fine”. He soothes her quivering lips.

“Why take risk then? Aren’t we good in this manner?”

“Didn’t you take the risk of falling in love? You take risks in spite of the vulnerabilities because that is how you grow in life.”

“What if it does not work out?”

“Then it does not work out.”

“What if I fall out of love with you?”

“Then I let you go.”

“What if you fall out of love with me?”

“Then I will still let you go.”

“That’s it? No until death do us part and what is next ...what is that next ...times and clocks and good and bad”. Her voice quavers.

“There is no good and bad if we have fallen apart. Until time do us part. I will love and care for you madly to the extent and force and time that you and I care to pull through. The future is as uncertain as an unwritten word.”

“Why have you chosen next week, April 1st, as the wedding date in the entire month of April?”

“That date ... many will assume that we are humouring and not attend the comical wedding. Wouldn’t such lessened crowd assuage your dad’s anxiety, eh? Your troubled dad is probably frightened on how to face an attendance of inquisitive glares on why his sweetest poohkins and pooh-bear is marrying a nikamma man who was expelled –”, Adi winked at her.

“My dad, my dad! Wait ...why such levity on my dad ...my poor and trusting dad ...wait ...I will ensure that the nuptial bed is spread with orange sheets and orange coverlets and blindingly orange pillow cases”, she smacks him with a bolster and rolls into his lap. “I have missed you”.

“I missed your Maggie more than you. Will you feed me now at least? Oh boy! The hammer-hitting Nilakantan family is inviting one challenging nail in its fold”, Adi clasps her from behind and rests his chin on her shoulder and smiles.

 

@peddadas

Ahoy! Here I am as promised. I still have laundry to do but that can wait. Let me confess something before I write any further. I am extremely wary of visitors hence the delay in response. I need to rack my brains on the wording and warmth and scratch {this} and insert {that} to chat up with a stranger/visitor. I have a history of members lashing out and burning out in an imprecation and at least two members have blocked me (personally wrote to me that they intend to block) over my obnoxious English and mile-length essays. (I swear! That was the reason given) They said they had a verbal haemorrhage on my strange anglo-saxon (AS) English and leprechaun (L) ministrations. AS and L are my subbed phrases for they used far more "kind" utterances. Let's say I am "online" shy but for friends who put up with my ramble here. Hence, I prefer quiet indulgence.

The story is, as I mentioned earlier, the spin-off indulgence of the Amy Sherman-Palladino in me. There is less of storyline but more of cultural references and hidden wordplay and puns.

The reason for the chat-up despite my trepidation is the use of the word "cute" in your comment. Heh! I love that label. Though cute is an all-encompassing praise, cute jug, cute bag, cute kitten, it is emphatically the only word that can best convey an ineffable sentiment. I too felt cute on reading your comment. I generously use that word to articulate the abstract sense of a pleasant tickle that escapes veritable expressions. It is wedged somewhere between a flat "nice" and a rapturous "wow". That menial word is the most generous and proletariat in labour. Thank you.

 

I know how to respond to this comment in my usual two-page essay microscoping into the reflective bands of “cute” spectrum.

I don’t know how to respond to this. You are the product and reflection of the people you are surrounded by. I am constantly reshaped by people from a decade, from five years, from two years, or even from the beginning of the year. It is difficult to articulate but, in general, my advice: beware of the people you consciously indulge with, they either make you or confuse you. You haven’t even asked for life-affirming advice and here I go pontificating. I have been fortunate to have had people in my life who taught me how to be me.

Transit is my absurd monologue proxied by way of the Nilakantan cast. There is no story or profound takeaway. Just a self-indulgence of my whimsical imagination.

 

Belphegor's Prime​

“Adi ...”

“Hmm ...”

“Adi ... Adi ...”

“Yes”

“Addy ...”

“Hmm ...”

“You are not listening to me.”

“You said Adi, I said Hmm, you said Adi Adi, I said Yes, you sexily cooed Addy and I lustingly reciprocated as Hmmmm. I am still not listening according to you. Women should figure out what they want before they suspect the diphthongs of their husbands.”

“Listen, Adi, I was thinking, we need code language to communicate our tease in public.”

“Jeez! You woman never stay out of self-inflicted trouble. First, you complain that we men hardly say those three words, then you complain the absolute pitch of those three words and now you want me to encode those words and transmit right under public nose so that when they emerge out of that nose, you can reassemble at your end and probe the intensity of a man’s desire. Why don’t you women keep things simple?”

“No, Adi...not proclamations. But code words to tag me. Say, our little jokes where you encrypt and tag me in your unrelated talk. You secretly allude to Poorni when you utter that word. Choose a coded word. Right now.”

“Man! The Victorian men had it simple. Did you know they had something called language of flowers or floriography where flowers were selected and arrayed to convey a coded expression that cannot be relayed in public. Snip a flower, bend at an angle, fold the petal and you cast an amorous expression out of it. Why did women change? They made life simple for men of the yore.”

“Too bad, you weren’t born back then. Deal with it. A code word, quick ...quick ..Adi ...Adi —”

“If you serenade so wild and sexy, I will be distracted.”

“ADITYA”

“Much better. I am thinking. Mmm. OK, you are my Belphegor’s Prime.”

“What prime? Cannot you overlook those numbers for once.”

“You are a woman of words and I am a man of numbers. Belphegor’s Prime suits you. Belphegor is a prince from hell. The palindromic prime number 1000000000000066600000000000001 is known as Belphegor's Prime because it contains the devil’s number 666 and thirteen luscious zeroes and a slinky leg on either side. Similarly, you are a devil sandwiched by lure on both sides. You are undoubtedly my Belphegor’s Prime.”

“I don’t like it.”

“You asked for it.”

“I asked for something that —”

The door bell rings. Adi lunges from the sofa to attend to the bell.

“Adi, the devil has her first victim.” Poorni winks. Adi opens the door and greets the Pizza deliver man.

“Hey, thanks for the pizza. By the way, you must have travelled quite a distance. Quite a distance like a belphegor’s prime distance.” Adi rushes through the last phrase.

“What bell and what ghar, sir? Did I approach the wrong house?” The delivery man squints his eyes.

“You reached the right house. I hope the pizza tastes as good as the belphegor’s prime.” Adi grabs the pizza from the delivery man.

“Bell peppers? Sure, there is mushroom, and peppers and tomato and cheese and nice stuff in the pizza”, the delivery man replied as he turned away towards the lift.

Adi turns around. Poorni breaks out in a laugh. “You were unimpressive.”

“Well, you should have conducted all your assessments before getting married to me. Too bad, you are stuck with me and the pizza now.” Adi tries to open the pizza box.

“You still have time to change me to something else ”, Poorni tips his chin and pulls the pizza box from him.

“Why would I? Curvy 0s and leggy 1s suit you”, he twists the pizza box in an attempt to wrest it from her playful hands.

“Stop flirting with me.” She clutches the box closer.

“Why cannot I flirt with my wife. Huh, so many rules we men have around ...don’t do this, don’t do that, leave the brush here, stack the kit there, why cannot I flirt with my belphy wife?”. He locks his arms like a pincer on the pizza box and jerks the box from her.

“Flirting is juvenile. It is not eternal love.” She flips the box in his hand and tugs at it.

“Oh! I should fancy you with the eternal love of Walter Scott in Love rules the court, the camp, the grove, and men below, and the saints above, for love is heaven, and heaven is love. Heck! I wonder what he would have written about flirting. Flirting rules not above and below but what is between us.”. He hands the box to her. “You open.”

“Listen Adi, I was thinking —”

“Please, don’t think. I am hungry for the pizza and more hungry for my 0s and 1s.”

Poorni bobs her head in a tease. Adi curves his mouth in a wicked smile.

 

Diet of Worms ​

"I am drained! Adi, you are impossible! I am really drained! Why cannot I get this tiny point in your thickhead. Do you even make an attempt to understand. All I saying is, hmm, so simple and clear, yet, your defence though admirable is prejudiced. Why is it so insurmountable for you to analyse it from my point of view. I tell you in ten different ways and ten different times, still you don't seem to get it in your lunkhead. You are impossible". Poorni sinks in the sofa.

Adi is bemused. He throws himself back rested in the sofa and stares at Poorni. "Have you ever tried telling the same thing ten times rather than ten different things ten things. Such variation confuses me. Stick with one account of your complaint. What is it that you seek? What would soothe you into a happy closure?"

"Happy closure?! Wow! First, you don't hear me. Next, you already think it is over. Why cannot you see events from my point of view is all I am asking. Why is it hard for you? And why am I always the wronged one here. In a tiff with the milkman, cable-wala, lift man, shop man, go set a watch man, I must have done something wrong. It is always ME who invoked a disturbance. I am the culprit. Why cannot you take your wife's side for once?", Poorni glowers.

"You are my wife and I know you. You have the combined legal strength of five Solons and five Dracos so you tell ten things in ten different ways. Those poor creatures have nobody to defend. Therefore, I try to show you their point of view which gives the false appearance that I am taking their side and controverting you. May be this, perhaps you were mistaken, may be —"

"Yes, it is ME who has committed a heinous crime by not borrowing their brains and thinking like them. I am always the wrong one. I am totally wonky and wretched from head to toe", she exhales.

"Poorni, what is your greivance?", he curls his finger around her bolted hair.

"Adi, I don't think you understand me. I am agitated that you ....forget it. Close it. I am wrong. I am at fault. I am to be blamed. I accept. Let's move on." Poorni halts his playful fingers raked into her softened hair.

"Poorni ....communication is challenging. When you say "Diet of Worms", you could mean the recipe of insects, and I could interpret that as the Parliamentary session of Rhineland. Communication is inherently crooked even with no external stimulus. There is no way I could know what you truly meant as I can only interpret what those versatile words carried."

"Don't go all Wittgenstein on me now. Is this how relationships are supposed to work? One of us feigns liability and we move on. One of us readily gives up and truce prevails."

"Yes, Poorni, unfortunately yes. You feign liability three times a month and I will feign guilt and liability three times a month and we live happily ever after." Adi grins.

Poorni unveils a fiery sidelong glance at him. Adi playfully ducks for cover at that smouldering wrath. "OK, you feign once a month and I feign five times a month and then we live happily ever after". Adi adjusts his grin to a smile.

"There's no way two people can really work out to understand each other." Poorni pouts.

"Pooh bear, stop reading too many dreamy books. You just skirt and leap over and circumvent conflicts but never aspire to resolve them. Because there is no way to resolve them, you see that diet of worms. Poohoo! There is no way."

Poorni turns facing him. She grips tufts of Adi's hair on either side of his head and furrows her brow and nuzzles him. "You know a thing or two about taming bears. Go and make Sunday breakfast for the hungry bear now. No worms and insects but human food", and kisses him.

 

Improvisation 28 (Second Version) ​

"Poorni, you look very sexy in red", Adi scans her playfully as she climbs into the bed.

"You said the same about pink yesterday and violet last week and every day in black and white and blue the week before", Poorni musses his hair.

"What am I to do? I have a sexy wife. Tamp down your siren tease. Then I might contain my excitement over your outfits", he curls his hands around her shoulders.

"My outfits?! These are cotton night gowns and not satin negligee to widen your desire", she flicks her eye at him.

"Cotton or burlap. I have a sexy wife whose —"

"Why don't you just say a tired I love you like a boring husband and go to sleep", she nestles her wound body beside him.

"And why would I invoke that boring husband trick, I have a sexy wife and I will compose nightly and moonstruck verses for her", he folds an errant hair strand behind her ear.

"Adi, what happened at work? Are we broke? Are you having an affair with another woman? Are your parents visiting us? Do you want to buy a sports car? Do you intend to play golf this weekend? Is another woman pregnant by you? Have you murdered anyone? Are you dying? You lost this house in a gamble? Are you packing me to John Gage? Did you again not clean up your shaving kit? Are aliens going to abduct you? Did you donate your semen? Are you having early onset of mid life crisis? Which one is it?"

"Go on hun, I am listening. A devoted husband you have built of me". Adi fluffs her pillow and skids his head from his pillow to hers and locks her eyes with his. "I am listening. Another woman pregnant and donated my semen over a red night suit. You made a Genghis Khan of me. Men notice things and women suspect them of Mongolian scandals. I have a sexy and stunningly imaginative wife there."

"Then go to sleep like a jaded husband and stop your lovesick muse on my red clothing", she pouts her softened mouth.

"Women are strange creatures! They are content with banal gestures ...i love you and miss you and happy valentine. When the man improvises like Wassily Kandinsky and rolls out the second version of Improvisation 28 you are sexy hot in red, white, black and blue they don't appreciate the novelty in it."

"Kandinsky's improvisation is abstract and least suggestive so women fill in generously with their Mongolian doubts", Poorni flirts her finger across his lips.

"Damn sexy! Don't do that. You are going to spoil me."

"No one died over a Kandinsky conceit."

"Love you. Good night", he kisses her.

Poorni turns around. "Good night, you look no less sexy in your comical orange pyjamas gifted by my father." He laughs and embraces her from behind. "Piping sexy you look, Poorni".

 

Big Bang to Black Holes​

Aditya is reading his tablet. He glares at the tablet, blinks and shrieks, "Poorni, Poorni, Poorni".

Poorni, sitting beside him, wrings his arm. "How many times did I tell you not to scream your lungs out and hurl my head with that dolby stench". She glowers at him.

"Poorni, are all wives as diabolical." Aditya squints.

"I prefer feisty to diabolical."

"I stand corrected. Are all wives as feisty?"

"Depends. Wives come in all sounds and fists." She boxes his ears. "You have a mild one."

"Poorni, if this Hannibal in you is mild then I wonder what is ..."

"Don't wonder, the Hannibal has found her foil in you."

He cuddles her with an arm and flicks the book she has been reading from her grip. "Hmm, Carlo Rovelli .. Pooh, why don't you read books that explain how to cook ravioli? Why don't you read ...those books ...those Mrs Beeton books." He flips the book and shrugs.

"Adkins, why did you scream like a banshee earlier?". She caresses his cheekbone with her slender finger.

"Stephen Hawking passed away."

"What?!" she is taken aback.

"Yes, he passed away today. Back in my college days, his Brief History Of Time was a signifier of the geeks. We would sling that slim book and pretended to have read and grasped it. Did you read Brief History?"

"Anecdote of every science college. Man or woman, everyone swung his book to affirm their affinity to frontier science. Did I read the book? Yes. Did I understand? No.

"Go, continue your Rovelli now. I won't rattle you."

"Why so kind, Adi?" She flicks an eye at him.

"It must be something to tell everyone that my wife has read Hawking and Rovelli. Just like that college pretension, I would brag you away."

Poorni stares lost at him. Folds her book. She walks a distance and rummages through a drawer and picks up a yellowed copy of Brief History and settles back in the sofa.

"Adi, the best antidote to ignorance is not pretension but courage. The same grit that Hawking demonstrated in his life time. If a silly brain could not crack the explanation of the innards of a black hole back then, perhaps two can now. Why don't we both read the book now and plod our way across Hawking's whimsical and astonishing and scientific endeavour. Ready?"

"I don't know whether I love you because you make bad ravioli or you make such good rovelli speech. Let's read together." Both cuddle and Adi reads aloud:

"A WELL-KNOWN SCIENTIST (some say it was Bertrand Russell) once gave a public lecture on astronomy. He described how the earth orbits around the sun and how the sun, in turn, orbits around the center of a vast collection of stars called our galaxy. At the end of the lecture, a little old lady at the back of the room got up and said: ‘What you have told us is rubbish. The world is really a flat plate supported on the back of a giant tortoise.’ The scientist gave a superior smile before replying, ‘What is the tortoise standing on?’ ‘You’re very clever, young man, very clever,’ said the old lady. ‘But it’s turtles all the way down!’"​

(1942 – 2018)​

 

Four-minute mile: Moonies & Numpties​

"Pooh, still mad at me?" Adi twiddles his fingers.

"Why should I? What reason do I have? What difference would it even make if I am mad or maniac about you. Does it make any difference? What difference to the indifference in you? What could I possibly achieve even if I am mad at you? Would I? Zilch. Then, why be mad at you. Instead, be mad at myself. That way, madness has some value and purpose and delight." Poorni gazes at the fading traffic without looking at him.

"Do women have to wound a question like a serpent's tail and avoid straightforward answer?"

"I not only answered your question but also elaborated on it. But, what difference would it make? No difference. Then why ask."

"Pooh, you are burning mad at me?!"

"Duplicate questions don't elicit unique answers. Recall from memory what I just barked at you", she hisses.

"Barked? I am glad not bitten. Pooh, come here. Why so far?"

"Any closer, I might bite. Stay where you are for your own safety."

"Pooh, come here .." Adi gestures his finger.

Poorni twitches her brow. She is about to mouth something. "Pooh, come closer to me .." Adi smiles.

She languidly rises and traipses towards him and flops beside him.

"What's wrong with you?"

"There you go!! I am always wrong. I was born wrong. There is too much wrong in me. It is always me who is wrong. I am the hallmark of wrongness. Wrong conceived me. No, I have birthed Rrrong. I have to be wrong. I am —"

Adi shushes her. "Just answer, what is wrong, what did I do?"

"I don't know what is frustrating. Your sweet ignorance or your naive defence. To talk to both of them is futile. I just cannot —"

"Shush ...talk square. What's wrong? No coiled talk. Eve likes the serpentine talk much. Look, we will get better at this. I promise. We will." Adi jabs his arm against hers.

"At what? Get better at what?" Poorni cocks her head.

"At reconciliation. Remember the times when we would cleave away for a whole day. Then we would patch up the next day. Soon, that contactless break was shrunk to hours and now we are down to an hour tops. Are we not getting better like that four-minute mile? We are breaking our own record each time by getting better at it. Four minute remained the benchmark for a long time to race a mile. But Roger Bannister shaved off a second and completed the race in 3 min 59 sec. Few others followed and further pared the record time. We will get better at our reconciliation time also. We are down to an hour now."

"Is this a pep talk for a race or a conjugal talk for reconciliation. It reeks more like the first and less like the second. Adi, this is exactly what drives me —"

"Poorni, Poorni, shush .....men are not from Mars and women are not from Venus. Women are moonies with stardusted romance and men are numpties with ineffectual tricks. The Moonies think they can race a romance in a jiffy and the Numpties are abominable to compete even in their aspirations. Moonies fail to understand why Numpties are slow. And the Numpties stagger to catch up with the Moonies. We meet partway and then strive together to carry on the romance. But both will get better at this. You are flustered that I don't grasp your self-expression. I do. But I don't know how to convince you that I do. What would it take for you to believe that I may not match your expression but I identify those rapid and flitting sensations of your mind. I do. Whatever is burning you up will subside with reconciliation, and, in time, if you don't coil up your exasperation at me. Shoot. What's wrong."

Poorni draws a long breath. "Adi, do you sense that you deliver obnoxious analogies in your pep talk. Race and Roger and Reconciliation?! But for the letter "r" there is nothing binding in that analogy. You dignify rhetoric with your enthusiasm. Next thing I know, your Socrates in a toga would be hurled any moment."

"I know the analogy is abysmal but I also know these hamfisted analogies make you laugh." He tips his chin. "So, Pooh bear, what's wrong? Why barriers with me, another seat? You might as well have boarded another cat-bus for a night ride."

"Do you love me, Adi?", she perches her folded arms on the preceding seat.

"Well, depends on what's in the fridge. Kal ka khana hai kya?"

"Depends on the stiffness of the sofa also. That is where you are bunking tonight." She squints.

"More than love, I am amused by you." He hurls her squint back.

"And ..." , she drawls.

"Aroused by you."

"And ..."

"Besotted by you."

"And ..."

"And willing to shrink the four-minute to a three-minute reconciliation with you because I want you."