Shades of gray.

My new task, my new challenge, to put my thoughts into words that would carry its weight after I am gone. Maybe not my hand that would pen the thoughts but my thoughts all the same. It was Srikanth's idea. I didn't think much of it but I have a lot of free time to kill and lately, I have become rather experimental, daring if you will, with my life and so I decide to humor Srikanth, myself more than him, perhaps. And so when Kannamma left that day, Srikanth and I got started on what would become our nightly rendezvous.

"Kannamma...that's not really her name, you know?", I ask

Srikanth holds the pen ready and waits, smiling in anticipation.

"Write", I command and the pen becomes busy filling blank sheets with words.

August 8th, 2006. Kannamma came again today. Violet saree with a cream border...

I want to get this right, I tell him. When she will not come anymore, I want to remember her as she is now.

Vermillion sindoor blazing from her forehead, taunting me, challenging me, every moment. Jasmine flowers dotting her graying bun, vaira mukuthi catching my eye, almost her every accessory a strong reminder to me, a jolt to wake me up from the languorous stupor I get into sometimes. I am her husband. I still am. She feels that now more strongly than ever and I should honor her tenacity. Its been five years now and her anklets herald her arrival at the same time every day. Sometimes, she insists on staying back at night. I don't let her, she has a life to live, to live differently from me, active and alive, a living life.

"You have always called her Kannamma...I never really thought about her real name.", Srikanth rarely interrupts my thoughts, when he does, I welcome it, it gives me a chance to respond to stimuli from the outside world. I need to know that I can still do that.

"Pankajam. My beautiful lotus, shedding tears everyday for me...", I smile and look at Srikanth. He has his head bent, hand furiously scribbling my thoughts, as if tomorrow they may not exist...

***

For someone like me, it takes an intense, almost maniacal kind of concentration to not be bogged down by daily routine and activities. Everyday is a test of my will-power, a challenge to see if I can squeeze an ounce of creativity out of myself. What can I achieve today, acting within the boundaries that shackle me? What do I need to think about today to not concentrate on the boundary itself but to look beyond?

I don't believe in self-delusion. I am not one of those stiffly smiling people who have only themselves and noone else convinced that they are lucky to be who they are and how they are. I am not going to smile and be grateful. It works much better for me to face reality rather than shroud it in a cloud of feel-good dreams. Face reality and stab it in the face. Don't indulge it by giving it a personality it does not possess.

These thoughts, I keep to myself. Why risk invoking sympathy? So, when Srikanth comes that night, I tell him, I want to talk about the weather.

"The weather, Partha?", he looks amused.

"Yes, I want to talk about rainbows and rain, sunshine and sorrow..."

"Do you notice how people attribute their own moods to the weather? Its a sultry summer morning to some, a smiling sunshine to some, pleasant summer showers to you and an outpour of my own tears, to me..."

Srikanth looks up, concerned.

"The heavens cry too sometimes, Srikanth...", I am happy to see him concerned. A need for revalidation, to assuage my restless soul questioning every moment the role I play in people's lives...I who did not care for emotions, drowning in my own self-pity!

I shake my head to clear it, slowly. "It was one such bright summer sunshine that brought Kannamma to me...she shaded her eyes with her right hand and stood carrying a basket of drumsticks, tomatoes and mangoes in her left hand...so simply dressed in a pale half-saree, waiting patiently for the woman beside her to stop haggling...I had an urge to move the hand that shaded her eyes and read what they say...don't ask me why. And then she spoke and it was like raindrops falling gently on parched earth, gentle and melodious. I wanted to hear her talk..."

And I describe the first few words that Kannamma spoke to me, hesitant and shy. My lotus flower, wilting away now...how you blushed when I held your hand the first time, where has the color gone from your cheeks now? Oh, how I wish I could bring them back to you...

***

A lot happens in my life. A lot happens around me, people come and go. Machines hum. Seasons change beyond the window that frames my world. Kannamma, Srikanth...images that come and go. Sometimes before going to sleep, I try to close my eyes tightly and bring their faces infront of me, to hold them with me wherever the night takes me. If I should come back and see them one more time, well, the night has just been kind. If not, I tried. I tried to take with me the memories that made me. For memories are all that we can carry to our sleep, aren't they?

Today, I want to spend in frivolity and so I watch a movie on TV. Images and sounds move meaningless on screen. I try to follow the story, I try to forget, I try to live atleast for these few hours as the little people who move on screen. But, I cannot. Reality keeps dragging me back. Soon static fills the air and the screen is dotted in black and white. My life, neither black nor white, hovering like a ghost in shades of gray.

"Srika, I tried to watch a movie today."

Srikanth sits in his usual place, facing me and picks up the diary.

"No, not today. Let's just talk."

I describe to him what little I gathered from the movie.

"These movies are funny, Srika. They neither portray reality, nor do they deal in anything fantastic, its as if they try to portray life as it is and it turns out to be a mockery of life. Do you know what I mean?"

I can see in his eyes that he doesn't. He can empathize but not well enough to transition to my world, to see movies, through my eyes - a mockery, of people, of time, of life. He is still in his world, a world where one is blessed enough to laugh and cry with the scenes on the screen.

"Am I growing senile, Srika?"

"Senile anna?", Srika laughs, "You are too sane to be senile."

"But I feel old. Life has this way of imposing the maturity of years on you suddenly. One moment you are a child and the other, a world's burden is thrown on you to handle and you suddenly become aged. Do you understand, Srika?"

"Yes Anna, I brought a calendar for you...", he says and I know I want to see what he has brought for me but darkness closes over my protesting eyes and I drift to a dreamless sleep.

***

The next morning, I wake up to see my beloved. I smile and wonder if I am dreaming.

She laughs - the sound that heaven is made of, the sound of bangles tinkling, the sound of temple bells, the sound of music - and I know I am awake.

"No, you are not dreaming. Look what Srika brought for you yesterday!", she points at the calendar on the wall. Krishna holding on to Yasodha or is it the other way around? standing near a pond, a solitary flower blooming at dawn, drawing their eyes to it - a lotus, my Pankajam.

"So now, I have to see your face every morning too?", I ask her and she looks down. My pankajam, blushing like a young bride, still...

"I have something for you too...", she says hesitantly, holding tightly to her jute bag.

"Show me, kannamma. Today, I will take anything you give me."

She shows me a picture full of smiles. Three faces one in each angle, smiling at the camera. I recognize the face of my son and daughter-in-law, and look closer at the face of the young child smiling innocently at me.

"They are here. They want to see you..."

I close my eyes tiredly. We have had this conversation before. Where were they all these years when Pankajam needed them? Why the sudden re-strengthening of bonds that did not exist?

"Adith...he is three years now...", Pankajam brings the picture closer to me and I obstinately close my eyes. I don't want to see the sickening smiling faces one more time.

Pankajam leaves crying that day too. I open my eyes and see that she has left something else for me. Our first year anniversary photo, taken in Shimla, she is so cold, her nose is red...I remember she held me close in public, for the first time - "It's so cold here, I don't care", she had declared...there was snow all around...one of my favourite photos, where did she find it?

And on the photo frame, the words, "Happy Birthday, Partha ma", inscribed. Partha ma - she called me that during rare moments, the only term of endearment she allowed herself to use for me...Partha ma...

The one day that I did not want to make her cry. My birthday. And she did cry.

***
A few days pass and Adith's face keeps drawing itself in my eyes, weaving its way into my heart. That day, I tell Pankajam, "Bring them to me. I want to see my grandson. If he has his old man's looks..."

Pankajam does not cry this time. She just places her hands on mine. I try to recall her touch, the tingling sensation that coursed through my skin when she touched me...this time, I cry.

Srikanth comes within an hour, he hovers near the door, "Anna..." and clears his throat. I motion him in with my eyes, and with that give him my permission to let my son see me as I am today. Something that I have been preparing myself for, for the past few hours. I will be strong. I tell myself one more time. My ego raising its voice after so many years.

And in runs a child. Straight towards me. He looks straight into my eyes, no awkward, curious looks around me, just my eyes and he holds my gaze for a few moments and then he breaks into a smile, "thatha...", he says almost breathlessly and for the first time in this life, I have an urge to break free and take him into my arms, my strong will to not give way to such thoughts broken by innocence...I admit defeat. My eyes fill up again...

Witnessing the powerful interplay of emotions, the ugly voices of our egos fade to nothingness. We talk, haltingly at first, breathlessly later on, to race time to fill each other's lives.

All the faces that make me whole, faces that make me feel alive even now, faces buried safely in my heart...I look around the room and smile contentedly at fate, "See if you can beat this!"

***
And that night, Srikanth writes as I speak,

Today, an epiphany in the form of a child made me realize that my world is the same as yours. That I can feel love and pain, as strongly as you can, Srika...do you understand?

Today, I lived life as it should be lived, in complete surrender. My life, no longer hovering in shades of gray, my life, now crystals of black and white. I almost forgot my "condition", as these doctors like to call it all the time. Do you know Srika, it took me three times to get it right?

"q u a d r i p l e g i c"
***