Sunshine, Oranges & You

1. Sunshine, Oranges & You

The longest distance one travels is the distance one travels in the mind. I walked that distance once upon a time. Nearly became a lover, a murderer, a rapist, a wayward womanizer, a hero, a vagabond hippie and nearly killed myself a lot of times before I arrived here. It is Blue in colour and it is bathed in golden sunlight of nostalgia. Shimmering for miles and I bobble and splash  every time a wave hits the sides of my boat. And there is calm and endlessness.

. She is light years away now. So wrapped up in the moving and frozen images that it does not scare me. The phantasm is dead, and it can’t walk back among the living. This story will make it rest in peace. So here it is the story that I like to call ‘Sunshine, orange & you’.

Let’s call her Jenny.  That’s obviously not her real name. She was twenty one when I last saw her. The final good bye feels like a scene from a movie. A movie so sad that you sit alone, watch a few frames, pause it, wail, watch some more, pause and wail again.

When I think of Jenny I can’t help but think of peach blossoms. Peach blush on her cheeks, dressed almost always in white or pink and always trailed by a whiff of ripe wood apples. When she spoke, which was mostly in whispers the first spoken syllables faded away before the others became audible.

That day in the middle of July, the monsoon clouds looked ominous and heavily pregnant with rain. I woke up with such desolate feeling that I wished I had the courage to end this pain. I had spent my weeks and months wailing incessantly before sleeping and after waking up. Days were spent in a haze between wakefulness and somnolence.

That day and we set up supposedly our last in the series of last meetings. In these last few meetings all we did was ask each other – what wrong did we do to deserve this? I still did not have courage enough to call it her folly. I liked to put it as if it was inadequacy of my love. The sad martyr, the forgiving loser stance you often see in these situations.  I stood in the grey rain beating on the dark grey asphalt side walk. Her auto rickshaw sped away and I stood still. I remember the hope that this would not be the end. She might look back. She might stop the auto rickshaw and walk back as she had always done. But it had happened too many times already. The fact at this point was – Jenny was gone and I stood as a rootless sentinel in this fate intended parting.

Avoid each other’s eyes and then hold each other and cry. Public park probably is not the place to hold your beloved and cry like a madcap. But where else can the cursed and the woebegone go.

Gulmohar groves our beloved rendezvous was a scene from mayhem. The ashiqui bench sat agape as a relic from the past. The roads were strewn with Gulmohar petals, pods, twigs and branches.  Small muddy streams twirled into the small iron gates of the gutter. It seemed dark clouds had joined me in mourning.

I stood at our funeral both as the dead and also as the aggrieved. And when I could not stand, I squatted, wrapped both my arms around my knees and wailed. That day I knew for sure, melancholy was candy floss made of salt. The passer by stopped and witnessed the madcap crying and thankfully left me in the chill. For me that day was as grey and dreary as death itself. We had ceased to be.

The phantom of yester years laughed and said – welcome my broken brother! Do you recall how I had wailed?

 

1. Fucchas & Fuccheezs

The auditorium was full with fresher students and they were chanting –

Once there was a fuck up there…

IN FUSA … IN FUSA

Thousand fuckers gathered there…

IN FUSA … IN FUSA

Thousand chefs gathered there…

IN FUSA … IN FUSA

To watch the Mayonnaise curdle there…

HAAAAAAAAIIIIIILLLLLLLL PUSAAAAAAAAAAAA…

Welcome to FUSA and Delhi.

This college was a top notch cradle of excellence for the upcoming hoteliers. Soon I would learn that abusive language invoking mothers and sisters was the first thing you learned here. Gaalis were the motor of the hospitality world. However, my origin was on my side. There was so much aggression in Delhi that a usual Bihari found it like his second home. Most of the culture and tehzeeb of the Mughals had fled and taken shelter in the library and archives of universities. What was left here was street side aggression, hotheaded temper, pench hoddedness and maadarc hoddedness. Disrespect for women was the hallmark of this great capital. The hot pot of civilizations – the jats, the Punjabis, the bhaiyyas and now biharis swarmed into the big city. Soon the popular culture of maa-behen emerged. The migrants from the hinterland brought their own accents and abuses.

By the way, I am Fakeera Kabeer. My father had done enough to give me challenging name. People who loved me called me Kabeer but those wanted to have fun often spelled it Fuckeera … and called me Fuckira…Fukra…Fukie…Fak.. I was born in the 80s and despite being a billion plus nobody in the country was interested in naming what they loved to do. So there is no question my father would have known that naming me Fakeera had a long term effect on my life. My name resembled a very popular swear word made easy. Simplified nickname of intercourse. I knew it would take nerves of steel to stand by it.

The seniors and ‘super’ seniors, the boys and girls in second and third year were interested only in fuccheez as they were soft targets for interaction hungry young adults. All in hope of landing a girlfriend.

And then she walks up on the stage and says I am Jenny and I say grow up guys and fuck off ! I can’t tolerate this inane gathering. And she walked out as if she had wished goodbye to all the guys from senior years .

There was dead silence and people were stunned at the brevity of introduction and the finality that she would not tolerate any nonsense.

I was enamoured instantly. At 18 or some such age it doesn’t take much to be enamoured – opposite sex and interest in sex. Although you would like to believe in the soul mate shit and other ideas that tell you that you roam about with half soul until you meet the other half. And the other half is necessarily from the other sex.

I look to my left and I see one guy with tonsured hair slumped on the floor and snoring! I nudge him with my knee and he looks up and smiles.

They will see you! Get up!

What will they see! They have already taken my arse for the past 7 days.

He sits up and says – Sam.

I am Fakeera Kabir.

Sam guffaws – I will call you Fuckie.

I will call you Sampoornand Chakshoo – I replied.

He was visibly upset over this and I knew it right away that my guess from the class list was right. Sam was Sampoornand Chakshoo. And hated it.

Sam pats my back and offering a handshake says – Kabir …

Friends?

Friends. I smile.

In the meantime the drama on stage has become more interesting. One chootiya looking senior walks on stage with his scrawny looking girlfriend and asks some of the freshman who are on stage…

You know who I am…?

The freshman shake their head and then the chootiya looking senior says – I am Chetan Chaman. You call me BAAPS…pointing with both the index fingers towards himself.

And do you know who is this? – He asks pointing towards his girlfriend…

Nidhi… Kids, she is your Maa… Have you ever had Maa’s milk?

!!!!!!!!!! The whole auditorium is in splits…Obviously red faced the girl stomps out of the auditorium and so does Chetan Chaman.