Love
People who are getting ass always think it is funny when somebody else isn’t.
Bukowski, Notes of a dirty old man
‘Quaranteens’ was a joke I received over WhatsApp. It was defined as ‘the generation of children born from quarantining entering teenage by the year 2033.’
I found it funny that is till I received the ‘I want to make love to you’ message.
From an ex.
What a wonderful world
She had arrived from abroad after a nasty divorce, giving up custody of a kid to pursue a career in acting. A portfolio had to be shot, new places to be seen, rattled folks to be ruffled, hedonistic indulgences, art to be checked out, traditional clothes to be bought, house to be sought, more pleasure pursuits, Ayurvedic massages, new things to be tried, some meaningful activities of compassion, money donations, setting up a charity, some more pleasure pursuits, a brother to be put in place, nieces and neighbours to be charmed… Yes, I was the all-purpose man, like the one in that Leonard Cohen song. Over the course of a year we ran out of things to do and each other’s novelty; she got into an insecure relationship with a rising director, a certes chipolata, and me in an enervating one with a bipolar beauty. Such consumed were we by our other lives that we parted.
That was three years ago.
Assigned tasks – the cockatooer
A poll conducted by condom company Trojan found that during storms and other natural calamities, over 70 per cent of Americans were occupied by thoughts of, besides saving their own asses, having another. Apparently fucking fuelled the amor fati that brightened up an otherwise grim road. More than a fetish inspired by visuals of trucks floating in water and highrises crumbling like old cookies, this was like the last boner for the definite goner. The heaven you were sure to enter before you were actually dead. Understandably, recklessness was a hallmark.
After the 2004 tsunami, the numbers of HIV-affected spurted in coastal regions due to unprotected sex with strangers. Sept 11 kind of regularised post-disaster sex. ‘Just as people reaching out to show compassion, they also reached out for some degree of passion,’ as Jeff Michaelson, a sexologist cum psychologist puts it. Mindless copulation was the best way to deal with an uncertain future and people fornicated frantically. The natural disaster was followed by a manmade one – a baby boom, progenies of untold angoisse and emotional paralysis.
SARS and nipah, dengue and chikungunya, few other contagions has made an impact like the ongoing Corona virus in recent history. There is little the killer fluffy hasn’t dented – savings, work patterns, social life, equanimity, belief, law and order, religion, related rituals, ceremonies and regular classes. News of a lab break from Wuhan in China grew from a small, inside paper column news to front page headlines screaming death tolls in thousands across continents, over weeks. As of today, we have entered a crucial make or break few weeks end of which we will know whether India is headed towards containment or advanced stages three and four leading to an Italy-like situation.
Work went into a limbo in Delhi and I got worried when I called home. The same refrain when the floods struck two years ago: ‘No need to worry, nothing will happen to us.’ It was not like the folks bought new inflatable dinghies or even masks this time but: ‘Because god will look after us.’ Not exactly reassuring considering this had not much to do with their nearly half century of science teaching background.
A bloated village – Palai
My arrival from the capital that was steadily descending into clampdown was into this climate of confidence. A brief meeting with some old buddies to ensure our supply of fresh toddy on weekends, laid a wreath at a funeral, downed a few at a regular watering hole ringing with eerie, false-cool laughter, posted a selfie. That was when the ex texted. Are you in town? How you been? What you doing now? Having ela appam and coffee. Want? Come. Movie releases were shelved, shoots cancelled, just as she was about to get her big break opposite a big hero. ‘He can’t get it up but wants the women to suck him off,’ she had told me earlier. ‘It was just a power game.’ I as her well-wisher emeritus could only imagine what she – a staunch feminist, full of heart and power – was going through.
A proper screw would also be some semblance of normalcy.
Life
I see skies of blue and clouds of white
The bright blessed days, the dark sacred nights
And I think to myself
What a wonderful world
‘What a wonderful world’
Louis Armstrong crooned the most lilting piece of jazz ever written over the PA as the Vistara Flight dove into and disappeared through black holes of white clouds approaching Kochi. Though the timing was a bit inconvenient I had stuck to the airlines for their stand on the Kunal Kamra episode and this made it well worthy. Earlier, in a first, the deck captain had explained in graphic detail, with flourish the route map. It was pure déjà vu – I had taken the same route two months earlier on my motorcycle. After good nights and unmasked smiles, (I always feel a bit weird when the cabin crew wishes me a ‘great stay’ in my own home), I reached Palai, my hometown. The wonderful world continued around me.
I see friends shaking hands, saying how do you do
They are really saying, I love you
A bloated village of cockatooers who had turned to worthless commerce, generous hearted people living it up, who believed in dying than bilking someone, differing in definitions of the omnishambolic and good movies and the better bar but united in opinions about lucrative crops and the health benefits of refrigerated watery rice from last night’s dinner (with a hung house over curd chillies or mango pickle as the best accompaniment). I loved this place and not just because my folks were here, fell in love here or lived most of their lives here. (As if they really needed to wish me a ‘happy stay.’)
The workers are back
As in the rest of the country, schools, movie halls, offices and many shops were closed and the traffic was thin. Only those who suspected themselves of having contracted the virus were visiting religious places or those who ran away from isolation wards. Now with the prime ministerial speeches being made compulsory reading at quarantine centres, they wouldn’t have any strength left to abscond even. My folks found this quiet god-given – they could merrily drive around town at their own pace, park the car in front of wherever, back into the main drag without my mom having to physically block traffic and the going safe even if my octogenarian dad dozed off behind the wheel.
It took some work to make them understand the gravity of the situation including passing off many Italian episodes as Keralan. (Validating this liberty was the fact that early cases were detected in both these places around the same time. But it didn’t get out of hand in Kerala due to a variety of reasons including climate and having lesser number of Italians.) In a few days the folks resigned to the fact that they had to stay put for a week or two or till the son went back, whichever was earlier. The regular farm hands and house helps were given off on part salaries and their work divided among us.
A boner for the goner
Everything was hunky dory, like the first few days in Animal Farm after overthrowing the despotic humans. But the assigned work never seemed to end and wore us out in no time. We began to appreciate those who kept at it tirelessly even if for the wage. Soon enough we started to order in – and the maid was back. The stored yams had started sprouting and had to be planted – and the workers were back.
But we, true to the spirit of self-isolation, stayed put.
