She said he was fat. I mind painted him as all jowls and flab with a head sprouting from his shirt collar like a cauliflower. To achieve the licentiousness of him, I even threw in a glazing of perspiration on the face. Masterstroke.
In all of Seema’s memory between the beginning and age 12, Mr. Sharma had been the synonym for many relationships to her- an uncle, father’s friend and the forever neighbor. A taken- for- granted and always-around someone, who lived with a wife, a son and a cat. Seema and I met that day to talk about Mr. Sharma. This wasn’t going to be an archetypal over-a-coffee conversation but then what setting is appropriate for such a talk anyway.
Soon after a cursory introduction to Mr. Sharma’s character Seema develops an uncharacteristic shiftiness. She begins to fritter away her glances at nothing in particular, just to look away from me. Up and down, left and right before briefly fluttering a fleeting look at me. And away again. Ideally I would have preferred doing nothing and leaving my friend to pick her own process for steadying herself. But a disturbed pause in her narration is stretching sky like and amassing an awkwardness like a cloud requiring release. Embarrassment between friends isn’t a pretty thing.
In my mind words run, but only into half sentences. Words in any case are not deterministic; they are probabilistic. For someone whose mind had far too long been perturbed with investigating the probables for her violation she would be looking for something more established. I had to discard my lean phrases. They wouldn’t provide anything for her to hold on to. Instead I reach out for her hands and give them a press of assurance. It helps. She re-arranges her mind and rests her issues in order to move the conversation forward.
Seema’s dropping- in’s at the Sharma’s were always incited by their cat; It was a twee thing and Seema loved it so.
Pets at her own home were beyond reckoning because of her mother’s hypochondria, she said. But I’d met her mother. I think she just hated animals, the hypochondria was an act. However, hypothetically if Seema were to have been allowed the choice of a pet, no pet-worthy animal would stand a chance in the face of a cat. The sinister-ness of cats, she used to argue, was their greatly misunderstood astuteness. At 12 you are not expected to be commonsensical. Twelve is not a good age for girls. But then neither are 13 or 14 or 15 any better. Girls never have a good age. That’s just it.
At twelve, Seema’s obsession with cats was pronounced and an adolescent’s obsession is sometimes known to be a dangerous thing. The mother, however, wasn’t ready to negotiate even a reasonable settlement on the issue of pets and so Seema’s sorties into the Sharmas’ household began to increase. Disaster foretold.
It was waiting to happen; the nascent in a girl of twelve was silently stimulating the stagnant in the mid-life of a man. And then of course there was the adolescent’s cat mania that became the starting point of it all. With each visit to her assaulter’s, unawares, she kept presenting herself before the licentious in him till such a time as when circumstances provided Mr. Sharma’s profligacy to discharge itself upon her adolescence. He began systematically with playfulness and then moved on to shoving, pushing and forcing; the outcome was bruising and bleeding accompanied by pains, the kind of which she had never imagined existed. I admire her courage in re-structuring this part of the incident with a fair amount of detail. However, the part involving licking and kissing is understandably difficult to mouth so she attempts a parallel - a sloppy slurp-y person sucking on his soup. And then immediately after, shrugs it off like a helplessness. Though she did have an unstructured idea of the act itself but the basis, enormity and consequence of it were not within the ambit of a twelve year old girl’s understanding. At that point its insufferableness made her disregard it, as though it had occurred in someone else’s life.
Funny thing about that time, she says, was how even then it was the cat that had occupied her thinking. As if inflicted with deafblindness, all through it slept curled up on the window ledge on a piece of sunlight without so much as stirring in its divine slumber. The sounds of an agonizing struggle were nothing to it and allegiance was a thing that it didn’t care about. It was that day, there and then that the virginity of an adolescent obsession was defiled. Something else arose in the heart of a little girl that day- an unadulterated desire for violence. She kicked the sleeping cat hard on the belly and saw it perform a flying –yelp, with contentment. Ever since cats have been anathema to her, she says.
I did not know Seema then, but elsewhere around the same time my breasts had become anathemas to me. At thirteen I’d turned secretly romantic as well and, all things boys became my covert obsession.
Like always and like all children, we went back to our grandparents’ during the long winter vacations, only this time the agendas of my life had switched from mindless kiddy games to painful breasts and boys.
During those vacations a pain, beyond measure developed in both my breasts and even a slight brush against them, accidental or otherwise, began eliciting a mortifying wince out of me. Did this pain have something to do with the changed attributes of my breasts? I wasn’t sure then. From tiny protuberances, I noticed, my breasts had swelled and turned stony hard and poker straight. Sometimes I used to think that a pair of horrendous pus filled boils could be developing beneath them, which would ripen and rupture, releasing their contents through the nipples, like a volcano. But I wasn’t sure and didn’t think it was appropriate to discuss my anatomical aberrations with anyone. However, apart from the pain, all that happened was- many an accidental brushings and much staring. So out of a natural instinct, I developed a self-conscious posture and began crossing my arms over these nasty things that were preventing me from all kinds of vacation-y sports. It wasn’t fun to turn from an active partaker into a bystander, but the others had their games to tend to and after some cajoling left me to deal with whatever it was that I was battling. This is how my isolation began and gradually it grew because it went unnoticed and unexplored by those responsible for my life at that time. I felt like an aside.
Someone should have explained to me then that thirteen isn’t a good age for girls, that men couldn’t be differentiated into uncles, cousins and friends of the family; that they were just all men. And these were the men I went to easily. But now things had changed, the reasons I went to them for, had changed- everything had changed. An assortment of men who were related to me in different ways, were now connecting differently with me. Their caresses had changed from innocent petting to secret fondling which began making my heart pulsate at the base of my earlobes. But of course it was the breast twinges worsened by fondling which were more distressing than the heart thuds. And then there was the burning in the bruised insides of the thighs that would be aggravated by a sticky pasty dribble. It seemed to me that the whole of my anatomy was in rebellion against me. As a result my body became the point of focus for me and beyond it everything else was fuzzy.
From that vacation onwards two definitive shifts had occurred - one, in the games that I became involved in and two, in me. Instead of opening out into the world, I began growing into myself like an ingrown toe-nail. My carefree walk turned into a knotty affair; I began pointing my toes inwards instead of straight, in order to retract as far away as possible from everyone and everything outside. The simplicity of a walk felt like a painful parade, as though each stride was being sized up by everyone where ever I went. A substantial stoop appeared and stuck out like a sore thumb, and the cat got my tongue; it was as though speech had never come to me. No one understood the basis of my transition into a monolith, and thus for want of sounder reason it was attributed to age and left at that. I too have left it at that since, but Seema- she could not let it lie nor absorb it.
That day, sitting at the college café and on the verge of graduation I was giving my friend quiet attention as she undid herself. By the time she finished, a massive stupefaction arrested both emotional as well as verbal response from me. What could I say anyway? Undo myself as she was doing? I thought about it briefly but decided against it; taking her on a voyage of my own desecration wouldn’t make hers any bearable and besides it would shift focus from her to me. Also I had always wanted to leave it out of any conversation because even the thought of it stirred up guilt like an unbearable heart burn and now, hearing what I did about my best friend had already begun simmering that shame.
The mind thinks it holds words in its snare but it’s the other way round. I watched while Seema was in a dither as her words shaped the violation of her twelve year old mind and body. But it requires utter violence to rip apart the heart of a cad and she did not have such violence in her. So Mr. Sharma continued to live on as it is through the whole length of time, whereas for Seema time had shrunk into a dot and all her life had been imprisoned inside that dot. She never did nor ever would step outside the age of twelve.
The three days following our coffee conversation were tumultuous due to the development of a contradiction inside me; knowing that I co-shared the most dreaded phenomena of my life with my best friend generated a feeling of aliveness which was at odds with a powerless rage for Mr. Sharma. I was undecided about being happy for the first or wretchedly unhappy about the second. However, this situation lasted only three days. Three days later Seema brought the contradiction to an end by killing herself, almost like she was doing me a favor. I couldn’t decide which one of us was more courageous- she, who’d chosen to speak about it, if only to me, and then been brave enough to be the cause of her own death or me who’d filtered the scar from the other pieces of life and lived on despite the dark secret, heavy as lead. Not that it really mattered but a mind is a mind and it would waste away without thoughts.
The thought of witnessing my friend’s decimation from a person to a body was a nag that wouldn’t relent but avoiding the funeral was a choice out of question. I recognized him right away- the flab, the jowls, the perspiration et al. He looked sad; a sadness on account of a million life things but among them could there be that one thing that brought about this funeral today? Did he know? I had no way of knowing so I had to take this chance. For Seema. For me.
Fleetingly I caught his eye during the service and felt my resolve ebb. Memory, however, is a stubborn thing and being just three days stale, it didn’t require much effort to regain my desire. For some time I thought the right moment would present itself so I just needed to bide my time but time was getting on and I needed to get it over with. Unnoticed, I edged towards him. Initially he made way for me, thinking I wanted to get somewhere beyond but then realized I had reached where I intended to. I didn’t know what I was going to say or how I would start. He didn’t know me, so it became easy to begin with myself. And anyway beyond that not many words were needed. He knew. He said that the cat had died the instant Seema kicked it and he’d buried it in the backyard. He looked really sad.
ANITA KAINTHLA's collection of poetry, published by Writer's Workshop, won third prize in the 2005 Indo-Asian Poetry Competition. Her new book 'Tale of Tibet', a religious and historical background of Tibet, will be published by Viva Books, Delhi. She has contributed short stories and travel articles to Woman's Era and India Currents (Indian-American magazine), and her poems have appeared in Poetry Chain, Journal of Poetry Society of India and Indo-Asian Literature Poetry Journal. Anita Kainthla is currently working on a travel book.
In all of Seema’s memory between the beginning and age 12, Mr. Sharma had been the synonym for many relationships to her- an uncle, father’s friend and the forever neighbor. A taken- for- granted and always-around someone, who lived with a wife, a son and a cat. Seema and I met that day to talk about Mr. Sharma. This wasn’t going to be an archetypal over-a-coffee conversation but then what setting is appropriate for such a talk anyway.
Soon after a cursory introduction to Mr. Sharma’s character Seema develops an uncharacteristic shiftiness. She begins to fritter away her glances at nothing in particular, just to look away from me. Up and down, left and right before briefly fluttering a fleeting look at me. And away again. Ideally I would have preferred doing nothing and leaving my friend to pick her own process for steadying herself. But a disturbed pause in her narration is stretching sky like and amassing an awkwardness like a cloud requiring release. Embarrassment between friends isn’t a pretty thing.
In my mind words run, but only into half sentences. Words in any case are not deterministic; they are probabilistic. For someone whose mind had far too long been perturbed with investigating the probables for her violation she would be looking for something more established. I had to discard my lean phrases. They wouldn’t provide anything for her to hold on to. Instead I reach out for her hands and give them a press of assurance. It helps. She re-arranges her mind and rests her issues in order to move the conversation forward.
Seema’s dropping- in’s at the Sharma’s were always incited by their cat; It was a twee thing and Seema loved it so.
Pets at her own home were beyond reckoning because of her mother’s hypochondria, she said. But I’d met her mother. I think she just hated animals, the hypochondria was an act. However, hypothetically if Seema were to have been allowed the choice of a pet, no pet-worthy animal would stand a chance in the face of a cat. The sinister-ness of cats, she used to argue, was their greatly misunderstood astuteness. At 12 you are not expected to be commonsensical. Twelve is not a good age for girls. But then neither are 13 or 14 or 15 any better. Girls never have a good age. That’s just it.
At twelve, Seema’s obsession with cats was pronounced and an adolescent’s obsession is sometimes known to be a dangerous thing. The mother, however, wasn’t ready to negotiate even a reasonable settlement on the issue of pets and so Seema’s sorties into the Sharmas’ household began to increase. Disaster foretold.
It was waiting to happen; the nascent in a girl of twelve was silently stimulating the stagnant in the mid-life of a man. And then of course there was the adolescent’s cat mania that became the starting point of it all. With each visit to her assaulter’s, unawares, she kept presenting herself before the licentious in him till such a time as when circumstances provided Mr. Sharma’s profligacy to discharge itself upon her adolescence. He began systematically with playfulness and then moved on to shoving, pushing and forcing; the outcome was bruising and bleeding accompanied by pains, the kind of which she had never imagined existed. I admire her courage in re-structuring this part of the incident with a fair amount of detail. However, the part involving licking and kissing is understandably difficult to mouth so she attempts a parallel - a sloppy slurp-y person sucking on his soup. And then immediately after, shrugs it off like a helplessness. Though she did have an unstructured idea of the act itself but the basis, enormity and consequence of it were not within the ambit of a twelve year old girl’s understanding. At that point its insufferableness made her disregard it, as though it had occurred in someone else’s life.
Funny thing about that time, she says, was how even then it was the cat that had occupied her thinking. As if inflicted with deafblindness, all through it slept curled up on the window ledge on a piece of sunlight without so much as stirring in its divine slumber. The sounds of an agonizing struggle were nothing to it and allegiance was a thing that it didn’t care about. It was that day, there and then that the virginity of an adolescent obsession was defiled. Something else arose in the heart of a little girl that day- an unadulterated desire for violence. She kicked the sleeping cat hard on the belly and saw it perform a flying –yelp, with contentment. Ever since cats have been anathema to her, she says.
I did not know Seema then, but elsewhere around the same time my breasts had become anathemas to me. At thirteen I’d turned secretly romantic as well and, all things boys became my covert obsession.
Like always and like all children, we went back to our grandparents’ during the long winter vacations, only this time the agendas of my life had switched from mindless kiddy games to painful breasts and boys.
During those vacations a pain, beyond measure developed in both my breasts and even a slight brush against them, accidental or otherwise, began eliciting a mortifying wince out of me. Did this pain have something to do with the changed attributes of my breasts? I wasn’t sure then. From tiny protuberances, I noticed, my breasts had swelled and turned stony hard and poker straight. Sometimes I used to think that a pair of horrendous pus filled boils could be developing beneath them, which would ripen and rupture, releasing their contents through the nipples, like a volcano. But I wasn’t sure and didn’t think it was appropriate to discuss my anatomical aberrations with anyone. However, apart from the pain, all that happened was- many an accidental brushings and much staring. So out of a natural instinct, I developed a self-conscious posture and began crossing my arms over these nasty things that were preventing me from all kinds of vacation-y sports. It wasn’t fun to turn from an active partaker into a bystander, but the others had their games to tend to and after some cajoling left me to deal with whatever it was that I was battling. This is how my isolation began and gradually it grew because it went unnoticed and unexplored by those responsible for my life at that time. I felt like an aside.
Someone should have explained to me then that thirteen isn’t a good age for girls, that men couldn’t be differentiated into uncles, cousins and friends of the family; that they were just all men. And these were the men I went to easily. But now things had changed, the reasons I went to them for, had changed- everything had changed. An assortment of men who were related to me in different ways, were now connecting differently with me. Their caresses had changed from innocent petting to secret fondling which began making my heart pulsate at the base of my earlobes. But of course it was the breast twinges worsened by fondling which were more distressing than the heart thuds. And then there was the burning in the bruised insides of the thighs that would be aggravated by a sticky pasty dribble. It seemed to me that the whole of my anatomy was in rebellion against me. As a result my body became the point of focus for me and beyond it everything else was fuzzy.
From that vacation onwards two definitive shifts had occurred - one, in the games that I became involved in and two, in me. Instead of opening out into the world, I began growing into myself like an ingrown toe-nail. My carefree walk turned into a knotty affair; I began pointing my toes inwards instead of straight, in order to retract as far away as possible from everyone and everything outside. The simplicity of a walk felt like a painful parade, as though each stride was being sized up by everyone where ever I went. A substantial stoop appeared and stuck out like a sore thumb, and the cat got my tongue; it was as though speech had never come to me. No one understood the basis of my transition into a monolith, and thus for want of sounder reason it was attributed to age and left at that. I too have left it at that since, but Seema- she could not let it lie nor absorb it.
That day, sitting at the college café and on the verge of graduation I was giving my friend quiet attention as she undid herself. By the time she finished, a massive stupefaction arrested both emotional as well as verbal response from me. What could I say anyway? Undo myself as she was doing? I thought about it briefly but decided against it; taking her on a voyage of my own desecration wouldn’t make hers any bearable and besides it would shift focus from her to me. Also I had always wanted to leave it out of any conversation because even the thought of it stirred up guilt like an unbearable heart burn and now, hearing what I did about my best friend had already begun simmering that shame.
The mind thinks it holds words in its snare but it’s the other way round. I watched while Seema was in a dither as her words shaped the violation of her twelve year old mind and body. But it requires utter violence to rip apart the heart of a cad and she did not have such violence in her. So Mr. Sharma continued to live on as it is through the whole length of time, whereas for Seema time had shrunk into a dot and all her life had been imprisoned inside that dot. She never did nor ever would step outside the age of twelve.
The three days following our coffee conversation were tumultuous due to the development of a contradiction inside me; knowing that I co-shared the most dreaded phenomena of my life with my best friend generated a feeling of aliveness which was at odds with a powerless rage for Mr. Sharma. I was undecided about being happy for the first or wretchedly unhappy about the second. However, this situation lasted only three days. Three days later Seema brought the contradiction to an end by killing herself, almost like she was doing me a favor. I couldn’t decide which one of us was more courageous- she, who’d chosen to speak about it, if only to me, and then been brave enough to be the cause of her own death or me who’d filtered the scar from the other pieces of life and lived on despite the dark secret, heavy as lead. Not that it really mattered but a mind is a mind and it would waste away without thoughts.
The thought of witnessing my friend’s decimation from a person to a body was a nag that wouldn’t relent but avoiding the funeral was a choice out of question. I recognized him right away- the flab, the jowls, the perspiration et al. He looked sad; a sadness on account of a million life things but among them could there be that one thing that brought about this funeral today? Did he know? I had no way of knowing so I had to take this chance. For Seema. For me.
Fleetingly I caught his eye during the service and felt my resolve ebb. Memory, however, is a stubborn thing and being just three days stale, it didn’t require much effort to regain my desire. For some time I thought the right moment would present itself so I just needed to bide my time but time was getting on and I needed to get it over with. Unnoticed, I edged towards him. Initially he made way for me, thinking I wanted to get somewhere beyond but then realized I had reached where I intended to. I didn’t know what I was going to say or how I would start. He didn’t know me, so it became easy to begin with myself. And anyway beyond that not many words were needed. He knew. He said that the cat had died the instant Seema kicked it and he’d buried it in the backyard. He looked really sad.
ANITA KAINTHLA's collection of poetry, published by Writer's Workshop, won third prize in the 2005 Indo-Asian Poetry Competition. Her new book 'Tale of Tibet', a religious and historical background of Tibet, will be published by Viva Books, Delhi. She has contributed short stories and travel articles to Woman's Era and India Currents (Indian-American magazine), and her poems have appeared in Poetry Chain, Journal of Poetry Society of India and Indo-Asian Literature Poetry Journal. Anita Kainthla is currently working on a travel book.
