If only things were beautiful; like a bunch of roses for sale in Wal-Mart, within reach and beautiful, that you can own, be manipulative. Manipulative at no cost. Sunita had it at the middle of nights when she’d wake up to find she’s playing with his dreams, maneuvering his innocence, that lay scattered on the road and she had gathered it all up, just to throw it out in a frenzy of emotional outburst one day…“Pranav, I will. Don’t you worry”, chill runs down her heart keeping her freezing and shivering, yet she doesn’t dare tell him the truth…self pity and disgust quells it all. His naiveness kills her the most. Change is like digging your own grave sometimes, or may be buying a coffin with a realization that you will die that particular moment and there will be no one around you to cremate your body. No one, not even the ones you have treasured all your life. Because they would have gone already, delved into their own little worlds, buying their own little coffins.
Sunita’s love for Pranav had taken an arranged twist, their parents agreeing to let them settle down together, and so the rituals followed in Bhadrakali with a priest who agreed to be there for Rs. 500 per day. When Pranav first brought her into his one-room residence in Baneswor, he had dragged the curtain with both hands to let some sunlight fall over neatly washed steel pots that shone in brightness. She had always loved sunlight spread over her bed as mornings awoken her. Some months later Sunita had sewn a blue flowery curtain replacing the dull white one, and moved the bed to the other corner, the lone chair standing by the door, bought a small shoe rack and had patched the holes in the carpet, hoping to replace it with a woolen one some day; but the income of a section officer guiltied her, or rather, that how Pranav worked hard all day to bring home some happiness made her the more guiltier. Because she knew how he used to come up to the kausi every foggy morning, to study, and stay there all afternoon, trying to memorize the whole of a book or two, not looking anywhere else. And Sunita used to look at him from a neighboring house, from a kausi higher than his. Sunita would spread a chatai in the kausi under the hot sun and her mother would peel bhogate and have Meera auntie, Kausiki auntie, and the veterinary doctor, their new neighbor, come over to devour its sour taste with the sun basking at their back, burning their bare waists. How she hid feelings from these women and sat by the edge of the kausi to peek down at the other kausi every once in a while. Sometimes when Sunita burst into laughter she’d unconsciously turn her head down there and someone will turn his head up and stare at her with a mild surprise. Once she laughed so much he never looked up; he kept his eyes glued to the bulk of papers he was holding, and after a while he just left. Passing section officer exams were tough, and Sunita just giggled it out with the acidic taste of bhogate.
After a year of staying together, Sunita got a chance to come to the US on a temporary visit, she had then insisted she’d stay here and make some money for a while. He hadn’t said much then. She worked. Like a machine. Puffing air out of her smoke-turned black lips, she rested her head on a brick wall by the shore, and stared at the sky…a group of sea gulls are quaking in cheeriness and chasing each other, often bouncing back into the sand. The waves of ocean swirl in length, all excited, quickly resorting to the command of gravity and spilling over the ground, unwittingly sweeping the sand along. Sunita recalls home in a frenzy of puffing out clouds once again; it has been quite a while, this loneliness without Pranav, she is getting quite accustomed to it, she thinks. But how she misses the small room, how they’d both come home tired of work and Pranav will soothe her gently and kiss her. She’d lie in bed, the soft pillow pressing against her chest, and stare at Pranav cook cauliflower, and she’d crack lame jokes, letting her legs swing freely on air. He’d grab her and punch her and punish her for making a fool out of him; bodies will pile together and she’d cover her face with the white bed sheet and he’d slowly drag the sheet out and kiss her, kiss her lips, her forehead, her neck...
But then the noise of pressure cooker squeaking in laziness, taking for ever to cook a handful of rice; the smell of kerosene numbing the nostrils; someone sitting in a pirka close by the stove cutting vegetables, nobody really to pay attention, yet that shadowy figure diligently working to get some things done. The rattling of plates; the little room too soon patched with spider webs here and there, the smoke rising from the stove, from the onions she fried in hot oil. Smoke, too much of smoke in her life.
Sunita walks out and sits close by the waves and watches it get angry and calm down in a lapse of few minutes. She wishes things could change that rapidly, so rapid that no one will really realize there ever was a change…The cigarette is out of fire, and her body stops emanating heat. She stands up and starts walking by the shore, very close to the teasing waves that take amusement in splashing water all over her, wetting her caprised legs…she looks back at the shapes her feet left behind, how they were beautiful, but then they would get washed away by waves like moments in your life…with just the traces of faint memories of them.
It first started with lies. Tons of lies. He’d be amused by little things, so it wasn’t really a crime to amuse someone with a little twist in reality, you know, especially when there is nothing to look forward to at that other end except for rattling plates early next morning. And walking long hours under the hot sun in search of a job. Without money, or with little money whatsoever. Hungry. Your lips chapping in want of a glass of water, or a bottle of coke, had it just been affordable. Carrying a torn leather bag that smelled like a frightened skunk. And people looking down on you like you were born to be their slaves, cars bleating with pride trying to chase you away like chickens. If only being skinny meant a matter of pride in poverty stricken countries like Nepal, life would have been a lot easier for Pranav, thinks Sunita; he had lost his job. Day by day the hollowness in his cheeks would get deeper and deeper, with thin lines in his forehead becoming more visible, arousing a shameful suspect amongst Sunita’s relatives, an embarrassing confession of nothingness…among the middle class that dazed hours into the fanatic, glittery prosperity. So lies, and hopes, lots of them, in bulks; it’d flow out and out and out of her, like she was in a dream spilling out her desires. And he believed some, disbelieved some. Why would she lie? He must have thought while pumping the kerosene stove and waiting for it to gleefully burst in flames…and a voice in the radio must have uninterestingly continued to bleat…making little sense, like this particular moment in his life. And she’d coax him into that and this, he’d laugh gleefully, and share his continued search for things that never seemed to stop his way… “I went there today, yes, may be they will hire me…they were excited to read my resume, and not that I don’t have experience, 7 years of experience I have” he would cheerfully be proud of his devout nature, but they both knew the bitterness of it all…you devote your life in a career more than a relationship could ever last, and the next day you know is you are on the streets, unemployed.
How she had been hypocritical, when all Pranav sought was a pocket full of happiness, even when abject poverty was grinning at him. His life had gone berserk, and it was her life gone berserk, in a sense, but for some reason she had been able to shift her life cleanly out of the mess he was falling into, amazingly cleanly, and standing away she watched it from a distance, like a dispassionate lover. His life was in the becoming, and may be even those little lies would have given it some strength. Even her memories would have given him some comfort, while she dauntingly flaunted her worthless potentials to grab his attention. Sometimes she would suddenly feel she’ll run out of ideas, run out of ostentations to amuse him, to blind him with her charms…But he had bypassed them all and had chosen to love her. He had never once failed to carefully listen to her blabbering, and had been persistent in liking her.
“Hajur ho, uni bahirai chin…America ma...”, he must have said proudly to the passers by who were ready to hand in a package of sympathy, always. But then here Sunita lies down on the bed, with this someone strange, bind by law yet looking white and alien, his belly turned the other way and the bald spot on his head shining in darkness, making him look like a china pot, a big china pot with whiskers in its mouth. She had first kissed Kelvin in a swimming pool, out of the human need to seek affection, like everybody else did, or so she thought. And then Kelvin had seen her again, drinking, sitting by herself, puffing out air, staring at the bodies shaking in lust, or confusion, or pity. He had lumped his stomach on a high, lean chair letting his legs dangle in amusement, like a small child’s. She had puffed air into his face then for once, and he had stared right into her eyes with hunger, unmoved, with an uncanny sense of expression. She hadn’t cared then, but Kelvin had been nice. Engineers are sexy, she had always thought, and Pranav’s eyes lightened with love had suddenly phased out in dullness. Hectic, work had been hectic. Only one word she had defined for Kelvin when he’d asked about her life. And you know things had slowly started to change that night, from tearing conscience and guilt that lurked around her always, Kelvin had been able to define some things new for her, things that she had long beheaded…he had made a dramatic shift of power, from the omnipotent her that sheltered Pranav to the needy her, needy of love…guilt hurt her once, it ached up there, and tears gathered within the socket, ready to spill… “You know I celebrated my birthday with some friends, after long years…after you told me to…”, even his emails would come storming into her brain unfolding painful truths, of haplessness, the chunk of love that he had misplaced somewhere and she had picked it up for him.
She had thought of calling him and saying sorry. But then eyes didn’t even water. They just stared into the vastness of the ocean and once in a while tried to peek into the thinness of air she was puffing…air that had camouflaged her own mind.
His child-like eyes…if only love was cheap...she’d lie on the bed next to Kelvin and think about Pranav. How he would be delighted on the phone in wanting to be together again, bitterly hiding away his frustrations of countless failures…not that she hadn’t failed, but it didn’t matter, not any more. And time had changed, in a dramatic twist of events, Pranav had come to realize of the numerous lies she had built around his vicinity, that this relationship had given him all the while, the lies she had packed in a bundle for him. Truth must have come crashing down on him making him weak all of a sudden; he must have stood stiff jiggling coins in his pocket, his heart getting cold…lump of saliva stuck in his throat. He would have wanted to sit down for a while- how he wished there be someone around to talk about it... “Sunita?” must have crossed his mind for once… His heart must have ached, continually. He then would have lifted her picture from the table, wiped it and stared at it for a while, not even wanting to shed tears, nevertheless tears must have made their ways out from the corners of his eyes, dampening the sides of his lips. He must have promised himself never to look at the picture again, but patches of memories of her smiles, her caresses would have come flooding his mind as he walked down the road with a leather bag hanging down his shoulder, in search of some things that didn’t make any sense anymore…
