Two Quick Notes:

1. Before you start, let me caution you, this is a long read. It is even longer than the first part. And to make it even more boring, I have dedicated the first six pages exploring the central character.
2. If you still want to read, but haven’t read the first part, here is the link to the first part:
http://sajha.com/sajha/html/index.cfm?ThreadID=36904

An Invisible Man on a Thin Slab (FINAL PART)

Continued from the first part …

Twenty-eight students selected for the scholarship were assigned universities in India randomly. Manoj benefited hugely from such unmerited practice. Though he finished 23rd, his lotto drew Indian Institute of Technology, popularly IIT, easily one of the 20 best engineering institutions in the entire universe.

Manoj’s first year in India was quite arduous. Classes were more competitive, students were sharper, and the course work was bizarrely vast. He had to work twice as much. He had heard of the hardship associated with IIT, surviving it was a different story, especially the first year. He did not return home during the first winter holidays because he was so overwhelmed by the reality of competing with the cream of the crop among a near billion. He chose to give himself a head start by staying in the campus, preparing for the next semester.

By the time he finished his first year, Manoj had learned some of the survival tricks at IIT. One of his classmates, and a friend later, Venkateshramanan Peddamekala, helped him adjust to IIT grindings. By the time he returned home in the summer of 93, Manoj brought home his first year transkript that justly represented his effort.

“I missed this more than I missed any of you,” Manoj screamed with a cup of tea in his hand.

“Soktim chiyaa?” Pawan sounded surprised.

“No, this slab… I missed standing here, watching people. I missed this.” Manoj sounded delighted to be home after 10 trying months in India.

During that break, he stood on that slab unnoticed and watched the mother who walked that road with her three-and-a-half-year-old daughter. Nothing about the mother had changed. She was as slim as ever, as tidy as ever, and as unassuming as ever. Every so often, by favoring him with her appearance, she made him forget that unbearable anxiety of heading back to IIT. He made an entry into his diary every time he saw her.

When Manoj returned back to India he confided to his diary that he missed watching that woman—“A married woman with a daughter,” he often referred to her. That secret fixation was the only perversion to his otherwise mundane being. As conforming as he was to the rest of the world, Manoj always found that obsession quite stimulating. Irrational and revolting when his head felt, his quixotic heart claimed ‘abstract affection’—a phrase he coined to moralize his transgression. During spells of wisdom, so illusory, he would debate in his diary: watching her is my hobby that makes me interesting to me.

Manoj returned home in 94 and 95 during summer and winter breaks. He enjoyed his summer in Nepal more than the winter. It had nothing to do with the climate. He only saw the woman in summer. The little girl grew every season. The mother did not. She looked the same, as if frozen in time by some cosmetic surgeon.

**********************************************************************

July 3, 1996

Dear Diary,

“Jati mayaa laaye pani
Jati kasam khaaye pani
Nisthuri le baato laagda …”

I have been humming this song all this evening.

It amazes me how unwittingly we submit to our subconscious mind. Suddenly 30 minutes ago I figured out why I am humming this song the entire evening. I was seriously freaked out when I discovered why.

I found out this morning that Aradhana Kunwar, a classmate of mine from the Kindergarten all the way to the 10th grade committed suicide yesterday. I was not close to her—except in one class picture taken in 1979 in which we sat next to each other. I am not missing her right now because I have no memories of her to evoke. I hardly spoke to her 22 times in those 11 years. I don’t remember her voice, her hair, her walk, or how she smelled.

This afternoon after I heard about Aradhana I looked at that ‘Second Grade, Section B’ group picture, titled ‘A Souvenir of my School Life’. I noticed that frame which hangs on the living room wall is still slightly tilted to the left. It was like that when I left for IIT. Nobody bothered to fix it.

The photo inside the frame has faded beyond restoration in some spots, but it looks intact in other parts. What an irony, my face is completely faded, but Aradhana’s is intact. She is still here. Her face depressed me. In just 17 years, what could have contaminated that little girl from smiling so innocently in that picture, to slitting her own wrist yesterday?

I wish I remembered more about Aradhana, but I don’t. All I remember is she was a quiet girl who loved Arun Thapa’s songs.

It has already been two months since I graduated. Now I have come back for good, I have started noticing everything in the house. Nothing has changed here. Absolutely nothing.

Kaanchha still uses the toothbrush I bought for him four years ago. Buwa still gargles three times a day, nobody knows why, including Buwa. Mami still spends most of her nights stitching ‘Tapari’ from Sal leaves and assembling ‘baateko dhoop’ for her ‘Laakh Batti’ spectacle. She spends the rest of her time making ‘Teel ko chhop’. Why do we need so much ‘Teel ko chhop’? I see there are four huge bottles of ‘Teel ko chhop’ in the kitchen. I don’t even like ‘Teel ko chhop’. It looks like fertilizer.

Daai is still partly deaf. The only time he listens to someone is when his boss from ‘Sichaai Bivaag’ calls him. His telephone conversation with his boss sounds something like this: “Hajur … hajur … tetti nai ho hajur … hajur … hajur … vaihaalchha ni hajur… hajur … hahur … Hajur le marji vaachha vanera ma Ganesh laai vandinchhu ni … hajur … hajur … raakhu hajur? Has ta hajur. Namaskaar hajur.” If my brother chooses to stay in Nepal, he will become ‘First Class’ before he turns 40.

Though the relationship has somewhat improved recently, my devout mami still has not found a way to completely reconcile with Kamal saanobuwa. As decent and sensible Kamal saanobuwa is, in my mother’s eyes, he will always have two flaws: He married her sister, and his last name will always be ‘Serchan’. When I first called him ‘Saanobuwa’, my mother had told me to call him just ‘uncle’—a generic uncle, like all of my father’s friends. I am glad I did not listen to her. My mother is not deserving of Kamal Saanobuwa’s ‘aaibaksiyos’ and ‘gaibaksiyos’.

Lieutenant Rajib has not changed either. He still wants to win every petty argument. The other day he had a five-minute shouting match with Pawan from his rooftop. He was arguing that ‘Internet’ is spelled with an ‘E’. What bothered me was, though both Pawan and Rajib know that I have ten times more trivial knowledge than both of them combined, they did not bother to ask me. I was right there, standing on the slab. Which means I haven’t changed either. My desire of secretly seeking attention from others is still an integral part of me.

Boy oh boy, nothing has changed.

On the flip side, some other things, which I did not want changed, have not changed either. The view from the slab is still picturesque. Two most beautiful creatures still walk that road. The invisible man still covets the elderly of the two. I think the invisible man is sick.

Changing the topic …

Though my opinion about Indians has not changed, I made a good friend while I was in India. His name is Venkateshramanan Peddamekala. Coincidentally, he also keeps a journal. He let me read some of his entries. One thing unique about his journal is, he always ends it with some odd news of the day, or with a brief biography of someone he knows or recently came to know. Somehow he relates that to himself. I am shamelessly influenced by that idea.

Two days ago in Butwal, I read, a senselessly drunk man jumped off the second floor because his friend made fun of his handicapped wife. His friend later confessed to the police that the man was trying to handicap himself. He wanted to break his own arms and legs so that he was no better than his handicapped wife. It was a miracle that he only broke his left leg.

That man must be the complete opposite of me. I never learned to supplement my desire with conviction.

End Diary,
Manoj

*******************************************************************

Between 1996 and 1999, Manoj’s lifestyle was quite steady. Nonetheless, employed in the government and surrounded by unmotivated friends, just when life was about to become tedious, Manoj was awarded with yet another scholarship for the Master’s degree in Netherlands.

Life in Netherlands was quite enjoyable—lots of beers, free explicit movies, and a very liberating existence. For the IIT graduate, the coursework was effortlessly doable. Manoj thoroughly enjoyed his 20 months in Amsterdam. For a marginally extroverted man, it was quite a therapeutic experience. When he returned to Nepal in early 2001, he realized the importance of independence that he did not experience when he was in India. He would tell his friends in Nepal how little he had learned about life in IIT.

**********************************************************************

June 12, 2001

Dear Diary,
Amsterdam is the complete opposite of my mother. The city is liberal, neutral, and rowdy. Though they budget a lot, people in Amsterdam know how to live. I enjoyed every hour of my stay there while mami worried that I would marry a ‘Goree’. I did not. I could not—in all fairness. Who will like me? I am too tentative, too timid, and too ordinary. I don’t represent anything. I don’t have a personality. I don’t attract people. I am saddled with debt to my unattended desires, that, what remains of me is my love of my awkwardness.

I am a 29-year old virgin. I don’t even have a woman friend. I never had one. I don’t know how it feels to feel a woman. But this excessive hormone I possess has severely perverted my inner-self. Some may even consult a psychiatrist for a condition like mine, but I try to cure myself by standing on a thin slab, watching a married woman who has an 11-year-old daughter.

I am still curious about that woman whom I first saw when I was 13. I have met hundreds of women since then, but that hasn’t fixed me. I still try to solve her like an obsessive musician trying to complete Beethoven’s tenth.

I stand on that slab in secret and tell myself that she must be a good mother, a good cook, and a good singer. That’s my therapy. I think I am invisible for a reason. My existence is blanked by my fear of being exposed.

I am my mother. What makes me worse is I lack my mother’s abstinence. She is flawed because of her faith. I am worse because I fake my moral obedience.

I had a classmate in IIT, who, as a result of one horrible accident was blind in his right eye. He wore dark glasses to hide his damaged eye. One morning he came to class with his right lens of the eyeglasses partially covered by what looked like a bird’s dropping. He had not seen the filth since he could not see from his right eye. When one of our classmates told him about the lens, he looked extremely embarrassed. He immediately ran to the bathroom and did not come back to class that day. He must have felt that his secret was out.

“Why is he so obsessed about hiding it? He had an accident, big deal. It could have happened to any of us,” wondered another classmate later in the afternoon. I knew the answer, but I kept quiet. It’s that desire we have, to look normal, when we know we are not normal. I have championed that desire. People around me think I am absolutely normal.

I am angry because Raju got married today. We are the best of friends, but Raju does not admire me as much as I admire him. I have always wanted to be like him. He is a go-getter. He is one the most intelligent and positive people I have met in my life. Seven weeks ago, he saw a girl at a doctor’s clinic while waiting to be treated for his flu. He followed that girl to her house with 102-degree fever. Three days later, when he recovered, he did some research on the girl’s family. Upon finding out they were quite old-fashioned, Raju convinced his father to coordinate an arranged marriage proposal in a conventional ‘lami’ aided fashion. Raju’s father, one of the Supreme Court justices, managed a motion to continue. Forty-Seven days later, today, they got married. Considering Raju’s looks, if he had pursued the girl on his own, there was only a 16.67 percent chance of success. Six out of seven people in the world are better looking than Raju.

And … in my case, my imaginary soul mate’s real daughter is already 11 years old. When I grow up to be a grandfather, unlike Raju, I will have no stories to tell—except the one that I don’t want to tell, because it reveals my split personality. The only comforting part is, the way things are going for me I am never going to be a grandfather.

If Holland could not cure me, I am not sure what will.

End Diary,
Manoj

******************************************************************

Over the next two and a half years, Manoj’s professional life flourished. He had started his own consulting company with two of his friends. At home, since he was already 32, there was an extra family pressure regarding the marriage. Many proposals were evaluated and rejected. Manoj rejected three. Two other proposals were rejected from the girl’s side when they found out about the prospective groom’s ultra-orthodox mother.

The view from the slab had not changed much. Manoj still stood on the slab and watched the world—including the woman and her daughter. He usually saw them every summer. Strangely, he had not seen her husband in years. Manoj was quite curious about her husband. Many times he saw the mother and the daughter walking with an overweight, bald guy with a crooked nose who walked unusually slowly. The woman’s daughter was very fond of the overweight man. Manoj did not understand that relationship. He looked too ugly even to be her fourth cousin.

After 18 years, the woman still had not noticed him.

“What happened to her husband? Where is he? Who’s that fat bald guy? Why does he walk so slowly? What’s the deal with his nose? Why is the daughter so fond of that man? Will she ever notice me? Is her smile a little strange or it’s just me? How can a perfect person like her not have a perfect smile?” Manoj constantly filled up his diary with incessant questions like those.

***************************************************************

A young voice in the distance was repeatedly screaming: “Hariyo Saada dhaago chhod.” Manoj looked up in the sky. Just across from Tukucha, two kites, a ‘Paan Butte’ and a ‘Hariyo Saada’ were flying about 100 meters apart from each other. The one who was flying ‘Hariyo Saada’ did not seem interested in the kite fight, but the other kid kept on taunting him.

After the umpteenth cry of ‘Hariyo Saada dhaago chhod’ and ‘Hariyo saada vaagyo re be’, ‘Hariyo Saada’ finaly made three Anaconda like left swerves in the sky and pounced on the ‘Paan Butte’ from the top. In less than 10 seconds, ‘Paan Butte’ was cut off from its owner’s ‘lattai’. The kite, imitating the moves of an insanely drunk man falling down the stairs, started to plummet from the sky.

“Cheeeettttt,” shouted the proud owner of ‘Hariyo Saada’.

Manoj was relishing a mildly breezy August afternoon watching two fighter kites, when he was distracted by something else on the road. Confident on his stealthy approach of monitoring the road, little did he know what followed next was going to be so bewildering.

*******************************************************************

A 13-year-old girl elbowed her mother pointing to the man standing on the third floor slab of the Chinese-brick-painted house. The mother looked up at the direction. The man on the slab looked nervous. After more than 18 years he had finally become visible. The daughter whispered something in her mother’s ear. The woman looked at the man and made a hand gesture asking him to come down. When he hesitated, the daughter screamed at the man, “We want to talk to you.”

Manoj ran downstairs. His legs were trembling. He did not know what to expect. As soon as he reached the front gate, he noticed the mother - furiously swinging her hands, as if she was trying to make a point. But no words were coming out of her mouth. Like a victim of a mild heart attack, Manoj was shaken and shocked—for more than one reason. No words came out of his mouth either.

Consciously gathering himself, he asked the daughter, “What’s going on here? Is your mother mad at me?” Manoj had already figured out why the mother was not talking.

The girl replied, “You shouldn’t do that. You should be ashamed of yourself.”

“Not do what?” Manoj’s voice started to crack.

“You always stare at me every time we walk this road.”

“WHAT?” His jaw hit the floor.

“I’m just 13. You shouldn’t look at me like that. You look old enough to be my father. You don’t watch CNN? In other countries you go to jail if you do that to an eighth grader.”

While the girl was talking to Manoj, the woman took a couple of steps towards him with tears in her eyes. Manoj felt so culpable he begged, “Stop it!” Then he looked at the daughter and asked, “Can she hear me?”

“Yes she can. But she can’t talk,” replied the 13-year-old.

“Listen naani, you’re a very beautiful girl, but I don’t look at you in a bad way. I swear to god. It’s my habit. I look at everyone who walks this road. I’ve done this for years.” Manoj then looked at the woman and said, “What you are accusing me of is sick. This is the worst day of my life.”

Neither of them responded immediately. Instead, the woman placed her palms together and pulled them against her chest, suggesting a pleading Namaste—a genre usually offered to their superiors by sycophants. She looked like she was begging Manoj to spare her daughter. Before he could calm himself down and say something coherent, the woman wiped her face, grabbed her daughter by the arm, and walked away briskly.

“I don’t believe you,” said the girl looking back at Manoj. “Wherever I go, guys look at me like that. I know you do too.”

Manoj raised his right hand and swore: “Ma vasma kharaani hum.”

Weary, Manoj looked in all directions when the mother and daughter left. Luckily, there was no one outside. He checked Pawan’s windows; those were closed. There was no one on Rajib’s usually crowded rooftop. Dr. Bista and his family were out of the town. He also checked on other neighbors, nobody was out. He took a sigh of relief upon realizing that nobody had seen the episode.

But as he turned to get back to his house, he heard, “What was that ‘laati’ doing here?” It was Raju, quizzing his unsuspecting friend.

Manoj looked and sounded stunned. “You know her?”

“For 25 years now… She looked deflated. What the hell did you do?”

“Oh it’s childish. I was coming home last night from the office, I didn’t see this puddle near Basyal miss’s house. I knew my motorbike splashed someone. Turns out to be her. She knew where I lived, she came to complain.” Like an impromptu comic Manoj manufactured the story promptly

“Strange. That’s not like her,” said Raju suspiciously. “Did you splash her daughter too? She’s extremely protective of her daughter.”

“They were together.”

“Even then it’s very strange. I’ve never seen her like that… Are you lying to me?”

From Raju’s tone Manoj felt that he had not seen her cry. So he figured no further explanations were required. But he was dying to ask Raju a million questions about her.

“If you know her that well, why the tone? You called her ‘laati’.”

“I was out of line. It was totally uncalled for…” Raju retracted quickly and sincerely.

*******************************************************************

“How do you know that woman?” Manoj interrogated Raju as soon as they entered his room upstairs.

“Her parents live four doors from us.”

“Since when?”

“Since forever … you know her too?”

“Not really. But I’ve seen her walk this road since her school days.”

“Back in the days? Oh that brings back memories,” Raju laughed to himself. “The guy she’s married to, Sarad, he used to live with his uncle next to us… very friendly guy. I remember back then, it was like he had put a tent on his uncle’s balcony to watch her… all morning, all day, man, I watched him drool over her.”

“When was that?” Manoj’s intention was to verify time.

“We were in the eighth grade.”

“Was she born like that?” Manoj digressed and asked the question that had baffled him the most.

“You know how it’s like here. I have heard different versions. Her family’s version is slightly different from the neighbors’ version. But they all say she fell seriously ill when she was three. The nerve leading to her vocal chord was damaged. One time I heard her mother tell my father that, even though her speech was badly messed up she tried talking for almost two years. She even talked a little bit during that time. She gave up completely when she was five or six. Her mother thinks she got tired of trying.”

“Strange. I always associated muteness with deafness. This must be rare.” Manoj still sounded traumatized by what had happened ten minutes earlier.

“I don’t know the statistics on that.”

“In a developed country, under different circumstances, she would have been most probably cured through speech therapy and what not.”

“More than likely.”

“What a waste.”

“Don’t say that. God damn, don’t say that. That’s not right. I know her life is no waste. You don’t know jack about that woman to be condescending like that.”

“I didn’t mean it that way. Come on you know what I really meant … By the way you seem to know an awful lot about her.”

“Of course. She was my childhood best friend … hold on IIT, hold on, stop right here, now remind me why you’re so interested in her?”

“I may tell you a bigger story if you tell me her story,” Manoj enticed his friend.

Lured, Raju tendered: “What do you want to hear?”

“We were talking about that guy, Sarad. Finish that first.”

“Not much there … One day she came to my house with two notes—one for me and the other for that guy. In my note she had asked me: ‘does Sarad know about my condition?’ When I replied he does, she asked me to give the other note to Sarad. That’s pretty much how those two started.”

“I gather she had noticed him on his uncle’s balcony.”

“You gathered right … The next thing I know, they were walking together… Bastard!”

“I sense a tone. Didn’t you just say he’s quite friendly?”

The question led Raju to narrate his own story. “I used to watch her too. During the seventh and the eighth grade, I had a serious crush on her. A huge crush. I didn’t care she couldn’t speak. I thought she was great in spite of that. But she never noticed me longing… and imagine this, one evening I became her delivery boy. A love-letter delivery boy … for any man with a tiny portion of ego, it’s the lowest kind of delivery job.”

Manoj laughed aloud. He stopped only because he wanted to hear more. “What makes her ‘great’?”

“What do you mean?”

“You just said it.”

“Many many things … to begin, despite her limitation she went to a regular school. She passed SLC first division. She finished her M.A. while she took care of her daughter fulltime. She plays good sitar, she has performed with Koili Devi … I’ve been to her parents’ house a million times. When she’s there, she keeps that house spotless. You’ll not meet a person as neat. She smells great. I don’t know what it is, maybe that Camay soap, she always smells terrific. I still think it’s her smell I fell in love with.”

“Sounds like you’re still in love.”

“To be honest, somehow I feel like she has something to do with the way I am today. I’m not wishy-washy anymore. I want something, bang, I go for it. I don’t get it, bang, I move on. But what could have I done back then? I was 14 for crying out loud. Or, was I 13?”

“How come you never told me any of this?”

“Put on your IIT cap and think… We met in college. Why would I share my failed adolescent love story with my college buddies?”

Smiling mischievously, Manoj whispered, “She was wearing a brown pair today.”

“WHAT?” Raju stood up from the ‘mudha’ he was sitting on, kicked the ‘mudha’ away to demonstrate his utter surprise. With his hands on his hips, his head shaking in total shock, Raju backed himself into a corner of the room. He picked the ‘mudha’ from the floor, slowly moved back to where he was sitting and screamed again, “THOSE WERE HER SHOES? HER SHOES? I didn’t see that coming. Not in a million years.”

“Calm down. Don’t pull this Nana Patekar on me. You’re overacting.”

 “I’m overacting? You’ve got to be kidding me. This is too unreal… all these years. My god! Those were the shoes? All these years, you didn’t know about her?”

“Not a clue. I attributed her literal quietness to the quietness of her personality. That explains her strange smile. How simple.” Manoj sighed.

“So I take it, that weirdo Sarad beat us both.”

“When you began this conversation, he was a very friendly guy, then he became a bastard, now a weirdo?”

“There’s a reason … Remember six or seven years ago there was this news about some drunk guy in Butwal who had jumped from the second floor? I don’t think anyone in Nepal missed that news. I was in Nawalparasi I heard it there.”

“Because his friend made fun of his disabled wife, right?”

“Exactly.”

“I swear to god I wrote that in my diary. I swear. Now don’t tell me that was Sarad.” Manoj’s eyes sparkled.

“I wouldn’t call him a weirdo for no reason.”

Manoj was already too shocked to be shocked by that coincidence. “How come I never see him anymore? I’ve not seen him in years.”

“What are you talking about? I see him all the time. Maybe you don’t recognize him. When was the last time you saw him?”

“1990. I’m pretty sure.”

“Then you won’t recognize him.”

“Why wouldn’t I recognize him? I have seen him dozens of times.”

“After he moved back to Butwal he has gained like 25 kilos, and he’s completely bald now. On top of that he also broke his nose during that jump. His nose is totally screwed. He looks like a fat bald captain Hook. People will laugh at you if tell them once upon a time he was a good-looking ‘Som’.”

“Then I’ve certainly seen him. Why he started walking so slowly?”

“His left leg never healed. If he walks faster, he starts limping.”

“So he was right in front of me all this time.” One more curiosity was resolved.
Manoj sat on his chair, stretched his legs, and for the first time that afternoon, smiled a smile of arrogance. Of the three men who adored her, Manoj had suddenly realized, look-wise, since Raju was never a competition, and her husband was totally deformed, he had ended up being the most handsome.

“Tell me something, this is killing me, how come I never see her coming from Bishalnagar? All these years I’ve only seen her going towards Bishalnagar.”

“You know the road behind the Chinese Embassy?”

“Yeah.”

“You take that road, Vaat-Vateni is quite close from where we are. You know that already.”

“Then why does she take this road going to Bishalnagar? She could do the same.”

“Because ‘tyampoos’ start in Bishalnagar. By the time they reach Vaat-Vateni they are almost always full. It’s hard to find an empty seat. She goes to Bishalnagar for the ride. While coming back she gets off at Vaat-Vateni and takes that road behind the Chinese Embassy. It saves like five minutes.”

Raju satisfied Manoj’s 18 years old curiosity in a minute.

“Now I’ve told you everything, why don’t you tell me the truth about what just happened downstairs? You’re not yourself today. You look crushed. You look and sound like you just saw a ghost. Something happened there downstairs.”

“I told you already.”

“Ok then. I’ll just pretend that I didn’t see her cry.” Raju snickered, knocking Manoj off his feet.

Caught red-handed, Manoj told Raju what only his diary knew—the truth, the whole 18-year-old truth, and nothing but the truth. Considerably extended by Raju’s periodic gasps, chuckles, and queries, it took Manoj a long time to explain everything in sequence.

When he ended the story, Manoj recapitulated, “It started when I was in the eighth grade, and by the time it ended today, the little one tells me she’s in the eighth grade.”

“Do you want me to clarify this to her? She trusts me completely.” Raju offered a deal.

“I stood on that slab and longed for a married woman for 15 years. I am a licensed pervert. And that’s what she thinks who I am. What do you intend to clarify? What are you going to tell her? ‘It’s not your daughter that pervert stares at, it’s you.’ Will that clarify it?”

Instead of responding to Manoj’s guilt-ridden rhetoric, Raju changed the topic. “You know most people don’t find her pretty.”

“I can understand. You must be talking about those who know her condition.” Manoj phrased the question without the question mark.

“No I’m talking about those who know nothing about her disability. Most of them don’t think she’s pretty.”

“You’re full of it.”

“No, I’m serious. I think, with her, our first attraction was not physical. You gradually get obsessed with her because she effortlessly ignores you. She has that… what I call, an opposite of charisma. Her inherent disinterest about things around her makes her unique. You choose to look at her because she chooses not to. But if you look at her objectively, she’s not that pretty. Now don’t get me wrong, she’s a little cute in a way, but she’s not that pretty. Not really. It took me years to see that. I remember her wedding day. Women glow on their wedding day. She looked plain ugly. Awful.”

When there was no reaction or disagreement from Manoj, Raju added, “Both of our mothers are extremely conservative. By being so dominant in early part of our lives, I’m sure our mothers, on a subconscious level, still dictate our likes and dislikes. I think, subconsciously, you chose to like her because you saw your mother accepting her… her simplicity. Look who I ended up marrying… my wife is the most conservative 26-year-old girl in the Northern Hemisphere. And I’m the one who chose her. I chased her when I was so sick that I couldn’t even walk. Today my mother is happier of my choice than I am.”

“You think that simplicity is driven by her awareness of her disability?”

“I don’t know. But it certainly will help your ego if you convince yourself that is the case.” Raju replied sarcastically.

“Did it work for you?” Manoj fired back.

“When I was rejected I was too young to reflect on that. I quickly convinced myself I never competed. I got over her in two days… ok two months.”

“Now you know the story. She rejected me the same time.”

“But you’re sick in the head, I’m not. I moved on. You never moved on. You became a stalker.”

“You know I used to stand on that slab and tell myself that she must be a good singer. She must have a great voice…” Manoj started giggling.

“I feel for you man. I seriously feel for you. Too bad that you can’t even draw a reference from Holland when you get an urge ...”

“That’s not entirely true,” Manoj cut off Raju. “I’ve brought some DVDs from there.”

“Speaking of that, I need to borrow those sometime next week. My wife’s going to her ‘Maaiti’ for ‘Teej’.”

The two friends sat down quietly, occasionally laughing at each other. “She was wearing a brown pair.” Manoj repeated using most of his residual energy.

“Then you should go play Badminton with Pawan. I bet you’ll beat him today.” Raju’s undertone was so subtle and timely that both friends roared with laughter.

“You still haven’t told me her name.”

“Mira.”

*****************************************************************

August 14, 2003

Dear Diary,

“It’s a platform projecting from the wall, and it’s enclosed by a railing. That’s the perfect definition of a balcony in the Oxford. It’s not a slab, it’s a balcony.” One of Manoj’s friends, Raju, always argues. But in Manoj’s house, no one calls it a balcony—not anymore. They call it a slab.

In June 1988, in his first week back home with a Civil Engineering degree from University of Roorkee in Uttar Pradesh, India, Manoj’s brother had declared it a slab that could hold no more than five or six people. He had warned his family of fatal accidents if the weight on that slab exceeded 400 Kilos. Everyone in the family believed Manoj’s brother since he had a degree and a Hewlett Packard scientific calculator. That very day Manoj’s father demoted that third floor platform to a mere ‘slab’ from a ‘balcony’.

The ceremony was validated by four family members examining the balcony by positioning themselves in four different corners of the property.

“You’re right, it’s just a slab,” Manoj’s father who held a Master’s degree in Economics screamed from the north end property line standing on top of the septic tank.

(Note to myself: One day when I can laugh at all this, I need to complete this story. Right now it’s too fresh from today’s event.)

End Diary
Manoj