The Man (3/?)

We keep up the soft chatter for the pretense is dying down as the time to lower the shields closes in. I take off my shirt and fold it over the chair. Jo hugs me from behind, kissing the back of my neck and running her hands soothingly over my chest and sides. I hold on to her hands; treasuring her smell and feel - Jo - my mantra to sanity, to coping, to living. I can feel Jo lifting her head as her hands still. I know what Jo is doing: she is looking at my back, or rather at the dark jagged scar that runs halfway across my back to end at my left side perilously close to the heart.

I flinch. I hate the scar unconditionally - I hate all its connotations of a violent brutal and unforgiving past that we have tried desperately to leave behind. And apparently unsuccessfully.

That night is seared into my memory - I dream of it all some nights. One reason that I do not seek dreams. It was a humid night when you could just sit at one place and still sweat profusely. I had to protect a key informer who had been found out by the wrong people. And word was that the safehouse would be attacked soon. I was the closest operative and had instructions to stay with the witness till the safehouse could be secured.

To Be Continued...(in other words, my muse has fled).

The Man (2/?)

The house is quiet and dark as I open the door and step inside, but I can hear voices at the back - gay voices belonging to my most precious treasures. Smiling, I close the door behind me. How can a simple act free us so? Closing the door is like an order to the outside world to stay out and keep away from my sacred haven. This is my sanctuary - my escape - my salvation - my chance at redemption. I have lost much in life but I would readily give up whole treasures to keep my precious ones safe.

The tinkly laughter floats into the fast darkening room and a small laugh surprises itself from me. I walk into the bedroom undressing carefully. With a small restless body in the house, it is not undangerous to leave discarded clothing around. As I put on the green T-shirt with a haphazardly placed Powerpuff Girls sticker on it, I can see the lights in the house coming on and the swift patter of feet. I am hardly out of the room when my little girl launches herself on to me with a gleeful welcome laugh and a squealed 'Daddy'. I hold fast to her, my Lenny, for an extra beat treasuring her smell of talcum and oil and mango which was apparently her post-afternoon-nap snack. But my little one is sharp and looks a question at me. So I press an extra kiss on her forehead and say with a mock wail "I missed you so today" which makes her laugh dismissively at her father's apparent childishness.

Lenny tugs at me to let her down and pulls me to the little study off the kitchen which doubles up as my wife's study. My wife looks up from her computer, beams at me and motions me over so she can indulge in a kiss with whole words looking at us. Jo has these large twinkly eyes and when coupled with the wide smile from her full lips, leaves me gasping even ten years after I fell head over heels in love and lust with the fiesty spirited girl who knew her mind and cleared some cobwebs off mine. We move to the kitchen table for tea and rusk for the two of us and coconut cookies for Lenny. We chat and catch up on our day and slowly the cloak of love warms up our little family cocoon.

Evening sets in and it is back to our daily chores - my wife cuts vegetables and indulges Lenny's current love of rhymes, and I prepare the rice. For about 2 hours, the air is rife with the chanting of rhymes, the cooker's whistles, familiar rustles and tinkling of cookery and a occasional fall of a spoon or glass that startles the two girls hunched over at the table, soft murmur of words as mother and daughter commune about the mysteries of words and sentences and mother and father go about preparing the night's delicacies - a simple preparation of rice, mixed vegetables, dal and poppadums (Lenny's favourite).

At dinner, father is made aware of little girls with sheep, twinkling stars and why he must not make a face because then the wind goblin would freeze his face and what will Lenny tell her friends then? Much laughter follows. The laughter bout continues as we watch Uncle Donald's shenanigans with his three nephews. Lenny, who is convinced that only boys have all the fun, heaves a too-loud-to-be-true sigh. I share a look with a grimacing Jo - we have spoken about taking a holiday for some time, maybe it is time to set a date with the beach.

After Lenny is tucked into her bed with a blessing of dreams full of adventurous rides, we wage war with the dishes speaking softly about everything and nothing: India's miserable outing at the cricket world cup, the coming elections, the neighbor's sick dog, lenny's friends, the temple festival, her work and the list goes on...Nothing is debated, everything is mentioned and specifics will be discussed later based on the importance and priority of each. The day slowly winds down for us and after making sure that the doors and windows are properly secured and Lenny safely travelling her dreams, we move into our sanctum.

The Man (1/?)

(2003- Coastal India - Rubber Plantation: The plantation manager, in his early 40s, in his office preparing to leave. Takes the bag from the little wooden cupboard near the window, puts his lunch tiffin in, tucks in his umbrella and zips up the bag. Slinging it over his shoulders, he takes a cursory look at his locked drawers and some inconsequential papers still on the table and leaves the room waving at some lingering folk outside.)

Lingering: That dark man in the dark trousers, pale checked shirt with the bottons neatly done, steel watch on his wrist, wears black sandals everytime. Every Friday, he is always by that sal which skirts the pond tending to his cycle. But he scares me because I know that naught is wrong with his cycle any of these times. He watches me, I know that too. How? I can feel it. Feelings are our sixth sense at work: cannot be ignored. I walk fast past him and increase my pace as I walk keeping the trees carefully behind me; he raises my hackles: he scares me. It has been eight years, it is long enough, I thought it was long enough, it should have been long enough to let me live, to let still waters be, to not throw this pebble into my quiet existence.

But who can reason with paranoia. Because what else is this. And I must not get this way. Erase that frown from your face - you are losing touch, you need to practice. Visibly schooling my face, I keep up my pace till the cycle parking. Casting a practised nonchalant look around the shed and the trees behind it as well as the way I rushed in from, I wheel the cycle to face the road. By the time, I am home 7 minutes later, I have worked up a sweat - a combined result of the cycling and the anxiety.