Untitled by Jamal Shah. Image courtesy of ArtChowk Gallery.
When we are about to leave, Sarayu is always the same. She rushes back to the table for her earrings, to the cupboard for a blue scarf she drapes around my neck, to the key holder for the car keys. At the first traffic light, 84 seconds remain and she pulls out a hairbrush. The man in the next car changes his t-shirt. On the windshield, the red traffic light caught in a rain smear: first a tendril appears, then a whole hibiscus blurred. Sarayu is drumming her fingers on the wheel: watching the gutter at the beginning of Aurobindo Marg overflow and flood the road. What mellows with repetition? She tucks a loose strand behind my ear, straightens the scarf into two equal blue lines as water begins to seep in.
*
In the left window, a black orb. We have been on the road for an hour and twenty minutes. The body is quiet with despair. The orb follows the car above a darkening stretch that in the evening I can pretend is a field. As my eyes adjust, the wings are discernible. Sarayu is speaking in a tone that only demands the occasional nod. I want to reach the house and get under the covers. Sarayu will suggest, as always, that I take a bath first. She has invested in ginger and honey, mint and tulsi, and orange and lemongrass soaps. A smell can be healing. This one will calm you, this one will cool you down, and this one will make you feel good as new. She believes in the things she buys. I envy her this — as long as she is able to buy handmade, scented soaps, she will be happy. The traffic is at a standstill again, the orb overtakes us.
*
Every two or three weeks, Sarayu buys a new keychain. Eiffel tower. Colloseum. Jack Kerouac’s On The Road. I laugh at the last one and the sound startles her. She is in a good mood the whole day. I hear her singing in every room as she moves between them, throwing the bed covers above her like a canopy and unleashing a day’s worth of dust. She cleans the glass table in circular motions in beat with her songs. Sarayu is most endearing when she is her own circle of light. At night, I hear the familiar scraping sound as she slips the key off the loops and into the new one. This is who I want to be today, Jack Kerouac driving with the wind in my hair. We’ll drive around India Gate, okay? Just one round. The roads will be empty. We’ll be back in no time. No-time is one of Sarayu’s most dearly held beliefs: time passes quickly in transit. She slows down to buy cotton candy. I eat mouthful after mouthful of a cloud of sugar till a thin stick is revealed, picked clean like a bone.
*
The downpour truncates the day. This is not a city built for rain. There is a man carrying a briefcase above his head, another man clutching it to his soaked chest. Two women hitch their sarees around their waists and wade through, otherwise the weight of the water will unravel them, pin them to the ground. The same road we’re on in a few kilometres begins to dive down a few feet, though one can’t tell on an ordinary day. On the evening news, we see cars floating. This monsoon is unprecedented. Sarayu’s scarf keeps me warm. On the condensed window, I draw a boat & a wave – man’s will & limitation. On the outside, it appears like a child’s drawing briefly before it clouds over again.
*
Sarayu is furious. She snatched the keys and slammed the front door. I imagine her driving around the block, circling the house. If she can kick up the dust enough times, perhaps a tornado will lift the house and deliver us to — where? Someplace I will want to return from, no doubt. I pretend to be asleep, blanket hitched up to my face, but I listen for the clean sound of a key being hung up again. What mellows with repetition? I wake up early to wash the bonnet, to brush clean the wiper marks. When she steps out, the car glistens like a cup of tea catching the morning light. Thank you. This is who she wants to be today, repaired, calm.
*
To kill the time, I calculate if the car numbers are multiples of 3. This is simple and absorbing. I can complete a fleet of traffic in seconds. Sarayu listens to the radio, changing channels every time an advert comes on. A cluster of pigeons rushes up from the chowk, she breaks the car instictively. They would make their escape regardless. Pigeon, crow, mynah. That’s all the birds left in this city. Grey, black, brown. Sometimes, a raven or an eagle in a clearing. Sometimes, a sparrow in a quiet cloister. Oh and green pigeons. The last of the colorful. Sometimes, I am interested in what she has to say. I want her to go on.
*
We move sideways through the city. Sarayu assures me fresh air and greenery will do us good. Us is what Sarayu says when she doesn’t want to single me out. Sarayu the saintly. Sarayu the unbearable. We turn onto the road with two names – Sunset Boulevard and pahaadi raasta. Nothing can make the two names speak to one another – two-laned traffic hurtling in opposite directions. We visit what used to be a lake for boating. A field of boys play cricket, a ball is struck across the vast, cracked valley.
She buys yellow roses wrapped in newspaper in stalled traffic. We’ll put them on the dining table in that clear vase where you can see the stems. We should make a vegetable bake today. What do you think? I think she should do what she wants. She falls silent and we drive down to the ice cream parlour. On the footsteps, we sit and eat single scoops in paper cups. Even she doesn’t want to talk. She lets me take a spoon out of hers. The shops wind down around us, the shutters screeching as we scrape the bottom of the cups.
Urvashi Bahuguna‘s writing has been published in The Nervous Breakdown, Jaggery, Read Wildness, Marsh Hawk Review, Vayavya, Cadaverine and elsewhere. She was recently shortlisted for the Beverly Prize. She has a poetry pamphlet forthcoming from Eyewear Books.
