She woke up with a jerk. As she did everyday. She experienced a dream-filled sleep everynight. And hence woke up tired every morning. Her dreams were not of surreal colours but of real events. It was filled with people. People she met that very day, work left unfinished, calls unattended.. She often finished her work, her calls, in the dream that, sometimes reality deluded her. To wile away the dreams, she even joined gym such that her body fatigue would take over her mind and lull it to sleep. But the dreams grew even more livid and more real. As if she had now cleared the translucent fog off the windshield. She closed her eyes again to recollect her last few scenes in the dreams. It had been the wierdest one till date. It was in her grandparents house. For the past few months, it had always happened there. The house where she spent most of her childhood afternoons, vacations. Where she had made houses out of bedsheets and created her own kitchens with choppu inviting her thatha and patti for tea. Where she hid everytime patti brought out 'Keokarpin' oil and comb to plat rettai pinnal and keep malli poo plucked from their own garden. Where she had run, jumped and shouted freely without inhibitons. Where she had been free. And happy.
After patti's death the house was sold. But still she passed by the street and looked lovingly at the thennai maram(coconut tree) that adorned the bangalow. The house she wanted to buy back one day.
In the dream, she was pregnant, and she was about to give birth. That was in the hall. There was a random doctor. The delivery happened in one quick motion. And suddenly a stranger was taking her baby and running away. She was shouting and trying to get up to call the stranger back, but the doctor was not letting her. He was telling her, to let go of it. She pushes him to run after the stranger. She was shouting to the stranger that she wanted to give milk to her baby, begging him to give the baby back. Her breasts wanted to be wanted. The stranger still running, deaf ears. The doctor was running behind her. His voice fading away. Silence. Suddenly she looked around to find that there was nobody in front of her neither at the back. The doctor, the house the baby and the stranger had disappeared. She felt a dull thud in her breasts. Thats when she had woken up.
The dull thud had not disappeared from her breasts. Her breathing still was short and fast. It had seemed too real. She closed her eyes again for a silent prayer and got up from her bed. Her hand immediately touched her stomach. As if expecting a small lump to be there. Her heart felt heavy. Her pillows crushed. 'Freud, I wonder what your interpretation for this one would have been.' With a programmed motion she reached for her cell phone to check the time. 8:35 pm. Even today she would not be able to wash the clothes. Just enough time to get ready for her work. She worked in a call centre. Her schedule for this week started at 10:30pm. And it took almost an hour to get to office.
After a hurried wash, and even more hurried "breakfast" of a slice of toast and juice, she hurried down the stairs, pinning her dupatta on the way. She tried crossing the road to her busstop.
This road was always the busiest at anytime of the day. There was an underground terminal to cross, which she never used during the night. After a few seconds of hesitating, stopping and walking, she managed to go halfway, only to be stuck there for a few minutes. Her thoughts looked about at the streaks of light, blues and yellows and reds as it zoomed in opposite directions at either sides, making her rooted the same spot. Her life had also been the same. Balancing on a tight rope. Cat on the wall situation. She was single, living alone. Her parents were in another city. She had wanted to be independent, and moved away despite their protests. Though sometimes she missed her mom's prescence and her dad's being-there nature, she had opted out.
She caught her office bus with a second to miss, and reached for her seat. Her window seat was occupied by somebody else. Silently cursing, she satisfied herself with an aisle one. Jealously looking from time to time at the widow seat, her window seat, which deserved her, especially today, to sort out her thoughts..
'Goodmorning America.' She had finished the names upto 'L' in her list yesterday, or actually, today morning. She looked through the names Madison, Markson, Morgan.. They could have been Morons with capital 'M's for all she cared. She started her calls, with a fake accent, with a fake name and a fake identity. All the cat-calls restarted. 'Will you come on a date with me'/'Whats your real name'/'I want to have sex with u'.
'What kind of a work satisfaction do I derive start and end my day with falsehood?'
She continued with her calls. Took a break for five minutes. Her eyes which were too used to the radiation from her computer took her some seconds to trace out the room. Her colleagues were joking about one of their clients, asking simple questions of how to start the computer. All in the game. But who were the real jokers? She smiled unaware of the joke and headed for the nestea counter. The brown stains had not yet been cleaned from the rack. She found it broken down. The other alternative was coffee which she neither hated it nor liked it. There was still laughter to be heard in the background, though she felt that the mockery was pointed towards her at her fate. She returned back to her seat, mumbling something incomprehensible to herself and others and started with her list again.Though she was calling up hoardes of customer, the empty feeling never left her.
Her back started paining. It was her wretched chair again. She tried nudging hreself a little on the left and right and settled still uncomfortable. 2.30 and her immediate boss came to survey the day's work at progress. More cat calls. An increasing backache. Time dragged slowly. 'The minute I get off I will gym for half hour, go for a swim, and have a good breakfast and then have a lovely sleep'. Happy that a concrete plan had been made, her energy level rose up to survive the day/night.
6:15am. She came out of the centre. And took her bus to the gym. She changed to her tracks and started with her treadmill. Her legs wobly, adjusted itself. Slow but steady she increased the speed so that she could run.
She loved running. Against the breeze. Past the trees. Under the sky. On the tar road. Just letting herself free. But could she do that? Her breasts would heave if she ran. It was only natural. But men would gawk. Aware of it, her clutched hands would move automaticaly a level higher to protect herself. Or she had to contend herself to a mummyfication process - wearing a bra, then a sports bra and then a tshirt, so that it would not move, making it even more unnatural, restricting and tight when the whole point was to just loosen up and run and breathe clean air? 'Maybe men wanted us to wear dupatta while jogging also? Which guy wears a baniyan then another baniyan, tshirt and jogs down the street?'
And now here she was, inside four walls, on a machine, with the airconditioning mixing everybodys breath and sweat together, facing a mirror and a random hindi number that did not make sense to anyone least her. Handicapped. She found that her backache had not reduced any lesser and stopped at fifteen minutes only to feel even more tired. She reached for the locker, having a cup of warm water. Her swimsuit was cramped in a corner. She reached for it, to change to go to the pool.
Like fish to water, she had taken to swimming. In the bright blue water, she could lose herself for hours. It had the rejuvanating effect on her. Especially while doing back stroke, with the water below and the sky above gave her some happiness that she embraced close to her heart. And she needed it very badly today.
As she went to her changing room, the reason for her backache hit her. It was her 27th day. She had started menstruating. 'I cannot swim.' 'Celeberating womanhood, they say,' she grimaced. She left for the medical shop only to have a smirking salesman. She hated it.
She took an auto to get to her place. She wanted to cry. Not of depression. But the dream, her unwashed clothes, the lost window seat, the work, the faking, the teasing, the brokendown nescafe machine, the brown stains, the run, her periods, and finally the salesman.. Of her routine. They were taking over her. Only the tears did not come.
'A good strong tea does the magic,' she quoted her mothers line to herself. She reached her home. She started boiling the water for tea. She reached for the three roses carton, only to realise that it was empty.
She burst out crying.
