Reading Time: 17 minutes
Meeta in her paroxysms of emotions – candid, vulnerable, loving, doubting – emerges with her complexities. In the third part of the novella, by Prof. Nandini, the lovers depart, without goodbyes, or was there a silent goodbye. Find out. An exclusive for Different Truths.
Now she had started counting on my curious power. I had taken possession of her, in all her elemental self. She was in a way frightened with what she had with me. A major part of her ‘self’ was with me, and the other part belonged to her family. Both the parts were definitely at odds with each other. With the incremental weakening of the body, I thought our minds would also give up. And the “passing phase” would be over. But that didn’t happen to her.
Closing her eyes and thinking of me, she would smell oceans and raw sand, could hear the tribes singing and dancing from the remote villages, could see the Buddhist monks crossing bridges in saffron robes, chanting, “Buddham sharanam gachchami.”
Then she would murmur softly, huskily, into the receiver of her phone, “Oh dear…. I am lost”.
Then she would murmur softly, huskily, into the receiver of her phone, “Oh dear…. I am lost”. At that weak moment, I told her, “Meeta, why are you living this life that lacks romance, eroticism, our kitchen romance, and me? Why is this damn sense of responsibility killing you? Why are you destroying yourself? You are a beautiful woman, the goddess of love and your kind of a woman has to be celebrated, not deserted like this!”
“Why don’t you take me out of this if you can? I had been leading my simple life of home and hearth. What made you create this havoc? Why did you do this to me? Why?”
There was silence at the other end. I could sense, she was weeping noiselessly, that she had rolled her head away from the phone to do it. It saddened me, because it revealed before me Meeta’s neediness, anxiety, fear of isolation, her horror of being marooned, abandoned.
Then there was a silence for three days, three days of torture for me and my Meeta.
Then there was a silence for three days, three days of torture for me and my Meeta. For the first and last time in life, complete separation of three days with Meeta.
I wrote, “I am no good if my message doesn’t lighten your face, doesn’t enliven your heart, doesn’t give you a relaxed mind. I am no good if a long gap doesn’t make you fume, and it only causes chest pain. I am no good if I’m not a positive change in your work and play, cookery and music, Reiki, and red wine. Rate your love beautiful!”
“We rate something when we have a choice, perhaps. But I have no choice. You are the only one, good or bad. So, be good.”
She was simple and straightforward, always.
She was simple and straightforward, always. I used to call her, ‘the goddess of small things.’
Small things overjoyed her. Small pains immensely pained her. She would catch hold of beggar women in the red lights and try to settle them down through NGOs, scolding them for using their newborn babies to beg in the sun. She thought the world was like her. The day the President of India had a visit to her university, the daily wagers and the roadside vendors were detained from coming to work, resulting in a day of hunger for them. She wrote, “I am ashamed that I am a bureaucrat in a place where ‘human right’ is just a phrase in the dictionary. I am more ashamed and helpless because I can do nothing about it.”
She was not just the poet of a few words; she was a social activist…
She was not just the poet of a few words; she was a social activist, taking care of the children of her dead domestic help, funding the education of slums children.
During one such conversation, she told me that she will quit her job after her son is independent and do her bit to uplift the girl children, the victims of rape and domestic violence and the differently abled. That day I respected her more. She wrote, “I feel restless when I see these women, and specially the children, who don’t even understand that they are sexually abused! Things like my house, my cars, my books that bring me so much glory, the luxuries I have – all seem meaningless when I see so many women victimized every day like street urchins. When two/three-year-old lay there outside the PVR Cinemas and near the Saket Select City Walk mall or try to sell a bouquet to me, I hate the system. They don’t deserve so much hurt. Someone should tell them their rights! Someone has to fight for them. Babu, it’s like I am gearing up for something greater, moving towards a road not taken. At one point of my life, I’ll be leaving everything and taking to the streets. And for the needy, I will design a shelter home, a public library, because only education can enlighten them. And then, I’ll also introduce a publishing house for budding talents. I need your support in all of these.”
Ambitious, indeed.
The lady was ambitious in everything, starting from her elaborate menu for any guest at home to helping the needy…
The lady was ambitious in everything, starting from her elaborate menu for any guest at home to helping the needy and creating a public library for the access of the masses. Her writings addressed ground-breaking issues that characterise lives. Existential issues of the marginalized.
She would address me as ‘Babu’ . That was her way of pampering me. I was the only one who could convince the Pegasus to do something – from opening a savings account in her name to getting a medical check-up done. Otherwise, she had the ill fame of being the most disobedient when there was something related to her.
One night during our pillow talk hours, she sent me a message, rather a poem:
“The night has stretched out afresh watershed for me. It squashed my eyes of slumber And packed the hollows with blubbering and said, ‘you have been acquitted of all offences, and hereafter you are at liberty till eternity.’ Go somewhere you wish Rouse do benumb. The entrance to reveries is padlocked.”
I was sad, very sad.
I was sad, very sad. I wrote back: “Expanses have not yet twinkled, Oh Meeta! The delusion dynasty is quiet and benign. From the bonfires of fiascos and disillusionments let the legends of the approaching new beginnings remain inexpressible.”
She called up, voice all choked up, sobbing, and asked “Why inexpressible? Can’t you just open-up and tell me? Why can’t you be simple, be a boy, be elemental? Why do you throw your philosophy upon me all the time? Am I just your ‘duty’ without any attachments?”
“I don’t look back where I have no attachments. Never do a thing that’s only a duty. You never thrust upon any duty on me. I would just be grateful if you accept that my hurts are a part of me and give me time and compassion to stand on a surer ground. Without that I am a piecemeal. You want commitment from my eyes, hands and all or the person who you know cares for you and wants to go on doing that?”
But she still wanted me to define our relationship.
But she still wanted me to define our relationship.
“A young Madhvi let herself be had to a husband in a marriage she couldn’t question. A grown up Madhvi keeps questioning a man who wishes good for her, asking for definitions when he confesses he is trying a way out of bends in life. A mature Madhvi will perhaps realise that love and commitment have many forms, as does assimilation. Truth shall prevail.”
She was uncontrollable that night. In fact, every time we spoke for more than an hour, she was sure to cry…
She was uncontrollable that night. In fact, every time we spoke for more than an hour, she was sure to cry, over something or other. Then I had to console her, love her with utmost dedication. Yes, I have become a dedicated lover in life, if not anything else. Courtesy: Meeta. And she could kill me with her conversational ease. Her tears were contagious. I am not ashamed to admit that being a man, even I have shed drops of tears so often over something or the other she told. Men don’t cry, they bleed, inward. Like, the other day she asked me, “Babu, have you read Virginia Woolf’s ‘A Room of One’s Own? I am going to write another one, ‘A Table of One’s Own’.”
“Why baby?”
“You know what, I am from such a large family that the two tables we had at home were for my eldest and youngest siblings. The dining table was for Baba. So, throughout my childhood and youth, I craved a table, but never got one. I had to write lying on my tummy on the floor,or leaning over a plywood placed on my lap. Now there are tables in my house, one for my son and two for my husband for his laptop and files, there is even one kitchen table for my maid, but there’s none for me. I bought one exclusively for myself, but that too is encroached by both. Hehe.”
How could she laugh over this issue of identity politics?
How could she laugh over this issue of identity politics? This was such an existential problem to be taken lightly!!
She had this tremendous capacity to hide her pain and smile, laugh all the time. She was actually two people. The one whom the world knew – the serious academic, creative writer, glamorous, practical, adamant, jovial with friends, helping and caring Prof. Madhvi. Then there was the other one – elemental, romantic, emotional, sensuous, true, honest, ready to capitulate and vulnerable, my Meeta. I knew that the second one was exclusively mine, but I always wondered, how could she manage to be two people? Especially the first one who was not her real character?
And she was yet another person when she was drunk.
And she was yet another person when she was drunk. I loved to hear her when she was. She loved red wine. She would giggle after the second peg. Then call up to tell me absurd things. I found pathos and humour mingled in her temperament. I could perceive her perpetual agony coming out of her when she would giggle and tell me the funniest things.
Once I asked her, when she was drunk, “What are you reading today? I mean what academic work you are doing?”
“Oh my god! You always want me to do something? To be someone? Why? Tell me, why?? I am nothing, I want to be nothing, just nothing! Do you understand?”
“Yes baby, please be nothing.”
“Nnotthhing, right? Just nnotthhing.”
I always gave her that space, to speak her mind. To open-up.
I always gave her that space, to speak her mind. To open-up. And she would inevitably sob at the end, shed tears, blow her nose, (she said she wanted to wipe her nose on my shirt!) and talk like Hema Malini. “Hema Malini is an awful actress, you see; of course, she’s beautiful and a great dancer. When I cry, I sound like her. Pathetic…melodramatic. Hehe.” But I thought, if she was in a gloomy mood, her tone would be like the tragic heroine Meena Kumari in Saheb, Biwi aur Ghulam. Sometimes, she sounded like Madhubala when she was in a high, after drinking wine.
Winey Meeta.
“You know Babu what happened today, someone continuously stared at me in the market. I moved away, but he still continued to stare; everyone could visibly notice my discomfort. So, what I did, I covered my face with both hands, and then opened my palms in front of him, playing peek-a-boo! People laughed and laughed, and the uncle ran away.”
This was my Meeta, Pugli Meeta’.
But she had the strong opinion that a woman dictates the way she likes to be treated by men.
But she had the strong opinion that a woman dictates the way she likes to be treated by men. She has to uphold her self-respect.
She had a problem with the words like ‘uncle’ and ‘aunty’. It seems in Delhi, everyone would call you aunty, irrespective of his/her age, looks, weight and height. “If you are seen with a child, you are aunty-material for sure. The other person might be older than you! But if you are roaming alone, you are an item for Delhi men; you might be a mother of two.”
“It’s ok baby, you are a sexy-aunty.”
“Shut up uncle!”
Some nights she would just shut all her windows and not respond to any of my messages.
Some nights she would just shut all her windows and not respond to any of my messages. It was time to worry then. I knew that she was a night person and most of her writings were done late nights. I would make one last attempt at 1am, “If you were working, I infer you have been at peace. If you were into talks with your husband, I shall see hope, though it may not be immediate. If you have slept, I am happiest for my grown-up baby. And if you have been sulking, that leaves me sad with a sense of inadequacy.”
“No… doing nothing specific. Missing you.”
“Then call after three minutes and talk for seven minutes.”
“Your timing is weird. You are just mad.”
“How do you know about my timing?”
Then she would blush and remain quiet for some time, or send just three dots as a response…
Then she would blush and remain quiet for some time, or send just three dots as a response, and in return I would send some messages that gave her a high. And would make her open-up.
“Meeta…good that your mind has let you open up, beyond isshhh and yuck. You need to know how adorable every single pore of your body is.”
We had an email account which we both used to exchange letters or chat. Her husband was a tech-savvy person.
We had an email account which we both used to exchange letters or chat. Her husband was a tech-savvy person. Once he hacked the password of that account and read all correspondence between us and made a hell out of it. We couldn’t understand, what had been robbed of him? What had been taken away from him by me? Her commitment? No, we weren’t committed; rather we had decided never to meet in life. Sex? No, we never had, neither was he sexually attracted to her. They never slept on the same bed, anytime in life. We discussed literature, life, love, eroticism, philosophy, which was beyond his understanding. So, we could hardly understand the reason behind his insecurity. Perhaps he was basking in the glory of the puritanical old-world values like purity, chastity, and loyalty, expected only from women. The purity-pollution debates, age-old, were deep rooted in his mind. He demanded commitment, chastity, and purity from her, without fulfilling the ‘duty’ of being the man of her life!!
She would put together her appearance and put a smile on it, hiding tears, when in public. For her, her husband was never existent. He was, as if, someone belonging to a previous life. Their rapport had become flimsy, volatile, and elusive, as if pigeon-holed with a tag, ‘switch with caution!’ For them the olden days, when they had met, were some unfamiliar lands. He was more interested in moral policing rather than giving her the love, that she so deserved. And Meeta spent the best part of her life justifying herself, that she hasn’t wronged him by loving me, because she never got any emotional bonding or physical closeness from him. And that, he was behaving crazy and paranoid; he should not jeopardize a good relationship by being blatantly suspicious, because I wasn’t snatching anything that he possessed.
That night, she wrote one long email from our personal account – that no one can ever snatch the beautiful memories I have given her…
That night, she wrote one long email from our personal account – that no one can ever snatch the beautiful memories I have given her via those letters even though she would use that mail no further. She actually did that; she never accessed that e-mail account anymore.
Ziddi Meeta.
Later, she complained several times that she missed my long e-mails, missed our engagement with words. She loved my long letters.
“Please send me loooong mails Babu!” She would SMS me.
My letters were complex, hers, and simple.
My letters were complex, hers, and simple. She loved my critical thought and approach. She would always tell me, “Babu, even though I have achieved far more than you, but academically you are excellent. You are much better than me. It’s just that, you never realise this.”
“Oh, come on! Don’t compare.”
“No, I am not comparing. But we can complement each other. As you say, we are the members of ‘Team-Meeta’ – membership closed with just two people!”
Life was smooth; no one could stop us from communicating.
Life was smooth; no one could stop us from communicating. From loving blindly, passionately, irresistibly. After all, we had accepted that even though tough times leave us brooding, they also bring out the essential strong self in us—resilient, will-powered, and indomitable. They also show that life isn’t any fairy tale, yet it’s worth living to prove one’s mettle to oneself. Because Meeta strongly believed that our gods are our own making. Taking their names is just giving palpable shapes to our innate resoluteness. Her teaching, research, her engagement with words kept her going. Every day she was going from crest to crest, scaling peaks with aplomb.
We had our share of fights too. If I was too busy to send her a message for an hour, she would complain. There were many times that I forgot to inform her of every detail of my days. She was annoyed. “You know what, I expect at least a blank SMS from you every one hour, just to tell me that you are missing me.” I used to tease her that she suffered from IRDD (incurably romantic disposition disorder!)
“You pretty well know what kind of life I have Meeta. Our lifestyles are so different. You don’t use a public transport and I do that. You have holidays, vacations, but I have none.”
That led to an argument, and then the lady was flooded with tears.
That led to an argument, and then the lady was flooded with tears. I always felt guilty that I made her cry so much. I never wanted her to shed tears, but she always ended up crying.
Was I pulling her heartstrings too much?
“I curse you, Babu, that if someday I die, no one will inform you. Who knows that I love you? No one. You’ll get to know of my death at least ten days after it happens.”
“Please stop it. How can you be so selfish?” Then it took me an hour to get her back to normalcy.
I used to get bouts of my painful past sometimes and spoil her mood. She never wanted me to talk of the past…
I used to get bouts of my painful past sometimes and spoil her mood. She never wanted me to talk of the past and told me it’s ‘boring’ to carry the baggage of the past all the time. I retorted, “That boring is harsh. I know you’ll be put off, but just because the past isn’t present, that doesn’t mean being oblivious as if it never existed. There are greater memories, people and hurts given and received. Accept me today and you accept one whose yesterdays have shaped today’s. It will be sometime before they are relegated to memory. Your call—Prof. Madhvi or Meeta?” But then, she was upset and silent, and I had to boost her up. I wrote, “I am no kid like you to pout lips at every small thing. One of the basic reasons why I respect you is your indomitable spirit. I would have crumbled long back given your kind of ordeals, leave alone reading or writing. Over-sensitivity is my bane.”
After every fight, she would come back to me. I thought she should resent me some day for the tightened boundaries of my existence, for being the reason for her best years being drained away from her. Were there days when she wanted to be free of me? No, there weren’t any. I was always wrong.
And I would write, “Meeta, life has taught me certain things….”
And I would write, “Meeta, life has taught me certain things. There is no religion but the voice of conscience. Do right action, irrespective of short-term consequences. Forgive wrongdoers but take lessons from wrong done; one doesn’t have a right even to expose oneself to repeated wrongs. Nurture things one holds dear, even if reciprocity in material terms isn’t possible. Finally, each one is a lonely planet. I apply these and search for no further meaning or casual connection in life.”
“Oh my God Babu! I’ll take seven births to be as gyani, I mean intelligent!!”
The very fact that we were in love, kept us alive.
The very fact that we were in love, kept us alive. From thirty-nine, we got to forty-nine, fifty-nine, thus, we grew older together. She would murmur my name, hold her breath, and wait for an echo, almost sure that it would emanate one day. We understood well that we are all condemned to be aliens to each other, forever stuck down in isolated glass vessels and then we call it the ‘self’. Still, the ‘selves’ of me and Meeta were never at odds with each other. She told me all about her life, her family and friends, relatives and colleagues, as though I had known them all my life. As though she and I had grown up together, gone on family holidays and summer camps to the seaside where we had made sand houses and touched each other’s fingers under the wet sand.
As I said earlier, I commented on each piece of her writing all these years. I selected the best picture among all the pictures she had mailed for a girl for her son. Her son wanted her to select the girl for his wedding, and she wanted me to do that. Eventually Siddharth married her! I selected the cover pages of her books, read each piece of interview she wrote, suggested colours for her saris and interior designers for her home.
I was constantly present in her life, through thick and thin. Elegance hailed upon her, with age, as though it were a genetic dexterity.
* * *
Suddenly my world seems to be shattered today; there is an unknown fear lurking in the mind. Because, like Meeta, I haven’t mastered the art of pushing the envelope and taking life in my stride.
Today is Meeta’s 65th birthday, and she has not been taking my calls…
Today is Meeta’s 65th birthday, and she has not been taking my calls, not responding to my mails since a week. Whom shall I ask? Is she out of country? But she always informs me; in fact I plan most of her trips.
So why is this long silence? I can’t take it. I know none of her family members or colleagues closely so that I can just call up and ask about her. Neither do I have any other number. She’s completely inaccessible. I am worried, upset.
Is my Meeta unwell and doesn’t want to inform me, like she did the last time?
The calm between us looked like a perpetuation of our bonding.
The calm between us looked like a perpetuation of our bonding. We were like two leaves of a plant propelling miles away from each other by a fierce wind yet assured by the deep intertwined origins of the plant from which we both had dropped.
* * *
Someone in the department was reading out an old news from Delhi, reprinted in a newspaper in my city after a week.
“Distinguished poet and social worker, Late Prof. Madhvi Srivastava, has expressed her desire in her Will that her house may be converted to a Home-for-the-Differently-Abled. She has dedicated her library and her publishing house to the common mass and both of those are now looked after by her son, Mr. Siddharth Srivastava. Prof. Madhavi passed away on 17th of this month due to cardiac arrest, after being treated in Moolchand Hospital for three days. We pay our deep homage to the departed soul.”
I was devastated. There was a throbbing pain in my head.
I was devastated. There was a throbbing pain in my head. I was just going out of the staff room when the office peon handed over a huge packet.
I went home, quiet.
There are so many poems and a letter, written in her neat hands, which perhaps she had given Siddharth to post; for the first time any third person coming between us. I read one:
“I am a bud, pulled off the branch. Where is my redemption? I am Mira. Oh Krishna! You are elsewhere In the thoroughfares in your chariot. My feet stirring to a conduit unversed but the tap-tap of each heartbeat every string of my being constrained in the sludge of the artery’s ribcage. Amend me like a limestone sculpture. Place me in your familiar city.”
I sit quietly for a while, the air around me thick with discomfort…
I sit quietly for a while, the air around me thick with discomfort and my awareness of all the time lost, all prospects squandered away.
And then this letter… my eyes are blinded with tears.
But let this love remain veiled even now. You have given me a beautiful life.
“Babu, my dearest one, when I cursed you that you’ll get to know about my death after ten days, I never meant that. I am dying. I can make a phone call now, and can ask Siddharth to call you. But let this love remain veiled even now. You have given me a beautiful life. Years back I met you with a vacuum in my eyes, and you filled that with your love. Time is flying away, snatching my breaths. I am receding, like river waters, like mountain tops. I am going back, like the water bearing clouds. Now I am defenseless. Why do I still remember my compassionate lover when I am free of every desire? Thank you, for giving me such a beautiful life. You have been to me–my life, love, happiness. Will you drape me in your arms, at least now?
I am sorry, you need me more now, because you are going to retire this year. Don’t feel lonely. Live a good life. I am sending you some of my incomplete research work; complete the work, as you have always done. These are some of my poems written in the last few months. I dedicate those to you. You can compile all and publish my fifteenth poetry collection posthumously. Now that I am leaving, you can come to my city, see my home that you have designed, see my publishing house that I created under your guidance. See the children, the poor, who are living happily in my Home and using our library. Touch my wardrobe, all my saris are familiar, aren’t they? Give those away to the needy. I am sending my floral yellow-blue suit, your favorite, for keep-sake. I haven’t washed it even after wearing if for a couple of times as you wanted it to retain my jasmine flavour. And then my grey slippers, that I wore for past thirty-five years; you know… I had those even before I met you! They are yours.
I had never been completely Madhvi, or absolutely Meeta.
I had never been completely Madhvi, or absolutely Meeta. I spent an entire lifetime thinking about my identity; but somehow, I learnt to live this hyphenated life organically. But let me tell you, since I met you, the ‘Meeta’ sensibilities have seeped into my identity and personality. I have never been paranoid about ‘Madhvi’ or ‘Meeta’ losing identity because of each other; you never let that happen.
Today I am far in the expanse, amid a cobalt stroke of sprays, in front of my eyes, a golden haze. I still hark back to you from a sky of molten gold.
Yours forever, Meeta”
Concluded
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