Sirop de Vanille

The Monsoons were testing the waters before they come crashing down on Delhi. Almost like providing the city a preview, like those paid pre-premier shows!

So, them Monsoons, teased everyone with drizzles…soft soft raindrops caressed the leaves, the blades of grass painting them a serene green. Then they came crashing down! Hailstorms… Dust storms… Lightning. Thunder. Crazed impassioned rain poured relentlessly and she stared. They all did. They inhaled the smell of Rain, of Earth. She saw the Earth welcoming the rain in happy abandon. The trees swayed dangerously, drunk. Delhi smiled and laughed and sang with the rain. She stared on like a hopeless romantic. She stared on, thinking of how gorgeous the 7th floor terrace would be – drenched and glistening and glowing. Satiated. She smiled lazily, and stretched, and inhaled the earth, the raindrops, the air laden with sweet moisture, the green leaves and the drunk trees. She inhaled it all and smiled. She reached out for the packet, pulled one out and put it to her lips. She used her ridiculous “jet flame” lighter and lit it. She took a long long drag and exhaled slowly, savouring it, staring at the smoke cling to the rain drops… Cling. She blinked involuntarily and then strained, strained to see them drops pitter-patter on the window sill. She exhaled more smoke in their direction and smiled. The ash safely tucked away in the belly of a frog. The brass ashtray shaped like a frog, her favourite. Over-used at a point of time, when she used to curl up on her bed and read for hours. Now she didn’t have time. Time… she exhaled. She double clicked the Winamp icon and sat back in the overstuffed armchair. The ashtray perched on one of the huge arms, and ‘Home’ taking over her tiny room. She rolled her eyes as her neighbour tried to spy on her, from her balcony, AGAIN. She muttered to herself, ‘Whoever designed this building needed professional help! Bloody perv!’. Then, she waved at the stunned neighbour. She laughed and turned away from the window, and walked purposefully out of her room.

She felt like chai. Chai – sugary-sweet-over-brewed, gingered, peppered, cloved, cinnamoned and cardamomed chai! She lit another cigarette while it brewed, and made a mental note to buy another pack once the rain subsides. She made another mental note – Smoking too much. Way too much. She walked towards the kitchen window and peered out of it… she inhaled… a heady concoction of Delhi and the Rain attacking the dry dry earth. She poured the chai and carried the cup out to the balcony. It had subsided to a drizzle… She leaned back into the cane chair and stared at the rain drops in the light of the 60 watt Philips bulb. Yellow. She closed her eyes and let the wind play with her hair, her face, her. Him, she thought of him, again. All she could think of was him. His eyes, his smile, his lips… those lips… she smiled involuntarily… the butterflies in the stomach had become way too familiar over the past few days. “You look so pretty…” ” You are glowing!” “You are so gorgeous” She loved compliments, she pretended not to but she did. She liked the attention from him. She really did. She took a sip of the chai and closed her eyes again. He had made tea for her, really nice tea. They had parked themselves in front of the television, watching random sitcoms, smoking and drinking themselves silly. Thinking sanely was a problem. Daydreaming was a problem. Missing him was a problem. The obsession was scary. So much for her arguments against mad passionate love. It was supposed to not exist. None of it was supposed to exist. Not in real life, at least. Fiction. Fiction was taking over her life. Her friends giggled when they saw her with him – whispering lyrics in his ear; they aww-ed when she would continue staring at him across the room and not hear a single word about their “problems”. They were all relegated to the background, covered with a thick grey haze – was it the smoke? They all faded in and out of her vision – melting away like an untouched scoop of vanilla ice cream in Delhi summers. She looked at them through rain-stained glass… they were far far away and she could just lean on him, run her hands through his hair, hold his hand and play with his unevenly cut nails, tell him she’ll file his nails later, and know that they’ll never get the time… She could graze his skin with her lip-glossed-lips… She could smell him even now. She forced her eyes open and took a gulp of the tea. Cold. She went back to the kitchen and microwaved it. She thought of the last time he was here – they had cooked microwave Maggi, fried sausages in butter and chilly and oregano, because of course he had complained of them being too bland. She looked at herself in the mirror and thought, ‘how am I ever going to lose weight?’ and started laughing when she remembered what he had said… Remembered. It was easy to remember… it wasn’t easy to explain. But it was easy to remember every little detail. They laughed like idiots. Actually, she was the idiot. He was the smart one. She rolled her kohl-ed eyes at the thought. She took another sip, and smoked. Smoke. She walked towards the mirror and put the cigarette to her lips, trying very hard to not pose. He made her smoke when they were together, and stared. He stared too much. She laughed and choked on the smoke, she stared like a little puppy. All the time. It was hard to explain how or why… It was just what was. She couldn’t figure him out, but then she hadn’t even succeeded at figuring herself out. She exhaled and smiled, ‘hot’ . Maybe? She threw her head back and laughed, she heard her mother call out to her. She opened the door to her bedroom and blew smoke into her room. Her mother started yelling at her to get out, “I’ve just switched on the AC! Bloody Idiot. Get out! And stop smoking! You’ll never have kids.”

“That’s the idea”, she replied and shut the door, before the diatribe could begin.

She rolled her eyes. Happy, happy her. Happy him. Happy them. A nice little happy family. ‘Maybe I made you up in my head’ – Plath’s words flashed in front of her eyes. Her knuckles turned a startling white as she tightened her hold on the rickety chair. It couldn’t be now, could it? He was there, he was. She had seen him, she had been with him, he had recited poetry to her… But maybe, she had made up the world in her head. Maybe?

Scars, all she could see were scars – past, present and future scars. Slash, slash, slash. Clean neat slashes, ugly jagged slashes, those that bled, those that just hurt, those that opened up a crazy world and wouldn’t stop bleeding. Faint, dark, deep, ugly, beautiful, reminders of things that need to be forgotten… Scars… Beautiful scars, allowing her to breathe. Allowing her to forget. Forget what was, what could be, what wouldn’t be. ‘Maybe I made you up in my head’, she hated her for sending her those poems. She hated her for insisting that she think it through. She hated them for being over-protective, and scaring him away. They scared him away…

She slipped on a full sleeves shirt and picked up her bag. Soon, she would be far far away. Or would she? She drove on, the wind attacking her gorgeous hair. She drove on, even when the lights turned red. She rolled her eyes as an SUV missed her narrowly. “Why don’t you just hit me!”, she cursed. Her dark eyes glistened with un-shed tears and she accelerated. No one will even notice if I’m gone. Her cell phone started ringing. She angrily disconnected the call and threw it on the back seat. Escaping another collision, she drove on… The left sleeve slowly staining with drops of crimson… she lit a smoke and winced as the pain spread through her entire arm. Her parched lips held on to the cigarette as she tried to roll up her sleeve… The phone started ringing again. She pulled over and reached for it, waiting for the familiar voice to yell at her or coax her into coming back. The familiar voice sounded tired, very tired. She barked into the phone, “I’m driving and I can’t deal with all this. Later, alright?”

She sat in the car for a long time. Smoking cigarette after cigarette, she gobbled up a few Tylenols while she was at it. She thought of how ridiculous everything was as it started to rain. She looked at the raindrops wiping the city clean of all its wrongs, leaving it in a gorgeous pristine state.

If only it were that easy… if only it was possible… she thought before she dozed off at the wheel.