Missing August...

Every evening he sits near the bay window of his apartment. He has a water bottle in his hands, a PET plastic water bottle. Framed by pale dusty blue curtains on either side, he sits in an old rocking chair. The guards at the gate always salute him when he goes by. The dog on the groundfloor -that belongs to no-one but the building- always wags his tail at him. The shopkeepers nod when he walks upto them. But I have rarely seen him say a word.

Twice I have stood face to face with him. Once while going upstairs in the rusty old elevator that has two doors; a normal wooden, another a grill-shutter. And the other time it was at the neighborhood chemist, where I had gone to buy a strip of nimesulide to stifle my terrible headache, and he had just paid for a bottle of calmpose. I looked at him, and he looked at me. But there was no apparent sense of recognition. I waited for the chemist to give back the change, by that time he had gone.

When I come back in the evening, he is always there. Just below the gulmohar tree at the corner where the road bends and starts its ascent, he leaves some chapatis that have dried in the day. While I go towards my apartment, he seemingly goes for his evening stroll. I have never followed him, perhaps someday I will.

He seems to have a collection of classical records. When I fiddle with the remote and flick the channels, I always hear random notes in the small silence that ensues between the program shuffles. Its like a series of arbit programs punctuated by dottted symphonies. Sometimes the music is so intense, that I switch off the TV just to listen. And I know he loves listening to the wail of the violas, and the lament of the cellos, for many a nights i have drifted away to sleep; comforted by the sounds of the dripping tap in the kitchen, and the music from his apartment.

There is a maid that comes to clean his flat and also perhaps cooks for him. He doesnt look much of a cook himself. Once in the evening there was some smoke that seeped out of his kitchen exhaust. It smelt like burnt toast. Perhaps the maid, didnt turn up that day.

The monsoon seems to be exhausted. The rain-fallen rhododendrons do not line the roads, and the yellow cannas have turned brown with the unwashed dust. The fresh smell of rain has become precious again. The valley of flowers in the mountains back home, would have started to wane. The only added beauty is the night, when the skies are once again clearer and one can see the stars weaving their own stories.

Tonight I sit with the guitar at my window, he is at his bay window again reading a thick book. Sometimes I feel as if he looked at me. But everytime I look up, I find his eyes poring over the pages, straining under the faint yellow light. His fingers move deftly over the pages, evidently a speed reading technique referred to in the How to Read Better and Faster.

I wave at him, but again there is no response. As always he doesnt see me.

~ ~ ~

We cross ways every evening near the Gulmohar tree. I recognise the tired footsteps even before he appears at my side of the bend. He walks with dragging feet that plop softly on the street, and then fade inside the block while I wait for the dogs with the uneaten chapatis prepared earlier in the morning.

I think he has tried to communicate with me. Of what the newsreaders keep referring these days as a connect between people, I think he makes a weak attempt at it. But I am not sure. He has a nice voice. The other day when I was at the pharmacy buying my prescription of Calmpose, I happened to hear him. His vowels are well rounded and his consonants clear, so he cannot be working in the BPO's that have mushroomed all over the place these days. His is an energetic voice, perky and vibrant. But then his footsteps gave away the fact that he was tired even before he uttered a word.

At times his TV is turned way too loud. And he doesn't even stick to one channel. The disruption in volume levels, sometimes becomes too jarring for the string quintets, that accompany me when I cook. But then youth brings with itself an impunity to the world and we assume little universes revolving around ourselves. An illusion which fades when we grow older and have to ask the cleaning maid to send someone to cook in the evening. And a delusion that grows, when the cook burns your chapatis and leaves them like that. But perhaps that is the way things are.

Today I broke my favorite record, The Four Seasons by Vivaldi , it just slipped off my hands. So I had to go through the horrid task of gathering, what I ironically think of as the fragments of a song. And then the only way to pass the late-monsoon eve, was to retire with a book. He is trying to play some tune on a guitar, his voice floats some words into the september air. Words that I dont remember, but am familiar with. The last of the monsoon breezes is up. The air, fresh and colder, perhaps because there are no clouds in the sky.

On a similar evening 5 years back, I was listening to the 3rd concerto in F major. Sitting on the same rocking chair, reading a book and waiting for the pasta to warm in the oven. The adagio was punctuated by a sudden piercing shriek from the oven. I don't remember clearly of what happened after the time I opened the oven door. But when I opened my eyes, I could hear the final notes of the concluding allegro, while my world faded away into oblivion. Doctors said that the microwave burst from the oven damaged my cornea. I am not too sure of what happened, i just lost my eyes.

I don't miss much of my earlier life. Not having any family helped in being independent. I still cook for myself. I still listen to Vivaldi. But I do miss the red rhododendrons that line the concrete roads in august monsoon showers, and I do miss the yellow canna blooms that once every morning greeted with monsoon dew on their fresh faces. I still sit with books, with music playing in the background. It's just that now my fingers do the reading.

You see, there is so much that can be taken from life, and there is so much that cannot be compensated. So everytime I listen to the 3rd Concerto, I know that there will be something that I can never have back. Something as common as the colors of the August blossoms which bloom only in memory. Or the pure joy of Vivaldi, which is now punctuated with a little hint of regret. But then life always goes on, as the seasons do change. And we become what we have to at the cost of what we are.

My neighbor in the meanwhile, tries to make his guitar sing. A song that perhaps, he himself does not know. His words are washed away by the breeze, but I know the timbre of his tune. I know there is an August for him to miss. Just like everyone of us.

Note: Started it long-long back. And it began with the title, which just drifted into my mind one september eve. The characters took shape in the ensuing time. And yesternight at the bay-window I saw the structure, I wanted. Everything else was born then, and all of it is here now.

Date of Posting: 31 October 2006.