Dustbin Decor

The clothes were laid neatly

On the rim of the dustbin

Adorning its inner walls to seamlessly merge

With the garbage and resident cat inside.

A new sight in the hostel corridor, shocked

By the deliberate aesthetic of its fetid corner.

She immediately recognized the clothes

as hers.

Then she checked herself.

She had given them away only yesterday.

They were not hers anymore.

She felt the distinct loss of ownership

She was leaving the hostel for good

There was lots she had to leave behind

So she had asked

Jibi Didi who was cleaning the bathrooms

Would she take them?

Did she know someone who would wear them?

The second query followed the first,

The demand to productively reuse precious clothes

Masquerading as a normative ‘would’.

After all, Jibi was still wearing the Power chappals

She had given her six months ago, to gain

Patronizing satisfaction from a discarded lovers’ footwear.

But now her clothes were decorating the dustbin

Material she had so lovingly collected

In combinations only she enjoyed.

Retextured with new layers

Of yellow dal and blood from sanitary pads

A cadaverous ode to her dissident fashion.

Her roommate noticed the dustbin’s new gilding

With contained yet unquestionably legitimate indignation.

‘What was Jibi trying to prove?’

The corridor’s other fashionistas also chimed in

‘If she didn’t want the clothes she could have just said no.’

Her cultured outrage for ruined belongings was validated.

Then she bumped into Jibi on the stairs

looking at her

With what her champagne-socialist conscience

Could only fathom as dignified disappointment.

She couldn’t show Jibi her anger, she didn’t have any of

The power she thought she would have in that moment.

She reminded herself that the clothes were not hers anymore

Instead

She was an example

Of all she theorized against and made a living of.

How could her theories stand?

If her outrage only extended to Dustbin décor?

The Light at the End of the Tunnel

I cannot put into words how desperately I'm looking forward to the inauguration of the metro line which will take me to north campus from home.

In our first year of college, taking two buses, a metro half the way, then either cycling or taking a cycle rickshaw or walking to college was such a novel experience. We would try all kinds of bus routes and spend money on autos and explore all the possible eating joints and galleries and tombs and concert halls of Delhi. That was when we didn't have many heavy readings to carry (or chose not to carry them) or library books to return. In second year we had very little left to explore and spent the first two months trying to discover the shortest and cheapest routes home. By the time the year ended, we realized how much time out of the calender just traveling to and fro (60 km a day) had taken. We, unlike the lucky blokes in residence, didn't have the luxury of afternoon naps or chai breaks or reading more than a book a week. Oh no.

But now, everything will be beautiful again! Our days will have 24 hours in them instead of 20 again! I can read on the way to college again! I can wake up and see others awake around me and even hope to get a seat on the way back home! Ah, such happiness and, more than anything else, relief.

They said they would inaugurate it on the 15th. We were counting down the days and putting extra cash into our smart cards thinking we'd need them for the extra miles but on the golden day we were met with heavy disappointment. They weren't ready.

Now they've promised us that everything will be ready by the 31st of this month. I anxiously look out of the bus windows on the way back everyday to check on their progress. What if they're not done by the month end? No. I will not think about it. I will only think about the happiness that awaits me at the metro station next Tuesday morning! A forty five minute journey to DU.

Choo choo!

Rain

There is something strangely adventurous and spooky about the rain. It tells you stories about ages long past. It evokes nostalgia in the soil. It takes from you all your excitement and thoughts and displays them to you in those peculiar raindrops, those million different mirrors showing you so much more than just your reflection.

A couple of days ago, I stood along with fifty others under the tiny roof of a milk store, looking at the rain, watching each drop fall and then mingle with others on the ground in great anticipation and then flow along in turbulent happiness. They viewed the whole world through the moonlight as they fell down upon it and had so many experiences to share as they merged into each other. I wanted to be there with them, seeing what they had seen, feeling what they felt, living as they fell down and living more as they moved together.

Baapre. How many things I want.

After standing under the roof of the milk shop for fifteen minutes, I decided to join those raindrops. It was like heaven, walking in the rain clinging on to the bag with the lota that I had just filled with newly bought milk.

They saw everything, those raindrops. How much this day meant for me, how much it meant for everyone else. I wonder whether they’ll carry memories of me with them, carry them and take them elsewhere, carry them as they come back again.