Trips

Even as a kid, Adarsh knew that his life was different.

In school, he listened to his mates’ daily reports about their life outside. Mostly, it was the same repeated over and over, about parties, fights with siblings, shopping trips, visitors, gifts and punishment. He thought of it as a prop or a background rather than drama itself since everything sounded plausible and the fabricated sounded empty. He tried to be a good audience, listening well, applauding and cheering politely. For him and, strangely, for the others too, it was like a TV break for meaningless commercials waiting for the main show. During the first week after every vacation, the stage was his and his alone, and did he deliver to his large young audience.

He remembered his first when he told them about a picnic deep within equatorial forests, by the bank of virgin rivers, with uncharted rapids and the eyes of tribal headhunters, orang utan and vicious reptiles following him and his parents. His mother and her magical rustic spread of tapioca, hot fish curry and other delicacies on a checked red-white sheet; his father disappearing behind water-falls, holding his breath underwater for endless minutes; he told them the believable truth, even admitting how he preferred to sit in shallow waters, with precocious caution and cloudy thoughts.

He never had to repeat a place or a trip. He took them to cold mountains and secluded cabins with wild animals howling outside; the big cities and the high rises with the hustling bustling masses; the exclusive beaches and the resorts, the shopping for the latest and the best, the exotic and the shady. As they grew older, his trips matured and they got what they wanted to hear. He made them giggle at strange customs and perversions, wonder with wide-eyes about smoke-filled rooms and falling casino chips, drool over 14-course meals with snake-meat, shark-fins and tender-tortoise, or lick their young lush lips lasciviously listening to the sounds of boulevards where everywhere everyone had a price for everything.

In the ninth-grade, Shanthi became his soul-mate. She was part of his audience but to him, she seemed different from the others. Though he found it disconcerting, he liked the thought that she understood him. After each vacation, on-stage, he would search for her dusky form, try to read her dark soft eyes, the smile on her lips, interpret her gestures or the way she sat or twirled her straight black hair with her fingers. Off-stage, they talked, exchanged ideas and shared thoughts.

That year, just before the long summer break, she invited him to her house for her birthday party. He broke his piggy bank and got for her a cuddly monkey, a pendant, a book and a CD with music compiled just for her. He wanted to give her everything. He felt uncomfortable in his new clothes, kept fidgeting with his hair the whole afternoon and tried to get to her house on time, not too early, not too late.

She received him at the door, blushed and accepted his gifts. She made him feel special, giving him company more than the others and later, she took him inside, to the dining area, where her parents were busy arranging the dishes. She introduced him. They too seemed really glad to see him.

Her father kept a hand on his shoulder, like friends. Her mother gave him a kind smile and enquired, ‘Are your parents in town?’

Adarsh shook his head. Her father asked him, ‘Shanthi told us that their jobs take them to lots of places. What do they do?’

Adarsh told him about his parents’ jobs. Shanthi took him upstairs to show the bedroom she shared with her sisters. She held his hand and told him,

‘I know you are lonely but I don’t want you to feel that way ever again, ok?’

They returned to their mates and joined in the good cheer. Adarsh felt a heaviness creeping in with each passing moment. By the time he left Shanthi’s house, he was rather breathless and quite numb. He reached his house, sweating profusely as if with high fever. He collapsed on to his usual seat by the bedroom window, with a view of empty streets and shuttered windows, curled up beneath a blanket, clenching the thick material, staring outside seeing nothing.

Shanthi’s words and that of her parents kept echoing in his mind. He felt confused and angry. She had betrayed his trust. He did not want her to evaluate him or to discuss his affairs with anyone. He did not want to be judged or condemned; evaluated or consoled; he did not want anyone to tell him about his life, a life he liked to pick, choose and create; he did not want others to enter or guess those parts which he considered to be irrelevant. He wanted to share his life; he did not want them to change it.

‘What does she know about my life?’ he screamed in that empty room, snarling with spit frothing at the sides of his mouth.

There was a knock at his bedroom room. Bhaskar, the old cook-and-caretaker-and-distant-relative, came in with a glass of chocolate milk and asked Adarsh,

‘Are you feeling ok, son?’

Adarsh nodded and the old man left silently. He really liked the old couple, Bhaskar and his wife. Those two and the driver-handyman Kishore gave him everything – company, care and conversation. Adarsh sipped the drink and relaxed, allowing the earlier thoughts to slip away into the dark night like unwelcome guests, to be forgotten forever.

That summer, his parents had arranged to meet him at Cargèse. He travelled alone to Paris, took a shuttle bus from the Charles de Gaulle airport to Orly, and barely got the flight to Corsica. His father was waiting for him at the airport at Ajaccio. They had cappuccino and pastry while they waited for his mother to arrive on the next flight. The 50-km car-ride from the airport to their seaside resort cottage at Cargèse took about an hour. The three caught up on each other’s life. They planned to stay together over there for two weeks.

As per his parents’ arrangements, Adarsh attended a youth camp every morning. He enjoyed trekking, swimming and exploring the island-village with the other youngsters. On the fourth day, when he got to the camp, he was informed that it was a holiday. He trudged back to the resort. He went up to his parents’ side of the cottage. There was a ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign on the door, probably meant for cleaning ladies. He walked away trying to decide what to do on his own till lunch-time.

He walked towards the two churches in the village. He sat outside, between the Greek and the Latin churches that face each other. He smiled at the thought of being a middleman taking messages from one divine authority to the other. After a while, he got up and took the road past the cottages, moving slowly towards the sea-facing cliff.

He stood there at the edge, timing the waves that pounded the jagged cliff walls, counting the smooth weather-worn rocks appearing and disappearing, waved at yachts in the calm blue sea stretching till the far away misty hills.

He felt the old thoughts return, his breathing got heavy and he felt his mind go numb. He cursed Shanthi softly but kindly. Maybe, this time, he will not take the stage and tell them about this place and this trip. Will Shanthi still want to be my mate, he wondered. He thought of a new life off-stage forever. He knew that he had to move away from the edge, to lead that new life; or, to continue and reenter the stage and talk about his trips; or, on that edge, if he thinks about his life, if he trips…