Dreams

 

Part I

I was in Kerala , I had gone to visit one of my teachers. Strangely she recollects my face quite instantly.Teachers I tell you , I wonder how come she does, It’s been so long.

Teacher : “Aah you are the same guy who used to be silent. You were 5 years old but you still would always tag along holding one girl close to you. Do you remember her”

Me: “I don’t recollect her name, but I think you know the reason I am here.” ('’Teachers’ I think deeply looking at her out of focus, so devastating to the shields of our minds some times, they get into our heads and read.

Its been 25 years since I last met anyone from “Holy Family’ Alathur. Alathur was a nice place, probably the busiest city in Palakkad back then, famous for the fried banana chips and Halwa. The chips would make you a fan and the Halwa would make you want a little more but the oil overload and the thought of acidity hitting you would stop your thoughts of any further indulgence.

Teacher: “Wait let me call her, lets see if she recollects you.”

Me: “This I got to see first hand.” Whatever be the reason, no one has ever been able to forget me so far in life. I am quite surprised why, I wasn't the best person they knew or the worst. Minds strange things they are indeed.

Teacher: “She said she remembers your name, but nothing more than that, she will be right over, her house is five minutes down the road.”

Me: “ Hey ask her to bring her husband along, It will be great to meet him as well.” (Suddenly my mind was a 5 year old, holding a popsicle, jumping with glee as if there was no tomorrow, yet that voice didn’t have that joy and I didn’t know why., and teachers I’ll tell you used to be quite sharp at noticing these small things when I was a kid. To them it was about what they loved doing, not the paycheck as most teachers are concerned about today.

She looked at my eyes, all round, lit up, yet my voice somehow had despair.

Teacher: “She is coming alone, she hasn't married”

The fuses that had blown up darkening the sparkle of my eyes suddenly seem to kick in bringing the light back in them. I was 30 single by choice. There were so many women I was involved with but never more than an hour at most. It just felt all wrong. Earlier when I was 14 I would count the number of women I would have been in bed with, and also the number of times. Then the list  grew and grew and I stopped counting. Trust me when you are 16 there is nothing worse than your mother finding one of your black books, can be quite embarrassing.

Summers in Kerala, they are not the best but there is something you could do to beat the heat, I was a survivalist, I had been thrashed, drowned, dumped in the desert been hit and run in the dark alleys of Mumbai, but I had survived. My right arm sometimes pains, I guess a glock at point blank pumping 3 bullets linearly with them smashing through the bone marrow can do that to you. It had healed but the mark remained, the memory remained, the pain.. does pain ever go away, It does if the one shooting you is someone you don’t know. Not if it’s your best friend. Apparently K.K was.