Zero Degree Read online

  Now a different story comes to mind, that my friend Thirumalai once told me.

  A man came to Perumal and demanded, “Dey, Ranga! When am I going to get my nirvana, Ranga?”

  “How can I give you nirvana?” replied Perumal. “To attain nirvana requires knowledge, faith, and karma. You have absolutely zero knowledge, zero faith. As for karma, you even dare to disrespect me, calling me Dey. How can I send you on to nirvana?”

  “Dey, Ranga, Ranga, do I really have to explain this to you? Listen, let me tell you a story. A very rich man announced that he was going to give away all his gold coins to the poor. Every poor person came, carrying winnows, pots, and sacks to have filled with gold coins, except for a lone man who came empty-handed. ‘Why haven’t you brought anything to carry the gold?’ asked the rich man. The empty-handed man replied, ‘Aiya, you are giving us real gold. Can’t you give us something to carry it in, as well?’ I say the same thing to you, Ranga. You’re going to gift me the priceless nirvana. So don’t start demanding that I have the knowledge to understand it, the faith to believe in it and the karma to achieve it. Just gift it!”

  I lack that depth of faith Genny. I live in an age deprived of God, love, and faith.

  Humans and their doctrines terrify me, just as much as if I had landed on Earth from another planet.

  I have no idea where I am headed on this journey. I don’t know if I will ever see you again.

  The train speeds along.

  MY LITTLE PRINCESS GENNY,

  I have reached Delhi. I had a cold-water bath and set out for a walk in zero visibility. Around me everything was white with fog. Some pavement dwellers were warming themselves by a fire made from wood and dry leaves. I stood with them, warming my hands.

  For some reason, a poem by Vannadhasan popped into my head. I couldn’t remember the exact words, only the essence. A man with a fortune-telling parrot called out, “My parrot knows how to speak.” Parrots don’t speak. A bird’s nature is to fly. Why does a chick born to a caged parrot have wings?

  I walked to Connaught place. I liked the soundlessness of the atmosphere. All along the way I saw people walking around biting into raw white radishes. I walked up to the radish vendor. He scraped the radish, slit it, rubbed masala powder and squeezed lemon onto it before he gave it to me. Now I too was walking around biting into my radish, like the rest. There were a few policemen around a car at Regal Cinema. Inside the car there were some people eating something off a paper plate. “How can you park your car in such a busy place? Give me your license,” said a policeman. They replied, “We are hungry, Saab, so we are eating.” They continued to argue. Finally a man in the car said melodramatically, “Saab, see, I’m holding the plate in this hand and I’m eating with the other. How can I pull out my license? In the time I’ve spent arguing with you, I could have finished eating. I’m sorry we wasted your time; we’ll be done and off in a minute.” The policemen laughed and walked away. Just at that moment a mahout came by with his elephant. A silk cloth, twisted into a rope with bells tied to the ends, hung over its back. As the elephant moved the bells went tun, tun.

  I remembered a Kalidasa poem that Thirumalai had told me—no, not a poem, a story. Actually, I’m not sure if it’s really by Kalidasa. Thirumalai has been known to mix up authors.

  The poets in the court of King Boja, jealous of the friendship between the king and Kalidasa, challenged him to prove his mastery of words by completing the line: Tun, tun, tun, tadun, tun…

  Kalidasa said, “Oh King Boja, your lover is just climbing up the steps of the tank after her bath, in her wet clothes, carrying a pot of water, when she sees you. Surprised and happy, but also bashful, she lets go of the pot, which goes rolling down the steps of the tank: tun, tun, tun, tadun… tun. But, my dear King, I cannot say for sure what the meaning of that last tun is; you alone can tell us. Is it the sound of the pot falling upright on the last step, or is it the sound of her losing her heart to you forever?”

  Every day, little girl, I think of the Taj Mahal. I remember that morning well. I was shaving. You were just waking up. Your first question to me was, “Appa, when will you die?”

  Not expecting such an assault so early in the morning, I turned sharply, and blood appeared on my cheek. “Why do you ask, my dear?”

  You said, “When you die, I want to build a Taj Mahal for you.”

  Do you remember, Genny? What can I give you in return for that love, my dear?

  And what about that time you started crying because you didn’t want to go out and buy cigarettes for your mother’s male friends? My heart broke for you, my dear.

  TO MY LITTLE PRINCESS:

  Nights here in Delhi are always extraordinary. The night before last we walked from Ashoka Hotel to Karol Bagh—around nine kilometers. Then last night, we went for a dinner at Pragati Maidan with around 450 old men and women. A few starlets were hanging around spilling artificial smiles for the crowd and having their photos taken. Surya, though, stood outside the maidan; he was not allowed inside. I told him I’d go in, procure an extra invitation, and send it out for him. I did, but he still didn’t come inside. So I came back out again. When I asked him why he was being such a pain in the ass, he told me a story from the Mahabharata.

  “During the period of their exile, the Pandavas have to get across a pond. A Yaksha is standing guard over the pond. ‘In order to cross over this pond, you must answer my questions correctly,’ he tells them, ‘otherwise, you will drown.’ Except for Yudhishthira, all the other Pandavas, confident of their powers, ignore the warning, step into the pond, and are drowned. Yudhishthira alone comes forward to hear the questions, and answers them all successfully. The Yaksha, pleased, promises to give Yudhishthira anything he wants. Yudhishthira asks for Sahadeva to be brought back to life. The Yaksha is surprised and asks, ‘Why would you ask not for your own full brothers, but for your half-brother?’ To which Yudhishthira replies, ‘Of the sons born to my mother, I am still alive; so that a son may remain for my step-mother, I ask for Sahadeva.’ The Yaksha, impressed with Yudhishthira’s selflessness, brings all the other Pandavas back to life. At the time of Yudhishthira’s conception, his mother Kunti was thinking about Yama; nobody can ever defeat Yama, and therefore nobody can defeat Yudhishthira, either. The Yakshan at the pond, too, was Yama.

  “And among our group, it is you who are Yama,” Surya said. “I gave the invite you sent out to the others in our group.”

  We left the party and took the bus to Munirka, near JNU. It was midnight. We asked every car that passed us for a lift but nobody would pick us up.

  It was cold enough to freeze the blood. Had humans lost all capacity to care for others? “If only Dostoevsky had come by in his car at this moment, he would have said ‘Forgive me my friends, had I come earlier you would not have had to struggle so much. Tell me where you want to go, and I’ll take you there.’ Wouldn’t he have?” said Surya.

  A few days back we went to Varanasi. I will never forget that Chamundi Temple for as long as I live. That huge scorpion, with its stinger piercing the stomach of the Goddess! It seemed to me that all the sorrows of the millions of women of India were reflected in her eyes.

  We were eating at a dhaba. Misra wanted curd. The dhaba did not serve curd. So Misra gave nine rupees to Chotu, the young helper, and asked him to go buy some. Chotu took the money and left—forever. He never came back. We figured maybe he had gone to see a film. But the next day, the kid still hadn’t come back. The dhaba owner and the cook laughed at us. “So, you gave nine rupees, and chased away our Chotu! Maybe he’s bought a ticket back to his home town with those nine rupees. The poor bechara will be starving there. At least here, he used to get rotis three times a day,” the cook told us. “Looks as though freedom is cheap! Only nine rupees!” The cook asked us if we would tell everybody back home in Chennai about being cheated by Delhiites. I told him not to worry. Then the cook told us
his story. He had been in Chennai for nine months, living on a daily wage of ninety rupees. But he couldn’t manage there. He said people were too serious. “There’s no place like Delhi,” I said. “Delhi to dilwale ka hai!”

  Perhaps you remember it, Genny. You were there with me then, studying in the first standard. Once, after you had just visited your mother’s house, you came to me crying and begging for a Michael Jackson cassette. Your mother loves music. She’ll play music all day: Pandit Jasraj, Mallikarjun Mansoor, Dagar Brothers. I can just imagine her reaction when you asked her for Michael Jackson. “What vulgar music!” she would have exclaimed with distaste. Then she gave your cheek a brutal pinch. The marks from her fingernails were still there on your cheek! How are you managing there now?

  I came to your crèche to see you, but you were absent that day. I met you there the next day. With your eyes full of fear, you kept whispering: “Come when Amma is here, come when Amma is here!” Seeing you, my little chatterbox, transformed into a trapped mouse like this—it made me cry. The next day your mother called to yell at me. “How dare you come to see her when I’m not there!” I wanted to try to get help from the courts so I would be able to visit you, speak to you. But your mother’s friends kept on threatening me. I lacked the strength to battle those rowdies. But I couldn’t not see you, either. That, Genesis, is why I began wandering around like a nomad.

  Though my experiences have repeatedly taught me that simple, natural love between human beings is impossible without power trips, expectations, and demands, I still search again and again for love, like Vikramadithya’s vampire.

  The Desperado soundtrack is playing. The piano and saxophone duet brings tears to my eyes. My world, filled with memories of you, slowly disappears. Only the sax reminds me of your voice. Genny, do you remember that your music master once said your voice was like a flute?

  Genesis, more precious than my own life… what must you think of me now? Do you suppose that I’ve forgotten you, now that it’s been so long, and I’ve gotten married again? No! Your new mother, Jennifer, says that I speak about you in my sleep. (I have renamed her Jennifer, for you.) It saddens her that she has still never seen her only daughter. Whenever I’m in Chennai, I call you every evening. There is no reply. I know that the house is locked and you are at the neighbors’. But I never call at night, lest your mother answers the call. I don’t want to have another dogfight with her. So I just keep calling in the evenings, hoping someday you might answer, and I might be able to hear your voice.

  The editor of that magazine accused me of faking all this distress, saying that I was now comfortably remarried and had forgotten you. I didn’t reply to the accusation. Typical; people always scoff at the sorrows of others. Only Jennifer knows about my longing for you, and the threats that come from your mother.

  I remember that summer when you and I were living by ourselves. You had chicken pox and the heat was intolerable. You wept—you wailed. You rolled around in pain. I never knew chicken pox could be so painful. As you rolled, the boils broke and the water leaked out of them. I cried, too, for your pain. You told me, “Appa, it’s even worse when you cry.” So I stopped. I asked you to think of God. “You are my God,” you said.

  Last year I didn’t see you on your birthday. I didn’t even try. It was the first year I missed it. I didn’t want to make you face your mother’s rage on that special day. Instead, I came to your crèche the day before. Strangely anxious, you claimed you didn’t want a gift. You! You, who used to demand that I give you airplanes and ocean liners! Today you wanted nothing! When I insisted, you told me your mother had threatened to brand your thigh if you accepted anything from me. “I’ll deal with your mother,” I said. “Tell me what you want.” Hesitantly, you asked for a pair of anklets. I immediately went out and bought you anklets for your golden feet. But the next day I got threatening phone calls from your mother and her women’s association, and I couldn’t go to give them to you. So the anklets are still with me.

  Unable to wish you a happy birthday, and with your anklets weighing me down, I drank. I’m normally a moderate drinker, but that day I got good and drunk. At nine that night, I called up a poet friend of mine and moaned to him for forty-five minutes. He offered to go and wish you a happy birthday on my behalf. I never asked him if he actually did it. I don’t think I have the strength to hear him say no.

  It was this same poet friend who first told me the story of Shukracharya. We had been trekking all over Tamil Nadu together; after endless wandering we ended up in Kumilly, where we had a friend. We took the friend along and went into the Thekkady forest, and that’s when my poet friend, while piss-drunk, told me the story of Shukracharya and his extraordinary love for his daughter Deivayani. The next day, sober, he told the story again, and then explained what had triggered him to tell it in the first place; he said my love for you was as great as Shukracharya’s love for his daughter. On another occasion, when I repeated my friend’s comparison to Thirumalai, he ridiculed me, saying it was all a bunch of sentimental mush.

  I remember a morning when I came to meet you, back when your mother was still respecting my court-ordered visitation rights. I had spent the previous night at a friend’s place so I could get up and see you early. In the morning I lit a cigarette and left. A bus with no passengers came out of nowhere and sideswiped me, knocking the cigarette out of my hand. I escaped death by a hair’s breadth. Shaken, I decided to travel on foot, and to my great surprise there you were, walking alone down the deserted road. That vision is still fresh in my mind. I asked you where you were off to so early, all by yourself. You smiled and said, “I’m just walking.” I remember how we used to always go for a morning walk at Nageshwara Park in Mylapore. Do you still go for morning walks, Genny?

  “When my spirit exits my body, will my body still be mine, or not?” asked Villiputhoorar. I think of that now. Karna has fallen on the battlefield. Krishna comes to beg for all of Karna’s dharma as alms. Then Karna says, “I know not whether my life is still meshed in my lungs, or whether it has already flown away; what can I give you now?”

  Neither do I know whether my life is still in me, or whether it has flown away. Or whether it’s hidden in the crevices in the rocks of the mountainous memory of you, Genny …

  Memories of us together hang like nocturnal bats in the dark canopy of my mind. I can only attempt to sketch them as poems.

  Do you know the story of Thilothama, Genesis? She was created by amalgamating sesame-seed-sized pieces of all the wondrous things in the world. A child’s lisp, the fresh foaming toddy drawn at dawn from a palm tree, a Bloody Mary, the receding sea, a dew drop clinging to blade of grass, a glint of sun reflecting off the dew, the third day crescent moon, the solitude of a moonlit night on a terrace, sparrows on a telephone line, clouds hugging you on the mountain peak, a deer’s fearful eyes, a tailor bird’s lonely call, the bells of a bullock cart, the far-off sound of a waterfall, a star, the silence of the forest, the summer rains, the smell of the soil—Dalí, when did you do your first painting? I drew my first painting on the walls of my mother’s womb—a lover’s first touch, breast milk; these and many, many more wondrous things were used in the making of my Genesis.

  I want to scatter the stars and play jacks with you, kick the moon and play tag with you, twist the air into a rope and swing you on it, make the sky a net and fish with it, suck up the sea and spray it on your face till you’re breathless, Genny…

  Genny… my Little Princess, right now… my life swinging amidst life and death… my memories of you are destroying me, I’m destroying myself, it’s driving me mad, Genesis...

  I write you letters every day. Then I throw them in the dustbin. Once in a while I mail them. But I gather from what you tell me that your mother has made sure they still reach the dustbin safely. When I asked you if you ever received any of my letters you said no. So I think I’ll give this letter to Nano. She’ll make sure you get it.
r />   I think the only possible relief from this torment of memory is death. If only I could destroy my memory, lose myself in silent nothingness…

  Along with this letter I enclose my poems, but none of them are really mine. They are just borrowed words that have become poems because of your love, your lies and your laughter.

  For so many days I’ve watched you in the sky

  making circles around me

  and playing.

  I get closer, hoping to catch you.

  You run on in wider circles,

  binding me in your magic,

  dancing with glee,

  clapping and laughing.

  The expanse between you and me;

  when will we bridge it?

  *(J is the first letter of the then chief minister of Tamil Nadu)

  who’s that prankster

  that plucked the stars out of the sky

  and scattered them here on the Earth?

  METATONGUE

  “The language is trapped in a bottle.

  We’ve got to set it free somehow—

  but without breaking the bottle!”

  you said.

  “It’s already dead,”

  I said.

  “Rotted by maggots,

  it just leaked out.”

  The loss of life

  melts your heart.

  “There must be some other way,”

  you said.

  I was confused,

  but you went silent after that.

  Poetry is the language language speaks,

  and silence is the language you speak.

  Now:

  A small scotch and Kenny G on the stereo.

  I’m lonely.

  This world