I was hoping to post this last night but it was a tough one to write!
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All Hallow's Eve
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times...it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.
Had Halloween in America ever felt so lonely?
Were there really children out there somewhere in their neighbourhood shouting 'trick or treat!', trussed up in witch's garb and bearing broomsticks? Were there really people their age touching up their incredibly scary Gothic makeup for some Halloween party or other? Some cheerleader who would usually never get even an eyelash done wrong, now attempting to do her makeup dirty enough to make a convincing ghost bride? Where was that America and why couldn't he see it?
It was Halloween 2001, and this country had mastered the art of moving on, or at least pretending to. But a whole lot of families in Kew Gardens hadn't, and even with assurances from their friends that such a thing wouldn't happen, none of them seemed to want their children see kids coming to a party dressed up as Osama bin Laden.
Now the closest Nupur and Onu could get to a Halloween party was a night out at the Chakraborthy backyard, munching on caramel apples and cider, rueing dreadfully over the fact that poor Benoy's stash had finally been confiscated by his father, and getting Nupur to recite her chuha sherni shairee over and over till all of them could manage to recite it in chorus.
"One more time!" Onu shouted, laughing. It was a good thing so many kids in the neighbourhood hadn't come this side yet.
"Would that be recital number 323 or 324?"
"Oh come on, Nupur, you know you want to!" Benoy goaded her on, knowing just how much Nupur was loving the attention.
"And I'm recording it besides!" Onu said, waving his walkman to her face with a flourish. Nupur tried looking scandalised and failed miserably. No one could deny how much Nupur loved an audience, and how much she craved people reacting to her in any way, because even the worst response seemed better than no response at all.
She mock-cleared her throat and recited it again, giggling:
Chuhe ne kiyaa sherni ko propose...
Onu and Benoy burst out laughing even before the end of the first line.
"Oye!" Nupur said, scowling, "You're spoiling the whole effect of the shairee! I haven't even got to the blasted punchline yet!"
Onu and Benoy looked suitably contrite and obediently barred their mouths with their fists. Nupur rolled her eyes and went on.
Chuhe ne kiyaa sherni ko propose...
Gift main diya usne ek red rose...
Sherni ne kaha...
Here, Nupur puffed up her chest and made a failed attempt at a regal-sounding voice:
Jaa, apni shakal ainey mein to dekh,
Aur chuha bola...
"Surat pe mat jaa pagli," the boys chorused, "CONFIDENCE toh dekh!"
Two months ago, Onu would have taken a moment like this for granted. A mere month ago, he would have still hoped a moment like this would still be a constant part of their lives. Two days ago...he wouldn't even dare dreaming of it for fear that it would never become reality.
"At least in that aspect the chuha was better than stupid Jeremy was!" Nupur said in between giggles.
"Oh come off it, Nupur," Benoy's tone was still jovial, but you could tell that he meant every word he'd said, "Crazy times happen to normal people. Nobody's acting very sensibly now; doesn't mean they'll act that way forever!"
Onu shook his head, wondering how the man still wasn't able to view America ' or Americans ' differently. Was it just a month or two ago, that Onu had actually agreed with him about something like this? It felt like forever. Even now, Benoy hadn't lost hope in all he'd expected America to be. A normal country with normal people in a situation that would drive anyone nuts, a situation that would make you suspect people you'd known for years.
"We would have given them a chance!" Onu had told him once.
"Would we?" was Benoy's reply, "Babri Masjid? The riots that followed after?"
"That...that was different!" Onu had spluttered, and he knew what Benoy's answer would be before Benoy could even say it.
"Of course it was different. But it was as much about the knee-jerk reaction and needing a convenient scapegoat, wasn't it? We're as liable to doing that as a Jeremy would, aren't we? That doesn't necessarily make him a bad person, just a really scared one."
Was Benoy really that swayed by Jeremy? Maybe it was because he hadn't been around Jerry as much as they did, maybe it hurt Benoy much less or not at all. Besides, he wasn't the one seeing Jerry day in and day out. He wasn't the one seeing how he moved over nowadays to talk to a clique in their class that hadn't even given him the time of day once.
The worst part was that Benoy was right. Had they not been so close to Jerry they would have probably understood why he was acting the way he was, especially with a mother like Mrs. Newman around. There were times a friend of his would make a move to insult them, and he would just say "c'mon, you have better things to do, don't you?" The way Benoy put it, Jeremy didn't seem like such a villain after all.
It made him wonder why Jerry wanted to be around them so much in the first place. He was lonely, yes, but surely he could have found other people to hang around with. Onu never expected him to remain friends once Onu got comfortable with the way things worked at school. He could have left them then, but he didn't.
Doesn't make any difference, Mishti, he said to himself, fact is that we were his friends when he had nobody and when we needed him he left us high and dry.
That hurt. They'd have been better off if he'd just left them long back, and not stayed so close, made promises so soon.
It wasn't something he liked admitting to himself, but it hurt.
Onu needed home. He needed someone to not believe in this system of granting people privacy, of not interfering...he wanted someone to barge in and force their company on him. A hand that would rap loudly at his bedroom door and practically order him to come out, damn you. A voice that would say whatever came to her head, not just draw back into a shell whenever something went wrong.
Blindly, like a drowning man reaching out for an anchor, he groped for his walkman. Her voice. How long had it been since he had last heard her sing?
"Rags?" Nupur's hand was on his shoulder, resting softly on his shirt just as Taani's used to. She looked worried. For the first time he felt like the fragile one, but for once he didn't really care. He took the cassette out and turned it around.
"Side B of this cassette had a song I'd taught someone to sing..."
Benoy gaped at him. "You sing?"
Onu found himself laughing through his tears. "I don't. She did."
"She?"
Already her voice was floating over the night air. Already he'd begun, almost involuntarily, to shake his head to her rhythm and tap his fingers on his thigh. Already he was back in the terrace in Kolkata, saying Mishti, as long as I live, I'll never forget this song...
Jism Paak Aankhon Mein Bhar Loon...
"Taani. My...friend."
Nothing more, nothing less. How many times do you have to repeat that before you finally get it? Mishti wasn't interested, isn't interested, will never be interested. Not to mention she'll be completely spooked if she ever realises that you'd recorded her last rehearsal, and why...
Benoy and Nupur listened on, transfixed. Taani's voice seemed to have this effect on just about everybody: when she sang, people wouldn't listen to her voice ' they felt it. He wondered, looking at the lost, unfocussed look in Benoy's eyes whetherr he'd felt love the same way too...
Nupur's eyes held the same look too, soft and tender and vulnerable, and she was looking at Onu.
He was the first to look away, flushing.
Iss Duniyaa Mein Jaan Gawah...Tujhe Uss Duniyaa Mein, Haasil Kar Loon...
"Does she know you recorded this?" he said, and Onu could see the brief bob of Benoy's Adam's apple as he swallowed a lump in his throat, "This isn't just a voice, the song carries someone's soul in it. Does she know you've kept and cherished this part of her...that you've carried it so many miles away with you, all the way from your own homeland?"
Did she ever know how much you -
He laughed. He knew what the answer to that would be.
Chuhe ne kiyaa sherni ko propose...
"The chuha didn't even have the guts to talk to her," he said, swallowing a lump in his throat. And just as well. Whoever said that loving and losing was better than not loving at all definitely hadn't loved enough. It wasn't the kind of hurt that would fade. Ever.
What was the difference between him and Jerry then? That he had refrained for Mishti's sake, and that Jerry had refrained for his own.
"Well, maybe calling him one would be an insult to the chuha," Nupur replied, in an attempt to lighten the mood. It fell flat this time. Nupur was good at being funny only whenever she tried being deadly serious.
"Nupur '"
"He didn't talk to us even once, Benoy," Onu whispered, "Didn't bother. Just months ago we were making plans to celebrate my first real Halloween here together, and now where do we feature? At the bottom of his list I reckon."
"Um...not anymore."
Benoy's voice suddenly sounded like he was underwater.
Onu looked up. "What?"
"He's, um, right behind you. With a pumpkin! Jeremy, you went trick-o-treating? You're sixteen?"
"Not really," muttered the voice behind him, "I had to bribe my cousin for this...let's just say she's got three months worth of my pocket money in her pocket right now."
Jeremy.
Once, Onu and Nupur would have taken his presence among them as a given too. It hadn't even been a year since they'd met, but already he'd snaked his way into their lives. He was looking as bad as they felt. His hair was tousled, his eyes were puffy from lack of sleep, and he looked like he believed he had no right to be there.
Of course he didn't. They would let him win that easily.
"Come on, Noorie," Onu said, holding Nupur by the crook of her arm. She looked at Jeremy like he was dirt scraped off the bottom of her shoe. It was almost worth all that pain and the anger to see the way Jerry was cringing. "It's probably time for us to go home."
"No need to leave on my account," a muscle twitched under Jeremy's jaw, "You're the reason I'm here. I asked Nupur's dad where you guys were."
"And since when did you start bothering about where we are and what we're doing?" Nupur was almost shivering, and not from the cold. It was Nupur who had been with Mrinal throughout, the only one besides Jeremy that Mrinal had ever been comfortable speaking her heart out to. It was Nupur who felt Mrinal's hurt as if it was her own. "For almost a month you've been treating us like we're invisible, why stop now?"
How long had the two of them been waiting for a moment like this? It had plagued them enough to make them create elaborate arguments in their rooms, insults that would leave Jerry literally shivering in his pants. They'd imagined him begging to come back (which they would eventually ' but condescendingly ' let him).
Jerry was right in front of them now, and all they could do was gaze back, their tongues stuck to the roof of their mouths. He wasn't looking apologetic at all. If anything, he looked relieved, as if a great weight had been taken off his shoulders the moment he'd seen them.
"Because it's better than not being able to speak to you at all." It was dark, and the only thing they could see were his eyes, glowing dimly in the shadows.
Jerry, mate, exactly what did you inhale before coming here? Not talking at all is better than...not talking at all?
"You're not making sense. You haven't been speaking to us at all." Nupur wasn't any the wiser about what he'd said, that much was obvious.
In the moonlight Jerry's face seemed sharper than it really was, all angles and planes. There was a stubborn jut to his chin that, in the daylight, seemed invisible. Why was he finding it so hard to say what he had to say?
"I can't talk to you in class. There are kids there whose moms know my mom and they couldn't care less about taking my friends away from me whenever they feel like it." Jerry traced an imaginary line over his forehead, a trait that Onu had seen in him only when he really really desperate. "All they'd need to do was tell Mom I'm hanging out with you. She'd ban me from even attempting to come to New York, Rags. That's exactly how far she takes this entire India-hate issue."
He looked desperate...and so, so alone. Onu hadn't been imagining his numerous glances their way after all. Or the times he would stop someone from trying to do anything to them. Why hadn't he ever thought of it that way? Jerry had stayed away in a stupid attempt to save the friendships he had. And when push came to shove, Onu and Nupur could only want to listen to him, no matter what he'd done.
Benoy had been right all along.
"I didn't know what else to do," he finished bleakly, "It was the only way I could think of to meet any of you at all without Mom getting in the way. What would you have done?"
All that time they'd been hating him, he'd been thinking of this trip. Getting his mother to believe that he'd stopped talking to them, enough for her to trust him with a trip to Queens. Except why would he be in Kew Gardens of all places...
"How did you get here?" Benoy spoke up now, looking very smug, "And where are you staying? I could show you how to make enchiladas this time."
"I'm staying with my aunt. Well ' not really my aunt, just a family friend. Tishia is a bit of a recluse, but she doesn't mind me very much."
Nupur had a question of her own. "Which cousin did you steal the pumpkin hamper from?" she quipped, clearly taking her pleasure from teasing Jerry a little.
He grinned. "She's staying the weekend at a friend's place and I had to play chaperone till she was dropped there. And it was a bargain!"
It was like being with Mishti again. They would hurt each other, but only because they knew exactly how to heal that wound. Mrinal's would take longer, and Jerry would have a tougher time trying to reach out to her, but deep within Onu knew that Jerry cared enough to make it work eventually. But there was one thing he needed to clear before they could ever return to at least of portion of the innocence they'd all had.
"Why us?" he said, "You'd helped me, yes, but even after that you could have left and we would have probably moved on. How did you end up still being friends with us?" Especially when your parents think we're nobodys, and you've been ridiculed enough most of your school life anyway.
He'd expected him to say it was Mrinal.
Instead, Jerry took what looked like a photograph negative out from the pocket of his jacket, gently patting away the dust from it before handing it to them. He'd looked at the picture with a touch of reverence.
"I stole this from Mom's cupboard a long time ago. Whenever I feel alone, I know she's with me."
It was a tiny picture taken from an ultrasound. A baby small enough to fit into your palm, still swimming contentedly in its mother's womb.
"Who's this?"
He smiled tenderly at the picture in Onu's hand, taking so long to answer that Onu wondered if he'd need to ask again.
"That's Jasmine," Jerry whispered, "She is - was - my sister."
--
October 31, 2001.
Mishti,
Apparantly the jerk who dumped Jerry's mom didn't just dump her, he left her pregnant! What a bleep. Jerry's never seen Jasmine, of course, because she was born before his mom had even met his dad, and I don't know how he got to know about it, but I guess it makes sense. Jerry says that had Jas lived past the night she was born, he would have had a half-Indian sister, and every time someone called someone else 'towelhead' or...well, the N-word, he could imagine Jasmine hearing it (I'd thought of mentioning that since she wasn't a half-Sikhni or half-Muslim chances of that happening to his half-sister would have been a lot less, but I'm not sure he would have understood).
His interest in his Indian sister sparked his interest in Sanskrit too! We didn't know until today that he'd been taking Sanskrit classes since last year, on the recommendation of a German family friend who happens to be a Sanskrit scholar...and he's picking up Hindi and Urdu words from some of the Indian and Bangladeshi kids who go there with him! His parents aren't very happy about it but I'm guessing the German family friend maskaafied them big time. Maybe we should add a touch of Bengali to his repetoire, what say?
I played our song to him and I think he could get a few words. It was actually quite funny, it went something like this:
The Tape: Jism paak aankhon mein bhar loon...
Jerry: Wait! Isn't this like...um...do something to my body with your eyes? Which sounds totally creepy, to be honest. Like having lazer eyes that could peek through your clothes or something. I mean, um, jism means body and aankhon means eyes, right?
Nupur (eyeroll): It's "to fill my eyes with the vision of your form"...(I know, I know...not a very accurate translation, but I was impressed nonetheless)
The Tape: Saans saans mein shaamil kar loon...
Jerry: She wants to do something to her mother-in-law...
(I had half a mind to tell him that the only thing you'd ever do to your mother in law was complain 24/7 about her son...)
(Dammit. What am I saying? Forget I said that)
Nupur, Benoy and me: Huh?
Jerry (blushing): Er...I thought saans meant mother-in-law...
Benoy (smacks head): That's SAAS! Without the N! I'm sure some fan of Hindi soaps must be giving you these on-the-sly lessons.
Those Sanskrit classmates of his are a bunch of cartoons. They've managed to cram his head with Hindi words and Urdu words and have only wound up confusing him completely. But he likes languages a lot so I guess that's okay.
We finally explained the entire song to him, and then he'd asked us to play it again. He was feeling what you sang, Mishti; just like Benoy did, just like Nupur did, just like I'd done. I think he'd felt it on a level none of us could have reached, because by the end of it there were tears in his eyes.
He'd left the hamper behind. At first I thought it was by accident, but he'd left a note inside.
'Guys,
I know I won't be talking to you till I can manage to find a way out of this mess. But trust me, I like doing this even less than you lot like being at the receiving end of it. I'll make this work for us, I promise. Just give me time.
Jerry'
I don't know why I like being around him. He's so much like you, Mishti. He tries and tries to do things the right way, but we don't know because they go all wrong somewhere in between.
Jasmine...that reminds me so much of home, you know. It reminds me of you and Ma and how much you two used to love jasmines...
I know, I know...I should have told you I was going to record your last rehearsal...but something in me told me that moment that I needed to have at least this part of you with me. I didn't know back then how badly I'd need it...
Halloween was good. It's been months since I've heard your voice, but it feels like years.
Motu.
P.S. He told me not to tell Mrinal anything yet. I think he's scared of what she might say. Us he can handle because he cares about us a lot, but not SO much...but Mrinal's a different kettle of fish.
P. P. S. I'm thinking since he'll be here a few days I'll introduce him to Auntlet...oops, sorry...Aunt Letty. Gah, damn you, bhootni-and-a-half. He'll meet Mikhael too.
P. P. P. S. Mmm. MMM...these pastilles are melting in my mouth. I've died and gone to foodie's heaven. You'd think that after losing this much weight I'd have SOME control over my diet!
P. P. P. P. S. Now...if only the chuha could somehow manaofy the sherni...
P. P. P. P. P. S. By the force of sheer thought, one Halloween ghost hug coming your way!
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I finsihed of wrtng pad/drawing pad thingOriginally posted by: Elizabeth Darcy
Um, OS 4, I think? That's what you told me a week back lol 😆
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