THINK OF LIFE AS CRUEL AND IT WILL RETALIATE CRUELLLY. THINK OF IT AS REASONABLE AND IT WILL RECIPROCATE AS REASONABLE. THINK OF IT AS SIMPLE AND IT WILL RESPOND AS SIMPLICITY. THINK OF IT AS A DIVINE BLESSING AND IT WILL REVEAL ITSELF AS BLISS ETERNAL.
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“I would like to meet the captain”, said Anitha. No response.
Arvind sprawled with eyes closed. Like a dead lizard. A burning cigarette dangled between his lips like a red-hot firefly. “Are you hearing me, you Ribbie? She poked at his ribcage. She called him Ribble when irritated. And Rib Wan Dwinkle in lighter vein. “Hutt, you Ras”. He sneered. He never said the full word. But she knew it. “Whom do you like to meet? Asked the firefly “The Captain of the ship”. “Where?” “There.”. She turned to the sea and pointed a finger towards eternity. “He is there in the ship.”
The dead lizard did not appear to be listening. But she went on. “He gets signals from all the confused minds around the globe. Then he picks out dreams from the bottom of the sea to feed the minds. Good dreams, bad dreams, colorful and black and white dreams. All dreams smelling of rotten Orange.” “Why Orange?” “That is why I want to meet him. To ask. Why Orange?”
She looked at her ever growing shadow. Then she took a pebble and threw it at its head. The shadow threw it back, being careful not to hurt her. “See, that is what we are all. A shallow shadow throwing stones to nowhere.”
He spewed the butt and sat up. And looked affectionately into her eyes. “That is why I like you Ani. For your madness.” “And I hate you for your laziness.”
He knew that in her dictionary, hate meant love. “When he is coming? Arvind asked, pressing her slender waist. “It seems that I can press your waist like waste-paper.” “I will kill you, you Ribbie.” She retorted. “O.K. Now tell me, when he is dropping from the sky?” He enquired. “Who?” She prevaricated, knowing well whom he meant. “Yours ‘obediently’. Falling from Oman.” “Rubbish. He seldom knows me.” “Ha, ha” He roared. “A Husband not knowing his five, sorry, wife” “No, he doesn’t know me”. She said emphatically. “But you were together one week. One full week as you said.” The pressure upon her waist increased. “Remove your hand.” “And keep my lips there?” He asked naughtily. “You beast” She feigned anger. And thrust a finger at him.” Behave yourself.” “Yes madam” He pretended obeisance.
They were at their usual game. Looking into the other pair of eyes. One feigning stubborn arrogance. Other with fake submissiveness.
And then the eyes smiled. At one another. Pain replaced the arrogance. And sympathy overthrew the naughtiness. He took her hand in his. “Don’t worry, Ani. Everything will work out fairly “ “It is good to be with someone who understands” She said slowly. But what is the use?” He simply listened. “It seemed a joke to me when you said “the yours obediently’. She continued. “How can it be so when he never understood me? My mind, my feelings, my emotions. They were non-existent as far as he was concerned. He never tried to reach them” “Yet?” “Yes. He might have seen my body. Again, that too I doubt. All along, he was far away. In his oil field probably. He might have experienced me too as an oil-well. With oil gushing out.”
It was not a probability. It was the certainty.
The man, who had wedded Anitha, was an ‘oilman’. He had come straight from the oil-fields of Oman, where he worked as a sort –of supervisor. His life depended on oil. As long as it flowed, he was a wanted-man. But if it dried up? OH, God! He could not even think of it. And strange voices uttered to him all the while he was with Anitha, threatening him, suffocating him. His veins seemed to be filled with the thick black fluid. He wanted to preserve it; he wanted to have more and more of it in his system. To be preserved and to be taken with him abroad. And in the process, Anitha too became a sleek oil field. It was a scintillating experience. It brought him ecstasy. Oil pouring out in abundance, to make him a wanted man.
Slowly, contentment had replaced anxiety.
But in the process, he did not notice the pair of eyes which looked at him quizzically. And even when they reflected the hidden fear in her, they failed to attract his attention. She heard a rumble rise from him, like the hidden sounds in a cassette. And it smelt of oil. She knew it. And she had to be the oil field. The fountain of oil for him. The substance he wanted; to become the wanted man he wanted to be.
His name was Robin. To her, it sounded like ‘Rob-In’. And then he left for his dream world. To get metamorphosised as a once –a month-bank draft.
To her, that piece of paper too smelt of oil. And somehow, it bore a faint stink of rotten vomit on its envelope. The Aeroplane on the envelope always flew away from her. It carried away her hopes. It deported her life to some unknown, god-forsaken land.
The money was the price the captain sent her to deprive her of the rotten orange smell. Good, bad and neutral. Leaving her with nothing to lean on. Her youth remained frozen within her, like a dead weight, as a chiseled marble, which could not become the beautiful lotus, for which it was intended. And the pieces of paper could not support her in carrying the weight. She had to do it alone and the effort made her mind remain like dried, dirty, muddy, yellowish, frothy foam stuck to a fence, beneath which the water had already flowed to the other side. Small insects chirped around it, leaving it even without a sense of solace during sleepless nights.
An empty field, even without a blade of grass, lampooned her mercilessly.
And the captain had other minds to fill in with the rotten orange smell.
It was then, when she had met her Rib Wan Dwinkle again.
