One cannot write a diary every day. The picture that you see
here does not have anything to do with what I am going to write today. The
photograph was an accidental finding; rather a timely saving from a host of
termites that has been working diligently on the wooden furniture at home for
the last ten years. Termites attack each and every home in this part of the
world irrespective of the economic status of the house owner. A year back, the
large wooden shelves at my home came under the attack of termites despite the
caution, which is known as pest control, was taken well in advance. The hollows
left by the removal of these shelves were later on filled in by steel shelves, which
generally give the middle class an added sense of security. I too was
experiencing the same sense of protection as I had been brought up in a
particular faith called ‘Godrej Steel Shelf’. Thieves struck on 27th
January 2013 evening and took away the valuables from these very same steel
shelves, leaving me a new convert into the faith called ‘fu** it’.
Yesterday, my son wanted to take out something from one of
the narrow wooden cupboards left untouched till date by the termites. Optimism
is the curse of the middle class. That’s why middle class people do not want to
throw out anything on the first instance. They think that one day it will be of
some use. So you keep accumulating things and these accumulated things are
housed in various shelves. I am a chronic book collector and most of my books
are kept inside steel book shelves. They spill over to other spaces available
vying for space with other items like old shoe boxes, compact discs, plastic
toys, old sweaters, plastic envelops, old notebooks and what not. From the lone
wooden cupboard what my son wanted was a compact disc as he wanted to do something
with that for a class craft work. Last night I tried to open it and found the
door tightly closed. As you know, in the middle class households, especially
the ones with kids, most of the shelves, cupboards, table drawers etc are often
found without their knobs and handles. My house is no exception though I
technically, theoretically and philosophically do not subscribe to middle class
status. I belong to a sublime class though the economic status brings me under
the bracket of the middle class.
Procurement of the compact disc from the cupboard was
postponed to the next morning as I found a thin brown line of mud and dust
along the hinges of its door. I knew this cupboard too was gone. The
postponement of opening it was again a short term relief from the horrific
scene that would definitely be revealed by the termites; I felt the feeling
akin to the postponement of looking straight into the wound by the wounded
involved in an accident. Adrenalin level would be so high at that time that one
gets all courage to postpone the inevitable. My adrenalin level was normal but
really wanted to have a good sleep devoid of the dreams of termites marching
into my sleep. But how long one could shun such an eventuality? Morning found myself
standing in front of that narrow cupboard, my better half (for the time being
as mood swings could also swing this qualifier) in the supporting cast armed
with broom and dust pan. The termites had done their best (in our perspective,
worst). They had done a neat job of keeping the outer layers of everything
intact and the innards amply shredded into dust. Who said polythene covers are
anti-environmental substances? Had it not been a red polythene cover all the
visual documents of my past few years in London and Delhi would have been
permanently lost. I retrieved these photographs, hopelessly falling into a
nostalgic feeling.
The photograph that you see here is taken in 2005. My son,
Maitreya MJ was born in that year. I was working in Malayala Manorama Newspaper
as a journalist. My income was not good enough to support a family with a
newborn. But when I look at this picture, I find myself healthy, happy and
devoid of much tension. Perhaps the touch of my son’s tender body had
transcended all those worries loomed large over my head in those days. Maitreya
was born in Bhopal, in a private clinic with a very affectionate doctor couple
in charge. People have the tendency to romanticise anything related to
conception, delivery, childbirth and child rearing. Young parents try to live
according to guide books; they seek consultancy in nappy changing to breast
feeding to everything. Most of the young parents recount the stories of how the
newborns keep them awake whole night. Some people write blogs about their
experiences, some people make home videos, some people constantly take
photographs and some people even launch websites. May be they are all young
parents. When Maitreya was born we were not so young. At the age thirty six I
could not have claimed the status of a young parent. May be because we were not
young parents, growing up with Maitreya was almost event free.
Termites had failed to reach the photographs. So I have this
photograph today. But I termites have taken something very important away from
my life. I have a good collection of letters written to me by my friends of
which I consider two set of letters very important; the first set is written by
my cousin and the noted artist, Shibu Natesan. The second one is by my then
girlfriend, Kalpana. They could run into volumes and they are still kept safely
in Kerala. For some reason, I had brought a few letters written by Shibu to
Delhi. I had kept them safely till date. To my shock today I found them eaten
away by the termites. I do not know how to describe my sadness. Those letters
were not written in ink; they were written in blood, tears, desires and dreams.
Those letters had come from Baroda, Delhi and Amsterdam with a lot of stories
and a lot of drawings. They are lost forever. But those words still remain in
me, though vaguely. If I really try I could see them before my eyes. I should
make a promise to myself that one day I recount all those letters from memory.
In fact, if you remember, I was not planning to write about
this photograph. I even said that this picture does not have anything to do
with what I am going to write. I wanted to write about the notion of ‘happiness’.
Now I think I should postpone it for another day. One solace is that my mind is
not kept in a wooden shelf which is prone to termites’ attack. I can write about
happiness later on. But with a little bit of shame I have to accept that what I
showed here is not the sign of a good writer. I started from somewhere and
ended up somewhere else. May be writers do it whenever they write things;
despite their blueprints they tend to digress. Digression is the spice of
writing. Still I can save my skin by removing the first line of this diary
entry. But I do not intend to do so. If I am not truthful here, where else I could
be?
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