Neeli.....

Neeli is a story that's not so much a story as a picture painted with words. It's not much of a plot but it's made of words that seemed to form themselves. It just flowed out beautifully and fee ls very special. I draw parallels to Tagore's 'The Postmaster'. I have written this from a male's perspective. Hope you like it :)

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Neeli. It means blue, she tells me, with a laugh and a twinkle in her eyes. I laugh myself. Doesn't she know that I know? And there is nothing blue about her. Not her eyes, no. They're so brown that they're black. I could lose myself in them, I tell her. We laugh at this. The smile reaches her eyes. It almost reaches mine. There's something in my eyes that stops it from going deep, and warming me on the inside. It is cold, so cold. But warmth breaks in as Neeli touches my hand. I like this girl. I like her so much.

 I don't remember where I met her, surprisingly. It amazes me. It seems like she's always been around this little part of the city that we make up. We like to call ourselves artists. Of course, we pay our rents late, and we photograph and paint the oddest of things while people look on. We like to lose ourselves in paint spilled on the road, or the matted locks of an old sadhu, or the thousand shades of red in a chili merchant's shop. We look at the stars, realize how insignificant we are, and smile about it. We are not snobbish. Not in a million years. We are too poor for that. We have little, and we're proud of it.

 I remember something by John Steinbeck that said, "I think that the less you have of something, the more you're required to boast about it." Or something similar. My memory fails me.Anyway, I write. About the places I go to. And the people I meet. I click a few pictures. Keeps me happy and gets me along. I like to think about life and it's meaning but I've found nothing so far.  

I'm drifting. Neeli. Blue. Neeli.

We became close slowly. It was like poetry, like a song that builds up. She used to be a familiar face in the streets that I'd see as the sun went down. I remember the evenings, the call for prayer by the Muezzin, the birds, the cigarettes and tea that I lived on, the noise and the traffic that were our sounds of comfort. Slowly we started talking. I'm a loner, I like to stay away from civilisation. But with Neeli it was different. I liked being with her. Our silly jokes and little fights. We'd watch the stars. I'd lose myself somewhere between the black skies above and the black eyes beside me. I'd wake up in the morning with a blanket over me. I didn't mind the cold. But the blanket had Neeli's scent. I'd wake up with  a smile.

  It's surprising how every time I talk about her I seem to go off on  a tangent. This is just like Neeli. She would flow in, flutter about, and leave, leaving in her wake just memories and that sweet sweet scent of hers I still remember. Always the same one. "Why the same scent everyday?" I asked her once. She laughed, again. She leaned in close to my ear and said, "So that you don't forget." And she left. She would do that often, make me think for hours about what she said. I wonder if she realized it too, if she did it on purpose.

 Neeli must've been in her twenty's when I met her. She had wavy black hair. I would often sing sappy songs about her tresses and she'd puch me playfully, I'd block, and we'd entangle ourselves and finish in a mess of laughter and embraces. Her eyes, ah, I've already said that. But they were big, she always looked kind of surprised at something, and happy at the same time. Like a child, when he sees a kite fly for a first time. Defying all logic but swimming in a sea of joy and happiness, if only for a while. She'd dress well, and always be fresh and clean, and her hair were always a little wet. It was always like she was trying to wash something off of her. I think I probably read too much into things. God knew what she did. But she was always happy, and jumpy, and chatty, and busy. I liked her.

Time passed and she became a part of me, filling some emptiness that may have remained from a childhood I scarcely remember and a youth I do not wish to recall. She would listen to my fears, my dreams, my frustrations. She would waste into nothing with me, she'd fall down my chasms with me. And God knows that saved me. Were we lovers? I don't know. I don't think I can love, I don't know what it means, and I don't long for it. I long for my mother, yes, they way I'd cry myself to sleep in her lap and drown my fears in her arms. I miss my father, yes, strict and wise. I sometimes wish our generation were more like their fathers, me included. But love? I do not miss it. I have not known it.

"Neeli, your makeup is running."  I said to her as we sat on the stairs of an empty shop. Rivulets of black ran down her eyes, so black in the darkness of an empty street at night and the chill of November.

Neeli didn't say anything. She smiled, but it didn't reach her eyes. It faded quickly.

 "What's wrong, Neeli?"

"Nothing. I...I miss home." She stammered.

"Home?"  She'd never talked about home. Come to think of it, she'd never talked about herself. Neeli was the little friend of all the world. We never imagined she'd have her own fears and dreams.

"Yes, home. I just .. I miss it."

"I miss it too." I said, putting an arm around her. Her shoulders were bare. She must've been cold. I leaned closer. I felt protective. I surprised myself.

"I'm afraid." She said, as she rested her head on my shoulder.

"Of what, Neeli? I'm there. Nothing can touch you." I said, holding her tighter.

"You're leaving, aren't you?" She said, pulling herself away and breaking into sobs. 

I could feel tremors inside me. Neeli was not supposed to cry. It went against the little laws I thought the world ran by.

"Wha...What do you mean?"

"You're going away. I know it."

And Neeli was right. I was going. Far away. New home, new job, new life. I didn't tell her because I didn't see it coming either. It crept unto me until I was enveloped by this new future that would rip me apart from this womb I'd grown used to. My world was spinning as I slowly understood that Neeli would be gone, too.

 God knows that if there was one thing I could do again, I would go back to that moment and try to understand why I never saw this happening, how could I be so blind. But who knows what lies down a road you've never taken?

Neeli wiped her tears. "Go. I couldn't stop you now." She said these words with a finality. Little cracks appeared in my world. It was giving way. She got up and turned, and walked away into the night. And as I caught the whiff of her perfume, I heard a crash inside of me, and it all fell to pieces.

I could not sleep. I  packed my things over and over again to get her out of my mind. I tried walking in the streets to find her. I could not. She wasn't home. She wasn't anywhere. I'd blown out the faint blaze of light I had. It was dark. And very, very cold.

And she would have nothing to console her. I didn't realize she was losing something too. Maybe she was losing more than I was. She probably did. Because I saw myself through it. And to this day, I wonder if she did.She walked up to me as I left home. I would not turn back. Sometimes, we'd rather not think. We can always do it later when we can't do anything but think. It sounded absurd but it had to be done.

"Goodbye." She said. And in that moment I'd have given anything to read her face. But I couldn't. She was inscrutable. She was a perfect image of grace. But she was made of glass.

"I wrote you something." She said. "Long back." She handed me a note. The paper smelled of her. This was like a movie. But I couldn't hear the happy ending music. It could either be happy or it could be ending. And I think it never ends.

 And she was gone. And so was I. With utter deliberation I dragged myself to the railway station. And the train rolled on, and I tried not to think. Well, I tried.

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The streets have changed. There are no spice merchants here. The Muezzin is different, I can tell. The birds seem different. The sun too seems to have lost colour. I think I know where it went. It lost itself where I would lose myself, in a maze of brown and black. And it would find itself the day I would. But I cannot. No one seems to remember Neeli.It has been long since I left this place. The only story of my life worth recounting has lost its pages. The very last ones.

Maybe I tore them away.

What I did not tear is the note Neeli gave me. The sun's faint orange glow lights it as I read, yet again, lines that are etched into the stone I seem to have become now.

"It's the kind of night to dream your life in, it's the kind of light to lose yourself in, I like the way the wind blows tonight, we'll both go up in smoke tonight..."

Neeli

Heavens will tell what went up in smoke and what burned down. I look up to the skies. The pigeons are flying away.

They will return.

They will.

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