White Wine
SHORT STORY
There was still water in the mud and more than mud the murky stream went to the fountainhead to reach inside the original washstand. Sumner, the only man who knew how to get these things done. Sumner is a gentleman of twenty five years. They are brothers.- Solomon and Sumner . They married from the same family. Those too sisters. Two beautiful sisters that the brothers were crazy about…We all walked through the serial that spread among the branches that lay beneath the cabinet. Was it full, I don’t retain. The case was so stereotypical that I lost touch with the surroundings that lay beneath. Broad landscapes, one after the other in a multitudinous array for the wind to tell my story.
My story. Oh. I am growing to that part. After the rain, wintertime starts. The winter of my specific myths and brushes. Tell in that fashion, four more favourable times to come and get hold of my inner worth. The crumbled roof at the sidewalk. Join some more crumbled escape routes. The final was that they did not have anything to own. Not even themselves. Sumner took me there. Sumner is my friend.
2
At Churchgate, Solomon had a bookstall. It sells classic books, best sellers and children’s toys. Where is Sumner, I inquired. He went to Pune and then to Goa, he said. He joined a sect and has switched his gears. He said. I was not astonished, anything can pass now. If death can befall today, then anything is expedient in life. I had gone to a portion of my research on ethnic groups a few hundred miles from here. Then I thought that knowledge will clarify my apprehensions. But it is not like that. Knowledge will proffer you more doubts. Doubts are beneficial if you don’t make a canopy of them. But knowledge can at best assure you that it is just inception. Where are you put up last night, Sumner asked. I told the place. That wretched square, he exclaimed. I told him that I was on this tour on shoestring funds. Moreover, my bountiful guide will join me later in this course and we will be well off and can bear a Star Stay. But that is not the point. I miss Solomon. We chatted for some time in a nearby cafe and I purchased a book from his store, a collection of Rilke. He didn’t charge, so I bought a doll for my sister’s boy and paid the check. We will congregate at hometown, he stated.
3
The girl proceeded on tweeting and cooing and aimlessly endeavouring into the erudition of digits. Lot has been spoken about that part of the inevitable clash that happened one day in the terrace when A. was going to the next structure to accumulate the pond pumps. In this area collection, of pond pumps. So far there has been no hope in these genuine hopeful things that we shed our hopes for. Coming from chemistry lab. Oh, no, you said . Once, I said. Be a Mycologist, you said- ‘My dad wants me to be a doctor, I said. Your Dad , that fool, you said. Don’t blame uncles,I said. You are the last vestige of a matriarchal society. She laughed at life . Still I managed an embrace. ‘Hope is a bird’ with green feathers and wings. Green stands for the moist midday when the clubhouse was chock-full of characters. They just started another song. And another one after that till past midnight. O- Was it the hopeful season, when was it you drank last time. I drank white wine pinky once when my wife was admitted to the hospital for that surgery after the accident. An unknown driver saved her. It was morning, and not too many vehicles were on the road. Past the J . Park, where I slept one day in a crowd of thieves who were sleeping in the afternoon after their theft at night. The cop called me, come. I did not go. Then he asks. Why didn’t you come when a cop called you to come. He was in casual wear. I told them that I didn’t know that he was a cop. The other cop knew me, he looked into my eyes and told his friend that he is mistaken. And I showed my library card, the only identity card I kept at that time. And They left me with pieces of advice and warning., don’t ever come and sleep here., you see here that thieves sleep. This is no place for gentlemen cavaliers. You wanted to be one then . A new version. More favourable periods come. Jot down. Memory is a journey into a river of nonsense and also a corridor of wise and cruel faces mingled. Longer still I knew her. Yes, I loved her. Did she love me? Lord, she became the wife of a priest. I went to mountains and cliffs and lakes and big thalabs[pool]. I went to Kurukshetra and sat by the big thalab [pool] and wondered how, when, what, who, which cadence, what language. Where the middle starts and ends in this story.
4
Solomon told me this story when we were coming from the tuition classes. Solomon’s father died of a stroke. His mother, drowning? ‘those were pearls that were his eyes’.There are many ways of dying. Heart problem, sugar issues, liver malfunctioning, kidneys. The worst thing is unbegotten death. There is still hope in a death that comes slowly like an Irish dancer. Death comes in slow motion. Ceili. Féile.Ghillies.There are likewise many ways of living too. Living by selling vegetables. Living as a boss. A shoemaker, owning a company, selling tickets for evening shows. Making other’s work for you and drinking liquor in the evening.Eating oddments and staying beside platforms.Painting faces and dancing at street corners and inviting ladies for supper, and parting without romance. A good relationship is like a bank balance. Also a sign of a well-spent life. When you are at trunk road entrance, fallen in the street corner, don’t think of your sins . Don’t forget them too, so that you will have hope in future.
5
Love fails. Death makes a closure. So this part we will talk about later. Come on. My wife is undergoing an operation. Hope it is not a major operation. We will see a movie after that. in the theatre. I am a well-known silhouette. The manager’s offspring is my student. So I get a reduction and an opening before the time. Come on mate, and soak in the white wine. Death and life are two lovers chasing each other. Tonight, we will share our duskiness.
…………………..
SW 