Neera pays back

Neera. Where can she go?
She is but a line that curves and stretches and dances
to the tunes of your pen
Neera will go where your nib drags her.

Neera is the colour that is your colour,
Neera is what you see in the mirror.
Neera does nothing. Neera does all.
Like a heart that must beat, without being asked.

Neera is a work of art,
made good or bad by the way your fingers move.
Neera is your food and your hunger.
Neera is the fine line between the real and the imagined.

Yes Neera is a moment arrested,
a breath held (within your lungs)
Neera is that stretched sunset you wish for,
an evening that never ends.

It's time Neera paid back in ink.
Passion with passion, worship with worship hundredfold,
Neera now burns (the midnight oil)
the way you burnt for her.

The Other Side of the Table by Madhumita Mukherjee: Impressions

There are some books where you are part of a respectful audience and then there are some when you are a voyeur. I felt like the latter when reading 'The Other Side of the Table', written uniquely as it is in the form of letters. Letters, those wonderful things from a bygone era few from this time will know of. Those blue-brown things that smelt of sweat and perfume and musty mailboxes. Those things that made you to learn to wait and be  happy with one little piece of love at a time.

In her debut novel, Madhumita Mukherjee assumes the voices of Abhi, a budding neurosurgeon based in London, and Uma, a young medical student from Kolkata and charts their friendship through many, many letters exchanged over the years. There is no real beginning and no real end to this story, no one tells you how Abhi and Uma came to be friends, and what their friendship culminated into. When you open the book, you suddenly find yourself in the middle of their lives, secretly reading through their private, prized stash of letters.

The quintessential bachelor Abhi, and the nubile Uma talk earnestly to each other through these letters, sharing details - big and small - about their lives. They talk about love, they talk about friends and family, and they talk the talk of doctors. Abhi is ever the light-hearted and well meaning older friend, while Uma is feisty in her blooming youth. There is warm affection some times, and sweet reprimands at others. Some  faux anger here, and real appeasement there. When a crisis befalls one, there is firm handholding by another. Sometimes, Abhi is the guardian, and sometimes, Uma the caregiver. Roles switch easily in this beautiful Platonic relationship, where they seek little else from each other but honest words on a piece of paper.

Mukherjee writes as efficiently as Abhi as she does Uma, and the reader never finds a gender bias in her voice - at least I, as a woman reader, didn't think so. Her style is easy and her words, relate-able. A doctor herself, she offers some interesting insights into the lives of doctors. She also balances perfectly the distance and dynamics of this fictional relationship, with neither Uma nor Abhi ever stepping into the sexual zone a man-woman are so wont to do. But one sees the foundations of their relationships growing stronger, an invisible yet undeniable proprietorship building over each other over the years. When Abhi is faced with a life-threatening illness, Uma takes the final leap of faith and seals their bond by joining him in person, their distances bridged forever.

'The Other Side of the Table' is a part light-part poignant read and it has its memorable bits. However, neither Abhi nor Uma are people who you will count among your favourite characters. That's because you are never really part of the plot, but a mere reader of letters they've written immersed in each other.


  

Levitation

I like how you levitate

right here, amidst the throng

daring us all to see

but we are blinded by voices

How you float in space

right here, between us all

but not quite here

untouching, untouched.

How you take off into the sky

right here, from the couch

no rocket propelled shoes

only words for wings
How you circle the Earth thrice
while we're passing the salt 

How you create windows

wherever you fancy them

and jump off into infinity

ever so often.

(Nidheesh, this is for you.)

Ash

You perhaps do not remember.

But how would you?

You didn't see it for what it was.

A lipstick stained table napkin

I left ever so carelessly

on the table across which 

you sat, drinking coffee

Hoping you'd steal it, save it

as a souvenir 

from our last meal together

You also didn't see

my heart on your platter

So I put them back in my purse, 

heart, napkin and hope

And left with as impassive a goodbye

as I could manage.

Now all that is left,

Is a line of ash

From the cigarettes 

I learnt to love from you

from the cigarettes 

that remind me of you

Light, grey, warm testimonies of a high

that wore off all too soon.

Middle of a dream

We are running, despite no gravity

on this road to nowhere

We are in someplace strange

that could be heaven or hell

There's no way of knowing

in the absence of signboards. 

But i'm feeling, i'm feeling

feeling so hard, 

and falling

and reeling

and flying

all at once.

My fingers are locked in yours

(but who are you, again?)

this is surely the middle of a dream.

The dream sits heavy

on the palm of my hand

(so soft, so unbearably soft)

and sometimes it cozies up

on the tip of my tongue

(so sweet, so searingly sweet)

Bits of heaven strung together

on a string of endless hours

being passed from your mouth to mine

from your hand to mine

but I still don't know who you are

what this place is

or where we are headed

this is surely the middle of a dream.

We are sitting now, floating now

by and in a rainbow river

counting stars like lovers do

and laughing at what lovers do

eternities are passing,

without the trappings of life

no birth, no shame, no want, no death

My fingers are still locked in yours

Your identity still a mystery

this place as unfamiliar

this place as desirable

this is surely the middle of a dream.

Don't wake me up yet.

.