The final exorcism of the past . III

Definition.

Making sense out of the senseless. Putting things within a frame.

Definition.

The art of losing sight by giving things names

Definition.

A way to understand by bringing something within our own perceptions.

Definition.

Meaningless to the thing being defined.

Home. Sharjah.

Doctor. Doctor Rajan.

The effeminate kind one. The graceful one.

Questions.

The search for a reason.

I have none. I didn’t then, I don’t now.

Drugs?

I don’t know. I have done drugs. It was there and I was there and then there were we. I don’t know why.

Regrets?

Now? None. It happened. That’s all there is to it. Then? I don’t know. I do not recall the feeling. I do recall the events and the color scheme is bright orange with tinges of grey.

No. No regrets. No guilt. Nothing. No self pity. No anger. A desire to understand. To ponder. To wonder why. To risk taking this to mean some sort of uniqueness. A motivation due to the vain wish to be special? I don’t know. Now it no longer matters. It happened. That’s all there is to it. Nothing came out of it. Just me the way I am now. With no reference to how it was before. So nothing. Pointless.

Chemical imbalance.

Perhaps. Brought on by? I don’t know. No incidence of such in the family line. I do recall that in school in St.Joseph's in Coonoor, being sent for counseling by a bald headed malayali psychiatrist, who wore a maroon color sweater and was peeing loudly in the bathroom while I was told to keep taking about something. I recall that. I recall grinning.

Misanthrope. Antisocial. Tags earned in school. A suspicion of adrenalin over load. A case of blacking out when overtly angry. Once. Wore it like a badge. Seemed to have made survival in a boarding school easier.

Chemical Imbalance?

Probably.

Reason? Trigger?

Riots. Possibly.

Suppressed anger? Disappointments? Seeming injustice? Perhaps.

College. Manipal.

Friends. Drinks. Fights.

Lots of Fights.

Fights with seniors. Fights with class mates. Fights with other colleges. Fight with locals.

Fights with each other.

Friends being hauled up by police.

Never mess with the locals.

Accusation of robbery. Mugging.

One local had lost a chain in a fight. It was not us.

I was not in town. Bangalore. I think. Came back to a scene of weirdness.

Tales of friends being taken to police station and being beaten up. Being made to sign confessions. Tales of all fingers now being pointed at me.

Amused.

Scared but amused.

I recall that fear. Like a curtain of waterfall that hides a cave. You walk through. Now it’s behind you.

Waited on the road for the local gang to come to me. Disarmed. No knives. No drugs on person. Waiting.

Diwali night. Natasha, class mate ,passing by. Handing me a sweet. I pocket it. I tell her friend and her to keep moving. I don’t want them to see me humiliated. I see her looking back. Concerned.

White Sumo. Screeching brakes. Fat guys pouring out like constipated shit in white clothes.

Anu anna.

The joker of the pack. Or is it king? I don’t know.

Knife being held at me. Still sheathed. Monologues. Tiring monologues. Threats. I don’t respond. I am bored. I want to them to get on with it.

Younger brother arrives there on his bike.

I am sacred again.

I don’t want him there. But the goons are scared of him. He studies in MIT, a bigger college, known for their violent methods in solving problems by their sheer numbers. I am amazed. Humbled. All my life I felt I needed to protect him and today he is there alone. He is by my side.

Police. In mufti.

Manipal police outpost.

Anu Anna.

More threats. More accusation. I am searched. Nothing except my lighted. Anu sets my hair on fire. I sit not reacting. I feel nothing. I see his sheathed knife lying on the table next to me. I see how easy it is.

I do nothing.

Udupi subjail. Same night

Brother trying to get me out. Phones college. Principal refuses to come. Replies that a day in jail will be good for me. So that is that.

Stripped. Blue underwear.

Jail. A small square room. An Indian toilet separated by a low wall. Near the metal bars on the corner, on the floor, a bed made of cardboard and sack. A pitcher containing water sits near the toilet. I am alone

Mosquitoes.

I sit on the bed my back resting on the wall. I wet my body with the water from the pitcher. Mosquitoes are attracted to heat. I am hoping this will lower my body temperature. Mosquitoes haven’t read what I read.

Two cops walk in opening the barred door. Or is it called a gate? I don’t know. I know what to expect. I stand up.

They begin.

I think about a sweet that is in my pant pocket and remembers that it is diwali . I laugh. I laugh.

I feel good.

I keep getting up. I find the two cops silly, in their khakhi pants and their white vest strectched over their pot bellies. I feel a kinship. A repulsion mixed with wonder. I take their hits as it comes. They avoid my face. They aim for my stomach , my sides and my back. They use elbows and side of the fist.

I keep getting up.

They go out.

I sit and wait.

The other occupants of the jails beats on their bed when the beating is arriving. I am thankful.

They come. One asks me to sign something. It is written in Kannada. I shake my head.

They begin again.

They seem bored with the whole thing. Like clock work we start the waltz again.

With the bedding beating of my partners in crime, providing the perfect music.