Towards the end of November is 'vrishchikotsavam,' the temple's anniversary, a week of chaos. The whole temple compound gets a golden glow at night, yellow luminance invading into the privacy of the black night sky. Camphor soot and dust, disperse the yellow light from the sodium vapour lamps propped on bamboo poles. Everything, and everyone, becomes beautiful in that light.
I spend the nights near the wooden stairs of the West gate. They're relatively less crowded. It's not easy, you know, existing as the omnipresent like me. It's very distracting, and also, you don't have as much freedom. Everything becomes decided for you, you are restricted by the imagination of the dumb few who made you up - your shape, name, mobility, sexuality, where you exist, who you can see, who can see you - everything. It's hard.
On the third day of utsavam I saw him in his favourite black tee and 'kaavi mundu.' His goatee is catching up since the last year I saw him. He knows I don't exist and hence doesn't bother visiting, except for these yearly visits. He's here for the 'panchavadyam' - the orchestral drum music. He stands away from the rush, in a clear patch, looking down at the sand moist with elephant pee, cross-armed, taking in the rhythmic beats of the chenda.
But, today he's disturbed - too conscious of his presence. She is the reason. She's there standing by the gallery wall, with an ease which he can only dream of, and she's beautiful. Her sharp nose with a bump at 1/3rd the length, her exotic pale grey eyes, bony fingers with closely cut nails and her lilac chiffon churidar with floral patterned baggy salwaar. She waves at her sister who along with the rest of her family is watching the procession from the gallery reserved for the royal families. Privileges of your ancestors being fucked by some Aryan. Maybe it's these privileges that let her exist at ease in this crowd and maybe the lack of which makes him conscious of his presence in the same crowd. The space itself is new to his ilk.
They are strangers, at least in the broader sense of the word. For her, he is just another face illuminated in yellow. But he knows her face a bit more thoroughly, maybe a bit too well, well enough to sketch it on a Monday morning from memory.
He used to enjoy his bus rides back home from Palarivattom, after those wretched classes, with a curious sense of achievement. It was his reward for sitting through 8 hours of depressing lessons in cramped classrooms - his way of unwinding. One day she gets on his bus and sits a few seats ahead of him. He observed every curve on her head's silhouette. Next morning he woke up at 4 and started sketching it down so that he wouldn't forget how it looked. This was 5 years ago. He hasn't seen her since, until today. That face he sketched from memory, the only one he could - the bump on her nose, the grey in her eyes, everything was before him again.
The chenda beats were muffled. He watched her as she sat down on the moist sand, cross-legged, leaning back on her hand propped on the ground. Then she closed her eyes, raised her head up and tried to read the beats.
.....
Day 5, he came early. The panchavadyam wouldn't start in another 2 hours. He went to the koothupura to see the kathakali. 'Baali-vadhanam' is playing today. She is sitting at the back, in a corner. She recognizes his face from a dream she once had. The boy who painted her in the light of a kerosene lamp. Every stroke on the cotton rag canvas gave new colours to her skin. She got maroon hair, grey skin and yellow eyes. She loved how she'd changed, she wished she had maroon hair, grey skin and yellow eyes. She believed it was the light from the soot-covered glass shade of the lamp that gave her her new colours.
She saw his face in the flickering glow of the 'aatavillaku,' and she felt the joy of having a chance to get the colours she never had. She relished the possibility in all its absurdity. The handheld curtain is let to fall and the music became louder, a few hurried stomps of the feet, and he looks back over his shoulder. Two beats skipped, two breaths stuck half-way, and two pairs of eyes averted. The first set of sticks fell on the chendas - panchavadyam has started. The Kathakali crowd started shrinking. She stood up, dusted her bottom and walked to the front.
She introduced herself, 'Durga.' Two wide-opened eyes met the outstretched hand.
'Hey, I'm Tejus,' he shook the hand. 'You wanna sit?'
She sat beside him. He's amused by Ravanan's face patterns, a bit of extra black and red, violent and threatening. This is the part where he abducts Sita to the forest confinement in Lanka. What if Sita wanted to be with Ravanan and the whole Ramayanam is a distorted version of the story - an elope rather than an abduction?
The panchavadyam beats were getting intense, but neither of them felt like leaving. 'Do you draw?' Durga asked, noticing the black-bound sketchbook jutting out of his satchel.
'Yes... I like to sketch, yeah.' He was always reluctant to acknowledge his taste in art. I bet he felt noticed and exposed.
'What kinda things do you sketch?'
'I like doing portraits, illustrations, ...that kinda stuff.'
'Can you draw me?' Durga asked. A question that he's heard an umpteen times before, and yet, this time it was different; for both of them, both knew he already had.
'Yes... sometimes,' he replied with a shy nod. Tejus' phone rang, True caller tab popped up red, 'Bsnl telemarketing,' it read.
'Wow, Yumeji's theme? From "In the mood for love?" Are you a Wong Kar Wai fan too?
They gushed over their love for Wong Kar Wai movies. They both thought they were the only ones to see all 10 of his features. Tejus' favourite was 'Chungking Express' and Durga's was '2046.' They talked about the omnipresent elements in his movies: the rain, mirrors, unrequited love, stop printing and catchy pop songs. When the nuances of Wong Kar Wai movies were exhausted they bitched about almost everyone who was sitting there - the GoPro techie who had brought the whole product box with him, the aunty with jasmine flowers on her head that had started to rot, the bald guy who ironically had scored most number of mosquitoes circling his head, the butt crack guy with a fluorescent 'Jockey,' the over engrossed mom whose kids they planned to murder, the sorority of princesses with matching blouses, and the oldie, who for some reason kept calling me, only interrupted by the periodic scoffs of disappointment at the mumbling two. They hardly cared anything about the grieving Ram(easily an 8) who just lost his wife to the dark evil Ravanan( a 5, at most a 6).
The Kathakali performers bowed and left the makeshift stage. A few of the audience had come with bed-sheets to sleep on, which they spread over the floor and slept. Durga and Tejus left the koothambalam. It was 3 in the morning, the panchavadyam was over long back, and the temple grounds were deserted except for the footprints from the night. They decided to sit and talk for some more time before they went home.
They sat at the west gate, on the black rock platforms on which people, and I, usually sit. It'll glisten ever so lightly in the moon, the oil from the lit lamps would mix with the dew and give a greasy coating to it.
Durga started, 'Have you seen ''Begin Again?" Yeah? So, there's this scene in which they talk about how you can know so much about a person from their playlists.'
Durga looked at Tejus intently, waiting.
'...Oh, you wanna know my playlist? Okay cool, how about we play one song each from our playlists, alternatively. How's that?'
'Cool, works. You wanna start?'
'Yeah, sure.' Tejus started with 'Angela' by The Lumineers. They played Angela. I liked that song. Something about tree logging.
'Wasteland baby, by Hozier.'
'Okay,...Hero by Family of the year.'
'Coastline by Hollow Coves.'
'Cherathukal...?'
...
Tinges of orange spread in the sky and suddenly there were rays of sunlight creeping in from behind the silhouette of the clock-tower. Savithri had started sweeping the stone pavements. She's a friend. We talk often about her grandkids. Pigeons stirred from under the clay-tiled roofs. Durga rubbed her eyes and took a few deep breaths of the cold morning air. She looked at Tejus sleeping on her calves, waited a moment, and then woke him up. A bit embarrassed by the drool on her salwaar he gave her an awkward smile.
He lazily sat up. 'Oh, shit..! We're back in real-time.'
'Do you hear a Harpsichord playing? We can dance maybe,' She asks with an animated face of sarcasm.
Tejus spurts out a laugh, 'It's funny you said that. I've always had this fantasy of having a sunrise-esque moment. You know, in some foreign city, walking around the streets - connecting with a person...Oh, and then I want the sequels too. I really love them, Jesse and Celine. They put everything good in those movies, and now, that's my scale, you know what I mean?'
'Yeah, I guess so. Yeah...But, you're gonna be disappointed my child. I don't think it ever works that way. Probably why the movie is special, right? I mean - you'll probably be perpetually disappointed in whatever you'd have - I guess...'
'Yeah...I guess. Anyways it'd be something I'd be looking for I guess.'
Durga jumps down from the platform they were sitting on, 'well, this was close, right?' They shared a smile. They and I knew it was; the closest. The sand was cold - pleasant to walk on. They got a morning tea from the stall at the gate and decided to leave for their homes to sleep the day off. As they parted and Durga walked to her home, she looked down at her feet - there was a patch of grey on her skin - like a brushstroke. I watched on as the maroon at the ends of her hair glistened in the sun.
