Saee

 

I am Saee, Saee Kulkarni. I am a hoarder in the strictest sense of this world and I keep collecting. But my collections have a tinge of memories attached to them. The myriad moments that I’ve lived till now, and those that get embalmed in an object usually find a place in my house. My dwelling places are filled with photographs of friends and loved ones, souvenirs from travels where I lost a part of me, a written poem that reminds me of the time I needed to keep my hopes alive, posters of singers I loved listening to when I first started playing my guitar and the list is endless. Thus my dwelling place is usually a crammed one and I’ve had one in Pune, Delhi, Indore and now in Dehradun. However with time and owing to the limitations of physical spaces I have started to put my memories in words. It is better this way because they occupy less space and I can relieve them with the same intensity that made them special for me. A lot of first ones usually make it to this list. And today while arranging my new house, at Cadron Cottage, one of my diaries fell into my lap and the page that it opened to was about one such first. A very special first meeting with someone I fell in love with the moment I saw her – Khanak. 

Khanak was Akash’s daughter. When we met she was a four year old kid with curly hair bouncing on her forehead. Her eyes were innocent that concealed the mischievous mind and she had two ears jutting out from her cute little face exactly like her father. Yeah she looks so much like him. I thought. 

I met Akash when I had recently moved to Indore where my company was setting up its new tractor plant. We both were attending a business conclave and we became friends unexpectedly. I had no one that I knew in this city and thus Akash took it upon himself to introduce me to people and places in and around Indore. He was a Landscape Architect and loved nature and had made a very successful business out of his passion. It was two weeks after the conclave that Akash called to ask if I would like to join him for a day trip to a resort some 200 km away to the South of Indore. He had a business meeting there. It was a Saturday and I had my day off and it was thus decided that I was to park my car at his place so we could go together in his car. This page was about that day. It read... 

“Today Bapu’s friend is going to come...” Khanak was told. She was quite excited to meet Bapu’s friend. For her, a “Friend”, was a small kid. Of course all her friends are small, and suddenly when she saw me, she must have gotten disappointed, I guess. Or maybe it was her initial inhibition but she was kind of reluctant to talk to me at first.

But I had amours up my sleeves. I had brought a tiny tractor keychain to lure her. I had thought that I would skillfully slip it in her palm, which I kind of did, and she loved that tractor. Her small round eyes shone up immediately at the sight of that toy tractor. And that was my first win.

I was dying to cuddle her in my arms and play with her, however I knew better and thus gave her space and didn't smother her with my motherly instincts. I on purpose avoided showing too much attention to her. I was talking to Akash’s parents while having the morning tea and we were discussing everything under the sun, right from politics, to my movement from Delhi to Indore. And a while later I guess my presence eased into that house as Khanak moved a bit closer to me. However while I was about to hold her hand she ran inside and a minute later shyly brought some pictures, to show me, that she had drawn. And as soon as I was interested in her art, she got all excited. And with non stop chatter, all her artwork started coming out in the living room.

Many coloring books, a few toys which were coloured too, then a pillow on which she drew a web of lines and then she pointed towards the house walls, all of which had her special touch. She wanted to share everything with me. She even wanted to show me her aerobic skills, so she got Bapu’s yoga mat from his room and placed it in front of me. I saw a few sketched lines on the yoga mat as well.

I learned all the funny yoga and aerobic exercises that she had invented. And at one point while doing a backward bend she fell down on her back with her face up and she looked at me from there, still giggling and her eyes lit up. And those eyes moved something inside me at that moment. I will never forget them my entire life. I felt like picking her and holding her to my chest.

That night when we returned from our trip, Khanak was already asleep and I could not say goodbye.

Later I got to know that, next morning, she was looking for me all over. When she came out and saw my car was gone- she missed me. 

And that was my second win.

“Win, huh?” I thought and my lips curled into a smile. But those days were the days of me winning. I had surpassed at least 7 male and equally capable colleagues to head the warehouse division in Indore. I was awarded the prestigious Steel Falcon award by the warehousing industry for the previous year. The youngest and the only lady since the inception of the awards. I was winning professionally and here I was losing my heart to this family - a different kind of win. 

I just flipped the pages of the diary and a couple of pictures of me and Akash fell in my lap. The few of the many that he had clicked. They took me back to those days. Those days in Indore were magical and now it all seemed like a story that I had read and only lived in my mind. 

After that first trip with Akash it became frequent for him to call and ask me to join him on weekends for small trips close by. The trips with Akash grew frequent. Initially it was with his friends and slowly even three became a crowd. We two started doing most trips together, only the two of us. We went to a secluded fort where he sketched the ruins and I played the guitar, joined a volunteer group in canal building before the rains in a parched area of Madhya Pradesh, drove aimlessly on the internal roads of Melghat to visit villages separated by miles and miles of jungle, trekked to a tribal village in Melghat and drank a freshly brewed Mahua and slept in the middle of a dense forest while recording the jungle noise for his documentary. The workaholic me who usually worked nonstop started to keep my calendar free on weekends. This world was new to me. The world where I was being wanted. I was being needed. And thus an year rolled slowly past and we were again at the conclave, however this time the people were not strangers and the city knew me and I knew the city and loved it back. That night I felt as if I had found a home in the city and I wanted to thank Akash for it. And thus before going to bed I wrote the below post on Facebook. 

I believe that a city is like a capricious woman: she takes time to be seduced and to reveal herself completely. And for the past year Indore has been that lady in my life and what a year it has been. A year that taught me that Not all who wander are lost; that wanderers do find themselves. 

And my Tolkien for this realization has been Akash. Thank you Akash and my friends from Indore. Here are some snaps of my best wanderings. I'm posting 4 of my favorites. Please tell me which one is yours. 

And the next morning I woke up to a call from a cousin in Mumbai who was congratulating me for something from my FB page. In half sleep and total confusion I told her I'll call her back and I checked out the FB post and found that Akash had responded to my post. He had commented. 

When I go back and pull out the best of those moments, my favorite is when I pulled you up onto that water tank at Ramghar Temple. And then we sat there in an awkward silence. The wind was beautiful - strong and a bit cold - an early December wind. And we two were sitting gingerly trying to guess what the other would be feeling and thinking. And I was thinking what to do next. How to hold your hand? 

But then by the end of that evening we held hands and you leaned on my shoulder. There was this shawl around us and a distant orange sun slowly melted and trickled into the darkness. 

But I know you will say -" that wasn't the shawl, it was my stole. And it wasn't early December and that isn't exactly what happened at Ramghar. At Ramghar we didn't hold hands and that memory is from someplace else." 

To tell you the truth, I don't think that memory is from just Ramghar. That memory is from that day from far back and also from the days far ahead. Rather it keeps repeating itself time and again like an etched motif. 

Our togetherness etched on the parchment of time.

Butterflies fluttered in my stomach and my mind went full throttle. What has Akash done? Or has he really done anything at all? Was he really proposing? Now what should I do? Should I call him? I was ecstatic reading his reply. The train of my thoughts was running at full speed and it only stopped when I finally asked myself - Should I tell him now? I haven't told him the complete truth about me yet. 

And the thought made a hole in my sole and I slumped in my beanbag and that's when my phone rang again. It was my mother this time. 

“Hello Maa”

“Saee what's this? You two are a couple now?” her tone was stiff. 

“Na Maa. It's just the way he is……..no..no Maa……no I didn't propose …….. What? Has he stayed in my flat ? No… NO… NO, we haven't had sex if that is what you meant…… why should he?......... don't act ridiculous…..Ma… no don't say that ... .stop… stop……Please STOP .” and I realized I was sounding like an anxious teenage girl and I wasn't one. Thus I stopped mid-sentence. And after a minute of awkward silence my mother said 

“He is confused. He still loves his dead wife, not you. He is gravitating towards you because there is a vacuum in his life and trust me that vacuum doesn't need filling. It just needs someone like you being around. Have you ever looked into his eyes when you two were laughing and found them sad?” 

And with that I went blank for a while. Even she let this sink in. She knew my fear and knew which buttons to press. A while later , sensing that her words had done the work, she finally said “He must have a clean slate honey if he wants to begin with you afresh.” 

“The slate needs to be cleaned from both sides Ma.” I had said choking on my words and hung up the phone. 

“Clean slate, huh?” I didn't want to clean my slate……..I wanted to break it…undo my past. One can always reason that it was another time. And it definitely was another time, not so long ago but standing here today, at the edge of the year that changed me, it seemed like another life. And that's the reason why I wanted to leave it behind. Reason why I changed jobs and cities. Reason why I never discussed it with anyone. And this here today when I was trying to build a new life my past demanded it to be retold for the slates to be cleaned. How paradoxical. And as I closed my eyes years rolled down my eyes along with my tears. 

I was fresh out of college and into my initial days of job when my parents decided that I should get married. They had stumbled upon a suitable match from our community and I was married off even before I turned 23. Not that I was totally opposed to the idea either. My husband was a handsome and intelligent man and I was more happy about the fact that he was from the same city. He was the proverbial eligible bachelor and I was equally excited to have found him. He was charming, ambitious and a true gentleman and within that short period between first meeting him and our engagement I fell in love with him. But within a few months of our marriage my excitement started to ebb away. Though he always did what was right in a relationship he never needed me in the sort of way I wanted my husband to need me. He said he loved me but his actions and expressions made me feel like I was his duty, not his passion. And the more I thought about it, the more I found him emotionally distant. I discussed my feelings with him and he laughed it off saying I was suffering from Utopian Bollywood Romanticism. Others too said marriage is gonna take time getting used to. For them we were the ideal couple- young , beautiful and educated. So no one thought there could be anything amiss in our relationship. And then slowly even I thought this is how marriages are supposed to be. And days turned to years and a certain cold formality had set in between the two of us and I even accepted that. But then there came a time when my husband was to go to Germany on 6 months deputation and with him away I felt lonelier. With him not around anymore I found my days had more time than I could kill. He called one day and suggested that I join a theater workshop and rekindle my love for performing art. I always loved performing art but more than that I wanted to feel alive again. Thus everyday after office I went to a Theater workshop and that's where I met Krishnaraj. The theater folks fondly called him Raj, a middle-aged, charismatic man who had a deep understanding of theater and an intensity that radiated in his every move. He was spontaneous, passionate, and deeply immersed in his work. Watching him pour his soul into every scene stirred something in me, something that had been dormant within. I was drawn towards him and then one evening, in a moment neither of us had anticipated, we found ourselves wrapped in each other’s arms. In that fleeting moment of passion, I felt alive again — desired, cherished, seen.

An enormous sense of shame and guilt overcame me. I felt like I've betrayed myself too and I could not sleep that night as I kept thinking what unthinkable I've done. At the break of the dawn I messaged Raj and told him that it was a mistake and I hope he understands that. However a week later I drifted to our love pod and although I felt ashamed and terrified I was wanting it too. And then something broke inside me. I met Raj almost everyday at his place and was happy to behave promiscuously. This continued for 3 months and when my husband came back it didn't take me much effort to tell him that I was attracted to someone else. He looked surprised but not heartbroken. He never asked me his name or how it all happened. Next morning he asked if I was feeling guilty. When I said yes, he hugged me. Hugged me like he understood me and also forgave me and we never spoke of it again. That day I felt angry like I'd never felt before. I didn't want him to understand. I wanted him to be upset. I wanted him to say that he hated me for being such a wanton. I wanted him to show some jealousy and possession of me being his wife. Me being his property. But all he said was “the water is under the bridge and he understood why I did it and that we'll come out stronger”. For a month we stayed like nothing had happened. He was back to being the epitome of a good guy that the world knew he was. Caring about me, calling me twice a day, helping me in cooking and even kissing me goodbye before leaving for work. And then one day I decided to stay separately. I moved to a flat close to my office and he still brought me my tiffin to my office. He knew I would not be cooking for myself and he didn't want me to eat cafeteria food everyday. Finally six months later I decided that we should end this marriage which confused everyone but him. Our parents and friends and colleagues could not understand why I would decide to end such a seemingly good marriage. And I could not explain it to them. I had spent 4 years in a broken marriage and pretended that it was all good. I could not pretend anymore and do injustice to both of us. He could pull it off but I was not ready to wear the shroud and pretend it to be a wedding dress. 

The divorce took a year to finalize and once I had unshackled the chains of my bondage I switched gears, I switched jobs, partners and cities. I was revenge living the life I had missed living. I wanted to make up for the lost years. I started enjoying the fact that I was climbing the corporate ladder and living in the fast lane. I was living to run and running to live and then as fate would have it I finally landed in Indore and I met Akash. A calm person who had no regrets and qualms for how he has lived his life. A stable person I was instantly drawn toward. Our attraction towards each other was a validation of the phrase - Opposite attracts. But not all phrases are true. Truth doesn't always set you free. Here I am chained to my truth away from people I love and who loved me back but for this truth, and I wish I didn’t no now what I didn't know then.  

I closed the diary and a certain heaviness settled on my chest. I opened the window for some fresh air but that too didn’t help. The mountain wind seemed heavier than it was an hour back. I could not simply get back to my chore and here I have to get back to life………but I know I will. I always have.