… When we went inside the house, Sabin sat me down in his beautiful living room and asked me, “You remember tea?” . “I’d love to have some. I’ve been awake for five hours now.” . Fifteen minutes later, Sabin came back with two cups of tea and some Indian biscuits and sat across from me. “Why do they call them cookies in America?” He quizzed me, pointing at those biscuits. . “They don’t use metric system in America.” I said. . “You said ‘they’. So you’re not ‘we’ yet?” . “I’m never going to be ‘we’.” . “Why?” . “I’ve never been ‘me’. Don’t you have to be ‘me’ to be ‘we’?” . “Explain that to me. You can’t just juggle some random pronouns and expect that will make sense to someone like me.” . “America only claims you when you’re something. You have to be the ‘he’ in America; a ‘he’ doesn’t make the cut. America doesn’t treat me like I’m there. I reciprocate.” . Sabin looked at me inquisitively but did not say anything. His silence did not last long though. “Do you still sing?” . “I don’t.” . “Did you learn any instrument?” . “I learned I’m not persistent enough to learn any instrument.” . “How did you learn that?” . “Oddly enough, the expiration date of my plans and goals often matches the manufactured date of my excuses.” . “I was asking how exactly you learned that you can’t learn an instrument.” . “By counting the number of things that I started and gave up in the middle of it.” . “When do you count something that intangible?” . “I have a long commute to work. I get to think and enumerate intangibles.” . “America sounds consuming to me.” . “You won’t believe this, but I’ll tell you anyway. One day, I went out of the house. A minute later, I came back and started looking around in the living room. I was trying to figure out why I had gone outside. Only when I found my car keys, I remembered, I had gone out for jogging.” . “That didn’t happen.” . “It did happen. America’s tricky, Sabin. America makes me wanna give up America every single day, especially on Monday. Sometimes, I just want to walk to my bosss office, use my Al Pacino voice and scream, ‘BATTISPUTALI’. . “You have Al Pacino voice?” . “No, I have deadlines.” . “Other people don’t have deadlines?” . “My deadlines don’t excite me. My work doesn’t impact anyone except some greedy vendors, the outcome of capitalism’s overindulgence.” . “You’re a socialist now?” . “No. Not yet. I’m against excess. Particularly, greed.” . “Still, what does that have to do with you counting how many things you gave up on?” . “Other than the fact I don’t want to dwell on that?” . “Oh, I get it. So you’re always running away from yourself?” . “Only because it’s pretty scary when I catch me.” . “How so?” . “I just told you. I remind me of how many things I didn’t finish.” . “So, there’s no ‘now’ for yourself?” . “Only an addict enjoys the concept called now.” . “And you don’t?” . “I’m not persistent enough to be an addict. See, we’re back to where we started.” . “Is that what you were trying to prove?” . “No, you took me there. As long as I’m the subject, we’ll always end up there. That’s my biggest truth. And truth, coincidentally, is often consistent.” . “Are you still funny?” . “I’ve no friends to test that skill. I’m still funny in my head when I talk to myself.” . “But that’s a condition, not talent.” . “It’s not a condition when no one else knows and you’re already used to it.” . “That’s sad. And pathetic.” . “And predictable. I always know how I’ll react to me.” . “Do you still write?” . “I can’t.” . “Why not?” . “I fear critics. Sometimes, when I’m most optimistic, I think writing may be the only thing I can do ok, what if that too turns out to be false?” . “How will you find that out without writing?” . “Yeah, that suspense is killing me.” . “You don’t look like you work out.” . “I pay my gym membership fees.” . “When was the last time you went to the gym? I mean, inside the gym.” . “Four weeks ago. Ok I’m lazy, I’ll give you that. But there’s another reason why I don’t go to the gym. Excess … I can’t deal with excess, Sabin. The last time I went there, I was waiting for my turn to do some cardiovascular thing. I saw this white man next to me, lifting 350 pounds of weight. I just wanted to lean over him and ask, “Why”.” . “You didn’t ask him?” . “Would you? He was lifting 350 pounds. I’m 195.” . “Did he look good?” . “He looked excess. He looked like America.” . “You don’t write; you don’t sing, you don’t play any instrument, you don’t work out, and you’re not sure you’re funny anymore. What do you live for, Pramod?” . “I’m scared my death won’t have any impact on this world. I don’t want to die and find out I was the only one who noticed it. That’s why I choose to live.” . “That’s heavy.” . “Now imagine I’ve to live with that heaviness.” I said. I was yet to take a sip of tea. “Enough about me; I’m certifiably boring. Tell me about yourself.”
Posted on: Sun, 02 Nov 2014 03:31:36 +0000
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