The Alternate Love Story of an Old Man (Part IV)

Like a wayward drunk; bloated beyond consciousnes and tramping in untidy,anyhow directions, he scrawled on that paper. Stilted strokes, almost graceless. Tiny pools of black here and there, places where he had placed the nib on the paper and had drifted off in his mind; while the pen bled puddles of black ink. Syllables were dragged; the curve of the "a"-brute, the dot of the "i"- far flung, the slash of the "t"- merciless. Some words glared bold and huge and black, some were dwarflike and almost unreadable. It was a tiny black leather book, with some rough pages hewn together. And each page, there were scribbles. Cuts, hashes, underlines and ferocious darkenings. They were names." Her " names. 

Aasha. Maybe her name was Aasha. Her face looked mellow, luscious like a ripe, squishy pear,luschious like hope. In the mild, maudlin evenings, when the geese would fly home, the V shaped formation streaked across the horizon, she would stand by her window and watch them scud across the cloudless sky.. her face shone like hope. Hope, that tiny fluttering bird in every heart that wants to dream. Hope, like in a baby's first cry, like a beggar's first dime. Aasha. Hope.

Laxmi. Maybe her name was Laxmi. Maybe when she was born, wealth rained like a hailstorm on their family; from plates made of banana leaves, they started eating from porelain cutlery. Maybe when her shy mother wrapped her in her cotton blankets, her harried father got his first deal. Maybe his frown froze over to a sweat dripped smile, annoyance gone in having a girl in the family; he touched her for the first time. And when she wrapped one stubborn finger along his calloused thumb,eyes still caked shut, he kissed and christened her "Laxmi". 

Aabha. He opened his mouth, toncils showing for the"AA" and then rough skinned lips kissed for the "BHA". Brilliant brown eyes on a face white as an eggshell and the lips as pink as the underside of the tongue. Beautiful. Aabha. For him, she was almost as beautiful as an "Aabha".

One day, he had read an obituary about a little girl called Hoor. Leukaemia had put her underneath wooden logs blazing an irridescent tumultous orange, at a tender age of 7.He was fascinated by the name- angel. A seraph with her gauzy white wings. Hoor, an angel. Hoor, he had traced in that book, the pen scratching against that granular brown surface. Hoor, his wife. How exquisite his sounded. An eternity, and a life with his Hoor.

Maybe they had named her after a bird. Something as delicate as "Koel".A  quivery, twittery bird warbling songs, so mellifluous and soul plucking. Like her. Her careful steps, her carefully braided hair, the carefully tied window shades.  Precocious, deliberate. Dainty, like a Koel.

It crossed him, it tired him. Often he was crestfallen, looked like a bereaved man. He was ok, not knowing her stories- the dreams she had woven as a girl, the sacrifices she had done as a woman. He was ok, not knowing about her siblings- the sister whose hand me down's she wore and the brother in front of whom, she timidly pulled over a duppatta. He was ok, not knowing about the children she bore and the way her flesh had hurt her, leaving her alone inside the corpse of a concrete building. But her name, he was not ok..no knowing her name. Helpless, tied to the arthritis of old age and inability to use technology, he would sit, silent and sad. Sometimes, when the mornings would dawn like a sonnet and it would seem like God was inspired by her to craft those tresses of golden sun, he would wish, and wish with all his heart. If, if he only knew her name. To be able to say it, caress those carefully chosen syllablles by her parents.. give it the love and respect which he wanted to bestow it. But alas. He knew her address, he knew her habits, he knew her fondness for which brand of incense, and yet he did not know her name.