#38. Ajmer, Inebriated.
Today in fiction: Beggars will ride.
Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I'll meet you there.
~ Jalāl al-Dīn Muḥammad Rūmī, A Great Wagon, 13th C.
The bathroom tiles were cool against his face. His left arm extended out of the cubicle, the needle still stuck in a vein. Heroin, cocaine, benzodiazepines, and amphetamines swirled and billowed in his blood. The black-and-white chequered ceramic floor faded into the giant outdoor chessboard at Fatehpur Sikri on that sunny winter’s day, ten years ago. He was the castle. His sister, the queen. They leapt from square to square, but only in the directions they were taught. One square in any direction for him. A straight line, for her. Emperor Akbar stalked the perimeter at the horizon, shaking his head.
Meanwhile, Aisha made her way out of the Ballroom into the long corridor that led to the cloakroom, holding a cup of red wine. Muffled sounds from the party wafted in behind her. Shrieks of laughter. Shattered glass. Applause for Sita, who had swapped the marigolds on her neck for a red scarf around her forehead, singing: khaike, paan banares wala, khuli jaye bandh akal ka tala. This made Aisha laugh.
Ajmer was startled by the sound, but only for a moment. It must be the shayar/guide that his father had hired for the day… why does he giggle like a girl? The guide was old, wrinkled; a seasoned hustler; snivelling, obsequious. But how he’d transformed once he got the gig! Eyes glistening, face bright, he spoke about Tawḥīd-i-Ilāhī, Dīn-i-Ilāhī, that five hundred years ago gathered up Islam, Hinduism, Zoroastrianism, Christianity, Jainism, and Buddhism and rolled them into one big love-ball, in search of Truth. Oneness!
God.
Ajmer and his sister were entranced, hearts racing. Their father looked… irritated. They couldn’t tell what their mother thought. She was inscrutable. A learned skill, she heard her tell his sister once: women must hold their cards close, their enemies closer. Did the shayar make her roll her eyes? Maybe cry a little? They’d never know.
Wine in one hand, Aisha fumbled with the other for the clutch of cigarettes she’d rolled into a pouch made from the top of her saree - a trick she learned from a fisherwoman at Koliwada who stashed her cash that way. The gold-painted door was heavy, resisting. She struggled to push it open, glass, pallou, and cigarettes intact. Aisha needed breaks from large gatherings. To remember who she was. To gather the troops for Act II.
Once inside she was careful not to step on the bright yellow fleur-de-lis pattern on the purple carpet - though she wasn’t sure why. She slumped into a red velvet armchair opposite a gilded mirror to have a smoke and figure it out when she noticed on her reflection, a sneer. Must be all the baroque, she thought. It made her sick. She closed her eyes. And then opened them. It took a moment to register what she was looking at on the floor across the room. A human arm? Fuck!, she said. And split the wine. A dark stain spread across her lap.
From the cubicle and barely audible, she heard a deep voice: Good girls don’t say bad words. Aisha shoved the door open, heart thumping, aware of what might look like menstrual blood on her saree. On the floor: just a boy. Sixteen? Seventeen? Terrible shoes. Terrible haircut. Froth at the mouth. He opened his eyes. Who was this backlit woman, looming over him? Was he dead? Was this heaven?
Her hair looked like an oil spill, coming at his face. He asked her if the money had been transferred to his Ammi’s account, and then, quoting the shayar/guide from Fatehpur Sikir, he said: What is the point of beauty, if there is no one to gaze upon it? What are you talking about shit-head?, Aisha said as she grabbed his head, tilting it back so he wouldn’t choke on vomit. Good girls, bad girls? You’re the one with a needle in your arm. Asshole!
Ajmer was in love.
When I see your face, the stones start spinning!
You appear; all studying wanders.
I lose my place.
Water turns pearly.
Fire dies down and doesn’t destroy.
In your presence I don’t want what I thought
I wanted, those three little hanging lamps.
Inside your face the ancient manuscripts
Seem like rusty mirrors.
You breathe; new shapes appear,
and the music of a desire as widespread
as Spring begins to move
like a great wagon.
Drive slowly.
Some of us walking alongside
are lame!
Today, like every other day, we wake up empty
and frightened. Don’t open the door to the study
and begin reading. Take down a musical instrument.
Let the beauty we love be what we do.
There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.
Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing,
there is a field. I’ll meet you there.
When the soul lies down in that grass,
the world is too full to talk about.
Ideas, language, even the phrase “each other”
doesn’t make any sense.
The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you.
Don’t go back to sleep.
You must ask for what you really want.
Don’t go back to sleep.
lovely lovely lovely. you have a way with words, light and heavy at the same time. write more, so i can selfishly read.