The House on Hill Road

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Life could have been more boring, after all meeting new people all
the time becomes a chore for a Hilly Billy come lately to Bombay,
from a one year trip to Israel –Holy Land to next stop over Hollow
Land. Still I believed that more things were likely to fit in a
hollow, than a plateful of bland kosher food when trying to be less
a pilgrim than the pilgrimage itself.

Having landed in Bombay with not an idea in place, leave alone a
spot for marketing myself into a decent accommodation without
blowing dollars or being pick pocketed, I managed to live in
several homes of – a shippie waitress, an editorial coordinator of a
reputed magazine, a con woman (was more than that, knew about
it later) married to a Bollywood icon duplicate, ex-fiance and his
morbid sister and then lodged into a paying guest accommodation,
which still squeezes money outta me, and always successful too.
I can say one thing for myself, history repeats itself, deja vu’s
random and I still live without learning! Idiocy.

Well, as I was saying I was again introduced to someone by
someone who had just been introduced to me. Over a sip of a
smile, which parted my lips and my eyes a little wider I saw the
most adorable man … his friends said his moniker was ‘Dog’. A
strapping big built youth, with a wide mouthed smile, and dark
eyes which were hidden by hair that had free fall over his forehead,
I loved his eyes - they probed unobtrusively.

Six years have lapsed between then and now, the difference is that
while I have become a bitch, the ‘Dog’ someone told me had become a Tom cat and we are best friends! He still gives me the same cheap excuses, which his friends used to get bugged about – ‘dog cannot be trusted…he does this all the time…’. He, also called himself the ‘Machine’ and prided in the fact that metal he was made up was invincible. Sometimes, I thought it was child talk, boy talk and a dreamers’ talk. Still it was talk, for, for me people who could create nothing out of air is a magician doing the vanishing tricks while living life’s arduous route to remaining sane.

Here’s where I once again learned the ropes of magic words,
vacuous as they come while, the next person – another Hilly Billy
will I waylay, teaching them about how to live like a Bandra
netizen no less! The coolest breed of animals are here for the
show, the road show to frivolity, admiration, class departs and not
to forget walks at Carter Road , slashings of froth on the
Bandstand rocks, bhutta and coconut no comparison for beer
/whisky, while metals on wheels line one after the other and of
course a pair of healthy legs cannot beat a BMW! This is where
the choice of the winning pedigree lies for bystanders like me.

Jeeze! I keep digressing… yes, as I was saying I am still being
introduced to new people, like my old friend the ‘Dog’ here. Even
as I was waiting, with a bowlful of strawberries and dry white
wine, a palpitating heart and a book-full of memories, for one full
day of love making – white doves on the chapel steeple. I remain a
stranger to be introduced to again and again, till I start talking to
myself as another - a way to have a faithful friend, when the waves
come together only to part and I can say ‘ beautiful, I cannot live
away from Bandra, the sea is here, its my soul!’ One can do away
with a heart that can live with a pace maker, peace maker, place
maker … soulless this Hilly Billy cannot, even if the faithful
mountains echo their loss of a pal.

To be honest, it’s not just the sea that binds me like thorns to a rose, it’s the slash of hair fall that covers that sombre eyes, the fangs that make up a smile, the wide shoulders where just once almost like a shy bride I rested my head, reading a mail to myself – an often habit I shared with close ones. Mails to myself, for words on paper express the universe that’s contained in my polluted little head, without contamination.

The past lies dead, still the soul remains, the bind that only I feel and see. To be able to see further than the rest, to converse with stars about lives that they plan to change, to know that to love is to lose control – someone said I was a split personality. Yes, while my feet is bound by codes of societal shoe laces, I talk the talk while, my eyes contradict everything I speak, while walking on the plain plane. Am always splitting with laughter inside, I have ulcers now!

I ring a letter, a sigh, some wayward words on a ‘machine’ again. It’s all been received, the sms of an emotional death in the concrete lined shores of Bandstand which cannot touch the dancing waves of Madh Island where sands touch life upon lovers who lie with each other … its champagne time! Its time to smile yet again, what’s a pair of healthy lungs for – to scream a sacred tear! It’s swallowing time again, I will not let a single salty drop from mine eyes mix with the lashes of sea water drop to the earth –this is no time to introduce the two types of salty water to mother universe. At least not from the proudest girl she has ever borne and presented to her favorite sons for play!