It was raining. But quietly raining. Past the window one could feel the ocean was on a mild rage, the sky was light grey, there was a sense of mild mist and moisture around but the wind was still blowing hard, the sparse trees around were all bending around to the will and wish of nature - the wind they blew created soft, muffled, whistles inside the room - like the wind after a cyclone -the curtains were heavy but yet they were trying to free and tear out, it was day light, but the world was back , taking out their first few steps, walking out dripping wet, torn umbrellas, shattered rain cots, shrunk bodies - battered yet gladly alive, walking out of a new crisis.
The black asphalt road looked awash, water was gushing all around, the footpaths were deserted - the world looked 'just born'.
Danny.
Danny was crouched - back to the wall - head lolled on one side. Eyes were shut. The LED's on the music system looked more like stable ECG graph's playing along with Danny's calm but deep breathing.
Danny's mind was numb, yet he felt he was in a deep, dark pit - was it a movie theater ? he could see there were a lot people? - he cringed and crouched he hated crowds, he felt crowds always judged him and he hated judgments - and as he kept cringing and crouching and hiding, he slipped on a backward spiral and he kept falling, hands waving, mouth open, eyes facing the sky - Danny wondered, was he floating or falling or flying ?
And where was his mind ? Even at this juncture it was lost in thought. What about the all famous survival instinct ? such a fascinating thought.
If I were ever asked
,ever that is , the 2 things that have always fascinated me , then I would
without hesitation tell you this, that the choice would zeroe in somewhere
between ‘Annie and then the Underworld’ – I am not too sure which came first ,
between Annie and the Underworld, and, if my memory serves me right their entry
was synchronous, accidentally synchronous – but for the sake of a place to
start, lets say it was indeed the “Underworld”
that was the first to grab my all round fascination;
It all started
when I , as a kid in school dropped a piece of chalk , I distinctly remember, given by my malignant tumor stricken mother –
She gave me the slim, white , hard chalk, held it out like a candy and took
reasonable pains to make me realize that it was meant to write and along with
the tall white chalk she, my mother, also directed me to a small square shaped black
,cracked in the middle, but eminently portable writing implement made of thin
graphite;
This ubiquitous
writing support implement was a staple object that we carried everyday to our
school, and I remembr, it had a withering wooden frame to hold the square
graphite stone in place - made of some horribly soft, cheap, easily ‘chippable’
wood- I think we used to call it call it a ‘slate’ then , no idea why – and
this ‘slate’ kept losing a good dose of its wooden frame in the form of thin,
needle like, sharp bits of wood ( ‘am not too sure if I bit them off ‘coz I
know I used chew on my chalk ! So maybe i did the same with the wooden frame of
my slate too ) and these sharp wooden bits , most probably chewed by a
malnourished forever hungry infant, sometimes pricked my tender hands – and
every time it happened many in my class almost brought the house down screaming
.
I remember one
day when I was shocked to bits by a scream so crazy that I almost pissed into
my hands! It was when I was busy comparing my microscopic penis size with
another bench mate ( oh it was such a common sport amongst us , then) and suddenly scream almost pushed a few drops
of that salt juice into my hands .
Before I knew it,
I, was soon furiously experimenting with the slate and chalk, I put to work all
my undernourished energies and often found to my chagrin that the chalk was
equally under nourished , it just kept breaking every time , often even before
I could complete figuring out a simple ‘A’ on my black slate, I used to express
my frustration on the chalk by biting it – often I found I actually liked the
taste .
But friends let
me confess it was that same weak piece of chalk that – that broke every time a
child getting initiated into alphabet creation pressed forward an alphabetical
shape - was instrumental in getting me initiated into the great underworld, yeah
the same chalk , that also helped boys& girls of my tender age learn
figuring out the shape of the first basic alphabets that constructed human
conversation, became the genie that magically drew me to the nether world.
It was the same
chalk that pulled me down and changed my life forever.
The accident
occurred one day when during school I bent down to pick up a broken piece of
chalk that snapped ,as usual in the not so middle, and in 2 parts fell down , and
promptly disintegrated into more pieces;
As is human , I
quickly bent my head just below my bench and looked around only to realize that
the pieces of precious broken chalk were spread all around , determined to find
my broken pieces of chalk, I slid down completely, and began my earnest efforts
to collect as many of the broken chalk pieces as I could, so there I was
crouched below my rickety old school bench , crawling on my all fours, picking
up pieces of chalk – lying scattered under our creaky school benches -
– that’s was
when it happened;
I was just
boringly scanning around, looking for my chalk, I saw , for the first time
ever, a set of visual paraphernalia that completely took me and my attention
with an unexpected sense of awe – What I saw, soon mesmerized me, it took me into
a world I had never before imagined, In fact I also had this strange gut feel
that what I was about to see was not something that I was meant see – my eyes
were set by the stark beautiful reality of the underworld , my first ever
encounter with them was so pleasant , so much more interesting than the upper
world I was being violently forced to acquaint – so it was that the early sense
of the underworld entered into my conscious mind - and oh what a sight it was ;
As I bent down,
I couldn’t help my eyes from roaming, panning the whole world beneath- below the
world of antique timber benches that resembled a strange kind of wooden horse
capable of moving back and forth but never capable of running- our great wood
and concrete classroom that our teachers loved beyond their imagination to address,
often most violently, stood rigid , while I hardly symapthised with my fellow
living members of my class.
I definitely
sympathized and pitied the poor wooden benches of my class room - they really
took a lot of brunts and grunts and an awful lot more from us – but they , the
benches, in their own dumb way, lived in a world all their own and I realized it
as I bent down to pick my broken chalk – in fact I realised they secretly hid ,
beneath their top, a world shockingly different, astonishingly exciting , it
was then , as I bent down , that I saw a whole new world that existed beneath –
the fabulous , the grand , the awesome underworld – full of a huge set of
small, differently sized, dangling ‘legs’ almost all of them doing some form of
movement or the other .
The next to catch
my attention was a little more horrifying , beneath the benches we parked
ourselves on was also home to an army of ants! Small, red and menacing, ants!
I remembered it
had once crawled up my leg and found the traces of sugar water on my most
private sector irresistible , it had bit me on my penis and quickly escaped ,
while I hardly realized its mischief I soon had more than one reason to regret the
mishap - my little penis soon swelled like a 1000 watt Edison bulb – that
seemed to endlessly amuse a whole world around me – from many of my teachers,
my companions in class and outside and later on at home - they shamelessly
fondled my tool like it was a mere tailors bobbin ,while I writhed and swore;
As I remembered
the incident I quickly focussed my view onto one special member of my old
tormentor with a sudden rage , it was relentlessly roaming, as if nothing had
really happened , I knew it had realized its guilt and was trying its best to
avoid me , oh it was also trying its best to show it was really busy, trying
its best to put away my raging attention on it – not the one to be fooled by
such not so sophisticated pantomime - I just had to draw a fraction of my
anaemic strength , aim with closed eyes and then I did it – I killed it ,
without remorse , in fact I silently celebrated – invented my first known victory
cry in my head !
And then I turned
around to do what I originally sunk down to do – collect back my broken chalk
pieces - hardly realising that I was about to witness another event that would
have a far more profound, far more too shape my life forever.
I turned my
little head and was pleasantly awed by the sight of several little beautiful
legs that were dangling, oh the sight of different shoes , different colored socks,
and the vaguely exciting look of lovely ‘Annie’ who was also slumped
underneath, sobbing like there was no tomorrow, her nano second pause to smile
at me and then within a split second going back to her chore , and yes the most
exciting sight of course was the color of those myriad different underwears of
my classmates – ok technically think that I was briefly a front bencher –
especially the underwears of the most beautiful girls in my life – man were
they juicy , of course some were wet and clumsy , all the same they were the
most awesome bit of knowledge I preferred to ooze in , than the torture that
was the class up above me, in that fraction of the second I quickly turned to
check the color of my teacher’s panties , hehehehe it was one dark black, she
was an Anglo Indian, actually pretty cute , she tried hard to hate us , tried
equally hard to teach us, but imagine teaching morons like me who preferred the
underworld.
It was then I
heard a war cry , distinctly addressing my name , as I reluctantly scrambled
away from a truly wonderful world of visual delight , I was once again startled
from my reverie , one more sharp shout , and, I
was all attention ;
I was up ,
small, tiny , head still lolling like a broken doll, legs unsteady, eyes wide
shut, ears red, nose leaking , almost on the verge of a major nervous break
down , facing my pretty black pantied teacher, She was right next to my bench ,
I realized she was exploiting an unfair advantage , I hardly came upto her
belly button, her cheap oil and perfume made me shrink and she ? She was sure
she had found her victim of the moment – I knew She knew , that She was on that
fateful day wearing a black panty, so I looked at her and gave a wink and a
smile , that only seemed to make her more worked up – which I really loved - ok
Mr. Moron she tried to bark , stand up like a man and answer me , what were you
doing down there ?
I was shocked
beyond wits , how could she ask me to be so frank about it? Why didn’t she
understand , that people don’t talk generally about the underworld, and, here
she was demanding a forthright future yellow journalist a report of what he
saw, extempore – As I was about to reflect on how to frame my unabridged report
, came one stinging blow from her hand , I knew I was caught , I knew She knew
that I knew that her black panty was red in patches , and some part of it was were
torn , and that I not only had a report of her undies
I had quickly
and efficiently gathered information about all the other undies in my class ,
especially the girlie undies ( I seriously did not notice a single male undie) while
one part of me wanted to burst out in laughter the other part of me was hurt, soon
the dam broke , I broke down, and the weight made me slump back to my underworld
and to my delight found Annie, she was still around and still sobbing and she
was oh so glad that I had taken so much trouble , faced so many hardships only
to join her in her sobbing company , we both smiled , briefly, and we both
cried like there was no tomorrow.
From that day on
Me & Annie became inseparable, sometimes friends , sometimes foes , often
laughing and blabbering a whole load intellectual bull shit, that both forgot
the next moment, we shrieked together, we screamed , generally let our hairs
down, always fondled our underworld together and slowly made other similar
friends get initiated into our secret underworld .
While we hated
each other, we also loved each other, every time we split swearing never to
ever even mention each others name , we returned being friends stronger than
ever, even long after we spread our underworld wings , when we hardly met, we
somehow remained almost always connected - even when her alcoholic father raped
her , I knew , we had a very unique way of understanding the acts of the
underworld .
The
acts of the underworld had only 2 worlds it was either hither or thither , they
said – but for those who have been initiated into the underworld by a natural
process of life , the ways of the underworld isn’t as different as the real
world , except that they have a lot more elements , things that you would
rather ignore , things that you’ve told to ignore, the underworld is made of
things you wished did not exist, things that you closed your eyes to , but they
were nevertheless things that you knew were embarrassingly close to your day to
day, minute to minute life, but yet you chose to ignore everytime they stalked
your life , every time you yourself thanked that they existed , since you and
so many of us used them , searched them, cursed them , but endured them.
In fact for people
like Me & Annie , who have virtually come to define the underworld today – we
know it , like it really is, the underworld is probably more real than the real
world.
The real world
is really no real world.
Annie knew too
much , very early too, I was among the only one’s She managed to laugh, really
really laugh, I was also the only one to whom She stifled her tears and yet
just hung her head and silently sobbed , muffled , silenced outpours – rare –
but when they had to come , it was like the hiss of a waterless plumbing system
, letting out air , in an expectant rush , even making some gurgle like sounds
, like almost an ominous flood but soon finding there was nothing else really.
Annie really did
not care about the outpours, she in fact hated it, She hated every kind of
weakness, She was neither the typical patriarchical single girl brat nor the
typical feminist rebel, She was what you would call a typical whore – young ,
but, truly immersed in the powers of being a young whore.
You know what I
mean .
She lost her
virginity even before she lost her puberty, and, that was , she said, thanks to
her father , and later she virtually had a whole load of men , boys, cousins,
teachers, uncles, priests, servants , strangers even aunties and a select set
of girls doing it with her – and she joyfully gave in every time.
How many of
those instances that she gave in was with pleasure , how many was under duress,
and how many were blatant rapes hardly , really mattered to her.
And to me too . I loved the fact she was a
whore , I really admired the fact , in fact many a times , I had passed on
information passed on by some of my senior clas mates that they wanted to have
sex with her and if I recommended she would be more than willing to go and give
them what ever they wanted.
That did not
please me , but I did pass on the message all the same.
We were 13 then.
Annie was so
much like most other girls, her laugh, her chatter, her shrieks, her screams
and her wide eyed wonders smoothly blended her with her ilk , but, Annie could
suddenly loose all interest in her surroundings, she was capable of suddenly
going cold and under the bench – that’s when they gave it to her, that’s when
she was such an easy game.
While Annie was
briskly shaping her career into a super whore, I was not far behind , from my
world under the bench, I soon made friends of my ilk, we loved measuring our
penis and roared when it grew stiff, our everyday battle to rush out during
recess and play who pisses farest often ended up with violent disputes, so violent , most of us except Harry , would
sit wiping our bleeding noses and bruised elbows – result of a free for all.
Harry , was left
alone ,since Harry was born blind.
And Harry was a irritating philosopher – just when
you dread he wouldn’t talk , you can be rest assured he’ll.
Danny ? Danny ?
Annie ? Annie ?
Voices Voices voices voices
You there ?
No
But were they sirens ? oh not again ?
Was it Ambulance ? or the Police ? or both ?
Danny held onto the exhaust fan wings - it was a giant size one. And it kept trying all it can to unshackle him. That's when he felt Annie touching him.
Annie.
Danny.
You think we are dead ?
