The Balding of Mr. Anthony Gonsalves

Mr. Anthony Gonsalves was balding. He would meticulously pick up the strands of his hair over the floor and throw them away to take a relaxed breath. He had tried everything, from oils and ointments to fruits and beer and what not. But he felt like a dead tree in a dessert. Nothing would grow on those branches ever again, and the crows and the pigeons would have a laugh shitting over it.

Mr. Anthony Gonsalves felt cheated by life in general. He often missed the way his face used to look with all that hair over the head. Sometimes he didn’t like them much and got them all shaved, yes, but little did he know that they would suddenly start leaving him like that.

Some were gone fast, and some still remained at the back. Mr. Anthony Gonsalves went and bought himself a cap. He did not appreciate wearing wigs. Slowly he became very possessive of the cap. It was the only thing that had hidden his barren soil and showed only the well oiled and combed chunk of hair at the back. His comb also never left his pocket. 

He would still go to the barber’s shop and carefully instruct the barber on how to cut his remaining hair. People who were in waiting would look at his head at least once and then try to catch each other’s eyes.  

One night Mr. Anthony Gonsalves got very drunk and felt very sentimental. So he came back to his house, gently woke his wife up and asked if she remembers the way he used to look when he was younger. ‘Of course,’ she sleepily replied covering her nose, ’you still look the same.’ Mr. Gonsalves thought that Mrs. Gonsalves had not yet noticed her husband’s balding. He wondered if she was having an affair. 

He wondered if it was her boss. 

The remaining hair at the back left him earlier than he had expected. The cap became useless now, though it always remained over his desk. He could never know if his wife was cheating. He still regularly visits the barber’s shop and gets all the little hair near his ears trimmed, remembering his glory days. He wants to get a hair transplant soon.

Also he has now hidden his comb over a bookshelf. 

_

Remember.

Remember. Remember.
The times it rained,
The thunder and the craze,
The wind, the chill, and the smell,
Yet forget not,
That it all went down the drain.

Remember.
The sounds of music,
The sight of tangerine,
And the whistle of a cuckoo,
And remember, to let them be.

Remember the taste of cucumber,
The smell of your sweat,
The touch of a rusty doorknob,
And the eyes of an angry woman,
They must never leave you.

Remember.
That your parents will die,
Your lover will leave,
And you will lose a friend,
Do not sulk, but cry, if you remember to.

Remember.
That a broken heart has more space,
That an open door may be a trap,
Remember that there is a man living across the street,
He looks down from his window and wonders,
How are the rest!
Do not forget to do the same.

Remember. Remember.
Shashank, remember.
The sun that went down,
The old man who could never leave his town,
The road that takes you away,
And the one that brings you around.
And remember, they are all the same.

And last, but not the least.
Remember Batman.
But forget not the man who is called Peter Parker.
Yes, remember. Do not forget.
_

Sabeena

Sabeena. Sabeena. What did she do to him? He wondered as a bullet nipped him over the left shoulder. They were surrounded, he and his gang of screaming crows. It had been eight years since she had left. Sabeena. He didn't see her again for a long time. Another bullet came and slightly scratched his cheek.

He put the last four bullets in the chamber, and jumped far into the small stretch of shivering mustard plants. He crawled. They jumped in too. They were three. They were loaded. Sabeena, he whispered and wondered why. The crows spiralled up in the air.

The yellow mustard flowers fell over his blood. Sabeena. He shouldn’t have left her alive. That night when he was told to release her and her family, the family that he then killed starting with the father, the snitch that broke a rule – that night, he shouldn’t have left her alive either. His mind was slippery then, just like her. Now he has to die. She was seventeen then. Now she is married to his boss.

Another bullet picked up his toe. He fired a shot. Two crows came crashing down. The three henchmen came closer. The three boys that he had once picked up to smuggle the black soap were not afraid of him now. He couldn’t see them. He was hiding. The scared mustard plants around him ruffled with each other. The three henchmen shot over the plants. He fired another three shots. The firing stopped. He tried to get up. A bullet struck his ribs. The firing started again.

Sabeena. Sabeena. Sabeena. He could hear her giggle. It was louder than the gunshots. The giggle stopped first, then the gunshots. The henchmen left. The crows disappeared. The mustard field stood like a stone. 

Sabeena, whispered the wind.

Little Love

He was a cardiologist. She was a healer. He charged five hundred rupees per session. She charged five thousand. People went to him when their heart did not work right. They went to her when they did not want it to work right.

He worked through an Association. She worked through an Agency. They had a common business associate, who was known as a compounder by the day and a pimp by the night. Unbeknownst to her, she became a donation to the cardiologist by the business associate when his job was threatened.

They first met in a hotel room, and then they took the business associate out of their business. They now met at her house. She did not charge him. Every night, he waited outside her room for her to get free. He amused himself by the sound of the squeaky bed thumping the wall, and her daughter crying in the room at the attic.

He bought little gifts for her daughter, not for her. She told him not to. Every night, she made coffee for him. Every evening, he aimlessly drew her image on his prescription pad. Everyday, they waited for the night.

They did not show their hearts to each other. They both dealt with too many of those. He said he loved her coffee. She said she loved his taste. Sometimes she stayed up all night and watched him sleep. Sometimes he too did the same. But in the morning, they both acted of waking up together.

A little bit of love, they both smelled in the air. A little bit of love, they thought was lost. A little bit of love, they thought they had. Their little love became a boy. He adopted the boy. A little bit of love continued.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 

the benches outside my window

There are two benches outside my window. Old and brazen, they sit facing each other over the crumbling earth. They speak to the leaves and the trees around. Not to me. Not to each other. Like an old couple.

Once in a while, they grunt when someone sits over them. What are you doing here, I ask them everyday. They don’t tell. The little plants outside my window told me that the benches are waiting. They told me how happy they were a few years ago. Then they had a fight once, over a cigarette bud a girl left on the ground. Whose side it was on? No one could tell. More fights followed. Both the benches threw dead leaves over each other. None got hurt. Disturbed, they stopped talking to each other.

They’d flirt with my window sometimes, but my window is in love with a snake. She tells me all the stories about the benches, all night long. I don’t like her lover though, the snake. I have told her that he’s not a nice guy. One early morning, I saw him cuddled with her. I got angry and started hitting the window. Upset, she didn’t open herself for next few days. The snake still comes over, as the little plants have told me. He sits under the benches and hisses at my window.

The benches like him because he doesn’t like me. But they still don’t talk to each other. The snake keeps them going. He doesn’t let people sit over the benches. The benches like that too.   

They can’t just break down anymore. It will kill the snake under them. The old stones keep going, waiting for the snake to go, the time to come, the trees to fall, and the people to leave ... Two empty benches outside my window, a grumpy old couple. 

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