Memories of a city fire

My auto is high. I’m pretty sure about it. In these lousy, lonely big roads, he’s strutting the auto at 30 km/h. Or maybe it is slower. I don’t know. I can’t see the speedometer. A silly long day that drained all the care in the world, and I don’t really care. The night breeze makes me think about my sinuses. But the auto’s high is a matter of concern. As my body fatigue glues me to these leather seats, I feel like his high is brushing on me like some pseudo-scientific nonsense. Or am I high? I have a hole in my pant and I have been fidgeting with it for so long. It’s all right. These corporate outfits need imperfections to sustain. But the auto is high. Now it’s getting even slower and the wind is almost dead. Suddenly I am realising that he’s slowing the vehicle at odd intervals. Like there’s an insect on the road that he wants to avoid riding over in that thick tar road. I’ve stopped fidgeting with the hole in my pant. I have to focus on what’s about to happen. The police Boleros are concerning as well. A stark, scratch-my-mind realisation bombs in – the auto is chasing the shadows on the road. He’s strutting it in a big curvy wave – swaying right and left of the road – running over every shadow of trees from those big grey streetlights. It’s so bright and he’s chasing the shadows. A night-owl of an auto that is afraid of the darkness!

I don’t have it in me to worry about him. It’s not my day. I keep focusing on the little things on the road – the half-torn rug on the divider, the heaps of leaves piled up by the night-time municipal workers, the tea cycles with a constant eye on the other side in watch for vehicles with red and blue lights, the single branch of a plant sticking out of the divider, the changing colours in an overhead bridge, A torn blue blazer with big eyes looking at the void of the night sky from the pavement, fast bikes on adrenaline. It’s all overwhelming, especially when one is as dead beat as I am. I rest my head for a bit, and in an instant, the auto sways way more than it should. The little ounce of energy I had saved within me comes rushing outside and I am now fully awake. I think he forgot to run over a shadow. He is high and he keeps running over shadows.

In that shadow of that night, I can see a woman a little far away. Her sparkling saree pulled my eyes. She’s just there. She passes a glance at every vehicle that passes by. I know that she’d look at me. I knew it from far. I’ve been to this road a million times. I’ve seen many women here. But not her. She’s majorly covered by the dark, but the kind leaves of the tree pave way for a slimmer of light on her eyes. Our eyes meet and the remaining fresh cold Chennai breeze wasn’t cold anymore. I know there’s a smirk and it distracts me from her eyes. The vehicle passes, and she longs for the vehicles to stop. And in a moment, the besmirched reality of it all brushes away the beauty of that moment – about a woman in the middle of the night – it all hits me and I am now tripping about a few lines from a journalist. I don’t remember her name. As I keep thinking about her lines, the auto stops at the apartment. The auto doesn’t even count my notes, maybe on the eager pursuit of the next shadow.

I enter my door, and I can see her on the balcony, fidgeting her mobile. She has a glass in her hand. The seconds when I take off my socks seem mighty and breathless. I enter the kitchen and I see that she has made a drink for me as well. She knows how to make my drink. She knew I would be too tired, and so there’s half-a-litre of water next to the glass. I pick the rum. We sit on that dingy balcony of ours. I realise that I should clean it this weekend. We don’t speak for several minutes. I keep thinking about the eyes on the street and the auto’s high. We go in and she opens dosas and a bowl of sambar vada from a delivery package. She keeps two dosas for me and one for herself – she doesn’t eat much these days. I take the sambar vada. She takes my plate in hand, her eyes and pouted lips are concerned about a particle of dust on the plate. I pay no heed and I just start eating from the package. She pushes her plate forward and nudges me to eat. I know that look. It’s the same look she had while sharing that pasta on our first evening together. We finish our dosas and I go to my balcony. “Tauseef, you need sleep.” She rarely calls me by my name. She must have had a tough day as well. Her voice keeps echoing somewhere within. As I rest my elbows on the cold steel balcony railing, I can see a group of men smoking on the road. There’s a tea cycle. I can’t help but fixate on this one man with a cigarette in his hand. I am also falling off the railing, but the way he smokes and warms his arms is comforting to look at. I see a small spark of fire fall from the cigarette. It touches the shadow of a leaf, and the fire begins to float. It spreads as if the air was full of gasoline. The fire becomes a fireball and it engulfs the atmosphere. It spreads in the shape of the tree’s shadow. The man puts off the cigarette and goes back to the cycle for tea. Everything around him is burning. My eyes are feeling the heat and my tears fall on my cold steel arms. The group of men look calmer than I, but the fire is now engulfing everything around me. I walk back and crumble down on the bed. Her arm around my waist, and her head over my chest. Her hands comb my sweaty hair. Her heartbeat is slower than mine. I saw fire. Tauseef saw fire today. Tauseef saw fire today. Tauseef saw fire today. Tauseef saw…