03 - When Parlour Splendours Replace Patched Windows

(2163 words) (A short-story by Arvind Passey) WHEN PARLOUR SPLENDOURS REPLACE PATCHED WINDOWS

Seduction always started with abnormal behaviour disguised as normal for Dalip Singh, a slim 5'5" Linguistics-scholar from Bihar in India. He was one step ahead of being merely kinky -- he had spent the last four years seducing bursaries, scholarships, financial-aids, tuition-waivers, studentships, and assistantships. He solicited, always managed to get picked-up, and somehow remained intoxicated, sipping his satiating concoction of ensnared fiscal libido, a fashionable skim of literature and a facade of smiles -- all with a bravado of metaphysical flamboyance. He was a perfect illustration of how an academically insolvent talent could also get up, flap its illusory wings, and take-off. Such was the level of salesmanship in Dalip that he could offer illusions in a photographic representation that a beholder was left with no choice but to become gullible. Each moment spent with him was proof of how credulous we all could be.....almost as foolish as ants getting neurotic over a giant sugar-cube on a colourful poster on the walls of a cafe. Though Dalip held a totally different opinion of himself. He adored projecting his self as one who had the capacity to pick-up 'trifles' which few but born leaders could think worthy of a serious consideration. That is one reason why he visibly never said or did anything that was infected by the virus of 'I'. No stubborn ego ever surprised him.......and the advantage was that he could get everything done without his ever having to ready his own back-pack, so to say. In other words, he had mastered the art of 'harvesting without sowing'. But like any one of us, even he spent time introspecting. He once told me he loved looking out of the window. The same window. Always. 'When I look out of the window, I don't see the whole world,' he had told me then,'Yet, every time I look out, it appears so like a stranger.' I had agreed though I could see no objective truth in what he said. *** Dalip must have seen through my thinly disguised agreement because he replied, in an even stronger tone, 'When I look out of the window, I don't see the whole world. Yet every time I look out it does appear like a stranger. Fascinating. Unless ofcourse, it is a cursory glance. Then it becomes somewhat similar.....like all things that move fast.One blur is no different than another. Like Clare ? Or was it Jude ? Or Roshni....maybe Uttara ? It ....'

'It could be you to them. A blur. Unclear....better forgotten,' I said. At that moment my mind was debating if it was better being a stranger or a blur...........or maybe a strange blur. He pretended not to have heard me, sighed as he took a step back from the window, and turned his glance to the rack on the left. 'Or these books,' he murmured,'all opened, a few pages read.....then stacked....to become one more blur, unless my hand reaches out to choose and make it live again.' He looked at me triumphantly, as if he had made his point, and spoke the next line that sounded more like a pepsi-ad delivering its punch-line. 'The choice is mine,' he exulted. Overlooking his disregard for the existence of others, and observing his pensive mental state, I replied, hammering-in a bit of enthusiasm in my words, 'That's it. Reaching out converts blurs into noticeable existence. They would form the amazement of any eyes that looked upon them.' Apparently surprised at my tame agreement, he continued, 'Like the time I had complimented Jude on her lovely eyes.' 'Yes', I said, 'though your words were -- When they look they wave and say hello.' Dalip laughed and ran nervous fingers through his jet black hair, and waving towards the corner slab, said, ' Your words are very friendly. But don't wrap just words to offer. That box of flapjacks on the corner slab is desperately waiting to be picked-up....' 'Yes,' I said, and then thought that if I did not move towards the corner, there would be no sound, no sense, no truth, and no nature in that inert syllable. I moved, almost like Dalip always moved, and with a smooth swerve, reached for the box of flapjacks. I cannot separate the memory of that person from being alive, from thinking, from creating, from manipulating, or from everything one encounters from one blink to another. Don't we all use memory to moralize and set standards for ourselves, to preach and organize celebrations for ourselves ? *** Is it the room, or the window, or what is visible from the window, or what is not obvious from the window, or the rack, or the box of flapjacks lying on the same slab that commands memory to launch its sojourns into the past ? Difficult to answer as all these factors are there where I am right now. Even Dalip is here with me

although like a ghost from a world that exists and yet doesn't. As I munch the chocolate-topped contentments from the box on the slab I am hopelessly and helplessly imprisoned once again by an incident that had taken place just outside this window of this block in James college. 'The sky is never orange, red or any of the warm hues that we are used to,......' Dalip was telling Clare, who was trying not to look bored. I interrupted, 'Don't you think the weather here is actually wonderful......can you ever experience snow, sun and wind all at the same time in India ?' At that moment I could feel Dalip's face at my shoulder wincing at every word he heard. But characteristically he simply smiled and replied, 'I was just attempting to connect the proverbial inflexibility of english women with their weather.....but you have done it better.' We all laughed and soon parted. I went to the Wentworth PC-room, and he went with Clare for an evening of jive-dancing. York was proving to be an excellent learning experience for both of us. The flapjack munch was long over and I went out and across the lake, through the colleges, to Heslington Hall where I was to meet Wendy Shaw who was the investigation officer from Scotland Yard and had come down to solve the mystery of Dalip's death. Wendy looked up as I entered the reception area, and with a professional twinkle, said, 'I really appreciate your coming here, Asp. There is something interesting I have for you.' There was silence as I settled on the chair adjacent to her, trying to keep rustles to the minimum. Without paying much attention to what Wendy had said, I started,'Well, Dalip was rather close to me,' and then with a pause that was not supposed to convey anything, continued, 'not because we shared any common interests but simply because we happened to be from the same country.' 'Yes.' 'Dalip was,...' I didn't know what to say, so I simply slowed down to a stop. 'Go on.' 'Friendly. Dalip was friendly with a lot of girls.' 'That's interesting.' Wendy encouraged. *** 'Well, not friendly as we normally interpret this word. He was friendly in a sly, evasive way....almost like successfully shaking hands with a person without taking your hands out of your pockets.' I stopped because I knew I could not tell Wendy anything more without confusing matters. I was at that moment looking at my hands but could see Dalip's hands holding Uttara's pen. What was he saying ? Why

was he smiling ? Even I wanted an answer to all that before these images managed to escape the lure of my memory. 'Isn't this pen just lovely, Asp ?' Dalip asked me, and then continued as if he knew what I would be asking next, 'Roshni has given it as a parting gift.' 'Lovely. But what are you thinking of giving as a return gift ?' 'What would you suggest ?' I knew Dalip was playing with me as usual, and that the decision had already been made. His concepts were as such beyond my comprehension and control, but that they were so much meshed with unfeeling sex I came to know after hearing his answer. 'A five pound worth pack of durex.' he said, and then after a pause, continued, 'I've already given it to her.....with my favourite lines. I thank Michael Haslam for having written them. You don't remember those lines, do you Asp ?' 'No, I don't.' He then feelingly spoke those lines for me : '...The sword descends to interrupt us, shredding instincts into slivers in the grass. Am I not satisfied ? Time flies, the evening flocks. It looks so late.' 'The sword has descended,' I muttered, probably to Wendy's surprise, but looked into her eyes and said, 'I suppose Dalip has at last said a final good-bye to his complicity.' Wendy simply looked at me silently, took out a large blue manila-envelope, and said, 'We have a report from the surgeon, and it says that your friend had died due to a burst cerebral artery, and not strangling as we presumed earlier. His being discovered hanging to the shut window by the end of his scarf was not so much a deliberate action as it was a circumstantial follow-up of his cerebral haemorrhage.' My perplexed look prompted Wendy to say, 'That means Dalip has had an uncontroversial end.'

As I walked back to my hostel room, Wendy's words reverberated in my mind. I heard them once, twice, and as many times as they could squeeze themselves in the distance that I travelled. Once in my room, I stood before the window and looked down on the past again. 'Last time,' I said to myself, 'and then I'll have my room changed. Thats the only way I will be able to look ahead and see my own sunshine.' With that resolution I entered the shadowy world of past relationships trying to sniff my way to some kind of an answer to the parlour splendours of Dalip's existence. There was a mild aroma of some heavenly fragrance in the room. 'Colours from Benetton,' Dalip had told me by way of an explanation, 'I always use a different one with different girls.' 'So Uttara is Colours,' I laughed. He agreed, and then continued, ' Clare was Charlie-red, for Roshni I had bought that expensive.....' 'I know all that.' I interrupted, 'What I want to know is why you have sprayed this fragrance all over the room ?' 'She's going to spend the night here.' Dalip paused for a while before he said, ' And then I'm going to give her this parting gift.' He pointed towards a pack in light blue wrapping-paper and then took out a piece of paper and started writing something. I said I'll see him later and went out. I knew he was scribbling the same old favourite lines from Haslam's poem, and I could now guess what the parting gift was. He is cruel, I thought, and then got so obsessed with my thought that I went back to his room and told him what I thought of him. He appeared to be taken aback by this sudden attack. he also appeared hurt, because he lighted a Rothmans, and with a sad far-away look in his eyes started speaking, 'Every monday the first thing I heard was my father telling me that I was born simply because he was too poor to afford condoms that he would have liked to buy. You very well know Asp that Nirodh is available free to all back there in India. But still he said that.....every monday.....and he hated me for his own poverty.' He paused for some time and observing the look of surprised sorrow in my eyes, he said, 'I thank those monday mornings Asp. His weekly blitzkrieg collaborated with our patched windows to erect for me all that I have become now. I learnt to navigate....you call it manipulation.' He stopped, long enough to wave both his hands in the rather grandiose fashion of a military dictator and said, 'I have replaced my patched windows with these parlour splendours.' I simply walked out.

That was my last encounter with a friend who I came to understand a bit only before his end. Why does knowledge make one so afraid ? The realization that Dalip had guilted himself out may not be the most accurate but to my mind it was knowledge in its fear-inducing stance. To me, some old god -- colour him righteous, if you will -- took his revenge on my friend's perceptions. Can perceptions ever be disloyal ? These thoughts kept their tempo within me for as long as I did not get up to go to the Accommodation Officer of the University to request him for a change of rooms. My past too has patched windows, you see.

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