HAVING A CAKE WITH YOU|| EPI 02||

My laptop screen light scarcely out, I was lying on my bed on my belly, in a bedsheet visibly wrinkled and scattered with Chanachur crumbs, no matter how big your palms are they are never enough to contain the crumbs, never. I don’t like the feeling of those crumbs touching my body hair, I wanted to crawl down from the bed and get something to mop those away; I had not ceased in drowsiness on what I was reading on the pdf, but life has taken a peculiar turn for me: it seemed to me I ended up reading the black and white portions more than the green highlighted ones, and I soon functioned as a person just as I read- never doing the needful. I care less about how and when I fall asleep because it is almost unintelligible for me what benefit would it be to remain awake, but I kept telling myself “I do not wanna fall asleep”. Just as the motion of this phrase was about to put me in a fragmented lull, my Laptop rang in the unsetting bubbling sound of Google Duo- delays, daisies, daydreams and Rooh.

“…and then she put another bunch of assignments on us.”

“too bad.”

“and she doesn’t want to get confronted with Covid excuses.”

“as if mental health isn’t a thing?”

“It isn’t. for her.”

“We got lucky with our department. We have very flexible deadlines.”

“literature departments are blessed with compassion”

“umm, we live our lives within a huge break. Procrastination is a myth associated with lit majors but everyone needs it if Stokes or Simone Biles needed it”

“and happiness isn’t unreasonable”

“happiness comes at a cost. It’s a revolutionary act.”

“and she literally said ‘unreasonable’, Atish. Can you trust it?”

“aha”, I laughed. I can see the rectangle. Rooh is more amused than angry now.

“you know what’s unreasonable? People bargaining with me. Have some compassion for a home-baker”

“how to PR for a small business?”

“Hired.”

“Ghosting is unreasonable. Why do writers even sweat about chalking out reasons on why people fall apart when most relationships just end like...with ghosting?"

"Aha!!"

"There should be no room for closure, just leave arcs mid-air, dude.”

“Writers can’t ghost their characters. They have to revisit. But I can”

“Didn’t want to put ideas in your head.”

“my father expecting me to follow gender roles and dress up like a girl is unreasonable”

“people being toxic positive about all adversities is unreasonable”

“me always being late to everything is unreasonable”

“people thinking owning a vehicle is aspirational is unreasonable”

“roommate not understanding the concept of lack of space while having phone sex with a partner is unreasonable”

“Jeff Bezos’s big dick space project is unreasonable”

“friends expecting you owe them a favour and help them out for everything is unreasonable. People making fun of the marksheets of a pandemic-marred batch is unreasonable”

“Savarnas with Government service holder parents appealing for a contribution so that they can fundraise and fulfil their dream of studying in the private, non-inclusive, quasi-intellectual corridors of an elite university is unreasonable”

“what? Really? That’s vulgar. In a country where higher education is itself a dream for the larger population, such display of privilege sounds outright vulgar ”

“Yeah. And the people sharing this not acknowledging their andhaa-privilege are unreasonable af.”

“not acknowledging privilege is unreasonable”

“but who are we to change?”

I sit face to face with Rooh in silence for a bit. We are no activists. We don’t school people. We know though, we trying to point at these things will make us lose friends; Let alone changing them. But we have each other, at least for now.

“what else?”

“what else?” I immobile my thoughts, “People plucking flowers out of trees are unreasonable”

“nooooooo Atish. sometimes it's fun. They aren’t getting any more immortal”

“I know. But still....why?”

“What is your favourite flower?”

“Amaltas”,….. “ because you can’t easily pluck them out of a tree. They remain. They Bloom”

“For me, Bougainvillea. Anyway, you need to brings flowers for me. I love love love it. Or you don’t get the heart”

“But I need the soul, Rooh”

“no bouquet, no soul- dusted.”

I know I will try. Gifting flowers always mend relations, it’s a token, it’s a gesture, it's an apology, it’s a reassurance. Who am I to contradict Kiarostami? We pluck a flower to plant a smile. I imagine flowers making everyone happy- by decorating, by proposing, by protesting (Pinjhra Tod). The laptop display has finally started to hurt my eyes and I again get conscious of the tiny light source glimmering in the room- my wine bottle with fairylights in it. Rooh and I gulped down mango icecreams and talked about two eyes, two ears and a functioning conscience till it was dawn. Not in handful measures of course.

And as for the cat, he didn't enter the room that night, because, unlike Ghalib, he hates mangoes, "Aamo main buss do khubiya honi chahiye, Ek meethe ho aur bohut saare ho.”

Picture reworked & edited by: Atmadeep Das