The unkissed kiss

I remember that autumn sunday vividly. Autumns in Delhi are rarely chilly, the October sky was open and the sun was soft. We planned to meet at her house, cook carbonara, and she will keep some beers in the fridge. I was living with a friend in a small flat very close to the forests of Jahampanah. Delhi could be a brutal place to live, walk and love. The forest near my flat gave me the solace I was seeking in the wide city, October such a perfect time of the year to walk in the forest. Most of my Sundays are spent walking around the urban forest, laying down on the grass, reading Murakami, watching young couples share an intimate moment in the dense hustle of the city. That Sunday would have been the same if she didn't propose to cook lunch together and maybe watch a movie at her place. I reluctantly said yes, I knew I would miss my weekly stroll; at the same time I thought we had a spark. We used to work together, she was from Kashmir, a troubled land, living alone in the city. Most Kashmiri young people from my generation migrate to larger Indian cities for work, education; only to face hatred and abuses. I migrated to Delhi from Arunachal Pradesh, similar tales of oppression and non-acceptance.

She was beautiful, I thought, when I saw her for the first time. She had a long face, a sharp Kashmiri nose and beautiful dark eyes. I loved her hair, tiny curls, long tender hair falling on her back with such grace. She was silent and I instantly felt drawn to her, drawn to her mystery, I think. She was not mysteries like one would imagine, but i thought her soft sharp lips had so many secrets to tell. I loved the way she hushed and looked deeply into my eyes. I felt she could pull out all my secrets and keep them within herself forever. Maybe she has a strange power to draw secrets from people and absorb them.

While walking to her house along the busy ring road of Delhi, I picked panchetta and parmigiano. It is not very common for Muslims to eat pork; she did. I didn’t ask or care to ask why she ate pork, not my business. I am someone who eats everything, so I really like people who eat everything, I find an instant connection through food. The shop was upscale and expensive, still I bought the fine Italian panchetta and aged parmigiano. Not that I wanted to impress her, but it is very important for me to use the right ingredients in pasta, or any other food for that matter. Cooking is something I really enjoy and I take care in what I buy and how I use. I wanted Linguine, but it was unavailable, so I settled for spaghetti.

I entered her building through a narrow alley, it wasn't very late, but I could hear the muezzin’s call for prayers from the nearby mosque, almost time to cook. I climber four stories to reach her Barsati. I realised the door was open and I gave a slight push, autumn light filled up the room and I could see her in the kitchen. “I let the door open, would you like to drink a glass or water or something” she said. Her flat is a single room house with a wide kitchen and toilets, nothing fancy, but home. She didn’t really decorated the flat, but it didn’t look shabby, fine linen bedsheets, matching pillow covers, and a beautiful old wooden sofa was laid on the room. She saw me looking around the room, didn’t say anything. I was impressed, compared to my living condition with two flatmates, she had a great place to herself.

“ I am sorry If I am late, took a while in the store, I should have shopped yesterday evening” I replied. I forgot to answer about the water.

“Thats alright, you aren't dying of hunger right, I am fine eating late, I was reading an article on the newspaper and took for ever to finish my breakfast, so I think it is perfect if you can cook late” she moved closer to me with a glass of water in her hand.

I put the spaghetti, the cheese and the meat on her center table by the couch and took the water. I was not sure of my thirst but drank all of it, she looked at me surprised, a faint smile broke her thin lips “ Thats all right, take your time” she said.

***

“You know I really like the colour yellow” she said. I was chopping garlic and drinking my pale ale, as the water for the pasta was boiling. She was leaning against the door, beer in hand, watching me cook. “People say it is a sad colour, but I really like yellow since I was a kid. I used to paint everything yellow; cats, houses, trees, mountains, I just wanted everything to be yellow”. Uh huh, I said. I was focused on the carbonara and her voice felt like it was coming from far away. I stoped my hands and looked at her, “I don’t really have a favourite colour I said, maybe yellow, maybe green sometimes, I really can’t make up my mind”. I said as I went back to my garlic. As far I can remember I think I have mostly lived my life without being conscious of myself, my surroundings, things I like, things I don’t like. Growing up on 90’s India we went not supposed to know about ourselves, sitting in front of the television, parents mostly talked about bad roads and rainy weather. I don’t remember thinking of a colour I like, or I don’t like actually. My life has been like this sunday everyday; Murakami Haruki says time flows in strange ways on Sundays and I cannot agree more. My Sundays since last couple of years living in Delhi has been spent in the parks or sitting by the lake of Hauz Khass, just laying there looking at the sky, planes passing by. I guess after a point human lives become pointless, we float in time and space and live our lives in mundanity. Mundanity of daily life is like this long chain which is punctured by occasional highs of happiness and lows of sadness, but mostly our lives are mundane. Mundanity of watching planes and mundanity of boiling spaghetti is what we do for most of our time in this earth.

***

As we sat down at her table by the window to eat carbonara, the clouds overcame the sky and the autumn afternoon suddenly turned grey. “I don’t mind rains, I said” looking at her eyes. I could sense she was not very happy with the approaching rain. “Yea, it kinda sucks” she replied. “I thought we could take a walk in Lodhi gardens”.

“Let it be, its alright, lets eat our pasta and maybe listen to some music here, we will see,” I tried to lift her mood. I knew she really liked Jazz, at work I could hear Ella and Louis Armstrong through her earphones and maybe that was also a reason we connected. After work, we would stay back in the office, listen to Jazz and drink coffee into evenings. I was sharing a flat with friends and we did not had air conditioning and Delhi summers could be brutal. So staying a couple of hours more into the evening using office cooling was great.

Carbonara was good, she said. It was the first time I am cooking for her and I have heard that before, people say I should have been a cook. “Thanks, I wish I could bake tiramisu too”. She smiled, a thin beautiful smile, lips pressed against each other, I loved that smile of hers. As we ate, I could see rain fell on her terrace, not a small rain, but big drops washing away the Delhi pollution, her top floor single room flat had metal sheets, and the sound of rain faded Benny Goodman’s stompin at the savoy in the background.

***

I have always enjoyed rain, big rains, small scattered rains, fine rains; I grew up in Arunachal Pradesh where you are never far away from rain. I remember my childhood standing on the bed, looking out from the misty window panes, torrential rains washing down the street in front of my house; bamboo trees sway as the wind brushes against them. I pulled a chair in front of the door shaded by the tin sheets. As the rain fell on the floor, tiny drops landed on my feet; I removed my shoes. She was clearing the table as I pulled a cigarette from my pocket. I used to buy loose and store them in my old packet with the match box inside, partly I didn’t had money to buy the whole pack and I had the fake illusion of smoking less if you buy loose. As I lit up my cigarette, the rainfall increased, I looked at the big drops falling on the floor. “Doesn’t rain drops falling on the floor take shape of animals?” She paused, pulled a chair and sat next to me. “They fall taking shape of deers, cats and so many other forms. I wonder what is the real form of rain.” She was looking out the terrace, rain drops falling on a small pool of water.

I wanted to kiss her. A strange feeling in my heart told me to kiss her. I felt the spark between us. She looked at me with her deep eyes, I think both of us knew we had to kiss that rainy autumn afternoon.

***

I have a strange ache in my heart. Maybe not an ache, rather a feeling, a nostalgia which took a physical form. A physical nostalgia is growing in my heart and taking over my body. Acne, pimples, itches, skin tags, sleep orgasms are all ways feelings can manifest physically.

This nostalgia with a physical form is growing in my body since that rainy autumn afternoon when we thought of kissing. The faint afternoon light reflected on your skin and the unkissed kiss took shape between us. What shape the unkissed kiss took? I wish the distance between our lips dissolved.

What if we kissed that afternoon? Your lips on mine, the strange darkness of the afternoon would feel lighter and the low clouds of early autumn would rain even more.

I often think of our unkissed kiss, it left a strange void in my heart which took shape of nostalgia. I wish that moment of time, that space of our lives was stored in a bottle and the bottle was sinked in the depths of the ocean forever. My thirst of kissing you would lay there, wash away to a far away country where it would be rediscovered by someone.

I often look at my skin and the marks of time I carry. I feel my skin tags are the physical form of your nostalgia. I remember these harmless tiny folds of skin growing after that afternnon; just there, a faint reminder of you and the unkissed kiss.

I wish to meet you again in a new city, a city full of people and cars and buses, busy and loud. I wish both of us wander in that crowd and seek solace. Maybe stay awake till the dead of the night, walking around the unknown city, looking at the lights, meeting drunk people and hearing police sirens passby.

Kiss me baby, kiss me long. Kiss me in that dark alley, pull me out of the world, save me baby. Love me tender.

I think about the void of the unkissed kiss between us, I think of that moment when our eyes meet and we both looked at the void. We both know we should kiss, but we did not. You say on a slow day, does the world slows down? I say the space between our lips have widened.

I dreamt of you the other day, I napped that late afternoon. I remember the dream vividly, you were kissing me. I woke up and felt a strange sadness in my heart. I usually feel sad in twilights, a time which is like a thin line between the realities of day and night. I feel dusks and dawns are unreal, they don’t belong here and that late afternoon I woke up so sad, i felt as if my world has sinked. Save me baby!

I think of our lives as journeys on opposite banks of the river, sharing occasional glances, nods as we negotiate walking the small trail of life. We know there is a bridge connecting the two banks, we don’t know if we want to cross. Loss of youth and love is a deep grief, like the bottom of a well, dark and unseen. What if crossing the bridge stir the still waters of our grief, hidden deep in our hearts. I wish to swim with you in the river, let the waters of grief from the bottom of my heart mingle with the river water and maybe wash afar and dissolve. Maybe the unkissed kiss between us is holding both of us together and we are still walking on the opposite banks of the same river.