03 - When Parlour Splendours Replace Patched Windows

8/14/2019 03 - When Parlour Splendours Replace Patched Windows

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(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 Dalipthat 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 of-

course, 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 ....'


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'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 theamazement 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


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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 notsupposed 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


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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.'


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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 asad 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 theseparlour splendours.'

I simply walked out.


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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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03 - When Parlour Splendours Replace Patched Windows