THE STREET: ONE

Long after the man with green coconuts has come to my door, holding out a coconut to me with his right hand, his body and head just a little bowed towards me as if this were a ritual, and perhaps it is, between him and me; after the schoolchildren at the church school have all run out in a rush, flowing over the steps and the slope and gone home, their mothers sometimes waiting for them all day on the church steps; after the vegetable seller at six and the fruit seller a few minutes later have parked their carts next to each other so that it is easy for their customers and so that they can share stories in the lull when no one comes; after the gym has closed with its slim women in track suits and Lycra so unsuited to this weather, and the long imported cars parked in front of it have driven away; after the trainers at the gym, Iqbal and Bernard have finished their work and Iqbal is perhaps doing his namaz on the wooden floor of the gym and Bernard is packing his things; and Bernard told me the other day when I was there that whatever you do here is fine, but really the best thing you can do is to go walk by the sea at sunrise, what can be better than that; after all the thin maidservants with protruding bones and a hurried walk have finished their jobs of cooking and cleaning that will fill their whole lives till the very end; after the tiny yellow birds have stopped flying in and out of the tamarind tree, making the ripe tamarinds shake and fall; after darkening shadows have taken away the old man who sits on his small balcony staring out all day, near his staring face a huge palm leaf swaying like an immense fan; after the sun has very, very slowly, moved down towards the horizon and finally descended into the Arabian Sea in a vehement orange glow and made it possible for the evening to begin, but only much after the church bell rings for evening prayers at seven, and even after they are over and people descend silently down the steps and the slope an hour later, so that the day is lopsided; and an enormous moon rises behind the spire of the church; and in the plot next to the church four men sit around a fire and make chapattis amidst the stacked bamboo, marble and wood, while nearby large rats wait for leftovers; and the chowkidars of the buildings cook their dented vegetables for a solitary dinner without their wives and children who are in the northern hills far away, so far that it takes six days to get there memsahib, and as the dinner cooks they play their wooden flutes, solitary notes and a few half formed melodies that the evening sea wind takes down the street to the corner store where young men smoke cigarettes; and the teenagers wearing spaghetti straps and shorts and baseball caps lean against cars and move their bodies exactly like the Americans they see on television; and eventually everything falls silent, and not every window has a light; and the candles at the foot of the statue of Mary at the bottom of the church steps and in the grotto on the left are all burning still, which means it is a good day for someone like me who likes to watch the flames but must depend on others to light them; and the mango, tamarind, gulmohur and peepal trees can hardly be distinguished from each other, although the moon has climbed higher leaving the spire of the church alone against the dark sky; the shadows of the palm fronds move slowly on the darkness of my wall, and the clouds slowly, slowly, over the sky; now the street takes a long breath and the candle flames on the church steps begin to tremble and the steps themselves; the trees lean close towards each other to form a forest, so that I could be wandering in its vastness away from the world, searching, searching for what ought to be my life but is not; emerge again, onto the street’s dark spine, wondering whether I wait to live or if waiting is also living; the street never forces a choice, it allows the alternation of insight and emptiness; when insight sharpens and has nowhere to go it turns into emptiness which slowly, unknowingly, acquires the substance and the strength to become insight again; now the street exhales, stirring the gutters choked with fallen leaves, but keeping to itself the uncontrollable fluctuations beneath things, revealing only flames from Diwali and stars from Christmas, old couples who have settled their lifetime of differences and now walk together in great peace, the church bell which is loud enough to wake us at dawn if we are already aware of the half light, and soft enough not to if we are sleeping; and as the street exhales and sways, the darkness above comes closer, and there appear a few incisive stars that have cut open the sky of smog and dust and smoke.

THE STREET: TWO

The body can be gathered and bent forward at a slight tilt, offering a glass of water to quench the thirst of someone it respects. At times, only the head and shoulders may bend downward, hand on the heart, to thank someone for that which lies a great distance beyond language. The street has received both of these gestures. But this is a different time. The slender, elongated light of winter disappears, suddenly. The light turns muscular, overcomes earlier restrictions. The koel arrives, heralding so much more than spring, stirring hopes that can be realized only through the most untiring grit and determination.

The body turns inside out now, and the most noxious things are set free. These rise into the air, not from the desire for flight but through the force of despair. The air is thick with bird and song. Spring has brought birds from wherever they have been all year, and the memory of hill and plain and forest in their call expands the space the street occupies. When the body tears, some things spill and split like vicious seeds. Others, which already have their own stunted life, drag themselves over the asphalt, cripples whose legs end at the stumps of knees, holding a broken stone wall for support, hunchbacks who will never see the sky above.

They crawl and drag themselves past the seller of berries and raw mangoes, who no longer stands in the light, but has moved to the shade on the opposite side of the street. His wooden cart is an ancient discovery but when he raises his left arm and runs a hand through his hair, a watch gleams in the light. His knowledge of time is not as ancient as his need. It is the one who stands watching whose knowledge of time is old, almost geological. Children eat the berries sprinkled with black salt, tart and pungent on the tongue. Those things in the body that have not emerged onto the street are still inside, things smashed many times and held together by spittle, uncertain glue. Evening will come later now, after the schoolchildren have eaten their berries and gone home, but it will come. The falling light will cover over narratives turned the wrong way around, of desire after fulfillment, of the closure of what has not even begun. It will bring the knowledge that every life turns, somewhat like the universe, but coming into the light only according to its own season.

The birds do not return to their trees. They skim the flames that someone has already lit in the grotto without ever burning their wings. Inside the house, a luminous soul fights the darkening patina of need. There is utter silence as this need searches for an entirely new moral sense with which to look at itself. The search will begin here, but go far afield, through people and places in other continents.

A tree falls and breaks the top of a stone wall. The sound is an explosion whose echoes go deep into the corners of the rooms, into dishes and bookshelves. The fishtail palm has broken exactly at one of the chalk white rings on its tall trunk which marked its destiny. It flowered from the top, the flowers small green balls, hanging together in enormous bunches. Only one level flowered at a time, over the years. After twenty years perhaps, the lowest level flowered, and that meant the tree was nearing its end. The trunk will be cut in two for channeling water, the fibers will be used for fishing lines, and the base made into a huge bucket for lifting water from river or well.

The street is like a flame in a windless place.