Night Jasmine

"There’s magic in your hands, Bhola," they tell me, as their numbed bodies beneath the blue gowns come alive. In that quiet hour, the LED panels above are killed. But the rustle of the cold sheets lit at the toes by the solitary streetlamp outside gives them away. Those Dettol-soaked shrouds could be mistaken for the dead but then comes a stir; sometimes moans. It’s not just the anaesthesia and painkillers, but also years of weariness from too much rest that finally finds an escape. I can tell. It’s all kismet. Let me tell you, six months back, when my name was recommended for the night shift at the Male Private ward, I knew that the District Hospital of Kolhapur had come with a purpose in my life. To give me what I needed. That’s to say, besides the medal for ‘Exceptional Service,’ they awarded me last year. The hall packed with cheering audience, that pat on my back, and the medal shining on my chest- all acknowledging: Bhola is no ordinary. The medal now remains locked in my trunk, pickled with a decaying Certificate that once branded me a ‘matric pass.’ A term often hurled as an abuse in the big cities. It was around the same time, at sixteen or so, when I earned a reputation that could put to shame any abuse, any family as mine. That was in another lifetime perhaps. Feels that way when you’ve drifted to a point of no return. Now the last time they brought me a cake at the hospital, they told me I’ve turned forty. Imagine, half my life is already gone. And for the past five years, every single day of my life I’ve shown up at work wearing the same colourless trousers with a matching colourless buttoned-down shirt. Maa Kasam, someday I’ll burn that piece of uniform! Can all be cut the same size? One gets told even by the arch of their eyebrows, the wave of their hand or the gentle sway stored in their hips. The individuality of an individual; slow to reveal, difficult to hide. My mother used to say that if a person’s hair is not combed neat, nor will be his life. Huh! Must have hoped so much from her son. But I was born this way, with this unruliness stuck around my head. Needs to be trimmed short and flattened with jasmine oil – all for control. In return, I’ve drawn its sticky sweet fragrance that I carry about myself all day. But there is still that one single strand of curl that falls out of line and disrupts the order. Just one. Every time. And like anything that’s out of place, it’s the one to draw the most attention. After years of struggle, I’ve accepted that not everyone and everything can be made to comply. Now you see, unlike others, I prefer to work in night shifts - a time when the coyotes howl, the body pains grow and the heart aches to bleed. That’s the hour when I come out. Like the night jasmine. The men who come wandering to the hospital beds wake up; stripped of their knees, kidneys, gall bladders, and also their inhibitions. It always begins the same way, always ends in tears. Because of my patience with their ramblings through the night, I’m soon taken in as one of their close confidantes. I don’t intend to be one. Never. But it all begins with me handing over the bedtime pills, them complaining of the body aches and then our eyes that suddenly see. That’s it. The plastic curtains rattle along the metallic hooks as they run to slide us into privacy. And the lingering fragrance of Jasmine oil trapped in that imagined escapade which entices a certain rawness from their lost youths. The beeping machines and the saline drips are not as lurid as the heart drumming for an invite. The game must begin. I take charge of their feet, kneading mounds of pain and numbness. And as I take their bodies inch by inch, their hearts pour forth the loss. O the stories I’ve grown privy to! If you don’t get love in a way you desired, you’d always be looking for it. You may look for it in stock prices and hotel rooms, in the licks of your wagging pet or a blank call, even in the faces of people whom you loathe. Or you’d be like me, kept wanting for so long that you’d look no more. My focus is on the service though for which they tip me generously in the end. An extra income that gives me the freedom to buy things I cannot use; things that I keep locked in my trunk, things for which I’m not answerable to anyone. Not anymore. As the night grows, my hands climb from their feet to their forgotten muscles, tendons, up to their arched waists, taking over their heaving backs. And by the time, I reach their shoulders, they are left murmuring their thanks to the heavens. In no time, I hear their cries transformed into shuddering moans of pleasure. Disgusting? It's all because of the seductive hour of the night. But they tell me, "There’s magic in your hands, Bhola!" I’ve come to realise that all our griefs begin with physical touch or the lack of it. Even a child needs to be held not to feel maltreated. But even if you’ve survived that, by the time you are in your teens you would’ve been beaten a few times, or worse still, abused. Whatever the form of violation, whichever is your threshold, it awakens you suddenly to your surroundings, the faces, the room, the muted brokenness all around. That’s when you grow up. And then you realise that the body which brought the abuse to your soul would have to be used again. This time to heal. Or seek revenge. Both, inviting more pain in this physical world of inhuman existence. The choice, to an extent, lies with you. But what happens to those bodies which cannot find their likes? Overpowered by their powerlessness? Father, mother, friends, village - all got left behind. The only thing I carry with me is fear. It all began years back when children playing cricket outside my home started calling me names. They laughed on my face as I walked to school, they slapped my head as I played, they nudged each other, pointing at me. Soon my sisters also refused to accompany me. Everyone stared. You know that look when they let their eyes hold you, just a bit longer? That’s when you know they know. Even friends. Then one day, I stopped them all in one go. Those curious eyes, mocking every grain in me. I just locked myself in. I left school, cut off my friends and shun all my cravings. I needed nothing, wanted no one. My mother could not understand what was wrong. Neither could she see what was right. She took me to a hermit for a ‘cure.’ He was an old sage who had come from the Himalayas, so he claimed. The moment he took my palm in his hand, he whispered with a grin, “There’s magic in your hands, Bhola.” He assured my mother that prayers offered through my magical hands on a full moon night would rid me of my whims. But when the time came, he took me to such a heaven that I couldn’t return home. I fled my village the next morning. I was the departed. I’ve been running since then. From people and places. From the me in myself. Like an old itch that becomes sore with time, my gait is also becoming adamant. That chawl, near the bus stand, ahead of the temple? That’s where I live. It’s twenty miles from the hospital. That way the rumour would take time to reach and by the time it catches up, who knows, maybe I’d be gone? Anyways my neighbours don’t see me much. I sleep through the day, with a puppy playing by my cot. Seems like it has adopted me as its own. On some days, I step out to feel the pain throbbing within my censored self. I roam the bazaar envying the tinkling of bangles, the intoxication of the mogra, the bold kohl, the tiara and the tassels. All aggrandizing the real in me. If only I could embrace a drape, transparent in each fold like my desires. If only I could do the dance, my steps frenzied by the illusion of love. If only I could find someone to love. We deserve love too, don’t we? But we are the forbidden. They accept love stolen in hotel rooms, love arranged with someone thirty years older, love negotiated over a price, love that stares at you from a screen. But in the end, the police come knocking only at our doors. Mobs come attacking for us to be beaten. They forbid us through their denial. Don’t they see that we are prisoners of our own body, bereaved by our own? Sometime back they announced that our-yuck-type-of-love was no longer a crime in my country. The same day, I saw my community in the cities taking to the streets to celebrate their freedom. Posters, flags, slogans, flooded the TV screen as lovers kissed each other in public, threw gulal like free pollen in the air. But the rainbow of their sky could not reach the smaller cities and towns. Here if we dare to look up, all we see is the shimmering insults of a lifetime which we must count as the fault in our stars. Here I must bloom when decency takes a slumber. But I’ll not go back to the hospital again. I’ve decided. Today afternoon, when I was crossing the signal near my house with that puppy following me behind, an old patient waiting at the signal, waved from his car and gave me a shout. I was returning with some purchase from the grocery store. I reached, greeting him with hesitation. He rolled down the glass window and said, “Aren't you Bhola?” I was thrilled. Could he remember me after so many months? After all, he was the one who had hissed like a cooker all through the massage. I extended my hand for a friendly shake. Maa Kasam, it was just a handshake. But then, he did what no one had done before. He spat on my face. Then he stepped out to threaten me and pushed me away. That belching baboon! I pleaded for him not to shout but he said, “What will you do? You bloody chakka! Don’t you dare touch me with those dirty hands of yours." Dirty hands? So, this is what they tell me now? This is how they reward me? If his wife wasn’t next to him, believe me, he would have invited me home. Many of them have before. But I’m no whore, bloody! People had gathered by then. They pulled me down, away from the car. They hurled abuses, they beat me, they scattered me. I fell to the ground, as my eyes strained to see the car dissolving into the angry flow, glowing red into the distance. I sat there with my shirt all torn; sugar from the packet grinding beneath their soles, the matchbox dampened by the gutter hole. The puppy was running in circles, barking at them unheeded. No one needed to know. They had punished me for who I am. That’s when you arrived in your van. Your men have been beating me since, for what I don’t know. Isn’t it them who stalled the traffic, who beat me up? My eyes are swollen blue and I can barely see the filth around. The walls, those bars, the toilet pan, they all look blurry to me. You think I’m a criminal? The one who needs to be put in a lock-up? Why can’t people let me be? I’ve been telling you; I didn’t touch him. No. Not once, believe me. It was just a handshake. And even if it wasn’t, didn’t they always tell, “There’s magic in your hands, Bhola.”