My Papa’s call
Me : I feel like writing a love story, and I end up writing violence…. I think its because
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Me: It’s my Papa
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Me : whenever my papa calls me, I feel a lot of things, he makes me realize I have such loooong spectrum of emotions, it varies from irritation to anger to empathy to pity and maybe, just maybe sometimes love, maybe its love that forms into these other variants of emotions.
Emotions, complicated shit, there has been a war in my head between my emotions and logic since a while now, and I’ve found some answers, answers that lead to more questions and more answers, but I have taken a back seat now. I am trying to let these two argue, fight each other like the highlight match of Wrestle mania and I am going to grab a bag of popcorn, popcorn these days cost way more than the movie + auto ride to theatre.
Tring Tring
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Me: Its Papa again.
Some game show anouncer(I have no idea what is he doing in this story) : And the emotion for today is (tring tring continues)
the wheel is spinning
Me:Will you please let me pick up the phone?
Some game show anouncer(I have no idea what is he doing in this story) : Its Irritation, sponsored by logic, that, papa will ask abouttttt…
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dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum Drum rolls….
TAXESSS!!!!
Me : Hello
Papa : Haaaan!
Me : He never says hello!
Papa: Vo main ye keh raha tha..
Me :Its a thing, I know, my friend also does this, he goes like, so I was saying…
sometimes I also do it…. Its a thing… I know
Papa: Haaan, kahan gaya?
Me : Haan hello hello
Papa : kya haal hai
Me : theek theek
Pause for a minute… … …
Me :Hello
Papa : haaan
tax file kiya beta, last date aa rahi hai?
Pause … … …
Irritation coming up, but I kill it, with a huge hammer in its head.
Irritation : What the fuck! I come from the glorious, prestigious and respected member of the society, LOGIC
Me : NO! you are not! even if you are, this is the slot for love, you come in later at night, we’ll transform it into lust!
Papa : What
Me : What
Irritation : That actually….. does not sound bad at all.
Me : haan tax bhar denge papa, kya stress lena, paisa kya hai haath ka mail, roz nahate time nikaal dete hai.
Pause for 1 min… … … .. .. ….
dial tone
He never says bye also, I feel a lot of fathers don’t, Ive asked my friends, their fathers also don’t.
Me: You noticed these pauses, these pauses are expression, they are not just pauses, they are a cry, a scream of my papa, that he wants in, he wants to be a part of my life, he wants to say things, speak emotion. Talk to me like a friend, because he doesn’t have any left, he wants say things that he feels, but he can’t, he was told not to, since he was a kid, how I was told, Boys don’t cry, boys don’t talk emotions, and we don’t, and these pauses are all that is left, both of us don’t know how to fill these pauses, sometimes I try, I try and fill it with words, random meaningless words like climate, stock market blah blah blah but words are not enough, like right now, words are not enough, and I can see my emotions staring at me, surrounding me, with biggg watery eyes. I am standing in the centre of a cricket field and thousand of my emotions, who have come here today are looking at me, staring at me with hope, exactly how people would look at Sachin. I have a bat in my hand, sponsored by logic, and all those emotions want to scream something like Sachiiin, Sachiiiin, instead they are crying, crying with no sound, how I cry at night sometimes, how my papa would have cried when he was my age, and I look at all the emotions, their lips are stitched together with thick black thread, and all of a sudden they all run towards me like the 1992 world cup, they look helpless, how commons run at the shrine. They just want to be heard and just be held by me, I also want to love them, stroke their head and put my warm lips on their eyes, but as they are coming closer, I start feeling anxious and I don’t know what to do, I have never done all this before, and I was not a good batsman since I was a kid. One of the emotion I think, its care or love, is faster than others, forward than the others by almost half a yard and i am about to throw the logic sponsored bat and hug the emotion, fall in love with love, but the bat is stuck to my gloves, gloves that are a part of my skin now, and the anxiety is coming upto my throat like puke, I am going to throw up…
tring tring
tring tring
its my papa, i am sure, he will ask about the taxes,
its the third time in the day,
ME : I CANNOT EXPLAIN ONE THING OVER AND OVER AGAIN!!
the puke is close to my epiglottis now, its citrusy. Yuck!
and the emotions are all around me, they surround me like common romans around Caesar
I went to hug them, show them love and BANGGG, the logic sponsored bat hit love in the head, it died on the spot, all the emotions stood still staring at me with shock and fear. Its like they have been betrayed for the first time, I am shocked as well, I just wanted to hold them close to my chest, make them listen to my heartbeat, show them my heart cares.
Me : I just wanted to kiss you all, and fall in love with you, its just that my hand, its stuck to this, this bat!
tring tring
tring tring
ME : WILL YOU STOP FUCKING CALLINGG!!
I can feel the bat growing bigger and all the emotions are getting scared, and I feel like Caesar, but I don’t want to end up like him, I want to live and talk to my papa on the phone, tell him its going to be okay, its okay, there is nothing to worry about. And before these unrealistic, disrespected, unworthy emotions could stab me like Brutus, Cassius and all those Roman murders, I start breaking their heads with my bat, I bash all of them. The bat becomes bigger with every murder, I break their head, all of them, an entire cricket field with heads open like a can of fish soaked in blood, its worse than looking at Sachin walking out of the stadium for the last time, knowing he will never come back to bat, ever!
The whole field is red. Crimson red.
I stand there with blood soaked bat in my hand, gasping for air, thinking, wow, I played well, maybe I broke Sachin’s record. I swallowed the puke inside, did not taste that bad.
tring tring
tring tring
tring tring
Its my papa calling, I want to answer, but this bat, this fucking bat, sponsored by logic, is stuck in my hand.
