Curves and edges

The day begins as Mondays do. On time. Despite digressions over the weekend. Then SM, who spends his last weekend in Delhi with them leaves. It is a sadder moment than he has imagined. The ones who stay behind usually shoulder a larger share of the grief of separation, he thinks. He watches as the lift door slides close, and then a blot of a white shirt and a dark crumpler bag disappear out of the gate. He wonders when they will meet again. SM's lack of reluctance in rolling out money notwithstanding, he would have made a good companion for exploring the city. Then, accidentally, there is a bit too much caffeine.

A long silence follows. Packed in by bits of telephone calls. He hears indecisive voices. Voices full of rigid opinion, voices without a shade of strength in them, ones that require constant advice and approval. He isn't empathetic towards voices like these. The mind isn't a physical thing like a brick that can be described as strong or weak. It's strength or weakness is a reflection of it's understanding of worlds, both within and without. Premature faith or excessive romance, both if characterized by inflexibility, have far reaching consequences and little to do with experiencing deeply. Not only do they stand in the way of clarity, more importantly they stand in the way of peace. But of course, there are other phone conversations too, some about photography, which are better.

A couple of days earlier, he completes Shanghvi's The Last Song of Dusk. Parts of it, that deal with mundane vices of the glitterati are boring. Parts of the writing weighing heavily upon metaphors appear contrived and lack flow. (He wonders if most Indian authors try to imitate Arundhati Roy or Salman Rushdie, or both far too much.) The attempt at pieces of suspense and drama is often very feeble and ineffective. But much of the rest is beautifully poetic. Lyrical prose, he supposes, is what it's called. It describes love in it's many forms. It reminds him occasionally, after reading a deftly sketched out section, of Marquez's Love in the time of Cholera, which talks about the varied faces of Love with such masterful skill, such great subtlety, and perhaps even the precision one uses to describe a machine, that to many it may not be obvious how deeply steeped in love the book really is. This one handles the topic from the other more obvious angle and yet largely manages to find its niche. It has an eye for nuance and irony. It's time to move on to the next.