Morsels of Faint Recollection: The Eraser

Of late, I have not been writing well. I’ve had times when I saw thoughts oozing up from everywhere around me like the fast evaporation of ether. I’d try to gather as many of these in my pockets and lap. Today, I deem the crow and the nightingale as the same. Even on the occasions when I have sat down to write forcefully, I’ve found the eraser to be doing most of the work. I sit staring at the ceiling of my room or maybe the distant hills from the berth of my train hoping to see the ether rise again. Instead, I see a proverbial boy from faraway. He looks like me in my childhood; his hair is also made my way; his socks are pulled up and his eyes don’t have anything to speak… just like I had. I squint at this wonder boy and I see him wane into the ether that I so desired.

“Morsels of Faint Recollection” is one series that I devote to that boy of yore.
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A story that you love to narrate over and over again is of your childhood. With half shut eyes, unguided between the past and today, you can still make your way to where you are now. Nevertheless with all the missing connections in the story, aided by the lapse of memory, it still is one complete story.

My Camlin pencil box always had the sharpest of the HB pencils, a big eraser, two compasses, a protector and a small ruler. We were still four long years away from using the fountain pens. Occasionally, I’d use a ball pen to write the grocery list, the items of which would be dictated by Ma from the kitchen. Rinku would snatch the pen every time she discovered me using one. Everyone told me that using the pen will spoil my handwriting. I never understood why then ball pens were there.

During one classroom session I discovered, to my utter dismay that the eraser was missing. I remember the teacher giving us some dictation and I was already lagging behind. And then the spelling mistake. Without thinking much I put my finger on my tongue and then rubbed the saliva on the menacing word. In no time the word was dead, but its place was taken by a grey splotch. I looked up at the teacher; her words were like the trailing sound of a train you have just missed. I looked across my shoulders; all the heads were down, busy taking the dictation. Just like the old rule, I left a few blank lines and started taking the remaining dictation.

This newfound spit technology soon became an art that I perfected so well. One could find a decrease in intensity of the grey blob as he flipped through my notebook pages. But before I could patent my art, I moved to High School where I was required to write with a fountain pen. And the grey blob grew fainter in my memory with time until yesterday when I again discovered it in my four-year-old’s spiral notebook.

To An Ignorant Beauty

A moss amidst the bawdy rocks
Thou hast eyes of unseen morning lights
Of a love ye sees not in the mercury wall.
Friend of thy ignorance, Youth sings to thy charm
And stands as its forever sheen.

Some books on my Bed

I have somehow stopped reading after my last two books, “The Motorcycle Diaries” and “Letters to Sam”. Last night as I slipped into my pajamas, I discovered around five books on my bed. They were snubbed by my attitude towards them; I had read only a few pages of each. It was like listening to a close friend’s poignant narrative and then leaving him right when he was beginning to open up. I felt for them, but I still switched off the lights after setting the alarm to 6AM.

In the morning, I discovered an order note in the cabinet. I had placed an order for two more books. I remember how excited I was to have them, but I cannot see even a spec of the excitement in my bathroom mirror today.

What am I doing all these days? Work – yes… And what else? I don’t remember anything momentous. I’ve heard someone saying that the best thoughts and ideas come to you when you are seated in your shit-pot. Let me try it as well, I thought! And lo, what comes to me? The smell of my shit’s obscure aroma mixing with the air freshener…

I loved “The Motorcycle Diaries”, but it left me with a reality check meter. In each book that I read, I find some wisdom that I can make use in my life. In Che’s narration of his discovery of Latin America, I discovered my lack of knowledge of my own roots.

In Daniel Gottlaib’s (Letters to Sam) handicap, I discovered how one can still seek out and see the world from his constrained wheelchair.

Dan and Che are two faces of the same person to me. They had set out to discover themselves rather than waiting to let things dawn before them. They saw life from the wheel: Dan from his wheelchair and Che from his bike. And they understood—that life is not a full circle when it comes to discovery; it may not show all its different flavors to you on its own—you have to seek it like you seek your friends in a game of hide and seek. Still, you may not discover it all, but atleast you’ll have the smile on you face of the one who has been closer to life and known it.

I now know the reason behind the pile of books on my bed. I fear that I’ll discover one more Dan, an another Che Guevara, beckoning me to take the path of discovery. I’ve been resisting this current for long, but I don’t know if I’d be able to hold on to the certainty that I live in today.