Whenever I read a book you can notice all my fingers inserted at various pages – marking them; while I read a specific other page. I do not know what there is in those marked pages or why I marked them. I also do not feel anything for them save for a vague visceral anticipation in my bones. Still, I hold onto them. Whenever I notice my fingers in this trifle I mostly let go of those pages but sometimes I don’t. I can’t tell you the whys of any of these. If I do, I might give you a reason that lacks wit or I might cite you from a scripture. In either case, it will be something which neither of us would understand. Such has been my life too. I mark certain events and I do not let go of them. And I don’t know the whys…

Sometimes in my consciousness I feel my breaths. Waiting. Patient. Numb. Lifeless. There is nothing to the wait – no origin and no known end, there is simply the wait itself. I do not know why I do not move for several hours. Why I do not act. Why I do not think. My years of inactivity may be accounted for by this unique numbness which is part of my nature. A time bomb it is that ticks to its own destruction. But it normally takes years for the time-bomb to explode and rip apart my life. In my day to daily life though, this numbness is mostly inconsequential. I overtime perfected the art of pretending to live a normal life so while those around me feel I am living, I actually aren’t. I am not doing the right thing, I am not thinking the right thing, and I am not the real me, and I do not care to think the whys, I am lost…

I have a vague memory of the time when I had a sense of humour, when I used to laugh at trifles and sometimes at myself. But sooner than later I found out that I could not laugh at myself. I soon learnt that my humour was but a veil drawn by my mind over the grey thoughts beneath the surface. My humour was a deception, an escape, a diversion. So I started to look at the grey thoughts unveiled. Soon, I lost my humour. And then finally there came a time when I would not look at all into the holes in my mind for each hole was a dark abyss that stared back at me when I stared at it. I did not commit to memory what I saw.

There was a time in my life when I was sure that I had unconventional talent and originality. I had this feeling in my late teens and it lasted till not more my early twenties. It did come back time and again in later years though. It was somewhere around that time when I met Rahul. He was in the same college as I. I can’t remember when exactly we fell in love. He idealized and romanticized everything including me. He had a romantic vision. Sometimes I too would get carried away by his vague ideas. Ideas of a new ideal world. Ideas of a new life. Ideas of a newfound love between us, ideas of a new me. He believed in me more than I believed in myself. There was little question of me to believe in anybody for I never did believe anyone, that included myself. I never had faith. And quiet strangely I’d have a sort of fatal attraction towards those who despised me or chided me. I would trust them. I would respect them. Sometimes I would revere them. I was neutral to those who were neutral to me but I had the greatest despise for those who had even the slightest of respect for me. The ones who said, ‘you have talent, girl!’ or ‘you are a good girl!’ etc. Rahul has been the only one human being who is an exception to this rule. Perhaps therein lays the answer of why I loved him. Perhaps…

Rahul had faith in me. He believed in my talents and I believed in him for reason known to none. I excelled at singing and writing. Back in my home town Mysore, I had received training in Indian classic music from the age of seven years till I was sixteen. So I sung beautifully. I never gave playback singing a thought but sometimes Rahul would make me believe that I could do it. But despite repeated requests from him, I never auditioned. Whenever I would set out for it something would happen. Sometimes I would not find the transportation; sometimes I would not get up in time, etc. I finally gave up the idea.

It was in my final year at my Bombay college when I decided to write a book. That was perhaps the only decision that I took myself in my life. Rahul was ecstatic. But he was not very keen when he read the first three chapters. I was writing about myself. It was an autobiographical story and it had detailed accounts of my life and his too since it was so intricately linked with mine. But he did not voice his dissent until late. Until we were married.

It was a court marriage because his mother did not like me. We had just finished college and we both were employed in Bombay. We received good pay by any standards. In those days, there wasn’t the cut-throat competition of today. I do not know why Rahul’s mother did not like me. That was one thing in my life that broke my heart. For the first time in my life, I wanted to be liked and it hurt when she gave me that I-despise-you look. I was an expert at recognizing that look of course - having noted it so very often in life. It had not lasted in her face for more than a second but it was imprinted in my memory forever. If Rahul’s mom had had her way, we would never be married.

My book was in its third year and final chapter. We were twenty four years old. We had no child. When I finished my book I named it ‘A woman’s diary’ and sent it to a publisher who was a friend of Rahul. Frog Books published my book. It was not a bestseller but it was well-received by critics and—in the words of a critic—‘a special category of readers’. I did not pay heed to critics or to any fan mails. But there was one criticism which I was better off not listening. The words still ring in my ears; they were, ‘You made a buck by selling us, Shefali.’ They came from my husband.

Years passed happily even when we were childless. I had begun to believe I was a good woman. After all, a wife who makes her husband happy ought to be one. We had loads of fun. We made love like kids. Each day our love took on some new form. It never ceased flowering. Despite years of living with one another, we never got bored of each other. Like every couple we too had our share of fights but we made up for that only too well. Underlying our love was friendship. And so for brief periods when we would fall out of love, we remained the best of friends. And then on some sunny day, we would fall in love all over again.

Rahul had some white streaks when we reached our mid-thirties. I used to make fun of him. One day he confessed to me that he did not like it. He died the afternoon of the same day. It was a heart-attack. I cried till days on end. It was like my spirit died along with him. That he was the last straw to sail me to the shore. I still remember his mother cursing me. She said that it was I who killed him. She in fact was determined to file a law suit against me and she would have done it but for her husband. ‘You poisoned him over the years. He died a slow death.’ These were her words.

I remarried after a year. I could not support myself financially. The man in question said that he was a great fan of my book. I despised him no end. Once Rahul disapproved of my book, I always despised anyone who praised it. Not that I am not grateful to my present husband—I am. But I do not feel anything for him.

It seemed like life came full circle. I despised and distrusted everything and everyone. It was like I never had met Rahul. After all, what value does the past him in the face of the present? Yet, sometimes I turn my life’s pages backwards and reread them. I find so many pages I did not read. It was as if my eyes swum over the lines and I was half-asleep. I try to reread them but my vision is blurred now. I look at the page of the present but I have my fingers at the other pages, marking them. Sometimes in my reverie I think that it was indeed me who poisoned Rahul. That the poisoning began the first time I bedded him and lay my fangs in his body. May be the kindness of death delivered him of me. And refused to grace me. Sometimes I think I poisoned my whole life and everything that ever came into my vicinity. Anything good was transformed into evil. Right from that book I wrote. There are pages in that book I cannot look at. There are pages in my life’s book I cannot look at. God alone knows why.

I will read those unread pages. May be there is something there. Hope is something that never left me. I don’t know why but my heart has never truly been broken in life. May be that is a sign of greatness. May be I am like the phoenix. Or may be I am nobody and so I never felt anything in particular.

I am a ‘forty-five year old cargo boat’ that would not swim ashore. I do not see any rudders and the wind would not fill my sails. I am undecided if I should unload the cargo. In fact, I never gave it a thought. They are just there. Like everything else. Like life.