dailyO
Voices

A note to someone who is 'no more'

Advertisement
Chinki Sinha
Chinki SinhaDec 15, 2017 | 16:24

A note to someone who is 'no more'

"I always had hopes of being a big star. But as you get older, you aim a little lower. Everybody wants to make an impression, some mark upon the world. Then you think, you've made a mark on the world if you just get through it, and a few people remember your name. Then you've left a mark. You don't have to bend the whole world. I think it's better to just enjoy it. Pay your dues, and just enjoy it. If you shoot a arrow and it goes real high, hooray for you."

Advertisement

- Dorian Corey in Paris is Burning

I want to tell him he made a mark. The quote from the documentary was the title of one of those albums that are like archives of people, places, moments. I had wanted them to see this film. And I remember him sitting and watching it. He is there in the album. A few days ago, I received a message in the wee hours of the morning that he is no more. This is not an obituary. But I must write this. Writing is also a way of mourning.

It was biting cold when I arrived in Kangra that winter to teach a communication course at NIFT. I had been put up in a small guesthouse with a window that overlooked the mountains and students had given me a heater to keep myself warm. The dinner was supposed to be delivered at 7:30pm from the mess. After that, I was mostly by myself in that building. Someone had told me it is therapeutic to watch the mountains. I mostly believe such things.

The mountains were invisible in the dark.

And then, they called me to ask if I would like to go with them for a drive in the mountains in the night and I said it would be lovely.

Advertisement

Rohan was one of the few students who lived outside the campus and they weren't bound by the hostel rule book. Two girl students were also renting a little flat in the village. We drove to Dharamsala in the night listening to their music. They spoke to me about their lives, their ambitions. I was grateful for their invitation.

We ordered food, we drank tea and they brought me back. I think we jumped the gate. And when I was finally in my room, they drove to wherever they lived. This was our little secret. I had never taught before and I was always nervous.

I gave them assignments. I graded them. I was afraid of breaking their hearts.

asali_121517041020.jpg
- Faiz Ahmad Faiz, translated by Agha Shahid Ali. PC: Tumblr

I listened to their dilemmas, their stories. And then one afternoon I asked them to write love letters. They had told me they hated writing. I thought we could all write love letters. I don't remember what Rohan wrote. I remember other letters. I moved out of that dreary guest house, into a hotel in Dharamsala that had a beautiful view. It was my last two days and they drove me to the hotel. I returned with a whole bag of love letters the second day and read the letters through the night.

Advertisement

There was a bag full of love letters of strangers. They weren’t addressed to me. These were secrets whispered to me in faith, and I had told them if they could write love letters, they could write everything else. Love should be frozen in time, and on paper, I said to them.

Back then, I believed in love's powers. I still do, except I don't know what love is anymore.

A girl had given up. She said writing scared her. She once fell in love. And wrote about it in her diary, and her mother read her frail confessions. She was young then, and she was in love. But she said she never wrote again. It was the discovery that petrified her. She said she was crying because she felt she could write, and expressions could come through photos, and hashtags.

There was a letter addressed to self in future. They had written the most personal things. They had decorated the letters. A few wanted them back. Some told me I could keep them. A few were in love. A few had been torn apart by love.

I was their teacher for a week. These were confessions. Like I said, I don't remember Rohan's letter. I remember asking the students to meet me at a small cafe by my hotel where I wanted to say goodbye to them and return the letters.

I remember Rohan as the most intense student. I was intrigued by him. He and I spoke about his life sometimes. It was in 2014 and three years have gone by.

I left that evening. And for a long time afterwards, I'd smile when I remembered those drives in the mountains. I remember having played Marcel Khalife's "Ode to homeland" one night for Rohan. He said it was beautiful.

I never returned to Kangra. Rohan messaged me sometimes. He had joined Motherland magazine in Delhi. He would always make plans to come and see me. I always said he was most welcome.

They were such beautiful, happy people. Memory is not chronological. It comes in flashes. I see him sitting across me in that rooftop restaurant in Kangra and then I see him in another place they had taken me to, silently watching the mountains. I remember him in class. I remember him in the car when we drove around aimlessly that winter.

A few days ago, I thought about that winter in that remote little village. I remembered Rohan. A professor said he would be inviting me again. I said it would be lovely to go back.

And then, I remembered that Rohan is no more. I didn't know him. But grief is not subject to time spent together. It isn't proportional to seconds and hours and years spent with a person. It is enough to know someone briefly to mourn for them. And his death was so quiet. You can't blame an accident or a war or even cancer. He gave up. He had brain fever. That's what I was told.

I am grateful that they remembered to inform me about his death. At first, Sulagna and then, Twinkle messaged me. They were all friends. The thing is we hadn't been in touch. Except with Rohan, who would message sometimes. I wanted to ask them why they thought I should be informed. But then, I don't know how to frame such questions. Twinkle wrote that they missed me. I could not write I did too. Those seven days were so beautiful and it was because they showed me the mountains in the night. From my window, they had been invisible.

I have been reading through the messages and I stumbled upon an email from a student called Latika. We exchanged a few emails after I left. She addressed me "hello stranger" and I had smiled because that's what I have always been - a stranger.

"It is about some places which makes me feel that way. Some places in Kangra remind me of my dreams of running downhill on a very green mountain. Some places in Mumbai are made of my teenage dreams esp the Churchgate area with its Catholic and Art Deco architecture. I was really into all of that when I was younger. Maybe they weren't dreams though. Just visuals I saw somewhere probably on television and held on to them long enough to be pasted in my long term memory," Latika had written.

And maybe it was exactly like that. And there is a thing called long term memory and he, who is no more, is pasted and preserved there as a beautiful young man trying to find answers in the mountains, who was kind to a stranger and showed her that mountains never disappear in the dark but move closer so you can feel them even if you can't see them.

Last updated: February 18, 2018 | 20:28
IN THIS STORY
Please log in
I agree with DailyO's privacy policy