Popeye's June Diary

June 1. 1978

My dearest diary,

Today I got up from the bed at 7 o clock and got ready very very fast for the school. Mama got angry but she did not tel me anything. but I know she was very angry. Then when I came home in the evening she had forgotten that I had gotten up so late and troubled her while taking bath also.

So because she had forgottewn it she kissed me and hugged me tight. And I liked it so much.

You know Mama also told me that it is going to rain this month. This month is June. Mama said it rains in June. So I am very happy now because when it will rain I will ask mama to make me a big big boat like papa makes with the newspaper paper. I wilt el her to make twpo boats actually. One I will wear on my head and the other i wil tak out and play with Mahesh near the naale where D souza uncle stands and catches all the fishes.

Now I must realy sleep otherwise mama wil be angry again tomorrow. I wish it will rain today night. If it does I wil sleep with mama holding her tight.

With lots Of Love and kissses
Popeye Mehta

June 4. 1978

Diary,

I am so sorry that I did not even write to you on june 2 and june 3. thats because mama had got very very sick. I did not tell you before about it because I felt very bad talking badly about my mama. But you know mamas stomach has got big and fat and she is telling me everyday and every evening that I wil be having a small sister with long hair and ribbon and frock. But whenever I asked her that mama please tell

me how will sister come out from stomach she does not tell me.

Now mama is calling me. I have to go. She wants me to press her back and apply iodex on the back so that it does not pain more.

I wil tell you what happens later.

With regards,
Popeye Mehta

PS: it has not rained even til now. I wil tell mama that she must find out why it has not rained because I want to play bot and cap with Mahesh.

June 7, 1978

My dear friend Diary,

I cannot even tell you how happy I am. I am so so so happy. I have a sister. I am happy happy happy. That is why I could not tell you anything about what happened.

After I had wrote to you that day, I had gone to sleep with mama. Then my eyes opened and I looked at the cloack. The big hand was on eleven and the small hand was also on eleven only. And mama was trebmling and crying and she was putting on her sari. So I got very worried and aksed her what happened. She said popeye go and tell parthasarthy aunty to come and help your mama because mama has very hard backpain.

So I went running at full speed to parthasarthy auntys house and kept ringing and ringing the bell one hundred times. Then I told aunty what mama had said. And then she came home and tied mamas sari. And parthasarthy uncle drove his creem color fiat full speed. Mama was crying and crying. I was very woreid. I kept very quiet. Because papa one day had told me we should not talk to the driver when he is driving. When we reached on the bridghe the car stopped. That was because there was a traffic jam. Papa says a traffic jam is not like butter and jam. It is when all the cars and trucks and bus come and block the road anfd nothing will go here or there. I did puja to Vishnu because mama said Vishnu has so many avtar like Krishna and ram and all many more. And mama was right because the traffic opened and we went to the hospital.

They did not allow me to even go inside. I sat and played on one uncles scooter that is like papas scooter. It was also blue and white. Then afterwards parthasarthy aunty came and told me that I can go and see my sister who has come out of my mamas tummy. So I went to the other room where they were doing masag of the baby. And I did not like her looks. She was very small and like dirty. And she did not have any ribbons and did not have any frock also. And she was having not even one hairs on her head. That was very sad. But I did not tell mama that. I told mama that sister was wearing everything and had very long hair.

But I am happy now because we have come home. And papa is also going to come home tomorrow from Bombay.

He wil bring me so many things like gun and helicopter.

Now I wil go and sleep with mama. Maybe it wil rain today in the night. My sister wil also like it I am sure.
With lots of love and kisses,

Popeye Mehta

June 10, 1978

Dairy I am very sad. I should not tel you this because I promised mama but i wil. Because you are my best friend. So maani things happened today so I will write them down in points only.

1. papa had come home so he gave me the gun and the helicopter. The helicopter does not fly at all.
2. I was very happy because it rained in the ground and the roof and the naale from morning only. It is now also raining only. Papa made for me the 2 boats. One boat I put on my head and other one I took to play. Mahesh did not come to play but his sister anita came to play. I like anita because she is so pretty with her red frock. I gave her my cap boat. We plaed for much time.
3. when I came hom my mama was sleeping and crying. Papa went to the market for the fruit. Mama is very afraid of the thunder. So whgat I do is that when the light comes in the sky i tel her that there is ligt and now the thunder wil come. And then she puts her head under the pillow and hides. And I then hold her. My mama is very nice. I am sorry that I told her i wil shoot her with papas gun and make hema malini my mummy because hema malini is so beautiful.
4. then mama and papa went to the party of parthasarthy uncle. There they all danced and ate good food and papa drank very very much. Mummy told her not to drink also but he did not listen at al. then when they came home mama was crying and papa was angry. He said bad things to mama. He said mama went and danced with that uncle and that was bad. So he pushed mama and hit her on her head and hand. And now mama cannot move her hand at al.
5. papa is sleeping in the bed. His pant is open and his shirt boton is also open now. Mama is crying in the vbalcony with my sister who has no ribbons. I am very afraid. I do not know what to do. I promise i wil never beat her when I grow big. When I am big I wil mary mama and make her very happy.

Now I must go to mama because I just saw a lightening in the sky and it wil be thunder after this. Bye

Popeye

PS: it is raining so muych that water is coming from the roof and falling in the kitchen.

Ija's old glass and tumbler

Six months before Ija died, I'd dreamt she was dying and took the first bus to the village. I reached home at 7 in the morning and it was cold in the mountains. I reached at the right time because I found her curled like a foetus n the middle of the large bed in her room. Her body had turned blue with pain and lack of breath. The women of the family were out in the cowshed, the men - as usual - were asleep. I walked 13 kms to the town and managed to bring Dr Shrivastav home in a cab.

She recovered.

Two days later, as we sat talking by the fireplace - she was telling me about her brother (she said I always reminded her of him...that he was a scholar...a learned man...his sanskrit was fluent and his pronunciation impeccable) - she suddenly rose and opened her cupboard and brought out an old brass tumbler, bowl and plate. She pressed them into my hands and asked me to keep them. They had been given to her by her mother on her marriage. She asked me not to tell anybody that she had given them to me because all her sons would want them.

Ija, I never ate in your plate, never drank from your glass and never used the bowl you gave me. Because I could never be the man your brother was. I could never leave home n search for knowledge. I could never be the scholar or the monk. I know I had the makings of one. But I just could not. I was too weak. Every time.

And everytime I see that glass and that tumbler by my bedside, I think of you only 13, standing like a pillar by the side of a man disinherited and poor, I see you toil in the fields, I see you build with your impeccable character every brick that went into building grandfather's great financial empire. I see you command villages, I see your empathy, your pity, I see your firmness of resolve, I see your beautiful lips curved down with pain, I see your beautiful hands, your petite frame that nobody, NOBODY could ever transgress. And I wonder if they make women this way anymore.

I miss you Ija. And unlike the old times, I think even your appartition does not stand by my bedside anymore.

Could you give me another chance? Just one more chance to be the man you wanted me to. Just come to me once and I will.

How do you write without memory

I have always thought that meaning is the memory of a word.

But I never knew how true it was until now.

As i attempt to write the 2nd chapter, I fumble and falter and try not to draw upon my teasures of meanings - they are too hurtful.

So if there is no memory of word, just the word, how would my story mean?

The Fabulous Crossroad-interrogative 6 Worder

The disintegration is near complete. Emotional, intellectual, moral, artistic and now financial too.

So when all goes, comes a kind of anaesthetised consciousness. Like looking at the world from the wrong end of the telescope.

It's class X all over again.

Shut the door. Shut the window. There is no high and no low. Life's got even.

That's when Hamlet posed the fabulous crossroad-interrogative 6 worder- To be or not to be?

Which meant, to feather and blow or to rock and chip.

To stand and do. Or to lie and be done.

And it is amazing, how the solitude of pain is as singular, as forlorn as the solitude of pleasure.

Sepulchural.

Terra Infirma, I Turn 35

Terra Infirma.

Such things as a day caught between two seasons. I love you darling but. I think you got me wrong. Leme get back to you. No, nothing. And the eyes shifting for a nano second to an unnamed corner of the room.

Terra Infirma.

A face caught between two thoughts. A thought between two faces. How much? Lots. O please! Drown the sop and talk shop. Draw up a budget. Plan. Keep it simple. We can even talk about quick ways to cure your freak pimple.

Terra Infirma.

Such things as bushfire in a forest of memories, smells on a winter night, and wondering which house will it be this night? And will it be at all?

Terra vera vera Infirma. Hic!

Such things like a body that is changing and a body that is not. And names and language that are stuck between what they meant and what they don't anymore. Such things, as you. Especially you, and the odd, unconvincing, talk-interspersed - I love you.

Terra Infirma. I turn 35!

Rip Van Winkle

What does one write at 2.54 in the morning? And what does one remember?

MK used to say, a mask worn long enough becomes the face. Fine, but what becomes of the face?

Phoebe is getting married on the 23rd. Hasn't sunk in. Nothing seems to sink in. As if there is no 'in' for anything to sink in.

Everything has changed as if I was away for a century. Everyone has changed, as of they are all reborn as somebody else.

I feel like Rip Van Winkle. God! I had just dozed off in the hills. When did all this happen - back in the village?

A love letter

My dearest song,

Go away. GO AWAY. GO AWAY.

For you are of no assistance in this wee hour of the day, and you are of no assistance at night. You are such a disappointment, eh song, you spread-legged bitch of a poet's wrong. And your words are but a pissour of marble, stained in yellow and with the stench of strange skins that I cannot recognise.

Sonnet, ode, couplet, ballad - Ah I have seen all of your curves and so have everyone else - isn't it? Yeah? Between the lines I scrawled in long hand on your thigh and your back, you got graffitis by other hands. And you - free verse - you are the worst. You neighing mare in heat! You catnip sniffing feline poetic fart - ha well and so there is no wrong! and there is no right after all! Hahahaha! Hahahaha!

Yeah song, get lost and do not let me remember. Anything.