Staring out the window

I remember being all of 8 years and staring out the window in the spare bedroom of the huge apartment we lived in, wondering why I had to be in that room staring out as I was. There are plenty of reasons to do what we do and over time you end up having no reason at all for doing what you do. I’ll take you a little further into my head now.

Sitting there in that corner atop a well worn spring mattress, I wondered what I looked like staring outside. Did my eyes take on a different colour? Did my features seem even more refined? Was I in that moment where I would have an epiphany and realise that I was nothing of consequence once you took into consideration the concepts of time and the artificiality of what we are taught to acknowledge as the real world? I was very worried but mostly about what I looked like if someone walked into the room and saw me staring out through the window lost in my thoughts. They’d probably scare me and then laugh about it and how I sat there in that room thinking that I was too good to get back into their midst.

I still stare a lot. Sitting at the table in my office where I do not have the luxury of a window, I stare at the tiny cup that holds my pencils. Any stationery is good target that way. Erasers and pencil sharpeners are preferable. I think I picked up the habit from father. I used to watch him sit in silence and look straight ahead for hours on end. Even when he was driving it sometimes felt like he was never there because he had found a way out. I don’t spend much time around him anymore, but I think he still might do that. When I was little he would call us over and look at our hands and make observations of the size of our palms and their creases and what they told him about our personalities. He didn’t have anything great to say about me. He told me I would be a spender and I would find it incredibly hard to save up any money. I don’t understand how he could be so accurate, because even to this day, I find it easier to spend than to save. The agony of money lying limp in an account kills me. But I must save. Even if it is only for myself.

The other thing he always said to me was that I had beautiful fingers as they were exceptionally long and delicate. He always let go of my hand with a final warning that I was never to pop my knuckles. But pop my knuckles, I did. It’s the other thing I didn’t pay heed to. I did a lot of it in great many places. In the exam halls, in the playground, in the office, at the gym and just about any other place you can think of. In fact, the first girl who really had a hold over me did this wonderful thing where she would place her thumbs at a point below the proximal phalanx of the thumb and apply gentle pressure until there was a pop. The relief that followed was similar to the rush of caffeine on a rainy morning.

I remember this one time we were driving down to Abu Dhabi from Ajman. That was a two hour drive or more. We made the trip every once a while. We would all be woken up early morning and hurried into the bathroom (there was only one that had no issues with the plumbing), and brushed, washed and dressed in great haste. We would then shovel breakfast into our mouths and chew faster than fast. This is probably why I now have a distinct preference for foods that are easy to chew. People think it’s because I am lazy, but it’s only because I am habituated to believe that I don’t really have the time to eat. We can talk later, but first let’s eat. When we were all dressed and fed we would all line up with bags and wait for father to lead the way to the parking lot. There would be a great deal of restlessness and loud chit-chat while we were still within city limits.

To get to Abu Dhabi, we would first pass through Sharjah, then Dubai and then there was an endless stretch of desert that went on and on until we reached Abu Dhabi. Abu Dhabi always struck me as a strange city. It was peculiar in a way that it seemed too perfect. The roads were clean and the buildings were tall and a bit too straight. Like one of those guards you’d see in London. So stiff and polished, that they had to be hiding something. And most strikingly, the tall buildings stood watch over roads that scarcely had any traffic. There was always something amiss about Abu Dhabi. It was like staring into space.

The drive only started once we left Dubai behind and the desert began. It was one straight road with the desert on either side. Inevitably we would all fall silent and get lost in our own private world. Outside bigger cars would whiz past us. Some of them had dogs, some others had one too many kids all quashed into the back like sardines. Once my brother and I insisted that we wanted to ride in the trunk but then we got too busy kicking at each other’s legs and so we were soon back in the backseat like we should have been in the first place. My sister once even spotted a car that had a tiger riding in the backseat. She got so excited by the sight that by the time I rushed to her window and she allowed me enough space, the car was far ahead of us. She then told me all about how it was a cub with furry paws and had its face pressed against the window pane and it was clearly very exciting, but I couldn’t help thinking that it still would have been better to catch a glimpse of that cat.

My sister always got first preference when it came to picking her seat. She was the oldest and the wisest and hence she always went for the seat behind the driver. I was the youngest and the scrappiest and hence I always willed my way into getting that other seat with the window. Always stuck in the middle, my brother fell asleep once we pulled out of Dubai. On a few rare occasions he protested and got the seat with the other window and then I would sit in the middle and get full blast of the AC and having little else to do, would quickly fall asleep. I don’t recall my sister ever enduring the agony of the middle seat. She was also the tallest and because her head would block the rear-view mirror, she would be relegated to a window seat and my brother and I would once again squabble over who got to stare out the window this time. Even when he did get that seat, he would still fall asleep and I would be the one craning my neck to get a look outside the window.

That time when we were driving to Abu Dhabi I sat behind mother and was looking out the window into the desert. I had read stories of the nomads and their camels and I wondered what it would be like to be a nomad. My sister had once read to me a story of a nomad named Abu who was travelling in the desert with his camel Ahmed. At night, Abu set camp at a spot which he estimated was not too far from the desert town that he was headed to, fed and watered his camel and resigned into his tent. It was a tiny tent with very little. Abu was poor, but when he made it to that tiny town with the stash of premium spices that Ahmed carried, it was all going to change for Abu, and for Ahmed. But things are never that easy in these stories that appear in children’s magazines. During the night, there is a great storm. The wind whistled and wailed and when it finally stopped, Abu stepped out of his tent (it is not advisable to step out during a desert storm. It’s alright if you have never tried it. If you have, then you know what I am talking about) and saw that the entire topography had changed. The dunes were bigger and the night was colder than it was and his blasted camel had escaped. The rest of the story is as one would imagine. Abu loses his way, has the skin of his feet burnt off by the boiling desert sand and by the time he reaches that tiny town he is badly sunburnt and dehydrated and dies a short while later, and then a few days afterward, Ahmed turns up at the town with all the spices intact. I felt like shit when I heard that story, and hoped to God that Ahmed felt just the same.

When I was done thinking about nomads and their camels, I turned around to look at what was happening inside the car. My mother was fast asleep, as was my brother. Sister had her forehead pressed against the window pane and was looking far ahead and I think, if I remember correct, she was humming a tune. Father held the steering with one hand, something he did only when he was relaxed, and drew vague patterns on his thigh with the fingers of his free hand. There’s a blue-green vein that sticks out on the back of his hand. He is a handsome man and that is how I see him even today. With a barely there smile and the hand gripping the wheel. Firmly in control.

Meanwhile, my eight-year-old self continued to stare outside the window and wonder why he was sitting there. It wasn’t his choice to be there, but there was a turn of events and he had to be where he was. He wondered if he could turn his back on all of it and simply walk away. He didn’t owe it to anyone to be nice to them or be compassionate and kind and understanding to the people that he knew. He could be without them, and he was certain they would get on fine without him. Why did they have this hold him? They sure didn’t earn that right.

Looking out into that vast stretch of blue outside the window, I realised how temporary it was. That moment and that situation with its people and their baggages. No one owed anyone anything and yet they chose to remain obligated. I felt smaller than I already was and I felt a shame for thinking the way I did. It seemed so easy to run away from people who choose you and give a part of themselves to help you define yourself. It’s the easiest thing to do and that is probably why people who run away are never happy because they are only running away from themselves. It might also be the reason why to run away, even when it is for self preservation is deemed an act of cowardice and the brave are always the ones who stay back and fight. The truly courageous are probably those who have taught themselves to pick their battles. This last bit is definitely true because I have been told this enough times and I have learnt through the fine art of listening and testing, that it is important to pick the right battles. Whatever be the case, I had opened up a Pandora’s Box inside me and I did not have the words to make sense of it all. I did the best thing I could do. I ran. I ran to the kitchen and asked mother what she was doing and she told me that she was cutting fish. I asked her if I could help and she told me yes and that she would teach me how to cut fish.

To this day, if someone asks me what I love to do in my free hours I tell them I read and watch movies and cook. But if I had to be completely honest with you, my answer will be simply this:

I love cutting fish.

_V. 01/06/2017