22nd-25th May, 2005¹

Have I told you about the marketplace?
Oh, but that is the best part of the tale. So listen.

The market is on a bus. Facing the entrance, near the steps into the bus, is the plaza. One meets here the gaze of a thousand rooms, arraigned with the promises held within. It is a long courtyard, with two rows of doors on either side, a few stories high. The buildings are all white and, upon looking hard enough, it would seem that the whiteness bled out of the walls and into the streets. There are few adornments on the doors, and few advertisements, excepting perhaps outside some of the newer establishments who have adopted the latest glazed lights. With a few exceptions, each house of wares has a single door for an entrance, and the insides are hidden from view. There is no glass, unlike in other marketplaces you may have seen, and the proprietors do not display their goods outside. The only indication as to the rooms' contents are by way of signs; these are as varied as the delights the marketplace has to offer – some garish, some elegant, some plain, each expressing the room's particular value. Sometimes the signs do not really reveal the nature of the contents, and one must find out for oneself. No one complains about this, for part of the allure of the marketplace is the possibility of surprise – you enter a room, get what you want, and leave. Sometimes what you want finds you.

On a sunny day, the air feels iridescent and soothing. There are always people in the marketplace, sitting outside of the cafés, slowly enjoying their wine, or wandering in and out of rooms. Arjan, the old gadabout who's lived in the market for as long as anyone can remember, calls it a "carnival of the sun". He says that it is the warmest place he has known, and everyday when the sun brings more warmth into it, some of it seeps into the people and makes them bright and welcoming. He may be right – Arjan has indeed seen a lot more of the marketplace than anyone else – but if you will listen, Arjan will also tell you of the day he wandered into a sheikh's room with a hundred houris, or that Professor Jeremy has found the lost passage to Shangri-La, or even that the upholstery at Sayantan's Deli has been finally redone. There have never been any sheikhs in the marketplace, Professor Jeremy is a most unfanciful, if enthusiastic, student of geology, and Sayantan Babu would never discard his beloved leather settees, leaving such sacrilege to his fashionable son Byomkesh. Nevertheless, there is some truth to Arjan's claims – like in a carnival, the mood is festive, the air is warm, and there is always something good to eat. But there is one crucial difference – in a carnival, which comes by not often, one expects to be delighted and surprised; one expects to find the occasional unusual diversion, and it is that much less of a carnival which doesn't have its own trickster. Here, on the other hand, surprise is perennial, and when one wanders into a room and finds something new, or unknown, it is like running into an old friend, unexpected but not unlooked for.

And so it was only fitting that I first met Mehr in the only room in the marketplace with a window. When I entered, she was standing by it, her wavy hair playing with the breeze that came from I knew not where, looking outside. Because we're on a bus, she said, answering my unasked question. Because all buses have windows. Why are there no windows in any other room, then? I asked. Perhaps because no other room has me, she said, laughing merrily, like a child who has a secret none of her playmates knows about. And then, she lead me by hand to the window, and we stared at the world passing us by outside. I see these things everyday. Pointing: There's the farmer's wife, she always waters that aloe like that; there's the tree that sings at night; there's the rubik cube, which
grows all colours; and look, there's my favourite – that's the shaman leaping off the cliff to his death. How do you mean, leaping, I asked. Exactly that, she said, he is always leaping off, all the time. Look. And I looked. And that is exactly what he was doing.

Then I realised that what I was seeing was a story of me: the farmer's wife was the force of routine I hated and which kept me alive, the tree that sings at night was an image of my writing, the rubik cube was the source of my diversions, and the (sha)man leaping off to his death, he was the – no, my – story of my life till then. Stories within stories – does anyone get any closer to truth that way?

And as I perched by the window pondering all this, a storm began, and Mehr burst over me. I remember thinking that I couldn't tell the one from the other.

Later, listening to her heartbeat, I asked her why we'd made love. Because you asked, she said. I hadn't, of course. And besides, what of her? Had she asked, too? Or is that what she did – giving of herself without wanting? Oh, no, she said. But I have nothing to take. That can't be, I said. Everyone wants something! Mehr shrugged. Touch me again, she said, where the curve of my back begins the descent into infinity. And so I went down that road, seeking that warmth of the beginning of a dream that one sips knowing that the memory of it will be more primal than the dream itself. And the rubik cube folded itself into a Mandelbrot set.

A bus has more than one window, I told her. There must be others. Look, and she pointed. Only then did I notice that the walls were made of glass, too. Not plain glass, though. Glass that interpreted the outside, a historian of a glass, perhaps a journalist. Perhaps even a story teller, except that the audience was solitary, and outnumbered by the performers. But that was not where she was pointing, so I eased myself up for a better look through, and saw another room with a window, another Mehr, and someone else on the bed, analogously entwined. Scared, I crept towards the glass for a closer look – and took in the angular body, and the unruly locks, and the flow of movement that wasn't me. Relief. I wasn't ready to be looked in the eye by a simulacrum just yet. Each wall was the same – a room beyond, with a coupling and a view just like this one.

Who are they, I asked deep into her shoulder. Other storytellers, she said, seeking the rooms with windows. Men who have not forgotten that this is a bus. And what of them? I asked. Is each one named Mehr too? I thought there was no one else like you, but perhaps I only wanted there not to be. Of course, silly, she said, laughter ruffling my hair. Because I am story, I'm suspension of belief. All storytellers make me, but I don't make all of them the same way. And that is why you made love to me? Yes, because, she said. And I knew I couldn't complete the sentence or I would lose the thought.

Who comes after me, Mehr? Who finds you next? Oh, leave uniqueness to the philosophers, she said, and let me show you more curiosities of the outside. But I had to leave, I had to feel the ground again, to step out of the bus, and to walk the earth. I had to re-enter that room, and find Mehr again, inviting me to waft into her. For that was Mehr – a storm of absorption, the promise of rest, the warmth of a heartbeat, and the story of renewal.

Outside, the sun was shining. And Arjan's serrated joviality cut into my reverie. What's the matter with you, young Ishmael? You look faded. Pah, nothing a good espresso will not remedy. Let's go to Rick's, XaWen's made her wonderful peach pie today...

And in the distance, in the shimmering heat of the repeating world, the shaman was leaping.