mirror image

Mirror image



Looking into the mirror as a kid was always an illusion, it was not her, somebody else. She screamed, ‘It’s not me, who is this? This is not my face, I can’t live with anybody else’s face.’
ssRunning after and getting drenched in the waves, waves of the past and present, she yelled, “Jimmy, Jimmy come back! Please for heaven’s sake!” Her words made her shiver- What is the need to go so far. Waves after all are waves, violent, mad, unstoppable and even deaf. “Come back Jimmy! I won’t be able to run now.”
Jimmy, with that twinkle in his eyes and large smile on his face came near her. “What happened, Mummy? Why do you get nervous?” “Nervous, why shouldn’t I be nervous? The world seems to be a playground for you. Why do you have to run so fast?”
“If, Papa would have been here……”
Jimmy was laughing. She just stared at the child. His words, his style, his style of looking down even before finishing the question. It was all so familiar. She knew him, it was not Jimmy. No, not at all, it was somebody else. She was seeing somebody else in Jimmy. “No Jimmy, please don’t look like this, don’t behave like this. It seemed somebody had thrown a stone inside the pond of her heart. Pond, no it wasn’t a pond. Rather a sea, a violent, mad, angry sea.
“No….No Jimmy don’t be like him”!
‘Him’ was his Father.
Time had stopped, the waves stood still, some footprints she had lost way behind ….some faces she had forgotten, but some came along with her.
“When father and I used to come here……..” She held his hand, “You still remember your father?”
“Yes, of course”.
The same way of talking, she stood there like a statue. Quite blank, quite void, lost in the oblivion. For a second, she took Jimmy to be ‘somebody’ else……then for a second lost in being a mother.
“Jimmy…….”
She laughed, laughed with no reason to laugh.
It seemed that laughter was the medicine bringing her back to the reality of being a mother. Its not rare when people resemble their father, but Jimmy was different…just after one year of his birth it seemed the whole of their conversation revolved around Jimmy, “Look at his hands……eyes….his feet, even the fingers…..they all are like yours…..isn’t it?”
With astonishment in her eyes, she asked-“How do you feel, seeing yourself in Jimmy, so small. Uhhh….. How do you feel?” He also started to swim with her on waves of amazement. Taking pride in his son he kissed Jimmy’s hands, his lashes….
“Jimmy….Jimmy my son.”
Eyes can cross the oceans of wonder within no time……
“Everybody says he is your son. He is not even near my shadow. You must be feeling proud. I am telling you, I will get a daughter, after all even a mother needs somebody to look like her. It doesn’t matter how she looks but there should be somebody like her. Somebody completely born out of her, as blooming…… as radiant as fresh milk. Why are you looking at me like that? Yes, I will get a sister for Jimmy, to make him feel jealous. Well, a daughter looking like me….will you love her or because of the wheatish complexion…?”
Jimmy……Jimmy.
Sometimes how easily can you draw pictures wet sand, how suddenly, thinking of such things. And the emotions inside you break loose. She was looking at him, and he with those eyes, lips, with his whole body smiled at her. He bends down, on the wet sand waiting for the waves to soak them instead of the picture on the sand.
“Listen…. sometimes there is something else than the kid…. a moment belonging to us….are you listening? Where there is nobody, no wet sand, no waves, just us and only a spell of half closed, half opened eyes.”
“And if the spell suddenly breaks, then….
Jimmy jumped out of the bed onto her shoulder. She giggled. He also smiled at Jimmy.
“Just like you…….stay away form me” she scolds Jimmy playfully, and Jimmy like an unstoppable, violent storm plasters her with kisses. He is laughing……..
She is soaked with the kisses, just like the wet sand-“Leave me –Stupid”
“That was when Jimmy was an year old and it seemed that ‘he’ also along with me and Jimmy had to face the dense forests of life ……..”
She changed the date in the diary.
Jimmy was growing holding his father’s finger. Days became months and months became an year and it seemed that his father’s fingers merged into his.
Just like him. It seemed they were identical. His laughter….his habits.
“Were you like this……?”
“I don’t know”.
“No, you wouldn’t have been as beautiful… like Jimmy……. like cotton…so soft.”
She is reading his lips. His lips are very near…… near to her eyes-Losing themselves into each other, waiting to get lost……. there is a hint of impatience in his behaviour. How was I like….the way Jimmy dances, does his naughty things, makes noise…. his likes, his dislikes.
She was getting jealous.
“…Yes, as a kid, just like him, was always lost in clothes, used to take out a whole lot. I also didn’t like new clothes, it was always the old and dirty ones I use to like. I don’t know why. I liked rain. I liked the way earth flew with the air, I liked getting wet, sitting near the window, sketching. I used to enjoy it a lot. I didn’t like bad faces, I didn’t like oranges, didn’t like ‘Karela’. Are you listening to me?”
Her voice was lost somewhere in clamor of the waves. She just looked at them plainly. It seemed that somebody had cut his flesh and made an exact replica of him, as if somebody had given him a small mirror. Hey look, look at your childhood’s photograph.

Jimmy’s small childish palms were growing bigger. The father was filled with joy excitement and a feeling of pride.
But who was jealous….Is Jimmy….?”
That day Jimmy suddenly stretched on the bed. There was a feeling of displeasure in his eyes. The displeasure, he had for her….. for a mother…
“Stay away….stay away from me mother……”
Darkness was spreading its wings, it seemed that the night was getting drawn into some lake. She wore her nightdress, woke up to switch on the blue night bulb. Jimmy eyes watched her every move…..her every action.
“Lights……Don’t turn off the lights”
“Why”
“I won’t be able to sleep. I will sleep in Papa’s arms”
He tilted his head a bit and nested it on his father’s shoulder. She smiled with meaningful eyes. She was shocked for a moment, their hands….their legs…their bodies…the only difference was that one was big and the other small. She came on to the bed after switching on the bulb.
Jimmy jumped onto her body, and she suddenly burst out laughing…I was getting jealous. Jimmy was loving her the same way as……
He was laughing.
She giggled.
Jimmy kissed her eyes, her forehead, he took her cheeks in his small hands and caressed them and….. bringing his small lips to hers………
Stay Away…..
She jumped like a fish in water, then laughed, released herself from his hold.
He was still smiling at Jimmy
She stammered, “See…how does he behaves….this…are you seeing this?”
“Yes” he laughed again, would you believe, Frayad said….have you read Frayad?” She felt insulted like scattered waves. “Everybody has read him…don’t act…but Jimmy…..he is just like you…..the wet sand was getting wetter and he was laughing.
That was when Jimmy was two years old and it seemed that He also, along with me and Jimmy had to face the dense forests of life…….
The dates in the diary were changed.
All of a sudden it seemed that Jimmy was growing. His eyes…...his lips and it seemed all of it was sinking in his father…no he was slowly disappearing. His eyes went first.
Jimmy came before her eyes……Mummy!
Then his lips…..then………
She used to check his father’s presence persistently in the dark- Are you there?
Sometimes Jimmy got surprised by it. Even while sleeping Jimmy’s hand used to remove hers from his father’s chest and suddenly changed position to come between them, followed by his usual laugh.
“Jimmy is growing.”
“Yes”
“We should be more careful with Jimmy, he has started observing things, and he repeats them too. You know his observation. Frayad once said sometimes a child becomes a man. No don’t get angry like foolish people, and don’t show me your eyes like that. It happens sometimes…..but a child will remain a child, like our Jimmy.”
Then, suddenly the days and night were lost somewhere.
And then it seemed as if she had lost a large part of her life somewhere, and then like the fog of ‘Sogwari’ in her eyes, she started looking for something in that four year child, Jimmy.
An accident, that was what it was, the same time in evening when the birds are retiring and the stars are starting to announce their arrival.
And then a star got lost somewhere.
She thought it to be the dense forest of life but it was nothing, only a thick cover of fog. A cover of haze, of darkness….a shadow. She just came to know about the accident, he didn’t return that evening, he never returned…….
She read Jimmy’s eyes.
“Papa didn’t come...?”
“No he will not come now!” she was crying.
Even after such accidents there is a life hidden somewhere, that life has to be found, has to be lived for those like Jimmy. And there is ‘something’ for oneself too, other that the accident. There is something other than the memories.
“Jimmy, are you listening? Dirty clothes, no, remove them Jimmy you have so many clothes, ‘Karela’ has vitamins Jimmy. Green vegetables, oranges make blood –you should eat them Jimmy….” Her voice was feeble, maybe Jimmy was not listening. She could see Jimmy in the darkness of night, Jimmy’s hand came over her eyes. Soft as a cushion. “Don’t cry Mummy, don’t cry….Papa…he will come, look I will become….” Even in the darkness she could feel the smile. Jimmy’s lips came to her forehead, he then kissed her eyes lovingly….He is loving her.
She got stunned like the waves. “Jimmy” Jimmy was frightened. She hugged Jimmy close to her heart……My son, my son, she is looking Jimmy’s father is smiling, she is telling him tales about Jimmy. Are you listening, after you have gone he becomes you, says, “I am Papa, are you listening?”
And then, like trees in Autumn, waiting to be decorated with new leaves, waiting for flowers and fruits to bloom-she saw that she was alone. Jimmy had started going to school, he has started wearing his school uniform. Maybe time flies like a ‘plane’. The morning and the evenings have changed. She woke up fast, went to Jimmy and said smilingly –“Listen, from today I will drop you to school. Is it alright, seasons change, Jimmy. She thought that Jimmy kept looking at her to his way to school. No, he is not ‘Him’, he is Jimmy.
That day with a new resolve, a new spirit she tore the diary. But before tearing it she wrote. “Now I will live for Jimmy, what right do I have to still carry something which no longer exists. I should look at Jimmy as Jimmy. Maybe, that is what is right for Jimmy….that he never faces any kind of inferiority complex.”
She tore that page too.
“Jimmy….Jimmy come back.”
“Why do you get so scared, Mummy?”
Jimmy’s small feet came running towards her. Jimmy was laughing, why you get so scared. Run, catch me.
He ran away, she is panting, he is running fast. She manages to catch him.
“No Jimmy, Jimmy stop…. Stop it Jimmy.”
Jimmy looks at her quite perplexed-as if asking why. And then suddenly she forgets everything….just stares at Jimmy. At Jimmy, his eyes….his lips…..
There is a feeling of amazement in his eyes, she holds Jimmy’s hand. She still stares at him.
How did it happen…how did it get into Jimmy? Her eyes,….her lips. “What happened Mummy?”
“No” she just giggled lightly.