Corridors with an bad reputation 
 

      Running through the pale yellow corridors of the campus, running away from love, I suddenly realised I had run in to another corridor - this one. The Asylum. From the college, to the crazy cage - how many years, how far! Or is it that far? A hair's breadth, that's all.

      # 

      My ex-wife - or x and y, together, the only complete wife - cried, listening to the harp that I used on my cell phone for dialler tone. Whom did she remember? Which me? Where had we met? Which corridor was it? This is what my doctor calls one of the bad habits of the corridor: it doesn't have a past or future. Only "now". Move away from the queue for a second and the corridor forgets you. Or rather you forget the corridor. The river that's corridor flows past without you - with its hundreds of mouths and lips and hands and

      legs. 

      # 
 
 

      The corridor has got another bad habit. While we are inside it, we speak about everything except ourselves. That's what I ran away from: not from anyone outside, but a me who stalked me from the past with a knife, a me who waited for me in the future, staring into the abyss of madness.

#

      The corridor always had rooms, to call its own. But entering these rooms, I have never heard any one of them addressing the corridor as 'my corridor'.They always shared a mute slave-owner bond. The Corridor was free to do anything, the room had no choice but oblige. The corridor ignores the rooms who don't obey and flows away from it. Leaving the room and its inmates alone. Like I did. So, is it me who's the corridor? Is it in me that all corridors in the world begin and end?

      #

      Getting away from the campus corridor, I ran into the news room of a daily. There were corridors here too. Public spaces. No corridor has got privacy. Still you can even have sex in there. Like the extramarital sex of my colleagues - all you need is a finger as cover.

      #

      Caution is advised while stepping back to the corridor from any room. You never know where you might land up or what may wait around the corner. I drifted into an advertising agency, as a copywriter. That's where we, my wife whom I mentioned earlier and I had met. It was not a corridor.

      #

      Could it be why our relation broke down like the neck of a small lovebird that fell prey to a predator? Or did it break? How can it die when a corridor that's our son fill our vacuum like the green that fills all the greenery in the world! Oh my God! 

      Some of the dialogues overheard in the campus: 

      "History Association convenes formally in the afternoon. A musical concert by eskay thereafter..." 

      "I love you Padma." 

      "I love eskay, Joe. Consider me your sister, if you like. If I marry, eskay would be my man." 

      Joe smiled. It was more of a teardrop.

      #

      How about eskay? Let alone loving someone else, he doesn't even have time to fall in love with himself! He was running, running like Anguli Mala, the murderer, a feverish run that wouldn't stop until he met with Buddha. In between, how many hearts crushed, how many pails of tears!

      #

      Finally, the flight ceases in front of this asylum. In the corridor, voices: 

      "eskay. What's eating him?"

      "Stark mad, that's what."

      "Looks sober, though."

      "Hey, not so loud! He can hear you..."

      "So what! I didn't say anything nasty..."

      #

      No, brother, you have been extremely circumspect. Still, as Buddha said, I am not accepting this gift from you. You can keep it...

      #

      Between the corridors that run parallel- Rose my wife and me - there are two rooms which cut me into four: love and lust.

      #

      In the room of love, you can smell two perfumes. One, Jasmine. The scent of brown earth and fresh flowers right after the first summer shower that invades your senses, marching to the beats of the tingling drums...two, Padma. Another Padma. The rich fragrance of an obscure European wine that goes to your head slowly, making your soul sing a soft tune, making sleep hard...

      #

      In between, I have frequented the sulphourous room of lust several times and sweated. I have attained nirvana, trying handjobs to homosexuality. But, after each orgasm, I come back to this one, this new Padma, like a pale tune on Veena. Once, I saved myself from making love to my best friend's wife. Not that I am a great soul, but I realized that even animals show humaneness, on that occasion.

      #

      Perhaps the best woman in the world is my wife Rose. Because, she had shown in her life that a human being can be Buddha-like, forgiving etarnally to an erring man.

      Still, I love the wine that's Padma. Padma to Padma, a full circle. Now?

      #

      Though I studied history, I haven't learnt anything from history. I don't know much about the corridors of history. I guess the corridors of power end in the bush behind the Headmistress' room in the high school. I know that corridors are not extinct. They shall be around as long as life is around on this planet. After all, life itself was born inside a corridor!

      #

      So shall be gossips, calumny, heady illicit relations, heartwarmingly tender loves, a knifewound on that heart, a lot of expletives, tombstones and tears finally.

      #

      Where's the corridor that's waiting for me?