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“So
what kind of hairstyle would you like to have?” asked Renee snipping
away an imaginary pair of curls. Renee Oswal is twenty-eight, half
Sindhi, half Marwadi from Mount Abu, Rajasthan in India. Just like
his name, everything about Renee spells out unconventionality. His
mom used to call him Ronny! It was he who changed it to Renee!
Spiritual in a very practical kind of way, Renee calls himself a
practicing Buddhist. From the Japanese, he has imbibed the spirit
of kaizen, that culture of continuous learning that is unique to
Japan. From Hinduism, he has learnt the ancient law of dhamma (dharma
as the Indians call it) and meditative technique called Vipassana.
From Jainism, he has learnt to respect all life and to develop a
well-rounded perspective – Anekadvad – an ability to look at any
situation from different angles.
A software programmer hit hard by the slowing down of the economy.
Eight months ago, he had been one of the software guys, one reads
about in the papers, those that get the pink slip…who become a statistic!
A nameless, faceless number that form the fine print for the business
news section of many newspapers. Many, many newspapers...because
the same news is so important that it has to be covered in the business
section of most respectable newspapers.
He had celebrated the day of the pink slip. Happy to be free of
the twelve hours a day weekday work schedules and 14 hours on the
weekends. He and his friends at the office had spent the night partying!
And what a party! It had been. This summer he had decided to go
back to school and complete his dream research project that he had
started a long time ago...for which he had never had the time, to
focus on because it was really tough, artificial intelligence and
robots. He loved the idea of machine intelligence, that you could
make creatures that could do a lot of things much smarter than humans
do. Machines fascinated Renee. He simply loved the idea of constructing
an intelligent machine.
After those machines that really drove him crazy, lighting up his
life, burning the midnight oil, writing those error free programs,
his second abiding passion in life had always been to be a hair
stylist. He loved styling women's hair. Kamala' s thick, heavily
accented voice broke in to his reverie. “Something in between a
blunt and a mushroom.” At first, Renee could not understand the
words at all. He thought it sounded a little musical too. The words
were so heavily accented…almost as if it was not English. Renee
wondered if it was Tamil or Malayalam or perhaps Kannada…
Renee had a bad habit of daydreaming. Every now and then, he would
retire to his little dream world, a secret corner space that he
alone inhabited, where the world was a sad and beautiful place,
where camel herds with their little red jackets on their backs,
and tinkling bells ambled past him, where his favourite pet rat,
Hari sniffed and sneezed loudly, even in to his sleep and strolled
in to his dreams, where the sun blinded his eyes with its dazzling
harshness, where people rushed to catch drops of water that sparkled
like diamonds, jewel drops that fell from the sky, where malnourished
children and cattle still died like flies, where women in brightly
coloured clothes carried pots on their heads with their faces and
heads hidden, around the waters of lake Nakki, Rajasthan's highest
lake which kept meandering through a never ending canal in his head…of
thoughts…of dreams…of drum beats…of distances…and people and places
that brought his childhood so vividly back to him.
"Renee! You have fallen asleep again. Please pay attention to our
valued customer." Renee nearly jumped off the little stool that
he was sitting on. He had been waiting for the lady to reply, and
he had been waiting and waiting, for so long. Her English was so
different! Apparently, she had replied back to him in that thick,
heavily accented voice and he had paid no attention to the words.
Renee had stumbled off in to a 30 second siesta, which had somehow
become a 5 minute doze. He realized that it was 3 in the afternoon,
time for his little coffee break. " But John! She didn't reply "
protested Renee in his slightly low pitched voice. " Renee, if ya
wanna continue 'ere, don't ya give me one of ya lame duck excuses
again!" Don't ya understand English. She said, "something in between
a blunt and a mushroom." Yo! Man! I'm s.ssssss.s..s..sorry! John".
Renee stuttered. Renee always stuttered when he felt nervous and
he was feeling very nervous right now.
To top that, the grim, looking lady who had been watching him rather
impatiently, was now trying very hard to control her smile, which
threatened to break in to a giggle. And she was very poor at concealing
that too! Her handkerchief was made of some very thin, transparent
cloth. Both John and Renee could see that she was smiling. John
smiled at her. "You'll excuse him. Madam. He's new here." He quickly
wheeled past them to attend to a new customer who had just walked
in. John suffered from osteoarthritis.
Renee smiled in relief. Thank God for tender mercies, for this lady's
smile. Otherwise, the pink slip would have been his day. He knew
that for sure. This was the fifth time that John had caught him
napping, that too in barely a week's time. May be, he should spend
this weekend sleeping the whole day. He had not done that in a long
time now. He had not slept for ten hours on any single day, for
nearly two months now. Perhaps he was suffering the effects of sleep
deprivation. He knew that if you did not get enough sleep, these
things could happen to you. He remembered reading somewhere that
when you do not get enough sleep; you can even begin to hallucinate.
See things that don't exist. Renee shrugged. He couldn't be caught
going back in to his daydreams again.
Renee stared at her. He felt she must be about his age. She smiled
at him. That was a very natural smile. He thought to himself. He
was used to seeing a lot of girls flashing smiles to him, out of
courtesy. Smiles that felt like they were paying him some kind of
lip service, for a courtesy done to them, of a trim or a haircut.
He called that the LSS smile "the lip service smile". An empty,
artificial smile where your mouth smiled and your eyeballs glinted
back in a scowl. It always reminded him of a song from Simon and
Garfunkel…he could never remember the beginning of the song…but
the phrase and the tune hummed in his head, with a voice all of
it's own… "the superficial smile and the dangling conversation"
or was it the other way round, he could never remember that clearly.
He did not ask her name what her name was. He never talked while
at work. Whether he worked at the computer writing his programs
or styling hair, he never spoke while doing any work. It was very
difficult for him to speak while working. His concentration got
disturbed. Quickly and efficiently, he trimmed the tresses. Long,
glossy black tresses of naturally curly, waist length hair fell
to the floor looking like long clumps of silken, black thread etched
on a canvas. As Kamala looked in to the mirror, she could not help
noticing that this young man who was styling her hair had an honest
and sincere face. She noticed that he was very methodical and meticulous
about the way in which he handled every flick. She also observed
that he looked very absorbed and calm in his demeanour. Renee's
idle glance at the floor made him wonder why tresses of black hair
could not be used as silken thread for embroidery.
Renee looked at his watch. The needles pointed at three forty five.
Renee still used a quaint old- fashioned watch, something that had
become a family heirloom. It was a little watch that still had second
hands and hour hands and which you had to wind everyday in the morning.
For Renee, winding up the watch was always a reminder of a new day
that was about to begin. It always brought back memories of his
childhood. He remembered how he had always run to his dad as soon
as he woke up in the morning to wind the watch. It was a reward
for waking up early. He got to be the one to wind the watch. If
he woke up late, his sister or brother would have wound the watch
and Renee would have missed the chance of winding the watch for
that day. Winding the watch excited Renee. Each day when Renee wound
the watch, it always reminded him of the day he had turned six.
That day, papa had allowed him to wind the watch, a privilege that
until then had been denied to him, something that his elder brother
and sister took for granted.
Renee took a quick look at the woman. Well, the short hair did not
make her look as good as the long hair did but it sort of went along
with her sandals, her bag, her suit and her watch, thought Renee
idly. Renee searched for a word in his mind to describe the style
that she now reflected. Square! He told himself. Everything about
her looked square. Her watch had that modern, square faced dial.
Her bag was squarer than rectangular, and her sandals too had a
strong, square look to them. She had quite a few oil patches on
her face with some baby pimples threatening to bloom. She was plump,
well endowed and
tall with more than a few flab spots on her which could do with
trimming.
As the thoughts floated in Renee's mind, he looked at her hairstyle
and her face. Her new hairstyle accentuated her strong, square face.
Sparkling, black eyes, outlined by a sleek and square silver frame,
high cheek bones set in a dark, strong, square face, he thought
to himself. As she got up to smile and thank him and walk away,
her hips and waist formed one straight line. In Renee's mind, her
eyes, face and hairstyle began to disappear and disintegrate… a
plump, square mass that began to amble away from him.
Soon, she will be a shadow…and then a blur and then very soon, she
will fade away…from his life…politely and impersonally. The impersonality
of interactions. In a way, he liked the impersonality of these interactions.
It gave him space to breathe, allowed him to live in his little
world. Renee was used to it. With every breath that he took, his
Vipassana teacher's voice, chanted out to him, "Everything in life
passes, the good the bad, the ugly, the happy, the sad, events in
time waft by. This too will pass! ". Equanimity! Renee, Equanimity",
his Vipassana teacher's voice broadcast out so loud and clear in
his head, that sometimes Renee was amazed that others could not
hear it too.
Renee was so used to working and seeing images on the computer screen
and the virtual reality of the people who inhabited that world was
so overpowering, that sometimes Renee thought to himself, " the
virtual people on screen are more real and closer to me than the
real people in Los Angeles in California. Renee was a small man
living in a big city. And he was a foreigner, trying very hard to
be at home in the USA. Renee has no girlfriends. He had never had
a girl friend. He had never felt the need to have a girl friend.
He had never felt lonely.
Kamala hurriedly rushed out of the salon, happy with her new hairstyle.
Kamala came from Periyar, that fabled place in Kerala which people
put on top, in their list of sanctuaries to visit. Her mother had
called her Kamala after the graceful Indian flower, Kamal or lotus.
Kamala was a molecular biologist, planning to specialise as a forensic
medicine specialist. She loved investigations. Her driving passion
in life was to be the chief investigator who unearths a clue and
helps to solve that missing bit in all the important cases that
required forensic evidence to decide.
She had decided to go in for a short hairstyle for purely practical
reasons. She knew that even a small strand of hair contains enough
genetic information to carry out DNA fingerprinting. Her biggest,
most unspeakable fear was that someday while investigating a case,
she would be mistakenly identified as the criminal. These distant
thoughts sometimes gave her nightmarish dreams. Kamala suffered
from obsessive-compulsive disorder, something she could not speak
to anyone about. She had to check a lot of things several times
every day. Sometimes, that upset her.
One evening, Renee and Kamala met in a chance encounter. He was
out in the jogger's park, on his early morning jogging round. Kamala
was busy absorbed in doing a comparative study between patterns
of shoe prints left behind by joggers, runners and those who run
in a tearing rush to see if there was any significant difference
in the pattern of shoeprints and whether shoeprints leave behind
any traceable organic molecules, left behind from sweating feet.
Just as Kamala was starting to bend down to take another sample
of her 36th shoeprint that morning, she slipped and injured herself.
By some sheer coincidence, who normally jogged looking straight
ahead, had by chance shifted gaze to see Kamala slipping. Renee
who was on a few yards behind, accelerated almost by instinct. He
was just in time, to hold Kamala’s hand and help her to get up.
Kamala looked up. Grateful for the strong arm of support extended
to her.
When she tried walking up, she was surprised to hear a crackling
sound, somewhere near her knee joint. At that moment she felt no
pain but found that she could no longer support herself on her injured
leg. Renee who had done a crash course in first aid, with one quick
examination knew that she had suffered a fracture at her ankle joint.
Until that time, Renee had not looked up to really see who the stranger
was. Though it was nearly six in the morning, it was still too dark
to make out the identity of the stranger whose knee he had just
felt.
Renee asked her whom he could contact for immediate assistance.
She told him that she was new in the city and knew no one. Renee
knew that he could not leave this stranger all alone in this park.
Though he was busy and needed to be at work by eight, he offered
to drop her at a nearby hospital, where he knew the doctor quite
well. With her arm being supported by Renee’s strong shoulder, Kamala
limped her way back to Renee’s care.
It was only when they reached the hospital that Renee realized that
she was the same person to whom he had given a new hairstyle just
a few weeks ago. He smiled at her. She too smiled in return. That
was how their first conversation began.
She was in hospital for nearly 15 days. During that time, every
day, he made it a point to see her in the morning and evening. Renee
was a very attentive and careful friend. He could see that she had
an urgent time bound assignment to complete, in order to complete
her thesis. Realizing that the fall had made her feel very homesick,
depressed and lonely, to keep her in good spirits and good health,
he brought her fresh fruits, audio tapes, snacks and interesting
books to read. Besides the ankle fracture, she had also ruptured
some tendons and ligaments. It was going to take some time before
she would be able to recover the full use of her injured leg. In
the two weeks that he had been seeing her, Renee found that there
were many things that they shared in common. They had the same interest
in books, in movies. Why! They even found the same things funny!
In a way, Renee had begun to be quite fond of Kamala. Kamala although
very savvy about guys had never met someone so caring, so humorous
and so unassuming as Renee. On the day of her discharge, they promised
to keep in touch with each other, exchange addresses, email ids
and mobile numbers. Yet, as things happened, each of them had been
too busy pursuing their interests that they just could not keep
in touch with one another, besides having the casual conversation
over the phone or an email chat. They had parted as good friends
and had promised to keep in touch with one another.
Then, one day, about three months later, Renee and Kamala had another
chance encounter in an old people's home. Kamala was there filling
in the vacation slot for her friend who wanted to go out for the
weekend. Renee was meeting his Rajasthani American aunt who was
76. Her daughter who ran a lovely Rajasthani antics shop in a suburb
50 kilometres away too was there. She had brought some of her antic
stuff. Everyone sat around admiring it. The elderly aunt talked
about Rajasthan and life in those old days. Renee had brought some
lovely Marwadi food that he had made especially for his aunt. Kamala
had some of the food. She tasted Marwadi food for the first time.
She liked it! That second meeting, which happened after nearly three
months after Kamala’s leg injury, Renee and Kamala’s friendship
deepened. A strange longing to see each other more often was beginning
to stir a desire in each one’s mind.
Once again, for the second time, their respective work and responsibilities
at work kept them away. A fortnight later, Kamala was out on an
important investigative assignment. She was inspecting the bungalow
where the crime had been committed. She was busy talking to some
of the occupants in the next building. One of them happened to be
Renee. They ended up having a long conversation, once again exchanging
notes between places of pilgrimage in Rajasthan and Kerala. That
day, Renee played an old Marwadi love song, which was a ballad that
recounted a romance by the banks of Nakki lake. His neighbours and
friends too had come over. They dance a mix of a Malayali and Marwadi
dance. Kamala leaves.
That day, Renee changed his idea for his dream project. He began
to think of making a robot that can help track criminals and investigate
crimes. He contacts Kamala for help. In an astonishing development,
Kamala's worst fears happen. She became one of the accused in the
case that she was helping to solve. Renee was the only witness who
could testify to her innocence. If Renee helped her out, he was
at risk of losing his job and being sent back home to India. If
he didn't help her, she stood to be one among the accused. Renee
stands to defend Kamala. The jury pronounced Kamala innocent. However,
that same day, Kamala got a call from home that her kid sister was
seriously ill. She flew back to Kerala. She was away for one month.
For the very first time in his life, Renee felt helpless and lonely
and sobbed on a long distance telephone call to Kamala. Renee quit
his job and flew down to see Kamala in Guruvayoor, Kerala. They
talked awhile and realized that they had grown so accustomed to
sorting problems together, putting two heads together quite literally
and figuratively that now it had become quite impossible for them
to live apart from each other.
Kamala 's sister recovers. Renee and Kamala decide to return to
the US, to pursue their careers, in love and happy. They try to
define love. They fail at coming to a working definition of love.
They realize that the feeling defies definition. For the first time
in all its eighty-five years, Renee's precious wristwatch stops.
Renee decides that his next project will be to make a robot that
talks exclusively about love.
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