Bitter Gourd
The skies bled over Kolkata’s concrete rooftops. On her Baguihati balcony, she watched the cigarette burn to nothing, talking to her bitter gourd vine. The knotted fruit hung like crisp, green curses in the downpour. “You understand,” she whispered to the plant. “Bitterness survives.” That was her usual nights, the other nights were replacing emotions with a Old Monk bottle. Career, family, wounded heart and a strange stubbornness to not surrender kept her alive.
We met in a digital alleyway. I’d messaged: “Trust issues?” And that started a chain reaction to build some trust. Later that night a call, some echoes of emptiness ended with sunrise. Every night since then, her voice tasted of Maidan’s fog and never-ending meadows of evasion. “Calcutta monsoons rot jute sacks, diaries, promises… But never bitter gourds. Or me.” I asked if she craved sweetness. “Sugar breeds ants,” she snapped, a whip of thorn.
She would wear her grief like a crown, the queen’s true worth, and as if victory awaited her on the other side. Chasing chaos and lust for distraction made sure that her sense of worth was never diminished. She had a barrage of men waiting to get her, none to her soul, their chase would mostly end up in a club and sometimes to the bed. None had access to her mind. It did bring her the temporary blackout that helped her get through the unbearable nights. On the crust she was always bubbling with energy. The core was eloquently dark.
She read me like a ration card. Knew I’d starve for crumbs of “almost”. So she farmed distance. When I asked about loneliness, she’d be gone – vanishing for hours. She’d return murmuring, “I wanted to answer… but the rain was too loud.” When I begged to see her face, she laughed: “My reflection’s on strike.” The day I sat at Blue Tokai in Ballygunge, sipping coffees for hours, sweating my hands, she would call and say “You’re in my city and did not call me?” and more “Almost” followed at my desperation to meet her. She said “North’s flooded. Stay dry.”
I met her mostly in that darkness of the night, listening to tales of her plants, the sound of the rain, her stories from the sun kissed crust. I could hear the moans of pain, the cacophony of her mind. At that juncture, she would aim all her weapons to keep me at war.
I became her human metronome. Waited for calls that arrived like cyclone warnings. Apologized when she ignored my texts: “You forgot me yesterday,” she’d accuse, as my messages fossilized in her inbox.
Her art was erosion. Sent photos of bitter gourd flowers – tiny yellow lies that’d harden into spines. Let me hear her silences, heavy as Hooghly River silt. Fed me hope like stale muri: “Maybe when winter comes…”
“Why not potol or lau?” I asked once. “Softer gourds.” Static hissed like steam from a chai stall. “Uchchhed? Never. I need the bite.”
Midnight calls became our addiction temple. Her voice, sometimes rum-soaked and sometimes raw: “Tell me about Darjeeling’s mist… Alipur’s tigers… Anything that doesn’t taste like neem leaves.” I painted sweetness that didn’t exist. She always dragged us back: “Does your throat burn when you swallow rain?”
The day she left, a parcel came. Inside: seeds. “Plant them in your balcony,” the note read. “See what thrives.”
Now, on my Delhi balcony, the vine claws brick. Gourds glow toxic jade in the grey light beside my daffodils and sunflower. When abrupt rains tear open the sky, I slice one raw, lift the dripping wedge to my lips – and smile at the sting.
