I Wish for an Instruction Manual
(Read the poem in its original format here in PDF)
I wish
for an instruction manual
to have
accompanied her on the bus instead of her asshole. I mean that asshole. The man with her.
I wish
for an instruction manual
to have
slipped from her pocket and fallen right into my arms and not roll carelessly on the bus floor teasing me.
I wish
for an instruction manual
that would know
how she had coped with each incident in her life. Also how she had behaved in a particular situation that has happened without me while maybe I had been doing something so totally different. Like when she was praying feeling impure as all mortals are doomed to feel; maybe I was masturbating, feeling divine like all mortals?
I wish
for an instruction manual
that would know
each move that she had made without me, for each move the person had made towards her. To know why she did what she did I would also have to know why the other person did what he or she did. Or it did. She might have had encounters with eunuchs, don’t you think? With their numbers increasing by the second and their marketing skills, I would think she would have. But one has a choice in such matters. So maybe we can stick to he or she.
I wish
for an instruction manual
that would know
the exact time and situation when she had been herself without anyone else. Without anyone in person, not even in her head as one could act differently if they even so much as had the other person’s presence in their head. How could one be themselves with someone else? Is that even possible? You can be yourself with only yourself.
I wish
for an instruction manual
that would know
if it had been some other guy wishing for an instruction manual other than myself would she have looked at him, at least cursorily like men do while touching their hair pretending they are not interested thereby assuming that women are not privy to the old trick from the book. Wait… so I hope that she thought I’m dumb? Maybe, because in the end it didn’t matter. She just had to look. Is that so difficult? No.
I wish
for an instruction manual
that would know
her thoughts in her mother-tongue before she translated them into words of English. As I’m most probably better at that than at English.
I wish
for an instruction manual
that
is digitalized and updated. To save me from the stomping feet in the bus as I reach for the one that is… well not digitalized. Also so that I could have it on my phone whose screen is big enough for my eyes that have kept up with technology. So that I could zoom each word and read between the alphabets. (If someone had told me when I was a kid that one day I could enlarge a word without a magnifying glass I would think they had to meet Mr. Sharma and he is not the principal or the shrink or the police or the priest. He is a mix of them all and you couldn’t get a more lethal combination. He is my father. And not everybody knows that his real name is Mr. Sharma. An ignorant mistake of some ignorant man in an ignorant legal paper set off the ignorant deed by two ignorant people, his parents.) Also.. to save me from the cliché. Getting a chance to speak to her while I returned the book to her. Wait, but does it matter? No. All that matters is that I speak to her. Is that difficult? Yes.
I wish
for an instruction manual
that would
tell me how I could have walked up to her and spoken to her and asked about her life. Believing her past, her justifications for why she did what she did or did not do.
I wish
for an instruction manual
that would
teach me how to stop wishing. (It should be able to translate the difficult words like the words my colleagues throw at me to show me they are not among the Bhagat followers. Chetan Bhagat. In case you thought of the other Bhagat. His brother. Who they claim is worse than him.)
I wish
for an instruction manual
that would
chide me for minding that asshole. No not the one with her. The one from my past.
I wish
for an instruction manual
about myself
to present it to her if I ever see her again. And possibly to that asshole if I ever see him again. No not the one with her. The one from my past. My father. In case you hadn’t guessed.
I wish
for an instruction manual
about myself
for myself.