Come Home Every Night, Shivani

Ah, Shivani. So you’ve come. I always wonder why you never come a minute before or a minute later. You come precisely at the point when I sit in front of computer, in the faint glow of the lamp, the glass of whisky at my elbow, and I am just about to lift my finger to type. That’s when I feel your warm breath on my bare shoulder, and I turn back to see your face, that mischievous smile which asks me silently, “So what are you going to write tonight?”

The man inside me tells me, “How can you write when the woman of your dreams is sitting right behind you – so close that you can feel the warmth of her breath and even smell her hair? Go ahead, make love to her. Run the back of your palm on her glowing cheeks, run your fingers through her hair, play with her nose, caress her neck. Go on, just go on. She’s yours.”

The writer inside me tells me, “She’s yours. That is why you must not touch her. She is your creation. She is a piece of art. A perfect piece of painting. Do you want to use the painting as a paper plate? Let her be. Let her just watch while you write. If you want to make love to her, do so with your words.”

But the man inside me protests, “It’s my words that have created her. She’s my character. I can clothe her or disrobe her, it’s my choice. What does it matter to you?”

The writer inside me reasons, “Have can you make love to your own character? Does the doll-maker decorate his own modest home with his dolls? No. Those dolls adorn mantelpieces of other homes. You may have created Shivani, and you have done a good job. She is indeed a dream woman. But once you have created her, your control over her ends. She now has a mind of her own. You can now make her do only what she wants to do.”

Well, did you hear that conversation Shivani? Am sure you hear it every night. Then why don’t you ever say anything? Why don’t you ever do anything? Why don’t you ever make the first move and end this nightly debate? Why don’t you just pull me to the bed that is right behind us and make love to me and then force me back to the chair and make me write till day breaks and I turn around to find that you are no longer there? Don’t you think I will write better that way? I’ve read somewhere that creative people love sex. Now don’t laugh at me, Shivani. I don’t want to have sex because I think I am creative. I want to have sex only to qualify as a creative man. No one at the workplace thinks I am creative. They think I am a lazy, foolish day-dreamer. I even get pulled up for that at times. But if you make love to me, I can maybe boast to them about it, and then they will discuss me in the lunch-room: “Wow, he actually slept with her! How did he manage that? He must be truly creative.” And then I will show them the stories I’ve written.

Trust me Shivani, I am not a bad writer. They will like my stories. I may not be a great writer, but I can tell a story as honestly as I can. I know you know that, and that is why you are here every night, to watch me over my shoulder as I write. Am I not right, Shivani?

So come every night, Shivani. I have so many stories to tell you. I want you to read them when they are fresh out of my head. I want you to tell me if they read fine. I know you don’t talk while you are with me, but from your facial expressions I can tell whether I am on the right track. But there will come a time when I would not like you to be around – that will be when I tell the story about how I fell madly in love with you. I would not like you watching me type that story: I would feel very conscious.