Women

The women in my life keep me alive. Left to the men, I’d be dead by now.

Getting together with the ladies is always fun, albeit over MSN messenger, where we talk about everything from Montego Bay, karma and fate, stock options and chocolate mousse.

My soul sister, Rahniel, (33, living in New York) is my personal mystic masseur and prophet. She’s a quintessential beatnik you know, the above average 'I want to give up advertising and become a strawberry picker if only my tits didn’t touch my feet' variety. She jets between an obscenely high-paying Manhattan job, being superwife to a perennially broke 26-year-old who's been trying to revive a defunct apiary in remote Uttaranchal for three years, and raising two-year-old Matthew across the Atlantic with great alacrity and greater humour. Never throws either her money (all self-made), her adorably kooky husband or her infinite acumen in anyone's face.

Rahniel has a peculiar, yet judicious, line of questioning with regards to me. She believes I don’t need to be emotionally blackmailed or flogged every once in a while to see reason. All I need is a good back rub and then the open-ended questioning will eventually lead to nirvana.

And so she asked me, with her palm shiatsu-ing my shoulders, what I wanted in a man post the ritualistic getting over.

She asked me about his hands. I said I want a man who writes in the mist. A man who writes with a strong grasp and a soft heart. A man who holds delicately with great will and open fist to the sanity of my perfected insanity.

She asked me about his voice. I said I want a man whose voice hangs upon the air, haunting, twisting, and full of fire, yet full of patience. A man, who doesn’t whisper to the dead. A man, bantering not with demons but with god herself.

She asked me about his face. I said I want a man whose face swings upon luminescent moonbeams. A man, weaving tantalizing but pure dreams. A man whose eyes may be burnt blind, but sees everything and focuses on my world deep within his.

She asked me about his clothes. I said anything but a tattered velvet tuxedo of lies. A man not adorned with a halo of flies, or a veil of shooting stars.

She asked me about his disposition. I said I want a man who would stitch my bleeding rips with golden thread, or if not, a man who’d believably spin stories of a healthier love and a happier life. A man who would say little and deliver the whole lot.

She asked me where I’d find him and if I would. I said I wasn’t looking.