Blue Sun, Yellow Sky Read online

  “Dude, check it out—that photo you took of me yesterday has 628 likes on my Instagram. Isn’t that awesome?” I said. Jeff was sitting at a nearby table furiously typing on his PC laptop.

  “Seriously? Do you even have 628 followers?” he asked.

  “I have over 30,000.”

  “And yet you claim to not be a social media enthusiast,” he smirked.

  “How many followers do you have?” I asked.

  “Across all social media? Just over 50,000,” he replied.

  “Wow! How does someone who never posts to Facebook have so many followers?” I asked.

  “How does someone who claims to be technically inept have 30,000?” he countered.

  “Touché,” I laughed. “What are you working on?”

  “Nothing, I’m just catching up on geek news.”

  “Geek news? Like who the next Batman is going to be?” I quipped. Standing up, I walked over to where he was sitting and leaned over his screen. The headline read: CEO of Juice joins forces with Yahoo!

  “Yahoo! is merging with a juice company?” I asked.

  “No. Juice is a tech venture fund based out of Silicon Valley. The company basically looks for new ideas and then finds money in its rolodex of angel investors to launch an app,” he said.

  “I’m sorry, I fell asleep after the word tech,” I joked. “Does this mean you’re looking for financiers or something?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe. It’s crazy though, these guys are our age and they’re all multi-millionaires.”

  “When you’re successful that young, I think it has more to do with creating something you love than hoping to make a million dollars,” I said.

  Jeff shrugged noncommittally, looking at his screen again.

  “Well, what’s the app you’re working on now?” I asked.

  “Nothing new—just maintaining the Top This app. It’s gone up by 250 users since we left, by the way.”

  “I hope you don’t take this the wrong way, but I think the difference between your 20,000 app downloads and Instagram’s 100 million is the continual use on a daily basis for entertainment.”

  “How is mine not continual? It literally uploads something awesome for you every day,” he argued.

  “It’s a very cool idea and I can see how it would attract a lot of downloads, but if I were using your app and people kept asking me how my fake trip was, I’d eventually have to tell the truth. In the long run it’d be depressing.”

  “I disagree. It’s a conversation starter,” he said.

  “Right, it’s a cool idea. And I think it’ll keep growing, but if you want something on par with Twitter then you should consider what everyone is looking for,” I replied.

  He looked at me blankly. “What is everyone looking for?”

  “Happiness. Something that makes them happy and you money.”

  “You think it’s pathetic that I live with my brother, don’t you?” he asked.

  “That’s not what I meant. But now that you mention it, don’t you want to live in your own?”

  To my surprise, he laughed. “Jeez Aubs, don’t hold back.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  “Don’t be,” he replied, turning back to his coding.

  One of my favorite things about Jeff was he never got defensive or malicious like some of the guys I had dated. One guy actually slashed through a painting I was working on with an X-Acto knife to illustrate how deep my words had cut him. It was so dramatic I started laughing, which was not the brightest idea considering he was still holding the knife. Luckily, destruction of property was about as far as his temper went—at least with me—and he stormed out of my apartment never to be seen again.

  I started sketching images of objects or designs I had found at the Taj Mahal. Ideas for what I thought my next painting might be. Looking up from my sketch I saw that Jeff was typing obsessively, his face lit up by the screen. He wasn’t smiling, but he looked to be enjoying the work. “What’s so interesting about coding?” I asked.

  “What’s so interesting about being a painter?”

  “It’s a conversation starter,” I smiled, mocking him. But then I started to think about the question. Jeff folded his arms and waited. “It’s a form of expression unlike anything else. It’s personal and, if done right, universal at the same time. I like to watch people connect to something I created.”

  “Well, coding, if it’s done right, as you say, can connect millions of people to one application. So if you think about it in terms of connection, social media is kind of an art form,” Jeff said.

  I hadn’t thought of it that way, but I couldn’t deny that it had become the new way people expressed themselves—though I couldn’t imagine connecting to mundane status updates and cat pictures the way I would to the Mona Lisa.

  “When I look at your screen almost none of what I see makes sense to me. So how do you conceptualize your ideas without being able to see the big picture?” I asked.

  “I guess it would be like breaking apart all your different brush strokes. You have an image in your head and when you start painting on an empty canvas, your seemingly random brushstrokes don’t make sense to me either. Alone and separated, the brushstrokes are like incoherent puzzle pieces, but after you place and layer them we see the picture.”

  I laughed.

  “What?” Jeff asked, confused.

  “When I was selling paintings on the street, I had this guy walk past me and shout, ‘Get a real job, hobo!’”

  “No…”

  “Yes. A New Yorker of course. I could tell by the way he walked: elbows out, face forward, and fast.” Jeff laughed. “It made me so mad,” I continued, “because he acted like painting was this whimsical thing I chose to do. That it didn’t require any technical skill or practice. Anyway, I was thinking your comparison of coding to brushstrokes would’ve been a nice comeback.”

  Jeff laughed harder, “No, it wouldn’t have. He was probably an investment banker who knows even less about computer software than he does about painting. But I like that you’re still so upset about it all these years later.”

  “I know it sounds crazy, especially because New Yorkers are notorious for being outspoken and uncensored, but that comment really did bother me,” I said, feeling my blood curdle.

  “Well, not many people can say they’ve followed through on their dreams. So you’ve one-upped that guy in my book.”

  Actually, I’m going blind, so technically he wins, I thought. But there was a somber tone in Jeff’s voice that trumped my personal concerns for the moment. I wondered if he was talking about himself. “Do you think that you’ve settled by becoming a teacher?” I asked.

  “I’m not dead yet,” he smiled.

  When we were young Jeff used to make fun of how seriously I took my art. How I would think for hours on a blank canvas and how I refused to let anyone be in the room while I worked. As teenagers, I think that was his way of trying to connect with something he had a hard time understanding, but I heard him scold one of his buddies once for calling me weird. Aubs is gonna be famous one day and you’re all gonna eat your words, he’d said. Even when he didn’t know I was in the room, Jeff was always my biggest cheerleader. The memory made me smile.

  “Why are you smiling?” Jeff asked, leaning forward past his computer to see if I was looking at something he couldn’t see.

  “No reason,” I said.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Love

  I read in a guidebook that the Taj Mahal was something I had to see in person. Photographs not just wouldn’t, but couldn’t, do it justice. The internet begged to differ though. I discovered a website that had detailed panoramic views and 3-D virtual tours. As the viewer, I could walk through the Mausoleum and double-click anywhere in the room to zoom in on details. So I found it hard to believe that seeing the actual structure could be that much better than the virtual tour.

  As our cab pulled up to the entrance gate, I was on the edge of my seat. A large
crowd had already formed and the throngs of people suggested that perhaps the book was right.

  “Are you excited?” I asked, looking over at Jeff, who was also hunched forward.

  “If you’re asking if I’m excited about the architectural design, which utilizes the interlocking arabesque concept in which each element stands on its own and perfectly integrates with the main structure, then yes, I’m excited to see it.” Call me crazy but I think I even saw his eyes sparkle for just a fraction of a second.

  Rati, who was sitting in the front seat next to the driver, laughed. “Most people come for the love story.”

  “Yeah...” Jeff said, as though whatever was to follow would be in disagreement. He left it at that.

  Few people talk about the entrance to the Taj Mahal, probably because once you see the monument, everything else pales in comparison. But for me, the execution and mastery of it could not be overlooked. It was the amuse bouche before the main course. Made of sandstone and marble, the building was a symmetrical structure consisting of four double-stacked arches flanking a main arch, which recessed deep into the structure where six additional arches broke up the interior. Designed perhaps to guide one’s eyes through the central tunnel, the dark reddish-brown color of sandstone complemented the neutral off-white marble accents and acted as a tent shielding us from the bright sunlight so that we could focus on what lay ahead.

  Crossing through the threshold of the main gate, I could see the grand complex in the distance. It looked just as I thought it would from photographs. Sparkling in the sunlight, its unique, floating illusion was stunning, but I had expected that. I was looking for something deeper to connect to, something more than superficial beauty.

  We walked along a pathway on the right, flanked by a large pool of water on one side and lush green gardens on the other. I noticed a few cracks on the side of the pool and rust on the fixtures inside it. The flaws, I felt, gave the grounds an aura of authenticity. For a structure that was built in 1632, I expected quite a few more imperfections and was looking forward to discovery. Flaws humanized the art.

  “What do you think?” Rati asked us.

  “This is a goldmine for my app,” Jeff replied. Feverishly snapping photos, he looked like a crazed paparazzo trying to get that one unexpected million-dollar shot.

  “People will do crazy things for love. Can you imagine spending 21 years building a mausoleum? To work on something that is a constant reminder of a lost love? It sounds unbearable,” I ruminated.

  “It’s a symbol of idealized love, not real love,” Jeff said.

  “That’s a pretty cynical view. Why do you question the sincerity of his gesture?” Rati asked.

  “He probably believed her to be this saint who loved him, but in reality she just didn’t live long enough to break him.”

  “Project much?” I asked.

  “All I’m saying is she died young so their relationship probably didn’t have to endure any of the nitty gritty, therefore it is unrealistic to look at this as any kind of testament to true love. Look around you: it’s a fairytale, it’s not real,” he said, surprising me. In all the years I’d known Jeff, he’d never even come close to opening up as much as he just did.

  “No, you’re right. You should just give up and continue making mean apps for bitter exes,” Rati argued. “Check back in with me in a couple of years, I’d like to see how that works out for you.”

  “Forty-two thousand downloads and counting. I’m clearly not the only person who thinks love sucks,” Jeff replied, as if the volume of downloads mitigated its malicious inception.

  “You’re full of shit. You’re just mad because you got dumped,” I said. “Had it worked out with you and Veronica you’d be singing a different tune right now.”

  Just then Rati’s phone rang. “Sorry I have to take this, I’ll be right back,” Rati said, walking away.

  “It would have ended sooner or later,” Jeff said. “And I’m glad it did because otherwise I wouldn’t be here with you. Smile!” I posed for a photo with a big bright smile and Jeff snapped a picture of me. “I was thinking of going over to take some photos of the reflection pool, wanna come?”

  “Nah, I’m gonna take a stroll and do my thing,” I said.

  With both of them gone, I pulled my iPod out of my hobo bag, I popped in my earbuds and scrolled to an Indian song I had recently found called “Shiva Panchakshara Stotram” by Uma Mohan. The harp at the beginning was what really drew me in initially; it felt soothing and the lyrics resembled that of a southern gospel song infused with the sounds of India. I gave myself a moment to clear any lingering thoughts. Then, feeling serene despite the fact that I was surrounded by hundreds of spectators, I walked up the steps to the mausoleum. As I drew closer, the first thing I noticed was how small I felt next to the massive building, and the second thing was the Arabic calligraphy outlining the door frame.

  “Ey! Ey!” a man yelled. I pulled out my earphones, annoyed by the disruption. “No shoes,” he said pointing towards my feet. “No, shoes.”

  “Oh, sorry.” I said, feeling like an idiot. I looked around and sure enough, no one had shoes on. A few people were hopping around on the hot marble, waiting for these funny bag-like covers to be handed to them. I waited until the gentleman handing out the covers reached me before taking off my shoes because, although the Taj Mahal was beautiful, I was not about to sacrifice the bottom layer of my feet to it.

  The exterior was covered in floral designs etched into the marble as a mosaic. No wonder it took twenty-one years to build. The detail was extraordinary and overwhelming, with lattice windows that had been sculpted in floral and geometric shapes. Every inch of the Taj Mahal had something to offer.

  Blocked from view of the guards by hordes of onlookers, I reached out to touch the walls. Slight bumps underneath my fingertips confirmed what I saw. Things like leaves, stems, and petals, weren’t carved out from the marble itself but were inlaid individually. The single flower that my pinky grazed over must have taken hours to complete. I took notice of the drooping flowers above the arches of the multiple entrances—purposefully designed that way as a sign of eternal mourning for the beloved Empress.

  Scanning the room for other things I’d read about, I was certain I’d find a flaw or two in the structure—cracks, barely-visible holes, a wrongly-proportioned design, mismatched pillars…anything. There were none. Shah Jahan didn’t mess around. Based on the astute labor and abnormal level of perfection, my guess was he threatened to behead anyone who left sloppy work on his wife’s final resting place.

  What did Mumtaz Mahal have that the rest of us were lacking? It had to be more than beauty that kept the Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan so enraptured. I was enormously curious, but hundreds of years had passed and the story of their love had been told, retold, and distorted a hundred times over, so I suspected the answer was lost forever.

  One version of their love story recounted an intense, polyamorous relationship. Shah Jahan had two other wives with whom he bore one child each, but it was said that he chose to be with Mumtaz exclusively. I thought about what Jeff said regarding how we idealize love and that it isn’t real because eventually it dissipates. The Taj Mahal was supposed to represent everlasting love, but all I could think about was how it eventually all comes to an end one way or another. My parents were gone and the thing I loved most in the world, my art, was also going away. And maybe my art would connect with people like the Taj Mahal, or maybe it wasn’t meant to last forever.

  Standing over Mumtaz Mahal’s burial chamber, I felt conflicted about what her mausoleum represented. A surge of loneliness rushed through me. It was the same empty feeling I had the morning after my parents’ funeral—I was alone in our house and everything felt cold. Standing in a monument dedicated to symbolizing love’s ability to stand the test of time, I couldn’t help but question whether or not it was all just make-believe.

  “You know it’s a fake, right?” Jeff said, cutting into my thoughts. He walked to
wards me from across the room with Rati following. “Yeah, I just overheard a tour guide back there say she isn’t buried here.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “This is just a decoy, the real one is hidden deep beneath the surface, never to be disturbed,” Rati answered.

  “Huh,” I mused, taking it in and detaching myself from my previous thoughts.

  “Have you noticed how much color is in here?” Rati added. “Everyone always talks about the white, but my favorite parts are the colorful details.”

  “What’s even more impressive is the angle of the four pillars outside. They tilt outward slightly. It’s an illusion to make them appear straight. Isn’t that odd that we have to trick our eyes into seeing correctly?” Jeff remarked.

  “I can’t tell if that’s a sarcastic comment or an astute observation from someone who admires the architecture,” I said.

  “The latter,” Jeff said. “Contrary to popular belief, I have a great appreciation for solid craftsmanship.”

  “There’s the sarcasm,” I replied as he winked at me.

  By the time we were ready to leave, the sun had nearly set and the outside looked like a completely different building than the one we had entered earlier. Light reflecting off the marble gave the building a golden glow. Leave it to the royals to build a monument representative of purity and still have it emanate gold. I looked back one last time before following Jeff and Rati out the same entryway we came in.

  “What’s next?” Jeff asked.

  Rati laughed. “How about an outdoor market? They have some things that are definitely unique to India.”

  “I’m all about different,” I said.

  “Yeah, I’m cool with that,” Jeff said.

  The drive back from Agra to Deli took a few hours and I napped most of the way until the driver dropped us off at an outdoor market. We stopped at a color stall full of both organic and inorganic pigments. A painter’s paradise. I walked into the sectioned-off tent feeling like a kid jumping into the ball pit at a McDonald’s playground. I was drowning in color and loving every minute of it. I filled bag after bag with colors I would be hard-pressed to find in the United States: Quinacridone Magenta, Transparent Pyrrole Orange, Dairylide Yellow, and Dioxazine Purple, to name a few.