A cold wind blew that night in the street, blowing around bits of newspaper and painting the world with a general air of poverty and depravity. You know how those certain winter nights are. One doesn’t need to look at poor, blackened faces huddled around a burning tyre or the urchins sleeping under polythene sheets stolen from shop-fronts; one can sense their existence. These nights carry the sound of distant barking dogs in a howling wind, and make the window panes tremble and shudder.
I was coming back from work, hugging myself tight and trying to compact myself into a small ball so that less of the icy wind would hit me. A few urchins passed me, and a few beggars. That time in winter nights, everyone concentrates on reaching home soon. I walked fast, trying to generate a little heat. I was thinking of home. I had a small room that time, in a cheap area in Delhi. I kept all windows closed and boarded, and the room took in a little heat from the walls in the day and I think its own breathing in the small sealed space kept it warm, or at least much warmer than outdoors.
I was in the lane now, out of the main-street blast, and walking in the small space close to the walls that held a pocket of still air. To keep my mind occupied, I kept kicking a pebble along the pavement. I lost that pebble in a drain.
On normal days, I would have rushed up fast, avoiding the warm food odours that crept out under the doors mixed with happy sounds of children squealing, couples fighting and televisions and radios. I hated to hear all that. But when I pulled at the heavy iron gate, the soft orange glow of a fire caught my eye. Sundar, the night watchman for the society, had put in broken twigs and garbage together and made a small fire in an old oil-can. He huddled beside it, on haunches and completely wrapped up in his standard chequered shawl that was almost a blanket. By the time I had clanged the cold gate shut, I had an irresistible urge to warm my hands on the fire. And Sundar was an old confidante. He used to beat his stick on the water pipe when the landlord came so that I could clean up the place or maybe run away if I didn’t have the money for my rent. I had brought him cigarettes a couple of times, but he seemed too fond of his all-leaf-no-tobacco bidis. He looked up as I came and nodded slightly. Any other gesture, like a wave of the hand or a salaam would have let in cold air into his cocoon. I sat down on the other side of the fire and rubbed my hands together.
For some time, none of us said a word. I tried breaking it with a casual, “…it’s increasing every night…the cold…” kind-of a comment. But he sat still, made of wood. No wrinkle on his face moved as he stared into the fire. I kept quiet for some time and then again asked him what happened, or if he was trying to hypnotise the fire – a comment that, in usual times would have him cracking with loud hoarse laughter, and a standard, “Kya saab aab bhi…”. But he just closed his eyes for a long moment, and then shook his head. I found it a little rude but intriguing. Sundar always laughed easily. I kept looking at him and he kept staring into the fire.
“I saw Radha today”, he finally said, and sighed.
“You saw who? Who’s Radha?”
Silence…
“My wife”
“What?” this was news. I never knew he was married. In the past we had always spoken to each other as fellow-lonely inmates of the world. Here was a total surprise for me.
“You were married? …all this while?”
“I was”, he sighed again. “I was married when I was half your age, in the village”
“Then?”
“Then nothing. She was crazy”, he took out a bidi from behind his ear, “
Twigs crackled in the fire and shook off sparks that blew in tight circles. Sundar held out his bidi to the fire and puffed it to light it. An odd bit of newspaper caught in the window above was fluttering wildly. He just sat still and stared at the glowing point of the bidi cupped in his palms.
“I did not know that when I married her, I thought she was a little vague but we got along fine. And then, Saab, when we lost our first child, all hell broke loose.”
Oh, so our man here was married and had a child and lost it. Funny how little we know about people who stay right under our nose. I did not feel an urge to ask him more about the child. I was too lazy and cold to ask questions. I just came there for the fire. Also, I could have done without hearing about another depressing incident in this cold grey weather. I kept humming a tune in my head and looking at the fire. He threw in a few more twigs and dry leaves.
“So you saw your wife today… and she’s mad. That’s why you’re so quiet?” I found myself making conversation all over again. The leaves curled up in the fire and turned black.
“Radha…yes! She’s mad, and you know the scariest thing about her Saab?” Sundar was talking to the burning twigs, in a barely audible mumble. “You know, if you see her, just see her….you’ll be scared. You won’t sleep that night” and he kept slowly shaking his head. “I’d beaten her up very badly that night, when I got to know that the child was born dead. I was very angry when I heard it happened, Saab. I don’t know what came over me. I was angry, not sad. I bought some desi daroo, and had it, then more.”
He was crying, I suddenly noticed. I don’t think he noticed, though. He was sitting still, glassy eyes staring unblinking at the fire. How long can a person stare at a fire. A sudden gust blew the heap of dry leaves into a spiral. Tears rolled down his stone-face. His shawl slipped from his left shoulder.
“I slept somewhere on the road. I did not want to go home that night. I knew I’d do something to her. I knew it was not her fault, but I knew I would do something” His voice was strangely impassive. “…but she came looking for me. Imagine. Barely half-a-day after bearing that dead child…. She found me on the pavement, and started dragging me home. I cursed her, abused her, I even hit her. She kept crying and trying to drag me home.”
“I don’t remember clearly, but I remember waking up in my own vomit in the night, in my home. That time I was a worker at the Steel factory. I felt empty, like my life suddenly lost all meaning. I’d thought of a name for him Saab. I had decided I’d put him in school. I’d thought out his whole life. I stroked Radha’s belly when I slept. He must’ve been dead all the while. And Radha must have known. I am sure she did. She was so… so scared when I took her to the doctor for the last check-up. She cheated me. She killed my son.”
I heard all this clearly. Sundar’s voice had risen. His shawl had slipped. He sat there in the wind, in a torn vest. He appeared smaller and shrunk, his bones projecting on his shoulders. A single teardrop quivered at the end of his moustache. He was silent for a while and then continued in his normal inaudible mumble.
“I got up to drink water, and I saw her, sleeping on the floor all sweet and innocent. I just couldn’t take it. I boiled all over again. I remember very little of what happened then, but Saab…. I stabbed her with a broken bottle, right on the belly. I hit her so many times that I lost count. Then when she stopped hurting from being hit so much, she stopped crying and kept staring at me….expressionless and numb….like someone crazy. And then I stabbed myself – till I lost consciousness.”
It was strange, hearing all this from a crying, stone-faced man, in a mumble.
“…but she didn’t die. She went completely crazy after that. When I woke up the next morning she wasn’t there, and I was lying in a pool of puke and blood. I dragged myself to the doctor. God only knows who stitched her up. She roamed the streets after that, with that crazed, blank expression on her face, like she’s looking at her son dying, and at me stabbing her in her sleep. And like she’s seen the same thing over and over again since that night… ”
“She does not talk to anyone. She walks around the blocks and she cries, sometimes. She eats out of garbage cans…but she’s alive. I brought her home a couple of times, but she doesn’t sleep, and when I’m asleep she walks out again. She does not recognise me any more.”
“….I haven’t touched alcohol since that night”
I took a stick and poked at the fire. We were out of kindle but the old oil-can was still warm. When I poked the sticks, small sparks flew from them. The wind had died down considerably, and I could see a grey patch in the eastern sky. I kept looking at Sundar, trying to imagine him do these ghastly things he spoke about. He looked harmless. He looked like a dry twig, thin, bony, charred and…well burnt. I poked at the twigs again and some of them broke. The fire was almost out. I sat, broke each burnt twig by turns and ground it to fine black ash against the bottom of the can.
“You go, Saab; it is morning”, Sundar now had his eyes closed. He wasn’t crying anymore, and once more he was gathering his shawl around him. I filled up my lungs with cold air and wood-smoke, and breathed out heavily. I thought I should go and sleep. I had work the next day – I mean in some more hours. Sundar had obviously lived through many such nights before; I was sure he would be fine. I hesitated only because of this sense that the story was not complete yet. But that was also fine; stories like these rarely have movie-endings.
“So you saw Radha today, and remembered everything”, I wanted to go to my room, open the door and feel it exhale its warmth on me. Then I wanted to walk in, lock the door, kick off my shoes, take off my jacket and sleep. I had every step worked out. But I was just egging him, begging him to go on. Thankfully he didn’t. He just kept sitting eyes closed in front of the burnt out fire, hugging himself in his shawl and slowly rocking himself. I got up to leave.
“You know I’m so scared of her. I think the next time I see her I’ll kill myself” Sundar mumbled again, and sat still. He opened his eyes and said, “Saab, you know what the scariest thing is? She’s always awake. I’ve seen her many times after that, even followed her, and a lot of other people see her at all hours. But you know… No one has ever seen her sleep since that night.”
I did not say anything. I just walked. I hoped I could stop thinking about it and sleep. I kicked a pebble ahead of me till I reached the stairs. I climbed up slowly. Some houses had started getting up and making the morning noises. I walked to the door, opened it and felt the room exhale its spent warmth on me. I kicked off my shoes, took off my jacket and fell on the bed. I kept trying to sleep.
Tuesday, September 13, 2005
Love Song of the Employee of the Month
1
he wakes up with a start, swears at the clock, puts it on snooze
till the TV alarm fills the room with yesterday's business news
he grumbles that it’s child abuse
his patience's wearing thin
and it's getting to him
getting up at exactly five-two
but he tumbles to the loo, brushes teeth and polishes shoes
and if he's quick, walks fast, jumps down the steps in twos
he'll have time for juice
and to buy a strip of aspirin
recharge his SIM
and maybe to wonder about life too
2
at the 'juice corner'; to be different, he orders peach
the old communist shakes hands and sits - the leach!
his patience will breach
deep breaths and counts to ten
he twiddles his pen
and tries to smile through the ordeal
the same empty talk about food for all and education for each
about some more freedom of movement, thought and speech
he stares at the beach
and wonders how ‘free’ are men
and wonders when…
as he solemnly dissects the fruit peel
3
his work doesn't add to much - it's neither here nor there
but he's someone who works well under someone’s glare
he's lazy but he's fair
he puts away his book
when the boss gives him a look
then looks extremely harried
on some rare occasions, he works madly on his share
the seat of his pants burns hot on the seat of his chair
then he helps the girl with nice hair
the lonely life of a rook
it is high time he took
a vow and got himself married
4
at one, in the lunch break, he sneaks out for cigarettes
and he goes to the lonely rooftop in the 'free' time he gets
he sits with his regrets
in the curling lazy curtain of smoke
thinks about some old joke
old friends... how we lose touch!
and since he's too busy to watch it all when the sun sets
he sits right there, lights another and unconsciously frets
(as he ticks off his debts
on the rusty old can of coke)
about getting broke
or too old; or smoking too much
5
he suddenly realises something and with a violent heave
he stands up and sighs and then rolls up his sleeve
there is no one to grieve,
if he is not around tomorrow
there shall be no sorrow,
if he just packed up and left
he realises there is no more need to deceive
and he thinks oh what a tangled web we weave
it's a game we believe,
we beg, steal and borrow
we come and grow and go
and no one's left bereft
6
that night he sits on the bench at the edge of the bay
as an old, bent man sweeps the remains of yesterday
scoops it in a plastic tray
shoos the curious sparrow
and wheels away his barrow
humming some old song
it has been a long time since he's felt almost okay
he's not in a hurry tonight, and tonight he will stay
till the dawn of the next day
he feels it in his marrow
but his bench is narrow
and is also somewhat oblong
7
he twists, tosses and turns; and wakes up a few times
he finally gives up, sits in the sand and writes a few lines
after sometime it rhymes!
it almost has a tune!
and he thought he was immune
to poetry and similar things
he continues doodling and draws flowers and vines
he starts feeling he's possessed, draws some vague signs
and the church bell chimes
he looks at the moon
isn’t it too soon?
for those three strained sweet rings?
8
he walks into the chest-high water and just for a scare
he imagines how it would be to walk in and not even care
of-course, he wouldn't dare
he couldn't even swim
and it just wasn't him
to take such a mad risk
but he plays it in his mind a few times as he stands there
while his fear and the wind claws at his shirt and hair
he pulls off the shirt, stands bare
he breaks into a hymn
and feels his senses dim
the sea is cold, painless and brisk
9
his head fills up with things and suddenly he’s reeling
he looks up at the feathery clouds that open unveiling
the ominous ceiling
of sporadic stars and black fate
that luminous gate
between now and forevermore
his heart is tossed and turned by waves of feeling
all comes back to him, the treachery, the stealing
in a way it is healing
was it worth the wait?
more importantly, is it already late
to make for the shore?
10
the tide has risen and sticks to clothes like resin
and he tries turning back but it still pulls him in
he feels death begin
and thrashes out madly
and he swims badly
drinks gallons of brine
but he finally wades to shore, drenched to his skin
and plastered on his face is one stupid glad grin
he has washed away his sin
he decides he will gladly
live the misery he saved exactly
in the nick of time
11
back on the beach he feels like a jerk
about to kill himself to avoid good-old work
the pay and the perk
he sits on the seat
brushes sand from his feet
no pain no gain!
“philosophical shit”, he says with a smirk
to think he nearly lost his mind in the murk
a foolish attempt to shirk
the toil and the heat
he crosses the street
and vows to never come again
12
from the next morning everyone finds it odd
he talks less now, all hemmed and hawed
though work’s never flawed
he’s unusually curt
some call him introvert
they wonder but usually let him be
but say something happened and struck a chord
he’s all set for the employee-of-the-month award
the young men are awed
but some small issues he does skirt
like that tattered shirt
the fishermen found floating in the sea
he wakes up with a start, swears at the clock, puts it on snooze
till the TV alarm fills the room with yesterday's business news
he grumbles that it’s child abuse
his patience's wearing thin
and it's getting to him
getting up at exactly five-two
but he tumbles to the loo, brushes teeth and polishes shoes
and if he's quick, walks fast, jumps down the steps in twos
he'll have time for juice
and to buy a strip of aspirin
recharge his SIM
and maybe to wonder about life too
2
at the 'juice corner'; to be different, he orders peach
the old communist shakes hands and sits - the leach!
his patience will breach
deep breaths and counts to ten
he twiddles his pen
and tries to smile through the ordeal
the same empty talk about food for all and education for each
about some more freedom of movement, thought and speech
he stares at the beach
and wonders how ‘free’ are men
and wonders when…
as he solemnly dissects the fruit peel
3
his work doesn't add to much - it's neither here nor there
but he's someone who works well under someone’s glare
he's lazy but he's fair
he puts away his book
when the boss gives him a look
then looks extremely harried
on some rare occasions, he works madly on his share
the seat of his pants burns hot on the seat of his chair
then he helps the girl with nice hair
the lonely life of a rook
it is high time he took
a vow and got himself married
4
at one, in the lunch break, he sneaks out for cigarettes
and he goes to the lonely rooftop in the 'free' time he gets
he sits with his regrets
in the curling lazy curtain of smoke
thinks about some old joke
old friends... how we lose touch!
and since he's too busy to watch it all when the sun sets
he sits right there, lights another and unconsciously frets
(as he ticks off his debts
on the rusty old can of coke)
about getting broke
or too old; or smoking too much
5
he suddenly realises something and with a violent heave
he stands up and sighs and then rolls up his sleeve
there is no one to grieve,
if he is not around tomorrow
there shall be no sorrow,
if he just packed up and left
he realises there is no more need to deceive
and he thinks oh what a tangled web we weave
it's a game we believe,
we beg, steal and borrow
we come and grow and go
and no one's left bereft
6
that night he sits on the bench at the edge of the bay
as an old, bent man sweeps the remains of yesterday
scoops it in a plastic tray
shoos the curious sparrow
and wheels away his barrow
humming some old song
it has been a long time since he's felt almost okay
he's not in a hurry tonight, and tonight he will stay
till the dawn of the next day
he feels it in his marrow
but his bench is narrow
and is also somewhat oblong
7
he twists, tosses and turns; and wakes up a few times
he finally gives up, sits in the sand and writes a few lines
after sometime it rhymes!
it almost has a tune!
and he thought he was immune
to poetry and similar things
he continues doodling and draws flowers and vines
he starts feeling he's possessed, draws some vague signs
and the church bell chimes
he looks at the moon
isn’t it too soon?
for those three strained sweet rings?
8
he walks into the chest-high water and just for a scare
he imagines how it would be to walk in and not even care
of-course, he wouldn't dare
he couldn't even swim
and it just wasn't him
to take such a mad risk
but he plays it in his mind a few times as he stands there
while his fear and the wind claws at his shirt and hair
he pulls off the shirt, stands bare
he breaks into a hymn
and feels his senses dim
the sea is cold, painless and brisk
9
his head fills up with things and suddenly he’s reeling
he looks up at the feathery clouds that open unveiling
the ominous ceiling
of sporadic stars and black fate
that luminous gate
between now and forevermore
his heart is tossed and turned by waves of feeling
all comes back to him, the treachery, the stealing
in a way it is healing
was it worth the wait?
more importantly, is it already late
to make for the shore?
10
the tide has risen and sticks to clothes like resin
and he tries turning back but it still pulls him in
he feels death begin
and thrashes out madly
and he swims badly
drinks gallons of brine
but he finally wades to shore, drenched to his skin
and plastered on his face is one stupid glad grin
he has washed away his sin
he decides he will gladly
live the misery he saved exactly
in the nick of time
11
back on the beach he feels like a jerk
about to kill himself to avoid good-old work
the pay and the perk
he sits on the seat
brushes sand from his feet
no pain no gain!
“philosophical shit”, he says with a smirk
to think he nearly lost his mind in the murk
a foolish attempt to shirk
the toil and the heat
he crosses the street
and vows to never come again
12
from the next morning everyone finds it odd
he talks less now, all hemmed and hawed
though work’s never flawed
he’s unusually curt
some call him introvert
they wonder but usually let him be
but say something happened and struck a chord
he’s all set for the employee-of-the-month award
the young men are awed
but some small issues he does skirt
like that tattered shirt
the fishermen found floating in the sea
My Experiments with Manhood
It feels funny to say the least. Having decided to write. Anyhow, there is a story that deserves to be said. I have never put it down on paper and I think it is forcing its way through. I think I'll finally tell the story of the when I rediscovered crying. It takes effort trying to force things out, but sometimes it is worth it.
The story starts with my music teacher. A man of about 30 called Mr. Madhukar Malvea who taught me the guitar. We in school called him Sir. Or maybe the story begins with the guitar. The first guitar I had was a Hawaiian guitar converted into a Spanish. There is a thing called the nut one has to take out of the Hawaiian to convert it into a pathetic Spanish guitar. The strings were an inch above the fret board and pressing them down would hurt like mad. One day we people, a gang of about four who used to learn from him, got a scolding from him for not practicing too hard and that touched some deep part of me. That day I played like there was no tomorrow and I overdid it. My fingers were small and soft and my ring finger bled. I was twelve.
That did it. I remember Madhukar Sir hugging me and later dressing my finger, feeling terribly guilty and telling me it was absolutely fine if I practiced less and that I should have told him when it hurt. Then finger somehow didn't hurt very much. It was numb long before it bled. But I remember that some strange bond developed that evening. Sir always had this soft corner for me since then. Add the respect and the love I had, and he was among the people I felt closest to. Ever since, I have been driven along my quest to play the guitar by the way Madhukar Sir played it. It is still the same. I still have to play it like he did. The sad part is that I don't remember anything that he played or the way he played it. I just remember it used to be really good. When I was in the eighth standard, Madhukar Sir had an accident. He had a massive head injury and was in a coma for a long time. In the end he survived. He lost his memory for some time and he could not play the guitar as well. The following year he had some kind of a relapse and meningitis. This time he died.
Seeing him dead felt funny, maybe strange. I had unconsciously always associated death with trauma. When I saw him, however, it looked the peaceful sight I had ever seen. He looked divine except for the cotton in his nostrils. People hugged me and wet my shirt. My mother cried. I somehow didn't. It was not like me trying to put on some show of strength. It just didn't come. I think I did not believe the whole masquerade in the first place. I didn't know if he was actually permanently dead. I actually doubted at one point whether I really adored the pin-up of a music teacher I thought I worshipped. Many a time I had even tried to force myself to cry. I eventually couldn't.
Often after that I felt something between funny and sad and sick and heavy in my chest, but only at times. About four months later I had a stupid argument with my parents on one of those juvenile topics I now forget, something like the phone, or friends or studies or something. Now, I used to go out to the terrace whenever I got thoroughly pissed at life. Thoroughly pissed I was, so up I went. And I cried. I was crying for some time when some part of the brain floated above the whole scene and sensed something ridiculous about it. I stopped.
This was funny and not just because the reasons were trivial and not worth crying for. I calculated and found that the last time I had cried - and I remember this because that was the biggest dry macho period in my life - was in the fourth standard. This was the end of the ninth. The glorious period was now over. I suddenly knew that funny-sad-sick feeling I used to get all this while for what it was. I felt that lump in the throat I had read about in stories. I felt chocked with some bulb I could not gulp down or soothe with deep breaths. It was there. All I could do was either ignore it and go about normal life, or force it out. On its own, it seemed to have decided to stay right where it was, not letting me breathe. A moment of calm thinking, and I took the disinterested decision one takes for pimples and scabs growing back on scars. I didn't like it, and I wanted it out.
I closed my eyes and thought about it all, about life and things… about Madhukar Sir. After this, it was all easy. I just sat there, tears running down. I was strangely detached from the whole scene. Crying after such a long time was almost interesting. I remember there was no major change in expression, no loud sounds, just tears… the lip quivers though. I never knew I could cry that much. The floor was wet when I stopped. My nose was stuffy. I felt good. It felt light. I got up and took a deep breath, and went down to look at the mirror.
In hindsight it was simple, I had known for a moment what I wanted to do and had gone ahead and done it. I felt more like a man than I ever felt in life.
The story starts with my music teacher. A man of about 30 called Mr. Madhukar Malvea who taught me the guitar. We in school called him Sir. Or maybe the story begins with the guitar. The first guitar I had was a Hawaiian guitar converted into a Spanish. There is a thing called the nut one has to take out of the Hawaiian to convert it into a pathetic Spanish guitar. The strings were an inch above the fret board and pressing them down would hurt like mad. One day we people, a gang of about four who used to learn from him, got a scolding from him for not practicing too hard and that touched some deep part of me. That day I played like there was no tomorrow and I overdid it. My fingers were small and soft and my ring finger bled. I was twelve.
That did it. I remember Madhukar Sir hugging me and later dressing my finger, feeling terribly guilty and telling me it was absolutely fine if I practiced less and that I should have told him when it hurt. Then finger somehow didn't hurt very much. It was numb long before it bled. But I remember that some strange bond developed that evening. Sir always had this soft corner for me since then. Add the respect and the love I had, and he was among the people I felt closest to. Ever since, I have been driven along my quest to play the guitar by the way Madhukar Sir played it. It is still the same. I still have to play it like he did. The sad part is that I don't remember anything that he played or the way he played it. I just remember it used to be really good. When I was in the eighth standard, Madhukar Sir had an accident. He had a massive head injury and was in a coma for a long time. In the end he survived. He lost his memory for some time and he could not play the guitar as well. The following year he had some kind of a relapse and meningitis. This time he died.
Seeing him dead felt funny, maybe strange. I had unconsciously always associated death with trauma. When I saw him, however, it looked the peaceful sight I had ever seen. He looked divine except for the cotton in his nostrils. People hugged me and wet my shirt. My mother cried. I somehow didn't. It was not like me trying to put on some show of strength. It just didn't come. I think I did not believe the whole masquerade in the first place. I didn't know if he was actually permanently dead. I actually doubted at one point whether I really adored the pin-up of a music teacher I thought I worshipped. Many a time I had even tried to force myself to cry. I eventually couldn't.
Often after that I felt something between funny and sad and sick and heavy in my chest, but only at times. About four months later I had a stupid argument with my parents on one of those juvenile topics I now forget, something like the phone, or friends or studies or something. Now, I used to go out to the terrace whenever I got thoroughly pissed at life. Thoroughly pissed I was, so up I went. And I cried. I was crying for some time when some part of the brain floated above the whole scene and sensed something ridiculous about it. I stopped.
This was funny and not just because the reasons were trivial and not worth crying for. I calculated and found that the last time I had cried - and I remember this because that was the biggest dry macho period in my life - was in the fourth standard. This was the end of the ninth. The glorious period was now over. I suddenly knew that funny-sad-sick feeling I used to get all this while for what it was. I felt that lump in the throat I had read about in stories. I felt chocked with some bulb I could not gulp down or soothe with deep breaths. It was there. All I could do was either ignore it and go about normal life, or force it out. On its own, it seemed to have decided to stay right where it was, not letting me breathe. A moment of calm thinking, and I took the disinterested decision one takes for pimples and scabs growing back on scars. I didn't like it, and I wanted it out.
I closed my eyes and thought about it all, about life and things… about Madhukar Sir. After this, it was all easy. I just sat there, tears running down. I was strangely detached from the whole scene. Crying after such a long time was almost interesting. I remember there was no major change in expression, no loud sounds, just tears… the lip quivers though. I never knew I could cry that much. The floor was wet when I stopped. My nose was stuffy. I felt good. It felt light. I got up and took a deep breath, and went down to look at the mirror.
In hindsight it was simple, I had known for a moment what I wanted to do and had gone ahead and done it. I felt more like a man than I ever felt in life.
Table for Two
“Table for two, Sir?”
Actually the first conversation he remembered after having met her was this same line, many years back. How time passes.
“I’ll be back”, he said, and crossed the street again, with the air of someone who had forgotten something in the car. Just this morning in the hotel, he was having this conversation with Mukherjee over tea – about how the art of repeating words in English writing was a dying trend. The example he had used was ‘many, many years ago’.
He blinked, and stood there.
Calcutta, many people feel, is more than a city. He remembered reading in a Hindi book called Aadha Gaon about how for people of a little village called Gazipur it was just another name for parting – better translated, for apartness. For some other people like him, it was the only place he felt togetherness. Just this morning, when he got down the train at Howrah, took the subway to the Ferry-Ghat and took his ticket. He was wondering how he still remembers where the counter was, and even what the fare was the last time he took that ride. Calcutta, in its muddy red colour, was etched somewhere among lines on of his palm. To him, the city was a time warp. Some things had changed. Quite a lot of things were new for him in fact, bridges, flyovers, fancy cars with loud stereos and crazy cosmopolitan kids that were trying hard to make Calcutta like any other city. But when he scratched beneath the surface, or knocked with his knuckles on some freshly plastered wall, the city, as he remembered it, still resounded with a familiar ring. Like that time – many, many years ago.
He paid the taxi driver, walked to a little cement mound on Bishop Lefroy Street and stood there. The Pipal tree was no longer there. Maybe it was a thunderstorm, or maybe just another new beautification measure. Thankfully, they had still left the small pit as a marker of where the past stood. And on the wall behind it, among with ageing posters of some political rally and old algae, one could make out slogans urging students to give up drugs and to keep Calcutta green. There was still a faceless cigarette stall and some new tea vendor. Around the perpetually shouting tea vendor, there were similar green wooden benches, scrawny shameless children who worked at the tea stall and kurta-trouser-clad stubbly men sitting around with newspapers and discussing the latest cricket match India lost and how it could have been won. The customary yellow ambassadors lay open in the shadows, with the taxi-drivers sleeping on the rear seat, mouths and shirts open. Nothing really had changed.
The momo place was just a lane away from his old office, his lunch hangout. Of-course, his mother never accepted what he had as lunch; she called these momos snacks at best. But that was fine with him. Not many people knew of its existence then. He was sure a lot of people still did not. Again, guided by the same map in the lines of his hands, he walked automatically from the Tata Tea office, crossed the road, crossed the Metro station, and walked into the small by-lane that most people didn’t even know existed. And like always, he smiled when he saw the same yellow board in the stylized English font, to make it look more Chinese. He remembered how he’d come with a bunch of friends here and how they had been convinced when they saw ‘Tibetan Delight’ written in that weird font, that it was a hidden whorehouse. There had been no whores, but the best momos they had had in Calcutta.
The first time he had met Esha, he had brought her here. Not so much for the food, but to show off his knowledge of hidden places in Calcutta. That was his ultimate proof to her, of being a ‘true-bong’. He had been born and brought up outside Calcutta, and wasn’t as fluent in Bengali as Esha was. In fact, in those days, in the time he took to read where the bus was going, the bus used to pass him. But then someone who knew Calcutta so well had to be a true-bong. He remembered all that clearly, she had been impressed. “Very, very impressive”, she had said as they walked the narrow alley into the dimly lit place – another double-word expression.
“Table for two, Sir?” asked the waiter.
“Table for two, non-smoking” answered Esha. It was funny how she completely familiar she was with the place as soon as they were in. She was one of these people who are born comfortable in their skin. She seemed to know everything from some previous birth where all of it had already happened.
“And now you’ll tell me that the table wouldn’t smoke anyway?” her eyes twinkled, lighting up the poor place. He smiled, she knew that one too. He still didn’t understand why his chest swelled with pride as she gave the waiter a polite nod and ordered after just one cursory glance at the menu. And as she launched into her daily routine of how the day before and after this lunch would be a harrowing time, he smiled and just couldn’t stop feeling happy. He felt then, like he did again, as if his lungs would burst with happiness. He had felt like shouting out loud. She was a journalist with the Statesman. He was a beginner with Tata Tea. They both we felt the other person was doing an important job in his or her organisation. They were young. Those days both of them still felt we would ‘really-really’ be someone significant one day.
Memory is a funny thing. About Esha he remembered everything. How they met for the first time in an advertising workshop, and then he had shown her some of his writings. They had gone on to discover things in common, as is customary in the initial days. They travelled together after finishing work, and how the wind wove into her hair, and how she pushed the obstinate curls back with her hand. She almost always had a pen in that hand of hers… long thin, expressive fingers. When they ate in Tibetan Delight, her foot would always hit the stand of the table and she’d say sorry to him, thinking that was his foot. And once when it was really his foot, she’d casually hit it many times with the beat of the song in the background, thinking it was the foot of the table. He had not removed his foot, and not mentioned it again. It was strange that he did not remember so many things about other women he had known after that, some for very long times and on quite intimate terms.
Not that she gave him a lot of importance. On the other hand, it was more like she took him in her stride. She’d casually joke about him, not let him smoke, imitate his seriousness and then, after he had finished some tale about something very important in life, she’d just say, “Ok, but listen, did I tell you about this time I went to the Mother Teresa home?”
How we find the most irritating things endearing when the time is right. And when we find ourselves behaving strangely, making allowances for someone for things we can’t stand in others, we convince ourselves we are in love.
“May I help you sir?”
“What?”
“You’ve come here before sir? I remember having seen you.”
“Yes”
He had, in his reverie, walked along the same alley again and come to the door of the place. He didn’t even realise. Signs of growing old, he told himself, and shrugged and took off his coat.
“Sir, if you don’t mind, are you Mr. Bhubhon? You used to come here with that lady, right sir? Table for two, Sir? Non-smoking?”
Sometimes people in Calcutta are painfully nosey without meaning harm. It takes a while to realise the poor people are just trying to be friendly, or maybe this one was genuinely happy at having located a customer from the early days of the struggling restaurant. He smiled at the waiter.
“Table for one, smoking”
“Uh, of-course Sir. This way Sir. But if you don’t mind my asking, you had been trying to give up smoking, right Sir”
“Yes, I gave up. But I smoke now. There were other things I gave up. And anyway, all that was a long time back… a long, long time back.”
He lit up his cigarette and kept staring at it.
Actually the first conversation he remembered after having met her was this same line, many years back. How time passes.
“I’ll be back”, he said, and crossed the street again, with the air of someone who had forgotten something in the car. Just this morning in the hotel, he was having this conversation with Mukherjee over tea – about how the art of repeating words in English writing was a dying trend. The example he had used was ‘many, many years ago’.
He blinked, and stood there.
Calcutta, many people feel, is more than a city. He remembered reading in a Hindi book called Aadha Gaon about how for people of a little village called Gazipur it was just another name for parting – better translated, for apartness. For some other people like him, it was the only place he felt togetherness. Just this morning, when he got down the train at Howrah, took the subway to the Ferry-Ghat and took his ticket. He was wondering how he still remembers where the counter was, and even what the fare was the last time he took that ride. Calcutta, in its muddy red colour, was etched somewhere among lines on of his palm. To him, the city was a time warp. Some things had changed. Quite a lot of things were new for him in fact, bridges, flyovers, fancy cars with loud stereos and crazy cosmopolitan kids that were trying hard to make Calcutta like any other city. But when he scratched beneath the surface, or knocked with his knuckles on some freshly plastered wall, the city, as he remembered it, still resounded with a familiar ring. Like that time – many, many years ago.
He paid the taxi driver, walked to a little cement mound on Bishop Lefroy Street and stood there. The Pipal tree was no longer there. Maybe it was a thunderstorm, or maybe just another new beautification measure. Thankfully, they had still left the small pit as a marker of where the past stood. And on the wall behind it, among with ageing posters of some political rally and old algae, one could make out slogans urging students to give up drugs and to keep Calcutta green. There was still a faceless cigarette stall and some new tea vendor. Around the perpetually shouting tea vendor, there were similar green wooden benches, scrawny shameless children who worked at the tea stall and kurta-trouser-clad stubbly men sitting around with newspapers and discussing the latest cricket match India lost and how it could have been won. The customary yellow ambassadors lay open in the shadows, with the taxi-drivers sleeping on the rear seat, mouths and shirts open. Nothing really had changed.
The momo place was just a lane away from his old office, his lunch hangout. Of-course, his mother never accepted what he had as lunch; she called these momos snacks at best. But that was fine with him. Not many people knew of its existence then. He was sure a lot of people still did not. Again, guided by the same map in the lines of his hands, he walked automatically from the Tata Tea office, crossed the road, crossed the Metro station, and walked into the small by-lane that most people didn’t even know existed. And like always, he smiled when he saw the same yellow board in the stylized English font, to make it look more Chinese. He remembered how he’d come with a bunch of friends here and how they had been convinced when they saw ‘Tibetan Delight’ written in that weird font, that it was a hidden whorehouse. There had been no whores, but the best momos they had had in Calcutta.
The first time he had met Esha, he had brought her here. Not so much for the food, but to show off his knowledge of hidden places in Calcutta. That was his ultimate proof to her, of being a ‘true-bong’. He had been born and brought up outside Calcutta, and wasn’t as fluent in Bengali as Esha was. In fact, in those days, in the time he took to read where the bus was going, the bus used to pass him. But then someone who knew Calcutta so well had to be a true-bong. He remembered all that clearly, she had been impressed. “Very, very impressive”, she had said as they walked the narrow alley into the dimly lit place – another double-word expression.
“Table for two, Sir?” asked the waiter.
“Table for two, non-smoking” answered Esha. It was funny how she completely familiar she was with the place as soon as they were in. She was one of these people who are born comfortable in their skin. She seemed to know everything from some previous birth where all of it had already happened.
“And now you’ll tell me that the table wouldn’t smoke anyway?” her eyes twinkled, lighting up the poor place. He smiled, she knew that one too. He still didn’t understand why his chest swelled with pride as she gave the waiter a polite nod and ordered after just one cursory glance at the menu. And as she launched into her daily routine of how the day before and after this lunch would be a harrowing time, he smiled and just couldn’t stop feeling happy. He felt then, like he did again, as if his lungs would burst with happiness. He had felt like shouting out loud. She was a journalist with the Statesman. He was a beginner with Tata Tea. They both we felt the other person was doing an important job in his or her organisation. They were young. Those days both of them still felt we would ‘really-really’ be someone significant one day.
Memory is a funny thing. About Esha he remembered everything. How they met for the first time in an advertising workshop, and then he had shown her some of his writings. They had gone on to discover things in common, as is customary in the initial days. They travelled together after finishing work, and how the wind wove into her hair, and how she pushed the obstinate curls back with her hand. She almost always had a pen in that hand of hers… long thin, expressive fingers. When they ate in Tibetan Delight, her foot would always hit the stand of the table and she’d say sorry to him, thinking that was his foot. And once when it was really his foot, she’d casually hit it many times with the beat of the song in the background, thinking it was the foot of the table. He had not removed his foot, and not mentioned it again. It was strange that he did not remember so many things about other women he had known after that, some for very long times and on quite intimate terms.
Not that she gave him a lot of importance. On the other hand, it was more like she took him in her stride. She’d casually joke about him, not let him smoke, imitate his seriousness and then, after he had finished some tale about something very important in life, she’d just say, “Ok, but listen, did I tell you about this time I went to the Mother Teresa home?”
How we find the most irritating things endearing when the time is right. And when we find ourselves behaving strangely, making allowances for someone for things we can’t stand in others, we convince ourselves we are in love.
“May I help you sir?”
“What?”
“You’ve come here before sir? I remember having seen you.”
“Yes”
He had, in his reverie, walked along the same alley again and come to the door of the place. He didn’t even realise. Signs of growing old, he told himself, and shrugged and took off his coat.
“Sir, if you don’t mind, are you Mr. Bhubhon? You used to come here with that lady, right sir? Table for two, Sir? Non-smoking?”
Sometimes people in Calcutta are painfully nosey without meaning harm. It takes a while to realise the poor people are just trying to be friendly, or maybe this one was genuinely happy at having located a customer from the early days of the struggling restaurant. He smiled at the waiter.
“Table for one, smoking”
“Uh, of-course Sir. This way Sir. But if you don’t mind my asking, you had been trying to give up smoking, right Sir”
“Yes, I gave up. But I smoke now. There were other things I gave up. And anyway, all that was a long time back… a long, long time back.”
He lit up his cigarette and kept staring at it.
Rajo the Rag Doll
As children, we often thought people were like trees. When they were young, they had shiny leaves, then they grew tall and lanky, then they grew weightier, finally growing gnarled and old and shrivelled, till they stooped and died one night in a storm. Of course, I have left the part about babies - that brought us considerable embarrassment. For instance, once I remember my Amma trying very hard to convince me that women who had babies before marriage were bad women. To my mind, it was like trees bearing fruit. When the woman was old enough, there would be children. And how was it her fault if her parents did not marry her off till that time?
Amma, my grandmother, kept sitting in her old chair with the rosary in her hand or lying in her bed under the fan that was always running at minimum speed. The rosary was always in her hand, moving slowly in trembling fingers. It grew out of her hand. Amma herself was like an old, gnarled guava tree. And like a tree, Amma hardly moved, she had roots that had grown into her chair. Everyone in the house had a place. The cook had his place behind the kitchen and Gangubai, the one who swept the house and cleaned dishes, was always found in her room on the roof, smoking her bidi, the slender stick of tobacco rolled in a leaf that I always thought more stylish than the cigarette Papa smoked. Somehow it was wrong if a woman smoked a cigarette, but bidis were fine. The people who were poor smoked them and not all rules applied to them.
I learned the poor could smoke bidis, drink, stay away from home and marry more than once. The rich people could not do any of it. Gangubai could roam around with men, joke with shopkeepers and when she walked; her skirt swirled around her knees while the men in the street whistled. My mother could do nothing like this. I and my sister could not loot kites like the street children, we could not smoke bidis and we could not even swear, because we were not poor.
The saddest part was that we weren't even actually rich. It seemed Papa's grandfather had a lot of money and land that he left behind in Pakistan when the British divided our country and left. I don't understand the part after that. We had a big house but no money. That was okay, but for some vague reason, we were still 'higher' than the 'lower' classes and we had to live by stupid rules and restrictions while they could make merry. In the night when the labourers who lived on a corner of our land came back from work, they would sit around a fire and sing loud songs in a language slightly different from ours. It seemed so much nicer to be poor.
To make being rich worse, there was Babulal Driver. I learned later that his name was Babulal while his 'post' was 'driver'. That time if you'd asked me, I would have perhaps told you his name was Babulal Driver, or maybe that his post was Babulal Driver. It was slightly like that in those days. When people asked me which class I studied in, I used to tell them LKG-A, or First-A as the case may be. The ‘A’ came together. Also, I was proud of always being in the A section by some twist of fate even when most children had their sections changed each year.
Babulal Driver used to bring me and my sister back from school sometimes, when Papa did not go to the office. What a man! He was just seventeen years old but shrivelled like an old tree before his time. He was born in the mountains, he said, and the bad weather and the cold shrivel up the men and the trees there. He had tiny slits of eyes that always seemed to be smiling, even when he was sad. Of his eyes and mouth, only one would remain open at a given time. When he opened his mouth to laugh, his eyes would shut. He talked funny (‘saab’ was ‘shaab’ for him) and walked with a limp. But he made up for all that by his formidable skills behind the wheel. He sometimes joked he was in the circus before the Government gave him a job. We knew this wasn't true because Papa told us his father was also a Driver and he died in an accident and then Babulal Driver got his father's job and he left school. He would do the most amazing things, suddenly start driving with his feet on the steering wheel or pretend to drive while he was sleeping (I told you about his eyes, it wasn’t difficult for him to do this). He did more dangerous stunts like get off the Jeep where the slope started and run alongside, while we children would scream for him to save us. He would then jump in at the last moment and save us. He was very brave but we never understood why he was so scared in front of my parents and why he had forbade us from telling anyone about his stunts, I think he lived a double, make-believe life, like Superman.
When Babulal Driver was caught stealing mangoes from our garden, he was fired and told that his family ought to be ashamed of him. We children did not know what was so wrong – we stole mangoes ourselves. But the day he left, he came to see us two sisters. And that was the first time we had known that Babulal Driver, our Superman, cried.
Anyway, the more important part of the story begins now. When Babulal left, he gave us a rag doll. Its name was Rajo. Actually his daughter’s name was Rajo and he had made the doll to be with her, as he told us. After he had wished us the best in life, and hugged us and cried a lot, he said he did not need her as he was going to die. We did not realise fully what was happening, but we also started crying. Then he told us his plan. He was ashamed and he did not have a job. His wife had run away with his brother, taking Rajo (the daughter) with her. Also he would not get a job now since his ‘reputation’ was stained. So he will walk to the hill in the next village and jump. I somehow felt bad for him, but also felt let down since it didn’t fit his Superman image.
Just by the way, it wasn’t actually the end. It seems he was lying as usual. I heard long after that that he was sighted driving a white government ambassador car, in a khaki uniform. My Dad had run into him in a market, and he had still saluted and said “Shalaam Shaab”. Anyhow, in this whole drama, Rajo (the doll) remained with us.
She stayed with us so long that we almost forgot her. I and my sister slept with her. By turns, we would get her to sleep with, and the other one invariably couldn’t sleep and stayed up till the one with Rajo slept, then stole her and slept with her. We would get up and unconsciously grope for her under our pillows, bed sheets and then the bed. We would usually have her under an arm as we held the toothbrushes to our teeth, mouth stretched in a sleepy grin, waiting for our mother to look the other way. When that happened, we would quickly throw out the water, rinse our mouths and run into the bathroom. Whoever finished first got the bathroom first. Now that I remember, I think at those moments, with the toothbrushes in our mouths, was the only time we could have looked like Babulal Driver’s daughter, assuming she looked like Rajo the rag doll.
Since she was supposed to resemble someone from the mountains, or maybe because she was made clumsily, she aged very fast. She first lost her teeth, which were made of seeds stuck to her permanent woollen smile. Then, the first time she had a bath in the river with us, she lost one eye, and her skin lost colour. Eventually, she lost her clothes and her pigtail (that actually our new driver’s son tore off, and we couldn’t stick it back again) but her left eye stuck on, and her smile stayed firmly stitched. And if it was possible, she became more warm, lifeless but cuddly like Amma. I and my sister often fought over who would keep her if we were sent to different schools, or if we joined different colleges, or if we married two boys who were not brothers and lived in different houses.
Once we almost lost her, when we were stealing mangoes from our neighbour’s tree and my sister forgot about her in the hurry to get back with six green mangoes clutched in her skirt. We got her back in the night itself, when we couldn’t sleep without her. Plus I had decided that her being found would be too much ‘proof’ and we could go to jail for stealing. And another time, my sister just forgot it under a pile of bedclothes and we thought it was lost and we created such a ruckus. The entire house was turned upside down while we insisted that the new driver’s son stole it and burnt it, as he had once threatened to do.
All this, of-course, was before we actually lost her. Rajo stayed with us so long that we started forgetting about her. We were growing up, and we often fell asleep without worrying about where she was. I assumed she was with my sister, and she assumed likewise. And then she would be found days later in the trash that was about to be thrown off. This was one good thing about my mother. She always used to call one of us sisters to check if there was something being thrown off that we wanted to keep. We often picked up things from the junk, like used thread-reels or broken records that we thought could fit into the dollhouse, or that looked pretty. Rajo often came back from such an end when we spotted her. To tell the truth, she was not a necessity any more. All the same, she had been with us too long. We had thought about giving her to some urchin child, but in the end, always decided against it. I don’t really know what made us stick on to her. We did not remember Babulal Driver anymore, or the story about his daughter we had never seen. In fact, what made us decide about her finally was a fairly simple thing.
It was my father, of all people, who bought us a new doll. He had gone to the city to buy some things for the marriage of one of our cousins, and he had seen the doll in a shop. It was the stuff our dreams were made off. She was like the dolls we saw in the glass windows of big shops when we went to the city. We were too confused to come up with a name for her. Rajo had come to us pre-named. We never had to do this before because – a fact that now struck us as strange – we never had another doll. Somehow, everything about the new doll suggested we should give her an English sounding name. She wore a real, small frock; unlike Rajo who wore…well, nothing. She was made of plastic, and had the most beautiful blue eyes, which, believe it or not, closed by themselves if you made her lie down. She was so pretty that we couldn’t stop looking at her. After years, me and my sister again fought over who should have the doll to sleep with.
I think we named her Diana or something, I think she was the wife of Phantom in some book my sister had read. But we forgot her name soon after.
We made a house for her out of a shoebox, and we lined it with parts of an old sari and she fitted in almost perfect into that. We postponed the pillow for another day, and we reached the critical question. What should we do with Rajo? I was willing to give her to my sister, but she didn’t want her. I kept saying Rajo is nice but in my heart of hearts I did not believe that. I knew Rajo was not nice, clearly inferior in front of this new foreign doll. We talked till night fell around us, and we decided to throw her away, finally.
Now when I look back at it, it wasn’t a hard decision to make. The tough part was saying it, and yes, actually taking her to the garbage can and throwing her was also tough. I finally got my sister to do it. She was quite calm about the whole thing. She came back, said “It’s done” in a sinister tone, grabbed the new doll and flopped on her bed. I stayed awake for a long time that night, and I think so did my sister, though she had her back to me.
It was around one-thirty in the night (you see, I remember the grandfather’s-clock in the hall struck once too many times that night, so I later calculated it must have been one strike each for twelve-thirty, then for one, then for one-thirty (and yes, I never figured out why it was called a grandfather’s-clock, it was my uncle’s actually, who died early from drinking too much)). I was watching the shadow of the gulmohor-tree on the wall, clawing in the air and much bigger than the actual tree; when my sister suddenly got up and said she was feeling cold.
Then she said imagine how cold Gangubai must be feeling (remember Gangubai? Our maid? Bidis?)…. And then the thought struck us both together.
How cold must Rajo be feeling?
Diana was comfortable in her shoebox, tucked up and warm, while Rajo was – I shuddered to think – in a cold metal dustbin. Oh no! How could we do this?
I remember reading the word ‘horror-struck’ some years later and I remembered that night all over again. We didn’t know what to do. Going out into the night to retrieve Rajo was a scary thought, and nothing else struck us. We could try calling Gangubai from the window, and asking her to go and look for Rajo and cover her up, or bring her to our room, but then we knew Gangubai never did what we told her to do unless we said so in front of Mummy. After being ‘horror-struck’ for a while and talking about it frantically, we decided there was no other way but to go out ourselves and bring her back.
Now I can’t remember what we were so scared of in the night – I guess everything. Everything we had heard of that had ever happened to anyone in the night came to haunt us. Witches, ghosts, draculas, snakes, scorpions, lizards, creepers that came alive in the night (I think I was more scared of the word ‘creeper’ – gave me a creepy feeling, as if it would creep over me slowly, starting at my feet, and then strangle me), dogs (those days it was 14 injections) and everything else.
We managed to reach the dustbin, and then had a tough time finding Rajo. We had to forage through the days junk, and vegetable peels and sodden paper bags, and we were fighting all the time because I felt my sister must not have thrown Rajo there but somewhere else, and she was insisting she was right there in the bin. We finally found her, wet and dirty and smelly. And we felt really bad for what we had done. We washed her and tried to dry her with a towel, sprayed some of Mummy’s perfume over her, and tucked her up warmly in the shoebox. Diana was anyway in my sister’s bed. And finally at around three in the morning, we slept.
We kept her for a long time, as Diana’s servant.
And we never lost her after that. She always had Diana’s bed to sleep on, and she even got a lot of cotton in her box to fluff-up the bed. She was there till the day the doll-house burnt down; but of-course that’s another story.
We grew up with time. My sister still feels it was a very mean thing to do, and hasn’t forgiven herself still for that dustbin-foraging night. I’m a school-teacher now, and she’s handling South-East Asia for a soft-toys’ company. She insisted that if I ever write this down, I never mention her name.
Amma, my grandmother, kept sitting in her old chair with the rosary in her hand or lying in her bed under the fan that was always running at minimum speed. The rosary was always in her hand, moving slowly in trembling fingers. It grew out of her hand. Amma herself was like an old, gnarled guava tree. And like a tree, Amma hardly moved, she had roots that had grown into her chair. Everyone in the house had a place. The cook had his place behind the kitchen and Gangubai, the one who swept the house and cleaned dishes, was always found in her room on the roof, smoking her bidi, the slender stick of tobacco rolled in a leaf that I always thought more stylish than the cigarette Papa smoked. Somehow it was wrong if a woman smoked a cigarette, but bidis were fine. The people who were poor smoked them and not all rules applied to them.
I learned the poor could smoke bidis, drink, stay away from home and marry more than once. The rich people could not do any of it. Gangubai could roam around with men, joke with shopkeepers and when she walked; her skirt swirled around her knees while the men in the street whistled. My mother could do nothing like this. I and my sister could not loot kites like the street children, we could not smoke bidis and we could not even swear, because we were not poor.
The saddest part was that we weren't even actually rich. It seemed Papa's grandfather had a lot of money and land that he left behind in Pakistan when the British divided our country and left. I don't understand the part after that. We had a big house but no money. That was okay, but for some vague reason, we were still 'higher' than the 'lower' classes and we had to live by stupid rules and restrictions while they could make merry. In the night when the labourers who lived on a corner of our land came back from work, they would sit around a fire and sing loud songs in a language slightly different from ours. It seemed so much nicer to be poor.
To make being rich worse, there was Babulal Driver. I learned later that his name was Babulal while his 'post' was 'driver'. That time if you'd asked me, I would have perhaps told you his name was Babulal Driver, or maybe that his post was Babulal Driver. It was slightly like that in those days. When people asked me which class I studied in, I used to tell them LKG-A, or First-A as the case may be. The ‘A’ came together. Also, I was proud of always being in the A section by some twist of fate even when most children had their sections changed each year.
Babulal Driver used to bring me and my sister back from school sometimes, when Papa did not go to the office. What a man! He was just seventeen years old but shrivelled like an old tree before his time. He was born in the mountains, he said, and the bad weather and the cold shrivel up the men and the trees there. He had tiny slits of eyes that always seemed to be smiling, even when he was sad. Of his eyes and mouth, only one would remain open at a given time. When he opened his mouth to laugh, his eyes would shut. He talked funny (‘saab’ was ‘shaab’ for him) and walked with a limp. But he made up for all that by his formidable skills behind the wheel. He sometimes joked he was in the circus before the Government gave him a job. We knew this wasn't true because Papa told us his father was also a Driver and he died in an accident and then Babulal Driver got his father's job and he left school. He would do the most amazing things, suddenly start driving with his feet on the steering wheel or pretend to drive while he was sleeping (I told you about his eyes, it wasn’t difficult for him to do this). He did more dangerous stunts like get off the Jeep where the slope started and run alongside, while we children would scream for him to save us. He would then jump in at the last moment and save us. He was very brave but we never understood why he was so scared in front of my parents and why he had forbade us from telling anyone about his stunts, I think he lived a double, make-believe life, like Superman.
When Babulal Driver was caught stealing mangoes from our garden, he was fired and told that his family ought to be ashamed of him. We children did not know what was so wrong – we stole mangoes ourselves. But the day he left, he came to see us two sisters. And that was the first time we had known that Babulal Driver, our Superman, cried.
Anyway, the more important part of the story begins now. When Babulal left, he gave us a rag doll. Its name was Rajo. Actually his daughter’s name was Rajo and he had made the doll to be with her, as he told us. After he had wished us the best in life, and hugged us and cried a lot, he said he did not need her as he was going to die. We did not realise fully what was happening, but we also started crying. Then he told us his plan. He was ashamed and he did not have a job. His wife had run away with his brother, taking Rajo (the daughter) with her. Also he would not get a job now since his ‘reputation’ was stained. So he will walk to the hill in the next village and jump. I somehow felt bad for him, but also felt let down since it didn’t fit his Superman image.
Just by the way, it wasn’t actually the end. It seems he was lying as usual. I heard long after that that he was sighted driving a white government ambassador car, in a khaki uniform. My Dad had run into him in a market, and he had still saluted and said “Shalaam Shaab”. Anyhow, in this whole drama, Rajo (the doll) remained with us.
She stayed with us so long that we almost forgot her. I and my sister slept with her. By turns, we would get her to sleep with, and the other one invariably couldn’t sleep and stayed up till the one with Rajo slept, then stole her and slept with her. We would get up and unconsciously grope for her under our pillows, bed sheets and then the bed. We would usually have her under an arm as we held the toothbrushes to our teeth, mouth stretched in a sleepy grin, waiting for our mother to look the other way. When that happened, we would quickly throw out the water, rinse our mouths and run into the bathroom. Whoever finished first got the bathroom first. Now that I remember, I think at those moments, with the toothbrushes in our mouths, was the only time we could have looked like Babulal Driver’s daughter, assuming she looked like Rajo the rag doll.
Since she was supposed to resemble someone from the mountains, or maybe because she was made clumsily, she aged very fast. She first lost her teeth, which were made of seeds stuck to her permanent woollen smile. Then, the first time she had a bath in the river with us, she lost one eye, and her skin lost colour. Eventually, she lost her clothes and her pigtail (that actually our new driver’s son tore off, and we couldn’t stick it back again) but her left eye stuck on, and her smile stayed firmly stitched. And if it was possible, she became more warm, lifeless but cuddly like Amma. I and my sister often fought over who would keep her if we were sent to different schools, or if we joined different colleges, or if we married two boys who were not brothers and lived in different houses.
Once we almost lost her, when we were stealing mangoes from our neighbour’s tree and my sister forgot about her in the hurry to get back with six green mangoes clutched in her skirt. We got her back in the night itself, when we couldn’t sleep without her. Plus I had decided that her being found would be too much ‘proof’ and we could go to jail for stealing. And another time, my sister just forgot it under a pile of bedclothes and we thought it was lost and we created such a ruckus. The entire house was turned upside down while we insisted that the new driver’s son stole it and burnt it, as he had once threatened to do.
All this, of-course, was before we actually lost her. Rajo stayed with us so long that we started forgetting about her. We were growing up, and we often fell asleep without worrying about where she was. I assumed she was with my sister, and she assumed likewise. And then she would be found days later in the trash that was about to be thrown off. This was one good thing about my mother. She always used to call one of us sisters to check if there was something being thrown off that we wanted to keep. We often picked up things from the junk, like used thread-reels or broken records that we thought could fit into the dollhouse, or that looked pretty. Rajo often came back from such an end when we spotted her. To tell the truth, she was not a necessity any more. All the same, she had been with us too long. We had thought about giving her to some urchin child, but in the end, always decided against it. I don’t really know what made us stick on to her. We did not remember Babulal Driver anymore, or the story about his daughter we had never seen. In fact, what made us decide about her finally was a fairly simple thing.
It was my father, of all people, who bought us a new doll. He had gone to the city to buy some things for the marriage of one of our cousins, and he had seen the doll in a shop. It was the stuff our dreams were made off. She was like the dolls we saw in the glass windows of big shops when we went to the city. We were too confused to come up with a name for her. Rajo had come to us pre-named. We never had to do this before because – a fact that now struck us as strange – we never had another doll. Somehow, everything about the new doll suggested we should give her an English sounding name. She wore a real, small frock; unlike Rajo who wore…well, nothing. She was made of plastic, and had the most beautiful blue eyes, which, believe it or not, closed by themselves if you made her lie down. She was so pretty that we couldn’t stop looking at her. After years, me and my sister again fought over who should have the doll to sleep with.
I think we named her Diana or something, I think she was the wife of Phantom in some book my sister had read. But we forgot her name soon after.
We made a house for her out of a shoebox, and we lined it with parts of an old sari and she fitted in almost perfect into that. We postponed the pillow for another day, and we reached the critical question. What should we do with Rajo? I was willing to give her to my sister, but she didn’t want her. I kept saying Rajo is nice but in my heart of hearts I did not believe that. I knew Rajo was not nice, clearly inferior in front of this new foreign doll. We talked till night fell around us, and we decided to throw her away, finally.
Now when I look back at it, it wasn’t a hard decision to make. The tough part was saying it, and yes, actually taking her to the garbage can and throwing her was also tough. I finally got my sister to do it. She was quite calm about the whole thing. She came back, said “It’s done” in a sinister tone, grabbed the new doll and flopped on her bed. I stayed awake for a long time that night, and I think so did my sister, though she had her back to me.
It was around one-thirty in the night (you see, I remember the grandfather’s-clock in the hall struck once too many times that night, so I later calculated it must have been one strike each for twelve-thirty, then for one, then for one-thirty (and yes, I never figured out why it was called a grandfather’s-clock, it was my uncle’s actually, who died early from drinking too much)). I was watching the shadow of the gulmohor-tree on the wall, clawing in the air and much bigger than the actual tree; when my sister suddenly got up and said she was feeling cold.
Then she said imagine how cold Gangubai must be feeling (remember Gangubai? Our maid? Bidis?)…. And then the thought struck us both together.
How cold must Rajo be feeling?
Diana was comfortable in her shoebox, tucked up and warm, while Rajo was – I shuddered to think – in a cold metal dustbin. Oh no! How could we do this?
I remember reading the word ‘horror-struck’ some years later and I remembered that night all over again. We didn’t know what to do. Going out into the night to retrieve Rajo was a scary thought, and nothing else struck us. We could try calling Gangubai from the window, and asking her to go and look for Rajo and cover her up, or bring her to our room, but then we knew Gangubai never did what we told her to do unless we said so in front of Mummy. After being ‘horror-struck’ for a while and talking about it frantically, we decided there was no other way but to go out ourselves and bring her back.
Now I can’t remember what we were so scared of in the night – I guess everything. Everything we had heard of that had ever happened to anyone in the night came to haunt us. Witches, ghosts, draculas, snakes, scorpions, lizards, creepers that came alive in the night (I think I was more scared of the word ‘creeper’ – gave me a creepy feeling, as if it would creep over me slowly, starting at my feet, and then strangle me), dogs (those days it was 14 injections) and everything else.
We managed to reach the dustbin, and then had a tough time finding Rajo. We had to forage through the days junk, and vegetable peels and sodden paper bags, and we were fighting all the time because I felt my sister must not have thrown Rajo there but somewhere else, and she was insisting she was right there in the bin. We finally found her, wet and dirty and smelly. And we felt really bad for what we had done. We washed her and tried to dry her with a towel, sprayed some of Mummy’s perfume over her, and tucked her up warmly in the shoebox. Diana was anyway in my sister’s bed. And finally at around three in the morning, we slept.
We kept her for a long time, as Diana’s servant.
And we never lost her after that. She always had Diana’s bed to sleep on, and she even got a lot of cotton in her box to fluff-up the bed. She was there till the day the doll-house burnt down; but of-course that’s another story.
We grew up with time. My sister still feels it was a very mean thing to do, and hasn’t forgiven herself still for that dustbin-foraging night. I’m a school-teacher now, and she’s handling South-East Asia for a soft-toys’ company. She insisted that if I ever write this down, I never mention her name.
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