a perennial vacation, or vocation?

If there is such a thing would it kill to be on it for yes ever? The idea stems from the notion of necessity and happiness. You choose either, you equally necessitate the help of the other. While working, say I meet someone who has mixed his worlds so well that for him it is not a case of choice, it is just an extension and a natural one at that. Tom White washes away the fence.

Is it really that troublesome to go the whole hog and make en effort to be not unlike the little Sawyer who brought his qualms and his fountain of happiness together? For him, it was easy. It’s a short story, a figment of imagination. What else can you expect? Nevertheless. his fiendish cleverness helps him manipulate the world around him to suit his needs. Isn’t selfishness a bit over-rated and a tad over-demonized? I would refrain going down the Rand way though much as I like to dislike a Randish observation I am completely in agreement with some of her love letters. I would not go down that way for despite my affinity for digression I should better stick with a stick than a tree.

I am yet to see Sawyer rising from the pages of my 5th standard English Literature book and standing tall in-front of me. Though, small as he is I might have had a head held too high to notice someone standing right in-front of me. These things do happen sometimes and there is  no one you can blame for your negligence. So many people, so many stories..how many can you listen to? It might not be a case of small sample as well and there might be a null set yet to be proved and too difficult/subjective to prove.

The irony of a cliche is, it leads to another, then another and so on and so forth  till you come back to the original and start believing  in self-enlightenment.  I should better warp those in words and package it completely new so it rings in an epiphany. So photosynthetic. Romantically magical.

From the looks of it the man (or men?) peering through the pages seem incorruptible to me. For, from where I see it he has mastered sawyerism and is tendulkaristic in his feats. He has gangulified the dravidian task, a herculean effort I must say. But then, as I sit back on my bag (with missing beans) I am reminded of a phrase that would send one and all to the grave-pity I have no beans to spill on that front. So I constrain myself, again, and in more ways than one, as I am wont to do more often than not. For God’s sake, open this world a little more.

But then, when you were a kid was not a closed out world way better?

A hundred rupee note

As he walked down the stairs towards the platform, the hustle that accompanies the sound of the approaching train commenced. While the train hurtled towards its 2 minute stop at Khar, the man dodged a slurry of people going the other way, jumped a couple of steps and running as fast as he could boarded the Virar bound local. It was 5 pm on a moist May evening and as the train left the station, raindrops materialized over the broken windows, washed the dirty exteriors of the train and announced the arrival of monsoon over Maximum city.

It had been a good day so far for the lanky young fellow who had barely managed to find a seat in the train. He was exhausted, yes, but the 100 rupee note that was  now safely tucked inside his jaded brown trousers comforted him. In intervals of every half an hour, ever since he had left the site he found himself checking the presence of that crumpled piece of paper- a colored carbon offshoot that held so many promises. The face belied the regurgitation that occupied his mind while his red swollen eyes  portended a difficult existence. Lines of sweaty advance of age had begun to surface on his visage which was not quite uncommon with people of his social positioning. While his eyes skirted glances as if striving to conceal guilt, an intensity was palpable in his restless demeanor. His hands alternated between his pockets and his dust ridden hairs even as he found himself glancing occasionally to the exit.

Early that morning, when at Andheri he had struggled to assemble 5 bucks for his daily morning dose of vada pav he had a chance encounter with a generous old fellow, who out of empathy or maybe out of remorse had paid for his breakfast cum lunch-so much for a city with no heart, he had wondered. Later, after hours of dusty lifting and scrapings, which he took up 100 days in a year, as he found himself waiting in a serpentine queue that seemed to stretch for miles at end his eyes wondered over to the mustachioed man at the counter who doled out those crisp pieces of paper. It was a long wait till his turn came which gave him plenty of time to visualize himself on that chair behind the wooden counter, wads of  currency in his hands- need of hundreds of peasants on his fingertips. When his turn came, those very  thoughts vanished like Mumbai rains and all but the gleam of the note remained. As he dipped his thumb in blue ink and pressed hard over the sheet with similar prints, his imagination took flight again. Its surprising how swift mind travels. In a span of 30 seconds leading upto the possession of the note 1) he had held the man-at-the-counter at gunpoint while hoisting himself atop the table and pocketing the thick wads,2) he had tricked the man and pocketed two, hundred rupee notes instead of one, 3) he and his treasure had been the only survivors in a bomb blast and 4) he had taken the 100 rupee note and left the site.

But this was his lucky day! In a fit of extreme negligence, the stocky fellow at the counter, bored and sleepy with the red dots of whiskey in his eyes had made the fortunate lapse and handed him not one but two 100 rupee notes. For a moment, he had the unholy thought of pointing out the glaring error and saving the man the ignominy of ridicule during the post-payment accounting, but then his reasoning presided and he pocketed his earmarked belonging, plus the destined manna and made way towards the exit.

As he scurried for a getaway, lest the error got discovered, the chain of thoughts crept back onto his consciousness.1)  He could, on his way home make a brief detour at Santa Cruz where at the Meena Bar in Kalina he could wash away his de-spirited soul with alcohol, or 2) he could head south towards Falkland where the lore of Kalki awaited his presence every single day, or 3) he could buy that 10 foot tarpaulin to stave off the monsoon and save himself the damp beds that accompanied him most of his nights.

He sat down by the pavement, besides a steady stream of buzzing vehicles that came in all sizes but moved with the same pace and grandiosity. He had to make a decision now. Yet, he was unable to confine himself within the sphere of desires that those 100 bucks could satiate. He was melancholic even as he was excited. As he sat there with clasped knees pointing towards the road and hands resting on it, palms down he contemplated and he dreamed.

He was 12 when he had succumbed to the lure of Bombay- the land of many opportunities, they used to say. Driven away by a non existent family and little solace by way of friendship he had mapped his travesty with the neon tinted glaze of masala Bombay. Now, 10 years later as he sat by at the periphery of the frantic activity all around him he found himself in a dilemma.

He looked around him to find some comfort and bide away time. He saw men, like him, resting after a day of intense perspiration, chewing coarse bread, smoking, preparing their bed, rushing and preparing the kids before the next traffic signal. He saw families with tiny vessels, kerosene stoves and straw huts they called home. He observed the vehicles as they flew past him, carrying a motley crowd. Buses filled with shirts and trousers, auto-rickshaws filled with brightly dressed 20-somethings, shining cars with tinted glasses beyond which his eyes could not see.

Across the road, clustered beneath the flyover that provided roof to many a soul he saw, again, a dense packet of souls living against the constant threat of evacuation. His eyes darted, from the old man lying face up, to the children playing with the card-boards to the man sitting in the exact same position as him and looking towards the moving traffic. Their eyes met and drifted apart, each acknowledging the presence. One, with the hundred rupee note and the other without it.

With that, he had made his decision. As he walked towards the station, dodging past the gushing crowd and running towards the other end of the road he had a look of steely resolve in his eyes. He scampered, as if in a trance towards the station. Moving past the man, he moved almost in a jog, determined never to face him again.

As he boarded the train, he was happy again. This was his lucky day after-all.

inner net(a)

It’s out there and yet not entirely so. You sit down on your laptop for some moments of trepidation and there it is, staring right into your eyes. You try with your fullest might to deny it but then it bounces back up with an even strident force and looks back with the same menacing, pointedly piercing eyes.

As you go deeper into it, it grows into an infinite loop within which you find yourself confined and unable to move an inch apart. Then, as it is about to go for the final kill you stumble and you are saved. After a day, maybe if its a weekend, after few hours, you sit back down, thinking of nothing better to do and there it starts again till you are absolved of the sins and there is nothing left to do but accept a convict’s propensity to dissolve and dissolve you do into the whirlpool of pistachio-ed insolvency.

The errant however is not the medium itself, neither is it the accused. Blindfolded like a frog and guided by the spiders who concoct a magical realm of imagination, the benediction lies humbly peasant. One where things never cease to evolve and one where it’s futile to perform a Utopian turn. The grasp is gradual yet the hit is instant, like fuming cannabis.

Sometimes, the waves are so strong you find yourself washed to the shore with disdain. On the shore, as the white sands whisper the futility in your ears you run, but only parallel to the advancing currents. As the sun sets in, and the brilliance of the moon shines over the rustic mountains overlooking the marina bay you stop to catch a breath. A breather, a sigh and then it begins..all over again.

Wondering how it comes to an end, you muster the courage to scourge the oceans. You are disheartened by its might, you are lost in its crushing motions, you are tiny in its epic battles, yet, as it dawns on you the futility of the chase you give up by giving in, by succumbing to the vitrified layers of reputation.

Little by little, it eats you up, like a corroded pillar ravaged by moths and claimed by white ants. But the pillar stands, you dont. You have to run, inch by inch, foot over foot and hand in hand.

 

as you like it

and often the humming birds do sing
a tragic tale of valiant bravado
never once do they partake
the venomous words that prey

and then the little schoolboy
with freckles on a cheddar
skip over the puddles
dreams of the summers

and then the worker who toil
with which to take home
the spoils of his sweaty palms
and perchance to dream
a different dream

and then the aged with fluttering eyes
sits atop the bench as he sighs
the moments of consternation
seeking again, the bubble reputation

whereupon lie the carvings
while the bird perches itself
and then the wind doth blow
this way or that, you would never know..

 

VJ

The Dead

All art is quite useless- Wilde, Preface to The Picture of Dorian Gray

Words are deceiving; the astute weaver plots the angles, measures the distance, ropes in the music and sprinkles the noises while keeping the soul within kissing distance of the parchment. The thing about the parchment is, since it is now immortalized it begins a never-ending journey. As it passes through the hands and fingers of the mortals it waxes itself up, boots up the visibility and gains a whole new personality. Sometimes, it even forgets its own identity and becomes but the image of the beholder. Somewhat like a mirror.

Not all are fortunate enough to evolve though. What then makes it great? What keeps the mirror shining brand new for every latest entrant to the scene, shows him his true colors, brings him to his own conclusions, keeps his mind whirring about random lines, random words and random characters? Does the plot matter or is it just the fashion in which it is told?

When observations become a technique and the technique becomes an observation the beholder grapples with anxiety and bewilderment. Every time you hold the mirror aloft, it shows you a different image. The contours do not change, the expressions do. It is in moments like these that you sometimes wonder- was it the nature of the mirror to change or was it you who perceived it that way? Was it the magical charm of the craftsman or your naivete that was responsible for the purportedly flawed display earlier?

The magical thing about a mirror is, it does not show you what you want to see, which is a perfect face; it shows you the face you have been allotted and with which you cannot run away from. It shows you your true colors open to interpretations. Is it then fair to paste another’s face above the handle just so its pleasing to look at?

“the cracked looking glass of a servant“

I am deviating here but will ever so continue to do. I love doing it.

When you look into another man’s mirror do you see him or do you see yourself? Is it not the mirror’s motive to owe allegiance to none and lean wherever it is tilted to? Yet, everyone loves a little nudge. A push and a shove in the right direction works wonders for people. It brings in renewed appreciation, acknowledging eyebrows, heaved sighs of despair and valiant movements of the head. One who calls a spade a hammer is corrupt. One who likens it to a scimitar is a cultivator gone astray. One who calls it a spade cannot be anyone other than the forger himself. A connoisseur refrains from nouns and accentuates himself with vague adjectives, relying on verbs alone to display his craft. He might as well polish the spade such, that it becomes an elf set free from his master.

“the rage of the caliban at not seeing his own face in the glass”

“the rage of the caliban at seeing his own face in the glass”

“the rage of the caliban at seeing someone else’s face in the glass?”

Mirror mirror on the wall

Mirror mirror on the wall
show me something unknown to all

Mirror mirror on the wall
would you answer my clarion call?
Mirror mirror on the wall
give me my cafe latte’ tall
Mirror mirror on the wall
is it so unbecoming to fall?
Mirror mirror on the wall
I have climbed out to crawl
Mirror mirror on the wall
would it suffice to toll
as i scrape through the wall
would you be my savior at all?

 

I would strive to come back with more on the Gabriel saga; perhaps Lily would be literally run off her feet again. Who knows eh?

 

 

The man who knew too much – Part I

He was nibbling the chalk when I positioned myself for another hour of Grade 7 Moral Science lecture at the ramshackle building that housed Shiksha Niketan, my alma mater and to which I owe my existence to. For kids in our generation, studies mattered a lot. Having been exposed to the phenomena that was cable TV in the early 90s we had come to believe in the principles of “equal opportunity” and thankfully, so had our parents.

We all wanted to be celebrities; all aspired to walk down the red-carpet with rapturous applause and blinding camera flashes. It seemed every soul in town had his wings on fire and wanted-not to do anything about it, rather to fly as long as one could and nestle himself in the vicinity of the heavenly fraternity.

In grade 7, we had simpler but equally important ambitions. It was during those years of tugging-the-elephant’s tail that I met the boy with the chalk. He always had a chalk in his hands. Nibbling, drawing and throwing was what he used them for and yet ended up with a stick of granular calcium carbonate in his hands nevertheless. It was not for no reason that we called him chikki anyways.

Ours were a typical small-town school complete with a massive playground, a number of 3 storied buildings, a huge stage with a small centre and a nun for headmistress or the principal as we used to call her. As a convent school pains were taken to inculcate the passion for English that the Queen loved- Shakespearean tragedies and Othelloesque complexities inside the brains of shallow river swimmers brought to the front in the sea. We were taught to hate Shylock and love Antonio. Anton Chekov and The Daffodils made for strange bed-fellows. Studying in a convent school has its own set of advantages though- you get to be near the serene church with high domes and a bountiful of solitude, you get to be taught Moral Science with the utmost care while “science” languished in the back benches and you got to be pinched and disciplined by the Christian teachers from the down south. All for the sake of education. We had our own computer lab you know, where we were taught basics of Basic and demonstrated the epitome that was Windows. Ah, how that picture of the 4 colored wavy-squares fascinated us! Our teachers in the lab took turns to demonstrate the power that was the OS and we took turns gasping about it. Days, those were.

Chikki had always been a recluse of sorts. On the school bus, he was always seen minus his head which danced with the winds outside the steel can that was the bus. He, with his distant eyes and long curled-up hairs that squashed around as if on springs evoke strange reactions from us, his partners in crime. Some felt his poor performance was the culprit some blamed it on his naiveté, while others simply did not care. Me? I used to feel I related with the naivety theory but felt more at home with the i-care-not disposition.

” He just is that way you know. Some people are born to take the back stage and they fret not about it. Why do you care anyways ballu?”- I used to exclaim when asked by ballu, my classmate and next-door neighbor. Little did I know that all of 15 years later I would bite my words so hard it would crack open a diamond.

Peering over the horn-rimmed glasses the man seemed at ease, yet not entirely so. His hands neatly tucked inside his cream trousers and feet tapping away to a muted music chitti looked nothing like himself, at least not what I had made him out to be. While I sat there listening, as he recounted his tale I could not help travelling back in time to that hot April noon when things were equally complex and yet not entirely so.

Miss Cornellia knew she had just had a moment of reckoning. Such was the blistering pace with which the events unfolded in that tiny square classroom of ours that none of us had the time to react. Silence, bucket-loads of it poured forth as we witnessed the tiny figure storm out, leaving behind the grating ceiling fan, the struck-by-lightening bunch of 15-year olds and a bewildered woman in a crisp red georgette saree.

An hour it took him to complete his story but the effect of the monologue lingered on in me and still lurks somewhere, hidden underneath the reams of daily ablutions. During times of intense contemplations and self-appraisals, it swiftly scrapes through the tunnels of mirages, patiently build over the course of time and spills onto my inane consciousness. I try not to think about it but such is the propriety of this silly mind that efforts to bury it under mounds of Old Monk seems but a futile effort.

 

To be continued..

 

the insolent bastard

It happened one dark October night. Place-Mumbai, people-lots of them, stage-the local train and protagonist- a young school-kid I named Pukar. Fat, ugly, sores and cropped hairs. Wearing navy blue trousers below the shiny green silky shirt and sparkling golden chains-heavily embellished with colorful trinkets of god-a-like portraits. Shoes, he wore none and knew nothing of- an observation but then his patched feet screamed of it.

The moment the wagons touched base over Andheri Sthanak and I boarded its sleepwalked terrains I had a mission of my own, concealed from public adultery by the skinny membranes that gripped my shadowy brains. Pukar stood gripping the iron bar that stood solid watching the streaming mass of dripping intelligent life move past with scant acknowledgement of his presence. The occasional collisions notwithstanding the bars jettisoned the progress of the hurried lots and provided support to others. Such was the state of their existence that things constantly moved around them without them moving an inch away from their assigned positions.

Anyways, so much about the bars. There were other objects too, you know, placed delicately in the time-module that I was in. For instance, the hand-rests, the plastic motion suckers and the metallic air/rain blockers that occasionally moved, but only in stated and assigned trajectories. Up and they opened vistas of retinal sensations, down and they closed the outside world in full. Then, there were those butt-rests whose function it was to sustain posteriors of countless men with dirt on their back and polished wax in the front. Despite the various objects that demanded attention, mine was fixed attentively on Pukar whose call I had not failed to attend.

He stood there by the exit watching intently something in the distance- I could say from the look in his eyes that the distance could probably fit into a light year. It happens sometimes when you peek into a stranger’s eyes, you see things beyond your wildest imaginations. He took me with him to a strange land where for miles there was no life visible, where an endless desert with bright yellow sands simmered under a sparkling sun and the dunes seemed like they were caught in a round of firing cyclones from all around. As he led the way my eyes drifted past him and to the tall monolithic structure that stood ahead. It looked as if it had been placed there by a sheer sense of misguided misanthropy. Picked and left somewhere where its feeling of triumph would meet no takers simply because there were no takers.

His brisk walk towards the structure was magnetic and the wind around him seemed to push him towards it. I followed his lead which took me to the top of that gigantic tower, the base of which had a small door leading into a small room. Windowless, the room could boast of nothing spare a winding stairway as its possession, climbing which seemed to be the obvious choice. Climb he did but not before a visual inspection of the room and an affirmative nod as if to say, ” It is exactly the way I left it. I am in safe territory now”. His every action I noted, with a connoisseurs delight, reveling in its completeness.

The walk up the stairs was paced and uneventful spare the last step before which the destination lay concealed under a web of wooden spirals. The opening at the end was narrow and compacted into a tiny hole with which to squeeze into the top. As the top surfaced I saw him, again with that look in his eyes as if to say, “Take me, again, to a place so far far away”. This troubled me. I was gripped with a sudden revulsion of this intricate chain of imaginations which was not even my own. I tried to scream but nothing came out of the throat. He looked back at me, smiling.

“How could he know? Was this all a trap I had so easily fallen into?”- thought I.

He smiled again, now with a tinge of condescending air as if to point out the glaring difference between his dream and mine. Under a paralyzing fear I was now closer to him than I had never been. He pulled his arm around me, I assumed, to comfort me, to say,”It’s all right, you are safe here”. In a swift motion though his hands reached my back and pushed me out the window, down the tower. And I fell liberated, winds brushing my cheeks thrashing my hairs.

It was then that I opened my eyes and found myself sitting alone in the compartment. Outside, a yellowish light fell over the tiled floors. I pulled myself up and pushed myself out the compartment, into the platform. My destination, Churchgate had arrived and my journey had been short and frightening, the pathogen nowhere in sight, much to my delight.

My friend Rustam-III

It’s impossible sometimes to just retrace our steps and re-position our lives just the way it were before. Before a life-changing incident or an epiphany that is. Looking back I saw a reflection of Rustam in Dhawal which was unnerving to one who had seen both at close quarters. That, the eventual outcome had not been appetizing added fuel to the fire that was my mind as I sat at Kalpana’s waiting for the enfante terrible. It was more out of a desperate attempt to make amends with my guilty conscience that I pursued my case with swarming thought skirmishes. As it turned out, my doubts were put to rest, atleast for the moment as I saw Dhawal work his way towards me that night.

He had an air of non-chalance that had seemed amiss during the last few days. You can tell from the way people take their strides of what state of mind they are in, assuming you have been in close contact with the subject and believe in your power of understanding people. The erratic unmeasured steps and the fluid hand movements talked of a return to equilibria which sedated my anxieties. He was his usual robust self that day, why, even more aggressively so as we sat there for hours drinking our way to sedation. While we talked and I maintained my cautious observatory microscope I slided into complacency. Call it the will of the loser or the deception of the object we were back in business.

I don’t really remember what transpired that day. I cannot seem to recall when I lost base with the ground and floated high above. But the next morning when I opened my eyes I had a deep-seated fear nestled solidly in my veins. You have those sensations sometimes. Unknowing fear, ignorant of the cause you are subjected to a trauma that refuses to let go-not until you have found your way through the puzzle, worked your way up the ladder, dug up the past. As I lay there on my bed I was consumed by a decaying loss, an unexplained terror and a building guilt. I had to see him this very moment without knowing why.

I ran across the tiny 1-room apartment and bolted down the 3-storey Aashiyana complex to the Azad Chawk residence of one Dhawal Pradhan, my past, my present and my future. It was a busy day, Sunday. People thronged the bazaars like there was no tomorrow. Not one square inch of the 1-lane potholed road was left for the open skies. Over-cast skies I knew it would rain. It was raining the day I lost Rustam.

I was numb to the cacophony that filled the road. Oblivious to the foot falls of the crowd that littered, out of the blue brief snippets of my conversation from last night forged its way to my conscious mind.

Dhawal: Have you sometimes felt the urge to surrender your fears and accept the consequences without making an effort? Does it occur to you that by succumbing to our worst fears we could be free of unwanted thoughts?

Me: Merlin’s pants. What in the devil’s name are you talking about Dhawal?

Dhawal: Nothing. It just crossed my mind that we are what we think we are. By moulding it the way it suits us we can, by our very own actions turn it for our good.

Me: Uh huh..hmm I guess..

Dhawal: Just remember one thing, IT WAS NOT YOUR FAULT AND WILL NEVER BE. People are what their decisions make them. It isn’t in your hands to change what others think and do.

And with that I was back on the road. A sense of dread now replaced anxiety. My pace quickened to a jog and then to a full-fledged run till I was standing right infront of my destination. With bated breath and trembling hands I knocked on the dilapidated door which seemed to buckle under pressure from a mere knock. I knocked again after a minute had passed and waited, unsure of what lay ahead. I refused to let my mind wander and consider possibilities. It was not until 5-10 minutes had elapsed and I still had not received a reply that my hearbeat quickened in pace. I had to get in and see it with my own eyes.

I slammed my foot on the corroded door and it gave away with a single jab. As I stood there waiting for the dust to settle and my eyes to adjust to the darkness I had lost all hope. The anxiety had solidified into a sense of profound loss and it was through those tainted glasses that I rummaged through the room. The room was empty with nothing but the spiders for company. There was but a parchment that lay unconcealed on the floor begging for attention. It read thus:

Hrishank,

I am leaving. This is as much for your good as it is for mine. You are not able to shake off the guilt which you have come to believe as a nondetachable part of your existence. It feels as though its a fetish you refuse to let go. I know it by the way you look at me-pitying searching eyes that begs for forgiveness. I know you look at Rustam when you are looking at Dhawal. Don’t deny it, it will only serve to extend the guilt. While I have always cherished your friendship and identified with the care I find it suffocating to constantly find myself under your watch.

What people do with their lives is of their own making and no one can push them the other way. You have got to accept the fact that Rustam was a weakling who just happened to have your company. His death in no way reflect your failures. On the contrary, the strength in your character is exemplified by the way you have proceeded to carve out a new life.

I am going away where you would not be able to trace me. Don’ t try to-both for me and for you. I wish you a lifetime of happiness and sincerely hope you do not let your past haunt your present and affect your future.

Sincerely yours,

DP

 

It so happens sometimes that happiness and sorrow comes in pair and you find yourself at loss understanding whether to laugh or cry. You end up doing both, in patches and spoiling both emotions, in turn. I had run out of sensations. Some more contemplation and deep thinking was in order. I had both lost and gained an immortal friend, at least for a lifetime.

The End

 

A dream within a dream

He looked askance at the dimly lit skies. It revealed to him no promise. 5 days and 4 nights after, the rock felt not, heavy, any longer. The burden not unbearable. With only the sharpened blades of the amazonian grasses for company he was at peace yet not entirely so. There was this one last thing he had to do before he slid away effortlessly from under the rock and into infinity. He tried, but budge he did not. A smile crossed over his muddy cheeks and he knew. He knew it was meant to be an unfinished mission and left it at that, closed his eyes and dreamt.

He had slowed down the time. You travel 4x faster in tranced state. But that only prolonged what he hoped for. No change of plans as far as the hooded monster was concerned. He opened his eyes for getting back to consciousness and conscious he was of his feather-light body and of his mobility. He rose from under the rock effortlessly and started walking towards the setting sun. Silhouetted against the bright red speck in the yellowed sky he felt one with his creator. He smiled knowing he had been successful at last.

Something stirred. He felt his chest getting heavy again. And then he opened his eyes. Again.

My friend Rustam-II

Rustam Pastonjee was five when his mother succumbed to blood cancer. In a way, the absence of a mother affected the child’s upbringing coupled with his father on army duty, constantly. That his father took to alcohol post the death made matters worse. He was left to the charge of one Miss D’Souza who reared him as one of her own. Yet, the trauma of the loss had cast a permanent dent in his attitude.  His indifference stemmed from this very fact.

An average student at school, his teachers complained constantly of this dull, passive boy who shied away from making friends and preferred to keep his own company. It seemed as if he was gradually drifting into his own world where nothing mattered. His father was too proud to notice anything unusual and Miss D’Souza wanted to be the perfect step-mother. He would sit in the back-benches and as if in a trance stare endlessly at specific items that caught his fancy on that specific day-the black-board, the tilted table or the broken window. Questions he did not ask, curious he was not to anything, it seemed.

Slowly, the indifference turned melancholic. He, as his father, was too proud to admit anything and this continued to balloon inside. He found comfort in dope introduced to him by yours truly, although by accident. It so happened that he was forced to associate himself with the boys in the locality by his father. Unknowingly, as was the norm of the age I introduced him to the prohibited. Little did I know of its consequences. I live to regret my stupidity, yet, comfort myself thinking that it was not my doing that he grew accustomed to it. After all, I knew my limits, he didn’t; and at my age then, I had no idea whatsoever, the difference between a weak and a normal heart.

Slowly, the poison took a central position in his life and ripped it apart in pieces. From indifference to the “I don’t give a shit” to “Go screw yourself” to again indifference, he traveled the whole way highway.

I asked him once-”Rustam, don’t you think you have carried the ghosts of the past a little too long?”

He rarely answered questions. I had known him for about a decade now so I had known.

He cast a “Don’t be stupid” glance at me. Lowering his head he just grunted and sat down on the stairway, our makeshift bar at the topmost floor of his 3-storied bungalow.

He used to say-” Hrishank, now that I have seen death I am not afraid of it. I could cry and cry and continue doing so or I can close my eyes and pray that she’ll come back. But I cannot just delete it from my memory. I am prepared to go there myself. As Churchill said, “ I am ready to meet my Maker. Whether my maker is prepared for the ordeal of meeting me is another matter.”

And he would laugh uncontrollably stopping only when he found himself out of air.

One day, the day fifteen years ago his mother had left for good he decided to let go too. It was not a quick one, so the doctor says. He must have choked on his own puke and died a painful excruciating death. Had a calm face when his father discovered him though.

Looking at Dhawal now gives me a sense of deja vu and am afraid it might be more of it. As I think more of it, the more it frightens me. I do not doubt the strength in his character, am astounded by it on the contrary. But structurally only the names have changed it seems.

I am meeting him in Dadar today. Our usual Saturday night thing at the Kalpana Bar. He might or might not turn up. I will keep you posted what happens and what transpires. Anticipation. Anxiety. Apprehension. Deep-seated regret?