A life lived again

“Only some minutes more” he thought.  When he came here first, he observed that people had a strange habit of looking at the sky every now and then. He had spent only ten days when he started to look at the sky. He was one of them now; eyes looking at the scorching sun, a prayer on lips and a growing anger chewing through the senses. But this was not the first time he was angry, over time he had learnt to smile. Exactly like his father who always smiled to hide the pain and the venom building inside him.

He was there, when his father won the title of Rustam-e-hind, the great wrestler of India. The whole village went to railway station and carried his father home. There were continuous celebrations for a week in his honour. He had never seen his father happier. The thing about movies is that they end at the highest point in a person’s life, but real life is much different. One has to live and spend each minute of his life. To live a heroes life, is the most sought after, but he watched his father longing for that attention, that honour every minute of his life. His father used to look at the newspaper clippings for hours. The people, who earlier cajoled his father for hearing his story, now avoided him for they got bored of his self-praise.  He watched his father grew weaker everyday without a reason to live till one day when he found him dead in bed clutching the trophy to his chest.

After his father’s death, he moved to this village, where no ghost of his father’s fame followed him, where he is free to look like an idiot staring at the sky. It had been a month post monsoon and there was no sign of clouds. But the rain God was hard to please, the priests chanted:

“O Indra, Dancer, Much-invoked! as thy great power is unsurpassed,
So be thy bounty to the worshipper unchecked.
Most Mighty, most heroic One, for mighty bounty fill thee full.
Though strong, strengthen thyself to win wealth, Maghavan!
O Thunderer, never have our prayers gone forth to any God but thee:
So help us, Maghavan, with thine assistance now.
For, Dancer, verily I find none else for bounty, saving thee,
For splendid wealth and power, thou Lover of the Song.” ¹

Rain God was not pleased. “He is only pleased with true devotion. These, money minded fraud, priests are not good for swaying the God” they said.

His father often came home drunk. In his half asleep state, he always used to mutter “Don’t live a hero’s life.”

He saw Rain God in his dreams today, or was it his father in a God’s attire. “Help these people” the God said. “But you always told me not to become a hero” he questioned. The God smiled and said “No! I told you not to live a hero’s life.” He was fully awake now. He knew what was to be done. He walked up to the temple and sat in prayer. At first people did not notice, but when he sat unmoved for hours, people started gathering around him. They understood that he was praying for the rain. Finally they had a true devotee. He sat unmoved for days. Men watched him in amazement and women with tears at his devotion. No one was watching the sky any longer.

He had to be a hero, like his father. But unlike his father, he had to die a hero’s death; a death, which will make him immortal for years to come.

Finally the Rain God was pleased. The sky was filled with dark clouds. “Some minutes more” he thought. When first lightning struck, he knew it was time. He was walking towards a light and then absolute dark.

“You did what I could not, my son” his father said with a trophy in his hand.

He opened his eyes. He had passed out. Somebody held his head in arms and helped him drink some water. He realised that he was not dead. People picked him on their shoulders. They danced around him. He was a hero.

“I have failed you father” He said.

¹ Rig Veda, Book 8, Hymn XXIV Indra

What’s with his smile?

I thought about him for an hour before I started writing this down. I wanted to find a word that describes him perfectly. It is then when I realised that perhaps I do not know him too well for describing him in even one sentence let alone a single word. Infact, I think nobody knew him well enough to say something about him conclusively. For the sake of completing my objective and at the same time not being wrong about him, I would say that he was an elusive man. He is like a person who meets you everyday, greets you, asks about your health, gives his best wishes and leaves; without giving you a chance to get interested in his life. Everybody can recall one such person around them, this incident is about mine.

During my various encounters with him, I got curious. What troubled me most was his smile. I had never seen him not smiling. How could a person always be happy? I wanted to find more about him, but was not sure how to catch him. We were not friends, so obviously asking straight questions would have been weird. As the days passed, I became obsessed with finding out what kept him happy. My efforts of following him went in vain. He kept on greeting and meeting people. It seemed that he did not have any friends. Each evening after college, he used to leave straight for home leaving no scope for any social interaction. Just when I was about to give up, one day I saw him sitting alone in cafeteria. I gathered courage and at the risk of being snubbed, I walked upto him and asked if could join him. He nodded. After some niceties, I could not control any longer and asked him about his life. At first he did not open much, but then I told him my obsession and he agreed to tell me about his life if I promised not to tell anyone about it. Obviously I agreed.

He started “I was eight when I lost my father. He is not dead, it’s just that I don’t know where he is. Not only do I not know where he is, also that who is my father. I vaguely remember his face. I don’t remember actually seeing him, so maybe the face I remember is actually my imagination. I would have asked my mom, and believe me I wanted to ask many times. But there is no point asking her. It is not as if she would not tell me, it’s just that she cannot tell me. She has not spoken with me for last fifteen years; not only with me but with anybody. She lost ability to speak, the night my father left. Sometimes I feel she wants to tell something but then she does not. She would have written if she could, but she is paralysed for many years now. I could have asked other family members but I do not know of any. When my father left us, she had moved here to get away from everybody and now here I am, with my mom and nobody else. And that’s why I keep smiling because I know that it possibly cannot get any worse.”

I kept thinking about him and his life. I was troubled with his smile and now I was cursing myself for thinking being jealous of his happiness. I knew what I had to do. I was to become the friend he never had, the brother he never had and the family he never had. But I decided to take it slow so that he does not feel that I am doing this out of sympathy for him. So I greeted him with smile whenever I met him, asked him how he was and wished him well. I kept going to cafeteria several times a day hoping to find him there.

After seven days and forty visits to cafeteria, I finally saw him sitting with somebody else. I sat behind him waiting for the other person to leave so that I can turn and exclaim at what coincidence it was that we were again meeting in cafeteria. Since it was taking time, I decided to eavesdrop the conversation. I could not hear what the other person said, but I cannot forget till day what he answered.

“Ok. I will tell you, but only if you promise you never to tell anyone else. I was born into a middle class family. My father had an insane obsession of buying lottery tickets. My mother used to fight with him a lot on this habit, but only till he got a $1 mn as first prize. He never bought another lottery ticket. He invested in stock markets and quadrupled the sum in one year. He then invested in real estate and commodities and in ten years’ time, he now runs the fifth largest commodity fund in the country. A year back he gave me $0.1mn and told me to start investing in my area of interest. One year will be over next week. The sum is $1mn today. I keep smiling because it cannot get any better”

The dark will come

“Bindiya….Bindiya…wake up my child” a voice said; her mother’s voice. It had been years since she last met her mother. “You have ruined her with all your senseless affection” her father said; a father who always considered her as a burden. The voices seemed to be coming from far away. “Bindiya..Bindiya” it echoed. “You have ruined her…you have ruined her” sometimes loud, sometimes distant; sometimes real, sometimes hallucination. She had fever for entire night. Sometimes she felt as if her mother is caressing her head and then opened her eyes searching for her mother.

She woke up with sweat on her forehead. She was not sure if she was actually awake this time. She looked around to see if the room was still swinging, then slowly got up. Her throat was parched. She walked up to the pitcher only to find out that there wasn’t a drop of water left. Her husband knew about her fever however did not consider it important to leave water for her, let alone bring some from the well. She knew that in this neighbourhood nobody would give her water. Water was the most precious possession and lead to arguments, spats and murders. You would not be able to buy a glass of water with a kilo of gold around here. After all, you cannot drink gold.

She looked again in the pitcher. There was some water left. She dipped a cup and had a gulp. She looked again. There was still some water left. She again dipped the cup and had another gulp. The water was still left so she picked up the pitcher and drank to her content. The water flow did not stop. She found it difficult to breathe under such heavy water flow. She gasped for air. She woke up again. “Bindiya….Bindiya” her mother’s voice echoed. She had not slept. She could not tell whether she was sleeping or not. Why was she feeling so thirsty even after drinking so much water? She looked into the pitcher. It was as dry as a bone. She once again looked around to make sure the room was not spinning around her.

She picked up the pitcher and started walking towards the well. In normal days she took around twenty minutes to reach the well. The sun was at its best. It seemed that it had descended on earth itself. There was not a single tree or bush on the way, but yes you could make friends with some snakes and scorpions. “We should send Bindiya to stay with my sister in town. She can go to school and study” her mother said. “You crazy old witch! I have called people to see her next week. I am getting her married. Don’t fill her head with crazy ideas.” Her father shouted. She sat down after walking twenty steps. There was a woman coming with a pitcher of water. She poured water in her hands. She tried to drink water but her hands could not hold it. Her hands started melting and so did the pitcher and the woman with the pitcher. “Take this money and run away. This is the address of my sister in town. Run away my child. This life is not for you” her mother’s hand trembled. Her face melted with tears. She always wondered how tears always manage to roll even with so less water to drink. Why was everything melting around her? A bee sat on her eyes. “Run away…run away…run away” kept echoing in her ears. She opened her eyes.

She walked like a ghost, unaware of the direction and unsure of whether she was actually walking or not. She reached the well and drank water many times. She would have imagined rain also but unfortunately she had never seen actual rain. She had only heard about it. Her mother had told her to run. Her mother gave her some money and a bag. She started running. She fell and broke the pitcher. Where were the money and the bag that her mother had given? She had to run.  

She had reached the well. “This life is not for you” her mother had said. She had never seen a pond. She wanted to sit in water for so long that her soul got wet. There is only one way. She jumped.

That night she came back home. “It is too dark. I cannot run away” She had told her mother. Her mother froze and could only mutter “This is not dark. The dark will come.”

My last water bottle

My school was not too bad. The time was different, so if you compare it with today’s schools with air-conditioned buses and classrooms, then it does not fare well. However I did not know what air-condition was, so I could not complain. Of course, a fan in the classroom would have been highly appreciated. Imagine sitting in a class of fifty odd snotty, smelly kids with sun at forty eight degree Celsius; and me more often than not standing in a corner facing the wall or standing on the bench, or holding my ears and doing sit-ups. It wasn’t my fault; I just could not stand the heat.

The only saving grace was the cold water in my water bottle that I used to carry from home. I used to wait till the last drop of moisture in my throat oozed from my body in form of sweat. Then I opened my bottle and watched the water flowing from the bottle directly to my throat and in every pour of my body. I have never known a greater satisfaction to this date. But like all good things, this must also come to an end.

I lost my first water bottle when I was in second standard. Then I lost my second and third water bottle in third and fourth standard respectively. I have always believed myself to be a thinker with massive attention deficit. Earlier nobody noticed it including me, but now I know it for sure, with constant thrashing from my wife each time I am so focused on television and not listen to her. Several times I nod and later cannot even recall that the conversation ever happened. Since I did not know any such thing to exist, I could never give any valid excuse for such negligence.

The forth bottle I was given was not insulated so I lost the luxury of having cold water. I tried to drink all the water as soon with the fear that if I kept it any longer it would evaporate and rain somewhere else on planet. That time it was a real fear in my mind since I had recently learnt about clouds and rain. As the luck would have it, I forgot the bottle in class and when I went back it wasn’t there. I controlled my tears since I still have to spend half an hour with my classmates on bus to home.

I was sure that this time I am going to get a sound thrashing. So I decided to run away. When the bus dropped me outside the building, I started walking along the road. In next five minutes I contemplated on various things I can do to earn a livelihood. It included delivering newspapers, working at roadside eateries and working in television serials in that order. Also I had to run away till a point where it was easy for my family to find me and take me back to home; something to do with an advertisement I had seen in childhood wherein nobody says anything bad to a kid who had run away from home and later found at the railway station. After almost five minutes of walking, I realised that I was too hungry and thirsty to walk. I decided to be practical, I started walking back.

As soon as I reached my apartment, the fear sneaked in once again. So rather than going in, I went to the roof with a resolution to jump from there and end this agony. I walked to the edge and looked down. It was very high. I had fallen from bed last week and it still hurt. Recently I had seen the superman movie where he catches a girl falling from a building mid-air. The only problem was that my building was not high enough; he will be late for sure. Maybe he is catching some girls in some other parts of the world and what If he only catches girls?

My stomach growled once again. I decide to take a chance. I sneaked into my apartment. My mother told me to wash my face and change clothes. I quickly did that. I decided to have last meal and last glass of cold water of my life after which I will have to think of another way to die before my father comes home. After crossing a particular barrier on hunger and thirst, it is difficult for mind to tell when to stop, especially when I was also watching my life’s last cartoon film. The problem with summer afternoons is that after having a sumptuous meal all you can do is sleep. So I quickly fell asleep. When I woke up, my father was about to reach home. I pretended to sleep till long after he came home.

My father was watching television. I gathered my courage which was boosted by the fact that my mother had not noticed that I had lost the bottle. I got up and stood behind my father. My mother had finished her work in the kitchen and joined us. For some time no one spoke. My father was very engrossed watching news and my mother was knitting a sweater for me. I always thought it was weird that she knitted sweater in summers and I always outgrew it till winters came.

Then all my fears came alive when my mother complaint to my father that I had lost the water bottle again. Next I expected was a slap or at least a sound scolding. But to my surprise, no reaction came. Now I understand where I acquired my attention deficit from. My father only nodded and continued watching news.

That may have been the last water bottle I ever had, but I was perfectly fine with it. 

The father and the Son

Varanasi, the oldest living city on earth, was his home. His mother told him that when he was born, she could hear the bells of aarti ¹   at Kashi Vishwanath Temple ². She never told him who his father was. When he pressed a lot, she told that she will once and only once tell the name and that he should not dispute or question the same. When he agreed, she told him that Kashi Vishwanath himself was his father. For that moment, he neither doubted his father’s identity nor felt his absence. He used to sit on the temple’s staircase everyday for a long time. He felt that the only way to communicate with his father was to immerse himself in the music created by ringing of bells and chanting of mantras. His devotion was more than meditation since he was not worshipping a God, he was just seeking refuge in his father. Years passed. Everybody knew him as son of the God.

Let’s skip to the day when his life was about to be changed. He followed his usual routine, took bath in Holy Ganges and started walking towards the temple. Generally he used to walk with his eyes fixed on the dome of the temple, but today he felt some uneasiness, as if he was being given some indication. He stopped for a moment. Just when he was about to start walking again, his eyes fell on an infant sleeping on a staircase. He looked around to ascertain if the parents are nearby, but could not find anyone. He kept standing beside the kid, not picking him up with the fear of being charged as a kidnapper. He sat near the kid for the whole night but nobody came to claim the kid. In the morning he decided to take the kid home.

It had been twenty five years from that incident now. His life in these twenty five years entirely changed. He had raised the kid as his own. He never married for the fear of division of his love. As it is he had to divide his devotion between his father and his son. He never let his son know that he was son of the God. He lived as a commoner, a daily wager and worked hard to meet their ends. He worked even harder for getting his son an education. The harder he worked, the more his health deteriorated. Not a single day went, when he did not long for meeting or speaking with his father like he used to do earlier. At the same time, not a moment passed which did not revolve around his son.

He was back to the stairs one day - The stairs where he found his son; the stairs from where he could directly look at the temple and speak with his father. He was wrapped in a blanket. He did not move. He could not move. After 2-3 days, people at the temple recognised him. They got very upset at his condition. They were angry at his son for whom he had done so much but was still left for dying on the stairs. Some of them reached his home to meet his son. After continued knocking and getting no response, they had to come back to the temple. While they were discussing the matter, one of them noticed that there was another figure wrapped in a blanket sitting in a dark corner. They went near him and recognised him as the son. They could not understand what was happening and asked the son why he left his father for dying the on stairs and while his father was at it, why was he sitting and watching him.

“He wanted to die in lap of his father, at a place where he himself was born as a father. As a son, I seek to ensure that my father’s death is peaceful. As a father, I seek to free him from the cycle of life and death” He said.

That very moment, a bell rang in the temple. They looked at the temple. It took them a moment to understand what the son had said.

A moment was all what was needed for the father and the son to be together for eternity.

1 Hindu religious ritual of worship

2 Hindu temples dedicated to Lord Shiva and is located in Varanasi

 

The pair of shoes

He left from office and started walking towards home. It was a long walk. He used to have a bicycle, but had to sell it two years back when his wife fell ill. She could not survive. Now sometimes he laughs at himself thinking “at least I could have saved the bicycle.” Now he avoids the road and takes a shortcut through fields. Apart from saving time, it also helped him avoid temptation of stopping at the tea shop on the road and save five rupees, four for a cup of tea and one for a beedi (tobacco rolled in tendu leaf). He has neither time nor means to get into such indulgence. He used to enjoy the walk when he started, looking at the fields, birds etc. But now he just walks mindlessly.

He had been saving for last two years to buy another bicycle. With one less mouth to feed, he had hoped to save the money faster, but he had underestimated the expenses, which were growing much faster in comparison to his growing children. He calculated in his mind, seven hundred rupees for school fees, eight hundred rupees for grocery and nine hundred for rent. That leaves around hundred rupees from his monthly salary.  He should have saved something for contingency also, but in his salary any expenses apart from above three is contingency.

Today he would not be able to take the shortcut. He has been thinking about this since morning. He will have to buy shoes for his son today. He kept staring at the shop for a long time before entering it. It has been a long time since he has entered any shop except for the grocery shop around the corner. The shopkeeper gave him suspecting looks. He wanted to ask for the cheapest shoes available, but decided against it. A salesman approached him. He asked for canvas shoes. The salesman looked at him head to toe before coming back with a pair of shoes. It has been sometime since he had held anything new in his hands. He mustered up his courage and asked for price. “Six hundred rupees” the salesman said.  His heart sank. This was way more than he had planned for. Against his self-respect, he requested for a cheaper pair. The salesman understood and came back with the cheapest pair. “Four hundred rupees” the salesman said and this time he did not offer him to hold the shoes. He wanted to ask for a discount but decided otherwise because he wanted this anguish to end. He quickly calculated. These shoes meant that he will have to walk through the fields for four more months. He paid, collected the shoes and hurried out of the shop.

Now that the bicycle was at least four months away, he stopped at the tea shop today. He relished the tea and the beedi while it lasted. He observed the passers-by. It was much like his life, which had stopped while everything else was moving fast. It was now getting dark. He slowly walked towards the house.

He smiled when he handed over the shoes to his son. His son looked at him, first without feelings and then with exasperation and repulsion. “How many times I have told you Dad?” his son said. It was as if somebody had jolted him out of a dream.  “It was twenty five years back. How many times will you buy these shoes for me? Did you forget to take your meds?” his son shouted. He did not say anything, just quietly walked out of the room. His son kept the shoes along with fifty odd other identical pairs.