Delhi was getting very oppressive in the month of May. I had been employed in an advertisement company as a copywriter, which I left out of disgust and regret. This one had lasted less than three months. The longest so far! I had been getting notoriety in my friend circle as a drifter. To think of it, I was finding any job which caged me whole day as not really worth it. Laziness, a general apathy towards work? I wouldn’t know. With dwindling bank balance, I shifted to cheaper accommodation on outskirts of Delhi.
The house owner seemed to be a religious fellow with a prominent red vermillion mark on his forehead. But very soon I realized his profane self was no different from any other of his breed, I had learned to tolerate. As he opened the room for me to see he droned “No girls, no smoking, no drinking. My family stays downstairs. We Brahmins so no non-vegetarian in the building”. The room or shall I say the cell was enough for a person to squeeze in. A space for a cot and table. “One bulb and a fan, no other equipments allowed. Two months rent in advance”. He was specific in his instructions.
There were two adjoining rooms occupied by a family and a young man, they would be sharing the toilet. I had immediately reconciled to my plight. But my bowel took a fortnight, not used to duress. I tried all kinds of distractive tactics. Starting with coercing myself against stiff cot. Smart from few miscarriages, I switched to time-tested mind-over-body. As I exacted bowel-withholding techniques and endured the purgatory, my neighbors spent better part of their morning in the closet. The young man was the first to finish his morning ablutions followed at the next instant by the husband later by his pregnant wife. Leaving wheezing taps for me.
For more than a week I didn’t see any of them. The young man, whom I came to know later as Shekhar, left immediately to office. He nearly bumped into me on one weekend as I was climbing the stairs. I gave him a broad smile as I said “Hello” in a conversational tone. Living in fringes had sharpened my survival instincts, the more people you know more channels for credit. He hurried down with somewhat flustered or may be stunned expression and I knew intuitively that I am dealing with a misanthrope. However my persistence worked. From stunned retreat to dismayed aversion was for me an evidence of acknowledgement. Later the shift from tentative smile to openhearted talk occurred quite immediately. The rapidity of perforation of his pretences surprised me. I found him extremely warm-hearted fellow. His earlier posturing, I gathered was of his extreme shyness. And this lethal combination of diffidence and honesty made him vulnerable to harshness of city life. The hypocrisies, which were compromised in childhood, never happened in him. Being from a village, sharing static relations, where occasional visitors were treated with amused dignity. But in crowded Delhi even kinship sometimes existed in strained strangeness. Hordes of human he had to interact, the shallowness of which baffled him. With defenses down, over eagerness to know others, got him in the wrong end of the mob. Earlier when he was butt of some practical joke, he laughed with his tormentors. Reducing it to simpering smile in due course later excusing himself from the scene. Now not only he avoided strangers but created a cold space around himself. Like a frail insect miming the strong he inflated himself with arrogant snobbishness at times with contempt at any stranger who approached him. Cocooning himself in his shell. People where shocked at the intensity of his unwarranted behavior. But not me, with my persistence I won him over. Fairly soon, I realized that he displayed maternal protective instincts towards me. He would ask about my well being every time we met.
Most of the time he came back from office with load full of vegetables and condiments. He never trusted the hotel food. He rarely ventured out, holing himself with kitchen utensils and assortment of spices. Once I banged into his room. He was sprawled in the middle of the room with a stone grinder. Around him were strewn onion, spices and vegetables. The room was thick with smell of fried chillies, it was more of a kitchen. I could see that food was most prominentpart of his life, in particular cooking. Most of the fresh ground spices were sent from home. His uncle was in Indian Railway’s as Engine driver, so every week he replenished his stock. He said about his mother being very particular that he should eat proper food. He had bag full of ready-to-fry snack items, made at home each carefully categorized and packed. He was loved and was the lone hope of his parents. They had small piece of land, which they tilled to survive. Although they did what was physically possible, the outcome almost always was less than the effort, with vagaries of nature and no modern technologies to help.
“Tilling the arid land is the worst job. A sin of previous karma” He would say. The fertile part of the land was owned by zamindars, the government as a step towards land reforms donated their part.
He had one younger sister who helped her mother in domestic chores. The family provided all conceivable support to educate him. “They wanted me to have a job which had no contact with agriculture…tilling. There are too many uncertainties. If I had a permanent job, I would get monthly income” He informed.
Everything around them was ambiguous from irrigation water to next day meal. Shekhar was the first graduate in his whole clan extending to two villages. It was therefore considered natural that he will be getting a job in nearest town or city. Everyone was surprised when Shekhar mentioned his desire to go to Delhi, the national capital! The name they uttered in reverence.
Shekhar normally came to my room during power cuts. Power cuts which punctuated the summers of Delhi. Consider this: Temperature hovering around 40 degree Celsius. Everything one touches simmer. Traffic congestion’s crowded buses, sweaty stench, and dust storms. With clenched teeth one reach home to find No electricity, No water. If there was hell, it was this.
I always was reminded of the need for candle as soon as the power cut commenced, plunging my room in darkness. Shekhar brought lighted candles. And talked to me till it got over or if electricity is reconnected, whichever happens first.
I found him to be extremely loquacious at times. Describing his village to me in detail, he said:
“The pond near the temple, in which we played all day I liked the most. The spread out leaves and birds….I can hear the school bell. Our masterji was nice old man, who liked Mathematics. So I took up that subject for graduation….from the hilltop you could see the whole village. The trees like green pecks, houses brown mounds. Fields green long carpet”. His eyes glinted in the candlelight. He relapsed into silence.
“Do you help your father in tilling?” I asked wanting him to speak more, silence bored me.
“No…Not that I didn’t want to. But he never allowed me to. He wanted me to have nothing to do with agriculture. Not even a fleeting touch. He considered it inauspicious to my future. He wanted me to be away from miseries and vagaries of farming life. Inside a building with pen and book, he wanted me to be like scores of babus who visited our village. Well-fed with good clothes. Not that, he disliked farming. He used to say, ‘For me my elder are the mud in the field’. I have been seen him speaking to the plants and trees intimately. He had no friends, no time for petty talks. His conversation with saplings he considered routine and cared them like his children…like us…” He stopped. The candle flames flickered under his heavy breaths. Vehicles screeching, exchange of abuses, fire crackers of marriage….Mélanges of noise, which identified the city, seeped in through the window. A pang of loneliness struck me as I sipped the frothy bear, which he had refused by saying “I don’t’ even take non-vegetarian food” he asserted. A mystifying link between vegetarian, teetotaler and everything nice.
“I like liquor, girls and non-veg. Food in particular pork in cheese”. Evidently the bear had started impressing on my thinking, baring my emotions. My open defiance startled him. He took few minutes to gather himself. He looked at me in disdain. I realized my puerile flaring and attempted to amend.
“What about girls in your village. Any old flames come on small bandit. Come on “ I rolled the newspaper and try jutting him playfully. Attack was the best form of defense, I knew. Being shy, I knew a direct assault on his sensibilities would work. And it did not work; he blushed and didn’t meet my eyes. May be, if I had raised my voice and continued with my defiance, he would have reacted similarly. Timidity always revealed itself in corresponding manner: Fumbling and blushing. I knew that I could bulldoze him with any of my sayings or doings. This knowledge about him made me feel immensely superior and confident about my judgments. And I looked at him as a hunter at its prey, as he strained to express himself. With utmost ease, I relished the bear.
“I….I….love a girl in my village”. He blurted, to my surprise. Courting the forte of assured and seduction fiefdom of bold was my brief understanding of life. I felt him slipping away from my hold.
“You mean….You where in love with a ….a girl?” I asked, innocuously stressing on past tense. “How could he! Even if he did, it has to be a failure” I thought for my private pleasure, simultaneously taking note of his hovering shadow. But a significant suspicious was darkening my thought. Was this man hiding an entirely opposite face of his? This possibility alerted my torpid senses.
He didn’t reply, instead stared at the blue bottle of perfume, which I had been showing him. An escapist contraption to fantasy world in the stinky surroundings. However I was in no mood to change the topic and was getting restless. Unbridled circumstance brought savage in me slipping the faked sophistication. A ferocious wildness crept in me.
“I say tell me about it, you bloody tell me” I sad in an enraged voice. He stared back, his eyes unblinking, confusing me. Was he angry or plainly afraid? When cornered even the weakest turned brave. I had read this somewhere or was it some Hindi movie? Have I pushed him too far? In case I did, am I brave enough to face his retort? The lurking cowardice in me, searched for an escape route.
“Look Shekhar just cool it o.k. What I meant was…Let us talk about it man. So cool ok” I did a placatory summersault. We were distracted by some commotion down street. A scooter had hit a car but the car driver was being blamed. Who protested in every conceivable manner, in vain. The bigger vehicle is always responsible, goes the notion. Shekhar excused himself and retired to his room the very next instant.
Next few days, I didn’t see him. I also got busy in acclimatizing myself to the new job. This time it was in a publishing company. After a fortnight or so, I heard a week knock on my door. It was Shekhar. He simpered to my elaborate smile. He had a letter in his hand, his expressions turning grim.
“Is everything all right, man?” I asked expansively.
“My mother is very ill. There is a letter from home”. He said, extending the letter for me to read. I never was interested in reading others letter. But this i read, more in order to appease him and unburden the mistakes of the last meeting. Here is the rough translation from Hindi.
Dear Shekhar son,
Hope this finds you in good health. Did you receive the masalas and pounded rice we sent, last week? Mai has slipped from the ladder. Priest says she will be fine. We went to health centre, they say her bone is broken. She says it’s painful. It’s all Gods game. I have already done a pooja at Mata temple. Here it has rained. The field is dry. Ghaiya is fine. I think she misses you. Masterji enquired about you the other day. There are not many students now in school, he says. Now there is bus running till sona tailor shop. Oh I forgot to tell, Seemamausi has given birth to boy. Every body is happy. When are you coming home, mai keeps asking. Otherwise everything is fine by Gods grace. God be with you.
Bau.
The name Bhau was scribbled illegibly on one corner, evidently the letter was dictated to someone.
“Ghaiya, who is she?” I asked not sure of the pronunciation.
“No, No. it is Ghaaayia….Ghaaayia” He lightened.
“Who is she?” I persisted, pan faced. How dare he doesn’t answer me?.
“Our cow, she has been with us for seven years” he said.
“Oh, I thought so” I said easing my expressions, but Shekhar had become tensed. I realized this.
“I am sorry to hear about your mother”. I said in a doleful monotone. Years of vicarious experiences – courtesy idiot box, daily whirlwind tour of family intrigues, scheming aunties, oppressive patriarchs, ever extending courtship, melodramatic separations-union-separations, paranormal occurrences – all crammed in half an hour, had adapted me into hardcore imposter of emotions. I had the faces of the protagonists ready to duplicate for each occasion. Ready-made emotions. I continued with my lugubrious façade, occasionally sneaking into him and hoping that he would break this mercilessly mushrooming silence. My expertise had exhausted with this initial theatrics. Beyond this, I had no knowledge, how to deal. The Delhi heat made it particularly overbearing. I waited in vain, Shekhar was lost in his own thoughts.
“She will be alright, man” I ventured adding the last work blithely to lighten the air.
“How long since you been home?” I asked trying to change the subject.
“Two years….Two years? He repeated wistfully.
Two years had been a lifetime of experience for Shekhar. Each moment remembered and catalogued in his mind, to avoid future mistakes. Soon he was to realize that this city didn’t really value his aptitude or attributes. At the most he could get was the job of a salesman. That too because he was young and they wanted someone who could move from place to place. Going from home to house, they called it direct marketing. The carrot was extra money and promised aggrandizements, which were never to come. The reason being his inability to speak fluent English. The higher echelons of the organization worked with sleek efficiency in English speaking. Perfect accents and grammar could smoothen any hiccups.
“The convent educated are the meritorious”. Shekhar said on more than one occasion. “If stripped of façade of English they would not even be fit to be a rickshaw puller”. A thin veil of colonial left outs having the right connections. And craving anything western and covering this hitch by occasional fervent clapping during oh-that-nationalistic-passion-named-cricket or any other altruistic occasion where they can “smile and clap”. Pecuniary at home and faith of village-friends fuelled him to go on in this hostile city.
“When I make a pot full of money. I will go back to my village and make a big cemented house. And marry my girlfriend. “He always strained himself when using English words. The new addition in his vocabulary, I was sure from the peer groups. Not that his English was elementary, he could speak fairly fluent for a person from “bygone dirty village”. But the snap was his accent. The Queen’s language could not wipe out the rustic shades of his mother tongue. And when he spoke undaunted by these impediments, he raised few sneering laughs.
“If only I knew how to speak fluent English. Good English. I could have got a better job. My mother tongue is failing me”. He told me once. I sensed a defeat in him but he never allowed cynicism. The hope remains unfettered.
“If you work hard and sincerely. I am sure you will make good money”. Since I was saddened by his struggle, these words didn’t carry the desired effect. He had a strenuous unseeing gaze, which was softening into self-pity. Did I outrage his pride by my patronizing stance?
“You know I also faced the same problem….” Before I could complete I was smitten into bewildering silence by his outburst. “You are different how can you understand my problems? You can speak fluent English and have your way. And me huh” he spoke with intense feeling. I kept silent.
“Don’t need your sympathy. I have enough sense to understand life. You will never face the problems I have faced. Have you been humiliated because of your mother tongue? Have you ever been ridiculed for was and is? Huh. Tell me? Do you know the hopelessness and anger it creates to be ridiculed for something so superficial? Do you know that? Sitting here and telling I understand your problem. Huh “ He took an unsteady breath, “I am nervous of my language. I am nervous of my own speech. I am nervous of myself. Do you know where a fumbling salesman goes? To hell. To hell they go. To Hell”.
He sat stiffly glaring at the candle. As it were, I was flummoxed by this sudden paroxysm of rage. The nervousness was such that I couldn’t even move my hand to squash the droning mosquito now alighted on my ear. The false self-assuredness slipped easily.
The next few rendezvous still carried the intensity of his rage. I tried avoiding him, till I thought he become normal that is predictable, so that I had maneuverability over him. Strange though it was I found him pursuing me! His visitations increased. However he remained flustered and cross. It seemed that he badly needed company but was still agitated to yield. In the end it was his urgency to perfect his English that thawed the relation.
I spent hours perfecting his English. But it was not the choice of words or grammar that was bothering. As expected it was the accent. I tried to explain that English speakers around the world have different accents. The stiff lipped Britishers, the twining Irish, the nasal American, bleating Australians so on. These are being accepted hence it was not necessary for us to have British accent.
“You can have a Bihari accent or a Bengali accent, it’s not a problem” I assured.
“Don’t try to teach me on accent. I know how things work here. The more American, the better. Do you know what the response will be if I speak in Bhojpuri accented English”. He gave sarcastic laugh.
“Anyway if accent was not the problem then I would have gained some acceptance”. He continued “But not here, not in this city. Even my Hindi needs to have proper accent”.
Accent of an individual is something very difficult to remove. The mother tongue absorbed in early age hardens the tongue and if no other languages is learned in this critical juncture, it s difficult to get the accent correct later”. This I couldn’t tell him. I didn’t want to demoralize him. When the strands of hope was baring, any burden could be the final snap.
“Yes yes. You can work on your pronunciation. It is not that difficult”. I humored but already it was threading. Very next evening, he came with a list of words which he want me to train him. The words were quite innocuous and commonly used. I was taken by his sincerity and zeal. So we had regular session on improving his enunciation. But the initial infectious zeal couldn’t engage me for long. In the end I was exasperated. I searched for ways to elude him. When I think of it now I am appalled at my egoism. I felt his disappointments mounting, like a small tear on the bed sheet going unmanageable. It was becoming increasingly difficult to deal with him. Finally it started cracking when he started blaming me for his predicaments. I refrained to my own work.
The weather eased with approaching Diwali festival. But the sultriness was replaced by throttling haze. Windows were closed and Delhi cocooned for the winter. Nights were longer and streets desolate, even the mongrels finding warm spots. Occasional screeching of over speeding vehicles pierced the nights. More drunken driving, more deaths.
I look refuge in the warmth of the quilt reading Saki finding his humor palatable (gory at times!) Dozing in a pleasant frame of mind. It was easy to forget all worries with a good book. Sometime I would listen to the wheezing sound of the chilly wind against the window, reminding me of thick forest of Western Ghats.
Shekhar too had enveloped himself in thick warm padding. He would simper pass, as I waited for him to vacate the toilet. The inclement weather provided an opportunity to reduce interactions and locking ourselves in our cuboids. Other times he would try smile but shiver more. We would laugh loudly, then talk of the falling temperature. I never allowing the discussion to slip into his attempts on English. He too did not show any undue interest to raise the topic. He would smile through his clothed face, sometimes making faces through the monkey cap. Later I found him laughing for no reason. I too responded with a laugh after initial surprise, agreeing on some mystic jest. Gradually I stopped responding, finding it abnormal or may be absurd. But he always had a smile, getting beatific by day, suddenly eclipsing into great calmness. Sometimes he would take some time to respond to my greetings. Lately infact he sometimes failed to recognize me. I had begun to worry about him that is whenever I had time after a long day. I raised this issue to the house owner while I paid him monthly rent. The man counted the money, protruding his tongue to wet the fingers, then taking deep cough filled breath. Having counted five hundred rupees as if to earmark, he blurted.
“Mind your own business”
His eyes bulging out of the socket. He then resumed the count. Ascertaining that it is thousand rupees and not a single rupee less. He again blurted out.
'Do your own business. Don’t worry about neighbours’.
Then he closed the door on me. I stood there for some moment seething with anger and regretting. Later however I did heed to his advice. I started spending more time in office, in the process developing a healthy dislike for the work. On holidays I would sit in the Pallika Park, in the midst of buzzling Cannought Place. Warming in the tender sun, observing people. It surprised me that everyone despite having same face configuration, looked so unlike. Few centimeters of skin on the chin and around eyes could make millions of faces. I observed people more keenly and found that even eyes are different. Every person had a distinctive eye structure like fingerprints, this new knowledge excited me. Finally I concluded that eyes, nose and few centimeters of cartilage was what made face. And billions of different faces throughout the history to present. And no two similar! It startled me.
The bus spewed smoke like some prehistoric reptile. It leaned left with people hanging on the footboard. I let it go and waited for the next one. People crowded the footpath and walked in small groups mostly pairs. A beggar stood displaying his amputated hands, I looked away in disgust. The sky darkened as if somebody had put a veil on it. The windows of multi storeyed hotel looked like a giant UFO, I smiled at my conception. Sudden chill forced me to hood my ears, muffling the cacophony. I closed my eyes trying to move away from everything around.
The crowd hushed around the house owner, whose subdued face had beads of perspiration which he mopped with ends of his kurta. He occasionally ran his stubby fingers over his dishellved hair, unsetting it further.
“It’s a police case. They are coming” said someone in the crowed.
“The boy’s relatives have been informed?” asked a short stature man craning his neck.
I had slowed down my strides, virtually stopping at the periphery of the crowd and moving around it, like a floating debris on reaching clog. Few people across the street where pointing fingers at Shekhar’s window and talking animatedly. I felt my stomach wrench and nausea welling up. I rushed towards the narrow corridor leading to the stairs. A well-built man stopped me, stretching his hand out, blocking my way.
“Where you think you are going?” He asked in a gruff, pushing me away. Nailing my legs, I pushed him with my shoulders.
“To my room where else? I stay upstairs” I felt his arm slacken, but he gripped me. His grip hurting.
“Don’t you know what happened?” He spoke urgently. “The boy upstairs is dead” The words hit my blank face, it took me some moments to gather myself. I vaguely remember him saying “hanging” ”killed himself”.
That night he opened the window, the chilly breeze spread the numb over his body. He felt himself moving away from his body, which stood there like a lifeless statue staring into the darkness. Letting himself float through the window grills in a shapeless lumpy gel. Climbing higher and higher till the world was reduced to a speck in the universe.
