The Pedant

Last weekend, my son announced, Appa I’m inviting a friend of mine home for dinner on Sunday. Could I please be a little less sarcastic and little more courteous, definitely not in that order? Also, Amma, can you make some adai avial and Vaangi Baath, he is a big fan of both of those. Left with no choice, I grumbled a yes. I looked up at the year calendar with a small photo of Lord Ganesha and big bold typeface inscribed name of Lakshmana Groceries, their way of rewarding frequent shoppers and prayed that this new avataram not be one of those new generation mobile savvy, startup dreamy, torn tank top and low waist jeans flaunting hombre who would attempt to make me put down the remains of my provident fund into his application which would deliver me coriander leaves at the click of a button in twenty two and half minutes, ninety seven point eight percent of the time. So help me God.

“How do you know him? Is he working? Is he an engineer? Where did he go to college? Sarkaar college il a private college il a? Which caste does he belong to?” unleashing the barrage of questions, I found myself panting at the end of the monologue, I had forgotten to breathe in the middle.

Jr. Me stared at me, with his jaws wide open. With a shake of his head, he thrust his earphones back in his ears and started waving his hands in the air. Whatever he was listening to, it wasn’t Subbulakshmi’s Suprabhatam, the pace did not quite match with the violent gyrations of his body. Shiva Shiva!

On explicit orders of Ms. Me, my soulmate of this lifetime, I picked up a cloth bag and set out in the direction of Lakshmana Groceries. Unfortunately, the raw materials for adai avial, Vaangi Baath and a bunch of culinary delights Ms. Me and Jr. Me were planning didn’t grow on the trees lining my street. Lakshmana Groceries was going to turn a profit this year too, courtesy my family.

The day of reckoning came sooner than I’d have wanted it to and I found myself extending my hand out to shake hands with Jr. Me’s friend. Jr and he sat down and talked about topics in the world ranging from latest X Box releases to upcoming Formula One Grand Prix and Spanish La Liga all the while munching the savories Ms. Me was constantly doling out from the kitchen. I was left to wonder whether these poster kids of posterity were indeed talking about happenings on Planet Earth or some equivalent in a parallel universe.

I was relieved when Ms. Me announced dinner services and in the short span of a few seconds, found myself sitting at the head of the dining table, with the self-illusion that I was back in control.  I decided to strategically preempt the discussion in areas I considered myself to be pedantic and asked, “So do you follow state and national news?”

“Of course, I do!”

Eager to find a weak spot, I asked, “Are you aware of the recent skirmishes on the India Pakistan border?”

That, in hindsight, was the sentence I should not have uttered. I should have let the evening play out by itself, Jr would have handled it adeptly but I was keen to show who was the master in the house. Mistake. Big mistake.

It was as if someone turbo charged Jr’s friend. He launched into a tirade against the atrocities committed by Pakistan. He then proposed to blame Pakistan for all the ongoing problems in the world. Looking back I have no recollection of how he changed gears but his diatribe expanded and covered everything from Islamic State and Israel Palestine conflict to Chinese influences on North Korea and American imperialist aspirations in South East Asia. It was as if he had the solution to all the problems in the world, unfortunate part was that no one had thought to put him in charge! Thankfully, before the topics could expand any further, adai avial ran out. I used that as my opportunity to run to the wash basin. Golly, I needed a break! It was like I was listening to a speech in Klingon.

Finally, after a few more minutes, it was goodbye time. It couldn’t have come any sooner. As we all gathered at the door to see him off, he suddenly remembered something.

“Oh I forgot. My ammi had asked me to get a 10-kilo packet of idli rice from a grocery store on my way back. I only have Rs. 200 with me. Uncle, aunty, would you know how much a kilo might cost, so that I could decide if I need to stop at an ATM before purchasing?”

Jacob Uncle

As instructed by wife over phone a while ago, when I got down at the bus stop, I crossed the road and made my way to Gopal’s Milma booth to buy a packet of milk. As I approached the booth, I saw an entry under the “Obituary” section of the public board erected by the Gram Panchayat. Curious, I moved in closer to see the person who passed away. Mine was a small village, which, in spite of the urbanization phenomena engulfing the entire country, had retained its village charm to a commendable degree. Everyone was everyone’s acquaintance some way or the other and with that, it made it highly likely that the person who passed away would be someone I knew.

On the board, below the text, there was a black and white photo pasted as well. Human mind has a general affinity to pictorial information over textual information and thus my eyes made their way to the photograph before the short text that preceded it. There was no doubt - the photo was of Jacob uncle. The photo was definitely not contemporary, it was in no way an accurate representation of how Jacob uncle looked over the last few years. Probably the photo was taken from his electoral ID card or something. It showed the Jacob uncle at least a decade and half younger. But there was no mistaking that it was Jacob uncle indeed. The text above mentioned that the death occurred late yesterday night.

I have been seeing Jacob uncle from my childhood. I remember vaguely a young and handsome form of Jacob uncle during my childhood. During those days of bell bottomed pants and hippie culture, Jacob uncle used to was the village hippie. I have heard my mother say that he was the first person to wear a pant in our village. Probably inspired by Amitabh Bachchan and Jayan movies, he used to have a distinctive angry young man flair. Those were the days when the whole village was without any fences. Houses continued one after the other, without being interrupted and gridlocked by fences and no one needed to ask permission to pass through when they were moving from point A to point B in between which were always situated, a few houses.

Jacob uncle lived a few houses down from ours and used to pass through our home en route to the marketplace in the village which was where the bus stop was. If my mother was sitting in the portico, they would greet each other and gossip for a few minutes. I could remember days when I would be woken up from sleep hearing the incessant (what appeared to me to be nonsensical) banter ongoing between these two people who were great talke chatter could range from a variety of topics, almost all of them centered on the universe called my village. Both of them liked each other’s company and there were instances when Jacob uncle ended up missing many a bus because he would squat on our verandah and talk with my mother for hours on, oblivious of the fact that he was just passing through my house and was supposed to be somewhere else by that time.

My mother once told me an incident from Jacob uncle’s childhood where Jacob uncle was with his father who was a lineman with the state electricity board. Once when Jacob uncle’s father was atop a post for repairs, someone accidentally turned the line on and his father was seriously injured by electrocution due to coming in contact with the high voltage line for an instant and fell off the post. Even though he fell on top of a pile of hay which absorbed most of the impact of the fall, the injuries caused by electrocution was extremely severe. Seeing that no one was around, and out of options, Jacob uncle, who was in high school at that time, carried his father to the nearest junction over a kilometer away from where he got a taxi to take him to the hospital. Eventually his father survived and the legend of the son stayed on.

If one were to see Jacob uncle in contemporary times, one would have found it really hard to believe such a story. Over the past half decade or so, the deterioration in his health was unbelievable, to say the least. Especially to someone like me, who had seen uncle when he was at his healthy best from the time when he was in his late twenties onwards. The fact that up until that point a few years ago, he was healthy and active and the sudden deterioration of someone who would be considered much healthy for his age around eight years ago was shockingly painful.

During my school years, it seemed everyone had a role to play in my life. Essentially, my life could never be viewed in isolation, it was a reflection of the life of the village. Like the newspaper guy Pathrose chettan, who used to occasionally give me unsold comics without taking any money. Or the village coconut climber Madhu chettan (so appropriately named because he was also the official drunkard of the village, and, by greatest of coincidences, alcohol is a synonym of the word Madhu in Malayalam) who gave me the first taste of toddy. He used to regularly ask me when I was in school, “Son, are you studying well? If you have to get a good job and live in a big city, you have to study well, only then you will get a good job.” On the day I got my job offer, after informing my parents, he was the first person I broke the news. He beamed with happiness and had wished me luck in my new job. Whenever I came home on leave from work, he used to prepare me a big bottle of fish pickle for me to take back to town. He was not a rich person, in fact he bordered on either side of meeting both ends meet and fluctuated too often than he would have liked. On my own volition, I had set up a job for Jacob uncle’s son Jibin at a workshop near my office as a mechanic. But the grime and dust of vehicular maintenance, couple with his asthmatic conditions meant he ended up quitting the job in town in a little over six months and went back to our village. Jibin did well after going back to or village, he finished a carpentry course from a nearby training institute and quickly became a well sought after carpenter in the vicinity. Jacob uncle was extremely disappointed that Jibin could not hang on to a more stable job in the city but I knew what Jibin had gone through and used to side with Jibin in his decisions. He looked up to me as his elder brother whenever he had to take some important decision and I was only happy to oblige Jibin because I felt I owed Jacob uncle after all these years he cared for me.

Meanwhile, my life was undergoing transformations as well. I married a lovely girl who continues to be my wife, had kids. As my familiar responsibilities moved from my parents towards my wife and kids, my visits to the village reduced in frequency and duration. What used to happen regularly every month and quite frequently more than that, was reduced to quarterly and semi annually. And without realizing, I was also losing touch with my village and the other people around whom my life used to revolve once upon a time, including Jacob uncle. My village changed as well. There were fences separating houses and boards against trespassing appeared. Small kachcha roads, over course of multiple election campaigns and promises, became pukka roads. Not everyone knew everyone else. The fabric was transformed, even if the changes were a reflection of what was happening elsewhere in the state and the country as well.

As my visits to my village became few and farther apart, so proportionately did my encounters with Jacob uncle. Since there was a pukka road from his home to the village square, Jacob uncle never really came to our house as often as he once used to. But still, whenever I met Jacob uncle, there was a lot of warmth and affection. He always used to be keenly interested in my professional and personal lives, and by association, with the lives of my wife and children. I had grown up in the strata to what is called by contemporary socialists as the middle class, but Jacob uncle and his family, weren’t quite there yet. They were still on the fringes. He knew that I was well off but he never asked me money, directly or indirectly. There were occasions when I felt I should help, but I backed away due to the fear that it would affect his pride, and subsequently, the rapport between us.

Someday, during the local pooram at the temple, during a casual conversation, one of my neighbors said to me, “Do you know that Onamkaleikal Jacob? He’s the father of the carpenter Jibin.”

“Of course, I know him quite well.”

“The other day, they diaganozed him with cancer. In his mouth.”

I stood there, shell shocked, unable to respond. He used to chew paan, much like everyone else in the village. If I were to throw a dart in any direction from the middle of my village, in any direction, I can tell you that the probability that it would hit someone who does not chew paan will be minimal. Paan was abundantly prevalent and popular in my village and everyone, men and women included, were regular users of paan. The cancer was probably as a consequence of chewing paan for over half a decade even though no one I knew had got oral cancer prior in my village. Sadly, this could probably be the first time.

The next day I went to Jacob uncle’s house. The house was almost exactly as I remembered from a few years ago. There were changes, the kind you expect with the passage of time, but the feel and essence remained. Jacob uncle wasn’t there, neither was Jibin. Jibin’s wife, a cheerful young woman whom I had known for years was surprised to see me. She told me that Jibin had taken his father to a hospital in the nearby town and weren’t expected before sundown. I had to return that day afternoon so as to start in office from tomorrow. Reluctantly I left, making a note to myself to come back in a couple of weeks and meet Jacob uncle. I missed that deadline, as I procrastinated. It was two months after the pooram in the village temple, the first time I learnt of Jacob uncle’s illness that I was able to visit my village again.

As I got down from the bus, I made my way to Kumaran’s tea stall, the focal point of the village news and gossips, just adjacent to Gopal’s Milma booth. There among a lot of familiar faces, I saw a lean figure, with a white towel over his head, sipping tea in a style that reminded me of someone. I took a careful look. It was Jacob uncle. Suffice to say that fter all these years of knowing him, I had to look astutely to actually make out that it was indeed Jacob uncle I was looking at. As if understanding my predicament, he smiled weakly. With the oral cancer inflicting a heavy toll on him, the smile was not pretty, but it was heart warming. “Coming from town?”, he asked me. I replied yes. Both of us took our teas in the hand and stepped outside. I was standing muted near this person, who was only a scant part of himself. “How are you?” I managed to ask. He didn’t reply.

I reached into my pocket and took out a wad of notes which were there. It was a spontaneous reaction, I hadn’t planned on that. I didn’t know how much cash was there. There were a few twenties and fifties and a small number of hundred rupee notes. I didn’t count, I didn’t bother to. In that frame of mind, etiquette was not even close in consideration. I turned around to make sure no one was watching and I tucked the notes in to the pocket of the shirt that hung loosely on Jacob uncle’s shirt. He tried to resist, but his protests were feeble, I was not going to heed to that. It took great effort on Jacob uncle’s part to speak a few words. In due respect, I didn’t talk anything. As we stood there, long after our teas were finished, we heard the sound of an approaching auto rickshaw. Jibin’s wife was coming in that. While we helped Jacob uncle to get into the auto, Jibin’s wife explained to me, “He wanted to come to the the junction and have a tea at Kumaran’s. It had been a long while since he had got out of the house so I told him to go ahead, I said I will come with an auto rickshaw to pick him up after some time. Jibin ettan hasn’t come back from work yet. Do you want to come home?”

“No, not right now. I’ll try to come by sometime later.”

I smiled at Jacob uncle, who was by now inside the auto. He said with his usual warmth, “Do come by if you have time.” I said I will.

I stood there without moving as the auto rickshaw carrying Jacob uncle and his daughter-in-law sped away and disappeared around a curve.

A lot of philosophical questions rushed through my mind. Why had God done this to this person, such a noble soul who lived an honest life and hurt no one, almost verbatim as the Bible preaches, I said to no one.

A few days later, I came to know of an incident. There was an NGO working amongst cancer patients in the nearby town. The oncologist Jacob uncle was undergoing treatment under was a part of their network and as a result, they contacted Jacob uncle and Jibin offering Rs. 10,000 towards funding for Jacob uncle’s treatment. Jacob uncle was weak and tired of repeated treatments, and by contemporary standards had lived a long life. He was in such a state that his doctor was not much hopeful even though he didn’t say as much. But his mind was sound and his thoughts were very much rational. When they approached him with the offer to give a cheque for Rs. 10,000 he politely but sternly refused to take it from them. They pressed Jibin but Jibin said he would abide by whatever decision his father takes without question because it was for his treatment and it was his prerogative to make a decision, not Jibin’s. I got in touch with one of the representatives of the NGO who had visited Jacob uncle who told what Jacob uncle had told them, “It is not right for me to take this money considering the fact that I have gone past the curable stage. I have enough money saved over my life to see me and my treatment through till I breathe my last. My son is doing quite well in his job and can comfortably support his family with his job. Please take this as a request from a dying man - give that money to someone who needs it more to come out of cancer.” In this day and age, where you occasionally hear of people and organizations fudging records to inappropriately claim governmental and non-governmental organizational benefits, that statement from Jacob uncle was indeed an eye opener.

I was woken up from my reverie by a hand which came over my shoulder. Matthew, one of my neighbors. “He was a good man”, Matthew said with a deep sigh. I nodded.

“The burial is in half an hour at the church. I am going there now. Coming along?”

I can buy the milk later. For now, I want to touch Jacob uncle’s feet one last time. To pay my homage to a great individual who lived and walked in this village till yesterday. With a heavy heart, I followed Matthew as he led the way in the direction of the village church.

Mumbai Mail

Chhatrapati Sivaji Terminus is the busiest station of India. At any given instant of time, any part of the day, the station is flocked with people and thus, never short on activity. People from all walks of life – from the mighty company executive to homeless peddlers for whom the domes served as a roof atop their heads, always amalgamated with the station. For some, this might mark the beginning of a journey, maybe an anxious or an enthusiastic omen, for some others, it is signals a terminus, the end of a pleasant or an unpleasant voyage. It was in the middle of this hubbub of activity that I found myself a few minutes after the sun set on the famed Mumbai skyline.

I had a train to catch. The outbound Mumbai Mail to Chennai which would be departing in an hour and a half. And I had two three tier Air Conditioned coach tickets with me. I picked up a coffee from a stall. I moved towards the center of the station where there were a group of chairs for waiting, perched atop one of them and started the agonizing wait. The station in all its grandeur, never failed to capture my imagination. I watched as railway network put people on the move. There were laughter of joy, sighs of relief, and tears of painful farewell. The station, as would be the case with most stations on the railway network, was a cornucopia of emotions. My mind was not focused. I realized that I should be feeling tense, but I was surprisingly calm. I had seen in movies that during such moments, your mind wades through a mélange of moments that happened all through your life – the good ones, the bad ones and the ugly ones. But there was nothing of that sort puttering through my mind, it was empty. The group of girls sitting near her were chattering non-stop about the latest Salman Khan movie. She longed for serenity, some peace. Mumbai was a tough place to find peace, and the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus was the last place one could hope to find serenity. Finally the chatter reached such a point that she could no longer take it. She picked up her bag and moved, in measured paces, towards the main entrance of the station. There was always a swarm of people pushing into the station every minute, and it was where she hoped to catch a glimpse of Sooraj.

As she waited, she was fidgeting with her mobile. For the past two hours she had been calling him, but there had been no response. She had messaged him multiple times, to call her back but there was neither the call back she had been waiting for nor a message indicating that he wasn’t in a position to. She finished three coffees one after another, and kept waiting. She waited for him in the busy railway station for more than an hour. Inside she was debating if she should simple walk away and board the train. She had the ticket, after all. And he didn’t know the details of which compartment they were reserved in. She had to take care of everything, from start to end because he was not in a position to. As if on cue, the announcement came, “Passengers, your kind attention! Train No. so-and-so Mumbai Chennai Mail from Mumbai CST to Chennai Central will depart from Platform No. 6 at two-three-one-five hours.” This was followed by announcements in Hindi and Marathi. She looked at her watch, and then her mobile. No messages. The train, if on schedule, was due to depart in twenty minutes.

She had to make a decision. She could not go back. She carefully stared at the net batch of incoming crowd pushing and shoving to get inside the station. No, Sooraj wasn’t there. She turned around and started walking in the direction of Platform No. 6. The decision had been made. There was going to be no more waiting for him.

She boarded the Mumbai Mail, located her berth, placed her bags and settled in. After the tumultuous past couple of hours, the silence around her seemed eery. She moved to the door. Maybe she was hoping if he did manage to come at this last minute, that he could still find her. The engine blew its horn, signaling the intent to commence the journey. The guard flashed the green light. And slowly but steadily, the lights of Chhatrapati Sivaji Terminus was moving against the direction she was going. She was still at the door and her coach had almost reached the end of the station when her mobile phone signaled a message received, “My wife came back today. She is still not willing to divorce me, we fought over it again today. I couldn’t get out of the house. Let’s make a plan for another day when she will be away at her parents’ place. Come to Marine Drive tomorrow evening, we’ll decide.”

Without a second thought, she instantly replied, “I waited for you, you didn’t turn up. You cheated me, you are cheating your wife as well. Don’t wait for me, I am going where the Mumbai Mail takes me. Goodbye.” She sent the message and switched her mobile off. Tomorrow was going to be a fresh day, a fresh start. 

Frozen in Time

It was a lazy Sunday morning. We were playing cricket on the small maidan on the banks of Meenachil river. Playing cricket midday till Sunday was a ritual practiced vehemently by our gang, there were only seldom Sundays when the event did not happen. Not that playing regularly improved our game by any measure, but it was an unwritten tradition. Humid southern Indian summer or torrential south westerly monsoon, the game invariably found a way to happen.

There was another tradition which accompanied our Sunday morning game. The journey of Achutan, with his long fishing rod, accompanied by his son Ramu. Achutan was a peon in the nearby Government Polytechnic College. And Ramu was in kindergarten, at the local Anganwadi. The game used to pause when they were passing because they had to cross the field to reach the bank of the river where Achutan used to fish. Little Ramu used to wave to us and we used to wave back at him. The father-son duo was a sight for us to watch. The son used to always walk three steps behind his father, it was almost like a two person march past. Achutan would be holding his fishing rod over his shoulder whereas Ramu would be holding a small earthern pot which normally would be filled by the time they used to make their return trip back homeward.

Achutan and Ramu used to talk loudly about a lot of things when walking along, could be about Ramu’s school, Achutan’s job at college, fishing, household stuff. A lot of things. On most occasions, Achutan used to be the speaker and Ramu used to be the listener. Achutan was very patient when answering Ramu’s question. It was evident that he was not well educated, so he had his limitations. But he was always mild and patient when talking to Ramu. The scene was virtually the same every Sunday, our game, the duo’s arrival, our pausing of the game to let them pass, and their return through our ground again after a couple of hours or more. They used to fish very on the bank adjacent to our ground, so we could hear Ramu’s cheerful shouts whenever Achutan caught a fish. The pitch in Ramu’s shout was in direct proportion to the size of fish, we knew Achutan caught a big fish when loud ecstatic cries from Ramu used to reach us. When returning back, the walk would be reversed. This time Ramu would be running ahead and stopping for his father to catch up, with the pot generally full of freshly caught fish. And Achutan would follow behind, contendly smoking his beedi. 

It has been ten years since then. The landscape in our small village has more or less remained unaltered. We still play cricket. We still pause the game when Achutan and Ramu cross the pitch to their usual spot on the banks of Meenachil river. Barring a few differences. All of us used to be in school back then, wearing shorts and shirts with more holes and fewer buttons. Now we wear lungis and random branded T shirts. Our cricket graduated from makeshift bats chiseled from coconut tree branches and tennis ball to BDM bats and cork balls. And Ramu has advanced from kindergarten to high school. And they don’t walk. Ramu pedals on his bicycle with a grey haired Achutan on the pillion. But the sweet camaraderie between father and son has remained untouched.

Time doesn’t keep everything frozen but it certainly does preserve the essence. 

Daughter

Today is my daughter’s wedding.

But neither was she blessed as much to get into the mandap after touching my feet, nor was I blessed as much to run around shouldering the responsibilities of arranging the logistics of the event they call the grand Indian wedding. Will she be knowing the pain of a father, who is unable to hold his daughter’s hand and give it to the groom, the pain of a father who is seeing the wedding sitting undistinguished as one among the hundreds of guests? I doubt it. There would be other, much more pleasant thoughts racing through her mind right now.

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College life is special for everyone. The memories never fade, the day it dies is the day you cease to exist. Memories could be sweet, bitter or a blend of two in arbitrary proportion. Possibly the first impression almost everyone has is the apprehension he/she has when he/she goes to attend class on the first day.

It was that day I saw her first. She was in the same batch as I was, but we differed in our majors. I was majoring in Chemistry, and she was into Mathematics. I can’t recollect how or when it happened that we became close. I guess it is that inevitable process that occurs so commonly – acquaintances through mutual friends, friends through mutual acquaintances, buddies through passage of time and then it somewhere unknowingly, that threshold too was crossed. Sharing some subjects did their bit as well, we grew a lot cozier over those late night study sessions in library and the campus canteens.

There were a lot of instances. Campus life is always enriched with instances. We had so different tastes when it came to food but inevitably we used to end up going to canteen together and we used to enjoy sharing food with each other a lot. In one such instance, I was reading a book while she was eating from my plate after she had finished hers. Suddenly, out of the blue, she asked me, “Which raga is love in?”. I was taken aback, I was absolutely ignorant about the nuances of Carnatic music. “Hmm… I guess Shriranjini”, I retorted back with a mischievous grin. The truth was, that was one of the handful of ragas I knew about. “No, you’re wrong”, she replied. “It’s Mohanakalyani.” I remembered the peculiar look in her eyes when she said this. And she disappeared fast feigning the excuse that she had a class for the hour. I the dumb could not decipher it. Another time she asked me what my favorite color was. Green I said it was. For the next week or so she wore a green tinted salwar suit. It did send me some signals, but I was perplexed. I always believed (or maybe I liked to believe?) that all those craziness was a part of the friendship between us.

On one other occasion, we were sitting in the library, I was immersed in a magazine. I concede she did have the knack of taking me by surprise. And she didn’t fall from the standards she set herself when she asked me, “What does a woman, take me as an example. What do you think I desire most in my life?” That did catch me unawares. As usual, I was ignorant and ended up guessing a lot of answers. “Good job with a comfortable salary”, “being a good and loyal wife”, “a well-off and caring husband”, “professional glory”…. She looked disappointed with my answers. In fact, she actually looked hurt that I stopped the misadventure abruptly. She never bothered to give an answer to that question. Though I was curious, her reaction when she heard my answers prevented me from bringing up the topic again.

I didn’t realize when I crossed over from the realm of friendship. It just happened. There is no hard-and-fast rule for that. The boundaries are where you define them. Looking back, I think she had erased the lines from her side quite a while back. Or rather, she attempted to erase them. It was me who never really caught on the signals. Can’t say I’ve grown any wiser today but the fact that I am able to understand why she did what she did on a lot of occasions which at that time, seemed out of place to me, did make me feel a bit more intellectually mature after all these years. I’ve tried unsuccessfully a lot of times to recollect when and where it was that I started having feelings for her, but the crux was definitely that I started having feelings for her. Her role in my life graduated from that of a very special friend of mine, to being that very special someone in everyone’s life.

Everybody perceives campus life to whiz past at a pace you don't realize. It was the same in our case. We had our falls and springs in our lives, as any other pairs you’d find in any random campus landscape. Romance, fights, reconciliations, then again back to romance…. The wheel was never any different. Our relationship grew stronger over the years. As they say about college life, one has got all the time in the world, but one never has sufficient clunk in his pockets. We enjoyed each other’s company, lavishly in time and frugally in economics. We became inseparable.

Towards the end of final year in college, we started getting worried. We knew that a separation was on the cards, but either of us were unwilling and unprepared to confront it. We started spending more time with each other, and often times, periods of silence started overcoming periods of chatter. The whole thing was depressing. It was unfair, we never really spent enough time with each other. What would happen after college? I would have to go and search for a job in a big city. What about her..? It was those times were girls were typically married off early, as soon as possible after graduation. Both of us were engulfed in those depressing lines of thought.

The final exams were on the cards. Torn between the desire to spend maximum time with each other and the necessity to prepare for the examinations, we started studying together. Initially, the venues were the college library, cafeterias and other places inside the college campus. I stayed with a couple of my batch mates outside the college campus and occasionally she used to come there and we used to study till late hours. What was between us was known to my roommates and so they never had any problem with accommodating her.

“The End”. That was the last line I wrote before I handed over my answer sheet to my invigilator one final time from the portals of my college building. I can’t precisely remember what went through my mind while I was handing that paper out to the invigilator, but looking back a couple of decades with my not-so-highly-rated memory, I am reasonably sure my eyes would have been moist. But I distinctly remember me walking with her from the examination hall to the college canteen. The same walk which we used to do at least twice a day for better part of two years, that ever so familiar route seemed to detach away from us. For the college, the buildings, the halls, the labs, the campus, the canteens, nothing would change. An x would be replaced by a y. That would be about it. Every year she sees off a hundred students walking away from her, never to return back and the she welcomes a new set of a hundred fresh-faced eager and enthusiastic group into her fold, only to see them off the same way after three years.

We sat in the canteen silently, over a cup of tea. We had done that a thousand times before when we were never short of things to talk. A wide array of topics used to occupy our canteen time, from hostel gossips to astronomical discoveries, from the relevance of Leninist ideology to the price increase of beeda we used to have at the shop outside the college gate. That was the usual case, today was a world unusual. We spent the day roaming around the campus, reliving memories. Talk was sparing and sentimental. Neither of us could fathom that we had actually finished our degree, that we’ll have to move out, possibly to separate cities.

It was a full moon night. The clouds obstructed the view of the stars but the moon was present and bright. Lying beside each other on the basketball court, we were seeing the same moon. We were seeing the same dream. We didn’t speak a word but we both knew that the same thoughts were going through each other’s mind.

We got up. I looked at her to find her looking at me. I could read her eyes. I suppose she could read mine as well. I’m sure both of us knew what we were thinking was far from ethical. There are times when even the most rational of individual shelve ethics and morality, when fundamental human instincts trump everything else. That full moon night, technically the last day in college, was the night when I felt the magnetic power of my feelings overshadow every sense of right I had.

My roommates were partying, I knew that. That’s the first thing they plan when the examination schedule is put out. The night after the last examination is something every college student invariably looks forward to. The rhetoric may be different, the celebrations may wildly differ, but the anticipation is palpably same. So was the case with my roommates. Over the past couple of years, it had become a ritual of theirs to go the bar far in town and get drunk to the fullest. So much that the guys at the bar had a copy of the examination schedule every time. Both of us knew my room was empty. We walked the long walk.

We knew it was going to be wrong. We knew it was going to be irreversible. But I needed it. And she also needed it. It was as if we were challenging whoever constructed the framework of ethics for human beings. Sometime in the dead of night, when most of the world around slept, and most of our batch mates were exploring varying levels of alcohol-induced mental highs, we shared each other.

The following days in my memory, remain fuzzy. She did not tell me when she vacated her hostel room and left for her hometown. I enquired with her friends, but they didn’t have much information to help me. I just knew her hometown, I didn’t know her home address. Nonetheless, I went there and inquired around. A guy looking for a girl doesn’t generally go down well in southern Indian towns and the case here was no different. Not only was I unsuccessful in getting any info, but things reached a point where I started to get threatening vibes from some of the locals. Tired and dejected, I took the bus back home. I prayed that things be well for her. That’s the least I could do for her. In those moments, that was the most I could do for myself.

The societal pressures of economics and conventionalism caught up with me in due course of time. As was the case with a lot of my contemporaries, there was this period of my life where I searched for a job and then I got a job. And then, before I realized it, I was married to a girl half a decade younger to me by age. I settled into the rhythm of a conventional, uneventful yet happy life. All the while she occupied my mind, but as they say time is a great healer and the passage of time, tightly coupled with pressures of life, did a fair amount of work in ebbing my thoughts about her. I had never told my wife anything about her, I really couldn’t ever come around to look in her and eyes and tell her that her husband was not as pious as a wife would expect her husband to be. Never had the guts to tell that, so I never told.

Until that day. Almost six years after I stepped out the last time from my college, she came back for me. Magically. One summer morning, I open the doors of my house to a knock and I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw her standing in front of me. Such a thought never occurred to me in the wildest of my imaginations, but there she was, standing in front of me, in flesh and blood. A charming young girl wearing a polka dress and ponytailed hair was shyly holding her hand and throwing glances at me. I invited her in, introduced her as a classmate of mine to my wife. It took a good deal of composure to introduce the two women to each other, and looking back, I am surprised about how I was able to do it. Thankfully for me, both the women took a liking to each other and they quickly became friends.

Over the course of next few days, she told us her story. She had married an army jawan immediately after college. Just over a year after their marriage, he was killed in action along the Indo – Pak border in Kashmir. As a result of that, she had got a job in a nationalized bank. After working for a few years outside the state, she got transferred here to my town. And she and her daughter Sreelakshmi moved here. I did not ask her any details about when the marriage happened and so on. Though I wanted to know about it, I thought it might make things between us awkward. Plus the presence of my wife warranted my restraint from asking too many questions.

Years rolled by. Barring a few transfers lasting few months, she and I ended up staying in the same town. Sreelakshmi grew up into a fine young girl. Over time, I felt an increasingly lot of similarities between she and her mother as she grew up. I saw her going to school the day before yesterday, inter college yesterday and today, I saw her going to degree college… time flew. So fast that I was shocked when her mother told me that she was starting to consider marriage proposals for Sreelakshmi.

One day she came up to my office. Said she wanted to talk to me. In the confines of our guest lobby, when the whole world rumbled along like any other day, she said, “I can’t keep it anymore. I can’t keep it from you any more. I am imploding within myself, I need to tell this to someone, and I can’t tell it to Sreelakshmi….” Her voice trailed off in the muffles of her light sobs.

“What’s the matter?” I asked.

“I’ve lied to the world. I lied to Sreelakshmi, I lied to everyone. I lied to you. I was married to a jawan, but at the time of my marriage, I was carrying Sreelakhsmi.” Saying that, she burst into tears.

I was shell shocked. I sat there, speechless. My mind raced back to that night after exam. And her quietly disappearance from college. Lack of information regarding her with any of her classmates. I perfectly understood everything now. Everything was crystal clear.

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As I sat there and pondered, the marriage ceremony was over. Sreelakshmi was now married. My daughter was now married.

Geek

There's nothing special about this poem. It was written in one of those innumerable boring lecture classes, yesterday. It started off from the person who was sitting next to me and as the poem progressed, it ceased to draw inspiration from one person and I was getting ideas from a horde of people.
I believe the poem does not match upto the standards of a lot of poems and prose written by me, but the fact that it was spontaneous, fast and in the middle of a class makes me post this onto my blog.
Happy Reading !!!


Think did I long time before,
that engineers rule the world.
Realise did I, not long before,
that just a few geeks do,
the rest just stare.


A shabby picture I had,
about this genre of Homo Sapiens.
A prejudiced stereotype,
deeply rooted, worldly habituated.


They say geeks are not made geeks,
they are born so rather.
I didn't know if it is to be believed or otherwise,
until I meet up this person.


Defying trademarks, his natural self.
"Stereotypes...? Not my cup of tea" his bhaashan
I thought before that people were born to live,
I realise after,
he was born...to "geek".


A guy amazing he was,
oops....amazing's way too an understatement.
Seemed all normal did he,
except for being....hmm
being...a little other-worldly??


A good student he was,
illuminated a lot of unclear scholastic avenues,
with his ....grace.
A good friend was he,
stood by me in my crises,
and laughed with me, when I wished.
As humble too,
often made me wonder...ideal?


He was a friend in a lot of needs,
I hope, I too was.
Geek? Naah...a good friend,
is how I like to remember.
Some things, they say, are priceless,
for me, he really is one.
And a humble prayer,
from heart of hearts,
that he remains one,
long time to come,
a long time to go.