Jawan

As a kid, ambulances always fascinated me. I surmise that was because of the lights and siren sounds they had, the way they were treated when on the road where other vehicles would make way for its passage. I caught on the fascination at an age where I was too little to think of why ambulances had those lights and sirens, why they got priority on the road. I probably came to know that at a later age. But the fascination stuck, even though I assimilated the purpose of the urgency. My mother used to tell me that whenever they took me to a toy shop, ambulance fire engine toy replicas were inevitably my first choice. Strange things to like when I look back. But you have to understand, back then not everything was wrapped around societal etiquette. When you are that age, you can love anything and hate anything, neither of which would seem logical. That is the way it is.

I had wanted to sit in the back of the ambulance as it began its somber sojourn from the airport. But it wasn’t possible, I was to show them the way.

Me and Jai were of the same age. We had studies in the same school till plus two. I wouldn’t categorize us as best buddies. Yes, I was friends with Jai but we didn’t belong in the same circle. While both of us did not bring home any academic laurels in our periodic report cards, I was a notorious member of the village naughty children gangs while Jai was someone who was more of a silent type. I was considered by the elder folk as somewhat of a headache, my presence in most cases was a precursor of some mischievous activity in the near future. On the other hand, Jai was a different breed. He was silent and pleasant and was generally friends with most children in the area. There were circumstances when he had come to our rescue. Like in the case when five of us stole toddy from Chandran’s toddy shop and were caught in the act of consuming it, Jai pleaded with Chandran to let us off the hook, vouching for us that we would never steal from anyone. Or when I gave a love letter to carpenter Raman’s daughter when we were in tenth grade and it unsurprisingly came in the know of Raman, Jai talked to Raman to cool things down. And so on went the stories.

As I mentioned, Jai and I were friends, not the thickest of buddies but friends nonetheless. Things took a turn for the better when we were in plus two. Both of us did not know what to do for future. Our academic records did not hold much promise that we could get an admission for any professional degree course and we had started thinking about what to do next. It was Jai who broached the idea of joining the army. The more he talked about it, the more I was convinced that army was a good prospect. There were no army men from our village, so it would help get an image makeover, to get us respected in the village. An additional incentive at least for me was the booze on offer. Army, I had heard, was quite generous in serving up booze to its rank and file and that certainly was a swing factor in my decision. Not to mention all the pluses and perks of a government job.

And so, a handful of us prepared for the Army recruitment. Three of us managed to clear the physicals and get offers from the army when they came for recruitment in the state. As luck would have it, me and Jai got posted to the same battalion. It was certainly good to have a known face to bank upon - the training period was tough and sapping and we depended a lot on each other to get through that. And that it when the bond of friendship between me and Jai was strengthened. Being of the same battalion, we got our postings together. We were posted in different parts of the country and the two eggheads from a remote corner of India got to see the soul and essence of the length and breadth of India. We also developed a pattern when taking our annual vacations - we tried to space them up so that one of us would be home every half year or so. That way, even though we went home only once every 12 to 18 months, from our village perspective, any one of us would be home every 6 to 8 months.

Time passed, as it always does. Both of us married, had kids. When I would go home for my vacations, along with all the luggage for me and my family, it was an unwritten rule to carry one box full of stuff for Jai’s wife and daughter. And vice versa when he went home for his vacations. And when everything was going well, came the war. Historians of futurity may judge it with a different set of views but for us as soldiers, we were taught to obey orders coming from higher up, not question them. Our regiment, as was the case with a lot of regiments, was sent to the international border. Our battalion was posted at the front-line - we were the first line of defence for India. When you are in a war, your psyche is very different from what you experience during peacetime. The adrenaline levels are pumped up and you need that to cope up with the death and destruction you see happening in front of you. You know that you and your colleagues are responsible for creating that havoc directly or indirectly and you need to convince yourself that you are doing the right thing.

And that is when it happened. The eighteenth day of our deployment on the international border. That is when a shell fired from the enemy forces hit one of our front-line command posts manned by Jai and another colleague. Death was instant, I later came to know. I couldn’t believe my ears when I heard the news. Yes, we are soldiers and we are “used to” seeing a colleague waving hello at us one day and coming back inside a body bag the next. No matter how trained you are, no matter how much of the army psyche you have assimilated, you cannot quite get “used to” some things. 

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The body of Jai lie wrapped in a white cloth in the back compartment of the ambulance. As I directed the driver to make the final turn into the road which led to Jai’s house, I could see the crowd afar that had gathered around the compound of Jai’s house.

Somebody

  

Yesterday it was,

that I sat by this window.

To write something special,

for that somebody who I hoped

would turn to be my somebody special.

I was stumbling,

at a loss were words.

My hands were trembling,

at a loss was a heart.

Yet for all it was

deep inside I knew

That the stumbles and trembles

were all of a bubbling heart.

Of a mind that wanted to scream

my feelings for you.

An ode,

a verse

or a chapter

I didn’t know what to write,

the word unwritten speaketh louder.

Today I find myself,

sitting by the same window sill,

the green fields that they were outside,

stands all parched.

The fury of God it seems

not just landed the curse on me.

It spread everywhere I went.

I still want to write,

though I’m still unsure what to write.

All I know

is that person

did want me no more

as her someone special.

I was stumbling,

at a loss were words.

My hands were trembling,

at a loss was a heart.

Yet for all it was

deep inside I knew

That the stumbles and trembles

were all of a broken heart.

Of a mind that wanted to scream

my hatred for you.

The feeling for you,

masqueraded  as much to the world,

as much to myself.

Not an ode,

not a verse,

nor a chapter,

all that flashed in front of me

Was one word of hate.

The one expression of hatred.

Inside I knew,

I was lying to myself.

But always was I a deceiver.

The letter lies unfinished,

Burned to a pile of ash

In my mind and soul.

Another Day in Paradise

Christmas time is one of happiness and joy, one of smiles and celebrations. And one of cold snowy winter as well. Three days to go before Christmas, the city was in a festive and joyous mood. That snowy night, I found myself walking on the pavement draped in all sorts of winter wear I could lay my hands on. I was missing my wife quite a bit, she had to go out of town for a conference and would be back only on New Year’s Eve. The late-night walks and a midnight coffee with her would’ve been just what the doctor ordered, if you ask me.

Yet there I was alone among a sea of humanity, with an all-professional visage in a surrounding filled with holiday cheer and festivities. Somewhere afar, I heard the hum of a cathedral bell chime ten. Even at this hour, there were a lot of people outside, quite a sizeable chunk of them with children, throwing snowballs at each other. I was immune to the celebrations around me, as I watched the setting dispassionately.

I slowly made my way across the street to a café. Like all other shops in the vicinity, the café too was decorated with Christmas trees and decorations hanging from the walls. There was a decent sized crowd in the café, most of them clutching their cups of piping lattes and hot chocolates taking in the vacation spirit and engaged in lively conversations. Just as I was about to push open the door, my eyes darted to the side. And there, I found him, yet another homeless man in this city of dreams. He had a blanket which he had draped across his body, and a tattered pair of shoes which, I wondered, did much to protect his feet from the wintry chill. He was not much different from the thousands of others whom I’ve seen on the streets over the course of years, but I shouldn’t generalize or trivialize this human being. This was not a number I could add up if I were counting the number of such individuals I had come across on the streets, this was a human being with life and blood.

Even he seemed to embrace the mood of the occasion. He was smiling, or more accurately, that’s what I read from the spread-out lips with hardly anything resembling teeth inside his mouth. Despite the cold, it seemed, he was bent on giving his life the few hours of joy and liveliness he rarely could afford. As I pushed open the door and stepped into the café, his face and his smile, somehow, had affected me. Something all of the life and energy around me in the past few hours could not do, a look at his face for a few seconds did for me. For the first time that evening, I found myself smiling.

I was still sporting my smile when I went up to the very cheerful barista at the counter.

“I’ll take a tall latte” I said.

As she was about to bill my latte, I corrected myself.

“Actually, make that two lattes. And I’ll add a couple of scones to that order as well.”

A few minutes later, I exited the café sipping my latte and holding the other latte and scones in my free hand. And I bent down in front of the man in front of the café and put down the latte in front of him and handed him the scones.

“Merry Christmas to you my dear man,” I said.

“You too, sir. Oh, thank you so very much for these. May God bless you!”

I smiled and stood up. As I slowly started to walk away in the direction of my apartment, I heard him say, “You’ve fed a hungry soul sir. That’s another day for you in paradise.”

The title is inspired by a song of the same name by Phil Collins. You can watch the song here and the lyrics can be found here.

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.

English Lessons!

There often come instances in life when you end up doing an intentional childish prank, or your do (or forget to do) something out of sheer absent mindedness which ends up making you feel like you rewound the clock of time all the way back to your childhood. I can bet it happens to you as much as it happens to me, just that the frequency and impact of such occurrences might differ from one person to another.

It was one such incident which happened to me recently which made me think of one of the earliest “lessons” (literally..!) I learnt in my life. I would rather not make you endure the torture of what happened to me, but the incident reminded me of a character who was present in my English text book in primary school – Kutchu. Kutchu and his family occupied a good portion of my English textbook in my primary classes. I think his wife’s name was Kamala, I can’t be sure about it. I very distinctly remember his son Ramu and his daughter Sita. One of the more popular and humorous lessons was Kutchu’s glasses which I believe, was in the syllabus for Class Two. The story was about Kutchu searching for his glasses, and eventually he “discovers” them on his nose when he looks in the mirror.

There was another one “Shake Well” which also has a Kutchu exploit in it. I only  have a vague recollection of that one but it involved Kutchu shaking his mother (or was it his grandmother?? Scratch, scratch….!.) after she had some medicine because it was written “Shake well” on the medicine label. Those stories seem innocuous now but I am truly impressed by their impact that I remember a lot of it even now, more than two decades after I first (and last) read them.

Allow me to ramble along a bit more. I have peppered my nostalgic part of my senses and it is not going to go away soon, not at least till I put a final full stop on this piece for sure.

English was a subject I really liked at school. I’m not quite sure what made English take the crown for me, maybe it could be attributed to my English teachers, maybe it was the language I felt closest to (since my school, a Kendriya Vidyalaya had a policy of not teaching the mother tongue), maybe it was the quality of the course syllabus. Whatever it was, English remained one of my favorite subjects at school and as a result I do recollect (and reminisce) a lot of what I learnt in my English textbooks at school.

There are a lot of stories that I remember bits and pieces of but importantly they introduced me to a varied number of authors and the differences in presentation styles. I remember reading Nadine Gordimer (Ultimate Safari), Satyajit Ray (Barin Bhowmik’s Ailment), Anton Checkhov (The Beggar), Sarojini Naidu (Coromandel Fishers), Robert Frost (TheRoad Not Taken)….. these are but a handful of what I recollect.

Thank you NCERT. Thank you Central Board of Secondary Education. And thank you, Government of India. 

Beerly Tales

Oh lord, forgive my soul. For I have sinned, for I have caused the greatest dishonor that can befall a family.

I have been taught that thou shalt earn thy bread with the sweat of thy brow. My family has always believed in that axiom and have always tried to follow it to the core as much as possible. Somewhere in the process of evolution, the great great great grandfather of my great great great grandfather’s great great great grandfather, Mr. Mattatuveetil Geeverghese Philipose Abraham George Punnoose Kuriachan Thomas or Thomachan as he was more commonly known in the mundane parlance added a rider to thee holy thought. He proclaimed that the future generations shall not only have bread from the sweat of thy brow but also beer. Earned from the sweat of thy brow. I’m still not a hundred percent on whether the process of brewing beer had been invented in those days. Going by the average age of the males in my family, I have strong reasons to surmise that brewing of beer might not have happened in those days and I would love to get a patent for the first use of the term beer. I have researched records available with Archeological Survey of India but they did not have any records regarding the origin of beer, they had only held records of the history of Indian-made Foreign Liquor. I even attempted to get access to the Papal library in the Vatican but it was denied citing the reason that they do not support research into the origin and history of beer. Wine was okay they said, not beer. That’s that.

But the point I was trying to make is not that. So this gentleman Mr. M. G. P. A. G. P. K. Thomas (oh hell, Thomachan it is! Sorry great….great….great….grandfather), he started this age old family tradition of having a bottle of beer on Sunday evening. Err, if you, as a reader have a doubt as to whether they had concept of selling beer in bottle in those days, don’t think too much. Just read this and go about your business! So yea, Sunday evening. Beer. That tradition has been carried on for ever since. Oh, there has been a couple of documented aberrations. The earliest known break in tradition came on a rainy June Sunday evening. Family records that I’ve had access to show that the place our tharavaadu (ancestral home) was, was inundated with flooding courtesy of incessant monsoon rains that season. The archives go on to say that Thomachan was actually able to get on a rescue boat, which was intended to evacuate the flood survivors from the area and direct it to the nearest beer selling outlet but the outlet had been closed. The records go on to say that Thomachan was heavily disappointed with this incident and continued to lament his misfortune till his death a few years later.

The second break in tradition occurred to my great grandfather who was serving as a sepoy in the British army and deputed to fight for the allied powers in World War Two. Mr. Mattathuveetil Alexander Jacob Paulose Sunnykutty Matthew or Mathaichan to his peers, was the first from our family to cross the ocean and to see a land outside of our country of birth but he also had the dubious distinction of being the second in line to cause a rupture in a centuries old tradition. In his case too, it was not him to blame it was more of circumstance that caused the accident. He was fighting for the Allied forces as a part of the British Army somewhere in Egypt when on a summer Sunday (Sunday of all days!), when he went to collect his “quota”, he was informed that they had run out of beer. He went ballistic and he is said to have search the camp from fence to fence, chain link to chain link, looking for at least a partially empty beer bottle so that he could keep the family tradition. Alas, as fate would have it, there was none to be found. He has even claimed in his memoir that he defied his commanding officer’s orders and walked to the German army camp a couple of miles away to check if he could borrow a bottle of beer for this one time. He was thrown out from there saying that German’s don’t drink beer, as Hitler hated beer, Hitler sanctioned only heavy liquor for his troops stationed outside Germany. (I highly doubt if this story is completely right. But hey, who am I to cross words with my great grandfather?) So there was the  second incident, more than half a century ago.

The tradition has carried on ever since. Following the footsteps of my great grandfather and my grandfather, my father has kept up this tradition. He has been such a stickler for tradition that the day my parents were married, which happened to be a Sunday, my father came back from the church after the marriage and popped open a bottle of beer first thing after entering the house that day. And that man, in the name of Father, Son and the Holy Spirit, had to endure the ignominy of the third in line to break the family tradition - the first one in over half a century to do so. And that, because of me, me the stupid brainless son.

This whole series of events shaped up yesterday (Sunday) evening. There was one full bottle of Kingfisher in its most pristine form, sitting inside our refrigerator. It was late in the night that me and appachan (father) came back to our house after a party at a neighbor’s place. There was no beer there, only whiskey, gin and tonic cocktail. Huh, as if beer is beneath his dignity! Why couldn’t he have stocked up some beer?! Appachan was mindful of the fact that he had to have a glass of beer after we get back home so he went easy on the liquor. But me, being as youthfully brash as ever, did tip over my regular capacity by a peg or two of neat whiskey shots. We came home and appachan asked me to get the bottle from the refrigerator.

The dutiful son I was, off I went and emerged victorious pulling out the beer from the fridge. With due reverence to the king of spirits, I placed it on the coffee table across appachan and plopped my holy figure onto the adjacent chair. No sooner had I got two glasses from the kitchen that appachan’s phone rang. Aww man, isn’t it too late to call? But call was a call and a friend was a friend so off went the brawny man with his phone and beefy guffaws. Now there is me, there is a beer bottle in front and two glasses. And a young gentleman, no scratch that, I wasn’t showing too much of the gentlemanly features with all that (free!!) alcohol inside me. So yeah, you get the picture.

The dutiful son pours two beer into the two large glasses. He waits for appachan to get back to start the ritual. Tick tock tick tock. No sign of appachan. So he decides to take a sip from a glass to taste. Argh, the beer this time is strong. Appachan doesn’t like it strong, hence off I go and retrieve some Sprite from the refridgerator to dilute the concoction. Now here yours truly is faced with an engineering problem - how to add Sprite on top of a glass of beer that is filled to the brim. The pedantic part of me comes up with an idea. I take two gulps each from either of the glasses and now I have room to add the Sprite. What I don’t realize is that I’m now for all legal and official purposes drunk. And thus, after taking those gulps from the beer glasses to make some room for Sprite, I swear I saw there were four glasses on the table. And the pedantic part of me further applied his engineering brain to the problem and decided to pour out some beer from the existing glasses so as to load balance. Load balancing, aah what a wonderful concept. Muttering thanks to all those known and unknown gurus of engineering, I set about my task. Needless to say, after an inexplicable series of actions based purportedly on logical solutions to scientific problems, after a few minutes my appachan walks in to find two near empty glasses and four-fifth of beer spilled on the floor and a terrified logical problem solver in rapt attention. Hic.

Monday morning. The regrettable night has passed and the sun has shown up this Monday morning on the eastern horizon. I haven’t stepped out of my room yet. I’m dreading the moment I step out of the room today and encounter my distraught appachan sitting in the verandah. Oh Lord, forgive my soul. For I have sinned. 

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. 

The Wrong Number

I like to keep my mobile phone almost perennially in silent mode. I have never quite determined the reason for it - whether it is my innate irritation to unnecessary noise or my misconstrued sense of civic propriety which makes me believe that it is duty-bound of every one to reduce the noise in a public place. I often hear flak for it because this habit causes me to often miss calls, especially from my mother. But I was what I was, I’d rather be scolded than to change some mannerisms. Stupid, me.

But I did not miss that call. Going by the usual probability I should have. I was in kitchen preparing dinner, and it is not common that I hear the vibration of my phone over the cacophony of noises in kitchen. But somehow I did hear it. I rushed to my bedroom desk where the phone lay expecting it to my mother calling. The display read “Private number.” Okay, so that was not my mother. This might be one of those tele-marketing companies who have made it a habit of calling from random numbers so that you can’t block their calls. Skeptical, I picked up the phone.

“Hello?”

“Hello dosth. Yaar I decided enough is enough. The credit card bills I had pending for the past few months, they’ve caught up with me. I begged them for an extension but they are in no mood to relent. They said categorically that they were going to press charges against me. You know how sever it is here, in Saudi Arabia with the Sharia law if I am sued for financial fraud. I begged them, I told them that I used that money for my mother’s treatment, but they weren’t willing to hear. I pleaded with them that I will start repaying once I complete my studies and I get a job. I begged them for a three month extension but they were in no mood to give in. I’m not left with any alternatives yaar. Of all people, tumhe toh pata hai. My mother and sister back at home depend on me with all the financial troubles back at home. I had taken education loan for my course after which I ended up with this job here. Visa ke liye bhi kaafi kharch karna pada. And two months after I came here, my mother fell sick and was hospitalized. Her hospital expenses made me max out my credit cards for three months in a row. It was not like I was spending lavishly on myself, but these people don’t understand. Mother’s hospital expenses, my education loan, all these huge credit card bills. I do not know how I will handle it. Till the other day I was confident that I will be able to take care of everything, that I will work hard. But last week, Lehmann Brothers collapsed and they were our biggest customers. My manager mentioned to me today that there were going to be layoffs in the company, and if that happens, junior staffers like me would be the first to be chopped. I’m done with facing all these problems yaar. Am sick, tired, and dejected. I have decided to end my life. Future kuch dikh hi nahi raha hai yaar….”

The trailing off of his voice was the first time since I initiated the conversation that I got a chance to speak up.

“Hello sir, I think you have got the wrong number. But jo bhi hai, aapka problem unsolveable nahi hai. We can…”

“Oh shoot. Isn’t this abc-xyz-4710?”

“No brother. This is abc-xyz-4711.”

“Oh sorry bhai, sorry for the trouble. But thanks anyways, that you were patient enough to listen to my rambling all the while. You’re the last person I’m speaking to on this planet. Dhanyawaad. Khuda Hafiz.”

Before I could utter anything more, he disconnected the call. Khuda Hafiz, the final words trailed in my ears.

I do not know if he kept with his decision or changed his mind. Thousands of Indians commit suicide in the Gulf everyday, I have no means to know if he added himself to the tally. I do not know if he ended up calling the correct number. I do not know if the person on the other end of the line coerced him into changing his decision. I do not know. I will never know. Or maybe, I didn’t want to know what I already knew.

It takes two to tango

He was napping on the sofa when the doorbell rang. He opened the door and saw her tired physique and an exasperated visage.

“The dinner has been on the table for more than an hour now. I’ll heat it up.” He said, as he turned his back and shuffled towards the dining table. She didn’t take her eyes off her phone as she made her way into the bedroom.

A few minutes later, with the clock all poised to strike eleven, both of them were seated at the dining table.

“You didn’t eat?” she asked.

“You know very well I hate to have dinner alone. It is something I avoid as much as I can.”

They munched a few morsels in silence. “We need to talk,” he said.

“Please..! Not today. It was a bad day at office. Am in no mood to talk. I know what you are going to talk about. It is not like I wouldn’t want to come back home earlier, but my work forces me to stay late often.”

The conversation trailed off. One liners and short bursts of speech were becoming more and more common.

As they went to bed, she felt sorry for him. “Am sorry honey. I will take more care. I will try to give you more space in life. Somehow I always get tied up in work, but I will try to come home earlier on a regular basis. I love you. Give me a hug.”

“No. You give me a hug.”

She rolled over and embraced him tight.

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For the umpteenth time, he sighed as he picked up his phone and went through his dialed numbers. Her name showed twelve entries. He had called her twelve times over the past two and half hours, and every single time, it had gone to voicemail. Every single time. He sighed, cast a forlorn look for the dinner he had prepared for this day’s special occasion. He got up from the dining table and paced around the room. He saw the China teapot, he had got for her on a trip to Shanghai couple of years ago. Wall paintings they had so thoroughly searched and bought together. Her smile when he used to give her rose bouquets back in the days. Back in the days, seemed so long away. On the calendar though, it was a month under two years.

He wished that life was simpler. That she would barge in with some surprise, on this special day, the anniversary of their marriage. As if his thoughts were read by someone, the doorbell rang. He rushed to open it, with anticipation.

Opened the door.

His arms about to stretch out.

“Madam is coming. She is on a call, so she didn’t take the elevator.”

Saying this, her driver handed him her bag with a big smile. Without a word, he took the bag and turned back, leaving the door ajar.

A couple of minutes later he overheard her voice over the phone, growing louder as she approached closer. “No Mr. Johnson, I can’t allow that to happen. Our company does need an advance payent of fifty percent. I cannot authorize the transaction until you pay your outstanding dues.” She didn’t look at him when she entered. Her energy was focused on the phone, and getting the money from some random Mr. Johnson. She headed to the bedroom to change.

He sat there, drained of emotions, drained on energy. As he scrolled through random forwarded messages on his phone, he had made up his mind. 

Pursuit of Happiness

"Folks are usually about as happy as they make their minds up to be."

Abraham Lincoln

I have an average one way commute time of around twenty minutes from where I stay to where I work. Barring a few occasions when traffic or the pressures of job snarl up my attention, I would say I enjoy the commute, the solitude that rides beside me in my car. The solitary sojourn gives me time and a frame of mind to ponder over a wide range of things – personal, professional and even occasionally news events..! Solitude normally induces a chain reaction of thoughts. One thought leads to another, and so on. Simple logic, your mind is not bound when you are with yourself, no mannerisms to follow, no etiquette to break.

It was during one of those trips, while I was waiting on a red traffic light that I saw a bunch of bright, bubbly eyed, energetic and enthusiastic children crossing the road to take their school bus. It just stuck me at that instant, the magnitude of loss that tagged along with the process of growing up. Where was the joy I used to experience when I used to walk or cycle to school? That feeling bordering on ecstasy when you know the when the bell rings on this class, the next hour is PT? As much as time is a healer, time is a dampener as well. With time, when you grow up, your surrounding injects a huge dose of “maturity” into you. The society lays down rules which prevents you from acting “childish.” There is a barrier between propriety and impropriety which you never cared for as a child, but which you as an adult, try to uphold.

Simple pleasures. Stepping out when it is raining. As a child, you simply used to love to run out without a care in the world that you would get wet. Your natural tendency is to just go to the centre of the world and drench out completely till the rain stops, and it gets more enjoyable if it gets your mother to chase you. The sheer, unbridled joy. And now? You cuss upon the rain since it inevitably comes when you intend to step out. You think between jackets, umbrellas and what not to protect you from monsoon even when your intention is to get to your car parked a hundred meters away. And in spite of using any of the afore mentioned methods, you still manage to swear when you finally make to your car, because a drop or two (or maybe more) managed to break all of your obstacles and find its way onto your nicely pressed shirt. Did I forget that I so used to love those droplets falling on me once upon a time?

Lunch at school. Used to be an elaborate, often clumsy and sometimes even an unfair affair. You never had any etiquettes when you used to snatch stuff from someone else’s box. You used to enjoy sitting with your friends and munching stuff from your tiffin box. All those chaos associated with the ringing of the lunch bell at school. And now..? Occasions are getting scarcer when you can sit with everyone and share an elaborate lunch. Manners prohibit you from diving inside someone else’s lunch box scourging, and if we do glance into someone else’s box, we attempt to make it as subtle as possible. “No thanks, I am on a diet”, “Oh thanks, maybe just a little bite”….  

Celebrations. Be it festivals, be it personal achievements, even the joy and celebrations associated with them seem to have become symbolic. What used to be getting together with family and entire days of camaraderie has now been reduced to a weekend party in some high end pub in town. Or an IM or text message wish. With a smiley, not a smile.

I do not have any control over life, I walk the way everyone before me has walked. And I show the way for someone from posterity. The light has turned green, and under this blue sky I take my foot from the brake pedal and shift it towards the gas pedal. It is then I notice the tiny drops of rain that have fallen upon my windshield. As I cross the junction, moving past the kids getting into the bus, my thoughts come back to where it all started, that I have to get to the office before the rain gets heavier. Shoot, the nasty headache from yesterday’s promotion party at the city tavern….