Father of Son

Mile after mile I followed, with skimming feet,
After the secret master of my blood,
Him, steeped in the odor of ponds, whose indomitable love
Kept me in chains.
— Father and Son, Stanley Kunitz

When Samar and his family first moved to Lucknow in the summer of 1995, they stayed in the almost decrepit ancestral home in Ismailganj, much to the consternation of all the family members. All, except Sharmaji. He probably thought it would help build their character. And if walking in the suffocating heat of the Indian summers through makeshift brick lined roads that perennially smelt of filth and sewage were any judge on the subject, everyone certainly built a lot of it. Enough to last a lifetime, it would seem.

Ismailganj was, in most places, hardly more than a collection of hurriedly put together shacks. At night, if there were no blackouts, the light from the bulbs would be so dim that even the shadows started playing around on the walls. (Samar believed that the sugar mills in the vicinity were thieving defaulters who were responsible for this unfortunate condition.) There was no running water and hence the needs for the daily ablutions were met by the in house hand pump. It was assumed that the weekly bazaar at Chinhat would cater to all other essential and not so essential requirements. If the lack of amenities that had been previously taken for granted suddenly became a little too conspicuous in a life that had not yet grown accustomed to it, nobody said a word. Out of fear of undermining one’s character.

In the beginning, it was all quite romantic. At least for Samar. He enjoyed bathing under the village hand pump whenever the prudish neighbours wouldn’t shoo him off. The idea of teaching English to the villagers every weekend at the sarkari school also seemed quite poetic. However, when the reality of the situation slowly but steadily started sinking in and it no longer remained possible to ignore its unpleasantness, everyone pleaded with Sharmaji until their eyes turned red. He did relent eventually. But some part of his will died with that consent on that fateful day. He never bothered to lecture them again on the art of simple living. Ignorant of all such undercurrents, the kunba gathered its belongings in a truck and moved to a more ‘civilised’ part of the city.

It is not the kind of place you can easily find anymore. The ambitious network of flyovers that is a part of the Lucknow Bypass has all but swallowed the small villages that lay on the outskirts of the city. What was left of it was poached by real estate hawks who suddenly woke up to the fact that land value would soon skyrocket. Farms that hadn’t been tilled in years were sold off at throwaway prices. Those who refused to relent were conveniently silenced and have now become part of the local folklore. Everyone knows how easy it is to twist the arm of the law in this part of the country. But alas, some just don’t see it coming. Sharmaji got a stay order from the court to ward off the authorities and clung to his dear life. Samar still believes he found God at the same time.

Posh colonies for high ranking government servants, huge malls with multi-level parking, cineplexes screening the latest Hollywood blockbusters, and fashionable coffee joints with posters of American rock stars on their walls now pockmark the Trans-Gomti area. The new middle class prosperity has at last come home to Lucknow. This is probably as it should be. The world seems to be engaged in a constant struggle to renew itself and hold onto the past. When one cares to look at it that way, regret and nostalgia seem equally futile. The past does live on, though, in people and their cities. One only has to look over one’s shoulder in order to realise how hard it is to deny or let go of it.

Having held his fort when the landowners in and around Chinhat were being hounded by the property dealers, Sharmaji had finally been convinced by Samar’s mother to sell the house in Ismailganj. For some reason, Samar’s presence was necessary for the deal to take place and that is why he had been asked to find some time to visit Lucknow. Memories known to have been ignored and forgotten suddenly came flooding back. He remembered how Sharmaji used to make his weekly pilgrimage to Ismailganj to ask after the tenants there. How he insisted on cycling to the place because it reminded him of his school days. How Samar felt like a stranger in his own home whenever he was required to be present there for the Diwali puja. And even though such thoughts made some part of him feel uneasy, he looked forward to the trip.

~~~~

Samar knew he had touched base with familiarity when he found a school named “X. C. Lent Academy” sharing the same geographical space as “The Piccadilly” – one of the two five star hotels the city boasted of. When he overheard a co-passenger using the term dabang in order to describe the local petrol station mafia. When he could safely tell one road from another. The city had changed definitely. From the last time he had visited it. And though it tried hard to project an image of normalcy – through flies swarming over sweets being vended on the occasion of Janmashtami, through garage mechanics haggling over five rupees with Honda Splendour owners, and through unending lanes of CNG auto rickshaws queuing up for fuel – the discrepancies became evident soon enough.

A new government some months ago had brought about a revolution of sorts. Monuments and statues proclaiming the greatness of the party leaders had sprung up all over the town. Money that could have been used for flood relief was being used to erect monstrosities like Parivartan Sthal Dwar and Samta Mulak Chowk. The Chief Minister’s birthday was an event that most people (common junta and bureaucrats alike) dreaded. Not without reason. Every government institution was supposed to offer a peshgi on the occasion. Cases had been reported of sacks full of cash being delivered to the CM’s doorstep. Samar ruminated over the thought for a while. But his mind wandered off towards less pertinent subjects. At least ones which wouldn’t make a difference to the bigger scheme of things. That seemed a comforting occupation for the meanwhile.

He had always found resonance within this city. It seemed to reflect all the changes he had undergone. It did not mirror them. But the symphony was a secret that was known to both of them. The fact was evident in his love hate relationship with its lethargic and lonely afternoons that brought his life to a grinding halt, almost without fail. In the unending source of inspiration that it had seemed to become. In more poetic moods, he had made himself believe that the city had become a cornerstone in his life – a steady anchor in the ever meandering scheme of things. And now, when his home had finally assumed a new image, he wondered how long he could refuse to don his own mantle. One such empty afternoon had caught him unaware and silently posed a question which he had been avoiding answering.

Sharmaji was a man who preferred to keep to himself. So much so, that even his own son could not claim to know him better than any of the umpteen relatives who never got tired of commenting on his aloofness. He had grown up knowing both a shameful struggle for existence and the reassuring stability of the Indian middle class. Often lost in contemplation, he appeared to be the kind of person who saw the world in black and white instead of varying shades of grey. Having responsibly spent his life in the well worn Hindu grooves of studentship, marriage, and late-life detachment, he eagerly awaited the final renunciation of all his duties. It was a well known rumour in the family that his yearly donations to Ramakrishna Mission, under the pretext of helping build a library, were merely a preparation for the final phase of his life.

For as long as Samar could remember, his father had preached, and stood by, his unrelenting ideals. “Your desires can be endless, but your needs are so often limited,” he used to keep on telling his unmindful children. One of the few men who followed more than they preached, he was the father figure you needed but did not want. The one who taught you the importance of character when all you wanted to do was soak in the pleasures of life. The one who dwelled upon the goodness of an undemanding life while you prayed to God for a car, a telephone, a house, and more. The one who would ask a seventeen year old to read passages by thinkers like Dayananda and Ramakrishna. And the one who lent his character to yours without even making it apparent.

When young, Samar had sometimes vowed that he would never grow up to be like his father. Each time he was denied a special birthday dinner, he would curl up in his mother’s lap and make imaginary promises to himself, repeatedly reaffirming his conviction in them. Perhaps he was naïve enough to ignore the changes that his heredity had made certain. But his denial – a defence mechanism in response to his lack of will to fight the obvious – had protected him from realising the implications. Now that he could no longer retreat back into his shell, he tried to trace the roots of the personality that was gradually becoming his own. He wanted to gather up the pieces before it was too late to even question them.

Samar could not decide what was more surprising – the realisation that he had become so much like his father or the fact that he had been trying to fight and deny it for the better part of his conscious years. The answer, he felt, would go a long in way in helping him come to terms with his own identity for he had often felt that he was living someone else’s life. One he wouldn’t want to be in but was required to by some unknown force of nature. Caught between these two worlds, the consequences had sometimes proved to be quite disastrous. He realised that putting an end to this internal conflict would not only help him in charting the course of his future, but also in accepting the consequences of his indecisive past.

One evening, as the family sat around the dinner table, the subject of the property deal came up. Between mouthfuls of boiled torai and rice, his staple diet during the Monsoons, Sharmaji explained why Samar’s presence had been necessary. “Tumhare naam ki registry hai,” he said matter of factly. “I was hoping that someday you would perhaps come to live there. Humne khud ke liye bhi yahi socha tha. But it seems out of the question now. So keeping the house doesn’t seem like the advisable thing to do. Such is life. There is no use in struggling against it all the time.” He did not speak again until dinner was over. As he prepared to retire for the night, he came to Samar’s room and sought to assuage his sense of righteousness, “Chinta karne ki zaroorat nahin hai. You should not feel bad about this. It is all going to be for the best. Kal court chalna hai yaad rakhna. Jaldi pahuch gaye toh jaldi sab kuch nipat jayega.”

That night, as he lay tossing and turning in his bed, Samar pondered over what his father had said. He tried to gain some insight into his words, as if expecting them to shed their cloak of ordinariness and somehow enlighten him. If only words could come alive to tell their story! Finally, giving up any pretence to sleep, he went outside for a smoke. A thunderstorm in the evening had bathed all the leaves in fresh colours. Glowing silently in the diffused light of the street lamp, they seemed happy on getting their dignity back. A gentle breeze had picked up its pace and was trying to alarm them into doing something irrational. Lightning in the distance was followed by the ceremonial crack of thunder. Then without any further warning, it started to drizzle. His cigarette was put out by the first few drops and then slowly he watched the rain pick up momentum, lurching and splashing over his naked feet. As nature played out its games for its own amusement, Samar knew what he had to do. Outside, all was chaos; but inside, he was feeling quite calm.

Inspired, yet again, by The Romantics. Damn, I feel like a broken record.

Bad Nerves

Partially inspired by the real-life experiences of some larger than life characters.

The woebegone LML Vespa was coughing out ominous looking fumes that would have put the snot-nosed tempos of the city to shame. It presented a funny sight on the city streets, wobbling and gasping its way to glory – a perfect postcard for the dysfunctional capital. The dirty green shade of the scooter had been a bright parrot green at the time of purchase. On being questioned about his aesthetic sense, Ritwick’s father had used some of the choicest cuss words and remarked that the ‘lovely’ colour would spruce up the dreary atmosphere at home. Nobody had dared question his artistic acumen thence.

Years of misuse and negligible maintenance meant that grime and soot had settled in every nook and corner of the contraption, not only depriving it of any bright colours but also the least amount of dignity. Even traffic policemen seemed to be wary of stopping the lumbering beast. The license plate had all but fallen off and one would be hard pressed to make out any of the numbers or alphabets. It seemed as if they had once gone for a ride with the wind and had never quite managed to make their way back. Every now and then, the engine would sputter and threaten to give out. But a quick shift to neutral and a gentle reassuring tap on the side seemed to put it back in high spirits.

The famed transportation was now used only for dubious purposes. Only last year, after a bout of drunken revelry, Ritwick had expressed his desire to march to Sitapur on foot, and then proceeded to enlist Shlok in his cause. Several alternatives and negotiations were bandied back and forth. Eventually, Shlok managed to convince him to ride the Vespa instead. When the battered vehicle gave out just outside Janakipuram, hardly ten kilometers into the momentous journey, Shlok had breathed a huge sigh of relief and thanked his stars several times over.

Both of them had walked back home at 4 in the morning, leaving the scooter to its fate at an all-night dhabha on Kursi Road. (But not before they had regaled the proprietor with their sorry tale and engorged on some mutton kebabs). Next day, his father had made Ritwick lug the piece of junk all the way to their home. Thereafter, he had never expressed any desire to march, on foot or wheels, whenever he was drunk. Today, uncomfortably perched on the weather-beaten seat and brows furrowed in deep concentration, he was on his way to Shlok’s place in order to put another one of his harebrained schemes into effect.

“Today is a special day, boss”, Ritwick beamed as he daintily parked the Vespa outside the brown gates.

“Bakwaas!” Shlok brushed him off. Despite his promise to stay away from Sitapur, Shlok had learnt to be suspicious of his bright moods ever since the fateful march had failed to materialize. The Vespa had only added to his misgivings today.

“Boss, dheeraj rakho. You will know. I got the Vespa. Get dressed. We are going to get some action.”

Shlok first raised his eyebrows in exclamation but then let out a sigh in defeat. He knew the stubborn pig won’t listen. Besides, there was no harm in getting some fresh winter air. Soon the sun would be out and the dust and grime that had settled down due to the mist from last night would be stirred up again by automobiles jostling for space on the narrow Lakhnavi roads. There was nothing left to be done. So he put on his jacket and rode pillion while Ritwick zig zagged through the congested by lanes of modern day Avadh.

They took the Barrage route out of Gomti Nagar, past the architectural monstrosities that Mayawati had constructed in and around Ambedkar Parivartan Sthal in honour of every living and dead Dailt fellow she knew. Shlok noticed that they were making their way towards Old Lucknow, past the wistful window shoppers in Hazratganj, and was pleasantly surprised to find that the entire market was being renovated, much in the fashion of its more famous counterpart, Connaught Place. The racket made by the construction workers did not seem to be dampening the holiday shopping spirits of the seasoned Lakhnavi shoppers either. They were all pretty much unperturbed.

The Baradari was festooned in gaily coloured ribbons to celebrate some Deepak’s birthday. Little bratty kids in fluorescent costumes could be seen being chaperoned by their harried parents. It was quite evident that the poor relic of yore had come a long way from hosting lavish dinner parties and solemnizing nikaahs for the erstwhile Nawabs. As if in cruel irony, the Kaiserbagh traffic also made sure that the once spotless white monument was now slowly turning into a sorry shade of dirty brown.

Once they were past the wide avenues of Parivartan Chowk, the traffic became a lot worse. Soon they were milling through the insane chaos of Aminabad – the real shopping district of the city – and Shlok couldn’t help smirking at Prakash Kulfi. The proprietors of the original falooda kulfi in Lucknow leased out their premises to the Defective Sari Sale people every winter. They made money not only from their name but also their place – hapless kulfi aficionados invariably ended up buying a sari or two in search of the phantom winter kulfi. The sight of a toothless peanut vendor shook him out of his reverie and he thought it wise to seek a fraction of Ritwick’s attention.

“Kahan le ja rahe ho suar?” he shouted over the wind.

“Hein? Patience, boss, patience”, Ritwick replied over the deafening din of horns. As he narrowly missed plunging headfirst into a rickshaw puller who had decided to execute a Main Hoon Na style stunt, Shlok shouted “Ghusand” while suggestively waving his fist back and forth.

The Lucknow beyond Aminabad and Chowk had remained persistently elusive for Shlok. When young, he had never bothered to explore the parts of the city known mostly for their morgue vans – the words Laash Ke Vaaste emblazoned in bright colours on each and every one of them – and brothels. And now, with most of the jazzy malls, coffee shops, and à la mode joints coming up in the Trans-Gomti area, especially Gomti Nagar, the lure of the real heart of the city had faded further. On one occasion, in search of the original Tunde Kebab outlet (contrary to popular opinion, the Aminabad one was the second in line), he had ventured deep into that uncharted territory. However, he had managed to get lost just as quickly and had to make his way back without the mysterious kebabs. The memories of that fateful day came flooding back and presently he enquired of his chauffeur:

“Tunde ja rahein hain kya?”

“Ha ha, no! Something even better than Tunde!”

The cryptic reply shut Shlok up for the rest of the ride. Meanwhile, Ritwick would stop every now and then, enquire of a place from whosoever he could lay his eyes on, nod his head in a knowing fashion as the deluge of instructions came pouring forth, and then try to follow them to the best of this ability. This continued for some time and before long, he stopped in front of a building that seemed remarkably alien for its surroundings.

Instead of cramped aisles that were packed with parked vehicles, this house was located in the midst of a huge garden. A gardener was pottering around the lawns and occasionally pruning the roses. The building looked huge in comparison with its stunted neighbours and consisted of three floors. There was no address plate or any other sign that could help in identifying it. It seemed as if people got around to that place entirely by means of secondary navigation. Ritwick seemed satisfied with the look and feel of it and said slowly, “This is Madame Sophie’s place. The finest spot for tits, chudai, and glory in all of Lucknow!”

Shlok looked as if he had just been slapped for breathing too loudly. “What! What the hell is wrong with you? What made you think I would want to come to a brothel? Are you fucking insane?”

“Bhosdi ke, don’t act so innocent. It’s not like you’ve never fucked anyone whose name you did not know. It may be stuff of the past. But don’t get preachy on me. You told me you were missing out on all the action. So I thought to surprise you. I have already made the bookings here. The time’s been paid for. With my money. So you can jerk off in a room if you feel like it. But you are coming inside and not leaving until I am done.”

The sudden outburst from a usually jovial and amenable Ritwick caught Shlok off guard. He needed to reevaluate his strategy/assault. He reasoned that he could always just sit and wait! Besides, he was already fascinated by Madame Sophie and her operations. So with his conscience sufficiently guilty free because of his ignorance of the deal, he grumbled a bit about family, respect, and changed ways, before following Ritwick inside.

During the short time it took to walk from the verandah to the main hall, Shlok had already come up with an image of Madame Sophie. Sitting on an old fashioned diwan and smoking a hookah, she turned out to be every bit the brothel mistress he had imagined her to be – very much Madame, though hardly Sophie. Years of vicarious exposure to villainous vamps of Hindi movies had created a likeness that blend in perfectly with the uncomfortable dignity that seemed to exude from Madame Sophie. But, to her credit, it was difficult to tell if she was imitating art or if art had imitated her.

The hallway on the ground floor was some kind of reception area where Madame sized people up with her experienced eye and then offered them services based on her acute appraisal. Both of them were spared the screening process since Ritwick had already made an appearance before her and sorted things out. A few vicious looking men loitered about, trying to look busy doing absolutely nothing. Amidst all this apparently displaced commotion, Madame Sophie looked completely at home and the only odd thing seemed to be her name. Sophie? “It must be courtesy one of her lovers” Shlok quickly concluded.

Seeing them enter, she nodded ever so slightly and gestured to one of her minions who bowed deferentially and went inside a room. Shortly, five young girls dressed smartly in churidar salwar marched out in single file. This was when Shlok noticed the first aberration. Unlike their celluloid counterparts, the girls did not look distraught or defeated. They were actually quite cheerful and their smiles seemed genuine. At least on the surface. “Maybe it’s not as bad as people make it out to be”, he reasoned.

~~~~

“Boss, look at the size of tits on that one!” Ritwick whispered, suddenly finding himself preoccupied with the mammaries of a certain girl introduced as Shailja.

“Will you cut out the boss crap? I don’t want to look like I was the one who dragged your sorry ass out here. Just pick someone and get this over and done with. I am going with that one. What was her name? Reshma.”

“Ok, already. No need to get all worked up. Just let me know when you are done. Behenchod, you don’t make it any easy, do you?”

~~~~

Reshma turned out to be a feisty little thing and, for a few guilty seconds, Shlok felt sorry for his friend. Despite all his prudish indifference, Shlok had let out a sigh of disappointment on hearing her name. He was expecting something a bit more clichéd. Like Malati or Chameli or even Rani. And though be bore this silent grudge against Reshma before they’d even exchanged a word, he let himself be led away from the hall by her. He wanted to find out more about her. Or so he thought.

Soon they came upon a dimly lit looking corridor with several doors on either side. A dull brown carpet was spread along the length of the passage. ‘Things are beginning to look up now’, thought Shlok. The upper floors seemed to be straight out the set of a seedy Bollywood movie with an even sleazier name like “Kanti Shah ke Angoor”. A fearsome looking pimp sized him up. He was wearing a checked lungi over a worn out vest and chewing on his paan very slowly and deliberately. Every now and then he would spit out the crimson coloured juice into a vase kept in the corner. After what seemed like an eternity, he let out a disapproving grunt but let them pass anyway. It was clear that Mr. Pimp was not paid for a lot of things, least of all his opinions, dressing sense, or cultural etiquette. Madame waged a lonely battle in those spheres.

Reshma led him to the third room on the right. Number 214. Despite its tiny size, it was garishly decked up in every kitschy colour one could think of. Shlok felt blinded by all the mismatched furnishings and felt like ripping off the red curtains and the velvety bedspread. But he inhaled deeply and closed his eyes. All this would come to pass. When he opened his eyes, he found out that his consort was quite adept at getting rid of her garments. She giggled for a second seeing the surprise on his face but through that involuntary action she unwittingly conveyed that she was new to the whole shebang. There was still a hint of a sparkle in her jet black eyes, although it seemed to be waging a lost battle. Her carefree demeanour further unsettled Shlok. “Too casual”, he murmured.

“Kahan se ho tum? UP ki hi lagti ho”, he asked.

“Baat karne ka Madame ji extra paisa leti hain.”

“Madame se baat thode na kar rahein hain”, he replied, trying to act smart.

“Aapke dost ka bahut bada dil nahin hai. Sabse sasti service hai. Chhatri hai?”

“Chhatri? Oh, condom. Haan hai”, Shlok said as he fumbled around for the pack Ritwick had slipped into his pocket as they had entered the hall. “Tum log nahin rakhte?” he quipped after sometime.

“Rakhte hain. Kuch special chahiye?”

She looked expectantly at Shlok, expecting him to take off his pants any moment now and passionately devour her. Or something to that effect. That stare seemed be sizing him up in order to decide which pose would cause least amount of discomfort to her and provide optimum satisfaction to him. But he did not get the chance to find that out. The thought of a strange naked body gyrating to the rhythm of his own made him sick to the stomach. He did not know why since, as Ritwick had mentioned earlier, all this wasn’t exactly new. He made an effort to touch her breasts, if only to prove to himself that this bizarre uneasiness was not caused by what he feared. But he could not bring himself to do it. He clenched his fists in despair, let out a defeated sigh, and just sat there. Reshma, understandably, looked surprised even though she had had her share of eccentric clients. After a few minutes, Shlok quit fighting the feeling and felt better. He hugged the girl he was supposed to have had coitus with and said something that sounded vaguely like “Badhiya hua”. Thereafter, he rushed across the corridor, down the steps, and across the hall, to the place where Madame Sophie held court.

“Madame, uss chutiya ko bula dijiye.”

If the suave Madame Sophie was surprised at the use of such vulgar language in her presence, she did not let it show. A minion was nodded at and he proceeded to do the needful. As an afterthought, she invited the unrefined gentleman for a round of hookah. Maybe he would learn something. The gentleman could not have asked for anything better to occupy his time with while he waited for his friend. He took a long drag at the pipe and let his worries scatter away with the bhang laced smoke.

~~~~

“What happened, boss? You came faster than a Hindi film rapist. A case of bad nerves?” Ritwick enquired of his partner in crime.

“Nah! Just that of a lonely wife, I guess”, Shlok smiled and motioned him towards the scooter. “I am driving. You can enjoy the view”, he added. If nothing else, he owed him a ride.

That night, as he shared the bed with Akanksha, he managed a smile. “Vespa,” he mumbled, before drifting off into a drugged sleep. And that's all.

~~~~

Footnote: “That other girl, or other women, -- whatever -- I mean, I was thinking that they’re just fantasies. You know? And they always seem really great because there’s never any problems. And if there are, they’re cute problems like, you know, we bought each other the same Christmas present or she wants to go to see a movie that I’ve already seen, you know? And then I come home and you and I have real problems and you don’t even want to see the movie I want to see, period. There’s no lingerie and --”

“I have lingerie”

“Yes, you do. You have great lingerie. But you also have cotton underwear that’s been washed a thousand times, and it’s hanging on the thing and they have it too. It’s just I don’t have to see it because it’s not in the fantasy. Do you understand? I’m tired of the fantasy because if doesn’t really exist. And there are never really any surprises, and it never really --”

“Delivers?”

“Delivers. Right, I‘m tired of it. I‘m tired of everything else for that matter. But I don‘t ever seem to get tired of you. So—”

-- Rob Gordon, High Fidelity.

Side Notes on Spirituality

In his book Above Average, Amitabha Bagchi writes: “… I was made to realise that to write about people meant having to leave oneself behind and enter into them. It was also the earliest point in my life when I learned that to love someone also entailed roughly the same thing”. The point being made here is multi pronged. Bagchi comments on the skills that a good writer should possess – detachment from oneself and one’s ego. But then he links that observation with the most personal emotion – love. For anyone. Family. Friends. Partner. How does one detach oneself from one’s ego, that purest us, and yet retain one’s identity? One’s style? One’s character? How do we look through someone else’s eyes without losing our own insight? Perhaps it’s more about losing our own perspective and gaining another in the bargain. Yes, perhaps.

I think that this remark has been the guiding light for this attempt at writing. Needless to say, I am sure I have failed, though admirably, at bringing out the essence of his comment due to my limited understanding of it. However, I tried. And it is the fringe benefit of failure that having done so, I was reasonably satisfied.

~~~

Satya was in no immediate hurry to retrace his steps back home. Without much hue or cry, the dusk had surrendered to the smog that hung like an adoring cloud over the city and a thick fog had made itself comfortable in all its nooks and corners – side benefits of development. The last of the labourers slugging it out at the DMRC construction sites could be seen making their way back to their respective hutments in lesser known areas of the metropolis. They wore fluorescent orange and green jerseys over their soiled woollens and a few of them had even forgotten to take off their yellow hard hats. Some carried mutton and cheap desi liquor in black polythene packets – all arrangements made for a night of drunken revelry – and looked conspicuously smug. Too smug for their own comfort, actually.

Satya, himself, was dressed peculiarly and, let’s face it, inappropriately for the cold weather. A khadi kurta with jeans and a brown pullover. A dirty light brown shawl was draped around his shoulders and seemed to be the only credible defence against the inconsiderate chill. It gave him the look of a jhola krantikari and one would be hard pressed to say whether the man drove the image or the image drove the man. A cheap cigarette smouldered in his hands, dying a slow death. Curious onlookers gave him a second glance, and then a third. It would be difficult to state whether he was oblivious to them. However, what can be said for sure is that his gait did not give him away. He measured his steps, just like he was in the habit of doing all the time, and shivered occasionally.

On reaching the bus stop he pondered for some moments. Walking back was an option worth considering. But given the fact that home was still a far way off and that the wind had begun to get to him, he decided to wait for the next 520. It arrived earlier than expected and he hurriedly got onto the almost empty bus. Having paid his fare, he looked out of the window. The glass was murky and stained with betel juice – a lone streak of it cutting right across the middle of the window – probably a gift from the previous occupant of the seat in front of him. It hampered his view of the world outside – now sodden with mist – and so he shifted in his seat and busied himself with observing the few occupants of the 520.

A cool dude wannabe sat two rows ahead of him, earplugs glued securely to his ear. He wore patchwork jeans and a lot of gel in his hair. Satya strained his ears and was surprised to catch some tunes which seemed vaguely like Floyd’s “Money”. Having been stumped in his appraisal of the ‘cool dude’, he proceeded to dissect the personality of the girl sitting diagonally across him, in the ‘Ladise’ seat. She was dressed simply and stared straight ahead, right out the windscreen. Something about her posture and demeanour suggested that she was disturbed and Satya took a callous comfort in that realisation. She wore thick maroon and white bangles, sign enough that she had been married recently, with a green cardigan and a pair of hip hugging jeans to go along with them. Had it not been for that fact, Satya thought, he would have contemplated about her striking beauty. But now she was unavailable and any lecherous thoughts that belied his name were quickly done away with. “Hopelessly middle class”, he mumbled under his breath and tried to don a look of pure disdain. Besides, home was near.

He got off at an earlier stop, on a whim, and finally decided to walk the last kilometre. The road leading up to their colony had been freshly dug up to lay sewage pipes and the untimely deluge last night had ensured that he would have to hop-skip-jump his way back. Suddenly, the house loomed large in front of him, almost as if in some B-grade Bollywood horror flick. The road in front of it was fresh and black. A high ranking government official, who had started living close by, ensured that there would always be police wallahs hanging around. One of them was taking out a golden retriever for a walk. Few loitered around, chatting, smoking, and mentally stripping any girl who happened to pass by. Everything was pretty much just the way Satya had left it. The only thing that seemed out of place was him. For a moment, he felt uncomfortable entering his own house. But then he filed away that thought for future reference, and rang the bell.

His mother apparated at the door almost immediately. She looked haggard and older than the last time he had seen her. He closed the door behind him and spoke with decision – something that added an ominous overtone to his voice.

“Hello Ma. How was the day? I hope Dad hasn’t gone to sleep already. I need to talk to you both.”

“Oh, no no. He is awake. He’s reading something. I will tell him you want to talk. Will you eat something?”

“Yeah, I will. What have you made?”

“Dal and aloo gobhi.”

“Great! Let me just wash my face. I will eat in the kitchen. Don’t bother with setting the table.”

We must digress here and dwell a bit upon why such a conversation had been necessitated in the first place. It had been 5 months since Satya had left his job. “My heart is in it no more” – was supposedly the reason why such a drastic measure had been undertaken. Brows furrowed, moustache tingling with excitement, his father had pointed out that even after six years of wandering around aimlessly, he still had no inkling about what he wished to make of his life. In a burst of rage and righteous anger, he had pointed out how Satya, 31, almost broke, unmarried, and unemployed, did not consider it a shame to be a liability for his parents rather than becoming an asset. Infuriated by such a clinical dissection of his financial sensibilities, he had walked out in a fit and had returned only late at night, using his key to smuggle himself in. Had he his own house or had Gandhi not been married, he might have contemplated once or twice before swallowing his pride. But fate, it seems, is not without a sense of irony; Satya had thereon bided his days by leaving the house early in the morning and coming back only when he was certain his father must have retired for the day. So tonight, when he returned earlier than usual, and thereafter expressed a desire to talk to Sharmaji, his mother raised her wispy eye brows, blinked twice in close succession in order to appraise the substantiality of the statement and then relayed the needful to the concerned before proceeding towards the kitchen.

“Your mother tells me you wanted to talk. What’s it about now?” his father enquired gruffly when he had finished eating. Satya took his time wiping his hands on the grimy towel his father used before settling himself in the chair, shifting a bit in order to make himself comfortable, and then speaking his thoughts with such ease it seemed as if he had been practising them all this time. His tone, however, was laced with sarcasm, something his parents, fortunately, were impervious to. All they could decipher in it was arrogance mixed with irresponsibility.

“Your remarks that night have led me to this decision. I am sure you are not going to approve of it, as has been your habit. But please let me finish before you voice your concerns. I understand that I should not be jobless. Not when I am 31 and a liability for my aging parents. Therefore, I have applied for a position close by. It’s not a menial clerkship but neither is it something which Ma’s friends at the kitty party can wow their wow’s over. They’re paying me decent money and I am okay with that. I shall move out of here and take up lodgings at a room Gandhi has recommended. It’s not lavish but has all the basic amenities in place. I will be just 10 minutes away, in case you need me. That is as far as my current situation is concerned. I understand that Ma has been fretting over my ever increasing age and the continued dearth of marriage proposals that such a development instigates. You, Papa, have yourself been losing weight over this issue. The indecision, of course, needs to be done away with. Therefore, I have decided, once and for all, to not marry at all. But I might think about adopting a child when the time is right. And when I feel I am ready. Not now though. That’s all I had to say.”

Sharmaji looked as if he was unsure whether it was his own son he sat talking to while his wife seemed as if she had been slapped for breathing too loudly. Satya had anticipated such a response and sought to quickly get out of the predicament in which he had put himself and his parents in. He added hastily, “Please take some time to think about this. I know it is not easy. But for me, it seems the only way to proceed forth.”

“Has Gandhi put you up to this?” Sharmaji enquired, hoping against hope that such a line of thought was not original.

“No, Papa. It’s just me. I have been thinking about this for some time now. For a year at least. This last job was the final straw. You would do me a big favour by not playing the blame game. By attributing the rationale and the consequences of this choice to just me. Not Ma. Not Gandhi. Not the upbringing or anything else. ”

“What will you do? How will you manage? We can’t die without seeing our grandchildren, can we? And what about you? You can’t live alone, no matter what you feel. You need a family to be happy,” his mother added, hoping to add some weight to her husband’s retort, but only earning an ill deserved scorn in response.

“It’s all your doing. I had warned you of letting him take stupid decisions from the very start of this self-realisation. He had to end up being the wreck he is now. Of course, there’s no going back for him.”

“That’s the middle class mentality I have been trying to shrug off all these years,” Satya seethed. “There is life beyond the nuclear unit and the family. Everywhere I look around, people seemed so afraid of realising their hopes that they tie themselves down and surround themselves with the only certainty they possess – family. The impossibility of action is so supreme that we have coined a new term for it – tolerance. Is this why you worked so hard towards educating us? So that we could become drones and make more than you ever made?”

Sharmaji was in no mood for a discourse on the subject of the great Indian middle class. “This is what comes of reading too much crap with no sense of direction. You get too many ideas and before you know, they have clouded your mind to such an extent that it’s impossible for you to take a stand. Stop living in this dream world of yours. How many of those hopes have you realised anyway? And if it were not for this very certainty, you would be out there, on the streets”, he blurted out.

“Maybe so. And hence my decision to move out. But at least I am not refusing to see what is staring at me in the face. I am not living in a cocoon.”

“You are beyond reason. I’ll let you realise what the real life is like. Of course, you have been at the receiving end of it for quite some time now. You seem to have taken a sadistic liking to your indecision. It can only end in disaster. But I am not wasting any more time on this conversation. You will come to your senses, more sooner than later. I will wait for you to tell me about how much of your self you have realised and how many dreams or hopes were murdered along the way,” Sharmaji thus concluded his end of the conversation and left in a humph.

“Satt, how long will this continue? If you don’t know what you want, at least listen to us. It might help, if nothing else,” Satya’s mom pleaded with his unruly son.

“I am going to sleep Ma. I will move out my stuff by the week’s end. Despite all I said, you know I care for you. It could be no other way. Even if I don’t make a public display out it,” he said, almost on the brink of his tears. Realising his helplessness, he got up and went to his room, making sure to latch it behind him. He then plumped down on his bed and cried his heart out. Outside, his mother could hear him stifle his sobs, between her own, and wondered what could have gone so wrong so as to render him thus.

Things hadn’t been the same always, no matter what Sharmaji would like to believe. Satya had not scraped through school (though his mother always thought he could have done better) and had gone on to pursue a vocational degree from a decent institution. Everything was set for a life of ‘certainty’ and tradition – another middle class dream on the verge of realisation. Somewhere along the way, though, he had begun to detest his middle class identity and the fetters with which it bound him.

More an idealist than a man of reason, he had come to see his adulthood as a phase of no nonsense, devoid of innocence, pleasure, pure joy, and most importantly, blind consumption or consumerism. He realised, however, his incompleteness as a person to attain his objectives, and strove to overcome it. One of the means through which he did that was reading. As he did so, the Hindu ideal of renunciation began to make more and more sense. But, unfortunately, his interpretation of the scriptures was a bit awry. (Someone would say that it was to be expected from a non-Brahmin). So, his flight was more a withdrawal, in conflict with the peaceful renunciation that Hinduism proscribes, wherein the breadwinner, his duties done, prepares the ground for his descendants and retreats to a life of meditation. That, in its truest sense, actually ensures order and continuity in the world. However, Satya’s philosophy of withdrawal served the purpose of diminishing him intellectually and rendering him incompetent to respond to challenges, thereby stifling growth. Additionally, it also freed him of responsibility, something which gradually became an addiction. He failed to understand that his inaction depended upon the action of others.

A breath of fresh air did come around though. But it did more harm than good. Incorrectly interpreting his understanding of love and refusing to rest his faith in any other, Satya even distanced himself from the one thing that had challenged his abandonment – Avantika. What had started off as an infatuation in school, had blossomed into a passionate love affair during his formative years – time spent in college. However, he was the first person in his family to attempt a relationship of this sort, and nothing in his social or cultural education had offered him any clues as to how to behave when in love. He sought to refute all set norms and assumed that the freshness would cause things to fall in place – often not the best approach to emotions.

Little did Satya realise that his fight against his inheritance would end up defining his character more than anything else. Had he known, he would have stayed away from the trappings of love. The sudden transition from the security of caste equations, traditions, and rituals, to the independence and casteless world that he came to inhabit in college lulled him into believing that his mind could be an extension of the same. So while he read about feminism and felt inspired by the teachings of Vinobha Bhave, the feudal world that he had grown up in reared its ugly head every now and then. While he harped on the importance of empathy and intellectual growth, his philosophy of renunciation and self-cherishing fed his ego. While he championed modernity and rational thought, he couldn’t help taking refuge in conservative views and ancient wisdom whenever they were challenged by his own instincts. And while he went on about detachment and self realisation, he shuddered every time Avantika echoed his thoughts.

But gradually the cracks had begun to show. Satya’s passage from his middle class values to the ‘revolutionary’ ideals was wrought with conflict. With himself. The nerve required to carry on regardless of it wasn’t obvious to everyone. Only those who knew about the tremendous strain required to absorb divergent notions could appreciate his tenacity. For as long as he had endured, his actions had been the result of this perpetual struggle. A weaker person would have broken down under the stress and taken comfort from the security that familiar ground – family, clan, caste – offered. Satya had merely retreated unto himself, refusing to accept defeat, but wary of his own perpetual rudderlessness.

Avantika, tired of this relentless onslaught, had eventually decided to move on. She could have accepted him as an ordinary individual, seeped in either tradition or modernity, but not as someone who was unsure of his footing, endlessly involved in a clash of values. They seem to be going nowhere, endlessly engaged in an elaborate game of hide and seek. “You surprise me, but you surprise me too much,” Avantika had said softly, trying not to cry. “Yes, I guess it must be hard,” was all Satya could muster in response.

It took her some time but she adapted to her new life. Within a year of leaving Satya, she married Ritwick, a mutual acquaintance, who was less prone to bouts of denial and self deprecation. Despite all appearances to the contrary, she was a normal girl who needed to be cared for. Satya’s idea of romance had seemed too idealistic, fraught with disappointments and misunderstandings, to be something she could depend on.

She made it a point to invite Satya to the wedding in order to emphasise how essential it was for them to take it all in their stride. How essential it was for him to let go. He had smiled while his photograph was clicked with the couple, but inwardly the shutters had already come crashing down. Correspondence dwindled to a minimum and now, 3 years later, he could not remember the last time he had spoken to her. While Avantika refused to dwell on the past and enforced ignorance upon her in order to make the most of her marriage, Satya scrutinised the demise of their love with alarming regularity. Yet he never spoke about the same, lest it confirm his own fears – that he had lost the battle against his own self.

Things had not gone from bad to worse. But they had definitely stopped getting better. Satya switched jobs sooner than he asked his mother to change the menu, always coming up with some lame excuse for doing so. He lived frugally, though sometimes he wondered, whether he had the choice. His denial of all responsibility and commitment helped him whenever he was in doubt. He read voraciously and, often, without discrimination. Sometimes the words he paid homage to would come alive and start swimming in front of his eyes. Such moments were rare but they brought more clarity of thought than what he ever achieved through contemplation. He deliberately lived with the kind of contradictions which would not let him have peace of mind. Life passed him by while he was looking for it in other places. There were no regrets, however, just painful compromises. That is until he had the altercation with his father.

That weekend Gandhi came to help Satya move his stuff to the one room apartment both of them had finalised. As he finished packing his things for one last time, he had an urge to go up to his old room on the terrace. It was almost dark and Gandhi grumbled a bit about someone coming over for dinner at his house. “It’ll just take me a minute. I’ll be back soon. You wait here,” Satya said as he disappeared up the stairs.

The terrace was devoid of any human presence but bustling with life because of the hundreds of plants her mother cared for like her own children. He remembered Bruzo lolling in the Sun while he studied for his Bio exam several winters ago. When a lot more gullible and naïve, he had spent umpteen nights on the terrace, walking, listening to cheesy songs being played out on the late night radio show or his cranky walkman, and cursing the tractors for causing a racket each time they trundled over the speed breaker near his house. With a disarming chuckle, he even recalled hiding paper clippings of scantily dressed models under his bed, and putting them to good use. Then there was this instance when Gandhi had admonished him for being too uptight, for being too conventional in his approach. How much he would like to walk down that corridor once again and peep at himself through the keyhole! Had he been successful in shrugging off the fetters now?

When he had enough of such images in his mind, he slowly closed his eyes and spread his arms. Ever so slowly, he turned around in a circle. In that minute of abandon, he could imagine everyone he had ever known smile at him, cheering him on, wishing him their own share of luck, and letting him know that they loved him. In that moment of happiness, he embraced it all. He embraced them all.

~~~

End Note – I must confess that several parts of this story owe their inspiration to excerpts from the following books. And they, I guess unfortunately, are the only things original about it.

Above Average by Amitabha Bagchi, Butter Chicken in Ludhiana by Pankaj Mishra, INDIA: A Wounded Civilisation by V. S. Naipaul, The Scent of India by Pier Paolo Pasolini

Also, the phrase – Hopelessly Middle Class – is not mine. The author would recognise this assertion.