Memoirs

This is not a war story. Neither is this a tale of some great, unforgettable love. This is just a part of my memories that has survived the weathering of time.

That was the year of 1991. I was all of age eight. Born to a great Indian joint family, we all, my father and my uncles with all their families, lived in a huge house that belonged to my grandfather, in a small town in eastern Utttar Pradesh, a northern state in India. I was the youngest of the bunch of four children my parents had produced.

Our house stood on the corner of the main road. Next to our house passed a thin, filthy gully, on the other side of which was situated the Badi Masjid (the big Mosque) of the town. In those days we did not have a timepiece in our rooms. It was not that we were not rich enough to buy one; but it was never needed. We all used the Ajaan at the Masjid as our time identifier. It is said that good Muslims pray five times a day, and so the Ajaan was played at five times – morning 6 O’clock, then around 8:00 AM, then at around one in afternoon, then at around five in evening. And the last Ajaan was paid at 8 PM. What I understood from my daily observation was that Ajaan was played as a reminder after which all men from Muslim families would come to the place of worship to pray to god.

I used to be back at around 3 PM from school. Then after having my lunch and talking to my sisters, I would play with my cousins for some time. After which was my homework time. But in our city, and in fact in most of the cities in my state, the power would go off after six in evening. The ladies of the house would light the kerosene lamps and would place them such that minimum lamps are used for maximum light in our ultra big house.

This was the time my sisters would go for their daily chatters and I would be left in the room with a lamp and my books. The windows of my room opened to the gully that passed between our house and the Masjid. I always wondered, in those days, that how could a loudspeaker sing the Ajaan if there was no electricity! And with all my Intelligence quotient I figured out that we could generate electricity by connecting such instruments as speaker with the kerosene lamp. On one occasion, I had argued with Payal didi that we could watch television by following my way of generating electricity. I didn’t know there was a thing like Electricity Generator, then. Closing the doors, I would take the lamp near the window and would try to look into the rooms in the Masjid through their windows.

My elder brother, Pawan, had told me some stories – stories that had fear and the ghosts and the magic. And one more thing, they all were the tales of the Masjid and its long-bearded caretaker. My brother was a hero in all those stories. If I would have not been told those stories, I would have loved the Masjid, I think. It was a beautiful piece of architecture. All white. It used to glow like a palace in full moon nights. I could see its big, clean, open space from my window where the men sat to offer their prayers. It looked very beautiful and rhythmic to me the way they all moved the different parts of their bodies during the process of praying. But when these people were gone, the Masjid would look a little too empty and very quite - To the extent of making it fearful. And when the caretaker would roam around in the place, it offered a perfect arrangement to Pawan bhaiya for creating his great, fearful stories which he would narrate to us, all children, in the lightless nights. After my several visits to several different places of worship in all my growing up years, now I know, that, in general, a mosque is the best place to sit back and connect to oneself, if not to god. It’s a place where you can meditate and introspect with serenity. And when one find his own self, that’s when he finds god.

I was not allowed to open the curtains of my window, after dark. But one could not survive without that as it would be too hot inside, without the fan. So when alone in my room and exactly in no mood to work on my homework, I would open the window and would try to figure out what that mysterious person from my brother’s stories would do in the Masjid.

Frankly speaking, I was not with a brave heart. But I did have some curiosity. So, in a hope to see a little more, I brightened up the lamp and stared inside the blank, black rooms of Masjid. Suddenly, I saw a face on the window on the other side of the gully, with white beards and a lamp in hands, staring back at me through his deep, kohl-ed eyes. He had a pure white face with a black mark on his forehead. My eyes widened up in horror. I could see the face directly coming out of my brother’s stories and I ran directly, thought the long corridors of my long house, to the kitchen.

Taking a few breaths in, I called out, “Maa.”

To which my mother replied, “yes, son.”

“Can I please sit with you here, please?”

“But, here, it’s very hot.”

“No problem. I am little feared to sit in the room. Just a little, not much.”

“Arre! What do you have to fear about? It’s our home!”

“I know but I am scared. I just saw the ghost about which….” I trailed off. My brother had taken a promise that we would not tell anyone the ghost stories he narrated.

“What ghost? Rubbish! Did Pawan tell you any new ghost story?”

“No… No… it’s just that I saw a face in the window… please let me sit here. I won’t disturb you in your cooking.”

“But why did you open the window? Don’t know that all mosquitoes will fly in? We won’t be able to sleep in that room now without lighting the mosquito repellent. And then you will cry as you can’t bear the smell of the repellent!”

“I am sorry… but…”

“Nothing. Go to the room and close the window, now.”

“Maa, but there’s that ghost in Masjid. If I go close to my window he will stretch his hands and will catch my neck.”

“Who told you all that?”

“Bha…” I was about to say bhaiya, but avoided, “Nobody. But, I know it does. And I am not going to that room without you.”

“Shut up, Parv. Don’t make useless stories and excuses to escape from your homework. Get your sisters from the porch, and go to the room and finish your homework.”

“But there’s no light in the gallery. How can I go to the porch?”

“Parv, it’s enough. Light the lamp that’s kept in the side of the room and go.”

“But I have problems with the English assignment. I don’t like English. It’s very tough.”

“Do you not have any other assignments?”

“I have. But I don’t understand English.”

“Go and finish the other assignments. We will do English later.”

“But why cant we do English now. You can tell me here only, naa?”

“Parv, I am really very pissed off. Please go now, at once. Otherwise I will beat you very badly.”

At this I made some sad faces and went out of the kitchen. Mustering all my courage I entered the room again to collect the lamp and ran to the kitchen to get it lighted. Then went to the porch where all my cousins and my sisters were sitting and gossiping.

“Pragati di, come to the room with me. I have to finish my homework.” I requested to one of my two sisters. I would always try to take chance on her as she was younger to Payal didi and a little closer to me.

“Arre yaar, why don’t you bring your homework here and do it? It’s so hot in the room.”

“I am not going to room again and come back. Please come, naa. Maa will get angry at me if I don’t do the homework” I was almost near to a sob.

“Okay, wait for five minutes. Then we will go.” She tried to finish her gossip. But by the time she finished, I found myself engaged in it.

We only realized it was too late when my mother came and shouted at me angrily, “I asked you to go to room and finish your homework. And you are sitting here and gossiping! Wait I will teach you a lesson today.” She ran to catch hold of me. I jumped on the other side, shouting, “Maa, I came to ask didi to come with me. But she didn’t. Please don’t beat me.”

This helped a little to divert my mother’s anger onto my sisters, “What you girls do all the time? Can’t you sit with your brother and get his work done?”

Payal didi whispered to Pragati didi to make a move. She, then, collected her stuff and started moving to our room. We two, Pragati didi and I, walked in front followed by my mother and her continuous curses and threats of the matter to be reported to my father.

Back in the room, I tried to prioritize the homework once again. Once decided, I opened the notebook and started writing. Didi engaged her in listening to radio.

“You know di, I saw that ghost today, in that window.” Pointing to the window outside, I told her after sometime.

“Shut up and finish your homework.”

Saddened by her non-interest in the subject, I turned my head back to my book. But to take the revenge, in next instance, I faced up and said, “Switch off the radio. I am getting disturbed.”

“Keep shut and concentrate on your work.” She would snap back.

“Maaaaaaaaaaa, di is playing radio. She is not letting me do my homework.” I shouted from the room, loud enough that it be heard in kitchen.

“Shut up else I would go out of the room. You will have to sit alone here.”

“Maaaaaaaaaa, di is going out of the room.” I yelled again, complaining.

“What’s happening, there?” My mother called out.

“Nothing,” My sister replied to her call, shouting with equal effort and then turning the radio off, she told me, “now finish your work fast, ok?” and she whacked very softly on my head.

But the beating was hard enough to make me cry, falsely. I started walking to the kitchen, crying. “Maa, di is beating me.”

After deadly irritated with this whole extravaganza, my mother came out of the kitchen. Holding me by my arms and walking me back to the room, she asked my sister, “What’s happening here?”

“I did nothing. He is just making excuses to escape from his homework.”

“No maa, she beats me!” I would protest.

“Shut up, both of you. Parv, take your books and come with me to kitchen.”

I collected my books, made some ugly faces to tease my sister and ran to follow my mother.

Once the dinner was ready, maa asked, “Finished you homework?”

“Yaa, almost.”

“Finish it and then eat your dinner.”

“Will you feed me today?”

“Are you a kid and can’t eat with your hands?”

“But I don’t like to. I get bored eating alone. And I take too long to finish my meal.”

“Then go and ask your sister to feed you. She has really spoiled you. I have loads of other work to do”

“But she is angry at me. She won’t feed me today. Please, you feed me. I eat very fast when you feed me. It won’t take long.”

“No Parv. It’s not going to happen. Now finish your home work.”

After finishing my homework, I took my food plate and went to my room. There, I found my sister listening to radio.

“Will you feed me?”

“Eat by yourself. Don’t you have hands?”

“I have. Two hands.” Then I sat in the corner of the room, solemnly, putting my plate on the study table and started eating. My bites were small and slow and bored.

After minutes of my struggle with food, my sister got up, took my plate on her side and started feeding me. Big, giant pieces of chapatti rolled over equally big pieces of potatoes.

“It’s too big. And I don’t want to eat vegetables.” I complained.

“Eat fast, you Nautanki!” She said and then smiled.

I pulled my eyebrows up to see the expression on her face. Satisfied with the idea that we had arrived at truce, I smiled back. And she rubbed her hands through my hairs. We laughed aloud. In the kitchen, my mother was smiling happily at our reunion.

That was when the last Ajaan of the day flew out of the loudspeakers. It was 8:00 PM. And then, I narrated my great experience with the ghost in the Masjid window to her, happily horrified.

As I told you, it’s not a great, war story, neither was it a grand tale of love. If printed in a book or made into a movie, not too many people would care to read or watch. But these simple moments, at times, stay for longer than any big event of an individual’s life. And for that person, these small fights have a bigger significance than a great war and this simple feeling of being loved has a greater importance than any great love story. This story, of my own life, has stayed, in my heart. And after some fifteen years from that night, I could still recall those moments in their exactness as if I am reading the pages of an unwritten memoir. And I smile.

Orphan

Mayank had left office quite early, or rather at the right time - at around six in evening, but instead of going home, he went to Worli Sea-face, very near to his office.

Sun was still warm. In Mumbai, the length of an evening is very short. The night waxes out as soon as the afternoon wanes. The sun drops into the sea as if the gravity doesn’t allow it to stand in the sky any more, minimizing the existence of the evening. At times, Mayank wished if he could lessen the interactions with his parents by such degree as these evenings and to avoid the daily altercations between them, he decided to return at an hour when they would be asleep.

Sitting by the seaside, one of his early childhood images always popped up in his mind. This was the night when his father had tried to hang himself to the bedroom fan. The doors were closed from inside. His mother was requesting to open up. He was shouting, “What the hell my son will feel like when he gets to know that his mother loves to go for coffee with her boyfriend more than sitting with him for his homework?” She had shouted back, “He is not my boyfriend, you fool! He is just an office colleague!!” Then she had run to the phone to call for his grandparents. When they arrived, his grandparents convinced his father to open the door.

During all this, Mayank had sat in his room, sobbing badly. He didn’t understand the happenings in his house in its exactness but he jotted it down on the memory cells to find its meaning in his growing up years. And now when he understood, he told himself, “May be I would have never known if my mom had some affair with her office guy, if they had not made a scene that day. But all these years I definitely knew that my father would go anytime he wished, without giving a thought to my homework.”

The waters from the sea touched Mayank’s feet hanging from the walls by the sea side. The sea was rising up. He looked at his watch that was showing that midnight had arrived. He checked his mobile. He had missed nine calls, seven from his home and two from unknown numbers. He called for a taxi and headed for Elphinstone station.

“How should a twenty-five years old son behave when his golden-jubilee-neared parents fight on almost all the trivialities of life? What should he do when they start marketing their individual contribution to his life? And what should he do if they decide to separate at an age when they would need each other the most?” Wondering into all such questions, Mayank boarded the last Local to home.

When he arrived, his kitchen lights on fourth floor, he noticed, were still on. His heart dropped. “No god! Not at this hour, please.” With a heavy mood he climbed up to his apartment. His father opened the door with an unusual look. Mayank was just two steps in that he said, “your mother left.”

In an instance, Mayank already thought about hundred things. “Left what? Food uncooked? Or food uneaten? Cloths unwashed? My father? Home? World? What?”

And he asked, “What?”

“Your mother left home.”

“To where?”

“I don’t know.”

“Then what do you know?”

“That she left.”

“That you already told me. What else you know?”

“I suppose she is carrying her mobile. I called her but she did not pick up. And the mobile is not seen anywhere in the house.”

That night, Mayank could not sleep. He kept trying her number but it was switched off.

The next morning, while he was readying himself to go to police station, he received a message. It read as – “I left 4ever. Plz dnt worry abt me. I m in oldage hom. I m ok. God bless. Ur Ma.”

Mayank sighed with relief. Now he knew he does not need some outsider that too Mumbai police, to intervene into some absolute family matters.

He called up his manager and informed that he was not well and hence couldn’t attend office. Then he browsed the internet for all old-age homes in Mumbai, shortlisted the ones with highest possibility of his mother’s residence. When he called up and enquired, most of the homes told him that they could not give any information about the inmates. So he decided to visit them personally. After visiting several such homes, he finally found the one where his mother was sheltered in. He tried to persuade her by every means he could. But she was not ready to live with his father. When he suggested making separate arrangements for both of them, she agreed to pack her bags and come with him.

Returning home, sitting by the window in the taxi, Mayank asked himself, “What are they after?”

He remembered a night from his childhood. His mother had asked his father, “What’s the problem?”

His father had replied, “Nothing as such.”

“When you watch television to avoid a conversation, there is a problem!”

At this, his father had turned towards her and had asked, “Why do you think, I would be interested in telling YOU my problems?”

“Ya, off course! Why should you tell ME? But I hope you understand well that it’s OUR family which will suffer from your so-called personal problems.”

By now, they had entered into shout-on-shout-back game.

The problem for Mayank with every such thing was – He never discovered the reason for their fights. He engaged himself in a retrospective analysis, “An individual’s personal chaos has a great potential to disturb his or her child’s mind. People, at times, marry to stabilize their lives. But do they ever calculate the possibility of destroying their partner’s stability if they do not attain theirs? After all, one’s mental or societal stability, like all his or her personal qualities, has to be attained by his or her personal endeavor. It can’t be sought as a dowry. It can’t be derived from anybody else. And what happens if one gets into a marriage where his or her partner is also in an unstable state? Now think of a child, such couple is going to produce!! And I have been one such child – a child born out in a dysfunctional family. I always wonder if I were just a mistake of a night! When my parents were never in love for all their lives together, how could they make love voluntarily?”

He thought, “It was never like they loved me in any way less than the parents of my friends did to their children. But they certainly fought more than that. And their love was divided. I was never loved by my parents; it was either my father or my mother. They even fought over the matter that, of the two, who loved me more!”

In all his childhood, Mayank spent most of the time in figuring out one or the other thing. During lunch hours in the school, when all his friends bragged about their parents and their love, he wondered what to brag about. And the whole break time would pass in such wilderness and all he did was eating his Tiffin silently. He could never feel proud enough about his parent that he would feel to talk about them in friend’s group. If ever he visited some relative’s place, he would curiously watch how they behaved with their kids, sometimes with pity for self, sometimes with jealousy towards them. He used to notice, how a mother would reinforce the faith in father, if ever the kid would talk against him. And he also watched fathers to do it for mothers. At times he would think, “Is this the reason why I don’t believe them?” He remembered how his father would spill of bad words for his mother when he found the slightest error in her cooking or his mother would curse his father when he forgot to fill in the electricity bills; though each one would know that there must be some reason why the other committed the mistake.

He thought of the day he was taken to his boarding school in Lucknow. He had passed class fifth and his parents, for the first time, had come to a conclusion together that it’s best to keep him in a residential school. All exams and such stuff done, Mayank was enrolled in the school. The school had allowed the parents to take their kids out that evening as from the next morning they won’t be seeing their parents. So he was taken out to the markets of Aminabad and Hazratganj to do some last minute shopping. This was one of those rare occasions when Mayank had his parents together. He was happy. While walking on the roads, he held his mother’s right and his father’s left hand very tightly, signifying the only link left between them. On the dinner table, his mother had asked his father, “I think we can stay for one day more… just in case, Mayank needs something else?”

“I guess school authorities are good and they will take care of his needs, if any,” his father had snapped.

“But this might help him settle down… he is so young… such a kid… and he will be on his own from now…”

“Then, might as well we don’t leave him only, if you so believe that he can’t live without you… and more over you only wanted him to be put in a boarding school… as you always believe your job is more important than your family…”

“Yes it is… because we just can’t survive on whatever you earn…”

He didn’t remember where this discussion had progressed from there. All he could recall was that his happiness was gone. He had said, “Mom… dad… please don’t fight. I will be all right. You can leave… I will make friends and I will be all right.” That night while leaving their parent, every kid in the hostel was crying, except Mayank.

He looked at his mother, who was sitting by his side. She was asleep, resting her head on his right shoulder. He questioned to his self, “So what is the reason?” And then, offered himself a random flow of thoughts in the absence of an answer, “The reasons of their fights are not important anymore; but the fights are, I guess. They are REASONS – the reasons for their survival. And it’s so very obvious. A fight has to be the reason for our survival. Now the question is - whom do we fight? We all fight different enemies at different times. When we are awakened, we fight against the night; when we are asleep, we fight against the day. But what if we have lost all the battles and don’t have any enemy to fight with? We might then tend to create enemies - some unreal, superfluous enemies. And the process of creation is outwardly. We, at times, forget to fight the enemy within. May be, that’s the only reason they ever had for their survival and they hold each other as the only seen enemies! May be, just may be. In these fights none of them ever won but the loss was always mine. They could never hurt their enemy but what they killed was the concept of parenting. They killed my parents.”

When the taxi stopped at a traffic signal, Mayank saw an orphanage. He looked at the kids hanging around the gate and then thought of himself. A thought appeared and then lingered around in his mind, “What’s the difference?”

ख्वाहिश एक कुत्ते की

कभी देखा है,
किसी व्यस्त सड़क के
एक किनारे खड़े
किसी कुत्ते को,
सड़क पार करने की ऊहाँपोह में?
किनारे पड़ खड़े
वह दौड़ाता है नज़रे
हर तरह, हर दिशा,
असमंजश में, लपलपाता है अपनी जीभ
और हिलाता है ख़ुद की पूँछ |

उस पार सड़क के
खड़ी दिखती है, एक कुतिया
आँखों में भरे उम्मीद, उसके आने की;
कुत्ता, देख कर उसकी आँखे,
कूद पड़ता है सड़क पर, अन्धाधुन्ध,
बिना कुछ सोचे, बिना कुछ विचारे |

अचानक, बत्ती चमकाती एक कार
बजाती है हाँर्न,
कुत्ता दो कदम पीछे हटता है,
तभी पीछे से आती है
हाँर्न की एक और आवाज़,
कुत्ता आगे गुज़री गाड़ी के
पीछे से लगता है छलाँग
और हो जाता है रस्ता पार
पीछे से जाता ड्राईवर
करता है गालियों की बौछार
पर क्या फर्क पड़ता है?
आख़िर ध्यान तो उसने ही रखा
की कुत्ते की मौत न हो |
सड़क पार वह कुत्ता
मिलकर अपनी कुतिया से
खुश हो, हिलाता है अपनी दुम |

बात साफ़ है -
अगर पार करने की हो ख्वाहिश
तो सड़क पर उतरना ही पड़ता है,
राह गुजरते कुत्ते को
हर कार बचाती जायेगी;
सड़क किनारे खड़े रहे
तो क्या ड्राईवर को सपना आएगा
कि कुत्ते को है है रस्ता पार करने की ख्वाहिश?




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Scent of the soil

The scent of the soil

“What does your name mean?” I asked my ten year old nephew.

“It means the good smell of the mother earth… you know… when it rains for the first time… after the looooong summer,” he stretched the word, long, along with hands to describe the intensity of the heat, “…when it rains for the first time, our earth smells good and nice. And that is what Parimal means, the good and nice smell of mother earth after the first rain.” He smiled after he finished his elaborate explanation of his name. And when I told him that he had a wonderful name, he bungee-jumped from the sofa to express his happiness of my positive approval of his name. It wasn’t a genuine approval though, I must confess; I usually appreciate his efforts and things he likes, just to watch the innocent expressions of happiness that he exudes when I do so.

The thought of this conversation crossed my mind when I boarded the bus, after the first rain of the year, from office back home. It was around eleven in the night. The roads were less crowded and so the bus was running faster than usual. The rain had stopped but it was still drizzling outside. Through the window, the drizzles fell on my face as the wind flew in. It was a wonderful feeling. I talked about the rains and the love of it with a friend of mine. She told me her childhood stories that how she used to dance on the roof on the days of first rains of the season. I told her about the paper boat competitions we held in the open drains and road that used to get flooded with the rain water.

I could sense the smell of the onion pakodas and tea that Maa would prepare in the evenings. It was the favorite of the season, and still is; just that I don’t get to eat it anymore. In the days of my childhood, we used to sit together, almost the whole family, for our evening snacks and would laugh at the antics of the people who would try to save themselves from the unannounced arrival of the rains. They would try to cover their heads from every possible thing – plastic bags, towels, books, dupattas.

Every rainy season has a tendency to draw us to the rains of the past. We almost do the same thing – talking about the rain stories. But, I think, there is something special about the rains that we don’t get bored of the monotonous activity. May be, because I tell the same stories to a new set of people every year and get reciprocated with a new set of stories from them. And today was one such day, again.

Through out my short journey from office to home, there was something that I was happy about. The moments played a hide and seek in my mind. In a second I was in the present and in the next I was in my past. I was smiling to everything that I saw around – the wet trees, the people standing at the bus stop waiting for their last buses, the gang of the guys roaming like the kings of their own world without a care of getting soaked; almost on everything.

When the bus was about to reach my stop, the rains started again, heavily. I just said to myself, “hmmmm…. Ok!” I was not carrying any umbrella. It didn’t take even a few steps to get wet, when I got down, so I decided to walk on, rather than looking for a shelter.

While walking from the stop to my home, I have to pass through a small slum area that is architected around a big open drain. Just when I reached that area, my attention was caught by an object that dropped in the drain. Then I saw, three small kids came running and jumped into the drain. And they swam to and fro, happily. It was almost twelve in midnight and these children didn’t give a damn to it! They were happy; simply, purely happy. I smiled as I knew the reason – this was the first rain.

When I reached the gate of my building, I took a minute to stand there. I wanted to soak myself in something, something that Parimal, my nephew, had described to me in his explanation of his name – the scent of the soil after the first rains. And this day I realized how my appreciation for his name was true.

Absentia

He was standing at the point from where he could only go down. But he didn’t seem to care. He stood still; still like the hills around. Not even the force of the wind at that peak could shake him. He was deafened by the sound it made when it passed by his ears. He could not hear the calls from the people who were standing just a few meters away, but could hear the song from the valley whose distance was immeasurable. He could hear a voice from the past that stood years away from the present.

He said to himself, “Memories… are they? Don’t appear like. Rather, I think, they are the voices from the talks we had in the assembly ground of my school…The glitters down there…do they exist in this moment or they belong to the street and the home lights in the valley behind the assembly ground? That folk song…I don’t understand that language; Marathi it is, I guess. But how does it matter? Neither did I understand Kumouni. The melody of that unmelodious folk song is still the same… The feel of the evening is still the same… I can feel the breeze, deep inside… No they are not memories… Just a reappearance of certain lost moments… A reappearance of the torture of the guilt from my past… But I am smiling. Why? The reason? Who knows! May be, because they are mine, the torture and the guilt; both belong to me. The stones around… they are talking some history, not their, but mine. I never knew them before, but they are narrating the stories of my past… They know me. How? Who knows?”

“Nitin…!” Ragini was calling out his name. Just in this moment, or since many such moments? Only Ragini and Dr. Giri would know.

Mrs. Ragini Singhal had come to Dr. Hridaynath Giri to get her husband diagnosed. For what disease? She didn’t know. What she knew was “Nitin is not normal; normal is general concept of living.”

Dr. Giri had his clinic on top of a hill, in Western Ghats, in the state of Maharashtra. The place was lovely. The peace, here, was serene and pious. The place was maintained as if it was a place to spend vacations and not a clinic. This helped the patients to feel free. They were never forced with any medication, here, not even any examination, if they didn’t prefer to. This was a unique style, Dr. Giri practiced where he motivated his patients to help him help them. He had examined Nitin earlier and had declared him well. But due to Ragini’s dissatisfaction, they were here again at the Doctor’s clinic.

When did it start she wouldn’t know, but Ragini had some instances to quote –

“That day he was working on his computer in the other room. His mobile was lying in the bedroom. I was folding the dried-up clothing. Suddenly, he came running to check out if his mobile was ringing. But the mobile was lying dead, dead without any sound. He went back. After a few moments, he again came running to check out if it rang. He looked confused. I don’t know if he was waiting for someone’s call, in particular; or anyone’s call, in general. When I told him that if it rung next time, I will get the phone to him and he could better finish off his work; he looked at me strangely and went back to his room. I could see his attention was constantly divided. He was not able to work. Though he was humming the tunes of Nothing else matters, a song from Metellica which was his ring tone too, he didn’t appear enjoying it. He shut the system down and came back to bedroom. Lying flat on the bed, holding his mobile in the right hand, he looked up at the rotating fan on the ceiling. He had work which he had to finish. He was working on it. But I don’t know what was it that forced him not to complete it? He was holding his mobile a little extra tight.”

“The reason why it appeared absurd to me was, sir, he never actually enjoyed talking to anyone over the phone. Whenever he received a call, he would force me to talk and if ever he did, he would make faces as if he didn’t care listening to the speaker on the other side of the phone…and that day he was desperately waiting for someone’s call, none of us knew whose call was he waiting for!”

“And the other day, I called him and asked to get some vegetables. We had none at home. He Okayed. But when he got back, he fought enough to defend that I never asked him for vegetables!”

“In whole of his office timings, he would call me hundred times to ask how I was doing and what I was doing; would do all the love talks. But at home, he was a completely different person. He would always talk about his office and how bad it was going. The happy man I was talking a few hours ago would change to a sad and cribbing person. He would smile at me, but his smiles appeared as if they were not meant for me. I could never justify my ownership on them.”

“…And the way he makes love,” Ragini, by now had become used to talking about the details of her private life to the doctor. The cost of such publicity of their privacy was nothing much against the error of that privacy she was living in. “He makes love as if he is sleeping with someone else. He never looks in my eyes. He never stops to know if I am enjoying. He doesn’t care only, I guess. It’s just another mechanical activity.”

“But at times… he would smile; I could feel that when he used to call up in any afternoon and say ‘I love you, darling.’ In those small moments, I felt loved more than what I did in the long nights of love making.”

She called up again, “Nitin...!”

This time he responded. He turned to them and smiled. Then he walked up to them. He tried well, but Ragini noticed the sudden reflex that changed his smile from a kid’s to an adult’s. Dr. Giri had noticed something too.

Nitin asked Ragini, “Are we ready for dinner? I am feeling a little hungry.”

“Oh! Sure darling,” She replied, then turn to Dr. Giri, “Sir, you wanna join us for dinner?”

“Oh, you please carry on. It’s still a little early for me to dine.” Dr. Giri wished them good night and return to his cabin. The couple smiled to each other and moved to cafeteria.

At dinner table, Nitin appeared very happy. Of all the flowery items on the menu card, he ordered Rajma and Rice. Though the order appeared weird, Ragini knew this was his favorite food from his school days and agreed to have it. While eating, Nitin constantly talked about his school days, retelling the same stories that he had narrated on many occasions before, but telling in a manner as if they were being told for the first time; as a kid showcases all his possessions, that he thinks are rare, to his gully friends with a proud feeling of being an owner of such stuff. This was one rare happy dinner, Ragini had with her husband in seven years of her married life. If ever she showcased her prized possessions as he did now, this would be one of them, she thought.

The doctor’s cabin was a small but well kept place. It had a huge window with no grills. If opened, it appeared as if the room was walled from three sides only. The window had a small plain surface on the other side, after which a deep valley followed. Dr. Giri had been a well learnt psychiatrist. He was into practice for more than twenty years now. Even after knowing about many different traits, he could not really associate a single disease with Nitin. While hearing Ragini in several discussion sessions and observing Nitin in all possible conduct, he had recorded a few points in his patient case file. He read and re-read them. He did observe a common thread among the incidences but he could not name it. He browsed through many online psychiatry journals. He felt a little frustrated. He got up and moved to the window. He opened it and moved the curtains aside. Then he rested his arms on the window sill and closed his eyes. He could feel the breeze.

“What is it?” He questioned his own mind.

“He is not able to work when he sits to work… he is not able to read when he opts to read… he is not able to talk when he has to talk… He is not able to love when he wants to love…… Why?”

It was three hours past midnight. Dr. Giri was still standing at the window. Suddenly, he realized that he was shivering. But why now, in this moment only? All moments before this one were as wintry as now! He felt as if he was taken out of this world… to some other world. A world which did not appear to exist, but still he had spent some moments there, right now; just a few moments ago. He knew what happened in the world of his imagination. But how could he know what was happening in the clinic, in his very own cabin, on the window sill, behind the window curtains… could he? He smiled.

Waking her up at seven in the morning appeared to be early when she is on holiday, but he could not wait any longer so he called for Ragini. When she left the suite, Nitin was sleeping.

“Your husband is not ill,” said the doctor.

“You said the same thing last time,” She replied.

“So I am saying it again.” He smiled, “trust me Mrs. Singhal, he is all right. If you understand this…”

“Understand what?”

“Tell me, what happened in the doctor’s party last night?”

“How am I supposed to know? I didn’t attend it.”

“Okay… tell me, do you know what your son does when you are busy in your kitchen?”

She didn’t find any correlation between the two questions. But she was in no mood to get into the technicalities of relating them early morning. So she thought she would better keep answering whatever he asks. “He is generally engaged playing with his video game or watch television and when I scold he sits with his homework.”

“No… not that way. What I meant was, when you are not around him, when u are not watching him, can you tell what exactly he is doing? Which game he is playing and what are his scores in the game? Whether he is winning or losing and such details?”

“No… not unless he comes running and tell me that he won some game and very happily details me about it. And frankly speaking, I don’t understand much.”

“So you will agree to the fact that to know something our presence at the place of the incident or of someone who can tell us later is not only important but necessary, right?”

To this Ragini nodded in affirmation but she didn’t know where she was being led.

“Does it ever happen with you, Mrs. Singhal that you are sitting in your room, in a bored afternoon, and you visualize heaven?”

“Yaa… I guess I do… at times.”

“And do you remember what happen around you in those moments?”

“I guess not.”

“You do not. Not because you knew and you don’t remember. But because you never experienced those things and so they never existed for you.”

She could not derive the real meaning of the words offered as an explanation and the confusion was prominently displayed on her face.

The doctor helped her understand, “It’s not a memory lapse or forgetfulness, Mrs. Singhal, but just a matter of absenteeism. You just can’t recall what happened in a particular moment, because you were not present in that moment!!” He questioned further, “Tell me, ma’am, which was the subject you just hated to attend the class for, in your school days?”

“Chemistry, I guess. Specially the organic chemistry,” she smiled faintly.

“Now tell me, did it ever happen that your chemistry teacher was lecturing and you spent those hours in day-dreaming?”

“Oh! Very often.”

“So would you know the answer of a question discussed in those hours? What would be your response to such a question if the teacher asked, later?”

“To your first question – I would never know the answer, until someone told me as a favor, but certainly it won’t be learnt in that moment. And to your second – if the teacher asked, I would give out some random answer or say ‘I knew but I forgot’ to hide the fact that I was not paying attention.”

“Exactly!! You will not learn that answer in that moment as you were not present in that moment, mentally though. And you will try your best to hide your psychological absence. That’s exactly what Nitin is doing, Mrs. Singhal.” Both of them remained silent for a moment and then the doctor elaborated further, “Though he was working on computer, he was busy thinking about the call. When you called for vegetables, he might have been busy thinking about some work in office. In office, he is constantly thinking about you and at home he is thinking about something else, may be about the work he could not finish in his day’s time. So the problem is – he is not present mentally in the moment where he physically belongs to! He always leaps to some other moment. This can happen due to two reasons, mainly. Either he is too anxious to be in another moment or he is too bored with whatever activity is happening in the current moment. He is not able to associate himself to this real activity as it is always carried out, devoid of any emotion. For him the emotions, positive or negative, are always attached to the world he imagined and not to the world he lived in. His mind has always worked in a state of duplicity; thinking of something when executing something else.” Dr. Giri took a pause and then added, “We hide our inner self and act to align our activities to the world outside. He does not prefer to act life but to live it and to do so he keeps turning to his inner self, to his imaginations, to his conscience.”

“But we can’t live like that, Doctor. We just can’t live like that. He…,” Ragini was about to break down but she control herself, “he was fired from his job two months ago. And he is still searching for a new job. And if he doesn’t get one soon, we will be in real financial crisis. I have already started work from home but don’t get paid well. I don’t know what to do. But then we can still manage with that… what I can’t handle is… the fact that… he is… I can’t…” she didn’t finish any of her last few sentences. She just looked down and up and right and left. Then she pointed her eyes on the doctor. She could feel the moistness in them. “Is there any cure, sir?” she asked in the gravest voice Mr. Giri had heard coming from her in past few days.

“A cure is always devised for a disease and as I told you, Ma’am, your husband is not ill. Not by the books of psychology and psychiatry. This is still not proved to be a real mental disorder, though a group of scientists are working on this. What they are studying is called Absentia. The research says it exist in almost every human being. It’s nothing but our day-dreaming, the temporary mental absence from a situation or a place that we do not like. After living few moments in our imaginations, we tend to return to the world which is broadly perceived as normal by majority. But some people do not. They keep swinging from one hypothetical world to another. It can also happen that their world of dreams can appear more real to them than the real world around them. So even if they get back to reality, it remains unreal for them. Your husband is one such case of Absentia.”

“Can you help him, doctor?”

“No,” said the doctor. Ragini pointed her vision into his eyes. It was fear, he noticed, that was dancing on her face. He said, “But you can… and only you can!” She did not say anything but her expressions meant, “How?”

“You will have to create a world of his dreams around him - A world where he would love to live and not the one where he is forced to live. For this you will have to understand him… and his dreams. And you will have to understand it deep down into the deepest secret of his dreams. If the secret is a mystery, you will have to help him solve that. If it is guilt, you will have to help him come out of it. If it is worry, you will have to help him shrug it off. If it is happiness you will have to help him multiply it… and if its mere lack of love, you will have to love him like anything. You will have to make him enjoy the life with you, whichever world he lives in. And then slowly and gradually you can introduce him to the real world, to your and my world, where he will know that he has you to face any fear he had of this world.” Pausing for a while and then after pouring some water for himself from the filter, Dr. Giri asked Ragini, “will you do it for him, Mrs. Singhal?”

Ragini could not speak out. She moved her eyelashes too hard to stop the drop inside. When she knew they won’t come out, she looked up to the doctor and said, “Thank you, doctor. May I know what the withdrawal formalities are if I want to take my husband back home?”

When she came out of the doctor’s cabin, she had not known what she is going to do next. Even the steps she was taking, she felt, were not part of her decision to move. She found they decided to move towards her suite. When she entered the room, she found Nitin still sleeping. She sat besides him. Moving her fingers around his open palms, she thought, “For whose sake?”

The seven years of their marriage flashed in her mind, zipped in a short memory format; event by event – Their marriage, their honeymoon, their first kid and the only kid, their fights and their persuasions, their highs and their lows. She thought of a Saturday night, she had always remembered after its occurrence. They had played for long with their son, who had gone to sleep a few minutes ago. It was a full moon night; they were sitting on the front porch which opened to a big, green lawn with beautiful lampposts. She was sitting resting her back on railing. He was lying on the floor resting his head on her lap. Looking at the moon that night, Nitin had asked her, “Tell me, what if we have a terrible fight someday? Will we divorce? And if we divorce, who will keep our son?” She had asked, “For god’s sake, Nitin! Why do you talk such rubbish at times?” To which he had jokingly replied, “Because I talk rubbish at times, you may feel like leaving me some day.” She had looked at his face in the moon light. He was smiling mischievously. She had replied, “I love you with such an intensity that I can’t live without you, Nitin. And if ever we separate, I will leave our son with you as our separation gift.” He had said to her, “we will not have to give such gifts to each other ever, darling.” And they sealed this agreement, and the moment, with an eternal kiss.

Looking at him now, she offered an answer to herself, “If it be, it has to be for my own sake... I love you with such an intensity that I can’t live without you, Nitin.”

She walked up to the window, looking out at the open sun-filled scenery, she answered a question asked some time back, in a low but confident voice, “I will, doctor.” She felt free. She had not closed her eyes which she did as a general behavior to feel her dreams, to imagine her heaven. She could do it, now, in this moment with her eyes wide open. She could see a world where she lived with her family with a full understanding of every moment they lived by, a world where she owned each phase of her life, where she understood the reason of everyone’s presence.

Suddenly, she felt someone’s presence around her. It was Nitin. She didn’t realize when did he got up and arrived at the window to hold her. “Good morning,” he said. She pulled her hands from the window sill to hold his, turned her face to him and smiled, “Good morning, Darling.” She smiled to the realization of her return from the state of Absentia.

The alter ego

It was a Saturday morning, forwarding towards the afternoon. Bhaskar had his house build in the west of the eastern mountains. He had never felt the morning sun in his house. Today, he had jus