I broke into a laugh. ‘Don’t think that I’ve started smoking these on your advice. Actually you might call it coincidence. Today, I too ended up going to Dr Arolkar because lately I’ve been feeling this pain in my chest. Anyway, he advised me to smoke these, but far fewer.’
As I said this I stole a peek at him and realized that my words had upset him, so I took Dr Arolkar’s prescription out of my pocket and put it on the table. ‘I can’t read his handwriting but he seems to have crammed every vitamin into this one prescription.’
He glanced at the prescription which showed Dr Arolkar’s name and address embossed in black letters and also the date. His erstwhile look of agitation quickly faded. He smiled and said, ‘Why do most writers suffer from vitamin deficiencies?’ I replied, ‘Certainly not because they don’t get enough to eat. It’s more likely because they work a lot and get paid a pittance.’
Meanwhile the tea had arrived and we started talking about other things.
An interval of a month, maybe a month and a half, had passed between our first and second meetings. His face now looked even paler than before and there were dark circles around his eyes. Apparently he was suffering from some spiritual crisis which troubled him constantly. Every now and then he would stop short in the middle of his sentence and, quite unconsciously, let out a sigh. Even when he tried to laugh his lips hardly seemed to move.
Seeing him in this condition, I asked abruptly, ‘You look sad . . . Why is that?’
‘Sad . . .’ A faint smile, like one you might see on the face of a person who’s dying but wants to show that he isn’t afraid to die, appeared on his face. ‘No, I’m not sad. Could it be that you’re in a sombre mood yourself?’
He finished his tea in a single gulp and quickly got up. ‘All right,’ he said, ‘I’ve got to go. I have an important matter to take care of.’
I was certain that he didn’t have ‘an important matter to take care of’. Yet, I let him leave without trying to stop him. Once again, I had failed to find out his name, but I did find out that something was bothering him—mentally and spiritually. He was sad, or rather sadness had completely permeated his being. But he didn’t want anyone to know. He wanted to live two lives: one that was real and the other that he was busy creating every minute, every second. Both of his lives were a failure. Why? That I don’t know.
It was again at Apollo Bunder that we ran into each other for a third time. This time, however, I took him to my place. Although we didn’t say anything on the way, we did talk quite a bit once we reached home. The moment he entered the room a look of despair appeared on his face and lingered there for a few seconds. He quickly steadied himself and, unlike in the past, tried to appear unusually cheerful and chatty, which made me feel even sorrier for him. He seemed to be denying the reality of something as certain as death. What’s even worse, he sometimes seemed to be quite satisfied with his self-deception.
As we talked away, he noticed the framed photograph on my table. Getting up and moving closer to the photograph, he asked, ‘May I take a look . . . with your permission, of course?’
‘By all means!’
He gave the photograph a fleeting look and then sat down. ‘Quite a good-looking woman. I guess she’s your . . .’
‘No, no. It was a long time ago. I was attracted to her; rather, I should say I almost fell in love with her. Unfortunately, she never knew about it, and I . . . No, she was married off to . . . Anyway, this is a memento of my first love, which died even before it had a chance to be born.’
‘A memento of your first love! You must have had quite a few affairs since.’ He ran his tongue over his dry lips. ‘I mean you must have had many loves in your life—requited and unrequited.’
I was about to set him straight and tell him that this humble man was just as barren in the matter of love as he was. But, God knows why, I held back. Instead, I lied to him for no reason at all. ‘Of course! Such affairs do come along, don’t they? You must have had quite a few yourself.’
He didn’t say anything and fell completely silent, as though he had plunged into deep waters. After he’d been submerged in his own thoughts for a long time and his silence began to weigh on me, I said, ‘Well, sir, where have you gotten lost?’
He was startled. ‘I . . . Nowhere. I was just thinking about something.’
‘Were you reminded of something that happened to you in the past?’ I asked. ‘Stumbled on a lost dream? Some old wounds starting to hurt again?’
‘Wounds? Old wounds? Well, not wounds. Just one—very deep and vicious. And I have no desire for more. One is enough.’ Saying that, he got up and attempted to pace inside my room. ‘Attempted’ because my place was small and cluttered with chairs, a table, a cot and what all—there was really no room to pace. He could only go as far as the table and then he had to stop. This time, though, he looked at the photograph closely and said, ‘How much she resembles her! Her face wasn’t quite as playful though. She had big eyes, the kind which can see as well as understand.’ He heaved a sigh and sat back down. ‘Death is beyond comprehension, especially when it seizes someone in the prime of their youth. I believe there’s another power besides God—extremely jealous and begrudging anyone’s happiness. But never mind . . .’
‘No, no, please go on,’ I insisted, ‘if you don’t mind. To tell you the truth, I thought you had probably never fallen in love.’
‘What made you think that? A few minutes ago you said I must have had quite a few affairs myself, didn’t you?’
He looked at me with questioning eyes. ‘If I haven’t loved, then why this sorrow that keeps gnawing at my heart? Why this affliction? This sadness? This state of being oblivious to myself? Why am I melting away like wax day and night?’
Ostensibly he was asking me, but in fact he was asking himself.
I told him, ‘I lied when I said that you must have had quite a few affairs. But you lied too, when you said you weren’t sad and that nothing was bothering you. It’s not easy to know what’s inside another person’s heart. There could be any number of reasons for your sadness and, unless you choose to tell me yourself, I can’t very well come to any conclusion, can I? That you’re becoming frailer and frailer by the day is obvious. Surely you’ve suffered a big shock, and I do sympathize with you.’
‘Sympathize!’ Tears rushed to his eyes. ‘I don’t need sympathy. Sympathy can’t bring her back, can’t pull the woman I loved out of the abyss of death and return her to me. You’ve never loved. No, you have not. Of that I’m certain. For you are unscathed by its failure. Look at me,’ he demanded, and looked down at himself. ‘Do you see any spot where love hasn’t left its scars? My entire existence is nothing more than the rubble of love’s crumbling abode. How can I relate this tale to you? And why should I? You wouldn’t understand. The words, “My mother died,” are not likely to affect a stranger as much as the deceased’s son. To you, indeed to anybody, my tale of love would seem commonplace. But the way it has affected me, how can anyone understand it! Only I have experienced this love and only I have borne its brunt.’
He fell silent. His throat had become dry; this was obvious from his repeated attempts to swallow.
‘Did she deceive you?’ I asked him. ‘Or was there something else?’
‘Deceive? She could never deceive. For God’s sake don’t use that word. She wasn’t a woman, she was an angel. But woe to Death that couldn’t bear to see us happy and gathered her up in its wings and took her away forever . . . Ah! You’ve opened my wounds. So now listen. I’ll tell you part of that distressing tale. She came from a distinguished, wealthy family. When we first met, I’d already squandered away the whole of my ancestral property on a life of debauchery. Nothing remained. I left my home and went to Lucknow. Since I used to own a car, driving was the one skill I had. So I decided to become a chauffeur. My first job was at the residence of the Dipty* Sahib and she was his only daughter.’
He drifted off into his own thoughts and stopped talking. I rem
ained silent. After some time he snapped out of his reverie and said, ‘What was I saying?’
‘That you worked for a dipty sahib.’
‘Yes. She was the Dipty Sahib’s only daughter. Every morning at nine I’d drive her, Zohra, to school. She observed purdah, but how long can one remain hidden from one’s chauffeur! I was able to see her face on the very second day. She wasn’t just beautiful; she had something quite special about her. She was a serious, poised young woman. The straight parting in her hair gave her an unusual aura of dignity. She . . . she . . . How do I explain to you what she was really like. I don’t have words to describe her inner and outer beauty.’
He kept reciting his Zohra’s accomplishments for a long time, making several attempts along the way to describe her in words, but failing repeatedly. It seemed that too many thoughts had crowded into his head. Now and then his face would light up in the middle of a sentence, only to be quickly clouded over by a gloom that left him talking in sighs. He told his story extremely slowly, as if relishing it himself. His story, which he recounted one piece at a time, went something like this:
He fell madly in love with Zohra. He spent the first few days looking for opportunities to steal a glance at her and working out all kinds of plans. But when he thought about it seriously, he recognized that he and Zohra were just too far apart. How could a chauffeur even think of falling in love with the daughter of his employer? That bitter realization clouded his days with unrelenting sadness. One day, though, he dared to scribble a few lines to Zohra on a piece of paper.
Zohra! I know I’m your servant. Your father pays me a salary of thirty rupees a month. But . . . I’m in love with you. What shall I do? I’m so confused.
He stuck the scrap of paper inside one of her books. The next morning when he drove her to school his hands shook, and many times he very nearly lost control of the steering. But, thank God, no accident occurred. He spent the whole day in a strange state of mind. In the evening, when he was driving her back from school, she asked him to pull over. When he did so, she spoke in an extremely serious tone. ‘Look, Naim, don’t repeat this ever again. I haven’t told my father about the letter you slipped inside my book. But if you ever do this sort of thing again, I’ll be forced to report the matter to him. Understand? Okay, now drive on.’
After that, he tried to quit working for the Dipty Sahib and to extinguish his love for Zohra, but he didn’t succeed. This tug of war went on for a month. One day he gathered his courage and wrote her another letter. He slipped it into her book and waited for the decree of his fate. He was sure that he’d be dismissed from his job the very next morning, but that didn’t happen. On their way back from school that evening, Zohra once again spoke to him and admonished him. ‘If you don’t care about your own honour, at least care about mine.’ She said all this with such gravity and firmness that Naim’s hopes were completely dashed. Immediately he resolved to quit his job and leave Lucknow for good. At the end of the month he wrote one final letter to Zohra by the dim light of his lantern. Filled with pain and anguish he told her,
Zohra! I’ve tried my best to act on your advice. Believe me, I have. But I cannot control my heart. This is the last time I shall ever write to you. I’ll leave Lucknow by tomorrow evening so you need not say anything to your father. Your silence will decide my fate. I’ll live far away from you . . . but don’t think that I’ll ever stop loving you. My heart will always be at your feet no matter where I live. I will always remember the days when I drove the car carefully and slowly in order to spare you any jolts. What else could I have done for you anyway?
This letter, too, he slipped into her book as soon as an opportunity presented itself. As they drove to her school in the morning, Zohra didn’t say a word to him. Nor did she speak to him on their way back in the evening. He went to his room utterly dejected, packed the few belongings he had and put the bundle away in a corner. Then he sat down on his cot and, in the pale light of the lantern, thought about the precipitous gulf that separated him from Zohra.
He was very despondent, well aware of his own insignificance. After all, he was just a lowly servant! What right did he have to fall in love with his employer’s daughter? But the thought occurred to him from time to time that it wasn’t his fault that he’d fallen in love with her. And besides, his love was not a deception. Around midnight, as he was mulling over these thoughts, he heard a knock on the door. His heart jumped to his throat, but then he thought it must be the gardener. It was possible someone had fallen sick at his home and he’d come for help. But when he opened the door, Zohra was standing across from him—yes, Zohra—in the December chill, without even her shawl.
He was tongue-tied. He didn’t know what to say. There was a deathly silence for a few moments and then, finally, her lips moved and she said in a trembling voice, ‘Well, Naim, I’m here. Tell me what you’d like me to do. But before you tell me, I have a few questions of my own.’
Naim was silent.
Zohra asked, ‘Do you really love me?’
Naim was hurt. His face flushed. ‘Zohra,’ he said, ‘you’re asking a question which would debase my love if I attempted to answer it. Instead, let me ask you: Don’t I?’
Zohra didn’t respond. After a brief silence she said, ‘My father has a lot of money, but I don’t have a single paisa to my name. Whatever is said to be mine is, in reality, not mine but his. Without wealth would you still love me as dearly?’
Being an overly sensitive man, Naim felt as if the question was an affront to his dignity. In a voice weighed down by sorrow, he said, ‘For God’s sake, Zohra, please don’t ask questions whose answers are so commonplace that you can even find them in third-rate romance novels.’
Zohra stepped into the room and sat down on the cot. ‘I’m yours,’ she said, ‘and always will be.’
She kept her word. After she and Naim moved to Delhi, married and set themselves up in a small house, the Dipty Sahib came looking for them. As Naim had already found work, he wasn’t home. The Dipty Sahib scolded Zohra, accusing her of sacrificing her honour. He wanted her to leave Naim and put all that had happened behind her. He was even willing to pay Naim as much as two or three thousand rupees. But Zohra wasn’t ready to leave her husband, no matter what. She said to her father, ‘Daddy! I’m truly happy with Naim. You could never have found a better husband for me. We don’t ask you for anything. But if you can, give us your blessing; we’ll be grateful for that.’
The Dipty Sahib became very angry when he heard these words. He threatened to have Naim arrested. Zohra, however, asked him matter-of-factly, ‘But Daddy! What is Naim’s crime? The truth is we’re both innocent. We love each other and he’s my husband. This isn’t a crime. And I’m no longer a minor.’
The Dipty Sahib was a shrewd man. He quickly realized that he wouldn’t be able to prove Naim guilty when his own daughter was a willing partner. He left Zohra forever. Later on he tried to put pressure on Naim indirectly through other people and even tried to buy him off, but failed in that as well.
Zohra and Naim were living happily, even though Naim’s salary was dreadfully small and Zohra, who’d been brought up in great comfort and luxury, now had to be content with wearing homely clothes and doing all the household chores on her own. But she was happy and found herself in a new world where she continually discovered fresh dimensions of Naim’s love. She was pleased, very pleased, and so was Naim. But one day, as God had willed it, Zohra felt a severe pain in her chest and before Naim could do anything about it, she passed away, leaving his world dark forever.
It took him four hours to recount this story. He had spoken haltingly, as if relishing every word he uttered. By the time he finished, his face no longer looked pale. It was flushed, as though blood had been injected into him slowly, but his eyes had tears in them and his throat was dry.
His tale told, he got up quickly, as if in a terrible hurry, and said, ‘I made a big mistake. I shouldn’t have told you the story of my love. I made a terrible
mistake. All this about Zohra should have remained sealed inside my heart, but . . .’ His voice became hoarse. ‘I’m alive and she . . . she . . .’ He couldn’t say anything more. He shook my hand quickly and left the room.
I never saw him again. Many times I went to Apollo Bunder with the express purpose of looking for him, but I never found him there. I did receive a letter from him six or seven months later in which he wrote:
Sir!
You will recall that I told you the story of my love at your place. It was only a story, an untrue story, for there’s no Zohra, nor is there a Naim. Although I do exist, I’m not the same Naim who was in love with Zohra. One day you said there were people who were truly barren of love. I am one of them, someone who has spent his entire life merely deluding his heart. Naim’s love for Zohra was a distraction and Zohra’s death—I still don’t understand why I killed her—it’s quite possible that that too had something to do with my inner darkness.
I don’t know if you believed my story to be true, but let me tell you something very strange. I, the creator of that story, believed it to be true, to be based completely on reality. I believed that I had really loved Zohra and she had really died. It might surprise you even more to hear that the story became increasingly real to me as time passed. I could clearly hear Zohra’s voice, even her laughter, ring in my ears, and I could feel her warm breath on my body. Every little detail of the story came to life and so, in a manner of speaking, I dug my grave with my own hands.
Even if Zohra isn’t fiction, I am. She’s dead, so I must die too. This letter will reach you after my death. Farewell. I will find Zohra, I’m sure. But where? Of that I’m not so sure.
My Name Is Radha Page 38
