Storywallah

by Neelesh Misra

  ‘Where were you? Ashwini sir has asked twice already for you!’ my colleague Neha said in a flutter. I put my bag down on my desk and drew a deep breath. Then I drank two glasses of water from the dispenser close by. This was the second time I was late this week. Anyway, what could be done about it? Help me, God, I thought and set off towards the boss’s cabin. In any case, no excuse would stand a chance in the face of Ashwini sir’s temper.

  ‘May I come in, sir?’ I asked with as much gentleness and sweetness as I could muster, as if he might melt on hearing my voice.

  Ashwini sir looked over his frameless glasses and said, ‘Yes, come in. Sit.’ A little fearfully I sat on one of the two chairs in front of him. I don’t know if the AC in his cabin was unusually effective or whether I was scared, but I felt slightly cold.

  ‘Are the papers for the deal ready?’ he pushed a file aside as he asked. ‘There is a client visit this evening; I hope we are ready?’ I answered, flustered, ‘Yes, sir, the papers are ready, I’ll just show them to you.’

  ‘Okay, great!’ he said, before looking at the clock. ‘So you’re late again, huh?’ My heart stopped beating. ‘Actually, sir, you know . . . ’ He cut me short. ‘No, no, it’s okay, Gaurav told me you were working late in office last night. It’s fine. But don’t forget to take care of yourself either. Don’t fall sick. This month is crucial for us.’

  Late last night? But I had left in the evening. I controlled my expressions, thanked him and left the cabin. I inhaled deeply. ‘Won’t you say thanks?’ a familiar voice surprised me. Gaurav sir was standing right in front of me.

  Gaurav sir was my senior at work. I reported to him and he in turn reported to Ashwini sir. Gaurav sir was serious, focused and very professional as far as work was concerned. He was a very helpful colleague. He often tried to be more of a friend than a boss. He knew I was divorced. At first I thought he offered help out of sympathy, but slowly I got the feeling that his feelings for me were beyond that.

  I tried to maintain distance every time he tried to come close. But I had to thank him for what he had done.

  ‘Thanks, sir,’ I said and he replied, ‘It’s okay, I know you got late dropping Akshay to school.’

  I nodded and he asked, ‘How is Akshay?’

  I think he wanted to talk more but I said, ‘He’s fine,’ and pulled my chair out, sat down and started working. I watched his reflection on my computer screen. He stood behind me for a while and then left.

  The world looks differently at a divorced girl. Every gaze is either trying to figure out her previous relationship or see the possibility of her next. Forget the world; my own mother had the same worry. Every phone call would be about four new eligible matches: ‘Beta, you can’t live life alone.’

  Gaurav sir was really nice, decent, but I just didn’t have the courage. I think I had forgotten how to trust, how to blindly hand myself over completely to someone. On life’s mirror, even the smallest cracks appeared as a lesson. Maybe that was why living alone seemed a better prospect to me than holding my hand out to someone or taking a hand that was being held out to me.

  Often we are not alone even when we think we are and sometimes we are alone even when we are with someone. Being alone while being with someone is the most hollow feeling in the world, and I had experienced it. And perhaps it was because of that feeling that I didn’t want to take any step in my life that could make me even more alone.

  One night it was raining hard. It was at about 1.30 a.m. that Akshay had started vomiting. I touched his forehead; he was burning with fever. I called several doctors but none were willing to come out in the rain. Akshay’s condition was worsening. I finally called Neha. ‘Listen, don’t worry, I’ll be there soon,’ she said and hung up. The rain was falling harder now. Every crash of thunder shook me deep inside. Every flash of lightning reflected off the balcony wall and I held Akshay’s hand tighter.

  I understood the pain of loneliness very acutely that night. Akshay lay in my lap as tears filled my eyes. It was an unbearable helplessness—I couldn’t do anything, and nothing was in my hands. Seconds later the bell rang. The sound filled me with hope: Neha had come. I ran as fast as I could and opened the door.

  It was Gaurav sir.

  ‘How is he? Let’s get him to the hospital quickly,’ he said as he stepped past me and entered my house. I stood at the door, confused.

  As he drove the car through heavy rain he told me that Neha had called him. He tried to comfort me, ‘Don’t worry, we’re almost there.’ Akshay’s head was on my lap, and I could see nothing, think of nothing beyond him.

  We reached the hospital and headed straight to the children’s ward. After a few injections and a drip, Akshay’s condition started to improve. Soon he fell asleep, and on the wooden stool near his bed sat Gaurav sir. He spent the whole night sitting there.

  The next day Gaurav sir dropped us home and as he left he said, ‘I’m leaving now. Don’t worry about work; I’ll handle it. Let me know if you need anything.’

  I had no way to thank him for what he had done, and I didn’t think life would give me a chance to thank him either. I stopped near his car window and, looking into his eyes, I asked him, ‘Why are you doing all this?’ He looked surprised, and then after a moment’s thought he said, ‘I don’t know. But it could be that what you are thinking is in fact the reason. Who knows what fate has in store? See you!’

  He left in a cloud of dust, and I looked through my tears at the crooked lines on my palms that seemed to tell me nothing.

  My mother arrived by the evening train. She was relieved to find Akshay well but I kept seeing Gaurav sir in her questions. ‘Thank God he came. What would have happened if he hadn’t? Where do you find people like that these days?’ I understood what she was trying to say, what her words implied. It wasn’t restricted only to Ma. At office, too, Neha kept saying the same thing; everything always became about Gaurav sir.

  I don’t what it was, but everyone was in a hurry to reach the conclusion from which I was trying hard to run away. I knew what those two well-wishers were trying to say, but I just didn’t want to understand. I didn’t want to be with anyone. For some reason the world seemed to see me as incomplete, not whole. Maybe it was not only me, maybe every divorced girl is looked upon like that. Every girl who is alone is viewed as incomplete.

  That day Gaurav sir didn’t come to office. Every time I looked at his empty chair, questions filled my mind. In the midst of all this I was thrilled to hear that my promotion had been confirmed. After a long time I really smiled; it felt like a ray of light was shining through the dark clouds.

  Everyone at work was congratulating me, someone asked for a party, someone for a treat. Only Neha stood out, her face bore no happiness. She wished me half-heartedly and then returned to her work.

  ‘What’s happened, Neha? You look troubled,’ I said.

  Tidying her hair, she replied, ‘No, nothing like that.’

  I sat down on the chair near hers and asked, ‘Doesn’t look like it, and congratulations to you too! Ashwini sir is sending you to the Pune conference!’

  As I spoke her hands stopped moving across the keyboard, ‘No, yaar, I’m not going, Vinay is going now.’

  ‘But why?’ I asked.

  ‘Gaurav sir said it would be better if a male employee went,’ she replied.

  I felt really bad when I heard that. Gaurav sir had got Neha’s visit cancelled. He thought it would be safer to send a male employee to a new city. This wasn’t the first time this had happened. He usually preferred to assign outdoor work to male employees. I felt terrible for Neha.

  Anyway, I reached home that evening and rang the bell. I had bought cake for Ma and Akshay. I was impatient to tell them about the promotion, and rang the doorbell quite a few times in my excitement. I had thought that as soon as Ma opened the door I would hold the cake out and yell, ‘Surprise!’

  The door opened and all I managed to get out was the ‘S . . .’ My smile froze. Gaurav si
r was at the door.

  ‘Sir! You, here?’ I stammered. He smiled and replied, ‘Yes, I came to visit Akshay. I was coming to office but Aunty stopped me!’ Smiling he stood aside to let me enter. Ma and Akshay were both in the drawing room. I glared at Ma and went into another room.

  Why was all this happening to me? Why is life so difficult? The problem was that I couldn’t hate Gaurav sir. It would have been easy if I could. I knew what he felt for me was well intentioned. Maybe that’s why I was finding it hard to push him away.

  When I entered the drawing room after a while I found Akshay playing with Gaurav sir. I think he was trying to teach him how to tell the time. ‘So, if the small one is at three and the big one at two, it’s ten minutes past three.’

  Their laughter seemed to fill that sad room with perfume. The old silences were slowly being replaced. Hopelessness was fading. And sitting in a corner Ma was smiling.

  After Gaurav sir left, I worked in the kitchen for quite some time. Ma came up to me and said, ‘He’s a nice boy. What is your problem? If not for yourself, at least think about Akshay.’ I was shocked to hear these words. I didn’t realize she was thinking so far ahead. But then I understood why. In my absence he must have asked Ma for my hand in marriage. She had not said anything but she wanted me to say yes.

  I knew that everything that was happening around me was for the good. Ma was not wrong. But something stopped me from crossing the threshold into a new relationship. Maybe it was a fear that only someone who had lost something precious would understand. But now the silence around me was questioning me. There were doubts. There were possibilities. And something was pulling me away from my own convictions. But most of all it was the happiness I saw in Akshay’s face after so long.

  I believe that it is not we ourselves but our circumstances that take decisions for us. And once again that happened. I didn’t sleep that night. I stood at the window watching the night’s darkness meet the morning’s light. I accepted the proposal.

  In that one day my life changed. I had never seen Ma so excited and full of life. The few people who knew about it in office couldn’t stop congratulating me. Some relatives called to say, ‘After all, how long could you have lived alone? Good, now you’ll have some support.’

  Support. That was the reason I had avoided taking this decision for so long. I knew the society I lived in thought this way about divorced girls. No one thought they needed love, but only support.

  I don’t know whether it was love or support, but life suddenly opened up like a window. I noticed a pleasant change in myself too. It wasn’t so bad, this decision. The roadside flower shop, happy children coming home from school, the birds flying in the sky, everything suddenly looked good.

  One evening, Gaurav sir—whom I now called Gaurav at his insistence—and I were sitting in the coffee house near the office. We smiled at each other from across the table. After the first sip of coffee Gaurav pushed a bunch of keys towards me. ‘What is this?’ I asked, surprised. ‘My car keys. They’re yours from today.’ ‘Why?’ I asked. ‘I live so close to office, I can just take an auto,’ he said.

  ‘That’s okay, Gaurav. But, no, please, you keep them; I prefer the scooty.’ I said no again and he replied very seriously, ‘Actually, I don’t like that you ride that scooty; all sorts of people look at you in all sorts of ways. Well, it might have been okay before, but now I certainly don’t feel comfortable. Please take the keys.’

  I watched him in silence. I hadn’t expected that reply. I was shocked. Gaurav covered my hand with his and said, ‘And anyway, this isn’t forever. After we are married I won’t let you sweat away in that good-for-nothing office. You enjoy your life, look after Akshay, all the other responsibilities will be mine.’

  I felt tears welling up in my eyes. In one second it felt as if all of society had compressed itself into that chair in front of me, in Gaurav’s image. When with trembling lips I told him that I wanted to continue to work after marriage he began to explain to me all the ills in the world and the character of the people in the office. I watched the growing love in his eyes, the love that would ask me to give up everything in return.

  Like society, Gaurav too felt that he was doing me a favour by marrying me, and that in my gratitude I would do whatever he asked of me.

  I pushed the keys back towards him and stood up. ‘I’m going,’ I said.

  ‘But what happened? I don’t understand!’ he stammered.

  ‘It’s not necessary that you understand everything. I couldn’t understand you, and I am not who you understood me to be.’

  Gaurav’s forehead was furrowed with confusion. He couldn’t believe what had just happened. Divorced women didn’t say no.

  ‘I wanted companionship, Gaurav, not support. I can’t go ahead with this marriage,’ I told him.

  He stood up. I turned and left. I didn’t look back and he didn’t call out to me. Once outside, I began to walk along the side of the road. I was walking so fast my breathing was fast and heavy, my hair flew wildly around my face. People stared at me. I walked on. After many days I felt whole. I had left my incompleteness behind, on that table, with the bunch of keys.

  UMRAO JAAN

  Manjit Thakur

  The nearest town in this coal-mining area is Asansol. The breeze that clings to the coal mines brings heat and fine grains of coal with it. In the summer, the place heats up like a hot pan. Men are so bathed in sweat that it becomes unbearable. It was hot like that today. Priyamvad, oblivious to it all, sat on a cane bench at a tea stall, uneasy, impatient.

  The half-moon warned of its imminent departure. For some reason it looked useless and worthless to Priyamvad today.

  Usually after two glasses of strong tea Priyamvad would perk up and hum all the way back to his flat, but today was different.

  Who could he share his heart’s pain with? Ever since that gorgeous face had passed his way, nothing else looked nice. It had only been three days but it felt like it had been an age since he had seen it. Priyamvad realized today what stuff love was made of.

  The start of his love story had been with the most unlikely person, a person of little worth, someone he would not normally have looked twice at.

  It had happened just three days ago.

  This worthless fellow named Guddu was a pimp, in the business of providing dancing girls for weddings. The evening had been gathering around and seeing Priyamvad alone in the deepening darkness at the tea stall he had sidled up to him and asked, ‘Sahab, want to have some fun?’

  Priyamvad was a sophisticated sort of person. He was managing a mining project in a coal mine that bordered Jharkhand and West Bengal. Sometimes, to escape his loneliness and boredom, he would venture into the town’s bazaar. If nothing else, he would drink milky tea from the dusty glasses at the tea stall, and then meander back to his bungalow. The bungalow was surrounded by trees that had grown from the coal dust. In that tree-filled oasis, you saw no one, not even a bird.

  If he discounted his servants, he felt like Robinson Crusoe marooned on a deserted island. He would come home and eat the tasteless food cooked by his servant and fall asleep. The next day would be the same, arguing with the foreman and labourers about the work never being done on time.

  Priyamvad looked disdainfully at him and said, ‘Fun? What fun?’

  And then, as if extending an invitation, that man drew right up to him and said, ‘Would you like to hear a mujra, Sahab? Mujra! Exactly like Umrao Jaan!’

  Priyamvad looked at something in the distance. Then after some thought he went with that fellow whose cracked heels forced him to hobble along.

  He brought Priyamvad to a narrow lane where on a panelled wooden door with peeling blue paint a name had been scratched: Umrao Jaan.

  Something about that name drew him. He had many associations with that name: a delicate girl like the actress Rekha, who would offer him an elegant salaam, and when she sang her voice would be sweet like Asha Bhosle’s. The hall where she would sing and da
nce would be draped with garlands of jasmine. He followed Guddu up the stairs.

  The sound of singing emanated from the top floor of the house: a slightly off-key voice singing ‘Tip Tip Barsa Pani’ to the accompaniment of a harmonium and a tabla. As Priyamvad entered through the doorway the picture he had imagined shattered into a million pieces.

  Guddu showed him to a seat. Dust accompanied the creases of moonlight that spread across the floor. Many men sat or lounged around. ‘Tip Tip Barsa Pani’ had come to an end.

  A new girl walked in.

  The first thing she did was to inspect her audience. She noticed that the new catch had some contempt in his eyes. She cleared her throat and began to sing, ‘Dekha hai pehli baar, saajan ki aankhon mein pyar.’ I see love for the first time in the eyes of my beloved.

  Priyamvad was irritated. He looked for Guddu who had disappeared. Probably in search of another customer. The cheap atmosphere, the girls’ disreputable clothes and the people sitting there—nothing appealed to Priyamvad. How could he sit with these cheap people? It occurred to him that amongst the people sitting there some were bound to be labourers from his project. As soon as he realized that he couldn’t bear to be there for another second.

  He had just come here for a new experience. Maybe he would get to enjoy some good music, a thumri or a kajri perhaps. But this place was cheap. And the girls were singing movie songs accompanied by bad musicians.

  He got up to leave. As he lifted his head after putting on his shoes, he saw that girl standing there.