by Durjoy Datta
‘I will think about it,’ I said.
‘What’s there to think about? You will score well, I know. Just choose Delhi in counselling. Don’t be a pain.’
‘I told you I will think about it.’
Dada was clearly pissed because he didn’t talk to me for an hour. On our way back I said, ‘Dada?’
‘What?’ he asked irritably.
‘I love you.’
‘What a stupid thing to say to your brother,’ he said and laughed at his own wisecrack.
I hope he remembers this.
It took us five trips between the two houses to shift everything. All the while I was thinking how long it would take Dada to shift out of the house. How much would he leave behind? How much would he take with him?
29 February 2000
It’s a leap year.
Today’s the day that comes once every four years.
But today it changes.
This day will come every day.
Dada died today.
I’m writing these words to make them sound real to me.
He didn’t suffer, the doctors told us, the LPG blast would have been too quick, and too severe to be felt.
I disagree.
Between Dada’s realization of the blue spark, and his heart coming to a stop, Dada would have felt everything. The second Dada would have switched the light on in that living room filled with LPG, and seen that spark billow into something more, he would have been filled with horror. Dada would have wondered how it could be, the fire, the din of the blast, and then the force crushing his body. In the first few microseconds, Dada would have taken it lightly, thought the flame would be little and brief, but in the very next moment he would have thought otherwise, his body floating, golden flames licking every part him. He would have felt the searing heat, he would have felt the skin melt off him, his organs would have singed, every tissue Maa gave Dada in her womb for nine months shrivelling, charring. Dada would have felt the unbearable physical pain of his body disintegrating. Fists clenched, jaws locked, vocal chords strained, he would have screamed. And then the pain would have become too much to bear. The brain would have cut off the pain synapses. And he would have looked inwards. Dada would have realized these were his last few seconds. His thoughts would have turned to Boudi and his child. A tear would have come to his eye, evaporating instantly in the heat. The entire life of his envisioned future would have passed in front of his eyes like a flip booklet. His heart would have grown heavy, he would have said a little prayer, he would have hoped for a miracle to see his baby grow up, to love her, to love Boudi, to live a life full of joy and sadness and success and disappointment. He would have made deals with god. ‘Make me live, anyhow, crippled, burnt, half dead, but make me live,’ he would have said. His bones would have cracked and melted under the heat. He would have thought of Maa–Baba, he would have thought of their sadness on his death, he would have imagined Maa going mad, Baba growing quiet, he would have thought, his body now getting charred, about all the things Maa–Baba forwent for his happiness. He would remember things he had long forgotten, coming to him in rushes of memories. Of the times when he was three or six or twelve or fourteen, of the days Maa–Baba were younger and capable of loving things other than their sons but chose to love them. His organs would have been shutting down by now, shredded apart by the vigour of the marching fire, and his thoughts would have turned to me, the stuck-up, strange brother, the brother whom he dearly loved from the first day he would have seen him, but who only looked at his Dada as a competitor for Maa–Baba’s love and affection. With his heart slowing down, he would have managed a smile thinking that his brother would now get all the love from Maa–Baba since he would be . . .
With his heart now shutting down, his thoughts would have turned to Boudi, the feeling of being in love so irrevocably, of the feeling of it having happened to him, he would have muttered an apology for leaving her alone, a confession of his love would have escaped his lips just before the lights of his eyes would have gone out.
Darkness.
Dada left us.
5 March 2000
The last four days have been a haze, a toxic, strangling daze.
Every time I blink I wish this to be over, for this to be a substitute reality. It’s hardly believable or fair.
Maa–Baba have been inconsolable. Maa has been to the hospital twice after fainting, her BP swaying wildly and dangerously, and every time she has wished she would die of it. Baba is mostly quiet, like me, trying to wrap his head around what happened, to make sense of it, to wait for things to go back to what they were before, to know if it’s even true or it’s an elaborate sham and Dada would come out of hiding and shout, ‘Got you.’
Didimaa has been hysterical. The one day we saw her she started laughing, beating her chest, crying, all at once. To everyone’s surprise, she got up from the wheelchair, and slapped Maa, and fell back on the ground. She was taken away. Maa had cried out, ‘Why didn’t she die instead?’
Relatives have been pouring in and out every day, trying to console Maa–Baba. Over the years, their envy of our relative prosperity has rankled them, but their grief over the death is real, their tears are real. It is not that they loved Dada as much but because they feel the loss. They have imagined losing someone close, they have put themselves in our shoes and then cried a little inside. They know what it feels like and they have been doing everything for Maa–Baba, Boudi and me. But even then, I know these distractions will end soon. Everyone will leave our house and slowly they will get absorbed in their own lives and they will forget about Dada, not miss his presence, not be able to feel the pain any longer till the time someone else dies. I don’t resent them for it, it’s just the way it is.
I wonder if Baba’s doing what I’m doing in his silence. If he’s lining up the perpetrators behind Dada’s death. It was we who killed Dada, every one of us. If eye for an eye were an acceptable justice protocol, we should all have been shot in the head.
On the 29th of February, exactly five days ago, Boudi had asked for the charger of her PowerBook. Then she had changed her mind, saying that it wasn’t really needed, like a dutiful daughter-in-law should.
But Maa said, ‘No, no, Anirban will get it. You must get bored sitting at home and doing nothing.’
Had Boudi not asked for the charger, Dada would still have been amongst us, and how apt, killing the person you most love. Living for each other, dying for each other, that kind of thing. Absolutely romantic and absolutely revolting. Was she thinking that none of this would have happened had she not fallen in love with Dada? Had she not moved from Bangalore?
Had her parents accepted her, her pregnancy would have been their responsibility and not Dada’s. She is quite clearly the culprit. I hope she knows that.
But then there’s Maa, my lovely, lovely Maa, the mother of three children, of whom only one survives now and that too barely.
Had Maa not acted about how concerned she was about Boudi, Dada would have still been alive, counting days backwards to the birth of his first child. Had Maa not been acting to keep up the charade of the concerned mother-in-Law, Dada would have still been here. Does she care if Boudi is bored? No, she doesn’t. If it were up to her, she could have put Boudi under sedatives for the entire duration of the pregnancy, deliver the child herself, taken the baby and raised her or him like a good Hindu Bengali citizen. She clearly murdered my Dada.
But why only her? My hands are stained too with Dada’s blood.
Had I not judged Maa for her behaviour, had I not ruined my relationships with Rishab and Sahil and Brahmi, had I not been wallowing in my own pain, I would have gotten up, told everyone that I would get the charger instead of Dada, had gone to their old home, unlocked the door, switched on the lights, and waited for that little spark of the switch to ignite the room full of cooking gas and it would have been me instead of Dada. I wouldn’t have minded that one bit. Who would have missed me? In the longer run, no one really.
But that’s not even the worst part. The worst part is had I gone right then, the room wouldn’t have filled up because it wasn’t until two hours later that Dada reached the flat.
But Baba can’t claim innocence either.
Baba and Dada had both gone to pick up the charger. Baba had chosen to stay down and smoke, something he rarely does. He had asked Dada to go on alone. I wonder what Baba feels, almost literally pushing Dada to his death? But had they both gone? How would that have ended? Does Baba think that if only he had more things to talk about with Dada, he would have gone up with him, and died with him? Or maybe he would have smelt the LPG, having had more years of experience of being in the kitchen?
Like me, Maa has been shifting blame. First it was mostly herself and then it was me.
‘You should have gone instead! YOU!’ Maa had screamed at me for an entire hour, the same sentence over and over again till she fainted.
Then it was Baba.
‘Why did you leave him! Why!’ she had bawled in Baba’s arms for hours, hitting him, slapping him, till she had fallen asleep.
But now, I think she has finally found the person she would always blame Dada’s accident on—Boudi. It’s hard to see the malice that’s fermenting behind the grief. But it’s there and I fear the worst.
I miss you, Dada. I hate you for leaving us like this. I hate that we have ceremonies to do in your name. I hate that Baba behaves like there’s peace in the afterlife and that it’s god’s will, that pujas and fasts will help. They won’t. There’s just death and that’s it. There’s nothing beyond it. Maa–Baba have each other in their grief, Dada, but where do I go? Rishab and Arundhati came to talk to me yesterday but I blame them for your death too so I didn’t talk to them. Later when I went for a walk, I saw them sharing an ice cream. They were laughing and talking like nothing had happened. Why would I want to share my sadness with them? Didn’t your death make them sad enough to not laugh? To not have an ice cream? To not be in love? And what do I say about Boudi? Irrationally I want to believe that there’s an afterlife like Baba says, that you’re looking down and watching over Boudi. Everyone has been crying, beating their chests, she has been mostly quiet. Her eyes are always bloodshot but no one has seen her cry. Her religion kept her away from you even in your death. Yesterday, I saw her bury a picture of you.
7 March 2000
The stream of relatives is unending. People I don’t remember but who claim to have held me when I was little, women who say I vomited on them as a child, men who say I bullied them into giving me candies, are crawling like ants, turning our building into their nest. Their grieving process is already over. Sadder over Dada’s death are the Mittals who have taken in many of our relatives, and so are the Bhattacharyas whose house is littered with Gangulys, Dattas, Mitras and Ghoshes and neither of the families have let out a groan. The relatives, like relatives ought to behave, have taken to complaining about food and water and comfort. To see them laugh, smile, discuss politics and food and how polluted Delhi’s slowly becoming gets on my nerves and so I have taken to going on long walks.
On every walk, I bump into precisely what I run from. Someone who never mattered to me and vice versa; someone who sympathizes with the situation.
And today’s highlight was Brahmi. Like last time, as I ought to do, I walked away from her but she caught up with me.
‘You need to talk to me,’ she said, her eyes tearing up.
‘Oh, you’re crying? Great.’
‘You don’t get to make fun of my sadness. I knew your Dada too.’
‘Yes, for probably a few hours. A little less than me, don’t you think? My Dada burned to death, not yours, so I can do whatever the hell I want to do.’
‘I’m sorry. I . . . just wanted to see how you’re doing.’
I stopped, turned towards her, and in the rudest, coldest tone, I told her, ‘Fine. Here’s my answer. I’m good. I’m sad but it will get better. When and how I’m not sure yet but it will. I accept your condolences. Is that enough? Now you can go wherever you came from.’
I turned away from her and started walking away. She didn’t let up. She held my hand and stopped me. I wrested my hand free and shouted, ‘WE ARE NOT HOLDING HANDS ANY MORE.’
She staggered a few steps back, surprised at my outburst.
‘I want to be there for you.’
‘Well, you can’t! That ship has sailed!’
‘Raghu, don’t be like that. Talk to me.’
‘Now I should talk to you? Now! When my Dada is dead? Is that what it took to make you talk to me?’ I snapped.
‘Raghu, you have to understand.’
‘What the fuck do I understand? That you walked away the time I needed you the most? That all I wanted was for you to want to be with me? That you broke my heart into a million pieces? Where do I begin to start understanding you? Where?’
‘From where we were friends and we could tell each other things,’ she said.
‘Tell each other? It was only me doing the talking, not you!’ I said. ‘You have only lied to me.’
‘Raghu, you have to—’
‘WHAT! WHAT! Understand? No, I won’t understand! I won’t damn understand. Do you hear me? I won’t. No. And definitely not from you. You’re just a lying, deceitful girl! You know what? You know what?’
‘Don’t—’
‘You should be glad your parents are not around to see you!’ I shouted.
In that moment, I didn’t regret those words. The words broke her, which is exactly what they were intended to do. The tears started to pour. I watched her standing bolted to the ground, head hung low, staring at her feet, crying. I watched till I thought she should cry for her abandonment of me and then I went on my own way. In the temple, I prayed for forgiveness, not for the consequences of my action but for the action itself. I came back home, wanting to see her again, and every time I reminded myself of what she had done to me. I thought I was going absolutely crazy when in the night I saw her from my balcony, standing at a distance, eyes still teary. It had been at least three hours since our showdown. It didn’t move me. It made me angry. So I stood there, calmly, smoked a cigarette and watched her cry for an hour before I was called in. The next time I was out in the balcony, she was gone.
I was asked to take bedding for our lovely relatives to the Mittals. Richa and I were making their beds when she said, ‘Brahmi was there for three hours.’
‘That’s what you want to talk to me about? Not about how you’re in love with me?’
Richa laughed derisively and said, ‘I’m not but she is, even after what you said to her today.’
‘I just want to make this bed and be done with it,’ I said.
‘It was not her first time,’ she said.
Of all the times, this is when Richa decides she has a tongue, can form words, and give it velocity and meaning.
‘She has been coming here for two months, probably more. Every other day, she’s there.’
‘You’re crazier than I thought. That was months ago,’ I said. ‘We broke up.’
‘I know that and yet she was here all this time, even after the relationship ended. The next time you call me crazy, I will push a flowerpot on your head when you’re in your balcony,’ said Richa.
‘Why was she here? Are . . . Are you sure?’ I asked.
She didn’t choose to answer me and was called by her mother. I ran to my balcony. No, she wasn’t there.
Now that I’m writing this I think there are only two reasons why she would do what Richa tells me she does. Either she’s in love with me. Which begs the question, why would she let me lose her?
The second one is . . . if she has put a date on her death . . .
I need to see her.
10 March 2000
The official period of mourning has now ended.
Isn’t it just great? The official period of mourning? So what are we supposed to do now? Stop remembering you, Dada? Now wouldn’t that be convenient.
Because unlike Maa, Baba and I don’t know how to deal with it. Only today, Maa went to the meat shop herself—for the first time in years—and got salami for all of us to eat. She made sandwiches for everyone for breakfast.
‘We have been having bland food for so long that I thought we should have something special today,’ she said.
Boudi just happened to check what salami went into the sandwich.
Maa said, ‘It’s pork.’
When she saw Boudi leave the table she nonchalantly said, ‘I didn’t think you were that devout.’
Later when Boudi cried, Maa cried with her, told her that she didn’t know what came over her. Baba apologized to her as well, equally profusely, if not more.
‘We just miss him. She doesn’t know how to deal with his loss,’ said Baba over and over again.
Boudi acted graceful enough to accept the apologies but stayed locked in her room, presumably praying. I wondered if she had any other choice. But later tonight, I heard Maa saying, ‘The more I think about it, the more it seems right. Had she not come into his life . . .’
I can’t sleep thinking of what else Maa might do. A little while earlier, Boudi came to my room. She sat next to me, quiet. Then she got up and left.
No matter what Maa says, I know it won’t be the last time she does something like this, I can see past her lies and I can see past her truths. It’s only going to get worse from here. She would need me now more than ever. At least till the time she delivers and the child tempers Maa–Baba’s grief, distracts them from the hate they feel for Boudi.
My attempts to reach out to Brahmi have been in vain. She had not been going to the office, or at least that’s what the receptionist told me, and I was told off when I asked for her residential address.
Desperate, I asked for proof of life, at which the receptionist told me, she had checked in with her boss all three days she had been missing from office. Which only brings me to the question, why is she missing?
