The Man Who Would Not See

by Rajorshi Chakraborti

  And Dada, the hammer blow of finding this out that came just one click after the delight of finally coming across Badrida’s name for the first time ever online, and finding out five years later (when most people who knew him would have ‘moved on’ from their immediate sorrow, but for me and Ma — whom I told the next morning — it was as though it had just happened) — that was why he was my first thought that night when you told me about Didi. Perhaps it was the silly, often inappropriate way in which the mind can hyperlink within itself, and begin to speak of something vaguely alike that it is reminded of without regard for sensitivities or context: ‘Oh, you’ve lost a son in an accident; let me tell you about my neighbour to whom exactly that happened!’ It might have been that, although I managed to restrain myself from talking about Badrida just then, or indeed since, even though you would definitely care to know and would be as shocked as me (why am I discounting the possibility that you might have routinely searched for him too, and found out just like I did?). Or it was a flimsy defence mechanism the mind came up with under extreme pressure — quick, let me focus on that to put off absorbing this inconceivable news: that my sister is dead, that I wasn’t told, that my mother and I never cared to find out, and that I never once saw her in the final fourteen years of her life, while always claiming in my head to love her.

  The pathetic diversion worked for maybe fifteen seconds, and then I uncontrollably cried, and Dada had to run upstairs and close the door to his bedroom, so that my high-pitched yelps wouldn’t wake, and frighten, Tulti.

  I stayed up that night well after Dada had gone to bed, and among the things I wrote in my diary about three hours later was a link between Badrida and Didi that I hadn’t thought of in years. We brothers had always teased Didi, who would have been only fifteen and then sixteen at the time, about this ‘crush’ on Badrida that we’d attributed to her in our minds: they were friendly enough with one another, and chatted as they passed in the drawing room, but Dada and I took the story much further, and kept trying to worm out of Didi, to the point of exasperation, when she was going to confess her love to us, to him, and to our parents (in that order, of course). Perhaps we did subconsciously believe Badrida would be an incredible brother-in-law to have, and wanted to help bring this about.

  ‘Don’t you think he’s handsome, Didi? How handsome, tell us please, on a scale of one to ten, where say Aamir Khan is what, six for you, or seven?’ I remembered pretty much uttering that exact sentence around the time that Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak would have been ubiquitous, one Wednesday evening after we’d watched ‘Papa Kehte Hain’ on Chitrahaar.

  Dada, Didi, Badrida, myself — perhaps there were links after all, even if they hadn’t come to pass. My mind raced — although I didn’t write these down — with absurd counterfactuals: what if Didi and Badrida had fallen in love, as we’d so much wished them to? Then Badrida might not have moved to Bombay, or Didi might have chosen to remain in Calcutta even when Dada was being sent to boarding school, as in fact Ma and Baba had offered. Either way, they could have both been somewhere different, and alive, today.

  But as proof that I’d at least begun the difficult process of seeing myself as Dada would have wanted me to, and noticing my own blind spots, I did note down something I’m sure he would have pointed out: that even though the news of Badrida’s death had had a severe impact on me, or so I claimed, I had made no attempt to get in touch with his mother or sister afterwards, no matter how belated the contact might have been. At the time, this hadn’t even occurred to me, that perhaps Badrida’s mother would have liked to know that another family had been so fond of her son, and still remembered his smile, his dimples, his haircut and his slightly snub nose, his great talent, the cloth bags he carried off his shoulder, the incredible rangoli design he’d done at Diwali in 1989 juxtaposing Madhuri Dixit and Madhubala — the latter entirely in shades of black and white — all very vividly.

  Abhay

  I’d already had my first coffee when Dada and Tulti came down for breakfast on the morning of their last full day in Auckland.

  ‘Abhi, do you know who I just saw in Hazaribagh right before I woke up? That tall guy Dan.’

  I was bringing out bread, cereal, milk and tea, and simply said ‘Oh, wow’, because the Dan he meant was the father of one of Mira’s playmates in Wellington.

  ‘Let’s aim to leave for the zoo in an hour,’ I added. ‘The forecast is good, and there’s a lot I have in mind to do.’ But Dada, with whom this was my first exchange following last night’s revelation about Didi, seemed oblivious to my brush-off. He enthusiastically wanted to share what he had seen, as he, and Tulti, had done a few times already on this trip. The ‘dream-sharers’, Lena and I called them, the family who find signs in everything.

  Dada had apparently seen Dan, the father of Meg, a new friend of Mira’s from crèche, finishing off a lunch of kochuri and alur dom from a woven-leaf plate outside a renowned Bengali sweet shop on the market road close to the main Durga Puja compound in Hazaribagh. Tulti knew exactly which shop he meant and got very excited; I couldn’t place it from not having visited Hazaribagh in twenty years, but once more felt I was witnessing a regular breakfast ritual at their house, where each morning everyone was probably debriefed about their dreams, which were then scrutinised either for prophecy or else for portents of malice among their acquaintances and relations.

  But then my next thought was that this was another ploy, some manipulation. Dada was, as usual, trying to plant something in my head. Which meant I had two options: either to tune out completely so that it wouldn’t affect me, or else to listen with extra care in order to parse it afterwards, perhaps back in Wellington with Lena. Because motives he would have had — of this I was never more sure; the blow yesterday had been calculated and timed to cause maximum hurt, quite apart from its horrific truth. Lena would probably find my mistrust of Dada long overdue (I hadn’t had a chance yet to tell her about last night, both the news and how Dada had hurled it), although I could then see her warning me: but don’t go so far as to credit him with any of the bullshit magic he believes in. It’s just good old-fashioned mind-games, dark to be sure, but nothing supernatural about them. We’ll simply pay attention and notice patterns and share what we see, and they’ll disappear like the bubbles they are.

  At first glance, this ‘dream’ sounded innocuous enough. Dada was stunned to see Dan in Hazaribagh, but Dan had airily said he worked in a machine-parts factory just up the road and always came here for lunch. He asked Dada to have something with him, because he was about to order two rosogollas for dessert. Dada had just eaten, so Dan got himself his sweets, albeit asking for them in English. ‘Dan, I can’t believe it’s you, that you’re here in this market in my hometown. Last time we met was in the front yard at Whare Kea. The two settings could not be more different,’ Dada had apparently marvelled.

  ‘Let me finish this, and I’ll show you my factory,’ Dan had nonchalantly replied, which is what he proceeded to do, taking a nearby lane as a short-cut just as a local would. Dada remembered the factory building being pointed out to him from a distance, but then Tulti must have moved because he woke up, and the surprise and pleasure of walking behind Dan through the back lanes around Pagoda Chowk had remained vivid for him until now.

  Tulti had lost interest and was putting jam on a slice of bread from one of the little hotel-room containers, but I asked Dada with a straight face what the dream signified for him.

  ‘The truth,’ he said with no hesitation. ‘It’s a precise foretelling of our immediate future, which will be full of nostalgia. We’ll be at home going about our everyday lives, trying to return to our routines, and suddenly, exactly in places like Sadar Bazar, or for Tulti in her school playground, people from New Zealand, and moments and places, will come back to us.’

  Even I was impressed by that. Nicely put, Dada, I said, and then silently dismissed his explanation. There’s some shit you’re trying to plant in my head. I’ll figure it out afterwards
with Lena.

  Such was the state of trust between us on the last day of the trip that was meant to have been The Great Reconciliation.

  ‘Can the condemned have one final song request before we depart?’ We’ve brought our bags down to the living room; it’s 9.30 the following morning, and we need to be at the airport by 11, with some time in hand to return the rental car first.

  On the iPad, Dada finds a recent rendition of ‘Aaj Jaane Ki Zid Na Karo’ (‘Don’t Go On About Leaving Today’) by the now elderly but still incredible Farida Khanum. As he perhaps imagined, and even intended, both of us have damp eyes as the song continues, with the singer imploring her love to remain beside her for the few free moments they have together.

  What is this, Dada — as ‘spontaneous’ as your dream-sharing, or your decision to tell me about Didi two nights ago, or the soul-searching that compelled you to go AWOL last Friday, or is it simply a final flourish in your overall master plan? As I was composing emails on the eve of your visit about what to put in your hand luggage and exactly what you’d encounter at Auckland airport, were you also busy listing which cards to play on each day, right down to reducing me to tears on the final morning with this most extraordinary of songs?

  (And — again — by a Muslim woman? A song from Pakistan? ‘Those people’ whose songs you love and you’ll step up to defend them on a bus against racist bullies, but won’t eat in their homes because that’s against your caste? For the n th time, what manner of walking impossibility are you?)

  ‘Abhi, do you know what I’m going to do as soon as I get home? I’m going to order your novels, all of them’ — which was when I realised that I’d never once asked him if he’d read my work, nor had it occurred to me to present him with any of my books. ‘Firstly, because that’s a way of spending more time with you, but also because I want to see how you depict life in your writing, how you capture moments like this, when a single song can mean so much, can bring so much back, that it becomes impossible to note down or hold onto even as it all races through your mind. You know, Ma would play this song on a record player, although I was too young at the time to pay attention. But then Didi had it on a cassette, which is when I first listened properly to the words. And a month ago, a nephew of Moushumi’s who knows I’m a fan of Farida Khanum forwarded me this latest recording, from October, when she would have been exactly eighty. Did you know by the way that she’s from Calcutta just like you and me, and then her family migrated? Anyway, thank you for letting me play it today, even though it’s delayed us a bit. I wanted to share it with you, and most of all I wanted to give this song one more layer of meaning by playing it at the end of this visit. Now New Zealand and you will also come back to me whenever I listen to it, along with Didi, Ma, Baba, and everyone who has left forever.’

  He then put an arm around Tulti, who was beside him, and beckoned to me to come closer, just like the family hugs Mira, Lena and I had each morning when we dropped her off at crèche.

  ‘Do you remember I once said I’d angrily hand my life back to God when I see Him? Here You are; though You tripped me over at every chance, I still got up and did my best. But that’s not all I’ll have to say. There are also so many people, and so many millions of moments for which I want to thank Him in person. Thank You for everything that I cannot count or list or even hold onto, but I’ve always felt them inside me, and they made me feel rich all the time.’

  Taking his arm off me, Dada picked up Tulti, kissed her on the head and said, ‘And one day soon it will be your turn to listen carefully and ask about the lyrics, and then for you they will bring back Abhi Kaku and Mira and me and your childhood.’

  And to me, an hour later, upstairs in the international terminal after filling in their departure cards: ‘Let’s not lose each other again, OK, no matter how far apart we are. Each of us has lost too much already. From now on, we need to fill Mira and Tulti with fantastic memories.’

  With that, the great puppet-master flew away, but his show was shortly about to begin its most awesome phase.

  His puppets were going to play out the script without anyone pulling on their strings.

  Lena

  Several times even before we’d reached the luggage belt, Abhay insisted that he regretted his decision to fly back immediately to Wellington after seeing off Ashim and Tulti, just so his ticket wouldn’t be wasted. He shouldn’t have cared, he remonstrated with himself, and instead should have hired another car; the extra time driving back would have been exactly what he needed. On the same walk from the gate with Mira on his shoulders he also told me without preamble or detail that Aranya had died back in 2012.

  When I pointed out (and this was insensitive, I agree, I don’t know what prompted me to say it: perhaps it was that Mira had been greatly looking forward to seeing her Baba and he’d hardly paid her any attention) that he might have just been drawn to the romantic image of himself driving and grieving and actually wasn’t this a time to draw closer to one’s family, he snapped and said the driving wasn’t the point; he could just as well have spent an extra day in Auckland. What he needed was time alone.

  ‘I had — no, make that have — just found out my sister’s dead, Lena. Maybe I need a period to absorb that before I plunge back into chasing after Mira on her bike around Karori Park.’ This was the plan Mira had announced to welcome Baba home as soon as they were reunited — let’s have a bike ride around the park and go for ice blocks afterwards.

  Abhay had put Mira down and she was standing by the carousel looking out for Baba’s dark-green bag. She overheard Baba’s reluctance and turned around to confirm that we were still going ahead with her plan. I said maybe we’ll drop Baba home because he’s had a busy five days and an early start this morning. Mira was not happy with this suggestion, at which point — apparently oblivious not just to his four-year-old child but to the other passengers standing around as well — Abhay knelt down and angrily informed Mira that her aunt had died in India and he’d just heard the news which was why he wasn’t in the mood for running after her or ice blocks.

  I confess I wasn’t reacting well to Abhay either. I picked Mira up and suggested that he take a taxi home. Mira and I would go to the park directly from the airport. This way Abhay could have a bit more time by himself, and maybe find a better way to tell Mira that a relative of hers had died.

  With that we headed off, and I also admit that my actions confused Mira even more, because she didn’t want to leave her father alone at the airport. Hadn’t the whole point been to meet him and then all go to the park together to have fun?

  ‘Baba’s a bit upset, sweetheart, because he’s just found out that his sister died a few years ago. He didn’t know, and Ashim Jethu just told him.’ And that’s when the deeper reason for my irritability hit me (the exact opposite, of course, of what I would have expected of myself as a response to Abhay’s grief ) — I was enraged at Ashim! He’d waited for the very end, and when Abhay was alone, to slap him with this news. You thought your plate could hold no more guilt or shame? Clear that away, mate, you’re going to need the entire table for this one. You didn’t even care to find out, and you weren’t important enough to me to be told, that your sister died three years ago. That is what I think of you, and of course you know it’s all your fault.

  (Why do I feel slightly ashamed of the vehemence of these reactions as I write them down? Elaborated this way, they seem like my own immediate deflection strategy — face away from the enormity of what you’ve just learnt by being annoyed at Abhay for not looking happy to see us, for being short and insensitive with Mira, and above all by being absolutely enraged at the messenger, who is after all only reminding his brother that he never once wrote or called his siblings in a decade and a half, otherwise he would certainly have found out about his sister much earlier. He needn’t even have kept in touch with Ashim if that made him uncomfortable — Abhay had known Aranya was missing, and could have called Praveen or his nephew and niece directly at any point during
these past six years. They would have kept him informed throughout.

  And you, Lena, you too are guilty of just getting on with the life in front of you, and never truly insisting to Abhay that he should try to heal this rift in his family. This is also an implication you’re angry about.)

  Even though I wasn’t in the right shoes, keeping up with Mira around the park did me good. It helped me refocus on Abhay and everything he’d been put through the previous four weeks, the head-fucking and the mind-games. And most of it — this manipulation, I mean — I wouldn’t even have witnessed, I reminded myself, sitting beside Mira and her dripping bubble-gum ice block on the park bench. Not only the bullshit of these previous five days but also when I would have been at work, when it was just the brothers and the girls out and about. I was sure no part of Ashim had held back then, or been scrupled in any way about needling Abhay. All this he would already have been reeling from after having seen them off, but Ashim had saved the cruellest thrust for last.

  I suppose there’s another small confession to get out of the way in the interests of full disclosure, despite the embarrassment involved. I had prepared a little welcome-home present for Abhay myself, to celebrate finally having him back to ourselves, and I’d planned to whisper about it at the airport, so that more than any ice block it would have been at the front of his mind on all the laps around the park, and for the rest of the evening until after Mira’s bedtime. I had shaved exactly as he liked it, and was wearing some of his favourite tiny underwear, and that’s the other shallow reason for my ill-judged response: I had wanted to tease him and welcome him and also apologise for not coming along to the Coromandel and Auckland (even though Ashim had become genuinely unbearable for me), and wasn’t at all prepared for the mood in which Abhay had landed, where he seemed almost annoyed with himself for being back with Mira and me.