The Man Who Would Not See

by Rajorshi Chakraborti

  And it was a chamber where mere curtains did all the partitioning work between us and those currently in session with Maheshji, as well as separating our waiting room from the outside corridor, with its crowd of five or six men sorting out their business at the long-distance-bus bookings office directly opposite.

  ‘So those people already know where they’re going, while we are waiting to find out?’ That was my rapier wit flashing in the midday sun.

  Miraculously, the half-bathroom-sized waiting room had a couple of free stools, which suggested we wouldn’t be too far off a meeting with the great man. Dada did what any other Indian would unhesitatingly do, and poked his head through the gap in the inside curtains to let Maheshji know we were here.

  ‘Brought someone along from New Zealand, Maheshji. And he’s going back tomorrow, so please, a bit quickly.’ This had the additional, totally calculated effect of informing everyone else in the room — as well as the would-be bus travellers and perhaps even those at the saloon on the corner — exactly whose presence they were in, and why they should either hurry up with their own far less significant queries or else make way for us out of simple courtesy (‘furthest come, first served’ surely applied, right?).

  I had a choice to react to Dada’s fib (what else was it, now that he knew I was staying another week?) by looking mortified or else attempting to smile away my embarrassment. Like a good foreigner, I did both.

  There were three others squeezed on plastic stools waiting with us. Dada’s ‘groundwork’ had an immediate effect on one of them. Very kindly, this middle-aged gent said that we could go before him. I vehemently refused his offer in Hindi, but Dada thanked him and chided me, don’t forget, I have to return to the office.

  ‘So does he,’ I said in English.

  But it was also funny how this man’s yielding to our ridiculous high-horse tactics had the opposite effect on the young, well-off-seeming, attractive woman sitting to our left with (most likely) her mother. She didn’t say a word, but stared defiantly at me, her lips and jaw tight as could be, even though her eyes were behind shades, as if to say fuck you, Kiwi, for daring to think that I’ll give up my place for you.

  What if I was from a country higher up on the OECD list of per capita GDP, part of me wanted to ask? Like Switzerland, or Sweden? Or simply bigger and better known, like, you know, Um … rika?

  But don’t worry, darling, I didn’t say to her. I’m not my brother. I’m no usurper. Where I have spent the past twenty years, Britain and New Zealand, queues are probably more sacred than astrology is for you.

  But the waiting wasn’t the reason I walked away. The family with Maheshji came out within ten minutes, and Miss Fuck-You and her mum entered, leaving us next in line.

  Yet while those earlier three had been inside, I had heard as if he was sitting beside me the elderly man’s repeated questions about his severe diabetes and its impact on his lifespan, and also learnt about his daughter’s fervent resistance to the boy her parents wanted her to meet.

  ‘Uncle, I don’t want to do this. I don’t want to get married,’ she’d implored Maheshji. ‘So you tell me how the future can be good if one of us doesn’t even want this marriage to happen and is openly saying so from the start,’ had been her most irrefutable objection that I, and once more everyone all the way to the hair-cutting saloon — including the young man groaning almost sexually from a vigorous head and arm massage, and his mate beside him who’d nodded off while getting his upturned moustaches waxed à la Shikhar Dhawan — would have overheard. So that when this family emerged from its consultation, each person in the corridor and adjacent alley would have known about the father’s illness and the young woman’s ongoing conflict with her parents about her future.

  ‘Don’t break your Papa’s heart,’ a concerned soul outside the bus-ticket booth advised the daughter on their way out, as if to confirm my apprehension.

  It truly was those curtains that did it. This corner of the shopping plaza was vibrant with its would-be travellers to Gaya, Patna and Jamshedpur, its peacocks being preened in the tiny saloon while the radio anchors did some impressive mimicry of well-known movie stars, and us the quiet fortune-seekers (being inwardly most anxious of all). But what I found I couldn’t add to this mix was any mention of Mira, not even her name. No revelation was worth that. And if I had to succumb to the vanity and foolishness of hearing great prophecies about my progeny from a man whose direct financial interest lay in telling clients what we all love to hear, at the very least I could cough up for the extra privilege of a quieter consultation at home.

  ‘Dada, let’s go. Not now,’ I said as I got up, and to the other gentleman, ‘Thank you once again. You can have your place back in the line.’ Amusingly, just then Miss Fuck-You, who of course had been entirely within her rights to look down on our barging-in tactics, was incredibly eager to know less than four feet away on the other side of the purple curtain whether she should accept Deloitte’s offer or wait three days until she heard back from Thomson Reuters. Wow, she might have flown home from whichever metropolis she was pursuing her career in just to have this all-important half-hour with Maheshji. That’s how much people believed in him. And if it meant that half of Boddam Bazar learnt about your most urgent crises and dilemmas, either it was a price worth paying, or else not that far removed from the norm of life in such a town.

  My brother the civil engineer, this woman the big-city chartered accountant or something, and myself the Indo-Kiwi writer-lecturer, all in that bathroom-sized chamber to be told an inspiring, warning, reassuring, clarifying story by Maheshji. And because of the prevalent conditions, each of our individual stories doubled up as a fable for the enjoyment and edification of the wider community. It was a win-win. We all learnt from one another.

  ‘You only had to adjust a little, Abhi. It’s like this here,’ Dada said, not accusingly, and almost as if he’d read my mind.

  ‘I would have, maybe, if it had been about me. But I couldn’t bring up Mira in that setting. Sorry, Dada. But listen, I’ll explain to Maheshji that I’ve decided to stay an extra week and so there’s no hurry and I would prefer to come over to his place one evening.’

  As Yakub saw us and signalled to say he would drive over from the other side of the road, I fished out my phone to check if Lena had replied to my email. I had put it on silent as we were approaching Maheshji’s chamber, out of respect for the sanctity of our session.

  Abhay (which, remember, means ‘the fearless one’)

  Mira has left the car (even though her child lock was on, she used the other rear door) and done something I cannot recognise at all. She’s run across the road, oblivious to the crazy different kinds of traffic, all the way to the main bus terminus opposite. She does all kinds of bold jumps and leaps at playgrounds and at her crèche and off all the furniture around the house, but never anything of this sort before. She knows vehicles and roads and car parks are off limits.

  I’m right there watching but can’t follow since I’ve just started putting petrol in the car. We’re at a petrol pump directly across from Hazaribagh bus station. I’m yelling her name repeatedly and commanding her to return, but what is my voice against car horns and rickshaw horns and lorry horns and bus horns? Thankfully, she’s made it to the other side of the road, but then cuts straight across the open area of the bus station, where at least four different long-distance buses are moving in or out even as I watch in paralysed horror.

  ‘What in fuck’s name are my priorities?’ I’m thinking as I fling down the petrol hose and take off after my now-invisible daughter. How was I more concerned with wasting petrol or losing my place in the line rather than going after her? And now I can’t even see her, after I’ve crossed the road with great care (God knows how Mira managed to find the perfect gap to shoot across at this relentlessly busy chowk) and am looking, first all around the moving buses and then in the terminal where passengers are waiting, because they too are a hazard of a different sort. A four-year-old fo
reigner who speaks no Hindi and has been separated from her dad — where was she more at risk: out amid the giant vehicles that wouldn’t even be able to see her, or else among this crowd of strangers, deep within a poor, conflict-riven state of India? What multiple terrors had she plunged me into with this one dash across the road that had taken all of a minute?

  When I cannot spot her in between the buses, I fight away my panic by forcing myself to focus on the passenger area, racing into the covered hall towards the ticket counters, looking all around me and shouting her name. After I’ve reached the other end, and once more checked if she’s outside, I retrace my steps and run back through the terminal in the desperate hope that I might have missed her, or else that she would have returned to the car.

  An unknown number of indescribable minutes pass in which the only certainty I formulate is that if my daughter were found harmed in any way, I wouldn’t myself leave this bus station alive. By now, I’ve abandoned all method and order and have looked everywhere within the terminal three, four times. And everything inside me has started to cave and melt as it dawns that she is probably still alive since there hasn’t yet been an outcry, but already she could be anywhere. She could have easily been transported away on a bus, or else she might be tantalisingly close, still at the terminus, perhaps unable to yell out even though she can see me from a bus that’s about to leave.

  I am nothing but shit and stench and urine when I finally realise someone nearby has been calling out. ‘Baba, Baba’ a voice has repeated at least four times before I whirl around and then understand I have to drop to my knees. Because Mira is watching me from two buses away, crouched under the second one right beside its rear right-hand wheels. The bus is stationary, but I can’t tell amid all the din whether its engine is on or not.

  As I half-crawl, half-run, I wake up.

  The only thing my dream — on the plane to Bangkok on Friday morning — got right was its reflection of my prejudices; that like Lena, I too had believed that Hazaribagh would most likely bring us harm.

  Other than that, as a portent of danger, it was entirely inaccurate, not to mention late.

  Harm came at the children’s playground in Ben Burn Park, in one of the safest zones of my ‘safer country’. And harm came from within, from the one place I hadn’t even thought to watch: Mira’s beating heart.

  And I knew, despite all the venom I had spouted the afternoon before, that harm had come solely because I hadn’t thought to watch.

  Abhay

  Somehow I managed to wait until Yakub had dropped us home, even though in the car itself I had noted the incredible coincidence of being at Maheshji’s chamber when this message would have appeared on my phone. We hadn’t even spoken to Dada’s guru of malice and harm; I’d deliberately refrained from uttering Mira’s name, albeit for a different reason, and yet look what had been wreaked on me just from being near him.

  It was from an unmerited regard for Dada’s dignity that I controlled myself in front of his driver, even though he had noticed my silence and asked what was wrong. Then I decided I had every right to call Lena immediately — in any case, we’d be speaking in English — but she wasn’t answering her phone. I left a message referring to her text but was careful not to give more away. As I read her words over and over, by now entirely ignoring the brother in the front seat who’d turned around and was directly addressing me, even Yakub saw my tears and asked if something bad had happened. I handed Dada my phone.

  It’s gone ten and we’ve just left the emergency room. Mira has sprained her right ankle badly which means great swelling but thankfully no visible fracture, although she will need bedrest and splint for several weeks. She JUMPED from THE TOP of the Ben Burn climbing frame, NOT FELL, it was ABSOLUTELY deliberate, TWENTY MINUTES after you announced you were extending your stay.

  Do you recognise the daughter who would do that? HAVE A GREAT WEEK!

  Yakub, who was told Abhay Bhaiyya’s little daughter had had a fall, headed off to pick up Tulti and Paakhi. Upon coming inside, Dada relayed the news to Moushumi in those same false words.

  ‘At least tell her the truth. You saw the text. “Not fell” was in capitals.’

  I quickly located the message and passed my phone to Moushumi. Protecting Dada’s dignity before his wife was not on my agenda. In fact, I had just twenty-five minutes or so before the girls arrived.

  Something I only understood later was that it had been profound relief that had in fact fuelled my rage. Relief that it wasn’t more than a sprain; I’d vented relief — and gratitude — in the form of rage. If Mira had been broken in any lasting way, I would probably have been unable to speak.

  But at that moment I saw only Dada.

  ‘The very girl whose horoscope you predicted with such ecstasy — how could you do this to her?’ But I gave him no chance to answer.

  ‘Was it Maheshji’s great compassion that made you stop at a sprained ankle? What did you really want to do?

  ‘For instance, I remember mentioning to you once how cautious I always am about reversing out of parking spots in places with lots of kids, like Mira’s crèche or at Karori Pool. Moushumi, I guess I should be grateful to my brother that he didn’t choose that fear instead.’

  ‘What are these things you’re saying—’ Dada began.

  ‘Sit down for a bit—’ Moushumi began.

  ‘But why her at all, Dada, when you had me here? You estranged me from my family; you had me out of my own home. Then you had me right here. I’m your enemy, right? I’m the one you believe didn’t speak up for you in 1988. And I was here, in Hazaribagh, exactly as your plan had envisioned, totally duped, even willing to trust you to the extent of seeing your tantrik in his house! You could have sliced and diced me any way you liked. Why did you go after her?’

  All these statements were made loudly, and cutting off any possible interruptions, but not continuously. I probably wheezed and broke down several times, but was determined not to let him have a word in self-defence.

  And yet throughout I was aware of someone within me frantically gulping air, and giving repeated thanks that Mira would fully recover.

  Dada stopped trying to speak, instead grabbed my shoulders and shook me. I resisted with what felt like force, but found myself on the floor even though I knew he hadn’t pushed me.

  I started to punch the red stone floor. Dada was suddenly beside me and I was in a tight bear hug. I might have smashed his fingers a few times when they came between me and the floor.

  I have no idea where Moushumi was, but my brother lay on top of me for minutes. And as I howled and yelped when I saw my little girl’s ankle, when I momentarily imagined her pain and how close those little bones would have come to breaking, when I saw her struggling to breathe while Lena would have been driving to hospital, or to fall asleep just now next to Mummy, I also watched myself leave our house one day and abruptly stop doing crèche pick-ups and afternoons together for an entire month. I watched myself outside Karori library spying on her with her Nana but not greeting them because it would interrupt my day. I saw myself determined to ‘rediscover’ my sister and writing late into the night everything I recalled about her, while Mira’s story-times and bedtimes with me stood indefinitely cancelled. I saw myself just yesterday moved beyond words at the family I had found, resolved to be an incredible uncle to Jhappi and Paakhi, and who might even swoop down like a superhero and bring home their mother one day.

  And through all this, I had (rightly) spent hours explaining my choices and imperatives to Lena. Explaining, arguing, demanding my rights. I had a right to reconnect with the rest of my family. It was my duty.

  Meanwhile the four-year-old from whom her stay-home dad had spent a total of twelve days apart since she was born would surely understand, right? She didn’t need explanations. What is a couple of months in the life of a secure, well-loved four-year-old? If she just got on with the rest of her unchanged routine, Baba would be back before she even noticed. After all, compared
to any other job, hadn’t he put in more than enough hours to be able to demand this time away? Mira was a very harsh employer if she didn’t understand that.

  Lena

  Mira’s only continuous sleep tonight came between 3.30 and 6 a.m., beginning an hour after the second dose of Pamol. I, however, kept waking up (involuntarily) every fifteen minutes to check on her, and to make sure her right leg was elevated on the pillows.

  Or else it was my anger. It was nothing but mere propriety that had kept me from photographing the horrific state of her ankle during the X-ray at the hospital, and I’d wanted to send it right then to Abhay with the words: ‘THIS is what she did to bring you home.’

  Even with my eyes closed I lay there thinking this was something I’d never forgive. Perhaps anger even outweighed my gratitude that first night, because this had been so totally CAUSED. It only happened because Abhay ignored and ignored and demanded more and more from Mira, until she snapped and jumped with an absolutely deliberate, almost calm look on her face. ‘Look, Mummy!’

  She was already crying by the time I got to her, but I’m sure she had foreseen an injury. Whether it was her way of reminding Baba that she existed, or else of bringing him home, or merely helplessness and desperation, I don’t know. Believe it or not, she hasn’t yet replied any time I’ve begun a question with the word ‘why’.

  Abhay’s first call came when I was preparing Mira for bed. She guessed it was her Baba, and wanted to speak to him. I suppose I might have finally got some answers, but just then I wanted to deprive him of everything. Details, reassurance, our very voices. He deserved nothing. Not that hearing the agony in Mira’s voice wouldn’t have smashed his heart, a two-day journey away from home (Hazaribagh, Calcutta, Bangkok, Auckland — waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting). But who had voluntarily put himself there, and taken Mira to this brink?