‘Every man, even
Sherlock Holmes, has a woman he calls the woman,’ Uncle Jose (Hosappan to us)
admitted bitterly. That was a year back when I met his ‘woman’.
We were at a wedding
reception, bored and irritated, through with comparing the dosa and kebab
counters, the old and the new girls, the wealth and the intellect.
‘hHhossey,’ came a
perfectly enunciated cry of delight from behind us, the first ‘h’ from deep
down the throat, the main ‘H’ from the tonsils and the last ‘h’ lingering on
the tongue.
Hosappan stood ramrod
stiff, pale, lips quivering. He later confided that that voice always has the
effect of an electric prod probing the gluteus maximus.
I turned around to find
a graceful and charming lady. She reminded me of an old love’s mother, an old
love I loved hoping she would turn out to be like her mother but instead the
law of bad genes ruled and she took after her father.
Hosappan took his
time to face her. By then, he was red in the face.
A few words about
Hosappan’s nature might help to understand the situation better. He can be
vain. He thinks he has the best of Al Pacino and De Niro. He feels that his
intellect is being abused when his company cannot match Simone and Sartre. But
there is a chink in that armour of vanity. He is fine as long as those ideas of
grandeur are from within the realm of his own senses, and not from without, say
from a friend or even a lover. Shower him with praise, and watch Hosappan
squirm to escape from the scene like a tortoise flipped over and tickled pink.
No one seems to know
that better than his ‘woman’. How she poked the dagger of attention at his
Achilles heel, and liberally sprinkled the salt of affection on that open
wound!
‘Ah, hHhossey, you
look so smart.’ She had brought a crowd with her, a husband, couple of kids and
mutual acquaintances. They circled around Hosappan. She started on her
soliloquy, ‘He used to be such a heartbreaker, no? On stage or on the field, how
we girls loved him! And so brilliant! Has the school ever seen a student like
him since?’ She went on and on. The crowd swallowed her eulogy without a pinch
of salt. Hosappan’s visage reminded me of an old fresco with scenes from Torquemada’s
inquisition.
I observed her
closely that evening. She is not pea-brained or garrulous. She is, in fact, a very serious woman; that
is, in all matters that does not involve Hosappan, of course. With others, her actions
and words were precise and well-thought-out. That probably explains why she has
maximum impact on Hosappan.
‘Wow, she is
certainly into you,’ I said, at his place, after the party.
‘Bah,’ Hosappan
retorted.
‘Come on, you don’t
doubt her, do you?’ I asked.
‘The day I fall for
her act, you can name your dog Jose.’
‘His name is already
Jose,’ I joked. I refused to let go of the topic, ‘Aw, come on, tell me, were
you two an item?’
‘An item…? Bah! In
school, we were not even on speaking terms. We avoided each other right from
the start. You know how decent I am, right?’ He did not wait for me to express
my doubts. ‘I tried talking to her once. She sent word, through my best friend,
that she does not like talking to riff-raff. Riff-raff…! My foot!’ he
thundered.
‘Was she a stunner
even in school?’ I asked.
‘No, actually, quite
the plain Jane,’ he said.
‘When did this start?’
I asked.
‘Ah, this,’ he spat
that ‘this’ with disgust, ‘this started much later, after our undergraduate
years.’
‘What happened?’ I
asked.
‘We were at a party,
must have been one of those dreadful school reunions. In a moment of weakness, I
approached this, what’s your word, stunner. Riff-raff, am I not? Well, she had
actually become quite a stunner. Bloomed, flowered to be deflowered, what-not.
But in more ways than one had she bloomed, I soon found out.’
‘Why, what did she
do?’
‘It was a full-frontal
attack, worse than today. God, she put on such a show of drooling over me, that
devious one. It was simply awful,’ he flinched, probably after refreshing his
memory.
‘Is it the same each
time?’
‘More or less; worst
part is, people think she is sincere. They just can’t get it that she is a
pulling a fast one on me. Even you fell for it, right?’ He sounded hurt. I
shrugged. I am no expert in the ways of the birds and the bees. Hosappan
continued, ‘I try to avoid meetings where our paths could cross,’ he paused, ‘I
thought it would end when she got married. Did you notice her husband? Bet they
are in cahoots.’
I nodded. Her husband
seemed to be a close cousin of Jeeves and Count Dracula – a product of some aristocratic
stable, bespoke-fitted with sangfroid and stiff upper lip, and definitely not riff-raff.
It takes generations of good breeding to produce a man who quietly allows his
wife to skewer, or go into an adulation overdrive over, another man.
It took a while for Hosappan
to recover from that day’s attack. On one visit, I found him seated on his
rattan armchair, lost in thought, muttering incoherently, convulsing
involuntarily.
A year went by
without another encounter with ‘the woman’.
Yesterday morning, I was
at Hosappan’s place. I took a phone-call around eleven. It was her husband. Politely
and succinctly, he informed that his wife wanted Hosappan by her side. He told
me the name of a hospital.
I gently broke the
news to Hosappan. He did not say a word then or in the car. I drove as fast as
I could. I thought of all the clichéd endings in movies, people racing to the
hospital or railway station or airport, the good ones always reaching too late.
At the hospital, we
were told that she was under observation in the ICU. We joined her husband,
kids, friends and relatives in the waiting room. The husband shook hands with
Hosappan. ‘Thank you for coming,’ he said.
Hosappan found a
desolate corner. He refused to join me for lunch at the canteen. He remained there
till evening, when she was shifted to a room.
We stood outside the
room. The husband was allowed within. We watched him talk to the doctor. The
nurses stood to the side, looking busy and efficient. All of them looked
terribly serious. The doctor came out. A nurse informed the crowd that only one
more guest could go in then, and that she had requested that it be Hosappan.
Hosappan sheepishly
shrugged at me, the kids and the rest before going in.
The husband stood to
her right. Hosappan took the left flank. The husband spoke softly. I was quite
surprised to see Hosappan shed a manly tear or two. The scene seemed very
familiar; Rick, Ilsa and Laszlo, of ‘Casablanca’,
in another attempt at a ménage a trois. Hosappan approached her. Oh ho, another
clichéd ending coming, I thought. He smiled sadly, affectionately tucked a stray
strand of hair, bent forward and kissed her on the forehead. She did not bat an
eyelid, neither did her aristocratic partner. There were gasps from the audience
outside the room. Hosappan whispered something to her. Then, he turned and
left. Was he giving it back to her in her own currency?
On our way home, I
asked, ‘Well?’
‘Just a scare,
nothing serious,’ he replied.
‘And what was all
that in there?’ I asked.
‘Ah, just her usual
show,’ his cryptic reply.
I nodded, tried
aristocratic silence and controlled my plebeian curiosity, for five seconds.
‘What did you say to
her?’ I asked.
‘I told her not to do
this to me ever again.’
That hardly explained
anything. Which ‘this’ was he referring to, I wondered. Scaring him with her illness
or teasing him with care, feigned or not?
But then, isn’t uncertainty
that make the woman from a woman?
