No One

“Death leaves a heartache no one can heal, love leaves a memory no one can steal.”

“That quote is from an Irish headstone,” Vivek said. “To tell you the truth, I think I have said that because every other speaker here today must have had an apt quotation.”

There were indulgent chuckles from the audience.

Vivek continued, “Maybe it has nothing to do with the topic: ‘What I have to tell the young ones’.” He paused. “Maybe not…” There was a longer pause. It seemed as if he was lost in thought. He stared intently at someone at the back of the auditorium.

...

Those who were there in that school auditorium that day so long ago still remember him. It was the main day of the school’s annual cultural festival. The extempore competition was in the morning. As usual it was a tedious affair with kids parroting more or less the same stuff, ten minutes per speaker, twenty in all, for three and a half hours with a single break in between. Kids from primary six to the senior-most in the twelfth-standard competed together—that was supposed to be the competition’s redeeming feature. Vivek was given the unenviable last slot at twenty past twelve because he was the previous year’s champion.

The judges were seated at a table in front and behind them the students of seven classes. The staff had seats by the side, some stood around leaning against the wall, others in the hallway, an eye on their wards, like cowboys protecting their herd or preventing any escape. The twenty speakers were secured in a classroom out of earshot of the proceedings, each one given the topic fifteen minutes before one’s slot.

There were some over-enthusiastic parents and reluctant visitors too. They were seated in the balcony of the hall.

At quarter past twelve, Vivek was given the go-ahead to proceed to the auditorium. He strolled casually. He nearly bumped into a person at a corner.

“Sorry,” both mumbled.

She was a visitor, in her early twenties.

“Are you escaping the torture?” Vivek asked.

She grabbed her throat, gasped for breath, tongue protruded out and her head lolled sideways.

He laughed. “I am next,” he said. “And, I have something to say to you.”

She stared at him. Even he looked surprised with what he had said.

“You better hurry along then,” she said. She moved towards him, adjusted his tie and then stepped back. He nodded at her before running to the auditorium. She retraced her steps to the hallway. She stood next to Vivek’s Math teacher, Mrs Varghese, her mother.

…

Vivek had a peculiar style of delivering a speech. Where one expected him to raise his voice and force an issue into the crowd’s collective consciousness, he moved away from the mike and spoke softly, so softly that people leaned forward even though his voice still reached the furthest corners of the auditorium. He moved closer to the mike, within a hand-span’s distance, and spoke louder whenever he shifted between sub-topics, fitting in a sentence to summarize or to lighten the load with wit. It worked well. The audience not only woke up, he had their full attention.

The other nineteen speakers had already covered all the fine points one could think of with regard to that dry topic: ‘What I have to tell the young ones’. The young ones in the audience, and the old too, had had enough of what was expected of them to correct the course of their lives and the world in general. The speakers had followed the unwritten rules of the competition and of the school, and kept away from dangerous issues that could hurt sentiments.

Vivek was not exactly an enfant terrible in that school but he had a knack for violating unwritten rules. In one of the many staff meetings where he was the prime concern, Mrs Varghese defended her best Math student, “Let him be. Vivek is not the role model you would like but he is a good one.”

For the first seven minutes, Vivek spoke about three issues that troubled not just his school, issues everyone seemed to know but never discussed. He gave details and people flinched. The Principal exchanged furtive looks with his senior staff, also kept an eye on the external judges. Vivek was harsh and at the same time understanding. He did not claim to have any solution. He begged the young ones to “stay away from the path of many deaths, away from destroyed lives and loves”. While the adults there grew increasingly restless, the kids sat up with a fierce look of belief and determination as if they had been handed not just a voice and hope but a life-saver. Vivek told them not to be scared to report any type of harassment or abuse sexual or not, not to be lured into prostitution for easy money and not to fall prey to drugs for whatever reason. “Only we can save ourselves. There should be a constant vigil for the victims and against the predators. No one is alone.”

Then, he switched gears. He stepped closer to the mike, scanned the audience, smiled at them.

“And, finally, I want to talk to the young ones about something I should not talk about…love.”

The audience smiled. They seemed relieved to escape from horror to fantasy. He stepped back and spoke softly, with short pauses punctuating each strand of thought, as if to remind everyone there to breathe.

“Very soon, nearly all of you will fall prey to love. You will be addicted to it. It will take control over you mentally, physically, sexually and spiritually. You will feel lost.”

“Resist it.”

“For the sake of the one you love.”

“If I had spoken to you earlier this morning, my stand would have been different.”

“Then…”

“I realized I love her. I am in love with her.”

“I could not breathe.”

“But…”

“That was nothing compared to the pain that came next, the pain of responsibility.”

“Man is made to be selfish. Man is made for love too. That results in conflict, loss and pain.”

“For her sake, I have to resist love. Till the day she is safe with me.”

“Think about it, my young friends. Think about love. Think more about the responsibility that comes with any love.”

“This should be my last speech as a student of this school and I would like to leave hearing not your applause but the silence of your thought. I thank you.”

It was eerie. He walked away from the stage. The silence lasted minutes.

…

Vivek walked along the hallway to the back of the auditorium. He smiled at Mrs Vaghese. The young lady next to her seemed to be absorbed in a conversation with another teacher. Mrs Varghese scowled at Vivek.

“I am sure there will be a staff meeting about this,” she said.

He laughed.

“Aaraada kutty?” she asked. (“Who is the kid?”)

“Kutty teacher aagaamallo,” he replied. (“The kid could be a teacher.”)

She caught hold of his ear and gave it a twist. “PoDa,” she said. (“Get lost.”)

…

The Drama competition was in the afternoon, twenty-minute plays by the four Student Houses.

Vivek’s House put up a play about society’s double-standards or two-faced nature. It was a satire dressed up as a comedy of errors. Mrs Varghese was the teacher-in-charge of his House. Any other teacher would not have allowed the play or at the least would have censored most of the play.

Vivek’s was a ‘bit role’ as a patriarchal figure with multiple personality disorder. To the outside world, the man was gruff and authoritative. At home with his wife, it was a role-reversal. There was this memorable scene in which the stage was split into two halves by a wall with a door in the middle. He was at the door, half in half out, dealing with his colleagues outside, and inside coping with his wife’s demands. His voice was a rough baritone to one side and a husky seductive to his better half, even within sentences, a breathless or breath-taking effort. One side saw his macho side with curled up moustache, hiked up mundu (dhoti) and a hairy leg. The other side saw a sweet person with lowered mundu and a hint of a shaved leg. He left the audience speechless once again, though happily in splits this time.

…

At the end of the day, Vivek came across Mrs Varghese once again. She introduced him to her daughter Sonia. They exchanged very formal Hellos as if they were meeting for the first time. Sonia complimented him for his performances.

“I think the kids will be more influenced by your acting than your speech,” she said.

“All I know is that the Principal and most of the staff will be out for your neck,” her mother said.

He laughed.

“As long as you two are with me, I can face whatever the world throws at me,” he said.

“Oh, get lost, cheeky fellow. Don’t corrupt my little girl,” the older lady said.

He smiled at them, thanked them and took leave. It was quite evident he did not give a damn about the authorities. The smile was however tinged with a touch of sadness.

…

The school authorities wisely decided not to rock the boat and they reaped the fruits of that action. Vivek brought academic glory to the school in the Board exams and the entrance exams to elite institutes. In fact it was a wake-up call not just for that school but for the students of that small sleepy city. No more could they be diffident about their potential. No more could they claim to be disadvantaged. Vivek set the bar high and it encouraged his school and others in the city to improve and better his record.

Vivek should have left for the best universities abroad but due to his modest means he had to try his luck with the premier institutions in the country. There were highs and lows. At times when hard work and inspired efforts went waste, he slipped into long periods of despondency. He survived and continued to impress. But it was clear, especially to him, that the system had done its damage and that he had lost the opportunity to be among the best.

In those years, he had remained in touch with his former teacher. They exchanged long letters once or twice a year. One summer break, she invited him home for lunch. Sonia was there too, on a short leave. She was a manager in a foreign investment bank in its country headquarters at Bangalore. They too started writing letters to each other, once a month or so. It is pointless to wonder if that trajectory was a result of his conditions. Who knows if and when life is chaotic but determinate or just a haphazard mess?

The letters turned into e-mail exchange around the time he took a research position in Bangalore. They met once for a quick lunch. She took him to her office and introduced him to her colleagues. In couple of her e-mails, she had told Vivek about a senior manager who harassed ladies in the office. She introduced Vivek to that senior manager too.

“Ah yes, she has told me about you,” Vivek told the creep. Vivek’s words, grim smile and strong handshake seemed to perturb the man.

“What will I do without my macho knight in shining armour?” Sonia later told Vivek.

“Now I know why you had lunch with me,” he said.

Their busy work schedule did not leave much time for socializing. They did not party together or mix friends. They met at a Jethro Tull concert in the city but the two groups did not mingle. On phone or in e-mails, they talked about life without getting into the specifics of relationships.

They got together when Mrs Varghese came to stay with her for a week. They took him with them for shopping at Commercial Street. He treated the ladies to a fine Chinese lunch at Silver Wok on Richmond Road. For the first time, they talked about personal matters. Mrs Varghese told him that her Syrian Catholic family had kicked her out when she had a baby with a Hindu Nair. They were married briefly.

“He was young and before he got old he realized that it was simpler for him to return to his roots and marry properly,” Mrs Varghese explained in her usual matter-of-fact way. “I guess I would have done the same if I didn’t have her.”

“I was unwanted then and now,” Sonia said, feigning sorrow.

“True, I should not have spoiled you so much,” her mother retorted.

“I second that,” Vivek said.

“Judas,” Sonia snarled at him.

They laughed.

“What about you, Vivek?” Mrs Varghese asked.

“Ah, poor unwanted moi,” it was Vivek’s turn.

“Come on, tell all,” Sonia prodded.

“Well, I tried a relationship for a while. It did not work out. She left me,” he said.

“What did you do to her?” the two ladies said almost together.

“Now who is Judas?”

“Seriously…you must have done something,” Sonia reaffirmed her doubts.

“She died,” he said.

They remained silent for a while.

“You rascal, you cooked up that one, didn’t you?” Mrs Varghese said.

He grinned.

Sonia punched his arm.

“Did you fib about that?” she asked sounding quite appalled.

“Us story-tellers never tell,” he said.

“Oh, I will never trust another word you say,” Sonia said.

…

Then, there were the Berlin years.

Sonia’s creep of a senior manager was not deterred by Vivek’s show. She reported him to HR. As expected, she lost her job. She had already been thinking of a change of scene and decided that this was the signal to get on with it. She enrolled for a Masters course in Economics in a London university, followed that in quick time with a PhD. She fell in love with a German and they shifted base to Berlin.

Vivek was already in Berlin by then. He too had decided not to get stuck in a rut. He got a grant to work in German academia and that was later converted to a long-term tenure at a prestigious institute near Berlin. Berlin suited him in many ways.

Vivek had kept in touch with the ladies, though less frequently. Life was already a bit too full for Sonia. She and her mother were not on the best of terms for a while when Sonia was pregnant with her first kid. But that chill thawed quickly when the baby was born. Mrs Varghese came to take care of her child and grandchild. She stayed with Sonia and her partner Susanna.

Vivek visited them with gifts for the new-born girl and her mothers and her grandmother. He helped Susanna with the cooking and the washing. In the kitchen, they talked about a shared passion for crime novels and photography. She was a friendly jovial character who could turn nasty on feminist issues. Vivek never let go of any opportunity to tease out that dark self.

“Vivek, don’t you dare trouble my girl,” Sonia shouted from the living room while breastfeeding the baby.

“Don’t worry,” Susanna said from the kitchen, “he is great in the kitchen. Hey, do you think we should keep him?”

“A throupie with a Platonic third,” Sonia hooted with laughter.

“The baby will have too many mother figures,” Mrs Varghese noted.

Mrs Varghese stayed with the couple for six months. Vivek went with her on a couple of museum tours. She was passionate about concerts too but he stayed away from that claiming not to have the proper costume for such an outing. The ladies once invited Vivek to join them for a picnic at Grunewald.

Mrs Varghese and Vivek went for a long post-lunch walk. The couple stayed back with the baby to snooze in the sun.

Vivek offered his arm. After a momentary hesitation, she held him. They walked silently for a while.

“Why did you have a cold war with Sonia?” he asked.

“Oh, just being a mother, I guess,” she replied.

“You were not against it, were you?”

“To be truthful, I was.”

“Hmmm…”

“Go on, ask, how could I be against it with my background, right?”

“Hmmm…”

“Vivek, breaking one wall does not break all. That is what I realized. And, I used maternal instincts as my defence. I told myself that I was just concerned about her future.”

“Took you a while to realize her future is ok if she is happy, huh?” Vivek said.

“Yes,” she replied.

“I knew you would come around,” he said.

“Did you?”

They slipped into silence once again.

“Do you know that I blamed you in one of those fits of anger?” she said.

“Me? What did I do?”

“Remember that old play of yours? I was quite sure that affected her…”

They laughed.

“But it was your speech that was supposed to affect her, right?” she asked.

“Ma’am!” he protested.

“Vivek, my dear boy, don’t think I am a fool.”

They chuckled and walked. They returned to the couple.

Later, Vivek was left alone with Sonia and the baby when Susanna and Mrs Varghese went to freshen themselves.

“You two looked like a dear old couple,” Sonia remarked.

“Ah, the jealous daughter speaks,” he said.

“Vivek, my old man, don’t think I am a fool.”

He looked at her amazed.

“What? You think I didn’t realize you had the hots for your teacher,” she said

He laughed and pretended to box her.

“Are you abusing my girl?” Susanna said from a distance.

“Oh, just doing what you two should,” he replied.

They all laughed and prepared to leave.

…

Life continued as usual. That juggernaut of priorities and opportunities rolled over old dying roots, the old laughs and companions preserved as fossils in sepia records to be discarded during some spring-cleaning.

Sonia and Susanna had one more baby. They kick-started their careers when the kids started going to playschool. Mrs Varghese took up a teaching position in Dubai. Every vacation she travelled to new places. En route whenever possible she visited her daughter’s family but never overstayed. There were minor hiccups like ill-health and job-loss during the financial crisis. Old acquaintances washed away with a lot of water under the bridge. Before they realized it, two decades had gone past and even the babies were ready to leave home.

They got to know about Vivek’s death through a Facebook post. It was a lovely eulogy by a junior in school and received a great deal of likes and emojis. None of those passers-by knew him outside their old school. One comment mentioned that cultural festival so long ago. Another remembered his quote but reproduced it inaccurately.

“Death leaves no one a heartache to heal, love leaves no one a memory to steal.”

Maybe Vivek thought so too…maybe not.