A Poetic End

My friend Ashok used to have this habit of conversing in such a way that the most important point enters in a parenthesis, like an afterthought, without emphasis and most susceptible to be ignored.

When he shifted from the house next to mine, he told me:

‘It is an unlucky house. I realized it when my dog ran away, a few days before my father died in that house, and when I sprained my back couple of months later my fears were confirmed.’

 His habit prevailed when he invited me for his wedding. On a rainy evening couple of years back we were into the third or fourth pitcher of beer in a pub. I remember that we had a heated argument about George Bush Jr. (after one of us had mentioned some redeeming feature, I suppose) and then we had discussed at length about the similar state of affairs in our respective offices in Academia and the financial industry. Somewhere in between, he slipped it in:

‘I am getting married next Friday…come if you can…it is at the Club Hall, I think…’

If I had caught it then and there, rather than recollecting it vaguely on the morning of the wedding, I would have told Ashok:

‘I don’t think you should marry.’

If asked why I said so, I would have replied:

‘You are too fair.’

I guess that is supposed to mean:

‘Ashok, you are not assertive or submissive; you believe in a mature and understanding relationship between two equals; you are actually willing to accept tantrums and frenzied fits even though you will not exhibit the same…’

Anyway, none of the above was said and I did attend his wedding.

Of his friends, I turned out to be the only one who had not missed his ‘concealed’ invitation. And, since I was the only friend introduced to her, his wife Rachna assumed that I must be a bosom buddy. Ashok introduced her to me as:

‘She is a poet.’

I nearly groaned loudly. From experience I know that creative artists and scientists are tolerable only if they are truly great. Of the mediocre lot, the males are fine when they are very young and their enthusiasm could be blamed on excessive testosterones. With age and wisdom, the males usually end up looking like toads with an air of profound latent intelligence waiting to croak the usual rhyme, rhythm and substance. Meanwhile, the females of that species are typically unaffected by age. I have noticed that they can be classified into three categories. The best try to be another Sylvia Plath forever searching for an appropriate gas stove to air their dainty head. The majority act like dopey-eyed minstrels without even being doped. And, those in the third category exhibit multiple personalities raising plaintive but obscure cries through their writing for a true lover or a better world. But during a break from writing, these behave like well-adjusted partners in humdrum suburbia totally oblivious of their most recent actions and thoughts while writing.

I do not think Rachna noticed my apprehension while I tried to place her in one of these three categories. But I could not concentrate on that task while she smiled sweetly and talked affectionately to her husband’s one and only friend. I was so distracted by her charming behavior that I ended up inviting Ashok and Rachna for a lunch in a posh restaurant and we planned to meet after a fortnight.

Thirteen days after the wedding, I phoned their residence to confirm the lunch appointment on the next day. Rachna picked up the call. She told me that Ashok had gone out shopping and that they looked forward to our meeting. She sounded distraught and, acting against my better instinct, I asked:

‘Are you fine?’

‘Yes,’ she replied rather hesitantly. Then without any prompt from me, she added, ‘He still sleeps on a separate bed.’

‘Ah!’ I managed that profound non-poetic exclamation.

‘He wants me to kiss him there,’ she continued.

‘Oh!’ I was at my wits’ end.

Fortunately, she had to end the session to attend to some urgent business in the kitchen.

For the next few hours, I thought deeply about my plan of action.

I pictured myself confronting Ashok in the toilet of the posh restaurant.

‘Did you ask your wife to kiss you there?’ I would ask.

‘Where…?’ He would ask.

I tried out more sensible questions in my head. Finally, I decided that my advice, if any, should be extempore rather than prepared.

The next day, we met at the posh restaurant. The food was good and the service was impeccable but of the three participants, only one seemed to be enjoying the lunch.

Rachna was her usual self, smiling sweetly and talking affectionately to Ashok and myself. Ashok seemed distraught throughout the meal. I also noticed that he had dropped his old habit while conversing. Habits wilt under duress, I remembered from an old text. Anyway, I was also in a confused state during the meal. My state was the result of the brief tête-à-tête with Ashok in the gents’ toilet before we sat for lunch. There, I had asked him:

‘So, how’s life, man?’

‘Good,’ he replied unconvincingly.

‘Ah!’ my familiar prompt.

‘Actually not good,’ he continued more convincingly.

‘Oh!’ I had reached the limit of my extempore speech.

‘She still sleeps on a separate bed.’ The fact that they admitted the same sounded comforting but then came the twist:

‘She wants me to kiss her there.’

‘Where…?’ I nearly blurted out.

That lunch got over blandly without any other notable incident. I decided to keep my distance from that couple.

We still met each other twice or thrice a year and in every such meeting, the situation was roughly the same. Though the accusation changed with each meeting, both confided to me the same accusation against each other.

Two days back, the play reached its climax. I received a call from Rachna with the succinct message:

‘He is trying to kill me.’

I thought of minding my own business. But curiosity, if not concern, made me meet Ashok that day.

‘So, how’s life, man?’

‘Good,’ the familiar lines from the script. ‘Actually, it is not good.’

‘Ah!’

 ‘She is trying to kill me.’

‘Oh!’

Last night, Ashok called me from a police station.

‘Rachna jumped to her death from the balcony,’ he said.

‘Oh!’

‘She left a note for the police.’ I could imagine what she had to say in her note.

I could not think of a way to help him evade her grave accusation. I nearly missed the last bit of information from Ashok,

‘She wrote it as a poem. The police are trying to understand it.’

‘Ah!’ I sighed with relief.

  

Coming, Going

When the door-bell rang, he was adjusting the volume control of the hi-fi. Without heeding the bell, he listened to the music for a while, comfortably numbed and also bemused by not being able to recollect the name of the composer. It matched well, he thought, with the bright blue sky peeping through lace curtains and the cool dewy early morning air.

He went to the door and opened. He smiled at her as she walked in without a word. He closed the door and leaned against it, watching her. She kept her hand-bag on a side-table and her wind-cheater folded on the back of a chair. Then, she went to him. They stood there, hand in hand, looking at each other, smiling.

‘Missed you…’ she said as he pulled her towards him. ‘So much…’ The ‘much’ lingered long, soft and thick in the air, till they kissed.

They held each other as they swayed with the music, languorous dancing with impromptu steps, instincts leading and following. She leaned against his broad chest, opened a few buttons on his shirt and lightly traced lines in the light hair. Her left hand curled under his arm and held onto his shoulder or caressed his back. His hand circled around her, held her close and tight, with his head resting against her forehead or lightly kissing her ears, her hair, her forehead, her cheeks, her lips. His right hand lingered on her naked skin beneath her blouse, teasing and caressing, moving gently with the music from her breasts to her waist, back and forth.

‘How I wish I could remain like this forever…’ she said later when they rested on the floor cushions. ‘I could sleep…I could dream…lying here, against your chest, I feel so…’ her voice trailed.

Around noon, they dressed, rustled up a quick lunch and shared the meal standing in the compact kitchen of his rented well-furnished studio apartment. Two sparrows came to the kitchen window, looked in, tilted their head sideways and chirped at them and at each other. She opened the window and sprinkled some bread crumbs saying, ‘Sparrow-kutta…here…’ The birds came warily, pecked and left. He watched her, smiled at her, and happy with himself feeling her life filling every nook and cranny of his existence.

Around mid-afternoon, she put on her wind-cheater, picked up her hand-bag and moved towards the door. They kissed long and deeply.

‘I wish I didn’t have to go…’ she said and left.

He stood by the doorway and watched her walk away. A strange afternoon breeze disturbed her hair and he wanted to comb it down with his fingers. He watched her swaying hips and straight back. He remembered that he had first noticed her while admiring her elegant walking style. He stood there till she vanished.

He went back inside. He collected his belongings and packed it all in two suitcases and a large cardboard box. He cleaned up the place thoroughly trying for its pristine condition. At dusk, he rested for a while, sipping water, lazily reading an old mid-day newspaper, a leftover of his packing.

One large headline screamed about a lover killing a straying partner. A smaller news item was about a suicide after a painful separation. Everywhere, everyone seems to be coming, going, never staying together for long, he thought.

He loaded his suitcases and the box in his car. Then, he gave the house-keys to his landlord and received the deposit money. ‘Where are you going? Do you have a forwarding address?’ the landlord asked. He shrugged.

With a friendly wave from the car and a melancholic smile, he bid goodbye. At the cross-road, he squinted at the dying rays in the cool dewy late evening air, and tried to choose north, east, west or south.

The First Lover

For the ‘veteran’ petitioners like Sheila, the new Court was a big relief. No more of standing in the dusty (or muddy, if it rained) courtyard of the old place though most of them agreed that it used to have a nice homely feel. But, they preferred the new, bright and well-ventilated modern building. Sheila thought it was like comparing a favourite old family doctor’s dilapidated clinic and a chic antiseptic impersonal multi-speciality hospital.

Lunch break was over and, in his chamber, the judge was meeting the ‘cases’, reviewing their petitions and deciding their lives. Sheila and other petitioners, their respondents, lawyers and clerks sat in the court room waiting for their chance with the judge. Sheila’s lawyer (or rather, her main lawyer’s junior) Satheesh had assured her that it could be her last day in court, her lucky day. She had smiled. He always told her that. She was quite used to it.

How many years have gone by and how many appearances, she wondered. She still felt queasy before she left her house at 10:30 to reach the court by 10:45. There, lawyer Satheesh and his clerk would try to encourage her or give her instructions about what could happen that day. Each time her name was called in court, she felt her hands get clammy, heart pounding and legs ready to buckle. But, she was quite used to it.

Sheila sat next to Satheesh and his clerk. She listened to the discussion between lawyers and clients. She watched the grief, the determination and the rare smiles. One of the first things she realized in Court was that no case is personal or confidential. It had initially felt like a breach of trust but later it seemed more like a cure. At first, each case or grievance seemed strange and harsh. Then, the scenes got familiar having heard or seen some version at one time or the other.

One lady-lawyer (probably the lawyer of a male respondent, Sheila guessed) joked with her colleague, ‘Hai! My poor chap, you know, he drinks a peg or two and she has a problem with that. Kerala depends on such men for revenue generation, you know. He talks to other women and she has a problem. He tried calling me at night few times, you know, poor chap is such a smooth talker, a real panjarakuttan (flirt). If she has such problems, you know, why did she get married?’

The other (the male lawyer must be that of the petitioner-wife, Sheila decided) laughed and replied, ‘Well, she is going to be 30 lakhs richer with her problems. Now, he can talk as much as he wants with women without such problems. Make sure your client doesn’t disappear, ok? At least, till we get paid…let’s finish it off, ok? No more tricks, please…’

In another scene, a young man was telling his lawyer quite excitedly, ‘I want justice. I want the truth to come out. She can’t escape after ruining my life.’

The lawyer asked that client quietly but firmly, ‘Do you want a divorce or do you want truth and justice?’

Near the court counselor’s office, a lawyer was instructing a middle-aged lady, ‘Talk about those occasions when he hit you. And, when he created a fuss in your parents’ place…and, that he doesn’t know anything about the kids’ affairs…and, that he used your money and gold to start his business...and, that he did not give you any money. He will be telling the counselor that it was always good between you two...’

The mild lady replied softly, ‘There were good times too…people aren’t 100% villain, no?’

Her lawyer said with an exasperated tone, ‘If you say that, the counselor will say that that you two should meet an external counselor since there is still a lot of hope…’

The lady looked confused and also scared (maybe, about such ‘hope’ of returning to her husband, Sheila thought).

The lady’s lawyer quickly consoled her, ‘Don’t worry…just treat this place like any government office…the court officers want to hear the right words…to go ahead with the process…if you say the wrong words, they will get confused and they will treat your case like a badly filled form…and you will have to run around…till they get the form filled the way they expect…’

Sheila smiled at those familiar words. Her main lawyer Ashok had given her that advice long back, before she had filed her divorce petition. She had wanted to include only truth in her petition. Ashok had told her that even truth should be written with the right language.

Sheila looked at her watch – nearly 2:30. She had not had lunch. She did not feel hungry – her appetite always went for a toss a few days before and after such days. She took out a bottle of water from her bag and sipped. How she wished this would end…

She remembered the day she walked to Ashok’s house and requested him to be her divorce lawyer. Ashok is her elder brother’s childhood friend; or rather, was her brother’s friend before they parted ways. She had heard about a fight but never got to know the real reason – some girlie problem, she had concluded. She was eight when she first met Ashok. Her brother used to talk about Ashok’s maverick ways in school – a firebrand anti-social leader for the juniors and most of his peers but he was never well-liked. He was a pain for the school authority and teachers, Sheila’s brother used to say. If he had not been good in studies, Ashok would have been dismissed from school.

To Sheila, Ashok was an additional brother figure then – though he seemed fiercer than her own brothers. Ashok enquired about her studies and extra-curricular activities. He encouraged her to do better and rarely found her achievements praise-worthy. Much later, on her first date, she and her boyfriend had gone to the only Chinese restaurant in town. By sheer coincidence, Ashok also landed at that place for a solitary lunch. Ashok nodded seriously when she introduced her boyfriend. Ashok did not say a word, not even a simple Hi. Ashok sat at the table behind theirs, facing her boyfriend and she could nearly feel Ashok’s eyes on her back. Sheila remembered that it was an awful, quick and mostly silent first-date.

In the years that followed, she used to meet Ashok when they were both studying in Bangalore. Then, her brother and Ashok fought bitterly over some issue – neither of them would talk to her or anyone about the reason. She tried to keep in touch with Ashok but the fight with her brother affected them, too. She invited him for her wedding. Ashok did not turn up, probably because her brother had not invited him. Ashok did not invite her for his wedding – she heard that he had not invited anyone. She also heard about his wife’s death a few years later but by then, her troubled marriage dictated every moment of her life and she had no energy to think of anyone or anything beyond that suffocating world.

She still wondered if she had been impulsive when she decided to get out of that world. She thought about the strange decisive force that had made her ask Ashok to be her divorce lawyer. He ‘interrogated’ her extensively on three days at his place. On the second day, she had met his daughter Lakshmi for the first time – a lovely beautiful girl. The daughter had received her coldly at the door and when her father requested her to make tea for him and Sheila, she told her father that she had some homework to complete. Sheila heard the kid march upstairs to her room and bang a door. Ashok shrugged his shoulder and continued ‘interrogating’ Sheila.

Sheila told him everything about her marriage. The economic and intellectual mismatch, the insecurity, the fast decline of a life partner to be a beast of burden, the daily taunts and mental torture, even how they drifted to separate rooms. She tried to recollect the happy moments of that matrimony – a few movies, two trips and couple of convenient dinners at a restaurant.

On the third session, she admitted to Ashok that the problems could have started in a rather innocuous way. Her husband had mentioned once about a ‘close-relationship’ with a girl when he was in college. Sheila admitted to Ashok that she had then retorted quickly and without much thought, probably just to spite, that she also had a ‘lover’ once much before their wedding. A few months later, she had met her husband’s old girlfriend at a wedding. She had nearly laughed at her husband’s discomfiture in the presence of the garrulous rather grotesquely dressed up lady. Her husband never got to meet her first lover or even know the slightest details – the first lover’s ghostly anonymous presence probably served as the poltergeist wrecking their fragile marriage, Sheila confided in Ashok. Ashok asked her if her husband could produce any surprising evidence in court regarding the first lover. She shook her head.

Sheila realized that Ashok used these informal ‘interrogation’ sessions to decide if the petitioner was actually ready for a divorce or whether the client was just being frivolous and immature. At the end of the third session, Ashok informed her that he would help her. Ashok told her that his junior Satheesh would be dealing with the nitty-gritty details of the case and that he would keep track of its progress. After that third session, Sheila saw Ashok once or twice at his office or on the court premises but they never talked to each other. Sheila phoned him once, when she had felt very nervous about the proceedings, but he coldly told her to get in touch with Satheesh.

Sheila understood Ashok’s cold professionalism. She did not find fault with him for keeping her at a distance – she knew how she must appear to him. She knew how she wanted to lean on someone, a friend that would be there day in and day out while she fell into an abyss of loneliness and empty hopelessness. She knew how such a clinging person would appear to another. Sheila could understand Lakshmi’s reaction. Even she would have kept such a pathetic person away, away from personal involvement, Sheila told herself. Even a whiff of friendliness would have seemed like love while she struggled to breathe, suffocated by the air around her, the air of hatred, bitterness and fear.

Sheila struggled with the case alone, debating with herself, weighing the pros and cons on her own, with endless nights of nightmarish indecision, waking up tired and ready to give in to maintain status quo for the sake of some certainty, ready to give up her last dream of living without abuse, her last dream of hoping, even if it was just a hope without a smile. She had to make every decision on her own. There were days when she cursed Ashok for not being even a friend, just a friend.

  

While she waited for the judge to call, Sheila thought about all this – the past, her dull blank life and the many visits to Court. When she was called around 4:00, she followed lawyer Satheesh to the judge’s chamber. She went through the motions, detached, disinterested and mildly confused. It did not take long. When she left the Court, Satheesh accompanied her. She barely heard him say,

‘Well, that’s over…I will take care of the rest of the formalities. Do not worry about anything…’

She gave him an envelope with money as fees. And, he left her alone.

She walked slowly on the tree-lined path from the Court to the exit. She looked up. Through the trees, she could see the evening blue sky. She thought she should say a prayer or a word of thanks. But, she felt too tired and defeated even for that.

Sheila hardly felt the hand on her arm. A bit confused, she came out of her reverie and stared at the person standing next to her. It was Ashok’s daughter – she had grown taller, Sheila noticed. Lakshmi smiled at Sheila, pointed at her father who was standing near a car,

‘Aunty, we have been waiting…’

While...

While I wrote the love poem

I heard her fading footsteps –

Black ink on yellowing pages

Lasts longer with empty jokes;

While I fought for my friends

I saw them shifting company –

Sweat, blood, tears on fallen ground

Mix well with dirty slush;

While I wrote the last note

I prayed to them: ignore –

Or, battles and false verses and such

Wasteful ways will wear resolve;

While I fought for my life

I felt a gentle hand in mine –

Guiding me to new ways but

Without a heart, I let it slip.

Where I died before I was born

I was a hero then.

In tattered fatigues,

Camouflaged blackened face

With mama’s eyeliner,

I dug trenches, built barricades

Around fanciful dreams,

Enacted the best

Of Commando comics –

I loved the Air force:

Vroom , swooosh…I somersaulted, I turned

Ta-ta-ta, dish-keow…my gunner killed, maimed.

 I always returned to a waiting family.

She was always there to place flowers on my grave

With that strange epitaph ‘he died before he was born’.

But then she died

And I decayed.

Nightmares kept me awake

With a lullaby about my brave deeds:

I smiled, rubbed my hands with glee

When I dropped Fat Man and Little Boy

My mustache nearly singed

While I watched flesh vapourizing below;

I was a glad voyeur

In those killing fields, in that nation called Tragedy,

I hooted and cheered, a spectator’s sport it was

While my friends raped and killed women with blank eyes;

I bombed the bunker at Amiriyah in Feb 1991

Man, it was a blast

Thousands, dude, thousands within

They lie when they say it was innocent parents, children.

Why am I there

In all those wars where I died before I was born?

And now, when I should be telling grandkids grand tales

I have to go for my real war

Well within the border, with my own lot.

I blasted my superior about keeping me inferior;

Do you know how he squealed and begged

When my fingers closed around his windpipe

And I pulled it out, blood-spattering good it was!

I watched paid-goons rule the street

Tormenting, dictating, calling me slave;

I waited, I promised, I conned masses

To follow me Spartacus to fight like animals.

Then, one night I heard them on my land

They said it is not mine no more

For the last fight, I unsheathed my sword, charged

Like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid

Blinded, deafened by the roar of their blazing guns.

I have to go for my real war

Where I died before I was born.

Are you angry? Are you sad?

Are you angry? Are you sad?

1.      In a few weeks or months, we will have a new institution based on some version of the Lokpal Bill. That is a near certainty. Will it investigate, prosecute and judge? I do not know. Will it work? Do you know?

2.      I have downloaded most of the documents (Jan, Govt, the differences, etc.) from the website of ‘India Against Corruption’. To tell you the truth, it puts me to sleep. I am just a layman without any legal education and I am equally put off by ‘legal-speak’ and ‘gutter-speak’.

3.      But, before sleeping, I did notice that the two Bills did agree to have the same pay package for selected officers. The rest is quite irrelevant and negotiable, I feel. If they had disagreed on the pay package, then the Bill would have been doomed for sure.

4. Before succumbing to the soporific effect, a small doubt crept into my mind. By now, everyone knows that one of the versions has ‘teeth’ and the other is ‘toothless’ against corruption. For me, with my layman’s eyes, one seems to hold the accused guilty till proven innocent and the other seems to hold the accused innocent till proven guilty. That is just my doubt about the middle-class anger raging across the country. Is civil society trying to be a lynch squad?

5.      Now, with regard to new institutions, I was reminded about that which used to happen in Academia. I know of at least three new institutes that were started to accommodate a retiring big-wig who had enough clout in the government to get at least partial funding. There, in those institutes, the big-wig and his cronies were allowed to vegetate and be Director or Director Emeritus or Professor Emeritus for life. I should also add that these new institutes were not bad at all, by any standards. (I should add in passing that such thoughts arise in my mind even when a State announces that they are going to start a new IIT rather than restructure existing Universities.)

6.      Is that going to be the case with the new institution based on the Lokpal Bill? From where are we going to get those ‘few good people’ who will have to investigate, prosecute and judge without a corrupted mind and without political affiliations, too? This elite force will have to understand a wide range of topics like legal issues, accounting and audit, international finance, highly technical engineering projects and the latest in infrastructure development just to name a few. That kind of ‘good men’ must be surely holding a reasonable and challenging position currently. What happens to that office or will a vacuum be created out there?

7.      By now, every Indian is in love with Anna Hazare. Isn’t he a cute old man? He reminds me of my grandfather. My grandfather was a darling but a man of fixed convictions and rigid positions. Even during Onam, my cousins and I were not encouraged to play all day; my cousins had to cut grass, feed and clean the cows, and do all the other daily stuff which would spoil a good Onam. I never did any work (even then, I confess) and I tried to argue my case with him but he never listened. He had a point, I agree; but so did I. Ah! Where was I? Oh yes, Anna Hazare…now, why did I think about all that?

8.      I used to admire one of Hazare’s team members – Kiran Bedi, of course. Haven’t we all, at some point of time, told our daughters and sisters to be like her? Of course, due to plain male chauvinism, I never advised my wife to be like her. But these days, I have been telling my wife, too, to be like Kiran Bedi. She is sounding less formidable.

9.      Do you know what I expected from people like Kiran Bedi? I wanted her to use her knowledge and experience to revamp the police force and units like the CBI (assuming that they are all corrupt and totally influenced by corrupt politicians). Maybe, she has her views on all that but I can only hear her views on this new institution based on the Lokpal Bill. Has she lost faith in her old institution?

10. It is the same with the Bhushans. Both are supposed to be eminent lawyers. I expected them to fight tooth and nail for reforms of legal process to make the judiciary really function in this country. It is stupid to expect to fight corruption with a judiciary that is bogged down by overload and highly objectionable practices like long delays, indefinite stays, frequent adjournments and other reasons like corruption and influence starting right from the low-level officers, even independent counselors. We have already got good laws and good judges, too. Can’t we do more to make the judiciary more user-friendly rather than being just lawyer-friendly? Maybe, the middle-class never enters the court for civil cases (definitely not for criminal cases, I hope). Maybe, the middle-class is not affected by property or divorce issues, by corruption or other framed charges, by not even being able to think of taking an employer to court for bad practices. I do not think so. Have the Bhushans also lost faith in their own institution or are they protecting their own turf? To tell you the truth, I am sad rather than angry with this loss of faith.

11. Finally, like Anna Hazare, I am really glad to see the young so involved in the Hazare movement against corruption. I think I saw on the webpage of the Times of India that IIT-IIMs are also supporting the fight against corruption. My generation (including me, of course) and the lot before mine are the corrupt idiots who reduced India to this pathetic, corrupt state. Forget those generations, put them and me in exile, we were just ‘old goofies’ (as my thesis supervisor used to describe). It gives me great pleasure to see these young people who promise not to be corrupt.

12. As part of my earlier professional life, I had to recruit, train and work with very smart (if not exceptional) young people. Most were from the IIT-IIM lot. They were like me and my blighted generation in lots of ways. They used to play the system, take the maximum by giving the minimum. They used the office phone to talk to wife or partner for hours. They used the internet for their personal needs during office time (the office did not allow access to social networking sites and external e-mail services, unfortunately). Most of the young ones had opted out of higher-education, research and development to be on the path to be managers and money-minters. They had a good grasp of shady finance deals and products, how to trade them without blinking an eye at the customer and to even cook the books, if required. Some were exceptional in six-sigma or supply-chain stuff. They could view a human workforce like an automated machine, stand behind workers with a stop-watch, time them and suggest drastic steps to restructure businesses.

13. But, that was that young lot who used to work and live during my time. I am glad that the young gathered in front of Hazare promise to lead us away from all that – to be ethical, non-corrupt and very angry with offenders.

14. I should be angry, I know. But, I am sad.

15. And, you? Are you angry? Or, are you sad?

16. Anyway, I hope the actual law-makers are not really sad or angry. Laws need an understanding of human frailty, even that of the current good. Niti and nyaya have to keep in mind that a Raavan might try to appear as Ram. That is, of course, the Indian way of saying that one should be very careful about any new law – to make sure the monster created does not return to torment its creator Dr Frankenstein:

“You are my creator, but I am your master—obey!”

A very dull, dreary affair...nearly...

Dying is a very dull, dreary affair. And my advice to you is to have nothing whatever to do with it. – Somerset Maugham

A friend of mine stopped smoking, drinking, overeating, and chasing women --all at the same time. It was a lovely funeral. – Unknown

According to most studies, people's number one fear is public speaking. Number two is death. Death is number two! Does that sound right? This means to the average person, if you go to a funeral, you're better off in the casket than doing the eulogy. – Jerry Seinfeld

I treat deaths and weddings the same way, as a reluctant participant.

Last Sunday, around 2 pm, I got the call from Nalini Mutheymachi, ‘Kuttaa, Mutheychan is leaving us…’

After the brief call, I stuffed a change of clothes and toilet kit into my backpack and left home immediately. It took me 45 minutes to drive to my village. I concentrated on the road and the traffic rather than think about Mutheychan.

I parked the car outside Mutheychan’s 3-acre plot. People had started to gather. Standing near the compound wall, I observed his close relatives huddled together in the drawing room, following a rough queue to enter his bedroom situated on the left side of the house.

I looked around and found Nalini Mutheymachi standing alone a little away from the side-entrance on the right of the house. I went up to her. She held my hand tightly. I looked at her gentle delicately featured old face and realized that she had not allowed herself to cry.

She told me about the last moments, ‘He took bath at 11, shaved himself…we had lunch together…and as usual, he lay down to rest around quarter to one. I completed my tasks in the kitchen a little after one and joined him…I must have slept…he woke me up, he could barely shake my shoulder, he didn’t say anything, just smiled…his breathing seemed irregular…I called Dr Priya…do you remember her, she stays here now…thank God, she was at home…she is expecting, you know…she told me to inform everyone…’

‘What are they up to?’ I asked about the relatives trying to enter Mutheychan’s room.

‘Each one wants to give him a sip of water before he dies…he is still hanging on…why, I don’t know…don’t you want to see him?’ she asked.

‘No.’ I replied.

‘He would like it…’ she said.

‘Will he like to take anything from that lot? I hope he is beyond realization…’ I stated bitterly and then added softly, ‘You should be there…’

‘For what…?’ she sighed wistfully and then asked with a slight smile blinking back the tears, ‘Do you know what he might say…’

‘Kazhutha-pennu…’ I replied and she laughed softly, nodding, strands of grey hair escaping from the loose bun and straying onto her forehead. Mutheychan used to reach over and tuck those strands of hair behind her ear, I remembered.

We stood there together for a while before she went inside to help. I went to my position outside the compound waiting for Mutheychan to give up the fight.

I am not related to him, I mean, by way of blood. I can’t even recall how I got to know him. I visit my village at least twice a month and it became a habit or custom to visit him too. Maybe, I started visiting him because his place promised a clean bathroom or, a good meal and a place for siesta. I can’t recall. I do remember that our first meeting happened at least five years after he returned from abroad.

From the tales I heard about him, I have gathered that he was very well educated and that he went to London in his mid-twenties. Nobody knows what he did over there and he rarely visited our village during those twenty five years he was abroad. There was a lot of buzz when he returned. He was about fifty then. I heard rumours that he was mad and that he had to be locked up in his brother’s place. His wealth and ‘outside connections’ helped him scorch these rumours, they say regretfully, and he settled down in our village.

I have known him for more than twenty five years. I have tried to probe about his early life but he evades every question regarding that part of his personal life. He has told me about his travels in Britain and the rest of Europe. He talked about it with ease and without being in awe, quite matter-of-fact, as if he was very much at home there, too. He talked about Paris or Prague and the people there the same way he talked about our village, equal in curiosity and detachment.

While his personal life abroad remained private and a closed affair, his life here was an open book. Long back, in Nalini Mutheymachi’s presence, he told me about their first meeting. It happened two years after his return. Her house is a few plots away from his, a five-minute brisk walk. Every day, around half past ten, she used to walk past his gate to go to the market for the day’s fish and provisions. She could not trust her maid with the fish, Mutheymachi explained. One day, he stopped her near his gate and without any greeting told her abruptly, ‘I think you should read this book.’ Mutheychan gave her his copy of Hardy’s ‘Jude the Obscure’. She accepted it, muttered thanks and proceeded to the market. I asked him why he chose that book. ‘I did not mind losing it…’ he told me frankly. Four days later, she returned the book to him telling him, ‘It is morbid…I read only half.’ ‘Kazhutha-pennu, you should read the whole book…’ he remarked. ‘Why?’ she asked. ‘It gets even more morbid…helps you to laugh at everything else…other than the book, I mean…’ he replied earnestly. He admits that she looked at him as if he was a madman.

When she met Mutheychan, she must have been in her mid-forties and he must have been at least five or six years older. She had married at the age of 17. By twenty, she had two kids and a wastrel for a husband. At that time, her maternal uncle was looking after the affairs of her joint family. One fine day, a few months before her 21^st birthday, when that uncle returned for lunch after toiling in the fields, he saw her lazy husband sleeping, snoring loudly, on the uncle’s armchair. The uncle grabbed her husband by the arm and pushed him out of the house, bellowing ‘Get out…till you work and earn on your own, stay away from this house…’ She never saw her husband after that day. With the share she inherited (she is richer than Mutheychan, I think) she did not face any major difficulty in taking care of the house, educating her kids well and getting them married.

So, when she looked at Mutheychan as if he was a madman, she admits that it was a very pleasant diversion or curiosity.

Nalini Mutheymachi told me that it was quite difficult for her in the beginning, especially because she had never experienced such interaction or attention and if she had ever thought about it earlier, it must have been when she was just an adolescent. Anyway, the curiosity slowly developed into companionship and they became partners in life. Each had their own house and land but they shared without inhibition, without being bound to do so. A few loose tongues tried to wag or protest but it was nothing really new.

‘He was such a peculiar character in the village…’ she used to recollect.

To say that he was peculiar was actually putting it mildly. Though he was capable of talking to me and others about any topic (including his travels) in a highly cultured way, I also knew that he was capable of being extremely abrasive.

Some time back, I went along with him for a relative’s wedding. That was the last time I went for a social function with him. During the wedding feast, the service was extremely slow and it tested the patience of most guests seated there in that dining hall. Mutheychan started criticizing loudly, even making casteist remarks like ‘That is what you get if you attend weddings of such people…kuravaru…’ I guess we escaped without getting hurt physically or verbally only because we belong to the same lowly caste as everyone there.

Of course, he went further than his own caste. Each time we used to walk past Ibrahimkutty’s provision store, he would tell me loudly, ‘Never buy stuff from there…maytharu…cut-throat rascals…he gets richer and I am poorer day by day…’ In the city where I live, he would have been lynched, I am sure. I guess everyone in the village knew that Ibrahimkutty was Mutheychan’s beedi-mate. Ibrahimkutty used to get these special beedis from Orissa, which he liked to describe as ‘pure tobacco…thick…long…what a kick…’ The stench was strong and overpowering. I used to go Nalini Mutheymachi’s place when those two used to sit on the verandah, sucking greedily at their beedis, exchanging village news or talking about the market.

I must have been recollecting all these memories when I heard the first wail.

Someone inside was crying, ‘Ayyo, Ammava…what will I do without you?’ I tried to recognize that voice. I did not know of a relative who was ever allowed to be ‘with’ Mutheychan when he was alive.

I watched people get into action quite fast, like well-oiled machinery. The ‘funeral-caterers’ took care of the arrangements for setting up the funeral pyre within the compound. ‘They are usually available within an hour…,’ said a young man standing near. An older man added, ‘Now, it is not like old days when we had to dig a six-by-four pit. They dig pits less than a foot deep these days.’ The young man explained ‘Just for a few thousand rupees…you don’t even have to cut a tree for the wood…they bring everything…’ The older man looked at me with a bit of regret and a lot of envy, ‘Of course, for you in the city, it is electric, isn’t it?’ Everyone seemed well-versed with the show – the bathing and dressing of the corpse; the bed, the right direction to place the corpse and the stage-setting for the final procession of people paying their last respect; a group of ladies were ready with prayer songs; and, there were other ladies who provided the mourning and the crying. I did not see Nalini Mutheymachi in that crowd. She must have been standing far from those near and dear ones. I remained outside the compound wall and moved further away from the crowd.

I was lost in reverie when I heard a woman say ‘Chetta…’ It was Dr Priya. Twenty or more years since I saw her last and she looked the same to me, of course, she was then minus the obvious pregnant state. Dark searching eyes, the deep dimple on the right cheek, wavy tangled hair…she was fourteen when I noticed all that for the first time.

She had worn a half-sari for the first time and came running to my room from her house next door. She modeled innocently, twirling on her toes slowly, striking poses and then she had asked, ‘How do I look, Chetta?’ I had adjusted her blouse a little, helped her with a hook and then I had told her truthfully, ‘You look great.’ She looked so glad. I realized that the girl I had treated like a kid sister or a childhood friend was becoming a young lady. Her folks also realized that and it was all fine till two years later when I decided to pursue an education outside mainstream professional courses. During my first year in that college far away from home, we exchanged letters twice or at times even thrice a week. Then, during the first summer holidays, she sent word through a friend that I should not contact her again. Her parents had given strict instructions, the mutual friend tried to explain. In the years that followed, she could have contacted me. She met other men and she married one of her new loves, I assumed. I had little to do other than to forget her.

I must have been staring blankly at her while I thought about all that. ‘How are you, Chetta?’ she asked. ‘Good…and you…second one? ’ I indicated her tummy. ‘Third…’ she replied. ‘Quite late, isn’t it?’ I enquired for want of something more sensible to ask. ‘Ten years gap since the last one…’ she said. ‘A mistake…?’ I probed tactlessly. She stared at me without saying anything. I decided to change topics, ‘Did Mutheychan go without pain?’ ‘Oh yes…a lovely death actually…it was so peaceful…’ I remained silent though I wanted to mutter, ‘Quite unlike him to go like that...’

‘I have to go…kids must be back from school…’ she said. I did not say anything. ‘Chetta…do you remember those times…’ she asked. ‘Hmm…’ I admitted. ‘Every now and then, I wonder about those special years…the intensity and attachment…why I haven’t had that since…’ she said. ‘Requires a lot of thought…and affection…’ I said blandly without looking at her. I did not want to see if she had tears in her eyes or whether she remained untouched. She stood with me for some more time before leaving. We did not even tell each other ‘See you…’

Half an hour after she left, it was time for the cremation. Shankaran-master, one of Mutheychan’s rare friends, came up to me and said, ‘He told me that you should do what a son should do…’ I walked inside, past the unwelcome glares of the near and dear. I realized that by choosing me, an outsider, Mutheychan managed to irritate his ‘near and dear’ even after his death. I suppressed my mirth. I changed and prepared for the last rites. Shankaran-master and another crony were the masters of ceremony and I followed their instructions with a blank expression. I did think of putting on an expression of sadness or humble respect but I felt nothing towards the corpse.

I had completed the first round around the pyre with the clay pot of water leaking on my shoulder when the silent crowd and I were surprised by a loud bawdy song. It was a mobile ringtone. We located the source. It seemed to come from the corpse lying within, covered with wood and flowers on the unlit pyre. One of the funeral-caterers came forward sheepishly, ‘I think my mobile fell out of my pocket while we were arranging the wood…’ It took some time to shift the wood and the corpse, to retrieve the errant mobile with the insistent caller and the ringtone still entertaining or irritating the gathered lot and then, to ‘repack’ everything. I was glad when that function got over.

I stayed with Nalini Muthemachi till the fifth day. For every meal, we went to Muthechan’s place and as per custom we shared food with the ‘near and dear’ and other mourners. With each passing day, our presence there met with less and less acceptance. There appeared to be a lot of resentment and chattering behind our backs. Once or twice, I heard some of the close relatives say stuff like ‘Why should these outsiders be here?’ ‘They will only leave after grabbing everything…’ I noticed that Mutheychan’s immediate neighbor ‘PaaRa’ Vaasu was also doing his bit goading the others and instigating trouble against us.

I told Nalini Mutheymachi about all this and how I felt like leaving immediately. She requested, ‘Stay till the fifth day…Shankaran-master told me that we should be there…’ ‘That Vaasu, I feel like giving him a thrashing…’ I protested. ‘Don’t mind that idiot…’ she tried to soothe my frayed nerves before adding ‘your Mutheychan felt the same way, too, you know…’

Vaasu is Mutheychan’s relative (a nephew once or twice removed) and he stays in a small hut next to Mutheychan’s plot. He is a drunken uncouth lout who works as manager in a quarry (hence the nickname, ‘PaaRa’). When he is not drinking and hanging around in the village, he abuses his wife Revathy and their two kids. Without income, savings or any source of support, she had no choice other than death or being her husband’s punching bag. Every one knew about the frequent loud and violent abuse. We could only watch or listen feeling disgusted and helpless. 

On the fifth day, we gathered at Mutheychan’s house. That morning, there was a small prayer and other religious stuff after which all the people, relatives and other well-wishers who had attended the funeral were invited and served a light breakfast. After the guests had left, Shankaran-master requested everyone else to gather in the front room.

He explained that he had been instructed by Mutheychan to inform the concerned people about the last and final will. He also explained how Mutheychan had taken extra pains to get certified that he was with sound mind while he prepared the will. The near and dear bristled at the last announcement anticipating bad news and to be without recourse to legal challenges. Mutheychan had spoiled their game even before it started.

The near and dear ones directed undisguised animosity at us, that is, Nalini Mutheymachi and me. We were seated safely away from them. ‘PaaRa’ Vaasu made some unpleasant comments about us to the others. I could only stare. Nalini Mutheymachi kept a gentle hand on my clenched fist.

Shankaran-master took his time. He cleaned his spectacles, asked for a glass of hot water to drink, and then explained that the will’s terms and conditions were quite simple. By then, one of the close relatives shouted angrily, ‘Just read it…and get it done, will you?’

Shankaran-master cleared his throat and explained that a trust has been created for the sake of the beneficiary. The trust will take care of the wealth and safeguard the interests of the beneficiary. The trust also had the added power to protect the beneficiary from external sources of threat and danger. After the death of the beneficiary, the trust would take care of the kids of the beneficiary.

Then, Shankaran-master told the gathering that the sole beneficiary of Mutheychan’s wealth is Revathy.

Someone in the crowd wailed, ‘Ayyo, Ammava…what will I do without…?’ I think it was the same voice as before. I looked at ‘PaaRa’ Vaasu. I watched him realize quickly that he was losing control over his wife. Revathy was standing near the doorway leading to the kitchen. Nalini Mutheymachi had brought her that morning to help with the cooking, serving and cleaning. I watched Revathy take in the news with a dead-pan expression, following the disappearing back of her husband with cold determined eyes. In the days to come, there will be new rumours and much chatter in the village about how she managed to get everything from Mutheychan. Even that will die one day.

I laughed loud, turned to Nalini Mutheymachi and gave her a hug. She was crying with joy. Her man must be laughing wherever he is.

Notes:

Mutheychan/Mutheymachi : Strictly, these apply to father’s elder brother and his wife; or mother’s elder sister and her husband. Here, the protagonist uses the same in a ‘foster’ relationship.

Kuttaa : An affectionate way to call a boy.

Kazhutha-pennu : Donkey-girl.

Kuravaru : Low-caste people.

Maytharu : These days, that is also a politically incorrect way to refer to Muslims, I think.

Beedi : Indian cheroot.

‘Ayyo, Ammava…’ : An anguished cry meaning ‘Oh, Uncle…’

Chetta : It is derived from ‘jeshtan’ meaning elder brother. This mode of reference or endearment is also commonly used by women with older unrelated but affectionate men (wife and husband, too).

PaaRa : Rock.

Village scene : The stereotype of an Indian village is a place with large landowners and nearly landless bonded labourers in abject poverty. Such a stereotype might be truly representing the majority. But, there are also villages where the divide is less between the rich and the poor. Here, in this account, we have one such village. In such villages, it is also not uncommon for the lady of the house to do the daily shopping at the market, especially for fish. Well, it used to be the case during my grandmother’s and mother’s era. I am not too sure if my generation and those that followed enjoy such activity.

Weddings and deaths : The rituals vary a lot depending on the community. For some, it continues for days; for others, it is just a ten minute affair.

Disclaimer : The characters and events described here might bear some resemblance to real ones. It could be a coincidence. Or, it could be as considered to be as false as history; or, as true as a priest’s confession. Blame it on my limited imagination.

Il buono, il brutto, il cattivo : August 6, 2011

Do you understand economics or politics? I don’t. So, help me.

US debt ceiling fiasco: Why did Obama allow the Opposition (the Republicans) to dictate terms? Till a few days back, I did think that they have a mature political system which allows for bipartisan deals. I do not know the finer details of the plan but a deficit reduction plan during a global crisis/recession which asks for cuts in spending without revenue generation via taxes or job creation seems like a stupid plan. The only silver lining for that dark cloud seems to be that the rich might escape taxes but the same might face wealth erosion via tanking stock markets and S&P’s downgrade of US from AAA to AA+. Obama could have used the power of his office to do much more. Why did he choose not to do so? For a layman like me, it seems to be that he has elections in mind, rather than economics. I bet he is going to use some version of “Mommy, those guys made me do it…”

Ref: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/05/opinion/the-wrong-worries.html?_r=1&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

PM and the Lokpal Bill: I am waiting for August 16. Most probably, Anna Hazare (and, hopefully, his supporters, too) will start a fast-unto-death-or-whatever on that day. I will be studying how the story develops or fades in the media. Day one – front page, few columns; day two – front page, one column; day three onwards – inside pages, I suppose…I am not really interested in the views of the political parties. There are three types of political opinions, I think. One, the government (and some other parties with a PM-hopeful) will try to keep the PM out of the Bill (I do not trust this select group of people in the Lokpal with such an easy way to destabilize a government or, at least, an easy way to help the media create confusion and instability; and, I am quite satisfied with the existing ways to go after the PM). Two, there are political parties (who never did anything regarding the Bill when they were in power) that claim that they want the PM to be included in the Bill but they know that the government will not call their bluff. Three, there are political parties who will climb onto some moral high horse knowing that they will never have a PM from their ranks. Have I understood the politics correctly?

Ref: http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/opinion/columns/b-s-raghavan/article2316739.ece

I would love to think more about these topics. But, this weekend, there is a bigger crisis in my life: I have to visit my mother-in-law. I think Oscar Wilde claimed that a man’s failure is that he wants his wife to be like his mother and his wife’s failure is that she turns out to be like her mother. I do not agree and I do think that that is Wilde’s feminine side doing the claiming. The last thing any man wants is for his wife to be like his mother – that is his wife’s assumption about what he wants; he obviously wants much more than that. And thankfully, in my wife’s case, genes mutated sufficiently and she is not like her mother either. I know that I will be fighting with my mother-in-law this weekend. She will poke at my many failures. I have already chosen my mode of attack. She was a Chief-something in the government before retirement. A few months before her retirement, she was sent abroad for training or to study new methods or whatever. Why did the government waste the money on her since she was close to retirement? Why did she accept that wasteful perk? See, I have my questions ready for her. Some guys (like those two-dimensional fools in ZNMD) go to Spain to experience danger via bulls. Some guys (like me) go to their mother-in-law’s house.