A Slice of Life

The sun burst out from behind a cloud to impart a dazzling gold wash to the world. Catching a silver droplet of rainwater here, for it was still drizzling, and a bit of a clear puddles there – one that reflected a blue patch of sky, it lit up the cascade of parti-coloured raincoats pouring out of the school-gate at the peal of the dismissal bell. The children raced out towards the waiting arm of their parents, their thrilled exclamations drowning out the quieter tones of parental conversations. The wet red soil adhered to their tiny shoes in affectionate embraces. The universal glee at their liberation from the civilizing process outshone even the sun in its radiance.

“Rajesh Krishna Mathur ”, the label of his satchel announce - a heavy baggage of pompous genealogy resting on his slim shoulders - a complex tale that his grandfather loved to trace out now that he had retired, a family of landlords, doctors, shoe-shines, soda-water-bottle-wallahs and what not…To the boy himself, he was little Raju, period. What he would tell you at this moment was that he was anxious to get to the ice-cream that waited cold and delicious in the fridge back home – the companion of his daydreams through the miserable hours of academic confinement. But first to find his mother amid the mass of parents waiting outside school…

But it was Lalita Auntie, the voluminous mass of paan-chewing, high decibel rotundity from next door who found him and said that she would take him home. Raju was mortally afraid of this Auntie. She was reputed to be the Nemesis of naughty children who did not finish their food (the creation of elders desperate to get gobs of nutrition down the gullet of the hyper-active child who would not sit at a table for even two minutes otherwise. He followed her, half-dragged along by the long-striding lady, past the rain-washed wall, which was promptly given the compliment of a paan stain by the continuously masticating mouth.

AS they passed the bazaar on the way home, Lalita Auntie turned around, and led Raju down a little dank alley that he had never entered before. Lining the alley on either side, Raju noticed small shops selling meat, fish and eggs – items whose entry was forbidden in the Mathur household menu by religious custom. Lalita Auntie meanwhile was planning the evening’s meal.

The entered a shop lit by a couple of yellow bulbs even though it was daytime. Little light reached the narrow alleyway. The shop had no counter. On the floor was a seat fashioned out of egg-crates tied together. On it sat a man with a big paunch, little beady eyes and a big calculator. His assistant sat behind a large curving blade of gleaming polished steel, the only bright thing in the room. There was a bucket of water to his side and discarded entrails and dirty feathers littering the floor about him.

A balance hung down between the two, chained from one of the rafters of the asbestos roof. Behind them was a low, open-topped enclosure where an indistinguishable mass of feathery creatures with red tufts moved about. A rusty signboard proclaimed: “CHICKEN SOP” Rate: Whole 50/kg. Part: 70/kg. A cash-box with a radio playing loud film music from on top of it, and a little hanging shrine with artificial incense sticks that could not mask the odour completed the spartan interiors of the shop.

As he turned the volume of his radio set down, yawning widely, Lalita Auntie confronted the pot-bellied man. “Give me half-a-kilo of the best chicken that you have!” she commanded. The assistant dived energetically among the birds, scattering them everyway and emerged victorious out of the melee with feathers on this head and a specimen of the appropriate size held upside down by its legs. The bird flapped its wings, cackling furiously and scattering feathers everywhere. It made Raju sneeze.

The assistant, little more than a boy himself, grinned back at him, revealing his missing teeth. Raju remembered repeated injunctions to refrain from eating too many chocolates which would make his teeth decay and fall off. Out of childish curiosity he asked, “What happened to your teeth? Did you have too many chocolates?” “No such luck. I can’t afford to have chocolates. I lost my teeth in a scuffle in the market,” the boy replied, casually severing the chicken’s head in a swift, smooth move. The head was thrown to one side, shrieking mechanically, but voicelessly. The rest of the body flapped about violently spurting blood a few feet away for a moment or two before giving up the meaningless fight. Within a few seconds the red crested head too accepted the irreversible partition and calmed down. A yellowish filmy eyelid descended over the unseeing eye. There it lay, absolutely still, with a few flecks of red blood on pristine white feathers, matching with the useless showy comb. It had been a pretty creature.

Meanwhile the body had been swiftly skinned and the strong legs cut off with two powerful thrusts. The intestines lay upon the floor streaming in the winter chill, coiling upon themselves in glistening loops, still quite unaware that they were dead. While Lalita Auntie babbled on animatedly with the shopkeeper, trying to secure a discount, Raju looked on, quite dumbstruck.

The chicken was weighed and cut into pieces. The boy then slit the head down the middle of the bony beak and gouged out the eyes with practised ease. “Nowadays we can even sell the waste we generate,” said the shopkeeper in an evidently self-congratulatory mood, “Legs for some kind of folk-medicine, the feathers for stuffing and the intestines for God-knows what!” This led to an argument between Lalita Auntie and the shop-owner over whether he was charging her for those items that her intended to sell again. She managed to secure a whole liver instead of half of it as a special bargain with her purchase. Finally the payment was made and peace reigned in the alley again.

Lalita Auntie leading Rau out of the shadows, a triumphant smile on the lips, her dinner now provided for, suddenly stopped in her tracks. She remembered that Raju’s family was vegetarian, and bit her tongue. In panic she warned Raju not to mention this little incident to anyone. She shouldn’t have worried. Raju’s secret fear of this Auntie had only been compounded by this experience. And there she stood grabbing his hand in a tight clasp, while he longed to get away. He did not even ask his instinctive question, “Why?”

The next morning, when she was waking him up, Raju’s mother noticed that he had wet his bed. “Damn!” she exclaimed, and yelled for the ayah.

# posted by Shubhomoy Mukherjee @ 9:32 PM 0 comments

I sit staring at the gyrating figures on the TV screen: one of the thousands of countdown shows on one of the hundreds of satellite channels. As children, we used to wait all week for the Wednesday night Chitrahar on Doordarshan. Makes no sense now. The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence, I suppose. The fence is electrified now. I’d not cross over into a dictatorial regime for anything. I’m happier in the chaos of a decadent, vibrant democracy — India.

Happy? I suppose I should be. Rosy got married two years ago. Settling down, she said. Good girl. Still makes those Sunday morning phone calls, at least. I like my daughter more nowadays, I wonder why.... She’s quite well. She has news. “Good’’ news. I hold my breath, dutifully expectant. She’s being promoted. “Oh! I see,” say I. “Aren’t you pleased, Ma?” I try to infuse some enthusiasm into my “Congratulations.” Rosy knows me too well to be deceived. “You know, Ma, I simply cannot have a baby now. You know how obsessed we are with our careers. We’ll never do justice to the child.” Her husband works from home. “Creative adviser” for something or the other. “Earns well enough,” Rosy had said evasively. I’ve learnt to be tactful, I didn’t press the point.

Rahul. My son. Computer engineer, on the H1B visa, one of the huge crowd of Indians populating the Silicon Valley. Apparently, the Indians there are a cohesive lot and the first couple of years there were a dream ride. But “All good things must come to an end,” as we would say at the end of numerous programmes in school, during the Vote of Thanks speeches. Bank balance down to rock bottom, Rahul had finally found another job. Was that a month ago? What does time matter to me? He’ll not come home for a year. Or more, probably more. Rahul had left that unsaid. The boy who used to confide in me about everything, even his love life. I’ve lost him to his job. Soon I’ll lose him to his wife. American or Chinese? The United States — the melting pot of civilisation. “All lines to the route dialled are busy. Please dial after some time.” Either that, or the answering machine. That’s what I always get. And I can’t make any sense of their time zones. I shouldn’t have been elated at the news of his imminent deportation. Am I turning into a silly old woman?

Is fifty-two old age? Physically, nothing. Except a touch of asthma — a companion throughout my life. Never was able to exert myself, in exercise or otherwise. Not many wrinkles either. Shahnaz Hussain takes good care of our skins. Despite the outré outfits and elaborate make-up. Why is the rocking chair creaking nowadays? Carrying too much weight? Mine? The chair must be growing old, like me. Old? Its older than I am, by a couple of centuries. The antique shops on Russell Street are on the verge of shutting down. No patrons. Unfortunate.

Hubby must be on his way home “hurling down the tunnel at eighty kilometres an hour to emerge into the dazzling sunshine from the bowels of the earth.” He picked it up from Virginia Woolf, I suppose. I simply fail to understand or appreciate his childhood fascination for trains. “When there’s a Mercedes-Benz on your driveway....” “That’s for your pleasure, darling,” he replies breezily. Darling! Bah!

He wants to go into the push and shove of the office-hour crowd. Still, the Metro is a lot better than those green tin boxes in Mumbai with people spilling out of them like wheat from the torn side of an overfilled jute bag. Lucky, we don’t ever have to use the suburban trains here. Pooling of resources. Energy efficiency of electric transport, depletion of fossil fuels.... How men can talk! The silliest thing was him standing at the doorway of the August Kranti Rajdhani Express and getting heat stroke, with air-conditioned comfort just a couple of steps away. Delhi at the end of May. Scalding hot. But, that’s good for the monsoons, the Geography professor used to say.

The bathroom tap has been dripping for hours now. Might as well get up and twist it shut. No Ramu to do it for me, today. “Little drops of water/ little grains of sand/ make the mighty ocean/ or the sunny land.” The nursery-school students from across the street with their lessons. Why are they so quiet today? Holiday? Must be a Thursday, then. Even the children need a five-day week these days. I love sitting in the sun, mildly warm in winter, munching soft green peas and crispy puffed rice. “...that hoard and feed and sleep and know not me.” I eat, I feed, I sleep. Am I turning into a vegetable? No, I’ve got my library for intellectual stimulation. The little cozy library I always wanted to have. The idiot box to fill my days too... the idiotic couch potato... that’s me....

That silly dream again ! Must have fallen asleep. The giant crab always attacks my side of the bed, never his, those pincers breaking my limbs, my bones cracking like potato chips. It turns into a mermaid sometimes. “An external objectification of latent marital insecurity. Is there another woman in his life?” What if there is? Why should I tell the psychiatrist? Maybe it’s her.

I can smell the rogan-josh cooking in the kitchen. But he’ll never notice it anyway. I know it. Maybe it is he who should go to the psychiatrist. I had been mentally, physically, emotionally prepared. Cold-blooded suicide. Ever heard of such a thing? And then that shabby worker jumped before the incoming train, spoiling all the fun. I’d not jump after him for anything. To be in the headline news with a bald worker? Not me! If I’m that desperate again some day... My God! People would have thought I was in love with him!

I’ll not pick up the phone. Graham Bell! May all the world’s phones ring in your grave. Especially the musical mobile phones. Vibration mode. May they tickle your wits out of you in that confined space. “Father, must I stay?” says the boy, standing on the burning deck. Must I go? Go I must. And pick up the phone. Can’t stand the noise.

Kya? Kab? When did this happen. How did he fall? Oh! ICU? Yes. Blood group B-positive. Yes, I’ll ring up his brother. He’s got the same.... No, he’s in Dubai. Send the driver to check all the blood banks.... HIV-screened, at any price.... Give me five minutes, I’ll be there. No, I’ll take a bus. Damn his blue blood! Get hold of Ramu, he’s got the same blood group. This is not the time for all that.

Must rush… He’s still my husband, after all....What will people say otherwise?

# posted by Shubhomoy Mukherjee @ 7:52 PM 0 comments

The middle aged gentleman hurrying home briefcase-in-hand slows down to rummage for his handkerchief. He finds a sweat soaked ball of cloth that was gleaming white in the morning thanks to the ministrations of his wife of 18 years. Now a discoloured, shapeless mass…he uses it to mop his forehead which extends to his receding hairline. Slyly, he throws a longing glance at a flash of white cloth that had caught his eye.

The lights from shops across the street define her printed white kurta against a dark alleyway behind her. His critical eye for detail savours the image as he moves away muttering to himself in self-reproach: “I must write to the newspapers against them.”

He has been saying the same thing over and over again for many years now. The adolescent disappointment of being unable to perform in front of the prostitute is a memory that lingers bitterly on. He had been disgusted by that narrow, creaking bed, the stench, and the semi- darkness relieved by a red, low-wattage electric lamp. But most of all it was a fear of getting caught that troubled him. It was a failure that he had tried to hide from himself, unsuccessfully, for a lifetime.

They sit there every evening – unseeing, unfeeling, chewing paan. They look around with vacant eyes, or squabble raucously amongst themselves, the red betel juice occasionally squirting through missing or malformed teeth. Sitting on wickerwork chairs, careful to expose some breast, they hitch up their saris, and spread their legs apart inviting a peek into the cellulite laden dark mysteries beyond.

Ever present, their bastard children play about in the dust at their feet or beat each other with worn out slippers. Their mothers quarrel for carefully selected vantage points on the days that the drains are not overflowing and ruining their business.

A rabid dog snatches away a morsel from a shy, self-conscious painted face in the white kurta. She is young and new to the ways of the trade. A man across the street throws a couple of wary glances about himself and swiftly walks over, dodging the evening rush-hour traffic that jerks forward in fits and starts.

The fat bespectacled lady takes him into the gloomy passageway that leads to the dimly lit dingy rooms with the semen stained cots. The negotiations begin. She is a wily bargainer, having grown old pimping in the world’s oldest profession. She offers a “festival discount” to the regular, to clinch the deal.

The currency is swiftly counted, and the girl in white sent in. The customer has asked for her by name. She commands a premium price. The evening’s business is off to a start. Diwali lights twinkle in the gathering dusk all over the city. One of the bastard children sets off a volley of firecrackers.

As she moves down the one-man-wide alleyway, she cannot help being jostled by the customer who grabs her tiny frame in drunken delight! “Just another day,” she thinks at this exchange of pleasantries. “It will soon be over.”

At all of fourteen years, could she have anything to look forward to at the coming of the new day? Perhaps, an escape to starvation? Or suicide for attempting which the state would prosecute her, if she failed? Only, she would not fail.

Of the people, for the people, by the people…

# posted by Shubhomoy Mukherjee @ 5:41 PM 0 comments

The street was deserted, the city – silent. Man, bird, beast and Nature drowsed waiting for the mid-afternoon to recede. We were normally garrulous, but today’s defeat at the football match had crushed our spirit. We vented our frustration on the can…kicking it aimlessly along as we went. “I wish I had some chilled H₂O,” I said to Sumit, trying to show off my recently acquired knowledge of Chemistry. “It is Hydrogen Hydroxide HOH actually,” he corrected me.

The shadow passed over us at just that moment. It covered the whole width of the street. We looked up, surprised by the whoosh of wind over our head. It was fast, and silent in its effortless glide. It scattered a couple of industrious sparrows that were pecking about in among the cobblestones of the mandi for grains. The wings spread out must have spanned five feet or more! It was going too fast to land on the street. Yet the trailing edges wings turned to, braking it gently and effectively. A swerve to the left, a flap or two of the massive wings – and it was up and away.

We were transfixed upon the majestic form – marvelling at it unhurried flight. The helpless prey was trapped in its talons…dripping blood! But somehow it fell out of the grasp of the bird…onto the road before us with a plop. We came onto the splattered remains of what had once been a rat. It had lain bloated and stinking in the overflowing drain water for days…The carcass had simply disintegrated, leaving a piece of rotten flesh in the grip of the surprised bird.

The Moral: FAILURE, however crushing, is Never FINAL!

# posted by Shubhomoy Mukherjee @ 3:23 PM 0 comments