Our Favourite Indian Stories (53 page)

Outside her two-roomed Madras house, evening was silently creeping in. She refused to call Madras by its new name - Chennai, just as she refused to call Calcutta
Kolkata
or Bombay,
Mumbai
. What would they re-name next, she wondered with indignation? The moon and sun above each city? The roll of the new names on her tongue felt unfamiliar and, in her routined existence, everything unfamiliar and unexpected was to be shunned. Defiantly, she created her own realities - of an era when love was spoken through the eyes and not through pelvic gyrations she saw on TV nowadays... when truth was an unchangeable value, not a commodity that changed colour, texture and meaning depending on whose hands it was in - a politician's or a policeman's.

The approach of evening always made her heart pound expectantly. She could hear the muted sounds of whispering waves nibbling on the shores of Adyar beach. The evening breeze wafted in the tinkling sounds of bells from the
Ashtalakshmi
temple nearby. On cue, she lit the gleaming ornamental brass oil-lamp in the prayer room. In the flickering lights, the divine faces of her familiar gods glowed back conspiratorially at her.

Today was an important day. The day when her husband Shivaswamy would retire as Construction Engineer from the city's reputed firm. How happy he had been when the age of retirement had been extended to 60! As if he had been granted a new lease of life and would remain king of his kingdom forever. She had smiled to see him so happy. But those two years, like all the others before them had also flown by. And today...

The front door unclicked open. He was back. This time she allowed that irrepressible smile of hers to have its will. She hurried forward to greet him. But this time, the unborn smile was speared back firmly into place by a frown. He seemed unusually disturbed.

Shivaswamy slumped down tiredly into the big brown armchair with its frayed yellow cloth cover and wobbly front leg. He had never found the time to get it repaired - even after she had once, during her pregnancy, fallen right over. Today, he felt truly defeated. Today, he felt truly lost. All these years he had considered his work to be his mainstay, his pride and his identity in life. As if driven by inner ghosts, he had relentlessly nourished his work with his heart and soul, concentrating only on getting his firm a big profit each time. His dedication had turned him into a legend. Stories abounded about how he had continued attending the crucial meeting even after receiving the news that his wife had gone into labour; of how he had stepped into the waiting train to go to the important Conference even after being informed of his son's fracture.

Shivaswamy's climb up the executive ladder had been strewn with numerous obstacles, more than his share of treacheries and the occasional successes. It was the treacheries that had given him unbearable pain. Men he had helped get a professional footing, colleagues he had granted personal favours to—it was their backstabbing that had hurt him immensely. Some had cleanly blanked him out when he had needed their support most. Others had trampled on him to move further ahead.

But hadn't he always known it was a ruthless world out there? Why then was he feeling so cynical? Perhaps because in their own discreetly cruel manner, they had succeeded in making him feel OLD.. Old enough to have outlived his usefulness. Especially today - on his last working day, his heart had ached at their impatience about seeing him out quickly so that they could claim his table, chair and room. Oh yes, there had been a few pretty speeches made but now, confident in the knowledge that he could take no official action against anyone, they had spoken laughingly of his Hitlerian ways and his strangely obsessive workaholic character. Why did he feel a stab in his heart when they greeted the new incumbent - a youngster he had painstakingly groomed but finally given up on, after discovering that he was just a dishonest fast-buck making wheeler-dealer? All the same, he joined in their thunderous applause made in the new man's honour - even smiled when they said he would 'usher in a new era full of much-needed vitality and dynamism which would be a welcome change from the constricted, outdated values the firm had been forced to follow until today.'

Somewhere along the years, he had forgotten that nobody was indispensable. He had forgotten that the new and the glittering always swept away the old and the fading. Yet, why did he not feel retired? Wasn't his mind supposed to have stopped ticking the moment his superannuation orders came? Weren't his fingers expected to forget the way he signed his name with a flourish and rubber-stamped it with a decisive thud the moment the clock struck 5 p. m.? Why did his fingers still itch to ring the call bell to beckon the peon to arrange the files systematically or call out to his colleague for a last-minute advice nobody wanted? The treachery of his body disgusted him. He felt like a high-speed sprinter suddenly forced to confine himself to a wheelchair all his life. Before him stretched the bleak prospect of interminably idle, inactive days. He knew he would never start a 'consultancy'—a front for crumbs of charity - like his other retired colleagues had ventured into and given up after becoming unwanted, shrivelled up, bitter old men.

Parvati watched him silently, as he sipped the steaming hot coffee she handed him, absorbed in his thoughts. With a start she realised he had turned 60 and she, 59! Where had time flown? Was it not only yesterday that she had been a radiant young bride on the brink of life? Had she really once been that sprightly, vivacious young girl who had jumped at the prospect of a job in a reputed Bank? The job had been necessary to tide over the financial constraints they found themselves faced with at the beginning of their marriage. But she had laughingly given it up when their son Kartik and daughter Puja had been born. The pain of that decision had jabbed at her heart but had never escaped her lips.

Since then, she had been sucked into the vortex of family responsibilities, incessantly feeding, clothing, coaxing, cajoling. It was only sometimes, when her husband had been away on tours and the children away at school, and later college, that she had felt her soul light up with a secret fire. Wistfully, she would think of what she could have been had she not let her brains go down the kitchen sink. Like a cool misty monsoon shower, the thought of Vinay would envelop her. Vinay, who decades back had looked deep into her twinkling eyes and had said, 'I can see the rainbow colours of your soul, Paro. These are the colours I want to make mine.' But instantly, with a twinge of guilt at her own disloyal thoughts, she would push the memory away and focus her mind on making the spotless white shirt a shade more spotless and the well scrubbed floor a trifle shinier. She had discovered that there was nothing like routine to keep your mind away from wayward thoughts.

In the ensuing years, she had loved her husband with a fierce loyalty - even though he had been so work-absorbed and so far away emotionally. To her, love was not the heady emotion of youth that depended on the freshness or the tautness of the flesh. It was the serene emotion that remained with you after the youthful fires had been quenched and the roller-coaster hungers of younger days had been dealt with. It was the joy you felt at the familiarity of the morning sounds of your partner's inevitable sneezing (six to start the day!) and the familiar irritation you felt with his neighbourhood-shaking yawns (four to end the day!). It was the concern you felt when his eyes looked puffier (indicating that the blood pressure was higher that morning) and the fear that gripped you when his hands trembled (indicating that Parkinson's could be just a diagnosis away). Even their occasional 'coming together' were affectionate trips across well-travelled terrain. It was this familiar routine which she clutched on lovingly to and supposed was what people called love.

Both her children had been married — Kartik in New York and Puja in California. On their invitation, she had gone to stay with them, to 'play with her grandchildren' - the flesh of her flesh. But to be honest, these spells away from home had saddened her. For she longed to be in her own house with her husband, even if in the rush of everyday living, they found little time for each other. Little time to share the simple joys of life. To express their caring and concern.

If she were really honest with herself, she would have admitted that she had been reduced to a mere cook and housekeeper in her children's home. How could she explain the difference in cooking in her own house and theirs, under the guise of being 'on vacation"? On weekends, ofcourse, they would make an effort to take her along the sea-coast and 'for a spin around town to see the lights' but deep down she knew that they were ashamed to show her to their friends because of 'this peculiar length of cloth you insist on wrapping yourself with' and 'the quaintly accented English you insist on speaking in.' If truth were to be told, she was also upset at their change of names to Ken from Kartik and Patty from Puja.

But it was just not their fault, she always told herself. One had to move with the times. So when her children's letters did not arrive during her illness or his, and when they conveniently forgot their parent's birthdays and anniversary, she always rationalised about how busy they were. Ofcourse they loved their parents, but where was the time? Nowadays everyone was so wrapped up in his own family problems that it was just not possible to care in the old world manner of caring. They were wonderful, loving children, but if anyone was to be blamed, it was these crazy times, certainly not they.

The truth was that at the end of life's journey, it was just you and your partner, if you were lucky to still have him or her by your side. Parvati looked tenderly at hers. Today he looked dreadfully weary. Tremulously, she reached out a furrowed hand and put it gently on his bony shoulder. Their eyes met and she smiled lovingly, the missing side tooth lending the smile a luminous warmth.

Her silent gesture of understanding moved him. He looked at the work-worn, aged hands, stamped with the complicated network of time. Yes, the rigours of housework and the years of penny-pinching had made her age quickly. Would anyone imagine that these hands had once been delicate saplings he had longed to touch? And that face! Why had he never noticed the rivulets of wrinkles that criss-crossed it? Would anyone believe that this was the enchanted golden cup he had once so eagerly caressed and drunk deeply from? With a start he realised that time had tricked them.

'My God! in all these years, we have hardly been together,' he realised with a start.

She had been busy raising their children, getting them married and then raising the grandchildren. And the stark pall of old age had quietly descended on her. As it had on him.

It had been a proud day for them when Kartik had landed himself a job in New York and had asked his mother over, to look after the youngest one for a while. Shivaswamy suspected that Parvati had been really hurt by her daughter-in-law's impatient admonitions during her stay there. No, she had said nothing. But the hurt swam in her big, black expressive eyes. Like directionless lotus flowers in a pond, snapped off their stems.

He felt a great rush of tenderness for her. Though her once plump skin was collapsing on itself and the exciting curves were giving in to the pull of gravity, he was still amazed at how gracefully she had aged. The narrow waist, which he used to cover with loving kisses, now lay hidden beneath layers of flab, but from its mysterious folds she had borne him two wonderful children. Those long legs that once seemed to go on forever, now creaked with arthritis, but had stood by his side solidly through life's upheavals. 'How beautiful she looks,' he thought! This is the woman who had been there for him always. Even now, when others had deserted him. Strong and silent. Always giving. Demanding nothing. Not even his time.

Impulsively, he said, 'Let us walk to the beach.' In the distance, the sun was dipping into the horizon — a red orb of fire. It reminded him of the luminous red sun on his woman's forehead. They stopped awhile, hypnotized by the majestic beauty Nature was unfolding before them. Soon the western horizon would be painted in various hues of orange before surrendering to the spangled freckles of the night sky.

Never before had he philosophised on love. Why was he doing so today on the day of his retirement? There was something about the crispness of sea breeze that made you feel younger, he thought... and, if he dared to give the new emotion words - in love once again. But the love he was feeling now was not the hormone-induced madness of yesteryears. It was the comradeship of questions such as 'Do you remember when... ?' or 'I wonder what happened to... ?' popped at the person by your side who you could trust would dip into the common treasure trove of shared memories and say something long-forgotten or long-loved. Yes, true love was the pure essence of a thousand roses distilled in the receptacle of a lifetime's chaos, anxiety, pain, hope, dream and fulfillment. Nothing dramatic, it was just the sharing of the daily adventures of life. It was this cumulated
ordinariness
of shared events that transformed the concoction into a heady cocktail which could only be termed
extraordinary
. It was the glow of golden memories shared by two ageing bodies.

Standing by the water's edge, she gave in momentarily to the tickling of the waves on her feet and their insistent tug on her
sari
.. Instantly it brought back treasured memories of youth. It was strange how, when youngsters saw an aged couple they dismissed them as 'old geezers' who would not understand what love was all about. Little did they know that love was love in every season, every clime, and every age. Yet each succeeding generation continued to feel that they had exclusive monopoly on it. The truth was that even when the husk became withered, its kernel - the heart never really aged. In America, she had missed his gentle laughter, his familiar smell, the way she could look into his eyes and see the reflection of the desirable woman she once was. Age and Nature merely slowed one down, compelling one to give love another form. Wasn't love the pure music that rose from the depths of one's soul after the body had been spent?