MASK
Nothing is more ominous than a phone ring at odd hours.
It is at around 5:30 in the morning when my cell rings.
Back home my son has had a bike accident. He has head injury, is critical- in fact, he is dying.
The earliest train from here to my place is at 7. I have some one and a half hour to manage things – including coming to myself.
Mine is a transferable job. However, the family cannot be on a move forever. Another eleven years to go, before my retirement. Till then weekly commuting is the only alternative.
These days XI an XII students are the most stressed species. My boy, as usual, starts off at quarter to five for his tuition classes. You know how dark and foggy January mornings are. You also know how these young boys are with their bikes: Tarzans astride technology. I actually never wanted the boy to have a bike before he was 18.
It’s a five-hour journey from here to back home. I don’t know what to do with time: an abyss ahead of me. I as well don’t know what lies beyond the abyss.
I look at my watch every now and then; it’s hardly a quarter even after what i perceive to be one full hour.
Head injuries are plain bad. The end could be instantaneous, as it was with one of my colleagues last month; it could be a painfully prolonged one.
The man goes for his usual evening walk. Boys play cricket on the adjacent ground. Comes a ball, full shot, and hits the man in front of his right ear. The ball and the man both fall to the ground simultaneously; the ball bounces twice or thrice before it settles; the man is already dead.
I think he was a lucky guy. More often than not, death hovers for days and months before it strikes. It tortures with anticipation and uncertainty. Helplessly you watch, as someone lies in the bed, comatose and senseless, breathing in convulsive bouts and gasps. An occasional involuntary flicker teases you with the hopelessness of your hopes. Bedsores gnaw away the defenseless body, and the sickening odor keeps you away from your beloved one. And then, you actually pray Death to bless the poor soul.
Luck is such a relative term. What would happen to my son?
I glance at the watch again; it’s just twenty five minutes more.
Would that i overcome all time and space, and be beside the dying boy!
But why do i assume him dying?
Don’t cases ever recover from head injuries?
The train is pretty crowded. Everyone talks, shouts, yell good-byes, gives instructions, quarrels for a seat, and the result is irritating cacophony.
I am happy, no one here knows me: an unknown crowd is the best shroud a man may have.
Each one flounders through his or her loneliness by being garrulous and by seeking company. It’s New Year time, and the greetings come handy to break the ice. But what will break the ice that freezes the mind of the bereaved?
“What bereavement do you talk of?” I scold myself. My boy is not dead yet. No message, no call has come to me yet confirming the worse.
Someone tries to drag me in the talk.
“Any problem?” he asks kindly.
I put on a mask of indifference. I don’t believe that sharing makes your pain lighter; it makes it cheaper. People listen for a while, sympathize, and them philosophize. Your burden becomes a story, and then fodder for gossip.
Hawkers come to me, trying to sell their wares. I have had nothing since morning, nor i feel like having anything; hunger is dead.
Beggars come to me; some sing, others display their repulsive selves; they arouse neither pity nor disgust in my mind blunted by pain.
Eunuchs come close to me, clap aggressively in my face, call my attention, touch me; I can never look at eunuchs in their eyes.
Little boys in soiled rags beg to polish my shoes. I look the other side.
Then comes yet another boy, about ten, equally miserable, and silently sweeps the compartment clean. I take out a note – don’t know what - from my pocket and thrust it in his tiny, dirty, calloused hand. Now it is real hard to control myself. I choke with emotion – for the first time since that call in the morning. I am afraid lest i give way, hold the little child tight to my bosom, and shower him with tears.
It has been years since i held my son close. I don’t know when and how an impenetrable wall materialized between the two of us. Perhaps I was always away from the family, when the boy needed me most. Whence did this unspoken hostility creep in between us? He did anything and everything just to spite me. He did not eat, did not attend classes, did not eat - till I got him that cursed bike. I know he never loved me; he was afraid of me, and hence, defied me. Was i a failure as a parent?
-But why do i talk about him in past tense, as if..?
Yet three hours to go.
I doze off from mental exhaustion.
The train comes to halt with a jerk. I wake up with a start. Oh no! another two hours to go.
It’s a major junction. Many get down, more rush in. Enter a large family, all jubilant and cheerful, perhaps they are back from some pilgrimage, and only too happy to share their joy. So contagious is their ecstasy, that for a moment i forget my grief, and am happy to partake of the prasada. I am none of the religious sort, but a trace of consolation does touch my troubled mind. I smile at the subtle play of emotions that goes to make the human mind.
“Never accept edibles from strangers!” my wife – the kind and caring lady - would admonish. I am taken aback to think how self-absorbed i had been, not to have thought of her even once. Shit!
What would she be doing? How did she manage things? The road must have been lonely at that hour. Maybe, someone noticed the boy lying on the road, cared to take him to the hospital, find the id-card, and call home. Possibly, a lot of precious was already lost. What happened to her when the blow came? Perhaps the first thing she did was to call me? How badly she must have missed me? But how come she didn’t call me after that even once?
And it struck me that there were indeed several calls on my cell from unknown numbers. Was it she who tried to get me desperately? She doesn’t have a cell of her own; she must have tried to contact me from the public booth or something; and i was too absorbed in myself to respond to any unknown number.
Do i call back to one of those numbers? How is that going to help now, after so many hours? No, i don’t dare to call anyone; i must admit i am a timid fellow.
And now it is hours since the phone rang last. What could this mean?
Anyways, now it’s only a few minutes before i reach home.
Do i go to the hospital? – and, what do i ask?
Do i go straight home? – and what do i say?
Suddenly there is a sinking feeling in my stomach. Until now i was impatient how sluggishly time crept; now i am scared how fast it carries me to the doom.
How do i face whatever meets me?
Worse, how do i face my wife?
I know, reality, when it does come, is never as difficult to face, as we imagine it to be.
I also know it’s the imagination, and not the situation that kills you.
But we are wise only by proxy, aren’t we?
Maybe, things are better now – or, at least, stable?
The slender string of hope - we hang on to it, and it hangs us by the neck.
The train enters the station.
It slows down.
I let the crowd get down.
I want to stretch the moment as far as possible.
I get down only when i cannot help it further.
The phone rings.
I let the ring die.
I switch off the phone.
I put up a brave face and summon a rickshaw.
Every minute, the rickshaw carries me closer to the ordeal.
I am already sobbing behind the brave mask.
Nothing is more ominous than a phone ring at odd hours.
It is at around 5:30 in the morning when my cell rings.
Back home my son has had a bike accident. He has head injury, is critical- in fact, he is dying.
The earliest train from here to my place is at 7. I have some one and a half hour to manage things – including coming to myself.
Mine is a transferable job. However, the family cannot be on a move forever. Another eleven years to go, before my retirement. Till then weekly commuting is the only alternative.
These days XI an XII students are the most stressed species. My boy, as usual, starts off at quarter to five for his tuition classes. You know how dark and foggy January mornings are. You also know how these young boys are with their bikes: Tarzans astride technology. I actually never wanted the boy to have a bike before he was 18.
It’s a five-hour journey from here to back home. I don’t know what to do with time: an abyss ahead of me. I as well don’t know what lies beyond the abyss.
I look at my watch every now and then; it’s hardly a quarter even after what i perceive to be one full hour.
Head injuries are plain bad. The end could be instantaneous, as it was with one of my colleagues last month; it could be a painfully prolonged one.
The man goes for his usual evening walk. Boys play cricket on the adjacent ground. Comes a ball, full shot, and hits the man in front of his right ear. The ball and the man both fall to the ground simultaneously; the ball bounces twice or thrice before it settles; the man is already dead.
I think he was a lucky guy. More often than not, death hovers for days and months before it strikes. It tortures with anticipation and uncertainty. Helplessly you watch, as someone lies in the bed, comatose and senseless, breathing in convulsive bouts and gasps. An occasional involuntary flicker teases you with the hopelessness of your hopes. Bedsores gnaw away the defenseless body, and the sickening odor keeps you away from your beloved one. And then, you actually pray Death to bless the poor soul.
Luck is such a relative term. What would happen to my son?
I glance at the watch again; it’s just twenty five minutes more.
Would that i overcome all time and space, and be beside the dying boy!
But why do i assume him dying?
Don’t cases ever recover from head injuries?
The train is pretty crowded. Everyone talks, shouts, yell good-byes, gives instructions, quarrels for a seat, and the result is irritating cacophony.
I am happy, no one here knows me: an unknown crowd is the best shroud a man may have.
Each one flounders through his or her loneliness by being garrulous and by seeking company. It’s New Year time, and the greetings come handy to break the ice. But what will break the ice that freezes the mind of the bereaved?
“What bereavement do you talk of?” I scold myself. My boy is not dead yet. No message, no call has come to me yet confirming the worse.
Someone tries to drag me in the talk.
“Any problem?” he asks kindly.
I put on a mask of indifference. I don’t believe that sharing makes your pain lighter; it makes it cheaper. People listen for a while, sympathize, and them philosophize. Your burden becomes a story, and then fodder for gossip.
Hawkers come to me, trying to sell their wares. I have had nothing since morning, nor i feel like having anything; hunger is dead.
Beggars come to me; some sing, others display their repulsive selves; they arouse neither pity nor disgust in my mind blunted by pain.
Eunuchs come close to me, clap aggressively in my face, call my attention, touch me; I can never look at eunuchs in their eyes.
Little boys in soiled rags beg to polish my shoes. I look the other side.
Then comes yet another boy, about ten, equally miserable, and silently sweeps the compartment clean. I take out a note – don’t know what - from my pocket and thrust it in his tiny, dirty, calloused hand. Now it is real hard to control myself. I choke with emotion – for the first time since that call in the morning. I am afraid lest i give way, hold the little child tight to my bosom, and shower him with tears.
It has been years since i held my son close. I don’t know when and how an impenetrable wall materialized between the two of us. Perhaps I was always away from the family, when the boy needed me most. Whence did this unspoken hostility creep in between us? He did anything and everything just to spite me. He did not eat, did not attend classes, did not eat - till I got him that cursed bike. I know he never loved me; he was afraid of me, and hence, defied me. Was i a failure as a parent?
-But why do i talk about him in past tense, as if..?
Yet three hours to go.
I doze off from mental exhaustion.
The train comes to halt with a jerk. I wake up with a start. Oh no! another two hours to go.
It’s a major junction. Many get down, more rush in. Enter a large family, all jubilant and cheerful, perhaps they are back from some pilgrimage, and only too happy to share their joy. So contagious is their ecstasy, that for a moment i forget my grief, and am happy to partake of the prasada. I am none of the religious sort, but a trace of consolation does touch my troubled mind. I smile at the subtle play of emotions that goes to make the human mind.
“Never accept edibles from strangers!” my wife – the kind and caring lady - would admonish. I am taken aback to think how self-absorbed i had been, not to have thought of her even once. Shit!
What would she be doing? How did she manage things? The road must have been lonely at that hour. Maybe, someone noticed the boy lying on the road, cared to take him to the hospital, find the id-card, and call home. Possibly, a lot of precious was already lost. What happened to her when the blow came? Perhaps the first thing she did was to call me? How badly she must have missed me? But how come she didn’t call me after that even once?
And it struck me that there were indeed several calls on my cell from unknown numbers. Was it she who tried to get me desperately? She doesn’t have a cell of her own; she must have tried to contact me from the public booth or something; and i was too absorbed in myself to respond to any unknown number.
Do i call back to one of those numbers? How is that going to help now, after so many hours? No, i don’t dare to call anyone; i must admit i am a timid fellow.
And now it is hours since the phone rang last. What could this mean?
Anyways, now it’s only a few minutes before i reach home.
Do i go to the hospital? – and, what do i ask?
Do i go straight home? – and what do i say?
Suddenly there is a sinking feeling in my stomach. Until now i was impatient how sluggishly time crept; now i am scared how fast it carries me to the doom.
How do i face whatever meets me?
Worse, how do i face my wife?
I know, reality, when it does come, is never as difficult to face, as we imagine it to be.
I also know it’s the imagination, and not the situation that kills you.
But we are wise only by proxy, aren’t we?
Maybe, things are better now – or, at least, stable?
The slender string of hope - we hang on to it, and it hangs us by the neck.
The train enters the station.
It slows down.
I let the crowd get down.
I want to stretch the moment as far as possible.
I get down only when i cannot help it further.
The phone rings.
I let the ring die.
I switch off the phone.
I put up a brave face and summon a rickshaw.
Every minute, the rickshaw carries me closer to the ordeal.
I am already sobbing behind the brave mask.
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