Ranjit Kulkarni's Blog, page 31

Aryan

This story “Aryan” was published by Ariel Chart International Literary Journal in their May 2021 issue. Ariel Chart is a journal of short fiction and poetry read in 59 countries. You can also read “Aryan” on their site at this link here.

The boy shivered on my sofa when he heard it. I was relieved. It was time for him to go.

His mother had called him for lunch. “Aryan, Aryan,” she howled repeatedly.

“Bye,” he said and ran downstairs to his house. 

Aryan came to my house around 11 AM the next day. This had become a daily routine now.

“I had my bath and breakfast early today,” he said.

He pushed me aside and sat on the sofa. I closed the door tweaking my lips at another morning of unsolicited childcare. He rang the doorbell four days back for the first time. I don’t know why. I didn’t know him, and he didn’t know me. He just rang the bell and barged in with a smile. I don’t know why and what it was, but I couldn’t tell him not to disturb me. Then he kept coming every day.

Not that I had much to be disturbed about. I had left my job a few months back and was trying a few things working for myself. The pandemic had confined me to my home, and some company, albeit of a 10-year-old boy, wasn’t all that bad. He probably realised it and so, kept coming.

 “Some tea or coffee for you?” I asked him from the kitchen, thinking of having a late breakfast.

“You don’t have any juices?” he asked opening my fridge and checking. “Lots of beer, eh?” he smiled and picked up a can.

“That’s not for you,” I instantly pulled it from his hand and kept it back.

“I know, I know,” the smart-ass replied. “Get apple juice next time,” he said and banged the fridge door closed.

“Slow, buddy, it costs money,” I warned him. He twisted his mouth and said, “Whatever.”

“What’s the latest you have seen on Netflix?” he asked, switching on the TV in the living room.

“Don’t you have school, buddy?” I asked him.

“Online classes,” he replied. “I am in class. At home,” he added with a wink.

I rolled my eyes and wondered if his parents knew about it.

“Don’t judge me, they know,” he said instantly, as if reading my mind.

Here was one smart boy, I thought. I got my breakfast and gave him some snacks from the cabinet.

“You live alone?” he asked. I thought of nodding but didn’t reply. “No girlfriends?” he persisted. I turned my face away and focused on my food. He found something else to turn his attention to.

“You can remove your mask if you want; if you want to eat those snacks,” I told him. “You are at home and I am sitting at a distance.”

He tightened his mask with his hands and said, “I don’t want to eat. I had my breakfast.” Then he looked at me and added, “Masks are good.”

I shrugged my shoulders. “Of course, they are good. I thought just in case.”

He sat silently watching me eat for a few minutes. He fiddled with the newspaper and magazines. He switched off the TV. In the silence, we heard a sound of vessels falling from downstairs.

“How many times should I tell you not to make noise?” we heard a man’s voice. “I am in a meeting.”

“Are you the only one who is busy? As if I have no work!” a woman shouted back.

“Will you please shut up now?” the man howled back.

“No, my voice is like that. And this is my house, not your office,” the woman yelled.

There was a loud bang of a door shutting close after that. Some muffled voices continued.

“There they go again,” Aryan smiled at me. “Today, they started early in the day.”

I shifted in my seat with slight unease and continued eating my breakfast.

“Do you want something to read?” I asked him. He shook his head.

“You don’t have office?” he asked. I pointed him to my desk in the room inside.

He went in the room, closer to my MacBook. He examined the various books on the desk. There was a guitar next to it. A bicycle. Sports shoes near the wheel. Some photographs of the Himalayas.

“That’s your office?” he asked, and I nodded. “What do you do?” he wondered.

“Many things,” I replied. “I have a travel company, I trek, I write, I do some music, among other things,” I said.

He had a frown on his face. He stared at me. “Is that a job?” he asked. “No one travels in the pandemic,” he remarked. “I don’t think you have a job.”

I didn’t have an answer for him. I didn’t want to answer. Before he could get any further on my nerves, I pushed him outside the room. “Ok, my office will start now. You sit outside,” I said.

But after about thirty minutes, I couldn’t let him sit alone in the living room. So I stepped outside.

The boy had dozed off on the sofa. “Hey Aryan, why are you sleeping in the day?” I asked but he did not respond. I let him sleep and carried on with my work.

At least I was spared of looking after him for a while, I thought. I completed a few more calls and wrote a couple of pages. When I came out, I found him awake.

“You had a good nap?” I asked.

He looked at me surprised, and said, “No, I wasn’t sleeping.”

“Didn’t you have a good night’s sleep?” I persisted.

“No, umm… I mean Yes. I wasn’t sleeping. I was studying,” he insisted.

He gave me an impish smile. I let it be and asked him if he wanted anything to play.

“No, I have this,” he replied, showing me his Rubik’s cube.

“You like that?” I asked him. Before he could reply, we heard some loud voices again.

“Where is Aryan?” I heard a man’s voice demanding.

“Isn’t he your son? Or is your job only to attend meetings?” the woman shouted back.

“I ask a simple question, and you start a fight,” the man yelled. “There’s no point talking to you.”

“In any case, you don’t talk to me,” the woman said. “Go talk to your boss, she must be waiting.”

“What is this nonsense?” the man shouted.

Again I heard a door banging close. Aryan looked at me and shrugged his shoulders.

“Does this happen every day?” I asked him this time after some silent moments, with my mouth crunched and one eyebrow raised this time.

“Well…umm..,” he replied, tweaking his mouth. “I think I should go back,” he looked away.

“No, you can stay a bit longer, if you want,” I reassured him. It was almost lunch time. “You can have lunch with me. I can order something you like,” I told him.

I thought that will make him feel better. And make me feel better too.

“I can’t have food outside,” he replied.

Before I could say anything further, a loud sound interrupted us. “Aryan, Aryan,” we heard his mother’s voice. It was more like she was howling for him. I wasn’t sure she knew where he was. She seemed like yelling in all directions. “Aryan, come home for lunch,” I heard a few times.

“I think I should head back,” he said. I nodded, saying, “Take care.”

“Do you have some water?” he asked. I went into the kitchen to get him a glass of water.

He removed his mask and had his fill. That’s when I noticed that his cheeks were red with a recent injury. I noticed a swollen cheek bone. He had a slight cut over his lips as well.

“What’s that? Did you get hurt while playing?” I asked him.

He fumbled with the glass in his hand on hearing my question and wore his mask again in a hurry.

“No,.. err.. what? ..umm.. no,” he said.

“Then what happened?” I asked.

“I fell in the bathroom,” he answered, and added, “today morning,” winking at me as he left.

I waited for the doorbell to ring the next morning, but it didn’t.

***

What if to What is

“Just this one increment and bonus that I am expecting in the next two months, and I am done with this Raichand. I think it is time for me to leave this job,” Swami declared and munched his muffin with gusto the other day.

Jigneshbhai and I noticed that his bites got aggressive every second as he saw his dream scenario unfolding in his head.

“So you have decided?” Jigneshbhai asked.

Swami looked up with a scowl. He doesn’t like such direct questions, especially when it comes to Raichand and his job.

“Am I speaking in a language other than English?” he yelped.

Jigneshbhai gulped a couple of sips slowly from his coffee. While it was hot, it wasn’t as hot as Swami today.

“No, of course. I understood what you spoke. I just rechecked,” Jigneshbhai replied.

“Rechecked what?” Swami howled.

“Well, that you are not in what-if land,” Jigneshbhai muttered in a cheeky tone.

Swami and I both wondered what he was talking about.

“What land?” Swami interjected before I could rack my brains on it any further. He was in a hurry.

“What-if land,” Jigneshbhai replied.

“Where is that? Or is it something you made up?” Swami asked.

“Oh! We live there most of the time,” Jigneshbhai affirmed.

“Where’s that? I live here,” Swami quizzed Jigneshbhai.

“Well, you know. That’s what we feel. But we aren’t here,” Jigneshbhai replied. Swami and I gave him a weird look to check what our friend had been drinking.

“Don’t worry, I am fine,” he declared when he saw our stare.

“Then what nonsense are you blabbering? What-if land, it seems?” Swami wasn’t going to take anything lying down.

“What if I get my next increment? What if I don’t get my bonus? What if I leave my job? What if I stay? The land of those thoughts. I call it What-if land,” Jigneshbhai repeated.

“Don’t make fun of me,” Swami warned. “These are serious questions. I have thought about it,” he added.

“Indeed they are. But they are imaginary,” Jigneshbhai insisted.

“Imaginary? How? I have to think about what if I leave my job? I have to think what if I can’t pay my bills and what if I don’t get another one. And what if my…, ” Swami rattled one situation after another.

“What-if land,” Jigneshbhai said again and focused his attention on his coffee. “Only in the mind. Did you get any answers?”

Swami wasn’t convinced. He wasn’t in the mood to get convinced. He was fully on the trip of what-if land as Jigneshbhai said.

“I have thought about the answers. But it is real. The worry is real. How can you say it is only in the mind?” Swami countered.

“Of course, it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?” Jigneshbhai asked.

 “What-if land is unreal. But the emotions it creates are real,” he added. I checked if he had grown a beard like Dumbledore.

He continued getting back to his coffee and muffin every time.

“So then what is real?” Swami asked in despair.

“This coffee and muffin is What-is land. It’s real,” Jigneshbhai replied.

Swami and I pondered over it. That is when we saw that the wealthy old man walked over to our table. He seemed to be in a serious mood today.

He left us with more food for thought when he said, “It can be a long journey. From What-if land to What-is land. It can also be a journey that never begins.”

***

Flying Colours

The one thing Jigneshbhai likes is a quiet life. He is not the kind who gets restless and worked up when there is not much happening. Give Jigneshbhai his daily freedom, his daily work and his daily food, and the company of a few loved ones and friends to talk with, not all the time but off and on, and he will be happy for days on end.

So, when he called me with a lot of trepidation, which is rare for a person like Jigneshbhai, and said, “tomorrow we meet at Swami’s house”, I couldn’t stop myself from asking him what the matter was.

“Swami needs to be home as he is getting his house painted,” he replied, sounding rather colourless for a generally cheerful man.

Painting can be a fairly messy affair as all of you might know. With Swami, generally even the smallest of things can assume epic messy proportions. It was no wonder then, that Jigneshbhai was worried that his quiet life might undergo some short-term turbulence.

At the entrance of Swami’s house, we were welcomed by a bunch of chappals indicating that there were visitors before us already inside. We saw a few boxes of paint lying on the floor. Next to them were a few brushes. I could see a big can of what looked like white paint and another with some white paste. There was a big wooden ladder and lots of waste papers and plastic sheets lying on the floor. There were three people who themselves looked painted and we gathered that they were the painters. Swami had a big catalogue in his hand and was standing in the middle of this mess.

“How will pearl organza look on this wall?” He suddenly asked. Jigneshbhai and I wondered if he was asking us. We leaned forward to check the colour Swami was pointing to.

“It’s nice and sober,” Jigneshbhai remarked. “But it’s almost like that white paint,” he said, pointing to that big can on the floor.

“That’s not white paint, Jigneshbhai. That’s the primer, and next to it is the putty. They will put 1 coat putty, 2 coats primer and 2 coats paint on the walls and 2 coats putty on the ceiling,” Swami explained with finesse.

Swami described putties, primers and paint with the familiarity of idli, vada and sambar that he has for breakfast every day. I don’t know about you, but I have noticed that there is something about painting one’s house that makes one an expert in all things related to paint. It takes over your life. Swami was no exception. Primer, putty, emulsions, enamels, textures all became commonplace terms as if he had been painting houses for years.

“But pearl organza is not white. Come look here,” Swami called us. He opened a set of colour shades from his catalogue and held them up, presumably so that we can see them in the light. Apart from pearl organza, there were winter mood, oatmeal cream, eggshell mist, bone charm and various such shades. Jigneshbhai briefly whispered, “Why does white have such exotic names?” But I left his question at that for the moment. All of these shades seemed more or less like white to me and Jigneshbhai. But people who paint their houses probably get a third eye which enables them to see invisible tinges in shades that other mere mortals can’t. You have to have the eye for seeing them which is revealed to you only after you spend a few hard days of penance with putties, primers and shade cards of paint.

“See, this one has a tinge of ivory, this one has a light biscuit shade, and this one has a slight coffee shade, very light, not like our strong filter coffee but the milky coffee we get up North,” he explained with a rarely seen passion for colour combined with an often seen passion for coffee. I could sense that, given the late afternoon hour, Jigneshbhai was thinking more about real coffee and biscuits than the ones whose tinges Swami was pointing out in the colour. But he said, “Yeah you are right, so that’s pearl organza with the slight coffee shade, it’s not white”.

“Yeah it seems to have a mix of ivory and coffee shade,” I added, not to be left out. Actually, I hadn’t seen any coffee or ivory there. But it would look bad that we didn’t get it after such passionate explanation. So, some participation is a sign of decency. But it turned out that both of us were bad students of colour.

“Actually, the other one with the biscuit shade is pearl organza,” Swami corrected both of us. 

Our colour vision clearly left a lot to be desired. Thankfully the real coffee and biscuits arrived, saving us any further embarrassment, and Jigneshbhai and I got some relief. We focused on the real thing and let Swami continue.

Swami’s explanations in detail continued, followed by Jigneshbhai’s single word exclamations.

“We are using luxury emulsion on the walls and premium oil enamel on the windows and doors.”

“Amazing.”

“One of the living room and bedroom walls will have texture paint. We are thinking of some shade of gold rust and roast saffron.”

“Wow.”

“One is going to be canvas and the other is going to be ragging. What do you guys think?”

Jigneshbhai and I looked at each other blankly wondering what is canvas and ragging. It was like the surprise quiz question in a class you aren’t paying attention to. Listening to this medley of colour standing in the middle of plastic, paper and paint felt a lot like ragging to us. But these were relatively minor inconveniences for Swami who was lost in the world of painting.

“See they have provided us with this visualization. This is how canvas and ragging textures will look,” Swami opened his laptop and showed it to us. He had developed a nonporousness that his walls had developed after 2 coats of putty. No amount of failure to answer questions on our part shook him from his mission.

Canvas and Ragging were names for texture paint, Jigneshbhai and I deduced.

“Wonderful technology,” Jigneshbhai remarked continuing with his encouraging exclamations. “The gold rust looks good,” I added with a tone of positivity too. This time Swami smiled indicating that I had got the colour right.

Our interest in visualization triggered further explanations from Swami. As I said, he was a man on a mission.

“On every texture we get 3 colours, 1 base coat and 2 topcoats,” Swami began. We thought he had finished but clearly he was not yet done. “So first they put the putty, then the primer, then the base coat. Then the topcoats are put in a manner that the output is textured. Like this,” he showed us and opened a demo video.

Swami told us the recipe for textured paint with more gusto than the recipe of his favourite death by chocolate sundae. It almost sounded like one brownie at the bottom, then add vanilla ice cream, finally topped by layers of hot chocolate sauce and whipped cream. Or probably Jigneshbhai and I were just hungry.

We watched the demo video with as much keen interest as we could muster at that late stage of Swami’s painting education class. Our approach was similar to students paying sincere attention in the hope that the professor will finish the lecture fast. One eye on the class and one eye on the clock waiting for the bell.

It seemed to have paid dividends because Swami closed down his laptop after the demo video ended. Jigneshbhai knew that lecturers get it. He was an expert at giving the right signals. Jigneshbhai and I had finished the coffee and thought it was the right time for us to make a move. We told Swami who agreed, sounding satisfied with the paint talk and our attention so far. We started walking to the door. Swami got his car keys and joined us on the way out.

Jigneshbhai and I were happy that Swami was joining us, so we can now have our regular coffee at our regular cafe. The wealthy old man and Deja must be waiting, I told Jigneshbhai. We thought we had come through with flying colours. That’s when Swami announced, “Guys, I think we have some time. Let’s go to the curtain store now as I need to choose matching curtains for the new wall colours.” He must have been truly encouraged by Jigneshbhai’s and my attention in his class as he added, “It won’t take long, now that you guys have also seen the colours.” As we stepped out, he told his wife that she needn’t worry, as his friends will help him make the right choice. The presumptions that friends make, Jigneshbhai and I thought, but let things be, for the moment. So that was that.

I told you that Jigneshbhai was right when he worried about turbulence in his quiet life.

***

I met a Mask Checker

In support of creating the much-needed awareness and the serious need for wearing masks correctly in public places, last week the local administration appointed a bunch of mask checkers. I stepped out with trepidation and spoke to one of them yesterday.

“Congratulations on your appointment as a mask checker. What exactly is your job?” I asked.

“As you know our honourable minister and commissioner have inaugurated the mask-up campaign. It is my job to ensure everyone complies with the order,” he said with nonchalance.

“Do you like your job?” I asked him.

“Well, though this is new, a job is a job. The pay is good, the work timings are ok. It keeps me fit chasing the offenders and it keeps my eyesight sharp,” he said, seemingly happy at the prospect.

“So do you catch enough offenders?” I asked.

“Well, it depends. In the initial days, the count was good. Then it dropped a bit. Now again, I am catching a lot. The morning and evening shifts are better than the day shift. It also depends on where you are posted,” he explained.

“So do you work on the road, or do you also go in buses, trains, and other public places?” I enquired.

“It depends. I am currently posted on the road. Maybe someday I will get restaurants, markets, and malls where the catch rate is better. Even temples are ok. But you know good postings require influence.”

“Yes, true. I wish you get a posting of your choice. So how do you catch an offender?” I enquired.

“There are many ways. Most of the times I catch them in the act red-handed without anything on their face. I have to be quick, before they notice me, else they put a handkerchief quickly.”

“I am sure it is not easy!”

“Of course it is not. There are people who pull up the masks they have on their neck just in time before I collect the evidence.”

“Yes, people are smart, isn’t it?”

“Yes, but they don’t know that mask checkers are smarter. We have to go through rigorous tests before we are selected.”

“Oh, is it? How did you get this job?”

“Well, I was a seatbelt and helmet checker before this. That experience was useful.”

“Yes, of course. Catching those offenders in one glance and chasing them must have helped. Do you have to give them proof after you unmask them?”

“Well, walking without a mask is not exactly similar to driving without a seatbelt or riding without a helmet, though it is more dangerous. But we sometimes click a selfie with them, with their mask in their hands, as proof.”

“Oh, that’s smart. And do you fine them? I heard some mask checkers don’t give a receipt?”

“Of course I do,” he said, showing me a receipt. “Some checkers pocket the fine. There are all kinds of people in the force, you know. But mask offenders should insist on a receipt,” he said.

“Ok, great, you are doing great work. I am sure you will get promoted soon.”

“Well, that’s why I applied. I had become an expert in detecting seat belt and helmet offenders. I had built a reputation with a hit rate of over 90%. So, when the new department opened, I instantly saw that this was for me. Growth is always in new things.”

“Yes, of course, I am sure you will become a mask inspector soon.”

“There are talks of having a new department for all antivirus offences. Maybe I will.”

“Oh, so you will have a specialised department for lockdowns, restrictions and other virus related offences?”

“Yes, the minister has already approved it, I hear. This is a long-term investment in governance, given the situation.”

“Yeah, it doesn’t look like it is going away in a hurry.”

“Yes, and moreover, masks and sanitizers and staying away from crowds is good for health anyway, irrespective of the virus. We want the citizens to adopt it, like seatbelts and helmets.”

“Yes, of course,” I nodded with hesitation, looking elsewhere.

There was silence for a few seconds. The mask checker had answered all my questions well. I asked him one last question.

“But tell me Sir, why do you think people don’t wear masks?” I asked.

He had a smile on his face. I was not sure if it was due to my question or because he saw an offender from the corner of his eye. Just before he adjusted his mask and ran after the offender, he asked me, “Why do you think people didn’t wear seat belts and helmets?”

***

Coma: Short Story published in Indian Periodical

This story was first published in the magazine “Indian Periodical” in the issue dated April 11, 2021. You can read it at the link here. Indian Periodical is an independent publishing platform that carries articles, poems, stories and other topics related to India and Indians.

“It’s you, again,” I sensed her and said to myself.

Well, I have to say, whatever I have to say, only to myself. Because no one else can hear me. Except spirits like you, who hover around for no reason and can’t do anything else, anyway.

That’s because I cannot speak. So there’s no question of hearing me. In fact, forget speaking, that’s the last thing I lost. Before that, I lost control over my hands and legs. I can’t move. Not even an inch. Not even my little finger.

Sometimes, I hear people say that they saw my little finger move. Or they saw me open my eyes. But I can’t be sure. Because I know I can’t move anything in my body on my own, even if I try hard. You know, people see what they want to see. I can’t see what they see. That’s because my eyes remain closed all the time. I can’t open my eyes. No movement of anything, hands, legs, even my neck, no eyes, no speech.

You might wonder if I am even alive. Or if I am also not a spirit like you. Not yet. I am still alive. Well, it depends on what is I and what is being alive. The opposite of alive is not dead. That’s what I have learnt. You may think it’s not much of a life. That’s true. But if you ask me, in all honesty, it’s not that bad.

I am all alone within this sick body, with no care in the world. I am not answerable to anyone. I have someone at my body’s service all the time. I don’t remember having so much freedom ever. Even when I had a fully functional body. I am having the time of my life. Within. They call it coma. Or some such state, I heard.

Heard. Yes, I can hear. That’s the only contact with the outside world I have. I can hear sounds in my vicinity. I wish I couldn’t, but unfortunately I can. How much ever I try not to, I have to hear. Sounds, of people, of things, and of people doing things, fall on my ears. And I have no choice but to hear them. Though no one thinks I can hear. Well, I don’t blame them. How will they know? Who will think that a sick body that can’t do anything else has ears that work?

I must tell you a secret. Even when I was not in coma, I used to eavesdrop on people. That is one habit I haven’t lost. But this is so much easier. No one even suspects that I am listening. So they keep talking whatever they want in front of me as if I am not there. And for good or bad, I hear everything.

This girl, sitting here, keeps telling them to talk in a soft voice or, sometimes, to shut up. Because she knows that I can hear. Whenever she cleans me, sponges me and…let me not get into the details. Whenever she does whatever else she still has to do because I have a body that is alive, she gets close to my ears. And she observes my reactions. So she knows that I can hear everything. She is my caregiver. There she is again. Sweet girl.

“What have you got today?” I ask when I hear the clanking of utensils close by. She can’t hear me, but she always replies and tells me.

“It’s carrot soup today for breakfast. And after a few hours, we have lunch. And guess what we will have for lunch? More carrot soup,” she says with a smile.

I smile within. When you are in coma, you run out of food options. There’s no menu card anyone presents to you. There’s soup and more soup. After carrot, it’s tomato. Then it’s corn. Then beetroot. Then something else after that. Not that it matters. Because I can’t taste anything. They put it in some tube they have fitted to my nose and, plunk, down it goes straight into my stomach. Who cares what they put in that tube? There’s no gulping and there’s no tasting.

I must tell you that we attach too much importance to food when we are not in coma. Just because we have a tongue that can taste things. I mean, there’s a whole industry that feeds you tasty stuff that, if you ask me now, your body doesn’t need.

I am telling you from a truly minimalistic food experience. All that your body needs to stay alive is soup. And some water. Six times a day. Every two or three hours. That’s it. I have got used to it by now. I have got rid of one hassle in my life. I don’t have to think about food anymore. Soup works, as long as it gets digested.

Digested. Yes, that’s important. Digestion is not such a trivial matter I must tell you. I took it for granted when I wasn’t in coma. No problem for the last fifty years that I can remember. Fifty years of filling my stomach with junk. I didn’t even know that the digestion was happening on its own. That’s one advantage of a fully functional body. I understood the importance of digestion only when it didn’t happen. It’s like everything else in life. You realise it’s value only when it’s not there. Soups are hassle-free. They are good for digestion. I realised that after I went into coma.

“So soup it is,” I say to myself.

“Yes, it’s soup again,” she says. The caregiver is quite efficient. She feeds me well in good time. And talks to me on and on. Even though she knows I can’t say a thing. Must be tough to have one-sided talks to people like me. I used to be the talkative one when I was not in coma. I told you she is a sweet girl – this caretaker.

All I would do is to ask her to change that goddamn music she plays when she is feeding me. For God’s sake, can you get rid of those devotional songs and put some lively cinema music? Just because I am old and my body is sick, don’t think my ears have suddenly developed a taste for those stupid bhajans!

I am sure it’s my husband who has told her to play them. He has always been the spiritual type. He has been pushing it down my unwilling and uninterested throat throughout my life. I used to tell him to put headphones and listen, rather than forcing the entire world to hear them along with him. But now my husband has a free hand, isn’t it? If he thinks it’s devotional music, devotional music it is. I have to tolerate whatever falls on my ears. And I must tell you that a lot falls on my ears other than the devotional music, which then seems tolerable. Especially the stuff from my big, extended family of relatives.

Poor hubby of mine! He has to keep explaining what happened to me to everyone who calls. I have heard this story of my cancer spreading to the brain. And then leading to stroke, leading to paralysis. And then leading to being bedridden, leading to coma. I must have heard this story with exact timelines, at least a hundred and eight times. Isn’t that the auspicious number?

My husband, the poor old man – God bless his soul – has a hearing problem. So he puts all calls on his cell phone speaker. And the relative yells into it, so that my husband can hear. Speak softly I say, even a woman in coma can hear it, I have, often, felt like telling them.

And then I hear some stupid relative in a desolate voice consoling him as if I am already dead. Well, for the most part that is true. My body is, more or less, done with this trip. But, for God’s sake, I can still hear everything. All those stupid old tales that they narrate to him from twenty or thirty years back. How they remember me when I was twenty! And how I always liked some chocolate hero of my times, and how they miss my talkative chatter.

When I was not in coma, nobody told me all these things. They said I am a useless chatterbox and a stupid fan of films behind my back. I tell you I wasted my life pandering to all these relatives. Let me tell you one thing. If you get to be young again in your next body and get caught up in this web of relatives, take my word. Change course. You don’t want to be in coma at the age of seventy-five listening again to these concocted tales from another set of stupid relatives.

“May God reduce her suffering,” they tell my husband. Well, how do I tell them I am not suffering? I am sleeping all alone, fully taken care of, with no one troubling me, for days on end, for the first time in my life.

“I am so sad that I can’t come and see her,” one long lost sister with one leg in the grave says. Can you please leave us alone? I felt like yelling back at her. Much like you have all these years? No need to take the trouble, I felt like telling her. But they didn’t listen to me when I was not in coma, so listening to me now – it’s out of question. Especially when I can’t say anything.

“What is the use of such a life?” they ask. I am sure my good-hearted husband has to nod his head for no reason. Well, what’s your problem, I would have told them.

By the way, it is not as if I am hanging on to this life in this body out of choice. A few days back, I almost thought this is the end of this coma. I got a call from someone who called himself a representative of God. Before I went into coma, I didn’t know even God had agents. But it looks like He has, I learnt. You learn new things only with experience.

The caller said I was on his list for a pickup in a day or two. He said he is sending a vehicle to pick me up soon. But it seems they had a sudden strike or a lockdown or something out there.

Yeah, that’s what he said. You can’t imagine how shocked I was. I thought such things happen only on earth. But even Heaven (or Hell – I don’t know yet where they are taking me) has such problems. So it turned out that the vehicle couldn’t reach me on time. So they had to turn back and now it’s postponed till things get better. And, so, I am stuck here for a while with this sick body. Let’s see how long it takes. I am hoping things return to normal as soon as possible.

***

“Now what was that?” I ask. I heard some sudden noise. But the caregiver isn’t listening to what I say. Well she can’t, so I don’t blame her. But there seems to be some ruckus here. I heard some noise, so I wonder what’s happening.

It looks like she has stepped out leaving me alone here. I can hear she is saying something to my husband. “Hubby dear, Hello, can someone please tell me what’s going on?” No one seems to be hearing me. How can they, of course? I am speaking to myself anyway. But I can hear he is on the phone.

“She was gasping for breath, though we had oxygen on. Now she has stopped breathing. We can’t get her pulse,” the caregiver told someone on the phone. After that, I couldn’t hear anything.

Well, I will wait to see, err hear, what happens next. As if I have any choice. It’s been silent for a while, by the way. Where is everyone? Looks like they have gone out somewhere.

I heard the doorbell. “Who is that? Can someone open the door please? Hello, it’s my house,” I shriek, but there’s no sound. I can hear some footsteps. They are getting louder. Now it seems someone is here. “Who is this guy? And what is he doing here?”

“Since when did she face breathing problems?” the new footsteps asked. I sense he was that doctor who fixed this tube on my nose and put me on a permanent soup diet. I am going to register his complaint with God, whenever I see Him.

“Since today morning,” I heard my caregiver say.

Then I don’t know what he did. But I heard the footsteps guy again after a few moments. “I am sorry,” he said. And then I heard some wailing sounds again.

I felt like telling my husband that I was still there. Why was he crying? I shouted aloud. But no one heard me. There was a long bout of silence. After a while I heard a few more footsteps.

“Hey! Wait, where are you taking it? Hey Hello, that’s my body. You can’t lift it and take it away. I am still here. Hey hello.. can someone hear me? I am here.. here.. look. up here… Why are you leaving without me?”

That’s when I felt a sharp jerk. Someone pulled me from behind. He was wearing a uniform and held me with a firm grasp. What did he grasp on me that I don’t remember. Because I didn’t have a hand. In fact, I didn’t have a body at all. But it seemed like I was drifting towards that man in a uniform. You must have gone through this before when you lost your body, right? Don’t they tell you who they are before grabbing you?

“This way, Madam,” he said. For the first time in my life, I felt as if I was floating in peace without any burden of that sick body. “They are taking your body away. But you are safe here, Madam. You have an allotted berth in this vehicle,” he said.

Aah, now I get it. My vehicle from God has reached. Looks like they have lifted their lockdown in Heaven. Or Hell. Or wherever. And looks like my coma is over. I am getting out of here. On to my next trip. Listen, I got to run. So long.

***

Coma

This story was first published in the magazine “Indian Periodical” in the issue dated April 11, 2021. You can read it at the link here. Indian Periodical is an independent publishing platform that carries articles, poems, stories and other topics related to India and Indians.

“It’s you, again,” I sensed her and said to myself.

Well, I have to say, whatever I have to say, only to myself. Because no one else can hear me. Except spirits like you, who hover around for no reason and can’t do anything else, anyway.

That’s because I cannot speak. So there’s no question of hearing me. In fact, forget speaking, that’s the last thing I lost. Before that, I lost control over my hands and legs. I can’t move. Not even an inch. Not even my little finger.

Sometimes, I hear people say that they saw my little finger move. Or they saw me open my eyes. But I can’t be sure. Because I know I can’t move anything in my body on my own, even if I try hard. You know, people see what they want to see. I can’t see what they see. That’s because my eyes remain closed all the time. I can’t open my eyes. No movement of anything, hands, legs, even my neck, no eyes, no speech.

You might wonder if I am even alive. Or if I am also not a spirit like you. Not yet. I am still alive. Well, it depends on what is I and what is being alive. The opposite of alive is not dead. That’s what I have learnt. You may think it’s not much of a life. That’s true. But if you ask me, in all honesty, it’s not that bad.

I am all alone within this sick body, with no care in the world. I am not answerable to anyone. I have someone at my body’s service all the time. I don’t remember having so much freedom ever. Even when I had a fully functional body. I am having the time of my life. Within. They call it coma. Or some such state, I heard.

Heard. Yes, I can hear. That’s the only contact with the outside world I have. I can hear sounds in my vicinity. I wish I couldn’t, but unfortunately I can. How much ever I try not to, I have to hear. Sounds, of people, of things, and of people doing things, fall on my ears. And I have no choice but to hear them. Though no one thinks I can hear. Well, I don’t blame them. How will they know? Who will think that a sick body that can’t do anything else has ears that work?

I must tell you a secret. Even when I was not in coma, I used to eavesdrop on people. That is one habit I haven’t lost. But this is so much easier. No one even suspects that I am listening. So they keep talking whatever they want in front of me as if I am not there. And for good or bad, I hear everything.

This girl, sitting here, keeps telling them to talk in a soft voice or, sometimes, to shut up. Because she knows that I can hear. Whenever she cleans me, sponges me and…let me not get into the details. Whenever she does whatever else she still has to do because I have a body that is alive, she gets close to my ears. And she observes my reactions. So she knows that I can hear everything. She is my caregiver. There she is again. Sweet girl.

“What have you got today?” I ask when I hear the clanking of utensils close by. She can’t hear me, but she always replies and tells me.

“It’s carrot soup today for breakfast. And after a few hours, we have lunch. And guess what we will have for lunch? More carrot soup,” she says with a smile.

I smile within. When you are in coma, you run out of food options. There’s no menu card anyone presents to you. There’s soup and more soup. After carrot, it’s tomato. Then it’s corn. Then beetroot. Then something else after that. Not that it matters. Because I can’t taste anything. They put it in some tube they have fitted to my nose and, plunk, down it goes straight into my stomach. Who cares what they put in that tube? There’s no gulping and there’s no tasting.

I must tell you that we attach too much importance to food when we are not in coma. Just because we have a tongue that can taste things. I mean, there’s a whole industry that feeds you tasty stuff that, if you ask me now, your body doesn’t need.

I am telling you from a truly minimalistic food experience. All that your body needs to stay alive is soup. And some water. Six times a day. Every two or three hours. That’s it. I have got used to it by now. I have got rid of one hassle in my life. I don’t have to think about food anymore. Soup works, as long as it gets digested.

Digested. Yes, that’s important. Digestion is not such a trivial matter I must tell you. I took it for granted when I wasn’t in coma. No problem for the last fifty years that I can remember. Fifty years of filling my stomach with junk. I didn’t even know that the digestion was happening on its own. That’s one advantage of a fully functional body. I understood the importance of digestion only when it didn’t happen. It’s like everything else in life. You realise it’s value only when it’s not there. Soups are hassle-free. They are good for digestion. I realised that after I went into coma.

“So soup it is,” I say to myself.

“Yes, it’s soup again,” she says. The caregiver is quite efficient. She feeds me well in good time. And talks to me on and on. Even though she knows I can’t say a thing. Must be tough to have one-sided talks to people like me. I used to be the talkative one when I was not in coma. I told you she is a sweet girl – this caretaker.

All I would do is to ask her to change that goddamn music she plays when she is feeding me. For God’s sake, can you get rid of those devotional songs and put some lively cinema music? Just because I am old and my body is sick, don’t think my ears have suddenly developed a taste for those stupid bhajans!

I am sure it’s my husband who has told her to play them. He has always been the spiritual type. He has been pushing it down my unwilling and uninterested throat throughout my life. I used to tell him to put headphones and listen, rather than forcing the entire world to hear them along with him. But now my husband has a free hand, isn’t it? If he thinks it’s devotional music, devotional music it is. I have to tolerate whatever falls on my ears. And I must tell you that a lot falls on my ears other than the devotional music, which then seems tolerable. Especially the stuff from my big, extended family of relatives.

Poor hubby of mine! He has to keep explaining what happened to me to everyone who calls. I have heard this story of my cancer spreading to the brain. And then leading to stroke, leading to paralysis. And then leading to being bedridden, leading to coma. I must have heard this story with exact timelines, at least a hundred and eight times. Isn’t that the auspicious number?

My husband, the poor old man – God bless his soul – has a hearing problem. So he puts all calls on his cell phone speaker. And the relative yells into it, so that my husband can hear. Speak softly I say, even a woman in coma can hear it, I have, often, felt like telling them.

And then I hear some stupid relative in a desolate voice consoling him as if I am already dead. Well, for the most part that is true. My body is, more or less, done with this trip. But, for God’s sake, I can still hear everything. All those stupid old tales that they narrate to him from twenty or thirty years back. How they remember me when I was twenty! And how I always liked some chocolate hero of my times, and how they miss my talkative chatter.

When I was not in coma, nobody told me all these things. They said I am a useless chatterbox and a stupid fan of films behind my back. I tell you I wasted my life pandering to all these relatives. Let me tell you one thing. If you get to be young again in your next body and get caught up in this web of relatives, take my word. Change course. You don’t want to be in coma at the age of seventy-five listening again to these concocted tales from another set of stupid relatives.

“May God reduce her suffering,” they tell my husband. Well, how do I tell them I am not suffering? I am sleeping all alone, fully taken care of, with no one troubling me, for days on end, for the first time in my life.

“I am so sad that I can’t come and see her,” one long lost sister with one leg in the grave says. Can you please leave us alone? I felt like yelling back at her. Much like you have all these years? No need to take the trouble, I felt like telling her. But they didn’t listen to me when I was not in coma, so listening to me now – it’s out of question. Especially when I can’t say anything.

“What is the use of such a life?” they ask. I am sure my good-hearted husband has to nod his head for no reason. Well, what’s your problem, I would have told them.

By the way, it is not as if I am hanging on to this life in this body out of choice. A few days back, I almost thought this is the end of this coma. I got a call from someone who called himself a representative of God. Before I went into coma, I didn’t know even God had agents. But it looks like He has, I learnt. You learn new things only with experience.

The caller said I was on his list for a pickup in a day or two. He said he is sending a vehicle to pick me up soon. But it seems they had a sudden strike or a lockdown or something out there.

Yeah, that’s what he said. You can’t imagine how shocked I was. I thought such things happen only on earth. But even Heaven (or Hell – I don’t know yet where they are taking me) has such problems. So it turned out that the vehicle couldn’t reach me on time. So they had to turn back and now it’s postponed till things get better. And, so, I am stuck here for a while with this sick body. Let’s see how long it takes. I am hoping things return to normal as soon as possible.

***

“Now what was that?” I ask. I heard some sudden noise. But the caregiver isn’t listening to what I say. Well she can’t, so I don’t blame her. But there seems to be some ruckus here. I heard some noise, so I wonder what’s happening.

It looks like she has stepped out leaving me alone here. I can hear she is saying something to my husband. “Hubby dear, Hello, can someone please tell me what’s going on?” No one seems to be hearing me. How can they, of course? I am speaking to myself anyway. But I can hear he is on the phone.

“She was gasping for breath, though we had oxygen on. Now she has stopped breathing. We can’t get her pulse,” the caregiver told someone on the phone. After that, I couldn’t hear anything.

Well, I will wait to see, err hear, what happens next. As if I have any choice. It’s been silent for a while, by the way. Where is everyone? Looks like they have gone out somewhere.

I heard the doorbell. “Who is that? Can someone open the door please? Hello, it’s my house,” I shriek, but there’s no sound. I can hear some footsteps. They are getting louder. Now it seems someone is here. “Who is this guy? And what is he doing here?”

“Since when did she face breathing problems?” the new footsteps asked. I sense he was that doctor who fixed this tube on my nose and put me on a permanent soup diet. I am going to register his complaint with God, whenever I see Him.

“Since today morning,” I heard my caregiver say.

Then I don’t know what he did. But I heard the footsteps guy again after a few moments. “I am sorry,” he said. And then I heard some wailing sounds again.

I felt like telling my husband that I was still there. Why was he crying? I shouted aloud. But no one heard me. There was a long bout of silence. After a while I heard a few more footsteps.

“Hey! Wait, where are you taking it? Hey Hello, that’s my body. You can’t lift it and take it away. I am still here. Hey hello.. can someone hear me? I am here.. here.. look. up here… Why are you leaving without me?”

That’s when I felt a sharp jerk. Someone pulled me from behind. He was wearing a uniform and held me with a firm grasp. What did he grasp on me that I don’t remember. Because I didn’t have a hand. In fact, I didn’t have a body at all. But it seemed like I was drifting towards that man in a uniform. You must have gone through this before when you lost your body, right? Don’t they tell you who they are before grabbing you?

“This way, Madam,” he said. For the first time in my life, I felt as if I was floating in peace without any burden of that sick body. “They are taking your body away. But you are safe here, Madam. You have an allotted berth in this vehicle,” he said.

Aah, now I get it. My vehicle from God has reached. Looks like they have lifted their lockdown in Heaven. Or Hell. Or wherever. And looks like my coma is over. I am getting out of here. On to my next trip. Listen, I got to run. So long.

***

Worthwhile or Wonderful?

“These exercises are quite tough,” Swami said. “It’s easy for Sam to tell me to do them. He has run a triathlon. But I am no good at it,” he added.

When he looked at us for a response, he caught me with my coffee cup at my lips, and Jigneshbhai biting his muffin.

I must admit they were not the best poses to respond to Swami’s ramble on how he can’t perform some exercises well. But even then, Jigneshbhai did respond to keep our friend from going into a negative spiral.

“Which exercises are these, by the way? Not that it makes any difference as I won’t be able to do any, but still, it would be good to know,” he asked, with a twinkle in his eye.

He didn’t have to tell us that physical exercise wasn’t one of his favourite things. Let’s just say his interests were more mental and spiritual rather than physical.

“Let me check,” Swami said and reached out to his wallet to remove a yellow card. It had a list of exercises in his workout that Sam had prescribed. He read out from that card.

“The toughest ones are, ummm, this forward lunge and then this dumbbell fly, and..?”

“Fly?” Jigneshbhai asked.

“Yes,” Swami neglected him and continued, “Lunge and fly, and this leg raise and plank. It’s half of my workout.”

He looked up to us from the card in despair. Jigneshbhai and I kept our muffin and coffee respectively down on the table with some guilt. We focused our attention on our friend and his exercises. Swami and his workout deserved it.

We didn’t know what to say. These were Greek and Latin to us. We couldn’t comment on how easy or tough they were. But something had to be said. And Jigneshbhai did.

“Well, looks like these are tough,” he said. “Ask Sam to show you how to do them.”

That produced a scowl from Swami.

“Well, he showed them. He does them easily. He is so good at them. He is just smooth and wonderful,” Swami said.

“Hmmm. That’s alright. He is a professional. You will also get better over time,” I consoled Swami.

“No chance. You guys have no idea how bad I am. And how good Sam is at it,” Swami had started spiralling down a bit.

Jigneshbhai and I stole a quiet glance.

“It’s not necessary to be wonderful at it, like him,” Jigneshbhai said. “At least you are doing something, unlike us,” he added.

“We are only eating this,” I added, consoling Swami pointing to the muffin.

Swami’s eyes warmed up a bit though I could see that for someone like him being bad at something was tough to digest. He was used to being good at a lot of things, or at least, wanting to be good at a lot of things. That was the nature of his world.

“There’s no rating and Raichand in this,” Jigneshbhai added with a wink. “No one is watching.”

That got some smiles to Swami. He picked up a muffin and said, “Maybe you are right,” he said. “As long as I am doing them, I don’t have to care much about whether I am good at it. Especially, as good as Sam.”

“Absolutely,” Jigneshbhai said. “As long as it’s something being done rather than nothing. Maybe you will get better and will teach us in a few months,” he added. “Or maybe you won’t.”

That’s when I saw that the wealthy old man walked across from the adjoining table towards me and Swami. He looked at us and tapped Swami on the shoulder.

He left us with some food for thought when he said, “As long as something is worthwhile, don’t worry about being wonderful at it. Worthwhile is better than Wonderful.”

***

PS: A quick update from me is that my story “Soulmate” was accepted for publication by Literary Yard, a journal that is ranked among the top 100 literary blogs on the planet. A big thanks to all of you for reading it, sharing it and commenting on it. Writing the story was worthwhile; a journal publishing it is wonderful. You may check it out here. -Ranjit Kulkarni

Swami’s Appraisal

“Puttuswamy parked my car behind his red, C-class Mercedes. And at that moment, I got a nagging feeling that today is not going to be my day,” Swami told us at the café when we met a few days later. Swami narrated the happenings of the meeting day.

“You know how good my hunches are, right?” he continued. Jigneshbhai and I didn’t know, so we didn’t say anything. There was no past history of Swami having great hunches that came true. But why let the truth come in the way of a great story? We stayed silent and listened in.

Vihaan Raichand was the kind of person who you would think was born with a silver spoon in his mouth. When you saw his perfect-fitting suits, flashy ties, polished shoes, and stylish sunglasses, you would think this man was born into wealth. But nothing of that sort was true. The truth was what Swami had told us once. “He comes from working class origins. But now he is used to silver spoons. That’s his new normal and he can’t live without them anymore. In fact, he keeps looking for more of them and has some golden ones in sight too. I tell you he is an insatiable beast.” Swami’s opinion on Vihaan Raichand was clear.

Raichand had worked his way up the corporate ladder after an Ivy League education by a useful combination of ambition, luck, and a rare talent for unscrupulous guile. Hard work was a given but often with the wrong means and ends in mind. He was proud of his self-made success and the trophies that he had collected on the way to it. Raichand’s was a life that was filled with what would be indulgence for most people. But he was not satisfied with what he had and felt that this was the least he deserved.

“Come on, guys, when are you going to grow up? See where the world is going. We have to keep pace,” he often told his staff. “Stop chasing small change. Set your goals high.” Swami had an explanation for such ‘high goals big talk’ practised often by his boss. “Well, that is so that he can tell us we didn’t meet them. So, then, he can meet his.”

So, it wasn’t surprising that Swami had a hunch for things not going his way when he entered the office. With a boss like Raichand, it would be a surprise if he didn’t have nightmares before his appraisal. Especially because the appraisal was a precursor to his all-important leave application.

“So, how did your hunch come true?” Jigneshbhai asked Swami, sipping into his iced café mocha with whipped cream.

“Well, it started in a not-so-positive mood,” Swami winked. He initiated his story taking a bite into his double chocolate muffin.

“Hello, Swaminathan, how has your year been? Good, bad or plain silly like all your past years?” Raichand asked.

This is a question that Jigneshbhai calls a googly. That’s because it looks simple but is deceptive. Whichever way you answer it, you are in trouble. You say it was good and that will be challenged. You say it was bad and that will be accepted. Swami was experienced, so he recognised the googly when it landed.

“Sir, it was good but not that good. It was average,” Swami answered. He didn’t leave his crease and tentatively pushed the ball back.

“I don’t like average, Swaminathan.” Raichand now got more aggressive. “You either be the best at your job or you have no business working for me,” he added. This made Swami believe that his hunch was right. He felt like a batsman who realises in the first few minutes at the crease that the pitch is doing things for the bowler. But a flash of sycophantic brilliance got him out of the catch-22 rut and into a scoring spree.

“Sir, even I don’t like average. But with someone as brilliant as you as the boss, everyone else is average,” Swami said.

Now, many bosses will see through this kind of obsequious behaviour. But Raichand was one of a kind. He loved his own voice, his own persona, anything good that anyone said about him. In short, he was his own favourite.

“I love the kind of alignment we have, Swami,” Raichand flashed a wide grin. He had slipped into Swami from Swaminathan. That was a good sign for the appraisal and the leave application. “We have always been on the same page, excellent,” he added.

“Yes, Sir,” Swami said with a wide grin, exhaling in relief the breath he had held tight for long.

“Your year has been good, let me tell you, as has been mine. Stay with me and we will have many good years together,” Raichand said. Swami felt uneasy with the surge of esprit de corps developing between him and this self-obsessed jerk. He shifted in his seat but maintained the nauseating smile and servile attitude on his face. This demeanour was conducive for Raichand to continue.

“This year I have set in motion the foundation for our growth. Now our business unit is as good as the best in the world. Our strategy and execution are both in place. Don’t you agree?”

“Yes, Sir,” Swami said. Saying this was a good strategy backed with excellent execution that Swami had adopted for the appraisal. Someone great said that simplicity is the ultimate sophistication. Swami followed that to a T. A “Yes Sir” said with body language displaying fawning adoration is as simple as it gets.

“Of course, without your good work, all the accolades that we got wouldn’t have been possible,” Raichand said. And by we, he meant I. “But we can’t be complacent. We have to keep working hard this year,” he added. And this time by we, he meant you. Swami read between the lines.

“Indeed, Sir,” Swami said.

“Wonderful,” Raichand said. “You have been doing a great job. Keep at it,” he added. “Have you added your self-appraisal to the system?”

“Yes, Sir,” Swami confirmed.

“Fantastic, I will approve it,” Raichand said and congratulated Swami. “I hope you are satisfied.”

“Yes, Sir,” Swami reiterated.

“You know how seriously I take these performance appraisals of my staff. Congratulations again.”

“Thank you, Sir,” Swami said.

After completing this narration, Swami told us, “So, that was my appraisal done by that self-absorbed bully. I feel I get paid my salary mainly to listen to this knucklehead’s bragging baloney.”

“Well, your emotions are well understood. But for three ‘Yes Sirs’ and one ‘Indeed Sir’ and one ‘Thank you Sir’, it wasn’t a bad outcome. Pretty decent return on investment,” Jigneshbhai remarked.

Swami sipped his coffee and bit into his muffin again. “Well, yeah. That’s why I tolerate it. All you have to do is say ‘Yes Sir’ for listening to 30 minutes of crap. So, the appraisal was fine, but the main part didn’t happen.”

“You mean the leave application?” Jigneshbhai asked.

“Yes, Sir, I mean yes,” Swami smiled. He had not recovered from the hangover of ‘Yes Sirs’.

“Why?” Jigneshbhai asked and Swami went back to his story.

“Well, just as he congratulated me – though for what reason I still haven’t figured out, I thought the moment was opportune to take up the topic of leave. But at precisely that moment, his secretary came into the room,” Swami started.

“Sir, he is here,” the secretary said.

“Oh, what’s the time?” Raichand looked at his Rolex watch and said, “Wow, it’s 12.40 already! Swami, you talk so much. I didn’t realise we spent so much time together.” Then he looked at his secretary and said, “Yes, send him in. No, actually, let him sit in meeting room #2. I will join him right away.”

Swami tried to intervene, “Sir, just two minutes?”

“No, Swami, some other time, let’s meet again. Now I have to run, can’t keep the visitor waiting. He is important,” Raichand said, and opened the door and walked out.

***

An Invisible Audience

Swami told me and Jigneshbhai last week over coffee that he had told his trainer Sam that he was going to run a 10k.

“What did he say?” Jigneshbhai enquired.

Not that he was overly enthusiastic about running a 10k, but he was keen to know what happened. So was I, but I saw that Swami’s facial expression had become a bit subdued.

“He didn’t even acknowledge it. He just turned a blind eye. In fact, he just asked me what my workout plan for the day was,” Swami complained.

“Oh! Maybe for him, running a 10k might be a regular thing. He might check later,” Jigneshbhai consoled Swami.

“Yeah but he should have encouraged my plan at least as my trainer,” Swami’s complaint persisted.

I sympathized with Swami’s predicament. One does expect an encouraging response. But Swami had more complaints about Sam.

“In fact, when I told him again about my plan today, he said ‘ok run it whenever you want but don’t tell me about it.'”

“Don’t tell me about it? That’s what he said?” Jigneshbhai asked, surprised.

“Yes, that’s what he said. Outright discouragement, isn’t it?” Swami sulked again.

“That is quite interesting,” Jigneshbhai remarked as it piqued his curiosity.

“What is interesting about it? Sam was least interested in my 10K,” Swami complained.

“Did you ask him why he did not want you to tell him about it??” Jigneshbhai enquired.

“Yes, I did,” Swami replied.

“And what did he say?” Jigneshbhai asked.

“Run it for yourself, he said. Not for me. And not just me, don’t tell anyone else too, he insisted,” Swami replied, dejected.

Jigneshbhai and I were taken aback. There was silence for a few moments as we absorbed Sam’s reaction.

“Hmm.. Sam seems like a good personal trainer,” Jigneshbhai cheekily smiled now, as if something had dawned upon him.

“Well, earlier I used to think so. Now I don’t. Why can’t he be a bit more positive?” Swami continued complaining.

Jigneshbhai was smiling in contrast to Swami’s sulk.

“Maybe he knows what he is doing,” Jigneshbhai remarked. “So, by the way, when are you running the 10k?” Jigneshbhai asked.

With a sigh of resignation, Swami said, “I cancelled the plan. What’s the point of running a 10k if my trainer isn’t interested and I cannot tell anyone?”

With a tinge of disappointment, Swami focused on his muffin.

That was fast, we thought. A plan to run a 10k made and cancelled even before the first step.

“Well, I had read about it, but now I see it,” Jigneshbhai remarked biting into his muffin.

Swami and I stopped in our step, err bite, and looked up at Jigneshbhai. He seemed to have discovered something new. His face looked like a eureka moment had dawned upon it.

“What do you see?” Swami asked.

“The invisible audience. It is real,” Jigneshbhai said, leaving us scratching our heads.

“An invisible audience?” Swami asked.

“Yes. It is all around us and most of all, it is within our heads. The one from whom we seek validation even without knowing it. We can’t name it, we can’t see it, but it is real. That’s the one,” Jigneshbhai replied.

Swami and I didn’t quite understand what Jigneshbhai was saying. Here was Swami disappointed with his trainer for discouraging his 10k plan, and Jigneshbhai was talking of invisible audiences and validations. We weren’t sure what he was getting at. Swami was the first to question Jigneshbhai, as usual.

“Validation?” Swami asked.

“Yeah, like for the 10K from Sam and others. We seek validation on everything all the time, isn’t it?” Jigneshbhai said. Swami and I looked at each other, perhaps to validate that we were on the same page. We felt happy to realise that we were both equally confused.

“Hmm..,” Swami pondered over it. “All the time?” he asked.

“Yes. Like think about this. What if we go somewhere we dreamt of but don’t take any photos?” Jigneshbhai asked.

“Don’t take any photos? Then what’s the point?” Swami said.

“Exactly. Think of one more thing. What if we pursue something important but don’t share it with anyone when we get it?” Jigneshbhai continued.

“Hmm.. That would take something. I can’t keep my mouth shut like that,” Swami said, scratching his chin.

“Absolutely. Ok, and one more example. What if we buy something valuable but don’t tell anyone about it?” Jigneshbhai said. He was on his own thought experiment trip to test the presence of the invisible audience.

“Hmm.. I will tell Raichand to do that, next time he buys some expensive toy,” Swami smiled with his face lit up.  

Jigneshbhai and I laughed aloud. We were getting a hang of what this invisible audience and validation stuff.

When I thought about it, I felt like he was right.

If we are really able to do those things like what Jigneshbhai had said, perhaps it will then be clear if we are doing something for ourself or for an invisible audience.

That’s what Sam wanted perhaps from Swami.

What if Swami ran a 10K and no one knew about it? Swami and I pondered over it.

“That’s why social media is so successful,” Jigneshbhai said. “A trip, a recognition, a new purchase and so many others. Quick sharing, Quick validation.”

“True, and a 10k finisher photo, shared everywhere. Makes me feel good,” Swami said, and I nodded with a reflective smile.

“We do so many things for the invisible audience. The invisible audience is definitely real,” Jigneshbhai declared.

“But isn’t this invisible audience only in our heads? How can it be real?” Swami asked.

“Of course, the invisible audience is inside your head, Swami,” Jigneshbhai had a smile on his face. “But what on earth makes you feel that it is not real?” He added, in a tone that sounded like a professor with a flowing white beard.

We broke into a loud laugh, and started biting into our very real muffins.

It was then that Swami said, “Maybe I will run the 10K, after all.”

Jigneshbhai was about to say something but Swami interjected him with a finger and said, “But don’t ask me anything about it.”

This moment definitely needed to be captured. So Jigneshbhai clicked a selfie. He told me not to share it with anyone, especially not with my invisible audience.

***

Fountain Pen

“No Papa, I didn’t lose the pen,” I cried in agony, as Papa slapped my open palm with the cane he had in his right hand.

“This will teach you that you shouldn’t speak lies. If you have lost the pen, don’t say you haven’t lost it,” Papa said. “Open your other hand,” he demanded.

I opened my other palm and closed my eyes tight. Slap, the cane went and hit my other palm. “Aah,” I cried out aloud. With tears flowing from my eyes, I went and hugged my mother. From the corner of my eye, I could see that she had a tear on her cheek as well.

“This will teach you that you should always speak the truth,” Papa said, and got up.

This was the first time Papa had hit me. This was also the first time I and my mother cried together.

***

On my 9th birthday, three days back, Papa had gifted me a fountain pen because I loved to write. It was an expensive one with its own ink pump. It had this very cool mechanism to dip it, nib down, into the ink bottle, and suck in the ink by pressing the pump. I had learnt how to use it after a couple of messy attempts. Those attempts had led to blue stained shorts that my mother had later washed. The nib was golden with a nice, curvy shape. I started using the pen for my tuition classes on the very same day. For two days, every one of my school mates had asked me about the awesome fountain pen. I showed it to them in all eagerness and stared at their looks of awe with pride.

But on that day, I didn’t remember where I placed the pen. But I remember not having misplaced it. I don’t even remember whether I had taken it to the tuition class. After I returned home in the evening, I realised that I didn’t have the pen with me. It was a shocking realisation. I knew that Papa won’t like it. It was a new, expensive pen gifted only three days back. I checked my box and emptied my bag. It wasn’t there. I checked my notebooks to see if I had written using the fountain pen. The notebooks had my notes of the day written in a blue ballpen. It meant that I hadn’t used the new fountain pen in the tuition classes. I called my classmates and asked them.

“Do you remember seeing my new fountain pen in my box today?” I checked with three of them, one by one.

The first one of them said, “Yes.” The next one said, “No.” And the third one said, “Umm….”

I didn’t know whom to trust. So I concluded that the precious new fountain pen was missing, even before the tuition class. But I was sure I had not lost it. I only didn’t know where it was, I told myself. I knew I would find it. It was only a matter of time.

I went and told my mother.

“Search it in your cupboard. You must have kept it somewhere,” she insisted.

“It’s not there,” I shouted back from the cupboard after searching it.

“Papa is not going to be happy,” she said. I felt a shiver go down my spine. Papa never liked us misplacing things. I knew that. But I was sure I hadn’t misplaced it. It wasn’t my fault, I reassured myself. He should understand.

“I will tell him,” I said with newfound bravery. “Why should I be afraid if I haven’t misplaced it?” I asked her.

“You know Papa doesn’t like lies even more. You shouldn’t lie if you have lost it,” my mother reminded me.

“But I am not lying, I have not lost it. Otherwise, won’t I remember where I lost it? It is just that I am not finding it,” I argued.

My mother smiled at me and said, “Ok then, go find it,” and went to the kitchen.

But I didn’t find it, though I looked for it all evening. And then, Papa came back late in the evening. He asked my mother what I was doing.

“He is searching for his new pen,” she replied casually. She bit her tongue as soon as she said it. She repented saying it later.

“Why? What happened? Has he lost it? Or has he broken it?” Papa raised his voice in anger and demanded the status of the new pen.

I heard his reverberating baritone and felt a tremor pass through my body. My hands shivered and started flipping through all the sections of my cupboard. But the pen was nowhere to be found.

That is when Papa’s loud voice calling out my name fell on my shocked ears.  I felt numb and went to him.

“Have you lost your new fountain pen?” he howled at me. He looked like he was irate. I tried to present my argument. That’s when, for the first time in my life, I got the cane on my hands, both of them. It was for telling a lie that I had not lost the new pen. But that was true, I revolted within. I hadn’t lost it, I cried within. But my cries weren’t heard.

After getting the cane on both my palms, my mother wiped my tears. I wiped hers too. She felt that I got a beating due to her. She didn’t say it, but her eyes said so. She put me on my bed and fed me my dinner.

At the time I was about to go to bed, my younger brother came home. He had gone to his friend’s house for a birthday party and dinner. He was in a good mood and flashed the return gift that he had received at the party.

“SShhhh…,” my mother signalled with her finger to her lips, indicating that I was sleeping. But my eyes were open, and I peeked through my blanket at my brother and mother. My mother smiled and told both of us to stay silent. My brother sat on the bed and opened his return gift bag in excitement. He showed us the pencils and sketch pen box he had received.

That is when I saw something familiar. It was shining from my brother’s shirt pocket. It was my new fountain pen.

“What is that doing on your shirt?” I pointed out and asked my brother.

“Oh, that’s your new pen,” he said.

“I know that. But why do you have it? Give it to me,” I yelled. “I will go and show it to Papa.”

“SShhhh,” my mother said. “Don’t shout.”

“How do you have it?” she asked my brother in a whisper, so that my father doesn’t hear it.

“I took it to show it to my friends at the party. It is so nice. It impressed everyone. Everyone said wow,” he murmured.

“When did you take it?” my mother asked.

“I took it from his box today morning,” he replied, with a sly confession on his face.

“Why didn’t you tell him?” my mother demanded an explanation, in a stifled voice but still in a very soft tone.

My brother didn’t reply. He looked around, and then looked down at the floor. My mother understood and fell silent. She snatched the pen from my brother and kept it with her. My brother continued staring at the floor.

“But my pen…,” I gave a hushed cry.

“You will get it.. tomorrow,” she cut me off with a staunch murmur. “Now, both of you go to sleep,” she said, and walked away with the pen. I scowled at my brother for taking my pen without telling me. I told him that I got a beating because of him. He smiled and said sorry.

***

We woke up the next day, and heard my mother tell my father that she had found the pen when she cleaned our cupboards.

“I found it under his cupboard,” she said. “It was under piles of his books,” she informed him.

“I knew he had lost it,” my father said, with a gleam in his eye. “I knew he was lying from his face itself yesterday.”

He sipped his cup of tea and bit into his breakfast. “Now that he has got his punishment, he has learned his lesson. Give it back to him,” he added with a glow of satisfaction.

“If we don’t teach our children to speak the truth, who will?” he remarked, while having his breakfast. My mother nodded in agreement.

I felt like telling him that I hadn’t lost the pen. My brother had taken it. But I stopped short in my step. I looked at my mother who gave me a glare and ordered me to stop with a signal of round eyes.

After my father went to work, she gave me my pen back.

She had a sorry look on her face. I understood why she did what she did.

“I couldn’t save you, dear, from a whacking yesterday,” she said, pressing my hand. “But at least, spared your brother today,” she said with a mischievous giggle and tapped my cheek. “And saved your new fountain pen from going into the dustbin.”

I felt something move in the depths of my stomach. I forced a smile on my face but somehow it didn’t come through. An awkward expression made my face its home.

I saw my brother cackle. He gave me a high five. “Nice pen,” he said. I gave him a blank, confused look. He said, “it’s alright. It was only two cane shots. I am sorry for that. But at least you got your new fountain pen back!”

“Write a poem. Tomorrow we will read it out to Papa. He will be happy, don’t worry,” he reassured me with a tap on my shoulder. 

I looked at my new fountain pen. I decided that I was not going to write anything with it. I was going to misplace it. This time for real.

***