Vicissitudes

The sun had begun to set on the temple town, shooting fountains of color from the horizon upon the streets, mingling with the neon light of the street-lamps, lending the town an ethereal look. Hari alighted from the bus, mulling over the uncanny coincidence of the day's events which had brought him back here – to this place which once had been his sanctuary, his second home.

Five years. Five long years had passed, Hari realized, since his last visit. Life had come full circle since then. He had seen it all. But the place was still the same. The calm, cool air. The occasional, high pitched toll of the temple bells. The wafting aroma of incense. The mumbled prayers of the dhoti-clad, busy looking priests and passers-by. Even the lodge still looked the same, though it looked a shade younger in its new coat of blue which had come to replace the faded gray color which had once characterized it.

Time seemed to stand still here. On this street, where he had once set foot on, as a twenty-five year old who had nothing to lay claim to, other than his own dreams, unbridled confidence and fingers which could weave magic on canvas with every stroke of a brush. Hari ran his hands through his unkempt, browning hair, wishing ruefully whether he could go back in time, and be that impetuous, prodigiously talented young painter once again.

No. It wasn’t to be. There was no way back. His shoulders had drooped from the agony of repeated failures. The eyes had sunk deep into their sockets and had black patches round them, lending him an appearance which would have suited a man who was double his age. The truth that he himself was accountable for his current travails weighed him down even more. In the frantic, mindless race to the top, in those years which sped dizzily under the spotlight, amongst the ubiquitous accolades and encomiums, he had never known what he had been losing; and when the realization finally dawned on him, everything precious in life had been lost.

Everything. Destroyed beyond redemption. Like dainty flowers trampled down into the sand by a firm, ruthless boot.

He stepped warily into the lodge, feeling a slight apprehension about meeting someone who knew him. In the very next instant, the sheer meaninglessness of his fear struck Hari. It was years since he had faded away from the spotlight and from the public consciousness. It was foolish to think that anyone would recognize him. His parched, tobacco stained lips cracked into a wry smile at the thought.

Hari was not fully in his senses, even as he signed the guestbook, pocketed the key and silently followed the room-boy to the room allotted to him. He was shocked into his senses, only when the boy stopped at the room numbered two-zero-six on the second floor. The boy unlocked the door which opened with a creak.

The familiar, faint, damp smell greeted his nostrils, as he stepped in. As he locked the door behind him and opened the window overlooking the temple, the golden flagpole of the temple gleamed in the distance. When the door which led into the balcony was opened, the cool night breeze rushed in like a playful, rogue child; bringing with it a whole deluge of memories. The past, with the aid of the day's numerous coincidences, seduced him, like a temptress.

The memories of a similar evening, in the same room, overlooking the same golden flagpole, floated up in front of his eyes. Hari stretched out on his chair and poured himself a drink. It had become his habit of late, to drown himself in drinks. Drink and drink till he faded out into unconsciousness, till memories no more troubled him.

But today, each peg that he downed only served to accentuate the memories of that evening. And about the woman who had been with him, that day.

Arundhati.

Her smile. With the warmth of a thousand flames.
Her touch. With the coolness of a mountain spring.

It had been on a similar evening, that he had made love to her for the first time. In this same room. Though it had been on impulse; as they lay in bed afterwards, spent, both of them had felt that they had never done a more natural thing to each other.

Hari had met Arundhati for the first time at one of his painting exhibitions. Then, she had flitted about him, like an insect around a candle flame. Blind in her adoration for the upcoming, brilliant, painter. That was just the start. He became besotted too, with her beauty and her vivacious self. The relationship grew. It was he, who then took the initiative. He had given her all the attention he could, so much so that, it flattered her; and had found time to be with her

She had been an elixir, an obsession. In her presence, his brush seemed to move as if in a trance, his works transcended the ordinary. The very sight of her inspired him. Life became beautiful. It was her prayers that drove him on. When, like a typical greenhorn, he was distraught at a failure, she would lend him a shoulder to cry, would fuel his optimism. When one of his works had not hit the right notes, she would come up, with prompt criticism.

Each of his paintings drew a thousand admirers. Awards and accolades seemed to chase him around.

But Hari could not recollect when the fame had started to get to his head. With each step up the ladder, his mind had grown narrower. Overconfidence and arrogance pulled blinds over his eyes. He had lurched mindlessly ahead, towards the beckoning glory. Like a firefly which rushes into light, unaware that it would only end up burning its wings.

And he did burn his wings indeed.

It was a dizzy ride to stardom. He toured worldwide, held painting exhibitions everywhere. The group of admirers grew; and he forgot himself amidst the paeans that they sung to him. Arundhati faded away into oblivion from his memories, just another forgotten one, amongst the bevy of starlets who now chased him around.

Like a hurriedly snuffed out candle flame. Little had he known that without this little candle flame that he snuffed out, life would plunge into darkness.

The last time she had come before his eyes had been at a public reception arranged for him. She had made her way, painfully through the crowd towards the dais, and held out a piece of paper on which she had scribbled her address. He never had heard, rather had chosen not to hear, the muffled sobs and tears. He had been too busy to think of the past. In the ensuing hubbub and the flash of camera lights, Arundhati was forgotten.

Only to resurface again at an obscure corner of a local daily. In an obituary report. It had been a suicide.

That was the beginning of the end.

He came to know of it only after a while, from a friend. The news shook him. He could not concentrate on anything, anymore. Unable to do anything to atone for what he had done, the magic, slowly but surely faded away. The fingers which once wove poetry on canvas were now numb and paralyzed by guilt. The colors and once elegant brush strokes now made only a fleeting appearance. The paean-singers left too, one by one. A permanent pall of darkness descended upon his life. The clutch of the past grew stronger, and had pulled him down, deeper and deeper into abyss.

He set up the canvas at a corner. He did it every day, a meaningless custom, in spite of the fact that he hadn't done a worthwhile painting in over two years. Sitting in the room, Hari drank hard, staring blankly out of the window at the crimson sky, which seemed to reflect the cinders which smoked within. Usually, no amount of drinks, no amount of drugs could free him from the memories and the guilt.

Ever.

But, now, in the same hotel room, in which they had lain together for the last time, looking into each others' eyes, each of their bodies pressing snugly into the grooves of the other’s body; the pall of gloom slowly seemed to lift steadily and he felt a rare lightness in his chest. He felt dizzy, and tried to keep his eyes open.

Then he felt as if Arundhati stood before him. Her hands outstretched, beckoned him. With the same bewitching smile.

Then she came close, and ran her fingers through his hair. The sights around grew more and more blurred. The sounds around became less and less audible. Tender fingers lifted up his chin, gripped his fingers and guided them, across the canvas. Slowly, but surely, he felt the magic return.

Bit by bit. Like the moon waxes from behind the clouds.

Lines and shades started to fall in place, as he drew on, still in a trance. She held him close as he drew, pressed her soft, luscous lips to his forehead as he applied the finishing touches.
Then Hari saw her drift away, as he closed his dreary,careworn eyes.

He woke up in the morning, feeling the warmth of the sunlight on his cheeks. He reached out for the whisky, and found the bottle broken, at a corner in the room. Then his eyes fell on the painting. It was perfect. The delicately carved temple walls. The crimson skies. The busy street. All were perfectly etched out on the canvas.

With tearful eyes, he walked out, to the temple pond ,stepped into the knee-high water and dipped his head into the pond and rose up. As the cool water trickled off his hair and bare back, he felt the burden of guilt wash away. Then he looked up towards the sun, closed his eyes and prayed for Arundhati's soul.

The Final Good-bye

"Dear Gomez", Moorthy scribbled, in his shaky handwriting.

“Heard you are in town.
Enjoy your birthday.
You will never hear from me again.
Good-bye
J.M.”

With trembling fingers, he scribbled the note, folded it into two, and enclosed it along with the gift in the cardboard box. Then he covered it in a gift-wrapper, hired a cab to the Hotel Presidency and handed it over at the reception, avoiding the suspicious glance of the hotel clerk. Afterwards, Moorthy went back to the run-down stingy apartment which he had rented for the day, poured himself a couple of drinks, walked across the damp floor to the window and looked down, watching the street which had already begun to darken.

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Back at the Hotel Presidency, Antony Gomez, fists-on-hip, dressed in all his royal finery, flanked by suit-clad secretaries, surveyed the elaborate arrangements made at the plush roof-top restaurant for the grand birthday celebrations.

"Good. Excellent" ,he said nodding his shiny, bald head, reclining on the couch, grinning to his henchmen who flanked him, heads bowed in polite affirmation. The artificial golden tooth glinted menacingly, reflecting the yellow light of the chandelier.

"Is the guest roster finalized?" ,Gomez enquired.
"The Governor wont turn up" ,one of the men said, stepping forward.
"The old bumpkin", Gomez pounded his fist on the table. "Let him rot in hell. And the others?"
"All the rest will turn up on time."
"Good."

There was a knock on the door, and the hotel boy came in. One of the men walked up to the boy, collected the gifts and handed over to Gomez who would take a look and proceed to toss them, one by one, onto the pile of gifts that was stacked at the corner of the room.

The shaky handwriting and the initials scribbled on top of one of the packets made Gomez sit up and take notice.

“J.M….Oh..It’s from old Moorthy!” , exclaimed Gomez, slicing open the packet. “I thought the old fool was still in jail.”

“Heard he was released a month back”, said Johnny, one of the secretaries.

“My, there is a letter inside”, Gomez grinned, handing over the letter to them. “Read it for me, Johnny.”

Johnny read out to him, and looked puzzled. “What does he mean” ?

“To hell with what he means. Good riddance”, Gomez said, wiping his sunglasses on his shirt and replacing them back on. “If I hear from him, it is always the same, the same ‘I have no money’ story.”

Along with the letter, there was another cardboard box inside. As he opened, Gomez gleamed. A bottle of beer was inside. “Tiger Beer”, he said, grinning, “the old rat, he still remembers my taste.”

Johnny smiled weakly. “But boss, don’t we owe him some money? The man must be broke, the letter looks like a suicide note”, he said apologetically, almost as if he sensed the outburst that would follow.

Gomez stood up, glowering. “Bullshit, Johnny, Bullshit!”, he shouted, downing the beer in large gulps.

“This business, this business of ours”, Gomez went on, “is not for the sissies and the weak-hearted. It’s for men. Real, tough, men. The fool would have lost money anyway. If not for me, someone else would have swindled him of his money. Even if it was not for him, I would have still reached where I am now. Do you doubt that, Johnny? Don’t people always get what they deserve?”

Johnny nodded his head, remembering with a tinge of guilt about how they had deceived the unsuspecting Moorthy into signing a deal with them. The deal was an underhand one, and had Moorthy’s signature on it, leading to his arrest and a seizure of all his assets.

That had been the start Moorthy's decline and that of Gomez’s meteoric rise.
Johnny could do nothing. He shrugged his shoulders.

Gomez continued, “Let the fool go and die, that is best for him. This Brahmins, they are not made for business. We jews, we have it in our blood, don’t we, Johnny? You drinkin’ some beer?”

Johnny declined. Gomez finished off the beer, kept it aside, and reclined in his chair, muttering curses under his breath. “Let him go and die.”

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Back in his lodge room, Moorthy stood still near the window, watching the dark street. He paced back and forth in his small room, and stood near the window again, wringing his palm. Then he saw a sudden burst of light and traffic through the dark street.

Two vehicles were rushing across towards the Hotel Presidency. He sensed what had happened, picked up his duffel bag, paid the lodge bill, tip-toed out and walked with firm steps along the dark road which led to the railway station. The train was scheduled to arrive in fifteen minutes, and would take him out of the state.

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A few minutes earlier, Gomez had got up from his chair, clutching his stomach, his face contorted into a grimace. As Johnny looked on clueless, he staggered a few steps forward and had doubled over, headfirst into the wash-basin.

The guests, who had arrived and had started to help themselves to the feast, looked shocked and ran helter-skelter.

As someone rung up the hospital. Johnny ran upto Gomez and lifted him up from the wash-basin.

“The bastard, it was the beer, it was the beer”, Gomez had mumbled incoherently, before his body became motionless.

A Love Story

Leaning back on the bench, unsteady from the pegs of whisky he had downed, Walter watched Mary, standing with her back to him. The hair was unusually done up into a bun at the back of her head, and was adorned with golden beads arranged in a circular pattern. The yellow window-glass imparted a distinct hue to the beam of sunlight which trickled in through it and illuminated her ear-stud and her flushed left cheek.

And for Walter, who watched her, the sight turned the clock back, to four years back, when she had joined their office.

They had joined together, four ladies, and among them one would never notice Mary, unless he looked a second time. Lips set in a tight line, gaze fixed at her toes, hip-long hair braided plainly and unfashionably, there was some unsettling about her. He had liked her understated beauty initially, Walter recollected, but he couldn't remember precisely when he had started falling for her - but a similar sight, on an early June morning was still fresh in his memory. On his twenty-fifth birthday.

Mary and himself had been the first to reach office that morning. Her hair was wet, and was uncharacteristically let down, cascading to her hip and the sunlight had fallen on her cheek, spreading golden dust on it and lending it a cherubic charm, as it did today. She had come up to him, a rare smile playing on her lips, and wished him a happy birthday. He never had a way with women, did Walter, and the moment - her abrupt beauty and the unexpected birthday wish - had completely swept him off his feet. It was since then, that he, neither at ease with girls in general nor particularly handsome, started trying to catch her attention, albeit unsuccessfully. Mary went back to her normal self and seemed genuinely unaware of the affection that her colleague secretly harbored within.

For the smitten Walter, expressing his feelings for Mary was a struggle. He would rehearse conversations at home and reach office prepared, and either would end up deciding against it or would burn with envy at the sight of someone else talking to her. Almost a year passed before he decided that enough was enough, and come what may, he would go ahead with a proposal. Three tense days and two tossing-around-in-bed nights and a hell lot of deliberation, Walter remembered, was what it had taken him to summon the gumption to let her know.

He smiled to himself and craned his neck, looking over the tall man who sat in front of him. He could see Mary better now. She had turned sideways, her profile visible to him.

"Are you already engaged?", was what he had asked her then.
"Yes", came the reply.
"You know why I am asking this, I hope?", he had asked her, hoping that she knew all the while.
"No, never", she had replied, her eyes widening. "I never saw you that way, Walter. You have been a good friend. Always."

Since then, they grew closer. Walter found himself talking more freely, once he had let out his feelings for her. Mary too, when she talked to Walter, dropped the unapproachable air that seemed to surround her like a shroud. They found themselves talking to each other much more, and in one of their conversations Mary had told him something.

She wasn't engaged, she had admitted, and was smarting from a broken love affair. She had been in love with a guy, for three years, and had planned to marry him, but being unable to convince his parents, the guy had backed out of marriage. She had vowed never again to venture into an affair, she had told Walter and that she could never recover from the blow that the experience had given her.

Even then, he couldn't love her any less.

Instead, with each passing day, his obsession kept growing but he could never bring himself round to broach the topic again in their conversations. Status quo remained, till one day, he, excessively drunk and spirits buoyed by his drinking-mate’s tale of how he had won his girl over with his persistent proposals, had telephoned Mary late into the night. After a breathless drunken speech, he expected reproach from her, but the answer that she gave stunned him.
"I am okay with it", she had said, "but I need to talk it over at home". She wanted a week to talk it over, she said.

As the week passed on; Walter had waited, his own optimism both exciting and scaring him. He tempered his optimism with his own fears about how her conservative family would react to his proposal, and waited.

The bad news came soon from Mary. Her family wouldn't even consider taking up his proposal and spurred by it, had started arrangements to find a suitor for her at the earliest. He had tried to convince her, persuading, coaxing and cajoling but she wouldn't act against her family's will. He had given up, but still felt queerly contented. At least, she was ready he consoled himself; it was just her family who stood at loggerheads. If not for them, she would have been his girl.

He had been downcast for a few days, but had started to recover and life was getting back on track, when he had decided to pay a visit to Mary's apartment. They had tea together, and he loitered round the apartment, when a leather-bound book, with a pen kept inside to mark the pages caught his eye. It was her diary and he flipped through the pages. And a small note, scribbled on one of the pages, had left him shell-shocked.

“I like Walter.” Mary had written. “But I would never bring myself to marry him. I can't love anyone else in my life again. But I just can’t disappoint him anymore. After a week, I will tell him that mom and dad couldn’t agree to his proposal. So yesterday, I lied to Walter. I told him that I was ready to marry him, if Mom and Dad allowed me to. But I didn't. I know, anyhow, that they wouldn’t agree. Sorry Walter.”

She had written it on the day after he had made his drunken proposal. He had felt sick, and his mouth went dry. He hurried out quickly, bidding a quick good-bye to Mary, making it quick so that his face would not betray him. He never let her know that he had seen the diary, never when they talked afterwards.

He had felt cheated. All the way, she never intended to marry him. And even if it was for those few days, he had made castles in the air, day-dreamed; all for nothing. He had felt an intense loathing for himself. Slowly, he shook off the disappointment, and later, when she had invited him for her marriage, he had wished her good luck in the cheeriest way he could. She had to give in to her parents’ pressure, she had said.

Remembering all this, Walter smiled. Still, he realized, he couldn’t love her less.

Mary stood ahead on the dais, now facing him. He fought off the whiskey-inspired urge to walk up to her and proclaim his love once again; and instead clutched the armrests of the chair and remained seated.

The hitherto seated crowd now got up on their feet. The priest finished his prayers and the bespectacled, suit clad guy, who stood beside Mary slipped the wedding ring onto her finger. As the wedding bells tolled, he watched the old lady next to him; her eyes closed and lips quivering as she said her prayers.

Then, Walter got on his feet, crossed himself, closed his eyes and muttered. “God Bless”.

Twin murders and a kid's penance

That Sunday afternoon was a typical one, the two-day-holiday cushion diluted by the impending Monday blues. I squatted on my haunches in our compound, all my attention focused on the green, shiny skinned grasshopper, sitting motionless on our home’s whitewashed wall. Only the two antennae on its head moved. That too, ever so slightly. The rest was still.

“It is not moving. You sure we can catch it?” six year old Winnie asked, watching excitedly by my side.

“Shhh…” I hissed, pressing my index finger against my lips. “If you make any noise, it will fly away.”

Silenced, she squatted by my side, pouting, as I stealthily moved my fingers around the grasshopper. She let out a squeal of delight, when it was between my fingers, trapped, struggling, legs flailing and wings fluttering wildly.

“Hold it tight, Yippee!!”

Paying scant attention to her, I methodically removed the two antennae on its head. Black blood trickled out, and stained my fingernails.

“Oh poor thing! Why do you do that?”

“To make it obedient”, I said. “They will jump away unless you take their horns off.”

We had kept aside a translucent lid of a cough-syrup bottle, with the letters ‘Cipla’ on its top and ounce measurements on its sides, to enclose our prey in. The lid lay on the portico, its Cipla side upwards. As Winnie gingerly lifted the lid, I put the insect inside, and replaced the lid in a flash.

The trapped grasshopper stood inside, as if ruminating over its Cipla cage and the lost antennae.

“It looks lonely.” Winnie said.

“Yes.”

“Why don’t we catch one more? So that he’ll have company?”

Then we set off, to find another one, squatting down again, waiting, like hungry lizards do on walls and rooftops for their prey. Several would-have-been prisoners came and went, and all were either very smart or very lucky, until one finally fell in our trap. He was brown, the color of dead wood, and had an ugly mottled design over his back.

“It is so ugly”, she screamed. “We can catch another”.

“It’s tough to get another, Winnie”, I said, carefully plucking off the antennae from the new grasshopper’s head.

We got him too under the Cipla cup.

“They won’t be friends”, Winnie was still complaining, “They don’t match at all.”

“They will fight”, I said. Winnie’s eyes widened. Fights always thrill children. We weren’t any different.

“They will? Really?”

“Yes. They will. You just wait and watch.” I said gravely.

“Who will win?” She continued to chatter.

I had not thought of that, but then, the conventional filmi wisdom must have come to the fore. The good looking one should be the hero and the ugly one, the villain.

“The green one.” I replied.

A handsome hero. A loathsome villain. The stage was so nicely set. Both of us knelt down, elbows resting on the floor, faces cupped in our palms. Two pairs of eager eyes glued fast to a Cipla lid.

The grasshoppers transmuted into sparring gladiators in our imaginations. One armored in brown and the other in green. Raring to go at each other. The Cipla lid became a Roman amphitheatre.

But the insects, trapped, together in their misery, had other ideas. They faced away from each other, desolate, showing no intention to fight. They didn’t even move an inch, and stood there, bottoms pressed against each other’s and the antennae-less noses rubbing against the lid’s inner walls. Having watched for sometime, Winnie lost patience, got up and walked away.

I still waited, hoping for something to happen. For quite some time, nothing did. Exasperated, I took a round pebble, lifted the lid, and smashed the pebble down twice onto the brown grasshopper. Our supposed villain.

Snap snap. Broken wings. Cracked head. Black blood. Gnashed flesh. It briefly slashed out with its frail legs, before dying a quick death.

I chose to subvert reality: ‘The green one killed the brown after a fight’. Then I yelled to Winnie, to come and see for herself, how the fight and the result had panned out in exactly the same way as I had said. But contrary to my high expectations, Winnie found the scene too gory, and stomped off. Unimpressed and queasy.

Not having got the adulation that I expected, I disposed the dead brown one, forgot about the green one sitting alone in the lid, and kept myself occupied with other similar, silly games. It was an hour later that I set my eyes on the Cipla lid again.

I had not replaced the lid properly: A part of the green grasshopper’s legs stood outside the lid; so did a part of the feathers on its rear-side, and the weight of the lid pressing down on its body had enervated the insect rather badly. Almost fatally.

I took the lid off. The insect could not move. Feet crushed under the weight of the lid, it was crawling on the floor. The wings had been broken too. I tried to set it free, but each time it started to fly or to jump, it landed back on the floor with a dull, sickening thud. I felt sick. After a few moments of deliberation, sure that it could not survive anymore, I put an end to its suffering – in the same way which I had done with the other grasshopper. With a pebble.

For the entire afternoon and the night, the dead grasshoppers flitted about in my consciousness, stirring up guilt and remorse. I just could not shake it off. By the next morning, I had almost forgotten about the incident, preoccupied with thoughts of school, when I saw something – a fleet of ants, as if in a funeral procession, carrying the rotten carcass of the green grasshopper across our compound. The insect ghosts started to wake up once again within me.

I had come to know recently from Mom, that God forgave sins till kids were seven. Beyond that age, the sins would be recorded in ChitraGupta’s register, and depending on the intensity of the crime, we would roast in hell, in stygian furnaces of varying temperatures. Greater heat for greater crimes. And I was nine years old. Two more than seven.

Starting to feel sick and guilty again, I skipped breakfast, slung the schoolbag over my shoulder and walked off, ashen-faced, to school. I walked, absent-mindedly, the hellish fires in my mind and in my eyes, tripped over a rope and fell down. My knees landed on a rocky ledge, and got badly bruised. Blood ran down my legs, soaking my white socks and canvas shoes in red. My parents came running over, lifted me up and carried me home. I stayed at home that day, wounds bandaged and dressed.

For the entire day, I was confined to my bed. But, even as the searing pain crept up my thighs, even as the vitriolic antiseptic burnt its way through the wound, even as its strong pungent smell crept up my nostrils; what I felt was not pain. There must have been pain, but more than that, what still stays etched in mind was the queer sense of relief that I felt then. Of justice being done.

Perhaps, this could be how I had to atone for my little sin. Moreover, ChitraGupta might pardon me and score my name off his dreaded register – I had already served my punishment. Thankfully, the flitting, restless grasshopper ghosts never reappeared again to ruin my dreams.

I remember, it was then, as a kid all of nine years, that I got my first idea of penance. And as a matter of fact, I haven't played an insect torturing game ever since.