Protim

I had returned from Mysore last night. The dinner I had come to looked forward to had been impossible to swallow. Yesterday she wasn’t sitting across from me and listening to me talk. Today  I aimlessly wandered around the plantation and I prayed; prayed like I had never done before. Let her come back to me and I would set everything right. No more games, no more manipulations. I would bare it all and beg her for her acceptance.

“Mr. Roychowdhury?” My breath caught in my throat. How could she appear without a sound? But as always, there she was as I turned around, wearing her brown dress. She had only two as far I could tell – one black and one brown. Unless she had the multiple dresses of same two colors sewn.

“Sarah!” There was something I had decided I had to do as soon as she came back. What was it? I was unable to gather my wits together. I was growing limp with relief. She was back. She was there. That moment was all that mattered. The next moment, when she could have disappeared as quietly as she came, or the next day, the next month, the rest of my life – none of it mattered.

“I am sorry, it took me longer to return.”

“You had left your mobile behind.”

“I forgot.”

I had assumed that it was deliberate, a message that she wasn’t coming back. An insecure man’s mind is a fertile one. It can conjure up believable reasons for most implausible things if those feed into the cycle of self-pity and insecurity he has fallen into. But a simple action that would decide the matter for him one way or the other eludes that fertile mind, so busy it is embellishing the imagined misfortunes. I could have called up at the orphanage, I could have driven down to Bangalore, I could have tried a thousand other ways to get in touch with her. But that mobile… Since the first time I had heard it ringing in the house after she had left, it had been mocking me, laughing at me, ridiculing my desires and dreams.

My exuberance on realizing that none of those misfortunes had been real was frighteningly violent. The mobile was left behind because of that simple human folly of forgetfulness. I could forgive her that. Heck! I could forgive her a murder or two if only she would…

“I am glad you are back. I thought…” Don’t say too much, I told myself. Nothing good could come from talking when my mind was so muddled up.

“I am not such a thankless creature, Sir. I won’t just disappear.”

“No. You are not.”

“Your guests have left?”

“They were here only for two weeks. They left.”

“To return soon, I hope. At least one of them…”

“To return?”

“Aren’t congratulations in order, Sir?” she smiled – a weak, worn-out smile, “I am not going to disappear on you. But I think it’s time I started looking for another job. Once your wife is here, a tutor may not be needed for Ananya.”

“My wife?”

“You might not even stay here. If you went back to Bangalore, or shifted to Mysore, she would have good schools.”

What had come upon her? How come she was yapping like that, without any provocation from me, and what exactly was she trying to convey? Had she rehearsed all this before coming?

“You are right. Once my wife is here, a tutor may not be needed for my daughter.”

“You are getting married soon, I think.”

“Soon. I hope.”

“Then I must find another job quickly and until then I hope I can stay here…”

“Yes. And I owe you to find another job for you, if you need one. I will do that. Would you like me to do that?”

“It would be very helpful, though I don’t want to trouble you…”

“There is this place in Delhi…”

“In Delhi?”

“Yes. In Delhi.”

“It’s too far.”

“Why should that matter to you? It’s not like you have family or friends here.”

“It’s too far.”

“Too far from?”

“From everything I have known. From Bangalore… From here…”

“You haven’t been here for long. And Father Jacob…”

“Father Jacob is dead, yes. And I haven’t been here for long. But I have still known this house, this plantation, Ananya, all the other people and…”

“And?”

Sarah

“And you!” I threw aside all caution and propriety. I had to go away. Why should I care? Why should I not unburden myself?

“Me! Yes. I don’t go to Delhi often. I haven’t been there in years and I have no reason to go there in future either. Once you are there, we’d hardly meet, if ever.  And Sarah, you would miss having a friend there, won’t you? Have we become friends, Sarah?”

“Yes Sir,” I didn’t add ‘the only one I have.’

“Friends who are about to separate. We should spend some time with each other, then, shouldn’t we? That’s what friends do. Come, walk with me. We’d sit somewhere quiet and spend some time together. To create a lifetime of memories”

We sat down at a spot of his choosing, I remembered to maintain my distance from him.

“I get a queer feeling sometimes, Sarah. That there is a thread. A thin, almost invisible one. But sharp as a razor. One end of it tied to my heart. And the other end is with someone else, tied to her heart probably. Should she go too far from me, that thread will snap. And it will cut across my heart and I will bleed myself to death. Do you understand that feeling? I guess not. You would go to Delhi and then forget about me.”

“That will not happen…” It was all very peculiar, but I was too grieved to notice it. I was a fully-blown balloon of emotions, ready to burst at the touch of a pin.  But at the same time, I was also a lifeless zombie. I could have been led anywhere by anyone, and I could have said anything to anybody.

“Do you hear this birdsong? I don’t know which bird it is. But I can recognize the song. You don’t hear in in Bangalore. Or Delhi. Probably there aren’t enough trees there. Or probably this bird doesn’t stay there. This place…”

“I wish I had never come to this place,” I screamed. The pin-prick had come. The balloon had burst. I broke into sobs.

“Because you are unhappy about leaving it?”

My emotions were running wild. They had no care for propriety, manners, or even the humiliation I would afflict on myself by talking my heart out.

“Yes. I am unhappy about leaving a place that has treated me with dignity, leaving people who have respected me, leaving Ananya who has given me an unconditional love of a child, and leaving you . You, who I have come to respect, whose company stimulates me intellectually, in whose presence I don’t feel suffocated, but constantly challenged to improve. Yes. I am unhappy about leaving you. I have to leave though. And it is like looking at a certain death in eyes.”

“Why do you have to leave?”

“Why? Why do I have to leave? You don’t see it, do you? How can you? What right does a penniless orphan have to feel insulted when a rich and beautiful woman from a respected family becomes your wife and the mistress of your house? Why shouldn’t I be happy pandering to her whims? Why shouldn’t I be grateful for my salary, and the roof over my head, while she claims you all for herself. Yes – I have no right. And still – I will feel insulted, I will suffocate and I will die a thousand deaths each day.  So, whether you think that I should leave or not, I will leave.”

—

To be continued