the Thinker

“Tonight there is a business party, it would be good if you could come with me,” said Sandeep in his usual dispassionate manner. Anjali was used to that tone by now. For him everything was as simple as business. Either it is correct or incorrect, if its not plus, has to be minus, or maybe multiplication or division.

She could not imagine how could she have spent six years of her life with a person who has an utmost clinical temperament. This was not what she wanted. Still now she could not forget those warm sincere eyes, which looked at her and told her that nothing could be wrong with her and that anyone would like her.

She longed to see him once more, just once more! She did not even know where he was now. Six years back, that night when she kept dialing his number frantically, he never answered it.
She went to his home early next morning only to discover a big metallic lock hanging on his front door. He lived alone, she knew that.

“Are you here for Shekhar?” someone had asked her from behind.
She looked at a lady, who peeked her head from a door opposite to Shekhar’s main door, which was now locked to her.

“Yes, could you please tell me where he is? I mean, if you know,” she remembered how she checked her voice, but it gave out the absolute desperation, she was experiencing.

“He left this place, he cleared up his rent and left,” the lady answered.

“Where…do you know?” she asked, even more anxiously.

“No,” the lady answered squarely. But, while answering, she never realized how it would impact her (Anjali). After the lady closed her door on Anjali, she stood there for nearly half an hour, thinking, where could she find him.

She had called up Neha, who was their common friend.

“Hello?”

“Yeah, Neha?”

“Yes, speaking.”

“Do you… do you know where Shekhar is?”

“Shekhar? Why he left this morning for US.”

“US? Why?”

“He got a job there, didn’t he tell you?…. Hello, Hello, are you there?”

“Y..Yeah! I am here, thanks for telling me. So..he won’t come back, is it?” She dreaded to ask the question, as she had already guessed the answer in advance. But still, some little part within her still held a hope that she might hear, something she wanted to hear.

“I don’t know yaar.” The conversation had ended. But Anjali kept standing there for a long time not knowing where to go.

The car stopped with a jerk.

“Are you okay? I mean are you feeling ill or something?” asked Sandeep. Anjali looked at him, dazed for a moment. She never realized when she had slipped into a reverie.

“Ye, yes, I am fine…have we reached?” she asked hesitantly.

“Of course, we have and we are late for the party. I wonder what boss shall think,” said Sandeep impatiently as he parked the car.

The party was being held in a banquet hall of some big hotel. Anjali lost count of the number of people her husband introduced her to and the number of times she exchanged courtesies with each of them.

“Anjali, come I shall introduce you to someone, he has come India to finalize talks about our new joint venture on behalf of his company,” said Sandeep in a hurried manner.

“Sandeep, I am really tired. Could we please leave?” she asked in a wearied tone.

“Of course we will, just after meeting him,” he said.

“What good would it be to your company if I meet him?” she asked, slightly irritated.

“No dear, you don’t understand, its normal courtesy,” he said trying to convince her.

‘Courtesy!’ That word was getting on her nerves now. She looked for a moment at her husband’s face. He seemed so impatient, as if he were ready to beg if she didn’t oblige to his necessity at this moment. But then, she felt strangely triumphant at being able to be of some level of importance from him.

For that fragile moment she experienced some kind of a strange, vicarious pleasure at being able to command his attention for some time.

“Ok, come, but after this we shall leave,” she said firmly.

Her triumph and sense of pride crinkled when she saw the person her husband was so insistent on meeting. A surfeit of emotions emerged transparently on her face – that of pain, fear, confusion, anger and others that she could not explain.
The man looked at her with equal amount of awe.

“This is Mr.Shekhar, he works for …, ” Sandeep went on elaborating on his (Shekhar’s) company, its background, how enterprising it was, and such other details. Anjali had closed her ears to whatever her husband went on saying and kept looking at the person standing in front of her. Everything else around seemed immaterial.

Within her aroused a burning desire to question him, where was he all this while, why did he not inform her that he was leaving. Most of all she wanted to ask him whether he has ever shared even one bit of the agony and desperation she underwent the past six years.

“Anjali, Anjali?”

Her thoughts were interrupted. She looked at her husband, who was in turn staring at her with a pair of confused and curious eyes.

“Anjali, Mr.Shekhar has extended his hand to you,” said Sandeep.

“Hello, Mrs. Verma,” said Shekhar in a subdued tone.

“Hello,” said Anjali. “Can we leave now?” she looked at Sandeep and asked. Somehow her entire tone and face had changed. She never sounded so resolute, so intolerant…so hurt.

Throughout the past six years, Sandeep had never really realized what kind of a woman he has married. He never had any eye for analysis. The only ‘fact’ that was evident to him was, that she was one of the most absent-minded women he had ever been with, who would sometimes get restless without any proper reason.

But, he never could comprehend the cause behind her being so. The only way he explained it to himself was that all individuals are not endowed with similar mental aptitudes.
Though it occurred to him at times that perhaps he should make an attempt to understand her better, that moment of realization was always got lost behind the files, folders and projects that he was assigned in his office.

Throughout their way back home, Anjali as usual did not speak any word to him. But this time, for the first time her attitude got him thinking. Most of the time whenever, he tried to deduce a possible explanation about any problem, he always had depended on the facts available to him.
This time it was difficult as most of the problems he had dealt with so far were strictly based on figures and facts, not some kind of an unknown emotional, well for him a psychological crisis, if the problem has to be viewed from the academic point of view.

He sneaked a glance through the corner of his eye, with his hands on the steering of his vehicle. Anjali was looking out of the window, thinking about something, God knows what.
That night he laid thinking on bed, assembling all the possible ‘facts’ that could possibly lead to a sound justification of Anjali’s strange behaviour at the party, in the evening. Could it be his insistence on her meeting all his business associates? But then she was all well before he …Oh no! could it be….?

“But, why should she take exceptions to Mr.Shekhar?” He kept thinking confused, without being conscious that the whole night Anjali wept, and covered her face with her pillow.
The next morning before leaving for the office he looked at her. Her eyes appeared red.

“Did she not sleep last night, or maybe…?” he wondered.

“Anjali, I am leaving for office,” he started to move, paused for a second as if wanted to ask her something. But somehow he could not bring himself to ask anything. He opened the door to leave.

“Sandeep, we need to talk,” she spoke at last.

He looked at her surprised. Slowly he walked to her, took a chair and sat down. She paused for a moment and started to speak.

“The fellow you introduced me to last night at the party, Shekhar, I have known him before we got married. He lived near my place. I came to now him through a common friend. He was a great friend of mine. He supported me at times when no one was ready to. My family never encouraged me so much as much as he did. When I got a job…, ” she paused and looked at Sandeep. She could not read the expression on his face, but she presumed that it was a mix of confusion and bewilderment.

“I had started liking him more than I liked any man. That was the time when my parents told about you. They were eager to get me married to you. I was not able to tell them about him because they would have never listened to me. I tried to tell him, what I had always felt for him, but he could never learn. He left the country before I could reveal to him what I had felt for him,” she paused again, this time she did not look up to him.

“Yesterday, when you introduced me to him all over again, at first I could not understand what to say to him. But then I didn’t have to say anything, I read it all on his face. His eyes told me what I wanted to hear from him six years back. But now its of no use, had he said it then…,” she refrained from finishing her sentence. Suddenly she felt very exhausted, as if she had accomplished a strenuous task. She stood up and started to walk away. She paused for one last time. Without looking at him she said,

“I said all this to you, because you wouldn’t have ever asked,” She walked away leaving him speechless.

Her mother eyed her suspiciously; she tried not to look at her. She continued to look in another direction . Of course, she knew what her mother was trying to indicate through her narrowed eyebrows.

Opposite to her, Sandeep was going on laughing freely with Geeta. Along with Geeta, there were two more women surrounding him, listening to his jokes and laughing boisterously.

“Anjali, what’s going on? Why isn’t Sandeep with you?” her mother whispered to her furtively. Upon receiving no answer, she decided to try her usual stabbing tone.

“It almost looks as if Sandeep is wedded to her, and not to you,” her mother said, thinking that this time her daughter would shed some light on her marital affairs, about which she always chooses to remain perennially silent.

Anjali shot back a piercing glance to her mother, without speaking a word. Her mother slightly intimidated, and half apologetic at having asked her daughter such a question, refrained from asking another question.

Six years back her parents were most insistent for this match.

“You won’t find another match like this, he has done his MBA from IIM, Bangalore. Right now he works in one the most reputed firms there. I heard Mr. Joshi is inviting for dinner tomorrow,” her mother kept repeating the details about his bio-data and job profile to her so many times, that she almost felt like pouring hot oil into her ears and damaging her ear-drums.

“Yes, Joshi has two young girls at his home, both are far better looking than you, what if he ends up marrying one of them?” said her father equally persistent.

“Looks, is it all men care for?” Thought Anjali. She knew the answer. “No, not all of them.” She looked out of the window at looked down at the lane where he was standing with her yesterday.

It was a gloomy day and the sky was pregnant with dark clouds, ready to pour all over again.

“It rained pretty heavily last night, didn’t it?” he asked her.

“Yes, it did. I guess it is going to rain again. If the rain continues for a few more days it would be a problem,” she had replied to him with a worried expression.

As they were walking through the street, the cool breeze soothed their skin. The road was still wet due to last night’s rain. The air was filled with a pleasing and rich smell of the earth, wet with fresh showers.

“What’s the problem?” he asked her, looking concerned.

“Come on Shekhar, tomorrow I have an interview, if I get drenched like this, those people would not even consider hiring me!” she replied, visibly irritated. He chuckled. She felt even more irritated; generally he looked very lovable when he smiled, but right now it appeared as if he was smiling and telling her, that she was a lovable idiot.

“What’s so funny, you seem to like the idea of me not getting a job?” she sounded annoyed.

“No, no, I wasn’t laughing on you, but what makes you think they shall throw you out?” he asked, still smiling in his usual pleasing manner.

“It seems you think all this is a joke, let me assure it is not so, I am not too great looking or something, and when I get drenched, I look like a ghost,” she said in a disturbed tone.

“No, you don’t,” he replied calmly.

“Of course, I do,” she repeated.

“No, you don’t, you can never look like a ghost? Anyone there shall like you the moment they see you and speak to you; no matter whatever state you are in,” he said earnestly. She looked up to his eyes. She had always liked those sincere pair of eyes he had, with that congenial touch in them.

“What makes you think that,” she asked.

He did not reply back, but simply smiled. She had thought about him the entire night that day, while it rained outside. Within her body, she could feel a strange mix of anticipation and joy.

“Did he indeed mean what he said?” she kept thinking. Shekhar and she had lived in the same colony. She had met him through a common friend. Anjali was not the kind who would befriend men so easily.

Her parents had taken every care that she always sticks to their conservative Hindu upbringing, one that was based on regimented strictures for men and women in the family.

However, Anjali had chosen to be a rebel. Where her cousins decided to end their educational careers with a mere B.A , Anjali had a additional degree of chattered accountancy, along with the ones her cousins already had.

“That’s it! You do not need any more degrees, it is already difficult to get a match for you in our caste,” her mother bombarded out of frustration the other day. To her utter dismay, her daughter declared that she was planning to go for a job interview.

Her mother had looked at her as if she had murdered someone. Nobody spoke to her for nearly a week at home. The day her appointment letter arrived, a silent mourning was observed at home.

Earlier they were not speaking to her. Now they stopped looking at her.

“Where should I go, what should I do?” she felt like breaking her head against the wall. Suddenly the phone rang.

“He.. Hello?” She asked, scared that it was one of her relatives ready with their stinging comments. She knew they were purely jealous, but she could not tolerate their words all the time.

“Hi dear, why do you sound so scared? Do I sound like a mafia?” a voice answered on the other end.

Her eyes brimmed up with tears of joy, it was Shekhar.

“Hello? Hey what happened? I am not the mafia, seriously! I just called to congratulate dear. You got the job, right?” he asked.

She felt so elated and grateful. Someone was happy about her job. Someone was congratulating her. Minutes rolled by as they spoke. It seemed that her tears would never stop; only this time they were tears of happiness.

Shekhar had a great sense of humour. She held her tummy tight, it was aching, and she had laughed so much. She had never developed this amount of liking for anybody. But, she practically liked everything about him.

“But, does he think the same about me? Should I ask him?” She was confused and every time she met him, a constant tussle would ensue between her doubts and desires. Her puritanical upbringing, though could not gain complete hold over her, yet it could not eradicate the kind of hesitations and constraints she felt within herself at times.

Sometimes she felt that it would be ideal that he proposes to her. But soon she realized that things have to be initiated, by her. If earlier her parents were merely hinting at the match from Bangalore, now they were hounding her to succumb.

Every night she could feel strange convulsions in her mind, fits of tension and some kind of an unknown fear. Some remote part within herself told her, that she should hurry.

Her fears were confirmed, when she came back home from office one afternoon and her mother introduced her to a bunch of guests who were seated in the drawing room. Among them was a young guy; they called him Sandeep. He was an MBA from IIM, Bangalore.

That night she kept trying Shekhar’s phone again and again. It kept ringing, and with every ring her anxiety increased. Her parents would never understand, her younger sister was a bigger concern for them, as her father was fast approaching retirement. They would not settle this time without getting her married, and she won’t be able to stop them.

“Anjali? Anjali? What happened?”Anjali woke up with a jerk and looked. A pair of spectacled eyes looked down at her.

“Yes, I guess I just…,” she started to speak.

“Oh! Okay, come we will go back home,” said Sandeep, dispassionately. As they were driving back home, Sandeep spoke about all kinds of things, about his superiors’ remarks about him in the office, most of which were complimentary; about plans in his office to sent one of its employees on a foreign tour, which might be him; and last but not the least, about his colleague’s wife, who was looking very pretty and presentable, the other day in the boss’s party.

To be contd…

She could not even realize that her first year in college was nearing its end. Throughout, all these months, she had fallen in love with the place.

She always knew about her fascination regarding old and archaic things...whether it is buildings or paintings.

However, she could never forget her first day in college…her tripping off the broad wooden steps, and then he came and extended his hand to her.

“Are you alright?” His words rang in her ears till now. It followed her whenever she was in distress.

“Vikas? Vikas what? What is his surname? There are 4 Vikas’ in our class,” her senior told her, when she had asked timidly, whether anyone called Vikas studied in her class.

She sneaked during the college fest and managed to take a look at all the Vikas.’ “No, that’s not him. Where is he?” she thought desperately.

“Look dear, it is very difficult to find your prince charming now in such a huge engineering college campus, anyways, why do you want to meet him now?” her friend enquired her.

She did not have any answer for that question. Why should she be looking for him now? She didn’t know. After that day she had tried tracing him innumerable times in the college campus, but could never catch another glimpse of him.

“So strange! How could a man so suddenly disappear… as if he never existed? How could he have disappeared after extending his hand to her so helpfully, at least he could have come back once more just to see whether she has found the classroom or not, which he had pointed to her.

“Fool! Have you gone mad?” Her brains rattled and intervened the string of tender thoughts crossing her heart.

As college life was nearing an end, she felt a heavy burden weigh upon her heart; she would miss this place so much! In his absence, she used to sit under those big shady trees in the campus and do her Practical assignments.

However, never could she once concentrate on the assignments for a long stretch. Whenever she tried to do so, a thought would sneak its way through those complicated formulas prescribed in her textbook. The thought of him smiling and looking at her, with his hands extended towards her.

On the day of the farewell, she was sitting quietly at one corner looking at the people around her. Everyone was laughing, joking…they were all so happy! Why couldn’t she mingle with this crowd? As always, she never knew the answer to this.

She looked around, bored. Her eyes traveled from one corner of the hall to another. Suddenly! A face very familiar to her pierced her wearied attention. She stood up and moved forward, gradually pushing the sea of people who were obstructing her way.

As she moved forward, the voice also sounded familiar. Yes, it was the same voice, which had so gently asked her, “Are you alright?”

A sudden shiver ran down from her neck right to the end of her spine. She felt a funny excitement in her stomach as if someone was tickling her tissues from inside. She could feel the same sensation which she had felt that day, that of her palms sweating out of tension.

She could associate all these vibrations to only one thing. “HIM! It was him!” Her mind jumped with joy.

He had his back towards her, chatting with a friend of his. At first, he could not realize how close she was standing, just behind him. But then suddenly, he felt uncomfortable, as if he’s being watched.

He turned around, she tried to smile. He looked at her, bewildered.

“Er! Hi there,” he said hesitantly. “Do I know you?” he asked.

“I…um, err..I am, I mean..I , I ..,” she made vain attempts. What was happening? Why couldn’t she say something, she had waited for this day so long. “What kind of an idiot am I?” she thought.

“Yes?” He appeared even more perplexed.

“I..I..I found class room 15 that day,” she blurted.

At first he appeared confused and stupefied, then his features started easing up, his facial muscles slowly resumed to their normal state and a thin smile crept on his lips.

“Oh! Yes, now I remember, so you found the class? I was..,” he started to speak but at that moment, he felt a hand on his shoulders.

“God Vikas! You made me wait so long, I was waiting near the car for you to come, and you told me you would come in 5 minutes!” It was the same girl whom she had seen that day, the same features, tall, slim, dressed in a tight body hugging dress. This time her hair was dyed golden.

“Yes, I was about to come, but…,”

“Oh come on now! Lets hurry. You promised me we would go for a dinner at Taj, then you promised to take me to the nightclub,” she said obstinately.

“Yes, doll! I remember, I was just having a smoke with a friend,” he replied irritated.

“But, what took you so long?” the girl cried.

“My friend told me about this nice new pub nearby,” he said.

“What are we waiting for, come let’s go!” she said eagerly.

“Doll, nightclub, smoke, pub!” These were not the words she identified him with. Whenever she had thought about him over the past four years, she only thought about his gentle voice telling her where classroom 15 is…and his beaming face with that reassuring smile on it.

“Something was wrong, this couldn’t be that man!” She thought. This man sounds so different, so strange…so alien!”

She never realized when the other girl had dragged him along with her. She returned back to the corner where she was sitting quietly, before she had spotted him.

She felt something strange within her. She could nowhere relate this feeling to the one; she felt when she saw for the first time. Silently, she moved of the hall. The noises in the hall behind her started to fade away in the air, as she moved farther away from it.

As the distances between her and the building increased, she was haunted with several thoughts. Some of them were old ones, which had preoccupied her mind after she met him. Others, that were formed recently…one’s which left within her a strange hollow, disillusionment.

She stopped and turned around to take a last look at her college building. Hot tears rolled down her cheek. Somehow, she always knew, this was the place for her. Its dark rooms and antiquated surroundings had always sheltered her thoughts…comforted them, nourished them.

But the people? They were never hers. “They never can be mine,” she thought as she walked away from the place.

It was the her first day in college. She was slightly nervous, but more excited to experience a new world altogether.

As she stepped into the narrow corridors of the college building, her heart skipped a beat. It was a huge campus..the building has been there for more than 100 years now. Everything about it (the building) had a kind of antic feeling about it. The huge windows with those old shutters, the blackboards smeared with impressions of chalk writings over the years, the desks and chairs devoid of the sweet smell of fresh polish, which they had when they first entered this building....

"The crowd however, is a stark contrast to the senile college building; bright, vibrant, bustling with energy, and possessing every quality youth brings along with it," she thought.

But somehow she felt more attached to the place, than people in it. Perhaps, it could be attributed to the fact that she herself was more conservative and simple, unable to pick up her friends who followed all the latest fashion trends in the market.

As she walked amidst the wild crowd, a numbness came over her. She felt her palms were sweating, she clutched her copies tightly. She could hear a few giggles behind her back, which raised her nervousness several notches up. She pushed her glasses up her nose and kept walking.

"Whom should I asked?" she thought, utterly confused and slightly scared. In her confusion she failed to notice the stairs in front of her."WHAM!" she fell with a thud. It was followed by a huge roar of laughter behind her back.

She tried to stand up, ashamed, with tears in her eyes. She started looking for her copies, which had scattered all around.

"Here, take them," a hand extended the copies to her. She looked up to see a guy smiling gently at her. He pulled her up with his other hand. She felt something strange within her,as if something had suddenly changed.

"Are you alright?" he asked.

"Yes,Thanks." she said quietly.

"Mention not," he replied.

"Could you tell me...," she trailed off as she caught a glimpse of his gentle reassuring smile, "Where is class room 15?"

"Oh! you simply have to go straight along this corridor, it is towards the end of this corridor," he said.

"Vikas! I was searching for you all over the place, what are you doing here?" cried someone from behind her.

She looked behind her and saw a tall, slim girl in jeans and a tight sleevless t-shirt walking towards them. She had dyed her in some strange shade of red.

Come, we will go," he said and started walking along with the girl.

She started walking in the opposite direction towards the end of the corridor where he had pointed out class room 15 to her. For a moment she paused and looked behind, for just one more glimpse of that reassuring face with that gentle smile on it.

Hi folks, if any of you have been wondering what kept me away from my blog for so long...then let me wipe off all your curiosity. Finally, I have landed in Mumbai, for those who do not know why; I have got a job in this city.
A week ago, when I landed on the airport my first concern was to see how the city was...moreover, I wanted to get that feel of being in this city.
Some people believe, Mumbai is this magical city full of life and colour! A city having some kind of magnetic quality.
Alas! I guess the pull of gravity is more stronger in my case, the magnetism of Mumbai (i.e, if it has any), did not succeed in attracting me. In fact I wondered what is so magnetic about this city?
When I was moving in a cab capturing the wide landscape of the city through my eyes, it appeared as normal to me or sometimes, even more crowded, suffocating and busy than my hometown, Kolkata.
My parents were also with me, mainly because they wanted to ensure that they could relieve me of one of the main problems which thousands of people face in this city...that of accomodation.
Having lived in Chennai for ten months before this, I can say that there is no place like home. So I did not expect much out of this city, where as it is, having a roof over one's head is a substantial problem!
But then more than a problem it is this sense of insecurity and confusion that plagued me when I was hunting for a place to stay in, in this city.
Brokers are one of the most common links to an accomodation, but they come with huge price tags."If you have to live in Mumbai, you cannot keep thinking about all these," I told myself.
Apartments seem to be the costliest of all..when you hear the rentals which are demanded of you, you almost wish that you owned a house of your own in Mumbai.
Come next- working women's hostels!Every hostel would hand over their prospectus to you which would specify the various rules and regulations of the place...fair enough. Now comes the turn of piles of certificates they demand from you.
At one place they wanted character certificates from at least three authoritative sources. I wondered whether the certificates are indeed a parameter to judge a person's nature...even you have those papers tucked away in your drawer..will it guarantee that the girl you are providing a room with shall not start smoking, drinking tomorrow?
If people have a normal timings, say a ten to five job...lucky you! Media guys like us cannot specify what time would we be back, so you need to have an addtional letter with you from your office. All these measures ensure the reputation of the hostel.
I wonder whether these people ever think that the girl who has to stay for late hours in the office and then return back to her hostel/ apartment at late hours in the night alone...herself feels so insecured?
Secondly, none of them would guarantee an accomodation..you will have to wait for atleast a month, and if there is vacancy, they would let you know.
Though people would argue Mumbai is one of the safest cities in india for women (some even say 'on earth'), I personally would say everything seems apparently good until you surf deeper waters.
Finally the broker took us to a pg accomodation. An old Sindhi lady, a widow, with no men in her house, who was ready to lend out a bed to me.
She spoke very warmly when we went to her place. Everything seems so nice, an ideal accomodation! But then when you question relatives and other hostels their immediate response would petrify you.
"See, if the person is not known to you, or is not a close relative..we advise you not to get her into a pg. I am saying this because we have had girls who have come here with tears in their eyes. These girls had been living in pg's before but they faced such horrible circumstances there that they had to run away!" said the warden of a reputed working women's hostel in Mumbai to me and my parents.
I got sleepless nights the first week when I arrived in this city! Fortunately for me, one of my cousin's knew the lady who gave out a room for pg, quite well.
So I moved in safely and am safe till now. But every night I wonder how many new women might have entered this city without a house of their own, plagued by similar fears, which haunted me a few weeks back!