“The most important
things are the hardest to say. They are the things you get ashamed of, because
words diminish them -- words shrink things that seemed limitless when they were
in your head to no more than living size when they're brought out. But it's more
than that, isn't it? The most important things lie too close to wherever your
secret heart is buried, like landmarks to a treasure your enemies would love to
steal away. And you may make revelations that cost you dearly only to have
people look at you in a funny way, not understanding what you've said at all,
or why you thought it was so important that you almost cried while you were
saying it. That's the worst, I think. When the secret stays locked within not
for want of a teller but for want of an understanding ear.”
-
Stephen King
'Different Seasons'
Mrinal was having a
yucky day. And cleaning bedpans the old age home where he worked was not
helping brightening his day by any measure.
It's been almost a year
of him working here, and it still baffled him how the whole place constantly
reeked of urine no matter how many people were hired cleaning and scrubbing the
place all day. Every nook and corner of the place stank, even the dinning hall. People were only expected to eat there for pete's sake! He and eight other orderlies were by their job description responsible for
keeping the 'inmates' comfortable, how were they supposed to that if they themselves didn't know how to be so. Dr. Gupta had banished that word being used
within the compound (so let's just keep this as our secret for Mrinal's sake,
shall we?)
Why shouldn't these people be called by their real title anyway? Is this place
any better than Tihar jail or Sing Sing? Sure this place is more colorful and
has lots of comfy sofas and beds, lush landscaped lawns, people hanging around
you all day to keep you in prompt accordance of your medication and all. You
don't need to worry about a thing. Well, that's what they'd want you to think
anyway.
In many ways this place
is much worse than either of those establishments. In that place at least you'd
know why you are there. Rape, murder, armed robbery, arson, burglary,
jay-walking, anything. You do something, the courts sentence you to a period of
time, you go to prison, spend your time in your cell with your cellmates who
very well could be like the overly friendly T-Bag in Prison Break. But you
knew your cause and its effect, and more importantly you knew that
all of this had a deadline, either the one the courts sentenced you for or the
one till your master plan to jump the prison walls gets materialized.
In an old age home,
you don't have that option. There is a deadline yes, but when
you reach it there's is no loved ones or fellow gang-members standing
there on the other side of the gate to take you home. Once you reach the
deadline to get out of here, well, that means you are dead. Any sane, and most
of the insane ones also probably, would want to avoid that by any means
possible. Even if that means you have to spend those last years of your life on
this planet confined to a wheel chair or a bed, and you need other people to do
your basic human functions for you, or that you need someone to remember where
your things are and when you are to take your next diabetes pills, even if you
don't recall the name of your great-granddaughter when she comes to visit you once
an year on your birthday.
The life here could
be tough on anyone. Both kaidis/retirees and their
guards/caretakers equally. Mrinal knew what he was getting into when he started
here; at least he thought he did. This was to be a temporary thing till his
scriptwriting gig kicks off, which is yet to happen and by the look of things
may very well never happen at all. When you look at Mumbai from outside in, it
looks so fast, happening and brimming with possibilities especially when you
look at all those big name studios and you dream of being
on their payroll for doing something that you like doing the most in life,
writing. But this past year has been an eye-opener; Mumbai had lost all its
charm that it held in the eyes of an innocent recent English graduate from Gujarat.
This city is tough, unkind and too-fast-for-its-own-good. This place once
might've been really quite something, but now it is anything but that.
In the past one year
here, he had met some really wonderful people in this compound though. Some of
these old-timers have lived, by that we mean really lived. Not the kind of
nine-to-five existence that most of us do now. There is a circus manager,
ex-army vet, ex-politician, ex-IAS, ex-tech guru. There is a whole bunch of ex-some
bodies here. Each with their own histories. Each with their own treasure chests
brimming with memories of the bygone golden era. They all have done something
that they have proud of. They have all seen some really exciting time. Mrinal
was part of the Hazare fuss too; he thought that was going to be 'the happening
time' of his generation, he is not now too confident about that either.
The new generation has
missed out on lot things. Maybe the most that he thinks we've lost is our
capability to empathize. And this place really drives that emotion home.
Especially on that day in July where it rained all day...
