“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...
There was this guy at
the end of the third floor, the room facing the park. Everybody called him The
Colonel. So, obviously Mrinal also called him by the name assuming he must have
fought for the country during his time. (He was to know later that The Colonel
had done two tours to Burma during the insurgency of the 80's.)
He sure did look the
part. Think bushy moustache, stand/sit/sleep straight as if his backbone was
made of railroad steel. He always had a grumpy look on his face, and a
constantly puffing pipe hanging from the right corner of his mouth. He wore the
old-timer's trademark suspender trousers with sport shoes like he just came
back from his morning walk, at any time of the day. He scared the people there,
the staff and the oldies alike. But they all somehow always elected him as the
president of their little oldies’ club that they had running there. And
apparently no one who has ever run against him got much of a fighting chance
either. He played rough.
They say it wasn't
always like that with him, they say he was a lot more tolerable when Auntie J
was alive. Nobody really knew her actual name, for everybody there she was
always the always smiling caring Auntie who knew each and everyone's name and
made it a point to remind everyone to take their meds on time and to wish their
grandchildren on their birthdays, she maintained a list of those. Both of them
had joined the home together, voluntarily. Their children, a boy and a girl,
were IT professionals living abroad with their spouses and children. Neither of
them had so far seen their daughter's second child yet, it was her fifth
birthday last November.
Mrinal only had seen
Auntie J a couple of times. She now stays in Building 3, over at the other side
of the park. That's were the beds are. Only experienced orderlies and
caretakers are allowed to work there. By looking at her now, nobody could guess
it was the same cheery woman there who has to be shackled at least four hours
each day.
Auntie J had Alzheimer’s
with chronic dementia and tendency to hurt herself. She was very frail and week
now to do any harm to herself, but Dr. Gupta still got the orderlies to bind
her during her sleep time as a precaution. The orderlies hated doing that, most
of them had worked here long enough to have seen the real Auntie. For them this
was not her anymore, this was just a pale replica of her barely surviving as a
walking-talking reminder that such a woman existed. But she was gone, this
woman recalled nothing, knew no one, barely remembered her own existence. This
woman was not Auntie J.
Mrinal did not know
Auntie J; she was now there only on the pictures of the garden parties and
birthday celebrations that are now framed all around the walls of the home. She
looked so beautiful. The kind of beauty in some old women that reminds you of
warm cookies and your mother's lap. In some these pictures he also saw The
Colonel, still sulking around but always touching or holding Auntie's hands.
They looked so sweet together.
'Lord, what's happening
to me today?'
He shook himself up from
the bench in the cafeteria, and from the line of thought he has been in for the
past hour or so. He went to the back of the kitchen and dropped his plate and
cups into the basin and walked out. Without him even noticing his feet were
carrying him to the third floor, to the end of the hall towards Colonel's
room.
Knock. Knock. No
reply.
He put his ear to the
door to check if he detects any sound of movement from inside the room. None.
'Okay pal, I don't know
what made you come here in the first place. Now that you've made it sure
nobody's home. Leave. Now!'
Clearly Mrinal was not
hearing to the insistence in the voice inside his head. He removed the set of
duplicate keys from inside his pocket and opened the door to the room.
So this is where the
bear resides. Sparse really come to think of it, he always thought by the way
guy carries himself around here; he must living like a king. All he saw here
were a few bits of furniture. Clothes neatly hanged on the hangers in the
closet, shoes in the shoe rack, all arranged all prim and proper like an army
man's barracks. Except for the mirror stand right-side window. It was not just
a mirror stand really; it was ornately detailed with delicate flowers and such
in the wood panel surrounding the mirror. It really stood out from all the
other stuff in the room, it was the only thing here that looked to have had
experienced a woman's touch. The whole thing stood as tall as Mrinal was. And
he was kind of a short guy, just 5'6". Just as tall as Auntie J he
guessed.
He went closer to the mirror;
he saw around the wood panel, he noticed there were not just flowers and stars
carved into them. There also were little people holding hands, sunset, a little
home, a puppy with a bone in its mouth, two kids (a boy and a girl) playing
around a tree. It might have taken ages to make this. The level of painstaking
detail and effort that went into this was clearly evident.
The Colonel made this.
For her.
'Aren't you a big die-hard
romantic, you mushy softie you!’ he muttered under his breath and moved away from the mirror. It
seemed to be too personal a thing now for him, he felt like a jerk to have
touched something so personal without consent of the couple.
As he moved away from
the mirror he looked past it out the window to see the park that comes between
the home and Building 3. So, this is why the Colonel has been Bogarting this
room for so long and not letting the administration to force him to share the
room with anyone else.
This must the place
where he must sit to watch Auntie when she gets her relaxation break, her only
time outside that building. He must sit here on this stool here, look outside
this window at her hobbling dragging herself around on her week limbs playing with
the flowers and butterflies, or just simply sitting there on the park bench.
The women who was the only constant in his life for the past forty years, now
just a few hundred yards from him. But he was not allowed to go to her, or hold
her hand. She didn't recognize him anymore, to her he was a stranger, according
to her she is not married, and this would only confuse her all the more and
incite her to harm herself again. His heart must have broken so many times
witnessing that. So he figured this is the only solution. He stays away from
her, to protect her. For her sake, for their love's sake.
Mrinal couldn't stand it
anymore. He had never experienced a feeling like this. His heart felt heavy.
But he wasn't sad, nor was in any physical pain. He wasn't hurt in anyway. But
he felt it. He felt another man's pain.
He hurried out of there, checking if he had moved anything from its place. He then went to the door and took a last glance to the mirror. So beautiful.
He almost ran back to cafeteria, out of the south gate to park behind. He reached the bench, to the place where the guy eyes his love of his life for so long, and for a long time ahead too. Their love was so sweet, but still he can only imagine how much it might pain him for not being able to tell her all that he wants to, to be able to tell her what she means to him.
There he was now, he could see from there that the light to his room was turned on now. Mrinal never noticed it was past sunset now. He could see a shadow of a man move across the window.
A man who has so much to
say, but has to keep it all bottled up to protect the one's he cares about. A
man with so much love to give, but has to keep it locked up and love from a
distance to protect the happiness of the one he loves.
Sometimes. Life gives
you a lot many chances and choices to make your life extraordinary. It all
comes down to which path you take. You can either take the easy and the
shortest route to get out of that tricky situation, or you can persevere and
put up a fight to get out of that pickle. And you will find, you taking the
stand right there also makes a huge difference to what becomes of your life.
But now, after meeting
Colonel and Auntie J, there is also this odd idea breaking ground inside his
gut somewhere. Maybe it's not only those things that matter, maybe what matters
most is who is there making that stand with you. Who is right by your side,
through the good and the bad and still has it in them to make you smile and feel about
your life each night you go to bed.
There is always more to
anyone than meets your eye, even if you have known them most of your life. You
may begin to become more familiar with people and treat them without
inhibitions, but never do away with the appreciation!
Always compliment/reciprocate/thank/emphasize/express your love and adoration
to the people you care to keep in your life. Never take anyone for granted.
For who really knows,
you ever get a chance to say it to them tomorrow??
----
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Good piece. Instead of just cutpasting 'naughty' images, keep to your writing only !!
ReplyDeleteThanks a lot, mate. Appreciate the feedback, planning to do just that! :)
ReplyDeleteNicely woven emotions. People have emotions. But somewhere they can't express it so well. you did it. Nice !! But I would like to add one thing to it. For some sentences, the construction became a bit lengthy. So the meaning of those sentences became complex. It is just an opinion from my side. Sorry if it feels bad.
ReplyDeleteThanks Soul, appreciate you taking the time to read this post.. And even more grateful for your feedback, will do my best to incorporate it into my future posts! Keep coming back, your response is very much loved :)
DeleteI loved dis piece Prem....keep posting your wonderful creations
ReplyDeleteThank you broo.. Glad that you liked it, and appreciate the feedback.. Keep coming back! :)
Delete