A Long Day's Night

by Ruskin Bond

  The accounts section also brought large groups of lower-level employees from various sections together at this place on every pay day. From the early afternoon, one could see the gathering increase in size; their headmen going in to collect the pay for everyone and making the disbursements outside.

  Virendra had now covered most of the path, and was very close to the side entrance of the building and to the base of the staircase. He was recollecting all that had passed through his mind since he had left home, when suddenly he realised that his mind had skipped something he considered quite major.

  Right near where the brick path began, there was a circular flowerbed around a jacaranda tree which was not very high. The bed was used for seasonal flowers, and on this one Virendra had often noticed blooms of various kinds. But the first time it caught his special attention was sometime last year. He was going past that place, when he found Prabhat Sinha of the electrical engineering department standing there and looking at something in the tree. Virendra considered Prabhat among his friends, so he paused.

  'Chauhan, have you seen this? It is most remarkable.'

  'What is it?'

  'Well, I have been noticing this fellow now for about two months, and I am most impressed. Look at that. Can you see that hole up there? Just focus your eyes there.' He pointed to a branch of the tree above.

  Virendra noticed that on what was perhaps the highest branch, which was not more than twenty-five feet high from the ground, a coppersmith was peering out from a neatly carved hole of just its own size. Shortly it came out, red crown, yellow throat, gray bill, green mantle and all, hung around the edge of the hole and put its head in, brought some wood dust out and cleaned up the inside. Then it went in again.

  'Obviously it is building a home for itself, and for the past two months I have been watching it. Skilful, indefatigable, and certainly a dreamer; I say a dreamer, otherwise why else would it build to settle here when everyone else says it is time to leave.' Prabhat looked at Virendra and gave a meaningful smile.

  Ever since then, Virendra, when he was not rushing in or out, slowed down and stopped under the tree to catch a glimpse of the bird. Once in a while he would succeed; mostly he would find the bird perching on one of the branches near the hole, and looking down at Virendra with one eye and a tilted head.

  Today he realised that he was so absent-minded a while earlier that when he passed the point he did not look up the tree. He pondered over the matter again, and felt quite pleased that he was aware of at least one creature who planned to stay on at this place. With this abstract pleasure in his mind, he made a move towards the base of the staircase to go upstairs.

  TWO

  THE OFFICE TABLE WAS CROWDED WITH ALL KINDS OF paper and books; Virendra thought it deserved to be a bit tidied up as a mark of regard for the visitors for whom he had set the day apart. This again was not his favourite job, but it could not wait any longer; the last time it was cleaned was probably a couple of months ago. And for this work it was useless to ask help of anybody, because he alone knew what ought to be retained for some more time and for what the time was over.

  The books were the simplest to take care of; all of them had to be saved. From the mixed heap, he sorted out the books one by one, and made a stack of them on the bookshelf behind his chair. Those which belonged to the shelf he put back, and that left the library books that were to be returned. He then turned around to face the table again, and looked at it for a minute. What should be the next step?

  He found it difficult to decide. For a second he chided himself for having undertaken this task, but the next moment he decided that he should be able to overcome the trivial obstacles, and inspected the table keenly. His eyes stopped at the corner of a light green card cover peeking out from underneath a stack of papers, and Virendra had the pleasant feeling of discovering a devil and extracting it out. This was a voluminous periodic compilation of agenda and minutes of the Academic Senate which some members preserved like professional journals. Virendra felt nearly triumphant that he had recognised his second step successfully.

  This was not the first time he was consigning Senate material to the wastepaper basket; he had done it many times in the past. He took a precaution however. These volumes with a covering note stapled on the top cover had Virendra's name on it; he separated the two, tore up the covering note into pieces, and cast them both into the wastepaper basket. While going through this act today he thought that he still cared for his social image; he did not want to be identified as one who threw dignified Senate papers away. But actually, there was a second reason for Virendra's action. He knew that some of the sweepers who cleaned the rooms and collected the waste paper, sold off the paper in the local market to be used subsequently to make paper bags. If the Senate papers with his name on it returned one day to someone in the form of a paper bag he would not like it. After a little more searching, he found two more Senate volumes; he deftly repeated the operation, and reflected that when the sweeper came next, he would feel quite pleased. He was not by nature averse to Senate deliberations and participating in them, but attending many Senate sessions he knew that there were many to take care of them well, and in some cases better than he was capable of, and he could spend that time elsewhere more meaningfully.

  Next he picked up remnants of the draft of a question paper that he made some time ago for the students in his class. All of that could go. Then he found some technical literature left by a travelling salesman of a company. He did not have any possible use for that equipment even in the distant future. He tossed it with a spin towards the wastepaper basket. The bunch of papers whirled into the basket. Then there were several reprints of published papers that he had requested some time ago but had not yet found time to read. He made a stack of those, went around the table to the other bookshelf he had, looked up the file that had several other reprints of similar kind, and put the bunch inside it. He returned to the top of the table and saw that the pile had reduced in size and most of the papers were now single sheets. He could see several notices of past meetings which he was expected to attend. All that could go. He picked them up one by one, there were about ten of them on various subjects, then walked a couple of steps to the wastepaper basket, and dropped them. Looking now at the table he thought that the remaining material could be sorted out a little more leisurely, and he sat down on the chair.

  He felt unhappy turning over the only large envelope that had still remained on the table; it was from a journal asking him to review a paper. He had gone well beyond the deadline and had not done anything about it. How many things can one do at one time? This must receive early attention. He took it up, cleared up the right side of the table, and put it there. There was a letter from a colleague from another university thanking him for a photocopy of a journal article – the journal was not available in his own university library. He seemed pleased that his assistance was helpful. Then there was a letter from the accounts section that a certain account had not been settled for the past six months, and unless done soon, the amount would be deducted from his salary. He looked at it carefully and recalled that he had certainly cleared it; somehow it did not get registered in the books. He would have to go and spend some time there to clear it up. He kept the paper under a paperweight. And here was the letter, probably the most important item that morning, a letter from the local representative of this foreign equipment company telling him that an engineer from the company along with a representative of its local counterpart would be visiting his university to check up on the equipment that was delivered three years ago and was not operational since then. He read the letter again carefully and put it right in front of him.

  There were another four pieces of paper still unsorted. One was from an ex-student, now living abroad, inquiring about the present job situation in the country, one was an invitation to attend a symposium on electron microscopy, another was an unpaid bill of a small purchase made for the laboratory, and the fourth one was the university calenda
r for the next academic year. He bunched all the four sheets together, and then put the stack under the envelope that had come from the journal. The table was now nearly clean except for some paper clips, some broken pieces of chalk, and a couple of old envelopes. Virendra gathered them together, got up from the chair, took a couple of steps and carefully dropped them into the wastebasket, and came back to the chair.

  The table was finally clean. He picked up the letter from the foreign equipment company again and read it carefully a couple of times. He gave it some thought and decided that it was necessary to refresh his memory about the past correspondence before the representatives arrived. He pulled the middle left side desk drawer and took out a bunch of files. He selected the one with a light yellow cover on which with black felt pen was written MatTech, returned the rest to the drawer, and opened the file on the table. Inside there was a bunch of letters from both the parties that lay loose, but underneath them was a thick bunch that was fastened to the file cover. That contained the entire history. Virendra leafed through the loose letters and found that those were all of the past year, the ones that were fastened together belonged to farther past. He took the bunch of loose letters out of the file, arranged them in reverse chronological order and set them aside. He then concentrated on the old letters still inside the file. Some he went through quickly, to some he devoted more time. From his face it did not seem that he was discovering anything startling, it was more like refreshing his memory. All along, however, his face looked serious; he gave an involuntary nod here and there as he went through the collection. When he was through with the file, he picked up the sheaf of recent correspondence from the table and put them face down beside the file. Then he took up the letter at the top, turned it over and placed it on the right flap of the file, right above the set of old correspondence. He read the letter intently, and after that one by one all of them that were exchanged during the past year. During the reading of this bunch he did not nod at all, but if one focused on his face carefully one would have seen at times perceivable signs of tension.

  When he was through, he lifted his head and looked straight ahead. He remained that way for quite some time, immersed in deep thought, seemingly summarising in his mind the total picture. After a while he got out of this pensive mood, closed the file in front of him and put it back in its place. He pushed the drawer in and looked at the top of the table again which was now clean. For a second he seemed to be still amidst the old thoughts, then suddenly something snapped inside his mind and he was out of it. His face appeared tranquil and pleasantly disposed. He looked around the room and seemed to conclude that everything was in order, and then pondered about what he should do next. He looked at his watch. It was only ten minutes to eight, still a considerable amount of time to spend before anyone showed up. He got up from the chair, looked around the room once more in case there was still something to do. But nothing seemed to strike him particularly. Still, he seemed somewhat uncertain and walked towards his office door; he opened it and stepped on the corridor. There, on the long corridor, he turned right and took a few steps towards a balcony-like opening that looked south. On reaching the spot he first stood there for a little while looking far, then put his left forearm on the concrete balustrade and leaned his body on it. This was the posture he often went into when he sometimes came to the university early in the morning, perhaps for a class, but a little too early for the bell to have rung and no more preparation was necessary for the teaching.

  From this place one could have a good view of the southwestern part of the academic area. In fact, if the protruding southern extension of the main building did not obstruct the view towards the left, that is, the east, one could even see the entire southern part including the library and the convocation grounds. Distance attenuates imperfections; from here the scene looked, despite the abrupt curtailment at the left, quite pretty. At the far background, somewhat towards the right and somewhat masked by an amaltas tree in full bloom, stood the lecture hall complex, a cluster of seven lecture halls of various sizes. The two pairs of halls to the left and the right were rather small, two on the far side were of medium size, and the one on this side was the largest one which could seat more than four hundred. The red-brick panels of the back of the largest hall were visible from this side. The southern demarcating wall around the academic area was just behind the lecture hall complex; beyond that lay the main road, and further beyond an array of students' hostels. There was a time, when the trees had not grown large, the hostels also used to be visible from here, but no longer. The trees around the complex and a few tall golmohur trees on the main road now provided an attractive background to the building that now had nurtured two generations of students. Cultures outside academics also sprouted around it. On the rear right side of the building a small Hanuman temple had come up; no one knew exactly when. Similarly, on the left side, in the open space underneath the lecture halls, a congregation of muslim students now met regularly on Fridays for prayers; here also nobody remembered when exactly this got started.

  On the right side one could see from here the eastern facade of the three-storey western building, which was a fairly large east-west structure that housed many small classrooms and several major laboratories. The building's surface was plastered with concrete and painted light gray; it was not a pretty building but went quite harmoniously with the architecture around and the general surroundings. There were other buildings north of the western building, but they were not visible from here. The buildings which were visible from here and the library and the eastern building that lay beyond the library were connected by a catwalklike elevated corridor on slender colonnades that was both attractive and utilitarian. During the winters it was a pleasure to use this catwalk for passage from one building to another, and it was not very rare to find groups of students basking there in the sun during their free time. And during the hot summers and also when it poured incessantly during the monsoons it provided a cover to the path underneath and acted as an excellent umbrella. In Virendra's field of vision, from the library it made a horizontal line all the way to the western building; a vertical line from the main building went up to join it and made a tee; and from a point further towards the western building another vertical line shot up to reach the lecture hall complex. Around many of the colonnades that supported the pathway one could see flowering creepers going up; in flowering seasons the concrete railings of the catwalk often overflowed with blooms of various kinds.

  Between the horizontal line of the catwalk and the lecture hall complex lay a square field that was not used in any particular way. One could make a fine lawn out of it; it was not made. One could possibly make a sort of garden out of it with some flowerbeds; but no one seemed to have given any thought along those lines. There were only two distinctive signatures on that field, two walking paths that ran diagonally across the field making a huge sign of multiplication. Both were used as short-cuts, by pedestrians and bicyclists alike; the one between the top left and bottom right to get to the western building for those who entered the academic area through the southeastern gate, and the other between the top right to the tee junction by those students who entered through the southwestern gate and were in a hurry to get to the main building. There was very little grass now; in fact it was almost never quite fully green except perhaps right during and immediately after the rainy season – very rarely did one see gardeners watering it. Also it was always unkempt and somewhat littered, and Virendra saw that this morning was no exception.

  East of the lecture hall complex, and to Virendra's left, lay the convocation ground, a large field whose one major use was to provide space for holding the annual function of awarding academic degrees. At its eastern end there was a permanent concrete stage which was covered and decorated when occasion demanded it, and on the southern side lay quite a harmonious, long, moderately high landscaped mound which was now full of various kinds of shrubs and trees. The northern and the western ends of the field were bordere
d by a short hedge, right inside of which stood a series of conically trimmed deodar trees. The field was somewhat greener and less littered than the other one, but since the southeastern gate was just beyond the stage, a short-cut for pedestrians and cyclists towards the lecture hall complex and the western building had here also made a lasting impression across the field.

  North of the convocation ground and beyond the southern protrusion of the main building, that is, left of where Virendra was standing, stood the library. Behind the library there were several palm trees – some baya weavers were particularly attracted to them; one could often see their marvellously woven grass nests hanging from the fronds. Architecturally the library was a most attractive building, a four-storey structure, the front part of the top two storeys supported by two rows of tall lean square pillars. in front of the library were two large pools of water, and both had fountains installed in them. They were originally meant to contribute to the beauty of the surroundings while being utilitarian, the latter in terms of air conditioning of some buildings. But only part of it was realised. Each fountain was constructed as a series of tall vertical steel pipes shooting upwards from a large circular pipe lying on the water level of the tank. But one of the two fountains remained always out of operation; as a result a large number of dry pipes sticking out of water looked like a set of phallic symbols, and was a most ugly sight. Then a few years ago someone reduced the height of one set; the result was no better. To add to this eyesore, the water in the tank did not get changed for months, it got covered with scum, it smelled, and frogs bred. Nobody seemed to attend to it, and the pipes went on spraying unclean water endlessly; in fact, most of the time it was difficult to walk past the place which could otherwise be a very attractive spot.