by Akhilesh
‘He has taken Gaurav out.’
‘I’ll leave then.’
‘Why? That’s not fair.’
Gauri insisted that Chacha eat something, Chacha was happy after eating parathas stuffed with green peas.
‘Bahu, do you like green pea parathas?’
‘I made them because you are fond of them, Chachaji.’
‘How do you know about my preferences?’
‘I know very well that you like green pea nimona and ghughuri a lot. You also relish urad kachoris.’
‘How do you know all this?’ Chacha’s question was also an utterance of happiness.
‘Suryakant had told me when we were at university.’
‘Suryakant talked about me?’ Chacha sniffled and said, ‘You know, Bahu, Suryakant is not my nephew, but almost my brother.’
Gauri nodded, ‘Chachaji, I also know that both of you rode the same bicycle to school and got into a lot of mischief together.’
‘How good you are – so unlike us!’ Chacha’s heart overflowed with regret and he said, ‘Please forgive us.’
‘It wasn’t your fault! I have never forgotten that you gave us shelter that terrible night.’
‘Don’t mention it. You don’t call it providing shelter if you bring your darlings home.’
‘Any place of refuge after being driven out of one’s home is a shelter,’ Gauri replied dolefully.
Silence fell and Chacha ruptured it by saying, ‘Suryakant has not arrived yet.’ He took out his wallet and pulled out some money, ‘Take this. It is for you and the children.’
Gauri put her grief aside and giggled, ‘Not children, but child. I have only one.’
‘My blessings to him.’ Chacha put his wallet back, ready to leave. In the process of departure, the photograph of his Bhaiya and Bhabhi, one he always carried after shifting into his new house, fell out of his wallet. Suryakant had found the picture when he returned home, had it enlarged and deposited it in the back of his wardrobe without informing Gauri.
‘Chachaji, why are you in such a hurry? Wait for Suryakant to come back.’
Chacha did not think it wise to inform her that it was time he rejoined his family. He lowered the window as he got into the driver’s seat and said, ‘Bahu, your anger is justified. Really, it was wrong of Bhaiya to treat you like that.’
When he took out his wallet to pay for parking at the Saharaganj Mall, he realized the photograph was missing. He was concerned for a moment but it was not such a big loss, it could easily be replaced. He decided that he would definitely meet Suryakant on his next visit. But that never happened because Chachi worked hard at becoming a good driver after her training at Gupta Motor Driving Training School.
Soon, she put four of her friends in the car and drove them to Lucknow personally. She announced when she returned, ‘We will not go to Lucknow on Sundays any more because the Hazratganj Market remains closed.’ She now visited Lucknow without Chacha, neither did her two children accompany her. Their son had persuaded them to buy him a motorcycle and zoomed around the town. Chacha suspected that he took off to Lucknow or other towns sometimes on his bike. Their daughter would stay in Sultanpur because she had the freedom to chat on her mobile phone for as long as Chachi was in Lucknow.
Chachi did not hear the doorbell at 16, Manas Nagar. When the bell chimed again, she came to the door, but did not recognize Suryakant. There was a sense of strangeness in her eyes. Suryakant took in the situation, and in order to jog her memory, he said, ‘It’s me – Suryakant. Is Chacha home?’
Chachi remembered her nephew through marriage and the fog-filled night. First, she recalled the day of her wedding and then the night he was thrown out. She perceived a terrible fog descending, spreading, and a bitter cold flashed and then all of a sudden, she saw Gauri and Surya in her room – she recalled the entire incident. She blurted out, ‘Oh! Suryakant!’ and led him into the drawing room.
Suryakant looked around the drawing room in wonder. It could match up to any drawing room of a prosperous middle-class household in Lucknow. In fact, the whole house could. A large statue of Lord Ganesh stood sentinel at the door, but before that there was a small lawn embellished with freshly painted flower pots, and the rest of the space was occupied by a swing. A car was parked in the porch.
It was a spacious drawing room with two luxurious sofa sets. There was a harmonious blend of current trends and good taste in the drapery, artefacts in the showcase, paintings, fan and table. A large TV was positioned for maximum viewing pleasure. The most remarkable thing was that particular attention had been paid to the selection of colours. All the shades belonged to the same colour family, but the lighting arrangement made it seem dark in one spot, light in another, medium or faded at other spots.
Suryakant was not bowled over because he was not looking at such modern interiors for the first time. He was from Lucknow where he had witnessed greater modernity and grandeur on numerous occasions. Let alone other folks, even the dining table set at Bahuguna’s cost at least a lakh and a half. Merely the furniture at his house would have a value of not less than twenty-five lakhs. Each of his rooms was air-conditioned and in summers the electricity bill was around thirty thousand rupees. He had taken an account of the bar at Bahuguna’s house; it consisted of wine bottles worth rupees eight lakh. Still, the truth was that Bahuguna’s prosperity did not amount even to dregs in the world of affluence. In fact, Suryakant was surprised to see Chacha and Chachi’s house because he had not expected that this kind of lifestyle would have invaded this small town. He still had the impression that only when a daughter-in-law brought a colour TV in her dowry did most households acquire one. The furniture in the homes of those families that had not married off a son consisted mostly of the ubiquitous wooden chowki. Either the handles of the chairs were broken or the back was missing. Intact handles of chairs, the tables, newspaper sheets spread over almirah shelves, books, etc. bore impressions of tea cup bottoms and nobody bothered to clean them.
When he had entered his own home after such a long absence, he had realized it was not as he had left it. It had changed, but the transformation was limited to Shibbu and Kamana’s bedroom and the adjacent veranda. The rest of the house was still the same old one like his parents and Dadi who still looked as they had looked in the past. Rather, the rest of the house had grown old, broken and grey. Like his parents and Dadi who had turned older, greyer and more broken.
Chachi came in with tea and snacks on an elegant tray. He was surprised again. The long leaf tea had been served in fine crockery. Such dark tea was mocked at in his house. His father called it horse piss-complexioned tea and his mother would caustically ask if somebody was trying to save money on milk.
‘Where is Chacha?’ he asked, as he took a sip.
‘When did you arrive?’ Chachi asked.
‘Last night.’ He did not let his questions stop and continued, ‘Has Chacha gone somewhere?’
Chachi did not answer. She put the cup to her lips and then put it back in the saucer. Suryakant looked closely at Chachi’s features for the first time after arriving in the house and wondered if Balwant Kaur, wherever she was, looked just like her. Do the faces of two identical-looking persons remain the same throughout their lives? Do they change, grow and ruin in the same manner? Do their cells decay and die exactly like one another’s?
‘Didn’t anyone in your house tell you about your Chacha?’ Chachi asked.
His heart fluttered and he said, ‘Nobody told me anything … what’s it? Is he all right?’
‘No, he is not.’
‘What happened to him?’
Chachi’s lips moved soundlessly, and then she fell silent. Then she said, ‘Your Chacha lives in this very house.’
‘Where is he? Call him, please. Better yet, I’ll go to him.’
‘You can, but listen to what I have to say first. What I’ll now tell you is not because I’m complaining against your Chacha. I don’t usually talk about him, but I have a motive in
telling you. I know he has always cared for you, and now that you are meeting after such a long time, he will feel strongly for you and if you try to convince him, if you try to reform him, it may perhaps work …’
‘But Chachi, what’s the problem?’ Suryakant demanded. Since yesterday, he had come across awkward silences whenever he inquired about Chacha. When he asked for Chacha’s address, everyone had simply exchanged glances. Amma had replied, but there was a reluctance in her voice too, a hesitation that had made him uneasy.
‘He has made our lives impossible – mine and the children’s,’ Chachi continued. ‘Your Chacha has absolutely lost his mind!’
The nephew was devastated, ‘Where is he being treated?’
Chachi braced herself, ‘It’s not like that. He pretends to be insane. He resorts to his antics simply to wreck our lives.’
‘I don’t understand, Chachi.’
Chachi blurted out, ‘Why should you? You are his nephew, aren’t you? Do you think I don’t understand? Ultimately, blood speaks!’
‘No, Chachi, it’s not that.’
Chachi’s resentment poured out and ceased only when she had finished her tale. In the meanwhile, there were certain interruptions – once when she was thirsty, thrice when the mobile rang and twice when somebody came in – otherwise it was an unremitting torrent of rage. By the time she was done, the children had arrived and taken up cudgels on Chachi’s behalf.
The charge of the family against Chacha was that he had initiated a campaign – against his family – against his own wife and children. Chacha was unable to tolerate their happiness, their laughter and their smiles, and was now bent upon ruining them.
Chacha would do just the reverse of whatever was suggested by Chachi and the children. The first weird thing he did was that he started dressing shoddily while Chachi preferred that every member of her family should wear trendy clothes. She was quite particular in her choice of colours. Initially, Chacha’s suits were meticulously tailored and he sported clothes of Chachi’s choice, but since he had grown hostile to the family, he began dressing almost like a clown. Sometimes, he put on trousers that stopped short at the ankles, and sometimes their bottoms were tucked into his socks. He would wear socks inside out. He stopped tucking his shirt into his trousers. It hung out and the buttons were usually put on wrong. What added to the offense was that his vest was often prominently visible below his shirt. Most of his ties, suits and night suits had not even seen the light of the day and remained locked in a suitcase. On top of it, he would say, ‘One day I will start wearing either dhoti-kurta or pyjama-bush shirt.’
When the children objected, Chachi tried to convince them as well as herself that maybe he had stopped caring about his appearance due to his advancing age. But she found herself at her wit’s end when he started throwing impossible tantrums over breakfast and lunch. Whatever Chachi cooked, Chacha refused to eat and he would order her to make his favourite dishes, especially those that Chachi hated. For instance, cooking leafy vegetables was such a bother. It was a genuine nuisance to select each stalk, to gather it into a sheaf, to cut it fine and wash it over repeatedly. But Chacha would rush in with two kilos of thorny spinach. Sometimes, he would instruct, ‘Make the green gram snacks nimona.’ And he would bring in a bagful of unpeeled gram pods on the stem; stripping them was a hopeless excercise. During the last winter, he had become so whimsical that he refrained from drinking sugared tea – he used jaggery instead and took ganji too.
Chacha also made their life hell in other matters. Chachi had a thing about keeping the house spick and span. Chacha made note of her weakness and made things difficult. When the house had been swept and mopped, he would shred paper and scatter the pieces on the floor. Sometimes, he would wait for a chance to spit unobserved in some corner of the house. He would spill toothpaste on his clothes, and to further harass Chachi, he wiped his wet face and hands on the curtains and bed sheets.
Chachi’s firm instructions were that the person using the toilet should flush it. Chacha would enter the bathroom and come out in a while. Chachi would lose her temper when she did not catch the gurgle of the flush, and would start grumbling after flushing the commode. Chacha would respond to Chachi’s grumbling by saying, ‘A bucketful of water for a bowlful of urine? Such stupidity amounts to inequity when we realize how enormous the problem of potable water is in our country, and realize that the next world war will be fought over water.’
Chacha created a number of problems for his children as well – there was hardly a father in the world who could match him. They were fond of watching TV and were veterans at downloading English films from the internet. After Chachi had stopped going to Lucknow so often, she joined them while watching something every Sunday. The three enjoyed movies, serials, live shows, music programmes with some snacks. There was infinite delight on their faces at such moments. Chacha marked it and decided to disrupt these sessions.
Consequently, as soon as Chachi and the children switched on the TV, Chacha would raise the volume of his transistor radio to the maximum. As a result, the two devices would spew out different words and tunes at the same time, and make it impossible for the children and Chachi to watch their shows. Chacha used this sure-fire weapon when Chachi or the children were talking on their mobile phones. If they moved to avoid Chacha’s attack, Chacha would raise the volume and follow them around with the transistor radio. He always kept his radio in top notch condition. If the volume dropped even marginally, he replaced the batteries. Eventually, it was Chacha who emerged victorious. At night, the TV, the mobile phone, everything would fall silent, but the Bhoole Bisare Geet programme would keep on blaring from his radio until midnight.
Up to that point, things were tolerable. There was a disturbance only in the mornings and evenings. But bigger problems were on the way. One morning, Chachi and the children discovered that Chacha had stopped going to teach at the college. When nineteen days had passed, Chachi took her car out to investigate. She learnt that Chacha had not been going to college for one month and nineteen days. For a whole month, he had left the house pretending to go to work. He simply ambled around; sometimes, he killed time in a cinema hall and returned home at his usual time. He had also developed the habit of watching the same film time after time. He developed the extraordinary ability of starting to watch a film at any point and quitting at any point. He had also uncovered other ways and means of passing time besides film shows and wandering about. He would sit on a bench at the railway station or in some park to read a book or a magazine. If he was unable to concentrate on the book, he would pull out a pack of cards and play against an imaginary opponent.
Since there were too many people who played the patience card game, he devised a new way: he played antakhshari in his mind. He would imagine himself pitted against Chachi or one of the kids or somebody else, but it was really Chacha who played both turns. In this dynasty of time pass, he also included the old, bizarre method he had utilized after his parting from Balwant Kaur. He listened to songs and imagined the actions of the hero and the heroine of the film as they sang the verses. How they were swinging their legs, in what fashion they were swaying their buttocks, in what way they were nipping their finger or holding a flower stalk between their teeth. He would picture a song in this manner and convert the most romantic scenes into the most ludicrous.
Not content with this, he would seek the company of his solicitous friend, the radio, or switch on the TV, surf to a movie song channel and mute it. It was the opposite of his first method. There were visuals, but no audio. Chacha split his sides with laughter, peering at the soundless swaying of the hero and the heroine’s hips. The actions of the actors that appeared so charming and suggestive when the visuals and the sounds were together seemed absurd when he switched the TV into mute mode. One felt the actors had lost their marbles and were jigging around sans choreography, their alluring poses reduced at best into mere sit ups, PT, high jumps or a game of kabaddi.
Chachi was worrie
d – why was her husband behaving like this? The needle of suspicion pointed at some unidentified siren, who perhaps had caught Chacha in her trap and Chacha was disenchanted with his own family. But in spite of all her efforts, she failed to unearth any such evidence because Chacha’s activities never suggested anything of the sort. She was unable to establish a link between his infatuation with another woman and not flushing the toilet. The last speck of doubt vanished when Chacha began spending all his time at home. Why would a man besotted with some other woman while away his hours in the house? Moreover, he did not use the phone much. Why was he behaving like this?
Chachi tried her best to find out, but her efforts bore no fruit. At first, she attempted to elicit it from Chacha himself. Then she began to snoop around. Finally, she showed up at palmists’ and astrolgers’. One of the astrologers, who claimed to possess a Bhrigu Samhita that had been in his family for eight hundred and thirty years, revealed that Chacha was anything but a rake or a cuckoo. In fact, this behaviour was nothing but the cruel alignment of the planets.
Chachi also approached a Sanskrit professor, who was actually an aghori, famous for his meditation amid corpses in a cremation ground for nine years. Since he believed in panchamkara, abstaining from madya (wine), māṃsa (meat), matsya (fish), mudrā (parched grain) and maithuna (sexual intercourse), he named himself ‘MMMMM’ which, like everyone else, he too was unable to pronounce correctly. He claimed that a witch from 1857, the spirit of an English memsahib killed by the revolutionaries, had possessed Chacha.
When Chachi went to Lucknow next, she requested the celebrated palmist Radheshyam Chaubey to read Chacha’s future by giving him a photograph of Chacha’s right palm that she had taken when Chacha was sleeping.
Chaubeyji said, ‘It’s nothing significant, ask him to wear a coral ring on his finger and ask him to offer water obeisance to the sun god by facing the sun and pouring water from a vessel.’
Chachi communicated her difficulty and said, ‘He does not listen to me!’