KEKA’S FRIEND IRIS
As the swelling river at the height of monsoon returns to normalcy at the advent of autumn, so too did Rana’s over active heart, due to sudden snapping of his emotional relationship with Kim, gradually come back to its near normal state. He did not hear from Kim anymore. Hopefully, her forcible marriage with her father’s partner worked out well. So the world began following the beaten track again. Days came with soulful offerings of work. Days departed in weary strides with prayers for the work destined for tomorrow, for work is God. Seasons came with the easy grace of a consummate ballerina entering the stage. Seasons bade adieu with a veiled longing to linger just a little longer, as a sensuous performer bids farewell to the season just gone by with a hint of nostalgia. The River of Life was flowing to the beat of time through the valley of life to its distant destiny. Another year and a half was consigned to it as a drop of water in the ocean.
Much deferred move of Rana was announced. He got promoted as Vice President and was slated to be transferred to London to oversee the company’s African Operations. However, his actual transfer had to be delayed, for the wife of the newly designated CEO of the bank in India became terminally ill of brain cancer at his home base in Denver, Colorado. His arrival was postponed for six months. The incumbent CEO in India already moved to a high profile job in New York. As such, Rana was asked to fill in for him for six months as the Acting CEO before moving to London.
So Rana came back to Bombay, a very familiar place, on a purely transitional posting for six months. He was not unhappy for he loved Bombay. He had many memories of his post-marriage romance with his departed wife Keka in Bombay and the adjoining Malabar region. The staff was mostly known to him. They had always been supportive of him. He also knew most of the corporate clients and they would love to see him back. So settling down in the new position for a short assignment was not difficult at all.
Keka’s good old friend Iris was still working with the same British Advertising company sharing the same office complex with his bank. Since Keka’s passing Rana came across Iris a few times on his monthly official visits to Bombay, mostly at the lobby waiting for the elevator or at the general cafeteria. Only once, immediately after Keka’s passing she invited him for dinner at one of the restaurants at the hotel next door, for she wanted to convey her condolences to him more personally.
Since Iris had a few friends in Rana’s office, it was rather easy for her to keep track of his comings and goings. As such, she was aware of his temporary transfer to Bombay. Before Rana actually moved in, she left words for him with his staff, congratulating him for the promotion, welcoming him back to Bombay and requesting him to call her upon arrival. Unfortunately, her trusted friends forgot all about it and did not convey her message to him. On hearing about his arrival, Iris left a fresh message for him with his secretary. He got that message, but since he was awfully busy scrambling to gather bits and pieces of his responsibility from different unrelated sources, he kept her message aside to call her on Monday the following week. Nevertheless, on Saturday night of the same week he came across Iris at a party close to his hotel. Usually, on Saturday nights South Bombay used to be a city of parties. If you were a friend or a common friend, no formal invitation was needed, you were welcome anyway.
Knowing that Rana was alone, a dear colleague of his took him to the party after a hard day’s work at the office. There he came across Iris without any prior knowledge. Both were common friends of the host. Iris thought that Rana was deliberately ignoring her. She felt slighted. Seeing him there suddenly, she asked somewhat excitedly, “Are you trying to avoid me? I left two messages for you with your office people. You don’t even bother to call me.”
Rana replied, “Iris, why should I avoid you? You have done nothing wrong to me. Please don’t be unnecessarily cantankerous with me.”
But then, she burst into tears unexpectedly. In the midst of a crowd of young people a visibly embarrassed Rana had to do a lot of hand-holding, cajoling and whispering to convince her that the delay in responding to her message was not deliberate.
Rana explained, “Iris, I did not get your first message. Perhaps your friends forgot about it. You may ask them. I received your second message from my secretary, but since I was extremely busy I kept it aside to call you on Monday. You may go to my office now, open the diary and see it to believe it.”
Be that as it may, that incident became the harbinger of his relationship with her for the rest of his assignment in Bombay.
After his relationship with Kim went awry, Rana became cautious about his dealings with any young woman. Specifically, in case of Iris his memory was vivid about her shattered love with her ex-boyfriend Vish, who was married but did not disclose it to her. He remembered that she was broken-hearted and depressed; that Keka and he had to devote a lot of time and effort to bring her back to normalcy; that she stayed with them few weeks during and after that crisis. So he was measured in his dealings with her. But Iris wanted more fluidity in their relationship. She was, therefore, fuming inside for the lack of it. One day, she brought it out openly in desperation when she said excitedly, “Why don’t you admit it frankly that you have been deliberately avoiding me?”
Rana answered, “Iris, you know me better than that. I am not trying to avoid you. I am trying to avoid a misunderstanding. I am trying to make sure that we do not become so close that parting becomes painful. You are aware that I am on an acting assignment for just six months and I have not forgotten how heart-broken you were when your ex-boyfriend left in a huff under a menacing cloud.”
Iris said, “I am very well aware that you are on a short assignment and I have learnt from my own mistakes. I am a matured woman now. I know how to stay out of emotional attachment to avoid a breakdown like that occurring again.”
Rana said, “Iris, you are playing with fire. Please keep in mind that no matter what you do, butter is bound to melt next to the fire. You are a very likable young lady. I have no problem keeping company with you, but do not blame me for anything that might follow. Keka will always remain my witness.”
Iris got some wind beneath her wings. She laughed and said, “You love to mince words. Keka would really be upset with you because you have been treating me like a doormat.”
They both laughed but remained silent after that. Their unrestrained companionship remained an assumed consent.
In a solitary moment it occurred to Rana that Iris was one of those who naturally believed that with the passing of her friend, her spouse belonged to her automatically. Rana was not looking for any relationship at that point. But it seemed to him increasingly clearly that willy-nilly a relationship had been planted on him by an invisible force long before it started taking shape. Without further quibbling they began meeting on the evenings he did not have an official appointment with a client of the bank. And that is what the River of Life is. It is a planned creation of seemingly unplanned relation ships. The craftsmanship of the Architect is measured by the extent of the element of surprise that a relationship engenders. The Architect plays His card so close to His chest that the participants in these relationships remain clueless and baffled. For the Designer they are planned and crafted, but for the participants they are simply wrapped in mystery.
Rana reflected upon Iris in a quiet moment. He thought there was nothing wrong with Iris as such. She was smart, attractive, educated, always within the bounds of decency and much admired and sought after by men of his age. He analyzed the initial tension in the relationship. He realized that this was primarily because of the perception that each of them carried separately. To Iris, in absence of her dear friend Keka, she was the only contender of his attention. To Rana, being the best friend of Keka, Iris ought to be treated by him on a higher pedestal than others and as such she was outside the purview of his romantic attention. Besides, he was reluctant to enter into another emotional relationship. Nonetheless, there was strong affinity between the two to outweigh any differences. Additionally
, their personal situations were identical. Outside their work environment both of them were lonesome. A few years earlier, Iris moved from YWCA to the suburbs, sharing a nice apartment with a girlhood friend of hers who used to be away from the town most of the time. Rana just moved into a large bank owned apartment in an exclusive part of the town all by himself. As such, both of them were starved of company.
The relationships have a discreet and invisible way of infiltrating and working in the minds of the parties involved. At the outset, Iris and Rana began meeting in the office around mid-evening. They would usually go to a restaurant to have dinner together and after the dinner he would drop her at a convenient rail station. The train services in greater Bombay connecting the suburbs were efficient. It was the fastest and cheapest way of commuting to and from the suburbs. At the next stage, they found it better and faster to buy food from a restaurant and eat at Rana’s apartment. Later in the evening, he would drop her at the nearest station. Further down the road, they found that on the evenings they had appointments, it was better for her to stay overnight at his apartment and drive to work together with Rana the next morning. Subsequently, on a visit to her apartment at her invitation over a weekend, he discovered that it was next to the beach and just off the main thoroughfare connecting the suburb to Bombay. It was close to the airport and the railway station. He found her apartment to be a great weekend getaway and a staging ground for his early morning flights. So they embarked upon a perfect plan that Iris would stay with Rana through the work week and Rana would stay with her over the weekends and the nights before his travel. There could not be a better solution than that on earth. Relationships work in silence at a graduated scale and with a step-by step approach; hurrying up only leads to their sudden demise.
In a temporary assignment there are always some hiccups. Before the expiry of his six-month assignment Rana was advised by the Head Office in New York that unfortunately his temporary assignment had to be extended for further six months as the designated CEO was still grappling with his personal situations. He was also advised that in case the appointee was unable to make it within the next six months, a suitable replacement would be sent.
So Rana decided to take three week’s vacation during Christmas Holiday Season to coincide with his children’s winter holidays. Iris also coordinated her vacation to jibe with Rana’s. At her insistence he decided to bring his children to Bombay to enjoy their vacation. Iris was a devout Catholic and used to spend the week between Christmas and New Year with her parents in Goa. However, that year she decided to spend only two days of Christmas with her parents and come back to Bombay to share the rest of her vacation with Rana and his children. Since they were also the children of her departed friend Keka, Iris wanted to devote sometime with them to give them the motherly affection that they were deprived of. Probably, for her own mental satisfaction she wanted to show them the same generosity that their mother had shown her when she was afflicted by a difficult situation in her life.
Saurav and Smita, on the other hand, were waiting in excited anticipation for their dad to come and take them to Bombay by air. Finally, their fantasy with regard to airplane would take the shape of reality. They were looking forward to the time of their life with their dad. For Saurav, the additional incentive was to see his birth place. They couldn’t wait any longer. The flight to Bombay was smooth. At the take off and touch down they were glued to the window to see how the plane got off the ground to climb up to the sky and how it came down to touch the ground. They were thrilled to see the white flakes of clouds below the aircraft looking like mounds of threshed cotton. They were doubly surprised when hot and delicious breakfast was served! They wondered how they cooked food on board the aircraft! There is a charm in everything for the first time. It was pleasing for Rana to see everything again through their eyes. The drive to daddy’s residence by the sea was a treat for them, for that was the first time they had a glimpse of the ocean. As if that was not enough, they were delighted to see the ocean from daddy’s apartment also! Finally, they felt important because daddy’s apartment was so large that they were allotted separate rooms for each.
Before the children arrived Iris had removed all her personal effects that she used to keep in Rana’s apartment to prevent raising any question or curiosity in their minds. She knew the arrival time of their flight. Allowing enough time for baggage delivery and the driving time from the airport to the residence, she called to confirm their safe arrival. Rana introduced her with Saurav and Smita on telephone appropriately as the best friend of their mother in Bombay. She welcomed them to Bombay with a few affable words that won their hearts. Rana took that opportunity to invite Iris to drop by and meet with them personally. Iris came in the late afternoon and struck up an instant rapport with them. So much so, that they began insisting upon her to stay with them. Though to start with, she pretended her reluctance, at Rana’s very special entreaty she agreed to stay, much to the delight of the children. So what seemed complex earlier was resolved without any eyebrows raised.
Soon the children found joy to play hide and seek with Iris at the shoe house in the hanging garden on the Malabar Hills. In a few days, they fulfilled their long-awaited curiosity to see the house where their mother used to live during her stay in Bombay. Especially, for Smita, that house was like a shrine. The mother, whom she never saw, was not only an enigma to her, but also an object of veneration. Saurav was also pleased to see the nursing home where he was born.
During the Christmas Season Bombay used to wear a festive look like any other western city. The Christians and the non-Christians alike used to decorate their houses and apartments with decorative lights, balloons, buntings and all other paraphernalia. In addition to decorating her own apartment, Iris decorated Rana’s apartment also, taking whatever little help she could get from the siblings. They felt very proud to be involved; they felt grown up. Iris had a way of connecting with the children with her natural warmth. They were glued to her; they were literally at her beck and call as if they were hypnotized by her. The day she took them to her apartment at Juhu Beach for the first time, Rana had to attend to some unforeseen business at his bank. The siblings were very happy to stay with her all day and play with her at the beach. Another thing that gave them immense pleasure was the train ride from the Churchgate Station to her suburban home by a non-stop double-fast train. There was a reason for that. At that time the Calcutta Metro was not operational yet and otherwise they had no occasion to travel by train.
Throughout that Holiday Season Iris’ apartment was entirely at her disposal, because her room-mate was scheduled to spend the holidays with her family at Bangalore. To take full advantage of that situation, she invited Rana and the children to stay at her apartment for a week on her return from Goa on the Boxing Day. From their very first visit to her apartment, Saurav and Smita started liking it, because of its proximity to the beach. The children were so delighted with her invitation that they danced spontaneously with the simplicity that only the children can display.
Accordingly, on the Boxing Day Rana and the children picked Iris up from the airport and together they drove straight to her apartment for a week of relaxed vacation on the beach, drenched by the benign January sun under the welcome shadows of an array of coconut and palm groves. There was an additional reason to rejoice. The Boxing Day also happened to be Smita’s birthday. It was hard to believe that she was already six! She was very happy to receive the birthday presents that she wanted. They had a sumptuous lunch at one of the nicest restaurants on the Juhu Beach. After the delicious lunch there could only be fun in the sun.
This additional time at her home brought Saurav and Smita even closer to Iris. But that made the parting more difficult. Seven days passed by with the blink of an eye. Iris lavished her unparalleled affection on Saurav and Smita, children of her departed friend Keka, not knowing if she would see them ever again. She was not a mother in the traditional sense. But she proved once again that every woman is a
born mother. When the time for parting approached, they cried for Iris unstoppably as much as she cried for them, like the unrestrained monsoon rain on the Malabar Mountains. What mother and what child would not be emotional at the outpouring of their undiluted love for each other! When the moment for departure came, a tearful Iris asked them to come back soon. The teary-eyed siblings pelted her cheeks with their kisses laden with unblemished love. The visit that began with cheers, ended in tears.
Veritably, that is the nature of love. Afflicted by the uncertainties of the future, it is always at a loss as to how to react adequately to the object of love in union or at parting, causing the heart to erupt in unprecedented emotional overflow.
And that is the essence and the driving spirit of the River of Life. In it the objects remain the same, but their impact varies depending on the time, place and situation. The same object which is the source of joy in union also becomes a spring of sorrow in parting. On the wings of joy and sorrow the River of Life dances down the valley of creation to its endless destiny, the ever transient Eternity.
A Bend in the River of Life Page 25