Storywallah

by Neelesh Misra

  As I sat alone in the cafe, I looked back at all those moments through new eyes. I had been flowing freely, pushed along by some current. It was the flow of love, where nothing is questioned. I was a wave. But all waves don’t make it to the shore. And I was stuck in the middle of the sea now.

  ‘Simmi, what are you doing here?’

  The familiar voice made me turn around. It was a friend from college, Parul. Parul came with all sorts of memories.

  ‘Remember how we made a sudden programme and went up to Nainital?’

  ‘And remember that golgappa guy who gave us two extra golgappas every day?’

  Parul was a trunk full of memories. Her words were like a mirror that showed me my old self. The Simmi who could disappear from the city for a week without a care, the girl who loved the fragrance of the mountains.

  ‘Remember how you used to want to go to the mountains just before the first rains of the season? We saw so many mountain rains like that, yaar. What days those were!’

  Where was the Simmi that was crazy about paragliding and bungee jumping? Where had she gone? I couldn’t understand.

  After speaking with Parul I tried to look for the girl that I had been before I met Sumit. I looked but I couldn’t find her.

  ‘How was the engagement? You’ll be Mrs So-and-So in a few days! Will you change your surname?’

  Parul was a lot more excited about my engagement than I was.

  ‘You’re lucky, yaar. You’re getting to marry the guy you love.’

  Was I really marrying the guy I loved? I hoped Parul was right. I hoped this was the same Sumit who I had fallen in love with.

  I reached home in a scattered state that day to find my house as scattered as I was. I couldn’t decided whether I should first sort out the house or myself. All the relatives that had come for the engagement had left adequate proof of their having being there. The place was strewn with towels and polythene. My cousin had left the contents of my make-up box strewn across the dressing table. Next to the lipstick and the eyeliner was the bottle of nail polish that still sparkled on my nail. As I picked everything up to put away in the cupboard, I noticed a nail cutter.

  What will happen if I just cut this stupid nail? Is it really such a big thing? I picked up the nail cutter and went and sat on the sofa.

  ‘I hope you remain the same after you get married!’

  Parul’s words as she had left echoed in my mind. I felt as if something was plugged in my brain.

  There was a knock at the door. Sumit opened the door and came in. He gave me a washed-out smile.

  ‘Please give me some water quickly, if possible some orange juice.’

  He didn’t look at me as he said it, as if I was sitting around waiting for his order. Then his gaze fell on the nail cutter in my right hand.

  ‘Oh, good! You cut your nail.’

  He spoke casually. As if he knew that that was what would happen. But something in the tone of his voice hit my heart like a missile. There is a fine line between compromising and adjusting. If you change because you want to it doesn’t hurt, but if you need to change to suit someone else’s wishes than that can be come unbearable.

  I put the nail cutter on the table and went up to Sumit. I looked him in the eye and said, ‘Let’s put the wedding on hold for a while, Sumit. I need some time to think.’

  ‘What?’ He was shocked.

  ‘Are you mad? The date will be fixed in a few days and you want time?’ Wordlessly I began to take the ring off my finger. His gaze fell on my nail and I think he understood. He had always claimed to understand me better than even I could.

  ‘You want to put the wedding on hold for such a small thing? I mean, for one nail?’ He was astounded.

  ‘It isn’t about the nail, Sumit,’ I said looking into his eyes and left the ring on the table.

  The ring lay on the table next to the nail cutter. I looked at Sumit and then left the room. Sumit was still looking at the ring and the nail cutter.

  THE SEAL

  Anulata Raj Nair

  The brightness of Eid decorations lit up the Chowk Bazaar. Colourful dupattas decorated the shops, some studded with sequins, others lined with thin borders of golden gota. People thronged the shops that sold crochet caps, bent over the wares. The tailors were the busiest, their machines stitching masses of kurtas and pyjamas and sherwanis. The clatter of the sewing machines melded with the sound of the azan. The lanes were full of the colour and tinkle of glass bangles. The chowk felt different during Ramadan, divine, as if the air was filled the perfume of prayers.

  I stopped my official jeep at the head of the lane and walked down. Every step that took me forward in those narrow lanes took my mind ten years back.

  I had spent my childhood in this area in old Bhopal, in Ibrahimpura. Whatever I achieved in life I found here, and the blame for all I lost is on these lanes too.

  ‘Sahab, will you have some sherbet or something else cold?’ my orderly, walking behind me, asked.

  ‘No, no, I’ll get something for myself, you stay in the car,’ I told him, and walking fast, entered a very narrow lane, which held my childhood, where I grew up.

  I stopped in front of a shop. It didn’t have a name, just a board that said ‘urgent stamps’. Outside, some nameplates swung with the wind: brass, wooden and ordinary painted ones.

  Strewn on the table were all sorts of seals: small ones, big ones, round ones and square ones. I turned one over. I’m not sure what was written on it but to me it looked like my name: ‘Aman Kumar Agarwal, Judicial Officer, First Class’.

  The shopkeeper looked at me intently. Maybe I was a customer. But I disappointed him and walked to the far end of the lane and stopped in front of my old house.

  It almost looked as if the house too felt the sorrow of our having left it. The paint on the doors was faded, the hinges were rusted and the cracks had widened. Inside, there was nothing for me to peep in to see.

  The next house was closed. Pipal saplings were growing from the cracks in its rotting wood beams, their leaves proclaiming that no one lived there any more. Ignoring the lock on the door, I knocked a special knock.

  But there was no sound of feet running to the door in recognition of that knock. I felt like calling out her name, but the word seemed to get stuck in my throat.

  I don’t know how long I stood there. ‘Why am I here?’ I asked myself. ‘Who am I looking for?’

  It had been six years since I had been here, in this lane where my house stood—where Babuji had his shop, a seal shop.

  I was trying to relive those long-gone days that crammed this narrow lane filled with memories.

  Babuji had raised me alone. I had never missed having a mother, and if ever I did, Paro’s mother had filled that emptiness for me. I just needed to climb over the courtyard wall to reach her.

  Paro and I were the same age. We had started school together. We had the same bag, the same uniform, the same tiffin box, everything was the same. Except us. I hated studying. I only studied for a few hours after Babuji came home, out of fear. Paro could spend the whole day buried in her books.

  It was a different story when the results came. I somehow always did better than her. She would get angry looking at my mark sheet. Tugging at her mother’s sari she would wail, ‘How has he got better marks, Ma? Tell me! He doesn’t even study!’

  Once, to make her happy, I had struck out my name on my mark sheet and written hers instead.

  The same story continued till we were in the tenth grade. I only studied out of fear of Babuji and she spent her whole day studying.

  But something had started to change. Our relationship.

  Somewhere between sixteen and seventeen my heart began to race at the mention of Paro. And I’m certain it was the same for her. Now when I got more marks than her, her eyes would light up and she would pat my back and say, ‘You really are intelligent, one day you will become a big officer.’

  But I ignored her praise and her shining eyes. I looked
for the smile on her lips. I wanted to feel the softness of her hands.

  I was taking becoming useless in love to new heights. I had never really been interested in studies and now I only wanted to study enough to pass. I didn’t feel the need to study.

  I managed to scrape through twelfth grade somehow and went straight to Babuji’s shop from school. Paro was with me. I had purposely taken her along.

  At the shop, with pride I announced grandly that from now on I was going to sit in the shop, work, earn money.

  After having my say I looked at both of them, expecting praise and encouragement.

  But I was shocked when Babuji shouted, ‘Are you mad! I’m not educating you so that you can spend your life in this small shop! Do you understand?’

  And Paro, she snatched her hand out of mine and ran out of the shop.

  Paro was the first page of my love story.

  In those days when the rest of the boys were up on the roof flying kites I was sitting on the courtyard wall gazing at Paro, and when after a long time she finally noticed me and looked at me, I felt like I had won a lottery. At that time there was no bigger bumper prize for me than winning over Paro.

  But that day when she had run away from Babuji’s shop, she had left me penniless. It was for her that I had decided to look after the shop. I wanted to show her that I was sensible and responsible. I couldn’t understand what I had done wrong.

  After Paro left, Babuji had held my shoulders and sat me down on the thin bench in the shop. I could feel his hands trembling.

  In a voice full of emotion he had said, ‘I have big dreams for you, son. Every time I made a seal for any officer I always saw your name in those letters. Engineer Aman Kumar Agarwal, or Doctor Aman, or IAS Aman.’

  I stared at Babuji. What language was he speaking? I was shocked that a man who sat in such a small shop, a maker of seals, when did he start to see such big dreams? Why?

  Babuji held my hand in his firm hands, ‘Paro says that you get such good marks when you study even for an hour; if you study hard you will definitely become a senior officer.’

  I was angry. Paro and I were happy together. Why was my kite now suddenly flying towards a good career? How had the wind changed?

  Irritated I got up and left the shop midway between Babuji’s sentence. I went straight to Paro’s house. She was in the courtyard reading a book on a rug. I went and sat in front of her and said angrily, ‘What is this officer business? I’m not going to study for twenty-four hours a day, understand that.’ And I got up to walk away.

  She called out from behind me, ‘You understand this too then. I’m not going to spend my life with some guy who makes seals and stamps. I’m going to marry a guy who has his own seal.’

  After that day, our relationship changed. I stopped staring at her from the roof. She also came over less with laddoos and sewai made by her mother. We hadn’t stopped talking, but it wasn’t comfortable like before.

  Without really wanting to I too started spending more and more time with my books. My evenings were now spent in the Central Library on Itwara Road. Babuji couldn’t afford to buy all the books I needed. And sitting in the library saved me from thoughts of Paro. The thick walls of the 110-year-old building built by the nawabs seemed to be able to keep thoughts out as well. The scent of the old books snuffed out the perfume of Paro’s wrists.

  I began to prepare for the civil service examinations along with my bachelor’s degree. I don’t know how Paro felt but I still loved her. My love had just moved from centre stage to the background.

  One winter evening it was particularly dark. As I entered the lane on my way back from the library Paro appeared suddenly and grabbed my wrist. I stopped.

  There was something in her eyes that I couldn’t understand. Then she laughed softly and said, ‘I wish one could get married just by holding hands.’

  I didn’t understand so I stayed quiet.

  I think she didn’t like my silence. ‘Say something at least!’

  I smiled and said, ‘We can hold hands and take the seven pheras. We’ll be married.’

  She laughed and said, ‘We need a stamp, sir, for a wedding, an official seal.’

  And in a second she had run away to other end of the lane.

  I tried to understand if there was something unsaid in her laughter.

  I was engaged in preparation for the civil services but I didn’t want to study, that was certain. I was doing it for Paro because we needed a seal to be married. I was doing it for Babuji. Because he wanted me to be a big officer, an officer with his own seal, his own stamp.

  What a strange longing his was. When after the whole day I would return home he would tell me as he served me my food, ‘Today I made a nameplate for an SP. He’s a retired officer. And I made a seal for him. With his son’s name.’

  I could see the dampness in his eyes as he would tell me these stories. I knew him very well. I just couldn’t understand why he got so hopeless when he saw me in the shop he loved.

  And Paro, she was even stranger. She had big dreams; she wanted to do a course in fashion design and was studying hard for it. She knew what she wanted.

  Sometimes we would sit on the wall of the roof and talk. Neither of us had ever seriously expressed our love for each other. But I knew there was love. Some truths are like that, they claim their existence without any evidence.

  It was at her insistence that I had started studying.

  She had started to bring me things to eat again: besan laddoos, soaked almonds, thick creamy kheer. I wish I could have found a way of knowing if she brought them herself or if her mother sent them. But I never found out. Because I never asked.

  Sometimes we would sit on the roof till nightfall. On seeing the first star she would always mumble something. I would smile at her childishness. Sometimes in the dark our shoulders would touch. I still don’t know why I never held her in my arms. Maybe I knew it was necessary for her that I became an officer and that stopped me.

  Finally the results were out. I was not selected.

  That year was the worst year of my life. I broke inside.

  It was then that Paro got admission in a college in Mumbai and she left. She was so happy that the happiness numbed the pain of our separation.

  She didn’t say much when she came to say goodbye, no promises, no expressed hope to meet again.

  It was as if I had imagined her love. Maybe I had.

  I had lost all confidence in myself so it was inappropriate for me to say anything. After Paro left I really became like Devdas. I didn’t want to go to the library. It hurt to step out of the house.

  I began to sit in the shop again. I made number plates for cars. I ran my fingers over the important designations on nameplates and set them aside, I saw the names etched on seals . . .

  I knew Babuji hated my sitting in the shop but I ignored it.

  I may have spent my life there in the shop but one day Babuji came into my room. He had a beautiful seal with my name on it in his hands.

  I looked at my name stamped in red on the white paper in front of me. I looked at him. I think he had a lot to say, but all he said was, ‘Try once more, son, I’ve made this for you . . .’

  ‘Sir, should I get you some tea?’ my orderly’s voice surprised me. I looked at my watch. I had gone back so many years in an hour.

  I started for home. Babuji was waiting for me at my official residence.

  Since my posting in this city I come here whenever I can. Maybe in the hope that on the bend in that narrow lane Paro will grab my wrist and pull me towards her and we will be standing face to face again.

  As I reached home and looked at the veranda I couldn’t believe my eyes.

  She was standing there, smiling, that same smile that lit up her eyes.

  I wanted to ask her so much, but all I could manage was ‘Where are you these days? How come you’re here?’

  Without saying a word she took some papers out of her bag and said, ‘I need your stamp on m
y marriage certificate.’

  I felt a bitterness in my throat.

  Babuji put his hand on her head and said, ‘He’s become somebody because of you.’

  She laughed and said, ‘Yes, Babuji, I always told him a seal was needed for marriage!’

  I stamped her papers in silence.

  She sat across from me. I looked for a trace of tears in her eyes.

  A DIVORCED GIRL

  Jamshed Qamar Siddiqui

  Is it just me or is it a universal truth that the hands of a clock move considerably faster in the morning? That morning had been the same crazy running-around kind of morning. I kept glancing at the clock as I prepared lunchboxes for my five-year-old son Akshay and myself.

  ‘Mummy, my English writing book,’ Akshay called out and I stuck my head out of the kitchen and said, ‘You did your homework on the sofa yesterday; it must be there. How many times have I told you to pack your bag the previous night?’ I had barely finished speaking when my cell phone rang and I now spoke with it scrunched between my ear and my shoulder.

  ‘Hello, Mummy! Yes! Yes! Listen, I’m getting late for office, I’ll call you from there. Yes, your grandson has had his breakfast! Yes, I’ve given him his almonds! I’m putting the phone down now otherwise I’ll be late again. Okay, bye!’

  I gave Akshay his breakfast and stood in front of the mirror to do my hair. I undid the bun and started brushing fast. While disentangling some knotted strands I noticed the dark circles that had appeared under my eyes. I touched them. It looked as if all the nights I had spent alone had collected beneath my eyes. I looked at my burdened eyes and tired face, but whatever else there was or wasn’t certainly was self-belief.

  I rode the scooty at a slow pace, but Akshay clung to me tightly. A pink helmet on my head, I wended my way slowly through the traffic like a novice. I was a novice. I wasn’t used to it yet. It had been only two months since I had sold the car. There was no real need for a car now. Also, one had to be more cautious when one travelled alone along life’s highways.

  I had got divorced four years ago. Since then Akshay had been my sole responsibility. Everything was my sole responsibility. From the society meetings to bank work to making the rations list and Akshay’s parent–teacher meetings, I had surrounded myself with so much work that the weight of memories was beginning to lessen. It’s true, though, it was still as hard as it had always been to answer Akshay’s innocent questions. It had been hard even when we couldn’t scale the walls of silence. I could read the sadness that descended in his eyes when he watched the other children playing with their fathers in the evenings.