by Anirban Bose
‘No,’ she said with a slow, deliberate effort. ‘He left us…and went away.’
Adi could feel the hurt in her voice. He held her hand and rubbed it gently. Tears welled up in her eyes.
‘Baba was everything to me when I was little, Adi. He was my world. He bought us books, toys, chocolates…took us to movies, spoilt us behind Ma’s back. He was so full of life…constantly singing or playing with us or laughing. Every night before falling asleep, he would hug me, run his hand through my hair and tell me that I was his jaan. That’s what he’d call me around the house…his jaan.’
She wiped the tears that had started rolling down her cheeks. Adi put an arm around her shoulder.
‘When I was eight, Baba left to go to Germany for some sort of a six-month assignment. Initially, he would call every week from there and tell us how much he was missing us. He would still call me his jaan…jaan I miss you so much, jaan I am so disappointed that I have to stay longer for some more work. But when the six months were over, he didn’t come back, and his calls became more and more infrequent. I remember Ma would cry after each call, and when I’d ask why, she’d wipe her face and say that she was missing Baba too and that Baba would show up some day and surprise us. From then on, every time the bell rang, I would expect him to be at the door with his suitcases full of stuff for us from Germany. Or suddenly find him sitting next to my bed after Ma had switched off the light, kiss my forehead and recount my favourite story. But…he never did and two years went by waiting for him to appear. Then his calls stopped completely. Ma never spoke about him and if I asked her anything about him, she’d just pretend she couldn’t hear me. She grew so old in those two years, Adi. She had to work so hard to support us. Our life…our life changed so drastically in those years.’
‘Then one day, when I was about eleven, I saw Ma packing away all of Baba’s clothes. I was so angry with her… I began to fight her…she couldn’t throw Baba out of the house! She tried to explain to me that he wasn’t coming back…but I didn’t believe her and I screamed at her and called her a liar. That’s when she started crying and said that he had stayed on in Germany and started a new family there. He wasn’t coming back…ever.’
She wiped away the tears that were now freely rolling down her cheeks. She turned to look at Adi and asked, ‘Have you ever loved someone so much, Adi, that it hurts to love? Ever wanted something so much that it aches not to have it? Ever wished for something so badly that your heart refuses to believe it doesn’t exist any more? I have, Adi, and it has left a hole in my heart…a hole that fears the hurt that comes with love, long before love itself. I was scared to go out with you, Adi, because I’m scared of falling in love. I knew you had broken up with Renuka and that scared me, Adi. Not that you could have loved her once…but that you could have broken up with someone you loved; that you could feel nothing after feeling so much for someone…and I’m so terrified to love you, Adi!’
Adi stiffened in anticipation. Suddenly, the doubts Renuka had sown in his mind came rushing back.
‘Isha,’ he began, ‘Renuka and I never had anything real. Honestly…for me it was just this feeling of importance, and for her…’
‘Did you love her, Adi, or tell her you did?’
Adi was stunned by the sharpness of her question. It knocked his thoughts awry, leaving him unsure about what to say next. He didn’t want to lie and he didn’t want to tell her the truth.
‘How does that matter, Isha… I don’t…’
She stared at the disquiet on his face, lowered her head and began to cry.
Adi sighed, preparing to reassure her. He had to tell her what she wanted to hear. He had to tell her he loved her. He took her hands in his and said, ‘Isha, I like you. I really like you… I…’
Adi found himself unable to complete the sentence. He shook his head and tried again. ‘Isha, I really like…’
What the hell! What was wrong with him?
He looked away, ran his hand through his hair in an attempt to clear his thoughts. ‘Isha, I really like you… I really… I…’
Adi found himself unable to proceed. Shocked at his inability to complete the sentence, he stared at her, tongue-tied. She looked so beautiful, so fragile. He wanted to hold her hand, embrace her tightly and tell her he loved her and he would keep loving her forever.
But he couldn’t. He just couldn’t.
Suddenly Adi heard someone calling out his name. Surprised, he turned around to see Sam running towards them. As Sam got closer, Adi noticed that he was crying.
‘Adi…he’s dead!’ screamed Sam. ‘Toshi… Toshi is dead! His plane crashed. He’s dead!’
TWENTY-ONE
Grief hung over the hostel like an invisible shroud. Everyone was awake, milling around on the ground floor in dismay and disbelief, waiting for any further news. The sight of anyone walking up the driveway brought some hope. Maybe Toshi had missed his flight in Calcutta…maybe there had been a mistake and it was some other flight to Dimapur that had crashed. But hope started to fade as time passed.
Toshi’s flight had reached Calcutta on time and after the scheduled stopover of a few hours, had taken off for Dimapur. Then, on its descent into Dimapur, the pilot had lost control of the aircraft and had crashed into the mountainside. All ninety passengers, including the crew, were dead. Rescue efforts were soon called off because of the bad weather. A preliminary survey of the disaster site had shown that there were unlikely to be any survivors.
The news reached the hostel when officials from Indian Airlines came looking for Jagdeep, whose address Toshi had listed on the reservation form as the next of kin while buying his tickets. Unable to find him, they left a message with the canteen manager, who realized they were talking about the guy who had given him a hug that morning. He informed Sam who immediately called the airline office, hoping that there had been a miscommunication. Only when he replaced the telephone receiver, numb with disbelief, did it dawn on everyone that Toshi was actually dead.
Adi didn’t bother to put on the lights on entering his room. The darkness surrounding him was resonant with the pain in his heart. The night air was cool and the beautiful scent of the jasmine flowers outside wafted in lazily.
A thousand images of Toshi flashed in his head like iridescent flashbulbs. Smiling, laughing, cracking a joke, strumming his guitar, studying late into the night. Lazing around on his bed talking to Adi; lying on it, weak with malaria. Adi remembered his fear the night before the exam and his joy at finally being able to go home. He could feel Toshi’s hug from the morning and his handshake still lingered on his fingers. The last image of Toshi, waving from the gates of the airport terminal before disappearing into the crowd, haunted him.
Adi started to cry. He buried his face in his hands and muffled his sobs, feeling the tears of pain, loneliness, helplessness and insecurity slide down his face. He cried for his friend, he cried for himself, he cried wondering why everything in his life was so topsy-turvy.
There was a knock on his door and someone said softly from outside, ‘Adi? Are you asleep?’
Quickly wiping away his tears, Adi opened the door. It was Jagdeep.
‘Hi, Adi,’ he said. ‘How are you feeling?’
‘I’m okay,’ Adi replied.
Jagdeep shook his head. ‘I… I still can’t believe it, man.’
Adi tried hard to contain his tears. ‘Think about his parents, man. What must be going through their minds? Losing a twenty-year-old…and they haven’t seen him in the last two years.’
Jagdeep nodded. Then, after a pause, he said, ‘I am planning to go to Nagaland to meet his parents, Adi. Do you want to come with me?’
Adi looked at him, surprised. ‘You’re not serious, are you?’ he said. ‘We can talk to them, and write to them…but Nagaland is so far away, man.’
‘Yeah… I know. But Toshi was a good friend and I want to go and meet his parents… I’ll go alone if I have to, but I was wondering if someone would like to come with me.’
Jagdeep’s determination surprised Adi. He had never known Jagdeep to be particularly close to Toshi. But the idea of going to visit Toshi’s parents in Nagaland seemed not only foolish but foolhardy.
The one-way train journey would take four or five days, for they’d have to skirt the entire western and northern borders of Bangladesh to get to the ‘other side’. Getting a reservation on the train would be the first challenge. With the onset of the monsoon, the Brahmaputra and its tributaries would inevitably flood the Northeast, wipe out a few bridges and further complicate matters. Besides, Assam and Nagaland were racked by insurgency, with daily reports of rebels and the Indian Army killing each other. And even if he wanted to go, there was Isha. Their relationship stood at a crucial juncture, one that demanded his time and attention, both of which would be poorly served if he ran off on an ill-conceived, emotionally charged journey. Any which way he looked at it, the trip seemed like an invitation to disaster. He shook his head ‘no.’ Jagdeep accepted with a reluctant sigh and left.
Before shutting his door Adi looked in the direction of Toshi’s room. In the dim light of the corridor he was shocked to see that the door was open!
Was Toshi alive? For a moment, happiness flooded his heart.
Maybe it was all a bad dream…and Toshi would be sitting in his room strumming his guitar!
He rushed to the room and looked inside. Pheru and Sam were rummaging through Toshi’s stuff and looked up at Adi’s excited face with surprise.
Adi groaned, rudely reminded that Pheru now shared Toshi’s room. As he stood there brokenhearted, feeling his expectations crumble, his eyes fell on the maroon-coloured diary with Toshi’s name printed on the cover.
It was the diary Toshi’s mother had given him to chronicle his life in Bombay.
Adi stepped inside and picked it up. He began leafing through its contents. The memory of Toshi, sitting at his desk and filling out page after page late into the night, came flooding back to him. He held the diary in his hands and caressed it gently. Then, wiping his tears, he decided to give the diary to Toshi’s mother personally, and tell her how proud he was of her.
Adi mulled over how best to explain to Isha why it was so important for him to meet Toshi’s family. He practised his lines again and again, recalling the time when Toshi had explained the diary’s significance to Adi. He hoped Isha would understand that they would have to leave the discussion about their relationship for later, until after his return. When he got back…if he got back.
She came down promptly when the guard at the ladies’ hostel called out her name. Her eyes were red and puffy. She sat opposite him, staring steadfastly at her feet, periodically dabbing her eyes with a yellow handkerchief. For the first time Adi felt self-conscious in her presence, unsure of what characterized their relationship – their physical proximity or their emotional distance.
‘Isha,’ he began softly, ‘I am planning to visit Toshi’s parents in Nagaland.’
She drew in a sharp breath. Tears welled up in her eyes as she looked at him uncertainly. Then, trying hard to muster a brave smile, she said, ‘I think you should go, Adi…he was, after all, a good friend.’
The tears she had restrained so far began flowing down her cheeks.
Adi looked at her in astonishment. With a single sentence, she had wiped away all his insecurity. ‘And about last night…’ he began.
‘Shhh…’ she whispered, laying her forefinger gently across her lips and smiling through her tears. ‘Don’t worry about that. We have all the time in the world to talk about us. When are you planning to leave?’
Around noon, Adi knocked on Jagdeep’s door. Jagdeep opened it and looked at Adi curiously.
‘I’m coming with you to meet Toshi’s parents,’ said Adi.
Jagdeep smiled. Opening the door wider he ushered Adi in and said, ‘Great. Now we have six people.’
Adi was surprised. ‘Six? Who else is coming with us?’
‘Rajeev, Harsha, Sam and Pheru. With you and me that makes six!’ said Jagdeep, placing his clothes in a small, brown travel bag.
Adi’s enthusiasm dampened upon hearing the list of names. He squirmed at the thought of having to spend almost a fortnight together with the others, confined to the small train cubicles and depending on each other for everything when he couldn’t spend ten minutes with them alone in a room. He began to seriously reconsider his decision to undertake this trip. Trying to hide his discomfort, Adi asked, ‘Doesn’t Pheru have his Pharmac exam in ten days?’
‘He does…and if he doesn’t pass this time, he’s done for,’ said Jagdeep.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, he has nowhere to stay. Now that Toshi is dead, he’ll have to give up the room. If Pheru flunks, his medical career is pretty much over since he won’t have a place to stay in the hostel any more.’
‘So why is he going?’ scoffed Adi. ‘Pheru should stay, especially since this time he has studied so hard…he is better prepared than ever. Instead of going to visit Toshi’s parents he should try to pass his exam.’
Jagdeep stopped arranging his stuff and looked at Adi. ‘I don’t know, Adi. Pheru is a strange guy. He said something about this being his fault…his bad luck or something. I guess he does things that just feel right. You know…from the heart, not the head. Like you, Adi…staying overnight with Toshi to help him with his Anatomy practicals. It must have just felt like the correct thing to do, right?’
Adi nodded silently.
Jagdeep smiled and said, ‘By the way Adi, can you arrange for the tickets?’
Adi busied himself in planning the trip. Even on a map, the journey looked long and complicated. The first, and probably the easiest leg, would be the train journey from Bombay to Calcutta on the Calcutta Express. The word ‘express’ was misleading. It was the slowest of the trains that plied the route, covering the distance in thirty-six hours. While that was the reason Adi managed to get reservations at such short notice, its scheduled and unscheduled stops along the way, slave to the whims of its driver, could easily add another six to twelve hours to the itinerary.
From Calcutta, a twenty-four-hour journey on the Kamrup Express to Guwahati would be the second leg of their expedition. A six-hour bus ride from Guwahati to Dimapur – the third section of the trip – would launch the final phase of their journey: a bus ride to Mokukchung. If all his calculations about the timings worked as planned, they would reach Mokukchung in four and a half days. Given the vagaries of Mother Nature and the whims of the Indian Railways, Adi realized that it would take nothing short of a miracle for them to complete their journey on time.
Their train was scheduled to leave for Calcutta at 9.30 that evening.
Adi hurried back to the hostel to pack. He sent word to Jagdeep about their travel plans and that he would meet them directly at the railway station. He put his belongings into one large backpack and carefully packed Toshi’s diary amongst it.
Then he rushed over to meet Isha.
The guard called her name a couple of times, but she didn’t appear. After waiting impatiently for half an hour, Adi left a note for her with the guard, informing her that he was heading for the railway station.
Adi met Sam, Harsha and Rajeev just outside the station. They exchanged cursory nods, maintaining a superficial civility before heading towards the train in silence. Adi located their seats in the middle of the bogie. He placed his bag on the bunk above and sat next to the window, gazing through the red-coloured window bars at the huge platform.
The station was abuzz with activity as people rushed about, looking for their compartments. They compared the numbers on the bogies to the small slips of paper in their hands, nodding with satisfaction when they matched. Rushing into the carriage they would quickly occupy their berths, spreading out anything handy to earmark the maximum space they could covet. Satisfied with their conquest, they would turn their attention to the day’s newspaper or a film magazine, shifting impatiently every so often when the trai
n didn’t show any signs of moving.
Soon Pheru joined them, towing a huge suitcase.
‘What is in that huge suitcase?’ asked Rajeev. ‘We are not going on a vacation, Pheru.’
‘Still...’ panted Pheru, ‘I like to be prepared.’
‘Where is Jagdeep? I thought he was with you, Pheru,’ asked Sam.
‘Jagdeep is going to fly to Dimapur,’ said Pheru.
‘What?’ asked Rajeev. ‘When did this happen? I didn’t know he was that rich… Flights are so expensive.’
Pheru began to laugh. ‘God knows what is wrong with that Sardarji,’ he said. ‘Indian Airlines announced that they will give one free round trip ticket to anyone related to the victim, to visit family. So, Jagdeep went to the Airlines office to tell them that Toshi was like a brother to our sardar. He claimed that that is why Toshi had listed him as the local next of kin.’
All of them burst out laughing imagining the look on the airline agent’s face when Jagdeep, with the huge turban on his head, claimed that Toshi, a Naga Christian, was his brother.
‘Pheru, don’t you have your Pharmac exam in ten days?’ asked Harsha.
Pheru nodded. ‘They’ll fail me anyway,’ he said. ‘Saala, this time I had actually studied, man. I’m sure I could pass if the bastard dean didn’t interfere. But, you know, it would feel worse to fail this time…so I just won’t show up. This time I won’t give the dean the pleasure of seeing me fail at his hands…this time, I’ll fail at my hands. And this failure is dedicated to the memory of our dear friend… Toshi.’
Outside, regular announcements of trains arriving and departing added to the din. Latecomers rushed for their bogies, their adroit manoeuvring across the platform with a pile of luggage in tow, defying all laws of physics. Passengers still idling on the platform began hugging members of their farewell entourage, warmly exchanging promissory nods to meet again soon. Animated porters, unconcerned that only a few minutes remained before the train set off, loaded huge sacks of cargo with practised ease.