by Anirban Bose
John Lennon said it best: ‘Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans’.
Toshi loved listening to Lennon.
I’m starting to miss Toshi. I wonder what it will be like without him in the hostel. I wonder who I’ll turn to for the 2 a.m. discussion about life, politics, friendship, pathology or sex. I wonder what I’ll do with the silence of his guitar and the emptiness of his room. I wonder if I’ll miss his laughter and long for his companionship in the days to come. I wonder because I was filled with doubt while standing next to his grave, Isha. Doubts that arose when I tried to say goodbye to my friend, but couldn’t grieve at all.
Even now, as I sit here alone and think about Toshi, I can only remember him laughing, or singing, or strumming his guitar, or regaling us with the stories of his amorous adventures. I recall Toshi lying on his bed, weak with malaria, with a sign above his head ‘Toshi Lying in Bed for World Peace’. I remember him scratching out the title of a biochemistry book and imprinting on it in big letters, ‘GREEK’. I remember him trying to patch up the differences between Pheru, Rajeev and me on our way to the airport. I remember the night we stayed awake, studying biochemistry in the wards. I remember his happiness after the exams.
Like poring over a scrapbook full of happy thoughts, I can only remember him from all the happy moments he spent alive. And just like we accept the unpredictability of life by giving it names, I’m learning to accept Toshi’s death by living with his memories. Even if they just remain as images in my head, I can still feel the warmth of his friendship. His death has taught me about forgiveness, about second chances, and, most importantly, how short and beautiful life really is. So how can I say goodbye to someone who gave me so much? I can’t, because he is alive in my memory and will live with me till I die. I will never, never say goodbye to my friend Toshi.
So much has changed in the two years since Baba and I travelled on this train to Bombay. What a simple, wide-eyed eighteen-year-old I was, stepping away from home for the first time. I can still remember the exuberance and excitement I felt at the promise of the new discoveries that lay ahead. And it has taken two years to discover what was closest to me all this while: myself. My entity, my identity, my being: all shaped by the choices I made.
I remember the first night in Bombay, when Baba worried about the experiences that would shape my future. And just like Baba said, my unfeigned belief in all things good, and fair and just has been shaken by so many of my experiences. For, in these two years, I have seen jealousy, anger, fear and betrayal, while discovering friendship, integrity, courage and love. I have seen injustice and bigotry as much as I have seen fairness and tolerance. I have experienced emptiness in the power of public adulation, as well as peace in the isolation of excommunication.
It is mind-boggling to think that our lives, our entire future of who and what we are, is simply a matter of choice. Shaping our choices, as Baba had said, are our experiences, the choice to believe in one or the other, choosing to hope or despair, love or hate, believe or doubt, trust or betray.
So many outcomes…just as many choices. And so it all comes down to this…what does one choose to believe in?
For me, the choice has become so simple, Isha. Just like I can only remember the happy moments of Toshi’s life rather than his painful death, my implicit belief in all these virtues of humanity stand reinforced by my experiences.
I choose to hope, to trust, to forgive, to believe and…to love.
I’ve thought about you every day, Isha. I’ve missed you every minute of every day.
But what I have often wondered is why it was so difficult for me to say ‘I love you’ that night. There was the time, there was the occasion, and the mood…but I just couldn’t say it. This statement is probably as stupid as it is honest. But the truth is, I just couldn’t say it! I still remember the light on the sign of the ladies’ hostel flickering, and I kept thinking, okay, the next time it flickers, I’ll say it… I’ll tell you that I love you…
But I couldn’t! I just couldn’t!
Of course, soon after that Sam broke the news of Toshi’s death.
My uncertainty has frustrated me since then. Why couldn’t I just say those three simple words? So this entire trip, I have thought about it, reviewed it, considered it and reconsidered it, and I think I finally know why. It is bizarrely twisted, so bear with me.
The thing is, you didn’t ask me if I loved you…you asked me if I had ever told Renuka I loved her.
I had.
But why was that as important as knowing whether I loved you?
Because to you, it meant defining love. It meant knowing what I meant when I said it. Both of us have felt betrayed in what we believed was love. And both of us have searched for the answer to the simple question: what does it mean to be in love?
I suppose love is everything we want it to be and nothing we don’t. I’ve seen love make the harshness of life disappear for a young woman as she mollycoddled her mentally retarded child. I’ve seen it motivate someone to fight for life and I’ve seen it instigate someone to try taking his own. I’ve seen it bring out the best and the worst in the same person. And so, it surprises me to think that we cry and laugh with the same feeling, find courage and fear in the same emotion, nurture and kill for the same word…and still profess to understand what love means.
Everybody knows what is love— everybody except me. I don’t know it although I feel it inside me like the beating of my heart. I cannot tell you what love is or how I feel in love. I suppose it is trust. I guess it is also friendship; it may also be passion, and fondness, adulation and affection, respect and devotion, infatuation, attachment and appreciation…those are all the words I can think of! But they are words, and none describes exactly what I feel. And so, the honest answer is that either I don’t know what I feel, or I don’t know the words in the language to describe what I feel.
But Isha, I do know that I love you so much, that I couldn’t tell you that I loved you without knowing what I meant.
So, I love you and I know I love you, because I couldn’t tell you ‘I love you’.
Doesn’t that sound strange? Yet, it is the simplest reason, the most elegant explanation, and the most definitive proof in my head that I love you.
Of course, there are other things too: I feel complete when you are with me. I feel happy when you smile; I feel alive when you laugh. You inspire me and make me want to be the best person I can be. I love your honesty and your spirit. I love your clarity of judgment. I’ve missed you every moment of this trip and have thought about you all the time.
But, I know I love you, because I couldn’t tell you ‘I love you’.
And I find comfort in this seemingly absurd interpretation, remembering what my English teacher told us once about enjoying poetry. ‘Sometimes,’ he said, ‘to judge good poetry, it is best to just let the words soak into your thoughts and not analyse them at all. Like feelings, over-analysis corrupts them, and robs them of charm, such that a simple poem like ‘Twinkle Twinkle Little Star’ becomes
‘Twinkle twinkle little star
I do NOT wonder what you are
For through the spectroscopic cane
I know that you are hydrogen’
So, today, when we are still some hours away from reaching Bombay, I’ll simply savour the feeling of being in love with you, and open the envelope you gave me as soon as I finish this letter.
I love you.
Adi.
Adi’s heart was bursting with anticipation as he opened the envelope.
A bunch of bus tickets poured out. For an instant he was surprised, but then, as he sifted through them, he remembered Isha collecting the tickets every time they went out together. The tickets were neatly stapled into pairs and their empty backs catalogued, in her handwriting, a brief memoir of that outing.
A flood of happy memories surged through Adi.
Only one ticket was not paired. It was for the bus ride she had taken to me
et him at Victoria Terminus, before they had set out for Nagaland. On the back of that was written ‘I miss you terribly. I’m so glad you are reading this. I love you too.’
THIRTY-ONE
Adi’s Epilogue
It was late evening when we reached Bombay. The sun had just disappeared beyond the horizon and the lights of the city lit up the cloudy night sky. There were even more people everywhere I turned to look. The same loudspeakers played trendier music, as the noise from animated street vendors and honking cars brought the silence we had experienced in the tranquillity of interior India to an abrupt end. The wet pavements and glistening roads reflected the colourful neon displays of the evening. Small puddles provided instant fun to shirtless street urchins. Huge, gaudy posters of movies cried for attention, while people walked past them with the single-mindedness of worker ants, unmoved by the promise of entertainment they made.
Big, beautiful, bawdy Bombay. It looked, smelled and sounded the same: crowded, cacophonic, colourful and chaotic. The excitement I had experienced when Baba and I rolled into VT two years ago, returned with a gush of nostalgia. But this time it felt safe; it felt comfortable; it felt like home. The same anonymity that had felt cold and impersonal two years ago, now promised forgiveness as the crowds camouflaged our guilt. Nobody questioned our intentions, our origins, our past, or our motives, as the big city shifted to make space for yet another person stepping off the train. For those few moments, I loved being just another face in the crowd. And yet, I knew there was someone who would recognize my face in the crowd.
As our taxi rolled into the hospital campus, my heart was bursting with anticipation. I got off at the ladies’ hostel. Khadoos Baba smiled knowingly, then turned around and shouted in his trademark accent, ‘Isha Banerji…visitor!’
I saw Isha look down from her window and, on seeing me, gasp with surprise. Then she turned around and disappeared from view.
The evening was pleasant, and what had begun as a slow drizzle now turned into a heavy downpour. The few people standing near the main entrance ran for cover.
I stood in the rain, feeling the drops caress my face. The cool water drenched me and washed away my weariness. There was so much beauty, so much happiness in my world. I felt intoxicated…intoxicated with life.
Isha came running towards me in the rain, barefoot in her excitement. Her face shone with delight as she ran into my arms. I hugged her tightly as we kissed passionately in the rain.
‘I love you,’ she cried.
‘I love you, Isha!’
On learning that I was going to study medicine in Bombay, someone had said to me, ‘You’ve got to see two things in Bombay: the Bombay rains and the Bombay girls.’
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
There are many people I have to thank for this new adventure in my life and so I’ll start at the very beginning.
My parents, for giving me life and so much with it. My immediate and extended family: without your colourful stories I’d be missing my imagination. My in-laws, for their encouragement and affection.
Saugata Mukherjee, for giving me the all important break when so many wouldn’t. Karthika, my wonderful editor for her superb suggestions and comments. HarperCollins India for agreeing to make this dream a reality.
My children, Nina and Nikhil, for making me believe that I could tell stories that people would want to hear. My wife Swati, my beautiful Bombay girl, for filling my life with so much love.
And Imbi, my friend, I still miss you.
About the Author
A doctor by profession, Anirban was born and brought up in Ranchi, and has, at various points in his life, called Mumbai, New York City, Atlanta and Rochester, home. He was assistant professor of medicine at the University of Rochester, NY, till he packed his bags and returned to India in 2007. Other than writing he is passionate about music. He now lives with his wife and two children in Kolkata.
Praise for Bombay Rains, Bombay Girls:
‘Packed with a hauntingly tender story and a strikingly subtle language, the campus novel turns out to be a kind of book one wouldn't part with.' - Sahara Times
‘… Bose’s debut novel is far better than any of the previous books in this genre.' - Businessworld
'[Bose] has a story to tell and he makes it gripping.' - DNA
‘Read it for those good old college days when there were no simple answers but life was still simpler.’
-Financial Express
‘A sparkling, humorous and thought-provoking read.’
-The Times of India
First published in India in 2008 by
HarperCollins Publishers India
Copyright © Anirban Bose 2008
ISBN: 978-81-7223-683-0
Epub Edition © July, 2013 E-ISBN: 978-9-3502-9288-4
2 4 6 8 10 9 7 5 3 1
Anirban Bose asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
All rights reserved under The Copyright Act, 1957. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of
HarperCollins Publishers India.
Cover design: Ankur
www.harpercollins.co.in
HarperCollins Publishers
A-53, Sector 57, Noida, Uttar Pradesh 201301, India
77-85 Fulham Palace Road, London W6 8JB, United Kingdom
Hazelton Lanes, 55 Avenue Road, Suite 2900, Toronto, Ontario M5R 3L2
and 1995 Markham Road, Scarborough, Ontario M1B 5M8, Canada
25 Ryde Road, Pymble, Sydney, NSW 2073, Australia
31 View Road, Glenfield, Auckland 10, New Zealand
10 East 53rd Street, New York NY 10022, USA