Ib's Endless Search for Satisfaction

by Roshan Ali

  When everyone left, Appoos and I were left behind watching the silent television with the voiceless anchor shouting, as a thousand terrible tragedies flickered on screen behind her. Appoos drank juice through a straw; and when he finished the last few drops (he would know by the slurp) he kept the straw. There was a pile now: forty-one straws, one every day. And he kept them by the side table, and would let his hand drop every now and again, and speak while his fingers did the counting. ‘Oh, Ibn Batuta,’ he would say as I entered. ‘See the great explorer comes to seek treasure.’ To seek treasure in the house of death wasn’t the best kind of exploring, I would reply, but my voice already beaten down by the misery all around, would drown in the laughter of Appoos and his bald roommate.

  He was finally sane: The doctors had done their work. But the world every day was dark and noisy. Faceless nurses changed the sheets; shapeless forms pushed his bed; strange voices addressed him like they knew him. By the end of the day he was restless, counting the straws too quickly, not really counting, but just letting them pass through his fingers and holding them briefly.

  ‘I used to see some great colours,’ he said one day, turning his face towards where he thought I sat, but I had moved away a long time ago, sitting by the window and watching dust and traffic. ‘But now I know I was lost then.’ And then suddenly sensing something he added, ‘Ib, are you there? Are you leaving now?’

  ‘No, Appoos, I’m here.’ But I wasn’t. I was far away. I was cheating on my father.

  I took to walking through the smell-less corridors, and watched the general suffering, like the wandering Jew for whom war was temporary; and knew the weather in terms of climate; and for whom change was so vast that he knew nothing at all. I felt like this, completely fucked by this overdose of misery, till there was nothing I knew. Facts were useless to me; and so was hope; and the only thing that mattered was that the sheets were being changed every day—this at least seemed something practical and useful, and the dust that collected on the grey crucifixes that hung on the wall above every bed suggested that the nurses felt that way too, but very, very deep inside.

  FIVE

  To take control of my dreams and to further his ordinary ideas, Ajju made an appointment at St Peter’s College for the following week. Amma wasn’t allowed to come, even though she was alone at home and had no responsibilities and was done cleaning the cupboards. But she couldn’t press against her father’s pushiness, and this was the state of her entire life, of not pushing against pushing, and thus was constantly jostled into sad and lonely situations. As we left she said to me, pulling me aside as Ajju became busy with which route was best, ‘Babu, feel the college with your heart. Don’t just listen to others.’ I knew what she meant by other and knew she referred only to the one other who was checking the car’s tyres unnecessarily.

  When we reached—we took a route that was long and busy—Ajju was in a terrible mood because of his miscalculation. ‘Goddamn police,’ he said, as the car shuddered to a halt in the college parking lot, ‘every day they change something, one-way one day, the next it’s two-way. I’m going to speak to the commissioner.’

  The route was in fact exactly the same as it had been. Put it down to my fear and insecurity, and my lack of trust in anything driven by a human brain, but I was always acutely aware of navigation and our whereabouts, since the time I had eyes to see and a neck long enough to watch, and I knew for a fact, verified by experience, that this specific route had never changed.

  In the admission office, his face had loosened slightly, massaged by the therapeutic effect of moving-out-of-the-way and hush-making respect, but still he had to appear strict and commanding, which overall resulted in some of the ugliest and nastiest looking smiles to ever grace a human face, take history and all. It turned out, as I was made aware of only later, that he was on the board, which explained his choice, and explained my lack of choice, as if he was saying secretly but just loud enough for me to hear that I wasn’t good enough to get into colleges in which we didn’t have levers of influence embedded deep into its machinery. And he was probably right too.

  At the VC’s office there was no waiting and the people who were waiting didn’t even blink when we walked right past them into the room, so deep were they in the rigged game of arbitrary delays.

  I already hated the VC when I spotted him behind his much-too-big desk. He had a rotten face that was up to no good even at that very moment, I remember thinking, just below the desk, where we could not see. And just like all rotten men, there was no neutrality of tone and he spoke very differently to different people; one way to power, one way to the slave, one way to those who were neither.

  To Ajju, of course, he crooned almost, bending forward at the hip, pulling out chairs and asking for coffee (his tone changing mid-sentence as he turned to the peon, who waited in the corner, and ordered coffee).

  ‘Sir, this is your grandson, sir? Ib, is it? Very good, sir.’ He barely looked at me, just once confirming my presence with his eyes, and then directed everything exclusively at my grandfather. It was as if my going to college there was just a byproduct of other larger and more important agendas which I would never understand.

  All the papers were signed (by Ajju), and there was a lot of thanking and platitudes. When it was time to leave I said thank you to the VC and he smiled and said that it was no problem at all, but behind the smile there was a sneer of resentment.

  In the car Ajju told me that he was old friends with the VC, Mr Ramesh. ‘You know who his father is? He started the college. He was a big man, very nice man. His son also, very good fellow. Don’t you think so, Ib?’ I grunted and stared out the window. That explained how that nasty rodent could be the vice chancellor of a big college. And it explained at once a lot about everything, this net of connections that held the rich and dirty few above the toughness and sewage of the ground far below.

  ‘Ajju, how did you get on the board?’ I asked.

  ‘After retirement, you know I was a General. I was invited by Ramesh’s father,’ he said.

  ‘But why you, Ajju?’

  ‘See, I was highly decorated. He wanted someone with principles, someone who could manage other people. Because people, you see, are lazy and stupid mostly. Only a few are able to handle things. You’ll understand one day, Ib, how these things work. How people work together.’

  This is not working together, I thought, and was sure there was something else behind it, something dark.

  ‘We’ll drop in at the temple, Ib. We should give thanks to god,’ he said shortly. ‘The problem is when things are going good, nobody thanks god, but when things are bad, everyone is on their knees and crying.’

  I laughed because he was right and that pleased him deeply and he immediately became jolly and began to hum a song from an old movie. Once in a while he honked with the tune.

  Once at the temple he grew serious again, as if joy and enjoyment were emotions one wasn’t supposed to display in front of god, lest they think the source of the mirth was immoral and cheap. Inside, it was cool and quiet and smelt of coconut oil and camphor.

  Facing the idol (of whom I did not know), he sank to his knees and bowed his head to the floor. This was the thing to do, I guessed, and did the same, but curiously nothing seemed to happen anywhere, either outside or inside, and I grew confused, sitting there on my haunches, next to my old Ajju. And through the corner of my eye I tried to see what I was doing, if the technique was wrong, or perhaps my spot unholy, but in the temple, all the space was holy surely.

  ‘Close your eyes,’ Ajju said suddenly. Ah, so this was the secret. Slowly and with great reverence I shut out the world and sat still. Still nothing! All I could hear was his soft mumbling and some temple bells in the distance—no holy voices, no supernatural whispers. Something was missing.

  Suddenly it struck me—how would god answer if you don’t first ask? He has many things to do and can’t always keep all channels open.

  ‘Please, god,’ I began
, ‘let my parents live forever. Please make college easy.’

  There was no answer.

  Outside the inner sanctum, god’s VIP lounge, Ajju stretched his legs and dropped a few notes in a vessel that was placed outside. The priest pretended not to notice the exact amount.

  In the car again, I asked Ajju why god didn’t talk back and Ajju said, ‘god only listens. He never answers. You must have faith.’ This to me seemed unnecessarily complicated and could create a lot of confusion.

  But wait! In this point in the future I mix up the dim past. This visit to the temple did happen but it was much earlier and probably not even with Ajju, though I don’t remember. By the time I went to meet the VC with Ajju, all my illusions about talking idols had vanished and I remember, yes, I remember now, that I had sat silently by my grandfather on that day, and wished with all my heart that I could go away and escape his wrinkly grasp.

  * * *

  In March the trees came alive, baby pink, yellow, by the side of the roads, and in quiet neighbourhoods. From a roof I could see the city, bursts of pink and yellow, in seas of green, then suddenly, sharp, concrete and ugly, bluish glass. The city didn’t need to look at itself in the mirrors of these modern buildings because the city had had enough of itself, and so had the people. But there was a joyous pleasure in walking along the rows of trees boiling with baby pink and white flowers; under my feet the fallen flowers, and for once I could ignore the office on the other side of the road from which thousands came and went, bagged and tagged. Soon the flowers would disappear and the land would turn brown and a great heat would come about, the giant heat of the sun, beating down on those who didn’t sit in air-conditioned offices. In summer, there was only one god—air-conditioning. In winter, many gods because we didn’t really have a winter.

  On the last day of the second year of college, I quit and stayed home for a week. There was nothing for me there, and my mind felt beaten and faded every time I sat in a class. The teachers were just doing their job and my classmates had their beady eyes firmly on the future, so firmly that they didn’t notice the rot around them. One evening, drunk and reckless, Major, a new friend, and I, made our way down a road. It was late March, and the flowers were dry carcasses on the pavement, little pink ballet frocks, and there was a warmth in the air, an omen of the heat to come. Major was pleased about something, skipping over the broken pavement at every opportunity and laughing to himself. When we reached the end of the road, we stopped and looked around, not sure where to go. ‘Let’s go up the station,’ said Major, pointing vaguely towards the Metro, and grinning stupidly. I was reluctant; but after a few drinks, reluctant wasn’t an emotion I took very seriously. So we climbed the barrier and hopped down the other side. It was quiet and dark. The last train was long gone, and a lonely security guard slept deeply in the corner, his large stomach rising and falling. Major whispered something and I followed him, trying to control my laughter. We climbed the stairs and reached the platform. ‘Hey, don’t go on the tracks,’ I said. ‘They’re electrified.’ ‘Not at this time,’ whispered Major. He stood at the edge of the platform looking down. ‘Are you sure?’ I asked. He wasn’t. He turned to me and suddenly there was a look in his eyes, a look of fear. ‘Major?’ I said with warning in my tone. ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘Maybe we don’t know,’ he said, ‘maybe sometimes we should take a chance and let fate decide.’ I stepped quickly towards him and took him by his arm. ‘OK, this way. Let’s talk about that over a drink, not over electrified rails. You heard about that girl who died last week?’ He looked relieved, as if I had saved him from himself but he tried to be casual. ‘I was just kidding. You really think I would have . . .’ And suddenly bang came the lights and we looked over our shoulders. The fat security guard running towards us, whistling desperately, his stomach reluctant to obey the commands of gravity and his cane swinging in his hand. By the time he reached us he was so tired that he could barely move and stood there, hands on knees, shouting something we couldn’t understand. We laughed and laughed and he kept shouting. Then we heard a single word that shut us up. The word was ‘police’.

  I tried to reason with him as he jostled us down the stairs with his cane, but he grunted and poked me harder. Major was still laughing and egging me on to negotiate.

  ‘Sir, never again. We are very sorry,’ I pleaded. But he was determined.

  ‘You rich kids come here thinking you can do anything,’ he said. ‘You need to be taught a lesson.’

  ‘But I’m not rich.’

  ‘Richer than me.’

  ‘We can work that out,’ said Major but the guard ignored him.

  But it was too late and we had reached the bottom of the stairs and on the road we saw the cops on their Cheetah bike. They came towards us with a shared, kind of cruel, eager grin. ‘Trespassing,’ said the fat one.

  ‘Illegal drinking,’ said the other fat one.

  ‘Who are you?’ asked the fat one.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ asked the other fat one.

  Major explained and they immediately agreed that it wouldn’t be good for either us or them if Major was taken to jail. We gave them Rs 100 and they left, struggling with their bike and their stomachs, convinced of victory. We grinned at the guard who held out his hand. ‘Tea, saar,’ he said sadly. Major took out another note and said, ‘Next time we’ll bring our friends.’ He placed the note in the guard’s grimy palm and the guard nodded and smiled, having forgotten his earlier stridency. We left in a hurry.

  ‘That was exciting,’ Major said, lighting a King. He had forgotten all about the tracks. ‘So you’re the assistant commissioner’s son?’ I asked. ‘No, I’m not,’ he said happily. ‘Or maybe sometimes.’ The rest of the walk back we were quiet. I watched the black night and the orange lights, and the few silent people whom we passed. What were they doing, I wondered, on such a fine night, alone and silent? What had they learnt? I had learnt something, something scary about Major, from his eyes, and I couldn’t sleep the whole night.

  The next morning I staggered in late and the teacher said, ‘How can you be so useless?’ And that was that. I quit the next day, telling the VC that we were moving cities, some sort of family emergency. He waved a juicy hand at me and let me go.

  A few days later, Amma came to me huffing with nervousness and fear. ‘Ib, you better get a job,’ she said. Immediately she began to fold clothes. She did this and she felt calm.

  ‘What’s the hurry?’ I asked. She folded the last T-shirt and sat down at the edge of the bed.

  ‘Ajju heard you quit college. He’s coming here tomorrow.’

  ‘Who told him? Nobody knew.’

  ‘Probably the VC.’

  I thought for a moment. ‘Amma, just tell him I have a job in Bagram’s office,’ I said.

  ‘But you don’t, Ib.’ She looked down sadly at the floor because she didn’t like to lie, at the same time she saw that there might be a necessity to do so now. The conflict was clear on her worried face and she began to fold clothes again, the same ones she had already done, unfold, then fold, in some different way.

  ‘I’ll get one. He told me to come to him when I needed a job,’ I said, trying to reassure her, but it wasn’t working and she looked up at me.

  ‘Why, Ib? Do you think he’ll just give you a job? You don’t have any skills or experience. This is not how the world works.’

  I always tried to be gentle with Amma because she was a soft person and harsh words harmed her more than they harmed other people. And her intentions were good too mostly.

  ‘Maybe he sees something in me, Ma,’ I said.

  She smiled sadly and it seemed like some long-forgotten light shone in her memories, of a long lost past when she looked at her son and saw hope and happiness. But quickly that light was gone and she got up from the bed.

  ‘Anyway, I hope you know what you’re going to say, babu,’ she said and left, closing the door behind her.

  I felt myself for the first
time in a jam, the kind that adults always speak and write about, the kind of jam that sprouts books and movies, jams of the adult world. This was the bridge I had stumbled over when I quit college, the bridge from being a safe and harmless child to a dangerous and consequential adult, because college is where a black-and-white childhood ends and adulthood creeps in like a grey moss that clings to your insides for the rest of your life. And everything becomes grey for a time, then you begin to see the shades of grey, some light, some dark, and you learn your place in the world.

  So I prepared a great and elaborate lie about a job. I knew Ajju and Mr Bagram didn’t get along very well, because Ajju had called him a ‘crooked little black man’, but I also knew that because Ajju had said such a cruel thing against him he was actually a good man. So in this swamp of dislike between these two large men, I could build my castle of lies, and it would remain upright at least till I actually built a life for myself, and then it wouldn’t matter any more what Ajju said and the things he shouted.

  Ajju arrived early the next morning and sat at the table expecting breakfast, and Amma was having a tough time because he hadn’t told her he was coming this early. ‘There’s not much food,’ she said, hurrying round the kitchen. ‘Fine, Ib, go get some dosas,’ he commanded, then added, ‘Why don’t you ask for money if you need it?’ Amma opened her mouth to argue but thought better of it. There was no better way of ruining everyone’s day than arguing with Ajju.