The Homing Pigeons...

by Sid Bahri

  I make the tea, putting in just a dash of milk. I carry the cup back to my room and sit on the bed. I can’t help praising myself for the tea. It’s been a while since I entered the kitchen but the tea is perfect.

  The house is an independent house built on a plot of three hundred and sixty square yards. The architect has done well. He’s built a duplex structure to leave enough room for a kitchen garden and a front lawn. I love the porch that overlooks the front lawn. Even on my trips with Vimal here, I would often sit on the rocking chair while he was gone. When his will was announced, I was happy that I didn’t get the mansion in Lucknow. This house is better. It’s smaller and easier to manage. It has three bedrooms which is also a luxury. I don’t think I will ever have as many guests.

  I step out to the balcony that opens out from the master bedroom. From where I stand, I can barely make out the street in front of the house. The high boundary wall almost blocks out the view. I look at the lawn. It’s been neglected for so long that weeds overshadow the little grass. I know that there’s a lot of work to be done. If the kitchen cabinets are anything to go by, the termites would have done more damage than the cabinetry in the kitchen. I make a mental note to try and arrange a contractor who can help me make the changes.

  I shower and dress and sit alone in the den. If the handle on the shower hadn’t come off while I was bathing, I may not have made this a priority. I ponder over a to-do list.

  I write ‘renovating the house’ at top of the list. There’s also the matter of buying a new car. I scribble on a yellow legal pad that I found in one of the drawers. I look up from the pad, trying to get my thoughts together. A question arises: what will I do now that I am away from everything familiar? I choose not to answer the question because it can be procrastinated. I owe myself better living quarters first.

  Aditya

  I am not sure if Punjabis are enterprising or merely resilient but it wasn’t long before my father was creating a business out of nothing at all. He could have chosen to work a job; it would have given him the security of a salary. Instead, he employed a tailor, took cloth on credit and converted the unused servant quarter on the terrace into a tailoring shop. He arranged a buyer for the finished product and had Jassi Mama become a guarantor. All this, when he didn’t know how he was going to pay next month’s rent.

  I continued to school at the Yadavindra Public School, in short, YPS. The tuition was steep, given our circumstances. My father refused to compromise on education. The school was an educationist’s dream that had gradually taken on commercial overtones. They ceased to exist as just another school being run out of residential premises. Even when they had bought the land they still didn’t have enough to construct a building. The school sent a notice to all the students’ parents to voluntarily contribute to the cause. There was hardly anything voluntary about the demand and my father was willing to sell my mother’s jewellery for the deposit. He always said, “We can eat less but not compromise on education”.

  My grades were among the best until the tenth standard and I was a sportsman, leading the school team in soccer. For my sins, I chose to study accountancy.

  I never could fathom why I needed to study those damned debit and credit entries. I revelled in hating the subject, knowing that my future depended on it.

  Between my hate for the subject and the pleasures of soccer, I met Radhika – a new joiner in class eleven, who was as misfit in the class of sixty as a penguin in the Sahara. At best, she was a village belle who was rudely thrust into the urban landscape, with snobbish, noveau rich, spoilt brats for company. I had half a mind to ignore her or taunt her like the others but the smell of paranthas enticed me. I didn’t know if it was her mother or someone else who cooked them but they were heavenly. The stuffing of potatoes was admirably spiced up to leave a lasting sensation on the tongue. I was evil; I knew that the paranthas would be in constant supply over the next two years. So, it was best to befriend her.

  My mother, despite her best qualities, had failed to inherit her mother’s culinary genius. Unfortunately for her, my taste buds were oversensitive. She would attempt to make good food. Her attempts would be shot down by my criticism until her demotivation had led her to delegate the duties of the kitchen to the maid.

  Radhika was a welcome change from the maid’s cooking. It was much later that I began to notice the face and the person behind the tiffin box. The face was beautiful, although it did need a little brushing up – the eyebrows had never seen a beautician’s thread and the facial hair had never been bleached. As the two years progressed, she changed in her appearance. It was as if she were the statue that the sculptor creator was polishing, to smoothen out the edges. The changes weren’t sudden; they weren’t apparent, but subtle. One day it would be her hairstyle and then the facial hair would blend in with the skin.

  She helped me with my nemesis, accountancy and I would feed on her tiffin. I didn’t even know when we became friends or when I got attracted towards her. I didn’t know when I developed a fondness of her. On more occasion than one, I thought about telling her what I felt, but then I was a little afraid. At heart she was still rural; I wasn’t sure how she would react to any of my overtures. I still remember the last few days of school after which I hadn’t seen her for a very long time.

  “Will you participate in the fashion show?” I asked Radhika.

  “Yes, and you?” she asked me in return.

  It was the school farewell set in the mid-nineties; the most fashionable event on the agenda was a fashion show. It was a display of the finest suits and saris that our parents could wrap us in. I had chosen to wear a charcoal black suit over a pin- tucked white shirt and matched it with a red bow-tie that had once belonged to my father. Already, the tailors at dad’s shop were stitching it.

  “I will,” I replied, sounding more carefree than confident. The practice for the fashion show started the next day, the outcome was the crowning of a Mr and Ms YPS. The fashion show would bring an end to years of studying at YPS. The last two years would also mean an end. It would mean an end to an unfulfilled desire of loving a woman – Radhika. It would all end with a fancy cat-walk routine on the make shift stage at the lawns of Yadavindra Public School. Only memories would remain.

  The farewell party, a weak replica of a prom, began in the mild sun of that February afternoon – a time when one isn’t sure if it’s cold enough to keep your sweater on or warm enough to wear a t-shirt. My father dropped me to the school on his faithful scooter, the machine that had been running for over twelve years and despite its coughing, so reminiscent of old age, refused to die on him.

  I saw her; she was almost like Madhuri Dixit in the movies. You know, how the long hairs fly in the wind when the actress makes her first appearance. Her peach chiffon sari ballooned up as it caught the wind.

  She reached the parking lot of the school where a few classmates stood, accompanied by very caring mothers who were adjusting safety pins on the saris of their little girls.

  She towered over the crowd, a shade over five and a half feet but still tall enough to dwarf the crowd. I felt a familiar longing of reaching out to touch her; of kissing her until one of us collapsed on the ground, breathless. Every eye that existed in the parking lot turned towards her, some stopping momentarily and some continuing to admire the beauty of this young woman.

  She walked in my direction and I felt myself burn with desire. I looked into the side view mirror of the nearest car in the parking lot – to get a sense of reassurance that the blushing of my skin didn’t give away what I was feeling inside. I was still a light shade of pink, but my heart was the deep red of burning embers. “All set?” she asked me in the same nonchalant way that she would always address me.

  “Yes, sort of,” I replied.

  “You’re becoming Mr YPS today,” she stated, knowing that I probably stood no chance.

  “If I get past the first round, I’d call it an achievement,” I replied.

  “You’ll make i
t; you’re the best,” she said.

  “Let’s go,” I said, and we walked the fair distance across the lawns to where the event was being staged, leaving behind a large gathering of girls, women and safety pins.

  The music started – the cacophony of Roxette singing “It must have been love…,” a bitter reminder that the end was near of a love that had never seen a beginning. I was painfully aware that I might hardly see Radhika again, except for the few times that we would meet at the examination hall.

  One part of me wanted to express myself – to tell her that I wanted to be with her and to date her. I sometimes even imagined myself being married to her. I guess that’s how first love is. Yet, the other, saner part of me said that this was the last day of school. We would go our different ways after the exams were over, in search of our education and a means to a livelihood. In the process, we’d meet people who possibly, would be more interesting. Maybe, they would be interesting enough to fall in love with. The pain lingered on, of not being able to garner the courage to express what I felt for her. I felt the agony of never being able to dance with her to the tunes of old English songs. I felt anguished that even if I met her later in life, I wouldn’t be seventeen.

  The evening ended when Radhika was crowned Ms YPS. She walked away in the glory of being crowned, far away from my life. I wipe the one tear that has broken my command and made it to the corner of my eye, mourning the loss of my first love. The love that had never been expressed.

  Through the tears, I look out of the window to see that the train has stopped at Chandigarh. I have returned to the city where my first love had happened. So much has changed during this time. Today, I am not the young Sikh boy who had come here on vacation with his mother. Today, I am a gigolo.

  Radhika

  My social life after my marriage with Vimal was non- existent. He wasn’t the sorts who would go out and meet a lot of people. When you don’t meet a lot of people, there is a very likely situation that friends are hard to come by.

  The very few friends that I have are either out of touch or very far away. Despite the fact that Lucknow was a nightmare that I wish would end, Delhi is beginning to become a horror, sans company. It isn’t by accident that I find Shipra. It is the result of a careful search on Facebook that lasts many hours as I navigate through profiles of many similar named people until I find her profile. She now calls herself Shipra Ramachandran Sidhu. I think it’s funny that she has married a meat-eating Jat Sikh. She was a Tamil Brahmin who would frown on us meat eaters. Shipra looks ravishing in her profile picture.

  She is wearing a kanjivaram sari that suits her wheatish complexion. I send her a friend request and wait for many days before she replies. I read the message that gives me her phone number and I feel like calling immediately but I hesitate. I can’t really say why I feel that hesitation. It takes me a week to get over my reluctance to call her. I had sent her my number too but she hasn’t called. Maybe, she’s as hesitant. My loneliness gives me the courage to call her.

  There was so much in common between us in school, yet, we are now so far away, so distant. The void of the years leaves us as strangers. The conversation helps us bridge the divide of the years. I invite her over and she agrees to make a trip the following weekend.

  As I learn, Shipra now lives in Delhi for about two years. She is married to a Colonel in the Indian Army – Karambir Singh Sidhu. The phone conversation ends with only an introduction to him and I wait eagerly to host someone at my dingy home. I haven’t yet been able to find a contractor who is willing to help me renovate.

  The days pass by in preparing for company. I don’t sit on the porch so often. I have been shopping for cups and plates and saucers. I want to impress them because they are my only hope of finding company. It was my birthday two weeks ago and I was alone. There was no birthday party. Not even one that had four children come with plastic helicopters. There were no phone calls to wish me and that’s when I knew that it’s time to change. I am thirty-two now and maybe, a little wiser. I want people around me and Shipra and her husband are the only ones who can keep me away from the porch. Laxman shares my eagerness; he is as perplexed at seeing my forlorn face on the porch, as I am making it.

  The weekend arrives and the couple does too; Colonel Singh is dressed in a tweed coat that is so becoming of an Army officer. Around his neck, he wears a silk scarf that has stripes running across it. He’s almost as tall as Aditya. It makes him look handsome and I’m happy that Shipra found him.

  Shipra is dressed in another one of her south silk saris. It’s a red and black silk sari which has a golden border running the length of her pallu. I don’t know why I didn’t ask her and she never told me on the phone but she has kids. In fact, she has two of them – twins, a boy and a girl. They are so alike that it’s difficult to make out if they actually have a different gender. I wasn’t expecting the kids, so I panic a little. I am not sure how I can entertain them. Laxman is a saviour; he takes charge of the kids immediately. He’s converted a wooden plank into a bat and borrows a ball from the neighbours. He and the kids play cricket on the front lawn which leaves us alone to have a conversation.

  Shipra is still the same. Her hair is still as short as she used to wear them in school. She’s matured like a good wine. The kajal that she wears in her eyes makes her look beautiful. I don’t know what it is about South Indians that they have the most beautiful eyes. I turn on the heater. As November’s turned to December, it’s become wretchedly cold. I can’t help feeling jealous that Shipra doesn’t feel cold in her sari while I sit huddled in layers of cloth. I can’t help feeling fifty years old in the company of these young people. The last few days have made me age.

  She introduces me to the Colonel and tells me how they met in college. Her father was posted in Chennai as was his. They fell in love and the affair lasted many years before they were married. They both came from an Army background and had travelled India, as most Army children do and that is where the similarities ended. They were from different religions, regions, cultures and traditions. Somehow, their magnetism and love kept them together. As they recounted, they had had a difficult time convincing each other’s parents until they had eloped. It was ten years ago that they married. I can’t help thinking that some people are so lucky that they can marry the people they love.

  Laxman hit the ball too hard and it’s lost in the bushes somewhere. They search for it but can’t find it and so, have to give up their game. It’s probably best because it is past one and I am hungry. He goes into the kitchen and serves us lunch. The conversation continues on the dining table. It isn’t until dessert is served that the conversation veers towards Aditya. It has to – he was such an important part of our trio in school.

  “Are you in touch with him? I haven’t met him since school,” Shipra asks.

  It was such a long time ago. I think the year would’ve been 1999. Almost five years after my last meeting with him at the notice board of the school when the board results were announced. I had topped the school and he, thanks to accountancy, had barely scraped through. I wasn’t sure if I ought to be happy to see my result or grieve with him for his result. He seemed happy; he had run the risk of failing altogether and took consolation from the fact that he would see the face of a college, as against repeating the class. We went home, and lost touch, not seeing each other until then.

  I didn’t know if it was an optical illusion or if it was really him. It could’ve been someone else with an uncanny resemblance to Aditya. It was his walk that gave him away; that same lazy, relaxed gait of a sportsman. We were at the Radisson in Delhi, attending the induction training organized by Citibank. Citibank, at the beginning of every year, would aggressively raid almost every business school worth its salt and recruit some of the best students available. I had been hired from the Punjab University Business School and given a posting at the Chandigarh Branch of the bank.

  It was normal to have a week of orientation for fresh recruits at their p
lace of posting before the rigorous, induction program would start. By design, it was a five week long program that would introduce the recruits to the policies of the bank and the conduct that was expected of them. Gradually, it would move to the technical know-how of the designated area of operations.

  I had reached Delhi a night before the training on the Shatabdi Express. I was met by a waiting car at the train station that took me to the Citibank guest house in Vasant Vihar. I had never been to Delhi before. Most of my childhood and had been spent in Solan and then, Chandigarh. I was accustomed to seeing ghost towns at nine but Delhi was bustling.

  I couldn’t stop staring out of the window at the bright lights and the fast cars. The car hurtled through the wide roads of Lutyens’ Delhi and I couldn’t help admiring the wide roads. Awestruck, I took in the sights and sounds, paying scant attention to the girl besides me. Roshni was another recruit who had made the journey with me. We checked in at the guest house and had barely caught some sleep before hustling to the training program that morning.

  Aditya made his entry, amongst the last people to enter the hall. He made a cursory glance at the five tables and the five people at each table. His eyes met mine for a split second but didn’t show a hint of recognition or familiarity. Maybe, I was mistaken. Maybe, it wasn’t him. The morning session started with a round of introductions and he stood up boldly. In a loud booming voice he announced himself as Aditya Sharma, putting to rest any doubt that it was him.

  The morning session was a disaster – The tiredness of the night before, the more than uncomfortable chair and the ranting of the head of Human Resources had my body craving for coffee. I wasn’t the only one in that situation; most people in the room looked tired and bored. If the HR head was anything to go by, the trainees weren’t sure if they had made the right career decision in joining the bank.

  Twenty-five pairs of droopy eyes can have a profound effect on the speaker. Mr Kumar looked at the steward for help who nodded that the coffee was ready. We filed out of the hall into the lobby, longing for caffeine to add some colour to the drab start. It was in the coffee break that we met. It was a little awkward in meeting each other after so long.