by Sid Bahri
Shipra and I meet often. She is the only saving grace from my dull routine. There are times when I feel that I am bogging her down. She has responsibilities, unlike me, in bringing up the twins. I never had children. Sometimes, I think I should’ve had them; they’d give me a purpose in life. Vimal was happy with Meera and I didn’t want children. Maybe, I did but I didn’t want them fathered by Vimal.
It is one of those days that I’ve driven to Delhi Cantonment to meet Shipra. She brings in the tea and even before she’s had a chance to pour it, I say, “I feel like I’m wasting my life”. It is an honest confession. I think realization is the first step to change.
“Honestly, you are,” she says.
She reconfirms what I know already. It’s not difficult for anyone to make that out.
“It feels like I have no purpose in life. It feels like I am just a rudderless boat that’s floating around,” I say.
“I don’t know if I can comment on that, but you must do something,” she says.
“What? I mean there are no jobs. What can a thirty-two- year-old woman do?” I ask her.
When one starts feeling that at thirty-two years you are not capable of doing anything, it’s about time to see a psychiatrist. Somewhere within, I always feel like I’m fifty. Why can’t I break out of this mind-set? I often ask myself this question but never get a perfect answer. Even my trendy new haircut doesn’t help me feel young.
“Lots. As long as you believe in it,” she says.
Long after the meeting is over, I keep thinking about what I really believe in. I mean, I am the perfect case of someone who doesn’t need a financial motive. I can do stuff that people only dream of. Everyone else is so caught up in food, water and shelter. Maybe, I can do something for charity. Volunteer?
I am hit by inspiration. I log on to the Internet to come up with a few options for myself. I will speak to a few NGOs tomorrow morning to find out what I can do to help them.
Time is usually more precious than money. Maybe, I can volunteer to help them in whatever they were doing.
When I look at the causes of these NGOs, they all seem noble. None of them are worth ignoring. It isn’t by accident that I choose to go with NGOs that support education as a cause. I remember my first day in YPS when I had been hesitant introducing myself because I wasn’t able to speak in English. Maybe, I can make a difference to someone’s life as Ms Kapoor had influenced mine. Determinedly, I put some phone numbers on a notepad promising myself that I will call them up the next day.
The next morning I am back in the dumps. The familiar laziness that prevents me from going out for a walk is with me again. Maybe I am just destined to be sitting on a chair on the porch of a large house. Maybe, I am only fit to have pigeons for a muse.
It is past eleven that I break my inertia. I pick up the phone to dial a number that I have saved. The number belongs to a NGO that helps underprivileged children study. I am a little shy when I say, “I’d like to volunteer my time for something noble.”
“You are most welcome,” the woman on the line replies.
“So, how do we start?” I ask her.
“Can you come over and meet us?” she asks.
I note down the address that the lady gives me. It is an address in East of Kailash. I can wait for lunch but I don’t want my familiar lazy self-overtaking me. I call out to Laxman to pull out the car.
I wonder why I hadn’t chosen something flashier than the Accord. I could’ve afforded to buy a BMW but it has to be a deep-seated wish to become one with the people that I interact with. Shipra drives a Zen and I fail miserably in doing that either. The Accord is about four segments ahead of her, still.
Laxman drives through almost the same route that we had driven when we went to the hardware store in Sant Nagar. I cross a neon board that I had seen a few days earlier. I am tempted to go down and smack the hairdresser. My hair has grown but they still look like the pigeon’s nest.
We reach the address that is our destination. Shiksha, the NGO, is housed in a basement and I take the few steps down to reach it. I ring the bell and wait at the door until a lady opens the door for me. She is almost as tall as me and I can’t stop admiring the necklace that she wears around her neck. It is a pure gold necklace that has fine diamonds studded into it.
My perception of people who work at NGOs is very different. I expected to see someone wearing a cotton kurta and jeans. I turn around to see the board again, as if to confirm that I really am at the place that I intended to be.
She extends her hand to me and I shake it. I introduce myself and she recognizes me from our telephonic conversation an hour ago. She introduces herself as Sneha and says that she is the founder of the NGO. She asks me to accompany me to her office and I can’t help admire the office. It is too richly decorated for it to be for a non-profit cause.
Aditya
On Friday morning, the day after she had to come to Delhi for the training, the alarm clock rang. I begged it to let me sleep. It rang again; I ignored it again. It gave up on me. I overslept, until I woke up at nine, late for a meeting. I cursed myself for having overslept. I ran into the bathroom. I was on fire: leaping up from the shit pot to reach out for the razor; the shave foam already on my face, while I had multitasked. It was already 9:45 by the time I turned the key in the motorcycle. Thankfully, it wasn’t raining today and it would save me ten minutes. There was something about this city that the traffic would snarl up the moment it saw the clouds.
I was halfway to the meeting when I realized that I forgot the silver chain. It stubbornly refused to leave the confines of my cupboard. The grand rehearsals in my mind of this evening’s event were on the brink of doom. I had booked a table at the Bukhara to play out my fantasy. I could turn back and fetch it but that would mean a month’s hard work in prepping the clients go in vain. Not for the first time that morning, I cursed myself.
I wish I could’ve slept on time yesterday. I could blame the caffeine in the coffee, but then insomnia was beginning to be such a habit. There had once been a time that I would sleep even before my head touched the pillow, but nowadays, her thoughts would keep me awake until the wee hours of the night.
The meeting was the success that I expected it to be. I walked out with a thirty lac cheque to open a Citigold savings account and the promise of subsequent investments into an investment portfolio. Either I was lucky, or I was damn good at my work. “On course” had better change into a destination than being the journey it was.
There were back to back meetings lined up that day and it was already six when I looked at my watch. I could risk a trip back home, but in the unpredictable snarl of the peak hour traffic, I could lose as much as two hours. It didn’t make sense, so I cleared out my inbox and went thrice to the men’s room to adjust my necktie while she was in training. Each time I went to the men’s room, I took a detour walking past the training room to see if the training had ended prematurely. It hadn’t, so I continued to kill time, making small talk with the only friend that I had in office –Deepika. She was another management trainee who worked with me and she would cover for me in case there were clashing appointments. We had trained together and become good friends over the course of the three months that we had known each other.
We were still chatting when Radhika walked in. She looked at me and then Deepika, a little suspiciously.
“Hey! How’ve you been?” Deepika asked.
“Very well, and you?” she said.
Why was she ignoring me?
“Perfect, but late. I have a date with my boyfriend. I need to rush,” Deepika said as she hit the shutdown button on her machine, putting to rest all doubts that may have crept into Radhika’s mind.
“Are you ready to go?” I asked.
“Yes, but isn’t it too early for dinner? Where are we going?” she asked in return.
“I was thinking about the Bukhara,” I replied.
The Bukhara was the fine dining restaurant at the Maurya Sheraton. It se
rved Indian Mughlai and was renowned for the skill of the chefs. The dinner would cost me two weeks of salary and I thanked Citibank for giving me a credit card that I could swipe.
We went to the Indian Coffee House again and sipped on coffee. The waiters almost knew us by name now. Having killed enough time, we started off for one of the finest five star hotels, on the back of a motorcycle.
This was the scene that I had enacted so often in my mind and it was as if the commute had been blacked out. I would’ve liked to be stepping out of a chauffeur-driven Mercedes but then the credit limit on my card wouldn’t even be able to afford another motorcycle. I wished that I had had a head start on her in terms of years and that I could afford more. These were my salad days, when I was barely making ends meet. I consoled myself – one day, I will drive her in a Mercedes. We reached the Bukhara and we stood out even though we were dressed formally. She wore a grey business suit but still stuck out in the crowd of rich, extravagant sari-clad damsels that thronged the Bukhara.
“It is obviously not extempore. Why couldn’t you just tell me?” she said. The maître d’ had looked up the reservation list when I stated my name. He took us to a table by the window and lit the candle that sat on the table.
“What’ll you drink?” I asked scanning the wine list. The prices were obnoxious. I changed the many pages on the wine list to get to the section that said “Mock-tails”. One would’ve thought that something without alcohol would be a little cheaper, but not here.
“A fresh lime soda,” she replied, obviously thinking the same way.
“No alcohol for you?” I asked her.
“I don’t drink,” she lied.
It was difficult to be Punjabi and not drink, even though her parents were orthodox.
“You liar, I remember you telling me about your antics on your cousin’s wedding,” I said, smirking.
We ordered our drinks and the alcohol in the wine relaxed her. Her business suit didn’t seem as out of place after the first drink. I sipped on my single malt that cost me a bomb and a half. I was obviously going overboard with this whole dinner thing. I would’ve been happy to speak to her even at the dhaba near Tolstoy Lane but you know how women are. They want a candle light dinner and romance when someone proposes.
“A repeat for both of us,” I said, without bothering to ask her if she wanted another one.
“I’ll pass. Why are we here, Aditya?” she asked me.
“For a dinner. Just go ahead, we’ll have a repeat,” I said to the waiter.
“But why did we have to come to such an expensive place; all that matters is your company,” she said. Obviously, this girl wasn’t the same.
“I wanted to talk to you about something,” I said without elaborating.
“Well, so did I. But why does it mean burning up money?” she asked me.
“Because this is a good setting,” I said. I just couldn’t gather the courage to tell her without some more alcohol in my system.
“Can’t we just drink somewhere else?” she asked me.
“We could go to another place – a discotheque?” I asked her. I was disappointed that she didn’t like the place.
“I’d rather go somewhere quieter where we can talk. I really need to talk to you about something important,” she said.
I looked at my watch. It was about nine-thirty. The waiter arrived with the drinks.
“Places are going to be closed by the time we get out of here. We could go to my place, if you’re fine with that,” I said.
We had our drink as quickly as we could and paid the bill. I had my credit card out before her and she threw a tantrum. “You mind if I buy some more alcohol on the way?” I asked her.
“Of course not, get some for me too,” she said.
We stopped at Kailash colony where I ordered chicken tikkas at Saleem’s and ran in the direction of the wine shop to fetch alcohol. She was still waiting at Saleem’s when I returned with a bottle of whiskey and another nip of vodka, just as our order was being wrapped up.
My apartment was a typical flat that the Delhi Development Authority is so notorious of building – shabby on the outside and uglier on the inside. The walls had unsmooth plaster, the floor bereft of tiles or stone and the fittings cheap. My roommates were either sleeping or away and we tiptoed into my room. I brought two glasses from the kitchen – thick, cheap glasses that were meant for water; a sharp contrast to the crystal that we had left behind at the Bukhara.
A few drinks later, we were relaxed, sitting on the single bed in my room, devouring the delicious chicken tikkas and enjoying the alcohol when the power went away. It wasn’t uncommon to lose power when it started drizzling. It sounded like it was going to rain if you heard the thunder in the distance. I went to the kitchen and returned with a candle. In the light of the candle, we dug into the chicken tikkas. That was the most imperfect candle light dinner that I ever had.
Radhika
It doesn’t take long for me to realize that this is all a sham. I came to Shiksha, the NGO, to volunteer my time for something noble. I didn’t know that it is a con that someone is running under the garb of a NGO. The signs were always there but it takes me time to understand them. Sneha, the lady that runs the NGO is quite unashamed about the fact that most grants that come her way are siphoned off to maintain the luxurious office and acquire the diamond necklace that hangs around her neck.
“This is business,” she says.
I wonder why she doesn’t open a private school instead of stealing from donors. I am happy that I have discovered this in my first meeting. I walk out in a huff, upset with the greed that has pervaded our society. It is not that I think of myself as a saint but this isn’t something that I can agree with.
I walk up the stairs to see Laxman smoking a beedi. I don’t know why I vent my frustration on him.
“Stop smoking. Let’s go,” I call out to him.
“Yes, Madam,” he says and opens the door for me.
I sit inside, still fuming about my meeting. I don’t know if it is really Sneha that has brought about this angry streak in me or if it is the lost promise of a vocation. On the way to East of Kailash, I was dreaming that I will finally have something to fill my days. Now, that promise has evaporated. It is my destiny to sit on the porch with pigeons for company. I am a middle-aged woman who can’t get anything right.
Sometimes, help comes from the most unexpected quarters. Laxman isn’t the sorts to want to have a conversation with you but today he is singing like a canary.
“Why did we come here?” he asks me.
Normally, I won’t answer this question. It is none of his business. He is a driver and it is best that I ignore him, but I find myself saying, “I wanted to work with them to educate underprivileged children.”
“Why do you have to work with them when you can do it yourself?” he asks me.
“What do you mean?” I ask him. I think to myself that I am not going to start a NGO.
“Look around you. There are so many underprivileged children in our neighbourhood. You don’t need a NGO to help someone,” he says.
So many times, we are unable to see everything that exists in front of us. There are underprivileged children in every neighbourhood. Who hasn’t seen a labourer’s child with his nose running, while the mother carries brick loads on her head? Who hasn’t seen the maid’s children neglected when the maid is washing dishes? They are always there, but somehow, we don’t see them.
I am silent for the most part of the journey back home thinking about the difference that I can make to people’s lives that I am in touch with. Even in Lucknow, I would do charity but that charity would be in the form of money. It would be in the form of a donation to one of these charitable organizations like Shiksha. After what I have seen today, I am not sure if this is the right way to contribute to charity.
As we pull into the gates of my house, I tell Laxman, “I am willing to help these kids. See if you can get them over.”
Laxman
serves me lunch before venturing out in the afternoon. He returns in the evening with three kids. He tells me that they are our dhobi’s children. They go to the government school but need help. I know all about Government-run schools; I studied in one.
As a first task, I help them with the homework. It is a little strange to look at algebra after all these years. Algebra is almost like riding a bicycle. No matter how long ago you rode it, it just comes back automatically. It is almost dark by the time the children leave. Although, I sit on the porch of the house in the rocking chair, I don’t feel that bad.
I am a little more cheerful this evening when I go inside. I don’t know why but I have a feeling of indescribable contentment. It can be because I have done something that gives my self-esteem a boost. It can be as simple as finding something worthwhile to do.
Later that evening, I call up Shipra. I want to tell her that I believed and I did.
“I finally did something worthwhile,” I say.
“What?” she asks me.
“I taught a few children,” I say excitedly.
“I told you. You can do it as long as you believe in it,” she says.
In a strange way, today’s events are a huge change even though it is such a simple thing. I have been so accustomed to being a rich man’s wife that I have started feeling worthless. Although, it doesn’t show, I lost my confidence. It wasn’t that I was always confident but the last few years have dented me some more. I had lost belief that I was young.
When I go to bed that evening, I don’t feel that old. I don’t see myself as a piteous thirty-two-year-old widow. There is a life ahead of me and I will make the most of it.
Aditya
Sitting in the candlelight, I wanted to start off the conversation, but I still didn’t know how. For all the rehearsals in my brain, I was still inhibited. I was on my fifth drink and knowing my capacity to drink, I knew that I should do it now, rather than later. I didn’t want to sleep before I got this off my chest.