"Answers"

By Ayan Chakraborty

“Yes, I have been working. I shall call you back.” Somehow the bright screen of his cell phone shone through his eyes as he hung up the call. An intense tawny bright light. It rippled through his eyes, expanded on their quietness and stealthily took over his senses. The patter of large rain drops was a little unusual at this time of the year. It swept down the window glasses at Akash’s cabin; drying up in a few minutes before the swish of rain blew in again; often times to challenge the tenacity of the rattling panes.

It was late March; too late for western disturbances to affect Delhi, too early for the torrential rains of summer to set in.

The call was rather brief. Akash could feel that his voice sounded different this time. No, not the usual different. Not the heavy tenor he hears when his nerves are piqued, neither the one he abhors listening to with the weirdly elongated vowel sounds when he suffers from hesitance to speak. It wasn’t a work of his faltering seriousness like it does when he drawls through a monotonous PhD meeting or when he blabbers around a family function, looking out for a crafty exit.

Akash had braced for it. He had a habit of poring over the neatly cut and coloured catalogues in the library. His university, situated in the middle of a thick and rocky jungle, had a good repute for research and could boast of a stellar collection of books. Yes, intellect too. It had been five years already. Long, long five years! Quite enough for a boy to know what adulting meant or for a girl to spare battles in order to keep her ambition; for some of them to grow even sprouts of grey hair. Time did well to him in this regard, Akash thought. He still felt young even if his myopic eyes weakened marginally every year. But his adulting was extravagant; too sure to just keep him within his books and thoughts.

The telephone call had, for long, been anticipated. To speak frankly, Akash had rehearsed these moments so much, so well in his mind; again and again. He knew he was the protagonist of this episode; obviously, he was the protagonist of all his episodes but he had never cared about them so much. This time it was different. It was just like his voice which had undone his usual panicky and celebratory self. It had a dread of his own calmness; ghostly, bizarre, silently cacophonic.

He had his roots stuck to a small town in western India. When he travelled back home in the third tier AC compartments of superfast trains, night hours used to amuse him. Can a train so full of people sound such ghastly quiet? How could the stillness of unknown villages look so lively from inside the train? Was it just the motion or was it the moonlight or the now largely electrified contours of the once crime infested routes? “Avi sundarata!” he often wondered; “May be this idea of life comes just from the crackling sound of the wheels, yes, must be!” With mechanics, motion and life directed onto one another, Akash could bother more about some other set of oppositions. A coach full of travellers---noisy, loquacious, indulgent, often impossible--- are all laid to rest now. As if exhaustion caught with them forever. Dead as in the grave. All those elderly bunch chasing their grand children or the young couples fretting at the risk to their privacy and the middle aged touring the country in groups, occasionally turning pilgrims--all those festal, mellow disturbances have steamed in an hour! Very dramatic, really; like a button violently pressed on in order to ensure switching off lights in an instant. It was already like to be fixated in a moving morgue.

And then, you have the linen from the Indian railways. Real white shrouds. They could have produced better horror movies than those in the Indian cinemas, Akash insisted. He would wonder how it is to feel when dead. Or to feel alive amongst all that is dead. Isn’t it really the same? See. it has to do with numbers; run into the minority and you are dead. Life, death mean nothing at all, never meant anything. “That’s pure philosophy. Better than Heidegger’s. Why didn’t I pursue philosophy!” Akash used to wonder with repetitive sighs.

During day journeys, he felt uneasy. On one occasion, he wrote down a long facebook post;

“Train travelling has become rather frequent since the last month. At times, with some clamour around, there are certain urges of contraction twitching from within. I feel an instinct to distance myself from all that goes on, around. This distancing, I have realized, is not from apathy, disgust or intolerance. It is not remotely misanthropic. May be, there's one strange and elusive experience that comes with it. It is of hiding one's way, in order to gather more of the noise and the spectacle. Of feeling insecure, unstable, at times exhausted. It's more likely that there's an art to it. An art of imbibing stories, wills and whims, of navigating through acts of incoherence and small talks without actively engaging with them. An art of welcoming confusion towards one's own designs against these many voices. One great pain that feels like a push towards forceful expansion. But it's no science. You can't repeat it with the mind for it's sake every time you desire. Stability is a myth. But there's peace when you greet yourself in the process.”

He felt like a genius.

When Akash was home for his vacations, Mihir had asked him if it were true the way Akash had said he felt intensely about things. “Is it disappointing to feel intensely?” “Not always” Akash smirked, “You can feel equally high. It is like a drug within you without being a drug.” Mihir hated Akash for his play with words. Can’t things be said simply? And, that too, by an upcoming scholar of history?

Akash had always enjoyed home. His home in Gandhinagar was relatively large; an extensive family who lived together within the confines of a larger three storey building. He was the youngest of his five cousins, the only male child in the house. For long, he had been made to feel privileged---the sole progenitor of generations to come; it will be for him that cradles will rock and lullabies sung. His cousins doted on him; their brother was a scholar, had never been unduly ill and was now a handsome looking man. What else is there to ask for? The only cause of disquiet had been his stubbornness to pursue an academic career when his parents had a thriving business. But that was a long time ago. Besides, many thought. Akash had the genes of a businessman, he could learn the ropes when the time would come.

His short trips to his home were during his academic breaks. It was a scene of chaos when he got back home and placed his blue trolley under the table of the larger living hall. Tears, laughter, sighs; and what not! There was feasting and fasting; sumptuous food for the family and vrats by his mother for his son’s long life. India had changed little, could change little of course, often not in a discouraging sense.

Akash was equally popular among his neighbours. His soft spoken tongue could debate but somehow never argue or so was the perception. He loved explaining to people why dabeli was a better snack than fafda or khandvi and why Ahmedabad was more popular than Gandhinagar; so much so that it displaced the latter as the capital city from the common northern Indian psyche. “Nanku khuba ja avivyakta che (Nanku is very expressive)” had remarked the local tea vendor across the road, on hearing intense discussions almost regularly; all of which, with his inclination to exercise unbiased judgment, made more sense to him than any other over-hearer at the stall.

The Doshi’s Nanku seemed to have no dosh. He was a part of every other celebration during his teenage days. Be it the Navaratri garba or the kai po che clamour, he reeked of charm and invited quite the female attention any teenager would have loved to gather. He looked modestly built, had perfectly arched eyes and kept a balbo beard that he took special care of.

However, there was little that was heard about his affairs, or at least paid attention to, until one day when Aabha, a friend from his senior school, winced at that which was supposed to make her feel ‘emancipated’ but somehow didn’t.

“Do they teach about such things at your university?” Aabha had asked.

“Of course but you see there’s not much to teach, more to think, experience and apply.”

“ That’s why I saw pamphlets instigating agitation tucked in between your paper notes!”

“ They are book marks, silly. Agitation belongs more to the mind. It isn’t even instigation per say. It is a way to deal with things, to express.”

“ Haan, haan, all political sermons, Nanku. Mane salah na apo.”

“ Theek che, jao” lauged Akash without a dint of red.

Aabha couldn’t wait for long and attribute it to her curiosity or her beliefs, she went on to dispense with the repartee to his mother. Of course the intention was just this. But then who knows how conversations drag on during the slow summer afternoons? Aabha poured out all the words and the sense faithfully before Dhanya Devi who did not, this time, feel much graced.

“ What did you tell Aabha, Nanku? That every woman should work? That you do not respect women who do not work? You do not love me, Nanku? ”, she asked.

Akash was caught in a tight spot. “No I do. I love you. What are you thinking?”

“And respect?”

“Yes”

“Or it is just like your father who talks about both to the same.”

“They are the same, Ma!”

“No. They aren’t.”

“But Ma, you never worked. You don’t know how difficult it is for women to go out and work.”

“Must be but it is even more difficult inside the houses.”

“Of course but because you have never challenged them.”

“Whom?”

“The system!” Akash responded promptly.

“What system? I don’t understand. It was your grandmother. It was also my choice to rear you up.”

“You think so, Ma. Of course you don’t understand.”

“Then who would have looked after you?” whimpered Dhanya Devi

“Nurses, may be.”

Akash was visibly running out of ideas.

“They don’t create bonds. You would have never known what it is to have mother’s love!”

“Common, Ma. Vat chodi do.”, said Akash, almost smarting.

The rifts grew and were poignantly displayed at dinner tables and in living spaces. And as every unattended rift expands, it slowly took its course to a chasm.

“The university is ruining him”, said Nanku’s father.

“I will talk to him, kaki. He is just having thoughts. He has just completed his masters. Leave it to me.”, affirmed Sarala, Akash’s closest cousin.

Sarala took her time to face Akash and it all turned a year for her to talk to a beaming doctoral scholar. Akash was home for Diwali after jilting the Navaratri celebrations. It was for work that he could not return or may be, he was reluctantly anticipating his cousin’s move. It did not really mean much to him to talk to Sarala but then, who wants to unlearn things that seem more redemptive, real and could, at once, also sound intellectual? It was like engraving deep in the ground with an art while floating in air.

“What is this Nanku? You hardly talk to me these days” blurted Sarala as he caught hold of Akash’s hand. Akash, evidently, had made an abortive attempt to escape from his room when he saw his cousin move in from his side eyes.

“ I know you have been talking to Ma for a year. It is she who argues and picks up a fight every time I evade her glances.”

“Why to evade?” asked Sarala, “It is okay to have views, to learn new things---not to insult your own mother.”

“I did not, Didi. It is just that she gets offended with everything I say. And what is worse, she wants me to follow what she believes in. My opinions are mine. I believe in them.”

“No, no. This is regular, Nanku, very normal. It is the generation gap, really. But you will also learn that things are not exactly like your classrooms and answer sheets or college campuses. A family life is about things that bind people together.”

“Bond is not bondage. I love you all but please let me live my life my way.”

Sarala’s face flushed in mild shock.

“What is your way? Is it different from ours?” “Yes, very”. He responded.

“Now Nanku you must understand that you are growing up. We will look for a girl soon. Or is that you are in love with a working girl whom we not know of?” she insisted, “It will be difficult I know. You know our family. But I will try my best to convince them, I promise. I am on your side. You don’t need to look away from us.”

“ Leave it please, Didi, please.”

“Why, I am telling you it is okay to have a working wife or girlfriend. Tell me, I am more than willing to look for a girl who is ambitious. We will do it together. Okay?” Sarala looked for validation.

Akash’s eyes turned blank. He said, “It is not what you think Didi. I won’t marry anyway. This entire talk of a year is a farce.”

“What non-sense? Why on earth?” laughed Sarala. “You are still a kid. I know you were posturing.”

Akash looked different. Very different. Different enough to haunt Sarala that something, somewhere had not been spoken about.

“Su thiyu che?” (What is the matter?)

Akash’s face looked blue, darker than the sky.

“Tell me? Okay, it remains between us. Theek che?”

“ Didi, I did not want to say this. But will you support me please if I say it to you?”

“ Yes, tell me.”

“ I do not know how to say this. I love a man.”

Sarala was quickly transported into a dream she could not recover from; far worse than the one where she felt her miscarriage was unreal and her baby was giggling in her womb.

“ Don’t play the fool with me. I am your elder sister!”

“ I am not. I am gay, Didi. I like men.”

“Are you mad?”

“ No, it is biological. Social. Both.”

“Who says so? Those English movies and those books? I will burn them.”

“ Okay do!” Akash almost shouted in his baritone voice. “But this is me.”

“ Stop with your stupid hobby, that research. Get some sense, get into the business, get married. You will be okay. You don’t look that way at all. Be a man. It’s just a phase.”, her voice was redolent with authority.

“ So this is the real face that you people have been hiding. I will rather get death!” Akash rushed out with the room and left for Delhi in a day.

The following years were difficult to count. Anyone would have said that it was just two on every calendar but it was really twenty to feel.

Sarala did not keep the word with herself for even a month. She had rushed to Dhanya Devi and Pranad Kumar who were shocked, stuttered, crestfallen, unbelieving parents.

Akash had mostly avoided his home since, if he could call it one anymore. His relatives hardly knew about the particulars but had surmised the widening gulf between the Doshis. “Is it because of a Delhi girl?” many asked. The Doshis maintained silence more efficiently than any day of mourning.

Akash flipped through Anita Desai’s “A Devoted Son” countless times. But this time, it was beyond Desai too.

“ Sambhad beta, I am your mother. I have known you the most, since your birth. I have seen you playing with boys…dancing with girls. The crowd around you is not good. They are abusing you…convincing you to believe in wrong things. Shame! May they be cursed!” Dhanya Devi had scorned her fate. Her calls though regular, contained the same content and was progressively ignored or cut short.

“You are the only son I have, this family has. What about our future, your future? What about our progeny? What about our neighbours, our caste. Shame, shame! My business! Our business!” cried an exasperated Pranod Kumar.

“Think calmly. Who will look after you in future? Do not think dirty, Nanku. It is a disease and it is all about diseases!” pleaded Sarala.

“ You are the disease!” remarked Akash in tears. He had not visited ‘home’ for a year now.

Akash loved his library cabin and his room at the hostel. Till very recently, he used to scribble again and again; attempting poetry. Isn’t that the only way out, Mihir had said? But Mihir didn’t know that his way did not help Akash to come out.

Akash thought of the rail coaches at night. The three tier coaches. The moving morgues. Wasn’t it the same feeling alive among shrouded bodies? Or dead between them in the day? The references for the minority? It’s about population, time and space; it’s about who owns them.

“Is it really my books? Are they lying? Am I not different really? But what does it mean to be different. Damn! It’s me, the problem, philosophy. It’s my love to complicate things.” He thought repeatedly.

But isn’t life just about that?

On other occasions, he could sketch a nude portrait, murmuring, “Am I lost? Have I not done enough as a son? Haven’t I proved my worth towards my passion? Didn’t I take care of them? Don’t they love me? Didn’t they love me? Do they love just themselves and seek it through me? …

Will it always remain the same? Can one trait, just one, define my entire life? One which I didn’t will by myself? Has it been this way always, everywhere? Should I just die and escape, once and for all?...

Are there answers at all? Is this why Socrates is loved now and hated at his times?”

But it was not Akash who died. His mother caught illnesses, unexplained and purely psychological. Akash had visited her but just for an evening.

His thoughts still wriggled through. “Should I get closer to a girl? Will that cure me? Will that cure Ma?”

He felt sick. Sick of himself, Mihir and the world.

It was February when his Ma had tried her last bit. “I will die, Nanku, come back and marry!”

Akash never responded. He did not know whose death to wish for.

It was March when she hung herself. It was the season of bougainvilleas on the campus. It was, however different this time, it had been raining at a stretch. As if, some word had travelled across distances and would not cease or seek closure.

Akash will call back once when he comes out of his work. He will move back, may be, in a day. He will speak much without an answer.

By Ayan Chakraborty