Ludhiana Diaries by Ramit Gulati
“So, my dear fellow, how long are you going to keep tying threads around tree trunks?” he asked Vikram in a most nonchalant manner, yawning and stretching out his arms as he awaited his reply, behaving as if he had posed to him the most trivial of questions.
“Wh..what!” In shock Vikram exclaimed, a thousand thoughts running through his mind. Who was this man? How did he know about the thread tying? What else did he know? What were his intentions?
But before Vikram could pose any of these questions, the man fired at him one more of his own. “I just want to know about the duration of your life that you plan on wasting away by living in this unreasonable fear of death my dear fellow.”
Just who in the world did this person think that he was, to meddle in someone’s affairs so blatantly?
“It is none…of your business…” Vikram answered him, no wonder with a hint of anger in his voice.
“It kind of is, my dear fellow, it kind of is. Life is too beautiful, full of too many charms and possibilities, for you to waste it away like that. No my dear Sir, that is not done, not done at all. You can’t just keep ruining the time that has been given to you on this earth by living in the perpetual fear of death, no you just can’t.” Taking no offence at his rudeness, the old man responded to him in a kind voice and then paused momentarily, as if deliberating some idea, before he continued. “Every day as you walk to that Peepal tree, I believe on your way you must come across a somewhat old white building, couple of stories tall, a yard up front with a rusted swing, few trees, a wooden fence as its front boundary, do you know of it?”
“Yes, it is somebody’s house I believe, what of it?”
“Just go there this evening, and you will find a solution to your problem. I assure you of that.”
“What is this, some kind of dupery? I am not stupid, to walk in to an unknown building and put myself in potential danger.”
“But you are in grave danger already my dear fellow. You are in danger of wasting away the rest of your life, by spending it under the bleak fears which plague you presently.”
“Hey! I am afraid of death because I know how horrible it is. You do not, else you would just be like me, and in fact the whole world would just be like me.”
“What if I tell you that I do know what death is and what if I tell you that it is nothing to be afraid of?”
“Nothing to be afraid of huh? Mister I have seen this thing we call death up close, and believe me, it has a very ugly face. So don’t try your gibberish on me.”
“I have not come here to speak gibberish to you my dear fellow, I only wish to help you. Just take a little leap of faith this evening and believe me if you do, it will save you a lot of grief.”
With these concluding remarks, the old man who had shown a serene calmness throughout this conversation turned and walked away, leaving a flustered and agitated Vikram behind.
In fact he was still grappling with the meaning of the old man’s words when his bus arrived some fifteen minutes later. Vikram boarded it, but not before taking out a surgical mask from his pocket and securing it over his mouth and nose as protection against the germs of the other commuters.
*******
At Shivani’s house, the function of Mehandi (Henna) ceremony was about to begin with a number of guests having already gathered in the main hall. But the bride to be was absent from amidst these guests, as she was stuck in her room at the moment, busy taking care of her drunken best friend.
“Isn’t this so wonderful? On the day of my Mehandi ceremony, instead of being by my side, my best friend has gone ahead and gotten drunk like a pirate,” said Shivani, more than a little irked at Meeta for pulling these boozy shenanigans on such an important occasion of her life. “Even last night you did this Meeta. And now again, I mean it is the middle of an afternoon goddamn it! Who gets drunk in the middle of an afternoon!”
“I did..I did not want to get drunk, but that..Raj..he..hurt me..so much..” Meeta’s words were slurred, a doleful pout appearing on her face as she slumped back in bed and laid her aching head down on a pillow.
“Yaar, you been saying this since last night, but are you at least going to tell me what he did?” Shivani responded, having no knowledge of what occurred between Meeta and Raj which had left her friend so disconsolate.
“No..I won’t tell you now, first you have your wedding. Then I will tell you. But that Raj, he is, such a jerk, such a..such a …” Meeta’s voice began to stain with tints of anger. “such a …”
“dog??” Shivani suggested, for now having no other option but to indulge her friend.
“no, no he is not a dog..” Meeta suddenly protested. “he is a good person..such a nice guy..”
“Oh, he has now become a nice person! Good, Very Good,” Shivani sighed and crumpled in to a chair by the side of the bed, seeing no quick end to this situation.
“You remember the time I quit smoking? You remember I said I was doing it because I have gotten inspired by that Mukesh advertisement they play in theaters before a movie,” Meeta went on, with some effort propping herself back up in to a sitting position.
“Yeah I remember,” Shivani answered somewhat absently, glancing at the door. She could hear the drone of the guests that were gathered outside and knew that sooner or later she would need to go out and join them, but she did not want to leave Meeta alone in her present state.
“Well I actually did not get inspire winspire Yaar, nopesy, not at all. Actually I saw that Raj had liked an Anti-Smoking Page on Facebook, so, so I…shunned it,” she revealed in a wistful tone.
“This Raj…has totally ruined you, hell he has even ruined my Mehandi ceremony,” Shivani mumbled back with a frown.
“No Yaar..don’t..don’t say that..” Meeta hiccupped. “he is..such..a nice guy..You remember?”
“Now what remember?” Shivani went along for now. She was hoping that none of her family members would come across Meeta in her current state, or she would be left with a lot of explaining to do.
“When we went to that Manali trip, and we were playing Antakshri in the bus, and that Prerna sang that song… yehhhhh hai reshmi julfon ka andheraaaaa na..ghabrayie..”
“Don’t tell me you have fallen in love with Prerna too?”
“Are no yaar, you don’t understand anything…Raj, you should have noticed the way he was looking at her long hair..I mean..so I too..” and Meeta held up some locks of her own long and slightly messy looking mane of black hair.
“Oh God! And I thought it was me who had convinced you to get rid of that stupid pixie cut of yours!” Shivani shook her head in surprise.
“No Yaar, actually, I was better with that pixie cut. I mean even to comb these long ones take me an eternity every day,” Meeta chuckled. In retrospect, it all seemed so stupid now, the little things she had done to win that idiot Raj over.
“And you remember?”
“Now what..?”
But before Meeta could make any more confessions she was cut short by an urgent knock on the door.
“Shivani beta, are you in the room..?” It was a slightly low pitched female voice, one befitting the alto section of a chorus group, coming from the other side of that door.
“Okay mum’s here, so stay mum for now, okay?” Shivani gave Meeta a stern glance in order to get her point across, and Meeta in return pouted again before raising a finger and putting it across her lips.
“Yeah mum?” Shivani asked as she opened the door for her mother.
“All the guests are gathered outside and you are sitting here in your room, come out now, we have to start the ceremony,” her mother told her. “And one more thing, that boy Raj is here too, he is waiting for you and Meeta outside,” she added.
Meeta’s features grew visibility perturbed as she heard about Raj’s arrival. What was he doing here?
“What has happened to her?” Shivani’s mother asked, noticing Meeta’s besotted and haggard looking face.
“No
“Alright then. By the way, should I get her some medicine?”
“No mum, she just needs to sleep for a while, that is all.”
“Alright then,” And Shivani’s mother took her leave, much to her daughter’s immediate relief.
“I am going out and sending Raj here. Just say whatever it is that you two have to say to each other, and finish all this,” Shivani enjoined Meeta before she skittered out of the room, cursing the ill timing of this whole crisis.
It was in the hall, that Shivani noticed Raj standing back in one of the corners with a grim looking face, casting a shadow of desolation over the joyous festivities of her wedding. At once she went up to him and gave him a piece of her mind.
“Look, whatever it is between you and Meeta, you better sort it out, and I mean it…” she whispered to him sharply. “She is in my room, just go and sort out your stuff.” It was more of a command and less of an advice from the bride, before she stepped away and started mingling with the guests of the ceremony.
Raj with the weight of yesterday’s incident still on his shoulders began to move with a heavy tread towards her room. But before he could reach it, he was met by a stumbling Meeta in the hallway itself.
“Meeta, are you alright?” Raj reflexively reached for her shoulder to try and support her, only to have his hand pushed away.
From this gesture of acerbity and from the sour and tense expression on her face, Raj could gauge that Meeta was angry at him, and why should not she be, his actions from last evening warranted it.
“Meeta, I came here to apologize to you for what happened last evening..I am so sorry..” Raj said lowering his eyes, hoping to gain her forgiveness, and somewhere deep down, hoping to gain back her affection as well. “I was a complete jerk, for what I said to you, I thought about it the whole time last night..I am so sorry..”
But Meeta just continued to stand there with a restless and strained expression on her face, as if she was finding it difficult to even stand in the presence of this guy.
“Meeta, please..say something..anything..” Raj pleaded with all earnestness.
“Spring roll….
Spring roll Sir?”
Unexpectedly butting in was a raspy voice belonging to a waiter, who tasked with distributing snacks in the ceremony had appeared behind Raj in that hallway, eager to serve him and his lady friend some hot spring rolls.
“No we don’t need it,” Raj answered him, irritated but able to maintain a calm demeanor on the outside. The waiter, after getting the response, nodded his head and left the two of them in their belligerent peace.
Raj turned his eyes back towards Meeta and noticed that she was looking even more restless than before.
“Meeta, please, say something, hurl curses at me if you want but at least say something,” Raj pleaded once again.
It was at that moment that he saw Meeta’s face staining hard, with her trembling lips about to move and utter something, when all of a sudden..
“Photo..
Photo Sir?”
This time it was the photographer hired for the ceremony who had come to spoil the buildup.
“We don’t want to have any photo taken, okay,” Raj answered, staining hard to keep his composure.
“One photo Sir, it is important for the compilation, all the guests have had one,” The photographer requested, he was a novice young man eager to impress his clients by giving them an album which would exemplify this ceremony in all its wholesomeness.
Raj, seeing that the photographer by making minute adjustments to his camera had already begun preparations for taking their picture, found no other option but to grudgingly give him the acquiescence.
“Yes, just stand right there Sir..Perfect Madam,” the photographer maneuvered them in to the right position before focusing his camera.
“Just smile now, smile…”
But as the picture was clicked, there was only one person smiling in it, in fact to be more exact there was only one person in it, since Meeta, a second before that camera flashed, had run off from that spot.
A couple of minutes later, a dispirited Raj was met by Shivani in the main hall as he was making his way out of her house.
“So, what happened, did you guys sort it out?” she asked, eagerly.
“No, she does not even want to talk to me, and I deserve that, I deserve that completely,” And shaking his head, he walked off and made his departure.
For the next five or so minutes, Shivani frantically searched the various sections of the house for Meeta and finally found her in one of the rooms, where she was lying flat on a heap of mattresses.
“All I have since last night is you tattling the name of Raj, and now when he was finally here, you did not even have a word to say to him? I mean you don’t want to get over him; you don’t want to sort things out with him. What do you want girl?” Shivani broke in to a rant as she moved towards her friend.
“Arey, at least listen to me yaar,” Meeta replied in a soft voice, she was like a child trying to avoid a scolding.
“Now what to listen? When it was time to say something, you turned in to a mute,” Shivani went on with her remonstrance, only for Meeta to reach out and grab her hand, after which she scrunched up her nose and made a cute little face at her friend in order to pacify her.
“God, you and your cute faces,” Shivani sighed. “Next time I am not letting you off the hook so easily. Now tell me, why did not you say anything to him?”
“Actually yaar, after gulping down all that vodka, I had to pee real bad. I was on my way to the bathroom when Raj came over and stopped me in my way. I tried to stand there for as long as I could, but people kept interrupting us, with spring rolls or photos..I just could not hold myself back any more.” Meeta explained but noticed that she was drawing a blank look from Shivani. So she retold the whole thing, this time with all the details.
When it finally dawned on Shivani what had happened, she burst out laughing and Meeta too joined her in it, and so for a long while, the two friends just remained there, giggling in mirth.
“Okay Meeta. Enough jokes. You need some rest. Go to my room and catch a nap. Raj will be there in the Shagun ceremony tonight. You can talk to him there.”
*******
4
28th January, 2014. 9:08 P.M
Amar’s Shagun ceremony was taking place in a brightly lit up garden of a resort, located at a little distance from the busiest flyover in the city-Jagraon Bridge. Already a large number of guests, almost all of them wearing glossy faces and donning glittering new clothes, were assembled there to celebrate this joyous occasion, and as is the norm in our country, most of this celebration was being done by them in front of the food and snack stalls.
One of these esteemed invitees was Mohit, who only a second or two ago had come away from the sweet’s stall with what was his third plate of Gulab Jamuns tonight. And since Gulab Jamuns were best enjoyed seated, he directly made his way for the rows of folding chairs on the other side of the garden, where he went on to grab himself a seat next to his sister Nalini.
“Eat all the gulab jamuns you want bother but it is not going to make up for our loss,” Nalini quipped, looking quite alluring in her white Anarkali suit embellished with sequins and intricate golden patterns of embroidery.
“I know sis. But if I am going to sink, I prefer sinking with the taste of gulab jamuns in my mouth,” Mohit joked back and chuckled. He knew that the battle was now all but lost and the only thing left to do was to eat some gulab jamuns and be gracious in defeat.
Still moments later when Ankur, the boy who had beaten his younger brother Vinnie to the position of Sarbala, happened to skitter past him and Nalini while chasing his balloon, Mohit c
“I just don’t understand what these people see in this Ankur, our Vinnie is at least 100 times cuter than him,” he groaned and then looked pensively at the half eaten gulab jamun in his plate.
“It is all politics brother, it is all politics. In fact everything in this world is politics,” Nalini responded, as she reached out and patted her brother on his shoulder in an attempt to comfort him.
*******
Another person in that Shagun Ceremony who was in need of some comforting was Raj. His slumped shoulders, his dull eyes, the haggard look on his face, all of them were in sharp incongruity to the glittery pomp of the ceremony. He was like a dark shadow, slowly moving around that garden with a heavy tread, now found near the central small canopy under which the Shagun ceremony was to take place, a few seconds later wandering back in to one of the corners as if ready to dissolve in to nothingness, and before long standing smack dab in the middle of the gathering absently gazing at the leftovers on the plates in one of the plastic crates, it was as if the deep unrest in his soul was taking him everywhere and nowhere at the same time.
And then he saw her entering that garden, looking simple and sweet as ever, like a blessing sent by the heavens for his withered soul. But was it too late already? Had he, with his cynicism, poisoned that blessing in to a curse?
He stood there stealing hesitant glances at her, but not able to gather the courage to approach her. She had made it perfectly clear this afternoon that she no longer wished to have anything to do with him at all. But wait, why was she coming towards him? He looked behind him, then to either side of him, wondering if someone else she knew was standing nearby and that she was walking towards that person instead of him, but there was no one, and soon enough she was standing right in front of him.
“So you were saying something this afternoon?” she asked simply, her voice soft and lacking any sort of definite emotion.
“I..I..I came to apologize..” he managed to somehow answer, struggling against the knot in his throat.