The Old Monk

Ma, I am coming home.

Why…what’s wrong?

I cannot take it anymore. Everyday it is the same thing. I am done with it!

Beta, you do not get a well-paid government job easily. You cannot give it up so easily. What will you do after coming back home?

Ma, every day he ridicules me in public, shouts at me in his chamber and makes me feel terrible and I hate going to work. Not just hate but I am getting into the initial phase of depression and I fear it will get worse if I continue here. Who knows what I will end up doing!

Why does he behave this way? Why don’t you listen to him and do the work properly?

Ma, I do everything he tells me. I take so much pains to make sure whatever work he gives me, I do it well but he is someone I have realized I can never make happy. He finds faults at everything I do. He is bad to all but he picks on me more than anyone. Everyone calls him khadoos but to me he is a jallad.

Should I ask Pa to go to Kolkata and speak to him?

No Ma, please don’t send Pa. It will get worse for he will think I have complained and I am not a school boy anymore that my father has to come and sort out matters at my work place.

Don’t cry, beta. Ok give yourself another three months and if you still feel you wish to quit, then I will not stop you. I will come and bring you home. Please don’t cry…

Three months, Ma, and no more….and Subodh put the phone down.

Subodh had got his first job in a government insurance company and was posted in Kolkata where his boss, Mr. Bose, was a terror. No one at work liked the man for he would snub people and belittle them at the smallest pretext. Not one person spoke well about him. It had been his first month at work and Subodh made the first of his many mistakes. He sought Mr. Bose’s approval to go to the company’s trials for selection of the Company’s football team. The look he got and the mouthful of volley that started that day and continued for days together kept him awake at nights with the abusive words echoing in his ears. His next mistake was seeking long leave to prepare for the civil services examinations. The football episode repeated itself in a much larger and louder way and possibly the interview board in Delhi may have heard it as well. His third mistake was having written a poem in the office magazine... Keep doing everything except work…Subodh was now a marked man… a pariah who had to be whipped and set right every day, every moment. From then on, Subodh prayed that he would rather be unemployed and stay at home rather than go to office which, for him, had become the gas chamber wherein he had a Star of David tattooed on his face.

Next morning, after speaking with his mother, a terror stricken Subodh entered office waiting for his torture to commence any moment. A couple of hours passed but the voice was not heard. News trickled in with the record clerk Ram Babu announcing gleefully to all that Mr. Bose was not keeping well and will not be coming to work for the next few days. Subodh heaved a sigh of relief…phew…did my mother’s prayers do the trick and save me from the villain? He knew that a mother’s prayers had a lot of power but he also knew that his mother would not curse anyone no matter how evil the other person was. So the next two days went off well. Happiness had descended on the office in those two days but then, as they say, good times don’t last forever. On the third day, which happened to be a Thursday, Subodh was asked by his Manager to take an important file to Mr. Bose’s residence for his signature. Since it was a matter that would have to be put up in the forthcoming Board Meeting, the file with the Head of Department’s signature had to be submitted to the Company Secretary by Friday.

Why me, Sir? I have not even worked on this file and do not know anything about it.

No wonder Mr. Bose gets so angry with you… must you argue on every issue? Listen, you are the junior most in the department and you stay not too far from his residence, so you have to go. His address is typed on the cover of the sealed envelope. Make sure you get his signature today after office and hand me the file first thing tomorrow morning.

Subodh knew why he had been picked for the errand. He took the file from the manager and put it carefully in his bag. He knew that all the others listening to the conversation were smiling and imagining the scene that would be enacted in the evening and saying, like Ashok Kumar would say after each episode of the first Hindi soap opera on television, …”Aur dekhenge Hum Log.”

Subodh took a packed minibus and got off at his usual stop. He knew the housing society where Mr. Bose lived and started walking slower than ever towards the gate. Before every step his heart said…stop…don’t go…but he dragged himself there anyhow. As he entered the society, he saw a small club house where some boys were playing carom outside and others were having tea in earthenware kulhads while enjoying what Bongs are best at…adda. He took out the file from his bag and asked…Dada, how do I go to this address? The boys saw the name and the address ad started laughing….Paaglar baari… the mad man’s house…. Just keep walking around the compound and wherever you hear some madman shouting, you will know that you have reached the right house. Anyway, to save you the trouble, just go straight and take the second right turn and the house is the first on the ground floor.

So the Jallad’s reputation was universal, Subodh thought, and he was not the only one but still asked God…Why me? There were so many of us who graduated together from the Insurance Academy and got different postings, yet you choose this one for me? Must be some enmity from the previous life… karma.

Subodh reached the house and saw the name plate and knew he was at the right door. With a heavy heart he knocked on the door and waited. There was no response for quite some time. He must have knocked too gently for anyone to hear, so this time he knocked harder. He heard the dreaded voice from inside… Basanti, just see which idiot is out there banging on the door as if we are all deaf here.

A middle aged woman in saree opened the door slightly with the chain lock in lace…Yes, who are you and what do you want?

I am Subodh Gupta from Mr. Bose’s office and am here to meet him.

She shut the door and came back, opened the door just enough to be visible while saying, he does not want to meet you.

I am here to take his signature on a file. Please give this to him.

She took the file and again shut the door on his face.

Subodh waited diligently outside the house for about fifteen minutes and then the door opened once more. The woman handed the envelope back to Subodh and quickly shut the door. On the sealed envelope a large white tag had been pasted over the address and written in black and bold…Highly Confidential. He knew what that meant so he put the envelope back in his bag and started walking back… this time there was a spring in his steps. Even though he did feel a bit insulted in having to wait outside the door for long, but not having had to face the man was a cause enough to celebrate. He could breathe freely.

As he was walking out of the society gates, the boys at the club shouted…Obaak kando, tui beche aachhish…what a miracle that you are still alive! Subodh did not mind and smiled back at them. Outside the gate he saw a jhaal muri wala with a big crowd around him. He loved jhaal muri and bought a packet and started munching while sitting on a cemented seat outside the society gate. In some time, he saw the woman who he had met at Mr. Bose’s house coming out of the society with a boy of eight or nine, arguing about something. As they came close, he overheard the boy asking his mother to buy him jhaal muri but the mother said she could not afford it. Subodh stood up and smiled at the woman and offered to buy the jhaal muri for her son and she did not object. As the boy stood in the queue to buy, the woman spoke in Bangla which, in the last few months at Kolkata, Subodh had mastered to a manageable degree.

Dada, I am sorry. Sir does not like guests at home and speaks badly to a lot of people but he is a good man at heart. Last year when our house was destroyed in the cyclone, Sir gave us the money to rebuild it. He has also arranged work for my husband in one of his friend’s factory. He takes care of my son’s education and on weekends helps him with his studies. He listens to classical music and reads books often from dusk to dawn.

But then why does he behave the way he does with others?

I do not know, Sir. He has been taking care of his bedridden mother for the last eight years and does most of her work himself whenever he is around even though there is a professional help round the clock. He himself does not keep well but refuses help from anyone. He is a perfectionist and gets angry when you make the slightest of mistakes. I feel the heat almost daily but I know the man well by now and accept it as part of my life knowing fully well that he means no harm or evil in what he says. It is just that he is incapable of expressing softly and lovingly. It is an exterior he has built up over the years and that has now become a part of him and he cannot change it. He is just like a coconut…hard from outside and watery and soft from inside.

By now the boy had bought his jhaal muri and the two bid Subodh good bye after thanking him. He wondered…the coconut definition for Basanti may be true but how do I enter the soft side when all I get to experience is the hard shell falling over my head every day and every hour. He walked back to his house and at night recalled everything the woman had said. He repeated the same to his mother who said, Bimaar hai bechara…the man is sick. Don’t feel bad at anything he says or does. Start thinking like Basanti and learn the good things he has to offer the hard way. Who knows someday you may get to thank him and who knows like him as well.

Fast forward twenty years.

Subodh is now a senior executive in another company at Bombay when the phone rings… the voice had not lost the decibel levels and the tongue was still as sharp… I am going to Canada to visit my nephew and will take a break journey at Bombay both ways. I will be staying with you.

Yes, Sir…we would love to have you with us. Why don’t you stay for at least a couple of more days on the return leg? I promise to keep your Old Monk and tonic water well stocked this time.

There was a laughter from the other end……Ok, but tell Rachana to prepare my ilish with shorshe.

Yes Sir, my vegetarian wife will surely cook your favourite dishes…looking forward to seeing you, Sir.

Tell Guddi, I have managed to get the Tolkien’s Collection from College Street for her.

SS