HOPE

 HOPE

“Hello, hello, is that Mr. Sarkar speaking? I am Sachin here”

In spite of my best efforts to locate the caller by identifying his voice, name or by the caller i.d. appearing on the screen of my cell phone, I could not locate him.

”Who is it please? I am sorry I can’t locate you” was my reply

“It’s me Sir! Sachin! I was working with you in 1991 in boiler maintenance”

With a bit of effort, I could immediately remember. Sure, he was Sachin-the Graduate Engineer Trainee, the Keralite with typical accent.Oh, yes He was Sachin.The traces of accent still remained. There was a strange British or western accent too. After so many years! It was a pleasant surprise.

“Oh yes, now I remember you. Sachin how are you? Where are you calling from? How’s Annie? “I bombarded him with a flurry of questions.

“Hold on, just hold on Sir. I am in Noida right now. I live in Singapore and I want to meet you”

“Of course, of course –how stupid of me! Why don’t you really come over? When can you come?” I said

“I am here for a couple of days. I will call you again. Let’s fix up something. How’s Mrs.Sarkar?” He queried

“Oh well! She is fine and so are the kids. How’s Annie, Anand and how many kids?”

Said I.

“We will talk when we meet” With that remark, he ended the conversation. I was not sure if he was too keen to answer my questions immediately.

My mind raced back by thirteen years. It was the same old Sachin.He was tall and lanky. With a funny gait .He used to walk with a prominent swing. Typically wry sense of humour,. forever unkempt hair, equally untidy clothes, never polished shoes and a perennially lost look readily came to mind as some of the things he was known for. He was undoubtedly brilliant and intelligent, and very sharp in his work. He was impulsive too He could work relentlessly for very long hours. He spared no one for lethargy.A voracious reader; he was a contrast between Engineering skills and literary prowess.

It was these qualities that had endeared him to all of us, specially me and Seema.He was anassuming,he could spend hours together with the kids explaining them about the wonders of Universe ,reading to them from Wordsworth and teaching them about principles of computers when it was a novelty those years. Soon, he became a part of the family. Without any hesitation, after long hours, having virtually slogged out at work the whole day and the evening, he would barge into my home and ask Swati for a hot meal even at midnight. We too never complained. He was not my subordinate any more. He was more my brother than a colleague. He had filled that gap for me since I did not have any brothers. A wonderful bond had developed.

And then, one of those days he confided in us” I want to get married to a Christian girl-Annie-, I love. She is a Keralite .She works as a dietician. We are fiercely in love. And like all parents mine too are fiercely opposed to the marriage”

I could imagine why. Sachin was a Nambudri. The most orthodox of Keralite Brahmins. I could not immediately think of a way out.

“Sir, we want to get married this weekend. Her mother too is here. Shouldn’t that suffice?”

“Sachin, its Thursday already. And what’s the hurry? Let’s make some arrangements. I too need to discuss with the girl and may be your parents”

“No Sir, please do not do that. We have already decided and my parents would never relent” He said with a note of finality in his voice.

With a lot of worry and doubts in our minds we agreed.

Saturday arrived. He had called a couple of friends and their families to his flat in East Delhi.

We reached his home and to our surprise we found utter chaos. There were hardly any preparations, hardly any place to sit. The spirit of joyousness was missing. We had to create a festive mood. Garlands were brought; someone got a few cassettes from the car and played some cheerful music. Children decorated the place.Hurriedly, sweets were brought. The only thing, Sachin had planned was Registrar of marriage. I could clearly sense disapproval in Annie’s mother’s mannerisms.

Now, how do we solemnize the marriage? Seema and I took the lead. I chanted whatever Mantras I knew. Annie was foxed and so was Sachin.They did the seven feras, exchanged garlands, Naati Charami (I will not stray) got followed by “Sachin, do you

accept-------------Annie do you accept ----as man and wife?” the Christian way

With this, we solemnized the marriage. Grateful tears rolled down the eyes of these two innocent youngsters so madly in love .We too felt very happy to see Sachin happy. It was a novel style wedding-somewhat poetic, somewhat illogical, at the same time funny and spontaneous truly matching with Sachin’s personality.

Soon after that, I slowly started losing contact with him... First, I had changed my department. My contact with Sachin was minimal. He too seemed to have drifted away.

I too finally moved away from Ghaziabad.I took up a new job in Siemens.. And Sachin was out of sight and out of mind.

These memories flashed before my eyes one after another like scenes of a movie. His thought made alive by his telephone call made me happy. I rushed home and shared the news with Seema. She too was happy and asked me to call him over lunch as soon as possible. I fixed a day and went to pick him up .He had told me that he worked with Panasonic in a very senior position which was not surprising to me. He had the talent, the skill to work with people and willingness to work hard. But how did he land up in Singapore?

I reached his factory. After a few minutes, he walked out of the gate and I could not believe my eyes. Though the gait was the same, he was not lanky anymore. He had put on a lot of weight. He wore an expensive three piece suit. He was not the same unkempt Sachin any more. I could hardly correlate to him as far as his looks were concerned .He seemed to have aged in the last six years. I was nevertheless very happy to see him again.

We drove. On the way, he told me that he was the worldwide Chief Coach for a major quality initiative-six sigma. , that he was held in a very high esteem and got a very handsome salary: that he traveled extensively and enjoyed a luxurious life. He was pursuing his PhD in Engineering from Singapore University. He still longed for the good old days of fun, camaraderie and those days when he could take the liberty of barging into our home even at midnight.

He enquired about Seema and the kids who he remembered very well. We reached home. He continued to speak without a break as if he had not talked to anyone about his personal life for ages. He seemed to be pouring out his heart. He then said-

“Immediately after you resigned, we were blessed with a girl child. Like any parent, I was overjoyed. My daughter was a darling. To me, life was getting more and more beautiful day by day. Alas! How wrong I was! Annie was never happy with the

money we earned, the one room flat we lived in, the three shifts I worked in.. She kept insisting that I should look for a job abroad, may be in the Middle East. I had already broken all my contacts with my parents, a fact which kept haunting me all along. With a lot of effort, very unwillingly, just for the sake of Annie, I found a job in Sony, Singapore. I was to be employed as a maintenance fitter much below my current status and responsibilities. The money was not all that good but better than what I earned in India. Hoping to do better after reaching there, and in order to keep Annie happy, I left India. It was such a sorrow to leave my little daughter behind. I had planned to take Annie to Singapore later. I kept working very hard for almost two years. I used to call Annie every week. It was very difficult for me to send any substantial money home. We seemed to be drifting away. I was so madly in love with her and my little one that I failed to sense that something was wrong. After a couple of weeks when I failed to make contact, I rushed to India only to find Annie had deserted me. The house was occupied by someone else. Annie had not left her address behind. All I heard was, she had remarried and gone to gulf with a rich malayalee.

Heart broken I went to my parents. They refused to accept me back in my family. The doors were permanently shut.”

Tears swelling in his eyes and a lump in his throat he could not continue anymore. I had no words of sympathy to offer. His narration pierced through my heart like a sharp knife. Why?

Why? Why did it have to happen to him? Inexplicable! Cried my heart.

“Come, Sachin, wash your face and join us for lunch” offered my wife.

He came to the table and started eating with his fingers with great relish. The meal was typically Indian He refused to use any spoons or forks. He kept talking to Sudha -my younger daughter, about her school .about Maths, about new style of English teaching –it was the same good old Sachin.he seemed so happy talking. The lunch made him forget his agony for a while. He finished his lunch and we settled in the drawing room. It was January and even in the noon there was a sharp nip in the air. We ate our desserts in silence. The mood was melancholy. In spite of the pain he had gone through narrating his agony, he seemed to be at peace with himself .His face had the beauty of a child who has just cried its heart out to his mother. Without his knowledge, he dozed off, much relaxed on the sofa. I went closer, without disturbing him loosened his tie knot and shoe laces and reclined him with his legs stretched. I fetched a shawl and covered him. I tiptoed out of the room. He was soon fast asleep.

The warmth and the sharpness of the setting sun’s rays must have woken him. It was four o’clock. He came out of the room

and wanted to go back to his hotel. I did not want to stop him. I knew he wanted to be alone.

He washed his face, tidied himself and was about to bid us Goodbye. His face seemed to be so calm.

He said

” I know it is not possible for me to thank you. It would be so artificial. All I can say is this is the first meal I have ever eaten at someone’s home in the last few years. -I don’t cook at home at all .I use my fridge to stock bottles of Scotch whisky. And I had stopped believing in home as an institution. I seem to be wrong. May be, I need to rethink. Will you help me do that? Goodbye”

I dropped him on the hotel lawns. I returned home. The rays of the setting sun brought cheer. It seemed to me from my balcony that the setting sun was smiling.