Saturday, May 04, 2019

Mistake-a short story

“Sir, someone’s here to see you. Says you know her.”
Browjoe felt irritated. It was 8 PM. His day moves like clockwork. He wakes up at 7 AM, and listens to his favourite morning playlist, which he religiously changes on the first day of ever year. While raag bhairavi wafts through his drawing room, and the morning sun feels so mellow, he sips on his coffee and smokes the first cigarette of the day. Strong gourmet black coffee, without sugar. By 9 AM he’s in office. Till 6 PM, he meanders through meaningless official chores, almost listlessly, waiting for his day to end. There’s the unavoidable lunch, when he has to mingle with his co-workers and discuss the deplorable state of social, political and economic affairs. And sometimes cricket. The long journey back home to his small flat in Tollygunge, in the metro, is a long arduous one, jostling for space and smelling armpits. The sweat makes roundish patches around the armpit, and Browjoe often spends his entire metro journey marveling and laughing inside his head at the sheer diversity in the patches- some are perfectly round, some look like the map of India, some look like a squashed mango. He prefers not to see women who wear sleeveless, for they don’t have these patches. Once he’s back home, from 8 PM, he sips on his local whiskey or dark rum, always a nip bought on his way back home, and plays his evening playlist, which he religiously changes on the last day of every year. He dines sharp at 10 PM, and goes to bed at 11. Browjoe has few friends, and fewer relatives. On a weekday, no one ever visits him. It’s only the occasional weekend when he socializes.
This unscheduled visitor has completely disrupted his perfectly balanced day. Under such circumstances, he’d be usually furious with Laxman, his Man Friday for the past 19 years. Laxman’s father used to drive Browjoe’s father’s car. When both their fathers died tragically in a road accident, Browjoe felt sorry for Laxman and took him in. He paid Laxman a modest salary, ensured he had a place to stay and food to eat. For Laxman, that was all he wanted. For Browjoe, it was all he could afford. People with his income rarely had a full time help.
But today was different. It was raining outside. Unseasonal rains, like a long lost friend who turns up unannounced, always made Browjoe happy. It was one of the few things he enjoyed that wasn’t routine. It had been terribly humid the past few weeks, and the weathermen in all channels were murmuring incoherently about low-pressure situations around the Bay of Bengal.
While he wasn’t furious with Laxman for not turning the guest away, he still felt irritated. It was a woman. It meant Browjoe’s well-ventilated vest and boxers will need to be additionally draped with another layer of clothing to look civilized. It was an irritating thought.


“Remember me”? she asked. Browjoe’s drawing room was modest. It had a small sofa set, the springs hard for they haven’t been changed for over twenty years. There was a centre table with dead flowers. Laxman is supposed to change the flowers once a week, but he often forgets. The television set has a layer of dust on it, for it hasn’t been used in over six months. Browjoe watched the occasional cricket match, and election coverage whenever there was one around. Neither cricket nor elections had happened in the last six months.
Browjoe sat gingerly on the sofa set. She was sitting somewhat uncomfortably. Clearly the springs need changing, Browjoe thought to himself. Her hair had patches of grey, the spectacles she wore were too big for her face, and a patch of her hair constantly kept falling on her face, which she kept dismissively moving up with a gentle shaking of her head. She was once attractive, but age has taken its toll. There was a general tiredness in her eyes, and she looked unusually thin.
“I am sorry, but I have no idea who you are”, the irritation was apparent in Browjoe’s voice.
“ I am Brishti. It’s been twenty years, Shourjo.”
“I am Browjoe, not Shourjo. I think you’re confusing me with someone”, Browjoe barked somewhat haughtily, and made no effort to hide his disgust.
She smiled. “Maybe. You do look very different, now that I see you clearly”, she said, somewhat unsure of herself. “I tried getting in touch with someone called Shourjo. We had parted ways twenty years ago. We were lovers”, she said, almost breathlessly, and her voice lowered when she said “lovers”.
“Will make for a nice love story”, Browjoe said, now enjoying himself. “Lovers reunited after twenty years”.
She smiled, wryly. “No, I was not looking to reunite. I am married now. Have a kid too. I couldn’t find Shourjo online; I put up a classified advertisement in the newspapers looking for him, clearly no one reads those. And then, bizarrely, I saw you at the metro station today.  I sort of followed you home, waited outside for almost half an hour, unsure what to do. I saw your name outside, and was pretty sure I was mistaken. And then decided to ring the bell anyway, “she said, blushing with embarrassment.
“Why did you want to meet this Shourjo?”, Browjoe asked, in a somewhat mocking tone.
“Something deeply personal. Hope I find him soon,” she said, hurriedly got up and without saying another word, walked straight out of the door, unceremoniously.


The metro ride back to Dumdum was a long one. Brishti jostled for space. It was 9 PM, but the metro was still crowded. Her mind went back twenty years. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, Shourjo would say. Their adulterous love was all-consuming, destroying families and happiness in its wake. Yet, nothing ever felt more right. Select days flashed by her mind, like random shots from a grainy black and white movie. The night she accidentally kissed him in a drunken stupor, the night it all began. The afternoon they stole from their respective partners, to stay home all day and read poetry, and get high and fuck. The day it rained on Marine Drive, and they took the last train home, stood near the door, and got drenched. The dreamy trip where they were lost in the mist, somewhere on the Mumbai-Pune highway, and ended up staying at a blind man’s lonely house on the top of a hill next to a waterfall. The day their partners left them, when they promised to be together forever. The day she found him in bed with her best friend. The day she tried to kill herself.
The cancer was in its last stage. In spite of everything else, in spite of the terrible memories, Shourjo at least deserved to know that she’s dying. The random man in the metro station looked so similar, but had a different name. Shourjo will probably know well after she is gone. The thought made her sad.
Countless people fought for space inside the compartment. Brishti looked at the sweaty people and their sweat-drenched armpits. Shourjo would look at those armpits and describe imaginary shapes that the sweat made on the shirts. The thought made Brishti smile.

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