The Things We Lose

1

Pushpol’s son died over a week ago, in Calgary, in a bike accident. He was twenty-seven. Monotosh let me know from Toronto in a text message. I didn’t know what to say to Pushpol. I sent him a text saying I couldn’t imagine why such a thing would happen to him. Then, two days back, his father died. Monotosh said that Pushpol would be coming to Calcutta. He should be reaching Sunday evening. He suggested I go to see him. I haven’t called Pushpol so far.

And just now Proshanto Chatterjee, called. Proshanto is a mutual acquaintance. He hardly ever calls. I told him that I had heard. I told him I would call Pushpol in the morning. Was Proshanto telling me to call Pushpol? Had Pushpol asked him to inform me?

2

Pushpol was a year senior to me in in college in Benares. Unlike those in third year, Pushpol’s class had never ragged us. We did not hold them in terror. They were easy friends. I recalled the time I met Pushpol the first time. This was a few days after I had joined the university. We were constantly being picked up by seniors and were wary of any and all of them. It was around six thirty in the morning and I had gone out to get cigarettes from Moosa’s pan shop at Rajputana hostel crossing. There was no one around. Suddenly, someone in a white kurta-pajama streaked past in a small red bicycle. And braked. And turned around. One foot on the ground, he asked me my name.

“Where are you from?”

I was looking at a white drawstring on his neck. He saw me.

“Oh, the underwear hasn’t dried yet. I washed it last night before going to bed. It will dry out in the wind. And keep my back cool too, as I ride in the sun.” He smiled. It was an open, friendly smile. I noted his long canine teeth.

“I’m going to Chunar. Want to come?” he said.

“How far is it?”

“About forty-five kilometres? We can reach before lunch-time. There’s a wonderful stream flowing through the rocks and next to it a unique, ancient temple of Durga that you have to enter crawling,” he searched my eyes. “Want to come?”

I couldn’t imagine doing anything like that.

Then, that time in Raman hostel in fourth year during the final exams in the unbearable heat in the second half of April, on the night before an exam, somewhere close to midnight, I was trying to figure out a strategy to pass the paper the next day with my very limited knowledge of the subject. Suddenly the song by Tagore ‘Je raate mor duar guli bhanglo jhore …’ (the night when my doors were blown away by the storm) rang out from the somewhere. I went downstairs. Pushpol was singing, sitting on the floor of the dry fountain at the centre of the quadrangular space enclosed by the hostel. I sat down next to him. Then one by one some others joined us. We sat and sang for some time, till the guys studying shut us up.

When I was in second year, Pushpol dropped in one day and asked me to act in a play he was directing for the Saraswati Puja function. That function was a big thing for the Bengali community in the university and went on for four days of cultural programs. I had never acted in a play before. ‘There’s always a first time’, he said. The play started with me sitting with the audience in the darkened auditorium. The curtains are yet to be drawn, I get up and light a candle, and walk up to the stage and say my lines. Then the curtains part. I could do that only because of Pushpol, his ability to convince people without appearing to try.

The year before last, in the fag end of my career in a government owned company, when work-life was an endless jumping from one crisis to another, he called me one evening. I was very busy but not in a meeting or catching a flight and could take his call.

He asked me whether I was getting all my spiritual knowledge from social media platforms. I had shared something from Tibetan Buddhism that morning. My views are quite eclectic and though born an upper caste Hindu, I find Buddhism to be very logical. And we chatted for half an hour, myself mostly listening to him, explaining, Advaita, Upanishads, quoting from the Geeta, from Ramakrishna Paramhansa or this or that monk from Ramakrishna Mission. He had no quarrel with Buddhism, either. Inside, the very core was the same.

3

I went to bed. I would have to call Pushpol the next day. What would I say? How does one console someone like that. I drifted off. Malobika came to mind, I have no clue why. Now I know that it would never have worked out between us. I wondered why I still thought of her. I had messed it up. One can never win in love, if one can’t hide it. If I had another chance how would I do it? Then my mind drifted to Pushpol. I understood that he would be buried in an avalanche of pain. But I don’t feel his pain. It is a social duty that I have to perform. Yet, I am so sorry that that happened to him. How would I tell him? ‘Friend, you didn’t deserve this. And I cannot make your pain go away’

4

We were in second year. Varuna was a good friend from the beginning of college. One day in the Cafeteria, as Malobika passed us, Varuna told me that Malo was interested in me. We began to hang out together, Malobika, Varuna and I. There was something wild about her. She’d trekked to unheard of places in the Himalayas and stayed in villages in the remote regions of Himachal Pradesh, Sikkim, Dooars, Uttaranchal. Though always dressed conservatively in a sari, she wasn’t averse to smoking pot on occasion. She loved avant garde literature, cinema, theatre. She said she valued experiences above all. When I was with her I felt a strange kind of peace.

But it hadn’t worked out with her. After sometime, we started going out on our own, without Varuna. We explored the bylanes of Benares, walking past shops of brassware. We went to a shop selling Banarsi silk saris to understand the fine points of what made them world famous. The shop had a loom in the backyard and a weaver was working on it. He said he lived there. From him we learnt that it took about a month to finish one Banarsi silk sari. Once, we went to a neighbouring village to see how actually the weavers lived. We were shocked to learn that those who made these prized saris were dirt poor. Sometimes we would go to the ghats and sit and watch the sunset. She wanted to go out on a boat. I wasn’t going to risk her getting raped. But when she insisted I found an honest-looking, aged boatman and we went out into the river. She wanted to go to the other side. The boatman wouldn’t allow that. It was too risky for a young woman.

Soon, we were spending almost all our time together. Varuna started sulking. She would snap at me if I spoke to her. One day Malo told me about a major quarrel that they had had. Varuna wouldn’t speak to Malo at all. That upset Malo. After that she started avoiding me.

Then she started hanging out with senior, Sumanda, who though brilliant in maths and physics, was heavily into marijuana and theatre. They went to Khajuraho together on an extended weekend. She was always with him. But he couldn’t pass a couple of papers in the final year. He stayed behind at the University to do his Masters after clearing the pending papers.

They did get married but found jobs in different cities. They separated after some three years. Many years later, I heard that Malo had married a theatre person in Delhi where she taught in a college. But after that, I had no news of her.

5

Fifteen years ago, in one of the get-togethers with friends from Benaras in Calcutta, Pushpol announced that they were moving to Canada. I was surprised. “Who will look after your eighty-five-year-old father?” His mother had passed away long back.

He said, if I assumed he was taking care of his father I would be wrong. “We can’t do anything. It is He who does everything.” He pointed heavenwards. “Besides, my uncle, lives next door.”

Sometime after they had reached Canada, I got a mail asking me to guess how he was earning his living. He was teaching Rabindrasangeet to children of Bengali families living in Toronto. I asked was that enough to get by on? He said it was a temporary measure till he found a regular job. He had a degree in Electrical Engineering. Later he found a job as the overall in-charge of all electrical installations in a factory. His wife found work as a store-manager. Later I heard that she had started a business importing fabric and handicraft to Canada.

Last year, when Pushpol came to India for his father’s hundredth birthday, he invited us to his upscale two thousand square foot flat at a gated community for the rich. Migration brought benefits - though he did not seek it, it moved him from a lower middle class suburbs to a gated community for the rich.

He said, “Do you want to see the man? Even now he meditates for one-and-a-half-hours, morning and evening.”

I said I did. However, we were already committed to a lunch with my wife’s friend who lived in the same building. I said we would definitely come to see the old man but wouldn’t stay for lunch. His father was delayed for some reason and we left the group around one singing Tagore songs and devotional songs dedicated to the Mother Goddess. I promised to join him in the party in the evening with common friends.

When I joined them in the evening Pushpol was sitting with a glass of rum and coke. I couldn’t believe my eyes. I had never seen him smoke, drink or even have tea.

“Did you start on that in Canada?”

“No,” he protested. “I don’t drink. But it is not as if I’ve never had alcohol. Once, at the university, I asked Sanat, ‘what is that you get in alcohol?’ Sanat told me I wouldn’t understand – he’s smiling. I finished one full bottle.”

“He just had a nib (180 ml),” said Sanat.

“But nothing happened.” continued Pushpol.

“This bastard thinks he is an enlightened one,” said Sanat. “You should smoke marijuana, instead, arse-hole, like a sadhu.” Sanat pulled his leg.

“Today, I wanted to be with you guys. On the same frame of reference.” Pushpal raised his glass.

I met his daughter. She is a divine singer, entirely self-taught. She sang an outstanding Rabindrasangeet and some Hindi songs. I met his son, Angshul. He seemed to have turned out into a quiet, sober young man. He was sipping single malt on the rocks. He had done his Business Management and was now working with a major consultant in Canada. I asked him about his work. He told me that he was currently working with a guild of restaurant owners. He told me how he helped them improve their business, retain customers and attract more with small inexpensive changes.

“Do you meditate, like your father?” I asked him.

“Of course.” The young man seemed surprised.

“But alcohol comes in the way of meditation,” I enquired. “The day after, the brain is firing in all directions.”

“This is a special occasion. I haven’t gotten to the place where I won’t drink on New Year.”

“And do you have a girlfriend?”

“I am not gay, if that’s what you are asking.”

Pushpol laughed. I don’t think Pushpol had a girlfriend in college.

6

I kept tossing and turning in bed. Could I have gotten Malo back? Would she ever have seen that Sumanda was a loser? Would I be able to get into her head that romance was all right but one has to keep an eye on other things too, like the future, like a secure life. Would I have been able to convince her that? Or, afterwards, was there any possibility of keeping in touch with her to get her back? I had difficulty falling asleep.

It is past midnight and we are sitting on one of the pillars of Dashashwamedh Ghat[1], Malobika and I and looking across the river into the darkness. The entire place is bathed in the yellow light of halogen lights. Beyond the bank it is all dark. I realise I must be dreaming because it would have been very risky to have taken Malobika to the ghat at midnight. A stray dog limps away. The loudspeakers blaring devotional songs have fallen silent. A dog barks somewhere. Smoke rises from a funeral pyre on Manikarnika Ghat to the left. A sadhu sleeping beneath a canopy looks up and goes back to sleep. We sit silently. I want to ask her to return to me. I want to tell her that Sumanda is too unstable. He wouldn’t be able to give her financial security. And that would make experiencing all that she wanted to difficult because she would have to work most of the time. On the other hand, I had already got a placement with India Tobacco at Hyderabad in the campus interview.

My heart is aching and my throat is choked. She turns to me. “What do you think of Sumanda, Ronjon? You know he failed, don’t you?”

My heart leaps. I am speaking rapidly. I am telling her that we share the same wavelength, the same goals in life, the same interests. I don’t know what I am saying but I speak for a long time. The things we would do together. The holidays we would go to. Paris. Scotland, Prague, Vienna. That we should tell our parents. That we should marry as soon as we graduated.

She is listening to me wide eyed. Then she starts crying. She is sobbing uncontrollably. I pull her head on to my shoulders. I wrap my arms around her. I pat her head and comfort her. Then she pulls away.

“But I love him, Ronjon? What am I to do?” she wails.

7

I kept tossing and turning in my bed. Around morning, I dreamt of Pushpol.

It is a hot summer night, past midnight, and we are sitting on the circular roundabout at the crossing between Botany Department and the engineering college. Pushpol is wearing his characteristic kurta and loose white pajamas. His son is sitting next to him. I look at Pushpol, perplexed. He smiles. He says Angshul had never left him. He asks me how I was. I tell him that Malo had left me.

He sits quietly with his head hanging, almost touching his chest, arms crossed over his knees. Then he starts singing. Softly at first. Then his voice begins to rise, and the sky rings out with his song

…’Je rate mor duar guli bhanglo jhore…’

“The night my doors were blown away by the storm

I did not know that You had come.

The night my doors were blown away by the storm.

Everything became dark.

The lamp died.

Who was I reaching out to

As I raised my hands to the sky?

How was I to know that You had come.

I lay in the darkness as if dreaming

How was I to know

that the storm was your flag of victory?

Come morning, I open my eyes to see

You standing in the midst of the emptiness of the ruins of my home.

How was I to know that You had come.

The night my doors were blown away in the storm

I did not know that You had come.

[1] Stone or concrete steps leading to the river. Dashashwamedh Ghat is a famous and prominent ghat on the Ganges in Benares.

#LONG-FORM PROSE