I got a call a few minutes ago, it is impossible to call it
a call, all it was a monologue of half a sentence long. A string of words from
him and an uneasy silence on my part, that’s what our conversation was. Can I
call it a conversation I am not sure, but one thing I am sure of is that the
feeling were genuine, even though my response was brutal and highly prejudiced.
Before I divulge what he spoke and what its implications
are, I must tell you who he is and what he meant to me in another era. He is my
cousin that much I am sure you would have guessed and here is more about my
cousin that you would need to know to understand our relationship and its
prejudices. I am willing to write about him only because I know he will never
read it and even my stupid family will never stumble upon this, it will be
buried deep in my archives waiting for an occasional visit and will eventually
be forgotten. I guess when it comes to my cousin my ungratefulness extends to
such a level that I could not even remember his name. May be its true that when
relationships are forgotten through time and when they gets buried for so long
in memory even blood shall lose its flavor.
He is cousin or nephew I know not which, I suppose I never
got hold of their distinctions and I sure am not in a mood to look it up now.
The fact it makes no difference what so ever to anything that I have to say or
what I feel. His name is Vaishak and he is the son of fathers only sister. My
father comes from not a wealthy family and he climbed up the social ladder (so
he claims) on his own through much hard work and perseverance, hence his crude
mannerisms. His love for book is perhaps the only personality trait I inherited
from him or all I want to inherit form him. But nevertheless unlike him his
family was not so lucky, I am not pretty sure whether “lucky” is the right word
to use.
His sister’s marriage though happy is not with someone whose
second nature is to have a rainy day account. This nature of his always left
them at a state of perpetual poverty, never too rich never too poor either,
kind of in the in between. This though in contemporary society is regarded as
unfortunate, this has preserved in them a sense of innocence that is seldom
seen among the corporate animals that roam the concrete jungles. They have
simple taste and even simpler lives, something to envy I guess.
My mother has instilled in me prejudices so coarse that it
took me 21 years of my life to clear the soot and look at it with any clarity
of mind. Such has been the extend of the prejudices that I forgot that my
father actually had a family. It was like things in a fairy tales that are too
good to exist. But I must Say my mother is not a bad person but pride and ego
can do terrible things even to the amiable of angels. Don’t hate my mother I
beg you, she doesn’t deserve that, She was only protecting me from what she had
convinced herself was bad. Nonetheless her actions deprived me from
understanding life as it is in its raw form. Alienating me from people who were
earthly and volatile the same. I had to learn the art of being contended at the
smallest of things on my own, to cherish the wet mud that molds my feet and the
sight of the rare blue butterfly or even the smell of the virgin earth being
touched by the mighty rains hands. But I ended up spending one third of my life
learning these things when I could have readily understood it all, It was all
there just outside.
I still remember the time I had spent with my cousin, the
times we bathed together when we were children in the small open bathroom with
mulberry bush hanging from one side, Splashing water from the little tank that
use to store the water from the well. The little garden with all the beautiful
flowers and the tasty mulberry bushes. The many a wonderful evening spend
playing in the faint stream that ran by the green paddy fields. I still
remember the small aquarium he had, a small one, with so many little fishes in
it. Nothing too fancy, no expensive fishes just the ones he had caught form the
nearby stream. He had even taught me how to catch a fish with nothing but a
plain piece of cloth, Alas! I had forgotten it, I had forgotten it long ago I
suppose along with the sweet memories of that era.
It surprises me how much there is to tell, I never knew the
faded photographs in my father’s old photo album had so much history, so many
memories in it. I never knew that the characters in those pictures had a life
and they were more than their innocent smiles and that they were ones very much
alive. Strange what one phone call, a few minutes of someone’s voice can
accomplish. I don’t want to tell anything, may be another time when I feel I am
much more ready to face the truth of life.
He had called me now to tell me that he is going to Qatar,
in search of a job. I am sure he got a job in there where his other uncle
works, I did not so much are bother to ask what he is doing and what job he
got. I did not tell him anything but I did pray for him, pray that all that is
good shall only befall him and I prayed him Bon Voyage.
