Of James Bond, Gandhigiri and an anniversary…

To a committed, working relation with my love (Read wife) of 10 years, I raise a toast to two incidents that happened this past weekend, both telling examples of how consummation of a relationship into “I Do” is a challenge for many men till date.

The first was James giving up everything to Bond with a girl. Hadn’t guessed Daniel Craig’s retirement would come at the expense of staying committed to one. But it was his horribly insipid chemistry with the stone-dead Léa Seydoux that actually undermined the whole shedding of his commitment-phobic-self climax. I seriously wished Eva Green could have swapped places with Léa and the dead Vesper Lynd could have been raised to run away with Craig. Remember that sparkling conversation between the two on the train in Craig’s first – Casino Royale – where Green as Vesper tells Bond: I’m the money. And he responds: Every penny of it. Alas!

Why bring in Bond? For those who didn’t get the drift, check out the price a man who has the license to kill pays in the climax of Spectre

.

The other was a casual stepping in of a former colleague in my office, all by chance, to hand over an invitation to a wedding. Her brother’s.

Here’s how the conversation went:

‘He is getting married after all,’ she blurted it out. Just like that.

‘After all?’ I asked. Just like that.

‘Oh yes! It’s a love marriage. He has been into Gandhigiri and stuff to pull it off,’ she settled my curiosity.

For those alien to Gandhigiri, it’s a verb that lobs Gandhi’s non-violent means of protest into the most mundane of chores to help register the pain with a self-consuming environment (Read: Family/colleagues/Nation/Hell/Whatever). Put in context, it could be receding into a shell (Like slamming the door loud for everyone to hear and engaging oneself in a good game of Lost Planet on the XBox); expressing oneself through extreme acts of self-abnegation (Like renouncing the dinner so that the poor dog with its salivating tongue can satiate its uncontrollable greed). In most cases, it could be the distancing of self from the family while staying with them (Which is actually a much better way of meditating than looking for healing with tantric massage or ritualistic fasting on select weekdays).

I suspected my colleague’s brother must have mind-twisted his family into admitting a girl who’s not of the same caste into their family.

So, what’s the deal? I ask.

“Hope he helps me out as well”, she said. Just like that.

After the 20-somethig lady left me in my uneasy company, I pondered long and hard over love marriage – an inconvenient truth in India where in most families it tends to trespass on the conventional, almost ritualistic, unwritten code of family getting to choose the companion of its own. I was drawn into my own world of un-sureties that haggled me almost 15 years back when we first started dating – My wife and I. We were in the University, final year. She was preparing to be a management graduate working up the corporate ladder. I was trying to come to terms that I, unlike most my friends, didn’t have a business to take over and kept convincing myself that I wouldn’t need to enroll into a 9-5 job.

She had stopped me, in a fit of rare temper, from joining a call centre as an executive, which was the first job that landed with me. I returned the favour by brainwashing her into entering the teaching profession (She was a gold medalist in economics) instead of a job that glosses over her exceptional credits. Over a decade into our career, she has ended up on the better side of the bargain, heading one of the best colleges as principal, while I find myself nitpicking over other people’s errors with the designation of an editor thrust on me.

So, how does it feel to disclose to your parents at this end of the world, that you have made THE choice!

My wife, who is the younger of two sisters, is the more gregarious of the two of us. She is the spunk and I am the sulk, as one of my closest pals likes to pinch it in every time I junk a get-together invite. Even for her, a darling of her parents, it wasn’t to be until her elder sister – married some ten years before her – broke the news to them when she was visiting Jaipur.

Now, what do you want me to do? I remember asking her. “Tell them,” she spoke of my parents. It was one of those times that I wished there was Maya (Not Magic as the word connotes), but the meteorite from Author C Clarke’s Hammer of God that would end the world without remorse!   

Now, dating is one thing and telling parents that she is the One and shall be moving in with you is just another. 

On my end, three of my school friends, came to my rescue. They turned the three musketeers’ fable on its head and officially stepped in as family proposing to my father-in-law, a retired government servant, that I wish to seek his daughter’s hand for marriage. I never accompanied them, wholly unsure which was worse – not telling my parents about it or facing my in-laws with the mocking proposition that I had stolen their daughter five years back and have only come to seek a formal handover now. 

The fortunate part for both me and Mahua was that while her 75-yr-old dad accepted the proposition from three lads 50 years his junior, my mother, who I later broke the news in confidence, casually said “I knew it all the while”.  

I don’t consider dates and days milestones for celebration, particularly when they are condescending on your graying hair, an afflicted spine and a beer belly. But this 10^th year of living together was just made sweeter by a carefree Bond infected by the commitment bug and also perhaps in the knowledge there are more like me committed to keep their promises made in infancy to their love even if it requires a prolonged emotional blackmailing of the family into deciding for self.  

I envy a suited-up Bond’s cockiness and sympathise with those indulging in mind-twisting their dear ones into allowing their free-will, but in the context of my matrimonial milestone, I find the Bond in my sister-in-law who for the sheer incredulity of it or plain excitement brought her parents to the table to break the news. Just like that.     

The Signpost (Concluding part)

Moonlight skimmed the room, the wind was strumming on the twigs of the Neem tree outside. Now, the silver was gone and replaced by a dim yellow hue. The bulb shone above Naam’s forehead who was now cringing in pain.
“No, he won’t be going school today. He is unwell,” Jasveer was telling the autorickshaw driver. Naam was in pain throughout night. Towards morning he had started sneezing, badly. He was to go to the doctor today.
Preet was dressed up in a pair of blue trousers and a white shirt. Slowly he took Naam in his arms and helped his brother on to the front seat of his bicycle. They exchanged glances, Naam holding a kerchief to his left nostril that was flowing. The right was indifferent, and numb.
A black limousine was parked on the bade pitch. A man in his forties with a receding hairline, dressed in ash coloured suit was standing near the signboard talking to a moustached fellow in a crisp white shirt with a golden tie. Another man, aged and balancing himself on the open rear door of the big beast was telling something which had little or no effect on the two men as they continued their conversation without bothering to look at him.
The doctor’s task had turned out to be easier. He dismissed Naam after a quick look at his tongue and an uninterested check up of his eyes. “One tablet with meal three times a day, half a tablet in noon and night and two spoons of the tonic after every meal,” the white coated, white bearded man told Naam in a dismissive baritone. Preet wanted it to be over. A momentary feeling of nausea had gripped him at the thought of giving so many medicines to his little brother.
The doctor went on. “I have prescribed a few tests. Get me the test reports; no need to bring him again.”
“Is it severe doctor saaheb?” Preet’s eyebrows arched deeper into his nose.
“The tests would tell,” the doctor reassured smilingly, the medicines would comfort him.”
Preet awed the doctor. He had seen the guy repeat the same smile to every one of his patients who went before him. Why couldn’t he do that, he wondered. On his way back home he did try once to smile, but the next moment his mother with all her concerns written on her face was looking at him. The smile deserted him.

*****

Naam’s condition had deteriorated over the last week. When the government doctor told “pneumonia”, they had not understood its implications. Jasveer had not slept the previous night. Naam’s coughing wouldn’t stop. Together they would cry and let dissolve their individual pain. Preet lay in his mother’s room. He could not sleep either. His mother’s words, “we have just enough to last another week” scathed him. He was feeling hot in the December chill. Preet removed the blanket and lay on his side.

*****

He did not know when he had fallen asleep but his mother was crying, when he was woken up. “Naam is not able to breathe. We have to rush him to the hospital.”
He was already downstairs unlocking his cycle. It was 2 am.
The Sawai Man Singh hospital was eleven kilometres. Preet was furiously pedalling away to Himmat uncle’s house.
Naam was put under observation, in the ICU. Himmat uncle was holding Jasveer consoling her. Preet returned to the ward after completing the formalities at the counter.
“You come with us Preet, Jasveer would stay back,” the burly Sardar spoke with conviction. He turned towards his mother who was now sitting outside the ICU. “You will be alright wouldn’t you,” Preet tried to affirm. Jasveer nodded and gave a feeble smile.
It was 4 when Preet reached home. Preet did not go to the school. He calculated the days of leave, wrote a letter and handed it over to Maan to be delivered at his school. The winter vacations were to start the next week.
For three days, Naam was kept in the ICU. On the fourth, he was shifted to the general ward. Both Naam and his mother were present at his side. He was still coughing, the intervals had stretched, his left nose was flowing, though much of his fluid had dried up owing to antibiotics but he could breathe.
“Another week,” the young doctor Bansal told the family. Preet and his mother would change shifts and stay with Naam, Preet taking his seat by the bedside every evening, diligently. Naam had returned to his usual self, talking to his brother and friends who would come to see him surprising the doctors with his swift recuperation.
It was his last day at the hospital. Preet was beside him. “Did we defeat the sector 3 team Preet pra,” a visibly jubilant Naam asked him.
“Yes, Maan hit a half century and we won on the second last ball.”
“Who hit the winning run?” Naam quipped with excitement.
“I finished it…”
“With a four.” Naam concluded the commentary.
They reached home in Himmat uncle’s car.
The two dispensing pumps installed on the ground went unnoticed. Naam was too busy humming the victory song…hum honge kamyab

*****

The winter vacations were on. Naam was keeping well. With his mother drooling over him and his brother’s attention only for him he had started to enjoy every moment of their affection. A nagging thought of not getting fully well tugged at his heart against the scheme of the daily discourse, which would also include spankings from mother and going school. The only “discomforting thing” to this otherwise far-fetched merry thought was the heavy woollens that he was forced to wear. They itched more than they kept one warm.
Preet was not at home. He knew, bhaiyya was playing cricket! Mother had told him. Naam thought of getting out of bed but dismissed the idea when heaviness in his head drowned his will. Doesn’t matter, Naam thought to himself, bhai would tell him in the evening.
Evening came. Preet was late today.
“Bhai…, we won?” The awaited moment had come.
Preet entered his room. So, Naam had heard his footsteps. He went to Naam who was now seated upright on his bed, covered with a blanket till the neck.
“How did you know?”
“I know. No one can defeat you.”
“Really, and what makes you think so?”
“I pray to God in the morning when you are on the ground, playing cricket.”
“That’s good. Now, did you have your dinner?” Preet tried to change subject.
“No,” his mother answered for Naam, “here, get the mattress out from under the bed so that you both can have food.”
It was a good meal for Naam who had not been able to eat well since the last two weeks. The match with Jagatpura team was fixed for Sunday next. “Two more weeks to go,” Naam thought within himself. It didn’t take him long to swim the dreams to the abode of angels where he was realising his wishes locked in his heart.
“Naam has improved,” his mother relaxed herself besides Preet who was watching the television.
He went near the Crown product and plugged the voice.
“Yeh, he told me he had walked to the balcony,” Preet said. 
“I did not know that.”
Jasveer became silent. Then they came, slowly, stealthily, their momentum increasing in intensity with passing moments.
“I am sorry Preet beta (son). I am really sorry,” Jasveer spoke with her head down cursing herself, not bothering to wipe away her tears.
The television started speaking again as Preet returned and held his mother in his arms. “You needn’t be sorry,” Preet was sobbing too.
“Your father did not have much after his visit to India, otherwise he would have sent. He has written to tell you that he would get you a new cycle and...”
Jasveer went to her room. Preet stared into the television for some time. He turned it off trying to regain his consciousness. He switched off the light. Inside, Naam was fast asleep. He slipped beside him under the blanket.

*****

Preet was not at home as usual. Naam walked over to the next room. The dizziness that throbbed in his head when he exerted himself was gone. He stopped at the door of the living room where he thought he had seen his brother’s bat. Immediately he flung the door ajar. The bat was not there. Preet pra must have taken it to the ground. “What joy?” he squealed.
He would be talking to ma, to let him accompany Preet pra to the ground. Only three more days left of the vacations. Naam looked at the calendar. The year coming to an end, the school reopens.
At the dinner table he spoke.
“I will go with Preet pra to the ground.”
“No, you will not,” a stern Jasveer said.
“I am alright now. And, I get bored sitting at home ma.”
“Naam you are not going out anywhere,” Jasveer would not relent.
“Alright then, can I go to the school when it reopens?”
“Would you be,” Preet said tearing a morsel of chapati in his plate.
“Yes, bhai, I can. And, my coughing has gone too,” Naam said his hand on his mother’s, pleading.
“We shall see,” she said.
Naam was fit to go to school, the doctor had said after looking at the latest reports.
January 2 came. The schools had re-opened. Naam was already ready. It was eight. The autorickshaw would be arriving at 8:20.
“Look Naam, here I have packed the khichdi. The achaar is in this small box,” Jasveer said to Naam. He was arranging his bag. Handing the tiffin over to him she said lifting his chin, “do not eat anything outside.” He nodded inattentively.
The auto came, a little late as usual.
He climbed into the auto amidst greetings by his school friends. The autowallah turned the vehicle around and speeded it up. Naam was happy. More than going to school he was glad to be out of the house. The auto drove into the new petrol station. Naam looked for boys playing cricket but there were none. Vehicles had lined up in front of the pumps. They were in a queue.
He looked around anxiously. Then he saw the pitch. Its belly had been ripped apart and the mud taken out right from its centre. “It must have been a lot,” Naam thought for he could not see its bottom.
He pulled himself back. He swam back to Preet and his friends filling up a pit dug up by stray dogs. That was last year. The auto started to move out of the petrol station. Naam hated the huge signpost in front of him. The auto swivelled around to make a sharp turn. He leaned a little forward, then some more. Under the signpost, bending over his knees, Preet was filling in air in the tyres of a car. He did not see Naam. The auto moved ahead. The petrol station was left behind. Naam was still looking back.


*****

The Signpost (Part 1)

Everyone in Sector-V had noticed the phallic signboard penetrating the virgin skyline of their colony. The Indian Oil signboard was not there the previous day, many had agreed. People knew, the signboard telling the arrival of a gas station "over there".
The sector's existence - between the institutional area on one side and the Aravalis (One of the oldest range of hills that skirt Jaipur) on the other - held it in the lowest esteem for the real estate sharks. A commercial undertaking of such a magnitude was therefore conspicuous in this part of the city. The arrival of a petrol pump was the most obtrusive of pointers breaking the prevailing conventions, if nothing else.
The sector was mostly inhabited by displaced Sikh families, the inhabitants not identifying with the bureaucratic classification offered to them for their well being and without consent. Of all these decades of superlative existence foreseen by the welfare state, Sector V with its population of 1,000 had a self-sustaining marketplace to its credit, a people that constituted of timely help for their wel-to-do cousins. Those with automobiles, electronics, imported and white goods came knocking for help. Those with a shaft and an attitude discovered help was rewarding.
Shops dotting the 100-ft main road outside the colony borrowed characteristics of the highway entrepreneurs - the dhabas (Low-maintenance restaurants serving on-the-go Indian cuisines) flaunting brick walls fed on thick coat of soot, service centres spelling out their efficiency in HINGLISH (half Hindi, half English), single-storied resorts awaiting a journeyman to get their existence substantiated, their condition betraying the deal most of the time.
Amidst this small appetite for survival, the coming up of the signboard was of a tall order. Eyes set on the marvel of the day. Where the Oil Company was successful in distracting attention of the adults, children, several of them, were not very happy about the prospects of "a stranger" guarding the land facing their colony. The land that had served till now - and for some generations - a maiden cricketing extravaganza with a real pitch to bat on in a facility-starved colony.
Their only place for recreation had now been usurped!
Like his friends, Naam too did not understand as to what need could a petrol pump serve in a colony where the only car owned by Himmat uncle was an outdated edition of Tata automobile that had changed several hands. What perturbed him even more was not the huge glow signboard sticking out like a lanky milestone, but the loose pile of gravel spread carelessly over the bade (big) batting pitch.

*****
Evening descended upon the colony without much fanfare. Having checked her list twice over the counter and after receiving the change as per the bargained prices, Jasveer stepped outside the grocery shop.
She turned again. "What's the time?"
"6:15", she found the workman at the store answering her and then engaging himself with another customer. "It's so late. How come I didn't realise," Jasveer mumbled as she proceeded towards her house down the alley.
Preet was rushing downstairs when he heard his mother's footsteps. There was no light in the staircase. He could make out his mother's presence from her silhouette against the evening light shuffling through the vehicles passing outside. As he held out his hand to take the basket from hers, she said, "How come you did not go to play today?"
He said nothing. Upstairs, in the small room adjoining the living, he filled a glass with water and offered his mother. He turned around to leave when his mother's voice filled in the room again.
"What happened? I hope you did not pick up a fight with Amit again." 
You know how his mother is. The last time…"
"I did not," Preet joined the dialogue, reluctantly. "No one is playing. There, our pitch has been spoilt. I was going to get Naam back before it gets dark." The
Moments of uncertainty were exchanged in glances between the two when Preet made the move. "I shall return soon."
He did not wait for an answer for the fear the dialogue would resume. He was wrong. His mother had chosen not to.
On his way back home, Naam was a bag full of questions. Will they never play cricket again? What if they told the police uncle and asked him to allow them to play? Where would they play the tournament with the Jagatpura Team? To each of his volleys Preet would with a calm perseverance give an unruffled response that would seem to pacify his younger companion. Between the two of them they had a relationship of blood separated by seven years. When Naam was born, Preet had started his primary. He was himself seventeen and would be passing out of school next year.
For Naam, Preet was more than a brother. Quite early he found a natural confidante in his brother. Preet was his role model. No one stood near when his brother would captain the boys of their colony against other teams. "Preet Pra was the best." There was no argument in that. The two rode on their father's bicycle, Naam on the beam in the front and Preet on the driver's seat.
Naam looked ahead at the asphalt road winding into the kaccha stretch (dirt road) to their colony. They passed the cricket ground. Both lifted their heads in an orchestrated movement to see the huge signboard disappearing into the darkness. He could recognise a few urchins playing cricket near the edge of the road.
So Naam thought.
In his heart he had desired to play alongside Preet pra as a Vice-Captain. He saw it realising in his rendezvous with Preet's bat, which he believed was consistently improving. He told none about his game but gloated on the thought of him vanquishing the "outsiders" in a game of cricket.
That does not seem to be taking off for now. The petrol pump was coming up. He had heard Maan's father telling them of how the petrol pump would increase the prospects of development of their colony.
A petrol pump would mean more truckers halting their way to Agra and New Delhi. Increased business on dhabas, spare-part shops, more engagements for mechanics - better roads, better constructions, better lifestyle, better everything, Maan's father had presumed.
If that was the case and so it seemed, he would never have a chance to play his dream finale. A car's high beam hit in from the opposite direction and forced him to turn his face away from the road. He looked up his brother's face. He was unflinching. "The captain's look," Naam thought to himself and took a deep breath.

******

The next few days were uninteresting.
Preet engaged himself in his preparations for the Boards forced by the announcement of school pre-board schedule and his mind juggling with the impending arrival of the gas station that successfully distracted his attention from cricket.
His pre-occupation with books also divided his attention to Naam that had, till now, been wholesome. Naam on his part had some better chances of romantic interludes with his brother's bat, which lay idle for most time except when bhai (brother) would occasionally attend to it. 
The exact age of the bat was not known but its origin was in Dubai from where their father had brought it on his first return from overseas. That was four years back. But its value as a prized possession had not lost its sheen one bit in all these years. Fish-cover bat was a new name to everyone in the colony when Preet possessed one. Now, there were others who had a bat with similar genes and Amit was one of them but they were "local", not of stuff that a phoren willow is made of.
Their father was in Dubai, running a small cloth-trading firm with revenue fluctuating like the voltage, in sector five. He had a partner to say, but soon realised to his disappointment, that his contribution in the trade looked better on the left half of the ledger records. The partner, a local, their father had often cursed, was "the best friend to have but a bad partner to live with". Together they would trade in shirts and perfumes, his father managing the Dubai end of the deal, while his partner looking after the Indian retail.
Their father was gone within two weeks, then. That was a day after Diwali. He had promised to return the next year. Preet and his mother understood and with a feeble smile kept up his spirits. "Papa, I would accompany you then," Naam couldn't conceal his excitement of going with his father, his eyes gleaming like bright gems pocketed by Ali Baba.
Preet was half asleep when Naam woke him up. "The basti wallahs (the slum dwellers) are playing on our pitch," he was saying and tugging at his brother's pullover. Preet as if waltzing through thin air just gathered his senses. Next, he was tying the pyjama, unsure if Naam had his reservations in place.
The ground realities came out in support of Naam's conviction. It was cold outside, even though sunny. Preet engaged himself in a conversation with boy not very tall, neither short with a freckled face and chapped lips who was the third man for his team. The conversation was not very polite as Naam tried to make out from his brother's stern talk and the irritated somewhat disrespectful disposition of the other fellow.
Whatever exchanges they had during that time was enough for the game to be halted. Seeing their third man engaged without assignment, his fellows were on his back.
Then seeing Preet - he seemed to be a popular man in neighbourhood cricket - one of them taller than the rest and standing in his best competence as high as the shoulder of the intruder, spoke.
"We would leave after this game."  
"You better, and don't spoil the pitch," said Preet trying to control himself.
"We cleared the pitch," the guy who was batting said as a matter of fact.
"So?" Preet demanded.
A brief moment ensued with hushed conversations in the cricketing camp. Then Preet turned to go. "I don't want to see you playing here again," he said, "Play on the other side of the ground where you played earlier and I won't trouble you," he finished and went away with Naam following him out of the field, out of the ground and across the road. 
Naam rushed to the living room. Quickly he opened the door, which complained of the effort. Deftly, he drew out the bat from the corner and placed the door back in its position. There was no one outside. Bhai had not yet come. He went inside his mother's room and in front of the dressing table, in front of its mirror he raised the willow to his chest and admired his pose. "Perfect," he said to himself.
The game resumed on the pitch that evening. The boys of the Vineet Vihar were back on the track. This was the track that had been and traditionally belonged to the Vihar cricketers. There were other tracks on the ground, but none had the strength and the flatness of this pitch. The track also unassumingly reflected the stratification within Sector V. Vineet Vihar was the only regularised colony in the sector and faced the main road. Other colonies were called bastis where the best engagement the residents could get was daily wages as labourers.
Cricket flowed throughout evening, the enthusiasm refusing to go down with the sun. When there was no more light and the last of the feeble rays filtering through the shops in opposite direction died fighting the darkness outside, the boys' realised that their reflexes had started to tell.
For the first time in a week they had played, their ligaments in thighs and shoulder aching from the infinite indulgence.
Preet's team had lost the second match. "We won the first and would have won the second had they not cheated," Naam said narrating the incidents of the day to his mother.
"Isn't it Preet pra?"
"Dosen't matter. We will beat them again," Preet said patting naam's back. Naam was humming hum honge kamayab (We shall overcome...). 
At night Naam complained of pain in his stomach. His mother brought out the Pudinhara phial from the last row on the rack and gave a doze to him, telling him, "It would be over by tomorrow."

*****
The autorickshaw was on time today. The honk was heard twice and Naam was biting into his jam sandwich. The second honk forced him to gulp his slice. He picked up his tiffin that was lying on the table neatly packed and wrapped in a polythene, replaced it in his schoolbag. His mother held the bag in her arms and followed him to the doorstep.
"I told you, you would be late."
"But mumma I was not feeling well," Naam said, not guilty.
"But then, didn't you tell me that your pain was gone?"
"Yes, it's no more paining now," saying he shifted his gaze to the window.
The driver took the bag from his mother and slung it on one side of the autorickshaw.
The engine returned to life and over and above its loud hum, Naam could hear his mother's voice. "Do not eat anything outside. No ice-creams, no churan."
It was noon. The kabadiwallah (rag picker) was wrapping up his deal when Preet returned home. His mother was seated on the staircase ordering the kabadiwalllah to clean up the place.
"Maan had come, was asking for you," she spoke even as she surveyed the kabadiwallah picking up the plastic bottle.
"He met me on the way. Has Naam gone to school?"
"Yes."
"No pains, then."
"No pain. That's what he told me."
With one deft pull, the Kabadiwallah flung the heavy rug on his cart. He called out to the neighbours in his sonorous chants trudging away with his cart. "
Preet followed his mother upstairs.  
"Maan has been eating outside. It's all because of his bad habits," Jasveer complained while walking through the narrow corridor. "The season has changed. You have to tell him," she said.
"Tell him, what?"
"Tell Naam you won't be playing cricket with him anymore if he has anything outside," Jasveer said.

                               *****
(To be continued...)