Kolkata – Buku Sarkar

Chasing Dreams

Yet, two decades had dissolved away like ice in lukewarm drinks. They hadn’t gone anywhere.

His debts had piled so high, he could no longer think of leaving. And now, with his heart condition, who knew what sort of treatment was available in Calcutta, where there were no health plans.

Once in a while, when he would look around his decrepit store—at the cracked linoleum floor, the creaking door that didn’t close unless properly, the dirty curtains whose colour had faded to an indistinguishable cream––the possibility of going back home flickered in his mind like a wavering flame. But he’d look up and down Lexington and realize that once he left, Gopal would die of diabetes, Nafisa, who was still stuck on her citizenship process, may wind up deported and Mohon like a crumbling terracotta statue would turn to dust in his store.

Calcutta

How differently his mornings had begun in Calcutta––a walk around Victoria Memorial after which Bhaskar used to drive him to the club, that wonderful chilli cheese toast he had for breakfast. Invariably he bumped into a golf buddy, or a colleague, who pulled up a chair. And if no one came, he sat underneath the shamianah on his own, feeding the stray dogs, watching a ball that had just teed off; following its course till he couldn’t find it anymore; till the wind carried it away. In twenty years, Calcutta had been reduced to a fond memory. Usha still considered it her other life.

Tangle of Lies

Mr Munshi wanted to grab the phone and say none of it was true. That it was only a store in Chicago that bought in small quantities. It added up to no more than a few hundred dollars. That the High Commission had called to make some inquiries but nothing had come of it yet. And Mimi? It had ultimately taken her six years to finish college and she temped through an agency and shared a one-bedroom in Woodside––a part of Queens Usha refused to visit as it involved switching the train twice. It made Mr Munshi nervous to overhear his wife’s conversations. He could barely keep track of her lies.

No small talk

“I know. Can you believe I’ve managed to make him come this time? Normally things are so hectic, we both can’t take off you know,” Usha said on the phone.

“Yes, of course we have someone working for us, but he has to travel so often. What with the clients on the west coast.” She said this in a hushed tone, with her face turned away from her husband, but he had heard.

“No, Mimi can’t make it. She has her exams and she is so busy applying for jobs. There are three universities that want her, can you imagine? But she is still waiting to see if she can find something closer to us.”

Lexington Avenue

As he walked in, she raised her head but didn’t say anything. He too raised his eyebrows in acknowledgement of her presence. This is how they spoke after forty years of marriage––with signs and gestures. Lexington Avenue divided Mr Munshi’s life into two distinct halves. On one side was Mohon’s endless chatter, on the other, his wife’s infinite silence.

Expenses

But last month Usha had begged her husband to come. “Year after year I go on my own and they’re always asking about you. What do I keep telling them? I’m running out of excuses. Soon I’ll have to say you’re dead.” She had looked at him with a sad face and threatened him with tears and he couldn’t say no. But Mr Munshi knew it wasn’t just a plane fare. These gifts being purchased were for her sister, his brother, nieces, nephews and now the grandchildren that had begun to pop out one by one. There was no stopping these damned babies, he thought, gloomily. And once they went back, every evening their house would be filled with visitors who needed to be fed and entertained. That was another added expense.

Ashes

She liked silence nowadays. It was the music she strained to listen to, in this bustling world, the music most rare.
Here, the bodegas were simple, the sidewalks untouched by organic clothing stores, day care centers, fair-trade coffee and tapas bars. The disrepair was romantic, commensurate with the direction her life was headed. She liked that she could cross a river and start all over.

Sometimes, she feared there were no new beginnings for people like her—people with no real longing and this was just the second part of the same journey. Different mistakes, the same failure. What a shame people would say. She had so much promise.

Over time, her parents grew more poised and reticent. They were worried these days that like many of their friends’ children, she would come back home, demand coffee be brought to her bedside at noon. With all bold ambitions, the greater is the risk of failure. She would tell them this, What did you suppose? It was you who set me on the path of great expectations.

She practically heard the sky exhale. The headiness of victory.
No. The relief.

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Only when you do good things can you look back and say– everything happens for a reason. Else, it’s all a waste.