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FOR JANUARY 2014
THE GRADUATE
FOR JANUARY 2014
THE GRADUATE
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This
was the last time Umesh was going to ask Sriram Kaka for the job he had
promised. It‘s been some time and every time he approached the man, he promised
he was going to do something about introducing him to his boss. That day never
came.
Umesh
was a Graduate and had done some odd jobs as a school peon and an usher at a
movie theatre in a multiplex much to his dislike especially when he had
graduated with good marks in Hindi. But he soon realized that a degree in a
vernacular subject could fetch nothing other than what he had already done. In
his little village there was no one he knew who had finished school and he was
a full fledged Graduate with a certificate stamped from the University of Patna Calcutta India
Sriram
Kaka was a neighbor. He was friendly and seemed to have a lot of clout around.
People came to him with their problems and somehow he managed to show them a
way to get out of it. If they went back home happy, he was a friend for life;
and if they didn’t, he was their worst enemy.
When
Sriram learnt that Umesh had come from his home town in the interiors of Bihar , he took him under his wings and promised to help
him find a job that would make him rich some day. But seven months had gone by
and after innumerable unsuccessful interviews and forty-seven reject-letters, Umesh could only find a position in a small Girls’
school as a ‘temporary worker’ and later, his current job as an usher-boy which
was also going to release him soon. He was filling in for someone who was
recovering from an accident.
Even
though he knew that he was clever enough to do other jobs of a clerical nature,
Umesh realized early in his career that his greatest problem was his inability
to speak English the way other city boys did with élan and confidence. He could
make perfect sentences in English in his mind, or so he thought, but when it
came to really speaking the language, it came out garbled and it all appeared
incoherent even to him. But he knew that very few people could speak and write
‘shudh’ or pure Hindi like he did.
However, with great effort and practice, he had mastered the few
sentences he was required to say as an usher boy. Every night, before Jatin,
his roommate, returned from his Club duty by the Lakes, Umesh stood in front of
the small mirror and practised those lines to perfection.
Jatin
and Umesh were sharing the cost of their room at the outhouse of a big dilapidated
mansion that still held a decadent, warring Bengali family together. It was
just a room but they liked to call it their ‘home’. There were some others like
them sharing space in the outhouse too but no one had the inclination to spend
any time with anybody, let alone outsiders. Umesh was happy he got to share the
room with Jatin, an import from Orissa to the big city, to upgrade his own lot
like he did.
Their
‘home’ was not a palace. It was just a room with shabby, unpainted walls and
two ‘charpais’ thrown in with a table and two stools as bonus. The light in the
room was not adequate enough to even see your own face in the mirror. The
single window had shutters that could easily get unhinged by the first lashing from
a ferocious Nor’wester. They chose to keep it open at all times as it would let
the hot air in for them to breathe. Jatin had a small table fan that they used
to cool the temperature down in the room at night.
Sriram
Kaka who lived nearby in the tiled yellow house with green painted doors and
windows, was affable enough to care for his country cousin. But he had too many
things on his plate. He had a sick mother, a nagging wife, a teenage son and a
ten-year old handicapped daughter to care for. Nobody knew what he did for a
living but some days he came home flushed with money and felt generous enough
to buy some sweets for the kids and a garland and bangles for his wife. And if
his mother croaked from her bed, he also gave her a bottle of the chutney she
craved.
***************
“Kaka,”
Umesh stood outside the green painted door and called out. He waited for a
while and knocked again.
Rukmini
Chachi answered the call. She came out with a frown creasing her brow.
“Sorry,
Auntie, is Kaka home?” Umesh asked sheepishly.
“If
he were, he would have answered you, wouldn’t he?” Rukmini said in an angry
tone. “What is it that you want? I haven’t
got all day to stand here talking to you.”
Umesh
thought for a while and then stammered nervously, “I think I’ll check back
later tonight. Just be kind enough to tell him that I came by.” The door went
shut before he could even finish the sentence.
Nobody
was available in the ‘chai’ shop for a chat. It was early for tea time after
sundown. But Umesh decided to wait because that gave him the chance to keep an
eye on Sriram’s house. He asked for a small glass of tea and sat there sipping
it.
“You’re
home early today!” The chai man gave a toothy smile. He was rubbing the saucers
dry with the end of his shirt. Then he neatly stacked them up on the counter
next to the small tea glasses, and the glass jars in a row, all filled with
crackers and cookies.
Umesh
gave him a fatigued look. “Yeah. This week I’ve got a different schedule.” He
didn’t’ tell the man that this was also his last week at the movie theatre.
“Good,
good.” The chai man grinned. “I also worked for a storehouse once and kept
different timings on rotation work.” He was pumping the kerosene burner to
regulate the flame, boiling some water in a pan. “But it didn’t suit me. You
know, irregular hours and not enough money in hand.” He put a handful of tea in
a strainer and dipped it in the boiling water.” Umesh looked at him through the
corner of his eyes and took a sip of his tea that was getting cold for being
held for so long.
“And
then?” He asked the man not showing too much interest in the matter.
“Then?
Ah, well, one day I just decided that I was not going to be slaving at a place
that didn’t value my efforts being a good worker. I was just a face in the
crowd for them. A number. I took a loan and bought this mobile cart and everything
that I needed to set up this ‘fancy’ stall,” he laughed out loud. “I started my
own business.” He sounded proud and jubilant at his achievements. “In three
months I paid off my loans and I also have a house of my own today.” He
grinned. Indeed he was an achiever. His was the most popular joint in the
neighborhood where local men gathered for a sip of tea and gossip. Once in a
while you found the area cops too -- spending their tea breaks at the stall. This
added some extra glamour to his humble joint.
Umesh
gave a second look to the man. He was obviously from a poorer section of the
social strata. His shirt was stained and had a button missing. His hair was unkempt
and totally out of place. He wasn’t particular about his speech. It was a
mixture of twisted Bangladeshi Bengali with some words of Urdu thrown in and
the ‘Bangla’ that is spoken in West Bengal . He
was quite used to it by now.
The
‘chai’ man’s tone was chirpy and Umesh realized, that was the reason why his
customers liked talking to him. He had noticed earlier that men talked of their
woes and other people’s fancies, the change in the air and even politics with
ease with this man while they sipped their tea sitting on the bench outside.
And yet the man had perhaps not even been to school. What good had his own
education done, he wondered! He was still struggling and had not a single
achievement to his credit.
******
The
evening air was hot and oppressive. There was a spooky resonance of some
hellish melody playing in one of the FM channels on the radio at the ‘Paan’
shop close by. Umesh felt uneasy. He missed the evening breeze in his little
village, the sight of women returning home with water and the men with their
cattle. He missed being with his family in the enclosure of their small but
peaceful village home. He felt a pang of guilt for opting to choose the city
over the serenity of his humble abode under the canopy of the endless blue sky.
When
the street lights had been on for some time and Umesh had filled his stomach
with several glasses of raw tea, he saw Sriram Kaka shuffling through the lane
going past the Chai Shop. His corpulent belly jiggled as he took jerky steps
towards his house. His hands were laden with boxes of ‘mithai’ or sweets and perhaps
fabric too. He had a nauseating fixed smile on his fleshy face and his beady eyes
moved as if he was on a furtive errand. By that time there were several men
around the tea stall. Sriram went past Umesh and seemed to miss him. He strutted
like a winner and he looked fearless.
When
Sriram had almost reached his home, the yellow building with the green painted
doors and windows, there was a sound that was deafening and a cry that was
heart wrenching! In a moment, a motor bike sped out of the lane and before
anybody could figure out what had happened, Sriram fell to the ground crushing
the boxes he carried under his weight.
Umesh
suddenly felt he couldn’t move. But he saw that after the initial shock people were
running to the man who had collapsed in front of his own house. He thought of
the job Sriram had promised him evaporate in front of his eyes. He thought of the
promises he had made to his father -- recoil in shame. And he also saw his
mother’s saddened eyes showering him with fathomless affection.
He
turned to the ‘chai’ man who stood their looking stunned. But he shook his head
and soon got back to routine. The man gave a look of concern to Umesh and said
in a whisper,”This was bound to happen some day.”
“What
do you mean?” Umesh was dumbfounded. His Adam’s apple was bobbing in his throat
as he tried to make some sense out of what the man was saying.
“The
company he was keeping, it had to happen.” The man was being honest.
“I
don’t understand,” Umesh felt his shirt stick to him in the heat and sweat.
Perhaps it was something more than that. He was getting an anxiety attack.
“You
see, Sriram was mingling with doubtful company.” Umesh stared at him in
disbelief. ”Nobody knew where he went, who he worked for. But he would talk big
some times, and the path that he chose was obviously very slippery, you know.” The
man nodded in an all knowing fashion.
********
Umesh
sat motionless in his dark room. The body of Sriram was taken for autopsy.
There was wailing still coming from the yellow house with the green doors and
windows. Jatin walked in with an aura of disbelief still plastered all over his
being.
“You
got the news?” He asked impatiently and turned the light on.
Umesh
just inclined his head. Jatin was rattling off some truths that had been
unearthed about the dead man. But Umesh had switched off. After some time,
Jatin realized that Umesh was unusually quiet. He came close to him.
”Are
you alright?” He bent low to take a look at his face. Umesh looked frightened
and thinner than he actually was.He nodded absently. Then he suddenly looked up
and said quite firmly,”I’m moving out tomorrow?”
“Meaning?”
Jatin was shocked.
“I’m
going back home. This is no place for me. I cannot belong here.”
Jatin
stared at him in silence for some time and then moved away. He went and sat on his own bed and said very
slowly and grimly, “Yes, you‘re right, we don’t belong here.”
Much
later, when Jatin had gone to sleep and Umesh had finished packing, he wondered
if his parents would be happy to see him at all. He was returning home like a
wounded soldier accepting defeat where there was no pride or honour. But that’s
where he belonged. He had no other place to go.
*******
There
was a rap on the aged, fragile door. It was repeated several times and by the
time Jatin woke up, Umesh had opened the door.
A
police officer stepped in and glowered at the two young men fiercely. “Which
one of you is Umesh Sharma?”
Umesh
felt his knees giving way. He moved back and fell on his bed. Jatin raised a
finger to point him out. It was an unconscious move.
“You
went to see Sriram Choubey today?” The officer barked.
Umesh
had lost his tongue. He just nodded.
“He
comes from your hometown?”
Umesh
found his mouth go dry. He just tried to wet his dry lips.
“How
well did you know him?”
Umesh
tried to say that he was too young to know him when Sriram had left the village
many years ago but words wouldn’t come out of his mouth. He just shook his head
vehemently.
“So
you’re denying any knowledge of the man now.” The officer’s eyes narrowed.
“You’re
under arrest. Come with me.” The officer let two policemen come in to escort Umesh
to the Police Van outside.
The
whole neighborhood watched in silence a pathetic looking, dark, thin village
boy being dragged from his den to the Police Van.
Umesh
was certain that later the news channels on TV would also flash his face as the
young man who knew the deceased well and so taken for interrogation by the
police. Deep in the village community centre, his neighbors and family would
recognize him on the screen as the proud young fellow who left with big dreams
but ended up being questioned in the murder of some Sriram Choubey, the man who
had once promised him dreams he dared to dream because he was a Graduate, an educated
young man. Different from many he worked with.
And he just happened to believe the man.
And he just happened to believe the man.
Dola DuttaRoy
Sept
24,2013