If you’re confident, you’re right.
With one painless, succinct, and above all, confident statement, Laurence T. Ackmann proposed to close the chapter on any ethical debate I had ever had with myself. There was no escaping it – this was his first and most important step. The line repeated in my head day and night and afternoon and evening and before and after work and alone and with other people in the strong royal English accent which I had imagined his voice to sound like.
I repeated it to myself in front of the mirror every morning, just like Ackmann suggested.
“I’m Azad Shanker and I’m confident,” I told myself, “If I’m confident about something, then I’m right about it.”
“Did you say something, Azad?” Deepu Chachu asked from downstairs.
“N-No,” I shouted back.
“Are you sure?” Chachu asked again, “I thought I heard you say something.”
“No, Chachu, nothing. See you at the restaurant, Chachu.”
When I heard him go out the main door, I turned to the mirror again. “I’m Azad Shanker and I’m confident,” This time I whispered it, “If I’m confident about something, then I’m right about it.”
If you’re confident, you’re right.
Ackmann was right too; he was a hundred percent accurate. There is no gospel but the one you make for yourself, he had written. I thought long and hard about it and came round and round to the same conclusion that he was absolutely one hundred percent accurate.
I thought of those winter mornings, waiting for any rejuvenating warm rays of sunlight to creep in through the large open-air veranda of our old house. I would sit on the cot bed next to one of the pillars, and every once in a while the sun would shine down mightily in a certain part of the room, making that section temporarily much warmer than the rest of the cold square. And then I would hear the arguments as Mummy and Papa went off at each other.
“You’re no father!” she shouted, “You can barely remember his name!”
“You’re no mother!” Papa shouted back, “You don’t want to remember his name!”
Mummy screamed; and then she turned quiet. Clang! I recognized the sound of the frying pan thrashing against a hard surface. Another thrash followed, and I closed my eyes as the sun light passed over me.
Then they began to argue about Uncle TT again. Mummy started howling and crying and then I got up and changed positions, moving to the other side of the square. I didn’t mind the cold as long as it was quieter on the other side.
And I used to always sit and wonder which one of them was right. Which one should I listen to? My father was angry all the time and my mother wasn’t like the neighbour Shivam’s mother who combed both our hair and cut both our nails and recited stories from the Arabian Nights for the both of us. Mummy was just… not memorable.
But now it didn’t matter. Neither of them needed to be ‘right’. Kalpana didn’t need to be right to leave me and Monty didn’t need to be right whenever he teased me. Because if you’re confident, you’re right.
I quickly got changed and walked out of the house. The sun beamed mightily in the summer morning as I mounted my scooter and drove up to the restaurant. I checked my watch to see that it was only 08:50 in morning – and I was content when I realized that this was the earliest time in which I had ever left home for work in the past six months.
Ackmann had a rare skill in his teaching – he could be babbling about the most fathomless topic in the world, like the struggle of certain breeds of electric eels or the art of tuning a violin to perfection, but still be able to communicate his message and relate it to me.
“Next time you get a chance, pluck the strings of a perfectly tuned violin’, said the first line of the second chapter in the ‘13 Steps to Fortune’, “For they are not only in tune with each other, but also resonate perfectly with the balance of sounds in nature when the instrument is expertly played.”
“This is how we must be – in tune with each other and in resonance with the universe.”
Amazing. I would have thanked Hanisch for leaving this gem of a book behind, but typically, I hadn’t bothered to keep any contact details to follow him up.
I did try to correspond with the book’s author though. When I told Rakesh about it, my idea was met with a scathing laugh.
“You’re going to write a love letter to this English Writer, Azad?” he laughed, “Sure, he will reply with hugs and kisses and self-improvement plans next month!”
“You don’t understand the power of the 13 steps, Rakesh – really, try reading them, they could help you, you know…”
Rakesh scoffed. “Help me? I’m the one who decides what steps are right for me. I don’t need some bullshit faker’s advice to tell me how to live my life.”
Rule number seven: If your friend comes between you and victory, then your friend is the enemy.
So I sat down and began to compose my letter. The book jacket of the ‘13 Steps’ didn’t give Ackmann’s postal address, but it did say that he could be contacted via his British publisher.
‘Dear Mr. Ackmann,’ I started, ‘I’m a huge fan of your book,’ I wrote, but then scratched a line through it to not sound like every single crazed fan of the book, ‘I’m writing to tell you about the impact the 13 steps have had in my life,’ that was a better start, I thought, less adoring, more professional, ‘I used to have confidence problems before in my life,’ I wrote and took a deep breath. Rakesh was busy in his dental books.
‘I still have confidence problems!’ I scratched and wrote, ‘Sometimes I don’t speak out when I should. But now I know that to find myself, to know exactly what I’m doing, to get exactly where I want to go, and to be sure of myself I just need to do a lot of…’
I stopped and read the letter back to myself. Rakesh looked up and waved a stupid smile. This is fucking dumb, I thought. What’s the point of writing to him? It’s not like I have something new to teach him.
So I crumbled the letter up and threw it away. My lunch break had stretched a few minutes long already anyways – it was time to get back to the restaurant.
I’m sure Ackmann would have scoffed at my position in life. I was stuck working the counter at a B-grade restaurant while he speaks about multinational business deals and risky million-dollar investments. But it was all relative, it really was. As long as the philosophy was the same, the 13 steps could change anyone’s life.
For example, I had begun to wake up much earlier now. Ackmann said that any type of head start over the other humans competing with you in life is a good start. No, I wasn’t up with the dawn of the day to greet the morning sun or anything, but it was still better than waking up in the afternoon and drudging my way through work. Take small, manageable steps, he said, but keep the big picture in mind.
Another thing which I had started to do was to improve my low standards for things. It took heavy persuasion worth dozens of pages before Ackmann was able to convince me that I wasn’t being far-sighted and high-hoping enough.
“I can’t be in a restaurant all my life, Chachu,” I told my uncle after work one day.
“Sure, so what else do you want to do with your life?”
I said I didn’t know, but I knew that to be far-sighted, you sometimes have to glaze over what is sitting right in front of you. So I didn’t know what greener pastures lay in front of me ahead of the restaurant, but the only way I was going to find out was if I looked over and beyond it.
So I had been to college and got a degree in something. I was born in a family of supposed intellectuals. So I’m supposed to do more with my life than sit in a restaurant and blah blah whatever. It was time to change.
Deepu Chachu realized it too, so from the following Monday, he named me ‘Assistant Manager’. It didn’t change things much, because I neither got a pay rise nor a more respectable place to sit and display my newfound Assistant Managerness. What I did get was more persuasion to remain in the restaurant for longer now that I was the prime candidate for Managerial duties whenever my uncle did decide to retire.
I finished the 366 page book and then I began to read it once again. The more I read Ackmann, the more I realized my shortcomings, and the more I wanted to improve and keep reading.
For one, he re-confirmed to me that appearance is nearly everything. True, the moustache was long gone, and so was the weight, but I still didn’t feel like it was enough. The lost weight hadn’t left without a permanent parting gift either, and no matter how hard I tried, the tiny bulges on my chest refused to leave me alone. I checked myself in the mirror – the scar below my right eye couldn’t be erased, and I couldn’t do anything about my oversized ears. But I could look sharp – yes it was only a fucking restaurant, but still, I could look sharp.
My new wardrobe now had many more white shirts and I used more shoe-polish in a week than I had used over an entire lifetime. I cleared out my cupboard and found my ‘Why drink and drive…’ T-shirt, which I dumped into my pile of throwaway clothing without a sentimental last look.
Sharp. I began to shave more often and began brushing my teeth before bedtime, too. Rakesh laughed through it all, but I didn’t care. Appearance is nearly everything.
“And make sure that you always appear strong,” Ackmann wrote, “Never show your weakness, because the more weaknesses you show to the world, the more weaknesses you will have. If you don’t show your weakness, then you don’t have a weakness.”
So, from one fine morning onwards, I stopped complaining. I stopped talking to Deepu Chachu about how ambitionless I felt and I stopped talking to Rakesh and Shubham about women. When I came to work (earlier than the day before) that one fine morning, I made sure that Pallu the rascal head chef was to never again see me hesitate. I smiled at all the customers with a confidence and strength of James Bond, Hercules, and Hanuman all rolled in one.
Now, there were a number of qualities about me that I could potentially change or improve on to better myself in Ackmann’s eyes, but what of the curse that I’d been born with? I never asked to be left-handed, and while most of the world around me conspired and mocked me with their right-handedness (“The right hand is the right hand,” Papa had said), I was constantly left feeling a little inadequate.
So for the first time, I practiced using my right. I had never thought that this day would’ve actually arrived – although I had planned this step a long time ago, I had never gone through with it. Chachi, the super devout Hindu that she was, used to joke that she was more likely to eat an entire holy cow before she woke up to see the day when I finally began my conversation towards the right. Not that she wanted me to change, of course – I think she had just grown tired of my empty threats.
But I did start converting… Or at least I tried, because let me tell you, honestly, it was one of the most difficult things ever. How the fuck do right-handers ever get anything done? I tried using a spoon with my right hand, but it kept on shaking and the rice fell all over the table every single time. I began to write bills at the restaurant counter with my right, but the result came out looking more like a termite infestation. And let me not even go into the more confidential difficulties of hand conversation – it was simply impossible.
It was never going to work. “Left is best,” I sang out loud in semi-doubt. The right change would have to wait for some other time.
The next week, I re-read another chapter in the book – the fourth step was about business rivals, and while Ackmann wrote about the challenges faced by everyone from Genghis Khan to J.D. Rockefeller, I had a rival significantly less mighty than whoever they would’ve ever come across. Although I was also fairly confident that none of those mighty successful heroes mentioned by Ackmann ever faced a bigger rascal than Pallu.
“Your enemy, your threat, is nothing but an opportunity waiting to be exploited,” Ackmann wrote, “Don’t hate your enemy: instead you should learn to control your indignation and stress and examine what it is about him that you despise. Learn to not follow his faltering qualities, but exploit the ones with which he has been successful, and use them for your own success.” Then, Ackmann followed by stating many more examples of great winners who had exploited their rivals to achieve a victory.
Pallu was a lying thief – I and a couple of waiters and even Deepu Chachu suspected this, but he never got caught and would always either pin the blame on me or on the stray dogs.
“It’s your useless nephew, Deepu ji,” he hissed to my uncle when the daily count came several hundred rupees short, “He is only interested in your money.”
“It’s that stray dog, Deepu ji,” he fumed when meat went mysteriously missing from the kitchen, “It is only interested in your food.”
A hoodwinking rascal, I know. But his Butter Chicken was so damn good that he kept on getting away with it.
So I had to find a way to match up to him. I decided to learn how to cook, because apart of buttering toast I didn’t know of a single other way of making myself useful in the kitchen. Brij, one of the young, new cooks in the restaurant, offered to help me.
I started with learning how to make parathas and rotis, and learning how their respective preparations were different from each other (I learnt the very first day that they are, indeed, immensely different). It took me around half an hour to ignite the hob, and I quit for the day when it was my turn to start flipping the rotis on the pan.
Still, Brij was patient and I managed to learn a little. I learned how to make parathas and rotis well and how to fry and egg and how to make bhujia. I learnt how to bake things the correct way and how to clean the dishes and the cooking surface with the right towels and soaps.
Then one day, just as I had graduated to the tomato soup, Deepu Chachu called me out of the kitchen.
“You’re spending way too much time in there, Azad,” he said, “Come out and do some other work.”
Well, apparently, Pallu had complained that the kitchen wasn’t being kept hygienic enough for his oh so angelic fucking standards; and apparently, it was my fault.
I never stepped in that kitchen again – even my toast was now buttered by Brij.
I woke up really early the next morning – well, early as per my standards. It was only 7:02 when I checked my digital watch and I was wide awake and it felt good. I hadn’t woken up this early since my first year in college.
Frustratingly thought, no matter how hard I tried, my discipline could never match Rakesh’s. He had different goals and motivations, of course, but we were both striving to improve ourselves.
“Hey Rakesh, guess what time I woke up this morning,” I called him.
“What?”
“7’o clock SHARP!” I bragged, “Beat that!”
“So what? I was up at 6:45.”
He always beat me – the difference was that I at least admitted that I was on a self-improvement drive – Rakesh, the creative genius with his I-can-do-whatever-the-fuck-I-want confidence, always claimed that he was just born ready to do what he was doing. He was born ready to become a dentist – the exam which was going to take place in a few weeks time was a mere formality on his way to achieve his destiny.
Rakesh woke up earlier, slept lesser, worked and studied harder, attended fewer of our parties, but still managed to have more fun than both Shubham and I combined. The partying… Well that was one thing that Ackmann failed to sway me away from. We were at it every second or third day; Shubham and I and sometimes other randoms that Shubham introduced me to, bottle of whiskey, loud rock music, followed by a night-out adventuring through the old lanes of the city. Rakesh would join us every once in a while, swinging his long hair and humming away into nothingness, but even then I was sure that the human dental anatomy never left his mind.
We sat in a low lit, sticky bar one such night – the type where exotic disco music was played but no one ever stepped past the gimcrack bar decorations and on to the dance-floor and where huddles of gambling drunk cursing men were given the pleasure of not being able to look beyond their own table to the huddle at the next table because of the dark. It was the type where no table was ever found without a residue of the last group’s spilled alcohol and no self-respecting woman ever entered except for the owner’s teenage daughter with her horrifically broad masculine shoulders. She wasn’t there that night, but Shubham, Rakesh and I were, and we were joined by a fat talkative journalist whom Rakesh knew from his photography sessions.
“You wore that nice a shirt to this bar?” the journalist pinched Shubham’s silky shiny new midnight blue shirt, “Hey Rakesh, look at this fool – what girls does he think he’s going to impress in here? Girls won’t ever be seen in a place like this, Mr…”
“Shubham,” Shubham helped him finish, “My name is Shubham.”
The fat journalist, he said his name was Grover something, was one of the those characters in life you met for the first time but who spoke to you like they have been your long lost but omniscient uncle for the last 30 fucking years. Tonight was the first time we had met Grover, and the way he spoke to Shubham… Well, I knew I was next.
“There is one type of girl that could walk in here,” Rakesh smiled.
And then both Rakesh and Grover burst into laughter.
“What about you, Azad?” Grover did remember my name, “What kind of lady are you hoping to see walk in?”
I flinched, like I always did when someone asked me any sort of query about the opposite sex. It didn’t even have to be asked in seriousness – I always found a way to flinch, attempt a lie, and then probably tell the awful truth.
“I want a girl to come dancing in,” I said because I remembered Monica. Yeah, she’s probably the type that would dance in here. “She’ll come dancing in a black dress to some seductive song, and then wait for me to go and join her!”
The others chuckled.
Monica..! That girl always reminded me of that song and that song always reminded me of that girl. I even began to inadvertently hum it.
Tu ru ru, tu ru ru.
And then I felt like shit, because I remembered Monica some more, and I remembered what we did and I very clearly remembered the next morning.
I didn’t drink anymore that night and no girl came into that bar.
But I was starting to feel better about myself. I mean, I’m supposed to, am I not? That is what the 13 steps predicted, didn’t they? I wasn’t sure what the magic trick was to suddenly turn a person more confident overnight, so I decided to compensate by falling a little more in love with myself, because that was sure to raise my self-esteem a little.
Everything I touch must become gold... I wasn’t allowed to cook? No problem – I was probably making the restaurant more money by my reception-table charm anyways. Didn’t have a woman in my life? That one was easy – no woman I met was ever good enough for me. And whenever the likes of Pallu or dissatisfied customers or the bloody Grover-types did try to insult me, I decided to forgive them because they were simply insulting their own intelligence.
I confided this new found outlook to Deepu Chachu.
“So you love yourself a whole lot,” Chachu opened the drawer to count the day’s returns, “Who in the world doesn’t?”
“No you don’t understand Chachu,” I plead, “This is different. I really feel more gifted and blessed than others now. Hey, haven’t you noticed how early I’ve been coming in these days? And I learnt how to cook a little, and have been working harder and following most of the 13 steps…”
Deepu Chachu put the money back in the drawer and slammed it shut. “You know what your problem is, son?” I hated when he said son because it probably meant that something hypersensitive was going to follow, “The problem is that it’s always about you. Don’t you ever think about the happiness of other people?”
“What kind of question is that, Chachu?” I said, “Of course I do!”
But then I thought about it a little more. Honestly, I consider myself to being the type of person that wants to see a smile on everyone’s face. Everyone, really. My uncle, my close friends, my work mates, war widows, starving children in Africa, my ex-girlfriend and her husband, too, probably… everyone... I wanted to see everyone happy.
But Deepu Chachu found this hard to believe. “No you don’t,” he said, “It is just something idealistic to say so you feel good about yourself.”
My uncle knew me well, but I’m sure I knew me better.
“I’m serious, Chachu,” I said it again, “Sometimes I really wish I had the power to make everyone’s life happier.”
“Heh, heh, heh, heh,” Chachu began to laugh in short breaths, and then he coughed out loud. “Sure, sure, we all do…” he said, “But do you really believe that? Because maybe you do wish that I didn’t struggle and didn’t miss your Chachi so much, and that your friends all had successful jobs and successful families, and that all the pain in the world was over… But I’m telling you son, I’ve seen you, and you get jealous every time there is someone else happier than you are.”
I didn’t reply to him. The next morning, I woke up even earlier.
Then one morning, I woke up before the fucking sun.
I had already convinced Shubham to join me for a boat trip on the river that morning – Now I had to wake Rakesh up. My guess was that he had probably stayed up all night buried in his books anyways.
I dialled his number, but there was no reply after the first few rings. I hung up, waited a few minutes, and pressed redial.
This time Rakesh picked up.
“Yeess,” said a yawn from the other side, “… Hello?”
It didn’t sound like Rakesh; I paused, and then asked, “Dude, what the fuck are you doing, man?”
“Huh? Hello?”
“Dude… Rakesh… put your books down and come – we’re taking a boat across the river.”
“Who is this?” the voice shouted. That definitely didn’t sound like Rakesh.
I paused again, “It’s Azad, man,” I said, and then realized what I’d done, “Oh, shit… what number have I called… Rakesh?”
“No, no, this is no Rakesh – this is Dr. Natarajan Swaminatha Gunasekaran. You stupid fool, do you know what time it is? I don’t want to go on any foolish boat ride.”
I put the phone receiver on a side and tried to remember Rakesh’s number again, “What number have I called?” I asked the voice on the other end.
“The wrong bloody number” and then phone was slammed down.
Wrong number? Well, fuck it – I decided that Shubham and I would simply have to land up unannounced at Rakesh’s flat to pick him up. This was going to be a great day.
27 Dec 2008
4 Dec 2008
Chapter 15: A Bad Day
The sleeping pill had worked. Dr. Natarajan Swaminatha Gunasekaran was having the best sleep of his life. The dreams were adventurous and white and rosy, too.
Rinnnnnng went the phone.
Rinnnnnng it went again.
“Unnnnnh,” Gunasekaran groaned, but didn’t open his eyes.
But it rinnnnnng-ed again. “Thevadiya mavan…” Gunasekaran mumbled to himself.
The phone had a one long ring, instead of many other phones which have two short ones. So, instead of a slightly less painful and chirpier ‘ring-ring’, there were many more drones of long torturous rinnnnnng-s.
Gunasekaran kept his eyes closed and counted seven more rings. Seven. “Naarggh,” he snarled out loud.
And then the ringing stopped. Minutes later, Gunasekaran fell back into his dream exactly where he had left it – chasing roses on white hills.
He had barely begun enjoying it when another long ring shattered the peace.
Rinnnnnng!
“NAAARRGGGHH!!” he jumped up from his bed and rubbed his eyes open. He looked up at the clock to see it was quarter to five.
Rinnnnnng!
Dr. Natarajan Swaminatha Gunasekaran’s head felt groggy as he finally decided to answer his phone.
“Yeess,” he yawned, “… Hello?”
There was a short silence, but then an unpleasantly excited voice male voice asked, “Dude, what the fuck are you doing, man?”
“Huh? Hello?”
“Dude… Rakesh… put your books down and come – we’re taking a boat across the river.”
“Who is this?” Gunasekaran shouted.
“It’s Azad, man,” said the voice on the other end, before another pause, “Oh, shit… what number have I called… Rakesh?”
“No, no, this is no Rakesh – this is Dr. Natarajan Swaminatha Gunasekaran. You stupid fool, do you know what time it is? I don’t want to go on any foolish boat ride.”
Gunasekaran heard some shuffling from the other end, before Azad asked, “What number have I called?”
“The wrong bloody number” and the phone was slammed down on its receiver. “Bloody hooligan boys bloody middle of the night…” he shouted to himself.
Nostrils fuming, heartbeat sprinting, lungs panting, Gunasekaran lay back into bed. But now it was over. He knew it from 49 years of experience that it was over. An interrupted sleep is a spoilt sleep.
Dr. Natarajan Swaminatha Gunasekaran, the eminent dental surgeon, now had three choices. The first was to take another sleeping pill and go back to bed and hope to wake up at the time he had previously designated to himself today. He had spent too many sleepless nights stressing over the recent All India Dental Sciences conference, which was followed by many more sleepless nights stressing over correcting the pile of final examination papers. After toiling for many such insomniac days, he had chosen today as the day he would sleep in. He didn’t have to go to the hospital today, but had many more appointments.
Today was the day before tommorow, when the marked exam papers were due. He only had a few more to go, and he believed that the only way he could give the last ones fair justice was if he finally enjoyed a good night’s sleep.
Today was also the day of the ultra-important VDC annual meet, and it was Gunasekaran’s chance to finally move up the ladder of respectability amongst the dentist and nominate himself as the committee’s treasurer.
So, last night, he turned to the sleeping pill for the very first time, and the pill had worked. Unfortunately, the other forces in the universe weren’t his side.
Should I take another one? the dentist thought. No, no way, there would be no way he would be able to wake up by 9 am if he took another pill. After all, the VDC meet was at 10:30 today and he had to make sure to be there on time or else that backstabber Yogesh would surely become the treasurer.
Choice number two: Should I just wake up now and get to work? Can I manage that? he asked himself. Gunasekaran was tired, but not sleepy. He had no energy to get out of bed, but way too much anxiety to stay in it.
So he told himself to calm down and think about choice number three – try going back to sleep without another pill. It seemed improbable at the moment, but improbable was infinitely times better than impossible.
Unfortunately, Gunasekaran ended up spending the next two hours performing the secret choice number four; which was shifting and turning in bed categorically breaking down the pros and cons of his first three choices.
By 7 am, Gunasekaran fell asleep. He didn’t wake up until 10:45.
“Oh, no, oh, no, oh, no,” he muttered as the sheets were thrown out the bed. Skip the teeth-brushing, skip the shower, skip the shave, skip the breakfast; he ran down the three storeys of stairs into the parking lot and up to his car.
“Oh, no, oh, no, oh, no,” he muttered as he realized that he had forgotten his keys and forgotten to lock the front door and forgotten to comb his hair. It was bad enough that he was going to contest as the treasurer unshaven and bad breathed and stinky-bodied and hungry, but he can not, he repeated, NOT, ever forget combing his hair. What if Dr. Aarti saw him like this? he wondered – she might forgive the body odour but no way could he let her see him unkempt.
He ran back up, picked up the keys, greased and combed his hair, locked the door, ran down again. “Ok, ok, ok, I still have time, I still have time.”
“Teeth Doctor!” he heard his neighbour’s eight-year-old brat shout, “Teeth Doctor my Papa is calling you.”
Gunasekaran didn’t turn around. “Tell your Papa I’m busy.”
“Where are you running away?” the child called from the top of the steps.
“I don’t have time, kid.”
And he truly didn’t. Gunasekaran rushed down the stairs, and in a rush of anger and worry, he forgot yet another daily ritual. Every day, Gunasekaran left his flat keys with the building guard downstairs, because every day, a trusted maid came in to take his keys from the guard and clean his apartment.
But today he didn’t have time.
The faster Gunasekaran drove, the faster time drove away. He decided to ignore his watch and deal with the consequences later. This was already stressful enough. And he had also begun to sweat profusely, adding to the stinky-bodied-bad-breathedness he was carrying to the most important dental committee meeting of the year.
And then he arrived to That Crossing.
That Crossing… Oooh That Crossing… The Crossing from Hell, The Crossing to Hell, The Crossing that is Hell.
The dreaded Rathyatra crossing. This is why I leave home early, Gunasekaran grinded his brain.
The Rathyatra four-way crossing, like most civilized four-ways around the world, had at least four ways coming into in. At least, because the local rickshaw-pullers had made a few of their own diagonal dimensions. At least half the width of all roads involved in the crossing were encroached by either tobacco shops or cattle. An electricity pole, probably still feeling the effects of the storm in 1982, hung at a 60 degree angle. Any being without wings had to estimate a delay of at least 20 minutes during the peak hours. At least.
So Gunasekaran waited. He took his foot off the accelerator and drove with the clutch. A beggar came up to the window who he shooed away. A buffalo started sniffing his head lights and he ignored it. Time ticked away. Horns blared at perilously unhealthy decibel levels. Gunasekaran swore and he waited. Time ticked away.
That hooligan, he thought, that whatisname wrong caller. If it wasn’t for him…
The car inched forward. The dentist got more and more frustrated. He winded his car window up to avoid the noise. There was no air-conditioner in the car, so Gunasekaran had to pull the windows down again when he started feeling hotter.
25 minutes later, he finally made it through the jam and then sped down the relatively less crowded road. “I’m late I’m late,” he said out loud, “But it will be fine it will be fine,” he assured himself.
But it wasn’t. Gunasekaran arrived just in time to see the new Varanasi Dentists Committee (VDC) executive members lined up on stage. Standing two places right from the chairman in the centre was Yogesh the backstabber, now better known as Yogesh the treasurer.
“You missed the programme, Dr. Gunasekaran,” Yogesh came down and said, “Dr. Pandey made a very informative presentation.”
“Oh, really? What about?”
“The future, Dr. Gunasekaran,” Yogesh smiled, “The future of Dental Surgery. By the way, did you hear – I’m the new treasurer…”
“Yes, Yogesh, I heard…”
“It’s nice.”
“Very.”
During lunch, the charismatic new VDC chairman Dr. Ravi Pandey walked over to Gunasekaran and reminded him that he had been assigned a post in the committee, too. “We were considering you for treasurer – but the nominations were done before you arrived,” he dropped another brutal reminder, “But don’t worry, you are the VDC’s new public relations officer.”
That wasn’t too bad, Gunasekaran thought. Worth the sweating and the hair combing.
“That means now, you must make a press release for today’s function,” the new chairman ordered, “Please.”
“What?”
“It’s your job now, Dr. Gunase,” Pandey never bothered with his whole name, “I’ll give you some details about everyone that was present today, about my speech, and about the new committee. But you’re now responsible for sending the write-up to each press house in town. I want to see this in all the papers tomorrow!”
“Hmpf.”
“What?”
“I have to do corrections today, Dr. Pandey,” Gunasekaran said, “The corrected exam papers are due tomorrow.”
“You still haven’t finished them?” the new chairman inquired, “Typical Gunase, huh? Leaving everything to the last minute.” He then laughed with devious confidence, “I’m sorry Dr. Gunase, but you’ll have to squeeze everything in today.”
Typical of me, Gunasekaran agreed. And then even more typically he succumbed, “Okay, give me the details.”
“And make sure you get the English newspaper as well,” Pandey added, “All the dentists read the English newspaper.”
Dr. Natarajan Swaminatha Gunasekaran, the new PRO of the Varanasi Dentists Committee, did not have time for lunch, either.
After spending the next three hours writing a six-page press release in English and in Hindi, checking and re-checking it, and making sure that every one worth mentioning was mentioned (including backstabber treasurer Yogesh), he had to move on to the second step of his task.
“Make some photocopies!” came the order.
So he did. Gunasekaran joined the slow-moving traffic again to drive down to the photocopier’s shop. When he got there half an hour later, his head spinning from stress and hunger and anger, he was told to produce change for his 50 rupee note. So he hunted down the rickshaw-pullers and the paan-sellers on foot and then got in a tussle with the traffic police for parking his car in the wrong place.
“Okay, sorry sir,” he said, “I’ll just move it away.”
He didn’t have time anymore, but like he had done earlier, Gunasekaran decided to switch off the ‘Worry Voice’ of his brain.
The Worry Voice, although clearly his own, had a much stronger Tamil accent reminiscent of his mother. This was the voice that told him that he was in trouble, that provided feed to each paranoid cell in his body and that had never seen a glass half full.
But he switched it off and moved into Zombie Mode. Don’t think. Just do. But you don’t have time! Just do, he told himself.
So Gunasekaran moved his car away obediently, and five minutes later, found an uncontroversial parking spot. Then he finally found a place to get change for his 50, although the refreshments shop owner did not let him go without a rude word or two. And then, finally, he got the press release photocopied to produce a dozen more.
Now before delivering the releases the major press offices in the city, Gunasekaran first had to visit the home of last year’s PRO, Dr. Aarti to pick up a copy of all the needed office addresses.
Gunasekaran had long had his eye on Dr. (Mrs.) Aarti, the only female dentist in the VDC. Most of the time he saw her, he chose to miss the ‘Mrs.’ in her name, and he could afford to do that because her husband was an ENT specialist who never got respect or invitation in the dental community.
“Good afternoon, Dr. Aarti,” he said at her front door. He had obviously remembered to comb his hair again from the car rear view mirror before knocking on her front door.
“Oh, Natarajan,” she graciously opened the door and smoothly tied back her gracefully greying hair, “Was just expecting you.”
Gunasekaran smiled and didn’t say anything. I’ve had a bad day, he thought, I need this.
“Do you want to come in?” she asked, “I will get you the press list.”
Dr. Aarti was wearing a long orange kurta, which was loose, but not loose enough to disguise the delicious shape of her body. Gunasekaran slurped. Don’t go in, said the Worry Voice, You don’t have time. Plus, there is THE OTHER REASON!
Gunasekaran turned the Voice off and walked in. Dr. Aarti flashed a wonderful smile and then ceremoniously led him inside her living room.
She walked inside the kitchen and came back out swiftly with a refreshing glass of water. Gunasekaran thanked her and she went inside again.
“Where is your husband?” Gunasekaran called out.
“Work!” she boisterously shouted back, “Hold on Natarajan, I’ll just be there with you.”
Gunasekaran thought about his new choices. He could either do the sensible thing, take the piece of paper, thank her and her beautiful body, and get out of the house. Or he could try his luck – he didn’t know with what – but all the tragedy of the day had him feeling a little whattheheck. She was obviously giving him the signals (Obviously the Worry Voice sarcastically echoed). Why the heck not?
Dr. Aarti jiggled back with a piece of paper. She was so active for her age, Gunasekaran thought. He took the address list and pretended to examine it.
“I have most of them here,” she crossed her hands together, “But you may have to update some phone numbers if you go and visit them.”
“Sure, sure, good,” the dentist said. This is my chance, he thought. “So, what else are you doing today? No work?” he sniggered.
“No,” she smiled, “Juuuust housework...”
Gunasekaran thought for a few seconds, and then took a bold step closer to her. “Are you in the mood for any other type of work?” he extended his arm in the direction of her waist.
Approximately 20 minutes later, Dr. Natarajan Swaminatha Gunasekaran walked out of Dr. Aarti’s house.
It happened to be the most humiliating, terrifying, and not to mention time wasting 20 minutes of his life (so far).
“How dare you touch me like that,” she had snapped. “Oh, but I thought…” he had mumbled back. “Chhee! You bastard men!” she screamed. And he stayed quiet. And then she lectured him. And then she called her husband. And then she lectured him some more.
Gunasekaran was out before the ENT doctor could reach home to punch him. That would have to wait until tomorrow. Today, he was already much too late for his other appointments.
Gunasekaran walked into each press office with his head hung low. This was the first time in two decades that he had allowed his genitals to think before his brain, and he had nothing to show for it but a memo for a beat down by the ENT man tomorrow. The ENT doctor! And he would be obliged to sit there and take it like a good near-adulterer. Could it possibly get any more humiliating?
A near-adulterer. That’s what I’m always going to be. He drove from office to office with his head feeling so heavy that it tired his neck and shoulders and his brain felt as if it was pressing down on his cerebrum. The drums in his ears tucked themselves further in to hear a little lesser and his eyes squinted a little more to not perceive the world so much. Gunasekaran felt a sorry tear roll down his cheek, which he wiped off immediately.
So whose fault is it now? He felt furious at himself but even more furious at his fate. Stupid decisions come from stupid choices, he thought, and stupid choices are presented by other stupid people.
It was now evening and Gunasekaran hadn’t had anything to eat all day and his subconscious began to again creep up and remind him of all the examination marking yet to do. I might have to stay up all night, he thought. He blinked and looked out the car window through his blurry wet eyes to see that night had already befallen.
In a trance, he had travelled to 11 of the Hindi newspapers in the city, handing them the release one by one, shaking their hands, folding his hands together, trying not to cry some more. There was only one left to go – the only English newspaper in the city, and the one closest to his home.
“You’re late,” said the sarcastic voice of a fat young journalist lounging on a sofa inside the office, “We can’t send your dentist news now.”
“What?” Gunasekaran looked at his watch, “But it’s only seven! I thought you press-wallahs worked till midnight?”
“Not here, sir,” he smiled, “We’re an English daily… We finish early.”
This was it. All the non-sleeping and non-eating and adulterous disgrace and lateness had blown up and expanded all day. This was it. Gunasekaran felt like he was going to burst.
“But, how can you do this!” he raised his voice, “This has to be published in tomorrow’s paper! How can you do this?”
Suddenly, the one fat journalist became three, the other two of which were giants compared to Gunasekaran’s own timid stance, “Listen Doctor Sahib,” one of the tall ones commanded, “We’re not doing you any favours.”
Gunasekaran didn’t need to be told twice. As a matter of fact, he wasn’t even told once – but he knew that he had to get out. He quietly left the office; this time he didn’t even try to fight the tears.
It was another hour before the dentist beat the traffic and arrived back home. For the first time in his life, he wished he hadn’t.
“WHAT BLOODY SHIT TAKE THING HAPPEN HERE!?!?” he screamed out loud. Neighbours left right top and bottom assembled in front of his door. Children laughed and elders shook their heads.
Gunasekaran had walked into hell. He looked across his wet, inexplicably flooded apartment, and his heart was stretched apart. The floor of his living room was under at least a centimetre of water. But Gunasekaran was looking beyond that. His brand new carpet was soaking wet. But Gunasekaran looked passed that. His eyes fixated somewhere between his wet working table and the drenched ceiling from where multiple drains of water dripped with shameless abundance. He saw that his stereo system was wet too, but he was looking beside that.
And there they were – the examination papers he had left for marking today. The ones which were due tomorrow. The ones which would determine the future of a dozen students – students he didn’t even know but they existed nevertheless. The papers which were directly under a shower from the leaking ceiling.
The ones which were now wetter than Gunasekaran’s eyes.
“There has been a leak in Raju’s apartment all day, Doctor Sahib,” said one of assembled residents, “Didn’t he tell you?”
“I was calling you in the morning, Dr. Gunasekaran!” Raju out-shouted Gunasekaran when he and his family were summoned down the stairs, “My son came and called you but you were in a rush. The plumber couldn’t come in today,” then Raju turned to console his wife, “Our bathroom is flooded, too.”
“I did call him, Papa,” the eight-year-old hid said from behind his mother, “I called the Teeth Doctor but he was running out.”
“Didn’t the maid come in today?” Gunasekaran next interrogated the building guard, who had joined the throng outside his door.
The guard had an answer ready, “Of course she did sir – but you didn’t leave me your keys today, did you?”
“WHAT TAKE HERE THEVADIYYA SHIT HAPPEN!?!” Gunaserakaran cried out loud again.
He didn’t want to step in. This was simply way too much humiliation to happen on one day. This was the wrong day for him to start corrections. The wrong day for the leak. The wrong day to not listen to that little brat. The wrong day to not be the treasurer…
He stood outside and looked and watched. He looked around the whole apartment, scanning every other thing that could potentially depress him, but nothing could depress him more than the papers. Nothing, perhaps, except for the fact that his depression was being witnessed by half the population of his five-storey flat.
The torturous waiting and watching and watching some more finally ended when Gunasekaran’s bedroom phone began to ring
Rinnnnnng it went.
Gunasekaran hesitated.
Rinnnnnng it demanded his attention again.
Gunasekaran took his shoes and socks off, folding each sock into a ball and tucking it inside its corresponding shoe. He stepped inside the apartment and closed the door, leaving the dozens of pairs of eyes that witnessed his rare loss of composure behind. Still carrying both his shoes in one hand, he walked on the wet floor and through into the bedroom.
Rinnnnnng!
It was still dry in here. Gunasekaran closed the bedroom door behind him, put his shoes away, took a deep, calming, breath, and picked the phone up.
“Hello?” he sighed.
“Oye, Gunasekaran?” a familiar voice asked.
“Yes?”
“Sahni here.”
“Oh, yes, big brother?”
Vinay Sahni to be exact. And no, he wasn’t Dr. Natarajan Swaminatha Gunasekaran’s big brother. He was actually his older sister’s husband.
“How was your dentist’s meeting?” Sahni asked.
“Oh, no, nothing, Sahni ji, leave it, leave it,” Gunasekaran said.
But Gunasekaran knew that his brother-in-law had a way of bullying information out. “What? You always talked about your chances this year, na? What happened?”
“Nothing, nothing…”
“Oye, Gunasekaran, why are you scared to talk about it?”
“I’m not scared, big brother, I just don’t…”
“Then tell me!” he brusquely interrupted.
Gunasekaran sighed again. “No I didn’t become the treasurer,” he said, “I haven’t had any food to eat today, and my house is flooded because my maid didn’t come inside to check the leak. And now, many of the examination papers I have to mark by tomorrow morning are soaked. And I’m hungry.”
There was some silence on the other end of the line.
“I’m tired and I’m hungry and I need to do something about the papers…” Gunasekaran continued his rant, “This has been, a bad, bad day, Sahni ji.”
There was no need to mention Dr. Aarti. Gunasekaran knew that the world would be a pleasanter place if Dr. Aarti wasn’t mentioned ever again.
After a long period of silence between them, Sahni finally spoke, “You need to get married, Gunasekaran,” he said, “Find some nice old lady for yourself, huh? Someone who will make you food and check the leaks! What about that Aarti-Aarti you keep talking about?”
Dr. Natarajan Swaminatha Gunasekaran stepped out to the flooded living room again, carrying a bucket, which he placed under the trickling streams of water. He shifted his table to a side and then took a seat on the wet chair.
Still barefoot, he wriggled his feet around in the water. A lot of it had spilled out into the corridor and into the other rooms. He placed his head next to the stack of wet papers and closed his eyes.
When he opened his eyes again, he saw that the bucket was nearly full to the brim. How long did I sleep? he wondered. How much time do I have? he asked himself.
The worst thing about a bad day is if it laid the foundation for a potentially worse day ahead. Gunasekaran knew that he would have to do something, something, about the flooded apartment. He dreaded thinking about it. He dreaded the mouldy stench that would hover around his home and his clothes all week. He also knew that he was going to have to face the ENT doctor, and face the shame of his deeds and the rumours it would spread. He dreaded seeing Yogesh and his happy treasurer smile tomorrow.
And the papers. Oh, the exam papers. He still hadn’t done a full autopsy of the damage.
Not for the first time in his life, but definitely the worst time, he wished that he could die for a few days. Not permanently, no – Dr. Gunasekaran was far from suicidal – just go into a coma for 50-60 hours so that when he wakes up, the immediate future of tomorrow would become past and he could bury himself into other matters.
The papers. He opened his eyes and willed himself to face the present reality. Must do something about the papers.
Many years ago, being an experienced and occasionally respected dentist, Dr. Gunasekaran was obliged with the post of senior professor in the university. He didn’t have to do much teaching, and could spend most of his time in research, interacting only with other seniors and a few junior doctors.
And best of all, Gunasekaran could avoid students. The junior doctors helped them out and the lecturers taught them, while Gunaskeran, Yogesh, Pandey, and the others could sit back and avoid all the hooligan talk and secret drinking and hair gel of those noisy youngsters.
Mostly avoid them, that is – because it so happened that the senior professors had the responsibility of designing and correcting the final exams. This year, Gunasekaran had marked 18 out of the 30 he was allotted, which he had stacked neatly in his office. The other 12 now floated on the study table in front of him.
The dentist examined them one by one. I can still do this, he thought. As per regulation, the marked papers didn’t need to be seen by anyone again – except in the case of a special probe. The wetness could remain a secret, because all that was required in the end was a number and a one-line comment.
Pages and pages of long answers lay in front of him. Many of the lines were partly smudged while several more had completely disappeared. But he could still see many parts of the smudgy ink. I can still do this!
So he went through all of them. He went through the well written papers and the bad ones. He went through the smart students whom he didn’t know and the stupid ones whom he didn’t want to know. He went through creative answers and through blank answers. And in different levels, they were all smudged.
Some papers he guessed the answers. The ones which were written in clearer handwriting were given the obvious benefits of the doubt. He balanced his generosity by punishing those who had messily scribbled in their answers. Scribblers can’t be dentists, he believed, unless of course, they had to scribble in a prescription.
It was torture. Gunasekaran was scared with every word, every smudged line, every page, every final score. These were the lives of young dentists. After finishing the first eight he saw that most of them had been marked too generously, and Gunasekaran felt like he was trying to compensate for all of his own mistakes all day…
My mistakes? he thought. I didn’t know anything wrong! It was Raju’s fault, and Sahni ji’s for mentioning marriage to further dampening Gunasekaran’s spirits. And the maid and the guard for not reminding him and even Raju’s bratty son who never ever had anything worthwhile to say except for today. And that bloody English newspaper that don’t take press releases after seven and the traffic… oooooh the traffic! He was mad at Dr. Aarti and mad at her husband who was definitely mad at him. He hated Pandey and he hated Yogesh and he hated the sleeping pill and oh God he hated that wrong caller.
He didn’t make any mistakes. Mistakes made him. Gunasekaran knew that traffic problems could happen every day, and house leaks weren’t uncommon, and he could always be the treasurer next year, and he was going to make a pass at Dr. Aarti at some point anyways… it was just today… The same sequence of events on a different mood might have been more manageable… but today was just wrong… and tomorrow will be worse… oh it’ll be far worse…
He picked up another paper. The first line on the top was a question about hypersensitivity.
Gunasekaran looked down at the answer, which was only barely visible behind the blurred blue ink. ‘There is no risk to dental practitioners’, it said.
Thevadiya mavan! ‘No risk’? Gunasekaran thought, is that what the student really wrote? Is this what I’m struggling and beating myself up for? What kind of hooligans do they allow in the faculty now anyways?
He slashed the page with a big red cross, and it felt good.
Gunasekaran smiled, and tried the same thing on the next page.
BIG RED CROSS!
This was much easier. Less reading, more red.
Half way into the paper, the dentist felt slightly guilty for losing his mind over one silly mistake. So he read another answer carefully, which turned out to be completely correct.
Better, Gunasekaran thought, and he gave it full marks. But it was admittedly not even half as cathartic as a cross.
More BIG RED CROSSES!!
Dr. Natarajan Swaminatha Gunasekaran smiled, then he laughed, and then muttered to himself. By the time he was finished with the paper, Rakesh Singh had undeservedly failed his final examination.
Gunasekaran was hungry, but did not have the energy to eat. So he drudged into his bedroom, found another sleeping pill, and fell on his bed. For the first time in years, Gunasekaran didn’t comb his hair before sleep.
Soon, he returned to the white and rosy hills.
Rinnnnnng went the phone.
Rinnnnnng it went again.
“Unnnnnh,” Gunasekaran groaned, but didn’t open his eyes.
But it rinnnnnng-ed again. “Thevadiya mavan…” Gunasekaran mumbled to himself.
The phone had a one long ring, instead of many other phones which have two short ones. So, instead of a slightly less painful and chirpier ‘ring-ring’, there were many more drones of long torturous rinnnnnng-s.
Gunasekaran kept his eyes closed and counted seven more rings. Seven. “Naarggh,” he snarled out loud.
And then the ringing stopped. Minutes later, Gunasekaran fell back into his dream exactly where he had left it – chasing roses on white hills.
He had barely begun enjoying it when another long ring shattered the peace.
Rinnnnnng!
“NAAARRGGGHH!!” he jumped up from his bed and rubbed his eyes open. He looked up at the clock to see it was quarter to five.
Rinnnnnng!
Dr. Natarajan Swaminatha Gunasekaran’s head felt groggy as he finally decided to answer his phone.
“Yeess,” he yawned, “… Hello?”
There was a short silence, but then an unpleasantly excited voice male voice asked, “Dude, what the fuck are you doing, man?”
“Huh? Hello?”
“Dude… Rakesh… put your books down and come – we’re taking a boat across the river.”
“Who is this?” Gunasekaran shouted.
“It’s Azad, man,” said the voice on the other end, before another pause, “Oh, shit… what number have I called… Rakesh?”
“No, no, this is no Rakesh – this is Dr. Natarajan Swaminatha Gunasekaran. You stupid fool, do you know what time it is? I don’t want to go on any foolish boat ride.”
Gunasekaran heard some shuffling from the other end, before Azad asked, “What number have I called?”
“The wrong bloody number” and the phone was slammed down on its receiver. “Bloody hooligan boys bloody middle of the night…” he shouted to himself.
Nostrils fuming, heartbeat sprinting, lungs panting, Gunasekaran lay back into bed. But now it was over. He knew it from 49 years of experience that it was over. An interrupted sleep is a spoilt sleep.
Dr. Natarajan Swaminatha Gunasekaran, the eminent dental surgeon, now had three choices. The first was to take another sleeping pill and go back to bed and hope to wake up at the time he had previously designated to himself today. He had spent too many sleepless nights stressing over the recent All India Dental Sciences conference, which was followed by many more sleepless nights stressing over correcting the pile of final examination papers. After toiling for many such insomniac days, he had chosen today as the day he would sleep in. He didn’t have to go to the hospital today, but had many more appointments.
Today was the day before tommorow, when the marked exam papers were due. He only had a few more to go, and he believed that the only way he could give the last ones fair justice was if he finally enjoyed a good night’s sleep.
Today was also the day of the ultra-important VDC annual meet, and it was Gunasekaran’s chance to finally move up the ladder of respectability amongst the dentist and nominate himself as the committee’s treasurer.
So, last night, he turned to the sleeping pill for the very first time, and the pill had worked. Unfortunately, the other forces in the universe weren’t his side.
Should I take another one? the dentist thought. No, no way, there would be no way he would be able to wake up by 9 am if he took another pill. After all, the VDC meet was at 10:30 today and he had to make sure to be there on time or else that backstabber Yogesh would surely become the treasurer.
Choice number two: Should I just wake up now and get to work? Can I manage that? he asked himself. Gunasekaran was tired, but not sleepy. He had no energy to get out of bed, but way too much anxiety to stay in it.
So he told himself to calm down and think about choice number three – try going back to sleep without another pill. It seemed improbable at the moment, but improbable was infinitely times better than impossible.
Unfortunately, Gunasekaran ended up spending the next two hours performing the secret choice number four; which was shifting and turning in bed categorically breaking down the pros and cons of his first three choices.
By 7 am, Gunasekaran fell asleep. He didn’t wake up until 10:45.
“Oh, no, oh, no, oh, no,” he muttered as the sheets were thrown out the bed. Skip the teeth-brushing, skip the shower, skip the shave, skip the breakfast; he ran down the three storeys of stairs into the parking lot and up to his car.
“Oh, no, oh, no, oh, no,” he muttered as he realized that he had forgotten his keys and forgotten to lock the front door and forgotten to comb his hair. It was bad enough that he was going to contest as the treasurer unshaven and bad breathed and stinky-bodied and hungry, but he can not, he repeated, NOT, ever forget combing his hair. What if Dr. Aarti saw him like this? he wondered – she might forgive the body odour but no way could he let her see him unkempt.
He ran back up, picked up the keys, greased and combed his hair, locked the door, ran down again. “Ok, ok, ok, I still have time, I still have time.”
“Teeth Doctor!” he heard his neighbour’s eight-year-old brat shout, “Teeth Doctor my Papa is calling you.”
Gunasekaran didn’t turn around. “Tell your Papa I’m busy.”
“Where are you running away?” the child called from the top of the steps.
“I don’t have time, kid.”
And he truly didn’t. Gunasekaran rushed down the stairs, and in a rush of anger and worry, he forgot yet another daily ritual. Every day, Gunasekaran left his flat keys with the building guard downstairs, because every day, a trusted maid came in to take his keys from the guard and clean his apartment.
But today he didn’t have time.
The faster Gunasekaran drove, the faster time drove away. He decided to ignore his watch and deal with the consequences later. This was already stressful enough. And he had also begun to sweat profusely, adding to the stinky-bodied-bad-breathedness he was carrying to the most important dental committee meeting of the year.
And then he arrived to That Crossing.
That Crossing… Oooh That Crossing… The Crossing from Hell, The Crossing to Hell, The Crossing that is Hell.
The dreaded Rathyatra crossing. This is why I leave home early, Gunasekaran grinded his brain.
The Rathyatra four-way crossing, like most civilized four-ways around the world, had at least four ways coming into in. At least, because the local rickshaw-pullers had made a few of their own diagonal dimensions. At least half the width of all roads involved in the crossing were encroached by either tobacco shops or cattle. An electricity pole, probably still feeling the effects of the storm in 1982, hung at a 60 degree angle. Any being without wings had to estimate a delay of at least 20 minutes during the peak hours. At least.
So Gunasekaran waited. He took his foot off the accelerator and drove with the clutch. A beggar came up to the window who he shooed away. A buffalo started sniffing his head lights and he ignored it. Time ticked away. Horns blared at perilously unhealthy decibel levels. Gunasekaran swore and he waited. Time ticked away.
That hooligan, he thought, that whatisname wrong caller. If it wasn’t for him…
The car inched forward. The dentist got more and more frustrated. He winded his car window up to avoid the noise. There was no air-conditioner in the car, so Gunasekaran had to pull the windows down again when he started feeling hotter.
25 minutes later, he finally made it through the jam and then sped down the relatively less crowded road. “I’m late I’m late,” he said out loud, “But it will be fine it will be fine,” he assured himself.
But it wasn’t. Gunasekaran arrived just in time to see the new Varanasi Dentists Committee (VDC) executive members lined up on stage. Standing two places right from the chairman in the centre was Yogesh the backstabber, now better known as Yogesh the treasurer.
“You missed the programme, Dr. Gunasekaran,” Yogesh came down and said, “Dr. Pandey made a very informative presentation.”
“Oh, really? What about?”
“The future, Dr. Gunasekaran,” Yogesh smiled, “The future of Dental Surgery. By the way, did you hear – I’m the new treasurer…”
“Yes, Yogesh, I heard…”
“It’s nice.”
“Very.”
During lunch, the charismatic new VDC chairman Dr. Ravi Pandey walked over to Gunasekaran and reminded him that he had been assigned a post in the committee, too. “We were considering you for treasurer – but the nominations were done before you arrived,” he dropped another brutal reminder, “But don’t worry, you are the VDC’s new public relations officer.”
That wasn’t too bad, Gunasekaran thought. Worth the sweating and the hair combing.
“That means now, you must make a press release for today’s function,” the new chairman ordered, “Please.”
“What?”
“It’s your job now, Dr. Gunase,” Pandey never bothered with his whole name, “I’ll give you some details about everyone that was present today, about my speech, and about the new committee. But you’re now responsible for sending the write-up to each press house in town. I want to see this in all the papers tomorrow!”
“Hmpf.”
“What?”
“I have to do corrections today, Dr. Pandey,” Gunasekaran said, “The corrected exam papers are due tomorrow.”
“You still haven’t finished them?” the new chairman inquired, “Typical Gunase, huh? Leaving everything to the last minute.” He then laughed with devious confidence, “I’m sorry Dr. Gunase, but you’ll have to squeeze everything in today.”
Typical of me, Gunasekaran agreed. And then even more typically he succumbed, “Okay, give me the details.”
“And make sure you get the English newspaper as well,” Pandey added, “All the dentists read the English newspaper.”
Dr. Natarajan Swaminatha Gunasekaran, the new PRO of the Varanasi Dentists Committee, did not have time for lunch, either.
After spending the next three hours writing a six-page press release in English and in Hindi, checking and re-checking it, and making sure that every one worth mentioning was mentioned (including backstabber treasurer Yogesh), he had to move on to the second step of his task.
“Make some photocopies!” came the order.
So he did. Gunasekaran joined the slow-moving traffic again to drive down to the photocopier’s shop. When he got there half an hour later, his head spinning from stress and hunger and anger, he was told to produce change for his 50 rupee note. So he hunted down the rickshaw-pullers and the paan-sellers on foot and then got in a tussle with the traffic police for parking his car in the wrong place.
“Okay, sorry sir,” he said, “I’ll just move it away.”
He didn’t have time anymore, but like he had done earlier, Gunasekaran decided to switch off the ‘Worry Voice’ of his brain.
The Worry Voice, although clearly his own, had a much stronger Tamil accent reminiscent of his mother. This was the voice that told him that he was in trouble, that provided feed to each paranoid cell in his body and that had never seen a glass half full.
But he switched it off and moved into Zombie Mode. Don’t think. Just do. But you don’t have time! Just do, he told himself.
So Gunasekaran moved his car away obediently, and five minutes later, found an uncontroversial parking spot. Then he finally found a place to get change for his 50, although the refreshments shop owner did not let him go without a rude word or two. And then, finally, he got the press release photocopied to produce a dozen more.
Now before delivering the releases the major press offices in the city, Gunasekaran first had to visit the home of last year’s PRO, Dr. Aarti to pick up a copy of all the needed office addresses.
Gunasekaran had long had his eye on Dr. (Mrs.) Aarti, the only female dentist in the VDC. Most of the time he saw her, he chose to miss the ‘Mrs.’ in her name, and he could afford to do that because her husband was an ENT specialist who never got respect or invitation in the dental community.
“Good afternoon, Dr. Aarti,” he said at her front door. He had obviously remembered to comb his hair again from the car rear view mirror before knocking on her front door.
“Oh, Natarajan,” she graciously opened the door and smoothly tied back her gracefully greying hair, “Was just expecting you.”
Gunasekaran smiled and didn’t say anything. I’ve had a bad day, he thought, I need this.
“Do you want to come in?” she asked, “I will get you the press list.”
Dr. Aarti was wearing a long orange kurta, which was loose, but not loose enough to disguise the delicious shape of her body. Gunasekaran slurped. Don’t go in, said the Worry Voice, You don’t have time. Plus, there is THE OTHER REASON!
Gunasekaran turned the Voice off and walked in. Dr. Aarti flashed a wonderful smile and then ceremoniously led him inside her living room.
She walked inside the kitchen and came back out swiftly with a refreshing glass of water. Gunasekaran thanked her and she went inside again.
“Where is your husband?” Gunasekaran called out.
“Work!” she boisterously shouted back, “Hold on Natarajan, I’ll just be there with you.”
Gunasekaran thought about his new choices. He could either do the sensible thing, take the piece of paper, thank her and her beautiful body, and get out of the house. Or he could try his luck – he didn’t know with what – but all the tragedy of the day had him feeling a little whattheheck. She was obviously giving him the signals (Obviously the Worry Voice sarcastically echoed). Why the heck not?
Dr. Aarti jiggled back with a piece of paper. She was so active for her age, Gunasekaran thought. He took the address list and pretended to examine it.
“I have most of them here,” she crossed her hands together, “But you may have to update some phone numbers if you go and visit them.”
“Sure, sure, good,” the dentist said. This is my chance, he thought. “So, what else are you doing today? No work?” he sniggered.
“No,” she smiled, “Juuuust housework...”
Gunasekaran thought for a few seconds, and then took a bold step closer to her. “Are you in the mood for any other type of work?” he extended his arm in the direction of her waist.
Approximately 20 minutes later, Dr. Natarajan Swaminatha Gunasekaran walked out of Dr. Aarti’s house.
It happened to be the most humiliating, terrifying, and not to mention time wasting 20 minutes of his life (so far).
“How dare you touch me like that,” she had snapped. “Oh, but I thought…” he had mumbled back. “Chhee! You bastard men!” she screamed. And he stayed quiet. And then she lectured him. And then she called her husband. And then she lectured him some more.
Gunasekaran was out before the ENT doctor could reach home to punch him. That would have to wait until tomorrow. Today, he was already much too late for his other appointments.
Gunasekaran walked into each press office with his head hung low. This was the first time in two decades that he had allowed his genitals to think before his brain, and he had nothing to show for it but a memo for a beat down by the ENT man tomorrow. The ENT doctor! And he would be obliged to sit there and take it like a good near-adulterer. Could it possibly get any more humiliating?
A near-adulterer. That’s what I’m always going to be. He drove from office to office with his head feeling so heavy that it tired his neck and shoulders and his brain felt as if it was pressing down on his cerebrum. The drums in his ears tucked themselves further in to hear a little lesser and his eyes squinted a little more to not perceive the world so much. Gunasekaran felt a sorry tear roll down his cheek, which he wiped off immediately.
So whose fault is it now? He felt furious at himself but even more furious at his fate. Stupid decisions come from stupid choices, he thought, and stupid choices are presented by other stupid people.
It was now evening and Gunasekaran hadn’t had anything to eat all day and his subconscious began to again creep up and remind him of all the examination marking yet to do. I might have to stay up all night, he thought. He blinked and looked out the car window through his blurry wet eyes to see that night had already befallen.
In a trance, he had travelled to 11 of the Hindi newspapers in the city, handing them the release one by one, shaking their hands, folding his hands together, trying not to cry some more. There was only one left to go – the only English newspaper in the city, and the one closest to his home.
“You’re late,” said the sarcastic voice of a fat young journalist lounging on a sofa inside the office, “We can’t send your dentist news now.”
“What?” Gunasekaran looked at his watch, “But it’s only seven! I thought you press-wallahs worked till midnight?”
“Not here, sir,” he smiled, “We’re an English daily… We finish early.”
This was it. All the non-sleeping and non-eating and adulterous disgrace and lateness had blown up and expanded all day. This was it. Gunasekaran felt like he was going to burst.
“But, how can you do this!” he raised his voice, “This has to be published in tomorrow’s paper! How can you do this?”
Suddenly, the one fat journalist became three, the other two of which were giants compared to Gunasekaran’s own timid stance, “Listen Doctor Sahib,” one of the tall ones commanded, “We’re not doing you any favours.”
Gunasekaran didn’t need to be told twice. As a matter of fact, he wasn’t even told once – but he knew that he had to get out. He quietly left the office; this time he didn’t even try to fight the tears.
It was another hour before the dentist beat the traffic and arrived back home. For the first time in his life, he wished he hadn’t.
“WHAT BLOODY SHIT TAKE THING HAPPEN HERE!?!?” he screamed out loud. Neighbours left right top and bottom assembled in front of his door. Children laughed and elders shook their heads.
Gunasekaran had walked into hell. He looked across his wet, inexplicably flooded apartment, and his heart was stretched apart. The floor of his living room was under at least a centimetre of water. But Gunasekaran was looking beyond that. His brand new carpet was soaking wet. But Gunasekaran looked passed that. His eyes fixated somewhere between his wet working table and the drenched ceiling from where multiple drains of water dripped with shameless abundance. He saw that his stereo system was wet too, but he was looking beside that.
And there they were – the examination papers he had left for marking today. The ones which were due tomorrow. The ones which would determine the future of a dozen students – students he didn’t even know but they existed nevertheless. The papers which were directly under a shower from the leaking ceiling.
The ones which were now wetter than Gunasekaran’s eyes.
“There has been a leak in Raju’s apartment all day, Doctor Sahib,” said one of assembled residents, “Didn’t he tell you?”
“I was calling you in the morning, Dr. Gunasekaran!” Raju out-shouted Gunasekaran when he and his family were summoned down the stairs, “My son came and called you but you were in a rush. The plumber couldn’t come in today,” then Raju turned to console his wife, “Our bathroom is flooded, too.”
“I did call him, Papa,” the eight-year-old hid said from behind his mother, “I called the Teeth Doctor but he was running out.”
“Didn’t the maid come in today?” Gunasekaran next interrogated the building guard, who had joined the throng outside his door.
The guard had an answer ready, “Of course she did sir – but you didn’t leave me your keys today, did you?”
“WHAT TAKE HERE THEVADIYYA SHIT HAPPEN!?!” Gunaserakaran cried out loud again.
He didn’t want to step in. This was simply way too much humiliation to happen on one day. This was the wrong day for him to start corrections. The wrong day for the leak. The wrong day to not listen to that little brat. The wrong day to not be the treasurer…
He stood outside and looked and watched. He looked around the whole apartment, scanning every other thing that could potentially depress him, but nothing could depress him more than the papers. Nothing, perhaps, except for the fact that his depression was being witnessed by half the population of his five-storey flat.
The torturous waiting and watching and watching some more finally ended when Gunasekaran’s bedroom phone began to ring
Rinnnnnng it went.
Gunasekaran hesitated.
Rinnnnnng it demanded his attention again.
Gunasekaran took his shoes and socks off, folding each sock into a ball and tucking it inside its corresponding shoe. He stepped inside the apartment and closed the door, leaving the dozens of pairs of eyes that witnessed his rare loss of composure behind. Still carrying both his shoes in one hand, he walked on the wet floor and through into the bedroom.
Rinnnnnng!
It was still dry in here. Gunasekaran closed the bedroom door behind him, put his shoes away, took a deep, calming, breath, and picked the phone up.
“Hello?” he sighed.
“Oye, Gunasekaran?” a familiar voice asked.
“Yes?”
“Sahni here.”
“Oh, yes, big brother?”
Vinay Sahni to be exact. And no, he wasn’t Dr. Natarajan Swaminatha Gunasekaran’s big brother. He was actually his older sister’s husband.
“How was your dentist’s meeting?” Sahni asked.
“Oh, no, nothing, Sahni ji, leave it, leave it,” Gunasekaran said.
But Gunasekaran knew that his brother-in-law had a way of bullying information out. “What? You always talked about your chances this year, na? What happened?”
“Nothing, nothing…”
“Oye, Gunasekaran, why are you scared to talk about it?”
“I’m not scared, big brother, I just don’t…”
“Then tell me!” he brusquely interrupted.
Gunasekaran sighed again. “No I didn’t become the treasurer,” he said, “I haven’t had any food to eat today, and my house is flooded because my maid didn’t come inside to check the leak. And now, many of the examination papers I have to mark by tomorrow morning are soaked. And I’m hungry.”
There was some silence on the other end of the line.
“I’m tired and I’m hungry and I need to do something about the papers…” Gunasekaran continued his rant, “This has been, a bad, bad day, Sahni ji.”
There was no need to mention Dr. Aarti. Gunasekaran knew that the world would be a pleasanter place if Dr. Aarti wasn’t mentioned ever again.
After a long period of silence between them, Sahni finally spoke, “You need to get married, Gunasekaran,” he said, “Find some nice old lady for yourself, huh? Someone who will make you food and check the leaks! What about that Aarti-Aarti you keep talking about?”
Dr. Natarajan Swaminatha Gunasekaran stepped out to the flooded living room again, carrying a bucket, which he placed under the trickling streams of water. He shifted his table to a side and then took a seat on the wet chair.
Still barefoot, he wriggled his feet around in the water. A lot of it had spilled out into the corridor and into the other rooms. He placed his head next to the stack of wet papers and closed his eyes.
When he opened his eyes again, he saw that the bucket was nearly full to the brim. How long did I sleep? he wondered. How much time do I have? he asked himself.
The worst thing about a bad day is if it laid the foundation for a potentially worse day ahead. Gunasekaran knew that he would have to do something, something, about the flooded apartment. He dreaded thinking about it. He dreaded the mouldy stench that would hover around his home and his clothes all week. He also knew that he was going to have to face the ENT doctor, and face the shame of his deeds and the rumours it would spread. He dreaded seeing Yogesh and his happy treasurer smile tomorrow.
And the papers. Oh, the exam papers. He still hadn’t done a full autopsy of the damage.
Not for the first time in his life, but definitely the worst time, he wished that he could die for a few days. Not permanently, no – Dr. Gunasekaran was far from suicidal – just go into a coma for 50-60 hours so that when he wakes up, the immediate future of tomorrow would become past and he could bury himself into other matters.
The papers. He opened his eyes and willed himself to face the present reality. Must do something about the papers.
Many years ago, being an experienced and occasionally respected dentist, Dr. Gunasekaran was obliged with the post of senior professor in the university. He didn’t have to do much teaching, and could spend most of his time in research, interacting only with other seniors and a few junior doctors.
And best of all, Gunasekaran could avoid students. The junior doctors helped them out and the lecturers taught them, while Gunaskeran, Yogesh, Pandey, and the others could sit back and avoid all the hooligan talk and secret drinking and hair gel of those noisy youngsters.
Mostly avoid them, that is – because it so happened that the senior professors had the responsibility of designing and correcting the final exams. This year, Gunasekaran had marked 18 out of the 30 he was allotted, which he had stacked neatly in his office. The other 12 now floated on the study table in front of him.
The dentist examined them one by one. I can still do this, he thought. As per regulation, the marked papers didn’t need to be seen by anyone again – except in the case of a special probe. The wetness could remain a secret, because all that was required in the end was a number and a one-line comment.
Pages and pages of long answers lay in front of him. Many of the lines were partly smudged while several more had completely disappeared. But he could still see many parts of the smudgy ink. I can still do this!
So he went through all of them. He went through the well written papers and the bad ones. He went through the smart students whom he didn’t know and the stupid ones whom he didn’t want to know. He went through creative answers and through blank answers. And in different levels, they were all smudged.
Some papers he guessed the answers. The ones which were written in clearer handwriting were given the obvious benefits of the doubt. He balanced his generosity by punishing those who had messily scribbled in their answers. Scribblers can’t be dentists, he believed, unless of course, they had to scribble in a prescription.
It was torture. Gunasekaran was scared with every word, every smudged line, every page, every final score. These were the lives of young dentists. After finishing the first eight he saw that most of them had been marked too generously, and Gunasekaran felt like he was trying to compensate for all of his own mistakes all day…
My mistakes? he thought. I didn’t know anything wrong! It was Raju’s fault, and Sahni ji’s for mentioning marriage to further dampening Gunasekaran’s spirits. And the maid and the guard for not reminding him and even Raju’s bratty son who never ever had anything worthwhile to say except for today. And that bloody English newspaper that don’t take press releases after seven and the traffic… oooooh the traffic! He was mad at Dr. Aarti and mad at her husband who was definitely mad at him. He hated Pandey and he hated Yogesh and he hated the sleeping pill and oh God he hated that wrong caller.
He didn’t make any mistakes. Mistakes made him. Gunasekaran knew that traffic problems could happen every day, and house leaks weren’t uncommon, and he could always be the treasurer next year, and he was going to make a pass at Dr. Aarti at some point anyways… it was just today… The same sequence of events on a different mood might have been more manageable… but today was just wrong… and tomorrow will be worse… oh it’ll be far worse…
He picked up another paper. The first line on the top was a question about hypersensitivity.
Gunasekaran looked down at the answer, which was only barely visible behind the blurred blue ink. ‘There is no risk to dental practitioners’, it said.
Thevadiya mavan! ‘No risk’? Gunasekaran thought, is that what the student really wrote? Is this what I’m struggling and beating myself up for? What kind of hooligans do they allow in the faculty now anyways?
He slashed the page with a big red cross, and it felt good.
Gunasekaran smiled, and tried the same thing on the next page.
BIG RED CROSS!
This was much easier. Less reading, more red.
Half way into the paper, the dentist felt slightly guilty for losing his mind over one silly mistake. So he read another answer carefully, which turned out to be completely correct.
Better, Gunasekaran thought, and he gave it full marks. But it was admittedly not even half as cathartic as a cross.
More BIG RED CROSSES!!
Dr. Natarajan Swaminatha Gunasekaran smiled, then he laughed, and then muttered to himself. By the time he was finished with the paper, Rakesh Singh had undeservedly failed his final examination.
Gunasekaran was hungry, but did not have the energy to eat. So he drudged into his bedroom, found another sleeping pill, and fell on his bed. For the first time in years, Gunasekaran didn’t comb his hair before sleep.
Soon, he returned to the white and rosy hills.
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