Invested

On 28th of April this year, I woke up to a phone call at 7:30 am. It was from Professor Anupam Siddhartha, the director of the institute where I had finished a three-year course in media studies, earlier that month. We are not overly friendly on a personal level, so the call was every bit unexpected.

'Hello Bharat. Did I wake you up?' 

'Yes- no sir. Tell me?' I stuttered the way I always do when I speak to him.

 His neutral tone fell immediately and he spoke in a voice that faltered and waned, without losing its carefully measured quality. The verbal equivalent of 'फूँक-फूँक के कदम रखना'. Perhaps the first time in my 3 years of knowing him had I heard him be so cautious of his words.

'Your batch mate, Yukti Mehra...'

His voice trailed off. 

'Yes sir?'

'She...passed away this morning.'

Silence. My mind went blank. I double checked. He confirmed in a croaky, heavy voice that she had indeed passed. He had called on me to inform our batch about her untimely death on whatsapp. I did not think of asking 'how' or 'why' it happened and assumed it to have been some sort of a motor accident. I don't know why.

The next few hours went by in a haze. It was like I was carrying out formal instructions. I felt the rush of being the news bearer. I think that is what thrills people the most about sensational news: to observe the emotion on the faces of people when you reveal something shocking to them. It's sickening but I guess very much a part of human nature: as much as greed, hatred or anger. I myself felt little grief because I had never been very close to Yukti in the last 2 years. 

--

We had bonded mostly over a period of six weeks (Nov-Dec 2013), when we had interned at the same school with an NGO called Teach For India (TFI). We had not chosen to be clubbed together, but since we both resided in the far-flung municipality of Pimpri Chinchwad, we had been allotted the same school by our institute. We were 'expected' - by our institute's stern guidelines - to be 'at the best of our behavior' and carry out our responsibilities to a T. 

We had worked with a 'fellow' each: a candidate who had enrolled and trained with TFI for a 2 year teaching job, usually at schools based in under-developed communities. Fellows are class teachers in a primary-level classrooms, responsible for their students' wholesome education based on a detailed progress metric.

We met our would-be fellows over dinner at a MacDonalds. Their day had ended and we, free from college for a week before internship began, were sulkily enjoying our last few idle days. I was also perhaps meeting her formally for the first time. Since I had secured my admission in the institute against cancellation, I had joined the course nearly a month later than the others. So I already wasn't on the same page as my batchmates in the first semester. This added to the fact that I am an introvert meant that I was not surprised I had not seen her ever before. She later told me she had missed almost her entire first semester due to a prolonged chicken pox illness, for which she was still under medication. She had not been allowed to appear for the sem-end exams as a result of her poor attendance - the concept of medical leave does not exist at our institute.

My fellow turned out to be Veda Veeravalli, a bespectacled former IT professional from Andhra Pradesh. At 26, she was the most senior on the table by a mile. Pranjal Chandra, her co-fellow, was a much younger graduate from Delhi, whose most striking features were incisive, sunken eyes and a patchwork of facial hair along the jawline.

What struck me during our brief interaction apart from my own typical diffidence was how quickly and effortlessly Yukti befriended them. I would nod and look straight with a dour expression when someone addressed me, often pretending to understand every word. She on the other hand, had her lips screwed open, half-smiling, at all times, immediately warming up the speaker to her. She spoke in a shrill yet small, squeaky voice, in a perfect Delhi accent that could not be wrongly placed as Haryanvi or Punjabi, as is often the case with Delhiites. I later learned that she got that trait from actually being a true blue Delhiite, having never lived outside the capital city ever before. Moving to Pune with her family was a great adventure for her.

We were explained what our designated roles would be at the school, which were not nearly as strict as we had been prepared for at the institute (which was a good thing). After the meeting, Yukti and I decided that we could travel together everyday to the school, which was situated at a distance of about 5 kilometers from her house and two more from mine; I would pick her up on my scooter. We'd split the fare to be fair (pun not intended).

Those scooter rides from home to work and back were the most time we spent together. Mostly they would fly by in 15-20 minutes, since we passed a long empty stretch where I felt safe to race ahead of others. She would seldom speak much, considering how I am not the most responsive person, but when she did, she would tell me stories of home. 

They were always happy and pleasant portraits of an ideal life. She often mentioned emotional closeness to her dad. Sometimes she would tell me how she felt a unique bond with her neighbor's kid (boy or girl? I forget). She told me about her ancestral house in Old Delhi, handed down through many generations. Always tales of fullness and satisfaction. 

At the school, she exuded the same effortlessness in every task assigned to her. We were put in classrooms full of 2nd grade students and made to assist Pranjal, Veda and Nidhi (our third fellow) in their day long activities. 

I was very clear by that time in my academic life that my true calling was film making. I had never taught anyone before and had no inclination to. But I also knew if I were made to take up a task I found worthwhile and positive, I would see it to its end. That is the philosophy I worked with throughout my short lived teaching career, and it worked well for me. 

I put in extra hours just to drill the concept of double-digit divisions into the mind of a low performing student. I came in on Sundays, on voluntary field trips, on extra supplementary classes, and pushed myself hard. I was also rewarded greatly for my contributions: my final feedback remarks by Veda were full of superlative adjectives. I made strong bonds with my students who gifted me a stick-on diary of personalized notes written by each one of them. They tried to hugged me all at once on my last day, imploring me to return soon. I might have welled up a tear or two.

But here's the thing: Yukti did all this and more without seeming to push herself the tiniest bit. I didn't feel it then, but she forged a much stronger bond with her students than I even could. She knew each one by name. She called them home and took their parents' concerned calls regarding their wards' academics at odd hours. She smiles through all the hard work as if it wasn't hard at all. She made a relationship with our fellows that went beyond the classroom, while I took on all that as a challenge. 

These were the last intimate memories I made with Yukti. Over the next two years of our academic life, we met each other a lot but never quite sat down together and spoke for any longer than ten minutes at once. I took mass communication as a specialization and she chose communication management. Our paths diverged and we became parts of different social circles. I would hear of her and meet her often, but these were all fleeting moments.

--

On the day I learned Yukti died, I thought Veda ought to know about it. In the frame of mind of a bearer of tragic news, I dialed her number and called, unmindful of what exactly I would say. In what words would I describe Yukti's passing? I didn't even know how it had happened; how would I articulate such a sudden development? I cut the call before she could pick up and just held the mobile phone in my hand, thinking what had suddenly stopped me.

She called back moments later and I prolonged confronting my own voice than hers. Merely the thought of speaking those words, in all their crushing finality, made me shudder. I had very eloquently and carefully drafted a whatsapp message for my college group, being careful and sober with each letter. But the physical action of vocal cords vibrating to create sound, sound that had a meaning so unbelievable till last night, frightened me. I finally mustered an ounce of courage and slid the green icon. She greeted in her usual chirpy voice. Everything about her was so cheerful, and understandably so - we had not spoken in months. It made speaking about the tragedy all the more laborious. 

'Veda...Yukti-'

A pause. She heard me alright but sensed something off.

'Ya, what about Yukti?'

I just could not say anything. I think I choked up a bit.

'I can't tell you Veda. I'll...message you.'

'What happened to her, Bharat? Is she fine?'

'I'll message you'. I hung up. I messaged her soon after in the same, simple and straightforward tone. But this time my words were laced with a greater understanding of themselves. They moved me even as lifeless unspoken letters stringed together.

'Yukti passed away last night. I was just informed by our director. I have no other info. I might go to pune.'

I did go to Pune that day to join her family in grief. On the bus from Mumbai to Pune with a couple of other friends from college, I finally learned what had happened to Yukti: she had committed suicide. She had been fighting depression for years, silently, bravely. The first year that she had almost fully missed owing to severe ill health had not been chicken pox. She had been depressed and showed nothing of it. I had failed to gauge her at all. I felt she had been the happiest, most content person around. Even her best friend had been taken totally by surprise by her death. She had hoodwinked us into believing she had been perfectly fine all this while. I wished she was still very elaborately hoodwinking all of us...

That night, I went to sleep at my parents' empty house in Pune. They were both working in New Mumbai then. All alone in a stuffy, dusty house with thoughts only of Yukti swirling in my mind, grief assumed a living, palpable entity. I slept uneasy.

--

I met Veda a few weeks later in a mall in suburban Mumbai. I hugged her tightly and held on for a few seconds. She held me back knowingly, fully, unabashedly. I didn't have to tell her I was incredibly, deeply sad; she already knew it somehow. We surfed for books at a huge bookstore, just like we did for our 'kids' in school during my internship. 

After everything was done, Veda gave me the words that I shall always remember Yukti Mehra by. As a genuine query, I asked her how she honestly felt we had performed during our teaching stint.

'Oh, you were very good. You did all that was told to you, you were very sincere in everything...'

'And what about Yukti?'

She mulled whether to really say what she wanted to or hold back.

'See Bharat,' she started carefully, 'you were the sincere guy. But Yukti...she was invested.'

Part 3. Broken Nest

[NOTE: This is part of an ongoing short story. Read parts 1 and 2 before this to make any kind of sense.]

“Those nights that once were;

On rooftops when stars rained light.

Dreams that seemed impossible by day,

Came alive in the dead of night”.

Mother of mine had been a poet. It seemed like centuries ago- the memories my mind had created in its fancy. How she might have rocked my cradle at night, how she’d have recited her secret poems to my readily receptive ears. How those words swallowed whole and unquestioned must constitute to me at present. How a parent gives to their children in more than just biological ways.

The BEST bus lurched sideways as it turned the final right towards Veera Desai Road from Link Road. The height of monsoon was upon Mumbai and, like every year, the authorities had only been half-prepared. The roads were predictably holed up in craters, harvesting water. One would have expected the on-foot commuters to run for shelter given the intensity of the downpour, but the Mumbaikars were no longer naive enough to be caught unawares; people sauntered about under the cover of umbrellas as if it were a balmy Sunday afternoon.

The bus halted at what google maps indicated was the closest stop to the residence of a certain Bharam Swami. I alighted holding on tightly to my raincoat, and the sling-bag underneath. The raindrops fell harshly on my uncovered head and I ran for cover under a tea vendor’s shanty on the footpath.

Have you even felt a knot in your stomach right before a crucial moment in your life? I‘m not much into grade-boasting or scorekeeping but examinations were sort of a big deal for me growing up. As the number of days separating me from the D-day decreased, the knot in the tummy would tighten and coil itself around my intestines like an invisible viper. I‘m sure some of you all might share the feeling.

I felt that snake tightening its lethal grip around my waist as I neared the man’s house.  So far I‘d steeled myself from overt emotion because thirty years is a very long time. But that old familiar feeling of dread and peril and all things dark and ugly was coming back to me as I took slow, unsure steps towards the red pin on my mobile.  

Zilleh cooperative housing society loomed up ahead like a haunted relic. A dilapidating off-white building resembling countless other crumbling residential blocks dotting the ugly suburban landscape. Fresh raindrops had drenched the buildings sheathing the few top floors in a deeper hue. Paint peeled off from the walls and exposed the cement underneath. A rusting brass gate swung untethered by the gust of cold wind. No one questioned who I was or where I wanted to go at the gate; the guards did not bother in the heavy rain. The old fashioned complex had two blocks: A and B, both having four storeys and a narrow flight of stairs leading to two cubbyhole houses on each floor’s landing.

My steps grew heavy and difficult and my breath grew more labored. My hands were now shaking not so much from the dampness but from an indescribable dread. There should have been people here, at least a small group of mourners outside house number 242. I started to climb up the stairs, an uncomfortable rigidity catching hold of my legs. As if someone had left their bicycle unoiled for too long. 

 At the first floor landing I felt like throwing up. I supported myself against the railing. I could make out some faint activity emanating from the floor above. A general sound of people. Some thoughtful  undertones. I struggled to climb the last flight of stairs, choking up, unsure of what I would encounter, the monsters in my chest heaving and throbbing. The curiously numbered 242 lay just out of the corner of my sight now. The man responsible for my broken nest lay dead a few feet away from me but his ghost appeared before my eyes. I felt myself going weak and my limbs collapsed under their own weight. I fell with a thud and a sharp stinging pain at the back of my head. The apparition straddled and crouched close to me.

 I slipped into the dreams of past…

*

The Kotkars ensure her daughter sleeps in their room, the door firmly closed on their fights. But they do not anticipate Namah’s curiosity. She slips out every night, woken up by the deafening screaming matches, and becomes a voyeur to their violence.

“We must end this.  Cannot go on like this, like nothing ever happened.”

Namah presses her ear against the door.

“Why do you assume I can? You think it’s not hard on me? Living through everyday?”

“This is it. I want a divorce; a proper one. You don’t get to touch me-“

A chair is overturned. 

Father is attacking mother!

Someone is thrown against the door. 

She’s hurt her head! What do I do?

Namah steps away from the door but does not dart back into her room like the last time. The door is ajar now, allowing a better view of perpetrator and the perpetrated...

Her memory starts to crack and shatter. She is not sure what she is seeing; perhaps her mind is playing tricks. In a flash of memory, she realizes everything. The rapist. The obituary. The face. Ms. Taraporevala. And the monster under her bed.

*

I woke up inside the apartment that had been my destination. I could see a bunch of solemn mourners huddling around me instead of…the deceased. Awkwardly, I propped myself up on my side, seeing more of the place. The living room area had been cleared for a tidy floor mat, where I had been laid out.

Someone asked me how I was feeling, but it barely registered in my brain. Something restless and anxious was growing within me; a strong revulsion for everything, and I was already zoning out once again. The pain in the back of my head returned gradually but greatly, probably from having fallen over in the staircase.

The flash of memory returned all at once. I swung around like a woman possessed. The lifeless body of M. Bharam Swami lay right behind me, draped in a modest white cloth draping it from neck to toe.

In death, his colorless face bore almost complete resemblance to the man of my nightmares: small pair of  lips pursed together unevenly, caught mid-sentence; high cheekbones - not bony - wrinkled with age; and most strikingly, round, bulging eyelids hiding a large pair of eyes.

From somewhere under the folds, the tips of his fingertips were also exposed. I frantically crawled over to the cadaver and dug up its hands. Some commotion arose behind me: alarmed voices ordered me back. Restless and almost panicking for answers, I unearthed the hands of the ‘man’, and only confirmed my greatest fears.

Feline, graceful and wrinkly as they would have grown after all those years, I knew the slender fingers of my rapist could have belonged to none other than-

‘MOTHER!’

--

[Epilogue coming soon...]