Unreal Reality Chapter 7

Jagannath loved to talk to rollypolly Rajeswari whenever he used to come to Ichapuram during the college vacation. She made such fine upmas for him full of microscopic mustards . He sat looking into her eyes on dusty evenings as she cut her tomatoes for the evening's dinner . She did not love her husband who was such a fine husband, albeit advanced in years, and a fine printer . It was such an impossible situation , her husband being several years older than her and with nothing between them except polite conversations about what she made for the evening dinner. She wanted him , however, in her own way ; he needed nothing from her except watch him silently as he sat on the floor eating his dinner. She looked forward to Jagannath's visits because she wanted to watch him eating her upmas . It was funny the way the whole thing worked out . She wanted her husband ,sometimes ,to tell her that he needed her as also tell him that she wanted a baby from him . It was a no-win situation because he wanted to tell her that it did not really matter if she did not need him .

Their destinies together unfolded as both sat dusting thousands of wornout printheads which they did not need for any current print job. For the first time Jagannath experienced the utter futility of human communication :


“Her upmas were so delectable
Albeit with just a tinge of sadness
Her mangalasutra had a thread of black
Which rose and fell as though it was gold
Her eyes were pools of sad knowledge
Which brimmed over kajal-lined contours
Her tumescent tummy bulged with
Imagined babies not one but two or three
One would blame it on flatulence
Induced by late night indulgence
Her man was no prince riding on a white horse
He was a fine printer nevertheless
Who had a way with lithographic typefaces .

So that is that. The jasmines in her hair
Shone against the darkness of her back
She smiled like a princess from among
Wornout printheads and squeezedout inktubes
What if the printer is on forty-wrong side
He was a fine husband and a caring friend
(Rajeswari ,have you taken your B-complex?)
At his age shyness didn't become him
He wanted to tell her what lay encrypted
On the flatstones of their foreheads
(The lettering wore off due to ravages of time)
He shared a printers affinity with Brahma
One thing emerged very clearly and unmistakably
The patter of little feet could be heard distinctly.

Her husband could never tell her this
His drooping eyes said it all , however.
How would she know that a few years later
The whites of his eyes would focus on her
And the horror of it all dawned on her
He , the expert proofreader that he was,
For once misread the inexorable writing
On the tombstones of their destiny ..”

One day her husband came home excited full of news of a new printing contract. His eyes flashed in excitement although the new contract brought no promise of immediate monetary gain to him personally. Rajeswari looked at him with inexplicable disinterest. He wanted to assure her that everything was fine between them .But where is little Krishna the patter of whose little feet could still be heard amidst the din of the printing machines ? Jagannath remembered the shadows that played on the mud walls of the Sompeta house as the petromax light hung to the roof waved gently in the breeze . When it rained little rain-insects hovered in a luminous halo around the light and their exaggerated shadows played on the mud-walls .

In Ichapuram Jagannath met Madhava rao a schoolmate of his , with a protruding set of yellowed teeth and a broad smile .Madhavarao had decided to quit his studies well before the school final examination and was content with joining the local court as a peon . .Jagannath saw the twinkle of Madhavarao's eye but could not understand why the latter had to work in a menial job . Madhavarao had absolutely no problems doing what he was doing .He told Jagannath that it was great fun doing odd jobs for people in the court . He was lucky that he could get this job where he did not have to make choices , day in and day out . It was for the other suns of guns to make these choices which made their lives miserable. God knows why one had to exercise the options all the time . The most sickening thing in life is the unending exercise of choices involving ticking of ''a , b, c or d “or none of the above “


The days were hot and dusty . The hills close to the town harboured wild animals and naxalites who would attack villages in the broad daylight and kill landlords mercilessly. What lay beyond the hills - another civilisation and denizens of an absolutely alien society ? At night there were fiercely raging fires on the hillside as though thousands of Ichapuram sinners of yesteryears were burning in improvised hell-fires set up in a hurry on the hillside due to lack of ''burning'' space in hell. Jagannath saw that the teenaged girl in the neighbour's house almost always came on to the verandah at the precise moment when he himself stood behind the wooden pillar on the verandah. Papa , as she was called , carried on silly "girl "talk with him which of course he relished deep within. She wanted him to tease her which he steadfastly refused to do . She had a child's brow on which one felt like planting an indulgent kiss .She had her own plans .Strands of her hair danced on her forehead casting thin nebulous shadows on her raised cheeks .There was nothing attractive about her except her "sillygirl" looks which sometimes set Jagannath's heart aflame. She had the untameable spirit of a wild animal .Her eyes reflected determined pursuit .and if she had her way she would have grabbed him by the collar and made him serve her as her faithful servant all his life.


The dream continued after Jagannath had finished his studies and took up his job in Gujarat. Summers in Rajkot were hot during the day but breezy in the evenings. Back in the 10 by 10 cubicle of the hotel room Jagannath felt hemmed in by the claustrophobic strangeness of the hotel . The city, with its neat stone buildings , looked like a cardboard box with its contents neatly stacked . The old man Patel , who stayed permanently in one of the cubicles took strange interest in Jagannath as though it mattered a lot to him to ensure that Jagannath was properly clothed and fed. Jagannath did not like to spend his evenings with this old man who would be reliving his unfulfilled sexual desires through a choice of the most sexually explicit vocabulary . There was something terribly repulsive about this man; he reminded you of a crushed black caterpillar . The dreams that he had dreamed became sour and acquired a rancidness which was disgusting to Jagannath. During the day , when Jagannath pressed the call bell he shuddered to see the strange-smelling waiter , who always attended on him with unusual attention . Why did this man always respond to the bell ? This ghost who smelled strange walked in almost always in five seconds sharp as though he was waiting outside his cubicle , all the twenty four hours ,anticipating every call. As Jagannath opened the cubicle door he found a most obnoxious-looking waiter who refused to go away .He was the very devil who appeared in Jagannath's dreams at the dead of the night offering him foul-smelling blandishments.

In Rajkot the landlord Joshi's daughter wore her innocence on the lambent parting of her hair. She rarely spoke to Jagannath but her honey-eyes said it all. When Jagannath returned from office he used to find that his room was spanking clean and he could not understand for a long time why this girl took the trouble of folding all his clothes and smooth the crumpled bedsheet on his bed.It was clear that she remained trapped in a situation of her own making and she had no choice other than to do all this for Jagannath who felt utterly confused about his own possible response. Her cheeks flushed deep- red when Jagannath even asked for the time .At her stage she had no choice . Otherwise why would she stare at his shadows playing on the opposite wall incessantly without a flutter of her eyelids as he returned from his office and started to change his clothes ? Jagannath looked at the cockroach on the bathroom wall scaling the glazed tiles lazily and spoke his first love-words . The words darted across the length of the bathroom and reached the cokroach which fell from its perch on the wall to the ground and started running towards the wall again.


End of Chapter 7