“So, apologize,” she said.
“Well I am sorry for what I said, I should not have said that, I was wrong,” he repeated his apology from earlier.
“Okay. Apology accepted. Anything else you want to discuss?” She asked next. Was she trying to hint at something?
“I want us to be friends again if we could,” he answered, after what was a long pause.
“Okay,” she nodded, hiding back her disappointment. “Is that all?”
“Yes..I ..think..so.”
And so there they stood as two diplomats fencing with the swords of pretentious glib, when they should have been two kindred souls laying their hearts bare to one another to show how much love and admiration each held for the other.
*******
A couple of hundred yards from that garden resort, Vikram Sahni stood on a pavement, facing the very white building of which he had been told earlier this afternoon by the elderly Sardar Ji.
In it was supposed to be the cure to his affliction, the remedy to all his sorrows. Or may be a trap laid out for him by the evil powers to stop him from conforming to his daily observance.
Two opposing voices were fighting it out in his head, one calm and reasonable, the other strident and crying out doom. On one side were the words of that old man ringing in his mind – for how long are you going to keep living your life in fear dear fellow? On the other side was the booming warning of the Pandit Ji – Annihilation is inevitable if you do not follow through with what I ask of you son.
Confounded, as he had remained since the time of meeting the Sardar Ji, Vikram continued to just stand there on the side of the road and stare at that white house. If only he could climb over its front picket fence, walk the pathway that led to the porch, ascend its steps and knock on the front door, he would know for sure if it was an insidious trap or a benign blessing waiting for him in there, or may be for all purposes just some kind of a poor practical joke.
In a conflict, the wont of a weaker being is to stand up for the side which demands the least degree of action from him, the one giving him the safer option on the surface. As such Vikram too was beginning to develop a line of argument in favor of the Pandit Ji.
Had not the great man warned him of evil powers looking to put deterrents in his path? Then surely it could not be a mere coincidence that on the same day a stranger would appear out of nowhere and try to lure him with false beguiling notions, all in an effort to stop him from tying the yellow talismanic thread around the Peepal tree, a task which Pandit Ji had stated was of utmost importance for his well being.
Slowly but surely his mind was forming its final opinion on the matter, and so not long after, Vikram looked at that building with a distrustful sneer and told it in no unclear terms that he had won and it had lost.
“I am not falling for your gibberish, not now, not ever.”
And he began to walk away, resuming his course towards the Peepal tree while giving himself a conciliatory pat on the back for successfully resisting the temptation the dark powers had put in front of him.
All of a sudden though, he felt a cold burst of wind upon his face and moments later, heard the rumbling of dark heavy clouds coming together in the sky above. As he reflexively flexed his elbow in order to open his umbrella so that he could protect himself from the coming rains, he realized that in all his perturbation about what was inside that white building, he had forgotten to bring his umbrella in the first place!
*******
A mere fifteen seconds later those dark clouds opened up and began to pelt the lands underneath with heavy showers. In the garden where the Shagun ceremony was taking place, the panicked guests were running around looking for shelter, with many hurrying towards the canopy in the center.
Raj and Meeta were too heading for this cover when Raj took off his jacket and moved it over Meeta’s head to protect her from the rain.
“You care this much about me!” Meeta asked him somewhat teasingly, her round black orbs carrying a hint of mischief.
“Even a sprinkle of a drizzle and you catch cold. Now stop talking and move more quickly!” Raj answered her, his voice urgent as he increased the pace of his strides.
But instead of following suit, Meeta out of a sudden capricious whim, stopped in her tracks. It caused Raj to momentarily overshoot ahead with his jacket before he too checked his steps and hastened back to her.
“Why did you stop?” he asked a little nettled. Since his jacket was not large enough to provide cover for the both of them, more than half his body was exposed to the pouring rain at the moment.
“Nothing, you can go,” Meeta replied simply.
“What!”
“You want to stay you can stay. You want to go you can go,” she said with a casual shrug of her shoulders.
Meanwhile those who had made it to the canopy, were huddled under it forming a tight circle around the space in which the Shagun ceremony was about to begin. Seated in there were the groom and his parents, some close family relatives as well as the ubiquitous Pandit Kirat Lal Kanti.
“Pandit Ji, can’t we delay the ceremony till the rain stops?” Amar’s mother inquired of the eminent man.
“See this is the most auspicious of times for the Shagun. Yes we can delay a little, but then we must perform another ritual to ask forgiveness from the Gods for not doing the ceremony on the time they had picked,” Pandit Ji responded, benignly clarifying the situation to the groom’s mother as well as to all other present.
“I don’t think there is any need of a delay. If this is the time, then this is the time,” It was Amar’s father who suddenly intervened in the matter. On Pandit Ji’s advice, he had already spent a small fortune on various remedies necessary for clearing the astrological obstacles in his son’s marriage and was therefore in no mood for any more of this profligacy.
“As you wish Good Sir, as you wish,” Pandit Ji responded to the father, never letting that even-tempered smile veer away from his face.
It was during this time that Mohit suddenly noticed something which could prove to be of remarkable consequence for him and his family, something which had the potential to completely turn around their poor fortune.
He tried conveying it to his mother, subvocalizing his words but saw that she was unable to make out the aphonic message. He thought about squeezing himself through the crowd and going to her, and he would have if it was not for someone in the crowd giving voice to his serendipitous discovery at that moment.
“Where is Ankur?”
“Yes, where is the Sarbala?”
“There can’t be any Shagun without the Sarbala!”
“He was around earlier. But where is he now?”
Within seconds, the absence of the Sarbala became a hot matter of inquiry in the gathering which culminated in to his mother being prompted to provide an explanation about her son’s whereabouts. The distressed looking lady went on to make a call to the cell phone of her older son, who as a coincidence was also missing.
“The two brothers had gone to our car to collect the bouquets for the ceremony when the downpour began. So they are kind of stuck there now,” she gravely announced after completing the call.
“So shall we delay the ceremony then? Don’t worry, the ritual we will have to perform to make up for it is a very simple one,” Pandit Ji asked the groom’s father, his smile growing a little smug.
It was at this opportune moment that Mohit elbowed Nalini, who in turn elbowed the person sitting next to her, who consequently elbowed the person sitting next to him, and so it happened that eventually this train of elbows reached Mohit’s mother who as a result poked her husband, who then nudged his own sister in to action.
“I say if Ankur is absent then we can have Vinnie sit as the Sarbala. It is one and the same thing really,” she proposed but then immediately noticed that her husband did not look too happy about the idea. “Or may be, we can just go ahead and pay for that ritual,” she added cheekily
.
And that impertinent little whisper at the end proved enough to change the mind of the groom’s face, who therefore grumpily gave his accord to this last minute change of Sarbala.
*******
When the rain began, Vikram was out in the open with no possible shelter in sight, and as he felt the first few drops of moisture on his face, there was only one ominous word ringing in his head: Pneumonia.
Without much forethought he turned back and ran towards the white house to save himself. There was no trap in there; the intention of the old man was at worst a practical joke; so he consoled himself by saying.
On reaching the outer picket fence, he found that the double swing wooden gate in it was open and so he pushed his way through it and rushed across the front yard pathway leading towards the porch of the house. But once at the steps of the porch, he abruptly stopped in his tracks, as he noticed in front of him the presence of another old man.
Dressed in a simple white shirt, a pair of black pants held up by matching suspenders and a black beret cap, he sat there in his easy chair, looking quite the scholar as he was reading through his glasses one of Charles Dickens’ masterpieces, the life and adventures of Nicholas Nickelby.
For a while Vikram forgot all about the pouring rain, as he stood there weighing up the implications of what he was seeing. The snake of suspicion was once again rearing its poisonous head in his mind. Although the old man did not match the looks one would associate with an agent of the dark powers, even then one could never be fully sure. The dark powers were getting more wicked by the day, weren’t they?
“Hello, Hello son! What are you doing standing in the rain like that? Come in, come in,” Vikram’s thoughts were broken by the voice of that old man urging him to move in to the refuge of the porch.
Regaining the awareness that he was getting soaked in the rain, he climbed up the steps in front of him, though telling himself to be on the lookout at all times for any hint of foul play.
“Quite heavy huh, and very sudden too, and to think that just ten minutes ago the skies were all clear, nature, it is quite a mercurial force, isn’t it?” The old man commented as he stepped to the wooden banister of the porch and extended out an arm to feel some of that cold winter rain on his wrinkled skin while he turned his gentle eyes unto the visitor. “Alas! I just notice that you have gotten yourself all wet. What are you doing, standing out in the rain and gawking at an old man like me, huh? I hope you don’t have any unchaste intentions here young man, ha ha, please do not mind my sense of humor, it is on occasions weird to say the least, please come in, come right in and I will get you a towel so that you can dry yourself up,” And the old man ushered the untrusting youth in to the house, where the two of them found themselves standing in a cozy and homely living room. “Just wait here and I will get you that towel,” the host said, and then disappeared in to one of the doors, leaving Vikram alone in there.
This gave Vikram an opportunity to look around for signs of the Sardar Ji in that living room, but finding none reaffirmed his notion that the doddering fella was just playing some kind of a silly prank on him, sending him out to the house of a random stranger.
“Here son, and feel at ease,” the old man was back with the towel, which he now held out for his guest.
Vikram dropped his thoughts and took the towel after which he used it to dry himself for the next couple of minutes. After doing the most thorough job of wiping and scrubbing, he returned it as he thanked the old man for his kindness.
“Never mind that Son, never mind that, just tell me what would you like to have for a drink? And don’t say no regular coffee or tea, that stuff is too bland, just like my dead wife, god bless her soul ha ha, anyhow, back to the topic of drinks, I have some fine brandy in the back if you would like to have a taste,” the old man offered graciously.
“No, Sir, I am fine really,” Vikram replied, adhering to that old proverb of ‘Never accepting drinks from a stranger’.
“Ah, you young people! Always so formal, always so proper. Never mind, never mind at all. I won’t force you for it, I guess I can just indulge you in a conversation till the time this rain stops and frees you from company, ha ha.”
“Yes, of course. By the way it’s a nice house you have here Sir.”
“Oh yes, of course, thank you, it belongs to me and my friends.”
“Your friends?”
“Oh yes, everyone has friends. I do too. In fact here comes one of them.”
Stepping in to that living room was another elderly man, but dressed rather oddly in clothes befitting a young teenaged hip-hop fan. A loose green football jersey, a pair of low waist jeans, matching green sneakers and a Polk-a-dot green bandana wrapped around his head constituted his attire.
“hey yo,” he gave Vikram a bit of a salute.
“now listen..
You think I am a old man, from some senile block
With his legs so worn out, that he can’t walk the walk
but you ain’t seen me walk boy, I have got the strength of a rock
and these words, I can rip this shit so bad, it will send you all in shock..
you don’t believe me, well you haven’t fucking heard me roar..
just give me some rhythm and I will blast you off this floor..”
“Haha…haha…haha,” The wild chuckles of the beret wearing old man resonated around the room after he heard his friend’s rap. “You are never going to be good at this my man…you will just end up scaring our guest away, just like you scared your wife away…ha ha…don’t mind me..I like myself some wife jokes…ha ha…”
“Well give me some time and I will be better at this. Anyways, I have some writing to finish and I can feel that the muse of inspiration is kind on me at the present moment. So pardon me Sirs, I have to bid you adieu,” the bandana man said, before he gave Vikram another salute and then walked off.
“Don’t let your first impressions misguide you my dear lad, the man might be pretty awful at this rap thing but he is a mighty fine musician, a mighty fine one, and that Sir, is no joke,” The beret man said after his friend had left.
“So you and your friends live together?” An intrigued Vikram asked.
“Yes indeed. In fact there is another one upstairs in his bedroom, but he has been busy there with his Missus since the afternoon. No, it is not what you think it is, at our age, it is nearly impossible to pull off a feat like that …ha ha. The two of them are on a harry potter movie binge right now.”
“Is it a Sardar Ji, this third friend?” Vikram next inquired, wondering if this third friend was the same person he had met at the bus stop earlier today.
“No, not a Sardar,” the old man replied, his face growing ponderous for a second or two. “But, that does not mean there isn’t a Sardar, there is one,” he smiled at Vikram before briskly going to one of the cabinets in that living room and coming back with a thick photo album.
“There he is, the Sardar of our group,” And inviting Vikram to take a seat on the couch, he flipped open the album, and there indeed was the picture of the same man that Vikram had earlier met. The picture was against the backdrop of a snowy peak and from all the mountain gear he was wearing, it was clear that it was taken while he was on some kind of a trekking expedition. “He is the man that in a way made all of this happen for us,” the old man began to reminisce, while turning the pages of that photo album.
In there were vignettes of the man, traveling through different countries, trekking through different terrains, some with friends, others alone, some funny like the one in which he was pretending to lift a heavy boulder, some poignant like the one where he stood teary-eyed as he stared at the vast expanse of the Arabian sea in front of him, each of these pictures seemed to have some interesting story behind it, and seeing them Vikram felt both fascinated as well as a little remorseful. To think that he could have had similar adventures in his own life instead of spending all his time running around Pandi
ts and Peepal trees!
“As you can see, a constant traveler, always in search of adventure. And in a way the person that made life happen once again for all of us,” the old man continued with his anecdotal recital. “See son. The four of us were friends from college itself. O Life was so beautiful then, days spent in the company of our mates and nights spent in the company of our dreams. But then after college, the cares of life began to take a toll on each one of us, so heavily these weighed us down that listless our existence became. And slowly we drifted apart, each beset with his personal troubles, his own grief.”
“It was some 10 years ago, that we met again. All old men, defeated by life, just counting our days away and waiting for death. Even our families didn’t need us anymore. You see son, young folks don’t need old folks like us after a time, and I don’t blame them, a time comes when their own struggles become more important, and then naturally, they start to forget all about us.”
“Anyhow the universe was kind enough to bring the four of us together again one fateful day and after sharing a little bit of that fine elixir which we call liquor, we began to confide in to each other the state of our minds. And that night, after all this time we were friends again, arms in arms, laughing and crying together, and it was then that our traveler said to us - Why does it have to stop?”
“Ah, yes, why does it have to stop? Why not instead of wasting away alone in some dark desolate corner, we spend our old age in the company of each other? Why not? “
“And so here we are living together in this house for the last ten years, watching films, enjoying music, travelling, reading, dancing, laughing. There’s just so much to life, only one need to rekindle the spirit for it in one’s heart at times, and for us, what rekindled our spirits was the company of our mates.”
Vikram, who had listened to the whole story with riveted attention, now felt a strong inclination towards having another meeting with this traveler, only this time he would meet him in admiration rather than fear. “So, where is he? Is he not home right now?”
“Alas, my dear fellow, he passed away two years ago. Terminal cancer. But you know what, that remarkable man did not allow even that horrific disease to bog him down. Instead of spending his last few months in a hospital as strongly suggested by his Doctor, he forced all of us to go traveling through the Himalayas on our bikes. He took his last breath in a roadside Dhaba near Kullu,” The old man let out a sniffle before pulling out his handkerchief in order to dab his eyes. But before he could, he noticed that the young man sitting in front of him was looking very agitated all of a sudden. “Are you alright, Son?” he asked, a little concerned.