Chapter 15 - The Dust

Dust had begun to gather on Maan and his cozy apartment. The shining floor, the beautiful rug, the couch and many other pieces of furniture had covered themselves with a blanket of dust. They refused to hear the constant knocking on the door. Maan slept in darkness that day, the curtains drawn to hide the bright outside. He had lain there for so long, he couldn’t quite remember how long. Vaguely he remembered picking up the newspapers strewn on the floor and flinging them on to the couch, and depositing the bottles of milk that had been standing outside like nosey neighbors, into the frigid confines of the kitchen refrigerator. He remembered the constant ringing of his cell phone, and the persistent voice of Mr. Batliwala, the big boss, say, “Maan can you come over to office? There is an urgent matter and I need you to look into it immediately.” Maan mumbled into the phone in a sleepy drone that he wasn’t well and hung up immediately after. There were more phone calls. Many unknown numbers, many numbers that looked like they were from his office, some phone calls from friends, even a couple of phone calls from Mona. In his deep sleep Maan would half notice the phone in the corner of the room blink its blue light intermittently and wail like a hungry baby. Lately Maan noticed that this wailing baby had finally died, and he sighed in relief. Sometimes he would open his eyes and wonder how little he could live by. That he needed no food, no society, no work to keep him busy, no memories, no family even. In his dreams he often saw photographs of his parents, his father with a bushy moustache, and his mother with a vermillion streak that lined her neatly parted hair. They were sitting next to each other, with a little space between them to let in the orange sun behind them. Where was that photograph taken, a hill station? Was it Darjeeling? They were so young, like the painting on the Grecian urn. He would see the photograph flutter away through the open window towards the sea, and wake up with a start to find that the window was indeed closed. Sometimes in his dreams he saw his uncle, smiling at him and patting his shoulder. He saw himself as a child of 14, scrawny and silent as a stone. Other times he would dream about the blue eyes, those mysterious blue eyes. Peering at him with a coldness that constantly mocked him. Maan saw the possessor of those eyes, as he had seen him in the elevator. Motionless. But there was a tension in his limbs, like the tension of a coiled spring. Was he about to strike?

Maan turned over in his bed and reached out for the bottle of water that lay just within his reach. Then he stared at the ceiling fan, turning slowly with tiresome regularity. The light from the edge of the curtain created a curious effect on it. The shadow of the blades would grow longer as if to reach for the window and then they would constrict gradually till they were back again. Like Maan, even the blades of the fan had gathered dust. The bed, the mattress, the blanket and the cupboard too had gathered a dust of apathy, and gloomy unconcern. He had stopped thinking about the consequences, about what would happen next. He began to wish to lie just where he was for the rest of his life, covered in a dust of obscurity and away from the eyes of the world. There was Batliwala’s kindly face and all his office colleagues. Why should he have to suffer them anymore? There were his friends, his close friends. But give it a while and they would forget him too. There was once a ‘someone else’, but he wouldn’t think about all that. The road to childhood was a one-way street. There was a beautiful house at the end of a narrow lane, but that existed only in a photograph these days. There was now a wall on the narrow lane and the beautiful house was obscured from view. He saw himself driving on the expressway and there were so many cars along with him. They drove on for miles and miles, no exit in sight. But even if there were an exit what difference would it make. Why would he ride on like that with everybody else? What if he refused to ride on? What if he stopped his car and refused to start it again? There was no destination after all, why all this fuss? Why not stop this charade right here?

In the corner of the room, the TV begged haplessly for help as winds lashed the TV screen.
“As wind-swept rains lashed several parts of the state, road traffic and communication networks went haywire. It was breezy and chilly in New Delhi as the capital experienced light showers and an overcast sky throughout the day.”
Maan put down the bottle of water and looked blankly at the TV screen. The pretty news reporter spoke to the camera. In the backdrop were people skirting puddles of water and balancing their umbrellas against the pouring rain.

Last week, office colleagues had dropped in out of curiosity. “Your cell phone was dead”, they explained. There were four of them, and when they were together they usually made a lot of noise.
“How have you been buddy?” asked Vishy.
“Good. Very good in fact”, smiled Maan.
The conversation began like the spluttering engine of an unused car. But soon the conversation meandered to office politics and gossip. That was familiar ground. There was always something funny going on. Everybody was after all a caricature, some more than others. Maan wondered if they laughed at him when he was not there. They decided to go on a little jeep ride, pick up some booze on the way and listen to music over the car stereo. A few drinks later Maan was just as boisterous as them, shouting himself hoarse to be heard above the din of the loud music. It was a nice reprieve, from his self-imposed solitude. For sometime he almost belonged with them, looked like them and even felt like them. For sometime he didn’t ask questions, instead went along with everyone else. They stopped for gas, and before they knew it they were dancing in the gas station. They must have made a scene. But this was typical; they had stopped at the oddest of places before and done a little dancing to music many times before. The world won’t laugh at them. The world was to be laughed at. Everything was funny. Nothing had to make sense. You just had to have a good time. But the sun would rise sometime later and the revelry would have to be tucked into a briefcase for some other time. They had their families and friends to go home to. Maan went home to his blanket of dust.

The TV spoke to him, as dreams do to a sleeping man.
“The minimum temperature was 13.2 degrees Celsius, four degrees below normal.”
“Are you speaking with me?” Maan smiled and said.
“Delhi saw heavy rainfall on Saturday night”
“It was quite fine here on Saturday night. I think. Heck, when was Saturday night?”
“Accompanied by thunder, lightning and strong winds.”
“Too bad. May be you should move to Mumbai.”
“The wet spell will continue for the next three days.”
“You never know, pretty girl. The wet spell may go on forever. Shall I pick you up at the airport then?”
“… uprooting trees, snapping telecommunication lines and crippling normal life”
“ Crippling normal life. Normal crippling life. Sometimes you don’t need uprooted trees, and snapped lines to cripple normal life. First of all let me ask you, is there such a thing is as normal life? How different is it from abnormal life?”
The doorbell rang.
“There is my answer.”
Maan walked up to the door feeling unusually light. He opened the door, and Abhijit walked in like the cool breeze.
“Abhijit, how different is abnormal life from normal life?”
“Normal life was last seen on earth in 1975. It has been extinct since.”
“Right after you were born?”
“Precisely! You look pretty normal today. What is wrong with you? I thought I would find you scuba diving in the bathtub. You disappoint me.”
“Scuba diving is too taxing. I have been fishing mainly”, said Maan and laughed.
“Good.”

Abhijit walked up to the couch, sat upon it and planted his feet on the center table. He stretched out his hands and gave out a yawn.
“I have slept for a week or so. Straight!” said Maan.
“It’s contagious, stay away.”
Abhijit took the TV remote and turned on the Sports Channel and started watching some cricket match.
“In case you are wondering why I came here, I came here to watch TV. Don’t assume that I actually came to see you”, said Abhijit.
“Good then may be I’ll get back to my fishing.”
“Sure.”
“What’s up Abhijit?”
Abhijit started laughing. Maan gave him a quizzical expression and sat down in the chair next to him.
“You broke somebody’s heart in office. No chick this time, its Big Boss. I met him in office and he was sulking in the corner of his cabin scratching his beard.”
Abhijit scratched the imaginary beard on his chin to show what he meant. Maan scratched his weeklong beard too.
“Then he looked at me from the corner of his eye and shook his head. It was about the Mehta incident. Oh you don’t know. Some guy incinerated his factory. That factory is your baby Maan, didn’t you work on that one? Of course old Mr. Mehta won’t talk with any of us. He is so impressed with you. Everybody wants Maan. What’s wrong with people? By the way, I heard Mehta has a pretty daughter. I am sure you have your eye on her. Oh look at you blush. The look on your face says it all. You handle this one Maan, and you might win his daughter’s hand in reward. Big Boss said that you banged the phone on him and I completely believe him. That’s so bad of you, Maan. Poor guy has been in such bad humor all week. Your lovely face would cheer him up so much.”
“Forget it”, said Maan and yawned, “Right now I want to sleep some more.”
Abhijit disregarded his comments as one does a flitting fly.

In ten minutes they were in Abhijit’s car driving down marine drive. Abhijit drove in the middle of the road at his own leisurely pace.
“Buddy, you do not own the road unfortunately”, said Maan.
“Yes I do!”
And he drove even slower, and they watched other cars overtake them.
“I won’t be surprised to see a bullock cart overtake us”, said Maan.
“May be you can hitch a ride with the bullock cart”, replied Abhijit and laughed.

Sometime later they were in Malabar Hills, at Mr. Mehta’s lovely sea facing house. It was evening already and there were some old people doing their evening walk. The road sloped upwards and buildings jutted out like the jagged edge of a saw. The senior citizens were obviously gasping for breath, some even felt their knees as they walked up the slope of the road. But it was a beautiful sight, surely one of the prettiest in Mumbai. Lovely houses, bougainvillea flowers white, red, yellow, purple were everywhere. Greenery enveloped the picturesque buildings like hair that curled around a maiden’s face. Gardens cluttered together and surrounded Malabar hills like chicks surround the mother hen. It seemed as if all the greenery of Mumbai had run away from the harsh reality of Mumbai life to take refuge in the quiet confines of Malabar hills. As Maan got out of his car, he spotted the sun as it was about to dip itself into the sea, like a round biscuit into a cup of tea. The huge gates of Mehta Mansion, was covered with shrubs. The white walls had just been whitewashed and of course there was a blanket of beautiful yellow and red bougainvillea flowers that covered it like a silk shawl would a white kurta. The gatekeeper was a thickset middle-aged man with a bushy moustache. He belonged to the scenery of the place and had been standing there for ages, ever since Mehta Mansion had sprung up from Malabar Hills like a plant sprouting from mud. His moustache curled up towards the heavens as he recognized Maan. The gate was duly opened for him and they were led to the beautiful lawn that clothed the seaward side of Mehta Mansion. They sat upon cozy cane chairs under a large lawn umbrella and looked towards the mansion waiting for Mr. Mehta to come and meet them.

Mr. Mehta didn’t keep them waiting too long. He came down the steps and greeted them with a welcoming smile. He had a good-humored face and close cropped silver hair. His cheeks puffed out slightly and his eyes were a bit droopy. He was dressed in a modest white traditional Kurta that he might have been wearing for ages. The sleeves were rolled up like that of a young man about to get into an argument. His attire underlined the dominant traits in his nature. His temperament was mercurial though age had mellowed him down a bit. These days he was generally good humored and happy.
“Good evening Maan. How have you been?”
He held his hand out towards Maan. Maan shook his hand and said, “Good evening Mr. Mehta. Meet my colleague, Abhijit.”
Tea was served and with every sip both Maan and Abhijit admired the beautiful lawn, and the bed of flowers. Mr. Mehta even began showing them his rose collection, naming the flowers one after another.

“This one is the Provence Rose. They have a hundred petals or so. See how pretty she is!”
Maan and Abhijit nodded.

When the cups of tea were emptied, the Provence rose disappeared into the background, the brows of Mr. Mehta assumed the shape of a desolate frown and his lips began to pout. He raised his hands and folded then behind his head, squinted his little eyes till they were littler than before, and scrutinized Maan’s physiognomy. Maan had seen him thus before, and it meant that Mr. Mehta had rambled enough and wanted to come to the point. For a while they discussed the damages, the time Mr. Mehta need to restart production, the insurance claim and other details.
“Perhaps we’ll survey your site tomorrow morning at 10?” said Abhijit and gave Maan a sinister smile.
Mr. Mehta nodded. Abhijit rose up from his chair and so did Maan. Maan didn’t speak a word till they were in the car.
He shut the door with a vengeance and said, “Why did you have to involve me again?”
“Oh come on. It’s only for a day. Then you can go back to your sleepy ways my dear Rip Van Winkle.”
They sped back to Marine Drive. The other side of the road was packed with cars that had come to halt. Horns bleared and tempers raged. It was peak hour for Mumbai traffic, and everybody save them was headed north. Maan smiled to himself thinking that next morning they might be the only one's heading north, while all the other people braved traffic to reach their offices in south Mumbai.