A Solitude and Beyond
Dust and sorrow lie mingled on the asphalt roads of a
city thirsty with desolation. Here, friendships, oaths, and loves have all been
torn apart. To stumble upon any past is unnatural. Once upon a time, the golden
wand and the silver wand broke a princess’s sleep. There, Yayati met Sunita.
The palash and krishnachura trees had grown old; light had changed its colors;
faces had turned pale. From the lines on those faces one could guess entire
shadow-paintings. The troupe of nautanki players had dressed one as the hero,
another as the heroine. In the small circle of life, love itself had become a
cyclical play. Sometimes, suddenly, such things happen. Encounters on the road.
Old characters wake from their slumber, only to appear in the ruins of damage
and reckoning.
This winter the city had suffered much. Political turmoil, ailing bodies, and a marketplace in decline. Yayati needed to return from his hypertension. His chin was narrow, his forehead broad and stern. Beneath hair streaked in black and white, wrinkled skin bore permanent etchings of worry across his brow. Many times he had suddenly disappeared into some unfathomable elsewhere. A woman walked beside him. Indifferent to her existence, he wandered far, carried by strange thoughts. The woman followed at a slow pace. Yet his reflections did not break, nor did their walking. They went far. Then suddenly, she was no longer there. Had she fallen behind?
In the life of the city, the words unity and togetherness had long been erased. A woman’s voice called from behind— “Yayati!”
Yayati froze. All thoughts shattered as he turned to look back. Lightning flickered across his face, his eyes— “Sunita! You! Here in Kolkata?”
Her hair was breaking open with the whiteness of shells, yet the strands still fell, in that old familiar way, brushing across one side of her forehead, covering her eyes.
“Surprised? I’ve been watching you for quite a while. But you were so lost inside yourself you saw no one. Are you well?”
The suddenness of the encounter left Yayati startled. He smiled soundlessly. The answer was unknown to him. Within a mind crowded by questions, answers had become useless—mere mixtures required for survival. To say yes would be a lie. To say no would be to strip himself bare. So instead of saying I exist thus, he said:
“How are you? Never thought I’d meet you like this. What brings you suddenly to Kolkata?”
The wrinkle on his brow did not vanish. His face, like that of a victorious soldier in a Greek epic, grew illuminated with intensity. Silent still, he drifted through memory and existence, chewing the cud of old time.
Sunita was here with her only daughter. They were meeting after thirty, perhaps thirty-five years. Yayati had kept no news. These days he liked not keeping news of anyone. Addresses were exchanged—why, who knows? A vow was made, to keep the relation alive again by phone or letter. Yayati’s wife was no more. He lived under the shelter of his only son. Sunita was an expatriate, settled in the States with husband, son, and daughter. She had come to Kolkata with her daughter, for a specific purpose—matters of ancestral property, division of her husband Sudipta’s paternal holdings.
Long ago Yayati and Sunita had been married. Love had bloomed while doing their Master’s in English at the university. Then a swift marriage. But it lasted only two years. Then came separation. After a year in courts, both were freed thirty-three years ago. Time’s endless aggression had carried them both far away in different directions. And suddenly, one day, the old ship had returned to dock at its lost harbor.
Letter 1: Sunita
… Yesterday, a gentleman in the flat next to ours passed away. In fact, no one even knew it was yesterday. In the absence of wife or son, he had been hanging from the ceiling fan. The door of his flat was locked from inside, so nobody suspected anything. For three days the body lay swollen until the stench finally reached everyone’s nose. I tried hard but could not recall his face. Our long-time neighbor—and yet, from not living in this flat much, we hardly knew anyone anymore. Perhaps I had even seen him in the past month, but memory betrays me. … My daughter’s mind is not settling here. I have so much unfinished work. Sudipta’s brothers’ signatures are needed. It may take over two months. Our flight tickets are for February. Before that, everything must be finished … How are you? …
Letter 2: Yayati
… Human nuclei are shrinking smaller and smaller. … Take your daughter to see a film. … Do you get to see the sky in New York? … I am perfectly well. A life calmer and more secure than I need. …
Letter 3: Sunita
… Sometimes, if one has time amidst the rush, the sky is visible. … Lighthouse cinema hall has become so wretched. In our time it was so much better. Do you remember that first day of January with you? … Family is a factory of eating and feeding. Afternoons in New York vanish inside restaurants. Winters are locked indoors, cooking Bengali dishes. Sudipta loves to eat—vodka with fried fish. … Once I was so rebellious. Now I have become realistic. …
Letter 4: Yayati
… Extraordinary men should look at the sky every day. For the sky is the only constant. … The history of the world was never meant to be anything different. Regret for time is useless. A one-legged movement. Better to walk in rhythm with it. … I was walking, when suddenly a stone fell near my feet. Perhaps from a bird’s beak. I tapped it forward with my shoe. The stone rolled along in front of my steps for some time. Then disappeared somewhere. … Today my son and daughter-in-law went to the Grand Hotel for an office party. They brought me back Hakka noodles from a Chinese restaurant. The taste was marvelous. …
Letter 5: Sunita
… You are meticulous. Always drawing instances from real life. With effort you could have become something greater. Why did the desire to be great abandon you? Your father’s piano—do you still play it? Nobody at our university ever imagined you’d spend your whole life in a government job. … Do you keep in touch with anyone? Swapnamoy lives in New Jersey. I meet him sometimes. He has a dark-skinned wife—African. Two daughters, one black, the other dusky. And do you remember Papiya? She lives in Canada. Two years ago we went to watch a cricket match, stayed at her home. Her husband is a big doctor in Toronto, once a student of Calcutta Medical College. Papiya was always such a great admirer of your piano! I’ve heard about others too—Europe, Middle East … … It was my great liking … but let me not lengthen this, let me return to another subject …
Letter 6: Yayati
… Since morning my body has felt unwell. The blood pressure has risen … Around human beings a centripetal force is becoming more and more terrifying. I fear how the next generation will face it … Would it have been truly better or worse to live in New York or Toronto, I cannot tell. Evening would still end the same—sitting in a room, eating fried fish and vodka cooked by Sunita Devi. That fortune does not reach me now, for my wife is gone. Though I must say, my daughter-in-law is remarkable. Truth is, everything is the same. The outer angles of the surroundings may shift, but the feelings remain almost identical. Let me offer you a hypothetical experiment: among all the couples you know, take the one you think happiest. Swap everything with them—the house, the husband, the children. After a year, you will find the feelings are the same. Very cruel, but very real. …
Letter 7: Sunita
Individualism has always been your capital. Necessary perhaps for the growth of the mind. … But one cannot walk a path guided only by imagination. I don’t wish to prolong this argument … I will not suppress reason either. … Beyond numb policies and questions of morality there lie so many other human questions … I never meant to wound you. Those who knew you, who watched your way of life back then, would inevitably say so. I am sorry. Don’t mind. …
Letter 8: Yayati
… For me, questions of morality are still paramount. … Creation will bloom as a story of flowers, vines, leaves, pollen. Like a blazing fireball thrown out from a wandering star. Surely there was a reason behind it. … Sometimes I feel I should leave society and go live in solitude. Children are weeds, they will suck you dry and walk away without looking back. But at this age, can one live entirely alone? Every life, I think, requires a caretaker. Without maintenance, existence falters. Without maintenance, I doubt if man can survive at all. Not everyone is blessed like Dhritarashtra to have a Sanjay by their side. … For two days I’ve stopped walking. My daughter-in-law has decreed—do not go out. Yet illness brings peace to the mind, for then the body alone becomes central. … Through the window I watched, as dusk, wrapped in gray, lifted its palms to offer itself into the dark. …
Letter 9: Sunita
… Do you remember my answer? You had said: If I were the king … My answer remains unchanged: If I were not the king … To remain not at the extremes, but in a place between, is the best. … We returned just two days ago from a trip to Digha. My daughter was stunned to see the sea beach. Five years back we had gone to Miami. Now, of course, New Digha has been beautified well. … You used to write too. What happened to all that? You could sweep aside the so-called great writers with a flick of your finger back then. Why did you not keep writing? That boy who followed you everywhere—he won the Akademi award last year, I heard. …
Letter 10: Yayati
… The habit of writing has been lost for many years now. Yet these letters bring me joy, as though with them floats a fragrance of old days. I would not have believed the post office still existed had I not received your first letter. These past days I used to send the housemaid. Today I went myself. Your flat is so near, perhaps I would have arrived on foot before the letter itself. … It makes me laugh. The raw romanticism of youth. Who does not want to be king? … But I am not modern-minded enough. A prehistoric creature—that is what I remain. No changing it now. … You, of course, are rational—modern, I mean. … It might be a mistake. What is to happen will happen. I do not mean to belittle anyone. …
Letter 11: Yayati
… I feel differently now. Ideology is no match for Nature. … These days I spend my time wandering. Before death, I wish to see as many corners of Bharat as my body will allow. … This rhythm of ours in correspondence has come by an indefinite road, yet it has found its certain cadence. … Evening has indeed thickened, but night has not yet arrived. …
Letter 12: Sunita
After many days, your letter reached me. Had you gone somewhere? … Has the ghost of Puritanism not yet departed from your head? You must admit you are very obstinate. … Once come to the States. Just a plane ride and you will be here. We will take care of the rest. If you have seen the country, see a little of abroad as well. …
Letter 13: Yayati
… I am a profoundly motionless person. The Santhal Parganas are enough for me. In too much movement, might I not suffer seasickness again? … At times I am seized by a strange wish. Let me tell you. To remain awake all night and watch a rose bloom little by little before my eyes. Had I said this thirty or forty years ago, it would have carried some unfathomable interpretation. Yet now it seems, the words are the same but their meaning has changed. Why was such a simple wish never fulfilled? You must think on the answer—perhaps it was for want of a little patience …
Letter 14: Sunita
… I understood what you meant. But is there any point in quarreling about it now? It is just playful banter. … I told my daughter about you. She gave you much affection. I asked her, “If you were my age, what would you do?” She said, I must have a one-night stand with him at least, if not more. I said, What? Would you really feel like it? She replied, Why not? Mom, if you once had a book or a guitar long ago which you loved, and left it behind with someone or somewhere, and one day after so many years you suddenly got a chance to hold it in your hands again—would you not browse its pages or pluck its strings? Would you leave it untouched? … The rose bloomed, but not for you. It bloomed for itself. Sometimes you forget that. Male chauvinist, where do you think you are! … My work here is almost done. Perhaps within fifteen days I shall return. … Come once. That day on the pavement we could not talk properly. … I have told my daughter all our old stories. She knew, of course. She wishes to see you once. Who knows when there will be another chance. For now I am keeping the flat. Later we will see. …
Letter 15: Yayati
… Your daughter is very smart. She was logical indeed. But we were forged of another metal. … When you have so much to occupy you, when you are not feeling lonely, then tell me—can you still think of a solitary cuckoo? … Yes, one-night stand indeed. Life itself is like a one-night stand! This phrase has seized my mind. … We shall see. One day I must certainly meet her …
Yayati stepped out for a walk. Walking, the evening descended upon him. He watched as night seeped into the city—its face primal, unadorned. Darkness thickened in rhythm with the city’s uproar. It was the very heart of Kolkata. No choice but to walk along the footpath; the whole city stood paralyzed in traffic jams. It was the year’s final day.
Sunita’s husband’s ancestral property had become knotted in disputes. Yayati had come to know, though he felt no real interest in the matter. Sunita, too, had written little about it. Yet her letters came regularly—twice a week. Sometimes drenched in emotion, sometimes calm. From them Yayati gathered that her son had become well established in information technology, much like his father. Her daughter was a university professor. A search was on for a Bengali groom for her. But why would a girl raised abroad wish to marry a boy from Kolkata? Surely there was some prior acquaintance. Perhaps both families had arranged it. Perhaps that was why they had all come to Kolkata. Sunita said nothing clearly. She claimed she had no close relatives in the city. Perhaps that was true. Perhaps they were all Sudipta’s kin. Sunita’s parents had died long ago—back when she was still in college. Yayati remembered knowing one or two of her relatives, like her aunt and uncle.
Yayati, of course, was untouched by all this. His own son was CEO of a famed engineering firm—a vast designation, a colossal affair. His daughter-in-law worked in consultancy. Two grandsons studied at St. Xavier’s. A house brimming with family. And yet, despite living squarely inside the whirlpool of domesticity, Yayati seemed somehow absent. Most of all, he had no friends. His own fault—he had not maintained any. Now he felt the lack. Someone had once said life is short, not enough time to do all that must be done. True in the Middle Ages perhaps, when civilization had no machines. Now that saying had lost its teeth.
To Yayati, life seemed very long. Time stretched around him in abundance, refusing to pass. This—he thought—was the greatest problem of modern man: how to spend time. How to kill it. Some books, a little reading. Television did not attract him. Recently, letters to Sunita helped pass the hours. Each year he went on long journeys—three or four times. Twenty days, twenty-five days at a stretch. Planning those trips filled some time. Still, he thought, if he could meet Sunita once, that would be good. They could spend some hours together. He turned the puzzle of their past like a Chinese jigsaw, turning it this way and that. Sunita once had even called him. Yet his hesitation lingered. The feeling that returned between them was one both had denied long ago. It carried an indescribable shame. Certain secret things cannot even be written in letters. For a whole week Yayati stopped writing. But solitude compelled him to resume. Could an arrow once loosed from the bow ever return?
The car moved forward in slow motion. Outside, the world was a full orchestra of clamor; yet within the car lingered a pale aristocracy, dulled, like faded silk.
Sunita had held on for decades to one of Yayati’s old sayings: “Relationships between people are like corporate relationship managers. The more sparkle you invest, the more they glitter.” Back then, both lived restless married lives. The golden wand and silver wand would not align into a single sheath. Yayati’s principle was stark: if even one hair fell into a bowl of milk, he would not touch the milk again.
At the beginning of their separation, Sunita had not truly wanted a complete severing. Six, seven years of university love—college and beyond—had bound them tightly. Yayati, son of a wealthy household. Sunita, girl of modest means. Near the end she longed not for romance, but for a friendship to remain with him. Not a pure, confessed friendship—because Yayati’s way of life was too distant, too alien. At that time he had not even secured his government job. His father’s money still flowed. His life brimmed with philosophy, obstinacy, dutylessness, an existence that echoed the song: “My soul desires what it desires.” Romanticism—attractive before marriage—became the saw’s cruel teeth afterwards. Yayati believed in examinations; Sunita believed in endless fidelity.
Much time passed. The grandeur of an old family’s wealth vanished quickly for Yayati. The vagabond life surrendered to the age’s summons—government service, then the duties of caring for his father, then a second marriage. From off the rails, back onto them. Yet his mind always remained in the meadowlands of nowhere. Sunita, meanwhile, through her job met Sudipta, then a young IT engineer in Kolkata. A new romance—this time like a serene lake, without turmoil. Marriage took place with pomp and festivity. Three years later Sudipta left for abroad. Three years after that, when their son was a year old, Sunita too went.
So when these two ancient husband and wife met again one twilight, it was better to refrain from raising questions of rights or insults—better to let the rare, abstract relationship breathe.
It was January 26th. A festive evening. All around, illumination and brilliance. Restaurants bursting with crowds, beloveds gathering in noisy celebration. Sunita called Yayati, asked what he would do that evening. Yayati said crowds displeased him. A restaurant dinner was ruled out. Instead, he invited her to his house. She accepted.
Yayati had forgotten how to celebrate. Had he grown weary of life? Often he felt exhaustion. Yet the battle was not over. Afternoon’s light carried the trumpet of war. The aged mind must bear itself like a warrior, ready to fight. Blows would come from past and from future, no matter how steady the present remained. Still, perhaps at the end of many roads there lay another kind of path. That hope he carried.
In Yayati’s sitting room, Sunita felt her brain racing ahead. She began imagining, weaving a new sphere of life with brushstrokes of fantasy. Reality had little place there. She saw Yayati’s daughter-in-law—modern, yet quaintly traditional. She thought her own daughter would have befriended her. She remembered the family’s trip to New York, when conversations had passed: where Sunita lived, where to meet next time. All this real, yet Sunita found herself drifting further into constructions of pure imagination, layering scene upon scene, like a painter who cannot resist.
Her daughter had not come. She had been preparing to go to a restaurant instead. When it was decided her mother would go to Yayati’s house, she refused to join. Who willingly breaks their shell nowadays?
At some point Sunita let slip a sentence—perhaps she meant something else, but this came out: “How do you pass so much time alone? Can a person live without company?”
Before Yayati could reply, his daughter-in-law, emerging, answered: “Books. His companions are books. And travel.” Then she withdrew deliberately, as if leaving space for the former spouses. Society had changed. What once was difficult had now become simple. Sunita felt a comfort in that thought.
But then she realized she had trespassed. From the look in Yayati’s eyes, it seemed he had heard something more: Why do you live as if in repentance? As if abandoned by family? Is this your revenge upon yourself?
Yayati could never tolerate pity. He wore his mask of hardness tightly. Whether he understood or not, he spoke with finality: “Alone in solitude, I do what any ordinary man does. Self-reflection. I have thought more than I have done. No regrets. I was this, I am this, I will remain this. This is my joy, my love. It may seem a kind of selfishness. But what else can be done? You know how stubborn I am.”
He paused, then looked directly into Sunita’s eyes: “My private time is not something I like to expose. You know that. Idle time is essential. Do you remember, after marriage, when you caught me in the act of self-pleasure in the house?”
Sunita blushed, unsettled. She had not expected such a direct thrust. She felt a fissure inside him—a loneliness, a strange disjoint. A mind-born man always prefers solitude, even a relationship with himself beyond imagining. To love such a man is easy. To live with him, unbearably difficult. She smiled faintly.
Then Yayati broke the silence: “Isn’t the mechanical life of your country the sharpest image of loneliness? Husband, wife, children all leaving at dawn, driving, dropping each other off. At day’s end, collecting each other again. Restaurants, bars, all monotonous. Winters locked in with room heaters. Vodka drinking. Not very comfortable, not grand either!”
“That is true,” said Sunita. “In the early years I longed desperately to see Bengalis. Non-Bengalis irritated me. Americans never mingled much with our community. Do you remember? The first year we drove 200 miles to see Durga Puja. Now I have adjusted. My children had no problem. Earlier I used to teach. Left the job long ago. Now I am home all day, alone. No one to talk to. Still, time passes with many chores.”
“All around us,” said Yayati, “a new effort has begun—to live fully only for oneself. To achieve moksha through solitude. And some have succeeded. But people think—if only history could be changed, the future would be different. Utter lie. What has happened is the best possible. Nothing else could have been better.”
“Or perhaps,” Sunita said quietly, gazing at his room, “something worse might have happened. Who knows.”
When it was time to leave, the daughter-in-law asked for the car to be brought out. Yayati and Sunita sat inside, apart, like strangers on two sides.
Sunita seemed weary, her body a little languid. Yayati sat turned the other way, unmoving, like stone—far from any melting point. Only the daughter-in-law’s insistence had sent him to escort Sunita home.
The car stopped before Sunita’s flat. She stepped down and asked softly:
“Won’t you come in? Have a cup of coffee. Your house is just nearby. It won’t take long. My daughter wanted to see you once. She would have liked it.”
Yayati hesitated, words fumbling inside. Then he summoned strength, forced them out: “It’s quite late tonight. Some other day perhaps.”
“As you wish,” Sunita said. “Keep in touch.”
Yayati waved. No further words. Sunita walked slowly to the lift, not looking back. She left behind the old, selfish Yayati, feeling her steps lighter, as though the nostalgic fog had suddenly lifted from her heart.
Yayati sat inside the car like a war-worn soldier, weighed down. He felt that with such backward pulls, one day man destroys himself. Knowledge and ego rise as barricades of life. He had performed well upon the stage, true—the theatre of life had been crowded, vibrant. Yet he felt the war with the past had not ended. It still raged, and would rage for many more years. Weapons in hand, the solitary ones would be struck, wounded, scarred.
This winter the city had suffered much. Political turmoil, ailing bodies, and a marketplace in decline. Yayati needed to return from his hypertension. His chin was narrow, his forehead broad and stern. Beneath hair streaked in black and white, wrinkled skin bore permanent etchings of worry across his brow. Many times he had suddenly disappeared into some unfathomable elsewhere. A woman walked beside him. Indifferent to her existence, he wandered far, carried by strange thoughts. The woman followed at a slow pace. Yet his reflections did not break, nor did their walking. They went far. Then suddenly, she was no longer there. Had she fallen behind?
In the life of the city, the words unity and togetherness had long been erased. A woman’s voice called from behind— “Yayati!”
Yayati froze. All thoughts shattered as he turned to look back. Lightning flickered across his face, his eyes— “Sunita! You! Here in Kolkata?”
Her hair was breaking open with the whiteness of shells, yet the strands still fell, in that old familiar way, brushing across one side of her forehead, covering her eyes.
“Surprised? I’ve been watching you for quite a while. But you were so lost inside yourself you saw no one. Are you well?”
The suddenness of the encounter left Yayati startled. He smiled soundlessly. The answer was unknown to him. Within a mind crowded by questions, answers had become useless—mere mixtures required for survival. To say yes would be a lie. To say no would be to strip himself bare. So instead of saying I exist thus, he said:
“How are you? Never thought I’d meet you like this. What brings you suddenly to Kolkata?”
The wrinkle on his brow did not vanish. His face, like that of a victorious soldier in a Greek epic, grew illuminated with intensity. Silent still, he drifted through memory and existence, chewing the cud of old time.
Sunita was here with her only daughter. They were meeting after thirty, perhaps thirty-five years. Yayati had kept no news. These days he liked not keeping news of anyone. Addresses were exchanged—why, who knows? A vow was made, to keep the relation alive again by phone or letter. Yayati’s wife was no more. He lived under the shelter of his only son. Sunita was an expatriate, settled in the States with husband, son, and daughter. She had come to Kolkata with her daughter, for a specific purpose—matters of ancestral property, division of her husband Sudipta’s paternal holdings.
Long ago Yayati and Sunita had been married. Love had bloomed while doing their Master’s in English at the university. Then a swift marriage. But it lasted only two years. Then came separation. After a year in courts, both were freed thirty-three years ago. Time’s endless aggression had carried them both far away in different directions. And suddenly, one day, the old ship had returned to dock at its lost harbor.
Letter 1: Sunita
… Yesterday, a gentleman in the flat next to ours passed away. In fact, no one even knew it was yesterday. In the absence of wife or son, he had been hanging from the ceiling fan. The door of his flat was locked from inside, so nobody suspected anything. For three days the body lay swollen until the stench finally reached everyone’s nose. I tried hard but could not recall his face. Our long-time neighbor—and yet, from not living in this flat much, we hardly knew anyone anymore. Perhaps I had even seen him in the past month, but memory betrays me. … My daughter’s mind is not settling here. I have so much unfinished work. Sudipta’s brothers’ signatures are needed. It may take over two months. Our flight tickets are for February. Before that, everything must be finished … How are you? …
Letter 2: Yayati
… Human nuclei are shrinking smaller and smaller. … Take your daughter to see a film. … Do you get to see the sky in New York? … I am perfectly well. A life calmer and more secure than I need. …
Letter 3: Sunita
… Sometimes, if one has time amidst the rush, the sky is visible. … Lighthouse cinema hall has become so wretched. In our time it was so much better. Do you remember that first day of January with you? … Family is a factory of eating and feeding. Afternoons in New York vanish inside restaurants. Winters are locked indoors, cooking Bengali dishes. Sudipta loves to eat—vodka with fried fish. … Once I was so rebellious. Now I have become realistic. …
Letter 4: Yayati
… Extraordinary men should look at the sky every day. For the sky is the only constant. … The history of the world was never meant to be anything different. Regret for time is useless. A one-legged movement. Better to walk in rhythm with it. … I was walking, when suddenly a stone fell near my feet. Perhaps from a bird’s beak. I tapped it forward with my shoe. The stone rolled along in front of my steps for some time. Then disappeared somewhere. … Today my son and daughter-in-law went to the Grand Hotel for an office party. They brought me back Hakka noodles from a Chinese restaurant. The taste was marvelous. …
Letter 5: Sunita
… You are meticulous. Always drawing instances from real life. With effort you could have become something greater. Why did the desire to be great abandon you? Your father’s piano—do you still play it? Nobody at our university ever imagined you’d spend your whole life in a government job. … Do you keep in touch with anyone? Swapnamoy lives in New Jersey. I meet him sometimes. He has a dark-skinned wife—African. Two daughters, one black, the other dusky. And do you remember Papiya? She lives in Canada. Two years ago we went to watch a cricket match, stayed at her home. Her husband is a big doctor in Toronto, once a student of Calcutta Medical College. Papiya was always such a great admirer of your piano! I’ve heard about others too—Europe, Middle East … … It was my great liking … but let me not lengthen this, let me return to another subject …
Letter 6: Yayati
… Since morning my body has felt unwell. The blood pressure has risen … Around human beings a centripetal force is becoming more and more terrifying. I fear how the next generation will face it … Would it have been truly better or worse to live in New York or Toronto, I cannot tell. Evening would still end the same—sitting in a room, eating fried fish and vodka cooked by Sunita Devi. That fortune does not reach me now, for my wife is gone. Though I must say, my daughter-in-law is remarkable. Truth is, everything is the same. The outer angles of the surroundings may shift, but the feelings remain almost identical. Let me offer you a hypothetical experiment: among all the couples you know, take the one you think happiest. Swap everything with them—the house, the husband, the children. After a year, you will find the feelings are the same. Very cruel, but very real. …
Letter 7: Sunita
Individualism has always been your capital. Necessary perhaps for the growth of the mind. … But one cannot walk a path guided only by imagination. I don’t wish to prolong this argument … I will not suppress reason either. … Beyond numb policies and questions of morality there lie so many other human questions … I never meant to wound you. Those who knew you, who watched your way of life back then, would inevitably say so. I am sorry. Don’t mind. …
Letter 8: Yayati
… For me, questions of morality are still paramount. … Creation will bloom as a story of flowers, vines, leaves, pollen. Like a blazing fireball thrown out from a wandering star. Surely there was a reason behind it. … Sometimes I feel I should leave society and go live in solitude. Children are weeds, they will suck you dry and walk away without looking back. But at this age, can one live entirely alone? Every life, I think, requires a caretaker. Without maintenance, existence falters. Without maintenance, I doubt if man can survive at all. Not everyone is blessed like Dhritarashtra to have a Sanjay by their side. … For two days I’ve stopped walking. My daughter-in-law has decreed—do not go out. Yet illness brings peace to the mind, for then the body alone becomes central. … Through the window I watched, as dusk, wrapped in gray, lifted its palms to offer itself into the dark. …
Letter 9: Sunita
… Do you remember my answer? You had said: If I were the king … My answer remains unchanged: If I were not the king … To remain not at the extremes, but in a place between, is the best. … We returned just two days ago from a trip to Digha. My daughter was stunned to see the sea beach. Five years back we had gone to Miami. Now, of course, New Digha has been beautified well. … You used to write too. What happened to all that? You could sweep aside the so-called great writers with a flick of your finger back then. Why did you not keep writing? That boy who followed you everywhere—he won the Akademi award last year, I heard. …
Letter 10: Yayati
… The habit of writing has been lost for many years now. Yet these letters bring me joy, as though with them floats a fragrance of old days. I would not have believed the post office still existed had I not received your first letter. These past days I used to send the housemaid. Today I went myself. Your flat is so near, perhaps I would have arrived on foot before the letter itself. … It makes me laugh. The raw romanticism of youth. Who does not want to be king? … But I am not modern-minded enough. A prehistoric creature—that is what I remain. No changing it now. … You, of course, are rational—modern, I mean. … It might be a mistake. What is to happen will happen. I do not mean to belittle anyone. …
Letter 11: Yayati
… I feel differently now. Ideology is no match for Nature. … These days I spend my time wandering. Before death, I wish to see as many corners of Bharat as my body will allow. … This rhythm of ours in correspondence has come by an indefinite road, yet it has found its certain cadence. … Evening has indeed thickened, but night has not yet arrived. …
Letter 12: Sunita
After many days, your letter reached me. Had you gone somewhere? … Has the ghost of Puritanism not yet departed from your head? You must admit you are very obstinate. … Once come to the States. Just a plane ride and you will be here. We will take care of the rest. If you have seen the country, see a little of abroad as well. …
Letter 13: Yayati
… I am a profoundly motionless person. The Santhal Parganas are enough for me. In too much movement, might I not suffer seasickness again? … At times I am seized by a strange wish. Let me tell you. To remain awake all night and watch a rose bloom little by little before my eyes. Had I said this thirty or forty years ago, it would have carried some unfathomable interpretation. Yet now it seems, the words are the same but their meaning has changed. Why was such a simple wish never fulfilled? You must think on the answer—perhaps it was for want of a little patience …
Letter 14: Sunita
… I understood what you meant. But is there any point in quarreling about it now? It is just playful banter. … I told my daughter about you. She gave you much affection. I asked her, “If you were my age, what would you do?” She said, I must have a one-night stand with him at least, if not more. I said, What? Would you really feel like it? She replied, Why not? Mom, if you once had a book or a guitar long ago which you loved, and left it behind with someone or somewhere, and one day after so many years you suddenly got a chance to hold it in your hands again—would you not browse its pages or pluck its strings? Would you leave it untouched? … The rose bloomed, but not for you. It bloomed for itself. Sometimes you forget that. Male chauvinist, where do you think you are! … My work here is almost done. Perhaps within fifteen days I shall return. … Come once. That day on the pavement we could not talk properly. … I have told my daughter all our old stories. She knew, of course. She wishes to see you once. Who knows when there will be another chance. For now I am keeping the flat. Later we will see. …
Letter 15: Yayati
… Your daughter is very smart. She was logical indeed. But we were forged of another metal. … When you have so much to occupy you, when you are not feeling lonely, then tell me—can you still think of a solitary cuckoo? … Yes, one-night stand indeed. Life itself is like a one-night stand! This phrase has seized my mind. … We shall see. One day I must certainly meet her …
Yayati stepped out for a walk. Walking, the evening descended upon him. He watched as night seeped into the city—its face primal, unadorned. Darkness thickened in rhythm with the city’s uproar. It was the very heart of Kolkata. No choice but to walk along the footpath; the whole city stood paralyzed in traffic jams. It was the year’s final day.
Sunita’s husband’s ancestral property had become knotted in disputes. Yayati had come to know, though he felt no real interest in the matter. Sunita, too, had written little about it. Yet her letters came regularly—twice a week. Sometimes drenched in emotion, sometimes calm. From them Yayati gathered that her son had become well established in information technology, much like his father. Her daughter was a university professor. A search was on for a Bengali groom for her. But why would a girl raised abroad wish to marry a boy from Kolkata? Surely there was some prior acquaintance. Perhaps both families had arranged it. Perhaps that was why they had all come to Kolkata. Sunita said nothing clearly. She claimed she had no close relatives in the city. Perhaps that was true. Perhaps they were all Sudipta’s kin. Sunita’s parents had died long ago—back when she was still in college. Yayati remembered knowing one or two of her relatives, like her aunt and uncle.
Yayati, of course, was untouched by all this. His own son was CEO of a famed engineering firm—a vast designation, a colossal affair. His daughter-in-law worked in consultancy. Two grandsons studied at St. Xavier’s. A house brimming with family. And yet, despite living squarely inside the whirlpool of domesticity, Yayati seemed somehow absent. Most of all, he had no friends. His own fault—he had not maintained any. Now he felt the lack. Someone had once said life is short, not enough time to do all that must be done. True in the Middle Ages perhaps, when civilization had no machines. Now that saying had lost its teeth.
To Yayati, life seemed very long. Time stretched around him in abundance, refusing to pass. This—he thought—was the greatest problem of modern man: how to spend time. How to kill it. Some books, a little reading. Television did not attract him. Recently, letters to Sunita helped pass the hours. Each year he went on long journeys—three or four times. Twenty days, twenty-five days at a stretch. Planning those trips filled some time. Still, he thought, if he could meet Sunita once, that would be good. They could spend some hours together. He turned the puzzle of their past like a Chinese jigsaw, turning it this way and that. Sunita once had even called him. Yet his hesitation lingered. The feeling that returned between them was one both had denied long ago. It carried an indescribable shame. Certain secret things cannot even be written in letters. For a whole week Yayati stopped writing. But solitude compelled him to resume. Could an arrow once loosed from the bow ever return?
The car moved forward in slow motion. Outside, the world was a full orchestra of clamor; yet within the car lingered a pale aristocracy, dulled, like faded silk.
Sunita had held on for decades to one of Yayati’s old sayings: “Relationships between people are like corporate relationship managers. The more sparkle you invest, the more they glitter.” Back then, both lived restless married lives. The golden wand and silver wand would not align into a single sheath. Yayati’s principle was stark: if even one hair fell into a bowl of milk, he would not touch the milk again.
At the beginning of their separation, Sunita had not truly wanted a complete severing. Six, seven years of university love—college and beyond—had bound them tightly. Yayati, son of a wealthy household. Sunita, girl of modest means. Near the end she longed not for romance, but for a friendship to remain with him. Not a pure, confessed friendship—because Yayati’s way of life was too distant, too alien. At that time he had not even secured his government job. His father’s money still flowed. His life brimmed with philosophy, obstinacy, dutylessness, an existence that echoed the song: “My soul desires what it desires.” Romanticism—attractive before marriage—became the saw’s cruel teeth afterwards. Yayati believed in examinations; Sunita believed in endless fidelity.
Much time passed. The grandeur of an old family’s wealth vanished quickly for Yayati. The vagabond life surrendered to the age’s summons—government service, then the duties of caring for his father, then a second marriage. From off the rails, back onto them. Yet his mind always remained in the meadowlands of nowhere. Sunita, meanwhile, through her job met Sudipta, then a young IT engineer in Kolkata. A new romance—this time like a serene lake, without turmoil. Marriage took place with pomp and festivity. Three years later Sudipta left for abroad. Three years after that, when their son was a year old, Sunita too went.
So when these two ancient husband and wife met again one twilight, it was better to refrain from raising questions of rights or insults—better to let the rare, abstract relationship breathe.
It was January 26th. A festive evening. All around, illumination and brilliance. Restaurants bursting with crowds, beloveds gathering in noisy celebration. Sunita called Yayati, asked what he would do that evening. Yayati said crowds displeased him. A restaurant dinner was ruled out. Instead, he invited her to his house. She accepted.
Yayati had forgotten how to celebrate. Had he grown weary of life? Often he felt exhaustion. Yet the battle was not over. Afternoon’s light carried the trumpet of war. The aged mind must bear itself like a warrior, ready to fight. Blows would come from past and from future, no matter how steady the present remained. Still, perhaps at the end of many roads there lay another kind of path. That hope he carried.
In Yayati’s sitting room, Sunita felt her brain racing ahead. She began imagining, weaving a new sphere of life with brushstrokes of fantasy. Reality had little place there. She saw Yayati’s daughter-in-law—modern, yet quaintly traditional. She thought her own daughter would have befriended her. She remembered the family’s trip to New York, when conversations had passed: where Sunita lived, where to meet next time. All this real, yet Sunita found herself drifting further into constructions of pure imagination, layering scene upon scene, like a painter who cannot resist.
Her daughter had not come. She had been preparing to go to a restaurant instead. When it was decided her mother would go to Yayati’s house, she refused to join. Who willingly breaks their shell nowadays?
At some point Sunita let slip a sentence—perhaps she meant something else, but this came out: “How do you pass so much time alone? Can a person live without company?”
Before Yayati could reply, his daughter-in-law, emerging, answered: “Books. His companions are books. And travel.” Then she withdrew deliberately, as if leaving space for the former spouses. Society had changed. What once was difficult had now become simple. Sunita felt a comfort in that thought.
But then she realized she had trespassed. From the look in Yayati’s eyes, it seemed he had heard something more: Why do you live as if in repentance? As if abandoned by family? Is this your revenge upon yourself?
Yayati could never tolerate pity. He wore his mask of hardness tightly. Whether he understood or not, he spoke with finality: “Alone in solitude, I do what any ordinary man does. Self-reflection. I have thought more than I have done. No regrets. I was this, I am this, I will remain this. This is my joy, my love. It may seem a kind of selfishness. But what else can be done? You know how stubborn I am.”
He paused, then looked directly into Sunita’s eyes: “My private time is not something I like to expose. You know that. Idle time is essential. Do you remember, after marriage, when you caught me in the act of self-pleasure in the house?”
Sunita blushed, unsettled. She had not expected such a direct thrust. She felt a fissure inside him—a loneliness, a strange disjoint. A mind-born man always prefers solitude, even a relationship with himself beyond imagining. To love such a man is easy. To live with him, unbearably difficult. She smiled faintly.
Then Yayati broke the silence: “Isn’t the mechanical life of your country the sharpest image of loneliness? Husband, wife, children all leaving at dawn, driving, dropping each other off. At day’s end, collecting each other again. Restaurants, bars, all monotonous. Winters locked in with room heaters. Vodka drinking. Not very comfortable, not grand either!”
“That is true,” said Sunita. “In the early years I longed desperately to see Bengalis. Non-Bengalis irritated me. Americans never mingled much with our community. Do you remember? The first year we drove 200 miles to see Durga Puja. Now I have adjusted. My children had no problem. Earlier I used to teach. Left the job long ago. Now I am home all day, alone. No one to talk to. Still, time passes with many chores.”
“All around us,” said Yayati, “a new effort has begun—to live fully only for oneself. To achieve moksha through solitude. And some have succeeded. But people think—if only history could be changed, the future would be different. Utter lie. What has happened is the best possible. Nothing else could have been better.”
“Or perhaps,” Sunita said quietly, gazing at his room, “something worse might have happened. Who knows.”
When it was time to leave, the daughter-in-law asked for the car to be brought out. Yayati and Sunita sat inside, apart, like strangers on two sides.
Sunita seemed weary, her body a little languid. Yayati sat turned the other way, unmoving, like stone—far from any melting point. Only the daughter-in-law’s insistence had sent him to escort Sunita home.
The car stopped before Sunita’s flat. She stepped down and asked softly:
“Won’t you come in? Have a cup of coffee. Your house is just nearby. It won’t take long. My daughter wanted to see you once. She would have liked it.”
Yayati hesitated, words fumbling inside. Then he summoned strength, forced them out: “It’s quite late tonight. Some other day perhaps.”
“As you wish,” Sunita said. “Keep in touch.”
Yayati waved. No further words. Sunita walked slowly to the lift, not looking back. She left behind the old, selfish Yayati, feeling her steps lighter, as though the nostalgic fog had suddenly lifted from her heart.
Yayati sat inside the car like a war-worn soldier, weighed down. He felt that with such backward pulls, one day man destroys himself. Knowledge and ego rise as barricades of life. He had performed well upon the stage, true—the theatre of life had been crowded, vibrant. Yet he felt the war with the past had not ended. It still raged, and would rage for many more years. Weapons in hand, the solitary ones would be struck, wounded, scarred.
Comments
Post a Comment