by Tanmoy Biswas
Balaji gets on the Volvo. But he is yet to decide where he will go. As he settles himself on a seat by the window, he thinks he must make the decision soon. The conductor is coming towards him. “Garuda,” Balaji tells the conductor. He notices that the conductor has this habit of licking his teeth with the tip of his tongue. “You have to get off at Lifestyle. From there you can walk,” The conductor says. Balaji knows. By mistake he said, “Garuda.” Balaji collects his ticket. The conductor leaves.
He and Praveen travelled to Garuda on this Volvo route every Sunday. Praveen bought the tickets. They two occupied two seats side by side. Balaji took the seat by the window. Praveen let him take the window seat. Then as the conductor came, Praveen asked Balaji, “Where you want to go?” “You decide,” Balaji replied and turned his attention outside the window. They both knew where they would go. After the conductor left Praveen handed the tickets to Balaji and asked him what he was looking at outside the window. Balaji smiled and replied, “The outside world.” Then he turned and looked straight into Praveen’s eyes and whispered with a mischievous smile on his face, “The world without you.” “How is that world?” Praveen asked. “Dull,” Balaji snapped and gripped Praveen’s hands tightly.
Two seats ahead a woman is sitting alone by the window. A tall, elderly lady in a neatly clad Bangalore Silk saree. Balaji felt impressed by both the olive of the saree and the prissy way the lady has worn and is donning it. He loves clothes and apparel and accessories and cosmetics. He is not the make-up artist in a cosmetics boutique for nothing. Fashion excites him. He loves nothing more than to be pampered and praised for his choice of the right tee and jeans trousers and the shoes, hairdo and kajal. But he always felt thwarted when Praveen seemed hardly to have noticed his get-up. On one of those initial days when Balaji had started taking seriously the affection of the tall, lanky man working in a private bank, he came on a date flaunting pricey brands and kept waiting for a compliment from him. Seeing Praveen not coming up with one, Balaji could not resist, “You’ve not said anything about how I look today.” Praveen shot a momentary glance all over him and said with the usual terse smile on his face, “Good. You always look good.” Balaji sighed as he realized that was the most flattering comment the banker was capable of showering. Balaji did not mind. He liked Praveen. Loving is getting used to occasional disappointments.
Balaji gets off at Lifestyle, crosses the road and starts walking towards Garuda. Late October Bangalore afternoon. You would want the soothing sun to go on kissing you all over. Balaji walks fast, with agile strides. “You walk like a bird. On two thin legs. About to fly away,” Praveen had said in one of the rare light-hearted moments. Balaji’s lean legs hugged tight by a skinny move like two busybody chopsticks in the hands of a hungry glutton. Soon the mall stands clear in his vision. The autos stand in queue on one side while their drivers wander about in search of passengers. The small stalls selling pani puri or momos are scattered. Balaji walks towards the mall entrance passing the Café Coffee Day. On their first date he and Praveen had sat at that CCD. With time Garuda became their regular place to visit, conveniently located near Balaji’s one-room-kitchen at Murugeshpalya and Praveen’s Paying Guesthouse at Domlur. They would meet at Domlur bridge bus stop, get into a Volvo and come to Garuda. Usually they’d watch a movie in Inox and eat in the food court. Balaji liked to eat from different food counters. Praveen never complained. He always ate at Shiv Sagar. “Nothing like home food. Cooked by mom,” Praveen liked to say. Balaji did not cook. On those last days when Balaji could feel that the bond was slackening they would eat in silence. While watching the movie sometimes Balaji placed his palm near Praveen’s. Balaji’s palm would lie untouched.
Balaji brings his thoughts back to the mall. Maybe it has not really ended. He is giving up too soon. He is being unnecessarily negative, Balaji chides himself. Maybe Praveen is busy. As Balaji reaches the entrance to the mall, he decides to try calling Praveen again. For the fifth or sixth time since he woke up this morning. Maybe this time Praveen will answer the call. Balaji feels hopeful, as he has felt all the previous times. The call goes unanswered. Balaji remembers one evening from their early days of dating, when he had left work and reached almost half his way back home before he discovered that his phone was not with him. He rushed back to his boutique. Kil, the petite Assamese girl who was closest friend at work, was waiting for him. She told him Praveen had kept calling him first on his phone and finally on the boutique landline number. When Balaji called Praveen back and Praveen burst into frantic bouts of rage and worry, Balaji cherished every bit of the otherwise reticent man’s desperate need to reach him.
Balaji takes the lift and reaches the food court upstairs. He settles himself at a corner table with a plate of Fish & Chips from Marina Seafood counter and a watermelon juice with extra ice cubes and sugar added to it.
Praveen’s decision to go home, the small town in Andhra, was very abrupt. Balaji pestered him for the reason even as Praveen simply announced over the phone, “Tomorrow morning I’m going home.” He could sense something was up and Praveen was not ready to share. It was always difficult to make Praveen talk freely. Praveen was one of those people who believed repressing emotions was the only sensible option. Balaji learnt to be patient. Balaji may seem frenziedly impatient when the shade of lipstick does not match with the colour of the saree or if the shoe design is incongruous with the embroidery of the shawl, but his patience with Praveen is not ruffled easily. Yet the patience evaporated when even two days after his return to Bangalore Praveen did not call him. Balaji was furious as he called Praveen. Fury, the natural successor to pent-up wistfulness. Praveen maintained his cool for some time, but eventually burst out: “Dude, hold your horses. I still have no clue which way my life’s gonna run. Love is really not the first thing on my platter now.” Balaji did not reply. No words felt adequate to cope with the intense, pervasive sense of doom that was choking him from deep inside. He went quiet. “I will call you back later,” said Praveen and disconnected the call. That was Thursday night. Today is Sunday. Praveen has not called back or answered Balaji’s call since. As Balaji gulps down the last drop of juice from the paper glass, he thinks how fast the soothing liquid gets over and the hard ice cubes litter at the bottom. Weirdly, everything he sees gives him analogies to relationships. Relationships suck.
“Can we sit? We can’t get a table,” says a man standing across the table from Balaji. The woman with him holds a baby boy in her arms and has already sat on the other side of the table. Balaji looks at them. He keeps staring. Suddenly a picture flashes on his mind. Maybe the picture of the future Praveen said he had no clue about. The clue Praveen tried to get him to picture, maybe. Not that Balaji had not guessed it before. But now he knows for sure what caused Praveen’s sudden visit home and finds an explanation for his subsequent behaviour. Suddenly he feels lonely, very lonely. He gets up. He looks at the woman and says, rather harshly, “Yes, you may sit. I’m leaving.” He starts walking. He feels to run. He comes out of the food court, rushes downstairs and comes out of the mall. The mild breeze. The late afternoon sun. The scent of baked cookies. The auto drivers’ persistent solicitations. The noisy traffic on the nearby street. Balaji longs to become one with the surroundings, shedding a self that feels so heavy, so difficult to carry along. He walks with his usual brisk strides towards the bus stop. All he needs is the empty privacy of his own room, he knows. He feels his eyes are wet. But he resists. He knows better than crying out in the public and getting his kajal smudged.
Picture credit: https://www.flickr.com/photos/rameshng/
a lonely heart, love-sick and jilted’ is neither a man’s nor a woman’s nor an LGBT’s. It is simply heart -rending.