They once asked a man, "What is that you love the most?"
Given the fact that he was torn into tethers, had no morsel for two days and
saw nothing as important as a place to rest, he replied ''It is indeed cruel on
you part, dear to weigh me down me with the obscurities of life for I know you
are no blind man, for I know you have the perfect two ears, for I know you
smile seeing me..."
Saying this, he went afar, never to return to the spot again. The only thing
that remained lunging in that dark, humid corner of the central park in the
heart of the city was a young chad, probably 40 years of age...with his tweed
jacket aimlessly hanging around his shoulders, his mittens finding their place
beside him on the bench (for it was a Calcutta winter that needed nothing of
that preparation...).
It was 10 at night when he drove away the helpless looking man and I
as a silent observer of the scene thought wondrously, "Although the older
of the two seems to me a beggar, of whatever little knowledge I have of human appearances,
what made the younger lad, impeccably dressed and seemingly gay, do there at
that odd hour of the night?”
With the night strengthening its hold over the city and the creatures of the
dark finding their rightful niches, Minto Park soon turned into a bazaar, the
nature of which is better untold and best deduced. Since, my daily rounds of
cards got over (humbug!! Rajnish hooked up a silly maiden and Babu preferred
sleeping in the promenade) I was like a serpent drawn to the music of the
enchanter, drawn to the earlier mentioned conversation between the old man and
the strange looking sahib.
The biggest joke that life plays on you is that, when you have not the best
looks, the best clothes and the aid of a warm wallet, it seems to you that the
costliest treasure you possess, your intellect is also long drawn from you. In
the prime of my years, I would have probably walked up to the tweed-jacketed
man and asked him plainly about his untimely visit to the park but however,
owning to my current disposition, which was nothing better than that of a slime
dweller, the aforementioned, seemed alien talk!
He looked possessed, probably not the best word to describe a human,
especially in a setting when science got over everything else (and trust me, I
myself am an ardent patronizer of the ideals)...the look he had in his orbs, is
something that no words, except for the ones that bring in Satan into discussion,
can describe! What crimson eyes he had...I in my life that revolved around Park
Street and Minto Park had seen many a drunken lads...abusing their partners,
fondling recklessly with a bosom or two...some happy and some happily
destroyed. However, this man was one that I could not read into...who had by
just a simple question made someone, who in the wake of sensibility shouldn't
even be distantly related to him, run away lest be probed again.
I felt an immense upsurge in me, very wayward of the kind of life I dealt
then and it was this unsettling apparition that fanned in me the quench to know
more. In a normal setting like this, for it was not new for people to act bizarre
in this part of the city, I would have certainly returned home. However, there
was something that kept tugging at me like the ghosts of the past pinning me
affix and I suddenly found it impossible to take even a step away from the
bench where the chap sat cladding his mittens and sunken in some great tragedy
that even my seasoned eyes could not catch.
It was like a bolt from the blue when I realized that the person possessing
the faculty of my thoughts at that moment was actually looking me straight and
in a similar setting, with those crimson eyes and flushed cheeks, expected a
response!
Taken aback by this sudden nakedness, I started fidgeting, totally unsure of
the next course of my actions and like a discordant mistress lulled by the tantalizing
persona of the master gave away to my earlier inhibitions and forwarded.
This did not seem a problem to him, unlike what I thought and like an ant
longing for a leaf to keep it afloat, the chap broke into ceaseless tears. “Hell!
What I am supposed to do”, I said to myself but my muffled words only reassured
him in the best possible manner they could.
They often say that you find solace in the strangest of the places and who
would have ever thought that the CEO of my one time company would now be
sitting right beside me, singing the muffled song of the pained heart, sharing
the same portico as mine and wanting not a file, not even a shaky deadline but
just a hushed assurance that his life was not a waste and that the man he just
drove away was all right.
I might have told the readers, all at one go, but during the small talk I had
with him he opened his heart out to me. It was during this time that I got to
know that the same man, who was responsible for my condition today, was now
trailing along with me on the dark esplanades of life, the details of which are
best reserved for another day.
Seeing the man I hated the most, wriggle with the scorn of infidelity, I almost
forgot what drew me closer. Yes! The older man that we started the narrative
with, came back ghastly to my mind and without a single moment’s delay I bumped
into him the question.
What I got back in return is something that has been haunting me till date.
While the years count 20 on my wrinkled, age-worn talons; I still am in no
power to react! The young CEO bluntly responded…”Of all the wrongs that I did
the biggest felony was made by him! He breathed life into a monster. HE WAS MY
FATHER!”
