The Waste Land

THE WASTE LAND My cousin, Noor, and I had met after four years and were unwinding on the terrace of my parents' house. It was evening time and, but for the rotten odour of the garbage accumulating near the park, all was perfect. I saw Noor scowl at the foulness of the smell enveloping us and suddenly heard myself saying: "The stench always reminds me of him." "Who?" "You remember that short, delicate fellow who always roamed about with his face half-hidden under a baseball cap? He was a favourite of all the cats in the neighbourhood." "Mr. Mistry? Yes, I met him a couple of times. But he seemed spotlessly clean. What makes you associate him with the stench of filth?" ****** Mr. Mistry was 59 years old when he moved into our colony and it took us only a few months to realize that he had nobody in the world to go to and there wasn't anybody who'd ever pay him a visit. He usually worked in his office till very late and we hardly saw him. Ma did not like him but could never tell why. Dad was more forthright, "The man's a shadow." We, Anees and I, had occasionally seen him taking a morning stroll in the park. Seemed sprightly enough and had an intriguing smile on his face. A couple of times he sportingly retrieved our 'flying disc' from the bushes. I thought he was ok and used to wave to him sometimes but Anees said I was just being the stupid eleven-year-old girl that I was. I remember when you visited us during the vacs that summer and all three of us had that potato-sack race in the park. I won and both of you refused to clap. But he was watching and he clapped, briefly taking off his cap. Since then, whenever I met him at the local pastry shop, we'd wish each other. Of course, Anees used to keep himself away and Mr. Mistry would smile that smile of his, shrug his shoulders and murmur something to himself. They say he was smiling when he died. Ma is convinced he smiled at people, never with them. Well, he smiled with me during those brief exchanges we had at the park or in the pastry shop all through my adolescent years. The meetings never used to last for more than two-three minutes but he appeared to have infinite time on his hands, so casual his demeanour yet such an intensely keen look in his eyes. I bet he existed only for himself but, while doing so, he knew more about everyone without being a part of any social circle. After his retirement, I often saw him in his balcony with a book. But he was seldom found reading it. More often than not, it appeared as if he was trying to remember a half-forgotten melody of his younger days. Many a times, I saw him tap his feet to

some music playing only in his ears and, probably, only for him. Though I was very young at that time, I could feel that this man had known love. Some time before my birthday last year-you remember my writing to you about how Anees searched the market for a suitable gift to celebrate my entry into the club of twenties? – I heard Mrs. Kumar hollering at the neighbourhood, accusing it of turning the ground behind her house into veritable hell. Well, she had as much to do with the mess as the rest of us and the absence of a municipal sweeper did not help matters either. I just happened to look across the road and saw Mr. Mistry smiling away. He even appeared to be winking at himself. I never saw a more contagious smile and two days later, when I woke up to the sound of a small thud around 4:00 a.m., I saw him working away at the rubbish heap sporting the same smile. He appeared quite senile really but I, who had known him for so long, could just as easily believe that he was being his boyish self ten times over. He finished whatever he was doing around 4:30 and left. But he must have seen me for, the next day, he appeared to be waiting for me at the pastry shop and evidently had something to say. Despite his 69 years, he was agility personified as he jumped from the table to greet me. I was a bit guarded, naturally, after seeing him search for lost treasures in rubbish heaps at four in the morning and he immediately latched on to that. "You are afraid my brains have turned to water, young lady?" "No. But one is curious." "And one is right in being so. However, if cats are anything to go by, it pays to be curious but not to stretch it beyond a point." So, next night when I heard the same thud at 3:30, I deliberately let him be aware of my presence at the window and then withdrew. Next day, he met me again and after wishing me pleasantly enough, asked: "How's the cat?" "I hate them and have never had anything to do with them" "What about the cat within?" "Angry at being disturbed at night and then being lectured on being too curious for its own good" "My, my, I love cats and cannot see them angry. Would you care to buy an old man some ice cream? Who knows, it might be my last?" He was trying to be the irresistible emotional blackmailer of his heydays, I guess. But he evidently had something to tell and I was not going to miss out on it. So, I took him to the corner ice shop where, to my disgust, he ordered one of those lemon drops that drip away with gay abandon. Then, with his mouth full, he said: "See, she would never have bothered about that heap of waste had she not dropped

something precious in it. Something she has set her heart on. Now that patch of nonsense can only be searched for love or for money." He said nothing else while I waited like a moron for him to go on. At the end of this ten-minute stand off, I could take it no longer. "Well, if it is money you are after, Mrs. Kumar shall give you not more than Rs. 20/for it." "Yes, she is Uncle Scrooge's female version." "So?" "So?" "So?" "So?" We would have continued like this till Judgment Day and he was obviously enjoying it. I would have none of it, I told myself. "Mistry Uncle, you are making me very angry now. What is it that she has lost that you are trying to find in that dung-heap and that, too, in the middle of the night when there is nothing to guide you, not a street lamp and not even a torch? " "I do not know what she has lost but I am trying to claim back 42 years, 3 months and 11 days.” "God, Uncle, what is wrong with you? Has some one told you that girls of my age like listening to romantic tales and you are spinning one out in my honour? If you are, drop the idea." "You think at my age talking of love is indecent?" "Love? What's love got to do with it?" He did not answer but started nodding his head in disapproval. They say men at his age, if not loopy to the bones and rigid to the core, are wizards at psychoanalysis and mavericks to the extreme. Well, I thought he was sizing me up and I felt more uncomfortable than I would have had he been a tailor taking down my physical dimensions a little bit too indulgently. "Uncle, are you sizing me up? " "Why ask the obvious? That has been the problem with girls all through the ages. The obvious eludes them, the not so obvious confounds them and the non-existent troubles them."

"It sounded good but you did not say anything much. Why are you sizing me up is what I wanted to ask. That has been the problem with men all through the ages, I guess. What you ask baffles them, what you don't ask they cannot even fathom, what you never wanted to ask is the only thing they seem ready to answer." "I am sizing you up to see whether you can be told a little tale" I knew whatever I say would go against me so decided to keep quiet but made it a point to look pointedly at my watch from time to time. He got the hint wrong, as I should have known, and apologized for keeping me for so long. Getting up, he started to walk off at a brisk pace and I had to literally run to catch up with him. "Nice manners these- leaving me behind! What is it, Uncle? " He looked into my eyes and, then, into the distance. A wistful look appeared on his face and I felt he was struggling against himself. I led him across the market to the café. We pulled up a chair each and sat down in that sweltering heat to catch up with his 42 years 3 months and 11 days. He began slowly but before long, he was hurrying along as if he feared he wouldn't be granted enough time to finish his story. ****** He had been a bright boy throughout. At 26, living at one of the several small towns that dot the countryside, he was already an established man in his organization. What distinguished him from his peers, though, was his refusal to part with his boyish spontaneity and its accompanying clumsiness. He seemed forever ready to believe a fairy tale, dream an impossible dream and chase a mirage even as he piloted his way in the adult world following all the rules in letter if not in spirit. Only such a man could have fallen in love with a 10-year-old girl. Only such a man would have let it all go away and yet clung on to it for years like the way he had. Ragini lived some distance away from his house. Had he not decided to take the bylane that hot summer day, he would have crossed her house from the front side like he did everyday on his way to office, his eyes riveted to catch a glimpse of that slip of a girl whiling away her summer vacations with her cat. But that day, for lack of an alternative, he was putting on a pink shirt, the colour of which he was sure she'd hate as much as he did. So he took a detour that led past the back wall of her house. And, cursed himself soundly for there she was, searching for something, in the rubbish heap accumulated adjacent to the wall. She paid him no attention, busy as she was in rummaging through the pile of decaying waste, and simultaneously trying to ward off her maid who seemed more hygiene minded. The maid's shrill voice penetrated his ears even as he approached the duo, trying his best not to be visible and knowing that when you wear a pink coloured shirt, you are everywhere. "Ragini, it is not there. Let us go inside"

"It has to be somewhere. I am not going in till I find it." By this time he was close enough and was forced to cover his nose with a handkerchief, his eyes fixed on the drama unfolding before his eyes. Predictably enough, he dropped the handkerchief and, again predictably enough, the girl saw it fluttering in the wind. He stooped quickly to retrieve it but not before his pink shirt had brought a grin on the girl's face while his soiled handkerchief had the maid grimacing in sympathy. "Sirjee, the handkerchief no use now. What are you laughing at Ragini? Bad manners!" " His shirt! Same colour as the ears of Hazel's brood." And she burst out laughing while Hazel, the cat, purred loudly as if egging her on. A moment later, she had dismissed him from his mind as she bent down again to search for her lost treasure. "Lost something?" he asked the maid more to cover his embarrassment and less out of curiosity. "Yes, a bracelet and she's convinced it is in this dump. It cannot be but who is to tell that to this girl?" He allowed his feet to take him away but not without murmuring to nobody in particular: "It might just be!" It is a strange thing that after he had seen the girl two days later still searching for the elusive bracelet even after a professional sweeper had subjected the mess to a thorough examination, he still echoed the same words: "It might just be!" It is even stranger that while lying down to rest that night he felt restless. But when he woke up with a start in the middle of the night, he knew even his dreams had begun to push him to keep his date with destiny. He walked out in a world draped with darkness of a moonless night without even bothering to take his torch. ****** "It would be better if you equip yourself with a torch." said the maid with a slight frown on her face as she accosted him in the market the following Sunday, her Hindi liberally sprinkled with chaste Urdu words and phrases. He got no time to register his surprise for she immediately added, "Provided you want to continue with your foolishness." He continued to stare as he repeated to himself his mad belief "What is invisible to innocent eyes in broad daylight would never be visible at night to eyes less innocent unless they are aided by nothing except love.” "I, I…. dropped something there the other day and…"

"Her father got her another bracelet two days back. More beautiful." "But, I am looking for my…" "Peace of mind that's gone? Sirjee you just have to retrace your steps immediately or it shall be too late." She knew. She had seen him on his crazy expedition but apart from the first night when she thought him to be a thief trying to scale the back wall, her old heart had told her that this was not a thief but a man who had, in turn, been robbed. She had not sighed for him for her tired eyes had stopped getting animated by flames of somebody else's hopeless love. But she had understood. "More beautiful, you say. But she keeps searching for the old one. I saw her last evening. She misses that," he declared boldly. "No. She is not old enough to know what missing something means and much too young to know what missing a stranger means. You'll not be missed in a million years even if you do find that bracelet. She searches out of habit and very soon she'll outgrow it. She is a headstrong girl and has taken it on her childish ego to recover her lost treasure, about which she started to forget the day she got another bracelet. She won't admit that but won't stop time from making her forget either. Go home, Sirjee, lost causes make nobody happy." Till the end of his days, I think, Mr. Mistry stood in awe of that simple maid. She had not questioned his feelings, just branded them as hopeless. Of course, nothing resembling a bracelet was ever salvaged out of the tonnes of rubbish. Of course, he did not give up until the municipal authorities, tired of frequent complaints, removed the eyesore. Of course, the girl forgot all about her fixation. Of course, Mr. Mistry never forgot, never even gave himself the chance to. Not when the girl grew up and got married. Not when both of them stayed in different towns for 31 of the last 42 odd years. Not when he assiduously kept track of her and not when he chose our town for his last posting and our colony for his residence at the age of 59 because she was there. And so, 42 years, 3 months and some odd days later, when he heard Mrs. Ragini Kumar shouting about the presence of the mountain of trash after tolerating its presence benignly for several years, he suspected that something precious to her had somehow found its way into it, and that it was time to begin his nocturnal trysts with fate again. I did not ask why. I knew. Faith in the mad belief was still there waiting to be justified: "What is invisible to innocent eyes in broad daylight would never be visible at night to eyes less innocent unless they are aided by nothing except love". There are no happy endings to narrate. An old man, weeping quiet tears of joy for the love of a lifetime, with nothing to show for it but a small tale is all that there was to our chat that day. And yet, he never looked happier than during those 2 months when he was sifting through that obnoxious-smelling waste in the middle of the night

even after knowing that a local sweeper had failed to retrieve anything (and pocketed Rs. 100/- for his time and effort!). He died peacefully with a smile on his face some months after Mr. Kumar had the municipal authorities remove the trash and issued a stern warning to his wife not to put on any diamond-studded earrings if she felt inclined to sprint into the house after her late-evening, fat-reducing brisk walks. ****** Would Mr. Mistry have considered approaching Ragini at an appropriate time had he found that bracelet 42 years ago? What would he have done had he found that earring now? I neither know nor care. I believe it was never the bracelet, never the earring. It was never the girl of ten and never the mother of three kids in a happy marriage. It was always just about a man and his faith that you can be in love for a lifetime because you choose to and that, too, without the aid of anything except love. There is one question though that is very pertinent for me. Why did he choose to tell the story to me? Did he feel that out of all those who made up his world in that colony of ours, I was the only one who understood that the music could have and, in fact did, play for him and him alone during those solitary afternoons while he sat with an open book and enjoyed being serenaded by love? Noor, who had been fidgeting for a while, broke the thread of my thoughts. "Really, Sana', this is either raving lunacy or plain baloney. Probably the poor fellow never realized till the end that his Garden of Eden was nothing but a rubbish-filled wasteland." I looked away. Night was approaching. "Come, let us go in", I said. There was nothing else to say.

********************************************************