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The train had assumed what must be its fastest pace after the shock of the discovery of bandits on tits chassis. Most of the people had succeeded in their preserved attempts of beating the demons out of their head, and had gone off to sleep. Thus, darkness reigned in the Chennai Express, and the right was once again still, if the expression can be used in the case of a moving train. However, amongst all this darkness a singular light shone on and illuminated the bogey S – 4. A traveler who might have been irritated by this disturbing light, a passengers in trains so often are, and decided to teach the illuminator a good lesson with his what-the-hell-are-you-doing-at-five-in-the-night speech, would have seen two pale faces – paler in the yellow light of the train – looking at each other dumbly like ducks. What he would’ve done afterwards doesn’t bother us for, in reality, no body came and disturbed the ducks. They were alone in their compartment, which usually fills itself along the journey and, from the look on their faces, it seemed they were in the middle of, what is called, an awkward moment. I, as one of the ducks, can tell you for sure that I didn’t have a clue about what to speak, and my brother-inlaw was not dong much better wither.

Presently my fiend closed his eyes, trying to gulp in the shocker, and he did have difficulty in doing so, as was evident from the lump of the size of a basket ball, which had formed in the middle of his throat. I didn’t blame him for his reaction. It was natural I empathized with the poor soul, as I saw him writhe in his seat like a trodden snail. Of all the bally shockers, if there is one that sends the chilliest of chills down your spine it is the one that deals with the discovery of your darling sister’s love. “When did she grow so old?” is a question that each brother asks himself, wondering at the ways of nature – so fats, so furious. Till yesterday, the cute little girl who was so high, he says to himself pointing to his keens, has become big enough to start falling in love! Unbelievable, it seems. Years flash past so fast; he reflects and curses them. He takes his own sweet time, thus, to try and swallow the fact as it stares in his face – the realization that ‘yes, it is for true, and, no, nobody is joking here, and that there is no use of running away from it.’

I appreciated his dilemma, probably, better that anyone else could. I have sisters myself, ad though the news of their falling in love hasn’t yet been conveyed to me, I can imagine what convulsions it would produce in me whenever it does happen. A brother wouldn’t like to hear an explanation from his sister that “My dear brother, you, yourself are in love!” the brother doesn’t see any sense in this parallel! He says to his sister, “Don’t give my example. I am wise. But you are an innocent girl, and any bad guy can fool you. After all, the world nowadays is brimming with them! Brothers, I tell you, are extremely protective, and don’t like such news at all. But eventually, one does see the sense in it all, and the chock does get swallowed. One says, giving up and accepting life, “It had to happen someday. After all she won’t remain so high forever. And may be the boy is good”, but the time that it takes for this realization to surface is a wee bit long.

Meanwhile, as I mused on my friend’s mixed feelings, I began to muse on my mixed feelings as well, and, juggling so many feelings, was as silent as a clock that has lost its batteries I didn’t know whether to feel unlucky or lucky. A part of me called Mr. Fate names, as it has done so often in this journey. “Nothing can stop me now,” I had said to myself at the Pune Station. Merely a train journey away from my love, tell me, wasn’t I right in assuming that? But first the bandits, and now this! I could hear Mr. Fate laugh sinisterly, flashing his pointed incisors, and shout derisively, “You foolhardy soul, seems you’ll not give up, take this.”

In desperation, Mr. Fate had finally switched strategies, and now concentrated on Shreya’s end. Cheap tactics, I tell you, to Harry a delicate girl Unchivalrous, to put the poor girl at her wit’s end, by conjuring up, out of the blue, this whole pooja business. My darling must’ve been busy with her dress rehearsal, already in a muddle whether to choose the blue salwar-kameez or the pink skirt to wear on the first day, when the news must have arrived. Her sweetheart was coming to meet her, traversing the length of the country, encountering the roughest of storms, and here she was helpless, about to be exported to some foreign land. My heart went out to her. She, probably, would have fainted on hearing this. Even the phone lines were all messed up the previous day, rendering a conversation impossible. Oh, how she would have coped with it! “Take me on, Fate, man to man, but stop harassing my little girl! Was what I wanted to shout out.

But my second voice told the first to calm down. After all, wasn’t it Fate that had placed me and the hero of the very show, which might have prevented me from meeting my darling, in the same compartment? The use of ‘might’ here may sense a solecism to you but I assure you it is not. I use ‘might’, for the pooja might have foiled my plans, but now that I knew about it, it’d be a different script. I was going to meet Shreya if not in Chennai then in Mahabalipuram or, for that matter, in Timbuktu, which not many people know, is a place in northern Mali, Africa. Therefore, this wise voice told me not to curse Fate, but instead to look at the brighter sides of life – a thing, if there is one, I’d want you to remember from my story.

If this man hadn’t been played below my berth by Fate, I would have waited for Shreya outside IIT Madras, where we were supposed to meet, peeping desperately into passing autos, only to find nothing like her in them, for God knows how long. Thus, Mr. Fate, though, had ruined quite a lot, was also doing this best to resurrect it all. Once again, I went into the pensive mode, thinking about the past and deriving hope from it. Numerous times along the journey everything had been shattered and, each time one saw the hand of Fate. But at all those times, hadn’t he, not without my efforts, changed sides, proven himself an ally and put all the pieces together?

One needs perseverance and effort, thus, at all times in life. “Buck up”, one needs to say to oneself, “and think.” In the present dilemma, however, not much of thinking was required. There was only one man who could help me meet Shreya. And that man sat right before me. I looked at him once again. He still looked pale; his eyes were closed, but his breathing was getting back to normal. I decided to break the silence. I put a comforting hand on his shoulder and he opened his eyes. What he saw, must’ve been eyes full of pity and prayers. Pleading, begging, imploring for help.

“I know how it feels like, brother. I have a sister too,” I fumbled with my opening lines. He kept looking at me unbelievingly. He didn’t speak.
“I really love your sister; that is the only assurance I can offer you, right now,” I added. He was still silent.
“I hope you understand, Rajit.” He kept on looking, mutely. I didn’t know what to do. He had to understand, he himself was a criminal, if love was a crime.
“You are the only one who can help us!”
At that the straightened himself and moved his eyeballs in surveying me from top to bottom.
“Not bad!” he declared at the end of it, reminding me of his sweet sister, and smiled. “You know what, you look like a school kid,” he said, a little disapprovingly, I thought. I sympathized with the poor blighters, who have to go through that extremely unpleasant round of being examined by the girl’s parents. My heart went out for them. “But,” my friend added, “That is good, as Shreya looks just like a tenth grade girl. You’ll look good together.” He smiled again, and I managed a small one too, relieved at the positive assessment.
“I am happy for her. You really love her, yaar! Stay that way, always, I tell you, or else I’ll break your legs,” he said, forcing menace into his voice.
“Break them; do whatever you want to, but, right now, help me. I have told you, already, how difficult it has been to come this far, and now you sasurji has messed it all, both for you and me. I have to meet Shreya! At any cost!” I prayed.
“I wish I could cancel the pooja!”
“Can’t you?”
“Not until the old pig-head is there.”
“Can’t we do something about him?” I asked in a sinister tone, implying an execution.
“I’d love to do many things to him if only Nivedita didn’t love the buffoon so much…” he said frustratingly, like a police officer, who has been ordered to bring the gangster back alive, and only alive. Oh, how much he’d want to cut him up, but the bloody authorities hold him back. “If only…” he repeated, and I related to his thinking. Many boys have felt that way about their girl’s dads down the history line. ‘If only’ is the thing that comes to the seething lips at such times, and I felt for my friend.
“But something needs to be done…” I said.
“Now I see why Shreya was so worried yesterday, when I talked to her. She said there was something important she wanted to tell me and right then the phone lines went off…”
“Exactly what I wanted to ask you, how did you talk to her? I tried calling her up so many times yesterday, but the call wouldn’t connect. Not even to her friend’s number. Neither did I get a call from her. There was some problem with the lines…”
“Yes, I only spoke to her at seven in the morning. Sasurji has this habit of giving his brilliant news right in the morning… to set the tone for a brilliant day; so when I hung up on him, I called my mausi (Shreya’s mom) to discus with her and my mom, my dilemma! After that I also couldn’t connect, and then I was busy at office.”
“My God, I tell you, we should call her right away from the next station and see it connects. She’ll be worried like anything.” “At five in the morning?”
“She’d be awake, I am sure,” I said.
”I am sure too,” Rajit smiled, “Reminds me of old times… waiting whole night by the phone… just for one call. Amazing… love is!” “I know!” I said, dreaming about Shreya.
“But right now, what we should worry about it how to get you to Shreya!”
“Point!”
”How, how, how…” he said meditating.
“Why did God have to give me this school kid face, I can’t even play your friend.”
“That just proves everything has its pros and cons.”

Just then the train whistled and began to slow down. I looked at my new friend and he looked at me, and we both shot towards the door and looked outside. It was a station. It looked like a deserted island, save for a single bulb that its light to a tea stall. The whole station was just about the length of our train. There were hardly three-four persons on the platform. Our trains stopped and we both jumped out, and dashed for the tea stall. A man sat there smoking beedi, wrapped in a shawl, but there was no sign of a phone there. My heart sank. Rajit asked the stall owner, “Any telephone booth here?” the owner looked at us suspiciously, and then like a magician produced from behind him a bruised and battered phone. “No meter sahib, will charge ten rupees per minute as per my watch, and you better call quick, the train will start soon, it is three hours late,” he said in a coughing tone, and lifted his wrist to look at his watch. I dialed the number quickly and waited. Nothing happened. I dialed again. This time a message, “All routes are busy, kindly call later.” The phone lines had to choose this time to fail us! I shook my head in disappointment, and Rajit took the receiver from my hand. He dialed the number. I waited, keenly studying his face to spot an sign of success. It showed none. But suddenly he said triumphantly, “It is ringing,” and I heaved a sigh of relief. He thrust the receiver against my ear. She picked up the phone.

“Hullo,” she said.
“Hullo…”
“Oh tan God, you called, Tejas, I have been calling you since yesterday, but the calls wouldn’t connect…” and she broke down. She started crying like a baby.
“Don’t cry, Shreya, don’t cry!”
“You don’t know what has happened!”
“I know. I know it all; you stop crying. I know you have to go to Mahabalipuram.”
“How do you know?” she asked surprised, still crying. “Always told you that I have a sixth sense!”
”Oh shut up, tell me!”
“Don’t have time, Shreya, the train will start any time. You just don’t cry and be strong. Don’t worry, I’ll meet you; it’ll all be fine. I told you earlier that this all message up is important for our book. How else will it be interesting? Life’s nothing but a story, darling. So just enjoy the story that we’ll tell our grandchildren. And sleep now, I know you haven’t slept at all, and eat well for I know you have been skipping meals…”
“But will you tell me… how’ll you come?” she asked, and at that I gave the receiver to her brother.
“Hullo,” he said, “Yes, it’s me, sis, can you believe it? With Tejas… God is great, sis, now don’t worry, we’ll chalk out some plan… but wait till I get there… I’ll see you… you didn’t tell you dearest brother anything about your extremely entertaining love story… after all his tales that he used to tell you… disappointing…”

The train began to move. I fished in my pocket for money. A hundred rupee note came into my hand. I signaled Rajit to hang up. He gave the receiver to me. “Okay, bye, Shreya; don’t cry and don’t worry. Didn’t I tell you that I am on my way? And so I am more than ever; just wait for me and I’ll be there soon, clutching you in my arms and… and right now I hate to hang up but the train is picking pace. Oh, how much I love running after trains. Done that for ages… Love you, bye…”
“Love you too, and get in safely,” she said.
“Anything for you, ma’am,” I said, and hung up, I pushed the hundred rupee note in the stall owner’s hand, and ran with Rajit, shouting,
“Keep the change…”
The call was priceless.