Short Story :: Anita Gopesh
Translated from Hindi by Deepalipant Joshi
Today, the familiar sound of the light grey Fiat awakened no excitement, aroused no flutter of the limbs. Just one incident can cause such a transformation, a tremendous change of seasons within, akin to the change of seasons in the external world. In December’s bitter cold, suddenly, for the past three days, there was torrential rain which showed no signs of abating. This sudden change of the season appealed to her, but what could she term this virtual change of the heart, and what could she say of it? She was uncertain; it was difficult to give a name to it. Even otherwise, to sum up any change in a word is never easy.
After her return from Bangalore, there was only one question confronting her: how would she face Pradeep? So much had happened, had come to pass. Even otherwise, how difficult is it for a fractured persona to experience, to maintain the honesty of a genuine relationship, and feel again that flutter of familiar excitement? Even in her absence, for the past three or four days, he had been coming.
The letters piled in the letterbox told her this. In a relationship of so many years, this was the first time Jaya had left without informing him. When she returned, she was so spent that she lacked even the strength to inform him of her arrival. If she flipped through the diary of memories, nothing could remain hidden. The days when she couldn’t wait to leave the house, when even footfalls held meanings. If she had to leave suddenly, the first chit had to be addressed to Pradeep with a list of instructions appended—even this time, since her return, finding herself before the telephone, by force of habit, she cradled the receiver, held it in her hand, and then thought, “Why? All this for?” And with a sudden, shocked jerk, she slaughtered the idea instantaneously. That Pradeep would come on his return from Agra was a given, but it held no expectation, no waiting.
“Didn’t you hear the horn of the car?” Pradeep enquired as soon as he entered. Jaya had not leapt out at the sound of the car as she always did, so to this complaint, she offered no reply, just a faint, sad laugh. She asked, “How did you like Agra?” Deliberately, she sat down a little away from him on the sofa.
“Come—sit closer. Why this distance, even after we are meeting after so many days?” Again, he was met by the faint, soft, sad, derisive laugh—an answer to several questions which he would soon receive. Suddenly, she rose and went inside with the thought of making coffee.
“This year is damn lucky for me, buddy.” Without her knowing it, Pradeep had followed her inside. She turned after filling a plate with sweets. “Come now, fill your mouth with sweets. I have returned bringing a promotion.” Jaya was not able to lift up her eyes; her eyelids seemed weighed down. She had a strange feeling. Before she could say anything, Pradeep spoke, “What’s the matter, Jaya? Why do you look so changed?”
Suddenly, an afterthought struck him, and he asked, “Oh yeah, what happened about… didn’t you go to Dr Bansal? You know you will have to go, or… there is no need for that now?”
“Why?”
“I went to Bangalore these past few days.”
To Vivek, he asked in an apprehensive tone.
“Yes,” she responded in a flat, poised, matter-of-fact tone, entering the drawing room with a tea tray.
“You know, Jaya, how bad I feel. I am damn possessive about you. The presence of a third person between us hurts me,” Pradeep expostulated, almost exploding.
She remained absolutely calm, completely silent and still. “I know everything about you, but I want to ask you, do you know something about me too?” Perplexed, Pradeep could not give an immediate answer. The thread continued. “I am also very possessive, Pradeep. I become so alone without you. Your being with Niru also saddens me. Your going with your entire family, on pilgrimage in fulfillment of the vow of begetting a son, left me with a strange, corroding emptiness. Did you ever even try to understand this?”
“Jaya, all these things are true, but who is responsible for this situation?”
Pradeep, time after time, taunted her with that one moment of weakness, when, prioritizing her own ambitions, she had turned him down. “To battle loneliness is a personal struggle for an individual, but I did not expect you to be troubled by such trivial things.” Pradeep had lowered his voice.
“You are quite right, and that is why this relationship has continued, and we have come this far. But what is this one-sided renunciation? How long will it continue? If there is no one, nothing in life, loneliness can be endured, suffered. But what if someone is there, only not fully available? The situation keeps corroding, pinching one, somewhere far from understanding the pain of this palpable, corrosive hurt. You are not even ready to accept it.”
“I do not hold you responsible for all that I have gone through these past few days, but I do expect you to understand and share my pain. How easily, gullibly, you said, ‘Everything will be alright,’ as if it was not an abortion, just getting rid of some filth.”
“Did you say anything to me? If you had, would I not have supported you?”
Jaya lifted her eyes and looked Pradeep fully in the face. “Does everything need to be said? Is there nothing to be understood in this world? And whom would I have addressed? Spoken to? The walls of the house, the empty chair in your office, the sky-blue Fiat in your garage?”. “The truth is that you have no need of me in your glorious victory parade; maybe you never had. I was living under an illusion. Still, see, I do not say to you that I got nothing from this relationship. I got a lot, but what I received is personal to me—my gain—and I will treasure it. But now it is very difficult for me to continue a relationship with your divided persona. I will have to drag this fractured relationship, and I am sorry to say I would never want that.”
The tension stretched like rubber. Breaking into a million pieces within, Jaya was scattering, and in Pradeep’s heart and mind, emotions were coursing and coming to a boil. Suddenly, he exploded, “Why don’t you say quite simply that you are prefacing this as you want to have a relationship with Vivek?”
Jaya remained cool and poised. “Think what you will, Pradeep, but I just mean what I say.”
Overwrought, an agitated Pradeep suddenly snatched his car keys and strode out. By the time Jaya came outside, the speeding car had left. The open gate kept swinging for a long time. When she came inside, she fell listless on the sofa, completely lifeless.
She was spent, without even the energy to lift a hand to wipe the damp corners of her eyes. Just one thought ricocheted in her mind: “Whatever happened—was it right?” “Let it be wrong; was whatever happened with me right? Despite not being difficult, how humiliating the whole thing was—how utterly shameful. Vivek was with her the whole time. Had it been Pradeep, she would have found it so much easier to bear. If Pradeep had been there, the feeling of utter and complete loss which assailed and drained her would not have been there. Would Pradeep ever understand the sinking, unsettling feeling of that experience? If he could, he would not have so easily, so gullibly said, ‘Everything will be alright.’”
How much courage had she gathered to phone Pradeep. Tinni had received the call. “Tinni, what is your Mummy doing?” This happened every time. Jaya wanted to speak to Pradeep, but she asked about Niru and disconnected.
“Mummy is in the bathroom. You are Jaya aunty speaking, aren’t you?” Thank God she didn’t have to speak to Niru. “Is it possible to speak to your Papa?” she asked in a straightforward manner.
“No, aunty, there is a confidential meeting going on outside. He has said no one may enter or be called in.” The whole effort was in vain. “Right after the meeting, tell Papa to meet me at some time today; there is some urgent work, okay.”
The entire day she sat on a chair outside on the verandah. Pradeep neither came nor phoned. The next day, she learnt from the newspapers that the Honorable Minister had come to inaugurate a seminar today. The whole day was lost, as Pradeep would be in attendance in his service. Dispirited, only in the faint hope of meeting him, with no other wish, she attended the seminar. Niru sat near her. As soon as the program came to a close, Pradeep left as part of the Minister’s entourage. The whole day was wasted in polite, inane chit-chat, in an exchange of pleasantries with Niru while her eyes were glued to the gate.
In the midst of this, God knows from where he was calling, there was a phone call from Pradeep. He instructed Tinni, “Tinni, don’t let Jaya aunty leave; detain her. I will see off the Honorable Minister and come home straightaway.” Her spirits lifted suddenly, but as evening deepened, the same sadness and irritation seeped in. After bidding goodbye to Niru, with a heavy heart, she was on her way out when she saw Pradeep’s car entering.
“Sorry, Jaya, just give me a minute. I will leave this car and take the Fiat and come.” She knew that now there was no paucity of time, and he wanted to romance the entire evening, so he needed his own car, the Fiat, and intended to leave the office car. She swiftly opened the rear door of the car, got in, and sat down.
“No, move in this car. I have to go straight home.” Motioning to the driver to get down, Pradeep took his place.
“Memsahab, what would you ask for to sit next to the chauffeur?” he enquired.
Jaya did not want to create a spectacle on the road, so she moved up front. She sat at a distance, almost clinging to the car window.
“Why?” Pradeep muttered in sarcasm and irritation. “Can’t you sit outside the window? With so much difficulty, we get just a little time to be together, and you waste half of that in squabbling.”
“Yes, you do want very much to meet me. That is why I have been trying relentlessly since yesterday morning, and with all that effort, I have been able to catch hold of you only now.” Jaya was almost about to burst into tears.
“Oh, oh, why are you so despondent—my life, my darling (Janu).” With his left arm, he tried to gather her, embrace her, and draw her close. An overwrought Jaya grew a bit normal.
“Keep this love and pampering for later. First, tell me, who will free me from the problem, from you, which is with me and which lies coiled around my neck. Who will free me of it?”
“I will—who else?”
“How many days are you overdue, my darling Jaan?”
Startled, Jaya asked, “You know this? How?”
“Who else will know of this? Tell me.”
“The camel has just come under the mountain; that is why you were seeking me for a few days. Otherwise, it is I who am in pursuit of you, running after you, before you, and behind you all the time. You don’t even throw a glance, absolutely no grass in my direction.”
“Such a gigantic thing—how can you take it so calmly and naturally, Pradeep?”
“Because I am not a fool like you,” he said, bending down. From the car drawer, he extracted a small packet.
“Here you are, eat it, everything will be alright.”
This was a sudden, huge shock for Jaya. She looked at Pradeep unblinking. “If nothing happens after this, I will come on Monday, and we will go to Dr. Bansal. Everything will be alright.” He almost sang out the last sentence. Jaya sat completely stunned, almost senseless, clutching the packet of medicines in her hand. It was good that Pradeep brought her straight home. After this, if he had asked her a single thing, she would not have been able to say a word.
At that very moment, something broke within Jaya. In front of her eyes swam the first grain-eating ceremony, the annaprashan, of his son. Pradeep’s forehead, luminescent, anointed with a tilak, his face glowing with the pride of begetting a son. His luminescent face whirled in front of her eyes. She saw it; she remembered it countless times, countless without number—the glowing face juxtaposed with “and everything will be alright.”
Jaya understood clearly that she would have to face everything alone. This offering, this prasad she had received, was her own doing, her acceptance. Why would anyone else share it, divide it with her? But in this entire arduous, hard, and piercing journey, there was no compassion, not one soothing touch.
She remembered Vivek. He took everything in stride as expected and gently, naturally, accepted it. She felt herself dwarfed before his accepting, reassuring persona. She kept thinking how, on his return from France, he had invited her to Bangalore several times, but because of Pradeep, she kept putting off the trip.
Now, when there was work, she did not hesitate. After her initial vacillation, Vivek had gathered her hesitation and kept it in his affectionate heart, with an open mind.
That year, Vivek and Jaya had been among the students who received scholarships to work in France. Among a sea of unknown faces, strangers all, Pradeep, with his Indianness, had attracted attention. Within just a few days, they had become good friends. She told Vivek all about Pradeep. He had accepted it simply, naturally. “If this isn’t love, what is? The good fellow has feelings in his heart for you, and all these years… If it had been just a childish crush—after your refusal—ten years? It wouldn’t have lasted ten days.”
The feelings and link of childhood Jaya had dismissed as mere childishness. Treasuring just that in his heart, Pradeep had passed so many years. An ambitious Jaya had dismissed, turned down flat, his proposal of marriage. Flailing in the shock of rejection, on the rebound, Pradeep married instantaneously. He accepted the marriage and responsibility but could not share the love.
The suppressed affection flared again after her father’s death. In assumption of the responsibilities which fell on her, she found in him a co-sharer of the burden, always beside her. The sharing of responsibilities, unknowing, almost unconsciously, creates co-dependence and draws people closer together. The sense of closeness hit Jaya when the question of leaving for France on a scholarship arose. The thought of staying away from him for two whole years brought the realization—like it or not—that she was deeply tied to him. Abroad, she often spoke of Pradeep to Vivek. She frequently called him to France.
The fierce desire and eager anticipation of meeting after many days was now the same for both of them. As part of some delegation, Pradeep visited France for fifteen days. She introduced him to Vivek. Their meeting was casual. Pradeep did not like Vivek being with them so much. Vivek’s sensitivity intuited this. He wouldn’t come along, despite her asking him several times. Instead, he took her own work in hand and told her to go, Baba, and leave it to him; he would handle it all. She was so full of gratitude. Pradeep would never understand it.
Did Pradeep fully understand her? This doubt kept assailing her and prevented her from complete surrender. He loved her, she knew, but did he know her? She felt he didn’t understand her at all, let alone fully. Didn’t even want to. Hurt by her refusal, he was simply applying a placebo of friendship, a balm to the hurt.
In these moments of conflicted doubt and vacillation, Vivek’s decisiveness always provided clarity. He would say, “Just think, can there be a more ideal relationship? You expect nothing from him; there is no compulsion between you two. No societal or economic. All there is, is a weakness of the heart. And Jaya, if you give your heart and mind to someone in a purely platonic relationship, what is this miserliness in giving of the mere body?”
The natural consummation of their relationship had come. Pradeep held her with great care and gentleness, as though she were a wick in the temple, and Jaya’s body, an absolution. The fulfillment tied them even closer.
After Pradeep went back, she returned to the lab. On seeing her, Vivek chirped jocosely, “Hi, Shakuntala! Has Dushyant left a ring?” Her eyes clouded over.
“Come on, let’s celebrate these drops in your eyes. How fortunate are those people with whose going someone’s eyes brim with tears.”
Perhaps Vivek remembered his own circumstances. Due to family responsibilities, he could not tell Hema his feelings for her; she married elsewhere.
In France, she learnt the news of the birth of Pradeep’s son. She was delighted. She herself couldn’t understand why happiness flooded her—why she was so happy. The happiness of that day evaporated on Animesh’s first grain-eating ceremony. She had gone there in a very happy mood and had sung songs of birth too. Seeing Niru resplendent in her wedding sari, seated beside Pradeep in the puja by right, something kept corroding her. A strange, unsettling restlessness seized her. Though even while sitting in the puja, Pradeep’s eyes kept straying to her face, seeking her out, though she sat right in front of him. Her presence seemed unnecessary, futile, to her.
On Pradeep’s insistence, she stayed back for the evening party. In the party, the probing glances of people, their piercing, insinuating, sideways smiles made her really uncomfortable. She left quietly, with a very heavy heart.
Pradeep’s regular visits to her home became a subject of discussion. The whole town recognized his car. Pradeep bought a new car of her choice—a sky-blue Fiat. The very first day, he had handed her the keys. “Exclusively for you, darling—so take her for a spin.”
Everyone at home was hostile, upset, and angry, but she had accorded no one the authority or the right to comment on or speak about her personal life. With an unhappy heart, her mother had gone abroad to live with her son. Nitin and Nikhil were posted in different places. Only Divya remained a constant support; she often dropped a letter or wrote a line or two. In these circumstances, Vivek was her only sanctum and shelter from her loneliness.
Mother wrote to her, You can’t have both sides of the coin, heads yours and tails yours too. You have abandoned the course set by society, pursuing your heart, not led by your head, and will listen to nothing and no one. Impossible.
Vivek summed up, “Moreover, how does it matter as long as Pradeep is with you?”
“Hmmm, Pradeep is no longer with me. I don’t know when, where, and how. Who got left behind, who coursed, went far ahead? Or that perhaps was the acme of our relationship.”
The more Jaya thought, the more the perplexity deepened. No, she must rise above all of this.
Suddenly, she shook her mind as though shrugging off the very thought. Divya’s letter was lying on the table. She had glanced through it cursorily. She re-read it. Divya had written: Rahul is posted to Kalagarh. It is a very beautiful place, very quiet too. Do come for a few days. You will like it. And then Montu also wants to meet his wise aunt.
Jaya abruptly turned around and shouted to Baiju, “Baiju, take these coffee cups away, wash them, then go to Tiwariji, who lives close by. Call him and tell him a reservation for Kalagarh is needed.”
Baiju’s face lit up. “Would you be going to Choti didi’s place?”
“Yes, Baiju, I think during the Christmas vacation, I will go and see Divya’s son. I wonder how much he has grown. I haven’t seen him at all. You will also come, of course.”
As she was taking out the money for the tickets from her purse, a colour photograph of Montu fell out. She picked it up, looked at it for a very long time, and then didn’t know what she thought as, slowly and deliberately, she took out Pradeep’s photograph from the frame which encased it. As it lay on the table, she replaced it with Montu’s photograph. Moving far away from it, she stood very still and looked at it intently for a very long time.
She had a thought, “Everything is all right now.”
Author: Anita Gopesh
Born: 24 August, 1954 (Allahabad).
Publications: Collection of stories: ‘Kitta Pani’ published by Jnanpith Publications.
Stories, articles etc. published in ‘Hans’, ‘Vaagartha’, ‘Pakhi’, ‘Kathadesh’, ‘Vartaman Sahitya’, ‘Aajkal’ etc. Trained drama artist of Akashvani, active member of the city’s famous theatre institution ‘Allahabad Artist Association’, and president of the theatre institution ‘Samantar’.
Presently: Head of the Zoology Department of Allahabad University and engaged in conducting research in fisheries.
Deepalipant Joshi is a poet. Poems published in the Journal of poetry of the Poetry Society of India. First collection of poems “Gifts brought out by P.Lal”.