Revelations: A short fiction

 

Pooja’s fingers throbbed. A sharp sensation of pain traced her spine and spread across her lower back, crushing the muscles. She took a deep breath. All that I need to do now is reply to the mail.  She told herself, hastily typing a couple of sentences. She attached the test results to prove the module complied with the requirements. Then her finger flew to the Shut-down button. However, before she could click it, a message popped in the square chat window. It was from her supervisor. She groaned. In her weary eyes, the icons on her desktop seemed to be swimming. It was 9:30 PM already.

            “I hope you have informed Farhan about the procedures followed in our project. He must be aware of them when I assign him some work at 9:00 AM tomorrow,” it said.

Pooja had saved the new team member’s number in the morning, but with so many deliverables and meetings, she had not got a chance to call him. She reached for her mobile phone and selected his number, vaguely noticing he had changed his Display Pic. In the morning it depicted a snow-clad mountain peak. Now it showed a colourful wall-hanging. She clicked on the number, half hoping he would not pick up the phone. She would tell her boss that she could not reach him, unplug the machine and settle down to have her dinner. When the phone went on ringing, she was certain her wish would be fulfilled. Her forefinger hovered over the red ‘stop’ icon and just as it was about to land on it, a voice wafted from the other end. Oh No!

“Hello.”

 “Hi Farhan. I’m Pooja. Gauri asked me to tell you about the existing procedures,” she said, trying her best to sound pleasant.

“Hi Pooja. Thanks for calling.  I’m very much interested to know about them.”

“Before starting, I need to know a bit about your previous experience.”

“Well, I have been in this organization for ten years. My last project was Blue Waters. It wrapped up last week,” he informed.

Glued to the chair where she had been sitting since the morning with only a few visits to the washroom and a fifteen minutes break for lunch, she explained the methodologies he needed to be aware of. Hunger threatened to rip off her intestines when he requested her to repeat the description of one of the processes.

“With ten years of experience, how come you have no idea about it?” she snapped, her endurance having reached a breaking point.

The very next moment, she was petrified. What would happen if he complained to Gauri about her rudeness?

“I had worked in a different domain. But yeah, I realize it’s a bit late. We can resume this discussion tomorrow,” he replied. He paused but spoke again, “By the way, I understood all the other processes. Thanks a lot for explaining them to me in such detail.” Sensing some warmth in his voice, Pooja felt assured that he would not complain. Perhaps, he could guess the extent of her exhaustion.

 Pooja’s mother, who woke up at the crack of dawn to perform her puja rituals, had eaten her dinner and gone to sleep. Her father had dined too: he had been advised to take his medicines with a full stomach by 9:30 PM.

Pooja soaked her rice with a thick grainy dal and encircled it with the round slices of fried potato, a spicy red cauliflower curry and a dark green chutney made of crushed coriander and pudina. She minced towards the microwave with the plate when the phone rang. She felt an urge to ignore it, but then changed her mind and picked it up. She had promised herself she would try to make this work. At least, she would make an attempt.

“Had your dinner?” Piyush asked.

“No. Just managed to log off from the system,” she replied.

“You know the pulao my mother had cooked was so…so…delicious,” he said, smacking his lips.  “Can you make peas pulao?”

“Hmm,” she said in a non-committal way. So, you want to marry me so that I can cook for you? Pooja wondered, but didn’t say.

The mention of pulao had enhanced her hunger. It was now pummelling her from within. Yet, Pooja lowered the plate on the kitchen platform, waiting for the conversation to end so she could enjoy her dinner in peace.

“You told me yesterday that you had a boyfriend. I hope you won’t mind if I ask you why you broke up.”

I told you about him because the world is a small place and I didn’t want you to find it from others. Again, she didn’t utter a word.

She recalled lying on the bed with Aneesh, sweat glistening on their skin while the ceiling fan whirled at full speed, its aging blades slicing through the hot air of mid-April. Other than the bed, his room had a cushioned chair and a plywood table. She imagined adding two more pieces of furniture – her dressing table with its sticker marks from her childhood and a book shelf with sliding glass panels. His favourite magazines would brush against her beloved books someday.

“I’ll miss you badly,” he said, as she sat up and fumbled for the string of her salwar.

“I’ll miss you too,” she said, stroking his coarse cheeks with the back of her hand. “Now, I better get dressed. Your parents might be back any moment,” she murmured.

Knotting the string of her salwar, she picked up her crumpled bright orange kameez.

“I’ll call you every night,” he promised. “That will be the only thing to look forward to in my lonely life in Mumbai.” She thought she heard him sigh.

But he never called. Days turned to months. In a panic, Pooja rushed to his father’s office.

“Beti, I really liked you. But he thinks this relationship will not work for him. It’s his choice. I can’t do anything about it.”

Then sessions with Ms Chitra V began.

“You loved him. You trusted him. It’s just that he wasn’t worthy of your feelings. How would you know? People pretend to be nice when they want something. And now you know what he wanted,” the therapist explained.

“Pooja, are you listening?” Piyush inquired.

“Our mentalities didn’t match,” she hastily replied, still trembling in horror. As if the pain she had been through was waiting to engulf her again. She pressed her eyes shut and then flapped them open, wishing she could blank out those memory in this way.

“I hope you don’t think like that about me,” he chuckled.

“Is he making fun of me?” she wondered, finally shoving the plate inside the microwave in impatience.

“You also had a girlfriend. Why did you split?” she asked, hitting the switch to warm the food.

“We belonged to different castes. So, our parents objected. She called it off.”

She watched the plate spin, bathed in the red light of the whirring microwave. The noise prevented her from hearing his last four words.

Caste? No wonder he wants an arranged marriage.

But I can’t complain. I had to opt for this arranged marriage stuff too. She carried the steaming plate to the table while Piyush began to talk about his recent trip to an aunt’s house in Bhopal.

 

As she curled around her pillow after the meal, her mind escaped through the balcony, flew past the buildings and sailed along the bare streets to her locked-up office complex.

She was sitting at a table alone, having her lunch and looking out of the window. The lake reflected a bright, cloudless sky. The returning fisherman oared his boat towards the green strip fringing the water body. Cormorants dipped their necks in the shimmery water and cranes flocked in a hyacinth swamped stretch. A clinking noise drew her attention back to her surroundings. One of those tiffin boxes with multiple containers was placed on the table, a polite distance away from her stainless-steel plate. A man, wearing a white shirt and a pair of grey trousers, drew a chair and settled down. Pooja slurped the dal remaining in her bowl, vaguely aware of a series of clanking sounds, as the man unclasped the tiffin box and laid down the various container on the table. It was only when he reached for the jug, which stood barely a couple of inches away from her plate that she noticed his face. She pushed it helpfully towards him. He smiled to thank her, and at that moment the world changed for her. He was gorgeous, with his sparkling deep brown eyes, fine eyebrows and dimples. There might be other good-looking men in her office, but none had churned her emotions with the strength of a flash-flood. She had only a rolled-up papad left on her plate. So, she munched it as slowly as possible, stealing glances at him whenever she sensed she wouldn’t be caught.

Since then, whenever she would visit the canteen for lunch, her gaze would comb the furniture and scrap the walls. And when it finally fell on him, her senses would be overpowered by a gushing heady feeling, which morphed her mindscape into a garden full of plants crowned by the brightest of blossoms. Stabs of jealousy would rip apart her heart whenever she spotted him talking to any female colleague. “Men’s looks don’t matter,” she had been told umpteenth number of times. If women’s looks matter, why not men’s? She wondered. Can the process of falling in love be expected to follow any theory?

“In which project do you work?” she practiced saying in front of the mirror day and night, while fiddling with a strand of her wavy hair and curving her lips into a most alluring smile – at least she tried to make it most alluring. But before she could muster the courage to initiate a conversation with him, the lockdown happened, bulldozing her hopes.

*

Pooja opened the cupboard to keep her washed and dried nightie in its place, behind an old pair of shorts. For a moment, she let her fingers skim across the clothes draping the hangers. Tucked between two cotton tops was her maroon, full-sleeved shirt. She recalled how elegant she used to look in it. In the online meetings, it was the norm to switch off the video and keep only the audio on. “How I miss dressing up for work...” she muttered, slamming the door of the cupboard.

            She walked to her desk and switched on her office computer. As it took time to load, she flicked through the new messages. One of them was from Farhan.

“Hey, I loved your WhatsApp status. I feed dogs too,” he said.

“So happy to know there’s another dog lover in the team.,” she jotted down the words and dragged in a smiley. Checking his status, she found that he had posted about a recently read book.

Over the next couple of months, they discussed books and dogs other than their project deliverable.

                                                                      *

It was a Friday night. She need not wake up early the next day. After dinner, she rummaged through her shelves, wondering which book to pick up and read. With office work snatching away all her time, nine out of the ten books she bought before the lockdown had remained unread.

“Have you heard of this book called Flying Arrow?” she was about to type to Farhan when she noticed he had dropped a message an hour back.

“Do you think we ‘ll ever be asked to work from office?”

“Nope,” Pooja replied. “Our company is making one hell of a profit. No expenses on electricity, internet or night transport. No coffee to put in the vending machines. No paper for the printers. No liquid soap for washrooms.”

“It’s a pity,” was his prompt response.

“Why? No hassles of travelling to office,” she typed. She couldn’t reveal how disappointed she was: there would be no opportunity to befriend her crush.

“Please don’t mind but…” There was a pause and then swept in the rest of his reply, “I would really love to meet you in person.”

Pooja blushed, flipping through the pages of the book.

*

 By Sunday noon, she was halfway through Flying Arrow. She picked up her mobile to tell Farhan about the book, when she noticed he had changed his DP. It was the first time he had uploaded his own photo.

             Eager to know how he looked, she maximised the DP. And then her heart stopped beating. She forgot to breathe. He was THE MAN. He was the man she had spotted in the canteen; the one who made her heart race and flooded her mind with dazzling colours. Flushed with happiness, she rushed to the balcony. To regale in the sights and sounds that were now dappled with unbelievable splendour. There was indescribable beauty in the yellow flowers specking the creepers that wreathed the pillars of an adjacent house. There was divine melody in the sparrows’ twitting, in the occasional rustle of leaves, in the tinkle of bells. Turning to her phone, she noticed another message.

“I learnt to cook pulao from Ma. Can’t wait to cook it for you,” whooshed a message from Piyush. Accompanying it was a photo - a mound of slender-grained rice, studded with green peas and sprinkled with a golden yellow masala.

Shooting off a heart shaped emoji, she clutched her head, wondering which one was the sweeter surprise. Which was the bigger revelation? The decision could wait. At this moment, all she could do was yield her mind and body to the warm fuzzy feeling flowing through her veins. The feeling of being loved.

___

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fun among the Foliage: Our Stay at Bawali Farmhouse

The cottages dotting the huge premises of Bawali Farmhouse (near Budge Budge) had poetic names. We were allotted to one named Jagari while our friends Anoma and Ganesh were led to one called Byapti. Climbing up a flight of stairs to reach our moderately sized room, we dropped our luggage and stepped into the airy balcony. It overlooked a sparkling aquamarine swimming pool and the fields and trees outside the compound. A few minutes later, we took a stroll around the pool. My daughter Nirjhorini sprinted along the potted shrubs of pink oleander arranged in a row by the water. Lawn umbrellas dotted the strip of green flanking the pathway running along the pool. We heard the sizzle of noodles from a standalone kitchen nearby. We ordered two plates of Chinese food and once they were ready, we settled under one of the umbrellas to eat. Since Nirjhorini stopped eating after two spoons, we took her to the Bengali restaurant and coaxed her to eat some rice. We were joined by Anoma, Ganesh, Anoma's uncle and aunt. Ganesh was having a harrowing time too, trying to make their two-year-old son Bikarna have his lunch. 

            

             

 

            

I somehow managed to feed Nirjhorini a reasonable quantity of rice, and as I walked to the basin at the back of the restaurant, to rinse my hands, I noticed the pond behind it. The water was entirely covered with a pale green film of algae. The edge facing the restaurant was lined with large baked clay pots. Looking closely, I found each pot was a mini pool, water peering through a garb of lotus leaves. On entering the cottage named Byapti, we became aware of the presence of another pond. It lay just behind the back wall and we could rest our eyes on the water through the windows. The farmhouse also consisted of a shaded nursery. A variety of plants, some laden with tiny fruits and some tipped by bright flowers, grew out of soil packed paper cups. 

       

   

    

The inviting waters of the swimming pool embraced us into a world, untouched by the heat of the sun. Nirjhorini plopped on the steps and flailed her legs to rustle up a steady gush of spray. I picked her up and took her for a ride across the pool in my arms. Similarly, Bikarna, too traversed the waters while clinging to his Mom and Dad. The pool was truly a kid's delight with a cement crocodile glaring at the swimmers. 

    

   

          

The velvety evening rippled with unbridled laughter. Lively conversations flowed, unabated by the munching of an assortment of tasty snacks like French fries, pakoras, crispy baby corn. The bonhomie peaked at the dinning table even as we gorged on delicious tandoori items. A brief visit to the pool side presented me the chance to glimpse it under the sheen of garden lamps. The reflections of pink oleanders blended with the purple lights tinting the waters.

 

Before retiring to bed, I went to the balcony to collect the clothes I had hung on the railing to dry. There was not a single house in sight. The lights around the swimming pool had dimmed. The meadow beyond the compound lay like a palette of dried black paint. Long, skeletal branches of trees poked at the blanket of darkness. Amidst all the revelry, I was quite surprised to feel a sense of chill. At the same time I was overwhelmed by the view; it was so different from one I see from the balcony of my house in a congested locality of Kolkata.

                  

            

The next morning, before leaving the farmhouse, we let our gaze linger over the fresh saplings in the nursery and trace the dense foliage crowning the tall, majestic trees. To our delight, we are asked to take a part of the greenery back home in the form of a potted plant. As we water the plant everyday, we feel the splash of the water in the pool and the rush of joyous memories.