An Extinguished Flame

She slammed the door of her Santro car and sped off. I was always scared when she did that. Unassumingly a very good driver for a woman, she drove rashly when she was angry. I was afraid that she might hurt someone for no fault of theirs. The fault would be entirely mine. It was because of me that she was angry. It was because of me that she was so upset. But I had no choice. Marriage after all is not child’s play. She knew it, I knew it, and love has got nothing to do with it. Our story was like straight out of a Bollywood film. Minus the song and dance. She was from a rich family, I was from a middle class family. I was a struggling musician, she was a highly paid professional in an MNC. We met at college and I fell in love. Flat on my face. I never recovered from that fall. A courtship of nine years had passed and we had gone ahead a long way in our lives. I left studies in the last year and joined a rock band. We were quite pathetic. All our fragile egos bought the band to the rocks. Nevertheless I have been trying since then to make a mark in the field. People were making enough money in this field doing dirty to mediocre music. I hated it. Remixes and more remixes were the order of the day. These people would take up some wonderful R D Burman track and rape it. Into shreds. I wondered why there was no death penalty for rape. If there was, half the music industry would be cleansed of this curse called remix. I hated myself to be born in this era. Nothing made any sense. Plagiarism was at its helm. And a reasonably sensible musician like me was struggling for a job. A la Amir Khan in Akele Hum akele Tum, another plagiarized version of Frazer v/s Frazer.

I was left standing alone on the sea face, without a job, without my girl who always stood like a Rock of Gibraltar whenever I was in the dumps. But now she has left me too. The salty air sprayed on to my face as the lashes hit the boulders on the promenade. Wonderful golden lights lit up the street and the buildings far away. The lights glittered like gold sprinkled around the landscape. I walked towards the bus stop to catch a bus back home. I usually went back home quite late when everyone was asleep. If I reached early I would have to hear from my dad how worthless I was. I was 32, still staying with my parents and not contributing anything to my family, while my younger brother was earning a handsome package working at a call center. My life sucked and when things go wrong, you are worse than a sucker. I felt like running towards the sea and drowning myself of shame, but suicide needs courage. And that is something, somehow I lacked.

I got into the almost empty BEST bus. Only an old man sat in one corner. He looked at me and smiled, his smile extending from one ear to another without a single tooth. I took my ticket and looked outside. The empty landscape of the city reminded me of the emptiness in myself. I was good for nothing. I had proved my dad right. Sonia too must have realized it by now. I was alone, all alone. The bus stopped and I saw the old man getting off. The bus was now completely empty, just like my head. As the bus sped away at top speeds on the empty road, the metal handles hanging from the bar above rattled making a lot of noise, just like my head. Soon the bus reached the last stop. The conductor yelled out at me to get off. I turned around and headed for the exit. An old torn wallet lay on the floor. I looked around for the conductor, there was no one around. I wondered whether I should give it to the conductor, but I hesitated. I did not trust them. What if they took the money and threw away the wallet. It would never reach the owner. I put it in my pocket and walked home.

I slid in the keys slowly into the keyhole and turned it, unlatching the door. My youngest brother was already snoring away to glory; my younger brother was talking away to glory at the call center. I lay the bed on the floor and lied down. There was no sleep in my eyes, only tears, and memories of the wonderful times with my Sonia. The streetlight filtered into the room from the window. I went and sat down in the light. Removing the purse from the pocket, I decided to find out, whose wallet it was. Maybe it was the old man who smiled at me in the bus while I was too immersed in my thoughts to respond to him. Maybe it was somebody else who had got off before I got into the bus. I probed into the wallet. There were hardly any money. Twenty two rupees to be exact. I searched the other crevices. There was a piece of paper and some coupons, some cinema tickets that were hardly readable. There was no address of the owner. I opened the piece of paper that was folded neatly. The paper was fragile and could have easily fallen into pieces. Carefully, I opened it and laid it out on the floor.

It read

Dear Ram,

Today is one of the most difficult days of my life. When I look behind, there are only fond memories of you that I keep in my heart. You made my life special. You gave a new meaning to my existence. Till you came into my life, I thought I was living a beautiful life. But it was when you came walking into my house that things changed forever. I am fortunate that I loved you. I am unfortunate that I loved you, for our love will never be complete. This world is too short sighted to see us love and live together. For me there is only one religion, the religion of love, but there are so many other things that in life we do not have control over. I call it fate. People call it destiny. I have belief in our love, but not in myself.

I write this letter because I do not have the strength to face you. Please do not hate me for what I am doing. This is the best for both of us. Why should our love for each other deny us of the love others bring to our lives. Let everyone around us be happy. If everyone around us is happy, we would be happy.

I know you would understand. Unrequited love lives forever.

I will always love you,
Marianne
23rd July 1953


I looked into the sky from the window. The sky was clear and deep. Somehow, the letter looked like a clue for my life from heaven. I read through the letter again and again. It looked like a story straight from the time of Raj Kapoor. A tragic love story. The tragedy looked bigger than mine. I lay sleepless in the bed through the night. In the morning I pretended I was asleep as I heard my father curse me as he left to work. My brother cursed me as he came back from work. Once I knew the coast was clear I got up and brushed my teeth. My mother kept telling me it was not a bad idea to join the call center. After all, I would be earning something. Today any Tom, Dick and Harry could get through to a call center. But I believed that it would make me brain dead. I quickly gulped an egg sandwich, took my mobile off the charger and left for the stop where the old man had got down the previous night. There was no other clue. Just a wallet and a slight memory of the toothless smile. I had a hunch it had to be the old man. My mobile had not rung since morning. It felt like a lonely day. Not a single day had passed in the past nine years without a morning call from Sonia. Not a single SMS.
I got down at the stop. There was a slight commotion at the bus stop. People were bashing up an eve teaser. I walked a little away from the bus stop. The bus stop reminded me of my school days. Our school was a five minute walk from this bus stop. The trees around the compound of the girls school bought in fond memories of the good time we had. An old age home separated the boys school from the girls school. Every time we passed by the old age home, eager old people used to wave out to us. The joy that they achieved while they saw us wave back was fantastic. I had a clue there. Maybe that old man was from the same old age home. But that was only one in a million chance. But nevertheless, I had nothing to lose and nothing to do.

I entered the building.

An old woman sat at the desk with two other older women. As they noticed me enter, they stopped abruptly and stared at me.
“May, I help you young man?” the slightly younger lady stood up and spoke in a stern voice.
“I am looking for someone named Ram. Does he live here?” I asked.
“What is his full name?”
“Well, I don’t know, but I found this yesterday in the bus” I said taking out the lost wallet and handing it over to her “I had spotted an old man getting down in the night yesterday at the bus stop, so I took a chance.”

“Oh Ram? you have got his wallet? He was so concerned he lost it.” The old lady’s voice turning cheerful and more welcoming. “I thought you had come to enquire about another enrollment.”

“Enrollment?” I was not clear what it meant. “Doesn’t matter dear, It is so nice of you to bring his wallet back. He was so tense, he did not sleep last night. He has gone to the Bus depot looking for it” she said.

“Don’t worry, I will give it to him, son” she confirmed.

“Can I wait for him?” I could not help myself from asking. The other two women kept staring at me. The stares made me slightly uncomfortable. So I thought it would be wiser to come back a while later. “Can I come a while later?” I asked the old lady.

“Sure Son!” she replied.

I got off the gates and looked back. The school had just left. The road was filled with kids. I turned to look on to the windows. It was filled with old people waving out to the kids and the kids waving back at them. One thing that never changed. For me, it looked as if it were the same old people I used to wave out as a child.

I reached the stop nearby. A light little music filled the air. The sound of the wind that flowed through a pipe had an immense effect on my heart. I followed the trail. Around the corner there was a municipal garden filled with couples canoodling in the shades avoiding the stark hot sun. Below a tree that was in the middle of the garden was an old man selling flutes, playing the flute. I went close to him and sat down. He continued unperturbed, his eyes closed. The tune was of an old song from a hindi film, which spoke about loss of love. All these things seemed connected. I had just lost out on my girl, my love. I get a wallet that has a love letter that dated back to 1953 and here is a man playing a flute of a song that spoke about loss of love. Did this mean that the world was full of lost love? The pain of the song could be felt in the deepest corners of my heart…

… to be continued