Liberation

Hi Anahita,

Kemche darling? I am missing you a lot today. Today afternoon when I was watching Sarabhai v/s Sarabhai and Roshesh was reading his poem “Teen Pairo wala Kutta”, I missed your loud annoying laughter. Yaad che one time Delnaz had come to stay and she couldn't get sleep at night courtesy your free service.
I am missing your nuisance Anu!. I am missing drinking tea and having khari with you by our little balcony. I am missing wiping my hands on the edges of your pastel summery frocks. When Savita Tai comes to sell fish in her multi-coloured lavani sari, I miss seeing you haggle with her for pomphret. I miss the full-throated Rustommmmmmmm as my dinner alarm. And I miss your apron-clad belly staring at me as angrily as your fuming face each time I come late to the table... Now there is none of it. Ironically, Silence and Peace don't make love at our home.

But today, Anu I am missing you most because I am feeling a strange emotion engulf me. Late in the evening today, the lukewarm summer wind lured me into a little walk down memory lane. Gleefully I packed my bags and hopped onto the nostalgia bus. But then today was unusual. 

In the quiet confines of our one-bedroom Byculla home, I went sixty-two years back in time. At twenty-one, freshly-baked out of the hallowed and nourishing walls of Elphinstone College, the world my oyster - Rustom Babaji believed he could do no wrong. Sixty-two years worth of imagination waiting restlessly to take birth in the real world. And like an artist, I painted dreamy landscapes replete with ambition and revolution. Imagination created what reality aspired. What a feeling Anu! ... Vision, Vigour and Voice rarely ever blended again.

But how soon have the wheels of time come to this day and time na?. I was too much of an egotist to realise my insignificance in this timeless world. And sitting now on this marble parapet, at an arm’s length from Mrs. Mehta’s kitchen, I feel an insignificance of a completely different kind.

Sixty-two years ago, at the cusp of our independence, when fellow young men drained themselves in patriotic blood, I chose a life of secure servitude. When communal divide drew lines on the souls of men, I was busy drawing lines in the Accounts Journal. As time lengthened, the conscience weakened. Conversations over whisky revolved around salaries, cricket and constitutional reform. The latter a mere rendition of an intellectual falsetto. License Raj and a closed economy fostered caged-lives. Social habits condition the minds of men in unimaginable ways. My false sense of pride and achievement made me knock harder on the locked door. Time, that relentless bastard, kept ticking away. At thirty-three you came into my life as an arranged bride. How against love I was then! My arrogance destroyed your beauty too. At times now, I wished you had the sense to choose a better man. But then you had a scarred first-marriage. And one failure is often enough to make a person impulsively choose security. In the rigmarole of career, kids, responsibility and making ends meet, I buried the artist in me.

Life’s flown by. Right in front of these very eyes. India is a changed nation now. Some men from my time broke-free from the cage and gifted us the glorious sunshine we bask in today. Some men strove all their lives to break free. Success, given its exclusionary nature, kisses only a few’s feet. But the dignity of life is in striving. And Anu, no one on earth is denied the opportunity to strive. I have seen Happiness kiss the feet of driven men. Day in and day out, they strove towards their end. What noble lives!

On the edge of my timeline, with a weakened heart and a dwindling soul - I have been able to cast aside the veil behind which I lived sixty-two years of my life. Anahita, I am sorry for denying you of your aspirations. I am sorry for having denied myself of my aspirations. It took me sixty-two years to realise this. But today was a different day.

Today, I kissed Failure’s Feet. And I liberated myself.

Love,
Rustom Babaji