Rohinton Mistry - Such A Long Journey

Something relating to my assignment needs to be done in Bombay. I immediately thought of you, since there is no one I trust more. Your friendship means a lot to me, and your dear wife Dilnavaz, and your two wonderful sons and sweet little Roshan. I don’t have to tell you that all of you were, and still are, like my own family.

What I need is quite simple. It just involves a parcel which I would like you to receive on my behalf. If you cannot do this favour, I understand. But I will have to turn to less reliable people. Please let me know. And please do not be offended by the post office box number, my address remains confidential because of regulations.

Once again, I beg your forgiveness. Some day, I will tell you the whole story, when our family (if you do not mind my calling us that) is together again.

Your loving friend,

Jimmy

Gustad felt the paper between thumb and finger. How rich, he thought, comparing it to the thin sheets in his own desk. Jimmy was always well-off, but so generous. Constantly buying gifts for the children. The badminton racquets, cricket bat and stumps, table-tennis set, dumb-bells. And he would never give them to the children himself. Always gave them to me, said they were my children, so I had first right to their gratitude and joy. But whenever Jimmy arrived, Roshan, Darius and Sohrab would at once leave what they were doing to sit with him. He was their hero, even Sohrab’s, who was always so selective. Look at him now, turning up his nose at Dinshawji.

Gustad lowered the wick of the kerosene lamp and leaned back in the armchair. The light, very soft now, made the room dreamlike in its glow. O Dada Ormuzd, what kind of joke is this? In me, when I was young, You put the desire to study, get ahead, be a success. Then You took away my father’s money, left me rotting in the bank. And for my son? You let me arrange everything, put it within reach, but You take away his appetite for IIT. What are You telling me? Have I become too deaf to hear You?

He took up his glass again. The rum-beer was tasting better now, he decided, and swallowed more. How many years have I watched over Sohrab and waited. And now I wish I was back at the beginning, without knowledge of the end. At the beginning, at least there was hope. Now there is nothing. Nothing but sorrow.

What kind of life was Sohrab going to look forward to? No future for minorities, with all these fascist Shiv Sena politics and Marathi language nonsense. It was going to be like the black people in America — twice as good as the white man to get half as much. How could he make Sohrab understand this? How to make him realize what he was doing to his father, who had made the success of his son’s life the purpose of his own? Sohrab had snatched away that purpose, like a crutch from a cripple.

The rum-beer was delicious. He drained the glass. The tension was slowly going out of him. Kicked him nine years ago to save his life…I can kick him again. Out of my house, out of my life. To learn respect…how much he means to me…meant to me…that day…

That day, it had been a morning of rain. No, a whole day of rain: rain mingled with the smell of diesel fumes. And he had got on the wrong bus with ten-year-old Sohrab while heading for lunch. Gustad had taken a special half-day’s leave from Mr. Madon the bank manager, to celebrate Sohrab’s first day at St Xavier’s High School. Gaining admission was not easy. The school’s motto was Duc In Altum, adhered to with especial rigour when selecting new students. There was a tough entrance examination, followed by an interview, and Sohrab had done so well in both. Ten years old, and already his English was fluent. Not like that other interview for kindergarten when he was three, where the headmistress had asked, ‘What soap do you use?’ and Sohrab had answered, ‘ Sojjo soap,’ using the Gujarati word for good.

Gustad wanted to give him a real treat. The Parisian served the best fish curry and rice in the city. Each order came with crisp paapud, the fish was always fresh pomfret, and the waiter would, upon request, serve any portion of the fish’s anatomy. This last was important, because Sohrab adored the tail triangle of the pomfret.

But somehow, what with the rain and the crowds and the confusion, Gustad misread the bus number. They found out only after it had pulled away from the stop and was in the midst of traffic. The conductor approached with a swagger down the aisle, his leather money pouch and ticket case slung in a devil-may-care style over his shoulder.

Gustad held out his change and said, ‘One full, one half, Churchgate.’ After lunch at the Parisian, he was going to surprise Sohrab by walking him to K. Rustom & Co for a slab of their famous pistachio ice-cream, served between two biscuits that remained crisp till the end. The ice-cream was Dilnavaz’s idea. It was expensive, Sohrab had had it just once before: to celebrate his navjote, after the ceremony at the fire-temple.

The conductor ignored the outstretched hand, and muttered disinterestedly, ‘Not going to Churchgate.’ He snapped vigorously with his empty ticket punch: tidick-tick, tidick-tick. The sharp noise made his speech seem hostile. He glared out into the rain and traffic, past Gustad’s face.

Rain had started in the early morning: great sheets of water pouring out of dark skies. Gustad remembered Dilnavaz saying, as he left with Sohrab for the new school, ‘It’s good luck if it rains when something new is beginning.’ Sohrab was also pleased: it meant he could wear his new Duckback raincoat and gumboots. He hoped there would be floods to wade through.

Before leaving, he had been adorned with a vermilion dot on the forehead, and a garland of roses and lilies. Dilnavaz did the overnaa and sprinkled rice, presenting him with a coconut, betel leaves, a dry date, one areca nut, and seven rupees, all for good luck. She popped a lump of sugar in his mouth, then they hugged him and murmured blessings in his ear. They said more or less the same things as on a birthday, but the emphasis was on school and studies.

Waiting first in line, Gustad had wished it would let up for a while. The rain crashed deafeningly on the bus shelter’s corrugated metal roof. The air was heavy and disagreeable. Traffic lay like a soporous monster on the shiny wet surface of the road, throbbing and spewing out its effluvium, rousing itself now and again to move a little, sluggishly. The petrol and diesel fumes were strong and noisome; they seemed to have dissolved in the very moisture; and the moisture blanketed everything.

‘Not going to Churchgate,’ repeated the conductor, clicking away absently with his ticket punch: tidick-tick, tidick-tick, tidick-tick. His left hand played with the sea of coins in his leather pouch, running his fingers through them or lifting a handful and letting them cascade like a metallic waterfall back into the pouch, where they landed with tinny splashes. Part of the leather had been polished to a satiny smoothness by the conductor’s constant caresses. It glowed warm and lustrous. And this picture of the conductor was what Gustad saw most clearly as he lay on the road in the pouring rain, in the path of oncoming traffic, unable to rise. Something had broken; the first great bolts of pain were thundering through his body.

But first, there was the argument with the surly conductor. ‘Not going to Churchgate,’ he said. Rain and slow traffic had affected everyone’s temper. ‘Buying a ticket or what?’

‘If this bus is not going to Churchgate we will get off.’

‘Then get off.’ Tidick-tick, tidick-tick, tidick-tick. ‘Or buy. No free ride.’

‘But pull the bell at least.’ Gustad’s speech was yanked undignifiedly from him, as the bus lurched in the middle of the sentence and his words tumbled wildly.