Rohinton Mistry - Such A Long Journey

The holder-steel felt good in his writing hand, so much more substantial than a plastic ballpoint pen. Such a long, long while since I used one. No one wrote with them any more, not even in schools. But at one time that was how children made the transition from pencil to ink. This was the bloody problem with modern education. In the name of progress they discarded seemingly unimportant things, without knowing that what they were chucking out the window of modernity was tradition. And if tradition was lost, then the loss of respect for those who respected and loved tradition always followed.

It was almost two a.m. but Gustad was not sleepy. Mixing memory and sorrow, he thought fondly of the old days. At last, he dipped the nib in the ink bottle and began. The shadow of his writing hand fell on the paper. He moved the lamp to the left, completed the address, and dated the letter. As he wrote the salutation the power returned. The bulb blazed over the dining-table. After hours of darkness, the harsh electric light flooded the room insolently from corner to corner. He switched it off and resumed writing by the kerosene lamp.

At water-tap time Dilnavaz awoke automatically, and her first thoughts were about Gustad and Sohrab. The terrible, terrible things they had said to each other. Exhausted, she stumbled sleepily to the bathroom. Water, water. Drums to fill. Hurry. Kitchen tank to fill. That big bucket. And milk to buy…

While she waited outside for the bhaiya, Miss Kutpitia beckoned her upstairs. ‘Please don’t take it to mind,’ Dilnavaz blurted out on reaching the landing. ‘He was very upset.’ It too had bothered her all night, Gustad’s lack of restraint, shouting back at a lonely old woman.

‘That’s not why I called you. I am worried about your son.’

‘Sohrab?’

‘Your eldest,’ said Miss Kutpitia. ‘He reminds me so much of my Farad.’ A flicker of tenderness played upon her face, then expired like a candle in the wind. Once, all of Miss Kutpitia’s thoughts and dreams were reserved for her nephew, Farad. A long time ago, on a day that mixed great joy with profound sorrow, her brother’s wife had died while giving birth to Farad. And on that day Miss Kutpitia took a vow: never to marry, for ever to dedicate her life to the widower and his child. So she became mother and teacher, friend and slave, and whatever else she could think of, to little Farad. Her devotion was returned by the child, who sensed very early on, without ever exploiting the fact, that he was her reason for living. It had been a golden time in Miss Kutpitia’s life.

When Farad was fifteen, he and his father went for their usual week’s holiday to Khandala. On the return journey, there was an accident on the Ghats. A lorry driver lost control, colliding first with a busload of vacationers, then the car in which Farad and his father were riding, and all three vehicles went off the mountain road. The lorry driver was the lone survivor. On that fateful day thirty-five years ago, Miss Kutpitia locked up her heart, her mind, her memories. From then on, no one was allowed into the flat beyond the front hallway.

‘Your Sohrab reminds me in every way of my Farad,’ she said. ‘In looks, in brains, his way of walking, talking.’ Dilnavaz knew nothing about Farad. It had happened long before she had married and come to Khodadad Building. She looked puzzled, and Miss Kutpitia continued. ‘Brilliant boy. Would have taken over his father’s law practice if he had lived.’ That was all she said, grief no longer being something that needed unburdening. Over time, her carapace of spinsterhood had accreted in isolation. And there was no way for a person to tell if, under that hard shell, fate’s cruelly inflicted gashes were still raw or had scarred over.

‘Oh, I am so sorry,’ started Dilnavaz.

‘No need. Tears have all been cried long ago. Not one drop remains.’ She placed two fingers on the bags under her eyes and tugged downwards. ‘See? Fully dry.’ Dilnavaz nodded sympathetically. ‘But I called you because I heard everything last night. Do you know why Sohrab is behaving like this?’

Dilnavaz was grateful for the concern after her night of lonely anguish. ‘My mind refuses to work when I try to understand. Makes no sense at all.’

‘You are saying that suddenly he does not want to study at this IIT place?’ Miss Kutpitia narrowed her eyes as Dilnavaz nodded. ‘And up to now he wanted to go, no one forced him?’

‘No one. I am trying to remember, but I think it was his own idea, when he was just a young boy in school.’

Miss Kutpitia’s eyes became thin slits. ‘In that case, only one thing is possible. Somebody has fed him something bad. In his food, or in a drink. Definitely jaadu-mantar. ’

Dilnavaz politely masked her scepticism; and yet, she thought, how tempting, to believe in magic — how quickly it simplifies and explains.

Miss Kutpitia looked grim. ‘Do you know someone who would profit by Sohrab’s failure? Who would like to steal his brains for their own son, maybe?’

‘I cannot think of anyone.’ Dilnavaz shivered suddenly in spite of herself.

‘It could even be an evil mixture he stepped on in the street. Many ways exist to do such black things.’ Her eyes blazed wide with warning now. Big as meatballs, thought Dilnavaz. ‘But don’t worry, there are also ways to fight it. You can start with a lime.’ She explained the process, and the precise gestures required. ‘Do it for a few days. Before the sun sets. Then come to me again.’ Turning to go inside, she said, ‘By the way, you saw how right my lizard’s tail was.’

‘How?’

‘Your dinner. All spoilt by quarrelling. And the power also went off. Chicken slaughtered in your house was very unlucky. The curse of the death-scream stayed under your roof.’

‘It was Gustad’s idea,’ said Dilnavaz. On her way home, there floated in her sleepy mind a droll parallel between the chicken and Darius’s revenant, pneumonia-inflicting fishes and birds. Poor Miss Kutpitia, such a sad life.

In her eagerness to get back to bed, the letters on Gustad’s desk went unnoticed.

She was still asleep when Sohrab awoke and found his father’s writing implements abandoned after the long night of rumination and reverie. The vigil for dead days and dying hopes had ended when the early, bleary hours of morning crept upon Gustad, the rum-beer exacting its toll.

Sohrab picked up the holder-steel, wondering why his father had been using that fossil. He, too, had lain awake, agonizing over the hurt, the confusion, the harsh words — was he to blame for all of it? The answers were not easy to come by, they lay in the garden of the past, which memory had dug up and replanted in plots of its own choosing. The seed of Sohrab’s troubles had germinated long ago, long before last night, when his parents discovered how easily things came to their first-born, at home, in school, at work or play. There seemed to be nothing Sohrab could not do, and do well. Whether it was arithmetic, or arts and crafts, or moral science, he bagged several prizes each year on Prize Distribution Day. Regularly, there were awards for elocution and debating. In the interschool drama competition, the play he acted in walked away with the trophy. His exhibits in the school science fair finished first. And before long, Gustad and Dilnavaz were convinced their son was very special.

Thus, it was inevitable that when Sohrab showed an interest in model airplanes, Gustad was sure he would grow up to be an aeronautical engineer. Replicas of famous buildings, made to scale, brought forth predictions of brilliant architecture. And tinkering with mechanical things like can-openers could only mean one thing: a budding inventor. Of course, Sohrab’s lot could have been much worse, for the love and adulation of parents for their firstling have been guilty of far more terrible things.