Benyamin - Yellow Lights of Death

I rushed towards her. She was surprised.

‘You, here?’

‘Why? In a world full of believers, can’t I be a believer too?’

‘It’s not that. Only that it’s a strange coincidence to see you here.’

‘I come here most months. Not for the mass but as a chauffeur. With my sister-in-law. It was a coincidence when we ran into each other the last time. This is another coincidence. The next one will be the next time we meet. Life is a grand total of coincidences.’

‘OK, OK. Let me get into the church,’ she said, laughing.

‘This is.?’ I asked, pointing to the woman with her.

‘Ayyo, I forgot to introduce her. Sorry. This is my friend Melvin. She is a nurse at City Hospital, at the Accident and Emergency department,’ she said and entered the church.

There was a fire in my belly. At the Accident and Emergency department in City Hospital! This was a good route to probe into Senthil’s death. I had to know for sure. Even if the whole world told me that Senthil had had a heart attack, how could I believe it? I decided to wait till they came out.

Jealousy

AFTER THE MASS, when my Chettathi, Anita and Melvin came out, I was surprised to see them together. I didn’t expect them to know each other. I came to know only later that it was a quick acquaintance formed while sitting near each other at the mass. Chettathi was good at that, too. Typical of women at home. Nobody is spared without being asked their name and whereabouts. Chettathi and Anita were surprised that all three of us knew each other.

Though Anita initially declined Chettathi’s offer to drop her, she succumbed to the repeated pleas and got into my boat. During the journey, I purposefully brought up the topic about our class. My intention was to find out if she knew about Senthil. But she didn’t utter a word about him. She asked if I had found any more of our classmates. ‘Oh, I forgot to tell you. A few days ago, we were watching a wedding cassette from Kerala, and there I saw Jyoti, wearing a silk sari and all.’ Before I could finish what I had to say, Chettathi interrupted. ‘Listen, Anita, it seems he had a crush on that girl. He kept calling the mainland for three days without a break to find out her details. You should have seen his despair when he came to know she was already married,’ she broke into laughter.

‘My Chettathi is crazy,’ I said. ‘Alexy is in Seychelles. Bilal is in Australia, you told me that, right? Do you remember our da Vinci Vinod? He is running a taxi boat now. I met him yesterday.’

I made it a point not to talk about Senthil or Jesintha. Not getting any reaction from Anita, I turned to look at her face. She had her eyes fixed on me. I saw a shadow of jealousy on her face. It seemed as though she’d been struck by my Chettathi’s words. To change the topic, I turned my attention to Melvin.

Melvin appeared somewhat reserved. She limited herself to just replying to my queries. She was one of the recent recruits from Kerala. The ministry had allotted some of them a villa close to Anita’s house. She opened up a bit when I asked her about her job at the Accident and Emergency section.

‘It’s a sad place. One is shocked to see that there are so many patients in such a small place. The same with accidents. Stand there for a while and we know how lucky we all are.’

‘I’m planning to do a study on accidents in Diego. Just out of curiosity. Can you help me out with some details?’ I had an inspired moment.

‘You’ll get all that you need if you ask any office staff. They have full records in their system.’

‘I don’t need official records. What I want to know is about the experiences of people working there. How do you face the various patients and accidents and experiences? Do you think you can tell me about that?’

‘Why not? There are people in my villa who have been working here for years. They will have lots to say.’

‘Anita, please. You should help me with this. I want to meet them one day.’

‘That’s fine. You let me know.’

After dropping Chettathi home, I drove Anita and Melvin to their bay. From there, Anita pointed out her house to me and invited me to drop in. I promised her that I’d visit someday soon. She told me to chuck the formality and to come for sure. ‘I’ll come. I’ll have to come,’ I said while leaving. She might have misunderstood it, as she could not have got what I actually meant.

Scrapbook

AFTER A LONG while, I logged into my Orkut account. There were four friends’ ‘requests’ pending. The first was from one Sajeesh, who had been with me at MG College, Thiruvananthapuram. He was now working with a newspaper. Two were juniors from school. They were running a computer shop somewhere in Diego. The fourth was a request from my classmate, Rahim. There was a sudden joy seeing him after ages, although on the computer screen. At last, other than Alexy, someone had come searching for me. I went through his profile. He was working as an engineer at a construction company in South Korea.

Our class. Twenty students. Since I began the search, I’d found seven of them: Alexy, Jesintha, Senthil, Anita, Vinod, Jyoti, and now, Rahim. Eight including me. Anita said Bilal was in Australia. If I took that on faith, he’d be the ninth one. Though he had left in Class V! There were still ten left. Hidden in unknown corners of the world in unknown forms: Babu, Supriya, Leena, Seyfu, Daniel D’Silva, Little Anita and four others whose names I couldn’t recollect. I might see all of them someday, somewhere. Or at least come to know where they were.

I opened my Orkut scrapbook. Many people from various walks of life had posted greetings. I saw many faces there that I hadn’t seen for years. Alexy and Rahim had each commented once. Alexy’s was just a casual post. In the first few days, he had written regularly. About friends. About class. With queries about Diego. And I had replied with enthusiasm. Then it slowed down. As if there was nothing more left to say, and I realized that ten years of life could be written in just ten lines. Then, once in a while, a random comment. That’s it. Alexy and I had reached that stage.

Rahim’s comment had greetings as well as inquiries about me. I replied. Two lines about my life. The happy news of meeting Anita, Jesintha and Vinod. The tragedy of Senthil’s death. That was the content of my response.

He was online, so we began to chat. It was shocking. He didn’t ask about anyone whom I’d mentioned in my post. ‘Do you remember that chick?’ he asked, about Anpu.

I wasn’t shocked or surprised that he remembered Anpu when I spoke about Senthil. People recollect the past in different ways. But not a single word about the deceased Senthil; no queries about any of our classmates; he had gone straight to Anpu!

I wrote a brief reply that I had met her a few days ago.

He grilled me about Anpu. Many of his questions were beyond that of casual interest in a classmate’s sister. Not only that, I didn’t know why he was asking all these questions during our first conversation in more than a decade.

Then he moved on from Anpu to the rest of the girls in our class. Anita, Leena, Supriya, Jyoti. All his comments were about their figure. It was annoying. Luckily, before he could bug me with further queries, he went offline. But just before that, Rahim said something useful. That Bilal is in Diego on a visit; he also gave me his phone number. I called Bilal without delay. Bilal himself answered. It took a while for him to identify me. Understandable — ten years is a long time. But even after he recognized me, Bilal’s response was cold. I thought he’d be excited to hear from an old classmate. Instead, when I suggested we meet before he returned to Australia, he was noncommittal. He said something vague about next week, if he was free. Though I was upset by his response, I tried to recoup by telling him about the Orkut community I had started, and how I’d found Alexy and Rahim there. He said he wasn’t interested in such things. I didn’t give up. I said I met Anita, Jyoti and Jesintha. Oh, okay, good, was his reply. As my last shot, I told him of Senthil’s demise. That’s sad, what was the disease that caused it, he asked. I panicked for a moment. Heart attack, I replied. He ridiculed the sorry state of third-world citizens who hogged without any concern for their health. After that I just didn’t wish to drag on the conversation.