The imaginary and the mysterious play a larger role in our lives than the reality.
– Devkinandan Khatri
I have been living with Harish in Mussoorie since July 1998. I had turned my back on the world of writing and journalism two months before that. Initially, some writer–journalists got down to propounding a range of speculative theories about me. One said I had become a mendicant, another said I was living with some old friend in Lucknow, a third claimed that in the wake of the Snehlata episode, I had had a fight with my wife, jumped into the Ganga and drowned. But as the years passed, all of them forgot me.
Sudha knew all about me though – that I was all right and living with Harish in a cottage outside Mussoorie. But for fifteen years, I didn’t care to meet even Sudha or Neha. I had transferred the house, my fixed deposits and everything else in Sudha’s name. Then, I bought a bus ticket to Mussoorie with a couple of hundred rupees to see me through till there, not bothering to carry with me even one book from my library. I had no luggage. Sudha never contacted me and nor did I write to her.
Harish did indeed live a mysterious, almost underground, life. He had a large and rambling cottage full of books. There was no TV, DVD player or CD player. Nothing of the sort. Jang Bahadur, who lived with his small family in the backyard, looked after him and the cottage. Harish did have a computer but he didn’t fancy the idea of keeping a camera.
He taught English in a small school there but accepted no salary. He had this arrangement with the principal that his salary would be given away as scholarships to poor children. He never frequented the staff room either. Some people claimed his brothers had cheated him. That whatever money he would send from Dubai for his father’s medical treatment was never used for the real purpose and his father died struggling in poverty and sickness. Others claimed he had fallen desperately in love and when it remained unrequited, he was driven to a world without hope.
But I knew he only loved books. When I arrived at his door in 1998, all I had were the clothes on my back. During our meeting, Vinay had handed me the Lucknow address of Babadin scrawled on a piece of paper and I had absent-mindedly put it in my pocket. As I was leaving home and destroying my old papers, that address reappeared among them.
Harish suggested I could teach Hindi at his school. But I chose to teach history and, like Harish, decided not to accept a salary.
‘These books alone will finally save you,’ Harish had said to me.
‘At least, one might try.’
For a long time, I had refrained from learning the computer. Then in 2008, I began to use the internet. One day, Harish said to me lightly, ‘Sudhir, if ever you were to go on Facebook, I’d throw the computer out of this house.’
In March 2014, I had this recurring desire to visit Lucknow and have at least one encounter with Babadin. But to Harish I only said I wanted to stroll through the lanes of old Lucknow one last time.
Harish handed me 5,000 rupees. ‘Do come back. Catch a train to Lucknow from Delhi but stay away from Delhi itself, otherwise all your penance will go to waste.’
Penance? I couldn’t help laughing and wondered for a long time – what penance? Penance for whom? And what was the form of that penance?
I landed in Lucknow and checked into a seedy hotel near the Charbagh railway station. And immediately after a bath and breakfast, I hired a rickshaw for Babadin’s house. On the way, I had this impulse to turn back. Why was I going to see him? But finally, there I was, standing in front of his house.
It seemed the house had only one occupant – Babadin’s daughter-in-law. The drawing room had a portrait of an old man with a garland hung round it. It turns out he had died just two months earlier after a long illness.
‘Are you an old friend of his?’ the daughter-in-law asked me.
‘Yes, you could say that. But is this the house of the same Babadin who studied in Janata School in 1962?’
‘I don’t know all that. He never told us anything about himself.’
‘Do you have a photograph of his schooldays?’
‘No, this is all we have, a five-year-old photo.’ She pointed at the portrait on the wall.
Just then, a girl came in. Babadin’s granddaughter. I took out a hundred-rupee note. ‘I should have brought a chocolate or something … But now you can go and have a chocolate or ice cream or whatever you like.’
I returned to the hotel and in the evening, stepped out to explore the lanes of old Lucknow. Then I took a train to Delhi that night and the following morning caught a bus for Mussoorie.
The bus seemed to have a lot of familiar faces. Sudha and Neha were sitting right in front and some of the other seats were occupied by Sonakshi, Savita, Reena, Shalini, Shikha, Sunita … Even Vandana from Bombay was there. And so was Mithilesh Kakkar. But I couldn’t spot Snehlata.
Nobody said hello to me, nobody spoke to me, maybe no one recognized me.
Suddenly, Snehlata got onto the bus. I had the window seat and her seat was next to mine.
‘Hello, Snehlata, how are you? Are you going to Mussoorie?’
‘Yes, my husband and son are waiting for me there. I’m glad I met you. I’ve been living in London for the last ten years and couldn’t find the time to visit India.’
Then we fell silent as the bus was moving along. ‘Will you tell me one thing, Snehlata? I’m dying to find out just one thing from you.’
‘Go ahead, ask me.’
‘Tell me, what charges did you level against me when you met the brand manager? At least, now you can tell me.’
‘I’ve forgotten everything.’
‘Please try to recall. Maybe you’ll succeed.’
‘Okay, I remember one thing. The twenty-first floor. And yes, I also recall your favourite expression – ‘A true lie.’ Why don’t you go up to that twenty-first floor and take a grand leap? You’ll then easily discover all the truthful lies. As for me, I cannot recall anything.’
For a few seconds, I found myself confronting the ancient remains of Stonehenge near London. Or maybe I was lost in the ancient caves of Bhimbetka some distance from Bhopal.
And I was asking no one in particular, ‘Where’s my home?’