Good stories usually happen when one is busy doing something else and least expecting anything to happen. Sometime in 1997 I visited my brother who was living in Aundh on the sixth floor of a building that had good solid families of the soil on every floor. Families who cooked and ate together, fought together and maybe even burped together. Who knows!
My brother lived like a monk. A bed, two sheets, toothbrush and nothing more. He worked in a firm on Dhole Patil Road, but that does not explain his monastic life. In fact, it should have been the opposite. Anyway, I visited with our mother who was to stay with him for a few months and we had to take hard decisions. He had to beef up his house. Some kitchen stuff and some appliances as necessary.
The brother turned resourceful suddenly. He said he had a client who offered all appliances on hire purchase somewhere in Akurdi. Off we went. We came back with a refrigerator and a washing machine. Some utensils, a gas stove and a cooker too came in. He got another bed from somewhere and we beefed up his room.
All this was being watched.
No, nothing Sherlock Holmes or RR Patil about it. Just that,some people loved watching. Senior citizens. At home all day, nothing better to do. So watch the young men go up and down the stairs with stuff, having animated arguments in Hindi that anyone would spot and say, Nagpur! But this citizen had motive.
I went down early in the evening. The brother had trotted off to bring something from somewhere for mother. I walked it to the nearest cigarette stall. Needed some nicotine. I lit up. And watched the watchful senior citizen slowly get out of the gate of the society and take careful steps towards where I and the cigarette stall stood. He was very slow and measured so much so that I finished the cigarette by the time he arrived beside me.
I prepared to move. He met my eyes. We eyeballed. I smiled. He took the opportunity.
Who will stay there?
My brother.
I saw that your mother also came?
Yes, she too is going to stay.
Oh, that’s nice. Family. Father?
Passed away some years back.
Oh! Brother married?
No.
He is very quiet.
He is.
What does he do?
Sales.
What sales?
Timeshare.
Woh kya hota hai?
I explained a bit. Left it halfway as he seemed distracted.
He did his engineering?
No, computer science graduate.
Oh! MBA toh kiya na?
I shook my head. I now understood where he was going.
Beta, MBA nahin kiya?
I again shook my head.
Sir, I need to go. See you again.
I left him standing there in the setting sun.
Next day, I had to leave. It would have been nice to see the citizen’s daughter too. But that didn’t happen.
The views expressed in this column are strictly the authors.
Statutory Warning: Smolking is injurious to health
- Beta MBA nahin kiya? - November 23, 2016
- Indraneel Majumdar: The Day I went in search of Lakes - November 15, 2016
- Indraneel Majumdar: Roop Tera Mastana - November 8, 2016
