Homecoming (IV)

So after a long pause, and a deep breath, a smile broke out on his face.

He had long talked about his achievements to his daughters. They had never known if what he talked was true. They were not old enough, but five years is a long time. Never once in those five years did they see him live any part of his achievements. He used to talk about the fluidity with which his fingers caressed the guitar, and there was not even a broken, hollow or solid wooden structure in their house to suggest that. He used to talk about the reams of papers he had bought and type-written his stories and novels on, but not one among those countless papers was to be found in their house, let alone the typewriter. He had spoken so much about people envying those lip-smacking roles he played onstage, sometimes a swashbuckling villain and at others, a dashing romantic, and his family was yet to see him romance that heroine or crack a joke, onstage.

His daughters were always spell bound with his stories, but something in their questions, and they had many, always suggested that, somewhere, they thought all this was too good to be true. They had seen their father lead his life the way he did, and all this seemed too rosy for someone who went to work with the same blue jumpsuit and did not have one clean, white shirt to wear. But nonetheless, with their mouths agape, they wondered at looked at their mother for a confirmation of sorts. The mother was a quiet lady; she was very young, but her maturity belied her age. At most of his stories, she just smiled in affirmation, not because she thought they were all true – they had been married only 6 years, while the stories dated back to when he was in his early twenties – but just because “those” stories were told on Saturdays.

After that call, he looked at his watch again. It was earlier than expected, two hours earlier. Would this bring good news for him? “I do not care, I had stopped long before”, he thought. But only few in this world can claim to be bereft of hope. He was not one. Never mind how bad you fare, there is always that sense of something miraculous happening that would turn things on their heads. He thought the same. Otherwise, he would not have picked up that stone, nervously. He took it out of his pocket, again, smiled and let it roll on the street, and watched as it rolled, with an expression of relief. Something in him proclaimed a sense of victory, while a certain part of his thought it was long due. Perhaps, all this was set in motion as the day unfolded. Everyone at the theater was talking of it as it was the best that could have happened to him for a very long time. Everyone was asking how he would be preparing about that moment of his. And with every question, he grew more and more anxious.

Often, it is the people and the chattering around you that lets the moment grow big on you. You never think you are good at that certain thing until someone reminds you of the same. Gently, that one turns into two and then many, until you start thinking the same about yourself. Never mind that those praises reduce to a scant, stop altogether from quarters that matter, it grows so big on you that you finally refuse to accept that if it was that same growing recognition that grew big on you, the scant spell should lead you to believe the opposite, and push you into introspection. “Once a star, always a star” had been the story of his life.  

He thought about the moment, when he was too occupied with the ants on the floor while the director and the writer were talking, and when he came out smiling, thinking it was his homecoming. He could not shrug off that moment, and how big has that grown on him. He went back to the day when everyone in his hometown thought he was destined to be a music maestro, basis his ability to produce different sounds from his mouth or by tapping on wood. He arrived in this city, and fifteen years on, he had still to do anything with his music. While struggling with his ambitions, he had similar experience, only this time it was about his creativity and storytelling. Fast forward to that evening. He was still a sweeper and had still to make it big.

Now, he was not thinking about the day being a Saturday or that his family would be waiting; not about his daughters and this, new story; instead he was thinking if could actually live this story. By the time he reached home, it was already late. He was not greeted by his boisterous daughters, never mind the fact that it was a Saturday. He tried to cheer them up. Today, he had that doll from the marketplace; today, they did not want that doll. It was like he had broken his promise. First time since his elder daughter could remember, they had not gone out on a Saturday.

He had that anxious smile on his face. Today, he had a story which his daughters could see him live.

Homecoming (III)

He was expecting a call; one that, some thought, would change his life for the better, but his usual self trudged along with his everyday life, without asking questions, without seeking answers. What began as a quiet morning had already progressed onto an eventful afternoon. The logical end awaited him even as the daylight, an unabashed voyeur, struggled to stay alive to witness “the” defining moment of his life, battling with a growing number of stars and that marauding darkness. He was singing, he was ebullient, he was nervous. Some bite nails and some scratch heads. He chose to throw a stone into emptiness. Of course that window prevented him. He greeted the neighbor with an awkward smile, and moved on. In his hindsight, finally, a thought came up, something that he had battled through for a better part of his life. He thought he could wish it away, just like he used to wish his childhood demons, only forgetting that they would come back stronger. He did not want to answer whether this was a reflection of the rest of his life, when he tried to express himself and then restrained. He could not, perhaps. It is often an uncomfortable realization, a poignant one, where he knew he hadn't been man enough to chase away those demons, and instead chosen the greener pastures on the other side. From a certain perspective, it was the better choice, but had the grass really been greener, he wouldn't bother. No one would. Not for nothing do they say that the grass is always greener on the other side, notwithstanding which side you are on. Green is not always green, he thought. Today, he was at the cross roads.

He had been summoned to the director’s office later in the day. After that toilet thing, he had been chatting with his fellow sweepers when the writer overheard their conversation. He was blaming the actor for his callous remark on the writer’s effort to put joy to words. He was blaming the culture of breeding anonymity on the one hand and stardom on the other. He was trying to justify his past and juxtapose his present with the rest of his meandering life. He was being his true self. “Seldom would I see such honesty, and celebration of a life riddled with disappointments”, thought the writer. In that moment of spontaneity, and brutal honesty, the writer managed to get hold of something – having already started seeing the sweeper on the stage, the writer witnessed his moment of “unbridled joy”.

“I don’t blame myself for my failures, if you think I have not been successful, in most of my endeavors. To me success does not mean celebrating a moment of mediocrity with a bunch of like minded people. For me, success means being a champion for oneself. For me, success is when you accept that you could not have been successful, and move on. It is not a forgiving place that we live in. So much so that it has become difficult to be honest with oneself. I am happy that I quit music. Not because I did not love music, but because I don’t believe in having my family suffer because of my interest. Come on, let’s be honest. I could have done much better with my music, had I not had a family. But I can’t let them struggle for my whims. I think I am successful because they are happy with their lives.”

This was a sweeper who had not had the best of opportunities and still tried to make the most of whatever life he had. This was a father whose children were not too fond of him, and yet they waited for Saturdays. This was a husband who could not promise a lot to his wife, and yet she smiled every morning when he left. This was man who, perhaps, did not like responsibility, and yet did not want to shrug to off.

He was standing with the writer, in a plush office room, staring at the shining floor (trying to find his reflection); too occupied with himself to pay heed to whatever was transpiring between his companions. Between his reflection and the squeaking chairs where the other two sat, he occasionally heard them talking about the subject of their play. For long had the theater been a home to extra-ordinary stories – stories of miracles, stories of heart-break, stories of celebration, and sporadically, stories on history. It was time they brought to stage, and life, everyday stories – where there were no miracles, no happy endings, but an acceptance of what life brought forth. He got the sense of something big about to be in his life.

After a while, they came out, smiling. Towards something more consequential, thought his kin. To him, it was something long due - his homecoming. 

Homecoming (II)

Follows from http://esotericpromethean.blogspot.in/2013/05/homecoming-i.html

That morning was nothing different. He left for work as usual, dragged himself onto the train, mumbling his prayers. Now this, I think, is interesting. He was not a theist, in fact he detested such questions which measured is faith in God or religion. But, inadvertently, whenever he was not busy talking to someone, he was busy with his prayers. Of course not the ones where he sought something from the Almighty - he was too poor to think that prayers could turn wishes into reality - but simply uttering names of all deities he knew of. Sometimes, humming and at other times, brazenly, trying to take as many names as possible, and as fast. Stations were milestones for this exercise. Crowds rushing in at the 100^th, continuing till the air got stinky at 615^th. He got down at the 1000^th name. Clockwork precision.

Now a sweeper’s job is not really exciting, and he knew it. Few sights in this world can be more appalling than an abused toilet, and that was his bread and butter. But unlike his other, more venerated, colleagues (read, the dramatis personae) from work, he did not complain, not about his job, at least. The theater was one of the most popular ones in the city. Somehow, he thought, the patrons were not. He used to stand at the door that led to the staging area, sneaking a peek into all performances. A few months into this job and he was already a popular figure among his “peers”. This began with his complaints about those “petty” actors, who were almost always “over the top” with their acting, and on to the writers, “consistently under-performing  doing injustice to that stage”. Thanks to his toilet job, and his complaints, we know what was going to change his life.

As he stepped into the theater, he overheard them talking. Greeted them with a smirk and the rest was business as usual. It was the first screening of that popular play in his city. While the troupe was amateur, it somehow managed to get in a big name as the lead actor. He caught a glimpse of the company rehearsing on the stage, paused for moment, rejected the idea and moved on. If there is no woman in there, that is no play to me, no artistry to me, he thought. Later in the day, he was cleaning the toilet floor, when the writer and the actor barged in, the actor whistling and the writer explaining to him some scene, something about the idea of happiness.

“You know, when I see those kids waving at the planes in the sky, what strikes me most is that despite knowing that they are probably never going to take that ride, and that no one on that plane would even be noticing them, forget about waving back, they can’t hold back their excitement. This to me is unbridled joy. In fact, I have been fortunate enough to have taken a flight, many of them, and still, when I hear the rumbling of an airplane, I look up to find where that thing is. I still rejoice when I see a smoke trail in the sky, knowing that something just cut the sky into two for me.”

The actor continued whistling, and callously cut the writer short.

“Give me something meaningful…these words of yours don’t carry enough weight for an actor like me.”

Why is it that fuckwits still get the most of this world, he thought to himself. That phrase sounded beautiful to him, the way that writer expressed something so ordinary into something that was so “philosophical”. From trying to find his reflection on the floor, and miserably failing, he entered a different territory, finding things which were much more valuable to him than his outline on the broken tiles of that toilet. He started seeing a smiling wife when he leaves for work, the lit-up face of his daughters greeting him when he comes back and the eagerness with which they wait for Saturday evenings. He saw a plate of delectable sweets, a relaxed Sunday morning, the thousand bucks he received every month and his “glorious” past. Amidst all this, the small matter of a broken outline on the floor signaled the end of his chore. He could not help himself from smiling, and trying to find that smile in his reflection.

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Half past seven. At least two hours before he could find peace.

Homecoming (I)

 “Time is little more than just that cruel passerby, unfolding as it passes, perhaps a grand canvas, littered with vignettes, colors, emotions, grey and memories, among a thousand other things. In its eternal, dispassionate search for a destination, they say, it barely pauses for a breath – a moment of compassion, a minute of anxiety, seemingly endless passages of desperation and fleeting joy – nothing ever seems to bother. It is in this canvas that life sketches some of its most every day-looking stories, in juxtaposition with some remarkably strange ones.”

“I wish we could step out of that canvas and paint a world of our own…”

This was “the” thing, he thought. Against a mildly chilly October evening, sipping his tea, he sat on the sidewalks of the “busy” street, smiling, sometimes mumbling. “Busy”, to him was not bustling with people, but rather bustling with theatricality. Colors, silence, props, and a busy backdrop. It was one of those days when he thought he would be the next big thing in the local theater scene. Struggling to contain his excitement, and the tea from spilling out of the mug, he would break into a spontaneous celebration, and sometimes, majestically, at least he thought, would let his hands waltz, as if his stage persona had seamlessly mingled with this world.

It had been growing darker, and the quickly fading dusk was given some space by those street lights dotting the horizon. That scant neighborhood somehow seemed to be the perfect canvas – lamp posts jutting into a not so grey sky sprayed all over with dull stars, and an artiste, in a somewhat restrained expression of his art, struggling to disturb the order of things, poking as if to produce ripples in that reflection. Swaying gently, even as darkness encroached over the trees, he picked up a stone and was about to throw it in the vast emptiness, when, a window over the sidewalk opened. Instantly, he slipped the stone in his pocket, wore an awkward smile, greeted the neighbor and walked on, measuring the success of his latest “theatricality”.

He was someone who could be labeled a trier. Yes, he was not a maverick, not someone who could lead a revolution, not someone who could / would / chose to do things differently. Call it the lack of choice, or its abundance, whatever he had chosen for himself since the last spring, was theater, in any capacity. Not that he had an innate talent, not that he was (not) good at any other “profession”. He was the kind that had no choice but to try a hand at everything he could. More than half of his life was spent trying to convince himself that he was a gifted athlete, a talented musician, a bright scholar and a fluid writer. Unbeknownst to the rest of the world, his gifts "developed and reached a prime", till he got bored of whatever he was involved with, and with a “been there, done that” attitude, shrugged off the little recognition he received from humankind.

He was a family man, something which he did not enjoy - may be because of the responsibility that came along with it, or perhaps because he was all too occupied with himself. By his nonchalance, one could have mistaken him of having gotten bored with his family, though was not so. His wife was pregnant with their third child, although his daughters were not particularly fond of him. They were too inquisitive about why he would not get them that candy floss from that shop. Sometimes they insisted on a particular doll in the marketplace. The father tiredly tried to dissuade them, while the mother used to get them substitutes in the form of lozenges. A family dinner every weekend was a given, and was that bit about being a family man that he would not complain. Not because it was some quality time with his family, but because with every outing, he thought he absorbed something of that external world. Of late, he had developed a keen eye for detail. Saturday evenings provided him with ample. Through all his years in toil, all he could manage was to stumble through the labyrinth of his desires, giving up midway in pursuit of something he thought was his higher calling, and yet, he took enormous pride in recounting his days of yore. Saturday evenings were profligacy for him - a new joint every week, and a new story at every joint to keep his daughters interested in Saturdays.

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Until that Saturday, when he would simply disappear.