Bombay Diary ~ Amertume

My father was a mercenary; he left me and my sister when we were 3 and 2. My mother being weak and incapable of pursuing education took to house work. We were conditioned to less of money, an everyday meal used to be bread, just bread. Cold weather was usual to remind us that the woolens are thinning and shortening day by day. Such was my life and I knew only one definition of life, that which was shown to me. I was content and satisfied with what I had seen. I and my little sister were untouched by the worldly vagaries till one night my mother came with a man. He looked kind, and so was his prudence. He sat looking towards me with glim eyes and said,

“I will take your mother with me to a new land. I have a child of your age she needs a mother too. But I can’t take you and your sister. Your father has been informed; as soon as he is aware he would come and take you both”

Words started confusing me; simple conversation seemed to be complex and unbelieving. I looked intensely and the only thing that I could utter in front of him was

“I need a mother too”

As I said those words, she looked at me with moist eyes trying to convey a million things in million seconds. She packed her bundle of clothes and left. ‘How’ and ‘Why’ are the two words that took the utmost predominance in my handful of words dictionary. I was 5, my sister 4. I couldn't move for as long as I could think. I sat in the middle of my 1 room house, my sister sleeping on the floor mat near to me. I cried. A million tears a million seconds.

The next morning Abbaji swung open the door. He was old, very old and the only other human contact other than mother and Sairi my sister since my birth. Yes we lived in a farm, a farm which was far away from the world where people existed. He scorned at me, spitting on the lemon tree outside our hut he said,

“Your father isn't coming. This is his reply.”

He slapped hard a piece of paper on the floor which resembled the same on which my mother used to scribble every night. It had two words of whose meaning I was unaware back then. I still have that letter!

Abbaji took me and my sister to the nearby town, the name I hardly remember. To what I presumed as an orphanage was a home, where I was been kept to do errands. My sister was taken away by someone else, I wish to believe to a better home, and I have not seen her since then. In less than 72 hours I had lost the only human I ever knew. I was not scared or hurt to realize that I was alone. I was in a state of comatose. I was inhuman as I felt like an animal. An animal like the farm dog, whose mother left him hungry and alone, whose father left him at birth and swore never to return. I felt like the minute hand of a clock I could see lying on the cold floor of the house, I couldn’t be fast enough to run with my father, I couldn’t be slow enough to dissolve in the absence of my mother. I was small, and I could have never comprehended my feeling of being un-wanted back then, but I knew how exactly I felt every minute of that passing night with a memory of a leaving mother and a two word letter father.

...

Today I am 34, that night I ran away from the house I was given to, ran as fast and as mad I could, I begged, borrowed and lived on the streets. I became a daily hire, a laborer for cheap and then I worked as a garbage dump assistant. I went on to become known for doing small wrong things for all wrong people, pick pocketing, knife handling, passing bags full of drugs to unknown people at railway station. After living my entire life on the streets of a crowded city, I also went to become a mercenary.

Years, weeks, days passed in killing people for money. I didn’t feel anything. Uprooting people’s family for small time goons, I didn’t feel anything. Leaving young children crying, angry and hurt, I didn’t feel anything. Burning homes, huts and palaces, I didn’t feel anything. Running, crushing people, I lived every day like an animal and I didn’t feel anything.

2 days back Rashid my employer came with a man. A man who looked kind and so was his prudence. It ripped open the day, the last one, I ever felt human. Yes, it was him.

“My wife was killed by my neighbor, over the ownership of land. And now my daughter is in threat. I would pay you to kill him.”

As he said these words, I knew that the wife used to be my mother, the daughter was his daughter and the Man was the one who made me what I was today. I lay bare once again open to the wounds of a past, cruel, vengeful and sad. But she was my mother, giver of my life, my existence. Someone killed her, brutally with an object people can’t describe. Someone wronged her. My job made my instincts boil my blood to kill the wrong for money. I got up in fury, my anger pulsating within the walls of my heart, throbbing my veins a million times in million seconds. Sweat dripped my forehead as I heard Rashid asking me to hand him the promissory note, agreeing to slaughter for money, my license to kill. Blinded by the humidity of the weather and my fate I took my wallet, a torn piece of paper and handed over to him.

“This shall be my reply to the justice for your dead wife”.

Rashid looked bloodshot as he faced eye to eye.  It was the same piece of paper my father replied to Abbaji

“No, never”

I walked out of the small room to a broken door into the scorching sun, heat piercing my skin and drying my lungs like a desert. I cried. After 27 years of being the farm dog I was made to be, this was my first human experience. That day I knew what was that I couldn’t define when I was 5. That suffocation, that feeling of being treated as non-existent, the feeling of disowning, the feeling of lost, the feeling of anger, the feeling of isolation, the feeling of grief.

Can suffering be so long? Is human brain capable of holding something so hurtful for such a long time? Yes and that is the reason I write this letter to you, because I know, like me you would have searched the feeling that has not let you sleep for days. ‘How’ and ‘Why’ are still the two most important words of my life and for you to find your answers I write this to you my little sister. Someday hope you find this.

The story of our life.

....

Bombay Diary holds my experiences from the city of memories. The Jahangir state museum holds a room full of memorabilia of those who drowned, suffered and lost their loved ones in Bombay floods. This piece of letter someone found corked in a bottle, Its significance unknown. This was written in Hindi and a part of it almost smudged off. Not being sure if it is still kept by the curators I have written to convey the feeling I felt when I first heard of it from a fellow traveler to my office. She works as a French translator for the museum.