After 5 pm, kids of almost all ages would be playing in the compound, and games could be anything from hide and seek to cricket. Outside the compound, a few street kids would often play marbles, or just make a lot of noise beating sticks on to empty cardboard boxes. Today there weren’t many. He had a few toffies in the pocket of his shirt, that he had got to give to the little ones playing around. Today, they stayed in his pocket, oblivious to the few kids running around.  Ankit, on his way back from school, peeped from the entrance archway of the building and saw him sitting on the porch. He walked gracefully all the way with his heavy school bag hanging down his shoulders, and with a little smile on this face.

“Hello Dadaji, how are you”, he greeted with a larger smile, which was striking against his un-tucked shirt, and open shoe laces. He had probably rolled down a muddy football field in school, and that made his cream coloured shirt look caramel flavoured.

“Shall we go?”,  saying that with widened eyes Dadaji got his back erect with stick ready to walk. That day Ankit was late in coming back from school, he perhaps had an extra hour of sports. It was already getting dark with the sun having gone below the visible horizon.

“Ankit, will you come down to play?”,  one of the smart chaps swinging a cricket bat asked him as they were about to go upstairs.

“Lets play on the floor in half an hour”, saying this he slowly escorted Dadaji to the elevators.

Please note: This story is part 2.1 in continuation of Melody of Life

The meal was delicious. At least it looked to be so. She would make him a different type of curry and use different vegetables everyday. She ensured that he had three meals every day. He did not have much strength in his body, but he would eat his meals well. He had a good appetite and a taste of good food would always linger in his mouth.

He looked at the TV and broadcast had resumed. Using the towel that was hanging from his chair he wiped his mouth after finishing the meal. The hands retracted to a convenient position on his lap and eyes fixated to the CRT.

“I will come a little late tomorrow”, she told him while lifting his plate from there.

“Why? Everyday you come late anyway!”, with a shrewd smile he replied.

“I need to go to the market, the vegetables in your fridge are all over.”

“Why don’t you make some black chana for me tomorrow?”, saying this his face lit up. “If you don’t have the time, just soak them in water before you leave and I will make it myself.”

He really liked chana (black chickpeas). It was also something that he could cook. It is simple. Just stir fry in some oil and add some pepper and salt to taste. Voilà! The chana were ready, as he liked them! There were some more simple recipes that he could prepare. One of them was French Toast. For him it was as simple as dipping the bread in a batter of egg, milk, and sugar and then shallow frying it in some oil.

Before leaving, she refilled the glass of water on the table. Once she left, the house was back to the state it was in before she came. Only now it felt a bit hotter after all the cooking. He was tired. There was a photo of a lady hanging from the wall in front of him. She looked a bit old, though not so old as him. She was wearing a simple sari with a piece of it covering her head. There was an enigmatic smile that at first sight seemed natural. Though it was more like the smile on a person’s face once he or she has realised the truth out there. The smile showed satisfaction and completeness. Looking at her would make you feel happy from inside.

Turning off the television, he looked at the photo and closed his eyes in silence. Almost as if to pray. Yet another day had got over…

Please note: This story is part 1.5 in continuation of Melody of Life

Running his finger line by line through the diary, his eyes became as narrow as a slit used in Fraunhofer’s experiment. The pages had turned yellow and the binding had come loose. A blue plastic on the cover of the diary read ‘Allahabad Bank’ with the year ‘1989’ written below it. It had hundreds of names, numbers, addresses, accounts and a lot of other information. I believe, diaries are always like that, especially if they belong to a few decades in the past. Today the world is moving to a paper-free note-keeping and diaries are rare, but go back to those days and you would find almost everyone running around to get the latest diary at the beginning of a new calendar year. There used to be different types of diaries to keep daily notes, and different ones to keep phone numbers and addresses. While the notes diaries were by date and month, the address books would be by the alphabet. Even today you would find those in the stationery stores, but people have moved on to computers.

However, there was something special in that diary that would catch anybody’s eyes. Each page had a repetitive feel to it. There was a pattern.  Each page started with neatly written names and numbers, written perhaps with a black ball point pen. As you would scroll down the page, the letters would get more slanting. At the very bottom of the page, the letters no longer resembled those on the top of the page. There was a distinct blur in each letter of the alphabet caused by shakiness of an unsteady hand. Loss of grip was caused by a loss of strength. While each letter on the top of the page was made by a average single stroke of the pen, each letter on the bottom of the page looked as if made by thousands of horizontal zigzag strokes. Many of them were written in pencil. The last few words on each page were almost illegible to anyone other than him.

One would almost think that his life was scribbled in that diary.

Suddenly, his face lit up as if he had found his lost treasure. His wrinkled face extended to bear a semi-full smile. “Six-three-five-zero-two-four-one”, he read out, and once again.

Picking up the receiver he dialled the six digits.

“This number does not exist, please check the number and dial again”, was the rude reply he got from the other end.  The wrinkles on his face slowly went back to form the shape of the expression, the type when his back pains terribly. He kept the receiver back on the phone and slowly closed the diary. His eyes were still on the cover of the diary and his sight was fixed. His mind was certainly nowhere around. It was wandering somewhere else.

She came out from the kitchen with his dinner. He looked at the her. She was quick to take the diary from the top of the table and put it back in the drawer, she made some space to keep the plate. He turned his eyes back to the table. The diary he was staring at was replaced by a plate of food. There was a chapatti, some cooked vegetables and curry.

Please note: This story is part 1.4 in continuation of Melody of Life

He came back and sat on the chair, with a thought in his brain that had started even before he had opened the door. He was staring at the door. Was he looking at the door? Or the grill? Or beyond? I vividly remember the scene in one of my favourite movies ‘Patch Adams’ where Robin Williams sticks out his hand in front of a patient’s face, with his four fingers well apart from each other.

He asks the patient – “How many do you see?”,
“Four”, says the patient.

Patch repeats “How many do you see?"… “Look closely, look through the fingers, beyond the fingers. Tell me how many do you see?”.

The old patient looks at the fingers again… and then with a stutter, says “Eight…”.
“Eight is a good answer”, says Patch.

If we look at an object trying to maintain the two images created in our two eyes distinct from each other, they try to create a parallax. That was happening with him. There were around eight bars in the grill on his door, but he was seeing about sixteen of them. He looked up at the clock once again and called out to her,

“बाई, जरा सेंक दे दो” (Please get me the heat bag)

He referred to the hot water bag that she would refill every evening with hot water and give him to place it along his back. Within minutes she came out with the red hot water bag and stood in front of him. He looked up at her. She was tall, and huge. Even on standing erect, he could only come as high as her neck. Holding the table firmly with his two hands, he advanced a bit so that she could keep the heat bag along his back. She placed the bag between the chair’s back rest and a pillow, which she kept along his back. His skin was frail and thin. He could not take the heat directly from the bag. That would hurt. The heat bag however, gave him relief. Enough to last till he went to bed.

After the heat bag, he would become a bit more active. Physically, and mentally. He opened up his diary kept in the drawer. And started flipping pages, trying to read hard, and find something in it.

Please note: This story is part 1.3 in continuation of Melody of Life

Stretching out his hand towards the table, he located his auxiliary eyes. Through the thick black frame and moderately fat lenses, wide eyes looked around for the shirt he had removed after coming back from his morning walk. On his way to the door, he picked up the shirt lying on the bed in the living room. He put it on and buttoned the middle button. By the time he reached the door, the bell had already rung once again. A soft voice spoke to the door “Haan”… and he continued his slow paced walk to open the door.

There was no need for him to go all the way up to the door and look through the eye of the door. There was a double door. One full size wooden door on the inside, and the other was also a wooden door, but with a grill in the upper half. He would generally keep the inner door open and just close the grilled wooden door in the evenings. That would help in a bit of cross ventilation to his apartment. Often the kids playing around on the floor outside his door would peep in and check out what oldie was doing! Often oldie would go up to the door and give a few toffees to them. Sometimes the kids would barge into the apartment and scatter themselves in a desperate search for the treasure of chocolates that had been hidden somewhere. Today there were no kids. He looked out of the door while he was still a few feet from it. He had an expression on his face, the type when his back pains terribly, something like someone pulling his spine with a hook. He got to the door with a few limps. She was standing there wearing her regular nine yard buxom saree draped in the traditional marathi style like every single day. She was sweating, profusely, as if she climbed all the way to the sixth floor of the building instead of using the elevator. She removed her chappals at the door and walked in straight to the kitchen as soon as he opened the door.

Please note: This story is a continuation of post #253 Melody of Life