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After a heavy non-veg lunch in the plant canteen, colleagues joined me in my AC cabin to enjoy a fringe of cool air and a catnap on my table for the rest of the lunch-break. Every one wanted to hear the latest of the happenings at site from where I had just returned. I spoke with an extra enthusiasm. Interrupting my harangue a pal asked. “Why do you look at your hands, kiss and keep them on your cheeks too often?” The senior followed “ Seems saambhar and avial were very good today” I laughed their post-lunch comments away and continued delivering the site adventures, the tricks and the squabbles of the contractor, the whimsies of the client, and idiosyncrasies of the inspector, much to their delight. The jovial session ended at the auto time alarm from the telephone announcing the elapse of the lunch interval.
But the real story is different, which I will not narrate , if you don’t have a good heart. Please listen.
KATHA
That was a Saturday afternoon. Every one had left the office to enjoy the weekend. Workaholic that I was, I perched onto the computer chair and pampered the tailed mouse trying to make the lisping software better till it was almost dark. Before taking a shutdown I opened the mail-box. An E-mail from one of our clients wanted an engineer to be sent for an urgent mission for a week long duration to an important site between Mangalore and Udipi. I could not trace any one who is suitable for the task. After getting permission from my boss in the home (!) I myself set forth to the distant site.” Visit Udipi and Kateel temples without fail. Bring prasadams, a katakol (churn stick) and black glass bangles”. She wants clear proof for each and everything. Otherwise she will doubt and not reach any conclusion. Asst. Professors in Mathematics will behave like this only. Holding her wallet firmly she repeated the same corollary she spoke last time. ”Control yourself. Don’t be a spendthrift. I will not supplement your TA bills”. She knew my firm very well. I agreed to both. She drove me to the station and saw me off.
Weather was fine at site. “We have to make our site visits as interesting as possible”. I pondered to myself. In the evenings there was hardly anything that needed my continuous lookout at site. My evening targets were all the far and nearby famous temples and a few picnic spots. One day I had to go far away from the site in search of certain details and for some measurements. Some body warned that neither food nor potable water would be available en route or at the destination. So I had to carry with me some kadubbu pieces, a pair of oothappas and two bottles of bizleri water. I could have easily avoided many of the travails, had I not insisted for an error-free work and a fail-proof result. It was an adventure worth challenging. I enjoyed myself the lonely trip in client’s jeep.
Work and the week were getting tapered steadily. To bid farewell to site there was only one more day. Away from kith and kin, I felt homesick. Rarely telephones worked. On dialing they always sang with busy tunes. Otherwise they lied breathless and dead, ready to be taken to a cemetery. Lying down on the bed I began planning my return journey. Sleep evaded me. Bickering of the compressor and fan of the room AC and jarring drumbeats from the TV in the adjacent room were the culprits.
A young girl in half skirts and a long and loose blouse with frills on hands appeared from nowhere, immediately after sleep embraced me. The face appeared to be very familiar. It took quite some time for me to recollect her name. That was Gulabi; I got acquainted long long back during my short stay at my Aunt’s (Atha) house in Mangalore. As usual, plant, machinery, switchgear, panels, problems and solutions appeared in the night’s colorful animated power point presentation through the rem of LCD projector.
Next day everything went on well at site. The contractor knew well how to please the client and inspector. “Keep them amused” I also had appraised him its necessity. For the timely completion of the work everyone took credit. It was a win-win situation for all. After finishing the paperwork and signing the minutes, I declared myself as a free, fearless and bold man with no bondage, unnecessarily.
While at my Atha’s I had not reached even my teens. Gulabi knew a lot. She had the visual appeal. She was very smart and good to look at according to my known standards at that age. Once, while playing hide and seek she caught hold of me the small thief. She clasped my hands and said, “Your hands are very cold and very smooth.” Boyhood memories made my hands touch each other. I looked at them, kissed them again and again.
Atha and her husband had left Mangalore searching greener and safer pastures. Here at site, I had nobody now to make a further visit to. Thalappe was the name of that tiny hamlet. I took the contractor’s vehicle on petrol payable basis. Locating Gulabi’s house was a real problem. After marriage her name might have been changed. A good practice to provide a kind of protection from old flames! I reached Thalappe and with difficulty, could find the location where Atha’s house had situated. An aged and bearded tailor was sleeping on the steps of his plank-made dilapidated shop. I remembered that Atha had got stitched through him new knickers for me and got repaired another. For repairing he did not accept any charges then from me. He had taken measurements of my tiny and frail figure using an inch tape with a sharp edge. Aunt’s hubby would play pranks at me often. ”I will tie Gulabi in your new knickers’ straps. Hi hi hi..”. For this I didn’t like him. Gulabi was a regular visitor at Atha’s. I shied to see and play with her afterwards.
After much cajoling the tailor got his memory back and gave me directions to a thatched shed at the fag end of a narrow kutcha road. Car could go only half way. Neither she nor I could recognize each other. Much more than fourteen years needed to erase facial memory have passed in between. “I am your old friend.…” I said with beaming eyes awaiting a good reaction and response. Looking at her totally bald and frail husband sleeping on the reclining chair, guarded words came from her mouth with touch-me-not attitude “I had no boy friend Never!”
The children squatting on the floor were making beedies with their long and deft fingers. The youngest with a running nose was tying the beedies in sets of ten and wrapping them with paper having the picture of Lord Ganeshji. Another kid was making cow dung dosas on walls. No sign of any schooling. Lips of kids with beedi black spots revealed a lot. Two rodents fell from the roof and hid into the heap of coconut husks in the corner. Quite a few websites can be seen below the ceiling. Poverty was rich there. I looked at them sympathetically. Gulabi in this shape and condition! I couldn’t believe my eyes. I coudnot cut the ice.The old man advised with sarcasm. “Please bring your wife also when you come next.” It appeared that he did not like my presence and wanted me to go away. I knew that here the vital information resource is under siege! He was kind enough not to show me the door, may be because of the vertical sandal line on my forehead.
Very very poor were they. I felt sorry and guilty. I returned to the tailor. “She herself is the old Gulbee. Cocksure I am.” He reconfirmed adjusting his pyjamas. I gave him two smiling tenners. Was it for the re-stitching the broken straps? Long back Atha had proposed for me Gulabi’s hands and offered all her land and wealth. It was fate that I went in a different direction yielding to a magnetic attraction and new equations. My non-response might have put Atha to eternal sadness. Now she is no more. May her soul rest in peace!
“Mama Saar! Amma is calling you”. That was the tiny tot with hardly anything on but with cow dung in hands and face. I gave him a banana. He gulped the fruit as well as its skin and smiled at me peevishly.
The car traced its steps back with the boy in. ”Can I take this?” The lad asked pointing to the empty bizleri bottle in the car. The chair in the hut was empty. The old baldie has gone for some chores. Gulabi gave me a packet of home made cucumber chips and a bottle of pickles. “These are for your lucky wife and children” Tears sprouted in my eyes. I saw tears in her cheeks too. She had cried and now sobbed. While giving the presents she touched my hands with her rough and shivering fingers. She mumbled, “Your hands are cold and very smooth even now!” I became a boy on knickers and thought of embracing her. Giggling of glass bangles on the hands of Gulabi reminded me of my honey’s demands.
Gulabi’s daughter offered me two packets of long beedies. I refused to accept them. I gave the kids the leftover coins on my purse. They too refused. “You can take.” Gulabi gave permission. I parted with them the gold coins, which the inspector had sold me at a small margin. “Where is your wife?” The baldie reappeared from nowhere. I left the scene. Even before reaching the car, I heard the sounds of beating coming from the hut.” Sorry very sorry” I said to myself.
No major untoward incidents happened. While climbing a cage ladder, welding sparks came from top .I almost fell down while trying to save myself.. My right hand earned a bruise. A nail pierced one of the shoes. Later I found that the target of the sparks included my shirts also.
While returning by train in the second AC, I tasted the raw cucumber chips smeared with the red-hot pickles. It was splendid indeed! No explanation will suffice if I take these presents to my home. My theorems will collapse. Bugs will be eked out. So I gave the rest of the memento to the quarreling co-traveling young couple who took them with pleasure.
At the station my domestic boss was waiting to take me back home via Bimbies for the dinner. There was a huge crowd in the platform. A bridge has collapsed somewhere on the rail route. She caught hold of my hands, prayed with four hands raised and thanked for my survival. She uttered. “Your hand smells Mangalore achar”. I winked and replied, “Let us go home direct. I want to take curd rice with chips and hot ginger achar you bought from the city stores last week. With untimely foods during the trip my stomach needs reengineering. I want to go to bed early.” She smiled with a difference applying the handle below the steering. Magenta colored signal lights came out from her polished finger nails The fierce and undimmed halogen light beams of vehicles in the front, made my site-work--torn eyes flickered blink and blank.
* The author was Chief engineer (Electrical) Additional. in FEDO Udyogamandal.
The events and names are imaginary but the idea is real and true.
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