Desire - Three Facets

Chapter 1

It was a hectic day and a lousy one at that. Nothing seemed to be moving right. Aftab had a terrible morning walk, picking up petty quarrel with his wife on a pettier topic. To worsen his woes, he was late to the office and while alighting his sparkling silver sedan, he had noticed a black patch on the fender. Now, that was the limit and his temper rose faster than the mercury in the tropical summer.. The receptionist was the first one to bear the brunt having committed the sin of greeting Aftab with a cheerful smile. Aftab sneered back suspecting some kind of foul play. Next in the line was the office boy who dared to follow Aftab too soon in the cabin with the glass of water. And then of course, there was the list of inanimate things in his cabin faltering on his way and witnessing his growing frustration.

The day appeared to be never-ending. Just before the end of the day, Aftab almost forcibly roped in two colleagues of his for a dinner, promised by one of them to celebrate the inclusion of the second child in the family. The dinner party in their favourite club went on mechanically. However, a couple of quick drinks also could not raise Aftab’s sagging spirits. When he started for home, he was tense, gloomy and abusive, contrary to his expectations. He had a real bad day and he was cursing his fate. He was aware of the crowded crossroad on his way home, infamous for heavy and erratic traffic. When he reached the crowded junction, he found the traffic signal red and cursed under his breath. The car radio, his favourite recreation while driving, was on. A programme was being broadcast celebrating Golden Jubilee of Vividh Bharati. A song, penned by Haffez Jalandhari and sung by famous Mallika Pukhraj, played on – “ Abhi to main jawan hoon” – “ I am still young”. The song touched a chord in Aftab’s heart. Mallika’s voice was rendering a sad texture to the laden environment.

The signal light turned green and Aftab stepped on the accelerator and the brake simultaneously as a street beggar stood before his car with her wild eyes. She was wearing a dirty, worn out skirt and a blouse. There was a thick coat of dirt on her face and her eyes were protruding out as if with a perennial exclamation. Her locks were knotted due to accumulated dirt and filth, overshadowing her sharp features. Her gaze was straight and unblinking. Aftab pressed the horn impatiently. She was unfettered. Surprisingly, Aftab felt a chill down his spine. Is she abnormal? A traffic police came to his rescue. The policeman drove the beggar away who took refuge under the unfinished flyover. Aftab took a sigh of relief and sped away to the inviting cocoon of his home. Suddenly, he started feeling better. While considering himself fortunate, he realized home was the place which could give him the peace of mind. How many people, after all, have the fortune of having a family and home, he pondered.


Chapter 2

The beggar, in the meanwhile, had settled on a rock under the flyover. She was not yet able to come out of the trance she had gone into, standing numb-footed before the car a few moments ago. Actually, she was reliving a similar moment experienced about a couple of years back when she ran away from her captor for her life and honor.

Keshar belonged to the hills. She had all the innocence of the hilly people and simple dreams in her large, attractive eyes. Having weathered 24 years of absolute poverty, she had grown into a fair lady who nursed the desire of having decent meals and if possible, a loving husband that would make her life wonderful. Her mother had passed away at her tender age and it was her father who did not take the responsibility to bring her up. It was not that he was a bad person but his addiction to alcohol had taken over his conscience. He subjected Keshar to abject hunger and curses. Her only solace was a radio gifted to her father by the management of the tea factory, where he worked, for rendering 25 years of service. She listened to the radio all the time, enjoying the songs, old and new ones alike and inviting frequent wrath of her drunken father.

While the things were moving on that sleepy hilly suburb on predictable routine, a distant brother of Keshar’s father, Joginder, landed there from the city. He wore pressed clothes and flashed his goggles in the day. Evidently, he had extra cash with him which he spent lavishly on Keshar’s father by treating him regularly in the local toddy shop. It was, therefore, quite natural that he readily agreed to a proposal made by Joginder to take Keshar to the city for her livelihood. He assured Keshar’s father that she would be employed in a rich household and would receive a considerable sum. That would take care of the extra-curricular occupation of Keshar’s father, he conspired. In her ignorant innocence, Keshar was delighted. Finally, God had heard her prayers and endowed upon her the blessings of good food and life. Once settled, she would also be able to find a suitable hilly groom for herself, she mused to herself.

So one fine morning, Keshar, accompanied by Joginder,  set for her journey to the city of her dreams. On arriving Joginder’s house in the city, she noticed it was located in a slum – full of noise and filth. Not that she was oblivion of poverty but the current place gave her a repulsive feeling, totally unmatched in her experience. Joginder banged the door of his house to announce his arrival. He was welcomed with a barrage of abuses. His wife, Gulabo opened the door and on seeing a girl by his husband’s side, also added some dirty adjectives to Keshar’s womanhood. Keshar’s life in the city had indeed started on a low key.

Gulabo was short and plump. She had been coaxing Joginder for some time to get a helping hand from his native place. However, after seeing Keshar, she had grown suspicious. She knew her sly husband too well. As a result, while her confrontations with Joginder took an upswing, many of her daily torrents were now redirected to Keshar. Keshar did become a helping hand, in a poor household accommodating two most ill-behaved persons. She was provided a meager portion of left over food, which she swallowed most of the time owing to intense hunger.  What really started troubling her was the way Joginder used to look at her. Whenever Gulabo was away to market or to theatre with her slum-mates, he would magically appear in the house for one thing or other. In such situations, he would sound very sweet and would enquire about Keshar’s well being. Notwithstanding her innocence, Keshar could sense a nasty design in Joginder’s behaviour. She would run away outside and Joginder would complain to Gulabo that Keshar’s feet were no longer accepting boundaries of their house. Gulabo never spared such occasions and with vengeance, used to give sound beatings to Keshar. Keshar would cry for hours after every such occasion and sleep with a hope of a better tomorrow.

The neighbourhood was still worse. On her rare outings, she was visually gobbled up by one and sundry in the street. On one occasion, the slum-loafer pulled her clothes and when she complained about this to Gulabo, Keshar was beaten up under the pretext that she was trying to allure men. Keshar did not have any means to contact her father nor did the hope of receiving any help from him. For Keshar, life went on a while like this. She had slowly started realising that her youth and good looks have been her main limitations. She had already reconstructed her dream from a wonderful life to survival, but then that also was looking doubtful.

One evening when Gulabo was on her sojourn to some theatre, Joginder came home fully drunk. He had come prepared to fulfill his longing desire to sleep with Keshar. Keshar was terrified and she raised a huge alarm. The neighbouhood, as it was, overlooked the matter as a routine. Being a hilly girl, Keshar had a strong body and good stamina. She managed to pull down Joginder on the floor and fled the house. She ran in the streets, unmindful of her dress and destiny.

She would have continued running as if forever but for the sudden burst of light before her eyes. A car had screeched to halt barley a few inches from her. Her eyes were protruding out as if with a perennial exclamation. A young man came out of the car and spoke to her in admonishing tone. She was too shaken to take note of his anger. In broken sentences, she eagerly narrated her plight. The young man appeared to be concerned. He asked her to board the car so that he could help her to reach a police station, where she could lodge a complaint against his uncle and aunt. Totally fazed and unable to think of anything better, she got into the car. There were other two young men in the car. They took her to the outskirt of the city in a farmhouse.

After three days, Keshar was left on a highway by one of the young men. The threesome animals finally had shown mercy on her by leaving her alive – a life sans any meaning. Where the fittest survived akin to an animal kingdom and the weak and the downtrodden were annihilated without a trace of human compassion. The intense feeling of dishonour was hurting her much more than the bruises which the cruel men had inflicted on her body during her three days’ ordeal. Tears rolled uncontrollably from her eyes. She was miserable. Her thoughts were incoherent. Why did she deserve to be abused like this? She had only wanted to survive with dignity but God had ordained something else for her. What should she do? Should she end her life once and for all to end her agony? She sat down under a tree and cried for some time. After the wave of emotions passed her, she gathered her wits and started thinking. Why should she end the life for the dirty deeds of some inhuman being?  She would like to survive because she wanted that only. However, she was yet to determine as to how exactly she would do that. She was sure of becoming victim of circumstances time and again and therefore, was determined to do something to quell the aggression of men. 

Keshar got up and started walking. Her feet were trembling and she was not able to walk. There were leering looks from the passing truck drivers and indifferent glances from the motorists. She fell down in a paddy field by the side of the highway. After a while, when she got up she was all covered in mud. She figured out the direction of the city from a person passing by, who quickly signalled with his finger and went away. He imagined her to be an insane woman. A desirable young woman had metamorphosed into a lunatic for the onlookers by turn of fate. Keshar saw a ray of hope for herself. She welcomed the lack of interest, struggled her way back to the city and found herself a dwelling on the footpath of a crossroad. For living, she took up to remaining filthy and begging.

The city had been developing rapidly. There was a huge flyover coming up over the crossroad where Keshar used to stay. It was a boon to her as the flyover provided the cover whenever she got tired of begging or when it was raining. When she begged, people obliged her more out of disgust and fear than compassion. Her new make over was her shield against the lust of men. Most importantly, in her new occupation, she had been able to fulfill her dream of survival.

For the present, she was woken up from her slumber by some lustful remarks thrown at her by a passing by drunk. She resisted from her usual temptation to gesticulate menacingly at the person. She could hear a radio playing somewhere. She tilted her ears to catch the words and croaked along the song with a rueful smile - “ Abhi to main jawan hoon” – “ I am still young”.

Chapter 3

The drunk was expecting the usual barrage of abuses and hysterical behaviour from the beggar. He often used to pass through the crossroad in the night after his solitary drinking at the local cheap bar. For him, drinking was to kill pain and inciting the beggar was to derive pleasure.  He did not have anything in particular against the beggar except the fact that she was a woman. His life was marred by women. Being a person of weak character, he could not protect himself from their onslaught. His indulgence on provoking the beggar woman was his one-upmanship over the womanhood which helped him somewhat restoring his dignity. Also, in his assessment, she could not have harmed him unlike others which was an added advantage.

His father was a small-time cloth merchant, who had affectionately named his only son Arjun. Arjun had a unique distinction of having two attempts made to kill him by his own mother – once before his birth and another, thereafter. 

His parents’ marriage was a heap of discords.  His mother, Barkha, was a good looking woman with innumerable longings. His father, Pandu, apparently did not quite qualify because of his inability to fulfill those desires of his wife. Pandu was diminutive and a simple man. In his opinion, his duty was to give food, shelter and children to his wife. However, Barkha had a different philosophy of life and often loathed her husband’s ordinary lifestyle and thoughts. So when she first learnt about her pregnancy within first year of her marriage, she expressed her desire to his husband to abort under the pretext that it was too early to have child and they could ill-afford to have one in any case. Pandu was aghast with her proposal. He was a contented man who had been taking care of his wife by providing her a house, though small and two square meals. Now, God had been kind to them. Pandu had completed the final part of his duty and they were to be blessed with their first child. How could Barkha even think of aborting their first child? Pandu’s world existed in its simplistic form and Barkha knew it well. It was Pandu who was clueless about the fantasies his wife had been nursing.

When Barkha failed to convince her husband for the abortion, she started scheming secretly to do the act on her own. Not that she was in anyway concerned with Pandu’s household and its well-being. She had developed, of late, acquaintances with another man who could have made it possible for her to lead a life of her choice. She was actually contemplating eloping with this man to her new world. Bearing a child, that too of Pandu’s, at this stage could mean losing her passage to her world of fantasies. She sought the help of a midwife. Once the pregnancy was aborted, she had planned to cook up a story of some accident resulting in the abortion.  Unfortunately, the midwife mishandled the whole thing. As a result, while the abortion was unsuccessful, Pandu’s wife became terribly sick. A gynecologist had to be consulted. The gynecologist strongly advised against any further attempt on abortion as it could jeopardize the mother’s life. Already, the foetus was partly damaged and the child could be born with some kind of disability. Taking advantage of her husband’s ignorance on the issue, Barkha, ironically, made up a story of her accident slip in the bathroom and the resulting injury. Pandu became more attentive on her and she had to grudgingly and painfully continue with the rest of the pregnancy for her own sake. When Arjun was born prematurely, Pandu’s joy and Barakha’s hatred did not have any bounds. Arjun was a born weakling who used to whine all the time. He had inherited his father’s health. One night, when Arjun was crying continuously, Barkha tried to strangle him. The choking sound alarmed Pandu in the other room who rushed and snatched away the crying child from his wife. He was outraged and first time in his married life, raised his voice. Barkha was in blind rage but chose to be quiet. Pandu took Arjun with him in his bed. Arjun fell asleep after a while and Pandu followed the suit. Next day morning, Pandu woke up with the sound of crying Arjun. He looked around for Barkha and found that she had left the house. Strangely, Pandu heaved a sigh of relief. Now, he had his son, a reasonable living and no one to take away his peace.

The pains of bringing up an infant child, however, started dawning upon Pandu very soon. The baby-sitter he had engaged was a careless woman who would not only neglect the child but also steal things from house. Finally, he gave in to the advice of some relative to marry again. He was particular this time to select a homely woman though. Pandu’s second wife, Sarita, could not be called ugly nor beautiful. She was from a poor family, being the youngest of five sisters. While she was in complete agreement with Pandu to raise a family for themselves, little Arjun did not find any place in her heart. She was thankful to Pandu for taking her away from a dungeon called her house and for his sake, brought up Arjun although as an unwanted obligation. Every year, she started giving birth to a child and at the end of the fourth year, Arjun found himself relegated to the point of complete dispensability in the family. From thereon, Arjun had to doubly struggle for his food, shelter and existence.

Pandu had also grown indifferent to the matters of his family. The added responsibilities had drained his resources and he was busy making the ends meet. As soon as Arjun became little able physically, he was commissioned into the household chores. As a bonus, Sarita consented for his admission in a government school. Arjun did not find his studies interesting. He had other priorities like hunger, sleepiness from tiredness etc. that kept him preoccupied. He used to see his friends playing after their school hours and only wished he could do so.  He could not end long in the school. Sarita declared to her husband that Arjun was good for nothing. Pandu had little to say except making some feeble attempts of making Arjun mend his ways. Arjun was completely devoid of any affection and therefore, took his father’s advice scornfully.

On Sarita’s insistence, Pandu started taking Arjun to his cloth shop. Arjun would at least learn something about the trade and help Pandu reinforcing his income some day. Arjun soon replaced the helping hand in the shop and Sarita complimented herself for her shrewd thinking. Being a neglected child, Arjun had grown into a withdrawn person. He had no interests in life. He used to assist his father as a matter of routine.

Without any mentionable incident except his routine survival, Arjun reached his twenty first year. He looked much younger to his age. What becomes a compliment in the matured age is a matter of ridicule at a young age. He was called names in his locality. He always used to walk in the street looking downward as if searching for his lost belonging. Being a person of suppressed emotions, he used to tolerate these things. Sarita was getting wary of supporting the growing needs of the family. The household chores were unending. She was finding it difficult to cope with it notwithstanding the help received from Arjun after he returned from the shop. Her own children had grown lazy and useless because of her pampering. Need is the mother of invention. Sarita started hatching a plan to get Arjun married. Arjun’s wife could be very handy to help Sarita.

When Arjun heard about his marriage, he felt curious. Sarita was trying very hard to find a bride that would suit her needs. Finally, Kamla was Sarita’s choice. Kamla also hailed from a poor family with many siblings. She had an average look. As a matter of routine, she was shown to Arjun once. After seeing Kamla, Arjun had a queer feeling. He felt a soft emotion towards her and started looking forward to their marriage. The emotions hitherto not tendered, started spawning.  He found a new meaning in life. He was about to find a woman who would change the course of his life.  Suddenly, his stock seemed to be going up in the locality, though in his own presumption. Going by his character, in fact, the road side goons of the locality would have loved to take advantage of the emerging situation.

Kamla’s arrival in the family taught the members two important lessons. Sarita discovered soon that the time had changed. Merely an ordinary look and a poor upbringing were not enough to make a woman docile and domesticated animal. She could still be very arrogant and nurturing wild desires. Arjun learnt pathetically that what he was experiencing was a totally one-sided affair. Kamla was literally a business-like woman who had sheer lust for physical and material power. Arjun failed miserably on both counts. The Pandu family got into a greater turmoil. While Sarita and Kamla engaged at tussles at regular intervals, the children in the family relished the new found excitement at home and Pandu and Arjun became further mute spectators.

Kamla started viewing Arjun disdainfully. Arjun tried frantically to increase his meager income to please Kamla. He even searched for additional occupation after his work in Pandu’s shop. His best efforts could not yield much result. The situation started deteriorating rapidly.

Arjun had not only inherited his father’s health but his fate as well. Kamla had started conversing with some local goons. To her, they were well-wishers as they always enquired about her well being. After developing some intimacy, one of them, Vajra, informed her of immense potential the filmdom had got for deserving people. It was not good looks but determination and skill which could succeed one in that line. Kamla made her decision and one fine evening, she did not return from the local market. Some discreet enquiries were made by Pandu and it was learnt that Kamla had left them for a greener pasture.

Arjun was crestfallen. Not only had his first feelings of emotions and affection shattered but he had also lost his so called status in the locality. The locals became more vocal in ridiculing Arjun. The last woman in his life had indeed changed the course of his life.

Arjun took up to drinking and hating woman.

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