Last Night - A Tale

Last night your faded memory came to me
As in the wilderness spring comes quietly,
As, slowly in the desert, moves the breeze,
As, to a sick man, with cause, comes peace.

Raat yun dil mein teri khoyi huyi yaad aayi
Jaise veerane mein chupke se bahaar aa jaaye
Jaise sehraaon mein haulay se chale baade e nadeem
Jaise beemar ko bewajah karaar aa jaye

-Last Night by Vikram Seth, translated from the Urdu of Faiz Ahmad Faiz

I

Happy Diwali, jaan !

He woke up to the fragrance of halwa wafting in from the kitchen, the sweetness suspended in the air, mingled with the scent of bitter almonds…just like the smell of oft-visited memories that you wish you could forget.

Diwali was when he had last spoken to her. She said that she was driving, no actually, waiting for the traffic light to turn green, when he had called . He heard her pick up the phone, then a Shit, then the phone was disconnected - she probably recognized his home number just as she pressed the ‘Answer’ key. He persisted, and as he had expected, she relented and picked up the phone the fifth time. Happy Diwali – he had murmured. Happy Diwali – she replied brightly. Only he would have recognized the false cheerfulness in the voice. How are you? I am driving, let me call you back – she had said, using his aversion to talking while driving as her excuse.

Of course she hadn’t called back. He kept on waiting throughout the party, even leaving the phone switched on till the last moment as he boarded his flight. She had surprised him for once.

So those were the last words they had spoken. Last words to last a lifetime of absence. Nothing grand, when you think about it. But then, reality is seldom as dramatic as we would like it to be. It is the mundane and everyday occurrences that create the real drama in life.

He smiled as he kissed his wife of five years. Happy Diwali, he whispered. There is no going back, he thought. Only an eternity of looking back.


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Somewhere within your loving look I sense,
Without the least intention to deceive,
Without suspicion, without evidence,
Somewhere within your heart the heart to leave.

- Interpretation, Quatrains by Vikram Seth

II

She typed in the first two alphabets of the name, then stopped. Why are you doing this? –admonished an inner voice. That chapter ended years ago. Keep on scratching an open wound and it never heals, and you have only yourself to blame. Life has moved on, and so should you.

Besides, didn’t you tell him yourself, in no uncertain words, to stay out of your life for ever?

Yes I did, she thought. But I wonder how much of it I really meant, and did I really mean for ever? The hurting words were the only way I had to express the hurt I felt inside. Pity that fleeting words and actions are taken to be a permanent expression of your thoughts and intentions.

She finished typing the name, but the fingers lingered…what I am letting myself in for, she thought? But I wonder where he is, how he is, what he is doing ….She took a deep breath, and pressed Enter.

There was a brief write-up, and a picture. He was growing a beard now – the kind that was sported by wannabe-kool-dudes or the creative-types during her college days. Funny, for he was neither. The wife had a pretty smile, and a possessive hand on his arm. And there were two little children. The boy had inherited his big brown eyes, the girl his frown as she peered into the camera.

Maybe Pandora’s pithos is best left unopened, maybe some wounds never heal.

***************************************
If you had known…if I had known…ah well,
We played our cards so suavely, who could tell?
Ten years ago, so suavely, with such pain…
And, being wise, will do so once again.

-Reunion, by Vikram Seth