Aindrila Chatterjee
Somesh tried to ignore the little beeps coming from the bedside table. Though he had turned his mobile device in silent mode, somehow he always knew when ever there was a slightest signal from the social media. A few days ago, his automatic reaction would have been to head for the phone, check all his updates, invariably ending up responding to most messages right away and at the end, lose an hour's worth of sleep and wake up groggy the next day. Gradually the one hour turned to two, three or even four hours resulting in sleepless nights and chronic insomnia creeping in. He went to a doctor who strictly advised him not to have any kind of device around him while he slept. He tried doing that but felt so lost without their presence that he had them back in his bedroom, silenced them and learnt to sleep, even though fitfully, in their presence. He turned on his side and tried drifting into another bout of fleeting sleep. Sleep and his devices were his only friends left, whose closeness he cherished.
Two years back, Somesh was quite hale and hearty for his age at fifty eight. He was an avid jogger, loved outdoor games, partying with friends, with both kids studying abroad, a working wife who loved cooking and feeding him his favorite dishes in rationed quantity as a health check. In all, life was very fulfilling. However fate decided to play truant. A few days before his thirtieth anniversary, he lost his wife in a car accident: she was travelling to the airport for an overseas trip. He was to have joined her after her work and spend their anniversary in Florida, where the kids would have joined them over the long weekend. Not only did the car crash, life came crashing on him. After the initial shock and disbelief, the weeks of rites and rituals and people pouring in, Somesh was left with a big void and an even bigger question mark of what he exactly wanted to do with his life.
With most of his responsibilities met for the time being, all he had been waiting for was a few more years of work and then a spending a retired life with his wife: relaxing and doing things that they had always kept aside for lack of either time or resource. Both of them had a social circle which kept all their weekends engaged. His wife had always encouraged him to write: You have a flair for it', she would say. I will someday', he would say. 'When I do, you will be my first critic'. A month after her death, trying to beat the unbearable solitude, one evening he just opened his laptop, wrote a beautiful reminiscence of his wife and posted it on social media. Within minutes, the machine was reverberating with 'pings'. Curious, he went and saw his inbox flooding with all kinds of messages from all kinds of people: some he knew closely, some remotely, some not at all. However all of them were unanimous in one opinion, that it was a beautiful piece of writing, it seemed to bring his wife back to life all over again. They all related to his feelings, people who knew her, came back with their memories of her, some of them brought a smile to his lips, some brought tears in his eyes. By the time he had read, re-read, assimilated and digested all the comments, it was long past dinner time. The evening had gone past fast, not dragging in the usual meandering manner that he was so much used to these days, but rather like a rivulet which had suddenly rediscovered its energy and wanted to move ahead some distance at least.
His children called him late in the evening, they spent time talking about their mother, how his writing had brought memories of her so vividly back to them, they laughed and cried together. How he wished she was there to be the first reader, his first critic, but of course, that was not to be. Comments kept coming in the next day as well. He welcomed the pings, knowing each time they would bring him in touch with someone who had some time for him, some care for him. The daytime was spent somehow in the office. In the evening, he started reading through the comments again, taking care to thank each person, responding to their comments, in the hope of striking a conversation with them.
Gradually he was swept into the virtual world, with its infinite resource: wealth of information and wealth of people to share the information with. He realized he was gradually becoming unsocial in the physical world, but he did not mind. With lengthy evenings to spend alone at home, he embraced this new world just as vivaciously as the virtual world reciprocated. He barely noticed his new neighbors, an elderly couple who had moved in just next door, Mr and Mrs Roy, their nameplate said. They both looked in their mid-seventies. The gentleman was tall and lean, the lady short and petite with a streak of red vermilion parting her snow- white hair. This was how he had imagined his wife would look as she grew older. He also knew had she been there, they would have become family friends very soon: exchanging recipes with Mashima, sending favorite dishes for Mashima and Meshomoshai, inviting them, being invited, etc. etc. She had a nice way with elderly people; somehow Somesh, having lost both his parents at an early age and not having many uncles and aunties in the family either, could not relate that well with them. He was not uncivil of course; just a mere nod when he came across them was enough for him. He was not interested in knowing more about them.
Sudarshan and Ratna, or Mr and Mrs Roy as their nameplate said, were a childless couple who had just moved into the city. They had spent most of their younger years in an industrial hamlet. Once they realized that destiny did not want them to have children after years of medical intervention, they accepted it with a pinch of sadness. However they never felt alone as they always had their neighbors, young and old, to associate with. They were loved as Dada-Boudi, Kaku-Kakima or Mashima-Meshomoshai of the neighbourhood, their house always brimming with good food, people, warmth and love. Everyone was always welcome; they had the reputation of never letting anyone go on empty stomach. Mashima's non veg dishes were savoured by the entire neighborhood. As they aged, they realized they were very frequently visiting specialists and geriatrics in the nearby city, which was also known as the medical capital of the country, being full of specialty hospitals. It was really inconvenient every time to stay in relatives' houses, they felt. They took a decision to relocate. After a tearful farewell to their friends and neighbours, one fine day they settled in as Somesh's neighbors. They wanted to come closer to him and know him better, but his polite nods and monosyllabic answers discouraged them. This was life in a metro, they thought, and tried to adjust to it.
It was Somesh's sixtieth birthday. Somesh remembered how his earlier birthdays had been celebrated. A cake baked by his wife, some new experimental dish prepared by the kids, an evening spent with few close family friends and of course his wife's rice pudding or 'payesh' to top it all. Once the kids left home, though he and his wife used to go for a movie together and eat outside, the home made cake and 'payesh' had stayed. He had not been to a movie theatre for many days; he just downloaded and watched them from the internet. Today, for a change he thought he would go to a theatre and watch one, alone. As he switched on his device for buying the ticket, he was greeted by the droning pings, all wishing him Happy Birthday! He read through each message as more messages came pouring in. It seemed everyone had taken the time off and was wishing him, or rather; their smart devices had smartly reminded them to. Somesh started responding, after a while all he could see were the wishes floating in front of his eyes, all he could hear was the lullaby of the pings being drowned by a knock on the door, getting louder and louder. He thought he saw his wife's face frantically trying to dissuade him from doing something and thought he heard her say, 'Not so soon, not so soon'. After that, he lost all sense of time and space.
Ratna had come to know from the watchman's wife about Somesh's loss two years' back. The watchman's wife had become quite a regular afternoon visitor and started sharing the wealth of information she had about all the residents of the apartment, with Ratna. They found solace in each other's human company and found a lot of happiness sharing their daily trivialities, life's experiences, how different life in the city was, etc. etc. It was from her that Ratna also came to know about Somesh's birthday. To her it was unthinkable that her neighbour would not be able to have the jonmodiner payesh' and of course Sudarshan agreed. She made a bowl of the same. Anticipating that Somesh may not be overtly pleased with the gesture, she still ventured and knocked on her neighbour's door. She was sure he was inside. When the door did not open after five minutes of sharp rapping, Sudarshan and Ratna called the other neighbours and the watchman. They broke the door open to find Somesh lying unconscious over the laptop, clutching his chest. He had suffered a heart attack!
When Somesh opened his eyes, the first thing he noticed was a streak of vermilion parting snow white hair. As his vision cleared, he noticed Mr and Mrs Roy talking to someone who looked like a doctor. He realized he was in a hospital and much later realized that he had just been given a new life by his neighbours, on his birthday.
After few days, he was released from the hospital with a long list of do's and don'ts. One of them was the instruction that he had to exercise more and restrict his virtual life to about a couple of hours every day. At home, he turned on his favourite device, to be greeted by a series of 'get well soon' messages. He thanked all of them saying he was much better and back at home. He got up from his chair, put on a casual dress, went out and knocked on his neighbor's door. As the door opened to the smiling faces of Sudarshan and Ratna, he said, 'I had missed your payesh the other day. Can you make some for me once again?'
'Of course,' Ratna said. 'But, today I shall not let you go without having dinner with us.' As Sudarshan's smile widened into a broad grin, Ratna quickly left the room. She could not let Somesh see the tears of happiness that were streaming down her eyes; there was life in a metro after all....