Deja Vu

Deja Vu

Balachandran Nair had just opened the doors of his shop in the morning and was busy arranging the medicine bottles on the shelves when the man appeared at the doorstep. He raised his head hearing the footsteps. A man in black pants, white full sleeve shirt and a dark blue tie stood there smiling. 

The man smiled at Mr.Nair as if he knew him for ages. Nair however wore the look of somebody meeting a stranger. Before Nair could ask him anything, the man threw the question.

‘This is Balanji’s house, right?’ 

This time it was Nair who was in for a surprise.  

‘A stranger calling me Balanji?’ that sounded to him a little unusual. He became a little curious too by now. Only those who were very close to him used that name. Here was a total stranger, who was seeing him for the first time, calling him by that name. 

“He must be someone who knows me well” thought Nair while simply nodding to the guest to answer his question in affirmative.

Usually people call him Mr.Nair. Only his very few close friends call him ‘Balanji’. He has been living in that gully for almost last thirty five years, ever since he first migrated to the city of Mumbai from a village in Kerala. These days he has been running a small ayurvedic medicine shop on the first floor of an old building at Dombivili, a crowded suburb in Mumbai. In fact we should not even call it a shop as it housed his home too. A living room, a kitchen and small toilet constituted his house. Even at noon it requires the bulb to be put on for light as the small wooden windows always remain closed. The yellow dim light only added to the antic look of the things kept in the room, though there weren’t too many of them to count. He hardly ever opened the side windows for the fear of them hitting the wall of the adjacent building.  He uses the front living room as his shop cum clinic during the day time. He hardly had any business worth mentioning to justify a separate place for his shop anyway. 

Since the guests as well as the customers for the clinic use the same door to come in, he was not sure at first whether this man standing outside the door was a customer or a guest. 

The man was still standing outside the door. He put his head a little inside holding the sides of the door and asked again, a little louder this time. 

“You are Balanji, am I right?’

It took a while for Nair to come out of his stream of thoughts.

“Yes. But sorry, I could not recognize you. Please come inside”

Nair offered him one of the old chairs lying there which are usually used by the visiting patients. The room looked much in disarray. Bottles, books and papers, were  lying all over table and the floor. It looked as if they were not touched since ages. Nair felt a little embarrassed.

“Sorry, this place is a little small. In fact, this is my consulting room and also our living place. That is why it looks a bit tardy and unclean.” 

“Not a problem, don’t worry”, the man smiled and pulled the chair towards him. He then took out his coat and carefully placed behind the chair.

“Please give me a second. Let me get my specs. I can’t see anything clearly without my glasses”

Nair went inside looking for his spectacles.

 It took him a little while to spot his glasses kept on the table at the corner of the kitchen. He was about to turn back after picking his glasses when his wife Bhavani came blocking his way. She was holding a long wooden spoon in her hand as she hurriedly walked from near the stove where she was fixing the breakfast. As she walked by, he felt she looked like a dark monsoon cloud waiting to burst open. Something must be wrong, he said to himself. He doesn’t remember seeing a smile on her face ever for the last so many years in fact.

“Listen to me. I am telling you again though you never listen to me. Don’t keep talking for hours to whoever comes to your shop. Just give the medicine and send them away. I don’t want to be stuck in this kitchen for long, not being able to come to the front room”. Her voice was too sharp. He didn’t utter a word. She started walking back to the stove as the burning smell of dosa forced her to do so. 

“Daily I repeat this sermon. But who listens to my words! You are always waiting to get someone to start your old rotten stories”.  She was not one to stop her grumblings. As he walked towards the front room, he could hear the mugs crashing loud on the floor in the kitchen. 

He could not blame her too. A one room apartment is a not a good place to entertain a guest or a customer for too long.  She has never been able to cope with the reality that this one room flat itself is a luxury in the city. As a newlywed and a young girl grown up in a remote village in Kerala, it was with lots of dreams and hopes that she came to his life some twenty five years back. There wasn’t a moment in those early days when she had not expressed her desire to move into a bigger house. But then slowly she had lost hope in him. It didn’t take long for him to become the villain in her dreams from being the hero. The last straw was an evening almost eight years ago when he came home defeated with a termination letter in his hand. That day he was dismissed from the mills and was discarded from her heart. He knew that she had long back bid farewell to her dreams, burying them deep inside her heart, until recently when he has started noticing the shine coming back in her eyes after Rajan secured a job recently. He was glad to see her starting to rebuild her dreams once again, this time around her son. 

The guest by now had become a little restless waiting; and he made it known by muttering under his breath loud enough for Nair to get out of his reverie.

“Sorry, I was searching for my glass”, Nair walked hurriedly to the guest apologizing. He then settled on his seat. 

His guest was still sitting straight looking a little serious. As Nair looked on, he tightened his tie a little more, adjusted his spectacle and raised his hand to look straight at his golden citizen watch to note the time without moving his head, even slightly. He then got up suddenly and walked to the backside of the chair to take his coat. Nair watched him as he put his coat on and walked back to the chair and settled sitting cross legged this time, leaning back a little. 

Nair was by now getting increasingly nervous. 

“Sorry, I have not asked yet who you are. I guess you have not come here for medicines”

The guest cleared his throat, leaned a little forward and then spoke in a very heavy voice.

“I am coming from Parasuram cotton mills’ 

Nair’s heart missed a beat! 

‘Did you say Parasuram mills?” he wasn’t sure of what he had just heard

“Yes”

“Are you an employee of the mills”?

“I am the new General Manager of the mills. My name is Satyapalan”

Nair suddenly jumped out of his chair, as if driven by the old habit. Words got stuck in his mouth. It took him a while to recover.

“Sorry, Sir. I didn’t recognize you”

“No problem Comrade. It is alright. You may please sit”

Nair stood there speechless. It took him a while before he could utter something. 

“Nobody calls me like that since long, Sir. I myself have forgotten the last time I heard someone calling me ‘Comrade’. Now people know me by this shop. I too had come to accept the same over all these years”

Satyapalan only smiled.

“I had worked there for over 20 years. This month I complete eight years since I retired from the mills. I haven’t been enquiring about the mills since many years now”

‘Retired or dismissed”?

Nair was suddenly a little shaken. Slowly shook his head and mumbled

“Well…with many mills being closed down and employees being terminated, I also was a victim. I too was dismissed from the company.”

He stopped at that. He did not tell he was in the frontline of the workers union. He didn’t tell that he was among those workers who fought demanding eight hour work schedule. He didn’t dare to mention that he was involved in the union strike demanding wages on time or to get overtime wages or to stop terminating workers without any reason. He wished to forget that he was leading the struggle to stop the practice of managers calling women employees for night shifts. He was not sure if all those would be counted as achievements in the present. Also, he was afraid if Bhavani was listening. 

“I know everything. Whatever the Company did to you was totally unfair. The company has decided to make amends for the mistake and injustice done to you, even if a little late now.  That is why I myself came here to inform you in person.”  Satyapalan then took out a white envelope from his coat pocket.  

“Please accept this. This is the new appointment order. Our company needs you today more than before.” 

Nair could not believe what was happening around him. “Can this all be true?” he was still struggling to come to terms with what he had just heard.  

Satyapalan slowly placed the cover on Nair’s sweating, shivering hands. He didn’t know how to react. He stood there staring at the letter in silence until his tears started falling on the cover making the letters blurred. 

He accompanied Satyapalan till outside the door. As the door closed behind, he slowly ran his fingers over his name written on the cover. 

After many years, Bhavani served him a special dish for lunch. 

“I am actually not able to believe this, Bhavani. Can you believe the company calling me back to work after these many years?! Must be our good times. You remember? So many times I had received the best operator award from our then Managing Director Mr.Deshmukh. I am sure they might have checked my credentials from the old records. That is probably why they are inviting me again to rejoin”

“Yeah yeah. Don’t make me say something nasty! I am sure all the notoriety that you showed at the company gate is also in those records! The strikes, picketing, fasting, demonstrations… You should be thanking them for calling you back despite your vendetta. If you learn from your mistakes, it would be good for you“

“Those are all old times, Bhavani. It’s all over long back. Now I don’t think there would be any need for such strikes and struggles. Anyway let me consult with our Sekharan as well”

Bhavani’s face became red with anger. 

“You will never learn! Don’t even take that name in front of me. It is only because of the association with him that you are in this state today! Useless ones.’

She threw the mug on the floor with a bang to vent her anger. Nair regretted taking Sekharan’s name in front of her. But he knew he couldn’t take any decision without asking Sekharan. He was the one who always stood with Nair in all his struggles. When Nair tore the termination letter into pieces and threw on the face of Deshmukh, it was only Sekharan who walked out with him. When Nair started building his life all over again with his clinic, Sekharan challenged life head-on choosing to set up a vegetable shop close by. They never missed an evening to meet and spend some time sharing the day’s news and gossips. 

As usual when Sekharan walked up the steps that evening, Nair was in a different zone. He was quite overwhelmed and brimming with joy, waiting eagerly to share the news with Sekharan.

As Sekharan slowly settled onto his chair, Nair started the conversation with a mischievous smile on his face.

‘Sekharan, there is a special news for you today”  

Nair wanted to keep Sekharan guessing. He just wanted to see the curiousness in Sekharan’s eyes grow. He deliberately paused and looked at Sekharan as if to tease him. Shekharan wasn’t playing along however. He looked away, as if not wanting to look at Nair, and asked him in a sober voice,

“Satyapalan came to you too, didn’t he?”

That took Nair by surprise and he was disappointed. He felt as if Sekharan struck a big balloon with a small pin in less than a second! He was even a little annoyed.

“How did you come to know?” Nair’s voice fully reflected his resentment.

“He came to my place too; early in the morning. And, gave me too the appointment letter”

‘Oh…. Very good!”  At once Nair gathered all the lost enthusiasm. 

“I am very happy to hear that, Shekaran. I am sure then they would have approached all our old colleagues. This new General Manager looks very smart. A young and very efficient man he seems. I am sure now the company would do much better. He was quite a gentleman.” 

Sekharan sat still without any reaction. He kept staring at Nair for a while and then slowly opened his mouth.

“Satyapalan is mad”

Nair didn’t hear it. Sekharan repeated.

“Satyapalan is a mental patient”

“What?!!  Sekharan, what did you say?!!”  For a while the earth revolved faster around Nair. After some time when Sekharan slowly placed his cold fingers on his shoulder, Nair got himself back. He was sweating all over.

“What are you saying, Sekharan? Nobody will suspect him of anything of that sort. He looked so perfect a gentleman”

“But what I am telling is true, Balanji. I enquired about Satyapalan. It is now almost a year and half since the mill has closed down”

Sekharan continued as if he was narrating the story of some movie. Nair quietly listened to his words.

“Satyapalan was an employee at the mills. I heard from someone that he even had to shell out huge amount to an agent to get the job. When the company closed down, they didn’t even pay his salary dues and he was in dire financial trouble. Four months ago his wife poisoned her child and hung herself from the kitchen roof. That was the trigger for Satyapalan to lose his mental balance”

By the time Sekharan finished, Nair was in a state of numbness. Both his body and mind were in shatters. He kept silent. As time passed, silence grew monstrous between them. Both were wandering in their own thoughts for long. 

Suddenly the phone rang. Neither of them was in a state to pick up the phone. Bhavani rather came running from the kitchen and picked the phone. It hardly took a few seconds before she banged it on the cradle and started walking back. She was grumbling a little louder as she walked.

“It is him, Rajan. My sweet son!” She couldn’t conceal her frustration. “Today also he is going to be late from office. Says he has lot of work and will be quite late” 

Nair and Sekharan could hear her hard footsteps. She started clearing the table where she had kept dinner ready for Rajan.  Another glass mug went crashing on the floor as she continued to curse everyone around. 

‘Don’t these IT kids need to eat or sleep? Don’t they ever think of their family back home? I wish I had sent him to be a school teacher.” she was not in a mood to stop. 

“Cant these kids come home in time at least for food?” Nair asked himself turning to Sekharan

.  

“This has become a regular routine for him, you know. He goes early in the morning and comes home long after we both go to bed. For the last three or four weeks he has never reached home before midnight. And, he would be out early morning. Every night she waits for him with dinner and then ends up going to bed without him turning up. I tell her not keep dinner for him, but she never listens.”

Sekharan just smiled and sunk into silence. As the silence started growing bigger between them, he asked Nair.

‘Balanji, do you remember those days when we used to lead strikes and shout slogans demanding eight hour work and fare wages? I strongly doubt if anybody today would be willing even to raise those slogans anymore.”

Before Nair got the chance to nod in agreement, Bhavani walked in. 

“You old folks don’t seem to like today’s kids doing good, do you? You guys better leave them alone”. She didn’t even spare Sekharan from her sharp stare. 

Sekharan didn’t wait to hear the rest. He slowly started walking down the steps. The sad smile on his face was not to be seen in the darkness outside. Nair silently stood there for long watching him disappearing into the darkness. Then he started slowly arranging the bottles back on the shelves, getting ready to close the shop for the day. 

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Deja Vu: Story by Suresh Kodoor