When a voice from the other end of the phone woke me up to the news of the demise of Amir, my childhood friend, the world had barely risen from its deep winter slumber. There was not a trail of light to soothe my eyes, nor a sound to destroy silence – which hung heavily around my ears. The news didn’t disconcert my lethargy; it couldn’t disturb the shallow post-retirement period where I found myself in fond company of solitude and regret.

‘Aren’t you supposed to go?’, Esha asked.

Esha. She had been beside me – sitting where I sat, reading my thoughts before I spoke, giving me a world of abundance in a rather lonely life – for 45 years! I gazed at her. Life had stolen her numerous facets; her soft skin, the blackness of her hair, her imposing seductiveness, her fragile laughs and the exquisite music in her voice.

‘Yes, I must go. Are you coming?’

‘Shouldn’t I? How could I forget Amir?’, her passionate reply found me in a peculiar guilt.

Amir was my friend even before I could understand the miracle which separates sounds and language. Amir, Esha and I thought the same thoughts and dreamed the same dreams for the greater part of our youth. When I tied a knot around Esha, and claimed her to be the first and the loveliest possession under my ownership, it was on Amir’s shoulders my weight rested, my life leaned. Sitting back on my cushion, I could not comprehend where the guilt originated from, but I knew it was something which would take time to recede.

Esha was ready within an hour. I had called up Pratyush, our eldest son to drop us off at Amir’s place. Senility had completely destroyed my directions and fragmented my memories, it took a lot of queries to find the place which I have so often visited when I was a child.

‘Call me when it is over.’, Pratyush said as we got down. I nodded.

He struggled to guide his vehicle through the gathering which overflowed from the house and onto the streets. Every mouth moved in remembrance and tribute, every ear heard a tale of kindness, every heart melted tenderly amidst tears and every mind searched to out-pour its grief. Being a part of the elite, I couldn’t entirely judge the genuineness of that social expression, but I could feel a remarkable sadness prevailing powerfully, which dissolved into me and perspired through my eyes. Esha held my hands tighter, she could feel my heart beat even before my cells respire with fresh air. She says that she heard my heart’s echoes resounding with music on a rock concert 47 years back – the day Amir asked me to propose her!

I saw how baldness had disfigured Amir’s hair. His hair was the envy of a whole classroom. He used to carry three things with him every single day; a purse without money, a bag with a single book and a bright green comb to present his most valuable treasure in the most perfect way. His body, shunned by the ruthlessness of life, remained sturdy, yet there was a dark patch beneath his eyes which showcased a lifetime of fatigue. I was sure it could no longer hold his extensive curiosity nor his avid dreams.

Esha leaned onto me and cried. I could feel the heat of her tears permeating my clothes and touching my skin. Yet, I couldn’t bring out a single drop of tear to present to my comrade. I floated in memories, and found the place where there was an abrupt ending. Beside me was Esha, holding a baby who would grow onto be the fine gentleman who dropped us off today. We were moving to Delhi in a hope to find a better job and a better place to raise our child. Amir waved his hands in ecstasy but with tears in his eyes, within every single drop of his tear I found the tremendous love which made him run three kilometers to fetch us a taxi that day.

‘No one had to run to call an ambulance. He fell down and died instantly’, a relative said. I scanned the vicinity in a hope to identify Amir’s wife or children but could not distinguish any emotional break down from the other. It seemed everyone was equally sad and equally at loss.

Esha and I walked away from the house. Just then, they took the body for burial, a wave of tears erupted. Esha leaned on me again. I looked at her imperfect frame and mocked at life which couldn’t claw into her threshold of love, nor take away the glow in her eyes. I felt Amir’s hands curling around me, comforting me and asking me to move on.

We walked away from the place where Amir’s spirit still tends his banana trees, where his hands still graces his farm. We reached the bus stop where years before I saw a boy in white shirt and dark blue trousers, who asked me my name and told me his, who shared his cold and damp biscuit with me during recess, who laughed at me when I fell down while playing, who held my hand and asked me to count ten before jumping into a pond, who used to tell me he sees phantoms roaming about his room at night, who cried with me when I lost my father, who shared his lunch box when my mother was sick, who motivated me with his smile, who destroyed my tears with his laugh, who kept coming back to me after our fights and in the end who cried like a fool standing alone in a station as our train blew past!

While we waited for Pratyush to arrive, I asked Esha, ‘Do you know what made Amir my best friend?’

‘No’, she replied.

‘It was my first day at school after my father died. Everyone offered me to help out on anything I would possibly need. I felt an overwhelming pity crippling me and suffocating me that day. I asked Amir if he could help me complete my notes, and then with an impish laugh he politely asked me to piss off!’

Esha gave up her tears, which impeccably gave a spontaneous smile as she imagined the scenario.

I continued, ‘Only then had I realized that more than all acts of love, saying no marked a more substantial trait!’

Esha’s smile widened, she hugged me and I sat still.

‘You know Esha, that bastard still took the time to write my notes, he wrote it all up and gave me the next day!’

I didn’t look at Esha, but I could tell she would have heard my heartbeats, because she held my hands tighter. I saw drops of tears running through my cheeks and disappearing into the humidity which held every joy and every tear of Amir’s cherished life.

Tikrit, Iraq, 3rd July 2014.

It was still early for the heat waves to wreak discomfort, yet, travelers and tourists nearby arid deserts of Iraq felt the Sun beating down with an aberrant and torturous swelter. God, alone and within a passive veil of dementia remained asleep in his makeshift apartment in Tikrit, an apartment built by five Sunni and six Shia Muslims. On another day, many prayers would have irked his ears, many mouths would have spelled his name and many thoughts would have asked him to appear. But today he disappeared into a world of comfort, into oblivious sleep, without problems of the world disturbing his slumber.

Somewhere, not very far, Shamim Iqbal, a Shia Muslim, one who God knew as the ‘lad who never prays for himself’ began his daily routine. He sat in his prayer hall, overlooking Tikrit market, laid down his ragged prayer mat, and went into a deep meditation. He asked for good fortune and good days for all his Earthly comrades, even if he would have to wrestle to stay alive in a ruthless patch of land.

In the land of pyramids, Egypt, is a house sheltering Jerome and his wife Maria. If God never contacted dementia and if he would have opened his ears to Jerome, he would have heard the song of a Jew who was never treated like a human being. Along with his wife, he knelt before the wall where he imagined God’s ears to be rooted between cement and stone.

Evening Sun fell like fragile drops of dew upon the face of Hiba at that precise moment, who sang repugnant melodies and seduced men to earn a living. She breathed the air of Madurai, and felt her sails adrift in the thick of decaying food and fresh human excreta. Along with the smells and wonders of Madurai, Hiba, a transgender searched for her(his) identity and religion. She loathed at the miserable system which treated her as an outlaw and crucified God over and over again for the blunder he made during her creation.

Jerome, Hiba and Shamim, miles apart, would never have realized the difference, the inevitable destiny which today overturned their prayers. Without knowing the medical situation of their God, they continued their daily existence. God, who woke up in his apartment, tried hard to understand his frequent spiritual awakenings and mind-reading capabilities, but succumbed to fate and woke up to Tikrit and its unceremonious day.

Naturally, God would not have perceived potential warning signs as a self-proclaimed Messiah, a savior of all God believers commanded his troops to spill blood for religious completion.

‘I shall henceforth be called Ibrahim, I will be the prophet who shall guide you onto truth, and I declare war against every Shia Muslim and each non-believer!’, Ibrahim shouted.

‘Ibrahim knows God!’
‘Ibrahim is the messenger!’
‘Ibrahim is invincible!’, every member of the troop discussed passionately.

Ibrahim, himself became fond of the response continued, ‘The lotus in a dead pool, crabs in the saltiest seas, messengers among atheists all share a common attribute – Life! It is this life which I shall grant you, the life which is brought only with war!’

‘You look weaker sire’, Shamim looked distraught seeing God motionless in bed.
‘Do you remember anything today?’, he inquired.

‘No my friend, I don’t even remember my name.’, God despaired.

‘Don’t worry sire, my God will help you!’ Shamim seemed positive.

God smiled.

Everyday I spent here in Mumbai – everyday of the past 5 years, everyday of finding myself holding onto that steel rod in a local train that displaces the working class from home to work and work to home – I would find myself bemused at man’s intrinsic nature to survive! A city the size of Barbados, but holding more people than Greece; here survival becomes a daily routine, a routine that kept me immersed inside the sea of humanity, which found me neglecting my leaking roof, the crippled bed, and an ever shrinking room which would later turn too small to hold my 29 year old body. For every person in this ever shrinking metropolis, survival begins at bed, and ends there too!

As the rikshawala honks his way through traffic, with his left leg kept gracefully underneath his right (which usually reminds me of some Hindu Gods you see in wallpapers), I am again reminded of the many roles people play in this city, from spiritual Babas to underworld dons, the variety is thrilling and petrifying both at the same time. Naturally it brings light onto the role I played, of an irrational columnist in a newspaper, whose circulation three-quarters of Mumbai doesn’t know about. And even the quarter who knows about the mediocre daily, surely will not have heard about P.Varghese, the columnist who has a habit of writing things having no particular interest to anyone. A sudden and mischievous honk pains my ears and mind, I look up and see a bewildered young man, probably in his twenties, caught stupendously in front of traffic. He had three bags, all stuffed up, perhaps a newbie into the city, perhaps one among thousands who migrate to Mumbai every week. His awkward situation at once reminded me of myself when I first joined the human parade, of my home, of my mother and her lovely lemon pickles and the ardent anticipation you associate only with migration.

I was 23 then, and busy packing, rejecting my mom’s pleas to take another bottle of her luscious lemon pickle, complaining that I was already going full. It never discerned on me then that months after I would eat only meager rations of that pickle in a hope to let my mother’s love stay alive beside me, within the sensual intimacy of spices and tastes. The 21 hour journey seemed a battle, against free time, against the insatiable desire to live my dreams and against the brutally stinky compartments that Indian Railways grants you with. But everyone in my compartment survived that trip, yet neither with joy nor with the anticipation that filled their faces in the beginning.

My first day at work was the only day I remember distinctly, partly because of a beginner’s excitement and partly because it was the only day separated from monotony. Every subsequent day would seem similar to the day before, which would make me wonder the possibility of me turning into a keyed toy, with the key being turned every first day of a month. The keys were turned exactly 60 times till last month. It would have been 61 if I had waited for another week, but sometimes it takes nothing to think and everything to act, and with the news that my mother was not keeping well, there would always be something left out of that everything.

The rikshaw stopped. I took out my bags, they had significantly reduced in size and number after 5 years, which I again associated with the city – it possessed this devious charm to reduce the size of everything it touched. I witnessed this capability head-on after my first week in office. I was tormented then; by nostalgia, sadness and home-sickness. The city absorbed it all by next week and I was left with nothing but my job after the reduction process.

I stood at Lokmanya Tilak Terminus, adoringly called LTT. For all human species migrating to Mumbai via railways, LTT significantly stood as the Gateway to Mumbai. The entry into the busiest city in India, into the third largest city in the World. And I remember my own unnoticeable entry, with five bags and a heart full of minute and sensitive hopes. I hoped of faring well, to bring my mother to stay with me, to move onto a good flat, to marry, to have a family. But very little did I know then, that if you are not careful with your life, life has a habit of stabbing you in the back. And indeed life did, which is the precise reason why I make this trip back to Kerala.

I am brought back to the present by the hoot of trains waiting to carry people into and out of the city. I have seen a lot of people make this journey. There are at least seven colleagues in my office who is not a true Mumbaikar, and every one of them goes home every six months. I would wonder then, whether I would ever make the 21 hour journey again. There is something about Mumbai which makes you hold onto it despite the extremities, for me it was the promise- the promise of a better life. And probably now the promise was outweighed by reality and I had no other alternative but to go back.

The screech of releasing brakes echoed and later was subdued by the many noises that surrounded LTT. I felt the air of Mumbai hit plainly on my face, it was not the perfect goodbye, but I felt the heartbeats of 12 million souls, within that repugnant and humid air, fighting for survival, and even amidst it discharged within an aura of dreams. I felt the sweat of 6 million daily wage earners toiling ceaselessly to keep the city moving, I saw the thousands at Marine Drive and Bandstand taking a dip in astute calmness after their day of mind-numbing work, I heard the nervous breath of hundreds in the local train nearby, holding onto their hard earned space and waiting for their eventual flush-out onto their destination. Every eternal joy, every ceaseless struggle, every ephemeral dream was held inside the air that hit me. I felt plagued by it, drawn towards it, shackled by it and ultimately owned by it. I closed my eyes, I felt Mumbai for a final time!

91 tunnels and 2000 bridges stood before me and Kerala. The pleasure of cutting through one of the most sublime yet challenging terrains in the country spoke volumes about the technological and human capabilities of the nation. Yet shear irony stands in the fact that I made that journey in a railway compartment with half of the fans not working and toilets where taps were a luxury. Life was lived in extreme ironies all over the country and being in Mumbai for the past 5 years I knew of nothing else other than extreme irony. Irony of the richest person in the world and the poorest of poor sharing the same street, irony of elected politicians looting the voters, irony of life in motion and lives sacrificed to keep the system running. No other country could boast of such differences, of such diversity!

My mind was rejuvenated by delicate feelings of homecoming as the train buzzed through the Konkan stretch. Life seemed different all around. Here you could see the population India likes to forget – the producers of food. The population we depend upon for survival, yet for whose survival we seldom care about. I was at once ashamed to see vast acres of land cultivated by very few farmers, and on how diminutive their existence remains. They perform the mammoth task of bringing food to India’s billions of hungry stomachs at the cost of themselves going hungry each passing day. The sacrifice to keep the system running begins within these fields. I wonder what would happen if every farmer in the country stopped cultivation to pursue higher dreams, if they moved into the cities, will the rich make grains? Thoughts are always plenty because of the ultimate boredom that prevails in a long train ride, with time turning slow, primarily due to the mounting hope of homecoming, I find myself thinking either about my life or about others, even though both makes very little difference.

‘Don’t go to that place again’, my mother said. It had been five years since I last saw her. Age has certainly caught up with her. I remember how easily she carried two of my large trunks and ran along with me to catch the train. Things looked bleak now, and different. I knew she would ask me to stay, that is precisely what Vasco, my brother told me to do when he called me last month. It seemed a psychological persuasion at first, but my mother falling ill was the warning sign that times have changed. I look at her again and say,’I never will, promise.’

The answer seemed to bring a smile to her face. I smiled too. I remember all the pains this woman took to make me and Vasco what we are today. My father died when I was three and Vasco five. But I never did miss my father, my mother did everything, from buying households to dropping us at school. Mother was the first woman in our village to own a scooter, and would have probably been the tool of constant mockery by the elite men. But she went on. She worked in our 1.5 acre rubber farm in the morning, cooked for us afterwards, took us to school, herself taught at a secondary school, took us back home, bathed us, helped us do homework, heard our stories, tended household and never slept!

‘Your promise is the best medicine’, Vasco said, ‘It would keep her well!’

I smiled.

EPILOGUE
Kerala was a new start, a new beginning, though very different from Mumbai. I began working in the farm from the next morning. Farming gives you a lot of free time, I write stories and send them to all sorts of publishers during free time. Vasco works as an accountant in a bank, he is married to our childhood friend Anne and has a bright boy named Joseph as their only asset. Together Vasco and I earn enough to live a moderate yet happy life. Though, sometimes I stop and think of Mumbai during my free time, of the ignobility you feel when living in the mega city. I wonder if I’d ever go back to that wonderful spectacle of humanity, of millions surviving together. The perpetual drama of grit, fitness and unquenchable dreams. A magical city capable of entrapping your vision and imagination with an overpowering resonance of life, a city which draws you towards it, the more you try to go away, a city which made me realize that what separates moments from memories were only a small millisecond of time!