If we were to believe Shastri-ji from Janmanas Co-operative
Society, there would only be one man in the whole wide world─Shastri-ji
himself. Everybody else is a 'character'. Take Mr. Subbarao from the third
floor who happens to be the society chairman─who is an expert at finding ways
of increasing society maintenance charges and has equal skills in digesting
those funds without a burp or fart. To Shastri-ji, he is a swine. The
'always-overdressed-Mrs. Chandni' is 'Chhamak-Challo'. Grocery store owner
Durgadas, who has always been a firm believer in the time-tested religion of
adultery, is a dog─and not just any dog, but one that deserves a public
execution. Gatekeeper Chandu Pandey from Chhapra who has an uncanny knack of
vanishing off the face of earth at the first signs of trouble is a .... Well, I
won't say it! And if such common men and women couldn't escape the measuring
eyes of our Shastri-ji, then what chance do our politicians and traffic
policemen stand? For their breed, Shastri-ji has names that he would only speak
when he is with men of his age, or when he is alone.
Or when he is angry to extremes─which
he often is.
But why blame him for that─such
depth of observation has never blessed but men of extremely short tempers like
our dear Shastri-ji. And anger has always been his faithful friend. It was
there to throw away the bat, when in those forgotten days of childhood, he
would be clean-bowled by a useless bowler. It was there when his wife committed
the heinous crime of adding an extra pinch of salt in his daal. And it was
there when Shastri-ji would rightly drive his scooter in the middle of a narrow
road and some foolish young man of 'today' would honk his horn behind him. However,
the only problem was that his old friend, Anger, needed a lot of space to live─in
Shastri-ji's head. So anger took all the space there and… well, there went all
his hairs, save the remains of that lush, black glory on the sides of his head that
can neither be kept nor removed. Why shouldn't he be angrier? He should be!
That's his right! After all what kind of God would allow a corrupt policeman to
have a head full of hairs while an honest, peace-loving man like him went
without that absolutely necessary asset of life? But there lay his other
problem─God and he could never get along very well together. Then why should he
expect any better off his wife of twenty-seven years (Mrs. Haldi-devi, or,
Hitler), or even worse, his maid─a young fifteen year old girl whose least
loved thing in the world was the work that paid for her mismatching, extra
colorful bangles and oversized bindis.
By the way, the maid was named
'Heroine'.
So that fine day when Heroine
was absent again and while Mrs. Hitler was busy complaining about the careless,
pathetic maid─a sentiment that Shastri-ji shared─Shastri-ji did what every
troubled 'man' would do under such grave circumstances – to take a walk. Through
bazaars he walked; through roads full of smoke, cars and horns he crossed, and
before he could realize, he was in the middle of narrow lanes surrounded by
dirty, smelling shacks full of flies and people. 'Animals,' he muttered and
sped up. Just when he was about to cross that hell of human excrement, he
noticed something. Or someone.
There she was─Heroine.
Over a mid-sized boulder that
seemed awkwardly misplaced, she sat. A touch of freshly wiped tears marking her
stretched cheeks, and the disheveled madness of her dry, untied hairs spread
all around her back. Someone screamed from the nearest shack─perhaps a drunk
father! Heroine screamed back, burst into tears and ran across only to sit over
another boulder that seemed to appear out of nowhere. From that distance,
Shastri-ji saw her lips move in anger before her hands produced something─a
piece of crumpled paper and two pencils. One of which she stuck in her hairs
and with the other she lost herself in the wrinkled world of that little piece
of paper that she seemed to treasure. Shastri-ji waited, watched. Minutes
passed, perhaps hours. Around Heroine, screams died down and the ghetto moved
at it’s own pace. All that changed in her was that smile─that honest tint of joy
that only blesses a new born. With her pencil carefully traversing the crumpled
paper and creating on it a world only she knew of, perhaps the troubles of her
little, worthless life pulled out. A few other girls gathered round her, all of
the same age. They tried to peek, they giggled, Heroine laughed, perhaps
Shastri-ji saw a tint of shyness. Another moment and she was the same Heroine,
lost in a world of her own with nothing to bother her. Shastri-ji looked at his
watch.
Only a few minutes─and a
careless girl morphed in front of his old eyes into a melancholy woman, into an
angry recluse, into a frail human being, and back again to what he had always
known her to be.
Shastri-ji walked away,
wondering, thinking if the world could really be broken down in such narrow
segments as he believed from time immemorial. Perhaps not, perhaps what he saw
was only a garment clothed around the true spirit of life; of which a spirit
had no ends. The hidden truth, perhaps it was always to be; only to be seen
when he walked down the narrow, dirty lanes of secret lives. Perhaps the truth
was that girl with a pencil stuck in her dry hairs, not that careless maid who
didn’t do justice to her job. Yes, that was it! Shastri-ji knew, and then he
never judged. And he started to smile. So much that for a few days, gatekeeper
Chandu Pandey from Chhapra thought that our dear old Shastri-ji has been
diagnosed of some cancer that often befalls our favorite heroes from Hindi
blockbusters and after which they start to spread all the love and happiness around,
make young women cry and want to marry their posters. Well, Chandu Pandey never
got to know the reason, but Shastri-ji still smiles. His wife is not Hitler any
more. Subbarao has ceased to be a swine.
Secretly, Mrs. Chandni is still
a Chhamak-Challo.
Heroine is still a heroine for
him. She would always be the girl who taught him not to judge. She would always
be the girl with a pencil stuck in her dry hairs.