‘Let it be, Joshi saheb. It’s in the public interest after all, isn’t it? Just forget it. Now, will you do me a small favour?’
‘I can help you with anything except disputes.’
‘What are you saying? If you decide to hang up your boots, who will fight for us? I was banking on your expertise.’
‘I know. But I’ve realized that there is no future for a person who fights ethically. That’s why I am where I am today…’
‘Joshi saheb, I can understand your pain. But I beg you to take this issue up for my sake. Please!’
‘Sorry but I can’t take up any more cases. I am morally responsible to the government now.’
‘What do you mean?’
Joshi pulled a file out from one of the shelves and said,
‘Read this. The government has made me a “JP” – Justice of Peace. How can I fight now?’
I was stunned.
I was holding the file declaring him Justice of Peace in one hand. And my brother-in-law’s letter in the other.
What would I do on Thursday?
KHAMBETE
The trains were running late. There was nothing surprising about that, though. The surprise lay elsewhere: we never knew on what day it would happen.
Everything else remained as it was. The same stressed- out people, the same tired bodies and angry looks, the same sticky October heat making sweat trickle down from the forehead to the neck. You were forced to squeeze in with other such sticky bodies and tolerate the cramped prison-on-wheels for forty-five minutes, standing. And after all this trouble, being marked late in the attendance register! How could anyone expect efficiency when you were already tired to the bone by the time you got to work?
Everything was a joke.
It was ironic, how we all bore this torture to earn a living.
The hoarse voice announcing the cancellation of yet another train added insult to injury. If the railways were celebrating ‘customer week’, the hoarse voice would add a line of apology. Was it too much to expect the announcements to be made in a sweet, feminine voice?
When would our nation pay just a little more attention to the finer things in life?
Not that there was any dearth of women in our country. Any woman would have been happy to take up the announcer’s job. But the railways didn’t seem to think so.
Today was another day like the one described above.
I left the station in search of a bus stop.
The buses had decided not to stop. The term ‘bus stop’ irritated me. We use words so incorrectly in our lives. A bus stop is supposed to be a place where buses stop. Period.
But here, men wait for hours – buses don’t. How can one call it a bus stop, then?
It was inevitable that the thought of bunking office would be uppermost in my mind.
But then you need to be in the mood to bunk. Like many other things, you don’t enjoy an odd day off unless you’re in the mood for it. Otherwise you just feel miserable, despite not going to work.
The person standing next to me asked, interrupting my chain of thought,
‘Shall we take a share taxi?’
‘How much would it cost per head?’
‘Two, or two and a half.’
‘Fine.’
We looked for two more people and hired a taxi to Bori Bunder.
‘I wasn’t in the mood to spend on a taxi. But still, I’ll end up saving money,’ one person remarked.
‘How’s that?’
‘Had I gone back home, my wife would have insisted on going for an afternoon show, and I would have ended up spending ten rupees.’
‘Really?’
‘Let me explain. Two balcony tickets would cost six rupees. She would wear a sari suitable for the balcony. Seeing her so finely dressed, the bus conductor would refuse to let us board and say, “Take a taxi.”’
I smiled.
‘And we mustn’t forget the snacks during the interval.’
I could clearly see the ten rupees he’d saved that day.
‘And it wouldn’t stop there. The movie would turn out to be terrible. My friends would taunt me, “Why would you bunk work to watch such a terrible movie?” They’d comment on my lack of taste… How much should one man suffer?’
‘But there was one benefit to the trains being cancelled.’
‘And that is?’
‘I met you.’
‘That is true. Where do you work?’
‘At the municipality office.’
‘Oh, really? I work there too.’
‘Which department?’
‘Education.’
‘That means you’re in the old building.’
‘Not just old.’
‘Meaning?’
‘When you go through the narrow passage, you feel like you’re in Baghdad, searching for some hidden treasure. There’s a spiral iron staircase. Our meditation cove is right above that.’
‘Meditation cove?’
‘Yes, that’s what it is. The place is cut off from the rest of the world. Even if a bomb exploded on the floor below, you wouldn’t be able to tell.’
‘No doubt that’s why we’ve never met each other before.’
‘I’m sometimes tempted to leave marks to help me trace my way back to my own cabin, the way they do in jungles, leaving marks on various trees along the way.’
‘I’m in the PRO department.’
‘Excellent. We’ll meet regularly now.’
‘For sure.’
‘Come over to my department.’
‘Leave some marks so that I can find my way.’
‘No need. I’ll come down to the spiral staircase. We can meet there.’
‘Any other landmark?’
‘There’s a ladies’ common room next to the staircase. Do you know where that is?’
‘Wah! Tell me who doesn’t.’
‘Then come a little further down from it.’
‘All right.’
The taxi reached Bori Bunder. The other two passengers continued to Fountain.
‘Arre, I forgot to ask your name.’
‘Vidyadhar Tambe. And yours?
‘Gajanan Khambete.’
We meet many such people in our daily lives. There’s a lot of enthusiasm in the first meeting, but then it peters out. When you meet them again, they might, at best, raise their hand in acknowledgement. But that wasn’t the case here.
That afternoon I got a call from Khambete.
‘I forgot to ask you this morning.’
‘Tell me.’
‘Did you get your tiffin?’
‘Yes.’
‘Does the dabba-wallah deliver it every day?’
‘No. I bring it
