Capturing Life

That was the first time I was wearing a suit. It was my class 12th farewell and the idea was to imitate the elderly; ladies in saris and gentlemen in suit. I carried a mustache at that time and hello……how thin I was. I was invariably smiling in all the pictures and looking at that I can tell that I was not very comfortable.

So in the fits of cleaning my house, I rediscovered a bag full of pictures; pictures that captured life, pictures that captured past. Each one of them extrapolated an event and started telling a story. The time frame was not continuous and stories started coming randomly; just with a turn of a page.

And suddenly I was a girl. I was three years old and my mother had made me wear a frock. My father was helping her and the camera captured all three of us. It was festive day as Bhagwat uncle had come to our home with his new camera. So all of us got clicked myriad times; in different poses and in different dress; and that day continues to live on as representative of that age.

I had always liked her. She looked gorgeous in her cream sari and was the first woman I had a crush upon. And there she was; looking gorgeous as ever; sitting at the center of fifty of us; Class of UKG Section B. For me she never grew old and that snap took her from this world and pasted her that picture forever; at least for me.

The picture was clicked for finding her a perfect groom. She was Bhatnagar uncle’s daughter and had entered marriageable age. She was wearing a sari and the photographer made her cheeks look extra pink. Her eyes were expressionless, and after six years when she committed suicide those eyes kept haunting me for days. We never knew why she did that but that marriageable girl with extra pink cheeks is still alive in that album.

I was sitting on a boat, and I tried to look smart. I was not smiling and neither was I serious; and I had tilted my head slightly tilted towards the left. It was our trip to Varanasi and at least a score of us had gone there. Whenever any relative came to visit us in our suburb, we dutifully took them to some of the places around and such excursions were my window to the world. I in fact jumped from that window and eventually saw the world, but the joy never matched the one of that boat ride.

And then there was a generation leap. I was not even born and my parents were getting married. My father wore bell bottom pants and my mother had a big stylish bun on her head. I wonder why people of that generation comment on our fashion sense. My father had mischievous eyes and I always found it hard to believe that even my parents could have been so young.

Sometimes I wonder if I could go back in time carrying those albums, and then tell everybody what future has in store for them. I could have told my gardener that a storm would destroy his flowers that season; I could have asked that girl to be positive towards life.

But then I realize that I am mortal and put these questions to rest.

The Second One: A Lady

After that incident life continued as it was. The strange thing is I still do not know how I should have felt. I was not at all scared but something had changed. My mom always told me that human beings are survivors. Keep us in any conditions and we will come out stronger. I involved myself in the studies and started running with life.

It was the first day when we were taken to a morgue for dissecting a human body. It was cold inside and was the room was dimply lit. The wall contained small rectangular boxes with rounded handles, and each of them contained a frozen dead body.

The unnerving thing about a morgue is that you start become philosophical once you see dead; made of same flesh and bones as you are. The frozen bodies also have frozen expressions and it looks as if there was a sudden pause in life, similar to the ‘Statue’ game we played in childhood. Many of us vomit or faint there but at the end of the day you take a big knife and cut it straight across the chest.

In no place you can feel so closely what mortality of mankind means.

From first day in college, we had been hearing of stories that seniors lie there as dead and try to scare the juniors. I was ready for that but I did not anticipate what actually came for me.

All of us were being shown a dead body and we were going to start the dissection of it when I found somebody whispering my name. At the entrance of that room, there was a lady who was signaling me to come to her.

While walking towards her, I noticed that she was fat and was dressed in complete black. She was wearing a distinguishing large bindi on her forehead and had all sort of strange ornamentations, somewhat similar to those of hermits. Her appearance sent chills down my spine but it was too late to turn back.

Her voice was polite and without introducing herself she asked, “Vandana, how does one donate her body to the medical college?” I looked taken aback not only at her question but also as if asking her how she knew my name. She just smilingly gestured towards the batch that I was wearing.

I explained to her all the formalities and sent her to the relevant office. After a week we again had a session at the morgue. Last time we were told how dissection was to be done and all the external features that had to be marked before touching a dead body and today was going to be the day when we were to cut open a dead human body.

I was completely relaxed and got my instruments issued. Everything was normal and then I shrieked. On my table, staring right into my eyes with calm frozen expressions, as if trying to soothe me up, that same lady was lying……..dead. I felt as if I have forgotten how to breathe and I became dumb for a minute.

After that I shrieked and shrieked and my friends took me out of that room. Later on I found that that lady’s death was completely natural and her body had been shifted to the morgue just that morning.

I took a break and went home for some days. There while turning some family photographs, I found pictures of last days of Sharmila aunty. Under the influence of some hermit, she has started wearing black and when she was being taken for cremation she almost resembled the lady that had come to meet me in the morgue.

The First One : A Call

I had receiver in my hand and I was sweating. I still remember what Sharmila auntie said “Vandana please help Vinhanshu, he is in pain”.

When I recall it now, it looks so weird. Till date I have found no explanations, and I keep on wondering why it happened to me. In fact those two incidents shook my life.

Sharmila aunty was always known to us. In fact Ghosal’s were like family to us. Sharmila aunty was mom’s best friend, uncle was Papa’s eternal golf partner and I grew up playing with their son Vibhanshu.

Still I do not think I had any special bonding with Sharmila auntie. She was good to me and always brought candies; and that was it. She continued to bring them all along, from time I was a kid till the time I entered medical college.

And then one day out of nowhere, I received her call. With no niceties exchanged, she told me she had cancer, and one at a pretty advanced stage. Her voice was sad but composed. She said she had only one month to live and I was the first person she was telling that. I could hardly speak a word. In a jumbled voice I uttered something to console her.

I do not know why but I was gripped with a strange fear. I immediately called my mom and just kept on crying. After that I never called Sharmila auntie nor did meet her but my mom confirmed her medical condition. She died exactly after a month and I could not muster courage to go to her funeral.

That was one year back, and now at 2 am at night I had just talked to her again. I sat there holding the receiver, and I could not even dare to move. After sometime I checked the telephone line and it was dead.

It was impossible to sleep after that and I sat on that sofa for a time that looked immemorial. At 6 am in the morning, I rang at her home. Their servant picked up the phone and told that Vibhanshu had met with an accident at night and everybody was at the hospital. He was in pain, but was out of danger.

At afternoon, I went to meet him and wished him fast recovery. We talked about many things and he told me that was missing his mother a lot that day. Somehow I could not muster courage to tell him that it was she who had informed me of his condition.

I was left shaken by this experience but I did not know what more was in store for me.

PS: This story was based on a true incident as narrated to me by a close friend. Its second part will be coming soon.