Bus No: 78/1 - A Tale of an Estranged Love & Exalted Ego

Aroop was feeling a little queasy. A mild niggling pain in the stomach and frequent burps repeatedly reminded him of the scrumptious lunch he had had. It was after a long time that he had mutton.

Thick, dark brownish gravy glazing the luscious chunks of somewhat fibrous yet soothingly tender meat sticking to pertinently cooked ribs and femur bone; the piquant mustard oil oozing out in a new hue, tasty, tangy, spicy and that indulging aroma of cooked garlic. Aha! Was there anything on earth more blissful and opulent than a mutton kosha and fried rice for a middle-class Bengali?

'Aroop! O Aroop! Are you going? Will you be able to? It is too cold today!' Mrinalini, Aroop’s mother asked him as she sat on the bed to fold the clothes.

It was 2pm in the afternoon and the sun shone in watery patches of illuminating brilliance but lamentably failed to provide any respite from the bitter cold. Aroop stood on the balcony ogling at the windswept street with a perishing cigarette.

'Go some other day, Aroop! Esplanade is sooo far. You will catch a cold. Half of the 78/1 buses do not even have window panes. You tell Shashi. He won’t mind.'

 'Oho Ma! I will go today itself. After two years he managed to come to Kolkata. He is leaving for America again on Wednesday. For a year.'

'A-m-e-r-i-c-aaa!'

A woman who always treated a difference of opinion by being menacingly verbose was left tongue-tied for a while. 'America' bounced all over her wrinkled face and a tumultuous crowd of emotions scooped up within Mrinalini. A little green-eyed, fairly confused and very much surprised she appeared. Resentment had ripened within Aroop, too. However, America was impervious to this middling, middle-class man. So, he cradled his ego through the afternoon’s bonne bouche.

Aroop inhaled a few frequent puffs of the cigarette and chuckled at Mrinalini’s mystified mien.

'That is called Sales & Marketing Ma. Not like the bank cubicle job of mine; hopping between money-logged coffers and the accounts, underfed.'

'Huh! Then you too could have done a job like that. You were much more intelligent than him, I presumed.'

In her frail white saree with hardly visible pale blue dots, Mrinalini exhaled a kind of cynicism; and its bite was borne by the final t-shirt she folded rather sloppily.

Aroop remained silent. Answering to Mrinalini would expel and exploit a lot of emotions, not to mention unbolting many caustic incidents. Moreover, Aroop was now used to his mother’s proficiency in talking in italics. He took out his clothes that hung the nearest from his cabinet and prepared to leave.

'Dada, shall I make some tea for you?' Jhilmil asked as she saw her brother dressed up and climbing down the stairs.

'No, no! Lunch is still up till my throat.'  Aroop replied hastily and left home.

Meanwhile, through that open balcony, Mrinalini called out to check if he was dining out. A little riled up, her words rang raucously in that desolate stretch, perforating the Sunday slumber of many neighbours. Aroop looked back at her, nodded negative and started walking to the bus stop.

The long stretch of road that trailed to the Bazaar bus stop betrayed any kind of life. Every shop, small or big; stalwart or tuckered out; sported a big lock, as if cautiously breathing under the wrath of a political strike. Strike indeed! For the implacable winter was one of a kind that Kolkata had hitherto witnessed. But, somewhere in that clammed up road, Mrinalini’s allegation waggled and a thought embalmed since long within Aroop pressed for an answer.

Aroop was 37. Not married yet. A common man whose inspirations as well as aspirations were indentured by familial needs and always tethered by his wallet size; Aroop had fulfilled every duty to the best extent possible. Still, he was chided obliquely. Be it about meeting an old friend or dining out, it always remained under Mrinalini’s predisposition. Years back, her domination was more like a motherly instinct but now, it had gradually morphed into a throat choking predatory intrusion for Aroop. Sometimes he wondered if marriage could have been his salvation.

Aroop’s profile was not incongruous with the matrimonial precinct. He had a job consonant with the middle-class temperament of India and also earned a decent wage. Marriage was never impossible for him. Nevertheless, it became unfeasible because Jhilmil’s matrimony never worked out. Dark complexion; small thin stature as if prey to a famine; she failed reproachfully to flatter the customary demands of any prospective groom. Proposals did come but nothing ultimately bore fruit. Some who agreed did not proceed for prudish astrological reasons and few summoned for a savage monetary settlement. Aroop couldn’t close his eyes to his unmarried sister, and hence preferred not to braid his conjugal life.

However, over the years, a kind of chagrin accrued in their lives. Innards racked up with frustrations, every squabble apparently froze over each one’s incapacities and essentially, the bonhomie of a family was lost with the outgrowth of silly blame games.

Aroop plodded along the deserted road, dissecting the deficiencies of his life and found himself standing at the bus stop. Nowhere but in the middle of the daily market. Neither a board nor a proper canopy marked the presence of a bus stand but a small room marked as office room was all that existed since its inception. And a series of buses marked '78/1' stood gauchely, trying hard to form a queue.

Aroop looked around. The Bazaar that usually suffered a grating bargain over Koi maach and impatient queues besides the butcher shop, now bore a barren guise. However, the very essence of the bazaar, a fishy fetor and small puddles of stagnant water with glistening fish scales sailing around punched the clock seamlessly. And a little far, near the 78/1 office room three humanly bodies were snoozing peacefully fully covered under a quilt.

Aroop covered his nose with his handkerchief, hopped a few steps to avoid any muddy splashes and tried to get into the first one.

'This won’t go now. Sit in the next bus.' A teenage boy draped in a shawl and a Bengali’s oft-ridiculed monkey cap called out to Aroop.

'There is no driver in any of the buses.' Aroop retorted.

The boy, who carried a bucket of water in one hand and a hard broom in the other, placed his belongings on the stairs of the bus and smirked at Aroop.

'We too are humans, no? Let us also relax for some time. This bus is due for a cleaning. The next bus only will leave first. Let some more people join you. Then only I will wake up the driver.'

'I will be late then!' A fine sliver of annoyance creased his brow as Aroop exclaimed and looked around to find a bunch of souls.

The boy lit a beedi and chewed over Aroop from top to bottom. 'Then catch a taxi, no? You don’t seem to be poor.'

Aroop glanced him for one last time as he retired to his business and got into the bus. In that sleazy ambience, Aroop just pondered if sarcasm had a penchant for him. Be it a customer of his bank or his boss, family or a stranger, why did life seem to deride him in every possible way?

'This way Rupa! Come with me.'

Aroop, who was juggling between the chafing sounds of a broom and the vagaries of his life, was startled by a human voice.

Finally! The bus would start.

Aroop peeped through the window. It was a middle-aged woman draped in a navy blue tangail saree and a white sweater along with a young girl. Probably her daughter. The woman was fair. Through the gap of her scarf, a mop of dense black hair was seen parted from the middle, revealing a generous application of vermillion. Her hands were adorned with shaankha-pola amidst a few gold bangles too. Perhaps decked up for a celebration thought Aroop. Though a little cherubic she looked pleasant even from afar.

'Come fast. We will sit on that side. Can see our stop from there.' The woman uttered while getting into the bus.

Her voice sounded very familiar to Aroop. Even the way she articulated. Aroop had heard it before. If not in the near past but somewhere this voice resonated in his memoirs. A little shy to scrutinize a married woman, yet a thirst to smoke out his doubt, Aroop looked at the woman who by now was sitting in the opposite seat.

The woman, rather surprisingly, flashed a broad smile at him.

A nebulous muse churned his memories. Wasn’t she Joyeeta? Yes! Joyeeta indeed.

'Able to recognize?' She tittered, still smiling and flashing her pearly white teeth.  

The beaming face which was accustomed to Aroop many years ago, a voice that had travelled with him all through his college days, suddenly materialized in his present. Akin to a trivial crack becoming a passageway for light, her ingenuous query ousted all the stacked bitterness from Aroop. The lassitude of his monochromic life was suddenly drizzled with a liveliness. Aroop nodded his head in approval, although a meagre mistrust and a string of trepidations loomed within.

'Rupa, you sit in the front seat. Let that uncle sit by my side.' Joyeeta asked the girl and perused Aroop with a smile.

Aroop and Joyeeta first met during their college admission. Residing in the same town and being in the same college, they inevitably befriended and bonded with each other during their daily travels. The seat which Joyeeta emptied for Aroop was the same seat what they used to share. During the three years of college, they never shared a single subject of study, rather shared a peculiar relationship. It was more than a friendship, closer to love but not love. More like a non-committal affection. A little coy by nature, Aroop could never utter his feelings for her. And Joyeeta’s fidelity towards a modern outlook and an appetite for a luxurious life probably loused him up further.

'Why are you looking lost Aroop? I remember you very well. Come sit here.' Joyeeta asked.

Her declaration was loud enough to draw the attention of the just then arrived driver. Half asleep and a little flummoxed, the driver gave a blank stare at Aroop as if asking him to follow the lady’s instructions. A little disgruntled at the unwanted attention, Aroop gaped at him and sat next to Joyeeta.

'So? How are you?' Joyeeta asked. As cheerful as ever.

'Okay…I mean good.' Aroop replied.

The queasiness, which was till then reaped by his heavy lunch, had thickened further. He looked uncomfortable. The past decade had hardly introduced him to any idle talks. His life until that very moment was compartmentalized only between his negotiations with bank customers and jostled household rantings. And now, all of a sudden, somebody felt like asking how he was? Aroop naturally felt a frisson of uneasiness.

'Oh great! So what do you do now? Never saw you after college.'

'I don’t happen to come by this side.' Aroop paused.

An old man joined them on the bus but went unnoticed by Joyeeta. But his sceptical glare at both of them bothered Aroop. It was so strange. Fifteen years back they had travelled in this very bus route; sardined, yet talking piercingly aloud all the while being nonchalant. But, now, even a temporary stare of a stranger bothered him. Why? What was troubling him? His visibly amplifying unsocial attitude or that secret admiration for Joyeeta that he had forced into being incognito long back?

'She is your daughter?'

Aroop tried for a distraction and who could serve him better than a child.

'Yes. Her name is Rupa.'

'Which class are you in Rupa?'

'Seventh.' Rupa fumbled and replied again. 'No, fifth standard uncle.'

'What’s wrong with you Rupa? You are confusing your class!' Joyeeta spelled her annoyance with the slightest hint of anger. 'It’s becoming very frequent.'

Strange it was for Aroop, too. A child forgetting her class! However, soon Rupa was wiped out from their talk as the conversation bustled around common friends and college life.

Joyeeta spoke a lot and the more she rekindled their past, the more Aroop discerned how futile his life had become.

'You never told about your work Aroop.' Joyeeta’s sudden influx to the present alerted his senses.

'Oh! I work for a bank. SBI. Our Station road branch only.' Aroop replied.

'Is it? My husband…You know right? Kishore.'

'No. I don’t know.' Aroop replied hastily and flaunted his disinterest too.

Aroop’s reaction was in the swim. His emotions were never glossed-over for Joyeeta. It was she who prudently avoided any love affair with him for reasons never disclosed. And worst was, Aroop was invited for her marriage but was never introduced to anyone. However today, nonchalantly she pretended everything to be at their best.

'Ticket!' The bus conductor’s approach led Aroop away from his brewing annoyance.

'Wait. I will pay.'

Joyeeta, like a bat out of hell, handed a fifty rupee note to the conductor. Through the opened flap of her purse, an assemblage of notes blinked scornfully at Aroop. Her small swanky purse seemed loftier than Aroop’s worn leather wallet. The tinkle of her gold bangles attested that she certainly had money to burn. Her scarf which she removed a little while ago, now revealed diamonds on her neck and ears as well. Joyeeta’s overall accessories probably cost more than Aroop’s monthly salary.

The bus conductor handed Aroop’s ticket to him. That tiny piece of paper seemed heftier than a rock. His male insularity was flared up to think further. Did Joyeeta reject him for his penury? And now, was she taking advantage of this optimum opportunity to show off?

Aroop hailed from a humble background. If at all anything could be labelled as an asset, it was a small 500 sq.ft house which his demised father left in his name. He was certainly just another lost face amongst the dime a dozen students who educate themselves to at least secure a clerical job. Joyeeta’s materialistic inclinations had always been unrealizable for Aroop. And more she articulated her happily married life, Aroop was further mired in jealousy. Atypical for a man already cryptic towards his own entity.

The bus whirled; sometimes on smooth concrete and sometimes on shrunken gravelly trails. With every bump leading to a biff on the spine, Aroop fizzled out fetters of animosity and alienation; though blissfully unaware of whether towards his own incompetence or for Joyeeta’s felicity. As she proudly plaited encomiums for her Kishore, an outrageous clamour crept within Aroop. Self-deprecating; humiliating like a piercing needle and slowly yet steadily validating Aroop’s worthlessness.

'You buying my ticket is not correct Joyeeta.' Aroop crumpled the ticket and said.

'Oh my goodness! I have spoken a volume and you are still there Aroop? What’s wrong with you?'

'Yes. You spoke a lot. Only about your husband.'

'So?' Joyeeta’s voice betrayed a slight twinge of rankling within.

Aroop was one of those people whose ferocity remained benign till hell froze over. Joyeeta’s sore response subdued him.

'I mean. You never told what does he do?'

'Ma, we have to get down now.' Rupa suddenly held Joyeeta’s hand and stared at Aroop.

Aroop had never seen a child so mournful. Big round eyes like a shell, but hollow from inside; glistening with tears but seemingly pledged not to shed them. Words wrought with a kind of dread and a silence as if ironclad, lest a philistine secret should be spilled. Something was awfully weird with Rupa. In the past half an hour her eyes remained affixed on Joyeeta, never once looking either side. Possessiveness was common to children of that age but not to this extent.

'Yes, Rupa. We will meet Daddy soon.' Joyeeta fondled her head and got up to alight the bus.

'Kishore works for SBI only. Here. In Shyambazaar branch.' Joyeeta replied to Aroop and got down.

Through the gaps of the milling heads, Aroop could see Joyeeta waving to him. He too waved back at her. However, his wave bore no candour or the ardour of a friend. Deep inside, Aroop was enraptured by an imminent perverse pleasure.

Kishore works for a bank after all! Aroop pursed his lips to control the gale of the malevolent sniggering looming inside. He slid to the window seat and breathed in the chilled breeze. Undaunted by anything or anyone now, Aroop’s chauvinism slowly enrobed him and imparted a sense of superior calm. The world seemed to sweep his feet. Those moving trees, lit up shops, men and women muffled by the cold; everything and everyone was seemingly enslaved by his prudish dominance.

Huh! Joyeeta ultimately married a 9 to 5 job holder only? What happened to her plans of living in a bungalow and going for exotic foreign holidays? Still travelling by 78/1! Must be living in one of those rented 1 BHK flats. Those bangles of hers looked pretty similar to Jhilmil’s artificial ones. Never gold! So much gold would probably cost a bank robbery to Mr Kishore. And those glittering stones? Not all that glitters are gold. Neither diamonds. And the money stuffed purse; groceries were due for sure.

The doleful dusk, a lumbering bus of 78/1 and its ruptured interiors witnessed a civilized rationality being blighted by foregone conclusions. Aroop took no time in monopolizing his logic to blisteringly blaspheme a woman whom he proclaimed to love once upon a time. The more he belittled Joyeeta, the better he felt from within. Disparaging Joyeeta became a mode to refurbish his destitution. His face was now etched with an unheralded victory.

'May I sit here?' A silvery voice disrupted Aroop’s chain of thoughts. It was the same man who had boarded the bus along with them.

'Sit sir. Who cares?' Aroop chuckled.

The man was old. Aroop held his trembling body and assisted him to sit.

'Thank you.' The old man smiled and spoke again. 'You knew that woman.'

'Yes. My college friend.' Aroop replied but paused in surprise. 'Why are you asking?'

'You looked very happy once she left.' The man grinned. 'Usually a man does so with his wife.'

Aroop giggled. He did not want to speak further but the incipient impious faculty that had burgeoned within him spoke. 'How do you feel when the person you think and held as supreme is actually as pitiable as you? You laugh. Don’t you? Your pain is quenched because you are not the lone one to suffer.'

'So you attest the proverb “Misery seeks company”. Don’t you?' The old man mocked him.

Aroop’s supremacy sodden expressions suddenly felt a stab.

The old man glared at Aroop and spoke, 'That woman, Joyeeta, is my daughter-in-law. Today is her wedding anniversary. Two years back, on this day, my son Kishore had asked Joyeeta to meet him at the Shyambazaar crossroad for a surprise wedding gift. That evening, when Joyeeta waited for him, Kishore died in an accident while crossing the road to meet her. Kishore’s crumpled and lifeless body was Joyeeta’s anniversary gift.'

Aroop was appalled. 'What’s all this nonsense?' Aroop snorted in disgust.

The old man exhaled audibly and took out a photograph from his jacket pocket. Joyeeta stood hugging a young man while holding a child. And there stood this old man along with his wife.

The surroundings in the photo looked very familiar to Aroop. 'Isn’t this the Choudhury Baari?' Aroop asked, still demented with the happenings.

The man fondled the photo longingly and uttered, 'Yes, indeed. I am Bankim Choudhury and this was my son, Kishore. He is dead. And the woman whom you called as your friend is still stuck on the same day. She never moved ahead.'

The pillars of rancid imaginations erected by Aroop about Joyeeta’s misfortune just a minute ago collapsed to death. Joyeeta was the inheritor of one of the richest families in the town.

'And Rupa…' The old man sniffed but was rapidly interrupted by Aroop. 'Rupa fumbled with her class.' Aroop was shocked. Before he could assemble his rationale about the situation he heard the bus conductor asking to slow down the bus.

It was in the middle of nowhere. Probably half a kilometre ahead of where Joyeeta got down. The old man got up and the bus conductor helped him to get down. He looked at Aroop for one last time. A glimmer of hope lined his eyes as he spoke to Aroop. 'Every time your friend comes out like this, I follow her to get her back home safely.'

The bus encroached through the squeals of traffic but Aroop felt an anomalistic silence; bringing the synapses of his brain to a standstill. Tangled between love and hatred, Aroop jumped out of the running bus but toppled due to the momentum. His senses perceived many a voice yelling at him, but his eyes searched frantically for that old man.

Aroop ran. Unbeknownst to anything around; he ran. His castle of acrimony slithered like sand from a clasped fist. Afar, amidst the shapeless crowd, his eyes captured an anxious Joyeeta looking out for Kishore and that old man trying to convince her.

Aroop stopped; panting his lungs out and pressing his abdomen hard. Should he go further? He felt a pain in his chest. A sharp one, like hundreds of knives making their way through his ribs.

Should he not apologize to Joyeeta? But how? Joyeeta was never privy to his mutilated thoughts. Actually, nobody was. His thoughts were fledglings of his own depreciating confidence camouflaged by a forged supremacy. Anything unachievable in life became sour grapes for Aroop. Whom should he apologize to? To the people he encountered or to himself?

The whole world swirled before him.

Mrinalini’s creased face, Jhilmil’s endeavours to please him, Joyeeta’s unsullied smile, Rupa’s doleful eyes, that old man’s miserable plight. Aroop felt a lurching sensation in his stomach.

The delectable lunch, which was chomped as a conquest over Shashi’s prosperity, never truly assimilated in him. Amidst the ear piercing honks and bustling traffic, Aroop stood at the corner inhaling his hollowness and vomiting out every morsel he ate.

Hopefully, that day, Aroop’s fictitious narcissism too, slushed the ground.