The Loner

Short Story

Dr. V. V. B. Rama Rao

The night was getting very chill for that time of the year. The cycle of seasons must also be going awry like everything else around. It wasn’t even eleven. The veranda was only an awning and it had been windy too. Struggle as he would, he found it difficult to go to sleep.

As if declaring, ‘I’ve done my duty’, Seetalu left without so much as a parting word. “You can lie down on a mat!” poor Seetalu used to say.

Bat, a bat? Who is that? Is it himself? Is it his own daughter who uttered such a word referring to him!

Though it was not a big job, after retirement he got his benefits and with the help of his sons he could marry her off. Seetalu’s absence was not much of a hurdle either.

Man had always been a lonely being. Now he could read every one, every one of his children like a book. They needn’t say anything. One thing was certain. They didn’t need him any longer. When the elder one was rough he went to the younger one always to return to the other after some time. Whenever he felt it was necessary he went to the daughter too, just to drag his days along. He would be furious with his own children sometimes. But it was just momentary, like the flame from a palm leaf.

The son-in-law’s behaviour too was exasperating. He’d wake up nine and return from wherever he went only at midnight. The daughter had her children to look after and a job too. She would keep mum to all his questions and inquiries. She was very secretive where she really shoundn’t be so.

Perhaps she wanted to please her husband by calling her own father a bat.

He folded the cloth bag into a small square and put on his chappals to go to get some vegetables. The elder one never bothered to write. The younger one’s kid was down with cough and colds. She had been running a temperature too. Whatever could have happened there! The young fellow would send a post card occasionally. No body seemed to remember him. The little one wouldn’t leave him even for a minute, always nestling, calling him “Taata, Taata”.

The ‘hospital down’ road, as they call it in the city, was always busy. The main gate of King George Hospital opened on to it. The crowds were jostling. Doctors, nurses, patients, attendants, vendors, employees, businessmen, were all preoccupied and in a frantic hurry.

He came to exit gate.

He saw a pushcart fitted with bicycle wheels being pushed by a hurrying man. It was heading down. There was a joss stick stuck into a corner. A soiled sheet, which was once white, covered the surface. It must be a corpse, unclaimed by any one, on the last journey, being pushed by a man who could do with a bank note for a bottle and chips.

It was amazing, in broad daylight with such crowds about, not even one appeared to pay any attention either to the cart, the man behind or the strange merchandise on it.

He struggled hard to keep the cart in view. It was a gradient and the man behind was having an easy job. Now it came to be hard too. The gradient deepened and it was becoming quite a job to hold it in his control.

There was the noise of jamming brakes ‘khuss...’

A thin white veil...or, was it a thick mist? Some smell ... was it petrol ... no, no, some sweetish kind of smell ... delirium ... what could it be ... As for himself he was fine, able to hear and speak too. Delirium meant disjointed talk.

Shock... somebody was saying.
“How could we know his name and address?”
“Look in his pickets, there may be something to give us a clue.”
“I counted the money in the purse: eight rupees and seventy paisa. No address, nothing else.”

Why were these people so worried? Don’t they know me? Niranjan Sarma – that’s the name, Don’t you recognise me? What a strange thing! I worked for forty years in the revenue department. I had a spotless record. The RDO gave a speech on the occasion ofmy retirement.

“Poor fellow, there’s no way.”
Who are all these people. Why don’t they listen to me? I can hear them but where are they, in the sky?
“Perhaps, there’s none...”

What is this? Fools! Don’t think I’m a zero.I have two sons and a daughter too? They’re all employed, happy. Don’t think I’ve none! There’s really no reason for you to detest me.

What happened to all that light through which he had come! What a darkness! How was I able to see in this pitch-black nothingness? I bought a jasmine string for you! It’s there in that bag. Can a bat search for light in the dark? What has a bat to do with light?

Who’s this bat? Such hateful black and such stench too. No wonder that little mother hated bats. Was he the bat? Or, was the son-in-law? Did he hear it properly? Seetalu, Seetalu. I’m able to hear you. Where are you, where are you where....I’m just waiting to see you; all shall be well, don’t worry for me.

Where’s this smoke coming from? A little pointed ray of light. Around that - ­total darkness. He had been struggling to go forward towards the ray of light. The path lay between two high walls. He had to walk sideways. Still he was hitting the wall on the right and the left. How far still to go? The tunnel like thing doesn’t seem to have an end. Yes...yes...It’s light in the distance...at last he was at the end...into light, light, dazzling white light.

“Shiva, Shiva! No way to identify either! Run over by a speeding truck!”
They were clucking with their tongues.
The woman in white pulled the sheet to cover the face.