~~ Mutiny ~~

Never had he thought that there could be any resemblance between him and his father. And the sudden revelation frightened him. Beneath the shower his crooning ceased abruptly and he went completely mute. He came out of the shower slowly and seated himself in the chair placed against the wall. He seemed to have no interest left to turn off the shower. The thin spurting threads of water hit the floor, made a musical sound, broke into drops and scattered away. Like poetry imprisoned in metre, the rhythmic sound persisted. He was deaf to the sound, however. He did not get any solace sitting in the chair either. He got up, and looking into the mirror, tried to turn his body in a particular pose, but did not succeed in the effort. He was certain that he had seen his father in him a moment ago. The drops of water on his body kept sliding, dripping down. The growth on the head looked like a thick, black plaster. Down below, short hair had been pressed flat by water. It looked as if a black layer had been glued to it. He wished he could shake away that blackness with a jerk; but he dared not do it. He took a few steps to pull a towel and realised that his very gait had changed; those were staggering steps. A fear enveloped him -- a fear that the moment he pulled the towel from the hanger, the bathroom door would fling open, a small child would stare at him for a moment, he would then utter an abrupt 'Hushshshsh' and the door would shut with a bang. Although nothing like that happened, he felt a choking sensation impeding his breathing. He put on the clothes in haste and came out of the bath. A doubt lurked in the corner of his mind. He was not married, yet he thought he had been seen naked by his own child.

Leaving this room with the attached bath, he came out into the corridor and settled in the reed chair. He lit a cigarette. The scene before him revealed a range of small, asymmetrical hillocks, half-yellow and half-green trees, abruptly ending tracks and open sky. Yet he felt he was in a limbo. He imagined he was still in the bathroom and in the place of the mirror on the dressing table, he saw a painting portraying the scenery of the naked Nature. He had not yet rid himself of the mental spectre that had rose in his eyes earlier in the bathroom. His father was already dead and he was still alive. He felt as though he had died and his son was alive. Even so, for a moment, he might consider himself to be living; his son would refuse to accept his existence. How strange! The incidence was repeating itself. He himself had not given importance to his father's existence so long as he lived. His father, during his lifetime, always complained that his son was not a son in the true sense. After the death of his father, he had realised that his father was a father; but then, he could not bring his dead father to life to convince him that his son was a son, too. And that day, while taking a bath, he observed in the mirror the glimpses of his father in his own being and at that very moment a feeling had pervaded deep inside him that he was living his father's life. When he was a small boy, his father had once forgotten to take a towel to the bathroom. He had called him and asked for one. While handing over the towel, he had seen through the crevice of the door ajar his father's naked body, water dripping from it. A good part of the body was covered with the pressed growth of hair, a thick, black plaster stuck to his head and his organ too.... For a moment he had been aghast, and his father, banging the door shut, uttered the word 'Hushshshsh'. That picture of his father had left an indelible imprint on his mind. Whenever his father entered his imagination, that very picture whirred before his eyes, to the extent that he had completely forgotten whether his father ever had any other shape. The whirring picture came before his eyes again. A doubt lurked in his mind that he, too, had the same shape.

He and his father differed in many ways. His father was very emotional and fragile. That's why he loved him so much. He grew up, came of age and started working; but his father would still embrace him; still kiss him as usual. He had always felt his father's embrace abhorrent and he knew not why. When he was a boy, his father would plant on his cheeks a fixed number of kisses; and when he grew up, he would count the number of his father's kisses; when the number increased, he would bawl out, "Stop it. Stop it now." His father would be cowed down and would draw away like a slapped child. But when he met him the next time, he would not desist from kissing him again.

He did not remember if his father ever beat him. In fact, he would not even hurt a fly; he was too puny to do it. Everyone in the family, excepting him, would kick a row with his father over a trifling matter -- to the extent that even the youngest child would be indifferent to him. Everyone thought that Father was an ordinary human being who knew only to work hard the whole day to maintain the family -- nothing beyond that. Everyone, therefore, tried to rob him. And he? He would get himself robbed by one and all and would still look happy, especially when the children would buy something with his money and eat and be happy. That was the only relationship that linked him with others. Otherwise, when he returned from his work dead-tried, the children would hesitate even to give him a cup of tea. He would always share everything with others. He would see his children eating things brought by him and his humble eyes would radiate inner solace and happiness. He wouldn't mind if he didn't eat. For him the remains would do, but he would be happy to see his children satiated. If the money earned by him brought food, clothing or anything else for the family, he would be delighted. But if the money was spent on films or entertainment, he would be sombre. His father was simple, but certainly not easy to deal with. He was selfish and would lie occasionally; but he would not conceal anything. That's why some people sneered at him. Whenever he saw anyone sneering at his father, a kind of poison would permeate his every fibre. He would come back home and pour all the stored venom over his father. No member of the family ever tried to defend him, because in his demeanour there seemed to be so mush wanting. He would commit palpable blunders in conducting himself with others. That which a small child would understand easily, his father wouldn't, and in the end Father would be in a pitiable plight, but no one would have any mercy left for him. Whatever part of his life he lived with his father, they stayed like parallel lines -- two tracks which kept extending together, but never meeting.

He again looked down at the path -- long and short distances of serpentine lines. Nowhere did they run straight. Whenever they met, they became one, and separated again. A sharp bend of one of these narrow paths extended itself and pierced through his forehead. He was injured. He remembered Maya. With her serpentine tracks he had met like a straight path. He had met her and absorbed himself in her and again separated. His blood warmed up the moment he thought of Maya. He thought he was naked again for the shower and this time he felt hot water sprinkling over his head, burning his body and streaming down. Maya's soft touch was stuck to his body in the place of the thick, black growth of hair. In his imagination, he brought forth into focus his yesterday's experience. Maya's thin, immaculate, sandalwood-like body -- soft, lustrous, velvet. Hide and seek games of modesty and the fatigue of satisfaction, closed eyes. After that a promise -- to meet again, again and again, always. And that day, at that time, he was preparing to go for the repeat act. But, instead of going to Maya, he had seated himself in the reed chair. He would linger on there for a while; perhaps for ever.

For a moment the thought of Maya instead of his father lingered in his head. But marriage with Maya? He had never given it a serious thought before, nor could he ever think about it. The marriage itself had been a point of rift between him and his father. Whenever he had been asked to think about it, he bluntly refused. He was not prepared to accept the very view that someone else should ask him to think about his marriage -- even his own father. Or probably because it was only his father who always insisted that he ought to think about his marriage and he had religiously opposed the very move. In a way it was his father's 'last wish'; but there wasn't any possibility of fulfilling it.

And the doctor's diagnosis was "suffering from worries." The moment he heard the word 'worry', he would not leave his father alone and insisted that he should not worry. As if the worry was a shirt which, at his instance, his father would refuse to wear. However, his father didn't do what he urged him to do. This, too, he took as one of the reasons of confrontation. His father did worry and fell prey to all those ailments, one by one, which worry breeds. The last time when he had gone to see his father, in spite of being sick, he had gone to the station to receive his son. He was very sick, indeed. He couldn't get up from the bench he was sitting on at the station. When he was informed that his father was sitting on the bench at the station anxiously waiting for him, he went back looking for him in his search, but couldn't find him. The illness had made his father very weak. In his search he passed by his father, but couldn't recognise him. And when his father realise that his own son hadn't recognised him, he thought it was for the first time that his son had treated him in the right manner. Three days after the incident, his father had thrown away all the medicines and accepted the punishment before it was due.

He saw a face slinging from every tree right down to its roots. He imagined that these trees would crawl one by one, slowly and slowly, towards him and he would be surrounded by a graveyard. A scene from Macbeth danced before him. His head whirled. He got up. He felt he wouldn't be able to stand up; he would soon tumble down. He staggered towards his room and lay on the bed. The mattress was thick, but still he felt the sharp points of the springs piercing through his flesh. In another moment he imagined he wasn't on the bed. He lay on the operation table and the doctors, without giving him anaesthesia, were operating on his brain. His head was being hacked and the shooting pain was unbearable. It was fear that prevented him from lifting up his voice to shriek. He saw a serum oozing out of his brain ceaselessly. With the broken head he would keep oozing the fluid all his life. No one would ever come near him except, of course, Maya.

Maya pervaded his mind once again. But then, her nude body couldn't stir his passions. On the other hand, the very thought of the soft, secret part generated in his psyche a feeling of loathing. When it crossed its enduring limits, he felt like crying out and say, "Ah! Please slit me through and extricate my pain." He had seen the butchers cutting through the flesh of animals. He knew how with sharp knives they cut and skinned them. He, in his imaginary pain, also liked his writhing body be cut open and freed of the pain the same way. His nerves should be slit open and the pain extracted; and then, the dead pieces should be hung here and there so that they never felt pain again.

Someone knocked at the door. He gave a start. He thought that if he got up, his limbs would fall apart. Who is it? Is it Maya? He wouldn't ask her to gather his scattered limbs; but then in her presence, he would not be able to pick them up by himself. He had no courage to face her. If it was Maya, he wouldn't be able to avoid her. Maya would then remind him of his promise and device plans to see that the promise was kept; and like every silly woman, she would say, 'We shall have our own small home; you will be there, I shall be there ... and ... and' -- There will be nothing. Suddenly he shrieked, and then he got up and opened the door.

The waiter stood at the door. He had come to collect the lunch order.

The effort seemed to be never ending. Gathering poise he said, "Nothing."