Other Time

Other Time

 

Debasish Samantaray

 

Ajaya was brooding over his decision to finally kick the bucket.

He had never even dreamt that he would end up contemplating taking his own life.

But how..? that was the question. Death wasn’t an easy task; unlike eating, drinking and sleeping, it wasn’t something that could be done as and when he wanted to.

He thought of the thousands whose mentions appeared on the television and the papers. Death had arrived as either an unknown disease or an untimely accident and snatched their lives from them.

At the thought of dying, his mind was suddenly flush with outlandish ideas. Death, he thought, was as significant to a man, as birth was. Before one is born, there is nothing on his plate, whereas when he is summoned by death, he holds an identity of his own.

In fact, death could be even the start of something memorable; a man could be remembered for days to come even after his life comes to an end.

The never ending sorrows that had prompted him to take his life would, in his absence, be reduced into nothing more than a normal incident. Out of the sheer yearning to accomplish something he had initiated many a project, all of which would end up in the trash bin. To him no one appeared to be profiting out of his work, nor did he find anyone who was happy because of his work. It would all come to a close once he chose to depart from this life. After his death, who would bother if he didn’t get the recognition that he deserved? Nobody. Who has the time and the patience to spare some thought for others? Again, nobody. Once you are dead, you are gone forever. The vast world shall move on.

He tried hard to fathom the world but in vain. The world stretched out before him like a strange and inaccessible road. The things that were apparently light were suddenly becoming tough. No hands held out embraces from any corner when he yearned for a consolatory embrace. On whose assurance he would live on? Life had become nothing but an unbearable, complex road to abyss.

He went to the doctor and asked him questions that were entirely unnecessary, but ended up failing to ask the doctor about his own problem.

Could you tell me a simple way in medical science to terminate one’s life?

A normal guy like all of us, the doctor had his own strange ways. -He replied in the affirmative: “Indeed, there are ways. We are dying every moment, aren’t we? Death is always sneaking up behind us. After all, we are all sauntering towards death ever since we are born, aren’t we?”

Ajaya rushed out of the doctor’s cabin in disgust, not even taking his prescription. All his prejudices about doctors gave way to a new impression: “Doctors are also ordinary men like us”.

Nowadays, he hardly sleeps at night. He found himself inept in taking a firm decision ever since this idea of suicide took root in his psyche. In total contrast to him, was Meenu. What a strange woman, he thought, snoring all through her sleep. She complained when he refused to take dinner and she followed suit, when he had smacked her. Finally she went to bed without dinner as well.

Now, there was acidity due to stomach ache. To beat the gnawing hunger, he gulped down a bottle of water, as he did whenever he was in stress. And again, it set off another train of thoughts: what was there in drinking water? Anyways it would all wash out through urine.

Whenever he had any bickering with Meenu, he never felt like getting in touch with her. She had done him injustice, having been prattling around with his fiancé clandestinely. His head reeled when it came to mind. All the rules in the world, he thought, were made in favor of women. Nothing could materialize in spite of the fact that he had known all the ways to take his revenge.

He could do nothing when he was alive, but he would teach them a lesson after his death. It is general practice for the police, to investigate based on the suicide note and to go in search of the clues that it held out. The reasons would tumble out of it one after another and it would teach them a lesson. Everyone would fall into the trap.

This was the reason that he wanted to die. His death would help him accomplish what he couldn’t when he was alive. He had the least urge to live on. He craved to leave the planet, be incognito, far from the deluge of familiar faces, far away from this rotten land, as early as possible.

This life seems stranger.

He was tooham-handed to take appropriate decision. Sometimes,life seemed so attractive. He sometimes longed to enjoy life. In other times, the life and way of living seemed so meaningless. It is futile, he thought, to live on in illusions.

He had a catnap for some time but screamed awake after a nightmare. He woke up when Meenu pushed him away and realized with relief that it was just a dream after all. He had dreamt of being shot dead. He hadn’t done anything to be shot at nor had he done any wrong to anyone. He could not recognize the one who had fired at him. In the dream, when the police questioned the assailer, he said that he took plea that the target was off. Someone was in the target, but it was not the person who was slumped dead in front of them.

Who was the actual target? Couldn’t it be Manua Das at the least? This dream is common to both of them. Together they had disremembered many such dreams. But this approach was uncommon for him. Ajaya was trying to find out a simple way how to die and he did find it.

 

He was now certain that it was one of the most laid-back means to commit suicide. So it could be adopted. There was no other way to ensure instant death than this. Death would visit much more than you thought of it. Excellent Idea!

But, there was a glitch in it.

Since morning, the news has spread not only in the state but throughout the country. Rupa Mishra, an Odia woman had topped the IAS examinations. Ah, this was the life that one should live! Else, where is the excitement, there is no purpose to accomplish in your life?

Each time he asked himself whether he should live or die, his inner being gave him the reply that he must die. But his mind kept vacillating: how could he nonchalantly give up this strong, God-given body?

As was his habit, he walked all along and reached the market square. He bought himself a paan from the shop at the far end of the market. After chewing the pan down he groped in his pocket for coins but he found none. He didn’t even cuss himself: wandering around with such impunity had by then become his second nature.

The shopkeeper understood what was happening and gave him a good dressing down. Some worries eased out like the smoke from his mouth. He felt comfortable; a new idea dashed into his mind.

At the end of his suicide note, he would pen in bold letters and underline the name of Manua Das. He kept thinking about how to teach Manua Das a lesson. Now, he is to Manua Das what an insignificant soldier in the opposite camp is in the Mahabharat serial - one who would be waiting to gain his salvation through a fatal wound inflicted on him by a divine hand.

Ajaya laughed heartily. The shopkeeper heard his laughs as well. It was too grueling to work with a colleague like Manua Das. All the staff talked of him behind is back. He was very soft spoken and would flash a demure smile every now and then. He would inform the proprietor, to the minutest detail, about to whom you talked, how much loan you incurred, how much time you dozed off at your seat and how much time you had whiled away during the day. Soon after he had found something wrong with you, he would start bossing around. Saroj babu had told him about his quite earlier, and had warned him the day he had left this private job and had decided to earn his livelihood from farming and to find peace there. However, Ajaya was keen to grab the job that was open in front of him, even though it meant a lesser salary.

He always would feel surprised when he looked at his father.

How had his father never been kaput in spite of having two useless sons, an ailing wife, a big family and a host of his own diseases that he had to counter with? The medicines were so large in number that he consumed them the way he would eat rice.

Well, the problem would have ended had he consumed a few sleeping pills that he had brought for his father. Had his family known about it, in the course of the pain, they would rush him to the hospital and prevent his death. The situation would end in unbearable humiliation and a sense of peccadillo. Everyone would take turns teasing him.

Whatever ideas that came to mind were all traditional and hazardous. He could strangle from the ceiling fan in a closed room or from the strong branch of a tree in his garden. But in doing so, he would have to squirm for breath on the rope for a long time. His life, which had received so much of insult and humiliation, may not be ready to say goodbye that soon. And who knows, faced with such debilitating pain, he might even reverse his decision to die.

The domestic help in the neighborhood had suffered a lot after consuming poison. He was taken to a nursing home nearby where he survived the stomach ache, with foul smell and bleached foam spurting out of his mouth. A couple of days after the treatment, he confessed that he had consumed rat poison after a failed love affair. That showed the lack of effectiveness of the poisons in the market: there was no surety of success than to throw up profusely.

Hence, it seemed better to say goodbye to any such plans.

Of course a new trend between-the-hammer-and-the-anvil has surfaced now days. One could jump from the ten or fifteen storied building in a metro city; no one would be held guilty for this.

Ajaya liked the idea. At least he must create the mindset to kill himself by consuming a few drinks. You need not think anything else once you jump off a high building. Everything would be finished when you hit the ground and in no time, you would be a framed photograph on the wall; and in the post mortem certificate, the doctor would attributethe reason of death to excess consumption of alcohol.

It was while brooding over this idea that the water tank situated in the city came to his mind. This couldn’t be executed from anyone’s private house. The moment he looked down from the water tank, he felt life was much more endearing than death. The people and the city which he had felt fed up with, now suddenly appeared so intimate. It was as if a line from a beautiful poem dawned in his heart and then slipped out. The urge to do something started to sprout forth in his mind.

He returned back home.

At home it was business as usual: Meenu was tongue-tied and mother was introverted. His father had ceased talking to him ever since his investment of his entire retirement benefit, amounting to four lakhs, in Ajaya’s business went bust. Everyone at home, Ajaya remembered, had protested back then.

He had left the job because of his colleague Manua Das and other forces. Though he couldn’t make both ends meet with the salary that he was receiving, the amount sure was a great help.

He has left the job because of his colleague Manua Das and other forces. Though the salary he was receiving was insufficient to maintain the family, but the amount was certainly helping a great deal. But, what would he do now? It was not possible to earn that amount in any other way. He saw everything as a miserable concoction of failure and helplessness. He had dreamt a lot about marital bliss, during his bachelor days but now, he realized that all those was just hypothetical. He could not take a firm action because of Meenu.

 

His appetite for living kept ebbing with each passing day. Doubts as to with whom he would continue to live started rearing up in his mind. Leading such a life with no purpose was even more futile than death itself. He would be like a bird in the dark, with clipped wings.

The more he reasoned, life appeared more and more useless. There was hardly any point continuing with this mundane, meaningless tedium that was his life. Maybe, he thought, in the next birth, he could avoid whatever mistakes he had committed in this life. He could sidestep all the mistakes in his next birth. He could call quits on the game he was playing now and start a new game all over again. Who knows, he might come up trumps in the new one!

His mother telling him off and the dejection that Meenu was suffering from had dent fatal slights to his machismo and the constant teasing from colleagues reduced him to a vulnerable creature. He was absolutely down and death looked perhaps the only refuge before him.

Then what for the delay if death is inevitable? He asked this question to many people, reasoned on this but he didn’t get satisfactory answer.

Is it the fact that death and birth are not within control of man? Is it beyond his reach? Can’t a man chose to end his God-given life?

Ajaya approached the national highway, city outskirts, riding purposelessly on his motorbike. He didn’t know where he was heading. The strong gust of wind left him teary eyed. The speed of the vehicle was unsteady–on some occasions it moved faster and sometimes his grips slackened around his accelerator.

There was a longing to move beyond time.

Just as he had left Manguli square - a busy vehicular traffic at the outskirt in the city - behind; he saw a ten-wheeler truck stationed by roadside. May be the truck driver was catching up on a long awaited rest. A faint smile dawned on Ajaya’s face. This truck would put an end to all his worries. Now it was stationed in front of him though he didn’t find any way to carry out his plan. It was hard to avoid the invitation of death. Ajaya held the accelerator of motorbike in a tight grip and accelerated. He counted down his time. In few seconds his bike would dash against the ten-wheeler truck that lay ahead on the roadside. His head would be smashed into pieces; there would beprofuse bleeding. Gosh!

Ajaya shut his eyes in anticipation of a happy death. He powered the accelerator on as hard as he could.The task would be over now before he had time to imagine anything.

But, alas!

The imagined time just moved away. The motor bike was also in speed following instruction of machine. But, neither was he thrown nor any accident occurred.

A strange sort of feeling spread all over his body. He opened his eyes. Surprisingly, death was speeding ahead, faster and faster, leaving him behind with a silent assurance that the time was not yet ripe. The ten wheeler truck kept hustling ahead.

Ajaya reversed his motorbike and rode back, calmly,to his familiar world.