The Letter

His hands were trembling as he wrote the letter. That helped him disguise his writing, for the letter would be anonymous. If his plan worked, Gopal would succeed in retaining his world. His life depended on the letter and its outcome.

 

Gopal was seething with rage, the kind, and quality generated by deep humiliation, sense of shame and fear-all mixed into a deadly cocktail of emotions. His boss had abused him and threatened to have him fired from work. This was not the first time, but Gopal wanted this to be the last.

 

Gopal had enough justifications for drinking. Alcoholics always do. Good enough for him to be under its influence most of the time, every day. But he never let this affect his work. He was acknowledged by all in office as a workaholic, a person who produces quality work in any quantity provided he is drunk. He never kept any work pending, spending long hours in office long after others would leave.

 

His boss was more than happy with Gopal’s work, except for the fact that he smelt liquor most of the time, and co-workers often objected to it. Gopal had been working in this office for so long a time that people joked he was born here and would one day die here. He had seen bosses coming and going, juniors learning under him and becoming his boss. He refused promotions, fearing transfer to some other office or place. His desk was his kingdom and he would not leave it for his life.

 

Gopal blamed his wife for what he was today. Always nagging, always finding fault with him. Berating him as a good for nothing at home. A useless husband. Not fit even to bear her a child. He believed he was potent enough and there was something wrong with his wife. But she had medical evidence to support her and challenged him to pass the medicals. Which he avoided, saying he required no proof of his manhood.

 

At first, he would strip her after a fight and enter violently. As time wore on, his exits became faster till a time came when he was no longer able to enter. She would mock him, stripping at will and challenging him to rise to the occasion. She could get pregnant any time with anyone she wanted, she would say, but she was not a slut, she prided on her honor more than anything else. It was thereafter that he avoided all contact with her, physical, verbal and even denied her of his presence and gave her no chance to fight.

 

The home was not where his heart was. He spent all his productive time at the office, for here, he was the undisputed king. Bosses found this workhorse easy to load with all sorts of work and he would never refuse.

 

He never planned to become an alcoholic. He started drinking just to keep him going and found great solace. Problems seemed to just sink and dissolve when he drank. Its company gave him courage, confidence, and peace of mind. When his association with liquor grew in strength and the latter began keeping his company in the office, objections were voiced. He never ever misbehaved, so people tolerated it. But sometimes his friends and bosses would firmly ask him either to leave the office or quit drinking.

 

He did fight with the bottle. He was even confident he would win. He began by denying the bottle his company, just as he had done with his wife.

 

But, to his dismay, the bottle was as smart as his wife, even better. It crept back into his life using a thousand subtle subterfuges. He found himself impotent to deal with its deceits and finally lost courage and confidence. The bottle was now threatening to usurp his very existence.

 

For Gopal, defeat was staring at him from everywhere. His home was lost. His wife was lost. His identity was lost. Now he stood the chance of losing his job, his world. His boss would not even blink when he signed his termination orders. The bottle would happily squeeze out his last breath. His wife will happily walk over his dead body into the arms of a virile man.

 

But he was not the one to give up. He would teach them a lesson or two before going down. He knew the skeletons in his boss’s cupboard. With his imagination, still fertile, he would link his wife in an illicit relationship with his boss. A story of deceit, treachery, and persecution was beginning to take shape.

 

With trembling hands, he began writing the letter.