Superseded

SUPERSEDED
NOW IN PRESS FOR PUBLICATION IN A MAJOR US LITERARY MAGAZINE

It had been happening now for quite a long time, and over the years it had assumed an air of a general, quotidian happening. All of them used to be efficient, successful and well paid qualified people; managers, government officers, businessmen and so on, but they would have no means to eschew going through this mill every evening, these gentlemen thinking that it was happening in almost all building towers of Bombay and yet still other cities like Bombay the world over. In the evening after returning thoroughly exhausted at the end of the grueling day, the occupants of lift of the building, somehow managing to thwart the awkwardness of their being together in a confined place, by averting their faces to avoid eye contact, some feigning reading carefully some document, would calmly and patiently stand, and then hurriedly walk out of the lift as the lift would stop at their floor. Some of them knew their fellow occupants by face, but none had ever attempted a conversation while waiting for his floor to arrive. Before coming to the lift, they would just park their cars, warmed up by their suburban driving of minimum 20 km in thick traffic of home-goers, board the lift and wait in silence till the lift carried them to their floor. Then they would enter their flats, and forget the building the part of which their flat was. It had been happening now for years with a typical abstractness of alienation. It had something in character that could be expected to appear in a phone directory: the same bunch of names and phone numbers listed in a serial order on a page appearing regularly in print year after year in new editions as completely separate, non-interactive abstract entities.

Satya Prakash, who had recently shifted into a flat on the seventh floor, had , for the initial few days of his lift ride, experienced little unease, but learning from others he now knew ways to engage himself in thinking his thoughts while the lift took it's time to reach his floor. It was, however, quite contradictory to the ambience of Ashok Vihar colony of New Delhi, where, in his parental house, he was born and grownup into a young man. Satya Prakash was an assistant editor in a newspaper office. He had a Masters degree in arts and a PG diploma in journalism.

For previous few days during his evening lift ride, he had been thinking about a lady who everyday boarded a charted bus from the same stop of Colaba in the evening where Satya Prakash waited for his bus. He was now certain that he knew the woman out some 8 years before while in college in New Delhi. What was the Bengali sounding name? Someone Sen or Sengupta? Why, yes, the name was Pallavi Sengupta. The next day in the evening he would talk to her, and perhaps she too might remember having seen him years back in the college.

Satya Prakash, while waiting in Pragati Express for the train to start, immediately noticed her from a distance as she appeared suddenly from behind the glass paneled swing door of the ac chair car compartment of the train. She moved in the direction where Satya Prakash was sitting, her eyes looking for her seat number while she slowly advanced in the crowd of aisle. She finally spotted her number as window seat in the row where Satya Prakash was sitting. She reached the place and raised her leather briefcase in an arc to the height of overhead line of luggage space. She settled the briefcase in an empty space. Satya Prakash rose from his place to allow her in. She made her way to her seat. Satya Prakash resumed his place next to her.

She had a copy of some novel of Grisham in her hand. She leafed through the novel trying to recall where she had ended reading last time.

Satya Prakash decided to have a little talk with her. He said, "Good morning Pallaviji. The lady was apparently taken aback. She looked in his face for a familiarity to make sense in her memory. Her memory appeared to have given her no answer. Satya Prakash helpingly added, "You remember DIT College, first year, Rashmi Khanna, your friend. I thought you might remember having seen me with her in college way back in 92. I am Satya Prakash Ahuja. Rashmi was not exactly a girlfriend; she was more a senior to Satya Prakash than a friend. It was just that they used to come to college in the same bus.

Her memory had now sorted out the matter alright. Rashmi Khanna, that tall, fair, outspoken Punjabi girl and the handsome Punjabi young man both of whom always came together to the canteen in the mornings to have first tea and then disperse somewhere in corridors of the college. So his name was Satya Prakash Ahuja. Here was that same young man, now with a little paunch. She appeared to have remembered something funny of the old times, because she smiled as she remembered. Perhaps his shortness by two inches to Rashmi's 5-10, which made it look like a pair of one elder sister and a kid brother. The sister, however, would let the kid always pay for the canteen tea, and as well occasionally she would not be having change to buy her own bus ticket while the two traveled to and fro to the college together. Of course, the poor boy had to sacrifice his allowance that was otherwise meant for buying cigarettes. That drew Pallavi's eyes to her vanity bag where a pack of Marlboro lay among the contents together with a gold plated tiny, cute lighter that she had purchased from a mall in Indonesia while on an official tour. How she cared not to misplace the lighter even more than her expensive jewelry. She was enamored to the blue, stiff, beam like flame that leapt upright from the tiny bore of the lighter; something like the direct, concentrated and swift healing effect of a tiny medicine tablet in the body of a severely suffering man.

"You have been transferred from Calcutta? You moved to Calcutta after marriage, that's what Rashmi told me.

A pellucid contempt for something or someone in Calcutta, in the same instant, took the edge off the easily set aplomb on her face. The name of the city had raked something over in her. She looked again at her purse and opened it while thinking. "I have changed a bit from college days. Now I smoke one pack of cigarettes a day, and can hardly do without smoking for more than a waking hour. And she rose to go out of the ac section of the compartment. Satya Prakash too followed her. As she exited from the door of air-conditioned inside, she, without bothering the statuary prohibition of smoking in trains, picked a cigarette from her pack, and clicked the tiny lighter in her hand. She directed her beloved blue flame to the end of the cigarette. Fortunately the TTE was nowhere in sight. She looked at the end of the cigarette from where a thin line of smoke snaked into the smoking prohibited space of the train. Some agonies in her memory were torturing her, that Prakash could see. Prakash, thinking to use a bit of conversation as a diversion, spoke, "I am a newspaper journalist, an assistant editor. My office is in Colaba only. Near where you take your bus. She joined the diversion and returned, "I work in an office there. We take contracts for Power Plants. I am going to attend a meeting.

Pallavi looked out of the compartment's door into the pall of the darkness. Underneath the calmness on her face, a sharply serrated bitterness prodded a nettlesome unease to break open the thinned pellicle of her scattered composure. Then in a precipitous correction, the bitterness in her face peeled off and a copasetic fresh skin, energetically held by a smile grew on her visage. In her unruffled voice that appeared cutting dead and treading on some dehisced wound, she asked, "what about your family Mr. Abuja? How are your kids and your wife?"
Prakash laughed and said, "I still don't earn enough to support a family.
She too returned a laugh. "You further studied in New Delhi only.
"Yes, first a Masters degree. Then a diploma in Journalism. And did you carry on studies at Calcutta. He almost immediately repented for having touched her on the raw again.

She again, started looking blankly at the darkness outside. She needed the darkness to look or overlook somewhere in herself which was abstaining from light. Then again the same obsequious control that appeared to correct and align things in order, worked its way and made its forceful presence on her face in an open slather.
"I studied management in Calcutta and got the degree. My marriage broke in a divorce in few months after the marriage. Soon after divorce I had joined the management studies. After leaving the college, I joined a company. I have been working in different jobs over these years. Now I have joined this company which sets up Power Plants. Words came out of her as neatly typed lines on a fresh paper.

Thus they talked this and that, something from the old times of college, something on randomly picked topics, something from newspapers and so on. The topics meticulously careened to keep clear of any mucking potholes yet again. They seemed to talk endlessly till it could end up in some topic not much interesting to either of them. However the end appeared in the distance. Only when the train reached Pimpri and people started pestering them by stacking their luggage besides the wash basin and exit door in preparation of their disembarking the train in short stopovers on suburban stations, they returned to their seats. They had tea which came from the bottom cold finish line of the portable metal container that the vendor boy carried. Yet they appeared enjoying the lukewarm tea, and looked determined to eke it out till the train reached Pune. There were wide gaps between sips, filled by yet emerging pieces of conversation.

On reaching Pune, they said their good byes to one another near the taxi stand. After Pallavi left, Prakash proceeded to find a hotel for him near the railway station itself. He slid Pallavi's card in his wallet behind his ATM and Credit cards.

On the third following day, Pallavi herself rang up.
"Namaste Prakashji.
" Namaste Pallviji. How are you and from where are you speaking?
"Here from the bus stop at Colaba. Today I missed my bus. Occasionally my one friend and I used to spend some time in coffeehouse here when we didn't feel like going straight home in the evening. Now the friend got married and shifted elsewhere.

"Pallaviji, if I accompany you to the coffeehouse, would you mind?
"No, it will be pleasant to see you again and have a chat.
"Can you please wait for just five minutes there? It will take me just five minutes to reach there.
"I am waiting here.
Prakash clicked shut down on his PC and left the papers lying on his table as they were. He left for the bus stop.
Prakash found Pallavi waiting at the bus stop. She was attired in a deep blue color dress that day which was sprucing up her personality.
They walked to the nearby coffeehouse. Pallavi knew the location. They walked in silence for some time. Prakash broke it finally and said, "Did you have a very busy day?
"Oh no, just routine work. Shall I make suggestion, Prakashji?
"Why not, please do.
"Won't a plain `Pallavi' be better. After all I was junior to you while in college.
Prakash laughed and said, "I think that should be agreeable.

The coffeehouse was ordinary in appearance but had spruced up walls hung by pastiches of works of some European known painters.

It started raining outside. The front entrance to the place was full open. The pluvial air outside reached the interior.
When two hot steaming cups of coffee arrived at their table, they started sipping from their cups as if the coffee would tell them what to talk. Then Prakash said, "I asked my mother to come to Bombay, but she preferred to stay back in Delhi. The people here, living in tall building societies hardly have a society at their place of living. This is true of Delhi and other metros also. Do you know that some political people, after earning name and money, shifted to costly flats in these societies and returned to their chawls soon after. Their wives could not survive the isolation that is so inevitable there.
"For certain few others, this is the convenience that doesn't let them leave Bombay, Prakashji. She appeared to have an affinity and a resemblance to these few others she was talking about.
Prakash trying to avoid straying into some unknown serious matter picked up the simpler option and said, "Now look ¦
She cut in, "No, `Prakashji' is quite Ok.
Prakash laughed as he said, "But how could you know I was going to ask that.
"Because I participate in running the business of a private company. If a person, a very good actor, is talking with me in friendly manner but is actually cursing me in his mind, I would immediately know that.
"Shall I tell you this? Believe me, if a person who has met you, talked with you for some time, will hardly curse you even if you really do her or him some little harm.

Pallavi smiled; her smile aimed somewhere in her memory where something in complete contradiction to what Prakash just said, existed. Yet still she, ignoring it, said, "Prakashji, do you write some column in your newspaper?
"Yes I write one weekly column.
Then a long space of silence grew and appeared stretching to an unbearable length. Pallavi said at length, "Prakashji, say something about somebody. I am sick and tired of my silence through so many years. Just talk about anything.
"Ok, today till few minutes before, you appeared happier than you looked last time. Perhaps coffee is very good.
"Yes, coffee is good, and in many years I have not been told before now that there is something admirable in me.
"Oh ho, if these two can perk you up, this can be done everyday. I was under the impression that once in many years; a first prize in lottery only could make you happy.
"Now that's an overstatement. This is 2000 Prakashji, Y2K. Do you think I am a cantankerous teacher who is never happy with the students? I work in a private company. Here we deal with people of all sorts. Government officers are given bribes to sign the contracts, and do you know I am heading my department having all men as junior officers who have to get these tenders signed.
"It is really hard to understand you. Your being a girl could not prevent you from venturing in a field dominated by men.
"So a woman however qualified she might be, normally should not fit in such a scene?
"How can I dare to say that for you?
She chortled for a long while as if she wouldn't get that opportunity later.

They waited for the drizzle to end. Then they walked to a waiting taxi and Pallavi left.

There never was a day when Prakash and Pallavi didn't talk over phone. They used to come to the coffeehouse occasionally, spend some time over coffee. Sometimes Prakash accompanied Pallavi while she did some shopping.

One evening while Prakash and Pallavi were sitting on a bench in a park, Prakash, having worked that day on a piece about a beauty competition, said, " while in college, you had taken part in some beauty contest and won prizes also. Didn't you ever think about modeling as a career?

She smiled, reflected for a long moment and said, "In those years, I liked to look beautiful. Later during my struggle time in Calcutta, I got rid of this urge for looking good. I shunned it for the fear of the future agony that would have overridden me for my having lost good looks in old age. When a beautiful woman grows old, she gets a shock when she finds her beautiful face of younger years giving way to a wrinkled face with pucker lines allover. Just then, a Bengali sari seller came there and started showing saris to Pallavi from his mobile collection. He had tied two thin bed sheets in the manner of two baskets, one on either side, on a long bamboo and carried the saris stacked inside the bed sheet carriages. Pallavi talked to him in Bengali. She selected some pieces.

Pallavi paid for the saris. While the vendor was packing the saris in a polythene bag, Pallavi said, " Prakashji, can you see that there among two bed sheet basket carriages, one bed sheet is relatively new and thus does not have blackened load lines which are appearing on the other one. This is similar to a woman's face. When she finds her face gathering wrinkles as a result of time's load lines, she loses all that is based on her beauty in her life. She finds it hard to reassemble, redo her personality in that age. A woman too, like men should base her personality on some kind of permanent attributes, on which she can ever rely. And she had looked on as the sari vendor walked away with his mobile sari shop oscillating on the bamboo on his shoulder.

Once Prakash had to go to Kolhapur to cover some important topic there for his newspaper. He couldn't return the same day. Pallavi didn't know about his going to Kolhapur. He tried to call Pallavi but her direct number was not working. He didn't remember the board numbers of her office. She had recently shifted from her old apartment and had no phone at the new place for the time being. Somehow the job that he had at Kolhapur took him three days to complete, and during these 3 days, he could not talk with her. He decided to buy a mobile on his return to Bombay though it was a costly affair in 2000.

Prakash was informed in his office on his return to Bombay that Pallavi had telephoned to know his whereabouts in his absence. They knew only the name of the hotel where Prakash stayed in Kolhapur and there too, he had been changing his hotel. None had bothered to remember the telephone number of the hotel though Prakash had left the number with the office. Prakash rang up Pallavi's office number from a local telephone booth. That day the telephone line was alright. Pallavi was however absent from the office. The reception of her office informed that she had been on leave for last two days due to illness.
Prakash searched a number in a diary and rang up again. This was a telephone in neighborhood of Pallavi's flat.
The neighbor lady asked Prakash to hold the line and went to call Pallavi. After sometime, he heard a voice that he hardly could recognize as Pallavi's. The fragile and tenuous speech was speaking volumes of the despair with which the words coming over the line were marked.
"Hello, who is on the line?
"Pallavi, what is the matter? Aren't you well?
"Oh Prakashji. There was a note of regeneration in her voice, "when did you come back? Why didn't you telephone in so many days?

"Your direct number in office was not working.
"But you had all the board numbers.
"I am sorry. I didn't remember the board numbers.
"Are you calling from office? Do you have some time or you are busy?
"Ok. I will come to your place and from there we can come to the coffeehouse.
"No. You please come to the coffeehouse. I am reaching there.
"Ok.
After half an hour they were sitting at their usual place in the coffeehouse. They sat in silence, none trying to start a hare. At length, Prakash said, "What is it, Pallavi? It appears you really have a fever, and for the very first time, Prakash touched Pallavi at her wrist to feel the fever. She had no fever. Her face spoke of a sleepless night.

"Did you read all night something, some sad story perhaps?
"No.
"Then why didn't you sleep? She didn't answer. She opened her hand bag and reached for her sunglasses. As she quickly covered her eyes with the glasses, she said, "something causing itch in the eyes.
Prakash looked full in her face as if amused by her ersatz counterfeiting of some visible truth. She, little perturbed by the thrust of his eyes on her face, said in jest, "what's wrong now? It appears the fever has left me and caught you. She had done her best to reclaim her unease that she mistakenly had let out; but it was so erratic that she herself gave it up.
Prakash took his sight off her face and appeared trying to make a decision. He didn't take long as it was a matter much thought about, almost conclusively finished and finalized. He said, "Pallavi, I must talk with you about something that is of serious mutual concern for two of us. I long back reached a decision and have been awaiting an opportunity to mention it to you. This is important so please don't interrupt. You have had enough of weeping over your misfortunes. I can't see any further you being tormented by your past. This is the end of it all. In plain words, I say that I am certain that you and I must choose the most obvious now and that is our marriage; this is because we both want it that way.
He tried to look through the dark glasses into her eyes, failing which he himself took the sunglasses off her face. A pair of dumbfounded eyes was bared that looked on in disbelief at coming true of what they used to daydream. Prakash took her handbag from her, opened it to keep the glasses inside, when his fingers slid against a folded paper. Prakash took the paper out and read what was written there in Pallavi's hand;

"Am I different from a closed dusty book?
Lying in a battered bateau, drifting in the river of time without hurry?
It was my unfounded belief that his coming and reading through me was enough,
To make me his destination and him the man of my story.
I dreamed he would bring the boat to one bank of the river where there will be a home,
A home for me and my hero, a home where I would revert to a woman from a book
As he, holding my hand would step inside the door.
But my begging to God for this fortune does not stand an earthly.
Prakash looked at her, thought for a moment, and felt the urge to score out the text and mark it " Superseded" as he used to do with his official paperwork.