Friday, March 11, 2005

Short Story - My friend Radhe

I have known Radhe for a few years now and he must be as ancient as his name sounds. He is rather thin, with thinner hair and wears glasses as he has trouble with his eyesight. In order not to inconvenience anyone on the road, he prefers to walk sideways or just glide away from an animate obstruction rather than just say “Side Please” as they do on the busy streets of the bustling city where I used to live – Mumbai.

The stray dogs of Mumbai panic Radhe and in order to avoid them he constantly crosses the road. The beggars and eunuchs panic him even further and he quickly parts with all his money, throwing it out of his hand into theirs, shrinking from the very thought of their touch.

His voice is barely audible mostly and he has never been able to complete a sentence without being interrupted – I think it is because people can’t tell whether he is speaking at all. Do you think that Radhe minds in the least? Not really, he appears happy to have the strain of conversation being taken off his weary mind.

My friend Radhe has been married for 15 years. His wife is a thin, sickly woman with nervous hands who has a surprisingly shrill and unbearably loud voice as well as a vicious tongue. I think of a lion tamer each time I see her, but then Radhe doesn’t exactly measure up to what we would call a lion. Ahem!

Radhe – you have to wonder how – has successfully produced a child who has been named by the mother of course as Ranavir Rajavir. He is tall, intelligent, sarcastic (especially to his father) and distrustful. Obviously he obeys only his mother and the two of them have decided that Radhe is a burden on this planet and has little to offer the world, so they choose to ignore his rarely expressed opinions.

I think Radhe has worked at the same place for years – a dismal exporter of marble and granite. His boss is a burly old man with strong forearms and he looks as if he could split a stone slab with his bare hands. He regularly gives Radhe a pay cut to subsidize his other employees pay increases or so he says. Radhe’s entreaties are often met with violence. Unable to bear the ferocious looks he gets from his boss, Radhe regularly works late hours in his crumpled old suit. He owns only one suit, the one he had stitched for his wedding 15 years ago. He also has just one tie, which is frayed at every conceivable point along its edges. Since his wife will probably kill him if his shirt gets dirty, he always works with his jacket on.

Just after the burly boss decided to cut Radhe’s salary one more time, his wife has decided that Ranavir Rajavir cannot go to the government polytechnic with such good marks. She has registered him at an expensive institution in a posh Mumbai neighborhood. In view of the additional outlay of funds required, Radhe has stopped buying his daily newspaper and his only monthly luxury, Readers Digest (a considerable sacrifice). His sacrifices could not have been timelier. His wife has recently exhorted all the neighborhood wives on how they should train their husbands to suppress their overwhelming desires in order to provide for the family.

That is Radhe for you – docile, dumb and depressing. You wonder, could there be anything remarkable about this man. Well, wait till you see him get on the crowded Mumbai suburban train network.

Here is what happens:

He wants to buy a ticket everyday. He stands at the ticket window before it opens. Then he fumbles with his change for as long as he wants, especially when the hollering starts from those in the queue behind him. Invariably he will hand at least one outdated coin which is no longer in use. He will also make sure that he never has the exact change despite paying with the largest number of small denomination coins, always delivering a few at a time. He seems to derive mild pleasure from the ticket clerk’s exasperation. When the guy starts shouting, Radhe in his usual serene manner starts inaudibly muttering about his rights, presenting arguments so contradictory that no one really understands what point he is trying to make. He usually succeeds in getting a ticket without ever paying the full fare, because the ticket clerk just wants to get rid of him the minute he sees his face at the ticket window.

Once on the train, Radhe has the penchant of opening the windows if it is raining and closing them when it is not. All the other passengers who admonish him to do otherwise are met with a silent steely stare. Smoking is not allowed on Mumbai’s trains, but Radhe makes sure that he holds in his hand a cheap beedi, which he lights but does not smoke. This, despite the fact that Radhe himself hates smoking.

I have always known Radhe to be a sedentary person without the slightest interest in sports, but he will switch on his tiny portable transistor radio full blast in order to follow some insipid hockey or football match or even a cookery show, subjecting the fellow passengers to a noisy broadcast full of static as he tunes in to a godforsaken channel. However when people want to hear the latest cricket score, he will pretend the radio has stopped working.

The seats in the train are meant for 3 people, yet the people of Mumbai are accommodating enough to allow a “4th seat” passenger to precariously balance half of his backside as the train journeys are long and arduous. Despite his small size, Radhe will take up the full space he is entitled to – exactly 1/3rd of the long seat. However, when he is the one standing and there are only three people on the seat, he demands his 4th seat and manages to take up an excessive area simply by putting his hands in his pockets and poking his bony elbows into his neighbors’ sides. The few occasions that he has to travel standing, he keeps his jacket unbuttoned, adjusting his height such that the flaps of his jacket hit the face of the seated passengers. He is delighted if someone is reading, he will stand against the window or whatever is the poor fellow’s source of light. As if that is not enough, he will withdraw himself for a brief spell just enough for the reader to open his book again and read a couple of words before Radhe moves back into position.

On the evening rush hour, Radhe makes sure that he is eating a “Bombay sandwich” all through the journey. Then with breadcrumbs and threads of tomato, onion and cucumber hanging from his mouth, he will walk along the length of the compartment saying “Side please”

My friend Radhe gets off the train in a jolly mood. Timidly, he walks home, staying out of the way of anyone he meets. He is not allowed a key, so he has to ring the bell. If anyone is home, they rarely refuse to open the door to him. But if neither his wife nor his son are to be found, Radhe sits on the doorstep until someone arrives.

No comments: