Unto death

Till death do us part…

It was another one of those boring days, with nothing to do. Just playing with friends in the gardens of our homes and the road outside. Anything to keep us out of the house and away from the dreary books of learning. There really wasn’t anything much or specific to do, other than complain of a boring day and play outside with friends. We had grown up together in this neighbourhood and the bunch of us would always spend our evenings and holidays together in this familiar neighbourhood. Yet the despair of having nothing really to do, only fueled the zest to grow up faster, and make something of this world. Not of this life but of this world. This life was too small to conquer, after all as someone said, it goes on. But the world was waiting for us, to break away from the shackles of adolescence and be a man unto ourselves.

Now looking back, we could only think how beautiful those days were without a moment of boredom. What a life it was, spent among friends. I slowly turned back from the large windows of the hospital hallway to look at the doctor striding towards me, with his team of nurses and attendants. They were not smiling. I sat down quietly as they explained that my friend, Ram, had a heart attack and was being treated in the ICU and would be operated upon within the next hour. The doctor said it was still life threatening but they were doing all they can. I stood up and turned back to the rain drenched windows, as the interminable wait started. It was almost three days till I could speak to him again, as he slowly recovered in the hospital room. That evening as I trudged home after another day at the hospital, I looked back on life once more and the story that Ram just told me.

We three grew up together. It was a small neighbourhood in a growing city in south India called Hyderabad. Often neglected and yet always aspiring, with a burden of a glorious and rich history. That was the best way to describe the city of those days. Of course we didn’t know of all this then. We knew our world and our small neighbourhood and had a restlessness about us, and of wanting to grow up. In some ways, our story is that of Hyderabad. Neglected and yet aspiring. And our history - we were told of our grandfathers who were rich and famous in the villages they came from. As we grew up we went our different ways to make our own lives. Ram was the steady one in our group. He always accepted what came to him in his life and worked hard to meet every challenge. Bittu was the adventurous one. He always challenged the obvious and was always frustrating to others. But for us, he was fun to be with. I was the watcher. I just watched as life flowed by. We always bugged Ram to aspire higher, while trying to calm down Bittu to choose a more steady path. I have no idea what they told me to do, because like the others, we all had a mind of our own and did what we thought! We had bailed out Bittu on several occasions, with his parents, his teachers, his friends and colleagues. Ram never needed bailing out. After all he was the steady one.

The world had changed since those simpler days of boredom and happiness. It was all about catching up now and yet being thoroughly unhappy. Bittu and Ram had gone to America to pursue their careers. I had stayed back and we only got together occasionally. Now after 35 years, they were all set to return home. Ram landed first and as we caught up, all we could talk of was when Bittu would join us.

The next week Bittu landed and soon enough we were laughing away at home in our own secluded room on the terrace of our old home in the old neighbourhood. I had managed to rent it for an year from the new owners. The house was unused anyway and as is the case these days, they just seemed to buy it as an investment to park surplus cash. The night was still young but we were old. Jet lag, age and every other known reason was creeping up on us as we steadily denied them the pleasure of putting us down. Bittu had not lost the fire of his youth and Ram seem only more mellower than we first knew him, if that was ever possible. Bittu told us stories of his run ins with the police in the US, of his joining several organisations to protest what seemed to us to be every known lost cause to the world. And some unknown and unheard of causes too. He was still a rebel without a cause and yet a champion of the down trodden and a firebrand spirit to the core. They say people change with the times but Bittu wasn’t one of them.

Ram was as mellow as he always was. He spoke as if he was a part of the furniture in the office. And yet we knew he was a pillar of strength to his family and I am sure a wall of support in the office. He spoke of being surprised by number of messages he got when he left his work place. And yet he penned it down to the courtesies of the US culture. He still didn’t realise his own worth and the strength he brought into a room by his own presence. The room couldn’t have had more contrasting personalities. Bittu thought the world revolved around him and his presence gave others a reason to live. His opinion was the only one that mattered and he was the judge, the jury and the executioner.

As the night slowly edged into an early dawn, we called our taxis to head off in three separate directions. Bittu to his hotel. Ram to his in-laws place. And I was heading back to my own house. It had been a tiring night propelled by memories and fueled by laughter. But the body had become a slave of age as I slumped in backseat of the taxi and soon dozed off. I was awoken by the driver in front of my home. I was happy at last for inexplicable reasons and gave the driver a big tip. I quickly shuffled in and went to bed. I was awoken by the incessant ringing of the bell at home and found the driver again. It was 3 hours earlier that he had dropped me. He handed my my phone and said I had forgotten it in his car. He said it had been ringing incessantly for the past hour.

I was still drowsy and bewildered. I checked the phone to see many missed calls from Ram. I quickly called Ram and that is when he told me how his morning unfolded. He had left a few minutes after Bittu. His taxi driver was fast and a little rash and in a few minutes on the third traffic signal from the old neighbourhood, he had pulled along side the taxi of Bittu. As the light turned green Ram’s taxi accidentally scraped Bittu’s taxi and the drivers started quarreling right there in the middle of the road on that early morning. As expected Bittu got in the middle of it and started explaining to them the basics of driving. They ignored him and continued fighting which only infuriated Bittu even more. Ram couldn’t take it anymore and stepped out of the car to help sort it out or at the very least pull Bittu out of it. Ram was insisting that they book another cab to leave but Bittu would have none of it. He was intent on sorting this out with the drivers. He pulled them both back violently and said he would have to call the police, if they didn’t stop. By then a small morning crowd had gathered. Some were curious onlookers, while some had an opinion of their own, while others just wanted the cars moved, so the traffic could be cleared. But nearly all wanted to see some action to spice up their morning routines. Ram was getting tired and his legs didn’t seem to want to hold up. He sat down on the pavement to just take a deep breath but the crowd around him was overwhelming. The crowd seem to growing by the second and it was getting noisier. He quietly slipped back into the cab to rest a little. He had tried to drag Bittu back but Bittu would have none of it. He saw the police arriving and some time later the ambulance and that is all he remembered. He woke up in the hospital next.

In the hospital that day, I had badgered Ram what had happened and all he could say was “I wish I’d been there earlier. It might have made all the difference. So all I can tell you is why he was murdered.”

That day as I walked home, I realised that Ram was the steady one and again blaming himself. I could have made a difference. And as my taxi drove past the lights where Bittu was murdered, I thought to myself, “I wish I’d been there earlier. It might have made all the difference. So all I can tell you is why he was murdered.”