Story no. 3

The Silent Cry

Crying is associated with our basic nature. People cry in sorrow. My mother cries when she is overjoyed. Children cry when their demands are not fulfilled. Lovers shed tears in love and I have seen people crying in cinema halls while watching emotional scenes.

After Sharhrukh Khan started crying in his films, people have started thinking that its okay for males to cry in public. This used to be a taboo earlier. Thank God, people have not followed Salman Khan in similar way, else you would find half naked people driving bikes to offices.

There is a cry, which we do not hear through our ears and no tears are visible to our normal eyes. This is silent cry. People silently cry in the situation of helplessness.


Here we will talk about one such silent cry.

Adventure

One week .After Arvind left us. I wanted to thank him for his counseling, that helped me manage the whole situation in matured way.

He had been especially attentive to Arvind in last two months.

Dr. Gupta is a minimalist. He can survive on water for a day or two and it really does not matter, if he has eaten his last meal or not.

I always found him in his white shirt, grey suite, his rimless glasses every day only with different neck tie as a change.

His home has two portions. Ground floor is simple hall with few chairs and a large office desk. On one side of which, he sits and the other side his visitors. Unlike other doctors, he does not see patients at home and hence does not have normal apparatus to monitor blood pressure, writing pads, pens, table lamps etc. He only uses this space to meet people for counseling sessions, for which he does not charge.

On first floor, he has his home with two rooms and kitchen. Kitchen is fully equipped courtesy his long serving cook, who ensure that Dr. Gupta is supplied with very strict diet for last 10 years. For some strange reason, the cook himself follows very strict regime.

Other two rooms have absolutely no furniture. Books are stacked neatly in one room and other room has a mattress on floor with a pillow and sheet for Dr. Gupta to catch up his daily sleep of 4 hours.

Whole city knows that one needs no appointment to meet him as he is never home on week days. He spends almost 18 hours of the day in hospital and takes care of his daily routine and sleep in rest of six hours.

On weekend, he spends time in his room filled with books to research and stays updated with all the knowledge he needs to perform his work at hospital, except for Sunday evening, which is reserved for his counselees to come and get equipped to manage difficult situations that families of his patients are going through.

I had gone to his home on one such Sunday evening to thank him and was surprised to know that he is not conducting his usual counseling sessions on that day.

“Is every thing alright, doctor?” I asked entering his house on first floor, as ground floor was locked.

“Doctor is not in, he has gone out to meet some one”, replied his cook in broken English.

He was sipping tea sitting on the floor as there was no furniture in the room..

This surprised me a little bit, as I did not expect reply in English from the cook.

I sat on the mattress of Dr. Gupta, as there was no other place to sit in the room. The cook silently got up to prepare another cup of tea for me without even asking.

I hesitantly asked. “Can I ask you one question?

You seem literate person, then why did you choose to be Dr. Gupta’s cook.”

He told me that he belonged to scheduled caste and came from same village, which Dr. Gupta belonged to.

Dr. Gupta’s father was a rich farmer and managed to send his son to city for his schooling and further studying medicine.

The Cook said, “I studied in the school at village where my father worked at the farm of Dr. Gupta’s father. I even got admission in medical college on reservation quota but could not finish my studies for some personal reasons.”

I found him interesting and decided to ask few more questions, till Dr Gupta came back from his visit.

“Can I ask one more question?” I asked.

“Sure” came simple reply from the cook.

“Why did you choose to be Dr. Gupta’s cook, when you studied medicine. You could have still been working at some hospital as male nurse, attendant or any job, where you can put your skills to use.” I asked.

Another simple reply came from the cook, “I am utilizing my skills. One of my skills is to cook food and I do that for Dr. Gupta. He will not eat any thing, if its not cooked by me.”

“Not able to digest the fact?” He asked gauging my face and expression of dissatisfaction.

Let me tell you a story. He said

“In the last decade of previous millennium, year 1991 to be precise, there were hardly any opportunities for people to get government jobs and every father wanted his son to be either a doctor, engineer or a chartered accountant.

I was fortunate enough to get into a medical college despite of scoring lower marks than some of the more competent people. Just because I was born to a scheduled cast land less peasant. I even got scholarship to do six months long research in United States at that time.”

The cook continued, “This was not an ordinary thing in those days. My father could have been fired from the farms of Dr. Gupta’s father just because a scheduled caste young man dared to compete with his son as Dr. Gupta was also studying medicine, although in much bigger college in city.”

“Half of the village was present at Delhi International Airport to see me off to United States. I was garlanded and my mother applied red powder on my forehead and performed prayers at the airport for my success.” Cook said with his eyes staring the wall in front of him.

“My mother cried non stop reminding me that I should take care of myself. I should not eat cow’s meat, I should not befriend local Americans as they may spoil my Indian values. She even knitted a sweater for me to prevent me from the American winter”

I landed at the JFK airport and was received by another Indian student, who was already staying there for past three months. He had borrowed a ford escort from one of local friends. As the car pulled out of airport on I-675, the interstate highway, I was surprised to see roads as wide as the whole lake in our village.

We crossed some very crowded areas, very complex flyovers and long bridges over the see before reaching pulling into LI Pkway, an area that looked like residential community. I had not seen such long bridges and was afraid, if the bridge will not break while our car is on the middle of bridge. I was reading hanuman chalisa to avoid fear.

My friend, Rajkumar pulled the car over to the side of road. There were thick greenery mainly trees on both sides of road with dried maple leaves all over and there was one house on one side of the road. The road was very wide that cars were parked in line on one side of the road, still it allowed so much space on the road, that two more cars could pass each other without any problem.

81, Sugar ball lane, Long Iceland.

Was written on the house, that we entered. This house was owned by an Indian doctor who owned an acre of land around the house and had almost 200 trees planted around his house. Next visible house was far away and would have required at least 5 minutes of brisk walk.

The Doctor had 5 garages to park cars in his house and he only had four cars, hence he had allowed Rajkumar to use one of the garages as his place of residence. I would spend next few months in the same house with permission from the Doctor.

There I met many people from various countries, who came to study variety of subjects.

As part of scholarship, we received fixed allowance from university, that took care of our daily meals.

We had to work on Saturday and Sunday at the local laundry to earn 12 dollars every weekend and that helped us survive for rest of the week. This money was very crucial for us as it helped us in keeping up with other students, who found it strange, if we did not drink beer and if we did not smoke.

Raj and I used to visit local neighborhood pub every alternate day to “unwind” after the hard day at university.

First time in pub, I felt guilty of wasting my hard earned money. My mother’s crying face came before my eyes. Due to poverty, my father did not buy the much needed new pair of glasses, as he could not read the letters, I sent. Here I was working hard for two days, earning 12 dollars that I had to spend drinking beer for which, I never developed taste.

Raj had clearly told me that this was not our village. I had to behave like an American, when in America, unless I wanted to invite trouble and be ridiculed by local students. Raj had clearly told me to vacate the house, incase I did not drink beer and matched steps with him.

I had no choice, as I had to complete my six months and my research and had to go back to never look back to America. I wanted to open small dispensary in my village and provide much needed primary health care.

The pub was frequented by regular members. Every one knew each other by first name and waved at each other upon meeting. The pub owner knew all the students and students had special corner where they sat regularly.

On one side, there was a juke box which played music upon inserting coins. I never had a coin to spare for listening to a song, so I never bothered about it. On the other side, there was huge billiards table that was always surrounded by boys with occasional presence of a girl or two, which the boys flaunted like trophies won in sports.

Thick cloud of some from cigarettes lit by the players was reason apart from presence of those trophy girls, why I never went near the table.

I had a corner seat, which no body occupied as it was too out of sight for regulars. Raj sat besides me. These seats faced the whole of pub from its obscure corner and we watched all the activities every other day.

One such day, we were draining our hard earned money on green small bottles of beer called pints, Raj pushed me with his elbow in my stomach, hinting to see in the direction, his eyes were.

I saw two girls sitting on far side of the hall near juke box. Raj and I were looking at them with our mouths open. One of the girls was blonde and wore white shirt with blue turquoise blue trousers. She wore matching blue very large and thick rings in her ears and had striking match in her shoes. She also carried matching small purse in her hand. She obviously paid attention to the details, when it came to her appearance. The other one had black long hair with a hint of burgundy in them. She wore all black skirt blouse and black footwear.

We had never seen them earlier in that bar.

One of the girls smiled at us and both of us started giggling and jostling with each other in excitement like school kids.

Both the girls looked at each other and smiled and left the bar.

Raj and I came back home. I don’t know about Raj, but I could not concentrate on my studies for next two days and eagerly awaited the evening of next day, when we were scheduled to go to the neighborhood pub.

We went and ordered our usual drinks and occupied our usual seats. The first thing upon seating, I did was to search for the girls in the bar.

There were present. On the same place, where we had seen them the other day.

This time, Both Raj and I were prepared not to behave like puppies and made sure that we do not look desperate in search of the girls. We pretended to be engaged in our conversation while sipping our beer.

In a much practiced way, occasionally Raj looked around as if he was searching for an old friends and then he ended up looking at the girls and once again in much practiced way, he smiled at them, which got a similar favor in return from those girls.

Like the tail of the kite roaming free in the sky, I pretended to follow Raj and looked around exactly in the same direction, where he was searching for a friend, that did not exist and within moments of exchange of smiles between Raj and the girls, I parked my eyes on the girls.

I imitated Raj in smile and was delighted to receive back the favor. Much later, I realized that my heart thumped faster than it did in the college gym on tread mill.

I was delighted to have exchanged smiles with those girls and that was my first non verbal interaction with any girl in America.

By next day, Raj and I had decided who liked whom. Raj wanted to extend friendship to the blonde one and I was no one to choose, but to pick the black one to pursue.

For next one week, we continued to go to pub, sit on our usual desk, search for fictitious friends, land up our search on the girls and exchange smiles.

In our fourth or fifth meeting, one of the girls waved at us with her right hand and I was surprise to see my right hand waving automatically without any instruction from my brain to the hand.

Between the two of us, Raj was the leader and had decided to take lead. As per our agreed plans, we finished our drinks faster than usual and decided to walk out of pub before the girls did. This would allow us to cross the path near their chairs and Raj had told me that he would say “Hi” to them.

Raj exactly did that and while passing by, he simply said “Hi” to them, which was reciprocated immediately with warm smile.

Two more days of research and were back to the pub. Knowing my limits, I had provided Raj to take further lead and challenged him that he could not strike a conversation with those ladies. A challenge, that he took seriously and told me that he will prove that he can strike conversation with them.

In the pub, we again finished our drink faster than usual and decided to walk out. Raj was walking a step ahead of me and I was following him thru the crowded space. Suddenly Raj stopped near the ladies and said, “Hi, I am Raj”.

“I am Angela”, the blonde girl replied and extended her hand to Raj for hand shake.

Raj politely shook her hand and moved towards the brunette, who was waiting and in almost mechanical way, she said, “I am Sophia, nice to meet you”

As Raj had moved further a bit towards Brunette for introduction, that created an appropriate space between me and the blonde girl, who offered her hand to me for hand shake and again said, “Hi I am Angele”

I shook her hand and bowed a little bit. I could not even pronounce my name to her.

Raj intervened and introduced me.

Next was the girl with black hair, who looked at me thru her shining eyes and shook my hand.

“We are studying medicine in the university at India and are here for short term assignment” Raj said to strike the conversation.

“We are studying psychology here”, the blonde replied

“That’s interesting” Raj said.

I had almost started worshipping Raj by now, as I never thought he would be able to carry the conversation thus far. But he was cruising though the conversation without any hiccups.

Next one week, we met thrice, shared the table, drank together and got to know a little more about each other.

The girls said, they were from Pennsylvania, the mountain state and were living in a rented apartment. We introduced ourselves as paying guests of the prominent doctor without disclosing the real residence being one of the garages of the kind doctor.

Suddenly the heard earned 12 dollars earned every weekend started looking different to me. I no longer felt guilt of not buying reading glasses for my father. My mother’s crying face no longer appeared in front of my eyes. Buying beer with those hard earned 12 dollars suddenly started seeming a great idea to me.

It was a thanks giving holiday in US and it was a long weekend with Friday being holiday, the kind doctor told us that he along with his family is flying to Houston to show the famous zoo to his kids.

Most of regular visitors of the pub were students, who had also gone to meet their mother, who lived with her boy friend, or with their father who had divorced and lived with another woman.

Strangely these students had no point of view or objection in their parents living apart from each other. They simply called their biological parent as father or mother. As if the live in partner of their parent did not exist in the same house.

The pub was near empty and there were very few people inside, making it much easier to talk to the girls instead of shouting in an attempt of getting heard on the noisier days.

This silence allowed us to convey the message that we had the whole of doctors’ house at our disposal and the girls expressed their desire to see the house. A proposal, that we could not refuse even in our dreams.

After the drinks, all four of us came to the house and sat for some time, had a couple of more drinks, whisky and rum this time with some English music playing on the cassette player. The girls got up to dance to those songs and under influence of the alcohol, we also shook a leg or two.

Offcourse, we couldn’t enact Amitabh Bachchan or Dharmendra in our dancing skills and it would be far too strange for American girls in the 1991, when whole of America moonwalked on the tunes of Michael Jackson. Still we matched the steps with them, raised our hands like them and shook our stomachs to give an impression, that we can also dance in an American way.

The brunette went near Raj and kept both her hands on his shoulders facing him. Raj also tried placing his hands on her shoulders, but was struggling to find the right posture and space to spread his arms. That is when the girl lowered her arms and kept them around his waist so that he could place his arms around her shoulders.

She was wearing a shoulder less top and I could sense burning in my fingers upon seeing Raj’s bare hands resting on Sophia’s bare shoulders.

Before I could do any thing, Angela the blonde came from behind and held me from my back. I almost choked and could not breath as this was something more than I could expect. I somehow managed to smile and continued shaking my stomach in the same fashion as hers.

After a while of dancing, in which Raj and Sophie were equally getting cozy and I was being literally seduced by the blonde, the cassette stopped and we came back from the cloud nine to the doctor’s house.

We thanked each other for great company and bid good bye to each other. While leaving the house, Sophie kissed Raj on his cheek. I was waiting for Angela to respond, and perhaps Angela knew it.

She made it obvious to wait for longer than normal and then approached near me. Just when I was expecting her hot lips to rest on my burning cheeks or neck, she came closer to me.

There was barely an inch of difference between her lips and mine. This is when my heart stopped beating. I never thought, that Angela would kiss me on my lips.

And then, before I could feel her lips on my lips, she asked, “is that all? Is this why you called us to your home? Just to drink dance and go back?”

Both the them left giggling and waving their handbags.

Raj and I were standing stunned.

What were they expecting ? Can we actually get laid with them ? Is this real ? Raj asked me to pinch him to ensure, we were not dreaming.

I was so scared that I could not even pinch him hard. To be very honest, I was wearing a baggy trouser, else, Raj could have seen my shivering legs and would have taken me to hospital.

Raj was excited and was cursing himself for not going farther. He was repenting about missing the golden opportunity.

Somewhere deep down in my heart, I also repented, but was still to come to terms with the idea of making love to a very attractive, young, hot American girl.

Raj promised me that next time we go to the pub, we will meet them again and try to go farther. I told Raj that the girls made fun of us while leaving and ridiculed at our inability to prove our manhood. They will never meet us again. Even if they meet, I will be too ashamed to go in front of them

Raj tried explaining me the dynamics of flirting and said, its never a case of blink the eye and gone. You can keep on trying till you succeed. He tried justifying that the girls needed this as much as we did. He tried assuring me that its okay to try once again in the pub. I agreed only upon one promise, that if the girls refused, we will never pursue them again. Raj accepted that promise.

Next week, we again were in Pub with the girls indeed present on their regular seats drinking their regular beer. This time Raj decided to go and sit next to them instead of going to his regular seat. I followed him like a sheep follows the shepherd. We sat, drank and chatted as if nothing had happened previous night.

I was surprised to see this and started believing in Raj, that its okay to miss a shot. You even get three strikes in the game of baseball, that is so popular in America.

The Girls indeed, invited us to their house on the weekend. Raj was a fast learning and I had no doubt in his ability to adapt to the situation. I knew, this time, Raj will not fail, but some how I was equally confident that I will not even have an erection due to fear, shyness, mental block around value of abstinence, that our Indian society taught us. So there was no point in going and getting ridiculed again.

While returning from Pub, I knew, Raj would talk about plans of weekend. I had thought of a plan to escape the situation. I went thru the plan twice while walking back home.

Once we reached home, Raj asked, if I was going with him on the weekend to their rented apartment. I replied a confident Yes and matter was closed for three days.

Come weekend, and both were excited since morning but never spoke to each other about our possible encounter in the evening. Suddenly in the afternoon, I complained of severe stomach ache and I went to toilet four times in two hours.

I went in toilet, sat for a minute and flushed the already cleaned toilet and came out. Raj knew that I had upset stomach and was suffering with dysentery.

“you might not be able to go tonight to their house, since you are having stomach trouble?”, Raj asked me.

“Yes”, that is what I wanted and what better than Raj himself saying this and allowing me to stay at home.

“Great, then I am going alone.” He quickly replied fearing I may ask him as well to stay back with me. He had made up his mind to explore the uncharted territories.

Raj went at around 6.00 PM and I did not expect him to return over night. I laid down in my bed imagining the kind of activities Raj would be indulging in with two girls. In my imagination, I saw him dancing with both girls hanging around him. I saw him lying in bed with one girl without any clothes. In my imagination, I also saw him together with both girls with not a single piece of cloth on their body.

After a while my imagination gave up and I fell asleep. The sleep was disturbed next day morning when the door bell rang. I did not expect any phone calls at that time and was surprised, why our landlord and kind doctor would be ringing the garage door bell at this time.

I opened the door and doctor was standing at the gate. He indicated me to follow him to his house. I saw Raj standing in the drawing room.

The doctor said, “Okay, now Raj, tell us what happened”

Raj started, “We had known two girls for last few months and today, they invited us to their house for drinks.”

Indicating at me, Raj continued, “He had upset stomach and could not go, but I went to their rented apartment”

“Hmmmm, then what happened?” Asked doctor

Raj continued in his low voice, “I reached at their place and found them waiting for me. The enquired about him and I told that he is having upset stomach. They expressed, how sorry they were not to have him, but said they did not mind me alone there.”

“Hmmm” grumbled doctor signaling Raj to continue.

Raj continued, “Upon reaching there, we sat for some time, spoke and then they fixed a few drinks for three of us. We had a couple of drinks together, when the girls switched on the music and I got to dance with them. After which, I lost consciousness.

Next thing I remember waking up and finding myself in a bath tub filled with ice cubes. My whole body was aching and I called for both girls and got no response. I tried to get out of the bath tub, but could not do so. I struggled a bit and reached out to the house phone hanging on the wall of bathroom and dialed 911 from the phone”

“the phone was responded by nearest duty officer in police station and I explained them about drinking with girls, losing consciousness and finding myself in a bath tub filled with ice cube after waking up”

“What did the officer say?” doctor asked

Raj replied, “police officer asked me to stay where I am and not to move, till he reached the address, I gave him.”

“Why” Doctor demanded.

“Because, the girls had removed one of my kidney, while I laid unconscious after falling prey to their tricks” Raj replied while sobbing.

There was a long silence.

Tea had finished, I was sitting on the mattress at the house of Dr. Gupta and the cook was sobbing. His sobbing sound brought me back from the dream world, cook had weaved thru his words.

“Oh My God !!!” I exclaimed.

“Who is this Rajkumar and how is he related to you being cook at Dr. Gupta’s house ?” I tried connecting the dots.

The cook stared at me in disbelief for a while and said, “don’t you know it ?”

I nodded my head in negative.

He raised is left hand with index finger pointing towards name plate at the house. It read,

“Dr. Rajkumar Gupta”

After a tough attempt of controlling his sobs, cook said in feeble voice, “I feel, that I should have stopped him from going there. I was too selfish to have stayed at home and let him face the danger alone. Since that day, I cook for Dr. Gupta to ensure that he can live as long as possible with one kidney”

I must admit that I have never seen such a servitude in whole of my life.