A Lot Less Like Before-revised

I wrote this story many years ago, leaving it at an abrupt, unsatisfying point. Finally, I  found what was needed to  complete it. I don't understand the man-woman relationship any better  than I did then. Except perhaps now I accept the chaos without questioning. Hope it makes for a good read.
-24 July 2011


A Lot Less Like Before

The milk began to simmer,shortly it came to a boil and started to spill over.Sharada heard the soft sound of it from the living room and rushed into the kitchen, leaving the music class midway.A few students giggled, some stifled a smile.She returned to the class with a sombre face and resumed a 'kirtana' in Hindolam. Purushottam who would usually sit alongside, listening to the twenty odd students practice, was still sleeping.It was he, who would keep a watchful eye on the milk, letting Sharada take the lessons uninterrupted.It had been so, all these years.Today, he simply slept.

Purushottam lay half-awake in bed.He knew he had to tell Sharada sooner or later.He had been putting it off since two days.He feared her reaction.Would she fume at him or would she sob to herself and curse her fate for being married to him, he did not know.At half past seven,the class began to leave, forming an unruly pattern of dusty footprints on the corridor floor. The titter-tatter awoke Purushottam.He draped a plain white lungi over his waist and walked into the kitchen , rubbing his bare chest.He felt the hair on his chest, strangely it turned white.Although he was only a little over thirty and never really grayed.

Sharada leaned over the kitchen counter, pouring out the coffee. Her damp hair was loosely knotted at the end,letting a few curls drop onto the forehead.She tucked the end of her sari, the creases revealing a certain impatience of manner. Purushottam stood right behind her and moved his hands over her waist, gently ,feeling its softness with his fingertips.He bent over, to her ear and softly whispered, " I know, I overslept today. I was so tired". She did not move. With a swift move , she jut her elbow into his stomach. He moved back, with a grimace. He wouldn't tell her now.She turned around, took his hand, the thrust the coffee glass into it and walked out. The coffee was a hot. A little sugar too less.

He sat on the bed, staring at the floor, counting all the small squares in one big square. He carried on, counting all the big squares.Just as the numbers added up, two large feet came into view, a toe ring on each. " Aren't you getting late?", Sharada's voice boomed in his ears.She then laid a pair of neatly ironed clothes on the bed and walked away, talking under her breath. His heart sank.He had to tell her that he lost his job, a sixth in four months.But then it was hardly his kind of a job. He certainly was never made to be a loan recovery agent.

After losing a supervisor's job in a supermarket, it was Sharada's uncle who placed him here. She had stoutly refused to return home if he dint take it up. He had told her, it wasn't his fault. Two kids would always come to the store, drop the things off the shelves ,only when he was around. Then stand apart, clicking their tongues and shaking their heads, as if it was all his fault. For the first two times nobody said anything, the third time they simply stared. You see, the kids were so well behaved. Nobody ever saw them do a thing. It never bothered her, " bringing home money is a man's duty", she would say, " who cares about what went wrong".

And so he joined as a loan recovery agent with a pawn broker in the neighborhood. At first ,he laughed. A thin wiry man, all of five feet and five. "How will HE bully anyone into giving the money back", the pawn broker reasoned and burst out laughing, till tears streamed down his pock-marked face. The uncle nudged Purushottam who said,"Please give me a chance sir, if you want, you can send me right now.I'll get the money, surely." The sad face of the pleading man convinced the broker and Purushottam was sent to the house of a hosiery shop owner as a test. He had to exact two lakh rupees. At the place, Purushottam met the said person , surprisingly he for his age he was nervy and strung. The minute Purushottam mentioned the debt, he took him aside and said," Yes, yes....I remember. Please don't worry. I have arranged for the money. I was going to bring it today".

" Since I have come, please give it to me. I will take it myself, you will not have to bother going so far", so saying Purushottam talked him into giving the money to him. The hosiery store owner who was only too glad to never visit the broker again, gave it away. This one instance sealed his job. " There are many ways of convincing people, you see it is an art", he would tell Sharada many times later, resting on her lap. It pleased him, to please her.

But this was not to be forever. The task of threatening people was too hard on his heart. He was once sent to the house of one Madanlal Patwari , who had just died. He owed five lakhs. Now, his son was to repay the money. He somehow managed to make his way into the house, saying a thousand 'excuse me's in the large gathering of mourners. Inside the house Shri Madanlal was lying on the floor, a few tens of garlands thrown over him. A rather large woman was sobbing loudly, as a group of women consoled her. Purushottam stood with his back to the wall dumbstruck.One by one the mourners who came to pay their last respects asked him to move, some shoved. After half an hour he was still leaning against the wall, lost in one of the folds of the heavy curtain, hardly perceivable. He even wiped his eyes with the curtain cloth. With so many people crying, he could hardly contain himself. 

"He was a nice man , you know. Great person. Did so many things in his lifetime."-a short, man said to Purushottam. 

He only nodded,"yes yes".

"God takes away all good people, what to do"- the man said again and another man joined the party. " He never even killed an ant". The three of them stood watching the proceedings, listening to all the anecdotes.A little while later, Purushottam too paid his respects, consoled the dead man's desolate wife saying,"Don't worry, time will heal the wounds" and went back. The pawn brokers rage was incomparable to anything he had witnessed. He almost killed Purushottam.But then how could he have demanded money.

After a spate of such incidents, the employer had warned him enough. He thought that a man with a brain was better than one with muscle.But this one had too much of a heart.Then came the last straw.

On the way to the building the avenue was lined with a line of lights, blinking every ten seconds.Marigold flowers were strung into garlands and hung across the corridor. Purushottam felt like the only underdressed person, the entire marriage party was decked in finery. He walked away from the crowd, he dint want any curious kid to ask him the way to the toilets or fetch some water. He only stopped once to ask a man for Ramakrishna Sharma. He was shown a room to the right. He was asked to remind Mr.Sharma that he had already mortgaged the house and that he must do no more.In a well furnished room, Purushottam found an elderly man ,hands held at the back, looking outside the window.He decided, he would not relent this time. He shall prove his worth. 

" Sri Gurukumar, your pawn broker sent me", he said. He liked the way his voice sounded, iron. The man turned around.

"Mr.Sharma, I have come to remind you that you must repay the loan or lose your house.You shall no get any more money from us.Remember that"The man turned red in the face. Purushottam , raised an eyebrow, looked deep and left. That night he had a satisfying sleep.

The next morning, Gurukumar, was unusually grim.Last night's good work dint reach his ears probably. Purushottam decided to tell him anyway.

"Sir, last night, I did what you wanted me too, sir.I'm sure he'll repay."

The pawn broker looked at him, " The marriage was called off", he announced.Purushottam fell silent, "but sir, you always say it does not matter to us", he asked, trying to understand Gurukumar's thoughts."Sharma is my friend, I wanted to warn him , so that he will not go overboard with gifts to the groom.And you spoke yesterday to the father of the groom.They were already so adamant."he said, without lifting his head while counting notes. Purushottam did not speak.He knew what he had done.The pawn broker finished counting, gave the notes to him and said,"you must leave".

Sharada would never take it well. He would go to the bank again, like he has been doing since two days.Sit there pretending to be waiting for his token number, filling in the forms for the uneducated people coming there.Nobody would know.He could come back as usual.He would tell Sharada on another day.The bank was bustling with people. Today, a clerk recognized Purushottam and even smiled.By 11.00 he had already written five forms and got six passbooks updated. He was talking to a person about tax concessions in the budget, when he thought he saw Sharada. She was in a green sari, one he hadn't seen, her hair loosely plaited. She was talking to a man, far younger than him. Purushottam stopped listening.He felt incapable of processing any sound. 

The man across the counter pointed to Purushottam and said ,"he would help you with this, he's here to do that.Ask him and give him a ten or something." 

Sharada turned in the direction of his finger. Thats when she first spotted him. His eyes were fixed on her. Rude and angry. She stared at him, her ears slowly going red and teeth tightening behind her lips.He did it again.She knew it.

He kept thinking, maybe this wasn't happening, it wasn't real.

Before his anger could burst to the surface, shame tightened the knot in his neck and pulled his head down. He looked away and she stomped out, the young man trailing her with a quizzical look. Purushottam sat in the bank through noon, thinking a million things, all of them may-be's. He recollected their wedding and Sharada, docile and believing. How she had admired him when he told her about his work, how lovingly she gazed at his certificates. And yet, they arrived to this point- with him dancing on needle tips, to somehow prove that he could provide. Little by little, a bottom stuck piece of suspicion grew in strength and threw him off his balance. 

He felt for sure that Sharada had taken a lover. Her recent coldness, her impatience and her constant criticism started to make sense. Purushottam walked home in huff, offering passers-by a strangely wooden and hostile smile. Wasn't Sharada taking extra care of how she looked these days?  Flowers in the hair, eyes kohl-lined. Was it really for those innocent, prepubescent kids she tutored?  When was the last time she let him hold her, when was the last time any words exchanged to convey love?

Purushottam ran up the stairs and knocked hard on the door. She must be there, unless of course she was too ashamed to face him and decided to run away. The door gave away, it wasn't locked. He looked around the living room, she wasn't there, so he gave a shout in the coarsest voice, "Sharada"

She did not appear. He shouted again and felt belittled at the lack of response. 

Purushottam walked into their room and found her lying on the bed, facing the wall. 

" Sharada!!", he thundered, " I have been calling you".

She turned and got up to face him, a movement betraying preparedness. He grabbed her hair with one arm, her wrist with another. A few flowers tucked into her hair came loose and fell to the ground. She did not protest, nor try to break free. If anything, she was struck by the violence in his eyes.

"How long have you been sleeping around?", he asked, tightening his grip.

" Is he any good?"

" Does he earn well?"


" Do you love him?"


The questions came in a barrage. 

She could have told him that the man was helping her get a job at the music school. Could have told him that she knew Purushottam lost his job and was waiting for him to tell that.

And all she did was to let tears stream through her large almond eyes, more in the manner of evidence than rebuttal. 

He tightened his grip on her hair, it was only fair that she must feel the pain he thought. But when all he got from her were tears, he looked at her in horror. He was angry, he was resentful, but he never believed even for an instant that she might have been with anyone else. An idea of a heaven, safely tucked away in memory crumbled to bits. Purushottam let go of her.

Sharada shaken and saddened, packed her few things and walked away. He slouched against the wall, watched her glass eyed, with deadpan silence. As she made her way to her mother's place, she kept playing back his words and his questions. She could have refuted his allegations, cornered him over his guilt. He would have believed her. She knew he wanted to believe her. 

But did she not smile more around that other young man ?Did she not become rosy at his recurring compliments ? Even let him hold her hand. His hands were so soft and his touch so tender. He would make a good lover, she thought. But it did not matter and it never did.

 Maybe after a few weeks, Purushottam might find a job and pluck some courage to visit her. Maybe he would plead her and beg her to come home. She might even relent and go with him. But it can be said for sure that it will be a lot less like before.