The night that was their last

Synopsis: 

Forty years after two teenage lovers part ways, they are brought together under very unusual circumstances. The death of one brings the other back, only to revisit a past that is tormented by deception and a lie that has been hidden for far too long. The encounter with a six-month-old baby boy helps reveal a story that until then had never been told.

The short story has been shortlisted for the 2013 New Asian Writing Short Story Anthology. 

To read the story, click on the link below: 

http://www.new-asian-writing.com/2687/the-night-that-was-their-last-by-jane-borges/

To read my interview with New Asian Writing, visit the following link: 

http://www.new-asian-writing.com/naw-interview-with-jane-borges/

That drive to school...

The sky was still to open to the colour of time. A blanket of darkness had wrapped the early cold wintry morning and part of the town was still cocooned in the comfort of their beds. 

As the seconds hand of the clock ticked down and raised, from block to block the street lights slowly dimmed and the blackness grew paler, embedding itself in a dull shade of morning blue and grey. From within this fade, a pair of headlights emerged on the road, and the bus grew visible as it passed, solitary in its movement and alone at this hour. 

It hit the tarmac right across the building, with its ignition still on. The driver leaned out of the door, and then checked his watch. He continued the jittery to and fro movement for a few seconds, before he thrust his palm into the horn at the centre of the steering wheel. She hadn't come down from her flat as yet. After a flash of a minute, he horned again, and then looked straight up towards the balcony from where he was usually signaled to wait or leave. 

Another two minutes, he said to himself, and then he would leave. It was not like he wasn't used to this. The young girl always kept him waiting. He had been waiting for her for the last seven years, from when she was all of 5. But he blamed her less, and her parents more, for not being able to ready her for school on time. He couldn't wait for anyone this long, he had another bunch of children to pick up from across the town and drop to school by a sharp 6.30 am, before he started his second round. Yet, he waited, as he horned again. She would come, he knew. At least of all days, today. When she finally emerged from the entrance of her building some five minutes later, he smiled, relieved that it had not taken any longer, and that she had made it today.

Velu loved her, just like he loved his daughter, who was back home in the small village near Calicut in Kerala. She and her were of the same age, born only two days apart. It had been 10 years since he had seen his own daughter; circumstances as a school bus driver here, didn't help any better. The photographs his wife mailed him monthly, which he picked up from the postal office in Muscat, saw his daughter crawl, walk, talk and grow without knowing how her father looked like. He never sent photographs, and only restricted to weekly letters and monthly phone calls. He was afraid that his wife would worry at seeing him grey, wrinkle and thin in the dust of the desert in Oman. Velu wanted her to remember him as the man she had loved, and his daughter to know him as the handsomest father in the village as he had been, when she was born.    

Now, as he saw the 12-year-old girl approach his bus, he was reminded of how she compensated for all he had missed. He saw his daughter grow up through her eyes. Not to mention, how strikingly similar they looked. Their faces chubby and round, their skin a shade perfectly lighter than dark chocolate, eyes a deep black and hair pleated in a fashion only common to the two of them.  

"Velu uncle...," she mumbled as she entered the bus and sat behind the driver's seat, "I am sorry again. Tomorrow, I will wake up on time. Okay!" 

He smiled and started the bus. She was the only girl in the bus who referred to him as uncle, and not "driver" like the others reminded him as being.

"Don't sorry me Jaani. Next time, bus leave if you no come on time," he said, in broken English. 

The girl chortled, "Uncle...how many times should I tell you, my name is Jane, not Jaani."

"What to do...I can't say name like that. I so used to Jaani...now can't change."

"Okay," she said, and sat quietly.

All the children were dozing in the bus; to kill the silence, he played his favourite Yesudas track on the cassette player. Before he knew, a couple of them had woken up. "Not this song...please driver," they yelled. The girl was the only one who had the permission to head to the cassette player beside the driver's seat, and change the song with her own Backstreet Boys cassette. All the loneliness, has always been a friend of mine...

The song played, and lulled the children to sleep again. Though he did not understand the words, Velu loved the tune too, and would often deliberately put his native track, to get her to change it with his own. The Baackstreet Baays as he called them, helped him steer better. 

"Uncle, you like this song," she asked, in hushed tones.

"Ya...no tell anyone...ha. secret."   

"Okay, promise."

From tomorrow, he'd miss all this. He would not be able to speak to her, see her face, see her cry like she used to when she would enter the bus with a wound after having fallen on the playground, or see her smile as she had when she won those elocution competitions or scored full marks in a paper. An Omani driver, who for the last one month had been accompanying Velu on his pick up/drop trips, would take over. Velu had to break this to her, not like he thought she'd care. But she would have to come on time, or else, the Omani driver would leave. Having observed her delay, the local man had already warned Velu.

"Jaani...from tomorrow, sharp 5.55 am down okay."

"Yes uncle, I said I would come on time," she retorted quickly.

"No...I no there from tomorrow. Another uncle...he Omani. He no time for you, he no wait," he said.

"Why? Where are you going?"

"I don't know. May be I go home to Kerala."

"But why?" she asked again, dissatisfied.

"Omani Government ask all driver leave Muscat...so now, I pack up. My job finish."

"That is not right. The government is so unfair," she said, with the maturity of a teenager, though she still wasn't one.

"Ya. What to do?"

The conversation took a break from there, silence blanketing their fear of the unknown. Nobody spoke, not he, nor she. She stared right through the window, ruing as she watched the sun soak the sky, while he looked straight as he saw the school draw closer and closer. When they arrived, she was the last to get down, as if purposely halting her stay.

Before getting up from her seat, she asked, "Will you come to drop us today, or will we have that Omani driver?"

"Call him uncle," Velu said, immediately.

"No, I know only one driver uncle...Velu uncle."

His lips curved into a half-smile, not knowing what to say, as if a lump had stuck in his throat.

"Are you coming to pick us up today?"

"No. I going Kerala today." 

"Okay," she said curtly, and walked out of the bus, without another word. Velu watched her leave. Not a bye, not a thank you. He did not expect any of it. But he wished it had never ended, all so abruptly. 

Soon he would be with his daughter, and Jaani would be only a memory. Unlike his daughter, she wouldn't write to him or send photographs. This was the last vision he had to hold on to, the last sight of the girl. With these thoughts, running through his mind, he started the ignition to move the bus forward, the vehicle jerked as he veered it to the right, and from Jaani's seat, he heard something fall. He looked down. Below, was his favourite Backstreet Boys audio cassette.  

Dedicated to my school bus driver, Velu...A victim, or should I say, one of the handful, who fell prey to Omanisation 

What is Omanisation? 
(http://www.omanet.om/english/misc/omanise.asp)

       

Dreaming monsoon

I dreamt about you today,

My face flushed in sleep,

With the thought that you sprayed,

And on dry ground you weeped.

The earth's been parched and dry is the grass,

Man's temple dotted in sweaty beads,

We endured so long, this humid to pass,

And few even tilled the land till you paid heed. 

And now, before my eyes you lay,
In the sky a dull grey heavy mass supreme, 

I stare in awe a conscious sway,

As you unburden yourself, to sprinkle alive a dream. 

I dreamt about you today,

Your sight it made me leap,

How you parted the skies and wet'ted' both land and bay,  

before you washed the ocean deep.

The dilemma of fairy tales: To believe or not to…

Ask me what I'm most smug about and pat comes my reply, my parents' "unimaginably true love story". 

A boy of 12, falling in love with a girl of eight, only to be snubbed by her throughout school life. At the age of 25 (during a visit with friends to Mount Mary in Bandra) — when he's still holding on to those beautiful memories of how she once sashayed into the school exam hall, borrowed his expensive Parker for the paper, and unconsciously put its cap into her mouth — he's startled by her presence.  
"Johnny," she says, "After such a long time?" 
"Err...Sandra," he asks, shocked, but not once surprised at what youth had done to the geeky teenager he still loved from school.
"Wow, you've grown into a handsome young man," she says.
He stuttered nervously, "Err..uhh...well...Thanks," wishing he had the courage to say the very same words to her.
That was 29 years ago. Today, they are married with three kids, and a house, they've so meticulously worked on, to make it "their home." Their's is a fairy tale — one which could undoubtedly begin with a "Once upon a time," and end with an "And they lived happily ever after." 

I've grown up listening to this fairy tale, or so believing in it, cause it played right in front of my eyes and I knew how beautiful it was. So, I would be lying if I hadn't expectantly waited for my very own little love story. 

At the cost of being mocked at and being made to look like a fool, I continued being this so called "believer," who waited for her "Mr Right" — that Knight in shining Armour (so much so that I also wrote two poems on it http://www.janeborges9.blogspot.in/2010/08/one-of-them-is-in-love-with-you.html) —  who blew her heart away (Yes, I can be very corny or mawkishly sentimental as dictionary.com puts it subtly). 
I was teased for being single, with one saying, "you will end up like an old hag, rotting at your office desk, till a good old 60" and the other saying, "you just don't look enough... why don't you keep your eyes open when you walk;" or my mother telling me every time she came from church. "I prayed that you find the right man, who keeps you happy and blaah, blaah, blaah, blaah". Trust me, none of these dampened my spirits. 

Then, one day something happened... no, not the love story... like how I had imagined. 
But even as a new hope has spooled in everyone's heart, except mine...I am reminded of my father — he still has that Parker pen, and guess what, it hasn't been washed or used since then. 

Quaint SoBo lost in the sound of bulldozers

I live on a gold mine, or so people say. Consider-ing how hard it is to find space in this city, I was pleasantly surprised when I moved to Chira Bazaar nine years ago.
Sandwiched between Marine Lines on the west and Kalbadevi to its east, Chira Bazaar — known as the gold souk of Mumbai — holds together some of the quaintest residential structures, cloth markets and one of the oldest churches (dating 1794) of Mumbai. But living on prized land comes with its own risks.
Take for instance, the men who greeted me at my doorstep one day. They handed me a sheet that read; “Owing to the poor infrastructure and high density of dilapidated buildings in Chira Bazaar, we have proposed that your area goes in for cluster redevelopment. In your interest, and the interest of the locality, we ask you to support our dream venture.”
A master plan of the redeveloped township, with a graphical representation, was attached with the note for my approval. As I scanned for my house in this over-ambitious proposal, one of the men satisfactorily pointed to a structure — a vague reminder of Ambanis’ Antilla on Altamount Road — saying “This is yours madam, isn’t it beautiful?”
Unable to appreciate it — the downside of not being an Ambani — I played along, “Is this all you have to offer?” With rehearsed clarity, he said, “No madam, select any design from here, we promise to make it your dream home.” He left me no choice, but to slam the door on him. That was two years ago.
In April this year, yet another mail was dropped into my letter-box, seeking our support for yet another Chira Bazaar makeover; this time though with an approved document from the BMC, a local politician and lawyer. Was it a threat, or was it really happening? It worries me, and probably every south Mumbai resident who has lived here long enough to see what the authorities are making of the old SoBo town and its aesthetics. I wouldn’t deny that ours is a fine structure, one with its teakwood beams intact even 100 years on. It has rooms, the size of mini-playgrounds — unnerving for anyone’s comfort in space-crunched Mumbai.
What I see outside my home though, is not a pretty picture; a 15-storey mirror building has already unsettled the dynamics of our narrow lane, while the window from my bedroom, where until four years ago you could see the horizon of the Arabian Sea, now opens to another under-construction building.
To save us from such a fate, we’ve been struggling for heritage status — the approval of which is still pending.
But the stars don’t seem to align for those who’ve been assigned such status either. A case in point being Khotachiwadi — declared a grade III heritage village in 1995 — and just a stone’s throw away from Chira Bazaar in Girgaum. The gaothan dotted with 150-year-old mansions, patches of greens and winding alleys is now overshadowed by a concrete jungle.
Visit the unassuming fashion designer James Ferreira, and he states the facts bluntly: “Despite the heritage status, three bungalows have been sold to builders, with a seven-storey already having made inroads into the area illegally.”
When I visited him in April this year, he rued, “One more down in March”. How many more to feed the land sharks and corrupt authorities? We really don’t know.
We keep dreaming Shanghai, and sometimes New York, yet what we land up in during the monsoons, is Venice of an impoverished kind. I am still waiting to hear from a politician or builder who promises to restore the existing buildings that defined Mumbai for centuries together.
Thanks to a few, the country’s only surviving opera house — the Royal Opera House in Mumbai — that was shut for over a decade, is finally being resurrected. But whatever happened to the Irani restaurants, villages and old residential mansions that are conveniently being ignored by the city’s conservation committee?
As I re-read the redevelopment letter again, a thought begins to haunt me. I am reminded of where I live and threatened by a menacing sound — that of bulldozers approaching.