Sense and Insensibility

I had just finished writing a piece before that moment of carelessness when I saw it vanish in its entirety before my eyes. So now I am staring at a blank screen wondering if this is not a story so common. A life full of intangibles. No old photographs with bug-eaten corners; No hand-written letters stacked in that secret corner from persons long gone; No old records nor cassettes that were once mended by turning a pencil through the hole. Yes there are memories. But with so much space to store and the ease of it one cares less each day about the grist. And one day it is all lost. Pufffff..... in thin air, and all that is left is a vast emptiness. Anyway here is my second attempt.
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It was a cold winter evening. The dew drops hung tantalizingly from the tip of the grass blades before plunging to their sudden demise. In death they moistened the ground for the earthworms to gnaw at. Butu could see one digging a mound of earth a feet from where he lay. He laid on the grass with his mouth open like a fish out of water. The cold wind blew over the football field bringing along the rendition of the muezzin's azan that was emanating from some yonder minaret standing on the other side of the Ganges. Butu heaved with all his might, again and again. Every time, the cold air slid through his wind pipe whining as it passed before getting lost in the maze of alveoli. The hungry wretches kept begging for more and more air. With his eyes focused on the busy earthworm he patiently waited for the moment to pass. Butu had had his bouts with asthma before. The two had fought fiercely and he had lost every time. But the losses had taught him the art of playing dead and living to fight another day. 

Far away they were cheering. Tubai had scored a goal and they had won. In the euphoria none had noticed the missing mid-fielder. Wins had been hard to come by in that tournament. Hence the celebrations were a vengeful necessity to absolve past humiliations. A faint smile crossed Butu's lips as his fingers dug into the grass bed. A sign that the fight within was still raging. The last blurry image before passing out was that of his captain running towards him in his trademark red t-shirt and black shorts. The rest had left for home.

Tubai lived not far from Butu's house. But they did not go to the same school. In fact Tubai was the only pre-teen child in the campus who did not go to school at all. The sweet fruits of schooling were therefore not his to be had. No one told him that if he added the squares of  two sides of a right-triangle they would magically be equal to the square of the hypotenuse. If he ever heard that word he would perhaps think it was a distant cousin of a hippopotamus. That of course assuming he remembered what a hippopotamus was from the few years of childhood when he attended kindergarten. But Tubai knew his angles, squares, circle and spheres well. The square cuts, cover drives, corner kicks and penalty shots were evidence enough. To Butu it seemed he understood the concepts of trigonometry better than his other friends put together. The books only taught what Tubai already knew.

So the two boys coasted through their early years in different ways. One sailed while the other tumbled. Childhood is like that furiously exciting downhill ride in a bicycle. The beginning is a slight struggle, but then the excitement increases as one accelerates at breakneck speed; Caring ever so little to capture the moments of life as they whiz by. The falls come, sooner for some and later for others. It is these falls that etch in the supple mind and form lasting memories. The ride itself remains just a blur. That summer evening Butu would fall. One that would etch a perpetual scar.

The Finals of the football tournament was well in motion. The spectators had filled the stairs that led to the ground. Every child under the age of six became part of a cheering-machine that supported the home team. Every child above six was in the team. Those who had managed to reach their teens were not playing. They were each assigned honourable roles in administering this important event. There was a scorer, a referee, two linesmen, even a couple of coaches, all in their early teens. Tubai was the only exception. It has been mentioned that Tubai never went to school. Tubai's household also never celebrated his birthday. Perhaps they did in private, but there certainly were no balloons or a birthday cake or the cacophony of feather capped whistles. Without a grade and a birthday the junior world knew not how to measure Tubai's age. So every year he captained the football team as the rest of its members moved in and out with the tide of time. There were rumours that even Chintu the referee had once played under him.

So the match started. For the first half it took its merry course with the occasional foul and the exaggerated whistling by the referee who was obviously trying to make his importance felt. After a goalless half and a short break the second half started. The tension in the crowd was palpable. Butu was passing the ball well. The heaviness of the humid air lingered like a pall of gloom around him threatening at every moment with an attack of asthma. Through the heavy wheezing he kept dribbling over a labyrinth of bare feet. He had moved well in front to take a shot at the opponent's goal. Then, just as he was about to set his left foot firmly on the ground to pivot around for the final kick, it slipped. Like a ballerina doing her final split his legs stretched asunder on the slippery mud. It set a sudden shock of pain that traveled from his abdomen up the spine till it hit the cranium. The bludgeoning impact had pressed an involuntary panic-button inside that now caused a heavy beating of the heart and strong wheezing. The shock accompanied by a sense of breathlessness was too much for the kid. His eyes welled as he sat in that grotesque posture as the gallery cheered a perfect execution of a scene directly out of a comic strip. Only a banana peel was missing. As always Tubai came running to his rescue. As Tubai bent to give a hand to his friend he noticed the gaping hole in Butu's shorts. The stitches had come apart from the impact and the kid's mickey-mouse underwear was visible for all to see. Tubai could not resist the tempting apple. In a childish frenzy he guffawed uncontrollably and beckoned for the others to see the spectacle. The ever curious child in him would not give in . He laughingly kept tugging at Butu's shorts to give the rest a better view of the spectacle; Unmidfull of the price he was paying for his impulsive jocundity. What followed was a scene out of Tom Sawyer with the kids having queued up to take a peek at those motley coloured underwear. 

Butu's wheezing had not stopped. The muscles in his inner thigh pained, reminding him of that day when he saw a chicken being de-feathered behind the meat shop. The gracilis muscles twitched. From where he lay he could see the laughing faces collage to form a ten-headed demon. And in its center was the face of his trusted friend. The largest smile, the most treacherous one with a stamp of betrayal written all over those glistening white fangs. The battle lines had been clearly drawn and the traitor was celebrating his treachery. For lack of a better rationale the child's mind decided to hit back where it would hurt. He got up fighting the excruciating pain slapping away at the outstretched hand offered by his friend. He called Tubai an uncultured wretch who lacked even a modicum of shame and the decency to behave in public. He called out Tubai's lack of school education. Butu reminded Tubai how everyone who laughed with him now also laughed at him behind his back; Knowing well that it hurt him like running a dirty finger over a lacerated wound. The laughter had vanished and was replaced by a look of confused disgrace. As if being bludgeoned by a club Tubai walked back towards the center-line with his head hanging down.

That evening Butu could not concentrate on his books, The letters from the Gulmohar text danced in front of his eyes like the petals of its namesake. The mocks still rang in his ears. "If I were not his friend, he would never have been allowed to play with the better types", he murmured. He remembered the time when the entire campus had turned against Tubai because he had purportedly commented at Mr Singh's daughter. Butu had been asked to incriminate his friend but had refused steadfastly. In those days Mrs Singh had frequented their house often and implored his mother to save her son from 'bad influence'. She had congenially ignored the suggestion, and Butu now remembered how proud he had been of her. It was another matter though that Tubai never meant ill for the girl. In truth, they were both bitten by the same love-bug and remained under its spell till she suddenly realized what a gargantuan waste it was to be enamored by an urchin boy. Tubai had been the saner half of the relation, and Butu had known this all the while. Nonetheless the role of a Lancelot always appealed to him and he was convinced the he had done Tubai a favour.

Dinner for the night was served. There was potol curry on the plate. Butu had had a lifelong struggle with that vegetable. It seemed that providence had placed the distasteful item on his plate to put an unpalatable end to a depressing day. He complained to his mother. While it did not have the desired effect, the words found their way to his father's ears. The man had just walked in to the house after a tough day's work. Butu was promptly informed of certain consequences if even a single piece of potol was left in his plate. On another day Butu would have spent time pondering what those consequences might be. But today his mind was saturated with enough to make his eyes well. So the vegetables forced their way through a hostile tongue and a reluctant oesophagus. That night there were nightmares. One involving a sudden push off a cliff and another where invisible tendrils dragged him to the bottom of a pond. They clung to his mind till dawn.

In the ensuing months Butu remained close to his other friends. They would go to schools together. Every afternoon, they would return home and after some snacks congregate at the campus playground. The football season was over and the young minds had turned towards cricket. The Indian team had gone for a tour Down Under and suddenly every lad wished to bat like Dean Jones. Tubai was being neatly kept out of it all. He would be seen walking on the boundary walls of the ground with a stick in hand. Often he would be engrossed in shadow-fencing against an invisible enemy. His friends advised Butu not to worry about the misfit, but he found it hard to ignore the stick's intangible slashes. It seemed that the wheel of fortune was turning, and rapidly so for Tubai. The incident at the football field was soon forgotten. The culprit had been branded and ostracized. With the weeding now complete the cherubs could play in the beautiful garden once again!

Months passed; The exams came and went. The children moved a step away from childhood without realizing it. Only one stayed put, stubbornly refusing the inevitable. Like a rogue sheep he hopped from one mischief to another, obstinately refusing to mend himself at each juncture. Soon, the ladies were spending evenings chatting about how faulty parenting can lead to a disaster, like Tubai. Even the men coming back from office would not enter their household without passing an unkind remark about him while they smoked under the banyan tree. Butu watched from his window as the arrows of aspersions impaled his friend, painfully realizing the ebbing of the last vestiges of his friendship.

A few months later Butu's family decided to move out of the place. The child was told they were moving to a better place. He did not mind. Like a well bred child he was already showing signs of adaptability, a quality essential for a bright future. He dutifully helped in the packing of luggage, taking special care to pack his playthings. One day among his things he found a deflated football. It had seen better days and now had taken the shape of a rugby ball. He took the kitchen scissor and ran through the leather puncturing the underlying bladder. "There goes the bad memory" he thought and disposed it to the garbage bin. Outside, the truck was loaded and the black Dodge barely had room left for the family to sit. It was afternoon and all his friends were at school. They had all come with gifts the previous evening to wish him farewell. They had shared letters professing eternal friendship. He now wondered if that was all true. "Why then do the elderly have so few friends" he murmured, as the Dodge sedan jerked to a start. With all the luggage safely stacked Butu hopped into the rear seat of the car.

In front of their house was a guava tree. Butu had spent many afternoons on it hatching plans to reach the raw fruit in the high branches. As he looked there he saw his partner-in-crime still dangling from the tree. Yes, it was Tubai- An emaciated shadow of his bold and confident self. Butu rolled down the car window and stared into those dark hollow eyes. Tubai never blinked an eyelid. But his limbs instinctively let him slither down the trunk till his bare feet hit the ground. And there he stood like a stubborn mare. The Dodge moved. The smell of burned diesel filled the air as it rolled over the gravel road. Butu's tongue went dry and desperately clung to his palate perhaps to absolve itself from being held responsible for the moment. Of all the words in the books that he had read from those years spent in classrooms none came to his rescue as he was locked horns in this test of humanity with a street urchin. The Dodge reached the gate. Just before it took the final turn Butu saw through the cloud of dust the silhouette of his friend running towards him. His right hand was waving frantically at him, or so Butu thought. He stuck out his hand in the gesture of a wave, but the car had turned already.

The stone never hit the windshield it was aimed at. It fell only a few feet away from where Tubai now stood. "Damn friendship!", he said, and walked away.