“But yaar..” her father pulled on a bit of a long face, clearly not happy about what his family wanted him to do.
“I say there is no need to ask anyone anything,” It was Mohit, who now intervened. “Of course our Vinnie is going to be the Sarbala; he is a hundred times cuter than that Ankur of theirs.”
“And yes, yesterday at the railway station I taught him how he should touch everyone’s feet for their blessings in the wedding house and impress them. He has been doing it since last evening, don’t think anyone can resist such a cute obedient boy,” Mrs. Sharma recounted with a hint of pride in her own maternal abilities.
“Totally, and the performance he gave in the Sangeet ceremony last night, how cute he looked, dancing on that song Ishq wala love,” Mohit added, trying to drive the point home.
“But yaar, even that Ankur’s Boogie Woogie was very nice,” Nalini stated, not that optimistic as her brother.
“Think positive yaar, positive thinking always fetches positive results, so always think positive,” Mohit countered, urging her sister to keep some faith.
“Indeed, positive thinking leads to positive results, so always think positive, unless of course you are testing for unwanted pregnancy, better to think negative then,” Nalini riposted, pointing out the flaw in her brother’s theory.
“Offo shut up you two!” jumped in a suddenly miffed Mr. Sharma. “And you, from where have you learned this trash? In front of your father you are blabbering pregnant pregnant, just let us return home, the first thing I am going to do is to cut off your internet’s wire.” Seeing that their father had gotten somewhat angry, Mohit and Nalini fell silent, leaving it upon their mother now to hold the forte for them.
“Yes yes, you cut all the wires of the house, show us your bravery there. And here, when you have to ask just a small question from your sister, just be a coward,” jeered Mrs. Sharma as the kids had expected.
“Just, just...Okay I am going; just stop getting on my case, will you?” Mr. Sharma, joining his hands in front of his wife in submission accepted his defeat and walked out of the room.
The rest of the family, awaiting his return, stayed inside with their eyes affixed eagerly on the door through which he was supposed to walk back in with the good news.
And some ten minutes later that door swung open, though it was not Mr. Sharma but a young boy and a girl that had come barging in through it. Oblivious to the presence of the Sharma family, they had their arms around each other while they began making out in the heat of passion, the girl giggling as the boy stole soft kisses from her neck.
It was only a few seconds later that the eyes of the necking couple noticed the presence of the others in that room, much to their chagrin. Instantly they parted and broke out in to a paroxysm of apologies.
“Sorry Aunty, sorry, sorry,” their faces had turned somewhat pale as they now stood there, shivering in discomfiture.
“What sorry, you are Gupta Ji’s daughter right?” Mrs. Sharma interrogated sharply, with every intention of going to the girl’s father and telling him what a harlot his daughter has become.
“Sorry, Aunty..Sorry,” they repeated again, red faced. Fearing reprisal, the two of them then rushed out of the room, but only to collide straight in to an oncoming Mr. Sharma in the hallway.
“o ho..be careful!” Mr. Sharma rebuked sharply as he groaned, holding his shoulder that had bore the brunt of the impact.
“sorry uncle..sorry..” the flustered couple muttered another couple of febrile apologies before skittering off like scared rats.
Meanwhile inside the room Mrs. Sharma had gone on a bit of a tirade about the evils that plagued the present generation. “Just look at them, just look at them, no shame, no manners, this kind of dirty acts and that too in the auspicious setting of a wedding house! I am going to talk to Mr. Gupta about it for sure. And who was that boy with her?”
“No idea, may be some band guy, all he has been doing since last evening is playing that guitar of his,” Mohit replied, a hint of jealousy in his voice.
“Nalini, do you know anything about this boy? What is his name? Who are his parents?” Mrs. Sharma asked her daughter, but she was just standing there looking stupefied.
“Nalini, what happened? Why have you frozen up like some thief under a search light?” her brother inquired, raising his brow in suspicion.
“No, no, I don’t know anything about him,” suddenly Nalini replied, her face contorting in aversion as she silently cursed Mr. Gupta’s daughter for ensnaring away the one she liked.
At that instant, Mr. Sharma holding his injured shoulder stepped back in to the room, which in effect quickly brought Mrs. Sharma’s and Mohit’s attentions back on to the important issue at hand.
“What happened? What did your sister say?” Mrs. Sharma asked, her voice laced with expectancy.
“Nothing. Uma wants our Vinnie to be a Sarbala, but Bhai Sahab (Uma’s husband) is not giving his consent for it,” Mr. Sharma answered with a sigh, turning his eyes away as he awaited another verbal foray from his wife.
“What! You mean they are not going to make our Vinnie the Sarbala!” Mrs. Sharma exclaimed, a horror-stricken look coming across her face. Mohit became equally distressed at this awful news, and Nalini, well she needed to get over the earlier shock first before she could deal with this one.
Mr. Sharma, without saying another word to his family, turned and stepped out of the room. The other three followed him, walking to the hall with slumped shoulders and broken hearts.
“Okay sing one with the word All in it, All,” In the hall, there were still a few left that were playing the Antakshri, though the boy with the guitar was certainly missing.
And so, as the members of the Sharma family were dragging their deflated forms across their hall, someone broke in to a song, which incidentally served as the perfect background music for their present moment of pathos.
“All by myself, gonna be all by myself, gonna be…”
*******
3
On the second floor of a fancy mall in the city, flanked by designer clothing stores on either side, there was located a glass office that served as the workplace of the much revered Pandit Kirat Lal Kanti. This was stated so by the signboard up front, which had Pandit Ji’s name inscribed upon it in glittering golden letters along with a lofty proclamation declaring that here in this office, through the auspicious and magical hands of Pandit Kirat Lal Kanti, was solved and cured every problem that inflicted or had ever inflicted mankind with a 110% guarantee.
Upon entering this fancy dominion, one came across a reception and waiting area first in the form of a small anteroom and it was here that Vikram Sahni currently sat in one amidst a row of several chairs stacked against a wall, waiting for his appointment with the Pandit Ji.
Yesterday’s incident at the tracks continued to keep him in a majorly disturbed state, though if it was any consolation to his weary eyes, the receptionist in that anteroom, stationed behind a small glass table near the back wall was a beautiful young lady, whose name as engraved on the gilded nameplate on her table was Kumari Karishma.
Kumari Karishma was dressed in a skimpy red dress, one which left her delicate arms bare at the top and was barely able to come down past her thighs at the bottom, thus providing for Vikram a godly sight of her smooth long legs, if the young man cared at all to look in that particular direction.
Just next to Kumari Karishma’s table was the glass door that led to the main office, and within that office seated on a plush red sofa chair behind his table, dressed in a silken red kurta with a thick gold chain hanging around his neck, was the balding rotund figure of Pandit Kirat Lal Kanti, who at the moment was deeply immersed in his thoughts, his fat fingers at intervals tapping the glass top of his table. Every now and then his pudgy hand would reach for a pen and a notepad, before drawing down upon the latter some sort of undecipherable pictures, presumably belonging to a form of ancient allegory.
/> On the other end of the table sat a middle aged lady, the grim lines on whose face indicated towards an existence burdened by worldly troubles. Silently she waited on Pandit Ji to finish his meditation, and her patience was soon rewarded as the rotund man, finished with his esoteric scribbling, leaned forward in his seat and began addressing her.
“His Mars and Saturn, they are acrimonious towards each other, and even Mercury’s position is a highly undesirable one, the Jupiter out of ill choler has turned its back on him while Venus and Neptune has always been weak for him, in such a case, for as long as he is alive on Earth, he is going to partake of alcohol every weekend. That is his destiny,” the revered man gave his diagnostic, a look of grave seriousness on his face at all times.
Hearing the diagnostic, the lady on the other side became visibly perturbed and started wriggling and shaking in her seat as if in some sort of great discomfort. “Pandit Ji there has got to be something that can be done,” she squealed. “For the last two years, he has been drinking alcohol every single weekend, and now you are saying that it is going to carry on for the rest of his life. How is a poor mother to endure if her son turns in to a tosspot?”
“Do not stress yourself, there is one solution,” the great man spoke back, his voice calm and smooth at all times. “If God has given us human troubles, then he has also left us ways that can lead out of these troubles. There is a gemstone, known as the white sapphire, which in a situation such as this can be of great help. Take a white sapphire and on the full moon evening bathe it in raw milk, have it then set in to a silver ring and on a Saturday morning, while enchanting the name of God in your heart, put it on the index finger of your son’s right hand. It will help him gain positive energies from his Mercury and Venus and within only a few months, he will stop drinking all together.”
“Pandit Ji, this white sapphire…?” The hapless woman tried to ask, having never heard about such a gemstone in her life, but before she could even finish with her query, the greatly revered Pandit Ji was already answering it.
“By a mere donation of 5100, you can obtain a white sapphire, blessed by the powers of 108 Himalayan Yogis, from Kumari Karishma who is sitting outside in the reception room,” he said while smiling down at her benevolently, as if she was some ignorant child to whom he had just revealed some great mystery of life.
“Thank you Pandit Ji, thank you very much,” the woman expressed her gratitude by joining her hands in sincere devotion towards the great man. Still smiling, he pointed her to the door after which she went out to the anteroom to buy the needed gemstone. A most content and happy creature she became as she obtained that gemstone from Kumari Karishma and then walked out of that glass office, 110% confident that soon the drinking days of her son would be far behind him.
Her departure meant that it was now Vikram’s turn to have his appointment with the Pandit Ji. With a persistent urgency in both his step and manner, he entered the office and approached the desk of the pear shaped man.
“Namaskar Pandit Ji, Pandit Ji please do something. I told you on the phone what all had happened yesterday on those tracks. After that incident, I don’t think I can keep on going back there, Please do something Pandit Ji,” with his hands joined in supplication, Vikram fell in to a fit of pleadings.
But that great man did not seem to be at all perturbed by Vikram’s blabbering, for he kept smiling down at him in a sort of kind condescension. “Son, have a seat first and calm yourself down,” he spoke with the same equanimity as always, while he pointed to the seat which was not long ago occupied by the ‘once hapless, now happy’ mother.
“Your situation is grave Son but always remember, if God has given us human troubles, then he has also left us ways that can lead out of these troubles,” And then he held his hand up, signaling Vikram to stay quiet, as he fell back once again in to a meditative state.
In the period of uncomfortable silence that followed, Vikram found himself reeling under the thoughts of yesterday’s incident at the tracks. The abject cowardice he had shown in making no attempts whatsoever to save that young kid from the onrushing train was unceasingly gnawing at his soul.
Although he could seek a bit of solace in the fact that he had at least avoided putting his own life in danger by making the choice that he had, still it was far from enough when it came to saving his conscience from its present distress, and therefore it was quite natural that he wished no longer to relive the memories of that incident iteratively by continuing his daily pilgrimage to the Peepal tree near the tracks.
“There are some evil powers, lurking around you at the moment. These do not wish for you to complete your daily observance,” Pandit Ji spoke after having scribbled down some more pictures in his notepad.
He then noticed that the young man was lost in his own train of thoughts at that moment, so in order to get his attention he snorted out aloud a couple of times before suddenly breaking in to a harangue .
“Exceedingly ‘EVIL AND DANGEROUS’ these powers are Son, the sort that can destroy a man completely. Do not take them lightly; these malicious forces will otherwise harm you like nothing you have experienced in your life before,” he spoke in a booming voice. “Do you understand what I am saying son?” he asked sternly, to which he saw the shuddering young man now nodding his head like a slave afraid of a flogging. This seemed to satisfy him for the moment and so once again a benign smile broke out on to his countenance, his manners returning to their previous genteelness.
“Do not worry son, do not worry, these Evil powers do not know that this time they are coming face to face with none other than your Pandit Kirat Lal Kanti ‘Ji’,” he boasted, with a self-congratulatory grin.
“This very evening I will carry out a ritual that should get you rid of these malevolent spirits, and through the same I shall also find for you a new tree.” So he alleviated the pains of the young man, who in turn stood up and started thanking him whole heartedly.
“No need for that Son, It was only my duty,” he humbly replied, like the selfless altruistic spirit that he was. “Only do make a donation of 2100 to Kumari Karishma outside as a gift to the Goddess of the ritual,” he added, merely as an insignificant little post script note.
It seemed like the appointment had come to an end, another problem solved with 110% guarantee, but just as Vikram was about to take his leave, Pandit Ji stopped him as if stimulated by some last minute consideration. “And yes Son, before you change the tree, it is essential that you take the permission from the present one for it. Towards that purport, take from Kumari Karishma outside a hallowed yellow thread, one blessed by 108 Himalayan Yogis and tie it around the Peepal tree this evening. A mere donation of 1100 would suffice for it.”
“B.But Pandit Ji, I feel kind of queasy about going near that tree after all that had happened,” Vikram remonstrated, even if it was for just one time he did not wish to visit that Peepal tree again.
“Show some courage Son, show some courage. It is courage which helps men do even the impossible,” Pandit Ji shot back, raising his voice once again. “Show some courage, otherwise ‘annihilation’ is inevitable.”
“O…Okay Pandit Ji,” And Vikram, knowing that there was no defying the great man, agreed to do his bidding.
He then took his leave from Pandit Ji’s office and went out to Kumari Karishma’s desk where after depositing the required largess he acquired the talismanic yellow thread, which to a pair of eyes not veiled by blind superstition would look no different from any ordinary regular thread.
*******
After his departure from Pandit Ji’s office, Vikram made his way to the nearest bus stop. Considering that the auto rickshaw walas were too reckless a specie, and that driving a private vehicle in the haphazard chaos which was Ludhiana’s traffic was tantamount to a suicide attempt in his eyes, the city bus was Vikram’s preferred mode of transportation on the seldom occasions when he was compelled by ineluctable circumstances like today to travel distances that w
ere beyond his walking capabilities.
In view of the fact that it was the middle of the afternoon, a time when the number of people commuting in the buses are far less as compared to morning and evening hours, and in a city like Ludhiana, where the majority of people do not prefer the bus anyways, which therefore led to even a sparser number of passengers in these off-peak hours, it was no surprise that when Vikram arrived at the bus stop, he found it more or less in a deserted state. And Vikram, who had no great affinity for the pathogen laced throngs of this world, welcomed this afternoon desolation as he began his wait for a bus.
But unluckily for him it did not remain like that for long, since just a couple of minutes later, there arrived at that bus stop, an elderly looking Sardar Ji of a tall and slightly bulky built. He was dressed in a very simple cotton shirt and a pair of comfortable pajamas along with a plain white turban whose color matched that of the thick beard that he had on his face.
The ruddy complexion on his visage pointed at a life spent in outdoor activities, and the spirited look in his eyes hinted at a love for taking on adventures, and currently his casual attire and the curious manner in which he stared at the things around him, be it the beautiful blue sky above or the various shadowy effects that were being casted by his surroundings on the ground below, pointed at just one opinion – that he was out here for an exploratory afternoon stroll around the city.
His particular deportment though was neither fascinating nor disquieting for Vikram, in fact its observance raised in him a feeling of familiarity, for he saw little flashes of his own distant past in the mannerisms of this aged man, a time when he used to whimsically go for long walks around the city at the most random of times just to soak up the variety of environments it had to offer.
His little reminiscence lasted only a short while though as his attentions were quickly hoisted back on to the old man, who with now coming towards him with a jovial smile on his face.
A little alarmed Vikram took one step back, only for the old man to take two more forward, and the process continued until Vikram was huddled in one of the corners of the bus stop, with the old man standing right in front of him, looking him up and down as one would examine some odd foreign object, the smile on his face never vanishing for one second.