chapter 04

38 years later

As long as the world thinks it’s busy, it’s all good

It’s a balmy summer night. His long locks are wafting in the gentle strokes of the breezy darkness. The cacophony of the traffic hardly reaching him from 35 storeys below, the tranquillity of this solitude has given him respite from the chaos that is his routine life. He has his feet propped up on the window sill, with the custom-built outer walls giving him enough room to have the French windows wide open and sit himself down. A low coffee table with a steaming tankard of the drink beside him, the whole apartment was perfumed by the hasnahena that his ladylove had adorned the southern balcony with. My God! Those earthen, decade-old pots that house the flowers, even they have a history! And it all has to haunt me today! Why on earth? He wondered. Is it that time in his life already, when the ghosts from the past come haunting? There was no reason why he should be nostalgic or even worse, diving deep into his tormented yet glorious past; he had fought his entire life trying to run away from the past. He wondered at his own loss of bearings, as if something unholy has intervened and has cursed him with that sinking, absolute feeling of being lost. Like a boat without any headwind and rudder, stuck on the surface of the blue, murky depths of his mind. Why now, of all times? Am I finally going senile? I’m not even 45 yet! wondered Mashrur. Well, as long as the world thinks it’s busy, I’m fine. In my own reverie shall I remain.

His city is all laid out and spread below him; she is his beloved, the one true love – Chittagong. It is the city that had spawned the oddity of a dynasty that his one was, the chequered board for the games of politics and crime and deception his predecessors had played out; the same land that was also the birthplace of the 12 great auwlias, or Muslim religious preachers, who were the epitome of the remnant of glory the city has; the very same place where he had learned to love and embrace the greenness and the passion with which mother nature nurtured the dwellers. The once-empty streets all those years ago had poked the quiet poet in him to wake up and made him put it all down in black-and-white and quietly marvel at his own creations. In those times, he used to wrongly think that he was mostly a realist, having been bumped and knocked off-balance by the shady phony deals Lady Luck dealt him, but tonight, he realised he actually had always been a bit of a dreamer, an escapist from reality, an architect of the impossible – even when he was drowning in suffering and pain. He used to wrap himself in the safe cocoon of the world created by his favourite writers in the early years; then came the years of the internet and chat and marathon movie-nights. Now it was a bit of both. Whether it was the tickling cheesy raunchy novels of the popular American writers or the classic tales of drama and espionage and life and betrayal spawned by the ever-so-stylish Britons, it hardly mattered to him. It was his mood that had always dictated his choice. The same went for cinematic entertainment. He wondered if it was in his late 20s that he had fully turned into an aficionado of social dramas and character-driven movie plots – something he thought was bad taste, in his teens.

It won’t be too much of a stretch if someone considered his life, the way it had played itself out, to be right out of a movie script over-written and re-written again and again –  the easy carefree early years, the struggles throughout the second and third decade of his life, the brief chapter of bliss in his mid20s when he so wrongly thought the world could be his for a fair price, the catastrophes that battered him like waves of unstoppable and unpredictable earthquakes causing the apparent loss of faith in everything good and honest and civil and righteous, the temporary yet scary enticement and almost, almost subsequent attachment with what he liked to call liquid venom, not to mention the heartbreaks suffered along that bumpy long ride….all took a toll on his self-respect and confidence and loss of faith on his own prowess to deal with life. Wouldn’t be too much of a stretch if someone likened it to a drama penned and orchestrated by David Lynch. Bruised or not, he wondered at how he has just made it across the line. It wasn’t exactly a phoenix-from-the-ashes-of-the-past that he had started everything. He isn’t someone who can be tagged as rich-and-spoiled but he is quite well-off now. At least he doesn’t need to worry about the rent, nor does he need to sweat and have nightmares about saving up for a rainy day or tying the knot or sending his sibling to school or having only meagre pocket money. He wonders where the all-consuming drive for hunger for money came from; was it the times he fought for trying to spend his pocket money his own way, or was it the times he saw his parents fight each other for not being able to pay the grocer and their sons’ tuition, or having those rows over why he was apparently not handing over his portion of the income for the family’s expenses, or not being able to have his dad’s eyes operated on just because he didn’t have enough money, or whether it was spending nights after nights awake lying on bed shedding tears why he was not gifted or lucky enough to pursue his own goals and have his family happy – Masrur wasn’t sure of.

But what he did know for sure that it was definitely something like this or a multitude of occurrences of these types that have somehow helped him become what he is today. He wasn’t exactly proud of how he came to be here at a good height up in the ladder of the social strata – obviously he has had to step on a few toes and take rather dirty routes and bend a few rules here and there, but his conscience wasn’t exactly gnawing away at his sense of integrity and righteousness; because after all, neither did he backstab anybody nor did he have to take decisions that terminated lives. Yes he did take decisions that at the end of the road caused the total annihilation of lives and families, but that was only because they were already wrong and refused rectification and apologies at all levels.

The hullaballoo from three storeys below has died down, and that brought a wry smile to his face; because he knew what kind of “party” the mid20s guy – the owner of flat E669 – and his army of female admirers and invitees there have started now. Ah, such tyranny and debauchery of the rich youth, he thought. He could swear that it was still spring in Chittagong and the animal spirit chained down inside the nubile bodies of those women was taking over control, powered by the heightened senses of sensuality created by the unbarred flow of the imported crystal liquid; not to mention the very opposite of unobtrusive presence that skeletal kid had, with his foul mouth and even worse body language. Masrur himself had felt like this, this untamed animalistic drive to make love simply because of the thirst and desire of the youth, but only for that dark duration of time almost a decade ago – his only other weapons being his deep baritone of a voice that stirred up the ultimate carnal desires in the depths of the female psyche and the vivid, simple yet powerful dark looks his black eyes emanated, coupled with the effusive feel of an easy-going guy. Not that he was a classic model of a player, he didn’t quite fit the general description of handsome either; yet he appreciated the fact that all the women he had been with were and still are his devout fans; the looks and the amorousness were just the starters, because they were later lost in the simplicity and honesty and clarity of the character he had and the power and depth of the emotions he harboured, under the shroud of a deceiving, cunning and quasi-egomaniacal persona.

The strong enchanting smell of the brew from the coffeepot didn’t help much to stop his mind becoming a vagabond on the trails of his far-flung, technicoloured past. He wondered what his father, the very late Masrur Sr., had felt when he was born, what his feelings were when his son uttered the first words, what jubilation swept him and his wife, the late Shireen Siddiqui, when their second child was born. He wondered what they must have had to go through raising two naughty kids in the turbulent times of the 80s and the 90s. But whatever mistakes they had made, however senile as parents or individuals they had been or inappropriate their conduct towards their children had been, in whatever way the brothers had been rude and ruthless to them – all were irrelevant. He and his brother would always hold them in the highest esteem – after all, they both were indebted to them in the number of ways that surpass the word “innumerable” because after all those years of teen angst and illogical desire – at times very logical too – to break free from the safe mould cast for them, it had finally dawned on them what it all stood for. Every bit of restriction from the enticing beckons of dark deeds and mischief they had been shielded from, every harsh word uttered which had at times turned them almost completely away, had actually helped the brothers see the world in a different and mature light. But what they had succeeded in doing was that they had sown the seeds of the logical, guiding fear of The Almighty in both the siblings, with an amazing strength of character and honesty that would prevail and steer them in inexplicable ways in their lives. Masrur had slightly deviated from that though.  He was never a devout, hard-wired Muslim and he was surely not an atheist either. He did believe in divine interventions and even more strongly in something called The Afterlife, the day of Judgement, the fear of being persecuted for his wrongs and misdeeds in life on Earth. He wouldn’t force anyone – hadn’t, actually – to go and engage in saying prayer for either salvation or as routine. He always believed that the need, or more accurately, the craving to say one’s prayer should actually stem from the strength of ones belief and allegiance to her faith. And having questioned the strength of his faith, he hadn’t been one of those who had never missed a scheduled prayer. For the very same reason, it was quite intriguing how odd numbers played important roles in the lives of those in the family, his ladies and himself too – him not being even a minor believer in the power of numbers; his belief in his religion being too strong for that. Yet, more like prime numbers – with a pair of 5s, a very significant couple of 7s, a couple more of 15s, and just one small single-digit even number being the most spell-binding of them all……

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

He remembered the first time he met her – as in the first time they conversed; not in being all gaga over the exquisite beauty - that she wasn’t , actually - and him transforming into the lovelorn Romeo at the very first sight or some other hocus-pocus. It was not possible for him to forget that, for reasons entirely different.

She used to live close by, but he had never actually been aware of her until that day. He distinctly remembers it being a bright June afternoon, just like that Roxette rock number, an unusually windy one too. He was at home, all ‘decked’ up in tees and the comfy lungi – a rather glorified men’s skirt in these parts of the world – he always preferred to anything else; as a matter of fact, had it been up to him, Masrur would’ve worn a unique chequered lungi and a nice t-shirt to anywhere he’d go. So much was his love for that piece of item. And the t-shirt adorning his torso wasn’t a fine example of artistry or commercial innovation either; even rather ‘plain’ could be an over-statement for this. So she came a-knocking, sweetly asking for him when Shireen answered, the reason being both her computer and laptop being down and her vendor so very conveniently unreachable. Masrur had already made a bit of a name for himself in the area for being the tech go-to guy, come a problem seemingly insurmountable. She wasn’t even very dressed up either – almost regulation shalwar-kameez, brownish black hair neatly tied up into a ponytail, flat sandals, tiny earrings – the whole nine yards of a 20-something girl whose parents were conservatively cool enough to let their daughters cautiously hang out with people of their choice. She lived only three doors down from him, and till date Masrur doesn’t know why she herself had to come that fateful day, instead of sending her elder brother to him – who was already a good friend of his.

It was a cordoned residential area that was almost half-a-mile long, housing over 60 apartment blocks – every variety of humans were there perched in their lofty abodes, snoozing and quarrelling and wasting their lives away, some in plain sight, some in the hushed privacy of their own walls. Having a reputation of a good guy in such an area, nobody batted an eyelid when the two of them went to her house, chatting and laughing all the way. He still doesn’t know how he became so friendly with her even before he walked out of his apartment – it’s still a mystery. Perhaps he was taken by her simplicity and openness; there weren’t a whole lot of neighbours whose eyes would suddenly meet with his and smile back. She was unique in that sense, he now realised. Yes, simple. That’s what was unique about her. Simple, with history. He remembers walking into her apartment, greeting her parents and sisters, sitting at the terminal and trying to locate the system errors and finally having to re-install the entire operating system, touching up on the other little details that needed to be attended to. Thank goodness PCs were kinda slow back then, chuckled Masrur, thinking about the resulting swell time he had chatting up her mom, dad and later on her as well, the latter was in the little privacy that her 400-square-feet room could give them, with the PC sluggishly booting itself away in the background. Even more interestingly, that was the last time they talked and chatted. What followed was a peculiarly lengthy gap of almost a month or more.

All these are probably the reasons why he’d never forget the first encounter: because of it’s plainness, being so normal in the absence of the electrified amorous looks, absence of either the shuddering first accidental touch of fingers while trying to reach for the power button, or the sizzling shuddering sudden surge of passion resulting into snogging on the high-backed chair when the parents were enjoying the daily soap with the volume turned on high far away in the living room; none of these happened and he hadn’t even given thought to the slightest possibility such stuff happening. These were the reasons peculiar yet attractive enough for him to remember the first official meeting; to this mix of honest oddities, add the deep gravelly voice of the good old Masrur dynasty and bingo, you have a 20-something thinking about this rather attractive dark guy and giggling at the meagre thought of thinking about him, mused Masrur, as the strong smell of coffee continued enticing his nasal sensory organs. That’s what slowly dragged both of us into the quagmire that is the unstinted, growing thing called love, I guess. Perhaps we should have made it stormier, not that it didn’t become at all stormy later on, he chuckled not out of regret but of warmth as he thought of the roller-coaster intimacy they had, the weird physicality, the chemistry of their souls, the bust-ups and the extreme make-ups. No wonder I bought it hook, line, and sinker. It was just the age and the times I guess.

So many things they endured together, so many things they shared and cared for; their bodies, their souls, the troubles threatening their existences, the shimmering moments under the sun that dotted their journey together for almost half a decade. The fights, disagreements, mood swings, temporary yet powerful resentments that were all parts of the package, were hardly deterrents for them to continue their voyage of a life that tasted so maddeningly and overwhelmingly unique to them. An interesting fact it is, that it was she who had been clear from the outset that they perhaps could never be together, even if the stars aligned and the Great Cosmos conspired. It would be impossible to make the parents understand. The fact that Masrur didn’t exactly have neither a proper degree nor – even more importantly – a good financial standing, didn’t help either. And yet, under the guise of friendship it was the flickering flame of timid liking that went on to become a blazing pyre of all-consuming passion, lust and flooding love.

So there they were – two star-crossed lovers having nothing but their earthly bodies and the cosmic souls powered by the beating hearts to share, waiting for the doomsday to be upon them and smite them apart.

For better or worse, Masrur did realise later on that he had actually come out smarter, with a grown sense of humility and sensitivity that had endeared him to the others who later came into his life; not to mention his wardrobe got a major overhauling. Why did you have to start that snowballing change in me, Rumaisa? Do you have any idea how much that has transformed me? You’d love me even more for that, I guess. Cos you started it all. Even his psyche got a major make-over. He realised he was cut off from the rest of the world only after they parted ways. Perhaps it was the right time for us to part ways, sweetheart. I didn’t know it then, but I did realise a bit later, thought Masrur. I will always be grateful for the things that you have done for me, because you don’t know how deep the changes go. And had it not been for that, I wouldn’t have found her.

They say things happen for a reason. His Christian friends tell him that the good Book says “He works His work in mysterious ways; some people like it, some people don’t”. Well, perhaps Almighty Allah does do things that are beyond the reach of comprehension of mere mortals like me. Quite rightly so, because he had always thought it was beyond his powers to ever break off and be away from her for good; he’d be cursed to do so. But it was rather bizarre how he did end up being the one taking the decision. It wasn’t that he was looking for loopholes and escape routes; the unfortunate opportunity simply presented itself – if you could call the unchangeable social promise made by her parents to someone else, an opportunity at all…..