The Aspirant Counselor | Prashila Naik

He took in a large swig of water from the old bisleri bottle that one of his customers had left behind a few months back. The bottle had seemed too clean to chuck inside the garbage bin then. He had rinsed it inside out once, then for a second time and then with the glee of a schoolboy, had filled it up with water. For the last few months, it was a permanent fixture on his counter table, alongside a cheap calculator, a heavily chewed up pen and a book which at one point of time had been his favorite daughter’s 6th standard Science notebook. He let the water wriggle through this closed mouth and looked around the room, largely empty save for a very noisy group of 4 tea drinking men. He was certain they were not tourists. 12 rupees for 4 cups of tea, he mentally calculated their worth, hardly three rupees in profit, and swallowed the water after one last wriggle before letting his head rest on the table.

“Uncle, kitna hua”

He lifted his head off the table and without looking in their direction told them it was twelve rupees.

The men broke into a fit of noise yet again, randomly laughing and merrily arguing, possibly on who amongst them would make that payment. He held onto his forehead pensively and clucked loud enough to tell them that they needed to pay him his damned 12 rupees and then take all their juvenile and un-innovative bonhomie to another place. Just then a 20 rupee note was thrust into his face. The note smelt of fish or probably rotten fish. He sighed impatiently and told them he had no change. The men hastily withdrew the note and pretended to look for alternatives. But after some more noise and some more tomfoolery, one of them told him they had only 9 rupees worth of change. He sighed again and through gritted teeth that if not held tightly together, would have left deep gashes on the first fleshy and human body part that would cross its path with, accepted the change from them. “Rascals,” he said to himself as the group made a strangely silent exit from there. Did they really think he could not see the little plot ploy they had played on him? “Rascals”, he called out again, this time louder and angrier, and took yet another swig of his tap water Bisleri.

It was a depressing thought that he was all alone in that entire 40 square meter area that made up hotel Sagar as he had named it considering its proximity to the sea, the startlingly sleazy sounding Baina beach. He ruefully thought of the time when he had a double digit staff, with at least 6 people in the kitchen and more than 4 waiters – the place had bustled with an unabashed maleness then…

He snapped out of that nostalgic halo before it would turn into a giant monster of memories and got off his chair, trying hard to stretch his aching knee joints. Maybe he would have to make that visit to Goa Medical college sooner or later. The thought of that impending ailment depressed him further and he headed to the kitchen to pour the leftover tea for himself.

The downturn had begun when ‘they’ were all driven away in what the government proudly called a cleanup drive. Their huts ranging in a few hundreds were bulldozed and possibly with a mechanical precision. The women, some of them with children and grandchildren of their own had all scattered in different parts of Goa as opposed to going to their hometowns, he had been told. The news and the eventual cleanup had made him bitter for a long time and his perennially suspicious wife refused to serve him dinner for that duration, attributing her bitterness to her longtime doubts finally being proven. He made no efforts to counter her understanding and surrounded by her pigheaded inferences, he only truly wished he had actually slept with one of those women and God knew some of them were even more beautiful than the prettiest movie heroines he had seen. The ensuing thoughts filled him up with severe guilt. He had three daughters and two sons of his own.

He had never been comfortable with the idea of setting up a restaurant in the neighborhood of ‘that’ area. But, his step-sister’s husband Babloo, his best friend and eventual partner, already foreseeing the potential, had refused to listen to any alternative suggestions. Already 22 and with no brighter prospects in sight, he had eventually agreed and in just a couple of years, Sagar hotel had acquired a solid and understandably volatile customer base. The dishes on their menu card hardly changed – the restaurant after all was never meant to provide a platter for the stylish and savvy. These were mainly men from outside Goa, coming in large groups of 10 to 15, with limited means. Most of them could afford only one meal a day and Babloo was sharp enough to understand this. They mainly made use of the rice and wheat sold in the local ration shop at measly prices and mixed goat meat with beef considering the huge disparity in their costs. Fish was easily bought from the trawlers plying daily on the neighboring shore. The cost of investment was much lesser than the daily revenue and soon Babloo and he had sufficient amounts of money at their disposal. Babloo found newer ways of spending that money and he… got married.

His wife had just turned 18 and he could clearly remember his wedding night and the first time he had seen her, lifted the veil off her face, hardly sure of what he would discover behind it. He had only a very fleeting glimpse of her before the wedding and that glimpse was hardly revealing – and so when the face hidden by the veil turned out to be pretty, all he could do was grin with a huge sense of surprise and delight. She was lovely and the way her shy eyes refused to meet his own, he knew charmingly bashful. Unsure of what to do, he had only placed three of his fingers on one of her cheeks, caressing it gently.

Many years and five children later, the memories of how she had shivered at his touch and everything that had followed, had acquired an almost cinematic hue, as if it were a song from the movie Silsila, with a tall and proud Amitabh Bachchan looking down into the eyes of the beautiful Rekha standing equally tall and proud, her lips painted scarlet red and her frizzy thick hair creating an halo of its own. He couldn’t imagine that night in any other manner, with any other woman and the ease with which his young customers flocked to the brothel, clearly devoid of any apprehensions, on the contrary excited in the manner that gave away the measure of their confidence, left deep lasting sets of doubt in his mind. Most of these men would have wives of their own in a few years. Did they then find the concept of ethics and morals so unimportant that even at those tender ages, the greed for experiencing the most private form of physical gratification, overshadowed the possibly conservative upbringing they had lived through?

And yet these men could still be excused. They were young, unattached and thoroughly overpowered by the sense of experimentation which makes that age so exhilarating to live. It was the married men with families of their own and no excuses of youth and excitement in defense, his own partner Babloo being one of them, that bothered him the most. No, “bothered” didn’t quite sum up the intensity of his feelings, it was disgust bordered by lines of awe. How did the need arise? Was it, as Babloo called it, a symbol of one’s “maleness” and by not having such thoughts, did he miserably lack in that maleness? What about the families of those men? Did they know or did they guess? Did the wives ever manage to trace some remnant from the fallen woman on their husbands when lying down with them… and the children… what about them? Were the men not in the least worried about setting an example which at least conventionally was inappropriate.

He was scared of discussing his curiosities with other men, worried that they would misunderstand him or worse think of him as patronizing. He knew a lot of those girls had been forced into the trade and most of them had extremely heart wrenching stories to tell. If only he could sit down and listen and provide the women with a non-judgmental and neutral ear. But that single moment of his personal glory never occurred. The women with their uncertain futures and possibilities of an even more harrowing time had all scattered and with them the chances of regaining his once flourishing profits.

With his savings diminishing steadily, he knew, he faced an uncertain future of his own. The restaurant hardly provided money that would be sufficient to cover up even his monthly expenses and yet he harbored secret hopes of betterment. If rumors were to be believed, some of the gharwalis (keepers) were in process of gathering the scattered remnants of their trade and secretly operated from the area and once things would calm down, they would make attempts to bring things back to how they were. He fervently wished the rumor would be true, fervently wished a better business for his beloved restaurant. It was just over a year back that he was finally able to have the restaurant completely on his own charge after Babloo’s falling health coupled with the death of the rest of his family in a train incident, made it impossible for him to be involved with the same regularity and interest. The responsibility was barely beginning to sink in when the cruel demolition had occurred.

His wife however felt no tenderness towards the scattered women or the other assorted lives that depended on them, felt no concern for their little children who too had to suffer and face this life of volatile uncertainty at such tender ages. Instead she wanted him to sell off the restaurant, “the root of all evils “, as she liked to call it and use the money to find a good decent job in one of the GULF countries, the one stop solution to all their issues. He found her simple-mindedness disgusting. This independence, this freedom, this relic of a time that had solely got them through their whole life. It was this same evil, he told her, that was responsible for the 5 tola gold she had managed to carve into a set of jewels for herself. This solid argument even with all its potential only managed to silence her for a little while and yet he was grateful for its presence, grateful with the extension of hope it provided at the end of the day that most often than not turned out to be demoralizing.

This day had turned out to be demoralizing too. Apart from the rascal tea drinking cheaters, he had only five more customers drop by in the afternoon. They had amounted to a profit of around 100 rupees.

He gloomily swallowed the last of his tea and rinsed the cup. His cook Sonu who was out to get some fresh ground beef for their dinner special was running late as always. Tonight he decided, he would give Sonu a piece of his mind, would finally do away with the faux fatherly affections he often bestowed on him, even as a secret corner in his heart ended up comparing and favoring this otherwise generally hardworking boy to his own dimwitted and lethargic eldest son, who was just a few months short of 22 and as he seriously doubted, with a brain that worked only marginally better than that of a sprightly 10 year old. He sighed helplessly at the further derailing of his good spirits, letting his thoughts move on to Munni, the second child, already 20 and startlingly beautiful, desperately needing to be married off before one of the smooth talking bastards in their neighborhood managed to exploit her good-natured vulnerability. He shifted his feet nervously at the reminder of that possibility.

“Arrey saab. What are you doing in the kitchen,” he turned around with relief in response to that question, all his anger on Sonu forgotten in that split second.

“They are planning to increase the price of mutton to a 300 rupees per kg. I think in one more year mutton and gold will sell at the same price,“ Sonu said, a hermit-like wisdom in his voice.

“Yes, it is wrong time for all these prices to rise. When the business was good everything was cheap, business goes down, prices go up,“ he responded with a sageness of his own as he watched Sonu mix the quarter kg goat meat with the rest of ground beef, feeling guilty for defiling all the devout non beef eating Hindus who must have been fooled with this money saving trick of his.

“Its not just the food actually. Everything is getting expensive Sonu. My children’s notebooks, their pens, even those are expensive. I am planning to stop the youngest’s education after she completes her 10th”, he continued eagerly, relieved to be finally talking after that long spell of silence and frustration.

“Of course of course saab, you are right. Girls, what will they do by studying so much? In my village people were smart. They never sent girls to school, got them married when they were 15. All responsibilities over.“

He nodded at that answer, even though he did not agree with it.

“And what about the other daughter? The second one? She completed school?”

“Yes she did. She is in 12th class now, Science. She takes tuition for younger kids, you know helps my wife with the house expenses so I won’t stop her from further studies if she wants to and she is a good student, very intelligent, maybe she will become a teacher someday.”

“And the eldest one,” Sonu’s voice had by now lost all traces of wisdom, but he had barely noticed the change, too overcome by his eagerness to finally be able to talk about his plans for his daughters without bringing in an argument about selling the hotel off. At times like these, his admiration for Sonu’s levelheadedness reached really dizzying heights. It was then an unfortunate fact that the boy was born with such bad luck.

“Oh, she was never good with studies. She failed in her 9th standard exams two times and then we took her out of school. Since then she’s stayed at home, helping her mother with the housework. She has grown up now and I need to get her married. But with this slow business…”, he stopped abruptly as a sudden rush of discomfort made it impossible to get on with the conversation on a topic that was so intensely personal. He stepped back as if that action would also take back the desperate words he had uttered. He had known Sonu for almost a year now and this was the first time he had discussed his eldest daughter. Sonu wasn’t a bad boy, but he had met his daughter a few times and on each one of those occasions, the look of slightly vulgar admiration in his eyes had been unmistakable…

“OK enough talking Sonu. Get back to work. You were already late, in fact are always late. You do this regularly and I am going to have to cut your salary,” he had not intended to say this rudely but that was exactly how the words sounded as Sonu stopped his work for a second and looked at him uncomprehendingly.

“What are you staring at,“ he asked even more rudely and then walked off from there, controlling the earlier urge to dig his teeth into something fleshy. The restaurant was still empty and the sun had already begun its descend even as the regular bunch of mosquitoes had appeared out of wherever it was they had managed to hide themselves in the daylight. A vague form of dread filled up inside him and he desperately longed for a kind ear that would sit down and listen to everything he had to say and God knew that was an awfully large number of words.

As if his prayers were answered, a garishly dressed woman with a young boy and an even younger girl walked in through the door, her anklets jingling merrily and her dupatta precariously resting at the edge of her right shoulder, almost ready to fall off. Only, it didn’t, as she magically stopped the fall before it began and helped her children sit down on the iron chairs. Since Sonu was busy in the kitchen and Ramesh the waiter was out on a leave, he walked up to them, trying hard to maintain nonchalance in his stride and his gaze. The woman was precisely who he thought she was, her obvious exhibitionism unsettling. Clearly, despite all those years, he had never once come face to face with such unabashed and in-your-face carnality.

“Mutton kheema and rice, two plates,” she said even before he could get to her seat. Her voice was curiously bland for her colorful appearance but the expression in those eyes was unmistakable and clearly disturbing.

“It will take time. You are early,” he said when he eventually got close to their table even as the smell of the little girl’s greasy hair filled his nostrils and sent an avalanche of unpleasant sensations down his gut.

“Do you have something that I can get immediately? My children are hungry,” the woman asked him softly, something like a sensual smile playing on her lips, even as she passed affectionate glances over what seemed to be the children’s heads.

“This is not a grocery shop to sell instant food. Meals will be ready in half an hour only. Wait till that much time if you want to otherwise go. And don’t think I am going to give you free food without paying money. I know the likes of you. Let me make it clear.”

A wounded expression spread all over the woman’s face and the next second she was off the chair, asking her children to stand up too. The boy weakly protested saying he was too tired to walk, but with a moderately paced slap on his back, she successfully silenced all his protests and walked them both out of the room. A few seconds later he walked up to the door himself and stared at their retreating backs, the girl held up in the woman’s arms and the boy holding onto the edge of her dupatta, getting smaller and smaller till they very conveniently dissolved into the dull dusk coated evening.

In the next ten minutes, he had Sonu stuff all his in progress work into the refrigerator and go back home.

“But we have never shut shop at this time before. I am sure some customers will come,” a bewildered Sonu had tried protesting, but a little more rudeness from his master was all it took for him to comply to the orders.

He locked the hotel a couple of minutes after Sonu left and then walked up to the beach, forcing himself to walk along its entire length, passing everything ranging from defecating children to young couples getting cozy with each other to elderly men out on their evening walks. The woman’s tired face and her daughter’s greasy smell refused to go away and yet he felt nothing, no remorse, no tenderness. The woman’s plausible tragic story, her selfless love for her children, her desperate attempts at trying to bring normalcy in her children’s life, none of it affected him the way he had all along expected it would. He stopped abruptly as his feet stumbled against something solid, it was an old shoe, the canvas kinds, the kind his sons or he had never owned.

He lifted his foot to kick it but decided against doing so. Just then the annoyingly catchy Shahrukh Khan song “Chaiyya chaiyya” began to play from one of the flats in the neighborhood Housing colony society. His own radio/tape recorder had been non-functional for almost six months now, the recollection filled him up with guilt for the radio had been his wife’s steady companion, her one excuse for being able to sing along in the most atrocious manner along with the songs it played. He smiled at those memories and still lost in them, turned around to go back and that was when he realized he had been holding onto the bisleri bottle all this while, without taking as much as a sip from it. He uncapped the bottle and then brought it close to his mouth, but he wasn’t thirsty. He upturned the bottle and watched all the water inside it disappear into the sand and then with one swift motion turned around and flung it out into the sea. The bottle landed on water with a splash, causing a small twirl. He watched till that patch in the sea regained its composure and then letting the bottle’s cap drop down from his fingers, left from there.

Indian Review | Author | Prashila Naik is based out of Bangalore and has been published in ezines such as as Bewildering Stories, Spark, as well as daily newspapers from her native state of Goa.