10 Past Dark

By Shantanu Kulkarni

Finally he killed himself. That was the only way to take revenge.

There are people within people. These people under their mask have stories to tell, open up their souls and make shocking revelations. About thing that prowls in darkness, breaching the borders between dreams and consciousness, a white lotus that accompanies a dying old man, accidents that bring people closer, and matchmaking all gone wrong. Youve heard of werewolves, but you missed spotting a werepotato around you. And at times misery is an honest story teller.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Partridge Publishing India
• Release date: Feb 19, 2016
• ISBN: 9781482870664

Shantanu Kulkarni

Shantanu punches keyboard for most part of the day. Not writing stories, but putting numbers in Excel, creating presentations and answering hundreds of email for his clients. He has been a cubicle dweller for more than one and half decade in a software company. This is his first attempt at writing a book of stories he made up. He lives in Pune since 2009.

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Copyright © 2016 by Shantanu Kulkarni.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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Contents

The Wanderlust Nurse

The Utterly Average Life of Ashok

Werepotato

The White Lotus

Dark Business

Looped

Mismatchmaking

Club Turquoise

Mea Culpa

The Game

For Shilpatai and Himani

Acknowledgements

There are things we want to tell. But we never say these.

These are not secrets.

Secrets, we share. But some of those feelings which are yet to be dressed in words, which are juggled between dreams and a conscious, wakeful, alert mind just don’t come out. We get lost in the midst of a crowd, amble absent-mindedly, and don’t recall what we were thinking when we try to. And all this while we make our best attempt to tell ourselves we have a perfectly normal life. Punching in code, compiling instructions for machines—those don’t understand stories, but just ones and zeroes.

But we are wrong. Those dream crumbs which are born in the darkest attic of the body don’t just shrivel and wither away. They wait for us, lurking behind other thoughts, selecting the dreams they want to attack, ripping us out of sleep.

These stories are those restless thoughts. Once I decided those thoughts must be put down on paper, I allowed myself to be carried away. And this helped me release all the bottled-up exasperation. The characters in the stories gave me their parts as I started rambling with words. They came with absolutely no plan or order; there were nights they haunted me, terrified me, and at times delighted me. They allowed me to slide unabashedly into my own subconsciousness, observing the known things do the unknown.

Many people supported me to write the stories I used to tell. They gave their valuable suggestions, their ‘ahas’ and ‘oh’ remarks, corrections, and a lot of encouragement. I am especially grateful to my sister and my wife, without whom this would have never existed. My wife bore patience with me in my state of being one of the characters of my story followed by my weird absent-mindedness. Most of my writings were after dark, after everyone slept, except her, who listened to my raw thoughts and gave her ‘umhmms’. And most of the times, those ‘umhmms’ transformed the stubborn ideas into words and eventually stories. My sister was always the first to read the manuscript (in the middle of the night). She would wait for the email and read it regardless of the time at her end. I was never the first one to read the first draft; it was always her. And she was the one who believed that there would be few more people around the world who would read these stories and a book is a possibility.

Among the first readers were a few of my very good friends. They forgivingly read some of the first drafts and didn’t complain. Gurvinder, Imran, Carol, Anuj, if I hadn’t got encouragement from you guys, I wouldn’t have kept going. Shilpa, thanks for connecting me to Vani; she was the first person to read it critically.

And Marie, a big heartfelt thanks to you for all the editing that made this bunch of words readable.

The Wanderlust Nurse

Nothing really changed here for a long time. Shilhur is still just a speck, hardly noticeable on the state map of Maharashtra, the typical in-between village, off some seldom travelled highway. People hardly came here with their free will. Most people here are either because they lost their way and didn’t find a way out (yet), or were born here. The continual exodus of the young in search of better lives had left this village a place of the ageing generation, who were mostly entrusted to care of their grandkids.

Today was more or less like what it had been yesterday, dry and hot. The sky looked pale behind the dull brown stunted mountains. And the place wore the usual silence. Even the birds weren’t chirpy in this place. There were not many left anyway. Probably vultures and eagles were still around. They were as silent as the other residents of the place and stayed put on dry tall betel nut trees on those stunted mountains. In that speck of a village, under that blanket of silence stood a lonely shed: the rickety clinic of Dr Ghanshyam, the only clinic in the radius of twenty, or maybe even thirty, kilometres.

Inside the clinic was no different. There was a shroud of silence here as well. But this was different. This was of the screaming silence types, the one of heartbreak (the break that makes you know the location of the heart in the body). Silence which barges in uninvited, unannounced, sneaking in without the background beats or reverberating drums or crescendo of sad violin notes just tells you the address of the heart in the upper cavity of the gut, otherwise a granted place.

Two men stood in the clinic room. One of them stuck his chin on his chest, watching his feet, rather gazing through them, through the floor, actively avoiding eye contact with the other person. The other was following the fine dust motes, which shimmered and danced in the crisscross soft bars of sunlight flooding through the chinks of the door. The air in the room was stuffy, laden with what was going on in minds of those two people.

Finally, Ghanshyam cleared his throat and spoke in a choking voice, ‘You serious?’ He said that and felt sudden pressure at the base of his throat. He leaned forward and tried gulping the lump that stuck in this throat and said, ‘Last evening when you told me you would be leaving, it seemed like a passing thought. I thought that sleeping on it would make everything right and a good morning would bring us back to the usual business.’ He stopped and took a deep breath followed by a big sigh. ‘But here you are with your bags and stuff. You think this is a bloody joke? You come and go as and when you please?’

Silence.

Ghanshyam continued, ‘You were more than an assistant, always a friend. And this is how you get back to me? Sudden announcement, and bye?’

Silence.

‘Money didn’t keep you here for all this time, I knew that. Nearly from the time you came here. I know what I pay. There is something else, has to be. Don’t know what that is that keeps you here, or kept you here for all this time. Never bothered to find out, as long as you were happy and I had no problems, the patients were happy, they felt loved, what else does a doctor need? Everything was perfect till last evening. What changed suddenly? What are you looking for? Anand … this abrupt leaving is ridiculous, stupidity!’

Ghanshyam didn’t remember the last time he felt sad. There was a sense of something hanging in there, something looming between Anand’s eyes, and Ghanshyam could feel it, but did not understand. Why now? Why this suddenness, when the world was perfect? Anand was for granted; that he could leave one day never crossed his mind. He was waiting for a response to his reproaching, which was more of a pleading, but there was no change in Anand; he was still looking through the floor. The dirty brown dust-coated windows of his clinic filtered the soft morning sunlight, backlighting Anand, almost creating a halo around his head. Ghanshyam could see Anand’s silhouette, not his expression, and this frustrated him. He did not know if Anand was as sad as him to leave or was just indifferent. ‘For God’s sake, Anand, say something! Your silence is torturing me. I am a bloody doctor, have some respect, don’t make me plead like this!’ Ghanshyam almost cried.

Anand looked up to face Ghanshyam. Their eyes met for the first time since their conversation started this morning. Ghanshyam saw the light bounce off Anand’s flooding eyes. It gave him some kind of satisfaction, that Anand was also not happy to leave him and that place. He felt he still held a chance to stop him. And so he changed his tone and played emotionally. ‘Think about the people here who love you, who need your care. I might be able to run this clinic without you, and maybe treat a few problems, but will never be able to heal as you do and probably not save as many lives. These people need your love, Anand, they need to be healed, please stay … don’t go!’

A pregnant silence reigned, a silence in which the questions hung heavy like the floating dust motes in the room.

Eight years ago, when Anand came to Shilhur looking for a job, the scene was different. Ghanshyam had refused even the thought of needing an assistant. Having an assistant meant he had to pay somebody from whatever little he made and train him as well. Anand was desperate for the job. A meagre pay was okay for him.

‘Sahib … please allow me to help you, I can read and write, I can do dressings, I can do bandaging for your patients … I will do whatever you ask me to, all I ask is just one chance, sahib.’

‘Sahib … sahib’ went on as Ghanshyam was tending his patients. Patients in the room felt sympathy for this young boy, though he didn’t really look as desperate as he sounded. Looking healthy, with neat clothes, a clean-shaven, serene, and peaceful face, he hardly seemed like a case of desperation. Nevertheless he had sincerity in his eyes; he didn’t look like a fraudster, not exactly handsome, but with something appealing about him, something that stood out. But, Ghanshyam could not decide what it was about him that arrested his attention. He remained unmoved through all those pleadings of Anand. He was telling himself not to be fooled by those compelling, earnest eyes; this person was just another village bum looking to make some quick money.

The ‘sahib … sahib’ in the background was getting on his nerves though. And Anand didn’t look to be a fellow who could be insulted and driven out of the room with shouting and abusing, so he made him stand in the corner of the room and wait.

Just then a few villagers rushed in the clinic with hoo-ha; they were carrying a profusely bleeding old man. He was holding his temples with both his hands as blood ran over his face. The ruckus was because this old man was the head of the village and while he was putting the roof on his house, perched on the bamboo ladder, somebody had pushed him and run away. Ghanshyam felt it was a good time to put Anand to the test. Failure was guaranteed and he would be driven out for good.

‘Look here, we are lucky today, we have amongst us today a very good nurse.’ He pointed towards Anand and spoke to the harried villagers. Others in the room stood surprised looking at each other’s faces. Ghanshyam winked at one of them and gestured them to keep mum.

He asked Anand to clean the old man’s wound and make him ready for the examination. In the next few minutes, the villagers who saw Anand pleading a few minutes back, stood there in silence watching him perform the art he was saying he was good at. A few murmured amongst themselves if indeed he was some famous doctor’s assistant. He cleaned the blood with spirit and cotton swabs. He felt the nose of the old man to see if it was broken, lifted his eyelids to see how bloodshot they were. He tenderly ran his fingers in the old man’s thick hair to check for any bumps. By the time Anand was done, the old man was completely calm and soothed. While Ghanshyam was preparing the medicine, Anand described the details of the wound like a professional. All through the cleaning of the wound, Anand looked perfectly at ease, as if he did this all the time. Ghanshyam couldn’t believe that a person could bandage that well. His right-hand fingers moved more like an artist’s. The left hand held the other end of the bandage and rolled it around the old man’s forehead. Ghanshyam, awestruck, was watching every small detail, how Anand forgot the world around him, and the old man became his world, how his unrelated talks pacified and the old man didn’t realize that the solution stings when the wound is cleaned with it, how his left-hand fingers bent at unusual angles rolled the bandage and made a perfect knot. Ghanshyam, who was usually chatty with his patients, stood quiet, lost in his thoughts, just nodding as they left. He knew that not taking Anand after his open exhibition of skills would not go very well with the villagers, and especially when the headman was so happy with him.

He was convinced Anand was not what he seemed; there was more to him than what everybody saw. Who was he, a con man? Why would a con man come to his clinic? There was hardly anything to take from him, then why?

‘Ahem.’ Anand cleared his throat to get Ghanshyam’s attention.

‘Oh, yeah,’ Ghanshyam responded, a bit startled.

‘So, can I get a job, sahib?’

‘Who are you? You are not somebody desperate for money. With this expertise, you can get a good job in cities. Why here? Why with me?’

Anand smiled, and walked a few steps towards Ghanshyam. ‘Many questions in one breath. I understand though.’ And then he paused, giving out a slight sigh, as if thinking, making up an answer that would satisfy Ghanshyam.

Ghanshyam didn’t really want all his questions to be answered. Nobody wants that. Living with questions, with a few doubts, with self-built hypotheses is the way we have learnt to live. The mysteries, the unknowns make life interesting to live. When things are answered easily, we create newer doubts and newer mysteries, and those are usually damaging.

‘Does it really, really matter, doctor sahib, who I was before meeting you? Are you ready to put your trust in the words I say or you will run a background check on me? I know, most likely you will not go to the length of checking my past. It might be rather difficult. Easy thing would be, sahib, to trust your instincts. They will not lie. If you think I can be trusted, trust me and hire me. I won’t let you down. And yes, people call me Anand.’

The one who was begging and pleading for a job a few minutes back had found a sudden confidence. Maybe he realized that show in front of the villagers confirmed his job.

‘You are not from here.’ Ghanshyam was not yet ready to leave.

‘No, sir, I have travelled some distance to reach here.’

Ghanshyam noticed the change of sahib to sir. ‘Why here?’

‘I like this place.’

‘Nobody likes this place,’ Ghanshyam said and moved across the room, bored of standing in the same place, not really expecting any good answer. ‘Tell me, how do you know all this? You look young enough not to know.’

Anand uttered with a little laugh, ‘Practice.’

Anand looked just some years over thirty at that time. Ghanshyam kind of realized for now he would have to keep Anand. He told himself, at the age of fifty-four, he was not getting any younger; with an assistant like Anand, if he agreed to work for low pay, he could hope for some relaxed time. If he didn’t like him, he would find out a way to take him off. For now, he would explore what he had just received.

‘You are yet to have your lunch, I am sure about it. Come with me. There is the lock and key of the clinic, lock the door, though it is just a suggestive thing. I still lock the door so that patients know I am not in. We will go to my home. Did you find a place to stay?’

That was eight years ago. In these eight years, the scene of the clinic had changed. There was a cleaner, better curtain to partition the patients being examined, and two small beds, one for the patients with Ghanshyam and the other for somebody to lie down on while they awaited their turn. There were a few chairs too, not just the wooden bench they had for so long. The clinic itself looked cleaner and more organized. As for Ghanshyam, who hated dependency, he was completely dependent on Anand. In just the first month of Anand joining, he had completely impressed Ghanshyam and more importantly won the hearts of the villagers. Many days, it was Anand who was running the clinic, and Ghanshyam enjoyed his new-found time for self-indulgence. Ghanshyam had not married. He felt wives were not dependable. After his medical education from a nearby university, he had settled into a cosy life in this, his native village. He earned more than enough to have two square meals and the great goodwill of village folks. And now with Anand around, he realized the time was at its best. In these eight years as Ghanshyam moved to his sixties, it seemed Anand stayed as young as the day he had come. Though at times Ghanshyam did see a kind of restlessness in Anand’s eyes, he had not bothered to question it. About Anand’s personal life, he had said he was a widower and never mentioned anything about having a child. He did not wish to marry again. Ghanshyam also agreed with Anand that women were root of all issues and he should not get married again and should concentrate on his clinic.

Perfect eight years.

Last evening as they were closing the clinic for the day, Anand told Ghanshyam that he would be leaving the clinic and the village tomorrow. Ghanshyam had joked, ‘Yeah, in search of a girlfriend? We will talk about it some other time. I am tired and want to go home.’

This morning, Anand came with a duffel bag full of clothes and hugged Ghanshyam. It was then, that Ghanshyam realized Anand was serious about what he said. He just did not know how to survive without Anand. And he was sixty plus now, he did not have enough motivation or energy to find somebody new to assist him or rather take care of him like Anand did. He had taken Anand was taken for granted, more like a son. And now suddenly, all the comfort he was used to was moving out of his life.

‘This is it, sir. The time has come to make a move.’ Anand finally said something.

Ghanshyam felt a sudden pressure at the base of his throat. The awareness of loneliness! Eight years back, there was no Anand, and life had no complaints. But this thickness in the last eight years made everything heavy; it was the fear of solitude, not love for Anand.

‘What do you mean, the time has come?’

‘It means the time has come for me to go.’

‘Why, Anand? Did I do something or say something? Why are you going?’

‘Nothing you did, sir, has made me take this decision, it is just that I know that my time to leave this place has come and I should go. I will always remember our eight years together very fondly.’

‘This doesn’t make any sense, one day suddenly you announce you are going, and you actually go!’

‘I realize that, sir.’

‘So, stay.’

‘Can’t do that.’

‘Let me at least get prepared then. You cannot walk in here at your will and go whenever you feel like. I am running a clinic; there should be a sense of responsibility. I will let you know when it is a good time for you to go.’

‘There cannot be any more right time than this. I have thought over it for some time, the time has come, and I must go.’

‘What is this time has come, must go, and all that? Where are you going, what is the urgency? You know what, tell me where you are going, and I may allow you. I might come to meet you someday.’

‘Sir, I am a wanderer, I don’t know where I am going, and so I cannot possibly tell you what I myself do not know. I’ll walk a few miles, hitch a ride, catch a train, maybe swim a river and reach my new home. I just don’t know where that place would be.’

‘Oh, that sounds so dramatic. Is this some plan to serve humanity? Use your knowledge to help people across the country?’

‘Sir, don’t embarrass me. I am a simpleton, putting things that I know into practice.’

‘No, you are not! You are hiding something. You have been hiding all along. I knew it but never asked you, but I think the time has also come to tell me about yourself. Why did you come here in the first place? You said you don’t have any relatives, you don’t even know your parents. But then who is that woman whose photo you carry in your pouch? Yes, I saw you once tenderly moving your fingers over a woman’s photo. A fragile and old lady in the photo, is she is your mother? Who is or was she?’

‘Sir, thank you for all your help, but I must leave.’

‘No, I am not going to allow you to go today, even if it means that I run by your side till the end of the village and gather a huge crowd.’

‘Sir, I beg you, please don’t make it any more difficult than it already is.’

‘Only on one condition, you must share with me your secret, tell me who you are, from where you came and why you served me and all these villagers selflessly.’

‘There is no secret! I am a wanderer who worked as a nurse, in a village about 200 kilometres from here. I left that village like I am leaving this one. I get an urge to move after couple of years, in fact here I stayed the longest.’

‘You can fool the naïve villagers, not me—from the way you work, you have had a lot of experience. It takes years of experience to know the medicine combinations you know, it takes years of knowledge and reading the way you talk to the villagers. You could not have learned it at the age of thirtyish. I am not a fool, I know you are much more than a nurse. I could make it out working with you in the first month itself, I never spoke about it, as your skill helped me. But today, if you are going away, I need to know everything.’

‘Sir, please let me go.’ Saying this, Anand got up, wiping his tears, and started walking towards the door and climbed down the three steps outside the clinic.

Ghanshyam darted behind Anand with a childlike ferocity, forgetting he was on the other side of his sixties. His knee buckled on the third step, making him land on his right ankle for his sprinted fourth step, bending it sharply. He lost his balance completely and banged his head with a loud thud on the door column and came crashing down the three steps outside the clinic, head first. Anand turned back sharply to stop Ghanshyam’s fall, but he was already down with his face down on the ground. Bleeding nose, ugly gash on his forehead, and twisted ankle. Anand was trembling as he picked up Ghanshyam like a child and brought him back in the clinic.

‘Marvellous, a bit in a horrible way, but good!’ Ghanshyam commented as Anand softly placed him on the bed meant for waiting patients. ‘Don’t go … I request you.’ Anand was busy as he mixed a carefully measured dose of some strong, pungent painkiller and gave it to Ghanshyam to drink.

‘This will settle you. And don’t talk, Dighu.’

Ghanshyam started to say something when a searing pain shot through his temple. ‘Aaah … this is bad.’

‘Don’t talk,’ Anand said curtly. He cleaned Ghanshyam’s wound and face, bandaged his forehead, and propped him up.

Ghanshyam tried to sit up fully, but could not. ‘I am going to die, aren’t I? So don’t leave me like this.’

Anand looked in his eyes and smiled, his own eyes now were more than just a little moist. ‘We both know you will not die, certainly not because of this. The concussion is bearable. So let me go. Though I feel terrible to leave you like this, I must go.’

Anand settled the doctor comfortably on his bed, adjusted the pillow on his back, and fetched him a book to read. ‘Don’t move, don’t exert yourself, in a few minutes, someone is sure to come by and can help you, a good bed rest will set everything right. You don’t have any cracks or fractures.’

Ghanshyam stared at Anand, and smiled as if recalling something. He knew he could trust Anand’s judgment.

Anand started leaving; on his way out, he paused for a moment, thought of looking back, but controlled himself and stepped out. At the threshold of the door, he lingered. Both of them were silent for a few brief moments that seemed almost never-ending to Anand.

‘This old man will remember you for the rest of his life, tell me who you are, why you came here, and why are you going now.’

Anand turned back and looked at the doctor.

Ghanshyam gave a faint smile and extended his hand. Anand came back and took Ghanshyam’s hand in his with a caring and warm squeeze.

‘Sir, my story only disturbs people. But if this is so important for you, I will go with what you want.’

‘Good. Tell me in detail about yourself.’

Anand looked at him as if reading something on his face and then got up and walked a few paces away, turning his back on the doctor. ‘Sir, there are stories that lie buried deep in hollows of time, and that is where they should be kept. You are a doctor … it is difficult for you to see what lies beyond your conventional science. Crossing the chasm of what you were taught as truth, tangible and understandable, happens only in tales for you. You would call these the blind beliefs of superstitious idiots. That there exist other realms, with happenings that would creep you out and send shivers up your spine are but scary fantasies or movie plots to you. I do not know how you could begin to believe what I am about to tell you. About one thing I am sure though, the end is distressing.’

‘Try me, Anand,’ the doctor said, putting aside his book.

‘This world is an old place, older than our science tells us.’

‘For God’s sake, stop the footage and start speaking sense. Once you are done, you may leave peacefully.’

‘Peacefully,’ Anand laughed.