Chapter 2

I woke up with a start, my body was drenched with sweat and I needed water. Stumbling and fumbling, I felt around my bed and suddenly felt a fierce joy that I possessed use of my arms. I found the restricting confines of a mosquito net and was again suddenly angry with my houseboys for draping that foolishness over my head. Anyway, I got it up and tried to go to the bathroom, stumbled some more, cracked my shins well and finally found the door to the bathroom.

I switched on the lights and doused my face with water and drank from the tap, something my mom would give me hell about in my younger days. There is a sublime pleasure of committing childhood crimes as an adult, safe in the knowledge that retribution is lacking. Sating my thirst, I wiped my face on a nearby towel and…..

Something was wrong.

I wiped my face, then felt my old mug. I could not feel my beard. It was a weird feeling, like waking up in the middle of a dream and finding yourself in an alien land. I put away the towel and rubbed my face. My jawline seemed as smooth as a baby’s bottom and I am a guy who shaves everyday. Wondering, I started looking into the mirror, wondering if the guys played a prank on me as they used to try in the college hostel.

The face that looked back at me was not mine!

I rubbed my eyes, adjusted my spectacles and looked again. The face was mine, all right, but there were some glaring differences. I had no beard, no moustache, nothing. My jawline was drooping with slack jowls, and most important, I had hair on my head. A lot of hair, a full thatch to be precise and black as the night without a colour of gray. It was as if I was looking at a picture of myself, aged 14, instead of 34 as I actually was. Even my specs were the hated plasticky sort, which I had replaced with thin metal rims the day I earned my first salary. I concentrated, shook my head and looked again, trying to assimilate the information my brain was receiving from my eyes.

I was looking at myself aged 14 and I was wide awake…….

I was wide awake…….. or was I?

Try the old trick, pinch yourself said my brain. I did so.

Even my fingers felt flabby. Ouch. That hurt. The image in the mirror did not change.

I need sleep, that’s all. This is all a really good dream. As I turn to the door, I take my first look around me. The room is my old bathroom, just the way it still is, with differences that strike the eye, only when the eye falls on the specific item.

The toothpaste was the old white paste Colgate tube. I used gel now, or then, well, whatever. My electric razor is missing and so are my shaving foam cans and aftershaves. I gave it up as a bad job and tried to navigate back to my bed, rolled up the mosquito nets, tucked them up and lay on my back. Maybe it will look better in the morning, but something was not right. I fell asleep trying to figure out what it was……

A shock got me up again, the sort of buzzing type that comes from a very generalized area. I almost jumped out of my skin and screamed out

“What the f**k is going on? Who the hell is that?”

I get a quicker response than could be expected. There was another buzzing shock. This one got me to hunting for my specs, groping blindly I finally found them and put them on.

I wished I had not. It was my mom.

Not wrinkled and tired and arthritic, not with white hair and dentures and still hoping that her wild elder son would settle down with a nice decent Brahmin girl.

Nope, this one still had black hair, was definitely not tired of wielding the feared hairbrush that had delivered such clear wake-up calls and very definitely not arthritic. And she was in full top gear, screaming like a banshee,

“Its 8 o clock in the morning and you are still in bed? What have I done to deserve you? Other boys would have been up by 5 am and finished two hours of studying besides being ready for school….”

Yup, that was my mom all right. It took her about another ten years before she realised that I had left her other boys quite far back in the field, but that hairbrush was coming closer with each rise of her vocal pitch and I might have grown to 6 feet later, but that hairbrush still held some memories for me.

These memories, I thought, as I walked or rather waddled to the bathroom.

Yeah, I was still 14 or so, I believe as I looked in the mirror again. No differences, except maybe the eyes were not those of a 14 year old, or so it seemed. No matter, I had to get ready, what a blessing I did not have to shave. I was done in ten minutes flat and out of the bathroom. My mother was flabbergasted as she watched me come out of the bathroom.

“Did you take a bath or not? I’ll make you go in again if you haven’t” suspicion dripped and poured off her voice.

I grinned to myself and thought of my law college hostel days and asked for my clothes. If she told me to get them myself, I would take ages to remember the locations. I mean, hell, does anyone remember after 20 years, where their clothes used to be when they were back in school? I sure as hell did not and was greatly relieved when she handed out my school clothes, apparently in shock.

The clothes were a horror freak show. I mean, the trousers could have accommodated a baby elephant and the shirt was unbelievable. Grey trousers, white shirt, maroon tie and Bata naughty boy shoes. And once I tried them on, I realised that the clothes were tight! I mean, they were not comfortable. I was just not a comfortable shape!!!

Gods, no wonder the kids used to tease me back then….I mean, now. Oh well, this is not going to be fun.

I was ready and moving when my mom called back, “No school today or what? Who is going to take your school bag?”

School bag? The horror show was getting settled in. I mean, hell, even my juniors in practice carried smaller satchels of briefs. That thing must have weighed near to ten kilos. Great, I was back in the lovely old days where school bags weighed tons and uniforms had to be worn and gods bless us all, corporal punishment was the norm rather than being illegal.

No matter, lets get some juice and coffee said I. I slumped down in the dining table when things were again going crazy. The table was still covered with the old Formica finish that dad and I got replaced with some decent black marble tops before I went off to college. The chairs were in their old covers and the paneled sideboard was not yet built. I mean, things were really psyching me out but they were moving too fast. I had never been this harried along since…..since I was this age. Humph!!!

A plate is put in front of me and I see a mountain of rice and dal and chicken curry and sabzi and some kind of potato fries, it seemed. No wonder I was a blimp in school and still could not get rid of my waist ‘handles’.

I push the plate away. I was back in the land where people looked after the calories and let the vitamins go hang. Nowadays, that is in the present…ummm, the future…whatever, usually the menu for the meal, could be seen on my cooks apron and the food would be good solid stuff, all calories and fat and protein and maybe a vitamin crying softly because it was all alone. I had tried explaining nutrition to my cook, who dated from my mom’s dictatorial days of kitchen rule but the man’s three chins wobbled so menacingly at words like "vitamins" that I refused to go back into my kitchen ever again and subsisted on coffee, juice and cigarettes. And the gods bless me, if I was not back in the good old days.

“Can I get some orange juice and coffee?” I squeaked. Oh my god, my voice! I did not have a voice, I had a squeak!!! The lords have mercy!!!

Clearing my throat, I tried a lower pitch, “Can I get some orange juice and coffee?”

“And who is going to make it? You? Coffee and orange juice indeed, like they grow on trees. Eat what’s on your plate. Deepening your voice won’t get you anywhere.” That shrill voice was no match for my appetite, I gave up.

I juggled my bag and walked to our garage. Thank god it was in the same place as always. Only there were two huge ambassadors there now. No new shiny TATA indigo or my gleaming silver and black modified Enfield cruiser there. That was hard, very hard to take. No air-conditioning, no music in my cars, I could take, but a bike less existence was not going to be easy. I humped my bag on the bonnet and walked back to the house and hooked out the car keys from the hooks hanging in the kitchen, I remembered that much.

The old car still smelled great. I loved the big old amby as we used to call it. Big, roomy and built like a tank, this was the car of the Indian roads and I had learned to drive in the chaotic traffic of India on one of these monsters… this very one actually. Something finally that’s nice.

I started up the engine and the big motor turned over with a roar of exhaust and fumes. I loved it. I moved it into gear and drove to the gate, made a perfect three points turn and backed into our porch area. I could do it in my sleep in a 18-wheelered truck, I had been doing it so long. After all, I had just done it yesterday when I took dad for his check up before the final boardroom meeting. Damn! I had forgotten all about that meeting and the final series of events. Was there really a bomb? Did I really see P’s head roll into my view? What the hell had happened? I switched off the ignition as I stopped the car in the porch ready to move out when dad came.

I was still sitting and thinking about last night in the silent car when I could hear my mom’s shrill voices and the clamour of the household boys. Looking around, I was surprised to see them all on the verandah on the porch. Our old house was built on the old ‘Raj’ bungalow type lines and the porch had a verandah lining it, which fronted the house and the main doors. The whole family was out on the bloody verandah and talking all at once.

I could instantly recognise my father, and though I was better prepared for the shock it was still quite disturbing. The man I had taken yesterday to the doctor for his check up was about 20 kilos lighter and fitter with totally white hair and the usual changes of age. The man standing on the porch and ordering me to get out of the car was a different individual.

“Where did you learn to do that? Who told you to do that?” he asked.

The inevitable questions, I was getting tired of it all.

“I know how to drive, relax. I wont crash the car” I said.

This did not get the reaction of easing the situation that I was hoping for. In fact, it seemed to get me more into the soup. My dad’s face reddened and for a moment, I thought he was going to hit me. Not that I was afraid of being beaten up, having got quite a lot of deserved thrashings from him all throughout my childhood, but at that moment, I must have looked like I was not going to take a shot lying down, right now.

To my surprise, he stomped off and I was left feeling the old need for a cigarette. I almost started patting my pockets for the case and lighter when I remembered where I was and what I was doing. I walked back to the car and slid into the passenger seat and sat down and tried to not think of cigarettes and coffee.

A few minutes later, dad gets into the car and drives out of the house. I sat back, determined to look around and see what the morning brought.