Chapter 55
He knew the way to his home, and still used GPS.
He took the right towards Shakti Nagar and drove down the tiny lane that would veer towards the house where he was born.
He still looked at the GPS screen, the sun not even mildly hot yet, even for a doldrum October day.
He passed the gate of his house in his quest to follow the GPS and quickly reversed.
The GPS would take him around to the next bend and bring him back.
Instead, Samar cut through the gap in the divider that used to always be the shortcut to enter the gates of this house.
The road was deserted for so early in the morning. He cut through the two-way lane and halted outside the closed gate. Disintegrated wood and rusted iron. It was surprising that it had not been broken in yet. He had come here last before the blast.
Samar got down and unlocked the gate with his key.
He opened it to the small porch and the two-storey structure that had never been anything but a prison.
It used to be a drawing book home once. The slanted roofs used to be tiled in red, the body white.
Now it was crumbling. The red tiles had fallen off and broken, the grass and bushes all gone from the gullies.
The garden was dry. It had always been dry in his living memory.
But he also remembered his mother scolding him for picking flowers after sunset.
So it must have been flowering at some point.
The only thing that still survived here was the pair of peru trees. Annual rain must have been enough to let them sustain. Samar walked back and drove his car in, then closed the gates.
He opened the back door and stared at the bags of raw material.
He had conveniently blocked Atharva’s suggestion for months, keeping it off the forefront of his mind as he had gone on with therapy, work, workouts, tours.
And then this month of Pitrupaksh had arrived.
Atharva’s suggestion had started hammering inside his head.
Samar gripped the bags in both hands and lifted them out, shutting the door with his hip.
A heavy weight fell out of one of his own bags and he caught it before it hit the ground.
Bhagwad Gita.
The book that had been waiting for him when he had arrived back home from Sirmaur.
It was a massive book in hardcover, with translations and commentaries thickening it up to the size of one of his medical college reads.
He had started reading it, then stopped after a few pages.
Then again started it. Then again stopped.
Work had been busy and he had kept putting it down because things just didn’t make sense.
Even when he read the translations and commentaries multiple times.
He was on the verge of completing it but had nothing he had retained, or learned, or felt.
One of Atharva’s suggestions had passed without much help. He looked up at his house. He hoped this one would work. Because currently, he was a man fuelled by nothing but hope.
Samar set all the bags down on the small verandah that led to the curved door. Everything was in shambles. He walked to the fuse box and tripped it up. He hoped the lights he had changed three years ago still worked.
He unlocked the main door and stepped inside. The smell of dust, dry grass and pigeons hit him. He toppled the light switch and it flickered on. Good.
Samar brought the bags in, and rolled up his sleeves. He had three hours to clean the house up and cook.
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“Sankalp kijiye, Daaxsaab.” The priest directed. “Ab aap apne parivar ke karta ho.[197]”
Samar held his hand out as he poured water into it.
The hall was devoid of furniture but now overflowing with shraadh pooja samagri.
Samar never thought he would ever be caught sitting in this house, in a white kurta and pyjama, performing a pooja for a father he did not respect, along with a mother he did not know.
“Kya kaha apne, sorry?[198]” He blinked.
“Maine kaha, ab aap apne parivar ke karta ho. Head of the family.[199]”
Samar scoffed inwardly. What family… he stopped. There would be a family. Amaal would be the family. He took a deep breath and nodded.
“Aapka naam aur gotra.[200]”
“Samar Dixit. Main gotra nahi janta.[201]”
“Aap Atri gotra ke hai, Daaxsaab.” He smiled. “Boliye.[202]”
“Samar Dixit, Atri gotra.”
“Purvajon ke naam.[203]”
His tongue stuck for a millisecond, but he said it.
“Nilambar Dixit,” he swallowed. “Indu Dixit.”
“Ab mere piche boliye…[204]” he began chanting in Sanskrit, and Samar mumbled behind him.
The pooja went on, as deities were invoked, Ganesh and Vishnu.
Then, the names of his ancestors three generations over were recited.
He did not know them but it was there in the books of his gotra.
All names, all strangers, passed in a bloodline he had never identified with.
Samar followed obediently, touching things, saying things, passing things.
“Yeh pind jo aapne banaye hai,” the priest pointed at the rice and sesame balls that he had made as per his guidance. “Yeh aapke purvaj ke deh roop hai. Yeh aap purvajo ki aatma ko arpan karte hai, ki unhe apne aage ke safar mein isse poshan mile. Aap yeh pind unhe daan karte hai. Boliye…[205]”
Hair stood straight on the back of his neck.
He was forgiving his father. He was giving him life essence for his journey forward.
He was making sure his mother went happily.
With a clogged throat, he recited, kept reciting, kept following the directions.
Until he had offered food, water, peace and liberation to those two people with whom he had never been able to bond.
And all of a sudden, this wasn’t for himself or for Amaal or their future. This was for them. Whoever they were, whatever they were, however they were. They were parents who were now gone, and he was an adult now that they were gone. The head of the family that they had started.
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Night was falling fast and mosquitoes were buzzing outside. Samar stood on the kitchen sink, letting the cool breeze hit his face as he washed the utensils from this morning. He glanced up at the ceiling of the kitchen. The fan was dirty, cobwebs hanging from corners.
Indu Dixit.
Would she have been ok with a kitchen like this?
His eyes shifted back to the window, at the gullies of the garden, dried and empty. Amaal would definitely not be ok with a garden that had dried up. Indu Dixit would not have been either.
Oye shaitaaneya, raat nu phull na toddein, biba.[206]
“Ashutosh shashank shekhar chandramoli chindambara, koti-koti pranam shambhu koti naman digambara,” he crooned. “Nirvikar omkar avinashi, tumhi devadhi dev, jagat sarjak pralay karta, shivam satyam sundara…”
Nath nageshwar haro har paap shaap abhishaap tam, Mahadev mahaan bhole, sadaa shiv, shiv shankara.
Jagatapati anurakti bhakti sadaiv tere charan ho, kshama ho aparaadh sab, jai jai jayati jagdishwara.[207]
He collapsed, tears bursting out of his eyes, his throat, his stomach. The floor was too close and then he was on it, palms holding onto the marble, crying like he never had.
She wanted forgiveness for me. Even before I sinned, she wanted forgiveness for me.
Samar cried, touching his forehead to the shutters in front of him. The cool of the metal calmed the fire that had been burning inside him for months, years, his whole life.
Forgive me.
He cried.
Forgive me.