parkinson,s disease

Parkinson’s Disease


Love moves you to the core. Love wounds you, shatters you or, God only knows what the more it does. But they say love begins to disquiet you even with the first occurrence of the feeling.

The old man and the bet

The room had no windows, no ventilators. No sooner did you close the door and moved on the glass-like glistening floor feeling the cool of the air-conditioner than the deep depression would pervade you. The whole….
‘You…know…ha...ha!’
He was laughing. He that is Ramesh Kalara. His status in the call centre of Marijuana Company was that of a hi-fi director. This was an additional flight for him. As soon as the talk lighted on the subject he would, in an instant, get transformed into an intellectual.
‘Ho...Ho…...’
He was still laughing-an aimless laugh. But my eyes seemed to have been captured by another sight.
‘Did you notice it, Ramesh? The short quick continuous motion? He…. In fact…he is shaking. Yes, not such as one usually will…but he is shaking….’
‘You…of course….’ Ramesh spoke in ice-cold voice.
‘You mean….he keeps swaying as if….’
The wasted flaccid body of the old man could be seen by a person passing through the main gate, crossing the veranda or getting into the private room of Ramesh Kalara. He sat at a fixed place on a chair by the room with its netting ….but he was shaking. No. you do not shake like this sitting in an aero plane passing through dense clouds. Not even when you are facing an enemy’s bullet. Passengers in speeding shatabdi express will not shake like this. The most helpless, in the scantiest of their clothing’s, soaked by the drizzle in the severely cold night will not shake like this. Perhaps this was the reason that as Ramesh Kalara laughed every time my attention was caught by that old man who unconcerned with your smiles or even boisterous laughs kept on shaking.
‘Ho...Ho…ho…’ Ramesh turned towards me. ‘Old people are meant for shaking. For, passing along the roads of their vast experiences they already have caused things to shake to such an extent that nothing remains unshaken by the time they are old. And as such they keep their own selves shaking’ once again Ramesh burst out laughing-a boisterous laugh, neighing like a spirited horse and shaking all over. He made me recall many a happening of the day.
The whole of the day seemed to have been occupied by the thoughts of old people. A young man has the stories of the aged more than he has that of his own youthful days. Their attention to the old is something like their attention towards the things that posed challenge and concern before them. ‘See,’ they say to themselves, ‘you are going to be turned into the same…, that is, after a few years only, and then you will find yourself standing at the threshold of helplessness. But some young persons try to live in the present only disregarding the heart rending stories and the old age because they are much too frightened to look into the fear generating mirror of the future.
Once again Ramesh laughed out aloud.
‘Ho…ho…, my sentimental friend. There was an elephant and a blind man. Oh, no. I know what’s going on at your heart, the same cold of helplessness.’ There persisted on the chair an existence shaking continually, at a higher temp0erature of the outer room. Ramesh stopped for a moment, looked at me, and added, ‘they can’t bear the cool, my sentimental friend. That’s why they keep shaking.
‘Ah, definitely my friend. But I can say, one day, having been terrified by his seclusion and loneliness, he will suffer so great a heat...That…No. you are laughing…believe me my dear friends, he will cease to shake.’
At first I…I myself was not aware of what I was saying. Or. Perhaps, my afore mentioned words of reaction show that nothing could be done about the involuntary shaking of the body that presented itself there.
‘Ho…ho…it means you too are a real buffoon, my dear...’he was shrieking under a fit of uncontrollable, laughter, holding his belly with his hands. ‘That means,’ he said, ‘you believe in miracles, even today.'
Every action has an equal and opposite reaction, for that reason a miracle had happened, but happened, but the form of the miracle was a transformed one.

The sovereign power of falsehood

Wrinkles appeared on his nose as he spoke. A part of his spoken sentence would get dissolved with his breath, consequently, lost to the audience. The hair above his forehead, on the front was disappearing fast. Many affairs of Ramesh Kalara’s life were such as were, perhaps, known to me only. Exceptionally ambitious he was. He had no scruple in going across the limits if it served his purpose. Falsehood, naturally, became a strong weapon in his hands. In other words, you might reckon him as one of the persons who would accept falsehood as the ideal. His marriage, too, took place under interesting circumstances. The would be wife belonged to a hi-fi family. They were the days when an interesting series of his falsehoods had already begun. It was in his very young age that his ambition had told him if he wanted to take a swift flight; he must learn to throttle others, to pay routine visits to the abodes of politicians and influential personages and to make money by creating employment opportunity for an interesting suppliant. This was followed by discotheques, waiting on the seats in the lobbies of five star hotels, and the like. Just a little of indiscriminate altering helped him acquire a second-hand car too. A beautiful Tata Safari he got almost for nothing. This chance happened to occur in the following way. This safari belonged to a doctor. The doctor was involved in some complicated case. Ramesh Kalara helped the doctor ease his position by virtue of his approach to a certain minister. Later on when the Tata Safari met with an accident, the doctor took the vehicle to be ill-omened and decided to replace it by another one. This helped Kalara buy the Safari at a wishful price.
Quite unexpectedly, one day he happened to come across Muskaan in the lobby of Miranda five star hotels. She was in her jeans and sleeveless shirt… Questions and answers were exchanged. Ramesh said quietly, ‘I’ve appeared at I.A.S. examination…’ Ramesh, of courses, had a taste for clothes. This was the outcome of his regular visits to five star hotels, or, whatsoever other reasons might have contributed to it, but because his clothing’s showed his refined tastes, and also that his English was stylish, it was possible for one to presume that this Kalara, though showing wrinkles on his nose again and again as he spoke, could aspire for a place as on I.A.S. officer.
Perhaps this was the story of Muskaan’s coming closer to Kalara. Much was added to this story as the time rolled on. For example, Kalara’s introduction to Muskaan’s businessman father winning his confidence. Imposing rides in Tata Safari. Stylish manners.
The residnes of the old and disappearing culture had, somehow, retained itself in the aged and broken down body. They were safe in Kalara’s father. To Ramesh Kalara, Ranvir Kalara, who lived in an ancient two roomed house, was nothing more than a tiresome burden, or an unseemly speck. He tolerates this ‘existence’ or ‘rubbish’ only because of his blood relation. Mother was dead. Both the sisters were in their father-in-law’s houses. Ramesh had to manage for a decent house that he would need when he got married.
Ramesh got a heavy loan sanctioned by the bank. He hoped that every thing will be set right as soon as the bird laying golden eggs is under his roof.
This was the very time when a fearsome eclipse took place. The father, conscious of the morals of his son, and enduring the abuses from him mutely began to shake, as a horse would. Perhaps, the ailment was the outcome of his suppression of the fire that lay smoothing at his heat since long ago. He fell a prey to such a disease as had never been or known previously in the family.
Soon, after Kalara had got the sum he bought a bungalow also in Preet vihar. Another story lay behind the transaction of the bungalow. This bungalow belonged to a widow whose sons were settled in a foreign land since Ramesh visited her regularly, and helped her perform some trivial activities as the occasion demanded; the old lady fell under the spell of Kalara. The widow was to go to and live with her beloved daughter in the latter’s small house in Rohini before her flight to the foreign land after two months. The lady wanted to dispose off the bungalow. The price was settled. The payment was to be done in two installments. As the documentation proceed on Kalara declared in clear words that his interest in getting the deal registered in his own name lay only in the fact that the responsibility of the payments that were to be made should rest on him. Half of the story that emerged out is, the widow could not get even the first half of the payment before she departed for the foreign land. She lodged a case against the Kalara. But cases like that opened against Kalara and closed too, not infrequently.
When Muskaan came to her new home, explosions occurred, one after the other. But in his practical life Ramesh entertained no disturbances or discontents. For example, Muskaan asked-
‘Were you not taking your I.A.S. exam?’
‘No’
‘Why did you tell a lie?’
‘To make an impression on you.’
A room in the house was occupied by the broken down old body on which Ramesh on which Ramesh couldn’t spend any money for that seemed to him to be like setting a bet on a deal horse at a race course.
Muskaan kept crying for a number of days. Her businessman father consoled her, and to hive his son-in-laws a sound footing, he entrusted him with the reigns of the call centre, Marijuana Company, in partnership with himself. This was the time when, having gambled and won the objects of every dream, he himself became something like a dream. Bereft of sentimentality, care for the press, ideals, relations, the whole of his history and geography was money only. And in his race for money he did not keep himself to any particular mode or direction. All the possible fields were open to him.
And quite removed from them was the presence of the old body that, seated on a chair, continued to shake day in and day out. And to me, If there could be anything that would excite wonder in me, it was the shaking of Ranveer Kalara. On his wrinkled face the flesh hung loose. The spectacles had disappeared. His shirt and pantaloon were so very disproportionately loose on his body that he looked like a scare-crow on a bamboo pole. His limbs were disabled. It was difficult to ascertain what his eyes looked at any given moment. But could there be any hope for a miracle to happen to his body and bring about a change for the better with the passage of time? Perhaps, not and so, on that holiday when Ramesh had come home, I went to the room where the scare-crow, Ranveer by name, was left alone to keep sitting in the chair and shaking. After looking at him for some time carefully I was a bit worried and irritated too.
‘Yes, keep shaking. You too can shake, for the whole of the country is shaking. The public is shaking. Public verdict is shaking. Politics is shaking. Every thing, from the parliament to the streets is shaking. And no earthquake is required to make the bases, that possessed the firmness of good reasons, shake. And that is the reason that nothing is stale, from the individual to the whole country, from society to politics, from religion to discipline. All are shaking.
‘Have there been any miracles? Ho….ho…’ the all-in-all of Marijuana Company was standing before him now. ‘Friend, Listen to me. A miracle has happen here only. He was pointing at his head. Once again he was eager to tell me that he was not just a partner in Marijuana Company. He was the boss. A little of greasing the palm, a little of falsehood, a little of fraud---and once again he succeeded in giving a blow, a little harder this time, to the businessman, father of Muskaan. His x-partner was a close friend of Muskaan’s father. He had accepted the partnership on the insistence of Muskaan’s father only. But, as Ramesh said, ‘you have to dislodge all the bricks, one by one, that formerly supported you…’
‘But that will make you fall too. I mean you’ll be unsafe.’
‘O, no,’ he was laughing, ‘self-reliant. No sooner are all the bricks removed than you become cautions and careful about your own safety, not depending upon anyone else for it.’ In the manner of a philosopher, looking at the window he was saying, ‘with the passage of time dreams and struggles have changed market. And to stand in its support a bit of selfishness was to be adopted. In fact, my friend, there is nothing new about it. To live a life different from the commoners, as I desired, has been my desire all the time,’ he said softly, ‘in this new colonial culture we have to write our own history and geography according to our own ability. And for that, everything like self sacrifice, renunciation of selfish pleasure seeking, self purification, age old ideals, or any thing so called valuable…., al must be dedicated selfish pursuits….’ He coughed softly, ‘but I have still kept a little of my selfishness apart, Indian as I am, in the interest of that chair set alone, on which your miracle is shaking. On a certain day to come that shaking will cease and then the chair will be removed to another room. On that day that part of my abstention from selfishness will get wiped off too….’
It was a horrible truth. And perhaps this was the reason that I had set my hopes on that rare moment of time when the shaking of the old man should come to an end, perhaps because of my habit of following the age old, rotten, Marxist formula ‘ a change even in an individual.’ The meaning of our dialogue got diversified, carrying a worthy or an unworthy meaning.
At every opportune time Ramesh, with all the evidence of his being, would set himself to tearing into bits the time, history and culture. My ways were different. Perhaps it was the reason that all the changes I happened to observe in him exhibited themselves to be something like a horrible cultural upheaval to me. In the age of new global software, out sourcing, the mall, reality shows, cosmopolitan cities gaining global dimensions, I seemed to be akin to some dinosaur of the prehistoric age whereas Ramesh was on his natural evolutionary path moving in accordance with the shifts in markets and the codes of the age. He was moving just along with his own lines.
But there it was that a small happening took place. Immediately after Khanna had been removed from Marijuana Company, a new director, Shilpi, took his seat. A view change was in the offing. After that the news that followed and reached me too, had the impressions of fragrance, rains, butterfly, and deceit-all in their little proportions. J knew that shilpi had taken our king of falsehood in thrall. Perhaps struggling against our own circumstances we happen to come to a situation where we surrender ourselves to the temptation of the feminine body and just the presence of a woman becomes the means of smoothing out so many creases in our lives and happenings there in.

In the place of the old man

I could not believe that after a period of a few months only I shall have to come across such an odd circumstance. Ramesh asked me to come to him but, now, the voice was not that of a villain or a hero. I could discern the cry of a defeated man in the voice. Although it was my second or third meeting after a lapse of a few months only, Ramesh, in his own room, looked as if he had been sick for years. From the very beginning he had been trying to look calm and composed, but soon he seemed to be losing his grounds.
The room had neither any window nor ventilator open. And as soon as the door was shut, the cool of the air-conditioner suddenly acquired a new form at my heart. Ramesh was seated in a chair. With a cigar in his lips, he was lost in some deep thinking. His ‘you know…ho…ho’ was missing today. His words had got lost in certain narrow streets.
‘I heard, muskaan is going to divorce you.’ I said. Turning up he looked at me, ‘we have been married for two years. She has been divorcing me since the very first day she came…’ he said.
‘What does she want?’
‘Simple. She wants a divorce. There is a ruling of the Supreme Court that a wife can claim her divorce even on the basis of the mental harassment inflicted on her by her husband. It could be a simple excuse, the words of Ramesh were explosive, ‘but she couldn’t do that till now.’
‘Two years is certainly not on enormous amount of time.’
‘Yes.’
‘Don’t you think that in your flight you wagered your own life and domesticity?’ I asked.
‘I never felt like that.’ Ramesh shook the ash off his cigarette. ‘Every one has the right to take a flight. After all, what is politics? a desire and effort to shake off the opponent. What treatment did general Parvez Musharraf meted out to Nawaz Sharif? And the helicopter accident of Sanjay Gandhi? Did people not connect the accident with Indira Gandhi? It was politics only that tempted Aurangzeb to confine his father and slaughter his brother. What did emperor Ashoka do...he put his own brothers to death. I did not kill any body.’
‘There is a difference between politics and home.’
‘No difference is there; let it be the house or the society. For every place there is a politics of its own kind.’
‘is Shilpi too a part of this politics?’
Suddenly there seemed to have happened an explosion within him. He crushed the cigarette into the ash-try. There was a terrible change in his countenance. He got up. Moved towards the window, switched off the air-conditioner, and opened the window as if he wanted to keep himself from nausea and suffocation. The decayed body was seated on the chair on the front, shaking as ever, nut I had seen a wave in Kalara’s body that shook him as I named Shilpi. This was the very first of such an observation on my part. Something devastating must have happened, which, perhaps he was not fully aware of, or, there was something extra-ordinary that he wanted to bring forth. When he returned, it seemed a lot had already befallen him in a flash. He sat down. Sitting in his chair he burst out crying uncontuollably, in the way as a heart-broden child only could.
Perhaps, this was the scene for which this story was born….a sensational, maddening scene. Kalara and tears! To the eyes of a thousand, Kalara was a man who had ruthlessness only to0 show for tears. Could there have happened such a coincidence of circumstances that made Kalara’s heart bleed and made him cry? Perhaps it was impossible for me to believe, but it had happened. He was crying. His tears rolled down his cheeks. I stood there bent over him. ‘cry out the pain. You should cry. I think it is your right to lighter yourself, even by crying. If my presence is an obstruction to you, I may….’
Ramesh held me by the hand instantly.
‘No. stays here. You’ll go nowhere….for I am going to tell you what I wouldn’t have told any other one? He was wiping his tears. He seemed to be making an effort to compose himself, or putting in order the frayed impressions of the story.
‘But how shall I begin the story? Will any person believe it? He said. Despite the cool of the air-conditioner, sweat drops were collecting on Kalara’s forehead.
All the stories in the world begin with love. in fact, the world has no philosophy of its own. Love itself is the philosophy for love is eternal. Will any person believe that a person like myself, who could ne called a flint-hearted one, a stone image, or any other such thing, and quite appropriately too, is, at the core of his heart…., please, be kind enough to listen to me. Muskaan was not my love. To me, during this little span of time, she was more the daughter of a businessman than the wife.’ Ramesh wiped away the sweat with his handkerchief. ‘In my early age I read stories too, by such story writers as Moupassant, Chekhov and O’henny. At the time was impossible to believe in the truthfulness of the tales as they would bewilder me. I said to myself, ‘did it happen so? Could it be so? Or he….what’s the good name? Yes. Stephen Zwig. 24 hours in a woman’s life. And she gave those hours to a man who was not worthy of being a lover. I wonder if Zwing wrote this story for me.’ He stopped to connect the threads of his tale. ‘She got into my cabin as if in a breath. It was about 11 o’clock. No. I can draw a picture of the moment quite precisely. Perhaps the Ramesh Kalara of the former days could not do so, for she had brought along with her the intoxication of love and passion. Blue jeans, a number of embroidery flower-lets, hung from them, touched her beautiful white sandals. The upper garment-a T-shirt, white one. This was the time when my peon, who brought me to felt a shock as he got in. the first flower of ‘Neelambar sansai was peeping out, and the battery cell of the wall clock having struck 11 went to sleep. Do you follow me? She came in and freezed the time by her arrival.’
‘No. I don’t want to go back empty handed. By the way I am born to win only, she said sensing herself to be in full command of the situation and knowing the power of her beauty she advanced her resume. ‘Please look. Don’t you feel that I can give a new life to this- your call centre?’ she took a step backwards, ‘sir, look at me. My experience is not written on that blank paper. It is here also, in my eyes, in my body.’ Sir, look at me. My experience is not written on that blank paper. It is here also, in my eyes, in my body.’ All this was like a fantasy, as if a fantasy was changing itself into a reality. A person like myself who in business matters can use unrefined or rude language only, or who can never tolerate the words of pride or authority ….but what could I do? I had surrendered myself to the glow of her beauty. Or one could say, I was softening myself at heart and almost shaking physically.
‘As Shilpi came in my life, everything began to happen in a way as it had never happened before. For example, during a night, under the glow of myriad of stars, I stood on the balcony watching the moon; taken by a spell of strange intoxication I began to hum a film song tune. It seemed, for the first time a new man was born within me who was a lover of or husband to Muskaaan. She understood the touch of my hands that, now, had the feel of lovers. Many and many woman in the world has the sixth sense that they can recognize the fragrance of an alien love in the hands of their husbands. Muskaan pushed off my hands uncourteously. ‘Away. These hands bear the feel of some other one. In the skin of your hand there is some other one very near to becoming your love….Listen, it is not you Ramesh Kalara,’ Muskaan said. She turned to her side as she lay, and suddenly awareness downed upon me. It was not my hands only, but the whole body on which Shilpi was imposing her personality. By degrees. And it was discernible not on the feel of my touch only but on the whole of my physical existence. That night before I fell asleep I said to myself, Kalara, transforms yourself into a poet, and you are lost. The bases of your progress are founded on dishonesty, lie, and the things that are so foreign that no love can have any access to them. But on that day in the cabin….perhaps it was a part of my own well thought of plan….but what followed thereafter…..’
Ramesh stopped suddenly. ‘Does love make a fool of you? As, it did in the story by Z wig when that married woman eloped with that young man. Is it not detestable that a married woman should elope with a stranger, and that too when she has the husband and the offspring. To think of Shilpi when Muskaan was already there! But perhaps my heart had not only secretly consented to it but given it due respect too, for it was my very first effort, looking back since my very childhood to this day that I should have endeavored to that. I was behaving simply as a man touching the bounds of love without any considerations to selfish impulses.’
I had fixed my gaze on Kalara. No, it wasn’t possible that this man should fall into romantic feelings. The new culture of commercialization had changed the meaning of sex. Perhaps it had got mixed up in the ‘cocktail’ of romance suffered internally. At this moment this very cocktail was apparent on the face of Ramesh. He took a deep breath and proceeded.
‘I have a private room of mine in the office. Everything happened per my planning. Exciting music broadcast by world space Radio was in the air. I had sprayed the room to make the air sweet. All the staff, as a rule, is in by ten. I was awaiting Shilpi only. I had thought much about it, and also believed that nothing would be objectionable, perhaps, to open minded Shilpi. As she entered my room all was fragrance there. Looking round the room she succeeded in making out what was there at my heart. Coming swiftly she stood erect before me. She began to say, ‘I don’t believe in stretching the issues like a piece of rubber. Do you desire to get me?’ holding my hands into hers she added, ‘then please uncover me….’ Shilpi’s existence was akin to Monalisa’s whose smile had been beyond comprehension and was so perhaps to the artist himself too.
‘the clothings dropped down one by one, but Shilpi stood there clothed in her indifference. In all her nakedness she was there in front of me looking into my eyes. A woman’s body is a musical instrument, but every man doesn’t have the art of playing upon it. ‘can you tell me what part of my body passesses fire at its utmost? Here…’ she pointed at her breasts. And then, ‘here…here….here…’ her hands moving downwards from her lips to other soft parts of her body came to her ear loves, ‘here…bring your lips here. Sorry, I can’t call you ‘sir’ at the present moment.’ The panes on the window were glass ones, through them one could see the world outside but it was difficult to see the things inside the room from the out side. Looking at the rows of the multi-sky-scraper buildings, she turned, all of a sudden. With terror struck eyes she cried out, ‘vulture, my god! A culture on the opposite building.’ The volcanic eruptions within me turned into snow. She dressed up. ‘sorry sir… you can understand. No? a vulture on the building just opposite to yours, at 11 o’clock during the day! I could never stand vultures….ever since I was a child…’ having dressed up she was outside the room. After some time when I was able to recover myself after this explosive situation, she was already in her cabin in her head bent over files.’ Ramesh Kalara took a cool breath. ‘Perhaps it was a cruel act against me, the act that gave me a new mental shock. I advanced towards the window. Having induced in me her own sexuality she had left me. The emotion was not only growing intense with the passage of time, but was becoming more and more tormenting to me. She was always there within me with all her beauty, and it was increasing my mental tension continuously. Some times I would debate at heart whether she was really indifferent or posed to seem to be so, in the same way as on her physical level she was wild as well as normal at one and the same time. In her cruelty she was affecting my virility too; perhaps because I was close to her many a time but I could not ask her for our physical closeness any mere. I don’t know if it was the outcome of my helplessness or the shock of the vulture incident, I too began to see vultures out side my house.’
‘on that night too I was possessed by the very helplessness. Muskaan was shrinking, ‘I had been to the office today. Your office is showing loss continuously since Ramesh uncle left it. And you? It is said that you are not serious at all about your work. Remember, it is your office but mine as well.’ After a Ramesh added, ‘but I continued to roar for a considerable time, though I cannot recall now the matter or the content of what I said. As I recovered my senses and lay in bed all sick, Muskaan shook my very existence by her next step. She said, ‘it was the first mental stroke. No danger as yet and she laughed out. The very next moment she handed over to me an envelop, saying, ‘it is shilpi’s resignation letter. She has got a placement some-where else, in a bigger company.
The old man and his shaking
‘So she left you?’
‘God knows’
‘But as Muskaan told you she had got a better placement somewhere?’
‘I don’t know.’ Ramesh breathed in desperately. He took out a cigarette from his pocket and holding it in his lips seemed to have got lost in some deep reflections.
‘I was a petty actor in politics, my friend. Perhaps I could play my part only to the extent that my selfishness dictated me to. But the politics played on the level of relations kills you. She disappeared all of a sudden and, perhaps, this was the time when I became upset mentally. I had seen the beauty of her body. Or, I should say, in a few minutes Shilpi had taken me in thrall. Perhaps she knew that it was through Shilpi only that she…’ in the ash-tray Ramesh shook the ash off his cigarette. ‘Like a mad man I searched for Shilpi. On that night at about 11 o’clock, as I parked the car in the lawn, I saw Shilpi getting off a car along with Muskaan. She was beast perturbed by my presence. She stood there rather proudly like a champion. Anyway, having suffered a new mental stroke, I was trying to compose myself. My words were lost to me. Perhaps it was on that very night that I had suffered a second mental stroke.’ Once again Ramesh was looking out of the window. ‘I think there comes a time when we begin to shake…’ the rest of what he said stuck to his throat.
We came out of the room and there awaited a rude shock for me. The old sluggish body was there in front of us. I gave a start.
‘Did you see, Ramesh?’
‘Yes.’ Ramesh was death pale.
‘No. you didn’t observe, or did you?
Unblinkingly Ramesh was looking at the mute old man who was shaking continuously. The man also smiled, and I can say on oath, as we came out and cast a glance at him, he had ceased shaking for a second.
While trying to answer me Ramesh shook a bit. I did not turn to cast a second glance at the old man.