The Gift
Short story
Sharad’s phone rings several times before he picks it up.
“Yes, Pavan, the house with tall trees, behind the cathedral”.
Pavan had worked with him in the electrical department 20 years back. They hadn’t seen each other in ages. Rumors were around that Pavan had moved through a string of jobs, getting nowhere. He wasn’t surprised, from what he remembered.
One has to devote everything to a job, not saunter along late into office, sip tea, and then wonder why one gets fired. And this guy wasn’t one to care.
So when the call came after all these years, he wasn’t very keen on meeting him. It was his spirited wife who urged him otherwise.
“But it’s Diwali! You should ask him to drop by.”
So he begrudgingly invited him — “Sure, come over. Stay for dinner”
The doorbell rings. “Pavan! Long time. How are you doing?’
His hair is intact but almost fully grey. He’s a few years younger than me! Time passes so quickly. With a linen bag slung across his shoulders, he is smiling broadly. The corners of his lips curve up and disappear under his nose.
“Sir Ji!” Pavan shakes his hands with vigor.
As they sit down, Sharad calls for his wife and kid. The wife appears with a glass of water and beams the holiday smile at him with ease.
“Have spoken a lot to her about you and the gang. Good times’, he tells the guest.
In reality, he had mentioned this maybe once to his wife, in passing.
“You look the same. Where do you work now, Pavan?”
“I lost my job last month. Looking for one now.”
Great. He’s here to ask for a job, obviously. He has the unmistakable look of a jobless person — unshaved, seedy, lax. Why else would he come out here after all these years?
“Tea or Coffee?”, the wife asks.
“Nothing, I’m all right”
“I won’t accept that. I will get you a cup of coffee!”, she vanishes back into the kitchen.
“How’re your parents doing, Pavan?”
“Father passed away two years back. I live with my mother now.”
“It’s great she has you to take care of her. Who takes care of parents these days?”
No job, no wife, what other work do you have?
Pavan takes out a handkerchief and blows his nose into it. The sniffles.
“Sorry, I have a cold, its been annoying for four days now.”
“You should get married. You will not pay credence to such minor inconveniences. You will have much bigger rocks to deal with”, he quips with a half-serious look.
The kid comes running into the living room. Before he could go anywhere near the infected guest, Sharad pulls him into his arms.
“Excitable fellow”.
Pavan smiles at the kid and asks his age. The kid looks at the father, he gets a nod, then proceeds to a coy reply.
“I am 8 years old, Uncle”
“Smart kid. Just like his father. You know I always admired you, Sharad Sir, I wanted to become like you back then — intelligent & confident! My luck with jobs has been mixed.”
“What happened to your last job?”
“I was working a night shift job at the electrical division of a big apartment complex. The work was not much, but I messed up the grid more than once. Too many complaints, they couldn’t keep me on.”
“You should consider a day job. What good is roaming around apartments at night?”
“I am thinking of going back to the village. My father had left an acre of farmland, thought I should try my luck with organic farming there.”
Chaotic man, chaotic decisions!
“Ah yes, Organic! The latest answer to the city’s adulterations. It is pointless, everything in India is unregulated. Don’t waste your time in such commercial pursuits!”
The wife comes in with a plastic tray, hands over a plate of assorted sweets — Laddoo, Kaju katli, and a steaming cup of coffee with a gracious serving of sugar to the guest, green tea to Sharad, sits down.
“Are you looking to get married soon?”
“Nothing worked out so far. I was very close to getting married last year, even got engaged, but the girl pulled out just before the function. I haven’t had the heart to continue the search since then. Thought I will give it a year. “
Yeah sure, waste one more year. You’re only 40.
“Anton Chekhov once said: If you are afraid of loneliness, do not marry”, Sharad quoted
“Was that our manager in Mumbai?”
He needs basic life lessons.
“No. He was a great writer. Russian. Wrote many short stories.”
“Interesting. Are any of his books online?”
“I will send you links. You should read them. You will develop a profound understanding of life.”
Pavan gets a call and steps out to answer it. Sharad has a smile on his face now, taking pride in parting with his knowledge freely. He takes a sip from his cup. This sip is particularly refreshing.
“I should get going, my mother needs me at home.”, Pavan says as he returns
“You just got here”
“Will drop by again soon. It was nice meeting you after a long time.”
Pavan gets up, waves an emphatic goodbye to the son, throws his grin again, and heads to the doorstep. As he slips into his shoes, he says
“I almost forgot. I have got a small gift for you. You know, being Diwali and all.”
He takes out a package from this bag and places it in Sharad’s hands. It is thin and solid, gift-wrapped in glaring red & white with a tiny, blank card stuck on top.
A showpiece, I’m sure. Maybe another photo of god. My wife will put it up on the glass display shelf, along with the other useless stuff.
“Thanks, that’s very thoughtful of you”, the wife remarks. Pavan waves again and heads out, taking steady steps towards the street.
Sharad unwraps the gift. It is a framed photo of him in a group, taken 20 odd years back. He looked young, was smiling, holding a small trophy for winning a hopscotch tournament back then. He could recall most of them in the photo- Pavan on the far right, with the trademark grin, Deepak with his lizard face, Rohit, Ritu, Laxman…, his mind speeds back in time when he was so full of life, making up outrageous nicknames, cracking stupid jokes, playing trivial games, surprising friends on their birthdays, going on impromptu trips, cheering everyone up. He was a moving mass of rapturous delight.
He lounges back on the sofa for a while, looking at the photo, digesting what it meant. The jet black hair he had, his smile even wider than Pavan’s.
‘Everything all right? his wife asks as she lights a series of diyas arranged in a row on a granite slab.
Usually, he brushes off memories as just pretty nostalgia. You know, smile at good old times and move on. But this photo, this memory of a cozy joy hidden in a remote corner in his past and long lost, had evoked something else in him. Articulation of this expression was no longer possible in words.
‘It’s…something’, he says as he joins his wife.
The wife smiles and asks if he could carry the lamps outside. He takes a diya, carries it to the entrance of his house, squats down, places it carefully, and looks at the street outside — Pavan isn’t to be seen in the visible distance. He stares for a moment, stands up, and heads back into the house, closing the door behind him. The flame gently dances to the breeze.
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