As Father got old..

Father kept assuring everyone that the telescopes would soon be repaired, but after a while, no one asked him. He was so pre-occupied with setting me right and seeing to things like the telescopes, that he didnt realise that subtly and surely, the world around him, was changing. The governments of the two countries were finally shedding decades of animosity, and were making overtures of peace towards each other. Everyone gets tired, after all, of living in a permanent state of war.  It wore out the politicians and even the soldiers. Researchers and doctors warned of the aggravations that could lead from bearing high stress levels.

Father scoffed at it all, as did some of the old soldiers. Its not possible. They cant just be such weaklings. Its all  drama.

And with that final judgement, father hoped that the hotel would return to its usual routine. But the bus tours were now empty. The soldiers who came every summer now got into their jeeps and rode across to the border gates to meet the enemy. Father would watch with disgust, long time enemies shaking hands, embracing and then exchanging gifts. He blamed me then. All those silly, romantic plays you put up, showing soldiers as lovelorn sissies, afraid of being men. Its those who have played havoc on men’s minds. They aren’t brave enough any more. They don’t deserve to be called soldiers any more.

Father made his own attempts to restore the old atmosphere, but he was hauled up by the army when they caught him shooting in the dark. That night, I was woken up by a heavy knocking on my door, and in my sleep disheveled state, I saw father, in a very bedraggled and angry state, struggling before me, as two soldiers tried to hold him down.

“We caught him at the border, in suspicious circumstances,” they said. The soldiers were embarrassed. They had availed of the hotel’s hospitality on so many occasions. But father was inviting trouble, skulking around in grandfather’s old fatigues, and his old rifle as well. “We are not reporting this,”  one of them said,  shuffling his feet, clearing his throat. Father walked in, slowly, dragging his feet, his face still red with anger. “They were there, I saw them from the telescope. The soldiers from the other side. If it hadn’t been for me, they would have sneaked in,” he roared.

I gestured to the soldiers, I would take care of this, thanks. Father vented his last remaining fury on me, “You think this is just a drama, like all your silly plays don’t you?”

“Dad you do look good in those clothes.” I said.

Father looked pleased for a second, and ran his hands down the crumpled khaki shirt, “Yes, they got quite a scare, seeing me staring across the fence like that.”

“You need rest, dad. That was quite a long walk to the border.”

Father allowed himself to be led meekly to his room. He could barely hold himself straight as I took his boots off. He flopped onto the bed and within minutes he was fast asleep.

Father did not remember anything of the incident of the next morning. Perhaps it was deliberate but then the hotel had to cope with an unexpected inflow of guests. 

It was the first time I found myself in  the helm of things, in circumstances I had little bargained for. There was father, appearing on the face of it, his normal self but recovery seemed some time away. Father had a dazed look. It was as if he was still deeply affected by the events of the night before and though he denied everything strenuously, the fatigue and the pain in his limbs from having walked too long, gave him away.

In between trying to cope with father’s unexpected crankiness – and if I didnt know better, I could have sworn he was acting – there were the new guests, totally new faces, who had to be accommodated. They came from across the border, as part of some colourful processions, carrying the message of peace. Others  who had cycled their way up from Delhi, their cycles strung up with a paraphernalia of peace messages. There were small busloads  of  activists, who declared their occupation and intentions on the bands they wore around their arms and heads.

Looking much like the bandits I had been warned about during my childhood when the country was about to be divided, and rulers had overnight disappeared and armed gangs roamed the countryside, bloodthirsty and revengeful. These activists,  didn’t let up with their arm raising, slogan raising, for even a minute, pausing even between meals to make the point. We are all soldiers of peace, they said. Three cheers for the cause of peace. Even the waiters, who were caught off-guard by the unusualness of the situation, were forced to halt, balance their service trays carefully and join in. It was a pretty raucous road towards peace.

Father would look up, from his ledger, he was working, insisting things were all right with him though the doctor had called it a case of extreme exhaustion. He would look startled but sensing the crackle in the air, he would smile, and shoot his own imaginary gun in the air. A round of gunfire to the cause of peace. If I hadn’t known better, I could have sworn, father was enacting his own drama, whose purposes I simply could not fathom. But I worked hard to ensure  father’s every comfort, pleading with him to rest, while he fiddled with the telescopes, amusing guests by turning its focus on them. They smiled at him, the young ladies blushed, the older ones playfully smacked him on the arm, chiding, “oh you naughty man..” and that was when I realised how old my father had become.

It was a time, I was most ill-prepared to take charge of things. I was working on a new series of scripts, negotiating with actors, when I was thrust with the responsibility I had always contemplated with some foreboding. With the new guests, their esoteric demands,  most of which we were ill-equipped to provide, I found myself increasingly irascible and short. In a time of new peace, the new guests were largely vegetarian and demanded stuff like coconut water and soy-milk. In an earlier time, and how I longed for them now, we would have these but in limited quantities. Soldiers and their families had a fondness for rich foods, the more grandly and lavishly prepared, the better. I was hard put to explaining it away to the guests – “we have ordered, but the supply truck from Delhi is held up” – too much holiday traffic, I explained to those, especially the ladies, who threatened to make a scene outside my office.

Father smiled through it all, nodding encouragingly at me each time our eyes met. It crossed my mind, as I rushed from one demand to the another, that I was somehow caught in a script of my father’s making. That it was an elaborate play, of lifelike proportions, operated by a master, unseen director. My every move, the dialogue that found myself spouting, accompanied by the  reassuring smile that came readily, almost naturally to me, seemed directed by the prompter, who remained hidden somewhere, despite my best efforts.

I wished father would get better. I wished I could return to matters I loved most – the staging and acting of plays – rather than being part of a script that I was sure would earn us nothing but brickbats and opprobrium.

Anu Kumar’s latest book is The Dollmakers’ Island. (http://www.flipkart.com/dollmakers-island-anu-kumar-book-8190939130) More about her on Story Wallahs.