The Antique Table
At last I got a good job through my good friend who made all this happen! ** I spent more than three years in search of jobs with futile attempts and the ones I got were not of a worthy mention. I was depressed and like a bolt from the blue, a fellow student of mine who was a college dropout came to my rescue! After college I went to a university and came out successfully with a post graduation, only to add up to the list of unemployed and submitting resumes which had finally become a pastime. Nothing was heard of my friend for a long time until there was a large coverage of news about him rising high in IT industry and that one of his projects attracted international recognition. The Governor was inaugurating on that day, his recent project with a tie up of a giant IT company of US. I wondered as to how a college dropout could rise so high. With continuous attempts I finally got him on line and got an appointment with him. The next day I entered his plushy bungalow. In spite of his elevated position he was very cordial in receiving me. He was sitting in the luxurious sofa with all his aristocratic dignity, whereas I was sitting at the edge of it with all my humiliation of unemployment and also for reducing myself at the receiving end from a person who was a nonentity in the college days. To my relief, he could immediately guess the purpose of my visit and quick in offering me a job with a good start. I was in an ecstasy and I could not hide my wish to know the secret of his success. �You may recall that I was kicked out of college.� I was silent and sitting before him with all obedience and listening with rapt attention. �For a full half year I was on the move from one corner to the other with no hope except gloominess. But the opening of IT industry has spawned a new work ethos across the country and I developed an interest in it. I was studious and gained knowledge, which had landed me in many jobs offers. One has to prove that his services are indispensable, instead looking around empathy. It is performance and performance alone that will help you survive. Every job I got was purely based on my work and none of my employers ever asked me about my education. It was my track record and my dedication that counted. Within a couple of years I started my own and I never looked back.� �But, yours is an extraordinary case. In a land where education determines ones social standing, there are few that have chosen to tread a new path like you. One should dare to be different by dropping out of college and make it to the headlines. There is no guarantee that every one would always turn out to be one like you� He was my job giver and I was searching for words to praise him. He had not heard me, or pretended but went on to add, �Mine is a case to prove that success and education have no correlation. The world would soon be welcoming the brash new breed of college dropouts who broke the rules of college, defied the norms of education, scoffed at the degree and set to start their own course to be successful in life. Some may dub them as losers, teachers may call them flunkeys and friends call them bunk masters but college degree has nothing to do with the money that ultimately one makes. They are out there making money, news and success stories while debunking the degrees, damning the education system. But mind you, dropping out of college is no big deal. In fact, it is doubly difficult to prove one�s worth. You need guts, grit and make sure you steer in the right direction whatever may be the profession of your choice. Otherwise you are doomed.� Though sounded a little egoistic, he was very assertive. What ever might be his views on the present education and survival, I am now one of his staff members with a worth while pay packet. ** I had rented an unfurnished apartment and initially I purchased the minimum requirements of furniture. One Sunday I went to the market where second hand furniture was sold and one table attracted my attention. It was lying at the back of the shop. It must have been made out of mahogany or rose wood with a heavy carving on it with three drawers at the right and the legs slightly bent with carving on them too. One leg at the backside was evidently broken and repaired but was not apparently visible. It must be pretty old with heavy accumulation of dust over it, yet it was very impressive. I thought I could get it for a song. Contrarily, the shop fellow quoted an abnormal price. �Such a huge price, for such an old one?� �No Saab, this is not an ordinary table. It originally belonged to nawabs of Hyderabad, and with a great difficulty some furniture was acquired by my father when the nawab�s family was shifting to Pakistan. This is an antique and priceless and only nawabs can purchase it.� He scoffed off with scorn that it was beyond the capacity of a middle class like me. I was unwilling to go in for it with the apathy and attitude of the shop fellow, but the shape and style of the table was so tempting that I finally I struck a price and moved it to my apartment I kept it at a corner and it certainly added grace to my apartment. But the chair I already had was not a match to it and I decided to go for one the next weekend. I cleaned the table and pulled the upper drawer to empty it and got it free from the insects and other rubbish. So was the case with the second drawer. But the third one created a problem. Something was holding it hard inside and could not be pulled out freely. With a greater effort I could pull it out entirely and found that quite numbers of old papers were stuck up in between the table frame and the backside of the drawer. I removed all the trash and was about to throw it out when I found a cover pasted and stamped. I picked it up. It was addressed to one Mr. Ranbir, but the address was not written on it. It was a very old cover; moth eaten at the corners but the name on it was legibly written in black ink. I kept it on the table and after disposing off the trash, I opened the cover leisurely. There was a three-page letter inside and was dated 20th November 1947! And it was written in English. My initial astonishment was how it was lying in this table for more than 53 years and why it was not posted. I sat on the mattress; the pillow stretched back to the wall and started reading it. �My dearest Ranbir, I do not know when this reaches you or whether it reaches you at all. We are now in turmoil, in the annals of human history. It is not only the partition of the country, but both of our dreams are shattered. You were very vehement in staying over in the country of your origin and preferred to go to another country in search of a better life and only then propose to marry me. You always undermine yourself that you were jobless because of your meager qualification. After all there are many other things to do outside the frame work of academics.� At this stage I had gone to the second page of the letter to know the signatory. One �Sabita� signed it. So it was a love letter and I continued with interest. Wondering whether this �Ranbir� was also a dropout like my friend and boss! �Humans always dream, but I don�t know what you dreamt of, in this �Land of opportunities�. Or whether you will be able to reach there at all. I hear hourly stories of massive loss of lives that forced many to evacuate their villages and lands engulfed in an orgy of violence for months. I hear stories of trains with dead bodies arriving in both the countries due to `train massacres' and in this ghastly scenario do you need to go to Punjab just to borrow money from your sister where better chances of death are foreseen than of bright future and opportunities. If it were only the money, I have plenty of it and you can repay when you can after you settle. May be, proceeding to United States is serving like a magnet to non-technical job seekers like you. But I fear that this influx invariably provides an opportunity to some rabble-rousers or others over there to exploit the xenophobic instincts of the local unemployed that may leave you restless. One need not go that far, but can always earn a decent living clerking or selling or something in a wonderful country like ours. My dear Ranbir, be it excessive wealth or poverty, extremes always tends to make the human mind restless. Both would land you in a whirlpool of financial problems and finally many persons quest for solace and peace ends at the doorstep of some bizarre areas like astrology and palmistry from the healers and soothsayers making a living on the stupidity of the persons like you. Knowing such minds like yours, many such people sprout up at every corner of the country with a rich crop of such healers making a living off, on crackpots like you. I wonder who that stupid was, who had foreseen a �brightest future� for you in an alien land with your qualification indeed! You stupid, come out of the trance, Look to the reality. This is not for which we loved each other. This is not the future we yearned for. This is not the life, for which we set out hoping and dreamt of. Oh Ranbir, don�t leave me, come back. Don�t proceed. Back home, the position is explosive with communal riots, and we are moving south which is safer. I am hoping to see you at a safer place like Madras where we can plan our future. Please Ranbir, don�t desert me, I love you and I need you. You can reach me at the address above. Yours for ever Sabita� I conceived my own story on the strength of the contents of the letter. �It was during post partition period of India when there were communal riots with consequential bloodshed and more than half million people died and the country was in chaos and turmoil. During this time this Sabita loved one Ranbir with a fond hope of marrying him. He was a Punjabi not rich and perhaps could not afford marriage with no money on hand and his education was also poor. She was from an affluent family, might be a nawab�s daughter, and preferred to remain in the home country. She was reluctant to go to Pakistan with her father but stayed back to meet her lover. He intended to marry her, proving his worth after amassing wealth in United States, instead of dependence on his fianc�e. She had not posted the letter because he had changed his mind and dropped the proposal to go to US and returned to Hyderabad. In the alternative she might have been a Hindu and preferred to follow her parents to a safer place in south like Madras. Her parents� reluctance to marry her off to a Punjabi lead to their shift of residence to Madras and with out their knowledge she had given her address to her lover. Alternatively it was also possible that he had left to US and ended up as a salesman in counters in some departmental stores or a gas stations? Or going through �Help wanted� columns every day� I recalled what my friend and bread giver told me. �Mine is a case to prove that success and education have no correlation. The world would soon be welcoming the brash new breed of college dropouts who broke the rules of college, defied the norms of education, scoffed at the degree and set to start their own course to be successful in life�� �May be, he is a rival to Bill Gates now over there with Sabita also ruling over� My friend�s case was a live example. I folded the letter and kept it in my pocket and looked at the table now with curiosity. More than fifty years back! �I visualized that on a sunny after-noon when the weather was still mild a fair complexioned majestic girl with ravishing beauty in a gauzy, transparent chemise with golden brown eyes, sensual in expression, most beautiful shoulders, most beautiful arms the most beautiful neck full and rounded, shapely in form and languid in movement, her nose pronounced expression with an air of grace and spontaneous majesty such as comes from nature alone, strangely relaxed and dazed looking, sat in a chair opposite to this table, picked up a pen and wrote this letter to her lover with disgust and also with certain amount of anxiety.� Soon I forgot the whole episode. ** With the help and guidance from my dear friend, I soon learnt the �tricks of the trade� and with in few months I had risen to an envious position of my other colleagues. I was deputed to represent our company to attend a seminar being held in Madras. I was elevated with exuberance with such a proposal made out by my boss. I was delighted at the importance given to me. Two days later I landed at Madras and after lodging myself in a hotel I proceeded to attended the marathon seminar, which concluded only the next day evening. The night flight back to Hyderabad was cancelled and I had to stay away at Madras until the next morning. This had given me an ample time and opportunity to know as to what happened to this �Sabita�. I brought the letter with me to visit her, if the time permitted. I engaged a taxi and when I was nearing the destination, I was frightened as to what would be the impact of my visit. I may be mistaken as a cheat or a super-duper. Or why should I go at all, and what do I derive? When I was about to refrain from the visit, the taxi had already stopped right at the entrance gate of a huge old building. This was the address �Sabita� had given in the letter. I disposed off the taxi driver, took few steps in front of the gate with an oscillating mind and finally with a determination I opened the gate and slowly walked to the main entrance. It was dark but for the dim light in the portico. There was no sight of a calling bell and again I hesitated. With a deep breath at last, I knocked at the door. Few moments later to the third loud knock, an old lady with gray hair, looked at me opened the door uneasily and asked curtly, �What do you want?� I had no reply or explanation to offer to enter into a stranger�s house at that time of the night, for a silly purpose of knowing as to what had happened fifty years back. No reply would be convincing. But for the slight similarities of this Ranbir to my boss, (My boss�s wife must also be a rich girl who loved him and provided money for his steep rise- You stupid, you are going too far with your stupidity), and the long sleep of that letter in the table, I wouldn�t have evinced interest at all. �I want to meet Madame �Sabita�. Is she home? Is this woman �Sabita� by a chance?� She looked at me with suspicion and with out an answer, led me into the hall and pointed to a lady sitting in a large sofa and watching a soap opera in the television. �Some one for you Madame� She said in a routine manner and left the hall towards the dining area. I had not noticed any other inhabitants. This Madame turned her head from the television and looked at me sharply. �Mrs. Sabita Madame?�- I said, �Miss Sabita, Yes what do you want? Now she was looking at me straight as though directing me to spell out what I wish to say. Her voice was course and shaky. She was about seventy-five years old with dark complexion and with deep-set eyes hidden behind the high powered spectacles, with gray hair almost balding her skull. Her very lean body was covered with a large nightgown; she was tucked in the sofa with out a movement. This was certainly not the girl I had visualized, perhaps whether beaten with advance of age (She said �Miss Sabita� so she remained unmarried for life - this Ranbir had deserted her) �This may perhaps interest you.� I said, picking out the cover from my pocket. She stretched her left hand to receive the cover and now I observed that her right hand was paralyzed. With her hand shaking she took the cover from me and glanced at it and finding something on it, she raised her head with dismay. She slowly opened the cover and picked out the letter and unfolded it. The shiver in her hand was very conspicuous now and she slowly started reading the letter. After few minutes she lifted her head and looked at me with tears rolling down from both of her eyes. I didn�t even sit down and said, �Miss Sabita Madame, that letter belongs to you. The table on which you had written this letter is with me now. I promise and assure you that I will not use it for any other purpose other than keeping it as a souvenir.� I turned back with an obvious feeling that her eyes were piercing my back and with quick pace, came out of the building and closed the gate of the compound wall- with an inexplicable satisfaction. ------------------------------
Copyright © 2001 Sreenivasa Murthy Govindaraju |