Satkaribabu

Simplicity, you stand no chance
In today’s world of lies
You are taken as stupidity
Triggering laughter and scorn.

Regain your respect
Give those a chance
Who are plain and frank
And have a candid kind.

“You know, Bouma, a beautiful car, yes, a beautiful red Fiat came and stopped in front of my house this morning. I felt so happy and proud.” Satkari Mitra’s childlike face beamed with joy.

“Does it belong to your son? In that case, you should feel happy indeed.” My mother replied.

“Oh! No, no, no, my son works in a small company. How on earth, will he possess such a beautiful car?” Satkaribabu brushed aside my mother’s stupid guess.

“Then it must belong to your son-in-law. I forgot that your daughter is married to a well-to-do family.” My mother apologetically rectified her blatant mistake.

“Bouma, my daughter’s family may be rich but they don’t possess such a beautiful car, in fact, no car for that matter.” Satkaribabu, a little disappointed replied.

My mother did not have any intention to give up. “It must then belong to one of your relatives.” She smilingly said.
Now Satkaribabu’s turn to laugh. With childlike simplicity he said, “Do you really believe that I have a relation who has a car and that too such an expensive car?”

Satkari Mitra had a habit of complicating the simplest of simple issues. My mother was aware of it. Even then, a little exasperated, she asked, “Then who does it belong to and why should you feel proud of it?”

“It doesn’t belong to any guest of mine. It belongs to my neighbour’s guest.” Satkaribabu’s face brightened up.

From a distance, I could see my mother’s face. I felt like saying to her, “Ma, please don’t tear you hair. Off late, you’ve been complaining that you’re losing a lot of hair. I don’t want to see you growing bald so soon.” But I kept quiet. My mother too controlled her outburst of emotions because after all, Satkari Mitra was much senior to her and above all, he was a guest.

By now, my readers probably have a rough idea, I am sorry, a fairly clear idea what kind of a person Satkaribabu was. Since his loss of job, though at an old age, from my father’s office, he had become a regular visitor to our house. And by the family and the generation I come from, guests have always been treated like gods. So was Satkari Mitra.

Satkaribabu’s arrival on every Thursday was noteworthy. Since Thursday is “Lakshimibar”, on this day, my mother would offer her prayer to the goddess of wealth and distributed “rasogollas” to all and sundry present in the house. Satkari Mitra surely knew about it. Four “rasogollas” were a sure shot on the day apart from the regular “chirebhaja” or “kuchonimki”. Satkaribabu was rarely late on Thursdays, the attraction for the evening snack being magnetic; however, in case of any unavoidable delay, he had absolute faith that my mother would reserve four pieces of the mouth-watering Bengali sweet for him.

Sometimes, his visits would really bother me especially during my examination days, not because I could not concentrate on my studies; it was rather the other way round. During those days, I could not pay enough attention to the unbelievably silly but interesting conversation between my mother and him. Against my complaint about Satkaribabu’s presence during my examination, my mother’s stock statement in a preaching tone was: “You should feel lucky that you have another room to yourself to study. There are kids who don’t have separate rooms to them and still they’re doing well. Look at your friend Neeru—five members and just one room. She is doing fairly well. So if you put your mind to anything, you can succeed too irrespective of who comes to your house.”

Lecture—my mother was always so good at it and I do not know how she could pick up the right examples at the right time. Once upon a time, she was a school teacher, after all. Besides, as I had already mentioned, guests were next to gods in our house; if Lakshmi could come every Thursday and not disturb me and made me happy indeed with a few “rasogollas”, why should I be so upset with Satkaribabu’s presence? Meekly, without protest, I would take my mother’s advice and took refuge in my room from where I listened to the same old conversation between ma and her revered guest. Trite it might be, their bizarre exchange was much more interesting than boring Maths.

Gradually, we all got used to Satkaribabu’s presence and his idiosyncrasies. Our relatives and friends too became familiar with our guest and his distinctive style of describing his neighbour’s car or a neighbour’s neighbour’s car and so on. They would enjoy his elaborate descriptions of lovely dishes cooked in a local wedding where he was not even invited. On Thursdays, after her puja, my mother used to give me the prasad and saved a few for our guest alias god and as soon as the bell rang, she would open the door and smilingly welcomed him by saying, “O, Satkaribabu, we were just discussing you” or “I was wondering why you are getting so late” and so on and so forth. I lost my paternal grandfather when I was a kid. But my mother was very close to him and I could see, why Satkaribabu coming from close to that generation, received extra care and attention. My father too was happy with this generosity on my mother’s part because he felt very bad when Satkari Mitra lost his job. He could not convince the management to keep him. A feeling of guilt for no reason, of course, used to bother him. My mother’s hospitality towards Satkaribabu at least, compensated a little bit.

One day Satkaribabu came to our house and very sheepishly asked my mother, “Bouma, could you lend me three thousand rupees?”

My mother had all the freedom to spend my father’s hard-earned money the way she liked, for a couple of reasons. My father was never so money-minded and second, he knew that my mother was careful enough to handle the monetary business and would never spend unnecessarily. Nevertheless, giving three thousand rupees to someone needed a lot of thought those days, especially for a prudent housewife like my mother. She, however, did not probe why he needed the money but wanted to discuss with my father before lending such a big amount, although she knew, my father would have no objection in this matter. She requested Satkaribabu to give her some time. My father quite predictably did not object but he firmly believed that one should lend money without expecting it to be returned. My mother, on the other hand, held a different view—for her a loan is a loan. Whatever differences they had regarding the concept of loan, Satkari Mitra had no difficulty to get it. With a lot of heartfelt thanks, he pocketed the money.

Satkaribabu did not show up for about two months— a very unusual thing to do on his part. With almost no choice, against our feeling, we all accepted the harsh truth that to ditch people, who are nice to you, is not atypical, even for a person like Satkaribabu. My mother ultimately though painfully agreed to my father’s theory of loan. But, I think, more than the money, the absence of Satkaribabu bothered her. There was a sudden emptiness in her life.
We got used to his absence just the way we were to his presence. It was a Thursday and my mother was doing her usual Lakshmipuja. Hearing the door bell, I opened the door and guess who was there—the great Satkaribabu smiling at our doorstep.

I was very happy to see him not because I missed him but I thought, at last, we could retrieve the money. I must confess here, I have not inherited my parent’s generosity. Anyway, my mother finished her puja and was so happy to see Satkaribabu that she wasted no time to plate the prasad for him—this time six rasogollas instead of four as if to compensate for the lost weeks.

“Oh, Satkaribabu, I thought, you’ve fallen sick”, she almost cried. Looking at her relieved face, I felt ashamed for being so materialistic and mean. My mother initially a little hurt due to his absence without notice, sincerely believed, he might have been seriously ill and needed the money for his treatment. Finding him hale and hearty, she forgot all about the money and was her usual self as the hostess. Surprisingly, I too felt good that he was all right, after all. May be, a part of me had already started accepting him as part of our family. Besides, I started missing his vivid descriptions of his neighbour’s car, his neighbour’s neighbour’s car and so on and so forth.

It was about a month since Satkaribabu’s re-entry to our house when an appeal for another loan was made in my mother’s court—this time the amount was much smaller, five hundred only. My mother although a little hesitant, lent the money; this time she did not wait for my father’s approval although she informed him as soon as he came back from the office.

For the next two months, Satkari Mitra’s visit to our house was consistently infrequent. Asked about the reasons, he would dodge the questions in the beginning. However, a simple man to the core, he could not keep the secret for a long time. Besides, I thought, he wanted to share his thoughts with my mother and as a result, the truth came out in the open. His only son had lost his small time job and both father and son decided to go job hunting separately on their own. My mother was almost in tears to find out that a man of his age would have to look for a job.

Satkaribabu’s miseries did not end there. His only daughter apparently married to an affluent family, was having troubles with her in-laws—the usual scenario in any Indian set up. But the saddest part was that she blamed her father for messing up her conjugal life—her father’s stupidly simple manners, his casual dress and lack of etiquette did not go well with her so-called sophisticated in-laws. In fact, his childlike qualities that endeared him so much to my mother were rubbished as uncouth by his daughter. When this widower needed her most, she abandoned him.

Satkaribabu digested the scathing remarks made by his own flesh and blood quite bravely, without any complaint. My mother, on the other hand, would get so upset listening to his sordid story that she was almost ready to give that ‘heartless creature’, a lesson. Sometimes, her over enthusiasm with frank and forthright attitude used to put both my father and me in embarrassment.

One day, Satkaribabu came with a box of sandesh and five hundred rupees. He looked so happy that as soon as my mother opened the door for him, he started saying, “Bouma, it seems, our bad days are over. My son has got a good job. Try this sweet, it’s from a good shop. Even Mr. Dasgupta would appreciate this.”

Knowing my father’s fetish for quality food, he added the last sentence. He returned the five hundred rupees and promised to return the three thousand very soon, once his son settled in his new job. My mother was so pleased that she requested Satkaribabu not to hurry in returning the loan. He, however, insisted on paying back the second loan soon and that was the time, I noticed, despite his poverty, he had not lost his self-respect. That day Satkaribabu had a hearty meal in our house and praised my mother on her wonderful cooking and blessed her profusely. The blessing part went quite well with my mother because to her old people’s blessings meant a lot.

After this incident, Satkari Mitra became his normal self. His visits to our family were again quite frequent and regular and so were his descriptions of a neighbour’s car or a neighbour’s neighbour’s car and so on and so forth. Meanwhile, he kept an open invitation to visit his house and get introduced to his well settled son. From his descriptions, it appeared, he found his soul mate in his son who remained a confirmed bachelor for his father’s sake, to give him undivided attention.

One day Satkaibabu came and informed my mother that he might buy a small piece of land because his son wanted to build a small house of his own. My mother was happy to be on the lookout as per Satkaibabu’s wish. Unable to convince my father to buy a piece of land, she thus satisfied her long cherished desire through the old gentleman. And she became successful too and was eager to inform Satkaribabu of the beautiful location of land.

That evening, she waited and waited but Satkari Mitra did not turn up. My mother waited for him for a couple of days more; she did not have any means to contact him. Satkaribabu did not have any telephone at home. My mother could not personally inform him since she had no idea where exactly he lived. The land did not, of course, wait for Satkari Mitra and was purchased by someone else.

After a couple of weeks, Satkari Mitra turned up and coincidentally, it was Thursday. But none of us knew this man; an emaciated, shrunken man with a pall of gloom all over his face. He was not his bubbly self and his tearful eyes wanted to say so much to my mother. My mother was so shocked to find him in such a state that she forgot to ask him the reason for his long absence. I still remember Satkaribabu sitting on a chair with his head down. It seemed eternity since my mother spoke the first sentence, “Is anything wrong, Satkaribabu?”

The flood of tears broke all barriers with my mother’s sympathetic tone. “Bouma, I lost my only son in a road accident. I am not God’s chosen creature, after all. Here is your three thousand rupees and there is no need to search for a land.” With a lot of effort, he uttered these words. Surprisingly, this time he did not wait to share his emotions with my mother and left our house immediately, leaving my mother dumbfounded. This time Satkaribabu left for good.