Six months were left for Jamshed’s retirement day and a couple or more for Silloo to leave.
She held his hand and told him to find something to keep himself busy after retirement. Jamshed said "I have Shahzaad and his family to take care of."
To which Silloo said, "They have a life of their own ...you find one for yourself ... after I would have gone." Jamshed and Silloo had been married for thirty nine years. Silloo was only nineteen when Jamshed’s proposal had come for her through a common family friend. Jamshed was twenty-one. They instantly agreed for the marriage since they both, kind of, liked each other at the first meeting, which was at Silloo’s home.
With a buried aspiration of being a cricketer, Jamshed had no intentions of doing a job. He had already set up a Book Store in a small place owned by the family, with the initial financial backing from his father. His parents were fine with his endeavor as far as he did something to start earning his livelihood and got married.
Silloo wanted to complete her graduation, which she had made it very clear to Jamshed at the very first meeting. He didn’t mind it, at all. In fact the final year of Arts that Silloo completed after their marriage Jamshed helped her with her studies. Though they got into an arranged matrimony, they had developed a friendly relationship and had decided to have kids only after Silloo’s final year would be over.
Most of the studying happened at the Book Store. Since that was the only time they could get with each other, away from the prying eyes of the large number of family members in the Karanjia family. Silloo never really loved reading books but Jamshed was a voracious reader and at times he would read out passages to Silloo from the book he read.
The blooming romance didn't prove much of distraction for Silloo, since Jamshed was quite a strict teacher. Silloo passed with a distinction and started looking out for a job. She did give a few interviews when one day Jamshed suggested to her to join him at the Book Store.
Silloo was more than glad and she took it as an opportunity to be close to Jamshed and also help him out with the book store. The book store was doing well but hadn’t really picked up the way Jamshed had thought it would, until Silloo joined in.
Jamshed believed Silloo was his lucky charm.
But she had to take a break from the job once she was pregnant with their first child. She did visit the Book store almost everyday but not the usual number of hours.
In the last trimester she was suggested complete bed rest so she couldn’t visit the store at all.
Jamshed took up a Bank job to meet the expenses and decided to shut the book store.
27th December Silloo delivered a baby boy.
The new entrant in the family brought with him new joys and new adjustments. They both were in it together. Happily they sailed through as parents and Shahzaad grew up to be a charming young man. Time flew by and Shahzaad had his own family.
The Karanjia family had disintegrated after Jamshed's Parents' passed away. Jamshed moved out to a new place since he didn't want to get into the murky battle of cousins for the ancestral home.
Life was as beautiful as they had imagined to be when they met each other for the first time, until the day when Silloo was diagnosed with lymphoma.
After having tried all possible medical and alternate modalities finally Silloo decided she didn’t want to take any more medication or any further tests. Meditation and Yoga were the only two regimes she followed.
For Silloo, the fact that Jamshed would have to live without her was more daunting than the fact, that she had very less time left.
Jamshed was going to retire within six months. She knew he was too dependent on her for everything. She also was aware that Jamshed never sat idle. So after the retirement which was six months away it would be very difficult for him to carry on especially in her absence.
She wanted to make sure Jamshed had enough things to do after she would have gone, to keep himself busy.
She with Shahzaad started visiting the book store which was now lying in a mess. It hadn’t been attended to from years. Some books were frayed and some still looked like they spoke. Shahzaad and his wife Farzeen helped her out to first get the place cleaned, painted and also fill it with new stock of books. They made sure they did all that when Jamshed was at work.
One Sunday morning Silloo asked Jamshed out for a walk. Hand in hand they walked the lane near their home which led to the Book Store.
Jamshed could never sell off the place since it was disputed property and though he always had the possession rights, his siblings who shared a wall with a similar property next door wanted to claim rights over it. The main reason being the fond memories attached to it of their early marriage days.
As Jamshed walked closer he could see a freshly painted almost new looking store and he was surprised to see Shahzaad, Farzeen and little Diana waiting at the entrance.
It was Silloo’s way to tell Jamshed to revive the Book Store all over again and in a way revive his life. She knew how much he hated his routine Nine to Five bank job and how much he loved being around books.
Once, Silloo’s cousin from Pune had visited them. He had got one of his wood carving creations for Silloo. On seeing it the first thought that crossed her mind was she wanted Jamshed to carve a beautiful piece of art for her. Silloo’s cousin offered Jamshed to attend his Mumbai workshop. Silloo insisted he should.
It wasn't that Silloo didn't trust Shahzaad and his wife to take care of him, she just knew Jamshed well; he would never ask for anything from his son.
She left him a week before his retirement day. Love is best felt when Loneliness bites into you and it bit him hard. But ... Silloo had nagged him enough to have started to spend time doing things he liked.
He had joined the Oldies Cricket Club which was started by one of his retired bank colleague. The club was only for people who had retired or were sixty plus. They had hired a part of the local cricket ground and they would play cricket every morning for a couple of hours.
Jamshed at the age of sixty a few months away from his retirement learned to play cricket, learned managing the Book Store without Silloo and learned wood carving.
In many ways, he learned to live without her … Silloo taught him to while she was there.
At dawn ...he could have waited for dusk but …
…he had a game to win …he had a wood to carve …he had a promise to keep!
After having shared his mostly sweet little sour memories with me he asked for my telephone number. It was for the first time somebody at the doongerwadi had asked for it from this stranger. I never asked why but was curious. A few weeks later Jamshed messaged me some pictures.
Playing cricket with his 'Oldies Cricket Club' oldies with a tag below it
'My first quarter century'.
'Cooking Dhansak and Kebab for Sunday Lunch with Shahzaad, Farzeen and little Princess Diana.'
'Carving a butterfly. Trying out Silloo's face next! Smiley'
and among many other pictures the last one made my tears roll down my cheeks and onto my phone.
It was a picture of a Call Out hanging at the door of their Book Store
It read,
I shall shave off my head like this (pointing at his bald head) this Equinox only if you shell out some dimes for this monk to be.
It was a Fund Raising event he had organised at his book store for Cancer support.
The picture blurred out . I wiped the tears from the phone screen and my eyes, to see clearly the smiling face of Silloo in a frame hanging behind on the Book Store wall.
KEki kaKA
*Do catch up, next Sunday, with your late morning cup of tea or maybe coffee. KEki kaKA will be sharing his next tale...
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