Date: Fri, 23 May 1997 12:36:02 +0200
From: deepak@mbox.queen.it
To: Khush@store-forward.mindspring.com
Subject: Remembering R.:a confession

Confession. Baring the body with the warts, floppy belly, varicose veins, and all. Even worse, baring the dark corners of soul. What will others think? Rather than speaking about it to one person, strip-teasing in the busy street of a mailing list, makes me feel better: hopefully, people won't read it; if they do, it will be just another story like so many other stories. A list is a supermarket of pain, shame, guilt? Take what you want.

On the other hand, probably, only in a khush list, there can be a hope for some understanding.

I met R. in 1972, when I joined the medical college. I don't know how I found myself spending lot of time with him. Years later, he told me that he had chosen me for a very stupid reason. I had borrowed a book from his room-mate and R. came to ask me for it one morning. I said, I will give it back at 2 PM or something like that, and at 2, I went to his room to give him the book. That's the reason, he felt that I was a special person, that I had kept my word!

So, I found myself, sitting with him, eating with him, going to movies together. By the time, we were in the last year of medical college, we were inseparable. In these five years, R. had shown me a world I didn't know existed. The world of good music and serious literature. There I was, a fan of hindi and english pop, reading Harold Robbins.And R. introduced me to the joy of classical music and serious reading. Classical music is boring, I had said. He asked me go with him to a concert. It was Prabha Atre, and I fell in love right away with 'Tan Man Dhan tope warun.." and there was no looking back. Discvering Pandit Jasraj, Kumar Gandharav, Bhimsen Joshi, Kishori Amonkar. Reading Sri Aurobindo's Savitri. Walking around in the park late at night, talking non-stop for hours.

In the fifth year, I had fallen in love. I had been home and Mr Khanna, our neighbours had come to call me because his grand-daughter had fallen down and hurt herself. I had gone with him, un-willingly, as I had felt that I was not yet a real doctor. And I had fallen in love with that girl right away. Later, I would stand in the front-yard,waiting for her to come out. When she smiled it was wonderful. So many times, I wished, I could go to her and tell her that I loved her. Till, my Ma told me that she had come to her grand-parents for her marriage. It was already all fixed. Years later, I saw her again because her son had fever. For quite sometime after wards, I used to imagine, her husband dying and she coming back in our neighbourhood and me proposing to her!

Sorry, I got off-track. I am supposed to talk about R. The first time the problem started with R. was when we joined the hospital for our junior residency. I had decided to work in orthopaedics and R. said he also wanted to work in the same department. I couldn't understand it. Didn't he love general medicine? Why does he want to do orthopaedics? R. said that he wanted us to be together and I felt that we had to grow up, we are adults and we must do things which we want from life and not just to stay together. Second problem was about the hostel. In the doctors hostel, all rooms were double, but no room was free, which meant that both of us would be sharing rooms with different persons. I thought that was ok while R. didn't like it. He wanted us to have the same room. Isn't it enough that we spend all our free time together? How does it matter, if we are in separate rooms? When my room-mate left, R. wanted us to go together to the Dean's office to ask if he could shift in with me. So finally we were sharing the same room.

We changed the arrangement of furniture in our room, puttig our beds together, making it a double bed. At night, we would stay awake till late, talking all the time. In the darkness, R. would touch my face, feeling the contours,so that 'he could remember me'. I would hug him tight. I felt very close to him. Some times, I could feel that he was hard (as I was often). But it was not something about which we could talk. For me, it was natural that 'we take care of our sexual desires', in private, may be in the bath room.

We went for a couple of times on a double date for a movie. Our dates were two nurses from orthpopaedic department. It was after one such date, it was past mid-night when we came to our room. It was very hot and as usual I was planning to sleep in my under-wear, when R. said something. He was looking at me with imploring eyes and I was speechless. He had said something like he wanted us to be living together like husband and wife. I told him that he was sick and out of his mind. He said he loved me and I said he needed to be treated since he was sick.

That night, we didn't talk. The next day, I had separated our beds in opposite corners of the room. And I didn't want to talk to him any more. Atleast not in the way we used to talk. In the following months, I hardly stayed in the hostel. If I had a night duty, I was in the ward. If not, I would go home to sleep. R. cried a couple of times, but I felt that soemthing had changed between us and his crying irritated me, and I was quite harsh with him. At the same time, I had asked for a transfer and after a couple of months, I joined another hospital. I told him that this was because I wanted a pace nearer my home.

In the new hospital, I felt better. Gradually we started meeting once again, going out together for dinner or movies. Superficially, things were same like before, even if he didn't talk again about his love for me and I acted as if, nothing had happened. May be I was naive, but I had thought, may be R. has accepted to be more rational, that we can be friends but nothing more. I knew that he was depressed and I forced him to see a psychiatrist. I also knew that he was taking some pills for his depression. I was happy that we were back to being friends. Our talk was all about outside things and we never talked about personal issues.

In June 1980, we met on my birthday bash. He had brought me a book as a gift. At the end I accompanied him to the bus stop, asking him about the plans for his birhtday which was going to be after a couple of days, but he said that he hadn't decided anything. On the evening of his birthday, I called him at the hospital. A nurse told me that in the night before, he had committed suicide. He had injected some drugs in an intra-venous drip bottle and fixed it to his arm. And he had left a letter for me.

I was shocked and couldn't think anything. Only next morning, I went to his home. His mother and sisters were crying. His mother asked me, what had gone wrong, why did R. die? But I couldn't say anything. And I was feeling very angry. Why did he do something so stupid. Why didn't he think about his mother and sisters? Why did he leave a letter for me, telling everybody that in a way, I was one responsible for his death? I went to the police station and the police gave me his letter to read. It was his suicide note and couldn't be given to me, but I could only read it. I don't remember all that was written in his letter, something about his love for me and how he couldn't go on living with my rejection.

It was seventeen years ago. R. died on his 26th birthday. For quite sometime, I was so angry and never cried after his death. I wrote some letters to one of his sister whom I knew well, trying to explain that I hadn't known that he was going to commit suicide and that if I had known, I would never have let him do something like this. I would have talked to him and made him see reason. She never answered me.

Tears came for the first time after about two years, when for the first time, I talked about it with my wife. During this time, I had left India and I was living in Italy. Since then the tears have not stopped. I cry for him and for myself, even as I write these words. My own words seem so cold and cruel to me and I hate myself for having behaved in that way. I went back to his house just last year, sitting in the car outside and not having the courage to go inside. I have not been a good friend. I don't know how did his family cope with their loss, what difficulties they had, did they need any help, etc. And I nver talked about it with any one else.

Did R. die? I am not sure, I never saw him dead. By the time, I had known, he had already been cremated. I only remember him as he had been on the day of my birthday 17 years ago. I think about him, every time, I read a good book, every time, I listen to good music and every time I see a good film. I know, what R. would have liked and I can imagine his comments. In the time after his death, I had been so angry that I threw away everything related to him, including his photographs and his last gift of the book. Now when I think of him, I think of one night: it was a few days after he had told me about his feelings. In the hostel room, that night I had been reading in my bed. He had removed his bed and had put the matteress on the floor on the opposite side and was sleeping, curled up, his face towards the wall. He had seemed so vulnerable and sad, that I was tempted to go to his bed, wrap my arms around him and hug him. Yet I hadn't done anything. I just looked at him for sometime, and turned away and switched off the light.

In my fantasy, I get up from bed and go to him on the matteress, lying with him, hugging him close o me. May be, I can change the past and R. will know that I love him too. May be not exactly as he loved me and yet in own way, he is my soul-mate. I wish I could love him the way he loves me. Why did you do, such a stupid thing R.? Why didn't you tell me about your decision?

I don't know if his memories will one day go away. So many times, I wish I could talk to him again, share with him something, which only he can understand. But it is too late and I must bear this cross forever.

-- Sunil