"Dadar Hormazd, call me soon"

The phone hadn't rung for several months. Not since that Navroz day when both Maneck and Daisy had called from the States to wish him and had given him such glowing accounts of his grandchildren's achievements. Adil had been accepted at Harvard, and Anahita was going to gift him his first great-grandchild. Rustomji had kept replaying the phone conversations in his mind all these days, but they weren't working their magic any longer. That familiar empty feeling was gnawing at him again. "Dadar Hormazd, call me soon," he cried out loud.


A still from the short film "Dadar Ormaj, maney jaldi bolaavo". Cinematography: Rajesh Thanickan. Script & Direction: Kaevan Umrigar. (c) FTII, 2002-03

On the radio, an old film song had just played out and Vividh Bharati ceased its morning transmission for the day. Rustomji switched the radio off and prepared to bide his time till one, when transmission would recommence. He had a televison set too, but he dared not switch it on. Rustomji had caught himself talking to the pretty newsreader on Star News one day, and he was afraid he was going senile.

The doorbell rang. It was Bhola with his lunch-box. He stood at the doorway grinning, even after he'd delivered the food. Rustomji raised an arm to shoo him away. "What do you want?" "Yesterday's empty containers. Have you forgotten again, Bawaji?" Bhola laughed.

Rustomji returned the previous day's containers in a huff and banged the door after Bhola. A heady aroma of meat and spices wafted out from the piping-hot lunch-box. God bless Burjor, his late sister's son, for taking such good care of him, since Dadar Hormazd had taken away his Silloo more than ten years back. But even Burjor hadn't visited him for some weeks now. "Everyone's caught up with their own lives. No one has time for me any more," mused Rustomji. Suddenly it struck him, there didn't seem to be much to live for any longer.

Death seemed to be a good idea. The more he thought about it, the better it sounded. Rustomji's mind was made up. He got dressed in his Sunday best, a white cotton shirt and starched cotton trousers, both now considerably loose-fitting after the years of worry and disinterest. He knotted a moth-eaten thin black tie around his neck and put on a faded weather-beaten coat and the hat Maneck had gifted him on his last visit. From the bureau, he removed a decanter of whisky and poured himself a stiff drink - for courage. He braced himself, and drank it down all in one gulp.

Rustomji limped down the road, in the direction of the railway tracks. Life would still have been bearable, even without Silloo and the children, if not for that fall in the bathroom that broke his leg and forced him to spend six months recuperating at Parsee General Hospital. The steel rod now residing in his leg and the omnipresent walking stick had made it difficult for him to move around as freely as he used to, and this was the first time he'd stepped out of the house in a long time.

Out on the road he felt lonelier than ever. So many people, and yet not a face he recognized. An old Gujarati couple passed him from the opposite direction. Rustomji stared after them, long after they had passed out of range of his myopic vision. They were as old as him, probably older, but they still had each other. He looked down at his shadow. It was about the only thing that hadn't deserted him yet.

The walk was arduous on Rustomji's limp right leg, but the hoot and clatter of trains in the distance kept him going. He avoided the railway station, with its throng of people who might dissuade him from his desperate attempt, and selected a lonely spot a few hundred yards away. Through a hole in the fence made by tresspassers who couldn't be bothered to use the foot overbridge to cross the tracks, he squeezed himself in and sat down on a stone besides the tracks to recover his breath. Couple of trains passed by, but no one bothered about the elderly Parsee gentleman next to the tracks in his best suit.

Another train hooted as it left the station. Rustomji pulled himself up with the help of his walking-stick. The train picked up speed and drew nearer. Rustomji inched his way closer to the track. The train now loomed larger and larger. This was the moment, Rustomji decided. One...two...three...Now! The train hurtled away at top speed. But Rustomji remained transfixed just a step away. At that final moment, he had lost his nerve.

The train receded away into the horizon. Rustomji kept on staring at it, even after he could see it no more. He turned around, and slowly limped his way back home.

* * *

Rustomji did get his wish, and die. But that was fourteen months later, and of natural causes. Meanwhile, till his dying day, every morning, after Vividh Bharati had ceased its morning transmission and Bhola had delivered his lunch, Rustomji would change into his best clothes, brace himself with whiskey and limp to the railway track where he would try and gather the guts to stand up in front of the approaching train.