By Ganesh Saili
My friend, the author (now weighed down by his growing stature), could not stop laughing. Clutching his sides, he laughed helplessly until tears streamed down his cheeks. It was infectious – we couldn’t help but join in the raucous laughter. I remember that it got funnier by the minute.
Professor Sudhakar Misra and I both taught at the Mussoorie College. His parents lived in Dehradun along with his younger brother Kusmakar, who, while training with the Air Force, had developed schizophrenia. Unable to continue, he was boarded out. Since the 1960s, he had been unable to find employment. Things escalated after he started throwing stones at neighbours’ windows. They complained. It was time to take him for psychiatric treatment to Noor Manzil in Lucknow. Train reservations for three were made.
Pic courtesy: author’s collection
On the evening of departure, I took a bus to Dehra. I walked the rest of the way, and Sudhakar’s mother (may God bless her soul!) packed the usual tiffin of aloo-pooris, wrapped in newspaper, with mango pickle and tangy mint chutney for our dinner aboard the train.
As we stepped out to find a tonga to get to the railway station, Kusmakar suddenly disappeared. We searched for him high and low, to no avail. All he had to do was avoid us, stay out of sight and reappear after the Howrah Express had tooted its way past the Haridwar railway station – two hours away. After that he came home, ate his dinner, and went to sleep like any sensible person.
Pic courtesy: author’s collection
‘Given his gift of the gab, I am sure he would have convinced the doctors at the mental hospital that you two were the real patients, whom he was accompanying,’ said the author with a naughty twinkle in his eyes, triggering another round of laughter, as he added, ‘In my mind, I can see the two of you trying to get him admitted only to end up draped in hospital gowns being chased by the shrinks!
‘I see Ganesh with his scraggly beard, and Sudhakar with his bald pate with leftover hair trailing from the back of his head like in a Tintin comic! Captain Haddock and Professor Calculus! You would have looked the ideal patients for the cuckoo’s nest.’
On another occasion, our college peon came and announced there was a call for Misra on the landline. Over the line, a gruff voice said: ‘This is the Police Outpost, Barlowganj. Are you Doctor Sudhakar Misra? Do you teach in the college? asked the stranger.
‘Yes! I am, and I do work here.’
‘We have a man with us. Claims to be your brother? We’ve detained him for selling a pair of old sneakers for twenty rupees.’
‘Perhaps you should arrest all the other shopkeepers selling the same shoes for six hundred?’ retorted Sudhakar, a born raconteur, whose stories were accompanied by laughter that could light up an entire room.
When we sat down for lunch, Kusmakar said, ‘This tastes so good!’ and added, ‘Guess where the tastiest food is served?’ A general silence ensued as we waited for him to answer his own question: ‘In Ambala Jail!’
‘How did you get there?’
‘Caught during a raid for ticketless travelling on the train!’
Life moved on, and then suddenly one day, he vanished into the greyness of India, or went on his last walkabout? We looked for him; we even made a missing person report and scanned the newspapers. But this time, he had left no trace.
One day, going past the old homestead, I saw Sudhakar sitting in a corner reading a newspaper in the sun. That was unusual, because by then, he had already shifted to his younger son’s flat. What was he doing in his father’s old house? I wondered.
‘This is the only home my kid brother knew in Dehradun!’ explained Misra. ’ If he were to come back, his voice trailed away… ‘
For ten years, he waited every day for his brother to return. But Kusmakar never did.
I guess you could add it to the rather long list of those things that are never meant to be.
Ganesh Saili, born and home-grown in the hills, belongs to those select few whose words are illustrated by their pictures. Author of two dozen books, some translated into twenty languages. The author’s work has garnered renown worldwide.
