He Came to Stay - 1. Chapter 1

In the late autumn when the misty dawn broke with dew drops in the grassy pavilion of my garden my doorbell rang. I was lethargic to open the door, as I had always been. It went on again. With much annoyance the maid shouted from the kitchen, ‘Dada, someone is knocking on the door…Dadaaaa!’ I paid no heed to her call and, as usual, tried to complete the later part of my sleep. I knew what she would say next. From my experience of several of such occasions I knew that she had a longstanding complaint that I used to sleep till 10-11 in the morning and that if this obnoxious habit of mine persisted then she would have no option other than quitting the job. She always threatened me, but she never left. The only effective threat from her that I was afraid of was her shrill voice, which attacked me from all possible angles in the guise of the choicest of words of her vocabulary. (Had I not been afraid of being censured by my esteemed readers, I could cite some examples.) Just like deadly weapons these words could leave any sensible person half-dead. But they had proven to be ineffective to me. I don’t know how but miraculously I got immune to them. She used her strident voice as a missile-launcher. I often needed a shield to protect myself. So I kept it always ready. I covered up my ear with a pillow and pretended as if I was sleeping. I knew what she would do next. Leaving her work at the kitchen she would come out, wiped her hands hurriedly in her sari and open the door. My conviction got confirmed when I I heard the sound of opening the door.

‘Is he in?’ an elderly female voice asked. At once I remembered, my aunt was about to come with my cousin brother. How I could forget such an important event! Anyways, I knew my sleep was gone. Somehow I managed to cover up myself in a shawl and the next moment I was before my doorsteps stretching my lips wide showing as many of my teeth as I could.

‘Which train did you come in?’ I asked my aunt. Showing no efforts of replying my question she just pushed me back and entered in complaining about her arthritis and the crowd that she had to bear in the local train while coming. A boy, 18-19 years of age, having a pretty face with an impressive pair of eyes was staring at me. Perhaps, he was trying to estimate my indignation at receiving these unwelcome guests at this odd hour of the day. The huge luggage beside him gave me the message that they had a plan to stay here for long. Giving me no chance to say something my aunt urged the lad, ‘Why are you standing there? Come in.’ the boy followed her. They entered my drawing room.

The last time when I had seen them was two years back in my uncle’s funeral when the boy was in the tenth standard. He was a tiny little boy. Now he was a grown up man about six feet tall with faint sign of moustache. He didn’t have much body hair. The turf of hair from his forehead coming down on his eyes covering half of them gave him a mysterious look. The only information that I had at that point in time was that they came to Kolkata for his admission to some city college. He, therefore, for sure, would be staying with me as an unwanted guest and I would have to look after him, arrange his breakfast, lunch and dinner etc. etc. And the inevitable happened; my aunt left him back while returning home and said that she would be arranging for some mess for him soon, which she never did. The boy, however, managed to get a hostel accommodation, but that was four months later. He started staying with me since then.

He was a nice boy who loved me very much and took care of me. I used to prepare special dishes for him. I didn’t know how I developed a soft corner in my heart for him. We used to share the same room and the same bed. He used to sleep with me in his shorts and in the night I had often felt that he had a hard on, which gave me some uncanny feeling as he was my brother. But somewhere in the back of my mind I knew that I enjoyed it. I had never had the courage to accept the fact that I loved this cousin of mine in a different sense of the term than just a brother.

He would tell all sorts of stories, all his experiences in his college, about his friends, his life back home, and I would listen to them being spellbound, not because he was a marvelous story-teller but because when he chattered I fixed my eyes on the closing and opening of those beautiful lips. It gave me the impression of a sea-shell unraveling the pearl of its heart.

He was a cricketer. One evening after a match when he was taking shower, I returned from my office. I didn’t know that he was in the toilet. I went to toilet as usual. He was only in his white jock straps. The sight of his wet body and bouncy butt was giving me a feeling that I should touch him. All his muscles became all the more prominent in the shower. My conscience prompted me that I shouldn’t stare at my brother with lustful eyes, though he didn’t notice me watching him. Without saying anything I returned to my room. But something uncanny in me forced me to go to the toilet again and gaze at the turf of hair between those two beautiful lobes of his bubble butt. I don’t know how long I was there. Suddenly, he turned around and became edgy seeing me in that situation. Hurriedly he took up the towel and tried to somehow wrap up himself, as I silently closed the door and returned to my room again.

After 10-15 minutes he entered my room setting his long hair with a comb. He hardly looked into my eyes. Whenever there was an eye-contact he quickly removed his eyes away and fixed them on something else. That night when we went to the bed, he didn’t hug me. After a few minutes I put my fingers in his hair and started giving a gentle massage. But he went further away to such a distance that I could hardly touch him from my position. By then the feeling of guilt had grown stronger. I stretched out my hand and embraced him. He was stiff. The next morning he said nothing, nor even looked at me. I brought his breakfast and said, ‘Ishan, here is your breakfast.’ Apparently he didn’t pay any heed to what I was saying and went on dressing up for his college. After a while I finished my breakfast and lift the table when he was still combing his hair in front of the mirror. After I retired to my room, he took his breakfast and went off to his college.

That evening he rang me up and said, ‘Dada tomorrow morning we are going to have a cricket match at Tollygunge. I need to spend this night at my friend’s hostel, which is quite close to where the match is going to be held.’ This was quite unusual for him. He never spent a night out in these few months and my aunt was quite conservative. Considering all these I said, ‘Tollygunge is not that far away. You can easily go in the morning.’

--Please Dada… two other friends are also staying.

Now I didn’t raise any objection.

That night I was left alone in my room once again. Being haunted by some uncanny feeling in my heart I was not being able to sleep. I didn’t know what happened to me. But in spite of taking three sleeping pills I couldn’t sleep.

My eyes were fixed at the partly visible moon the window beside my bed. My mind filled up with scattered thoughts, ‘What is the time now? 2 a.m.? 3 a.m.? Don’t know. Where is my mobile phone? It must be somewhere in my bed. Leave it! Ishan should be fast asleep by now. Or is he awake? I can still remember the stiffness of his gesture of last night.’

Now I started being sorry for what happened the last evening. His decision of staying back at his friend’s hostel bothered me. Did he want to stay away from me? I wondered what my relationship with Ishan was leading me to, what I was going to get out of this relation! As my eyelids got heavy with these obnoxious thoughts I saw that we were going somewhere. The train was leaving a deserted platform. Ishan was at the door of a compartment looking at me, as I rushed to catch the train. His face showed no expression of anxiety. I tried to increase my pace but couldn’t succeed, since my legs got heavy. I tried harder and harder, as the train gradually increased its speed and left the platform blowing the whistle before I could catch it. I woke up to discover that my alarm clock was ringing. I breathed a sigh of relief as the nightmare was over. It was already 10 o’clock. I stopped the alarm, picked up the towel and rushed to the bathroom.

(To be continued....)