A blessing in disguise

Suman K Sharma
Sushil Kumar shouldn’t be much younger to Kirti Mohan. Both the brothers are in their seventies, both are enjoying rich rewards of their fruitful careers and both are well respected in their own circles. Yet, Sushil Kumar has suffered from a puzzling impediment for the most part of his life. For all his love and respect for Kirti, Sushil could not, till a few weeks back, be his normal self in the presence of his elder brother. An outgoing, cheerful and amiable person, he retreated tortoise-like into his shell the moment he sensed his Kirti Bhaiya was in the vicinity. Even a phone call from Bhaiya made Sushil change his powerful voice into a low, halting tone of a person at unease. That was unnatural, to say the least. Kirti on his part tried his best to put Sushil at ease on every occasion that they interacted, but his efforts were stonewalled by Sushil’s strange conduct.
Their wives had become accustomed to this absurdity; though Maya, Sushil’s wife, often berated him for being callow before his brother. Their children, now themselves parents of growing up children, were too immersed in their own affairs to pay attention to how their ageing fathers behaved with each other. The teenage grandchildren, however, felt differently. Sushil could not erase from his mind the memory of a family gathering. Kirti Bhaiya’s Canada-settled daughter had come to India with her children on a vacation. Sushil had gone with Maya to meet the visiting family. Chatting merrily with everybody around, cutting jokes and encouraging the children to open up, he was all fun.Then his Bhaiya entered the room. Seeing him, he fell silent in the middle of a sentence,and remained subdued till the time he was there, as if he had suddenly caught a cold.Anshika, Kirti’s 15-year old grand-daughter, wondered aloud what had made Chhote Nanu suddenly so quiet. Buther mother muttered to her not to talk nonsense.
It was a fact though that Sushil was acutely aware of his shortcoming. From time to time, he delved into his past to find an explanation. Kirti had been a topper all through his academic career and a tennis player of some standing.
In contrast, Sushil was a mediocre student and a weakling who preferred mostly to keep to himself. Kirti did not like Sushil for his lackadaisical attitude towards studies and listless style of life. With the passion of a missionary, the older sibling coaxed, exhorted and even roughed up the younger one to change his ways. That couldn’t be. Instead, Sushil began to avoid his Bhaiya in whichever way he could. Their mother tried to bring about rapport between them. But the die had been cast. In time, the two brothers went their ways, adopting different professions, reaching their levels of success, raising families and turning grandfathers many times over. If there was one thing that did not change about them, it was that Sushil remained ever the edgy younger brother to Kirti Bhaiya.
The advent of Covid was to change that. As a retired Assistant Station Master and an avid photographer, Sushil had a wide circle of friends and admirers from all over the country. With the pandemic spreading day by day, his mobile got flooded with goodwill messages and forwards from his friends, friends of friends and their friends. He responded to a few of them with texts and to some others with emoticons. But the calls he could not ignore. His mobile kept him busy most of the time.
In normal times this would perhaps have gone unnoticed by Maya, for she herself spent part of the day going out for a chat with other housewives in the Society.Sushil also spent hours in the park with his friends. But now that the husband and wife were closeted within the four walls of their home, they were bound day and night to observe each other at close quarters. One day, after the couple had finished lunch, Maya fixed her eyes at Sushil’s face and said direly, ‘I have been thinking of talking to you.’Sushil quipped that it was her privilege to talk and his to play deaf. Ignoring the jest, Maya asked him to listen to her. He spent hours, she said, sharing inanities with anybody and everybody. But, in these days of distress, he did not have a word of companionship for his own brother. What kind of a man was he!
Stung to the quick, Sushil cried out, ‘What do I talk to Bhaiya about? I have never had a free talk with him, you know!’
‘Don’t whine like a seven-year old, Sushil.’ Maya replied coolly,’You are seventy and plus. Talk to him of whatever comes to your mind.’
Long after his wife had egged him on to speak to his brother, Sushil kept mulling over the idea. During the Corona lockdown period, Bhaiya himself had enquired once or twice about his and Maya’s well-being. Sushil had answered in mono syllables and the calls had not lasted beyond a minute every time. What topic would he choose now to take the initiative? He had no idea to start the conversation and carry it on. Maya’s biting words rang in his ears. He was a septuagenarian with a gift of gab. What was then the problem talking to his own brother? How longer did he expect himself and Bhaiya to live? Five years? Ten years? Or,die tomorrow itself of some happenstance, if not of Covid-19? In the muddle of such clashing thoughts, one resolve settled in his mind. He was going to break the gratuitous barrier between him and his brother.
Sushil dialled the number and Bhaiya took the call on the first ring. ‘It’s me,’ he said. That was enough. Bit by bit the brothers went on a lengthy conversation and before long, Sushil realised he was speaking to Bhaiya as freely as he spoke to any of his thickest cronies. At the evening tea, he told Maya with not a little joy that he had had a long talk with Bhaiya. ‘You should thank me for that,’ she said to him with a smile. Sushil thought for a while and replied, ‘But I think, it’s Corona. For me that has been a blessing in disguise.’
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