Shyam's Son Agonistic

Sunirmol babu was slowly meandering his way through the thick streams of agitated motor vehicles as they kept honking and cronking in an attempt to shake Dalhousie out of its Monday morning stupor. It was a little after ten in the morning and the infernal blaze of delayed attendance was beginning to char his forehead when Sunirmol babu suddenly made a hasty dive across the remainder of the vast tarry road chock-a-block full of cursing damning sweating sulking office-goers. "Phew, what a morning!" he began chanting as he saw his boss. "You know Sir, it is so difficult to get to the office these days. Traffic congestion, load shedding, and you know, my wife..." Looking over his shoulder, the boss interrupted Sunirmol babu's prattle saying, "two more years Sunirmol babu, that's quite a long time, save your excuses for later." The wearied man felt thwarted. He had been working as a clerical in the labor department at Writers' for almost forty years and from his youth to the verge of retirement, late attendance has remained his constant companion. Scorched by the subtle rebuke, Sunirmol babu made his way to the musty smelling dusty corner where his paraphernalia awaited him in grim patience. Piles of files, a stained cup with chipped handle, paper, pens and a few other inconspicuous objects lay scattered on his table. A rusty piece of mirror hung helplessly on the wall that he was presently facing. In the lack of electricity, he had been unable to see his face clearly this morning. He had therefore neither been able to trim his mustache nor comb his hair. Now seated in the comfort of the old and trusty chair that had been receiving him five days a week for over three decades, Sunirmol babu gingerly took the mirror down. He began to straighten out his pencil thin mustachios proudly. His father, late Shyam Sundor babu had told him in his adolescence, "If you have no mustaches, you have nothing- the mustachios make the man"; and the obedient son had never severed the fine trail from his upper lips. Also often, when happy or pleased, he would twist its ends to achieve delicate soaring curls, just like his father once did. Then there were the whiskers that adorned his ears and the confluence of his brows. Sunirmol babu preserved all this and often even his stubbly cheeks probably to compensate for his balding head. It was a tragic inheritance which had passed down from generations to generations in Sunirmol babu's paternal side of the family and he had started loosing his beloved black around the age of forty. Since then, Sunirmol babu lived in constant worry over his thinning strands of hair. With nothing left on either sides or the back, his concern now always remained concentrated on the top, and he combed over this graying lot every now and then in an attempt of keeping the patch covered.

This morning, he was about to follow the same course of action, when he noticed something. Out of the twenty prominent strands that he had counted last week, five were missing ascertainably. Sunirmol babu tried swallowing down this discovery but it stuck in his throat like gall. He took another look, then again and again. But truth like a baleful enemy glared back at him more intensely every time.

***

His tiny eyes were popping round and red when he reached the attendance register. Signing out at mid day, Sunirmol babu staggered out of the office. Leaving Writers', he mechanically boarded a bus, changed vehicles twice, got jostled by pedestrians on the footpath, pushed the calling bell, entered his house and dropped with a short hollow thud on his ancestral wooden bed. "What has happened?" his wife was asking Sunirmol babu, which finally broke his trance. "Why are you not answering? What has happened? Are you alright?", she asked again, now thoroughly worried. "Nothing, nothing, just a little unwell. I think it is the heat and the humidity; summers are growing worse with each passing year", said he, to pacify his anxious wife.  Sunirmol babu had been married for almost as long as he had been working and his wife had never heard him complain about his health other than occasional episodes of acidity. But this appeared to be something far worse and the family physician was sent for.

***

The chubby rosy doctor arrived late in the evening. The two were roughly the same age and had been friends for a long time. "What has happened to you my dear fellow?" he asked smiling affectionately. "Oh Doctor, its nothing I tell you. I am just fine. Its the heat" Sunirmol babu retorted. "Let me see", the doctor continued as he took up Sunirmol babu's hand and measured his blood pressure. He then examined his eyes, his tongue and body temperature and as he sat by the bedside listening to his patient's heartbeat through the stethoscope, he said,"the blood pressure appears to be a little high. What have you been up to? Is there something that is bothering you? I think you should let me know right away or I will have to continue with other routine examinations. You might have to get a blood sugar done." Sunirmol babu was beginning to feel agitated; he wanted to be left alone. "I am telling you doctor, return after a few days and you will find me hale and hearty" Sunirmol babu told the doctor in an attempt to escape further investigations. His trick worked and the doctor was gone. But Sunirmol babu neither left his room that evening nor did he eat his dinner that night. The next day, he kept lying in his bed as still as a fallen branch, torn from the tree by lightning. With his eyes unfocused and  streaming, Sunirmol babu saw his life in retrospect. He saw his adolescent years in front of him; his father always said, "oil your hair Sunirmol, else it will shed off." And every day before taking his bath he would sit on the terrace of his house oiling his body and hair. Often he would exercise using the clubs his uncle had bought, or engage in push ups and squats. All his life he had taken a lot of care to preserve his hair which for him was the only emblem of masculinity besides the mustaches which hardly grew more than half an inch in thickness on him. The realization heightened his distress once again and Sunirmol babu shut his eyes tightly as he shuddered in anguish.

***

Two days after he had abandoned life, Sunirmol babu was still lying on his bed when the doctor came to visit again. Food was being brought into the room by his wife but was often remaining untouched. He had not been speaking much nor had he been moving about. "Sunirmol, you disappoint me" the doctor was telling him."I have never seen you as a patient but always as a friend, a very dear friend. To completely give up on life when you are not even sixty and that too for no visible reasons is extremely foolish. Would you still remain quiet? Would you still say that it is the heat?" Sunirmol babu's eyes brimmed with tears."Not even sixty but already bald", he maundered, "tell me doctor, have I not been a good man? I have never touched alcohol, never smoked once. Nor did I indulge in any addiction that could result in this", blurted Sunirmol babu, pointing at his sparingly covered head."Even then the burden of my forefathers looms on me. I must spend the rest of my life unhappy with seeing my face in the mirror."

The doctor was rather surprised at this sudden explosion. "Is that it?" he said. "This is not a problem at all!" 

"Not a problem at all?"Sunirmol babu returned. "Not at all. Have you not heard of artificial hair implantation?" asked the doctor, who had by now returned to his former rosiness."But that will be too costly and very painful", muttered Sunirmol babu dubiously. "Well, less costly than a funeral and much less painful than dying", said the doctor at which both burst into laughter.

***

That was the last day of Shyam Shundor babu's son's agony and it was also the day when his inward eyes illuminated. Did he implant artificial hair? No he did not. 

In fact, not only did he completely shave off the thinning streaks that lay confused over his balding head but also for the first time, he rid himself of the pencil line on his upper lip. The truth was, he had never loved it as much as his father had and in getting rid of all the excess, Sunirmol babu realized that nothing made a man, but the peace of his mind and the content of his heart.