Fiction
Father was in
high spirits though he looked older and weaker than ever. Joshua picked up his
whisky glass once again as he watched his father stealthily. He had come home
on a weekend holiday. ‘I want to have a drink with you,’ father had said in his
last phone call. ‘It’s quite a while since we sat down together for a relaxed
chat, isn’t it?’
They
were the best of friends, father and son.
Joshua
worked in the city and lived there with his family. He would visit his parents
on some weekends, once a month usually though the frequency had dwindled
considerably after the breakout of Covid-19. His father, Stephen, retired
landlord, would be delighted to buy the best whisky for the evening with his
son.
‘Do
you think anyone is able to die without any regret?’ Stephen asks his son
putting down his whisky glass.
This
is the first time father is broaching the topic of death, Joshua recalls with a
shocked sadness. But he decides not to reveal his emotions. He smiles and says,
‘Even God died with regrets, dad. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
Wasn’t that the last lament of Jesus?’
Stephen
laughs lightly. Not the usual mirthful laugh he has after a drink. ‘God can
never be happy, son. What a horror it must be to endure the terror of one’s own
creation for years and endless years!’
That
throws Joshua into contemplation. This has been the routine since childhood:
father will raise a point and then leave the son to think about it.
‘Look
at that headline in the right corner,’ Stephen points to the newspaper that was
lying on the sofa by Joshua’s side. CONSCIENCE MY GUIDE, SAYS JUSTICE ARUN MISHRA. That is the
headline.
Stephen chuckles. ‘Hitler
could have claimed as much, no?’ Father says, ‘Conscience is quite a rubbery
thing. This guy’s duty was to follow the country’s constitution and the laws.
What the hell has his rotten conscience got to do with public affairs? Wasn’t
it his conscience that brought down the Maradu flats?’
Justice Mishra had
ordered the demolition of the two controversial but majestic flats in Kochi
last year. An infinite number of illegal constructions go on and are allowed to
stay in this country. But Justice Mishra’s conscience boiled only in Kochi. Some
consciences are like that. They boil just on expedient occasions.
Stephen had a reason
to mention the Maradu apartments. His daughter and her husband had put together
all their savings and added some loans from banks and non-banking sectors to
purchase a flat in those apartments. It was their dream home. They wished to
return from the harsh climate of Alaska as soon as the loans were repaid and
live in the romantic landscapes of Kochi’s backwaters. But then, all on a
sudden, their dreams just came tumbling down thanks to Justice Mishra’s
conscience. Now Stephen’s daughter and her husband will work in the inhuman
arctic steppes of Alaska till the end of their lives probably building up
another dream from the shambles left by Justice Mishra’s conscience.
‘All holy riots and cow-lynchings
are driven by consciences, I guess,’ Stephen mumbles as he takes another sip of
the Teacher’s whisky. Then he smiles feebly. Joshua is a little worried because
this is not how father usually is. The more the sips, the louder the laughs.
Now that is reversed.
‘When I was young,’
Stephen says, ‘before I married your mother I had an affair, you know.’
Joshua stares at his
father in surprise.
‘You don’t know. A father
doesn’t tell such things to his son, isn’t it? She was a young girl who worked
on our farms. I was as old as she. We kissed a number of times. I caressed her
smooth curves occasionally. Then my conscience awoke. She must have thought I
was just impotent. One of those days I saw her stark-naked body being crushed
blissfully beneath the massive naked body of another labourer on our farms. Bliss
has no conscience.’
Stephen’s voice becomes
feebler as he goes on. ‘Bliss is the ultimate truth,’ Stephen says. ‘Does bliss
have regrets?’
‘Do you regret
anything about…?’ Joshua hesitates. How do you ask your father whether he
regrets not screwing a girl in his youth?
‘About that girl?’ Stephen
smiles. ‘I’m not sure. But there are other regrets. Too many. Too many blunders.
Like I could have been more generous… Life could have been a lot happier if…
Well, if not for Mishra’s conscience.”
The glass fell from
Stephen’s hand and broke into pieces. Before Joshua could realise what was
happening, Stephen’s body became inert on the sofa.
‘May God forgive the
sins of commission and omission of this departed brother of ours,’ Father
Gregory was uttering the last prayer, ‘and grant him eternal bliss.’
Does God judge by His
conscience? The thought refused to leave Joshua days after his father was
buried.
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