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Heavendrea was my landlady for many, many years. We
got along very well because there wasn’t any occasion when we had to get along
together. Fritz Perls would have loved us because we lived out his ideal of ‘I
do my thing and you do your thing.’ I was not in Shillong to live up to
Heavendrea’s expectations and Heavendrea wasn’t there to live up to mine, and,
more importantly, we both acknowledged that. She wanted me to pay the rent in
the first week of every month which I did without fail. Life was simple because
the matriarch had few demands.
I was one among many of the tenants
in Heavendrea’s little kingdom. Her house was a proper building with a solid
foundation and brick walls. The houses given on rent looked like makeshift
structures with floors and walls made of wood and roofs of tin. I liked my
little house anyway because Shillong hardly offered anything better to ‘outsiders’.
My house had two little rooms and a littler kitchen.
When I approached Heavendrea for the
house, I requested her to let a friend of mine stay with me for a few days
until he found another place. “No.” Heavendrea’s answer was curt and firm. She
wouldn’t hear anything more about that. And she wouldn’t say anything more than
‘No.’ No explanations. Keep your distance. The message was clear. You are you
and I am I. Heavendrea must have been a fan of Fritz Perls.
Most of Heavendrea’s tenants were
South Indians, from Kerala and Tamil Nadu. We the tenants were all friendly
with each other and used to have drinks together occasionally. Sometimes there
would be friends from outside Heavendrea’s kingdom too. Disposing of the empty bottles
of beer and whisky became a problem. Heavendrea discerned it without our
telling her and made an arrangement. When the barrel provided by her for the
purpose spilled over with empty bottles, she got a scrap dealer to take it all
away. Not without making a sardonic remark: “All the brands available in
Shillong seem to come here.”
Then one day the Khasi pastime of
‘agitation’ started. Every now and then some political organisation with the
label of NGO and the Khasi Students Union together would organise some sort of
protest movements against some nonlocal community or some government decision.
Protests were a sort of entertainment for them. When the Central government
decided to bring the railways to the state, they protested. When the government
wanted to mine the uranium available in the hills, they protested. When they
had nothing to protest against, they organised ‘agitations’ against some
community of people.
1992 witnessed some very violent
riots against nontribal people. It was in those days that we, the tenants,
learnt about the magnanimity of Heavendrea’s matriarchal heart. She kept the
gates locked and advised us against moving out without very valid reasons. At
any rate, no movement whatever at night. One late evening, the serenity of
Heavendrea’s kingdom was disturbed by an unusual noise at the main gate. We all
came out of our houses to find out what was happening. Heavendrea was telling
the young rebels or militants at the gate to get lost. They wanted to talk to
us, the tenants. Heavendrea guarded us with the vehemence of a CRPF [Central
Reserve Police Force] personnel.
When I decided to marry in 1995,
however, Heavendrea’s magnanimity shrank. “You have to leave the house next
month itself,” she told me. I requested her to give me enough time to find
another accommodation. “That’s your business. Whether you get another house or
not, you have to leave mine next month.”
Fritz Perls turned in his grave. His
ghost reminded me of the later lines of his Gestalt Prayer: “If by chance we find each other,
it's beautiful. If not, it can't be helped.” Having lived in the same premises
for more than six years, Heavendrea and I had failed to find each other. Why
did she even refuse to look into my eyes? She wasn’t like that.
It took me quite some time to realise
that it wasn’t Heavendrea’s fault at all. She wasn’t as heartless as all that.
One Rev Machiavelli was at work. More on that when we come to the letter M.
Heavendrea did not even come out of
her house when I left her housing complex where I had lived for the longest
period ever in Shillong. One of the hardest things in Shillong is to find a
place to stay. The next hardest is to be on good terms with the landlady and
her people. Heavendrea was an exception. She was my beloved matriarch who took
such troubles for me as to find a scrap dealer to take away our wastes.
Heavendrea was next to cleanliness. I was destined never to find another
Heavendrea in my life. Rev Machiavelli had a vision for me. Alas!
PS. I'm
participating in #BlogchatterA2Z
Very enigmatic! People are not that bad. Nice read and beautiful rendering!
ReplyDeleteThere are many people who do things they don't want to, because of external pressures. People are made bad by certain forces like religion!
DeleteIt been ages since I rented.
ReplyDeleteThere are some places in India like the tribal areas where nontribal people are not allowed to buy property and hence have to rent.
DeleteIt's too bad that your soon-to-be wife couldn't stay with you.
ReplyDeleteI shifted to another house and my wife joined me there... A lot of things went wrong after that, made to go wrong by certain vested interests.
DeleteAh, such an interesting, yet mysterious personality. I still wonder she forbid you to stay with family. Was it all a bachelor kingdom altogether?
ReplyDeleteThe house was too small for family. But the hurry in which she chucked me was because of certain external pressure. It'll become clear eventually.
Delete