The Man by the window

 My uncle- Dr. M.K. Hazra- is a one-of-a-kind character, peculiar in every single sense. 

My earliest memory of him was that I was horrified by his appearance. I would be so scared that I would often cover my eyes or hide behind my aaya’s dupatta. All of us who have had the privilege of knowing him would agree to have always seen him color coordinated. He mostly wore a white shirt along with a pair of white trousers and wore a full-rim black eyewear. He would often be spotted peeping out of the window of his infamous nursing home. 

About two decades ago, this nursing home (that was named after his mother ``Mandakini)’ was popular for illegal abortions. It was the safe haven for all those burqa clad women who got pregnant with their lovers only to realize that they committed the original sin. With nowhere left to go, uncle was their God-sent messenger, who could undo most of their mistakes.

If all the stories I heard while growing up were true, uncle seemed to be very popular at an early age. He was well-known for his street-fighting skills on the streets as well as in his bedroom. Rumors had it that in Kidderpore Bazaar, there was a boy who looked exactly like him. When this bit of news came around into the family, it was Mandakini grandma who apparently had paid his other family off so that they would disappear.

20 years is a long period of time wherein a lot of things change. In the past 20-25 years, I was privy to the following incidents:

1. He fell in love with his nurse who later decided to live-in with him in the nursing home. It seemed very odd that anyone would fall in love with him, but thank god that she did fall in love with him as she was of immense help to my dying grandmother.
   
   

2. He got his son married to a girl from a very poor family, with the hopes that she would always be by his son’s side. Over the years, the son and the daughter-in-law had a child together, but the daughter-in-law was quite unhappy in that household. She was so unhappy in that marriage, that she decided to take her destiny in her own hands. She decided to start off as a home-beautician and fell into the wrong company; she got caught in a love scandal with some random people, chose to walk off the house with her child, leaving the husband to pick up the mess. At present, the couple seem quite content with where their relationship is. They are happily separated and they meet up whenever the ex-daughter-in-law feels like meeting him.
   
   

3. He got his daughter married to a generic guy who married her because that was the most obvious thing to do- to get married. Thankfully, that relationship has done well so far. Or maybe I don’t have that gossip to share.
   
   

4. His mother- my cousin grandma, who was always envious of my father’s success, was also hard of hearing from one ear. Nasal as she sounded, she spoke in a very high pitched tone, that would hurt anyone’s ear drums. Apart from being a little deaf, she lived a long life and passed away soon after my grandmother (my father’s mother) breathed her last.
   
   

5. With lesser women coming in for abortions, and with better healthcare facilities now available in and around the city, the nursing home business began slowing down. Since it was situated on the first floor and had no support for elevators, people started shying away from Mandakini Nursing home and began choosing other nursing homes in the locality.

Even though so much had changed over the last 2 decades, there were a few things that did not change at all. Apart from whiling away his time by looking out of the window, these were the things he continued to do through the years: 

1. He loved being sadistic. He would find happiness in splashing ink on our white car, and checking his aim by throwing garbage on the roof of our delivery vehicle if we had parked it momentarily. Once he even went to the extent of throwing dirty water on the driver who had brought a consignment to our place. God had sided with him that day as my driver had convinced the courier’s driver to not beat him up as he was an old man.
   
   

2. He loved using expletives. He would generously spew venom-like words at whosoever parked their vehicles below his nursing home. The much awaited show-time was 6 p.m. This was the time slot where he drank alcohol. Once the vile liquid entered Dr. Jekyll’s belly, Mr. Hyde would take over. Nobody dared visiting him after the clock struck 6.
   
   

3. The third thing that never changed was the fact that the staircase that led to his nursing home was roofless. It was open and the patients were subjected to intense heat, torrential rain and cold breeze, all depending on the season that they visited.
   
   

Apart from the above, one thing remained constant- his love for me. He loved me for reasons unknown to me. He was always fond of me, and made sure that I never got to see this side. I remember him shouting at my driver for no apparent reason. I was walking back home and saw the drama. I politely asked him, “What happened uncle?”. His facial reaction changed instantly.

“Beta! I always tell these guys not to park the vehicle and leave. But they always do so and the doctors visiting my nursing home don’t find parking”

Well that argument sounded quite reasonable to me. I looked at my chauffeur who was looking back at me completely confused. He had the better judgment to keep his mouth shut at that moment as uncle left the scene immediately. 

He went back to the nursing home telling my driver, “You keep the vehicle, but be there so that it does not harass my doctors”.

As soon as he left, my driver laughed and said this was the first time he had told him that.

There were other instances where he had told one of my chauffeurs that in the entire lineage of ‘Hajras’, there was only one person who stands out, that is none other than me. I really do not know what I have done to earn such love and respect from this man, but surely I must have done something that others did not. All I know is that every time I stepped out of my house, waiting for my car to turn up, I would look up at the window and would see him look down at me. I would wave at him and ask him, “How are you uncle?”. To that he would always wave back and nodded his head with a reassuring smile that he was well.  

A few weeks ago, I noticed that he had started constructing a roof with galvanized metal sheets to cover the staircase that led to the nursing home. I smiled thinking ‘Better late than never!’. Finally, people would not be fearful of slipping and falling down the staircase. Soon after the staircase was covered, I noticed that painters were painting the wall of the staircase. The color that they chose was ‘gray’. I was amused. Uncle must be really thinking out of the box as the color looked fantastic. I wanted to meet my uncle and congratulate him but I noticed that he was not peeping out of the window. 

A few days later, I noticed that the display board of ‘Mandakini Nursing Home’ was replaced with ‘Fight 4 Fitness’. I was shattered. Uncle had decided to lease out the property to a gym. The gym owner could very well be the husband/ex-boyfriend of one of the patients on whom the abortion was done without them knowing it. 

At present, the gym remains open till midnight, with constant thudding of weights and trembling of our common wall when heavy weights are thrown around. The good thing about that is that when my wife and I make love on the century old bed that once belonged to my grandfather, the creaky noise of the bed gets overpowered by the trembling of the walls and the thudding of the weights.

I agree that the only thing constant in life is change, but nostalgia hits me hard when I realize that the nursing home is no more. And most of all, every time I look up at the window as I await my ride, that man by the window is nowhere to be seen.