Sanatan Mukherjee was sitting on his favorite easy chair on the balcony his third floor apartment reading the newspaper when he yelled out, “Kanti, make me a cup of tea, please,” and heard back “Haan Saab.” What he could not hear was the grumpy Kanti’s soliloquy. “Old man. Doesn’t have a work in the world except running errands on me.” Mr. Mukherjee’s story was the typical progeny of the new found Indian liberalization. His two sons had become “martyrs” at the altar of technology and had laid their heart and soul at the service of transforming mankind by a revolution called ‘software’. So there they were raking their brains over tiny pieces of code in far away Silicon Valley and trying to bolster American GDP. On their last trip home they had tried to show their homes on their snazzy laptops by a piece of engineering genius called Google Earth but which was far too miniscule than what Mr. Mukherjee’s 72 year old eyes could fathom. He was happy that his sons were doing well and he never forgot a doting word about them to all who cared to listen to him.
But, Mr. Mukherjee had his good and bad days. He was an influential mortgage officer at the biggest bank of his days and had been instrumental for roofs over many heads. One hot morning a certain Adrian D’Souza came to his office and flopped on the floor of sunstroke. Adrian was a failed builder. And he carried with him a huge burden of infamy, so much so that none of the banks of the city had agreed to finance his latest project, which he claimed to be a masterpiece. When, Mr. Mukherjee took his case to his credit committee, he was summarily dismissed. So he offered to be a personal guarantor for the loan. He was told that he would have to provide security tantamounting to one third of the project amount. The credit committee was completely perplexed. “But why do you want to support such a failure?” asked Mr. Bose, the head. “That’s because Sir, no one has ever touched my feet for anything.” “And what do you propose to provide as guarantee?” enquired Mr. Bose again. “My entire PF amount, gratuity and my wife’s ornaments,” said Mr. Mukherjee. Mr. Bose was aghast, “Do you realize that you might just be left with nothing?” “Yes sir,” said a confident Mukherjee.
Adrian never forgot this gesture. And when the project was completed, he came to Mr. Mukherjee’s house. He hugged Mukherjee and beamed, “Sir, today I have repaid all my loans. I am really indebted to you and bhabiji for all this.” Both Mukherjee and his wife were very happy for him. “You will be rich now, D’Douza.” “Yes sir,” said Adrian and blushed, “my flats are all booked out and you must come tomorrow with Bhabiji for a small ceremony. Tomorrow I hand over the keys to the occupants after a small celebration.” “Of course, we will,” they said in unison.
The Mukherjees reached at the designated time and saw the party had almost started. Adrian welcomed them at the gate and took them aside. “Bhabiji, I have to return something to you.” And then called out, “Mr. Bose, can you please come here?” “Bhabiji, here’s your ornaments and Sir here’s your retrials. I do not know what would have happened to me had you not been there.” Mr. Mukherjee hugged him.
After the party, Adrian raised a toast and said, “Friends, I have named this ‘Ashabori Abasan’. Hope it is to your liking.” And there was a roar of appreciation. Then he called out names and each one was handed a key decked in rosewater. “…. Mr. Desai, Mr. Sengupta and now we come to the last floor,” his voice reaching a crescendo like an emcee. “The proud owner of Flat 701 is……..” and he created a comical suspense, “…. is Mr…… Adrian D’Souzaaa… I too need a home too.” Tumultous uproar and even the Mukherjees stood up and applauded. “Thank you, thank you. And now, for Flat 702. Please come Mrs. Mukherjee.” There was a stunned silence before a deafening roar again. The Mukherjees could not believe it when Adrian came to them and said, “Please do not say no Sir.”
And after that the Mukherjees had a wonderful ten years with the D Souzas as neighbors. They had two sons while the D’Souzas had one. Then, one winter, destiny struck when Mrs. Mukherjee was diagnosed of leukemia. Mr. Mukherjee was two years short of his retirement and his sons were in their engineering degrees at reputed institutions in the country. Despite that, he treated her in the best hospitals of the country. Her treatment proved expensive, but, his own esteem always stood in the way whenever Adrian, a successful architect by then, offered to help.
One night Adrian came to Mukherjee’s place with a lawyer. “Sir, I know that you will not take any financial help from me. So here is a deal. I will buy this flat from you and put it on lease to you. You can thereby use the money for Bhabiji’s treatment. I got a deed ready and you cannot say no to this.” After relentless coaxing Mukherjee read the deed. It said that the landlord was placing the property for a lease of five hundred rupees a month, for a period of fifteen years with no rental increased over the period whatsoever. At the end of the term, the lease terms would be negotiated with survivor from either parties. If however, the landlord did not have an heir, the property would be bequeathed to Mr. Sanatan Mukherjee, if still alive, in the event of Adrian D’Souza’s death. Mr. Mukherjee signed and received an amount of fifteen lakh rupees.
Despite that, he could not save his wife and two years later even Adrian left for his heavenly abode and was soon followed by his wife.
Reminiscent of the old days, Mr. Mukherjee wiped traces of tears from his spectacles when Kanti came with the tea. “Saab, I have prepared lunch and dinner.” And then she left.
After his sons had left pursuing their dollar dreams, Mr. Mukherjee had quite a sedentary lifestyle. After the morning paper was over, he did not have much to do. He had four sunflower pots perched on his balcony. He would dutifully water them twice a day and would sit talking to them for hours. Most of the time they would nod in agreement to whatever he had to say. And they always faced towards the sun. Their attitude would remind Mukherjee of his own son’s, who always wanted their face towards gleaming prosperity.
The D’Souza household was a different story altogether. Lawrence, Adrian’s only son had been in wrong company. Adrian caught him once with a vial and promptly sent him for a drug rehabilitation. But, he fled and had been carrying out odd jobs at various parts of the country. After Adrian’s death he settled in the city and would often visit the housing complex. He sold off his father’s flat and lost all the money at various slotting tables.
When he could sustain no more, he came to Mukherjee and asked him to increase his rent to market rates. Mukherjee had lost all he had for his wife’s treatment and his sons had newly ‘acquired’ wives of their own and in a deft cost cutting exercise had stalled dollar repatriation to the father. He found it difficult to make both ends meet, but he never complained. Increasing rents was an impossible proposition for him.
Lawrence tried several means. He would threaten Mukherjee with diar consequences. He would humiliate him in public saying that this was really impetuous of him to stay at the expenses of a neighbor. And the last few months had been relentless. Mukherjee had been unable to pay even the rent to Lawrence. Lawrence had come one night in an inebriated state and in his incomprehensible slur, had given Mukherjee a deadline of one week to settle everything or be prepared to be thrown out.
Mukherjee would face all this in stoic silence and then would return to his favorite sunflowers to regale his story, often accompanied by a couple of tear droplets.
In the course of the week, Mukerjee found for himself a small old age home meant for distressed old people like him. He was not expected to pay any money but, would obviously do odd work for a living which included teaching small children to washing utensils. There were some more people there and obviously the “paying” members made it clear that it was they who ran the show.
Mukherjee had resigned himself to fate, but his only matter of concern was his four pots of sunflowers. Who would take care of them? Whom would he leave them with? They were more than just plants to him. They were his family. Every year the summer sun would parch them and Mukherjee would sow seeds from the old plants to have a new plant the next winter. They had provided him the joy of creation and companionship.
Early next morning, the last day of the week, Mukherjee arose, sanguine enough to meet Lawrence, probably for the last time. He watered the plants and softly spoke to them about what he would do without them and where they might find their place. He muttered a small prayer for them.
Within half an hour Lawrence arrived as expected. The two had a heated discussion after which Mukherjee said, “Your father would have been ashamed of you today.” Lawrence swore at him and branded him a beggar. He tersely asked Mukherjee to vacate the place within the same day. As soon as Lawrence banged the door, Mr. Mukherjee was inconsolable. He fell on his bed and began to weep like a child.
Suddenly he heard a shriek of his maid outside. He rose as fast as his geriatric muscles could muster. He came to the balcony and looked down where Lawrence lay in a pool of blood, his skull in smithereens. Battered remnants of a flower pot lay at his side.
The remaining sunflowers swayed in the wind, approving…
