THE STRANGER IN MY HOME
  • Home
  • Vignettes
    • Encounters
    • Events
    • Experiences
    • Epiphanies
  • Stories
  • Fables
  • Translations
  • Miscellany
  • Now/Then

now  /  then

blogs and blends

Get Him Back

11/1/2015

2 Comments

 
Aunt Tara was a widow of modest means who lived in a small town far from the big city in India where we lived. So when she wrote to my dad, asking him to look for an inexpensive place for her youngest son to stay and attend college, we offered him a place in our spacious downtown apartment. Biju, quiet and shy, was a pleasant person. I gladly shared my room with him and we quickly became friends.
​
Something bizarre happened five months later. Biju went out one afternoon, saying he would meet a friend near the railway station. He did not return. We called his friends and acquaintances; then we checked with the local hospitals. When nothing turned up, we called the police. Since I knew him best, I took the lead in the fruitless search, and it fell to me to inform his mother. Aunt Tara listened to me gravely, without a single interruption, then softly pleaded, “Please get Biju back to me.”
Picture
I persisted with the search for several months, talked to the police, placed notices and rewards in the newspaper. Finally I located a local trader who had encountered Biju close to the railway station. But that was all. We had no clue as to what happened next to Biju. The police closed the case.

Disheartened but dutiful, I undertook a trip to visit aunt Tara and explained in detail the effort that had been made and the scant result it had produced. There was now no alternative but to abandon the search and simply hope for a lucky break. Aunt Tara did not say a word till the end, “Please get Biju back to me.”
​
No lucky break ever came. I could not face aunt Tara and tried to avoid her at family gatherings. At a wedding I could not help encountering her and politely asked how she was. She in turn asked about my family, and then, with a pause, quietly asked, “Any news?” I shook my head ruefully and passed on.
Picture
​In the next twenty years, I came across her another four or five times, and each time, after we had talked about other things, she would pause and simply look at me. I knew she was gently inquiring without articulating the question, and I would shake my head in mute response.

​Aunt Tara died of cardiac problems at 89, in the house of her daughter, who had brought her to town to see a specialist. I drove over to see her and happened to be with her in the last hour. As I sat next to her bed, holding her hand and answering her questions about my children, there was a pause, and she looked earnestly at me and murmured, “Please get Biju back.”

2 Comments
Alpana Ghosh
10/30/2015 15:16:06

I am a mother. I can well understand how Aunt Tara felt and how she kept waiting for her son to come back to her till she breathed her last. Manish, you are a great story-teller!

Reply
Manish
10/31/2015 10:05:32

Thank you for your kind comment.

Reply



Leave a Reply.

    Manish Nandy

    Writer, Speaker, Consultant
    Earlier: Diplomat, Executive


    Archives

    January 2022
    December 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015

    RSS Feed


    Categories

    All

Proudly powered by Weebly
© Manish Nandy 2015  The Stranger in My Home