Utopia: War On Mediocrity
Part One
Prologue
If you are a hare, avoid having a race with a turtle since you have only a faint chance of winning. The thick-skinned turtle with no sense of self-respect or dignity is more likely to win than the well-groomed hare with an aesthetic sense of pride.
But then, if you are a hare, why should you even worry about the narrower goal of winning? Do you want to just win or remain victorious? The latter seems to be a much nobler choice.
- Swanathan, the Hero
I , The Narrator
Last Sunday, when I got up from my bed with great difficulty and came down the landing, I immediately came to know that Swanathan had left. When someone you have been attached to for a long time, you don’t need any little note or any telltale sign to know that they have left. You also know that that someone has not just left for a morning walk or on a short errand, or for a trip overseas. I mean L E F T. Permanently. For good. I would not wait even for a second to admit that the realisation did weaken me in my knees. To be frank, I had to sit down on the first step of the landing to stop myself from falling. The empty teacup that Swanathan had left was still there — sitting like an orphan — like everyday, on the dining table. When I slowly got up and took it in my hand, I knew it would be wrong to pretend that his departure was a great shock. That’s what they always said about him- that he was sometimes “torturously predictable”. The descriptive phrase was originally coined by Shoma and then was unashamedly copied by everyone else who have been the victims of Swanathan’s predictability.
I don’t know about others, but Shoma had more than a perfect reason and right to use it. There was in fact no justification for the paths of Shoma and Swanathan to meet together, or even to go go parallel. She was a rookie copywriter and he was the owner of an advertising agency. Yet, Swanathan was sharp enough to notice her annoyance at having to double up as a receptionist at times, and called her in for a chat. When she entered his office, he was surrounded by, what she thought, a disgusting smell of cheap imported cigarettes he used to buy from a shady shop in Kachiguda. “I am proud of my little discovery.”- He used to proclaim with unnecessasay pomposity. She had to ignore the odour and had to get his attention when he stopped rotating his chair and opened his eyes wide.
What went on in the next hour or so can hardly be called ‘predictable’. I know from my personal knowledge that Shoma especially hates the fact that she began to not just softly sob but cry vivaciously in that little cabin in Swanathan’s presence. Even though this meeting took place so many years agon, Shoma vividly remembers that Swanathan hardly even looked at her in the entire conversation. She hates it even more that she somehow took his invitation as a matter of course, rather than of discretion, when he asked her to join him for a dinner that weekend. Curiously, the thought that immediately followed her after his dinner invitation was — What is he going to disclose to his wife about this meeting? Is he going to lie to her? It was very hard to imagine Swanathan fabricating a lie. Probably he would use his usual plainspeak and inform her in a matter-of-fact style that he was going to spend the evening with the sweet young thing in his office. Shoma was more intrigued with this question rather than pondering over what her response should be to his invitation. At least a “Let me get a raincheck.” Would have been more appropriate. Yet, her acceptance of the invitation seemed to be too urgent — as if she had been eagerly waiting for that invitation.
To be continued …
For updates, visit author’s Facebook Page @Anil Pathak, Author
