Brothers in arms
I ordered fruit today. Like I do two or three times a week. My fruit vendor Suresh bhai always greets me with a cheerful “Namaste didi” and delivers the best fruit to my doorstep. Never a complaint, never a grouse. He is about my age or maybe younger. We get along. So when he called in the morning, it was strange to hear him say that the delivery would be delayed. When he hadn’t arrived even at 5.30 in the evening, I called. Twice. And he said the most unlikely thing. “Main pareshan hoon, didi. Par me aa raha hoon”. (I’m upset, sister. But I’m on my way).
He arrived just now, an apology accompanying the fruit. I casually asked him “Kya pareshani aa gayi?” (What’s worrying you?)
And his face crumpled. This tall strapping hard working man folded his hands together and said, “mere bhai ne khudkushi kar li”. His younger cousin brother, 25 years old, a married man, father of three children, had killed himself this morning.
We stood at the door, separated by the grill and a world of differences. He seemed very disoriented. He murmured “It’s his destiny. What can we do? He had everything”. I blurted out my story. It didn’t register, his shock and grief too fresh to take in any more. Then he physically shook himself, looked at me and said, “He’s gone but he’s left us behind with a lifetime of grief”. And I could only nod and agree and wonder at the sudden and immediate clarity of his realisation. And despair at my inability to offer comfort or hope.
So now we are unlikely members of a secret society. Brothers in arms. A Sisterhood of Suicide. Whether we are a socialite in her high rise tower or a fruit vendor in his market stall or a housewife in her first floor flat, we are all bound together. Mothers, brothers, sisters, daughters. I wonder if our relationship will be tainted by this knowledge. Whether we will meet each other’s eyes or pretend today’s conversation never happened at all.
I ordered fruit today.