The Persistence of Memory

By Maliha Iqbal

In a tiny shop located within a narrow lane packed with people, sat Rakesh, in his late seventies, though he couldn’t say exactly. They didn’t keep proper records of birthdays back then. He sat staring outside as people pushed past one another, and over their heads, thick black electric cables coiled around one another and around long poles, forming a black canopy. He remained motionless, with glazed eyes.

Someone entered the shop, looked at him, and said something.

“What?” Rakesh muttered, coming out of his thoughts.

It was Nitesh, who had been running a food stall across the street for the past five months. It was called “Nitesh Snacks”.

“I came to have this watch repaired. It fell yesterday while I was going back home, and the glass broke.”

He put a watch on the counter. Rakesh picked it up and glanced thoughtfully at it. Then he nodded to himself and put it aside.

“I will give it to you tomorrow.”

Nitesh stood there hesitantly for a while, then said,
“Arun ji was a very nice man. It’s a pity that he…died.”

Rakesh nodded again and said nothing. His shoulders seemed to weigh him down. His head was covered with thick grey hair, dyed bright orange with henna. He wore an oversized faded blue shirt that hung over his thin frame, and it was clear that he had forgotten to shave that morning. Nitesh looked worriedly at him. Things weren’t going well, and now that Arun ji was dead, they would likely worsen.

Rakesh walked into his single-floor house, which was a short distance from his watch repair shop. He remembered how he had started that shop. He had painted it himself, had the shutters fitted, and then began repairing watches. It had cost him plenty to buy that tiny room on the main street, but it paid well. People came frequently, and soon he could start selling clocks and watches. The shop was named after his late father, “Narayan Watch Repairing”. He remembered covering every shred of the wall with clocks- all colours and shapes.

He went right towards the back of the house, down a long narrow corridor, to a room that was visibly separated from all the other rooms. He sat down on the bed, thinking about when it had all started—when he became like this. It was probably when Arun died…no, that happened two days ago…it was when his wife died. Or around that time, or perhaps even before. He couldn’t think straight. He sat motionless, with a deep feverish glow in his eyes.

Someone looked into the room. It was his son with a big smile on his face.
“How was work?”

Rakesh said nothing, and there was a pause.
“You must miss your friend.”

Again, nothing.

“We all have to go sometime.”

This time, Rakesh just looked at him thoughtfully. His son nodded to himself and then said, “Sold any clocks today?”

When there was no reply, he added, “Well, that business is no longer as good. A few clocks, that’s all we can sell nowadays. Everyone has clocks on their smartphones. Who needs them now? That’s why we decided to shut it down. You do remember that we have only got a month left? I hope you have started wrapping everything up.”

His son had an easy smile on his face ever since he had entered the room. He looked at him for a moment before adding, “If you need any help at all while closing down, you can always call me.”

Rakesh nodded but said nothing. His son kept talking and then left after a while. Yes, he remembered now. He remembered how it had all started. It had started soon after his son got married. They began quarrelling frequently, especially Rakesh’s wife and their son. It felt like they were always in their son’s way, like they were always doing things to disrupt his life. He remembered his wife crying all night because of their son. He didn’t say anything much until she died. He did not like quarrelling. Many things displeased him, but he learned to remain quiet or use very few words. It had still not been as bad. At least, he still had some respect around the house.

Then one day, his son had seemed to turn over a new leaf. He was always there for him suddenly. He took an interest in the shop. He sat and chatted with him in the evenings over a cup of tea. Rakesh liked this change. Over several months, he came to trust his son, feeling a sense of satisfaction when he looked at him. There were disagreements, of course, but his son invariably seemed to come to his senses and apologised.

Rakesh couldn’t remember how long this harmony continued, but he did remember when it came to an end. It was a short time after he signed the documents that transferred all his property to his son. After that, things began to change. His son no longer took an interest in the shop. They barely spoke anymore. Rakesh’s health also started to deteriorate. Instead of taking more care of him, his son had a room built at the far end of the house. This room was bare except for an old wooden bed and an attached bathroom. It was in this room that Rakesh spent most of his time while he was in the house. His food was sent to the room. It always looked like leftover food from yesterday. Whenever they quarrelled, his son would always end the argument by giving the example of their old neighbour, who was sent to live in a temple by his children because he became ‘too much of a burden.’

He had lived like that for about a year now, missing his wife terribly. No one spoke to him in the house. His only solace was his shop. He eagerly spoke to the customers, absorbing himself in his work. His closest friend, Arun, was a barber whose small salon was right next to the watch repair shop. They had known each other for forty years. Every day, after closing up, they sat and chatted for about an hour. Arun was the one person he could always talk to, the one person who always shared his sorrow, and now Arun was dead. He had no one. At night, he would lie in bed, hearing laughter drift from the house. There was no outlet for his sorrow. It was bottled up inside him, and he felt that it was slowly poisoning him. His feet felt heavy, his breathing was often laborious, and he sometimes heard his wife calling out to him in the middle of the night. Was he going mad? Perhaps he was, and this month, his son’s news had been the final nail in his coffin.

His son had come bustling into the dingy room with a smile and told him that he urgently needed some money, then he had abruptly began talking about the watch shop—how it was not doing well, how people no longer cared about watches anyway, and how Rakesh was getting old and needed some rest. Then he explained that these things had prompted him to sell the shop, and they were required to clear out within two months.

There had been heated arguments between them. Rakesh had refused to speak to him for several days until one day, his son had assumed that his silence meant that the matter was settled. That there was no longer any need to discuss the issue anymore. Rakesh had become quieter than ever before. All he did was nod, as though if he was careful enough to maintain his stubborn silence, then perhaps someone out there would miss his words. Would miss them enough to make things right again. He would have a function in this world—a purpose. He would not be a burden on anyone. His son would miss speaking to him. They would once again sit in the evenings with a cup of tea and chat, not because he wanted his property, but for Rakesh’s sake. Because Rakesh would never be a burden. No one could make that happen to him.

Rakesh woke up and stared at the ceiling for several minutes before he realised that someone was in the room. Someone was speaking to him. He sat up and looked thoughtfully at his son. He was still too disoriented to hear him.

“You still haven’t done a thing…I can’t believe…we only have ten days left…do you realise how less time that is?” his son said.

Rakesh thought that he might be in a dream, but then he remembered that he hadn’t had a dream for years. He closed his eyes tightly and opened them again. It became clearer.

“You had two months to clear the shop. That’s more time than necessary in the first place, and today I went there in the morning to have a look, but not a thing has changed! I thought I could trust you with a simple task like this. How can I handle everything on my own? Haven’t I always taken proper care of you? But okay now, tomorrow I am coming down myself to start clearing things up. This has gone on for long enough. I know you have been handing over all the earnings from the shop to Arun’s old widow. I know that Arun was very poor, but we can’t really afford to be so generous if we are poor ourselves, can we? I tolerated all that, but you couldn’t even handle one small thing.”

Rakesh didn’t know how long his son had been speaking, but he understood what was being said. He did not reply at all and waited until his son stormed off.

He got his shirt off the hook and put it on. He stood in the middle of the room for a moment and then left the house. He walked for a long time to nowhere in particular. He had not eaten anything since the morning, but he didn’t feel hungry anyway.

He knew his son was lying. The shop had been doing just fine. His son just wanted to sell it off and get his hands on the money. Worst of all, Rakesh was powerless. Tomorrow, his son would come to start clearing up the shop, and after ten days, it would belong to someone else. He would probably spend the remainder of his days in the little cell his son had built as far away from their lives as possible, waiting for death. Waiting for time to pass.

He looked around and realised that he was near his shop. It was dusk now. In the deep orange sky, some birds were on their way home in a v-formation. How long had he walked? He felt drained, and his heart was fluttering slightly. He stared at the shop front for a while, waiting for his breathing to become normal again, but it didn’t. He then began to open the shutter, but it felt heavier than usual. By the time it was done, he was sweating profusely. Once inside, he collapsed into his chair behind the counter after locking the door from inside.

His mind was blank for a while. He was only aware of how tired his body was. Then he stared thoughtfully at each and every corner of the shop. He would leave this little space after ten days, and it would continue to exist without him. It might stand there for a hundred more years. He sometimes wished he could be a building. At least they were not a burden on anyone. They got to fulfil a certain function. He might leave, but this shop would continue to be a room. It might not be a watch repair shop, but it would still have a function. No one thought buildings were a burden. In fact, people fought with one another to get ownership. Wasn’t that what had happened to him? His son had lied and cheated to get his property, and it wasn’t even much at that.

He had thought that he would feel better after sitting down, but instead, his head had started spinning slightly. He looked at the walls. Each of them were covered with clocks from top to bottom. Normally, they would please him, the culmination of lifelong hard work. Now, looking at them, they all reminded him that time was passing. That the next day, he would have to pack each one of them. That ten days would pass soon, and after that all he would ever do would be to wait for time to pass. He could not bear the thought of packing the clocks up.

He realised that these were the last few moments of his old life, and they were passing really fast. Placing his palms on the counter, he hoisted himself out of the chair and stood for a moment, breathing hard. Then he walked over to the first clock on the wall—a bright yellow square-shaped one—and took it down from the hook. He stared at the minute hand for a while and then smashed it violently on the floor. Then he began moving faster, even though he still felt weak, but his eyes gleamed with determination. He went around smashing every clock. They all reminded him that time was flying by, leaving him behind, and for once, he wanted it to stop at the threshold of his shop. For once, he wanted to be free from the burden of the next day.

The Persistence of Memory by Salvador Dali (1904-1989). From Public Domain

Maliha Iqbal is a student and writer from Aligarh, India. Many of her short stories, write-ups, letters and poems have been published on platforms Live Wire (The Wire), Cerebration, Kitaab, Countercurrents, Freedom Review, ArmChair Journal, Counterview, Writers’ Cafeteria, Café Dissensus, Borderless Journal and Indian Periodical. She can be reached at malihaiqbal327@gmail.com.

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By Vedant Srinivas

Despite rolling the window firmly shut, Dhruv could still feel the dust swivel inside the car and settle on his skin. He could smell the combined whiff of fried pakodas mixed with rotting trash, as if the transparent glass pane was no barrier for the hazardous environment outside to which he had once belonged. Sweat rolled down in beads and collected at the nape of his neck, and he wiped it with a crumpled handkerchief. Small apartment blocks came into view on both sides, with cycle rickshaws parked on either side of the gate. Rusted clotheslines jutted out from the balcony on each floor. They were hung with clothes of varied shapes and colours. A car honked twice, and someone yelled in return.

He eyed the outside proceedings with a strange fervour, his eyes taking in the action that seemed already imprinted in the depths of his memory. It wasn’t so much perception as re-creation; he had, after all, spent his childhood roaming the same streets of north-west Delhi. Remembrances swept to the shore of his mind, summoning up something buried and forgotten inside him. He distracted himself with more practical concerns. What was he to say to Digant’s father? Would he recognise him?

The taxi took meandering turns down narrow lanes. “They all look the same,” the driver remarked, his tall figure bent as he struggled to look through the windshield. Indeed, the roads did look the same — row after row of vehicles were parked in every inch of space available. Yawning over them were emaciated trees providing respite from the excessively harsh sun. Two boys with long rakish hair zoomed past on a motorcycle, their sunburnt faces exuding joy.

The car took a right turn and came upon an apartment gate populated by people in white. Some were on the phone while others were standing together in groups, waiting for instructions to be given. Dhruv paid the taxi and stepped out, smoothening the creases on his white kurta. He felt a strange sensation in the pit of his stomach. He had, since he received the news, thrust it in the back of his mind, refusing to engage with it, and had himself been vaguely surprised by his stoic reaction. Now it was bubbling in his gut, threatening to spill over.

Dhruv exchanged handshakes and condolences with people he assumed were family, and was shown directions to the flat on the first floor. The door was open, and smoke billowed out from the narrow entrance, wafting in tune with the pandit’s recitations. Some of the furniture had been moved and replaced by threaded mats to accommodate the shraddh ceremony ( funeral rites). There was an air of forced busyness inside the flat; people scurried about carrying various things, whispering quietly to each other or into their phones, as if stillness would collapse the facade that had so painstakingly been constructed by everyone present. Without this structured pretence, reality itself would lose its consistency, and make them confront that which perhaps lacked definition.

In one corner of the room, some women sat huddled together, rocking to and fro. Dhruv recognised Digant’s mother amongst them. Her eyes were red and puffy, and her distant gaze seemed to pierce through the opposite wall. A ceiling fan turned lugubriously near to where she sat. Mr. Singh, Digant’s father, sat next to the officiating priest, his fingers locked tightly together as he tried to follow the priest’s sharp intonations. His eyes were glued to the body that lay in front. The flicker of recognition in his eyes upon seeing Dhruv soon transformed into a dull glaze.

Dhruv moved closer, his hands folded in a namaste-like posture. It was wrapped in a white shroud, with cotton buds placed in the nose. There were dark pouches under the eyes. The skin too had aged; the glowing white of ten years ago had now turned into a sickly yellow. He peered hard at what had once been Digant. Try as he might, Dhruv couldn’t muster anything as complete and engulfing as grief. The pinch of bereavement he felt was for a life snuffed out, a death that had taken place, utterly devoid of particularities.

Dhruv had received the news last night through the school group. More details had emerged, once the initial outpouring of shock and concern had subsided. The rope had been tied to the ceiling fan, and the door locked from inside. No note had been found and no foul play suspected, though he had been known to lead a rough life.

Dhruv glanced around the room and spotted a familiar face at the end of the passage. He walked towards Rohit and they hugged awkwardly, putting one arm sideways around the other’s shoulder. Rohit had been in Digant’s section, and had also been part of the football team with Dhruv. His hair had already started greying; a paunch of considerable size jutted out from his middle. Standing next to him were two other schoolmates whose faces he recognised but whose names he couldn’t recall. They politely nodded at each other. It felt odd to meet under such circumstances.

Leaning against a wall, Dhruv and Rohit observed the proceedings, with hands clasped respectfully at the front. The priest was pouring ghee into the crackling fire while chanting archaic mantras. Their eyes smarted from the smoke of fiery oblations; tears of grief freely mingled with those produced by the stinging fire. Dhruv found his mind wandering. He wondered what view tradition accorded to such an event, and whether the rites would be different in this case. There was an uneasiness in the room that belied even the genuine concern he could see entrenched on faces and eyes. Rohit turned to Dhruv, put a hand around his shoulder, and said in a caressing voice, “I can’t even begin to imagine what you are going through. After all, you guys were best friends.”

Dhruv started, his feet almost giving away under him. Suddenly thirsty, he stumbled towards the kitchen, wading through the ever-increasing number of people. More than concern, it felt like an unbidden accusation. Surely calling them as best friends would be going too far? Yes, they had spent some important years of their childhood together, but that was true for everyone who had lived in the locality and gone to their school. It felt intrusive to think that someone else had formed such an important opinion without bothering to consult him or the facts.

The water filter beeped a faint red as water began to drip out of the nozzle. Flashes of the distant past, sieved through his memory, came upon Dhruv — bunking school and spending the day playing pool at one of the shady centers in Pitampura, the regular fights they’d get into, alcohol, rustication… Image after image played successively in the recesses of his mind; he was unable to think of a single school memory that didn’t have Digant in it.

Dhruv suddenly felt swamped by unreality. His current existence — his job as an advertising filmmaker, his daughter and wife back in Bangalore — had nothing to do with the memories that now assuaged him from all sides. He had lost touch with everyone as soon as he entered college, and had somehow managed to do well for himself, despite the odds, proving everyone — including his parents — wrong. He was now fully wedded to a life of ‘upward mobility’ and the sophistication that came with it. Indeed, his entire childhood, including Rohit and the others lounging outside, seemed now like a mythology that had been invented from scratch. To think that he had grown up in this grimy locality of corruption and crime, sharing secrets and confessions, shouting songs of friendship and love, with the same people whom he could barely recognise seemed to him a fiction of the highest order.

The kitchen window was blowing wind like a furnace, and he found it difficult to breathe. Stepping out, he made his way to the bathroom and locked the fledgling door. The drain cover had mounds of wet hair stuck to it. Sitting on the commode, another hazy image assuaged him, sending shudders through his body. A drunken reverie, teenage angst, him and Digant, valiant and masculine, proclaiming their allegiance to the famous 27 club as a revolt against life, their deaths too enshrined in history …

Later, at the crematorium, the men listlessly shifted their weight and scratched their faces as they stood huddled around the burning pyre. Dhruv had helped with the preparations and now, standing at a distance, watched plumes of smoke merge with the blinding sky. Bereft of its materiality, Digant again existed as he had before, as a submerged and fleeting reminiscence. Dhruv suddenly felt tired and nauseous. A vague feeling of inertia hit him. The present moment curdled in the heat of the afternoon, and he was confronted with lumps of empty time as it stretched across the burial ground, shimmering and undulating like the funeral fire. Unable to stand it, he nudged Rohit on the shoulder and whispered into his ear if he wanted to go have a beer afterwards.

Years later, while directing some extras for an advertising shoot in Himachal, Dhruv would spot a local theatre performer — a dot on the camera monitor — struggling to master the sequence. In exasperation, he would yell out, “Digant, keep to your mark and don’t stray out of the circle.” Non-plussed faces would stare back at him, unsure of who he was talking to. The words that had come crashing out would be swallowed back just as soon, followed by a long period of silence. For the rest of the day, he would walk around in a reeling daze, and try not to stare at the young man who had unwittingly, instantaneously reminded him of what had once been.

Vedant Srinivas studied Philosophy and went on to do a diploma in Filmmaking. His interests fall in the interstices of literature, anthropology, cinema, and poetry.

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