ETERNAL RESURRECTION

“Papa, papa. What did you get today?” asks my 6 year old Guddi.
“I got new fabric for your Barbie’s dresses. Tell your mother to make you some when she has time.”
“Oh papa! Thank you,” she beams with her radiant smile, clutching onto the cloth I hand over to her and ambles off to her room.
“Savita! Come here. Look what I’ve got for you, my dear.”
I call my wife ready to surprise her with a stunning sari that I got made for her. I’m ready to hear her shriek ecstatically as she will swathe it around her slender and sensuous body.
She walks into the room, carrying with her an aura of gracefulness and femininity. Her attractive face is lit up with a light smile, almost a chuckle, as she walks over to me and hugs me. I envelope her into my arms and kiss her on the forehead.
“You’re breath-taking,” I mumble into her soft ears and she laughs her twinkling, crystalline laughter and it permeates into my soul like a soft wind chime that tinkles with a gentle breeze. I laugh too, her mirth, contagious.
She tugs the sari away from my hand and drapes it around her sinuous body with fluent movements that augment the sensation of womanliness around her. I smile widely at her adolescent enthusiasm and instantaneously, I fall in love with her all over again.
“Oh Raj, this is perfect. Just the kind that I have wanted for so long! Now I shall show that supercilious Mrs Sharma that even my husband has the capability to get me whatever I yearn. Thank you. It’s marvellously beautiful!”
I smile and walk, contented, to my bedroom. My feet give away from below me as I lie down on the bed, the smile still on my face, but all my energy sapped with a hard day’s work, incessantly toiling at the mill. I tediously remove my khadi shirt and lie down in my vest and trousers.
My eyelids droop and vibrant dreams of Savita running with poise in her sari fill my mind, her elegant laughter rocking me to sleep, like a lullaby. I sleep serenely until the strident ring of the phone penetrates into my deep sleep like the odour of a garbage truck in the middle of a garden. Jadedly, I pick the phone off the side table and put it to my ear.
“Hello? Who’s this?” I groggily whisper.
“Raj? Raj Malhotra? This is your boss here.”
I sit up with a start. “Kotaksaab? Calling here? Must be something important,” I think.
“Yes sir? What happened?”
“Come to the mill without delay. I have held an urgent meeting and it is essential that all my workers are present.”
“Of course sir! I’ll be there immediately.”
With that curt conversation, I jump out of bed, all the tiredness seeping out of my body. Hurriedly, I put on my sweat drenched shirt as it sticks to my body.
“Savita! I’ll be back in a while. Kotaksaab has called us all for an emergency meet. Bye.”
With that, I run out of our ground floor apartment, and jump onto my Bajaj scooter. I rev the engine as the scooter sputters its way to the mill.
I park the scooter and walk towards the entrance and for the first time in years, the mill seems to loom over me ominously. I walk, almost cautious, towards Kotaksaab’s office.
I walk into the enormous room and a blast of cold air hits me from the imported air conditioner. A chill travels down my spine and I walk towards the gigantic, mahogany desk. Kotaksaab is talking on the phone to someone in an incomprehensible dialect.
“Sir?” I mutter diffidently. “You had called me? And where are the rest of the people?”
“Raj. Don’t worry about your colleagues. They shall be talked with later. What is of utmost importance is what I’m going to tell you now. We are retrenching everyone. The mills are shutting down. Our country is become highly industrialized and mills are becoming superseded. We are really sorry. You were our cherished employee. But we have orders from people who we can’t contest. I’m sorry, but I have to fire you.” And with that, he hands me a letter and resumes talking on the phone, presumabl
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