The Fraud

(writing from Mumbai)

As he sat in his armchair thinking about how useless his life had been, he couldn’t help contemplating his own mortality. Had he fallen from his motorbike a few inches further to the right, the van’s tyre would have run over his head.

Not that he was afraid of that possibility at the time. Not even now; just uneasy. Death is not that big a deal, but the thought of it makes people shudder in fear. Like most things in life, it is the thought that deadens the soul, not the thing itself.

There are lots of consequences and side-effects.

His little girl is pretending she is a doctor, treating the father. She is now applying some medicines, conjured out of thin air. She intently stares at her father, expecting animated signs of relief. He has to pretend that he is fine now, that his broken ankle has joined miraculously.

And now, she expects him to dance with her.

She tells Alexa to play “Sheesh Threes”. The AI recognises her voice and what that usually commands her to do.

“Playing Cheap Thrills from your music library,” the AI lady says, speaking out of the Echo Dot. Its shape reminds him of the striker in a Carrom game. The beat of the music starts. The little princess moves her tiny body to the rhythm. She looks expectantly at her father, who presently shakes his upper body, sitting in the armchair, while keeping the legs rested on the sofa.

Something in her says he is not fit yet to stand up, despite the miracurall* she treated him with. Not that it was a bad concoction, but the patient must be profoundly stupid.

No point wasting life thinking about idiots.

She dances alone. Her father gazes at her with shiny eyes.

Had the tyre run over his head, it would have burst like a melon, helmet and all. They would have had to scrape his brain from the broken pieces of the protection. It would have been a ghastly scene for the bystanders to watch.

And then people would have to come to the mortuary to take his body. It is such a heavy task on the soul. Last time he went to take the delivery of a friend’s body, he couldn’t forget the scene for a month. He was shaken to the core. His well-wishers and neighbours do not deserve such a bad treatment.

Of course, the kid would be at home that time. She would probably be dancing to her “Shees Threes”.

Death would have snatched him away from witnessing this most beautiful performance. The thought made his heart heavy with sorrow. His eyes swelled, he shuddered.

He had no idea if his wife had feelings for him—perhaps it was just unadulterated hatred. But he saw her, this girl, crying inconsolably, as she saw him flat out in the emergency room, ankle bent in an unusual angle. He was ashamed at her gaze, tried to hide his foot, but it wouldn’t move, frozen like a thief caught red-handed. No hiding place. He let it be, avoided eye-contact, a manoeuvre well-practised over the last five years.

When he brought her to this city, far from her parents, there was an implicit promise that he would keep her comfortable, happy. He had promised to himself, and conveyed through his eyes, that he would make her forget her parents; he would take so much of care of her. It turned out in practice to be a fraud.

Exposed prone on the emergency bed, he was deeply ashamed to see her cry; he wanted to cry too. She didn’t deserve this outcome. Their lives have become too intricately tangled, there is nowhere out of this mess. Nobody can escape this Hotel California† anymore.

Sheer helplessness made him relax. The pain was no longer a bother, there was something far more intense. What if he chose death? It would be an inexcusable crime.

After the accident, she had to quit her job. It was not anything too special in itself, but gave her the chance to start carving out her own identity, her own way of evading the fraud done on her. Now that’s gone, too. God knows when she can get that job back. If at all.

Today, she arranges the tea cups on the table. He steals a glance from the corner of his eyes. Neither of them looks directly at the other, these days. They just steal glances, that’s how they get by comfortably.

Some hard lines are starting to etch her soft youthful face. He’s conscious of having done this to her, line by line, assaulting the innocence that glowed from her when they first held hands, a kind of naïveté. Now she knows many tricks, she is polluted with street-smartness. He is slowly turning her into a scoundrel like him.

Or is it the reality of a family life? Surely the marriage is a failure, as they both have agreed. But separating is just not possible: for the sake of the kid. They both care for their child too much to throw her into uncertainties. At present, the kid needs both parents. But how far in future? What then?

For now, they have both decided to sacrifice themselves. Let her be safely nourished, this fresh flower swaying before them.

The song has stopped playing. It’s one of the few that the child can name to her friend Alexa. She’ll go on dancing till her little legs hurt.

“Alexa, play Sheesh Threes.”

The beat starts, the little body starts moving in awkward angles. This the most original and unique performance one can ever give: a brilliant improvisation every time, that no choreographer in the world can copy.

The couple looked at their child with great pride in their eyes.

She has been the perfect answer.

Perhaps the whole thing may turn out not to be a fraud after all.

---

* Miracurall – A drug that cures any ailment except common cold, the name is a short form of Miracle Cure for All Ailments. See Professor Shonku
† Hotel California, a song by the Eagles. These are the two final verses:

Mirrors on the ceiling,
The pink champagne on ice
And she said, ‘we are all just prisoners here, of our own device’
And in the master’s chambers,
They gathered for the feast
They stab it with their steely knives,
But they just can’t kill the beast

Last thing I remember, I was
Running for the door
I had to find the passage back to the place I was before
‘Relax’ said the night man,
‘We are programmed to receive.
You can check out any time you like,
But you can never leave!’