An Allegory of Obsession, Regret, and Loss — Part 1 of 2
Prologue:
After his retirement, Capt. Roy’s obsessive appetite for eating an excessive amount of food every time he sat down to feast, not simply eat his daily meals, past the point of feeling full, sounded the death knell for his health, which was, in his own robust phrase, “invincibly hale and hearty.”
In reality, his physical well-being never returned to the hale-and-hearty constitution it once was, nor did his Army-trained ‘bash on regardless’ sagas he loved recounting. It was his life: to live king-size, focusing mostly on food, and more food, as it became the harbinger of something coming, and it would not be nice. Worryingly, it signalled the beginning of the end for the happily retired man, whose joviality and love of decorum was near-legendary.
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Main Narrative:
So much so that afterwards, in the early 1990s, something changed in the person whom Arin knew was as happy and endearingly jovial no matter what the circumstances dictated, perhaps a hidden breaking point that somehow found its way into his retired life; clearly, a distinctive character shift in his food habits decidedly inflamed by binge eating than anyone, be it his own family or close friends, would at first come to fully realize the full import of his constant craving for food—as if an atavistic instinct from somewhere came over him, bungling up his gastronomic habits forever. No one noticed, not even his able son Pinku, who began his post-college life by boasting that he is soon going to quit this “godforsaken” and “stranded existence” for the sand-dunes of Saudi Arabia or the world-class Dubai or whatever place he could vamoose to, sooner than later but after he finished his oh-so-long-time-coming 12th class exams, nor did his comely and graceful daughter Sangeeta; that a distinct attribute of their recently retired father’s social behaviour, namely his joviality, had furtively become unmistakably flawed.
The retired Army man, between mouthfuls of food, would perk up during the conversation and drop a common Bengali phrase, something like this: “Ami kheye morbo, chinta kisher?” “I will die eating, why worry?” His close friends from the community who once in a while paid a social visit to his nicely done up 1st floor corner apartment would smile and laugh simultaneously but also begin to get concerned about their retired gentleman, Ray da, they knew had never been known to be unduly anguished by anything at all, far less about the amount of food he consumed lately, even back in the day when he was serving in the Army as a Captain, whose joviality was well-known. He worked jovially; he also had retired jovially. So nothing to worry about when one is happy and lucky. But why eat such an inordinate amount of food—and what stopped him from eating normally? It was not as if he had a disorder or something; if he had, it never showed, not at least initially. He kept eating until he became painfully full, and it became his daily obsessive necessity. Maybe it was his binge-eating behaviour through and through, but the retired Captain definitely knew what he had been up to. Retirement or not, it doesn’t encourage you to overeat, and certainly not at that age, regardless of your physical and mental activity. While the casual conversation—over hot ginger tea and crumbly cardamom-infused cookies—frequently careened towards what would be prepared at home for lunch or dinner, or what’s going to be feasted on Sundays or holidays, he would rise, his feet taking extra load with each stride, walk to the kitchen adjoining the dining hall, and, via the alcove spaced into a small enclosure meant for puja room on the right, fetch food back into the sitting room in sundry melamine plates and saucers, even as his wife, Mrs. Roy (Ray Kakima), looked on very amused that her now well-known foodie husband is ever ready to entertain the guests and how! Surely, the snack food he brought was all about his favourite cum choicest delicacies for everyone to have a go at, partake in an activity of eating and merrymaking, and be happy. Mrs. Roy understood that perfectly well; she hardly ever complained.
Satiating a food lover has always been a tough bid for homemakers. Mrs Roy knew this all too well. If it is her husband’s most favourite dish, Macher Kalia, fish curry on the table, then his life is full jhingalala! Capt. Roy would sound expressly articulate, nicely aping a television advert: “Eh fish ko kha dala, toh life jhingalala!” The point is, the world, ahem, food world, is an incredible nirvana epiphany, more than anyone would apprise you of. But he learned how to douse the inner fires of cravings with good food and nothing but food. Apparently, a foodie knows his food well.
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Capt. Roy’s old, faded but still dependable sky-blue Lambretta scooter was the first casualty he couldn’t quite make peace with; he sold it off simply on a whim. He began living in denial, never coming to terms with what he had done. A couple of years after vacating their spacious Trishul Park dormitory, heedless of his wife’s, Mrs Roy’s, intense nostalgic entreaties to him, he unthinkingly went ahead to get rid of his solid-built, precious transport to someone who, it was presumed, never understood the essential aesthetic rarity of the aged, much-used but reliable scooter: a brand that was slowly going extinct from the market, but was becoming an original antique that in few years it could appeal to buyers as a high-value vintage collectible; that may have been a possibility, who knew. Oddly, the man who bought it had, in turn, sold it to someone else, and it was never seen again. Capt. Roy took all this to heart.
After bitterly realising that his beloved scooter was gone forever, Capt. Roy remained profoundly repentant for days on end, eventually becoming too hesitant to bring it up in family conversations at home or with his family friends, relatives, and acquaintances who came to see him at his so-called ‘Modern Apartments’—which, by the way, was not really so ‘modern’ as the name might imply. Regretting selling off his scooter just like that, on an impulsive whim, he began to overindulge in food, convinced that a pensive binge-like overreaction to what he thought might never resurrect as tenacious as he had time on earth.
Guilt-ridden, he wished he hadn’t sold his prized possession, but to ward off the ‘tension’ he unknowingly had incurred upon himself, or the gratingly gnawing remorse that comes with selling such a practical antique vehicle bought many years ago and ridden happily without much problem, he began taking brisk walks in the early morning hours to keep good health and, by his own admission, a cheerful mind, to bail out the ‘tension’ he bore in his heart since that “inauspicious day” when his scooter was taken away from his garage, emptying the promise of his once glorious privilege of personal mobility in and around the salubrious surroundings of Alwal suburbs, which was once largely unspoiled with very little in it; untouched by humans or creatures, their polluting wares and multi-storied concrete uninviting hovels. It’s unbearably hot, loud and rackety.
In retrospect — Wide-open abandoned spaces that once gave you a sense of quiet isolation, with the horizon visible from anywhere you stood on the ground, as you glimpsed the warm, melancholic golden sun setting on calm, peaceful evenings, the sky casting a bright glow of orange and soft pink, purple, and amber, creating a serene atmosphere that is to be seen or felt to be believed. Now nothing is remaining in this decadent place that has changed beyond recognition. No one, it seems, wants to call it their own, yet picking up their moments to ‘go on’ as if nothing had happened, because everything happened; there’s nothing left to change, because everything changed. Nothing but late regrets, mournful hurts of the heart that would never heal, and muted tears of losing touch with childhood friends who are not going to come back in your life; friendships ceased. Who is going to catch up with you so late in your life? No soul. Everyone had a better choice, while Arin abandoned his dreams long ago, unable to bail out of earlier contexts or renege on beautiful affinities that still enrapture his heart, incapable of letting go of the past; he will not ever. Alwal has seen extraordinarily wonderful eras of the ‘80s and the ‘90s, after which everything went downhill. Life in Alwal now is more of ‘going on’ and ‘moving on.’ It still hurts; no matter what you do in life, memories won’t leave you, and everything has drifted apart: totally consumed by busy life, the commonest, disengaging excuse of all for anyone evermore, or just grown apart for reasons misunderstood. Some went far away, while others passed away, departed. No one could stay to shine a light into the mist of confusion, which life can be. Life is incomplete without one’s nostalgia, remorse, and share of possible regrets. And it’s already too late in life now. Having come thus far, one is not prepared to call it a day yet. Hope springs eternal.
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But overeating had untowardly become Capt. Roy’s primary recourse to healing his ever-present, bruising, misgiving form of stress he came to highly regret.
(End of Part 1 of 2)
(To be continued…)
(End of part XI)
By Arindam Moulick
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