Freedom

The doors of the wardrobe were ajar and Sam was standing before it, unable to decide what to wear. He stared at the endless array of beige, browns and blues hanging off the racks. Any other man could not have comprehended the extended period of indecision. The shirts in fact all looked the same; cotton clones dyed a barely different colour. But it was not as if he did not care what he wore. In reality he cared a little too much to look the same every day of the year. Sam believed wearing a vibrant shade needed him to be a different person. It was easier to be an appendage of the wall and pretend like he did not exist.

Sam was barely a teenager when he left home and it had been twenty years since he looked back. He could hardly remember what his father looked like. He took care not to hold on to any of his pictures. He did better without reminders of his indifference. His father did try to visit him at Glenwood occasionally, but each time he feigned sickness or absence. He had struck a ten-rupee deal with the guard there, who lied for him dutifully. There were perks to not having a parent. He could always do what he liked and never needed permission. He even got invited to friends’ houses during holidays where parents greeted him with added affection and sugar treats. Pity was not always bad if one knew how to use it right. Sam was happy being an orphan. He had made his peace with it. So when the lady on the phone reminded him of the father he once had, he found it incredibly exacting to acknowledge the lie that he’d chosen to live for two decades. What right did she have to upset the balance? Sam threw in a change of clothes in his duffel bag and left for the bus station. He was determined to make his trip short. He had a lot to say to his father but it felt almost futile to have a conversation with him after all these years. He rehearsed a few lines in his head either way, just to be safe.

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The house looked almost the same since he had left at thirteen, except that it carried a jaded look about itself. The garden that once happened to be his mother’s obsession was replaced by a patch of austere concrete. The facade was still white with maroon panels, but it seemed like it hadn’t had the fortune of a fresh coat of paint in years. He walked up to the doorway and rang the bell. It almost screeched in response. A lady opened the door.

“Yes?”

“Hello. I’m Sam. We talked on the phone a few weeks back?” He didn’t want to go about the elaborate introduction again and decided to appeal to her memory to do it for him.

“Ofcourse. Samarth. You’re Mr. Khanna’s son right? Please come in.” 

She ushered him in as if she was expecting him. There was no surprise in her voice. No apprehension. He remembered her tone of familiarity on the phone and it irritated him no less. Why did she have to act like she knew him?

“I’m glad you came to see him. Mr. Khanna is probably sleeping. Do you want some water? I’m sorry. There’s nothing else in the house right now.”

“It’s okay. I’m not thirsty.”

She was around sixty, nearly about the same age as his father. Her hair was mostly silver, tied up in a bun behind her head. She was dressed in white, nothing expensive but clean, and neatly pleated across her shoulder. Her face had a hint of kindness that made him oddly uncomfortable. He almost wished that she was rude. It would have probably made it easier for him to avoid an unnecessary exchange of words and leave. Sam was trying to figure out who she was. He thought she was his father’s new wife when they first spoke. But there were no pictures of her on the walls, no trace of vermillion in her parting. Who was she?

“You must be wondering who I am.”

She answered him almost instantaneously, as if she could read his mind. Sam felt vulnerable and partially scowled in an effort to camouflage.

“It’s okay. It’s only normal. I’m your dad’s nurse.”

Sam did not know how to respond. He simply asked, “So what happened?”

“Your fatheris forgetting things. He has, what doctors say, an advanced stage of Alzheimer’s.”

Sam looked down at the floor. The tiles still bore the same speckled pattern that once fascinated him.

“Can I see him?” he said, still looking away.

“Yes of course. He’s in his room resting. You know where it is.”

She smiled. He did know where it was. He walked up the stairs, a bundle of nerves, not knowing what to expect. He entered his father’s room and saw a man lying on the bed, staring outside the window. He looked nothing like the person he once knew. His face was gaunt, and his parched, shriveled skin was stretched out taut over his bones, riddled with old scars. His shirt did nothing to hide his showing ribs and tubes were plugged to his bladder. His fingers were bent inexplicably; his nails had dried up like peanut shells. As Sam entered the room, he looked at him for a moment but his eyes bore no sense of recognition.

“Do you recognize me dad?” he asked. 

Sam knew the answer already but he had no idea what else to say. All the lines that he had rehearsed on his way there had not prepared him for this in the least. The man looked at him for another long minute but said nothing. He went back to staring outside the window.

Sam looked around the room. The walls were damp and peeling. There was a layer of dust on the rocking chair parked next to the window. It used to be his father’s favourite haunt. When Sam was little, he spent many a monsoon afternoon sitting there with him, hearing stories about Jim Corbett and his exploits with the striped cats. Sam walked over to the desk and started rifling through the things in the drawers. Beneath stacks of old grocery lists and drugstore prescriptions, he unearthed a picture of the three of them from the time they had gone to Shimla. His father had a drooping moustache then. He was in his mother’s lap, barely three years old, half his tiny face buried underneath bright red woolens. The picture had a tint of yellow across, like plaque on enamel. But through the haze, he could still see how happy they once were. He rummaged through the drawer again, and found a crumpled boat he had made out of scrap paper from a notebook once. His father had still managed to hold onto it after all these years. He held his father’s wrinkled hand one last time, tucked the picture and the paper boat in his wallet and walked out.

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The bus arrived after an hour long wait and Sam climbed in with his duffel bag. The nurse had urged him to stay over. He even carried a change of clothes with him, but he eventually decided against it. He did not think he had any purpose being there and his father was undoubtedly in capable hands. He thanked her profusely when he left and asked her to give him a call if she ever needed anything. He walked down the empty corridor and sat next to a window near the end. The bus rattled as it made its way down the bumpy road. Sam noticed a fly buzzing impatiently near the chipped corners of the window, desperate to escape the trap it had unknowingly got itself into. It seemed like someone was calling out to it from afar.  As he pushed the creaky window open, the balmy air poured in and swept the winged creature out.