He had been waiting for me for quite some time. He’d call me every day, plead for me to come but I avoided it. It wasn’t time yet. You see, I don’t go anywhere uninvited and definitely not before I am supposed to. People sometimes think that I appear inappropriately regardless of the time and place, but they don’t realize that it is the time and place. He had no clue that I was right there, so close to him. Though, in his mind he thought he knew everything but he really didn’t. In fact, I had visited him a few days earlier too, but he was lost deep in his sleep and I didn’t want to wake him up. Who could have!

One look at that leathery old face and you can imagine the years he spent toiling in the fields, trying to produce enough food to feed himself and his wife. The long droopy tip of his nose sighed every time he breathed, each breath heavy, as if the nose was tired of breathing for so long. His eyes, though closed, fluttered continuously, trying to make sense of the world he lived in but disappointedly going back to the visions of what he’d left long ago. His ears were truly remarkable. The lobes were the longest I had ever seen and the outer ear had too many lines, almost like a maze. Looking at those ears one could imagine the unimaginable amount of wisdom that would have passed through them over his lifetime. There wasn’t a speck of hair on his head; the smooth surface spoke of the years it had spent under the sun, losing all its assets in the process but not the shine, the mark of a healthy head. The dry lips seemed exhausted, drained of all blood and colour; he had spoken enough, had nothing left to say now, the deathly blue of his lips declared. There was a story etched in each of the folds on his forehead, the stories any long life can amass but only a lonely one can lock forever.

The first time he spoke to me, he was nervous. He had been living alone for too long. His wife had left him too early to have spent the major portion of his life and too late to leave him the space to find someone else. He was always sad but that day there was a brilliant change in him. The man, who hadn’t worn anything but pyjamas for the last five years, had put on his best suit. He was sitting on the couch going through his usual day but in a very different way. Instead of throwing the newspaper away, as he normally did, he started reading it, narrowing his eyes to let the words make a little more sense than just black figures dancing on white background. There was a hop in his carefully measured step. He opened the door and let the sunlight in, as if opening himself, letting his pent up energy out, letting the world enter him, letting the light illuminate him. It was unusual to see him like that, a tad amusing even. He had decided he would greet me with happiness, joy and present the best himself to me, whenever I decided to come.

But then he said my name.

He called me, and started talking. There wasn’t much I could decipher from his speech but he pleaded for me to take him away, far away from where he was. He told me he was at his best only for me, just so that when we went together, he’d look dignified. I wanted to tell him that it didn’t matter what he looked like, nobody cared, but I held my tongue, why deny the man a little happiness? He repeated this all day long till he fell asleep on the couch. The maid came, cooked his food, and finished the chores, all the while wondering what the old man was talking about. She was sure he was senile but could do nothing except feeling sorry for him. And me? All I could do was to look at him and feel sad, for a life that full must not be begging for mercy.

After this, I visited him every day, and saw him doing the same thing. The mornings through the nights were no different. He sat there talking to me, pleading, waiting, violent at times, sometimes passive. There was no voice in his words but his eyes spoke of the pain he felt. Strangely enough, getting ready everyday like that and waiting to talk to me brought some change in him. The pain did not reduce but there was a hint of satisfaction in his eyes.

A few days later, after he’d just finished a rather emotionally disturbing bout of soundless pleading, he cleared his throat twice and spoke loudly. He looked around, as if addressing an audience, and started speaking.

“It was nothing like you could imagine. She was too nice to be mine, but she was”, the words ringing in my ears, my brain trying to search for any mention of a ‘She’ in the recent past but couldn’t.

His voice brought me back from the search. “You think I did not care for her, isn’t it? I know you took her away from me but that did not make me stop loving her. She was feisty and I was rigid but we understood each other. We spent so many years together fighting, laughing, living, and there was no problem until you came along and snatched her away. She was so happy that day; the sound of her laughter is still fresh in my ears. She was wearing her new sari, the red one that I got her for her birthday, looking fresh as a rose. It was our anniversary and she’d decided to cook a special meal. There was not much in the house, the market was bad and most of the grain had been ruined by the incessant rains, but she managed with whatever she had. The meal was not enough for the both of us, and we knew it. With every morsel I had, I looked into her eyes and apologised for not being able to feed her well. Her eyes, in turn, apologised for not being able to help me in these tough times. But how could she? How could I have asked her to slog in the fields? Her marriage to me had been an unfortunate union, but she never let it show. That night, as I slept next to her, I resolved to wake up an hour earlier than the usual every day, work harder and feed her to her heart’s content every day. I awoke as I had decided but never went to the fields.  There was no reason to go. The one I wanted to live for had died.” He stood up and went to his bed, leaving me alone, for me to absorb the story.

Really? Was I that bad that he did not even once mention me in the story that brought me into this house? He knew I was the one who took her away but why did he not even take my name? I sat there wondering for a long time. This could not be me. I was certainly better than this. He could not have been talking about me. Why could people never understand that this is how it was supposed to be? Why was I always blamed for no fault of mine? I tried to pacify myself with anything I could but I knew better. Both of us knew he hated me from the core of his heart. Yet, he talked to me every day, begging me to take him away. Oh destiny, you devil!

One day, late at night, I decided to check on him. I saw him sleeping peacefully when suddenly he woke up. He walked aimlessly towards the door but turned around and went to the pitcher of water. He hadn’t switched the light on but I could make out his actions by the silhouette visible in the faint moonlight. He put the ladle in and poured himself a glass of water. After staring at the glass for what seemed like an eternity, he finally drank out of it. In an attempt to have some more water, he pushed the ladle with his drowsy hands a little too forcefully into the pitcher and it came crashing to the ground, water spilling all over the floor. He tried walking over it but slipped and hit his head hard. When he did not move for some time, I moved, thought of helping him. Finally, I thought, the time was here for me to be useful to him.

As I took the first step, I stopped, almost froze.

He lifted his hand, as if asking me to not come any closer, the hand still retaining its authority, telling me that it wasn’t time yet, that he was still alive and he didn’t need my help. He must have slipped into one of his delusions, where he was the head of the house and taking help from anyone would be construed as a sign of weakness. He did not know that the very thing he begged for everyday was within reach, if only he had let go.

The thing about waiting is that the longer you wait, the more impatient you become. But he hadn’t shown any signs yet and I wasn’t going to budge either. Somewhere deep down in my heart, a tiny part of me wanted him to plead and grovel till I was satisfied. He had cursed me too much to wring out every drop of pity from me. On the surface, I was sad, but I knew he was getting only what he deserved. Seeing him on that couch every morning wearing his best suit, clean shaven, looking his best, waiting for me to come and take him away, gave me a certain sadistic pleasure. He would not speak on most days but when he did, he would narrate some incident or the other from his younger days. One evening, he told me about how the cattle from his neighbour’s house had strayed into his fields and destroyed all his crops. Just as the cows had, he also strayed from the subject and the tragic story about months of poverty ended pleasantly with an excellent season of wheat produce. Sometimes, when he told such stories, it felt as if he was at peace, remembering the good old days, sharing anecdotes, laughing to himself but when I looked into his eyes, his perennially inundated eyes, I saw an ocean of sadness somehow bound by the lashes, waiting to break free.

Yesterday, just as I was about to enter through the door, I saw him from the window. He looked nothing like he had in the last few days. He sat on the floor, heaving for breath, his lungs clearly strained; maybe now he would thank all the cigarettes that he had enjoyed all his life. His unshaven face was visibly distraught. He had not changed his clothes, there was no suit today. The old pyjamas reeked of time. Their colour, an ancient yellow, told of the uncountable number of times they had been slept in. He wasn’t waiting for me today. He did nothing, said nothing. Not a word. But the silence hanging in the air still echoed his begging. I looked at him for the longest time; he was clearly tired now. Tired of waiting for me to free him of the shackles that bound him to the world he did not want to live in. I smiled. I had won.

I went closer this time and touched him. He let out a deafening shriek, as if something pierced into his heart. I held his hand and sat there, admiring the intricate work of life. The creases and folds in his body were testament to the cruelty that he was subjected to in this world. The watery eyes screamed of agony, the agonising wait to leave forever this godforsaken place that had given him nothing but words to plead for mercy with. I could not stay any longer, we had to go now. I took his hand in mine and with a jerk he stood up. We walked towards the door, when he paused. We looked at him one last time. He lay listless on the floor. A lonely tear had trickled down his cheek. His eyes were closed now, the sadness free, forever.

The day he stopped waiting, his wait was over.