This is about the dream I had last night. About Nabo's wife
She is not particularly pretty. Or, at least, that's how I imagine her to be. But the hunger in her eyes was unmistakable. A hunger born of boredom and loneliness. And it is this hunger that makes her stray ... stray into the arms of the local goon who lives down the lane, perhaps. Or, to the grocer's son who doubles up as the neighbourhood Romeo. Or, maybe, both. You never know, women!
Nabo who? Arrey, Nabo, Nabo. The fellow who drives me to office and back every day in his rundown white sarkari Ambassador. The fellow whose face is twisted in a permanent scowl, much like the grumpy old car he drives. He used to drive the Additional Commissioner's car until about a year ago, and those were the good old days. Being B.-saheb's driver came with its perks. For, B., despite being the second-in-command in our department, didn't have much work around at the office. Better still, he was corrupt. What that meant for Nabo was that when B. did the rounds of the shops and factories - the establishments that our office licenses and taxes and torments - in and around Kolkata to collect his bribes, Nabo got to pick up the crumbs. A fifty-rupee note here, a plate of mithai there, maybe even a bottle of McDowell's XXX Celebration Rum once in a while. The working hours were relatively short; Nabo got to go back home by seven, and his wife was happy ... and satiated.
But then, all good things must come to an end. B. retired last year, and Nabo and his rickety old Ambassador got reassigned to me. On the face of it, that isn't such a bad thing. Kunal-sir is ... well ... generally likable; he smiles at the darwaan, jokes with the lift-man, and the grapevine has it that when he stops the car on his way home to get himself an egg-roll, he makes sure he gets one for the driver as well. All very well, but what irks Nabo is that Kunal-sir comes with an irksome reputation for honesty; he is not the bribe-taking kind. What that means for Nabo is that he is left with no crumbs to pick; the flow of surreptitious fifty-rupee notes and patronizing plates of mithais and free bottles of rum dries up overnight. As if that wasn't enough, Kunal-sir - despite being a lowly Deputy Commissioner, a good two rungs below B. in the office hierarchy - is known to be a much more useful guy around office than B. ever was, and it is rumored that the boss kind of likes him. What that means for Kunal is that he is given a truckload of assignments and has to stay back late in office almost every day. What that means for Nabo is that he has to stay back as well, and his bored and lonely wife is tempted to stray ...
At eight in the evening, the government building in central Kolkata is nearly empty. After ten straight hours of doing inane stuff - which, like most sarkari work, don't really mean anything to anyone - the Commissioner and his select band of courtiers are wrapping up for the day. Alone in the driver's room downstairs, Nabo's fantasies grow darker and darker by the minute. Furtive hands undress his wife; frenzied fingers untie, caress, explore ... hands that aren't his, fingers that are in a hurry. But his wife likes it slow, and she knows what she wants; "Don't worry," she whispers, "Take your time ... he won't be home before ten." Reassured lips slide down her midriff into the secret depths of her womanhood ... depths that are, by now, all wet and well-lubed and primed for performance like his Ambassador's old Isuzu engine after a fresh Castrol job ...
Nabo can't take it anymore. He calls home before he starts the car and takes it out on his parents. "A woman's place is her home," he sermonizes, "What business does she have to be out of home so late in the night? What will people say? And why aren't you keeping track of her? she is your daughter-in-law, after all ..." I pretend not to hear. "Tomorrow," I assure, "We will leave at six." Nabo isn't impressed.
Men who have such trustful ideas about their wives can do a lot of crazy things. they can, for example, drive a rusty old Ambassador at seventy kilometres an hour down the crowded Chowringhee Road. It helps if the man happens to be a skillful driver - which Nabo is, thankfully. But I can't help having visions of myself lying in a mangled heap of flesh, bones and twisted Ambassador parts. "I want to go home, not upstairs," I wisecrack weakly. Again, Nabo isn't impressed.
Nabo seeks out even more innovative ways to take out his anger on the man who has been screwing up his conjugal life.
"Achcha, sir," asks Nabo one day, when Rahul is alone in his car, "Why didn't Kunal-sir get married?"
Now, Rahul may be a good friend of mine and an excellent colleague, but he isn't someone who would pass up an opportunity like this. "I don't know," said Rahul, "What do you think?" Which, as Rahul knew and Nabo knew, translated to, "Sounds like you got a juicy take on the subject; bring it on, man!"
Nabo did bring it on, and how.
"Could it be," Nabo conjectures, as he weaves his way through the rush-hour Kolkata traffic, "that Kunal-Sir had a chakkar with some madam who dumped him later on? Could it be that Kunal-sir was so heartbroken after that, that he decided never to marry? Could it be that Kunal-sir stays back in office till so late in the evening because he is trying to drown his sorrows in work? Who, after all, likes to come back to an empty, loveless home?"
"Well, at least, Kunal-sir is not drowning his sorrows in drink, like Saikat-sir has been doing. But what Kunal-sir has been doing to himself is almost equally destructive. He should be coming to his senses. Tell me, sir, is there anyone in this world who doesn't have problems? It doesn't mean one should give up on life altogether."
"Kunal-Sir should get a life"
