Unsung Emotions

Unsung Emotions
All lovers of English literature would know Anton Chekov, the highly venerated Russian writer. He was an expert in painting in words those human emotions which we generally overlook in others but complain when we have to go through them ourselves. The best traits of the stories are they are simple, short but extremely touching just like the emotions themselves.
There is one story by this greatly sensitive and observant writer about a sledge-man, Iona, suffering, in the wretched Russian winter, from the suffocation of not being able to tell anybody his grief that his young son died a week ago. This is why his mind seems lost in those thoughts only. To make things look worse or rather more real, the author has created an air of hostility around him- fellow coachmen shouting at him, passers by swearing, etc. If you do not find these enough then listen about the passengers he gets. The first one is a military man who wants no offence, so gives just a formal, usual consolation and then, very disinterestedly and uncaringly, closes his eyes, as if doing some emergency meditation in the coach or suddenly fallen off to sleep. The next ones are three men, rude, unpolished, coarse men who cannot be called gentlemen in any way. So next you can imagine how they could have behaved with this poor fellow. They instead abuse him when he speaks of his son’s death.
At the end of the day when he goes to the yard, their even he fails to find a listener. In the end if anyone listens to him it is his mare that seems to know her master’s mind. And her master also realizes how people react to other’s misery.
This story, you will hopefully agree, has been named very appropriately as ‘Misery’. I felt the author has illustrated the sledge-man’s misery in various forms. The most obvious one here is his grief on his son’s very untimely death. But what increases this sorrow is his surrounding; everything that is around him very well justifies the title- the pricking winter, the abusive public, his poverty, moreover, he does not get enough fares. And when he gets he tries to speak of his sorrow which nobody is bothered to even hear.
Now, I had a similar but a little different experience. That day I was in Mumbai. I had gone out with a very close friend of mine and her family. While coming back she, her aunt and I were there, trying to stop an auto or a taxi for a long time. And, as now-a-days it is a very usual problem, most of the drivers already had passengers or they were unwilling to go where we wanted to go. Anyway, finally we saw a taxi standing, a Muslim old man’s. When aunt asked him, “Bhaiya, Bandra challenge kya?” (“Brother, will you go to Bandra?”), he very readily agreed in a very sweet way, “Le chalenge, chalo.” (“I will take you, let’s go.”).
The next thing the man did was really admirable. He was smoking a cigarette. When we sat in the taxi he asked us whether we have any problem with his smoking. Aunty said that we did and he instantly threw it away, without a second thought. This sort of manners is not found even in my classmates who hail from so called civilized families. He then said that his Rs. 2.50 was wasted, to which aunty said that he should not have thrown it altogether rather should have extinguished it and kept it for later use. He agreed but what could he have done then.
On the way my friend was showing me different places. She showed me the house where the actress Karishma Kapoor used to live. From this topic the driver started his talk. I have seen drivers trying to talk to their passengers. Some of them really bore you but some other build up quite friendly conversations. He was from among the second type.
He started to talk in Marathi which I can follow a bit but not enough to understand the talk. He was mainly talking to aunty who is really sweet. So this is where the story differs from my experience. Aunty, unlike the unresponsive passengers Iona had, proved to be a very concerned one. She listened to everything attentively and, if needed, gave her opinions too. He showed us the house of another actress, Pooja Bhatt. He expressed his disgust for these film industry people. He said that these people do not know what honour, reputation is; they have no religion except money.
Then the man spoke of himself. His story was not about sorrows, unfulfilled needs and was not showing self-pity or rather he did not narrate it so. It was just about how his life is. He was an official driver for the municipality and had made many trips with the officers. It was just two years since he has retired and finding himself getting bored at home, he started driving again, and again in public service. He has two sons doing their own businesses properly and his daughters are married and settled. He, of course, showed disappointment on one matter i.e. about his pension which, according to the new system, should be almost double the amount that he presently gets, but that amount also he does not get regularly.
I would like to say it again that very unlike the passengers in the Chekov story, this man was really fortunate to have Malavika atya (my friend’s aunty) sitting on his back seat. From whatever I could make out, I felt, she just did not nod at his statements but also participated and made it a balanced conversation. But at the same time she did not lose track of the way.
While I was sitting in the dark shade of the taxi, listening to this half-intelligible tête-à-tête, I recalled this Chekov story which I had read long back. I could not even remember the name of the story let alone the name of the author. But I surely remembered that the background was Russian and then the omni-knowing internet answered my questions. And here is the experience which you can call a little happier version of ‘Misery’.