Who Truncated Aaron’s Life?
Aaron Andy wanted to live; to live, undoubtedly, to work. Riches, or lack of them, were quite incapable of doing him in. “Overwork never killed anyone; often, utter lack of it did,” he habitually said. Despite all the maladies that bedevilled him, undeniably, he would have lived on for a decade more or much more, had he been working. Work was his tonic and, more pertinently, his elixir of existence. But his panacea, work, evaded him for years and those redundant years corroded him from within.
Gathered around Aaron’s body were former colleagues, employers and, of course, umpteen of whom he lovingly called ‘pupils.’ Presently, most of his disciples are more successful than Aaron was during his last five years. “What is success? Is stashing mint-fresh bills success? Or is inviting your less fortunate friends to your faraway farmhouse to boast of?” he always asked Emy, his wife. Though she wished she could, given his failing cardiological shape, Emy never retorted. Sure, Aaron’s legendary exploits could never be matched but, as she often wondered, why has his life to come to this pass? She knew it was not Aaron’s self-esteem alone that caused his downfall.
Looking at her half-conscious state, none of the mourners tried to soothe Emy. She had no strength even to effect the most expected of rituals at Indian funerals: loud exhibition of grief. Most of them, over the years, had seen her motherly, happy-go-lucky demeanour. No one knew that her grief was utterly sapped during the years when Aaron was plagued by heart afflictions aggravated not by impoverishment but by deprivation of work. Emy and Aaron were of same age and the only saving grace she deserved to assume was that she would not have to live too long after him.
“Sixty is not perishable age. Indeed, it’s the new fifty,” he often told Emy, “No one can pension me off.” During his last few years, the man, who carefully moulded hundreds of careers, sought to rebuild one for himself. In fact he besieged many of his contemporaries and past employers, who benefited greatly during his prime, for work. He would obliquely drop hints about his availability, all the while being wary enough not to let any clues of grinding poverty that was eating him away. Many of those who declined or grudgingly promised him work, were in attendance at the funeral. He was considered so big a fish that everyone dreaded offering him even ‘consultancy.’ At sixty, Aaron’s voracious enthusiasm for work, insatiable thirst for innovation got him nowhere. Besides, these days, such virtues were sort of anomalies. He certainly belonged to old school and many, who knew him pretty well, were sure of his imminent fall since he lacked the worldliest trait to survive in cutthroat surroundings: killer instinct.
“It seems they could not afford even medicine during the last couple of years,” murmured one mourning pupil. “They should have asked us,” suppressed another. “Of course we would have lent a hand,” mumbled the third. Emy heard the whispers and she was the only one who knew that this was the threesome, despite Aaron’s ardent pleas, that had relentlessly denied him work. Following every such denial, after downing few pegs, Aaron would turn philosophical about success and failure, “What is success? Owning imported cars success? Or owning a far-flung farmhouse that you visit only to boast of? Failure or success, all of us are going to leave everything behind...bungalows or farmhouses... everything...Emy, be sure... all of them would repent when I am no more.”
When Aaron writhed clutching his chest, the first thought to hit Emy was, “Will he survive this one? Even if he does, how am I going to afford the treatment and therapy?” With Aaron lying helplessly on floor, she waggled upstairs to alert her new neighbours. She dreaded the day for over a year now. Suddenly, his death seemed more affordable, even if painful. Their life savings had vanished managing the first two attacks. The credit cards, cash loans were incapable of prolonging his survival beyond couple of years.
And there came a time when Aaron could only stare at the list of debts and wished to die earlier than he actually wanted to. More often than he wished to, during his last couple of months, he implored his former friends to engage his services for a pittance. All that his appeals could force out of his friends were assurances, reassurances and more assertions of help. Emy had beseeched Aaron to seek monetary aid from some of his ‘better off’ former colleagues or pupils but he always resisted by crying, “Over my body.”
Giddy and shivering, Emy wobbled to her neighbours for help. By the time the black-yellow taxi reached, though he was breathing, Emy felt his death. But, having never beheld death at point-blank, her conviction about the finality was inconclusive. She did not disclose her gloomy feeling to her neighbours. The taxi driver and the neighbours hauled the insensitive body into the cab, of course, thoughtlessly. Inside the taxi, Aaron’s indomitable spirit was on display; on the verge of breathing his last, his body was not cold enough, Aaron never wanted anyone to know that he was in trouble, even when death knocked him. While the taxi was going at breakneck speed, Emy felt his spasmodic fits in horror and, within moments, could make out that Aaron’s body was cold enough to be deadly. She kept on shaking him, all the while praying for a miracle, until they reached the hospital. He was almost dead on arrival. But the doctors, as is expected of corporate hospitals, tried to resuscitate. Two hours later, the doctors, in a manner as only they could, declared him dead. Emy had no strength to cry over Aaron’s body. The foremost thing that tormented her at that moment was the question about affording a decent funeral for Aaron. The money she needed for funeral was not even one-tenth of what Aaron squandered over a single party in Vasant Kunj during his adventurous days in early nineties. “Aaron deserved a better death,” Emy told herself. Even before leaving Calcutta on a commercial voyage, Emy had cautioned him but Aaron was hell-bent on proving his detractors wrong, come what may. He realised that business was not his cup of tea the hardest, harshest possible manner and, in the end, he also vainly grasped that it was cardiopulmonarily detrimental. He grittily never let the truth of his own debacle dawn on him but he began realising the commercial acumen of his three former directors who held the company for over three decades. Emy was confused whether to cry over Aaron’s death or over her impoverished state or over the bleak future that awaited her after him. The collective feelings were overwhelming enough to choke her emotions. Someone had to call his pupils, who were all scattered all over India, who could remunerate, appease the callous Calcutta undertakers.
Three of Aaron’s former employers, who stood near the body solemnly, wished, like Emy did in the taxi on the way to the hospital, a phoenix-like rise. They knew that Aaron’s attainments in Bombay, Delhi and down south were nothing short of miracles. He built teams in months that multinationals took years to raise. Despite their excellent professional credentials, and degrees from India’s top institutes, the three knew that but for Aaron, their marketing research dreams, which were sown in Kathmandu, would have turned nightmares. They would have sought refuge in familiar waters of multinational banking corporations, advertising agencies. If their company had reliable teams all over India for over three decades now, they knew deep down that it was Aaron who had built them that yielded dividends even today. Though their company, compared to Park Circus beginnings, was a behemoth now, where an individual cannot make or mar anything. They discerned that it was Aaron who spurred them on, a good thirty years ago, by holding the crucial field division aloft.
The ornate wreaths were laid and flowery words wheeled in the air. Despite the scented obeisance, Emy’s thoughts essentially were fixed on her own survival. The ruthless mortgage guys would descend and attach everything, including this flat. Aaron would be safe and sound in heaven but Calcutta without wherewithal was shoddier than hell. Given her declining health, life was too costly to live. And if you are an ailing, wailing, issueless widow; death was cheaper than potatoes. She knew how dead bodies of the poor were discarded in the mucky lanes of Howrah and on grimy banks of Hoogly until municipal vans scooped them away.
Aaron Andy was a colossal figure that research fraternity was proud of. He was one of the most successful professionals and had headed many a national and multinational companies. His ways of training were innocuous; he ‘did’ everything himself first so that juniors imbibed them visually and then went on to practice physically. Identifying talent, even in the most unlikely of places like Timbuktu, was his forte. After recruiting, he always treated them as pupils, never as subordinates. His enthusiasm for work was highly contagious and his convincing power was second to none. Even his detractors, of whom there was no dearth of, learned a lot from him, though they would vehemently deny given their present standings. There were no ‘statuses or social standings’ that Aaron was not acquainted with, “Providence is quite capable of knocking down anyone from any prominence in a jiffy, however unshakeable it may seem now,” Aaron often said. Aaron had left not a single achievement for the present lot to claim any hint of accomplishment. His work ethic inspired many youngsters, motivated some of the most impersuadable workers and turned some of the most unsuited, unlikely blokes into performers.
But research was not his first choice. “If only my science degree could get me a career at the Indian Institute of Statistics,” Aaron lamented even a week before demise. About thirty years ago, one of his kinsmen lured him into the tumultuous, travel-intensive world of research. With passion for detail and nose for perfection, soon he upstaged many a seniors in the calling that he embraced inadvertently. But he made up his mind to make it big even if it was a fortuitous occupation. “Even Nirmal Choudhury, who graduated from the famed IIS, ended up in research,” Aaron often told Emy to console himself. The three directors saw a steadfast, accomplished professional in him. Convinced by his Calcutta exploits, he was assigned the missions of running their Delhi, Bombay operations. He stole hearts of several boys and, within no time, he raised consistent teams all over north and west India. He motivated many boys, who never stepped out of Calcutta until then, to conquer the big cities of Bombay, Delhi and even that of Nepal.
Early on in his career, Aaron loved commuting by the ubiquitous Calcutta taxi. Indeed he picked up his pidgin Hindi while bargaining with the north Indians cabbies. He loved the black-yellow taxicab so much that he picked to breathe his last in it. Some of his conscientious colleagues, pupils are doing their best to rally round Emy; as Aaron wished, over his body.
Ram Govardhan has a post-graduate degree in sociology. His first novel, Rough with the Smooth, was longlisted for the 2009 Man Asian Literary Prize. His short stories have appeared in Asian & African journals. He is currently scripting his second novel and a bunch of short stories. He works and lives in Madras/Chennai, India.
Aaron Andy wanted to live; to live, undoubtedly, to work. Riches, or lack of them, were quite incapable of doing him in. “Overwork never killed anyone; often, utter lack of it did,” he habitually said. Despite all the maladies that bedevilled him, undeniably, he would have lived on for a decade more or much more, had he been working. Work was his tonic and, more pertinently, his elixir of existence. But his panacea, work, evaded him for years and those redundant years corroded him from within.
Gathered around Aaron’s body were former colleagues, employers and, of course, umpteen of whom he lovingly called ‘pupils.’ Presently, most of his disciples are more successful than Aaron was during his last five years. “What is success? Is stashing mint-fresh bills success? Or is inviting your less fortunate friends to your faraway farmhouse to boast of?” he always asked Emy, his wife. Though she wished she could, given his failing cardiological shape, Emy never retorted. Sure, Aaron’s legendary exploits could never be matched but, as she often wondered, why has his life to come to this pass? She knew it was not Aaron’s self-esteem alone that caused his downfall.
Looking at her half-conscious state, none of the mourners tried to soothe Emy. She had no strength even to effect the most expected of rituals at Indian funerals: loud exhibition of grief. Most of them, over the years, had seen her motherly, happy-go-lucky demeanour. No one knew that her grief was utterly sapped during the years when Aaron was plagued by heart afflictions aggravated not by impoverishment but by deprivation of work. Emy and Aaron were of same age and the only saving grace she deserved to assume was that she would not have to live too long after him.
“Sixty is not perishable age. Indeed, it’s the new fifty,” he often told Emy, “No one can pension me off.” During his last few years, the man, who carefully moulded hundreds of careers, sought to rebuild one for himself. In fact he besieged many of his contemporaries and past employers, who benefited greatly during his prime, for work. He would obliquely drop hints about his availability, all the while being wary enough not to let any clues of grinding poverty that was eating him away. Many of those who declined or grudgingly promised him work, were in attendance at the funeral. He was considered so big a fish that everyone dreaded offering him even ‘consultancy.’ At sixty, Aaron’s voracious enthusiasm for work, insatiable thirst for innovation got him nowhere. Besides, these days, such virtues were sort of anomalies. He certainly belonged to old school and many, who knew him pretty well, were sure of his imminent fall since he lacked the worldliest trait to survive in cutthroat surroundings: killer instinct.
“It seems they could not afford even medicine during the last couple of years,” murmured one mourning pupil. “They should have asked us,” suppressed another. “Of course we would have lent a hand,” mumbled the third. Emy heard the whispers and she was the only one who knew that this was the threesome, despite Aaron’s ardent pleas, that had relentlessly denied him work. Following every such denial, after downing few pegs, Aaron would turn philosophical about success and failure, “What is success? Owning imported cars success? Or owning a far-flung farmhouse that you visit only to boast of? Failure or success, all of us are going to leave everything behind...bungalows or farmhouses... everything...Emy, be sure... all of them would repent when I am no more.”
When Aaron writhed clutching his chest, the first thought to hit Emy was, “Will he survive this one? Even if he does, how am I going to afford the treatment and therapy?” With Aaron lying helplessly on floor, she waggled upstairs to alert her new neighbours. She dreaded the day for over a year now. Suddenly, his death seemed more affordable, even if painful. Their life savings had vanished managing the first two attacks. The credit cards, cash loans were incapable of prolonging his survival beyond couple of years.
And there came a time when Aaron could only stare at the list of debts and wished to die earlier than he actually wanted to. More often than he wished to, during his last couple of months, he implored his former friends to engage his services for a pittance. All that his appeals could force out of his friends were assurances, reassurances and more assertions of help. Emy had beseeched Aaron to seek monetary aid from some of his ‘better off’ former colleagues or pupils but he always resisted by crying, “Over my body.”
Giddy and shivering, Emy wobbled to her neighbours for help. By the time the black-yellow taxi reached, though he was breathing, Emy felt his death. But, having never beheld death at point-blank, her conviction about the finality was inconclusive. She did not disclose her gloomy feeling to her neighbours. The taxi driver and the neighbours hauled the insensitive body into the cab, of course, thoughtlessly. Inside the taxi, Aaron’s indomitable spirit was on display; on the verge of breathing his last, his body was not cold enough, Aaron never wanted anyone to know that he was in trouble, even when death knocked him. While the taxi was going at breakneck speed, Emy felt his spasmodic fits in horror and, within moments, could make out that Aaron’s body was cold enough to be deadly. She kept on shaking him, all the while praying for a miracle, until they reached the hospital. He was almost dead on arrival. But the doctors, as is expected of corporate hospitals, tried to resuscitate. Two hours later, the doctors, in a manner as only they could, declared him dead. Emy had no strength to cry over Aaron’s body. The foremost thing that tormented her at that moment was the question about affording a decent funeral for Aaron. The money she needed for funeral was not even one-tenth of what Aaron squandered over a single party in Vasant Kunj during his adventurous days in early nineties. “Aaron deserved a better death,” Emy told herself. Even before leaving Calcutta on a commercial voyage, Emy had cautioned him but Aaron was hell-bent on proving his detractors wrong, come what may. He realised that business was not his cup of tea the hardest, harshest possible manner and, in the end, he also vainly grasped that it was cardiopulmonarily detrimental. He grittily never let the truth of his own debacle dawn on him but he began realising the commercial acumen of his three former directors who held the company for over three decades. Emy was confused whether to cry over Aaron’s death or over her impoverished state or over the bleak future that awaited her after him. The collective feelings were overwhelming enough to choke her emotions. Someone had to call his pupils, who were all scattered all over India, who could remunerate, appease the callous Calcutta undertakers.
Three of Aaron’s former employers, who stood near the body solemnly, wished, like Emy did in the taxi on the way to the hospital, a phoenix-like rise. They knew that Aaron’s attainments in Bombay, Delhi and down south were nothing short of miracles. He built teams in months that multinationals took years to raise. Despite their excellent professional credentials, and degrees from India’s top institutes, the three knew that but for Aaron, their marketing research dreams, which were sown in Kathmandu, would have turned nightmares. They would have sought refuge in familiar waters of multinational banking corporations, advertising agencies. If their company had reliable teams all over India for over three decades now, they knew deep down that it was Aaron who had built them that yielded dividends even today. Though their company, compared to Park Circus beginnings, was a behemoth now, where an individual cannot make or mar anything. They discerned that it was Aaron who spurred them on, a good thirty years ago, by holding the crucial field division aloft.
The ornate wreaths were laid and flowery words wheeled in the air. Despite the scented obeisance, Emy’s thoughts essentially were fixed on her own survival. The ruthless mortgage guys would descend and attach everything, including this flat. Aaron would be safe and sound in heaven but Calcutta without wherewithal was shoddier than hell. Given her declining health, life was too costly to live. And if you are an ailing, wailing, issueless widow; death was cheaper than potatoes. She knew how dead bodies of the poor were discarded in the mucky lanes of Howrah and on grimy banks of Hoogly until municipal vans scooped them away.
Aaron Andy was a colossal figure that research fraternity was proud of. He was one of the most successful professionals and had headed many a national and multinational companies. His ways of training were innocuous; he ‘did’ everything himself first so that juniors imbibed them visually and then went on to practice physically. Identifying talent, even in the most unlikely of places like Timbuktu, was his forte. After recruiting, he always treated them as pupils, never as subordinates. His enthusiasm for work was highly contagious and his convincing power was second to none. Even his detractors, of whom there was no dearth of, learned a lot from him, though they would vehemently deny given their present standings. There were no ‘statuses or social standings’ that Aaron was not acquainted with, “Providence is quite capable of knocking down anyone from any prominence in a jiffy, however unshakeable it may seem now,” Aaron often said. Aaron had left not a single achievement for the present lot to claim any hint of accomplishment. His work ethic inspired many youngsters, motivated some of the most impersuadable workers and turned some of the most unsuited, unlikely blokes into performers.
But research was not his first choice. “If only my science degree could get me a career at the Indian Institute of Statistics,” Aaron lamented even a week before demise. About thirty years ago, one of his kinsmen lured him into the tumultuous, travel-intensive world of research. With passion for detail and nose for perfection, soon he upstaged many a seniors in the calling that he embraced inadvertently. But he made up his mind to make it big even if it was a fortuitous occupation. “Even Nirmal Choudhury, who graduated from the famed IIS, ended up in research,” Aaron often told Emy to console himself. The three directors saw a steadfast, accomplished professional in him. Convinced by his Calcutta exploits, he was assigned the missions of running their Delhi, Bombay operations. He stole hearts of several boys and, within no time, he raised consistent teams all over north and west India. He motivated many boys, who never stepped out of Calcutta until then, to conquer the big cities of Bombay, Delhi and even that of Nepal.
Early on in his career, Aaron loved commuting by the ubiquitous Calcutta taxi. Indeed he picked up his pidgin Hindi while bargaining with the north Indians cabbies. He loved the black-yellow taxicab so much that he picked to breathe his last in it. Some of his conscientious colleagues, pupils are doing their best to rally round Emy; as Aaron wished, over his body.
Ram Govardhan has a post-graduate degree in sociology. His first novel, Rough with the Smooth, was longlisted for the 2009 Man Asian Literary Prize. His short stories have appeared in Asian & African journals. He is currently scripting his second novel and a bunch of short stories. He works and lives in Madras/Chennai, India.
