YEARNING
Abinash was coaching his boys as a blue Ambassador car drew up at his door. Not his uncle, he was sure, for that was milk white. He was about to rise to greet the respectable visitor, when he was struck by the intruder (= chance visitor). It was Sunil, his friend’s brother and his brother’s friend.
Since Sunil had come a long way from his home town, Abinash dismissed his boys and welcomed him. They were having tea.
“Whence this car, Sunil?” asked Abinash, hiding his surprise. Yes, a matter of surprise, indeed, for Sunil is only a storekeeper in the Medical College Hospital.
“Abinashda, a windfall! The lots were drawn just a couple of days ago. It’s secondhand and Dr. Tiwari launched a lottery drive to dispose it of. It’s his standby (= additional) car and was long in Shamlal mistri’s (= mechanic’s) garage. I risked twenty rupees for a ticket as Shamlal told me the engine is fit.”
Sunil’s narrative took Abinash and Nirupama by a storm (= a sudden event) for it was too fast and reassuring in its efforts. The two came out to have a look at the car.
Nirupama was charmed, “the colour is lovely, Sunil.”
Abinash said, “why the engine only, even the upholstery (=the inner coaches and their dressing) is good enough. Sunil… a windfall indeed! And Niru, the price? Twenty rupees! ha, ha, ha!”
“And, do you know, your brother never goes in for a lottery. He says, luck is sheer accident. Our mastermashai cast in his lot for the Derby for twenty years! Nothing-a hoax.” Nirupama joked at Abinash, “now, Moshai-is this hoax, too?”
Time at a bound crossed one year that Abinash and Nirupama came home. Nirupama had been with her mother for the period that Abinash was abroad with a scholarship.
Abinash waited outside until the last patient cleared. He liked Dr. Chowdhury, his uncle’s friend. No, not for this, for his uncle had others too. But because Chowdhury uncle was a diverting (= entertaining) personality, nonprofessional and intellectually stimulating.
“Ah, Abinash! How long are you here? Come in.” He loved Abinash “So, what news from the shores of Albion (= English shore)?”
Before anything they were interrupted by the entry of a boy of about ten years and an elderly person. The child was ominously (= hinting something bad) wound round with a loincloth. They left a black-bordered card.
“Whose card uncle?” Abinash put in.
“Sunil’s.”
“How? When?” Abinash queried being stunned at the news. “Died of acute poverty and T.B. Was cured, but gave up taking the full course for money. Didn’t even tell me. It was a case of relapse and a lest one.”
“He had once come to us in a car. Blooming and smiling as ever. My wife capered at (= made mocking comments) his twenty- rupee car…” Abinash was narrating.
“Twenty-rupee car?” crossed Dr. Chowdhury. “Yes, the one he got in a lottery…” Abinash replied.
“He had told you all that! Well, you know better. It’s a kind of mental disease. Euphoria. Passion for grandeur, self-display. At his father’s request I had him put in the Hospital as a storekeeper.” Dr. Chowdhury was narrating.
“My wife often told me of costly accessions in his room. Dolls, tricycle, costly sarees. I ignored them as being idle female gossip. After all every, married couple has some fancies for their first born. But the car was the limit. I remember, one day I saw it parked in the market and his wife inside. Sunil seemed to avoid me, but he couldn’t ignore my stare.” He paused.
“Do you know,” he continued, “this is a ruinous passion – the passion to be suddenly rich. He bluffed me, too, about the car no, no, not lottery. He said that it belonged to his brother-in- law who is a Bank officer.”
Abinash, later, learnt that the boy’s yearning for money got him into a trap: Being the store-in-charge, Sunil’s consent could not be ignored in the purchase of medicines in the Hospital. One shrewd and corrupt Superintendent read into the young man’s beer (= rank/fell/evil greed) for money. Sunil’s sudden flourish (=grandeur) was a surprise even for his wife. It’s bonus, he used to say. Surprise gifts like table-fan, crockery sets flowed in. In the Hospital store spurious (= fake/false) drugs, false vouchers, higher commissions-the hidden drains of income. Bribes at office and bluffs at home-if life were so smooth!… But it was again Dr. Tiwari, the famous surgeon, about whose car he had told Abinash. Someone of his patients succumbed (= suddenly died) to a lifesaving drug. The doctor challenged, the store was sealed and an expert body unearthed the scandal…. Sunil lost service and slowly become a pauper, worse than ever. In one month his blooming family become a wreck (= in ruins). He had to pay the heavy price for his yearning for wealth and grandeur.
