Coming of Age Mostafa Abdullah ‘Yes ma, I heard you right, won’t stay up late’. ‘I hear the TV - turn it off. You know how it is once you get going’. ‘Yes ma, I will’. ‘Make sure you lock the doors and windows well, it could be very cold at night’. ‘Ma-a, its only April now’. ‘I don’t care, you listen to me; you know how easily you catch cold’. ‘Alright Ma. I will lock, bolt and seal, don’t you worry Ma. Good night Ma’. ‘Don’t you good night me; I will call you in the morning. Go to bed now and don’t sleep late’. ‘Good night ma’. Mum must have put the phone on speaker. Zubair hears Rima and Hema giggling as he hangs up. He grins; he need not bear with the two younger sisters anymore. Ma can only be so much on his back now. Zubair grew up in Sydney where he had lived with his family most of his life. He was only 2 years old when his father Dr. Robin Chowdhury and mother Moyna Chowdury moved to Australia. The sisters were born here. Zubair went to private schools and topped most of his classes. A communication equipment design company in Armidale picked him up right out of the University. The lounge room glass doors opens onto to the balcony of his 9th floor unit overlooking the reserve to the south. He steps out. The strong smell of fresh paint softens as a late summer breeze blows on to his face and he takes a deep breath to feel the new him. He is happy to have grown up, but a bit apprehensive. The tall shadowy heads of the reserve seem somewhat iffy, like the bedtime stories of a lost prince in a deep forest of howling winds. Jubair feels a bit queasy and light headed. Is it the strong smell of fresh paint of the unit or the grim and somber look of the reserve on a moonless lonely night? He moved into this unit in the afternoon from a city centre hotel where he spent a week after arriving from Sydney. From the hallway the unit opens into the lounge room flanked by the kitchen and dining on the left and the bedroom and a bath on the right. There are two single seat sofas on one side and a padded reclining couch with retractable foot rest facing the wall mounted flat screen TV in the lounge room. A coffee table in the middle and a telephone stand in the corner leave enough room for one to freely move around. Other than that annoying noise of the dripping tap in the bathroom, Jubair seem pretty happy with whatever he has got here. He laughed at himself ‘you can’t have it all, can you? I must report the dripping tap to the building manager’s office first thing in the morning’. A busy day at the office and then to move into this new place was all a bit tiring. Jubair decides to retire early. At first the dripping noise seem to get louder as he tries to sleep, but soon it fades into a rhythmic soft sound of a wall clock that put him to deep sleep even sooner. In his dream he hears a knock on the door. A little later another one and this time it awakes him up and he tries to figure out if it is a dream or an actual knock on the door. Soon there is another one and he knows for sure it is on his front door. Wonders what to do. Scratching sound in the keyhole. Jumps to his feet to run for the door. Stays put, the door is bolted from inside. All quite. Jubair struggles to breathe freely again. ‘Who could it be?’ Jubair only knows few of his colleagues here that he has just met at his work. Could it be the over friendly middle age taxi driver who drove him from the hotel or the nice old gentleman from across the hall who insisted on helping him with his luggage? ‘I should have been more careful while talking to the driver or letting that gentleman into the unit’. Mum always warned against talking to strangers or let one into the house. ‘But what could I do? The taxi driver kept on talking and nagged for answers. The elderly gentleman from across the hall insisted on helping me’. It seemed harmless when the chubby looking Sikh driver, whose taxi smelled of a cross between Paan-Masala (spiced beetle nut) and strong antiperspirant, asked Jubair if he would be making good money in his new job or if his parents are wealthy back in Sydney. The gentleman from across the hall complemented Jubair on his expensive test in luggage as he helped move one into his unit. He also mentioned something about being pleased to find a seemingly nice young man move in as his new neighbor. Now he is troubled with all that. He twists and turns onto his bed in attempts to get back to sleep. The dripping sounds of the bathroom tap seem to get louder and louder and seem like knocking inside his head. He gets up, walks into the bathroom, tightens the tap, it makes no difference. He paces in the lounge room in dark, thinks of calling home to talk to Hema and Rima. Decides not to. Steps out into the balcony for some fresh air. It seems to do him some good. The home phone rings, ‘it must be Rima or Hema’ Jubair smiles as he feels relieved. He searches for the phone in dark. But before he is able to find it a husky male voice leaves a message in the answering machine; ‘How long do you think you can stay away from us. We’ll get you soon, lot sooner than you may think’. The phone rings again, and again once more. Jubair does not pick up the phone. He shuts the balcony door and tries to get some sleep. ‘Is it the same person that knocked on my door?’ ‘I cannot go to sleep with that annoying dripping noise’ ‘Is he going call again?’ Jubair gets up and switches the TV on. It drowns the irritating noise of the dripping tap somewhat. He raises TV’s volume. Surfing through the channel aimlessly he stops at an ongoing movie about an unwed mother who had to give up her new born. Long afterwards she is able to trace the son, now a grownup, seemingly a very resourceful person. But the son refuses to have to do anything with her for giving him away. Eventually the pleading mother concedes to an arrangement of not to be recognized as mother and son in public. She would pose to be the house cleaner whenever she wished to visit him. The movie glides between the past and the present of the two main characters as each takes the centre stage that makes the plot exceptionally engaging. One can only guess what to expect next as the story often takes unexpected turns in a world full of emotions, of broken lives and two persons search for reconnection. The dripping noise of the bathroom tap gets louder as the plot takes roller coaster rides at every other turn. Jubair runs during the short commercial breaks to tighten the tap as much as he can. The dripping sound gets louder and louder with the rise of climatic suspense. He is irritated and runs back and forth tightening the tap further. At the height of a dramatic climax, the annoying sound got so bad that he loses his cool, runs to the bath and tightens the tap so hard that it breaks away from the base. The water gushes out. Jubair runs back to the TV not to miss the final moments. ‘I will be back to take care of the tap as soon as the movie is over, it shouldn’t be long’. The movie embraces another turn of event and takes longer than expected to end. Jubair runs back to the flooded bathroom. Ankle deep, water flooding into other areas. Panics. Tries in vain to stop the gushing water with towels or whatever he can lay his hands on. Water level rising steadily. Can’t leak thru anywhere, doors and windows are sealed tight. ‘Must get out before I am fully drowned’ Frantically looks for the keys to the main door. Panicked, can’t find keys. Water rises further. He grabs the travel bag which was still lying unpacked and throws it at the lounge room glass door to break it open. Nothing happens. Desperate, throws himself at the door and lands on his back on the floor. Suffocates under water. An all out effort to raise the head over the water. Stands on his knees with face upwards, nose barely over the water. Breaths a mouthful, finds hard to open the eyes. Sultry sea water taste in the mouth. Looking around. There isn’t any water, finds himself kneeled facing the TV casting 6 am news, perspirations dripping down the forehead, his pajamas damp all over, sweating hard. The phone rings. ‘Are you still in bed?’ ‘Yes – er – no Ma’. ‘What do you mean yes no; you stayed up late, didn’t you? But how come you didn’t answer the phone. Hema says she called you twice last night’. ‘No Ma, I couldn’t sleep, but slept and then woke up, I don’t know what happened, no - I know what happened, Ma – I will call you back.’ ‘Did you have a bad dream or something - son?’ ‘I don’t know – may be, I will call you later’. On his way to work Jubair pops into the building manager’s office to report the licking tap. The Manager greets him ‘Good morning Mr. Chowdhury. I hope you had a restful night. I wasn’t sure if you moved in. I knocked at your door last night. I suppose it was a bit late for you but I am glad I did not wake you up’. ‘Thanks, but don’t worry about it, I slept like a log’. ‘By the way, your phone may be disconnected today for a couple of days until they give you a new number. The previous tenant, hell of a shady character, left without paying his bills’. The Manager continued, ‘all his neighbors are happy to see him go, but strangely his cleaning lady is real sad about his disappearance. She is here every other day to enquire if he is back’! |
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Home Page Published on: 3-Nov-2015 
