AMAR

(A SHORT STORY)

DISCLAIMER: This is pure fiction. The persons and incidents featured have no connection with real persons living or dead, or real life occurrences)

Amar went through my department like a hurricane, sweeping people and reputations away with ghoulish glee. He spent a month with me as my trainee, but behaved as if our roles were the very reverse. He liked to give the impression that he knew more banking and finance, more cricket and music than you. I was a bank officer. And a cricketer. And a serious music enthusiast. Amar never missed an opportunity to flaunt his superior knowledge in all these areas. He knew that his behaviour annoyed me, and he loved it. Over a period of about six months, he had to spend a month each with me and some of my colleagues, and he managed to irritate each and every one of us. At least two officers of the bank were reduced to nervous wrecks by his antics.

Amarnath Sharma—for that was Amar’s given name at birth—had been his father’s biggest disappointment. Rajendra Sharma, his father was a good cricketer, and a diehard fan of Lala Amarnath, and made it his life’s mission to make his son a cricketer. The senior Sharma had been a good all rounder in his day, and narrowly missed representing his state in the Ranji Trophy after being named in the squad for a whole season. Lala Amarnath was Rajendra’s hero. He wore his handkerchief roguishly around his neck, bowled medium pace with an action similar to Lala’s and batted and fielded aggressively. He was so impressive that he came to be known as Lalaji in cricket and social circles. Lalaji constantly dreamed of Amar fulfilling his own unfulfilled dreams of cricketing stardom.

Unfortunately, Amar was a physical coward and over-fond of sweets and starchy food. He was also a lazy bum, and the most strenuous activity he indulged in was running away towards the square leg umpire while facing even slow bowling. For Lalaji, this deadly combination meant that calling Amar by his full name would be an insult to the great Lala Amarnath. Rajendra Sharma loved his son, but revered the former India captain and all rounder, his childhood hero. Amarnath Sharma, therefore became Amar Sharma, the change legitimised by a gazette notification by the time he was ready to enter college.

Though the Amar I met was mostly bluff and empty bragging, he usually cast a spell on his listeners with his aggressive, bullying style of communication backed by a wicked, often malicious sense of humour and repartee. In his crazy arguments, he bullied us into submission, no matter that most of us were his seniors. He was actually my senior agewise as he had spent a couple of years as a journalist at Delhi before appearing for the bank's entrance exam for probationary officers just as I had done three years before him. He belonged to the 1973 batch of officer recruits, now reporting to me and my colleagues for training.

Amar belonged to a wealthy, orthodox UP brahmin family of Secunderabad. In addition to Lalaji, the clan boasted a number of decent cricketers, at least one of whom toured the West Indies once without playing a single Test match. Amar was certainly the black sheep of the family, in that he not only did not play cricket, in fact, despised the game, but showed an elaborately put on distaste for classical music, which the Sharmas of Secunderabad patronised in a substantial manner, often billeting visiting musicians in their homes. He also stood out as a big drinker in the midst of mostly teetotal relatives. He was a rebel, in short.

As you have guessed, I came to know Amar rather more closely than our mentor-mentee relationship at the office demanded, rather more closely than in fact I wanted to know him, such was the irresistible force of his personality. If he invited you home, he refused to take 'No' for an answer and virtually carried you home. With his 6'3" height, massive shoulders, and ever widening girth, he looked formidable, and had a nasty habit of making embarrassing personal remarks in a voice loud enough for the whole department to hear. You meekly surrendered and accepted his invitation.

For all his dominance in conversations after hours, I made sure that I was the boss where work was concerned. He had to complete the small tasks I gave him, and I did not allow him to lecture me about how to read a balance sheet, how to derive the break-even point of a manufacturing unit, based on the data it furnished and reading between the lines, or how to analyse inventory statements and assess the working capital needs of a client, so on and so forth. I somehow managed to shut him up and get some work done by him for the department in return for time spent training him. After he moved on to the other officers in the division, I noticed that some of the most overtly domineering of our senior officers were so overawed by Amar's in-your face braggadocio that he was getting away with making token appearances at the desk and spending most of his time in the canteen, smoking and drinking endless cups of tea while entertaining junior colleagues with his droll, even obscene jokes. All this made the canteen a noisy, smoke-filled den constantly inviting trouble in the event of the chief manager or one of his senior aides walking in for a surprise inspection..

One warm June evening, Amar invited me home for a drink, knowing of my temporary bachelor status with wife away to have our first baby at her parents’ place in Bombay. At that time, I was ignorant of two key Amar Sharma facts: 1. He was hurtling towards an alcoholic abyss; 2. he had the nasty habit of spiking his unsuspecting guests and watching the fun. It was a fairly pleasant evening, slightly dampened by the cold reception Amar’s Tamil wife Janaki gave me. I consoled myself with the thought that there was nothing personal in her attitude to me; it was standard practice among the unhappy wives of drunkard husbands to view these male visitors with suspicion, as if we were responsible for their husbands’ dissipation. Their little son tried to cuddle up to his father, but Amar almost rudely pushed him away. That was the moment I realised that my host was already drunk.

After a nice, light snack and a literary conversation with which I managed to win Janaki over—Janaki was a commissioning editor with a leading publisher—Amar took me to the terrace of his massive colonial bungalow, where we continued to talk about books (I was still a big reader despite long days at my mundane job) and politics (the one subject of which Amar had real knowledge). He had been a student leader during the Telangana agitation, and that is when he met Janaki and impressed her enough for her to agree to spend her life with him. I had seen a couple of photographs of Amar in his college days, and he was a striking figure then, quite trim and athletic looking.

The weather was pleasant and a huge pedestal fan on the terrace made the experience pleasanter. Amar told me stories from his agitation years, and his rather tumultuous courtship of Janaki, made so by the united opposition of every member of Janaki’s family to their marriage plans. I had been refusing a drink all evening as I was a bit unwell, but finally relented as Amar virtually forced a beer on me. It was cool and delicious, and the breeze was soothing, and I passed out after barely a glass of beer. I woke up at 3 am! There was no sign of Amar on the terrace. I don’t remember how I found my way downstairs and let myself out without waking anyone, but I did. I started my motorcycle and rode home enjoying the lovely morning air. I was grateful for my wife’s absence. She would have worried herself sick had she been home, and we did not have a telephone at home.

It was at the bank next morning, mercifully with no hangover, that Amar let the cat out of the bag. He had spiked my beer with God knows what, and seemed to be hugely amused by his own cleverness. That was the moment I decided to have nothing to do with him any more. I did not talk to him at work or afterwards. As he was no longer my trainee, I just cut him off. His were no playful pranks. I saw a couple of colleagues face serious embarrassment caused by Amar’s dirty tricks. I had had enough. Soon he was transferred out of Hyderabad, and I never opened the many letters he wrote me, did not answer his phone calls. I was determined never to have anything to do with him. (To be continued)