THE HOARDER

Its imperative that you should get a birds eye view of this fellow ,since very rarely you come across such specimens in your mundane life .And I feel I am one of the blessed few who knows about him to the core ,having been associated with him for not less than 55 years to be sure .You cannot say he was my colleague ,friend or even a close relative, I have been more than that .Literally I have spied over him or rather been his voyeur since the day you can remember oneself .To be precise he was or is any other Indian you meet on the street and tend to forget, a 5.7 foot weighing 10 stones , of a reddish black hue ,with an apparent stoop ,as if the whole world is weighing him down , a matter of fact aggressive gait .But you will never miss his flowering smile that lights up the surroundings ,as if all is well or is going to be well ,but that’s a self imposed mask to lure you in, don’t fall for that crap.
He never comes to the front, always merging to the background of the crowds as if to shield himself from life itself. But mark me ,he absorbs everything going around him like a sponge and never lets anything out .Nothing misses him, yet he spots on that foolish look of an imbecile .He is few in words, and even what ever he mutters you will be assured that he’s a non confident fellow ,but still he emits a positive energy which draws you in .If you are very observant you can feel that he is an aggressive listener who can open you up in no time , dissect you and throw you to the wolves in a jiffy.
The thing of interest to me is one unusual trait that marks him from others .But it’s not that easy to come out with words to explain it to you, you can only sense it. But let me try anyhow .He has been a collector all his life .You have only to see his collections in his laptop or diaries .I cannot go in to details but give you some hints to prove my point . I scanned his lap top once and was astonished to see the number of folders he has toiled to down load over the years .He has tons of materials on sports personalities especially cricket, songs in four languages of masters from 1945 to 2010 from Beethoven to Chembai, bajans to Madonna, Ilayaraja to O.N.V, cinemas-Sylvestor stalone to Adoor Gopalakrishnan, Ingmar bergman to Maniratnam ,files on evolution, big bang theory to monsoons, history from Indian to world to mayas and incas, paintings of Leonardo to Picassa, huge collections of jokes A,B &C, even tour itineries of Varanasi, North pole, Madagaskar,tons of stuff of market movements, bonus announcements . Off course he has loads of books in his library all ranges ,collections of stamps, and old currencies, and what not.
To slice his heavy mask I load him with gin[offcourse his favourite drink] and lo gradually his rock like shell breaks open a little and that sheepish looks eakes out .After a few casual talks ,I venture a little deeper ‘ hai re! What all things you have in your lap top from every thing to every thing’. He blushes a little as if I had disrobed him. ‘ So you have spied on me, you scoundrel !they are my secret projects .Do you know what? All those stuff took me lot of years to accumulate . ‘ But I have never heard you play those songs, enjoy those photographs or read any book for that matter’ , I interrupt. ‘ But that’s all for my retirement , you fool’ ,he laughs. ‘You always mock me as a miser. I don’t care a hoot .Because all this planning is for my retirement .Then see who is having the last laugh’ .
‘ But are you capable of funning around or at least enjoying anything . I have never seen you indulging in any’ , I ask .He became a little defensive ,so to say. ‘ I don’t know what you mean by enjoyment or merry making .it is anaethma to me. I wonder how people can fool around in the name of enjoyment. It’s all a show off to their friends or relatives .As for as my life is concerned it makes no sense. I have total control of my past ,since I can delete or shut out my shameful or disappointing experiences and savour the beautiful moments at my leisure and as for the future I can plan for it or at least indulge in day dreaming . For me ‘present’ is always a source of tension and tackling it is a chore in itself. So I have to resort to mind enhancing or distorting adjuvants like alcohol or marijuanha. These stuff bring out the alien in me to the fore front and literally I become an outsider , ready to push the I in me behind ,and then watch the tamasha of the so called external word. This is what I enjoy or am at ease with .
Things were going out of hand and hence I supplement his glass with a larger one . Now is the time to dig a little deeper, I decide. ‘ hey yaar, you never speak about your family?’. He was in acute agony ,so much I could surmise from his face and sweating hands . He frowned a little before stuttering ‘what family ,Hari! I have a nice wife who feeds me ,clothes me and makes my night livelier .What more do you want? ‘So you love her deeply ‘, I peek a little more. ‘ I don’t like direct questioning .But since you are my best friend, I will stop with saying nothing more than--- Though I have lived with her for more than 30 years I have never bothered to know more about her, I suppose it is better to leave her alone with her life .I don’t claim to love or dislike her, but I cannot live with or with out her. No , I don’t boast that both of us share any common dreams or desires .I can practically see through that transparent impenetrable veil separating us, all her hostile thoughts and hostage mentality- complex. In a nut shell we are a satisfied practical duo who know the limitations of a partnership’.
Now that he was on his boorish monotonous soliloquy not uncommon to high levels of utter inebriation, I dare not hold these utterings against him ,nor take it as an evidence since these could be alcoholic thoughts or illusions .When in his trances he used to shock me with direct questions like ‘ Hari! I know you are a religious person. But do you have greater faith in GOD than your RELIGION.’ .It was a month later on a Saturday dusk that I got nother peek at him .Off course I could see that he was drugged and in one of those fine moods .So I dared to needle him again on his lap top collections . He shot back ‘Hari ! You know what ?,This downloading business is an intense passion with me .As you know, I am curious about everything ,whatever trash it may be and immediately download the answers from internet without ever reading it ,Since it’s so time consuming, it has rather become a habit. Are you following me? These ‘ why’ and ‘ how’ thoughts have become some sort of a nightmare to me .Everything I store for the future ,since I don’t know the art of enjoying or suffering in the present. I only enjoy this ‘ collecting’ business. In fact ,I am a passionate collector of thoughts ,happenings ,feelings ,and what not ,into my ‘HISTORY’ folder for later downloads to my ‘FUTURE’ folder . AM I A HOARDER? ‘