THE DILEMMA

The boeing 747 was above the Bombay Sky. It was slowly circling above the Sahara Air Strip. Releasing the wheels from the belly it touched the tarmac below with a thud.

Sitting inside the plane Anil Saxena, returning after two complete years in Saudi Arabia felt happy, that he his back to his homeland. His mind was pulsating with happiness and expectation. In two years when he was away so many events have happened in his small family.

When Anil got a call to Saudi Arabia he, his elder brother and mother were in their tiny flat at Vasi, New Bombay. Anil employed at Church gate, the other end of Bombay, commuted long hours to and from the office. Anil the younger of the brothers always on look out for good times and good fortune, over years had come to like Bombay life, especially the part it gave him a complete blanket of anonymity when at times he used to be in the mood of painting the town red. He had visited many a pulsating places at Bombay. More out of curiosity he had visited discotheques, clubs and even escorted call girls on couple of occasions. His brother employed as an accountant in a small business concern struggled hard working for hours at stretch to make a small packet a month. His widowed mother patiently kept house for her two sons.

All that charged over night. The lady luck called him to Saudi Arabia, where he has now earned a neat sum of petro dollars in two years. While he was away his brother got a good job with a multi national company and they had moved to a specious flat at varsova, close to the sea. Then his brother had got married. Anil no doubt missed the marriage, bound by the two-year contract he just couldn’t make for the marriage, which seemed to have fixed and conducted in a record time.

Now the house must be making a cozy picture with the new ‘babhi’ keeping house and giving company to his widowed mother. Anil was eager with expectation to see the family and his new ‘babhi’.

As he got out of the aisle, collected his luggage, the two boxes filled with gifts, cleared with the customs and came out, immediately he spotted his dear brother standing in the visitors cardon to receive him.

It was a reunion full of warmth. Soon they were off in the taxi towards the house. Anil did notice his brother a changed man. He always has seen his brother, a serious person, doggedly struggling towards life’s odds with dedication and sincerity, now found him full of vigor and cheer, with a blissfully happy expression thought Anil. The change in the job or perhaps the marriage seemed to have done, wonders to his being.

Anil was now keen to meet the new person in the house who seemed to have brought out the latent pep and spirit in to the personality of his serious brother.

Anil entered with his brother in the first floor apartment at Varsova. His mother was there at the entrance. The same old fragile frame, with a look of eagerness and affection. She seemed to have grown couple of years younger, perhaps, now relieved from the loneliness of the long vigil she had to keep for her two grown up working sons, as the new ‘bahu’ had arrived.

His mother hugged him and led him to their spacious front room. There he could hear the faint tinkle of the silver trinket as his new babhi entered.

Anil who had got up in deference to wish his bhabi just stood there in total disbelief.

It was like tons of bricks fell over his head. Isn’t that Neelu, the call girl he used to frequent? He took a proper look. No he was not mistaken. It was Neelu. He could sense a look of recognition in Neelus eyes also as she slowly averted her looks.

Seeing him quiet, mistaking it to be shyness his mother prodded.

“ Anil tells pranam to your babhi. Her place is same as the mothers” Neelu standing there as a demure bahu was the one who took hold of the situation. With an engaging smile she offered him a plate of ‘pokoras’ and hot tea.

“Maaji your son is very much like what you had described. I think the two years abroad has not changed him”.

Anil gulped the tea. While excited queries started enquiring about life abroad, how unfortunate it was he could not make it for the marriage. His brother as Anil noticed had become a dotting husband, brought out the video type of the marriage and in all the excitement of telling him News after a long absence the time just flew and he did not had to face his babhi alone thought out the day.

But finally when he retired to bed he found he was jostling about in the bed with an uneasy mind.

After his father passed away 10 years back in the brutal road accident, his brother had taken the protective guardians role shielding him from every hardship, encouraging him to study further where he himself had stopped his postgraduate studies and taken the role of bread winner.

How he had collected with care the items for the mother, bhaiya, and new babhi from the bizarre array of things laid out in the shopping complete abroad. To his new babhi he had chosen one of the costliest present, a beautiful gold-rimmed watch with a stone studded dial.

As he was uneasily moving in his bed trying to catch the elusive sleep, he heard soft footsteps close to his bed. There standing in the darkness silhouetted against the outside street light he could see the outlines of his babhi or was it the call girl Neelu?

He got up with a start. His babhi was looking at him with imploring eyes. They seem to carry an earnest appeal. Brimmed with tears babhi was telling him all that to be told with out a word-uttered.

There she was standing there like a Devi with a red vermeillion bindhi, the pallav of her yellow and red sari laced with gold embroidery tucked over her head. He could see the sparkle of the new mangal sutra like as armor over her bosom. The red and green bangles of marriage covering her slender hands. The pleading eyes having none of the lust and brashness of the lady whom he knew as Neelu the call girl.

It was as tough in a flash he knew what to do. He erased forever the image of Neelu the call girl and accepted the lady in front of him as his ‘babhi’ the mother figure as his own mother had asked him.

He got up in full length from his bed and did pranam with a clear heart to the babhi in front of him.