Mist - M.T. Vasudevan Nair - Summary

Mist – M.T.Vasudevan Nair

The word anticipation would perhaps best describe the human condition today. The paramount anticipation for us is the next moment. What will that next moment bring? Will it bring pleasure or pain? Will it be perceived as good or bad, etc? Will it be filled with life or death? It is anticipation, the expectancy or the needing to know, needing to figure out, needing to understand, needing an answer that very simply is a root cause of all of our suffering.

When we anticipate something pleasurable, no matter what that is, be it a positive outcome, a positive relationship, we begin a prefabricated illusion that what we want and desire should happen to us.

The fragile mists of memories, emotions, and time weave through this haunting narrative, as the author takes us through the mindscape of the lead character of this novella – Vimala Devi. Vimala and Sudhir had once shared a passionate affair filled with promises. But nine years have passed as she continues to wait for a letter, a phone call, or a visit from him. Sharing her anticipation, is the boatman Buddhu, who is searching for his White father with the aid of only a faded photograph. Finally the story hovers around a sardarji, anticipating his death because of lung-cancer.

The Story in Brief:

Vimala Devi, was a 31 yr old Resident Tutor at a boarding school for Girls in the Kumaon Hill region of Uttar Pradesh.

It was April, and summer vacation had started in the boarding school and the boarders were leaving one by one in the last two days.

On the slope of the hill, beyond the boundaries of the boarding school was a cottage which was rented out to tourists. It was called “Golden Hook”. Just outside the “Golden Hook” was the meandering road on the slopes of the hill.

It was the month of May and the city was getting ready for the tourist season.

Vimala seated herself on one of the wayside seats and looked at the deserted lake. Childhood memories filled her thoughts.

As the bells of the Nainidevi temple pealed out loud, memories of her past began to well up in her mind. Beyond the paddy fields, was a temple. When returning from the temple, she would always gather handfuls of coral nuts near the fence.

She was narrating her life in Kerala to her lover Sudhirkumar Misra. 19 May 1955. “It was 16 years ago” she started. Her father was not welcome at home and he quarrelled with his own family. He was a non-descript entity in his old native village and so he always thought of it with revulsion. He was well-known here in Kumaon Hills, as the owner of an apple orchard and as a potato-research officer. Even for mother, the village climate was horrible. Vimala could recall things that happened to her as a mere five year old. It was like untying the knots of a web.

Wishing to take a ride in her favourite boat Mayflower, Vimals neared the jetty. One boatman by name Buddhu helped her get in, and began to narrate his story. He said that his father was a white man, who came to the hill station 17 or 18 years ago, and this young boatman was a memento of the white man’s stay in the lake city. The boatman talked of his anticipation to see his white father every passing summer.

Vimala remembered that she too had been waiting, every year, for a dream, (which she had lost nine years ago), to blend into life. It was the day the pretty twety-one-year-old Vimala Devi met the trim-moustached, dashing twenty-nine year old spendthrift and wanderer in a morning in May 1955. She remembered the rock on top of the hill on which both of them rested. Even the rock had changed its name now. She also remembered Sudhir telling her that they must go to her native town in Kerala at least once. She had replied then that she only wanted these moments with him.

She recollected their walk down “Lover’s Track” a rock that seemed like an arrow piercing the bosom of the sky. Memories flooded her. She had met him only five days ago. Meeting near the lake, he had come up to her, smiling, to ask the time. They happened to sit near each other in the bust the same morning. But five days seemed like five years.

Her family lived just 53 miles away among the potato fields. Father, Mother, Babu and Anita. Her father had never spoken warmly of his village. He was always feared. Even when writing to him, the letter had to be in English only. The errors were always underlined in red and sent back with a warning. He was a discarded man of a poor family who had married a rich girl. Her father had been a clerk on an estate, then a postmaster, when he left to study in Madras. After he married, he quarrelled with his sister, gave his share away to her and left home for good.

Mother’s roaring affair with Mr.Gomez was known to almost everybody in the village. Her sister Anita too was exchanging love letters through the servant to her lover. Her brother Babu was openly smoking ganja and gambling with the pahadi lads.

She recollected vividly the pink sweater that Misra had bought her, and the incessant talk they had together on the pleasure boat. That particular day, he did not talk much. He ate her.

Curious to know the guests at “Golden Nook” this year, she could see a visibly old Sikh gentleman.

On hearing the music of the one-stringed iktara, she listened. Was that the same man? She tried to read to divert her attention, from an old book. There was a signature in violet on the first page. It was signed Sudhirkumar Misra, January 1955. The guests at the “Golden Nook” always affected the life in her room one way or another. She fell asleep to the sound of the iktara.

The next morning she was surprised to see the same sardarji standing near the steps. Amar Singh, the watchman was talking to him. At first glance she felt repelled by his ugliness. She guessed him to be anywhere between 40 and 60. He had come to get some books from her on hearing from Amar that she read a lot of books. She took out some books from the shelf and gave it to Amar to be given to Sardarji. Very soon they became good companions and Sardarji would often take her out on long walks. On one such meeting, he admitted that he smoked secretly, without the knowledge of his guardian.

The place had awakened after dozing for months. Groups of tourists, the coolies hovering over the heaps of luggage like vultures, the cycle-rickshaw drivers and hotel agents shouting at the top of their voices.

News came in that her father had passed away. She went to pay her last rites, and was annoyed to find Alfred Gomez standing with his head held up majestically. There was not much of a crowd. Within a day’s span, Vimala left for the boarding school, much to the surprise of her family members.

Someone knocked on the door early in the morning. She opened the door. Amar Singh stood there. He was there to tell her of Sardarji who wished to convey to her that he is taking his leave. Not knowing what to say, Vimala said, “We will meet again!” Sardarji laughed at it and conveyed the news that he hardly had four months left to live. “That’s what my guardian says” he said, and bid goodbye to her.

In the concluding lines of the story, when Vimala inquisitively asks Amar Singh about Sardarji’s guardian, Amar gave a puzzled look, and said that sardarji was all alone!

 “Boredom results from being attentive to the passage of time itself, goes the adage. A more colloquial version might be ‘A watched pot never boils’. The story, in like manner, beautifully intertwines the anticipation bound lives of the main characters Vimala and Buddhu who are in the formative years of their lives, and juxtaposes it with the old sardarji, who has his days numbered due to a fatal disease. While the young Vimala has a sense of gloomy anticipation, sardarji had an anticipation that bordered on happiness and pleasure.

Thus, for Vimala, her anticipation was killing her, while the sardar was making the most of every passing moment [“carpe diem”] to give love, joy and happiness to everyone around him in the short span of life that he was doomed to have.