If there was a tangible ladder for upliftment in life, everyone would be thinking of a way to get higher up while attempting to do so, meanwhile Mihir was one of those who just stood and kept wondering if he had figured it out or not, and meanwhile the world moved ahead.
Mihir was an artist with a good hand in his work, but lacked any motivation to do beyond what he felt was satisfactory. All his projects were freelance, some decided to stick with him for the quality of work he delivered while many were disassociated with him after a project, given his unpredictable nature and constant inability to meet the given deadlines.
Mihir was a recluse who wouldn’t bother even if the world right outside his window would be taken over by extraterrestrial beings, he just hoped they would leave him alone like the humans.
Mihir shared the apartment with Deepak who was completely unrelated to him and they met through a mutual friend. He was the best flatmate, after all he minded his own business and didn’t bother Mihir at all, it was like they were living in the same but different apartment. However, Deepak did help Mihir out when Mihir was late on rent and for a brief time tried to persuade him to look for something more in life.
Deepak stopped bothering Mihir when he realised Mihir had no intention of either conversing or changing.
“I am leaving, moving to another city,” said Deepak one day while Mihir was busy playing his video game console
“Oh,” Mihir said after pausing the game but there was no further response and Deepak walked away, out of the scene and out of the apartment
The reality of what had happened began to affect in the next few months. Mihir had to pay the full rent now that Deepak was gone, the income was already a suspenseful guest. Mihir also got to know Deepak was paying the increased amount of the rent that he never asked Mihir to share.
Mihir began to cut down on food, often eating only puffed rice, after all who needs complete food, it only keeps us alive right? Well, its importance came knocking when Mihir felt he was feeling tired more often and it was becoming a bit more difficult to do almost anything, with his mind telling him to rest all the time.
Mihir’s mother called every day, always worried and Mihir rarely spoke anything more than yes or no, but it did comfort him to hear her voice at this point of life and he told her about things and she persuaded him to look for another affordable apartment.
The search for another apartment began if possible without a flatmate so that this situation didn’t happen again in future.
There was a cheap apartment on the outskirts of the city, from the look of it, it was old and the maintenance of the apartment building aligned with the condition of Mihir’s life. There were many rumours about it with that of criminals living there and several apartments being haunted (Mihir got one of the haunted ones) and also it being a place where various illegal businesses were being conducted, but what choice was there, this is where life had led to.
The neighbours were not friendly, the corridors were humid with lights malfunctioning and no hope of being repaired, there were frequent electricity cuts with no backup generator being present, the supply water had this stale smell. The small park outside had become a garbage dump. People could be heard screaming in the middle of the night. Mihir had never seen the police visit a place so frequently. He tried to keep himself hidden when he was within the area of the apartment building. It was like the reality of life had come to mock Mihir beyond what little he understood of it.
Desperate to move out, Mihir looked for more and more projects, rejected by many for his past performance (and you can never underestimate people’s ability to remember your wrong for the longest time), but there are always new people in the field offering work, even though with less pay. It was bad, quite bad, there is no other way to say it.
“It was the worst,” said Mihir to one of his childhood friends years later, “If Deepak hadn’t come back after a year and called me to find an apartment to share, I don’t think I would have made it out of that place alive. The good that it did though was that the desperation of getting out of there gave my career the boost that it needed and set me up for the future, in a way I had not thought of.”
Written by Anuran Chatterji
Early Morning Memories 