A Journal of Mahatma Gandhi Antarrashtriya Hindi Vishwavidyalaya

clamp of the sounds is gripping him. He
used to hear myriad types of sounds. He
used to be taken aback, get up in the
night all of a sudden. The phone would
be ringing. Half awake and rubbing his
eyes, he used to try to be quick of mind.
If Saroj got up, he used to say, ‘It must
be from the plant, there must be some
problem.’
‘Definitely, who will call at this time
to extend courtesies?’ Saroj used to turn
over.
He used to put the phone to his ear.
‘I say, you are an engineer or a doctor.
Even doctors don’t receive so many
emergency calls. ‘ Saroj used to taunt,
‘The plant always has some problem or
the other.’
He also used to feel almost likewise.
The phone, as if not the sound, but a
limb of the plant used to come out and
shake him, ‘Get up friend, you are sleeping
comfortably. See me, I work round the
clock. I am having headache. Do something.’
And he used to feel it his duty to
do something. He used to get engrossed
in his work, take complete report about
the defect in the plant, give a ring to
the concerned staff, give directions, and
when the phone did not prove to serve
the purpose, head towards the plant in
his car leaving the family members sleeping
in the house. Street lights on the deserted
roads in the desolate night appeared to
him to be whispering!
The plant is his bosom friend, a part
of his consciousness. He cannot see it
in pain. Even while taking a round in
the plant, he used to feel as if there are
scattered around him not the machines
but his pet animals. That he is not incharge
of the plant, but of some zoo.
Lions here ... deer there ... snakes yet
there ... all attached to him, and he loving
them. On the complaint of the motor getting
hot, he used to put his hand on it, caress
it, as if he was consoling some sick pet
animal. His hands had acquired the
thermometer type of the magic touch.
Without looking inside, he used to tell
the temperature just by a touch of his
hands.
He had developed a magical relationship
with sounds. The sounds of the machines
almost directly used to talk to him. By
the sound of the safety valve or a change
in the rhythm of the turbine, he used
to get the message that the machine is
groaning.
These very sounds had frozen in his
ears. Sounds soaked in coal and ashes—
meanings getting jumbled up, data like
flourishing bushes in the farms of light,
His maximum time had been spent in the
plant; therefore, he had cut off from the
outside world. Saroj used to say sometimes,
‘Like the tribal people, we are plant people.
Our children also should get the reservation
quota in all the services. You are not
January-March 2012 :: 95