A Journal of Mahatma Gandhi Antarrashtriya Hindi Vishwavidyalaya

aware what is happening outside.
Sometimes, take leave and attend to your
parents for sometime, then you will find
what is happening to the family property.
See, we will not be able to construct our
house and your younger brother Vinay,
who lives with your parents, will manage
everything. He will wangle the best portion
of the house.’
Saroj ‘s words used to appear to him
as meaningless voices coming from far
off. ‘Everything will be right, why to hurry.
For the time being, sincerely perform the
work in hand. This is the only significant
thing.’ he used to think. He used to convince
himself and Saroj too.
Really, his ears had become so
habituated to the sounds of the plant that
he developed distance from the outside
sounds. And one day he realized that the
membrane of his left ear was losing its
sensitiveness. He was becoming hard of
hearing - hearing test also confirmed the
same. He was shaken from inside. The
voice of any person in front also seemed
to him to be coming from afar. When
he could not properly hear other persons
in the meetings, then he used to hesitate
in giving decisions - either he used to
nod, or turning his right ear towards that
side in helplessness, used to request people
to repeat. He was embarrassed many times
due to his handicap. But since he was
the chief of the plant, nobody could directly
point to him his weakness; rather,
everybody used to help him out only —
used to speak loud enough for him to
hear. On his back, people used to pity
him and say. ‘The scoundrel is deaf. But
he quickly picks up the things of his interest;
for other things, he remains deaf.’
‘What were the things of his interest?’
he used to think, ‘ the sounds of the
machines; yes, they had not lessened for
him. He was not deaf for the machines.
He was not dependent on his ears to hear
and understand the sound of the machines.
Through his extra-sensory power, the pain
of the plant almost used to rise on the
screen of his mind.
There was an emergency in the plant
that night. The safety valves shrieked. The
steam of the ‘hagger’ kept on roaring for
long. A phone call came for him from
the control room - the phone kept on
ringing, but the phone was not attended.
The shift engineer was surprised - what
has happened to Sahib? Earlier, it had
happened so many times that sahib had
heard the sound of the pain of the plant
from his home before him, and he had
come to know about it afterwards on phone.
But today... now ...
Putting his hands on the ears, somebody
spoke, ‘these have retired. The body parts
start retiring one by one before the
superannuation of the officers. First, his
ears have gone, and then eyes will go.
The body and its parts age separately.
96 :: January-March 2012