The Sunday Paper: Edited

As Sorabjee made his way down the wooden stairs, he took extreme care to do it as
noiselessly as possible.  With his left palm firmly on the banister, he placed his feet very carefully on the rungs, much like one blows softly into a lover's eye. He descended the stairs in steps of ones and twos, halting after every six rungs to catch some breath, all the while pressing the cotton balls in his ears tight. He disliked the creaking of the wooden stairs?he it hated more than his advancing age, his arthritic joints, and his loneliness.

'Those idiots in the society office; doing ghotala with other peoples' money all the time! They should be thrown down these very stairs! How many times how many times did I tell them about this creaking mess? More times than all of their ages combined. Motherfuckers all!' he grumbled softly. It was an art he'd mastered: his soft grumblings sounded like the sieving of talcum.

It was only six in the morning, and he did not wish to awaken the residents of Sea
View Apartments. Especially the loutish Mehroo on the second floor''a floor
below him''who never let go any chance to ask for a small favor everytime she saw him coming down the stairs. In his mind's eye he often saw an image of her sitting on a stool behind the door, a narrowed eye firmly on the peephole, her sagging bosom heaving with every deep breath, waiting for him to appear in the circular world seen through it. A
graying voyeur. A pain in his bony ass. Was it a surprise then that she hardly
had any friend?

On the way to the agiary, women from the building often gossiped that her sons were busy chasing non-Parsi girls all over Mumbai.

Their men weren't far behind.

'The Mistry boys are such cads I tell you Sorabjee! I caught the elder one what's
his name yes Hormadz I caught him the other day with a girl at Chowpatty. She
didn't look Parsi to me not a chance! She was so dark I tell you! I've forbidden my boy from befriending them. They are bad influence a stigma to our people,' an armchair critic from the third floor had once told him, his forehead perspiring exponentially in absolute agreement with his agitation.

'What can one expect from a womb like that Jamsetji Jeejibhoy?' Sorabjee had almost spat in distaste.

Mehroo had married a non-Parsi, a scandal that had rocked the community, and had led
to the premature death of her father. Moreover, she'd divorced shortly after
her second son was born. That she'd spurned the proposal from a then strapping,
raven-haired Sorabjee was something that was never discussed beyond closed
doors in Sea View Apartments.

Subsequently, Sorabjee married loneliness, for it could not spurn him.

'The day she married that madrasi, I knew theirs was a relationship destined to fail. How many such marriages have lasted? I can count them on the fingers of my right hand; more fingers than successes I say! Can those madrasis ever match a Parsi boy? Can anyone ever equal a Parsi?' he'd often vocalize his grouse to any Parsi within earshot as he bought eggs, bread, liniments, and lip balms for her over the years. Occasionally, he'd end up paying from his pocket when Mehroo went broke, but that was years ago when her boys were still in primary school.

Presently, as he neared the landing on the second floor, he pursed his lips and espied her
closed door with relief. The dried toran on her door rustled softly in a cool wind that filtered in through the grilled concrete at the end of the flight of stairs. On the floor a chalk design of the fish he'd seen yesterday made it amply clear that the old lout was still asleep. It was a Sunday after all; not everyone would be up at this unearthly
hour: for a newspaper of all things.

As Sorabjee's back faced the Mistry household's door he heard the deafening click of a latch.

He gritted his teeth in absolute defeat.

'Arrey Sorab, it's raining heavily baba. You aren't carrying an umbrella, can't you see outside?' Mehroo rattled in her sing-song voice as she stood in her doorway with a tray in her hand that carried some chalk powder, a cheap plastic mold with a dotted fish across its face, and a divo.

'Mehroo, it's a slight drizzle for God's sake!'

'Nothing doing! Wait, I'll get Hormadz's umbrella for you. I can't see my dear brother
getting drenched to the bone while I sit here in the warmth of my home.' She
placed the tray by the door, and walked into her flat. He could hear Hormadz's
sleepy, agitated banter. The divo's flame swayed from side to side; he helped end its dilemma with the sway of his arm.

'Brother she calls me ' His mumble stopped abruptly as he heard her footsteps
approaching the door.

'Here Sorab, take this umbrella. Be careful if a strong wind blows, it might turn
turtle. Hormadz got it repaired yesterday only. Can you do me a small favor?
Buy me some milk from the bhaiyya.'

'Mehroo, I need to buy the newspaper! And the bhaiyya is '

'Is only a few steps ahead Sorab. In fact it's exactly ten steps ahead if you trust me.
Walking is good for your heart!' she smiled and handed him a twenty rupee note.

'Then Mehroo, it's an exercise you'll never need.'

Sorabjee stocked the crumpled note in his shirt pocket.

As Mehroo sprinkled the chalk powder on the mold, she could hear the stairs creak a few
decibels louder.

'This man will never change,' she smiled as she lit the divo.

          ¤¤¤¤

The corridor was still dark when Sorabjee returned to his flat. He fumbled for the
keyhole for a few seconds as he felt its rounded hollowness alternately with
his wet fingers and the key. Finally the levers tumbled. The trip to the
newspaper kiosk wasn't uneventful. The umbrella did turn turtle as Mehroo had
warned when the rain was at its fiercest, leaving him soaking wet.

'She did this on purpose the hag that she is. Gave me an umbrella that's as useless as
her boys! I am sure she's by her window behind those curtains amusing her
wretched self with a little laugh,' he'd cursed her as he struggled to rein in
the umbrella all the while glancing at Mehroo's window.

He threw the umbrella in a corner, and sat on the sofa without bothering to fetch a towel. Beads of rainwater traveled down his spine as he wiped his palms on the
softened suede. The newspaper was spread on the teapoy, and taking turns he
tossed the main pages, the sports supplement, and the women's magazine that
came every Sunday on the floor. His face broke into an awkward smile once he
spotted the ad he'd placed in the Parsi Samachar.

Though he hated to admit it, Sorabjee was a lonely man. Over the years, the loneliness
grew over him, like a second skin that he increasingly found difficult to shed.
Ever since his retirement, the ever increasing spare time he had on his hands
became his greatest concern.  The last time the demon of loneliness stabbed at his heart was when he'd fractured his arm. Though Mehroo did look after him; the lonely nights in rooms that smelled of antiseptic, the constant stream of visitors for the patients resting next to him, and the pitying faces of the nurses drove home the point real hard: that
he was a lonely.