Tales from a different era

Pankaj closed his eyes. He was a content man, at 90 with heart problems, diabetes, and Hypertension, that was a rare sentence. He had lived a whole life, had two beautiful granddaughters, one of which had gotten married recently and he had lived to see the day.

He had lived his full life and had no regrets. Not one. In his opinion death could come knocking on his doorway any day and he would happily surrender.

He thought like that sometimes, then his youngest granddaughter came bundling in, a ball of enthusiasm, talking non-stop and sitting near his chair just to hear his stories. He lived for those moments. When somebody sat down next to him and wanted to listen to a story. He droned for hours and hours about his fascinating life, he could talk for the whole day and still not run out of stories to tell.

People came to listen to stories willingly but they were not allowed to leave. Pankaj was egoistic, but he was knowledgeable and a good man, people never left his side no matter how bored they got because they didn't want to seem disrespectful. Partially, because they didn't want to see him disappointed.

Pankaj knew India to the bone. He had been a part of getting its freedom. He was merely 16 when the movement became more fierce, more desperate, and more uncontrollable. He had been in some of the riots, the other he had witnessed. He had met Gandhi, Nehru all of the freedom fighters people talked about in books, in person. When he had met Nehru he didn't feel a thing. No pride, no honor, nothing. He never liked him much anyway.

His granddaughter walked in. He snapped out of his thoughts and smiled. She was 23 although she still acted like a toddler, with the bounce in her step and the hugs that she gave to people. She was his favorite.

"Yo!" She raised her hand for a high five and received one in return.

"Yo." Pankaj smiled as she plopped down on the bed and stared at him waiting for the story to start and so it did.

He had been thinking about his time in the movement and so that is the story that he chose.

He flashed back to the riots. He hadn't done anything that made him brave or made him proud for what he did for his country at that time. No. He had just stood shaking his fist in a crowd of hundreds, maybe a thousand.

The one where he had actually gotten hurt was when he was an. innocent bystander. He had been going to the bazaar with his father and a riot had been taking place. His father had got hit by a stick and he had been struck in the knee. Not much damage had been done to him but his father had been bloody. He had rushed to the hospital with his father in his arms and waited on the hospital floor as he had been bandaged and taken care of.

That was the first time that he had thought about becoming a doctor. He had practically joined his hands to thank the doctor who had tended to his father.

A few weeks later freedom had come. Sweets were distributed in schools and streets and garlands and flowers were thrown on the freedom fighters. But as soon as the excitement of being independent wore off, the nation had faced a great problem, There was chaos, pure chaos. If he hadn't been one of the upper castes he might've known the struggle more closely.

While he was preparing for his exams the nation still had to frame its laws, get people in line. Riots were still breaking out in some places. Goa was still captured by the Portuguese. There were princely states who were lost.

And then the constitution came out. He was barely in college as it happened and every town, every city was broadcasting it the way that they could in those days. There were problems, of course. For some time nobody really knew the rules, but they got through it and almost 75 years later they stood strong.

The nation was still flawed, there was no doubt about that. There was poverty, inequality but it was oh so much better than what he had witnessed. It was free of war and gore. It was full of opportunities and it was developing and quickly too. He loved his nation with all his heart. After all, he had spent his life treating the soldiers who fought for it.

He had retired willingly and lived a full life what could a man want more?

He told all of this in explicit detail to Manya, dodging off stories and entering new ones. Independence day was tomorrow. It warmed his heart when he went down and the people of the neighborhood asked him about independence, about the era that came after it.

Pankaj was a man of ethics and order. Being in the army and treating soldiers and being around them his whole life had led him to be the man that he was now, of rigid thoughts and ideas that nobody could change. His room was carefully arranged to the dusty space under his bed.

That reminded him of the room that he and his father had taken just a year after independence when they were traveling to the capital city. It was raining cats and dogs and they were far too scared to aroma around in the unsafe neighborhood so they took refuge wherever they would find. The room was dingy and had one cot placed in the center with a rusty bathroom and a small ornament hung from the wall. At the time, the owner of the hotel had asked their caste before letting them step into the hotel. He had made them stand out, dripping wet until he was sure that he wasn't letting an untouchable into the room. If they had had any choice back then they might've called the police, which would've been useless in the rain in the middle of nowhere, with a minor complaint like this. When the constitution wasn't even fully made yet.

Pankaj was happy that he had got to raise his children in a nation free of all of those demons. He hadn't only traveled all over his nation, he had lived in five states. He knew four languages fluently which was a lot even for India.

Manya made her excuses and left, even after an hour of listening to him she bounded out skipping. She was always cheery, maybe for him, maybe because that's just how she was.

Ajesh rarely came to see him in the evenings. He was always busy. There was some part of him that felt sad about it but his son had done so much just so he could live close to him. He lived a door down and had given up his dream of going to the US just for him.

For some reason, he remembered Gandhi's body being carried to the raj ghat in front of him. His death had certainly been the news for months. People holding speeches and schools telling the great tales of his life. The writers had new motivation to write and everyone was hyped about something that was bound to happen. Death. Whether it be by a bullet or by the failure of your own body against you, death was inevitable.

As a doctor, Pankaj had seen his fair share of deaths, and at an age where almost everyone from his generation was dead, his was coming as well.

Being from a dark time. Pankaj was used to his thoughts haunting him, but he wasn't afraid anymore. The world that he saw now was a much more complex place but a much safer one for generations to come. He had seen two centuries and the difference between them was so vast that he couldn't explain it in ten years.

He picked up the notebook that Manya had given him to write stories of his life and kept it aside. To date, there wasn't a single word in that notebook, but maybe he would write tomorrow. There was so much to tell, but so little time left.