Satyabrata Chatterji looked at his old Favre Leuba watch. He had received it as a wedding gift from his wife’s parents. There were brown spots like freckles on the dial; a cheap, faux leather strap had long ago replaced the original leather. But it never occurred to Satyabrata to replace the timepiece. It had been with him during those first heady days of close proximity with a woman, and had served him through the dull familiarity of marriage, children and the slow but steady rise up the clerkdom of his career. Satyabrata looked at his watch now in the copper light of a setting sun and inhaled slowly and deeply. His life sifted through his mind like the sand within an hourglass, and the watch ticked the seconds by with an arthritic’s slowness and precision.

Today was his last day at office; rather it had been his last day, for the working day was now over. His colleagues had already bidden him their official farewell during the lunch hour. Satyabrata’s farewell gifts were neatly stacked on his otherwise empty table. There would be plenty of time to open and look at them at home. Satyabrata was looking forward to that.

He was looking forward to a lot of things. Like getting up a little later than usual and lingering over his morning tea. Taking his time with the newspaper and haggling more tenaciously with the fishmonger. He also wanted to buy a few items that he had put off buying for a long time. Satyabrata, on the advice of his eldest son Debabrata—Debu for short—had not opted for the pension scheme. Instead he had chosen to take his provident fund and pension in one lump. The thought of all that money sitting in his bank account made Satyabrata feel very rich and generous.

The first thing that he planned to buy was a pair of diamond earrings for Urmilla. She had wanted a little something with diamonds in it for such a long time. Urmilla was not a nagging sort of wife. But she had a way of sighing that almost used to break his heart when they were first married. That feeling gave way to helplessness and impatience as the years went by. Still, as her husband and her provider, Satyabrata had always tried to fulfill her wishes. Urmilla on her part had borne him two sons and a daughter and cooked decent meals and massaged his back and legs. She was a good wife and Satyabrata felt that he could and ought to indulge her, even if it made a dent in the retirement money sitting in the bank.

“Satyada? Still here?” said Manoj.

Manoj was the office peon whose many duties included bringing tea for the clerks and sweeping the office after and before work hours.

“Feeling a little sad, Satyada?”

Satyabrata got up, smiling affably. The thought occurred to him now, looking at Manoj’s friendly, enquiring face, that his colleagues and superiors had not shown much interest in him lately, and had gone through the motions of his farewell in a polite but distant sort of way. Satyabrata did not mind. He had not really expected them to be emotional about his departure. He was just one among the dozens of senior clerks who did the same work day after day and year after year until his reporting officers blurred into one unrecognizable yet familiar face, and he no longer cared to whom he reported.

“Sad? No, not at all,” said Satyabrata. “I am a grandfather now! It’s time I stopped working and played with my little dadubhai!”

“Ah, yes, yes, you are right, Satyada,” said Manoj. “Now, if only I was as fortunate as you. But what can a man like me do? Look at me. I am past my retirement age, but I have to work to put food on my plate. My sons are all useless. My wife is almost bedridden. My wretched daughter ran away with that scoundrel of an auto-driver …”

Manoj’s voice took on a wheedling note. Everybody in the office knew about Manoj’s troubles. He always had a tale of woe to pour into the unwilling but patient ears of any senior babu he managed to corner. Manoj’s whiny monologues occurred with monotonous regularity. The babus put up with it because Manoj was the most indispensable person in the office. Without Manoj to bring in the tea every midmorning and afternoon, all the babus would have died of thirst; likewise, the office would have collapsed if Manoj hadn’t been there to carry the constant flow of files and papers back and forth. The babus were obliged to listen to Manoj. But today, Satyabrata felt he could dispense with that obligation. So instead of encouraging Manoj with a kindly ‘hmm’, he frowned, gathered up his presents and long black umbrella with impatient hands, and started to move towards the door.

Manoj hurried after him. “Satyada?” he simpered. “You won’t forget us now, will you? You will remember this poor brother of yours?”

Satyabrata relented. A little lump of sentiment suddenly bobbed up inside his throat. He had worked here for forty years, and now on his last day at work, Manoj was the only one who seemed sad to see him go. But that was how people were. They only cared about you as long as you were of some use. Everybody was only interested in his own gains. Satyabrata felt philosophical. He patted Manoj’s shoulder.

“I am a free man now Manoj! Free to indulge my memory whenever I want. But will you remember me?”

“Oh, yes, of course Satyada,” said Manoj, clutching Satyabrata’s hand eagerly.

Satyabrata smiled. Perhaps Manoj was asking for a little baksheesh. Well he was not going to get it. He had no business to wheedle baksheesh out of a retired man. A thin curl of disdain crept into Satyabrata’s smile, which Manoj either did not notice or ignored.

“Stay well,” said Satyabrata to the peon, and walked out.

Satyabrata spent the first few weeks of his retirement doing all the things he had been looking forward to. He went for leisurely morning walks. He poured his tea into the saucer and sucked it into his mouth with relish as he read the newspaper. He took long naps in the afternoon and played with his year-old grandson whenever he felt like it.

Urmilla was almost delirious with happiness about her diamond earrings. Sonali, their daughter-in-law, did not look too pleased, though. Satyabrata saw her whispering to Debu. This was a very small cloud in Satyabrata’s bit of sky. Nothing could mar his present holiday mood.

Satyabrata started to take a keen interest in the house after the initial holiday euphoria of his retirement. He discovered many cracks and leaks that needed mending. The house also needed a fresh coat of paint and a new set of curtains. Unlike in the past, Satyabrata did not feel the need to wait for his Puja bonus. He could start doing up his house then and there, if he liked. Perhaps he would. It would not be such a bad idea to get the house spruced up. He soon would have to look for a bride for his younger son.

Shaktibrata, Shakti for short, had got a good job at the Indian Railways. He was still a long way away from becoming a stationmaster, but it was an excellent start. Satyabrata had heard that railway employees could earn a lot of unaccounted-for money. If Shakti played his cards right—who knows?—he might even start earning more than Debu, who by virtue of his good academic work, was a bank officer. That would cut Sonali down to size a bit. She had been acting a little snotty with him lately.

These pleasant thoughts ran through his mind like the cooling rivulets of rainwater on the parched concrete path leading to his house. Satyabrata felt refreshed and a little young. He took his empty cup to Urmilla for a refill.

Urmilla was cooking lunch. Even though they had a daughter-in-law, Urmilla preferred to cook. He was glad that she still did most of the cooking. Satyabrata did not relish Sonali’s cooking, though Debu seemed pleased enough with her culinary efforts. Satyabrata put his cup down next to Urmilla, where she was squatting near the stove. The bonthi lay on its side close to her, and a mound of cut vegetables rested on a large wicker basket next to it. Satyabrata put the cup down silently. He did not have to say anything. He knew that Urmilla would notice the cup and quickly make him some more tea, even if it meant taking the pot off the stove. The diamonds in her ears, though as small as the dust swept up by a broom, caught the midmorning sun and glittered. Satyabrata looked at her fondly before returning to the newspaper and his easy chair. Urmilla said nothing.

Satyabrata opened his eyes with a start. A low growl, not unlike that of a half-starved and kicked about puppy told Satyabrata that he was very hungry. He must have fallen asleep. He got up to see whether Urmilla had fried any papads. He would enjoy that with his second cup of tea. Urmilla was nowhere in sight. The cup sat where he had left it earlier.

Satyabrata was annoyed and a little puzzled. Urmilla had never done this before.

“Where’s your Maiji?” he asked the maid who was clearing up the utensils.

“Why, dadababu, she has gone for her bath!”

Urmilla was usually the last person to take her second bath of the day because she always had a quick shower early in the morning before she entered the puja room. She bathed again after she had finished all her household chores and Debu and Satyabrata had eaten their lunch. She always ate her own lunch after she had fed the rest of the household. Satyabrata looked at the clock that hung over their dining table. It was two-thirty in the afternoon. He had really overdone his pre-lunch siesta, but what annoyed him was that no one had bothered to wake him up with a cup of tea, even though he had asked for it. He strode off to confront Urmilla.

“O-go what is this?” he said. “I asked for a cup of tea. Are you so busy nowadays that you can’t serve your husband a cup of tea?”

Urmilla stood on the verandah with her back arched and her face tilted towards the ceiling. Her arms were extended somewhere beyond her shoulders as she hit her long wet hair with a long strip of gamchha. Droplets of water splattered from her hair and hit Satyabrata on the face. They felt like miniscule slaps against his cheeks. Satybrata’s temper rose. He felt like shaking the water off from Urmilla’s hair with his hands.

“Hanh-go, aren’t you going to answer me?” He cried irritably.

Urmilla stopped drying her hair and looked at him in surprise.

“What’s the matter? Why are you shouting?”

“Why am I shouting she asks? Why am I shouting? It is already two-thirty. Have I been served my lunch? I asked for a cup of tea more than two hours ago! That cup is still lying where I left it in the kitchen!”

“Oh? Is that all? Well, I was too busy cooking to see your cup. As for not calling you for lunch, since you were sleeping, I didn’t like to disturb you.”

Urmilla went inside. Satyabrata followed her, feeling a little foolish. He didn’t like creating scenes. But it had never been necessary in the past to express his wishes; all he had had to do was indicate and Urmilla would scramble to fulfill his desire. Perhaps his staying at home was making him too accessible. A man ought to keep his distance as far as his family was concerned if he wanted any respect. Satyabrata decided to go out of the house more often. The problem was, where could he go?

There weren’t too many people of his age group in their locality. They were either much older—“senile!”—or much younger—“a bunch of louts!” He could not loiter at the market because that would delay Urmilla’s cooking. He could not go to the cinema all the time. That would be too expensive, and who wanted to see the same old movies day after day? He was better off watching television. At least that was free.

But this last idea turned out to be a lame duck. Their household had only one television around which everybody gathered in the evening. Since Debu and Shakti would be at work during the day, and the women folk would be busy with their chores, he could watch television to his heart’s content in the mornings. As it turned out, not only did the women watch television, but they were virtually addicted to the various serials and other programs that were shown regularly. Sonali switched on the TV the minute Debu left for work, and whether she actually watched it or not she sat on the sofa in front of it, idly flipping through the pages of a film magazine, getting up only to administer to the needs of her child or go to the bathroom. Sometimes she did get up for longer periods, but only when Urmilla requested her, in a sweet, cajoling voice to help out in the household chores. Then she went slowly and grudgingly, grinding her round hips against the sofa as she got up to go. Satyabrata marveled at how Urmilla’s behavior had changed towards her daughter-in-law. He had never heard such dulcet notes, such coos and trills from Urmilla before.

Urmilla enjoyed the same television programs as Sonali; she often took a break from cooking lunch to watch bits of soap operas and film song programs. Satyabrata’s year-old dadubhai had his own programs to watch, too. That left only the evenings when Debu and Shakti were home. They watched the news and sports programs, the same things that Satyabrata enjoyed. But watching TV in the evenings soon became a frustrating experience for him. One or both his sons would constantly switch channels. It seemed they wanted to watch two or three programs at the same time. Satyabrata would just begin to get engrossed in a particular program when either Debu or Shakti would switch to something else, and then back again. So much channel switching made Satyabrata dizzy, but nobody seemed to notice.

But Satyabrata noticed. He noticed everything with growing bitterness. The way they never bothered to reply when he spoke; they did not become more attentive when he entered a room. Debu even cozied up to Sonali once in his presence, and that shameless hussy did not even have the grace to blush!

As for Urmilla, she seemed to be on much better terms with her daughter-in-law nowadays. Previously she always had some complaint, and he would comfort her by saying that Sonali was really much better than most girls of her generation. He would cite many examples, culled from gossip that he had heard at office. He would tell her that once Shakti brought home his wife she would be able to see Sonali’s good points more clearly. Urmilla smiled to herself whenever he made this last observation. He had not understood the meaning of that smile at that time. But after his retirement, and with Shakti’s wedding almost finalized, he felt he could just begin to decipher that smile. Once, Satyabrata caught her combing Sonali’s hair and talking pleasantly about this and that. Satyabrata found something distinctly Manoj-like in Urmilla’s betel nut stained smile.

Satyabrata felt that the only person left in the house to whom he could pay attention and be attended to in return was his dadubhai. But even here there were barriers. He discovered that his little grandson followed a strict regimen. He ate, bathed, slept, went for walks and watched television at specific times that did not necessarily match with Satyabrata’s.

Satyabrata decided to go for long aimless walks by himself. He hoped that his prolonged absences would remind his family that he was still the constitutional head. “Familiarity breeds contempt,” quoted Satyabrata to himself. If the women saw less of him during the day, they would definitely start respecting him as before. Initially, it seemed to work. But one day when Satyabrata returned home much later than usual, he discovered that the whole family had eaten their lunch; the table was cleared and no one had even bothered to keep a plate for him.

“I might as well be invisible!” thought Satyabrata bitterly. Two salty tears rolled down his cheeks and rested against his dry lips. As Satyabrata licked them off, his tongue encountered day old stubble at the corners of his lips. He had forgotten to shave, and of course Urmilla had not noticed. There was a time when she would complain softly and seductively when he forgot to shave, even after the children were grown. Nowadays she preferred to be coy with her sons and daughter-in-law.

Feeling humiliated and defeated, Satyabrata sat on the easy chair in their verandah. He thought of his money that he had spent so freely on these turncoats. He thought of all the years of scrimping and saving to put his children through college and get his daughter and son married. He thought of his wife and her diamond earrings. This was life. You worked like a slave when you were young so you could enjoy a bit of peace and respect in your old age, but from the moment of your superannuating you slowly sank into oblivion. He buried his head in his hands to hide the tears that any passerby might see, thereby increasing his humiliation. At this particular point he resembled the old man in Vincent Van Gogh’s painting, but the painted version probably garnered more attention and sympathy than the real one of flesh and blood, sitting alone on an empty porch.

Days passed. Satyabrata, feeling that nobody cared, did not bother with his toilet. He went about in shabby clothes, recycling and re-using his own discarded clothes and sometimes the worn out ones from Debu and Shakti. He took no interest in his food, but resorted to raiding the kitchen whenever he felt hungry. Urmilla sometimes screamed at the maid or chased a stray and innocent cat. She did not notice even when he pilfered food right from under her nose. Once he snatched a biscuit from his dadubhai’s hands, just to see his reaction. But the child merely looked at his hands, wriggling the chubby fingers in fascinated surprise. Satyabrata looked at his grandson for a long time; ashamed of his action, he returned the biscuit to the still wriggling fingers.

One day Satyabrata decided to pay his office-para a visit. His ex-colleagues may not have time for him, but surely the canteen boys at the cafeteria, the Paan-shop where he bought his sachets of Paan Parag, and Manoj would remember him. He would enjoy listening to some real gossip.

Satyabrata swung his black umbrella as he walked along the road of his office-para. He almost believed that he was a workingman once again. The old landmarks, the potholes on the road, the faces of the bus conductors, shop owners and even many of the passersby seemed so familiar and warm to him that Satyabrata couldn’t stop smiling at all and sundry. The fact that nobody returned his smiles did not bother Satyabrata. He decided then and there that he would take his walks in his office-para.

Soon Satyabrata came to the Pipal tree under which a barber set up his open-air shop everyday. Most of the office peons had their chins shaved here. Satyabrata knew the barber by face. He had always nodded at him, though he had never taken up the barber’s offer of a haircut and shave. Satyabrata rubbed his chin. Maybe he would surprise the old boy today. Just then Satyabrata spied Manoj.

“Ki Manoj?” he hailed. “How’s work? How are the babus treating you?”

Manoj did not answer. He had a busy man’s worried expression on his face as he hurried down the road with a bundle of letters. Satyabrata’s face reddened at this slight. How dare Manoj ignore him, that ungrateful wretch!

“Did you see that?” he said to the barber. The barber smiled ingratiatingly. “What are you smiling about? You oaf!”

But the barber went on smiling and nodding his head. He didn’t seem to have heard Satyabrata at all. Satyabrata felt even more humiliated. Now a roadside barber who would have been overcome with pride in the past if Satyabrata had patronized him was ignoring him. Anger welled up his throat, almost choking him. Satyabrata wanted to choke the barber and smash his mirror on Manoj’s head. He spat viciously on the road as he turned to go.

Just then, his eyes fell on the glass shop window of a shop selling electronic goods. In it he saw reflected the people around him going about their daily business. He saw the barber smiling ingratiatingly at a potential customer who did not want a shave and was shaking his head vigorously to get this point across. He saw a couple of his ex-colleagues who had gone out to have a private conversation on the pretext of a cup of tea. He saw the reflection of a lady looking at a washing machine inside the shop. He saw the whole world around him, the same world of which he had been an indelible part before his retirement. But he did not see himself. His curiosity aroused, he peered into the glass for a closer look. No, there was no reflection at all.

Satyabrata stood very still, digesting this discovery. He could no longer hear the noise of the traffic and people around him. He tried catching a glimpse of himself from every possible angle, but there was none. He felt panic rise in his breast and his heart fluttered wildly inside his ribcage. In desperation, Satyabrata turned around and squatted in front of the barber’s mirror. Still no reflection. He picked it up and peered into the foot-long oblong of glass and mercury. He could see the shadows cast by the swaying leaves of the Pipal tree and a portion of an office building. But there was no reflection of his face even when he held the mirror right up to his nose.

Satyabrata reeled a little as he got up. It was just beginning to dawn on him that perhaps he had vanished. Just to make sure, Satyabrata made a face at the gentleman standing directly in his path. It was a deliberate action and Satyabrata made sure he was face to face with the man. There was no reaction. Satyabrata made a face again. Still no reaction. The man simply stared ahead as if there was no one standing in front of him and nothing had happened.

Satyabrata lurched his way to a patch of muddy green between two intersecting streets. It was supposed to be a park, but was so badly maintained that nobody used it except for beggars and rickshaw pullers. The park was empty at this hour. Satyabrata would not have cared even if it were crowded with lovers. He was too overcome. He sat down heavily on a bit of grass crusted with mud from last night’s rain. He stared at the world around him with unseeing eyes. He had vanished from this world. Nobody could see or hear him. He repeated this to himself a number of times, like a child trying to memorize his tables.

Satyabrata became more and more convinced that this phenomenon had not occurred overnight. He had been vanishing layer by layer like an unwanted oil painting that occupied space in a square of canvas—space that another set of oils could use.

Satyabrata felt himself moving away like a man who has just disembarked and is watching the train pull out from the station. He leaned back a little and breathed deeply. His anger and outrage started to soften and ease off his heart. He tilted his head skyward as he exhaled. He had actually vanished. He had completely vanished. Now he was free, truly free!

The hilarity of the situation struck him then, like a bolt from that hard blue dome above him. He had vanished completely. He was truly free. That meant that he could do whatever he liked. It did not matter any more. He could take off all his clothes and dance naked on this very patch of green if he liked! He could go back home and fart loudly on their faces as his family sat down to eat if he liked. He could do anything, no matter how preposterous, and still get away with it. And, Satyabrata started to laugh. He laughed and laughed, guffawing with his head thrown back and his hands on his hips. Satyabrata Chatterji laughed as he had never laughed before.