Book of Destruction

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Like someone barging into your house without so much as a knock on the door, and smashing things around — that was how he manifested before me that day. Although just then he was physically incapable of anything as energetic as that. And, anyway, storming in would certainly not be his style, at least from what I can recall about him from our brief acquaintance, now almost forty-five years ago. This time too, if you ask me, I can’t say he exhibited any such inclination during his very brief appearance that lasted not more than a few minutes. But sometimes there is an expressive force that lies hidden in certain encounters or even gestures, the stormy trail of which can be perceived only after they are past us. Stormy were the days that followed for me, when everything, as far as this person was concerned, was over.

Seshadri, for that was his name, must have been in his thirties when I first met him. After an acquaintance that lasted perhaps a month or two, he had disappeared under near-mysterious circumstances, which was perhaps the reason I had remembered him for so long. I can’t say he had played any important part in my life then or that he had influenced me in any memorable manner. But today, in his eighties, old and weak, when he bid me goodbye forever, I stood there scared and perplexed. Some people make their presence felt through their disappearance. Seshadri’s presence was felt by what he left behind each time. Forty-five years ago it was an unsolved puzzle, and now, a lingering and biting fear.

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