THE SECOND DIARY

THE SECOND DIARY.

                                                                                    - by S. Bhaskar Bhat.

Vishwas is a Bank employee aged on the wrong side of 40, a person looking outwardly brave, though a coward inside.

Once he had braved the neighbor’s Alsatian dog by caning it when it had strayed into his compound for defecating. The owner of the dog had come out of his house challenging the dog’s tormentor on hearing the dog’s cries for help. Vishwas had then hid himself inside his house by locking all the doors, afraid of retaliatory action.

Forgetfulness is another of the traits of our man, other than his cowardice. One day he had forgotten to remove his club membership card from his shirt pocket before handing over the shirt to his wife for washing. The finding of the membership card and further enquiries would have revealed that said club was notorious for gambling and that her beloved husband was its member.

Luck had favored Vishwas and the membership card went straight to the washing machine along with the shirt for washing, escaping the notice of his unsuspecting wife. These were minor things not of much material consequence in his otherwise acceptable countenance.

His is a happy family of self, his wife Shrimathi and his teen aged daughter Kumari. Adored by wife Shrimathi as a good husband material and as a nice papa by daughter Kumari, by habit, he is dutiful in his role as head of his family. He enjoys the unsuspecting affection, confidence and faith of his family members.

 One morning at his residence, Vishwas was reading the newspaper, when he heard somebody call out POST loudly and followed with the thud of a slightly heavy object in his room. He stooped down to check. It was an unregistered post parcel from a monthly magazine to which he had recently subscribed.

As an announced free gift for subscribing the monthly, it contained a beautiful cloth-bound diary along with a letter addressed to him, congratulating him for having become the proud subscriber of the prestigious monthly and the owner of the said diary.

He started recollecting. He remembered having read the last November issue of the said monthly. The monthly had offered various surprise gifts, one of them a beautiful new year’s diary to new subscribers.

Now, our Vishwas needed a diary for his ‘personal’ use. Tempted by the offer, he sent a bank draft for subscription of the monthly post haste and had with as much haste forgotten the matter altogether.

With the probability of new diary being received as a gift out of his mind due to his usual forgetfulness, and as a matter of routine, on the last day of the year, he had purchased a new year’s diary and the said diary was in use till now.

The diary that was already in use covered daily expenses, important events of the day, future appointments and other sundries that had a transparency about them. Or in other words this diary was open for ‘inspection and audit’ by his family members which included his wife Shrimathi and teen aged daughter Kumari.

Henceforth, the ‘inspection and audit’ team is simply expressed as ‘team’ for purpose of brevity. The entries in the diary sometimes needed further explaining like why he spent Rupees six hundred on sweets when he was a diabetic. He had Herculean task telling various lies and correlating the said lies into one believable story.

As per his story, he was very fond of his colleague Ramu’s high school going son Shrinidhi who had passed with distinction in the recent public examination. As a token of appreciation, Vishwas had bought sweets and presented them to Shrinidhi. Initially the ‘team’ had accepted the explanation. But subsequently, the ‘team’ had the occasion of getting introduced to Smt. Ranjana, Ramu’s wife, at a party.

As was natural, the ‘team’ fondly remembered the sweets’ incident and related it to Ramu’s wife. Ramu’s wife looked perplexed. She told the ‘team’ that her son is still in the lower kindergarten school and that her son might have been mistaken for another. When further questioned about the anomaly in the story, Vishwas pretended forgetting the name of the person in the story.

After that Vishwas had to search a substitute for Ramu whose son matched the details in the ‘sweets story’. Ultimately Vishwas found a Krishna whose son matched the descriptions of the story with the only problem being that the public examination under reference was still a good two months away.

Vishwas regained the confidence of the ‘team’ by substituting ‘Ramu’ with ‘Krishna’ and by duly modifying the public examination as preliminary examination.  The chief of the team that is his wife Shrimathi chided with a loving remark ‘Oh Vishwas- how forgetful you have become’.

There were many instances like this where he had narrowly escaped, his forgetful nature coming to his rescue in hiding his other face. Incidentally, these Rupees six hundred only, was the money lost in playing cards.

Instances like these he could not explain rationally due to his gentleman’s facade covering a small time gambler. He used to bet petty amounts and had a circle of friends indulging in this ‘pastime’ some of whom were also his office colleagues.

But for this small time weakness, he and his friends were normal people with normal ethics and values programmed into their mind’s computer by virtue of their good upbringing. Since the stakes involved and the money lost/gained were small, this nefarious activity did not come to the notice of his family members. To Shrimathi and Kumari, he was an honest and truthful husband and a benevolent father but for this hidden weak spot.

He had to maintain the facade for free and smooth conduct of his activity without inviting censure by the family. In order to maintain the facade, he was really in need of a secret second diary to cover the recording of such actions which were to be kept confidential and out of the ereach of his family.

If the diary were made available at his residence he would be inviting trouble. So it had to be kept away from home at the table-drawer in his work place under lock and key. This task was executed immediately by him.

As already explained, occasionally, Vishwas was forgetting things. Only with a difference that other colleagues mostly forgot the moneys borrowed only but in the case of Vishwas, it was both ways.  Sometimes he used to act a Good Samaritan by going to the rescue of his gambling friends who had lost heavily in the bets by lending them small sums of money, of course with a profit angle, which was exorbitant rates of interest, true to the nature of his hobby.

Vishwas had to depend on the integrity of his betting friends for repayment of the moneys so lent. Generally his friends repaid him as promised. In case the friends defaulted, he had no means of tracking receivables to enable a ‘friendly’ reminder on the due date. This diary provided that God-sent opportunity to him.

In the privacy of his workplace, away from his family, the entries in the second diary were faithfully recorded, rupee to paisa, the amounts betted, amounts lost, amounts gained, amounts payable, amounts receivable, interest calculations and the daily carry over balances in gambling.

Due to the good omen the second diary brought or by mere coincidence, Vishwas remembered that, sometime back, before the arrival of this second diary, he had lent money to one of his friends by name Suhas to the extent of one thousand rupees in order to finance the deficit on the close of that particular day’s bet.

Since the amount was not small enough to be ignored, the short fall had then caught the notice of the ‘team’. On questioning, he had lied that he was robbed by a pickpocket. The ‘team’ was satisfied with the explanation and ultimately the said amount was recommended to be written off as loss which was gleefully obliged by the apparent gentleman in Vishwas. This ‘loss’ to the transparent accounting world and receivable to the shady accounting world was out of sight of ‘team’ at that time.

But now the memory flash of the incident revived the prospects of receiving of the ‘lost money’ in unaccounted form for sourcing his petty and harmless (to others) criminal activities as described earlier. The entry pertaining to the above transaction is the subject matter of this story.

He immediately contacted Suhas over phone and reminded him about the old dues to be repaid.   Suhas asked for a month’s time since he did not have the money then. Outwardly, Vishwas was a tough man on defaulters and threatened of dire consequences in case the money was not paid in time as promised even though the coward inside him was fondly hoping for the recovery of the money. In reply, Suhas had assured of prompt payment as per his word.

Vishwas faithfully made an entry of Suhas’ promise in his second diary and was happy that the money to be received would escape the notice of ‘income and audit department’ since the same was earlier written off as lost and dead from the transparent first diary. Now, he could use this receivable for his nefarious activity unquestioned by the ‘audit team’ and was eagerly awaiting the payment on the promised date. And days passed.

True to his nature, he had forgotten the date of payment from his memory and the date written in the second diary was the only good record prompting Vishwas to remind his debtor friend.  The promised date as noted in the second diary arrived but the payment had not forth come. Angry and frustrated, he reminded Suhas of the non-payment. Suhas insisted that he made the payment as promised.

The exchange of words grew a bit more uncomfortable as both friends started using choicest of expletives. Suddenly, Suhas banged the receiver at the other end. Vishwas’ mouth dried up, and he started sweating.

At one time, he thought about what he could do to recover the money. Various scenarios played out in his mind, much akin to the South Indian masala films. In one scenario, he would walk into Suhas in a bar, grab him by the collar and start administering carefully selected blows ringing ‘dishum’… ‘dishum’. In the scenario, Suhas would take out a knife and plunge it into Vishwas’ belly. Vishwas’ stomach really started aching at this thought.

It was another matter that beyond the ‘friendly’ betting, both of them, including Suhas at the other end, were decent office-goers and wont to run at the slightest indication of violence or crime.

So, with a thousand thoughts and scenarios running through his mind, Vishwas returned home from his office.

On reaching his residence, Vishwas was welcomed to the sight of his daughter wearing a new dress. He did not remember having bought the dress, and was understandably surprised.  

“Shrimathi, do you remember when this dress was bought?” asked a perplexed Vishwas.

Shrimathi replied: “Vishwas, around a month back somebody by name Suhas had come and handed over a thousand rupees. He told me to pass it on to you being the old dues by him. With that money, I had bought a new dress for daughter Kumari. I had forgotten to inform you”