Readers Write In #868: Broken Mirror

By Madan Mohan

I look into the mirror as I splash water on my face to wash off the residue of sleep.  And what I see shakes the sleep out of my system in an instant.

It is my face that I see in the mirror and yet….the reflection is of myself from a few years back when I had fewer strands of grey hair and when I still had cheeks you could pull at with your hands.  But it isn’t just that which startles me.  It is that this person, this reflection of a younger version of mine is glaring at me with a look of red-hot fury.

I try to de-escalate the situation and ask, “Hey bro, why so serious?  Don’t you recognize me?  Why you angry with yourself?”

The person in the mirror shakes his head vigorously and says, “No, I don’t recognize you.”

I am incredulous, “What!”

The person continues, “I don’t recognize what you have become.  You’re not me.  You have changed.”

Incredulity turns to indignation now.  “Oh really, so that’s what you’re getting at, huh.”

“I am. I am disappointed in you.”

I burst out laughing. “You’re disappointed that…I survived, that I made it, that I am thriving where YOU would have got crushed?  Hoo boy, can’t make this up!”

“You didn’t need to change to survive, bro.  That’s just a lousy excuse you’re making for yourself.”

My voice climbs as I retort, “Dude, I have news for you.  Life happens.  And life happened to me.  And had I remained the guy you were, I wouldn’t have made it.”

I continue, “You who got so messed up in the head one day you banged your car into the wall of the same parking lot you had been using day in day out…would you have been able to drive a car with one set of wheels on the road and another on the pavement?  Bet you would have shivered in fright and looked for Dinesh to help, to drive you out of the ditch.  Except Dinesh is still in India and not in Harare.  When my chauffeur here leaves for his home before I can because he has got miles more to go, I have to drive.  And I have to do what it takes.”

The other dude is still glowering with rage but says nothing.

“Yup, that’s the rub, I do what it takes. I get it done, no matter what.  And that isn’t something that could be said about you.  You and your high and mighty principles behind which you always hid so nobody would find out what a shrinking violet you were.”

He now finds his voice again, “I don’t agree at all.”

“Of course you don’t.  Just as you didn’t agree at all with what Samay was doing but all you did was stand silently while he took your job away.  You wouldn’t have lasted a day under Ranveer.  Heck, I give it an hour before you would have rushed back to Robert Mugabe Airport.”

He is defiant. “What’s even the point of working for someone like Ranveer, dude?  What are you trying to achieve?  Win a medal at the toxicity survival Olympics?”

Hands folded, I regard him with a mixture of pity and amusement.  I ask, “Dude, you had your chance.  What great genius did you reveal in yourself when you were on a break?  Did you do something then to give yourself the option to say f you and walk away?  The answer is a resounding no.”

“Bro, I was only just getting back on my feet again after covid.  You didn’t have to deal with it.  I had to.  Don’t forget that.”

I look for my next new witty retort to bury him but I can’t. 

He continues, “You’re playing tennis 6 days a week again.  Like I used to.  Before I got covid.  And found I couldn’t even walk up stairs without breathing very heavily and feeling exhausted.  And everyone I turned to help just said there was nothing wrong with me, that I was just making it up. You don’t know how that feels.”

“I do.”  I barely manage to intone as tears start to stream down my face. “I remember it well, remember it like yesterday.”

“No you don’t.  You don’t know me anymore.”

“I had to turn the page, man.  Some part of you had to die and be reborn as me.  Would you rather not be able to look at me on the other side, at any version of you?”

“But you’re not any version of me.  You don’t even listen to Ilayaraja anymore.  It’s just Beethoven, Brahms, Mahler over and over.  You’re driving me crazy.”

“No man!” I exclaim in protest. “Just the other day, I heard Nikattuma Pogattuma.  I heard it three times back to back.  Bet you haven’t done that in a long time.”

“Really bro?  I love that song so much.”

“Of course you do!”

“Bro, I am sorry I snapped at you.”  He says, heading towards me for a warm hug.

I extend my hands out for the embrace and then…poof!  He’s gone and I see my own puzzled reflection staring back at me, wondering why I’ve got my hands out wide like a lunatic.

Just then, the phone rings.  Must be boss Ranveer.  Eesh, I better get this over with ASAP.  A new day beckons and I have to close the book once more on a life I lived, on a person I knew once upon a time…