Page 79 - Musings 2022

Prachi doesn’t reply. I turn and look around to them both, and they are also averting their gazes.
I am not feeling so well.
‘I didn’t want to talk with you like this, but I cannot wait around anymore! Not after that phone
call from Mumma. But now I am here, I am not sure how to break this to you.’
I suddenly realise what she may be talking about. I cannot remember this before, but Prachi is
a psychiatrist.
I turn to Kunal. ‘You back-stabbing bastard. How do you think I felt when you said that you
believed me, huh? Was this all a game to you? Tell me, you were laughing behind my back,
right? Calling me crazy and everything?’
Kunal cannot look me in the eye, and that just boils my blood even more. I turn to Prachi.
‘Please don’t believe these two. I am not hallucinating or anything – I am completely sane, and
I understand my position. You have to believe me.’
‘I am not sure how to break this to you, but they are right,’ she says this slowly, as if letting
every single word seep.
I smack the table beside me hard enough that it topples.
‘Not you too, Prachi.’
‘Calm down, Papa, and listen to me. What I meant to say was that that’s my impression about
your condition based on what I got from them. I don’t know your side.’
‘Why the hell would that matter when you have already made up your mind?’ I answer bitterly.
‘Because you can convince me.’ She is flailing her arms around continuously. ‘How about this
– I will ask you some questions, and if you can answer them all, I’ll believe you.’
I did not reply, but she took my silence for approval.
‘Your name?’
‘Anil Gupta.’
‘Your age?’
‘42.’
‘Your job?’
‘I am a lawyer.’
‘In which firm?’
‘In…’
I stop in between my thoughts. I cannot seem to remember where I worked. In fact, I cannot
seem to recall ever working as a lawyer. But I am sure that I am a lawyer.
‘In which firm?’ Prachi repeats her question.
‘I don’t remember,’ I answered reluctantly.
She seemed unfazed by this display and continued with her questions.
‘What’s your wife’s job?’
‘She is a teacher. At Tulips Primary School.’ I added the last bit without her asking. I am getting
impatient – how is any of this related to anything?
Prachi is wearing a harsh face, as if talking to a patient and not her own father.
‘I have one last question. Who is Vikrant Gupta?’
Why, that is my son – your own brother! I will have said this without batting an eye, but
something is not right.
Where is Vikrant right now? Seema is here, Prachi is here, and even Kunal as well. But where
is he? And why can't I remember what he is doing right now! It’s like I cannot remember

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