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- Story Listed as: Fiction For Adults
- Theme: Drama / Human Interest
- Subject: Comedy / Humor
- Published: 11/03/2012
The Eavesdropper
I had had several live experiences of eavesdropping before I came to know what the word 'Eavesdropping' actually stood for. I had already come across this word several times earlier and had liked the majesty and beauty of this high-sounding, sophisticated word, just as I had liked the word 'night-soil', without knowing its actual meaning, while reading, in my teenage, Alexander Solzhenitsyn's Nobel prize winning novel 'One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich'. Later, when I searched the dictionary for the meaning of the word 'night-soil' I had felt terribly embarrassed for having grown so fantastically fond of such an ugly-indicating word.
Similar was the case with 'eavesdropping'. It had appeared so lovable a word, wearing a garb of rare dignity and romance. I was fancying that anyone would feel proud, first, of holding in one's mouth a word of such wonderful charm and then, of delivering it to the spell-bound listener! I had guessed it to be a word of the fairy world, shrouded in mystery and romance. But, I had never actually searched for its meaning in the dictionary until one day when I came across a sentence - Eavesdropping is a moral sacrilege on others' privacy.
Until then I had cherished it in my memory as an isolated word. I had never considered it in any particular context. This time I was faced with a formidable task. I had to understand the meaning of the sentence, so I needed to know the meaning of the word. I leafed through the pages of the dictionary and found the word. The meaning I got there was: v. listen secretly to a private conversation. And that was the end of all the romancing with the word. I had eaten the forbidden fruit of heaven and had fallen from grace. I would have to reap the consequence of my folly.
After knowing the meaning of the word and that too in the context in which I encountered it first, I was filled with regret and remorse. I began to feel guilty of all the secret hearings I had made of others' private conversations- on purpose, out of curiosity or by chance. The word 'Eavesdropping', that had, so far, been my proud possession, became obnoxious, and repugnant, reminding me of my secret adventures of the past. I was reminded of the incident of one day when I was barely a boy of fifteen.
We were staying then on the first floor of a rented house. I was reading in Class XI. The house had a kitchen at the end of a long, roofless veranda that overlooked several single-storey and multi-storey buildings in a semi-circle. One who stood there would get exposed to the wide world as the wide world would stand exposed to him/her. But the kitchen had several chinks in one of its walls through which one could safely cast glances at the exposed parapet of the neighboring house, without getting exposed to the suspecting eyes of the neighbors. That was the most secure haven for the eavesdroppers.
That was the first occasion of my eavesdropping experience. I had not done it on purpose or out of habit, but the opportunity had come on its own. What could one do if a flying bird dropped a shining pearl on one's open palms!
The neighboring house had nestled a newly married couple. They were romantic as newly-weds ought to be and they cared nothing for time nor place. I had just returned home from my school, during recession. My school was hardly two hundred metres away and I used to rush to kitchen, the first thing, to swallow whatever eatable my searching eyes and groping fingers would manage to catch. I usually never bothered to peep through the chinks to the outside world. But, that afternoon, I heard giggles from the other side. Had it been a single giggle by a solitary soul I would not have bothered so much. But it was a rolling giggle punctuated by peculiar sounds of many shades. It was a perfectly synchronized male-female giggle too. This combination of effects had had its impact upon me and raising myself upon my heels, for the chinks were above my head height, I peeped through. What I saw was a legend then and is turning to a history now.
As much as the size of the chink on the wall and my upraised heels allowed me, I could see, what looked like, two human noses pressed on to each other. That set my zeal on fire. I discarded the support of my heels as an imperfect instrument to help view an extra-ordinary event. I quickly looked for a stool or a something that would allow me a straight posture without having to strain my back and crane my neck. I got hold of a kitchen stool (khatuli). Fortunately for me it raised me to the exact height leveling my pair of eyes to the girth of the chink. I wasted no more time and glanced through. I could see now a lot more than a couple of pressed noses- the pretty face of a young saree-clad woman and the handsome countenance of a young man.
Pressed noses, however soft, can not remain pressed for ever. So, after a little while, they were parted. My curious eyes felt a bit frustrated with this parting of ways, but my ears took over and were gratified next with the same frolicsome giggles they had heard a few moments back. They heard the pretty lady saying, "Hey! Don't be so romantic. We are married now. Don't behave the way you did earlier."
"Why ? What's the difference between then and now?"
"You were a lover then. You are a husband now."
"So ?"
" A lover tells sweet lies to his beloved admiring her beauty and grace, from tip to toe. She knows that he is lying, but remains quiet."
"And a husband?"
"A husband continues to tell the same lies, but she no longer remains quiet."
"What does she say then?"
"She does not say anything. She does.'
So, saying, she raised both her hands and held the ears of her husband with her fingers. She started to wring them.
I suddenly felt that my already strained ears were getting over-strained; this time not for listening to the couple's exchanges, but with the hard pull of muscles being wrung. For a moment I felt that I had empathized with the husband so well that i was feeling his ear-strains. But, when I heard the voice from behind my back, and turned round, my illusions, along with my sweet reverie, disappeared in a flash.
My mother stood there behind me, holding both my ears and saying, "Hey! What are you doing there? Won't you go back to your school?"
Trying to hide my embarrassment, I said, “Ma, I was just seeing if the guavas in the tree there are ripe yet.'
"Why? Will you steal them?"
I gave no reply. My act of 'guilt' had been caught- not the one I was really guilty of, but the one I had improvised on the spur of the moment. Anyway, justice had been rightly dispensed for the maiden act of eavesdropping I had committed.
The Eavesdropper(Prasanta Kumar Purohit)
The Eavesdropper
I had had several live experiences of eavesdropping before I came to know what the word 'Eavesdropping' actually stood for. I had already come across this word several times earlier and had liked the majesty and beauty of this high-sounding, sophisticated word, just as I had liked the word 'night-soil', without knowing its actual meaning, while reading, in my teenage, Alexander Solzhenitsyn's Nobel prize winning novel 'One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich'. Later, when I searched the dictionary for the meaning of the word 'night-soil' I had felt terribly embarrassed for having grown so fantastically fond of such an ugly-indicating word.
Similar was the case with 'eavesdropping'. It had appeared so lovable a word, wearing a garb of rare dignity and romance. I was fancying that anyone would feel proud, first, of holding in one's mouth a word of such wonderful charm and then, of delivering it to the spell-bound listener! I had guessed it to be a word of the fairy world, shrouded in mystery and romance. But, I had never actually searched for its meaning in the dictionary until one day when I came across a sentence - Eavesdropping is a moral sacrilege on others' privacy.
Until then I had cherished it in my memory as an isolated word. I had never considered it in any particular context. This time I was faced with a formidable task. I had to understand the meaning of the sentence, so I needed to know the meaning of the word. I leafed through the pages of the dictionary and found the word. The meaning I got there was: v. listen secretly to a private conversation. And that was the end of all the romancing with the word. I had eaten the forbidden fruit of heaven and had fallen from grace. I would have to reap the consequence of my folly.
After knowing the meaning of the word and that too in the context in which I encountered it first, I was filled with regret and remorse. I began to feel guilty of all the secret hearings I had made of others' private conversations- on purpose, out of curiosity or by chance. The word 'Eavesdropping', that had, so far, been my proud possession, became obnoxious, and repugnant, reminding me of my secret adventures of the past. I was reminded of the incident of one day when I was barely a boy of fifteen.
We were staying then on the first floor of a rented house. I was reading in Class XI. The house had a kitchen at the end of a long, roofless veranda that overlooked several single-storey and multi-storey buildings in a semi-circle. One who stood there would get exposed to the wide world as the wide world would stand exposed to him/her. But the kitchen had several chinks in one of its walls through which one could safely cast glances at the exposed parapet of the neighboring house, without getting exposed to the suspecting eyes of the neighbors. That was the most secure haven for the eavesdroppers.
That was the first occasion of my eavesdropping experience. I had not done it on purpose or out of habit, but the opportunity had come on its own. What could one do if a flying bird dropped a shining pearl on one's open palms!
The neighboring house had nestled a newly married couple. They were romantic as newly-weds ought to be and they cared nothing for time nor place. I had just returned home from my school, during recession. My school was hardly two hundred metres away and I used to rush to kitchen, the first thing, to swallow whatever eatable my searching eyes and groping fingers would manage to catch. I usually never bothered to peep through the chinks to the outside world. But, that afternoon, I heard giggles from the other side. Had it been a single giggle by a solitary soul I would not have bothered so much. But it was a rolling giggle punctuated by peculiar sounds of many shades. It was a perfectly synchronized male-female giggle too. This combination of effects had had its impact upon me and raising myself upon my heels, for the chinks were above my head height, I peeped through. What I saw was a legend then and is turning to a history now.
As much as the size of the chink on the wall and my upraised heels allowed me, I could see, what looked like, two human noses pressed on to each other. That set my zeal on fire. I discarded the support of my heels as an imperfect instrument to help view an extra-ordinary event. I quickly looked for a stool or a something that would allow me a straight posture without having to strain my back and crane my neck. I got hold of a kitchen stool (khatuli). Fortunately for me it raised me to the exact height leveling my pair of eyes to the girth of the chink. I wasted no more time and glanced through. I could see now a lot more than a couple of pressed noses- the pretty face of a young saree-clad woman and the handsome countenance of a young man.
Pressed noses, however soft, can not remain pressed for ever. So, after a little while, they were parted. My curious eyes felt a bit frustrated with this parting of ways, but my ears took over and were gratified next with the same frolicsome giggles they had heard a few moments back. They heard the pretty lady saying, "Hey! Don't be so romantic. We are married now. Don't behave the way you did earlier."
"Why ? What's the difference between then and now?"
"You were a lover then. You are a husband now."
"So ?"
" A lover tells sweet lies to his beloved admiring her beauty and grace, from tip to toe. She knows that he is lying, but remains quiet."
"And a husband?"
"A husband continues to tell the same lies, but she no longer remains quiet."
"What does she say then?"
"She does not say anything. She does.'
So, saying, she raised both her hands and held the ears of her husband with her fingers. She started to wring them.
I suddenly felt that my already strained ears were getting over-strained; this time not for listening to the couple's exchanges, but with the hard pull of muscles being wrung. For a moment I felt that I had empathized with the husband so well that i was feeling his ear-strains. But, when I heard the voice from behind my back, and turned round, my illusions, along with my sweet reverie, disappeared in a flash.
My mother stood there behind me, holding both my ears and saying, "Hey! What are you doing there? Won't you go back to your school?"
Trying to hide my embarrassment, I said, “Ma, I was just seeing if the guavas in the tree there are ripe yet.'
"Why? Will you steal them?"
I gave no reply. My act of 'guilt' had been caught- not the one I was really guilty of, but the one I had improvised on the spur of the moment. Anyway, justice had been rightly dispensed for the maiden act of eavesdropping I had committed.
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