A Free Kick In A Dangerous Position (short story)
"Ranjan used my life’s meaninglessness to convince me to watch football with him."
Monday morning. I could not get up from the bed. I tried to, but leaving the bed seemed to require superhuman strength.
Ranjan realized what was happening. His way of dealing with it was to hurry up and get ready for work earlier than usual. After his muesli and fruit, he walked up to my side of the bed and ran his fingers through my hair. Two of his fingers got stuck in a knot. He tried to yank them through. I shrieked in hurt. Then he withdrew the fingers carefully.
‘I know life appears meaningless right now,’ he whispered.
‘Huh?’
‘Yes, I know.’
He then took the next quarter of an hour to explain to me how life’s meaninglessness was for all practical purposes a boon. ‘If life had meaning, if we all had a purpose, there would be nothing else to live for other than that purpose,’ he said somewhere in his monologue.
I tried to tell him that he was needlessly philosophical, that my inability to get up from the bed was not because I regarded life as meaningless. It wasn’t important to me what life was. But Ranjan was in flow. When in flow, he can’t listen.
‘What a nightmare a horde of purpose-driven people would be,’ he said, looking vacantly at a colourful print I’d pasted on a wall. A woman eating mangoes. Artist unknown. I felt like eating mangoes. ‘And what is the guarantee that our expressly stated purpose does not collide with another’s? There will be some people whose purpose would be to fight with another person for a higher purpose. That introduces a complication, does it not? Is the fighting person’s purpose only to fight, or is the purpose entangled with the outcome of the fight? Let’s say the purpose is to lose the fight. That can happen, why not? But let’s say the counterparty is also supposed to lose the fight. What do we have then? We have two people trying to fulfil their purposes, both trying to lose a fight. This can’t be resolved! At least one of them will have to improvise. They will have to redefine their momentary purpose as withdrawing from a fight. So, what do we have here? I think we have a simple illustration of the fact that things will be complicated even in a life full of meaning. Do you get what I’m saying? Our expressly stated purposes shall always be impeded by other people’s expressly stated purposes. It is purposelessness that makes us amiable, then. It is purposelessness that makes us collaborate. It is purposelessness that allows us to redefine ourselves. You see what I’m driving at?’
‘No.’
‘I’m asking you not to bemoan life’s meaninglessness. I’m asking you to redefine yourself.’
‘I’m not bemoaning life’s meaninglessness. I’m just… depressed.’
‘But depression has to be related to life’s meaninglessness. You get what I’m saying?’
‘Go to your office, Ranjan.’
‘I will, I will now. I will go to my office. But think of it, office work is all collaboration, no? Why? What for? Just money? At our offices, we are essentially playing out the meaninglessness of life. Even enjoying it. Isn’t it? I’ll leave you with this thought now,’ he leaned forward and kissed me on the forehead.
‘Thank you for leaving me with this thought,’ I said, picking up my phone to text an excuse to my boss.
He left. I wondered what purpose I would share with him in case our lives suddenly turned meaningful. I played soothing music on my phone and tried to go to sleep.
Saturday evening. Ranjan used my life’s meaninglessness to convince me to watch football with him. There was a red team and a white team. I like the colour red, so I announced that I would support the red team. He tried to explain why he supported the white team and why I should also support the white team, but I invoked my life’s meaninglessness and shut him up.
The red team scored. Then it scored again. Then it was half-time, and the players all walked towards a tunnel with sullen faces, even those who were winning.
Ranjan tried to explain to me how the white team was ‘staying in a rigid 4-1-5 position’ when their goalkeeper had the ball and how it meant that they could not ‘use the middle of the pitch’. I didn’t understand any of that, so I just said, ‘The red team is playing better.’ ‘That’s broadly right,’ Ranjan replied. The commentator said something about a free kick in a dangerous position. Then something about a missed opportunity. Then something about making the right substitutions at the right time. For some reason, these phrases got seared in my mind.
Sunday morning. I told Ranjan that I wanted a divorce. We were inside our Micra, going to the hypermarket. Ranjan was driving. ‘This isn’t about me,’ he said after a minute. ‘This is all about you. Right?’
I didn’t answer. If life was meaningless, it really didn’t matter if I stayed married to Ranjan or if we separated. But meaning was not the axis on which I tended to weigh my life. I had clear memories of being happy a few years ago. Before our marriage. I used to watch rom-coms. I used to read chick-lit. I used to listen to Punjabi songs. I used to have sex with an earlier, less obnoxious Ranjan.
‘Right?’ Ranjan asked again. We were in the basement parking lot, waiting for a lift.
‘What is the difference between a supermarket and a hypermarket?’ I asked to keep him busy.
Ranjan started telling me the difference. What he said was unconvincing. Inside the lift, a man overheard him and pointed out that his definition of a supermarket was faulty because it left no distinction between a supermarket and a simple grocery store. The man then proceeded to differentiate three kinds of markets per the parameter of size, giving square-meter ranges for each, which he also tried to convert to square feet for my benefit. ‘Size matters,’ he said with a guffaw when we were all leaving the elevator. Being polite, we had missed our floor and now had to take the lift down. For a second I wished for all the men in the world to be freely kicked.
Sunday, late evening. As we were on the bed, Ranjan abused the man in the elevator for diverting us from an important conversation.
‘I feel like taking a free kick in a dangerous position,’ I announced. Almost instantly, Ranjan’s hand approached his crotch in defence. I burst into laughter. We burst into laughter. I clarified that I was talking about the divorce. ‘Yes, it is about you,’ Ranjan said.
For the next few minutes, Ranjan tried to equate my demand for a divorce to the demands of Kashmiri separatists. ‘The Indian state should use love to reintegrate the Kashmiris,’ he said. He then criticized his analogy, saying that he could in no way be equated with the Indian state because he had no inclination towards using force of any kind. He then segued into talking about a disputed island between two Nordic countries, and how the countries dealt with the dispute through love, with either navy leaving behind Christmas gifts for the other. ‘We are two Nordic countries needing to build some warmth,’ he said. His example then morphed into an attempt to convince me how a resumption of sexual activity would ‘cure me of my separatist ideas’.
‘It’s a missed opportunity,’ I replied.
‘For?’
‘For you. For the Indian state. For the Nordic states.’
I nevertheless moved closer to him and held his hand in mine. I placed his hand on my hip. We had sex. It was not very enjoyable, but it was meaningful. It delivered a different meaning to Ranjan and a different meaning to me. Ranjan talked about how we should do it more frequently. I thought about how we should never do it again.
Monday morning. We left for work together. In the Micra, I told him how in life, like in football, it was important to make the right substitutions at the right time. He didn’t respond, and I felt like I’d won something. When my office arrived and I made to leave the car, Ranjan mumbled something about how I would not find anyone who loved me as much as he did.
This made me wonder if it had ever happened that a football coach took out a player from the field but did not send a substitute in. What a statement that would be: the ultimate testament to how the coach regretted the original mistake and mistrusted the alternatives available. Google did not give me a satisfactory answer.
I reached my office, sat at my desk, marked my attendance. Monday consumed me, and I didn’t have a moment to ponder life’s spectacular meaninglessness. Or meaningfulness. By afternoon I was depressed again, though in a functional way. Ranjan texted me a review of a web series ‘that, among other things, delivered biting commentary on the peculiarly demanding lives of single women in big, busy cities.’
‘Sounds interesting,’ I said.
‘Want to watch it tonight?’ he asked.
‘I meant the idea of a demanding life.’
A few minutes later, I asked my boss for a weeklong holiday. When the request was approved, I booked a ticket to Srinagar.
The story was first published in Indian Express in August 2019. I have edited it after that first publication.
I loved this short story! And had the very interesting experience of identifying more with the clueless man in the story than the woman slowly but surely taking charge of her life.
Love your voice, Tanuj
🌸
Loved the story Tanuj! It pulled me in from the first para, my curiosity piqued as Ranjan began his first monologue. Loved the character-building and the way you have written about the relationship. Lovely and fresh!