The Man Who Wanted Another Life | A Ponmanipudi Story About Dreams, Hope and the Quiet Courage to Begin Again

The Man Who Wanted Another Life

The first time I met Balan, he argued with me over sugar.

"Dr. Chari..."

"Yes?"

"If I stop sweets..."

"Hmm?"

"...will life become sweeter? More happier? "

I laughed as he asked with a straight face.

He didn't.....

Everybody knew Balan. His Kirana store stood at the entrance of Ponmanipudi, opposite the Big Arch.

From five in the morning until ten at night, Balan never closed his Kirana store....

Balan always smiled. Even when packing rice, measuring sugar,

giving chocolates to children, a hint of smile hovered on his face.

Balan extended credit to struggling families, remembered birthdays, asked about sick grandparents and forgot nobody....

"Anna..."

A little girl stretched a tiny hand over the counter.

"I have only five rupees."

Balan smiled broadly.

"Then today chocolate also costs five rupees."

The girl ran home beaming and giggling.

Balan watched the little girl leave. Then quietly returned to arranging detergent packets...

People often said,

"Balan has everything." "A good business, a house, a wife, a son and huge respect... everything that mattered."

Only Balan knew how lonely a full life felt.

Every night his wife, Suma, and Balan argued liberally about salt, money, the dog sleeping inside, their son's tuition, and about whose family interfered more....

Sometimes they forgot what the argument had started about....only that it had started.

One afternoon Balan arrived in my emergency room clutching his chest....sweat poured down his face. His shirt clung to him.

His lips had turned pale......

"Balan!"

He forced a smile.

"Business closed early today sir."

The ECG wasn't smiling. It was bad.

Within minutes, we stabilized him.

The ambulance stood ready.....we wanted to send him to cardiac center at Rajathooram....angioplasty..............Immediately.

I explained everything.

Balan listened quietly....nodded, signed the papers.....and calmly entered the ambulance.

Two days later, Bala walked into my outpatient clinic....alive....smiling as always. He clutched a cloth bag filled with guavas.

"Doctor saar"

"What happened?"

"I came back."

"I can see that."

"The angioplasty?"

"I didn't do it."

For a moment I thought I had heard him wrongly.

"What?"

"I came home."

"Balan..."

"It was expensive."

"We'll manage."

"I know."

"You could have died."

"I know."

Nothing about him made sense. Had he lost his senses??

That evening, after the patients had gone, I closed my consulting room door and caught Balan sitting alone in his Kirana store....

"Balan."

"Hmm?"

"Tell me the truth."

He looked out the window for a long time.

The rain had begun. A gentle drizzle.....

Finally Balan spoke.....very softly.

"Doctor..."

"Yes?"

"I'm tired."

"Of the pain?"

He shook his head vigorously....

"Of waking up."

The store was silent....

"I don't want to kill myself."

Another long pause.

"I just don't want tomorrow."

The room became unbearably quiet.

He continued looking outside.

"Everybody thinks I am lucky."

"They should."

"I smile all day."

"I know."

"I help people."

"I know."

"I wanted to write."

The words arrived almost apologetically.

"I wanted to write stories."

"I wanted to travel."

"I wanted to meet people."

"I wanted to live many lives."

"A trap...a rat hole...now my life"

He laughed....A small embarrassed laugh.

"Instead..."

"I know the price of every soap."

"And every biscuit."

"And every cooking oil."

His eyes filled with tears...

"I don't know the price of my own life anymore."

For a long time I said nothing.

Sometimes silence is better than advice...or words....

Then Balan whispered something, I have never forgotten.

"Maybe..."

"Hmm?"

"If I die now..."

"...God will give me another chance."

Not because he hated life. Because he couldn't imagine changing this one....

Months passed.....

Balan never became a famous writer...He never travelled the world...Infact he never left Ponmanipudi..

But every Thursday afternoon...the Kirana shop closed puntually...

A handwritten board had appeared...."Closed until 6 p.m."

Nobody knew why....a mystery..

Years later I discovered the reason.

Every Thursday...Balan sat beneath the banyan tree with six or more village children...

They wrote stories.....terrible stories, wonderful stories, funny stories, impossible stories....

Balan never published a single word...

But those children did....One became a journalist. Another wrote children's books..One girl became a playwright....another a Booker winner...

Long after Balan was gone...people still remembered Thursday afternoons beneath the banyan tree.

Sometimes...the life we think we missed quietly finds another way of living.

I still pass the old kirana shop.

Sometimes I imagine Balan standing there...smiling...arguing over sugar....giving chocolates away for five rupees.....

And waiting for Thursday.🌿

Welcome to Ponmanipudi...

where nothing is as it seems.