Their Ironic Cliches

The Transparent Ironist looks around on the cold pavement for discarded half-smoked cigarette butts. Finally, he finds one, fumbles in his grey coat pocket for his match-box, lights the butt, and lumbers towards the phone booth. With hands slightly shaking, he dials the numbers, one after the other, and listens, with a growing trepidation, to the phone ringing at the other end.

Ankita : Hello?

Ironist : Ankita, is that you?

A : Who is this?

I : Erm, well you know.

A : Mimon! Is that you?

I : Yes.

A minute of cold silence. And then the line comes alive again.

A : Are you still there?

I : Yes.

A : I can't believe this. Do you know after how many years you are calling me?

I : Yes.

A : Why didn't you phone me, email me, or write to me the last twenty years?

I : Well, I don't know. It is hard to explain.

A : Nothing that hard to explain to a sister?

I : Well, you see, that is part of the problem.

A : What is?

I : That you are my sister.

A : Excuse me?

I : I mean, that's all I mean. The problem is that you are my sister.

A : What the hell is that supposed to mean? You couldn't talk to me or tell me where you have been because I am your sister?

I : Well, not quite. Let's say that you are a part of my family.

A : So what's wrong with that? I can't change it, can I, that you are my brother?

I : Yes, and that is where the problem lies.

A : Would you please tell me precisely what the problem is?

I : Well, that is just the problem. I had to stay away from you because you are family to me.

There is another sudden silence.

A : Hello? I think I don't know what to say anymore. I am too, I am too ...

I : Yes.

A : What do you mean 'yes'?

I : Well, nothing really.

A : So one more time. What is the problem if I am family to you? You mean you can't be in touch with people simply because they are family to you?

I : Yes, I guess that is a neat summary of the problem.

A : But that's utterly ridiculous. Heavens! What is that supposed to mean? Why can't you be with people who are family to you?

I : I don't know. Perhaps that's the way I am : I feel claustrophobic, suffocated, and squeezed out within any family, and can live only at the margins, the peripheries, and the boundaries of any system, but never at the centre or within the circumference.

A : Well, I don't know what to say anymore. Why are you phoning me then? Are you not coming close to the centre, my centre, right now?

I : Yes, I am.

A : So why phone me then?

I : Because I am large enough to contain contradictions within myself.

A : You idiot! I think the truth is that you were never able to face yourself in the mirror, and so you kept on running away from yourself all your life.

I : Well, I am not running away right now.

A : But how would I know?

I : Yes, indeed, how would you know?

Ankita slams the phone down, and the Ironist walks out into the pouring rain. He rushes towards a dimly-lit cafe at the corner, seats down at a table, and takes out an old thumbed copy of Hegel from under his wet coat. He opens it at page 45 and reads : 'That which is most well-known remains forever unknown to us --- precisely because it is so well-known.'