Past Fast-- II

(Continued from here)
The next morning, Thatha refused breakfast. I entered the kitchen to find Amma muttering to herself furiously—strangely, it reminded me of Pati in her final days. Half-deaf and increasingly disinterested in daily affairs, Pati spent the bulk of her waking hours in a peculiar state of quiet frenzy— she perpetually chanted Lord Vishnu’s name under her breath, ordering Him to show Himself. She would rant about His continuous absence and question His very existence, all in an understated yet angry manner. Amma today was just like that, except her mantra involved largely the following words—old man, senile, fool, waste—interspersed with other choice expletives.

By noon, lunch was served. And Thatha’s leaf was still friendless. Amma’s frown had grown set; she still didn’t say a word to Thatha, showing a spirit of passive resistance to open confrontation that matched Thatha’s own.

Thatha on the other hand, spent the bulk of the day writing and hanging a banner outside the house that said, in big, bold, black Kannada letters: “Indefinite Hunger Strike. We want Bus”. The first curious onlookers were children, all around my age, who stared and stared at banner that might as well have been in Greek. I took upon the task of campaign propagandist, explaining in grand detail Thatha’s motives.

By dusk, Appa was back, tired from his work in the fields and dinner was served. And refused. That finally broke Amma’s spirit: her upper-lip stiff, on the verge of tears, she told Appa of his father’s madness. Appa listened, initially with amusement, then with increasing alarm and did something I had never seen him do in my presence—put his arm around her. It was a brief, abrupt hug, but long enough for me to turn away embarrassed. And Amma, oblivious to all, let out a barely audible sob. Appa turned to me, smiled wearily and said: where’s Thatha? Mutely, I pointed towards the door and Appa went outside and I followed.
Thatha sat by the stairs outside, apparently nonplussed, staring into the distance.
“Appa” Appa addressed his Appa, “What are you doing?”
“Watching dusk give way to night; watching the sun make way for the moon”
Appa sighed, clicked his tongue, looked down, stretched his feet, and said:
“What are you doing, Appa?”
Thatha looked at Appa and smiled:
“This village needs a bus”
“So?”
“So, I am fasting to death to ensure this village gets one”
Appa sunk his head in his hands.
“And” he said, eventually looking up, “How do you think that is going to help?”
Thatha looked at Appa—his eyes excited, his voice acquiring a strength of its own, and said:
“I have written letters. One to the District Commissioner, a couple more to the Transport Office in Haladi, one to the Municipal Corporation in Bangalore, one more to the Transport Minister of the State and finally—“ he said and paused for dramatic effect, and I could sense something big was coming, “to the CM—Chief Minister!”
I tore my eyes off Thatha’s face—flush with delight—to Appa’s— unimpressed, weary eyes and a drooping jaw that let words out cautiously:
“Saying what?”
“Saying that I will go on a hunger strike—indefinitely—for a bus”
Appa’s face had at least five of Bharata’s nine emotions running through them—surprise, shock, amusement, disappointment and mirth. It was the last of those that stuck and he burst out laughing.
“You’re crazy” he said, between chuckles and continued, “Enough of this. Come, let’s eat”
Thatha laughed too, but said, in a firm yet kind way:
“No”
Appa sighed. Eventually, he said, more harsh than weary:
“Do you really think the Chief Minister of the state cares about an old man in an obscure village five-hundred kilometres from Bangalore?”
“If he has a conscience”
“Conscience?” Appa burst out, and he clutched his loin-cloth firmly to vent his rage and continued, “Who cares for us, Appa? We have no schools, no hospitals here! No electricity, no roads! One government falls, another takes its place, does anybody care? Every five years one official comes to take down our names and promises some grain. Where is that grain? Where is that rice? I walk through jungles to sell my produce, lugging them on my shoulder, my feet bare. Does anybody care? It has been twenty-five years since the British left—or so you tell me—and has it made any difference to our lives?”
And Appa stood up, furious, and made to leave, but not before he had one, final parting shot:
“Tomorrow, when you die, I will write a letter to the CM inviting him to your funeral. He will surely come!”

Thatha remained stone-faced, silent. And when the first owl-hooted, he turned to look at me staring at him—my eyes fearful—and winked and said: “Sleep-time”
That night Thatha sang Vachana Number Twelve and repeated, until sleep wrestled the last ounce of consciousness from of my eyes, the same line: “Then again, what can I do? I am but a poor man”
*****
By the third day, Thatha had become the talk of the village; Amma had become a nervous wreck; Appa was largely quiet, but obviously unhappy; I was afraid, but also proud. I had heard—from Thatha, of course—of Gandhi and his miracle fasts that moved nations. And here, in my very own house, I told myself proudly, we had his modern-day avatar!
The villagers always had tremendous respect for Thatha’s knowledge, but they also thought he lacked basic common sense. He had invoked in them not the kind of passionate introspection and subsequent action that Gandhi did, nor a thirst for blood like the communists; indeed, they were untouched by neither the fear that gripped Amma or the saintly reverence that I felt. For them, it was a curious, amusing, a little sad sometimes, but exceedingly interesting act from someone’s life—looking back, I think they sort of thought they were watching a play. Gripping—the stuff of legend, even—but somebody else’s problem.

As for buses, the villagers couldn’t care less. Thatha’s speeches on bus-stands and petrol and lives changing inspired at best, fantastic flights of imagination; at worst, they were dismissed like his views on untouchability.

*****
Every meal, Amma placed an empty leaf and filled it with rice and saaru. Every meal, I ate twice.

One day, Appa procured, from God-knows-where, at God-knows-how-much, some payasa. Its aroma filled a house unaccustomed to its presence. Amma smiled for the first time in days; Appa seemed to relax a little too. I was delirious with joy. Thatha, however, slept through lunch-time.

*****
Appa was born in the ‘40s and grew up, largely, on his own. Thatha, a freedom-fighter and a staunch Gandhian, lived away and would send money at irregular intervals; at even more irregular intervals, he would make an appearance in the village—gaunt, unshaven, rag-clad, his eyes sleep-deprived, he looked like he was seventy-five. Appa and Pati would nurse him back to health and within days, he would go away. He only came back for his son, Pati would tell me much later, and would always bring books—story books, comics, children’s novels and suchlike. That was Appa’s only education.

Appa did like his books, but he loved his village more. The blue skies, the tiled roofs, the dew-drenched grass, the eucalyptus trees, the tadpoles in the puddles, the great, golden fields, the green-blue, algae-ridden tank by the temple and the crocodiles within, the vast hills in the distance, their tips swallowed by the clouds—he so intensely cared for these that despite Thatha begging him to do so later on, he refused to shift to Haladi. Instead, he asked Thatha to move back with him.

Thatha did and never quite settled down, but never complained either.

*****
On the seventh day, Appa had all but given up when Amma announced, much to his shock, that she was going on an indefinite counter-fast. To her credit, we had exhausted all other possible options—they had pleaded and begged, appealed to his human side, asked him to live for me—his only grandson whose free education in the city ran on his goodwill; they yelled at him, called him names, even chose to completely ignore him for a couple of days, hoping silence would help him come around. Many years later, Amma admitted to me that they had even tried force-feeding him—the very thought brought tears to her eyes.

Appa was livid. In his own quiet manner, he threw a few of his prized possessions, my books and some clothes, into a bag, caught me by the hand, and staged a walk-out. “I don’t want to live in this mad-house” he thundered. Amma wailed; Thatha, who could barely walk now, sprang out of his bed and put his hand on Appa’s shoulder and said: “Stop”. Appa looked at him—frail, wiry thin, unshaven, sunken sleepy eyes, only his giant ears stood out, its size accentuated by the shrunken dimensions of all else. Appa dropped his bag, let go off my hand and looked down at the floor, rooted, unmoving. Amma, taking that as a sign that the coast was clear, proceeded to, in her own efficient nature, unpack Appa’s bag and replace my books; Thatha went back to lying down on his charpoy in the veranda, his eyes fixed on the spectacular sky, unblinking.

Much like Thatha’s eyes, Appa stood, motionless—the sky changed colours, the sounds of the day gave way to those of dusk, but like the sun standing still watching the world go around, he remained, immobile.

*****
A Satyagraha, the Mahatma once remarked, usually passes through five stages: indifference, ridicule, abuse, repression and respect. Going by that yardstick, Thatha’s campaign barely got underway—the village didn’t even care enough to ridicule it. Inside the house, however, the success was resounding: if the campaign survived repression, the Mahatma said, then ‘it invariably commanded respect, another name for success’. And, whether grudgingly (as was in the case of Appa and Amma) or openly (as was with me), he had earned tremendous respect within the house. The leaner he grew, the stronger became his resolve, the greater was his aura—even in moments of grave doubt, when it dawned on him that his was a cause beyond his fellow-men’s simple minds, he never went back on his word.

For Thatha himself, his Satyagraha’s success was, at best, questionable—indeed, towards the fag end, his very definition of success changed. His initial enthusiasm briskly wilted, giving way to, by the third day, deep introspection and consequently, deeper disappointment. In fact, when the house chose to win him over with its silence, Thatha himself receded into a quiet phase. When he emerged, Thatha was a different man—no less stubborn in his denial of food, but unsure of what he actually wanted to achieve.
“In the olden days” Thatha told me, “the old King would give up all and go away to the forest. Eventually, if he wasn’t eaten by animals or consumed by a forest fire, he would give up his body too, by fasting to death”. “My fast may be a public failure”, he told Amma, sipping pensively his glass of salt-water, “but privately, it has shattered the very foundation on which my life had been built—it has harboured a great phase of unlearning in my life. The only thing I know for sure is that I know nothing”

******
One morning, I awoke to find Thatha and Amma bellowing at the top of their voices: another fight, I presumed and hid myself under my blanket, willing myself to go back to sleep. It proved futile: a fresh day laden with infinite possibilities, a bright new sun, clear rays streaming through every open space, light playing with spots of shadow, light dominating shadow—these proved too heady a concoction for even sleep to overcome. I sat up to stretch and Thatha hobbled in, as lean and bent as a creeper, but he was smiling.
“Fighting again?” I asked.
“No” he said and added with a wink, “practising. I think I’ll be seeing your deaf Pati again soon”

*****
“When Gandhiji fasted, a nation prayed, millions mended their ways, countries shook” Thatha said and added drily, “The only thing my fast inspired was another one”.

That night, the tenth since Thatha began his campaign, Thatha sat with us for dinner. Bursting with energy, whose source could only come from the oxygen he breathed, he laughed and joked and even sang a couple of lines from a Vachana he had recently discovered in one of his older notebooks. Appa and Amma, in uncharacteristic fashion, bowed down before him after dinner and told me to follow suit. I followed Thatha’s advice instead and stood next to him as my parents lay sprawled out in front and blessed them as he did. Thatha ruffled my hair and let me go.

As we went to bed, Thatha, like many nights during the past week, felt he was too weak to sing for me. Instead he lay down in his characteristic fashion—straight as a rod, his right hand on his stomach, his left wrapped around his head like an inverted ‘L’, his legs a little apart.

Thatha never woke up—he died a peaceful man, one whose final act was a failure, but only left him infinitely wiser.

Past Fast – I

One gay November day, Thatha decided to go on a hunger strike: Anna Satyagraha, in his words. The cause was, in hindsight, an important one. However, in our village of a hundred and seventy-two, Thatha had only one other supporter—me. I was sharp, smart and perhaps the best-educated in the village. Unfortunately for Thatha, I was eleven.
Thatha was everything the village was not—he thought ahead, sometimes years ahead; he liked to travel, to see the world; he rationalized—he argued for reason to be placed above all, even Lord Vishnu. The latter was a stand that brought him so much flak that he ended up preaching it only to me, well after the last lamps in the house were extinguished, in whispers so soft that the words wrapped around me like a cosy, comforting blanket, making my eyelashes heavy; At a time when most of the village could speak one language and read none, Thatha was trilingual— proficient in Kannada, English and Sanskrit, the latter being self-taught. Needless to say, the village thought Thatha was nuts, a view that was shared by all in the house except Amma and I; it was also a view that he didn't care much about; indeed, it was a view that he was completely oblivious to, that didn't affect him directly up until that November afternoon.
It all began a few months previously, when he received a letter from his friend—another old man with little to do—that rambled on about Basava's Vachana number twenty-three. I remember, very clearly, the scene: it was late-afternoon by the time the post-man got home, a little tired and extremely thirsty. Thatha had a look of controlled excitement on his face—he masked it well enough for a casual observer to not see any trace of contentment, but I knew better: his hands trembled, ever so slightly, as he held the letter; his eyes flickered with pride, his wrinkles a web of eager, dancing patterns. He took the letter and smelt it, an old habit that rubbed on to me so hard that I find it hard to explain to perplexed onlookers when they catch me with my nose plastered to my laptop screen when I get an email from old friends. He read out the letter—not because he wanted me to listen, but because he always read out aloud (which perhaps contributed in no small way to Pati's acute loss of hearing in the twilight of her life).
The letter was unremarkable but for the post-script tucked away in a corner, hastily scribbled but underlined thrice: "We've got our first bus that plies every second day, from our village to Haladi!" Haladi was to us what Bangalore was to the Haladi: a hallowed land of endless opportunity, of bus-stands the size of playgrounds; of schools that housed more children than a forest had trees; of railway stations where trains actually stopped and not merely flew past.
Thatha read the post-script out and paused. His eyebrows shot up. Unconsciously, he drummed his bald plate and muttered to himself, softly—'bus', 'Haladi'. He thrust the letter in my hand hurriedly almost as though it was a plate-full of meat that he had mistakenly presumed to be his lunch and began pacing around the veranda, his hands tied behind his back, pausing now and again to look at the clear, azure sky.
Thatha skipped lunch that day. He chose to eat guavas for dinner—guavas tinged with salt and khara. I asked for the same, but Amma gave me such an ugly look that I chose not to pursue it, though I shot longing glances at his plate throughout dinner. Appa noticed me and smiled wistfully when he caught my eyes, and pointed to Thatha and ran circles around his own head: screw loose. That night, Thatha sang Vachana Number Twenty-Three to put me to bed. I slept a few lines into his explanation of the depth of the song.
The next morning I awoke to a wailing cock and a spectacular sun—the rays bounced off our newly painted walls, their brilliance reflected, multiplied; the world, as I awoke, was bathed in white—not the faint, calming white of a full moon, but the coruscating one of a new dawn.
Thatha was gone, Amma told me, as she placed my milk on the floor. Gone where? I asked, still drowsy. Somewhere, she said from her kitchen, and the clattering of vessels and the gushing of water told me her mind was elsewhere.
Subsequently, Thatha went 'somewhere' quite often. It was not like he didn't disappear previously; it was just that he never did with such alarming frequency. His disappearances would last a couple of days sometimes, sometimes longer. I once asked Amma, I think after his fourth disappearance in three weeks, where Thatha went. She said she didn't know, and added, more to herself than to me: at least, it keeps him going. I didn't dare ask Thatha—don't get me wrong, I wasn't afraid, but it was disrespectful to ask and I didn't want to pry.
*****
My eyes flew open. But for a streak of pale yellow that crept through the half-open door of my bedroom, there was darkness everywhere. An owl hooted from somewhere nearby; I heard the hyenas cackle, secure in the confines of the jungle that bordered our village; insects clicked and screeched. And voices argued, in audible whispers. I snuck up to my door and peered at the figures lit by the lamp-light: in the hallway, under the shadow of my Thatha who stood in front, was Amma, her back to me, hands on hips, legs apart. Thatha was visibly tired, but was hunched in a manner that was at once defiant and apologetic. It was obvious that he had just returned.
"What if the hyenas eat you?" Amma asked, rubbing her forehead with her wrists.
"I have lived in this godforsaken village for an almost uninterrupted seventy-five years now. The hyenas and I have a very fine, working relationship"
"Why couldn't you wait till tomorrow to leave wherever you left from? What is the hurry?"
"I sleep best in my bed, ma. Ageing brings with it, amongst other ails, a fanatical rigidity in tastes"
I wondered if there was ever a time when Thatha had flexible preferences, but that train of thought was quickly put aside, for the conversation wound up and Thatha was making his way to his customary sleeping place beside me. I rushed to bed, shut my eyes as hard as I could, and pretended to sleep. For a brief few tense moments, there was darkness behind my eyes, and then it was gone, for Thatha had walked in, lamp in hand. I heard him unroll his mattress, pat the bedspread a couple of times and heard it puff as he laid it out.
In less than a minute, all the hyenas and the insects, the owls and the frogs were drowned by Thatha's snores.
*****
The next day Thatha called me over to his 'study'. The study, in essence, comprised a cane chair and a table, placed strategically in a corner of our bedroom. He partitioned it from the rest of the room with an old, off-white, plain curtain. The table was situated next to a window—one surprisingly large for our kind of houses—that when thrown open, accommodated a modest landscape: neatly partitioned fields, palm trees, languid cows and a lazy green everywhere.
"Do you see this?" he asked, pointing to a table.
On the table was a hand-drawn map, its shape unrecognizable, its names alien. I plodded through the Kannada words scattered all over the strange shell-shaped figure, looking for something familiar. Eventually I spotted one name, right at the centre, written in bold, black ink. I put my finger on the name and read out:
"Ha-la-di"
"Excellent" he said, beaming.
"This is our map. This is—", he said, tracing his finger north-ward from Haladi and stopping at a point, "where we live"
"What are these lines?" I asked. There were lines that ran from Haladi to various other points, lines drawn in blue ink.
"Excellent question, excellent question!" he said, and continued, excited, "They are bus-routes"
And Thatha explained what had possessed him all this while. Over the past few months, ever since he got that letter from his friend, he had made trips to a whole host of villages, taking buses, bullock-carts, even trekking on foot; he had been talking to Collectors and transport officials, weavers and farmers, school-teachers and village-doctors, labourers and activists.
He ran his fingers around what roughly constituted a circle around our village—the five closest villages on the map—and showed me how all of them were connected by blue-lines. Indeed, all but three villages of a total of over sixty had buses that plied through them. Ignominious company, he hissed. He went on to explain to me how buses changed lives, altered outlooks and livelihoods, about how people he had met from all walks of life told him glowing stories about shrinking distances, growing opportunities, greater happiness.
*****
The next morning, Thatha refused breakfast.
(To continue, in three days)

Thatha's Little Walk

For a man of sixty plus, he was surprisingly agile. He had a spring in his step that even a ten year old would envy. Every time I saw him, I got the impression that he had just won a lottery or, probably, India had trounced Pakistan by ten wickets in a test match. His hair was oiled and neatly parted to the side; he wore a spotless kurta and pajamas that could easily pass of as those computer-generated advanced-white ones in the TV commercials. He hopped along the road jauntily and waved from a distance. I waved back and my eyes, habitually, focused directly at his shoes. I let out a sigh and silently thanked Saraswathi: they were muddy and dirty. Though he had never once failed to pay me a visit during his early morning walks, his pristine attire always gave me the goose bumps.

“Thatha” I called out.
“What Kanna? What’s up?” he asked.
He walked up to me, placed his shoe on the stand that I provided, drew a chair for himself and sat. He panted and said,
“Habbah, at least that’s over”
“What, Thatha! You look like the type who can do ten more rounds without tiring and you are thanking your stars”
“Age, my son—its age. You will know when you get to my age—though I don’t think you will even be able to walk when you reach there. Just look at you, all skin and bones! Don’t they feed you in that stupid school you go to?”
I didn’t reply for he made that comment almost on a daily basis, but began working diligently on his shoes. I am a cobbler-cum-shoe cleaner/ polisher. I am the latter only to Thatha. When he first came to our locality, two years ago, I was just starting up my business. He asked me if I would clean shoes for him and I said I would try—but there was not much cleaning I could do with those horrible modern sports shoes that he used to wear then. Within a week, he switched to Canvas shoes. I loved them. He paid me 10 rupees for cleaning his shoes—about 250 rupees a month.
“How do you get them so muddy?” I said, scrubbing his shoe diligently.
“Mm?”
“I mean, where do you go? How is there cow-dung on this shoe?”
“Oh, just here and there” he said distractedly.
I asked him that question regularly and he would either change the topic or give an uncharacteristically vague reply. I knew where he did go though—to the stream that lay behind his house. There was lot of muck around there. I wondered what Thatha would do there—he wasn’t the type who would sit around a stream listening to the twittering of birds or the roar of the water. That would appeal to him as much going to school does to me. Age hadn’t robbed him of his love for people, for company, for action. Probably he went there to smoke a few cigarettes. Yes, that was it! He did go to smoke—Pati hated that habit of his and it wasn’t too long ago that he had completely given it up for her sake. He probably didn’t want anyone to see him and what better place to go than the stream. It was as crowded as the graveyard; In fact, still better, for there were not even dead souls to spy on him.
“You seem to be very quite today, Kanna. What are you smiling to yourself about?”
“Oh, nothing. Actually—yes—no—I mean, I was just thinking about the funny way in which our English teacher talks. You must see her once, Thatha”
He looked slightly suspicious, but smiled indulgently.

The next morning, I woke up just as the goods train blew its horn out aloud and chugged past our station. It was the crack of dawn—an hour or so before my usual rising time. I cursed the train and tried getting back to sleep, but I couldn’t. It was with a sense of downright frustration that I made my way down to the lake to start my chores. And then, a mad idea struck me. It shook me up—I was no longer lazy or frustrated or sleepy. I laughed loudly and ran, shaking with excitement. I sprinted as fast as I could, didn’t stop at the tank but went further on. The morning was cold and a chill breeze, whose effect was compounded by the speed of my running, blew against my ears. I didn’t bother. I was determined.

In a few minutes, I spotted him. Thatha, dressed in typical white clothes, and a muffler around his ears, walked ahead, a few metres away. I slowed down—I didn’t want him to spot me. Given his age, Thatha was exceptionally brisk. I found it difficult to keep up with him for I had to be careful. The path gradually became narrower, the foliage thicker; the trees taller. It was easier to be unnoticeable now—my footsteps were muffled by the softness of the earth and the trees that were resplendent with birds that sung, shrieked and cried. I tried pretending to be the detective who comes in the TV show Thatha watches, running from one tree to another and then hiding behind them. I gave this up, feeling stupid and glad that there was no one to see me.

After some time of rigorous walking, I heard the roar of the stream—it was a violent, booming roar—like a caged lion roaring for freedom. Thatha was speeding up, and I had to literally run to catch up with him. The thundering of the water increased in decibels and I knew we weren’t far away. And there it was—pure blue, with white waves, flowing with a speed that was frightening.

Thatha made his way to the path that led to the stream. He was within feet away, when suddenly, he took a detour. I silently watched from behind a tall beech tree with bated breath. He sat down beside the muddy, brown, filthy muck that lay a little away. Aha! I thought, now for the cigarettes. He then removed his shoes and socks. He plunged the shoes carefully with his hands into the muck like a cook frying his papadams in oil; one after the other, making sure every area was equally dirty. He took them out and examined them and with a satisfied smile, put them on, and walked back towards the path leading away from the river.

*****
It was a little past seven in the morning. Thatha hopped gaily towards me, making me wonder if he had springs for muscles in his body. My eyes didn’t focus at his shoes, for I knew how they would be—Saraswathi was denied my prayers. He waved from a distance and I waved back, a little guiltily. He sat on the chair that I quickly drew for him and panted heavily.
“What Kanna—what’s up?” he asked.
I took his muddy and wet shoes and began scrubbing.
“I wonder how you get them so muddy, Thatha. Seriously, where do you go?”
“Eh?” he said vaguely, and then with a dash of his usually enthusiasm, he asked,
“Did you see Tendulkar’s ton yesterday? He’s back. I tell you, he definitely is back”
I smiled to myself and nodded my head in agreement. Some things never change…..