The Last Laugh

“Ye Nastika, I have an offer for you”, Seemanna called out.

Seemanna’s offers usually spelled trouble.

As I saw him approach, I remembered our conversation from a week ago: he was falling short of vanaras for his performance at the jatre and was on a mission to recruit volunteers.  

“Seemanna”, I said pre-empting his offer, “Don’t bother trying – I am not acting in that godforsaken dance-drama of yours.”

“Godforsaken dance-drama? Aiyo Nastika, how can you say such things? If there is no God, how can he forsake things?”

Slap

He sang in the morning, sang to the dying stars; he sang to his whitewashed walls, his own voice bouncing off them; he sang for his morning coffee, one-and-a-half tea-spoons of sugar; he sang for spring, for leaves that twirled and girls who flowered with the blooming chrysanthemums; second-most-of-all, he sang because he could unite, even if only in short, elevating bursts, music’s sacred triumvirate: shruti, laya and raga; but most-of-all, he reflected, he sang to communicate joy.

He sang for free. It cheapens your music, they warned him, those Sabha owners, his ‘well-wishers’. People will tire of you, they cried. In response, he let loose four typical phrases in Todi. They shook their heads in appreciation, clicking their tongues, beckoning imaginary birds. 'People have sung the same phrases for centuries', he then said, 'have you tired of them yet?' Most of them made like they understood, but he knew from the looks on their faces that they didn’t—their eyes seemed to humour him, like he was an old man lecturing them on the benefits of walking barefoot.  

For twenty-two years, he had sung across the peninsula, often travelling six-hours second-class between successive performances, changing into a fresh veshti backstage, powdering his neck and smearing, in haste, a handful of vibhuti over his forehead. He sang for his audience, picking ragas and songs based on the demographics of his crowd. Kanakadasa stormed into a concert in Shimoga and, when in Thoothukudi, if a Dikshitar Krithi was the Sun—the centre around which the rest of the concert pivoted—then a song each by Bharatiyar and Umaru Pulavar were twin moons, one resplendent, the other an inspired apparition.

His grandfather was close to the Wodeyar Kings, a Minister of some sort. His father ran the family trust with the tremendous wealth his grandfather had amassed, feeding the poor and funding the education of the children of the neglected. His father encouraged him to sing, to see music as an entity in itself, beyond the maya of existence. Until he was twelve, his father pushed him to sing and learn, and he did, sometimes grudgingly. Then, one morning, he instinctively shut his eyes as he practised and sang Mayatheetha Swaroopini. 

He opened his eyes to see his father and mother sitting in front of him, watching him intently; his mother’s face mingled contentment and tears, brimming with unspoken pride, his father smiled like he knew. Three full hours had dissolved in one raga, the passing of time had never tasted so sweet. There is Maya, he declared to his father, beyond the Malavagowla. 

Ever since, music was the language he thought in, the force that allowed him to navigate the prosaic and scale the pristine. Sometimes, music let him blur the boundaries between the mundane and the magnificent. When he first set sight on his wife’s breasts, he said, more to himself than her: they are like Khamas’ Nishadas, distinct, yet equal.

And within him, unknown and unacknowledged, rested a quiet pride, not so much in his art as his philanthropy. He threw his doors open to the public. Anyone, beggar or businessman, rasika or novice, could walk in when he practiced. Wherever he sang, even at the Academy, no tickets were sold. One year, the Academy, citing rules, disallowed him from performing—this created a storm of gargantuan proportions in his microscopic music circles and the suspension was revoked. As the years rolled on, he lived off his grandfather’s dwindling wealth and his fans’ goodwill.

Within him, he felt, was something that transcended price-tags, to put a value on it would be to de-value it; and to share it without restrictions was service. Award citations extolled his selfless heart, a newspaper dubbed him ‘the voice for the voiceless’; in an interview once, he called himself the ‘servant of God and of the people’.

*

That morning, he wanted water. Sixteen minutes into Abheri, his throat itched. He called out to his wife who didn’t respond, but vessels clanged in the kitchen, water gushed from an open tap. Water. He vented his frustration on Abheri, letting out a volcanic burst of swaras, but Abheri wouldn’t get angry, it wasn’t in her nature. This caused him more agitation, he slapped his thigh and broke into another volley of frenetic phrases, introducing the Shuddha Dhaviatha—Abheri swung from calm to melancholy and tended dangerously towards violence. One manic phrase landed furiously on the Tarasthai Shadja.  Water, it demanded.

His wife appeared finally, a steel tumbler in hand, and said, softly: Don’t be so harsh.      

‘Harsh?’, he said, working himself into a rage, Abheri fled from his system, music hid in a corner, as he hissed, in a whisper that evoked the sharp edge of a knife: ‘People are sitting here listening’

There were six people in his spacious, sparse music room, one that his grandfather built and where his father conducted his weekly meetings with the directors of his now-dead trust; they were all dressed in crisply ironed shirts in varying shades of white and veshtis, regulars at his morning practice sessions. Taking them in in one sweeping glance, he returned to look at his wife, who still clasped the tumbler in her hand, and said:

‘You owe it to them to make sure I have my water on time, not to me’

His usually patient wife, perhaps stung by Abheri’s travails, flung the water at his face.

‘To them?’, she asked, laughing angrily, ‘You do not sing for them, they can live without your music. As can everyone else. When you sit on your pedestal and demand that entry be free and open, how many poor walk in? Can a shirtless man wearing only a torn pant, dark as the night and smelling of the sweat of toil, walk into the hallowed air-conditioned chambers of your Academy? Two streets away from this house and this hall with its chandeliers and windows the size of elephants, in tents lit only by kerosene lamps, lives are birthed, lived and ended: none of those lives are touched by you or your music'

'You do not even know of their existence', she spat, 'yet you pass by them every second day'

You sing because you can', she said finally, 'and that is all there is to it’ 

***

Empty Nothings (Part 2)

(Continued from below)

Something changed. I could sense her presence; I could sense her absence; I could sense her presence in her absence. For no apparent reason, a whiff of her perfume—up until then just another scent in a city that was an assault on the olfactory senses—made fleeting, surreal appearances; when she did actually walk past, I felt a jolt in my insides, my limbs knotting in tension; when she smiled, I smiled too, but fractionally later than usual—I had to keep telling myself to act normal.

Stranger still, when she came in the nights, she behaved like nothing had transpired between us. We continued to speak as usual—she with her coffee mug, I with my chipped tea-cup— discussing our days, our lives and our ideas. Truth be told, nothing happened that night: nothing tangible, even remotely momentous.  

I never stared at her in the manner I did that night. Sometimes, however, I let my eyes linger on her for longer than usual, hoping to gather a reaction of some sort. I never got one, not once in all those following weeks. 

*

We once spoke about dreams. I spoke about the changing face of my nightmares. As a child and a young adult, they were full of ghastly images, gory fates for loved ones. More recently, my nightmares seemed to be less dream-like, less direct; they were non-linear and plot-less, but far more powerful; subtle and lethal, they never failed to hit me where it hurt the most.

For instance, I wanted to tell her, consider the dream I had last week. I didn’t say it, not because she was saying something in response to what I had said previously and it was rude to intervene, but because I couldn’t bring myself to talk of my dreams.

… What do you mean less direct?, she was asking me.

Previously, I said, I would have dreamt of getting run over by a bus—my stomach would lurch as I sensed the bus near; I would emerge from sleep, screaming and kicking like a baby.

And now?

And now?, I ask pausing to buy time,

Now, I want to say, I can only watch from a distance, watch me wither, but not die. Like the headmaster in the movie I watched repeatedly in my youth, I can only stare helplessly at a situation I can neither comprehend nor resolve.

“Now”, I lie instead, I dream of dying in pieces. For instance, I dream I die like my friend—Daood, the Dhobi— slowly, painfully, coughing his way to death, unable to get rid of the wretched beedi that’s his Rajdhani-ticket to heaven. He always slept with a half-burnt beedi in his mouth, he died with a half-burnt beedi in his mouth … One day, he slept and never awoke. But he is in heaven now, in God’s hands.         

I see a palette of images, seguing into each other.

Sometimes you walk past me—deliberately, slowly— you turn to face me briefly, but there’s no glimmer of recognition, no familiar smile.

Sometimes, as you look over my shoulder when I make my tea, my elbow brushes against your breast and I look at you, but nothing comes off it.

Sometimes, you pull me close by the scruff of my collar, so close I can smell the coffee in your breath, and as I stare into your eyes, I realize I am no longer the man next to you, but actually a few feet away, watching you lunge passionately at the pretty young thing who comes over every so often. Someone is laughing, I cannot tell who.

I have dreamt of wearing space-suits and walking in space for much of my life, she said, I don’t think it means anything.  

*

You may laugh when I say this, but I have never raised a finger on anyone in all my adult life: never beaten my wife, nor my children or even the shy robber who once asked permission to steal.

She came home very late one night, clinging to a pretty boy like a creeper. For a long while, they were in their car, he was at the wheel. In the dim light of an insipid moon, I caught fragments of his face: long, thick hair that tumbled over his forehead; big, black glasses that hid his eyes; a lit cigarette that he held lazily in his free hand, one that seemed to contain more than mere tobacco; with his other hand, he stroked her hair easily. He was what she would call an intellectual.           

They seemed to talk for what seemed like hours; ever so often, they would move closer and the darkness would envelope their silhouettes: my mind dared not think what transpired in those moments; the wind picked up, then went still; the moon disappeared behind the adjacent apartment, the skies grew darker.

Finally, I heard a series of horns and some laughing. I ambled out and opened the gate. She barely looked at me as they drove past to her empty parking spot. I closed the gate. Something within my ears grew chilly, my saliva tasted metallic, my stomach felt heavy. As they walked, his arm around her waist, I walked up to them. I could smell alcohol and perfume and deodorant—their body odours seemed to have merged.  

You cannot go up to her flat, I said in an even tone, looking at him.

For a second, they didn’t seem to notice, so lost were they in their own bubble. And then, he looked at me—in the faint light of the basement’s only zero-watt, his perfect jaw contorted in confusion, then broke into a warm half-smile. Her initial surprise gave way to anger.

What? she asked.

Your friend, I said flatly, cannot go up.

Have you gone mad?, she snapped in a manner I had never before seen her do. There was more than a hint of condescension in her tone.

In a fit of righteous delirium, I kicked him where it hurt the most. And, as he bent over, his hands over his balls, I punched him across his head. He was knocked out cold, lying flat on his back. I turned to find her mouth wide open – she was screeching soundlessly, tears streaming down her face.

I held her hand tightly and said, first softly, then, as she struggled to find her voice, increasingly loudly: What do you think you are doing? What do you think you are doing?

Her silence provoked me, her helplessness made me want to hurt her more. She tried to walk away, but I followed her, never letting go of her hand, mouthing the same words. I wanted an answer, a response. Her words, however, seemed to inhabit another universe, failing to respond to her summons.

Stop, she finally managed to shriek. Her lips pouted and quivered, her tears had wiped her cheek clean.

I turned and sprinted. I scaled the gate and ran into the lane that led to main-road. My footsteps echoed, a cat’s brilliant eyes streaked across the darkness. As I reached the empty main-road and sped into dark patches interspersed with neon-islands, I raised my arms out wide and was awash in the pleasant chill of the pre-dawn air.

Under a setting moon, my madness evaporated.

*

When I had returned from my run, they had both gone. The car was still there, however. I packed my belongings and left before dawn crept.

*

Nothing matters. In the beginning, with her, nothing mattered. Then, after the strange night, nothing mattered. With time, even the pains of nothingness dissolve, leaving behind nothing: no traces, just an inertial numbness.

I moved across the city, to watch over another apartment: it is quieter and smaller. I avoid people’s eyes and make conversation only if forced to. I go into the main town once every six months, to catch the bus back to my village. Otherwise, I stick to one lane: the one that borders my new apartment.  

Every now and then, down my lane, a man maybe twenty years older than I, makes an appearance. In some ways, we are the same age: time ceased to exist for him some decades ago. He is thin and tall, much like a lamp-post with gangly limbs. He slings a sloth-bag around his shoulder, wears a long, faded kurta. He always looks clean and the little hair he has—all white-- possesses a sense of order that would make Nature proud.

Standing at the corner of my lane, he makes speeches to families of pigs that waltz by, passers peeing on the wall, their backs turned to him, and gossiping auto-drivers; the sole person who notices him is Shiva, the gudangadi owner, who turns on his mobile speakers to full volume every time the man begins to talk.

The old man is a captivating speaker, his style fluent, his voice modulations precise, arguments crisp. He speaks of everything, but almost always returns to the Chief Minister and his sycophantic ways—he accuses him of constantly pandering to the “mad woman” in Delhi. Like a dog, he would bark, this Devraj Urs follows Nehru’s daughter.

He speaks of everything and yet conveys nothing.   

I listen in often, sitting on my hunches by my gate and paying close attention to his lips for otherwise he would be lost in the din caused by the blaring music. When he’s done, he pauses to soak in the non-existent applause, smiling triumphantly at nothing in particular.

He’s made his peace with nothing.  

I dream of space-walking a lot nowadays. I don’t think it means anything though.    

*

Concludes

Empty Nothings (Part 1)

I sleep with my mouth open. It was a running joke in my family. My father would tell my mother in the morning, as he left to work in our Yajamana’s farms: ‘don’t feed the little one— he had two ants and a fly during his mid-night snack!’

As a child, I slept soundly. Outside, the clouds would rage—lightning streaking across starlit skies— and it would pour. I, however, would sleep through it all. Rain and gunfire, death and celebrations— nothing ever disturbed my sleep. After dinner, I would swagger like a drunk towards my mother and, before she could raise a word of protest, plonk my head on her lap and shut my eyes. She had vessels to wash, a house to wind-up and a husband to tend to. And yet, uncomplainingly, she would stroke my head, until sleep drifted in from wherever it is that sleep does.

Ironically, here, in the city, a thousand miles from where I was born and three lifetimes away from the life I had lived as a child, I work as a night-watchman. I still sleep, but sleep lightly. Even the footsteps of a cat, suffused with the quietness of their species and the magic of the night, would make me take notice.

However, curious flies are still unconsciously consumed— perhaps the only link to a childhood from another world.  

*

My wife and children are still in the village, though I am trying to get my eldest to come to the city. I have just about enough money to send him to a private school here. If I had spent less on frivolous things when I first came to the city thirteen years ago, perhaps I could have brought them all here. But, when you are young and new, everything is light, lovely and joyous; everything is about the today and the now.

Once, I went to the same film six times straight, not because the hero was a superstar or the heroine, an import from the north, ravishing; nor was it for the predictably comforting underdog tale. I went because (as I came to discover on my third viewing) one of the characters—an old headmaster of a dying school—reminded me of my father.

I gambled, but never drank. Some while ago, a friend of mine calculated and discovered, much to our alarm, that had I saved up all the money I had spent on beedis, I’d be thrice as rich.

*

This friend was special: she is not like me at all.

‘But we are like each other’, I can hear her insist in my head.

Okay, here are the facts and I’ll let you decide: she is half-English (or American or Australian), I can barely speak English (half-English?); she is tall, with long, sexy legs which she lets the moonlight lovingly caress, I am short and fat— my hairy legs are barely contained by my bulging khakis; she is white as milk, glowing in mere starlight, sometimes I am invisible at twilight; she rents an apartment and lives by herself, I sleep under the skies.

You are an intellectual, she would always say, cupping her coffee-mug, her head resting on her knees. Had you been born in my world, you would have been wearing big, round glasses, smoked a pipe and spoken about the Big Things: God, Life, Religion, Cultures.

But, what is your world? I would wonder out aloud, What is this world to which we have no keys?

See?, she would say, that is precisely the kind of thing an intellectual would say.

*

She came nearly every night. She was remarkably unselfconscious, but the night was also kind: no surreptitious eyes ogled at her lovely legs, no jealous women made comments on the sly. She brought a mug of black coffee: dark, steaming, mysterious. She would talk and watch me make my tea, a necessary indulgence to wade through the night.

We often traded histories. After all, most conversations flow through memories’ windows.

I came to the city because I grew tired of singing at weddings. We were descendants of the Nagas. Like the snakes, I would tell her, we virtually lived underground, in darkness, in a hamlet away from the rest of the village. And just like the snakes, we briefly emerged from the darkness every now and then, to be faux-revered, but quickly banished. We were invited for all religious ceremonies—weddings, festivals— because music was in our blood, our voices could scale notes that none else could imagine.

My father rebelled against his mother by choosing to work in the Yajamaana’s fields—at least, he argued, we don’t have to wait for people to get married to fill our stomachs. I rebelled against my father by leaving the village altogether.

It was remarkable how differently she and I viewed the city: for me, it symbolized progress and freedom. For her, it was regressive and constraining; but, equally remarkably, for both of us, it was a land of opportunities.

In my line of work, she would say, this is a gold-mine. There is so much to do, so much to develop!

What if these people don’t need your development?, I would argue.

Why wouldn’t anyone want more schools, better schools?

My father never went to school. I think, on the whole, he was happier than I was. But that is beside the point. What I really want to say is this: why can’t schools teach what we want to learn? Why should my son learn what someone in the capital—thousands of kilometres away—deems fit? I have so much I could teach children: my music, our way of life. Why should everything be so complicated?     

I know you have a point there, she would counter, but what you are saying is impractical.       

I could sense the mild exasperation in her tone. I would stay quiet, watching my tea-leaves swirl in the yellow light of my lantern; the glorious violet fire below evoked the feathers of a peacock. The gas connection was a gift from her; the cart was the dhobi’s who had died last year, leaving behind all his savings for his only son. He gave me the cart because we had been old friends and he wanted someone to ‘treat it with the love it deserved’.

We’ve become so complicated, I would soldier on, an eye still on the tea. We can’t even tell people what we do without resorting to an explanation. You work with—what do you call it—policy advocacy? How does that tell anyone you work for children? Tomorrow, we’ll have fifteen words for walking, twenty words for the kind of hunger we feel. Actually, maybe that’s not true: only you rich people have such lush vocabularies and hunger is not something you feel as intensely as we do. Come to think of it, you don’t even walk as much!

What do you want us to do?, she would ask, turning her head towards me, become milkmen and night-watchmen?

It was a rhetorical question, meant only as a counter-barb. I poured my freshly made tea into my chipped tea-cup, one I got twenty-five years ago as part of my dowry. I sat across her, my head against the compound wall of her apartment and asked, quietly:

How was your day?

*

She never brought anyone. On the days she had friends over for the night— posh girls, good-looking men—she’d usually not turn up; sometimes she would come, later than usual, with a sheepish grin and explain: he’s asleep; clearly I am not good company!

She once asked me about sex. It was a windy night—the kind when you could taste the dust on your upper-lip; the world was hazy, beautifully so, especially in the bright headlights of the odd truck that cantered by. The tea had been made, my head rested against her apartment wall and her thick, dark hair swayed sensually with the wind. I was telling her about my last visit to my village, when she interjected:

You haven’t seen your wife in ages! Don’t you feel like sleeping with someone?

It was a question like any other: gently curious, but casual and easy.

I stiffened. It is odd—I talk sex to myself constantly; during the day, the topic is a favourite amongst my best friends, the sex-starved Manja, who runs a liquor shop and the promiscuous, boastful Kalla, who owns a gudangadi down the road. And yet, those conversations are mechanical, illusory: the tone is light, the banter good-natured, the humour detached. I—we—talk of sex like we talk of cinema stars, like it is somebody else’s problem.

I stood up abruptly and walked to my cart. I picked up the lantern by its side and placed it between us: her bright eyes shone in the soft, orange light; her nose-ring—a speck on the bridge of her sharp, impeccable nose—glistened softly; the wind made her tee-shirt cling to her breasts, accentuating her curves; and the shadows of her slender legs were thrown across my own.

I stared at her, my mind stunned into calm silence. She looked back, her delightful eyes questioning me playfully. I could sense my imagination leaping out of my self, scampering wildly along the dusty, dirty lanes of the city. She was toying with me, fully conscious of the impact she was having on my senses and revelling in it.

In minutes, she finished her tea, her eyes never quite leaving me.  She stood up and left quietly, her windswept hair bouncing gracefully.   

Our conversation wound up in the absence of words; the electric silence, however, was anything but empty.

I had not felt more alive in a very long while.

(To conclude, in three days)

November, 1984

It rained that evening. A warm, welcoming rain punctuated by big, bulbous drops, uncharacteristic of the city, atypical of the month. The sky was overcast—a veil of grey, grim and continuous, hung above. K, secure under the confines of a nondescript shed by the road, carefully inspected the contents of his wallet and then proceeded to check his mobile phone and wallet. Content, he relaxed slightly: not a drop of water on them. He looked up at the sky and, at once, his eyebrows re-knit, his mouth stiffened—there wasn’t a trace of blue. It was not a good sign. He didn’t like the rain, not one bit, not in the city. It made the roads stink: the whole place smelt and felt like an open railway toilet, the drains overflowed, the water stagnated making the traffic come to a standstill, the pigeons, that dotted the evening sky flying in pretty patterned flocks, hid under buildings, afraid of the sky’s sorrow and the earth was muddy, ugly-brown.
And then he saw a sight that made him, instinctively, click his tongue, and shake his head in disapproval, from side to side, maybe a little too obviously: it was a man, not much older than he, walking leisurely, hands in his pockets, whistling an old film song, drenched like he had just swum half across the Arabian Sea and then realized he had forgotten to take off his clothes.

“Quite out of place, isn’t it? This rain?” he asked cheerfully, approaching the shed, looking at K.
K looked away and pretended like he hadn’t heard the man.
But the man seemed to be possessed by the devil, for by the time K turned around, he was standing by him, wiping his glasses with his shirt, not really noticing that a wet cloth would do little to improve the condition of the glasses. He smiled broadly, extended a soppy hand, and said:
“Murugan”
With a wary, disdainful look at the outstretched hand, K, doing some quick thinking, folded his palms and said:
“Namaste. I’m K”
“Why, why, why! Aren’t we a contradiction? A traditional greeting, but a post-modern, single initial for a name!”
Stunned by the character judgment based solely on a gesture and a sentence, K retorted:
“I’m a practical man. I don’t like wet hands and I don’t disclose personal information to complete strangers”
The stranger’s face fell and he said, his hands back in his pockets:
“I was only joking. I’m sorry. Maybe I was hasty”
“That’s okay” K replied, a little gruffly, though inside he felt triumphant for a reason he couldn’t quite put his finger on.
And they fell silent with K wondering if his life had come to this, celebrating victories in little ego battles with random men and the man, lost, staring into the rain, but his mind elsewhere, a smile from a different time planted on his lips.
“Beatuiful” he said, eventually.
“Eh?” said K.
“November rain. Correction: Warm November rain”
K did not want to concur and lie, nor did he want to disagree and debate, so he ended up making a noise that sounded like a soft fart. The man was momentarily startled, for the sound was alien in a civil conversation, but mistaking it for some digestive problem, went back to smiling dreamily and said:
“It rained like this, back in 1984, through November— warm, fat drops, echoing against the roofs of buildings and the windshields of cars”
“Yes, I quite remember—it was one of the worst months of my life—my bloody scooter wouldn’t start and I had to take the bus, which took a long, circuitous path. Always late for work—I nearly lost my job”
“I” said the man, still smiling, “on the other hand, was out of work. And in love. Ah, those were the days”
K rolled his eyes, but the man was not one to be distracted. Still staring dreamily into the distance, he continued:
“She was doing her degree in the Arts College for Girls and I would wait, for hours together, at her college gate, to get a glimpse of her. I was, after all, out of work and had all the time in the world. And when she was done with college, I would follow her, everywhere she went—up till the gate of her house, to the movie hall, to the market—like a faithful dog or, better still, Mary’s little lamb”
“Didn’t she call the police?”
“No, she didn’t. Which means” he said, cracking his knuckles, “she didn’t disapprove, but she didn’t approve either—if she did, then maybe we could have got somewhere”
“Did you even talk to her?” K asked, with a smirk on his face.
“Oh yes, many times. But usually about the weather, or polite enquiries about each others’ health or the price of onions—a sentence here, a comment there—they meant the world to me. And one day,” he said, and broke off, his voice choking as he looked at the relentless rain wistfully and continued, “And one November morning, it poured, as always; but, unlike always, I spotted her underneath a tree, just like I saw you, umbrella-less and cursing the rain. And I never carry an umbrella—never—but that morning, my grandmother—bless her beautiful soul— in typical grandmotherly fashion, gave me her incisor-less, paan-stained grin, thrust the umbrella in my hand and said, a little wisely, a little mischievously: take this, who knows, it may just come in handy! And come in handy, it did!”
“So you both walked under one umbrella, with your arm around her shoulder?” K asked haughtily, although he was curious.
“Of course not—this is 25 years ago in middle-class India: you really think people wouldn’t talk if that had happened? People would talk even now, in some localities. But, what happened is the reason why I love November rain—I gave her my umbrella and told her to use it and I followed her, keeping a polite distance. She threw back shy, grateful and sorry glances at me, at periodic intervals and I could feel myself floating, in a state of pure joy, not caring about the wild rain, or the warm gusts of wind. She made my day. And many, many days to come”
“Are you a poet?” K asked, for he was always good at these things.
“Its funny you ask, because you are nearly right—I am a painter. You should come to my exhibitions some time. But in those days, I was, would you believe it, a pickpocket. I always had good hands, you know—and its funny the things that people do when they are desperate. I always mailed the wallet and its contents back to their owners though, except for the money, of course. I had little use for anything else”
And K suddenly stiffened, checked his pockets to make sure his wallet was there, and then, walked right ahead, into the rain. Having gone a few metres, he paused, turned around and shouted, through the sheets of rain that separated them:
“The college she went to—your .. um .. muse—it was called Gandhi Arts College for Girls, right?”
“Yes” the man said, very surprised.

K reached home late that evening. He rang the bell twice, for he was dripping wet and his mind was occupied. He heard his wife’s footsteps and then a series of clicks, as latch after latch opened; finally, she swung open the door, smiled, a tad surprised, and showed him the front of her palm as if to say: wait, and turned around to go back inside.
“What’s this sudden thirst for adventure today?” she hollered, as he heard drawers roll open.
“Oh nothing—I just wanted to get back in time for the match” he yelled back.
She brought back a towel and wiped dry his hands, his face, his hair.
“Did you miss me?” he asked her.
She was a little taken aback: it was a question he hadn’t asked for years, decades even.
“A little longer and I would have run away with my pickpocket!” she said mischievously—quoting from memory, for it was a little dialogue that they used to play often during the early days of their marriage.
“Pickpocket?” he said, in mock-anger, and then swooped down to peck her on her cheek, sending it a shade darker than brick-red, and whispered in her ear:
“Maybe we should change that dialogue—he’s a painter now”

Rediscover

The darkness flew past us. People sat apart, mostly silently, some sleeping, their heads resting serenely against the glass; others stared into the nothingness, unmindful of the gentle swaying and the muffled pounding of the rail on tracks. I was listening to myself condemn Free Thinking. I had several such recordings on my Ipod on subjects diverse—this was the most recent and therefore, by default, my current favorite. The metro stopped briefly and the doors opened to nobody. That was expected—it was 10 45 and this was the last metro.

Children laughed in my ear—my recordings were not mere commentaries, drab and monotonic. A lot of work went into them. There was, firstly, an idea, which was the basis of the whole initiative—usually a twisted take on something common, sometimes pointedly hilarious and often implausible, other times serious and even highly debatable; then there was the background score comprising of variants of a basic tune and other sounds. The tune was “composed” by yours truly, aided by a music-maker software and an able, finished musician-friend of mine; and the other sounds— children laughing, or the buzz of the marketplace, or the sound of gunshots—were all painstakingly chosen to add dramatic effect. In most cases, the end product was nothing like I had envisioned it in the beginning: reality, I had long before discovered, is harsh. But, I kept at it—the joy was in the process and though disappointing, I was quite fond of my recordings.

My compartment was near-empty: a group of tired-looking men in suits and red ties sat on one end and, involuntarily, a frown crossed my face. A little away, a family of three, carrying baggage that could have been a lifetime’s worth, huddled together—the kid sleeping on the mother’s lap, who seemed wary. I couldn’t get my eyes of her silver bangles for some reason. There were others—an old, bearded foreigner, who seemed so completely at home that a surge of strong jealousy arose in me; a few seats away sat a tall man, with a pointed nose and a flat head, who reminded me of a grown-up Suppandi; and diagonally across, sat this man in reading glasses, notebook and pen on his lap, staring curiously at me. I stared back for a moment—he didn’t look away, but a slow smile spread across his face, extending from his lip to his nose to his eyes, like a ripple on the water surface. I liked the smile, but I didn’t want to smile back. So I looked away.

Empty stations and billboards and neon lights whizzed past us. I was listening, distractedly, to me lecture on “Everything but 42” (a pathetic attempt at dark humour).
I looked around: a couple of unrecognizable faces, who I hadn’t noticed enter, sat apart, one listening to the FM on his phone; Suppandi-head had disappeared; the woman with the silver bangles looked more relaxed; out of the corner of my eye, I looked at the man with the reading glasses—he was apparently poring over his notebook—I could see, even from where I sat, that the page was blank; he noticed me looking at him and immediately threw a quick smile and asked:
“What are you listening to?”
“Um .. Nothing” I said, unplugging my earphones and immediately switching playlists.
I don’t talk much to strangers. I don’t talk much to anyone anyway. I like my silences.
He walked across, sat by my side and said, gesturing towards my Ipod:
“Can I listen?”
I didn’t refuse. It didn’t seem right to do so.
He let me hold the Ipod, sensing my insecurity, and simply plugged the earphones in his ear.
“Whose voice is this?”
“John Lennon”
“John Lennon definitely wasn’t around when Twenty20 began” he said laughing.
“I know” I said, wondering if he was in the habit of making random statements.
“So?” he asked, one eyebrow a couple of notches above the other.
“So?” I muttered, wondering what was happening.
“So, whose commentaries are these?”
And that was when it dawned. I was aghast. My playlists hadn’t switched; I had just moved onto the next recording. That was not Lennon he was listening to sing, but “Dislike”, my theory on dislikes and why it is necessary for all of us to have strong ones (Twent20 figured prominently on my list of strong dislikes)
“That is .. my friend” I said.
“He’s good” he said and went back to listening intently.

I sat there, looking at him, trying hard not to look as though I was trying to gauge his reaction though that was exactly what I was trying to do. I had never shown my recordings to anyone—like most things in my life, it was intensely personal and completely worthless, embarrassing even. Yet, here I was, sitting by this random stranger, studying expectantly every expression on his face. I could hear my voice crackle through the earphones. And despite the screeching and the chugging and the relentless stream of instructions of the monotonic voices from above (Any unattended baggage can be a bomb; Please do not forget to take your belongings; Don’t talk to strangers), I could hear every word of what he was listening to.
He had an intelligent, expressive face—much like an academician or an artist: most of the time, as he listened, it was engrossed and serious, eyebrows knit, foreheads creased; but every now and then, the lines smoothened and he let out a chuckle or smiled knowingly; he caught on, very early, to the cold, biting sarcasm, characteristic of well-hidden anger, let loose in the privacy of these recordings, and I could see he quite liked it; and when it finished, four stops and seven minutes later, he was smiling and I was flush with inexplicable excitement.

“You are a smart fellow” he said and added, eyes twinkling, “And you’ve got a nice deep voice”
“Thanks” I said, a little embarrassed by the praise and at being seen through so easily.
He looked up to check where we were and continued:
“And the music? You composed it too?”
“Well, sort of. With a little help” I said.
He was clearly impressed.
“Young man, two things .. lighten up a little” he said, and added with a wink, “And lie more convincingly”
The metro was slowing down now, breaks screeching, and he got up. I got up too, out of politeness and also because I knew no one would take my seat.
“I am a writer” he said, moving towards the door, “And I thrive on such chance encounters: you’ve opened up quite a few avenues for me”
“Pleased to be of service” I said, smiling broadly. It had been ages since I had flashed a smile like that at a friend, let alone a man I had known for barely fifteen minutes, and added, “Maybe you should write a story about me sometime”
“Maybe I will” he said.

The doors opened to nobody, the robotic voices had a fresh set of instructions ready; he stepped out gracefully, hands wrapped around the blank notebook and turned around and waved.
“What’s your name?” I shouted and waved back, suddenly remembering to ask; the doors would shut any moment now.
“Gaurav” he said, “better known, in the literary world, as ARG”
The doors shut; the name registered though.

The metro gathered speed; the station lights had their moments, before darkness engulfed us again; And for some reason, I felt extremely light.

And I was riding from darkness to light.

Her First Rally

The men stared at her pointedly: men in the metro stare at any female who wears jeans. It also helps if she's fair, has straight hair and chews her pen. She lent back against the door and sighed as she looked at the route-map that she knew like the insides of her house: another five stops after this one. She chewed her pen even more and nervously fidgeted around. Trying hard not to dwell on the number of people she would be addressing, she concentrated on her speech, on the basic framework, on the quote of VD Savarkar she had picked up from the Party' s students' manual.

"This station is Rajiv Chowk. Change here for the Blue Line"

The doors opened to a sea of desperate buzzing men, almost like a swarm of thirsty bees and they swept into the compartment, taking with them the few who had to get out.

Please stay clear of the doors.

The men against the tide panicked, pushed and squeezed their way through the now-closing doors in a manner that would have made Darwin proud.

Rana slouched in the driver's seat, legs sticking out of the car window, a burnt cigarette in his mouth, a half-smirk lining his unshaven, gaunt face. He coughed and spat, the cigarette flew out too. It provoked nervous laughter from the rest—he silenced it with some well-chosen words, soft and menacing. They sat there, the four of them, three behind, one by his side—staring at their watches, keeping an eye on those exiting the metro station and entering the car-park. Rana didn't like the air in the car, it was just too edgy—it was a simple job and yet, these stupid bacchas were afraid. First-timers were fun to boss around, but the onus of the entire thing fell squarely on Rana's shoulders, something that usually wouldn't have bothered him too much: if only these stupid kids stopped shifting so much in their seats.

"Open the windows. Now. I need fresh air" he said, and much to his consternation, there was more shuffling; and to drown it, he put the radio on and hummed along with one of the latest Punjabi Hits.


Another four stops to go, she thought. The tension, which had up to now been languishing unnoticed in the insides of her stomach, now crept up, above her chests and to her throat, where it settled, forming a big lump. Another strand went down from her stomach, paralyzing her legs, giving her pins and needles. To distract herself from her state, she stared back at a man who had been shamelessly staring at her ever since she got in: he looked away, embarrassed. And it hit her again: she was the face of the party; this was her first rally; hundreds, maybe thousands of people standing under the mellow sun, waiting for her, chanting her name. Her name.
The tension had finally got to her head.

"Let's go over this one more time, mother-fuckers" Rana said, stretching and cracking his knuckles.
They immediately all stiffened up, sitting upright, overtly attentive. It irritated him.
"She is tall, fair, wears black shades and an orange salwar. She boarded the 10 28 metro, which means she will be here in exactly .. " he paused, to look at his watch and continued, ".. 5 mins. I am guessing she will walk past us to her car, which I am unable to trace, but is somewhere here. Just stay calm and when she does walk by, get out and form a circle around her. I want no touching, understand: one hand on her and I'll fuck your sisters. Just surround her and shut up. No talking. I do all the talking. Who does all the talking?"
No answer. He looked around. The guy in the back seemed to almost cry softly.
"Bosudi-wale, do you want to go back to drinking your mothers' milk?" he bellowed.
If that had meant to be a war-cry to inspire, it inspired just one emotion: fear.
"It's a fucking female. We are NOT hitting anyone! No fights, just talking. What is wrong with you guys?"
That's when he noticed, following their gaze: at the edge of the car park, along their row, fifteen cars to the right, was a police car.
"Right" he said, not taking his eyes away, "these chutiyas had to turn up here also. Its ok, if we keep it quiet, they won't notice. Ok?"

"It is said, in the puranas that a leader is not—" she said in her head and paused. Something was not right.
She shut her eyes again, and focused. The words had to flow and yet be forceful and loud, it had to sweep people off their feet. Focus, she muttered. And then went again:
"It is said, in the puranas that a successful leader—"
The metro screeched to a halt just then, causing her to momentarily be imbalanced. She held onto the railing and looked around, hoping no one noticed.
Twenty pair of interested eyes stared back at her.
This station is ______.Please stay clear of the doors

Luckily, the phone rang just then, to distract her: it was a message wishing her luck, she read it, shrugged and looked up—two more stops to go.

'Now, men, get off. As quietly as you can" he said, opening the door and closed it with a soft click.
"And keep an eye on the—"
The rest of what he said was lost in three doors banging like gunshots in the still air. Instinctively, his eyes immediately ran to the policemen standing: they hadn't noticed. Rage filled him, he wanted to bang something too, someone's head maybe, but he held his calm and said:
"Silence people. Silence"
They stopped muttering, but he could sense their fidgetiness. It was getting to him now, making him nervous.

And then he saw her get out. He had never seen her before, but he knew it was her.
"Look!" the kid next to him bellowed and Rana was quick to stamp on his feet. It had the desired effect: he shut up.

She got out of the metro, made her way up the escalator. All was a blur now, she couldn't think anymore. Mechanically, she made her way up the stairs and walked in a haze until she realized she was going the wrong way. She pulled herself up, turned around and walked: the station was unfamiliar and she shouldn't be making such mistakes. Time was of essence. She made her way towards the correct exit, ignored the security guard whose eyes tracked her until she was finally out and breathed in the fresh late-winter, early-spring air. It had a refreshing, calming effect. She spotted the car she was supposed to take quite easily for there were few cars and walked towards it.


They saw her coming their way: she was something divine, Rana thought. He'd have much liked to woo her than threaten her. She walked gracefully, like an angel straight from the epics; her short kurti clung on to her body attractively; her shades were placed delicately over her fore-head.
Someone behind him whistled softly but suggestively. And he controlled the urge to smash him to pulp. Instead, he glanced quickly at the oblivious policemen and said just one word: Now.

And then she saw them and froze. She was afraid this would happen and had thus insisted on driving to the rally, all by herself. She thought no one knew how she was coming or where her car was.


The marched silently in a file and Rana stopped right in front of her, blocking her path. The rest formed a circle around her. He was impressed by their efficiency, but was far more impressed by how beautiful she was. For a second, he lost his bearings: the fear in her kohl-lined eyes nearly melted his heart, she was suddenly this delicate piece of crockery, to be handled with care. And then he heard himself say, in a voice whose texture sounded alien to him,
"Get into the car. And not a word"
She nodded mutely, weeping: tears trickled down her cheeks. Rana saw she hadn't expected this, not one bit, her face said it all.
The policemen were laughing; someone must have cracked a joke somewhere.

They had formed a circle around her now and she was left defenseless. How did they get to know? Who had told them? And how did none in her own party come to her rescue? She silently gave in to their demands and followed them in to the car. She didn't want this. She so didn't.



**********

"VOTE FOR US AND VOTE FOR HAPPINESS:SAGARIKA"
In a stunningly powerful first rally, the newly announced first-time candidate from the Students' Party, the attractive Sagarika, held the crowd of thousands a-sway in a forceful speech. Already famous, a darling of the local media due to her photogenic face, her new-age sense of style and vicious comments, Sagarika couldn't have hoped for a better debut.
Arriving in the media van (we got to her in spite of her trying to get off a stop in advance and giving us the slip!), Sagarika propounded her three-point agenda … "

FRIENDLY ABDUCTORS
In a strange case, a girl was abducted from the VV Metro station, only to be dropped back a few blocks from her house. She was unharmed and was only robbed off her wallet and mobile phone, not before the leader amongst them got her a rose and chocolates …

Colours Apart

We painted together. She chose her side of the sheet, I chose mine. We were always like that, respecting each other’s spaces. I drew a tree; she drew a Rajasthani woman, complete with red sari, silver earrings, and a waist that would set several roadside loafers’ hearts a-flutter; I pictured them too, those loafers, perched by a wall between my tree and her woman, popping peanuts, clad in designer jeans (jeans with designs), ogling, high-fiving, laughing, commenting. Instead, I drew a Sufi saint. Dancing perhaps, I don’t know. Subjectivity in art was my forte—even the question of the saint’s clothes were ambiguous, the top half seeming to suggest some type of a shawl, the bottom more like the Emperor’s New Clothes.

She looked at my Sufi and grimaced. I knew what was coming; she would first run her hands through her hair, bite the tip of her brush and let the words form in her head. And then they would pour—words poured for her, never flowed nor stumbled—she thought (and therefore spoke) faster than most people I knew and you had to listen to her in slow-motion for the first time if it had to make any sense to you.
What a waste of a pretty Rajasthani, she was saying, but I barely paid any attention.
Its good to be abstract and everything, but there is a time and a space for it all, she continued.
Time and place, time and space. Typical.
The woman is so precise and decked, with intricate details assuming precedence over long sweeping brush-strokes, she ploughed on.
Sweeping—her once-favourite adjective, only to be replaced by a string of better ones. Wonder if that’s how she is with her men too?
It is ok for the tree to be the way it is; it’s not a person and trees are meant to be flowing.
I’ll miss her flowing trees and singing chairs, oh yes I will, but it’s better now that later.
But the Sufi? He’s like this Bugs Bunny in a Nishant or .. WILL you please STOP giving me that DEMENTED smile?

“Huh?” I said and immediately wiped clean my smile and said uncertainly “Um … The Sufi is abstract because Sufis are abstract. Their whole existence—“
“The Sufis have figured things out” she snapped. “They think very clearly. I don’t see why they should be termed abstract”
“Abstractness and clarity are both subjective terms” I said, having had time to gather my thoughts, and continued “What is crystal-clear to the Sufi is still very abstract to us. And since we live by the rules of a democracy, definitely, by the simple fact that there are more normal people than Sufis , Sufis are abstract by majority vote” I said triumphantly, and added, without thinking,” Its like a solar eclipse or something ”
“You do realize that I have dated you for a couple of years now and will not fall for that old say-something-absolutely-random-in-order-to-appear-brilliant trick”

And that was why we were splitting ways: we knew each other too well. And yet, we rarely agreed on anything. And with time, we were less willing to compromise. And towards the end, we clung on to anything similar—like the fact that we both liked an almost universally acclaimed movie or that we both preferred rich sweet lassi to bad milk tea on a roadside dhabha—as a sign that we were meant to be together. Our love, however, was slipping through, like sand through a clenched fist, and the tighter we held, the faster it slipped. Eventually, we decided that enough was enough. I was glad it was an amicable split.
Even that day, our last day together, I think I nursed a hope, a silent one at that, that maybe, just maybe, she’d just read into my mind and would, out of the blue, say something that would shock me—that would tell me that we were just meant to be.

She walked up to me and placed our clearly abstract painting on my lap and said “Keep it. I want to paint again. Alone”
See, I told you, we were just not meant to be.
“I guess I’ll just go and watch TV”
“Suit yourself”

I don’t know when I had dozed off or for how long I had slept. But, when I awoke, I knew she was gone. I rubbed my eyes, and stretched and yawned and walked up to the kitchen for some water when something in the study caught my eye. It was the painting, her painting: there was a Rajasthani woman, precise and detailed, on the right side. There was a tree, much like my own, flowing and colourful, on the left. And in the space in between, perched on a wall, there were loafers popping peanuts, wearing designer jeans (jeans with designs), ogling at the woman, laughing and hi-fiving.

The Automaniac

It was late-evening, the light was fading. The sky was a grim grey-brown, as it had been all day. It being Sunday, there was little traffic on the road—cars and bikes zoomed past him, the odd bus trundled by; few autos chugged past noisily, but they were mostly taken and did not stop despite his repeated signaling; a bullock-cart, full of fresh manure, passed him, leaving a trail of obnoxious smell behind; He walked around in circles, getting increasingly impatient, muttering to himself to stay calm. And then, he finally saw an auto that was passenger-less: he jumped down the pavement, onto the road, in its path and swung his hands frantically. It stopped.

“Where to, sir?” the auto-wallah asked, grinning. And the man noticed he had no incisors.

The man hesitated, before he said:

“To the Market. Er... How much?”

The auto-wallah gave a demented, tooth-less grin yet again, and declared:

“Sir, you will give me fifty rupees”

That was nearly twice what he thought it would cost, but he simply got in quietly.

With a single hard tug at the lever, the engine spluttered and coughed into action. The rush of the wind stung so hard that the man hugged his jacket and drew his bag closer to him. He noticed there were three decorated rear-view mirrors, one on either side of the windshield, and one on top, just below the picture of the Goddess. In every mirror, all he saw was different bits of the face of the auto-wallah: the mirror above showed his forehead, mostly dominated by a bright-orange tilak, and a portion of his curly, messed-up hair; the mirror on the right showed one side of his two-day stubble and one red, kohl-lined eye; the other side, showed the other half of his face, a black birthmark on his cheek, lips more grey than pink. In the mental picture he made of the face, putting together the pieces in every mirror, the auto-wallah looked like a lunatic.
“Do you like my auto sir?” the auto-wallah asked suddenly.

“Um?” he said, looking at the mirror on top, at the red-eyes that were trained on him.

“Auto .. Like? You?” the auto-wallah asked again.

“Its nice” he said, pretending to look around.

The auto-wallah let out a shriek of laughter and abruptly sobered down and asked in a soft, toneless voice:

“Only nice?”

“Very nice, sir. I meant very nice” he said hastily.

And thanks to one of the rear-view mirrors, he saw one side of him smile.

They were still twenty minutes away. He just didn’t like the way the journey was going, but he held his calm.

They stopped at a signal. A bus tanked next to them with a loud hiss, and a gust of welcome hot air blew from its exhaust; the buzz of still running-engines all around irritated him; a beggar-boy, carrying his little sister went from one tinted window to another-- finally one opened and sent a jet of red-paan that the boy did well to dodge. Presently the boy came up to him: he looked away and refused. The auto-wallah gave the boy a ten-rupee not and said menacingly, looking at him through the mirror:

“Sir, don’t you have to give this boy ten rupees, too?”

The man briefly considered abandoning the auto and bolting, thinking this was the devil that had, perhaps, come to give him some sort of a warning.

But he simply took-out a ten-rupee note from his wallet and gave it to the boy.

The light turned green and they were away, again.

“Can you sing, sir?” the auto-wallah asked.

“Um .. Me?” he asked and instinctively, held on to his bag even more tightly.

“Yes, sir”

“No, I cant”

“Eh?”

“I can’t” he said a little loudly, trying to make himself heard over the din of the auto.

“I am not deaf, sir” the auto-wallah said sternly.

“Sorry” he muttered.

And they both stayed silent, before the man noticed the reflection in the mirror lighten as it broke into a smile. He relaxed slightly. The auto-wallah said:

“I’ll teach you a song, sir. Sing after me”

“Um .. Ok” he said meekly.

And the auto-wallah broke into a joyous cacophony: it spoke of the greatness of the country, of the mountains and the rivers, of the Gods and the Kings, of diversity, of unity, of tolerance and kindness and of course, of love. With every line he repeated, the man grew tenser. Sweat beads formed behind his ears and rolled down his cheek; his eyes grew steely and dark much in contrast to the auto-wallah, whose blood-shot eyes moistened with feeling and he looked like a sad, mad man.

When he finally reached the Market, the man nearly jumped off the auto. His hands shivered as he fumbled with his wallet, before dishing out a hundred-rupee note and said “Keep the change”. The Auto-wallah gave him one last tooth-less maniacal grin of gratefulness. He ran, as fast as he could, in the direction opposite to that of the Auto. And then he heard it and he stopped and relief flooded him. He smiled, slid his hands into his pockets, whistled a soft love-song and walked on. In a few hours he’d watch it all on TV, reporters scrambling to get a shot of the debris of the Auto that carried the bomb (his bomb in his bag!) that rocked the Market and shocked the nation ..

The Train

(This piece was written way back in March. I dont remember writing it, but I remember being fairly impressed when I read it much later on, last month. I even wondered if I'd actually written it, thinking it might have been Swaroop's :p )

I coughed and hid under my blanket. The train rattled through uninhabited plains, rendered dim by the thick, solar-shielding coat of the windows. I had been in the wretched train for less than two hours—enough time for the inhospitable AC atmosphere to get to me. I had tears streaming incessantly from my eyes, only to be matched by a nose that ran like a leaky drain, my cheeks were puffed, and I felt like that time, when, as an adventurous kid of six, I had climbed into the freezer, half-naked. I coughed again—this time a series of jerky noises that concluded in a horrible, wheezy squeal that caused many heads to turn. I buried myself under the blanket, more out of embarrassment than cold, promising never to resurface until the landscape outside changed.
******

“Sir?” I heard a youthful voice call out softly, from very near my face, on other side of the rug.
I did not respond.
“Sir? Please wake up”
I rolled over.
“I know you are not asleep, Sir. I know”
Now I was curious. I turned around and pulled off the blanket to see an unfamiliar face stare at me: it had the eyes of a frog—large, oval and kind; the nose—long and flat—the shape of a boatman’s oar; prominent cheekbones, nondescript ears, a hint of a mush and a two-day stubble. I scowled, face muscles crumpling up—I can sure look hideous when I want to. He looked at me with eyes widened and broke into a great, big smile. And I couldn’t help smiling back myself.
“I’ve got hot tomato soup for you” he said and thrust the cup into my hands.
I was still a little groggy. I did not know what to say, how to react. I groped under the blanket, inside my jeans-pockets and struggled to extract my wallet.
“No, no sir!” he said, rushing to stop me, “Please. Payment can wait. You really need this, urgently”
I shook my head in refusal, though, inwardly, I was grateful—those pockets were a pain, having a two- centimetre radius through which I wondered how I had managed to squeeze in my wallet in the first place. I gratefully accepted the soup—the warmth of the plastic cup itself was rejuvenating. I let the steam from the cup warm my face, a flush of blood returned to my cheeks and then I gingerly slurped.
“Excellent” I said hoarsely, to my new friend, who beamed in return and continued, “Thank You”
“Oh, no problems, sir” he said, waving his hand dismissively, “We see a lot of cases like you. Don’t worry. You are in safe hands”
And then, in a flurry he was gone, carrying his tray and vessel with a practised carelessness, announcing to whoever was interested in a monotonic but resonant voice that even the farthest man in the compartment could hear with astounding clarity, “Tomato Soup! Tomato Soup!”
And all that was left was the rhythmic, monotonous rattle of the train; and outside, beyond the rail-tracks and the wires and the milestones, I saw green fields and cows and tiny huts and men toiling under the afternoon sun: the landscape had changed.
******

After many hours of fitful sleep, characterised by dreams of great recollection value, I felt much better. Outside, all was dark—not even specks of light in the distance—and, courtesy the darkness, I felt we were moving at twice the usual speed. I felt much better.
I wanted fresh air—one untouched by the stale scent of rugs, pillows and the odd perfume—and I walked across to the enclosure between compartments. I looked at myself in the stained mirror: I looked a sick man still. I sat by the door and peered outside: trees sped by, but beyond there was just black. The sky was blacker still—dotted by thousands of stars, a sight that I love and hadn’t seen for a long while. With soft-music in my ears—thanks to my brand new MP3 player-- drowning the drone of the train, I relaxed. And sat and gazed.

A tap on my shoulder brought me back to my senses. I turned around to see another hot cup of soup on the floor beside me, pulsating with the throb of the train. And he was gone.
******

I remember not having slept that night: The AC and its effects served as a huge disincentive to get back, and I also felt my cold returning. What’s more, I had a very good book with me—I cant quite put my finger on what it was, perhaps a Gerald Durrell, and I sat in that enclosure, the only place that was still lit at unearthly hours and read till plains changed to forest that further transformed into city and stations and finally returned to being the plains, lit only by the radiance of a million stars; till the stars all set, in their own precise manner, and a sleepy, red-eyed sun rose over the hills in the distance.

I slept as people awoke.
******

I lugged my bag and walked up to the enclosure and placed it there. There was just one man who was standing by the door—tilting outwards into the wind that set his hair wild, balanced as precariously as a circus acrobat, only his hands held the garish, yellow bars on either side of the door for support. He wore a stained railway uniform and he seemed to be lost in thought. I don’t know why, but I said,
“Oye! Be careful!”
He turned around and we both broke into smiles, his smile much more open and radiant than mine.
“So, sir! You are getting off?”
I nodded in the affirmative, still smiling.
“How are you? Cold gone? Magic soup did the trick?” he spoke as fast as the train in the darkness, questions incessant, yet considerate and genuine.
“Gone!” I said and extracted my wallet with surprising ease, and thrust a hundred rupee not in his hand—the cost of nearly a dozen soups—and said, “Thanks!”
“Sir” he said, “Why simply?”, but nevertheless pocketed it gratefully.
And then there was silence, punctuated only by the incessant rattling of the train, as we both swayed.
“So, Ranga” I said eventually, with a swift glance at his badge, “Where are you from?”
“Belgaum” he said, now looking away and staring again into the darkness.
“And you’ve been in this train-business for how long?”
“Three years” and then added just to assure himself, I thought, “I like it here”
“You do?” I asked.
“Yes. You get to make friends here. The other members of the staff are very nice and friendly—they really pamper me, being the youngest and all. And you see so many people: and you learn from them. Every journey always brings in interesting people” he said, thoughtfully, words no longer coming out like they were slipping down a slide, and added, “India is a very big country”
I didn’t know what to say. And so I listened. And as he grew more comfortable, his speech grew faster, as though he was trying to match the words-per-minute world record, and he was telling me about his childhood, his village, his love-affair with the railways, Sachin Tendulkar and tomato soup. Sometimes I would lose track of what he would say, for I would get lost in his gestures—intensely expressive, like a child practising for a school-play; even more distracting were his giant eyes and those orb-like, kind eyeballs that sometimes grew so large that they almost seemed fake. Sometimes, he proved to just be too fast for me. He was saying something, when I interrupted, apologised for doing so and asked,
“How much do you earn?”“Not much, Sir. 1600 rupees plus food and clothes”
“And what do you do with it?”
“I send it back home. To my father. They are looking for bride for me now; then I’ll surely get some money. I might even quit this place and go to the city in search of something”
“And where in the—“
He cut me short, to add with a naughty, girlish giggle,
“Oh, I save some money to buy the odd cigarette or a bottle of booze” and before I knew it, he was blowing air into my face and asking, “Can you smell it in my breath?”
I couldn’t. My nose was blocked. I said very appreciatively,
“Oh. I can. Some booze that is!”
We talked some more: about Kannada film actresses and strangely, the polio vaccine.

******

And then, it was time for me to leave. The train was braking hard now, inertia caused me to be momentarily unbablanced, before it slowed down considerably, the rhythmic beats becoming louder and clearer, horn blowing, much like an elephant trumpeting, as it curved to enter my station. It stops for barely two minutes, so we bid a hurried farewell, as I wished him all the best and shook his hand and he half-hugged me. I jumped off and turned around to see him beaming. And before we knew it, the train sounded its horn, and it slowly, creaked back to motion. He was waving now—in his own exaggerated manner, hands everywhere, the wind messing up his hair once again, and then he shouted:
“Remember the name, Sir”, and he was farther and farther away, “K.P.Raghu! You’ll see me in the papers one day—even Rajni Kant started off as a bus conductor”

I then checked my jeans pocket—it was a mechanical action with me—and realised: the wallet was gone.

The Slum

Mukundam Sir never walks around the slum—he struts around it, hands in his pockets, kicking the odd stone that lay in his path, swinging his black, double-compartmented bag that he slings around his shoulder, smiling at the skies and simultaneously, eyes darting everywhere, observing everyone, looking for children— children picking rags, children washing clothes, carrying boxes or pails twice their weight—and in between all this, he manages to carry out the most genial conversation with me about why Laxman is India’s best batsman. It is hot. So hot that sweat drips off my face like rain-drops off sloping leaves of trees during monsoons; so hot that I have almost finished the litre-bottle of ‘AquafinE’ water I bought at the slum-general store. I am famished, and another hour under this maddeningly scorching sun, I’ll call myself exhausted. I pour the last few sips of water on my head and stare into the hazy blob of yellow above and have this foolish urge to take off my Tee shirt. And through the corner of my eye, I notice Mukundam Sir swaggering around unmindfully, now whistling a tuneless tune, in a full-sleeve shirt ...

The slum is vast—a maze of intertwining gullies, some parallel and straight, some curved, some looped and some shapeless. It took me a whole week and a half to find my way around this place—the houses/huts/settlements have no numbers, they pretty much look the same in some places, it is as easy to get confused and lost as it is for an American in a game of cricket. Landmarks are difficult to find, and I relied heavily on intuition; with time however, I improved for every lane has an identity of its own, in this case most easily epitomised by its people. I used people as landmarks—I knew I was a couple of lanes behind the Government School by the sight of an old hag, devoid of teeth, always clad in saris in varying shades of green (a little bit of research told me that an Environmental NGO had come recently and distributed clothes for the old and the infirm), sitting by her house, staring at the bare, opposite wall like it had secrets only she could fathom; The sight of a group of merry, little children—whose combined ages I could almost count on my fingers— playing with the rags from the dump told me that a few steps to my right and I would be in the street of the Lambadis—a wandering, backward tribal group of people who rarely mixed with the rest; I knew that I was in the adjacent lane to the Muslim settlement by the sight of good, old Saidulu—a balding, gem of a man who lost both his thumbs and index fingers in an ‘accident’ (that was all he would tell me)—squatting and doing his wood-work with his seven-year old daughter covering up for his disability.

“What Saidulu?” Mukundam Sir says, “Still not willing to send the girl to school?”
Saidulu looks up—his deformed hands trying to keep the sun off his eyes—and says:
“See, how much help she can do around the house. And the little one inside? She’s barely a year old and needs someone around. Her mother goes away to work, every time she gets a chance”
Mukundam Sir shrugs and just when I think he’s not going to lecture, he does.
“You are only thinking of yourself, think about her for a change ...”
I’ve heard this speech so many times that I barely pay attention to what he says. And that allows me to appreciate everything else about his performance— his Adam’s apple bobs up and down frantically as his voice acquires a curious, different booming quality and this finds echoes in everything else he does as he gesticulates wildly, hands everywhere, now close-fisted, now open, now flowing; his face acquires a glow, it shines with something more than just pride—perhaps its only a trick of the light for the sun is blazing, and his deep-brown skin is sweaty and oily, perhaps not ...

When he’s done, leaving Saidulu staring at his scrap of wood meditatively, I ask him:
“Don’t you get bored of saying the same thing over and over again? Where does all the enthusiasm come from?”

“The enthusiasm comes from the fact that lunch is ... ” he pauses, to look at his watch, “... less than ten minutes away”
That’s typical Mukundam Sir. Sometimes, I wonder if this man is human: its one thing to have an inexhaustible fountain of enthusiasm tucked away inside you somewhere, its quite another to brush off all the noble work you do with incredible modesty (and a dash of flair).

********

I’ve got chapattis with aloo and thire saadam for lunch. I’ve also got some typical Andhra-curry that I can’t name, but still tastes swell. Mukundam Sir has got his normal quota of loads of rice, some delicious looking bendakai kura (my favourite) and lemon-pickle.
“Exhange offer!” he announces, miming perfectly the voice of the Big Bazaar lady, “Your Aloo for my bendakai; No extra fee; Hurry! Offer open till I count 5. 1 ...”
I quickly swap curries and smile at him. But, he’s looking away—at the blackened stream that lays by our slum, a faint trace of a frown on his face.
We are at the eastern edge of the slum— Mukundam Sir’s most preferred area. The government school building is here, towering over the rest of the slum with its inaccurately titled bright blue board on the third floor wall that reads ‘Government Girls Higher Primary School’ (there are far more boys than girls in the school); beside the school is a small temple—the deity is miss-able, being barely a foot tall and covered in garlands and turmeric, camouflaged by the bark of the tree by which it stands, but not the paintings of Durga looking lethal on a tiger (benign in comparison) or that of Kali, blood-stained trishul in hand, tongue sticking out; and these two—the school and the temple— form the centre of a single-storied housing complex, with one-roomed government-allotted quarters that house five, six or even more: lines of houses run on all four sides; and past the houses, the land slopes down, dirty green in colour, into the a stream, as dark as the skins of the coolies who toil all day; washerwomen wash clothes by its side, some men bathe their bulls, children swim and play ...
“What are you staring at?” asks Yadamma, the woman whose home we use as our dining-place.
“Huh?” he says, and almost mutters to himself, “those children by the stream ... why aren’t they at school?”
I catch Yadamma’s eye, and the two of us smile and nod our heads in understanding—some people can’t get some things out of their heads. And suddenly, Mukundam Sir asks me, unable to hide the dejection in his voice:
“Laxman got out twice today to the same bowler. Guess who?”
Or maybe they can.

It nearly six in the evening: the men and women return from their work, tired, worn-out, backs slouching, dragging their feet; some have gathered by the tea-shop, drinking chai, discussing slum politics, marriage, scandals, ration cards; others play cards and drink beer, on the open-aired first floor of the perennially under-construction, half-done apartment complex; the women rush home because their children wait for them hungrily, there are vessels to be washed, there’s water to be drawn; the children are noisy, some still in uniforms, some in workman’s clothes, playing marbles and ­chor-police; and in perfect contrast to all the frolic and madness and colour below is a polluted grim sky above and an expressionless yellow sun, making its way down ...

Mukundam Sir is smiling, as always, drinking the final chai for the day. The chais are free for us—the tea-shop owner is a fan. Not everyone is though, and Mukundam Sir, smiling calmly, is explaining to a woman why she must send her little girls to school. If I hadn’t been here for a month, I would have thought that she was near-hysterical: but that’s how it is here—the women and men are loud and almost violent in their gestures, never bothering to tone-down and be ‘civilised’: perhaps they’re being defiant, relishing the opportunity to be free, for in most ways, they are slaves of circumstances, of ignorance; perhaps, that’s how we all men once were, before civilisation and society clamped down upon us, setting norms and making politeness and softness go hand in hand. I don’t know, but I can’t help admiring and envying how ‘natural’ and unrestrained they seem...

And then there’s Mukundam Sir, as soft as ever, patiently listening to her lecture and smiling—it all came so naturally to him—I cant see how he can be a slave to societal norms in any way. The woman’s saying, from across the road, loud enough for everyone to notice, but not everyone does:
“Why can’t a rag-picker’s daughter be a rag-picker? Who are you to make that decision for her by sending her to school?”
Another smile, and somewhere inside, I can’t help but think that all this kindness and smiling is only fuelling her anger, as he says:
“Yes, she can be, if she wants to. But, why are you denying her the opportunity to make the choice herself? Who are you to decide that this is what she should do? Send her to school and once she’s done, if she wants to come back to work with you, then she very well may, but pray don’t deny her the choice by making it yourself ...”
And I think that’s struck a chord somewhere, and a part of her has already accepted defeat or is thinking along his lines of thought for she is raving like an absolute lunatic now, hardly coherent, stringing a slew of insults together, unable to say anything that makes sense.
When she’s done and gone, having called Mukundam Sir so many names that he’d give Lord Vishnu (of a thousand names) stiff competition, Mukundam Sir sighs, smiles and says:
“Ah, she’ll come around: I think I finally broke through this time, did you notice?”
I nod. Yes, I did. I also noticed how he stayed inexplicably calm throughout her tirade: any lesser man would have lost it. And to think that this man goes through something like this everyday.
“Let’s go now ... Long night ahead, and another day tomorrow ...”
The tone catches me off-guard: it’s the first time today that he’s shown any signs of weariness.
I turn around to face him and am caught off-guard again—his face is as fresh as ever—his eyes shine, his gait has the same buoyant feel to it; he’s back to being his normal super-human self.

********

The night is quiet; there is a wind that blows slowly, almost teasingly, beckoning me outside; the few stars that defy the pollution shimmer palely; there is no sky, no moon, just a dark-grey above.
I give in—it is just too tempting. I reach for my helmet, feel my pockets to see if my vehicle keys are there—they are—and in a matter of seconds, I am out, racing through the streets of the city, the wind slapping against my chest, goose-pimples on my arms.
There are few vehicles on the road; the shops are shut; the odd cow rummages the garbage dump by the road; dogs howl in the distance; and street-dwellers are fast asleep with night-watchmen giving them company. And before I realise it, I am on the road leading to my slum—it’s a road I frequent so often that mechanically my subconscious mind guides me in the direction. The road narrows, and just as I am about to curve into the slum, I nearly hit a man with a cricket bat in his hand, walking in the middle of the road. I honk loudly and my brake screeches. Just as I am about to let my tongue loose on him, I stop myself—its Mukundam Sir.
“Sir?”
“Huh?” he says, looking straight ahead and continuing to walk.
“Sir?” I shout loudly, driving slowly to keep pace with him.
He doesn’t respond, but simply twirls the cricket bat in his hand and moves on. I don’t know why, but I am suddenly afraid.
I hastily get off my vehicle and let it rest against the wall that borders the road, throw my helmet aside and run ahead to catch up with him.
In the orange light of the street-light above, I notice his face: it is blank. I grab him by the shoulders and give him a few jerks: he stops and stares dazedly into my eyes, and gradually there’s a flicker of recognition, and then the sides of his eyes well up, and he drops the bat and slumps onto the ground, onto his bums, leaning against the wall behind. And he whispers, but in the silence around, it is all too audible:
“Why don’t they understand?”
“I do”, I say, “I do. And they’ll do too. Someday”
Silence. He’s looking past me now.
“I guess they will” he says gradually, and I notice the smoothness returning to his voice, as I give him a hand and he rises.
There’s an uneasy silence as he brushes away the dust from his backside—I don’t know what to say.
“Oh, and by the way, since I am no longer the great, noble man you think me to be, Bendakai koora is my favourite too, please spare me some the next time I bring it”
He always does.