Category: New and Upcoming Writing

Fiction | ‘Bus No. 102’ by Himani Gupta | CreativeWritingW-TBR

Published on by thebombayreview2 Comments

I was between eight and nine. I had all the right to be afraid of stories of death. There was not a single sinister object I did not fear; the monkey-carcasses hanging on electric wires, the headless doll on the rooftop included.

I did go out to play, but I retreated when games involved morbid objects. I loved speaking about ghosts, though. Because I was sure there were no ghosts, I could frighten the believers. When I was younger, my father had explained to me about their non-existence. Since then, whenever my friends told me that they did, I would run to my father, and from beneath the pile of papers he still had to file, I would urge him to confirm once again.

He did so with absolute faith in my faith in his words, ascertaining that there was no proof of the existence of ghosts. As a practice, when my sister, Dollie, brought me a head of a doll with a tousle of hair, I romped over her by mimicking scenes from ghost movies. She was cheerful, had a candid and naughty demeanour, with unapologetic bravery. She was a child meant for the living room, while I was meant to be in the study, where one barely spoke to the other. She was boisterous, and I was fiercely obedient. On a gloomy day, if a glass jar of chocolate powder slipped off my hands, I went into despondency. To jump on the washbasin and dash it against the floor was, for her, typical. Usually after this, she looked for something fresh to toy with.

In the house where we lived, which had more skylights than windows, our mother took over the daunting task of grooming us to welcome guests. This is how she did it. 

“Dollie! No overeating, no blabbering, no jokes on others. D-r-a-w a line.”  She said stretching her eyebrows tight, and then to me, relaxed, “There is no line.” 

The guests included aunts and uncles and their snooty children. They came unalarmed. I never greeted them despite mother’s constant prodding, and Dollie never goofed up at enthralling them. They knew us well enough to know whom to ask for a dance performance. Somehow, they always remained strangers to me. First time guests, however, had to get acquainted with the setting, and this happened with ease when I stood taut and Dollie stood moving her arms, trying to reach every dust particle around her.

There was little to look forward to in Khenjoy (its expanse was less than 10km in area), except for two movie theatres and a few historic buildings. This is probably why Khenjoyians whiled away their time by playing with each other’s private matters or bathing in the sun on their terraces. So did the children. They played hide-and-seek in houses not their own. 

When an aunt offered cookies or chocolates, Dollie didn’t hesitate. I found it irresponsible of her to eat grub without my mother’s knowledge. With a personal agenda to let her down, I ensured I informed mother, though she never bothered to have Dollie align with my nature. I was plaintive and perhaps, even depressing, which explains why I was the last one to show up when someone new dropped by. 

Now that I look at those days, I see that those guests were to me what ghosts were to Dollie. And I wished hopelessly that Khenjoyians kept to themselves.

I had no motivation to contest the affection of guests, until he arrived. The distant uncle, in bus number 102.

He was plump, with a proud paunch and a non-perfunctory hairdo that he evidently cared about. In a plain shirt tucked neatly and shoes that lacquered, he carried a valise for two pairs of t-shirts, one pair of pants and a Tibetan towel which he hung around his neck while groping for a soap or a razor in the dishevelled contents of his suitcase. He appeared erudite, using English words in conversations and asking us to spell apples, jaggery, and jackfruits. On the first day, he gave us chocolate bars, and on the following days, he gave us tiny toffees. 

He stayed with us for a purpose beyond our comprehension. Father had mentioned that he was here for business or work, or whatever. With time, we understood that he had been a native of Khenjoy and now lived in Bombay—a city we presumed was the most awesome of all in India. The first time he visited us, we had to cancel a planned picnic to the garden palace of Khenjoy. This was slightly more upsetting than usual for my mother who had potatoes boiled, mushrooms blanched and cucumbers sliced for sandwiches and puddings frozen beforehand. Eventually, she would serve a part of this to Uncle in china plates. 

I quipped, “Are we serving tea, or sherbet?” 

“Oh, just take whatever’s in hand!” She would never say ‘smash it on the table’. That was the decorum she wanted us to practice. 

Uncle did not ask us to sing or dance or even recite a poem. He began teasing us, knowing that was the easiest way to get children talking. It was no surprise that Dollie stepped up to tease him back. 

He asked her, “Why is your name Dollie?”

“Because I look like a doll.”

“What do you think is my name then?”

“I don’t know,” she shrugged. “Polar bear?”

 All of us cracked up.

We peeped into the skylights and watched mother keep him content by providing him food in a steady routine, almost like listless eateries serving their patrons. Mother had heard about him from my other aunts, and since he was in town for ‘work’ she had no interest in friendship.

In the evening, she served him tea and biscuits and tried to figure out if he had certain preferences for dinner. Uncle, however, was a simpleton who relished everything with almost equal interest. Mother cooked biryani and koftas for lunch the next day, and Uncle enjoyed it to the extent of discussing its recipe. To my mother’s surprise, he knew quite a bit about ingredients and discussed cooking tips with her. He knew how to bake a cake in a pressure cooker and offered to bake biscuits on his next visit. At night, mother questioned father out of curiosity, “Does he cook out of interest or is it because he has a lazy wife?”  

Sometimes, under the wreath of smoke in the kitchen, he guided mother on the amount of ghee to pour in the dough for doling out crunchy kachourees and helped clear the froth off gravies and curries.

He played carom with us and helped catch the ball when we played cricket, often becoming a player. One evening, he found me watching passers-by in front of the house instead of being out to play and perhaps, out of boredom, asked if I would accompany him for a walk. I could not refuse, despite having chosen to spend some time alone. 

Given his tall stature, I began taking abnormally long strides to keep up, but he slowed me down. He walked lethargically, relaxed and resting his hands in the pockets of his pants—he was always fully dressed and called us beta, the word for son in Hindi. 

“Which movie do we have at the theatre?” he asked. I asked him which theatre. When he mentioned both, I said I hadn’t noticed. He laughed, saying, “That’s the first thing kids your age notice.”

He began testing my general knowledge. The President, the Prime Minister, the first, the second, the state Chief Minister, the history, the geography, the last Viceroy of Independent India; almost everything that came to his mind for a junior student. 

I could not see his face, but only his large sleeves sagging near the pockets of his pants. He did not express any amazement or admiration for my all-correct answers, which I myself was not expecting. By the time his questions exhausted, we’d walked so long that we were about to cross the border to land in the grounds of the adjacent town. Since an expanse of lonely rice fields were about to follow in the dark, I felt at ease when he decided to return. 

“All right. Yes. What’s the plural form of cow?” He asked. 

“Cows,” I said. 

“Kangaroo?” 

“Kangaroos.” 

“Deer?” 

“Deer.”

“Reindeer?” 

“Reindeer.” 

“Fish?”

“Fishes.” My heart beat with pride but I could see that he thought I was too small to answer bigger questions. Still I was happy about an undisputed and immaculate victory until he corrected me that fish would be fish even if there were ten of them, unless they were different in kind. 

It was eight in the night and slightly cold, and he bought us Popsicles. And finally when he liberated his hands from his pockets to make the payment, I was freed of the fear that he was arm-less. 

I pitied the Popsicle that kept moving fast in and out of his mouth and dissolved almost in a minute. He kept asking, “do you want another one?”

“No,” I replied. “You can have one more if you like.” He bought two for himself.

“I have a son,” he said. “He can put two popsicles in his mouth at a time. But I can put three in mine.” He smiled.

“How old is he?” I asked.

“He is nine years and one day old.”

“One day? You didn’t celebrate his birthday?”

“His mother must have.”

He asked me something about a bus numbered 102, randomly. At that time I had no idea, so I said I didn’t know in a dispirited voice. 

He laughed a bit. “No, don’t be ashamed. It takes honesty to confess that you don’t know something.

I am not sure if I understood him. But my heart beat faster. And I must have been blushing. 

“It was one of the few buses that provided connectivity between our home and the railway station,” he said (I noticed that ‘our’) and later reminisced about his college days when he used to board 102, six days a week, mostly as a straphanger, getting to sit only on Saturdays. 

He gestured with his other hand while explaining. When winter shaded Khenjoy and vacations came around, he still hopped to the college library twice a week, sitting on the empty bus, clearing the fog from the glass of the window. Bombay called and he left in search of work, miles away, eventually settling down over there. “I can’t tell you how many memories I have.”

“What memories?” 

“Huh. Let it be. You are a child.” 

Mother always fed guests and children first, occasionally taking my service for passing on hot rotis from the burner to the diner’s plates. Uncle, however, disliked this and believed in eating together. So we began eating together and dinner time made me awkward due to my inability to acknowledge the friendship between us, unsure if he would mind it. He acted as if nothing had changed between us, or at least nothing had changed on his side. Expressing concern about the lack of electricity in the abandoned rice fields, he lauded the spicy food on his plate, talked about the fun he was having staying with us, but did not say a word about the time with me. 

At this moment, mother blessed me with an escape. The pile of rotis she had kept in the casserole before we began was now done with, so she asked me to get a few more from the kitchen. I brought the rotis, but they weren’t brushed with ghee, so she got up, mentioning I did not know how to do it and that she had always had to get up during meals. I sank into my chair. 

Uncle, with food in his mouth, said, “Now we can’t get her to know how to peel a bean and a jackfruit,” and then he tipped his head to the left. “For her age, she knows. Knows what she should.” 

He had not gassed a bit, though, I played amplified versions of his words in my head. 

That visit was especially short-lived after our inflamed camaraderie. He had left before we returned from school, and it pinches to have missed what could have been a memorable farewell. 

To keep us from wandering all day, mother asked us to sort old newspapers so she could bundle them up and sell them off to the local scrap dealer. The newspapers reminded me of all the general knowledge questioning done by Uncle.There were old, golden wrappers of chocolate bars that we had preserved and forgotten. Every month, mother hoarded such gibberish and swished the mess out the house. Our room had several shelves carved into the wall, each carrying important objects on a layer of newspapers. This was a task, given that shelves were loaded with books and magazines. Sociology, literature, politics, psychology—all sophisticated but subjects incomprehensible to me at the time. Still, my mother kept them clean, filling each corner with anti-rodent drugs and hung a thick curtain to keep them away from dust; somehow reasons made way for my mother to organize the cleaning process. 

She said, “Girls never learn what’s worth keeping and what’s not.” Once we set the books, we moved to the other two sets of shelves that held combs, hair oil, toys, and clothes. Easy and simple to pull, sort and dust. First, we threw away the base of the newspaper pad. She gave me a fresh one to be double folded and placed it on the shelf. It read: Only dead fish swim with the stream. It reminded me of fish and fishes.

I cropped it and slipped it between the pages of my drawing book.

***

 

With every visit he seemed less strange to me. He enjoyed his vacation, far from the noise of the city. He took us to the Maharaja gardens, where he said that his city had more skyscrapers than land. They create boulevards, unlike in Khenjoy, which, in his words, is not a town but a garden. We plucked hibiscus, violets, mimosa, marigold and roses from the terrace and when we needed lotuses, we scuttled to the muddy lakes behind several nearby temples whereas uncle bought it from the boy who sat by a tree or a pole and sold flowers wrapped in crumpled newspaper.

Often, Uncle called us after dinner to sit on the terrace under the moonlight. He loaded the chair with his weight as he tried to understand what I meant and I sat on the edge, preparing what to say or ask next. 

All this while, Dollie ran about the terrace and danced in the cold air. She often came to uncle, asking him if she could tie his hair in a pony, and he would agree. It angered me, considerably, that he called us both, that he was fair to both. He never seemed bored with us, never annoyed. I was at the point now where it wasn’t enough that he didn’t ask me to dance or sing. Sometimes I wanted him to say no to Dollie’s loud singing on the terrace.

I observed him closely. He and my mother spoke at length about our relatives, there were so many of them, food and cricket, among other mildly interesting things. My father couldn’t tell a shot of six from four, so he kept quiet when Uncle praised Gavaskar and mother raved about Kapil. 

“To speak of our family in sports. Every time my boy is on the ground, I am delighted. He is especially good at bowling. I would have sent him for training if only his mother let me.” Uncle said at this point.

“You are in a city of opportunities,” father said and laughed. “All you need is permission.” 

“You’d never come back, I know,” mother nodded, with a compassionate smile. “Even if your business booms here.” 

Uncle waited a few moments before saying, “There’s so much this city won’t forgive me for.”

In another moment, he started joking about Khenjoyians, “If you sneeze before them, they can tell you that you slept shirtless the night before. And if you lose weight, obviously, you have been starving and are advised to beg around. You know, I miss this gossip but can’t afford it.” 

Somewhere in my heart, I had decided that he was stronger than my father and capable of solving any problem, capable of cooking. I failed to see then that my father had little time to render us a closure. Since it was a given that a daughter loved her father; by offering a plate first to Uncle and by getting him the newspaper when he sat for tea, I was, in small ways, trying to confess my love for him.  

One Tuesday, I was on the terrace plucking a pink rose from the pot mother had been watering most of her life. Uncle was sipping tea from a large glass, basking in the sun, slicing eggplants into delicate, thin chips. He was in a good mood, and promised to make a cheese omelette with mushroom tops scattered in it the following Sunday. I held the rose carefully, and walked towards him when a neighbourhood boy we used to go to school with climbed the short parapet that separated our houses and snatched it from my hand. The thorns scraped the skin of my wrist when he did, This was very sudden, I was lost and hopeless and looked at Uncle for what might have been hope. He asked me to run after him. “Get it back!” he shouted. “Go get it!” 

Get what? I was wondering, and running behind the boy up to his terrace, trying to do it just for Uncle.

“Do not come back without the rose!” Uncle’s voice came streaming down the staircase where I was following the boy. 

A few minutes later, I went back to him with the rose in my scraped hand with barely a few petals on it. 

“Yeah,” he sighed. “That’s your rose.” 

***

Khenjoyians began wearing woolen shawls over sweaters and for hours they sat around the fire made by burning wood in a tin pan in their patios, and we knew it was winter. When the fire died, in the seething heat of the coal, we roasted sweet potatoes and then mashed them in milk for an evening snack. Sometimes, we even roasted bird shaped dough and ate it with a curry of peas and tomatoes, and in the morning we ate a preparation of sweetened yoghurt and flattened rice. We bathed from the water heated on the stove and even poured it into lavatory mugs. A month of vacation from school helped children reconcile with their busy fathers and severed relations with their mothers, most of whom worked on the wet floor of the scullery and fretted over rising electricity bills. When mothers bathed their long hair, they whined about the chill and rushed close to the fire, sipping glassfuls of tea prepared by their own freezing hands. Men who sat in their own shops and those who invited others over tea made small jokes about the winter and saw it propagate through the tiny town as though it were a firefly. Rickshaw pullers spat red after chewing betel leaves and cyclists who carried their children exhaled fog onto their tiny heads. 

One needed courage to weather the morning and as soon as there was a tiny beam of sun cracking in the sky, rooftop terraces became crowded with women and children and old men squatting on straw mats, soaking in the sun, sweaters suspended on a thin string attached to walls, sweaters too tight to slip into and too tight to escape from.  

Uncle had already missed all of this, because when he came, winter was on the verge of departing. Schools had begun.

On Sunday, we had to board bus number 102 to see his college campus and the huge gardens that accompanied it. Right before the journey, I had wondered, let’s see what this bus really is. He talks so heartily about it. 

Being the end of winter, the sun was light and warm and helped our bobs dry softly. Uncle was impatient as we waited for the bus, but kept looking around us and at the hoardings. An old bus with withering front designs and a loose headlight came to a halt before us, still red under the layer of dust. Uncle smiled and grabbed our hands, “Let’s go.” 

Evidently, he was rejoicing inside his heart as we slouched together into the last seats. His voice had a crackle now, a crackle that Dollie possessed. Wherever possible, he tried to play the guide. 

“There’s the place where we ate ice candies and salted raw cherries,” he exalted, “and water chestnuts. Boiled ones were costly. But finer in texture and taste.” 

We followed his index finger that pointed to a telephone booth. 

“There used to be barrows once,” he said petulantly. 

“I want candy floss,” Dollie cheerily pointed to a candy seller several meters away.
Classrooms and offices were closed but there were other attractions, uncle said. The library was open every day except on public holidays and standing in the gardens, was a dome shaped, museum-large hall housing a marble sculpture, about fifteen feet tall and standing on a ten feet high platform, blackened by the acid rains fallen from the openings in the dome. Khenjoyians could have written in any book, but they preferred these walls. They had, in the past, inscribed love and blasphemy here, so that the doors to this hall remained closed now, available for view only from outside the lancet windows. 

The sculpture was of a past Maharaja of Khenjoy. From the window, we could see that the Maharaja in his Nehru coat had a sword, high in his hand. In the massive hall, as I looked at the lonely sculpture, it grew on me like a ghost. Its colourless grandeur, surrounded by pale green walls, was a symbol of abandonment. Children near us threw chocolate wrappers and straws and even noodle strings through the window.

“Somebody has tried to attack the king!” Dollie cried. There were pebbles and stones around the floor near the sculpture, coming from the openings or perhaps hauled by nasty kids through the windows.

Although not ostentatious, the humongous nature of it all kept us hooked, and uncle had to pull our heads from between the beams and drag us out. Outside, too, there was sight to soak in; the gardens designed with care, befitting mimosa patterns flowering in the green grass. 

This wing of the campus was labelled Library but before the library was a room infused with the yellow rays of the sun, from tiny windows right below the ceiling, forming patterns on the pistachio green walls. Every wall and most of the  furniture was infused with the yellow sun: buzzing like music from these windows and doors. In front of the main door, on the opposite wall, was a fireplace — an unlikely piece of architecture in Khenjoy. Uncle later told us that the campus was a former King’s palace, converted into a college years before India’s independence.

The library was another grand hall, hosting an enormous number of books behind glass panels and beautifully carved, large red tables in shapes chiselled to fit the curving walls. 

“Can we get comics here?” Dollie asked, disturbing the few students who had lives boring enough to study on a Sunday.

“No.” Uncle replied. 

“What kind of books do you have in the city?” I asked.

“The same as you have here,” he scratched the skin under his moustache in a funny way and asked us to sit away from the students. “And more books are easily available. Dollie, the book jackets are more beautiful here.” 

Dollie rolled the newspaper lying on the table and began peeping through it. It did not go very well and the view did not appeal to her. She turned the pages and began cropping out a photograph of an actress. Uncle caught her and prodded us into walking out. 

The only small wing in the campus stood out for its insincere paint. As soon as we sauntered in, our nostrils experienced a gentle aroma of things that mattered to us the most. Tables and chairs filled three sides of this tinier hall while a wooden shelf stood on the remaining one behind which sat two men, one of them reading a newspaper. When they saw us, they leapt to their feet and flashed acknowledgement through smiles. We dragged uncle towards a table near the window where a girl and a boy were sitting quietly. He got us noodles with tomato ketchup and a pack of salted popcorn for our time on the bus. The bus was not empty this time, buzzing with children and elders, probably coming from a similar picnic. In the evening, he brought two orange flavoured chocolate bars. With an intention to munch on it later, I locked mine in the hind zip of my school bag and uncle left the next day. 

 Our swathing had begun to cause suffocation and sweat. Electricity power cuts followed in the night, and after twilight, men strolled about the terrace in undershirts and pyjamas while women still wrapped sarees. Amid all this, I discovered the orange flavoured chocolate in the forgotten section of my bag, holed by pest and rotten with time. Mosquitoes sucked on Khenjoyian’s blood, biting here and there, making them slap their own faces, spanking their own butt. We slept inside mosquito nets, scared that everything beyond was a mystery. The patios were burning dry during the day and among the hundreds of plant leaves on the terrace, mosquitoes bit the hands of those who plucked the beloved flowers. 

The government, or some official department, sent a man with gallons of pest control gases, and children ran behind him as though he were the Pied Piper of Khenjoy. Months passed, and pretty soon we had passed our class and the next class, too. Uncle did not even call. On questioning, mother wore a simper and then faced father with some whimper. 

Father asked us to forget him for his dishonesty in their friendship and for some other reasons that we did not comprehend. He refused to respond and my father cut off ties with him. It was more difficult than handling snooty relatives. I became tired of concocting evil tales about my uncle. We were earning fatter pocket money and buying chocolates by ourselves. There were all sorts of them, Swiss and Dutch, with raisins and nuts but it seemed like manufacturing companies were done flavouring them with oranges and nothing now tasted as it did before. Something that my tongue longed for was missing. 

Like all things, time passed.

We found ourselves ripening into teenage and learning to take life seriously. Girls in the class began flaunting boyfriends as our mother directed the tailor to bring the hem of our skirts down to the knees. Dollie was growing into a tall woman, easily passing off as my elder sister, whereas my growth graph was deceiving me. I felt dwarfed in her company. Her list of male friends kept on expanding whereas I began attracting boys who only needed my help in studies. I got used to ignoring the telephone numbers scribbled on the last pages of her notepads, though I wangled an idea that I bungled up while executing. I prowled through father’s telephone diary for uncle’s contact and every time a handful of guests ostracized me by placing themselves in our house, I unbearably rang him until he picked. There was no mechanism for caller identification then, and I had little guts to say my name.

It turned out that Dollie did not entertain anyone, only letting the boys meander to nowhere. One day, she came to sit near me and in her incessantly crackling voice, asked me if I had done something similar. I was taken aback by her question, more by her audacity than by her curiosity. I refused to answer but in the next moment, considered sussing out information about her. She politely confirmed my long-standing views about her and said, “I do flaunt. If somebody asks, I tell them I have a boyfriend in Bombay.” 

Even before I became curious, she declared that it was uncle’s son, whom she had disguised as her boyfriend, a fantasy built only to keep dunderheads away. 

I could have done that, I realised. That was a good shot but it angered me even more, the very thought of something that was close to uncle could be possessed by my sister and not me, hurt my ego. 

 The phone call that day killed all our doubts. The ever so venerable uncle called father to apologize for the broken communication, the lack of contact. He had travelled to Dubai to eke out some money to fund his business, repay debts and seemed to promise that the rest of the details would be furnished in due time. Matters, which to me were still oblivious and insignificant, were now settled. Everything was sorted seamlessly. There were further calls which assured that the old days were back. But it still took him several months to visit us, this time with his son. 

On that unfairly sunny day, I was coming back from school. My feet were aching so much that I wished not to walk on them. The belt wrapped around my waist swayed so many times out the last keeper that I wished the days when I wore a frock were back and I could simply tie a sash. Cursing the sweat dripping along my nape and the harsh sun, I reached home, and sought uncle’s presence, the fragrance of his shaving gel in the room, expecting him on a chair, with his towel around his neck, prowling through his suitcase. 

But it was somebody else playing carrom with Dollie. A young boy whom I immediately recognised as uncle’s son. I quivered, imagining him as her boyfriend. Uncle introduced us, mentioning that he, too, was about to finish schooling and was bright and diligent. Mother smiled broadly and pushed her eyebrows to swim in her forehead, suggesting I see a role model in him. His name was Tapas. I registered the smile Dollie put on when telling me the name. He wore glasses. None of us did, not even uncle. If uncle’s wife did, we didn’t know because he never carried any photo of hers, neither were we interested in knowing. But the fact that his son did, added some sort of class to him. When they stood up after the game, towering me, I told myself how well they complimented each other. 

During the lunch the three of us sat for, the question was which gender makes for a better cook. 

He said, “Men’s cooking is rather simple.” 

Understandable, I thought, since it came from someone whose father cooked enthusiastically. 

“Yes, perhaps.” I said, “They are also hesitant cooks at home,” I was wary of  sounding attacking. “The only man who has cooked for me is uncle.” 

“Mushroom omelettes,” I added. 

“Mushroom? Not possible.” 

“Why? I have eaten those.” 

He laughed first and then said, “Now that’s possible,” and winked at Dollie, who was biting a spoon. 

Both of them were busy eating, not looking at me. 

He continued, “It is possible that you’ve eaten that. But, but, but… My Papa must not have been the cook.” 

I was offended, more by the way he called him ‘my papa’ than what he argued about. I said, “You don’t know then.” 

“I do. He is so allergic he can’t even put one in his mouth.” 

“Are you sure? He’d made one for me. Delightfully.” I knew I was being insistent

“Don’t go on for longer, Tapas, else she’ll sulk through the night.” 

This was the thirteenth time she had called out his name. Tapas, Tapas, Tapas. Now I was irritated. I gobbled the rest of my food and walked out. 

The hair on uncle’s temples was now grey and his wrinkles conspicuous when he smiled. He was easily fatigued and preferred to sit most of the time. He had not had the time or opportunity to speak to me. I saw him spending more time with my parents, who had betrayed him back then. I, however, never had my affection for him diluted, I thought, I deserved him. I waited until the next day when he jolted and asked, “So have you learned to dab ghee on rotis?” 

“Come sit here, I haven’t talked to you since.” 

I beamed. I had spent the past nights imagining myself asking him why he left us without warning. Did he not wish to talk to me even once? He could have dropped a letter, maybe to my school address. But I couldn’t say anything.

At night, when they went to sleep, I opened one of my books, a tougher read that deemed my concentration necessary, and read with the doors of the room open, so I could cry out loud in case I heard a miscreant peeing in the balcony, all the while hoping that uncle should be the first to come to rescue me. 

I found his son pompous. Sometimes, when he played badminton with Dollie or helped her win a game of carrom against me or uncle, he would say, “See! I’m the saviour of all.” Then he would throw his hand in the air and grab a high five from her. Dollie had found a mischief maker in him, a partner in her crimes. Her hours at play multiplied, and it became impossible to stop her even for my father. 

When he could not bring her to study, uncle said, “Don’t let him spoil you. He isn’t as sincere as your sister.” His son frowned at the comparison. 

They continued to play and Dollie, on yet another day, exalted loudly, “Won’t you  take your son to the university like you took us?” She winked at his son and said, “slightly boring but good food.” 

“You children have grown up now. You can go by yourselves.” He advised Tapas to board 102. 

“The government shut that bus service now,” I told him. 

“When?” He asked, surprised. 

“Perhaps two years ago. The routes have changed, uncle. And all bus numbers were revised, and also painted blue. There’s a bus that now takes a different route, a shorter one, from Chironjee Marg to your university. It no longer passes by our door.” 

His shock came out clearly. He pressed his lips and pushed them up. Pinching his nose, which was now red, as if he were about to cry, and then passing his little finger through the corner of his left eye, he muttered. “O.K., O.K.” 

I could not understand how the revision of a bus number or its routes could hurt him. Perhaps neither did he. Tapas, in jest, impatiently, asked us to get ready. Uncle, I knew, needed some time to grieve the guilt of mistaking, now that bus 102 had turned its back to him.

There was a different bus now, and Dollie and  I were able to guide Tapas through the roads of Khenjoy. The new bus hosted seats in pairs, and as we entered, I moved away from them so that I don’t come in their way. But he called me out, “Vasu, let’s sit here.” 

I turned back and saw him standing and waving from near the last of the seats where all of us could sit together and noticed, only in that moment, a reflection of his father in him. Could it be true that good sons are born to good fathers? 

Things had changed, certainly. The wing where the library once stood was now a three-storey building with the library on the first floor and we were not allowed to get in without identification proofs. But the gardens and the hall where the sculpture of the king stood were open.

Upon knowing this, uncle, in a rather straight tone, said, “Nothing waits. Every individual and every object seeks its own growth.” 

He was young, enthusiastic for life and interested in everything. He had boarded the bus for another errand, bought tickets to the hardware store, and was waiting eagerly to finish the chores and get home to dinner. His station was nearing and he was prepared, standing by the open door for a smooth cruise. He saw a girl about his age walking faster than a child would run. She, terrified and breaking down, was being chased by two jackasses, who seemed naughtier than what fine character would allow. Uncle waved at her, signalling her to run towards him. She did, luck favoured and he helped her board the bus, quickly closing the door. 

“So did you keep in touch?” 

“We did. But in those days, to remain friends, you’d have to get married. It was thought of as something revolutionary in Khenjoy otherwise.” 

“Was she beautiful?” 

He was surprised that I could ask such a question. “You didn’t even watch movies, right?” He put the newspaper down, “After just a single meeting, I remembered the peace on her face for a long time.” 

When mother began trusting our maturity, she began talking, too. That uncle’s wife had divorced him some years ago, he had closed off all contacts with Khenjoy and left for Dubai. The divorce had been an end to a long going strife. Those days, there had to be substantial reasons for separation unlike today but mother did not discuss much and we didn’t question further. 

His cooking could have been out of necessity, too. His dedication at treating us all equally, his appreciation for anything that mother cooked and his ache for old memories. The lack of mentioning the wife and bringing his son to Khenjoy only in the aftermath; his son whose words, “See! I’m the saviour of all,” had meant something to him.

A TBR Creative Writing Workshop piece
 
Himani grew up in Mumbai. Her favourite writer is Clarice Lispector.
 

Fiction | ‘The gift from Ivan’ by Nachi Keta | CreativeWritingW-TBR

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Traffic is congested as usual. The cars are honking and men are braying questions and answers to each other. Trucks blare. And three-legged green and yellow roaches, called auto-rickshaws in this part of the world, drift by my side, inch by inch, to their unknown destinations. 

I am on my way to meet a friend from college, an old one. The two of us hung out with each other all the time. We would skip classes and run to the Zoo or Humayun’s tomb or to various book festivals and food festivals, dance clubs, and malls and newly opened restaurants; and there was the Ridge, where there were monkeys we would throw bananas at, even after being warned by the gatekeepers multiple times. Those were some good old days. 

Right now, it is that afternoon hour when everything is slow as molasses. There is a scooter on my left, farting black rubbles of smoke into the thick air, relentlessly gifting the people of Delhi some more smoke, some more nectar for the lungs; and on my right, there is a man, in a 2005 Chevrolet Beat, yelling and throwing invectives at the traffic – like the farting scooter on my left.

We wait for the red to turn into green. 

Memories keep him alive in me; sturdy ones, good, bad, all sorts of memories. In times of respite from the daily churning of life, I often find myself losing in them, in their sticky gluey river. 

Memories, images, and sounds, different feelings like ecstasies, and sadness, and boredom… everything… they are a part of me, they make me. I go back to them time and again. 

Delhi, India’s capital, is slightly overcast today. Brackish wads of cotton have enveloped it from west to east. There aren’t any birds though, strangely. Only humans seem to be shuffling hither and thither, in the smoke and dust of Delhi, in their collective madness.

The glass windows of a building sparkle and I close my eyes for a second. I remember… I remember it very well. How we had a crush on the same girl and how we would do everything possible to be the first one to woo her, and how that never affected our friendship. We were the famed pair of meethe in our college, the gay-couple. Stories of our bromance were known everywhere, furnished with all the ingredients and masala, and fictions were fabricated, various creative plans were made to tease us. We were inseparable. 

Perhaps the wind outside is cool. I don’t know. My air-conditioned vehicle does not like the outside air, and I am too used to my air-conditioned air. I miss them – those moments, those adventures, those beer parties, those late-night walks in the campus, those innumerable cigarettes we smoked together, standing by the familiar roadside paan shop in Kamla Nagar, walking on its restaurant-lined lanes, checking the girls out, giving them ratings, eating bhelpuri after a concert at the IHC. Ah! those college memories! Something we cherish for life. 

He was always a good friend to me; reserved, private, and poised. He was always lost in his books though… and comics and cartoons. But he never really got great marks and was studious in his own way. I remember the interminable telephone calls we used to have, especially during the exams, hung over the snaking wires of landlines. We would discuss good fiction, and literary news and critical points of various novels and poems; revising important questions and talking about how fucked up the education system was. He was more than a friend, he was my tutor and guide. He was always there when I was low, when I needed an ear.  Today I am going to meet him, after almost five years.

He had called me yesterday. We didn’t talk much and it was awkward mostly. Though I wanted to tell him that I am married now and have a little daughter. I wanted to tell him my wife’s name and my daughter’s too, tell him about how I ended up marrying the girl, yes, our girl, the one we both had a crush on, once. He sure would find it funny. 

“I think we should get together and catch up. Lots of things to share,” I said over the phone – a mobile phone this time, recently bought – a Samsung D600, black and red; not the grass-green landline I had back then. 

I think we should get together and catch up, I had said. And isn’t ‘catch up’ such a fine little couplet of words? Encompassing a million stories – jobs, promotions and family, emotions… life. He said he would love to. His voice had changed a lot, I thought, it was harsher and more nasal. I remember him to be very soft-spoken, slow and delicate with words. Also, he would never hurry, and let the words take their own sweet time to come out. But then, ten years can really change a lot.  Or it might be the meds, I thought. 

He was always on meds. He suffered from some kind of heart trouble. Or was it kidney? I made a mental note of making fun of his voice when we meet. Maybe we would meet over a beer, like before, at a bar, or perhaps in the same old streets, the college campus, or the Ridge, where there was a particular spot we had chosen for ourselves near a set of canopied benches. 

We decided to meet in Connaught Place, arguably the best place to meet an old friend in Delhi. With good connectivity, it is also lined with many restaurants and cafes, where you can sit with calm, and flurry through a slow conversation. Catch up. 

I remember that phase also when we were wannabe writers. We would haunt the libraries and bookshops of Delhi like musketeers. Everyone has those days, when they want to play the greats, like Kafka and Dostoevsky and Nachi. Looking for fiction and non-fiction, talking about how great Kafka is all the time, how mercilessly Derrida writes, and how huge a literary superstar Murakami is. 

Walks in the central park, through the shaded corridors of Khan Market under the awnings, in front of shops and restaurants of Kamla Nagar were coupled with long conversations about people and professors, about one professor we didn’t like because he flirted with the girls of our class. 

Connaught Place, or CP, is not very far now. I check my watch and call him to find how long he’ll take. He had said that he would be taking the metro since his car was in the garage. 

Oh yes, his red Maruti 800, his red and ugly Maruti 800. How can I forget it? We mocked him about it all the time. 

“Who paints his 800 with red?” 

But whenever there was a concert in the IHC or a new hangout place to test run, we would gang up and take the same car through the stuffy roads of Delhi, music blaring, the AC at max shouting our lungs out. I even remember kissing a girl at its backseat one night, after a concert, Lucky Ali, I think… as he sat on the driver seat looking out for the cops. I will definitely ask him about the car. 

“So buddy, where is your car?” That might be a good conversation starter. 

It would be difficult to begin the conversation, for me more so; because I was the one who never kept in touch. 

He picks up the phone on the first ring. He is already in CP. 

In college, he was quite a loner. There was no one he was friendly with, except for me, and I would pester him, “If you can’t open up to regular people, how are you going to get a girl?” 

“Perhaps this is who I am, someone who can’t open up to more than a few people,” he would reply. 

He must be married by now. He wanted kids and was very fond of his baby niece, talking about how she was the best and managed to bring about a smile on his face. What was her name? Arya? Yes, Arya. Despite being such a lonely man, he was all about having and taking care of a family. He never wanted money or fame in his career. 

“I just want to spend some quality time with family and friends,” he used to say when we talked about the future. One of his fondest plans was to sit with me and our wives and have brunch together, at least once a month, in a restaurant with paintings of Picasso and songs of Pink Floyd. 

The traffic has mellowed down, and now, my newly bought Tucson cruises at fifty miles an hour. I turn the AC off, open the windows and let the outside wind hit my face. It feels good. I look outside, everyone is busy. 

Delhi is a city of runners, joggers, those who consider it a crime to pause, to slow down and wait. I am one of them, definitely one of them. And it is all in our minds, we ‘believe’ that we are going somewhere, at the same time we are trying to know ‘where’. I don’t know what made me say that. It’s been five long years. I am sure a lot would have happened in his life… marriage, children, work. 

I wonder how he looks now? I hope he has lost some weight. He was a bulky man back then. We called him Potato, in jest of course, and he never felt bad about it. He was one of those guys who accept themselves as they are – with faults and all. 

I am the fat one now, having a paunch, which my daughter squishes with joy whenever she is in the mood. How beautiful it all is, to be in the stream of things, to fly, to merge, to feel. Was it Virginia Woolf who had written something like this?

I enter the parking lot. It takes me ten minutes to find a place and park the car. Delhi is full of cars, too full. It wasn’t so packed back then… when we were in college. There was this time when we spent an entire hour in finding a parking spot. It was Christmas and we were trying to find a restaurant whose biryani was supposed to be heavenly. We did find the place, but it was too full, and we had to make do with pizza.

****

I place the keys in the hands of an attendant, a young man with a two-day-old beard. He strips out a slip from a notepad and hands it over, the writing illegible. Arsh had said that he would be waiting somewhere near the ice cream parlor, the same joint where we met up before going party-hopping.

The clouds have dispersed and owing to the moisture and the accompanying wind, it is cooler now. I feel good, full of optimism. I pass a restaurant which is famous for its non-veg delicacies. I had brought my wife Smita and daughter here for dinner; and from the same ice-cream parlor where I am headed, I had bought a chocolate-cone for Sahna. 

After college, we almost stopped talking. I moved to Pune for my master’s and with the freedom that comes from living away from home and new friends, I got so engrossed that I didn’t keep in touch with him, the way I should have. I stopped replying to his texts. He tried many times but I was always busy. I guess a new bunch of healthy friends was far more adventurous than a friend who was always sick. 

He didn’t get into a college for further studies; or rather he chose not to. He said he was sicker than usual. He had a heart problem the exact details of which he would never reveal. 

Arsh was absent from the college most of the last semester. Even on the last day of our college, when we met near the library, I had felt a certain kind of weariness in the way he carried himself, less energetic than before. 

“Why don’t you take up a freelancing job,’ I asked, and he said, ‘I get too tired,’before adding the affirming: ‘the doctors had advised so’.

He spent a whole year at home, probably writing a novel and never telling anyone about it. Yes, he used to write and he was very superstitious about his craft. He was superstitious about almost everything. I think sick people have this peculiar tendency. Of being superstitious. Sick, and the highly ambitious. 

But it was okay, I would argue with myself. We make new friends in new places, but that doesn’t mean that we leave out the old ones. And it’s not important to be in continuous touch.  I thought when I came home for my vacation, we would talk and make up for all the absence. I had many stories to share, a lot of new things had happened in my life. I called him first thing when I landed in Delhi. I was eager to meet him. 

But even over the phone, I could sense that he was tired. He said yes, it would be fun to meet. But there was something in his voice that betrayed apathy. Perhaps he was not as excited to meet me as I was to him.

 I decided to ignore it then. When we met the next day… here in the central park in fact, he was not only morose but also kind of sad. He talked less, much less than what he used to when we were in college. He was a loner but he always had words inside him; so I was astonished. I concluded, then, that he wasn’t happy to see me, that he didn’t want to continue with the friendship.

I couldn’t have been more wrong.

Three years passed before we met again. Even though I came home for my vacations regularly, I could never make time for him. And when I shifted back to Delhi after the masters, I didn’t meet him. Extracting time out of my busy schedule was impossible, not that I had really tried. Things had faded, sort of, under the layers of new memories and new people. But one day, after his persisting entreaties, for old times’ sake, I gave him a slot of half an hour. 

We met in an ice cream parlor in Saket. I told him everything about my life. I had landed up a big job by then. He was kind of happy to hear that, and I was relieved, that he relished in my progress. I was happy to see that he was still interested in my life. But when his turn came, to share things about his life, he said that his illness had progressed and that was all. He didn’t have anything more to add. 

I pass by the famous Oxford Bookstore of CP, white, engraved in a red plaque. We had spent an afternoon here, I remember. We had come with the girl we both had a Smita, former mutual crush, and wife now, and there was another girl, whose name was Radhika as far as I remember. It was a Sunday and the store was full of book lovers, though I was not as interested in browsing  as much as I was in making an impression on Smita. We lounged about the book-walled interiors of the store, the girls walking ahead while I walked behind them, trying to Google something about the books they were picking, and mostly listening to them because they were all new books, and I had nothing to add, except – a few crude comments about how such and such cover of a particular book was beautiful.  

My wife works as an editor in one of the middle-level publishing houses in Delhi. There was something about the way he used to look at her, not with lust. No. It was a yearning, a kind of yearning which is only found in hopeless romantics. But he could never express it!

 One particular novel he loved was Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov. I haven’t read it yet, even after all these years, although I have a copy with me which Smita had bought and read. But he discussed it all the time, and I know that it had to with three brothers, one of whom ended up killing their father, but that’s all I know; I have never been a reader. 

In his opinion, The Brothers Karamazov was the best novel, and he told me that he was like the middle brother in the trio. He would pester me again and again, to read it.

Even on a weekday, the bookstore is full of people. It is encouraging… to look at people spending more time in book-cafes. Though I could never find the time to read books. There was always something coming up, something which held me back, college, assignments, internships, festivals. I always thought that when I have a job, perhaps then I would have some time to read.  do know people who read, like Smita; and I look out for them. He likes books, my potato friend, he really does like books. Maybe I should gift him one.

A book would allay his displeasure perhaps. 

After the second meeting on campus, we never met. I got a job in another city and even forgot to tell him where I was and what I was up to. 

Once in a while, a funny message or a quote from a book he was reading at that time used to pop up in my inbox. He would send me snippets regularly, a funny story, or a philosophical piece. It was his way of asking me to get in touch after all the attempts at calling over the phone had failed. I never replied to them. I wanted to tell him that he should stop sending me such emails because I never really read them, but I couldn’t summon the required courage either. 

I look for the shelf where I can find a novel from one of his favorite authors. Being the introvert he was, he never discussed his literary tastes with anyone, but for me and a few other select friends. Once at a Pizza Hut outlet, he had tried explaining, “Books are living beings. They grow on you. And sometimes a good book might grow so much in you that it becomes a part of your identity. Then you don’t want to share it with others, just as you don’t want to share everything with everyone. There is beauty in privacy.”

I pick out a copy of The Sea by John Banville from the shelf and ask the woman at the billing counter to wrap it up in a gift paper. I have no idea what this book is about, except that it won the Booker this year. She is in her twenties, perhaps an intern, and looks strangely familiar. She smiles and while wrapping a blue sheet around the book, says that it was a good book to gift someone. I smile at her and reply, “Yes, I guess, he is someone special and I am going to meet him after five years, a college buddy.” 

Sometimes we were confused by his health problems, why wouldn’t he be clear… but then, perhaps, he wanted to extricate that bane from himself; it probably tormented his psyche; and he just wanted to throw it away by not being so possessive about it. 

I knew him so well… and yet so little. And to be honest, I don’t know what I am doing here, meeting him after so many years when for all we know we may never talk again after today! 

Life is strange, and people like him make it look like a stranger. I want to meet him and yet I don’t. I am ashamed of myself. I reach the ice cream parlor. 

It is a busy place. There are men and women with their children, teenagers, college kids. I see a little, puffy kid, with strawberry and chocolate all over his face, with his brown teeth and dark gaps in between. I look for my friend. There is a man with thick glasses and a music box in his one hand and in another, a vanilla ice-cream. And vendors standing behind the stand are tired of smiling, about giving away ice cream. Arsh is nowhere to be seen. I dial his number. He picks up the phone on the first ring.

“Hello, where are you?’” I shout into the phone. 

“Tell me the color of your shirt. I will find you,” he says. His voice has changed, I notice again. 

“Madras check green. Listen…” But he cuts the phone.

I look at my watch and glance around, in search of him. For a split second it occurs to me that he is here, I sense his presence like a shadow floating over one’s head on a cloudy day. And yet the very next second I fear that I may not be able to identify him. 

It would be sad… not being able to identify someone who was a best friend once. Someone taps me on the shoulder. I turn around. He is not Arsh.

“Are you Ankit Mathur? Looking for Arsh?” he asks.

“Yes.” I reply.

“Hi, I am Arsh’s brother.’

I was surprised. “Hello. Where is he?” I say. 

“He is no more.” 

Something stops. The clock, the watch, the clouds. I feel an emptiness build up inside me, like an effervescent bubble of carbon dioxide bursting out of a soda bottle. Suddenly, I want to puke. And I want to fall down on the ground as well. The ground, it suddenly occurs to me, is slippery, and squishy. In search of something I realize I have lost; someone I have lost. But he is looking at me. His eyes are very much like Arsh’s.

“When?”  I manage. 

“Last month.”

I was speechless, Arsh, my friend, from college. “Oh…I, I am sorry. Why didn’t you tell me over the phone?”

The brother nodded, “I am sorry to be the one to tell you this. Everything has been done. I came here for something, specifically, something he wanted. He had written a note, with his last wishes. One of them was to deliver this book to you. Here…’ He fidgeted for a few seconds and removed a tattered copy of The Brothers Karamazov from his bag and gave it to me.

 I extended my arm to take it but his hand was shaking, and so was mine. His eyes were red; the book fell down and a note fluttered out from the book, swaying to the breeze of the central park, a few meters away. 

I rushed forward, kneeled down and picked them both, the book and the note. I straightened up, dusting the book off, and stood on my feet. 

“Thank you,” I said. He had gone.

In the note, in Arsh’s handwriting, was scribbled: Do read this book Ankit. A must-read! Adios! You were always a good friend to me.

And suddenly just like that, the name of the middle brother came rushing into my mind. IVAN.

***

A TBR CREATIVE WRITING WORKSHOP PIECE
 
Nachi Keta has to his name two works as of now, “Under the canopy of stars”, a fantastical novella dealing with existentialism of marriage, and “Postcards from Kandbari”, a poetry collection about ecology, Eco-criticism and Nature. He is a dropout of IIT (Roorkee), and JNU (New Delhi) and now is an independent academic. He has written a lot of short stories, but most of them are too long for magazines. He can be found here.

Poetry | ‘It’ by Rachel Deyis (18) | Student Writing

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I feel it shift inside me,

this wild, furred thing

that has uncurled itself from the

slumberous warmth of my belly 

and climbed the rungs of my ribcage

to settle within my chest.

For weeks it has been still,

all flickering eyelids and gentle prodding, but

today its eyes blink wide open, awake-

silvered claws scratch at my skin, an itch like a

hundred-thousand blunt pinpricks from within,

Its steamy breath scorches and sears and

it is burning, burning, burning, breathing out

some exponentially expanding gas giant into my

Ballooning chest, with each heaving pulse

It hisses words into my head

and they swirl there, somewhere above and just

out of reach. It snarls,

and I wrench out the letters

curling round the slippery skin of my soul

And slice up the dim, unexplored corners of my heart 

And hook them as bait on my gnarled line of art,

as I fish for the whispers that it chases out of

reach. And when ink is splattered like blood 

across the page, and the flesh is spent and the clean sting of fresh paper

has been long forgotten, still it howls

and slashes at my lungs

Until I am drowning and it is laughing in long, stuttered creaks,

Until that dark liquid sloshes and spills over,

sliding into purple veins that

spider across my hands and press the 

bristles of a brush across paper

Until I print the sky and the sun and my rumpled bedspread

and pillows, and the dreams they catch, and my books and

my boots and my musings in the shower and the dust on my windowsill

and everything in between- Until every sense is purged 

And bled dry- Until my head has been cracked 

Open and spilt in acrylics and sweeping strokes

And the colour seeped out of experience and into ink

and then, and only then, does it sleep.

Rachel Deyis is an 18 year old high school student, currently drowning in her A-level coursework. She was awarded the first place for the Taleem Poetry Award, and when she isn’t reading brain-cell murdering romance novels, she enjoys the works of Oscar Wilde, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Tom Holt and Neil Gaiman.

Fiction | ‘The Hijacked God’ by Salini Vineeth | CreativeWritingW-TBR

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Before the humans hijacked me, my life was insignificant yet peaceful – just the way I like it. I used to sit on top of a termite nest, covered in creepers. I agree it wasn’t anything like that grand Kailash of Shiva. But I loved my modest reserve forest. Sitting there, I would often compare myself to the other Gods. Even though my divine status was nowhere near them, I still felt lucky. They had to sit all day inside a congested sanctum, in the heat of the oil lamps, choking on the smell of agarbattis and the Pandit’s sweat while I had all the air in the world. 

I don’t deny I enjoyed a little attention from time to time. I beamed whenever a passing villager paused in front of me, with his hands folded and eyes closed in reverence. I tried my best to shower blessings on them, even though I didn’t know if I had any such powers to grant their wishes. 

Being a demigod, it’s kind of hazy where I stand in the thirty-three crore pantheon of Gods. When the organization is this big, the hierarchy becomes a mess. I am a little disconnected from my organization anyway. It was almost a thousand years ago I attended their last meeting. I stopped going to meetings after I heard a few unsavory remarks about my mother being a ‘mere mortal.’ So, I don’t know the who’s who of Gods now. Earlier it was Rudra, Surya, and some other guys. Later I heard that Vishnu and Shiva had taken over. A few months back, there were a lot of heated discussions about nepotism. It seems like all the retired Gods are pushing their sons forward – Ganesh, Karthikeya, Ayyappan, and so on. I didn’t bother to take part in their discussions. They anyway consider me an outcast, a cross between man and God. I can’t completely blame them, though. Even I am a bit confused about my identity. Sometimes I get all angry and frustrated like humans, and the next moment I become aware of my folly. It’s quite difficult living such a conflicted life.

So, what was I saying? Yeah, I was content in my little reserve forest. How did I reach here? Who brought me here? I have absolutely no idea. All I can say is, from the beginning of the time, I am at this place. Initially, it was a dense forest with a beautiful river flowing through it. One Yuga gave way to the other, and I sat through them, oblivious to the passage of the time. For thousands of years, the forest was pretty much the same, and then the changes started. Too much happened too soon. People started inhabiting the forest, clearing it part by part, selling it piece by piece. Houses sprouted out in the distance. It worried me initially. Then I got accustomed to them. I often watched humans going about their day to day business. I often imagined what kind of life I would be leading if I was a human. Then I would laugh at myself, thinking about the whims of these humans. They run around chasing things that make no sense. Then they die one day, and that’s the end of it. I thought I was better off as a demigod. I was hugely mistaken. My fate was about to change.

It started when they decided to widen the mud trail, almost a hundred feet from my termite nest. One morning, instead of the chirping of the birds, I heard a strange whirring. It pierced my ears, and the vibrations almost shattered my fragile nest. There were at least a dozen humans at work, clearing the forest with an unflinching casual demeanor. I was afraid that they would knock down my termite nest and throw me away in the garbage but, nothing of that sort happened. Some of them came in front of me and gawked at my face. I tried to produce a glorious thunder, just to scare them. But that day, realization struck that my organization had revoked all my divine powers. It’s a lot of paperwork and even bouts of bribery to get them back, so I didn’t bother. 

Soon enough, they started asphalting the road. All that smoke and the pungent odor of the tar! Aargh! I had a taste of how the other Gods felt inside those temples. But, in case of the other Gods, they were doing it voluntarily, for the pleasure of having their egos massaged. But, for me, it was forced upon. Having my power to apparate being revoked, I had no option but to sit there and choke on that smell. I should have got that damn paperwork done. After a few days, to my great relief, the road work was over. Humans vacated, and peace returned. I kept wondering what that was all about. But, after a few days, I stopped worrying and went back to being the Nirguna Brahma I had once been. The peace didn’t last long. 

One day, I woke up with a start as something hit my face real hard. It felt like a small pebble, thrown from a long distance. I heard a distinct ‘clang’ as it hit me and fell on the ground. I looked down. It was a coin. 

Where did it come from? I looked around, up, and down. 

Maybe Indra envies me and has thrown a coin at me. I consoled myself. I don’t know what’s wrong with Indra. He envies everyone. The next day, the same thing happened again. This time there were a few more coins. It took me a while to understand what was going on – I am not very bright, you know. I shuddered when I realized what was happening. From the vehicles passing through the road, humans were throwing coins at me! What an atrocity!

As the number of vehicles on the road increased, so did the number of coins. Humans who were on bikes, buses, rickshaws, other wheelers, all threw coins at me. Sometimes they even threw stones wrapped with their currency notes. I started dodging the coins. Whenever I heard a vehicle approaching, I covered my face with both my hands and braced for impact. Dodging soon became the primary task of my daily life. I wished I had more hands like the other Gods to fight off the coin shower. And even then, I didn’t expect my life could become worse. It did. 

The heap of coins at my foot started growing. I was afraid that the coins would eventually drown me. It wasn’t impossible, either. People think that they can bribe Gods. Most of the thirty-three crore Gods have found employment in India; you can imagine the demand. People think we help them to pass exams, to get a job, to get married, to have children, and even to get a visa. Sometimes I think about it so hard, and I laugh until my tummy hurts. 

Anyway, the coins didn’t drown me. One morning, I woke up, and the coins were gone! I sighed in relief. It was then that I saw it. A steel box stood next to my nest, carrying a notice. I leaned forward and read it. 

Throwing coins is prohibited. To avoid Forest-Swamy’s fury, put coins only in the box.

Forest-Swamy! I am not any Forest-Swamy! In fact, it was the first time I had thought of my name. To the best of my knowledge, I neither have a name, nor a gender. I don’t even understand why humans have this obsession to put everything in little compartments.  I didn’t like this name – Forest-Swamy, not an ounce of creativity. On the bright side, humans did stop throwing coins at me. It was a relief, but it was just the calm before the storm.      

A few days later, as I was about to sleep at night, a few humans came by. They unlocked the donation box and emptied the coins into a plastic bag. They had broad smiles on their faces. So, they were the half-wits who had placed a donation box at my feet.      

“Thieves!” I wanted to yell. But seeing the axe and knife in their hands, I shut up. They cleared the creeper and the bushes around me. They made a small clearing around my termite nest. Then they brought a metal chain and put a small barricade around me. 

How dare they put me in a cage! I fumed with indignation. However, I was helpless in front of these mighty creatures of malice. Being God is of not much use in front of the humans. My life started to get worse with each day. The next week, they removed me from my termite home. I could only watch with tears when they struck down my nest. For centuries or even more, it was my home. The next day was a nightmare. Early morning, even before the sunrise, a few men clad in saffron arrived. 

“Today is the Prana Pratishtha, the day of consecration,” I heard one of them talking enthusiastically on his phone. Consecration meant slavery for the rest of my life. I had heard many terrifying stories of consecration. Remembering them, I shuddered. The ceremony began in earnest. They shoved pungent incense sticks on to my face, and the fire from the aarti almost burned my eyebrows. 

“Is it going to be like this every day?” I asked myself. A bitter realization came over me like a dark rain cloud. The humans had hijacked me! In the next few days, they built a tin shed around me, and with time, concrete walls replaced it. During the first few days, I thought those walls would smother me. They blocked the wind and sunlight. I sat there, inside their sanctum, trying to regain my inner peace. They appointed a Pandit to take care of me. 

He came every morning with a comical grin plastered on his face. His daily aarti and the incense sticks gave me a constant headache. I cursed my fate and prayed to the supreme being. Even Gods pray, you know. I prayed that I be released from the clutches of these evil humans and their workings. They pretend to be worshiping me, but I knew they were only interested in the bulging donation box.

Soon, they constructed four walls around me. 

The traffic on the road in front of me drastically increased. Next to the temple, these humans created a huge car parking. I saw them collecting parking fees as well. Only humans can come up with such wicked schemes! People queued up in front of me from early in the morning. I almost felt pity for those who had lined up in front of me. Poor creatures, they have no clue that they are wasting their time and money. If I had some powers, I would have made them understand that they were being tricked by their greedy fellow humans. After all, I had no powers. I was just a helpless God. 

The crowd only increased day by day. In addition to the morning Puja, they started an evening Puja as well. I had to go through long hours of what can only be called torture, every day.

“The Forest-Swamy is so powerful. Just come here. You should experience it first hand,” pulling out their mobile phones, the humans recommended me to their distant relatives. I had no idea what miracle I had performed in their lives. Did I have any secrete powers that I didn’t know about?  It’s difficult to understand these humans and their religious theatrics. The queue in front of me only got longer every passing day.      

They opened a few shops to sell flowers, coconuts, and that yellow powder. I think they use some strong and evil chemicals in that powder. My body itched whenever they covered me with it.      

They cut down the trees around me, widening the temple complex. They built a new building with an office room, a small kitchen, and a bedroom for the Pandit. I sat there, covered in a concoction of yellow and red chemicals, smothering in heat. I pitied their prayers. The constant ringing of the bell caused me a migraine. 

When will they leave me alone? I kept wondering, shut behind the golden bars. 

Why do humans need so many temples? I kept asking myself. 

Months passed by. My modest reserve forest had turned into a sprawling complex. The road in front of me was almost always jam-packed with devotees. I thought I would spend the rest of my life as a slave of these thugs. I had lost all hope. Then one day, I saw a jeep coming towards the temple. It was late in the afternoon, the only time I got some rest. Cursing my bad luck, I readied myself for the smoke and sound. From the jeep alighted a young lady. Contrary to what I was used to, she didn’t fold her hands or close her eyes in devotion. 

She just glanced in my direction. “Who gave you permission to encroach the forest land?” I heard her asking the Pandit. 

“Who are you, madam?” The Pandit asked. 

“I am from the forest department,” she replied.     

“I see. What is the problem? As you can see, we are all devotees here. This is a temple,” the priest inquired.

“Please be careful about the way you talk to the DFO*,” a tall man, stated with an edge. 

I smiled and watched the tall man putting a notice on the wall of the sanctum. I looked at the young lady again. She had an unusual resolve on her face, an ethereal glow of an enlightened human. I don’t see them very often, but I can easily recognize them.

“Within two weeks, I need the entire structure to be knocked down. Otherwise, I will have to go ahead with the legal proceedings. Do you know what the consequences of encroaching forest land are?” She asked, her voice firm. I saw my Pandit shivering with fear and disbelief. I have never seen him so helpless. I almost felt pity for him. 

Freedom came after a month. The entire temple complex was bulldozed, and I was freed from my cell. They gave me shelter in the forest department for a few days, hoping that someone would lay claim on me. My older temple folks didn’t dare to show up. After all, I am a loner, and no one owns me. I sat in the forest office for a few weeks, gracing the lovely humans there. After a few days, they moved me into an archaeology museum. I do miss my old ‘reserve’ forest. But I like it here in the museum and don’t have to deal with people with folded hands, and their ridiculous prayers.  I only have to look down graciously at visitors who come in here for knowledge and entertainment. It’s a respectable occupation, the best possible placement for a demigod like me. Next to me, there is an idol of Goddess Durga. I often look at her and remember that young forest officer – the brave lady who freed this poor demigod.

 

*DFO – District Forest Officer.

A Tbr Creative Writing Workshop piece.

Salini Vineeth is a fiction and freelance writer based in Bangalore. She is an alumnus of BITS – Pilani, Goa. She worked for a decade in the electronics industry before turning to full-time writing. She has four books to her credit. Being an avid traveler, she incorporates elements of history, archeology, and mythology in her stories.  She writes on her website, as well as on social media. She is currently doing finishing touches to her debut full-length novel.