Prologue

The afternoons were always warm just before winter, the gentle sun, and its sting taken away by the cold breeze from the hills around the city. A few stray clouds lingered in the azure sky, occasionally hiding the spent pre winter sun. Dusty roads and the dust laden leaves of the gulmohur trees along the road had a familiar brown haze and you could count the number of potholes every few meters on the tarred surface.

Turning at the first lane to the right, Siva slowed down the two-wheeler he rode, the construction of a new apartment block had spilled onto the road. What ever was left of the road was a curious mixture of sand and gravel and bits of cement all mixed together to form one uneven surface. “There used to be an open ground here” he thought and hurriedly swept the mental image to avoid colliding into a bus. The next hundred meters or so was more or less even. The balmy weather brought a song to his lips and he whistled to a tune lost some miles within his head. Siva turned again into a small lane and parked.

There in that lane stood his curious shop, a mixture of this and that, of small bananas and coconuts from Kerala, of a telephone booth and a Xerox machine and everything that you can think of. He opened the Godrej locks and tugged at the rusting shutters. Straining he managed to lift it up noisily, scaring away a stray cat. Musty and half rotten smells of last weeks bananas wafted out to meet his nostrils and he made a mental note to throw the stale fungus laden fruits away later that afternoon.

Siesta of a few hours had done well to his mood and he was less sullen than he normally was. Six feet tall and with sparse hair on his head, built not to look well built but not too frail either and a face that was wheatishly fair, full lips and as his wife often told him, handsome. He caught himself in the reflection on the glass panels of the shelves, where banana and tapioca chips lay. Preening, he looked at the baskets of raw kappa and curry onions and decided to move them outside into the sun. Dragging them he thought for the first time that afternoon, for the thousandth time that day, “What am I doing here?”

He sat on a red plastic chair and started flipping the pages of a week old magazine. Occasionally looking up to answer the irritating query of people who trooped in to make phone calls. Collecting two rupee coins. He occasionally drifted off to small naps, only to get up with a start when another coin was tapped on the grey counter. Once it showed 6 o’clock on the small time piece on the fridge, he would know that the local south Indians would start coming in to buy stuff from his shop. When he had started a few months ago, there had been no competition, now there were two more similar shops in the locality and his customer base had eroded considerably. He suddenly remembered the rotten bananas at the back of his shop, he lifted the basket and walked around the building where a thrash can lay open, exposing its contents like a disemboweled stomach. The bananas, quite unlike the ones that were local to the state, large yellowish golden, south Indian variety, had turned black and a few of them had ripened to a point where the flesh oozed out attracting a swarm of tropical flies. Siva used to boast to the north Indians who frequented his shop “You eat one and feel full”. As he returned the basket to its place, he saw a few urchins run off with a few intact ones, clutching them as if they were a king’s ransom.

He weighed out bananas by the kilo and put them into large plastic bags for the people, answering occasionally questions about common acquaintances and a few bits of gossip. It just became a little difficult when people asked him questions in Malayalam, he could never answer fluently and had to grasp for words, mostly he shot off in English, which his wife often commented upon and on a few occasions scolded him saying that he was putting people in discomfort. He tried to explain that after years of studying in English and writing and reading so much in that language, he had started dreaming in English. English had become his mother tongue.
The phone rang loudly, he was a little tardy in answering, it was a rarity that people actually could get through to the phone, and people paying two rupees to get through their daily business normally occupied it. As he spoke a smile broke out on his face. He spoke briefly and then fished out a small diary from his back pocket. Turning pages, even as a girl tapped impatiently, he circled a date – 15 September 2002.

1962-1963 - Part 1

Pandit Nehru’s experiment with Panchshil had failed miserably. The rhetoric of Hindi-Chini bhai bhai had fallen through, when China one fine evening decided to invade the northern frontiers of India. A startled Krishna Menon, the defence minister had gone into limbo and India’s ill prepared army suffered a humiliating defeat. United Nations intervened and ceasefire had been declared. Thousands had lost their lives and a nation was heart broken. It would be years before the country would come out of the shadows of this one chapter in its history.



Velladi appears like a village stuck on the outskirts of Trivandrum, the capital city of the erstwhile Kingdom of Travancore and now the state of Kerala. A double tracked railway runs from the Trivandrum central railway station and after about seven kilometers cuts the village into two. Mounds of volcanic gravel, reddish brown, laden with iron lay forlorn all along the tracks. Either side of the tracks have green paddy fields, broken by the ever present bunds and partitions that mark properties belonging to families for ages. Fringed by palm trees and occasionally by mango groves, the scene never changes, only occasionally broken by a hut or a house, depending on the income of the families staying in them. A lake with lavender dots lies in stately calm, minutely moved by the breeze carrying fragrance of mulla flowers that Parvati Amma grew in the vast backyard. Some years ago the railway track had cut across her land, land that belonged to her husband, all 100 acres of coconut, paddy, pepper and cashew.

The small house rose into sight as she walked along a small path made by years of use and not due to some great plan on her part. She suddenly remembered that she had forgotten to give instruction to her son in law and turning she shouted across causing a few grumbling crows to create a big racket. From where she stood she could see the Vikramalaya River flow pregnant from the rains of a few weeks ago. Parvati Amma bent to pick the small wicker tray she uses to carry flowers and incense sticks to the temple her husband built in honour of Vishnu, the resident deity of her family. Her frail frame betrayed the pain she feels in her fifty-two-year-old legs, a few fingers bent with arthritis and sore feet due to high blood sugar.

The temple is made of black stone and stands where the river bends before disappearing from the eyes into the dense foliage of jackfruit trees and coconut fronds. The early morning sun is barely able to trickle onto the ground and where it does there is a violent spill of gold and yellow amidst the verdant grass tended lovingly by Ravindran.

Ravindran has been brooding. Parvati Amma looked at him and smiled knowing very well that the boy, all of seventeen was anxious when she is around. He called her “amma” only for the sake of calling her so; his heart is not in it. When he was seven, his own mother has died delivering the third child in as many years. He was the second, younger to the tiny Ammini Kutty. She had been married off last year and as tradition went in Nair families she and her husband Raghavan had stayed on making the family bulge at its sides. His father had died unlamented two years ago, his marriage to Parvati Amma was for the excuse of bringing up the two children from the earlier marriage and when Rohini was born, he was thrilled. Rohini had changed the equation within the house, all things new and fine were for her first. It caused Ravindran to yearn for his own mother, which with the passing years the memory of her had faded to now be just an image which had neither face nor form.

Ravindran waited for Parvati Amma to walk down the steps, he always did. As she approached he bent forward and got some sandal paste applied to his forehead. She did not utter a word as she walked slowly down the gravel path to the coconut grove where under the tallest tree was lamp. A small brick shade kept the water out when it rained and every morning Parvati Amma ensured that oil was poured into the lamp, it had burnt since the day Radhakrisnan Nair, his father had died suddenly.

Ravindran walked two steps behind her and finally he asked her “Amma can I go to Bombay?”.

She stopped midway and turned and looked at him in the eyes and spoke calmly as she had done for the three months since one of the neighbours had returned from Bombay with stories of wonder. “Who will look after the crops? I am too old and Raghavan cannot be trusted. Leave such idle dreams and work at your school and make something out of this land”. She turned around and walked briskly wanting to avoid another confrontation.



1962-1963 - 2

Jabalpur was hot, streams of air buffeted the fine dust and blew them into the eyes of Gayathri. The mud plains of this central Indian town always got on her nerves and she yearned for the cool waters of the river Pamba, where the tiny fishes nibbled at her toes when she and her three sisters escaped every after noon to a tiny cove shaded by the jacaranda and jackfruit trees away from the prying eyes of the men who always oogled at them when they passed.

Konni was so far away from the molten heat of the three room Ordinance factory quarters that they had been allocated. The feeble attempts of her mother to grow morning glories had resulted in a few stunted shoots that withered a little everyday, in the rising heat of the summer. She shaded herself from the sun with a folding umbrella which had gay green leaves printed on them, like the leaves that grew along the embankments on both the sides of the cobbled mud path that lead up the small hill to her home. She would proudly say that the land right up the hill was her fathers and the wavy undulating compound walls were witness to so many of her childhood mischief along with the other three.

A wiff of breeze passed her and raised a dead leaf into the air, and she was mesmerized by the sight, leaves everywhere, along the path, in the mittam, the courtyard and under the clove plant that she tended. She shivered and pushed the thoughts of her home in Kerala away into the recesses of her mind and brooded about her exams that were a few days away. She would have to return to Nagpur again for her finals, the exams would bestow upon her the honorific Bachelor of Education title and would get her a job. A job and escape, from home or from the heat of the place. She entered the house and sat down. Savoring the coolness of the shade within, she noticed then that half the dust from the courtyard had been blown into the room, covering even the letter from her brother in a fine sheet. “Junior Mukesh” she called him, for the excellent voice in which he sang songs from Raj Kapoor movies. She read and smiled, he had done well in his second year of medicine, acchan would be delighted. She decided to make some sweet for him when he came back from the first shift. Another hour to go for the others to come back, she gently woke her mother up from her siesta and smiled the news to her, they laughed together. Murali would become a fine doctor.

Her father came back just as the sun was spreading its saffron cover in the western skies. She sat at the steps reading her textbook, trying to make sense of what had been written and distractedly following the path of two errant crows as they teased a kite overhead. He was pleased that his son was doing well. He was sure that one day he would be able to return back to his village in Kerala. He could for a moment smell the butter lamps that he lit so often in the village temple. He flashed a smile at his wife and asked in his usual gruff yet gentle voice to get him a tumbler of tea. Gayathri had anticipated this and asked her mother to sit back and relax while she ran into the house to pour out the steaming tea fragrant with some crushed ginger in two tumblers. She had on her way home picked up some Parle Gluco biscuits; emptying them into a steel plate she walked carefully, in time to catch the last sentence from her father lips.
He had a friend who had proposed marriage with Gayathri for his son. He did not want to say a yes as of now, not without asking Gayathri. The boy worked at the ordinance factory and earned well. “Let her complete her education” was all that her mother said. And the matter rested.
A week later, Gayathri took the bus to Indore and then from there, another bus to the well maintained city of Nagpur. It was summer and everywhere along the road one could see huge mounds of oranges lying about like little mountains. There was sweetness in the air and gulmohur trees flamed in red. Would he be waiting? Gayathri though as she walked from the bus stop to the college hostel. He was to have gone home for the study leave.

Though her heart skipped a few beats, she never gave away the fact that she loved him. Arun Jaiswal, with his Elvis sideburns and a puff of hair that rose in the breeze. Gayathri knew her father would never agree, he would die if he ever knew that she had fallen in love with a non-Malayali, a north Indian.

Another year and her father would have retired anyway and he would be back in his village. And she would be alone teaching in a school. She wanted to go back to Konni, she knew that of she stayed back she would not be able to control herself and would definitely tell Arun what she felt. She deposited the trunk she carried under her simple bed and called her hostel friends. Sharing the goodies that only her mother could conjure up everytime it was time for her to return to Nagpur. Outside the shade the heat simmered and threw shadows that moved like ghostly images.

1962-1963 - 3

Susamma squinted hard at the distant road. Was that the postman on his rickety cycle? Achuthan had promised her that he would deliver the letter as soon as he got them. She went back to cutting the grass on the slopes of the hill near her house. She had half an hour to get a bundle together for the cows, or her aunt would let loose a string of the choicest abuses. Her hair kept coming loose and she had to keep pushing them back behind her ears, she smiled when she heard her younger sister call her Mala Sinha, the new star in a Hindi film that year. She had seen the pictures of Mala Sinha in the coloured magazines that her cousin had brought when he had come back from Pune. He was a mechanic in the Air Force Station there and when ever he came she spent hours listening to his stories about how beautiful that city was, and was fascinated when he said that they could see “Saaip – white man” movies in an open theater there.

She gathered the grass together and carried it across the new canal that cut across the village. The red lateritic edges could be seen; nature had not yet reclaimed the intrusion from a million pickaxe cuts. Carefully balancing the load on her head she climbed down the steps that led to the bottom of the canal. It was early for the water to be let into the structure and she could safely use it to cross onto the other side. A thin shimmer of sweat formed on her face and as she turned into the small cluster of houses made of mud and thatched with coconut leaves. She could see her father cut wood for her mother who coughed away at the mud stove, slowly pitching in chips of wood. She smiled at him and took a cup of black coffee, strong and sweet for him. He took it and sat down, asked her with his eyes, had the letter come yet? No she smiled back at him.

A few minutes later, her brother came in from the small patch of land that the family tilled and grew paddy. The bunds that divided the land and marked the boundaries had a few coconut trees. Mathew had convinced his uncle to give him a few coconuts from one of the trees that originally belonged to his father, but now was claimed by the uncle. His father had tried to argue and had given up when his brother’s wife had joined in and the request had turned into a small slinging match. Susamma went to wake up her three sisters, Sara, Maria and Molly. Molly the youngest was barely six and had started whimpering; Susamma deposited her next to her mother and then handed a worn out Bible to her father.

Kunjacchan Abraham was a preacher and a farmer. More a preacher, who spoke about the words of god, less a farmer who left his land at the mercy of his brothers, who then ensured that there was just enough for the family of seven to survive on. Susamma knew that she would have to soon hear from her aunt a long tale of how she was kind and understanding enough to let go of a few coconuts for the chutney for the stale idlis that she gave away every other day.

If the letter came by soon announcing the day when Susamma had to join the Nursing College, there would be celebrations. Maybe a feast, pal payasam and hot rice and sambhar. Not that they were poor or poverty stricken, just that the preacher father did not want to be assertive and ensure that he got his share. He was always told Susamma that God would take care of them.

Susamma walked towards the Othara Typing Institute after a glass of kaapi and kanji. She shivered in the hot tropical sun. Not due to the cold, but at the thought of her not getting admission into the nursing college. She dressed simply, a half saree, which was a gift from last years Christmas and a paavada. Her hands were dainty but had the signs of the work she had to do all day. The one-hour of typing on the rickety typewriter was a relief. A pain shot through her legs, a thorn had pierced the rubber chappals she wore. They had worn out and had become thin. Bending she picked out the thorn and threw it aside. What would Pune be like? She smiled and turned into the small room that doubled as an institute adorned with a black board that stated that it was government recognized.

Halfway through the one hour typing class, Sara and Maria ran in laughing and shouting. They had an envelope made of brown government type paper. A typist had spelled Kerala wrong but it had her name and the name of the institute that wanted her to join the college the coming month. She smiled and without even asking the typing instructor ran home with the two sisters. Her mother was there, crying already, she was happy for her daughter and sad that she would have to go away.

Many had left their small village and migrated to the cities in the north. Some to work in the small industries in the large industrial estates and many more as typists and clerks in private and state offices. Susamma had worked hard for several years to get the marks that would get her away from the drudgery of an existence as a village girl, she wanted to be in the big city, where she could earn enough to send money back home to help her poor father. She would be a nurse, a fine pretty nurse. Mala Sinha would have been proud she thought to herself.

1962 – 1963 - The second half

The year was dominated by the Chinese aggression, the north of Indian felt the brunt of the war and somehow the south peninsular India was less affected. True there were a few men who lost their lives and a few dozen who came back with injuries that took long to heal. 1963 was the year of getting rid of the ghosts of how good India was as a nation. It was the time of looking inwards and realizing that a nation so steeped in tradition and history could be humbled so easily.



Ravindran shook off the lethargy of the afternoon and walked barefoot to the river. Gravel stuck to his hardened soles and occasionally one stone would pierce the toughness to make him thread lightly. The heat of the sun in December was intense and it clung to the leaves and rose in abundance, with it the smells of the ground. The day old carcass of a jackfruit gave off sweet pungency that attracted bottle green flies that buzzed around his head. The smoke from the collective kitchens in the area climbed like tendrils along the coconut trees entwined with the pepper climbers. The green peppers peeked about from the dense foliage. Ravindran out of habit plucked a few off a stem and popped them into his mouth, savoring the immature bite of peppercorns. He carried a bar of Hamam soap and a towel that was white some moons ago, was wrapped around his chest. The river was cool, in contrast to everything around him. He slowly immersed himself into the waters and lazily absorbed the cold water into his tanned body. Dipping his head in the waters he felt his heat sodden head clear and suddenly become breathless. Gasping he rubbed the bar against his body and as the bubbles struck and got carried away to the middle of the river, the air was scented with the spicy fragrance of the soap, a gift from his friend who worked in Bombay in a tyre company.

He returned soon to the confines of his room and rummaged his cupboard for the tin of Cuticura talc. The Orange and white tin held his special memories, those of his mother and his sister who would dust themselves with the talc and then the house would smell of the unidentifiable scent of the powder. He could not locate the tin, he rushed to the next room and asked his stepsister, and she shrugged and continued to comb the gray oily hair of Parvati Amma. He had no permission to go into the room of his brother in law, but the situation was different, he had to find his tin of talc. He hesitated and then flung open the door and straight ahead on the wall stand was his tin. He could feel anger rise into his head and rushed inside to claim it, which made his sister shout at him. Ravindran knew what was coming; after all it was just a tin of talcum powder and not a pot of gold. But how could they do this to him, when they knew that there were very few things that he called his own.

That night he collected his things together, four shirts that were a month old and three trousers that he insisted he wanted. One kaili and a few vests and undergarmets. Stuffing them into the airbag gifted by his friend Chandran of the tyre company fame. He then lifted the false bottom of the drawer and slowly picked out a wad of five rupee notes. Counting them he realized that he had about two hundred worth of money and nothing else. He lifted the bag and walked into the open courtyard of the house. His stepmother slept there, curled under a thin sheet, she looked frail and helpless. It was her helplessness that bothered him; it was this helplessness that he wanted to escape. He suddenly remembered his mark sheet and tiptoed back to his room and removed the booklet, covered in shiny wax paper, again a gift from Chandran. He had barely managed to pass in science but he was a matriculate now. He carried the booklet with reverence and passed the doors of his sister and that of his father, he briefly stood there and then shook the last minute feeling of abandoning the plan and walked out of the door. He would never come back he promised himself; he would go after his dreams in Bombay. He was sure that someday they would look forward to him or at least hear about him and feel proud.

He walked towards the bus stop. At four in the morning there were no buses or scooter rickshaws and he had just two hundred rupees in his pocket, he could not waste them on pleasures like rickshaws. He walked upright and followed the train tracks. Like so many times before when he and his friends walked to the Railway station to see the strikes or political rallies, he walked along, whistling and skipping sometimes the alternate wooden sleepers. The rail gleamed along into the murky darkness almost a beacon guiding him to his destiny. He thought about the days in Thirunathapuram, it was still Thiruananthapuran for him even if it was known as Trivandrum. About the time when he had participated in a strike in school and had scaled the walls of the building to remove the national flag and replace it with the red communist flag with a silver sickle and hammer. He laughed aloud thinking of the whack he and Chandran had received on their backs. The choora sticks leaving red and blue impressions that took so many days to heal. He thought of how he had hidden the mark from his father and finally his over overcome by curiosity had pulled the shirt off his back and discovered the secret. Chandran and Ravindran had been expelled from school and when his father had refused to meet the principal, his stepmother had accompanied him to the school and begged forgiveness to Namboodiripad Sir, promising to ensure that Ravindran would never get into mischief again. He had not been given dinner for three days as punishments and had survived on the small packets of food wrapped in banana leaves that Ammini Kutty stole from the kitchen.

To Bombay

He could see the railway station at a distance and he smiled, the initial enthusiasm had waned and as the dark southern sky lit up with the rays of the sun, he was worried that he would be discovered and they would hunt him down to the station. He had gambled upon the fact that his family would think that he had once again gone off fishing along the river and would return by breakfast time. He was sure that there was a train for Madras in the morning. He had to get onto that train, then they would never be able to find him.

The brown and silver soot covered coaches of the Madras-Travancore Mail stood steaming as he entered the platform. He had decided to not buy a ticket and risk the journey to Madras. He loitered along the platform till it was time and the engine gave a weary shrill and tugged at the coaches. He jumped into the unreserved bogie and found himself a corner near the exit. Screaming and shouting people, one hundred of them speaking a cacophony of Tamil and Malayalam, surrounded him. He tried to merge into the crowd by making small talk with a priest who was vary that someone would run away with his bag and clutched it as if hanging for dear life. The ticket checker came in at Quilon and decided that the no one in his or her sane minds would want to travel ticketless in the crammed bogie and left without a word. Ravindran had heard that if no checker came in after Quilon then no one would ever come till Madras. He had made mental notes of what ever Chandran had told him. The swaying of the train lulled him into sleep and he slowly sank to the floor and dozed fitfully. The next day he reached the rush and sound of Madras. He washed the soot off his face and hands and ate a wada for a paisa and then walked along the filthy platform in search of the train to Bombay. The Bombay that Chandran spoke so much about, the yellow and black cars that one could hire for the whole day and the Gateway of India where men held hands of fair Parsi women. Where one could occasionally see a few white pale men walk away to the seedy hotels with young boys. Who returned a few hours later with a few twenty rupee notes and a swagger. Chandran had boasted that he worked in a tyre company that gave him two meals and a hundred rupees every month and a place to stay. In Bombay he said that there were people who would give you a full five rupees if they were happy.

Ravindran smiled as he thought of the fortune that awaited him, Chandran was a mere dropout, he was a matriculate and that did have a lot of weight. He asked a few people about the train to Bombay. He had never traveled this far and in his mind there were stories of people who lost their belongings and then having to beg and steal to survive. He had read about the communal riots that had taken place in Madras that year, sane people had killed each other. His village too had Muslims and they always were welcome to come and have the Onam feast and he also loved the payasam they served during Eid.

The Madras Mail to Bombay was a tired train with rusted bogies that competed with the regimental brown and red of the Indian Railways. Ravindran decided again to push his luck and not buy a ticket, he knew that if caught he would have to spend the night in some lockup but his two hundred rupees were important to him to save. He did not know how long it would take for him to get a job in Bombay and until then he had to survive. Chandran would not be able to feed him everyday. Even if he did, some day Ravindran would have to repay the debt. He feebly entered the unreserved compartment. The heat of Madras threw a stench out of the loo and it hit the nostrils in a blast of ammonia from a thousand piss streams across the steel hole. Ravindran wiped his face and clutched his bag closer as he tried to accommodate himself between two men who resembled tough ring fighters.
Several hours into the journey, Ravindran had settled into the languorous pass time of watching the same men play cards. He tired to make sense of the game and started asking simple friendly questions to the friendlier of the two Mudaliar brothers. Vadararaja was the one he adopted and soon enough he was involved in the ebb and flow of the game. Vadararaja took a liking to the fair skinned Malayali boy and asked him at Renigunta whether he was running away from home. A shy “yes” from Ravindran evoked guffaws and then a somber warning about Bombay. He then told Ravindran that in case he wanted any help in Bombay from the police or the people, to get in touch with him. Ravindran impressed Vadararaja by the scrawl in English and then settled to a meal of Sambar and rice, sponsored by the elder Somashiva Mudliar. The journey from there on was pleasant.

When the night got unbearable, Ravindran went and stood near the door, the plume from the smoke stack rose into the sky and pasted everyone with a fine coat of coal dust. His clothes were now streaked with black and gray. He imagined himself in Bombay and a couple of times dozed off. He then took to reading the names of the tiny stations that passed along the way, Cuddapah, Adoni, Raichur, Mantralayam Road, Yadgir, Wadi, Hotgi, Solapur. He occasionally would buy a tea to keep awake. The climate got colder as the train blazed across the peninsula towards the hills of Sahyadhri.

Bombay

Bombay was muggy and dark; it was not the best of places anyway. The people did not care nor did they guide Ravindran to the correct address. After several hours of loitering around the Victoria Terminus and almost getting run over by the several taxis, he finally was put onto a bus with the strictest of instructions to the bus conductor that he was to see that the boy would get off at Haji Ali. The name was funny for a place thought Ravindran, his village had a wizened old man by the name and why was the place named after him was something he could not fathom. He was told in curt marathi that Haji Ali stop had arrived, he clambered off the bus and waved the conductor who shook his head.

The sheer beauty of the place struck Ravindran, there was a mosque in the middle of the sea and the road was wide like the football ground of the college he was supposed to attend. He wondered if the people back home searched for him. He knew that his step mother would realize that he had escaped to Bombay and try to get in touch with Chandran. Only if he could find Chandran. The address had said Ayyapan Tyre Works and he searched for a building or a shop that had the name. Finally he proffered the slip to a taxi driver. The man smiled and told him in Hindi to go to the Madrasi ka dukaan in the next galli.

Ravindran walked to where the taxi driver had pointed out, he turned the corner and expected to see some form of an office with the name of the tyre company. The corner had a cigarette shop with a garish yellow Panama hoarding and next to it was a pile of filth that buzzed with happy flies of all kinds. Just beyond the cigarette shop was a small box made of packing wood and covered with a tin sheet which had some things in strange garbled English splattered all over. A pile of old worn out tyres were stacked sky high and two black hose pipes snaked from under the box to under a van where dark oil stained hands checked the pressure and filled air. Just as Ravindran turned around the van, the hands applied saliva on the valves and waited for any bubbles to rise. The standard practice to check if there were any leaks from the valve. The young man with the dual pipes rose and squinted at Ravindran. He was wearing a shirt whose original colours could not be recognized, and trousers with large patches in various colours. Chandran smiled weakly.

Ravindran sat on a truck tyre and listened to Chandran, his mind was reeling with the shock of the facts and he was trying to digest the fact that the Ayyapan Tyre Works, which he had come in search of, was a shack, a small insignificant shack on a second rate road. Chandran apologized a thousand times for telling lies and for tempting Ravindran, but the fact was that now that he was in Bombay, it was better that he stayed on, return to Trivandrum was out of question. The day passed in a frenzy of tyres and punctures and air filling. Ravindran tried to be helpful, he wanted to bathe and change, but after the shock of the tyre companies’ reality he was hesitant to ask where Chandran stayed. Night fall turned the roads into a necklace of lights and sounds. There was an omlette seller who brought Chandran a packet and two tumblers of tea. Chandran pointed out Ravindran and indicated another packet, the vendor smiled and walked away, to return later with a browned omelet and two pavs. Chandran ate with relish and then sat down to count the day’s earnings. He would keep ten percent and the rest would be returned to the owner of the shack.

Ravindran ate and then numbly washed his hands in the half of a drum filled with murky water. The oil from the omelet drained off his hand and formed a slick shimmering on the surface. The moon reflected on the water and a bead of sweat trickled off his back. Chandran had kept a constant conversation. He had justified his lies by saying that his father and mother were happy, he would send fifty rupees every month home and go there once a year with lots of clothes and foreign soap bought on Lamington road. They were happy and how did it matter if he was a mere tyre repair mechanic. He asked Ravindran if he remembered the blow from the choora stick that they had received a few years ago. Ravindran smiled and showed Chandran his matriculation marksheet.

At nine in the night Chandran started to collect his tools and carefully stacked them in the grimy wooden box. He turned to Ravindran and told him that it was time for them to hit the largest bedroom in Bombay. They walk along the inner roads skipping over pools of sewage water and accumulated dirt, the burden of an over crowded city. Ravindran followed him like a lamb not knowing what to expect. They walked for over an hour and reached the Churchgate Railway Station. Chandran lost him for a minute when the milling crowds suddenly appeared from nowhere and vanished into the vast streets. Like a flash flood the mass of humanity surged and pushed him, as an angry stream would toss a twig around. He was on the verge of tears when he was suddenly pulled to the side by a familiar hand. Chandran smiled showing his beedi stained teeth and let Ravindran walk ahead. He then stepped into the local train and sprawled on the wooden bench. Ravindran sat opposite him and looked at him in a mixture of apprehension and amusement. Chandran then told him that the local would make one last trip and then be shunted to the yard until four in the morning and that’s where they would be spending the night. He said that he had tried sleeping on the platform but had been chased off by people who had claimed their spots for years and had found refuge in the local train. The corner seats were theirs and eventually by the time the local had started on its last trip both had been sleeping curled on the seats, occasionally relieved from the humidity by the breeze when the train crossed small patches of yet to be claimed land in the vast city next to the Arabian Sea.

Just before Ravindran dozed off he thought about the land he had abandoned a few days ago. Both the places were by the sea and yet both were a world apart. Chandran looked like a small mongrel in his dirty shirt and patched trousers and when Ravindran asked him about the bath, he had smiled again and had asked him to wait for the morning.

Bombay 2

Morning had crept on them unheralded; there were not temple bells or the sonorous sounds of the potti chanting the mantras. The saffron blaze of the sun crept suddenly and warmed the air. At four the two had woken up to the sounds of a dog yelping in the vicinity and as the local started to move Chandran and Ravi jumped off onto the paved path along the tracks. Chandran had then walked to a shed and fetched a small air bag that was similar to the one he had presented to Ravindran. He had then walked to a broken hose used for filling the steam engines and had unplugged a metal blocker and had plunged under it in delight after stripping to his underwear. Ravindran thought that it was funny to see him there scrubbing him with Lux soap while wearing seemingly new underwear. Chandran finished and fetched a tin of an expensive looking talcum powder and sprinkled himself liberally with it. Ravindran too stood under the gurgling torrent and then noticed that all along the path were people like him taking bath or some going behind the bushes along the tracks to perform their morning rituals of malam and mutram.

Breakfast was a hot glass tumbler of tea and a wada sambar. With the food in the stomach, Ravindran started thinking about his situation, He surely could not be a burden on his friend and even if he had paid for the breakfast, it was clear that the two of them could not stay together. There was barely enough for one and then Ravindran had to find a job for himself. He remembered the address Vadararaja Mudaliar had given him on the train to Bombay and showed it to Chandran. Chandran asked him to wait until the afternoon. When the owner of the tyre repair shop returned that noon to collect the previous days earnings, Chandran asked for a days leave to take his brother – Ravindran around the city and closed the shop for the day. It had cost him a day’s earnings but then it did not matter.

Vadararaja Mudaliar’s house was in the midst of the small shantytown. It was a largish structure in a neighborhood full of small one room tin homes, which had the glow of a fire or the hiss of a stove and smells of food all around. Mudaliars were owners of a provision shop which stored everything from milk bottles of the state run dairy to Kerosene in a garish red drum. Vadararaja rejoiced loudly when he saw Ravindran and called his brother out who actually smiled at the two. Ravindran introduced Chandran and when he said that he run a tyre repair shop, he frowned and looked at Ravindran and broke into a smile. A young girl by that time had got some tea and a few kharis for the four. Vadararaja then said that a matriculate boy should not work in a tyre shop and said that Ravindran was to visit him the next day and go with him to a factory nearby where he was sure that a izzat ki naukri would be waiting for him.

On the way back Chandran was silent, he then looked at Ravindran and tears welled in his yellow eyes. He said then that he would now have to find for Ravindran a proper kholi and they returned arm in arm to their bedroom on wheels. The next day Ravindran met Akhilbhai and got a job in the factory that fabricated grills and windows for the numerous houses and flats that were being built in the neighbourhood. He would be paid sixty rupees and also would get to stay in a kholi shared with others workers in the factory. The only problem was that the kholi was far from the factory or from where Chandran worked.
The kholi was part of a large row of single rooms that had everything under one roof, the kitchen and the bathroom and the bedroom was all in the confines of a two hundred square feet room. There was a huge pipeline that ran along the chawl and the people who had to cross the pipeline had to climb a walk over built by the Muncipal Corporation. The drains from the collective kholis emptied into a wide gutter that was covered in place by slabs of concrete and where the slabs were missing one could see the vitals of a metropolis with cooked rice and turd floating in one unholy brew that only a city of a population that vied for space with the garbage of the land could bring forth.

That evening Ravindran slept on the floor on a mat made of colored grass, while Chandran loitered the streets of the city with a small bottle of desi brew that he bought to celebrate the success of his only friend.

Leaving Othara

Susamma could not sleep that night. The light drizzle since the evening had taken on the mood of a thunderstorm and Othara had huddled into a collective sleep earlier than the usual nine of ten in the night. The raindrops fell in a steady stream on the thatched roof and made muffled sounds. Almost as if they suddenly realized that there were people sleeping under the roof and decided to land on tiptoes and then run down to the ground and then around the logs of jackfruit tree and then gush soundlessly into the stream that ran beyond the paved road. That stream fed the paddy fields and she could see the shimmering lights from the houses across the fields. She sat in the small veranda space alone and then realized that the stray cat belonging to Molly had curled around her feet and was purring gently.

Susamma looked at the letter once again. She could not believe that she was actually leaving her village and going to the big city somewhere in the north. The wind blew water onto her face; somewhere along that time she felt like crying and gave up trying to hold it all within her. She looked at the hands full of calluses and wondered if they would ever again cut grass in the fields behind her small home. She looked at the home, she was going to come back and rebuild it with bricks and cement like the houses that her uncles had built. She had never invited the girls in her class to her home for Christmas or for Onam, she was ashamed of the smoky interior and the mud floor. The utensils were dark from the wood fire and her ever-coughing mother stooping over the stove trying to coax the wet wood to catch on to the fire. It would all change she promised.

She collected her things in the iron truck and started to pack for the journey. She was not to carry the pavada and blouse that she normally wore in the village to the city. Her mother hovered around her like a protective hen, clucking and scratching at everything. “Do not talk to strangers, do not talk with boys, don’t be seen with men in the city, don’t get a bad name for your father or he will die of shame”, she went on and on. Maria parted with her new sari and Sara with her new bottle of Cutex nail polish, which she had got in exchange for completing the homework of her classmate for a month. Susamma gave up trying to convince her mother that she was not going to do anything wrong and went and finally sat at her favorite corner. She wanted to talk to her father. He was to borrow some money from his brother for her fees, which he would return when the crop of the year was ripe and he could sell it for a profit.

Her father finally returned with the money and a bag full of things for her to take along. Kappa chips and banana chips for her cousin and three new sarees and cloth that she could get stitched in Pune. He had also found a kind soul at the railway station, an old man visiting his son in Pune to keep an eye on Susamma. She burst into tears and embraced her father and the two sat and spoke quietly while the others left them alone. He told her how much he would miss her and that it was upto her to find a path for herself. She nodded and felt at peace.

The white Ambassador car was at the paved path an hour before the time for her to leave and the curious neighbours all stood around watching Susamma as she picked up her iron truck and walked down the path to it. The prayer her father said filled her up like a cry welling inside her chest and she let a tear trickle down her eyes. She had never left her family before and the pain of being away from her sisters and her mother made her almost not want to go away. She stopped and told the three sisters and her brother to study well and she promised to take them along with her when she came back for the holidays. Mathew put the trunk into the boot of the car and got in along with her and her father. The drive to the Chengganur railway station was quite, no one spoke a word. Susamma kept staring out of the window at the paddy fields, the church around the corner and the tea stall with the ripe banana fruits. She suddenly seemed relieved.

The train chugged in slowly; the smell of the burning coal filled the air. It clung to her clothes like memories she was leaving behind. The reserved compartment had to be searched and then she had to get her trunk under the berth. She was grateful that she had reservations and did not have to struggle with the hordes of men in the unreserved compartment that was just after her compartment. A bright-eyed young man with a fashionable airbag had got off and had walked along to the reserved compartment. He had a think moustache and a puff of hair. He washed his face with soap and had got some lather into his eyes when the engine has sounded the warning horn. He in the hurry had dashed into her father who smiled back instead of being angry. As the train moved her father had touched her fingers in a final gesture of love and had turned and held on Mathew’s shoulders.

She kept seeing the young man at almost all the stations buying tea from the vendors or talking to two huge men who looked like the villains from the Malayalam movies she and her sisters watched at the tented cinema after persuading their mother to part with a rupee. She put him away after Palghat as a loitering young man with no sense of duty or pride. Most probably traveling without a ticket she thought.

At two that day she opened her small packet of banana leaves and ate the last meal that her mother would cook for her for a long time. The boiled rice and the curried curd had the right amount of sourness, the fried matthi fish made her mouth water for more. It was a simple meal, after which she bought a cup of tea and threw it away cursing the man under his breath for calling it tea.

Pune

Pune was cold when she arrived. Platform number two was deserted. A few mongrels fought over a bit of cloth. The others who had traveled with her in the train had left. The old man and his son too fidgeted as they waited for her cousin to show up. The train had reached on time at midnight, there was no reason for him to not come, and unless he had never received the telegram her brother had sent. She realized that she was keeping the two men back and asked them to go ahead and walked with them to the staircase where a few women sat huddled together. She said that she would be fine and firmly smiled at them. They went their way and she shivered with the fear of being lonely in the city.

In about an hour her cousin Varghese, finally showed up, by that time she had almost started to weep. He just said that his shift had got over at eleven and it took him time to get to the railway station. The cursory questions and answers were dealt with curtly. She felt a kind of emptiness by the behavior and decided to keep silent.

The tonga from the railway station to the air force station quarters took her along a ten kilometer ride. Varghese was wearing a thin sweater, he said with a smirk that he had forgotten to mention to her to get a blanket or a sweater as Pune was cold in winter. They crossed the over bridge and turned to a dark road lined with huge trees that looked like ghosts in the dark. Then suddenly there were a few building and bulbs that glowed along the street. She looked around and felt lonely.

Velvet of the night were decorated with the jewels of sporadic tube lights and bulbs, which threw their yellow or white rings of lighted domains only to have the darkness and the sounds of the night reclaim its glory. She could smell the decay of moss from a nearby river, somewhere alongside was a tree that holding the nests of a few crow that had splattered the road with marks of white. The road turned into a smooth road whose tar glimmered with the polish of a million tyres. In the distance a hill held in its shadows some building that were indistinguishable. Lions from the British times held spheres under their paws and stood in stately silence at the mouth of the stone bridge. She could see the river had been blocked with a bund and on either sides the waters shone and rippled. Two scarred figures stood entwined at a circle, one a fisherman and his woman lit by a sole dirty lamp, which gave the pair the look of a sad couple tired of watching the world, go by.

She tried to make conversation with Varghese and gave up when he gave monosyllabic answers, she wondered why. Half an hour had passed since the ride had started, she thought to herself that in five minutes her village could be covered, end-to-end. She looked at the tin and woodsheds that stood by, they contained stories, which like hers were within the confines of the walls. Susamma was getting uncomfortable by the minute and when the tonga stopped at the gates of a large compound she was relieved. Varghese grumbled with the tongawala and finally gave him the money, she dragged her trunk down and stood motionless.

Pune 2

Varghese knocked at a door painted in some shade of green. A second later she heard a small baby cry and then shuffling as Elsie opened the door. Elsie, sweet Elsie who had bought them ice candy when she had come to Othara after marriage. Susamma smiled and shuffled into the small room. A sofa lay with its innards open; Elsie quickly covered it with a sheet that had hibiscus flowers in yellow. “Will you have tea” Elsie asked almost as if she was willing Susamma to say no. Susamma just stood at the door with her truck and smiled. Elsie pointed to the sofa and said, “Then you sleep here, lets talk in the morning”, the baby mumbled a cry and Varghese asked Elsie to see what was wrong. He came in a few minutes later with a thin cotton towel with a brilliant green border and pointed generally in the direction of a passage and said, “The toilet is in there, no hot water, if you want to take a bath use the bathroom.” Susamma sat on the edge of the sofa and removed her new rubber slippers, the plastic sticker had mover to one side and the sticky glue had collected grime and a few hair strands. The florets on the design too had specks of black soot.

The bathroom was a sorry affair with the paint having peeled off; the door had a few gaps that could not be trusted. She somehow managed to pour the cold water over her head and stood shivering as the warmth drained out of her. Overcome by the distance she had traveled, her arms and legs suddenly felt like lead. Her father had bought her Chandrika soap, she used it in a miserly fashion while trying to take a bath while still dressed in her petticoat and blouse. She searched for the light switch when she has done and then changed, peeling the clothes one by one from her body and then rubbing her skin until she felt circulation return. Then she folded the wet clothes and wore the ones she had got along from Othara. Pune was cold; the steely fingers of the air had crawled into her trunk and had touched everything. The clothes slowly melted to her body and warmed within minutes.

Susamma looked at her watch and lay down on the sofa. Trying to avoid the hole in the blue rexine. She covered herself with a sheet and was in a flash asleep.

She woke up to the sound of a vessel crashing to the floor followed by a series of loud chaste Malayalam curses. Startled she sat up and waited for someone to come through. Varghese could he heard somewhere inside cooing the baby. Elsie came into the room and gave Susamma a tired smile. “Go and get ready for breakfast.” She said and went away. Sleep hovered at the edges of her eyes. She got up and straightened her sari. Varghese called out to her and said a cheery good morning. She entered the kitchen and waited for Elsie to ask or tell her something. Finally she walked out and went into the bathroom and brushed her teeth and then went to the look. She was a bit amused, back home the morning ritual was done collectively with her sisters all heading into the grassy strip of land behind the canal and then while one stood watch the others did whatever one had to do. She smiled as she came out feeling better and a little hungry. The kitchen gave off smells of an ordinary meal being made. She entered again and asked Elsie if she could help her in the kitchen. Elsie nodded, “peel the onions” she said pointing with her eyes, while she continued stirring sambhar on the stove.

After breakfast, which was consumed without any conversation, Verghese asked Susamma to show her letter. She fished it out the letter from the trunk and gave it to him, explaining what had to be done. She then handed over two hundred-rupee notes to him as her father had instructed. He took them and put them in his pocket and read the letter aloud like a teacher would while evaluating an exam sheet. Elsie interrupted him with “What are the qualifications required for nursing, chetta?” Varghese looked at her and shot a question at him, “Why? Do you want to do it?” He then folded the letter and shoved it into his pocket saying “ I will go to the college and enquire the details” Then he got up and went inside. Susamma wondered whether she was off bounds the inside room. Elsie came in then with the baby and handed him over to Susamma saying “Take care of him while I get your cousin off to work”. The nine-month-old baby gurgled and smiled. He was not a beautiful baby, but like babies are all over he had a innocent charm about him, Wrapped in an expensive blanket he was warm, she cooed as she held him in her lap.

Varghese came in late that night. She was asleep when he noisily rapped the door and Elsie grumbled under her breath as she ran to open the door. Susamma sat up and looked at her cousin as he stumbled into the room reeking of liquor and sweat. He brushed past her and went in, She within minutes felt the lights go out and then as she drifted back to sleep could hear small sounds of pleasure that came from under the slats of the door.

Varghese took several days to find time to go to the nursing college. By the time he did go, Susamma was feeling sick with worry. Elsie kept saying that he would do it soon and not to worry. A few times she asked Varghese only to be given vague answers. Susamma finally burst into tears one day and Varghese fled the place only to return a few hours later with a sheepish look on his place. Susamma was frantic when he walked straight into the inner room and Elsie shut the door. The baby gurgled in her hands, while she strained to hear the conversation that came muffled from the door. Finally Varghese came out of the room. She gave the letter to Susamma and told her in a rather plain voice “The last day for joining the college was day before yesterday”. Elsie dropped another vessel in the kitchen and Susamma felt her head spin.

Gayathri

The exams were over. Others in the college planned to go out on a picnic to a nearby waterfall. The passages of the hostel fell silent and the noon shadows waited almost as if they wanted Gayathri to create some sort of an illusion so that the dull day could assume color. Gayathri had spent the day reading a book and then had laid back on her cot, staring at the roof, waiting for some answers that were racing through her mind.

Arun Jaiswal picked up courage and had reached the gates of the ladies hostel and then had simply panicked. The gulmohur trees shed yellow leaves, which settled along the path, a few adorning his head. He picked up speed and reached the boys hostel at the other end of the campus. There he joined a few of his classmates, hovered around for sometime and then walked dragging his feet up to his first floor room. He sat in the passage without going into the room or even acknowledging two of his roommates as they pondered over a game of chess.

Finally at noon he gave up sulking and walked back to the ladies hostel. He smiled as he thought of the difference, the girls stayed in a ladies hostel while the men stayed in a boys hostel. He wondered whether the college authorities had deliberately chosen to keep the boy’s hostel part of the name. After all they always said that the boys remained boys long after they sprouted moustaches and beards. The old kakaji, the custodian of the gates of the ladies hostel stared at him with unsupressed hostility. The old man was responsible to see that no man entered the building. He was acknowledged for his dedication to his job and was one with whom even the muscle men of the college never messed around. He raised his eyebrow as Arun approached him. After a few seconds of uncomfortable silence, Arun asked for Gayatri. He shuffled his feet and raised a little dust onto his shoes as he waited for kakaji to amble over to the courtyard of the building and shout out her name.
Arun wanted to run away. Gayathri was surprised when she heard that there was an “istudent” to meet her. Her mouth went dry when she saw Arun as she walked from the building to the gates. She was wearing a pale pink sari and her hair was open. Curls of hair fell over her forehead and she brushed them off as she thanked kakaji. Blushing slightly she looked at Arun questioningly. He shuffled even more and finally blurted out a meek namaste. She returned the greeting and stood a few feet away from him. When he did not say anything, kakaji cleared his throat and with that Arun asked, “Gayatri will you join me for a cup of tea?”

Gayathri never answered but just started walking with him to the small teashop outside the gates of the college. She was confused, she was worried that if the others, he classmates saw her with Arun, they would call it the beginning of an affair. She did not want the tea; she would have preferred the lemon water. The heat of the day started to settle into their skins and a thin film of perspiration enveloped their foreheads as they sat there without a word siping the tepid tea.
Then Arun suggested that they go for a walk. She smiled at herself thinking that he must be insane to take a walk at two in the noon. They crossed the tongawallahs who teasingly asked them if they wanted to go to the gardens, the favourite place of all lovebirds. Arun almost abused one of the more persistent tongawallah, stopping only because of the presence of Gayathri.

They reentered the college gates and walked towards the dusty playground. Heated air chased dust whirls and sprayed the two with everything from lifeless leaves to dry grass. Arun finally said to her “I wanted to talk to you for almost the whole year, I am sorry that this had to happen at the end of the year when we have to go home forever”. Gayathri did not reply, she had her eyes firmly on the ground in front of her. He continued, “I do not know what you feel about me, but I think I am in love with you”. Gayathri stopped and turned to look at him. Arun turned red with the realization of what he had said. He kept repeating sorry.

Gayathri kept walking silently almost as if she was unaware of what Arun had said. She too had wanted to hear the words of many months. He mind raced for answers. Had the confession from him come too late? Had she made a mistake in accepting his offer for a cup of tea? She looked at the trees; their shadows tattered with the sun punching holes to form a quilt on the ground. She asked him if they could sit under the tree. He did not reply, but courteously laid his handkerchief on the ground so that Gayathri could sit without getting the dust on her sari. They must have sat there for an hour without exchanging a word. Gayathri gently then placed her hand on Arun’s hand which rested on his thigh. Arun reacted with a jerk and that made her laugh out in nervousness. She then got up and walked away towards the ladies hostel while Arun savoured the feel of her gentle fingers where they had touched his hand.

She stayed back for another week, after all the others had left. Her letter to her father gave an excuse of a job interview at a nearby school. They even went to the extent of hiring a tonga to ride to the garden and spent hours walking around the cool shade of the trees there. They sat for hours on the wooden benches and talked about their families and their dreams. In the few days that they knew each other personally they had come close enough to want to spend the rest of their lives together. She did not know how she would explain her falling in love to her father, but she was confident that she would be able to convince him.

The last day of her stay in Nagpur came by in such haste that she did not have enough time to even pack her things properly. She just dumped her clothes into her bags. The rules of the hostel meant that she had to leave on what was the official last day of college. Which also meant that she had nowhere to go until the next day morning when her father would arrive. Arun had already left the boys hostel the day earlier and was staying with a relative. She had reluctantly agreed to let him take her bags to the house, but that left the problem of her stay unresolved. Arun had pestered the relative to let her use the outhouse and out of having no choice Gayathri had agreed. She felt foolish when the Arun’s old uncle asked her why she had stayed back even after the exams were over. She mumbled something about an interview and turned to Arun who changed the topic immediately.

Arun met her again over dinner. This time she was more relaxed. He kept stealing glances at her, when his aunt cleared her throat, he looked away and almost blushed. Gayathri felt amused by his facial expressions and by the time dinner ended, it was clear to the old couple that the two were definitely heading towards falling in love. The aunt called Gayathri into the kitchen and spoke gently to her. She explained what it was like to be in Aruns family and what it meant to become a part of a household that came with immense perks. Where the wealth of the girl who was getting married was more important than anything else. In short the old aunt explained why gayathri was not suited to be a part of Arun;s family.

Gayathri did not sleep that night. At daybreak she walked out of the compound without informing anyone. The tonga ride was a short one which was spent with her looking turning every few seconds to see whether Arun followed her. By the time Arun woke up, she was already about thirty kilometers into the countryside.

Ravindran

Ravindran started to work for Akhilbhai with enthusiasm. His mornings were frenzied, with all the six roommates trying to do their bit to ensure that the other was late. Often Ravindran was the last to get to use the small mori within the room, by which time it would be a mess, oily with the smell of rancid body oil and chameli oil that Mehra used liberally everyday. The day was spent walking behind Akhilbhai clutching notebooks full of figures and numbers. The one hundred and seventy seven rupees that had remained from the two hundred were enough to get him to the end of the month. In fact he was prudent enough to ensure that he had not spent more than forty rupees, which meant that he still had a king’s ransom with him. When he completed thirty days, he had to stand for a couple of hours in a queue to collect his salary. Sixty rupees. He had spent days planning, fifteen for the food, ten for the room, five to travel by bus to work, that would leave twenty rupees to buy some clothes and soap. Maybe some Cuticura talc and some sweets for the roommates and also a good meal at Novelty Tea house with Chandran.

Ravindran was pleased with the money in his pocket; it made him feel good. Unlike the times when he had to ask repeatedly for money, now he had a pocket full of notes that were his. That evening he went in search of Chandran.

Chandran’s tyre shop was shuttered, the clerk at the hardware shop next to it did not know where the dark Madrasi was. Ravindran sat around for a couple of hours and gave up. He was beginning to get worried. It was unusual for Chandran to shut his shack right in the middle of the week. There were always tyres that were sent in the evenings that needed to be tended to by the morning.

Ravindran went in search of Chandran to the railway yard. Just as he crossed the tracks he heard some shouting followed by screaming. He ran in the direction of the screams. Chandran had been stabbed a couple of times. Blood seeped onto his streaked shirt and a pool formed right where he crumpled. The men looked at Ravindran and moved towards him, Ravindran picked up a large stone and flung it at the one in front, it hit forehead and the man cursed loudly. Sharp stones make for good weapons, Ravindran had used them on the CPM goons back home.

The two men were distracted and by the time they looked up Ravindran had run hard and fast towards the Railway Station. He was crying, breathing hard and screaming at the top of his voice. It would be another half hour before he could explain to the lone police constable on duty that his friend had been stabbed. He managed to get Chandran to the Hospital after the police did the panchanama.

The doctors and the three nurses treated Chandran as they would on any other day. Bombay was full of people with broken limbs and accidents. What difference would it make if another one of the hundreds survived the night.

Chandran did survive. Ravindran pleaded and grappled with everyone to ensure that something was done. He even called up his mentor Vadararaja very early that morning and persuaded him to do something. By the afternoon a minion from sethji’s home had come along with the local corporator. After that the nurses were a little better behaved.

Chandran had got into a scuffle with the two men because of an old rivalry. The two men belonged to the gang that controlled the area around his shack. To them the dirty Madrasi was just another boy who they could bully for some extra hafta. Chandran always paid what was due to him. The day he was stabbed, the two men had been drinking and were in the mood to bully someone. They had stopped Chandran from opening his tyre shack and had slapped him around a couple of times.

Something inside Chandran snapped when they groped him and commented about his mother. He had lashed out at the one closest and then run off. The two found him hastily collecting his belongings. They wanted to teach him a lesson and decided that the best way would be to drag him to their godown down the seaside and torture him for a few days before letting him go.

Chandran fought hard and when they found him impossible to handle one of them stabbed him with the rampuri knife they favoured.
A month later the two men and Chandran were summoned to the ‘office’ of the man who controlled the area. Vadararaja had arranged for the men and Chandran to reach a settlement. Chandran swore never to misbehave and the men assured that they would not look at the Madrasi for anything more than the weekly hafta. Ravidran wanted the men to apologize. He wanted them punished. He was told firmly that he would get into trouble with that fiery attitude and that he should mind his business. The constable was there too. He did his part of not reporting anything.

Bombay was strange. Ravindran found that as the months passed, he could either just remain silent and take his monthly salary or do something that would allow him to get a better life. Chandran has gone into a shell. He would just do what was needed to make enough to live and send money home. Six months after the incident, he quietly asked Ravindran one day if he could borrow some money to go see a movie. Ravindran laughed and paid for the pickchar and the biryani. Maybe life would return to normal soon.