‘They are putting serious money into the campaign,’ Sushant Kane said.
‘Of course,’ Raghav said. ‘Ratul has his own mint.The IMFL chain shops. Cows that never stop giving milk.’
‘IMF?’ Yogi asked, sharply recognizing something from the news shows.
Sushant Kane ran a palm through his hair. ‘Indian Made Foreign Liquor.’ He laughed. ‘Scotch brewed on the Highlands of Karnataka. The International Monetary Fund will never figure it out.’
There was a dark delight in Sushant Kane’s laughter. What had happened? Raghav and Sushant Kane had a secret language, private jokes to which their bodies swayed.
‘Keep everybody drowsy,’ Raghav said bitterly. ‘And then fling a silk chador with your face on it over everybody’s heads. Dumb heads.’
The auto-rickshaw approached the offices of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) near the main road. They could see a knot of Raghav’s men around a carrom board.
‘Everybody lives in a stupor of alcohol these days.’ Raghav whispered. ‘Fog over their brains. Remember the slums across the railway tracks?’ Suddenly, he turned to Yogi. His eyes burnt bright.
‘That’s the vile stuff, killer hooch,’ Sushant Kane said and Yogi saw pale fire in his eyes. ‘Something terrible might happen one day.’
‘Something might,’ Raghav muttered. ‘One day.’
A smile shone in his eyes, a splinter of glass in sunlight.
The auto-rickshaw made a dying noise and stuttered to a stop. The driver waited as the thin boyish man got down with his loudspeaker.
‘I’ll do the evening rounds.’ The man looked at Raghav hesitantly. ‘There’s the blood donation camp, and then I’ll get directly into the campaign.’
‘Doesn’t matter what you do,’ Raghav said bitterly. ‘Doesn’t matter what you say. Our voices are dying here.’
Like lightning, he turned to Yogi. ‘Will you speak for us?’ He repeated feverishly. ‘Will you?’
A shiver ran through Yogi. He looked at Sushant Kane.
SrK was looking at Yogi. His eyes were those of a little boy who wanted something but was afraid to ask.
But he was quiet.
You craft a speech when you talk to many people at the same time. When you can make everybody feel you are talking only to them. No one else.
Speech would belong to Yogi. Finally.
Yogi looked at SrK again. SrK’s gaunt face glistened with sweat.
‘I’ve heard you speak,’ Raghav whispered. ‘I know you believe in us.’
‘He’s young, Raghav.’ SrK whispered. ‘He’s very young.’
‘People will listen to his voice,’ Raghav said, unmoved. ‘They will believe in him because he believes in himself.’
‘We have a terrific youth wing,’ he went on. ‘They do great work in the neighbourhoods.’
‘We have to be careful,’ SrK said softly. ‘Those are college students. He’s much younger!’
‘We need him,’ Raghav said, trancelike. ‘Young blood. The things such young blood can do.’
‘But who will I speak to?’ Weakly, Yogi asked.
‘To small groups in these neighbourhood.’ Raghav spoke in a voice of quiet assurance. ‘We’ll tell you everything.’
He could? He could, really?
Yogi would do it. Would that make SrK happy? That’s what he really wanted, didn’t he?
He would just have to talk to a few people. Not many people showed up at these meetings these days, the auto-rickshaw screamer had said.
Raghav wanted him to do it. He had faith.
‘We will train you,’ Raghav said. ‘Every afternoon in my office. Vacations are coming.’
Yogi nodded.
‘Come and see us work,’ Raghav’s voice softened. ‘Everything will fall into place.’
SrK didn’t speak. Gratitude was quiet on his face.
Breathless
The Puja vacations came crashing on them. They were all supposed to go back home for a month. The hostel would be closed.
Yogi didn’t want to go back home. It was a dark and damp hole. He wanted to stay in a sunlit world. Could he stay back in the hostel? He told Sushant Kane. He would understand.
‘Come and stay in our home,’ SrK said. ‘Will help your studies too.’
That was what Yogi told his parents. They both seemed relieved. His studies would improve if he spent the vacations in the teachers’ quarter. They didn’t want to question it.
But how was he going to tell Kajol? Kajol would never understand.
When he heard it, Kajol’s delicate mouth was bruised with acid.
‘You’ve lost your mind,’ he said calmly.
‘Why are you so mad?’ Yogi wanted to ask. But he couldn’t gather the courage.
Kajol stopped speaking to him.
He just refused. In the presence of others, he pretended Yogi wasn’t there.
No one else knew anything.
Kajol had become angrier and angrier with Yogi over the last year. Studies and exams were hurtful subjects that never led to happy endings. And Yogi was always gone! Kajol knew. That Yogi had been secretly leaving the ashram with Sushant Kane during the afternoons to vanish for hours. Yogi never told him where and Kajol wouldn’t ask. Whenever he came back, Kajol would look away, pretending he didn’t exist.
Kajol hated Sushant Kane. He hated everything about him: the trimmed beard and the perky verse and the sharp words.
Yogi wasn’t sure when Kajol started hating Sushant Kane. Perhaps after he saw Yogi spend more and more time with him. Kajol wanted to own Yogi, own and shape his life. No one else was real.
Yogi tried to talk to Kajol. Kajol came back early from the games, as if he couldn’t break out of the habit. This was usually when they walked up together to the rooms, either his or Yogi’s. They chatted. Kajol nagged Yogi about his habit of shirking football and wasting his time at the Central Library. It all felt like small talk. Both their hearts beat wildly because they knew it was time for their evening shower and the hostel was still empty.
But Kajol wasn’t speaking to Yogi. He said nothing when Yogi entered his room. He was back, sweaty from football and he took off his t-shirt, which he would wash carefully while showering. Yogi liked to look at his lean and small body. It was dark and shiny with sweat. Sometimes Yogi joked with him and punched him lightly on his upper arm. This felt like an acceptable way of initiating touch; the touch became softer, longer, lingering, every time. Quickly they would lose themselves in each other’s bodies but never letting go of that extra pairs of eyes on their backs in case anyone caught them. The darker bathroom was a safer place. In the light of the room, Yogi sometimes felt reluctant to take off his shirt before Kajol as his body was neither sweaty nor well-built. His skin was fair and delicate and his body was un-athletic, too thin and unformed. This was when he wished he was better in sports.
Yogi tried to talk. Kajol had just taken off his t-shirt and anxiety had started to thicken in the room.
‘It’s just the vacation,’ Yogi said. ‘Why are you getting so upset?’
‘You’ve lost it!’ Kajol flung his t-shirt away in the corner with sudden force. ‘Don’t you get it? You’re going to throw the vacation away, I know.’
‘And what is it that I should do?’ Yogi felt a lightning flash of anger sear through him. ‘It’s the vacation!’
‘Vacation!’ Kajol shouted. ‘What are vacations for? You’re in Class 9 and you pretend to know nothing!’
‘Stop telling me what to do,’ Yogi’s voice hardened as he spoke. ‘I can’t live the life you’ve planned for yourself.’
‘It’s the life of sensible people.’
‘What is the point, Kajol?’ Yogi looked at him calmly. ‘I’ll never be as good as you. I will never get the same IIT ranking as you, hell I’ll never get into the same place as you and then what do you think is going to happen? You’ll go off somewhere and break records and make new ones and I’ll be studying commerce in a small city college.’
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Kajol looked at Yogi, stunned.
‘We’ll grow up and go away with our lives.’ Yogi said. ‘We won’t live in the same hostel forever.’
They would go away. The real world was breathing on their necks. Yogi was already there. This world was an illusion. A childhood dream.
Kajol picked up the t-shirt he had flung away. He looked ashamed that he had flung it away.
‘You are a fool,’ his voice throbbed with tears. ‘A stinking fool.’
Yogi reached out and touched his shoulder. Kajol was crying. Suddenly, somebody ripped off the top of Yogi’s heart and left it burning in the raw air.
Kajol wanted to mold him. He wanted him for all his life and didn’t want to let go.
But he couldn’t. School would get over and life would start.
Kajol’s shoulders were moist with sweat. Yogi’s palm wanted to stay there forever.
‘Let’s go and shower,’ Yogi said.
The afternoon light was still strong when they went to the bathroom. It was empty. It would be a while before the rest of the boys came back from the fields.
They turned on two of the showers and stood under them. Kajol’s hair was plastered to his scalp and he looked like a little boy. Yogi’s heart ached. He wanted to hug Kajol. Kajol’s eyes were closed and trembled under the spray of the shower. He opened them. They looked tiny and weak, as if they were afraid to face the world.
Yogi took him in his arms. Kajol closed his eyes. The strong spray of water cut across their skin and it felt as if they were swimming. Under a spell, Yogi lowered his face to Kajol’s neck. He kissed him and felt the water run across his lips. He didn’t know water could make him so thirsty.
Kajol hugged him tight. But he would not open his eyes, which would not fight the rain. Suddenly, the shower felt warm, very warm. Yogi lowered his face and licked one of his nipples. It was small and brown, with sleepy sprouts of hair around it and tiny crests of gooseflesh awake around them like a garland.
Like a snake, his hand traveled down to Kajol’s shorts. His penis was hard and awake and came into Yogi’s hand eagerly. Yogi knew how Kajol liked to be touched. Kajol’s body had told him, and he had learned easily.
As Yogi pulled the zipper down and held Kajol’s penis tenderly in his fingers. He wanted to kneel and take it in his mouth, eat him like food.
Kajol opened his eyes. Suddenly, they shone in yellow horror.
It was as if someone had slapped Yogi. He ran out of the shower stall, sick to his stomach.
He wrapped himself in his towel and shot out of the bathroom. No one was back yet. He shot along the corridor to his room.
Everything was broken.
Yogi didn’t want to see him anymore.
It was the easiest trek, from his hostel room to Sushant Kane’s flat in the faculty quarters. A cycle-rickshaw was enough for the two suitcases he had. It would take less than 10 minutes.
Yogi passed Sushant Kane’s room in the block, number 25. The block was empty—all the boys had left for home. SrK’s room was locked but the windows were left open. He paused for a minute. The open windows were dark pits. The windows which drew him outside these walls, three years ago. He looked at the windows. They looked small and childish.
The teachers’ quarters were cottages about 10 minutes’ rickshaw ride outside the ashram gate. Sushant Kane shared one with his two brothers—Prashant and Ashant. Most of the year nobody lived here as the brothers lived in the hostels with the boys. But they came here sometimes, and spent most of the vacations here.
None of the other brothers were at home, but there were other people in the house.
Sushant Kane had to ring the doorbell several times before Naren Das opened the door looking confused. His hair looked mussed as if somebody had been running their hands through them ceaselessly for the past couple of hours. He looked at Yogi but looked away absently. It was as if Yogi was the newspaper boy or the milkman; there was no surprise at seeing his classmate appear at this strange home.
‘Geometry or physics?’ Sushant Kane raised his brows and asked. Naren Das ran his hand absently through his hair and suddenly, came back to the world. ‘There were a few equations,’ he laughed shyly. ‘Sorry I didn’t hear the bell.’
Sushant Kane smiled but didn’t say anything more. They walked in. Yogi was puzzled. What was Naren Das doing here? Das was from the Bangla medium, the boy with a tiny face and an athlete’s body. He was a beast on the football field. Just a couple of weeks ago he had got into a foaming fight with Lothar during a match. He was also good in studies, especially science and mathematics. But he was from a remote village and was very weak in English.
Another boy had stepped out from one of the rooms. He, too, looked a bit ruffled, as if he had just got up from sleep. Luben Kisku, the tribal boy—a Santal, probably, also a magical sportsman in almost everything imaginable— especially football and running. But poor in studies.
He saw Yogi but said nothing, and quickly slipped back into his room.
Yogi left his suitcases in the room where Naren sat with a hideous frown on his face. Yogi tried not to disturb him and slipped out quickly. Naren sat before a large notebook filled with tiny, beautifully etched equations and a mathematics textbook from Class 12 sat open on the desk. It felt like a study hall in open air.
Sushant Kane brought two cups of tea from the kitchen. He had made the tea himself. Yogi felt a tingle of delight.
‘You know the three of us were taken in by the monks,’ he said. ‘We were orphans.’
He did not say anything about who his parents were. Yogi knew they were not really orphans. But he knew the story. You could say that they were orphans, after a fashion.
‘We’ve become part of the ashram in our own way,’ he continued. ‘Prashant, Ashant and I. To each his own.’
‘I guess we end up doing what the ashram did to us. In our own way.’
Yogi was under a spell. He was telling him a story, and the story would tell a lot.
‘Every vacation a few boys stay in our house,’ he said, looking into Yogi’s eyes. ‘Boys who come from very poor homes, sometimes remote villages. Where they can’t study. Going back there is a kind of drowning. Sometimes they come from homes where there is no electricity.’
‘Prashant is the one who gets them here.’ He said. ‘He has his own way of looking at things. He usually brings boys who are good at sports. He gets to know those boys better. Many of these boys are also very poor.’ He gestured to the rooms where Naren and Luben were.
‘But this is the first time I brought a boy home for the vacation,’ he said. ‘I had to.’
He smiled, spreading sunlit happiness inside Yogi.
Yogi asked, ‘Why did you?’
The phone rang.
‘That would be Raghav,’ Sushant Kane got up. ‘He knows we’re supposed to be here by noon.’
He looked at Yogi as he picked up the receiver. His eyes glistened.
Suddenly, Yogi had his answer.
It would just be a homey little chat with a few people who lived around these tracks. Now he knew what Sushant Kane had meant. A conversation with a bunch of people, letting them into the gossip.
He learned. Watching them do their business in Raghav’s office. The office mimicked the poor neighbourhood, its windswept desolation. A room of whitewashed walls and uneven bricks that stared and waited for a coating of paint, a carrom board perched on four bamboo poles outside. He was the boy on the corner mattress, a boy who looked like he might be asked to serve tea anytime. He watched them all. The taxi driver who had his license seized for reckless driving and now wanted it back without the penalty of a fine. The barbershop owner who was in trouble with the police because of girls in his shop offering cozy massages to clients. Hawkers who feared their pavement stalls would be bulldozed by the municipality.
He heard them all.
‘Sit back and watch,’ Raghav said. ‘You’ll know everything. And then you will tell them.’
&n
bsp; They would love to hear from a student—a young person who knew that being in school was important. The slum kids would have someone to whom they would look up. The older boys could see what their lives could become. And the men could see what it meant to think clearly, speak without a slur.
The mothers would love him. They were all tired of seeing the same old faces, hearing the same old voices chanting the same mantras. A fresh young voice would catch their souls.
He watched and learned. His voice shivered but he didn’t say anything. Just a handful of people showed up at these meetings. The auto-rickshaw driver had already said so. Torn and tattered people from the slums, strewn around the railway tracks.
Yogi had to tell them a few things.
He had to be gentle, to hold their hands and sway them.
Gold
Raghav’s office was a friendly place. It beckoned the streets inside and called people to drop in for a cup of chai. Yogi got used to lazing there, blending with the cheap, flapping calendars and groaning ceiling fans and the stray dog curled up asleep under the chairs, soaking in the sound bites flying in the air.
The three women who came in that afternoon did not look like they trusted the world. They were different. They might have been troubled housewives from the neighbourhood who had come to snitch about firecrackers too loud round the corner. But Yogi knew there was something. Something that said that their lives were tied too close, too tight. As in the rhythm of string puppets. Were they tall members of a co-op market that had run into a snag?
For they were tall, two of them, tall and regal, and a shorter third who looked like their teenage daughter at first glance. Renu caught Yogi’s eyes before the rest, perhaps because she was closer to his height, with eyes that darted at him though he’d done his best to quickly look away.
But a strange co-op group it was, bruised by violence too beastly for language. Suddenly, both Renu and Raghav were teenagers lost in a flow of jagged slang. But Yogi hung on, not daring to blink, afraid of losing their words. ‘They enter our rooms as clients,’ Renu spoke in a voice laced with calm wrath. ‘And beat up our girls. Cigarettes, belts, the works.’
The Scent of God Page 13