‘Really?’ she asked in a weak voice. ‘Could you please wait another half an hour? I will come down. Right now I am in the middle of something.’
The walls around the hostel complex were really high, he could not make out which building she stayed in, for there were many buildings inside the walls. There was a McDonalds, Café Coffee Day and a beauty parlour, all within the complex, all meant for the girls alone. The lady attendant and the watchman gave him a severe look; they thought he was eyeing the scantily clothed African girls sitting in the lobby.
Another twenty-five minutes passed before Rhea arrived. Aadi didn’t recognize her at first, for she had undergone a major transformation; she looked like an artificial doll you couldn’t feel any attachment for. She had straightened her hair and coloured portions of it, and her lips were slightly plumper than before. The other changes he couldn’t quite make out, but something about her was not natural, not even the way she smiled and the delicate way in which she waved her hands. She looked cinematic, he thought. How beautiful her curly black hair had been! Now it looked like the scene of a crime. He felt terribly disappointed at this drastic sight.
She smiled at him with exaggerated surprise which he found feigned, again.
‘Hi, how is your college?’ he asked, realizing his voice was becoming affected, too.
‘This is not a college, it’s a university,’ she corrected him.
She couldn’t believe that he had wasted a year of his life. But later she said she had known some foreign students who were doing the same thing. After all, relaxing one year was no big deal. She showed him around the campus: It was almost like a miniature township with restaurants, ice cream parlours, salons, eye clinics, a mobile centre and whatnot. Above all there was a rail track running through the campus area, perhaps the only university in India with a railway line attached to it.
He looked at the splash of bougainvillea over the tunnel covering a small area of the track. No matter what higher degree you were enrolled in, and which university you studied at, trains were always a marvel. Trains were the long stories or novels of man’s success over nature.
They sat on the steps leading to the railway tracks for a while. He counted the number of steps, she chewed on a blade of grass she had broken from God knows where.
When does the next train come?
When does the last train leave?
There were kisses left unfinished, they didn’t feel like reminding each other of the debts they owed. She tossed the grass towards the tracks, it fell down somewhere on the steps. He wondered who had turned off the flames, when and how. He knew she wished he wouldn’t speak of their past relationship, that he would pretend ignorance, the way she did; it would be a great help, to both of them. Yet he couldn’t resist, he tried to touch her fingers, the fingers he used to smother with kisses somewhere in the past, but she abruptly drew her hand back when she realized how indecisive she could get at times. She knew it was ending already, and maybe because of this, she started talking non-stop as if she were some sort of talking muzak.
‘It’s been days since I have had a proper shower and sleep,’ she said accusingly. ‘We were busy with Gravitas for the past several days, the technical festival and workshops. I was in desperate need of an oil bath. In fact I was applying oil when you called me over the phone. At first I thought I would come down after my bath but I didn’t want to make you wait, but I am afraid I have to wash this off as soon as possible.’
She held some strands of hair between her fingers as if to show him. He looked at the coloured strands of hair and wondered whether they were actually oiled. But she added, for emphasis, ‘I really need to wash this off before I catch a cold. I had wanted to take a bath in the morning itself but then the seniors called and said it was time I attended the audition for international chapters. Once you become a member of the core committee you get credits plus you get to organize events and other things yourself. I never knew that I was this ambitious, but I think I am happy.’
It was all very simple to understand, he thought—she was tired and sleepy and wanted to take a shower before she went to bed at night, and washing one’s hair after sunset was not ideal. They walked towards Woodstock, the garden of the provisional lovers. She seemed more upset with each step she took, but she chattered all the same. She talked about her parents in Dubai and her decision to study abroad once she finished her BTech. After a terribly upsetting and boring walk through the woods, they arrived at Darling Restaurant where they found themselves a nice table near the window.
Some of the senior boys who sat at the centre table were celebrating a birthday. They were shouting, laughing and smearing the icing on each other, in a jovial mood. Aadi and Rhea watched them, sitting in identical postures, silent and still. One more cake arrived at their table, set on a tray with a lit candle in the middle. Upon a second look, they realized it was golden fried chicken legs wrapped up artistically in aluminium foil and arranged to look like a cake. There was a lengthy pause in their celebration while they went crunch, munch, crunch. In no time the cake was reduced to a heap of half-crushed bones. A chair by a window was a blessing at times.
In the semi-darkness of the railway station, Aadi sat cross-legged on a concrete bench. Though he was tired to the core, his hold on the bag’s strap was still strong. He wasn’t sure just how safe railway stations were at night.
A station in the night was extremely sorrowful, he thought. He didn’t want to sleep, but he fell asleep all the same. He woke up with a start after some time to find a man sitting next to him; the man’s fingers were gently caressing the insides of Aadi’s thigh. Before he could resist the thought slapping against his brain, he had shouted, ‘Fuck off, you bastard!’
He sensed the entire Katpadi station shudder. He couldn’t believe he could shout so loud. The man ran away. No more baloney, this was the exercise of travel, he lectured himself. He seemed happy with his own voice, the strength of his gestures. The length of time and the darkness didn’t bother him; he sat there on the same bench, engrossed in his thoughts. The darkness was making things transparent, more vivid, with a see-through sort of clarity. Filth is a difference in thought. Shrug it off.
For a second he wanted to go back home. Shaly had told him that each trip was like opening a bottle of champagne, each time a new experience. It would be better if people made their own society, be it democratic, totalitarian, fascist, or whatever, but it should definitely be a one man society.
Initially his plan had been to stay with Anuraktha; to be frank, he had not thought of any other course of action so far. Back in Bangalore, inside the paid retiring room, he started taking stock of friends with whom he could stay for a while. He remembered Whitefield, where he had spent a good amount of time with his friends; he thought of the iced tea with the scattered pulp of orange in it served at a restaurant by the lake called Fat Chef for one hundred and forty rupees. He asked himself how many times he’d gone there, to the restaurant, to the lake. He pictured the beautiful lake. Outside the station, he waited for a long time in the queue in front of the ticket booth for the prepaid taxi, and since a cab was rather expensive he booked a rickshaw.
‘Whitefield hogubeikku,’ he said. Will you go to Whitefield?
In the back seat, he sat thinking of the length of the drive, ten kilometres or twenty. Cherish the good memories, he told himself, and remembered how he had stayed at his classmate Jaswant’s flat the night before the school science exhibition with some other classmates. From the balcony of the flat, he had looked down at the long white wall of the Jagriti theatre, the letter R in a bright orange so that it looked like a single brushstroke on the whiteness of the wall. It was not just a wall or a barrier but a piece of art, an installation planned with great thought. It was at Whitefield that he had had his first California roll and New York cheesecake. How small is the world.
‘Elli hogubeikku?’ the driver asked. Where do you want to go?
‘Nimage Jagriti Theatre gotha?’ D
o you know where Jagriti Theatre is?
The driver stepped out of the rickshaw and went to a nearby shop to ask for directions. But Aadi was thinking of something else: he was pretty sure that Jaswant would be at college now, not at home. He contemplated spending his morning near the lake and when the driver came back asked him to take him to Varthur Lake. He thought he was abandoning his boyhood in order to be there, at the lake, showing the early signs of maturity. He glanced in the side mirror of the vehicle and saw the delicate features of a young man. He ran his fingers over his lips.
At the lake, he opened his mouth in surprise. Could it be snow? He couldn’t believe his eyes, the lake and its surroundings were covered in sparkling white snow, still and sunlit. He had seen such a vision only in cinemas and in his mother’s early collection of Soviet Union storybooks. Was he feeling cold? He checked the temperature with the back of his hand—it was all right. Yet, he opened his bag and took out his mother’s Kashmiri shawl to cover his neck and chest. He imagined himself on the back of a yak, revolver in hand, riding through the snow, and he couldn’t help laughing. It was Rahul who used to say that he wanted to travel to the Himalayas just to have a glass of vodka on the rocks sitting on top of the mighty white mountains. He had said he would fill the glass with the snow he would collect and someone had retorted that the snow was deadly; it could not be ingested, for it contained millions of dangerous bacteria.
They had driven only a short way along the road when there was a commotion, and an unbearable stench pierced their nostrils. They saw people fighting over something, a parked car or some bikes. Aadi covered his face with the Kashmiri shawl, for the stench was getting stronger; for a moment he thought he would throw up. The driver pulled his rickshaw to the side, saying that the roads were blocked ahead. He wanted to argue over the two hundred and fifty rupees the driver demanded but he didn’t because it was awful standing there inhaling the rottenness of the snowy wind. He walked towards the other end of the lake which looked almost like a surrealistic painting, flakes of snow, sheets of it, floating all over. Like the violent waves of the sea, the snow was moving forward and the riders on the bikes were super careful not to get hit. He stopped for a while to take a closer look at the snow, and then he realized with a shudder that it was not real snow but tufts of foam, with black spots and dips. The swirling, spilling foam was fast approaching and he virtually had to run, with the load of his bags. He must have run a decent two kilometres before he found another rickshaw, panting and short of breath. The rickshaw was almost crawling, side by side with the frozen lake shrouded in its poisonous foam.
The driver told him about how the lake had overflowed last night, causing a traffic jam and spreading panic in the neighbourhood. It’s been days, he said, since the neighbourhood had opened their windows. Only then did he notice the posters on either side of the road protesting against the policies of the Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage Board. The foam that was bubbling up over the once fresh water was toxic.
Travel helps you learn a lot of things, you discover your own way and that makes a big difference from what you have been hearing for so long. Mr Hemingway, have you seen this, this is how we travel now across the river and into the trees.
He stood in front of the theatre and surveyed the other buildings. It was not easy to find Jaswant’s flat in this jungle of concrete blocks and skyscrapers. He had neither his number nor his address. All he knew was a name: Jaswant. How many Jaswants were there in this part of the city? The thing was, he did not really expect to see him; it had never occurred to him that he would feel free in the company of an old classmate. He could stay in a place he could rent, a very cheap place.
He walked slowly to the theatre. He went to the washroom there and came out and drank half a bottle of water while he sat on a chair near the staircase. He wanted to call his mother and brother and tell them everything he had seen so far and experienced, but he was too tired to speak. He texted Kamala explaining the situation he was in. Suddenly he noticed the poster announcing the evening’s program. He stood up, placed his bag on the chair and walked slowly towards the notice.
Adishakti Presents
The Tenth Head
Written by Vinay Kumar K.J.
Directed by Veenapani Chawla
The Tenth Head! He looked at the poster for a long time.
‘Could you please hold this teddy bear?’
He turned around upon hearing the foreign accent of a child. It was a chubby little girl, no more than three years old, with light blonde hair and blue eyes. She was barefoot, wearing a loose asymmetric cotton dress that was falling off her plump shoulders, and she was holding a big blue teddy bear in her hands.
‘Could you please hold this? Please hold, please, I will be back soon.’
He took the bear from her. But without paying any attention to him, she started talking to the bear; it seemed she was giving him certain instructions. It seemed she was a little princess of gestures for she kept showing her hands and making her eyes move this way and that way while she spoke. Then, holding three of her fingers close to her lips, she said ‘Shh . . .’ to the teddy and turned away. After taking two or three steps, she paused, turned again, and in a slightly loud voice said: ‘Mama will come soon. Don’t cry.’
He saw her going up the stairs, he had no idea what was there. On the steps, again, she stopped, pretending she was talking with someone, something important. He looked at the teddy bear: it was very big, not something he could keep in his bag which was already full. When he looked up from the stuffed toy, he saw that she had disappeared, and he sat there with the teddy bear on his lap, hoping she would come soon. After some time, he set the teddy on the chair next to him, it was embarrassing for a boy of eighteen to be seen with it. Travels were always not that easy.
His phone rang. It was Shiva, he realized happily.
‘Where are you now?’
‘I am in Whitefield. Varthur Road.’
‘At your friend Jaswant’s place? Have you seen Rhea? Why didn’t you call last night?’
‘I had called Amma, didn’t she tell you?’
‘She might have forgotten it. How is Rhea?’
‘She is not here. I think she is in Dubai these days.’
‘Oh!’
Aadi didn’t want to talk about her. So he asked, ‘Are you calling from outside? Your voice is very clear now.’
‘We came for an evening walk.’
‘I’m happy you are having an outing. Say hello to Shaly, I will call her some time later.’
They chatted over the phone for twenty minutes and he spent another twenty minutes near the poster waiting for the girl, then he came back to his seat near the staircase and sat down with the teddy bear on his lap. It seemed its mother had abandoned it, the way rich women dispose of illegitimate children. The ticket was for four hundred rupees. He had never thought of money before, had never had to. Four hundred rupees for a ticket was not cheap, but he bought it, for he couldn’t understand what fascinated him like the book of verses he kept in his bag. He had a mini lunch in between from the cafeteria and, having nothing else to do and with the additional burden of the teddy, he came back to the chair again. The girl didn’t come back demanding her teddy. He observed the people who came to watch the show. There was a commonality in the way people dressed, talked and walked. They were rather a careless lot, happy and somewhat showy. He was the single man who came to watch the show with a big blue teddy in his hand. The girls, he noticed, were looking at him, their eyes twinkling with the merrymaking of a lustrous night. A boy was coming towards the staircase holding his mother’s hand. His mother was charming and petite; if he had not kept calling her Ma, people would have mistaken her for his elder sister. They were walking when he noticed Aadi caressing the teddy bear, an involuntary action on Aadi’s part, but the boy had noticed it.
‘Amma, look, what is that big boy doing with the teddy bear,’ he said.
Aadi’s face fell.
‘Sakth
i, come here.’ His mother pulled him towards her.
Aadi followed them with the bear in his hand. It was a beautiful auditorium with comfortable blue chairs arranged in a semicircle, and built around a full stage. The audience was coming in and the seats were filling up. He sat on his chair, looking eagerly at the people, looking for the little blonde mother among them. Since he could not make the bear occupy a four hundred rupee seat, he placed it carefully in his lap, just above his rucksack, the bear covering half of his face. Sakthi and his mother and father had seats next to him. Now the boy was wearing two plastic red horns on his head. He smiled at Aadi, showing his dimples, his eyes had stars in them when he smiled.
‘Bro, why are you playing with a teddy like a baby?’ he asked Aadi point-blank.
His mother immediately covered his mouth, ‘Will you please keep quiet, Sakthi?’
He put his forefinger in front of his lips and became suddenly silent as if he were a robot. Aadi remembered Teddy’s mother making a similar gesture a few hours earlier. When the lights dimmed, the very character of the theatre changed, the cacophony of the voices died down, the auditorium became quiet, and countless eyes focused on the spotlights that fell on the stage. When the play was announced, the theatre became one big space of silence. Aadi forgot the teddy, he forgot its blonde mother. There were several rectangular screens on the stage on display. Light fell behind one of the screens and an arm stretched out from behind it. The next second it pulled back. The arm moved intermittently in and out, slowly, from behind the screen, under the rhythm of lights—hand, arm, shoulder, half of the body, the full body, finally Ravana. In a sing-song manner he said, ‘Call me Head, more precisely, Tenth Head.’
Acid Page 24