Day 8
Jagat squatted behind the tin shed, whistling tunelessly while tracing random patterns on the ground with his phone. The battery had drained out a while ago, but he was loathe to get up and go inside the shed to charge it. Grey, powdery dust swirled around in small puffs and alighted on his Being Human t-shirt, lending the unwashed garment a patina that was at odds with its stains and pungent smell. Even his hair, thick and usually styled like his favourite film star, now hung limply over Jagat’s ears in straggly, greasy strands.
He had been planning to go for a haircut last Wednesday, but everything had suddenly changed on Tuesday evening. Initially, he too had joined the groups huddled in different corners of the colony watching the news clips on a loop. Then at some point, he had distanced himself from them and taken to watching film songs on YouTube. Really, there was nothing else to be done but wait this out. But now a week had passed and as was evident from the raised voices coming from the direction of the site, others in the colony thought differently. Why couldn’t they just be patient till things got better? What was the need to create all this ruckus? There was food. There was shelter. There was no work. Life was good. But no, instead these fools were trying to stir up an agitation! Jagat rolled another spit ball between his teeth and spat it out hard. It landed next to his youngest son, who frog jumped to avoid it and let loose a loud fart. His fourth one since morning and just as foul smelling. Shaabaash, Jagat nodded in encouragement and both father and son exchanged a smile.
Having done his fatherly duties for the day, Jagat huddled further back against the shed avoiding his wife's eyes as she walked up and down the colony trying to rustle up a sizeable crowd before the contractor arrived. Foolish woman, Jagat muttered in a low voice to his son. As if by just collecting a crowd, the contractor is going to give her rosgollas. To his misfortune, his son ran off and relayed this to his mother who then stormed back and dragged a protesting Jagat by his collar.
And so it happened that Jagat found himself wedged right in front of the crowd and looking up into the contractor's flared nostrils. What? What??? You want to make trouble? Jagat opened his mouth hastily to pacify the contractor but several angry female voices beat him to it. For how many days can we feed our children just rotis and moongfalli? Only two rotis for the whole day? Look at our children, just look at them! The contractor threw a contemptuous look at the children who were sitting quietly near the blue plastic drums. They look good enough to me. What do you want me to feed them? Rosgollas?
Two voices giggled in chorus. One was Jagat's. The other was his son's.
Day 15
Jagat stood sullenly outside the police station with his bag and rolled up bedding. His son, too weak to play, sat on the ground with his arms looped around his father's knees. That for Jagat, was good enough an excuse to not wait near the entrance of the station with the rest of the biraadri. His wife, as usual, was somewhere in the front of the crowd; he could hear her shrill voice demanding to know when the buses or trains would start.
Looking around, Jagat adjusted his make-shift mask and signalled to Kishore to come closer. We were better off at the site, weren't we? At least, there was a place to sleep and shit. Kishore, Jagat's third cousin from his maternal side, shook his head in agreement. Yes, they shouldn't have stopped the food but I agree, at least we didn't need to sleep on the footpath. And don't talk about shitting. I have been holding mine in since yesterday. Jagat gestured furtively towards the back of the station.
An open ground lay beyond, with several abandoned cars and scooters. Grass grew knee high and a few tyres peeped out here and there. Kishore's eyes widened over his mask. They will smell it, no? Jagat hitched his pant leg higher and grinned. Not if you do it inside the cars and then close the windows. That's where we have been sending the children since last night. Four to a car. Two in the back seat, two in the front. They have been fighting to do it in the bigger cars. Go, try it. Grab some leaves from that peepul. Go on. At least, let's shit in their cars before we leave this city.
Suddenly there was a commotion at the entrance. The constable had started pushing the crowd back with his lathi and it had swung a bit too closely by Jagat’s wife. A couple of youngsters pushed the constable and he roared back. Jagat sighed and settled down next to his son. There was no money left now to charge his phone. For the past seven days, he had not watched anything. Might as well watch this circus.
Day 20
Jagat was walking under the flyover, trying to stay as close as possible to the footpath. The road was completely empty and it was very tempting to walk on it but news had just trickled in yesterday about the truck running over a group walking on the highway. Who knows what could happen here. Jagat was reluctant to walk back. Part of it was his innate dislike of putting himself in any kind of extreme physical situation. Part of it was also his astonishment at the sheer absurdity of the act. Were they really going to be able to walk home? It took three days by train. And then a seven-hour bus ride. Which idiot had started this, Jagat wondered? And why were they even going back to their village? What were they going to do there? Milk the cows from morning to night? His mother had been making plaintive calls the whole of last year asking him to send more money home. As usual, she had borrowed from her brothers who were running out of patience now. The crop had failed. So had his younger brother for the fourth year in a row. Where was she going to find the food to feed five more mouths?
Jagat had tried very hard to talk his wife and Kishore out of it. Let the others go ahead if they want to. We can go back to the colony; surely somebody will arrange some food for us. But as usual, his wife and Kishore were not listening. The colony is locked, she grunted. Nobody will even know if we die there. Just continue walking. Here, you carry the boy now. And so Jagat walked. From one end of one city to another, through small paths that snaked out on dusty, thorny plains, on fallow land past villages and on black tarred highways that shone like shards of glass and hurt his eyes as much as his feet.
All along the road, rumours accompanied them. There were villagers up ahead handing out money and water. False. A truck driver was asking for 2000 rupees per person to take them to the next check post. True. The Government had arranged for five hundred trucks to drop them back to the city. False. Six people had been crushed under a train. True. Jagat was no longer counting the days or bothering to find out the name of the next village. He simply put his head down, balanced whatever or whoever his wife thrust at him on his right hip and put one foot in front of the other. He refused to talk to anybody, he refused to look at anybody. In his mind now, a plan was slowly taking shape.
Jagat was nothing if not particular about details. Years of bricklaying had taught him the importance of not underestimating the strength of properly aligned bricks. So he mulled over his plan, going through it again and again till he was completely satisfied. To put it into action, all he needed were their faithful companions – the rumours. He sent out a word through them and soon they were off; sprinting from the ears of one construction worker to another.
Day 26
The doorbell and the intercom of Rahul Subbaiah’s sixteenth floor flat, both rang at the same time. Rahul now spends half his waking hours wondering what would have happened had he answered the intercom first. But he had answered the doorbell first. The door had swung open and Rahul looked confused at the group of people standing outside. A mob? No, a group. A group of at least hundred people with handkerchiefs masking the lower half of their faces, were crammed into the corridor. They were dressed in dusty, torn clothes and Rahul, who wore ironed pyjamas to bed, was sure he was not acquainted with any of them. As Rahul’s eyebrows rose questioningly, the man at the head of the group replied, we want to come in. Not, can we come in but we want to come in, noted Rahul, even as the intercom continued to ring loudly in the background.
To buy himself some time, Rahul gestured towards the phone and stepped back to answer the call. The security guard was at the other end shouting hoarsely, don't open the door, Sir. Whatever happens, don't open and then silence. The guard had stopped talking midway. Rahul turned his head towards the door and watched the crowd slowly ooze into the living room. As the last person stepped in and closed the door behind him, all hundred and eight of them, men and women, milled about his two-bedroom apartment. They went from room to room, touching the walls, window frames, handles, switches, side beams and the cladding. They were talking amongst themselves in low voices and Rahul recognised the dialect from his hostel days. The smallest of the children were deposited in a heap while the older ones were assigned to watch over them. A long queue had formed outside the toilets. The youngsters let out a whoop every time they found a plug point. From the kitchen, water jugs, sugar bottle, bourbon biscuits, chips, Tupperware containers were being passed out. The women shook out their hair and squatted next to the big furniture, silently gesturing to Rahul to switch on the fan and the tv.
Bewildered, Rahul stepped out into the balcony to call for help and stepped back in, shaken at what he had seen. Every inch of his apartment plaza was covered with men and women like the ones in his house. There must have been thousands of them down there. They were dragging along children, bags, trunks, jerry cans and looking up and down the buildings as if they were dividing them up between themselves. They kept on coming through the gates, silently, entering buildings and then disappearing. As far as his eye could see, the neighbourhood and the arterial roads leading to the mall centre were filled with heaving masses of people. At four in the afternoon, the entire city was a swollen river of humans – dark, viscous and pulsating.
Rahul’s mobile began ringing frantically. It would stop after a while and start again. Between Rahul and the mobile, was a sea of bodies, all staring at him intently. Then one of them walked up to Rahul and said simply, we built this house, sir. We have come to stay.
*
Shilpa Paralkar was born and brought up in Mumbai but feels she has lived long enough in Bangalore to call it her home. Her non-fiction work has appeared in The Hindu, The Man and The Outlook Traveller, and her fiction has been published in The Little Magazine and The Deccan Herald.