Standing in the centre of the huge dormitory, Veera glanced at the boys fidgeting and murmuring, yet awaiting their turn in a single file. It was almost like the line you had to get into to receive annadanam at the temple, he thought, then he bit his tongue. It would never do to utter the word ‘temple’, least of all today. He tried again, squeezing his eyes shut to remember another line like this one, which he’d seen on the video that the donors had showed them the year before: kids waiting by twinkling green trees and shiny floors, bundled up in multiple layers of clothes, for a turn to sit on the lap of a fat old Santa Claus.
He shook his thoughts away and called the boy at the head of the row. ‘Name?’
‘Meghanathan,’ the short, stocky boy, who was now appreciatively tasting his snot, said.
Veera thumped his own forehead. ‘Aiyo!’ he cried, looking at him and then at the row of boys. ‘You are not Meghanathan. You are Matthew, remember?’
He thought this was a teachable moment. At eighteen, he towered above most of the boys. Tall and lean, with a moustache that had made its appearance years ago, he commanded respect among most kids at the New Hope Children’s Home for Orphans. He walked up and down the row of boys, like an Army general. ‘Remember your Christian names, boys. Remove all your daayathu, your vibhuti, everything. Do you all remember the name that was given to you?’
Some of the thirty-two boys giggled, some of them nodded, and some just had a confused expression on their face. But every one of them listened to Veera.
Veera felt a headache coming on. Today was Donor Day. Which meant that they would have to impress with their good behaviour and Christianness, both of which were highly suspect.
Now, Veera dismissed Meghanathan, aka Matthew and summoned the next boy. ‘Name?’
The boy stumbled for a bit before answering, almost like a question: ‘Victor?’
‘Do not hesitate,’ Veera told the boy and then repeated it to the crowd. Some of the boys, who had heard this before, sniggered. ‘If you can’t remember, just pull out a Christian name from your memory. You know, something from the Bible.’
He paused. ‘Only the good names.’
Veera glanced outside. He needed the warden to handle all these things. He spotted Cheta, framed, through the lone window in the dorm, beaming and laughing across the chicken wire fence. Balding but not quite there, like the fields of Veera’s native Ramanathapuram, with a paunch the mathematically-inclined kids sometimes took to measuring when he was asleep, and sporting a ready smile, Cheta seemed deep in flirty conversation with the young lady from the construction site next door.There was no way he would tear himself away from her now.
He turned to the boys again, and said, ‘Start the stotram.’ They all started singing – some of them aloud, some of them mouthing the words, and some, just staring at the walls. It would take a good ten minutes, and Veera had realised, over several of these visits, that donors found the tuneless, off-synch singing endearing. Veera allowed his mind to wander to the morning’s chain of events.
The chaos had started nearly as soon as Veera had awoken.
‘Wait wait. Where do you think you are going?’ Cheta had called out, when he saw Veera about to set off for his run, one whose purpose was long gone.
Veera had said nothing.
‘Some donors are coming today, it seems. Get all the kids ready.’
Cheta had fumbled for his cell phone, hidden somewhere in the folds of his lungi, and pulled it out. ‘It’s seven-oh-two now,’ he’d announced, as if punctuality was his hallmark. ‘They are coming at nine – nine-thirty.’
He’d looked at Veera, and spat out, ‘And clean yourself up too. Especially your hair. Control it. Cut it. Do something. Put some powder on that face of yours. Make it look brighter. Go. Go. Go.’
Veera had been surprised. The donors had just come a month ago. Usually, it was twice a year, like clockwork, once in early December, to give them Christmas gifts, and once in June, just after the rains cooled the land. This surprise visit was intriguing. Did that mean the home was being closed down? Cheta had not really taught them any Bible, or even looked for new kids to replace ones who had left. He had read somewhere about dwindling resources of the Church, capital C, so he knew the article was not about some local common church.
Cheta had sighed and notched down his authority. ‘What to do? They give us today our daily bread. Well, daily idli. Now don't waste time, just get all the boys ready. Go go.’ And Veera had complied. Which led to this, corralling the boys together like a shepherd.
Veera now turned back to the line and spotted Mani Kumar, one of the freshers. Panic was writ large on his face, as were the faint lines of sandal and vibhuti – like the contours of failed love, lingering long after the break-up. He had no hymn book nor did he seem to know any of the words.
His Adam’s apple bobbed up and down, and with it, the many-stringed wooden mala, the hallmark of a Sabarimala pilgrim. ‘Deyvame,’ Veera called out to a vague divine being. When the donors had left last month, the boy had started his forty-one-day Sabarimala fast, confident that the semi-annual visit was done and dusted. And now, this.
‘OK. We’ll see what we can do. Now go and get ready. Clean the toilets after you are done. All tip-top it should be,’ he told the boys and dispersed the crowd.
Veera wondered how much longer he would have to go on like this, suspended between authority and responsibility, between the present and the future, between the will-be and the could-be. He felt now, as he often did, like a silkworm cocooned for eternity. He was trying to emerge a butterfly, but it seemed he was destined for the vats of boiling water.
Sometimes, Veera forgot he too was a child in the New Hope Children's Home (for Orphans). It seemed like he was the assistant warden. And at times like this one, the warden.
When he had arrived at the home six years ago, his father had been gone a few months, alcohol claiming his money, liver and then, life. His mother, distraught, had found solace in another man, who promptly suggested Veera be sent to a hostel. And the day he arrived, one trunk suitcase and one yellow cloth bag in hand, he could only see the board through his tears: ‘New Hope Home (for Orphans)’ The words in brackets stung him, but as days rolled on, he realised the word did not mean much. There were kids with both parents alive, and some with none, and some with multiple parents around.
The first Sunday he was there, he was asked to go with an elderly gentleman to a church. And some words in a language he didn't understand were spoken, and some water was sprinkled on him. And he was given a cross to wear – a stylish one at that. He vaguely understood what was happening – he must change the God he didn’t believe in. The same day, the boys were called and told to call him ‘Simon,’ and not Veera anymore. To the twelve-year-old Veera, there really was nothing in a name. As long as it meant he could live in peace, and eat more than one meal a day.
The first year the donors came, Veera was vaguely terrified. There were just twelve children then, and he knew that he must be on his best behaviour. The entire night, he was awake, reading the Bible, parts of it that the then-warden had marked out for the kids to read and memorise. And Veera had hogged the common mirror, practising his introduction: ‘Hi, I’m Simon,’ until the others elbowed him away. He did not want to be sent back home. Back home to the dingy one-room house where he could not sleep, but could hear and sometimes see, his mother and the other man going at it through the many-holed sari that was meant to serve as a room separator. Back home where he intensely felt the loss of his father, if only for the comfort of familiarity. Back home where he was but an appendix that served no purpose.
When the donors had eventually come, so many years ago, it was an anti-climax. There was no cause or time for introductions. They were on a tight schedule. The Christmas gifts were given, some of them still carrying ‘Black Friday’ tags that had worried Veera because black days were bad, and he wondered what had happened that Friday. After listening to a few carols, the donors had left, ecstatic that they had helped new souls see the light. The warden, for his part, was ecstatic that he had helped build new toilets.
Two years later, though, inexplicably, the warden was sacked, and a new one, Cheta, appointed. The current one. Bonds that were built were broken, just like that.
Simon became Veera again. ‘Let's change your heart, not your name,’ he had said. Veera liked him the instant he saw him. They shared a love of football, as did most other children, and Veera was elevated to leader status when he got the children to watch the World Cup on tv. They stayed up late discussing the teams, Veera supporting the South Americans and Cheta, in between his intense coughing bouts, the Europeans.
‘You must stop smoking, you are killing me, and also yourself,’ Veera would say. Cheta just laughed it all away, and simply said, ‘Then study well and escape.’
That was one thing Veera could not do. Now, in Class 12, he was struggling to understand what was being taught, always pulled up for this or that. His one redeeming feature at school was running, but that skill, too, was waning. He had often come district first in long distance running and the St. Anthony’s Missionary Boys School, which was not even on Google Maps, found itself in newspapers every now and then simply because of him. Then, suddenly, he had a knee injury, and it all stopped. There was another boy. In a country full of people, the most easily replaceable component of a system was a person.
So in school, as in the hostel, as in his house, his was a suspended world. Waiting for release.
‘Veera,’ his reverie was interrupted by Cheta bellowing. Let him wait a while, he thought, intently examining the ceiling, from where cobwebs had made their way down to the walls. The eight-legged creatures were feeling their way through their new territory, one leg tentatively before the other seven. Lizards ran amok too, perhaps emboldened by the spiders. He should have nipped this in the bud. He would have to take care of this too, before nine o’ clock, no less.
‘Veeeeraaaaa,’ Cheta’s voice came booming through again.
Veera walked slowly to the door, where Cheta was unusually agitated. He held up a framed picture of Jesus, which looked almost new. Except the glass that had framed Jesus was broken, and the face was simply missing. It seemed to have been cut out from the picture.
‘What is this?’ he asked Veera.
‘Yesu’s face is not there, Cheta. I told you about this.’
‘So what do we do now?’
‘You tell me, Cheta. Maybe we won’t have this picture.’
‘But this is what they gave us when they came here last time. ‘As it is, I don’t know why they are coming here now. Suddenly. It has to be there. They told me it was special.’
He narrowed his eyes and looked at Veera questioningly.
‘I have no idea how this happened, Cheta. Why would I hide anything?’
‘I think I have been too lenient with you people,’ Cheta muttered under his breath. ‘After today, you see.’
Veera fidgeted. Leadership style change was not the need of the hour. There were a hundred things to do.
Cheta looked askance at Veera. ‘Here,’ he said, passing on the picture to him, ‘Fix this and come.’ He fished around in his pocket and gave him two hundred rupees. ‘Buy a new one, but exactly like this, if you can get it in the market. Maybe they picked it up on the way here.’
Again, the most difficult task was outsourced to him. In parting, Veera gave Cheta some instructions. ‘I’ve asked them to clean up and come. I’ve told them about remembering their names and all that. We only need to give them breakfast, so they are not fidgety.’
‘I am the warden you know.’
‘And there are cobwebs in the main hall. Have the boys clean it,’ Veera added, and gingerly placed the picture in a bag.
And he took off, running. He looked at his watch, his prize for winning the inter-zonal marathon, and it showed 8:02.
Halfway to the market, he remembered the union bandh – there would be no shops open in town today. He would have to come up with some other idea.
He ran two kilometres to Sudhish I-Net Cafe, the sole internet café (cum studio cum xerox cum printer cum scanner, but those were usually not mentioned) in the four-five villages around. It had even been featured in a documentary about the rising technological advances in rural India.
He raced to find that the internet cafe was not yet open. He waited precious minutes, then checked with Biju at the New Tashkent Styling Salon next door.
‘He will come. Sunday is usually late,’ Biju said, not looking up from his task.
‘Can you call him and ask him to come soon? It’s very urgent,’ Veera pleaded.
‘Just wait for some time.’
‘I am from the New Hope Orphan Home,’ he said, looking down. ‘It’s very very urgent.’
‘Oh!’ Biju took out his phone and punched some numbers in.
Veera walked a few steps away.
‘He will be here soon,’ the man told Veera. ‘Why don’t you sit here till he comes?’
It was 8:19. When Sudhish came in, Veera rushed to meet him. He explained what he needed done, and Sudhish clucked his tongue and looked to the distance, in a reflective pose, as if it were world hunger that he was looking to solve.
Sudhish started switching on all the equipment in his shop, before uttering his next words. ‘It would be easy if we had the image.’
‘We don’t, obviously. You can find one of Yesu online, no?’
Sudhish smiled crookedly at Veera, seemingly excited at the challenge.
‘Ah! Internet. Who would worry about fixing the internet in a small village like this? Only high-tech cities will get good service. They all talk about connecting rural India but…’
Veera got it. No internet. And Sudhish seemed ready to launch into a long monologue that needed to be pruned, like the rose plants Cheta had got Veera to prune last winter.
‘What else can we do, Sudhish cheta?’
Sudhish reluctantly switched gears. ‘Hmm…’
Veera put on his thinking hat too. The picture could be hung on a high level so no one would notice the face all that much. But the hole would certainly be noticed. He just needed a face.
‘What if,’ he asked slowly, ‘we are able to replace Yesu’s face and stick it?’
‘It would show,’ Sudhish said.
Veera was now pacing up and down the net café. ‘But you have a scanner and a computer, right, and also a printer?’
‘Yes,’ Sudhish said, slowly catching on, ‘Yes, we could take a picture, and scan it and I can do something basic with Photoshop to make it look like Jesus.’
‘Great!’
‘It won’t look exactly like Jesus, you know.’
‘No one knows exactly how he looked, so don’t worry.’
‘So, can we take your photo?’ Sudhish asked.
Veera hesitated. ‘No, no, I’m too dark. Will be too much work for you to lighten me up and all that.’
Sudhish nodded gratefully. This wasn’t the time to bring up the fact that he did not really know Photoshop all that well. He had only seen his friend enhance a girl’s assets, exactly twice.
‘Thank you. I’ll be right back. Don’t go anywhere,’ Veera said, nearly like a tv show host, and ran back to the home.
At the New Hope Home, Cheta was standing outside, hands behind his back, as if he were unconnected with the boys inside.
‘Cheta,’ Veera called out.
Cheta stretched out his hand expectantly.
‘No Cheta. Not yet. There is no new picture available. Shops are closed. But we have an idea.’
Worry lines were writ large over Cheta’s face.
‘Who is the fairest guy here?’ asked Veera. ‘We have to do some Photoshop.’
‘What shop?’
Veera didn’t respond. ‘Fairest guy?’ he repeated.
‘Mani Kumar’.
‘Sabarimalai boy?’
Cheta nodded.
‘Had to be,’ Veera muttered under his breath as Cheta shouted, ‘Mani Kumaaar!’
Veera peered in for a minute. The cobwebs were still there. Veera glanced at the clock donated by MNS Industries, makers of ball bearings, who had ensured their largesse was writ large on the face of the clock, indelible and unavoidable. Nearly 8:45 am. There was no time.
Mani Kumar came running out, looking petrified, apparently halfway through an attempt to tie a muffler around his neck to hide his mala. Sure that he was being sent out of the hostel for the day, or forever, tears were at the ready, waiting by his eyelids.
Veera simply looked at him, and said, ‘Run with me.’
The two of them ran to Sudhish’s, again, Veera much ahead of Mani, and they entered the shop, where Sudhish was desperately trying to understand the basics of Photoshop. Help without Google was proving to be very difficult.
Veera turned to Sudhish. ‘Cheta, the boy is coming. We only need his face no?’
Mani stood unsurely, and framed by the doorway, with the morning dust of the village lit by the golden sun, with the wooden beads around his slender neck, looked the picture of divinity himself. The wrong kind, though.
‘Come, come,’ Sudhish hurried him to a corner of the store which served as the studio.
‘Smile, Mani,’ Veera said. Mani’s face lit up as he grinned, showing gaps in his otherwise beautiful row of teeth.
‘No, no, no teeth,’ Sudhish panicked. All he could now do was join two images and soften the edges. No adding teeth.
Mani shut his mouth.
Something seemed missing to Veera. ‘Do you have a beard?’ Veera asked, thinking aloud. He had completely forgotten that Jesus had one.
Sudhish stared at him. ‘Do you see a beard on my face?’
‘Illa cheta. For Yesu. Like a wig, not a real one.’
‘This is not a costume shop,’ Sudhish snapped.
Veera ran next door, and soon returned, with a beard, trimmed to acceptable Jesus length by Biju of the New Tashkent Hair Styling Salon.
‘Sudhish Cheta!’ he exclaimed triumphantly, holding out the beard.
In five minutes, at 9:13, Mani Kumar was posing, hands as in the original picture, benevolent and kind, eyes looking straight at the camera. One photo with the beard and one without. The photos were clicked.
‘Go, go,’ he shooed the boy away. Mani stood unsurely at the door.
‘Cheta, where should I go?’
‘To the home.’
‘But I have put the mala.’
‘Right.’ Veera had to think fast. His presence might also be a problem if the donors saw the resemblance to Jesus. ‘Sudhish cheta,’ he turned. ‘Let him be here for some time.’
‘I should be charging you all for this, you know,’ Sudhish mumbled.
‘Ok. Ok. Put it in our balance,’ he laughed. ‘Now let’s Photoshop in Yesu-piran.’
Many tries later, at 9:40, Veera had in his arms his precious cargo: an A4 size printout of Jesus, one hand raised as if in blessing, his long brown curls flowing beautifully on his shoulders. He ran back to the home, hoping he wasn’t too late.
He stopped in his tracks. Everyone was outside the home, Cheta with a garland that had emerged as if from nowhere, and the boys with long-stemmed roses. For a moment, he was sure they were waiting for him, praising his amazing work since the morning. For a moment, he was sure he was someone whose arrival was looked forward to. For a moment, he felt he was someone who had value.
Cheta walked over with the garland, and Veera almost bowed his head down to receive the garland.
‘Quick, come here, show me,’ he hissed, dumping the garland on the nearest boy.
‘Perfect,’ Cheta pronounced, and told Veera, ‘There’s that old picture we have of the boys. Take the glass from that and fix it on this frame.’
Cheta grabbed the garland back from the boy and resumed his position at the head of the reception committee.
Veera did as he was told. All that was left to do was hang the picture.
He pulled up a stool and reached to the top – he had to hang it on the highest nail, or it wouldn’t do. He reached up, stood on his toes, and hung the picture. He stood back and admired his handiwork – it was fantastic, given the circumstances. Sudhish had even ‘upped’ the colours, making them brighter than they actually were.
He looked back at the walls. The cobwebs were still there. He quietly took the broom and got rid of them. Everything in life, Veera mused, needed to be Photoshopped.
Drowsy from all the running around, Veera stepped into the nearest room. He would rest, just for a little bit. He would be up before the donors came. Or surely, Cheta would wake him up?
Ten minutes later, the main donor of the home, eighty-year-old Mr Steve Pluckett, along with a younger man, introduced as Mr Mark, were being led to the main hall.
‘You must be wondering what we are doing here again, back so soon,’ Mr Steve said.
Cheta remained non-committal. He prayed it not be bad news.
‘This here, is Mark Connors. He runs a non-profit back home. They take kids from vulnerable backgrounds and train them to become leaders.’
Cheta stuck out his stubby hand again. ‘Welcome,’ he said.
Mr Steve stopped in front of the recently taken photograph of Jesus. ‘Warden! This picture of Our Lord. It looks amazing, doesn’t it? Seems to be even brighter than earlier.’
‘Indeed, sir,’ Cheta said, smiling. He glanced at the shut door, where Veera was sleeping. Veera was a great asset to the orphanage. He had been secretly glad Veera had had the injury when he did, or he would have flown the coop, securing a sports scholarship.
Mr Steve followed his gaze. ‘What’s in that room, warden?’
‘Oh, nothing,’ Cheta replied. ‘That’s the sick room. A boy is there – he has an infectious fever.’
The men nodded their heads sympathetically. The hymns began. Seated in light blue plastic chairs, Mr Steve, garlanded and distinctly uncomfortable, leaned across to Cheta, unmindful of the lip synching and lyrics replacement that were in progress. Cheta, fidgeting, wondered whether he would be thought presumptuous if he asked them why they were there. It was their home, after all.
‘Warden, I wanted to talk to you. Mark is looking for kids that he can mould into a future leader. One year, all expenses paid. Someone with leadership skills, quick thinking, and a go-getter. You know, someone who is extraordinary. Do you think any of our boys will cut it? I thought they might; he insists on a face-to-face meeting.’
Cheta thought for a minute and glanced up. Jesus was smiling at him. It seemed he was quietly watching his every move. Cheta looked at the room where Veera was sleeping. The bottle was indeed no place for a genie. ‘I can think of only one name, sir,’ he replied.
*
Meera Rajagopalan is the author of the book The Eminently Forgettable Life of Mrs. Pankajam, published by Hachette. Her work has been published in anthologies such as the Helter Skelter Anthology of New Writing Vol. 6 and Amaryllis’s Have a Safe Journey. She works as a communications consultant for non-profit organisations.