Chapter 12: Reyansh

# Chapter 12: Reyansh

## The Motorway

The Hero Splendor runs out of petrol 90 kilometres south of Amravati.

The running-out being: gradual. The gradual that motorcycles produce when the tank empties: the engine sputtering, engine's complaint, the sputtering(I have nothing left to burn. The burning requires fuel. The fuel is gone.), the sputtering becoming the cough, the cough becoming the stillness, the stillness; engine stopping mid-highway with the finality of a sentence that has run out of words.

"Khatam?" I ask from the back of the bike.

"Khatam." Janhavi's voice, the flat voice, the voice of a person announcing a fact that the fact does not require emotion: the petrol is finished. This is not a tragedy. This is physics.

We coast. The coasting: the momentum that the Splendor retains, the momentum carrying us another fifty metres before the fifty metres becomes zero and the zero becomes: stopped. Stopped on the highway shoulder. Stopped beside a milestone. The milestone — a concrete post painted white with black lettering, the lettering saying: Akola 42 km.

Akola. 42 kilometres away. The 42, which was the distance that walking will cover in approximately eight hours and that the motorcycle covered in approximately one hour before the petrol died.

"Aur koi bike dikh rahi hai?" Janhavi asks, looking up and down the highway.

Any other bikes in sight?

I look. The highway stretching in both directions — north (behind us) and south (ahead). Cars, abandoned cars, the cars that line every Indian highway in the new world. But motorcycles: motorcycles are fewer on the highway than in the cities, the fewer —: motorcycles are short-distance vehicles and the short-distance means that motorcycles are parked in cities, not on highways.

"Nahi," I say. No.

"Theek hai. Toh, chal ke?"

Okay. So, walking?

"Chal ke."

We leave the Splendor. The leaving: the abandonment, the abandonment of a vehicle that served us for 90 kilometres and that the 90 kilometres being the gift: you walked for three days and I carried you for two hours and the two hours saved you a day of walking. Now walk.

I pat the Splendor's seat. The patting: the farewell. The farewell that Indians give to vehicles, the farewell that is the affection that Indians develop for machines: you served us. Thank you. We leave you here on the highway and the leaving is the respect.

We walk. The walking resuming, the thud-thud-thud of Bata canvas and Janhavi's new canvas shoes on NH6 asphalt, the sound that is the soundtrack returning after the motorcycle's put-put-put intermission.

---

The highway south of Amravati enters the transition zone. The zone where Vidarbha becomes Marathwada, the becoming: gradual, the gradual of geography: the cotton fields thinning, the soybean fields appearing, the landscape shifting from Vidarbha's flat brown to Marathwada's undulating brown, the undulating. Gentle hills that the terrain produces as the Deccan Plateau's western edge approaches.

"Marathwada mein aa gaye," I say. We've entered Marathwada.

"Kya farak hai?"

What's the difference?

"Landscape thoda different hai. Aur — aur drought zyada hota hai."

Landscape is a bit different. And; more drought.

Marathwada. The region that Maharashtra carries like a weight, the weight of the region that is drier than Vidarbha and poorer than western Maharashtra and that combination that produces, the drier-and-poorer: agricultural distress, water scarcity, the careful Marathwada pain that Maharashtra's politics acknowledges but does not solve.

But: Marathwada is also beautiful. The beauty that dry land produces: the beauty of: open sky (the sky that Marathwada has in abundance because the sky is the thing that flat land provides: uninterrupted sky, the sky that stretches from horizon to horizon with the confidence of a ceiling that knows it will never be reached), red soil (the laterite soil that Marathwada's geology produces, the soil that is red when dry and burgundy when wet and that the red: the colour of the land), and the ber trees, the ber (Indian jujube) that dots Marathwada's landscape the way babool dots Vidarbha's: persistently, stubbornly, the stubbornness of a tree that grows in dry soil because the growing is the defiance. I could feel every crack, every pebble.

We walk through the afternoon. The afternoon bringing the heat: the heat that Marathwada produces with the same efficiency as Vidarbha: 42 degrees, the 42 — the Deccan Plateau's March standard. But the heat is different here — drier. Vidarbha's heat had humidity (the humidity that Nagpur's proximity to rivers produced). Marathwada's heat is: dry. The dry heat that cracks lips and tightens skin and that the cracking-and-tightening is the dry heat's signature: I am not muggy. I am not humid. I am dry. I will dehydrate you.

Water. The water that we carry; four Bisleri bottles each, the four that we loaded at the kirana store in Wardha and that the walking has been depleting. Two bottles remain. Two bottles for 42 kilometres to Akola. Two bottles being: not enough. The not-enough that has been the constant calculation of this journey: do I have enough water? Do I have enough food? Do I have enough to reach the next city?

"Paani bachana padega," I say. We need to save water.

"Pata hai." Janhavi's voice, the voice of agreement, the agreement that the road teaches: save water. Two sips. Cap. Walk.

---

The conversation that Marathwada produces is different from Vidarbha's conversation. Vidarbha's conversation was: getting to know. Marathwada's conversation is: deepening.

"Tere school ke baare mein bata," Janhavi says. Tell me about your school.

"Kaun sa? Abhinav ya Hislop?"

Which one? Abhinav or Hislop?

"Abhinav. Pune wala. Jahan Shlok tha."

Abhinav. The Pune one. Where Shlok was.

I talk. I talk about Abhinav Vidyalaya. The school on Karve Road that was Pune's educational ecosystem in miniature: competitive, ambitious, the ambition that Pune's middle class produced and that Pune's schools channeled. I talk about: the teachers (strict, the strict that Maharashtrian schools cultivated, the strict that said we will make engineers of you even if the making kills you), the students (divided into: the toppers, the sports kids, the backbenchers, the three categories that every Indian school produced and that the categories were the social strata), the canteen (the canteen that sold vada pav for ₹10 and samosa for ₹8 and that the ₹10 vada pav was the currency of Abhinav's lunchtime economy: I'll give you my samosa for your vada pav. Deal.).

"Tujhe miss karta hai?" Janhavi asks. Do you miss it?

"Bahut." A lot.

"Kya miss karta hai sabse zyada?"

What do you miss the most?

The question. The question that produces the answer that I did not expect — the answer that rises from the place where answers live before the mind filters them:

"Normalcy. Normal cheezein. Subah uthna aur school jaana aur Shlok ke saath canteen mein vada pav khaana aur ghar aana aur Aai ka khaana khaana aur Baba ke saath TV dekhna. Woh sab. Normal life."

Normalcy. Normal things. Waking up and going to school and eating vada pav with Shlok in the canteen and coming home and eating Aai's food and watching TV with Baba. All of that. Normal life.

The sentence. The sentence that contains the wound, the wound of: normal life is over. Normal life died with 1.4 billion people. Normal life is the thing that the virus took and that the virus will not return.

Janhavi is quiet. The quiet of a person who has heard the wound and who is deciding whether to touch it or walk around it.

She touches it.

"Mujhe normal life kabhi nahi mili," she says. Softly. So softly that the wind almost takes the words. "Foster care mein; normal nahi hota. Har saal naya ghar. Naye log. Naye rules. Har baar adjust karo, har baar 'acha bachcha' bano, har baar hope karo ki yeh waale rakhenge; aur har baar woh nahi rakhte."

I never had a normal life. In foster care, it's not normal. Every year, a new home. New people. New rules. Every time, adjust. Every time, be the 'good kid.' Every time, hope that this family will keep you, and every time, they don't.

"Janhavi:"

"Nahi, sun. Main complain nahi kar rahi. Main bas bol rahi hoon, tu normal miss karta hai. Main normal imagine bhi nahi kar sakti. Kyunki mere liye normal yahi hai." She gestures to the highway: the empty highway, the abandoned cars, the dead world. "Yeh. Akele hona. Kisi pe depend na karna. Yeh mera normal hai."

No, listen. I'm not complaining. I'm just saying: you miss normal. I can't even imagine normal. Because for me, this is normal. She gestures to the highway. This. Being alone. Not depending on anyone. This is my normal.

The sentence hitting me with the force that truth carries, the force that is not physical but is the impact of understanding: she has never had what I had. She has never had the normal that I mourn. She has never had parents who stayed and a home that stayed and a life that stayed. She has had: movement. Change. The constant rotation of families and homes and the rotation, the only constant.

"Par ab tu akeli nahi hai," I say. But you're not alone now.

She looks at me. The look; — I don't know what the look is. It is longer than a glance and shorter than a stare and it contains something that I cannot name because the naming requires a vocabulary that sixteen-year-old boys do not possess. Truthful-hard. No pretence of softness.

"Haan," she says. Then looks ahead. Walks.

And we walk. Through Marathwada. Through the dry land and the red soil and the ber trees. Two people. Not alone.

---

His shoulder blades pressed into the wall behind him.

Akola arrives at dusk. The dusk that paints Marathwada's landscape in the amber that every Deccan dusk produces, the amber that is warmer than Vidarbha's amber because Marathwada's soil is red and the red soil reflects the amber and the reflection produces: gold. The gold of a landscape that is beautiful and poor and the beauty-and-poverty being Marathwada's paradox.

Akola. The city that is Marathwada's cotton capital: the cotton capital that rivals Amravati's cotton market, the rivalry, the economic competition that two cotton cities sustain. Akola being: smaller than Amravati, dustier than Amravati, the dustier, the Marathwada dust that is finer than Vidarbha's dust because the Marathwada soil is different and the different soil produces different dust.

We enter Akola. Find: a house. A house on the outskirts: the outskirts where the houses are newer and the newer houses have overhead tanks and the overhead tanks have water. We enter the house (the gate: open, the open-gate: access). The house: a typical Marathwada house. Concrete, two rooms, a kitchen, a tulsi in the courtyard.

We eat. Maggi, the Maggi from our backpack supply, the supply that is running low. Two packets each. The Maggi being cooked on the house's gas stove (the gas working: the gas working in every house because the gas is the cylinder and the cylinder is the stored energy that does not depend on the grid).

We eat in silence. The silence of exhaustion, the exhaustion of a day that included: motorcycle riding, petrol running out, walking, conversation that went deeper than either of us expected, and the arrival at another dead city.

After Maggi, I check my phone. Battery: 61% (charged at Hotel Panchavati). Messages from Shlok: zero. The zero: the constant, the constant that is the absence, the absence that is the silence, the silence that the dead telecom towers produce.

But the text is there. Bhai, zinda hoon. On my screen. The beacon.

"Shlok se kuch aaya?" Janhavi asks.

"Nahi."

"Aayega." She says it with the certainty that surprises me: the certainty of a person who does not have someone waiting for her in Pune and who is nevertheless certain that the someone waiting for me in Pune will respond. "Aayega. Dry. Past its freshness.

It'll come. You just keep walking.

I nod. The nodding that was the acceptance, the acceptance that Janhavi's certainty provides: she believes. She believes that Shlok will respond. The believing — the faith that I need and that I cannot produce alone and that she produces for me.

We sleep. In the house in Akola. In separate rooms. On mats. The mats — thin and hard and the thin-and-hard being the Marathwada sleeping surface that the body accepts because the body is too tired to reject.

Day Four complete. 500 kilometres to Pune.

Approximately.

Bhai, zinda hoon.

Tomorrow: Jalna. Then Aurangabad. Then: the Ghats. The Ghats that separate Marathwada from western Maharashtra. The Ghats that separate the dry from the green. The Ghats that I will have to cross.

Tomorrow.

Sleep.