Chapter 13: Reyansh

# Chapter 13: Reyansh

## The Blocked Highway

The spring water was cold against his ankles, the cold that mountain water carried even in March.

Day Five. The day that the highway decides to stop cooperating.

We have been walking since dawn, the dawn that Marathwada produces at 5:45 AM, the dawn that is the opposite of Vidarbha's dawn: not orange but pink, the pink that the Marathwada sky creates when the sun rises through the dust that the night wind deposited, the dust filtering the sunrise into the colour of gulal, the gulal being the pink powder that Holi uses and that the Marathwada dawn uses for its own festival: the daily Holi of sunrise.

We left Akola at 6 AM. Walking southwest on the road toward Jalna, the road that cuts through Marathwada's agricultural heartland, the heartland that is the land of: cotton (always cotton — the cotton that Marathwada shares with Vidarbha, the cotton that is the Deccan Plateau's cash crop and the cash crop (gamble that farmers play every)kharif season), sugarcane (the sugarcane that western Marathwada grows, the sugarcane that requires more water than Marathwada has and that the more-water requirement is the controversy: why does Marathwada grow sugarcane when Marathwada does not have water? The answer: politics. The sugar cooperatives. The cooperatives that Maharashtra's politicians own and that the owning is the power and the power is the reason that Marathwada grows sugarcane in a drought-prone region).

The morning walk is the good walk. The good walk, which was walk before10 AM, the walk when the sun is low and the air is cool (cool being relative: 30 degrees at 6 AM in Marathwada is "cool" the way a warm bath is "cool" compared to a hot one) and the walking is pleasant and the pleasant walking produces: conversation. I shielded it with my palm.

"Ek game khelein?" Janhavi suggests. Play a game?

"Kaun sa?"

"Dedh akshar. Matlab, ek word bolo. Dusra insaan us word ke aakhri akshar se naya word bole. Simple."

One and a half letters. I mean: say a word. The other person makes a new word starting with the last letter of your word. Simple.

"Antakshari ka word version?"

"Haan. Lekin Hindi words. English nahi."

"Theek hai. Main start karta hoon. Paani."

"Neem."

"Makhan."

"Nasha."

I look at her. She grins, the grin that says I said what I said and the said is the provocation and the provocation is the entertainment.

"Aag."

"Gaadi."

"Imaan."

"Naari."

"Insaaniyat."

"Oho. Bade bade words aa rahe hain. Taakat."

We play for an hour. The hour. The hour that the game consumes, the game that makes the walking disappear, the disappearing (magic of distraction): when the mind is occupied with finding words, the mind does not notice the feet and the feet do not notice the kilometres and the kilometres pass without the weight that unoccupied kilometres carry.

---

She shifted it to her fingertips.

At 11 AM, the highway becomes impassable.

The impassable —: a jam. Not the city-jam of Amravati or Wardha but the highway-jam, the jam that Indian highways produce when something goes wrong at a critical point (a bridge, a toll plaza, an intersection) and the wrong produces the chain reaction: one vehicle stops, the vehicle behind stops, the vehicle behind that stops, and the stopping cascades backward until the cascade has created a wall of vehicles that stretches for kilometres.

This jam is at a toll plaza. The toll plaza being one of the NHAI toll plazas that dot Indian highways, the toll plaza with its lanes and its barriers and its FASTag readers and its manual lanes for the people who did not have FASTag and who the not-having meant: queues. The queues that Indian toll plazas produced were legendary — the legendary: thirty minutes in a queue to pay ₹55, the thirty-minutes that was time-cost thatIndian highways imposed as the tax-on-top-of-the-tax.

The toll plaza's queue became permanent on the day the virus hit. The vehicles that were in the queue when the drivers died or abandoned, the vehicles remaining in the queue, the queue becoming the wall, the wall becoming the barrier.

"Yahan se nahi ja sakte," I say, looking at the toll plaza. We can't get through here. Military canvas, coarse-woven.

The toll plaza has: twelve lanes. All twelve lanes blocked, blocked by vehicles, the vehicles, bumper-to-bumper in every lane, state that the queue was in when the queu, the bumper-to-bumpere became permanent. Trucks (the massive trucks that carry goods on Indian highways, the trucks that are too tall to see over and too wide to squeeze past), cars (the Swifts and Nexons and i20s that India's highways carried), buses (MSRTC buses, the Maharashtra State Road Transport Corporation buses that connected every city in Maharashtra and that the connecting was now severed).

"Upar se?" Janhavi suggests. Over the top?

I look at the toll plaza's structure. The structure: concrete pillars supporting a roof, canopy that toll plazas have to protect t — the roofhe toll collectors from rain and sun. The canopy is, the canopy is climbable. If we climb onto a truck, we can reach the canopy. If we reach the canopy, we can cross the toll plaza by walking on the canopy. If we walk on the canopy, we reach the other side.

"Koshish karte hain," I say. Let's try.

The climbing: not easy. The truck that we choose, a Tata LPT 3118, the heavy-goods truck that Indian highways carried, the truck with the high cab and the flat cargo bed — the truck, ladder. I climb onto the cargo bed first. The climbing requiring: hands gripping the truck's side railing, feet finding purchase on the wheel hub, the body pulling itself up with the upper-body strength that three days of walking has not improved.

I reach the cargo bed. Reach down.

From the cargo bed: the canopy. The canopy is one metre above the truck's cargo bed, one metre that requires: jumping. The jumping: the reach, the reach: gap between the truck and the canopy, the gap that the body must cross.

I jump. My hands catch the canopy's edge: the edge that was concrete lip that the canopy provides, the lip that my fingers grip with the desperation that height produces: hold on. Do not fall. The falling is the ten-metre drop to the road below and the drop is the injury that the new world cannot treat because the new world has no hospitals.

I pull myself up. Onto the canopy. The canopy being: flat. Flat and concrete and hot, the hot that concrete absorbs from the March sun and that the absorbing makes the canopy's surface: burning. The burning that I feel through my Bata shoes, the shoes that protect but do not insulate.

"Haath de!" Janhavi calls from the truck. Give me your hand!

I reach down. She jumps. I grab her wrist — the wrist, which was thin (the thin of not-eating-enough) but strong (the strong of a girl who has climbed walls and fences and compound walls for years). I pull. She scrambles onto the canopy.

We stand on the toll plaza's canopy. The canopy: a platform. A platform that gives us the view — the view of the highway stretching in both directions, the view that the toll plaza's height provides: the height of four metres, the four metres being enough to see the jam on both sides.

South side: clearer. The south side of the toll plaza, the side that we need to reach: has fewer vehicles. The fewer: the vehicles that had already passed through the toll when the drivers died or abandoned, the passed-through vehicles being spread out rather than queued, the spread-out being the passable.

"Woh side better hai," Janhavi says, pointing south. That side is better.

"Haan. Chal."

We walk across the canopy. The walking that was: careful. The careful that walking on a four-metre-high concrete platform in Bata shoes requires: slow steps, balanced weight, the awareness that one slip means: the fall. The fall that the new world cannot afford.

We reach the south side. Climb down, the climbing-down being easier than the climbing-up because the climbing-down uses the canopy's support pillars as a ladder, the pillars having the ridges that concrete pillars have and that the ridges provide: footholds. I could feel every crack, every pebble.

We land on the south side of the toll plaza. The south side being: open. The highway stretching south with fewer vehicles, the fewer that was relief: the jam is behind us. The toll plaza is behind us. The south side is the way forward.

"Phew," Janhavi says. Wiping her hands on her jeans. The jeans that now have concrete dust on them, the dust that the canopy deposited on our hands and clothes. "Woh intense tha."

That was intense.

"Haan. Lekin: chal. Jalna abhi door hai."

Yeah. But, let's go. Jalna is still far.

---

We walk. South. Through the Marathwada afternoon, the afternoon that produces the heat and the heat produces the mirages and the mirages produce the false hope: *is that water? Is that a river? Is that a. No. It is heat.

The countryside changing, the changing that the geography produces as we move southwest: the flat land beginning to show undulations, the undulations: foothills of theAjanta hills, the Ajanta, the range that separates Marathwada's Akola-Jalna plain from the Aurangabad basin. The Ajanta hills being: not tall. Not the Ghats. But: hills. The first hills since Nagpur, the first elevation change since the flat Vidarbha plains.

"Pahaad aa rahe hain," Janhavi observes. Hills are coming.

"Haan. Ajanta hills. Aurangabad ke pehle."

"Achha. Toh: chadhaai hogi?"

So: there'll be climbing?

"Thodi. Lekin zyada nahi."

A little. But not much.

The hills: gentle. The gentle that the Ajanta range produces: not the steep of the Western Ghats but the gradual of an old mountain range, the old range that erosion has softened over millions of years, the softening producing: slopes. Slopes that the highway follows, the highway climbing and descending with the gentle grades that Indian highway engineers design: 4%, the 4% being the maximum grade that NHAI allows on national highways, the 4% being the grade that trucks can climb and that pedestrians can walk and that the walking is slightly harder (the slightly, which was grade's contribution to effort) but not significantly harder.

We climb. The climbing, which was the first ascent of the journey. The first time that the road goes up rather than flat, the up (novelty that five days of flat walking ha s) not prepared us for. My calves registering the grade. The calves that have adapted to flat walking and that the flat-walking adaptation does not include: uphill. The uphill, the new demand.

But: the climbing brings views. Views that the flat Vidarbha plains did not provide, views of: valleys. Small valleys between the Ajanta hills, the valleys, which was green (greener than the plains, the greener, which was hills' ability to catch rainwater and the catching producing: vegetation that the plains do not have), the green being: neem trees, ber trees, teak (the teak that the Ajanta forests produce, the teak, wood that furniture-makers prize and that the prizing is the reason that the Ajanta forests are protected: teak is money. Money is protection. Protection is the forest service guarding the trees from the people who would cut them.).

"Sundar hai," Janhavi says. It's beautiful.

"Haan."

"Mujhe achhi jagah yaad nahi. Meri saari jagahein, Amravati, Nagpur, jo bhi: sab sheher the. Gande, bheed-bhad wale. Yeh — yeh alag hai."

I don't remember beautiful places. All my places — Amravati, Nagpur, wherever: were all cities. Dirty, crowded. This, this is different.

The sentence containing the sadness — the sadness that foster care produces: I have lived in many places. None of them were beautiful. All of them were: temporary. The temporary: the foster-care condition: every place is temporary because every placement is temporary and the temporary does not permit the appreciation of beauty because the appreciation requires: time. And time is the thing that foster care does not give.

"Pune sundar hai," I say. "Agar: jab hum pahunchenge, tujhe dikha dunga."

Pune is beautiful. If, when we get there, I'll show you.

She smiles. The smile that is not the grin and not the smirk but the smile: the genuine smile that Janhavi produces rarely and that the rarely makes the smile precious: *this smile is real. This smile is for me.

"Theek hai," she says. "Deal."

---

We descend the Ajanta hills as the sun descends. The two descents being synchronized, the synchronized: coincidence that the geography and the astronomy produce: we come down the hills as the sun comes down the sky.

Below: a town. The town; visible from the hilltop, the town spreading across the valley floor with the pattern that Indian towns produce: a cluster of buildings at the centre, fields radiating outward, a highway bisecting the cluster.

"Woh kya hai?" Janhavi asks.

"Maps bol raha hai, Jalna."

Jalna. The city that is Marathwada's industrial centre: the industrial centre that processes the steel and the chemicals that Marathwada's economy produces. Jalna being: a medium city. Bigger than Akola. Smaller than Aurangabad. The medium: the middle of Maharashtra's urban hierarchy: Mumbai > Pune > Nagpur > Nashik > Aurangabad > Jalna.

"Aaj yahan ruke?" I ask. Stay here tonight?

"Haan. Main bahut thak gayi hoon."

Yeah. I'm really tired.

We are both really tired. The tired of Day Five — the day that included: walking (30 kilometres), climbing a toll plaza canopy, ascending and descending the Ajanta hills. The tired that the body produces when the body has been working for eleven hours and that the working has depleted: water (one bottle remaining), energy (the Parle-G and aam papad that we ate for lunch being the insufficient fuel that the body burns through in two hours of walking), and will (the will that every kilometre depletes and that the depletion is the cost of walking: each kilometre takes a piece of your will and the piece does not come back until sleep returns it). Truthful-hard. No pretence of softness.

We enter Jalna. Find a house. The house-finding (routine that the journey has established): enter a city, find a house with an open gate, enter, check for bodies (the checking that was the ritual that the new world demands: check before you settle. The settling requires the absence of death.), cook, eat, sleep.

The house in Jalna is: a house. A house like every house we have stayed in, concrete, two rooms, a kitchen, a tulsi in the courtyard. The tulsi being dry (always dry: every tulsi in every courtyard is dry because the watering requires the grandmother and the grandmother is dead).

We cook. Maggi, the last of our Maggi supply, the last two packets. The last-two being the signal: we need to resupply. We need to find a kirana store tomorrow. We need food.

We eat. We sleep.

Day Five complete.

Google Maps says: Pune — 350 kilometres.

350 kilometres. Seven days. Maybe six if we find another motorcycle.

Bhai, zinda hoon.

Tomorrow: Aurangabad. Then the Ghats. Then western Maharashtra. Then Pune.

Shlok.

I'm coming.