Chapter 20: Reyansh

# Chapter 20: Reyansh

## Shlok

Shlok tells me the story on the second morning.

We sit outside Tent 22. The morning. The Pune morning that I know, the morning that is March-in-Pune: 24 degrees, the 24, the temperature that Pune's March mornings produce, the temperature that is pleasant in the way that Pune's weather is always pleasant (the always-pleasant being Pune's identity, the identity that Pune's residents cite when Pune's residents compare Pune to other cities: "Pune ka weather": the phrase that carries the pride of a city whose climate is its brand).

Shlok sits on the ground. Legs crossed. The posture that Shlok has always had. The cross-legged posture that he adopted at Abhinav Vidyalaya when the wooden benches were uncomfortable and the uncomfortable made Shlok sit on the floor because "floor is honest, bench is fake." The Shlok-logic that I have missed for six months.

"Bata," I say. "Sab bata. Shuru se."

Tell me. Everything. From the beginning.

Shlok tells me.

---

"Virus jab aaya; main ghar pe tha. Deccan Gymkhana. Aai, Baba, Isha. Sab ghar pe the. Shaam ko. Woh Tuesday tha, yaad hai?, shaam ko Baba ko fever aaya. Phir Aai ko. Phir Isha ko.

"Main: mujhe nahi aaya. Fever nahi aaya. Maine socha, shayad main immune hoon. Ya shayad mera number baad mein aayega. Lekin: nahi aaya. Dry. Past its freshness.

When the virus came: I was at home. Deccan Gymkhana. Aai, Baba, Isha, everyone was home. In the evening, it was a Tuesday, remember?; Baba got fever in the evening. Then Aai. Then Isha.

Me, I didn't get it. No fever. I thought, maybe I'm immune. Or maybe my turn will come later. But, it didn't come. For three days; for three days I was at home, and Aai and Baba and Isha; in three days,

He stops. The stopping, the stop that grief produces. The stop that the voice makes when the voice reaches the word that the voice cannot say and the cannot-saying is the silence and the silence is the word.

I wait. The waiting — the patience that friendship provides: *I will wait. You will say it when you can say it. I shielded it with my palm.

"Teen din mein sab chale gaye," Shlok says. In three days, everyone was gone.

"Shlok —"

"Ruk. Sunne de."

Wait. Let me finish.

"Main. Teen din ghar mein raha. Akele. Aai Baba Isha ke; saath. Unke saath. Matlab, unke, bodies ke saath. Teen din. Maine kuch nahi kiya. Khaana nahi khaya. Paani nahi piya. Bas baitha raha. Sofa pe. Unke saamne.

"Chauthe din, chauthe din maine phone uthaya. Aur tujhe text kiya. Bhai, zinda hoon. Maine socha: agar koi zinda hai, toh tu hoga. Tu sabse zyada zinda insaan hai jo mujhe pata hai."

I: stayed in the house for three days. Alone. With Aai Baba Isha, with them. I mean. With their. Bodies. Three days. I didn't do anything. Didn't eat. Didn't drink water. Just sat. On the sofa. In front of them.

Fourth day: fourth day I picked up the phone. And texted you. Bhai, zinda hoon. I thought. If anyone is alive, it'll be you. You're the most alive person I know.

The sentence. The sentence that makes my chest contract, the contraction that is not pain but is the feeling that produces pain's symptoms: you're the most alive person I know. The sentence that Shlok says with the Shlok-sincerity that is not performed but is the genuine article: Shlok believes this. Shlok sat in his dead family's living room for three days and the first thing he did was text me because Shlok believes that I am the most alive person he knows.

"Phir; phir maine socha: mujhe yahan se jaana padega. Ghar mein nahi reh sakta. Ghar mein: ghar mein woh hain. Aur main unke saath nahi reh sakta. Toh maine; maine Aai Baba Isha ko. Unko, terrace pe le gaya. Aur, aur mitti daalke, I know, I know, cremation chahiye thi, par main akela tha aur cremation, cremation ke liye lakdi chahiye aur log chahiye aur,"

Then, I thought: I need to leave. Can't stay in the house. In the house: they're there. And I can't stay with them. So I: I took Aai Baba Isha, them, to the terrace. And: covered them with earth, I know, I know, cremation was needed, but I was alone and cremation: cremation needs wood and people and:

"Shlok. Tu theek hai. Jo tune kiya, woh theek tha."

Shlok. You're fine. What you did, that was right.

The terrace. The mounds. The mounds that my nightmare showed me. The mounds on a balcony in Pune that I dreamed about in Wardha. The nightmare that was: Shlok's reality. The mounds that Shlok created on his terrace in Deccan Gymkhana because Shlok could not cremate his family alone and the alone, the condition that the virus created. Military canvas, coarse-woven.

"Phir — phir maine ghar chhod diya. Deccan se nikla. Paidal. Aur; aur Sassoon Hospital gaya. Maine socha; hospital mein shayad koi doctor hoga. Koi plan hoga.

"Sassoon, Sassoon khali tha. Doctors bhi, sab. Lekin, lekin wahan ek army officer mila. Colonel Tawde. Woh Southern Command se the; cantonment se. Unhone bola: hum ek safe zone bana rahe hain. Cantonment mein. Aao.

"Maine unke saath aaya. Yahan. Cantonment. Pehle main akela tha, matlab, main aur Colonel Tawde aur unki team, paanch-chhah jawaan. Phir dheere dheere log aane lage. Pune se. Nashik se. Satara se. Jo bhi survive kiya; woh yahan aa rahe hain. Radio broadcast sun ke."

Then, I left the house. Left Deccan. On foot. And. Went to Sassoon Hospital. I thought: maybe there'll be a doctor. Some plan.

Sassoon. Sassoon was empty. Doctors too; everyone. But: there I met an army officer. Colonel Tawde. He was from Southern Command, the cantonment. He said: we're building a safe zone. In the cantonment. Come.

I came with him. Here. The cantonment. At first I was alone, I mean, me and Colonel Tawde and his team, five-six soldiers. Then slowly people started coming. From Pune. Nashik. Satara. Whoever survived, they're coming here. Hearing the radio broadcast.

"Aur Deccan ka ghar?" I ask. And the house in Deccan?

"Chhod diya. Wapas nahi jaunga."

Left it. Won't go back.

The house in Deccan Gymkhana. The house where Shlok grew up. The house where I spent a hundred afternoons after school, the house where Shlok's Aai made poha and Shlok's Baba helped us with maths homework and Shlok's sister Isha drew pictures on the wall with crayons and the crayons' marks are still there: the evidence of a family that existed and that the existing is now the past tense.

---

We sit in silence. The silence that the story produces, the silence that is not uncomfortable but is the silence of two boys processing the same grief: *our families are dead. Our homes are gone. We are here. In a camp.

"Aur, aur tera?" Shlok asks. "Tere ghar?"

And, and yours? Your family?

I tell him. Briefly — the briefly that the telling requires because the telling is the repetition of what I already know and the knowing does not require elaboration:

"Aai aur Baba; Nagpur mein. Mausaji ke flat mein. Virus. Same story."

Aai and Baba, in Nagpur. At Mausaji's flat. The virus. Same story.

Shlok nods. The nod that carries the understanding: the understanding that does not require words because the understanding is shared: my parents are dead. Your parents are dead. The dead, the common ground.

"Aur woh ladki?" Shlok asks. "Janhavi?"

"Woh, woh Butibori mein mili. Nagpur ke bahar. Ek factory ki deewaar pe baithi thi."

She, I met her in Butibori. Outside Nagpur. Sitting on a factory compound wall.

"Deewaar pe?"

On a wall?

"Haan. Woh walls pe baithti hai. Uski, cheez hai."

Yeah. She sits on walls. It's her: thing.

Shlok grins. The Shlok-grin. "Deewaar ki ladki."

The girl on the wall.

The name. The name that Shlok invents in that moment — the moment that is casual, throwaway, the Shlok-humour that names things with the precision of a poet and the lightness of a comedian: deewaar ki ladki. The girl on the wall. The name that captures Janhavi in three words, the three words, image: a girl, a wall, the sitting. I could feel every crack, every pebble.

"Haan," I say. "Deewaar ki ladki."

---

The camp's daily rhythm establishes itself. The rhythm:

6 AM: wake. The waking that the camp produces, not by alarm but by the collective stirring of 200 people, the stirring that creates the sound that wakes: cots creaking, tent flaps opening, the shuffle of feet on packed earth.

6:30 AM: water queue. The queue at the tanker truck: the queue that is the camp's social space, the space where people talk and the talking is the community: who are you? Where are you from? How did you survive? The three questions that every survivor asks every other survivor, the asking: census that the community conducts informally: we need to know each other. The knowing is the bond.

7 AM: breakfast. Mess tent. Poha and chai, the poha that the camp's cooks make in the bulk that 200 people require, the poha being flattened rice with peanuts and turmeric and the turmeric. Yellow thatpoha wears and that the yellow is the colour of every Maharashtrian morning.

8 AM, 12 PM: work. The work that the camp assigns, the work: the contribution that each person makes to the camp's survival. The work categories being: kitchen (cooking, serving, cleaning), medical (assisting the army doctors), maintenance (tent repairs, generator maintenance, water distribution), patrol (the patrol that the soldiers conduct, the patrol of the cantonment wall, the wall, the boundary that requires guarding), and: supply. The supply runs. The runs that the camp organizes to gather supplies from Pune's abandoned shops, the shops that are the camp's supermarket: *take what we need. Bring it back.

12 PM — 1 PM: lunch. Mess tent.

1 PM, 5 PM: more work. Or: rest. The rest that the camp permits in the afternoon, the afternoon heat of Pune's March making physical work inadvisable and the inadvisable, which was the Colonel's order: "Rest period. Save energy."

5 PM — 7 PM: free time. The free time that the camp's 200 people use for: conversation (the conversation that is the camp's entertainment: no television, no internet, no phones, the no-phones that was condition that forces: human interaction. The human interaction that the camp produces in the absence of digital interaction), exercise (some of the survivors walk the cantonment's perimeter. The perimeter-walking, exercise that the cantonment's wide roads permit), and: the radio. The radio that I brought from the Ghat house, the transistor radio that plays the emergency broadcast and that the broadcast; camp's connection to the possibility that other camps exist, other survivors exist, other radios are listening.

7 PM: dinner. Mess tent.

9 PM: lights out. The lights-out that the generators' diesel supply mandates: diesel is limited. The limited means: generators off at 9 PM. The off means: darkness. The darkness means: sleep.

The rhythm. The rhythm that replaces the road's rhythm — the road's rhythm being: walk, eat, sleep, walk. The camp's rhythm being: work, eat, rest, work, eat, sleep. The rhythm that is not normal (normal is dead) but is the closest to normal that 200 survivors in a military camp can produce.

And within the rhythm: Shlok. Shlok who is assigned to the radio team: the team that maintains the radio transmitter, the transmitter that broadcasts the emergency message, the message that brought us here. Shlok who spends his mornings adjusting the transmitter's frequency and checking the antenna and replacing the batteries and the battery-replacing, which was maintenance that keeps the broadcast alive.

And within the rhythm: Janhavi. Janhavi who is assigned to the supply team, the team that goes into Pune's city to gather supplies. Janhavi who goes outside the wall, into the dead city, and returns with bags of food and medicine and the returning (courage): she goes where the dead are. She enters the empty shops and the empty houses and she takes what the camp needs and she returns.

And within the rhythm: me. Reyansh. Assigned to: kitchen. The kitchen that I help in: the helping —: peeling potatoes, washing rice, the tasks that the kitchen assigns to the unskilled, the unskilled — me, the me who could not make rice on Day Three and who is now learning to make rice for 200 people.

The rhythm. The rhythm that carries us through the days. The days that carry us through the new world.

The new world that is: Pune. The cantonment. The camp.

Home.