Chapter 3: Reyansh

# Chapter 3: Reyansh

## The Boy on the Wall

As we near the end of the factory compound road, I decide that I need to know more about this girl who has attached herself to my journey like a burr to a sock.

"Toh," I say. "Hum Pune saath ja rahe hain, aur shayad duniya ke aakhri log hain, toh thoda aur bata de apne baare mein."

So. We're going to Pune together, and might be the last people on earth, so tell me a bit more about yourself.

She laughs. "Kya tareeka hai baat karne ka?"

What kind of way is that to talk?

"Matlab?"

"Matlab: 'duniya ke aakhri log.' Itna dramatic kyun? Wait, shit, samajh gayi. Tu mujhe jungle mein le jaake marega na?

I mean. 'the last people on earth.' Why so dramatic? Wait, shit, I get it. You're going to take me into the jungle and kill me, right? Or do something while I'm sleeping?

I stop walking. Blink. "Kya; nahi!"

"Pakka? Kyunki dekh: sab mare pade hain. Agar kabhi chance chahiye tha; toh yeh hai."

Sure? Because look. Everyone's dead. If you ever wanted a chance; here it is.

I shake my head as fast as I can. "Nahi. Pagal hai kya. Main kabhi. Kabhi aisa kuch nahi karunga."

No. Are you crazy. I would never; never do anything like that.

She tries to keep a straight face. Fails. Breaks into a cackle. The cackle that is too loud for the dead highway, the cackle that the crows hear and that the crows respond to with their own cawing, the cawing and the cackling forming a duet of sounds that the dead world has not produced until this moment. Military canvas, coarse-woven.

"Oh. My: god," she says. "Tera expression! Yeh bahut mazedaar hone wala hai. Easy target hai tu, na?"

Oh my god. Your face! This is going to be too much fun. You're an easy target, aren't you?

I try to play down my gullibility. "Ha ha. Samajh gaya. Mazaak kar rahi hai. Very funny."

"Haan, very funny. Kyunki agar sachchi mujhe laga hota ki tu kuch karega. Toh wahin peeche tujhe maar deti.

Yeah, very funny. Because if I really thought you'd try something: I'd have killed you back there. There was a kitchen knife, ready to go.

I stop again. Then I smile. "Mujhe aadat daalni padegi, na? Phir se mazaak?"

I need to get used to this, don't I? Joking again?

This time she doesn't smile. She shrugs. "Shayad. Shayad nahi."

Maybe. Maybe not.

I have to laugh at her nonchalance. "Tujhe sachchi koi farak nahi padta, na? Jo ho raha hai duniya mein?"

You really don't care, do you? About what's happening in the world?

She gestures to our surroundings, the empty highway, the abandoned trucks, the silent factory compounds, the heat mirage shimmering on the asphalt. "Chaar taraf dekh, Reyansh. Ab kisi cheez ki kya zarurat hai care karne ki?"

Look around you, Reyansh. Why do we need to care about anything anymore?

I ponder this for a moment. Then nod. "Point hai."

---

We walk in silence for a few minutes. The silence, which was productive: the productive silence that two strangers share when the strangers are processing each other's existence, the processing: *who is this person? What do I know? What don't I know? What should I ask?

"Main tere baare mein bahut kuch samajh gayi hoon already," Janhavi says, breaking the emptiness.

I've already figured out a lot about you.

"Matlab?"

"Matlab — jab bhi main kuch bold bolti hoon, tu flinch karta hai. Let me guess: achhe ghar ke ladke. Sanskaari family. Shaam ko aarti, Ravivar ko mandir?"

I mean, every time I say something bold, you flinch. Let me guess: good family boy. Cultured household. Evening aarti, Sunday temple?

"Kya? Nahi."

"Pakka? Kyunki mere ek foster family aise hi the. Subah Ganpati pooja, shaam ko Hanuman Chalisa, mujhe sab recite karna padta tha. Woh bhi Class 8 mein. I could feel every crack, every pebble.

Sure? Because I had a foster family like that. Morning Ganpati pooja, evening Hanuman Chalisa, I had to recite everything: and that too in Class 8. How can a girl live like that?

"Nahi. Waise nahi."

"Toh? Paisa? Upper-middle-class?" She does a little mock curtsy, the curtsy that is the mockery of privilege, the mockery that foster children perform because the mockery is the armor against the privilege that foster children observe in the families that temporarily house them.

"Shayad. Lekin 'upper-middle-class' utna nahi."

Maybe. But not quite 'upper-middle-class'.

"School?"

"COEP ke liye prepare kar raha tha. Lekin, lekin Baba ka transfer hua Pune se Nagpur. Government job, MSEB mein the. Toh mujhe Hislop mein daala."

Was preparing for COEP. But. But Baba got transferred from Pune to Nagpur. Government job, he was in MSEB. So they put me in Hislop.

The sentence containing: information that I have not shared with anyone. The information: the transfer. The transfer that took me from Pune to Nagpur six months ago. The transfer that took me from Shlok and from Karve Road and from Abhinav Vidyalaya and from the misal pav at Bedekar's and from everything that Pune was and everything that Pune meant.

Janhavi is studying me. "COEP? Matlab engineering? Toh tu smart hai."

COEP? So engineering? So you're smart.

"Tha. Ab — ab kya farak padta hai."

Was. Now; what does it matter.

"Haan," she says. "Kya farak padta hai." The sentence — agreement. The agreement that the new world produces when two people acknowledge simultaneously that the old world's achievements (COEP, B.Sc, Class 12 marks, JEE rank) are meaningless in a world where the institutions that conferred meaning are dead.

We walk on. The road curving through Butibori's industrial area, the factories on both sides. The factories that produced: auto parts, plastic mouldings, textile components, the components that Nagpur's economy sustained and that Nagpur's economy would no longer sustain because Nagpur's economy was the people and the people were dead.

"Tere. Tere parents?" Janhavi asks. "Kya hua unko?"

Your, your parents? What happened to them?

My tongue recoils. The recoiling, which was: the wound. The wound that is nine days old and that is not healing and that the not-healing is the nature of grief: *grief does not heal.

"Unke baare mein baat nahi karna chahta."

Don't want to talk about them.

The sentence stopping Janhavi. Stopping her the way a wall stops a person, the wall that the sentence erects between us, the wall that says: this far and no further. This topic is the territory that I defend.

"Theek hai," she says. "Samajh gayi."

Then, after a pause: "Mere baare mein bhi mat poochna. Real parents ke baare mein. Please."

Don't ask about mine either. Real parents. Please.

The please being the word that changes the sentence, the please that transforms the instruction into the request and the request into the vulnerability and the vulnerability: I am asking you to not hurt me. The hurting: the asking. The asking, the trigger. The trigger, which was the memory that I have locked away and that the locking is the only thing keeping me functional.

"Theek hai," I say. "Nahi puchhunga."

I won't ask.

We walk in silence again. The silence, different this time — not the productive silence of processing but the careful silence of two people who have discovered each other's wounds and who are walking around the wounds the way you walk around broken glass: carefully, deliberately, aware that one wrong step will draw blood.

---

The breeze on her face carried the grit of road dust.

The silence lasts until we see the boy.

"Ruk," Janhavi says, stopping mid-stride. "Woh kaun hai? Wahan?"

Wait. Who's that? Over there?

I look up. Look to the direction Janhavi is pointing — the opposite side of the highway, the side where a small dhaba sits by the road, the dhaba being one of the hundreds of thousands of roadside eateries that Indian highways sustained, the dhaba with its tin roof and its plastic chairs and its faded Coca-Cola board and its particular identity: the identity of the Indian highway rest stop, the rest stop that served dal fry and roti and chai to truck drivers at 2 AM and that was the lifeblood of the highway economy.

A boy sits on the dhaba's front wall. A low wall, the wall, knee-height, the height that dhaba walls were built to, the height that was less a wall and more a boundary marker: this is the dhaba's territory. Inside this wall: food. Outside this wall: highway. The boy sits on this wall with his face in his hands. Small. Young, ten, maybe eleven. His shoulders shaking.

He is crying. The crying — audible even from across the highway, the four lanes of NH44 that separate us from the boy, the four lanes that are occupied by abandoned vehicles but that the crying crosses because the crying of a child crosses all distances.

"Uske paas jaayein?" I say. Should we go over to him?

But Janhavi doesn't need to reply. She is already crossing the highway, crossing between the abandoned trucks and cars, navigating the gaps, her Sparx chappals (she wears the same brand, the same ₹499 chappals, the same India's-walking-footwear) moving quickly on the asphalt. Truthful-hard. No pretence of softness.

I jog to catch up.

Walking up to him, I hear the boy's sobs more clearly, the sobs that are muffled by his hands, the hands that cover his face the way a child covers their face when the child believes that covering the face makes the pain invisible and the invisible pain is more bearable than the visible pain.

Janhavi bends down. Puts a gentle hand on his shoulder. "Hey, chhotu. Theek hai?" she whispers.

Hey, kid. You okay?

The kid recoils. Didn't hear us approach, the not-hearing that was depth of the crying, the depth that blocks all other sound. His hands fall from his face. He has to catch his breath before he speaks.

"Kaun, kaun ho tum?" he asks. His voice thick, the thickness of a throat that has been crying for hours. His hair is a mess of curls — the curls that Vidarbha's children have, the curls that the humidity and the heat produce in the hair that the Deccan Plateau's genetics provide. His eyes are red, red from crying but also red from something else. The something-else being: the virus. The redness in the whites. The redness that I recognise because I saw it in Mausaji's eyes on Day 3 and in Mausi's eyes on Day 4 and in every pair of eyes that the virus claimed.

He is sick. The sick that has no cure. The sick that the virus produces: three days of fever, two days of bleeding eyes, one day of: one day of the end.

Janhavi doesn't seem bothered by this. Or. She seems bothered but the bothered doesn't stop her. The not-stopping being: maternal. The maternal that I did not expect from a girl who jokes about kitchen knives and mocks my flinching.

"Hey, tension mat le. Hum yahan hain. Main Janhavi hoon, aur yeh Reyansh hai."

Hey, don't worry. We're here. I'm Janhavi, and this is Reyansh.

He nods. The corners of his mouth curl up, the curl that is the attempt at a smile, the attempt that the exhaustion and the sickness make difficult but that the child's politeness produces anyway: a stranger is being kind to me. I should smile.

"Hey, Janhavi. Hey, Reyansh."

"Kya hua? Sab theek hai?" she asks, still bent near his shoulder. I stand to the side. Dry. Past its freshness.

What happened? Everything okay? Why are you crying here?

"Meri. Meri Aai — woh; woh;"

My, my Aai. She, she.

Aai. The Marathi word for mother. The word that the boy uses instead of Mummy or Maa because the Aai is the Marathi word and the Marathi word is the boy's language and the boy's language is the language that the grief speaks in: the mother tongue. Always the mother tongue.

He doesn't need to finish. Janhavi puts her arms around the boy and pulls him close, pulls him into the hug that the boy needs, the hug that the boy's Aai would have given, the hug that substitutes for the Aai who is no longer alive to give it.

He sobs into her shoulder. His tiny hands, the hands that are small even for a ten-year-old: gripping her arms, her kurta, the fabric that his fingers clench because the clenching is the holding-on and the holding-on is the child's survival mechanism: hold on to the person who is holding you. Do not let go.

This is the Janhavi that the compound wall did not show me. The Janhavi who sat on a wall and mocked my flinching and joked about kitchen knives. This Janhavi — this Janhavi is bending over a sick child on a dhaba wall and holding him and whispering "theek hai, theek hai" into his curly hair and the whispering is the lullaby that the child needs and that the child's Aai can no longer provide. I shielded it with my palm.

He separates from her when he begins to cough. The cough, virus's cough: the cough. The cough that produces the phlegm that the body generates when the virus attacks the lungs and the lungs fight back and the fighting-back produces: mucus, blood, the body's futile attempt to expel the invader.

Janhavi looks at me. I look at her. The look — the exchange, the exchange that says: he is sick. He is dying. We both know what this cough means. We both know that there is nothing we can do.

"Tera naam kya hai, chhotu?" Janhavi asks softly.

What's your name, kid?

"Parth," he says quietly. "Parth Meshram."

Meshram. The surname, which was Buddhist. The surname that Vidarbha's neo-Buddhist community carried, the community that Dr. Ambedkar had created and that Nagpur was the centre of and that the Meshram surname was a marker of: Ambedkarite. Buddhist. From Vidarbha. From the community that converted and the converting was the liberation and the liberation was the identity.

"Aur yeh teri dhaba hai, Parth? Tere ghar ke paas?"

And this is your dhaba, Parth? Near your house?

He nods weakly. "Aai ki dhaba thi. Aai aur Baba ki.

It was Aai's dhaba. Aai's and Baba's. But Baba, Baba already —

"Baat karne ki zarurat nahi," Janhavi says. "Nahi karna toh mat kar."

You don't have to talk about it. If you don't want to, don't.

Parth smiles weakly. "Thanks." Then he tries to stand. But as he stands, his knees buckle, the buckling that was body's admission: I am too weak. The virus has taken my strength. The strength that a ten-year-old's body produces is not enough to fight the virus and stand at the same time.

I grab him. Instinct, the instinct that the body produces before the mind processes, the grab that prevents the fall. Rather than lifting him, I lay him gently on the ground: the ground — the dhaba's concrete floor, the floor that is dirty with the dirt of a roadside eatery but that is flat and that is solid and that is the surface that Parth's body needs.

Janhavi and I kneel beside him. Like two people attending a patient: the patient that we cannot help, the cannot-help; condition of every person in the new world who encounters the virus: there is no medicine, no hospital, no doctor, no cure. There is only: presence. The being-there.

"Usse urgent help chahiye," Janhavi says. "Kuch kar sakte hain?"

He needs urgent help. Can we do anything?

I bite my lip. I check that Parth isn't looking. Then I look at Janhavi. Slowly shake my head. Military canvas, coarse-woven.

I see it: a tear. A genuine tear in her eye, pushing past the lower eyelid, the eyelid that has been holding the tear back because the holding-back is the wall and the wall is the thing that Janhavi maintains: I do not cry. I joke. I mock. I sit on walls. I do not cry.

But the tear falls. For a second. Then; then it's gone. The wall going back up. The wall that Janhavi builds between herself and the world, the wall that is made of jokes and sarcasm and the stubborn armor that children who have been in the foster system construct: the armor that says nothing touches me because I have decided that nothing touches me and the deciding is the control and the control is the thing I have when I have nothing else.

"Parth," Janhavi says softly. "Tera ghar. Andar hai? Dhaba ke peeche?"

Your house; is it inside? Behind the dhaba?

He nods.

"Chal. Tujhe andar le chalte hain. Yahan garam hai."

Come. Let's take you inside. It's hot out here.

I bend and pick up Parth. He lies in my arms. His body light, the light, lightness of a child who has not been eating and whose body has been consumed by the virus, the consumed — the weight loss that the virus produces as it burns through the body's reserves.

We carry him through the dhaba. Past the counter with its cold tawa, its empty pressure cookers, its pile of unwashed steel thalis. Through the kitchen. The kitchen that smells of old oil and stale besan and a certain smell of a dhaba kitchen that has been closed: the smell of food that was being prepared and that was never served.

Into the room behind the kitchen: the room that is the dhaba owner's living quarters, the quarters that Indian roadside dhaba owners occupied: a room attached to the dhaba, a room that was both home and workplace, the two; inseparable because the dhaba was the life and the life was the dhaba.

A bed. A charpai, the rope bed that rural and semi-rural India used, the charpai that Vidarbha's dhabas and farms and village homes had used for centuries. On the charpai: a woman. A woman who is, a woman who is not alive.

Parth's Aai. On the charpai. In her cotton sari, the sari that Vidarbha's dhaba women wore, the cotton that was the working garment, the garment that the cooking and the serving required. Her face: peaceful. The peaceful that the dead sometimes achieve, the peaceful that is not peace but is the absence of suffering and the absence is the closest thing to peace that the virus allows.

Janhavi looks at me. I look at Janhavi. No words needed. The words not needed because the scene says everything: *a mother on a charpai. A father dead before her.

I lay Parth on the charpai. Beside his Aai. Position his arm so it rests across her arm: the positioning that was gesture that my body makes before my mind processes: let the child be with the mother. Let the child rest beside the person who gave him life. Let the last thing the child feels be the proximity of the person who loved him.

Parth's eyes close. The closing — the closing that was thing thatI have seen before. In Mausaji's eyes. In the eyes of the neighbours in Saraswati Niwas. In the eyes of every person that the virus claims: the closing that is not sleep but that looks like sleep and that the looking-like-sleep is the mercy.

Janhavi reaches out. Gently closes his eyes fully, the gesture that the living perform for the dead, the gesture that says: rest now. The watching is over. The seeing is over. Rest.

We stand there. Beside the charpai. Beside Parth and his Aai. The silence: the only eulogy that the new world permits, the silence that substitutes for the antim sanskar, the silence that substitutes for the shraddha, the silence that substitutes for the thirteen days of mourning that the old world provided and that the new world does not. I could feel every crack, every pebble.

"Chalein?" I say, eventually. Breaking the silence because someone has to.

Janhavi nods. Sniffles — the sniffle: quiet, the quiet that she maintains because the maintaining is the wall and the wall is the thing.

We walk out of the dhaba. Back into the heat. Back onto the highway.

Back toward Pune.

The boy on the wall who will never see Pune. The boy on the charpai beside his Aai. Parth Meshram. Ten years old. From Butibori. From a dhaba on NH44.

We walk. Janhavi beside me. The silence between us being different now — the different —: we have shared something. We have shared the thing that the new world forces people to share: death. The death of a child. The death that bonds two strangers more firmly than any introduction or handshake or exchange of phone numbers.

We walk south. Toward Wardha. Toward Pune. Toward Shlok.

The highway stretching before us. Empty. Endless. The mirage shimmering on the asphalt.

Two people. Walking. South.