Chapter 7: Reyansh

# Chapter 7: Reyansh

## The Highway

The highway between Wardha and Amravati is where India shows us what it looks like without people.

The answer is: beautiful. Terrifyingly, heartbreakingly beautiful.

The Vidarbha countryside in March is the countryside that Vidarbha's farmers curse: the dry countryside, the pre-monsoon countryside, the countryside where the cotton fields are stubble and the soybean fields are dust and the wells are low and the rivers are lower and the low, which was annual anxiety thatVidarbha's farmers carry: will the monsoon come? Will the monsoon come in time? Will the rains save us or will the rains arrive late and the late: drought and the drought, the debt and the debt, which was reason thatVidarbha's farmers —

I stop the thought. The thought, which was the thought that Vidarbha cannot escape: farmer suicides. The suicides that made national news every year and that made Nagpur weep every year and that the weeping did not prevent the next year's suicides because the preventing required: policy, relief, water, the things that Delhi promised and did not deliver and the not-delivering was the reason Vidarbha wept.

But without people, without the farmers and the debt and the desperation: the countryside is: open. Wide. The horizon stretching in every direction with the confidence of land that has been flat since geological time, the geological time being the Deccan Plateau's age: 66 million years, the age of the basalt that the volcanic eruptions produced and that the basalt produced the flat land and the flat land produced the horizon and the horizon produced the feeling that I feel as Janhavi and I walk: smallness. The smallness of two human beings on a road that stretches to the horizon in both directions, the both directions being: north (where we came from) and south (where we are going) and the two directions, which was totality of our existence: behind and ahead.

"Kitna chale hain aaj?" Janhavi asks. How far have we walked today?

I check Google Maps. "Lagbhag 15 kilometres."

"Aur kitna baaki?"

"Amravati tak. 55 aur."

"Matlab; kal?"

"Kal shaam tak shayad. Agar hum aaj aur chale toh."

Tomorrow evening maybe. If we keep walking today.

Janhavi nods. The nod, the acceptance — the acceptance that 55 kilometres is the distance and the distance requires: time, energy, chappals that hold together, water that lasts.

We walk. The walking producing the state that long-distance walking produces: the trance. The trance that the repetitive motion creates — step, step, step, the steps that the body performs automatically and that the mind does not need to direct and that the not-directing frees the mind to: think. Wander. Remember.

I remember Pune. I remember: the flat in Saraswati Apartments, Kothrud. The flat that was on the third floor, the floor that required climbing three flights of stairs and that the climbing was the daily exercise that Aai said was "better than gym" and that Baba said was "reason to install a lift" and that neither was right because the climbing was simply: home. The third floor was home. The stairs were the path to home. Dry. Past its freshness.

I remember: Shlok. Shlok Khanvilkar. The boy who sat next to me in Class 6 at Abhinav Vidyalaya and who turned to me on the first day and said: "Tere paas eraser hai? Mera kho gaya." (Do you have an eraser? Mine's lost.) And I gave him the eraser and the giving was the beginning of the friendship that lasted six years and that survived: puberty, board exams, Shlok's crush on Tanvi Deshpande in Class 9 (the crush that consumed three months of our conversations and that ended when Tanvi said "tu mera dost hai": you're my friend, the sentence that killed more Indian teenage hearts than any other sentence), my family's move to Nagpur, and now: the virus.

Bhai, zinda hoon.

Shlok is alive. In Pune. In — where in Pune? The text did not say. Shlok's house was in Deccan Gymkhana, the Deccan that was Pune's central neighbourhood, the neighbourhood that was both old and expensive, the old; the Peshwa-era wadas and the expensive, the new apartments that developers built by demolishing the wadas and the demolishing, the controversy thatPune argued about at every municipal election.

Is Shlok in Deccan? Is Shlok's family alive? The text said zinda hoon, I am alive. Not hum zinde hain. We are alive. The singular. The hoon not the hain. The singular suggesting: alone. Shlok alone. Shlok's parents: Shlok's Aai and Baba and his sister Isha. The suggestion being: dead.

The suggestion that I do not confirm because the confirming requires a call and the call does not connect. I shielded it with my palm.

---

Noon. The sun at its peak. The peak that Vidarbha's sun reaches with a vindictiveness of a star that has chosen this region as its personal experiment in heat tolerance.

"Shade chahiye," Janhavi says. The sentence: the declaration of surrender, not to the journey but to the sun, the sun that has been beating on our heads for four hours and that the beating has produced: sweat (the sweat that drips from my forehead and stings my eyes and that the stinging is the irritation that four hours of walking in 42-degree heat produces), thirst (the thirst that two litres of Bisleri cannot quench because the quenching requires more than two litres and the more is not available), and the headache that the sun produces when the sun has been hitting an uncovered head for too long.

We need shade. We need to rest.

Ahead: a tree. A banyan tree: the banyan that India's highways grew, the banyan that was India's national tree and that the national-tree status was deserved because the banyan was the tree that India gathered under: for shade, for meetings, for panchayats, for a certain Indian activity that required a large tree and a group of people sitting underneath it. The banyan was India's meeting room. India's office. India's parliament of the common people.

This banyan is enormous. The enormous that banyans achieve when banyans have been growing for a hundred years, the hundred years producing the aerial roots that hang from the branches and that touch the ground and that become secondary trunks and that the secondary trunks produce tertiary trunks and the whole system being: a single tree that looks like a forest.

We sit under the banyan. The shade, which was, the shade — relief that water provides to thirst andfood provides to hunger and sleep provides to exhaustion: immediate, complete, the body sighing with the relief that the shade's coolness delivers.

"Paani?" I offer Janhavi my Bisleri.

"Mere paas hai." She drinks from her own. Two sips. The discipline that the road teaches: two sips, cap, save.

We sit. The sitting producing: stillness. The stillness that walking does not allow, the stillness that allows the body to catalog its complaints: the blister on my right heel (now a proper blister, the blister that has filled with fluid and that the fluid is the body's cushion and that the cushion will burst if I walk without addressing it), the ache in my calves (the ache of muscles that have been walking for two days on flat highway and that the flat-highway walking uses the calves more than uphill-walking because the flat-walking is the constant-use and the constant-use is the ache's origin), the sunburn on my forearms (the sunburn that Vidarbha's March sun produces on skin that has not been in the sun for nine days because the nine-days-indoors skin is the unprepared skin and the unprepared is the burning). Military canvas, coarse-woven.

"Tere pair theek hain?" Janhavi asks. Are your feet okay?

"Blister hai. Right heel pe."

"Mujhe dikha."

Show me.

I take off the Sparx chappal. Show her the heel, the heel with the blister, the blister: a dome of clear fluid on the skin that the chappal's rubber has been rubbing for two days.

Janhavi examines it. The examining —: clinical. Not squeamish. The not-squeamish of a girl who has seen worse, the worse, injuries that the gang inAmravati produced, the injuries that the fights produced, the injuries that Janhavi's foster-system life produced.

"Phodni padegi," she says. We'll have to pop it.

"Kya?"

"Phodni padegi. Nahi toh chal nahi payega. Lighter hai tere paas?"

Pop it. Otherwise you won't be able to walk. Do you have a lighter?

I give her Mausaji's lighter. She takes the Swiss knife: Mausaji's Swiss knife. She opens the blade. Holds the blade over the lighter's flame, the flame that sterilizes the blade, the sterilization that was first-aid knowledge thatJanhavi carries: heat the blade. Kill the germs. Then cut.

"Yeh dard karega," she says. This will hurt.

"Pata hai."

She pierces the blister. The piercing producing: pain, the sharp pain of a blade breaking skin, the pain that is brief and precise and that the brief-and-precise is the mercy: one cut, done. The fluid drains. The blister deflates.

Janhavi takes a Band-Aid from her bag (the Band-Aid that we took from the kirana store). Applies it to the heel. Presses it down. The pressing; firm, the firm that ensures adhesion, the adhesion that the walking will test.

"Ab tera chappal mat pehen. Kuch aur pehen."

Don't wear your chappal now. Wear something else.

"Mere paas aur kuch nahi hai."

I don't have anything else.

"Toh dhundhte hain. Agle sheher mein, ya agle gaon mein — joote dhundh lena."

We'll find something. In the next town, or the next village, find shoes.

The find shoes being the instruction that the road gives: your chappals are not enough. Your chappals were never enough. 700 kilometres requires shoes and the shoes require finding and the finding requires entering the abandoned towns and the abandoned towns require courage.

I put the chappal back on. Gingerly, the gingerly that the Band-Aid heel requires. The pain is less. The less, the treatment's effect: drain the fluid, cover the wound, walk.

We rest for another ten minutes. The ten minutes being the luxury that the banyan provides — the luxury of shade and stillness and the precise peace that a hundred-year-old tree gives to two sixteen-year-olds walking through a dead world: *I have been here for a hundred years. I will be here for a hundred more. The virus does not kill trees. The virus kills people. I am not people. I am a banyan. Sit. Rest.

---

The afternoon brings a village. A village being: twenty houses, a kirana store, a temple, a well. The village that Vidarbha's countryside produces every five or ten kilometres: the village that is India's atomic unit of habitation, the unit that contains: families, fields, a temple to Vitthal or Hanuman, the temple (village's spiritual center and the well b e)ing the village's physical center and the two centers, the two things that villageIndia revolves around: God and water.

"Joote dhundhne hain," I remind Janhavi. Need to find shoes.

"Haan. Aur khaana bhi. Chal."

The village is — the village is not like Wardha. Wardha was a city. A city with shops and streets and the infrastructure of urban life. This village is: small. Twenty houses. The houses: concrete and brick, some painted (the paint: blue or green or pink that ruralMaharashtra used, the colours that the government's housing scheme specified and that the villages adopted and that the adopting turned every village into a palette of pastel), some unpainted (economics — the unpainted: we could not afford paint. The not-affording is the statement that the walls make in their raw concrete.).

We walk through the village. The village: silent. The silent that every settlement produces in the new world — the silent of absent humanity, the absent. Universal condition. I could feel every crack, every pebble.

But: a kirana store. Small; smaller than Wardha's. The shutter is down but not locked, the not-locked: oversight that becomes our access. I lift the shutter. Inside: shelves with goods. The goods: the goods that a village kirana stocks: atta, dal, oil, soap, beedis, gutka (the gutka that rural Maharashtra consumed and that urban Maharashtra condemned and that the consuming-and-condemning was the class divide that gutka embodied), Parle-G, Maggi, and, shoes.

Not fancy shoes. Not Nike or Adidas or the brands that Pune's malls sold. But: Hawaii chappals (the thicker ones, the ones with the rubber soles that were more durable than Sparx) and: and canvas shoes. Bata canvas shoes. The Bata being the brand that India's village and small-town population wore, the Bata being the shoes of the masses: affordable, durable, unglamorous, the unglamorous, quality that function prioritizes over form.

"Yeh le," Janhavi says, pulling a pair of Bata canvas shoes from the shelf. "Size?"

"Eight."

She finds a size 8. White canvas with rubber soles. The shoes that will carry me from this village to Amravati to Aurangabad to Pune. The shoes that will replace the Sparx chappals. The shoes that the road demands.

I put them on. The putting-on producing the sensation that new shoes produce: tight (the tight that canvas produces before the canvas stretches to the foot's shape), firm (the firm that the rubber sole provides and that the Sparx did not), supportive (the supportive that my blistered heel needs and that the Band-Aid alone does not provide).

"Kaisa feel ho raha hai?" Janhavi asks.

"Achha. Bahut achha."

"Chal phir. Chalte hain."

We walk. Out of the village. Back onto NH44. The highway stretching south, always south. The highway that is our path and our purpose and our prison: we cannot leave the highway because the highway is the route and the route is the map and the map is the phone and the phone is the lifeline.

The Bata canvas shoes making a different sound on the asphalt, not the chap-chap-chap of the Sparx but the thud-thud-thud of rubber soles on hot road, the thud being heavier, more substantial, the substantial (sound of shoes that are meant for walking) and that the meant-for is the difference.

Two teenagers on NH44. One in Bata canvas shoes. One in Sparx chappals. Walking south.

Toward Amravati. Toward Pune. Toward Shlok.

640 kilometres remaining.