Chapter 8: Reyansh

# Chapter 8: Reyansh

## The Dhaba

We find the dhaba at dusk.

Dusk being the Vidarbha dusk — the dusk that arrives at 6:30 PM in March, the 6:30 being the time that the sun dips below the flat horizon with the speed that flat horizons produce: fast. In Mumbai the sun sets behind buildings and the setting is gradual, the buildings blocking the sun in stages. In Pune the sun sets behind the hills and the hills provide a slope for the setting. But in Vidarbha the sun sets behind nothing — behind the flat line where land meets sky, the meeting that was abrupt, the abrupt —: one moment the sun is there and the next moment it is not and the not-being is the darkness arriving all at once.

The dhaba is on the highway. A proper dhaba, not Parth's family's dhaba (the dhaba that I do not want to think about, the not-wanting, which was defense that the mind constructs: do not think about the boy on the charpai beside his Aai) but a truck-stop dhaba, the dhaba that NH44's truckers used.

The dhaba has a name: Shree Balaji Dhaba. The name painted on a board above the entrance, the board; wooden, hand-painted, mix of, the lettersHindi and English that highway dhabas used: Shree Balaji Dhaba — Veg & Non-Veg, Punjabi & South Indian — Pure Veg Available. The Pure Veg Available being the disclaimer that highway dhabas added for the vegetarian truckers who would not eat at a dhaba where non-veg was cooked, the not-eating: dietary purity that certain communities maintained even on the highway.

"Yahan?" Janhavi says.

"Yahan."

We approach the dhaba. The dhaba being: a large tin-roofed structure with an open front, the open front being the dhaba's design: no walls on the front side, the no-walls allowing the truckers to see in and the seeing-in that was invitation(come in, sit, eat, the food is visible and the visible food is the advertisement). Inside: plastic chairs (the white plastic chairs that India's dhabas and wedding caterers and school functions used, the chairs that were the universal seating of India's informal economy), tables (steel-top, the steel-top being the dhaba table's material: easy to clean, hard to break, the qualities that a truck-stop table required), a counter with a tawa and a gas stove, and. And a TV.

A TV that is off. A TV that will remain off. A TV that is the artifact of the old world's entertainment and that the new world has rendered: decoration. A black rectangle on a wall.

"Andar chalte hain," I say. Let's go in.

The dhaba is empty. Empty of people. Both the living and the dead. The empty suggesting: the dhaba owner left. Or the dhaba owner died elsewhere. Or the dhaba owner is in one of the rooms behind the kitchen and the rooms are the rooms that I do not enter because the entering might reveal the thing that I do not want to see.

The kitchen, however, is stocked. The stocked: the stocked of a dhaba kitchen that was operational until the virus shut it down: sacks of atta (wheat flour, fifty kilos, the fifty kilos being the dhaba's weekly consumption and the weekly: now the permanent stock), sacks of rice (basmati: the basmati that highway dhabas used because the non-basmati was cheaper but the truckers could taste the difference and the tasting-the-difference was the trucker's palate: refined by ten thousand dhaba meals), dal (three varieties: toor, moong, masoor), oil (a five-litre tin of Saffola), masala (the full set: turmeric, chili, coriander, cumin, garam masala, the garam masala being the crown jewel of Indian spice combinations), and vegetables, onions, potatoes, the vegetables that lasted because the lasting was their nature: onions and potatoes did not rot in a week.

"Jackpot," Janhavi says. Truthful-hard. No pretence of softness.

"Main dal banati hoon," she announces. I'll make dal.

"Tujhe dal banana aata hai?"

You know how to make dal?

"Nahi. Lekin pressure cooker hai. Aur dal sirf boil karna hota hai na? Phir tadka lagana hota hai?"

No. But there's a pressure cooker. And dal is just boiling, right? Then adding tadka?

"Roughly. Haan."

"Toh ban jayega. Tu rice bana. Rice toh tujhe banana aata hoga? COEP preparation wale ladke ko rice banana aata hoga?"

Then it'll be fine. You make rice. You must know how to make rice, right? A boy who was preparing for COEP can handle rice?

I laugh. The laugh, which was: the laugh, the first genuine laughI have produced since the virus. The genuine laugh that Janhavi's mockery extracts from me the way a dentist extracts a tooth: painfully, necessarily, with the result, which was better than the process.

"Haan. Rice bana lunga."

We cook. The cooking, the chaos of two teenagers who have minimal cooking experience attempting to produce a meal in a truck-stop dhaba kitchen. The chaos including: Janhavi dropping the pressure cooker lid (the lid clanging on the floor with a sound that echoes through the empty dhaba like a temple bell), me burning the rice (the burning: result of too much heat and too little water, the too-little being my error and the error being: I did not actually know how to make rice, the not-knowing: admission thatI should have made before claiming I could), Janhavi adding too much chili to the dal (the too-much being visible in the dal's colour: red, the red of dal that has been weaponized).

But: the pressure cooker whistles. Three whistles, the three that dal requires, the three that Aai's kitchen taught me by osmosis, the osmosis: I never learned to cook but I learned the sounds of cooking, the sounds, data that the subconscious stores: three whistles for dal. Five for rajma. The whistle is the timer.

The dal is — the dal is edible. More than edible. The dal is hot and yellow (despite the red chili, the turmeric fights back and the fighting-back produces the yellow that dal should be) and thick and the thick, which was consistency thatdal achieves when the pressure cooker does its work: breaking the lentils, releasing the starch, the starch thickening the liquid into the soup-that-is-not-soup that India calls dal. Dry. Past its freshness.

The rice is. The rice is overcooked. The overcooked being: mushy. The mushy that rice becomes when the water was too much (I added too much water to compensate for the burning, the compensating, which was overcorrection that produces the opposite problem). But: edible. The edible that the new world's standard requires: it is food. It is hot. It will not kill you. Eat.

We eat at one of the steel-top tables. The table, sticky, the sticky of dhaba tables that have not been wiped and that the not-wiping has allowed the residue of a thousand truck-driver meals to accumulate. We eat with our hands: the hands-eating being the Indian way, the way that the dhaba does not provide alternatives to because the dhaba's cutlery is: hands. The hands that scoop the rice and the dal and that the scooping is the skill that Indian children learn from age two and that Western observers find exotic and that Indians find: normal. This is how we eat. This is how we have always eaten.

"Dal bahut achhi bani hai," I say. The dal turned out really good.

"Obviously. Maine banai hai." She grins. "Tera rice — woh thoda —"

"Mushy hai. Pata hai."

"Thoda? Bhai, yeh khichdi hai." She holds up a forkful, no, a handful: of the rice, which clings together in a single lump. "Yeh rice nahi hai. Yeh dough hai."

This isn't rice. This is dough.

I have to laugh. "Theek hai. Next time tu rice bhi bana lena."

"Deal."

---

Janhavi's hand on his arm was light, the grip of someone who had learned not to hold too tight. I shielded it with my palm.

After dinner, we explore the dhaba. The dhaba has: the main eating area (where we ate), the kitchen (where we cooked), a storage room (where the sacks of atta and rice are), and, behind the kitchen: two rooms. The rooms that was the rooms that highway dhabas kept for the dhaba owner and his family, the family that lived at the dhaba because the dhaba was the home and the home was the dhaba.

I approach the first room's door. The door; closed. The closed-door producing the anxiety that every closed door in the new world produces: what is behind this door? The living? The dead? The nothing?

I push the door open. Brace myself.

The room is, empty. Empty of people. A bed (a charpai; the charpai that dhabas used, the charpai being cheaper than a mattress-bed and more durable and the durability, the dhaba's priority), a cupboard, a calendar on the wall (a Kalnirnay, like the one in Wardha, the Kalnirnay being Maharashtra's calendar, the calendar that Maharashtra's homes and businesses hung and that the hanging was the identity: we are Marathi. We keep Marathi time.).

The second room: also empty. A smaller room, a storeroom, perhaps, or a child's room. A mat on the floor. A steel trunk.

"Dono rooms khali hain," I tell Janhavi. Both rooms are empty.

"Great. Ek tu le, ek main."

She takes the first room (the charpai room). I take the second room (the mat room). The mat, which was thin, the thin of a cotton mat that has been compressed by years of sleeping, the sleeping having flattened the mat into a surface that is barely distinguishable from the floor beneath it. But: it is indoors. It is shelter. It is the dhaba's gift to two travelers.

I lie on the mat. The lying-down producing the same relief as Wardha — the relief of horizontal after vertical, the relief that the body craves after ten hours of walking.

My phone: 38% battery. The 38% being the concern: the concern that the phone's battery is finite and that the finite means: limited Maps, limited texts, limited hope. I need to conserve. I need to charge.

"Janhavi?" I call through the wall.

"Haan?"

"Phone charge karna hai. Koi socket dikha thi tujhe?"

Need to charge my phone. Did you see any sockets?

"Kitchen mein tha ek. Lekin: electricity hai?"

There was one in the kitchen. But: is there electricity?

The electricity. The electricity that the new world provides intermittently. Intermittently because the power grid is dying but the dying is slow, the slow dying of a system that was built to be resilient and that the resilience means: some areas still have power, some do not, the some-and-some that was randomness that the grid's collapse produces. Military canvas, coarse-woven.

I walk to the kitchen. Find the socket. Plug in my phone.

The charging icon appears. The icon, the small lightning bolt on the Samsung screen, the icon that means: electricity. The electricity that this dhaba still has because this dhaba is on a grid that has not yet failed and the not-yet-failing is the luck.

I leave the phone charging. Walk back to the mat room.

Lie down. Close my eyes.

And pray: pray to the ceiling, to the mat, to the Kalnirnay calendar, to whatever listens, pray that the nightmare does not come tonight.

The nightmare that came in Wardha. The mounds. The hand. Baba's voice.

Tu kuch kar sakta tha.

The prayer: not tonight. Please. Not tonight.

The prayer that the ceiling does not answer.

The prayer that sleep answers instead: the sleep that arrives before the nightmare, the sleep that is deep and dreamless, the deep-and-dreamless, gift that exhaustion provides when the exhaustion is total: the body too tired to dream, the mind too tired to remember, mercy. The tired.

Sleep.

660 kilometres to Pune. But tonight: sleep.