Chapter 13: Megha

# Chapter 13: Megha

## The Day Off

Harsh's hands were floury, the atta dust coating his knuckles in a fine white layer.

She did not take the day off.

She intended to. She woke at 8 AM, two hours later than her usual 6 AM, the two hours, which was luxury of theSunday, the luxury that her body consumed the way a starving person consumed food: greedily, desperately, body's accounting of the deficit, the desperation, the deficit — the accumulated sleep-debt of a woman who had spent the last ten days waking at 6 AM and working until midnight and dreaming of amber streams and kesar chai.

She intended to lie in bed until 9. She intended to eat the poha that her mother would make; Sunanda's Sunday poha being the Joshi family's ritual, the poha: the Indori poha with sev and onion and squeeze of lime, the poha that was taste ofSunday, the taste that meant: today is slow. Today the news can wait.

She lasted until 8:47.

At 8:47, she checked her phone. At 8:47, the phone showed, the phone showed what the phone always showed to journalists who had produced a segment that was going viral: notifications. WhatsApp notifications. Instagram notifications. Twitter notifications. The notifications, the digital equivalent of the crowd outside a chai shop, the crowd pressing in, the crowd wanting attention, the crowd wanting response. Oil ran warm over her fingers.

The segment's YouTube view count: 1,23,847.

One lakh twenty-three thousand. In nineteen hours. For a regional Hindi news channel whose average segment got 3,000 views.

The WhatsApp messages: forty-seven. From colleagues, from college friends, from relatives, from strangers who had somehow obtained her number (the obtaining — particularIndian skill of finding anyone's phone number through a chain of exactly four WhatsApp forwards, the chain: someone who knows someone who knows someone who knows you).

The Instagram: her personal account; @meghajoshi_writes, 847 followers as of yesterday, had gained 214 new followers overnight. The 214, which was the segment's spillover, the spillover, the people who watched the segment and searched for the reporter and found the reporter's Instagram and followed because following was free and following was the minimum gesture of appreciation that social media permitted.

The Twitter: three journalists had tagged her: @MeghaJoshiIBN (her professional handle, 2,100 followers). One was from Dainik Bhaskar's web desk. One was from NDTV India's Bhopal bureau. One was from a journalist she did not know, @RanjitSingh_Press, a freelancer based in Delhi who covered human interest stories for The Wire and Scroll and the other digital publications that occupied the space between television news and print journalism.

@RanjitSingh_Press had written: "Beautiful segment by @MeghaJoshiIBN about an Ichha Deewar (Wishing Wall) in Indore. A chai-wallah who grants wishes. This is the kind of journalism that restores your faith in the medium. Would love to write a longer piece."

A longer piece. A journalist from Delhi wanted to write a longer piece about the Ichha Deewar. The longer piece being, the longer piece being the national reach, the reach that would take the story from IBN MP's Madhya Pradesh viewership to The Wire's national readership, the readership, which was urban, educated, English-reading, the readership that formed opinions and shared articles and created the stubborn digital consensus that determined which stories entered the national conversation and which remained regional.

Megha sat up in bed. She sat up because the day off was over. The day off had lasted from 8:00 AM to 8:47 AM, forty-seven minutes, the forty-seven minutes, the journalist's version of a holiday: brief, interrupted, and ending in work.

She called Keshav.

"Keshav, YouTube check kiya?"

"Haan, Megha-ji. Ek lakh se zyada. Main toh, main toh ro raha tha subah."

Yes. More than one lakh. I was — I was crying this morning.

"Keshav, aaj shoot karna hai."

"Aaj? Sunday hai."

"Haan. Sunday hai. Lekin story Sunday nahi maanti."

Yes. It's Sunday. But the story doesn't observe Sundays.

She told Keshav to meet her at 11 AM at Chappan Dukaan. She told him to bring the Canon. His personal camera, the camera that would shoot the documentary, the documentary that was now not a weekend project but an urgent response to a story that was growing faster than she had planned.

She showered. She dressed. The white chikankari kurta again, the kurta that she had worn to the shop before, the wearing of the same kurta being, she noticed this, she noticed this and did not examine it, journalist's skill applied to herself, the not-examining: observe but do not analyse. The analysis would reveal something. The something is not useful right now. Right now, the kurta is just a kurta.

"Megha, poha kha le." Sunanda's voice from the kitchen.

"Haan, Ma. Aa rahi hoon."

She ate the poha. She ate it quickly, the quickly, which was Sunday's betrayal, Sunday being the day when poha was supposed to be eaten slowly, the slowness — the point, the point that was: today we are not in a hurry. But Megha was in a hurry. Megha was in a hurry because one lakh twenty-three thousand people had watched her segment and a journalist from Delhi wanted to write a longer piece and the story was growing and she needed to be at the story's centre before the story's centre moved away from her.

"Kahan ja rahi hai?" Sunanda asked. Where are you going?

"Chappan Dukaan. Story ke liye."

"Sunday ko bhi?"

"Haan, Ma. Sunday ko bhi."

Sunanda looked at her daughter. The look, the mother's look: the look that was concern and pride and the distinctive sadness that Indian mothers felt when their daughters worked on Sundays, the sadness: I wanted you to rest. You never rest. You are like your father: your father who worked seven days a week at the district court until the work killed him, the killing (heart attack at fifty-two that was not su d)den but accumulated, the accumulation of thirty years of seven-day weeks and skipped meals and chai instead of lunch.

"Khana kha ke jaana."

"Poha kha liya."

"Poha khana nahi hai. Roti-sabzi khana hai."

Poha is not food. Roti-sabzi is food.

"Ma, poha Indore ka national food hai."

Ma, poha is Indore's national food.

"National food se pet nahi bharta. Roti-sabzi se bharta hai."

The national food doesn't fill the stomach. Roti-sabzi does.

Megha ate the roti-sabzi. She ate it because arguing with Sunanda about nutrition was a battle that no one had ever won, the battle, which was the mother's territory, the territory — kitchen, and in the kitchen the mother's word was law, the law: *eat properly. I don't care about your deadline. I don't care about your story. I care about your stomach.

She left at 10:30 AM. She rode the Activa to Chappan Dukaan.

Chappan Dukaan on a Sunday was. Chappan Dukaan on a Sunday was the same as Chappan Dukaan on any other day. The market did not observe weekends. The market did not observe holidays. The market observed only one thing: appetite. And appetite was constant. Appetite did not take Sundays off.

She found Santosh at Stall #14. Santosh was, Santosh was doing what Santosh had done every day for twenty-seven years: standing behind the counter, assembling dahi-puri, serving customers, taking money, assembling the next dahi-puri. The cycle. The cycle that was Santosh's life, the life that was the cycle, the cycle, which was the thing that the segment had shown and that one lakh twenty-three thousand people had watched and that Megha was now watching again with the eyes of a woman who understood: who now understood: that the cycle was both the story and the tragedy, the story (man's dedication and the tragedy, which was th e) man's imprisonment, same thing, the dedication and the imprisonment, the same thing, the chaat stall, the stall — Santosh's world and Santosh's cage.

"Santosh-ji."

He looked up. The looking up was different today: the difference — recognition. Not the recognition of a regular customer (Megha was not a regular) but the recognition of a category: journalist. The journalist who is making my wish into a story. The recognition producing not a smile but an alertness, the alertness of a man who was being watched, who knew he was being watched, and who did not know whether the watching was good or bad.

"Segment dekha, Santosh-ji?"

"Haan. Padosan ke ghar pe. TV nahi hai humare ghar. Padosan ke ghar pe dekha."

At the neighbour's house. We don't have a TV at home. Watched at the neighbour's. The atta dust was fine and dry.

"Kaisa laga?"

He was quiet for a moment. His hands continued, the hands that never stopped, the hands that assembled dahi-puri during conversations and revelations and emotional moments, the hands, which was constant, the constant: work.

"Achha laga," he said. "Pushpa ro rahi thi."

It felt good. Pushpa was crying.

"Ro rahi thi?"

"Khushi se. Jab uska wala part aaya, sari wala, tab ro rahi thi. Boli, 'Yeh toh poori duniya ko dikh gaya ki mujhe sari chahiye.' Main bola, 'Toh? Chahiye na? Toh dikh jaaye.'"

From happiness. When her part came, the sari part — she was crying. She said: "The whole world saw that I want a sari." I said, "So? You want it, right? So let them see."

The whole world.

"Santosh-ji, collection poora ho gaya hai."

The collection is complete.

His hands stopped. The hands that had not stopped, the hands stopped. The stopping, which was the measure of the moment's weight, the weight —: the wish was funded. The ocean was possible. The twenty-seven years of no holiday were about to end.

"Poora?"

"₹30,300. Harsh ne collect kiya. Chappan Dukaan se, gali se, bazaar se. Aur kal segment ke baad: logon ne dukaan mein aake bhi diya."

₹30,300. Harsh collected it. From Chappan Dukaan, the lane, the bazaar. And after yesterday's segment, people came to the shop and donated.

"₹30,300," Santosh repeated. The number, the number: larger than his monthly income, the monthly income being approximately ₹25,000-₹30,000, the number, which was one month's work, the work of standing and assembling and serving and sweating and never taking a day off.

"Santosh-ji, date fix karni hai. Goa ke liye. Kab jaoge?"

We need to fix a date. For Goa. When will you go?

"Main, mujhe: Stall band karni padegi."

I'll, I'll have to close the stall.

"Haan."

"Teen din ke liye?"

For three days?

"Paanch din. Do din travel. Teen din Goa mein."

Five days. Two days travel. Three days in Goa.

"Paanch din. Paanch din stall band."

Five days. Stall closed for five days.

The calculation. The calculation that every working-class person performed when offered a holiday. Not the calculation of expense (the expense was covered) but the calculation of loss: five days of stall closure = five days of no income = ₹4,000-₹6,000 in lost daily earnings. The loss, the holiday's hidden cost, the cost that the collection could not cover because the collection covered the trip but not the absence, the absence, price that the working class paid for every moment of rest.

"Santosh-ji, Rinku kaam kar raha hai na? ₹14,000 mahina? Aur Guddu — Guddu stall sambhal sakta hai?"

Rinku is working, right? ₹14,000 a month? And Guddu, can Guddu manage the stall?

"Guddu? Guddu abhi ITI kar raha hai."

Guddu is doing ITI.

"ITI mein bhi chutti hoti hai. Agar Guddu ek hafta stall sambhale, "

ITI has holidays too. If Guddu manages the stall for a week —

"Guddu ko dahi-puri banana nahi aata."

Guddu doesn't know how to make dahi-puri.

"Guddu ko do din sikhao. Do din mein basic aa jaayega. Ek hafta challega."

Teach Guddu in two days. He'll learn the basics. It'll work for a week.

Santosh looked at his hands. The hands that had been making dahi-puri for twenty-seven years. The hands that had made. He had once calculated, approximately 2,95,000 dahi-puris in his career (thirty per hour × twelve hours × three hundred sixty-five days × twenty-seven years, minus the one day he had taken off for Simhastha Kumbh). The hands that were the stall and the stall that was the hands.

"Do din mein sikha doonga," he said. I'll teach him in two days.

"Toh date?"

"Do hafte baad. Guddu ko do din sikhaunga. Phir; phir jaayenge."

Two weeks from now. I'll teach Guddu for two days. Then — we'll go.

Two weeks. Two weeks to book tickets, arrange the hotel, plan the itinerary, teach Guddu the dahi-puri, buy Pushpa's matching chappals (if the budget allowed), and prepare a family of five for their first trip to the ocean.

"Keshav aur main aayenge. Camera ke saath. Yatra ke saath. Station se lekar samundar tak."

Keshav and I will come. With the camera. With the journey. From the station to the ocean.

"Aap bhi aaoge?"

You'll come too?

"Haan. Documentary ke liye."

For the documentary.

Santosh's face changed. The change. The change, the unmistakable expression that appeared on the face of a man who had been alone his entire working life and who was now being told that people would accompany him. Not just his family, but a journalist and a cameraman and a camera that would record his face when he saw the ocean for the first time.

"Main. Main kya karunga samundar dekhke?" he asked. What will I do when I see the ocean?

"Jo mann mein aaye."

Whatever comes to mind.

"Agar: agar kuch na aaye?"

What if, nothing comes?

"Santosh-ji, aap ikyavan saal se intezaar kar rahe hain. Kuch na kuch aayega."

You've been waiting for fifty-one years. Something will come.

He nodded. The nod, which was slow: the slowness (weight), the weight of fifty-one years of waiting arriving at a moment that said: the waiting is almost over. The ocean is two weeks away. The ocean is ₹30,300 away. The ocean is one train ride and one bus ride and one walk across the sand away. The ocean is close enough to hear.

"Chai peelo," he said. "Meri taraf se."

Drink chai. On me.

He pointed to the chai vendor three stalls down; Kishore Tiwari, Stall #23, Harsh's rival, the rival who had donated ₹500 to the collection because rivalry in Chappan Dukaan did not extend to the deewar, the deewar. Neutral territory, the territory where competitors became collaborators.

"Kishore bhai ki chai peeungi?"

"Kishore bhai ki chai achhi hai. Harsh bhai ki chai best hai.

Kishore's chai is good. Harsh's chai is the best. But Kishore's is also good.

Megha laughed. The diplomatic answer, the answer of a man who had stood between two chai stalls for twenty-seven years and who had learned to praise both without offending either, the praising that was survival skill of theIndian marketplace, the marketplace where loyalties were multiple and absolute simultaneously.

She bought chai from Kishore's stall. She drank it standing, the Chappan Dukaan rule. She drank it and thought about Harsh. She drank it and thought about the kesar chai that Harsh would have made for her if she had gone to Gali Mithaiyon Ki instead of Chappan Dukaan, the instead, which was choice, the choice: she had come here instead of there. She had come here because Santosh was the story. She had not gone there because Harsh was: Harsh was not the story. Harsh was the thing that the story was growing around, the way a vine grew around a wall: the wall was the structure, the vine was the beauty, and the beauty needed the structure and the structure was changed by the beauty.

She told herself: the day off is tomorrow. Today is work. Tomorrow is the day off.

She told herself this knowing that tomorrow she would also work. Tomorrow she would also ride the Activa to the old city and sit at the table near the wall and order chai and write in the notebook and not take the day off. Because the day off was the fiction. The fiction, : journalists took days off. Journalists did not take days off. Journalists worked until the story was done, and the story was never done, and the never-being-done was the profession's particular curse and particular gift, the curse, which was exhaustion and the gift, the purpose, and Megha chose the purpose every time.

She chose the purpose. She had been choosing the purpose since she was twenty-two and had joined IBN MP as an intern and had been given the weather desk and had read the wrong temperature on air (she had said 42°C when the graphic showed 32°C, the error — difference between misery and comfort, the difference; ten degrees and the entire audience's wardrobe planning) and had been yelled at by the previous Trivedi-ji (the current Trivedi-ji's predecessor, who had been even louder and even less patient) and had not quit.

She had not quit because quitting was not something that Megha Joshi did. Quitting was not in the vocabulary. The vocabulary was: work. Keep working. The story is out there. Find it. Tell it. The telling is the purpose. The purpose is the choosing. Choose.

She finished the chai. She went to meet Keshav. She went to shoot the documentary footage, the footage of Chappan Dukaan on a Sunday, the stalls, the crowd, the food, a certain energy of a market that did not take days off, the energy, the documentary's visual language, the language that would say: this is where Santosh works. This is what twenty-seven years looks like. This is the distance between a chaat stall and an ocean.

She shot for three hours. She shot Santosh's hands. She shot the dahi-puri assembly. She shot the customers. She shot the ₹10 note being counted and folded and placed in the steel box. She shot the sweat on Santosh's forehead. The sweat that was the body's accounting of twelve hours of standing, the accounting that no payslip recorded.

She did not go to Gali Mithaiyon Ki. She did not go to Tomar Chai. She did not drink kesar chai. She took the day off from the kesar chai.

The day off from the kesar chai lasted until 6:47 PM, when she found herself riding the Activa through the sarafa bazaar, the riding — the riding, which was involuntary, the involuntariness, the Activa's decision rather than hers, the Activa having developed a muscle memory of its own, the memory, which was the route from the office to Gali Mithaiyon Ki, the route that she had taken every evening for ten days, the route: carved into the Activa's wheels the way Santosh's dahi-puri was carved into his hands.

She parked. She walked down the lane. She walked into the shop.

Harsh was behind the counter. He looked up. The looking up was: the looking up was different. The looking up was the look of a man who had been waiting, who had told her not to come today, who had told her to take a day off, and who had been looking at the door all day waiting for the door to produce the one person he had told not to come through it.

"Chutti li?" he asked. Took the day off?

"Li. Subah se shaam tak chutti li."

I did. Morning till evening.

"Aur shaam ko?"

And in the evening?

"Shaam ko, shaam ko chai peene aayi hoon."

In the evening: I came to drink chai.

He made her the kesar chai. He made it without being asked. He brought it to the table. He sat across from her. Oil ran warm over her fingers.

"₹30,300," he said.

"Mujhe pata hai. Santosh-ji se mili. Date fix ho gayi. Do hafte baad."

I know. I met Santosh-ji. Date is fixed. Two weeks from now.

"Tum Santosh-ji se mili?"

"Haan. Aur Keshav ke saath Chappan Dukaan shoot kiya. Documentary ke liye."

"Chutti pe?"

On your day off?

"Yeh chutti thi."

This was the day off.

He looked at her. The look — the look. Look that she now knew. The look of a man who was still building. The look of a man who saw not what was but what could be. But tonight, the look had something else — the something else being the specific tenderness that appeared on a man's face when the man recognised himself in another person, the recognition —: you don't take days off either. You also work seven days a week. You also stand at your counter, your counter being the laptop, your chai being the words, your deewar being the story. And you also do not stop.

"Ek baat bolu?" he said. Can I say something?

"Bolo."

"Tum: aap — tum thak jaogi agar chutti nahi logi."

You'll get tired if you don't take days off.

"Tum bhi nahi lete."

You don't take them either.

"Main chai-wallah hoon. Chai-wallah chutti nahi leta."

I'm a chai-wallah. Chai-wallahs don't take days off.

"Main journalist hoon. Journalist bhi chutti nahi leta."

I'm a journalist. Journalists don't take days off either.

"Toh — toh hum dono pagal hain."

Then: we're both crazy.

"Haan. Pagal hain."

The admission. The admission of shared madness, the madness of people who worked without stopping, who gave without counting, who built without resting. The madness that was the Ichha Deewar's madness and the journalism's madness and the madness of two people who had met at a chai shop and who were now sitting across from each other at 6:47 PM on a Sunday and drinking kesar chai and admitting that they were both. That they were both the same kind of crazy.

"Chai achhi hai," she said.

"Hamesha achhi hoti hai."

It's always good.

"Haan," she said. "Hamesha."

Always.

The word hung between them. The word "hamesha", always, being larger than a word about chai. The word "hamesha" being a word about — about duration, about permanence, about that promise that the word carried: always. Not today, not this week, not until the story ends. Always.

She drank the chai. He watched her drink it. The watching, the chai-wallah's watching, the watching that every chai-wallah performed on every customer, the watching that assessed: is it the right temperature? Is the sweetness correct? Is the kesar coming through? But this watching was also, this watching was also the other watching. The watching that was not professional but personal. The watching that said: *I made this for you. The making was for you. The kesar was for you.

She finished. She placed the glass on the counter. She did not pay: she had not paid for the kesar chai since the first one, the not-paying that was arrangement that had established itself without discussion, the arrangement, which was : the kesar chai was not a transaction. The kesar chai was a gift. The gift, the only language that the chai-wallah knew for the thing that he felt, the thing, the wanting, the wanting, which was wish that he had not written on the wall.

"Kal aaungi," she said. I'll come tomorrow.

"Kal kesar wali tayyar rahegi."

Tomorrow the kesar one will be ready.

"Hamesha?"

"Hamesha."

She left. The Activa's buzz receded. The gali absorbed the emptiness. The silence absorbed the word, the word "hamesha" that now lived in the air between Gali Mithaiyon Ki and Vijay Nagar, the word traveling the distance with her, the word, which was the passenger on the Activa's back seat, the word, warm and saffron-coloured and tasting of cardamom and the exact sweetness that was not sugar but something else.

Something that neither of them had named.

Something that did not need a name.

Something that was, always.