Chapter 14: Harsh

# Chapter 14: Harsh

## The Tickets

The IRCTC website loaded at 10:02 AM, two minutes after the 10 AM Tatkal window opened, the two minutes: internet's delay, the delay, which was Indore's internet, the internet that the telecom companies advertised as "4G" and that performed like 3G on good days and like carrier pigeons on bad days, the bad days being when the entire city was simultaneously trying to book Tatkal tickets for the same train, the simultaneity; India's curse: too many people, too few seats, the imbalance producing the specific panic that IRCTC Tatkal booking inspired. A panic that was equal parts technical skill, spiritual faith, and raw anger at a server that crashed every morning at 10:00:01 AM.

Harsh was not booking Tatkal. Harsh was booking regular tickets, booked two weeks in advance, the advance that was smart booking, the smart: the ₹200-₹300 saved per ticket that the advance provided over Tatkal's premium pricing. But the IRCTC website did not distinguish between smart bookers and panic bookers, the website treated all visitors with the same contempt, buffering wheel, the contempt, the wheel, which was the IRCTC's logo in all but official designation.

He was booking on Raju's laptop, Raju's laptop being a second-hand Dell that Raju had bought from the OLX listing of a Pithampur factory worker who was upgrading, the laptop costing ₹8,000, the ₹8,000 being Raju's savings from six months of helping at the shop, the savings: the distinctive achievement of a seventeen-year-old who earned ₹200 per day and who had saved enough for a computer, the computer; generation's ticket, the ticket that Harsh's generation had not had and that Raju's generation could not function without.

The route: Indore → Mumbai (Indore-Mumbai Express, Train No. 12962, departs 18:35, arrives 07:15) → Mumbai → Goa (Konkan Kanya Express, Train No. 10111, departs 11:00, arrives 22:35). Total travel time: approximately twenty-eight hours. Total distance: approximately 1,100 kilometres. The 1,100 kilometres being the distance between the Malwa plateau and the Arabian Sea, the distance between wheat and fish, between garlic and kokum, between the landlocked and the littoral.

Five tickets. Five people: Santosh, Pushpa, Rinku (the eldest, 24, factory worker), Guddu (the middle, 19, ITI student), Sonali (the youngest, 16, 11th standard).

AC Three-Tier. Not Sleeper Class. The collection had reached ₹34,200, the segment's aftermath having added ₹3,900 in three days, the ₹3,900 coming from seventeen individuals who had walked into Gali Mithaiyon Ki and placed money on the counter and said variations of the same sentence: "Segment dekha. Kuch dena tha." Watched the segment. Wanted to give something.

₹34,200 allowed AC Three-Tier. AC Three-Tier was the class that provided air conditioning and clean sheets and a curtain between your berth and the aisle, the curtain, privacy thatSleeper Class did not offer, luxury that, the privacy₹34,200 could now afford, the affordability (collection's gift): the collection had moved Santosh's family from the class where you slept in the open air of the train with your bag clutched to your chest to the class where you slept behind a curtain with your bag on the hook above your head.

Indore-Mumbai AC Three-Tier: ₹890 per person × 5 = ₹4,450 Mumbai-Goa AC Three-Tier: ₹780 per person × 5 = ₹3,900 Return tickets (same route): ₹4,450 + ₹3,900 = ₹8,350

Remaining budget: ₹34,200 - ₹16,700 = ₹17,500

Hotel in Goa: ₹1,800 per night × 2 rooms × 3 nights = ₹10,800 Food: ₹600 per day × 3 days = ₹1,800 Local transport in Goa: ₹2,000 Emergency/miscellaneous: ₹2,900

Total budget: ₹34,200 Total expenses: ₹34,300

₹100 over budget. The ₹100 being, the ₹100 being the difference between the collection and the plan, the difference, which was negligible, the negligible — ₹100, the ₹100 being the cost of approximately seven glasses of chai, the seven glasses being what Harsh would absorb from the shop's revenue without counting, without recording, without thinking, because ₹100 was the margin of a single good evening, and a single good evening's margin was nothing when a family's first ocean was on the other side.

He booked the tickets. The IRCTC confirmed, five seats, Indore-Mumbai, November 8, 2026. Five seats, Mumbai-Goa, November 9, 2026. Five seats return, Goa-Mumbai, November 12. Five seats return, Mumbai-Indore, November 13.

The PNR numbers appeared on the screen, the PNR — the ticket's identity, the identity: a ten-digit number that Indian travelers memorised the way they memorised their Aadhaar numbers, the memorising (anxiety's response to the possibility of c)ancellation, the possibility (sword that hung over every I) RCTC booking, the sword, which was : confirmed today, waitlisted tomorrow, cancelled the day after, the cancellation, the Indian railway's particular cruelty. The atta dust was fine and dry.

All five tickets: Confirmed. CNF. The two letters that meant: the seats exist. The seats are yours. The train will come. You will board.

Harsh screenshot the confirmation. He sent the screenshot to Salim. He sent the screenshot to Santosh, Santosh's WhatsApp number being a number that he had saved only last week, the saving, which was the connection that the wish had created, the connection, which was: before the wish, Harsh and Santosh had been two men who worked in the same city and drank chai at the same shop and had never exchanged phone numbers. After the wish, they were — they were connected. The wish had wired them together the way the deewar wired the city together, wish by wish, chit by chit, pushpin by pushpin.

Santosh called back in forty seconds.

"Harsh bhai. Yeh — yeh sach hai?"

Is this; is this real?

"Sach hai. Tickets confirmed. November 8. Indore-Mumbai-Goa."

"November 8. Do hafte baad."

Two weeks from now.

"Haan. Guddu ko sikha diya?"

Have you taught Guddu?

"Kal se shuru kiya. Dahi-puri; basic aa gaya hai. Sev-puri bhi. Pani-puri mein thodi dikkat hai, pani ka taste abhi nahi aaya."

Started yesterday. Dahi-puri, he's got the basics. Sev-puri too. Pani-puri is a bit difficult, the taste of the water hasn't come yet.

"Pani-puri ka pani, woh time chahta hai. Guddu ko bol, nimbu thoda zyada daale. Nimbu galti chhupata hai."

The pani-puri water — that takes time. Tell Guddu: add a bit more lime. Lime hides mistakes.

Santosh laughed. The laugh that was — the laugh of a man who was being told a cooking secret by a chai-wallah, the chai-wallah's cooking advice being the cross-trade wisdom that the old city's vendors shared across stalls and across generations, the wisdom —: every dish has a trick. The trick is the thing that the recipe does not mention. The trick is the thing that twenty-seven years teaches you.

"Harsh bhai."

"Haan."

"Shukriya."

"Santosh bhai, shukriya mat bol. Yeh Ichha Deewar ka kaam hai.

Don't say thank you. This is the Ichha Deewar's work. Your thanks aren't needed.

"Phir bhi."

Still.

"Phir bhi chai pe aa. Shaam ko. Tere saath ek baat karni hai."

Come for chai anyway. In the evening. I want to talk to you about something.

---

His shoulder blades pressed into the wall behind him.

Santosh came at 7 PM. He came with Pushpa: Pushpa who had not been to Tomar Chai before, Pushpa whose only visit to Gali Mithaiyon Ki had been for the mobile repair shop two doors down, the mobile, a Jio phone that had stopped charging, the charging, phone's primary ailment, the ailment that every Indian phone suffered after two years because the charging ports were designed to last eighteen months and the phones were expected to last five years and the five years were the reality and the eighteen months were the design, the design and the reality: in permanent conflict.

Pushpa entered the shop and; Pushpa entered the shop and saw the wall.

She had not seen the wall before. She had heard about the wall, from Santosh, from Megha, from the segment that she had watched at the neighbour's house. But she had not seen the wall. The seeing, which was different from the hearing, encounter, the seeing, the encounter: a four-foot-wide board painted sky blue, covered in paper chits held by coloured pushpins, each chit bearing a wish, each wish being a person's compressed desire, the compression, the wall's aesthetic, the aesthetic that was: small paper, big feelings.

And next to the first board, the second board. The board that Harsh had built three days ago to accommodate the segment's overflow. The second board also filling, twelve chits already, the twelve that was new wishes, the new people, the people who had watched the segment and who had come to pin their hopes to a plywood board in a twelve-foot chai shop.

Pushpa read the wall. She read it standing, standing in the narrow space between the tables and the wall, standing the way people stood in temples and museums and other places where the sacred was displayed, the standing (posture of reverence), the reverence: these are people's wishes. These are their prayers without the gods. These are the things they want most in the world, written in three lines on torn paper.

"Bahut hain," she said. There are so many.

"Haan," Harsh said. "Bahut hain. Aur roz aur aa rahe hain."

Yes. And more are coming every day.

"Sab poori hoti hain?"

Do they all come true?

"Nahi. Sab nahi. Lekin: lekin koshish sab ki hoti hai."

No. Not all. But — we try for all of them.

Pushpa looked at the wall for a long time. Then she looked at Harsh. The look, the look of a woman who was. The look of a woman who was understanding something. The understanding —: this man tried for my husband's wish. This man collected ₹34,200 from sixty shopkeepers and a hundred strangers and booked train tickets and arranged a hotel for a family he had known only as "chai customer, Stall #14." This man did this because his father put a piece of paper on a wall twenty-two years ago.

"Harsh beta," she said. "Tere Baba kahan hain?"

Where is your father?

"Upar. Kamre mein."

Upstairs. In the room.

"Milna hai."

I want to meet him.

Harsh took Pushpa upstairs. The eleven stairs, each stair knowing Harsh's weight, each stair surprised by Pushpa's weight, the surprise (different sound), the different note, the stair's recognition that a new person was ascending, the ascending that was an event because the upstairs room received few visitors, the few being: Harsh, Kamla Pandey (the neighbour who brought food), and now: and now a woman in a washed-soft green sari who wanted to meet the man who had built the wall that was sending her to the ocean.

Brajesh was in the chair. The chair by the window. The hands trembling. The eyes steady.

"Brajesh uncle," Pushpa said.

"Kaun?" Brajesh's eyes adjusted, the adjusting, the Parkinson's adjustment, the adjustment that the brain required to process a new face, the processing; slower than it had been, disease's toll on cognition, the slowness, the toll that the medication reduced but did not eliminate.

"Pushpa. Santosh ki biwi. Chappan Dukaan; chaat stall: "

"Santosh. Haan. Samundar wala."

Santosh. Yes. The ocean one.

"Haan, uncle. Main aapko milne aayi hoon. Aapko, aapko shukriya bolne."

I came to meet you. To, to say thank you.

Brajesh's hands trembled. The trembling, the constant, the constant that the words did not change, the words — unable to stop the trembling, the trembling: disease and the disease, the constant and the constant: the background against which all emotions played.

"Shukriya? Kyun?"

"Aapne deewar banayi. Aapke bete ne samundar dikha raha hai. Yeh, yeh aapki wajah se ho raha hai."

You built the wall. Your son is showing us the ocean. This, this is happening because of you.

Brajesh looked at Pushpa. He looked at her with the steady eyes: the eyes that saw clearly, that saw the washed-soft green sari and the tired face and the wet eyes, the wetness that was tears thatPushpa had been carrying since the segment aired, the tears that came and went like rain in the monsoon, the coming — triggered by small things: a mention of the ocean, a mention of the sari, a mention of Harsh's name.

"Beti," Brajesh said. "Mujhe shukriya mat bol. Main toh: main toh sirf chai banata tha. Chai aur — aur sunata tha. Tumhare Santosh ne ichha likhi — yeh toh himmat ki baat hai. Likhna — likhna zyada mushkil hai. Sunna aasan hai."

Don't thank me. I just, I just made chai. Chai and, and listened. Your Santosh wrote the wish, that takes courage. Writing; writing is harder. Listening is easy.

"Sunna aasan nahi hai, uncle. Sunna sabse mushkil hai."

Listening isn't easy. Listening is the hardest thing.

Brajesh smiled. The slow smile. The Parkinson's smile that moved at half the speed of a healthy smile but that arrived at the same destination. The destination —: warmth. Recognition. The recognition that this woman understood.

"Chai piyo," Brajesh said. "Harsh, chai la."

Drink chai. Harsh, bring chai.

Harsh went downstairs. He made three glasses. Kesar wali, special, the kesar, the special, which was reserved for the visits that mattered. He carried them upstairs on Savitri's brass tray.

Brajesh drank with both hands wrapped around the glass. Pushpa drank with the careful sips of a guest in a sacred place. Harsh stood by the door, standing, watching his father talk to the wife of a man whose wish his father's wall was granting.

"Samundar dekh ke aana," Brajesh said. Come back after seeing the ocean.

"Aayenge, uncle."

"Aur — aur mitti laana. Samundar ke paas ki mitti."

And; bring soil. Soil from near the ocean.

Pushpa's eyes went wide. "Aapko pata hai?"

You know about that?

"Harsh ne bataya. Mitti. Mitti mein jagah hoti hai. Jagah ki mitti; jagah ki yaad hoti hai. Mitti laana. Mere liye bhi."

Harsh told me. Soil, soil contains the place. A place's soil, is the place's memory. Bring soil. For me too.

"Zaroor, uncle. Do dabbiyaan bharke laayenge. Ek aapke liye. Ek mere liye."

Definitely. We'll fill two boxes. One for you. One for me.

Brajesh placed his trembling hand on Pushpa's head. The blessing. The same blessing that he had given Megha: the hand on the head, the Parkinson's hand that trembled but that could still bless, the blessing: last function that the disease permitted.

Pushpa cried. She cried the way: she cried the way that women in India cried when they were blessed by an elder, the crying: release, the release —: an old man has touched my head. An old man whose hands built the wall that is sending me to the ocean has touched my head. The touching is the wish. The touching is the granting. The ocean is already here. The ocean is in this room, in this trembling hand, in this glass of kesar chai.

They went downstairs. Santosh was sitting at the table near the wall, sitting, reading the chits, reading them with the exact attention of a man who understood what the chits meant because his own chit was among them, because his own wish was being granted.

"Pushpa, chalein?" Let's go?

"Haan."

They left together; Santosh and Pushpa, the couple who had been married for twenty-seven years and who had never taken a holiday, who were now two weeks away from their first trip, their first ocean, their first time seeing the thing that covered 71% of the Earth's surface and that they had lived fifty-one years without encountering. Oil ran warm over her fingers.

Harsh watched them leave. He watched them walk down the gali: Santosh's hand finding Pushpa's hand in the narrow space, the finding, natural, the natural: geometry of twenty-seven years of marriage: the hands knew where to find each other. The hands had been finding each other since 1999.

He went back to the counter. He made chai. He served. The evening crowd arrived. The pour was high. The routine continued.

But the routine now had a date, November 8, 2026. The date that the routine would deliver. The date that the train would depart. The date that the ocean would receive a family of five from Indore who had never seen it.

Harsh marked the date on the calendar behind the counter, the calendar, which was a Mahakaleshwar Temple calendar, the same type that hung in Pushpa's house, the calendar, which was universal calendar of centralIndia, the calendar that provided the dates and the gods and the festivals and the auspicious days, the auspicious days. Days when things should be begun and things should be completed and things should be celebrated.

November 8 was not marked as an auspicious day on the calendar.

But it was.