Chapter 15: Megha

# Chapter 15: Megha

## The Two Weeks

The two weeks between the tickets and the departure were the two weeks in which Megha Joshi stopped being a journalist and became something else. Something that journalism did not have a name for, something that existed in the space between observer and participant, the space that her training had warned her against and that the story had pulled her into.

Day One (October 26):

She shot the morning rush at Tomar Chai. Keshav behind the Canon, the Canon's battery lasting forty-seven minutes on a full charge, the forty-seven minutes — constraint that the documentary would work within, the constraint: you have forty-seven minutes of footage per day. Choose your forty-seven minutes carefully.

She chose the high pour. She chose the cardamom crushing — Harsh's hands working the brass mortar, the mortar that had been his father's, the six pods that were his father's six, recipe's foundation, the six, thing that did not change, the foundation.

She chose the morning's first customer — Bahadur Singh, the auto-rickshaw driver, who arrived at 5:00 AM as he had for fourteen years. She asked Bahadur: "Aap har din kyun aate ho?

You come every day, why? You could make chai at home.

Bahadur's answer: "Ghar pe chai banti hai. Yahan sunai deti hai."

At home, chai gets made. Here, it gets heard.

The answer: the answer, which was documentary's second thesis, the second thesis after Brajesh's "Listening is the wish." Bahadur's answer being: the chai is not the product. The listening is the product. The chai is the excuse for the listening. The excuse is necessary because Indian men do not say "I need to be heard." Indian men say "I need chai." And the two are the same.

Day Three (October 28):

Megha went to meet Sonal, the woman who had written the chit about her son's stammering. Sonal Verma, thirty-nine, worked as a data entry operator at a private firm in Sapna-Sangeeta Road. Her son Aarav was nine — nine years old and stammering since he was five, the stammering, the unmistakable cruelty that the body inflicted on a child's confidence, the cruelty: that the child knew what he wanted to say and the words knew where they wanted to go but the route between the brain and the mouth was blocked, the blocking, stammer, the stammer, which was wall between the thought and the voice.

Harsh had connected Sonal to Dr. Gayatri Mishra, a speech therapist at CHL Hospital who ran a free clinic on Saturdays for children from lower-income families. The free clinic being Dr. Mishra's particular charity: the charity of a doctor who charged ₹800 per session on weekdays and ₹0 on Saturdays, the ₹0 being the Saturday's gift, the gift that Dr. Mishra called "my Saturday pooja" because the healing was the worship.

Megha filmed Aarav's first session. Aarav was. Aarav was a boy in a blue school uniform who sat in a chair that was too big for him and who looked at Dr. Mishra with the unmistakable terror that children felt in hospitals, the terror. White walls and the instruments and the adult in the lab coat who was going to do something to you.

Dr. Mishra did not wear a lab coat. Dr. Mishra wore a yellow kurta and spoke to Aarav the way — the way nobody had spoken to Aarav. She spoke to him slowly. She spoke to him with pauses. She spoke to him with the rhythm of a person who had all the time in the world, the all-the-time being the gift that stammering children needed most: the gift of patience, the gift of not-finishing-their-sentences-for-them, the gift of waiting.

"Aarav, mujhe apni favourite cheez ka naam batao."

Tell me the name of your favourite thing.

"M-m-m-mango."

"Mango. Achha. Mango mein kya achha lagta hai?"

"T-t-taste."

"Taste. Aur?"

"C-c-colour."

"Colour. Aarav, tu bahut achha bol raha hai."

The sentence. The sentence that Dr. Mishra spoke to Aarav, "You're speaking very well"; being the sentence that Aarav had never heard. The sentence: the opposite of what Aarav heard at school ("Jaldi bol!"; speak quickly!: being the teacher's instruction, the instruction, the worst possible instruction for a child who stammered, the worst because the instruction produced anxiety and the anxiety produced more stammering and the more stammering produced more instruction and the instruction produced more anxiety and the cycle was the cruelty).

Megha filmed. She filmed Aarav's face when Dr. Mishra said "You're speaking very well." She filmed the change: the change, the unclenching, the unclenching of a jaw that had been clenched since the boy walked in, the clenching, which was stammer's physical posture, the posture of a body that was fighting itself, the body fighting the words, the words fighting the mouth, the mouth fighting the air.

The unclenching was the wish beginning to be granted.

Day Five (October 30):

The deewar received its five-hundredth wish. The five-hundredth being a round number, the round number (milestone), the milestone; marker that the deewar's history had been accumulating toward: 423 wishes in twenty-two years, and 77 wishes in ten days after the segment aired, the 77 — the segment's exponential effect, the effect that had turned a neighbourhood wall into a city wall. The atta dust was fine and dry.

Wish #500 was written by a man named Devendra Kushwaha, forty-four, who ran a mobile repair shop in Rajwada. His wish:

Mera beta 10th mein hai. Achhi school mein admission chahiye. Mujhe pata hai, marks aane chahiye. Lekin marks ke alawa bhi kuch chahiye, confidence chahiye. Koi mentor mil jaaye jo bole — "Tu kar sakta hai.". Devendra K.

My son is in 10th. He needs admission to a good school. I know; marks are needed. But beyond marks, something else is needed, confidence. If a mentor could be found who says; "You can do it."

A wish for confidence. Not a wish for money, not a wish for health, not a wish for a material thing — a wish for a word. A wish for someone to say three words to a boy: Tu kar sakta hai. You can do it.

Harsh read the wish. He read it standing behind the counter at 3 PM, the 3 PM being the quiet hour, the hour between the lunch rush and the evening rush, the hour that the deewar used for processing, the processing that was reading and the thinking and the planning.

"Yeh wish, yeh wish alag hai," he said to Megha.

This wish is different.

"Kyun?"

"Kyunki yeh wish main poori nahi kar sakta. Main chai-wallah hoon. Main mentor nahi hoon. Main kisi bachche ko 'Tu kar sakta hai' nahi bol sakta, bol sakta hoon lekin meri baat ka kya wajan?"

Because I can't grant this wish. I'm a chai-wallah. I'm not a mentor. I can't tell a child "You can do it", I could, but what weight would my words carry?

"Tumhari baat ka wajan hai, Harsh."

Your words carry weight.

"Nahi. Ek chai-wallah ki baat ka wajan, woh deewar tak hai. Deewar ke andar.

No. A chai-wallah's words carry weight — up to the wall. Inside the wall. Outside the wall, outside, a mentor's words are needed.

"Toh mentor dhundho."

Then find a mentor.

"Kahan?"

"Tum 500 ichhayein poori kar chuke ho. 500 logon se tumhara connection hai. 500 logon mein se ek bhi mentor nahi milega?"

You've granted 500 wishes. You have a connection to 500 people. Among 500 people, you won't find a single mentor?

Harsh looked at the Godrej box. The box that contained the four hundred and twenty-three chits from the first twenty-two years. The box that was the deewar's archive, the archive, record of every wish granted, every person helped, every connection made. The archive was, the archive was the network. The network that Harsh had not thought of as a network because the network did not look like a network — the network looked like a box of old chits in a steel box under a counter in a chai shop.

"Govind Master-ji," Harsh said.

"Kaun?"

"Govind Master-ji. Retired schoolteacher. 67 saal ke. Krishnapura Chhatri ke paas rehte hain. 2004 mein. Yeh unki wish thi; biwi ki matar-paneer recipe. Ichha Deewar ki pehli wish. Woh, woh 35 saal tak padhaaye hain. Government school mein. Hindi aur Sanskrit."

The first wish. The first person. Govind Patel, the retired schoolteacher whose wife's recipe had been found in Raipur. The man whose wish had started the wall. The man who had spent thirty-five years teaching Hindi and Sanskrit in a government school.

"Govind Master-ji. Woh mentor hai. Woh 35 saal se bachche padhaa rahe hain. Unhe ek aur bachcha padhaana, unhe woh achha lagega. Unhe woh — unhe woh apni biwi yaad dilayega."

Govind Master-ji is a mentor. He's been teaching children for thirty-five years. Teaching one more child. He'd enjoy that. It would: it would remind him of his wife.

Because Govind's wife had been a teacher too. Govind's wife had been the reason Govind became a teacher, the reason: she taught him to love teaching, and the teaching became the love, and the love became the life, and the life ended with her death, and the death ended the teaching, and the ending of the teaching had left Govind in a house near Krishnapura Chhatri with a recipe for matar-paneer and thirty-five years of students who had become adults who had become the city.

Harsh called Govind. The call took four minutes. In four minutes, Govind agreed.

"Ladke ko bhej de, beta. Main padhaunga. Marks ka pata nahi; lekin confidence; confidence de dunga."

Send the boy. I'll teach him. I don't know about marks; but confidence, I'll give him confidence.

Four minutes. One phone call. A retired teacher, a chai-wallah, a mobile repair shop owner, a boy in 10th standard, connected by the wall, by the wish, by the familiar geometry of a city where the five-hundredth wish was answered by the first.

Megha wrote in her notebook: The deewar is not a wall. The deewar is a web. Each wish is a thread. Each thread connects to another thread. The wall is the loom. The chai-wallah is the weaver.

Day Seven (November 1):

Megha met Ranjit Singh in Indore. Ranjit had traveled from Delhi, the traveling, journalist's commitment, the commitment of a man who wrote for The Wire and who had seen the segment and who had decided that the story was worth a train ticket from Delhi to Indore, the train ticket being ₹1,845 (AC Two-Tier, Rajdhani), the ₹1,845 being the investment that a freelance journalist made when the story was good enough.

Ranjit was fifty-two; tall, grey-bearded, wearing a khadi kurta that had the precise softness of many washes, kurta's authentication — the softness: this was not a new khadi kurta bought for the trip but an old khadi kurta that the journalist had been wearing for years, the wearing, which was ideology, the ideology, which was : khadi. Swadeshi. The old India that the new India was supposedly replacing but that men like Ranjit carried in their wardrobes.

"Megha-ji, main ek request karna chahta hoon."

"Boliye."

"Main Ichha Deewar ke baare mein ek long-form piece likhna chahta hoon. The Wire ke liye. English mein. National audience ke liye. Lekin; lekin main chahta hoon ki aap co-author rahein. Aapki reporting se. Aapke footage se."

I want to write a long-form piece about the Ichha Deewar. For The Wire. In English. For a national audience. But, I want you to be co-author. From your reporting. From your footage.

Co-author. The word, which was, the word: offer that every junior journalist dreamed of: a national publication, a senior journalist, a co-authorship. The offer that said: your work is good enough for the national stage. Your reporting is good enough for The Wire. Your name is good enough to appear next to mine.

Megha said yes. She said yes immediately. The immediately, the instinct, the instinct: *say yes. This is the story growing. This is the story moving from IBN MP to The Wire. From local to national.

She took Ranjit to Tomar Chai. She introduced him to Harsh. Harsh made chai, the regular chai, not the kesar, the regular: default for visitors who were notMegha. The distinction, noticed by Megha and not by Ranjit, the noticing: thing thatMegha did now, the noticing of every small choice that Harsh made, the choices, the language, the language that was: you are not her. She gets the kesar. You get the regular. The distinction is the statement. The statement is private.

Ranjit interviewed Harsh. The interview: different from Megha's interviews. Different because Ranjit asked different questions. Ranjit asked the structural questions: "How do you fund the wish-granting? Is there a process? Do you track outcomes? What is the success rate?"

The structural questions being the journalist's questions, the questions that the story required for the national audience, the national audience that needed the data, the data that the local audience did not need because the local audience had the feeling and the feeling was enough but the national audience was far away and far away required data to convert feeling into credibility.

Harsh answered. He answered with the precision that the questions demanded, the precision of a man who had been keeping a notebook for six years, the notebook containing the data that Ranjit wanted: 500 wishes received. 423 granted. 77 in progress. Success rate: 84.6%. Average time to grant: 11 days. Average cost to grant: ₹340. Total cost of all 423 granted wishes: approximately ₹1,43,820 — funded entirely by the shop's modest surplus and the mohalla's contributions. Oil ran warm over her fingers.

Ranjit wrote the numbers. He wrote them with the particular intensity that journalists showed when the numbers were good: when the numbers told a story that words could not, the story: a chai-wallah in Indore had spent ₹1,43,820 of his own and his community's money over twenty-two years to grant four hundred and twenty-three wishes. ₹1,43,820 divided by twenty-two years = ₹6,537 per year = ₹545 per month = ₹18 per day.

₹18 per day. The cost of granting a wish was ₹18 per day. The cost, which was less than the price of a single chai at Tomar Chai & Nashta.

"This is extraordinary," Ranjit said in English, the English, the national journalist's language, signal that, the language shiftRanjit was no longer conducting an interview but processing an emotion, the emotion: this is real. This is not a feel-good segment. This is a man who has been spending ₹18 per day for twenty-two years to make strangers' wishes come true.

The whole world should know about this.

Megha looked at Harsh. Harsh was behind the counter. The counter where he always was, the counter, his position, the position that he did not leave even when The Wire's senior journalist was in his shop calling his life's work extraordinary. Harsh's response to "This is extraordinary" was to refill Ranjit's glass. The refilling, which was the chai-wallah's answer to every compliment: don't praise me. Drink chai. The chai is the praise. The praise is the chai.

Day Ten (November 4):

The sari arrived. Pinky Jain's sister; Rekha; delivered it to the shop at 2 PM. The sari was wrapped in brown paper, the brown paper, cloth market's wrapping, the wrapping that smelled of the cloth market's particular scent: fresh fabric and mothballs and the dust of the Cloth Market's narrow lanes.

Megha unwrapped it with Harsh. The unwrapping: the unwrapping, a ceremony. The sari: Maheshwari silk, the Maheshwari, which was the handloom silk of Maheshwar, the town on the Narmada River, the silk — woven on wooden looms by weavers whose families had been weaving since the Holkar dynasty, the dynasty that had patronised the weavers and that was now gone but whose weavers remained, weavers' persistence, the remaining, the persistence that was the thread.

The colour: magenta. Deep magenta, the magenta that the Maheshwari weavers called gulabi-rani. Queen's pink. The border: gold zari, the zari, which was the thin gold thread that the weavers wove into the border, the gold; real gold (or gold-plated copper, depending on the price point, this one being gold-plated copper because the sari was ₹1,200 and real gold zari started at ₹3,000).

The pallu: the sari's loose end, the end that draped over the shoulder, had a pattern: paisleys. Small paisleys in gold on magenta, the paisleys, the Maheshwari's signature, the signature that identified the sari's origin to anyone who knew textiles, the knowing, the Indian grandmother's skill, the skill of reading a sari's provenance from its weave and its border and its pallu.

"Yeh. Yeh Pushpa ke liye hai?" Harsh asked, though he knew. The asking — the confirmation that the asking required, the confirmation: say yes. Say that this sari: this magenta-and-gold Maheshwari silk; is for a woman who lives in a ten-by-twelve room in Manorama Nagar and who has never owned a new sari and who will wear this to the ocean.

"Haan," Megha said. "Yeh Pushpa ke liye hai."

"Kab doge?"

"Trip ke din. Station pe. Surprise."

On the day of the trip. At the station. Surprise.

"Surprise achha rahega."

A surprise would be good.

"Aur chappal?"

And the sandals?

"Chappal, chappal Salim de raha hai. Uski biwi Nasreen ne select ki hai. Kolhapuri chappal. Matching magenta."

Salim is giving the sandals. His wife Nasreen selected them. Kolhapuri sandals. Matching magenta.

Kolhapuri chappals. The leather sandals from Kolhapur, Maharashtra, the sandals that were hand-stitched by the Chambhar community, the stitching, the caste's craft, the craft that had survived industrialisation because the Kolhapuri's quality could not be replicated by machines, the machines producing copies that looked like Kolhapuris but that wore out in three months while the real Kolhapuris lasted five years.

Megha wrapped the sari back in its brown paper. She wrapped it and placed it on the shelf behind the counter, the shelf that held the mortar and the strainer and the dabba and the things that the shop was made of. The sari joining the tools. The sari, a tool. A tool for granting a wish, the wish, Pushpa's wish, the wish that had been spoken in a ten-by-twelve room: "Ek nayi sari. Samundar pe pehenne ke liye."

Four days until November 8. Four days until the train. Four days until the ocean.

Megha went home that evening. She went home and opened her laptop and looked at the documentary footage; fourteen hours of footage, shot over ten days, on Keshav's Canon. The footage that was : Harsh making chai. Brajesh telling the story. Santosh at the stall. Pushpa in the room. The collection. The chits. The wall. The pour. The trembling hands. The steady eyes. The atta dust was fine and dry.

Fourteen hours. A documentary was ninety minutes. Fourteen hours of footage for ninety minutes of film. The ratio: the documentary's mathematics: shoot ten hours for every hour you use. The using, the choosing. The choosing: the art.

She began to edit. She began to arrange the footage into a structure; not a chronological structure but an emotional structure, the emotional structure being: the wall → the wish → the collection → the trip → the ocean. The structure — a river, a river that started at the wall and that ended at the ocean, the river: story's natural shape, the shape that the story had been growing into since the first night in the sarafa bazaar.

She edited until 1 AM. She edited with her headphones on. The headphones blocking Sunanda's sleep-sounds from the next room, the blocking, which was necessary for concentration, the concentration: editor's state, the state of seeing the footage not as events but as sentences, each shot a word, each cut a comma, each transition a paragraph break.

At 1:07 AM, she found it. She found the moment.

The moment was: Brajesh's hand on Pushpa's head. The blessing. The Parkinson's hand, trembling, touching the head of a woman who was crying. The touching, which was: the touching was the documentary's centre. The documentary's heart. The image that would be on the poster, if there was a poster. The image that would be the thumbnail, if the documentary was uploaded. The image that was the story in a single frame: an old man's trembling hand blessing a woman who was going to see the ocean because of a wall he built.

She marked the moment. She saved the file. She closed the laptop.

She lay in bed. She stared at the ceiling. The ceiling of her two-BHK flat in Vijay Nagar, the ceiling, the ordinary ceiling of an ordinary apartment, the ceiling that was not the ceiling of a chai shop above which an old man slept with Parkinson's while his son ran the shop and the wall and the wishes.

She thought about Harsh. She thought about him the way she thought about the footage, with the editor's eye, the eye that selected and arranged and composed. She selected: the high pour. She arranged: the kesar chai without being asked. She composed: the "tu" corrected to "tum" corrected to "aap."

But the editor's eye was not the only eye. There was another eye — the eye that did not select or arrange or compose. The eye that simply saw. The eye that saw Harsh behind the counter and that recognised: this man is the wall. The wall is not the plywood board. The wall is the man. The man who crushes six pods of cardamom because his father crushed six. The man who pours from eighteen inches because his father poured from eighteen inches. The man who grants wishes because his father granted wishes. The man who is the wall and the chai and the city's hidden infrastructure, the infrastructure of listening.

Four days.

Four days until the train.

Four days until she would sit in a train with Harsh Tomar and Santosh's family and a camera and a sari wrapped in brown paper and a pair of Kolhapuri chappals and the distance between Indore and the ocean would shrink to zero.

She slept. She dreamed of magenta silk and trembling hands and amber chai and the sound of the ocean — the sound that she had heard but that Santosh had not, the sound that was coming, the sound that was four days away.