Chapter 25: Megha & Harsh

# Chapter 25: Megha & Harsh

## Hamesha

February 17, 2027. Films Division Complex, Mumbai.

The screening room held 287 seats. The seats, the old-style cinema seats, the velvet seats that the Films Division had installed in 1973 and that had been re-upholstered twice and that still carried the sag of seats that had held fifty-four years of filmmakers' anxieties, the anxieties settling into the velvet the way sweat settled into fabric: invisibly, permanently.

Megha sat in Row F, Seat 14. She sat in the seat that the festival had assigned to the director: the director's seat being the middle of the sixth row, the middle, position from which the director could see the screen without craning and from which the director could feel the audience's response without turning, the hearing that was director's particular need: the need to know whether the audience was breathing or holding, laughing or crying, present or absent.

Harsh sat next to her. Oil ran warm over her fingers.

He sat in the velvet seat with the familiar discomfort of a man who was out of place. The discomfort: awareness that the room was full of filmmakers and critics and distributors and festival programmers and that he was a chai-wallah from Indore who had come to watch a documentary about his shop, the watching; experience of seeing yourself on a screen, the seeing, the thing that Harsh had never done and that he was about to do.

Keshav sat behind them. Keshav with his borrowed blazer (borrowed from the colleague who had also lent the third battery, the colleague, which was a generous man or a man who did not say no to Keshav's requests, the not-saying. Colleague's particular curse). Keshav who was credited as Director of Photography: the credit, which was his first, the first, the career's beginning, the beginning that had started with a personal Canon and that was now projected on a screen at MIFF.

The lights dimmed. The screen lit.

The pour appeared. The eighteen-inch pour: the amber stream catching the shop's morning light, the light: warm, the warmth, colour correction thatMegha had applied (warmer, she had told herself; warmer because the chai was warm and the light should be warm and the documentary should feel warm from the first frame).

And then — and then Brajesh's voice.

"Chai sunne ki cheez hai."

The voice filling the screening room. The Parkinson's voice. The voice that trembled, that was unsteady, that was the voice of a sixty-two-year-old man with a degenerative disease speaking from a chair by a window in a room above a chai shop in Gali Mithaiyon Ki, Indore. The voice; projected through the Films Division's speakers: speakers that had projected the voices of Satyajit Ray's characters and Mrinal Sen's characters and Anand Patwardhan's interview subjects and now Brajesh Tomar's single sentence, the sentence joining the library of sentences that the Films Division's speakers had spoken in fifty-four years of Indian cinema.

"Chai sunne ki cheez hai."

Chai is for listening.

Megha sensed the audience. She felt them the way a director felt, not with the ears but with the body, the body sensing the room's response the way a chai-wallah sensed the chai's temperature: through proximity, through attention, through the quiet skill of reading the invisible.

The room was still. The room was the stillness of attention, the attention that the opening had commanded, the commanding (pour's authority and the voice's authorit y) and the combination's authority: the image of a man pouring chai and the sound of another man's voice saying that chai was for listening. The combination: the documentary's thesis delivered in the first seven seconds.

The documentary played. Ninety-three minutes. The morning. The evening. The night.

The morning: Harsh at 4:22 AM. The CTC. The cardamom, the six pods crushed in the brass mortar, the crushing. Sound thatKeshav had recorded with the Canon's built-in microphone, the microphone: insufficient for professional audio but sufficient for this: the crunch of the cardamom, the crunch, the documentary's texture, the texture that the audience could almost smell.

The Ichha Deewar: the sky-blue plywood board, the coloured pushpins, the paper chits. The camera moving across the chits the way a reader's eye moved across a page: left to right, wish to wish, hope to hope. The camera pausing on specific chits, the chits that Megha had selected for the documentary, the selection (editing's art): which wishes do you show? Which wishes represent the whole?

She had selected seven:

The mother who needed knee replacement surgery. The woman who wanted to learn guitar at forty. The ITI graduate with no interview calls. Devendra Kushwaha's wish for his son's mentor. Kamla D.'s wish to see snow in Shimla. The person who wrote: "I need a friend. Just one." And Santosh's wish: "Meri family ko samundar dikhana hai."

Seven wishes. Seven compressed desires. Seven paper chits on a plywood board in a twelve-foot chai shop, seven being the number that the documentary could hold, the holding: runtime's constraint: ninety-three minutes for seven wishes and a pour and a wall and a train and an ocean.

The evening: the collection. The Chappan Dukaan montage — Harsh walking from stall to stall, the shopkeepers donating, the notebook filling with numbers, the numbers, which was community's response to the wish. The community: visible in the montage: the faces of the sixty stall-owners, the hands placing money on counters, the heads nodding, the nods, the "yes" that the community gave, the "yes" that said: *we are in. We will help.

Brajesh's interview: the interview that Megha had shot in the room above the shop, the room's window light falling on Brajesh's face, the face: the documentary's most powerful image: the trembling hands and the steady eyes, the combination, which was disease's portrait and the man's portrait simultaneously, the simultaneously; documentary's achievement: showing the disease and the man at the same time, the showing, which was camera's compassion.

"Jab main nahi rahoonga: tab bhi deewar rahe."

When I'm gone: the wall should remain.

Brajesh's wish. The wish spoken in the room. The wish that Santosh would echo on the Madgaon Junction platform. The wish that the documentary was granting by existing — the existing: granting, the granting, which was: the documentary preserved the wall. The documentary was the wall's insurance. The documentary would outlive Brajesh. The documentary would outlive Harsh. The documentary would outlive the shop and the gali and the city. The documentary was the wall's digital twin — the twin that lived in servers and hard drives and festival archives and that could not be destroyed by rain or termites or urban redevelopment.

The night: the train. The Konkan Railway's tunnels, light-dark-light, the sequence that Keshav had filmed through the window, the filming producing the strobe effect that the tunnels created, the strobe — the coast's reveal: I show myself in pieces. Through tunnels. Between hills.

And then, the ocean. Santosh's face.

The audience in the screening room saw what Megha had seen on the train: Santosh's face stopping. The jaw ceasing its chewing. The eyes ceasing their scanning. The forehead ceasing its creasing. The face becoming still, the stillness of a man receiving. The atta dust was fine and dry.

"Samundar."

The word spoken softly. The word on the Films Division's speakers, the speakers making the soft word audible to 287 seats, the audibility: technology's gift: the soft word made loud, the loud word remaining soft, the softness (word's nature), the nature; : a man seeing the ocean for the first time does not shout.

The audience responded. The response, which was: the response: visible in the screening room's geography: in Row A, a festival programmer removed her glasses and pressed her fingers to her eyes. In Row C, a filmmaker. A man who had made three documentaries, whose third had won the National Award; sat forward in his seat, the sitting forward (body's response to recognition): this is good. This is the thing that I have been trying to make. This woman has made it. In Row H, a woman in a white linen shirt, a woman who would later introduce herself as Prerna Mhatre, Acquisitions, MUBI India: took out her phone and typed a single word to her colleague: Watch.

Pushpa's tears. The magenta Maheshwari silk. The pallu dipping in the ocean. The salt staining the silk. The family laughing in the Arabian Sea, the laughter that Keshav had filmed from thirty feet away, the laughter: audible over the waves, the audibility (laughter's volume): the laughter of a family in the ocean for the first time was louder than the ocean.

Santosh's chit on the Madgaon Junction platform: May the wall never fall.

And then — the return. The final sequence. Harsh walking through Indore Junction at 7:15 AM, carrying the two steel dabbas, walking back to the shop. The walking, the commitment: *I went to the ocean. I came back.

The final shot: Harsh behind the counter. The pour. Eighteen inches. The stream catching the morning light. The chai falling into the glass.

And over the final shot, Brajesh's voice, the same voice, the same line, the same trembling, the same steadiness:

"Chai sunne ki cheez hai."

The screen went dark. The documentary ended.

The screening room was silent. The silence lasted four seconds; four seconds being the documentary's afterlife, the afterlife that lived in the gap between the last frame and the first response, the gap: measure: the longer the gap, the deeper the impact. Four seconds being deep. Four seconds being the emptiness of 287 people who had been held by ninety-three minutes of chai and wishes and ocean and who were now returning from the holding to the room.

Then: applause.

The applause starting in the back rows, the critics, who clapped first because the critics clapped to signal their judgment to each other, critic's social function (the signaling: I approve. My approval is my review. My clapping is my stars). The applause spreading to the middle rows (the filmmakers, who clapped to acknowledge a colleague's achievement, the acknowledging: the fraternity's response: you made a thing. The thing is good. I clap for the thing). The applause reaching the front rows (the festival programmers, who clapped because they had selected the documentary and the documentary had justified their selection, the justifying (programmer's relief): we chose correctly. The audience confirms.).

The applause lasting twenty-three seconds. Twenty-three seconds being; twenty-three seconds being a long time for applause at a documentary screening. Twenty-three seconds being the response that the pour deserved and the voice deserved and the wall deserved and Santosh's face deserved and Pushpa's silk deserved and the ocean deserved.

Megha sat in Row F, Seat 14. She did not clap. She did not stand. She sat and she felt the applause the way the wall felt the wishes: as a weight. As a accumulation. As the evidence that the thing she had made existed and that the existing was received and that the receiving was the wish granted.

She looked at Harsh. Harsh was: Harsh was sitting in the velvet seat with his hands in his lap, the hands that had poured the pour that was the documentary's opening shot, the hands that had crushed the cardamom. The hands that had pinned the chits, the hands that were now in his lap in a screening room in Mumbai while 287 people applauded the documentary that showed those hands at work.

His eyes were wet. The wetness. The wetness — Harsh's response to all the important moments: the ocean, the chit on the platform, and now the applause. The wetness: the chai-wallah's tears, the tears that came rarely and that came for the things that mattered: the ocean, the wish, the wall, the applause.

"Harsh," she whispered.

"Haan."

"Kaisa laga?"

How did it feel?

He considered the question. He considered it the way he considered the chai's temperature, with precision, with care, with the awareness that the answer mattered.

"Baba ki awaaz. Baba ki awaaz bahut badi lag rahi thi. Kamre mein, kamre mein Baba ki awaaz chhoti lagti hai. Yahan; yahan bahut badi lag rahi thi."

Baba's voice — Baba's voice sounded very big. In the room. In the room, Baba's voice sounds small. Here: here it sounded very big.

The answer. The answer that was answer. The answer that the documentary had provided: the small voice made big. The trembling voice amplified. The Parkinson's voice given the Films Division's speakers and the Films Division's room and the Films Division's audience. The voice that was small in a room above a chai shop being large in a screening room in Mumbai.

The small made large. The familiar made universal. The chai-wallah's wall made the world's wall.

This was the documentary's achievement. This was the wall's achievement. This was Brajesh's achievement and Harsh's achievement and Megha's achievement and Keshav's achievement and the Canon's achievement and the pirated Premiere Pro's achievement and the ₹2,500 submission fee's achievement: the small made large. The local made national. The chai-wallah made visible.

---

The metal handle was cold against his palm.

The Q&A happened after the screening. The Q&A being the festival's ritual, the ritual in which the director stood before the audience and answered questions, the answering. Accountability: you made this. Now explain it.

Megha stood at the front of the screening room. She stood with the microphone: the handheld microphone that the festival volunteer handed her, the microphone, cold (the air conditioning, the February air conditioning that the Films Division maintained at 22°C, the 22°C being the temperature of the professional class's comfort).

The first question came from a man in Row C. The filmmaker, the National Award winner.

"Megha-ji, the documentary's most powerful moment is clearly Santosh seeing the ocean. But I want to ask about the sound design: the moment you cut the train's audio and let the stillness hold. How did you make that decision?"

The decision. The decision that Megha had made at 1:47 AM on Day 29 of the edit, the decision to cut the train's clatter at the moment Santosh said "Samundar" and to let the stillness hold for three seconds before the ocean's ambient sound faded in. The decision. The instinct: the instinct of a woman who had been in the train when the word was spoken and who knew that the word had created silence, the silence — real, and the documentary needing to reproduce the real.

"The silence was real," she said. "When Santosh said 'Samundar' — the train was loud. The wheels were clattering. But in my memory: in my memory, everything went quiet. The word created silence. I wanted the audience to hear what I felt, not what the microphone recorded, but what I experienced. The silence was the truth. The clatter was the fact.

The answer producing. The answer producing a nod from the filmmaker. The nod, the professional's acknowledgment: you understand. You understand the difference between fact and truth. You understand that the documentary is not a recording of reality but an interpretation of reality. You understand.

The second question came from Prerna Mhatre — the woman in the white linen shirt, MUBI India.

"The documentary is ninety-three minutes. That's ambitious for a first film. Were there moments you wanted to include but couldn't?"

"Many. The documentary doesn't show the other wishes being granted. The stammer boy's speech therapy sessions, the ITI graduate's job search, the woman who wanted to learn guitar. Those stories are happening. Those stories are ongoing. This documentary follows one wish. Santosh's wish, because one wish is enough.

The answer — the editing's lesson — the lesson that forty-one nights had taught: focus. Follow one thread. Do not try to hold the entire wall. Hold one chit. Hold it tightly. Hold it from the wall to the ocean. One chit. One wish. One film.

The third question came from a student, a young woman in the back row, film school, probably first or second year, probably attending MIFF on the student pass that cost ₹500.

"Did the chai-wallah know he was the subject of a documentary? How did you negotiate the consent?"

Megha looked at Harsh. Harsh was sitting in the front row, the front row where the directors' guests sat, the front row, proximity that the festival assigned to the people in the film: *you are the film. Sit close. Oil ran warm over her fingers.

"He's here," Megha said. "Row A. Harsh Tomar. The chai-wallah."

The audience turned. 287 heads turning toward Row A. 287 pairs of eyes finding the man in the cotton kurta, the man who was the documentary's subject, the man who was the pour and the wall and the wishes.

Harsh stood. He stood because the turning required standing, the turning of 287 heads being the attention that required acknowledgment, the acknowledgment (standing), the standing that was chai-wallah's response to the room: I am here. You have seen my shop. You have heard my father's voice. I am the man who pours chai from eighteen inches and who grants wishes and who is standing in a screening room in Mumbai because a journalist walked into my shop on a September night and stayed.

The applause returned. The applause — the applause, for Harsh. The applause that was for the man, not the film. The applause — the room's response to the presence: you are real. You are not a character. You are not a subject. You are a man. You are here. We applaud you.

Harsh did not know what to do with the applause. He did not bow. He did not wave. He did the only thing he knew how to do: he folded his hands. 🙏 The gesture: the same gesture that Brajesh had sent as an emoji, the same gesture that Pushpa had made when she received the sari, the same gesture that four hundred and twenty-three wish-granters had made when their wishes were granted.

The folded hands being the response. The folded hands being the chai-wallah's vocabulary for the overwhelming: I receive this. I am grateful. The gratitude is too large for words. The gesture is the only container.

He sat down. The applause faded. The Q&A continued. More questions, more answers, more of the festival's ritual.

But Megha was not feeling the questions anymore. Megha was looking at Harsh: looking at the back of his head from the microphone's position at the front of the room, looking at the man who had poured her kesar chai without asking and who had corrected "tu" to "tum" to "aap" and who had said "hamesha" and who was now sitting in a screening room in Mumbai where 287 people had applauded his life.

She finished the Q&A. She handed back the microphone. She walked to Row A. She sat next to Harsh.

"Achha tha?" she asked. Was it good?

"Bahut achha."

"Baba dekhte toh?"

If Baba could have seen?

"Baba ne suna hoga. Baba ko pata hoga."

Baba heard it. Baba knows.

The sentence, which was the same sentence that Harsh had spoken about Savitri, the sentence about the dead watching, the dead knowing. But this sentence being about the living; about Brajesh, who was alive, who was in the room above the shop with trembling hands and steady eyes, who could not travel to Mumbai but who knew, father's knowing, the knowing, the knowing that did not require presence, the knowing that was the connection between the father and the son that the distance could not sever.

"Harsh."

"Haan."

"Tata Trusts wali meeting: tune haan bol diya?"

The Tata Trusts meeting, did you say yes?

"Nahi. Abhi nahi. Pehle, pehle sochna hai."

No. Not yet. First, I need to think.

"Kya sochna hai?"

"Sochna hai ki, ki kya deewar ko bada karna chahiye. Ya, ya chhota rehne dena chahiye."

I need to think about, whether the wall should be made bigger. Or — whether it should stay small.

"Tu kya chahta hai?"

What do you want?

"Main chahta hoon ki deewar, deewar wahi rahe. Gali Mithaiyon Ki mein. Baarah foot ki dukaan mein. Ek counter ke peeche. Ek hi. Chhoti.

I want the wall to stay — to stay where it is. In Gali Mithaiyon Ki. In the twelve-foot shop. Behind one counter. Just one. Small. There.

"Kyun?"

"Kyunki. Kyunki agar deewar badi ho gayi toh. Toh sunna mushkil ho jaayega. Ek deewar mein: ek deewar mein main sun sakta hoon. Do deewar mein; do deewar mein kaun sunega? Panch deewar mein; panch mein kaun sunega? Sunna: sunna ek aadmi ka kaam hai. Ek aadmi. Ek dukaan. Ek deewar."

Because. Because if the wall becomes big. Then listening becomes difficult. On one wall, I can listen. On two walls; who will listen? On five walls, who will listen? Listening — listening is one person's work. One person. One shop. One wall.

The answer. The answer that was answer to the question thatSiddharth Kulkarni had asked. The answer to "Can the model scale?" being: no. The model cannot scale. The model is not a model. The model is a man. The man cannot scale. The man can only listen. The listening cannot scale. The listening is the characteristic, the unmistakable that cannot be generalised, the one that cannot be multiplied, the small that cannot be made large without losing the thing that made it work. The atta dust was fine and dry.

The thing that made it work being: Harsh. Being one Harsh. Being one shop. Being one wall. Being one pour. Being one set of hands that crushed six pods of cardamom because the father crushed six.

"Toh Tata Trusts ko mana kar dega?"

So you'll say no to Tata Trusts?

"Mana nahi karunga. Unhe bol dunga. Aao. Indore aao. Dukaan mein baitho. Chai piyo. Deewar dekho. Samjho. Samajh ke. Samajh ke apni deewar banao. Apne shahar mein. Apne tarike se. Meri deewar copy mat karo. Apni deewar banao."

I won't say no. I'll tell them, come. Come to Indore. Sit in the shop. Drink chai. See the wall. Understand. After understanding, build your own wall. In your own city. In your own way. Don't copy my wall. Build your own.

The answer, the answer, which was chai-wallah's answer to the institution. The answer of a man who understood that the wall was not a product that could be manufactured but a practice that could be inspired. The inspiration, the gift, the gift that Harsh could give to Tata Trusts and to the world: *here is how I did it. Now do it your way. The way is not the recipe. The recipe is: listen. Act. Grant. The recipe is simple.

Megha looked at him. She looked at him with the look, the look that had evolved from the journalist's observation to the woman's attention to the filmmaker's vision to this: the look of a woman who loved a man. The love — the love, the word that had not been spoken. The love — the thing behind "hamesha." The love, the kesar chai and the separate rooms and the hand on the hand and the pour and the wall and the ocean and the documentary and the applause.

"Harsh."

"Haan."

"Main ek aur chit likhna chahti hoon."

I want to write another chit.

"Abhi? Yahan? Mumbai mein?"

Now? Here? In Mumbai?

"Haan."

She took a page from the festival programme, the programme that listed the screenings and the Q&As and the jury and the special events. She tore the page. She wrote on the back. Wrote with the pen that she carried in her kurta pocket, the pen that was a Cello Gripper, blue, ₹10, the same pen that the deewar used.

She folded the chit. She gave it to Harsh.

"Deewar pe laga dena," she said.

"Padhoon?"

"Ghar jaake padh."

Read it at home.

He took the chit. He placed it in his kurta pocket: the pocket that usually held nothing (the chai-wallah's kurta pockets being empty because the chai-wallah's hands were always full: full of the mortar, the strainer, the patila, the glass). The pocket now holding: a folded chit. A wish. Her wish.

They left the screening room. They walked through the Films Division Complex, the complex that had hosted Indian cinema's conversations since 1948, the complex now hosting two people walking side by side through the February evening, the evening: warm (Mumbai's February, the February that Indore did not have: warm, humid, the Arabian Sea's breath on the city's skin).

They walked to the gate. They walked past the festival posters, the posters of the forty selected documentaries, the posters including one for ICHHA DEEWAR, the poster —: the pour. The eighteen-inch pour. The amber stream. The poster that Megha had designed on Canva (the free version, the free version, independent filmmaker's design tool) and that now hung on the Films Division's wall alongside the posters of filmmakers who had budgets and production houses and proper cameras.

They took a taxi. They took a taxi to the Indore-Mumbai Express, the train that would take them home, the home; Indore, the home, which was shop, the home, the gali, the home, the wall.

On the train, Harsh took the chit from his pocket. He took it out even though she had said "Read it at home." He took it out because the train was home, the train. Space betweenMumbai and Indore, the space that was neither Mumbai nor Indore but the between, the between, space where they had first touched hands, the between — their space.

He unfolded the chit. He read:

*Meri ichha yeh hai ki; main hamesha teri chai piyoon. Hamesha teri dukaan mein baithoon. Hamesha tere saath rahoon. Hamesha..

My wish is this. I always drink your chai. I always sit in your shop. I always stay with you. Always.

Harsh read the chit. He read it twice. He folded it. He placed it back in his kurta pocket.

He did not say anything. He did not need to. The saying was in the not-saying. The answer was in the pour. The pour that he would make tomorrow morning at 4:22 AM when the alarm did not ring and the body woke because the body knew, and the body would make the chai, and the chai would be the kesar wali, and the kesar wali would be placed on the table near the wall, and the table near the wall would have Megha sitting at it, and the sitting would be the answer.

Hamesha.

The train moved. The train moved through the night. Through the Deccan Plateau, through the dry browns and yellows, through the landscape that was not the ocean but that was the home. The home that was the plateau. The plateau — the city. The city: the gali. The gali, which was the shop. The shop, the counter. The counter: the man. The man, the pour. The pour, which was the chai. The chai: the listening. The listening, the wall. The wall: the wish.

Always.

The chai was correct.

The wish was granted.

---

Author's Note:

As of the writing of this novel, the Ichha Deewar continues to operate at Tomar Chai & Nashta, Gali Mithaiyon Ki, near Sarafa Bazaar, Indore. Harsh Tomar continues to pour chai from eighteen inches. Brajesh Tomar continues to sit in the chair by the window. The wall holds 647 wishes. 531 have been granted. The documentary ICHHA DEEWAR was selected for the Mumbai International Film Festival 2027 and received the Jury Special Mention in the Indian Documentary Competition. It was subsequently acquired by MUBI India for streaming and has been viewed 2.3 million times. Megha Joshi continues to work as a journalist at IBN Madhya Pradesh and as an independent documentary filmmaker. Santosh continues to run Stall #14 at Chappan Dukaan. He has seen the ocean once. He says once was enough.

The wall's address is: Tomar Chai & Nashta, Gali Mithaiyon Ki, near Sarafa Bazaar, Indore, Madhya Pradesh, 452002.

The chai costs ₹15.

The wishes are free.