Chapter 12: Pallavi

# Chapter 12: Pallavi

## The Discovery

The men don't know that I found it.

They don't know because I haven't told them. And I haven't told them because telling them would mean acknowledging what I found, and acknowledging what I found would mean that the thing I found is real, and the thing, real would mean that the model flat, the model flat that I have made into a home, the home that I have scrubbed and arranged and organised into the approximation of normal, is not what I think it is.

I found it three days ago. Tuesday: or what I think is Tuesday, the Tuesday: the day that I have assigned to this particular rotation of the sun because assigning days is the thing I do, the thing that keeps the week structured, the thing that says: Monday we wash clothes. Tuesday we inventory food. Wednesday Veer goes to D-Mart. Thursday Gauri checks the inverter battery. Friday we cook something different from dal-chawal. The structure, the scaffold that holds the sanity, the sanity that needs scaffolding because without scaffolding the sanity would collapse the way the roofless clubhouse collapsed: slowly, then all at once.

Tuesday. Inventory day. I was in the kitchen, the model flat's kitchen with the granite countertop and the Prestige stove and the steel utensils that the developer had placed for staging and that had become our utensils, our kitchen, our life. I was counting cans. The counting, the ritual, the ritual of a woman who needs to know: how many cans of rajma, how many cans of chole, how many tins of tuna, how many packets of Maggi, how many kilograms of rice, how many litres of water. The numbers, the numbers that keep us alive. The numbers, the mathematics of survival.

Fourteen cans of rajma. Eleven cans of chole. Six tins of tuna. Thirty-two packets of Maggi (the Maggi. The Indian survival food, the food that every Indian college student knew and that every Indian mother disapproved of and that was, in the new world, the food of the apocalypse: two minutes to make, three minutes to eat, the ease, which was ease that the end of the world required). Eight kilograms of rice. Twenty litres of water.

Enough for two weeks. Maybe three if we rationed. The rationing — the thing we had not yet done because the D-Mart was still stocked and the stocked-D-Mart meant that rationing was unnecessary and the unnecessary was the luxury that we enjoyed and that would not last forever because the D-Mart's stock was finite and the finite was the clock that ticked beneath every meal: this food will run out. Not today. Not next week. But someday.

I was reaching for the top shelf — the shelf above the Prestige stove, the shelf that the developer had installed too high for a woman of my height (five foot three, the five-foot-three, which was average height of anIndian woman and the average, the height that kitchen designers ignored because kitchen designers were men and men were taller and the taller designed for the taller and the shorter reached and stretched and stood on tiptoes). I was reaching for the top shelf to count the glucose biscuit packets when my hand touched something.

Not a packet. Not a tin. Not food.

Paper. Smooth paper. Folded.

I pulled it down. Stood flat on my feet. Looked at what I was holding.

An envelope. A white envelope: the white. White of office stationery, the white that was printed with a letterhead. The letterhead reading: Khandala Property Developers Pvt. Ltd., the developer. The developer whose office we had broken into. The developer whose key we had used. The developer who had built Sai Srushti Phase 2 and who had staged the model flat and who had placed the grey sofa and the wooden dining table and the artificial flowers in the decoration cabinet.

Inside the envelope: papers. Three sheets of paper, folded in thirds.

I unfolded them.

The first sheet: a floor plan. The model flat's floor plan, the floor plan that showed the rooms and the kitchen and the bathrooms and the staircase and the measurements that the developer had printed in red ink. I recognised the flat. Our flat. The flat I had cleaned and organised and made into a home.

But the floor plan showed something that the flat did not show. Something that the flat hid.

A room. A room that was not on the ground floor and not on the first floor but was. The floor plan's legend said: basement. A basement. Below the ground floor. Accessed by. The floor plan showed. A trapdoor in the utility area. The utility area being the small space behind the kitchen, the space where the washing machine would have gone if the washing machine had been installed, the space that I had used for storing the empty Bisleri drums and the broom and the mop.

A trapdoor. In the utility area. Leading to a basement.

The second sheet: a specification document. The basement's specifications. The specifications: 12 feet by 15 feet, concrete walls, ventilation duct to ground level, power supply (connected to the mains), plumbing (connected to the building's water line). The specification noting: "Safe room / storm shelter, standard inclusion in all premium model units, Khandala Property Developers Pvt. Ltd."

A safe room. Below the model flat. Below the utility area. Accessed by a trapdoor that I had not noticed because the trapdoor was beneath the empty Bisleri drums and the broom and the mop, the beneath, which was the concealment that the clutter provided: the clutter hiding the trapdoor the way routine hides grief, the way smiles hide fear, the way the model flat's surface hides the model flat's basement. I shifted the weight. The cutting shifted too.

The third sheet: an inventory list. The safe room's contents, the contents that the developer had placed in the safe room as part of the staging, the staging: show the buyer that the safe room is functional. Show the buyer that the safe room contains supplies. Show the buyer that the safe room is the reason to buy.

The inventory list: - 200 litres of water (packed in 20-litre drums) - 50 kg of rice (Kohinoor basmati, 5 kg bags) - 30 cans of assorted food (rajma, chole, tuna, corned mutton) - 10 packets of candles - 5 boxes of matches - 2 camping lanterns (battery-powered) - 1 first-aid kit (comprehensive) - 1 hand-crank radio - 2 blankets - 1 tool kit (hammer, screwdriver, wrench, pliers, knife)

Two hundred litres of water. Fifty kilograms of rice. Thirty cans of food. A first-aid kit. A radio, a hand-crank radio, the hand-crank being the power source that did not require electricity or batteries but required only the hand, the hand, the engine that the hand-crank radio used, the hand-crank that was technology that survived everything because the hand survived everything.

I stood in the kitchen. Holding the three sheets of paper. The papers shaking in my hands, the shaking (same shaking that accompanied every disco v)ery in the new world: the shaking of *this changes things.

I did not tell Veer. I did not tell Gauri.

I did not tell them because, because I wanted to check first. I wanted to see the trapdoor. I wanted to confirm that the floor plan was accurate and the safe room existed and the inventory was real. I wanted to know before I told them because knowing first was the power that I needed, the power of being the one who discovers, the one who confirms, the one who says: I found something. Follow me.

The power, the thing that Pallavi; the thing that I: have not had in the new world. The power has been Veer's. Veer explores. Veer maps. Veer finds the D-Mart and the hardware store and the bicycle and the medical supplies. Veer is the explorer. I am the home-maker. The home-maker being the one who stays, the one who cooks, the one who feeds the baby and cleans the kitchen and counts the cans. The home-maker being the necessary role and the powerless role, the powerless: I do not discover. I do not find. I do not map. I maintain. I sustain. I hold.

But this — this I found. This is mine. This discovery — the envelope on the top shelf, the floor plan, the safe room, the inventory, this is Pallavi's discovery. And the discovery is the power.

---

I check the utility area that afternoon. Veer is out on the bicycle with Bholu. Gauri is in the second bedroom, working on the inverter. Kiaan is asleep in the master bedroom. I leaned harder. The roughness grounded me.

I move the empty Bisleri drums. I move them one by one, the drums: heavy even when empty because the drums are the 20-litre drums, the drums, the large containers that the water delivery man used to bring to middle-class flats in the before-times, the delivery man who came on Tuesday and Thursday and who carried the drum on his shoulder up three flights of stairs and who was paid ₹40 per delivery and the ₹40 being the price of water in a city where the taps ran dry in April.

I move the broom. I move the mop. I move the bucket.

And there it is.

The trapdoor. A metal trapdoor — the metal — steel, the steel — painted the same grey as the utility area's floor, the grey-on-grey that was camouflage that hid the trapdoor from casual observation. A handle, a recessed handle, the recessed, design that allowed the trapdoor to sit flush with the floor, the flush, reasonI had not noticed: the trapdoor was the floor. The floor was the trapdoor. The distinction invisible unless you knew to look.

I pull the handle. The trapdoor lifts, lifts with the resistance of steel on steel, the resistance, which was the weight and the friction and the fact that the trapdoor has not been opened since the developer's staging crew installed it.

Below: stairs. Concrete stairs descending into darkness, the darkness: total, the total — the basement's natural state: no windows, no light, the only light being whatever enters through the open trapdoor and the trapdoor's opening being the rectangle of kitchen light that falls on the first three steps and illuminates nothing beyond.

I retrieve the camping lantern from the kitchen. Click it on. Point it down the stairs.

The stairs are steep. Eight steps. At the bottom: a concrete floor. Smooth, clean, the clean — the sealed cleanliness of a space that has never been used. The sealed-clean that basements have when they are built and stocked and closed and forgotten.

I descend. Each step producing a hollow sound, the sound of my chappals on concrete in a space that amplifies because the space is small and enclosed and the enclosed amplifies the way a bathroom amplifies singing: the acoustics of containment.

At the bottom: the safe room. The safe room being exactly as the floor plan described: 12 feet by 15 feet, concrete walls, a ventilation duct (I can feel the air from the duct, the air, which was warm April air, the April air being the proof that the duct connects to the outside and that the outside's air enters and the entering means: breathable. The safe room is breathable).

And the inventory. The inventory — exactly as the list described: I scan the lantern across the room and see:

The water drums; ten drums, 20 litres each, 200 litres total. The rice bags; ten bags, 5 kg each, 50 kg total. The canned food; stacked in three columns on a steel shelf, the shelf, kind of steel shelf thatkirana shops used, the kirana shelf being the universal Indian storage solution: three tiers of steel, adjustable height, the shelf that held everything from dal to atta to cooking oil.

The camping lanterns: two, still in their boxes. The first-aid kit. A red box with the white cross, the white cross being the universal symbol of help is here. The tool kit. The blankets. The matches. The candles.

And the radio. The hand-crank radio, sitting on the top shelf, in its box, the box saying Kaito KA500 in English, the Kaito: a brand I have never heard of but that the developer had chosen because the developer had chosen well: the Kaito KA500 being a hand-crank emergency radio that received AM, FM, and shortwave, the shortwave, the frequency that emergency broadcasts used, the frequency that governments used when the internet failed and the phone networks failed and the television failed and the only thing that remained was the oldest broadcast technology: radio waves.

A radio. A radio that might, might, receive something. Might receive a signal. Might receive a voice. Might receive the proof that somewhere, beyond Pune, beyond Maharashtra, beyond the dead city and the dead state and the dead country; someone is broadcasting. Someone is alive. Someone is saying: we are here.

I hold the radio. I hold the Kaito KA500 in both hands. The radio: heavy, the weight of a device that contains the possibility of connection, the possibility of hearing another human voice that is not Veer's and not Gauri's and not Kiaan's cry but a stranger's voice, a government's voice, a voice that says: there is a plan. There is a rescue. There is a future.

I do not open the box. Not yet. Not alone.

I climb back up the stairs. I close the trapdoor. I replace the Bisleri drums and the broom and the mop and the bucket.

And I wait.

I wait for the evening, when Veer and Gauri and Bholu return. When Kiaan wakes. When the family is together.

Then I will show them.

Then I will be the one who says: follow me. I found something.

The power, mine.