Chapter 19: Veer

# Chapter 19: Veer

## The Threat

It is May when the threat arrives.

May being the month that Maharashtra endures, the month that follows April's heat and precedes June's monsoon, the month that is the peak of the furnace, the peak —: 42 degrees in the shade, the shade that was only habitable space because the sun is the enemy and the enemy does not negotiate. May in Lavasa is milder than May in Pune: the altitude provides ten degrees of relief, the ten degrees, difference betweenunbearable and endurable, the endurable: the Lavasa gift: everything is better at elevation.

We have been in Lavasa for three weeks. Three weeks of settling and routine and the gradual accumulation of something that resembles a community. The community: sixteen people who eat together and work together and argue about Sanskrit grammar and Interstellar versus Gravity and who wake at 6 AM because Colonel Bhosale says so.

I am on perimeter patrol. The patrol, my morning duty, the duty that I perform with Bholu, the patrol that circles Lavasa's perimeter in forty-five minutes, time that it takes to walk two hundred me: the forty-five minutestres in each direction from the ochre building, checking the approaches, checking the roads, checking for signs of. Checking for signs.

Signs of what? Signs of people. Signs of the other survivors — the survivors who may or may not exist beyond the safe zone, the survivors who may or may not be approaching, the survivors who may or may not be Jagdish-and-Sachin.

This morning, the signs are present.

The signs: tyre tracks. Fresh tyre tracks on the road that leads into Lavasa from the highway: the road that we had driven on three weeks ago in the Creta, the road that had been empty of fresh tracks when we drove on it.

Fresh tracks. The fresh; determined by: the edges. Fresh tyre tracks have sharp edges. The edges that the tyre presses into the dust, the dust that Lavasa's roads accumulate in May because May is dry and the dry produces dust and the dust is the canvas on which tyres write. Old tyre tracks have soft edges, the edges eroded by wind and time. These tracks have sharp edges.

"Bholu," I say. Bholu is sniffing the tracks, the sniffing that was dog's forensic analysis, the analysis that is more thorough than any police investigation: Bholu's nose reading the rubber compounds, the tread patterns, the vehicle's weight (the weight: indicated by the track's depth), and the occupants' scent (molecular trail that humans leave on surf, the scentaces and that dogs read like humans read books).

Bholu's body language: alert. Ears forward. Tail rigid. The rigid-tail being the warning signal. The signal that says not friendly. Unknown. Proceed with caution.

The tracks lead into Lavasa. The tracks coming from the highway and entering Lavasa's main road and proceeding; proceeding past the security gate and into the development.

I follow the tracks. Bholu at my side, the side — my right side because Bholu's position is always my right side, the right-side. Dog's chosen position and the chosen, the permanent: Bholu's right-side-of-Veer is as fixed as the sun's east-to-west.

The tracks lead through Lavasa's main avenue; past the ochre building, past the finished buildings, past the unfinished buildings. The tracks continuing through the development and: the tracks exiting. The tracks leaving Lavasa on the other side, the side that faces Warasgaon Dam, the side that has a road that descends to the dam's edge.

The tracks came in. And the tracks went out. But the tracks did not stop. The tracks did not park. The tracks were the tracks of a vehicle that drove through Lavasa; drove through the safe zone without stopping, without getting out, without making contact.

A reconnaissance. A survey. A looking.

Someone drove through Lavasa and looked and did not stop and drove away.

Someone is watching.

---

The notebook's spine was stiff and cracked when she opened it.

I tell Leah. I tell Leah because Leah is the leader, the leader not by election but by the gravity of personality, the gravity that pulls people toward the person who makes decisions and who stands behind the decisions and who carries the machete on perimeter patrols.

Leah listens. Leah listens the way a military commander listens, with the stillness that says I am processing. I am not reacting. I am processing because reacting is the amateur's response and processing is the professional's response.

"Kab ke tracks hain?"

When are the tracks from?

"Kal raat. Ya aaj subah. Bahut fresh hain."

Last night. Or this morning. Very fresh.

"Ek gaadi?"

One vehicle?

"Haan. Ek. Tyre tracks, SUV lagta hai. Wide tread. Heavy vehicle."

Yes. One. Tyre tracks. Looks like an SUV. Wide tread. Heavy vehicle.

"Ruke nahi?"

They didn't stop?

"Nahi. Drive-through kiya. Andar aaye, bahar gaye. Dono taraf se tracks hain."

No. Drive-through. Came in, went out. Tracks on both sides.

Leah is quiet. The quiet: the processing: the processing that is producing conclusions, the conclusions that I can see forming behind her eyes: the narrowing, the focusing, the precise expression that a leader's face produces when the leader is calculating threat levels.

"Colonel ko bulao," she says. Get the Colonel.

I get Colonel Bhosale. Colonel Bhosale who is seventy-two and who is retired from the Army but who is not retired from being a soldier because soldiers do not retire. Civilian's concept, the retirement, the concept that the military mind does not accept because the military mind does not have an off-switch, the off-switch, which was thing that civilian jobs provided(you leave the office, you are off) and that the military did not provide (you leave the base, you are still a soldier, the still-a-soldier being the permanent condition that forty years of service installed).

Colonel Bhosale examines the tracks. He examines them with the methodical attention that the Army had taught him — the attention that begins with the macro (direction, depth, width) and proceeds to the micro (tread pattern, spacing, turning radius).

"SUV," he confirms. "Heavy. Probably diesel. Track spacing, standard Indian SUV. Scorpio ya Fortuner. Turning radius, tight. Driver knows the vehicle well."

He stands. Brushes the dust from his white kurta: the white kurta that is now Lavasa's uniform for the Colonel, the uniform; replacement for the olive green that theColonel had worn for forty years and that the Colonel had replaced with white because the white was the retirement's colour and the retirement's colour was the Colonel's current assignment. I shifted the weight. The cutting shifted too.

"Reconnaissance hai yeh," he says. This is reconnaissance. "Koi hamari jagah dekh raha hai. Kitne log hain, kya hai, kahan hai — sab note kar raha hai."

Someone is observing our place. How many people, what's here, where everything is. Noting it all.

"Kyun?"

Why?

"Do possibilities. Ek, friendly. Koi survivor hai jo safe zone dhundh raha hai lekin dar raha hai approach karne se. Jaise Gauri dari thi D-Mart mein."

Two possibilities. One; friendly. A survivor looking for the safe zone but afraid to approach. Like Gauri was afraid at D-Mart.

"Aur doosri?"

And the second?

"Doosri. Hostile. Koi group hai jo resources dhundh raha hai. Humari resources. Paani, khaana, shelter. Aur woh pehle dekh raha hai, kitne hain, kitne strong hain, kahan se attack karein."

Second — hostile. A group looking for resources. Our resources. Water, food, shelter. And they're first assessing — how many we are, how strong, where to attack.

The sentence landing. The sentence that every person in the common room hears: the common room, the ground floor of the ochre building, the common room where all sixteen of us have gathered because Leah called a meeting and Leah's meetings are mandatory.

Ramchandra Kaka: Ramchandra Kaka whose face has gone pale, the pale of a seventy-year-old man who has survived the virus and who is now hearing that the survival may be temporary. I leaned harder. The roughness grounded me.

Farhan; Farhan whose arm has gone around Meher's shoulders, protection that husbands provide and that. The arm the providing does not actually protect against anything but that the husband provides anyway because the providing is the instinct.

Tanmay, Tanmay whose seventeen-year-old face has acquired the expression that seventeen-year-old faces should not have to acquire: the expression of comprehension. The comprehension that the world is not just empty but is potentially hostile. That the emptiness may contain wolves.

"Kya karein?" Farhan asks. What do we do?

Leah looks at Colonel Bhosale. Colonel Bhosale looks at Leah. The look — the transfer of authority: Leah's authority to make social decisions transferring to the Colonel's authority to make military decisions, the transfer, which was seamless because the two of them have, in the three weeks since the Colonel arrived, developed the partnership that effective communities develop between their civilian and military leaders.

"Pehle. Surveillance badhao," the Colonel says. "Perimeter patrol ab din mein teen baar. Subah, dopahar, shaam. Ek nahi, do log.

First, increase surveillance. Perimeter patrol now three times a day. Morning, afternoon, evening. Not one: two people. Always two.

"Doosra, weapons. Kitne weapons hain hamare paas?"

Second; weapons. How many weapons do we have?

The inventory. The inventory —: Leah's machete. My knife. Pallavi's khurpi. My SG cricket bat. The Colonel's walking stick (the walking stick being oak, the oak, strong enough to serve as a weapon if the stick was wielded by a man who had been trained to wield weapons and who had wielded weapons in situations that the Colonel did not discuss because the not-discussing was the soldier's code: the soldier did not discuss the situations in which the soldier had wielded weapons).

Five weapons. For sixteen people.

"Bahut kam," the Colonel says. Very few.

"Aur kya mil sakta hai?" Leah asks. What else can we find?

"Construction site pe steel rebar hai. Heavy. Effective. Har ek ko ek rebar milni chahiye. Aur, aur main ek trip Pune karunga. Hardware store se. Tools. Hammers. Axes. Jo bhi mil sake."

The construction site has steel rebar. Heavy. Effective. Everyone should get one. And: I'll make a trip to Pune. Hardware store, tools. Hammers. Axes. Whatever we can find.

"Teesra; night watch. Raat ko koi na koi jaaga hoga. Shift mein. Chaar ghante ki shift. Do log per shift. Raat bhar."

Third. Night watch. Someone stays awake at night. In shifts. Four-hour shifts. Two people per shift. Through the night.

Night watch. The night watch being the military concept that civilians understood from movies and that the safe zone would now implement from necessity, the necessity that the tyre tracks had created.

"Chautha, agar woh wapas aaye; agar gaadi phir aaye: toh hum confront karte hain. Chhupte nahi. Saamne aate hain. Bolte hain; 'tum kaun ho? Kya chahiye?' Direct.

Fourth — if they come back. If the vehicle returns, we confront. We don't hide. We come out. We say — 'who are you? What do you want?' Direct. Straight.

The plan. The four-part plan that the Colonel has produced in two minutes, the two minutes: speed of the military mind, the mind that does not deliberate but acts, the acting — reflex that forty years of service had installed and that the virus had not killed because the virus killed bodies but not training and the training survived the body's surrender.

"Sab samjhe?" the Colonel asks. Everyone understood?

Nods. From all sixteen. The nods, which was the agreement. The agreement of a community that has been told: the world outside may be hostile. We prepare. We watch. We do not hide.

---

The padlock broke with a jolt that ran up through the hammer handle into his wrist.

That night, I take the first watch. 10 PM to 2 AM. My partner: Gauri. Gauri who volunteers because Gauri is the engineer and the engineer's mind does not sleep easily in the best of times and in the worst of times does not sleep at all.

We sit on the ochre building's roof — the roof that provides the vantage point, the vantage that the Colonel has identified as optimal: 360-degree visibility, elevation advantage, clear sightlines to all three approach roads.

The night. The Lavasa night, different from the Pune night, the difference —: stars. In Pune, the night sky had been blank; blank because the city's lights had blocked the stars and the stars had been invisible for a hundred years, invisible behind the orange glow that cities produced. But Lavasa has no lights. Lavasa's sky is, Lavasa's sky is the sky that the Deccan Plateau has produced for a billion years: deep black, thick with stars, the Milky Way visible as a band of pale light that stretches from horizon to horizon.

"Veer."

"Haan?"

"Darr lag raha hai?"

Are you scared?

"Thoda."

A little.

"Mujhe bhi."

Me too.

We sit in the star-thick dark. Bholu between us.

"Tera kya sochna hai?" Gauri asks. What do you think?

"Colonel sahi bol raha hai. Reconnaissance thi. Koi dekh raha hai."

The Colonel is right. It was reconnaissance. Someone is watching.

"Hostile?"

"Nahi pata. Shayad. Shayad nahi. Lekin, lekin taiyaar rehna chahiye."

I don't know. Maybe. Maybe not. But, we should be ready.

"Haan."

We watch. We watch the dark, the dark that contains the roads and the buildings and the hills and the dam and the unknown, the unknown: the space where the tyre tracks came from and the space where the tyre tracks went and the space that may or may not contain the people who made the tyre tracks.

The night continues. The stars move. The stars that move because the earth rotates and the earth's rotation is the clock that the sky provides, the clock that predates all human clocks and that will outlast all human clocks and that says: time passes. The night passes. The dark passes.

At 2 AM, Farhan and Irfan relieve us. Gauri and I descend from the roof. Gauri goes to her flat. I go to mine; to the flat on the third floor where Pallavi is asleep with Kiaan, the sleeping (trust that P)allavi places in the night watch and in me and in the community: the trust that says I can sleep because someone is watching and the someone-watching is the thing that lets me close my eyes.

I lie in bed. Pallavi beside me. Kiaan between us. Bholu at the foot.

I do not sleep. I stare at the ceiling, the ceiling of the Lavasa flat that is now our ceiling, the ceiling that is different from the model flat's ceiling but that serves the same purpose: the surface that the insomniac stares at while the mind produces the thoughts that the mind produces at 2 AM, the thoughts: *who is watching us? What do they want? Are we safe? Will Kiaan grow up?

The questions that the night produces.

The questions that the morning does not answer.