Chapter 6: Veer

# Chapter 6: Veer

## The Eyes Beyond the Wall

It's the following week that everything changes. That we are wrenched out of our insularity in an instant.

Bholu and I are at D-Mart. The D-Mart being the D-Mart on Baner Road. The D-Mart that I have visited fifteen times in four weeks, the fifteen, frequency of a man who uses grocery runsthe way other men use meditation: as the excuse to leave the house, to move through the world, to feel the body doing something purposeful in a purposeless world.

The D-Mart is the familiar scene. The empty parking lot, a hundred parking spaces, four cars parked in four spaces, cars that were parked when the virus came, the four cars and that would remain parked until the tyres deflated and the paint faded and the bodies rusted and the parking lot reclaimed the cars the way the earth reclaimed everything that humans abandoned.

I leave the bicycle by the entrance: the entrance that had been the entrance once and that was now the entrance that I had propped open with a concrete block because the automatic doors no longer worked (the automatic requiring electricity and the electricity: thing that had failed onDay 12 and that would not return).

Bholu trots beside me. Bholu who trots everywhere beside me, the trotting: recovered dog's gait: steady, rhythmic, the gait of a dog who has eaten Royal Canin for three weeks and who has regained the weight that starvation had taken. His coat is fuller: the dull brown now a warm chocolate, the chocolate: the colour that Bholu was meant to be and that starvation had muted.

Inside the D-Mart, the familiar scene continues. The smell. The smell that I have learned to navigate, the smell, the decomposition of the fresh produce section: the bananas that were now black sludge, the tomatoes that were now brown liquid, the lettuce that was now a green-grey mush crawling with flies. The flies, the D-Mart's permanent residents, the residents that had inherited the fresh produce section the way the crows had inherited the city: by being alive when everyone else died.

I avoid the fresh produce. I head for the canned goods, the aisle that I know by heart: aisle 7, left side, bottom shelf. The canned goods being our diet: rajma, chole, tuna, corned mutton (the corned mutton: occasional treat, the treat that Pallavi and I shared on Sunday evenings as a ritual, new normal's version of eating out, the ritual: instead of going to a restaurant, we opened a can of corned mutton and pretended it was fine dining).

I am in the pet food aisle — aisle 9; selecting Bholu's Royal Canin (the Royal Canin being the premium brand, the premium that we chose because, as Pallavi had said, "it's not like we're paying, na") when it happens. I shifted the weight. The cutting shifted too.

In the silent, open D-Mart, the sound is tremendous. A crash: the crash of something falling from a shelf, the sound rebounding along the aisle like a tabla's theka in an empty hall.

I flinch. The flinch — involuntary. The body's response to unexpected sound in a world where sound was rare and the rare was alarming.

I look to my left. To the source of the sound.

Several bottles of Thums Up, the big 2-litre bottles: rolling across the floor. Rolling from the beverage aisle toward the checkout area. Rolling as if pushed. Rolling as if someone had been standing at the beverage shelf and had knocked the bottles and the knocking had sent them cascading.

My heart stops. My breath catches.

What knocked them over?

Bholu's ears are forward. His tail is rigid, the rigid that was dog's alert posture, the posture that said *I sense something. Something is here.

I drop the dog food. Sprint down the aisle: my chappals slapping the floor, the sound echoing in the D-Mart's cavernous space, the space that was designed for a thousand shoppers and that now contained one shopper and one dog.

At the end of aisle 9, I come to an abrupt halt. The Thums Up bottles are scattered across the floor. Eight or ten bottles, some still rolling, the rolling, the aftermath of the collision that had sentthem from the shelf.

I look along the thoroughfare, the wide central aisle that connected all the numbered aisles. I see nobody.

Unless they saw me. And chose to run.

But why? Why would they run?

Rather than answer, I sprint for the entrance, the propped-open entrance, the entrance that leads to the parking lot. Maybe, if I'm fast enough, I can catch them. Maybe I can call out. I leaned harder. The roughness grounded me.

I leap past the concrete block and out into the parking lot. Bholu is behind me, his nails clicking on the floor, sound of a dog who is matching his human' — the clickings urgency.

Outside. The April sun. The empty parking lot. The four cars in the four spaces.

Nobody.

I stand there, panting. Bholu beside me, his nose working. The nose, the dog's instrument, the instrument that could detect what the human eye could not: scent. The scent of a person. The scent of someone who had been here moments ago and who was now gone.

Bholu's nose is working hard, the nostrils flaring, the head moving left, right, down, the down, which was ground-level scent that dogs tracked: the scent that feet left on surfaces, the scent trail that was invisible to humans and visible (olfactorily visible) to dogs.

He pulls toward the left. Toward the D-Mart's side, the side that faced a row of shuttered shops. He pulls with the insistence of a dog who has found something, the something, a scent trail, the trail of a person who had walked this way moments ago.

I follow Bholu. He leads me around the D-Mart's side. Past the shuttered shops, the shops: a chemist, a mobile phone store, a namkeen shop, a tailoring shop, the shops that had been the D-Mart's commercial neighbours and that were now shuttered and silent and would remain shuttered and silent.

At the back of the D-Mart: nothing. The back: the service area, the area where delivery trucks had once reversed and unloaded and where the D-Mart's dumpsters sat, the dumpsters now overflowing because the garbage trucks had stopped coming on Day 3 and the stopping had meant that the garbage accumulated and the accumulation was the new normal: garbage everywhere, forever.

Bholu sniffs the dumpster area. His tail wagging, not the excited wag of a dog who has found the thing but the uncertain wag of a dog who has lost the trail, the trail having dissolved in the smell of garbage, the garbage's smell overwhelming the person's smell the way a loudspeaker overwhelms a whisper.

Nobody. Whoever knocked those bottles — whoever was in the D-Mart when I was in the D-Mart: is gone.

I stand behind the D-Mart. Panting. Bholu sniffing. The April sun beating down on the service area.

And for the first time in four weeks, I feel something other than grief.

I feel — watched.

The feeling that someone was in the D-Mart. The feeling that someone knocked those bottles. The feeling that someone was there and saw me and chose to leave rather than be seen.

The feeling that in this dead city: in this Pune that should contain three million people and that contained, as far as I knew, only three-and-a-half; there is someone else.

Someone who is watching.

---

Kiaan's weight against his chest was warm and small, the baby's body radiating heat through the cotton carrier.

I tell Pallavi. I tell her the moment I return to the model flat, return with the dog food and the canned goods and the Thums Up bottles that I had picked up from the floor (waste not, want not, the waste-not being the Indian survival instinct that my mother had instilled: pick up what falls, use what's available, the available, which was resource that the resourceful used).

"Koi tha D-Mart mein," I say. Someone was in D-Mart.

She is sitting on the sofa, Kiaan in her lap, Kiaan playing with a rattle. The rattle, which was a plastic rattle that we had found in the baby section of D-Mart, the rattle, which was Kiaan's current obsession: he shakes it, puts it in his mouth, shakes it again, the shaking-and-mouthing that was activity of a two-month-old whose world is the rattle and the rattle is the world.

"Kya matlab?"

What do you mean?

"D-Mart mein, jab main dog food le raha tha — Thums Up ki bottles gireen. Apne aap nahi gireen. Kisi ne girayi. Shelf se. Aur jab main dekhne gaya: koi nahi tha. Lekin Bholu; Bholu ne smell pakda. Kisi ka smell. Peeche le gaya mujhe. Service area tak.

In D-Mart — when I was getting dog food; Thums Up bottles fell. They didn't fall on their own. Someone knocked them. Off the shelf. And when I went to check. Nobody was there. But Bholu; Bholu caught a scent. Someone's scent. Led me to the back. Service area. But nothing there.

She stares at me. The stare — the stare of a woman who is processing information. The information that was: someone else is alive in Pune. The processing being: hope and fear simultaneously, the simultaneously (emotional state that the new world produc e)d: every piece of information was both hopeful and terrifying because the hopeful (someone is alive) and the terrifying (who are they? what do they want? are they Jagdish-and-Sachin or are they us?) were inseparable.

"Sure hai? Bottles apne aap bhi gir sakti hain. Shelf unstable ho sakta hai. Vibration:"

Are you sure? Bottles can fall on their own. Shelf could be unstable.

"Nahi. Apne aap nahi gireen. Ek saath gireen. Ek line mein. Jaise kisi ne haath maara."

No. They didn't fall on their own. They fell together. In a line. Like someone pushed them.

"Aur Bholu?"

"Bholu ne scent pakda. Definitely. Uski body language: alert tha. Rigid tha. Jaise kisi ko sense kiya. Peeche le gaya. Service area tak follow kiya."

Bholu caught a scent. Definitely. His body language; alert. Rigid. Like he sensed someone. Led me to the back. Followed to the service area.

She is quiet for a moment. Kiaan shakes the rattle. The rattle's sound filling the emptiness, the silence that our conversation has created, the silence of two people who are confronting the possibility that they are not alone.

"Toh; toh kya karein?"

So; what do we do?

"Nahi pata. Shayad, shayad kal phir jaunga. Dekhta hoon ki koi aata hai."

I don't know. Maybe — maybe I'll go again tomorrow. See if anyone shows up.

"Akele? Veer, agar woh, agar woh Jagdish-Sachin jaisa hua toh?"

Alone? Veer, what if: what if they're like Jagdish and Sachin?

The question. The question that contains the fear. The fear that the new world has installed in Pallavi's body the way an operating system installs itself on a computer: permanently, fundamentally, running in the background at all times. The fear of other people. The fear that the survivors are not allies but threats. The fear that the new world's humans are the new world's dangers.

"Nahi. Nahi aisa nahi hoga. Bholu mere saath tha. Agar woh khatarnaak hota, Bholu react karta. Bholu ne. Bholu ne bas sniff kiya. Growl nahi kiya."

No. It won't be like that. Bholu was with me. If they were dangerous. Bholu would have reacted. Bholu just. Bholu just sniffed. Didn't growl.

"Kutte ka judgment trust kar raha hai?"

You're trusting a dog's judgment?

"Haan. Ab tak Bholu ka judgment tera aur mera dono se achha raha hai."

Yes. So far Bholu's judgment has been better than both yours and mine.

She considers this. She considers this because it is true: Bholu's instincts had been right about everything so far: Bholu had been right about the model flat (he had walked in and immediately settled on the kitchen floor, the settling (dog's endorsement): this place is safe), Bholu had been right about the neighbourhood (he pulled away from certain streets and toward others, the pulling, the dog's navigation, the navigation that avoided the houses where the smell of death was strongest and led toward the houses where the smell of death was weakest).

"Theek hai," she says. "Kal jao. Lekin, lekin sambhal ke."

Okay. Go tomorrow. But — be careful.

"Hamesha."

Always.

I look at her. I look at Kiaan shaking the rattle. I look at Bholu, who has settled at my feet after the D-Mart excursion, his body pressed against my ankles, the pressing: dog's comfort-seeking: after an exciting outing, the dog seeks the human's proximity, comfort that the dog has learned to assoc. The proximityiate with safety.

Someone is in Pune. Someone besides us.

Someone who was in D-Mart. Someone who knocked those bottles. Someone who saw me and chose to run.

Someone who is watching.

The question is: why?

Why watch? Why not approach? Why knock bottles and then flee? Why be seen and then not be seen?

The answer is the answer that the new world provides for every question: because the new world is not the old world. In the old world, you approach strangers. In the new world, you watch strangers. In the old world, trust is the default. In the new world, fear is the default. In the old world, humans are social. In the new world, humans are prey.

The watcher is afraid of us.

And we are afraid of the watcher.

And the fear is the thing that keeps us apart.

For now.