Chapter 5: Jai Ka Paigaam

## Chapter 5: Jai Ka Paigaam

VIVEK

Days acquire a rhythm. Not the rhythm of a life. The rhythm of a machine. Wake. Bell. Dalia. Farm. Potatoes. Break. More farm. Dinner. Tent. Dark. Engines. Sleep. Repeat.

Chaya settles into the camp the way water settles into a vessel, she takes its shape without becoming it. She's assigned to the kitchen. Chandni's decision, not hers; and spends her days helping to cook the meals that feed forty-seven people (I've counted, finally, on the seventh day, during dinner, going bench by bench, face by face, including the guards who eat separately, near the house, in shifts).

Forty-seven. Plus however many live in the house. Plus however many drive the vehicles that come and go in the night.

Chaya is good in the kitchen. She was good before the virus, her dal was the first home-cooked food I ate in Goa, the night she let me into the Candolim house, the night we became an unit of two, and she's good now, working alongside two older women named Pushpa and Savita who have been cooking for the camp since its beginning and who treat the kitchen the way Bharat treats the farm: as a domain, a territory, a place where their authority is absolute and unquestioned.

Dhruv stays with Chaya during the day, strapped to her back in a makeshift carrier that Karen sewed from salvaged fabric. He sleeps, mostly. Wakes to feed. Cries when he's wet. The rhythms of a baby, mercifully unchanged by the apocalypse. Babies don't know the world has ended. Babies know milk, warmth, and the heartbeat against which they sleep. Everything else is adult business.

Bholu splits his time between me and Kabir. The boy has adopted the dog, or the dog has adopted the boy — and their partnership, formed without words, is the purest relationship in the camp. Kabir throws sticks. Bholu fetches them. Kabir reads aloud from his Goosebumps books. Bholu listens with the specific intensity of a dog who has decided that this child is his responsibility. When Kabir naps in the afternoon, Bholu lies outside his tent, ears pricked, guarding.

"Woh aaj bhi Kabir ke saath hai?" I ask Esha one morning, as we muck out the stables. The dawn smelled of wet earth and the faint sweetness of neem flowers opening. "Haan. Kal se woh tent ke bahar soya." She smiles: a real smile, not the cautious half-smiles she gives in camp. The stables are the only place she smiles fully, as though the absence of cameras gives her face permission to do what it wants.

"Accha hai. Kabir ko dost chahiye."

"Hum sabko chahiye."

She says it simply. Without weight. But the truth of it lands on me with the force of a thing I've been trying not to think about.

---

It happens on the ninth night.

Curfew has passed. The bell rang an hour ago. The single, flat note that means go to your tents, stay in your tents, do not come out until the morning bell. Chaya is asleep, her breathing the slow, even rhythm that I've learned to read in the dark. Dhruv is in his cot, still, the deep stillness of a baby who has exhausted himself by existing, his skin warm against the thin mattress. Bholu is at my feet, a warm comma of fur.

I am awake. As I am every night. Listening to the engines.

They start at roughly the same time, an hour after curfew, give or take. First one engine, then another. The sound comes from the direction of the house, travels along the road that leads away from the estate, and fades into the distance. Then, later, the return; engines approaching, stopping, doors opening and closing, the muffled sounds of cargo being loaded or unloaded.

Tonight, I'm counting. Three vehicles outbound. A gap of maybe forty minutes. Then three vehicles returning. The gap is consistent. I've timed it across multiple nights using my heartbeat as a clock (sixty-eight beats per minute, resting, confirmed by counting against the cot's rhythmic creak, which occurs at approximately four-second intervals when I shift my weight).

Forty minutes. At an average speed of — what? Forty kilometres per hour on an unpaved Goan road? That's a round trip of roughly twenty-six kilometres. Thirteen there, thirteen back.

Thirteen kilometres from here. In any direction. What's thirteen kilometres from a colonial estate in rural Goa?

Villages. Other estates. The coast, maybe. A highway.

What are they transporting? And why at night?

I'm turning these calculations over in my mind when I hear it.

Not an engine. Not the bell. Something much closer. a sound that doesn't belong to the night's usual catalogue. The evening air was layered with the smell of incense from the neighbour’s puja and the distant, greasy warmth of street food being fried. A whisper. Outside my tent.

"Vivek."

My body goes rigid. Bholu's head lifts from his paws, his ears rotating like satellite dishes.

"Vivek. Bahar aa."

I know the voice. I've been waiting for it for nine days. Jai.

I don't move. Because the voice is outside my tent, which means Jai is outside his tent, which means Jai is breaking curfew, which means, if the guards see him, if the cameras catch him: he's dead. And if I go out to meet him, so am I.

"Guards nahi hain," the whisper continues, reading my hesitation. "Raat ko gaadiyaan jaati hain na? Jab gaadiyaan jaati hain, guards ghar ke andar jaate hain. Loading ke liye. Das minute milte hain. Chal; abhi."

Ten minutes. The window when the guards are inside the house, helping with whatever the vehicles carry. Jai has timed it. He's been watching the pattern, the same way I've been listening to it.

I make a decision. The decision is instant and irrational and based on nothing more than the fact that I have been lying in this tent for nine nights, listening to engines, counting heartbeats, and I cannot lie here for one more night without doing something.

I touch Bholu's head. "Ruk," I whisper. "Yahan ruk." He looks at me with his round eyes: someone who knows his person is about to do something stupid and is resigned to it.

I unzip the tent. Slowly, centimetre by centimetre, the sound of the zip impossibly loud in the heavy stillness. The night air hits me; warm, humid, carrying the smell of laterite and jasmine, the jasmine that grows wild along the estate's walls and that fills the Goan night with a sweetness that is entirely indifferent to the horrors occurring beneath it.

Jai is crouched outside. He's wearing dark clothes, a black t-shirt, dark trousers — and his face is difficult to see in the moonless night. But his eyes catch what little light there is, and they are sharp and urgent.

"Idhar aao," he hisses. "Route hai — cameras se bachne ka."

He moves. I follow. He leads me through the camp on a path that I would never have discovered on my own: between two tents that are angled to create a blind spot, along the back of the kitchen hut where a stack of water containers blocks the camera's view, then through a gap in the fence that borders the vegetable patch, into the field, keeping low, following the furrows between the potato rows.

I realise, as I follow him, that he's not guessing. He's mapped every camera angle, every guard position, every blind spot. This is not a spontaneous act, this is the product of weeks of observation, the kind of careful, patient surveillance that requires a particular combination of intelligence and obsession.

We reach the stables. The place where there are no cameras, the blind spot that Esha mentioned on my first day. Jai leads me around the back, where the cold stone wall meets the slope of the hill, creating a pocket of shadow that is invisible from every angle.

He stops. Turns. Looks at me.

"Baith."

I sit. the cold stone wall is cold against my back. The ground is damp. From here, I can see the house, the white facade, softly lit by what appears to be generator-powered lighting: and the road that leads away from it, currently empty.

"Kitna waqt hai?" I ask.

"Saat-aath minute. Jab gaadiyaan wapas aayengi, guards bahar aa jayenge. Tab se pehle tent mein wapas hona hai."

Seven or eight minutes. To say whatever needs to be said. To hear whatever Jai has been waiting nine days to tell me.

"Bolo," I say.

Jai looks at me. In the darkness, his face is all angles. The sharp jaw, the high cheekbones, the eyes that hold more information than his words can carry.

"Main yahan chaar hafte se hoon," he says. "Mujhe bhi waise hi laaye jaise tujhe laaye. Taser nahi. Mere saath thoda alag hua. Mujhe Meera ne highway pe roka. Usne kaha ek community hai, safe hai, khaana hai, log hain. Maine kaha theek hai, chal. Main akela tha. Koi nahi tha mera."

"Toh tu apni marzi se aaya?"

"Haan. Lekin 'marzi' ka matlab kya hai jab option yeh ho ki akele maro ya strangers ke saath raho? Woh marzi nahi hai — woh majboori hai."

He's right. The distinction between choice and coercion collapses when the alternative is death.

"Pehle hafte mein maine observe kiya," he continues. "Cameras. Guards. Rules. Ghar. Raat ko gaadiyaan. Curfew. Sab kuch. Aur mujhe samajh aaya; yeh community nahi hai. Yeh prison hai. Samajh hai? Hum prisoners hain."

"Mujhe pata hai."

"Accha. Toh tujhe yeh bhi pata hoga ki yahan ke zyaadatar log andhe hain. Ya dar gaye hain. Ya dono. Woh accha khaana khaate hain, ek doosre se dosti karte hain, aur bhool jaate hain ki unke charon taraf bandookein hain. Lekin tum, tum aur teri Chaya, tum alag ho. Maine dekha hai tujhe. Tu cameras gin raha hai. Guards ki positions note kar raha hai. Tu wahi kar raha hai jo maine kiya."

I say nothing. There's nothing to say. He's right.

"Mera ek plan hai," he says. "Ghar mein ghusna. Raat ko."

"Ghar mein?"

"Haan. Woh ghar, woh sirf ghar nahi hai. Wahan kuch ho raha hai. Raat ki gaadiyaan — woh kuch la rahi hain. Ya le ja rahi hain. Kuch aisa jo hum se chhupaya ja raha hai. Aur jab tak humein pata nahi chalega ki woh kya hai, hum yahan se nikal nahi payenge."

"Kyun?"

"Kyunki nikalna easy hai. Main nikal sakta hoon, abhi, is waqt, jungle mein ghus jaun, subah tak coast pe pahunch jaun. Lekin phir kya? Main akela hoon. Koi resource nahi. Koi plan nahi. Aur woh log. Lakshman, Meera, Tarun; woh mujhe dhundhenge. Unke paas gaadiyaan hain, bandookein hain, log hain. Main ek din mein pakda jaaunga."

"Toh?"

"Toh humein kuch chahiye. Koi leverage. Koi information jo hum apne saathiyon ko de sakein, yahan ke logon ko, jo unhe jagaye. Abhi woh sab so rahe hain. Comfortable hain. Lekin agar unhe pata chale ki Lakshman kya chhupa raha hai; agar unhe sach dikhe, toh shaayad woh jaagein. Shaayad woh humara saath dein."

"Aur agar na dein?"

"Tab bhi, information power hai. Agar humein pata ho ki ghar mein kya hai, toh humein pata hoga ki hum kiske khilaf hain. Abhi hum andhe hain. Andhe aadmi nahi lad sakta."

I'm still. Processing. The logic is sound, reckless, potentially suicidal, but sound. We need to know what's in the house before we can plan an escape, because the house is the centre of everything. The cameras feed into it. The guards come from it. The vehicles serve it. Whatever "Samaj" really is, whatever Lakshman is really building — the answer is in that house.

"Kal raat," says Jai. "Do ghante curfew ke baad. Gaadiyaan nikalti hain, guards andar jaate hain, humein das minute milte hain. Is baar, hum ghar ke peeche jayenge. Wahan ek darwaza hai: servants' entrance. Maine ek hafte se dekh raha hoon, woh darwaza raat ko khula rehta hai. Shayad loading ke liye."

"Aur cameras?"

"Ghar ke peeche ek hi camera hai. Uska angle fixed hai; ek specific zone cover karta hai. Agar hum south side se aayein, toh blind spot hai."

He's mapped it. Every angle, every blind spot, every window of time. The obsessiveness of his preparation is both reassuring and terrifying: reassuring because it means he's not reckless, terrifying because it means he's been thinking about this for four weeks and has still not done it, which suggests that the risk is higher than his confidence implies.

"Tu akela kyun nahi gaya?"

He looks at me. And for the first time, I see something behind the sharp intelligence. Something softer, something that he's been hiding.

"Dar lag raha tha," he says. Simply. The admission of a young man who has been pretending not to be afraid.

I nod. Because I understand. Because I'm afraid too.

"Ek route hai," he continues, recovering. "Tent se yahan tak, jis route se hum aaye. Yaad kar. Kal raat, main yahan hounga. Agar tu nahi aaya; koi baat nahi. Main akela jaaunga."

"Main aaunga."

The words are out before I've consulted the part of my brain that is responsible for self-preservation. Drops hit her forearms with the tiny, sharp percussion of cold on warm skin. The part that holds images of Chaya and Dhruv and Bholu. The part that says: you have too much to lose.

But the other part, the part that has been lying in a tent for nine nights, listening to engines, feeling the rough walls of captivity pressing inward — that part has made the decision. And it's louder.

"Accha," says Jai. A single word, but the relief in it is audible.

He checks the darkness. Listens. The stillness is intact, the cold air pressing against his skin, no engines returning yet, no guards at the treeline.

"Ab jaao," he says. "Wahi route se: ulta. Tera tent pehle aayega. Seedha andar jao. Mat ruko."

I stand. Look at the house one more time. The white facade, the dark windows, the secrets behind them.

"Jai."

"Haan?"

"Esha ne mujhe tere baare mein warn kiya tha. Ki tu sawaalen karta hai."

He's calm for a moment. Then: "Esha acchi hai. Lekin woh darte log hain. Woh jaanti hai kuch galat hai. Lekin woh kuch karegi nahi: kyunki usse Bharat ke baare mein fikar hai. Woh uncle ke bina kuch nahi karegi."

"Toh woh humari taraf nahi hai?"

"Woh kisi ki taraf nahi hai. Woh apne uncle ki taraf hai. Bas."

I file this. Then I move — back through the potato rows, along the fence, behind the kitchen hut, between the tents, and to my own tent. I unzip it, slip inside, zip it shut.

Bholu looks at me. His tail doesn't wag. His expression, if a dog can have an expression, is a parent who was awake the whole time and is choosing not to lecture.

"Sab theek hai," I whisper.

He puts his chin on his paws. Closes his eyes. Doesn't believe me.

I lie on the cot. My heart is hammering; the post-adrenaline crash, the body's belated objection to what the mind has committed it to.

Tomorrow night. The house. The truth.

Beside me, Chaya sleeps. Her breathing hasn't changed. She didn't wake. Or. she did wake, and she's pretending, the way she pretends when she wants to give me the illusion of privacy.

Either way, I will have to tell her. Not tonight, tonight is for processing, for letting the decision solidify, but tomorrow. Before the mission. She needs to know what I'm doing. She deserves to know.

Because if something goes wrong, if the guards are there, if the cameras catch us, if the servants' door is locked — she needs to be prepared for the possibility that I won't come back.

That's the calculus. That's the trade. Information for risk. Truth for danger.

Appa's voice, again, from the past: Duniya mein sabse bada risk hai kuch na karna.

I close my eyes.

Tomorrow night.

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