Category: Stories

Diwali was late in arriving the year I was to appear for my class twelve exams. Half of November had already gone by. The first nip of the approaching winter was evident only in the pre-dawn chill. The rest of the day was a mix of a weak but determined sun, drying leaves dropping from the branches and crackling underfoot, and a dry dustiness in the air which clouded the vision and clogged the nose, throat, and lungs. It heralded difficult times.

As far as I could remember, Muniya had always set up her little stall at the furthest end of the chowk, where the market petered out, giving way initially to the one-story tenements which huddled together like ducks at the water’s edge, and later to the towering multi-storied ‘Kothis,’ each wearing the cloak of its grandeur with such grace and dignity that ordinary folk hurrying by averted their eyes out of sheer respect. There was a method to Muniya’s madness. She thought that since the spot was the first on the road from the ‘Kothi end,’ everyone would stop by the stall, for her to make the briskest sales. Alas, the Seths of the Kothis had got where they were by a canny business sense. And no one worth their Innova, Corolla or Verna would even dream of buying anything, even as tiny as a mud Diya without wandering the whole market at least twice and bargaining to the hilt. As a result, Muniya only got those customers who had forgotten something and wanted a last- minute bargain. Of course, the Domino’s outlet opposite Muniya’s stall was blissfully unaware of its exalted status of being exempt from the bargain bustle as people straggled in and out thrusting wodges of cash, new shiny credit cards, or brandishing all kinds of UPI apps on their latest I-phones.

I knew Muniya, because the spot where she set up shop happened to be almost at the very gates of my school, which in keeping with the straggling growth of our town, had added ‘junior college’ to its title. What had started as Mrs. Swamy’s kindergarten and primary school was now the pompously named ‘Dnyansagar High School and Junior College,’ with students, buildings, and fees to match. It was the ‘go-to’ institute in our town for anyone who wanted an admission for ‘higher studies.’ I had called the place alma mater for the past thirteen years and was looking forward to escaping its’ increasingly stifling confines for good in June. Life here was too quiet for me.

Our town boasted ‘colleges’ as well, but they were mostly populated by those who were to follow in their forefathers’ illustrious but not-so-adventurous foot-steps. They were the ones who would inherit businesses, a couple of tile or perfume factories, seats in the state legislature, hectares upon hectares of scrubby farmland, and the like. The girls would inherit jewelry, household chores, and husbands and in-laws, who might or might not treat them right. Everything about the colleges in town was a gamble and I knew I was not cut out for the casinos. Of course, fate could always have the last laugh by bringing me back as a minion to someone who had gone to college here, but I at least had a fighting chance to make a clean break for good. And I determined to grab it with both hands. Besides, as the offspring of a demonstrator in the local science college, I knew I would not inherit the laboratory.

As far as inheritance went, it was a spirited tug-of-war at home. Maa ruled the household with an iron fist and the thought of my moving to a far-away city was still a major bone of contention for her. She wanted me to inherit Papa’s meekness and listen to her. He wanted me to inherit her obstinacy and move far away. So far, Maa’s traits and Papa’s wishes were winning hands down. Maa’s temper flared far more frequently than usual as the dates to fill out forms for the entrance exams neared. She made her displeasure known by nit-picking over the most minor expenses incurred by Papa and me. My last purchase of a new pen had been greeted with “Dadaji ne Khazana jo rakkha hai. Aur udao paise.” Pocket money was a fond distant memory and my occasional expense was being met by the grubby fifty, tenner or twenty surreptitiously slipped into my hand at great personal risk by Papa.

Preparations were doubly frenzied as November pulled on in its mechanical, melancholy way. While Maa busied herself with the cleaning, cooking and candle-stick making, Papa harangued me every day about when the CUET forms would be out and when was the best time to fill them. If I was to travel out of town to the best the Indian Universities had to offer, I first had to clear the CUET (Common University Entrance Test), a relatively new player in an arena dominated by such stalwarts like the JEE, NEET, BITS, and other heavy weights too onerous to pronounce. When the dates were finally announced, I thought Papa would burst a blood vessel due to all the excitement, and fervently hoped that the vermilion used for the Lakshmi Puja would be the usual Alta from Maa’s cupboard, not tainted by a few drops of Vishnu Sharma aka Papa’s blood.

But Ramji, Mata Lakshmi, Thakurji, and Dhanvantari had all had an ear out for us and heard our collectively fervent prayers. While the internet and the server and all the other paraphernalia required for the smooth filling of an online form did turn snooty and try to play spoilsport, they were finally coaxed into best behavior by much cursing, muttering, and finally earnest entreaties on Papa’s part. I could have sworn that the Diwali decorations swayed a little in the gust of the breeze caused by our collective sigh of relief. At least one hurdle had been crossed. While the exam itself loomed ahead, there was a jubilation in the air. My participation at least had been confirmed. Perhaps this was how the Indian contingent felt enroute to any major sports event, slightly bemused by the drama of it all.

Since I was feeling rather pleased with myself, I decided that I needed some time off. Maa however, had been lurking by the door, awaiting just such an opportunity. My plans of heading off to the ice-cream parlor at the corner to literally ‘chill’ with a couple of buddies were rudely disrupted when the rough coir bag was thrust abruptly into my hands, together with a crisp hundred rupee note and admonitions to fetch a dozen mud diyas, along with wicks, some oil, and a garland of marigold flowers for the pooja the next day. “Remember to bargain well. Go to three or four stalls at least,” Maa was still shouting instructions as I ambled off, desperate to get out of ear-shot.

Teenage rebellion always rears its head unexpectedly and I decided to rebel by deciding NOT to bargain. I would buy the supplies at the first stall I came across. Maa would seethe gently, but there was not much she could do about it. Smirking at the thought, I halted at the first stall which of course was Muniya’s. With her mud-brown lehenga and choli, she blended in perfectly with the background, as she sat surrounded by diyas of many types. There were the simple ones, cowering in their basket as if ashamed of their lowly status amongst the more embellished ones, with a floral twirl here, a leaf there, all adorned with gilt or garish colors. There were multi-tiered ones, some shaped like peacocks and others like swans. There were ‘jodis’ or pairs of elephants with upraised trunks. Light, in our town shone in myriad ways.

 Normally, the sight of a potential customer sent Muniya into transports of delight and everyone who paused at the entrance to the makeshift tent which was not just her stall but also her home for the few days of Diwali was treated to her hopeful smile and cheerful sales banter. But something was amiss today. She sat sadly amidst all the lights, the spark from her eyes replaced by a dull hopelessness. Kallu, her son slumped next to her, his books lying forgotten, fingers feverishly jabbing at the buttons of the ancient mobile phone in his hand.

He was a hard-working boy, Kallu. During Diwali, he helped his mother at the stall. The rest of the year, the mother-son duo sold roti and aloo-sabji at the railway station, Muniya setting up her chulha at the crack of dawn, to be joined by her son when he finished school in the afternoon. This continued till the last passenger train left at ten in the night, with Kallu often spotted sitting under the meagre flickering light of the station clock, rapt in his books. He had managed distinction in his class ten exams and it was plain that Muniya had high hopes for him. On the first of every month, Kallu meticulously paid his fees at the office of Bhaskar Vidyalay, a government sponsored initiative for subsidized education of the underprivileged.

Perhaps it was the enquiring look in my eyes, or perhaps the fact that I was the same age as Kallu, but before I could so much as pick up a diya, Muniya was standing before me, hands joined in supplication. “Kallu ka faaaram bharna hai, Babu,” she began. So, this was what it was all about. With the typical oblivion of the better placed, I had never imagined that Kallu had any educational aspirations beyond class twelve. Perhaps the snobbish part of my mind did not think him capable. But Muniya’s litany of woe told a different story. Thanks to a new scholarship scheme, Kallu stood a chance of getting into a polytechnic college. But he had been felled at the first hurdle. Today was the last day for online submission of the application forms, which had been available for a pitiful period of just a week. With his school closed for the Diwali vacations and everyone busy with the festivities, none of his teachers, or the big noises in the tehsil office, or even the station master had answered his increasingly frantic appeals for help. Desperation had made Muniya turn to each one of her customers, but they were too busy trying to light up their own lives, only stopping to bargain for a diya or two. The diya seller was fated to a dark Diwali.

When I made my way back home, it was past sun set. Oil-and-wick mud diyas were winking to life on verandahs and thresholds. A gentle glow permeated the narrow lane as I ducked into the courtyard of my home, only to confront Maa standing there, arms akimbo. Only the Sawari of the roaring tiger was missing in her tableau of the vengeful Goddess. Papa, as usual stood meekly in her shadow. Clearly too furious to speak, she merely thrust out her hand for the pooja paraphernalia she had ordered me to fetch.

As I quailingly placed a photocopy of the receipt of the cyber-café from where Kallu and I had finally succeeded in filling his form, beating the deadline by mere hours, I felt myself basking in the light of Maa’s radiant smile and glistening eyes. “Tumhara jeevan ujale se bhara rahe, beta,” she said as I bent to touch her feet and seek blessings on Diwali day, “Tamaso ma, jyotir gamayah! (lead me from darkness, towards the light).”

The beginning of the brief spring in the Indian peninsula was generally heralded by a warming of the air and the dance of the fireflies. In recent times, the tourism industry had capitalized on it, and come the end of March, my hometown, a small hill-station in the western Ghats, was awash with city dwellers tired of peering through the dust, and the smog, and squinting against the garish lights which were guaranteed to turn night into day. They drove up from the tech hub in droves, eyes fixed thankfully on the dimness and the rolling hills, more brown than green with the approaching summer.

For them, the darkness was forgiving, hiding flaws, fallacies, and facades instead of highlighting them, so unlike the city lights, which sought them out for the world to jeer at. The darkness worked its own magic. It allowed itself to be rent apart by the fireflies’ dance, a glowing web of moving pinpricks of light cutting effortlessly through its all- encompassing self. Yes, even darkness served a higher purpose in these hills.

It seemed funny, but the fireflies were largely nondescript beetles by day, preferring to hide out in trees and bushes. If it were not for the darkness, they would have led their unassuming existence, busily going about their business, seldom seen, and almost never heard. It did not matter to them if they were called drab by daylight. Their cousins, the butterflies, and dragon flies got all the attention when the sun was high in the sky. But not one of the most garish butterflies could compete when it was time to fight the darkness. 

Devaki’s house at the edge of the town, was the best place to watch this night-time miracle because it was built on a knoll which gave way to a steep slope at the end of her humungous garden which spanned nearly three acres. Of course, a large part of it was an orchard, but having explored it for the past twelve years, I could safely say that I knew it better than the back of my hand. I knew where the gnarled roots of the old chickoo tree stuck out of the ground like an angry fist, I knew where the branch of the mango tree almost touched the ground and made a wonderful ‘saddle tree’ for Devaki and me to perch on, and I knew the hollow which turned into a muddy swamp in the rain, where frogs croaked and where the fly-catchers came to feast on the fruit flies.

Devaki and I had been ‘best friends’ ever since she had moved to the hills and joined my class when we were both five-year-old kindergarteners. Since I was the gregarious outgoing one who loved making new friends, I had been the first to offer to share my tiffin box with the newcomer who had stood shyly at the door of the class, clutching her mother’s hand, and staring around with huge, solemn eyes. Her father had recently bought ‘Hill View,’ the only other bungalow in our part of the town. We were neighbors in the broadest sense, separated by only a couple of acres of fruit trees.

Both our families boasted coffee plantations in the surrounding hamlets, though our acreage far outstripped theirs. Her father, having gathered enough through his high- flying finance-job to finance his dreams of leading the genteel life of a ‘country squire’ had left behind the bustle of the city for the quieter climes of the Western Ghats. And thus, the Mary Immaculate Convent had gained a new student, and I had a new friend.

I loved Hill View because it was old in the truest sense. Funny alcoves, dimly lit passages, sprawling rooms, diamond paned windows, and fireplaces, left over as reminders of British times. There were ‘servant quarters’ at the back and numerous sheds, a tennis court, and even a paddock which was forlorn and empty because the horses were long gone. Now, the carriage house housed the smart XUV which Karan Uncle, Devaki’s father, drove. In a smaller shed, her mother’s little Alto crouched like a mongrel puppy which knew that it was something of an imposter in a litter of pedigrees.

Karan Uncle and Nandita Auntie, Devaki’s parents were quite the odd couple. As I grew into my teens, this attraction of seemingly opposites seemed stranger and stranger to my eyes. Not that I could ever mention it to Devaki, but I gave tongue on the subject whenever I could be sure of finding an appreciative audience, which often happened to be my parents, who were among the oldest residents, and whose families had long ruled the echelons of social movers and shakers in the district. It was a close-knit clique which vetted you more thoroughly than prospective candidates for R&AW were. You were admitted into the choicest clubs, soirees, and socials only if you passed with flying colors on all fronts.

And the fronts were many. Blood lines and letters of introduction were the first hurdle at which many fell, but appearance, clothes, shoes, bags, and small-talk all counted. The final deciding factor was of course the depths of your pockets. It was a wonderful mix of the snobbery of the old American South and the superciliousness of the British Royal Court, indigenized in a way only Indians could.

Karan Uncle was the consummate sophisticate. A mixture of charm and rakishness. His handsome face and sharp dressing sense coupled with knowledge on diverse subjects, which made him a sought- after conversationalist, had the ladies swooning at his feet and the men hanging on to his words. He also had a slightly disdainful sense of sarcasm, which made everyone want to impress him. It helped that he had a reputation of having an excellent, almost sixth sense of the investment market. Everything he touched turned to gold and even the Rais, who were counted amongst the wealthiest in South Asia were often seen at Hill View to ‘consult’ him on matters of high finance. It was rumored that he was a close friend of the Finance Secretary to the Indian Government and had turned down an appointment as Special Advisor. His stock in society was certainly as high as it could get for a new comer, which in this corner of the world meant that you had lived here for a mere ten years, instead of ten generations.

Being married to this picture of perfection was certainly a daunting task. Nandita Auntie would have had her task cut out for her, even if she had been Femina Miss India Universe, which she certainly was not. Short, dark, and what kind people described as ‘pleasantly plump and matronly’ and unkind ones as ‘dumpy,’ she was the type of person who could easily melt into the crowd of hangers- on, who trailed the glittering movers and shakers like crows might an eagle. She could have certainly used a good stylist who could give her hints on how to make the most of the few assets she had: long dark hair, smooth skin, and large eyes. But she seemed as indifferent to the kindly busybodies who tried very hard to drop unsubtle hints on how a visit to Jayati’s Salon on Abbey Road or a session with Anjali Devalkar, the ‘go-to’ personal trainer and groomer, might make a vast difference in the picture she presented to the world, as the tuskers to the squawking birds which insisted on following them around, to peck at mites on their skin.

A better dressing sense in soft flowing dresses, well draped sarees or chic trousers and wrap tops, being a better talker, keeping up with the latest gossip, being a part of the various ‘kitty groups,’ or social committees would have certainly helped her to be an accepted member of the inner circle, but she remained stubbornly unheeding. Karan Uncle may have succeeded in raising the stocks of various businesses around the country, but his wife remained his only and obstinate failure. After repeatedly trying and failing to get her to pay the necessary obeisance to the queen bees of society, it was a unanimous decision to ostracize her as far as possible. Vicious rumor mills were rife as to how she was a calculative gold digger, who had somehow trapped Karan Uncle into a marriage which was barely legitimate in the eyes of all the other society matrons.

Nandita Auntie was not fazed in the least. I had never seen her irate or hassled when managing the workers of the large estate while Karan Uncle was away on ‘business’ which was at least a couple of weeks every month. She attended all the social ‘do’s she was required to and seemed perfectly happy by herself, nursing a glass of juice, listening intently to any conversation she might be included in or sitting upright in dignified silence if she was not.

 She was polite to a fault, and I had neither seen her cutting someone dead nor gushing over anyone else. She seemed to hearken to a different tune and marched to the beat of a different drummer, whom only she could hear. The rampant gossip and the few and far between invitations more out of obligation, were no secret to her. She knew that she was not the brightest star of the social firmament, but seemed not to care. The unperturbed acceptance of her lowly position on the social ladder was what stuck in everyone else’s craw. Many insiders and regulars in my mother’s circle would have loved to see her grovel her way in. But they had had no luck yet. She was stoicism personified.

Nandita Auntie had a secret lair in Hill View. The old glass house in one of the wings had been converted into a ‘work room’ of sorts for her and was generally kept locked. The window panes on the outside had also been covered by dark film, so that very little was visible. Ever imprudent, I often opined that she ran a secret witch’s coven from there. There was mysterious shelving, petri dishes, several microscopes, and bags of fertilizer in there, according to Devaki who was easily the best botanist in our school and walked away with the gardening prize every year. Why, I often wondered if she inherited her green fingers from her mother as she claimed, was the garden of Hill View a wild tangle of creepers, flowers, spice plants, and undergrowth? Why was the lawn straggly? Why was the garden furniture badly in need of a lick of paint? What about the overgrown lily pond? Most of the busybodies thought that she grew various dangerous plants in there, Henbane, hemlock, deadly nightshade, and the like. It was no surprise that the garden of Hill View was the only one left out of the summer fete list. Another incident which did not graze Nandita Auntie’s tranquility in the least.

The years rolled past with no light being shed on the mysterious attitude of the chatelaine of Hill View. Devaki and I grew up and parted ways when we left for college.

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It was very hot summer when I was in the final year of my management course. I was very happy to be finishing because I could return home and take over the plantation. Coffee, especially the single source kind was the new rage and my parents and I looking forward to being the stars of the coffee export business. A megadeal was in the pipeline. Dad had a new Jaguar, Mom a specially commissioned neckpiece from Garrad’s, and an attitude to match. When the first clouds of the monsoons arrived, they were expected to shower a rain of prosperity.

But the gray clouds were here to stay and it was soon apparent that they had not arrived as much to give, as to snatch away. For the incessant drip, drip, drip of the rains trickled on into late September, the first cause of mild concern. When it continued into October, the tide turned. But when November drew in, the lights of Diwali were extinguished on by one. The beginnings of black rot, a stubborn disease of the coffee plants made inroads into a couple of plantations situated further downhill. The whole district sensed impending doom.

Social soirees, which were the hall mark of Diwali suddenly took on funereal tinges. While the cream of society had diversified business interests which would weather a small storm, black rot was known for its persistence which could mean a considerable dent in family fortunes. Besides, coffee was the foundation of their wealth for most of the old families. Any harm to the plantations was not just inauspicious, but akin to a curse to any wealth garnering activities beyond.

I arrived home to find it enveloped in gloom. Mom was half-heartedly supervising the decorations, while Dad had retired to his office with the estate manager, in frantic consultations with his accountants. Disgruntled plantation workers squatted on the lawn, deep creases furrowing their foreheads in response to the warnings by local politicians that they would be let go soon, with a pittance. Diwali bonuses were a distant dream. This scene was a recurring one in all the ‘old money’ estates. Black Rot had set in in minds and hearts, not just the coffee plants.

Amidst all this, a sudden and surprising invitation arrived from Hill View. Bile rose to the throat of every society matron. How could Nandita think of hosting a meeting? That she was a boor and a bore, was well known. But this was downright obnoxious. Was this her revenge for years of social spurning? Or was she rubbing their noses in the fact that her plantation was doing well? So, they decided to whet their knives and make sure she paid for her crassness. Oh, they would not refuse her invitation, but after they were finished with her, she would be forced to leave for the city, unable to call the  hill town home any longer.

When a reluctant crowd, dripping venom, gathered at Hill View, there was a frisson of surprise to see a few political big wigs in attendance. For once, the doors to Nandita Auntie’s lair were wide open and a few coffee plants occupied pride of place on some shelving. With everyone seated and a wave of grumbling threatening to build into a tsunami of anger, the local MLA heaved himself to his feet to introduce the head of the agricultural research office of the state. That gentleman was nearly booed off the make- shift raised platform, until he announced the development of a novel fungicide which had been perfected recently, after which he was almost hoisted on the shoulders of the stiff necks for a triumphant victory march.

Nandita Auntie’s meeting was the silver lining to the cloud of gloom and the knives which had been whetted and the brick bats which had been lined up were quietly put away. She was allowed to continue as before. A few reluctant smiles now came her way instead of the superciliously raised eyebrows and kind, cutting remarks.

One March, few years later, when the district had made its mark on the coffee map of the world a special reception at the District Collector’s Office confirmed that Dr Nandita Rao had been awarded the Life Time Achievement Award by the Indian Botanical Society for numerous contributions, the chief one being pathbreaking research in the fungus which caused Black Rot, which had almost destroyed plantations all over the Western Ghats.

It had taken the nondescript firefly years of dancing to its own tune to allow its glow to cut through the darkness of blindfolded minds…

Nicolas Flamel was a worried man as he rushed in and out of the portraits of Hogwarts looking for Albus Dumbledore, his good friend, philosopher, and guide. Never in his six hundred odd years alive and twenty or so dead, did he remember being so flustered. A reputed alchemist, he had lived and loved the quiet life. The only sparks were the ones which flew from his cauldron and his trusty wand (an original Ollivander production), culminating in the invention of the Philosopher’s stone. And what an invention it was! Unlimited gold to fill empty coffers and the elixir of youth, to keep one young forever when quaffed regularly. It had been the secret of his youth and longevity, ‘boosting’ them both indefinitely just like the ad for the popular energy drink said.

The only other time he remembered being this worried was when He-Who-Must -not-be -Named aka Lord Voldemort had tried to lay his hands? Fangs? Paws? on his invention. Dumbledore of the long beard and wise brain had helped him then and he hoped he would not let him down now. Because the threat was far greater this time round. When he had dealt with Voldemort and his minions, he knew that he was dealing with a fellow wizard, more powerful certainly, but a wizard none the less. This time, he was up against a ‘pure blood’ human! The choicest specimen of muggle to be seen not just for miles around, but the kind born once in several centuries who because of his brain cells (or profound lack thereof) had gained notoriety the world over.

Luckily, he caught sight of a shiny white beard whipping around a corner and hot legged it in pursuit. There was Dumbledore, staring out at the well- kept grounds of Hogwarts Castle. But what made Flamel’s weary old heart lurch unhappily was the forbidding expression on Dumbledore’s face. Flamel had never seen his friend look so unhappy even when Voldemort had been at the peak of his powers.

“Bad business this, Nicolas old friend,” not exactly the cheery opening line Flamel had hoped for. “He is Cambridge, I have heard and will be coming for you soon.” Flamel gulped. He had really let the grass grow under his feet. “Is there something we or rather you can do, Albus?” Flamel’s voice quavered more than normal. “I hate to break it to you, but no. If I have said it once, I have said it a thousand times, certain things are beyond the reach of magic. And this case is certainly the strangest that I have ever seen.” He sighed heavily before continuing, “I have created cures for many things, but the most difficult to lift is the curse of stupidity. And when compounded with cunning, it is impossible. The best thing would be to hand over the stone! Sacrifice the fountain for the safety of the mountain.”

Flamel’s heart dropped like the famous stone in question. How could he have allowed things to progress this far? His hackles should have risen with suspicion when the person who was the cause of such dread for both had been launched as the ‘young man to watch’ every five years, even if it was in a former colony. The ‘young man’ in question had also sprouted or rather sported a very bushy salt-n-pepper beard until recently. The kind which looked as if it might support its own ecosystem of flora and fauna. It was common (if bad) news that shaving it off had required an entire carton of Gillette Ultra Shave and three professional groomers (experts on canines, not humans). But looks were the least of it. It was the prodigious power of speech that this young man possessed that had the magical community keeling over before you could say ‘Avada Kevadra.’ Harry Potter himself was no match.

‘In the morning, I woke up at night,’ was a famous gem, second only to ‘He does not exist anymore, I have killed him,’ rhetoric, the ‘him’ in question being his own sweet self, leaving an entire press conference gawping in baffled bewilderment. This self- professed prophet had several other lofty deeds to his credit. He had stared down a gun-toting, fang baring terrorist until he (the terrorist) had rolled over much in the manner of a happy kitten being tickled and waved his paws in the air. He could turn potatoes into gold. He had learnt the secret of bottling universal love and brotherhood which he wanted to sell in every corner-store. He could walk the length of his considerably lengthy country and talk his knee into behaving itself instead of demanding a knee replacement. He could wink, wave, and dispense flying kisses without a thought to the place or time. He was a hugger par excellence. He could cook a mean mutton dish. But, the best exploit of his, was that he had created an army of Death Eaters far vaster and formidable than Lord Voldemort, managing to convert bitter enemies into bosom friends with the single point agenda of escaping the long arm of the law while filling the personal coffers.

And now, this answer to Winston Churchill’s prayers had wended his way across the ocean to ye olde country to surprisingly spout venom against his motherland at one of the foremost Muggle institutions. But this was the overt part of the operations. The real reason was something else. It was the search for the eternal elixir of youth, since it was only for so long that a fifty odd year old could be called a ‘youth’ and have a gullible public believing it. And it was the thoughts of this walking disaster of a surfeit of hugs, happiness and horror being unleashed on the unsuspectingly hapless world for all eternity that was making Flamel quail. And as Dumbledore had rightly pointed out, there was no spell powerful enough to penetrate the shell of stupidity. This Muggle could never be defeated. Only avoided.

Several sleepless nights followed. Flamel had taken to living in the headmaster’s office which housed the fountain of youth containing the Philosopher’s stone. Dumbledore had hidden the stone there for reasons best known to him, but what rattled Flamel was that the youth had taken to fitness recently and had driven loaded lorries, worked in smithies, planted rice paddies in knee deep water and driven motorbikes all the way to the Himalayas. In the latest exploit, he had carried a heavy suitcase on his head, which Flamel could see was the lovely new wheelie kind, which moved at the touch of a finger and executed perfect three- point turns, so carrying it seemed unnecessary. It seemed that Dumbledore’s reasoning that a cossetted youth would have nothing much to do with sports had come undone. The youth had in fact attended university because he was a running or shooting or rowing or some other ‘blue.’ Trekking up Hogwarts Mountain in search of the fountain would be child’s play for this young man.

But, before Flamel could do himself in with all the incessant worrying, Dumbledore swept in, followed by another stout figure who was dressed in a trendy sleeveless jacket over a rather a sharp kurta. He sported a neat white beard too. Flamel was beginning to hope that beards would soon go out of fashion. “Ah there you are Nicolas,” Dumbledore was at his heartiest. “Look who I managed to unearth after a quiet aside to my old friend, young Sunak.” Flamel looked at the new arrival with uncertain, rheumy eyes. By God! It was that fellow whom Sunak had been shaking hands with at the G20 summit just a few weeks ago. But the momentary hope flaring in his heart died down almost immediately.  This was the fellow whom the youth had winked at and then hugged. He had been shocked into silence then and would be a fat lot of good now.

But the new arrival had an unseemly spring in his gait, a twinkle in his eye and what sounded suspiciously like a song on his lips. Considering that he stood to lose the most should the ‘youth’ lay his hands on the philosopher’s stone he seemed almost too upbeat to be true. “Kem cho Nicolas Bhai?” he began. What Flamel made of this greeting was anybody’s guess considering that he did not know the lingo. But Dumbledore did. A short voluble conversation later, he turned to Flamel with a beam, even as the other turned to leave with a polite namaste.

And thus, when the youth turned up at Hogwarts, all he saw was an angry looking Chinese Winnie-the-Pooh yelling at him for wasting his time instead of getting on with the toppling of the throne game as instructed. Turning a rather fetching green in the face, on catching sight of his boss, he did not tarry long at the castle and was soon a distant speck on the horizon. Watching him take to his heels downhill, Flamel looked at Dumbledore with a merry beam. “We were turning a molehill into the F(M)ountain of eternal Youth!” he said.

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(For those ignorant of Harry Potter’s magical world, Nicolas Flamel the famous inventor of the fabled Philosopher’s Stone is a character who appears in the first eponymous book, when the villain-in-chief of the series, Lord Voldemort is in search of it to regain a corporeal body because the stone produces the elixir of youth which can keep one young and healthy when drunk on a regular basis. Dumbledore, of course is the benevolent and beloved headmaster of Hogwarts, the school where Harry is a student. The Death Eaters are evil wizards who are followers of Lord Voldemort in search of personal gain and/or power. Excepting Rishi Sunak, all the other characters are fictitious and any resemblance to certain politicians is entirely coincidental and maybe a figment of YOUR imagination gentle reader, rather than mine!)

The town had changed beyond recognition in the past decade. The snaking lanes which had always been crowded now simply heaved with jostling bodies, ready to burst their seams. A piquant bouquet of smells were the garnishing flourishes: sweat, dung, rotting vegetables and sizzling oil, the final resting point of batter -soaked vegetables, before they emerged in their new avatar- the largely beloved pakoda. A fitting testimony to a town which took in raw recruits and regularly churned out toppers of the toughest entrance exams in the country.

Nandan stared around him in disbelief, taking in garish new ‘cement’ buildings with glaringly bright glass facades, bigger than ever hoardings advertising the latest successes in the NEET and JEE exams, and the ocean of two-wheelers stretching up to the horizon before melding with it, thanking all the Gods he meticulously prayed to each morning, for giving him the good sense to hire a large, deliciously air-conditioned SUV for the drive from Udaipur. He heaved a sigh of relief before sinking back into the plushness. Gone were the days when he had travelled this route in a Rajasthan Roadways behemoth, specially designed to rattle every bone in the body until it came loose from its moorings. Closing his eyes, he wondered as he often did about the strange twists and turns life took. Never apparent while they happened, they were only visible, after you forced yourself out of their vise-grip. Like the hair-pin bends of a treacherous mountain-road seen only on reaching the summit.

Like the several before him and the several who would come after, he had been too tired to realize the gradual melting away of the dread which had hung over him like a miasma while he lived here as a student in his late teens, pursuing the nebulous dream of admission in a prestigious engineering college. The daily grind of classes, tests, and grueling self-study sessions, laced with dry, dusty summers, lukewarm water, glacially rotating ceiling fans, perpetually chapped lips and parched throats made surviving each day a challenge. The day the results were announced, he did not remember any feeling of jubilation, only one of relief, that he was moving away, away from this town which was a seeker of routine blood-sacrifice as the payment of a fulfilled dream.

He had followed the classic Indian engineering dream to a T. An admission into an established NIT, a four-year course in computer science, an internship in the final year which shot him like a stone from well-oiled catapult into a good US university for his master’s degree, followed by recruitment into Microsoft. He had found the elusive ladder in the snakes and ladders of life. The only point where he had veered slightly off course and rocked the boat was when he married Akira, instead of an Aarti or Ayushi as his family would have preferred. Akira was a fellow Japanese post -grad student. But all was forgotten and forgiven, even by his grand-parents who were otherwise mired in tradition. He was the ‘laadla Raja-beta’ who had brought laurels to the family name. Yes, dreams and pieces of sky were different and disjointed in this disparate world.

He never wanted to return. Perhaps he had been more traumatized while he lived here in his teens than he realized. He still woke up sweat soaked and choking from a recurrent nightmare of being smothered under the weight of stacks of test papers which seemed to drag him to the bottom of an endless pit, the harder he tried to drag himself out. He had also developed a habit of squirreling away a part of any good food, instead of eating it all, which had first surprised and later irritated Akira. “You can eat anything you like Nandan,” she had tried reasoning with him, until finally giving up in sullen silence. Luckily, she had put it down as an ‘adorable quirk.’ Perhaps she thought that he had had a deprived childhood, having grown up in what she regarded as a ‘third-world’ country. She did not probe, neither did he enlighten.

It was only because his much-adored older sister had now moved here from her native village thanks to a substantial inheritance that he had to reluctantly revisit his past while on this trip to India. Didi would have been really upset if he had refused to visit her new ‘haveli.’ Her constant harping that he did not visit enough had a grain of truth. He gratefully remembered the times when she had braved the heat, dust, and the occasional camel cart to visit him every fortnight because her village was only a couple of hours away compared to Udaipur. The snacks which she always brought, packed tightly into brass tins had seen him through the nights when the food from the mess where he ate, had refused to make the short journey down his gullet and remained wedged shrapnel-like in his throat. The hiding of these precious treats had now become a habit.

“Yahi address hain na, Sahibji?” the driver’s gravelly voice shook Nandan from the torpor like daze into which he had sunk. He looked up at the sparkling two-story red-brick building with ornate cupolas and a flat roof, typical of this arid part of the world. Didi was already standing at the gate, her face wreathed in smiles. Nandan felt his heart lift. He was back to the time when he waited at the gate of his hostel, his eyes searching for the kind familiarity of her face, especially when he had had a bad week in class or had fared badly in a test.

Despite knowing that he was luckier than most of the others with whom he shared his crowded life, who had journeyed many weary kilometers from all corners of the country and who had to make do with the occasional phone call home he could not shake off the oppressive feeling which came with constantly looking over his shoulder. Everyone here was a competitor, a potential threat to his engineering ambition. And this precluded artless but deep and meaningful friendships. Loneliness lurked amidst the apparent bonhomie. ‘Dog-eat-dog’ world was far too good a term to describe the competition which was the bane of the education system. The odds of landing on the moon were much better than getting his coveted branch of engineering in a desired college for a ‘open category’ candidate like him. The mere thought of a far less meritorious ‘reserved’ candidate overtaking him with no other criterion except a perceived wrong done decades ago made his heart crawl into his throat.

Life had been an endless cycle of swotting, sitting preparatory tests, rushing to the notice board in a hopeful search of finding one’s name in a decent spot in the results, being met with disappointment, handling the sniggers of the toppers and the tirades of the teachers. The rising and setting of the sun and the changing of seasons marked the passage of time, else the world seemed to be at a standstill. Each day like and yet unlike the previous one. Occasionally marred by a holiday, which seemed pointless for the futile hope of rest and recreation it offered. Perhaps Didi noticed him shuddering due to atavistic memory as he stepped out of the car, because she clasped him in a hug for a few seconds longer than usual.

                              ****************************

After dinner, Jijaji turned on the large yet sleek fifty-two-inch wall mounted LED television, which was his pride and joy. Decades of squinting at a small, moody, boxy set which displayed pictures only when it felt like it, had been his chief grouse against village life and the most important deciding factor which marked his move. Even the access to better health-care came a distant second. He was the kind of man who did not even aim for the top of a tree if he could get away with gathering the fruit near the ground.

Local news flashed across the screen in lurid pictures accompanied by bold black type which proclaimed the death of two students by suicide in one of the best coaching institutes in town. Nandan felt himself spiraling into a vortex of darkness like the one he had felt a decade ago. He stumbled his way to the terrace and let the gloaming swallow him into a swirl of dark memories.

Barely three months remained for the exams. Reams and reams of papers flew all around the rooms. Tables, chairs, and beds creaked and groaned under the weight of teetering piles of fat books, sometimes even giving way when their rickety legs could hold them up no longer. But this was only the inanimate objects. The less said about the animate ones, the students themselves, the better.

One could be excused for thinking that the town was in the grip of a strange kind of palsy. The classes, libraries, hostels, and messes were replete with students who appeared unable to hold their heads up, eyes fixed on the pages of the books on their laps. Just when it seemed possible for the frenzy to grow anymore, a sudden shout went up in the hostel of the largest coaching institute. “The prelims results are out!” In the twinkling of an eye, a crowd had gathered around the notice boards, elbows and knees being used as weapons of distance reduction to help one draw closer to the holy grail to view the outcome of a year and a half of swotting. Nandan peered at the list with hopeful eyes. He had been to hell and back, working through several minor illnesses without a single break.

Today, however was a day of disappointments. While he had never been amongst the top ten in his batch of fifty, he had always been confident of being among the top thirty at least. To his disbelief, he was now ranked forty-fifth. Numbly, he backed out of the crowd. He would not be able to join the special coaching for the top thirty now. Who knew where he would rank in the all-India exams if he could not even make it to the top thirty in a batch of fifty. Suddenly the back-breaking work of the past year and a half seemed pointless and futile. Who was he kidding? Why had he insisted on getting admitted here? He would have been far better off joining a college in Udaipur, getting a Bachelor’s degree, and then joining the family business.

He thought of the anxious calls his parents made every Sunday, enquiring not just about his well-being, but also about his progress. Although his reports were regularly forwarded to them, they did not really grasp the finer nuances of the charts and graphs they entailed. They did not or rather could not know the difference each mark carried in the national rankings. And if they did get an inkling, the worry in their voices compounded his, instead of alleviating it. It was a damning exercise to discuss anything with them.

He reached the room he had called home for some time now. The darkness within reflected the one filling his soul. He threw himself on the bed and allowed the tears to seep from the corners of his tired eyes. What was the point of it all? Even if he did make it, what was the use? More of the grind? More of the same rote? More..more…how much more? “Do you want to continue?” his bitter soul mocked him. “Get ready for the brick-bats and sniggers tomorrow. Ready yourself for being ignored when you take your doubts and queries to the professors. Why will they pay attention to a nobody like you? Everyone will laugh. When you return in ignominy, your parents will have to listen to taunts and jibes too. Why should they put up with a failure like you?” Didi had promised to come today, but perhaps hearing of his failure, she had left. Perhaps she never wanted to meet him. He had brought nothing but trouble, making her journey two hours each way, week upon miserable week. Egged on by an empty stomach and empty heart, he shoved himself upright. The terrace on the eighth floor beckoned, tantalizingly close. Perhaps it was better to end it all. At least there would be an end to this daily misery, this perpetual half-life which he led.

As he stumbled his way out in the dark, his knee caught the table causing something to fall to the floor with a crash and a moment of sanity and curiosity got the better of Nandan, making him turn on his table lamp. A steel tin of toffees lay scattered on the floor, with a scrap of paper wedged into the bottom of the tin. He picked it up and recognised Didi’s scrawling Hindi hand.

“Dear Nandan, I had come some time ago, but you were not in. I must return immediately, but I am leaving some toffees for you. I know that they are your favourites. I had given you a box of them when you failed your terminal exams in class seven and I have never seen you falter since. I am sorry I could not meet you this time, but I will be back in a couple of days and expect my little brother to be standing at the gate. Your Didi.”

The tears in Nandan’s eyes were no more tears of anger, and futility. They were tears of shame for his lack of faith. The moment of madness had passed. Yes, he would work like never before for the next three months and every improved score would be rewarded by one of Didi’s toffees.

As he came back to the present, he thought of the two young lives crushed in the competition. Wiping both the tears of the past and the present, he went to find Didi. He would stay longer. He would visit a couple of coaching classes and find out if he could help in any way to keep the young hopefuls there not just whole in body, but in mind. Exorcising his demons would perhaps help in fighting theirs too.

He would tell everyone the tale of a toffee.

‘Ash’ was the name Ashlesha went by these days.  Perhaps it was her idea of a joke, considering that a long plume of smoke trailed her wherever she went. And that was not all. In addition to the smoke, there was also the trail of finely speckled grey ash falling from the cigarette which inevitably dangled from her lips. Luckily, it was only tobacco, not marijuana or ‘hash.’ It was her latest rebellion after her mother had prevailed and she had joined the J.J School of Applied Art, instead of the Osmania University Hyderabad for her Bachelor’s degree in photography as she would have much preferred. Not that it mattered anymore. Mom had journeyed into the hereafter exactly two months ago.

Everyone had been surprised (shocked, though they would rather join Mom in heaven than admit it) about how quickly she had accepted her mother’s loss in a tragic hiking accident. A sudden sweep of snow and Sharvani Shastri had been buried on the treacherous slopes of the Himalayas which she loved so well. Retrieving the body along with four others who had perished too, had taken a week. A week which teetered between hope and helplessness. During which the desperate desire for a miracle was mangled by harsh reality.

It was just her and Dad now. Dad, who tried to bury himself in his work and when that failed, in whisky. Running one of the biggest handicrafts stores in a tony Mumbai pin code was not easy, but he had managed well, thanks to an uncanny ability to sniff out what would sell. Mom had occasionally helped on the marketing front, a difficult balancing act, especially when Ashlesha had been younger. When she looked back on her childhood, it was largely a bright canvas. The dark undercurrent which lay beneath like a shrouded whirlpool in deceptively calm waters, not obvious until you were sucked under. It had been the late eighties and diagnoses of ‘dyslexia’ and ‘children with special needs’ were not just difficult to make, but even more difficult to manage without lasting damage to the child in question. She was that child.

Described as a ‘slow learner,’ most teachers had thought her to be a trouble maker who was purposely disruptive. Most of them agreed that there was nothing wrong with her, which a good beating could not cure. And she would have suffered for it too, had it not been for Mom. Mom refused to believe that Ashlesha caused trouble on purpose. She was always on the lookout for new things to keep her daughter not just engaged but more importantly, happy. That Ashlesha had had to repeat class eight and nine and studied with children who were two years her junior had no effect whatsoever on the way Mom treated her. There was no scolding, no recrimination, and no constant crease of worry to mar Mom’s smooth forehead. “You strengthen your foundations if you repeat the class,” said Mom. Not just said it for lip service, but meant it too, Ashlesha knew, in that unfathomable way that children know when they are being lied to by adults.

Mom engaged her in all sorts of activities. She knew that Ashlesha hated to have her routine disrupted. Mom folded her clothes just the way she liked, always kept her shoes in the same spot on the rack and cut her sandwiches just so. No one was allowed to sit on the chaise lounge because it was what Mom called ‘Ashu’s Spot.’ Mom had hidden her worries well, until one fine day when Ashlesha had discovered a skill for photography. Coming across Dad’s camera lying on the drawing room coffee table, she had tinkered with it, recalling his actions, and had shot off an entire roll in six happy hours, wandering from room to room in their sprawling sea-front duplex, mesmerized by the way light and shadow played hide and seek with each other. Mom had got the roll developed and the rest as they said was history.

A medical certificate and a writer had finally helped her clear her class ten and twelve boards. With better research and diagnostic means finally becoming available, her condition now had a name: ‘dyslexia.’ Her disabilities were luckily limited to poor spelling, messy writing, and a distinct lack of fluency.  The low self esteem and extremely limited social skills were a natural consequence of the low-grade bullying which she had faced in school where she had been named ‘Ash the Ass’ by a few vindictive classmates. Childhood apparently was not a limiting factor for cruelty.

All this had also led to the development of a stubborn streak. Thwarting Ashlesha was not something easily done. And never without dire consequences. Mom had known it and yet, her fear for her beloved daughter’s safety had won, making her overrule Ashlesha’s wish to study in Hyderabad. She had been withdrawn for months after that. Yes, being able to pursue only what she enjoyed had made a lot of difference, but try as she might, she had been unable to remove the vestiges and visions of Hyderabad from her soul. And then had come the smoking. Beginning insidiously after a particularly difficult ‘orientation’ lecture where she insisted on interacting with all her peers leaving her frazzled and nervy. Rana, a friendly class mate had noticed her agitation and offered her a puff of the cigarette he had been holding and as the nicotine spread through her veins after she had almost coughed up her lungs, there had been no looking back.

The combination of art and addiction had kept her in an unfeeling if not happy trance and after the initial deep depression, she seemed to have made a remarkable peace with Mom’s unexpected passing. If she stayed away from home for longer and longer hours, there was no one at home to notice because Dad stayed at the store for longer and longer hours too.  Not having played an active role in his daughter’s upbringing for years, it was difficult to begin now. Thus, two familiar strangers shared the same living space, each a prisoner of their thoughts.

To Be Continued

The back lanes of Stratford-upon-Avon were quieter than usual as the translucent figure slowly drifted towards the Holy Trinity Church. The bright sunlight shone through him, making him feel more inconsequential than usual. The day’s haunting was done. It was time to seep back home. Once upon a time, he had only visited the church once a week. But ever since the time he had been buried there, it was home. Of course, now that his wife and daughter had been buried next to him, he did choose to meander away far more than necessary.

All that a man (and a poet at that!) often longed for, was peace and quiet. Especially when he was trying to put disjointed thoughts into words. But the voices occasionally got too shrill for his liking and he was forced to become a drifter. No man, not even Will Shakespeare, had been able to best his better half when it came to being loquacious. Of course, roaring “QUIET” had had absolutely zilch effect in the past half century, thanks to Anne discovering feminism and equal rights. She merely looked at him, laughed and told him to take his work elsewhere. She did not even have to add the “Or else!” He was terrified enough just by her bristling.

Sometimes he thought wistfully about the good old times, when women spent a good part of their lives arguing fruitlessly without becoming lawyers or judges. Even his beloved Portia from ‘The Merchant of Venice’ had had to transform into the male Balthazar before stepping into a court of law. And now, it seemed that more than half the profession and the judges were women! And thus, he skulked further and further afield, seeking out quiet nooks where he could gather his thoughts for his beloved books. Modernity, however had crept up his mossy banks and glades. Once awash with bluebells, daises, and serenity, they were now awash with bluebells, daises, and hordes of jabbering tourists. Who came armed with long selfie sticks and those infernal noise making machines which could also capture pictures. What were they called again? Ah yes, mobiles!

And could they move, forsooth! They never seemed to stop, whirring this way and that in search for the perfect picture or aiding modern men to talk to someone far away. As if they needed any more inconsequential words in the world. Also, he was hard-pressed to understand the language of the modern world. No one had the time for courtly speech. Indeed, no one had the time to be polite! It was ‘TY’ instead of ‘I thank thee,’ GN instead of ‘Good Night,’ Bye instead of ‘God be with you’ and a thousand other things besides.

It was quite ironic that the words he had written so long ago were now being dissected to decipher their ‘hidden meaning.’ Sometimes, he felt like popping out of the stone wall and saying ‘Boo’ just to make the scholars scatter for their lives, before going on to explain that he had not meant a single thing but put in the words either just to confuse people or because they simply felt right. He was tired of his works being under a microscope all the time. Zounds, people could not even speak the language anymore and they wanted to comment on it. And the less said about those ghastly Americans the better. What gave them the right to pick up a venerable language, mangle it beyond recognition with horrendous pronunciation, and atrocious spelling and then call it ‘user friendly’? The sheer insolence was galling!

As his thoughts darkened, he seemed to acquire more substance, turning quite a few shades darker from his normal pearly self. He did not like resembling bonfire smoke. But such was life. Leave home a pearl, and return all fatigued and smoky. Just as he was about to cross the bridge over the Avon, he was assaulted by a buzzing. Happy in the knowledge that no bee could sting him, he nevertheless peered about for the swarm, but none was in the offing. After bobbing about rather nervously for a bit, the source of the offending sound was finally traced to a small white object which had suddenly swung into sight, out of the undergrowth. It was what the wonderful modern people called a robot. As if there were not enough people running about already, they had to create a menace with machines. Machines which walked, talked, stalked, and mocked. Performed a hundred useful and a thousand useless tasks. He drifted quicker to get away from the infernal thing, but it kept up easily.

“Hi there, Willy! How’s you?” Death and damnation! Not only did the wretched thing speak, but it seemed to recognize him as well. A boorish, uncouth machine! Without any manners or morals. Just his favourite kind! Turning a rather alarming shade of purple, he turned towards it. “Were you addressing me, my good contraption? And where are your manners? It is William to you, though you should be addressing me as Good Sir! Willy, forsooth!” Anyone would have been sufficiently awed by the great wraith’s wrath and would have eaten humble pie, while scrambling to do his bidding. But little machine milled about merrily. It apparently had no such compunctions.

It made a merry clicking, ticking noise as if it were laughing. “Oh, Willy has such a nice ring to it! I prefer Willy, even if you do mind. We are similar under the skin now. Both of us have no souls!” Again, the clicking ticking noise. A contraption which laughed at its own jokes! Could things get worse? But apparently, they did because it addressed him again, “I can write just like you”. William was too shocked even to sputter in indignation.

Machines he knew were becoming more human than the humans who produced them. Artificial intelligence they called it. He heaved a sigh. At least the machines had some intelligence. Perhaps humans were busy doling out their brains in exchange for ease. “And what do you write, my good machine”? his curiosity was now piqued. There were many things to write on these days. Things which he wrote about in silvery words which only he could read. Liberal ideas, countries without borders, his favourite, the Rainbow parade, the new King. Things had become much more interesting since his times. And besides, he was no longer bound to the rhyme and the sonnet. How he loved free-form verse (where you could write any nonsense and get away with it) and Haiku, which no one understood any way. Yes, creative liberty had reached a pinnacle. Say anything, write anything and get away with anything. Better men had met with a far worse fate for minor transgressions when he was alive.

“I write on climate change,” replied the pipsqueak loftily. Ah, yes! Climate change. It was very real. Only last year he had had to haunt an ice factory, because the temperatures in summer had soared to forty degrees centigrade. Something he had not even dreamt of. “And what on climate change”? asked the Bard, tugging at his beard.  Perhaps the little thing was helping the not-so-little-thing, Greta Thunberg write her impassioned speeches more effectively. Smiling at the thought, he bent towards the machine, whose screen was now glowing green. How nice it would be for him to connect to some modern lingo!

But when the machine spoke, it was a sonnet which spewed forth. It could have been something which he had written. He wondered whether his genius had begun to manifest when he was asleep. When had he written this? Such expression! Such clarity of thought! And such language! Which he had not heard in the past two centuries! “How dare you steal my work, Stout Fellow?,” he roared, outrage finally getting the better of him. But the machine was not abashed in the least. It winked merrily at him. “Oh, but it is not yours. I am ChatGPT enabled, you see. Give me a prompt and I can write in any style. It is the magic of Artificial Intelligence. I am here to help write assignments, complete homework, even win a Nobel Prize or two!”

The future seemed dark and distant to the Bard. He had certainly met his match. And it was game, set and match to this little chip off the old block. Leaning in, he asked in a conspiratorial tone, “If I give you a prompt, will you write for me too?”

And thus ended the meeting of the Bard and the Bot……. fruitfully!

A cold greyness swirled around the Mall, the trendiest street in town. With all the small pubs and restaurants lit with fairy lights and lanterns, a rainbow of colors winked through the gloom like sparkling foam rising to the top of a tankard of dark beer. The temperature had already dropped to freezing. The forecast of snow seemed to be spot on for once, as a dusting of fine flakes fell from the leaden sky frosting everything in sight: the roof-tops, the heads and hats of the party-goers and the cars and coats of the well-heeled and the down at heel alike as they staggered thankfully into the sweet warmth from the bitterness outside. The flakes were not partial. They also dusted the road, especially the road.

The snow would soon bring more people in its wake. Earthy plainsmen, ready to wash off the lingering traces of their dust laden lives. Ready to drink up to prevent the cold from ‘getting’ to them. Ready for revelry and rides and rage. More than ready to leave unwanted remnants behind in the pristine hills. Today was only the beginning of the long Republic Day weekend. Bhimtal would bear the brunt of the brimming crowds soon enough. But all that would come later. Tonight, was for the early birds.

Nowhere were the lights as bright as ‘The Watering Hole’, the newest and chicest pub of them all. Swinging ‘Kandeels’ glimmered all around the verandah and old- fashioned shades cast a rosy glow over the patrons already seated inside. A fire crackled and glowed in a large central hearth. The long bar on the other side of the room throbbed with activity, the hum of conversation occasionally punctuated by loud laughter. Music pounded from the disco next door and the bar was lit by a sudden flash of kaleidoscopic lights whenever someone went in or out.

Madhav stretched luxuriously as the waiter placed a large Double-Black whisky- on- the- rocks in front of him. This was THE life! As the alcohol burnt its fiery way down his throat and into his blood- stream, he felt himself being warmed both without and within, beginning to unwind like a tired spring after a long, long time. What, he mused to himself was the bloody point of working himself to the bone if he couldn’t nurse a large peg and relax from time to time? Chuckling to himself at the bad pun (he was an orthopedist himself) he stared into the golden depths of his glass like a seeker into a crystal ball, as if expecting the answers to all of life’s conundrums. This impromptu get-together in the hills with the rest of the team of the Indraprastha group of Hospitals was just what the doctor ordered. Setting up a new spinal surgery unit and then running it successfully in the cut throat world of corporatized medicine was not a task to be sneezed at. And he had done it all in a record time of eight months. He deserved this break and more, he thought expansively as he drained his glass and motioned for the waiter to get him another.

Madhu watched Madhav anxiously from across the room, listening half-heartedly as Shivani droned on and on about some ‘difficult case’ she had managed the previous week, trying to punctuate her impatience with polite nods and surprised gasps of relief as Shivani’s story after hurtling down the runway of fact finally took wing and launched into fiction. She hated being stuck at this table and making inane conversation. In fact, she hated being here at all.  What she wanted to do was escape somewhere real. Preferably with Madhav. Somewhere, where Madhav could unwind and relax, but without drinking like a fish. A place where they could hike together or just sit and watch a sunset or sunrise in companionable silence. Or where Madhav could outline his plans for the future and she would listen as she always did, wondering how she could best fit in with whatever he wanted to do.

Seeing the waiter glide across the room with another impossibly larger Double Black, she finally rose from her place, mumbling a hastily constructed excuse under her breath and made her way through the jostling crowd to Madhav. “Well, Madhu! Have you come to join us at last?”, Amit, Madhav’s colleague poured on the oily charm. The thought of too much oil always made her feel slightly queasy and Amit’s failed attempt to impress was no exception. “Shivani had such a difficult time last week. I am sure you heard all about it.” Where Shivani left off, Amit, her proud, doting husband could always be relied upon to continue. “Yes! I heard all about it. It is just that the battery on my phone seems to be dying and I came to see if Madhav has his charger on him. I have forgotten mine”. Madhav held out the charger accompanied by a contemptuous flick of his hand indicating that she should return to where she was meant to be.

But Madhav had tired this ploy once too many. A frown and irritated exclamation burst forth from him as Madhu dropped the charger and then bent to retrieve it. “This is your fourth Double Black. Don’t overdo it please. We still have to drive back”. Her quiet murmur was lost on everyone else except Madhav in the hubbub. And Madhav was a past master at ignoring what she said. Madhu walked back to her table, feeling the usual tug-of-war of conflicting emotions. These days, she chose to focus on the positive ones: the peace which came with having done her duty of warning Madhav. The old Madhu would have concentrated on the hurt of being ignored.

                                *********************************

He sat at the tiny table next to the window, nursing a large mug of mulled fruit punch. Were it not for the crash of the charger falling almost at his feet, he would not have been roused out of his usual reverie to overhear the hushed voice of the girl. The quiet desperation of her voice brought faded old memories back into sudden focus, like shards of glass. And not far behind followed the pain. A stabbing so sharp that he longed to sweep his punch aside, order an entire bottle of Double Black and drink it neat, there and then. The hand hooked around the handle of the mug trembled uncontrollably as he vainly attempted to raise it to his lips. The dark liquid sloshed onto the even darker varnish and gleamed like fresh blood. He clutched the mug in both hands and brought it to his lips, pulling deeply at the warmth of the punch. His throat was warmed, but his heart still remained frozen, just the way it had been for the past seven years.

Normally, this single mug of punch was all he could afford, but the small drama which had played out before him kept him glued to his seat, making him order another. Fishing in his pocket, he brought out a crumpled five-hundred-rupee note which he carelessly tossed on the table where it was immediately snapped up by a hovering waiter. He smiled sardonically. The departing currency resembled him in some ways and was his complete opposite in others: it was crumpled and tired looking like him, but it still had value, whereas he had been devalued by his own conscience years ago.

By the time he had finished his second mug, Madhav had had three more of his large ones. As the evening’s revelry drew to a close, the pub was almost empty and theirs the last group to stagger out. Madhav’s eyes were drooping at the edges, but that did not stop him from attempting to drive, rather the worse for wear. As Madhav wove his staggering way through the dark car- park, the road was slick with the newly fallen snow, Madhu followed dejectedly in his wake, knowing the futility of both, trying to reason with him and the impossibility of wresting the car keys from him through sheer force. The rest of their group had already gone their separate ways. “So many rats leaving a sinking ship”, thought Madhu bitterly to herself. “They were ready to egg him on to drink up. They might as well have pushed us over a high cliff than left us to drive to the guest house along these winding roads in the snow.”

In a last attempt to woo Madhav, Madhu plastered a large smile on her face. “Let me drive once, Madhav. I rarely get a chance to drive in the mountains. Besides, you could get some rest”. “You sthink I am too sdrunk don’t you? I cam besht the roads. Either get in or shtay here”. Slurring and snarling were difficult to do together, but Madhav managed it.

As Madhu opened the door to ride her usual shot-gun, she heard a sudden thump. Looking up, she saw Madhav passed out in the snow, apparently stunned by a blow to the head by a dark figure which was now advancing on her. Before the scream building up in the back of her throat would pierce the monastic stillness of the night, she felt the point of something sharp at her throat. The moonlight glinted on the wicked blade pressed to it. “Shut your mouth and get in you want the two of you to survive”, before she could make sense of the rasping voice, the figure had snatched her handbag, which unfortunately contained her mobile, slinging it around his body and shoved her inside, gagging her with her own dupatta. Thin plastic ropes which seemed to have appeared out of thin air bound her hands and feet.

As she watched in horror, the man opened the back door of the XUV and dumped Madhav unceremoniously inside, but not before trussing him up securely as well. As the man got into the driver’s seat, all she could see were his wild brown eyes. The light in them seemed fragmented, as if he were wandering the twilight between sanity and insanity. It was not a night to go over a cliff. It was a night to be kidnapped, robbed and perhaps raped and killed. A lone tear made its way down her cheek. Even somewhere as beautiful as Bhimtaal had its menacing side.

A large hand encased in a rough woolen glove lowered the gag, but not before the knife point was at her throat again. “Where are you staying?”, the voice rasped. Madhu was surprised not to smell any alcohol on his breath. “H..hi…Hill View Chalets”, she hated her shaking voice. The gag was back around her mouth as the man put the XUV into gear and slid it smoothly out of the parking-lot. Madhu peered anxiously out of the window, hoping for passing vehicles. While her mind told her that the chances of anyone else being out this late on a night like this were slim, her heart hoped that a vehicle would pass them, notice her plight and help. As the town fell away behind them, she felt a strange sense of detachment. Past caring about what was to happen, she stared at the road as the fog lamps cut through the swirling flakes still falling from the sky.

The kidnapper was a careful driver who seemed to know the roads like the back of his hand. The confident and skilled way in which he negotiated the treacherous mountains made Madhu suspect that he was a local. Now that they had been on the road for twenty minutes, he did not seem as menacing as he had. Madhu smiled wryly through her gag. It was strange what the human mind would accept. The Stockholm syndrome cropped up in the strangest situations. Madhav’s drunken snores and occasional mutterings and the drone of the engine were the only things breaking the stillness of the night as the XUV cut through the snow slicked, barely visible roads with ease. Before she could register what was happening, the car veered sharply to the side of the road and stopped abruptly, barely fifty meters from a large neon lit sign which declared ‘Hill-View Chalets’ to the rest of the world. Four expert flicks of the knife to cut both hers and Madhav’s bonds, a depositing of her purse on the driver seat and the kidnapper had exited, leaving the keys in the ignition. Madhu crumpled into the driver seat and trembled for fifteen minutes before she could switch on the ignition to drive them both to their destination, which was so near and yet so far.

                                            ************************

The cottage was dark as usual when he returned. He knew that sooner or later he would be hauled before the police for kidnapping drunks, even though he did it only to save the dunderheads from themselves. Whatever the intention, becoming the law was never an excuse. But he knew he could never stop or the ghost of that fateful night would return to haunt him again. Seven years ago, there had been a night just like today when he had been Madhav and she had been Madhu. And he, with a misplaced sense of infallibility had insisted on driving home, unstoppable, with the alcohol singing in his veins. She had snatched at the steering wheel to stop the head on collision with a truck and had ensured that he survived alone to suffer the guilt of having her blood on his hands. He could never be fully redeemed, but tonight he had come close to seeing her smiling with genuine pride from the weathered, garlanded photograph.

As long as he drew breath, he would ensure that he would be the one for the road…

“It is your last chance, I hope you understand that”, Papa’s voice was deceptively soft. I was no stranger to the implications. The angrier he got, the softer his voice grew, and the more it cut me to the quick.  Truth be told, it was a ‘Wake Up Sid’ moment for me. I was famed for vacillating between this and that, being here or there, doing something or nothing, but hardly ever making my mind. Back in unblemished childhood, I had driven Mom dotty by never being sure about what I wanted to eat. Thus, there was little chance that I would have firmly decided on my career path.

To be perfectly honest, Papa had put up with my meandering ways with considerable fortitude, an unlikely trait in a typical middle-class Indian parent. Most of my friends’ parents had been obsessively plotting the career trajectories meant to launch their respective offspring into the firmament from the day they had been born. I had escaped all this so far, but now, my streak of good-luck had finally run out. Three solid years of scraping through a management bachelors, much of which had been spent in searching for the elusive ‘hit single’ which was meant to be my glorious entry into the world of music would have worn anyone’s patience thin.

Papa had never been as madly ambitious as I was. Perhaps, he could not afford to be. Having lost his own father to the Indo-China war of 1962, at the tender age of two, much of his childhood had been spent being at the mercy of his paternal uncles. While Dadi had been fiercely protective, there was something sapping about survival on a war-widow’s pension, accompanied by constant taunts and jibes from much of her family. Dadaji had fought on a single war front and been rewarded by medals, albeit posthumously. Dadi still soldiered on, fighting her battle of the two fronts with not much to show for it. Thanks to the small pharmacy which Papa had set up in Hajratganj, we had come through the pandemic relatively unscathed. But even my hopelessly optimistic eyes could no longer house the dream of Papa’s store turning into the Poonawala headquarters overnight and making a mint by selling the Covishield vaccine to a grateful populace.

And thus, I was given an ultimatum, to find something I really wanted to do and to begin doing it pronto, or joining Papa at the store and begin learning the ropes. This trip to the Monpa stronghold in Tawang, in a final search for musical inspiration was to either make me or break me. I was following Dadaji’s footsteps, but there was little chance that I would return covered in glory. Ignominy was more my forte.

The day before I was to leave for Guwahati, I was taken aback to see Dadi lurking furtively by my door. “Did you want something, Dadi?” “Haan, beta. I wanted to give you this”. ‘This’ turned out to be a small bundle, which smelt of moldy muslin, mothballs and memories. It had two gold guineas, a letter of commendation from Dadaji’s commanding officer and a telegram from the army headquarters about Lieutenant S.S. Pant missing in action, presumed dead while battling the Chinese in the Lumla sector of NEFA. “Some things from the past to help you in the future”, she smiled tremulously. “I never knew whether he was captured or killed….my…my…my Shiva.” The fact that she had dared voice Dadaji’s name aloud was enough to stun me into silence. Lieutenant S.S.Pant, Shiv Shankar Pant, who now stared down at us from the large garlanded portrait on the wall of the drawing room. Who had been snatched away when he was only twenty- five.  Whose fate was relatively ambiguous even sixty years later. Whose widow had never been granted permanent closure of an old wound and whose son had grown up craving this very permanence instead of dreams at the end of a mythical rainbow. Yes, S.S.Pant’s destiny cast a shadow far longer and darker than evident at first glance.

“I know Ravi has given you a fortnight to get back, but beta, stay a little longer if necessary. Find out about what happened to your Dadaji. These gold coins should help you tide over things”, again the watery smile. “I will explain things to Ravi and hold the fort for you.” Her confidence in my seemingly Feluda like sleuthing abilities were definitely misplaced. But I could only think of what the extended time meant for me. I could stay longer and work on my music, perhaps even visit Shillong. I was no longer Manish Kumar Pant, but Rahul of Chennai Express fame, singing “Goa is on, Goa is on”, only Goa had been replaced by Tawang in my case.

It was thus in a happy haze of anticipation and filled with good intentions that I arrived in Tenga, on my way to Tawang, hoping to make short work of Dadi’s task for me. My mind was already thrumming with all the tunes that I had overheard on the way……

****************

I woke up and stretched as the early rays of the sun fell directly on my face. I had lost count of the number of times I had told Ma to keep the curtain in my room pulled over the window. But she continued on her merry way, to make sure that I awoke at the crack of dawn. That east-facing window was the bane of my mornings. I doubted whether there was any other twenty-five -year- old in the whole of Tenga who awoke at four thirty every morning. I had to be different. It had always been this way, ever since I was a child. Keshav, my younger brother had been the conventional one. Following Ma and Baba’s instructions to the letter, always the ‘good boy’, the one who could do no wrong, now a respectable forest officer, working day and night in the wilds of our untamed forests.

Ma blamed my name for every unconventional thing I did. She blamed my name for my nomadic ways, for my love of music and for my unpredictability. She blamed it for everything that went wrong in my life, from my being caught by forest officials while catching Mahaseer in the Kameng river, for my being caught with a joint in my hand by the principal of my junior college before being booted out for good and of course for my ‘risky’ job of driving tourists all around the north-east. Baba listened placidly to her tirades, finally muttering “Thank Shiva, we did not name him Bhairav. He would have murdered someone every day to fulfill his role as destroyer”, when she ran out of breath. Yes, life for me was like the twisting mountain roads which drove me as mush as I drove them: arduous, but full of adventure.

Exploring the unknown was the only way I could tame my restless spirit. Now that Keshav was a forest officer, I had given up my more reckless ways like fishing in prohibited waters or taking photographs where they were banned for fear of my misdeeds catching up with him. But despite being the chalk to his cheese, we were very close to each other. It had always been an unspoken pact between us to have each other’s backs at all times, to stick up for each other and to keep each other’s secrets even on pain of death. We knew everything about each other: liquor and cigarette stashes, crushes and girlfriends, several misdeeds, secret ambitions, hopes and dreams.

Lost in my thoughts, I almost forgot that I had to pick up a new guest and drive him first to Lumla and then Tawang. Cursing under my breath, I noticed that it was almost 6 am. He must have been cooling his heels in Tenga Haat for at least half an hour now. A glance at my mobile showed that there had been no missed calls. Had he forgotten, or had I? I hastily pulled out the details I had been given by the agency. Manish Kumar Pant, twenty- two years old. Hmmm…it would be interesting to ferry around someone so close to me in age. Or would he be a typical loud and proud plainsman? Disparaging of everything? Calling us ‘Chinky’ or ‘Chili Chicken’? Asking us when we would be helping the Chinese take over India? I hoped not. I had already been chastised for a few verbal duels and a close-to-a fist fight with a couple of such specimens. If I had not been such a good driver, the agency said, I would have been out in the blink of an eye. As it was, I was on my last chance.

*******************

“Stupid sleepy driver!”, I had forgotten the number of times I had cursed under my breath which was freezing in the bitter winds blowing down the hill. A native of Lucknow, I was no stranger to cold. We approached near-freezing temperatures many times in the harsh winters of the North Indian plains, but this mountain wind was something else. It whistled its mournful moan like a ghost about to possess you and then it did creep into your very bones, chilling not just your marrow, but also your soul. As I stamped my feet on the narrow path in front of the Tenga Haat war memorial, I felt as if I would never be warm again. Maybe this was Dadaji’s idea of a joke. Or maybe he was messing with my Rahul-like plans of not expending much time on finding out what had really happened to him and utilizing all my resources on my music instead. If this was the kind of place that he had had to stay with next to nothing to keep him warm, he had every right to be cranky with me as I assumed he was trying to be. In his shoes, I would have gladly pushed anyone over the nearest hill just to get at his jacket to keep me warm.

When I had begun to believe that my breath would finally escape my body in a frozen chunk of ice, I saw the dim headlights of a beat-up Innova wavering towards me in the semi-gloom. The car shuddered toa stop and a tall, lanky figure clad in thick jeans and a leather jacket jumped out and rushed over to me. “Good morning”, said the young man who appeared to be a few years older. His leathery, weather- beaten face was wreathed in smiles and his eyes twinkled with mischief. Despite being quite disgruntled, I couldn’t help being warmed by his obvious charm and my grimace thawed into the ghost of a smile. “I am unforgivably late, but I overslept. I am sure you must have done it yourself sometimes, Sir”, I was taken aback at his obvious command over English. He thrust out his driver’s license and the letter from the travel agency by way of further introduction. Shiva Tamang said both. He was my long- lost driver and guide and as he hurried my semi-frozen carcass into the car and poured out a cup of sweet chai from a small flask kept in the drink holder, I could not sulk anymore.

By the time I finally fully returned to the land of the living, Tenga Haat was just a collection of lights fighting a losing battle against the rising sun. My spirits gradually rose with each twist of the road which carried us higher and higher into the Eastern Himalayas. The music system in the car warbled incessantly as Shiva tried to find the perfect combination which could be soothing enough to uplift my flagging spirits. Although the conversation was decidedly stilted at first, I decided that it would be idiotic to stay uptight and aloof if Shiva was to be my friend, philosopher and guide through this previously unexplored terrain. My management course had tried to teach me sales and marketing well and after listening to Papa’s shop-floor patter, I was a confident enough conversationalist who could even coax a few words out of a statue. People liked to talk about one thing in particular: themselves and Shiva was no exception. Soon, we were chattering away like old friends. The bleak mist of the morning had fallen away before the rising sun after all.

When Shiva heard that I was here to hunt chiefly for music among other things, he was overjoyed. “Music hamara bhi favorite hai, Sir”, he said. “Tum kya sunte ho?”, I asked. In reply, Arijit Singh’s warbling was replaced by the earthy tune of a Nepali folk song. The words were alien, but then, music transcended language. I could feel the emotions of the song through the plaintive tune which spoke of love and longing, but also of loss. I could picture Dadi singing it when Dadaji was posted far away. Lost in my thoughts, I allowed myself to drift for some time, until colorful bunting and a blindingly white tower announced the presence of the Nyukmadong War memorial.

I wandered around the memorial, heart full of pride, but empty at the same time. Lieutenant S.S.Pant, the name ‘led all the rest’ as far as Garhwal Rifles was concerned, but even the JCO who led us around the place explaining much of the Bomdila battle in great detail was unable to throw much light on the actual fate of the small company of soldiers who had set out for patrolling, had sent back messages until possible only to disappear suddenly in the thick forests which ringed the region, never to be seen again. That they had been led by Shiv Shankar Pant was known, but they were missing presumed dead as with too many soldiers in this part of the world in 1962.

As we moved on, I was more consumed by the thought of meeting a few Monpa artists than the fate of the soldiers. Perhaps Dadi would be disappointed once again.

*********************

Tawang monastery loomed over us as Shiva drove us to the small homestay which would be ‘home’ for the next couple of weeks or perhaps longer if I could get my way. I had been canny enough to avail a ‘gold loan’ against Dadi’s gold guineas back home in Lucknow just before I left. It had been with many qualms that I had looked for a small jeweler in a slightly seedy part of town, where I could be confident that no one would recognize ‘Pantji ka beta’ and had ended up having to accept slightly less than what I would have got for them at a more reputed place. But who cared?  I had the means to live as I wanted to and that was all that mattered. Befitting my grandiose plans, I had spoken to the travel agency and hired Shiva ‘exclusively’ for the next fortnight, paying well above the expected rates. I had quickly discovered that I could have no better comrade-in-arms for the many escapades which I had planned, all of which included going local: befriending the pretty girls, getting drunk on the local beer and of course, dancing clumsily to the many local tunes. The progress from Sir and Shiva Ji to Manish- Shiva Bhai-Bhai had been gradual but steady. The only dark cloud was that we were near Chinese territory and we both knew how Hindi-Chini Bhai-Bhai had ended.

Before I knew it, a week had flown past and though I had added a few new brews to my almost encyclopedic knowledge of different beers and a few more pretty girls to my list of ‘conquests’, I was no closer to finding the tune for my ‘hit single’ than I was to finding out what had happened to Dadaji. Days were spent ‘sight-seeing’, which meant visiting the monastery, the Bumla Pass, the Tawang war memorial and several other touristy spots. The nights…the nights were different. Visiting local settlements and taverns, sitting under a sky filled with so many stars that I felt capable of reaching out and picking a few, the glow of the beedi dangling from Shiva’s mouth or mine, moths fluttering around our heads and walking for miles through the darkened streets, playing hide and seek with shadows.

Each new day dawned early enough to bring several promises, but each night also came earlier and earlier, accompanied by incessant and increasingly frantic phone calls from home, which I tried to avoid because I couldn’t face either Papa or Dadi. Too many hopes and great expectations seemed ready to crush my fragile dreams. About ten days later, I realized with a shock that even Dadi’s supplies were running low and I only had the resources to stay for precisely eight more days. Now, another emotion added itself to the vortex: despair, for time knew to travel only in one direction, forward and at a single pace, which was too fast for me.

If Shiva noticed the gradual bleakness of my mood, he didn’t say much. But I knew he felt for me. His way of dealing with difficult stuff was to think up wilder and wilder capers to take my mind off things and that is what he did. We were to go hiking near the Jang waterfall and then catch Mahseer in the river if we could escape the eagle eyes of the guards, one of whom happened to be Keshav. But all that was happening tomorrow. Tonight, our haunt was the tiny hamlet of Shyo, situated in the thick pine forests which ringed Tawang. Moonlight on our heads, moonshine in our glasses and pretty girls to sing some more Monpa songs. It was enough to make Papa and Dadi fade into the background for the time being.

**************************

As Manish and I trekked through the thick undergrowth, heads pounding almost in unison with the mother of all hangovers, I wondered what he was thinking. For once, I had seen the serious side of him. For the past two days, he had haunted the Tawang War Memorial and spoken to every army man who would listen to him. He had even managed to unearth an old photo of his grandfather after haranguing the officer at the headquarters, but everything seemed to have now reached a dead end. A closed file was a closed file and it looked as if Manish would bid goodbye to our part of the world with just an old photograph as keepsake. No amount of Monpa music could rouse him from the rut he seemed to be stuck in. What surprised me was his remarkable tenacity for authenticity. “The tune has to appeal to the heart, Shiva Bhai”, he said “I am not so shallow as to market remixes as my own”. “Or lie to Dadi”, he added in such a quiet undertone that I thought I must have imagined it. Well, his idyll would be over soon and we would both return to our humdrum lives. He to the shop and me to the road.

Just as I was about to call him to the water’s edge, we heard it simultaneously, a flute and a drum, echoing out from the end of a dark little path which lost itself in the bushes. Manish seemed to be in a trance as he started walking down it. I tried valiantly to pull him back, the woods watching us with a million eyes. Left with no choice but to follow him even though commonsense told me to take to my heels, I crept forward. Now, Hindi words seemed to be accompanying the haunting music and Manish was drawn to them like a filing to a magnet.

I caught the gist of the song which seemed to talk of walking many roads at once but the need to pick the one which led to what you wanted the most.  A dilapidated hut loomed out of the trees suddenly, its windows glowing like the glaring eyes of an evil monster. The door was open. We caught a glimpse of two ancient bent figures, one with a flute at his bloodless ghoulish lips and another playing a drum with withered fingers which looked like curved talons, while singing in a raspy yet strangely tuneful voice. I grabbed Manish just as he was about to climb the rickety steps to the crumbling verandah. “Pagal ho gaye kya, Manish Bhai? Jante bhi hai, ye insaan hai ki bhoot?”, my voice sounded as dry as sandpaper, thanks to a throat parched by fear.

He blinked. Looking more like himself and less like sleep-walker, he stopped, if only to glare at me. “I have heard that song sometime in my childhood”, he whispered angrily. I dragged him away with a strength born of utter desperation. If anything happened to him, it would not just be my last chance with the agency, but with the police as well. “Let us scout around first. Let me call Keshav. He was going to be patrolling in the vicinity. He will have some back up”. Luckily, he listened and we backed further away. As was expected, there was no signal in this neck of the woods and I adamantly retreated further and further until I found one. “Near the waterfall Bhai? Don’t worry, I am near chota tila. Don’t explore until I reach you”, never had Keshav sounded so grownup or so reassuring or so authoritative.

Sure enough, he turned up half an hour or so later, by which time the music had died away leaving us in a silence which was more eerie than the sound. “Thank God you did not venture into the hut”, he said no sooner he saw us. “Budhe Baba ka jhopda we call it, up at the ranger station. The two old men who live there seem harmless enough, but they have been known to attack strangers who barge in suddenly. Recently, an American barely escaped after one of them decided to take a pot-shot at him with an ancient .303 rifle. They have been living there for as long as anyone remembers.”

A rustling made me turn towards where Manish had been standing only a moment before. He was now making a dash towards the hut like a man possessed. Keshav and I hurtled after him but, he had covered too much distance for us to bridge the gap. As we watched in wordless horror, he dived headfirst into the hut and sitting down with the two silent ghostly figures, began singing as if he had been accompanying them all his life.

 **************************

                                       SIX MONTHS LATER

As the band tuned up to play my hit single for the jawans, I could not help glancing at the Tawang War Memorial rearing its majestic head in the distance. Any Rahulesque and rebellious tendencies which both Shiva and I had harbored had been laid to rest because we were offered another chance not just at music, but at building the lives we loved. Shiva appeared totally at ease with the guitar and as his raspy voice rang out with the familiar story of many roads, I could not help recalling the path through the forest which we had walked together. Which had led me to two ancient villagers who had been with Lieutenant S.S Pant through thick and thin, until he had fallen to Chinese bullets not far from where they now chose to live, keeping his memory alive in that most ancient of all languages, his music…

While seeking one, I had found two Shivas, one in the past and one in the present…..

Nivedita looked out of the window. As twilight engulfed the city, lights had started winking in several windows. The western sky looked like a smudged palette of warm colors gradually giving way to cool ones. Orange giving way to pink which gradually deepened to blue and purple. Back home, Mom would have taken a look at the sky and gone foraging for plump mackerel in the fish market the next day. “A good month for the mackerel, when the sky is painted like this. That’s what my aunts always told me”, she had repeated this to Nivedita so many times, that Nivedita could not stop muttering this mantra involuntarily whenever she saw this panorama. Of course, this had been back home in Goa. Delhi was too far away and too far inland to boast of anything but well- preserved sea-food. Here, fresh sea-food meant something kept on a slab of ice for two days, not hauled to market from the docks in twenty minutes.

The blue and purple were rapidly replacing the pink and orange now. Just like the frenetic Delhi way of life had replaced her laid back ways. Nivedita could hardly recognize herself these days. The face with its wheatish complexion, large dark eyes, snub nose and black curls was familiar enough, but the attitude was unrecognizable. She had grown tougher. A brash new persona had replaced the diffident one. A person who thought nothing of voicing her opinions, irrespective of whom they offended. But most importantly, never backing down from a challenge, the bigger and more impossible seeming, the better.

This hour and this month were kind to the city, she mused, as more and more lights winked on. It was that time when early winter approached on noiseless paws, the time of the golden fall which existed in the much- romanticized world of cinema and foggily happy memory. It was too early for the stubble burning and the wheezing and the reports of ‘fog over Delhi delays flights to all corners of the known world’. The city was decked up like a new bride. The ‘season’ had begun. Cultural, festive, and literary activities of all sorts, coupled with exhibitions of all kinds, food fairs and of course the annual fashion shows. When one was pursuing a Masters in Design at NIFT, one had to keep abreast of all such fashion launches and lunches.

 Normally, Nivedita’s thoughts calmed down with the deepening twilight. Unlike some who were inspired by the dawn, she was inspired by dusk, which she somehow related to homecoming. But today, they refused to be lulled. They were as jumbled as the colorful skeins of silk which she kept in a large basket in her room. Distilling the essence of the lights, the colors of the sky, her Goan home, and traditional weaves, they gave rise to a new pattern, mostly blue and grey like her mood, but shot through with cheerful yellow, like hope and happiness had turned up hand-in-hand with gloom and were clamoring to be let in. She shook her head in dismay. She liked everything to be neat and orderly, like threads on a loom, where warp and weft gave rise to a definite pattern. A jumbled abstract and you never knew what would emerge. She finally acknowledged the real reason behind her confusion and accompanying unhappiness. An email had just arrived from her aunt requesting (actually commanding) her to design a one- of- a- kind outfit for her cousin Nandini’s convocation in December.

She grabbed her sketch book and drew a few swift lines in charcoal, imagining Nandini, of the svelte, tall build, dusky complexion and long hair. An inward giggle surfaced at what the serious fogies at the convocation would think if the apparel was too avantgarde. Maybe, they would finally get a life by first goggling at the outfit and then talking about it for days. But the designs did not deign to flow. Her inability to refuse her aunt’s request point blank made her head pound in frustration. Self-loathing and the attendant negativity make for powerful dampers to creativity.  

An hour later, she was still at her desk, her eyebrows knit in frustration. Although the color scheme was right, she could not visualize the right effect on any fabric. She nearly slammed her laptop shut, but caught herself in time. The last time she had done that, the laptop seemingly possessed of a cranky will of its own, not unlike hers, had called it a day and she’d nearly wrecked her project. This was not going to be easy.

She had had a prodigious memory for colors and weaves ever since she was a child. She was happiest twirling around in silks, whenever she could get a hold of the sarees from her mother’s or aunt’s cupboards. The visits to the temple of the family deity had been special not because she was particularly pious, but these visits meant that she could feast her eyes on the sarees and jewelry which always adorned the idol of the Goddess. Photography was strictly forbidden in the temple, but she been unable to help herself on a couple of occasions and had taken the forbidden photos, thanks to the ubiquitous cell phone. Her uncle had been particularly unhappy because he had had a lot of explaining and apologizing to do to the head priest, thanks to her flouting the rules with impunity.

As she sat there in the dark, blinking bleary eyed at the screen, she felt herself being sucked into the whirlpool of old memories, from which she had extricated herself with much difficulty when she had finally fled her old life to a new one in where else? New Delhi!  As the pictures of the past swirled before her eyes, she saw herself as a wide-eyed seven- year-old, clapping, as Nandini, her nine- year- old cousin was awarded the general proficiency prize for topping her class for the academic year. For a couple of months after that, the entire household comprising her father, uncle, aunt, grandparents had extolled Nandini’s achievements to anyone who cared or did not care to listen. Her second-place award in art lay neglected in her cupboard. Mom took it out and polished it and smiled encouragingly but, the damage had begun. It was Nivedita’s first remembered encounter with unfavorable comparison.

And from then on, it never stopped. She was exhorted to become ‘just like Nandini Didi’, who soared from one academic achievement to another, which finally culminated in her securing admission in the All- India Institute of Medical Sciences, Rishikesh, having performed splendidly in her medical entrance exams.  Nobody with the exception of her mother stopped to think that Nivedita’s interests lay elsewhere, in the world of art, rather than academics. “Who is she trying to be? Raja Ravi Verma or M. F. Hussain sans the beard?”, the rest of the family scoffed. “Tell her to study well and not waste so much time in drawing, Vishakha. Art is okay as hobby, not as a profession unless she wants to study architecture”, this was her grandmother, who thought that being a professor of mathematics gave her the right to offer her opinion on all things under the sun.

But her family with the exception of her mother failed to realize that their hopes were a crushing burden on little Nivedita, who wanted nothing else other than to design beautiful clothes. Her hands wanted to wield scissors and a sewing machine. Not a scissors and a scalpel. She wanted to stitch intricate patterns on cloth, not on the skin. She cringed whenever her father looked at neat patterns she stitched and declared that she had inherited the ‘nimble fingers of a surgeon’. It was only when her performance in Class Ten had been far less than stellar had the rest of her family reluctantly accepted the fact that she would not follow in Nandini’s footsteps. As the number of articles earmarked for her in the newspaper slowly waned and her views on many topics like politics and music were dismissed, she started to rethink what she meant to them. Black sheep like her were created, not born.

The final straw had been when she announced her desire to apply to the NIFT. “Masterji, who owns the corner shop is a fashion designer too. Old as the hills and still stitches my blouses perfectly”, sniffed her aunt, a smug look on her face which declared that she was indeed blessed to have a daughter, who was a ‘sound person’, unlike her frivolous niece. “Not everyone becomes Abu Jani and Sandeep Khosla. And look at those wretched models of that Sabyasachi. Chee, chee! What is the world coming too”, her uncle pitched in.

Dad’s shoulders slumped in defeat the day her application was accepted. It was a grey rainy day in September four years ago when she boarded the flight which would spirit her away to the land of her dreams, accompanied only by her mother. Her father had unearthed a conference which he just had to attend. The rest of the family had not even bothered to come up with convincing excuses, just heaved a sigh of relief that she, the blot on the family escutcheon was making herself scarce. It very different from the time when Nandini had journeyed to AIIMS, when the atmosphere had been carnival-like. The whole family had happily taken a week’s holiday to see her off and settle her in. The turbulent flight to Delhi was just a reflection of her mood and thoughts. She had decided that visits home would henceforth be very few, far between and very brief. Not to be undertaken unless absolutely necessary.

And that was exactly what she had done. She knew Mom would have liked her to come home more often, but being Mom, she always put Nivedita’s happiness before her own. She journeyed to Delhi to visit Nivedita as often as she could. She was that single strand of silk, flimsy as hope, but strong as courage which kept Nivedita rooted to home. But now, home had come knocking at her doors. The family would be journeying to Rishikesh en masse and they would ‘swing’ by Delhi first. Her life was swinging by its threads again…….

The Pais were an excited lot as the plane banked for the final approach to the New Delhi runway. The briefest of stops here and they would soon be on their way to their real destination: Rishikesh. That magnificent town in the Himalayas, so pure, so serene and so different from where they lived, Panaji. While Rishikesh boasted of the Ganga, Panaji lay on the shores of the sea. One was a haven of cold clear and crisp mountain air while the other was home to balmy sea breezes. One was a temple town. The other, a bustling capital city. None of this mattered to the Pais however. They were only concerned about the thread connecting the two: Nandini of the meritorious achievements, soon to graduate from AIIMS.

“I hope Nivedita has kept the dress ready. I had emailed her ages ago. Is she still as forgetful, Vishakha?”, Shreejaya, asked her co-sister, in an arch tone meant to needle and a smile meant to lacerate as the Innova ferrying all of them to the NIFT from the airport nosed out into the traffic making vain attempts at gathering speed. Vishakha, however possessed of a calm the Himalayas would have been proud of, refused to be riled and rise to the obvious bait. “I am sure she will have remembered, Vahini. She always keeps her promises, even the unpleasant ones”, her tone held just a hint of admonishment for her co-sister’s sarcasm at her daughter’s expense. Vaman, Vishakha’s husband, cleared his throat in an attempt to douse the potential storm which was brewing. “Let us get to the NIFT as quickly as possible. We don’t want to miss the train to Rishikesh”. Madhav, his older brother and Shreejaya’s husband wore a disapproving frown. “If Nivedita had agreed to come to the airport as I had suggested in the first place, we wouldn’t have had to go all the way to NIFT. But she will never listen”. He looked pointedly at a train of reluctant miserable looking mules being herded by a gaunt man in a faded lungi of questionable vintage, who seemed rather free with curses and thwacks from the long staff he carried.

Vishakha flinched. Her brother-in-law would never acknowledge that the mules moved reluctantly because of the thwacks, not because they were mulish. The Innova suddenly surged ahead as the traffic cleared and soon, they were passing through tall gates topped by an even taller board reading “National Institute of Fashion Technology, New Delhi”, leading onto the sylvan environs which Nivedita had called home for the past four years. Madhav, Shreejaya and their parents peered around in surprise. This was the first time that they had visited the Institute where their younger grand-daughter studied. The quirky buildings and the bustle were something which struck them as rather strange. They had never thought of college campuses as fun, exciting places, where students could have a good time in their pursuit of knowledge. Perhaps the strait-laced disciplines and strait-laced times when they had graduated had made them think of college campuses as dour buildings where one only pursued the worship of Saraswati. That learning could and should be made as enjoyable was a possibility which did not occur to them at all.

“This campus looks vast. Will Nivedita be waiting for us?”, Chandrakala, Vishakha’s mother-in-law turned to her with a frown, phrased as a question. “She said she would meet us”, Vishakha mumbled in an undertone, before directing the driver in the direction of the hostel. “We don’t have much time”, Yeshwant, her father-in-law boomed, as she peered around uncertainly, hoping to spot her daughter so that the melodrama could be as brief as possible. Vishakha knew that their train would not leave for another five hours, that they could easily spend some time trying to thaw the block of ice which seemed to have replaced her daughter’s heart. By exploring the campus and getting to know what her artistic daughter truly did. But she also knew the kind of churlish people they were. They disapproved of Nivedita for following her dreams and nothing could convince them that her dreams were worth embracing too.

They had pulled up at the hostel by now and Vishakha alighted uncertainly, fumbling in her bag for her mobile. Nivedita should have been here by now. Or was she taking some perverse joy in keeping them all waiting in a place which they disapproved of? Hurt could harden into strange emotions which could make one behave in a way which was totally out of character. “The person you are trying to reach is out of coverage area”, after listening to this message a couple of times and feeling the waves of heat emanating from the car gradually raising the temperature of the chill Delhi morning, Vishkaha decided to call Manpreet, Nivedita’s ‘roomie and mate’. It had been under Manpreet’s able wing that Nivedita had transformed into the confident Delhiite from the diffident Goan.

“Auntieji, tussi kab aaye? Phone karna tha. Main gate pe aa jati receive karne”, Manpreet materialized at her shoulder before she had dialled the number. “I am so glad to see you, Manpreet. Nivedita kidhar hai? We have just come to pick up the dress she had designed for her cousin’s convocation. We are to travel to Rishikesh today”, Vishakha began her fumbling explanations. She always found the slight disapproval in Manpreet’s direct stare disconcerting, as if Manpreet was privy to the way Nivedita had been slighted at home, as she perhaps was, deserved to be. All boats cast adrift looked for a safe harbour and Manpreet was Nivedita’s.

“Haan, haan, woh sab to theek hai Auntieji. Nivedita has not done much else for the past two weeks. But yesterday, a strange thing happened. Aap chalo aur dekho. Nivedita will probably kill me, but I think she deserves it”, Manpreet’s words made no sense to an already bewildered Vishakha. “Is Nivedita alright? Nothing is wrong with her?”, Waman’s worried voice sounded behind her. “Arre nahin Uncleji! Tussi fikar na karo”, Manpreet sounded as reassuring as a twenty-two- year- old with a ton of attitude could sound.

“Then where is she? She was supposed to meet us near the gate”, Madhav and Shreejaya had as usual leapt into the conversation before they looked. “We will be late for our daughter’s convocation. She studies in AIIMS Rishikesh, you know”. Manpreet’s scowl of disapproval did not need deciphering. “So”, it said, “You are the people who tend to make my friend’s life hell”. Without a word, Manpreet turned on her heel and marched of leaving them to trail behind her like a wake, part worried and part disapproving.  Manpreet marched into a low red-brick building, marked ‘Director Office and Exhibition Hall’.

She opened the door quietly and motioning them to be quiet led them to a few seats right next to the door, in the very last row. The centre of the hall was filled with glass cases with various pieces of fabrics, which glistened and shone in the glow of the soft spotlights which rained down like shower of molten gold. Before they could be seated, Manpreet pulled out a few lanyards with attached cards and hastily told them to put them around their necks, so that they would not be accosted and led from the room by a posse of formidable looking security personnel, whom Yeshwant recognised to be members of the special forces. Manpreet seemed to be intently convincing one of them that the Pais were here as spectators and not potential suicide bombers.

Next to one of the glass cases stood Nivedita, in intense conversation with a plump lady in a silk saree with a large red bindi on her forehead. Seated beside Vishakha, Shreejaya drew in her breath sharply as she recognised Anandi Shetye, a minister in the Goan State Government. As Shreejaya’s lip curled in disapproval, she patted Nivedita on the shoulder before moving on to the other exhibits. As she was about to be ushered from the room, by the Director who seemed to be in transports of delight, she paused and beckoned Nivedita forward.

A mike appeared in her hands as if by magic. “It gives me great pleasure to see that a traditional weave from Goa has been tweaked to incorporate designs from one of the holiest temples of our land”, her voice was surprisingly loud for her small rotund shape. “I never thought that the humble Kunbi weave could be embellished by the design of the Bakula and Surangi flowers and incorporated into silk fabric to create a saree of which even the Goddess Shanteri would approve. But, Nivedita Pai seems to have done it. Although the first piece here is promised to her cousin as she tells me, I hope she sends in a second one to the National Textile Expo where I can proudly show it to the world as an example of what modern Goan art can be”.

 A collective sharp intake of breath was the only emotion displayed by various members of the Pai family as many of them realized the folly of comparing a rose to a lotus.  Anandi Shetye continued, “This is the talent I was looking for, which bridges the ancient and the modern. She wins the annual scholarship for best textile design for truly taking a stitch in time…..”.

People often looked at me as if I had lost my mind when I told them that I found Diwali depressing. Those who were kindly inclined decided that I must have suffered a personal tragedy during the festival. I could see the sympathy in their eyes which said “I can understand, you poor child. Such incidents taint even the lights of Diwali”. The reason for my dislike was not as dramatic as they imagined. It was just that I did not care much for the rituals associated with it.

For starters, I was not a morning person. Having to wake up even before the crack of dawn, when I had fallen asleep only about an hour before and taking a bath was a modified form of the water torture for me. I was a savory kind of person and the mounds of sweets which were prepared and which I was made to sample by visiting aunts, uncles, cousins and grandparents set my teeth on edge in the worst way possible.

With so many beauty products available in the market, I could not imagine why Mom was fixated on using ubtan, oil and locally made fragrant soap. Mom was quite hard hearted about the ritual bath and turned an absolutely deaf ear to my entreaties. I wailed and pleaded. I begged and cajoled. But she always had the same reply, “At least support the small local industries during the festival. They need to dispel the darkness too!”

I shuddered when I recalled the past Diwali. At seventeen and a half, I thought I was quite grown up and expected Mom to respect my wishes of waking up at my usual time of eight in the morning, festival or no festival. After all, holidays were meant for sleeping in! I had decided that I would use my new jojoba oil infused body lotion and frangipani shower gel. But Mom was quite inflexible. I woke up to find her gently but firmly shaking me at five thirty in the morning. This was the last straw. “I am glad I will not be here next year for this nonsense. The hostel seems far more inviting already”, I said in in as vicious a tone as I could muster. Her eyes held just a smidgen of hurt. “Next year is far away. Now get up. Have a bath like a good girl and put on your new Kurta”, she said as she left the room.

I stamped my foot, cursed the festival, cursed everyone under the sun and finally emerged in a black top, paired with a pair of black jeans studded with diamante` on the seams. I knew she couldn’t do much. It was my way of cocking a snook at her dictatorial ways. It was not a happy time. We bickered over local and branded, traditional and international for all four days of the festival. Both of us stuck to our guns. So much for the festive good cheer and bonhomie!

But that was the past. ‘Be careful what you wish for’, they say and this year I was to spend my Diwali all by myself in the hostel. Having enrolled in The National Law University Jodhpur, I had exactly three days of holidays and heading home, which was more than a thousand kilometers away was out of question. Mom had planned to come visiting, but with an air of false bravado, I expressly forbade her. The convenient excuse of mid term tests was trotted out. If she saw through the blatant lie and felt hurt, she did not let on. “I will send your favorite savories by courier”, she said. “Maybe I can come in November after your tests are over”. I had answered with a non-committal “Let’s see. I will let you know”.

I had already planned my day. I was going to wake up after nine in the morning, have a bath around noon with another new bottle of shower gel from The Body Shop, and not eat a single sweet. I was going to do what I chose. For once, Diwali was going to be an extended holiday with ‘nothing official about it’. I was an adult and meant to spend my time the way I wanted. A shopping spree in the evening was just what the doctor ordered! The Body Shop, Pantaloons and a million other shops beckoned with their latest trendy offerings. I thought about the sleeveless vest top which I had chosen with glee. It would go well with my cuffed pants. Mom would not be able to fix me with her disapproving stare. The only slight concession to tradition was the silver jewelry which I planned to buy in the local market. It would go well with the Gothic look I had going. Since a couple of my friends had recently been victims of online fraud after using their cards in the smaller shops, I had prudently withdrawn cash to pay for my purchases.

As luck would have it, the last lecture was cancelled.  What could be better? I returned to the hostel earlier than usual, wrapped in a happy haze. The door of my room stood slightly ajar. “Of course! Phulwa, the maid must be hard at work”, I thought as I pushed the door open. It was Phulwa all right, but she seemed to be cleaning out the contents of my cupboard rather than the room. My happy haze was instantly replaced by the red one of anger. Stealing! Two days before Diwali! After I had given her the mandatory ‘Bakshish’, before anyone else!

Storming in, I grabbed her by the shoulder. “Phulwa! How dare you?”, I was rendered momentarily speechless by my righteous anger. My carefully saved little hoard fell from her limp fingers. I snatched it up from the floor and decided that this was no time for explanations. I had made up my mind to drag her to the warden and see that she was immediately dismissed. She seemed incapable of speech too. None of the expected dramatic weeping and breast-beating with wailing requests for a pardon. She stood quietly as if turned to stone. Was that a gleam of relief that I saw in her eyes? The lawyer in me suddenly woke up to this strange aspect of a very-open -and -shut case. I shut the door and stared at her.

“Why were you stealing Phulwa? I gave you the Bakshish didn’t I?  Warden Madam might hand you over to the police. Your job is as good as gone.”. “I want to be handed over to the police, Didi”, she said in a low voice. I couldn’t believe my ears. “No one from the hostel is going to apply for bail on your behalf”, I commented acridly. “If I am punished for a year, at least I will get food to eat and a place to sleep, Didi”, she replied. “What do you mean?” I was genuinely curious. After all, Phulwa had never given anyone cause for complaint before. She was a good worker according to my seniors, and had been working in the hostel for the past two years.

“What is the matter? If you think jail is a walk in the park, then you are mistaken!”, I said. “But if I stay outside, I will meet a worse fate”, she replied in the dull voice of a person who was beyond caring.  “Sit down”, I drew up a chair and perched myself on the bed. “Tell me the real reason why you were stealing or pretend stealing or whatever it is that you were doing!”, my curiosity got the better of me. “I won’t let you go until you do”.

“Bapu owns a small store at the outskirts of the city, Didi”, she said. “We make Bandhej products like dupattas, sarees and turbans. Products normally sell well during Diwali, but the trend has been reducing for the past couple of years. Last year, our workshop caught fire. Bapu went to a cooperative credit society for a loan. But he is semiliterate. Once someone found out, they changed something in the documents. We have been paying back every month, Didi. But yesterday, some people came home and threatened us. We have to pay twenty thousand rupees in four days, or else they will take possession of everything, even our house. We have managed to raise fifteen thousand, Didi. I tried talking to all the Didis here, but nobody was ready to buy anything. I came to your room, saw your key lying on the table and before I knew it, I had opened the cupboard and taken out the money. I swear on Bapu’s head, Didi, I only took five thousand rupees.”

I counted the little bundle in my hand. Five thousand rupees. The rest of it was still in my cupboard. I had never felt more conscience-stricken in my life. Here was I, ready to blow up this money and more on some products which I could well do without, while another girl, just a little older than me stood to lose everything for want of so little. I was not ready to light diyas because I wanted fancy fairy lights which would look trendy and cool, and here she was, trying to light a small diya for her father. Someone else, who was much older and wiser had decisively won the global versus local case which had been raging since last Diwali. My arguments did not have a leg to stand on.

Mom received a selfie of me dressed in a Bandhej saree, holding up a diya, while Phulwa fed me a morsel of ghewar, at the crack of dawn on Diwali day. As I scrolled through my photos later and came across the photos of Phulwa beaming in gratitude and Mom, with unabashed pride, I knew that Diwali was always delightful, never depressing. To receive so much love, following the traditions and going local was indeed a very small price to pay.