Window

This is an English translation of my Tamil short story ஜன்னல். This translation was published in Unwinding, an anthology of Tamil short stories, compiled by Jayanthi Sankar.

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“Are they burning it again?”

When the fumes of burning paper reached her nostrils, Raji strode quickly to the window and glanced outside. Her house was on the second floor and looking out she saw a strong fire spilling over the edges of a cylindrical metal drum on the grass lawn below. An old Chinese man in brown shorts was dropping square pieces of paper with printed alphabets into the flames.

“Ma, why is the old man burning paper?” asked Akshara, who knelt on a chair and had her face stuck to the window glass.

“He has nothing else to do!” Raji pulled the windows shut, latched them and scurried back into the kitchen.

The thought of being unable to take a deep breath even on a Sunday afternoon annoyed her. Akshara continued staring at the old man and the burning flames through the transparent, rectangular windows. Her eyes followed the thick, black fumes that rose up from the flames. Peering upwards, she pressed her nose against the glass and tried to see how far she could keep the rising smoke within sight.

“Akshara, come here! Vadai ready!”

Akshara leapt down from the chair and hopped onto the kitchen table in a jiffy. A crispy golden brown vadai dropped from the frying ladle in Raji’s hand onto a porcelain plate with floral patterns.

“Ma, why does the vadai have a hole?” Akshara loved the sensation of heat on her index finger, as she kept poking at the hole in the vadai’s centre.

***

A white Ikea table and a white plastic chair stood in front of the tightly shut windows. A black Lenovo laptop lay open on the table. Raji sat in the chair holding a mobile phone to her ear.

“Hello, Sis! Have you started to write?”

“I have an idea. I’m working on developing it,” answered a female voice at the other end. It was Uma. She was the one who had informed Raji about a novella writing contest two weeks ago. An expert author of novels had pronounced that they were both promising short story writers. Upon hearing it, they said, “Congrats Sis!” to each other and decided to write with greater fervour.

“I have no idea how I’ll write 6000 words!” Raji stared at her laptop screen with a blank expression.

“Write a little every day. It can be done.”

“I don’t have a plot yet… I liked the ‘Two Moons’ story you wrote last time. Especially the old woman...”

As she spoke, Raji stood up from her chair and peeped through the window. The fire was still burning outside. A frown spread across her face as she saw small grey bits of partially burnt paper drifting in the air.

“Her character was based on an old woman I knew from my ancestral village.”

“I’m not sure why but whenever I begin to write a story, elements from my native place sneak in.”

“Don’t worry Raji. You’ll write a good Singapore-based novella. I’m sure!”

A short smile played on Raji’s lips. She looked at the five-point list neatly typed out in a word document on her laptop screen.

1. A Chinese lady who cleans tables in a food court
2. A construction worker who needs to send home some money
3. An old taxi driver and his ailing wife
4. An old taxi driver and his son who lives in a separate house
5. A Filipino maid who is abused

These were the ideas that Raji had. She had written roughly ten stories to date. Maybe she was satisfied with two or three of them. The rest had been scribbled hurriedly to meet deadlines. Her ten stories had received a wide variety of reviews. Two reviews particularly troubled her. “Why do your stories always revolve around a family?” and “The Singapore backdrop in your stories feels forced. It’s easy to identify that you’re an immigrant writer!”

Raji did want to write about pressing social issues instead of family problems. She loved reading essays on writer Jeyamohan’s website. She tried her hand at writing such stories. When she wrote “The Wail of a Refugee” the review she received was, “There’s more propaganda than plot. Avoid writing essays in stories.”

Raji never went anywhere near issue-based stories after that. Whenever she caught herself writing out paragraphs of propaganda, she would mutter to herself, “Not an essay. Not an essay.”

“Alright, Uma. I’ll try writing now. Thanks for your encouragement. Bye!”

Akshara was asleep. Raji had one hour at hand. Then, she would have to sit with her to go through homework. Her husband who was out visiting his friends would be back and want a meal. She decided to write at least a paragraph in the time she had.

Raji was always astonished by Uma’s prolific writing speed. One day she would say the plot was ready. The next day half the story would be finished. In the next couple of days, she would complete the entire story along with a round of editing.

“Why am I not able to write that way?” Raji wondered. She was certain she had spent more time staring at her laptop screen than writing.

There was a movement in the window opposite her block. The opposite block was about fifty feet away from Raji’s. An old woman wearing a red shirt stood at a window that was exactly opposite hers. Although Raji could not see the old woman’s face, she remembered seeing her there before. Every evening, she would come to the window, stand perfectly still and stare out into space. It was not quite clear what she looked at. Did she look at the kids scampering about the play area? Did she stare at the tall trees that grew between the two blocks?

Once the skies began to darken, the old woman retreated into her house. Raji had never seen anyone at that window except the old woman. The lights were always out at night. She always wore red or yellow shirts.

Who is this old woman? Does she not have children? Does she live alone? Have her children died? Why does she stare out the window every evening? Why does she not have lights on at night? Does she have a husband? Why does he never come up to the window? These questions and more popped up one after the other inside her head. Along with them came an idea.

She typed out a sixth point in the word document, “An old woman who stares blankly out the window.”

She heard the alarm. Was one hour up already? The writing would have to be continued some other time.

***

The next day was Monday. As Raji was about to open her windows in the morning, she noticed two men cutting the grass in the lawn below. They had a piece of cloth wrapped around their faces like a mask. Motors hung behind their shoulders like backpacks. They held a long hollow tube in their hands, at the end of which was a fast spinning wheel with sharp edges like Vishnu’s Sudarsan Chakra. It buzzed with a whrrrrrr sound. As they moved this equipment left and right in a sweeping motion, little bits of overgrown grass scattered in all directions. Akshara watched this spectacle with wide-open eyes.

“Ma, I want to cut grass too!”

“Sure. You can cut them tomorrow.” Raji walked away from the window without opening it. She hated the smell of cut grass, and she had work to do.

“What’s that hanging behind their backs ma?”

“Come here! Do you know what’s for breakfast today? Poori!”

She fried some pooris and fed Akshara. She packed her lunch and helped her board the school bus. She packed her husband’s lunch and bade him goodbye at the doorstep. Finally, she was seated in front of her laptop screen once again. She looked at the six points she had written so far. She was not sure which one to pick. The rules of the contest sounded quite simple. The story has to be set in Singapore. The story must be at least six thousand words in length. To Raji, these two rules seemed like mountains whose peaks were so tall that they were hidden behind thick, white clouds.

If she was asked to write about her native place in India, the stories would flow out of her fingertips. She did not have to think. Her city’s narrow streets that got congested as soon as a water lorry entered, the rants of “cigar grandpa” who lived next door, Nadiyamman temple and its chief priest who wore a wig, her neighbour Bhavani who got married the moment a saree was offered to the goddess... every single detail was secure in her mind. But, if she had to write about Singapore when she thought of a ‘Chinese’ character she only saw a vague face in her mind. That troubled her.

“Uma would have finished writing her novella by now. Do I have to write this? Maybe I can drop the idea. Who is going to bother? Someone might ask why I didn’t write. I openly declared that writing a novella is no big deal. Should I say I had a fever? Why am I unable to write a story in Singapore? How do I capture Singapore’s soul in writing?”

Suddenly she heard an orchestra playing. She looked out through the window. A crowd had gathered in the open space below her block. She did not know what was going on. It looked like some celebration. She saw several men in formal attire, women in skirts and some more men who wore songkoks and sarongs. They had drums, trumpets and other musical instruments whose names Raji did not know. They marched about in sync with the music. A crowd of onlookers had gathered around them.

As she peered through the window, Raji spotted a girl amidst the marching group. That girl reminded her of her college days. She thought of those carefree times when she had fun with her friends and marched around on sports days.

The music stopped. The girl smiled and exchanged high-fives with her friends. They got together to lift a long banner made of cloth. A different tune began to play. This specific girl had very delicate movements. The rest of the girls seemed to be going through their motions like machines. This particular girl’s dance moves were brimming with life.

Raji bent down with the girls and lifted the banner. The yellow banner had huge black letters painted on it. The letters appeared even bigger when Raji held the banner in her hands. She could not fathom the meaning of those alphabets. But, her heart knew that it would be fun to lift the banner and play with it. Her feet moved to the rhythm of the drum beats. She looked at the other girls dancing beside her. Their faces were radiant with smiles. A group of men came dancing towards them. Trumpets were blown. There was one handsome young man among the dancing men. When she saw his eyes, Raji wanted to dance with him. As the drum beats rang out through the air, the men and women danced together. A songkok from an old man’s head plopped to the ground. Raji laughed. She felt she was laughing after a long time. Her laughter sounded alien to her.

The music’s tempo rose. Raji felt the pace of her dance steps double. Her body embraced the air around it. She spread her arms. A bird came flying through the air and kissed her palm. There was dance all around her. She was surrounded by enjoyment. Merriment. She swirled. Her skirt swirled with her.

The trumpet blew again. An undulating dragon figure rose up in the air. Raji realised the stick controlling its head was in her hands. She gave it a swish. The dragon soared up in the skies, ripping through air currents. Everyone looked up at the flying dragon in awe.

She ordered the dragon to fly towards the charming young lad. He pulled out a bouquet from within his jacket. As soon as the dragon touched the flowers, it withered into flower petals. As the petals showered through…

There was a knock at the door. Raji blinked as she sat inside her house. When she opened the door, a slightly tired Akshara stood there wearing a small shoulder bag and fidgeting with an empty plastic water bottle in her hand.

“Ma I’m hungry… what do you have to eat?”

That is when it struck Raji. She looked through her window at the opposite block. The old woman stood there, silent and gaunt. She was staring directly at Raji, with a void in her gaze. For the first time, Raji saw the features of the old woman’s face. Her face seemed vaguely familiar… The wrinkles on it spread slowly across the reflection of Raji’s face on the window.

“Ma!! I’m hungry!!”

Home

This is an English translation of my Tamil short story வீடு. This translation was published in Unwinding, an anthology of Tamil short stories, compiled by Jayanthi Sankar.

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Selvasekar. Bala read his name printed in bold black letters on the card he handed over. Above that name, was a photograph of him wearing a blazer and a toothy grin on a face that looked darker against the card’s white background. A few shiny skyscrapers peeked from behind his back to make his profession apparent.

Bala did not get why Selvasekar felt compelled to give him his card when he already had his mobile number. He slid the card in his wallet, making a mental note to throw it away later. He always wanted his wallet to feel light.

“Do you want a drink?” he asked Selvasekar courteously.

“I’ll have a kopi O.”

The two of them were at the food court near Bala’s house. It was raining heavily outside. Selvasekar sat at an empty table and gawked at the food stalls.

Bala walked towards the drinks stall. Before he could say a word, the uncle at the stall bawled, “Hello brother! One teh O limau panas?” He knew his drink of choice by heart but Bala hardly knew his name. The uncle muttered to himself as he tapped the order into the billing machine.

“Wah! Rain very heavy ah?” he asked looking up and noticing the wet patches on Bala’s shirt.

Bala nodded, “Also one kopi O uncle.”

“Your friend ah?” The uncle pointed his wrinkled finger at Selvasekar. Bala smiled and shook his head.

“Five persons right?” asked Selvasekar sipping his kopi O. Bala noticed that as he bent down to sip the cup, his shirt’s fabric tugged at the buttons so hard that they might pop out any moment. It made him look like a puffy poori with uneven bulges.

“Yeah, we’re five of us. Looking for a three bedroom house.”

“Are all of you Tamils?”

Bala did not understand the intent of this question. He could not give an immediate answer and gave it some thought. After counting in his mind, he shook his head. “No. One of them is Telugu. Another is from Kerala. But all of us can speak Tamil.”

“Which area are you looking at?”

“Anywhere down the green or purple MRT line. But, not too far away from the city.”

“Alright, don’t worry thambi. The market is currently down. I’ll find you a good house with low rent.”

“We thought of looking on our own. But, it’s such a headache.”

“That’s why we’re here! How many more days of lease do you have for your current house?”

“Six months actually. We’re vacating before it ends.”

“Why? What happened?”

“Problems with the landlord.”

“Chinese?”

Bala nodded. He felt something bite his right elbow and it stopped once he scratched it.

“Some Srinivasans are like that, you know. You must have heard of the curry incident?”

Bala could not comprehend. “Srinivasan?”

Selvasekar grinned. “That’s the code word we use to refer to them in our group. They won’t know we’re talking about them if we call them Srinivasan, you see.”

“Oh! You mean Chinese?” Bala picked out the calamansi fruit floating in his tea. He did not like Selvasekar.

“Thambi, are you a PR?”

“Yeah, I got it last year. All my friends are PR too.”

“Not bad. It’s quite difficult to get PR these days thambi.”

“All of us studied at NUS. Maybe that’s the reason.”

“Let me give you advice. Marry a local girl. Buy a house. Join a community club and do some work that catches your MP’s attention. Then you can easily become a citizen.”

“Have you become a Singaporean?”

“Yes!” The entire front row of his teeth was visible below his thick black moustache.

“Anyway, let me know once you find a house. It’s better if we have viewings after 7 pm. Weekends anytime can. Give me a call.”

As soon as Selvasekar nodded, his mobile phone began to ring. Bala gave him the customary handshake and left.

“See you uncle!” he waved at the drinks stall uncle, who waved back with a cigarette in his mouth.

***

These days Bala hated returning to his house. One of his friends lay on the sofa. The television was playing at a low volume. He went into his room and shut the door. The marble floor felt cold as he lay down.

Every time Bala lay down on the cold floor he felt he should have continued his studies at NUS. He did not have to worry about accommodation as long as he was studying. There were hostels. He had to do some extra-curricular activities to earn a spot. That was it. But, once he graduated and landed a job, finding a house was a nagging headache. The house had to be at a convenient location that was near the offices of all the five of them. The rent had to be within their budget of three thousand dollars per month. There had to be some Indian food stall nearby. The landlord had to be flexible to permit their parents to stay whenever they came to visit. Even if they shortlisted a house that satisfied these criteria, they would often find disclaimers in advertisements that said, “Ladies only” or “Families only.”

Even if the ads did not have such disclaimers, when he called up and asked, “I saw your ad. Is the house available?” instead of receiving a reply he would be asked, “What’s your name?”

As soon as he said his name was Bala, the reply would be, “Sorry! That house taken already.” Why did he hear ‘taken already’ after saying his name? Bala could think of a reason, but he convinced himself it cannot be that.

They had already shifted a house. The very first house they moved into gave them problems. “The landlord is Indian. So no worries!” their agent had reassured them. But, he forgot to mention that the landlord was a whiner too. “I should never have rented my house to bachelors!” He recited this every month when he visited the house, lapped up the rent and left. The landlord of their second house was Chinese. He lived in Australia with his family. Bala had never seen his face. All their communications were through email or the agent, and the rent was transferred online. It was a huge relief. But, when one of the friends took out an old bed from the storeroom, bed bugs emerged from it and spread throughout the house. They were forced to shift immediately. That is why he had to meet Selvasekar.

His back began to itch, and so he slid his hand into his shirt and scratched his back. Pressing down his index finger on his skin, he felt something small get crushed that made his fingertip wet. He pulled his hand out of his shirt. There was a familiar dot of blood on his finger. He wiped it with his thumb. The smell of iron reached his nostrils. Initially, the bugs bit him only during the night. But, for the past few days, they bit him during daytime too. He rolled up and examined the floor carefully, watching out for minute movements.

He spotted something move near the chair. He crawled quickly towards it. Something small and round was crawling on the floor. On closer inspection, its body looked like two conjoined circles, a smaller one for its head and a larger one for its body. Usually, it was black or dark brown in colour. But, this one was red, and Bala knew why. For a few moments, he stared at it in amazement. It bore his blood within its body and was crawling somewhere. Where did it come from? Where was it headed? His index finger moved towards it.

As he was about to crush it, the crawling bed bug reminded him of his childhood. That was how he walked to school carrying his school bag. He was reminded of the first time he saw an NUS advertisement in school. There was a photograph in a brochure that was spread out on his teacher’s desk. Students belonging to different races and nationalities sat in a circle on a lush green lawn, laughing and discussing something among themselves without a worry in the world. That photograph made him want to come to Singapore. But, he did not know where that particular lawn was located and made a mental note to find it some day. He visualized himself as a bed bug crawling on the image of the green lawn in the brochure. He felt pity for the bug that had climbed onto the chair’s leg. He folded his index finger.

***

“Yeah tell me,” Bala tapped his EZ-link card after boarding the double-decker bus and climbed to the top level, with his mobile phone stuck to his ear.

“Selvasekar called me up. He said there’s a house at Outram Park. I’m on the way to view it.”

Once he reached the top floor, he held on to the handrails as his eyes surveyed the seats. They were neatly arranged in two rows with an aisle in between. A few people sat here and there like separate islands, one person in each seat. He walked down the aisle towards an empty seat at the back. An old man eyed him with a dissatisfied expression on his face.

“What’s the email about?” He sat down in the empty seat, placing his shoulder bag beside him. A Filipino woman, who sat some seats in front, was shouting at someone on the phone. Bala could not hear his friend’s voice. He shut one of his ears with a finger. As soon as he heard what his friend said, a tightly bound ball of anger uncoiled inside him.

“You should tell him that the bed bugs came out of the bed in the storeroom. How can they blame us for it?”

“Alright. What do they want?”

“1000 dollars?! That old sofa isn’t worth even 100 dollars! They’re talking as if we damaged their house.”

“We ought to have a serious conversation with them. We’re not at fault. They must return our deposit in full.”

“Once I’m back tonight, we’ll draft an email together.”

As he cut the call, he could feel anger shoot up to his temples. The Filipino woman did not seem like she would stop shouting anytime soon. He shut the hole above his head that spat out cold air. He looked out through the window. The bus was passing by a petrol station. A huge air-filled toy stood at its entrance, looking like a man wearing a cap with a smile on the face. Air was constantly blown into it, and one of its arms kept waving, welcoming people to enter the petrol station. Bala thought, “What would they do if they invite people in and run out of petrol?”

A little distance from the petrol station was the Ganesh temple. He pressed the bell and got up. The sound of the bell was hardly audible over the shouts of the Filipino woman. The bus suddenly gave a jolt and made him lose his balance momentarily. He grabbed the handrail. His shoulder bag brushed against the old man who sat nearby. Bala failed to take notice of him. The old man looked at the retreating form of Bala with the same dissatisfied expression on his face.

***

Bala hurriedly entered the train just as the doors were about to close. The time was 7 pm. The exhaustion from work hung heavily on his eyelids. He put on his earphones and filled his ears with music. The house at Outram Park did not work out. The landlord was unwilling to negotiate on the rent. Selvasekar had arranged for another house viewing today at Little India. Although his moustache intimidated Bala, he liked the pace at which he found houses for viewing.

The lunch conversation among Bala’s colleagues that day had been about houses. One of them spoke of shifting to a low-rent house in Sengkang, being pleased to contact the landlord directly and thereby bypassing the agent commission. The usual questions followed.

“How much is the rent?”

“How long does it take you to reach your office from there?”

“Is it a condo or an HDB?” 

Bala felt exhausted. He could not understand why these questions cropped up again and again whenever he met anyone for the first time in Singapore. “Where do you stay? How much is the rent there?”

He looked up from his phone. The electronic alphabets on the train's black rectangular screen announced that the next station was Chinatown. He heard a commotion as a song came to an end in his ears. A middle-aged man standing to his left was shouting angrily. He was so thin that a gush of wind could have brushed him aside. He wore a checkered shirt, had long-term smoking stains on his teeth and was moving his hands frantically, shouting. Bala paused the next song that began to play.

The man was shouting at a construction worker who sat in a reserved seat. The construction worker looked like he was a Bangladeshi. A plastic Mustafa carry bag containing a few items dangled from his hands. He wore a faded green shirt and jeans that looked like it had been washed and worn several times. He rested his head on the glass panel beside the reserved seat, and his eyes were closed.

A person sitting beside him poked him gently with a finger. Once he was awake, the worker noticed this man squawking in English and Mandarin. From the gestures, he understood the gist and sprang up. There was no elderly person around to take up the reserved seat. Yet, the thin man continued his rant.

He would stay quiet for a while. Then, he would continue scolding the worker. Occasionally, people who stood some distance away, turned around to see what the commotion was all about. But, the people beside the thin man were silent and simply turned their faces the other way. Some of them took a couple of steps away from him and continued staring at their phones.

The construction worker was sweating. He stood behind Bala as if he was hiding. Bala still had earphones plugged into his ears. But he heard what the thin man said, as he began to talk in English now. “You cannot follow the rules? Don’t you know that seat is for the elderly? You got no eyes or what? This one of your houses is it so you can sit anywhere? If you cannot follow the rules, then go back to your country! What are you staring at? Want to beat me? Come hit me! I make a video of you and upload on the internet. Wait!”

He pulled out his mobile phone from his pocket. The worker hid behind Bala’s back. Bala stared at the thin man. Somehow he felt the man was shouting not at the worker but at him. He gripped tighter the pivoted grab handle dangling from the handrail.

“Do you know what happens if this goes on Facebook? You wait, and you see. This will come in the news tomorrow!” The thin man held the mobile phone in front of him as he said these words.

The train arrived at Dhoby Ghaut station. Once the doors opened, the thin man became silent. Among the people who boarded the train was a young Chinese girl, who sat down in the empty reserved seat. The thin man remained silent.

Bala alighted at Dhoby Ghaut. The grab handle, he had been holding wobbled for a while, even after the train doors slid shut.

***

After several days, Bala’s room was empty, except for a blue wheeled luggage that stood in the middle. Bala was surprised that all of his belongings fit neatly into it. He vividly remembered what his friend’s father had remarked at the Chennai airport when they were heading to Singapore for the first time.

“Look at Bala. He only has one piece of luggage for all his belongings. Learn from him!” he had scolded his son. Perhaps it was that remark which ensured Bala never accumulated enough stuff that outgrew this single piece of luggage. He shut his room windows with pride. It was raining outside. Bala was doubtful if the truck would arrive on time to shift to their new house.

“How much longer for the truck?” he asked his friend. His friend fiddled with his phone and replied, “Fifteen minutes.” Bala looked around the room once to ensure he had not left anything behind. For some reason, his heart felt as empty as the room. There had been several angry email exchanges the past few days — a fiery debate about who was responsible for the bed bugs.

Eventually, they agreed to deduct a certain amount from their initial deposit. Every single part of Bala’s body felt exhausted. What will happen in the new house at Little India that they had signed up for? Would he find peace if he married a local girl and bought a house as Selvasekar suggested? He looked at the skies through the window. It had darkened and looked more like evening rather than afternoon. He felt suffocated.

“I’ll be at the coffee shop downstairs.”

He carefully crossed the wet slippery floor outside the mini-mart downstairs. A lady with earphones plugged into one of her ears was hurriedly pushing some cardboard boxes into the shop to protect them from the rain. An empty cardboard box was completely drenched. Thick sheets of rain were beating down on it ensuring it would never rise up again.

“Hello, brother! Teh O limau..,” uncle said as he began tapping the order on the billing machine. Bala noticed that he held a cigarette in his other hand.

“Uncle, cancel teh O limau.”

“Okay. What you want?”

“One cigarette can?”

The two of them stood at a corner of the food court and lighted their cigarettes. He liked uncle’s style that he had noticed quite often. He would place the cigarette in his mouth while he was in the stall. Then, he would walk to a corner of the food court with both hands in his pockets. Once he reached the corner, only then would he take out his lighter and light the cigarette. That is exactly what he did today.

“Why do you do that?”

“I like the taste of raw cigarette in my mouth,” he said and blew out smoke into the rain. Bala took in a puff and exhaled. He was reminded of his university days when he had last smoked. The smoke he inhaled temporarily filled the void inside him. It latched onto thoughts that could not be expressed in words and brought them tumbling out as he exhaled. The sheets of rain fell with great force and tried to quench this smoke. But, it escaped by making its way through the gaps between the raindrops. Seeing this brought a smile on Bala’s face.

Uncle began to whistle a quaint tune Bala had not heard before. He snapped his fingers with the same rhythm and puffed out smoke. Bala turned around and looked at the food court behind him. Figures hurriedly rushed here and there with the sound of porcelain cutlery rubbing against each other. Mute buildings that stood in front of him with empty corridors. The elderly who sat in wheelchairs and stared blankly at the rain from void decks. Nobody paid any attention to the song uncle was whistling. Bala felt it was a special song that he alone heard. For some unknown reason, the song filled his heart with sorrow. He looked at uncle. His body looked like a crushed, half-smoked cigarette. His hands and face were wrinkled. His colourful hair reminded him of ice kachang, and he smiled once again.

“We’re shifting houses today uncle.”

“Oh… which area?” he asked without turning to look at him.

“Little India.”

“Good good. Rent how much ah?” He blew out more smoke as he asked this. Bala felt like he was stung by the lighted end of a cigarette. He did not know what reply he expected. But, he felt he did not get something he wanted. He felt choked by the cigarette smoke. He flung the cigarette into the pool of water puddling at their feet.

He only pronounced the words, “Thanks for the smoke uncle.” He could see the truck arriving at a distance. He pointed at it and gestured that he was leaving. Uncle continued whistling and waved his hand. Bala’s friends had brought all the luggage downstairs. He could see his blue luggage in the distance, and was gently surprised that it appeared quite small.

Bala ran out into the rain. The raindrops transformed into tiny needles and pricked his shoulders and head. He bent his head low and ran towards his luggage. It grew larger as he got closer and closer. Panting for breath, he tugged at its zip and pulled it open. All of his possessions were neatly laid out inside and held in place by two criss-cross belts. He slid his hand in as if looking for something.

The rain grew heavier. Each raindrop transformed into a bed bug when it touched his skin and gnawed at him. He felt his body melt like an empty cardboard box in the rain. He pushed his elbow into the luggage. Then, he placed his left foot inside. He bent down and slid his head in. There was still some space left. He gave a gentle push, folded up his right leg and with his other hand tugged at the lid. He was surprised when it neatly shut close.

The heavy patter of the rain came to an end. The smell of naphthalene balls welcomed him in the darkness inside the luggage. His belongings hugged his squished body and held him tight. He felt warm.

Shears

The cursor blinked on his laptop screen. Kamal’s fingers paused for a moment on his keyboard, before they typed out the single word.

“Atheist”

He was filling up an online form and this was a word he typed into one of the fields.

Kamal was nineteen years old, wore black-rimmed glasses, a black t-shirt and sported a neatly trimmed black french beard. He liked black. He felt it expressed his belief or rather lack of belief in the power that made more than half the world kneel.

“Why do you guys point upwards when referring to God? What if he’s below? You do claim he’s omnipresent.”

He began his journey with this argument and later graduated to, “Do you believe in astrology? Such rubbish! Don’t you control your life? My astrologer predicted that the planetary positions pose a life threat to me this year. That silly man can’t make ends meet and he claims to know my future!”

And then from this enlightened state, he moved on to, “Let’s suppose there’s a planet between Earth and Mars. You can’t see it. If I told you this planet controls everything, then how would you disprove me?”

These words that tumbled out of his mouth, were of course, the after effects of reading Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion. He ensured that at the canteen, anyone who wasn’t busy eating or sipping a drink would receive his anecdotes for free.

Kamal was a second year Computer Science undergraduate at National University of Singapore. He didn’t manage to get a scholarship. So he had only a three year bond to serve after his studies.

“Once I’m done with my bond, I’ll roam around India on a bike. Just like Che Guevara!”

He leaned back in his chair and imagined the long mountainous paths, valleys and towns that he’d travel through and how he’d awaken the intellects of people on the way. He’d go on a black bike of course. His favourite professor at NUS was Dr. Stephen Brown. He came to university every day on a Harley Davidson motorcycle. His lecture was coming up next. Siddhartha and Kamal were seated in the canteen and munching some masala vadais before heading to his class. And that’s when Susantharan came along.

“Hey Kamal! We’re looking for volunteers for the Theemidhi festival tomorrow. Are you game? We’ll give you eight points.”

Susantharan’s question was addressed only to Kamal. He didn’t bother to look at Siddhartha who sat nearby. And that was because Siddhartha was a local student and he had a comfortable home to get back to every night. It was Kamal who needed a hostel. And to get one, he needed co-curricular activity points to compete with other foreign students. Susantharan knew that.

“I’m happy with the four points I got for Thaipoosam last time. Thank you!” came Kamal’s retort.

Kamal could never forget what he was made to do for those four points. “Route marshaling!” it was called. On the day of Thaipoosam, you get to stand on Tank Road, in front of two queues and then announce to each passer-by, “This way if you want your head shaved. That way if you want to see the Lord!” And if you said it well enough, then you’d get bee hoon in a takeaway box, along with four co-curricular points.

Thus it was that Kamal was deeply indebted to Lord Murugan of Tank Road for ensuring that he retained his hostel stay for his second year. And it was a pretty good hostel too. When he showed his mother the photographs on Skype, she was blown away. “Even the best flats in Chennai don’t look this good!” His mother and grandmother were easily awed by Singapore and its architecture. They had been primed through tales from relatives who travelled here before. Tales of super clean roads on which one could serve rice and sambar and eat without a worry. No matter how hard Kamal tried to convince them that was an exaggeration, his mother didn’t want to believe him.

“I’ve been watching you for a while. You talk weird… Don’t you believe in God?” Susantharan got straight to the point.

Siddhartha moaned with a piece of vadai stuck halfway in his mouth. He sensed that the goat had volunteered itself to the butcher.

“How can I believe in something that doesn’t exist?” Kamal sharpened his knife.

Susantharan was seated directly opposite Kamal. He was the exact opposite type as well. “The Hindu religion has several hidden treasures. This is my humble attempt to impart this knowledge to young students” Susantharan had given such interviews to the Vasantham TV channel about a workshop he conducted for school kids. “Youngsters like Susantharan are the ray of hope that Indian culture will survive into the future” the news reporter’s voice choked with emotion as he said this.

“How do you know he doesn’t exist?”

“How do you know he exists?”

“Guys! Do any of you want a coke? I’m heading to the vending machine.” Siddhartha’s question went unheeded.

Susantharan looked at Kamal without batting an eyelid. He knew such guys very well. They studied English in schools, read English books and took India and its rich, cultural heritage for granted. They’d debate hours on end about US politics and the secrets hidden in the Da Vinci Code but knew not a thing about Panini or Charvaka.

“Do you know what’s the problem with humans?” Kamal began speaking as if he were explaining it to a little kid, “We make things. And so when we see anything, we think somebody must have made it. To be more specific...”

Kamal looked around. He could see a tower crane in the distance. “Take that tower crane for example.”

Susantharan turned to look in the direction that Kamal pointed. A clubhouse for university alumni was being constructed nearby and a seventy-metre tall tower crane stood in the distance.

“This crane picks up stuff by bending just like a human arm. But when we look at it, it seems gigantic. Overpowering. What strikes you first when you see it? Wow! Who made this? How did they make it? Isn’t that so?”

“What’s your point?”

“Likewise when we see this world, we’re overwhelmed by its grandeur. And we think who made humans? Without embarking on a quest for an answer, we kill the question by saying it’s God.”

Susantharan clapped his hands slowly. “Your friend is a tough nut to crack!” he remarked to Siddhartha and got up to leave. Siddhartha sat sipping his Coke calmly.

***

“Haan yes! Hello? Do you hear me?”

Static noise. Kamal from his hostel room on a Skype call with his mother.

“Ca… hea… you...”

“Ma, do you hear me?”

“Hello? Do you hear me Kamal? Do you...”

“Yes ma. Tell me. Have you eaten?”

“What are you doing? Yes, I have eaten.”

“Nothing much”

“Why is your room dark?”

“I just finished watching a film.”

Kamal leaned over from his seated position, as much as his earphones permitted, to switch on his table lamp, “You tell me. What’s special today?”

“Which film?”

“Pather Panchali. Satyajit Ray.”

“Grandma made ladies finger curry today. It had no salt.”

“Oh! Nice. You messaged that you wanted to book something.” Kamal spoke without looking at his laptop screen. He was busy scribbling something in a notepad.

“I want to book an Ola cab.”

“Didn’t I install the Ola app on your iPad?”

“Yeah you did. But it isn’t coming.”

“What?”

“Yeah. It isn’t coming.”

“You mean the cab isn’t coming?”

“It simply says login failed.”

“Oh… why do you need an Ola cab now?”

His mother hesitated.

“Kamal… I must tell you something.”

“What?”

“Das uncle’s father passed away.”

Kamal jerked his head around and looked at his mother on the laptop screen. For a few moments, the only sound he heard was the creaking of the ceiling fan above her head.

“When?”

“Today afternoon. Das told me over phone.”

“What happened?”

“Heart attack. That’s why I’m thinking of going to their place tomorrow.”

Kamal heard a voice complaining loudly in the background.

“What’s grandma whining?”

“The same thing. She’s saying take a cab and go see them tomorrow morning. She’s asking me not to take the bus.”

“Yes, ma. Don’t take the bus. The summer’s quite hot this year.”

“But this app isn’t logging me in.”

“Okay hold on. Don’t you remember the password?”

“I had jotted it down in a notebook. And that’s what I tried.”

“Why don’t you call them to book a cab?”

“When I call them, they ask me to book using the app. I’d go for Fast Track but they charged a lot last time. Ola is cheaper.”

“Okay. What’s the password written in the notebook? Did you try it?”

“SaiBaba123. It didn’t work. It says login fai...”

“Yeah yeah I got that. Let me reset the password for you.”

Kamal picked up his mobile and tapped some buttons on the screen.

“Where does Das uncle live now? They were in Mylapore weren’t they?”

Kamal always referred to him as Das uncle. As a child, he used to spend most of his day at his place. Das uncle taught him Hindi. He remembered sitting cross-legged in front of him as he read out each word from the textbook. Kamal would write the word and then turn his book around to show it to him. If there was a spelling mistake, Das uncle would pinch him on his thigh with his sharp nails. As he recollected it, his palm brushed against his thigh, without him knowing.

“Now they’ve shifted to the outskirts of Chennai. Perungalathur. I meet him occasionally at office. I say hi hello. That’s it.”

The image of a huge pair of scissors appeared in front of Kamal’s eyes. The striped blue lungi of Das uncle’s father, his neatly combed white hair and the yellow measuring tape that hung around his neck. He always smelled of cleanly washed clothes. Kamal couldn’t say for sure if it was the smell of the clothes he wore or the clothes he stitched.

“Do you remember ma? Once I bought a pair of scissors for him from Mustafa.”

“Mmm… yeah... he said the handle wasn’t firm and asked you to take it back…”

Kamal remembered that incident vividly. Das uncle’s mother told him in private that he was always very picky when it came to scissors and that Kamal shouldn’t take his comment to heart. Kamal didn’t mind it actually. The scissors wasn’t something he specially sought out for Das uncle’s father. While he was shopping at Mustafa before his trip back home, he spotted the pair of scissors hanging from a rack. It was a pair of sewing shears to be exact. And instantly it reminded him of Das uncle’s father. He remembered watching him cut cloth in precise moves with a similar pair of shears. The shears in his hand would glide through the fabric as his feet gently rocked the sewing machine. And he used it to also cut book covers that Kamal would then wrap around his new school notebooks.

“Ma, check if you got an SMS now. Tell me the number in it. I’ll reset your password.”

“3… 8… 5… 7… 2... ”

Kamal keyed in each number as his mother read it out loud. As a child, he was fascinated by the shears. Its handle had two differently sized holes - one for the thumb and the other for the rest of the fingers. At that time, the second hole was big enough to accommodate all his fingers. And every time its blades cut into something, it would raise a distinct, sharp sound. Zzapp! Das uncle’s father told him that the sound lived within the fabric and that the blades of the shears freed it as they ripped through.

“Try now. It’s the same password.”

"S... a... i... B... a... b... a... 1... 2... 3..."

Kamal watched the pixelated image of his mother typing with her head bowed down, as she pronounced each alphabet to herself. A few strands of hair above her forehead had turned white. Kamal felt something rip through his abdomen.

***

He heard the engine rev up and could see the bus gliding out of the terminal. He rushed towards it, scolding himself for forgetting his notes as usual. His mobile buzzed in his pocket, as he climbed two steps at a time. The screen said, “Mom”. She didn’t usually call in the morning… what could be wrong. He answered the call with a slight unease, adjusting the strap of his backpack.

“Hello Kamal?”

“Yes ma. What’s the matter?”

“Hold on a minute”

Two seconds of silence.

“Hello Kamal”

Kamal was bounding towards the departing bus with quick strides but came to a sudden halt as if he hit upon an invisible wall. It was the voice of Das uncle. He didn’t know what to say.

“Hello uncle...”

“How are you Kamal?”

Das uncle’s voice felt like his vocal chords were parched. Kamal felt this question was unnecessary given the situation. How did it matter how Kamal was?

“I’m fine uncle. You…”

“Hello? Kamal how are you?”

He realized Das uncle couldn’t hear him. He moved to a corner of the bus stop and spoke a bit louder, “I’m fine uncle! Mom told me... what happened...”

His left hand fidgeted with his glasses. He couldn’t bring himself to say the word “death”. He imagined how Das uncle’s face would look now. An image of Das uncle’s mother weeping with her head in her hands flitted past his eyes.

“You should have met him once at least. I asked your mother to come visit us many times.”

Kamal didn’t have an answer. And then feeling the compulsion to say something, he cleared his throat, “Don’t worry uncle… you have our support”

“Support” - He immediately felt awkward after saying it. He didn’t know why he used that word. Had he heard someone else use it?

“You support your mom” Das uncle handed the phone back to Kamal’s mother. Kamal blinked unable to comprehend what he meant.

“Hello Kamal?” His mother’s voice again.

“Are you crazy?! Why did you pass the phone to Das uncle without telling me first?” He wanted to scold her, but checked himself, thinking he might hear it.

“Bye Kamal. Let’s chat tonight.”

“Shut up and hang up!” he rebuked her in his mind, as he cut the call.

Siddhartha was waiting for him outside the building where the day’s lecture was to take place.

“Why so serious son? What’s up?”

“Nothing Sid. Have you eaten?”

“Not yet dude. We’ve got a class in five minutes.”

“When have we been on time? Let’s grab something to eat!”

Rat-at-at-at-at! Siddartha and Kamal looked up. The sound came from the tower crane that stood nearby. Its gigantic arm swung slowly to and fro as if it had lost control.

Daga-daga-daga…. Rat-at-at-at-at….

There was a bus stop outside the building. A bus stood there, waiting for a few people, who were getting in and out.

Daga - daga - daga!

The gazes of everyone present wandered about for a while before locking in upon the swinging crane in the skies. Siddhartha and Kamal froze. The next few events happened within a span of five seconds.

The swinging crane began to topple downwards slowly… very slowly towards them. The people at the bus stop let out screams and scattered about in all directions. The bus driver sat frozen in his seat and stared blankly at the falling crane above. The few inside the bus gripped the seats in front of them and gaped through the windows. A girl slipped on her flip-flops and fell. Splat! Her books scattered on the road. The crane neared the bus stop and the bus, uprooting a tree nearby. The girl jolted up and broke into a run. Crack! The sound of branches snapping... Wham! A lamp post began to slide down with the crane. Kamal and Siddartha didn’t realize they had started running too. The falling crane gathered momentum. The bus driver shut his eyes.

The crane’s gigantic arm flipped in the last instant and crashed behind the bus stop with a loud thud. Dust and screams rent the air. Kamal and Siddhartha stopped running and turned around. The tower crane lay snuggled beneath a blanket of dust, after ripping through the rain shelter behind the bus stop. At a distance of ten feet from the crane, Siddhartha and Kamal stood with their hearts thumping, gulping down deep breaths.

Silence.

A few seconds passed. The bus began to crawl out of the stop.

***

“What did you eat today?”

Kamal was reading the day’s news on a website. The headlines declared that three people died in the crane crash. All three of them were construction workers. Two Chinese and one Bangladeshi. Their names weren’t specified. He only saw their ages.

“We had snake gourd curry today. What did you have?”

One of the victims was an operator who sat atop the crane. Kamal imagined international calls zipping from Singapore to China and Bangladesh. How would they convey the news, who’d convey it...

“Kamal, I don’t hear you.”

He tore his eyes away from the website. “What did you say ma?”

“I asked what did my dear son eat today.” His mother smiled.

“Oh that… I… I had noodles… Maggi noodles...”

The shocked faces of his classmates, when he told them of the crane crash was still fresh in his eyes. He saw his professor rush out to check on his Harley Davidson motorcycle that was parked outside.

“Are you busy?”

“No. You tell me.”

“Nothing here. What’s special in Singapore today?”

Kamal paused for a moment. He looked at the Skype window on his laptop screen. His mother’s face filled it while his own thumbnail was scrunched up in the bottom corner. He could make out the stuttering blades of the ceiling fan behind her. And then, he noticed the white strands of hair on her forehead.

“Nothing special ma. I went to class. And then came back. That’s it.”

As soon as he said it, his ears filled with the sharp snaps of the shears once again.