Tag: fiction

#16 Postcard – The not-so-retired life of Madam S

A Nevilsville curveball was something the old woman could live with, but it would only be a matter of time before the past caught up with her.

It’s a summer afternoon in Texas. A dull wind blows through empty streets as AC generators whir mad at work. Sun-lit balconies stay deserted while TV sets play Sunday cable within, only lazy church bells ring attendance by the hour.

Madam S is busy trotting about her backyard with a shovel, she had to fixate the patch between the oaks every week or the damned pug would dig his way into the ground. (Soil got loose this time of the year). Otis watched from the patio, drooling.

The hammock Maddy and Madam S put up last evening swung in the breeze. It’s still sweltering, they had to wait till at least 8 when sun went down to enjoy it. If Maddy visited today she had to remember to give him Bob’s contact. A Nevilsville curveball was something the old woman could live with, but it would only be a matter of time before the past caught up with her. And good people are hard to come by.

It was a foggy winter evening when Madam S landed in Texas. The trees in her backyard garden had turned skeletons after shedding. Hell, skeletons lined the way from airport to her new cottage – an ironical welcome to her retirement life.

At her age Madam S didn’t have appetite for the foolery that people indulged in the name of socializing, definitely not of the Welcome to Nevilsville Night sort the neighborhood folks threw her. So much for a reclusive retirement, wasn’t this town supposed to be boring? The two of them would resort to silence in the company of others, and Maddy instantly became her favorite.

Later in the evening when air cooled down, Madam S and Maddy sipped tea in porcelain cups from her cupboard, the soaked marble cake leaving a brown trail after each dip.

“Do you want some to take home? I baked one fresh last night.”

“You should let me hang that in the patio, chandeliers weren’t meant to lie around dirty garage floors…”

“Eat cake kid, I’m old enough to know what they were meant for.”
“I’m hoping to get rid of it, soon.” She added as an afterthought.

It would seem that life was filled with irony. After his father’s death last year, Maddy had been spending more time in her backyard. His mom didn’t want him around, the fourteen year old had too much energy for her to handle. But the kid was a sweetheart.

The chandelier lay there alongside Madam S’ garden sickle, drills and her tool set. That reminded her –

Madam S jotted BOB on a piece of paper followed by ten digits, and handed it to Maddy.

“Call this guy if Molly locks you up in the attic again, he lives by the highway. I can’t always hop to your house when you get into trouble.”

“You worry too much. Mom’s glad I’m away, not been herself since father died.”
“On second thought, can I have another bite of that cake?”

Madam S headed to the kitchen table, Otis tailing after her. She did feel for Molly – life is hard. Couldn’t have been easier with an abusive husband in a town with naked trees for company 9 months of the year.
Well that had been taken care of. Partially.

Madam S turned around at the back door to see Maddy leap onto the hammock, hoisted right above where his father lay, between the oaks. She smiled. Bob was a good man.

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#7 Postcard – The librarian

Saturdays are good because you can leave the library an hour earlier than usual. Saturdays are also Bring your kids to work day. If Miss Dena from admin office brought Bella Anne to the library, M’s two girls would be upset to leave by 5.

Saturdays are good because you can leave the library an hour earlier than usual. Saturdays are also Bring your kids to work day. If Miss Dena from admin office brought Bella Anne to the library, M’s two girls would be upset to leave by 5. After saying their goodbyes, the children would run in circles in the outside lawns until Miss Dena raised her voice, and M would have to put on her stern face.

The downtown library crowd was more engaging than the South East branch where M was posted the first six months. There, the crowds were mostly parents dropping by after work to pick up books for their kids, always asking for recommendations (the South East branch stayed open till 8).

In downtown, the weekday crowd spanned university students, retirees and stay-at-home parents with their toddlers. They were also more patient in the queues to drop the books, actively participated in workshops, and took their time to learn the automated check-out and check-in machines – even Carla who was 84, one of their oldest patrons, and still visited regularly during the pandemic. It was partly why she enjoyed working in a library, a similar crowd at a Walmart line would no doubt form a disgruntled bunch.

So many of those self-help counters had stood empty for over a year now. The staff still regularly stacked the New Releases shelves, updated audio books on the website, and had recently refurnished the top floor lounge, although occupancy was down to less than 20%.

Saturdays were more idle because there would be no inventory arrivals, no new Interlibrary Requests to process. M sat at the reception with Bullock, the young assistant who had recently moved from the west coast, and talk about the California housing crisis (It was home, but I already love Texas). The kids would spend time in their section on the third floor without bother (except that time almost two years ago when they first tried to open the Emergency door, sending alarms and the security running, and her heart almost rose to her throat as she rushed to the elevator). Most summer Saturdays they would be occupied in workshops – origami-making, marble painting and crafts – attended by the staff’s young children, pre-teens from town and a handful of sportive adults.
Hardly anyone had attended them in South East location, but who thought it was a good idea to open a branch near a factory site?

In the evening once the girls were downstairs, Bullock would let them grab office stationery from her desk – marker pens, custom HB pencils and colored paper. M would then take them to Flying Fish across the Museum of Art, leaving their bags in the car. The girls always got fish and chips with extra dip and a soda drink, she would have the catfish sandwich with iced tea. Sometimes they’d order a plate of calamari rings. (Only once, when the kids were off on summer camp, she had tried their margarita with the then-assistant).

The grill had a wall dedicated to polaroids of first-visits, there was a picture of the three of them pinned up there from their first day at the place. That was also the day the emergency alarm went off, there was no Dena or Bullock present, it had been a lonely rollercoaster Saturday with the kids. Nonetheless, having them spend weekend at the library was a huge convenience.

M listened as the two of them munched and talked about how many books Stephanie read that day (Paula did not like to read), or how they had dozed off during the recycling workshop. Some days they bumped into Mrs. Sanders on her way back from the university.

As they drove home, the girls argued about whether they should move to California themselves (everyone is pretty there like Miss Bullock, that must be real boring, it went on). M looked at the weekend or what remained of it at her disposal. Tomorrow she had to run the laundry, sew the pinafore sleeve Paula had torn earlier in the week, and get the long pending car-wash. But tonight she’d finish the dishes while water filled in her tub, proceed to light those bath candles that’d been lying in her bottom drawer for over half a year, and then she could attend to the new release of Murakami, waiting in her tote bag.

From the Origami workshop at Arlington Public library

#6 Postcard – Young attempts at fiction, poor imagination

After I was done with the story I genuinely contemplated burning it, then realized if burning was an option there were worse things that I needed to take care of first.

When I was 12, I started writing a long short story in my diary. It was never intended for anyone else to see, and after I was done with it I genuinely contemplated burning it, then realized if burning was an option there were worse things that I needed to take care of first.

I made the story up as I went, it consumed the diary and continued in a new one before I gave up.

I didn’t give up because the writing was bad. I knew that after some 4 pages when I struggled to find alternatives to said/reckoned.

I probably gave up because I couldn’t keep track of who’s who or what had happened previously. There were boring conversations that annoyed me, but I was aware it stemmed from my poor writing and creativity 😀

Soon after, I started on another story. The central character was a 14-15 year old science geek (he’d know way too much if he was older and I didn’t know much to write about), he was a rebel who did not accept the names of celestial bodies, and called them what he wanted to.
In hindsight, I think a science geek might not have been so unreasonable, but a science geek didn’t write the story and hence.

This time I limited people count to 2.

He would open with I’m watching the sun tonight and the quirk would be revealed by his friend’s Oh you mean the moon, of course. (I just cringed again after 15 years :D) The kid was a lazy, unimaginative noob like me and switched the names shamelessly.

The plot didn’t advance much, so I embarked on an exercise where I’d derive inspiration from movie trailers and spin the outline story (no naggy dialogue). I started with 2 movies – one starred Kavya Madhavan and I don’t remember the other.

Anyway, what I’m trying to say is at age 12 I was convinced I was terrible at fiction, and of the limits to my imagination 😀

Biennale 2 : Jew Street – Parting

“Am I Lola Milford?” She was watching him intently.

The air was less sultry now, the armpit rivers of smaller diameter.
The streets were empty save for a few shops open in the slow-cooling afternoon heat, adjacent buildings looming on either sides of the narrow road.

They walked slowly in their shade, peeping into antique/curios stores and shops selling overpriced tea and unreasonably large white kurtas for the tourist. This was the last stop before catching their separate trains back home, and the thought followed them just as the falling daylight.

“On a Sunday afternoon..,” she sang Groovin’ loudly as they slowed their pace. He smiled. It was Saturday. She had only suggested the song to him that morning and it wasn’t one of their songs, yet.

They could easily live in one of these places, narrow and long, winding inwards, calm. There would be a small verandah with cheap aluminium rails, the kind you see in some houses near the beach, with cycles parked out. Afternoons would be strong tea and a playlist that switched between his, hers, and theirs. They’d sit with friends in summer and in rain, which meant they’d have to make friends here first. The long winding house would be a mystery that opened itself just to the two of them, with partitions for walls and ceramics taken out only during tea. Rent would probably be up the roof though so it’s best they didn’t gamble their chance at business. Would it be odd, living among all of them? Are only Jews allowed to occupy places here? Their music wouldn’t gel with the aesthetic, no. And they were glass-people, not ceramic. Kochi wasn’t their place to be, though they’d miss Shahabaz Aman.

 “Life would be ecstasy, you and me endlessly – ” , ending the song she dropped her head sideways and swiveled, stepping on and off the shade. Like during waves at the beach except he didn’t have to hold her from moving further away as she swayed back to him.

The melancholy suddenly taking over soon after the song ended, as if remembering their impending close, she asked, “What happens when I leave?”

He stopped to watch dreamcatchers hung between the buildings, pretending like he hadn’t heard. It was sad when she was sad.

“Am I Lola Milford?” She was watching him intently.
“No,” prompt came his reply and they continued walking towards the synagogue, brushing past the returning crowd, neither facing the other. He didn’t want them to drown, it was up to him now.

“Why not?”

And as if suddenly deciding to lift the mood, she cheerfully jumped, almost like she might break into dance again to yet another song.
“Am I missing any of her 4 listed attributes? Para para!” Demanding an answer, threatening to pull his fat cheeks.
He gave it a pause.
“We’re too precious to be characters in a book.” He was serious, unlike his usual grinning self, still not looking her in the face.

“You mean we aren’t? Nobody’s too precious.” She stopped hopping and walked by his side again, with a face that looked like it’d been sad for far too long and had just cheated on a quick short break, and was back to being the sad self again.
They stayed silent and walked on, neither minding the surrounding anymore.

They halted in their tracks and sighed. The sign at the deserted synagogue read, “CLOSED ON SATURDAYS.” They stared at the silent white building for a while and then at the clock on its high wall.
He was slow but stern with his reply, filling in the shoes she’d left a while ago, his shadow falling on her as he turned.

“We aren’t in Lola, because you aren’t leaving. And neither am I.”

The frame coyly shifts away, and we’ll never know if the two kissed before they made their ways back home.

Closed on Saturdays.

Biennale 1 : AspinWall House

Her hairs shifted in the breeze that made its way into Aspinwall House from the sea, the familiar smell of hair oils tinged with sweat reaching him.

Her hairs shifted in the breeze that made its way into Aspinwall House from the sea, the familiar smell of hair oils tinged with sweat reaching him. They were curly today because the hair was still wet and there was too much oil in them, with thick wavy strands where dry.

“കിളിവന്നു കൊഞ്ചിയ ജാലകവാതിൽ..”

A middle-aged uncle urgently attended to his loud ringing phone, shuffling in embarrassment and looking around in apology for his ringtone, in all likelihood a mistake by an impatient adolescent son or a daughter. A short woman, probably his wife, identified the song and turned from the queue ahead in front of the black-and-white freedom photographs.

The song brought to mind ill-lit library aisles, shining bright eyes and shy faces too close to each other. The young couple looked at each other and grinned.

“Your armpits are a river.” Her humour was either inappropriate or scathing.
“Yea Kochi’s melting.”
They moved out of the building. Sure enough, everyone on the grounds stuck to the shades of trees and the building, from volunteers to visitors to students running to avoid the sun. Their faces glistened in perennial tropical sweat.

“You know, I think I could’ve squeezed in my final year workshop project somewhere here, it’s got more effort to it than this representative solitary tyre with a measly description.”
“It’s the message that counts, isn’t that what they say. Plus they’d have arranged a JCB and all that.”
“Why aren’t you in a sari? I expected you’d be.”
“Well I expected you’d come naked.”
“Some day. You’re welcome though.” He grinned.

The rooms on the first floor were filled with portraits.
“I’m pretty sure we’re missing something. Something big and important. I’m getting bored.” She leaned up at him staring at a frame.

“She’s got a snake on her face.”
“Snakes.”
“Maybe she bites.”
“It’s probably the rest of the world, not her.”
“Is it poisonous?”
“Should I google?” He had already taken out his phone.
“Let’s just go paint.”

On their way down the stairs was a wall with rows of “Don’t die” handwritten and struck out, right next to suicidal diary notes and pin-ups.

“How much do you think the model was paid to wear snakes on her face?”
“Aaa, ariyilla.”
“If you could put up a single exhibit here, what’d you keep?”
“Us?” He knew he didn’t have to pitch in, the question wasn’t really for him. And yet, between being romantic and sounding cliché, he always leaned towards the latter, armed and betrayed by his limited creativity (which I wouldn’t say is a crime.*)
“I’d keep a picture of me, staring back at everyone from my photo,” she attempted to sound arrogant, answering her own question.
“What are you?” He played along.
“Just me, out-of-step with the world and compressed into a frame – and they’d pass me by, mostly bored and blank. A few make attempts at decrypting me, to make sense. But none of them do, and I stare back at them.”
“Isn’t that what I said? Us?”

“Okay, you’re good today.”

Smart quips were his novelty.

She drew a heart on her portion of the glass wall. A little further away, he painted a house with 2 squares on either sides for windows, a door and a sloping roof, already fading as the water dried.

She extended a long arrow from her fading heart and pierced it into the fading door.

“My heart is a heart and yours is just a door”, she smiled stupidly and made a face at him.
“Mine’s a house.”
“Oh wow I hadn’t thought of that.”
-pause-
“Kollaallo.”

They watched their paintings vanish. A tease once in a while was okay.
She was too proud to lose and he liked her too much to let her.

*That’s me placing up my disclaimer inline, much like Prithviraj in Lucifer

    End to a Beginning, that wasn’t

    We all choose our stories really, don’t we?

    There are high streetlights visible from the coffee shop where we sit. Such an unlikely place to meet.

    I’d always imagined us meeting at a wedding of a mutual acquaintance, in the middle of everyone dancing. It seemed a likely prospect, our world was so small.
    Though which South Indian wedding ceremony involves dance, you may ask.

    Or in an exotic (enough) setting away from home. Homes.
    In a crowded beach with the sun setting behind us, or a random KFC outlet where two disinterested souls spot each other in delight before indulging in incessant chatter.

    Or in one of the narrow aisles of our public library, between tall bookshelves that we’re engrossed in decoding.

    For a long, long time I turned every lane and entered every wedding almost expectedly. Nothing materialized, until I was exhausted of momentarily getting my hopes high and adjusting my hair in place.

    All the while that I was getting dressed today (I may not have much to show for it), I felt old. As difficult as it was, I avoided the thought of how young we had been, Wo jo adhoori si yaad baki hai and Jaise milte nahi kisi dariya ke do kinaare lines continually playing in my head.
    But now, godforsaken Naina da kya kasoor won’t stop and I must repress my headbobbing. I don’t feel like the song though.

    “I don’t drink or smoke”. I casually mention, unsure why I sound like my recently decommissioned matrimonial profile.

    “Oh”

    “Neither does he.” Now I know why.
    It came out surprisingly easy, and I’m only happy for myself.

    “Oh..”
    I’m assuming the dots were there, or maybe the melancholy was only in my air.

    I see fingers, long, thin and straight unlike my long crooked ones. They appear damp and soft, like they always did in pictures. I imagine a fountain pen in them, almost immediately replaced with a Gel pen by memory.

    As we stepped outside and the lights fell on us, for the life of me I couldn’t see the magnificence in his face, hair or arms. And for the life of me, I couldn’t believe myself.

    As I leave, all I think of with every step away are the stories that weren’t written about me, the poems I didn’t feature in.

    Yet we all choose our stories really, don’t we?

    PS : Too many break-up stories, I’ve heard this past year.

    Winter – Romance

    I met G on New Year’s Eve 2016 at Mandi House.

    It was winter. The best part of winter. When it’s cold but not too much.
    You can smoke fumes out of your mouth in the thick morning air while walking to class. Peas still sprout when soaked overnight and Parachute oil hasn’t frozen in its entirety in the bottle. You wear just enough layers to not need a bra (at least the less endowed ones), yet do not have to hide your cute sweater under another quilted jacket. The chilly wind against their scantily clothed chests hasn’t eaten into the rickshaw bhayyas’ pace in the mornings, yet.

    Shaving of course is out of the question.

    At this point, I need to confess a couple of things. My roommate had been away for almost two months, and I was thoroughly enjoying it.
    I lived in my natural habitat of a cluttered room, the little floorspace was filled with copies of The Hindu and printed fliers of IAS coaching material, collected and shoved into my bag after class. I’d started wearing bhasmam regularly because it reminded me of people I love. My warrior of a chair carried a backbreaking pile of dirty clothes to topple over any moment and I went to class in the clothes I went to bed in. The bed itself was filled with Haldiram’s Aloo Bujia, a thin plastic cover of 5 tomatoes bought for 10, and leftover packs from previous tiffin any time of the day.
    I fit my body in there somehow.

    Evenings were dry and beautiful with an occasional warm drizzle, and by all means I avoided being in my room for long. It’s when (home)sickness slowly creeps in and lodges itself on your neck to stay until dinner.

    I was doing India’s Struggle for Independence by Bipan Chandra. Love you Zindagi played in my room every night after I returned from the reading room. I routinely smiled at other building-mates and refrained from (/clearly avoided) talking. By this time the chetan at the sambar vada/pizza sandwich shop that had open counters and high tables knew I wanted chai to the brim, just like the chetan at office does now. Old Rajendra Nagar was filled with puppies that followed you on the roads and needed to be fed from your tiffin bits at night.

    The terrace was still the only place I could see the sky wasn’t as little as it seemed from amidst all the buildings on the ground.

    Probably most important bit is I didn’t have to zone into my thoughts like I do now and did before. I was living in them.

    In college, I’d go to canteen alone for a lot of different reasons, and I was lucky to always have people that asked “Are you here all by yourself?”
    It was only after almost a year I realized I was disappointing people with answers such as “It’s alright” cos they thought I was upset at not having company. So I later rephrased it to “Oh a friend is coming. It’s alright” and things were sorted out. Unless they decided to give me company until the friend (never) came :D.

    I hadn’t talked to a soul at ORN in the course of these two months. Except the sabjiwala and Komal at my reading room reception. And New Year’s Eve was to be spent watching a play at ShriRam’s Arts Center, Mandi House. Alone.

    (Yeah don’t worry, a friend was coming).

    “Can I have one at the extreme back please?”

    First time at a theatre alone and I had mistaken a play for a movie, and extreme back for  balcony view.
    G in the second queue overhears and looks over, smiles a friendly stranger smile. I return the smile and wait for the doors to open.

    On the way to the Arts Center were walls painted Inquilab Zindabad, posters of Che Guevera, lots of young and older men and women all of whom seemed like students. Reading newspaper and eating Maggi, outside shacks and shops nearby and on circles around tall trees. And all I could think was how I’d have turned out had I joined DU and studied English, or even joined for MA after B.Tech.

    I wasn’t sure then, but when was I ever?

    I’d quite probably have turned leftist, sat under those trees reading The Hindu, turned up in loose neutral kurtas instead of my favourite Lifestyle sweater, worn chappal instead of Converse and carried a cloth bag instead of Wildcraft. I’d probably still have turned up for this play. Probably.
    At least I knew I wasn’t a literature person by then.

    As soon as I get seated I realize my folly. I can hardly see the actors’ faces, having especially asked for the backseat. The play is about the revolt of 1857 and I have a leaflet about the troupe and the actors. They’re probably college students, always rushing to catch the Metro for their practice sessions in scorching summers and chilly winters. I would’ve impressed with my Doordarshan-imparted Hindi, though started from the top every time I missed a line.
    I would’ve sucked with the lines.

    Memorizing dialogues and scenes, indulging chai sessions between, and Maggi from that shop outside on lazy afternoons after naps. Streetplays on weekends, processions at India Gate, LeftWord Books for every book launch. Never miss a LitFest and never miss a lecture. Debate over Yechury’s points on the phone with Achan and borrow Amma’s sari for characters when I went home for vacation.

    I don’t really know how differently I’d have turned out.
    What if’s and I have had a romantic relationship since forever anyway.

    There’s a cosy canteen attached to Centre’s right with low tables and chairs. It’s evening now and the sky is losing light, it’s getting chilly outside. I sit down with hot chowmein at an empty table. There are a couple of benches and desks outside, and through the door I can see young students in their sweaters and mufflers clicking selfies before their foods arrive.
    We could all be at a tea shop in a beautiful hill station at Manali or Nainital, sipping tea and eating chowmein. Barfi could jump in any second singing Iss dil ka kya karooon with Ileana De Cruz in her long dress, shoes and pink hairband. And I wouldn’t need to get up and dance because I’d already be.

    Next to me, a lady who I’m positive appeared in Taare Zameen Par to judge the painting contest comments “Isn’t Three Arts Club doing quite brilliant these days?”
    She has grey cropped hair,  wears a starched saree and is seated with other older men who look like they could be college professors or The Hindu editors, with a general wise air. All neutral shades. They drink tea. I wonder if I should’ve ordered tea with my chowmein.

    G appears opposite to me at my table, placing a bag on the last vacant one, and has ordered Maggi. I shift my water bottle away from G’s plate, polite. I’m hardly ever impolite to strangers. At this point I’d like to say I’m one of those I’m sure everyone’s good at heart people. I love being disappointed.

    “Is it your first time to a play?” G is smiling more broadly than the summer sun.

    “I’ve been to a couple back home, first time alone though.” G sits down.

    “So where are you from?” “I’m from Kerala. Where are you from?” I can’t help the full sentences amidst all the smiling.

    “Delhi.”

    I smile broadly as well.
    Like when you find the flavor of tic-tac you were rummaging for in a large bucket at a supermarket. Except there’s no way we knew each other’s flavors. Yet.

    G is an arts graduate. PG in English Literature. Civil Services preparation.
    “ORN?”
    “Yes. You go to Vajiram?”
    “I go to Sriram.”
    “Evening batch?”
    “Morning, actually. You must go in the evening batch?”
    “Morning, actually.”

    Later as we walk out from the canteen into the tall trees, under the orange lamps I can spot G’s backpack that says WildCraft. I smile stupidly, like Swetha says I often do when seated by the window in our office bus.

    Everyone should have the privilege to meet themselves, sometime.

    I had earlier decided I’d remain stoic for as long as I could hold out. But that New Year night I talked to more humans over Never Have I Ever. And realized I’d always, always loved people.

    When Umadri packed up and left for college in late May, I asked her to list out the things and people she’d miss (yea I do that). On top of the list, was who she was when we were at ORN.

    Some days I think I’d give anything to go back to being the unfuck-withable dragon-hunter. Impenetrable to my mother’s calls to life as we know it.

    Why is life not the way I know it?

    IMG_20161216_175545                                               Old Rajendra Nagar, Winter 2016

    (I quit) Dragon hunting

    G and I don’t talk a lot. I need to notify a day in advance so the Flight mode is switched off and we can call. So when we do, it’s for the most pressing of issues.
    “I’m considering quitting dragon-hunting”, I chip in. At this point, I haven’t decided and am awaiting comments. Speculation is in order.

    “Yes”.
    Not No.
    Not Think about it maybe.
    Not even The world doesn’t care anyway so stop only if you want to, as I’d hoped.

    Yes/No’s are powerful. They break hearts. They ruin self-esteem. They cause damage that takes a lifetime to heal. Yes/No’s change life as we know it.
    Do not ask unless you’re ready to have it go either way.

    The thing is, (surprise) I don’t really hunt dragons. Not because they do not exist, I knew that when I became a dragon-hunter. I couldn’t care less even if they did.
    I do not make a living out of it, I hardly make anything out of it really. And not many know I call myself one, it’s privy to few. You don’t just tell people that you’re (surprise) boring, you let them figure it out.

    Now I don’t have a particularly fragile heart, but dragons are a sensitive matter.

    Well that’s all for today, I quit. There’s stuff aplenty out here on earth I’ve found, so I don’t think I’ll be going back anytime soon.
    At least the dragons are happy.

     

     

    The tea shop with no neon lights

    Story of a tea shop owner near Medical College Hospital

    A man walks into the only tea shop that doesn’t sport animated neon signs in this part of town. He hands over a thermos flask to the owner at the counter stirring the large vessel of boiling milk. He doesn’t utter a word but walks straight in and alights on the cranky red stool against the tea-stained wall.
    It’s a line of adjacent shops on this side of the main road – on the other side you have the hospital buildings – the scanning center, casualty, the subsidized medicine store BPL cardholders queue up at.

    On this side, the neon lightboards are turned on at least an hour before darkness sets in with dusk –  English Medicines in red cursive letters, Hot tea & Biryani in a thick blue font, Vegetarian Restaurant in another. Many announce Tourist Homes – funny they’d call the residents tourists considering none would voluntarily be here.

    The signs vie for your attention like a new breed of daily Instagram feed. They would probably have been irrelevant in another part of town but here, in the din surrounding the government hospital, with a hundred people scampering around any time of day and night, it sells.
    Attempting to charm when every shop offers the exact same set of items – buckets and mugs, coarse threaded towels and thorth, jugs and steel plates, essential crockery – spoons, knives for families that came away from home in emergency, magazines to lighten your mood, and of course neon lights because every shop has it on this side.

    Except this one.
    Amidst the cacophony outside, this tea shop slows time down. Maybe because it lacks the urgency of those flashing lights.
    The owner takes the flask and fills it with tea, looking for signs of objection from his customer before proceeding – he sees and nods in approval. The man knows his customers well. The ones that want to engage in a bit of chitchat, complain about hospital facilities (or lack thereof), others that want to know if there’s black tea available, some offhandedly commenting on the propensity to rain.

    But some just sit on one of his cranky plastic stools, quiet. They’re the ones he wishes God would bless. Though technically he doesn’t believe in God.

    He lives with his wife in a one bedroomed apartment in a lane near Medical college junction, big enough for the two of them to keep their few possessions and their TV. Business is good, especially during monsoons when all the dengue kicks up.

    Before this, he and his wife sold tea with vadas in a road near the temple at Guruvayur. Business was podipooram there. He woke up at 4 and was at his shop by 4.30 after an ice cold bath and a glass of black tea his wife prepared. Men and women from all walks with their little kids, occasionally older fathers and mothers with their newly wed children and in-laws would arrive in Venad Express in the wee hours, stop for a quick tea at his counter before checking into hotels nearby.
    You could see the sleepy-eyed family, kids rubbing their eyes, some threatening to fall off their chairs (there were very few in his shop) before his tea jolted them back to wakefulness. They’d want to know when the queues at the temple were shorter and on what trains they could leave by evening. As day proceeded, his shop would get crowded with people thronging at its steps.

    Back then his shop was neater. Life lent his sturdy Communist spine a 12degree bend but he never acceded to his wife’s suggestion of selling Guruvayur appan souvenirs like every other shop nearby – car fixities, chain lockets, rings, pictures for the pooja room, miniatures for the study table, some Guruvayur pappadams.

    It was big business – all of it – he could be heard saying often. The sheer number of sweaty weddings with couples and their tiny cohort of relatives that stood in queues, devotees lining up from 5 am until 12, all that money clinking in purses and pockets to make way into the temple chests.
    It also made his living.

    His wife’s idea would definitely make some extra cash, but he was a non-conformist and didn’t conform. What’s a tea shop got to do with the deity that feeds on all this money? Sell some knickknacks eda, it’s not against our leaders’ ethics, his wife-appointed Communist maaman assured him. Neither is stashing money away in lockers and hitting their wives, he had retorted.
    He was not one of them and he was proud of it.

    So he had never sold any trinkets at Guruvayur, and when his wife’s arthritis drove them to Trivandrum, he had no neon light adorning the entrance to his shop.
    It was practically useless, there were tall yellow lamps at the wide junction that lit up all 7 roads and the vehicles entering. And who keeps boards for Tea? People poured in anyway. This was a reference hospital and people came in without anyone’s invitation. Away from home, the poor needed hot tea for families, for patients in bed, for those in recovery and those awaiting surgery.

    He could make small talk – it was part of his job, more so part of his curious mind, but it was the quiet customers he really liked having. Who trusted him to do his work and handed over their apprehensions along with their flasks, at least for the few moments it took him to fill them. It’s a solemn entrustment, for someone else to take charge.

    He liked reading too much into things.

    His shop was an entry ticket away from the commotion, from blinking neon lights and hurrying hordes. From the suffocation that built up when they had spent a few days at this place and longed to pack up their few belongings, the mat and the newly bought buckets and mugs but mostly the mended patient, and leave.

    Of course he couldn’t help them with their son’s raging fever, the mother’s acute pneumonia or the longing for heading back home. But for a few moments, life was back to normal – the two glasses of tea everyday, the only permanent bits in an unpredictable life. It’s why they longed to move out of hospitals onto this side – they could talk about vadas and cricket here and nobody would judge.

    Soon enough they’d leave with a word of thanks to the doctor, another word to the person in white and white that nursed them, injecting every dose of prescribed medicine into their vein asking with a smile if it hurt too much.
    The guy on the other side in the tea shop who filled their flasks with hot chaya and gave a reassuring nod every morning and evening remains forgotten. The stranger who asked you about your mother’s illness and your hometown. You’ll remember the taste of his tea on the first evening back home and casually mention him as a token. And then you’re allowed to forget all about the shop with no neon lights.

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