After tossing the cup of coffee to the side, he walked down mechanically, navigating the broken expanse of a poorly laid pavement. The erosion was unsightly and inconvenient, but was nothing he hadn’t been expecting.
He eventually reached a piece of road which someone had painted some white stripes on, because someone had told someone else to do so; the stripes were half-visible to anyone who cared to try and see them. An unobserved circle shone red wherever the little LED lights inside it still managed to shine.
Seeing the traffic light turn red, he began to cross the road. Something was off, a distant voice was telling him; something was not quite the way it ought to be. But that was nothing he wasn’t expecting. Yet, he remained oblivious to the honking of the lorry barreling down the street, until he felt the touch of hot metal on his skin. Oh, dear. How did it all end up like this?
Ah, right.
*
He couldn’t smell the acrid vapours peculiar to rubber struggling against tarmac, or hear the screeching of the tyres. However, he could see that the flight was landing. It had been delayed by a few hours despite the (supposedly) best efforts of a faceless few, but that was nothing he hadn’t been expecting. He walked out into the sweltering heat of the Indian summer, already eager to get into the air-conditioned car that he knew was going to be waiting for him. Soon enough, he spotted a middle-aged lady with a wrinkled but kind face, with a dark red spot decorating her forehead, greying hair neatly braided with a middle parting, and a dark green saree elegantly draped around her plump self. Next to her stood a similarly aged man, wearing a lightly hued shirt that made no attempt to disguise a developing paunch, and a spotless white veshti tied immaculately around the waist which had, by the man’s standards, extravagant embroidery in red, green, and gold around the borders.
They both smiled at him, and the lady came up to him, circled her palms around the sides of his head, and cracked her knuckles on her temples.
“Hello, mom,” he said, slightly amused at the gesture.
“What is this mom nonsense, call me amma, properly.”
He gave her an apologetic grin, “Of course, amma. It’s just that I had gotten used to talking in a more civilized way.”
The man in the back frowned at that, wondering how his son had managed to pick up a British accent from the United States. But he knew better than to comment on that. Instead, he contented himself with a quick, “Come along da. The car’s waiting for us.” At the sound of his father’s voice, he promptly picked up his pace and urged his mother to do the same.
He was half-expecting his suitcase to be too large for the car, but the driver was a resourceful little fellow who managed to squeeze the bag into the trunk of his well-used Tata Indigo. The drive went uneventfully, except for an incident where the driver had to pull down the window to curse at a jaywalker on the phone. It wasn’t really something he hadn’t been expecting, but a mosquito managed to get into the vehicle through the open window. Well, he had definitely been expecting that.
Mosquitoes plagued him throughout the night, and the next day he found himself bleary eyed and jetlagged when his mother woke him, and was a result was wrong-footed by the news she gave him.
“We’re going to your grandma’s house today. You’ll also come with us, no? It’s been a long time since you visited, and the old woman’s been asking to see her US return grandson ever since we told her you were coming. Remember the garden and the home you had so much fun in?” she smiled expectantly.
He did remember. He remembered the village which had no consistent electricity or running water. He remembered the stray dogs at every turn and the smell of cow dung in the backyard of every house.
And the toilets…
He shuddered. “I think I’ll stay here and rest, ma. I can visit the village later. Why don’t you just send me some pictures once you get there? I can be in the village from here.”
His mother’s smile grew fixed, but he was too distracted by the mosquitoes that had once again started buzzing around his head to notice. He bade his parents goodbye, wished them a safe journey, and turned to go to the house when he felt a little prick in the back of his neck. Those goddamn mosquitoes…
*
He lazed around the house for a few hours, and when he got bored, tried watching some TV. None of the channels his parents subscribed to broadcasted the NFL, but that was nothing he hadn’t been expecting, and he settled for a generic action flick filled with half-naked girls dancing to shrill tunes and muscular heroes beating up cliché-spouting villains. He forgot the film the moment it ended.
He ate the food his mother had left him (too spicy, but it was what he had been expecting), and felt a craving for some coffee to wash it down. He booked an Uber to the nearest Starbucks, which was, rather unexpectedly, quite far away.
*
He walked unto the dimly lit café and bought the most expensive, least pronounceable drink he could find, but it didn’t taste like it would’ve back in the states. He should’ve expected that.
His phone buzzed as he walked out, and he took it out, ignoring a beggar who was trying to get his attention. It was a picture, the amateur style betraying its sender- his not-too-tech-savvy mother- a picture of his grandmother’s home and the adjacent garden. He remembered that garden. He remembered the day when he was a child, playing in that garden. It had just rained, and the browns and greens were that much more vivid in the light that permeated the cloudy sky, as if someone had applied a filter to the memory. The earth had smelled as it did after the rain, and little droplets clung to the leaves of the hibiscus and jasmine plants, the banana trees, and so many other plants he couldn’t exactly place. He did remember the mango tree, though. His grandfather had liked making up wacky stories about that tree that always made him laugh. The details of those stories escaped him, sadly enough. He also remembered putting some dirt in his mouth, and his mother admonishing him for it. His grandmother had seen the scene play out, and fondly quipped, “Why don’t you try opening his mouth? Maybe our little Krishna will show us the Universe.”
Maybe that’s why he couldn’t smell the acrid vapours peculiar to rubber struggling against tarmac, or hear the screeching tyres of the lorry trying to get someplace important. Maybe he was in the garden, entranced by the petrichor, the chirping of the birds, and the little droplets of water falling from the leaves. Maybe he was back in the village full of strays, unreliable electricity and water filled from rivers instead of taps, cows in the backyard, and insects buzzing around uninterrupted. He was back with the damp earth and the mango tree, putting handfuls of the Universe into his mouth.
***
Text by Swaminathan S
Illustration by Sanjana Acharya
Article 19 