Short-Story

“Trrrrring”, the alarm went off and he woke up groggily. " Uthishtothishta Govinda Uthishta Garuda dwaja Uthishta Kamalakantha trilokyam mangalam kuru” , MS Subbulakshmi’s voice rang through the air even as his parents were yelling at each other over what he was sure would be trivialities like who’d let the milk boil a little too long or who forgot to put out food for the crow. He frowned. So much noise. And his day hadn’t even started yet. He got out of bed and let out a sharp yelp as his right foot touched the ground. He had stepped on a pin he’d told himself he wouldn’t step on when he saw it fall from the bed the previous night. He examined his foot and rubbed it where the pin had poked him. No blood. That was good. It was a Saturday, but he hadn’t the leisure of a typical weekend. There was to be a function at home and a lot of guests were expected. So he had to get ready quickly and appear presentable to greet (ugh) people. Normally he would have vehemently rejected this order from his parents and gone off to Venkatraman’s house to play cricket for the whole day, but this time there were bigger things at stake. No sooner had he gotten ready and dressed up when his mom called out, “Subbuuuuu!! Poi paal vaangindu vaa da” (Subbu, go and buy milk!). Subramani had just made up his mind to catch up on the latest cricket highlights on Star Sports before the day’s chaotic scene would set in. This milk-buying very much cut into that scenario. He chose a plastic bag from the bunch of plastic bags at the end of the kitchen and walked out, muttering all the way about God and his plans to thwart his plans in life. As he got to the end of the road, he looked out of the corner of his eye for the dog that was his sworn nemesis on this road. This dog (“Veerappan”, he had christened it), had only one mission in life. To bark at Subbu every time he crossed “his area” and on days that he felt not-so-lazy, chase him down the road to the corner where 3rd main ended and Murali Stores began. Today however, Veerappan seemed to be contently sleeping on the mat someone had laid out for him. “Lucky dog. No dog functions that he has to wake up early for”, Subbu thought and continued walking past. He greeted Murali uncle, bought the milk and made his way back. Out of habit, he looked for Veerappan again. This time, the dog was missing. Subbu’s heart skipped a beat. He looked around and sure enough, Veeru was standing right behind him, growling. Subbu , without a second thought ran with Veeru close behind his heels, or so he imagined. When he no longer felt chased, he looked back, only to see Veeru in the distance, sleeping, solemnly. “WHAT. Argh.”, Subbu walked the rest of the distance wondering what had just happened. By now, there were a few vehicles already outside the gate and he warily walked in, not wanting to chit-chat with anyone right then. “Subbuuuuuu”, a voice called out. He closed his eyes, rearranged his face into a pleasant smile and turned around to face a rotund, elderly woman, with a glint in her eye and a wide smile that was accentuated by badly applied lipstick. It was Shyamala aunty, his mom’s second cousin. “You’ve become so big!!!”, she exclaimed. “Yes, well the Earth did revolve around the Sun multiple times”, he wanted to say, but he settled for just continuing to awkwardly smile and wonder if 10 seconds was sufficient time to start backing away slowly like Michael Jackson or if he was supposed to actually say something to her. He decided on the former and backed away successfully into the house and into the kitchen where he disposed of the milk packets. His first mission now complete, he thought he’d close the door to his room and relax for a few minutes before the poojai started, when his dad called “Subbuuu, yaar vandhurkaa paaru” (Subbu, see who’s at the door). He groaned and ambled to the door. It was Murali mama and Co. The fake smile again in place on his face, he greeted the family in and told them to sit on the chairs that had been neatly arranged in the hall for people who arrived to be seated on. He mentally bid the cricket highlights goodbye and waited obediently on the guests that continued to pour in. His face, ever the picture of cheeriness, Subbu flitted around the house, giving people glasses of water when they asked for it or even just looked like they wanted it, serving pongal for breakfast and later lunch. He even went along with the Poojari’s requests to go and buy bananas for the homam offering, braving Veerappan again. By the time it was 5 PM, Subbu was thoroughly exhausted. But the fake smile as he bid all his relatives goodbye did not fade. ...

“Are you ready?”, the voice on the phone asked Subbu. Subbu didn’t feel remotely ready. But his response didn’t matter either way. It was 7.30 AM - time to leave for school. The dreaded exam week was to commence that day. He mumbled something incoherently and placed the receiver on the telephone. “Subbuuuuu, late aachu da. Breakfast saapdu!” [Subbuu, it’s late already. Finish your breakfast!]. He wasn’t hungry. In fact his stomach felt like they were full of polymers of isoprene. Why was he thinking about rubber now though? He should be mentally wading through the rivers of the world and jogging through the various farms of India. Geography had never been Subbu’s strong suit and yet, that was the mountain he had to scale that day. He sat at the table obediently though and looked at his plate. Rice and Chapati.. Rice and wheat.. Bihar? Chattisgarh? No no.. The maximum production of rice was in West Bengal and wheat, in Uttar Pradesh. He tried to come up with mnemonics to avoid forgetting that as he poked at a chapati. His mum yelled at him again and he hastened to finish it. His mind was still buzzing with random keywords he had associated with lengthy paragraphs as he tied his shoe laces and noticed that he had worn mismatched socks. Well, it was too late to do anything about that now. He prayed that the class monitor would accept his offering of one Yummies packet and overlook this error during routine assembly checks. The school bus arrived and the driver honked rhythmically as usual. Subbu got on and waved absently to his mum. Was K2 the tallest mountain in the world or did that honor belong to Everest? What was Kanchenjunga then? Wait, were K2 and Kanchenjunga synonymous? Aaah! He didn’t know anything! He moved to the back of the bus and squeezed in between two bulkier boys. Then he picked out a textbook with a slightly worn out cover and opened it to a page at random. Anything was worth revising. Itanagar was the capital of Arunchal Pradesh. “Itanagar - AP, Itanagar - AP , Itanagar - AP”, he chanted in a low voice. He remembered talking about capitals with his dad the previous evening. He had asked the old man what the capital of Telengana was, confident that he wouldn’t know what it was. Subbu’s dad had disappointed him by not only telling him the correct answer, but supplementing it with more historical information - “When we were studying, Andhra Pradesh was one state. Ippo daan kanna pinna nu state mela state pannindirrukange” ["It’s only now that they’re creating new states left, right and center"]. Subbu didn’t care for this new bit of information. Actually, he felt cheated that he was having to consume more nonsensical facts than his dad. He resumed memorizing the rest of the capitals of states and moved on to a chapter titled “Weather - seasons and their importance”. Subbu groaned. In Bangalore, it was summer but it had just rained heavily the previous evening. This completely contradicted what this - he flipped to the first page - this Veena Bhargava was telling him about Karnataka’s weather. She would have him believe that climate change was periodic and that there were months beyond which Summer would not last or months in which there would be no rain. He made a note to word a strong box-format letter to her after he got home. Maybe she would discard it though. He wasn’t sure if adults were in the habit of receiving letters from 14 year olds. He shook his head and continued reading about how Cherrapunji had the highest amount of rainfall in the country. What was the capital of Cherrapunji again? Wait. Cherrapunji wasn’t a state. He gave the page a distasteful stare and looked around at everyone else. Their peaceful expressions agitated him even further and he started flipping pages at random. He shook his head and decided he wouldn’t let this faze him any further. He leaned further into the book in an act of increased focus and started reading about soils and their significance in the plantation of different types of crops, about earthquakes and tsunamis and their places of likely occurrence. Mental images of everything he had read blazed through in his mind, and at that point, he seemed unstoppable, when the bus came to a slow halt. They had reached school. He hurriedly closed his book, suddenly feeling more unprepared than ever and got down from the bus following the long file of students ahead of him. He walked into the classroom and saw huddled groups of students everywhere, no doubt trying to cram in one last satellite’s name before the call for assembly. He wasn’t going to try anymore though. He quietly sat at a desk closest to the door and waited with his head on the desk, trying to recall any fact he could. ...

Subbu’s jaw dropped. “And I got this for my last birthday”, Mani said as he produced a white, shiny Hot Wheels car. “And this one was for my previous 95 out of 100 in Social Studies”. Another item emerged from the bag that seemed to hold an infinite supply of toys - this time a GiJoe. It was the short break hour and Mani had decided to exhibit his collection atop Prema ma’am’s table that day to his huddled group of gawking, incredulous classmates. “Mani”, Subbu asked when he finally found his voice, “What does your father do?”. This endowment of seemingly hundreds of toys could only be justified if Mani’s father owned a toy shop. “Don’t you know da?”, Mani asked with a mixture of condescension and genuine puzzlement, “Your father and my father are colleagues at the same company.”. The knot in Subbu’s chest tightened and he found himself looking at the bench lost in thought about the unfairness being meted out to him by life, his parents and everyone. He had scored a lot of 95s as well. Mostly in English, but it counted, didn’t it? He was shaken from his reverie by Murugan who was by now staring daggers at Mani. “He thinks he’s some sort of big shot just because he has more toys than us. We’ll see who’s smiling when something goes missing.”. Subbu didn’t like the glint in Murugan’s eyes but he didn’t want to antagonise his friend, so he meekly nodded hoping his face didn’t betray his conscience. Mani had just finished displaying a tiny He-Man eraser (that held in an outstretched plastic hand a small, but sharp plastic sword of sorts, sharp enough to prick any of Subbu’s mental balloons of happiness, if any were left), when Prema ma’am walked into the classroom and Mani hastily replaced all the objects back into his “akshayapatra " of a bag and the rest of them hurriedly took their places in their seats. ...

Most days while on the road, I normally have an objective, a destination and a reason to be traveling but that day I found myself with a lot of time and I was in no real rush. So I took a normally forgotten turn on a commonly traveled road just to see where it led. It opened up to a pathway on one side and a lake on the other. An unfenced lake. At one point on the road, it became clear that vehicles weren’t the way to travel any further. Instead there was a semi spherical wooden thing that people were seemingly supposed to get in and slide down the rest of the way. There were a bunch of these arranged alongside a wall on the left side of the road. I got into one and set myself in motion. It was very cool. I slid down the road and up when the road curved up and sideways left and right similarly. When it finally stopped, I was precariously (I’d just noticed) close to the edge of the lake. The water was sparkling under the sunlight. I forgot myself in the shimmer for a bit. Then I looked around me to see where I’d ended up and that’s when I spotted the sign - “Beware of snakes”. I immediately decided my little trip was over and set my semi sphere in motion down the nearest slope again. This time after a little while it stopped suddenly. And while I was examining the reason for my abrupt halting, my eyes fell upon a heap of a coil sitting motionless. I decided I wasn’t going to wait for it to move and ran, semisphere dragging after me. In the hurried motion, the part of the semisphere I was holding broke from the whole into my hand and the rest of it rolled away into the water. But I was so panicked to understand what happened that I kept running. I ran and I ran and hoped to run up to my vehicle I think but on the way, I tripped and fell. And passed out. When I woke up, I saw a pair of beady eyes staring down at me. My vision cleared up and I realized I was face to face with either a mongoose or a badger, not knowing which because I’d never seen either in the flesh before and even the pictures I’d seen weren’t very clear in the difference or I’d just not paid enough attention. The latter is more possible. It must have been the shock of the sudden sight but I passed out again. I woke up this time in the safety of my bed. I rubbed my eyes groggily and decided I must have dreamt it all. “These dreams are getting way too realistic these days” - I mulled. I fell back again on the bed, my head hitting the pillow with a heavier thump than I was used to. I felt under it and retrieved the reason for the thump - The piece of the semisphere that had broken….