Declaration

Bhagwad Expressway is a work of fiction. The characters specified in it are PURELY FICTIONAL. They bear NO RESEMBLANCE to ANY PERSON living or dead. Any such resemblances should be considered purely CO-INCIDENTAL and UNINTENTIONAL.

Readers are requested NOT TO draw any conclusions from the work.

(This Declaration has taken shape owing to the growing discontent amongst audiences regarding their exploitation in the form of characters in the work. Such readers are requested to look at this work as pure fiction and enjoy it.)

World around needs to grow up urgently!!!!

- Writer

Chapter #

3.a

I woke up with a gloom. The parting day.

I hated the days when I had to go back. More than I hated being at home. But there was a certain comfort to it. Being in your own space. Sleeping on your own bed. Stare at your own ceiling. Bathe in your own bathroom. And stand before the mirror which has seen you change over the years.

It’s not about attachment with the people. It’s more about the attachment with inanimate things that holds me back. I am so accustomed to their presence, that it makes me feel at home rather than humans living there. And the thought of detachment from these elements weighs down on my heart. It fills my heart with molten iron and on cooling it laves the heart heavier.

I feel reluctant to leave. I feel lazy to even move a finger. I forcibly take myself out of the bed. I feel like smoking. But I can’t. I am at home. I realise that I haven’t smoked much in last two days. I didn’t feel the need to. I can’t live without them there.

I heavily walk to the mirror and look at myself. I turn away and brush my teeth. The though of going back grows like a festering tumour within me. It chokes my throat. I brush my teeth. I fill my moth with a minty lather to counter the clog up in my throat. Brushing suppresses it successfully. But doesn’t overcome it. I finish other chores with the same lump stuck in my throat. I dress up and get ready for the journey back to the weird city. A prison with the walls of freedom.

Everybody in the house suddenly realise the onset of my absence. The change in their behaviour is evident. A dull outline of acceptance marks their faces. Acceptance to the fact that I was supposed to be here just for two days. That I was no longer a part of the household now, but just a visitor. A visitor in my own abode. A place which I would visit rather than return to. The brief returns which I spent here were like stays in some mediocre hotel. Run by people who you were directly related to. Whom you had seen all the years of your life. They served you. They pampered you and saw that your no demand remained unattended, unlike the times when you were a part of it. Because a visitor always remains an outsider. And that was what the distancing from home had made me. An outsider to the place where I belonged to.

I had my breakfast. Everybody behaved cheerful, concealing their twinge. Me too.
I wore my shoes and everybody grew restless. I promised them I will come back in a month. I assured them that the two cities weren’t far from each other. And I console them saying I was just around. Dad held up my words. He repeated the proclamation that he had made when he had agreed over sending me to the other city. “Come on…it’s just two hours by the Expressway”

Mom handed me over with bagsful of eatables. Dad handed me over my source of survival. Cash!

He came down to leave me to the bike. I greeted him farewell.

I sat on the bike and left waving to everybody.

The lump in my throat had by now occupied my entire chest. I left back my building. Then my lane. Then the turn which had brought me home. I kept leaving behind everything that had drawn me home.

The tyres of the bike touched the highway. I was on my way to the weird city. And the arsehole of the world.


(Contd.)

2. s

I get pulled towards them. Like they have lassoed me. I feel like a zombie walking on his master’s command. Except that I have no master. Or I don’t know who my master is. I only know these voices. These vague voices.

In slow steps I move towards them. The voices open their large moth. They suck me inside. A high power vacuum. My feet detach from the ground. I begin floating. I am dragged towards those voices. I give in to their pull. I go flowing towards them. Like a gush of wind takes a dry leaf along with it. I sway upon them then and land before their source.

A voice blares something over the hand held speaker into my ear. Two voices sing rhythmically to compete with the voice on the speaker.
I come back to the senses dazed. I can just see these men on speakers tearing their throat out and voices ringing in my ear. I keep looking at them. And something catches my dilating pupils.

Bhagwad Geeta.

This time it was ‘Geeta Gyaan Prasaarak Sangh’. Another sect claiming to be the true patrons of Bhagwad Geeta. Another fundamentalist organisation exploiting the mysteries in Bhagwad Geeta.

The man said “Geeta Geeta….Bhagwad Geeta!...Real Geeta…No editions.. Geeta Geeta…Bhagwad Geeta!”.

Two men behind him sing aloud “Bolo Krishna Krishna Krishna Krishna Krishna Krishna Krishna…..Bolo Radhe Krishna Radhe Krishna Krishna Krishna Krishna”.

All backed by a neatly chiselled idol of Krishna.

And a Krishna on the cover of the Bhagwad Geeta. The eternal Sudarshan Chakra on a tallest human index finger on one hand and a clean palm with rays radiating out from it on the other. As I looked up, I realised that it was the same as that on the book. A neatly chiselled Krishna.

I don’t understand why couldn’t I realise it before. Hadn’t I observed it before. Or was it that there was some different idol here which was not there on the book. That they had changed it instantly. Or was it that I had seen something else.

The wheel-chaired beggar blew air into his wooden pipe with seven holes. And sounds of a flute filled touched the station’s roof and spilled all over the place.

Something came fluttering at my feet. I looked down. A peacock feather had rested on my toe. I picked it up.

A man covered in blue distemper from station renovations, walked past me. His body brushed mine. I saw my hand. It was coloured in blue.

“Oye!...What are you doing here?” Sudesh wakes me up. “I thought you would stand there….I am so sorry for the delay yaar”

I just shake my head blankly.

“And what happened?...why are you standing here?...you buying a Bhagwad Geeta?...I can’tr believe this!!”
“No yaar….was just seeing”
“then it’s fine…don’t buy it!....it’s all a religious propaganda!!”

We walk towards the bridge. I turn back keep looking at the stall those guys had put up. That is the same moment the fluted beggar, The feather fan seller and the blue distemper came and stood together. Looking at me. I looked back. In pure astonishment.

The three of them stared at me into my eye. I gulped them down through my eyes.


(Contd.)

2. r

“Let’s go in” I say.

In an hour Sudesh and I were standing outside Mac’s. I had almost ran to Sudesh when I had seen him coming. Overwhelmed by the outrageous happiness of meeting him, I had dodged an Autorickshaw and went over to hug him in the middle of the road. Our high-pitched abuses to each other, had sent a wave of shock through the silent god-fearing people in the premises of the Railway Station.

There was no other peaceful way in which I could meet Sudesh. Over the numerous years of friendship, starting from school, we had developed a bond which went beyond the defining constraints of the word ‘Yaar’. Before I left the weird city, we were a part of each other’s every joy and plight. Circumstances had distanced us, but the chord between us had stretched like a rubber band over the fate marked expanse, recoiling itself and bringing us together as and when times arrived. A stage you attain visibly after a decade of friendship. A stage where you need no assuring factors for the connection that you share. No phone calls, no messages, no any other media of communication, till it becomes extremely necessary. A line of attachment that goes beyond all this to constantly reassure you at the back of your mind that your friend is there for you. A friend whose girlfriend who cannot eye upon.

After a round of public display of our emotional outburst, we moved to the safety of the footpath outside Mac’s. I suggested Sudesh that we go in.

“It’s crap yaar…” Sudesh replied.

“Mac’s?” I asked.

“Yup…It’s an economic drain” He stated.

“How?..” I ask. This time I am bewildered.

“Where does all the profit goes to?” He asks.

“Let’s go somewhere else” I reiterated his line. He had a point.

“Let’s go to the Irani across the railway tracks.” He suggests.

“Yeah…” I agree instantly.

I could always prefer an Irani over Mac’s. The rules were almost the same. Both had self service. You could sit at both the places as long as you could, till you had something before you. An both places provided a good environment for conversations. There were other things that differed too. Primarily the menu. Beginning from Chai to Chicken Biryani, it served everything that you could think of eating at different points of time. And what differed secondarily was the service. There were no over smart employees on the other side of the counter. Their smiles were real. Their affection was real. And their will to serve was the absolutely genuine. They served because it was their passion to serve. Because loved doing it. And they had spent years mastering the art of service. They knew that customer was the not just the king. He was the friend, a brother, a son and means of his daily bread. So they treated the customers like fellow humans. They knew the value that sprinkle of humanity in this large city of business. And that was what preserved them over the time in this Metropolitan. And that was what made them the preferred ones. It always scored a point over the fake plastic trained smiles at Mac’s. Where customers were treated like targets of business. The end points of the purchase process. And the multiplicands of profit.

We are about to cross the road when Sudesh’s phone rings. He pulls it out of his pocket. Looks at the caller’s name. Gets awkward for a second and pushes it back into his pocket. It’s his girlfriend. He loks at me and gives a sly smile.

“I am in the loo” He says.

“And I ain’t there?” I ask.

“No…you are not a problem.” He smiles.

We laugh.

His phone rings again. He doesn’t pull it out this time.

“Attend it fucker” I suggest humbly.

“Why the fuck?...can’t she give me a moment with you?”

“Did you tell her that you’ll be meeting me?”

“Yeah”

“Then maybe she’s guessing that I’d turn you sodomous”

“My arse!!!”

“Yeah!...that’s what she cares for!”

His phone rings the third time now.

“Bloody shit man!...”

“Attend it jackass”

“Later man”

“You!...gonna be screwed!” I said making a gesture with a fist banging sideways in the air.

His phone rings once more.

“Attend it!” I decree.

“Yeah man…one more….and it turns messy”

“Go suck!”

“Yeah sure!”

There is a certain hypnosis about a girlfriend’s call. It mesmerises you and takes you away from the position you are standing in. You cross roads. Surpass traffic. Overcome hurdles. Cross rives. Jump over valleys. Climb up a cliff. Walk overs peaks. Swim through oceans. Transport over continents. And defeat celestial distances when you are talking over mobile phone with your girlfriend.

Sudesh slowly disappeared from my view and he drifted away talking with the new commander of his life. I stood where I was. Crossing the road. I resorted to the railway station shade to await his return from the distancing trance.

A cold wind blows out of nowhere in the scorching heat of the city. It soothes me. I keep looking in its direction. It slowly captivates me. It touches every pore on my body and seeps through it. I feel a coldness spreading across my skin. It burns lightly on my crust. It enters the layers below. It enters my blood. It enters my head. It makes its way to the mind and freezes my thoughts. I go blank. Everything before me fades gently. And I hear those alien voices again.

(Contd.)

2. q

The days when you are at home are peculiar. You take at least ten hours to settle down in the old environment. Like you have a jet lag after you travel by jets. Expressway has an emotional jetlag on me. I had to be back the person I had been. Remoulding myself to the limitations I had broken successfully in the new space. The margins in which I was constricted for years. There was a comfort in this displease. A temporary gratification till it began suffocating me again.
The things which I had painstakingly missed out in my sovereign life were forcefully stuffed back into me. And Mom played a pivotal role in it. Her primary target was my digestive system. She filled it with what it had grown unfamiliar of. Home-made food! That too thrice a day. Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner. At times also an evening snack. The system had to work over time, churning and burning the newly filled contents. Pushing it forwards through the ups and downs and requesting help from loose fibres in the matter it carries.

Then comes the information processing part of the brain. There is a term I know called flooding. That is exactly what Mom does. She keeps feeding information into me and I keep receiving it and processing it. Who married whom. Who did what. Which aunty met Mom in whose wedding. Which shopkeeper gave Mom a discount on a Refrigerator cover. Which new shop opened in the locality. What new tantrums does the maid throw. When did Dad come home mildly drunk. How someone in the society fought with their neighbours when their cars brushed with each other. How the woman in the next building burnt her chicken. How uncle’s sister-in-law’s mother-in-law’s sister got repayed for the dinner after they found hair in the food at an Udupi restaurant. How my cousin brother’s wife’s sister’s son’s wife’s sister found a teeth fallen on the road which she later realised was her own and how the woman in the third house on the fourth floor on the fifth building around the second corner of the sixth road had choked herself after eating a Gulab Jamun made by herself. Finally there comes a moment when you are not in position to accept any more data. It starts sending out error messages to you. And you tend to loose your concentration. Your eyes shift their focus from her and search for something more intriguing, like a pigeon feather floating in air, to settle on. And that’s when Mom says that living alone has made you loose interest in the family. The moment when your system burns out completely. A Hard Disk crash!

After several such sessions over the three meals I had successfully settled down with Mom’s help. I recollected the homely rituals which I had lost during my stay at the weird city. I slowly seeped into my household. Became a part of the large gear system that the house was. I appended my groves to the new groove structure of the house. The groove structure, which had begun to work without me. Yet, which had a place for me as an imperative attachment.

Out of the essential rituals of returning for me, I performed the fundamental one, as soon as I settled down. Catching up with old friends. Being away from home, living in a new backdrop for days had sidelined these names which were a vital element of my living once. A prediction of this state, even by an expert astrologer, would have been declined by me instantly then. Believing in the fact that I would live without my buddies was impossible. But now I was living this impossibility. I had doubts about my survival when I had set forth on a journey to the weird city. But I shortly learned that life had multiple ways of moving on. To the extent of forgetting your, then called ‘nappy friend’s birthday. That was how life was. Emotions were only possessed by people living it. Otherwise life is as impassive as it can be.

“Sudesh??” I said in the mouthpiece.
“Bol Randi…kaisi hai tu chinaal…aaj bahut din baad yaad aayi…customer khatam ho gaye kya?...” I hear on the earpiece.
“Haan saab…bahut din se aapki awaaj nahi suni thin a isliye phone kiya” I answer.
“Where the fuck are you?”
“In the city”
“When did you come fucker?”
“Around eleven hours ago”
“And you are calling me up now?”
“Yeah…eight hours I slept. An hour I took to settle down and two hours I have been shitting, brushing and bathing…now its your turn…where are you?”
“I am at the Railway station after an hour…usual meeting place…outside Mac’s”
“Okay…I am there!”

We disconnected the call. There is nothing much we need to talk. Because it all would be said when we are sitting or standing face to face with each other.

I felt a spout of energy through me. I found smiles filling me up. I felt a tremor of cheer. I laughed out loudly after I disconnected the call. Wherever you be. In whichever step of growth. Whomsoever be the people around you. Whatever be the fucking case with you.

Meeting an old friend always will always do this to you.

(Contd.)

Request for Forgiveness

A bout of momentary depression kept you guys away from the new chapter. Maafi please!

2. p

I enter my lane. The boys standing near the turn wave to me. I nod in acceptance. I move further. The grocer smiles to me. I smile in return. I reach the gate. The watchman salutes me. I salute back to him. He opens the game with a loud screech. For a motorcycle. Like the elite guards opened the gate for the royal entry.

From the moment I had entered the lane, I had felt like a king returning back from a crusade. If I had a sword, I could’ve waved it at them. I had an empty hand instead.

I parked Piyush’s bike next to ours. Like a triumphant warrior I walked across the parking lot, towards the entrance of my building. I entered the corridor. Then the lift.

I was home. Finally home. The resort. The cove. A place which I would enter to regain myself. The me which I had always been. Till I had left for the weird city.

The lift door opened. I stepped out. I rung the doorbell.

The door opened with an exclamation.

“You?!....how come so suddenly!!!” Mom opened the door.
“I just felt like…” I said.
“Felt like??...you should’ve informed us at least….” She continued.
“Yeah…how come you came back so abruptly….no phone….no message….nothing…just like that” Dad joined in.

“What have you got for me?” sister shouted from the bedroom.
“How did you come?...” Granny shrieked looking at the helmet in my hand. “By a motorcycle??” she grew hysteric. “How could you travel the distance over a motorcycle?....Oh my god!!...this boy is crazy!!”

This revelation from her sent everybody in an excited state. Dad had an objection on me riding so far on a motorbike. Mom couldn’t comprehend how I got a motorbike. Sister was overwhelmed by my feat. Everybody has a reason to overreact over my arrival. There were questions bombarding over me from all directions. And I stood at the centre of them replying to each of them. Like Abhimanyu standing at the centre of the Chakravyuha.

There was a cacophony. There was surprise, anger, resentment and opposition all thrown across in my direction. Voices filled my house.

The cacophony descended into their interpersonal rivalries and it pitches rose to include their yelling upon each other. Finally they dispersed in different directions, mumbling offences and abuses.

I went to the small can stool and sat on it. I untied my shoes. I try calling up Piyush from my mobile. I realise it’s low on balance. I call him up from my residential landline number. I tell him that I reached safely. He congratulates me on it. I assure him his bike is safe. He threatens to kill me if I speak such shit. After a brief conversation, I disconnect the phone.

I undress myself, and wrapping a towel around me, I walk to the bathroom for a shower.

Their voices still ring in my ears. Staying away from the family makes their voices alien to you. I tried to wash my ears to get them cleaned off there. But they stay stuck to the walls of the cavity. Resonating in its emptiness.

I stand below the shower motionless.

The home which I had yearned for endlessly during the times of extreme loneliness, is here.

I welcome myself to the warm place I dreamt of.

I welcome myself back home.

(Contd.)