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All the stories he imagines are about death and revenge, and they run on fast-forward in his head, all motives lost and options discarded till it is the climax, the good guy beaten but not broken and the bad guys about to be dead.
He plays these scenarios out with his toys and on paper – entire pages of his sketchbook are now smeared with red crayon scratches, spouting from brown figures torn apart by so many lasers, limbs flying everywhere. Scenes never shown in the cartoons on cable TV are played out here in all their gory detail. It seems logical to him – the lasers that pierce metal and take down aircraft, surely, they should burn through mere flesh.
The sounds of cricket are still audible – the shouts louder, the language worse. It is dark now and the younger kids have gone home but the older ones continue playing in the streetlights.
He is done with his toys and sketchbook, with his imaginary worlds of reciprocal violence, and now he sits. He is not ready to go back yet, not ready to face his family, or anyone at all really. He is contemplating the pressure inside his chest which sometimes grows, he does not understand the nature of it nor can he surmise the actions to release it. As it grows, this pressure sometimes brings him to tears, but he swallows them. For tears are what the world wants from him and he does not give them up easily anymore.
He is tired of running, of keeping his eyes open at all times. He is tired of spotting ambushes, of listening for their laughter, of always looking for the slightest change in the body language of the senior boys, of watching for anything that signals a beating is on its way.
He is too weak to fight back. He had tried then, when he was fresh into this – his punches ineffective, his kicks bouncing off their legs. It was a mistake, all his attempts had only exacerbated his own agony. Oh, they liked to hunt him down then, didn’t they? The strange small kid who does not cower and beg … not immediately anyway.
All the more fun to break him after…
The things that he could do …
Throw stones at them. That would teach them. Store the stones in his schoolbag and wait for the right moment. Run when they give chase, lead them into an ambush, then turn and unleash. He would not miss, no, not then, not as he pictures it, his hands a blur as he flings the stones at high speed, catching faces … That would teach them, would it not?
If not, if not, he could always push them down the stairs. Vatsal, who was then in VI-B, had fallen last year and had broken his arm. A boy from pre-primary had run into him, tipping him over. Vatsal was out of school for weeks. Arvind had seen it happen and realised how little it took, it was just a question of timing. Even the bigger ones could be tripped easily, and crash down and he could get away … But they would come back. They always did and each time they caught him was worse than the last and this is when he hears a clear clicking sound, a wooden ruler tapping against the metal pipes. It is the signal from Sri …
He packs his thoughts inside his chest, stuffing them deep and the pressure seems to increase but what else can he do … The process is then repeated, but in reverse, as Arvind packs his treasures into the Spiderman bag and parks it inside the waiting crevice under the water tank. Once secure, he leaps the walls and swings down the ledge and in through the window, back home in time for dinner.
Family dinner is a constant thing, every night, without fail. They sit – Sri and Arvind – on one side of the wooden table, Arvind’s feet dangling some inches off the floor and Appa sits at the head in his white banian and matching veshti, showered and powdered, smelling of sandalwood, deep-set eyes dark with intelligence, on his face the gracious smile of an emperor reigning over his little empire. The effect is spoiled somewhat by the lights reflecting off of his shiny bald head, pulsing in interchanging primary colours bursting from the altar of Lord Balaji – the God Himself installed, resplendent, beside the dining table, drowned in flowers, exalted by oil lamps and, to really drive the point home, garlanded in bright electric light. Later in the night when the house is asleep and all else is shut and the tube lights have winked out, these bulbs stay on, grading the entire living room in nightmare hues of red and green.
Now, however, they are not as offensive and Arvind finds them easy to ignore, his eyes on Amma as she makes several trips between the kitchen and the dining table, carrying plates of steaming food, always too many at once, balanced on her thin arms, served in courses for the rest of the family.
Next to him, on the seat to the right of Appa, Srilekha looks pleased with herself – her test must have gone well, he thinks.
Arvind is not hungry. The storm inside him has not yet blown over, and he has little appetite but he serves himself almost the usual amount of food so as to not excite comment.
“I was talking to Ramani periyappa yesterday,” Appa says, “and his son, Shankar – you’ve met him – has just cleared IIT.”
The words are directed at Srilekha but Arvind senses that he is meant to hear them too.
“Oh wow, okay …” his sister’s voice from his left. He cannot tell if she is sincere though she has stopped chewing and is looking at their father.
“So I asked him what Shankar had done for physics and periyappa said he had some textbooks that he had bought in Germany for Shankar when he was there ten years ago – great textbooks. Smart man, he knew they would be useful.”
His smile is endearing. “He said he will lend them to us … They could be good for you, Sri. These Germans … very smart people. Dedicated.”
She thanks him for thinking of her and helping her in this, and the whole time a voice inside Arvind is screaming that these are his dreams for you and not your dreams for you and then Appa praises her again, and it is all about her commitment and focus and hard work and these words Arvind knows are not simple appreciation and encouragement for her but searing red lasers aimed at him and he can do nothing but take them on the chest and nod along and not sulk as he plays with his food.
Appa and Sri continue talking and she is animated and going on about prep tests and Olympiads, while Arvind has tuned out. He is thinking about Jaggi once again. How maybe he could throw some boiling water on him, carried in a thermos from home, the one Appa uses for his coffee … but it is hard to focus on these thoughts of revenge, they seem thin like air, tiny impossible dreams, scratching against his throat. Amma has now joined them on the table, wiping sweat with a white hanky, and on the TV in the background, the news anchor in the sari is talking about the attempted assassination of a builder in Bombay and the mafia wars raging in the city and …
“Arvind, learn something from your sister.”
And with that he is back at the table and it is Okay Appa and Yes Appa and Next Time Appa as they go over his test results from school and his lack of a work ethic and then there is silence again but for the scraping of spoons on utensils.
“Amma tells me you have a new friend – Mr Chatterjee’s son?”
“Yes, he is in my class, his name is –”
But Appa has moved on, barrelling through the conversation the way he has done all his life. “Good good. Brilliant man, Mr Chatterjee. Brilliant. Really changing things at the plant. He was in the US, you know, before this? Working in Dallas. Stay close to him, this kid – what’s the name?”
“Sudipto –”
“Yes, Sudipto, stay close to him. You will learn something. He is Bengali. Intelligent, yes, like us. Man of principle, his father, hardworking. At his desk at 9 am. Stay close to him. I tell you there is something about Mr Chatterjee … So different from Sharma … Something in the genes, Bengali Brahmins are very intelligent. Yeah, he too is from IIT, I think, I do not recall which …”
And that is about all that Arvind can take about IITs and exams and work and casual afternoon violence and the pressure building inside him explodes and the words come tumbling out.
“If he is so smart why does his son get beaten like a dog every day in school?”
Later in the bedroom Arvind is awake and completely still. There is some pain on his cheek where his father’s slaps still resound in the nerves, and there is no sleep, but the pressure, the unbearable pressure that had been building all day has dissipated now, replaced by confused thoughts percolating in lazy circles.
“I know you are awake.”
It is Sri. He does not respond nor change the pattern of his breathing.
“What happened was not okay, but you should not bait him with such things.” And then, “The kids in school trouble you. They beat you. I see it.”
He stays silent.
“It has happened to me. We are targets. ’Cause we are new. ’Cause we are not from here. We are different and make for easy game. I hate it here. I really do. Why do you think I study so hard? I want to get out of here. I am going to give that exam, leave and never come back. You can do the same thing, Appu. It is just a few years. Then we leave and never come back. Ever. Be strong. Just a little longer.”
Excerpted with permission from Gunboy, Shreyas Rajagopal, HarperCollins India.
This article first appeared on Scroll.in
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