A hundred miles away from home

A hundred miles away from home.

A hundred steps away from home felt like a hundred miles away from home to Nishi.

A tarpaulin over his head was his home for as long as he could remember. He was five years old when he first left home, but only as far as he could run or walk. And back then, his memory was fluid. He didn’t remember anything from them, except for how he felt. The excitement of a run, the whooshing wind. The elders in his so called home plucked him up from the road and sent him away to his home whenever they saw him outside.

He was only seven years old when he was given a motive to go out – as a child beggar.

He was quite a grown-up, he thought to himself, but he hadn’t gotten hold of the way of the world, just yet. He was now a part of the money making racket, but not quite there yet.

He hadn’t yet learned of the moaning voice which would make his cause sound worthy of getting money. No entreaties of days gone in hunger. No complaint of a non-existent home.

He simply wandered in the road, passing cars belligerently polluting the air, sounding horns along the way, and Nishi stood gaping at the tin and what not things moving along the road.

Most of the days he came home empty handed, to the chagrin of his mother. He didn’t have a father. Or if he had, his mother did not tell him of any such person who could fill up that role. His mother never allowed him to feel a father’s absence.

One of the women in his slum said, “He is old enough, now. Set a ground rule – if he can’t bring in at least Rs. 20 a day, don’t give him food!”

His mother, however, did not have the heart to let her son go a day without food. The food rations were meagre as it were.

But Nishi understood his mother was suffering for him.

So he decided he would buck up and bring back as much as he could.

So that brings us to this point.

He needed a plan. He needed to earn or beg, away from home.

Nishi’s mother

What was to be done with Nishi, I don’t know.

I want to be a good mother.

I want him to grow up into a respectable person.

An honourable child.

Unbeknownst to the other slum dwellers, she had been saving up the money to send him to a government school and study.

She was going to enroll him to the local school, despite everything. And then, as Fate would play its hand…

Nishi

I don’t know what happened to mother all of a sudden.

I knew she loved me, but I didn’t know she loved me as much as to fight with everybody to send me to school.

If my Nishi goes and becomes a man, I am sure your children would look forward to going to school as well, she said.

There was to be no compromise.

School

He had come three years later.

No matter, the teachers said.

Let’s teach him after hours, till he learns the alphabets, can make sentences and knows enough grammar and arithmetic to be in Grade 2.

Learning was painstaking, and in a different way than begging for alms was. Exercising the brain was akin to exercising the body, unpleasant at first, but once you got the hang of it, it was kind of nice.

The meals were the best part of the day. Nishi did not know that khichdi could taste this good. He often asked for two more helpings.

One day he brought home a little bit for his mother. His mother lovingly explained to him that he shouldn’t do that, not to worry, she had stuff she could eat. Nishi believed that and didn’t repeat the same thing, though the school authority could have spared him that much food happily.

Miserable is a country where the basic minimum couldn’t be spared to every citizen in it.

The classroom was well lit with two LED lights – one at the front, one at the back.

Nishi loved the covers of the books and copies – the smell of the fresh papers.

He loved sharpening pencils and used the shavings to make pretty flowers by gluing it to the copy.

He loved writing his name on the books – a prized possession to him, and him alone.

Nishi had a knack for writing, a thing discovered two years later, that gave him joy and also perplexed him a little.

Writing was all about reading and then giving oneself a push forward.

“THE CRUELTY OF LIFE” he wrote.

“Amongst buildings that stand tall

Are we, the slum dwellers.

Unwashed, unwanted

Made to abide by the laws and simply do the chores

That you all would not.

Cleaning bathrooms,

Pick up plastic

We are the ragamuffins.

We are the used

We are the ridiculed

We are the Poor in the country

Disrespected bunch in the whole lot.”

I am sorry you feel this way, the school authority told Nishi. But they would encourage him to read lots, and write lots.

The first thick children’s book he read was of Enid Blyton. At first, he was afraid that it would be boring, or too much for him. But there he found the art of how an author grasps you into the story so that its length surpasses your apprehension and unease.

He stood tenth in his class at the age of ten. At the age of eleven, he was made the class monitor.

In the evenings, the classes were divided and the underprivileged teenagers who had never gone to school ever were brought to study for a while. The students would assume the role of teachers. Nishi was amazed to see so many of his older peers turn up to this.

___

Nishi was twelve years old. A lot of time had passed. He had always been mature enough for his age. Now, he had the appearance of a budding presence who spread light (figuratively) wherever he went. With his mother, he was always respectful and considerate. He had a good sense of judgment and kept away from bad things, and would try to keep others from doing a bad thing too, if he could. He was kind, and was true to himself. The more he learnt the disparity between his community and others at school the more his thirst for knowledge and change increased.

Around this time, another child from the slums joined school.

It was a girl child, of the same age as Nishi. Her name was Veena.

Nishi would gladly show her the ropes.

Veena enjoyed the time she spent with Nishi. He was a bright boy and she, herself being a bright child, picked up things quickly, to her elation.

Veena teased Nishi on being the teacher’s pet, till she herself became one.

Life was going, and going good.

Till a fire broke out in the slums.

Nishi’s mother suffered second degree burns on her hands, trying to save Veena’s mother.

Veena’s father, in the spell of a rage, had thrown a bottle of alcohol at her mother and set it on fire. Luckily, he was drunk enough for the bottle to hit the floor and her mother hadn’t suffered much.

Nishi didn’t know all this till he came home.

All day long, he had missed her. Surprisingly.

When he went back home, Veena was standing to the side, the police took her father away whilst her mother looked on, quietly.

The night that day was a long one. Nishi didn’t want Veena to miss school.

But she argued, who would help her mother once she was alone? What if her father came back and decided to finish his incomplete task of setting everything on fire?

Nishi could not do anything.

The next day at school, he missed her again.

That was the day he realised, he had fallen for Veena.

For the first time in his life, he bunked school.

For the first time in his life, he knew the pain the authors wrote about.

The pain of an (probably) unrequited love.

The next day he decided to convince Veena to attend school again.

But to his dismay, she and her mother were nowhere to be found.

He pulled out the note he had written for her and looked at it dismally for a time before he put it into his pocket again.

___

Nishi focused on his studies. Unlike Vidya Sagar who studied under lamp- posts, he had an LED light in his home which would allow him to study as he wished to. His mother would sometimes bring him a snack, and pat his head in tacit and warm approval. Their condition had improved. His mother worked as a maid. He himself made phuchkas at times and sold them for some good money.

But mostly, he now studied.

A decent part of time had passed. A decade. He was now preparing for the Engineering exams.

Nishi prepared strategically.

On the day of the exam, he was happy that he had aced it.

While he was coming back from the city to his home on the bus, he got down at the Mother’s Ashrama.

As he was offering incense and flowers to the Mother, he saw a girl. Bald, wearing saffron, the colour of sacrifice.

His mood pensive, his jaw dropped as their eyes met.

Bald or not, he’d always recognise Veena everywhere.

She looked at Nishi, put the Chandar over her head and approached him.

With a lot of restraint, she said, “Nishi?”

Nishi nodded.

He gestured to her.

“Is this you?”

She didn’t look offended.

“Yes,” she smiled.

Nishi wanted to hug her.

“This is me,” she said again.

“I am happy, Nishi,” Veena said.

I wish you well, Nishi thought, as he left.

____

A single paper lay over the desk.

Veena didn’t want to pick up what seemed to be a long forgotten piece of paper, carefully folded.

___

Nishi asked for water as his mother noticed the expression on his face. The expression of an ache. One he had not worn since…since Veena had left him.

Would he ever be able to forget her?

A mother does not like to see her children unhappy.

“I have something to give you.”

“Yes, mother?” Nishi said.

She pulled out a note from her old clothes and gave it to him.

“Come with me, let us find a place to live together. Away from my parents. You can visit your mother sometimes. I will wait till daybreak, if you don’t come…I’ll know I have to carry this burden by myself.”

Nishi felt like he had been slapped.

_____

“You will not believe how much I have missed you today. This heart aches at not seeing you like it never has. I need you by my side everyday, so I can have faith that everything will go well. How could anything Not go well when I have you by my side everyday? Someday, I will ask to marry you, but today, just grace me with your presence. Your silence, your incessant talk - both are precious to me… My love, do you feel the same way?”

Veena read it for the fourth time when she noticed Nishi entering the Ashrama door a second time.

It was afternoon. The nuns had just finished serving the destitutes food. It was now their time to eat.

Seeing Nishi enter, the Head Nun asked Veena to serve him food.

So she did.

Nishi remained silent.

He finished eating.

At the end, he gestured to her hand.

“I have read it.”

“You don’t love me anymore,” Nishi stated it as a fact.

“I love you as much as I did before, but in a gentler way. I ask for nothing but for you to be healthy and happy. I am in love with this lifestyle. I love the nuns who are like sisters to me. I have spent ten years wanting to see you again, and now that I have, one thing is clear to me. I don’t choose individual love anymore. I fit here like a missing piece to a long forgotten puzzle.”

“You just said you love me!” Nishi said.

“It is no longer a romantic love, mostly.”

“This is your decision?” Nishi asked.

“Yes. I have made peace with what I want in life,” Veena concluded.

____

Results were announced.

Nishi got selected in one of the prestigious institutes in India.

Four years later, he found a job.

No more did they live in the slums.

The first earning he donated to the Ashrama.

Veena was no longer there. She roamed the cities searching for ways to uplift the lifestyle of the people in slums and make them self dependant.

The Head nun had a word with him, “She was so sad when you went away. I almost forced her to go back. But I think she calmed down after praying. She has renounced her worldly life. I pray for her every day. But this I can say, she is more at peace than before. Don’t worry.”

Nishi simply nodded.

Maybe he would help others too, in a different way.

Till then…

He shut off his connection with everyone else and worked from home.

For a year.

For a year he lived the life of a recluse. Up in the mountains, amidst a forest in a cozy cabin.

It took him the whole year to understand the peace Veena had spoke of.

He felt lighter.

Like a huge weight was lifted.

When he came back to his mother, he was happy.

She was serving fuchkas to customers as she said, “We’re closing in ten minutes!”

“Tell me ma,” he said, “let us help the other children at the slums like you helped me! A hundred miles away from home, literally and figuratively!”

____