Shikha - End Term Assignment - Prompt 3 and Reflective Note
Prompt 3. Fiction: Using 2000 to 2500 words, write a short-story in which one or more locations of the city of Delhi play a crucial role in your narrative.
The Peepal Tree
He had just got off the bus and found the nearest metro station, Kashmere Gate. It seemed to have endless levels and extend in so many directions. It didn’t look so big from the outside. From the inside, it looked like the whole city could fit in here. He wasn’t sure where to go, but he knew his friend lived in Vijaynagar, and he had to get there before nightfall because once the night came he had work to do. After carefully considering the metro map and stopping one school girl who seemed a little less keen than everyone else on getting somewhere, he joined one of the little tributaries to flow into a metro train that would carry him North.
He had thought that his town had a lot of people. A little town close to Hyderabad called Guntur, where his family moved when he was little. Before that, they lived close to the Godavari, in a village. When his father got a government job, they moved to Guntur and visited family in Hyderabad often, so he had seen cities before and he had seen big crowds before, but still the metro made him feel like where he had come from was really nowhere, and now he had reached everywhere. Here, in everywhere, he was sure to find a ghost.
* * *
Manoj’s Nanamma[1] had died a few months back. Only Manoj and her were in the house that evening, and she called the young boy to her room. She asked him to open all the windows in the house and then sit beside her, holding her hand. He did as she asked, and sat down holding her hand, when she asked him if he would mind keeping the window in his room open for the next few days even though the nights were becoming chilly. He said he would, because his Nanamma was always nice to him, nicer than Anna[2] or Nana[3], so he liked listening to only her and disobeying everyone else. She gave him a crooked smile, closed her eyes and only a few minutes later her hand went limp in his and she left her body.
Everyone cried. For the first time in his life he even saw his father cry. Just a little. He couldn’t cry because it wasn’t all over yet, he had to still keep his window open for the next few nights, before it would all really be over. Anna, Nana and Amma[4] were worried, because his Nanamma was the only one Manoj was truly close to, and yet he wouldn’t shed a tear but just be oddly cooperative and help with everything that needed to be done.
That night, Manoj went to his room quickly, and opened all the windows before getting into bed. He was a little excited, so it wasn’t until the blue of the night started fading into the yellow of the day that he fell asleep, and nothing out of the ordinary happened. Several nights passed like this, and life in the house returned to normal. His parents went to work and he went to school, preparing for his board exams, and then he fell asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow. He had lost track of the weeks it had been since his grandmother died, when one day he woke up in the middle of the night to a crow sitting at the foot of his bed. He was about to shoo it away when through the window came two more crows and then three and then one more. They all landed around his bed silently, so Manoj sat very still.
Then a very young and beautiful woman climbed in through the window, she was wearing a deep blue saree in which the drapes looked like the ripples in a river. She sat at the foot of his bed, and said in a voice he faintly recognised, “Manoj, na bangaram...”[5]
“Nanamma?”
* * *
Manoj found his way to the small barsaati Rishi lived in, in Vijaynagar Doublestorey. It looked completely different from Kashmere Gate. And completely different from some of the towering buildings he saw as the bus entered Delhi, which didn’t look very different from Hyderabad or some parts of Guntur. How many places could fit into one, over here? All mazes, and here were buildings that seemed to rise up from each other, more and more built as quickly as more and more people came in. Faded yellows and pinks and greens, Manoj thought this sprawling and rising building, which didn’t seem to start or rise anywhere, all a single unit, could only be held together by magic.
Rishi was also from home, his senior in school, he had scored highest in the board exams and had come to Delhi University. He hugged Manoj tightly, and said, “I hope everyone at home knows where you are…”
Manoj grinned sheepishly, he had sent Rishi a message on Facebook and Rishi had asked him to come, and even then asked if it was with the approval of his parents. Manoj was notorious for entering boyhood with a calm and frustrating stubbornness and disregard for what most elders said. Rishi frowned, but didn’t prod further for the moment.
“I came here to find a ghost.”
“What?”
“The Chief Ghost, actually, but first I will find an ordinary ghost. ”
“What?”
“Obviously, the Chief Ghost or maybe Prime Minister Ghost or maybe President Ghost or maybe King Ghost lives in Delhi. Here is where all rulers live and have lived,” Manoj said.
“Are you joking?”
“No. Yes. I can say I’m joking if that’s what you prefer. You’ve been nice enough so far.”
“I have my exams coming, Manoj. Aren’t your board exams close?”
“Yes,” Manoj said with a frown. He didn’t like to be reminded. “But this is priority. You know, Nanamma died recently.”
“Oh…”
“But I will go and explore now, if that is okay?”
“Okay. Don’t go too far. It’s very easy to get lost here.”
“That’s okay. But if I get lost, I may find who I want.”
* * *
Manoj’s Nanamma had told him that ghosts were everywhere. The afterlife is a complete business, she said. There’s an after-afterlife, but no one knew what that was, and there were many religious followings who believed different stories and even atheists who believed that even though there was an afterlife, in the after-afterlife there was nothing. But it took some investment to become a ghost in your next life. The years of the first afterlife were an economy. You had to invest in advance. The only reason Nanamma got a few ghost years was because she had lent money to a friend many years ago who died before he could return it, and because he was very honest, he decided to put the money into some years for a first afterlife.
She said she had around two years, and was working here and there to increase it, since it was quite nice to be able to move around so easily again. All the pain in her joints were gone, she was beautiful again and she could even fly. Crows could see her, some cats and dogs could, but they didn’t really trouble her. She was right now working for an old zamindar who had a huge farm of crows who she took care of. Crows could help you harvest more years of the afterlife, and the few that followed her were now more fond of her than the zamindar.
Now, Manoj didn’t like this life so much. He didn’t like writing exams and he didn’t like how Anna beat him up. He didn’t like the sound of his Nana’s shouting or the taste of his Amma’s cooking. He didn’t like the idea of any kind of work in this life but he liked the idea of flying. Nanamma didn’t tell him how to invest in the afterlife and he was still too much in shock to ask when she bade him goodbye and climbed out of the window with all the crows flying close behind. He watched from the window, as her saree spread out into blue wings, now like waves of an ocean were holding her up as she glided through the sky with the crows circling around her, cawing into the dark night.
Now he had 2000 rupees he stole from his father, 50 rupees he earned from massaging his aunt’s feet, 100 rupees he once found on the road and 20 rupees he stole from his brother making up a total of 2170 rupees. If he could get even one year of the afterlife from this, then maybe he could get more by working in the first afterlife. There he could find work he liked. Animals had always liked Manoj, so maybe he could join Nanamma on the crow farm.
* * *
Manoj thought it wouldn’t be that hard to find a ghost in Delhi, where so many kingdoms had ruled and had been overthrown, where so many wars had been fought, Delhi was surely teeming with ghosts. And he was sure it would be the capital of the ghosts too, and here he could find someone who would very clearly explain to him what he must do to invest in some years of the afterlife.
He walked and walked for a long time until he reached a tiny forest in the middle of the city. He asked a man sitting on the footpath, surrounded by banana peels and monkeys where he was.
“Ridge,” the man mumbled.
“Can I find ghosts here?”
“Obviously.”
Manoj was pleased. He walked deep into the ridge, feeling again like he was leaving the city behind. Now he was feeling like he had come from the middle of everywhere and ended up in the middle of nowhere. No place in Delhi seemed to obey the laws of space or time, because suddenly the forest had become endless and time had disappeared. This was only further evidence that there were so many ghosts that the human laws of physics were bent and trodden and erased here.
The trees were at first sparse, and evidence of humanity was littered across the grounds – alcohol bottles and chips packets, used condoms and plastic bags. Curious monkeys watched him from branches high above but he ignored them. As he walked deeper inside, the trees grew closer into each other, as if leaning over to whisper secrets that ruffled through their leaves and across the forest. He wasn’t sure where he was going, but he walked haphazardly, like the little tributaries he had seen in the metro. He needed to be lost, swallowed up by these trees before he too could maybe catch a secret blowing in the breeze.
Eventually, he found a peepal tree, large and old, older than even Nanamma, and he decided he would take a nap here. As he settled down and yawned widely, a ghost jumped down his throat and into his stomach. There it began to dance and sing and poke his intestines and his liver, while Manoj rolled in pain screaming for the ghost to please come out, he would do anything. The ghost was even more delighted that someone didn’t think it was just a stomach pain and knew that it was him, him, a naughty ghost, no other reason, that he was in such pain. The ghost jumped even higher, all the way up his food pipe and down into his stomach, he tickled his stomach from the inside and kicked his pancreas over.
Manoj screamed again even louder and said, “Wait, don’t you want to be a ghost for longer? I can help you, if you stop.”
This puzzled the ghost enough to stop. He crawled back up out of Manoj’s mouth, and stretched himself to his full height so he was several feet higher than Manoj, as high as the tree. Manoj was curled in a ball, coughing and holding his stomach, hoping everything inside him would come back together.
“What did you say?” asked the ghost in a deep and resounding voice.
“See, I don’t know how many years you have left in your afterlife. Why are you doing this?”
“The more people I trouble, the longer my life extends. Unfortunately, not many people come to this peepal tree. And not many fools yawn under a peepal tree. So I am running very low on my years. I have just months left, in fact.” With each word the ghost spoke, he became smaller and smaller and sadder and sadder. “I don’t want to die just yet. My whole afterlife, I’ve been just working to survive. My friends have peepal trees to themselves where crowds and crowds of people come, so every day they gain at least another month! Me? Only maybe few people come every month, and if I am lucky, one of them will yawn!”
“I don’t understand! Peepal trees? Yawning?”
“You really are a fool, aren’t you? Peepal trees are where ghosts like me live. Ghosts like me… I used to be a thief when I was alive. So now I still fool people. When someone yawns under a peepal tree, I jump down their throats into their stomachs and I can gain some more years. But no one comes here only… But you! I will jump down again if you don’t do what you promised! How can you get me more years?”
“I have money… I have 1000 rupees…” Manoj replied, thinking the rest he could keep to himself and if this ghost told him how to invest, he would use the rest on himself.
“Fool! 1000 rupees? You have to get a foreign exchange done! Our currency is different. You know how long the lines at foreign exchange are? I will go into the second afterlife and you will die forever before you can get any useful money!” The ghost reared himself up, ready to jump down Manoj’s throat again, where he had kept one toe holding it open in case he needed to.
“What’s your name?” Manoj asked.
The ghost stopped. It had been a long time since he was called by his name, he had forgotten, he only knew he was a ghost, a lowly one at that. “Ramachandran,” he said.
“Even I want to live in the afterlife, you know,” Manoj said. “This life has nothing that interests me. I think I would’ve failed my board exams and become a thief, that is what my father keeps telling me.”
“It’s not like the afterlife is not hard, look at me!” Ramachandran said. He settled down in front of Manoj, one toe still in Manoj’s mouth. Manoj tried to look at him, but he couldn’t quite see him when he tried to focus. When he stopped trying to look, he could see Ramachandran again, or at least glimpses of his long limbs and nails that were even longer.
“Don’t you have a government you can complain to? Do you have a Prime Minister or a King?”
“What do I know and what do I care? I think there is someone here, there are even elections. But there isn’t much difference from life, here in the afterlife. The same corruption, the same communalism. The Prime Minister would prefer ghosts like me buried somewhere in the Ridge, out of sight, while the more wealthy ghosts are who you’ll see.”
“Wait! Wait!” Manoj said. “Maybe we can help each other. How about I shift you to another peepal tree. I saw one just outside Kashmere Gate metro. And do you know, there are so many people there!”
Ramachandran pondered this.
Manoj continued, “Yes! And I don’t think any ghost is occupying it because the tree is dying. But if I take you, I’ll take care of the tree and bring it back to life. But will you also help me? I also want some time in the afterlife. Can we split it? Fifty-fifty?”
“Eighty-twenty!”
“Sixty-forty!”
“Hmph! Seventy-thirty! Or I will jump down your throat again.”
* * *
If you haven’t heard, Ramachandran and Manoj set up quite a business for years and years to come. No one knew at first, but word quickly spread, but luckily for Ramachandran and Manoj the human world was full of skeptics so knowledge of the story didn’t affect business. Grandmothers still warn their children and grandchildren of an old man who will invite you to have a drink with him under the shade of the beautiful, huge peepal tree, and when you yawn, Ramachandran will jump down your throat. Both of them are sure to live eternally in the afterlife. Well, as long as there are those who are so tired they pause under the peepal tree to yawn or those who cannot say no when a sweet old man offers them some rum.
Self Reflective Process Essay - Shikha
I used to be an avid reader in my childhood. I would just devour books. When I got older, around when 12th board exams were looming I found that everyone, including my parents who always insisted I read and not watch television, thought of reading outside the curriculum a waste of time. So I slowly got out of the habit, though I never really got into the habit of reading what was in the curriculum either. Despite that, even in the last few years, there have been phases that I have thrown myself into books. And these are usually the most lost and uncertain phases of my life. I find that it is because reading can be such an intense experience of difference, even if you are reading a writer whose style is completely different from yours and who writes about a world very distant from the landscape of your life. It is in experiencing difference that helped me through the times I was most lost.
In The Catcher in the Rye JD Salinger writes about adolescent angst in a way that gave me such hope in my teens. And then, I found Elena Ferrante when I was twenty-one who writes about two young women growing up in working-class neighbourhood of Naples in the Neapolitan Novels. It is an experience completely removed from mine, but in her language I found words when I was able to find none. I’ve been writing since I was a child, and I felt like often I would write imitating the style of the writer I was reading at the time, but when I moved on from a very direct imitation, I would carry on something of the writer inside me.
* * *
The poetry module of the “Ways of Reading” course was a closer reading of poetry as a writer than I had been able to do on my own. While I feel like I’ve always been on the journey reading prose and novels as a writer, the breaking down of poetry to observe where poets use line breaks, how they use repetition, how rhythm can be created and disrupted and how metaphors can be used so evocatively made me read all poetry I’ve encountered ever since very differently. Poetry especially is a form that needs to be unravelled, that asks the reader to slowly dance with it and learn its steps. Honestly, in some classes I felt like breaking down a poem only against its political context narrowed it meaning for me, because maybe political poetry becomes so strong since it is about loss, pain, despair, grief, anger, strength, perseverance and hope. A poem about Kashmir, where a war that those who live in India cannot begin to imagine or sympathise with, does what news cannot do. It can take you to Kashmir in your heart. So I do wish that sometimes when we read political poems, we began at the simple questions of how it made us feel, maybe it resonated with us or alienated us completely, but to arrive at the political from the deeply personal, is where political poetry can do what news reports cannot.
The feedback session after the mid-term assignment made me experience a movement in my writing that I had not felt in a long time. Though I said earlier that there were instances that breaking down a poem took away from the spontaneity and natural response to a poem, there were also instances that it did help. Breaking down my own poems in the feedback session, with a person who didn’t know much about me outside the context of the poetry made me see patterns and style in my poetry that I did not realise was there. Such as, when Akhil pointed out that my poetry has a thehrav. This in fact made me feel more comfortable with myself even in daily life, since I worry so much that I am too slow and too still and that I must hurry up and match the pace of the world or I may miss out. Akhil observed that all my poetry bears a memory of home in it somewhere, and I think this is because I have been away from a long time now. But when he commented that I seem to have a tendency to romanticise it, I realised here I was slipping into a cliche of romanticising home, whereas I have a very fraught relationship with home, and there lie many depths for me to uncover when I write about home in the future.
* * *
God of Small Things is a book full of poetic prose. It just spills of the pages and into every moment of the reader’s life. Even a city of noise and smoke like Delhi can transform into poetry, as one begins to notice the tiniest creatures crawling through the sand, the little plants bursting out of concrete and every single person around separates from the crowd and becomes a body full of oddities.
It’s a book that can teach one plenty about writing just through a training of seeing. Perhaps we see all these things everyday, but it is relegated to the back of the mind as we think of only some things as necessary and meaningful to the narratives of our lives. I found myself writing in (aspirational) imitation of Arundathi Roy while reading this book, and it gave me such discovery of the microscopic nature of landscapes and people.
* * *
Berger writes, “The relation between what we see and what we know is never settled.” I didn’t manage to read all of Berger’s Ways of Seeing for this module, but I’ve seen the TV series and read several of his other non-fiction essays from The Shape of a Pocket. Berger does what few others in the fields of academics and philosophy care to do, he communicates. His texts are very accessible and at the same time not simple, but he brings texts like Benjamin’s “In the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” into everyday life. For Berger, art does not exist for the elite but for everyone. And images are read by everyone, in paintings and on billboards, in films and in commercials. His writing explains but also, such as in the chapters purely composed of images, calls for a creation of narrative even from the reader, and I find this most interesting stylistically in the book.
* * *
This course reminded me that reading is also a practice, as much as writing, filmmaking or painting are. Like instruments that need tuning and constant playing, the more you are submerged in the practice of reading, the more that will be revealed to you of the text and of yourself. Writing and perhaps practicing any other form of expression cannot go without writing, because in such an intense experience of differences – someone else’s words, someone else’s way of looking at the world, someone else’s rhythm as they go through life – one’s own universe can expand to see and hear, touch and smell, that which escaped your attention before. The practice of reading is also a practice of attention, of tending to a certain quality of attention in oneself.
[1] Paternal grandmother
[2] Elder brother
[3] Father
[4] Mother
[5] My dear…
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