Butterfly.
Scorching heat grills the roads and the winds have become increasingly dry, summer is here; every year it was this season that brought joy and kept our worries at bay but this year, although the sunlight is abundant, there seems to be a ceaseless gloom which hangs upon our heads. They say it’s a big disease and has killed many, but I am truly baffled, because if it is as ruthless as they suggest, why then does my father insists on trudging back to Lucknow? The harsh winter which I despise with my whole heart, has finally left, and I had impatiently waited for the temperatures to rise so that my father’s ice candy business could thrive and my brother and I could finally get to relish as many mangoes as we wished to, but now when the boon filled summer was here my mother wails that everything is over. Yesterday when my parents thought that my brother and I had slept, I heard my father weep for the very first time and with an unfamiliar crack in his voice, he said that whatever savings he had were about to be exhausted and that if we left this time, we’d never come back and this is troubling me to the core. Our house in Delhi is no mansion, in fact, the four of us have trouble sleeping together as there is no space and hence my father often sleeps outside on the footpath and on days when he is tired fending for the family, my brother takes his place on the rug outside, but then this is all I have ever known, these walls, the incessant smell of the drain mixed with the aroma of spices from the fast-food stall nearby, the haphazard noise when the street is alive in the evening and on hazy, hot days the vendor’s calls; this is what is home to me, if not this what else should I regard as my own and if not here, where else could happiness be found?
*
My father has asked us to pack whatever we think is necessary, and while my five-year-old brother tugged my mother’s saree to let him take his toy car, I sobbed at my father’s feet to let us stay. He said no word and stared at me with remorse, almost like he wanted to convey something through his eyes, something so sorrowful that he could not let the words escape his mouth; it seemed as though if he let his dam break then my twelve-year-old shoulders could simply not endure the weight of it and so he stayed silent for a long time, before he meekly said to my mother, “Carry enough water”.
*
Perhaps this disease which they talk of is quite strong, after all, it did make my father leave his ice candy cart unattended at the alleyway like it was an object of the past and that we were beyond the need of it. I could not stop the tears from rolling down when we crossed the threshold of our house and my brother kept asking, “Didi why are you crying?” If he knew this was the last time he saw his toy car, maybe he’d cry too.
*
We had walked only for a few hours but it already felt like I was losing control of myself. At some point, my sandal tore off and now my foot bled because of the uneven gravelled road. The water bottle in mother’s bag seems too tempting as my throat dries out frequently but I know the journey is too long and water too less; the pain too much and my ability to cope, too less. Father says it might take us up to five days and just the thought of it makes my body sting with fatigue, if half a day feels like this, by the fifth it would be surreal if I was simply able to keep breathing. When we initially started our walk we passed buildings and localities which seemed as normal as they would have on any another day but today a series of unusual thoughts followed. I could not help thinking about how they must be lazing around in their houses while we now do not even have one, I could not stop my mind from drifting off to thinking about why it was us on the road and not them, ever so often had I heard my mother tell me, “We do not have that much money” but it is today that these words ring differently in my ears, does money really decide who gets to have shade over their heads in such heat, does it decide how much water one gets to drink or the amount of food they have in their share? The last thing I ate was a chapatti mother had packed, and now my stomach groans while I stay mum, my brother would be given whatever is extra, there’s little that he understands.
*
My father is unable to walk anymore. He was beaten with sticks by the police and twisted his foot when he fell. He insists we walk without him but how could we do that? It is he who gives us the courage to plod along, in fact, it is him who reminds us that there is always light at the end of the tunnel, that sooner or later we will reach Lucknow and we’ll wash with cool water and we’ll treat ourselves with paranthas and mithai which grandma must have prepared, he was the burning torch who guided our steps, if his light burns out we are as good as the blind. After a lot of convincing, he agrees to limp and come along with us and we decide to halt at a petrol pump for the night. We are right outside the main city of Delhi, and from this spot, a clear view of the city lights was visible to us. The others slept soon on the dusty concrete floor but the lights had transfixed me, no explanation fit correct as to why we slept here in the darkness of an empty petrol pump and the city glowed with the brilliance of a thousand lights. I know I should not and that God has given enough, but I do wish that we had more money.
*
It is the third day of walking and by now I have stopped hoping and asking for much. Our water got over after mother fainted in the middle of the road with my brother on her back, father panicked and I cried. No truck stopped even as I frantically waved my hand, I assume their urgency was greater than ours and dejectedly we sat by the road wordlessly as mother rested. The road has many lessons to teach when you spend such a long time with it, one of it is undeniable that like time, this road too stops for nobody. It is endless and vast, with every passing second it grows more intimidating and if anyone would ask me, I would say with no doubt in my heart, that the road was harsher than any disease ever could be; it had a heart of stone truly. Almost as if he was a god sent a man approached us last night and asked if we had eaten anything when we told him that all we had had were a few biscuits, he promptly served us some pooris and tea he had in his car. While he left us with what we considered no less than prasad, he said, “I wish I could give you a lift but it is against the rules” Rules? What rules did he speak of I know not but it felt like these rules that he mentioned were against the poor, for he who has money rests in the comfort of their house and those who do not were at the mercy of the sun and the never-ending road? At least god was on our side, the pooris tasted heavenly.
*
I truly understand what my mother meant when she said, everything is over. My mother, all of thirty and my brother of five, have been snatched from us forever. It happened so quickly that I am still unable to fathom that it is the reality; how quickly do we lose what’s close to our hearts and how slow is the pain pumped out. It must have been only a fraction of a second and we lost them. My father’s foot hurt so I gave him support from his waist and we walked ahead of mother and brother. It was night time and we were silent as usual, exchanging a few words along the lines of how long it would be before we reached Lucknow and then submitting into the quiet darkness again. The silence was broken by the sound of my mother collapsing on the road, this would have been the third time she fainted after we had started off, she has always had weakness but carrying the load of the luggage and my five-year-old brother only amplified it. My brother cried and I said, “I am coming” before making my father sit on a roadside boulder, and as I did so my brother screamed and it was followed by the screeching of wheels. My heartbeat increased tremendously and I turned faster than I ever had. There, in the middle of the road were the bodies of my mother and brother, displaced from their original position after being driven over by a truck which now stood right beside us. The driver yelled, “Is the road a place to sleep?” and drove off. Both my father and I are speechless and numb and the driver’s question rings in my ears. Is this road for us to walk on it in the very first place? If the city which I called home could not accept us, how would this foreign road do so? This road met us not long ago but claimed something so dear to us that even those who stayed in the twinkling lights of Delhi would not be able to buy it back to us. After a long time, I gathered the courage to pull the bodies and placed them before my father. The sun was about to rise and the early sun rays hit my father’s face. I could not look at his agony and broke down. I do not know what this disease is or how it is caught, I do not know where it came from and when will it go, but all I know is this that it is mighty and undefeatable, it killed my brother and mother without them even catching it in the very first place.
*
I do not remember how long did I cry for that day. At one point I thought I heard my father cry but I could not face him so I hid my face in my hands and erupted into tears again. After sitting there for a few hours a police patrol van approached us. They asked us in numerous questions about where we were from, how did we reach there, where was our destination, and repeatedly, how did they die. My father gave no answers and only asked one question, “Brother how far is Lucknow from here?” and the police officer said, “Thirty minutes”. It was at that moment I saw my father shatter to bits. He held my mother and cried in a way which would haunt me to death. They took the bodies and dropped us at our destination. That was one day and today is one. It’s been a week but it feels like it never happened, a deranged nightmare carved on the depths of my soul with a knife. Somehow it started to feel like it was my fault. Only if I had been quick enough to pick mother up when she collapsed maybe then she would still be here in her yellow cotton saree and gold bangles, my brother would be here running around and eating mangoes with me while I’d laugh at how messy he was. How easily do people close chapters and move on to the next one, I am still in shock and I do not think I would be able to close this book ever. Few lines which my father said the night we reached my grandmother’s house will never disappear from my mind and will be engrained on it forever: “Whether it is a war or a disease, an earthquake or a tsunami, it is always us, the poor, who lose the most. That is why I tell you, it is money which runs the world so remind yourself to have plenty of it because if you do not, nobody will even bat an eye at you. Just how the butterflies cannot help but visit the pretty flowers more than the ugly ones, so it is with us humans, those who have money are simply the pretty flowers and the butterfly? It’s happiness”
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