Journey For Journey's Sake

Gaṇeśa sat back against the rock and smiled. It was warm, now that he had passed through the cloud which enveloped the mountain base, and the sun tingled against his weathered skin. They said he was elephant, but today, he was lithe and thin, although he had worn a sheen of sweat by the time he came to rest. He wasn’t as young as he used to be. Slowly, still smiling, Gaṇeśa closed his eyes. It had been a good climb, one which he’d felt with joy as his bandy muscles had strained and burned. Indra and the others had laughed at his plans to climb the mountain.

“Ha! Old man, you’d never make it! Your hide would wither before you reached the top! Besides, why go to all that trouble, when everything you ever wanted is right at the tip of your fingers here?”

For the Gods were growing lazy and complacent; when the mortals place their everything upon your plate, you have no place for toil or worry. But Gaṇeśa was discomfited with gluttony, beginning to miss the humble serenity of mortal flesh. And so, he climbed.

They said that elephant would shift your obstacles. They were mistaken. Oh, he might help you to remember the drink-hole, but you’d have to walk the distance on your own two legs.

Deep within the silence, the methodic crunch of tired footfall wound its way up the mountainside. Gaṇeśa stretched his legs out before him, and watched the path, though it would be a good while yet before the climbers were in sight. The cloud was thicker now, forming a thick wet blanket, and the footsteps shuffled along uneasily, feeling for the worn tread of the path beneath them. Gaṇeśa remembered the choking of the cloud – though it had been thinner then – hitting his lungs. His hand twitched. How easy it would be to wipe the sky clean. But the sun tingled against his skin, and he remembered the climb. No.

After a while, Gaṇeśa tore his gaze from the white world below and stood. There was a tree a little way over the hill, and bound to be some deadwood for a fire to welcome them.

Fragments

Mannu crashed against the wall, grateful for its solidarity. They were shouting, again; voices spasmed through his brain, sharp, gashing at his thoughts, but fuzzy, so that when he tried to focus on them, it hurt his eyes.

On the field, the others shrieked as they chased one another around the swings. He tried to focus on them, instead, but they moved so fast that their bright shapes formed a web across his eyes. He looked away, tried to wipe his vision clean, but his hands were ineffectual.

Still, the voices ran rampant, louder and louder as he fought to shut them out. They were strong, and they could see the scars they’d made upon his mind. Sometimes, he would trap them, build blockages they could not pass but they were too quick, this time. The voices coursed through a weak point in his mind. They spread like flame dropped onto oil, their harsh pulsing tones scratching at his limbs ‘til he was forced to move with them to lessen the force.

“Bloody kid’s doing it again!”

“Well, stop him, you heard what She said this morning, it’s bad for him to get into the cycle”.

“Mannu! Mannu, Challoo; let’s go! Uppa; get up!”

Somewhere above him, a voice, all alone, formed abstract words. He knew that voice. Perhaps it could save him, but it was too far away, and the other voices had hold of him now; they’d never let him reach up there and grasp at help. Silently, he cried, convulsing with the voices as they tightened their grip.

A rough hand grasped at his arm and pulled. The one-voice was reaching down to him! For a second, the voices paused, and he could hear the world tick by, but their talons still clutched at him, stifling his voicebox, stiffening muscles; it was all he could do to drag his eyes towards the hand for half a moment. The voices dragged his focus to the ground and resisted the pull of the distant one-voice and its solid form.

He felt his body being pulled up and across the floor. His heel snagged against the path and bled; he couldn’t pick it up, couldn’t straighten and pull away, couldn’t acquiesce. The voices screamed a siren of war. It encompassed him. He barely noticed as the hand let go and he, a dead weight, fell back against the wall, almost foetal. And the voices trilled their victory.

The one-voice stumped away and Mannu lay there, breathing in short, desperate bursts. The coloured web changed shape and hue before his eyes, into an organised lattice of cream on porous reds, stacked one line after another. He felt its grain beneath his fingers, craters so big the could swallow him whole. Would they? The voices buzzed excitedly as his fingertips explored, pushing deeper into the crevices as they tested the limits, out of his control. Nothing, so his hands worked on, creeping slowly across the web of lines and then slap, seeing if they could be caught out. His palms itched from the force, but they wouldn’t be stopped. He had to know if he’d be pulled through. Slap. He had to know.

“Mannu.”

Something touched the back of his hand as it reached the wall once more. The voices crashed to a halt in frozen rage.

Her eyes hovered at a spot above his shoulder, their grey sheen catching his attention.

“Teek-hai – you ok?”

The voices stared at the unwavering grey, waiting to rebel. No commands, but the grey lingered, indifferent, inescapable.

Her palm extended towards his as she watched the others play – did she notice? And his fingers found their strength. After a moment she stood, and he stood with her. Together, haltingly, they walked away

On the night train to nowhere

Abhaya stared hard at the underside of the bunk, where the abrasive snoring of her grandmother filled the carriage. It irritated her, though she felt remorse immediately she realised this. Her Grandparents, and their parents before them, were everything that she was, they had built her world from nothing.

That was the trouble. Something of her unseen self prickled just below the surface, trying to communicate with her voice, her limbs. But she couldn’t allow it to get out; they wouldn’t understand.

How could a good, honest family understand that she wanted to leave? There was a future for her, in the business, as there had been for her father and her brothers, as there would be for her children. Hadn’t it, hadn’t they, provided her with everything she’d ever wanted? she tried to squash the little voice inside her, but she heard it all the same – No, not everything - and she’d throw it all away over some notion of importance and brain? A mere dream that she could barely hope to attain? Even of the men, it was rare to find an educated Narayanan.

A tall, lank-haired young man thrust open the carriage door and shuffled through, canister and plastic cups clattering against his side as he intoned his gentle mantra

“Chai, chai, kopi, chai, kopi madame? Chai?”

Abhaya’s stomach snarled. She was hungry, but the roti were packed in Grandmother Kelasai’s case. It would be impertinent to wake her. She reached inside the folds of her salwaar, for a few paise to exchange for a goblet of the harsh, sweet chai, always bitter with overbrewing, beneath the sugar, by the time it reached the cheaper carriages.

The chai-boy shuffled on, and Abhaya settled back onto her bunk, sipping at the scalding liquid. Night was approaching, and with it, came a harsh wind. Where she’d been glad of the gaping windows in the sticky heat of afternoon, she cursed them now.

The train pulled into a station with a scream of brakes, drowning out Grandmother Kelasai’s snarls and blocking, for a moment the hubbub of the platform. Then the doors opened and the fight onto the train began. The sound of four hundred feet deafened. Men barked instructions at each other and their families; instructions to push on, to move aside, or not to let go of the baby’s hand. Alongside the people came the spiced scent of hot, oily pakora and peanuts, the street hawkers’ cries crisp and inviting ‘hot, hot pakora, two rupee. Get it hot!’ The rickshaws honked a dozen different tunes, firing up their engines every now and then as they attracted customers heading into town.

Abhaya peered through the unclosable window at theplatform. Sharp frost bit at her brow. Outside, white breath-trails lightened the black night air. Food vendors and travellers alike huddled together against the cold, or his themselves beneath heavy woollen cloaks and rugs. An outstretched figure shifted beneath a pile of empty rice-sacks. Abhaya retreated, pulling her shawl tight around her shoulders.

Her brothers would be out there, in another town. Every night battling the cold in the hopes of selling the best pakora in town for pittance. Most nights were good, a healthy profit and a hot-air vent for comfort. But some nights, well, you couldn’t have everything.

In the bunk opposite, a family had gathered. Mother and baby dozed, but in the grey light, three youngsters craned over a dog-eared book, tracing the eldest’s finger as it moved across the page.

Abhaya closed her eyes, as much to block out the jealousy as due to exhaustion.

And the train rattled on towards her future.