The school functioned half-days on Saturdays and boys of all classes upto class VIII could wear full pants if they so desired then. These were the only things Mr. Krishnan's son liked about Sharada Vidyapeeth Senior Secondary Boys High School on 3rd cross, Kodambakkam Madras 600024. Save a handful, all the boys in his class were taller than he was. His mother explained to him that he had many more years before he stopped growing. He hated the march past -- all they did was getting scorched under the sun on Saturday mornings clumsily flailing their arms and legs while a few lucky ones got to beat the drums and play the trumpet. From the moment he walked to prayer assembly, he switched his mind off for the rest of the day until the long bell went after the fifth period for the only time in the week.
At the same time, he felt an odd sense of vacuum on Saturdays. The long hours between one in the afternoon and five in the evening were spent often in eerie nothingness at home mourning the Sunday to follow and so, after many months spent at conceiving his masterplan he had resolved to ride on 12B today. He had never rode a bus. There was never any need to as the Krishnans stayed two blocks east of Sharada Vidyapeeth in a dilapidated ancestral house left behind by Mr. Krishnan's father -- a leading barrister at the Madras High Court in the days of the Raj. The school had not particularly distinguished itself in past years but as with the house, it bore the stamp of age and tradition which Mr. Krishnan set great store by. He had been educated there and so had his father and his grandfather before him. Mr. Krishnan was not a man of much ambition. In this and in respect of his physical appearance he quite resembled a man of the eighties -- huge steel-rimmed spectacles with a single arched bridge, spotless white half-shirt, non-descript terricot dark trousers and heavily worn-in leather sandals that fit like the proverbial second skin -- the kind of attire that sapped any emotional excess or indulgence that would otherwise have follied out of him. He worked as a clerk in a bank and had constantly turned down promotions that came his way for fear that he may be asked to move to another town. It was not so much the thought of rehabitation as it was a reluctance to give up his old ways. He abhorred change and liked the constancy of his life which he inevitably ended up imposing upon his son and wife. They had never been to any place north of Bangalore, would visit Mr. Krishnan's mother in Kanchipuram every second Sunday of the month and bought their provisions from Ponnappan's store in spite of an abnormally high concentration of stone and gravel in the rice. He commuted between home and office on his Lamberetta, a scooter model discontinued for twenty years now but retained as a family heirloom. The pillion seat was now only arrays of hard springs that left deep circular imprints on the rider further discouraging either wife or son from accompanying Mr. Krishnan on his rides to the bazaar to secure additional supplies of groundnuts and tamarind Ponnappan ran out of stock on.
Mr. Krishnan's son was twelve, a year away from official adolescence which would be marked by his being invested with three parallel threads running diametrically across his chest like a thin bandolier minus the musket at the waist. He looked forward to the event for he suspected it would be marked with great fanfare but until then he felt mute in the affairs of his three-member family. He did take comfort in knowing that there never were any momentous decisions to make other than which train to take to Kanchipuram and if it was preferred that he wear a raincoat or take an umbrella to school given his propensity to misplace anything he carried. Besides, his mother was as much a dormant member as he was and the two of them reposed faith in Mr. Krishnan's world-weariness that they thought he acquired from his having to deal with a variegated clientele at the bank.
Every day, there were at least half a dozen editions of 12B riding to and fro past his school. The bus reminded him of his father -- large and unhurried with a seldom used stentorian voice and lazy elegant strides to match. He never ceased to stop wondering what charmed lives its passengers lived. He had special admiration for the bus driver and the conductor -- particularly the conductor who reigned over the affairs of the bus. He often walked past a halting 12B and stole glances at the conductor pencilling in furious notes and looking at a gold-plated watch on his left wrist. He had known no one to sport a gold-plated wrist watch, not even his father who preferred to wear leather watches -- they bit his skin much less. He also had a weak spot for the daredevil footboard-travellers who swung in and out of the bus pivoted on a toe-grip off the ledge of the footboard. They were the Robin Hoods, the good-natured outlaws of the bus state.
He had remembered to bring enough change collected from accumulating residues of past transactions with the cola-seller across the street. The last stop on 12B was Foreshore Estate written unflamboyantly in bold, black English font on the front, the back and the sides of the bus. The bus-stand next to school was only the third since the bus started out at the Kodambakkam depot and so there were hardly any passengers already on the bus. He ascended the footboard carefully not wanting to trip and fall face-forward into its hard rhombal patterns. The ticket conductor eyed the boy cursorily and went back to staring pensively into his purse and ticking the stops, marking collections against them in his daily sheet. His uniform was badly washed with dabs of indigo blotting the cheap cotton fabric all across the pockets and around the buttons. His two-day stubble of black growth laced with white prickles hid his dimples and did much to help him sustain his disport of authority and pedantry.
"Where to?" It came in an imperious cynical tone and unnerved Mr. Krishnan's son. For all his meticulous planning, it had never occurred to him that the bus was going to take him somewhere. But then he remembered the signboard. That is where he would go. A colossal piece of acreage, he was sure, guarded by a Doberman Pinscher with his perfectly spherical genitals clanking against each other like temple bells as he drools against the helical groove of the gates. The landlord would survey his property from the verandah in his morning robe dyeing his moustache brown with coffee. His attendants would be dressed like the waiters in Janatha Café -- large turbans nervously balanced on their smallish heads and pants with a red stripe from waist to ankle ending abruptly in white cotton socks visible more than necessary -- they would bring his morning newspaper in a silver tray like the one his mother had locked away safely in the marriage almyrah along with all other nifty pieces of jewellery she brought with her as dowry.
``Foreshore Estate. May I have change for 1.25?'' He handed the money in a single five-rupee coin affecting an air of nonchalance at being prepared to pay the full fare in spite of his diminutive build and whiskerless countenance.
The conductor did not even bother to look at Mr. Krishnan's son a second time. He probably sized his customers by weight and height as they entered his portals. ``The half-ticket costs 2.25. I don't have change for 2.75'' The conductor scribbled a figure and an IOU across the ticket and thrust it to him. ``Ask me before you get off.''
Mr. Krishnan's son was at once embarrassed at being denied a full berth, annoyed at the conductor's gall to have the final say and relieved that not too many people noticed the conductor handing him the half-ticket. He slid the ticket quickly into one of his trouser pockets and clutched it there tightly till his tic vanished. The bus snickered all this while and was whipped into action by an admonitory whistle from the conductor as he went back to his policing duties after tucking the short stub of pencil on his ear. The boy nearly toppled backwards as the bus lunged forward and accelerated steadily. His nose burnt as the rushing slab of air and sweat-fumes seeped into him and he hurried to cup his reddened ears and rub them against the cool steel bar by the seat before they caught fire. Hot sunlight filtered through the tinted glass panes and pricked him in his pants. He fought hard not to start itching and prayed feverishly that the floor would crack and petrol from the tanks would leak upwards and revive him. He puckered from the stink of the stale afternoon, wondering if it was him but convinced otherwise realising he still had a year to go before the hair grew in the pits of his shoulders and the armpits squeezed sticky juice out of his exertions. His bout of motion sickness had concluded now.
He noticed the woman sitting in the second row face towards the window by the right. He knew from seeing the shrivelled skin of her hands that it required a special kind of courage to consider sitting next to her even when the bus was packed to capacity but as it often happened with one impulsive step, he was seduced by his newfound invincibility to the elements to take another.
All that he could see of her garments from the edge of his seat were two jute bags on her lap whose paste of musty silo smell smote her odour and absolved her somewhat of her crime against her co-travellers of being on the bus. Her glazened hair slapped the few black albeit steadily cataracting strands and danced with the winds through the window. He could sense her discomfort at his occupying a seat next to her and felt her look at him as he read the metal graffiti on the holding bar in front. She looked away and he was now free to study her scabbed hands moist with pus and white fungus. He noticed ravaged fragments of single rupee notes clutched in her hands, crumpled till the folds choked. He looked across her chest to purvey the stream of uneven signs and shop titles as it brooked past him and tried in vain to manufacture bewilderment by leaving his mouth half-open.
As the bus bore its way downtown, it stopped unnecessarily too often to his liking. He joined the others as they smirked at the ones tentatively climbing into the bus and mourned the parting of ways with their ephemeral brothers-in-arms. The bus was now circumambulating the Tank in veneration of its holy water which was steeped in green moss and sin. He remembered the Tank from what were once weekly excursions to the adjoining Shiva temple several years ago before the Lamberetta pillion was unsheathed and chanted a few garbled names of the lord before the bus moved on.
``What school do you go to?'' she asked in a halting, stifled shriek but without moving her face away from the window.
``Sharada Vidyapeeth Senior Secondary Boys High School, 3rd cross Kodambakkam Madras 600024''. There was no trepidation in his voice as he spoke the school address by rote. She took the words in, kept silent and then moved to face him. As he looked at her directly for the first time he noticed she was chewing areca nut and betel leaves between her scalded yellow teeth. Shreds of white gruel stuck to her diastema making her look sage and old. Her cheeks were swollen with festering ulcers that threatened to lacerate her mouth from within. The undergrowth on her chin completed her other-worldly appearance and it was hard to grudge anyone for not commiserating with her. There were deep wrinkles in her face that seemed to spite humanity for hating her. Yet, he was oddly at ease with her. Her presence or even the thought of her did not induce him to feel revolted as he supposed it would but he reminded himself that he had a year to go before that would happen. Then, suddenly she stood up and motioned him to let her out. He shivered vigorously as the jute abraded against the whorls of his knees. As she waded out he simpered at her but she did not look at him nor at any of the other faces of angst and vexation and calmly moved a huge basket upon a pillow on her head. She strained and fished out a banana that smelled like shoe polish and handed it to the boy.
``Thank you'' he muttered slowly but she was already pushing her way ahead towards the exit. The bus was now right in the heart of downtown. Traffic signals were longer as people milled about with briefcases and shopping bags endlessly from one side to another. The din inside weighed in against the honking and swearing outside. Before the boy could contemplate moving in to the window seat there was already somebody jostling in the small space between the seat in front and his legs.
The Muslim woman had a hijab over her wiry frame and was panting from carrying her wailing child in the lock of her arms over her shoulder. Her fragrance, a compound of seasoned mutton and her own maternal secretions, filled the column of air between her and Mr. Krishnan's son to serve as a warning against transgression.
``There, there... why is Shabnam crying? Look darling, look at the car below. Isn't that nice? Its a bloooo car. Does Shabnam want a blooo car? Jo jo.. jo jo.. jo jo...'' No amount of caressing and mellifluous Urdu seemed to console Shabnam. Her face was now distended and she threatened to choke as her breathing vied with her shrill sobbing. The fingers on her hands were bulbous and stretched out distinctly pointing towards Mr. Krishnan's son. She paused for a moment as she surveyed him and his bulky schoolbag but finding nothing of distinct interest in his unemotive eyes she resumed howling, now a pitch higher. For the second time that day the rest of the bus fixed its gaze on the jinxed boy and his seat. Shabnam's remonstrance had drowned out any gossip about cricket and the movies and her mother realised from exasperation that something needed to be done urgently. She lifted the matted veil and pulled it back to reveal a young face, glowing with marriage but startled by motherhood. The boy caught the blush still red in her cheeks and the eyelids thickly smeared with kajal. He painted a little red dot on her forehead and a dash of vermilion in the parting of her hair to picture his mother nursing him in her arms as he stood upright on her thighs holding onto her by the pinch on her neck.
``Boy, could you hold the baby for a while?'' She did not wait to hear from her neighbour and placed Shabnam gently on his laps. Mr. Krishnan's son began to thank Sharada Vidyapeeth for allowing trousers on Saturdays for who trusted boys in shorts to hold onto infants? He tried to invoke tricks he had seen on the television used by the mother to entertain her child while looking anxiously at her husband swilling a bottle of cheap toddy but all he managed to do was rub his palms expansively on Shabnam's back in the manner his mother would to put him to sleep when he shared his parents' bed.
``You can give her back to me now. She needs some milk and sleep. Thank you.''
He slowly transferred Shabnam back to her but the sight of her breast only partially concealed by her black robes unsettled him and he stopped midway.
``Oh, I'm sorry.'' It was a blanket apology that came out with nothing in particular he was sorry about. She took hold of the baby and smiled at him.
``What school do you go to?'' Shabnam had by now sighted the exposed bosom and abandoned all expressions of disapproval digging under her mother's concealing hands to smother it.
He mouthed the words in yet another perfect rendition that Sharada Vidyapeeth could be proud of. His breath became a little more relaxed as she started to speak to him about where he stayed and where he was going. That was followed by silence as the mother started to stroke Shabnam's hair and twiddled her fingers. The smile had stayed on her lips and she hissed her contentment through them.
Shabnam was fast asleep and did not wake up even when her mother gently detached her lips from her nipple and buttoned her blouse as she readied to leave.
``May Allah keep you well.'' she said to Mr. Krishnan's son as she let down her veil and departed towards the exit. Sweat began to collect on his brow with the increasingly oppressing heat at two in the afternoon as hot winds of sickness and malice crowded into the land from the sea. He gazed at Shabnam's head drooped over her mother's shoulder, eyes closed within its walls and lips tightly sealed to prevent letting out the taste of skin and milk. The visible face of an invisible woman.
The bus had waded out of its orbit of urban complexity and was swimming in the entrails of Madras' outskirts. Here is where the city's refuse collected that it would draw upon every morning to run its ports, mills and factories and vomit out with the death of day left to feed off its waste. The slums were new to Mr. Krishnan's son and he did not know what to think of them as the bus moved from one broken house to another visiting the same distraught face over and over again. He kept shy of the window seat and tried not to look at the window anymore.
``Is that seat vacant?'' It came from behind him. He craned his neck to see a white shirt, striped half-tie and long legs.
``Yes it is.''
``Mohana, you can sit there next to the boy'' From behind the voice-curtain, a girl emerged and seated herself next to Mr. Krishnan's son. He looked again at the voice. He was probably five years elder to him and had on a uniform not much unlike his own. The crooked badge said ``House Captain''. The House Captain did not attach too much importance to Mohana's neighbour and continued conversing with her. How dare he call him a boy?
``You know where to get off? Good, I'm going to see if I can grab a seat next to Akhil. See you in 15 minutes.'' The House Captain was soon swallowed up by the menfolk. Mr. Krishnan's son proceeded to look at the new incumbent. She wore a tie too that vanished into her shirt. She had glasses on but it was easy to imagine her without them. He was struck by the fluted streamlines of hair on her arms -- one fibre reclining backwards onto another in a merry caravan on brown plateau. Perhaps his stare was too obvious for she fished her bag from between her legs and placed it over her hands shrouding them from his view. There were frays on her skirt that flowed over her legs dipping in the void in between.
``What class are you in?'' He was beginning to fidget around nervously. More sweat collected but this time he was almost sure it was not the heat. He managed to sport a smile in all his malaise.
``Tenth.'' She looked at him fleetingly and went back to her gazing at the window. There was mild disappointment writ on his face. He anticipated a return question but that was not forthcoming. He bit his lip and tapped his teeth to the tune of the Lifebuoy ad. The little jarring sensations perked him up. He tried to feign sustained interest.
``This must be an important year for you then. You probably have board exams soon, don't you?''
``Yes I do.''
He decided that the window on the far side to his left afforded better views and looked that way, munching into his banana.
It had been an hour since Mohana and the House Captain had slid away from his life. The bus passengers were now steadily trickling out to spend a Saturday afternoon better. He mused over the long journey back home. He had already excused himself from afternoon tiffin at home citing a science project. He wished he had not. He knew now that only the grand mansion of Foreshore Estate would pick his spirits up.
Before long, the bus wheeled into the Foreshore Estate depot. He reported back to the conductor for his change producing his ticket leaf to him.
``Are you here all by yourself? Where is your mother?'' The conductor now had the time to worry about the boy -- there was no one to ticket -- but he was not keen to hear about the boy's mother. Only the questioning fell in his domain of responsibilities. He handed him the change and went over to the driver to offer him a smoke.
The footboard did not seem menacing any longer -- three easy steps and he was out on the sidewalk. He walked a few minutes in all four directions trying to look for big houses and dogs -- wary not to ask strangers, even shopkeepers -- but could find none. He felt broken up and weak. He rushed his steps back to the depot to hide from the open spaces of Foreshore Estate. He wished he had walked off the bus with the banana-seller at the Tank --- he was sure she would have parted with more bananas if he chanted the lord's name several times more. He might have even been able to walk it back home from the Tank. He had never seen a Muslim ghetto where he suspected Shabnam and her mother stayed. It had been ages since his father took him to a cricket match at the stadium; they might have been able to make it to one today.
At the public phone booth, he paid 1.50 for a roll of mints and 1.25 for a call. He sucked on the first mint-ring. It was like acid-icicles scratching his tongue.
``Hello ma. It's me''. He dreaded the ride back on the Lamberetta pillion.
