That day or perhaps some other day saw me taking an empty tempo—one of many such wonders that circumnavigated a small portion of the expansive and labyrinthine city. The body of the tempo was enamel white, with parallel streaks of blue slathered over like suntan. Overcast as it was, the day waded slowly through the square-shaped hole it had for a window, through with also came in dust, remnants of arid roads that beckoned for spring to arrive.
The rear-view mirror reflected a chin sporting a stubble that was only a few days old, a pair of eyes that seemed to have drunk the red from the lids, an aquiline nose, and lips that were an equal number of shades away from the pink of a blush—or of two daubs of rouge—and the black of anthracite. Silence hung like an enormous beast, breathing heavily and rarefying the atmosphere. Only after a long while—punctuated by jarring glances exchanged through the mirror and the clanking shut of the stained glass that framed the windows—did another passenger, a young kid, come in. He took the seat across from me, and it bothered me that the game of noticing somebody noticing you had resumed. The silence felt more tangible all of a sudden.
Out of the larger gap that was the door people got on and off from, the landscape continually changed: The buildings nearest got small, and the further ones got smaller; the road reflected the sky and took on the over-clouded pewter hue. It seemed endless; it provided more of itself to compensate for every small part of it the vehicle overcame.
The boy sitting opposite me thrust his hand into his breast-pocket and fished out a thin roll of money, the outer layer of which was a five-rupee note—an outcome of similarly silent and fidgety rides, I thought. He moved a seat closer to the driver, and asked that he stop the vehicle. Ten rupees, the driver said, and the boy handed his neat roll of money before getting off and heading to the left of the road where, upon seeing a lorry reversing in his direction, he stopped and waited for it to pass.
A sullen sun appeared somewhere, and the dust still rose.The driver tossed the fare onto the counter, and brought the tempo to a grinding halt. A woman got on after helping a little boy in. The woman seemed to be the boy’s mother, and they seemed to be returning from the boy’s school. Another woman with a small girl got on and sat across from the first woman and the boy. The girl seemed to be the woman’s daughter; and their slightly untidy appearances and demeanour confused me.
When (even after shutting the windows) the dust made way into the space that was getting more difficult to breathe and sigh easily in, the boy’s mother helped him put on a pair of sunglasses and put her palm against his nose—which, with the protruding mouth, looked in many ways like a dog’s muzzle. The other woman resorted to her own ways of trying to deal with the fog of dust that misted an otherwise sunny afternoon, a fine spray of white that got black under fingers.
Before getting off, the second woman jabbed her finger in my direction: Dust. All over your head. Caught unawares, I immediately and sheepishly asked. “Where?” in a voice even I wasn’t sure I heard, and ran my fingers through my hair and onto my shoulders. “Yestai ho dai,” she said, rapping the metallic ceiling. She got out with the girl and came over to the driver’s window, paid the fare, and disappeared after my eyes tired of trailing her.
The road didn’t have hairpin bends but the smallest of turns knocked heads against many things. As the vehicle snaked its way, sidestepping all things through narrow streets, the tempo started getting full slowly: a man with a big black briefcase got in and a woman with a tote big enough to fit in the baby she nestled in her arms also got in; the first woman with the boy got off in front of what seemed like the shade of a temple. The heat inside must have got in along with one of the passengers when the tempo had stopped to pick them up. People’s enquiries met the driver’s curt Yeses or Nos.
The man with the briefcase tapped the roof overhead, and even before the tempo came to a halt, he got out and came over to the driver’s side. After looking at the money the man’s extended hand contained, the driver shot his head up and looked rather suspiciously. Said to the man, “Fifteen rupees,” in a throaty voice, and even before completing, averted his gaze off-handedly away to the other side of the street. The man didn’t give in for his five rupees, and grumbled as every other middle-aged person did. The same ride cost ten in the morning and now it has increased already, he pseudo-questioned.
“You’re sick, old man. Go see a doctor.”
“Do you talk to your father like that? the man asked.”
“You want to be my father? I killed him a long time ago.”
When the man mumbled some more and reiterated that he wouldn’t pay a single paisa more, the driver honked, and left the man, his hand stuck mid-air in the middle of some violent gesticulation. “Lobhi budha,” our driver whispered under his breath. Then, he let go of the steering wheel with one hand and began spreading the money on the counter onto his open left palm. The new and crispy bills first, then there were the ones washed by sweat, clammy and wet, then those that were taped and those that weren’t—torn parts dangling like limbs. He took control of the vehicle again, and dodged a wastrel rolling about on the street. Then he unrolled the roll of money the first kid had given. There was only one five-rupee note and nothing else within the roll.
The driver gave a weary shake of the head and a weary sigh. Then he gingerly clattered open the door to his right—which we, of course, thought was his way of getting fresh air, and therefore, didn’t indulge lest we be informed that we weren’t the driver or the owner, or his mother, for that matter. And after looking out of the door for the longest of times instead of concentrating on the road ahead, he eased himself out of his seat, and with the vehicle running, jumped out. A bus behind blindsided him and struck the length of his body. His body rolled on the street (not unlike the wastrel who must still be rolling on something somewhere).
Someone stopped the vehicle before I could jump out of the door. I didn’t feel like going home that day.
- Sharad Duwal
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