A cold wind moaned in the street that night, scattering garbage, twisting fallen leaves into vortices, roving, prowling and painting the city in undertones of depravity. The winter was dank and clammy, typical of a sunless, smoggy Delhi. My face was numb and the low, suspended smoke caught in my throat. I focused on the pavers, interlocked like scales on snakeskin, my gaze averted from the snotty, blackened faces huddled around burning tires and urchins sleeping under stolen flex. There was no traffic at that hour. Rats clattered in the dumpsters close by, stray dogs barked somewhere in the distance and windows of nearby houses rattled in the wind.
I was preparing for the Civil Services exam those days. The rickety bus from Radio Colony to Kashmiri Gate, then the desolate air-conditioned Metro to Govindpuri had frozen me through. The brisk walk through the trapped shanty-smoke helped warm my bones. I hugged myself tight, drawing my shoulders in and breathing into my collar, shrunk as small as possible. I walked fast, with the air of a regular. The louts and beggars I passed did not find me worth the pursuit. The only thing on my mind was home, its smelly bed and warm quilts. I lived in a small room in Gali number 6, cheap and anonymous. The windows were boarded. In the daytime the room soaked a little heat through the southern wall and by night, the small sealed space stayed warmer than the rest of the building.
I was in my lane now, out of the main-street blast, sticking to shallow pockets of still air close to the walls. I kicked a pebble along the pavement, its sound ricocheted off walls, till it slipped into a drain. My stomach growled as usual, but it was nothing a couple of glucose biscuits couldn’t cure. Normally, I would bound up the stairs in twos, avoiding the odor of warm food that crept out from under the doors mixed with happy sounds of squealing children, fighting couples and televisions. I hated that. But that night, as I pulled the heavy gate shut, my eye caught the faint orange glow of a fire. Sundar, the night watchman for the society, had put broken twigs and garbage together and lit them up in an old oil-can. He huddled beside it on his haunches, completely wrapped up in his huge checkered shawl. Just his eyes showed. The urge to warm my hands, and the promise of a conversation was irresistible.
Sundar was an old confidante. His company was rustic, simple and light. He would beat his stick on the water pipe when the landlord came so that I could clean up my room, or escape if I didn’t have the money for my rent. I had bought him cigarettes a couple of times, but he preferred his all-leaf-no-tobacco bidis. He did not drink. He looked up as I came and nodded slightly. Any other gesture, like a wave of the hand or a salaam would have let in cold air into his cocoon. I sat down on the other side of the fire and rubbed my hands together.
“Bloody cold. Kalyug aa gaya, Sundar.” It was customary to curse the weather.
He sat still, wooden. The wrinkles on his forehead were still as he stared into the fire. He did not look his usual self.
“Trying to hypnotize the fire?” I poked him with my elbow. Didn’t work.
“What happened, Sundar Babu?” I tried again.
He closed his eyes for a long moment, then shook his head. I found it rude but intriguing. Sundar always laughed easily. I stared at him as he stared into the fire.
“Bhaiya Ji, I saw Radha today,” he finally said, and sighed.
“You saw who? Who’s Radha?”
“My wife”
“What? You are married? Since when?”
This was a surprise. We had spoken so often. I thought we were fellow inmates of the underbelly. He used my bathroom to wash his clothes. I borrowed his tiny gas stove.
“Abey Sundar! Chupa Rustam? Wah wah! Married …all this while?” I slapped his back.
“I was,” he sighed again. “I am. I was married when I was half your age, in the village.”
“Then? You never told me.”
“Then nothing. She was crazy. Pagal thi.” One hand snaked out from the shawl as he took out a bidi from behind his ear.
“Is she here? Or in the village? What do you mean by saying you ‘saw’ her today?”
No answer. I wondered why conversation was Sisyphean.
Twigs crackled in the fire and shook off sparks that flew in quick, tight circles before going out. Sundar held out his bidi to the fire, leaned over and puffed at it. An odd bit of newspaper caught in the window above was fluttering wildly, sounding strangely like flowing water. He stared at the glowing point of the bidi cupped in his palms.
“I did not know that when I married her, I thought she was a little different. At times she would freeze and not say anything. Sometimes she would look through me, or talk in her sleep, but we got along. I worked at the Okhla mill then. I left early and worked till late. The house was clean, the food was ready when I was back. I would eat and sleep. But then, Saab, when we lost our first child, it all broke apart. Sab toot gaya.”
Oh, so our man here was married, had a child and lost it. Funny how little we know about people we live with. I felt no urge to ask about the child. I could have done without another depressing story in this gloomy weather. But it was cold. I stayed by the fire. For a while, I hummed in my head, threw in a few more twigs and leaves into the fire.
“So, you saw your wife today… and she’s mad. And that’s why you’re so quiet?”, I found myself making conversation all over again. The leaves curled in the fire, turned orange, then brown-black.
“Who? Radha…yes! She’s mad, and you know the scariest thing about her Saab?” He was mumbling to the flame, barely audible. “You know, if you see her, just see her face…. you’d be scared. It is white, and blank – like a ghost’s. No expression. Like a mask. The face of a corpse. You won’t sleep that night.” He kept shaking his head in slow motion.
“I’d beaten her up very badly that night, when I learnt that the child, our first child, was born dead. I had waited five years for this. I was so happy when her stomach finally grew. I took care of her for nine months. I would cook for her. And buy all the medicines. And then this. I was so angry when she told me, Saab. It was a boy. I don’t know what came over me. I wasn’t sad. I was angry. Mad. I was shaking. I walked out and got drunk in the roadside bar, then had some desi daroo somewhere, and then some more.”
I don’t think he noticed, but he was crying. Silent tears leaked out from under his glassy eyes, still staring unblinking at the fire. How long can a person stare at fire? A sudden gust blew at the heap of leaves, scattering them. The fire reared up, lighting up his face for a moment. The tears kept rolling down his stone-face. The shawl slipped from his shoulder. I did not want to hear the rest, but I sat transfixed, watching the flames dance. Something dark was drawing me in.
“I passed out somewhere on the road. I did not want to go home that night. I was so furious. I knew I might do something to her. I knew it was not her fault, but I knew I would do something.” His voice was strangely impassive and dry. “…but she came looking for me. Imagine. Half-a-day after that dead child, and still bleeding…. She found me on the footpath and started dragging me home. I cursed her, abused her, I even hit her. She kept crying and trying to pull me home.”
“I don’t remember everything clearly, but I remember waking up in my own puke that night. I was home. It was empty, like life had suddenly lost all meaning. I’d thought of a name for him, Saab. I had thought about his school. I’d planned his whole life. I had stroked Radha’s belly when she slept. He must’ve been dead all the while. And she must have known. I am sure she did. She was so… so scared when I took her to the doctor for the last check-up. She cheated me. She killed my son, that witch! Chudail saali!”
Sundar’s voice had risen. His shawl had slipped into his lap. He sat there in the wind, in his torn vest. He appeared smaller and shrunk, his thin bones poked out of his shoulders like a sparrow’s. A single teardrop quivered at the end of his mustache. A part of me floated outside my body and saw all this. There was silence again with the night rustling behind us, advancing. It was colder.
“I got up to drink water, and I saw her, sleeping on the floor, her face innocent. I just couldn’t take it. How could she? I boiled all over again. I remember little of what happened next, but Saab…. I kicked her awake. I pulled her up by the hair. I stabbed her with a broken bottle, right on the belly. She screamed. I kept hitting her. I couldn’t stop. At some point she stopped crying and stared at me… expressionless. Numb. Like a madwoman. She looked through me, unblinking. Then she smiled. Then I stabbed myself – till I lost consciousness.”
It was strange, hearing all this from a crying, crumbling, stone-faced man. I tried to remember if I had ever seen a scar on his belly.
“…but she didn’t die. She went completely mad after that. When I woke up the next morning she wasn’t there, and I was lying in a pool of puke and blood. I dragged myself to the doctor. God knows who stitched her up. She roamed the streets after that, with that crazed, blank expression on her face, like she always sees her dead child, and me stabbing her in her sleep. And it looks like she sees the same thing over and over again since that night.”
“She does not talk anymore. She wanders around the blocks. She cries, sometimes. She eats out of garbage cans… but she’s alive. I brought her home a couple of times. She doesn’t sleep. When I’m asleep, she walks out again. She does not recognize me.”
A dog howled long and lonely in the distance, and a series of answering wails echoed in the streets.
“I haven’t touched alcohol since that night.”
I picked up a stick and poked at the fire. A shower of sparks flew up. We were out of kindle but the oil-can was still warm. As long as I kept scraping the embers with the stick, sparks kept springing out and dying. The wind had died down, and the eastern sky was lighter. I tried imagining Sundar doing those macabre acts. He looked as harmless as a shadow. Like a dry twig, thin, bony, charred, and burnt. I wondered if everyone had other people hidden inside. I poked at the smoldering twigs again and some of them broke. The fire was almost out. I sat, breaking each bit and grinding it to fine black ash against the bottom of the can.
“Go, Saab, it’s almost morning,” Sundar now had his eyes closed. He wasn’t crying anymore, and he was gathering his shawl around him again, tear stains on his sooty face. I filled up my lungs with the metallic wood-smoke, and breathed out heavily. He was right. I should go and sleep. The sky was brighter but it brought no warmth. The day, I knew, would just be another shade of night. But my classes would start in a few hours. Sundar had obviously lived through many such nights before; I was sure he would be fine. I hesitated only because it seemed the story wasn’t complete. But that was fine; not all stories have endings. It was late.
“So, you saw Radha today, and remembered everything?”
I really wanted to go to my room, open the door and feel its warmth envelop me. I wanted to walk in, lock the door, kick off my shoes, take off my jacket, and sleep. I had every step worked out. But I don’t know why I begged him to go on. Thankfully, he didn’t reply. He sat with his eyes closed, facing the can full of ash, hugging himself in his shawl, slowly rocking on his haunches. I got up to leave, then paused—as pins and needles exploded in my legs.
“I’m so scared of her. The next time I see her I’ll kill myself.” I turned to look at Sundar. “It’s that face. That ghostly face.” He mumbled, then opened his eyes suddenly, wide in terror. “You know what the scariest thing is? She’s always awake. I’ve seen her many times after that. I’ve even followed her, and lots of other people see her at all hours. But you know, no one has ever seen her sleep since that night.”
His shawl slipped again, but he sat frozen, zombie-like. Dying embers shone in his eyes.
“She never sleeps. The street people here say it’s not human. It is a disease. Anyone who sees her cannot sleep for days. Everyone is going mad. Even the dogs.”
I said nothing more. Something snapped inside me and I walked away. It seemed I no longer knew how this half-lit, bleak world worked in its grisly ways. Did Sundar imagine this? Did I? I wished I could stop thinking about it all, erase the pictures that filled my mind, and sleep. I kicked another pebble till I reached the stairs and climbed slowly, like an old man, bent, pushing my knees down with my hands. Noises of the morning seeped into the stairway. Spices sputtered, pots clanged, pressure cookers hissed, prayer bells tinkled, toilets flushed. I walked to my door, pulled it open and felt the room exhale its stale warmth on me. I kicked off my shoes, threw off my jacket and fell on the bed.
I kept trying to sleep.
Photo by Erik Müller on Unsplash
