17 June, 2022

By Kriti Arora

Is a puddle really a puddle if I’ve never jumped over it, in comedic fashion, not to illicit snorts or stares from passers-by, instead because my movements can be best defined as jerk-y and comedic, splashing icky water on my ankles? Longer strides. 

One foot in front of the other, marching into oblivion, for when your thoughts are spiralling out of your control, all you can do is put one foot in front of the other, relishing the sight of your mud-laced sneakers on the road, until the quest that seemed ever-so-daunting has come to an end. 

I walk, a jute bag in my right hand, empty save for my phone. I walk fast, despite not meaning to, with my brother and my grandmother lagging behind, hand-in-hand. I occasionally turn around, to make sure that they’re still there, their figures growing tiny as the road between us stretches further. 

I halt, wait, and continue walking after they’re in front of me, my toes touching the soles of grandmother’s feet. I can hear children giggling and muttering but they seem underwater to me, their voices blurring together. I hear silence and I see nothing, even as my ears ring with the sound of their giggling, and my eyes watch me put one careful foot in front of the other. 

My reflection haunts me in windows and shop fronts, my shadow, a bitter and dark companion, grey in the harsh lights of the marketplace. The tiles on the ground are simultaneously pure and impure, patches of dirt, a striking brown against the white. 

I walk up to the counter, and ask for spiral registers. My hand taps the countertop and I will it to stop. My brother and my grandmother approach me, the former’s eyes glinting with the prospect of getting to buy an orange pen and a green Kinder Joy, containers of which are placed on the countertop. 

9 registers, I say. I force my voice to sound bored to overcome the frazzled and anxious pit in my stomach. The shopkeeper’s eyes light up as if Christmas came early. Christmas in June. I don’t like that metaphor. 

9 registers, I repeat myself. I don’t need to force the boredom this time. He orders a boy to bring out the registers, and I watch, as if through a fog, as the boy runs from shelf-to-shelf, confused and scared. 

9 registers, 3 per subject. Sounded very overwhelming when they first said it during the 15-minute-long orientation. As the shopkeeper counts the registers, I imagine ink bleeding from my fingertips onto smooth paper, words and symbols merging into a distorted language I seem to know from another life, manuscripts spiralling out into abysmal nothing.

Done counting, the shopkeeper reaches for a polythene bag, his hands desperate and shaky. I refuse, patting my jute bag. I ask for the total price, and open the zip of my bag. He helps me unload the registers into my bag, questioning whether everything would fit. It eventually does, as I had estimated. I point towards the pen, and my brother picks up two Kinder Joys. I ask him to put one back, and he reluctantly agrees.

Fishing for my phone, I reach into the pocket of the bag and pull it out, fingers tapping out the password and clicking on the Paytm app to pay. I don’t remember scanning the code and typing out the amount, but I do remember the ding! symbolising a successful payment. I pick up my bag, showing the screen of the phone to the shopkeeper, him nodding his head like a broken doll. 

I start walking again, the distance between us drowning out my grandmother’s voice offering to hold the heavy bag for me. One step in front of another, mind numbing once again. All of a sudden, a few droplets strike the left lens of my glasses, and I take them off, shaking them in a desperate attempt to dispel the droplets and clear my vision. Then I wear them, looking up to see an old man staring at me strangely. I flip him off with my empty hand, as a group of 20-somethings, dressed as if they were in a coming-of-age movie, watching this interaction, snort. One foot in front of the other.

I cross the one-way-road after looking on both sides, and hope to get hit by a submarine. Repeat. I walk through the front gate and up to my apartment. This time, I do not care to look for my brother and my grandmother. I walk fast, despite not meaning to, perhaps because all I could do was run away.

Once inside my room, I peel off my sweaty shirt as if peeling off a layer of skin, or armour, both synonymous in a way that cannot be explained in 2,51,52,000 characters. 

Am I the sunshine or am I the moon? Too cold to be the sunshine that warms hearts and limbs, and too frazzled with nerves to be the moon that calms and shines, perhaps I am just an embodiment of the void that looms behind our eyelids when they flutter close.

By Kriti Arora