From Kalyan To Balai

By Adit Vyas

(Delhi public school Bhopal)

Kanpur camp

We all departed from each other that day at Kanpur. This was it, waking up from a nightmare I did not intend to see.

When I left I did not as much as whisper an adieu to the other five -the ones who made out alive with me. Even though I wanted to...to tell that strange amma- “thank you” for when she took a portion of food away from her grandchildren and gave it to me; to tell the children Leena and Laxman (the only two names I learned throughout and the two that will be with me till my last breath)- my name, this name that they once asked...of the man I once knew, to wish them “good luck” for their lives ahead and tell them to remember me and that I’ll remember them. To tell the navigator- “sorry” for not having faith in him at the time it was needed the most and to the disgruntled man- “It will be alright” whatever it is that he seeks…

“I’d regret this later” I knew it back then and yet I kept walking.

They were all players that shared a stage with me, now it was time for them to exit, their roles in my world had been fulfilled.

“Balai is not far from here, if I could move fast enough.” I kept pondering.

The ‘sister didi’ poured sanitizer on my hand and gave me a mask. “Wear it! This is important to save your life.” she said in a tone that reeked of hopelessness.

For the first time in many days I felt a smile stretching my face, cracking my skin, tearing it apart, I felt an uncanny pain rising in my cheek bones but it fought through and stretched.

“To save my life” I stood helpless as my smile turned into laughter. I laughed like I had never laughed before, like I never would ever again, my eyes watered and legs stumbled. I squatted on the floor unable to stand.

“To save my life” I laughed.

Kalyan- Dombivli

It was two weeks into lockdown, the factories had been shut and the labour had been shooed away like stray dogs from a sweet shop. The savings were long gone, food and water was scarce.

It was not uncommon for people in the ‘Chawls’ to share food, everyone was dependent on each other for existence, but dark times bring out the darkest sides of people. It was the question of survival that haunted us afterall. Disputes began when people started lying about the most basic necessities. There were constant fights and arguments- men and women forgetting all bounds and boundaries to get enough to feed their children and the elderly.

We the people knew a famine was on its way, we felt it through our skins, saw it through our eyes, heard it through our ears, experienced it through our stomachs.

It was this desperation that made me reach ‘the decision’. It seemed stupid, it seemed irrational and yet when I walked... I was not alone.

Around one crore labourers walked their way back to their villages between March and June during the lockdown.

The start

I started my journey with a mass of around five to six hundred labourers. We all gathered at the Sahajanand chowk at noon, hundreds of people stacked together, all rules forgotten, all regulations torn apart. These were vermins without access to food that no police officer dared to stop.. even if they did none of them cared enough.

It was after an endless wait that the mass moved. We walked in unison like ants, not knowing whom to follow, who to lead, we walked.

“Watch where you’re stepping!” The first player entered.

A man in his late forties with a pot belly and an unkempt beard, his clothes smelled of cigarettes and his breath stenched of alcohol.

“Sorry!” I frowned, accusing him more than apologising. The stress waves were perpetuating throughout the crowd.

He gave me a disgruntled look and turned away. ‘The disgruntled man’ I prepared a mental note. He would remain my least favourite until the very end.

As we walked in chains, for hours and hours the patience of people began to lose. The sun torched from above while the concrete grilled from below. I could almost smell the thin rubber soles of my sandals melt. Every step I took made the floor hotter than before.

“I know a way that could get everyone to UP within 5 days” I heard someone say.

UP and Bihar was the obvious destination. In my opinion asking a labourer where is he/she from is as stupid as asking a mansion owner if they are rich enough.

“Why don’t you take the lead then? Go on!” An oddly skinned man shouted from somewhere ahead. A befitting reply, was followed by a bleak laughter.

If someone had told me then that my next laugh would be at a rescue center days later, maybe I would have forced myself and laughed more.

That night we slept where everyone stopped. No one had an iota of fear of being robbed by ‘the Bandits of the wild’. We were six hundred hungry people in distress. For what seemed more likely I would have not been surprised to know that the bandits were the frightened ones.

People inside the horde would have committed murders for much less. We were afraid of ourselves more than what lay outside.

Nashik

We reached Nashik the second night. There were volunteers in the city that waited for us, like support staff of marathon runners. They got eager after seeing us.

“Poor fellas must have gotten tired of sitting there.” It was the same overconfident man from before- ‘the navigator’. The second player on the stage.

A fantasiser, narcissist, ‘know-it-all’, he was an ex-insurance agent who desperately tried to differentiate himself from the group, the labourers were the people he had been running away from all his life and yet he stood in his faded shirt and pants amongst them. He fanatically tried to impress the volunteers with all his might. He yearned for their acceptance.

But acceptance and pity never come together.

I found it hard to take food from people when I knew it came to me in pity. It felt as if I didn’t deserve the taste of dal and rice that touched my pallet. Every bite in my mouth felt like a dagger on my self esteem.

But self esteem won’t keep me alive till Balai, food will.

It was when I had finished eating and laying down my sheets of ‘khairat’ given to sleep on that I first met them.

“Tell me your name and I ll give you a toffee.”

I could never get a toffee from Laxman. The notorious one of the two, this 5 year old grinned at me when I frowned back in response.

Leena the shy four year old, always wrapped in the arms of her grandmother- her ‘Amma’. Amma and ‘the children’ had entered.

Only if I could meet them for the first time again, return the same grin I was offered by little Laxman and the same affection shown by Amma. By the time I had realised their love, I had lost my soul.

“Stay like that! my sister just lights up on seeing hysterical faces!” He chuckled and ran away to bring his sister.

Shirpur

After rigorous walking of forty two hours our ‘small’ group had traveled across Malegaon and shule and had finally reached Shirpur- the Maharashtra-Madhya Pradesh border.

Unlike the first two days the latter seemed to stretch longer. The ‘khairat’ supplies had been running out as well. The crowd had gone mum.

A farmer working on his field less than 50 meters from the highway would have missed this march of six hundred fiends had he been facing the other way.

The sole of my sandals had sublimated to leave a thin layer of translucent rubber. This misery had become a source of entertainment for people around me. Watching me jump on every step kept others engaged.

Very often I catched a glimpse of Laxman imitating me and Leena laughing. I would frown on him, making him laugh even more.

“How can people derive pleasure from someone else’s burning soul?” I mumbled.

At around twelve in the afternoon on our fifth day, the group suddenly stopped. It did not take long for the words to spread around.

“The Madhya Pradesh state police has closed the border! Anyone who tries to pass the barricades shall receive the treatment from the police.”

Till this day I don’t know whether it was true or just a hoax, but the fear of police had triumphed over my hunger. I didn’t have the audacity to check, same applied to the other five ninety nine.

They say “A ballot is stronger than a bullet” had they taken into consideration ‘a baton in the hands of a barbarian’ the saying would have been different.

“Balai is not far from here, if I could move fast enough.” I pondered.

Turning around had never been an option for anyone, but the situation made people fidget in dilemma.

“I know a way that could have gotten everyone to UP within 5 days!” I was familiar with this voice by now.

“Take us your way then!” A stranger's hopeful voice landed in my ears. The last player had now joined in- “A friend”.

Our crusade was ready, under the leadership of our navigator- a disgruntled bloke, a caring grandmother, her two children, this strange friend and me. We departed from the horde.

Barwani

(-add a Hindi word if possible) “YOU KILLED HIM!.. You killed him, you selfish narcissist brat! How many lies would it take for you before killing each of us!”

My body was ached throughout. I did not want to stand, I wanted to lie down on the damp ground, let everything be, the dewy petrichor seemed inviting. “Maybe this is it..” I found myself pondering.

“Take the children away Amma! I’ll kill this traitor right here!” He ran towards the navigator but I jumped in between.

“No! Out of the five of us alive, we cannot afford anyone else’s life! Believe me, he was my friend, his death bothers me more than anything at this moment, my blood seethes just like yours. But you cannot kill him!” I managed to utter. (Exasperated)

Following the navigator that day felt like the biggest mistake of my life.

“we should have stayed with the crowd, the six of us had made a blunder! We should have never believed the navigator” I kept thinking this again and again.

Food and water had been over for three days now. No matter how far I tried to see I couldn’t find a single hut. Somewhere lost between Barwani and Dhar six corpse but only one dead, lay withered.

The sun had been set. We could hear the wolves screech at a distance, but we lay…beside the dead man… this weak disgraceful man who couldn’t with stand the heat… I would’ve felt enraged but my hunger had now even voided me from any reaction. The dampness of soil felt comforting .

“Here, have this.” She pushed some chickpeas into my hand.

She had made a stern face to compensate for her refuting eyes. I saw pearls of water flowing down

“Looks like Laxman and Leena could not eat all of it.” Her voice cracked as she said it, But she had a pride even as she cried. She had raised her grandchildren well.

Why did she do it? Her hollow words still echo in my ears.

I saw the children sleeping beneath the tree. How did two children of five and four do decide something like this? Why did they do it for me? I had not earned it.

( “Thank you” I said with a heavy throat. )

The next day we buried him. His funeral had five people- two children, a widow, a lying navigator, a disgruntled man and me. Not one of us knew his name, not one of knew about his family. At the end we were all that he had.

We were putting in the mud, it was then that I realised, it was then that I thought, it was then that I saw…. his shoes.

There I stood…. a man who was embarrassed to eat food given in ‘khairat’.... how could I even think of it!…. it would be disgraceful towards him…. he called me a friend…. how could I do this to him!

Shirpur

The crusade was ready to move. The navigator’s excitement was clearly visible. He finally had the role he was meant to play.

“Shirpur- Fattepur- Barwani- Dhar- Indore, I can take you through this route with my eyes closed. We would be in Indore before you could even blink. Come on now! all six of you!”

We moved away from the group in the hope of reaching home, little did we know what waited for us ahead.

-----()

“I like your shoes” I said without realising. “How much did it cost? I am in a desperate need of a new pair myself.” I said pointing out my sandals.

He never told me the cost of his shoes. This new friend that had joined us a few moments ago. The one who couldn’t handle the sun and the thirst.

None of us knew what layer ahead of us in ‘barwani’. None of us knew.

At that time we were all just people who wanted to get back home being happily led by our navigator.

Indore

These new shoes were little too big for me to fill in.

No one uttered a word after seeing ‘his’ shoes on me. Did they understand…. did they ignore...

I was too shaken to know that. Last night I had fed on child’s food and today morning I had stolen the shoes of a dead man. I didn’t know who I was any longer. I had found a way back home but had lost my way in life. I had traded my soul for shoe soles.

The navigator helped us get back on our route. When we reached Indore we found out about government buses that could get us to Kanpur. The government did help us after all. The disgruntled man kept weeping all his way in the bus, staring a picture.

Who was that child in the picture….how was he connected to this man…. how did he end up like this…. I could never get an answer to any of these questions.

“Balai is not far from kanpur, if I could move fast enough”I pondered.

Balai

I reached Balai after the ‘sister didi’ gave me an all clear.

When I finally reached Balai the entire village showed up to receive me. There were celebrations, celebrations that did not intrigue me. For I had sold my soul behind somewhere near barwani.

My shoes were a big talk of the town.

“I like your shoes!” A small boy asked “how much did they cost?”

My self esteem, my respect, my heart and my soul together could not make enough for me to buy ‘his’ shoes.

“They are borrowed” I said

“How will you return them?” The little boy asked “would you ever meet again?”

“I don’t think so.” The doors of heaven have been closed for me forever.

“Maybe you could courier him” he said

“Yes, I might do that” I would have to check if they have a facility for that when I get there.

By Adit Vyas