The Quiet

By Ishani Chowdhury

She walks towards the rickshaw stand with the torch in her phone switched on. The beam of light

slices through the foggy night, casting a shadow, long and distorted, across the pothole laden

road.

She clenches her coat tightly, adjusting the woolen beanie on her head with her spare hand.

The night is black. The air is chilly. It's early January. Kolkata is among the few cities in India to

experience an actual winter.

The lone rickshaw driver is sleeping with a faded brown wool sweater on, on the stone slab,

under the Peepal tree, dew clinging to its leaves. She calls out to him. He doesn’t wake. Her

voice echoes down the empty street. She raises her voice. He doesn’t look happy to see her. He is

happy to see the double price she's willing to pay.

The ride is short. 2 minutes at most. She usually doesn’t notice the distance. She does today.

There are two temples on the way. A Shiva temple and a Shani Temple. The Destroyer and The

God of Karma. Ma has always told her to never look Shani in the eye. She whispers quick

prayers to both. She feels the temples pass by; the only sources of light underneath the dark sky.

The streetlights are in disrepair.

The rickshaw rattles to a stop at the deserted crossing. The rickshaw driver looks back at her

expectantly, eyes greedy. She hastily takes out her purse and hands over a fifty rupee note. He

gives her a disappointed glare. She takes a step back and leaves without the ten rupee change.

They don't have change. It's routine.

There are no cars on the street. She waits for the signal to turn red. She sees a cat stir awake on

the footpath beside her. She thinks it was not her footsteps that woke him, but the bite of the

winter air. He looks at her, accusing. His claws are sharp. He looks hungry.

The light turns red. She walks across the zebra crossing, to the opposite footpath. She hopes

people follow traffic rules more.

She waits for the bus. It's late. Sometimes by minutes, sometimes half an hour.

She feels shivers run through her. She waits.

She sees the bus. She waves it down. The old engine screeches to a halt in front of her. She

climbs in.

She takes the front window seat on the ladies' side. She always did. If there were no seats there,

she'd stand, or better, wait for the next bus.

The bus is empty except for a man on the last seat, face concealed with a monkey cap, half

asleep, she deduces from his posture.

She sits with her bag on her lap. It's big. It covers her. Ma doesn’t know she takes it on her back

when she walks. Most girls she sees on the bus hang it in the front. She feels uncomfortable

doing so. It's a small rebellion. She hopes Shani forgives her.

The cold air on her face from leaning against the window is soothing. She'll probably get a cold

later. She would get a doctor's certificate for leave. Attendance is important in her university.

Any leave of absence has to be justified.

Minutes trickle by. The bus rattles on. It only ever stops to pick passengers. There aren't any at

this time of the day.

The man wakes from his slumber. He walks uneven and disbalanced steps to the front. He takes

the seat opposite to her. The window in the back is larger. All windows are open. She hopes he

was cold. She hopes she was quiet.

The bus conductor turns to her. She tenses. He asks for her stop. She breathes. She tells him. She

hands over ten rupees. He hands her the ticket. He is still looking at her. She had kept the bag

beside her to find the purse. She takes the bag into her lap, hugging it tight. He turns away.

The bus passes the venerated Kali Temple on the way to the college. She prays. The conductor

looks at her. She looks out the window.

She sees a gorilla on a billboard. She remembers reading about them in school. They see eye

contact as a sign of challenge.

Her stop is near now. She gets up from her seat, her bag on her back. She waits for her stop. The

bus drives on. She tells the driver to stop at the bus stand. He doesn’t. There are more chances of

passengers at the signal, a few meters away. She doesn’t mention that there is no stop there. She

keeps quiet. She waits.

The bus finally halts. The man wakes up at the noise. She gets down without looking back.

She walks on the main road. There are no cars. Only a couple of stray dogs. The footpath is laden

with people sleeping, with little space left to walk. She wants them asleep. Little sleep can cause

anger. Her Baba always left for office with less than three hours of sleep and eleven insults to

Ma. It always ended better for her when she was quiet. Ma wasn’t, she said somethings,

sometimes. She dreaded it when Ma spoke. It meant a lot of noise. It meant long nights. It meant

pain. She strived to be better. She could keep quiet.

The dogs follow her to the college gates. They bark at her. She keeps quiet. They are many, she

is one. She'll have to come to college everyday. They'll be here. They can attack her. They can

disfigure her. She'll be in pain. She thinks it's better to live in fear. She keeps quiet.

She reaches the college gates. The dogs don't enter. It's a habit. They'll be waiting there. A lot

more girls will enter. They'll be waiting. Barking. The girls will keep quiet. Roy Da, the lone

guard of the college will be sleeping. Or nowhere to be found like he was now. His crumbling

wooden chair stationed at the entrance, empty.

She walks in, a tremble in her step. The little bit of exposed skin between her jeans and socks

creates a pocket of cold. She laments being warm blooded at times. She wonders how it would

feel to be a snake, slithering away, being feared. She won't be. Not here. She'd have to dance to

tunes even then.

She bends down to pull down her jeans. She feels a figure appear at her back. She trips at the

sudden presence. She falls on the hard ground, on her back.

It's Roy Da. He seems uncaring as he sits back down on the rotting chair. She slowly gets back

up, dusting off her clothes. She pulls down her coat. She adjusts the shirt collar closer to her

neck.

She curses herself for the sprained ankle and limps into the building. It is old. The high ceilings

give off an air of age and authority.

She walks and then climbs. The stairs are winding, wide and tall. Her class is on the last floor.

She checks her watch. She’s about an hour early. Class starts at 6am. She doesn’t touch the

railing, coated with rust. It's the result of decades of half-hearted maintenance, as is the paint

peeling of the walls.

She bemoans the day she opted for this college. She blames Ma. It was the girls’ college closest

to her home.

She'd usually take a break on every landing. She can't now on the first floor. There has been

construction work going on for two months now. Last month it was the second floor under repair.

She has made her peace with it. They'll be done by the end of the month. She keeps on climbing

without waiting for a breath.

She takes a break on the second floor. The building is shared with a boy's college. They have

their classes on this floor and the two below. She has three more flights of stairs to climb.

She resumes climbing. She reaches the fifth floor landing. She walks down the long hallway and

reaches the classroom. It’s empty, of course, and colder than she anticipated. She picks a seat at

the front, glad for the wooden benches. They are more comfortable in the winters, compared to

the metal ones. She pulls her notebook out, and waits, leaning back, alone in the dim light.

A few minutes go by. She hears it then. It's the default ringtone for that particular brand. Her

Baba has the same one set on his phone.

She straightens her posture, closes her legs. The ringtone goes on. Then it stops. It starts again.

Closer now. She shifts her weight, clutching the edge of her seat. She hears the footsteps now.

The ringtone stops abruptly.

A crow flies in through an open window. She recalls a tale she heard. The crow, its feathers as

white as snow, its voice as sweet as honey, challenged the Sun. The Sun burned its feathers to a

soot black, smoke reduced its melodious voice to a croak. It was a lesson to never reach higher

than your might. She hopes she didn't.

She arrived early because she had too. She didn't want to. The footsteps were more pronounced

now.

She reminds herself she's average. She's not much to look at. Her features are akin to Baba's,

making her look androgynous. She's overweight. She was obese once. She isn't now. She

wonders if she should have remained that size. She didn't get as many gazes then. Her skin isn't

great either. Acne and pimples have plagued her since she hit puberty. She wishes she hadn't

gone through with those pills that promised white skin, though she doubted it did much. She

wishes she were ignored. Ignorance doesn’t cause pain. She always wished Baba would ignore

Ma, but they were a love match so it was difficult.

She is not well off either. Baba could barely cover the costs of her college studies, even though it

was a government college with nominal fees. He paid for it because nowadays educated men

want educated women who can cook, clean, carry babies, and pay for half the expenses of the

household herself. She blames Baba for pushing her to lose weight for proposals of marriage. If

she were still obese, then she wouldn't be worrying now.

She does understand to an extent why Baba was reluctant to pay though. She had never been

great at studies. He had wanted her to be a Physics graduate, like himself. She barely managed to

pass the subject.

There would be no reason for anyone to blackmail her or coerce her. Yet she feels her heartbeat

increase to the level it was after she climbed five flights of stairs as the footsteps near.

She knows no one would gain anything from her. But does it really matter? Did how she looks

matter? Did her education or her background? Would they really need a reason? Did they ever?

Did they on the bus? Did they on the road? Did they in the college? Or did they do it just because

they could. Not an elaborate hoax, no hidden agenda, or conspiracies by the higher ups. No,

those happen after. After the The predators have finished gnawing on their find. Would the

vultures feed on her remains too? Run her face on repeat for a few weeks before another took its

place. Or will there be nothing left but bones? Would it be a spectacle? Days and weeks and

months and years, all blending into one for the ones left behind, waiting. Would they still be

quiet? Or would they make noise? Would the noise be heard? Or will it fall on deaf ears? She

wishes she couldn't hear. The footsteps are just outside the room now.

She thought if she was good, if she was patient, she would be spared. She thought if she was

quiet, she'd be forgotten. She knew it was wishful thinking though. The Gods she prayed to have

long abandoned this abode in disgust and horror. The men who pray in the morning, prey at

night. Perhaps the Gods are creating a new world, a better one. She hopes they have a place for

her there if this world abandons her like it has so many before her and will so many after.

The footsteps are right behind her now.

She remains quiet. She screams within.

By Ishani Chowdhury