This is Devashri

By Chaitrali Chaudhari

Devashri sat shuddering in the freezing downpour on an elevated bricked footpath. It was a barely lit alley, however the only one with some light. The rain had shut the power grid down, the electricity was entirely back-up storage.

The winds howled like monsters awakening. The cold had now started freezing into her bones causing an indisputable ache in all her bony joints. She pulled her arms closer, hugging her legs into her shivering chest to attain some dwindling semblance of heat. Thunderous claps of the dark grey clouds were her only companions for the night and she had neither any raincoat nor any umbrella as shelter. Hence, the ratty wet curls lay stiff blanketing her almond face, stealing warmth from her pale cheeks as well.

Looking up at the dark grey mourning sky, she realized that the jutting chajja that partially shielded her frame from this unforgiving storm was the only welfare she’d received all day. She was exhausted and her penchant for happiness had shrivelled up.

That morning she’d hurriedly rushed into the office without a crum of breakfast and immediately started working on her deliverables for the day. At mid-day, prior to lunch, her client asked her to get some documents delivered within the day. With all assistants preoccupied, Devashri had to head out herself, hailing public transport. Not long after she’d delivered the envelope to her client, who’d been waiting by the side of the highway in his car, Devashri had been mugged by a hooded sprinter. By this time the rain had caught up with the winds and even her phone had succumbed to the wet of the weather. She felt as if she stood no chance against the rotten day. It had consumed too much of her fuel.

The rain poured around her unforgivingly, continuously. As if she was a mere ant against a giant foot.

She’d read enough stories about Mumbai floods to know that venturing out into flooded streets could be synonymous with a gateway to afterlife. Most of the blame could fall onto the shoulders of the effortlessly openable plastic manhole covers. Is this really where her life was led to? Death by the roadside? Surely her life was meant for more than that.

‘There is always someone who is in a place worse than you.’ Devashri’s orphanage warden, Ms. Farida had engraved this truth into her student’s minds.

Ms. Farida was a stern old woman who appeared extremely unappeasable and aloof. Always perfectly put-together in a dark blazer and pants, she oozed power and significance even in her late days. While cold on the outside, that woman had the most warm and optimistic of hearts, invisible to everyone. She could see and bring out the stunning gold in anybody using her atypical methods.

Ms. Farida had been a widow with no child, and her entire family was lost to the British war. Even alone she had fought hard to raise the orphans and protect their rights. She knew the pain and fear of being alone hence she wanted the kids to always live a better and stronger life. She had no remorse at reminding us of this every time. Nobody would fault her for it, each of her kids ended up backing and leading great changes in the World. Devashri was profoundly nudged by Ms. Farida too.

Devashri was a building services engineer. She was responsible for the running water, adequate electricity and safety during fires in multiple real estate developments. It was a complicated science, almost like building rockets, because human lives depended on her work. And yet so much of her work was based on assumptions and standards that kept changing. With the worsening environment, global warning and greenhouse effect – melting of ice caps and changing weather, she knew that she could create better practices for the industry. Devashri was one goal-oriented person. So, death at such an early age of twenty-three was not in her to-do list.

While the old warden had no mothering bone, she portrayed the role model to a T.

Deep eery stomps of military boots against the puddled water woke Devashri up from her reverie. She peered a long way through the drumming rain towards her right, where the new sound had emanated from. The sounds were all that lay crisp in the blurred mist of water. Devashri had previously tried finding music in the pitter-patter of raindrops. The gushing of the flood-like water into the storm water drains had been the bass for the tunes in her head. ‘Bheegi bheegi raaton me,’ she’d created an instrumental remix.

The footsteps felt out of rhythm, a thriller movie underway, the moment before the protagonist would be attacked. However, Devashri had had enough torture in one day, she didn’t have the energy to yell ‘Hail Mary’ or run for her life anymore.

Come what may, Devashri was ready to push back on her rotten luck. Isn’t that what Ms. Farida did throughout her life. The woman had only gotten stronger in the face of adversity, and so would Devashri.

As the black silhouette grew larger, Devashri loosened her arms and sat back comfortably in feigned confidence – in that moment she was the owner of the streets. In that moment, if there were a crowd, it would part ways to let Devashri pass through. She picked up a metal rod in self-defence, purely for safety.

The shadow walked closer, an umbrella in one hand and a bag slinging in the other.

The person appeared hooded. There was an air of familiarity in his movements. He had a distinct physique she’d noticed earlier in the day. This was the hooded sprinter that had stolen her purse! Devashri was sure she was also visible to the man, with her bright yellow Kurta and the boiling anger on her face.

“How dare you,” Devashri exclaimed getting up as soon as Devashri’s tattered brown purse was visibly confirmed, “You mugged me!” Her shout echoed in the dead of the unoccupied streets. Seething aggression filled her voice.

People said that thunderous rains were God's wrath. The egregious weather strikingly described her emotion at that moment.

He skipped a beat as his step faltered at her resentful roar. He raised his hands higher in defeat, treaded carefully towards her. “I come in peace,” he called out, guilt twinkling through the words, “to return your things.”

She flounced towards him in absolute indignation. What a ridiculous day she had!

As the distance between them reduced, she could make out more of his features. He had the height of a teenager. On this face, a sharp and pointed nose rest above pursed remorseful lips. The umbrella shadowed the upper half of his face, but his caved in shoulders screamed discomfort and regret.

Any biting words Devashri had for him lay desiccated in her throat.

“Give me that,” Devashri grabbed the purse handle and tugged it from the boy’s loose hold. With the other hand, she held his empty hand and pulled him along.

“I am sorry,” he croaked with unshed tears, “I won’t do it ever again.” This afternoon, the confidence and precision in this boy’s decision sorely contradicted his behaviour.

Devashri walked back to the protective chajja with a renowned motivation. “Sit with me,” she welcomed him. He was after all a mere helpless boy. “Have you eaten,” she asked him.

At her question, both of their stomachs growled. She looked at him and he looked at her and they shared a chuckle in unison.

“This morning I had packed Aloo Matar and Roti for lunch,” she said pulling out the Tupperware tiffin box from her purse, “It might not be warm, but it will still be edible.”

Devashri's mouth watered in hunger as she pulled the plastic lid of the box open. Before her eyes laid the golden cubes of potato and roasted peas. She had sautéd them to perfection with a mix of coriander power and garlic-onion paste. Such a simple meal home-cooked meal but the fragrance annihilated her senses in this pang of hunger.

She passed two rotis to the boy and both of them wiped the box clean.

Some of the much-needed warmth returned back into her body but she could have given just about anything for one more bite of that meal.

“What is your name then,” Devashri invited the boy to a conversation after they’d both cleaned up after themselves.

“Suraj M-,” he stopped himself, “Just Suraj. But friends call me Raj.”

“And what makes a young boy like you bring back the stolen goods, Raj?”

Raj sighed in discomfort. She owed the older lady some explanations after the lady had shared the meal with her. It was few bites of a hearty meal, and Raj could feel the re-energized blood rushing through her veins. She’d known from the moment she had stolen the purse, that the guilt of sealing from a good person would eat at her. She felt such deeply seated gratitude towards the older lady.

“Well,” Raj’s voice broke, “I have never stolen before and, the guilt ate at me after I did,” unbeknownst to Raj, a tear escaped her eye. Raj couldn’t control the emotional pain as she thought back to the hunger pangs she suffered in the previous week and the blasted fever from eating out of a garbage can. Empty stomach and rendering acidity were horrible feelings that she’d had never experienced before. “I simply saw no other way,” she said in explanation, “I’m all alone and out of money since last week. The lack of food made me do it.”

“Forgive me,” Raj begged.

Devashri sighed looking at the boy trying to blink back his tears. She understood Raj enough to guess the agony inside him.

Devashri kept an arm around the weeping boy’s back. The suffering showed on Raj’s frail face. The dark bags from lack of sleep under the boy’s eyes distinctly stood out on his relatively fair skin.

“Some lessons are taught to us the hard way,” Devashri comforted, “But these are the lessons that are most useful to us in our lives.” Devashri simply rubbed at his back as he bawled in his suffering.

There was misery and pain in Raj’s heart as she had a cathartic cry. All the stored angst camouflaged in the cry of the weeping sky. Only one person would ever know. Without asking, Raj knew that she would never tell. All that Raj had left in her were dry heaves as the tears in her soul dried up.

“I’ve always lived by myself,” Devashri said, “I’ve never known my parents. I must have been two years old when a strange man had dropped me off at the doorstep of my orphanage. And even after looking into multiple surveillance cameras, they found that he too was unrelated to me.”

Devashri looked at her hard palms – all the work she had done by herself was using these palms. The rain was still just as harsh.

Raj listened attentively.

“Being an orphan, I’ve never been cared of or worried for. When you have no family, you need to become your own family. Care for yourself, worry for yourself and look after yourself. In a family, every person has their own role. The parents work to put food at the table, the older siblings protect you and teach you about the world, the younger siblings entertain you and bring fun into your mundane life, your grand-parents are supposed to love you and educate you. I had to fulfil all these roles for myself.”

“It’s not easy,” Devashri continued, “The world is out there to get you. And you don’t even have anybody to complain to. Sometimes, you end up feeling like you are insane when just about everyone says that you are wrong.”

Raj felt a nudge on her deepest secrets.

“In your gut, you know what is the right thing to do, but when you don’t have courage and you take the shorter and easier path, you walk away from the true happiness you could have achieved. Happiness is a tougher road, there are more challenges, but in the end, it is more fulfilling.”

Raj had a loving family, her friends had always been jealous of how caring and nurturing they were. Her mother always woke her up with a kiss to the forehead. Her dad always high-fived her before leaving for work. Even her older sister loved her to the moon and back. They all did. Raj never had a lack for anything. But what did true happiness mean for her?

“I don’t know if the happiness I want can be achieved,” Raj whispered in agonised confusion, “It is not just about me, my family will have to suffer for my happiness, and I don’t know if I want to do that.”

Devashri could relate, “Since I was a child, I’ve never had the liberty to make decisions for myself. At the orphanage, my food was chosen for me, my clothing was chosen for me, even my education was chosen for me,” a bitter laugh escaped her. Devashri shook her head in disdain and continued, “We had an authoritarian woman as the orphanage warden. But cold as she was, she maintained peace in our lives. You know, girls can be ravenous towards each other. Each of us at the orphanage had experienced that at school. By taking away our choices, the warden had maintained a friendly environment among everyone – there would be no comparison. Believe me when I say, comparison is the root of all evil.”

Raj agreed.

“We felt like prisoners at the orphanage, Raj,” Devashri complained, “There was no colour in our lives. Everyday felt like every other day. The first true meaningful choice I ever made, was to leave that orphanage when I turned eighteen.”

“By that time, all of the girls had become a family of sorts, we’d divided responsibilities to keep the orphanage up and running. We’d share each other’s sorrows and hardships. It was a real family. I informed my family the moment I made the decision to leave and study out of state. They knew that, in reality, I was asking for their permission. All the remaining moments we had with each other, we tried to have the most fun because we knew we would be parting for a long time. Going away from loved ones is a grief that is extremely hard to get over.”

Raj nodded.

“You know Raj,” Devashri told him, “Five years later, when we met again, they told me about how they too had experienced the grief of me leaving. But the knowledge that I was safe and doing well gave them strength for the decisions that they had to make in their lives,” Devashri’s voice wobbled at the memory of the crushing hug her friends had given her when they had reunited, “It takes a lot of courage to proudly tell your family what you want in your life. It takes courage, because in reality you are seeking permission, you want acceptance from your loved ones. You don’t always get it. But it is easier to live with rejection rather than living with never having known what could have been.”

The rain had stopped.

This time around everyone would know if Raj cried, even still, she felt her eyes get heavier, sadder and watery. She took in a deep breath in a weak attempt to dissuade the bubbling of emotion. When she couldn’t hold back anymore, the tears rolled down her cheek in a stream of relief.

This stranger older lady whose name she didn’t even know sat beside her in understanding as the sun rose above the trees just at the horizon.

Maroon and orange hues painted the blue sky as a multi-coloured rainbow appeared after an entire night of thundering rainfall.

Raj knew her identity. It felt like it was time that others knew as well, “Will you help me get home to my family?”

By Chaitrali Chaudhari