The scorching summer of north India: in his brown Bermudas and TheNorthface hiking boots he stood at the door of the university office with his bulging rucksack standing on its own as though it was having a good time in its detached state. This tall man in his late twenties held a slightly crumpled sheet bearing his own handwriting, stapled at the top and below was another sheet, lined and it bore a letter written by him, explaining the reason why he was late: the flight was delayed for one whole day in Moscow; perhaps one of those erratic airliners. Every now and then he moved his head to glance at the papers, his attention wasn’t in the bulging rucksack.
He said he had been waiting for Mr. Sindhe for an hour; he needed the man’s signature to go to the immigration office where the enforcers would ‘push through’ his documents, and if granted, his stay would be rather smooth. But Mr. Sindhe was not the kind of man who would display his empathy, he was a man who knew quite well to which caste he belonged and how he should exert that standing whenever he was permitted.
At home he was the unchallenged monarch, whose bedroom floor was swept before he had opened his eyes and put down his corny and cracked feet, then served with steaming milky tea and fresh clothes. After a fresh bath on a square-shaped stone slate at the back of kitchen where he squatted with his greasy hands pressed on the brim of the family’s brass bucket every morning meditating. The plastic mug floating on the surface upon which he had been staring blankly was picked up and the water he threw over the bald patch came splashing over the wide back and then over the colourless underwear. His cleanest form of morning act came to an end when the water in the bucket was over. Before he stood up his wife stuck out her bangle-laden hand to hand him the family’s best towel.
So, this man struggling with the weight of a satchel containing a large lunch box filled up with his wife’s admirable culinary endeavours; his round face was constantly daubed with a green-coloured handkerchief and in this process the thumb-size vermillion on the forehead was partly wiped out and thinned. When entered the British-built building with Victorian architecture slightly squawking indication it was hard for him to bear his own weight and also the satchel’s. Since he was in good term with his superior who was the double monarch, domestic and official, he never cared much about showing up late. Besides being late he was never in a great haste to efface the soaring temperament of the people like Danny standing and waiting for his audience.
Even though he was not instantly recognized by Danny, he was, however, recognized and greeted in the most subservient manner by those standing in leaning-like position. The greeters had been very curious of the tall man with his long face below a wide-brimmed hat; prying every now and then, yet unable to discern what was written in Danny’s almost unreadable handwriting. When the sheets didn’t fill up their curiosity jar they plucked and transfixed their eyes on the rucksack; sometime they pointed at the size at laughed at it, and it became rather audible they concealed their gutkha-smelling mouths with the withdrawn hands.
Mr. Sindhe’s voice was heard in the back room but his was not as audible as his superior’s; his sounded as though he was only nodding his head and releasing a ‘ yes, sir’, ‘ absolutely, sir’ , ‘ there you go again, sir’. The change of hours didn’t arrest or tame the soaring mercury and it was visible in Danny face and the richly soaked blue T-shirt. It was anxious in the beginning, then looked wearied and now it appeared exhausted and was richly tinged with exasperation: a balloon which was getting bigger and bigger, only stretching till the last strain. For a moment one could have imagined he would kick open Mr. Sindhe’s door and push aside the dusty desk bearing stacks of dog-earred files below a furry ceiling fan (covered in year-long accumulated dust on the blades).
The fact that he was from another pond put a leash on the beast; he door was pushed open and he gave a knock on the ajar door of Mr. Sindhe’s boss. The double monarch didn’t bark, Mr. Sindhe appeared in the gap revealing his round face marked with thin vermillion on the forehead. His left hand pressed on the door frame, while the other brought up in the shape of a water lily and twisting, asking what the man actually wanted.
Mr.Sindhe’s deliberate indifference and his indignant manner loosened the beast in Danny a bit, ‘been waiting for you, you know. Today’s my last day to push through the sheaf at the immigration. Are you not going to be at your desk?’
He misheard “sheaf” as “sheep” and now he was a bit angered, but the little sensible man in him argued ‘ why he would use ‘sheep’ in such a place?’. But he was angered, anyway. The questionable anger and the silence from his boss brought him out and put him at his desk. He didn’t enjoy his desk, the fan only roared and did nothing to tame the heat, unlike the boss’s which was filled up with a Mitshubishi air-conditioner. Before he was done reconciling with the internal turmoil Danny had brought down the sheets on his desk between the stacks of dog-earred files. In an just-created rough tone, ‘What’s the parpose…for these?”
Danny explained why he needed to read his application also the cited reasons and where he would be taking them in order to get his visa process done. He just couldn’t read through and besides the handwriting was rather unreadable, but he didn’t say. With his head thrown over the right shoulder and the right hand holding a Reynold plastic ball pen he pointed towards one desk on the corner where a young man with a dull face sat. The young man was perusing something: a local newspaper. Danny stepped aside and took his steps towards the dull man. Nothing about the young man suggested anything intelligent, not even an animated response; he took the sheets, though, and placed it over the newspaper he had been perusing. Swinging his head from one side to another he gave Danny the impression that he fully comprehended everything. His confidence didn’t last that long, with the sheets in his hand he stood up to go to his “Sindhe sir” and spoke to him in local language what exactly they should do about the man’s application. Mr.Sindhe couldn’t be bothered for long, for he was now engaged with one of the men who had greeted him while he was entering the building.
So, the young dull man concluded, ‘Not this building, the Vice-Chancellor’s. You must go and see Mr. Danghe there.’
Danny shot back, ‘I already met that man and he said I should go to this place. So, what now? Do I have to go to prison because of this?’
‘Prison!’, a rather feared word, and it must have shaken the man to his bulging belly; he didn’t look at Danny, bolted in to the double monarch’s chamber without seeking permission. The always audible voice of the big man escaped through the ajar door and it sounded grave. In a minute he ran out; the sheets now bore the signatures of the man , but it was to be stamped by the young dull man. He groped for the big man’s rubber stamp. “What I have done to the stamps! I’m paid for to look after them!’ to himself.
Finally, he realized he had them in the bottom drawer but his wife might have forgotten to put the keys in his bag; maybe he had it and misplaced it. The anxiety in the man now fueled his animation and he was over the desk and below it, sometimes completely disappearing behind it. The materialized desperation now made him brave the protocol: he snuck up behind the busy-looking Mr. Sindhe to find out if he had by any chance seen the keys. The startled Sindhe neither swung nor nodded, ‘No, I didn’t’ slipped through his gapped lips.
This confirmation made the young dull man return to the boss’s air-conditioned room.
Inside, he was heard laughing and the boss admonishing him in an avuncular tone. Danny’s sheets were finally stamped and his face changed: like the face of those content-looking western tourists in “Incredible Land” advertisement who had just dismounted from elephants. Lugging his much-looked-at rucksack he hurried down the steps with the signed and stamped sheets in his cargo shorts pocket. It was another five-minute walk till the rickshaw stand; he could endure it. The men in a small group with their beetle-shaped vehicles in a line had already fixed a price.
Feeling like a beast which was poked and then thrown in a bone when angered the place had tested the versatility of his emotions. He realized this constant poke-and-bone test and it made him smile at the group and in a loud voice, ‘ I say 100! who is going?’ everyone lifted their hands, then he tugged the rein, ‘ I say, 50! Who is taking me.’ The same result didn’t animate him, ‘ I say, nothing! Who’s taking me?’
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