The road to Chindauli

‘The sun is high up on the tree and blinding my eyes with its shiny stupid rays. Stop a minute, man! 

Date a white pretty cloud every once in a while?! You can't just fry a man’s skin with your ego.’

The old man had to again change his position to lie under the shade of a leafless tree with a hollow 

trunk. He stood up and pulled an old black rag serving as a blanket with plenty of holes to breathe 

out from in the winter season, and his lawful mattress in this humid summer. The hollow tree’s shadow was working like a compass with the ever changing position of the sun in the bare sky and 

the old man again took up his old position on its needle. He blew away the dust with the help of his only companion before throwing himself face first on it.

‘Hi, can I talk to you for a minute?’

Again the same dream on the salesman who used to sell encyclopedias on this street. 

Blue whales and the Boeing 747 were of the same size. 

‘The middle compartment will be mine in the plane unlike trains. I always have to give it away to Kiran as she is Kiran. Kiran is being kidnapped in the middle of the night, should I stop it? No, let 

them take her away.’

‘Hi, can I talk to you for a minute?’

Again the salesman? 

‘Go away salesman, we don't need it!’

‘Umm, when will the next bus for Chindauli cross from here?’

‘What? Chindauli?’

The old man suddenly woke up and saw a guy standing between him and the sun. 'Oh lovely man, 

just keep standing there and let me sleep', he thought and hid his face under his arm pillow. 

‘Sir, just tell me when is the next bus to Chindauli? I can't find anyone else here to ask.’

‘What Chindauli? What Chindauli? You are going on repeating the same name!’

The old man stood up before the fellow. 

‘Why are you going on 'Chindauli Chindauli' boy? This is the way to Chindauli, just keep walking on 

this road and you will surely reach Chindauli. I can swear on your head that, you will reach Chindauli.’

‘But I don't want to walk that far, sir. I am here to board the bus to Chindauli but I don't know when it will come. I saw you lying here as if you were also waiting for the bus. So I asked you about it.’

‘I am lying here because I want to lie here. I am not waiting for anything.’

‘But then, why are you lying here? I can't see anyone else on this whole stretch of road.’

‘Sorry boy, but you are walking into the privacy of another man without his proper consent. Why am I lying here? Why should I answer you that? Who are you?’ The old man took a step back and saw his intruder properly, for the first time. A young guy with a hunched back. Oh no, a guy leaning forward due to his heavy bag on his back. ‘What is in this bag? Are you a magician?’

‘Magician? No, I am not a magician, though I would have preferred to be one’, the guy answered. 

‘Why would you have wanted to become a magician? A magician is just a trickster with tricks he himself can’t enjoy.’ 

‘Yeah that's true’, the young fellow muttered. 

‘I always speak the truth and never a word of lie.’ 

‘So, when will the bus to Chindauli pass here?’ the guy asked. 

‘The bus to Chindauli is a bus with a brain. When it feels someone has to reach Chindauli, like really reach Chindauli, it just arrives with its loud horn. I have not heard that horn in a long time. Maybe, there has been no passenger in a long while. Do you think you are the passenger, for whom 

the bus will arrive?’ the old man asked.

‘I don't know, I guess I just have to wait here to find out.’ 

‘Yes good young man, you have to wait here to know that but don't you think that you can sit on an inch of my blanket while you wait for that damned bus to arrive. This is my blanket and only I can sit, sleep, and spit on it. Only I can breathe through its holes and only I can kiss it. Yes boy, I kiss it when I am alone but don’t you dare tell anybody about it.’

‘Okay, as you see fit.’ he agreed to the terms and the conditions laid out before him on the yellow 

soil with the shiny sun.

A slow evening breeze had started, with noisy birds having a fight amongst themselves on some evening chores that only birds do. The haggard old man was rhythmically snorting away at a file of ants returning after a long day’s journey with ant food. One ant among them plucked the courage to inspect this new source of air flow and got sucked into the old man’s nose. The old man woke up with a start, tapping his nose furiously. He blocked his left nostril with a dirty thumb and started to blow out with all his might from the right one. 

‘What the fuck? Now, a man can't even have a sound sleep after fighting with this sun all day?’

A loud sneeze scared away all the birds from the nearby tree. 

‘Ahhh, I will kill all these ants now. No more ants, no more ants!’

He started stamping over the curious file of ants who were brave enough to look into the old man’s nose.

‘Kill them all! Kill them all! Why did god make ants? Why?’

All the racket woke up the young guy who was sleeping, sitting up sideways with the support of the tree. The old man stomping his feet over the ant army looked like a Spanish bull fighter doing his victory dance in his red sleepy eyes. 

‘Kill these ants. Kill them all!’

After annihilating the ants to his heart content, the old man crept over, panting, to sit by the side of the hollow tree trunk. Puffing in exhaustively, the old man kept half snorting away the few dead remnants of ants off his nostril.

‘Bloody ants. Hell is what awaits them!’

Sleep laden eyes of the young guy kept following the old man and thought of telling him that they are just ants but then didn't say so.

‘Who are you?’ the old man asked the young man sitting beside him. 

‘I told you no, that I am waiting for the bus to Chindauli?’ the young guy told him. 

‘I have heard enough of that, I am asking your name, what's your name? Hasn't your father given you a name or you didn't have any father in the first place.’

‘I have a name but that name doesn't matter anymore’ the young guy said. 

‘No name matters for that matter but a name is a name. Everyone has a name to distinguish themselves from other humans or you are just an ant, a bloody ant! So, let me ask you again, what's your name young man?’

‘I told you that it doesn't matter.’

‘Okay, don't tell me your name, don’t tell me. I won't ask you again as you have bored me enough with your ‘doesn’t matter’. But do find a name before you enter a crowd. Here it's fine but not in a crowd’, the old man uprooted a grass and put it in his mouth to chew it for passing time.

‘You know there used to be huge trees all around here but now all of it is gone? No trees left apart from this old compass’, the old man said, indicating the dead tree. 

‘Since how long have you been here?’ the young guy asked. 

‘Since how long? Long enough to know that those trees were huge and green and provided a cool dark shade. Old enough to know that darkness isn't always bad. Wind is what I miss the most. Wind used to have a sound, a smell. Now it just leaves my face barren. I wasn't always like this you know’, the old man said this while looking at a distance. 

Both of them didn't speak for some time. 

‘What were you like, old man?’ 

‘Like you, just like you, but a bit more handsome I think’, the old man laughed boomingly with his tongue out and splashed a few droplets of laughter on the young guy’s face as well. 

The young guy wiped away his face and shifted his place a bit farther from the old man.

‘We used to walk straight and sing out of the belly. Some songs were coarse and some of love, ohh beauty oh stars, ohh land mines, land mines’ the old man again started laughing his echoing laugh that had nothing to echo from. The night slowly settled by the time his laughter ended.

‘So you are running away from something or running towards something?’, the old man asked while 

lighting his collected bush by rubbing two shiny stones together. After fueling by blowing into it, the 

old man said, ‘here comes the god of fire with his eye burning, throat scratching fart.’ He went on to cough for a long time. 

‘Come sit near this fire, you will feel warm in the company of your own shadow’, the old man said. 

‘No thanks, I am warm up here and I don't want any shadows to entail me.’

‘No shadows, but that's your only true companion kid, you can't leave your shadow.’

‘I can leave the light though.’ the young man said.

‘So, what was the reason you mentioned, behind waiting for the bus to Chindauli?’ the old man asked. 

‘I didn't tell you anything.’

Both of them are now lying on their back and watching the shooting stars while chewing on a piece of grass. 

‘I am here for the bus to Chindauli, the bus to Chindauli is the bus that will take me to my destination.’ the young guy said. 

‘What do you expect from your destination?’ the old man asked. 

‘A destination is what it is, my end of journey, a place where my road will end.’ the young guy said. 

‘A place where your road will end’ the old man said and started snoring. He was far into his sleep already. The young guy kept on looking at the stars, both the blinking and the unblinking ones.

Morning came with the sound of a rattlesnake on its morning hunt, leaving its mark on sand that will 

consume it after a while. A blurred vision of the old man coming towards him greeted him with a good morning. 

‘Hi young man, wake up wake up wake up, it's a brand new day! First of all, I would like to be clear with all the instructions. You don't shit around this holy compass. You take your ass up and shit off your load at that oasis down in that direction. After washing your face properly you are competent to say anything before this holy compass. No! No! No! Don't say anything. Oh, holy compass, pity over 

this traveler who doesn't know your beauty. I know what you are going to ask me. Why don't we live near the Oasis? Right? If there is an Oasis, let us just go down there and live where there is water and there are green trees. But no young man the answer is straight no. We can't go there and live. 

It's an oasis, what's an Oasis? Just a mirage in the desert. It will change its place just when you start thinking of it as your goddamn house. You live here near this Compass. Heard me? Now go and wash your shit at that Oasis down there.’ The young guy stood and went towards the direction pointed by 

the old man.

‘Where are we going to have our food today, sir?’ the young man asked. 

‘’Sir’ at the time of hunger, eh?’ The old man again collapsed into his echoing laugh. 

‘We will eat whatever you want kid’ the old man said slyly. 

‘I am not kidding, it's already afternoon and I have not eaten a crumb of bread, this is not what I 

asked for. I am hungry and I need food’, the young guy started shouting towards the sun now. 

‘Calm down young man, we will have our food soon, just give some time to our rattle snake to come back with his hunt.’

‘What am I looking like, a fool? A fool? What do you want from me? Some amusement or what? Just ask me and I will give it to you. You want me to dance. See me dance. Here see my dance!’ The young guy started to sing some old tune and dance on it. The old man began to clap to keep time for 

him. With a downward sweep of hand, the young guy made the old man get up and dance with him. 

They both started dancing with some coarse tune that they were singing. 

A punch and the old man fell. 

‘Where is my food now, tell me? Where does that rattle snake live? Show me!’

‘I will show you. There it is. Just behind you. See.’ 

The young guy turned around. He saw nothing but barren land. 

‘Where is it, I can't see anything.’

‘Look down when it's required to look down’ the old man pushed the young guy’s head downward to show a hole that was not wider than a fist. 

‘There lies the kingdom of those who provide us with food’ the old man whispered. 

‘Don't be loud and dare to go down there with an empty stomach. Creep silently and move forward without making the sound of even an ant.’ The old man was down on four legs and was creeping forward beside the young man who was also doing the same. 

‘Slow and steady wins the race’ the old man said and started laughing though without his usual echoing laugh this time. Looking at the old man’s wide gaping face, the young guy saw that the old man has the same mole on the right cheek that he has. 

‘And here comes the rabbit out of the hole’ the old man started running back towards the compass with a dead rabbit in his hand. The young guy just stood idle, gazing at the old man circumventing the holy compass with the dead rabbit in his hand.

‘It was good food, wasn't it?’ the old man said while burping on the young man’s face. 

The fire god was burning low, a bewitching lullaby in the desert. Both men were lying on their back trying to find the dead rabbit among the dead stars whose light was reaching them even after their long-lost death. 

‘Yeah it was good food but I think I miss salt.’

‘Salt? You want salt?’ The old man questioned. But he was already snoring before he even ended his 

sentence.

Morning came with a blinding light charring the young man’s face who was lying alone on that desert 

highway. 

‘Ahh, why why why? This sun, I will kill you one day.’ 

‘The sun is high up on the tree and blinding up my eyes with its shiny stupid rays. Stop a minute, man! Date a white pretty cloud every once in a while?! You can't just fry a man’s skin with your ego.’