Tender Heat

Thudded on the silicate perfused road, he was squinting at the hot sunrays bubbling around and through his head and body. The heat so permeable that it was fuming the humidity out of the air. And so stirring, it had weakened Deepak's posture as he was dangling and leaning on his friend Ajay's rocky shoulder. On his left stood a series of impatient bystanders waiting to cross the road. And the road was getting charred and churned by the dashing vehicles whistling rustling past each other producing sparks in between them. There stood a woman wearing blue Salwar Kameez, (Salwar, a soft airy cotton cloth covering from waist to ankles. Kammez is worn on top. It is a large loose shirt with sleeves reaching up to knees, popular in the Indian subcontinent), which was fluttering in the heated wind, and her hair was tied behind into an oily bun. On her back, was strapped a sleeping baby within a bag like pocket. Deepak saw the baby. He turned, to the tall Ajay with a rough beard. 

Deepak said, "I am feeling dizzy bro." 

"Help me cross the road." 

"Why? What happened?" Ajay asked. "This summer is killing me. I can't walk"  

"Didn't you get enough sleep yesterday? Hold on to me, I will take you safely across."  

Deepak exhaled, "Thanks, brother." 

He clasped onto Ajay's warm bulking hand. The traffic had become less turbulent. And a huge well like hot gas filled gap was formed in front of them. They all pedalled forward checking left and right and sailed together like a boat. The woman with the sleeping baby was in front of Deepak, in the center of the huddle, carefully dawdling forward like a duck. The baby was sleeping, and also avoiding the cars like an athlete, held by its mother. Deepak saw the small peaceful careless eyes of the baby, and sealed his eyes while crossing as the cars, big vehicles, and bikes stagnated near them trying to cut through the group. Eyes closed, supported on his friend's shoulder by the strap of his muscles, his legs kept on drooling onwards on their own, floating over the road's surface. The heated air was pressing on his eyes and pressing around like a buzzing helmet.

The puzzle of the heat blazed vehicles formed beside, honked at them with such a noise as if heavy iron rail tracks were hurled and melted through the ears of people. For Deepak, the sound just deflected by his friend's thick shoulder and head. A motorbike with its wide handle scarily punched scratched across his friend's shirt while others almost evaded the metal devil. Ajay and the fellow members cursed at the drivers with twisted scornful faces. The baby was settled on the safe earth of the mother's back. He had successfully reached closer to the end riding on Ajay's arms.

A large truck hitting the air, pushing a lot of wind forward was coming straight at them and the remaining pedestrians, to just remove through the walking inconsequential wisps of clothes. As it came near, it blared so hard, as if a train engine had just meddled over their heads, and while the woman hunched faster piggybacking in a panic, the baby's being got crisped and the honk minced its supple brain. The baby's body got thrown out of sleep and it woke up hard even unable to cry in horror. 

Deepak's careless submersion got blasted off along with the parts of his mind and his heart. He spotted the truck and the mother with the crying baby running in hardship. The baby was in tatters, while Ajay was jogging like a deer, dragging on Deepak's careless frame. Deepak immediately waved at the truck driver from few feet away to slow it down. And decided to run with his legs ahead with his friend on one hand, and seized the woman's hand hard and thrust them further on his own strength. The truck driver did not bother to slow down, and the woman lost balance. 

He caught the woman, tilted her and the child away out of the harm's way and jumped with Ajay. The metallic Monster rock just whirred and carved by their back and butt.

The woman thanked him with an inseparable hug. She brought the child to her chest, encapsulating it in love smooching its forehead and with wailing cries trying to calm the child's heartbeat, she kept walking on to her destination.

Deepak smiled at the child from afar to pacify it. Child's broken eyes were dotted at him and had healed considerably touched by its mother's tears by that time. The crowd dispersed on their way to the dedicated directions. 

"Are you okay?" Ajay asked.

Deepak said, "I'm fine. I was sleeping. But if we were late by a second, we would have gone under the tyres."

"That idiot looked drunk in the daytime. If I see him again, he is getting his truck thrashed and punched on the face." Ajay was chanting in rage.  

He flipped the watch on his arm. "Lets go and grab our breakfast. We have to reach the office." Deepak's brain was growing again while his ear was paining in spots. 

They find their favourite food stall, with many of the children moistured around it and grown up men and women in office uniforms built inside clean ironed vests. "I have got so much work to do. We better eat something quick."

 "Yeah," Deepak's stomach was still squirming empty and painfully because of the near accident. 

The food court, had a whiff of a hot insinuating jumping harsh oily spicy delicious buttery, relief giving cushion in this killing heat. The kids at the corner were licking off the syrup from the ice cream, slowly nibbling at the tips with little teeth absorbing it in their mini tummies while smiling and giggling at each other. The food stall was blistering up with Indian snacks, like Samosa, Pakodi and Chaat items, and Biscuits trapped in glass jars, while the chocolates, desserts and ice creams ready in the glacial freezer. "I'll order Bhel Puri for us," Ajay's voice was running like a fast express rail. (Bhel Puri is an Indian snack made of puffed rice, vegetables and spices.) 

Men and women were serious, munching on tea, and other eateries like rabid dogs with a spoon in one hand chirping at someone while holding on tightly to their precious bags. 

The stall was run by a middle-aged man and a lady. The man's hands were moving like scissors to mix the ingredients in a pan, and musically fry some dishes in the oil. The woman was handing on the ultra warm delicacies to the customers serially while rapidly calculating, collecting and storing the notes and coins in the box like a moving typewriter. The man was hitting the sides of a bowl hard with a sweet ringing tone, blending boiled potatoes, coriander leaves, crispy puffed rice, lemon juice, fried vermicelli mixture, and various degrees of fervent tongue boggling Indian spices. And like a swift bee, he presented them out in two different paper plates on the side, and moved on back to fry the naughty little Pakodis (Fritters) in the oil. 

The woman randomly picks up the dishes and hands them over to the galloping eyes and stretched arms. While Deepak was adoring the kid with a nearly shaved head who was eagerly waiting to get his share of the ordered magic item. He was gawking at the Bhel Puri papers with enlarged blinking pupils and a curious open mouth. 

Ajay received his serving and he attacked the jumble of the soft and sharp Bhel Puri immediately. Deepak, still reeling in the needle like tornadoes in his head, strolls close to get the one made for him. The kid next to him was trying to jump, skip up to look for his magic food. The lady blindly spins around and sticks out the Kulfi (a cone shaped frozen Indian dairy dessert) at Deepak and pops the lonely Bhel Puri plate to her left, smoking the kid in its hot kicking aroma. The child grabs at the platter hypnotized by its vibrant beats barely managing to hold onto its nutritional weight, and looks at the Kulfi in front of Deepak tingling with ice droplets. "Kulfi, who wanted it?" Lady asked. The kid hesitatingly raised his hand.

Deepak glanced at the kid, and took up the Kulfi by its flat little stick, chilled by its tender frosted breeze. And he somehow managed to hold on to the stick exiting from its bottom, with his thick chapped fingers, which was made for the kids. The buds in his nose, tongues and the injured body were reacting to the beigy creamy sight. Both the kid and Deepak were inching their hands closer to the open mouths while trying to hide from each other. Deepak smiles, "Hey kid, can I take this, please? You eat the Bhel Puri." Both Deepak and the child were lost in a moment of silent stillness. The kid smiled in the widest grin like an apricot. 

"Yes, sure uncle, thank you very much," and reaped up a red enveloping bite from Bhel Puri with the spoon, which stirred and springed up his veins, body and face in a deep excitement. Deepak's face grinned into a big coconut sponge, "Well, good boy, enjoy, If you can't eat alone, share it with your friends." And he instantly put the milky conical shape of the ice bar in between his teeth, chewing and slurping off its pistachio, almond scraps, the mint, the dissolving sides made of rice flour rinsed with simmered milk, and icy dews. It drowned him and caused combustible fatty blasts in his brain, and divided the heart into both the lungs, chaneling with the caramel fluids inside.

He bit the abundant sweet and sour surface with his tongue and got plummeted down on a chair palpitating, and storing its iced taste in his nerves. Ajay had erased half of his Bhel Puri, as wires of the vermicelli, rice, grains and groundnuts centered on top of his mouth, while his cheeks were swollen, like a toad loading its prey inside to engulf it as quick as possible. "Why the Kulfi? Have a bigger meal. Its for the kids, we have to work till 6." 

Deepak's tongue was frozen and mummified in the milky amber. He shook his head, in a raspy voice, "No, this is everything I want," and let out gasps of cold air, consuming all the heat around him.  

The kid was bundled in the middle with two other kids, scraping the Bhel Puri, the tangy sweet and spicy branches of spices flowing within and over the crisps of puffed rice and blood cutting green chillies, and ultra creamy mashed potatoes. Bhel Puri grains moved like sharpnels and breached parts of all the systems in the child's biological body. He was jolting uncontrolably, in excitement. The intricacy was too much for a child's thin tongue, and it overloaded his being. By the time, the children finish eating, their minds will have evolved into a fuller adult brain for some minutes just to survive, as a side effect. The kids were shaking their heads and vibrating in happiness. 

While Ajay, chomped on fast. The flavour of the Bhel Puri, just went straight to his stomach, and dispersed out of his cheeks in thin air. He kept scrolling his phone and gazing at the watch like a pendulum and threw the last few chewed up bites straight into his throat and took objects out of his wallet.

"You stay here and come tomorrow. I paid for us," and Ajay checked Deepak's Kulfi, and began running out of his view. "Thanks. The manager won't present you an award for showing him your face so early." Deepak shouted. "Shut up and come fast, seriously." 

Deepak was satisfied, soon as he consumed the last of the condensed slices, and was harrowed, transported back to the present from his memories as a refreshed new person. The kids were still crunching the smallest of shreds in their tiny mouths and resting in its power. Deepak and the kid locked eyes and elated wide. Deepak stood up as his legs cramped up in ice, and gently dropped the stick inside the dustbin.

 After wiping his hands and lips, he shifted towards the kid. "Thank you for the Kulfi, how yummy is the Bhel Puri?" 

"Welcome Uncle, Its awesome, and so spicy," and laughed and drank a tumbler of water. 

"What is your name?" 

"Mani," the sound came from his milk teeth. "Will buy you something else next time, boy, take care," and rubbed his cute skull. Deepak stood up in pride and went.

The sun was beating people up in its furnace, but Deepak was filtering out the harmful rays through the Kulfi's icy layer inside his skin.

 He had to zap though his office gate's doors. The tall concrete cemented block was sweltering in the sun, and dust rinsing down its heat absorbed metallic pan of a surface, while people coalesced within the large windows, were walking, working in their desks in a cold capsule of an interior cared by the Air Conditioners. They are scorched by the desktop light and the piles of tabs opened on the screen, as hot and difficult as for the people dotting outside in the sun, and loomed a constant noise of friction created by the files and keyboard keys clicking like concert drums together. While more men and women in tight crisped to the thread formal clothes jogged into the office one after another within the giant automatic glass doors.

 Adjacent to this tough structure named Latiom Corp in Chennai, India, a park was situated in a cold sprinkled wind, and possessed a green topped soft bedsheet of a grass, with big trees growing everywhere providing perfumed clouds of shade all over the area, even poking and leaking outside out of the compound walls. Colourful sets of children's playing spots and equipments were built on it, and the kids fondled, and rolled around like little colorful cotton pollens. Driven towards the welcoming shade, he disparted quickly towards the park ignoring the office. And leaning on the short wall, with both of his arms clasped on the top, he gleamed his eyes past every child reflected on the surfaces of the metal equipments like slides, swings, climbers and spinners. And in a state of Kulfi jammed muscles, Deepak was hanging on the short wall gleeing excitedly. Kids were skipping through in joy in school uniforms and candy dresses, rolling over the mattress of wet and warm grass. 

A stick rang behind him. He turned. A disabled beggar had been near him straddling his stick on the surface calling him in a poor voice, "Bhaiya(bro), Bhaiya." Spoiled in grey hair, torn clothes, damaged skin falling off in the sun, on weak hungry legs, arms and torso holding an aluminium plate, "I haven't eaten in days, please give me some food, money sir."

 "God will bless you," while his eyes were hanging surviving alone in the barest way, tortured every second in his unfortunate life and fate in poverty. 

Deepak took out the wallet, and swiped its folders searching for a note or two. But his hand just fell through into the empty leathers and found not even a single coin after jostling and bending to its nooks and corners. 

And he looked back at the beggar's diluted eyes, "I am sorry. I don't have anything to give." The poor man scratched his forehead at the stick in a regular crying disappointment and stumbled on his way, by his bad hip and to hope from anyone else. Deepak kept staring at the wallet's absent patches which had only little dirt left, whereas earlier it was fluttering with bundles of valuable notes or valuable coins. 

His attention was diverted back to his office. His trance was broken. He took a deep breath and exhaled even more with his head bent down and marched on towards the large gate. The gate keeper foiled up in his blue and dark uniform called, "Deepak sir, Good morning, did you lose your way today?" Deepak mumbled in a weak shout, "No." As he stepped out of the shade, he got slapped by the slabs of sun rays on his face. 

He winced and with a sturdy resolve trotted towards the gate dragging his shoes on the gravel. 

A big flock of impending kids just cracking their shoes along the ground, hit him from the front in bulk, rustling past their shoulders with childish power, and blowing up a gale force filled with laughter and teeth cackling. He got pressed back as they push at and around his giant legs with pebble like heads and jelly arms. He had to fall back in the shade of the park. 

Drenched him in excitement all over, changed and caught in the force and speed of the kids' energy made him run backwards. "Uncle, hey." Mani larked and waved both of his tiny arms celebrating and ran ahead with his girlfriends. Deepak ducked and hit his palms as Mani ran through. 

He looked at the Gatekeeper, "Ramu kaka," with the empty wallet shaking on his palms, which he slid back in the trouser "Hey, I will meet you in 10 minutes." 

"Did you lose something in the Park?" The guard wrinkled and asked in a loud raving voice. "Why?"

He blew in and pounced on a mini Swing at the end of the park. He thrust himself up, and hurtled onto the platform of the sky with full thundering velocity, creaking and rattling the chain. He was happy again, gliding weightless, responsibilityless. The ID card wrapped on his neck jetted up in the air and got lost in the back. His wallet dropped like a rock and submerged in the grass.