Excerpt: GIRAR by Kiran Bhat
Photo: Kiran Bhat
Girar is a streaming novel by Kiran Bhat which will take place in 365 different corners of the planet. “A New Year” is an excerpt from the first instalment of Girar, setting up the premise on the first day of the Kannada New Year.
Girar is a streaming novel which will take place in 365 different corners of the planet, releasing from April 13th 2021 onwards until the end of 2029. Girar turns around the lives of Mother and Father, archetypes rather than fixed characters, built off the author’s own parents. In the background is Son, who has migrated continents away from them, and yet is always in their mind. Over the course of multiple volumes, in book and short story form, Girar will imagine Mother and Father's lives in 365 unique different locations on Planet Earth. The goal of this book is to chart the unexpected ways a tragedy can provide an opportunity for loved ones to come back together, and yet family often remains apart, because of petty disagreements in sexual orientation, career choice, and personal values.
“A New Year” – April 13, 2021: Mysore, Karnataka, India
Today was Ugadi, the Kannada New Year. It was a day to dine on the sweetest of jaggeries, it was a day to decorate one’s door with neem and mango leaves. It was a day to paint the porch with rangoli patterns and stench the halls with incense. It was a day of importance for anyone who was Kannadiga. For Mother, it was a day to pray. Frankly, be it a festival, an auspicious occasion, or a republic-related holiday, Mother took any Indian day of importance quite seriously. She would spend all day watching the patriotic news programmes on Republic Day just as she would visit her native place in Kodagu to observe Dasara, Deepavali, or the birthday of any God. The coronavirus had changed much in India, but it had not changed Mother’s convictions.
And so there Mother was, sitting cross-legged against her gate, painting rangolis and waiting for the archaka to come. Father had left for the hospital around midnight, so Mother was alone. She was taking extra care so that the wind would not blow away the powder. It was five in the morning, an hour of the day early enough to be considered dawn but late enough to be considered night. Just a few years ago, this modest bungalow of hers stood beside an empty grass yard, in which the cows rested and the dogs played, or the opportunistic pani puri vendor set up his stall. The land had been purchased and developed into a modern apartment complex. It was now populated with students. The students did not care about anything. Most of them did not even come from Karnataka and had that North Indian rowdiness. They would play loud music whenever they felt like it, swear loudly in Hindi, and shame themselves in public, even at these odd hours. The locals of this humble street of Kuvempunagar were all of retirement age and could not abide the noise.
At this particular hour, a handful of them were stumbling out of an auto-rickshaw. Since Mysore had no pub culture, they must have been partying at the house of a friend. What had happened to social distancing? Mother wondered. Last year, when people were panicked by the coronavirus, no one dared leave their house, save to stand in the long lines in the markets. This year was markedly different, but Mother was no longer used to this sort of hudugaata; these boys shouting obscenities and falling into each other. Only one of them was sober enough to reach for his wallet and tip the driver. It caused something deep inside her to squirm, and she found herself praying, Devaru, please do not let them notice me, please let me continue to paint in peace.
Unfortunately, her prayer went unanswered. ‘Ba iri,’ called the one with the curly hair. Mother assumed he was trying to say come here in Kannada, but he said it in the way the auto drivers hollered to gullible tourists, not in the way a young person ought to address an older lady. She was offended, but she also knew he did not know Kannada well. His accent, and the rhythm of his speech, had a strong Bengali flavour. She told herself not to pay him any mind and went back to her lotus outline. The creamy pink colours of the petals and the white chalk outlines around them must have been too well done, because the three boys came to stare at it, and then one of them switched to English and said something Mother couldn’t understand.
The tall, bespectacled one spoke better Kannada. He said, ‘Madame, your rangoli, very nice. Like God made it.’
His accent was too rough, and his grammar, while understandable, was missing key words. He must be Tamil, Mother thought. She chuckled at the sound of it, but to be polite, she added, ‘Thank you.’ If they weren’t drunk and disturbing her Ugadi preparations, she might have told them that she had been practicing rangoli designs since she was a little girl in Kodagu, that she had learned from the best, her mother, who had passed on just a few years after the birth of her only son.
The boys were still standing over Mother. She wished they would go away. She hated the smell of alcohol, so pungent it was dripping off their clothes. Though she would not have to deal with it for longer. From the other side of the road was the archaka, speeding over to her house on his motorcycle, the hems of his panche flipping out and about in the wind.
‘Namaskaara,’ he said as he parked to both Mother and the boys. Mother could not help but clap her hands in front of her chest and smile back. The archaka took a second to admire her rangoli.
‘Madame, your rangoli, a person could not have made it. God must have designed it, that is the look it has.’
This inspired the Tamil-sounding boy to say, ‘Madame, help us paint our rangoli.’
Mother pretended he had not spoken, looking up only to the priest but taking care to keep the mask firm against her face and the allotted amount of distance between them as she made her way to open the gate. ‘How is your morning?’
She would spend all day watching the patriotic news programmes on Republic Day just as she would visit her native place in Kodagu to observe Dasara, Deepavali, or the birthday of any God. The coronavirus had changed much in India, but it had not changed Mother’s convictions.
‘It is good. How is yours?’
The boys were still shouting.
‘Madame, we do not know how to make rangoli. Come, you teach us. Come, we want to learn.’
The other two boys clasped their hands and swung their hips as if performing an aarthi. ‘Krpaya, Krpaya,’ they sang, laughing. Several dogs began to bark, and some lights came on in the houses on the other side of the road. Mother took this as a sign to let the archaka into her house. She clicked her tongue at their nonsense.
‘What is the problem with boys these days?’ she complained. Did they not know how to talk to older women? Or was it only in Karnataka that the young were taught to respect their elders?
The archaka on the other hand was smiling to himself.
At seven in the morning, their puja began. There were certainly distractions before. There were not as many lamps as the archaka wanted, so Mother had to rummage around the house to find more. In a house of only a few rooms, things were compact, and after searching Son’s old bedroom and some cabinets by the dining table, Mother found them logged in a side compartment of her dresser, under the wedge of matches, religious books, and broken necklaces. The day was starting, too, so the vendors were taking to the streets with their vegetable carts and shouting, ‘Soppu, soppu!’ Yet, as Mother and the archaka sat by themselves in front of the big murthi of Ganesha, her thoughts were on what was in front of her. The archaka chanted and bathed the idols, and Mother chanted back. Mother circled the lamp around the idols when needed; she helped the archaka bathe them in the milk, too. While Mother was in the habit of following these rituals to the letter, her attention lacked as much discipline. She could not help but idle her mind towards thoughts of her son. She was not much of an ambitious wisher. She knew the times when the stars and the moon were at their strongest and when they were not, and her luck was never as good as it was for the others who went to the temple. She usually kept her thoughts humble. She often wished for the financial betterment of Son’s life, and no matter what corner of the world he happened to be in, that he would remain well-fed, well-kept, and safe.
But, this was Ugadi. This was the New Year. They were ushering in a new period for a reason. Mother finished circling the idols and prostrated with the full curve of her back straightened towards the murthis, She huffed one long breath, and in it, confessed to Ganesha, as she would every once in a while when she was feeling desperate enough: I would give anything, just anything, to see my son.
The puja ended, and Mother broke the morning with jaggery on her tongue.
‘Thank you for coming,’ she told the archaka. ‘Would you like to have breakfast?’
The archaka bobbed his head yes and joined her in the dining room. The puris had been fried at three in the morning, and so while they were no longer warm, the oil had long since sunk into the paper towels they were resting on, causing the counter to appear oily as well. She warmed up the alugadde palya while the archaka took his seat at the table.
‘So, sir must be going to the hospital at what time?’ the archaka asked.
‘Every day is different,’ Mother responded. ‘And with this virus, the schedule is more different. But I do not know. He is busy.’
‘Too busy.’
If only he knew how ineligible of a bachelor Son was. If only he knew that Son changed jobs almost once a year, or that he had inherited every ounce of stubbornness possible from Mother, or that he was as adamant about not marrying as he was about not touching women.
‘If you are busy, that is good. To be busy is good. The mind’s problems are kept away.’
And what were the mind’s problems, exactly? Mother thought. She was in the middle of her sixties, and she was in relatively fine shape. Her wrists were starting to pain, and it was difficult to breathe once in a while because of the heat in her chest, but she was well-fed, living comfortably, and had all of the amenities of a modern home. The one thing that had changed last year was that Father had to go to the hospital much more frequently than before. How difficult the last year had been, with her spending almost all of it in her house, alone. And while the pandemic was subsiding, and Father was able to spend more time with her, it still wasn’t enough.
Mother put the puris on the table, and despite there being nothing to eat them with, she said, ‘Please, have some.’
The archaka served himself but did not begin eating as he was awaiting the palya. Mother turned off the heat and brought out the palya right away. ‘Please, eat.’
As he dipped his puri into the potatoes and peas, he asked randomly, ‘Where does your mother-in-law live?’
Fearing that the puris made thus far were too soggy, she started frying a new batch. ‘Near Madikeri,’ she responded.
‘Is your family Kodava?’
‘No, we are Kannadigas.’
‘Then why is she not living close to home with her son?’
‘She has two other sons, and they remain in Kodagu.’ Mother smiled politely.
The archaka was looking at her, unconvinced. He flipped another puri from the tray onto his plate. ‘And where does your sister live?’
‘Near Gokulam.’
‘Near all of the foreigners,’ the archaka chortled. Mother smiled politely towards the pan as the frying puris puffed and sputtered. ‘Is her son also of marrying age?’
This topic, and so soon? Mother responded, ‘He is eleven only.’
The archaka was tapping his finger on something. Mother thought that she could distract the priest by throwing more palya onto his plate so that he would be too busy eating to keep stomaching the lives of others. However, the nervous energy with which Mother was serving him must have had the opposite effect. He asked her, almost as if he had been tipped off to what she was thinking, ‘How long has it been now since you have seen your son?’
Mother suppressed a sigh and said, ‘Eleven years.’ The archaka asked it almost every time he spoke to Mother or Father, and every time, he clicked his tongue as though it were news to him. Mother explained once more, ‘He lives abroad, there is nothing that can be done.’
‘He is past thirty,’ replied the archaka. ‘You must tell him to get married.’
Mother pretended to be too busy putting the hot puris onto the tray to notice the statement. ‘Bisi, bisi,’ she said and watched as the archaka gave her some space. She knew how old Son was. She knew he should have married. But he never would. He was so stubborn, putting his desires and pleasures before his family. She did not want to think about it. Her heart would start to hurt the way her joints did.
The archaka took advantage of the silence. ‘Please give me your son’s contact information. I know exactly whom he must meet.’
It was not the first time that the archaka had tried to pawn his niece. In fact, it was going to be the seventh or eighth time that Mother was going to have to politely refuse. Mother assumed the archaka gave pujas for so many people that he had trouble remembering whose son belonged to whom. If only he knew how ineligible of a bachelor Son was. If only he knew that Son changed jobs almost once a year, or that he was horrible at keeping in touch, or that he had inherited every ounce of stubbornness possible from Mother, or that he was as adamant about not marrying as he was about not touching women.
‘Her name is Rithika,’ the archaka went on. ‘She is twenty-five. She also wants to go abroad. She does not eat meat. She listens to her parents.’
Mother couldn’t dwell on it too much. She simply said, ‘I will mention it the next time he and I talk. Now, please excuse me. Someone else is calling.’
Mother was not lying. There was a call on the other line, and she instantly recognised the number. Father was so busy at the hospital these days that it was rare for him to call out of the blue like this. It had to be an emergency. ‘What’s wrong?’
Father did not waste any time. ‘Our son, no responsibility . . . in trouble . . . so hard to understand him at all.’
‘Enu?’ Mother asked, with all of the fears that a mother could feel swelling in her heart. ‘Tell me what happened.’ But before Father could respond, Mother started going off. ‘Did he steal from someone?’
The archaka was now saying his own iteration of ‘Enaytu?’ It was too impolite to hush him, but as Mother heard Father say ‘no’ on the line as she asked the priest to keep eating on, she could not help but utter her next manic thought: ‘Did he kill someone?’
‘No,’ Father said. ‘Let me speak.’
They did not chain him to a wall, they did not force him to drink cow urine, but he acted like they had done much worse. On the very last night when he and Father fought, Son responded by throwing bottles and vases at the walls, almost destroying the murthis.
But Mother sighed with abandon. Considering that Son changed jobs so often, she sometimes imagined him working for an organised crime group just to pay the bills. Mother asked, ‘Then, what has he done?’
‘He is coming home,’ said Father abruptly.
It was as if he had spoken in another language.
‘What?’
‘In English he said, “My life is a mess.” What those words mean, I do not know. In Kannada, life is jeevana, but mess, what is mess?’
‘Aiyo,’ said Mother. ‘I don’t care about what means what in English. What did Son say?’
‘He said he has no job. That because of the pandemic, for a full year, he has had no job. He said he was working; it was a lie. He lived off savings. Now there is no more money. He is poor. He lives in a rich country, and he is poor. So, he wants to come home. He wants to use our money.’
The archaka was interrupting again, asking, ‘Are you alright?’ Mother didn’t have it in her to put on a smile. She simply took herself to another room.
‘Call him back. Pay for his ticket.’
She must have shouted, for the chair the archaka was sitting in screeched like it was moving. Father said, ‘I already said I will pay.’
Mother asked, ‘So he is coming?’
‘Haudu.’
Mother did not know whether her difficulty holding on to the phone was due to the sweat on her skin or the emotion coursing through her body. Father was still talking. He was saying something, certainly. She was too lost in thought to pay attention. Her body was in 2021, but her mind had returned her to December of 2010. This was the last time Son had come home, a month after Deepavali, when the school holidays began in the West. He was to graduate the semester after and had already secured his first job, working as an intern at a theatre. Father had complained there was no money in the arts, and at that stage they were still supporting him. This had caused enough fighting as it was, but then Son had to wait until their last week together to tell them his secret. What a tumultuous night. And what had Son expected? After Son confessed to homosexual thoughts, they had every right to consult the psychologists, the astrologers, and the gurus—anyone who could help their son to live righteously. They did not chain him to a wall, they did not force him to drink cow urine, but he acted like they had done much worse. On the very last night when he and Father fought, Son responded by throwing bottles and vases at the walls, almost destroying the murthis. He made such a racket that for weeks after, the neighbours came knocking, asking what had happened. But that night passed, and Son flew off to college, and despite his promise to return, he never did.
Never, that is until now that the pandemic had left him with no option but to come home. Father was still talking, but Mother was in no mood to listen. She simply could not control herself. Her body lost its strength, and she buckled to the floor. She was no longer holding the phone. She was no longer hearing the concerned questions of the archaka. She was inside the darshana, behind her closed eyes. She was seeing all of the stars in the universe from afar. She counted each and every one of them, and then she exhaled, and then she remembered—no, not remembered, felt—that Son, after so many years, was soon to be back in her arms. Something possessed her. It might have been the concern in Father’s voice, or it might have been the change in her body temperature, which her aging body was inclined to undergo. Nevertheless, she stirred back to this realm. She stood up, faced the direction of the Ganesha murthi in her prayer room, and said, with her hands clasped and her focus on the divine, and with as much gratitude as a voice can muster, ‘Jai, Ganesha. Jai.’
***
Kiran Bhat is an Indian-American novelist, short-story writer, and educator. He is the author of We of the Forsaken World, Afora Adentro, Autobiografia, Kiran Speaks, Tirugaatha, and more. An avid world traveler, polyglot, and digital nomad, he has currently travelled to over 130 countries, lived in 18 different places, and speaks 12 languages. He currently lives in Melbourne. You can find him on Twitter: @WeltgeistKiran and Instagram: Originalsin_0421.
