Natives of Oblivion
Photo: Karan Madhok
Short story: ‘The first time Aashi came home, he could feel her existence lurking precariously in a space that separated the two continents.’
It surprised him to see the group of students congregate at the entrance gate of the University. The typical degage of a Sunday metamorphosed in the resolute strength upon their faces. He paced up his steps, the packet of soanpapdi in his hand pressing taut upon his fingers. The swirling black flags churned a sense of foreboding in his stomach.
He wished he had the will to not avoid looking eye to eye at them. He remembered the incomplete draft of the Statement of Purpose. Meant for the application office of some countryside university—of the land of unfettered opportunity. He could smell the distant auburn autumn, the fall leaves greeting him.
It had been less than two hours that Aashi had arrived home. Her neatly plaited coffee colour shirt hardly spoke of the twenty-hour long flight. He almost bumped into the navy-blue suitcase lying around sloppily on the floor. His Chacha—Aashi’s father, the Doctor—greeted him in, smiling ear to ear, weighed down a little by a heavy carry-bag in each hand.
“What's in there Abpa?” Aashi asked him.
“Guess!”
“Umm… the sweet curd or the kneaded white cheese ball ones?”
“Both!”
Aashi put her chicken and onion fritters down, hugging the stout man like she would a five-year-old.
She faced him now, siding away the newspaper from her face. “Did they find you suitable for the scholarship you mentioned last year?”
“Why yes! Of course!”
“Great!”
She picked up a newspaper, and followed it by making vehement squeaks of disgust at the front-page reports.
“Defining merit has always been the need and rarely a privilege,” she said. The student movements: the recurrent clashes ensuing between the students and the administration. The deliberation over the tab underway, it sought to detail the process of naturalisation in the country. All she had was disgust, her highlighted brunette curls nodding in exasperation. “Worthless.”
She popped in two more from the platter full of chicken fritters. Aashi’s mother—his Chachi—called him in, handing over a wrapping box full of chicken fritters. Grease lined in clarified butter.
All Mammas are the same.
He took the packet, Chachi’s face glowing in contentment. He never returned from this home empty handed. Aashi had brought with her several specimens of bath salts. This time around, there were plans to renovate her washroom. Her mother was forever disillusioned with her spendthrift ways. Chachi would often plead to him to convince Aashi to be more financially responsible. As long as he could remember, Chachi herself wore nothing but suits of a regular cut. Always hemmed in by the one tailor whose family she trusted.
He returned to his own home, handing his mother the bagful of poultry fritters. Taking care to not miss a single one, his mother arranged them in the least-touched corner inside the refrigerator. Poultry was forbidden in their kitchen—except for whatever he brought home from Aashi's.
He remained silent across the table, knowing little how to conduct himself in an array of absolute strangers. Surrounded by a group of women displaying modish clothes, swagger, and their mutual passion to discuss the youth.
“The agenda is always the culprit.”
“Opposition for the sake of blunt heroism is what this boiling blood is all about.”
He returned to his own home, handing his mother the bagful of poultry fritters. Taking care to not miss a single one, his mother arranged them in the least-touched corner inside the refrigerator. Poultry was forbidden in their kitchen—except for whatever he brought home from Aashi's.
The girl, probably in her early twenties, had already opted for the fourth refill of her glass. A strong whiskey smell choked the surroundings. All this while Aashi, otherwise unperturbed, appeared ridiculously animated. He remembered how she’d roll her eyes every time he mentioned those disruptions.
“The students might be funded.”
“All they do is waste away their hard-earned opportunity”
“Of course! They hardly know life, forget the right from wrong.”
The kebabs and fish rolls jumped off the plates. He remembered the students from the last day—their black flags, an unarmed implacability throbbing across them. It was Aashi’s idea to tag him along for her yearly meet-up with old friends.
The waiter arrived, balancing a tray full of martini and margarita glasses. He was served a cocktail, white froth floating above the pale red drink. It reminded him of the front-page picture of the local daily: an image of a heavily-injured student protestor, a senior of his at college, her legs bruised, and white froth of mucus around her blood-stained lips. The woman in charge at the incident looked sideways in that picture, indifferent to the wooden stick tucked in her hands.
The conversation across the table had veered over to the range of avant-garde films. They spoke about an upcoming cultural fest. He was midway through that froth when he saw the appetisers disappear. Hands flashing golden chained bracelets scrambled upon the table to make way for the entrees.
The first time Aashi came home, he could feel her existence lurking precariously in a space that separated the two continents. In the mornings, she would run around serving random errands, or chatting away with her neighbourhood friends, all decked in salwar-kameez. Long sips of spicy ginger tea in earthen cups followed in between.
“Decency, girl! Tie your hair neatly...Aashi's Pappa: how can you let her not be one of us?"
She let the hair be, ebony, straight, and untied. He had caught the Pappa, silent, both in his denial and perhaps a little, in his acceptance. Towards evening, all the smug air of indifference melted around her silhouette upon the prayer mat. Her forehead wrapped around in a long scarf revealed little except for her small mouth and shut eyes. It did not matter, whether she read the religious text or Barasch's book on an art form. The zeal for knowledge glowed all the same across her face. That face lingered long after he cycled his way out of her neighbourhood lanes.
“Have it,” she handed over a packaged chocolate cheesecake. “Remember? How most at the school avoided sharing their tiffin with me?” Her eyes quizzed amusement. Earlier, that face gave away little damn as the school prefect he had admired from day one. He tried to not remember how she would walk to a silent, isolated corner outside the classrooms right after the recess bell rang.
That would be over a decade back. They walked across to their favourite bench. The afternoon sun always hit diagonally, creating leaf patterns upon the faded green.
“Ready with your references and transcripts?”
“No, I don't get the transcripts before the final semester grades arrive.”
“Ahh yes!”
He looked at those bright hazelnut eyes, possessed with a sense of tranquility. Her hands folded close to her chest, counting the few remaining leisurely afternoons in her own home. She would probably never know about all those nights when he fell asleep, tired of all that he saw in his land. His Aashi Didi with her tiffin box, perched in a corner away from others. Fidgeting away with a spoon upon stale chickpea and minced meat, probably gone bitter by the jibes around. The other students hushing unspeakable nothings behind her, her fork piercing fibres of poultry. A picture of Aashi's father always sat in random corners of his house.
What if the picture had not been there?
What if Aashi's father was not the surgeon to save his father's life?
His baby face took furtive glances at his mother. Sceptical, if the mother too would someday forbid him from sharing food coming from Didi’s home. Each night he went to sleep, staring at Chacha’s picture upon the dresser. Remembering the smile that once announced his mother, “Your husband is out of danger now.”
A repressed, sinister hum swept before the building of the examination hall. The protestors made way for final year students, shifting sideways, making room for a sliver of a passageway for them to enter unobstructed. It was about the time the leaders would announce their decision on the tab. The serpentine route of bureaucratic deliberation over, it was now time for tangible imposition. He overheard their hushed murmur, “Then post-lunch it is...the examinations need to be over.” He clambered up to the designated room, the walls of the building replete with slogans and graffiti. Inside the examination room, facing the abstract questions upon the script, his mind dispersed those faces.
With a sudden rush of adrenaline, he scribbled down answers he knew better than most. His thoughts occasionally wandered, hearing Aashi in his head, of her takes take on Cubism, and the way it influenced the later stages of constructivism. Upon his script, he could sense a flash of a timer ticking away. Declaration of the tab was awaited anytime in an hour. His hands and brain orchestrating overtime, he rushed through the answers.
The sky above the University was glorified in a cloud of black, thick smoke, refusing to darken above the torch flames held up high by the protestors. The rhythmed uproar of claps accentuated the pale orange evening around.
Russian Revolution...
...Aleksei Gan manifesto...
...painting reliefs...
The tab passing through, awaiting first-hand execution.
Resident natives without a hundred-year-old descendancy in the state would be treated as non-natives in the future.
His ears flattened upon the thick mass of air that smelt of grilled flesh. It heard chants that cursed the tab, the makers of the same. Shortly, he knew there would be uniform to silence it all down. He walked along, past the buildings, the known landmarks, the canteens that always fed the struggling faces. The glory of writing a paper now felt submersed, leaving a bland taste in his mouth. Gothic pillars holding together expansive halls floated around him. Discussions on neoliberal art forms felt too far in the lumps that tugged at his soul. For a moment he shivered; the prospect of meeting Aashi's unfazed face seemed to choke him.
What words could he choose for her, someone whose already incoherent roots would further drift away from gathering themselves?
Their old history chapters described, at length, of tentages built faster than anything. Unauthorised societal sections, always the easiest first step. He glanced over old, hazy series of pictures, over paragraphs and highlighted text.
Sachsenburg
Auschwitz
Ravensbruck
The coloured pictures splashing the newspaper seemed to be replicated straight from the past. An unkempt rush had forgotten to turn the pictures back into their grayscale history. There was a newspaper heaped across the breadth of his desk. It rendered a sombre air, occasionally distracted by the beeps of incoming emails.
There were too many addresses to be traced back. His desk felt chaotic, replete with markers, rough sheets he’d tear up afterward, and other trinkets. Reproduced prints of news reports rested flaccid upon the scores of entrance examination books. The to-do lists scheming out the steps involved in applications buried themselves in the rest. Behind all that, in a clean spot, sat a resin figure of a lone man playing violin on a cycle. The violin man—Aashi had gifted him on her last visit—now seemed to synchronise with the chaos in perfect lyrical mode.
The banners and graffiti's over the new tab lined the boundary walls of the neighbourhood park. Pacing down the park, she’d forbid her gaze to wander that way. Her hair was tied up, in an unaccustomed, unsure heap. It stood in sharp contrast to last year, the second time she was home. Then she was all about unbridled strands of hair, forever refusing to stay put up in some bun.
“Are they really opting for those Hooverville’s?! Several reports say so!”
The last time, her family had strict instructions from her to never discuss the news. “It's way better,” she said. “Keeping away these harbingers and tools of manipulations.”
Every time with her requests, he felt Aashi Didi could appreciate herself with a little more leniency. He had the skills to convince her with his usual trust me smile. Yet then, sitting at the park, his face towards Aashi, he felt any assurance to be dangerously unarmed.
A loud, seemingly misplaced clamour awakened him that morning.
“Ayy, dare not you...” Groggy-eyed, ears reeling in a buzz of the final half of the dream, he could hear tattered verses that supposedly belonged to his father.
“You go to him for your life!”
The coloured pictures splashing the newspaper seemed to be replicated straight from the past. An unkempt rush had forgotten to turn the pictures back into their grayscale history.
Tiptoeing across the middle of stairs, he saw the foyer of their living room full of burly, sweaty figures.
“Do not speak a word”
“The girl of sinners.”
They reeked of alcoholic chaos.
“Ayy! Am warning you...” He eyed his mother; her voluptuous presence guarded the space where the foyer made way for the living room. Standing close to his father, her eyes struggled to tame the wild fear within.
“You are nobody to stop the blood...”
He recognised one of the men: the lean, fair one, with the faint, moustached smile. The one who organised their annual community sports event, which was always followed by an ostentatious splurge in celebration of religious rituals. The man standing next to his father smiled, a smile that never revealed the man’s outer dentition.
“Relax! Why so excited old man?”
The smile sneaked on as the men muttered under their breath. The air around them was claustrophobic and smelling of piss.
“We give you a month: you decide what to do else you know our decision on this.”
It was the one with a cut on his temple, appearing the calmer amidst the group. He stomped out in heavy-soled shoes. The ruffian manner hinted upon the consequence to come. They left behind an unschooled stink that boldly lingered on. Beetle nut seeds—he guessed—from the tawdry sweetness in the air.
The claps would reverberate, the ones he'd hear at the University.
It was infantile, pretending ignorance, no matter the highs of bliss it brought. His father grabbed the chair nearest to him, slouching the weight of his age over it. His mother stood by, the strong tendon of her arms throbbing in disbelief. He knew the race peeking in her mind, working meticulous and overtime. After all, she knew—like everyone—how her son was the only one to frequent the Doctor family.
He counted the Sundays on the calendar, almost 27th, the end of Aashi’s stay at what she’d cherish as home. The University would be her treasured spot to visit last, each time her holidays neared its closure.
“Keeps me motivated,” she’d say, “restraining the swirls of emotions hanging low.”
He visited the University without purpose every day. Lounging upon the staircase that pointed straight at the gate. Her phone remained unreachable ever since they had last met at the park. Three days more, he thought, her return flight scheduled on the fourth day. He had little doubt that all this waiting would be pointless. Those unwarranted awkward stares from others around could no longer embarrass him. Every day the walls outside the classrooms got a layer of fresh paint, aerosol graffiti showcasing black and red resistance symbols. It was strangely comforting to eye the professors walking around. Some with their smile around the symbols and a few cowering in uncomfortable glances.
The boy clambered upon the makeshift stage, his beard feeling older than him. The others gathered around, black strips of cloth banded across foreheads, blood around the end of their lips.
“People are people! Natives are natives.”
He felt it would have assuaged him if she'd be around. While returning every day, he saw the Doctor’s assistant traipsing around the porch. He counted the number of shoes ever since the tab went through. It had gone down from a swarm of slippers to a meagre count of three or four. All in fewer than two weeks.
His mother did not wake him early nowadays. He stayed up late at night. It was austere, this involvement in the various stages of the application procedure. He ventured out little, counting the days, until the truck carrying the belongings of Doctor Family left the neighbourhood.
The men never visited their house again, probably content at the manner they chose to have peace. The leader still refused to bare any teeth behind his moustached smile. There were men hired, and attempts were made to vandalise the Doctor’s old house. Last heard, they bid the house over to some private real estate giant. It wasn’t difficult, the systematic procedure spelled out clearly: Anything less than a hundred years did not stand close enough to build natives of this land.
The picture of the pristine lake skirting the barren trees now looked upon his face. He stared, at the space between that picture, and a photograph of his old school. The school that had been close to his home. The calendar on the left probably counted the space between the two lands. Waiting each night, with the violin man beside him, for an electronic beep, signed Aashi A.
***
Adrija Chatterjee has done her Research in Foreign Policy and Peace Studies. Her fiction and poetry pieces have been published in Parabaas, Active Muse, Cafe Dissensus, and The Alipore Post. One of her poems was shortlisted for the Looking Glass Anthology Vol. 2. She writes both in English and her native language Bengali. You can read more of her work here and find her on Instagram: @ad29ct.
