26 April 1999
Today was simultaneously the happiest and the saddest day of my entire life.
During the lunch break, it took me everything to coax out the words from a crying, shattered Brahmi.
‘She is d . . . dying. She’s . . . just lying . . . lying there . . . Shahrazad. She is dying . . . she i . . . is . . .’
Seeing her cry, face smeared with tears and lips trembling in fear, a strange overwhelming sense of heroism gripped me. Which was weird because the last time death was around me, I had run like a coward and held my silence for four days. Back then I was hoping that shutting my eyes and lips hard enough would make what had happened not real.
I held Brahmi’s hand and ran to the classroom. My sense of heroism and bravery fizzled out in a loud gasp when I saw Shahrazad, our friend and lunch-sharer from the last few days. Her big brown eyes were trained at us as if asking why we were so late. Her two pups nuzzled their noses into her belly, trying to go back to their safe place. There was more blood than I could stomach. Brahmi and I tiptoed towards her. Neither asked whether we could run to the principal, take her to the vet, save her life. We knew her death was certain. It hung around in the basement, waiting to whisk her away. I recognize the presence of death because I have felt it around Brahmi and had not known what it was until today. For the past few weeks I wasn’t sure why I was waking up anxious every morning. Now I know. Because somewhere in my subconscious a flash forward played in a loop. Just another morning. Tuesday maybe. I am my usual moping self, standing at the end of the line in the morning assembly, searching for Brahmi in the girl’s line. The principal tells us the reason of the emergency assembly. ‘Our beloved student, Brahmi Sharma, passed away last night. Let’s all pray for her and observe a minute of silence.’ Two more brush strokes of red on the art on her wrists.
We rested Shahrazad’s head on our sweaters. While I ran my hand over her head, Brahmi sang a lullaby in her ears. Shahrazad matched the lullaby with her soft moans. Half an hour later, she fell asleep with her eyes open, still looking at us.
Two pups, eyes closed, tiny as my fist, now writhed aggressively in their mother’s blood, mewing at their dead mother, nudging her, willing her to wake up. Shahrazad, one who had shared our lunches and our sweaters, was now just flesh and bones, much like Sami.
‘We need to bury her,’ I said. ‘I will pick her up. We can go to the football ground.’
‘I will do it.’
‘Brahmi, you pick—’
‘I said I will do it!’ snapped Brahmi.
The tears had given way to a sense of purpose.
I picked the puppies up, cleaned them with scraps of newspaper, put them in a little cardboard box and punched holes in it. Brahmi wrapped our queen in the old soaked sweaters and lifted her up. She looked sad now that she had stopped crying. Carrying Shahrazad and the whimpering puppies, we walked to the far end of the football field. While I dug a shallow ditch, Brahmi used dead leaves to clean Shahrazad. Then she took the puppies out of the box who rushed to lick their mother’s face. We buried her and said prayers on her grave.
In her death we gave her a religion.
We were called to Amarjeet ma’am’s room when news got around that we had missed our class.
‘Where were you two—’
‘Ma’am.’
‘God! What happened to you, Brahmi? All this blood! Are you hurt? What happened— ’
‘It’s not mine,’ said Brahmi and told Ma’am about Shahrazad and her pups.
‘The school can’t take responsibility for the puppies. You should have come to us when you found her. This was highly careless of you two. What if the dog bit you?’
‘It was our friend. It wouldn’t have,’ said Brahmi.
‘You would have turned it out to the streets. We had no choice,’ I said.
‘How long were you two feeding her?’
‘A couple of weeks I think,’ I said.
‘I won’t report it to the principal. I will write in the attendance register that both of you were in the sick bay because of food poisoning. If someone asks, you will have to tell them the same, okay?’
‘Okay, ma’am.’
‘I will try calling a few adoption agencies. Till that time you will have to take care of the puppies. Is that clear?’
‘Yes, ma’am,’ we echoed.
After school, Brahmi and I emptied our school bags and put in one puppy each inside. We took a Blueline bus home, the rickety fleet of buses driven by overworked drivers with expired licences who routinely have to wash the blood of passengers off the tyres.
Brahmi was quiet so I spoke.
‘Shahrazad must be in a happy place right now,’ I said.
‘Hmm.’
‘It was the best way for her to go. By the time her puppies grow up, they wouldn’t remember their mother. And as for Shahrazad the last thing she saw in the world was something beautiful. Her puppies.’
‘She also saw us. Her friends. You made that possible,’ she said and looked at me.
‘Hmm.’
‘You did well today, Raghu. We both did. I think we were . . .’
‘Brave?’
She smiled like she meant it. In that split second I was tempted to tell her everything. I wanted to break down in her arms and tell her what really happened in that pool with Sami and me. But we hit a road bump and the moment passed. It was for the best.
Also, I didn’t think Shahrazad was in a happy place or that the last thing she saw was beautiful. What she saw was that she was abandoning her newborn puppies, entrusting them in the hands of two little humans, and that’s not a happy thought to die with.
My heroism at school and delay in reaching home was met with a tight slap by Maa. She was home from work already and had panicked when she didn’t find me at home.
‘Where were you? I went to the bus stop. Everyone had got down but not you! The conductor said you hadn’t taken the bus! Where had you gone? I was going mad here! I called your school and they said you had left!’
‘I took a Blueline bus.’
‘What! Why? You have started smoking? Is that why you’re late?’
‘No, Maa. I was—’
‘Ishh! You have you started smoking. Show me your lips!’
‘No, Maa. I was—’
She snatched my bag to look for a cigarette box or matches. As if on cue, the pup started to mew. Stunned, she dropped the bag and the little puppy crawled out. She sat down and picked up the little one, and ran her fingers on its tiny head. Her eyes flooded with instinctive maternal love. She looked at me for an explanation. When I told her, she patted my head.
‘Khul bhalo korechhis. Ki darun! You did a good thing! He’s so sweet! Look at it sucking on my finger. I should get some milk for it. Look up the Yellow Pages. We need to go to a vet to get it checked. Quickly!’ she said and disappeared into the kitchen, cradling the puppy with one hand.
Maa named the puppy Mina.
When Dada came home, we all went to the veterinarian. We bought a little bed, a blanket and a collar for her. When we got home with our new family member being passed from one set of hands to another, a special delivery awaited us—a 25-inch state-of-the-art Videocon television. It was probably another attempt from Dada to make up for his betrayal.
‘We will watch the World Cup here,’ Dada announced as it flickered to life. Baba was impressed.
‘You don’t like it, Raghu?’ asked Maa.
‘We didn’t need a new TV,’ I said obstinately.
‘What’s going on between the two of you?’ asked Baba.
‘Nothing,’ said Dada.
A little later, Bhattacharya Uncle and Aunty dropped in and saw the new TV. The picture quality was crisp and unlike the last TV, the screen was flat. It looked like NASA had built it. Arundhati came too but not once did she look at the television. She brought books for me to read instead and didn’t let anyone take Mina from her hands. She pestered her parents to get her one too but they shot her down.
‘This is just like A Game of Thrones,’ she said to me. ‘She’s so ADORABLE! I LOVE HER!’
‘What’s A Game of Thrones?’
‘A book in what’s supposed to be a series. No one I know knows about the book and I don’t think the writer will come around to finishing it. But anyway the story starts with a group of princes finding the exact same number of dire wolf puppies as there were siblings.’
‘Brahmi and I are not siblings,’ I said.
She laughed. ‘Of course, you’re not. But nice name—Brahmi. All this while she was “that girl”. Is she cute?’
‘Maybe.’
What’s with Arundhati and people being cute?