Sequestered

Like a minor sovereign of a nested away kingdom, his mother locks up the door to the roof.

He protests mildly but He has deadlines to meet, He’d rather do his work than argue with her. He understands this need in her. Descendants of the zamindaar caste, his parents lived as lowly tenants in this city their whole adult lives. When they bought this house, albeit hurriedly as their names were called out by tiny bones of their ancestors stuck in Ganga’s river bed, it was a matter of pride.

A big victory for the Rajput clan, it didn’t matter if this conquered earth was two floors above ground, as they had access to the roof, a strategic advantage, as some say these days. Door to the roof, which forms a bottleneck, is minutely monitored by Mother, for the men of the house, true to type, are too lazy to even hold fort.

Mother has to be ever more vigilant, as a strategic advantage of having a roof had turned sour; inverter battery was now kept on landing of the roof door, much exposed. Who knows who might come and steal that battery? Battery which requires two well built men, to huff and puff loudly while carrying it, talking loudly about manoeuvres, to shift weight, to hold steady, to keep still. But there might be those who can and do do this quietly, but who knows for one has never seen a thief.

There is news of intruders, in the local daily, or so what Father says. The ageing patriarch is a figurehead. At times Father does somethings just to extend his benevolence, or to assert his king-hood, or to inconvenience everyone. Like keeping the inverter battery on the roof door landing. But the clan takes it, they believe in the natural order of things, and an aging patriarch is still a patriarch; for progeny arises from a mother’s loins, but property flows from Father’s.

There is news of intruders, in the local daily, or so what Father says. He doesn’t believe this, He’s seen no thieves. All He sees at night is the watchman whistling, and dogs.
Each street in this colony has one watchman, who does rounds all day and night. It may not be known who the watchman watches out for, but for sure the watchman watches for disembodied eyes of the settler-owners. Truth be told, it’s the settler-owners, like Mother, who do the watching. Watchman is their mere embodiment, only feet and whistles.
Each street in this colony has one watchman, whose one main task is to run around after stray cows. Another task, of a more secret capacity, is conspiring with street dogs in their turf wars.
The thieves have yet to steal. He waits.
There’s recently been a case of theft in the neighborhood. A monkey stole bananas from a fridge and left its door wide open. Big crime. His mother regaled him so, but He didn’t find it humorous. Monkeys are bad.
There’s recently been a case of water theft. It was noted by one watchful neighbor settler-owner one evening, that the Sintex tank on their roof, had water only up to the second ring, while earlier, sometime in the morning, it was till the seventh ring. They explained that their daily usage was at maximum a mere four rings. It was decided that water was stolen. He didn’t believe this.

~ This is a bad time in general, I think a lot of things are imploding, quietly, without anyone noticing. Psyches, and people. People are gathering what little they have and what little they are. I am trying and failing.
I see the diminishing self, you would think there was a rock bottom, but there is none. You’d think exhaustion and entropy would lead you to zero, but no.
Like the other day, a friend, narrated a story about the regenerating liver of Prometheus, which the crows gnawed at every day.
My liver is fatty, still there is no end. ~

Somewhere in the middle of the meal, He decides, He is forced to, to leave one dish unfinished. There is too much on his plate. He decides after two more bites that daal is better and the sabji must go. He can’t bear to see it go waste. So mother throws the waste away, half into the drain(the curry bits), half in the bin(solid, non-drippy).

He’s given up his job. He’s been laid off, but spiritually he’s given up on his job. He believes many don’t leave spiritually. He felt their ghosts in office while he still worked. Or maybe it was him who was haunted. Loss haunts the one who has.
He had meant to leave earlier, on his own accord. He’s been laid off, definitely not fired. He isn’t incompetent, just excess. He takes pride in this. Furthermore he’s been laid off because he was a more expensive resource among his colleagues.
He had meant to leave earlier, but the job market hasn’t been good. Who would hire him anyway? He isn’t incompetent, just excess. It’s a mantra he repeats. He displaces incompetence elsewhere. The excess he keeps. Who can do without excess? The austere perhaps, unless their souls are ripped and peered into.

He notices a baluster of balcony at the back, shattered, with only its rusted metal structure visible now. He wonders what could have happened. Certainly no monkey or pigeon could do this. Perhaps thieves, using their kids to slip through. A case of faulty construction doesn’t cross his mind, for the better. There is a metal mesh encagement around the back balcony, into which the two backroom doors open, for security. Mother beautifies the cage with hanging planters, mostly small, shrublike, small, non-monumental, small, safe, moneyplant, spiderplant, with some flowers which bloom beautifully. The balcony houses their washing machine, and excess stuff. And excess stuff is kept in such a way that it looks excess, Pouring. One must be reminded of excess. It must be kept pouring, dirty and on the outskirts. Every now and then pigeons come and try to nest away in between the excess. Him, Mother, Brother, Father get after their lives with a broom and expel them. Pigeons are not allowed. They are dirty, they shit a lot and smell bad.

A package has arrived.
He likes shopping, for all the scroll-downs on amazon and all the shelves in the super mart belong to him. The plentiful, the bounty, the excess, inspires an ownership within him. Fatigue of options is a given, but it’s vicarious property. He imagines what a zamidaar would say, surveying their land, “ look,”, telling his wives, “look everywhere, it’s so much land, and so much work. It’s our burden to bear, they till, we toil, it’s our birthright”.
He’s a vicarious zamindar. All he surveys is his, potentially.

A package has arrived.
He likes shopping, and for one, he likes buying books. He reads some of them, but most go to the shelf. Food must go waste in big gatherings, books must remain unread in rich libraries. How gluttonous must one be to read all the books? One bequeaths excess, for posterity.
He sits there, thinking things, letting the package be. He heard once there is a pleasure to opening packages a day late, like holding back one’s orgasm to get double the pleasure later on.
He opens the package immediately. It’s a new book, old edition. Expensive, heavy. He’s already read half of it on his kindle, more like 1/5th. He can now allow himself to read it more leisurely. He’s a closeted hedonist.

~Let things be off or displaced, things will grow in between and around and form something. I have this image, it’s kind of trite, of being broken and being filled slowly over time by flora and fauna. My whole completed, my hole full.
I don’t know if it’s good to be used to this low din of loneliness. But I am functional. I hope there are some good days too. It feels like something we can’t get out of. I hope we do.~

As he looks for something sweet in the fridge, He looks over at his brother. Brother is a quiet one, the elder heir. Brother sits there all day, with his legs outstretched. Brother is a quiet one, not bothered by things, he closes the roof door when asked, opens it too just the same. Brother has an air of hurt royalty as one imagines the kings of conquered empires might carry. Or kings whose empire’s demise has been foretold by a seer. Brother asks him for a glass of water. He sees the eye of destiny float about in His brother’s room, He doesn’t do anything, and He doesn’t say anything. He hands Brother his water and walks out.

He wonders about his brother, he feels loss in his brother’s stead. There is a thing that lowly tenanted and mildly or otherwise capitally disadvantaged families do. They pick one of the offspring, and hedge their bets. That child then gets the pick of the lot, within means of course, he(mostly he) gets a good school education, gets put in coaching classes for higher studies, gets to dance to elaborate choreography. That child, that progeny of theirs, then has to capitalize on that. When it happens to the elder child, the second child takes the light-less life as his fate, for he has known no alternate reality. His destiny is tied to minor means and nearby ponds. When it happens to the younger sibling, one can wonder what loss breaks loose in the family, the coveted elder child experiences loss of light, perhaps love too, for what is love to a child if not provisions to grow. The younger sibling sees all light, all love, all potential, surveyed lands of a zamindaar boy, he only has to capitalize on it. More often than not he capitulates instead. Can one imagine the pressure to live up to his destiny, of minor greatness?

He feels proud of his ability to accept competence. His natural inclination for greatness has prepared him well. He legs did buckle, but He came back a prodigal son.

After his meal, he hunts for dessert in one of the two fridges. He loves to eat something sweet. The better the meal, the bigger the hunkering for sugar. He loves to forget the good taste in his mouth, let it be overwhelmed by jaggery, or cookie. The faster one forgets the taste of a great meal, the easier it is to relive it. What good is a good thing that lingers? Let it be quickly forgotten. Let it be encrusted with sugary nostalgia.

Or maybe he has a sugar issue. Many a times, He is half way into a cookie when He realizes he forgot to taste it, yes the taste is everywhere in his mouth. Yes He feels the crumbs under his tongue, in cavities, mixed to mush with saliva, but it’s in His mouth like a tablet waiting to be dissolved, a task that your body undertakes while you occupy yourself with other things. He forgets so He takes another cookie.

Four out of the five times in past five days that He’s made chai, He’s forgotten to put in sugar. In past, He’s forgotten to flush after shitting, once He did so while on a trip with friends, an embarrassment that shivers Him still. He’s lost His laptop bag twice in the past, while on His way to work, when He used to work. He forgets to brush every now and then. He forgets his friends. He forgets.

Five out of the nine times in past eight days that He’s made chai and has forgotten to put in sugar, He caught His mistake on His way to the rooms. Three times He forgot entirely; among those times, family relented twice, rebuked once.

Five out of the eight times in past ten days that He’s made chai and has forgotten to put in sugar and after having caught His mistake on His way to the rooms, twice He’s boiled the chai again with added sugar, twice He’s just handed them spoons and sugar to mix the sugar themselves, once He’s distributed cookies for respite.

He sits now, earphones plugged. Close to Him Mother watches some video on her phone, while TV plays an animal documentary. The devices make sounds on their behalf. To the outsider, it would surely feel the house is bustling. They have given up their voices to the devices. How long can one talk anyway? A minute, or two? Three is already two much. And who is there to listen? The downstairs neighbhours? The old guards? Not monkeys, and definitely not thieves.

There sits another door, all metal, at the mid landing between the first floor and theirs. For protection. There was an event, when the downstairs boys(both grown men, one has his own baby), had left the roof door open and a monkey(male) had come in and done nothing. But ‘he’ could have had. ‘he’ was rude though, flailed his sharp pink penis around and left. It’s been decided since then that the downstairs boys(men) can’t be trusted, so the upstairs boys(men) lock up the mid landing metal door at 1 pm. And the metal door stays shut in afternoons, till 5 pm, while the vigilant Mother sleeps.

There sits another door, all metal, it wasn’t there earlier, but when Mother and Father acquired the second floor house, they also acquired the structure-less roof as well and because the way to the roof is through the common staircase(the only staircase), mother and father had to claim it. So they erected this clunky monstrosity of a door that choked the already slim staircase, making the balconies the only route to carry heavy objects in or out.

The second floor house thus remains sequestered between the roof door, the encaged balcony, the metal door, keeping its inhabitants safe.

He can hear Father play some nationalist video on his phone. He doesn’t have deadlines, but He is a bit tired to protest and He understands the need for acquiescence. The moment He sits, He plugs in his earphones, even while nothing plays. He does this as habit. The plugging comforts him.

The second floor house thus remains peaceful and quiet, while bustling noise of TV plays for their neighbours, and devices mimics both the sovereign and subjects.