On my way from Tiruvallur to Shantingar bus station, my seat was upgraded to a sleeper. I had never laid down on a bus before, and I enjoyed it thoroughly. For once, I was not preoccupied with how to contort my body into sleeping on a seat. The curtain beside me would not close properly. Through the gap, I could hear an old man and a girl talking. Or fighting. The bus engine swallowed half their words; what remained reached me bent out of shape.
The old man kept coughing like someone beating dust out of a carpet. “You always add extra things,” she said. The old man replied, “Without extra things, how will a story survive?” Then came the sound of peanuts cracking. Someone behind us was eating banana chips with unnecessary violence. The girl spoke again, though this time her voice changed, as if she were reading from somewhere else:
“When my grandfather came from Nagapattinam after the cyclone —”
The old man interrupted. “Not cyclone. Big wind.”
“In English it becomes a cyclone.”
“In English everything becomes bigger.”
I could hear a pen pressing hard against paper. I imagined her scratching corrections into the notebook. After some time, she asked, “Should I write pond or lake?” The old man laughed so hard I thought he might die before the Kurnool crossing.
“If a tourist reads it, lake. If a person from our town reads it, pond.”
The girl sighed. “See? This is a disease in our family. Nobody says one straight thing.”
The conductor arrived asking for tickets like a schoolteacher collecting homework. The old man could not find his ticket, and for five minutes everyone searched as if a national treasure had gone missing. Finally, it emerged from inside the towel around his neck. The conductor looked personally offended by the discovery. The girl returned to her notebook. “You told me your mother sold jasmine flowers outside the cinema.”
“She did.”
“But last month you said she stitched blouses.”
“She had two hands.”
Silence fell again. After a while, the girl asked, “What language should I say grandmother scolded in?” This time, the old man did not answer immediately. Outside, a tea stall passed under a green tube light. Someone was frying vadas in oil black as bus tyres. A sleeping passenger suddenly shouted, “Don’t sign that paper!” and immediately fell silent again. At a speed breaker, the bus jumped like a goat. A child began crying. One man shouted, “Driver, are you transporting humans or walnuts?” but nobody supported him.
The old man finally replied, “Write that she scolded normally. Why should anger require a language?” The girl said, “Because my professor keeps writing ‘regional texture missing’ on everything.” The old man clicked his tongue. “Your professor has never had to explain himself to relatives.” After that, he lowered his voice, and I only caught fragments.
“…they translated the speech for the minister…”
“…half the village clapped at the wrong places…”
“…your uncle stood up during condolences…”
The girl laughed loudly at this. Then she asked, “How will I write these things properly?” The old man said, “Properly is impossible. First people speak. Then memory edits. Then language interferes. After that, writing comes pretending to be the truth.” By then, I had become shamelessly invested in their family.
The girl said something about a photograph. The old man replied, “That photograph is a fraud. In those days nobody smiled naturally. The photographer used to threaten us.”
“Then why are you smiling in it?”
“Because I was deaf in one ear and heard the instructions late.”
A little later, the girl asked, “When you die, what should we do with your radio?” Without hesitation, the old man said, “Throw it in the river. Half the songs are already drowned inside it.” Then, after a pause, he added very quietly, “And keep my walking stick near the door. Empty houses also need security.” After that, neither of them spoke again.
Near dawn, at Shantingar, I saw them getting down from the bus. The girl was carrying the old man’s slipper in one hand because he had forgotten to wear it. Or perhaps he had forgotten his foot itself. I cannot say for certain. I only overheard the matter.
