Shobha couldn’t believe what she heard. ‘Have you lost your mind again? Always thinking crazy thoughts?’ She ran her hand along Suri’s head. His eyes welled with tears. ‘Son, as far as life and death go, nobody knows when and where you go forwards or backwards. The doctors only gave you until two or two-and-a-half, but you’re still with us, thanks to the grace of Auliya and Vitthal. And look at your papa’s boss, Gulshan Arora, who said that after he turn one hundred and five, he would ride that morning train, loud and high into the sky. He didn’t even make it to eighty. He folded long before.’
Suri found this hysterical. ‘Mummy, if I live to be one hundred and five, can you imagine how big my head would be? And where would I live? And who would come to lift that head of mine?’
***
Amar didn’t go to school on Sundays. Suri stomped his feet like a little kid: he wanted to take Amar’s tiffin, packed with parathas, go to the park, and sit on a bench under the neem tree and eat them. For his outing, Shobha packed two parathas, potato curry, and two cookies. Suri also brought a water bottle along. The crisis began when Amar noticed his brother making off with his tiffin and his water bottle; weeping and wailing ensued. The brothers began pushing and shoving each other. Suri would have strangled Amar if Shobha hadn’t come swiftly to remove his hands from his throat. That day, Shobha saw a wildness in Suri’s eyes, as in a writhing, wounded animal that suddenly exhibits savagery.
Suri looked right at Shobha and said in a cold, unwavering voice, ‘I want a tiffin box of my own. And you, all you living people, will buy one for me. From now on, I won’t be eating lunch inside this house.’
From then on Suri took his lunch box and tottered down the steps.
***
The truth was, however, that these kinds of incidents were few and far between. Most of the time Suryakant was nothing but loving and affectionate with his younger brother, Amarkant. And after he started going to the Jupiter Network cyber café, he began bringing back toffees, magic pop ups, and chocolate bars for his brother; it turned out that the owner, Rohan Chawla, gave him money. Chandrakant told me that Rohan told him his son Suri had a ‘genius mind.’ He added that if he didn’t have any work to do at home, he could go spend time at the café, and he’d be happy to pay him seven or eight hundred a month. Suri was a quick learner on the computer, and picked up Photoshop, learned how to blog, and do some graphic design work. He started learning 3-D animation on his own, without help from others; Rahul Chawla was awestruck.
Suri helped Amar when he had homework. When he had drawing assignments, Suri would draw them or colour them in with crayons or coloured pencils so vividly that Amar inevitably got ‘very good’ or ‘excellent’ marks. But one time Shobha yelled at him, ‘If you do all of your brother’s work, what’s he gonna learn? Let him do his own work!’ Suri stopped what he was doing and stood up.
‘Mummy, I want you to know that the drawing of the little shack and tree and sunset I’ve just made is the last picture I’ll ever draw.’ He staggered over the balcony and quietly went outside.
Shobha took a deep breath.
***
There are two other important facts about Suryakant. One is that he began sleeping less and less. It may have been that he did what ever he could to put off going to sleep — reading, watching TV — since the headaches and breathing problems were at their worst after he got up. One good thing about the new place was that the TV was in the living room.
The other key fact was that Suri was studying English and learning fast. He began watching English-language channels and reading books and newspapers in English. Sometimes he called me and we had long talks; Rohan Chawla let him use the phone at Jupiter Networks as much as he wanted. Suri surfed the internet and did a lot of instant messaging.
He called me one day. ‘Uncle, I’ve got the idea that before Independence, it made more sense to study Hindi. Now it’s better to be able to speak English.’ He paused to think about what he just said. ‘When the English were here, it was English that made us into slaves. Now that the English are gone, it’s Hindi that’s turned us into slaves.’
This is how he talked. Another time he told me, ‘Uncle, there’s no such thing as the Third World. There are only two worlds, and both of them exist everywhere. In one live those who create injustice, and all the rest, the ones who have to put up with the injustice, live in the other.
Much later I found out that Suryakant had kept a diary. He wrote all sorts of stuff in both Hindi and English. It looks like he wrote down his thoughts in the notebook, or what he was reading. The notebook was pretty thick, and mostly filled up with, it can be surmised, what he read and thought.
He had lovely handwriting, in both English and Hindi. From page twenty-seven of his notebook:
(in English)
Everything is looted, spoiled, despoiled,
Death flickering his black wing,
Anguish, hunger — then why this lightness overlaying everything…
(in Hindi)
I am trying to remember who these lines belong to. Are they
Anna Akhmatova’s?
From page thirty-two:
They’ve erased all my words from everywhere, and now I have died, absolutely died, my huge huge head, with its pain inside that can’t be cured, bullet marks and blood stains all around, and everywhere people are eating, people are laughing, didn’t they get the gruesome news, or are they part of the crime? They’re counting the money on camera and off and I am wondering whether my head is India that’s slowly dying…?
Shobha and Chandrakant didn’t really understand the writings of their sick child, Suryakant. The two of them couldn’t read and write very well, and didn’t know English at all. They only spoke Hindi and Marathi, and lived a very meek existence. Chandrakant once said to me, ‘You’ve definitely left your mark on Suri. He’s always reading your books, and he’s always marking up the pages.’
Shobha told me in tears that just about a week ago he said that there was something he had read in one of uncle’s books he wanted to come over and ask about.
But I’ll never find out what it was in which book of mine he wanted to find out about. He died before he could ask.
It was the death that for the past six years everyone had feared might happen at any moment. Suryakant had fought mightily on his own behalf to stay alive and stave death off.
Every night Suri held back the clock hands of the time bomb in his head, buying himself a day or two more. He was unwavering in his efforts. It was a desire to live shared by tens of millions of others who suffer injustice and live inordinately difficult lives.
But one day Suri decided he was done and gave up.
How? Why? This is what Chandrakant and Shobha told me as we were coming back from Nigambodh Ghat, where Suri’s last rites were performed. A HAWKER, SUN ON THE ROOF TOP, THE PRESSURE COOKER’S WHISTLE THAT WHISTLES AND WHISTLES, AND A CHINESE CAP GUN
The date was 25 December, 2004.
The high temperature in Delhi on that day was sixteen degrees centigrade, and the low was three point four.