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First published by westland ltd 2014
Copyright Arnab Ray 2014
All rights reserved
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
ISBN:
Typeset: PrePSol Enterprise Pvt. Ltd.
Printed at
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and inci-
dents are either the product of the authors imagination or are
used fictitiously and any resemblance to any actual person
living or dead, events and locales is entirely coincidental.
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not by
way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, circu-
lated, and no reproduction in any form, in whole or in part
(except for brief quotations in critical articles or reviews) may
be made without written permission of the publishers.
To Anahita
Contents
Acknowledgements vi
the empty highway 1
the game 12
eighty-eight short 26
Sir 48
the maths paper 59
the dump 66
the hero 87
hotel lovers bliss 102
the way back 119
more recollections 127
the dancing bunny 142
Poonam 154
politics 171
her father 196
the nal decision 211
YoLo 219
the realization 229
the road 232
the letter 235
yatrik 249
Acknowledgements
I would like to express gratitude to my grand-
parents and my parents, my wife without whom
I would have neither the time nor the energy
to write, and my daughter who makes every
moment worth it. I would also like to thank
the team at Westland and specially my editor,
Meera Krishnan.
the empty highway
He pulled himself up from the ground and lurched
forward unsteadily into the darkness.
Where am I?
He looked around and up above to nd
himself alone under a dark, moonless sky, stars
sprinkled like diamond dust. A dense clump of
trees stood to his left. To his right, about hundred
yards away, a road lay still, like a black python in
repose. Silent, empty and ominous.
Why the hell am I here, wherever this is?
He had no idea. Absolutely none.
So he asked himself an easier question.
Whats my name?
The answer snapped promptly back.
My name is Anushtup Chatterjee. I am thirty-two
years old and I fold trousers for a living.
He felt better already. Because the last time
he had a blackout, Anushtup had forgotten who
he was.
He had then found himself hundreds of miles
2 Yatrik
away from home, lying on a bed of straw in a
Santhal hut, with no recollection of how he got
there. His vision blurred, hearing off, words
choked and memory shot, he had tossed and
turned for days, knees drawn up, curled into a
fetal ball, burning with fever and damp with
sweat, piss and fear.
Then it had come back to him slowly, in little
sips.
His name, his address, his life. And the way
back.
The only things that refused to return were those
few days, in which he had somehow gone from
Calcutta to that godforsaken village on the edge
of nowhere. And so it had remained, a huge crater
of discomting emptiness, widening the little
cracks and ssures that had, over the years, opened
up in his mind.
You dont mix booze and the stuff man. You do,
you get a bad trip. Baaaaddddd.
Thats what Yannick had said when Anushtup
had nally come home. Yannick was either from
Cameroon or Nigeria, where exactly Anustup
could never quite remember. He had come to
Calcutta to play in one of its football clubs, but
had never really made it big. Then at the end of
his second season, a hard tackle had shattered his
knee, ending his career for good. Instead of taking
the empty highway 3
the ight back home, Yannick cut off his dread-
locks, learned a few words in Bengali and started
dealing in powder and pills. He was a big man,
with a big voice and a bigger laugh, complemented
by a hearty appetite for Nepali women, Chicken
65 and thick gold chains. Anushtup considered
him a friend, to the extent a dealer can be one, in
that he promptly returned calls, delivered goods
on time, and dispensed good advice in short,
clean, rhythmic sentences.
And so Anushtup had listened to Yannick. No
mixing drugs and drinks. That had been a year
ago, and he had never had such an incident since
then. Some minor blackouts here and there,
mostly from drinking local liquor on an empty
stomach. Nothing that those in the third decade
of their lives cannot deal with.
But now this. Once again.
Anushtup stopped. He had been following the
road, facing the same direction that he had gotten
up in. I wont fall off the edge of the earth, he
voiced aloud to himself, there will be something
ahead.
Only there wasnt. But he kept pressing forward.
He looked around once again. Nothing
stirred. No rumbling of a distant motor. No
chirping of crickets. No whistle of the wind rus-
tling through the leaves. Almost like someone
4 Yatrik
had reached forward from the couch and muted
the audio.
He wondered now if he had lost his hearing.
Anushtup screamed. Loudly. He heard himself
crystal clear. But just his voice. Nothing else.
Where am I... he asked himself again. He wasnt
anywhere near Calcutta, and of that he was sure.
No trafc, no large lighted signs hawking televi-
sions and washing machines, no overpowering
smell of urban decay.
As a matter of fact, that was the other thing.
There was no smell. Just like there was no sound.
No, I am denitely not in Calcutta, he thought. If
he was, he gured, he would know what time of
the year it was. Because it was not sweaty hot, like
being in a defective sauna, which was the city in
May. Nor was it muggy and ominous, which was
Calcutta during the monsoons. Nor was there the
nip in the air of a winter night, that makes the old
boys reach for their thermos asks full of coffee
and their brown monkey caps.
As a matter of fact, the temperature and humidity
was perfect, like being in a pricey movie theater
with perfect climate control. When you neither
felt the need to loosen your shirt buttons nor
wished you had brought along a sweater.
So once again
Where am I? When am I? Why am I?
the empty highway 5
Many questions. No answers.
It was then that he remembered that he had a
phone. Call Yannick. Why had he not thought of
it before?
Anushtup reached for his belt where the Nokia
could usually be found clipped. To nd that the
phone was gone. The belt clip was empty. He
touched the chest pocket of his shirt. No, nothing
there either. Instinctively, he patted his hip pocket.
There was no wallet.
He was sure now. He had been robbed.
He tried to remember what had been in the
wallet. A few crinkled fty and hundred rupee
notes, some old receipts, and random phone num-
bers scribbled on frayed scraps of paper. Nothing
there that he could not live without, except that
black-and-white picture yellowed at the sides,
which always stayed snug in the inside ap. A
picture taken of him and his father, all those years
ago on the beach, of Baba tossing him in the air
and his arms outstretched, as if ying.
Anushtup loved pictures. For him, they were a
soft lens into the past, smoothing down the bumps
and the ridges, freezing time down to happy faces
and nice places. Memories, he always told him-
self, were different, they carried the bad as well
as the good, though mostly the bad. But pictures,
no one ever took pictures of themselves ghting
6 Yatrik
or weeping or throwing stuff or lying down in the
dark, looking out through the window. They just
didnt.
But now that picture in his wallet had itself
become a memory. And the realization made the
nerve at the side of his forehead throb with pul-
sating violence.
Hello.
Anushtup turned to his left, drawn towards the
source of the sound.
There was a man standing there, a few feet away.
Anushtup had seen him before. Well, not this
particular individual, but his type.
The everyday man. Hanging off the footboards
of buses, standing at the pharmacy buying Crocin,
sitting at his ofce desk, noisily sipping tea off a
saucer, bargaining for sh at the market, a face in
the crowd around store windows watching cricket
on the display TVs.
The background noise of Calcutta life. There but
not there. Ones mind is trained to tune them out,
so as to concentrate on the more interesting notes.
As a matter of fact, Anushtup would have
missed him totally had he not been the only per-
son blotting the landscape.
Hello there. The man called out again and
took a step towards Anushtup. And then another.
Anushtup replied, Hey.
the empty highway 7
Five feet and a few. Mostly bald, with a few
apologetic tufts of white-and-black. A humble
moustache. Beady eyes with little bags under
them. Cotton checked shirt with fourth button
undone. Brown grandpa trousers. Pigeon chest
aring out to a modest pot-belly, the kind you get
from years of having rice for lunch at two in the
afternoon.
Do you know where we are? asked Anushtup.
The man kept looking at him, with an expres-
sion of mild bemusement.
Anushtup realized that he needed to explain
himself. You see, I have these memorylapses. I
wake up in strange places, and I cant remember
how I got there.
The man said nothing, just pursed his lips.
I would have called someone but my cell
phone was stolen and
Your cell phone wont work here.
Exactly. Whats the here? Thats my question.
It was then that it hit him. This man had taken
his wallet. Because he knew something. He could
see it in his eyes.
The only problem, Anushtup thought, was that
this kindly-looking gentleman didnt quite look
like the blow-to-the-head-and-take-it-all gunda.
Those types didnt wear cotton shirts and ofce
trousers. The most this man could ever do was
8 Yatrik
ask for a bribe if he was sitting behind a table and
you needed a le moved. That, Anushtup gured,
would be the limit of his malfeasance.
So he wondered if he was part of a highway
gang.
But then again, gangs used pretty ladies to ag
down cars. This man would be the most horrible
bait. He would make people speed away.
Have you taken my phone? Anushtup asked,
almost politely. He walked slowly towards the
man, careful not to appear threatening. He was
condent that if the need arose, he could take him
on. After all he was six feet tall, weighed ninety
kilos and was still in decent shape. And this man
was not much.
The strangers voice was very clear, almost as if
coming from a high-end sound system.
No, I havent taken your phone. And before
you ask, I havent taken your wallet either.
Give them back. I know you took them,
Anushtup yelled, for emphasis and for menace,
Now.
The man did not seem the least bit perturbed.
Since I didnt take them, I also cant give them
back to you.
Then how do you know my wallet is missing?
Because thats just the way things are here.
You keep the things you need. Nothing more.
the empty highway 9
Nothing less.
Suddenly remembering, Anushtups eyes fell
to his wrist. The stainless steel HMT watch, heavy
and ancient, which used to be his fathers and his
grandfathers before that, was gone.
What place is this?
The gentleman pointed to a spot right next to
Anushtup. Why dont we sit down? I have always
found it to be better than standing. For the knees.
Anushtup followed his nger. There was a
wooden bench there. Now this was very odd
because he could swear it had not been there a
second ago.
I asked you a simple question. To which I ex-
pect a simple answer. Anushtup raised his voice
again and asked, What place is this?
The gentleman calmly sat down on the bench.
Of course, I will give you the answer. But sit down
rst, please. It might help.
Anushtup remained standing.
Screw the sitting down. Tell me what you have
to say, Anushtup, now standing right in front of
the man, held his shoulder rmly. And I want my
stuff back.
The only thing that was holding Anushtup
back from pinning the man to the ground and go-
ing through his pockets was how non-threaten-
ing, almost to the point of being empathetic, this
10 Yatrik
gentleman looked.
Just hear me out, please, he said.
Anushtup was silent for a while, thinking
furiously. Who, he wondered, but the criminal,
the drunk or the insane would walk down a
deserted highway at this hour of the night. And
since this man neither smelled of drink, nor
particularly looked like what the Calcutta police
would describe as a gunda, there was only one
option left.
He was not totally there. Mentally. Anushtup
stepped back.
The best way to deal with people who have lost
their mind, Anushtup knew, was to humor them.
As a child, he had seen his grandfather at close
quarters, and towards the end, he would have to
address him as Coloneland do a salute with a click
of the heels before he would take his medication.
Anushtup sat down next to the stranger,
keeping a certain distance.
Yes. You were saying
Silence again. Now that they had both spoken,
the absolute absence of all sound seemed to weigh
on Anushtup even more, in the same way that
darkness feels darker when you come in from the
light.
The stranger seemed to be struggling with
something. He moved his lips in an attempt to
the empty highway 11
speak. Then he shook his head and was quiet
again.
Anushtup felt sure now. There was something
not entirely right with this man.
The stranger made uneasy eye contact. His
Adams apple throbbed from the effort of articu-
lating the exact words. He took a deep breath and
then said it.
Anushtup Chatterjee, I am really sorry to have
to tell you this. But you have died.