The Murderer
Utkarsh Adhrit
It was at the tapering end of June, when the sun blasted earth shimmers like the surface of the river, that the speeding SUV grazed the side of a truck and then tumbled and crashed into the white concrete walls. We were driving back from school because Papa had decided that today was a special enough day for him to come and save me from the heat of the bus. Two boys had fainted in as many weeks and nobody was going to do anything about it.
I was eight then and would get giddy whenever Papa came with the car to pick me up. Seeing him in the premises was a bewildering experience. Suddenly the place was not so cloistered anymore, but part of a larger, happier scheme of things. ‘Bade!,’ he would call me, and my friends would titter in cognizance of this coy domestic detail that we weren’t afraid to disclose. The car we had was a Maruti Alto, a little silver hatchback. It was not the highest model but the second highest, one shy of the safety balloon. We liked it. Liked it more, because we thought it said something about the future, about how it was bright and about how tall I would be then. None of my friends owned a car or had a father who could drive. It felt like a distinction.
That day, the class teacher said it was 43 degrees. The predicted rain had not come. During the last two periods, we simply sat, muffled by the heat, too exhausted to learn or be taught. The air was dry and enveloping. We stared at the fans, wondering if they were helping things or making them worse. I was glad then to see Papa waiting by the school gate at dismissal, covering his head with a newspaper. His cotton shirt was unwrinkled and his brogues—which is what he insisted we call them—were brown and oval, gleaming wetly in the sun. I only did not care for his thick, lacquer-black, flaring moustache that made him seem older than I thought him to be. (Of course, as a child, I could not know). I pleaded with him to get rid of it, loathing its datedness, its insistence on an outmoded way of life, pleaded to let me see him young, but he would not relent. Ma too always sided with him on this.
I was eight then and would get giddy whenever Papa came with the car to pick me up. Seeing him in the premises was a bewildering experience. Suddenly the place was not so cloistered anymore, but part of a larger, happier scheme of things. ‘Bade!,’ he would call me, and my friends would titter in cognizance of this coy domestic detail that we weren’t afraid to disclose. The car we had was a Maruti Alto, a little silver hatchback. It was not the highest model but the second highest, one shy of the safety balloon. We liked it. Liked it more, because we thought it said something about the future, about how it was bright and about how tall I would be then. None of my friends owned a car or had a father who could drive. It felt like a distinction.
That day, the class teacher said it was 43 degrees. The predicted rain had not come. During the last two periods, we simply sat, muffled by the heat, too exhausted to learn or be taught. The air was dry and enveloping. We stared at the fans, wondering if they were helping things or making them worse. I was glad then to see Papa waiting by the school gate at dismissal, covering his head with a newspaper. His cotton shirt was unwrinkled and his brogues—which is what he insisted we call them—were brown and oval, gleaming wetly in the sun. I only did not care for his thick, lacquer-black, flaring moustache that made him seem older than I thought him to be. (Of course, as a child, I could not know). I pleaded with him to get rid of it, loathing its datedness, its insistence on an outmoded way of life, pleaded to let me see him young, but he would not relent. Ma too always sided with him on this.
***
We could not have been more than a hundred meters away, on the opposite lane, when the accident took place. The two-lane road was a desolate stretch of perfect asphalt between the old airport and the dying zoo. The new network of highways, designed by a Japanese company, had diverted almost all of the traffic and the only vehicles that passed through here had business with the emergent sprawl on the other side. Papa said that it was stupid to have the zoo next to the airport, and agreed with the government when it decided to cut down five thousand trees when they grew taller and more dangerous for the planes. It was necessary, he insisted. Not two years later, the airport moved elsewhere—to the south—but the trees stood just the same—cut in half, dead like the forests in my books.
I was playing one of the better cassettes in the deck—Shahrukh’s Pardes. The song Yeh Dil Deewana, the film’s most famous and cheery, had the accompanying visual of Shahrukh singing along as he raced across the vast plains of elysian USA. The beat was broad and welcoming, like the plains themselves, as though leading one on to a better vantage, far away from here, wherever that was. I had always thought that the 90s were an optimistic decade with the scruffy hair and loose shirts and Yamaha RX 100s. Liberalization had not yet become neoliberal. Those years belonged to audacity. I did not know how correct I was in thinking so for I was barely a toddler at the turn of the century but within me that sentiment was loud, and to a child, loudness matters.
Like the crash, which yielded a dull yet deafening thud with a shrill shattering of the glasses. The SUV, a black Tata Safari, had tried to overtake a truck but had instead ran against its all metal body and crashed into the walls of the Sanjay Gandhi Biological Park, the zoo named after the most elusive son of the Gandhi family. The Safari had gone right through it and was now inverted.
The truck did not slow down. The driver knew he needed to get away. You cannot both be the perpetrator and the saviour. My Moral Science teacher, Tapti Ma’am, had said these words once.
Papa stopped to the side, but did not get out. There was no one else on the road. I turned the cassette off and looked at him. He was looking across me and out of the window to the wreck. Slack-jawed. I wanted to get close, half-wanted to smell the fumes, half-expected to listen to a wail, a cry for help. Surely, the SUV had not been driving by itself. For some reason, I needed to remind myself of this basic fact.
I expected Papa to take charge.
In a moment, he turned on the ignition and the Alto began to move. First slowly, then at speed. Apparently, he had decided that a moment of considered shock was sufficient in this situation. I am sure that there were many things that I wanted to say—‘why are we leaving?’, ‘was he not going to do anything?’, ‘call the hospital!’, ‘call the cops’—but all that came out was the pathetically curious: ‘Do you think he is dead?’ I did not know if it was a man or a woman or others.
‘They will figure out who was driving the truck. Trucks are not allowed on this road. It is probably from some construction taking place nearby.’
‘But how will they know that it was a truck?’
‘They will.’
‘But Papa why couldn’t we help?’
‘How could we? It is dangerous to go near a crashed car. And even if we do, we are not experts. What do we know about it.’
‘We could have called someone.’
Papa was silent.
‘What if he isn’t dead?,’ I said after a while.
‘I think he probably was on the impact,’ he said, looking straight ahead, the Alto gliding toward the exit of the stretch and onto the overbridge that connected our neighborhood, Hari Nagar, to the city.
‘Did you look who was on the inside?’
He shook his head.
I tried to picture someone behind the wheel, invented a shadow whose features began to dimly take shape before my mind’s eye. I then imagined the shadow disintegrating in the crash, dying in so many ways. But beyond the impact, I could not really see anything. The details were too fuzzy to establish, too remote to invent.
While Papa was still parking the car in the garage, I made my way inside.
‘There was a big accident,’ I said to Ma as she opened the door. ‘A truck hit a Safari.’
‘Where?’
‘Near the zoo. We were very close.’
‘Are you two okay?’ For some reason, this question irritated me. I lashed out.
‘Can’t you see? We are. But that man in the SUV is dead. We could have helped him but we didn’t,’ I said and walked into the shower before Papa could come back.
I was playing one of the better cassettes in the deck—Shahrukh’s Pardes. The song Yeh Dil Deewana, the film’s most famous and cheery, had the accompanying visual of Shahrukh singing along as he raced across the vast plains of elysian USA. The beat was broad and welcoming, like the plains themselves, as though leading one on to a better vantage, far away from here, wherever that was. I had always thought that the 90s were an optimistic decade with the scruffy hair and loose shirts and Yamaha RX 100s. Liberalization had not yet become neoliberal. Those years belonged to audacity. I did not know how correct I was in thinking so for I was barely a toddler at the turn of the century but within me that sentiment was loud, and to a child, loudness matters.
Like the crash, which yielded a dull yet deafening thud with a shrill shattering of the glasses. The SUV, a black Tata Safari, had tried to overtake a truck but had instead ran against its all metal body and crashed into the walls of the Sanjay Gandhi Biological Park, the zoo named after the most elusive son of the Gandhi family. The Safari had gone right through it and was now inverted.
The truck did not slow down. The driver knew he needed to get away. You cannot both be the perpetrator and the saviour. My Moral Science teacher, Tapti Ma’am, had said these words once.
Papa stopped to the side, but did not get out. There was no one else on the road. I turned the cassette off and looked at him. He was looking across me and out of the window to the wreck. Slack-jawed. I wanted to get close, half-wanted to smell the fumes, half-expected to listen to a wail, a cry for help. Surely, the SUV had not been driving by itself. For some reason, I needed to remind myself of this basic fact.
I expected Papa to take charge.
In a moment, he turned on the ignition and the Alto began to move. First slowly, then at speed. Apparently, he had decided that a moment of considered shock was sufficient in this situation. I am sure that there were many things that I wanted to say—‘why are we leaving?’, ‘was he not going to do anything?’, ‘call the hospital!’, ‘call the cops’—but all that came out was the pathetically curious: ‘Do you think he is dead?’ I did not know if it was a man or a woman or others.
‘They will figure out who was driving the truck. Trucks are not allowed on this road. It is probably from some construction taking place nearby.’
‘But how will they know that it was a truck?’
‘They will.’
‘But Papa why couldn’t we help?’
‘How could we? It is dangerous to go near a crashed car. And even if we do, we are not experts. What do we know about it.’
‘We could have called someone.’
Papa was silent.
‘What if he isn’t dead?,’ I said after a while.
‘I think he probably was on the impact,’ he said, looking straight ahead, the Alto gliding toward the exit of the stretch and onto the overbridge that connected our neighborhood, Hari Nagar, to the city.
‘Did you look who was on the inside?’
He shook his head.
I tried to picture someone behind the wheel, invented a shadow whose features began to dimly take shape before my mind’s eye. I then imagined the shadow disintegrating in the crash, dying in so many ways. But beyond the impact, I could not really see anything. The details were too fuzzy to establish, too remote to invent.
While Papa was still parking the car in the garage, I made my way inside.
‘There was a big accident,’ I said to Ma as she opened the door. ‘A truck hit a Safari.’
‘Where?’
‘Near the zoo. We were very close.’
‘Are you two okay?’ For some reason, this question irritated me. I lashed out.
‘Can’t you see? We are. But that man in the SUV is dead. We could have helped him but we didn’t,’ I said and walked into the shower before Papa could come back.
***
Was the man really dead? I knew that the newspaper would carry the report the next day, but I wanted to know right away. We sat before the news at 7.30pm—the local stations like ETV Bihar or Sahara Bihar would probably cover the incident. It was dinner time for me while Ma and Papa had their second round of evening tea. My little brother was asleep.
They had not yet reacted to my outburst. They did not think that my rage—and perhaps by extension its cause—was important. Looking back, I now realize that I had never in fact seen my parents deliberating on ethical matters. Such things them uncomfortable. They actively shirked from them. The domain belonged to the school, to our Moral Science classes. Sure there were examples they could point to—studying was good, alcohol and girls in bikinis were bad—but the nature of good itself was never open to scrutiny. There was a tacit assumption that the good would take care of itself as long as life continued its steady course. You only needed to pay attention to your own task. I see it now for what it is, a kind of middle-class complacency—masked as dharmic humility—cultivated to circumvent the ambiguous. Everything in our world was carefully organized to refute the fuzzy.
‘You worry too much,’ Papa said, sipping his tea and adding away on his imported CASIO.
‘But what if he is dead?’
‘I am sure he isn’t,’ his tone was calm, self-satisfied.
‘Remember last year in Varanasi when Ma slipped at the steps of the Manikarnika Ghat and that foreigner saved her from drowning?’
‘Yes, but that is different. He wouldn’t have jumped if he couldn’t swim. We cannot save someone from a wreck. We don’t know how.’
‘But we could have called someone.’
‘I don’t have the phone number of cops. The emergency line doesn’t work. Do not argue with me Bade. There is nothing we could have done. Go to bed, you have school tomorrow.’
Was I wrong to feel the way I did? My parents had easily accepted what had happened. It was a trifle, not more than an unpaid bill for them. But all their explanations were unconvincing, indifferently obscure.
The evening news did not carry the report of the incident. Much of the bulletin, except for the political section, had news of the previous day. We would not have any information until the next morning. I had to go to bed without closure.
Ma came into my room after a while. ‘You must understand. Papa is right. We must learn to look away.’ She caressed my hair. ‘We cannot help everyone, but we can help each other.’
Left alone, my anger now turned to self-pity. I felt mocked. I somehow inferred that I had been the victim of an insult. I knew very well that there were certain things I did not yet understand but now I had discovered a flaw in the fundamentals of what I already thought I did. What most tore me was my inability to get through to my parents, to make them see or instead see for myself what they did. A new and powerful wall had been interposed between them and me.
I coddled my self-esteem the only way I could have: by polishing my own shoes before going to sleep, depriving Papa of any opportunity to redeem himself in the morning.
They had not yet reacted to my outburst. They did not think that my rage—and perhaps by extension its cause—was important. Looking back, I now realize that I had never in fact seen my parents deliberating on ethical matters. Such things them uncomfortable. They actively shirked from them. The domain belonged to the school, to our Moral Science classes. Sure there were examples they could point to—studying was good, alcohol and girls in bikinis were bad—but the nature of good itself was never open to scrutiny. There was a tacit assumption that the good would take care of itself as long as life continued its steady course. You only needed to pay attention to your own task. I see it now for what it is, a kind of middle-class complacency—masked as dharmic humility—cultivated to circumvent the ambiguous. Everything in our world was carefully organized to refute the fuzzy.
‘You worry too much,’ Papa said, sipping his tea and adding away on his imported CASIO.
‘But what if he is dead?’
‘I am sure he isn’t,’ his tone was calm, self-satisfied.
‘Remember last year in Varanasi when Ma slipped at the steps of the Manikarnika Ghat and that foreigner saved her from drowning?’
‘Yes, but that is different. He wouldn’t have jumped if he couldn’t swim. We cannot save someone from a wreck. We don’t know how.’
‘But we could have called someone.’
‘I don’t have the phone number of cops. The emergency line doesn’t work. Do not argue with me Bade. There is nothing we could have done. Go to bed, you have school tomorrow.’
Was I wrong to feel the way I did? My parents had easily accepted what had happened. It was a trifle, not more than an unpaid bill for them. But all their explanations were unconvincing, indifferently obscure.
The evening news did not carry the report of the incident. Much of the bulletin, except for the political section, had news of the previous day. We would not have any information until the next morning. I had to go to bed without closure.
Ma came into my room after a while. ‘You must understand. Papa is right. We must learn to look away.’ She caressed my hair. ‘We cannot help everyone, but we can help each other.’
Left alone, my anger now turned to self-pity. I felt mocked. I somehow inferred that I had been the victim of an insult. I knew very well that there were certain things I did not yet understand but now I had discovered a flaw in the fundamentals of what I already thought I did. What most tore me was my inability to get through to my parents, to make them see or instead see for myself what they did. A new and powerful wall had been interposed between them and me.
I coddled my self-esteem the only way I could have: by polishing my own shoes before going to sleep, depriving Papa of any opportunity to redeem himself in the morning.
***
The next day at school I decided to discuss the situation with my friends. But I had to be careful—I could not let them know that it was my situation. I phrased it in impersonal, hypothetical terms, like a philosophical experiment, trying to be as abstract as possible. I was friends with two of the three boys on my bench, including, Aayush, my best friend. The other boy was Rishik whose opinion was of no importance. He was large and took the most space on the bench and never wore any underwear. Whenever he stood up, his trousers would stick to his butt, furrowing the crack. It was true that he had a pleasing face and was always affable but we believed it was a mask to hide his cowardice.
‘If you are not the perpetrator, then you need not be the saviour,’ he said, clearly alluding to Ms. Tapti’s remarks. He was pleased.
Aayush attacked the logic. ‘Either you are the perpetrator or you are not. If what Tapti Ma’am says is right then the perpetrator cannot be the saviour. But you are saying that someone else also should not be the saviour. In that case, we will all die.’ He was brutal.
Rishik thought about this for a minute. His face was appropriately solemn but I got the feeling that it was an affectation, something he felt he should do. He then simply conceded with a smile. ‘Aayush is smart,’ he said, patting his back. I always wondered what became of him. I imagine him as an avuncular government clerk engaging in fruitless banter about cricket or politics and always voting right-of-center with an appropriately solemn face.
Now Aayush offered his position. He was practical, much like my father: ‘It depends on the situation. If it is a dying man on the road, you may take him to the hospital. But even then, you may end up regretting it. You know about the cops, they will harass you to death.’
The other boy, whose name I no longer remember—it may have been Nishant or Abhinav—did not contradict Aayush, but added the caveat about there being a law to save someone.
Sitting in the bench ahead ours, was Riya. That we were sitting close to each other was more than coincidence. Our classroom was arranged to minimize cross-sex interaction. It had three columns of ten benches each. The first three benches were for the girls and the rest for the boys. Everyday, the sexes rotated amongst themselves. So the only contact between a boys’ bench and a girls’ bench were the rows three and four. If one wanted a specific combination of adjacency, they had to be patient. I had done the math—the cycle was complete once every twenty-one days.
Riya was the prettiest girl in the class. She was also older than us and had friends in the senior standards, including standard six. She had dark, lazy eyes that were always moist and stared at you from distance. Her powerless manner hinted—to a class full of eight year olds—a frightening intelligence. She rarely laughed, as though keeping a stern count, sparing them only at intervals. But despite this she was brazen, never shying from talking to boys, spending time and making friends with them. One day, when there was a powerful breeze and all the other girls were holding on to their skirts, Riya walked within herself, not compelled to hide, perhaps even willing to reveal. Her long pale legs glowed against the purple fabric. The hem, higher than other girls’, always hovered dangerously along the fawn upper crease of her damp underhollow—my line for polite provocation—but that day in the breeze, it flew well beyond. The thrill I felt was complex, shot through with a sharp undercurrent of pain. She clearly knew that she had an effect on boys, but did she know so powerful? Aayush admitted that he would leave his home for her.
I however did not talk to her without pretext. Since so many boys liked her, I could not be seen as feeling the same. It would be making myself too vulnerable and the pangs of sexual jealousy were powerful even then. When rumour once spread that Sadiq had kissed her (I believe they only ever held hands), the other boys were sullen, angry, even vulgar. Whereas I could claim indifference, trading solidarity for sobriety. Even though my insides were mauling, I was not part of that strangely symbiotic concert of public disgrace. I instead nursed my wounds in solitude. I did not think it constituted failure.
She had turned back twice to listen in on our chatter, and it seemed that she might have had something to say. I wanted to listen to her opinion but was not going to ask. As it turned out, I didn’t need to because in the next period break, she herself began to speak.
‘I don’t agree with Ms. Tapti. And I don’t agree with you all,’ she said. ‘First of all, it is stupid to think that the perpetrator cannot be the saviour. I don’t think it works that way. He has the biggest responsibility.’
‘Yes,’ I giddily agreed.
‘As for the others, they should always help.’
‘Always?’
‘Yes, always. Because if you don’t, you are a murderer.’
‘A murderer. This is not the same as murder!’ I felt my giddiness dissipating. I felt as though she had stumbled on a dirty little secret of mine. That she had seen me naked and laughed.
‘But it is,’ she insisted. Her gaze was focused. ‘I think that if you can save someone but refuse to do so, then you are committing a murder. It is no different.’
She then turned her back on us. Her sharp shoulder blades extended from her body like rock faces on a cliff. When she was speaking, I had found in her eyes—the distant beautiful eyes—no sign of sympathy, no room for inflection. She had been as indifferent as my parents.
‘If you are not the perpetrator, then you need not be the saviour,’ he said, clearly alluding to Ms. Tapti’s remarks. He was pleased.
Aayush attacked the logic. ‘Either you are the perpetrator or you are not. If what Tapti Ma’am says is right then the perpetrator cannot be the saviour. But you are saying that someone else also should not be the saviour. In that case, we will all die.’ He was brutal.
Rishik thought about this for a minute. His face was appropriately solemn but I got the feeling that it was an affectation, something he felt he should do. He then simply conceded with a smile. ‘Aayush is smart,’ he said, patting his back. I always wondered what became of him. I imagine him as an avuncular government clerk engaging in fruitless banter about cricket or politics and always voting right-of-center with an appropriately solemn face.
Now Aayush offered his position. He was practical, much like my father: ‘It depends on the situation. If it is a dying man on the road, you may take him to the hospital. But even then, you may end up regretting it. You know about the cops, they will harass you to death.’
The other boy, whose name I no longer remember—it may have been Nishant or Abhinav—did not contradict Aayush, but added the caveat about there being a law to save someone.
Sitting in the bench ahead ours, was Riya. That we were sitting close to each other was more than coincidence. Our classroom was arranged to minimize cross-sex interaction. It had three columns of ten benches each. The first three benches were for the girls and the rest for the boys. Everyday, the sexes rotated amongst themselves. So the only contact between a boys’ bench and a girls’ bench were the rows three and four. If one wanted a specific combination of adjacency, they had to be patient. I had done the math—the cycle was complete once every twenty-one days.
Riya was the prettiest girl in the class. She was also older than us and had friends in the senior standards, including standard six. She had dark, lazy eyes that were always moist and stared at you from distance. Her powerless manner hinted—to a class full of eight year olds—a frightening intelligence. She rarely laughed, as though keeping a stern count, sparing them only at intervals. But despite this she was brazen, never shying from talking to boys, spending time and making friends with them. One day, when there was a powerful breeze and all the other girls were holding on to their skirts, Riya walked within herself, not compelled to hide, perhaps even willing to reveal. Her long pale legs glowed against the purple fabric. The hem, higher than other girls’, always hovered dangerously along the fawn upper crease of her damp underhollow—my line for polite provocation—but that day in the breeze, it flew well beyond. The thrill I felt was complex, shot through with a sharp undercurrent of pain. She clearly knew that she had an effect on boys, but did she know so powerful? Aayush admitted that he would leave his home for her.
I however did not talk to her without pretext. Since so many boys liked her, I could not be seen as feeling the same. It would be making myself too vulnerable and the pangs of sexual jealousy were powerful even then. When rumour once spread that Sadiq had kissed her (I believe they only ever held hands), the other boys were sullen, angry, even vulgar. Whereas I could claim indifference, trading solidarity for sobriety. Even though my insides were mauling, I was not part of that strangely symbiotic concert of public disgrace. I instead nursed my wounds in solitude. I did not think it constituted failure.
She had turned back twice to listen in on our chatter, and it seemed that she might have had something to say. I wanted to listen to her opinion but was not going to ask. As it turned out, I didn’t need to because in the next period break, she herself began to speak.
‘I don’t agree with Ms. Tapti. And I don’t agree with you all,’ she said. ‘First of all, it is stupid to think that the perpetrator cannot be the saviour. I don’t think it works that way. He has the biggest responsibility.’
‘Yes,’ I giddily agreed.
‘As for the others, they should always help.’
‘Always?’
‘Yes, always. Because if you don’t, you are a murderer.’
‘A murderer. This is not the same as murder!’ I felt my giddiness dissipating. I felt as though she had stumbled on a dirty little secret of mine. That she had seen me naked and laughed.
‘But it is,’ she insisted. Her gaze was focused. ‘I think that if you can save someone but refuse to do so, then you are committing a murder. It is no different.’
She then turned her back on us. Her sharp shoulder blades extended from her body like rock faces on a cliff. When she was speaking, I had found in her eyes—the distant beautiful eyes—no sign of sympathy, no room for inflection. She had been as indifferent as my parents.
***
At dismissal, I walked hatefully, pursued by Riya’s words. The loo roared, sweeping up dust and grains of sand in its coarse shawl. The heat was unrelenting, but I did not shirk from it. My gaze was inward, my steps steely. I felt doubly isolated. In the welter of noise, both human and natural, I found a welcome camouflage. At the gate, I saw the busy cluster of parents, heaving and shouting, and walked away from it toward the bus.
A voice, loud and familiar, separated itself from the din and rose and reached for me. It had the ardor of dulled hope, of private vulnerability. The crescendo swelling and shattering under its own weight. It swelled because it was meant for me, bracing me like a shadow.
‘Bade…’ , the voice shivered from the strain of the last syllable. It was Papa calling for me.
I turned around and saw him at a little distance, small by the car. His face was raw from the heat and his shirt flapped against his thin body. In his clean shoes and moustache, he cut a foolish figure. Like Chaplin—strange, weak, and flawed. Wrought on him for the first time, I discerned the contours of a boundary, of a low finitude. Not grand, not audacious, but small. A rush of tenderness came over me. I recalled Ma’s words about the modesty of promises. Of all the feelings in the world—broad and complex—none yet had been more important for me than this new, limiting thrust of my own existence.
I ran to him and said, ‘You look like Chaplin!’
‘Yeah. Maybe I do.’
A voice, loud and familiar, separated itself from the din and rose and reached for me. It had the ardor of dulled hope, of private vulnerability. The crescendo swelling and shattering under its own weight. It swelled because it was meant for me, bracing me like a shadow.
‘Bade…’ , the voice shivered from the strain of the last syllable. It was Papa calling for me.
I turned around and saw him at a little distance, small by the car. His face was raw from the heat and his shirt flapped against his thin body. In his clean shoes and moustache, he cut a foolish figure. Like Chaplin—strange, weak, and flawed. Wrought on him for the first time, I discerned the contours of a boundary, of a low finitude. Not grand, not audacious, but small. A rush of tenderness came over me. I recalled Ma’s words about the modesty of promises. Of all the feelings in the world—broad and complex—none yet had been more important for me than this new, limiting thrust of my own existence.
I ran to him and said, ‘You look like Chaplin!’
‘Yeah. Maybe I do.’
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Utkarsh Adhrit read philosophy at Ashoka University, India. He is currently based in New Delhi.
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