The Girl in the Gym

Change is downloading the backlog

"Nothing has changed in the last thousands of years. Why will it change now? Don't scare the child, alright?" Chitra scolded.

Nevertheless, Hemnath, continued to talk to Inaya about the world outside their cocoon. He spoke of deserts, seas, beaches and forests. All seemed too alien to Inaya to even comprehend, but still, she listened attentively.

One day she asked, "Where do the other children go?"

"What children, my dear?"

"Those who come to pray to the great Bhaironath. When they go down the mountain, where do they go?"

"To school," replied Chitra absently. And was immediately horrified.

"What is school?"

"Don't worry about that," she corrected hastily. "You don't need to go, you are very intelligent. We'll teach you everything here itself, near our mountain," said Chitra, hoping that Inaya would forget all about school with time. But Inaya didn't.

"You don't tell me anything," she accused her parents. "I want to go where other children are!"

At that, they would rush to soothe her. Play games and comfort her. But they looked at each other with worry. Would Inaya be happy to stay at the mountain, study her and get married into one of the other ancient families nearby? After a while, Inaya would forget her sulking and become a carefree girl once again. This alleviated their fear, it would be years before she was old enough to demand real answers. They would have to tell her the truth then. But not before.

The vague change that they were slowly coming to dream came about sooner than anyone could have anticipated. Within seconds their entire existence was being pulled apart. The world had come crashing on top of them and they wouldn't find out until the very end. They could not do  anything.

Hemnath came running in one afternoon, out of breath and red-faced. Everyone was sitting in the verandah, sipping tea and eating onion pakoras. He took one look at Inaya swinging by herself in a tiny makeshift swing and fell to his knees. HE covered his face with his hands. Chitra and the grandparents were alarmed. With panic clogging up her throat, Chitra approached Hemnath, and dropped to her knees as well, next to him. "Look at me, what's wrong?"

He refused to meet her eyes and just kept shaking his head. Grabbing his face in her palms, she forced him to look at her. "What is wrong, Hemnath? You are scaring all of us."

Inaya too had stopped swinging, as she looked at her strong father brought down to his knees.

"Everything is over. The world had come to our doorstep. We have no choice," he moaned. After handing him a restorative cup of tea, Hemnath told them the entire story. When the grandparents tried to usher Inaya out, he stopped them. "No, let her listen. It involves her too."

He had gone to clean the caves in the morning, and while climbing back down, he saw a knot of priests outside the temple. They all looked grave and beaten down. One of them saw his drawing near and called out, "Hemnath babu. Look what has happened." He drew the tale from them. Apparently, the present government of Gujarat had been losing a lot of the people's confidence. It was an election year and their numbers were at an all-time low. In a bid to secure their votes, they had introduced a slew of changes throughout the state. One of them included banishing the use of trust fund that ran their Bhairo Temple at Udaigarh by private individuals. This would create more jobs for the locals and also appease the non-Brahmin voters. That meant that the mountain was no longer theirs. They had no home, and no means to support themselves. But worst of all, if their secret fell into the wrong ends, everything would be finished. Hemnath's small world had exploded around him, the stench of politics had permeated into their lives and tainted everything.

Sitting on the floor, he said that some government officials would soon be coming by to make sure that the family vacates.

"But..." the grandfather began saying.

"I know."

"What should we do? We can hire lawyers."

"We can, but it's still not safe."

We have to move it."

"There's no time."

"We can't risk discovery."

"IT needs to be destroyed," said the grandmother finally, tears running down her face. The rest of them looked aghast. But try as they might, they could not come up with a better idea. So it was, in the middle of the night, the rest of them waited outside while the grandfather stayed in. Inaya could hear noises coming in, and a bright light lit up the doorway for a second. A loud crash followed, and nothing after. The grandfather came out, coughing, disguising his watery eyes with sneezes and coughs. He nodded at them, and they all went inside. Inaya looked around, but there was nothing to be seen. Everything was as it always was. She wanted to talk to her mother and father, but they also looked scared and angry. She decided she would ask about the light after a few days.

Chitra spent the next morning packing their meagre belongings. Hemnath had gone to the town to look for a lawyer to represent their case. It was late in the evening when Chitra had finally finished packing and sent Inaya out to play. That's where Hemnath found her, sobbing her heart out. His heartfelt too heavy for his body at that moment. He lifted her up and asked her what's wrong.

"Baba, the doves told me that we all have to go away and never come back. They are leaving too. They said that I will grow up and forget them, and the mountain," she cried.

Hemnath had nothing to say to that, so he kept patting her back and said everything will be alright.

The very next day those dreaded officials came. They looked too disinterested to even notice their plight – Hemnath's stoic demeanour or Chitra's red eyes.

"You need to leave in five days. We will have to demolish this house and build a complex for the staff. Leave everything except your personal belongings," they warned.

On the appointed day, they all left the mountain. None of them would ever come back here. It would take Inaya 20 years to retrace her roots back here, and by then, all the doves would have left. It was Inaya's first time leaving the mountain. She was excited and apprehensive. She was curious to see how the townspeople lived. But she was very disappointed. They lived in bland coloured houses, with grey roads in front, and none of the animals spoke to her. They too would have to live in a small, two-room flat. When she had been tucked in, Inaya heard her parents whispering.

"They will come to help us, I'm sure."

"I don't think so. The beacon is destroyed. Our devices will work only if they specifically connect to it. And they have to reason to do so for a few days. We are on our own. By the time they come, it will be too late."

Not understanding, sleep finally took over Inaya. Over the next few weeks, the family had a hard time. The lawyers refused to work without payment, and they had no money to spare. Chitra took a job ironing other people's clothes, but Hemnath was unable to find employment. He was extremely intelligent but did not have any qualifications. Somebody told them that Mumbai was teeming with jobs. "You'll find good work in the big city," they said.