A long time ago
Aditya understood death. He felt a kinship with it even. It had settled inside him when he was fourteen years old, when his father lay bleeding on his lap. Blood mixed with warm, undefinable things leaked from Baba’s perforated body and collected in the indentations his weight pressed into Aditya's thighs. Death tremors tapped indelible beats into his muscles, leaving a tattoo of pressure rhythms against his skin, leaving the forever wetness of blood on his palms as he tried to plug the bullet holes and failed.
He should have known then that death was seeping into him, pushing out half of him, merging into him like a ghost image that disappeared with corrective lenses, leaving behind crisper edges. He should have known then that the sensations of death would burrow like flesh-eating worms under his skin as soon as they pulled Baba off. But all he knew was that time had been trapped inside him after the gunshots had shut down his ears.
It took two officers to lift Baba, his limbs heavier in death, magnetic in their stubbornness for wanting to fall back into Aditya's lap.
It struck him with some incredulity that death gave men weight, turned them into a sack of mud caked inside skin.
Baba had been mud, even before they had put him on that stretcher.
He will be okay. Keep courage.
Courage.
That’s what they kept calling it.
This thing they wanted him to keep.
But how did you keep something you did not own? Did not know? Could not find in the hungry panic inside you? Where everything was swallowed whole by your mother’s face, by your younger siblings’ faces, waiting at home with their noses pressed to the slats of the balcony railing, waiting for you to come home with their father, because the permanence of a parent was their entire reality.
“Can I keep terror instead?” he wanted to ask as the holes in Baba’s chest refused to stop oozing blood in too many springs for his two hands to constrain.
Can I keep terror instead?
Because that’s all he could find.
Why had he laughed with Baba when he had made fun of Maa for wanting him not to go?
“It’s money, woman of mine. How will you get to show off a new sari on Diwali if I don’t report to duty when I’m called? It’s election season. Once it’s gone, I’ll stay home and worship you every weekend.” Baba in his brand-new assistant-sub-inspector, Mumbai Police uniform had been a sight to behold.
“I don’t want a new sari for Diwali if it means your children don’t know the face of their father,” Aditya's Maa Anjana had said, flushed with anger because her perfect Sunday had decided to rebel out of her control.
“They know your face, beautiful one, you’re their Maa . It’s a more beautiful face anyway. Who would choose my ugly thobda over that?”
It had calmed her. Aditya never thought of his Maa as vain, but Baba could always get her to calm down with a little bit of flattery. His secret weapon.
Baba was right too. Maa was beautiful. He’d heard all the aunts in the compound taunt her about it. Half envy, half joy that someone who looked like her—with that glossy skin and hip-length hair and eyes darker than melted tar—had to wait in line at the water tap just like they did.
He’d heard Baba shout about it on Fridays when he came home tipsy.
“I’ll kill any bastard who looks at you. You’re not a Bollywood heroine. This show is mine. Mine! Move along, suckers.” Baba would sweep his hand, shooing away the imaginary mob of men.
