A bus to Bidar
A short story after a long hiatus.
To celebrate the launch of this website, I resolved to sit down and write a fiction piece. What is below is written by me in one shot in about an hour and a half, without any editing except for readability. The last time I wrote fiction was in my schooldays, so this was a fun return!
Zahirabad is a small town where I had to change buses when I was travelling from Hyderabad to Bidar last year. When I was thinking of a location to start this story, it sprang into mind for some reason. I had spent no more than 20 minutes there, and thought it unremarkable.
TThe sun glared over the Zahirabad bus stop. Two blue-and-white state transport buses lazily attached themselves to a beige office building, with a large portico for the waiting passengers. The only compelling feature of the bus stop was the fact that it offered some respite from the sun’s rays. Inside, a flex banner proudly proclaiming “Yellamma Renuka General Store” promised soft drinks, snacks, children’s toys, magazines, and anything a traveller may need for fuel or diversion. It was at this store that Kishan came to purchase a bag of chips.
Kishan was not particularly fond of chips. They were too artificial, too ephemeral for him. But he needed to keep his hands and mouth busy. Left hand cradling the packet, right hand rummaging for the best chip to insert into his mouth and crunch. Crinkle-crunch. Anchored by this rhythm, he began to pace around, a bit forward, turning right toward the buses in apparent puzzlement, taking a few paces forward, turning away when the sun’s glare overwhelmed him.
Kishan needed to get moving. There were two buses standing impassively in front of him. One went to Bidar, the other to Humnabad. Both cities he had never heard of. His mission was to go on to Bangalore or to Mumbai, whichever was more convenient.. and then to dissolve into the crowds there. Or maybe, maybe he could work in the city for a few weeks, scrape together a few thousand rupees, and then move to some village to bask in anonymity. And be a farmhand? Be what? Do what? Kishan stopped. He had just realised that his right hand had come up empty on its last two expeditions for chips. He threw the packet away in disgust. He couldn’t spend time daydreaming, he had to go somewhere now..
He walked gingerly toward the Bidar bus. His pace slowed to a stop, and his head turned toward the Humnabad bus. This is ridiculous! Just get on a bus! He grew resolute and took a few strong paces to one of the doorless portals. He stepped aboard. It’s hot! The sun had turned the metal bus into an oven. The air was still and unmoving. Faux leather seats and the metal interiors baked together, seasoned by the mingling scents of earlier passengers. A sharp smell parvaded, making the heat seem even hotter. There would be no respite till the bus started moving and the breeze could play inside it. He got down and stood beside the steps, feeling quite foolish. Finally, he sat down on a bench in the station and spread his legs.
An unremarkable man came and sat down next to him. So exceptional was his unremarkability that when Kishan glanced over at him, he didn’t remember a single feature of the stranger’s when he looked away. Kishan took another glance, looked away again. Still nothing, although he ascertained that the man indeed had eyebrows. He turned for a third glance, when the man turned sharply and looked directly into Kishan’s eyes. Kishan started. The man smirked. Kishan tried to play it off, but he couldn’t take his eyes away from his benchmate’s.
“So, brother, where are you off to?” The man spoke as if they were already familiar.
Kishan was more guarded. “Bidar.” At least this damn fool has given me a destination.
“Oh, very nice,” said he, “my name is Hassan, by the way.”
“I’m Prakash.” said Kishan.
“Nice to meet you, Prakash. You know, I’m going to Bidar too.”
Does he want me to clap? Kishan stayed silent.
“Came from Hyderabad?”
There was no point in trying to lie. Kishan’s accent marked him as a city person. “Yes.”
“Me too. I lived in Mehdipatnam.”
Kishan looked more closely at his companion. He was not carrying luggage either. His clothes were a simple striped shirt and beige slacks. Sunglasses lay folded in his shirt pocket.
“You’re going to Bidar for work?”
“In a way.”
Silence again. A vendor came by offering them juice and soft drinks out of a portable cooler. The two resolutely ignored him. The vendor left, looking for someone with a young child whom he could incite into a tantrum. The two continued to look ahead.
Kishan glanced at his watch. The heat was getting to him. “This bus isn’t moving only!”
“The conductor has a second wife here you know.. he usually goes for a while to pay his respects to her.”
Kishan’s eyes grew wide. “How do you know this? You come here a lot?”
“No, I’m making things up because I’m bored.”
Kishan pursed his lips.
Hassan grinned. “Why are you going to Bidar?”
Kishan remained silent, using his annoyance as a shield to make some calculations. Should he tell this man? After all, he probably wasn’t going to see him again. Hassan didn’t even know his real name, and who knew if Hassan was actually the name of the man facing him? His heart was racing and words were jumping to his tongue unbidden. He needed to talk to someone and he could always walk it back as a joke..
Just then a whistle punctured the hot afternoon air. The conductor was here, an unruly looking man with a handlebar moustache that would have made a Royal Enfield jealous. “Come, come, Bidar all aboard, come, come..”
Kishan started to get up, but Hassan touched his arm.
“Sit down, man. Let’s get on in two minutes, they won’t move now anyway.”
Kishan sat. He didn’t really feel resentful to the stranger for his overbearing manner, which he would have a couple of minutes ago.
“So, you are studying? Working?”
“I had a job in Hyderabad,” Kishan began cautiously, “until recently.”
“They fired you, ah?”
Kishan drew himself up, and voice grew a bit bolder. “They don’t even know I’m gone yet.”
“You walked out ah?” Hassan sat a bit straighter. “Now this must be a good story! What happened? Your girl cheated on you with your boss? They didn’t pay you for months? I hope you caused them some problems as you left. Deleted some files, stole something?”
Kishan looked at him. It seemed like some fog was clearing from Hassan’s face, and he could now make out some unique features. His moustache was uneven, reaching down a bit longer on one side than the other. His eyebrows had a way of pumping up and down involuntarily when he was excited. He had a small wart on his neck. Kishan’s eyes travelled along these three points.
“No. I had to run.”
Hassan didn’t take his eyes off him. He seemed to know his companion had something to say. Kishan looked forward, at the bus conductor, who seemed to be chatting up a large, well-ornamented Banjara woman in a colourful saree.
“I can never go back to Hyderabad again. I-I think I will be killed if I do. And you know, yesterday when I woke up and drank my chai I thought it was a normal day. Now- now I have left everything behind and-”
The bus engine started. The two men were thrown out of their flow. They got into the bus and sat down on a bench on the right side, away from the sun. Kishan felt a rush of blood to his cheeks. What the hell was I thinking, telling him this!
The bus slowly began backing out of the station compound. The conductor engaged himself in a long and noisy argument with the driver over some personal matters, seemingly involving a pack of beedis and an unspecified number of naati chickens. The bus broke out onto the main road of Zahirabad, picked up a duo of farmers with a bevy of large sacks, and sailed out past the dusty town into the dustier countryside. Hassan and Kishan observed all this and said nothing for a while.
“So,” Hassan said, leaning closer, “You were saying?”
Kishan suddenly felt very aware that he was blocked in the window seat. It was too late to change his mind anyway. He had to finish the story, at least for his own sake.
“I got caught, you know. I started it for fun- I was running a few small-time scams. I felt like I wasn’t getting paid enough and I wasn’t smart or hard-working enough to find a second job. And I was always a good actor. So I started to impersonate people. What I usually would do was to pretend I was a surveyor for some big company. Wear some good clothes and carry a clipboard and you could pass as someone important, you know. I’d spend like half an hour with grocery store owners, asking them this and that about their experience with ‘our’ product, and at the end I’d tell them that we would send them a shipment of our new product- for a small deposit charge. Then I’d disappear. Of course, I was careful and I never went to any stores in my area. And if I felt they were getting suspicious I’d make excuses and run. There was one time-”
“Ticket..” The conductor stood over them, regally looking past them at the sparsely forested countryside.
Hassan distractedly pulled out a hundred rupees from his shirt pocket. Two for Bidar. Twenty rupees change returned. He put the coins in his pocket and turned back to Kishan.
“Anyway.. one time I-I heard of a guy on the other side of the city who was planning to run for local office. I got a meeting with him posing as a campaign manager.. said I got a few MLAs elected in Odisha! I made some phony proofs, and the poor fool actually paid me an advance for some services I was going to help him with, for his social media and his flex banners and all. After that I laid low for a while. He was wealthy and if he found out who I was I knew he could cause me trouble. But I grew overconfident after that..”
A brisk breeze was swirling around the bus, but Kishan still felt hot and sweaty. He couldn’t stop until he finished.
“I couldn’t stay away from the game for long, and soon I was back to my old survey man routine. Now, yesterday..”
Kishan gulped. The wind was dry. He wished he had bought some water at the station.
“Yesterday evening I was meeting a decently big grocery chain’s manager. I have my routine down to a science at this point, so I was pretty much at ease. I was close to getting this guy to sign a big contract, when his brother.. or someone came in. I don’t really know remember who that guy was to him, but he sure as hell remembered me. It was the candidate sahib! He was all smiles as he came in.. then he took one look at me, I took one look at him….”
Kishan’s voice began to grow louder and crack from time to time. In the background he registered that the conductor was throwing glances at him from time to time, and the Banjara was covering her mouth with her shawl and giggling. Kishan felt boxed in. He wanted to gesticulate, but his hands would only give a half-hearted pantomime.
“It was like time froze for me. For him like he lost his humanity. No sooner did he see me did he pounce on me and try to throttle me! I managed to kick him in the side and somehow get out of his grip. All this time the guy I’d come to scam was babbling incoherently. I ran out of the office, out of the store, candidate sahib in close pursuit, and we see.. we see..”
Kishan had been facing straight ahead all this while, and at this point he turned towards his companion. Hassan’s eyebrows were bouncing like they were on trampolines. His eyes were wide and his lower jaw was hanging open, revealing a rakish metal premolar. The effect of this sight was to shock Kishan into silence for a couple of seconds, during which Hassan wildly circled his hand and cried, “Go on!”
“The police were arresting some guys right outside the store! Pushing them down on a car’s bonnet, frisking them, one guy was being held by his collar and slapped.. I don’t know what for. They heard the commotion we made, the police started shouting at us.. then the guy being slapped pushed away the inspector holding him and ran for it! I was in his way so he shoved me aside too and I stumbled, but I got to my feet and kept running like a machine, I knew candidate sahib would tear me to pieces like a tiger if he caught me, police or no police.“
Kishan took a breath and continued, “Then I heard my full legal name roared from behind me. I look over my shoulder but I didn’t stop. Candidate sahib is there, my wallet is also there, in his hand. It fell out of my pocket when that bastard shoved me! He’s laughing - big, thick moustache and a potbelly- laughing just like a rakshasa. In my wallet were all my ID cards, and a little note I wrote like an idiot with my rental address and contact details- in case it was lost! I ran and ran till I reached home. I didn’t know what to think or what to do, I just knew I had no future in Hyderabad anymore. It’s strange, I knew my life was over on so many levels my mind was calm, but my body was running on instinct like a headless chicken.”
The bus trundled peacefully across the dry landscape as the story sank in. They were far from the town, and there were more trees now, covering small, rolling hillocks. The bus engine was making a great deal of noise, as were the conductor and his Banjara lady in the front. A truck passed by, its horn singing. Yet there was a silence that seemed to descend over the inhabitants of that bench, third from last on the right side of the vehicle.
“What could I do. I was in a blind panic. I had some cash at home- took it and ran back out, caught the first bus going anywhere and I reached Zahirabad. By then it was late and the government buses were no longer running. At some point I destroyed my SIM card. I slept in a temple compound at night and came to the station after some breakfast that the temple bhatta was nice enough to give me. I feel like a real idiot for not packing anything, for doing all that scamming– why wasn’t I happy with my job? Why did I have to throw it all away? Now I have some 3000 rupees to my name in total and I have no idea what I’m going to do..”
Kishan’s situation felt real to him at last. No more words came to his tongue. He couldn’t pretend it was all a great adventure or a movie or a dream; he now had come to realise the cold hard loss of finance, food and friends and family. He fell silent and stoically looked down. Sniffles escaped him. Hassan rested a hand on his shoulder in sympathy. The bus passed through a village where the merry sounds of drums and trumpets were heralding a jathra at the temple. A wooden chariot, decorated with colourful flags, stood outside the small gateway. As the last strains of the music faded into the dry heat, Hassan cleared his throat.
“That store.”
“Hmm?”
“The store you were talking about.”
Kishan didn’t say anything.
“It was- it was a Nilgiri’s, wasn’t it?”
Kishan looked at Hassan. Hassan looked at Kishan.
“In Baba Nagar..” offered Hassan, “Right opposite that Hanuman temple and next to the barber shop.”
The bus began to slow down.
“The police were arresting us for smuggling gold..” Hassan’s voice trailed off.
“Bidar, Bidar.. we are at Bidar now..” called the bus conductor. That snapped Kishan out of his trance, as he lunged toward his companion with both arms out. Whether to throttle him or embrace him, even he didn’t know.