Surjeet and his Nepali boys confer; Ajay is invited to travel with them to Delhi and on to Goa to work. All but two of them are heading to a shack on the beach, a place they always go. They call the owner. When they finally get through, they ask. And, yes, Ajay is welcome to come and work as one of them. They leave for Delhi two days later.
On the way down, setting out long before dawn, sitting on the bus with his head pressed against the cold window, watching the blue mountains unfold, following the lines of terrain he knows so well, Ajay has another plan. It entered his head overnight when he couldn’t sleep, though he was too nervous then to give it words. But now it’s there, confirmed in the glory of momentum. He will do it, he’ll do what he was told, what he was too scared to do before: he will go home.
How could he not?
With the money in his pocket, he will go home.
He will make his way somehow. His money will be his guide and his protector.
He breathes deeply, says good-bye to the mountains; his heart flutters and his mind races at the immensity of what’s ahead. And finally he falls asleep.
He wakes in traffic and heat, the sun beating down on the left side of the bus, blazing on his forehead against the glass. It must be only nine a.m., but it’s already much hotter than it should be. He’s dazed. “Are we in Delhi?” The boys laugh. They’re still up in the mountains. “It’s so hot,” he says in wonder. “It’s hotter down here,” one of the boys replies.
They are in a jam in the center of a market town, several buses and trucks and Tempos trying to get through a bottleneck. It’s true, the mountains are still around them—he can see their peaks—but they are different, the sky is different, the air is thick with the black smoke of engines. Anxiety engulfs him. The heat is sickening, the horns of the traffic assail his mind. The plan that seemed so certain and secure suddenly terrifies him, seems to slip from his grasp. How could he have thought such a thing?
The sensation builds and consolidates itself throughout the day. How is he supposed to survive this? To navigate this treacherous sea of bodies and objects? The money in his pocket seems barely adequate. The awful gnawing in his stomach won’t go away. When they finally reach Delhi, he is in abject despair. The city overwhelms him; he’s totally oppressed by the noise, the unrelenting concrete, the chaos of it. He can decipher no pattern at all. When they climb out of the bus, he sticks close to the Nepalis. They head off with purpose to the place they always stay—a rooftop adjacent to a hotel in Paharganj where other Nepalis work. Even as they keep telling him to stay close, he almost loses them several times, buffeted by the crowds, harassed by hisses and foul words. He keeps his bag at his front, his money close to him. He’s relieved when they find their way to the hotel, wind through damp and stinking passageways, and emerge on the roof. It’s placid up there, at least. The worst of the city is kept at bay. The boys warn him to keep his money and papers, anything of value, on his body all the time. Don’t trust anyone here, don’t wander off. They set up some mattresses on the roof, where they’ll sleep huddled together under the stars. As the sun sets, the boys pitch some money together, the little they keep for their pleasure, which is not set aside for travel or sent back home, and go to the liquor store to buy a bottle of good whisky, their yearly indulgence. Then, with their friends from the hotel, they have a party on the roof, bring up a camping stove, make steamed chicken momos, pork sekuwa, tamatar jhol. They drink the whisky, finish the bottle between them, sing songs for hours. Ajay sits at the side, watching, always watching; he doesn’t touch the liquor, barely touches the food. He asks why they don’t stay and work in the city. The city is bad, they say, it’s full of con men, criminals, it’s ugly and dirty, it’s no good, only rich people do well, everyone else suffers. They lay their mattresses out, lie down to sleep. It’s September—the night has the slightest chill. It might rain, one of them says. He’s heard it’s raining in Goa, a late monsoon burst. Have you seen the ocean before? No, Ajay says. You’ll love it, comes the reply. It’s different down there, not hard like the mountains. In Goa life is good.
Throughout the night he feels the distant roar of traffic entering his soul, the great trucks and their horns, the plaintive bleating of exile. He follows their sounds and imagines this vast terrible land from which he was born. The idea to leave, to find home, seems pathetic to him. It is impossible. There is no home, he keeps having to remind himself, he has to let it go. He drifts to sleep with that idea in mind. And in the morning, as the temple bells sound and the bhajans begin their hypnotic rise and fall, Ajay stands ready to leave.
* * *
—
They arrive in Goa three days later and pitch up in a shack in Arambol called RoknRoll. It is here that Ajay sees the ocean, stands in front of it on the beach, lets the waves wrap around his ankles, suck on his bare feet. His days are full and empty at once, and work is the most pleasurable it’s ever been. It’s a good life, in Goa. They like him in the shack too, a hard worker who doesn’t smoke or drink. A boy who can already speak basic English and Nepali. They like him because he knows how to behave, knows how not to look at the foreign women too long, not to ask too many questions. The foreigners like him too; he’s diligent, he runs back to the kitchen with an order, hurries back with the food and a smile. The girls like him because he is shy and handsome and his teeth are perfectly white and his body holds no fat and he doesn’t stare, doesn’t try to charm them with cheap words and posturing. He is beloved. He only serves. Everything is forgotten. A season goes by like this. Mostly sun-blind. Sometimes reflected by violent shards. Keeping their toothbrushes together in the humid bathroom at the back. Sharing the leftover Axe deodorant, the leftover T-shirts and jeans. Ajay half adrift. Sunburnt and petrified. He learns to swim, first the doggy paddle, then as the season progresses, some foreigners show him the breaststroke and later on the front crawl. He learns to guide a motorboat too, goes crab fishing on the rocks at low tide in the moonlight and sleeps on the beach under the stars. He plays volleyball and cricket and football in the siesta of the afternoon, when business is at a lull. He eats fish and beef and chicken carbonara and french fries, mango, coconut water, pineapple; he becomes tanned all over.
He feels blessed, content. But he tells himself in the dark: You know how precarious life can be.