Seven o’clock was her time, the moment in the day when the post-dawn cool began its hesitant commerce with the clammy warmth of the day to come. That perfect equilibrium between the glorious possibilities and the looming truths of the day gave her enough time to enjoy the only real pleasure she had nowadays: breaths taken in true ease. Before them lay drowsiness. Beyond, life. She savoured every particle, the pure oxygen sliding past the waft of dung and sulphur. Diwali had ended with a whimper the night before. The night had started with such promise, but the dawn had taken her companion, with his black pants and inexpert love, beyond her reach. But she liked it best that way. No phone call to make if you did not have a number to call, and no lover to waste good 7 o’clock time with. Inhale. Exhale. Done. One minute past seven. Time’s up Sarai.
It was at college that she had morphed from easy-going idealist to mechanical animal. She was now the resume writer’s archetype: motivated self-starter. Like a Kinetic Honda. No kick-start for her; she was just a crummy machine that crackled to life with the press of a square red button and screeching bell ring. It was also in college that she had lost her archaic Old Testament name, with it’s stubbornly adhesive ‘i’, for the more androgynous charms of ‘Rai’. And like the name, the lifestyle had stuck. She did recall a time when she would sit at Koshy’s for hours consuming nothing more than their perfectly chilled water and the heady buzz of the journalists’ tobacco smoke. There had been mornings spent doing the Hindu Crossword. Cryptic, mind you. No pansy Easy versions for her, mister. Hell, there had even been lovers resembling steady commitment. Now, all were lost in a haze of corporate gobbledygook and balloon-empty hierarchy pomp. But no time for reminiscing or regrets, Sarai: two minutes past. Or Seven Oh Too, as they would say in lesser hemispheres.
Exactly one hundred and twenty seconds earlier, in the empty plot of land behind Rai’s house, Ullas the newspaper recycle man languorously unhooked the single safety pin that held his fly and his tenuous modesty together. With his legs spread to avoid splash, he unleashed a golden stream on the back wall of the house, now stained with the signatures of many men and many styles. He absently stared up into the sky as he indulged in his Constitutional right to Take a Piss Where You Please. He completed the ritual and walked towards his bicycle, stacked with the tools of his trade: weighing scale, some crude iron weights, and a few deflated bicycle tubes. And with an avian cry, Ullas plunged into the lazy day’s traffic. “Newspaper!!!! Newspaaaaper!!”
Three newspapers a day, each one a small chunk of her father’s collage persona. The Hindu to feed that haughty part of him that thought he liked to read ‘serious’ news, verbose and erudite. In reality, he only read the sports page, and usually only Arvind Aaron’s chess column. Then there was the Malayala Manorama, testament to his devotion to his home state and unfailing regret at abandoning his family business and property. His cover-to-cover reading of the Manorama, his source of news and worldview, was his act of daily penance for his sins against the motherland. The third was his whimsy slot, changing from the Times to the Asian Age, sometimes even the Express. When he died three years ago, the place had fallen to the Financial Times, and there it had stayed. They were the only legacy her father had left her. Even though she had little time to even glance through them, they came in everyday without fail, except the day after Diwali, when even journalists and the newsprint people take a break. And so the piles grew, playing unread Pyramids to her father’s unreadable Sphinx.
***
“No Madam. Manorama only two rupees fifty paise per kg. Hindu three.”
Rai could never understand this discrimination against vernacular newsprint. Isn’t all newsprint created equal? Rai liked to think that at the root of the disparity lay a deep vindictiveness against her tribe for their rabbit-like ability to infest any nook of the globe, and their ferret-like ability to make it their own. A conspiracy among newspaper recycle men to rob the Malayalees of 50 paise per kilo of used Manorama newsprint in token recompense for the injustices meted out by the race of its readers.
Rai smiled to herself and assented. In reality, she would have given it all to him free. With each paper he stacked, carefully removing any superfluous paper, sorting and weighing them in front of her, she saw a small portion of the bitter memories being purged. She was selling off the memory of her father piecemeal, and without a hint of remorse. Perhaps they would be bleached and reborn as fresh newsprint. Perhaps they would be rolled tightly around silvery firecracker charge by nimble five-year-old fingers. Perhaps they would burn.
It was seven-thirty, and for once, she didn’t give a damn. The fucking boss could wait. Rai was finally getting to spend some quality time with her father. Ullas was overwhelmed. Every time he thought it was done, she would emerge from another room with another stack of papers in her hands. But he did not complain. In an hour, he would have collected a day’s worth of newsprint.
“That’s the last one,” she said, laying down a small stack of the oldest newspapers in the house. She walked slowly towards the phone, dialed, and waited.
“Srinivas News Agents? Yes, I live in Rang Apartments, flat number one zero two. I would like to cancel all my newspaper subscriptions…Yes, Mr. Chacko’s daughter…No, there is no problem. From tomorrow onwards, please do not bring any newspapers. I shall settle any dues at the end of the month. Thank you…bye…”
Ullas was done with the last set and began to haul the neat stacks downstairs. It took him a few trips before he was ready for the last one. He paid her the money that was due and started to lift the final stack.
“Wait,” she said with a start. He held the sack down and looked at her curiously. Without a word, she grabbed the newspaper at the top of the pile and closed the door as he left. Grabbing a pen from the counter, she sighed and eased herself into the couch in her living room. She breathed in the nine o’clock air like a newborn. The world could wait. For now, Crossword No. 8352 beckoned.
Two down. Conclude negative response leads to Hell.
