Left from the Nameless Shop

by Adithi Rao

  At last the big day arrived. Devendrappa woke up earlier than usual, took a bath and wore a clean white shirt and dhoti. He smiled when he thought about how gloriously messy these very clothes were going to be by the time he returned home that night.

  ‘Ri?’ said Nagalakshmi, standing near the kerosene stove. ‘Take that with you when you go.’ She spoke casually and never looked at him. But when he turned to see what she was pointing at, he found a new can of bright red paint sitting in the corner of the room. The wind went out of Devendrappa’s sails. His careful, penny-pinching Nagi had done this! For him!

  ‘When did you—’ he began, but never got to finish his sentence for she cut across him gruffly, saying, ‘You’d better hurry or you’ll be late.’ She busied herself by lifting the boiling milk off the stove and pouring it into a tin container to cool, so she wouldn’t have to meet his eyes.

  It was not yet dawn and the sun hadn’t risen. That is why nobody in the vatara, nor on the long walk to Five Lights, saw a lorry-and-sign-board painter humming along with a happy smile, hugging a can of bright red paint to his chest.

  People began to trickle in at six in the morning. Narayanamma, Gayathri, Lakshmi and Adishree were there, doling out free coffee and tea to all those who came. By eight o’clock, the ground was filled with people. Miraculously, cotton candy, balloon and popcorn sellers cropped up everywhere. Makeshift stalls selling cheap umbrellas, brightly-coloured garments, oily murukkus and freshly fried bondas also sprung up like mushrooms; the playground soon turned into an impromptu carnival! Everybody wanted to witness The Plan being put into action. And if a few of them could make some money out of it, then what was wrong with that?

  Can after can of waterproof enamel paint gradually began to pile up on the side, where Devendrappa and Suresh had instructed the tow truck to station the battered lorry some days ago. This playground was where the Rudrapuraians burnt effigies of Ravana every Dasara, and so it had been deemed the most central and suitable location for such a project to take place.

  At precisely nine o’clock, the exact hour stipulated on the flier, children of all shapes and sizes led by Devendrappa, commenced the task of painting the rear portion of the lorry. The lorry-and-sign-board painter had divided the massive rectangular box-like container of the back (that had once humbly transported sand and stone) into 1ft×1ft squares. Each child was allotted a square to paint in the colour of their choice. Once two coats had been thoroughly applied and left to dry, the children would be permitted to decorate their squares with whatever design or motif they chose to paint.

  At 10.35 a.m., a familiar black Ambassador pulled up outside the playground gate. The door opened and a familiar driver got out. He walked around the car, opened the boot and removed two cans of paint. He carried them into the playground and left them beside the others piled up there.

  Suresh, who was helping a little girl apply paint to her square, happened to look up and see the car. He nudged Devendrappa. Both watched as the heavily-tinted rear window rolled down halfway and a hand emerged. Almost every finger on it sported a thick gold ring with a gemstone of some kind – a pearl here, a ruby there, a tiger’s eye, a diamond … The hand gestured urgently to the driver, galvanizing him into action. The driver hurried back to the paints, picked up the cans he had brought and placed them prominently on the very top of the pile where nobody would miss seeing them. Satisfied, the hand withdrew into the car and the window went up. In a minute, the owner of the hand was driven away. Devendrappa and Suresh looked at each other.

  ‘First Nagi and now Diesel Pai!’ grinned Devendrappa. ‘There must be something special in the air today!’

  Suresh laughed. ‘It must be Doctor Ayya’s blessings.’ And at the mention of that beloved old man, Devenrappa’s heart clenched.

  ‘Ay, putti!’ cried Suresh, suddenly. ‘Don’t dip your fingers into the paint like that!’ He returned to his task of monitoring the little girl.

  After a hard and exciting day’s work, when the sun had dipped low in the sky and people had gone away home, Srikanth, Manju and Pamban stood with Devendrappa, surveying the lorry. The inner portion of its rear was a riot of colours and designs – a sight that simply took one’s breath away.

  ‘What will you do with the outside portion, Devanna?’ Srikanth asked, looking at the dull outer body of the container.

  ‘He’ll paint it with butterflies and flowers, of course!’ answered Pamban so confidently that Devendrappa only smiled.

  Maithili’s rainwater harvesting unit involved a seven-foot-tall main drum into which a pipe drained the water from the roof. It was mounted on a platform of bricks so that it was at an elevation. On either side of this drum were two subordinate drums placed at slightly lower levels. Each was connected to the mother drum through pipes fitted three inches above the base of the main one, and each of the pipes had a valve to control the flow of water. Once any of the subordinate drums got filled, the valve to it could be closed to avoid overflowing. The drums were fitted with a hosepipe to water the garden or wash the shed, beyond which the untreated water had little use.

  When Srikanth and Manju heard what their mothers had to say after meeting Pashupati sir, they thought an improvement was required. That night, they designed a complete filtering unit to go with Maithili’s invention. They installed a preliminary barrel, so that the water from the roof would first pass through it before entering the mother drum. They filled it with active charcoal at the bottom, followed by layers of pebbles and gravel, and finally added a layer of sand at the top. The mouth of the barrel was covered with an old cotton sari that would act as a first layer of filter for dried leaves and larger dirt particles from the roof. The sari could be washed and changed quite easily, taking some of the load off the filtering unit.

  At this point, they were forced to stop. Now that the water in the drums would become drinkable, it could be used even for cooking and cleaning vessels. Lugging pitchers of water into the kitchen was a solution, but an extremely impractical and painstaking one. How were they to get this water up to the overhead tank?

  They decided that adult intervention was called for. Not just any adult, but a skilled hand. Srikanth automatically led the way to Basavaraj’s house. But at the divide in the road, Manju suddenly tugged at Srikanth’s arm and nodded towards the left fork, the one that led to Rudrapura Only Mechanics. They were no longer the only mechanics in Rudrapura, but this was the only place where Suresh Uncle worked, and Manju had his reasons for wanting this particular person to come home.

  Srikanth looked surprised, but Manju just gave his arm another tug, and Sri relented. One didn’t question people who were privy to the secrets of talking pillars. When they arrived at the mechanic shop, Suresh was servicing Sheshadri Saab’s white Ambassador. He greeted them enthusiastically because they were old friends. Srikanth explained why they had come, and listed the particulars of what they needed.

  ‘Sure,’ said Suresh. ‘Where?’

  ‘At Manju’s place, Suresh Uncle,’ said Srikanth, and suddenly Suresh grew flustered and dropped his spanner onto the engine of the car, making a loud, unpleasant clunk. By the time he had picked it up and examined the engine cap for damage, only a slightly heightened colour in his face betrayed his confusion. He glanced at Manju and quickly looked away.

  ‘I get off work at seven. After dinner, I’ll—’

  ‘Amma has asked you to have dinner with us,’ said Manju, and Suresh, still examining the engine, frowned slightly.

  ‘Srikanth is coming too,’ added Manju quickly. Srikanth, who had no idea of being invited to dinner until that moment, looked at Manju in surprise. Suresh said in a strange voice that he’d be there by half past seven, and the boys went away.

  Back at home, Manju told his mother that Suresh Uncle would be joining them for dinner, as would Srikanth. Gayathri, who was washing clothes, said nothing. She did not even look up. But at the mention of Suresh’s name, the feelings came crashing onto her; many different feelings, trippi
ng over each other, tripping each other up, until saying anything became impossible.

  For years, Gayathri had feared that Narayani or Lakshmi or some other well-meaning soul in town would casually inform her that Suresh was getting married. And why not? He had the right to. Only, she knew that those words would be her undoing. For how could she bear the thought of Suresh walking around the fire with another woman, making her his wife? He, who had laboured long and hard in the mechanic’s garage to earn enough to make a home for Gayathri, only to be rejected as unsuitable by her father because he did not belong to their community.

  Well, the ‘suitable’ fellow she had ended up married to had beaten her and taken her money and left her widowed with a little son and a large debt. That day, as she sat beside her husband’s body and the mourners came in to pay their respects, Narayani had embraced her and whispered, ‘This is the best thing that could have happened to you. You may not know it yet…’

  Gayathri had looked up then, directly into Narayanamma’s forthright eyes. And at that moment Narayanamma understood that Gayathri already knew. Just minutes after her husband’s death, even before his body was cremated, Gayathri knew that the best thing that she could say about her husband was that he was dead.

  And Suresh? Why would he want her now – a widow, a mother, penniless and bitter, struggling to repay loans that she had never taken? He had kept a distance over the years, never speaking to her, never looking at her, avoiding the places she frequented.

  Until today.

  Today he would be coming to dinner.

  On the spur of the moment, Gayathri rinsed her hands and hurried across to the Nameless Shop to tell Narayanamma that she must eat with them tonight. A non-conductor was required. She must come.

  Thanks to Narayanamma’s brisk presence and Srikanth’s cheerful one, everybody got through dinner with minimal awkwardness. Manju was quiet as usual, and Suresh was silent. Gayathri did not drop vessels as she might have done out of nervousness because Narayanamma, understanding how things were, took charge as if she were the hostess and not Gayathri.

  After that, Narayanamma had gone home and, while Suresh built a low-energy solar-powered motor from spare parts that he had salvaged from the garage, the boys begged Gayathri to come outside and explain the purification process to Suresh as Pashupati sir had told it to her. She sat down on the back porch and, while Suresh laboured away and the boys assisted, Gayathri spoke. She spoke hesitantly at first, and then with increasing ease that came naturally when speaking to an old friend, a lover whose touch, smell, laughter and tears had remained with her through twelve years of unhappy marriage and joyless widowhood.

  The next morning, minutes after Sheshadri left for office, a contractor arrived at the mansion on Wadiyar Street. Gopala had called the office to say that he’d be late. He, his aunt, his mother and his wife stood with the contractor around the borewell in the front yard (the one that had run dry) and sketched out a plan to recharge it when the rains came. The contractor sent for three labourers, and work began immediately. A fifteen-foot conical-shaped ditch was dug around the borewell, four feet in diameter. Inside, at the bottom, a thick layer of charcoal was laid down, followed by gravel, pebbles and sand, until the ditch was completely filled to the top. Over this, a wide, perforated concrete slab was placed. In the centre was a hole to accommodate the borewell. The concrete slab sat flush with the level of the front yard, and all in all it was a neat job. The ladies came out for a final inspection and smiled their satisfaction. While Lakshmi was inside the house fetching money from her cupboard, Gopala quickly paid the contractor and sent him on his way.

  And so it was that at 6.54 p.m., precisely twelve minutes before Sheshadri Saab returned home from work, and just thirty-two hours before the first rains came to Rudrapura, the first of the town’s many homemade borewell recharge units came into existence at the mansion on Wadiyar Street. It was done without the master’s money or consent. Indeed, it took Sheshadri several days to even notice the change. The first whiff he got of it was when, a week later, the maid pumped water out of the borewell which hadn’t yielded a drop in several years. That’s when Sheshadri frowned, stared, glared … and quickly averted his eyes. The time for shouting had now passed. The venture was obviously successful, and he didn’t want to hear Lakshmi saying that she had told him so. Sheshadri hated being told that he had been told so. And so, thinking that silence would be the most appropriate course of action towards preserving his dignity, the patriarch said nothing.

  People began to arrive shortly after to study the recharging unit. Lakshmi had to explain the concept to eager listeners many times over. The upshot of the whole affair was that the contractor got several orders to execute similar jobs in other houses and soon, many dried-up borewells in Rudrapura began to bubble and sing with life.

  Now Sheshadri could resist no longer. Nineteen days into the onset of the monsoons, from the privacy of his office, he made a call to Pattabhiram, inviting him to Rudrapura to witness the town’s efforts at harvesting water. He spoke in such a manner as to convey that the whole drive had taken place under his initiative, and Pattabhiram felt guilty for having written Sheshadri off as a pompous old jackass. In fact, he was positively touched by the man’s apparent interest in the subject dearest to his own heart. So Pattabhi, who had been about to leave for Mangaluru on conservation work, changed direction and headed to Rudrapura instead.

  He had intended to stay the morning, but became so fascinated by the transformation in that once dried-up, throwaway little town, that he stayed on for three whole days, walking about the place, visiting harvesting devices and storage units in people’s homes, studying the simple yet powerful ways in which, with little money and through sheer innovation, they had engendered a whole new way of life.

  At the centre of the town, in an area everybody called Five Lights, was a battered and broken-down lorry. The front portion seemed to have been destroyed in some kind of terrible accident. But when Pattabhi walked around it to its rear, he was thrilled by what he saw. The entire back part had been converted into a receptacle for rainwater, with a capacity of nearly fifteen thousand litres! The inner part of the receptacle had been painted (quite brilliantly, too) with water-resistant paint to keep it rust-free. Holes had been drilled into its sides, and taps had been fitted. Fine wire meshes welded into the openings filtered out dirt particles and leaves.

  The outer body of the receptacle was a work of art in itself. Someone had painted step-by-step visual instructions of a home-made, do-it-yourself rainwater purification unit. The same somebody had gone on to show, in one panel after the next, the famous film star Anant Nag working side-by-side with common people to harvest rainwater in a multitude of ways. The entire surface of the lorry had been converted into a sort of mural that told stories. In one panel, there was a tall, handsome Brahmin priest surrounded by children, standing beside an ancient temple watching rainwater from the temple’s roof being drained into a nearby well. Pattabhi thought some of the children in the painting looked familiar. He peered at the faces more closely, trying to recall … Yes! He remembered now. These were the very faces that had looked up at him from the audience at the Chandana Palace Kalyana Mandapa, the day he had given his lecture on rainwater harvesting! Standing beside the priest with his arm around the children stood Anant Nag, beaming proudly.

  Amazing! thought Pattabhi, shaking his head in a mix of amusement and fascination.

  As Pattabhi walked around the lorry, moving from one panel to the next, he realized that not just the children, but the adults featured in them were the citizens of this very town too. There was Lakshmi madam, Sheshadri Saab’s sister, and the daughter-in-law … Pattabhi couldn’t recall her name. Well, there were the both of them, standing beside a borewell recharging unit. And there, in the next panel was Narayanamma, the owner of the Nameless Shop where he had stopped for coffee this afternoon. Then there was that Catholic priest who had attended Pattabhi’s lecture the first time he had visit
ed Rudrapura. One panel showed him dressed in his white cassock, turning the roof of his school into a catchment area. Working alongside him was a group of boys dressed in the white-and-grey uniform of Christos Convent.

  Everything in these panels must be true, then, thought Pattabhi. This is not just somebody’s imagination. It is Rudrapura’s story. Its very own story of rain.

  Easy-going, gossipy Rudrapura had finally found its calling. Completely fired up by the idea of rainwater harvesting, its people now entertained no other thought in their heads, so that every niche, every crevice in the earth had been converted into a receptacle for the rains.

  As Pattabhiram drove through the town in his jeep, his windscreen wipers waging a valiant battle against the downpour, he peered out and saw in the yard of one hut a thin old man carrying a tiny old lady in his arms. They were soaked to the skin and laughing like children as he held her up (with god knows what strength in his skinny arms) while she pulled down three colourful saris and wrung them out into a bucket lying nearby.

  Pattabhi frowned. What are they doing? he thought. That’s not the way to harvest water! He parked his jeep and ducked out into the rain, sprinting lightly to the compound wall.

  ‘Thatha!’ he called. The old man turned, as did his wife, and both smiled vaguely in the direction of the stranger, trying to make him out in the downpour. Perhaps he was lost and looking for an address. The old man took his wife, dripping wet saris and all, to the front porch of the little hut, and deposited her there. Then he returned to the stranger to see what he wanted. Pattabhi introduced himself and was greeted warmly and invited inside for a cup of coffee. He refused, saying that Sheshadri Saab was expecting him, and that he had only stopped to say that if rainwater harvesting was what they were trying to do, then there might be more effective ways. But the old man laughed and said that his wife had wanted to do her bit, and so this was just her way of doing something. ‘Poor girl, she has been bedridden for years,’ he confided. ‘I didn’t want her to feel left out of all the fun. But I have also done other things. Come and see.’