by Kunal
clothes where you throw out a ripped shirt and replace it with a new one. A principled man must
try to stitch together his bonds carefully, time and again.’
Professor Sharma waved towards the porch where Mrs Sharma was sitting with her crochet and
said, ‘Look at me, Bablu, I will be wearing my shirt, faded and patched but softened with time, till
the day I eventually fade away myself.’
Bablu went to Sarita’s house later that evening. They sat across the table, separated it seemed by a
world rather than a piece of wood. He found it difficult to look into her eyes, eyes that suddenly
looked weary, with desolation lingering at their edges.
Close to breaking point himself, he continued, ‘Sarita ji, I thought my rickshaw was empty, I had
travelled such a long way, a distance measured not just in kilometres but in time itself, hours, days,
years where nothing was visible, even in the rear-view mirror. But I didn’t realize that the meter
had stayed down and the passenger who had stepped out could just as easily step back in. I have to
go back, Sarita ji, back to her, my mother and my town.’
Sarita did not say a word, though her pain was evident – in her hand that trembled slightly as she
sat still covering her mouth, in her rigidly held neck as she kept her gaze fixed on the table between
them. She then nodded once, almost imperceptibly, and walked him to the door.
A week after that Bablu packed up his life in Indore, loaded his jeep and here he was, six years
and forty-seven kilometres later.
He could see his house up ahead with the electricity pole outside, where he used to tether his
cycle, though time had diminished the gleam of fresh paint on the exterior. Bablu also noticed a
horde of people gathered at the gate with overstretched smiles and garlands in hand. They were
waiting for him as if he was a visiting minister distributing free televisions a day before voting
begins.
He parked on the side and walked towards them, spotting his family, half hidden by the crowd.
But before he could reach them, there were raucous cheers and people rushing to put their garlands
around his neck.
The headman, who had once decided to hang him upside down from a tree, clasped him to his
chest saying, ‘Beta, I always told everyone, Bablu Kewat’s grandfather was a very intelligent man
and that boy has gone on his Dada ji, he will be world famous one day.’
Parul’s husband, Mahesh, held Bablu’s hand – flipping over his palm, he traced a line on it and,
displaying his sudden knowledge of palmistry, turned to his beaming wife, declaring, ‘See, didn’t I
tell you, Parul, this boy has a luck line that sweeps across his entire palm, he was always destined
to be a great man, I have been saying this since he was a child.’
He saw Akram standing behind Ganjkaran and walked up to him, squeezing his friend’s shoulder
affectionately while Ganjkaran droned on, ‘Kewat saab, I still remember the day you came to me
and bought sanitary pads, many reporters had come to interview us and I told them that I knew right
at that moment our Kewat saab was a genius type of person.’
Bablu made his way through the crowd, towards his family, touched his sobbing mother’s feet as
he always had when greeting her, hugged his nephew, who sported a pubescent moustache and
pimples now, and his sisters. Gowri was standing in a corner, an uncertain smile fluttering on her
lips. She looked both frightened and hopeful. He took her by the hand and entered his home.
27
Sonal nestled on the front seat of the jeep, her small head leaning against the window as she played
with her Rubik’s Cube. ‘How much further, Papa?’ she asked. Bablu looked at his ten-year-old
daughter and replied, ‘Almost there, Sona, another ten minutes.’
Gowri did not understand the point of these excursions that the father and daughter embarked upon
ever so often, just like she didn’t understand why when he could sell his machines for a greater
profit, he didn’t. Why they could not move to a better house, or get a new car.
Rachna of course had her own ideas, that he was pretending to live a modest life while
squirrelling all his money into Swiss bank accounts. She was convinced that his frequent trips to
Europe to give lectures were just a cover-up for his unscrupulous activities. But Bablu had
stopped explaining himself a long time ago.
Sonal, having solved her cube many times and still unable to beat her best time of forty-three
seconds, started toying with the threaded lime and chilli that Bablu had hung on the rear-view
mirror. Tapping it like a ball and watching it sway, she said, ‘Papa, isn’t this meant to keep the evil
eye away? But you always say not to believe in superstitions, then why do you hang it?’
Bablu was silent. It was not a superstition but a souvenir from his past, a flashlight illuminating a
single moment, in a mind crowded with dusty memories. A fragile soap bubble filled with images
of sitting pillion behind a remarkable woman on her scooter, dodging potholes. Her stopping at a
traffic light, buying a cotton thread with lime and chilli from a street vendor, laughing as she said,
‘In English there is a saying “when life gives you lemons, you make lemonade”. But in India when
life gives us lemons, we turn them into talismans threaded with chillies to protect us from the
bumpy roads it takes us on.’
Unable to tell his daughter about a life spent making difficult choices, he said instead, ‘Some
superstitions are based on science – the juice from the lime and chilli keeps pests away. It is a
simple insecticide.’
Bablu parked the jeep at the edge of the Kheoni wildlife sanctuary and, holding his daughter’s
hand, walked into the woods, where he would show her how to pick the right stones to rub together
and make a fire, point out the monkeys taking calculated leaps as they jumped from branch to
branch, the disciplined black ants marching in a straight line like soldiers in a parade, and the
brown butterflies delicately sitting on wildflowers, feeding without destroying.
( This fictionalized story is based on Arunachalam Muruganantham and his marvellous
invention, the low cost sanitary pad making machine. All characters, places and incidents,
however, are the author’s own creation. )
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Padma Shri Arunachalam Muruganantham or Muruga as I call him, not just
because my tongue trips over his name, but because he is also now a friend. Muruga is the inventor
of the low cost sanitary pad making machine and a social entrepreneur who works tirelessly to
remove the taboos around menstruation. I had to chase him for months before he finally agreed to
meet me and then, after lengthy interviews, gave me permission to fictionalize his story for this
book. A hug to Aarav and Nitara, for bearing with me and leaving me alone with my computer
whenever I yelped, ‘Don’t come close, there are insects on my desk!’ This was not an absolute
falsehood because during the last monsoon season we did have a bug infestation and I spent hours
at my computer, typing with one hand while scratching my legs with the other. Merliyn Joseph, you
amazing woman, I owe you one for patiently answering all my queries about Amma and meen
moilee and for the time I interrupted you in the middle of a movie and asked, ‘So when y
ou die,
which cemetery are you likely to be buried in?’ To my wonderful Mom, I am not half the woman
you are but even that half seems to be enough. Rinke Khanna, may we both grow old like Noni
Appa and Binni. There is so much of us that went into dreaming up those two sisters. A hug to my
Nani for dragging me to the Jamatkhana for so many years. A big thank you to the fabulous Jaishree
Ram Mohan, Gavin Morris, Rachna Kalra, Harsimran Gill, Anish Chandy, Sonali Zohra and the
great team at Juggernaut Books for making it all happen. Chiki Sarkar, my wonderful publisher and
editor, once again, I could not have done this without you.
