Samar wiped the beads of sweat from his brow. As he raised a finger to press the doorbell, his eyes – as always – gravitated toward the nameplate at the apartment entrance.
Pragya and Samar’s Home, it read, in a stylised, calligraphic font.
Yet the sight of his name up there brought him no joy or pride. Instead, it stirred in him a strange suspicion – that the home they had once nurtured together had slowly come to belong to Pragya alone. His own share of spirit and substance, once woven into its walls, now felt reduced to the bare minimum: a hollowness propping up the place, a vacant void to which he returned only for some sleep.
As he opened the door, Samar’s ambivalence gave way to alarm. Pragya was nowhere in sight. The floor – stretching all the way to their bedroom –…
Samar wiped the beads of sweat from his brow. As he raised a finger to press the doorbell, his eyes – as always – gravitated toward the nameplate at the apartment entrance.
Pragya and Samar’s Home, it read, in a stylised, calligraphic font.
Yet the sight of his name up there brought him no joy or pride. Instead, it stirred in him a strange suspicion – that the home they had once nurtured together had slowly come to belong to Pragya alone. His own share of spirit and substance, once woven into its walls, now felt reduced to the bare minimum: a hollowness propping up the place, a vacant void to which he returned only for some sleep.
As he opened the door, Samar’s ambivalence gave way to alarm. Pragya was nowhere in sight. The floor – stretching all the way to their bedroom – was buried beneath a mess of toys. Cushions that typically graced the sofa lay strewn among upturned chappals, sandals, and spoons. The living room looked as though it had been struck by a whirlwind. Rugs had been dragged into clumps. The dining table stood alone, like the exploded shell of something once whole, with not a single chair upright. A couple of lamps leaned precariously against a wall, while another lay half-toppled. Overturned chairs were cloaked in a large bedsheet, fashioned into a makeshift fort – its roof drooping, its walls on the verge of collapse.
To Samar, the whole scene resembled the aftermath of a violent tremor.
The cause of the chaos soon made itself known.
Nine-year-old Simone and seven-year-old Sidharth came bursting out from within, locked in a raucous squabble over some toys. They were fighting tooth and nail, ready to rip the stuffed animals – and each other – apart. Samar lunged forward and let out a loud grunt, separating the two warring siblings.
“Where is your mother?” he asked, voice stern.
“She did not tell us where she was going!” Simone yelled, struggling against her father’s grip, still trying to punch her brother.
A wave of irritation rose in Samar’s chest, as the tides of uncertainty within him began to churn more violently. He pictured Pragya’s smiling, vivacious face – even as his own mind sank into turmoil.
“Other than gallivanting around all day,” he muttered to himself, “does she have anything else to do anymore?”
Agitated, he stormed into the bedroom. The children slunk away. He slammed the door behind him and the sound reverberated through the house. Startled, the kids shrank into a corner and clutched each other’s hands.
A long silence settled. Though Simone and Sidharth resumed their tug-of-war, they fought with restraint now, their father’s temper still looming in the air.
Some time later, the front door creaked open. Pragya entered, panting, her arms laden with two large jute bags brimming with vegetables and groceries. She had already noticed Samar’s motorcycle parked downstairs, but still asked, “Has Papa come home?”
“Yes,” the children replied in unison.
“When did he return?”
“A while ago. He is sleeping now,” Simone said.
Pragya nodded, her face unreadable. Samar’s behaviour had lately become perplexing. Sudden mood swings, inexplicable outbursts, and temper tantrums – traits she had never associated with him before – had become more and more frequent.
At night, he lay beside her like a stranger, his face turned resolutely away.
After putting the groceries away and clearing the mess in the living room, she walked softly to the bedroom and gently opened the door.
Darkness.
She flicked on the lights. Samar lay on the bed, visibly disturbed by the sudden blue-white glare.
A large portrait of Dr Ambedkar shimmered on the wall beside him. Adjacent to it hung a poster bearing lines from a Pablo Neruda poem:
If I look at the crystal moon, on the red branch of the slow autumn at my window, if I touch near the fire the impalpable ash or the wrinkled body of the log, everything carries me to you…
The words glowed in the light.
Pragya lingered at the poem, reading on wistfully
…my love feeds on your love, and as long as you live it will be in your arms without leaving mine.
Samar had once loved this poem. He would read it aloud, his voice brimming with romance and revolutionary fervor. Now, those same words felt to Pragya like an inscription in a long-dead language, begging to be deciphered. The room itself felt like a cave, its walls whispering things beneath their silence.
*Excerpted with permission from *‘Blue Mountain, Red Sun’, *by Anita Bharti in *Love in the Time of Caste: A Dalit-Feminist Anthology of Love Stories, edited by Nikhil Pandhi, Zubaan Books.
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