Shayan’s Big Adventure

It was summer and I had nothing to do at home except seeing Mom cook. The days were vaguely long, and half of the time my mother would let me do household chores like fetching milk from the market, telling her what the time was and so on.

Sometimes, I quietly sneak into Father’s room and count the money which he had kept in the cupboard. For some reason, it became lesser every morning. I would have preferred seeing who took the money without making any noise. I wonder!

My father is a school teacher, an English teacher in our town and he is very strict about a lot of things, for instance, reading newspapers because it makes a huge impact on your vocabulary. In the morning I read the newspaper loudly, in his presence. In fact, I have memorised the paper verbatim. Yes, you are right—I read the same article every day using the same newspaper.

Father never keeps an eye on me, he gleefully watches from the other room. I am from the same school as father and he has a huge reputation in the school for scoring the highest in English. My life is not so different from hell because I specifically have to pay attention to the English subject but I like science more than understanding grammar.

The summer vacation is long and most of my friends have gone for a vacation outside Kolkata. Last year, Rajiv went to Mumbai to meet his grandfather and apparently saw Amitabh Bachchan. The way he remembers him as a 7-foot-tall man with a watermelon face, made him scary to me, so I stopped watching his movies.

Moving on, we live in the outskirts of Kolkata, and I am in the sixth grade of Rabindranath School in Chakdah, Zilla Nadia. We celebrate Rabindranath Tagore’s birthday every year by singing his poems.

We have a big picture of him hanging in our hall room, my mother tells me he is a deity to us. I believed her in the early days but now I know he was a master in literature. For some reason, I have seen father singing and silently shedding tears while listening to him. I am amazed at how grown-ups can cry without anyone noticing it.

Since it was summer, the heat was burning the ground, and playing in the field was like dancing on a frying pan. Besides, I didn’t have any friends to accompany me, except Piu, and she practices singing at home. I can hear the harmonium every day exactly at 6 pm while I pass by their window.

Piu and I are great at science but she likes to write poems. She recites them to me but I don’t get the sentiment right, I don’t have a knack for creativity perhaps. My mother tells me I have a poet hidden in me—when I read a poem to her once, although I didn’t know the meaning, my words really helped her seep into it, I quite didn’t get it. My father is an MA in English literature and my mom is a trained classical dancer. She has practised for sixteen years and has won many accolades for performing,

There is a stigma attached to science in my family. I am the odd one out in it. My father’s bookshelves are filled with poetry books and novels, he even told me to start reading and understanding stories. He thinks studying science makes one didactic and cold-hearted.

Anyway, you can hear him singing songs of Rabindranath Thakur while taking a bath. I sit quietly in the morning when he is at home on Sundays, which are the worst because I have to pretend I am studying. Fathers only want you to see studying, even to fetch a glass of water I have to be ready for a speech and to have a teacher at home is like capital punishment. I wish he could have been a science teacher—I would have been saved from being good at grammar.

I am Shayan Dasgupta, my father calls me Sayo and I don’t know why.

Mom uses a variety of names to call me, but I pay attention to the work given to me. Since it’s summer, our house is filled with mangoes and the aroma is all over the house. I don’t love mangoes but I have no choice because everyone does.

The mango tree is really old. It was planted by our ancestors and my father has taken care of it ever since. I sleep in the shade sometimes. I have to be alert as snakes roam around during summer. Once a snake dropped directly from the tree and sat on top of my head, somehow I escaped. As kids, we used to run behind snakes and if lucky, caught hold of one, the small one.

It doesn’t harm you, the scary ones are not that visible especially, the black ones, because one fang in you and within thirty seconds you will see the white sky. I have been warned by Mom not to put my hand in the snake holes, in fact, I have been told snakes are incapable of digging holes so they use the holes of chipmunks or groundhogs and then they perhaps kill them or use an abandoned one.

I never told Mom, but my friend Rajeev and Piu know this secret, once I killed a snake for fun, it was beautiful how his insides look so accurate—Piu vomited and ran away home, but I kept staring and liked the anatomy of the snake. Rajeev described how painful it must be for the snake and didn’t add anything more.

The house we live in has lush greenery around us, the backyard is full of trees which are not identifiable, but there is a big mango tree in the middle, and jasmine tree in the corner and all kinds of small bushes and adjoining there is a small pond which does not belong to us, and all the snakes come from there.

One fine morning

‘Shayan, you can’t behave like a two-year-old kid, stand up!’ Father retorted while looking around.

I kept kicking the ground, I wanted to go for a vacation. ‘All my friends are gone it’s only me who is at home,’ I sobbed

‘Okay, okay, get up!’ Father understood the severity of the demand.

I knew my father would take me to the national park, just to stop me from making a nuisance. Finally, he agreed.

I made sure that he took me to the amusement park or zoo— but he didn’t say a word the entire day. The next day when I woke up early and went to the toilet, I eavesdropped on their conversation. Father took me seriously and planned to take a leave, Mom, on the other hand, was not excited. Sometimes I think Mom doesn’t even love me, I made a grumpy face and walked back to my room.

It was 11 am, I could hear the bulbul making a sweet melodious sound, I woke up to that, and sauntered to the hall—mother was chopping vegetables sitting on the sofa. She gave me a tiring look—the kind of look which says she is disappointed in me.

I tiptoed towards the remote and switched on the TV and began watching cartoon. I could hear her murmuring something, and chopping sound became clearly audible in the background. I increased the TV volume for I didn’t want to hear her murmur.

‘How can you be so stubborn?’ She continued chopping. ‘Your father went out to make the arrangements for us to visit the amusement park,’ she further added. ‘Why are you making his life more arduous? You know we live frugally. Are you even listening?’

I left the room to see the bulbul which was still there, I jumped on the dead grass pile Mom sweeped together—it was the happiest day for me.

I was called inside, and I could still see the scornful face with a line on her forehead. She put the food right in front of me and walked back. I could not fathom what to tell her. After having dal, rice and sabzi my stomach was full—Mom’s food is best in our village, in my school there is a price for my tiffin. It feels good to be wanted for your food.

The sun was about to set, and I was on my swing as I saw Father heading towards home in his old cycle—he looked tired and happy at the same time. He parked his cycle and I was soon standing beside him. He looked at me, smiled and gave me chocolate. With sheer excitement I ran inside to tell Mom.

Father sat in front of the Rabindranath's picture and gulped the water from the glass offered. He had this brightness on his face, after putting down the glass, he looked up and said, ‘We are going to Kolkata to your mashi's place and from there we will go to the zoo.’

I didn’t know how to express my gratitude so I hugged my father as tight as possible.

Next morning

My mother packed all our bags. As planned, we are going to Kolkata which is two and a half hours away—the train commute made me nauseous but it’s better than bus travel.

We took an early morning train from Chakdah station, the station had very few people waiting for the train. I could see a few travellers still sleeping on the platform like it was their home—I felt bad but they seemed fine at the same time. The train was delayed for fifteen minutes so Father told us to take the luggage and sit surrounding the bags while he went to get tea for us, which was little ahead from where we were seated.

The station looked dirty to me. A dog stood in front of us wagging its tail. I never liked dogs. I feel they are overtly compassionate, but Mom took out a few biscuits and threw at him. I have never seen anyone so happy. The dog disappeared with the biscuits.

Two coolies wearing torn red shirts and badges which were shining for some reason passed running in front of us. I also saw a few other commuters running ahead in the right direction, Mom was busy managing the bags. I heard a loud sound and saw the train was entering the station.

I could not see my father; with a frantic voice, I informed Mom  that the train had come and kept looking at the direction he went. The train was still entering the station but Mom and I couldn’t leave the bags to search for him—what if he went home leaving us here? I didn’t know how to carry the bags and board the train, I was about cry when I saw Baba running with a plastic bag—a sense of relief went down my spine.

We boarded the train, and I took the window seat because the train was largely empty, father took the bags and kept it at the top bay, and removed his shoes and started to uncover the plastic bag.

The train had started moving. I could see a few commuters running along with train, the sight of which made me laugh.Father adjusted all the bags and rested with his legs up on the seat.

The slow movement of the train and constant noise of the compartment oscillating from one side to another made me feel drowsy. After a few minutes, I sauntered towards the washroom while adjusting myself to the rhythmic jerking of the train. I reached the door where the washroom was, pushed it, and saw a turd floating. The sight gave me vomiting sensation but I had no choice. As I came out, I saw an old man gazing at the deep jungle which kept on passing through. He had a piece of luggage which was filled with mangoes, the look of it made me starve. He was deeply inhaling and exhaling the scent of the train. I saw him immediately stubbing the bidi, I believe he saw a TC coming the way, no wonder I didn’t see that coming.

The sun was about to come out. The swift movement of the train and engine changing tracks made its way towards the sunrise. I got back to my seat and touched my chin to the window bars. The sun slowly rose. I sipped my tea and while it was vaguely understandable that the destination would arrive soon, I didn’t want that to happen.

Father peeped outside the window and started to take out the bags from overhead and told us to get ready to deboard. We would soon reach Howrah Junction.

The station was crowded like it was a vegetable market during peak hours—I kept bumping into other commuters which irked me. Father walked ahead and made sure we got out of the right exit. I saw a coolie walking along with us, asking for assistance. He was nice and gave us respite from our luggage.

He picked the baggage, with no effort whatsoever, as if he was lifting a feather. In no time we reached the taxi stand. The coolie disappeared in the commotion, the taxi driver was speaking in a primitive Bengali—which I had not heard before and figured it can be used in this way too.

The busy street made my heart ponder more. Although I was enjoying each part of it, the way the taxi sped, making a cut to each row and moving forward, my father looked bit worried and put his hand on his shoulder. Maybe it was a universal language for comprehending to slow down.

The traffic lights keep changing and people on the street kept walking aimlessly with a long face. To my surprise I did not see any kids playing. Mom called me stupid because who plays in the middle of the street? Yes, she is right. At each stop, father gazed at the fare meter. I wonder why he did that? I was too occupied admiring the tall buildings.

Finally, the taxi came to a screeching halt. He dropped us at a place where it all looked like tall buildings and busy people. After removing the luggage, the taxi sped away. Father was constantly checking the time—then I understood we were standing at a bus stop.

Mom pulled out a mango and gave it to me, she exactly knows when to offer me what. I sucked on the mango and saw a bus approaching towards us and all of a sudden people gathered from nowhere. With great difficulty, we boarded the bus. The bus jerked on each stop, and it moved faster on a busy street and lesser on an empty street, I wondered why it did that.

Gradually, all the passengers kept getting down and after thirty minutes there were only two more passengers inside the bus. In the midst of the commute I forgot to see outside. Now, I saw houses and no buildings.

We reached mashi’s house and she was excited to see us. Mashi’s house was full of trees—with a tall mango tree in the middle of the courtyard.

Since it was summer, mangoes hung loosely from the tree and it was so delicious, I forgot I was morose and went directly inside to get one of those.

Later that day, Father wanted to take us to see the city for it had a variety of fun stuff especially for me. Mashi owned a car and my mesho took us out in it.

Mesho pretty much knew everything about the city. We reached the Kolkata zoo and the greenery moved me  but when Mom told me they didn’t properly clean the cages and dens, I was sad.

I saw a cage where there was no animal inside to my surprise. I came closer to it, just to have a good look. There were damp grass and a bowl of water kept in the centre. As my eyes moved up, I saw a gorilla looking straight at me with red eyes, like he wanted to be free and would take my life for that. I took a step back, petrified. The deer and alligators all had this look of being held captive.

The kind of images I saw in the book, this was not like it for sure. I moved around and sauntered towards the tiger's cage, but it was not a cage—there was a huge hole in the middle of the park surrounded by bars so the tiger could cross through. I saw the tiger sleeping and his stomach looked full, maybe he overate.

His stomach was bouncing up and down, I was looking at it so intently—my legs slipped on one of the stones and I fell into the den. The tiger was still asleep, everyone gathered there started yelling really loud.

I couldn’t fathom for a moment what really happened, there I was sitting just a few metres away from the fierce tiger, I held my breath and closed my eyes but still I was at the same place. There was commotion all around me, and for a moment I became numb—I couldn’t move my feet or hands, my breath was rushing. I could see Father waving his hands and his lips moving rapidly.

Then suddenly the reality gushed in. I cried like a lost child—which was the biggest mistake I might have done. The tiger opened his eyes, and smelled something in the air, and resumed sleeping. I was still weeping—it was happening naturally. I looked at my father but he was gone and I saw Mom sitting quietly in the corner. I tried to sit up but my legs were badly bruised, so I dragged myself to the corner of the den. I gazed at the corner and saw the skull of a goat. I couldn’t believe the pain of being eaten by a carnivorous animal, now I had the epiphany why I loved Discovery Channel so much, why I loved a deer being chased by a lion, this was it—the curse of all the killed animals was upon me.

I heard people chanting and yelling at the same time and stones being pelted. I looked around and saw the tiger was sitting in a hunting mode, his claws were clenched and his eyes were on me.

I was stiff, he was approaching. This was the first time I saw a tiger and my death together. He was reasonably close to pounce on me. He jumped, and when I opened my eyes I was sleeping in the hospital, my father beside me.

Father had come inside with zoo officials and saved me from being the tiger's food. I smiled and looked at him. This was my life's biggest adventure.