A siren blared through the speakers installed across the packaging hall of a pharmaceutical manufacturing facility in Uttarakhand’s Haridwar district when the hour hand on the clock hit 7. It meant that the shift of workers, who had begun their work at 12 noon, had come to an end. The factory had a reputation for being one of the very few employers in the district with flexible shifts, each of them comprising 7 hours, including an hour for lunch break.
Pallavi packaged the remaining strips of tablets that lay on the conveyor belt in front of her and put them into a tray. The packaging hall was equipped with three such belts. They were, for greater productivity, placed in a way that allowed workers to flank it on both sides. Every day since her joining a month ago, Pallavi, at the end of her shift, would turn her back to the conveyor belt, cross her arms on her chest, and watch her co-workers exit the hall. In the excitement of completing their shift and in the haste to get a seat in a rickshaw, none of them ever bothered to ask why she would strike a pose like this, and why she was the last one to leave. There were a few young women like Pallavi, however, who were aware of her habit but hesitated to ask why she did that. They had other reasons as to why they did not. These women shared the parking space for bicycles with Pallavi and would see her ride her bicycle in the morning, and walk it in the evening till she reached the service road adjacent to the highway.
This stretch of the road was dotted with lush green trees on both sides. The strip that separated the opposing lanes of the highway, too, was bedecked with a variety of flower-laden plants, with yellow bell flowers being the most prominent. The recent monsoon rains had given them a new lease of life. In the evening, however, they surrendered their beauty to the night’s darkness, and the place, in the absence of the street lights, looked as though you were standing in the middle of a dense forest. If you stood or sat at this place all by yourself and if the vehicles, not too many would be spotted at this hour, had strong headlights that extended to the edges of the road and spotted you there, even if slightly, one might conclude that you were either a lunatic, a ghost, or a sex worker.
Pallavi’s co-workers, the ones who shared the parking space with her, however, discovered no such characteristic in her, except calling her behaviour strange and dangerous. She was as good at work as they were. If she needed a rack of empty trays, she would boldly ask a fellow worker or her floor manager to fetch it. She smilingly returned greetings, nods, and eye contact at her workplace. They were not as bothered by Pallavi standing with her arms crossed on her chest and watching everyone exit the hall after the completion of the shift as they were by her standing on that service road all alone with only her bicycle by her side in the evening. Despite wanting so badly to see how long Pallavi stood there and if eventually someone visited her, these women could not get any breakthrough, for they feared that waiting at this eerie place could result in putting them in a situation they would not like. Besides, they did not want to offend Pallavi by her finding out that they were following her.
But they would find out soon.
The traffic on the highway had come to a standstill due to heavy rainfall, and it continued to pour into the night. The service road and the lanes of the highway disappeared under the water and took the shape of a river. The median, too, had submerged, with some people on the motorcycles and bicycles trying to change lanes to the shallower side. The water was deeper at the edges of the lanes and flowed with a strong current, and therefore, many people had to push their two-wheelers with greater strength as they waded through the water for almost 100 meters before the asphalt resurfaced.
All the workers had rushed to rikshaws waiting outside the exit gate of the factory, with some women covering their heads with their purses, except Pallavi and those who used bicycles as a means to commute to the factory and back home. They stayed put and waited for the rain to subside. It had been 15 minutes since their shift ended, and all of them had phoned either their father, brother, husband, or boyfriend to come pick them up. They, however, would not prevent themselves from getting drenched, as none of their relations owned a car. They would instead come on motorcycles, which in this torrential downpour and thickening darkness would be a great relief and get them home. They, however, would still have to wait till their rides came.
Pallavi grew impatient with each passing minute. She saw that the rain would not stop any time soon, and there was no one to come and give her a ride home. So, she ran towards the parking area outside the entry gate. The raindrops that collided with the seat of her bicycle shone after they bounced and scattered under the lamppost erected near the fence. Pallavi stood still alongside her bicycle and kept looking at this spectacle, least bothered that she was getting soaked to the skin.
“I need to get to the T-point,” Pallavi murmured to herself after she realised that the water on the surface had made it into her shoes as it kept rising. The T-point was the junction formed by the road connecting the factory with the service road. She freed her bicycle from the rack but could not get on it, because the road was inundated. By now, it had risen to the top of the kerb. With her hands on the handlebars, Pallavi pushed her bicycle on the water-logged road towards the T-point, continuing to murmur to herself, “I need to get to the T-Point”.
The waves created by the occasionally passing vehicles almost threw Pallavi and her bicycle off balance. But she held on to it firmly and kept trudging through the water.
“Never did I think that this road could ever become a river, like I never thought this T-point would become my temple and I would be its sole devotee,” Pallavi said to herself, but she soon corrected herself and said, “There is no temple there and I am no devotee. I am just keeping my part of the promise, while Jitesh did not. Because he could not.”
Normally, when it was not raining and when she rode her bicycle, it would take Pallavi seven or eight minutes to reach the service road. She would then sit on a kerbstone, take out her phone and scroll through the images she and Jitesh had clicked together. She would frequently look in both directions of the road, as if anticipating Jitesh’s arrival. She would sit there for fifteen minutes before cycling up to her home.
“Even the kerbs have disappeared today,” Pallavi said, as she carefully kept trudging through the water. “Jitesh could not disappear like this. His father said that he had been transferred to Karnataka by his company, and that he was the only one to be transferred to the headquarters because he was the brightest of his batch. On the contrary, his best friend told me a different story, saying that he died of a cardiac arrest a month ago and that his parents did not want anybody to know the cause of his death. I believed him and mourned his demise like I should. Then, I heard from someone else that Jitesh cooked all this up to part ways with me. I don’t believe this nonsense. I have known Jitesh since we were kids. Just a month or so ago, we met at the service road. He neither talked about his supposed transfer to Karnataka nor about any health issues. Neither did he make me feel that he didn’t love me anymore. I remember he clearly said, looking me in the eyes and holding my hand, ‘We will continue to meet here every day after our shifts’. He had fought with his manager to put him on a shift that ended at the same time as mine.”
Exhausted and drenched, Pallavi finally made it to the service road. She wanted to take out her cellphone but did not, knowing she wouldn’t be able to use it while it poured down. Standing where she always sat with her bicycle beside her, she looked to her left and then right, but came across nothing except darkness and the pitter-patter of the rain.
About the writer
Younis is a short story writer from Kashmir. He is a batch 14 (2021-2023) Gandhi Fellow. Previously, Younis was a Delhi-based Correspondent at FORCE Newsmagazine, a monthly magazine on national security and aerospace, where he extensively wrote on paramilitary forces and latest defence technologies. He was also part of Kus Bani Koshur Krorepaet season 1 (Kashmiri version of Who Wants to be a Millionaire? produced by Studio Next – Sony Pictures Networks India – for DD Kashir) where he worked as Assistant Director and Casting Producer. Younis is the author of Jiji: the trials and tribulations of Parveena Ahangar (Hawakal Publishers 2020). He holds a master’s degree in Convergent Journalism with a specialization in Narrative Journalism from the Central University of Kashmir. He was awarded the 2013 Student of the Year prize and Best Debater of the College by SP College, Srinagar.
Younis Ahmad Kaloo
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