We play games together

Dream 3 : Cuppa

Murthy almost felt more handsome than Izuh when Jagruthi looked at him that night. She was so very full of pride in his speech at the union meeting. Murthy told her how these folks' businesses were under dire pressure from mall culture, and Jagruthi immediately decreed that their household would buy from that market street as often as it could. So come Saturday afternoon Murthy played dutiful husband, carrying bags as Jagruthi shopped from folks he now knew to be Izuh's people. The radical sympathisers put on such artful masks that, in the company of his wife, in the peace brought upon him by the kids being at their grandparents', in pure Indian wedded bliss, Murthy almost forgot the significance of where he was. Eventually Jagruthi asked for the bags to be taken to the car, and Murthy instinctively mumbled something about wanting to stay behind to talk to the tradesmen. His wife agreed with obvious pride, ensured that he had change for the bus, and drove away in their Alto.

Quietly, Murthy took a few brisk laps of the street. The makeshift stage was back, and the occasion was probably less serious than a meeting. In a while, some devotional music began to play, and old aunties gathered around the stage. Murthy stood watching and listening, blending with the backstage bamboo as Izuh had done the other day. It was refreshing to see something non-ideological on this stage. There were people Murthy had judged as obvious Izuh-ra the other day, who were among this crowd but did not seem to be on duty. For them, too, it was a wholesome community event. Izuh, of course, was not there, as would be expected before the close of business.

As time passed and religion became boring, Murthy took a closer look at the immediate surroundings of the stage. There were many loudspeakers blasting prayers to the crowd, but one cable seemed to run between the shops, down an alley, to one of the houses that lay behind the market. The tradespeople mostly lived around there, but this one house was rare -- it was two-storeyed, and the alley cut through its lower floor, almost as if it were a supporting structure rather than a house.

Murthy moved cautiously towards the alley, and with boyish excitement realised that the occupants of the house must be interested in the ceremonies outside -- they were unable to show their faces, but had set up a loudspeaker right outside their window. Murthy marvelled at how obvious it had been for him to pinpoint where Izuh obviously lived. Was Izuh so smart after all?

Before he finished that thought, a wiry boy of about fourteen emerged coolly from the alley, placed a square piece of paper in Murthy's left pocket, and returned even more coolly than he had come. Murthy began a quiet exit from the market street, and read the note when he reached the bus stop. It carried a succinct question in the grave but rusty hand of Leader Bhaskar H : the Leader planned to read Stolen Labour Stories over tea the next day at five, and would love to have the author over for a dialogue on the book. He was confident that he remembered how the Professor liked his tea, so perhaps he could be entreated to come?

Murthy shook his head. The bastard is a coffee-drinker, he reminded himself, and immediately wondered why on earth he knew that about Izuh.

That new friend is now an old friend

Dream 2 : Wordsmith

It was past sundown, and a surprisingly disciplined group of tradesmen sat around listening to Murthy. They did business under severe disadvantages but had donned their best clothes for this meeting -- after all, for the first time, someone from the better parts of the city was expressing sympathy for their troubles without asking for their votes. They probably found it a bit surreal, Murthy thought, that a professor who wrote books about their troubles had actually bothered to come talk at one of their weekly meetings. They were also more attentive than any class of young adults or any audience of his peers that Murthy had ever addressed, so he revelled in the constant availability of eye contact from some listener or the other, and that too not always from the front rows.

When the smartly folded invitation had been opened at breakfast last Tuesday, Jagruthi was overjoyed that the grassroots were reaching out to Murthy. Bless her heart, she never takes my ramblings seriously unless they actually help people, Murthy had said to himself at the time. But alongside, he had also shuddered -- the letter was likely not coincidence, and it was a rare source of stress to have to hide things from his wife. Eventually, it had taken Murthy a fair amount of mental gymnastics to convince himself that he was not, in fact, becoming a recruiting tool for a terrorist, and that his excitement to speak at the event had more to do with humouring his wife than with the curious pull he had felt towards Izuh ever since that meeting.

When the two men had recognised one another, they had taken less than a second to also recognise what the other must have been thinking. They had looked away from one another like middle school crushes caught staring, and the meeting had anticlimactically ended with Murthy's hasty departure and Izuh's resumption of his pacing. But the radical leader, while he executed the obvious strategem of inviting Murthy to the next union meet, had also given thought to what Murthy was like as a man. So when, upon scanning the attentive audience, Murthy finally noticed Izuh in a nondescript corner, Izuh was prepared for his reaction.

Predictably, Izuh thought, Murthy's face mimicked his expression from that night. There was, first, shock and curiosity markedly devoid of fear. Quickly following was guilty surprise at his own lack of revulsion towards Izuh, who now felt a curious warmth spread through his body -- the academic had not, in fact, remembered to look down upon the terrorist. Watching Murthy steadfastly look away, Izuh wondered if this was who he himself would have become had he finished college. Not that he liked how this man was dressed, but it sure would have been great to dress like that and be taken seriously. Here was this man outfitted like he was ten years older, and there were organisations hanging on his ideological pronouncements. Izuh wondered if anger is more palatable coming from a better part of the city, from a man with no tattoos on his arms and, indeed, without his arms bared at all. Murthy was excellent at recruiting people to his viewpoint, and so it made no sense to Izuh that Murthy was not a more vociferous supporter of Izuh-ra. After all, it seemed to him that the curious connection he felt to this studious fellow was bilateral; but of course, there were limits to how deeply a professor could feel in tandem with a slumlord.

Comfortable for that moment with his understanding of Murthy, Izuh allowed himself to sit back and enjoy the book-smart validation of his deepest resentments. Murthy was Izuh's age, dressed like an uncle, and was losing a battle with thinning hair. But his face, in the middle of that night, had brought a storm of clarity to Izuh's fleeting heart. His aides had advised him to withhold his penmanship from the invitation, but Izuh was overcome by a desire to be classy with this man. He also deeply trusted that Murthy wouldn't run to the law -- and so the Union Leader Bhaskar H had written to Prof. R Murthy, asking him to please grace the union's gathering; and grace there was, thought Izuh, to how artfully Murthy had roused his listeners' rightful indignance.

The power of words had always struck Izuh as marvellous, and now he admired the beautiful control that Murthy possessed over their potence. Be it that day or later, Izuh decided, he must ask Murthy to meet him alone. He had a feeling that if he asked just the right way, then Murthy would come.