/* This is a work of fiction */
My older brother committed suicide twenty years ago. Why? I don’t know. Neither do my parents, or any of his friends. My brother didn’t tell anyone about what he was going through. No one knows how he was feeling in the days and months leading up to that night, when he disappeared from our lives.
At the time, my brother and I lived in Chamba City with our parents. I was still in high school, and my bhaya was a young man fresh out of college, struggling to a find a job. Each day, when I returned home, I found him with his dearest friend in the whole wide world: Sanjay. They had grown up together, and were practically brothers. They had graduated from college and passed into unemployment together, and they spent their days drinking whiskey and beer, and smoking countless bidis and weed behind their parents’ back. Without each other, I’m sure they would’ve found respectable jobs.
They lounged about town together. They played cricket at the police ground, and they clambered up and down the roads and stairs traversing Chamba. Sometimes to the banks of the river Ravi, an ideal drinking hangout. Sometimes uphill, to the temple overlooking our city, devoted to a local goddess— Chamunda Devi.
To this day, I remember Chamba fondly— a small, congested city jammed between towering green mountains. Cars and buses spent all day honking relentlessly at each other, creeping through streets jam-packed with pedestrians and vendors. At night, you couldn’t hear anything but the Ravi roaring by.
Sanjay wasn’t in Chamba the day my brother left us. He had skipped town, and was visiting his ancestral village. I remember being at home with my mother; together, we were waiting for bhaya to return. She told me several times about how he needed a strict talking-to. ‘He needs to make something out of his life,’ she repeated.
5pm turned into 6, and 6 into 7. We called my father, who was manning his shop.
‘Don’t worry,’ he consoled. ‘He’s probably out job-hunting, he’ll be back soon.’
By 9pm, my father was at home with us. Bhaya was nowhere to be seen. For the first time that night, we were all worried sick. Bhaya never stayed out late without letting us know beforehand. Had he gotten himself into trouble? We called bhaya’s friends, one by one, and I even called Sanjay, who laughed it off and joked about how my brother was probably drunk and stumbling home. No one knew about his whereabouts, and finally, my father decided to head towards the police station.
I stayed back with my mother, and I had this premonition that something that had gone terribly, irreversibly wrong. When papa returned an hour later, escorted by a couple officers, my mother froze and looked at them panic-stricken. My papa announced that some college boys having a drinking party by the Ravi had found the washed-up body of a young, bearded man— a body matching bhaya’s description. He was heading down there straightaway.
I was dazed. My mother stifled her sobs and sat down cross-legged before our temple, and started appealing to several deities. Bholenath, Murali Mata, Indru Nag Devta, and on and on. She chanted verses and incantations, and for close to two hours, refused water, morsels of food, and even the sound of my voice. When papa called and confirmed the worst, mumma exploded into grief. She wailed desperately, painfully, drowning out the Ravi, her bloodcurdling, bone-chilling cries streaming into the dead of the night. I remember people surrounding us— neighbors, more officers, friends. Between them all, mumma called Sanjay.
‘He’s gone,’ she cried out. ‘He jumped into the river.’
None of us slept that night. Papa stayed down by the Ravi, with bhaya. I stayed with mumma. Early next morning, as the Sun rose into a slice of blue sky wedged between mountain slopes, Sanjay stood outside our home, but he didn’t enter. He stood before our gate as if held back by an imperceptible wall. Sanjay and mumma clung onto each other, and soon, my dead brother’s best friend left for the Ravi.
I saw him again hours later, when a procession emerged before our home. I saw officers, relatives, friends, neighbors, all clustered around papa, Sanjay, and several young men carrying a wooden platform bearing bhaya’s corpse.
*
It’s been twenty years since that day, and I haven’t seen Sanjay since, neither have my parents. That morning, Sanjay stepped out of our lives and vanished into thin air.
Why? Again— I don’t know. Did Sanjay know something about bhaya’s death that we didn’t? I’ve wrestled with these questions for years and years. Now, I’m dragging my past back into the present. I’m narrating my story because after twenty long years, through a stroke of sheer, dumb luck, I’ve found the man my older brother spent nearly every waking moment with, the man my mother thought of as another son.
Where is Sanjay? Far away, in a tiny Gaddi village near Bharmour where neither roads nor network signals reach. I’m going there right now, and I’m jammed between the stiff metal wall of a bus and a stranger. I spent last night with mumma, at our old, dilapidated home in Chamba, but I didn’t tell her I was rushing towards Sanjay.
I can’t peel my eyes away from the outside world. Several dams stand along the Ravi now, taming it. Countless buses and motorbikes and cars choke the roads. But like before, the Himalayas still hold this land under this sway and tower above all else. I’m back, and I’m feeling that long-forgotten magic that holds Chamba together, magic obvious in every panoramic view and every breath.
I’ve never felt this way outside, where this magic dissolves into flat cities and dead-straight roads and dirty air. Compared to Chamba, the rest of India is a junkyard.
*
A long time ago, when my brother and I were children, we spent our Winters with our grandparents, in their village. Battalions of clouds wafted up our mountains and valleys, and from November to March, lashed them with snow. As such, all schools in Chamba had five-month-long winter breaks. Come the start of November, our parents packed us bulky bags and saw us off.
That’s where I discovered the magic flowing through Chamba, intertwining humans and nature together, connecting lonely valleys and lifeless glaciers and lazy villages. Once it started snowing in my grandparents’ village— was there anyplace left to go to? The world outside was beautiful, but cold, frozen, and unwelcoming. We cozied up around a smoking-hot tandoor oven. My grandfather smoked his chillum, looked wistfully at us, and recounted tales from his youth.
Sometimes, I poked my head out and found an alien world. Misty clouds swallowing an entire landscape, nothing but whiteness overhead, and the eerie, grey silhouettes of trees and houses looming all around me. I’m grateful to my brother, who always dragged his little, wide-eyed sister back indoors.
He never mistreated me; he never teased, annoyed, or angered me, and he never, ever hurt me. He was a big, soft sweetheart around me. When the Sun came out after yet another cold, grey day and I wanted to trample around in snow, he’d follow me to keep me safe.
Years later, I talked to my girlfriends in The Big City about their brothers, and they all described them like they were bastards. They fought, teased, and slapped each other around, and didn’t go a waking moment without being at war.
*
My bus leaves me stranded by a row of small shops and disappears around a curve.
There’s a general store, a mechanic, an electric store, and an old lady selling fruits and vegetables here. Behind them, the terrain plummets a hundred feet, into the Ravi. Around me stand overwhelmingly tall mountains, each a mosaic of forest, grass, and brown rock.
I’m from this land— I know that everyone knows everyone here. So, I ask a shopkeeper about Sanjay: ‘Where does he live?’
He looks me up and down, and points over my head. ‘See that tower? Look there— see those houses clumped together? Sanjay lives right below that green one.’ He pauses and points out the beginning to a rugged trail. ‘Walk until you find a house under construction. Take a left there, and climb up towards that tower. Don’t forget— keep asking around for directions.’
I thank him and buy some snacks. Peanuts, moong dal, and a Sprite.
Soon, I’m huffing and panting. Throughout my childhood, my brother and I clambered up and down slopes like monkeys in a hurry. But at the ripe old age of thirty-five, I can’t breathe up here. I’m weak, but I must find Sanjay. I take small, shuffling strides, I breathe in and out, and every now and then, pause. Far away, I see white dots outlined against swaying grass— no doubt herds of goat and sheep. Terrace farms cling onto sheer slopes, trails cut across rock, and the clouds loom closer and closer.
I’m soaked through with sweat soon. I meet more villagers with kind smiles and faces as wrinkled as tree trunks. They look deep into my eyes and point out my way. I walk by a local school, where children are shouting and playing, and they all pause to look at me. A girl shouts after me, and in her broken English, asks for my name and which country I’m from.
Who knew I’d become a foreigner in my own homeland?
But I’m not surprised at being asked that, because I know that the people here are accustomed to seeing foreigners, all because of Sanjay’s life’s work. Remember— didn’t I tell you I found him through sheer, dumb luck?
I was reading at a café one Saturday when I caught someone spying on me— a tall, fair-skinned man with jet black hair. He smiled and walked over, and introduced himself as an Israeli travelling throughout India. I couldn’t tell whether he was holding my gaze or concentrating on the spot between my eyes. In his heavily accented English, he told me I looked beautiful.
I asked him about his favorite place in India. Can you imagine how I felt when he said Chamba— Chamba! I nearly jumped right out of my seat.
I felt like the musical symphony of my life was directing me towards this man, and we continued talking. Soon, he was swiping his gallery and showing me his pictures of Chamba, when my heart skipped a beat and ground to a halt. There, framed against familiar mountains, stood that man and Sanjay. I knew it without a doubt. Sanjay was balding, and the long, luscious hair of his youth was gone, but I was one-hundred-percent confident this was him.
The Israeli told me all about Sanjay: his homestay surrounded by mountains, his wife, and their beautiful three-year-old daughter. I couldn’t believe him. My Sanjay – the Sanjay who smoked weed and kicked back all day long with my brother – was young, free, and careless, and had never shouldered any responsibility.
And now, here I am. That tower the shopkeeper pointed out looms closer and taller with each step, and Sanjay’s home isn’t all that far anymore.
*
Outside Sanjay’s home, I feel like I’ve sunk down into the inky, murky world of dreams.
I walk up a short flight of stairs, and into a stone courtyard separating two mud-and-clay houses, one is old, small and green, while the other is red, tall, and confident. Flowers sprout at the roots of both buildings, and two girls sit there holding books up to their faces.
I turn, and find Sanjay, who doesn’t recognize me. ‘My friend— welcome!’ he bellows, before joining his hands together into a namaste.
I stand there rooted to the courtyard like a tree. There’s twenty years of weight pressing down on my shoulders, and I don’t say anything.
Sanjay’s expressions fade. His eyes contort, and he looks at me, shocked. After several seconds, he walks up and takes my bag, and clears his throat.
‘I’m working,’ says Sanjay. ‘Look around— this is my life. This is my job, you know? We’ll talk after I finish my work.’ He scurries away and leaves me alone.
Twenty years ago, after my brother passed away, Sanjay didn’t hurt me by walking out of my life. We barely knew each other because bhaya always stood firmly between us. ‘He’s a rascal when it comes to girls,’ bhaya often joked.
But when I think about Sanjay walking out on my entire family— I feel betrayed. My mother thought of him as her second, natural son. She had the same all-encompassing motherly affection for both Sanjay and bhaya. She cooked hot meals for them, and the three of them often chatted together like carefree friends. Even my father liked them both equally, and was always hounding after them over their status as unemployed young men.
Sanjay— this bastard disappeared. Mumma didn’t lose one, but two sons. One jumped out of her life, to his death, and the other ran away. Day after day, after bhaya’s death, Mumma asked me about Sanjay: ‘where is he? Why did he leave us?’ I tried finding him for her— I called bhaya’s friends again and again, and they all had their own stories. Some said Sanjay was in Dharamshala. Some said Kasol, some Manali.
So, I reached an obvious conclusion— Sanjay had turned into a ghost.
*
I’m waiting, and one hour grows into two. The Sun sinks and vanishes behind a ridge, and my surroundings slip into darkness. Mountains turn into immense, grey shapes, and lights break out here and there, like ships on a black sea.
Sanjay and his wife lay our dinner out— rajma, cabbage, chapati, and rice. They call the girls and me over, and we dig in. I can’t help but feel like an impostor, like I’m betraying my brother’s memory. I smile half-heartedly. I reply awkwardly. When no one’s talking to me, I’m submerged deep within my thoughts— I don’t ask anyone anything, or look anyone in the eye.
The time passes by agonizingly, and I feel every second. But after ages, Sanjay and I sit before each other, surrounded by darkness.
‘That night, I was sitting right where you are,’ he begins. ‘My grandfather ran this home back then. I was here with my family. Your mother called— he’s gone, he jumped into the river, she said. So, I hurried down this mountain with my friend, in the dark. My friend had a scooter, and we raced towards Chamba in the middle of the night.’
Sanjay pauses. ‘He was my best friend. I was carrying him in my arms, like this,’ he says, before spreading his arms out wide. ‘I carried him out of the river, to your house, and uphill. Your mother told me— come! Eat with us! Sit here, pray with us! But I refused— how couldn’t I? I didn’t want her to look at me and think— if only my son was here!’
‘She leaves me messages to this day. Come back— come to our house. I’ll cook for you. We’ll pray together. I can’t take my wife and daughter there. She will look at them. She will say— if my son was here today, he’d be married too. He’d have a wife, and his own kids. I can’t make her feel that way, so I don’t come back.’
*
The next morning, Sanjay and I wake up early. Everyone else is dead asleep.
We pick flowers from Sanjay’s homestay, and I follow him up to a nearby temple. The morning sky is soft and blue overhead, and the Sun hasn’t found us yet.
There, we sit down cross-legged before a stone altar and close our eyes. We sink into silence, and I hear birds singing back and forth, crickets chirping and cackling frenetically, and a dog barking somewhere in the distance.
Above these sounds, from, far, far away, bouncing off steep slopes and echoing through valleys, I hear the gentle murmuring of the Ravi.
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