Two days had passed. I was distraught. The newspapers could not have carried any news more devastating than this. I had not eaten anything for the past many hours. I had no appetite. I had moved out of the lodge to save every penny possible. Resources had become limited. I had no relatives, no friends here or anywhere else. I slept, or rather tried to sleep on the pavements, wandering aimlessly till I always found myself back at the same place, at T-Nagar. I had got the punishment for my wrong doing. Shaking my head and deeply embroiled in the mental agony I was undergoing, I did not notice a man walking right into me, until he bumped on to me. All the pamphlets that he was carrying fell on me.
“I am sorry”, I said, speaking in Tamil fluently. Then there came the glimmer of hope in my life... the chance to survive, to make a living, now that getting admission in college was ruled out. I had to make the most of the opportunity that came by.
I quickly saw what was written on the pamphlet, looked up at heavens and moved on. Now, I had a place to go – a chance to survive, I must make the most of it, I reminded myself. I went to the lodge, rented a room again, bathed and had some food and waited for the next day.
I boarded the bus to Vadapalani, to Laxmi Shruthi Musicals. It was a shop which sold musical instruments, many of which are manufactured by them. This was my last shot at survival. If I fail, I am dead else I will live to fight another day. I rehearsed my mridangam lessons well in the available time during the bus journey. I looked confident. My mind was optimistic.
****
It was my turn at the interview. I had learnt mridangam as a hobby, played at the Commonwealth Games in Delhi but never thought it would become my mode of survival, that is, if I got selected. I was brimming with confidence.
My curriculum vitae spoke for itself, it seems. And why not? The participation in the Commonwealth Games is indeed the biggest achievement of my life. The judges just asked one question: would you like to be involved in manufacturing of mridangam or playing it? The scope for manufacturing was more in a place like this. However, I was more confident in playing, for I had done that for a decade. I gave a neutral answer, that of being a mridangam expert, who would check for defects in the sound the mridangam emanates and correct it if found necessary. This way, I was not really involved in only manufacturing but also playing it.
A few hours later, I was jubilated to be selected as one of their employees. Bigger than anything, I had found a mode of survival.
I looked up at the evening sky, to see my only relatives – my parents and my sister smile at me from heaven.
A day earlier, I had become an orphan who wanted to join his relatives in heaven. Now, this orphan lives on to fight another day. Slowly but surely, as days passed, I was getting confident that my murder had gone unnoticed. There was no news about it. No prying eyes behind me. But how had it been possible? The question remained.
****
Four years had passed. I was well settled into the job I held. I could make my ends meet. But I was no graduate. My education had stopped right after school, abruptly. India’s World Cup victory was a distant memory but the events that followed that victory was still fresh. I was surprised that not one person in the last four years had found me, assuming that I had somehow missed the news about Karthik’s death. It was possible that no photos were shared by the police. It was possible that the case was closed, partially because there was no one to follow it up. Even he had lost his parents, and he had no blood relatives either. How much we shared in common! Yet I had a feeling to see Karthik alive. I will meet him someday in heaven, I assured myself.