Gopi gets down from the train. His mother passed away recently. What his mother said from her deathbed: “You have brothers babu^[1] ! What kind of alliance you will be able to get to marry of your sister?” is still ringing in his mind.

On that night—the night his mother died—when everyone was weeping, his first brother asked him, “Why are they weeping?”

“They have become mad. They are like that,” said Gopi.

Gopi’s younger brother asked his youngest brother, “Where is amma^[2] ?”

He had shown his finger towards the sky. In that sign, Gopi saw vedantam^[3] —an expression that denotes more of the philosophical and the incomprehensible. Amma has not died. It’s we who died. This whole world died. From this dead world, amma has survived. 

That night, the whole world had appeared to Gopi like a desert, vacuum, graveyard, and most terrifying. 

Remembering all this, Gopi fears that any of their acquaintances or friends coming across might enquire, “How is your mother?”

****

“Porter?” calls Gopi.

“Babu^[4] .”

“Take the box, and come.”

“Where to babu?”

Gopi tells him the name of the area.

“One anna^[5] babu.”

“Will give you two annas, come with me.”

Keeping the box on the head of the porter, Gopi starts walking absentmindedly. Behind Gopi, the porter walks step by step. 

Rain is making an effort to drizzle. In the darkness that vanquished sun, stars are shining. Gopi strikes a conversation with the porter boy. 

“How much do you make in a day?”

“May get arthano^[6] anna sir.”

“What will you do with it?”

“Buy eatables and eat.”

“Won’t give at home?”

“I have no amma, babu^[7] sir. Otherwise, I might have given.”

“How then are you getting food for your belly?”

“A porter lives here. I attend to their domestic chores. They give me food. When the train comes, like now, I work as a porter. If I get an anna or two, I buy something and eat. In the night, I sleep in the station…”

“What a merry life you have,” wonders Gopi. But since then, whenever he sees that boy, fear overawes Gopi.