The Hero's Walk Read Free

that his father had pinched from the public library on Moppaiyya Street. Pro BonoPublico. On behalf of the people. Like his boyhood heroes—the Scarlet Pimpernel, Zorro, Jhanda Singh the Invisible—he was a crusader, but one who tried to address the problems of the world with pen and ink instead of sword and gun and fist. He wrote every day on anything that caught his attention, from garbage strewn on the roads to corruption in the government, from lighthearted commentary on the latest blockbuster film to a tribute to some famous musician whose voice had filled his soul with pleasure.
    Sripathi reached for a large wooden box on the table before him. Like almost everything else in Big House, the box had been in his family for as long as he could remember. He loved the smooth edges, the solid weight, the thick key that locked it. He opened the lid and removed the upper layer that held his collection of pens, a few unsharpened pencils, some erasers and a penknife. Below it was another compartment for paper. There was also a secret drawer that could be opened by sliding a rod out of the side of the box. There was nothing in that drawer. A long time ago, when Maya—or perhaps it was Arun—had asked him why he kept nothing in there, he had replied, “Because I am too ordinary to have secrets.” The box sat under his side of the bed and emerged every morning when he settled down on his balcony.
    He contemplated the pens that jostled for space inside. Thirty-two of the finest, and growing. This was his one indulgence, although he added to the collection with diminishing frequency in these days of high cost and low affordability. He touched them one by one, lifted his favourites, and wondered which one he ought to use. The marbled blue Japanese Hero? Or the gold Parker? For letters about politics or government he always picked the Mhatre Writer—the maroon colour seemed authoritative. After dithering over the pens for a few more seconds, he settled for the Mhatre Writer again, unwilling to change his routine. It was pleasantly heavy between his fingers, the angled nib giving his writing a sharpness he relished. He wrote in his usual florid style learnt at the endof Father Schmidt’s bamboo cane at St. Dominic’s Boys’ School almost fifty years ago.
    Dear Editor
,
    The streets are suddenly full of verdant trees, the garbage has been picked up (after months of being ignored by the municipal powers that be), and our walls have been whitewashed overnight. A new government? A government that has suddenly realized that it is of the people, by the people and for the people and has decided to stop taking coffee breaks and holidays and get down to work? Ah, no! Unfortunately not. All this amazing work is in honour of the chief minister’s son’s wedding
…
    He added a few more lines and signed with a flourish. Yes, that was a good letter. Forceful, to the point, and with an edge of sarcasm to make it truly effective. He was about to go over it again when Nirmala rustled in, fresh in a crisp pink cotton sari, her black hair a sliding knot at the nape of her neck. She had a smooth, sweet-tempered face that belied her fifty-two years, and she looked much younger than Sripathi, even though there were only five years between them. On her broad forehead she had a round, red sticker-bindi. Sripathi remembered that in the past she had used powdered vermilion. She would lean over the sink in the bathroom after her ablutions, her body still warm and damp, her buttocks outlined heavily against the straight cotton of her petticoat, creating a stir of desire in Sripathi, and with the ball of her middle finger would apply a dot of Boroline cream to the centre of her forehead. Then, just as carefully, she would dip the same finger into a small silver pot of vermilion and press it against the creamy circle. But a few years ago she, too, had yielded to modernity and abandoned her ritual of cream and red