by Nachi Keta
a cup of chicken soup
Clunk clunk. Arya was
pounding her green plate. The green of a calm sea of a foreign land. With a
stainless steel spoon. Clunk clunk. Steel on ceramic.
She was six. Her legs
were oscillating to and fro. Mother was making chicken soup. It was going to be
great. Her parents were the greatest, the best, the best. And she loved them so
much-- the gap between her outstretched hands tending to
infinity.
She loved them even more
than Poncho, her BFF, best friend forever.
Poncho had red eyes and
white fur. His ears stood up at every little disturbance. And Arya couldn't
restrain from laughing and clapping ... when Poncho nibbled on a carrot, his
snout guttering into it. “Look, daddy, Poncho is eating! Look how his nose
moves," she would shriek with glee.
The whole house would
ring with her laughter then. For which her father worked day and night, in a
software firm, which was famous for its annual number of
suicides.
Mother put the chicken
soup on the table.
It was grey-white, and
creamy and hot, with green basil leaves floating on its surface, like boats on a
calm sea. It was her favorite. She could eat chicken soup every day. Ah! That
thick syrupy texture between the tongue and upper palate. And those rubbery bits
of chicken. She would chew them slowly. She would savor the warmth of the fluid
as well as the melting squishiness of the chicken bits.
Poncho didn't like it
though. Arya had tried once. He had vomited it all out. He was in his hovel
right now, placed in the balcony, made of cardboard boxes, grass, and scraps of
newspapers. He was either sleeping or staring into nothingness.
Arya jumps from her
chair. Suddenly. And dashes to the balcony. She runs and runs... through the
rooms of the apartment, like a rabbit running a race, and reaches the
balcony.
Poncho is awake and
brooding. It is staring at a distant something. Cogitating over the mysteries of
the universe perhaps. Arya sits by him.
“Poncho poochy, wanna eat
something? Tell me Poncho, tell me, mama get you a carrot? Yes, mama get you a
carrot?”
She caresses him. His
ears flutter in response. She stands up and runs to the
refrigerator.
After making sure that
Poncho was well fed, Arya came back to the dining table. Her father was back
from the office, his laptop bag splayed on the sofa like a tired rabid
dog.
But why was he sitting on
her chair? And sipping the soup meant for her? Slurping it, enjoying
every little sip, as he had taught her. "Mummy will get you more. It was getting
cold," he explained, looking up from the bowl. His lips taking the form of a
mischievous grin.
Arya got angry. Her soup
had been stolen from her. She stomped her little feet on the ground. Her little
arms flailed up and down. Her eyes tried to enamor her with an apoplectic
stance. She tried her best, but couldn’t produce the effect she wanted. She was
looking even prettier than usual. And her father’s smile had turned even more
mischievous.
It was a Friday evening.
Aryan, her father, had planned to enjoy the next two days with his family. "Arya
beta, do you remember who Velveteen Rabbit is?" he asked.
Arya didn't reply. She
kept on staring at him with anger. She was reluctant to bend as low as a common
pup.
"Okay then… we will take
mummy with us," her father grinned over her soup.
"Where?" she blurted out.
And immediately cursed herself, in the foulest language she knew: "Idiot
Arya".
"To a musical of
Velveteen Rabbit. Arya loves the rabbit right?" The grin of her father’s
face was broader than ever.
And quite
ridiculous.
"What musical?" she
snapped. It was the only way she could salvage her pride.
"The musical of Velveteen
rabbit. Didn’t we read Velveteen Rabbit?" her father said, now warming up
to his usual tone.
"Yes, we did. When are we
going?"
And thus, it all
disappeared. Just like that. The feeling of utter hatred she had tried to garner
in her heart. Her anger disappeared like the bits of a well-made chicken soup
melts in one's mouth. And the next moment, father and daughter were sitting
together.
Father was typing on his
phone. And the daughter had a ceramic bowl in front of her, which she was
ladling into her tiny mouth. Creamy delicious soup.
"I'll never let you burn
my Poncho even when he gets old," she said. It was a reference to the fate of
the rabbit in the famous story of the velveteen rabbit.
"Yes, we’ll take care of
it for years. But when it grows up, and the nursery fairy comes for it, what’ll
Arya do?" her father asked.
"I will ask the fairy to
take me with her," she replied, with determination.
"Ah my own little fairy,
Arya is. Anyway, do we know what a musical is?"
"Songs?"
"Yes, but besides
songs?"
"Umm…
dance?"
"Hmm… we'll soon find
out. Are you excited about the musical, Arya?" Aryan said, with
expectation.
"Yes!" she shrieked. And
started laughing. Which brought spring in their two-room apartment. Working for
the poisonous software firm was worth it then.
Arya had many toys of all
kinds. Fluffy, cushiony, manual, electric, plastic, you name it. There was this
bear whom she called Teddy, a very simple yet profound name. A cat with an
elongated tail that she called Tabby. An electric toy locomotive that hadn't
been baptized yet. And of course, there was Velveteen. A toy rabbit with
beautiful white fur and strong white arms. She had named it after the rabbit
from her favorite book- The Velveteen Rabbit.
Any day Velveteen was
going to receive the gift of life from the fairy. And then it would need the
help of an experienced rabbit to adjust to the real moving world. So, every once
in a while, she would take Velveteen to Poncho’s cage, and let them have a
private tete-a-tete. In her opinion, it was important for the rabbits of her
clan to develop a bond.
Presently, Velveteen was
ensconced in her lap. And she was in a car, which was trying to find its way
through Saturday evening traffic in Delhi.
She was going through a
labyrinth of emotions. Sometimes she would cuddle with Velveteen. And sometimes
she would put her face to the window. And look out at the outside world. At the
passing vehicles, the shops, and the streetlights blinking overhead. Also, on
the backseat, by her side, there was a hardcover of The Velveteen Rabbit.
Neatly illustrated.
"What is a musical, Daddy?" came out of her.
Aryan was behind the
wheels. He was in a white polo and grey slacks. He was thinking about how he
was going to have a much yearned for husband-wife time with his wife. After a
tiring musical of the velveteen rabbit followed by a heavy dinner at KFC, Arya
would sleep early. Then they will have the much needed privacy.
Sameena, his wife, was on
the passenger seat, tapping through her phone. She was in leaf-green Punjabi
Suit-Salwar. It was a new family, a happy family of three. Though for a long
time, she had been toying with the idea of having another kid, hopefully, a boy
this time. She had left a burgeoning copywriting career to raise Arya and hadn't
regretted it a bit.
"We’ll see it when we get
there. Doesn’t Arya like getting surprised?" Aryan said as he maneuvered the
vehicle through the busy streets of Delhi.
They were already late
for the show. The city's arteries were blocked by the smoke-puffing dragons
going haywire. Every road was jam packed and he could do nothing but be patient.
So a turn here and a turn there, he continued pressing his feet on the pedals
... And rotating the circular hoop in front of him, clockwise and
anti-clockwise.
Arya hadn’t told anyone,
but when she grew up, she was going to be a collector of rabbits. Lots and lots
of them. And she wanted to keep them in various cages, blue, white, green,
yellow, of all the colors.
"And then I would comb
them. And I would put little ribbons on their tails," she would discuss with
herself. "And how beautiful they would look! With colorful ribbons on their
tails. I would also give them to my friends to play. I am sure they'd love
it."
She was looking outside
now, through the window. It was a hot evening. Although she wasn’t aware of the
same. Her side of the glass-wall was being showered with cool air from a very
powerful AC. There was also an air-freshener stuck on the dashboard. Which you
only had to rotate and it released a hundred mind-numbing
smells.
"How long, daddy?" she
asked, as she looked into the street.
The car hadn’t moved for
a long time. There was a green bus in front of it. CNG. There was a shop on its
right. A kind of motor repair garage. An unpleasant looking man was sitting in
its lawn. He was working on a scooter, which was all unassembled, its engines
and plates lying about him in a skewed circle.
The man's shoulders were
smeared with oily grime. His undershirt was designed with patches of black.
Everything around him was black. Illuminated by an orange electric bulb hung on
a solitary pole in front of the shop.
"A few more minutes,
Arya," her father said, when he saw her in the mirror. Her pensive face staring
into the window. And he muttered aloud, "Why doesn’t the bloody bus move?
Dammit!"
He believed that a father
should never show any kind of negative emotion in front of his children. But he
was unable to prevent the tone of angst in his voice. He was a citizen of Delhi.
He knew how Delhi had a habit of getting blocked at times. But still, when has
ever a man gotten used to despair?
"Look at the bus Arya. It
is blocking daddy’s car. So we can’t move. A few more minutes, and we’ll be at
the musical of Velveteen Rabbit. Have you got your book with
you?"
Arya turned her face
towards him, and said, "Yes, papa." And started looking out
again.
The car didn’t move for a
long time. The evening turned into night. And Arya descended into the world of
dreams ...
A rabbit made of white
velvet. His round eyes, big and glittery, made of buttons. His large belly. His
ears flapped up. He was lying on a bed, and Arya was talking to it, and her lips
moved in real life. "And you know. One day a nursery fairy will come, and she
will give you life. I wish I could be your nursery fairy. But wait, I'm already
your nursery fairy. But where is my wand? Where is my wand? Yes, here it is."
And she removes a wand from the pocket of her frock and whooshes it. "And now
you'll be alive. Now you'll be able to move and breathe and we'll talk for
hours, and I'll make you eat chicken soup. Poncho doesn't like chicken soup. But
I'm sure you will." Arya swishes her wand.
But before she could see
the result of her wand swishing in her dream, the jerk of the moving car woke
her up.
The said musical was
directed by the very famous Shakeel Mustafa. He was himself an actor in it, the
main voice of Velveteen.
Presently, he was singing
the thoughts of the rabbit in his melodious high-pitched voice ... As it laid in
a clump of bushes after being made aware of his immobility by two springing
rabbits.
The part when Velveteen
meets the rabbits was his favorite. And so was the case with Arya. Who always
looked for the hind legs of Poncho whenever she came to it, when reading the
tale with Father.
But she wasn’t present in
the musical. She had seen something.
After the car moved a few
meters, waking her up from her dream, it got stuck again. And she started
looking out. At a different shop this time.
It was a dirty place.
Even inside the perfumed vehicle, its inhabitants could sense it. The smell of
rottenness, death, and ugliness. Arya thought of toilets and
sewage.
A man was sitting on the
landing in front of it. There were grimy tools and metal sheaths around him. He
might not have been older than her father, but he was definitely heftier. He was
wearing a blue patterned lungi and nothing else. The hair on his chest stroke
golden under the effect of the orange bulb hanging by a pole.
The entire street was
stuffed with a sad tepid glow of orange bulbs. Arya felt that time had stopped,
sort of. She continued looking at the man.
A boy, almost a man
himself, tall and thin, came to him with a bird. It was a chicken. Arya knew it
from pictures.
"So, now, they will kill
the chicken, and mash it to food," Arya thought. She knew the drill. She had
seen her mother working with lumps of chicken in the kitchen. She understood the
workings of Nature. She was a big girl.
The man took the chicken
in his left hand. It was alive, it was fluttering; its wings were flapping and
dancing. Arya also noticed a heap of trash nearby, with many leaf-like wings and
other kinds of dirt.
And there were other
chickens too. Inside a mesh cage. Romping around. Trying to jump over
containers, over little lumps of feathers around them. Enjoying themselves in
their little homes, like the one in which Poncho lived.
Arya always wanted to
know how the lumps of chicken neatly packed in plastics came to be about. She
was going to find out now. She was a curious kid. "And now they will give
the chicken an injection. And perhaps the chicken is old and wants to die," she
told herself.
Arya was a big girl. She
knew there was something like Death in the world. She had understood by now that
some animals have to die for others to live. The man was also an animal. "But if
they don’t feel pain, why is the chicken being skittish? Aren’t chickens born to
be our food?" She was confused.
The man said something to
the boy and the boy went in again. Arya continued thinking...
"Maybe, the chicken is
ill. That’s why it is making so much ruckus. Why, my friend chicken? It is your
good fortune that you're going to be food for people. You are born to be a food
item for humans. Why’re you making such an effort to escape from the hands of
your emancipator? For the poor man's sake, look... he is so poor. He has to sell
you to us, no: rather your dead body. And what is the value of your life
anyway?"
The car jerked, moved a
few inches, and then stopped.
"Now the chef will give
an injection to the chicken. Ouch. But no, the chicken does not feel pain. I
guess... it is alright. The boy will now bring the syringe. I hope it’s not a
big one, like the one they use to treat rabies."
The boy came back. There
was a big tumbler in his hands, with a wide funnel-like mouth. He kept it before
the man. Sameena and Aryan were discussing a common friend, who had decided to
get married a few days ago. If they knew what Arya was doing, they might have
stopped her. Her face was stuck on the window glass.
Now the man suspended the
chicken with one hand over the container. He was holding it with its legs, and
with the knife, he gave its neck a slash. A tiny slash. And blood started
bubbling out, in volumes. Like water from the hosepipe comes out when Arya is
given a bath?
"What? What is he doing?
Blood? It is alive! Why doesn’t the man stop the blood?"
This time she had said it
aloud. She had shrieked. To the whole car. To Delhi. To her parents. To Sameena,
her mother. Who promptly turned back and closed her eyes with her palms. But
Arya continued shrieking, "I want to see. Let me see! Why blood? Do chickens
have blood in them?"
Time had begun to move
again. And she was shouting into the palms of her mother. "I'm never going to
eat chicken, ever, and neither am I going to this musical. I hate chicken
soup!”
About the author
A dropout of various institutes, Nachi Keta is a Kidney Transplant
Recipient. He lives with his parents, plays online Ludo,reads Existentialists,
and tries to write.As of now he has published three full-length works and a few
stories and poems. A list of his works can be found at [
www.nachi-keta.com]
