Chapter 3: The Arithmetic of Exhaustion

Kaurav found himself calculating the days like a prisoner marking time on a cell wall. January 3rd had been the beginning—that arbitrary date when their nomadic existence commenced. The Bharat Rang Mahotsav in Delhi on the 5th, then the Poorva Express that should have carried them back to Howrah on the 7th but didn't, fog having claimed ten hours of their lives while they waited in stations that smelled of urine and stale tea. By the time they reached Howrah, it was past three in the morning, and they had scrambled for a Chhota Hathi—that ungainly vehicle that served as transportation for those who couldn't afford better options.

Six AM departure in a Scorpio for Bishnupur. Another performance, another return journey at four in the morning. Kolkata the same day, then Guwahati by air, then Malda, then back to Howrah with the same battered luggage, waiting two hours for the Geetanjali Express to Nagpur. Pune, Bhubaneswar, Hyderabad, Patna—city names that had become merely dots on a map of exhaustion.

Now it was February 16th, 2014. Yesterday's performance at Rabindra Kalakshetra in Bangalore was already fading into the collective memory of applause and criticism. Tonight's show in Mysore—Mahishuru in the local tongue—at Rangayana would be their final out-of-town performance of the season. The word "final" carried weight that went beyond mere scheduling.

For everyone in the troupe, this extensive travel represented a first taste of the theatrical life they had imagined from the safety of drama schools and amateur productions. Now they understood the romance of touring in its full complexity: the yearning for one's own bed, one's own bathroom, the simple pleasure of eating home-cooked food at a familiar table. Their bodies had become foreign to them, adapted to bus seats and strange mattresses, strange water that upset their stomachs, strange accents that required constant translation.

Kaurav had never considered himself a wanderer. Unlike his colleagues who spoke of travel with the enthusiasm of the young and unencumbered, he felt no particular attachment to movement for its own sake. Home meant nothing to him unless he was deep in a writing project, and then it meant everything—the sanctuary of his room, the predictable rhythms that allowed his mind to work. Everyone knew of his indifference to domestic matters, his ability to ignore the household machinery that kept life functioning.

But he loved his grandmother with a fierce, uncomplicated devotion that surprised even him. His grandfather too, before age had claimed him. His parents had always felt like well-meaning relatives who visited occasionally, bringing gifts and advice in equal measure. Both were working professionals who had created their own lives according to principles that made sense to them but felt foreign to their son.

The story of his childhood was simple enough: when he was about to enter fifth grade, his father had decided to reclaim him, to bring him into the proper nuclear family arrangement that modern life demanded. Kaurav had responded by calling his father "Dhritarashtra"—the blind king from the Mahabharata—and creating such a scene that his grandmother couldn't bear to witness it. His grandfather had tried to explain the greater claim a father had over his son, but logic had no power against the boy's stubborn attachment to the life he knew.

His mother had endured criticism from her in-laws for this arrangement, but the neighbors had accepted it gracefully. Gossip in their part of Baranagar was reserved for more scandalous material than a boy who preferred his grandmother's house to his parents'. His mother would come four or five times a week after her school ended, traveling from Salt Lake to Baranagar to Ruby, carrying with her the complex geography of a woman trying to maintain connections across a city that seemed designed to keep families apart.

Kaurav stared out the fogged window, watching the Karnataka countryside pass in the darkness. Was he trying to interpret his dream? Perhaps. A few days ago at the International Theatre Festival of Kerala, he had watched "C Sharp C Blunt," directed by Sophia Stepp and performed by M.D. Pallavi. The play had lodged itself in his consciousness like a splinter—the story of Shilpa, a girl lost within a mobile app, reflecting society's gradual transformation from human beings into consumers under patriarchal control.

Pallavi's performance had been so arresting that when she announced to the audience, speaking as the advanced version of the app, "Your bank account details are stored with me," the entire hall had instinctively reached for their wallets. The gesture was involuntary, almost religious in its unanimity—a congregation of the digitally faithful suddenly aware of their vulnerability.

The memory of that moment stayed with him now, mixing with the dream of card-headed people and cosmic Ludo games, creating a narrative he couldn't yet decode but knew he would need to understand.

Disclaimer:   This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. The views and opinions expressed in this novel are those of the characters and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any agency, organization, or entity. Reader discretion is advised.