Take the Road

The headache had already settled in by the time Pamma opened his eyes. It sat behind them, not sharp enough to force him up, but steady, as if it had been there longer than his sleep. He lay still on the cot, one arm across his chest, the other hanging loose, aware first of the room and only then of himself returning to it. A thin line of light pressed through the gap in the window panes and held in the air, catching dust that did not seem to move.

From the courtyard came the sound of the handpump, metal against metal, slow and even, the rhythm that does not need attention to continue. Rani was already up. He listened without turning his head, letting the sound settle around him, hoping it might steady something that had not yet found its place.

The taste in his mouth had not gone. It lingered, first sweet, then turning, leaving behind a sourness that no amount of water would take away quickly. The wedding party had gone on late. That much he knew without needing to think about it. The lights strung across the courtyard, the loudspeaker cutting in and out, someone pressing a glass into his hand before he had finished the last, laughter that rose and fell. He had stayed longer than he should have, and longer than he remembered deciding to.

When he tried to follow the night back, it did not come to him completely. Some parts held; the noise, the crowd, the walk out toward the fields, but beyond that, it thinned, the path longer than he remembered. He had taken the route through the fields. Of that he was certain. The narrow unpaved path, the ground still soft in places from the last irrigation, the air quieter once the music had fallen behind. But something in that stretch would not settle when he tried to place it. Not an absence, exactly. More like a trace that had been there and had not stayed.

He sat up slowly, waiting for the brief tilt of the room to pass. His shirt hung from the chair where he had left it, one sleeve touching the floor. When he picked it up, the fabric felt stiff along one side. There was mud on it, along the left side, dried into the cloth in a way that did not match the yard or the road near the house. This was heavier, darker. He looked at it, not examining it so much as holding it in place against what he could not yet recall.

Outside, Rani’s voice carried in, not directed at him but to someone passing by. “Water is there. Take it inside.” There was no irritation in it, no emphasis, just a flatness without inviting a reply.

He put the shirt on and stepped out into the courtyard. She did not turn. The handle of the handpump moved under her grip, steady as before.

“Cha bana de,” he said.

“Make it yourself.” She continued to work the handpump.

He did not say anything. The morning was settling into its usual shape around him. The light had strengthened, the sounds from the lane had begun to filter in, someone calling out, a cycle passing, buffaloes grunting, the day arranging itself as usual. Only the night had not placed itself where it should have.

He moved toward the open kitchen in the courtyard, then paused without knowing why. It came to him without forming fully, but enough to interrupt the movement. A sound, perhaps, or the sense of one. Not loud. Not clear. It did not belong to the fields at that hour. He tried to follow it.

It did not stay.

Only the feeling did, that on the path back, at some point where he had not meant to stop, he had not been alone.

Pamma poured water into the patila and set it on the stove. The match took two strikes before it caught. He watched the flame transfer to the old newspaper and then to the wood. The fire crackled and settled under the patila.

From the courtyard, the handpump had stopped. He could hear Rani moving now, the scrape of a bucket being set aside, the soft thud of wet feet on the packed earth. She did not come in. He did not call out again.

The water in the patila began to shift before it came to a boil, a slight movement along the surface. He added the tea leaves first, then sugar, then milk, all in one motion. The liquid rose slowly, darkening, then settled again. He sat there, watching it but not thinking about it.

It came to him again without warning.

Not the whole of it. Just the sound.

Not loud. Not sharp. Close, but not near enough to place.

“Phad ke rakh… saale nu.”

Hold the bastard.

He did not react immediately. The words arrived, faint, like they had always been there and had only now been noticed. He frowned slightly, not at what was said, but at how it had been said. Controlled, not hurried.

The patila rose suddenly, the tea pushing up in a quick swell. He pulled it off the flame without thinking. A thin line of liquid spilled over the side and ran down, hissing briefly where it touched the fire. His fingers burned from the hot edges of the utensil.

He poured the tea into a steel glass through a sieve, letting it settle before picking it up. The heat came through immediately, forcing his grip to adjust. When he stepped out into the courtyard, Rani was at the far end, wringing out a cloth. She did not look up. He watched her, not expecting anything from her, then moved past her toward the gate.

The lane outside was already awake. Two men stood near the corner, talking. One of them, Gurmeet, turned his head slightly as Pamma stepped out, then turned it back. The conversation continued.

Pamma walked toward them.

“Too much last night,” Gurmeet said. Not a question.

Pamma nodded. “Haan, it went on.”

“It does,” the other man said, smiling without looking at him.

Pamma took a sip of the tea. It was hotter than he had expected.

“Who all stayed till the end?” he asked, keeping his voice level, as if the question had come from nowhere in particular.

Gurmeet shrugged. “Same people.”

“From our side?” Pamma said.

“From all sides,” Gurmeet said curtly.

The other man shifted his weight and glanced down the lane. “Work will be late today,” he said. “After a night like that.”

Pamma nodded. He did not ask anything further.

A tractor started somewhere beyond the houses, the engine catching and settling into a steady noise. The conversation did not pick up again. It did not need to.

Pamma finished the tea and held the empty glass, running his thumb along the rim, before turning back toward the house.

As he walked in, he realised he had not asked what he had meant to.

Or perhaps he had.

Pamma stood in the courtyard with the empty glass in his hand, then set it down near the door and stepped out again. The lane had settled into its morning rhythm, people moving with purpose now, not the slow start of earlier. He walked past them without stopping, taking the turn that led toward the fields. His head was still heavy.

The path was narrow, worn into the ground by years of use, the edges slightly raised where the soil had been pushed aside. He walked it without thinking, his feet finding their place even where the ground dipped. The houses thinned out behind him, the sound from the lane fading into the quieter spread of the fields; a flock of parrots perched on the power line, cattle being herded in the distance, the faint rustle of leaves where the breeze moved unevenly.

Today, he noticed it.

The soil ahead was darker, softer, holding footprints longer. There were prints, not unusual in themselves, but they did not sit the way they should have. Some overlapped too closely, one set pressing deeper in places, the weight shifting suddenly.

He stepped over them.

It came to him then, moving through him, leaving a trace behind.

Movement on the ground.

Not fast. Not clear.

A shape that had not held still.

He slowed. The path ahead lay open. The fields stretched out, quiet, the crops standing in place, giving nothing back.

He reached the bend where the trees held their shadow longer in the morning and stopped.

A shed stood just beyond the bend, slightly off to the right of the path. Farther out, the Sarpanch’s bungalow rose above the crop line.

The ground held nothing that stood out. Water had passed, feet had passed, and the soil had settled.

He listened.

Not close. Not far. Voices, perhaps.

He stepped off the path, the ground giving under his foot, before he checked himself and moved back.

By the time Pamma reached Channa Singh’s tube well further away, a few men had already gathered. The motor was running, water pushing through the pipe in a steady arc, moving into the channel and spreading outward in slow lines into the fields. Someone had set a charpai under the neem tree. Two men sat on it, one with a glass of tea, the other leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, watching the water as though it needed watching.

Pamma walked up without calling out. No one turned immediately. It was such a gathering where presence was not required to be marked each time.

“Kithon aa reha Pamme?” one of them said, looking at him.

“Just from there,” Pamma replied, nodding vaguely toward the path behind him.

“Hmm,” the man said, as if that was enough.

Pamma stood near the edge, his hands loose by his sides, watching the water run into the furrows in the field. The soil took it in slowly, darkening, holding it before letting it move on. The rhythm of it was steady. Familiar.

“The party was good yesterday,” said Channa from the charpai, stretching his legs out. “They spent a lot.”

“Karna hi si,” Balwant replied. “It was Sarpanch’s son.”

There was a brief round of nodding in agreement.

Pamma looked across the field. The far side should have had movement by now. Someone working the line, adjusting the flow, checking where the water was settling unevenly.

It was empty.

“Your man hasn’t come today?” he said.

“Kehra?”

“The one… here every day.”

“That bhaiyya?” Channa said. “Haven’t seen him yet.”

“Saale kamm chor ne,” Jagsir muttered. “No loyalty.”

“Haan”, the first man said. “Whatever you do for them is not enough.”

The motor continued to run, the sound filling the space between them. One of the men got up from the charpai and walked a few steps toward the tubewell, and splashed his face with the cold water.

Pamma nodded, not at anyone in particular.

“He was there yesterday?” he asked, keeping his voice even. “At the wedding party?”

Balwant rubbed his knees and shook his head. “It was a crowd.”

“You were there too?” the other man said, shaking the water off his hands. “You would have seen everything.”

The way it was said did not sit fully as a joke.

Pamma did not respond to that. He looked again toward the far end of the field. The place where someone should have been was still empty. The water had begun to spread unevenly there, gathering more in one line than the others.

“Ajj nahi aunda lagda”, he said, almost to himself.

“If not now, he’ll come later,” Channa said, spitting to the side. “Where will he go? I haven’t paid him yet.” The sentence settled easily among them. No one questioned it.

Pamma stepped back from the edge of the field. As he turned, the conversation behind him had not resumed.

This time, something had been missing.

Pamma stayed on the path, walking without deciding where to go next. The sun had risen enough now to flatten the shadows, the fields losing the softness they held in the early morning. Work in the fields continued in patches. A man bent over near the far end, adjusting the flow of water with his foot. Somewhere behind him, a voice called out, then faded.

He walked past his own field without stopping.

He reached the small shed, nothing more than a tin roof held up by uneven posts, used mostly to keep tools or rest in the afternoon. It sat slightly off the main path, neither hidden nor part of the movement.

As he came closer, he saw that something had been left near the edge of the shed.

A shoe.

He stopped a few steps away, then stepped closer and nudged it lightly with his foot. It turned just enough to catch the light. It did not belong to the fields. The leather was intact, the sole too clean.

Behind him, he heard footsteps on the path.

“Looking for something?” the voice said.

Pamma turned.

It was Jagsir who had been near the motor earlier. He stood a short distance away, not part of what Pamma was looking at, but not there by accident.

“Kuch nahi,” Pamma said. “Just came this way.”

He bent and picked up the shoe. The leather was stiff, the sole damp along the edge.

“Whose is it?” he asked.

Jagsir did not answer immediately.

“People leave things,” he said.

“Not from here,” Pamma said.

Jagsir adjusted his turban. “These days,” he said, “who is from here?”

He glanced at the shoe, then away.

“If no one checks them,” he added, almost as an afterthought, “they forget.”

“Better to leave it”, he said. “Someone will come.”

Pamma turned the shoe in his hand. Then he let it fall.

They walked back toward the path together for a few steps, then separated without marking it.

Pamma reached the small tea stall near the bus stop on the road. A wooden plank rested on bricks, serving as a bench. A few men stood around it, glasses in hand, speaking in short exchanges. The owner moved between the stove and the counter, pouring tea into chipped white cups, his movements quick and practised.

Pamma stood to one side, not joining the group, only close enough to be part of it.

“One,” he said.

The man nodded without looking up.

The tea was already boiling on the stove, thick and dark, rising and settling in quick cycles. The smell carried outward, mixing with the dust from the road and the faint diesel from passing vehicles. Someone shifted to make space, though Pamma had not asked for it.

Pamma took the glass when it was handed to him. He let his eyes move over the group, not stopping on anyone long enough to invite attention.

Near the edge of the stall, a bundle of tools lay on the ground: a spade, a sickle, a length of rope loosely coiled. Beside it, folded over itself, was a piece of cloth. A shirt.

He looked at it.

It was not new. Faded at the shoulders, darker where sweat had settled into the fabric over time. One sleeve was slightly frayed near the edge. It was the kind of shirt worn for work, not kept aside for anything else.

He had seen it before. The thought came without resistance this time.

Morning after morning, near the far end of the field. Bent over the same line, adjusting the water, lifting the spade, setting it down again. The man spoke only briefly. When he did, he would wipe his hands on his shirt before speaking. Enough to answer. Never enough to continue.

One afternoon, the man had looked up as Pamma passed and said a single sentence about the water in the far channel running too fast, wearing the edge of the line. Pamma had nodded without stopping. It was only after he had gone past that he realised the man was right.

Pamma had never asked his name.

“Whose is that?” he said, nodding toward the shirt.

The stall owner glanced at it and wiped his hands on a cloth. “That bhaiyya’s,” he said. “Left it here yesterday.”

“Yesterday?” Pamma asked.

“Evening,” the man replied. “Came by. Was here for a bit.”

Pamma said nothing.

One of the men nearby shifted slightly, his attention moving toward the exchange without turning fully.

“Didn’t come today,” Pamma said, keeping his voice level.

The stall owner poured another glass, the liquid rising and settling before he lifted the utensil off the flame. “Not seen him,” he said. “He leaves his work clothes here sometimes. Comes back for them later.”

Pamma nodded, but did not look away from the shirt.

There was a small silence after that. Not heavy. Just present.

Pamma took a sip of the tea. It had cooled slightly.

“He was there last night”, he said.

No one answered.

The man closest to him placed the glass down harder than needed. It made a brief sound against the counter.

“I walked back late,” he said, not looking at anyone in particular. “Through the fields.”

“Fields are not for walking at that hour,” said the man, facing the stove. “Better to take the road.”

Pamma finished the tea and placed the empty glass on the counter. As he turned to leave, his eyes moved once more to the shirt.

This time, the image did not come in parts.

The ground. The movement. The voice.

And the outline of someone held down.

Pamma had not gone far from the tea stall when he heard his name spoken behind him, not called out, just placed into the air with enough weight to reach him without drawing attention. He slowed his step and turned slightly.

Gurmeet stood a short distance away. There was nothing in his posture that suggested urgency. His hands rested loosely at his sides, his gaze moving past Pamma, before returning, as though placing him within the larger movement of the road.

“You left early,” he said.

Pamma nodded. “Nothing to sit for.”

Gurmeet came a step closer, bringing the conversation between them. Around them, the road carried on uninterrupted. A cycle passed, a tractor moved slowly, its engine making a fluttering sound.

“The wedding party was grand last night,” Gurmeet said, his tone even, without emphasis.

“Haan.”

They stood in that shared acknowledgement, neither adding to it nor withdrawing from it.

Gurmeet’s gaze shifted toward the road leading out to the fields, with the familiarity of someone who already knew where it led.

“You went that way?” he asked after a while.

“Which way?”, asked Pamma.

“The fields,” Gurmeet said, almost lightly, without needing an answer.

“I came back through the fields,” Pamma replied.

“Not a good time to be there,” he said. “You should take the road.”

The words were not a warning. They rested closer to advice and did not need agreement to be understood.

Pamma looked at him more directly now. “Why?”

Gurmeet lowered his gaze briefly, nudging a small stone forward with the edge of his jutti before letting it roll aside.

“People move around,” he said. “Not always the kind you want to meet.”

Pamma said nothing.

A bus passed, slowing briefly before gathering speed again, the dust it raised settling slowly in the space between them. Gurmeet waited for it to clear, then spoke again without changing his tone.

“You saw something?” he asked.

Pamma’s chest rose slightly, then settled.

“Nahi,” he said.

Gurmeet nodded once.

“Better,” he replied.

“These things,” he continued, “they don’t concern us. Everyone has their own matters.”

Gurmeet glanced at him briefly, then away. “You understand.”

It was not asked.

Pamma gave a small nod.

Neither of them spoke. The road continued around them.

Gurmeet straightened and stepped back, the exchange done.

“Come later,” he said. “We will sit.”

He did not wait for a reply. Turning without hesitation, he walked back toward the tea stall at the same unhurried pace, his posture unchanged, his presence folding back into the day without leaving a mark.

Pamma became aware of the road ahead of him in a way he had not been before. It was clear, open, unchanged.

But it did not feel open in the same way.

By the time Pamma reached the house, the sun had climbed high enough to settle into the courtyard. The bucket near the handpump had been emptied and turned on its side, a thin line of water running from where it had spilled and drying at the edges.

Rani was inside.

He stepped in without calling out and moved to the charpai, lowering himself onto it with the familiarity of habit. For a while, he sat without moving.

From the kitchen came the sound of metal against metal, a lid being lifted and set down, the steady rhythm of a pot being stirred. The smell of cooking spread slowly through the house.

After some time, Rani came out, wiping her hands on the edge of her dupatta, and placed a steel glass of water near him without looking directly at him.

He picked it up and drank.

“The water is uneven on the far side,” he said after a while. “Needs to be checked again.”

Rani nodded. “Do it in the evening,” she said. “It will hold till then.”

He set the glass down.

For a moment, he thought of saying more. The words did not form fully, rising only as fragments, not settling into speech. He let them pass.

Rani went back inside.

Pamma’s eyes moved toward the doorway and beyond it, to the path that ran past the house and out toward the fields. It lay open in the afternoon light.

He watched it, expecting someone to turn up. No one did.

In the evening, he returned to the fields at the usual time.

The light had begun to soften, stretching the lines of the ground without altering them. The motor was running, the water moving through the channels, the work already underway. Pamma moved to his side of the field and began adjusting the flow of water.

After a while, he became aware of the man at the far end.

He was sitting on his haunches, cutting fodder with a sickle, working as before. His shirt was faded at the shoulders, darkened along the back.

At some point, without warning, the man straightened.

Their eyes met.

It did not last.

The man looked away first, returning to his work without pause.

Pamma stepped down toward the channel. The water had cut its line and was spreading unevenly into the field. He pressed the soil lightly with his foot, just enough to slow it. It gathered briefly, then found its way around and moved on.

Pamma did not look up again.