Home(Saket) Dev sat on his knees as if in a confession, staring at the bright red shirt spread on the bed in front of him, his eyelids dropping with a sadness that sits so heavy on the soul that it makes one’s shoulders droop. Tears welled up in his eyes, fogging his spectacled vision, as he ran his palms over the soft fabric lying in front of him. He felt as if he was trying to touch the person for whom it was meant. His eyes narrowed as if trying to find something in a distance. He looked from one side of the wall to another, as if trying to ease out the lump in his throat, as if trying to loosen the sudden stiffening of the neck. He threw his head back and stared at the blank ceiling for a while as if looking for some sign from above. He could feel his desperate silent prayers rising up and eventually falling on his face unanswered. Sadness does not come at once, it comes in waves, one after another, each more cruel than the one that went before. He felt as if the space and heaven was shrinking fast and he was going to be crushed between to unfeeling sphere colliding around him.
Questions were floating around him in the sad, solitary and stale air of the fourteenth story room of the Hotel.
'Will this, this perpetual pain, end with death?'
'When will death come?'
'Could this all be a bad dream that has gone on for so long that it seems like a reality of his life?'
Questions floated around like serpents floating about, eventually tying themselves around his neck, threatening to stifle his soul. He longed for someone to shake him by his shoulders to wake him up from this nightmare which hounded him. Tears rolled helplessly over his angular, near-impoverished face.

He got up and walked to the large windows. Sad silences of the night had already fallen over the symmetric, sterile streets of Singapore City. It is a Trader’s city, people said. But would that mean it is nobody’s home? But then, he thought, is that not how one can describe the whole world. He ran his fingers on the steel frames of the window, the brutal coldness gave him a certain sense of being alive. There was no comfort in being alive, it was a reminder of unending life- a failed, nightmare of a life.

He held on to the frame and rested his face on the screen. He remembered when he was of Aadi’s age and would look out on the steel window bars as water drops would cling to them before falling off into nothingness. Ah, the hope and happiness of childhood. He felt sad, as if he has failed not only his own childhood, rather also that of Aadi. The tall towers of Singapore spiraled into the dark breast of the night with all their splendor. He had a strange thought. Were all these brilliantly lit towers kind of spears Gods have thrown on the unsuspecting breast of Earth? He winced at the thought of the Earth underneath as a huge pulsating heart, bleeding to death, pierced by these spears from the skies.

He held himself against the window looking at the small windows, like patterns of light. There was life behind them. There were people inhabiting those houses behind those lights- living in it, loving in it, getting married, growing old, singing lullabies, telling stories. This is not a trader’s town. This is home.

“What is a home?” He asked himself.
He muttered in his breath, “What is a home?”
He repeated to himself. When the present fails, past comes with the answer. This time, his answer came with a rare violence, like time has slapped him on his face with years gone by. He picked the bottle and gulped a mouthful of water, pulled the chair and sat on it, still looking at the night spread outside his window and stretching its ominous shadows inside his hotel room. Voices came from far, feeble, familiar voices.
He could gather Chhaya’s voice, sharp, melodious, like clinking of champagne glasses. He could gather his own voice, against the roaring waves of the ocean.
“Chhaya, Let us make a home.”
She had laughed, that clear, soft laugh.
“But we do have a home. You and me, our parents. Pray tell me, what is a home?” She persisted. She urged him with a smile. He felt her smile can still make him do anything. If only she would smile to him.
He remembered her eyes, her kohl-lined big, black eyes, with the evening Sun reflecting in them like a night melting away into the dawn, waiting for an answer.
“Home.” He paused for a while, “- is where the heart is.”
She had laughed.
“Crazy!!” she had said as she touched his cheek with her palm.
He too laughed, and held her hand over the white table, next to the coffee mugs, sitting there looking quite amused, sitting next to those tightly held palms, vapors rising from them as the night settled over that café looking over the sea. The sounds of laughter from that day lingered for long before eventually fading away into the loneliness of today.

That was many years ago, fifteen years. Dev felt as if he had run too far back into the past. He gasped for air. As he got up and stretched himself, he whispered softly, “Home.” And then he said it again. Twice. It was as if the sound of the word itself will hold him by his hand and take him back to its meaning. But no, the word rose up to the pale ceilings and fell somewhere, broken and orphan in some dark corner of the poorly lit room. He remembered the evening.
“Sir, this good for twelve year old.” The Singaporean woman at the shop in Boogies took out the Bright, Red Tee-Shirt, with a Tiger painted on it.
She had just sold a dress to his colleague and caught them talking and his colleague asking about the age of Dev’s son, in case he wanted to buy something for him.
He had protested.
“Oh, Aadi is now twelve. He doesn’t like bright colors.”
“No. They pretend such, to show that they are all grown up. Actually they want us to ask them, keep asking them. Anyways, if he is twelve, soon all the bright red and blue and yellow will give way to grays and whites.” Dev’s colleague advised.
“This good for twelve, Sir” the shopkeeper woman insisted.

His mind went back to the past. We remember the things from past when we can make no use of them in rescuing the present. He remembered many things. He remembered that February night in Kolkata hospital, holding Aadi for the first time, as his head, round, pink and hairless would keep wobbling to one side of his shoulder. He remembered the mornings of walking to school with Aadi holding his finger in his tiny, pink palms, confiding about yesterday and conspiring about today. He remembered Aadi, once after coming back from the school with his shirt torn. He had had a fight with a classmate as he mocked Aadi that Aadi will be left with grandparents since Chhaya and Dev cannot keep him with them. He remembered returning late from office, as Chhaya had gone to bed and having dinner with Aadi and the broken shadows of the night in the dining room spread around them. Then he remembered dishes thrown to the floor, the sound of a slap, the banging of doors. He remembered sleeping in the living room, Aadi bringing him a blanket, still shaken, looking like a timid rabbit. He remembered Aadi snuggling up with him on the living room couch, and then waking up in an hour and tiptoeing to his mother. Ambitions, desires, career, money weighed heavy on the soul of the house which crumbled slowly and with it crumbled the tiny, yet unformed soul of its youngest inhabitant.

Dev felt dizzy. He got up from the chair but felt his legs cannot carry him unaided. He walked to his suitcase holding on to the table. He opened the suitcase and found the envelope, unopened.
He took it out, kept staring at it. Then he bowed his head down, with a mixed feeling of sadness and shame. He turned his head towards the bed, the red colour on it. The envelope had to be opened. Not opening the envelope will not alter the contents it held. He knew what it had. The decision was reached last month in Kolkata. He still hoped it would change, from the decision being made, to the decision being recorded.

He opened the envelope. It had a short note from his friend, Manik, and an official sounding document. He read what the note said.

Hi Dev
The court has released the judgment. Here is a copy of it.
Chhaya gets Aadi’s custody. The details about the visiting frequency and damages are in the official letter. I am sorry about it. Do visit us once you are back from your office trip. Take care of yourself.
Manik

He read and reread until he could read no more with his foggy eyes. He picked up the Tee-shirt and lit it up. He threw the burning cloth on the floor, as the Bright red fabric turned into the crumbling ashes of grey. Dev threw himself on the bed, face upwards, arms spread, a cigarette dangling in his finger. The room was filled up with the smell of smoke. He lied there staring at the blank ceiling, and slowly spoke, “Home” as if he had spitted that word on the Gods in heaven.

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