The annual mela had come to town, and it had come with everything.
Cotton candy in five colors spun on paper sticks. A Ferris wheel
strung with orange and green lights that blinked in no particular
pattern. A man with a monkey that could salute and do somersaults. A
stall selling glass bangles that clinked like tiny bells. A loudspeaker
blaring film songs so loud the bass made your ribs hum. And somewhere
in the far corner, past the samosa stand and the balloon seller and the
man who guessed your weight for ten rupees, Baa had a small stall
where she sold her Gond paintings on handmade paper.
Nandu needed to find Baa's stall. That was his one job. Baa had asked
him to bring her a thermos of chai before the evening rush.
Kabir had other plans.
"Nandu, LOOK — they have a new ride, it spins you upside down!"
"Kabir, I need to find Baa's —"
"And there's a guy selling those wooden swords, the ones with the
painted handles — come on, just two minutes!"
"Kabir —"
"WAIT. Do you smell that? Jalebi. Fresh jalebi. Nandu, we HAVE to —"
Kabir was already gone, pulled toward the jalebi stall like a fish on
a line. Nandu stood in the middle of the mela with the thermos in his
hands, surrounded by a thousand things demanding his attention.
Lights, sounds, smells, colors, the shouts of vendors, the laughter
of children, the smoky sweetness of roasting corn.
He closed his eyes. Just for a moment.
The sounds did not stop, but they became background — like rain on a
tin roof that you stop noticing after a while. The smells were still
there, but they stopped pulling at him. He thought of a tortoise he
had once watched at the pond behind the school — how it tucked its
head and legs inside its shell when a dog came too close, becoming a
smooth, sealed stone. The world was still there. The dog was still
there. But the tortoise was safe inside itself.
Nandu opened his eyes. The mela was still blazing and spinning and
shouting, but something had shifted. He could see it all without being
dragged by any of it. He turned left, walked past the bangles without
stopping, past the jalebi without looking back, past the Ferris wheel
without even a glance, and found Baa's stall in the far corner, quiet
as a temple behind a curtain of painted birds.
"You found me," Baa said, taking the thermos.
"I just stopped looking at everything else," Nandu said.
Baa poured the chai and smiled like he had said something very wise.
