The Best Short Writing in the World 2011

I am very excited to share that in the competition ‘The Best Short Writing in the World 2011’ conducted by the Fleeting magazine, my short fiction has won a special commendation. Here’s the link. The story follows later in this post.

Quarterly Literary Review Singapore (QLRS), has published my short fiction ‘The Dogs of Delhi’ in Vol. 10 No. 4 Oct 11. Here’s the link

Not the only peanut seller who hasn’t heard of Osama

He is a boy. But seasoned to work and behave like a man. He sells roasted peanuts by the sea.

The hands I see are big – bigger for a child his age. The clothes that have him covered hang loose on his slim body, uncomfortable. As if expecting him to grow suddenly, overnight, in a few hours. The smear – of dirt, grime, pollution – on his face seems like a beard trying to grow in hurry for his ten, or maybe twelve years.  

I am not hungry. Perhaps, it’s just the mood... I want to tip the peanut seller. I ask him for another packet. He’s fast. And hurriedly turns an old newspaper into a small six inch cone, scoops handful of peanuts, and smiles before handing me the packet.  Very formal. Very nice. I pay the boy, happy to see his eyes gleam at the sight of money, yet again.  

            ‘Osama,’ one side of the curved newspaper I see almost screams at my face in a red newsprint. Until I turn and read its hidden brother-word on the other side, ‘dead’, also in red.

I smile at the ability of the news to find me again, something the television anchors have been blurting at supernatural speeds on all the channels this past week, something I want to distance from. What they eat, speaking at speeds at which they do, I wonder. The thought frustrates me enough to exhale loudly and I combine it with a yawn.

            I look away, beyond my feet, where the sea has embedded the Casuarina trees infringed shoreline and formed a cove, the white sand of which it now playfully sweeps with froth, comforting it together with a very fine spray.  The sun, for the month of June on a laidback Sunday like today is furious as hell, but where I sit, there is plenty of shade. I drink from the beer can I am loosely balancing on my fingers. The cold brew catches my throat and wakes up the food pipe momentarily.  

            The boy is back again.

            ‘Sahib, it would do you a world of good if you buy some more peanuts.’ I spot a sparkle in his eyes, and he looks a child some more.

             ‘Can I take a sip?’ he removes a small plastic glass from the oversized shirt pocket and extends towards me. The sparkle is gone now and there is hope that seeps through the forlorn eyes, something that turns him into an adult. But I am unmoved, saying to myself: he is just a child damn it!

            ‘I am not a child, sahib. I am fifteen.’ He is smiling.

            ‘How do you know I was thinking about your age?’ I am genuinely flabbergasted.

            ‘All you guys who come to the beach alone to drink beer, I know what goes on in your mind. I have been selling peanuts here for the past two years.’

            I wave the boy away and he obliges without a protest.

            The sky’s at last filling with clouds; they are flying in from the south, riding a wind I can feel on my face. Looks like the monsoon has finally arrived, the time I know when lovers fondling will turn incessant, peacocks will dance without fear right on the wet earth and not somewhere high up in the trees, the fishes will mate in shallower waters, and the snakes will emerge out looking for the frogs, who, beckoning their partners for sex which they must, would be croaking like idiots simply to be eaten.

            The first spray feels fresh on the face and I watch it patter the giant sea soundlessly in front of me, as rainwater playfully permeates my clothes and mingles through my soul that’s empty and rootless. A made up darkness descends in minutes and both the sea and the sky seem nearer to one another. I open another beer can and look around for the boy feeling hungry.

            He is quick to appear on my side and hands over another cone of peanuts and a sandwich.

‘A sandwich?’ It’s a nice little surprise.

‘Didn’t I tell you I have been here for the past two years?’ The boy, very much a boy once again, is smiling at his smartness.

I eat gratefully, while he finishes my can and takes a loud, carefree burp. We chat and he says he has never heard of Osama Bin Laden and has no idea what the word terrorist means. I try to tell him, explain the use of arms and that they kill innocent people. He stops me briefly and tells me he knows people who do similar jobs: the police and the army. When I ask him how, he tells me about his brother.

‘My brother died last year, he was four years elder. But I don’t mourn his death. He promised me not to. He knew he would be dead soon – killed by the police or the army, the terrorist in your language.’

I open another can and tell him that terrorist is not the police or the army, and that they are in fact the good guys who fight the terrorists, the bad ones. I explain, until a stage reaches that I am tired of all the explanation, labored in my breathing with the effort, and the peanut boy breaks into laughter at the sight of me.  

Then he tells him how his brother died. ‘Sahib, he used to take women behind the barracks for the policemen late in the night for money and with that he bought food for the two of us, even sweetmeats. It was nice, though he told me it was dangerous. Then one day he was killed. I don’t know how, but the police brought him home dead. I know they killed him. Can I have some more beer?’

I give him a can and he walks away, looking happy, slightly drunk.

It’s a new day when I wake up and I am feeling better. The sky looks clear through the window of my flat. The air is cold, wet and feels nice on the skin. I decide to begin my day with the newspaper. The headline is usual for me, but the picture next to it isn’t.

            I can’t cry when I see the picture of the peanut boy with a bullet in his head. His face still has the artificial charm the beer had brought him last evening, and he surely doesn’t know he is now being called a terrorist. I wish I had asked his name. I wish the world realizes one day who the real terrorist is. I wish they know as much as him.

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