Short Story: Set In A Different Time And Space

The crescent-shaped boat, which rocks back and forth, reminds me of the crib I used to sleep in as a baby. The wood smells of something ancient, but familiar. I can hear the river expanding into the crevices of the boat with her liquid tentacles. Falling asleep would be easy, if I let myself.

Amma would swing the crib in perfect intervals—as if she had made the math to find the exact frequency for a baby like me to fall asleep— humming to the same old tune, lulling me into a deep slumber. The crib stayed in my room, long after I outgrew it. That wooden beauty! Handmade by my insomniac father. The result of his midnight foraging. Even its presence next to me guaranteed a good night’s sleep. Had I asked my father why he wouldn’t make one of these magic cribs for himself, he would have caved and told me the truth. That was my father – deceivingly strong, foolishly naïve.

Apart from the oarsman, there’s a woman on the farther end of the boat with a child next to her. The woman’s eyes are fixed on the expanse of the water. Slowly, the child takes the edge of her saree and coils around his finger. He uncoils it and coils it again. Coiling and uncoiling. I can see that the child is bored. When he looks at me, I make a funny face: I stick my tongue out, cross my eyeballs, and contort my face. I’m afraid I might have scared him.

He looks at me with a mischievous smile and buries his face in the woman’s belly. Breaking away from her reverie, she looks at the child and then at the cause of the boy’s sudden shyness. We are strangers. But pain recognises pain.

Even if the pain is not human.

***

You’re not supposed to tell them until they’re 18. Many of the children figure it out, of course. Children are children. Children are not stupid.

I remember the day I couldn’t stop crying. No matter what my parents tried. They tried everything. My father fashioned trinkets out of the wood, my mother sang songs of my people. They tried everything. Exhausted, she did something, which if the authorities found out, would put her in prison. A prison for people of her kind.

As I looked on, she touched her forearm once, softly. As easy as peeling an orange, her skin came off, revealing the multitudes of circuits enclosed in a metal membrane. Instead of blood, I saw blue and white lights traversing through the nerve-like circuits. Pulsating in a frequency that was pleasurable to my young eyes. The memory has faded away, but the image is still in my mind, like a dreamscape. I can imagine what Yashodhe might have felt when Krishna showed the universe to her in his mouth. When my mother opened her arm, I too saw the universe and all its knowledge coursing through her body.

She tells me this story even today. But she can never complete it. She always runs out of time. The internet is rationed in the prison.

***

I have never been to this prison before. This place, where the end-of-life androids go. Until their plugs are pulled. No such case in last three-four years though. Hundreds of petitions on android rights are yet to be heard.  Meanwhile, the courts have issued stay on decommissioning the androids. Every android that has committed a crime is now imprisoned in the island. My parents too are there. Or they used to be.

I was alone—when I got the call that my father had killed himself. My carpentry-loving, quietude-obsessed father. I do not know how he survived the prison for as long as he did.

Now, every android in the island prison is under extreme surveillance. Charging cabinets was the only place they could speak to one another. Once a week. Now, that privilege is gone.

I wish the voice on the other end mentioned my mother.

The child is asleep. The woman looks at the child and then to me. I want to ask her, is she going to the island too. Has she lost her mate? Or is she one of those rare humans who get to raise their own children? Is that even possible in any of the ganas in the whole of subcontinent?

***

When the republic fell, the nation got split into 18 janapadas. Though they no longer belonged to the same nation anymore, they agreed on one thing. Caste was to be annihilated. But you cannot do that for as long as people were being born unequal. The cultural, economic, and social capital of each parent was different. You can attempt to bring all children on the same level in the school. Such an effort, however, is futile. When they go back home, they all spring back to their original levels.

That’s when the Ganapathi of Vijayanagara suggested something radical: What if, parents no longer raised their children?

***

I haven’t called her Amma since I found out. It was she who told me the stories that were not to be repeated, the songs that were not to be sung, the food that were not to be eaten. When I was 10, I was given a thread to wear it around my wrist, hidden beneath the watch too big for me.

“Show this thread when you need help .”

“How will I know when is that going to be?”

“You will, one day.”

No parent came to the college for getting their ward admitted. We had to navigate the system by ourselves. Our Ganapathi believed in making the children self-reliant. I remember clutching a file full of documents to my chest. Lost in the campus. Being anxious and nervously fidgeting with the thread around my wrist. Soon, a man appeared and escorted me inside. I was late. But they accommodated me. I always thought it was luck. It took me sometime to understand, it was the thr­ead I had to thank. Whenever I would get nervous, my hand would automatically go to the thread, and someone would arrive. That’s how I managed to climb the ladder of success. Now I know.

While most children of janapadas were taught to look at the earth beneath their feet, I was taught to look at the skies. In the skies, stood the gods. I was taught the hymns to summon the gods. Though none came when I needed them. She never did tell me that the gods would arrive if I prayed hard enough. But she spoke to me often about the power of words and how they reverberated across the universe. How they would bring back what I wanted if I sent my wishes through the words.

If there’s one thing that I remember from that time is the sadness in my father’s eyes. The brown pupils looking at me might as well be looking at some time ahead in the future. Maybe he was. I will never know now.

***

From the shore, the island seems mundanely boring. There are stalls selling everything from clothes to trinkets. What did I expect? A dreary grey-skied plain land with no human population? People in black uniforms marching around? A high-security, no man’s land?
It doesn’t take the auto drivers long to figure out this is my first time in the island.

“Sir, you want to see garden or you see prison? Come Sir, I show robot prison, Sir. Many robot prisoners. From far!”

I take one of the autos with a driver named Mani. His auto is completely covered with pictures of every sci-fi movie ever made.

“Sir, you know all robots in prison are murderers

They kill children. Hence, jail

Ganapathi, no good decision

Children, human. No robots. Robots harm. What you think, Sir?”

The man had some strong opinions on androids. I asked him: Aren’t you scared living so close to them, given your opinions.?”

“No, Sir, high-security prison. Kaafi safe, Sir. Robots entertainment also. I spend many time staring windows. Robot come in windows.”

Maybe Amma too stands next to the windows. She liked the sea. Maybe this man has caught a glimpse of her.

The storyteller in her would have liked this man. She liked stories. Stories that spoke of greatness. Stories that told you, you were special. Stories that made people feel special. If that’s all it was, it would be perfectly fine. But there’s a reason the Ganapathis of the janapadas forbid these stories from being told to young children. When young children think they are special, they demand special treatments, creating inequalities. How stories are used to justify violence. How the strong rule over the weak because stories said so.

I know why she may have done what she did. Every mother wants their child to succeed. I understand. But she shouldn’t have made me stand out in the crowd. They shouldn’t have made their children stand out. All those androids.

When I found out, I had to tell the authorities. This attempt at going back to a time of widespread inequalities.

They took them away. My parents. Parents of many of my friends.

Sometimes, people ask me: ‘do you think what you did was right? ‘

“Yes,” I say – without hesitation.

When androids malfunction, you report. That’s what a responsible citizen does.

***

I’m asked to wait. I sit on a wooden table for two. There are many empty tables around. I realise hardly anyone comes to see these androids. The parents of an entire generation. Did all of them do what my parents did? Did all of them try to push their children ahead of the crowd? Are all the children angry at their parents?

As she is brought in, I can see her hands locked in handcuffs. They are not made of metal, but with a softer material.  The guard who brought her, frees her. I want to tell her, mother you look thin, you have lost so much weight. But I know that’s a lie, delusions of a feeling mind.

‘Robots no weight lose, sir’  Mani would have said.

She smiles as she sits on the bench ahead of me. Can an android feel pain? I feel my mother is in pain.

“About your father, I did not know. Believe me.”

I know.

“I knew nothing about his intentions.”

I know. But, it’s father – he was too soft for this world

“You should know he was not angry at you.”

He should have been

We sit in silence for a while.

“So, what is happening?”

“Where?”

“In the outside world.”

I tell her about the rains – which are more erratic. I tell her about the sun and the trees and her plants that I have been taking care of. I tell about the boat ride and the little boy. When her hand moves towards her face, I assume she is going to wipe an invisible tear.

“You’re still angry at me, aren’t you? I’m never going to apologise for giving my son some, very few, advantages at life.”

I want to tell her: ‘You were just supposed to raise someone with no prejudices. Someone who did not think of himself as neither superior nor inferior in comparison to others.’ But I don’t. I want to tell her: ‘It is not your fault.’

It is of the people from decades, if not centuries, ago. They may be long dead, but their ideas and biases run through many like my mother.
But before I could say anything, she leans on the table towards me and whispers:

“I have forgiven you.“

Who should forgive whom?

As I helplessly weep, she softly touches her arm, and the skin opens into the blue-white circuit underneath. I’m a child again. I’m no longer weeping, hypnotised by the liquid universe and all its knowledge coursing through her body.

(This appeared in the print edition as "What Do I Call You, Again?")

(Views expressed are personal)

Amulya B. is a writer and translator based in Bengaluru. She writes in kannada and English