Half a Kilo

A banyan tree stood at the intersection of the road. By seven in the morning, the rain had thinned again. It never touched the ground directly; the canopy caught it first, and it came down drop by drop, making small pools in the dirt. Beneath the branches sat a small wooden bed, two stools tied to its legs, wet gray-yellow leaves scattered across it as if it hadn’t been cleaned in days. The street stood empty.

Suresh arrived on a moped, wearing a raincoat that hung over his whole body like a long cardigan. A long umbrella was tied to the side of it. A big sack hung over the rear handle, a small bag from the front, sal leaves poking out from the top of it.

He stepped off the moped and pushed it under the tree. The tires rolled through the wet sand, cutting lines through the puddles.

He kicked down the stand, walked to the edge of the street, looking both ways. Nothing but rain. He walked back to the bed, tilted his head back, and searched for the sky through the leaves. When he caught a glimpse of it, he closed his eyes and pressed his palms together against his chest.

He untied the umbrella from the moped and the stools from the bed. He wedged the umbrella into a hole at the bed’s center, then brushed the leaves off the wood.

***

Before the food stand existed, Suresh spent his evenings leaning against the mud wall of the veranda, fanning himself with a piece of cloth, staring at the street.

“I called my brother. He’ll help you start selling fruit,” his wife told him one evening, standing in the doorway.

Suresh kept fanning himself. He didn’t turn to look at her.

“I’ll sit with you,” she said quietly. “If you don’t know what to do.”

He still didn’t turn. She stood watching his face, then stepped back inside.

A few nights after that, she paced the veranda, waiting. Suresh didn’t carry a phone. She’d called her brother, but he didn’t know where Suresh was—just that he’d come. Eventually she climbed down the stairs, her head brushing the low straw of the thatched roof. The neighbors’ lights were already off.

Down at the corner, someone sat under the dim street light, singing to himself, head down. She walked over and stood above him.

“You drank again?”

He kept singing.

“Who gave you the money?”

He tried to stand and couldn’t. “I don’t...” The song stopped. “From you.” He started singing again.

She tucked the end of her saree into her waist and pulled him up by the hand. They walked home like that, him behind her, her glancing back to see if anyone was watching.

“Everyone is talking behind our backs,” she said, pulling him toward the house. At the gate, she forced his head down under the low roof.

“I’ll not go,” he mumbled, trying to pull away.

She pushed him inside anyway.

For the next few weeks, Suresh sat locked in the house. He wasn’t allowed outside. In the evenings, when he went to the veranda, she went with him and sat beside him. When neighbors passed and stared at his bowed head, asking if he was unwell, she told them he was sick. When she needed the bathroom, she locked the front door with a padlock and tied the key into the hem of her saree.

She was the youngest of the five, the only daughter, and had been loved more than her brothers. She’d met Suresh at a tea stall, where he came with his father to sell tea and she came every evening with hers. He’d hand the tea to her father without looking at her, then ran back when he was called. At home, she said she liked him. Her parents didn’t agree—a tea stall boy. She left her home, and never went back to face them.

***

Under the banyan tree, Suresh lifted the sack from the moped’s back seat. He took the guavas out one by one, peeled off the sponge wrappers, and stacked them into a green pyramid on the bed.

Rain drummed on the umbrella above him. He walked to the street’s edge and stared out, then came back for the bag on the front handle. He laid the sal leaves beside the guavas and rolled the jamuns onto the wood. A few escaped and fell.

***

After weeks of lockdown, one morning, she woke Suresh before the dark had broken, pushed him toward a bath, pressed a sandalwood dot onto his forehead, and handed him a new dhoti and kurta. Her brother had brought them one afternoon while Suresh slept.

At the banyan tree, her brother was already waiting, guavas arranged on the bed, a vermilion half-circle and dot marked at its head. Two stools sat beside it.

“Press your hands together,” she told Suresh.

He didn’t look at her, but pressed his palms toward the bed.

She took one stool and sat by the fruit. Suresh carried the other to the trunk and sat with his back against it.

“Bhai, go sit beside her,” her brother whispered, walking over. “She’s been asking me to set this up for a year. You don’t know how hard it is to get a spot this close to the main road.”

Suresh let the word pass over him. He stayed against the trunk.

Every day, they came back. She weighed the guavas, took the money, talked to customers. When no one was there, she watched him, but never asked him to move closer.

Weeks passed before, one morning, he didn’t carry his stool to the trunk at all. He sat beside her instead, watching the way she held the balance scale steady.

Another morning, a man from the nearby tea stall walked over with a kettle and two paper cups. Suresh was turning a dhoop stick in slow circles; she stood beside him.

“Bhai, I brought tea.”

Suresh kept his eyes closed until the dhoop was wedged into the gap in the wood. He took the first cup and handed it to his wife, before taking his own.

“Your Guavas are sweet this week,” the man said. “Ma liked it very much.”

Suresh smiled. Said nothing to that. “Because of her, I’m sitting here today,” he told the man instead, then turned to look at his wife. She didn’t answer. She sat down, brought the cup to her lips, blew across it.

“Good to see you sitting near the fruit now,” the man said. “I’m going back to my stall.”

***

Suresh sat on his stool beneath the umbrella, rain sliding down, and leaving dark patches across his kurta. His eyes moved from the street to the bed and back.

An hour passed before a scooter pulled up. A man in a raincoat lifted his helmet’s visor. “Jamuns good today?”

Suresh stood, smiled. “Babu, very good. Try one.” He held one out.

The man shook his head, water sliding off his sleeve. “Give me half a kilo.”

Suresh sat back down, pinned a few sal leaves together with a wooden stick into a bowl and began picking up the jamuns, pressing each one with his thumb before dropping it in.

“Give me the good ones only. Don’t give me any with ripped skins,” the man said, watching Suresh’s hands.

Suresh looked at him. “Babu, I only give good ones. I never give bad things.” Suresh dropped his eyes back to the fruit. Picked up one, then another. “I was away a month, my retina filled with water.” He set the leaf bowl on the scale. “If I ever cheated a customer, God would take me, or my wife would put me out of the house.”

Suresh watched the needle settle. The man smiled, keeping his eyes on the scale as well.

“I almost didn’t come today. My wife’s sick at home. But she said we’ve been closed a month, so I came.”

Suresh dropped a few more jamuns to steady the needle at the center, then handed the bag to the man. The man handed back a damp note. Suresh reached into his pocket, pulled out a small polythene packet wrapped in a rubber band, and counted out coins into the man’s palm.

Then he reached back for five more jamuns and dropped them into the man’s bag.

The scooter pulled away. Suresh sat alone under the umbrella, turning his head toward the empty street.