The house overlooked the valley across which ran the road that slipped in and out of view as it wound its way under overhanging cliffs, pushed into the mountain and again out of it. For Triloo, it was what kept him glued for hours. He would just sit on a stool by the window, follow cars, buses or bikes with his eyes and lose them to the hidden parts of the mountain below, and find them again as they came back and out of them. The road was quite far, and other than the noisiest of buses and trucks, their sound seldom reached him. But their tiny shape and the shadows they threw on the road or on the hill would stand out clearly against the greens, browns and the yellows of the mountain and the road.
Triloo himself had never ventured farther than a few kilometers from this house, that was not really his. He had been brought down from his village somewhere high up in the hills by his father and left to work here at the seth’s house. He didn’t quite remember how old he was when he was given this new house and position, but he was certain he couldn’t have been very old as all he remembered from the life he lived before this was a small village of a cluster of houses, a waterfall somewhere in the background, voices of other children and his father’s sullen face. He didn’t remember his mother, he had been told that she had died when he was born. But he did remember a woman his father had lived with. Other than that, he didn’t remember much and was now forgetting even those stray details that sprang up in his mind every now and then.
Once in a while his father would drop in to meet him, but for the past few months he had come to know of the real reason of his visits. The seth would give his father some money, that he now knew was his salary. The father would leave behind a little for him, and the seth’s wife saw to his meals and clothes. Anything more would only expose him to things that he didn’t need and would spoil him. So the arrangement worked fine for everyone. If he could have it better, he didn’t know.
On the third Sunday of every month the seth would take a bus and go to a distant town, where he would pick up supplies for his shop. Things like threads and needles, bundles of rope and hard candies, pencils and soaps. These he would then sell at a slight premium at his shop that couldn’t be classified under any particular heading or type. One day, when Triloo was ordered by the seth for the first time to accompany him for the trip as he was getting too old to carry the bags, and Triloo was becoming big enough to do that, Triloo ran out to see the road that he would soon be travelling over. For years now he had filled those hidden parts of the road with his imagination. He wondered if those sections were meadows, or went under waterfalls, if they had chai shops where the bus stopped for a quick bite or if they were flanked by stepped fields where young girls cut the grass and waved as the bus went past. He would soon find out.
A day before the Sunday when they were to leave, the seth’s wife gave him an old cardigan, a new cap and a water-bottle. She was without kids but not without compassion. The journey, she knew, was a long one and her husband always returned late in the day when the winds buffeted in from the bus window and left him sniffing and yearning for his rum in warm water. The boy could do with some warmth. On that night, Triloo also made some special preparations. He picked up some blank sheets, sketched his name as that was all he had learnt to do by tracing it down from what he had been told his spelling looked like, and kept it ready to chuck at any girl who stood in those mysterious gaps. He washed his handkerchief and dusted his shoes. And before he went to bed, he laid them all out neatly on the floor so he wouldn’t forget any thing.
The seth and Triloo left at around seven in the morning. For Triloo it was the first bus ride after the one that got him down from his village to this town. He bounded up the steps of the bus and took a window seat, and realised the seats were too small even for someone as young as him, with the heavy frame of his seth sitting down beside him.
The driver stood smoking near the bus, and to Triloo he was nothing less than a star. He looked thin and wiry, but soon his hands, those hands, would grasp the steering and roll it around as the bus made its way to their destination.
And soon he did. From where Triloo sat he couldn’t see the magic he was working with his hands, but he could see a part of his face in the rear-view mirror that hung above him. The man swung around with the bus, careless and easy. He didn’t have the look of someone who thought that the work he was doing was important. But to Triloo it was the world.
The bus drove on and the seth soon fell asleep. Triloo kept looking out, waiting for those hidden sections into which the vehicles he saw from above ducked into, those slices of wonder and mystery that would transport him to the places that he had only dreamt of, never seen.
The bus went on and on and Triloo waited, not knowing how long it was when he realised that the lone, dusty road was suddenly opening up into a clearing, and getting crowded. The people around him in the bus were stirring out of sleep and boredom and before he could understand anything, the bus pulled into a bus-stand.
The seth woke up with a jerk, and hastily got up, motioning for Triloo to follow. And Triloo did. It took him a while to understand that they had made it to their destination. But where were those mysterious curves in which the bus kept disappearing when he looked from afar? All he remembered was a uniform, dusty stretch that took them around two hours to cover. Had he actually passed over those stretches? And now that he didn’t have the luxury of using his imagination to make up for his vision, could it be that they were only how the rest of the road was?
Triloo walked behind the seth in a trance, which suited the master just fine. He wanted the lad to lug the load and Triloo was doing it well enough. But when it was time to return, he noticed that this time Triloo took the last row where the seat was a most uncomfortable bench, stretching from one window to the other. There he sat in the middle, far from either window, put his head down, closed his eyes and waited for the journey to get over.