I Remained Silent

The birds chirped, louder and louder still. I could hear them but couldn't see them, I longed to go out of my cooped up room. The dogs barked and barked, I could hear them too. I longed to play with them. The street dogs were my favourite company, they bit when instigated, but they would not bite otherwise. I heard household sounds from my neighbour's, not just a distant muffled sound, but every word that they spoke. Not just one neighbour but a dozen of them. Our homes sharing just the thin walls which only barely separated us. 

In the night I could hear their yawns and moans and just quietly dosed off, without really noticing them. But today I heard them and I wanted to run away. They were just sounds for me till then, but today they were the only people I would see for days to come. I could not imagine myself seeing them face to face, I knew all their secrets and sorrows and fights and libidos, loud and clear, from within my house. 

I remained under my roof within the dingy room, They had never really seen me, I was always either going somewhere or coming back from somewhere. Once in a while a neighbour would stop me to talk, but it was so unbearable to talk to them like just a stranger, that I always avoided being caught with them in a tete-a-tete. What if I said something like... 'Oh well are you okay now I heard you crying last night', or 'oh so you are that woman who moans every night, where do you get the energy to do it daily?' Or 'well I did not know you were not home, I heard a woman in your house the whole week' or 'Oh which of those men who visit you is your husband?' It would be really embarrassing. I could not afford a home just as yet. A struggling actress, I was saving money on accommodation. Because after all, I spent all my time struggling in the high streets of Mumbai. And some days I did not even come back home. There were casting couches and small roles here and there. But I was going to make it big.

Today was different, my expensive perfumes and clothes all bundled and packed in suitcases under my bed, were to remain there for some time to come. This was COVID19 running it's havoc. Everyone had to be indoors. I envied people with real concrete walls and real roofs on their head. I had seen homes, comfortable cozy homes, One of them would be mine soon if my recent tryst with that big producer had worked out. I was not sure, I'd have found out this evening. But the evening never came, because we were all asked to remain herded in our homes and in my case in the coop where I lived. In my neighbourhood COVID19 was a real threat. Because the flimsy walls that some 300 of those shared, were all just a sham. Whether we liked it or not, we were one single family of over 2000, all stuffed into tiny tenements. And that is the reason most neighbours were really worried sick. We did not know who had spent the night with someone who just returned from China or USA or Europe. Even the resident themselves would not know. You don't go asking for visa stamping in the passports, when you have these trysts.  

And then I remembered, the producer had just returned from a shooting abroad, I checked my phone for news about him. He had it already. If he had it, I had it. 14 days is all I had left. And life came floating in front of me. I had run away from home never hoping to see them again. I was messed up and now I would die messed up. 

Every time I believed this would be the last casting couch. And then when I was cheated, I would decide to find a job, but then I wanted to be a star real bad, it was the only thing for me. And since I was so headstrong about it, I played by their rules. I remained silent and just went about my business. I did not care for anything else in the world. I did not have a friend or a boyfriend either. I did not mind cunningly taking over the role offered to my closest friend and I did not bother to get too close to any guy. Boyfriends try to take all your decision and I didn't want that. I was alive, but only I knew that. For everyone else I was dead. But one day, that big screen would give me the name and recognition. 

I locked myself up, instead of looking for medical help. I did not care much now. I got a mild cough first and then it worsened. I heard my neighbour talking one day, one of them said, "I think she has the virus. Wonder where she got it! She looks classy, this virus is killing the classy kind. She has only imported stuff, now she is dying of imported disease." The other person said, "don't try to help her, we may get it. leave her." But from then on, some days I heard a soft knock and when I opened the door, there would be food. I silently took it. Not thanking for the food was the best way to thank. The coughing kept getting worse and then I heard others in the tenement coughing too. And then I saw the first corpse from a little hole in my window where the glass had broken off. No one followed the corpse, just the family. Everyone shut their doors as the corpse passed. It was catching up. More than 2000 people cooped up and corona was there. I kept getting weaker and I kept coughing louder and now I was getting the knock at my door every day and sometimes twice a day.  

The stench was unbearable. I saw myself on the bed. I was not totally looking right. I heard the knock at the door and ran to pick the food, the beggar from the street was picking up the food already. He had his nose covered to avoid the stench. And then they came, the police and the ambulance, my body was decomposing. No one dared come near me. I would never know who put the food on my door, I knew no one and I was leaving nothing behind. My body was wrapped up in layers of clothes, my lovely clothes from under my bed, they decided to cremate me without waiting for my family, because I was heavily infected. They had no time to call my family. they said they would send my belongings to them when they found their address. They would never find them... 

"Remember, you are dead for us! we will never come looking for you!" were the last words I had heard from them. Before I left, I had mixed the poison in their tea, very small quantity. It would take effect only slowly,  no one would ever know. They loved their tea with the newspaper. Were they still sipping tea as they read the newspaper?

Dear Readers: I have tried a fiction without a moral this time, just like the stream that life is, and the stream does not have a moral or a meaning. Pardon me if it is not to your liking. Its just an artistic expression. Thanks for reading and leaving your comments.