Illustration by Sophie Levy
When Raunak’s bakery starts to burn—when it catches fire bread by bread, pastry by pastry, muffin by muffin—no one is around to smell the smoke. It is 6:00 am on a cold Sunday morning and everyone, Raunak included, is asleep, fast asleep, knees pressed against their chests, dreaming of heat and warmth, and so no one is around when the bakery comes alight.
No one except Aunty Bilimoria. Famous Aunty Bilimoria. Famous Aunty Bilimoria and her famous nose. (It can smell anything off you: trouble, pre-marital sex, yesterday’s undercooked roast). Even though Aunty Bilimoria and her nose are four streets away, bundled up in a mass of scarves and cardigans at the bus stop, they know, almost instantly, that something is wrong.
When the burnt toast smell first reaches Aunty Bilimoria, she thinks she is having a stroke: she read about it in a WhatsApp. Heart racing, she smiles (the WhatsApp said to smile) and lifts both her hands above her head (also the WhatsApp) and finds, to her relief, that she can—not a stroke. A heart attack then? Too much butter on the pav last night? Maybe the WhatsApp said heart attack?
But before Aunty Bilimoria can test her heart, or figure out how she would even go about doing that, the smell changes; it develops a texture and becomes familiar and warm, like a focaccia sandwich at that new bakery. (The bakery is five years old and no longer “new,” unless you’re operating on Aunty Bilimoria time, which, like geographical time, is slow and tectonic.)
Aunty Bilimoria is, at first, hesitant to go check. The bus will be here at any moment and if she misses it she will have to wait at least 30 minutes for the next one, if not more: buses are unreliable at the hill station as it is, even more so on Sundays. At least 30 more minutes in the cold, away from the empty school, the warm teacher’s lounge, from her aching calves and swollen ankles stretching themselves over its small but hardworking heater. But there is something distinctly wrong with the smell now: it is charred, black, smoky. With an audible sigh, she abandons her outpost and turns, following her nose.
By the time Aunty Bilimoria is just over a street away from the bakery, she no longer needs her nose. Her eyes start to burn as heavy black smoke rises in the air in front of her. She turns the corner and sees it: Morning Sun bakery, burning like a star, a hot mix of flame and gas with a continuous series of reactions at its core—bread and fire, table and fire, thick brown envelope and fire, chair and fire.
In spite of herself, in spite of her eyes, Aunty Bilimoria cannot help but think how good the heat feels from this distance: with the bakery still about 100 meters away, the fire is rejuvenating as it thaws her icy skin, spreading it open and letting it breathe. A loud crash and flare of light snaps her out of her reverie and Aunty Bilimoria pulls out her (new, son-bought, expensive) phone. Fumbling, her pudgy, purple fingers slowly call for some help.
***
When Raunak gets the call, he is dreaming about a beach. At the beach, it is hot—not pleasant, but hot, hot and humid, with the sun clawing its way down his exposed torso. He steps into the water, which is unpleasant also: dirty and lukewarm, like an old bath. Sweat collects at the base of his neck.
Suddenly, a blast of cold air rushes from the sea in front of him—icy wind, that starts off as a relief and quickly becomes uncomfortable, the wet hair on his skin freezing into crystals. Below him, the water turns icy too, and his toes go numb—
6:15 am. Call received. Raunak scrambles on some shoes and runs—runs, runs, runs. He runs and runs, till his windpipe feels like the beach, full of burning sand.
Raunak has an affinity for the dramatic and so when he gets to the now doused fire, he immediately falls to his knees. It is not that his shaky legs can no longer hold him and have given way—it is just that a lifetime of melodrama (movies and otherwise) has taught him no other way to express shock.
What is authentic, though, is the silence: Raunak cannot think of a single thing to say. Somewhere behind, or around, or in front of him, an aunty is talking to him; she oscillates between comforting him and chastising him—for what? For not being more careful. He can hear her; he understands what she is saying and realizes, somewhere in the back of his brain, how ridiculous she is being, how he should probably be angry at her for insinuating that this is somehow his fault. But the anger stays there, at the back. It does not make its way to his tongue, it gives him no words to utter. Raunak cannot think of a single thing to say.
The aunty’s hands are on his shoulder—rough, uncaring, evil. He resists, wills with all his power to stay on the ground, but soon she has help. Other hands, also big, their owners in giant war suits, with hoses wrapped around their shoulders grab at him with her, and even though Raunak wants nothing more than to be on his knees on the ground, to commit his grief to the town’s historical record, he is dragged away.
***
Every day, for the past 23 years, the Colonel Lt Captain has left his home for a morning walk at 6:30 am sharp. Every single day—with only three exceptions.
The first time was the morning after his son’s wedding. It was a loud, yellow, happy night, and the Colonel Lt Captain had allowed himself four glasses of whiskey (and one shandy, but we don’t talk about that). Drunk, full on buttery parathas and oily chicken, knees hurting from bobbing up and down to the music, he had let himself sleep in the next morning. He left for his walk at seven.
The second exception was the morning after he accidentally took double his post-dinner medicine dosage. That night, he had knocked himself out cold, woken up at 11:00 am, and spent the day unable to do anything but sit quietly on the couch, his world unrecognizably tilted off its axis. The third was the morning after he got the email, the one everyone his age is always expecting, from his best friend’s wife. He didn’t sleep that night, and didn’t realize as 6:30 am came and went.
But that was two years ago now, and so by 6:29 am, the Colonel Lt Captain is at his gate, in his Reeboks, muffler, and favorite mustard sweater. He lifts the metal latch, cold against his dry palms, his digital watch beeps 6:30, and he is off.
The Captain Lt Colonel loves his little hill station. His hour-long walks take him up and down its small roads, past its regal old houses, past the ugly tourist ones, through its bald trees. He loves the hill station’s cold mornings: puffing at the top of a steep incline, he is still fascinated by the way his breath clots together in a cloud. He turns the corner, down past Izzy’s new café, to the right now, where he crosses the Church, and then the little stall where truck drivers going from big cities to other big cities have stopped for some chai and some mountain.
On Sundays, the Captain Lt Colonel likes to end his walks with a little treat: black coffee and a pastry, at the Morning Sun Bakery. The bakery is only a few streets away from his house—he finishes his walk, pops into his kitchen for a glass of water and is back out, already tasting the banofee on his tongue.
***
As Ali walks towards the billowing black smoke, it does not occur to him that it might be coming from the bakery. Earphones in, jamming to some sick tunes, he continues down his route to work in the direction of the black cloud, wondering about what might have happened, his mind skipping over the concern that should have begun to take shape the closer his walk to the bakery brought him to the smoke.
It is only when the charred storefront comes into sight that it hits Ali—fuck. Raunak bhaiya is going to kill him.
Ali had shut the shop last night, which means it had been his job to make sure the gas and oven were off. Fuck, fuck, fuck. The cold morning is suddenly a lot hotter and Ali’s back, which hasn’t hurt in years, begins to prickle under his heavy jacket.
Still a few meters from the store, most of Ali’s view is blocked by small crowd that has gathered outside: firefighters, police, some loitering aunties and uncles out to shop, or on their morning walks. But Raunak bhaiya is nowhere to be found—does he even know? He must know. Has someone called him? Ali calls—nothing. Where is he? Where is he? Where is he?
It occurs to Ali that he could walk up to the bakery and ask any of the firefighters or members of the police. But he does not approach them, happy to stay behind their busy backs, unseen. He is filled with the irrational fear that they will arrest him, accuse him of intentionally leaving on the gas, or oven, or whatever it was—what was it? He tries to remember, grasping desperately for a mental image of his hand on the stove knob, or on the oven button. It does not come. Instead, he sees a knob handle turned left, he sees the oven glowing orange, he sees gas hissing out of both, still images that he cannot comfortably categorize as either memory or imagination.
Where is Raunak bhaiya? Ali decides that he will only talk to Raunak bhaiya—tell him it was all a mistake, mother swear just a mistake, of course it was, and then Raunak bhaiya (after he is done killing him) could talk to the police for him, vouch for him. But where was he?
From the other side of the street, Ali sees a tall, commanding man approach the bakery—he stops at a distance too. As soon as Ali spots the Captain Lt Colonel’s face, he forgets all about Raunak bhiaya, about the firemen in front of him, about the fiery remains of his place of work. All he can think of is his heart—he can feel it working, pumping blood to organs that don’t exist anymore. With nowhere to go, the blood collects in his stomach, mixes with acid, and his gut swells. But his heart has not been informed of this recent incident of organ disappearance, so the blood keeps coming, like gas from a cylinder, like electricity from a generator, frayed copper wires, spark, spark, screech. Ali’s body is on fire.
***
Chai, a suspiciously old box of fruit cake, and a new packet of digestives: Raunak is now in Aunty Bilimoria’s kitchen and she is talking and talking, trying whatever she can to help his singed insides, to clear the smoke that is accumulating in the cold air. She tells him about a WhatsApp forward she got this morning.
“These cold-drink companies are all thieves, man. Bloody fools think we will buy any shit they give us. I always knew they were bad for you I never let Royston drink all this. See, now, who was right. This World Health Office is also saying now, see”—she pushes her phone across the table to him—“not to buy all this Diet-Coke and all. Gives you cancer you know.”
He’s seen that one before and so he only smiles and nods.
Aunty Bilimoria, for her part, cannot figure out what to do with the boy—he will not speak, he will not eat. He is still in his pajamas: a thin grey t-shirt from the fancy foreign university that girl— what was her name?—used to attend and soft comfortable pants. Sitting in her heatless apartment he is shivering, his body shaking gently, his head nodding, saying nothing.
“Are you cold, beta?” Aunty asks.
“No, no, I’m fine.” His first words.
“You’re shivering—come to the sofa, its next to the window.” He is almost limp in her arms as she lifts him from the table to her worn green sofa, which, as promised, is under the east facing window. There are some flowers on the windowsill, and as a snapshot, it is bright and happy, oblivious to the circumstances.
It is no warmer, though. The sun pours itself in through the thick glass but does nothing to sooth the goosebumps in the air—the sunlight is soft and meaningless, spreading itself thin over brick and bone.
***
The Captain Lt Colonel has been the bakery’s first customer every Sunday morning since it opened: at 7:30 am, right as Ali turns the sign from closed to open, the Captain Lt Colonel is there, dabbing at a thin line of sweat on his upper lips with a handkerchief, ready to come in.
Sometimes, no one comes in for another half an hour, and so the two of them are forced to talk awkwardly: The Captain Lt Colonel asks about Ali—all well, nothing new, the same the same— and Ali asks about the Captain Lt Colonel—all well, nothing new, Aakash is visting these days. Still, there is some love: The Captain Lt Colonel likes Ali because he has a firm handshake and makes eye contact when he talks; Ali likes the Captain Lt Colonel because he tips well.
Other times, they are comfortably quiet—Ali busies himself around the bakery and the Captain Lt Colonel pulls out a small notebook and fountain pen from his shirt front pocket. Sipping coffee, he writes: grocery lists, to-do lists, mini accounts sheets, the occasional reminder to self.
For as long as Ali has worked at the bakery—which is basically since the beginning—the two of them have done this dance every Sunday morning. Except one.
The Monday morning after the missed Sunday, also a cold, grey day like this one, the Captain Lt Colonel came into the bakery with the weight of the world tugging under his red eyes. His face— which Ali had never seen anything but immaculately smooth, so much so that he assumed that maybe the Captain Lt Colonel couldn’t grow a beard—was sprouting the beginnings of a little white garden, blades of grass sticking out of old, unfertile land.
“Uncle, are you ok? I didn’t see you yesterday.” The Captain Lt Colonel didn’t reply. “Uncle, should I bring you the usual? Sit down na, the seat by the window is free.” This time the Captain Lt Colonel nodded—but didn’t move. For a while, he just stood there by the counter, his head bent—from behind, it might have looked like he was just taking a long time to choose a pastry. Finally, monumentally, the six foot four man stirred, carrying himself to his table, his table that didn’t feel like his. His table was a Sunday table and today was Monday: so even though the actual material reality—like the wood, and the slightly off balance legs, and the napkin holder—was the same, this wasn’t his table. There was too much happening outside the window and there were more people in the bakery than he was used to.
When Ali made his way over with coffee and a small slice of the banofee cake, he found the Captain Lt Colonel on his phone, reading his email—no eye contact, no handshake. As soon as Ali put the tray down, though, the army man’s manners kicked in. He shut his phone suddenly, as if the clink of the tray had woken him from a trance, and looked up at Ali. “Sit, beta,” he said, his booming army voice replaced by that of another man.
“Uncle I...” Ali made the best, “I’m busy” face he could.
“Sit, please,” he said again in his new voice and Ali did.
Then, the Captain Lt Colonel reached under his sweater and pulled out a thick, bulging brown envelope and placed it on the tray in front of him. “Today, I...” A beat, that Ali lets sit in the air. “Yesterday, I...I lost a friend. His wife emailed me, that who’s...” he gestures to his phone. “It doesn’t matter. I need you to keep this envelope. Keep it somewhere here. Give to me when I ask for it.”
“What’s in it, uncle?”
“That’s private.”
“Uncle, come on, you know I can’t just keep this. What if it’s black money, or some illegal documents, or—”
“It has...it has our letters. And some photos. Do not read them, do not look at them, do not open the envelope at all. I cannot have it home. One day, when I am ready, I will ask it back from you.”
At 9:00 am on the cold morning in which the Morning Sun Bakery realized the full potential of its name, Ali finds himself on the Captain Lt Colonel’s doorstep. He does not say anything; neither does the Captain Lt Colonel. There is nothing but silence and prolonged eye contact, silence and eye contact in which apologies are asked for and given. A hand on the shoulder.
***
Aunty Bilimoria looks up at the clock—10:00 am. The boy has been crying for hours now, refusing to stop, leaking snot and tears onto her upholstery. He is shaking uncontrollably, even through the thick, rough blankets she has put over him, and she wonders if she should call someone. Who?
She stands up and goes to the kitchen one more time, bringing him more paper towels, more biscuits for him to ignore. For a minute, she allows herself to feel resentful: she thinks of the empty teacher’s lounge, of the soft, hot, white heater, of her magazines, of her Sunday.
Suddenly, guilt. Skipping church on the occasional Sunday is something Aunty Bilimoria has done for years now, but she still feels guilty about it. No one said anything, of course, and she attended enough times through the week for everyone to know she wasn’t lacking in her faith—it’s just...Sundays are Sundays, brief respites from the bratty, entitled, snotty (her mind lingers by her upholstery) third graders who dominate her week, and she feels like the higher ups wouldn’t mind her claiming a few for herself.
Back to the boy: what is to be done?
***
On a hot night last summer, sweat under their knees and puddling in their armpits, Ali and Raunak bhaiya sat with cold beers on Raunak bhaiya’s terrace, talking, as Raunak bhaiya liked to do, about sad things: death, corruption, the state of Test cricket.
The night had started off fun: they had watched the cricket match, laughing, betting (why Ali continued to bet on Delhi he did not know and could not explain), shouting at the TV. With four beers still left in the fridge and some weed in Ali’s pocket, they had decided to move to the terrace.
But as they gazed down at lit up slope of their hill station, Rauanak bhaiya had done his thing and Ali found himself listening to yet another sad monologue about how we’re all going to die alone; about how nothing will ever change as long as the rich have the ministers in their pocket; about how India needs to sort its middle order before the World Cup. Ali didn’t like talking about these things: not because he disagreed, but because he knew there was nothing that could be done about any of them. Ali liked his weed with silence.
But the night, Raunak bhaiya moved onto something new: he was talking about moving back to Bombay, restarting everything he had left. “I’ll give you the bakery, Ali, it’ll be yours, you take it. You’ll be comfortable, it’s a nice bakery, the people here will buy there for years.”
At the time, Ali only felt sad. He did not like the idea of Raunak bhaiya leaving; he could not bear to think of the prospect of his nights returning to how they had been five years ago: bored and high, in front shitty weekday reruns. But the next morning, Ali had been—still sad, though, still sad—also a little excited. He liked the idea of the bakery being his. His. His to design, his to run, his money to make. He could finally take out that shitty painting. Finally change their milk supplier, because Raunak bhaiya did not believe him that the current one was diluting their milk by like 10%. Finally experiment with the cakes.
At 11:00 am on the morning the bakery said its fiery goodbye, Ali finds himself remembering this night as he sits in Captain Lt Colonel’s living room—he had been kindly invited in for a place to eat and call Raunak bhaiya. Ali’s phone rings: Rajesh chacha, his neighbor.
“Beta, where are you? Some mad lady, some Aunty Bilimoria, is calling everyone looking for you.”
***
Ali picks up Raunak at Aunty Bilimoria’s gate. She lives in one of a line of small two floor apartments, bunched together a street away from the tourist market. Aunty Bilimoria does not come down—her watermelon knees cannot handle more stairs today. Raunak emerges from the stairwell, his grey t-shirt streaked with miscellaneous substances, his eyes redder than that night the two of them accidentally put double the amount of weed they should have in the brownies. Upstairs, Aunty Bilimoria’s face appears in the window and Ali shouts, “Thank you Aunty!” She nods, half smiles, and turns away towards the TV, to see if she something can be made of this Sunday yet.
“Bhaiya, I—” Ali begins.
“Let’s go see it.”
“We don’t have to.”
“No, I want to.”
The two of them walk in silence—through the market, up past the residential lane where the Captain Lt Colonel lives, past the football field, to the bakery. The firefighters and police have cleared and the crowd has vanished. People stream past the bakery like it has always been like this—a black structure, jutting out of the ground with no purpose.
To Raunak, though, the bakery looks like it is still on fire. It is still in the act of burning, the ash still eating away whatever is under it.
“The firefighters said it was some trip wire in the generator,” Raunak tells Ali, though it is not the truth. The firefighters had said it was a gas fire: though they could not be sure if was because the gas has been left on or the cylinder had leaked. Raunak chooses to spare his friend.
The two of them stand staring at the charred remains of their workplace, the faint smell of warm butter, and brewed coffee, and their famous focaccia still in the air, almost definitely imagined. The ashy bakery is suddenly still—it is as if, in a moment, the hot ash has cooled, settled into its new, darker look. It is noon and the burning bakery becomes the burnt one.