Latitudes of Longing by Shubhangi Swarup

Author:Shubhangi Swarup [Swarup, Shubhangi]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Literary, History, Asia, India & South Asia, General
ISBN: 9781529405156
Google: ojypDwAAQBAJ
Publisher: Quercus
Published: 2020-05-13T19:00:00+00:00

‘Plato, your father wasn’t a monster. Your mother isn’t a murderer.’ Plato stares at the table. The trembling gives way to a catatonic silence. He barely seems to be breathing. Before getting up, he asks, ‘Then why did it happen?’ Thapa has thought about it a lot. He fears an educated man like Plato won’t see the truth, so obvious and simple. ‘Why did it happen?’ Plato repeats, as if thinking out aloud. ‘Hunger,’ Thapa replies. On a hot, suffocating May night, Plato dreams of red again. It isn’t as fluid as a sea this time, but thick, like sand. He is a fly caught in tree sap, the colour of blood. As the resin grazes his hair, it comes alive for all his senses. It has a bit- ter taste, a strong, smoky smell and is viscous to touch. He can’t extricate himself from it. His wings tremble under the fluid’s weight as his legs buckle under the pressure. Red sweeps his vision. The resin covers his compound eyes. Eyes that reflect light in the colours of the rainbow. He kicks and flails to avoid the petrification, but it is just a reflex. He has al- ready let go. Plato opens his eyes with a start when he hears someone scream. He has hit his neighbour, another prisoner. He sits up. He moves his hands and legs to rid his body of the paralysis. A cockroach tries to nibble on his finger. It must have crawled all over the sleeping inmates, seeking subsistence. A praying mantis jumps in from the ventilator. Once inside, it searches for life to feast on. Plato watches the mantis attack the cockroach. At first, it struggles with the enormity of its kill—then embraces it. The mantis leaves the way it had arrived. It pauses between the bars of the ventilator for a moment. Ahead lie nocturnal strug- gles and freedom, but no rest.

After getting married, Plato’s father had sent his parents a photograph of him and Rose Mary. Inherited from his grandparents, it was the only actual image Plato had of his parents. A sepia-toned one, taken in a studio. His father had his hair oiled and parted on the side. He was clean- shaven. His longyi and shirt were neat, without creases. He was beaming. His teeth were stained from chewing betel nut. Even his eyes seemed to smile. It was infectious. His father’s smile would make Plato smile. Was he comfortable around women, he wondered. Or was he tongue-tied in her, his wife’s, company? Did he prefer the kingdom of thoughts to the slavery of odd jobs? Did he also shiver and tremble unexpectedly? The man remained a stranger. Sometimes he felt like a well-meaning uncle, sometimes an elder brother. As Plato grew older than his father in the photo, he looked upon him as a jovial junior in college. But never as a father. She stood apart. Her gaze lowered, fixed on a point somewhere between the camera and the ground. She was shorter than her husband.

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