The Light at the End of the World by Siddhartha Deb

Author:Siddhartha Deb
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Soho Press

3

At breakfast, he avoids the eyes of his classmates, sitting hunched over toast that Kaka, the mess cook, has brought him, thick slabs of double-roti with butter and coarse, granular sugar sprinkled on top. He cannot eat. He just sits there, pushing the toast around, wondering how he will see Dr. Bose and appear for the rescheduled riding examination all on the same day. A boisterous cry from his classmates, a response to some filthy joke made by the Nose, interrupts his thoughts. Walker is suffering from too intimate a conjoining between himself and White Rose, the Nose says. This is why the riding examination has been canceled, why a notice sits outside the registrar’s office saying that Walker has been taken ill. White Rose the mare, the Nose continues, is a substitute for an original left behind in England, but before he can clarify to the assembly whether the original is a woman or a horse, Das excuses himself and returns to his room.

He takes his time getting himself ready, checking through the window for signs of the man he saw in the morning, looking around carefully on the off chance that the Committee has really chosen to deliver another note. When he finally leaves, he does not take the usual route, climbing down instead along the winding spiral staircase at the back, landing lightly in the little yard where Kaka has his kitchen.

He looks around with curiosity at the things Kaka has gathered, reflecting on how little he really knows of him. He is a small man, Kaka, his arms and legs almost two-dimensional, his hair cut very short, dressed in a vest and dhoti that might once have been white. Kaka is not even the man’s real name, just the polite generic term, meaning younger uncle, that everyone has settled on for him, and Das has no doubt that Kaka will remain younger uncle to a generation of boarders even half a century later, should he remain alive that long.

Every few weeks, Kaka falls into a depression, wondering why he has abandoned his home in an Orissa village to come work in this heartless city. He becomes slower in his movements, his eyes ringed by dark circles, his face covered in stubble. The toast often arrives burned, flaky in texture and cindery in flavor, the tea is watery and cold, while the intervals between toast and tea grow as boundless as Kaka’s silence. Somewhere around mid-month, he disappears, heartbroken about the children and wife he has left back home and whom he fails to send enough money. He goes to Jogubabu’s Bazaar with the little money he has left, an amount so small that it is pointless to even try sending it home. It is better expended, instead, on ganja that makes him lose track of the hours and the days. While Kaka stays on in Jogubabu’s Bazaar, the days running together, the mess kitchen remains closed. The boarders, although they should know better, congregate around the

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