‘Of course I did. I’d just pull my stomach in and stay put. I tried to control my instinct to run and puke. If Bachchu Kaka could eat those things why couldn’t I hear about them without feeling queasy? That too would be an insult to the Warlis. What depressed me though was why our people were forced to live like that. One day I overheard a conversation between Anna and Bachchu Kaka. Anna was pacing up and down muttering, “What’s to be done?” Bachchu Kaka was watching him with a cold face. “We can’t mend everything that’s wrong in one lifetime. We make our choices. You give them free legal aid. I organize them. That’s all we can do.” “But people still grab their lands. Pay them a bit of compensation. They’ve never seen even that paltry sum. They are happy. They go on a drinking binge and sink into worse penury than before. They don’t file cases. So what use is legal aid?”’

Ashesh looks at Anima. ‘That’s the kind of thing that would depress me. It still does. But as Bachchu Kaka said, we make our choices. Anna chose work that came as close as he could get to making a difference. Yet he felt depressed. I think he went away to challenge this common-sense rule of one lifetime, one choice. To do something else in his lifetime that made an even bigger difference.’

Anima stares at Ashesh. In the terrible days that followed Anna’s disappearance she and Bachchu Kaka had tried endlessly to guess why he had gone away. But Ashesh had never offered a single conjecture. And now here he was with a pretty plausible theory.

Anima looks at Janaki. ‘So that’s our Bachchu Kaka. By the way, Ashesh, I gave him the painting you’d given me.’

‘Woman on the Bicycle? Why?’

‘He was very keen to have it.’

Ashesh’s eyebrows shoot up. ‘Good heavens. Bachchu Kaka wants one of my works? I must have made the right choice after all if it makes a difference to him.’

32

Ashesh has never taken umbrellas seriously after he gave up his association with them at college. When he’s out and it rains, he steps into the nearest shelter. If it looks as if it isn’t going to let up, he nips into an Udipi’s and sits watching the rain over steaming cups of coffee. These are rewards that come to those who have made the right choice in life.