Short fiction: A man boards a bus in sweltering heat and worries that the journey will kill him

The cacophonous calls of the female cuckoo, hidden somewhere in the vast outdoors, are maddening. It is as if she is revealing the secrets, deceptions, and survival struggles of her life through her disruptive, repetitive clamour. Her shrill calls overwhelm the female singer's voice from the seventies, playing inside the private bus travelling from Dera Mandi in southwest New Delhi to Inhauna in Raebareli, Uttar Pradesh. The song carries its own angst: “Bechara dil kya karein, saawan jale, baadon jale, do paal key yeh raah nahin, ek pal ruke, ek pal chale.” The singer's voice is a captivating blend of dulcet and vim. “What should a poor heart do when it is aflame even in the moist monsoon months of July and August, and burns hot even in the cooler months of August and September? Life is fleeting, and its paths are transitory; the heart flails and slows down in turn,” she laments. As the bus gathers speed and judders over rough roads, her song shatters into pieces as if mirroring her torment of unrequited desires and life’s misfortunes. The disjointed notes blend with the clamour of the bus – the roar of the engine, the whir of the radiator, and the...

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