Kiran Jonnalagadda’s Blog

“Wait here,” said Srinivas, and disappeared from view before I could turn around.

Behind me, vehicles honked as they approached the narrow intersection. I pushed the bike to the edge of the road, parked, and swung the backpack over to my back. Where had he gone? The building behind me looked busy. I walked over and looked up the steps into the corridor. No sign of him.

The guard rattled his cane and said “What do you want?” Something about his tone put me off. I hate it when people question the authority on which one exists as they do. I was standing on a public road where I had every right to stand. What was his problem? And where was Srinivas?

“This is a ladies hostel,” he said. “Go away from here.” I looked up again and noticed for the first time that every one of the persons entering and exiting the building was female. This was somehow supposed to be my fault? Who did he think I was, a college romeo? The backpack! Did he… oh dear… really think I was a student?

“I am thirty years old,” I wanted to say, “and married.” Why should I care that this is a ladies hostel? But damn it, he didn’t deserve to know that. What business was it of his? I had had my share of being lorded over by petty officials back in my school days. I was going to have none of it now. I was not going to be sorry for who I was just because some two bit minimum-wage guard had an inflated sense of his own importance.

Who did he think I was? My mother had been a founding principal of one of their schools, and had run it for ten years. I had grown up riding down this very road through their gates to pick her up every evening. I would park my bike in the staff parking area and walk into the principal’s office, unchecked. And now, I was the suspicious character? The gall of it!

I said nothing. How was I to compress all that into a single, coherent statement? One that said, in addition, that while I had nothing against him personally, he ought to know better than to insult someone with such impeccable credentials? That if he dared make a move, I was perfectly capable of pulling rank?

He continued glaring at me. I shrugged and walked back to the bike, pretending not to have noticed. Srinivas returned several minutes later and announced that there may be some houses in the next block. I wanted to tell him of what this place meant to me, nay, of what I meant to this place. The ego had to be soothed. But I said nothing, and we resumed our house search.

(Part of a writing practice series.)

Isn’t it remarkable that you can lock up a house and return one or two weeks later, and find that everything is still in order? No rainwater leaking on to the floor, no bathroom taps running, no mold growing out of the fridge, and your broadband modem not blown up by lightning?

Leaving home with no one to look after it is as simple as clearing the fridge of perishable food, turning off the lights and locking the door. You don’t even need pack food for the journey anymore.

Was this even possible two decades ago? Could you make a trip when you felt like it, without elaborate preparation? How much has this contributed to changing our notions of social mobility?