“the road from Chorla Ghat wound like a snake that hated itself”
By Nilankur Das
He had never planned to go to Belgaum, not really, not in the way that one plans things with intent and purpose, rather it had arrived like all unwanted things arrive, suddenly and through someone else’s mouth, a colleague had said, you should come, it’ll be good for you, it’ll build confidence, and he had nodded the way people do when they’re afraid of disappointing others or more accurately afraid of being seen for who they are, soft and brittle and full of doubt, and so he had gone, not because he wanted to, not because he believed in seminars or self-improvement, but because saying yes was easier than saying I don’t think I belong there.
And so it was that he found himself on the third row of a room filled with bright fluorescent light and strangers speaking in confident bursts, in English and Kannada and that peculiar corporate Konkani that floats between the two, and he nodded when others nodded and clapped when they clapped and laughed politely at jokes he did not understand, all the while feeling his own body sit like a burden inside his shirt, not upright like others, but slouched, apologetic, like a child who knows he’s done something wrong but doesn’t know what.
He thought, when this is over, I will go home and never leave again, I will draw the curtains and delete my email and pretend the world is a house with no windows.
The return journey was worse, the bus was late and overcrowded and the man next to him smelled of sweat and anxiety, and the windows refused to open and the road from Chorla Ghat wound like a snake that hated itself, and when they finally reached Ponda it was already late, and he asked the driver if the bus would stop at Merces and the driver had said, Ho, ho, thambta re, and of course they forgot or didn’t care, and the bus stopped at the junction, not the stand, the dark stretch with the peeling hoarding and the shuttered wine shop and the whispering trees.
And he thought, it’s just a ten-minute walk, maybe twelve, I’ve walked longer, it’s nothing, it’s nothing, and began walking, his bag slung loosely, his phone in his pocket, screen cracked but usable, and the night was quiet in that threatening way that silence can be when it is too full, too still, like even the wind is holding its breath, and he told himself not to be afraid but of course that is exactly what he was, afraid of the dark, of the trees, of his own breath, and most of all afraid of what he could not see.
It happened too quickly, of course, that’s how it always happens, and too slowly at the same time, because his legs kept moving but his mind knew something was wrong and yet he did not run, perhaps because running admits the possibility of danger and if you act like nothing is wrong then maybe the universe will agree, but the universe doesn’t care, not really, and neither did the two bikers who appeared from behind him, first the sound of the engine, then the light, and then the voice, sharp and broken like glass thrown against tile.
Phone dyaa re, LAVKAR!
It wasn’t a request, of course not, it never is, and he turned and they were there, both of them on the bike, one still straddling it and the other stepping down, their faces visible, horribly visible, and that’s what struck him first, not the aggression or the danger, but the strangeness of their faces, like they belonged somewhere else, not Goan, not even Maharashtrian, faces from the North or East or somewhere his fear could not name, and then his fear began to speak.
Don’t fight.
Don’t argue.
Just give it.
And so he did, slowly, with both hands, as if handing over something sacred, which perhaps it was, not for what the phone was, but for what it held, the photos, the numbers, the notes he’d written but never sent, and above all the thin illusion that the world was safe and that he was allowed to move freely through it.
The biker snatched it from him, not roughly, almost bored, and they looked at him, the way someone looks at a worm on the road, and he could tell what they were thinking, this one won’t go to the police, this one won’t even remember our faces, look at how he trembles, and yes, he was trembling, his knees weak, his stomach roiling, and his mouth full of the taste of metal and failure.
He stood there for a moment after they left, not sure what to do, whether to sit down or keep walking or turn back, but then his legs decided for him and he walked, faster now, but not running, because running would mean he still had energy and he did not, all of it had drained from him, like water from a cracked pot, and he could hear his own heart like a hammer on tin, and he did not cry, not yet, not until he reached the main road and saw the orange glow of the streetlights and the passing cars and the illusion of normalcy, and then he stopped and leaned against the railing and the tears came, quiet and hot, not because he had lost the phone, but because he had lost something more private, more irretrievable.
He told no one.
Of course he didn’t.
Who would he tell? The police? He imagined the scene, imagined their faces, Tujya javyan kai zala? Tumka mhonn zai punn patkan phone dila? Kitem re tuvem?, and he knew he would not be believed, or worse, he would be pitied, the way people pity dogs that flinch even when you reach out to pet them, and he didn’t want that either, didn’t want to be seen like that, a man without pride or backbone, and so he said nothing.
At home he boiled water, added too much tea, sat on the chair that groaned beneath his weight, and stared at the wall, not thinking, or thinking too much, which is often the same thing, and remembered how they looked at him, not angry, not violent, just with that certainty that he would not fight back, and that was the worst part, not the fear, but the fact that they were right.
He did not fight back.
He did not shout or run or resist.
He obeyed.
And that word stayed with him, days later, as he walked to the store or waited at a bus stop or scrolled through emails on a borrowed phone, you obeyed, not as an accusation, but as a sentence already served, and the worst part was that it was not the first time, no, it never is, there are always smaller surrenders before the big one, the times he did not speak up in meetings, the jokes he laughed at but did not find funny, the friends he let go without asking why, the dreams he set aside because they seemed too heavy to carry.
And this was simply the final act, the one that made all the others visible.
He would walk past the junction again, of course, because life has no other choice, but now with eyes that darted left and right, and a heartbeat that quickened at every sound, and he would tell himself that it’s over, that it’s just a phone, that things like this happen, that people have it worse, much worse, but all of that was wallpaper, words pasted over cracks, and deep inside he knew the truth, the kind that doesn’t need language: he had been seen.
They had seen through him.
And that is the true violence.
Not the theft, not the threat, but the knowledge that he was readable, transparent, predictable, a man who would not fight because he had nothing inside to fight with, and this thought stayed with him, sat beside him at meals, lay with him at night, and whispered into his dreams.
Weeks passed. The seminar was forgotten. The bruises were invisible because they were not on the skin but in the breath. People asked him if he was okay, and he smiled, said he was just tired, and they nodded, relieved not to dig deeper.
One day he stood in front of a mirror and looked at himself the way a stranger might, tried to see what they had seen, the slouch, the weak chin, the eyes that dart away too fast, and he wanted to slap himself, not out of rage but to feel something solid, something that pushed back, but he didn’t, because even that seemed too dramatic, too theatrical, and he was not a man who did dramatic things.
He was a man who obeyed.
And the world, it seemed, always knew.
Nilankur is drawn to the magic of critical thinking, intelligent dialogue, and the power of creativity. Based in Goa, he curates provoking programs at the Museum of Goa. As a columnist for O’Heraldo, he engages with pressing social and cultural issues, bringing nuance and clarity to the public discourse. Beyond this, he contributes to various publications, using his writing as a tool to question.
Cover by adr-sree, downloaded from unsplash.com