Fiction: A man revives an old library. Then, one night, he is stabbed to death. Who did it? Why?

Now he will live like a ghost in the library. He will wander between the book racks. He will thicken on the floor like layers of dust. He will lie on the grimy skylights like sunlight. He will stick to the old curtains like dirt.

Why be sad? Whatever happened was fine. I will never step inside that place as long as I live. What if the wretch, even now, clings to my feet like dust? Those stairs, those corridors, that balcony — how can I pluck them out of my mind? How can I wipe those books away from my memories!

Anyway, now bats will make their home among those books. Whatever happened was fine. Absolutely fine. It wasn’t possible for anything else to have happened. Not in the slightest.

It’s not that I’m particularly delighted at everything that happened — no, no, I’m not. Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t say that I am happy with everything that transpired. I really want to be happy about everything that happened. To laugh and keep laughing. To go in every direction, to cover each direction, every tiny particle, with my laughter.

I want to hug everyone I meet. To start laughing suddenly and very loudly. To see my ringing laughter scatter everywhere, wherever I look. To catch sight of my smiling face in the mirror of my own laughter. Of course, I want this. But I can’t.

Despite so desperately wanting to be happy, I am not happy. Yes, I am not sad — of that I am certain. No, I am not sad.

Let me say it again and again: I am not sad. Nor is there a shadow of regret about me. Not even as small as the shadow cast by a flying bird on the green grass. This is the only end he could have had. Exactly this.

Yes, yes, this is exactly what should have happened. What else could have happened to him? What else happens to people like this? He got what he should have got, how was that wrong? This was what was written for him.

The writing has been written from before, and you simply have to surrender yourself to it, silently, without a word. He too submerged himself in it. He slipped and went on slipping. No matter how scary it appears from the outside, it seems so right, so appropriate from the inside.

No matter what anyone says to me, I’m not sad that Vandana also slipped. Even though she did not slip outside of her life, even though her face reflects her disdain, anger, and pity towards me — why just me, towards all of us — even though her voice may have turned lifeless in her eyes, I am not sad that she has become like this.

She trod a path that could have had no other outcome. All by herself, absolutely by herself, despite me, despite all of us, she trod such a path that she had to slip outside of herself.

Why just me? No one will feel bad about it. Everyone has to suffer, Vando rani, badi siyani, very clever; so what if you are my niece, did you think that would save you? Is there anyone who hasn’t suffered? Has anyone ever escaped the wrath of the universe’s power that you would escape it?

Was there anyone whose eyes did not reflect the shamelessness of what she was doing? So much shamelessness in what she kept doing, quietly. How she put my pride, our pride, on the line. The same pride that I, actually all of us, accumulated bit by bit. What about that?

The difficulties we endured to make a place for ourselves in this city. So much hard work. Is there no value to my, rather our, hard work? I stood for hours in trains when I traveled to Kashmir, returning with saffron, and the entire household spent day after day packing it into small boxes. Only then was it ready for sale.

This was a waste for Vandana, all of this. How did she even think she could do what she did with such shamelessness? Oh God, a simple home like ours, and she, she did everything. Did she never think of us, not even once?

Did our ancestors, hanging on the walls of our house for years, with their large moustaches and beards, never cross her mind even once? Did she never think, not even once, what would happen to me, to us, to those ancestors, when she did all that she did?

Where would we hide? How would we show ourselves to the people of this town? Did she have no responsibility towards us? Not even a little bit? Does it fall only to our lot to be responsible? Doesn’t she get to share the responsibility even a bit?

No, no, whatever happened to her should have happened. This is how it was ordained by destiny, this is how it should have been ordained by destiny. I’m not at all sad about it. The people of the town are with me, my ancestors are with me, the sun and the stars are with me.

Look, no one is mourning that she faltered, no one is shedding any tears over the way she has turned silent, mute. In the end, everything broke the way it had to break.

Oh! My left eye, this stupid eye, why is it blinking convulsively, what am I babbling on about, and why, why?

Soft whispers fly about in every corner of the hall. The back door opens a crack, less than halfway through, and a manlike shape seems to slip through that opening and come inside.

On the stage, an empty chair slowly rocks back and forth like a shadow.

—

*Excerpted with permission from* **Love Is Participation in Eternity**, *Udayan Vajpeyi, translated from the Hindi by Poonam Saxena, Bloomsbury India.*
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