The Survivor

By Vasudev Patel

I never would have imagined how my day would turn out to be when I boarded the eleven-a.m. bus at Gangotri bus stop this morning. But it turns out that my day was about to get worse. When I boarded the bus, I saw a number of colorful characters as you are likely to see in any average bus going from Gangotri to Kedarnath. The first was our driver, Bhushan, a middle-aged man with teeth painted bloody from the constant abuse of paan, an Indian delicacy you can find just around the corner, over the long years he has been a driver, twenty as he so sweetly kept reminding us throughout the almost six hours the bus did travel. It would have been a dull trip if not for the spit spewing commentary by Bhushan. The outside of the driver's door looked like it had just seen a man's body being relieved of his head. Bhushan was in no way the best driver bit he always had something to say and he always had paan, weather for charity or self-indulgence. The next was our conductor, for all of Bhushan’s talk, Mahendra never said a word except for "Ticket", the way conductors do and instructions to Bhushan, which he reluctantly obeyed for most part, and to the khalasi, never got his name, he was a mute little kid, no more than sixteen or seventeen, I think. Mahendra and Bhushan or anyone for that matter only called him by saying, "Oye" or "Oye sun". I was standing on the bus stop waiting, for the bus when these colorful monkeys showed up. I mean no disrespect but that's what they seemed like at the time. A blood spewing, sweet talking man, another who clearly did not want to make eye contact and another who could make nothing but, in a rickety old monster which breathed black air and clearly wanted to devour any and all brave enough to step in wanting to meet god. Bhushan was the first person I talked to and we agreed to the terms of six hundred rupees for safe travel in the belly of the beast. Once I was settled in the seat on the third row, by the right window, my usual spot, I started looking outside to the other pilgrims waiting to get a seat on any bus but no one coming near the monster I set foot into. This one was completely ignored and I thought to myself 'What have I gotten myself into', bus wise.

Neither Bhushan nor Mahendra seemed to be calling passengers, they just sat there quietly waiting for some unknowing wondering soul to wonder through the threshold of the monster and ask the sweet question "How much?" which meant they didn't know how much, which meant negotiating for the prize, which meant Mahendra can ask any outrageous prize he wanted. The negotiations were like a dance between Mahendra and whatever hapless idiot, who asked the question, after the first one or two times it was kind of fun to watch. Almost all of the twelve compatriots, including me and excluding the three monkeys settled for a prize between six and seven hundred.

The monster started its whining with us inside. As Bhushan started it, I remember myself praying, not exactly for it to start. We commenced our journey around 11:17. The first hour or so was the quietest, well, except for Bhushan. I started observing the occupants of the belly, the first were a couple, in their 40s, I think, sitting in the front most seats of my column. They looked happy, and in love still. Then there was a kid just behind them, nineteen or twenty, no more than twenty-two, he was busy on his smartphone. The next was a middle-aged man two seats across me, his name was Subhash, I heard him mention it to Mahendra. He was some kind of activist or something, he was really angry about the prize but he settled in the end. He was also eyeing everyone, like he was suspicious of us or something. Then there were a couple pf pujaris constantly chanting something. A group of three girls, college pass outs, recently from the looks of them, on a trip across the country to "Find myself" as they would say. Then there was an old man, probably older that all the rest of us combined and his son, I think.

Once the second hour started, I could hear the murmurs, the whispers of conversation around the belly. I guess they all were just settling on, in the first hour. In between the whispers the old man gets up and goes to the front of the bus with his son in tow and says in an almost young voice "We all, all of us, are going to see, to worship, to praise God, why, I don't know why, we have to be so cut off from, from each other", the bus was quiet at this point, even Bhushan, surprised at the strong voice of the old man, but also thinking 'Why, so suddenly, the old man is talking about being cut off and not being connected', senility could be one explanation or why would anyone talk to strangers on a bus without any reason. The kid with the smartphone asked the old man, "What do you want us to do, Dadaji, to chant Ram Ram?”, “If that's what it takes", the old man replied, leaning on his walking stick. The married couple in the front whispered among them and the husband stood up and said "We could tell stories, no one HAS to do it but whoever wants to, can", and then sat down. After this point those who wanted, told stories one by one, some of ghosts, some of farmers, some of animals and so on. I don't really remember the stories but they got us to the part this is really about.

At seven in the evening, we were somewhere on the mountain road when the rain came. Just a drizzle at first, then like a storm, unannounced. Bhushan had to slow down almost to a stop, maintaining a crawl. The bus got quiet again, except for the monster's whine drowned in the roar of another, bigger, hungrier. Then we heard it, all fifteen pir ears heard a loud, unquestionable, thunder, only it didn't come from up above us where thunder usually comes from, no, it came from somewhere a lot closer to us. We all heard it, we all felt it, coming from below us, through the tires, through the floor of the quaking monster, whineless now and up our spines, chilling us. Before we could realize Bhushan had stopped the bus, he and Mahendra were looking at something a few feet in front of the bus. I got up from my seat and started to walk down towards them. When I reached the front, I saw what that thunder from under us was. It was a landslide, four maybe five feet ahead of the bus.

We were lucky we were going slow. Just a touch faster and we would not have heard the thunder. Yes, we were lucky but now we had no way in front of us, with a drop on our right and a mountain to the left, no room to wiggle the bus around. A few seco da later, before the panic spread, barely, Mahendra announced that he would go out and check if there was a way back the way we came, and got out with a flashlight in hand. That was at just before eight. All the people left on the bus, now murmuring among themselves, gathered at the back of the bus to watch as the flashlight disappeared in the rain. The boy with the smartphone was trying every number he possibly could with a panicked, shivering finger. But the voice on the other end said the same thing over and over again, in its pre-programed tone "The number you have dialed is out of network coverage area", he dialed again, the same pre-programed message, he dialed again, the same message.

The panic now spread from his fingers and was clearly visible on his face. He could not move his fingers anymore, his phone, the glowing rectangle of light, slipped from his hand and hit the floor and stopped glowing. The kid, that eighteen- or nineteen-year-old, person shaped mass of panic, picked up his phone and went back to his seat and slept. I don't know if it was panic or something else entirely but he slept like a baby on the lap of its mother. But by this time the panic, the fear has spread not in so much as making everyone hysterical but just a smidge, like a seed waiting for the right moment to sprout, for the right nourishment. One by one we all returned to our seats waiting for Mahendra to come back. It was the longest hour of my life, possibly everyone else's too but Mahendra didn't come back. Around 9:15, I decided to go out and look for him. I got my flashlight out of my bag and turned it on and went out of the bus. Subhash, the activist asked me if he could come with me and I said yes, for the possibility if Mahendra was injured or for some other reason unable to walk. We went outside, the rain felt like stings, from many bees, piercing my skin all at once. One thing was clear, it was no ordinary rain. We started walking in the direction we saw Mahendra going, in the insignificant, dim light of my flashlight. We couldn't find another for Subhash, so we had to share the one we had. We walked for about five minutes in the rain and the overhead lighting of the bus was barely visible. The shadowy shapes of the other passengers looking at us from the back window of the bus. We walked a few more steps and came across another landslide. We were locked in from both sides. The lights from the bus were all but gone now. We could barely make out the outline of the bus. I looked towards Subhash; he was looking down the drop at something. I went towards him. When I stood beside him, I saw what he was looking at. I saw a turned-on flashlight, still clutched in Mahendra's fingers. The fingers which were alive just over an hour ago. They were dead now, still clutched around the flashlight, flickering now.

Mahendra's body was caught in a tree. He must have fallen and broken his neck. But the seemingly unbroken neck said otherwise. Then something gleamed in the light of my flashlight. Something on Mahendra's chest, or more accurately, something sticking out of it. Then it dawned on. E, as Subhash was stepping back, afraid. It was a knife. But who, and how. I was scared, I could feel the hair on the back of my neck rising. In that moment I broke into a run towards the bus, Subhash behind me. In a few quick strides I was inside the bus, panting. The people on the bus were scared too, just as much as I was, if not more, by seeing me. Bhushan was the first one to calm down and ask "Where's Subhash?", and I looked behind me ready to point at him but he wasn't there, an entirely new shiver ran up my spine, “Where is he?", I said and looked out of the bus, he was nowhere to be seen. I called out for him, there was no answer. I was about ready to go back outside and look for him when one of the girls said "We shouldn't go outside, it isn't safe", in a scared, whimpering voice and I thought, ‘They don't know about Mahendra yet'. Then the old man asked as if he had somehow read my mind, “Where is the conductor, Mahendra, right, what about him, did you find him?". Then I told them what had happened. I knew it would only cause more panic, but so would telling them that we didn't find Mahendra. The bus was quiet again, no whine, just the roar. I tried two more times to go out and look for Subhash but the other passengers were too scared to let me, not of losing a complete stranger in the night but scared of another person going missing, scared of being scared. Nobody wants to be afraid, but people just are, of things. I slowly drifted off into sleep a few moments after that, with nothing to do but sit there and be afraid, of not knowing. Something woke me up a little while later, I don't know what but something did. The bus was empty. No Bhushan, no old man, no one. I looked outside, it was still raining just as hard as it was before. There they all were, outside the bus standing in the rain and just looking at me, through me as if I didn't exist. I called to them, but they didn't answer. I called again, no answer. Then I went out of the bus. The moment I got outside they were inside the bus as if they had always been there. I called them again, they didn't answer. Then I saw that Mahendra was among them. A shiver ran up my spine, 'How could he be there', I thought, 'He's dead', that was when Bhushan woke me up. He saw that I was having a nightmare and woke me up. It was raining just like in my dream. It was just me and him on the bus, when I asked him where is everyone else, he said that there is nobody left but me, that I will be the last one to see him like this. Then he tried to strangle me. As the life was slowly draining out of mee I could see the others lying with their eyes bulging out, glazed, with the life choked out of them. That was when I heard the siren of your jeep officer. It must have distracted Bhushan long enough to let me overpower him". "And that was when you choked him to death?", asked Vikram, the constable. They were in the back of the jeep. The others were trying to get the fourteen bodies out on the bus and the surrounding areas. “Yes", the survivor replied. Constable Vikram had his doubts but Bhushan’s prints were all over the scene. There was no evidence to dispute the story. "What did you tell me your name was?", asked Vikram, "Hitesh, sir", the survivor replied. "Well, Hitesh, you can go, the jeep will take you to Gangotri, arrangements have been made at a lodge nearby, get some rest, okay", Vikram said smiling as the jeep departed.

In the lodge as Hitesh was taking a bath, he reminisced about the events of that evening, a shiver ran up his spine, not of panic but of excitement. Mahendra had just fallen down and was unable to fully stand up when he and Subhash found him, he probably had a broken ankle. Hitesh had plunged the knife in his chest as soon as he saw him and Mahendra fell down the drop and onto the tree. Subhash was already panicking, choking the life out of him was easy. The rain was a blessing, it washed away his fingerprints. The rest was the tricky part the story he had told Vikram was not entirely a lie. He did pretend to sleep and Bhushan did try to strangle him when he found out that he had killed everyone else. While he was pretending to sleep, he waited for everyone to go to sleep. Bhushan had been the last one to go to sleep. One by one he choked everyone on the bus starting from the old man. Fear is a great intoxicator. Someone screaming would have woken them up but not measly little whimpers. As he was choking the mute idiot, Bhushan woke up, slowly, surely. By the time the mute died Bhushan was on his neck. The police came at the right time. Lucky, lucky, lucky. Hitesh was lucky Mahendra had called the police on the unstable network.

By Vasudev Patel