The Ghaat: (continued)
Ahiritola Ghaat.
Dean still cannot pronounce the name of the riverbank that he found himself returning to. He knew that coming here wasn't really a capricious thought, for once, unlike his decision to come to this unusually accommodating city, where streets milled with a myriad of people, noises that were uncannily specific and yet general enough for one to be mistaken for another, fragrances, stenches, sights, comely and otherwise.
The Ghaat -- this he could pronounce -- is one unseemly sanctuary. This is where everything seemed to come to a standstill. Only, nothing was stagnant here either, with someone or the other always performing a death ritual, or preparing for one. He'd learnt some bleak details about death rituals in this country, that they didn't end with the person's cremation. They continued for days later, with people trimming their nails and men shaving their heads, if it were a parent's death. Fasts and austerities were observed, and the mourning continued up to a full year.
But of course, fewer people followed the rituals to the last letter these days, Raj had told him. Many simplified them to suit their increasingly westernising, hence hectic, less enduring, lifestyles. However, even the remnants seemed novel to Dean.
Even after all this time.
There was a generous tea stall owner, who seemed pleased to see him everytime he'd come to the Ghaat. Maybe because he was a foreigner, a novelty in his own right. The elderly, pot-bellied man enthusiastically offered him his routine cup of tea, something he didn't dislike in the slightest, in a language he thought was English.
Well, English it certainly was, how else would Dean comprehend whatever that balding man wanted to communicate to him?
Ahiritola Ghaat, a sanctuary that Dean Winchester had chanced upon, close enough for him to drive Mitaali to anywhere, should she need a ride - she never did-, far enough from his now familiar Park Street vicinity.
Slow enough for him to face Castiel, fast enough for him to reason with himself.
Someone today was preparing some sort of a mixture with some form of rice - flattened rice, with curd, clarified butter, and an assortment of other ingredients, some sort of an offering for the dead. A man, whose mother had passed away, the tea stall owner had told him.
He wondered if he could make a similar offering for all the people who'd sacrificed their lives for their cause.
But Castiel was an Angel. Would he accept or understand the offering?
Dean didn't know.
He didn't have a way of knowing.
The priest seated on the steps, a little away from him, on another end of the bank began waving a small bell that tinkled along with the hymn, forming a strangely soothing harmony of sorts.
A harmony that seemed to conjure Cas' eyes. Resolute, and unflinching, even as he had asked him to push him into The Cage.
You must, Dean, the words come back to him.
That was how Castiel had been the Loyal Divine Soldier. The one who had saved Faith itself.
Well, everyone else's Faith.
As for his own-
He didn't know.
He wondered if all these rituals amounted to anything at all. And even if they did, to what extent would they matter?
He could sit here and wonder for hours together, till his train of thought got tired into temporary obscurity, and his somewhat functional life called him back into its chaos. The pain would relegate into numbness, only to await its dulling in due course.
His thoughts still swirled, still thick, still tangible, when a deep, familiar voice mingled in.
The voice: Thought I'd find you here.
Dean lets out an exasperated breath. That voice was a gross anomaly in this uncanny sanctuary.
Dean (resigned): Seriously, Singh? Still not done being an asshole?
A pair of expensive shoes clacked down a few more steps, before Aviraj settled himself beside him, still sniffling, from the cold, and the fever that had licensed him to be an unadulterated piece of shit to his own mother, just a few hours ago.
Dean just eyed him once, his gaze was meant to be scornful. But then, scorn and admiration from him, meant all the same to Aviraj.
Dean: (flat) You look like shit.
Aviraj: (sniffling) Still better than you.
Both men look into the space. The Ghaat still hummed away, its characteristic, buzz listening to silences, with some form of abstract comprehension.
Aviraj hands him a neat envelope.
Dean: The hell is this?
Aviraj (inhaling): Your contract.
This breaks the thickening haze of thoughts Dean was sitting with at the riverbank.
The envelope seemed like a timer.
His contract.
Was it almost a year?
Had he lost track of time?
How had he made it through a year?
Dean: My cont-- fuck--
Aviraj: Now now, we don't curse here.
Dean stares at the envelope, mouth slightly open, in disbelief, despite himself. The tea stall owner comes up to Aviraj.
Tea stall owner (to Aviraj): Tea?
Aviraj snorts in a smile, somehow genuine.
Aviraj (calmly): Aami Baangla bolte paari. Ek cup niye esho. (I can speak Bengali. Please get me a cup.)
The portly man seemed a little flustered because of his presumption. But he nodded, only for yet another earthen cup to sit beside Aviraj with smoke rings curling out of it.
Dean is still eyeing the contract.
Aviraj (sipping his tea): It isn't anthrax.
Dean turns to him.
Dean: A year already?
Aviraj: Well, not exactly. I've just drafted this in advance.
Dean: Still want the fucking stray around?
Aviraj's signature sneer returns with a curve on the corner of his lips.
Aviraj: Enough to risk putting my head through the machine.
It was Dean's turn to snort.
Dean: You were an asshole to Mitaali, and Darlin'.
The nod that answers this statement is anomalously bereft of performance.
Aviraj: Read the contract. Let me know if you want to continue, in case you don-
Dean looks at the contract again.
Dean (cutting in): I don't know, man.
Aviraj: Read through it, Winchester. See if you're adequately compensat-
Dean: I don't care. I fucking don-
Aviraj: It isn't about money, Dean. It is about valuing your time.
Dean falls silent, once again.
Valuing his time?
Was there any value to his time?
Aviraj: Read it carefully, Dean. Even if you don't sign this one, the previous one has your severance-
Dean: You sound like my brother.
Aviraj snickers again. The affection in the gesture is alien.
Aviraj: Well, I'm no Communist, but I believe in fair play. After Hours is what it is because of both of us, so-
Dean: And what if I leave today?
Aviraj: That complicates the math, by just a bit, but don't worry, you're still entitled to your severance-
Dean: (waving the envelope): You wrote this?
Aviraj: I'm still a lawyer.
The contract seems to stare back at him, with a glimmer of approval. Or so he felt, by Aviraj's words.
Aviraj: I've emailed the soft copy over.
Dean: Thorough, huh?
Aviraj pinches the bridge of his nose.
Aviraj: I'm a Singh after all, Winchester. Dustin's unwanted Singh.
It is Dean's turn to snicker, while the river gurgled in front of them.
Dustin, again. Aviraj could trick the entire city, including the pompous assholes in the Backroom, and the ones who had rolled into the Derby, into thinking that he, Dean fucking Winchester was some kind of a colleague from The States. Everyone assumed that he was a Yale dropout, or some shit, but not Dustin. One glance between them, and that robust, older, mirror image of Aviraj Singh had read him accurately.
This isn't your Yale classmate, Boy, he had said.
This is some skilled hustler you've recruited to spite me with that club of yours.
And spite he did. The club was successful, far more than Dustin could've imagined.
Or had he known that his son would succeed?
Dean: For what it is worth, Dustin is a cunt.
Loading comments...