Portraits: Kriti Sahay


Kriti is Kewl
Photo: Arun Jayaprakash


“Is it not an inconvenience to be unable to pee wherever you want?”, was the maybe-impertinent question asked to Kriti Sahay.
“There's a list of things I cannot do because of the society. To pee like you boys is not even in that list.”
“Oh, what is at the top of that list, then?”
“It is...”

If Kriti were not a woman of the twenty-first century she'd be a doom metal riff. She'd be an audacious Beethoven symphony beginning. A maybe-slow but surely-forthcoming train around the yard of a train station, a never-ending double bass kick exercise, a Thanos bringing destiny to a bunch of punk-ass naysayers, a Wollstonecraft in a time of Rousseaus.

On her ninth birthday, while her family members awaited her return from the playground, Kriti was riding down the beaten-down roads of the industrial suburb where she lived with her parents with a critical mission. In her tiny basket above the front wheel of the bicycle was a tiny rabbit, injured and in need of urgent medical care. When she entered the town, reviving itself after a dusty day's hibernation, she didn't pay attention to the adults who, you could be sure, were staring at this little girl in dirty clothes clearly needing a violent wash, as is proper, and flaunting an audacity to look concerned. You see, the right to brood, to assume seriousness was reserved exclusively to the male adults who, through their meticulous calculations, decided how many milliliters of tears an incident may incur, or how much effort may be put into the saving of a rabbit's life.

She parked outside the first pharmacy she saw and darted into its violently incensed, curtained lobby cum meds counter. The salesman, who of course didn't have a pharmacist or doctor's degree, refused to treat it partly for a permanent aversion towards anything non-brahmin and partly because of a lack of the required knowledge. With a broken leg and possible internal bleeding Oshahay, because of course the story has a happy ending and that was what the rabbit was called ever after, was struggling for its life. The sun going down, the time running out, the clothes in the backyard still hanging from their clips, her mother's anxiety about to kick in, knowing full well the consequence of a mistake, Kriti ran to a bookshop a few shops away and picked up a book on emergency medical procedures.

Sometimes Kriti does weird things. Like suspending time. I see no other explanation as to how that poor rabbit could have survived that half an hour of research and learning, fucked up as it was with its soul barely holding on to its furry tail. In any case, Kriti went back to the pharmacy and straight up declared that she had no money and solemnly assured that the debt would be paid the next day. She may have used her father's name. A 15ml cocktail of Hydrocodone and Acetaminophen, a 500mg solution of Cefazolin, and two syringes added up to about 150 rupees. After a moment's hesitation, the salesman ventured to guess where the veins of the rabbit might be and administered the medicines. It still stands as the most daring thing he's done in his life.

Talking about weird, once we were in the university woods looking for a suitable place to build our bonfire when there appeared at the end of our long followed trail a huge ugly rock, sitting in the middle of the narrow path, grimacing as if to mock our desperation. Amidst our noises of frustration, Kriti went straight ahead and kicked the obnoxious rock in its belly. The ground trembled and the rock began to roll. It slowly gathered momentum and with great violence, possibly resulting from the indignation to which Kriti had subjected it, broke into a distant thicket and disappeared from view.

On her ninth birthday, Kriti met her mother standing at the gate in a cowboy stance.

So, upon being asked what is at the top of the list of things she cannot do how she wants to, Kriti Sahay doesn't have to look into the fire and be thoughtful and melodramatic.

"It is," she says "behen ka lauda, to exist."

Comments

Popular Posts