Episode 27: The Platform

Bahadurgarh, Haryana · 2026

The lights came back twelve minutes later. String lights first, uneven and yellow, then the stalls, then the DJ truck, which picked up the same song from what sounded like the exact bar where it had stopped. The mela found its shape again. People drifted back.

Three men appeared from somewhere and took charge of the buffalo now that the problem was solved and the lights made it possible to take credit. They led her back toward the pen. The stake had been reinforced with what looked like a car’s tow rope.

Gopina and Ahan were still on the platform edge, the rope coiled between them on the ground.

“I’m supposed to get two quotes for my article,” Gopina said.

“Is that a request?”

“You gave me one already. On stage. The ten seconds thing.”

“That was public. That shouldn’t count.”

“It counts for Mohit.”

“Mohit.” He picked up a piece of sugarcane the buffalo had dropped and turned it in his hands. “He still has the printing press that jams?”

“Wednesdays now. It moved.”

“Progress.” He set the sugarcane down. “My handwriting is so bad the press operator called our office once to ask if the ad copy was in a different language.”

“You write the ad copy?”

“Someone has to. Khushi won’t touch it. My mother has more important things. So it’s me, and the press operator, and a weekly argument over what I actually wrote.”

The announcer was testing the microphone again. His voice crackled and popped across the ground. “CHECK CHECK. HELLO. IS THIS — YES. WELCOME BACK TO THE — WHERE WAS I.”

“Is he always like that?” Gopina said.

“Every year. My mother offered to hire a professional once. He cried. Actual tears. He’s been the mela announcer for thirty-one years.”

“Thirty-one years.”

“Before I was born. He announced my naming ceremony, apparently. Got the name wrong.”

Gopina’s mouth pulled sideways. “What did he call you?”

“I’ve been told not to repeat it.”

They sat. The mela moved around them. A man walked past carrying a goat under each arm. The DJ truck changed songs for the first time all evening. Somewhere behind them, mama-ji’s voice rose above the crowd, telling anyone who would listen about the nine seconds.

“Your BCA,” Ahan said. “Khushi mentioned. Final year?”

“Last semester. Exams in three weeks.”

“And you’re here. Covering a mela. For a paper that pays you —”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing.”

“It looks good on applications. Rashika says so.”

“Does it?”

“I have no idea.”

He pulled his sleeves down, then pushed them back up. “You should come by the office sometime. The factory office. For the story you’re working on. The employment record. Khushi told me.”

“It’s not really a story anymore.”

“Then for whatever it is.”

He said it the way he’d said pull left.