Evam Bhaskar

Around the time Ranvir Pratap and Evam met and discussed the recruitment of Aspies, someone in counterintelligence ran a check on Evam. They kept him under surveillance, opening a file titled “Evam Enterprise.” He was an astute businessman in what Mumbai called “the unorganized sector.” The crèche that he ran for autistic children and their parents was just that: a crèche. It was very profitable. There was another side to Evam Enterprise that was profitable and quite bizarre.

The CI department expected their chief, Mishra, to expose Evam. “Now is not the time,” he said. Evam was linked to both Ranvir and Tiwari. Mishra was a chess player who saw many moves ahead. To him this whole affair seemed headed in the right direction. He made a notation on the file that said, One day someone will clean up this Special Branch. That would be him, of course: Mishra, the modern Hercules.

* * *

“What’s the purpose of living?” asked Evam of himself.

He had no appropriate response for the question. He had no audience either. It was a humid night and he had a few mosquitoes for company. He was staring at a computer screen which showed a sensuous girl. She gestured and she made a sound every time he clicked.

“Touch me,” she said.

“For what purpose?” he asked. A mosquito vied for his attention; it landed on the vein of his right wrist, which rested on the mouse. He watched it settle.

“Do you know my name?” he asked.

“Touch me, Evam,” she pleaded.

Evam Bhaskar was a social misfit. In his dreams he was a miscast hero but in life he was just another abject Mumbaikar. He peddled sex for a living and ran a crèche for idiot savants on the side. As a qualified psychologist he was hard-pressed to explain this.

Each thing Evam did clashed with everything else. This did not tear him apart but it made him contemplative.

“Why, Evam?” asked the girl, questioning his silence.

Evam clicked. She smiled, pirouetted, and shed her garb.

“Is this living?” he asked. The mosquito hovered and landed again. This time it drew blood.

He poked her with the cursor.

“Big boy,” she teased.

Evam slapped hard, his left hand missing; he swiped again and the mouse clattered off the table and hung by a wire. There was a buzzing sound around his ears.

The girl moaned.

And Evam cried.

“I am so sorry,” he said. For what? “So many things,” he whispered.

After a while he recovered. He walked to a window and peered out at the night. A breeze ruffled the curtain and he took a deep breath. His dead father spoke to him. Find a way, my son, he said.

Though his father departed early he left behind a settled household and two words of advice that he repeated to himself as much as to his only son: “Raastha dhoondo.” It was a decree that had a sense of urgency: “Find a way, don’t dawdle or hesitate because the likes of us have started on the wrong foot.” That summed up Evam’s life. From the grape boughs and grain fields of his village, to Mumbai and a doctoral degree in child psychology, and his two strange businesses, life was one long attempt to “find a way.”

“You want to study child psychology?” His mother wanted to know why.

“I don’t know.”

Dr. Evam. He had it carved on a polished teak plank with gold-painted lettering. He had to make a living. The thought of a government job crossed his mind. He applied to a general hospital in Mumbai and stated his specialization.

“Child psychology?” asked the registrar. “We only have openings for gynecology.”

When he tried to explain further he was waved away. “Raastha dhoondo,” he was told. In this case it meant, Go, get lost.

Finally he set up his own practice. He decided he would consult for special children. Nobody came at first. His operation flirted every now and then with financial ruin but he kept getting money from unlikely places at the most opportune moments. He kept faith and he put up a sign that said Rahath and waited.

They eventually came. Desperate mothers showed up to Rahath with their children, not for a cure but to cope, and he helped them. Their children were fine by themselves. At his place they could make faces, make mistakes, they could be themselves and nobody would notice.

This practice was numbing: mind numbing. Initially he marveled at the sheer variety, the inexplicable range of issues that cropped up when the wiring in the brain was even a little off. And then he began to yearn for a simple solution that would calm minds responsible for children with such issues.

There was no solution. If you had a child like this you had to learn to lead a different life, and it wasn’t easy. What was easy was to say that these kids were just a little different, and that we should learn to accept the difference rather than try to make them normal or beat ourselves up when that did not happen. Autism was hard to live with, and it was getting to those who came to Rahath. He realized that he was just a caregiver, effectively running a crèche for the parents as well.

Over the years his practice began to focus on milder forms of autism and its variants. His primary goal was to find gainful employment for this group, and he began to make presentations to corporations and government departments. It was hard work trying to change mind-sets.

* * *

Evam glanced at his watch and groaned. He had woken up in the middle of the night again. He was still seated in front of a screen that had also fallen asleep. His hands were covered with bumps and he scratched a few bite marks. He sat for a while and then got up to drink some water. The city was quiet, the street sounds having tapered. The bed didn’t look inviting. He sank into his chair again and shook the mouse; the screen came alive.

“Big boy,” she said, smiling. She breathed deeply.

He was captivated by the sound of her breath. He could almost feel it on his shoulders. He smiled back.

She waited. “Evam? Is that you?” She was blind. That took some effort; that took so much programming. “Do you know my name? Could you say it?”

“Giselle,” he said without thinking. “What am I doing?” he asked himself aloud, not for the first time. He was moved to write a confession. Some part of him wanted to confess and another part wanted a record in case something happened to him. Dealing with horny, reckless cops was a risky business.