Cynthia explains that Mr. Fernando had complained - Wadala Wagrants - Episode 04 -

 Just then, a different sound punctuated the quiet of the room. A metallic clatter from the kitchen, and then the familiar, singsong voice of his mother. Cynthia D’Costa emerged from the passage, carrying a large, steel vessel in her hands. She moved with a purpose, her voice a little louder now, meant to cut through the quiet and command attention. “Robert, Joseph, dinner is ready. The chicken curry is ready. You can eat it with the rice, or with the leftover chapatis from the morning, or with the bread slices.” She set the large vessel on the dining table with a solid thud, the sound of metal on wood a statement of finality.

She then reached for a smaller, a more battered stainless-steel vessel with a tight-fitting lid. She began to ladle the chicken curry into it, the aroma of spices and coconut milk filling the air, mingling with the older, headier scent of Sonny Aruja’s fish curry that still seemed to cling to the walls. She carefully placed a few pieces of chicken into the vessel, her movements precise and deliberate. She secured the lid with a practiced hand and turned to Joseph.

“Joseph,” she said, her tone a mix of command and affection. “Take this. This is for Lizzy Aunty. I promised her I would give her some of the chicken curry when it was ready. Go to the first floor and give it to her. And don’t you worry, Mr. Fernando will not be there, so you won’t have to talk to your teacher at home.” She said the last part with a small, knowing smile, as if sharing a private joke with him.

Robert, from behind his newspaper, chuckled, a dry, low sound. He lowered the paper a fraction, just enough to reveal his eyes and a corner of his mouth. “That’s right, Joey. You don’t have to worry. Mr. Fernando won’t be home. You can just hand it to Lizzy Aunty and run.” He then raised the newspaper again, as if the brief interlude was over. “I was just worried, you know. Mr. Fernando told me yesterday that you weren’t doing so well in the Maths class. He said you have to try harder.” The words were spoken casually, almost as an afterthought, but they landed on Joseph with the weight of a heavy stone.

Joseph’s hand froze over his Algebra notebook. A cold knot formed in his stomach. He looked up, his face a mask of sudden anxiety. “He said that? When? When did he say that, Mama?” His voice was sharp, a sudden break in the rambling rhythm of the afternoon. The thought of Mr. Fernando, a figure of authority in the strict confines of school, passing a judgment on him to his father, was a violation of the natural order of things.

Cynthia, her hands still on the small vessel, sighed, a long, exasperated sound that was part of her daily repertoire. “Yesterday. What else? As we were all walking up the stairs. Your father, he couldn’t stop himself. He kept on asking about you and your studies, and your school. Mr. Fernando, I don’t think he was even listening properly. He just said something to make your father stop asking questions.” She said the last part with a wave of her hand, a gesture of dismissal, as if to say that the entire exchange was a piece of inconsequential nonsense. “Don’t you worry, beta. He was just talking nonsense. You know how people are. They just say things to be polite.”

Her words, meant to soothe, had the opposite effect. Joseph felt a jolt of alarm. His father, the quiet, distant observer of his life, had been prying, inquiring. The thought of his father, standing on the staircase, making small talk with a teacher about his performance in a subject, was deeply unsettling. He was not a failure. He was just a boy, doing his homework. He looked at the Algebra page, the symbols now a hostile, impenetrable code. The thought of Mr. Fernando's casual, offhand remark, and his mother's quick, dismissive interpretation, seemed to hang in the air between them, a silent judgment that no one wanted to own.

A wave of silent anger, hot and unexpected, rose within him. He was not just a student; he was a person. He felt a deep sense of betrayal. The line between school and home was supposed to be a solid one, a boundary that protected his two separate lives. But Mr. Fernando, simply because they lived in the same building, had erased that line. He imagined the scene: his father, a man who rarely spoke about anything but work, cornering his teacher on the stairs, and Mr. Fernando, a man who seemed so serious and distant in the classroom, giving away a confidential, private matter like his grades. It felt like a small, petty kind of gossip, an intimate detail revealed to a stranger, or worse, to a family member he didn't want to know.

Joseph’s worry now wasn’t just about his grades, but about the integrity of his world. What else had Mr. Fernando told his father? Had he mentioned the time he’d forgotten his homework? Or the day he’d been scolded for talking in class? The thought of these small, insignificant moments being replayed and discussed by the adults in his life filled him with a quiet dread. He felt a newfound trepidation about passing Mr. Fernando on the stairs, knowing that the polite nods and small smiles they exchanged now hid a secret, a shared knowledge that he had not consented to.

He felt a sudden, fierce desire to finish the homework, to prove them all wrong, to show them that he was capable of doing it on his own. He picked up the vessel of chicken curry, its metal still warm from the stove, and stood up, ready to go on his errand. It was a good excuse to escape the quiet, tense atmosphere of the room.

Bharat Bhushan

21 August 2025

Joseph works on Algebra homework - Wadala Wagrants Episode 3

The rexine of the old sofa sighed under Joseph’s weight as he slumped into it, the worn material giving a low, leathery groan of protest. He settled in the space nearer to his father, the familiar scent of old newspaper and stale tobacco a constant perfume in the room. His father, Robert D’Costa, was a man who inhabited his own world. He sat, a figure of serene concentration, in his favorite armchair, the large pages of The Times of India held up like a shield against the world. The house itself seemed to breathe around them, with the low creaks of settling wood and the distant rumble of traffic from the main street.

Joseph’s mind drifted for a moment to the morning ritual, the sharp clink of the newspaper hitting their door with a satisfying thud, a sound that meant the day had officially begun. He wondered if the newspaper boy, with his small satchel and perpetual hurried look, ever paused to think about all the lives contained within the pages he delivered. Or the milkman, whose bike bell rang at an ungodly hour, a shrill and cheerful sound in the pre-dawn darkness. Robert's legs, clad only in a rumpled lungi, were splayed out, his calloused feet resting on the cool tiled floor. He was a man of the factory floor, and even in the quiet of his home, he carried the silent weight of that world with him.

Joseph reached for his school bag, its canvas worn thin at the corners and stained with the accumulated history of a school year. He unzipped it, the brass zipper giving a sharp, metallic rattle that seemed to echo in the quiet room. He pulled out his textbooks, the thin, cheap paper of the Algebra textbook a crisp contrast to the well-thumbed notebook with its dog-eared pages and ink-blotted exercises. He flipped to the correct page, the scratch of his nails on the paper a small, insignificant sound in the grand, silent rhythm of the room. He picked up his pen, a cheap blue ballpoint, and stared at the lines of numbers and letters, an alien language that demanded logic and reason.

Joseph stared at the equation on the page, a frown pulling his eyebrows together. The numbers and variables swam before his eyes, a tangled mess of unknown values. He chewed on the end of his pen, the cheap plastic taste a familiar comfort, and then scribbled a line of calculation. It looked wrong. He sighed, a gust of frustrated air, and dug the eraser into the paper, the gray dust smudging the page. He knew the concepts, but putting them into practice felt like trying to solve a puzzle with half the pieces missing. The afternoon quiet felt oppressive, the weight of the unsolved problem a heavy burden on his young shoulders.

From behind the newspaper, Robert shifted, a faint rustle of paper and a low grunt escaping his lips. He took a slow, deliberate sip from his glass, the sound of the ice cubes clinking a quiet punctuation in the room. His eyes peered over the top of the paper, watching Joseph in a way that wasn't judgmental, but rather... observant. He wasn't offering help, but he was there, a silent, disapproving presence. He cleared his throat loudly, a grumpy noise that was meant to be heard. “This new generation,” he muttered, his voice a low grumble. “All this homework at home. What is all this?”

Robert D'Costa at his armchair with 

The Times of India and his whisky

He took another sip of his whisky, the amber liquid a golden glow in the dim light. “In my time, we did our work in school only. Our teachers, they made sure of it. Or if not, we did it early, early in the morning. When the mind is fresh, before all the nonsense fills your head for the day.” He didn’t look at Joseph, speaking more to himself than to his son, as if reciting an ancient, half-forgotten wisdom. The idea of doing homework at home, after a long day of school, was a foreign concept to him, a symptom of a world that had become too complicated, too soft.

He was deep in thought, his brow furrowed in concentration, when his father’s voice, a low rumble that seemed to come from far away, broke the silence. Robert didn’t lower his newspaper. His voice simply rose from behind the pages, a disembodied question. “Joey,” he began, using the old nickname that still made Joseph feel like a little boy. “You’re working on the Maths, no? Is it too difficult? You know Mr. Fernando is here, no? On the first floor. He’s teaching in your same school, no?” The questions came in a slow, almost lazy cadence, each one a separate, gentle inquiry.

Joseph looked up, surprised. It wasn't often that his father showed such an interest in his homework. He glanced over at the armchair, seeing only the top of his father’s head and the edge of the newspaper. “Yes, Papa,” he said, his voice a little tentative. “It’s Maths. But it’s okay. I’m just doing the Algebra homework. From Mr. Syed.” He paused, then added, “Mr. Fernando teaches Geometry, no? And then there’s Father John Samala for Modern Mathematics.” He said the names with a certain reverence, as if each teacher and each subject existed in its own distinct, unbreachable kingdom. “This is Algebra. I can do it. I think. I know how to do it.” He said the last sentence with a little more conviction, a quiet attempt to reassure his father, and perhaps, himself. He picked up his pen and returned his attention to the page, the lines of numbers and letters seeming to swim before his eyes.

In the small, crowded kitchen, Cynthia moved with a weary efficiency born of years of habit. The clatter of her utensils—the sharp clang of a ladle against a pot, the low scrape of a spatula on the bottom of a frying pan—were the soundtrack to her daily life. She could, without looking, reach for the exact spice, the right jar, the perfect bowl. Her eyes, though, were often on the passage, peering into the living room where her husband and son sat in their separate, silent worlds. She saw Robert, the newspaper a familiar fortress, his glass a steady companion. She saw Joseph, hunched over his book, a mirror of every student who had ever wrestled with numbers.

A flicker of a smile touched her lips, a brief, private moment of pleasure. She was pleased to see them together, even if their interaction was brief and their conversation punctuated by Robert’s grumpy, nostalgic pronouncements. It was a rare enough sight. More often, the two of them moved through the apartment like ships in the night, their orbits only intersecting for a quick word or a shared meal.

A flash of irritation followed the pleasure. Why couldn’t Robert just ask Joseph directly about his homework? Why the pretense, the silent observation? And why was he so quick to believe Mr. Fernando, a man who probably didn’t even remember the conversation a minute after it happened? Her hands, busy with the ladle, moved with a sudden, jerky motion as she imagined the scene on the stairs, her husband cornering a tired teacher with questions that were probably better left unasked. But then, the feeling softened. It was Robert’s way, a clumsy attempt to connect, to show that he cared. He didn’t know how to ask, so he resorted to what he knew: observation, complaint, and a quiet, indirect concern.

Bharat Bhushan

21 August 2025

Fultoos Timepass Gupshup 1 - Denim Jacket and the Striped Shirt

Fultoos Timepass Gupshup

This was at a restaurant today evening. Two young ladies were seated at a nearby table and speaking quite loudly. They were obviously not aware that people at the nearby tables were listening to their chatter and enjoying it. The two ladies must have been in their early thirties and possibly friends from their school days and were meeting up after many years. They were quite formal in their conversation, well, almost. One of them had a denim jacket while the other had a striped shirt. Their chat was quite interesting and animated.

Denim Jacket: You know, I am my parent’s only child. No son, even. Like, I did not have a brother. Did you know that?

Striped Shirt: No. I did not. I wonder how it is growing up as the only child. I had two brothers and another sister. Like, we were two sisters and two brothers. So, I had very good company while growing up at our house. It must have been very lonely for you, na?

Denim Jacket: Noooo…. That is what I am saying. It was never lonely for me. I was my parent’s only child. But I was never lonely. We had very good neighbours and I always had school and lots and lots of friends. So, I was never alone. Let’s call the waiter and ask for some Masala Dosa. It will come fast, I think.

Striped Shirt: Ok. Masala Dosa will be ok. This menu does not have Rava Dosa. I wonder why? It has been a long time since I had some good Rava Dosa. I thought we could have some cutlets and bread toast. You know, my brothers, both of them, they like Rava Dosa and Cutlets. I always enjoyed Rava Dosa. But, we can have Masala Dosa tonight.

Denim Jacket: That’s what I meant. If you have brothers, you have to always eat what they eat. There is no way that you can have Masala Dosa if they want to eat Rava Dosa. Hey, you know, your striped shirt, reminds me of our very dear Parsi teacher, who taught us in school. I think she was our Class Teacher in fourth standard. She was always properly dressed.

Striped Shirt: Yes. I remember the teacher. I wonder what she taught us. I can recollect her but I cannot remember the subjects that she taught.

Denim Jacket: Yeah. Even I cannot remember what she taught. There was that other Sir who taught us Geometry who always said that you should not get wrong answers. I remember that very well. I think we should have some ice cream after the Masala Dosa. That may be good.

Striped Shirt: I cannot have ice cream. I am not allowed. I always avoid fried stuff, sweets and all that. But ok, today for your sake. I will have some ice cream. We should remember today.

Bharat Bhushan 25 April 2023