Fiction: 70-year-old Unnikrishnan calls a press conference to announce the date of his death

Your name is Unnikrishnan.

Your mother is Lakshmikutty and your father Goyindan, a document-writer and stamp paper vendor. You, Unnikrishnan, erstwhile movie-house manager, are the fourth of their five children. The oldest one, Ramakrishnan, runs a grocery store, the second son, Shivaraman, is a tailor, and the third, Vasudevan, is a clerk in a company owned by a Gujarati. Chubby, mischievous Kausalya, your baby sister, completes the family.

Although you are now over seventy, the muscles on your chest and thighs are still supple. Your age shows more in your hair; occasional dark strands peep from between the dominant grey, like distant memories of a youth long gone. As with everyone else, there was a time when you were a young man; before that, an adolescent; a child. And before that…

Why have you come to the city now, taking a bus from Kundachira?

Rare are the occasions when you leave home these days. Your house remains hushed, like nature during an eclipse. There’s a sticky darkness everywhere. A little light may still be milked from it, but you have no intention of doing so. You’ve become one with the darkness. You’re also aware that this universe has more darkness than it has light.

On Friday, 14 November 2019, you left for the city to give the “public” a piece of news. The public for you is the common person. As you often say, “There are a few people around me who live an uncelebrated life, like me.” You need to get the news to them. And you thought long and hard about how to do this.

The easiest way to reach out to people is through social media, you know that of course. But you also know that fish sellers, headload workers, coconut-tree climbers, construction workers, employees at restaurants, they are not all on Twitter and Facebook. You are certain in your belief that, even now, the easiest way to reach the ordinary person is through the newspapers. And that’s why you decided to hold a press conference.

You know that if it’s held at your house, no one will turn up. So you chose the Press Club as the venue. There can be no better place to hold a press conference, right?

The Press Club is located on the first floor of Century Buildings in the heart of the city. On the ground floor is Kottoor Krishnan Bakery. The bakery, established by Kottoor Krishnan in the month of Chingam in the Malayalam year 1117, that is, August 1942, is now run by Kottoor Thazath Divakaran. During Krishnan’s time, it sold salted and sweet banana chips, laddoos, breads, buns, biscuits and lotta kach, a sweet-and-sour snack. These days, you’ll also find cutlets, puffs and samosas. Divakaran has been speaking of introducing burgers too, very soon.

Whenever you are in town, you go and stand in front of the bakery for a while. “I like the smell of onion vada being fried,” you’ve been heard to say. Their laddoos are famous too. They don’t contain artificial colours and you enjoy crunching on the bits of rock candy. Banana chips are another speciality of the bakery. The ever-present aroma of thinly sliced chips being fried emanates from the back of the building and wafts into the narrow lane in front.

The press meet is scheduled for 10.30 am. At 10 am, you slowly climb the steps behind the bakery to the Press Club, your feet hurting. The pain comes from deep inside your bones, not just the muscles.

The Press Club has a dais large enough to accommodate seven or eight chairs. The hall itself can seat thirty. On the back wall of the hall hangs a framed portrait of Mahatma Gandhi.

When you reach the door, the first person you see is a woman sweeping the floor.

“My name is Rajalakshmi, but my parents call me Raji. So, everyone calls me that,” is her usual mode of self-introduction. She is the Press Club’s sweeper.

“No one here?” you enquire without entering. You are favouring your right leg, which hurts even more than the other.

She straightens up and appraises you, holding up the broom like a flaming brand. For a moment, you wonder if she is a member of the Aam Aadmi Party.

You look at yourself through her eyes: you are wearing a starched white shirt and mundu. Your shirt sleeves are folded just below the elbow. Your greying hair is combed back neatly. Your shirt pocket holds a fountain pen and a piece of paper folded in four. You never leave your house without those two things in your pocket.

“Secretary sir is inside.”

She is referring to Moosakutty.

As you try to step inside, Rajalakshmi stops you. “What, you don’t have eyes on your face? Stay out till I finish sweeping!”

You do as she says, not uttering a word. You will not be able to stand for long; the pain is crippling.

You watch as Rajalakshmi sweeps up the paper plates and cups and squishy banana peels from under the moulded chairs – leftovers from the refreshments served at the press conference last evening. You’ve made no such arrangement for yours. You didn’t know it was expected, and it’s too late now.

Excerpted with permission from You: A Novel, M Mukundan, translated from the Malayalam by Nandakumar K, Eka/Westland.