Forty-year-old Bhaskar tucked his briefcase in between his stout legs, listlessly rubbing his belly through the round gaps of the button lining. The yellowish buttons tautened to their maximum capacity like the strings of a violin, ready to pop with one stroke of bad luck. He clicked his pen and focused on the untainted paper kept on the filthy table, still rubbing the white, cotton undershirt peeking through those gaps.

Then he scratched his thighs, his balding head. He cleaned his rectangular spectacles twice as if that could make him see clearer- clearer in his thoughts. He stretched back and leaned forward, the plastic chair squeaking in protest underneath his hefty bottom. He was deaf to all sounds, listening carefully to the chaos in his head to derive some meaning. All he wanted was one story- one story which he could submit to his weekly column in the popular Writers Unite magazine. Readers eagerly waited for his articles and they still had unwavering faith in him. They made him feel like he was a God and his writings- a religious scripture.

However, underneath those layers of divinity, he knew that he was failing. A writer always knew that he was failing when writing became work and not pleasure. But like religion, money was involved in his profession and he needed that for himself, his wife and his little daughter.

Just then, a fly whizzed past his ears and eyes, perplexing him. His hand raised involuntarily to swat it away, but the fly flew and circled a lanky, dark boy of no more than thirteen. He was wearing a white shirt (once white, now off-white and worn out) and tawny shorts which stopped at his knees. He had a gingham, kitchen cloth thrown over his shoulder as he carried a stack of dirty dishes in his hands, impervious to the buzzing of the fly.

The first hair of his moustache sprouted over his upper lip, yet he was already working like a full-grown man.

That was when an idea nudged it's way through the chaos and took the spotlight in Bhaskar's mind. He ceased clicking the pen incessantly and hunched over the paper with a quiet thrill. Yes, yes, this story could create a sensation. He began scrawling,

There was a poor boy of thirteen who worked tirelessly at the small restaurant ever since he was a child.

Bhaskar's eyes averted from the paper and trailed after the flies. He carefully observed the boy around whom the flies danced in mayhem as he kept away the dirty dishes behind the counter. Bhaskar straightened up in authority when the boy approached his table and began wiping the tea stains with the gingham kitchen cloth. Up close, Bhaskar could see that his pubescent moustache was a golden, brown colour. What a pity.

His childhood was lost to tea stains and pakora crumbs . . . He was sent to school . . . He had only one off-white shirt and brown shorts which he wore during the day and washed it during the night . . .

"What's your order, sir?" the boy asked timidly, afraid of distracting this important-looking man doing some important looking work.

"One chai," he replied without looking up, furiously fabricating a sentimental backstory.

His widowed father was an unemployed, raging alcoholic who not only snatched his son's money but beat him up frequently. So the boy toiled away and the father drank away his boy's sweat.

Drank away his boy's sweat. Bhaskar thought that that was a clever sentence, appalling enough to highlight the wretched poverty. What was next though? If there was no present story, he would have to discard the entire backstory. There had to be something propelling the plot forward, something to support the genius of "drank away his boy's sweat."

The owner of the restaurant, a man in a bright, white shirt resembling the stature of Bhaskar entered, swatting away the flies that immediately swarmed around him.

Bhaskar was overwhelmed by the surging, new words at the sight of the owner who regarded the boy with a gentle smile, so he continued scribbling, The owner of the small restaurant loved the boy so when he passed away, having nobody to pass his inheritance . . .

No, no. Bhaskar couldn't repeat the "pass" word, here again, it would confuse the readers. So he cancelled the entire sentence and quickly rewrote, The owner of the small restaurant loved the boy so when he died, having nobody to pass his inheritance to, the little employee found himself to be the employer. However, the boy being only thirteen, couldn't take charge of the restaurant. So his father acquired it and became the manager. The boy could have gone to school since more money was pouring in, but his father wouldn't let him go. He continued cleaning tea-stains in his only off-white shirt.

"Sir, chai," Bhaskar heard the boy's pubescent, cracking voice and mindlessly reached out to grab the cup, his eyes concentrated on the paper. However, the moment his fat fingers touched the extremely hot cup, he knocked it off from the boy's hands. And steaming liquid spilt over the boy's only off-white shirt, sizzling his torso. The sneaky liquid trickled on the table and Bhaskar shot up from the chair, hastily gathering his precious papers.

"Look at what you did! My writings were almost going to be ruined!" Bhaskar barked at the startled boy who lowered his tearful eyes in deference. "Do you know who I am? Do you know how many people are waiting to read what I write?"

"Oh, sorry Sahib! I'll get you another chai for free, you don't have to pay," the owner said, stepping in between. "He's only a little boy after all. He has a lot to learn still." The owner patted the boy's back with so much force that he staggered ahead. "Go, clean this up and bring Sahib another chai."

The boy clutching his soaked shirt darted towards the counter like a rabbit which escaped being hunted and Bhaskar shifted to another table, grumbling under his breath. He peevishly re-read what he had written so far, attributing the cause of this extra effort to the boy's negligence. Then, he recommenced his writing,

Richer than before, everyone expected the boy and his father to live well, but the sweating and the drinking continued more vigorously this time. The father now bought expensive bottles of alcohol and the boy had to handle all the grumbles of the customers ill-treated by his slurring father. So it wasn't a surprise that the boy felt massive relief when his father gambled away the restaurant. They became poor like before, his father away from the restaurant and the boy under an employer's care. Sweating and drinking.

The boy deliberately brought a new cup of lukewarm chai and Bhaskar drank it in one gulp, satisfied at how his story had turned out. All his emotional readers would shed tears at the boy's fate and the cynical critics would praise his writing for realism. After all, the poor were destined to be poor. Bhaskar arranged the papers neatly in his briefcase, took a picture of the unsuspecting boy with a Kodak camera (to be enclosed with the story), got up from the chair, stretched fully in contentment and ruffled the boy's hair almost lovingly on his way out. The boy was now half-naked, his only off-white shirt drying on a stone under the mighty sun.

Bhaskar's story was published the following week and both him and the boy became locally famous. The boy couldn't fathom why so many important-looking people arrived at the restaurant and clicked his pictures as if he was a caged animal in the zoo. But that soon ended, people forgot about him when the next story by Bhaskar came out. It was about the sorrowful plight of some miner's life. Or was it a sewage cleaner? Nevertheless, the poor were destined to be poor.

As for Bhaskar himself, he was the God of writing and a God couldn't be forgotten.