Excerpt from Remaindered People & Other Stories by Pratap Reddy
Excerpt from “Dreams of God and Men” from Remaindered People & Other Stories by Pratap Reddy. Published by Guernica Editions, 2025. Copyright Pratap Reddy. Reprinted with permission.
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“Wake up, Seenu. You must go to work today."
He heard Narsamma speak as if from a far away world. He moved his limbs and opened his eyes. Seenu felt so weak he wanted to sink back into sleep.
The paper-thin mattress he was lying on was the only piece of furniture in the room. No windows, only a small concrete grille under the fluted asbestos roof. The only other furnishing was a gorgeous but out-of-date calendar hanging on a wall. At odds with the gloom all around, it depicted a scene of breathtaking loveliness: a brilliant aquamarine lake framed on two sides by stately pines. In the distance, a snow-capped mountain was brooding over its own reflection in the water.
The calendar had been given to him when Navin Chandra, the sales manager, was clearing his office space after he had resigned from his job. Seenu had helped him pack his personal items into cardboard boxes they got from the factory warehouse.
Two weeks had passed since Seenu fell ill. But the fever showed no signs of letting up, even though he was religiously taking the tablets prescribed by the government doctor. If Seenu didn't report to work soon, he could lose his job. At the very thought of his workplace a bout of anxiety seized him. If he was fired, what would happen to his mother and sister who he had left behind in their village?
"Go to work and see how you feel. Who knows? Seeing how ill you are, your supervisor might give you a few more days off," Narsamma said. A hefty middle-aged woman, she was no relative of his but a do-gooder in his shantytown who could always be relied upon to help anyone in need.
She had stopped by with some tea and food.
Seenu rose unsteadily, and then staggered to the neighbourhood bore-well. Though almost fifteen, he was small for his age. He had to pump the handle like a demon to coax out just half a pail of water. After freshening himself, he drank some of the over-sweet, tepid tea which Narsamma had brought for him in a chipped china cup. He left for work, taking a lacklustre aluminum tiffin box which contained his lunch: a dry cha-pathi and a piece of lime pickle.
On his way to the factory on foot, he was joined by his young colleagues who also worked as labourers in the same factory. They were noisily cheerful, like a flock of sparrows.
They were all in their teens, lanky as if they had been cobbled together with only skin and bones, and absolutely no flesh at all.
"How are you feeling?" his friend Ramu asked. "You don't look well."
Plodding silently beside them, Seenu felt too tired to reply.
About Remaindered People & Other Stories:
The author’s first collection Weather Permitting & Other Stories was centred on the predicament of new immigrants who are coping with the challenges they face immediately upon arrival in Canada. In this new collection, the focus is on the other side of immigration, exploring the often-neglected aspects: the plight of empty nesters left behind in India, parents compelled to immigrate with their adult children, about immigrants returning to their home country for good or for holiday, of people aspiring to migrate but falling by the wayside. Whatever the surrounding circumstances, all the stories are about people on the move, people who often don’t seem to know where they are headed.
An underwriter by day and a writer by night, Pratap Reddy writes about the angst and the agonies (on occasion the ecstasies) of newly arrived immigrants. He is the author of the novel Ramya’s Treasure and the short story collection Weather Permitting & Other Stories (Guernica Editions). Remaindered People is his second collection of short stories. He lives in Mississauga with his wife and son.