Free Tantrics Of Old by Krishnarjun Bhattacharya

dreams, unapproachable in its distance, its silence, its invisibility in the city new. Until now. And yet he was apprehensive. His sister’s safety was important, and perhaps it was the nudge he needed to embark on this journey—he asked himself if he would have gone otherwise. He did not find an answer. ‘Can one photograph magical beings?’ he asked Adri after a moment.
    ‘Yes, most of them.’
    ‘Good. I’ve taken my camera along. I’m a student of photography, actually,’ Gray ranted on. ‘And being able to photograph the Old City . . . well, it’s something I’ve thought about often.’
    MYTH had banned all visual representation of Old Kolkata; and the citizens of New Kolkata had never gotten to see the city. Of course, there were the occasional rebel photographs that leaked out; but no one could confirm whether they were really of the Old City. Speculations, therefore, ran amok.
    Adri raised an eyebrow. ‘Photographer? I took you for a musician. With your white hair and everything.’
    ‘I was born with the white hair. It is random genetics, nobody’s been able to explain it. The violin is a hobby.’
    Adri nodded. Most curious. But then he didn’t have any friends or acquaintances of his own age. People he knew were much older, some a few centuries old; he couldn’t remember the last time he had tried talking to a college-goer. He didn’t understand this generation, neither did he want to, for that matter. But it was interesting nonetheless. He hoped he could keep both of them alive while they negotiated the Old City. Adri lit another cigarette. This was going to be stressful, this whole affair. Had to happen to
him
, of all people. If the Fallen ultimately confirmed that all of this wasn’t a conspiracy of some kind and that he had been chosen randomly by Death, he wouldn’t be surprised. Not at all. He’d only be angry at his typical dumb luck.
    The worst part was that he couldn’t instil the fear of the grisliest things that could happen in Old Kolkata into the siblings; he
needed
them to come along. He couldn’t scare them off. And yet his conscience would not let him push them into the city unprepared. Small warnings, he decided finally. Small tidbits of information to keep them on their toes.
    And then, soundlessly, the lights started to dim. Slow, steady.
    ‘The lights!’ Gray yelped.
    Adri stood up, grabbing his bag. ‘Our ride’s here,’ he said.
    Maya had heard it coming before the two of them. She had been walking up and down the length of the platform once her brother had sat down and she was near the mouth of the tunnel when she heard the noise. Before she had time to walk back to Adri and Gray, the train zoomed in, screaming right past her. It wasn’t what she had anticipated, though she wasn’t expecting the typical New Kolkata train.
    ‘It’s not air-conditioned?’ Gray asked, looking at it with bulging eyes, as Adri, still smoking, fitted three rounds in his shooter.
    The train was a wreck. It looked like a tangle of disfigured metal with rough holes punched in, held together with nothing but prayers. The compartments were old and beginning to rust; most of the windows had no safety bars, and old tube lights struggled to stay alight inside. The compartments were endless, they continued down the tunnel till they ran out of sight. The train stopped with an almighty sigh, the clanking and cluttering finally coming to a stop as age-old brakes screeched. The platform lights remained dim, making the train look creepier still, with its devastated exteriors and lights within.
    ‘Does this thing actually run?’ Maya asked incredulously as she picked up her bag.
    ‘There’s no AC,’ Gray groaned.
    Maya spotted what Adri was holding. ‘Hey, is that a—’
    Adri entered a compartment without answering, sliding open a rusty door. Shooter raised, he walked in, surveying the seats and the overhead baggage compartments with sharp eyes. Apart from a man sleeping in a far corner,