After years of working in Delhi, I returned to my village in Bihar to visit my parents. My old room was still untouched—but the room next to it was locked from the inside
Part One – The Return
When you work in Delhi long enough, in a second floor barsati in Munirka with a cooler that throws more dust than air, you start to measure distance not in kilometres but in how much you have to explain. In Delhi, if I said I am from Supaul, people would say, oh, near Patna? And I would say, no, far from Patna, near the Kosi. And they would nod as if they understood.
The call came on a Tuesday. Ma called, not Papa. Ma never calls, because her phone has only two buttons she trusts. She said, “Babua, your Papa’s chest is paining again. Doctor in Saharsa has said to take rest. You come once.”
I said, “I will come on Saturday.”
I took the Sampark Kranti, then a rickety jeep from Saharsa to our village, Birpur Tola. Nothing had changed on the surface. The same muddy road that becomes a small river in monsoon, the same neem tree at the chowk where the tea shop still serves chai in small glass, the same Kosi embankment that looks like it is holding its breath.
Our house is the same – two rooms, one kitchen, one aangan with a handpump that still makes a crying sound. Ma has white hair now, fully white. Papa is thinner, but his moustache is same. He hugged me like he was checking if I was still solid.
My old room was exactly as I had left it in 2017. The same blue wall paint, now faded. The same table where I had studied for my 12th boards, with ink marks. The same poster of Dhoni from 2011 World Cup, corners eaten by cockroaches. Even my old Bata slippers were there under the cot.
Ma had kept it untouched, like a small museum. She said, “We thought you will come back after two years of job. Then we thought after five years. Now we just clean it every Tuesday.”
I kept my bag there and felt immediately like an outsider in my own museum. My shirts from Delhi, my laptop, my power bank, all looked too city.
That evening, while going to the backside to wash my hands, I noticed something I had never seen before. Next to my room, there was another room. It was not there before. Or maybe it was the old store room where we kept paddy, but now it had a proper wooden door, painted green, with a new bolt.
The bolt was locked. From inside.
I asked Ma, “Ma, ye kaun sa kamra hai? When did you make this?”
Ma looked at Papa quickly. Papa looked at the handpump.
Ma said, “Nothing, babua. That is just store room. Go and wash.”
But store rooms in Bihar villages are not locked from inside.
Part Two – Two Rooms
At night, the house becomes very quiet. In Delhi, even at 2 am, you hear bikes, dogs, someone shouting. In Birpur, after 9 pm, you only hear crickets and the Kosi water far away.
I was lying on my old cot, trying to sleep on a thin mattress after my Delhi mattress, when I heard it. From the next room. A small sound. Like pages turning. Like a steel trunk being opened.
I got up. The bulb in the aangan was on, dim yellow. The green door was still bolted, but the light from inside was on. A thin line of yellow light from under the door.
I knocked. “Kaun hai? Papa?”
No answer. The page-turning sound stopped.
I called Ma in a low voice. Ma came out from kitchen, wiping hands. She saw me standing near the green door and her face became tight.
“Ma, someone is inside. Who is inside?”
Papa came also. He is not a man of many words. He just said, “No one is inside. You are tired from journey. Go and sleep.”
“But light is on, I heard sound. And it is locked from inside. How can no one be inside?”
Papa said, “This lock is kharab. Sometimes it locks itself. Don’t worry.”
It was a very bad lie. My father was a primary school teacher for thirty two years, he never learned to lie properly.
Next morning, when both of them went to the field to see the paddy, I took the spare key from the kitchen dabba where Ma keeps all keys tied with a red thread. The key had a small slip of paper on it. In Papa’s handwriting, it said – Dusra Beta.
Second son.
My hands started sweating in the humid air. I have no brother. I am single child. My mother had a miscarriage in 1998, I knew that story, they told me openly. But no second son.
I opened the green door. It opened easily, it was not rusted. And the room inside was not a store room at all.
It was a bedroom. A proper lived-in bedroom. A cot, same as mine. On the cot, a folded lungi and a kurta. On the wall, a calendar of 2024, with dates crossed. On the small table, books. Not new books. My old NCERT Class 11 Physics by H.C. Verma, with my name written on first page in my terrible handwriting – Rakesh Kr, 9th A. My copy of Premchand’s Godan, with my underlines. My copy of a diary of Bhagat Singh. And three-four new books, same taste – a Hindi translation of The Alchemist, a book on Indian Railways.
In the corner, an almirah, half open. Inside, clothes. Not Papa’s. Not old. Jeans, size 32, my size. Two shirts from Peter England, size M, my size. One jacket that I almost bought last year from Sarojini Nagar but did not because it was too costly. And all clothes were washed, ironed, kept with naphthalene balls.
It was as if a version of me had never left this village. As if he had grown up here, become adult here, wearing my size, reading my books.
My legs became weak. I sat on that cot. The cot smelled like me. Like mustard oil and old books, same smell I had when I was seventeen.
Ma came back early. She saw the door open. She saw me sitting on that cot, holding my own old book. She did not shout. She just held the door frame and said, “You opened it.”
Papa came behind her, with his gamcha on shoulder. He looked at me, then at the room, then at Ma. Nobody said anything for one minute.
Then Ma said the line that has not left my head since.
Ma did not whisper it like a secret, she said it plainly, like she was stating the time for the morning train, “Arre babua, that room was never locked from outside, it is always locked from inside. It has always belonged to the child who stayed when you left for Delhi in 2017. He still wears your size, still reads your books, still sleeps here every night and waits for you to come back and become him again.”
Part Three – The Child Who Stayed
I thought my mother had become a little crazy in old age. In villages, old age sometimes comes with stories.
I said, “Ma, what nonsense. Which child? I am your only son. Who stayed? Who is he?”
Papa sat down on the floor, outside the room. He took a long breath. He said, “His name also was Rakesh.”
That was my name. Rakesh Kumar Yadav.
Papa said, “When you left in 2017, you did not leave alone.”
I laughed, because what else do you do. “Papa, I left alone. I took one bag. You came to station.”
Ma said, “Your body left. But one child stayed.”
Then they told me the story, in pieces, the way village stories are told, not straight.
In 2017, when I left, my mother could not bear it. Single child going to Delhi. In our tola, boys who go to Delhi either become something or they disappear. They become drivers, or they die in factory fire, or they never return because they are ashamed. Ma started dreaming. She would dream that I was still in the next room, studying, not going. She would get up at 4 am and see my room empty and cry.
Papa, to console her, did something strange. He took my old clothes, washed them, and kept them in the store room. He kept my books there. He would sit there in evenings. He told Ma, “See, he is here, he stayed. The one who went to Delhi is different.”
First it was acting. Then it became a habit. Every year, on my birthday, Ma would buy a new shirt, size increasing, M, then L, now M again because I lost weight in Delhi. She would buy with her own money from selling eggs. She would keep it in that almirah. She would buy a new book every Dussehra fair, same type I used to like. She would cross dates on calendar. Papa would sometimes go inside and read my old Godan loudly, so Ma could hear from kitchen that someone is reading.
The village knew. The tea shop boy knew. They called it Ma’s second son. They did not make fun. In Kosi belt, every house has a son who has left. Every house has a room that is locked from inside.
I asked, “But why locked from inside? Who locks it from inside?”
Papa said, “Your Ma. She goes inside at night, locks it from inside, and sleeps there sometimes, on that cot, when your Papa snores too much. She says, the child who stayed needs his mother near.”
My eyes were wet, but I was also angry. “So you made a bhoot of me? You made my duplicate?”
Ma touched my newly grown beard, Delhi beard, and said, “No, babua. We did not make duplicate. Delhi made your duplicate. You came from Delhi wearing jeans and speaking fast English. The child who stayed here would have worn kurta and spoken Maithili slowly. Both are my sons. One left, one stayed. This room belongs to the one who stayed.”
Part Four – The Register
That night I slept in that second room. Not in my museum room. In the child-who-stayed’s room.
I wore his kurta. It fit perfectly. I opened Godan. On the last page, there was writing, not mine. Fresh writing, blue pen.
It was Papa’s handwriting. It said:
2020 – Rakesh passed B.A. from R.K. College Madhubani. Got 68 percent.
2021 – Rakesh helped in paddy. Learned to drive tractor.
2022 – Rakesh’s rishta came from Triveniganj. Girl’s family asked for one lakh. We said no.
2023 – Rakesh went to Patna for one month for computer course. Came back.
2024 – Rakesh says he wants to open small mobile repair shop at chowk.
It was a full alternate life. My father had written a whole life for the child who stayed. A life that was completely plausible if I had not left.
I went out, my voice shaking. “Papa, ye kya hai? You wrote my life if I had stayed?”
Papa was sitting on a stool, smoking beedi. He said, “Every father writes two horoscopes. One for child who leaves, one for child who stays. One goes to Delhi and becomes sahab. One stays and becomes farmer. Both are difficult.”
Ma was making roti. She said, “If you had stayed, you would have married Sita, the Mishra’s daughter. She also went to Patna later. She is now teacher in Supaul. She still asks about you.”
My heart stopped. Sita. I had not thought about Sita in seven years. She was my Class 12 friend. We had promised we would both go to college together. I left, she stayed.
I asked, “Where is Sita now?”
Ma said, “She comes sometimes to buy bangles. She married a boy in Saharsa. He drinks. She is not happy. When she comes, she sits in this room only. She says, this room smells like Rakesh would have smelled if he stayed.”
That was the second twist. The room was not only mine. It had become a place where the whole village kept their version of what could have been.
Part Five – The Fitting
Next morning, I decided to go back to Delhi on Monday. I told Ma-Papa, I have to go, my office will give notice.
Ma did not cry. She just said, “Theek hai. But before you go, lock the room from inside once. See how it feels to be the child who stayed.”
I thought it was a strange request, but I did. I went inside, closed the green door, bolted it from inside. The room became quiet. From inside, I could hear Ma’s bangles in kitchen, Papa coughing, the handpump crying, a goat bleating. The same sounds I would have heard for seven years if I had never left.
I looked at the mirror, small steel mirror on wall. I was wearing the other Rakesh’s kurta. My Delhi haircut, my Delhi beard, but kurta of village. For one second, I could not tell which Rakesh I was. The one who left or the one who stayed.
I opened the almirah again. Behind the shirts, there was a small steel box. Inside, there were two things. One, a bus ticket from Birpur to Patna, dated 2017, my first ticket to Delhi, which I thought I had lost. Second, a new Aadhaar card. Name – Rakesh Kumar Yadav. Address – same as ours. Date of birth – same as mine. But photo – it was not me. It was a boy who looked exactly like me, but with shorter hair, no beard, with a little more sun on face.
On back of Aadhaar, in Ma’s handwriting, “For shop license.”
I opened the door and came out, holding that Aadhaar.
“Papa, who is this? Who is this boy in photo?”
Papa looked at it for long. Then he said, “This is the child who stayed. Last year, we tried to get him a SIM card. Shopkeeper said need Aadhaar. So we went to Supaul and made his Aadhaar. We used your old photo from 10th class. They did not catch.”
Ma said, “If you ever want to come back and stay permanently, you can use this Aadhaar. Then you don’t need Delhi Aadhaar. You can become the child who stayed officially. No need to tell office.”
I sat down. I finally understood. My parents had not made a ghost. They had made a contingency plan. In Kosi, where floods take houses every year, people always make a second house on higher ground. My parents had made a second son on higher ground. One son for Delhi, one son for flood.
I did not go back on Monday. I extended leave for ten days. In those ten days, I lived as both.
In morning, I wore Delhi clothes and talked to my team on phone about API and deployment. In evening, I wore kurta and went to the chowk with Papa and learned how to check paddy moisture.
On the last day, I asked Ma, “Ma, if I stay, what will happen to Delhi Rakesh?”
Ma said, “Nothing will happen. He will be locked from inside. Like this room. He will wait. When you get tired of village, you will go back and become him again. A mother can keep two sons in two rooms. That is what mothers do.”
I left on Thursday. At the station, Papa hugged me and slipped that Aadhaar of the child who stayed into my pocket. He said, “Keep it. If Delhi becomes too hot, come and become him. He knows how to drive tractor.”
Now I am back in Munirka. My Delhi room has two Aadhaar cards in my drawer. One with my beard photo, address Munirka, and one with my 10th class photo, address Birpur Tola, Supaul.
Sometimes at night, when my cooler throws dust, I lock my Delhi room from inside, switch off light, and sit in dark. And for five minutes, I try to feel if somewhere in Birpur, in that green door room, the other Rakesh has locked his room from inside and is trying to feel if somewhere in Delhi, I am thinking of him.
We are both the child who stayed. We are both the child who left.
