This is the fifth time we’re moving houses. Usually, it goes like this: there’s no money; the rent isn’t paid; we’re asked to leave; and another good deal presents itself. There’s always a good deal somewhere.

The movers’ truck rattles over a speed breaker. The roads were smooth until a few kilometers ago. Now, the tar has come off. The roads are mauled. Both Babu and I find it tough to tell whether the speed breakers were placed intentionally or incidentally. This is how things are everywhere I live. The truck rattles over another bump. This government can’t even lay roads! Don’t they collect taxes?

Such rocking paired with the low hum of the engine would put you to sleep. For someone like me, even the most comfortable bus can’t put me to sleep. I don’t even sleep in trains. Sleepless travel is second nature to me. No—that hasn’t always been the case.

The first time we shifted, Appa found a 3 BHK house for just 17,000 in the outskirts. Although it was two hours away from everything, Appa and Amma thought it best for our status.

Here, the travel arrangements were decided: 30 minutes in the shared auto, a one-hour bus ride, and a 30-minute walk to school. I woke up at 5 am for school. School was at eight. Appa and I got ready by 5:30 and left the house. Near the mosque, Murugan, the shared-auto guy, stood screaming at the top of his voice.

“Bus stand! Bus stand! Ten rupees! Ten rupees!”

He sounded as though he was speaking over a large crowd. I never understood this. Every soul that was present at that time of the day inevitably got into his auto. On the odd day, we found another auto guy, Shekhar. Shekhar was quiet. Never shouted. He whispered to passersby as though asking for a sneaky favor. Some of them even attempted to run, suspecting him of pickpocketing or drug dealing.

The shared auto was where my travel training began. Not even a baby rattle rattles as much as a shared auto!

After that, we took the 102. This bus runs all the way through the city. If you draw the city’s bus routes, 102 stands like the city’s spine. Without it, the city’d lose its mind.

The bus contained flower vendors, vegetable sellers, policemen—all sorts of people. Ours was the second stop from the terminus. We never got a seat. So we crammed ourselves inside. The smell of two-day-old coconut oil, farts, and underpants wafted in the still air of the bus. I had no choice. I had to sleep standing or not at all. Sometimes, if a woman was kind, she allowed me to sit on her lap on the women’s side of the bus. This way, I got a hint of cool air from the window. Poor Appa—no woman allowed him to sit on her lap!

The walk to school was long. My eyes felt like they were wrapped in a quilt. The entire flesh on my face drooped down, relaxed; my scalp wanted to be where my eyes were, my eyes where my nose was, and my nose in place of my lips. Whenever a big vehicle passed, I blinked rapidly at the clouds of dust and coughed. Sometimes, lorries honked exactly when they passed me. I woke up at these moments and swore at those drivers—bananas, dumb heads! I felt that the world was filled with immense injustice—a small boy can’t sleep. I’d mutter and fumble and frown as I staggered towards school.

It became quite clear why I was failing mathematics. You see, mathematics was the first period. With that pupil leader strutting about, one could never doze off in the assembly. It’d be a matter of utter shame in front of the entire school. So, sensibly, I dozed off at the back of the classroom during first period. I doubt I have ever slept such a hefty sleep.

When I did fail, Palanisamy master beat me till my knuckles turned red. And as if that wasn’t enough, Amma chased me with a broomstick, swinging it at my bum until the broom was only a pile of hay. Since then, I have never slept while traveling. To be fair, it’s only because I slept during the first period that I passed everything else.

I’m thinking fondly of my childhood. The truck roars ahead. These thoughts are cozy. I might doze off just reminiscing.

“Have you asked around?” Babu says.

“Yes,” I say. What does he think—we’re a set of dimwits?

“Homes are temples,” he goes on. “One must think before shifting. It’s vital to look at the locality. Hospitals, facilities, neighbors … These are things one should enquire about.”

Does he understand the strategic thinking that’s gone behind this move? We learn from our mistakes. In fact, we’ve prepared a manifesto for shifting houses. We have questions to ask every prospective houseowner. From whether Swiggy delivers here to whether there is water logging in the monsoons—we’ve thought of everything. Yes, water logging is a big concern. We learnt our lesson the third time we shifted.

Eight years ago, the city suffered a flood. It rained for four days non-stop. The raindrops fell in large chunks, like milk packets. At first, everybody was filled with delight. We were going to get a breath of cold. Every child prayed through the night: “O God, please, it must rain so hard that it is a holiday.”

At the time, we were living in Garden Meadows. The flats were vast with blocks ranging from A to J. Each of the blocks stood tall, stooping over the lawns. They were so tall that the terrace was off bounds. We lived on the first floor.

On the second night, the old man Ramani came running out of his house. He beat his head, screaming in the corridor. Appa and I came out to see what was going on. Our neighbors—Mr. Anand and family and Mr. Mani and family—all walked out of their houses, each one as puzzled as the other.

“What is it, Sir?” Anand asked. “What happened?”

“How am I to tell you?” Ramani said, half-crying. “My daughter saved up for six whole years before she could buy this car! Her husband poured all of his savings into buying this car, and now, this tyrant rain god has decided to gobble it up! All of the savings have drowned! Everything lost! What will she do now!”

“Sir, can you please be clearer?” Mani came forth. “I can barely understand anything you’re saying!”

“My daughter’s car is gone!” Ramani said. Then, he swallowed all the spit in his mouth and wiped his eyes. A look of determination bloomed on his face. “I can no longer stay here. I will go to my daughter. Yes, yes, yes. As a father, I will go and be there for her.”

Once he had said this, he stormed into his house and slammed the door behind him. We looked at one another. Appa began to laugh.

“Look at him crying for a car,” Appa said to Mani and Anand. “He talks like his daughter has drowned! These are only material possessions… He has lived such a long life, and yet, he is ruled by his car!”

“No, no,” Anand interrupted. “Not even his car—his daughter’s!”

“Plus, isn’t there insurance?” Appa said.

We all laughed.

That night, three hours after all this had transpired, I looked out of the window. All the lawns and the driveways were covered in water. The sky roared with thunder. The clouds were chocolate brown everywhere. Lightning shot at the ground like bullets. The rain poured in thick screens; you could barely see the neighboring block. Even in such poor vision, far away, I saw Ramani walking toward the gate. He was holding an umbrella, which constantly blew him back. He was chest deep in water. He waded through it, muttering. I felt a pang in my chest. I can’t explain to you the sharpness of that feeling. I remember swiftly slipping away to the bathroom and crying a lot.

The next morning, there were repeated banging sounds on our door. When I woke up to open it, I, knee-deep in water, found our house submerged.

“Appa!” I screamed.

Amma woke up to that call and began to scream. She woke Appa up. He woke up with a start. We found ourselves wet up till our hips. The television was floating in water, protesting its drowning tendencies. All our showcase items—the wooden ducks, the glass elephants, the coconut monkey, and the family photo frames—were scattered, bobbing about in the water.

I waded through the water and opened the door. Mr. Anand and family, Mr. Mani and family, all the ground floor tenants, and many more people were there. All of them were half submerged in water. They repeatedly screamed things. They flung words like eggs thrown at a bad movie. I felt very congested, and a soggy feeling of overwhelm clutched onto my skin.

“Is everyone in your household okay?” Anand asked. “Are you all okay, Sir?”

“Who is it?” Appa screamed from his room.

“Everyone,” I said, weakly frowning. I don’t know. I remember feeling very weak.

“Alright, alright,” Mani said. “Don’t panic. Mr. Sundar has been gracious to offer all of us refuge. We will all try to figure out the essentials. We will be okay. Please bring all the possessions you value, especially your mobile phones. Come up to the fourth floor.”

“Wait, I am coming,” Appa screamed again.

“Okay, we will wait for you and your family,” Mani declared, hoping the rest of the crowd would approve. “Let us all go up together!”

At Sundar’s house, the group comprised of some 25 people. Since Mr. Sundar was a family man, all of us were feeling very guilty and sad that we had put him through all this. Then, someone who was practical got up and volunteered to make the food. Then, another organized a line system for all the bathrooms: he split the two bathrooms into men, and women and children. Then, another decided to take charge of sleeping arrangements, and another volunteered to do inventory and resource management. Appa and Amma took up communications. Chandru, my brother, and I were in charge of making sure every phone in the house was charged. We did our job with utmost dedication, walking here and there and questioning every individual: Battery percentage? Any emergency? Everyone safe? Need phone urgently? I was overcome by such a profound feeling of community that I would’ve melted like ice, if all this would’ve gone on for longer.

After all our chores, tea was prepared. Since we were short of cups, each family was allowed two cups and we shared. We put away the sofas against the walls. We sat on the floor in a relaxed fashion, like farmers resting after a long day of work.

“We pay our rents properly, but look at what we’re put through,” Anand said. “Fully the government’s fault.”

“What do you mean?” Appa asked.

“Sir, you see, legally speaking, this land cannot be built upon. Naturally, I mean to say; environmentally, this land is a lake. Instead, these government officials fill it up with sand and sell it out to builders … Then, obviously, the water will collect at the lake!”

That did it for us. We were living atop a lake! After much deliberation, we decided to shift the next month, and water logging was added to our checklist. We’ve been through such disasters, and this Babu thinks we don’t know anything? Look at him chew on his four-hour-old bubble gum.

The truck swerves left into the colony. Here, everything’s pristine. The road is bordered by white lines on either side. They have gardens with exotic trees that make the roads seem like avenues. It seems like a foreign country. The houses are uniform. They are white. In the front, terracotta roofs cover the parking lots. Each house has a private garden. The tenants have raised their gardens tastefully, scrupulously planning the layouts, aesthetics, and feel of the plants. Some houses have creepers pouring over the terrace like curly locks of hair. I find myself feeling exuberant here. Unknowingly, a smile blossoms on my face. More than anything, it is the manner in which they have organized nature that impresses me. I have not seen this sort of aesthetic nature anywhere before.

Last time, the reason for shifting was nature. The last one was a duplex house. The only sign of civilization in the neighborhood was an IT company far away. We were in the middle of nowhere. Why must we be anywhere? You see, at the fringes of a city, all anyone sees is foliage. One sees nature nibbling at the ends of civilization. But the nouveau riche see opportunity! My family—we are those sort of creatures.

When we shifted into that house, everything was like any other home. Nature first observes and only then hunts. After the initial weekend, Chandru and Appa went away for school and work. It was Amma and me at home. That Monday afternoon, I heard Amma screech in the kitchen. I ran down the stairs to find her horrified at the rice.

In the rice jar, amidst all the white, like pepper, drowsy bugs slept. If you were to run your hand through it, you’d find that the ratio was equal: one part bugs to one part rice. We emptied the entire jar outside our compound. We ate hotel food.

The next day, Amma and I observed carcasses along the edges of our walls—dragon flies, ants, crickets, house flies, spiders, moths, butterflies, beetles, cockroaches, and wasps. We followed the path that the dead bugs had laid out. When we traced the wasps, she found clay homes along the window panes and mud tunnels built by ants that spread out fantastically like roots. There were entire families of cockroaches in the drains. All the insect homes had established routes to the resources in the house: to the sugar, to the rice, to the jeera, and to the bread. Since then, we kept everything in the fridge.

The refrigerator brought its own predator. Four geckos—at least as far as we spotted—roamed the surroundings of the fridge. At night, they came out to eat. During the day, they stayed put on the wall behind the fridge where it was warm and humid. They stared at the bugs in proximity, clicking their tongues. The thing that threw Amma off was the fact that they licked their eyes. She refused to enter the kitchen until we put a stop to this.

And what we initially thought to be the screeches of the geckos showed itself to be louder than any plausible gecko. So, Amma and I went to the terrace to scout. We scanned the entire wilderness surrounding our house. From up there, our house seemed an island amidst an emerald sea. It seemed our house was a laddoo swallowed whole by a green mouth.

Then came a long, singular screech, and aha! There they were: a family of three long mongooses. Of course, this scared Amma.

“Why are there mongooses?” she asked me.

“I don’t know” I said.

“Think about it this way … The geckos come for the insects, the mongoose comes for something … and that something comes for the geckos …”

“Snakes!” I said.

Thus, our food chain project began: Amma and I spent the next week documenting our home’s animal network. This was the only solution. Meticulous planning always gave results.

The first ones we discovered were insects, geckos, snakes, and mongoose. Another went from larvae in small containers, to fish, to frogs, to snakes. The question of how the fish ended up in those water containers was never answered. One creature in the third chain, the shortest of the lot—insects, bird—perplexed me.

After documentation, Amma and I undertook the task of eradicating the bottom rung of the chains. Our logic was simple: if the bottom rungs went, the following levels would go too. We got rid of the insects first. We stuck nets on the windows to stop aerial insects from entering. We lined the edges of our house with ant powder. We sprayed all the sinks and drains with anti-bug sprays. This got rid of most of the chain. The geckos slowly left and therefore the snakes. The mongooses went in search of better land. However, the thing that perplexed me the most was the bird in the smallest of these chains.

It was a yellow bird. It sat atop the door frame. Once the insects were eradicated, it had to go elsewhere for food. It flew away in the mornings but always returned by dusk to the door frame.

“Stupid bird,” Amma exclaimed. “It should go where food is available.”

Anyhow, our efforts to eradicate the food chain proved useless. When the rains poured, the creatures no longer craved food. They entered and cozied themselves in our home whether or not there was food. Now, there were not four but about 11 geckos! Bugs were everywhere. Every third day, we found squirrels in the air conditioner’s outdoor unit. At one point, it was so unbearable that we gave up and decided to shift.

I doubt any of that will be a problem here, where nature is kept tame. Half our day won’t be wasted in attempting to simply live without disturbance.

“This place looks spectacular,” Babu says, barely looking in front as he drives. “I think you’ve really found the right place finally!”

I nod. I don’t trust this Babu fellow. He’s said this dialogue every time we have shifted.

“Yes, yes, I know,” I say. “Eyes on the road.”

“Yes, yes,” Babu says. “I don’t think I’m half as dedicated as you guys. I live in the same house my great grandfather lived in. I know it’s not a palace. Still, it is my house. I struggle to live there. I wish I was like you people: moving to more suitable places.”

The truck stops before the villa.

“Here we are, brother,” Babu says. “Shall I start unloading?”

“Yes.”

I think about that yellow bird. Amma had called it stupid. It didn’t move homes for food. So what is a home, I think. I think of the city as a large jungle, and I trace a snake of the path of how we’d moved homes. I trace a dot of how the yellow bird moved homes. I watch both shapes intently. I feel a sort of bile infused vertigo with the winding snake-shape. I shoot my eyes away, towards the path of the yellow bird. It seems a hermit of some sort, its body stationary, and still. I feel a cool rush fill my body. It is too late for me to even dream of that elusive dot.