Chapter 1: Jugnu (Fireflies)

Bhushan Kulkarni watched his two children chase fireflies across the back garden of their farmhouse, knowing that his daughter's heart could stop at any moment and that the stopping would be the silence that replaced everything.

Chitra was seven. Seven years old with a congenital heart defect that the cardiologist at Sassoon Hospital had diagnosed when she was four — the diagnosis arriving on a Tuesday morning in the particular way that diagnoses arrived: casually, as if the words "ventricular septal defect" were ordinary words and the ordinary-words containing the extraordinary information that Bhushan's daughter's heart had a hole in it and the hole was the thing that could kill her and the killing was the possibility that accompanied every moment of every day.

The farmhouse sat on three acres at the edge of Mulshi, forty minutes from Pune, where the Sahyadri foothills began their climb toward the Western Ghats and where the monsoon-fed greenery produced the particular landscape that Bhushan had chosen for his family — the choosing being: an ecology professor who studied biodiversity needed to live where biodiversity lived, and Mulshi was where biodiversity lived. The farmhouse's back garden sloped toward a tree line of teak and jamun that marked the boundary between the maintained land and the wild land and the wild-land being the Western Ghats' jurisdiction.

"Dheere, beta!" Charu called from the verandah. Charu — his wife, a nurse at the KEM Hospital satellite clinic in Hinjewadi, the nurse-wife combination being the particular Indian household where medical knowledge was both comfort and curse: comfort because Charu knew what to do if Chitra collapsed; curse because Charu knew what Chitra's collapse would mean.

Slowly, sweetheart!

"Theek hai, Aai!" Chitra called back, her dupatta flying behind her as she ran with the small butterfly net that Bhushan had made from mosquito netting and a bent wire hanger — the improvisation of a father whose engineering skills were ecological, not mechanical, but whose ecological-engineering produced: a functional net.

Tanmay — five, sturdy, built like his maternal grandfather who had been a kabaddi player in Kolhapur — followed his sister with an empty Kissan jam jar. The jar that Bhushan had punched holes into with a nail, the nail-punching being the father's particular task in the firefly-catching ritual: provide the container, punch the breathing holes, supervise from a distance.

"Didi, woh dekh! Woh wala pakad!" Tanmay pointed at a particularly bright firefly hovering above the jasmine bushes. Didi, look! Catch that one!

July in Mulshi was: monsoon. The monsoon that had arrived on schedule this year — June 7th, the 7th being early enough to satisfy the farmers and late enough to worry the meteorologists, the worry being the permanent state of Indian meteorology: worry about the monsoon when it's late, worry about the monsoon when it's early, worry about the monsoon when it arrives on time because on-time might mean abnormal-normal.

The fireflies were magnificent tonight. Hundreds — perhaps a thousand — filling the tree line and the garden and the air between the garden and the trees with the particular yellow-green bioluminescence that the Sahyadri's firefly population produced during monsoon season. The bioluminescence being: the mating call, the call that said "I am here, I am alive, find me," the finding being reproduction and the reproduction being: the continuation of the species through light.

Bhushan stood on the first-floor balcony overlooking the garden, a glass of chai in his hand — the chai that Charu made with ginger and cardamom, the ginger-cardamom combination being Charu's particular recipe inherited from her mother in Sangli, the Sangli-recipe producing the specific taste that was home and that the home-taste accompanied the evening ritual of watching the children and watching the fireflies and the watching being: the ecological professor's particular joy — observing the natural world from his balcony with chai and the particular contentment of a man whose profession and passion were the same thing.

"Bhushan, utaro. Chitra thak jayegi." Charu — the instruction that was the concern, the concern being: the cardiologist had said Chitra could play but should not overexert and the overexertion being the line that they monitored constantly, the constantly being: every breath, every flush of colour, every moment of stillness that might be rest or might be the heart.

Bhushan, go down. Chitra will get tired.

"Main jaata hoon — ek minute." He set the chai on the balcony railing — the railing that was the old stone railing of the farmhouse that they had bought three years ago, the buying being the ecological professor's particular real estate decision: buy the farmhouse with the most biodiversity, the most-biodiversity being Mulshi's particular selling point.

Chitra swung the net at a firefly just above her head — the swing too late, the firefly blinking dark before the net arrived.

"Jab chamak raha hai tab pakadna, beta!" Bhushan called down. "Agar band hone ka wait karogi toh woh move ho jayega!" Catch it while it's flashing, sweetheart! If you wait for it to stop, it'll have moved!

Chitra giggled. The giggling that was the sound — the sound that Bhushan and Charu had decided, silently and without discussion, was the most important sound in their house. The sound that said: the heart was working, the lungs were filling, the child was alive and happy and the alive-and-happy being the state that the parents worked to maintain every day.

Chitra tried to jump for a firefly that hovered just beyond her reach — the jumping being the overexertion, the overexertion happening before anyone could prevent it. Her foot caught on the uneven ground — the monsoon-softened earth that was Mulshi's particular terrain hazard — and she fell.

She lay still.

The stillness — the stillness that was the trigger, the trigger being: Chitra lying still was the worst thing in the Kulkarni household's catalogue of worst things. The still-child being the possibility that the heart had stopped, the heart-stopping being the fear that lived in every room of the farmhouse and that the fear was: now.

"CHITRA!" Charu screamed from the verandah, already running, already moving with the particular speed that nurse-mothers produced when their patient was their child.

Bhushan was down the stairs before Charu reached the garden — the stairs taken three at a time, the three-at-a-time being the speed of paternal terror.

When they reached her, Chitra was sitting up. The sitting-up being: the relief. The relief that arrived like monsoon after drought — sudden, overwhelming, the relief washing through the body and the body processing the relief as: weakness, the knees softening, the adrenaline draining.

"Aai, main theek hoon. Bas gir gayi." Chitra — the seven-year-old's dismissal of the fall that had nearly stopped her parents' hearts.

Aai, I'm fine. I just fell.

"Saans aa raha hai? Chakkar nahi aa raha?" Charu — the nurse's assessment, the clinical questions that the mother asked because the mother was also the nurse and the nurse-mother needed the data.

Are you breathing okay? Not feeling dizzy?

"Nahi, Aai. Main theek hoon."

Tanmay held out the Kissan jar. "Didi, chal na. Abhi toh half bhi nahi bhara." Didi, come on. We haven't even filled half.

"Bas, Tanmay. Didi thak gayi hai." Bhushan — the father's intervention.

"Nahi thaki!" Chitra protested.

Bhushan picked up the net. "Achha, toh Baba ko try karne do?" He ran toward a firefly flashing three metres away — ran with the deliberate clumsiness of a father performing for his children, the performing being: miss the firefly, produce laughter, restore normalcy after the fall.

He swung. Missed. The firefly blinked dark before the net arrived.

Chitra giggled. "Baba, jab chamak raha hai tab pakadna!" The echoing of his own instruction — the echoing that was the child's particular victory: using the parent's words against the parent.

Baba, catch it while it's flashing!

Bhushan froze.

Not from the instruction. From the change.

The change being: the fireflies had stopped. All of them. Simultaneously. The simultaneously being — not a gradual dimming, not a one-by-one cessation, but the absolute and instantaneous termination of every firefly's bioluminescence within his field of vision. A thousand lights extinguished at the same moment, the same-moment being the synchrony that Bhushan's ecological training flagged as: impossible.

Fireflies did not synchronise in India. Indian firefly species — particularly Pteroptyx species in the Western Ghats — displayed synchronous flashing in specific locations (Bhandardara, Purushwadi), but the synchrony was coordinated flashing, not coordinated cessation. Coordinated cessation — every firefly stopping simultaneously — was not a documented behaviour. The not-documented being: unprecedented.

The garden was dark. The tree line was dark. The air between the garden and the trees was dark. The only light was the farmhouse behind him and the distant lights of Mulshi village across the valley.

Bhushan locked eyes with Charu. Charu whose mouth was open — the open-mouth being the expression of a woman who had seen something that the seeing could not process.

"Tune dekha?" Charu whispered. Did you see that?

He nodded.

"Baba, jugnu kahan gaye?" Chitra — her small hand reaching for his, the reaching being the child's instinct when the world became strange: reach for the parent.

Baba, where did the fireflies go?

"Pata nahi, beta. Tanmay, jar dikhao." He took the jar from his son, examining it against the farmhouse's backlight. Fifteen or so fireflies crawled along the bottom — alive, moving, but not flashing. Their bioluminescent organs dark. The dark-organs being the anomaly within the anomaly: the captured fireflies had also stopped, the stopping being: not a response to environmental stimulus (the captured ones were in a jar, separated from the external environment) but something else. Something internal. Something that had told every firefly simultaneously: stop.

"Bhushan?" Charu's voice — small, the small-voice being the voice that Charu used when the nurse's clinical training could not explain what the nurse was seeing.

"Mujhe nahi pata." I don't know.

The ecologist who did not know. The ecologist whose profession was knowing the natural world and whose knowing had been the compass and whose compass was now: confused. Because the natural world did not do this. The natural world did not switch off simultaneously. The natural world was gradual — dawn, dusk, seasons, migrations, the gradual being nature's tempo. Simultaneous cessation was not nature's tempo. Simultaneous cessation was: something else.

He stood in the dark garden. His daughter's hand in his. The fireflies gone.

The monsoon clouds above — dark, heavy, the clouds that would rain tomorrow or tonight or in an hour, the clouds being the only thing that remained normal in the moment that the normal had stopped.

He looked at the jar again. The fireflies still not flashing.

Something had changed. Something in the world had shifted — the shifting being the thing that Bhushan could not name and the not-naming being the terror: the terror of the ecologist who studied the natural world and who had just witnessed the natural world do something that the natural world was not supposed to do.