Lathi
Photo: Ravi Roshan
Flash Fiction: ‘And somewhere in this city, perhaps not far from where he stood, lay something that was once human, broken and beaten by the vengeance that still radiated from the piece of wood, now quivering in his tiny hands.’
The little boy saw it purely by chance. It lay hidden in the puddle on the small cement stage where he played daily. His ball had bounced awkwardly off it, urging him to investigate. It was about a foot and a half long. Broken off at one end, much like a sugarcane snapped in two, with one side chipped off unevenly. That end tapered to a jagged point resembling a screwdriver, exposing the tough teak strands that made up its core.
The other end was rounded and polished—clearly once the handle. The centre bore scars, as if an iron-toothed dog had gnawed at it viciously, chipping away, but never truly harming it.
There was something arresting, almost menacing about it. The boy drew back at first, afraid.
Years later, deep in the jungles of central India, he would encounter a one-horned veteran—an alpha gaur, massive, black, dangerous, a tiger-killer—and feel that same chill of dread. Hypnotic. Full of latent rage. It was the single horn that made the feeling so visceral. Just one. Which meant that somewhere, drying in the burning jungle sun, was the skeleton of a royal Bengal tiger, its teak-like rib cage pierced by a massive horn.
And somewhere in this city, perhaps not far from where he stood, lay something that was once human, broken and beaten by the vengeance that still radiated from the piece of wood, now quivering in his tiny hands.
*
“A lathi,” his father said, without needing to examine it.
Seeing the question on the boy’s face, he added, “A police lathi. Used by policemen.”
“To catch thieves?”
His father gave him a long look.
“Many years ago, my watch was stolen in Delhi,” his father said. “The police didn’t bother at first. But back then, I worked in the Home Ministry and pulled some strings that had them jump into action. Soon, I was called to the station.”
He paused, his face tightening.
“They had the cobbler on the floor. Arms spread. The inspector had a lathi across his ankles, pressing down, rolling it slowly over the cobbler’s back. The man shrieked. Have you ever seen a trapped bird? How it beats its arms against the floor. Then they switched to another stick, hitting his back. Again, and again. Like they were working, not beating.”
Later, his father began using the same stick for his wrist curl exercises. The boy would often wake up to the sight of his father’s thick wrists rolling the lathi in his hands, winding a rope around it, lifting a heavy weight on the other end. The lathi never bent, never budged, never creaked. Over the years, it wore out many hemp ropes, but never showed a single scar.
*
One day, a pigeon flew into the boy’s room. It fluttered helplessly, flapping around in panic. The boy screamed, terrified, not knowing that the bird meant no harm.
His father appeared in the doorway, still and silent.
The boy’s eyes darted to the lathi, lying beneath the cupboard. He freed it from the rope. And struck.
By chance, his blow connected. The bird dropped.
Feeling a strange, searing power flow into him through the wood, the boy charged at the stunned, quivering bird. He hit it again. And again.
From a distance, his father watched.
And in that stillness, in that silence, the boy felt, perhaps for the first time, that his actions had found a quiet, invisible place in his father’s gaze.
He pushed the bird into a bucket and pinned it to the bottom. Light feathers and hollow bones crunched with a dry sound at the bottom of the red plastic bucket, as he thrust the lathi furiously into the hapless bird.
He raised the lathi and beat it.
And he beat it.
*
What remained with him long after was not just the lathi, or the rope, or even the silence. It was the memory of the bird — mute, wings splayed at the bottom of the bucket, returning in quiet moments, crushed beneath a darkness that was now his own.
***
Rajan Narayan is an advertising professional, storyteller, and observer of life’s absurdities. With a career spanning over two decades across media and branding, he brings a keen eye for nuance and a flair for narrative to everything he writes. His stories—rooted in Indian middle-class realities—combine humour, heart, and unflinching honesty. He has published 4 books, 3 novels and one non-fiction book. His latest, Pitara, (May 2025) is a collection of essay short stories and poems drawn from lived moments, overheard conversations, and the chaos of being human. You can find him on Instagram: @lonely_cloud_consulting.
