[ Short Story] Afternoons in Childhood

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Amrit threw down the pencil in frustration.  Doing fraction sums on a half empty stomach upon a Sunday afternoon was neither easy nor desirable.

His stomach growled.

He should not have protested so strongly about the beetroot curry. He went into the kitchen to see if his lunch plate was still there. His mother sometimes left it covered, knowing that he would return, even adding an enticement like papad or a small bowl of sev.

But today, she had been particularly annoyed.

He tiptoed into his parents’ room to see if they were asleep, then he crept out of the house, wheeling his bicycle to the elevator.

His lived on the fifth floor of a 9 storey apartment block.

He pedaled to the back yard to check if any of his friends were playing.

No one was about.

The summer sun hovered threateningly above, shoving

wanderers indoors.

Crows waddled about, pecking at food droppings from over flowing dumpsters their feet half buried in the soft-top soil.

He chased them on his bicycle. They rose cawing furiously; some flew threateningly above his head.

He soon grew tired of this pastime.

He circled the building and through shaded eyes scanned the monolithic column to see if any of his friends were playing in the balconies.

Suddenly, the smell of potato bhajjis roasting in hot oil, assailed his nostrils. The hunger he had kept in abeyance, rose again.

He took a couple of listless turns around the building.

He hesitated. Perhaps, it was time to go home. His mother might relent or, would she?

He made his way irresolutely towards the elevator.  

He left his cycle in the corridor and rang the bell.           

Lalitha opened the door; her right hand was caked with flour.

 He saw Vipul at the head of the table, his cheeks bulging with the bhajjies stuffed hurriedly into his mouth.

Vipul glared at him, shaking his head vigorously, signalling him to leave.

“Aunty, I wanted to see if Vipul wants to play…” He gave her his winning smile.

She nodded and let him in.

He smiled triumphantly.

He had been right about the house.

[Short Story] Shadows of Innocence

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Asha skipped in through the gates after getting down from the school bus, her satchel rattling behind her, her lunch bag waving wildly. She smiled as Chander the watchman gave her a mock salute. 

 

‘What is in that lunch box?’ he asked. ‘Chapati as usual…’ she replied without turning, her disappointment evident in her voice. She spotted Neeru, her best friend. The two sprinted towards the classroom eager to outdo the other.

A surprise awaited Asha in the classroom. She was to play the lead in the class play Red Riding Hood.

                      

                           *******************************************

After a hectic morning, I sat down thankfully at my desk for a much-needed break. I stared at Asha’s photograph on my desk. Dressed in a bright red T Shirt and a denim skirt, she had given her best smile. She was my three-foot, four inch angel, my world. I sighed, thinking about the argument we had that morning. Kritya wandered in with a mug of coffee, ‘Hey! Have you sent out the reports we prepared…’she stopped mid sentence. 

 

‘Daughter trouble?’ she asked.

 

‘How did you know?’ I asked with a weak smile.

 

‘ I am a mind reader …I can read almost every look that crosses that pretty face!’ she laughed.

 

‘So, what is the trouble this time with the little one?’

‘Kritya, these days, it is mostly about food… I am trying to teach her to eat healthy … but she resists so much! She threw quite a tantrum this morning all because I packed chapathi sabzi again… I am worried about her weight gain .’ Kritya shook her head and patted my hand. 

The telephone rang, signaling the end of my break and my rant I plunged back into work with a deep sigh.

It was 7:00 in the evening when I returned home. Shanti, the domestic help, bolted for the door after mumbling something about dinner – I smiled after her- she had her own set of troubles with a difficult marriage and two young children to look after. In the evening Asha was her normal endearing self again. After dinner, I put her to bed.

‘How was school today? What did you do?’

  Asha began talking excitedly non-stop. I smiled. Then she said with a pout. “Neeru’s papa came to pick her up today!’

She turned to me and asked, ‘Why is Papa always away?’ When is he coming next?”

 ‘Papa is really busy honey … what did he tell you on the phone yesterday? Did he not say that he would come in two weeks? With…’ I paused on purpose with my eyes dilated and my hands outstretched.

 I waited for her to say ‘with lots of gifts for me!’

But she turned over and wailed ‘I miss Papa! I want him now …’

I held her close to calm her but her tiny frame calmed the loneliness I felt inside.

She suddenly sat up and said, ‘Mamma! Mamma! Teacher said, I am going to be Red Riding Hood! Me!!! Neeru was so upset you know!’ she chuckled.

I gave her a tight hug. ‘We must buy you costumes… let’s go shopping this weekend!’ 

‘Mamma read to me!’ she commanded falling asleep midway.

 

'Where does your grandmother live, Little Red Riding Hood?

     A good quarter of a league farther on in the wood; her house stands under three large oak-trees, the nut-trees are just below; you surely must know it,' replied Little Red Riding Hood. 

 

My mind kept repeating ‘three large oak trees, three large oak trees three large … Tamarind trees… stirring the memory of an afternoon lying under the canopy of tamarind trees … of a soiled blue dress with large flowers …

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  She watched him with a fixed stare as he entered the darkened classroom. He smiled as he signaled her to be quiet, then handed her the bar of chocolate. She took it, her hands trembling, but since she had thrown away her lunch, she gorged at it, unmindful of what was happening to her. It had become their secret routine, this entire week.. A few minutes before school ended, she would ask to visit the bathroom, get into an empty classroom where he waited with a bar of chocolate. 

Asha felt really special from all this attention. He hugged her and whispered ' You are so beautiful... You are so beautiful and smart...! ‘Oh how I wish, that uncle is my father she thought, he is so kind and wants to be with me every day …!'

When the school bell rang, he clutched her arm and said, ‘This is our secret; don’t tell anyone, not even your mother! Do you understand?’ his voice had grown bolder and sterner over the days.

She hid the half eaten bar in her skirt pocket and ran to join the school bus queue.  Asha pushed back the hair that had escaped from the tiny pigtails her mother had struggled with in the morning, impatiently. She took out the bar of chocolate and ate it frequently making sure that no one was looking – she had to finish it before she reached home or her mother would be very angry and also ask who had given it to her.

That night as I bathed her, I noticed the mysterious red marks on her body. ‘What are these marks Asha, did someone hurt you?’

Asha looked confused and turned away. I shook her and asked her again insistently. My voice taking on an urgency that surprised me.

‘It’s Vivek sir… he’s very nice … he … he …he gives me chocolates that you never give … it’s a game … It was supposed to be a secret …now I’ve told you … he will be very angry…’ She whimpered between sobs.

I froze as I heard her speak. I wanted to know more, especially how long it had been going on for. But held back seeing how distraught she was.  I calmed her down, put her to bed. My mind raced through what I must do next-  complain to the school?  Complain to the police?  Go to the press? Withdraw her from school? Move to another city? As these questions raged …  other thought emerged, thoughts that I had buried in the farthest corner of my mind ...

  ‘So he walked for a short time by the side of Little Red Riding Hood, and then he said: 'See, Little Red Riding Hood, how pretty the flowers are about here - why do you not look round? I believe, too, that you do not hear how sweetly the little birds are singing; you walk gravely along as if you were going to school, while everything else out here in the wood is merry.' 

Thoughts I had locked away in labyrinthine vaults...  I lay wide-awake beside Asha thinking of that Deepavali a long ago. 

 

I must have been four or five years then.  We had gone to my uncle's home in a remote village in Andhra Pradesh. It was a tiny, sleepy hamlet with just one main road that formed a part of the state highway with the village extending broadly on either side of it. My uncle was a government official of some sort - had transfers every few years. We were all very happy with these transfers as it meant visiting and exploring new places.

 

I loved visiting my uncle since I got to spend time with my only surviving grandparent, my grand mother who was very fond of me. It was a large, beautiful house with vast, open spaces. There was a swing in the garden. There were flowering bushes, coconut trees, lemon trees,  and even a small banana plantation.

And then, there was grandpa. That’s how I addressed the old man. He was a neighbour. He had a kind face, was extremely affectionate from the minute he set eyes on me.  My grand mother, a very kind heated woman had taken him under her wing ever since his wife’s death. He sat me on his lap, wound his arms around me at our very first meeting. I tried to wriggle free but he playfully tightened his grip.

The next couple of days were magical. I remember him seating me on the swing and swaying me gently. Seating me on his bicycle and taking me for spins around the house.  

 

One day, he said,  ‘Kala! There are ducks in the village pond, would you like to see them?’He had posed it more as a question to my grand ma for approval.

We set off at day break the next day, after grand ma gave him a steaming cup of coffee. I had hurriedly gulped down a glass of milk eager to be on my way. 

'Look how impatient she is!' mother  joked. I left home, holding his hand as my mother watched indulgently from the veranda.

 We exited through the banana groove and made our way through narrow embankments that skirted the fields growing paddy and corn. I stopped to gawk at the bullocks that ploughed the fields, but he dragged me to a mango orchard that lay beyond.

‘So she ran from the path into the wood to look for flowers. And whenever she had picked one, she fancied that she saw a still prettier one farther on, and ran after it, and so got deeper and deeper into the wood.’

Right in the middle of the orchard was a huge pond.  There were ducks swimming in the water. With a surprising agility he jumped in, intent on startling them.  They quacked and moved away indignantly.  I waded into the water in eager pursuit of the tiny ducklings, which moved under the protective wings of their mothers. I screamed in fear as  I found my feet sinking in the soft mud and tried desperately to return to the bank. He rushed in, lifted me up and walked, holding me tightly in his arms.

‘Oh, your dress is ruined!’ he exclaimed and made an elaborate move to squeeze the water from my dress. It felt strange and uncomfortable.

 'I want to go back home!' I wailed. 

'I'll take you back, if that's what you want.' 

We began walking back.

We came upon a patch in which grew large tamarind trees.  I remember being pushed to the ground and his hands groping me urgently. I must have screamed and struggled - A few passerby came to my rescue. I am not sure if they saw anything.  ‘Grandpa’ left the scene quietly and I watched him leave through my tears.  The villagers escorted me home, but said nothing to my mother. He came warily the next day, but I kept my distance never leaving my mother’s side like the ducklings. 

 

He gave an uncomfortable laugh –‘ She didn’t like the ducks very much, she ran off with the villagers before I could stop her!’

I was confused and grew quiet over the next few days. I only told my mother that I wanted to go back home.  I didn't work up the courage to tell her what had really happened.  The horror of that fateful morning never left me, haunting me with a relentless regularity. Nightmares of lying there in the patch and looking up at the sky through the trees, shook me awake for many nights.  In my teen years I was plagued by the guilt of not exposing him.

Today, the monster was back and the victim was my daughter. 

 

As I sat there trembling, fervent singing from the neighbouring temple swathed me in a comforting embrace.

 

 

Madhumadhure madhukaiṭabhagaṃjini kaiṭabhabhaṃjini rāsarate
jaya jaya he mahiṣāsuramardini ramyakapardini śailasute 

 I joined in the song, my body pulsating with a powerful energy that engulfed and penetrated every pore of my being. The image of the Devi seated on her lioness, surrounded by her female army, giving out a blood curdling cry as she slayed the demon with her trishul sprang up in my mind. 

Suddenly all was clear. The divine mother within knew what her next steps would be.

[Blog] My days with grandmother - An abiding love

Whenever I think of my maternal grandmother (paati) two images quickly spring to mind - a large red rexine bag with a self pattern of roses and leaves and a pair of blue and white Bata slippers barely larger than mine placed neatly on the doormat.

I had no clue of paati's visits in those pre-telephone and pre-email days and even if she were to send a letter, she would probably arrive sooner as she lived just about a hundred kilometers away in the outskirts of Chennai, in my uncle's house.

Paati usually arrived sometime during the day when I was away at school and if I spotted the blue slippers, I would hammer impatiently at the door and rush screaming into the arms of the frail four foot frame of patti who waited equally impatiently for my arrival.She was a petite woman with silver white lustrous hair that she always wore in a neat bun in the back of her neck and I was always amazed at how she managed to swathe her frail form in the customary nine yard saree. Her face was wrinkled and shrunk like the rest of her body and her once fair complexion had changed to an even brown hue. Her ears and nose were no longer adorned by the shining diamonds that once rested there- (I hold preciously one of her nose pins that she gifted me in anticipation of my marriage when I was a barely four years old!) But she had startlingly pink lips that had somehow survived the ravages of time.

In those days, my mother tried (rather unsuccessfully, I might add) to teach me propriety but despite her glares I would excitedly look for 'the bag' and touching it ask excitedly, "Paati, what have you brought for me?"

The red bag was always the focal point of paati's visits as it held a virtual treasure trove of goodies- grandma had different gifts packaged neatly in old newspaper like candy, groundnuts, peanut candy and many other tidbits and she would release them at different points during the course of her visit.

I recall vividly one such visit and my unabashed question to her -"Paati what have you brought for me?" I remember her smiling excitedly at me and moving to 'the bag' with a spring in her step- my heart skipped a beat and my impatience was heightened by grandma's things that came out one by one from her bag- her neatly rolled bedding, neatly folded sets of clothing, her toiletries which she kept in a string bag that she had stitched herself. The wait seemed impossibly long but before I could cry petulantly - "What is it paati?" I heard the tiny clang of metal and my grandma unwrapped a set of tiny shining kitchen utensils made of brass. I let out a big scream as this was a windfall compared to the clay utensils that my mother bought me during the car festival at Mylpore, that promptly broke before the week was out! To my delight, I even found a traditional kitchen knife fixed to a wooden plank and other miniature versions of pots and pans and a stove.

I ignored my mother's entreaties to change from my school uniform to my 'home clothes.' I wanted to start play right away. My grandma with her winning ways narrated stories and coaxed me to do everything that was an improbability on ex-grandma days!

The next week was the rapidest one as she could never be persuaded to stay beyond a week at her daughter's house. That one precious week was filled with endless stories narrated till I fell asleep, next to her caressing her soft hands. She knew my taste in fiction and mealtimes were no longer a nightmare for my relieved mother.

Paati, I gathered later, was born into a rich landowner's family. She was married at the tender age of seven to my grandfather when he was still in school. Though she had attended school for a very short period, grandma was proud that she could write her name in English, and once, very slowly, she wrote it out when I appeared not to believe her. N. Subbalakshmi she wrote, with her eyes and concentration completely riveted on the slate, and her hand shook slightly as she tightly gripped the tiny piece of chalk. It is of course another matter that my knowledge of English at that point didn't exactly equip me to read such a long name, but I pretended to read nevertheless not wanting to disappoint her. But perhaps this pride or should I say signature happy tendency, sadly made her sign away all the wealth that grandfather had laboured to earn (and which she inherited due to his early demise) unwittingly to greedy relatives.


My innocent paati, had been cheated out of her wealth by avaricious family members, and the last years of her life were lived in great hardship. I remember the last time I saw my grandmother. She lay in a small bed in the corner of the living room in my uncle's house. She looked frailer than ever and I noticed how she had switched to wearing a six yards saree in white. I tried unsuccessfully to make her talk, but except for a brief look of recognition in her eyes, she lay there motionless. As I gazed at her, I heard my weeping mother complain that she had stopped eating for more than a week. I touched the almost cold hand that lay limp, outstretched. It registered no response. I returned to my home in a different city and the inevitable happened within a week's time. The only grandparent I had ever known, the only being who had given me so much of her love and attention unconditionally, the confidante and play mate of my childhood, was finally gone! I felt as if a part of me had gone with her and every thought of grandma makes my eyes brim with tears and I miss her today as much as I have done over all these years.

I still have the brass utensils, that have a pride of place in my curios display. Every time I polish them, I go into a reverie. I long to have her once more with me, and tell her what an angel she had been and how her visits had brightened my rather drab childhood, and how I regret not having the opportunity to express my gratitude. I want to make up for the disappointments she had faced for being childlike and want her to know how she had featured prominently in my thoughts in all the years of my youth though she had only touched me in the limbo of early childhood.

And I treasure those tiny vessels to pass on to my yet to be born grandchildren, and with them the selfless, benevolent love that survives and abides in my heart today.

[Blog] Waiting...

If we look at our life it seems that life is one long journey that involves a lot of waiting. When we are young – we are often told – ‘You are too young for this ' or ‘Wait till you grow up!’ There is so much curiosity in childhood about what people(especially my dad) do in offices and why falling in love is a taboo. I am reminded of my frustration when my limited rights have been taken away from me as punishment and of that ubiquitous neighbourhood bully who ensured my forced 'grounding' and how much these instances triggered my desperation to grow up.

When one is five years old, adulthood seems like its only five years away. But once there, there are still things that are out of reach. Like the fact that you cant play for too long outside, there are issues with pocket money and that bully continues to be a threat. So then you tell yourself 'wait a few more years'- and you meander through life and before you know it you are twenty.

For a five year old by 20 one should realistically be over the moon- but alas as we age our needs change too. So the obsession with where dad goes in the morning is not there anymore- in fact you don’t care where he goes as long as he finances your needs- now the wait is for that particular college in the city and that particular course.

And I almost forgot that particular member of the opposite sex whom you have decided that you can't live without for the rest of your life.
Then there is that wait for the job, the promotion, the desired salary –the house in the upmarket locality, the car that is the envy of all your friends, the children that excel in academics-The list of all the things we wait for seems endless...

Recently a thought crossed my mind. Amid this endless waiting people have stopped to ask these questions as well.
 Is there a meaning to life?
Is there life after death?
Is there a god up there somewhere and do people keep their tryst with their maker?

So this endless rehearsals that is played out through out our life with waiting and outcome- is for that one major wait for that all important answer-
Unfortunately the dead don’t return to enlighten us and when death does take one away we may be past caring for the outcome.