My mum once emptied a packet of salt in a jar of sugar-a singular incident that served as an indictment of her abysmal housekeeping skills as long as it lasted.
That is how I remember my mother.
A packet of salt emptied into a jar of sugar. That is how she remembers me too.
That is perhaps how everyone remembers one another. Provided they have known and loved each other enough.
The train stands at the station, dark but packed with people, who look out at the vast expanse of the station, empty save for a last few beggars. Even the beggars are done for the day. They do not beg, they do not sing, they do nothing to bother the people on the train. Instead, they pull out sheets and children out of nowhere and prepare for a good night’s sleep. A particularly young one, a woman, lulls her child to sleep on her lap, crooning a familiar tune that is barely recognisable in her improvised rendition. The child doesn’t mind, his mother has always sung that way, and sleeps peacefully as she watches over her. A passenger, presently alighted from the train, drops a coin in front of her, the clink from the drop stirring the child in his sleep. The mother looks up, her brows knitted in irritation, but it’s only a second before reason tides over instincts and she smiles a little at him.
Inside, the people are hot. They sit impatiently with suitcases tucked between their legs, the impervious heat preventing them from settling fully back into their seats. The men wave their sweaty collars to the fans as if to corroborate their pleas, which listlessly stare down from the roof, all black and rusty. They give up and turn to each other instead, engaging in inane banter that helps keep their minds off the heat. The ice breaks with asking each other their destination which is swiftly followed by a question on the hometown and as the conversation rolls on, they invariably discover a person who happens to be somebody to both the families. Before entire familial ties can be established, the train jerks to a start, and the camaraderie that had brewed in the sweltering heat, fizzles out under the cool breeze of the fans. The beggar boy, pretending to be asleep on his mother’s lap, perks his head up to wave goodbye to the train and I crane my neck against the window hoping someone is waving back at him.
Our family sits next to the lavatories- booking at the last minute, those were the only seats available. My uncle remains largely unperturbed while his wife complains into her dupatta, which wraps like a serpent around her neck and ends in a moustache on her son. My mother, unbothered by the stench, stares intently out of the window, the darkness telling her secrets that it refuses to disclose to anyone of us.
The sixth unfortunate passenger traveling with our family of five (actually, three plus two, but he doesn’t need to know that), is about the same age as me. An affable fellow, he has a lot of questions to ask, and even more to answer, something that doesn’t sit right with my aunt as she casts sidelong glances at him. My mother on any other occasion, would have disengaged me from his company but today she keeps to her window and doesn’t say a word. I wonder if she has finally understood me. And in the way it is only possible to be cruel to oneself, my inner voice makes a mockery out of me.
The auto rumbles past the sparse township, too loud for the early hours of the day, as we peer intently out at the distance, seeking the first instance of the sea. A cold wind blows in our faces, me being the first one seated against it, as we all draw ourselves a little inward, gathering our body heat. Ma drops the end of her dupatta on my lap, pretending to rummage through her handbag, and I pick it up just as casually and wrap it around us. The diaphanous weave barely helps but it is better than nothing, and thus wrapped together is how we first spot the sea and I am almost grateful for the wind. The sea trails us like a serpent, foaming softly in the distance, until the indigenous township begins to fall away revealing the full expanse of it.
There is still time till our check-in, so we wait at the sea wall in front of our hotel, sharing between us biscuits and sandwiches made with leftovers from the previous night’s dinner. The others sit facing the road, while I face the sea, trying to trace the elusive rays of the sun as it makes its way above the horizon.
Suddenly, Ma shouts. Sonu has run off behind some horse.
I watch as she drags him back by the shoulders, his small frame flailing behind her, her shoulders especially sharp and square against the first light of the day. It makes me sad- a single, runaway mother of a girl, she had been allowed far fewer mistakes than others, and it shows in the way she holds herself very upright, always a little too stern.
Behind us, the sun had already completed its elusive ascent above the horizon, and now we had to sit in its heat before the hotel would take us in.
If words are spoken but not acknowledged, does it absolve the audience of its knowledge?
That is perhaps what Mrinalini contemplated when her daughter came out to her.
At first, she didn’t understand her. Then she thought it was a joke, then considered it was too insolent of her and eventually found it gross.
Gross. That is not what a parent would like to think of her child.
All the magnanimity that she had assumed to be accepting of her daughter’s choice had left her shoulders. They were weighed down by shame instead. Shame and perhaps also defeat.
Is this what happens to parents who trust and send their children to cities?
My friend was once groped by a tout in a temple. We were in the fourth standard. Esha had come back from the holidays and been unusually quiet. When we asked her, she refused to say anything to us. Many weeks later, huddled together in the bathroom, we were reading cheesy messages off the walls when she told us. We didn’t know what it meant, she didn’t know very well how to explain. But in the way, her palms broke out in sweat within mine, I knew it must not be good.
This is the first thing that comes to my mind as I stand outside the Jagganath Temple. Strange how fear has its way of staying alive in memories. I had visited the temple once before as a child though I seem to have no recollection of it. Everyone tells me I was very irritable on that trip- with the vagaries of a five-year-old, shoving and pushing amongst a thousand people to offer prayers didn’t quite make sense to me. Today, some twenty years later, I still don’t know any better but under my current predicament, I would like to hope it makes a difference. The temple has been washed recently, the stones feeling wet underneath our feet. While it does come as a relief, it is also reminiscent of Esha’s palms from that day.
Outside the main sanctum, people await in hundreds. We add our five to that and join them in waiting, inwardly going over all the things we have to ask of the deity.
Acceptance? Forgiveness? But aren’t they mutually exclusive?
Just as we are about to enter, our batch is stalled, to preferentially admit a group of saints, naked and covered in ashes. We watch as they pay their obeisance before us, their routine more elaborate than ours, the image of their bare manhood clouding my mind when it’s our time to pray.
Ironic, now that I think about it.
On our way out of the temple, we happen to meet the family matchmaker. The elders catch up on the old times, talking about this and that, as my mother casually brings out a photograph and slips it into his hands. I watch as my long hair flutters in his hand, paan staining the bridge of my nose as his fingers clamp down on it.
We go to wet our feet in the ocean after that. Aunty doesn’t join us, she is too tired from the trip and Sonu cites stomach ache which we suspect is just nerves. So the three of us go, Ma flanked by uncle and me on either side. The sand is soft and wet. We wait in anticipation as the first wave hits the shore, breaking and halving as it travels up to our feet. It breaks a second time at our ankles and travels further behind us, the sand shifting beneath our feet, unmooring us momentarily. As it recedes, cushions of sand collect between our toes, and we dig our heels deeper, preparing for a second round.
Two hours in, many such second rounds have passed. Emboldened by fellow tourists, we have ventured further into the sea and presently we stand waist-deep in water. The waves are coming in big and the retreat is strong and on our way out of the waters, we are inadvertently caught in one. I let go of Mum’s hand but she doesn’t let go of mine, and because she is pulling me against the flow, I end up dislocating my shoulder.
The salty wind stings the eye as another auto takes us back to the station. The sea is no longer visible in the darkness but you can hear the waves coming in. It’s a good thing, that sound. I try focusing my senses on it.
‘It was smart of you to let go of Mrinal’s hand when you did’ Uncle says. ‘At this age, it would have taken her a long time to recover’.
I nod and then add a smile to it, the waves roaring in to protest against my lie.
I move in with my girlfriend a few months later- a small rented, apartment where we are office colleagues for all intents and purposes. Our building lives in the shadows of many taller ones and as such gets very little sunlight, a darkness always prevailing in its quarters that we try to dispel with flowers and folks. We don’t talk about it, the apartment is already over our budget, hoping our situation would turn around soon and it would make for a good story later. Honestly, I doubt we would be together long enough to tell the story.
Deeksha is from the city. Born and raised in a broken family, she drifted from this house to that, living with her parents and grandparents until either side of her family could give up their competing claims on her. She came out to her family when she was sixteen, at an age when I probably didn’t even have the vocabulary for it, with her family taking it as a consequence of her unnatural upbringing, each blaming the other side. She accepted their interpretation if it meant keeping their noses out of her business, using the story to reveal her characteristic dry humour at any date or party. I envy her situation sometimes, how little guilt is associated with her choices, how casual she can be with them, and that, sometimes, makes me fear it too. A few days back, I saw her scrolling through a dating app. I knew she had it in her phone, and I knew she scrolled through it at times, but moving in together was supposed to have meant something, but it clearly wasn’t any different to her.
It is a Sunday morning. I am on a deep cleaning spree around the house, seeking out dust from behind curtains and cabinets inaccessible to maids in a hurry. The laundry is already done and I have finally found and washed the sneakers I wore to the beach that day. The pair hangs from the clothesline, the laces tied together, looking like misshapen wings of an angel fallen from God’s grace. A small pool of water gathers underneath, rainbowy with detergent.
On the couch, Deeksha is scrolling through her phone. She has been following the trial for legalising gay marriage lately and it gives me hope- not the trial but that she is interested in it. She occasionally reads aloud snippets from the trial, her voice laced with disdain, and I chime in with my two pence which is never as good as her retorts.
“The centre argues it’s an urban elitist concept”
I know she expects me to laugh but the proposition is only too familiar. I offer a smile instead, my thoughts traveling to my mum. I wonder if she is following the trial. I wonder if she feels vindicated listening to this.
Outside, two starling birds are chirping. They have been frequenting our area quite often, but I hardly ever get to catch a glimpse of them. I whistle out of the window and crane my neck against it but the building has blocked out most of the sky and the angles are not feasible. Instead, I catch a reflection of one of them flying in the puddle underneath my sneakers, our rainbowy sky a bit too small to contain both of them in flight.
