Thirteenth

(adapted from a true incident)

         

One, two, three, four, f… twelve and then she herself – the thirteenth.             

At the head of the squirming file is Distrustful Old Man. The overseer gives him a thin pile of red currency notes which he counts thrice. Distrustful Man does this on every pay day. He does this even though, like everyone else, he knows Overseer Jabbar doesn't cheat the payees in counts. His schemes for stripping the workers of their money are indiscernible; or, in any case, not easy to catch; and not in the slightest by means of a simple count with saliva-lubricated fingers.          

Twelve!            

Let this be quick!          

Twelve!          

Distrustful Man steps sideways to leave. Stops. Takes a step back. But Jabbar's icy glare makes him start off.            

Eleven to go!

This one’s bound to be quick. It is the turn of  Heroin Addict who will grab his money with a shivering hand and stride off toward the powder-boy who lingers in the shadow of the bairi tree. The powder boy’s kamis pocket is sagging with the weight of the white powder wrapped in small conical pouches made of hand-torn pieces of newspaper.  

Heroin Addict paces toward the boy, fast, as though he suspects that the pouches will all be sold out before he completes his twelve strides. 

Once again, she counts the heads aligned ahead of her.   

Ten! 

Tenth from her, luckily, is another quick riddance; yellow-eyed Disease Junkie whose latest contact, an overseas germ with a a difficult name, has left him looking like a deflated balloon, hollow inside a crumpled bag of limp hide. From the pay desk, Disease Junkie diectly goes to pay off his outstanding credit at the pharmacy (not to speak of the mounting credit at the quack doctors’ clinic) before he returns to his tent, bent beat up his wife black-and-blue if she comes up with one of her intrinsically erratic demands.   

All of a sudden, Jabbar stands up. Her heart lurches. But it’s only to let the errand boy wipe the table top above which hundreds of slothful flees are hovering, collecting their share from the continent of dried tea and other remains of the meals Jabbar’s been eating through the day.

She turns her gaze towards the basti, the sprawling stretch of tents and huts, listening, trying to make out what goes on out there. But there are no sounds other than shouts of street lads playing a game of Pithoo Garam on the clearing near the swamp. Their high-spirited calls clash with the hazy gloom of the twilight that has cloaked the tents.   

What if one of the children shooed away by their mothers – they are highly intolerant of rowdiness and annoyance at this time of the day – enters her deserted tent? What if…?   

A deadly chill spreads in her limbs like ink dissolves in water. She curls her toes to stop her feet from gelling. 

And she jolts her mind back to the proceedings at the pay desk.  

Ten is gone. Money in being counted to pay the person nine heads up the line from her!          

It is Blind Woman’s Son who never looks up to let his gaze meet the overseer’s eyes. He accepts the money offered him rather bleakly; not yet looking at the money-lender who is standing a mere four, five feet away. Holding the money in his hand, Blind Woman’s Son walks straight towards the money-lender, gives him the pad of eleven red notes – still not looking up(or around) – folds the two purple one (enough to buy 21 cigarettes; three a day for the next seven days)and deposits them deep into his shalwar pocket, and, with his gaze still raking the ground, walks away.            

One, two, three…eight! She counts the heads again to be sure. Yes, there are eight left. Eight like eight corners of a coffin. The image of a small coffin emerges. 

The vision culls other images. Dark gaping holes. And sounds. Shrill and lamenting! Unbearably shrill and lamenting! She flinches.  

Bang! A shutter falls! Veiling the images; throttling the wails.  

Acrid smoke from fire made from kerosene oil on damp firewood is stinging her eyes now. So... basti women have already started lighting fires in their hearths to cook their evening meals. It’s earlier than their usual cooking time. Ah! It’s pay day.  They are impatient to cook and eat. They’ll all eat well today. Fools!!

A queer thought pops up in her head. 

Will I eat tonight?  

It is Wise Man facing Jabbar now. Wise Man is a bearded fellow who has no family. Just pigeons.  Oh, how she reveres his saintly judgment! His acumen which makes him see danger much before it becomes large enough to crush you to a numb pulp! Perhaps he knows that a laborer’ shoulders are not strong enough to carry the weight of a family. Perhaps that is why he has no family. Just pigeons. Pigeons are fine; low maintenance, non-complaining, less emotionally adhering, and self-caring. 

Wise Man's gone. That was quick.  

In spite of what happened when she went to tend to her sick baby during the tea break, she feels lucky there have been no holdups at the pay desk . 

Thank you God!

God? Are you there?

Some delay, however, is inevitable. The next disbursement can take long; very long. It’s the turn of the payee who is seventh from her.        

Dark-eyed Female, her blatantly protruding breasts half visible owing to the fact that many buttons on her kurta front are missing, bangs Jabbar’s desk with her fist. He will now open another ledger and show her a muddle of numbers and words scribbled on an oil-stained page; and they will argue – a most friendly argument of course – over some money that was once lent (no one knows by whom...to whom). She will mock a frown and he will simper evilly. She will roll her eyes and he will tell her to add and subtract certain numbers to and from other numbers. She will bend down a bit too low to look into the ledger; his eyes will make the most of this opportunity to closely graze through the dark treasure behind the clammy fabric of her kurta. He’ll whisper. She’ll whisper. Only when he will thrust in her hand, a clump of currency notes that will seem a bit too thick as compared to ones the rest of them are getting, will it all end.         

Turning her head towards the huts, she waits for it to be over. 

A mushroom of smoke has haloed the basti from above. And there is a stench on the breeze now. Every day, at this time, a shitty reek rises from the swamp and sits on the basti, pressing all other odors down. Is it that or...? She sniffs to know.  

Back at the desk, the dark-eyed Female has moved from the head of the queue; not to leave though; only to stand behind Jabbar’s chair. And he has an ugly leer on his cigarette-stained lips now.        

Everyone takes a step forward. She too takes a step forward and bends her head sideways to count the workers ahead of her in the pay queue.          

One, two, three… six! Six like six sides of the coffin. Six little planks of wood. Why? Why do coffins have to be so dreadfully small? Oh, so dreadfully small and stiffling!

Time should move faster. Can time move faster? Oh please time move faster!!

It is the turn of Pubescent Boy who has cultivated a limp moustache to prove that he is qualified to stand in the row of adult workers and hence be paid full wages not half like other under-aged boys who get paid on Thursdays. He usually chews at a twig or hums a Punjabi song or takes a comb out from his pocket and starts combing his oiled hair to hide his nervousness till Jabbar brings a money-bearing hand forward. Then he grabs the money, quickly, denying Jabbar the loose moment in which he could change his mind and tell him that he should come back on Thursday. Pubescent Boy, she quite knows, is the kind who fight their fights to the end. What if a row begins? What if? What if? It all depends on one man. Jabbar.          

But dark-eyed Female has had the usual effect on him. He is flying high . He pays the boy without any argument.       

Next is her next-door neighbor, Dutiful Father. He is a gaunt man, ghastly with ever eating lesser than what he burns under the blazing sun through the day. He puts his sweating hands on the grimy table-top, rests his weight on it and waits. Jabbar will now tell him off for not doing enough work. Dutiful Father will explain that he's been unwell but now he's fine.                                                   

She can fortell every conversation at the pay-desk because these are all characters of a world that she  knows through and through. It's a world in which the builder is more moved by the slightest rise in cement rate than the fall of a worker from the tenth storey; in which the overseer does more free husbandry than the village bull and is as uncaring of the outcome. She can even see the future of dusky Female standing behind Jabbar’s chair; crystal clear: from pampered to pregnant to dumped. How similar she appears to what she herself had looked like a year ago! Hair-line a frame of two reddish-gold strands of hair bleached with hydrogen-per-oxide; eye-brows shaven into two thin bows; lips and gums dyed a deep red with maswaak .

A smile rises to her lips; a bitter, cheated smile.       

Dutiful Father leaves. Every one moves one step ahead; so does she. Leaning her head sideways, she starts the head count again. One, two, th-th… She stops. The world swa-a-a-ys; her vision wavers; her feet go heavy as if cupfuls of liquid iron have been injected into them; her temples throb. 

The world is about to topple over.      

‘You’ve waited so long; you can wait still more! You can! If I can, you can too!’ someone inside her yells to someone else inside her. She wrenches the tumbling world backward to fit it back into its old casing.

Just four payees are left now. Four, like four stumps of the manji on which they lay the dead body once they know  about the death; four like four wheels of the NGO van that takes unclaimed dead-bodies to unknown, far-off grave yards.      

She looks toward the huts again.  

Dusk is slowly eating up all shapes and forms, reducing the basti to a stark silhouette streched out against a gray brooding sky. Other than a shrill call now and then, there are no sounds coming from that side now.  

Why is the basti so still?? Why? It is not normal.  

And her next thought is to run back to her tent and pick up her baby in her arms; to hold it to her chest; to her lips; press its cold cheek against hers.   

She realizes that she isn’t numb; that deep down she has been thinking about the baby sleeping in a sling in her tent, throughout. Throughout reliving the instants that passed between her running over to her tent during the tea-break to see her sick baby and running back. Throughout feeling the stiffness of her baby’s cold body on her fingers. Throughout feeling that great need to cry out. And throughout telling herself not to. Asking herself over and over: What is bigger? The cry inside you or your want of snatching away this chance of redemption from Jabbar? You have tolerated his indifference. But can you tolerate his compassion? Can you?

No! 

So, the stronger half of her mind had drawn up a course of action for the weaker half.

‘Go numb and hold on to the numbness,’ the strong voice had ordered.  

Money. You'll need money? Some at least? Where would that come from? The meek voice had asked.   

 It’s pay day. Jabbar owes you three days’s wages…900 rupees… and if you complete today’s dehaari…300 rupees…  you will have enough for… the strong voice had said. 

And she had run back to the building site. She had begun hauling stacks of bricks – wheelbarrow after wheelbarrow – with a new, a much more passionate vigor. After all, only an hour and a half was left.        

Blind Woman’s Second Son shifts his weight from his right leg to left and right again, gearing up to receive his six day’s wages; wages that the money lender will not snatch away; wages that will light a fire in the blind woman’s cold hearth and keep feeding the fire for the next six days.      

He runs away with the money. 

He’s gone. 

Three left.        

One…       

Two…      

Three…       

All of a sudden her body craves giving up. Her ear-canals cringe against the hammers pounding on her ears. Her breasts pulsate with a raw anguish. She lets go. Stony body, loosens. Taut limbs liquefy.      

From somewhere deep inside her, a shriek tears toward her throat.     

‘Cash finished!’ Jabbar calls, scratching his bald head; yawning and stretching his thick limbs far and wide, he pushes his chair back to get up.       

A small whimper is heard above the buzz of compliant grouses against scarcity of pay-money. A nameless sigh. The three men in front of her as well as numerous others in the row behind her disperse quickly.        

She hasn’t moved. She looks the other way now, toward the road where buses that take people to strange destinations, stop. Where to are all these people always going? How come she doesn’t have anywhere to go? She often thinks of boarding one of the green, tattooed buses and asking the man dangling out of the door like a loose attachment of the lorry, to take her somewhere; to some other place; she doesn’t know its name yet; she’ll ask someone about it; there ought to be one out there for her. 

 An echo surfaces the sea of thuds roaring around her. A word. Is it her name? Is someone calling her? She looks towards the huts and sees the wife of Dutiful Father running towards her, beating the air about her mad with two hysterically-flinging arms. On the other side, a cloud of dust rises; a bus emerges from it and decelerates as it approaches the bus-stop.      

Suddenly, she runs.

The Scent of Haar-Singhaar

The Scent of Haar-Singhaar

That afternoon we had new and more explicit plans of stealing the grapes hanging invitingly low in the portico of the railway mansion. Sagging with their own weight, the luscious bunches were so eye-catching, anyone who passed by the low gate would inevitably ogle them. We were dying to get to the grapes before Naghma, the street tomboy who had an impressive history of outsmarting us in the field. But it wasn't easy. The gardener, Maali Manna, mindful of proximate poachers and determined to see the grapes through, was keeping a round-the-clock surveillance. Bobby said that he had come to know through a reliable source that Maali Manna was in reality a snake that had lived for a hundred years and had acquired the power to transform into anything. Playing Khoh in our backyard on a dark night last week, he had scared the wits out of me, saying that the cat skulking along the edge of the wall was none other than Maali Manna himself; that he was following us because he knew that we were planning to get the grapes.

Nothing could deter us though. We were all set for that afternoon. Bobby and I had had a heart-to-heart at school during lunch hour to firm the plan up. Comparing our recent accomplishments with that of Naghma’s gang’s, we had come to conclude that that the secret of their success was hidden in numbers: they were five and we were just three.

“But Seemi’s begging to join. We’ll be four if you allow her,” I had argued.

“Seemi? The grown-ups’ spy? I don’t trust her. And look at her age. She’s six or something,” Bobby had said, pushing his sleeves back to bare his brawny arms.

“She’s seven and one-and-a-half month!” I had said in his face, taking offence of Bobby disrespect of my cousin Seemi’s reliably mature age.

"And two hours and five minutes! Hahaha.” he had laughed cruelly.

Lately, I had developed distaste for Bobby's bragging. Up until now, he had us in awe, behaving as if any other strength was inconsequential in the face of the single advantage that he had: AGE. Afterall, he was TWELVE.

“You can bring her along today. We’ll test her,” he had finally given his consent.

I was so excited for Seemi that as soon as I reached home, I ran across the road to my grandfather’s house where my cousins lived, to tell her the news. She was ecstatic. Then, I warned her of her probationary status.

"If you do anything wrong today, you will never ever be a part of our group. Nevvver!!!"

"Why? I can climb a wall more quickly than any of you. Even Bobby," she boasted.

“That's not important," I said.

"Then what is?"

"You'll know," I said, just to intrigue her. "Now listen. After lunch today, when K takes us to the drawing room to sleep, we’ll have to do some acting. Be sure: Eyes to close but not to fall asleep in real; okay? And wait for K's Big Snore. Not the first snore but the Big Snore. The one that jerks her up...like this. It will come; that’s for sure. That will be our go-ahead sign. We’ll slip out and meet up B. He’ll be waiting for us in the Estate Car."

Not the least bit dazzled by my sign language, Seemi gave me an all-knowing smile, as if deciphering codes was nothing new for her. I was desperate to impress her. She was as desperate to prove she was un-impressible. During lunch, she kept passing meaningful looks to me and Chino, for which I forgave her, thinking that she was new so she didn’t know how important it was to act normal and straight-faced before an exploit. But my patience was short-lived.

Right after swallowing her last bite, she said to our aunt, Khalida Phuppo whom I had refered to as K, and who used to tend us during the afternoon, “Phuppo, I’m very sleepy and so are the others. Can you please take us to the drawing room to sleep."

 I could have thrashed her for this. Who didn’t know that we hated being confined to the drawing room for the long summer afternoons? As feared, Khalida Phuppo became suspicious.

“You think I’m mad that I’ll believe that you want to sleep. Come on be quick and tell me what you all are up to,’ she said, eying all three of us doubtfully. I felt like wringing Seemi’s neck but all I could do was say with mock nonchallance, "We don't want to sleep. Take her if she wants to!"

Eventually, we were herded towards the drawing room, which, for no known reason, was converted into the children’s room during the afternoon hours. In a few minutes we were all lying on the white sheets spread out on the carpet.

"I'll tell you the story of the Lady-finger that could...” Khalida Phuppo said with a yawn.

“No. The King and His Seven wives,” I prompted.

Invariably, Khalida Phuppo would fall asleep telling us one of her farfetched stories. She had a cache of them in her head from which she picked one and began a somewhat mechanical narration as soon as everyone was down and the lights went off. She was one of those grownups who naively think that all children ought to enjoy unbelievable tales of fanciful fairylands. Also that these tales make chidren dreamy and hence dozy. Actually, it was the other way round. Telling a story made her sleepy. And this particular tale of the king who had seven childless wives was so repetitive and long-drawn; she would become yawny and heavy-eyed right after she started. On record, her limit was the point when the king’s seventh wife eats a half-eaten mango and gives birth to a half-bodied boy. That afternoon, she was snoring way before; when the king’s fourth wife was doing her part of the mischief.

"Phuppo, Masi Resham is stealing cream from the fridge," I whispered in her ear to see if she was gone, finding no patience in myself for waiting for the Big Snore. No reply came. She was down for the next two hours at least. I stood up and tapped Seemi and Chino with my toes. We sneaked out onto the veranda one by one.

Life generally slept the hot afternoons through. On the cool, black-n-white floor of the veranda, under the creaking ceiling fan, our old servant, Laal-deen, lay wheezing in his kip. And under the haar-singhaar vine which had spread elaborately on the brick-lined portico of the house, two outdoor dogs were fast asleep too. We stopped to estimate the danger they posed. One of them opened his eyes and rolled them at us. Luckily, he wasn't curious enough. He made a lazy circle in the air with his tail and closed his eyes again. We tiptoed past them.

Once on the drive, we bolted towards the main gate and burst out on the deserted road. Nothing stirred the familiar afternoon tranquility. The only sounds that could be heard was a train engine clanking in the distance and pained grunts of a sick horse someone had tied with the trunk of the old peepul tree. Bobby, as planned, was hiding in the rusted, dust-coated Hillman that we called 'The Estate Car' –  again, for no known reason. Year after year, the Estate Car had stood beside the gate, slowly sinking in the earth, so completely devoid of its original glory. It now looked as if it was just a car-shaped contour in the soil. We ran and opened its only functional door. There, lying on his back on the floor of the back seat, his arms folded in a cross behind his head, was another sleeping figure. Our team head, Bobby.

We woke him and he gave us The Plan.

The Plan made me twitchy. Why had Seemi been given the central role? But I reserved my opinion. Soon, the four of us were heading towards the gate of the Railway mansion.

We peeped through the chinks between the rickety planks of the wooden gate. There wasn’t a soul to be seen.  At that decisive moment, Seemi asked the most ridiculous question:

"Will they send us to jail if we’re caught?”

Instead of reprimanding her or slapping her as I wished he’d do at that moment, Bobby glared at me. I could see the line, ‘See; I told you!’ written clear and bold in his eyes. I placed a sharp little smack on Seemi’s head; but she was too thrilled to care. Bobby unlatched the gate and we stepped in one by one. Chino hurried to hide in the giant Niazbo bush next to the gate from where she could keep an eye on both the road and the garden and would whistle – her whistle was the loudest – if there was danger. Bobby, Seemi and I crept towards our destination, the portico, that now seemed like it was miles away. We had barely reached the bend in the drive which was a few feet away from the porch when we heard a shriek-like whistle. Instantly we lay flat on our stomachs and began slithering towards the veranda on our right where we could hide behind the huge cane furniture. Seemi mimicked our tummy crawling so awkwardly, we would have laughed had circumstances allowed. Hiding behind the huge cane chairs, we waited and waited but no one appeared. I was dying to know why Chino had whistled and what had become of her. After waiting for what seemed a lifetime, Bobby crawled out and whispered.

“Should we begin?”

I looked around. Apparently, all was well. Bobby kneeled down and let Seemi climb on to his shoulders. Mounted on Bobby’s shoulders, Seemi’s hands could easily reach the grapes. She plucked the first bunch and passed it to Bobby, hands trembling. Bobby dropped it in the rucksack hanging on his side and went to stand under the next bunch. Bunch after bunch passed from small hand to big hand to rucksack. I, the sole audience of this pair proficiency, proudly watched our new accomplice and the team leader performing a miracle .

I could have burst with excitement. We had done it! The rucksack was slumping with the weight of the grapes. I had come to the point of ultimate satisfaction. Just when I opened my mouth to signal the end of the feat, a shrill shriek pierced through the silence.

It was Seemi. A big yellow bee hovering around the bunch she had just laid her hand on had probably stung her. Terrorized beyond senses, Bobby flung her down and took off. Seemi landed with a thud and her wails became even louder. Bobby’s calls “Run! Run!” diffused as he disappeared beyond the gate. The bee was still hovering and my eyes were glued to its.

Bobby words were echoing in my ears: "Maali Manna is a hundred-year-old snake; he can become anything he wants to.”

Was it true? Was this bee Maali Manna?.

Frightful images flashed in my head. I saw Seemi alone, locked up in Maali Manna's cottage, a giant dog keeping guard. I saw us both, handcuffed. I saw us both, dead, eaten by a tiger who had a giant black mustache like Maali Manna.

Seemi was crying bitterly. I was transfixed, with no idea of time; just a faint notion that a beautiful dream had turned into a nightmare.

Then I heard that sound that woke me up to the world around me. Footsteps. My legs thawed and I leapt towards Seemi. Grabbing her arm, I took off. Someone shouted behind our backs:

"Wait; don’t run."

I looked back. Manna Baba, a giant of six and a half feet, was taking sure, long strides towards us, his long gnarled arms waving in a way that looked as if he was swimming in the air. Strangely, I wasn’t intimidated. A rush of adrenaline in my bloodstream had drowned the fears.

"Run Seemi! Run fast!" I yelled.

Our heads held up in the air, we flew towards the gate. Reaching there, I breaked to a stop and looked back. He was gone. Vanished. I pushed the gate and we burst out.

On the road, I put a hand on Seemi’s shoulder and escorted her back. There was no sign of Bobby or Chino. Seemi had forgotten her pain and begun pestering me with her silly questions:

"Where’s Bobby? He has the grapes."

I kept walking in silence, piecing broken parts of the incident together.

Tied to the old peepul, the sick horse was aimlessly sniffing at something. I looked away but something prompted me to redirect my gaze to that thing lying in the horse's feet. The object had a strange shape. Like a stack of mudcovered marbles.

I couldn't believe my eyes. Sodden in road grit, strewn here and there on the road side like unwanted trash, was The Fruit of our Labor. The precious grapes. Our grapes. Our precious grapes. I looked at Seemi. She had found a coin lying in the dust and was shining it against the side of her frock. I decided not to update her on the plight of our loot.

We walked past dogs, servants and a Laal Deen, into the drawing room.Chino was there, lying asleep – or pretending to be so – on the white sheet, face hidden under a pillow. I looked carefully. One of her toes twitched. I lay down next to her and tugged at her frock. She turned her face towards me.

“Why?” I asked.

“I heard a snake hissing. I didn’t want to die so I whistled and came back.”

This was the third time she had made the same excuse for shying away from the climax scene.

“Don’t lie, you coward!” ‘I whispered and turned towards Seemi and asked her to show me her bitten finger. Something had to be done before the swelling got too obvious. But her answer shocked me more than Chino’s excuse.

"It didn’t sting me; but it was going to." Suddenly, I wanted to leave this group of cowards and join Naghma, my rival, my worst enemy. I could not control myself anymore. A volley of kicks, pinches and punches broke loose. Seemi, ever the small fry in such fights, was getting battered the most. So she started what she knew best.

Threats.

"I’ll tell Khalida Puppo what you made me do today,” she said, her voice a little higher than the allowed level. Even while fighting, we had to follow the code.

“Lower your voice!” I hissed.

“I’ll tell her you’re all thieves,” she snapped, tears welling up in her black eyes.

The fight stopped. It had to. In my heart, I admitted that Mr. I’m-always-right was always right. Seemi should never have been recruited. I could have run and escaped along with him if she hadn’t been there.

The commotion had roused Khalida Pupho. She reprimanded us for not letting her sleep, in her sweet ineffective manner. We all said our Sorry Phuppos and she turned her back at us and began snoring again.

In the evening, Akbar, Lal Deen’s son, used to sprinkle water in the back yard. Chairs were set in a circle for the family to sit and chat the evening away. Some evenings were slow and dreary. Some, when we played our twilight games, fun-filled. But the best ones were when ice-cream machines were brought out and everyone joined in the making of the fruity delight.

That evening, Chino and I were trying our best to keep Seemi away from the evening assembly in the backyard, trying desperately to erase the afternoon’s incident from her memory by telling her hundreds of anecdotes from our school life which she, being a preschooler, loved listening to. At round seven, Lal Deen came looking for us as we sat on the stairs, Chino and I on the sides and our little hostage safely nestled between us.

“They’re making mango ice-cream. Want to help?” he asked,  at a loss by the way Seemi sat quashed between us two.

“Seemi, is everything okay?” he asked.

Seemi tried to free herself but both her hands were clasped in our fists. Laal Deen lingered behind the veranda pillars trying to infer our strange behaviour.

We knew it was time to face the consequences.

Together, the three of us walked towards the backyard. My heart missed a beat when I saw Dada Jan, my grandfather, sitting majestically on his armchair, handsomely clad in a black Sherwani and red Romi cap. Since he was mostly surrounded by his friends and visitors in the evenings, the family got the pleasure of his company on rare occasions. Hence, there was hint of festivity in air of the backyard. Mangoes were being skinned, a pan of custard being heated and, on a piece of gunny-cloth, a bid slab of ice lay quietly melting.

Khalida Pupho had a basket of haar-singhaar flowers in her lap. On a darri spread on the floor, our other cousins, including our demure older sister Billi, were stringing flower necklaces and bracelets stamen-stem-stamen-stem. The fragrance of the pretty pink flowers combined with that of freshly sprinkled brick-flooring, was sitting on the courtyard. Occasionally, a whiff of moong lentil boiling in the kitchen came riding the soft breeze, stirring everyone’s appetite.

We sat on the rug with our backs towards the circle of chairs. From the corners of my eyes, I looked at Dada-jan. He was narrating an exciting anecdote to entertain the women. Everyone else was listening and smiling. And then I saw it: a plate full of raw grapes lying on a table at the center of the courtyard. I thought I was imagining. That my mind was playing a game. On the road, in the horse's feet, on this table; I was seeing grapes everywhere. I rubbed my eyes and shook my head. And I looked again. They were still there. Our Grapes. Slick and glossy after the rinse they had just been given.

I could not be mistaken that these were from next doors. I had been eying them every single day for the past four weeks. I had seen their color slowly lightening; from a deep bottle green to a gorgeous, gleaming apple green. I had watched their size grow a millionth of an inch every day; from a wheat grain to a bagatelle steel ball to a marble.

Suddenly, there were welcoming yells and everyone stood up. Chino and I, not moving an inch from the rug on the floor, were buried under a storm of moving hips. The warm welcome was for Bobby and his mother, my grandfather’s niece. While everyone else was chanting greetings, Chino and I, stared at each other with color-drained faces – sure now that Bobby and had been called to complete the band of criminals and our case was ready for investigation.

Khalida Phuppo and others were still enjoying the frolic. I sat, numb in the limbs, waiting for the catastrophe. Time passed slowly. The handle of the ice-cream machine went round and round. My thoughts ran in circles too.

‘What’s going on? If a trial has been planned, why is lemonade being served? If a prosecution is coming up, why is everyone wounding the handle of the ice-cream machine so cheerfully? If this cheerfulness is genuine, what are the grapes doing on that table? Why is Bobby here?’

Bobby hadn’t once glanced at any of us. He sat next to my grandfather, answering his questions about his school life in his most genteel manner. Tired of waiting, I had joined the rest of my cousins in making haar-singhaar jewelry. Suddenly, Dada Jaan’s gaze fell on the center table. He got up, separated a grape from the bunch and put it in his mouth. For some time he munched it thoughtfully.

“these grapes are raw. who got them?” he asked no one in particular.

“No one. They're from Baig Sahib's garden. their gardener got them. said the little ones would like them,” Ammi said, pointing at us.

“Don’t let the children eat these; they are too sour. Sour grapes are the worst thing for a child’s throat.”

Ammi nodded. I smiled for the first time that evening. Chino smiled too. She got up and presented Phuppo the longest haar-singhar necklace . Overcome with joy, I stuck two little flowers in my ears and laughed. Bobby sprang up from his seat and joined us on the floor.

“Manna Baba likes us. He’s not a snake,” I whispered in Bobby’s ear as Seemi clambered up behind me to listen.

“He very well is. Sending grapes was just an excuse of witnessing our family sitting. He’s listening to every word we’re saying. Look, he’s right over there!” he said.

Seemi and I looked where his finger was gesturing and saw a green worm crawling  in the plate of grapes.

“Seemi look! He’s staring at you. He knows it was you who destroyed his precious fruit,” Bobby said. And we all had to laugh loudly to muffle Seemi’s frightened shriek.

 

Rain

Rain

 

The brooding summer afternoon quietly melted away.

At length, its silence was broken by a creaking sound. Perhaps somewhere in the house, a door had opened and its hinges complained of dryness.

Popping out from the bathroom on the terrace, Eela – her hair and her two-days-old clothes dripping a watery trail – fled towards the veranda. The scheme was that she’d change into her green dress at the last moment. She didn't want any wrinkles today. Wrinkles meant imperfection and she had a swank perfection in her mind.  

Seeing her, Seema, her sister, did quite the opposite. She darted toward the four-by-four roofless bathroom to take her turn to bathe.

Barefooted, Eela ran the length of the veranda, past the parking of the rickety tricycles; past the explosion of soiled clothes around the linen-vat; past the rusted wheel-chair; past the screeching floor-fan and past Naani on her wobbly cot.  

Bang!!  

She rammed into the door at the end of the veranda.  

Inside the longish room which was originally a perpendicular extension of the veranda, her two youngest sisters were asleep on the floor exactly under the ceiling fan. Lulled by the dreary hum, they snored softly. 

“Sh-sh-sh!” she froze as she saw them and pressed her fist to her mouth to throttle the scream that wanted to wake them up. 

No! No! No! What have I to say to them? I have nothing. Really!  

And, as if to deflect her attention from the girls, she closed her eyes. A smile rose to her quivering lips.  

Soundlessly, like a knowing indoor cat, she traced her way around the four string-beds which took up most of the space in the room, to the little mirror on the rear wall. She opened her eyes and looked into it. It held a flushed face, vulnerable, with little tics beating under the skin of the lips and jowls; yet invincible, with unswerving eyes that waited, listened, behind a film of curious tears. As if they could see that somewhere a new world was readying itself for her.  

She bit into her lips and patted her flared-up cheeks with her cool fingers. 

Stop! Oh stop! You’re mad! You can’t let them see how happy you are. It’s shameless to be so happy for yourself. 

And beyond the radiant face in the mirror, she saw a green set of cotton shalwar-kamis spangled with minute yellow polka-dots, laid out beautifully on a string-bed.  

In a dancing pose.  

One arm outstretched, the other folded at the elbow and placed on the chest looking like it was waiting for a kathak dancer to slip into it.

She stretched up on her toes and extended her right arm far out; then bending the left one to place her hand on her panting chest… wh-o-o-o-sh! she swirled around in a complete circle as if she herself was that awaited dancer. 

Oh! I’ll be beautiful. 

And she swirled again; and again; and yet again. a stray nimbus cloud that had found its way in through the window, her dark hair showered little drops of water. 

She stopped and looked at her green dress. 

Look at you; so proud and stiff; pretending as though you haven’t been worn countless times by each one of us.

“Bitches…what are you all bathing for?” Naani’s voice came piercing the still afternoon air.  

Wasn’t it clever of me to give you for a wash to the dhobi down the street? You so crisp! You so new! Oh, I must remember to thank old Dhobi for all the starching and ironing he’s done!  

“Why didn’t I let your father wring your necks when he was at it? Why? Oh why?” Naani wailed. 

‘omens are good. The shopkeeper lent me the yellow dupatta for the evening! No guarantee! Ta-tha! No advance! Ta-tha. And thum-m-m! He packs it and puts it in my hand. ‘Take it home and try it. Pay me if you like it!’ Oh! It goes so well with the yellow dots on the lovely lovely green!! The divine, the angelic green!  

She closed her eyes, threw her head back and swirled again. There was no rain this time. The cloud had dried. 

“Evil souls must rot in hell one day. The man knew she had slept with every man in the street; that’s how you all came,” Naani squealed. 

Oh I can’t wait to hear the ting-a-ling-a-ling of the ear-rings! Eela stopped and touched the lobes of her ears with both hands.  Oh! I’ll be beautiful. I will. And they’ll choose me. Shush-sh-sh! Listen! The clock ticks: they will, they will; the sleeping girls snore: they will, they will, the fan sings: they will, they will. I can hear The grandmother of The Boy: ‘I choose her to be my grandson’s wife. She’s the girl I and the grandmother before me have been looking for."  

She swirled again and stumbled. Remembering that she had promised herself to be silent, she put her hand on her gasping stomach and giggling without a sound, she swayed towards the nearest bed.

The purring and snoring went on, uninterrupted. 

 “A-a-a-a-ah! Allah! Allah! A-ah! Show me the way to heaven! Set free my soul! Save me! Oh Great one! Save me from sins and sinners! Free me from this pain! A-a-ah! This pain; this life! O-o-oh so rotten! My evil daughter’s evil offspring! Shameless, saucy women, dress up like sluts and go…Ah-h-h-h!!!” Naani’s repartee with God was always long-drawn.  

For her own convenience, Eela mentally branded each day according to Naani’s mood on that day. There were Mute Days and Ranting Days; there were Dead-relatives Days and Live-relatives Days. And today? Ah today was just another of her Leg-ache Days. She had moaned through the morning and was moaning the afternoon through. Eela had given her each of her four-hourly painkillers – seven, eleven and three – on the dot -  but they had failed to silence her. Rather, her moans had grown louder and her protests for being given something stronger, more incitive. Like:    

“Stop painting your faces like sluts and give me my injection now;” and “These two-a-paisa candies don’t work on me anymore. Give me something real, you  bitch.”

But the little voice at the back of Eela’s head had kept telling her to hold back Naani’s morphine shot. 

The only way to be sure Naani’s moans do not drive the guests up the walls is to put her out when the time is right. 

And it would save her the embarrassment of explaining the situation to a traumatized audience. What in the world could she say? She couldn’t possibly argue with the guests that her Naani had lost her mind and on top of that she knows a whole string of cuss words so... 

“Hahaha!” she had chuckled soundlessly. 

How would that sound? she thought. “Ignore the old crone's swearing, auntie! She has a leg-ache and when she has a leg-ache she swears like a cheated pimp whose cut wasn’t paid,” she enunciated aloud and giggled at the sheer absurdity of it. 

Shshshsh! she put a finger on her lips.

Oh how happy Naseem Sahib, her director, would be to see her do such an amazing piece of mime!

Really, she and all others in the family were as immune to Naani’s gibberish as they were to the mournful whine of the floor-fan, or to the monotonous dribble of water from the leaking storage drum; or to the weaving and spreading that Majida did, of webs of sin and virtue.

But they were unable to exactly construe – not that they cared enough to apply their wits – how less-accustomed audiences judged Naani's avowals.  

“She’s lost it,” some neighbors said. 

“Old age!” others remarked. 

“She’s been through a lot in her life,” still others said, hinting that her mental disfigurement was bound to have a sinister story behind it and that, perhaps, the non-stop cussing wasn't totally unjustified. 

Again, not that their opinion mattered.

 But that of the guests expected that evening did. To Eela, at least.

Breathless and woozy from her swirls, she collapsed on the taut weave of the string-bed and slouched, mouth open and panting. then, falling back on the bed, she pressed a trembling hand to her eyes.

"I'm too happy – too happy!" she whispered and tried to remember all the tragic scenes she had played to sober herself down.

She looked at the wall clock.  

Four-thirty-five! 

Tea-tray and food platters: Ready. Visitors’ room: Dusted and Decorated. Terrace and veranda: Swept and Mopped (stuffing the explosion of dirty linen back into the vat will take a minute). Now, only Naani needs to be quieted.  

The rishta ladies were scheduled to arrive at five-thirty which meant six (if not six thirty). The drug took fifteen minutes to take the desired effect. She would give it to her at five-forty-five and Naani would freeze from six to seven thirty. The women would be long gone by then. If, by any chance, they were still there, it wouldn’t matter. Under the effect of the drug, Naani’s tongue became so thick, no one, not even Eela, could make out the slurred nonsense.  

She was sure the plan would work. She had tried a similar one on their first visit. 

With her breath back in place, she ran out of the room on her toes and, taking little dancing steps back and forth, right and left; making eight-shaped loops up and down the veranda into the visitors’ room which was right next to Sisters’ Room. 

The little room with its huddle of plastic sunflowers in a narrow-mouthed brass vase, its multi-colored floral sofa-wraps and its pink rinse of cheap wall-paint looked as if it was holding its breath and waiting. 

Perfect! 

Then she fled the 39 steps down the narrow stairwell and mopped her way back up; wiping off the muddy footmarks her brother Bhai Ji had just left. It had rained the previous night so mud had accompanied every one coming home that day. 

“Where’s my injection, you brazen slut? I'll tell your brother you acted in the college plays from where they go directly to the cinema and sleep with all the actors and...' Nani’s howls echoed down the stairwell as she gathered layers of dirt in the folds of the thorny jute-cloth. Even in her madness Naani could to hit one where one lives.

After hiding the floor-swab behind the old water heater on the terrace of which only a frail skeleton was left, she sprinted towards the tiny kitchen which they shared with their sister-in-law Majida. Six cups and saucers were perched at right angles from each other on a bendy plastic tray which she had swathed with a starched white cloth; and beside them a stack of quarter plates and some teaspoons in a little basket.  

Oh I wish like the cups, the plates too were a set!! She worried. 

But the thought of letting a minor defect spoil the perfection was unbearable; so she eased herself out of the anxiety. 

They won’t notice; I’m sure. 

The two platters in which she had assembled biscuits and samosas could be seen lying untouched on top of Majida Bhabi’s fridge with a cloud of flies was hovering above them. She waved it away and covered the platters with a crochet-net napkin. 

Good. The three dare-devils haven’t messed up any of the arrangements until now. Seema will be taking over soon. I’ll tell her she needs to stay in the kitchen to see that nothing goes wrong at the last moment. Majida.could easily give the verdict that serving tea in borrowed crockery was a sin because it misled the guests. On that pretext she could even return it to the neighbors.

Everything was just right except for Majida’s obstinate sulk – as blue and flagrant as Eela had first detected it that morning and had tried to please her with an offer to prepare her boys’ breakfast. Although Majida Bhabi had bestowed on her, the joy of cooking breakfast for the three princes, she had withheld the pleasure of removing the moping look from her face.  

Bhai Ji, their brother, however, had seemed in a good mood as she had seen him climb up the stair-well a few minutes ago. 

 Just a bit tired. That’s all. Not looking like he’s going through one of his wretched doldrums that ever end up in group squabbles that ever end up in the siblings dividing up into two cold-warring militias that ever.... 

“Eela! Eela!” she whispered to herself. “Stop right here! Don’t you dare think bad things today!”  

Bhai Ji was anyway not needed in the visitors’ room as Eela expected the guests to be all women. She had requested him to be home early that evening just in case a surprise male guest turned up. Also, she thought, to have a man around the house, especially one dressed in office clothes would be impressive – a Dignified-Family thing. 

My dear dear Bhai Ji!  He’s so good at heart! Look how he remembered to be home an hour before his usual time. I know that he’d think a hundred times before asking his mean boss a favor; but he did today; just for me. 

“Come and clean me, Eela! Please come!” Naani called, her voice suddenly transformed from a shrill bellow to a meek appeal. 

That’s how mad she is, Eela thought. Knows exactly when to stop being a blaspheming hag and become a dependent invalid! I’m lucky I haven’t changed as yet. 

Suddenly, time seemed short. She had to be quick now – really quick. 

The sisters shared all duties with her – all but this. She was the only one in the house who had gradually developed a numb that saw her through these 'Clean-up-Naani' sessions; a complete block-out of , first, teenage pride, then, the vanity of the twenties; a deadness that made her remove the muck bare-handedly, unshakably; as though she was an android programmed to do it. 

She made a dash back to Sisters’ Room to look at the wall clock. 

Five-thirteen!                                               

Oh no! Not a minute left to waste! 

With the cleaning being taken care of, Seema made Naani a quick cup of strong and sweetened milk-tea. She always did. As if it compensated for not ever offering to do the washing! 

As if! 

Leaving Naani sipping her sweet tea in the cradle of Seema’s arms and enjoying that short moment of after-wash newness, Eela ran to the old cupboard in the jobless younger brother’s room at the other end of the veranda. She took the keys out from where she had hidden them in the pocket of her under-shirt and opened the lock.  

A treasure unfolded itself into sight as she did so: a few odds and ends of a century-old dinner set which Naani’s grandfather – a footman to a British bureaucrat  – had brought from England where his English master had taken him as a recognition of his loyalty, a few empty jewelry boxes, a bunch of Maa’s knitting needles, a cookie-tin which Maa had converted into a sewing box, some poetry books she used to read and several piles of folded loose fabrics which she had collected for her girls’ dowries and which no one until now had dared remove from the cupboard. 

Everything smelled of naphthalene and damp wood.  

Eela slid her fingers across a red silk piece, paper-thin and very very smooth. Her eyelids dropped as her fingers slinked further into the sinuous folds. She waited and listened; and listened and waited; for the soft gasps of this new world that had slowly crept up unto her in the past few weeks; that waited for her as she waited for it; the world of silken walls and silken floors; of spongy cushions, velvety rugs; and petals on her body which rustled as she moved; and trails that whispered behind. 

Swish-swash! 

Oh to carry the whisper along!! As though you’re floating on a sea of silk!     

Ting-g-g! Tong-g-g-g! The clock chimed to announce the beginning of the next half-hour.  

Five-thirty! 

Eela eased out the fine-china curry-bowl from the top shelf and, clasping it to her stomach, lifted its lid. Inside were a few vials of liquid morphine, some disposable syringes and a doctor’s prescription. Quickly, she removed a vial and a syringe and placed the bowl back in the cupboard. 

On her way back, she veered off towards the sleeping sisters, tickled their feet with her toe, and headed out. She stopped at the door, turned around and looked at them. Not a hair on them had moved as if they too were on morphine.

“A-a-aw!” she pouted her lips at their sleeping forms. 

Suddenly she was filled with the deepest, most ardent affection for the girls. 

O-o-oh my little sweethearts! Look at you! So young! So innocent! Who could say that you’re the bread winners of the family? Eighteen and nineteen and working twelve hours every night at the out-source Call-Center. It's a wicked thought, waking you up for the guests. The least we can do for you in return of your toils is to let you get enough sleep!  

But, somehow it was impossible for her to walk out of the room carrying the powerful blast of adoration in her bosom.

So she walked back and kneeled down beside them. 

She felt so tender towards them, she could weep. 

“Hush-sh-sh-sh!” she put her finger on her pouted lips and hushed an imaginary intruder. Softly, she tucked a wisp of hair fluttering on her youngest sister’s brow behind her ear. M-u-u-a-ah! She performed a keen touch-less kiss for each of them.  

“Oh how I wish I could do something for you!” she whispered. 

Meanwhile, a squabble had brewed outside. Their Married-and-Returned sister whom they secretly called Nikki Naani and who lived on the two-room fourth floor, was yelling at Seema from her terrace on the veranda roof. The summary of her charges was that Seema had bathed out of turn and finished the water that she had collected in the storage drum so painstakingly when water-pressure had been good. Seema was combating the offensive fearlessly. This too was an everyday thing.

 

It’s better if the fights are all fought and over with before the guests come, Eela thought as she headed for Naani’s cot. 

Naani’s groans muted when she saw her coming down the veranda with her morphine. Her pinched eyes widened as much as they could, her gaze fixed on Eela’s hands. Only when Eela had filled the medicine in the syringe, did Naani look up at her face.

All of a sudden, Naani raised both her arms towards Eela in an asking-for-a-hug way. Eela didn’t take notice. Naani raised her neck and extended her arms further up. Years-old smell of unwashed flesh filled Eela’s nostrils. Curiously, she was as oblivious to Naani’s amiability as she was to her curses. She raised the filled syringe in the air in front of her eyes to see that there were no air-bubbles trapped in it.  

“This is important,” the kind nurse who had taught Eela how to give a shot had said.  

“Let’s turn over, Naani,” Eela said in a flat voice.   

“My lovely; my precious; come here and hug Naani,” Naani said, sounding as she had sounded ages ago when Maa was alive and Naani up and about. 

Eela performed a ghost of a hug and pushed Naani to her side with her left hand. Then she nipped a thick gob of shriveled flesh between her fingers and pressed the needle in. Slowly, the medicine entered Naani’s eagerly-raised side. 

For a while, she stood by her grandmother’s bed, looking at her taking uneven breaths as she lay still in anticipation of heavenly bliss that had just pierced her body and entered in.  

She looked at the dangly gold earrings in Naani’s ears. They had dropped to the sides of her head, the little bells on their ends touching the discolored pillow. 

Not now…she’s not fully deadened yet. I’ll come back for the earrings when I’m dressed and ready. 

And she walked back to the Sisters’ Room with green-and-yellow pictures of herself in her mind.    

 “Luk chup jaana makai da daana…” Naani’s sinking voice followed her.

 

***

 

In the beginning there had been no sign of ill luck except that the rishta women had arrived very late. The matchmaker, a pot-bellied woman with a permanent scowl and an avid appetite for savories, however, had come on time to enforce the arrangements she considered necessary. 

“Samosas and biscuits?’ she had cried disbelievingly. “My dear girl, you ought to know by now that rishta women expect special treatment. Now be quick to send Seema to get a roasted chicken from the eatery at the corner of the street.” 

So she had had to wake one of her sleeping sisters to ask for more money for the chicken. 

Burly fumes of spices and roasted meat had swarmed up the stairs ahead of Seema when she had returned holding a big paper pouch with ‘Lahore Chargha’ printed on it. It had cheered the fussy match-maker a bit. 

“They’re coming to finalize the rishta today,” she had promised, overwhelmed by the prospect of a lavish meal. 

They’d come a little after six-thirty when Naani had already kicked her leg once, a sign that her stirring time wasn’t too far.

Everything else had been perfect – according to her wishes. She had looked lovely in the noisy green-and-yellow dress and Naani’s ear-rings. Majida Bhabi, although still unsmiling, had come and sat with the guests for her usual fifteen minutes. Bhai Ji had peeped in and said his salam. And the Married-and-Returned sister, whose scruffy appearance and coarse manners – not to mention her sweet-and-sour smells – could have dampened the brilliance of the show, hadn’t showed up. 

Knowing that her scheme to coincide Naani’s morphine slumber with the guests’ visit hadn't done well, Eela had asked Seema to spare the customary fifteen-minutes-after-arrival norm and serve tea right away. Seema, as always, had emerged the champion of the show with balancing herself perfectly between little-sister modesty and brisk hospitality. She had even managed to keep the flies out when tea was laid.
 

They had left them for the expected leave-them-alone-to-eat ten minutes. From the parting in the curtain drawn across the door between the visitors’ room and the Sisters’ Room, Eela had seen that the women were devouring the savories. Although a part of her wished some roasted chicken was  left for the two younger sisters’ dinner, seeing them eating doggishly gave her some reassurance.  

It’s a sign of consent. Everything’s okay. I should stop worrying. 

Later, the bearded woman with molten eyes who, they said, was The Boy’s grandmother by blood relation – the real grandmother had died last month leaving the ‘Quest for The Daughter-in-law’ in the middle – had even showed signs of announcing her consent. Time and again – or perhaps only when her eyes met Eela’s – she would thrust her hand into her handbag and fumble for something. Each time she had done that, Eela’s heart had lurched frighteningly. 

What does she have in there? The Ring? The Boy’s photo? Or just talli-tarai? (money presented to the would-be bride when the rishta is confirmed) 

But again and again, the hand had emerged bare.  

Say something! Show a sign! Give a signal! Eela had first pleaded with her in her head. But slowly she had become tired of waiting. 

Leave if you want to do it in your next visit. Please leave before Naani starts bombarding me! Stand up and leave, she had implored with them inside her head. 

Darkness had fully cloaked the terrace outside, swallowing all shapes and forms. The sounds of the evening show coming from Bhai Ji’s room established that the time was somewhere between eight and eight thirty.  

“Iches…s’uts…e’il ’omen.” In the veranda, palpable syllables had begun encrusting Naani’s blurry mumbles.  

Eela had stopped hoping for anything good to happen. She had sat upright on her chair with her eyes fixed on the floor, on a mosquito waving its legs, jerking itself to a slow and painful death. 

“It’s late enough; we must leave,” one of the women had said to the match-maker. The match-maker had answered with a loud burp. The sanction burp. She had been avoiding Eela’s gaze for some time now but had shown no signs of remorse that her promise of announcement of rishta had not been fulfilled. 

A sigh had risen up from Eela’s stomach and escaped through her circled lips.  

There had been hope again. 

I’m sure they’ll make the announcement in the next visit. It’s blessing enough that they’re leaving before Naani fully awake, Eela had thought. 

Eela had stood up first of all. They had looked at her in surprise and stood up too. The drill of slipping into their uniform, the black burquas, had been performed in perfect synchronization: One, Two, Three, Bend and Pick; One, Two, Three, Arms Stretch Out; One, Two, Three, Slip-in!  

Then they had kissed Eela one by one; the three older ones with practiced poise, the only younger one a little self-consciously. And finally they had followed each other out of the room onto the shadowy terrace and from there to the stairwell. 

Just when the last of them was stepping into the stairwell, an earsplitting peal of thunder had been heard. For an instant, lightning had filled every nook and corner of the house with a blinding brilliance and then it had gone pitch dark. The electric-supply had failed.

“Someone, bring a lantern or a candle!” the matchmaker had commanded. 

And, as if in retribution of the severity in her voice, rain had come down with vigor.  

Right from the first moment, it was a thorough downpour! 

There had been whispers in the stairwell. A conflict brewing. Eela had held her breath. Waiting. Praying. Ah! They had turned around and filed back toward the visitors’ room like a row of black wolves prowling about in the dark. 

Seema had run to the kitchen to snatch the lantern before someone else got it. She had lit it and hung it up with a nail dug in the crown of visitors’ room door.

The lantern hanging in the doorway had swayed in the breeze. Its trembling light had played up each line and every puff on the women’s faces. The pink walls had turned a magical red with dark silhouettes flickering on them like upsized shadow puppets. 

Outside, the boys had shrieked as they flitted about the terrace, soaking themselves in the rain. Their shouts had become louder and shriller with every passing instant.  

Eela had felt a chilling fear. 

She and Seema had stood in the doorway, looking at each other.  

The show had outlived its planned age. The next act would be a total surprise. Sooner or later the Married-and-Returned sister would storm in, carrying her naked-bottomed baby and her assortment of smells, bad-mouthing the weather or Seema’s brazenness or some other thing.  

Bhai Ji would emerge from his room wearing a perforated dhoti around his legs and nothing on top. Nothing-g-g.  

Majida Bhabi’s mask would peal off and her teeth would show. And through the teeth, she’d bid a quick clearing up of the kitchen. 

And Naani! 

Oh Naani! 

Darkness and hunger would hurl her down a deeper darker stupor. She’d swear so loud, her voice would kill all other sounds: that of rain, of the boys’, of the laughter of the ghost-audience of the evening show. Yes. A live show would begin, the alive live show: 

‘The Best of Naani’s Blaspheme’ 

 That, at least, can be avoided. There are more vials and syringes in the cupboard. 

And without wasting another second, she had run through the fitful jets of rain that swept up the veranda, to the unemployed brother’s room, leaving Seema wondering what she was up to. 

She had appeared a few minutes later, arms on her sides, her right hand curled into a tight fist. The green dress had gone moist and limp and smelled of stale starch. She had walked past a perplexed Seema straight to Naani’s bed in the middle of the veranda.  

“My dear girls, I think we could all do with a cup of tea each,” she had heard the match-maker’s pushy voice. Oh how she hated that woman in that moment.

For a few seconds Eela had just stood beside Naani watching her wince now and then to throw off the oblivion sitting heavy on her. Moments later, she had bent down and shook Naani's arm. Her eyelids had torn open. 

“A’e… h-h… the’e… h-h… men in the… h-h… house...whoooo...whoooo?” she had asked between gasps. 

Eela had looked back toward the visitors’ room. Through the open door she could see the silhouettes.  

“Why are there s-s-sounds in that ’oom? Who h-h ha’e you called to sleep with you?” Naani had stuttered. 

“Naani I have something for you.” 

And she had brought her hand close to Naani’s eyes and opened her fist for her to see what she was holding. 

“Anothe’ injection?” Naani’s voice had gone squeaky with gratitude. 

“Yes, another injection.” 

At that moment lightening had flashed and the earrings hanging down Eela’s jowls had lit up. Two luminous chandeliers, one on each side of a heart-shaped silhouette. 

“You’re wearing my ear-rings you stinking slut…” shock had roused Naani fully. 

“Let’s turn over, Naani,” she had said coolly. 

“You stole my ear-rings, you thief! Come on; take them off.” 

Eela had remained silent. 

“I know what you’re up to. It is not my medicine that you’ve filled in the injection. It’s poison. You’re doing this so I fall dead forever and you carry on with your business of sleeping with strange men.” Naani’s squeals had been full of loathing but she hadn’t stopped trying to turn to her side. 

Naani’s words had reminded Eela of what the kind nurse had said about an overdose of morphine. 

“One a day is the maximum that the old hag can survive. It’ll kill her if you give her more.” 

A rattle of pans and crockery coming from the direction of the kitchen had blended with the sound of rain crashing down on concrete roofs and tin awnings. Seema, it had seemed, had complied to make more tea for the guests.  

Eela had raised the syringe in the air in front of her eyes and squinted to make sure there were no air bubbles in it. 

“Come on; put me to sleep! Give me the poison.” 

Eela had bent down and pinched a clump of wilted muscle in her fingers. 

“You think I’ll leave you alone? Leave you free to sin? I’ll haunt this house when I die. I’ll never leave you alone! Never! And that pimp brother of yours; where has he run off to? He eats his sisters earnings like a…” 

Eela had placed the needle on the raised roll of muscle and pressed it in.  

In that instant in which her fingers had curled around the tube of the syringe and her thumb had got fixed on its rear end, ready to press the liquid in, lightening had flashed; and in the fleeting brilliance, she had seen Maa and Naani grinding spices on the terrace. 

A crystal clear winter day on the terrace; colorful kites soaring in the sky above; a carpet of red chilies spread out on the floor; Maa’s lithe arms gathering the chilies in glossy red heaps; a stone urn half-filled with a batch ready to be crushed; Naani standing above it, pounding the crunchy contents with a wooden pestle; creamy puffs of air ballooning the washing on the washing-line; Naani and Maa sneezing and laughing. 

In the moments that followed, she had believed in that vision and nothing else. The dribbling green dress, the women and her efforts to please them, Naani’s curses, her sisters’ sleepless nights, the boys’ wild shrieks as they played in the rain; the rain; the thunder; everything had zoomed out and become a distant haze. 

And she had pulled the needle out of the ready flesh.  

“Why, my sweetheart?” Naani had asked, looking at a point beyond her shoulder. She could probably not make out her face because of the dark. 

“Why don’t you go? Why don’t you just die?” she had whispered and pushed Naani’s haunch gently. 

“Are you taking my injection away? Don’t do that, my child,” Naani had pleaded, still looking beyond her.                                                           

But Eela had straightened up and turned around. There, standing only a few feet behind her, had been the youngest of the guests, her face gone bloodless with shock and fear.  

They had stood face-to-face for a few instants. 

“Give me that injection Eela! My child! Keep my ear-rings but give me the injection,” Naani had begged. Her shaking voice had echoed back and forth in the veranda. 

And Eela had walked down to Sisters’ Room where her sisters had started getting ready to go to work.

 

 

***