by Anupama Krishnakumar
[box]In four little stories, Anupama Krishnakumar explores some interesting relationships that exist in this world.[/box]Manjari
She hated love stories. They may be illogical, her argument and belief, but her love story had left behind scars that she thought would never heal for as long as she lived. She hated love stories. They may be illogical, her argument and belief, but her love story had burnt her soul. The man she deserted her family for finally left her in a place that smelt of men and stank of dumped feelings.
That was 25 years back; when she had been all of 20, although she didn’t know if she looked any different now. Her skin was as soft, as lustrous or even better, she was as slim, her eyes and hair more seductive than ever. If there was one thing that had ever changed, it was her heart; it was hard as stone now, not as mellow and as filled with love as it was 25 years back. The years when she never saw him again, when she had not seen her parents once, when she had served scores of men, had hardened her and love had oozed its way out of her pores never to return again. Grit. That was the only substance she was made up of now.
Even today if she would walk down a street in a town that didn’t know her, she would be mistaken for a film heroine. That producer man who had seen her during her fifth year in the mansion – didn’t he mention she had eyes like that leading heroine from the 70s? He had even suggested that he could get her a role if she wished. She had laughed out loud. Since when did people begin to think that she could decide her fate? Once she had decided and it had landed her in a place where she had least imagined to spend her life in. And in the mansion back then too, it was Kunjamma who had decided Manjari’s every move in whatever little of a life she lived – the men she would spend her hours with during the day and the night, what she would wear, the tactics she would use to seduce clients according to their tastes and many more.
Manjari couldn’t think of one relationship that was concrete in her life. They had all been volatile and still were, floating around like ghosts, haunting her in her dreams if at all she was blessed enough to catch a good night’s sleep during her busier years. They all came, the men – some nervous, some nonchalant, some aggressive and some outrageous; and every touch hurt, not one communicated love; some whined, called their wives names, dug their nails deep into her skin not with love but with hate. And she, she had endured, learnt the hard way how not to expect anything out of these people- these relationships that meant nothing, nothing at all. She learnt to accept the fact that she was a punch bag and nothing else.
After Kunjamma’s demise the previous year and also considering her age, Manjari only managed things now. Experienced hand, she was afterall. And afternoon that it was, she sat near the window in her room, smoking a fine cigarette that a foreign client had gifted her, reminiscing her lifeless past. It was then that Mani entered with a young girl, a girl whose eyes, Manjari observed, were crying out of fear and for the first ever time, Manjari’s being shivered at the sight of a girl brought new into the trade. For the first time, she saw herself in another girl. And so, when Mani’s assistants whisked away the wailing girl, Manjari told Mani, ‘Please, please let her go..’ and Mani did nothing but laugh out loud, ‘Pity, eh? I have paid 5 lakhs for her. Will you pay it to me?’
Manjari sighed and turned away wishing she had the money and praying that the girl should soon find the courage to live in a world of volatile relationships.
Chandru
The first time he had met her he was spellbound and he had been that way ever since. Ever since he had seen her, he thanked Brahma every day for creating someone as gorgeous as her and thanked his stars for having given him a chance to see her. As days passed, his love swelled and swelled, he felt, and the accompanying giddiness was becoming unmanageable for him, no doubt. He tossed and turned in his bed in the night, much to annoyance of his mother and sat for minutes together in the common toilet lost in thought, much to the chagrin of neighbours. To make matters worse, he borrowed a tape recorder from his friend and a cassette of latest love songs from another friend, all of whom were christened worthless morons by one and all, and listened to the same cassette at least fifty times a day, soaking in love and shuttling back and forth between the real world and the dream world with her.
He thought saree suited her best. But, now he felt she looked better in jeans. Why not? After all, didn’t she look stunning in the blue ones she was wearing in the film poster of her latest movie, next to which he was proudly standing and admiring? And soon, he even began talking to her in the poster. How do you like my shirt, he spoke, pointing to the one he was wearing, half tucked in and half left out. And, these shoes? And that’s when a flying ‘Hawaii Slipper’ that landed on his back jolted him back to his senses. There she was, his mother, cursing him and then God for giving such a son to her, a son who took fifty rupees from her to go to the ration shop to buy rice and still hadn’t returned. As she left wailing about her fate, Chandru put his hand into his shirt pocket and pulled out a pink chit and smiled widely. He had all reasons to smile and ignore his mother’s daily rants, for here was the ticket to the movie whose poster he was standing next to.
Abhaya
I think I saw you today, my boy, in that busy market area. I think I saw you – tall, vibrant and handsome, among the sea of faces, as I sat inside the bus, holding my bag of vegetables. You seemed to be in a hurry, and kept looking this way and that and in a second you were not there. Perhaps you got into a bus or something. I desperately searched for your face again but I couldn’t find it. My heart ached and it still does. How much a second’s sighting can do?
Shraddha, your sister, asks me if I am fine. She has felt my forehead five times since I came back. She is worried. I tell her I am fine. But, I haven’t told her I saw you. She will begin to worry all the more. I know what she hides behind the tough exterior she demonstrates. So, I don’t want to tell her because her heart will ache too just like mine.
What do we say of fate, my son? Its patterns are unintelligible to the human eye. Yet, they say that it’s all a part of the larger scheme of things. It doesn’t interest me, son, this larger scheme of things. I like things that are small, measurable and liveable. Like the family I dreamed of – of you, me, Appa and Shraddha.
I have always waited – waited for the day when you would grow taller than me, when I would have to look up to talk to you, of course with swelling pride and unseen tears of happiness in my eyes. I have waited for the day when you would hold my hand and assure me that I am going to be fine, while I complain of a nagging knee pain. I have waited for the day when you will come home to see me with your wife and a child as lovely as you.
Do you know any of it, son? Or the ones I thought we would do when you would be much younger? Of singing rhymes, playing games that I would let you win, of sharing stories and flying kites?
I am sure you knew, for I thought all these when you were within me, as part of me. Then, why did you go away, my boy? Didn’t you find these dreams worthy of living? Or you found a better world outside of the one I gave you initially and dreamt of giving later?
And again, what do I have to say of fate, that I thought I saw your face today, among the sea of faces in the market area?
Ever since, I am fervently wishing I see you again.
It’s a mindless thought I know, but this helpless mother wishes that the face I saw belonged to you, you, who I had lost during delivery in my first pregnancy, amidst so much of hope and amidst so many unrealized dreams I was dreaming up for you and me.
Yes, my boy, I wish.
Swamy Mama, Janaki Mami, Venkitu Mama, Sharadha Mami
The typical, religious, gossipy, tam-brahm neighbours. And yes, the men had both retired from public sector banks. And yes, the women had both been housewives. And yes, both couples had a son and daughter each, all abroad and well settled. And yes, both had lived in their respective ‘own’ houses for over twenty years now. What more did they need for a bonding of a lifetime to form?
Mornings saw the men in easy chairs with filter coffee on their sides and newspapers in hand, listening to some AIR artist crooning in their transistors hoisted on a wooden stool that belonged to the men’s father’s father – one the men were waiting to hand over to their sons with indescribable pride. Afternoons saw the women take a small nap and meet at the common compound wall, all of five feet, with both of their heavily bangled-jingling hands resting comfortably on the wall, to share gossip and the day’s proceedings. Evenings saw the men again taking a walk to the temple nearby.
And then it happened. Venkitu Mama and Sharadha Mami, after months of debate, decided to relocate to Madras; to be with their son who had moved back from the U.S. Swamy Mama was distraught; Janaki Mami was broken. In a few days, loneliness engulfed them like never before. Suddenly, people who had unconsciously defined the borders of their daily existence were not there. The easy chair didn’t have its company, nor did the filter coffee or the transistor. Janaki Mami’s jingling hands felt lonely. Janaki Mami and Swamy Mama grew quieter. They hadn’t even felt their children’s absence this much!
And then it happened. One day, Venkitu Mama and Sharadha Mami called. They weren’t sure how frequently they would call but they said they missed the two. Swamy Mama and Janaki Mami’s day felt better. And once, when Venkitu Mama and Sharadha Mami managed a visit to Tiruchi after a year for a week, the other couple couldn’t hold themselves. The men hugged each other and the women held hands with tears streaming down their faces and they spoke, fell silent and spoke again.
As days went by, there were no more of the visits and the phone calls grew sparer. And one day, Venkitu Mama received a call that Swamy Mama had passed away. Venkitu Mama was inconsolable. Sharadha Mami broke down when she heard not Janaki Mami’s voice but only her long drawn breath over the phone.
And as days passed and destiny took its own course and time reduced conversations between the families to zero, in every frail moment of old-age weakness or fear or loneliness, Janaki Mami, Venkitu Mama and Sharadha Mami thought dearly of their good times. In the dimming light of their visions and memories, Janaki Mami remembered her husband and his dear neighbour friend and thought of Sharadha Mami and her warm, friendly face with a glittering nosering. And, Venkitu Mama and Sharadha Mami spoke to each other, trying to be as loud as they could get with their weakening voices to be heard by their equally weak ears, wondering about Janaki Mami and fondly recalling Swamy Mama’s witty jokes.
And, when all the three too dissolved into nature’s folds, the air around the two houses that stood next to each other in Tiruchi, continued to carry their treasured memories.
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