by Pratap Reddy
Mummy’s puja room was drenched in the smell of red kumkum and turmeric powder, wilting flowers, and the groundnut oil used for lighting wick-lamps. The heady combination of smells, even if a jot unpleasant, had an unquestionably holy edge to it.
The altar, which was an alcove cut into the wall, had a multitude of silver statuettes: Rama, Lakshmana and Sita; Krishna and Radha; Shiva and Parvati; the roly-poly elephant-headed Ganesa, and his solemn-faced brother Muruga with his invincible spear. The wall around the alcove was plastered with framed pictures in earthy colours of even more Hindu gods. On every figurine and picture was a daub of kumkum, and flowers, a tiny portion clipped from a garland of white jasmines.
In the evenings, her mother would wander into their small garden in front of the house, plucking white jasmine buds from shrubs to weave them into a trailer. There were never enough for all the deities who had foregathered in her puja room, so an itinerant flower-seller came every day to their house with a supply of fresh jasmine, already strung into a garland. Arifuddin, the flower vendor, would stand outside their wrought-iron gate and yelling in Urdu: “Fool! Amma, Fool!” Flowers! Mother, Flowers!
A maidservant would then rush out, taking a couple of pink two-rupee notes kept in readiness on the console table. The maid would engage in harmless flirtation with the flower-seller, giggling at his funnily-accented Telugu. Arifuddin was no Casanova, though he claimed to have four wives. He was short and portly and bald. His small build was the secret of his success in the flower trade. Traditionally, flower sellers sold garlands not by weight or number, but by length, the standard being the distance between the vendor’s forefinger and his elbow. Had Arifuddin been a tall, strong man he would have lost a lot of money.
The maid would return with a humongous mound of flowers in a shallow wickerwork basket — Mummy bought fool by the mile.
The phone rings. Ramya hastens to answer it, thinking it must be a mental health counsellor. But it’s Sandeep.
“Hello, Mom,” he says. “I hope I’m not disturbing you?”
Sandeep is her stepson. She didn’t know about his existence when she married Prakash. He was Prakash’s secret progeny, and she came to know about him only years later. Sandeep lived in Detroit, south of the border, with his wife. He worked for an Indian software company which did contract work in the U.S.A.
“No, Sandeep, not at all. How are you? How’s Vidya?”
“We are fine. But …”
“Yes?”
“I’ve some bad news. Our company’s contract was suddenly terminated. Which means we have to go back to India soon.”
“That’s really bad news! What happened? Why was the contract terminated?”
“A local newspaper published an article about outsourcing and loss of jobs in the community. There was a lot of brouhaha with many politicians jumping in. Our American partner got nervous and pulled the plug,”
“Such things happening here too. When do you leave?”
Sandeep and Vidya got married about a year and a half ago; it’s only been a few months since Vidya moved to the U.S.A. from India. Having no appropriate visa (H something or the other) that allowed her to work, she was forced to be a homemaker. This new development must have come as a rude shock to her.
“By the end of the month most likely,” Sandeep says.
Ramya is swamped by an inexplicable feeling of desolation. Why does she feel this sudden bout of loneliness? Sandeep is not even her biological son. He was nine years old when she first saw him, a quiet, gentle, affectionate boy who addressed her as Ramya-auntie. Prakash made Sandeep call them Mom and Dad — to Prakash it sounded hip, not being called Nana or Papa or some such word from the local language. Prakash cultivated hipness with fervour — he was that kind of guy.
Sandeep hadn’t lived with them. He grew up in his grandparents’ house, leading the life of an orphan even though both his natural parents were alive. His mother lived by herself in an ashram, a religious commune. Occasionally, he’d come over for a short vacation when Prakash and Ramya were living in Bengaluru. A sweet-natured boy, he went about his life in his own quiet way, rarely bothering adults. Though he’s in his twenties now, he retains his pleasing childhood qualities, unaffected by his father’s caprices.
“Mom, are you there?” Sandeep asks.
“Yes, very much. I feel a little disappointed, Sandeep.”
“I knew you’d be. I’m sorry.”
“Why don’t you plan a quick trip to Canada? A weekend getaway, you know. You could show Vidya Toronto before she goes back to India.”
“That would be a good idea, but I’m not sure. We’d like to see the Niagara too … and of course look you up before we return to India.”
“That will be nice. And I believe the falls are more spectacular from the Canadian side.”
Ramya replaces the receiver with a feeling that is quite indescribable. Really, how lonely can one get? She hopes Sandeep and Vidya will find time to visit Canada. Sandeep had mentioned her and the most famous waterfall in the world in the same breath. Two see-worthy attractions. That’s some consolation no doubt, though both are falling — one in a headlong rush down a gully, the other helplessly coming down in life, piteously complaining.
To distract herself, Ramya picks up the novel she’s halfway through. The book was borrowed from the local library more than a month ago, and is long overdue. Despite her idleness, Ramya hasn’t found the time to either finish or return it. There are at least half a dozen books she has stopped reading midway. She doesn’t know if the fault lies with her, or the writers who are unable to make their books gripping enough.
Ramya soldiers through a couple of pages, then shuts the book with a slap. It’s like a war of attrition: Sometimes the book’s readability wins the day, and sometimes her own ennui has the last word. The story is not uninteresting — about a character who escapes the confines of the novel, and later returns to murder the author. The way books are written nowadays, she thinks, this ought to be the fate of many a writer.
She wonders if the story of her chequered life would evoke a reader’s interest. If not exactly an autobiography (for she is neither famous nor notorious, so of no interest to any publisher), she could always try her hand at creative nonfiction, the new and lucrative genre. Her misadventures with Prakash certainly had potential, and if she could wring out a bestseller from her failed marriage, it would be the saving grace.
Even as a toddler Ramya knew that she had what people called a peculiar person for a mother. Such knowledge would’ve been an uncomfortable cross to bear for anyone, let alone a sensitive child like Ramya.
She was eight when she got the first hint of a reasonable explanation for her mother’s eccentric behaviour from Atom Auntie, her father’s younger sister. To Ramya, Atom Auntie was the most fascinating person on the earth. She was always recounting stories — from the books she’d read, the films she’d seen, the gossip from her work place, the things that happened to neighbours, or simply bits of family history.
Ramya sat on a moda — a cotton-fibre cushion crowning a wickerwork stool — while Atom Auntie made her a sweet called sheera. It was made with semolina and sugar fried in ghee, and garnished with cashew and raisins. As was her wont, Atom Auntie brooded over her gas stove, stirring and chatting incessantly to her little niece.
“This stove cooks so much faster than my old kerosene one,” Atom Auntie said. The stove was a dull grey rectangle with two sooty burners. It was connected to a cherry-red cylinder of butane with a lime green hosepipe. “The stove was a gift from your Daddy, by the way.”
“Yes, I know.”
“For a little girl you know a lot. Your Daddy is a good, kind brother. Did you know that you too had a brother?”
“No,” Ramya said. “What happened to him?”
“How silly of me! I shouldn’t have opened my mouth. You’re much too young to understand.”
“How come I never saw him?”
“You were just two years old w
hen it happened.”
“What happened?”
“Dear me. How persistent you are! I won’t say another word. Forget that I told you anything about him. I’ll get into trouble if your Mummy hears about it. I’ve enough troubles in my life as it is.”
“Please tell me the secret, Atom Auntie. I promise! I won’t tell anyone.”
“No,” Atom said, putting her ivory-like forefinger over her lips. “Mum’s the word.”
Though Ramya never asked her mother about the dead brother, she never forgot him either. Years later, she would learn about the incident from another source.
As the years passed Mummy’s behaviour became more and more bizarre. Though she hardly socialized, and except for pottering about the garden, never ever ventured out, news had a way of getting around. By the time Ramya was in Grade 3, many of the children at the local convent school had got to know of Mummy’s reputation. One day Sister Bernadette, who taught them moral science, put a question to one of Ramya’s classmates: “Prabha, do you know who the Holy Mother is?”
Without a moment’s hesitation, the small chubby girl answered: “Ramya’s mummy.”
As Mummy grew older, the children in their neighbourhood began to call Mummy a witch. Her sharp features, including the slightly hooked nose, didn’t help. Though still in her forties, she looked gaunt and haggard. Mummy didn’t wear a floppy hat, but she began to resemble, even to Ramya, the witches in the illustrations accompanying the fairy tales she read.
Ramya’s car is a brown weather-beaten Mazda. She thinks of it as a sorrel mare. At first blush, the Ms. Peggy moniker sounds a bit whimsical, but it’s actually a diminutive for Missus Pegasus. The choice of the name can be attributed to Atom Auntie’s lasting influence, though she’s herself long dead. Atom Auntie was a schoolteacher and she fed young Ramya’s mind with fascinating tidbits from history, mythology and literature.
Ramya prefers to keep Ms. Peggy in the garage, her stable so to speak, not leave her in the driveway as some people, Prakash included, would do — as if their car is some kind of totem pole.
Perhaps it is.
Life in North America is inescapably regulated by the automobile. Buses, streetcars, bicyclists and pedestrians are treated like interlopers on the roads. An automobile is a symbol of personal freedom, a substitute for the Arabian of the Wild West — like Lone Ranger’s Silver or Red Ryder’s Thunder. SUVs that could accommodate seven often tear down the streets with only one rider.
Prakash was always after Ramya to get a licence and drive a car. She initially rebuffed his advice, but a few years later, when she had a stable job and they were relatively well off, she took driving lessons with a Desi instructor. Though she had learned to drive in India, her father, no expert driver himself, had felt too nervous to let his young daughter take the car out on her own in the chaotic, unruly traffic of Hyderabad’s roads.
Ramya’s driving instructor in Canada was resourceful enough to make her take her road tests in out-of-the-way places, rather than in centres in and around Toronto where the failure rate was high. Much to Prakash’s chagrin, Ramya passed in her second attempt. Unlike the surly inspector in Burlington during her debut road test, his good-humoured colleague in St. Catharines found her nemesis, parallel parking, up to the mark, and gave her a clean chit. Even today, almost a decade later, she finds parallel parking a perpetual challenge, and tries to avoid it. Also, with roundabouts scarce in North America, she finds making a left turn, in the split-second interval between the green light going out and the red coming on, a real nightmare. She’s terrified that an oncoming car will T-bone her. She has heard of so many people who’d met that fate, and wouldn’t have survived to tell the tale, but for airbags.
Ramya believes automobiles, much like pets, begin to resemble their masters over time. Or vice-versa. Her Mazda is middle-aged, stodgy, grungy, and in urgent need of a bath. It certainly looks a trifle undesirable. But Ramya doesn’t intend to get the car washed in winter. What a waste it would be to get the car cleaned and detailed, she has convinced herself, then have a small winter storm come along and ruin the shining exterior. She’d rather do nothing until spring, the life-breathing season, when the yellow warblers start to serenade, and the denuded trees begin to wear a modest cover.
Nowadays for Ramya, any reason is good enough for procrastinating, moreover she doesn’t like sitting alone in the car with a billowing cloud of foam enveloping her. It makes her spine tingle, reminding her unaccountably of Hitchcock movies. But procrastination is not new for Ramya; She’s been prone to it as far back as she can remember. When she was preparing for school exams, she made a small placard with the words Procrastination is a Thief of Time, and stuck it on the wall above her study table. But the procrastination she’s indulging in now has a feeling of hopelessness attached to it. It wasn’t the same when she was young, when things got postponed because there were more engaging diversions. Now, it comes from the feeling that no chore on earth is worth the while.
In India when Ramya was young, owning a car was a mark of social status. Only a few could afford one. Being a doctor and a gentleman of property, her father had the resources to buy a sedate, sage green made-in-England Standard Companion. Though comfortable and utilitarian, the ungainly model found few takers when first introduced in Great Britain in the sixties. Tastes had changed, and there were flashier models in the fray. Standard Motors, the crafty manufacturer, shipped the unsold stock to India where it found a ready market. For all Ramya knew, the story might be apocryphal. Indians have a huge chip on the shoulder — they always think companies in the West dump substandard goods on them.
Daddy’s car was a convenient pocketsize station wagon, meaning it had extra cabin space instead of a boot at the back. Ramya often demanded to sit there, where she could kneel, and look at the drivers of cars following theirs. She’d get a great kick out of pulling funny faces at them. Some of them would raise their fists or glare at her in pretend anger, which only made her laugh.
Daddy wasn’t a very confident driver and that made him overly cautious. He lacked the necessary spunk to drive in the disorderly traffic typical of Indian roads. One day, when Ramya missed the school bus, he volunteered to drop her off. On the way to her school, he got trapped at a roundabout, and went around and around numerous times, not having enough pluck to peel away from the island in the heavy, unceasing traffic. They were so late that her father had to accompany her to the classroom to apologize to the teacher in person.
A small icon on the telephone indicates there’s a voicemail message secreted in its innards. The message is from a psychologist named Renata Schrink, who introduces herself in a chirpy voice and leaves a number for Ramya to call back. “Hope to talk to you soon,” she ends brightly. There’s so much sunshine in her voice that it can hardly be real. Is it meant to be an antidote for her prospective patients’ chronic depression? A marathon game of tag has begun, thinks Ramya, each leaving a meaningless message for the other. She’s no longer keen to talk to Schrink, though her mood-swings themselves may need the attention of a psychologist. By the way, could Schrink be her real name or just a professional handle, a nom de gloom, so to speak?
But right now, she must do something about her bodily needs: in this instance, her totally depleted larder. If she procrastinates, she won’t even be able to cook herself a decent meal. Reluctantly, Ramya picks up a writing pad and a ballpoint pen. With the concentration of a poet, something she always wanted to be, she writes:
Bread
Bagels
Priya Avakkai pickle
Bru Coffee powder
Taj Mahal loose-leaf tea
Rice (Sona Masoori)
Rice (Basmati)
Toor Dal
Channa Dal
Tamarind
Turmeric powder
Red chillies
Karela
Brinjals (round)
Cabbage
Potatoes
Roma tomatoes
Then she a
dds:
Homo Milk
When they first came to Canada and found little to cheer them, Prakash thought it was a hoot. This must be the only time she’s thought of Prakash without feeling a negative emotion.
Ramya pauses and tries to remember what other groceries and produce she may need for the next two weeks. Unable to think of anything in particular, she adds:
Samosas
Then scores it out. Ramya can’t believe how popular samosas have become in Canada — they have come to represent the best of Indian cuisine. In India, samosas, no one’s favourite, are considered a crude, greasy snack. She herself would disdain them. But in Canada she finds herself eating them with some relish, and buys them regularly from the Indian store. Perhaps samosas are more suited to a cold country like Canada — they’re spicy, filling, and even tasty if eaten hot. And they are, as they say in India, cheap and best.
Ramya puts the paper and pen down abruptly, like a poet suffering from a pang of writer’s block. She’s lost all interest in shopping. There’s nothing in the house, not even a half a loaf of bread. But she’s in no mood to put on those voluminous winter garments and drive down to the store. Besides, Ms. Peggy is a such a disgrace, with swathes of white road dust on her body. Not fit to be seen in public. Like her mistress.
She’ll have to order a pizza over the phone.
There were times when Daddy drove down to the big local market. In ordinary circumstances, one of the servants would fetch vegetables and provisions from shops in the immediate neighbourhood. But if there was a big party in the offing, Daddy liked to do the shopping himself.