by Pratap Reddy
Typically, it would be a somnolent Sunday morning, and after a heavy breakfast of idli, sambar and chutney, her father would set out. If Ramya asked to go with him, Daddy would happily take her along — he was that kind of a father. Ramya would accompany him, even though it would take a long time, and the market was an incredibly smelly place. There was something entertaining, even thrilling, about a trip to the bazaar.
Daddy would also take a young, able-bodied servant — someone like Sailoo. The servant boy was needed to carry the provisions so that you could avoid hiring coolies, the scantily clad, muscular men who carried your purchases in big round baskets placed on their heads. They smelled of stale sweat, and were notorious for their recalcitrance and aggressive bargaining skills. It was best to avoid them.
The bazaar was spread over many hundreds of acres, or so it seemed to Ramya. It had a large section devoted to fresh vegetables. There were separate areas earmarked for fruits, flowers, dry vegetables, spices, meat and fish. In the periphery of the market there were jewellers, sweets vendors, stationers, clothiers and what have you.
It was a riotous world where bicycles, cycle-rickshaws, auto-rickshaws, pushcarts, bullock carts, scooters, motorcycles, cars, minivans, and lorries, to say nothing of jaywalking cattle and devil-may-care pi-dogs, jockeyed for road space. Thousands of people jostled each other, and the vehicular traffic on the narrow roads often ground to a halt. There was a constant din — a kind of gigantic susurration which, if one paid attention, would separate itself into the component noises of internal combustion engines, newfangled electric horns and old-fashioned bellow horns, radios blaring in cafes, bells ringing in temples, cows mooing with hunger, dogs barking at one another, people shouting, people talking, people laughing.
Taking the hand of either Daddy or Sailoo in hers, lest she get separated from her elders in the maelstrom of people, little Ramya would scurry after them, her rubber slippers squelching in the slush. There was always slush on the ground, great streams of it, like black, wet soil. With her free hand, she would cover her oversensitive nose to ward off the smell of rotting fruit and blocked drains.
The vegetable vendors sat on low stools, surrounded by scores of baskets which were steeped with vegetables: tomatoes, brinjal, cauliflower, carrots, cabbage, a variety of gourds, a selection of legumes, and an assortment of leafy vegetables. Every transaction was an exercise in good-natured banter, yet it sounded as if it was on the threshold of a no-holds-barred brawl. The air was thick with accusations and insinuations of sellers and buyers, hurled like hand-grenades at each other.
“You can’t pick and choose,” the vegetable-seller yelled to a customer who was stuffing vegetables into a small dirty wickerwork tray. The tray with vegetables would be handed back to the vegetable-seller to be weighed.
“Do you expect me to pay for rotten vegetables?” the customer shot back.
“Am I supposed to take back home all the vegetables that are not good?” the seller countered.
“Weigh properly, weigh properly,” another customer would remonstrate. “Hold the scales the correct way, or else I’ll report you to the authorities.”
“You can complain to the Prime Minister for all I care!”
“Eight annas for a kilo? Look at these beans, they’re all dried up!”
“Take them for six annas. Special price, just for you.”
“I’ll give four annas, not a paisa more.”
Such momentous bargains were being struck all the while. That was the norm: Negotiation was part of the buying process, and even more so, a social skill. But Daddy was too shy a person to haggle with small vendors. In the early days, it was said, he made valiant if uncertain-sounding counter offers. The sellers, prescient in such matters, simply stood their ground. Daddy always buckled under and ended up paying what was demanded. So he stopped making even a token attempt to beat down the price. Anyway, the cost of food was so small in comparison to his earnings that it didn’t matter much. That’s how Daddy comforted himself.
Each time, Daddy followed the same routine, buying the same vegetables, the same meats, from the same shopkeepers because for every party they would have the same menu (as though it was something ordained by the scriptures): peas palao, fried mutton, chicken curry, vegetable korma, and raita. And of course, there would be poppadum or garelu (a doughnut shaped savoury) or some such fried stuff for a side. On occasion, fried fish would be thrown in as an afterthought, or a couple of vegetable dishes, if there were any uncompromising vegetarians in the guestlist.
After buying fresh vegetables, the threesome would move on to the section that sold dry merchandise like spices. As soon as Ramya stepped into the lane, her justly famous nose would start to twitch. Hanging over the entire area was a nuclear cloud of aroma caused by the warring smells of various spices.
From there, to proceed to the butcher’s shop one needed a very strong stomach — simply covering your nose wasn’t enough. Dangling from hooks were skinned, blood-smeared carcasses of goats, as if they were so many wet clothes hung out to dry. When Ramya was very little, the sight had disturbed her so much that she stayed off meat for many months. The butcher wielding an enormous cleaver would chop up hunks of meat with astonishing speed and dexterity. To little Ramya it was a wonder that he didn’t slice off the ends of his fingers. When one asked for minced meat, it was fascinating to watch him dice meat at a demoniac speed, the butcher’s knife sounding as if it were transmitting a message in Morse — Tchak! Tchak! tchak! I’ll have you for lunch! Tchak! Tchak! Tchak! I’ll have you for dinner! Tchak! Tchak! Tchak! I’ll even have you for evening snack!
The next stop, the poultry. In those days, one often bought chickens live. The birds were housed in crowded, noisy enclosures, reeking of fear and death. The shopkeeper would grab a hen by its legs, singing the praises of its gastronomic qualities. The bird, squawking in terror, would be held aloft for inspection. If approved, he would kill the bird by snapping its neck. He’d pluck out the feathers, skin the fowl, dice it into bite-size pieces, and wrap them in a large leaf of a wild plant before handing it over to the customer.
Of all sections in the market, the Nobel Prize for sheer stink would go to the fish stall. The fish from the sea, having come by overnight trains from the distant coast, would lie with their eyes open, staring unwaveringly at Ramya, reminding her of her stern science teacher. The lake or river fish would sometimes be alive, swimming sluggishly within the confines of a dark, malodourous tank.
Once Daddy checked the shopping list he brought with him, and ascertained that he had bought all the items, they returned to the car — Sailoo weighed down by a large round wickerwork tub balanced over his head, and Dad carrying a jute bag or two. Ramya would get into the cabin space at the back of the car, where she’d have the advantage of views offered by three windows — a kind of wide screen experience of the vivid drama that was the Indian bazaar. Daddy would steer the car through the traffic, nudging a cow here, bumping into a rickshaw there, honking all the while, to make the sea of apparently deaf people part for them.
On the evening of the party, when they began to prepare the food, the whole house would smell of the delicious spices that went into the cooking. The appetizing aroma would waft through the rooms, like a special guest who’d been given free run of the entire house. Ramya always associated a party or a festival with the smell of spices, heady and cloying, rather than anything else. Not the rearrangement of furniture in the living room to accommodate the large number of guests; not the decorations, when mandatory bunches of multicoloured balloons blossomed on the walls and ceilings on birthdays; not the shimmering daisy-chains of tiny clay lamps that snaked along the parapet-walls during the festival of Deepavali; not the sudden appearance of a large metal tub with iceberg-sized blocks of ice submerging bottles of soda and beer. Nothing, nothing — but the all-pervading smell of cooking, as palpable as a threedimensional object.
The guests would begin to trickle in much after the stated time, as if i
t was bad manners to arrive at a party on schedule. The menfolk would stay back in the living room where an impromptu bar had been set up, but the women, dressed in party finery of silk saris and heavy jewellery, would coast on, carrying with them a halo of the scent they’d doused their armpits with. They proceeded to the bedrooms where they’d settle down on beds or sundry chairs.
The ladies, having transformed a part of the house into a fortified seraglio, would sip Kissan’s orange or pineapple squash from tumblers hardly bigger than shot glasses. In their cozy seclusion, they’d talk about films, new recipes, and illnesses, like measles and whooping cough, which befell their respective families. Sitting amidst her guests, with a preoccupied look, Mummy would participate little, if at all, in the desultory conversation. She behaved more like a reluctant invitee rather than the hostess. Her only concession to the occasion was to wear a Kanchi silk sari (with an ill-fitting and mismatched blouse), and stick random pieces of jewellery on her ears, neck and hands — like someone indifferently hanging Christmas ornaments.
Only for get-togethers of the extended family would children be invited. Ramya rejoiced if there were no children present — she hated having to play “house-house” with other girls, pulling out her collection of dolls and toy cooking utensils. If there were boys among the guests, they’d have to play “I spy” in the front yard, which was even worse.
If Ramya was all by herself, she’d do what she liked doing most — man the makeshift bar. Bottles of liquor stood shoulder to shoulder on the counter, like stalwart generals on parade. Most of the bottles were of whiskies made in India with names drummed up to evoke the Scottish Highlands — like Bagpiper or Peter Scot. But the pride of place was given to the one or two bottles of Scotch with illustrious names like Chivas Regal or Vat 69 — presents for Daddy from grateful patients who’d bought them at duty-free shops in airports on their way back from a foreign jaunt.
Ramya would clamber on to the barstool, replacing the versatile Sailoo, who’d until then assumed the avatar of a bartender. Though displaced, he’d stand by Ramya’s side, like an avuncular ghost, as she dished out large pegs of whisky. Daddy’s misty-eyed friends coming up for refills would chat her up, pretending she was a barmaid.
“So Ramya darling, how’s business today?”
“Not good. Krishna Rao uncle is not drinking anything today.”
“He has a bad liver. Your Daddy must have ordered him to stay away from liquor … So Ramya what do you want to become when you grow up? A doctor like your father or remain a barmaid?”
Sliding soda water carefully from a bottle into the tumbler with the peg of scotch (Sailoo having prised opened the rusty bottle-cap, as Ramya did not have the required strength in her small, thin wrists), she said: “I want to become a teacher like Atom Auntie.”
She was a little girl then, around six years. But somewhere down the road, she dropped her overvaulting ambition to become a schoolmarm. She couldn’t pinpoint exactly when the momentous realisation occurred. Was it when her poem was published for the first time in the school magazine? Or when she’d finished reading Daphne Du Maurier’s Rebecca in her preteen years? The book’s enchantment was so powerful that she’d felt there was nothing more wonderful than being a writer. In a society which encouraged boys to become engineers and girls doctors, Ramya had kept her counsel, biding her time.
Daddy’s parties would drag on late into the night, propelled by the men’s reluctance to call it a day. The famished wives had to make brave sorties into the men’s stronghold repeatedly to persuade their husbands to have dinner. It was a custom in those days for men to have dinner first, and only then would their wives follow suit.
At the end of a sumptuous meal, as always, paan was distributed. These were small green trapezoid tidbits made of betel leaves folded over areca nuts, coconut shavings and rose jelly. It was the perfect antidote to the lingering masala flavour in your mouth or the stubborn nicotine smell in your breath. The moment the guests partook of the paan, the party ended for all intents and purposes. The guests would slip away, in incredibly quick succession, to their waiting cars, calling out their thank yous and goodnights.
After the precipitate evacuation of the guests, a sudden hush would descend on the house. The drawing room would have a bereft aspect, like the lounge of a sinking ship abandoned in a hurry. Later the servants would turn up to collect the glasses and empty the ashtrays. By then Ramya who wasn’t used to late nights would begin to doze, her eyes stinging with sleep. Curled up on a sofa in the drawing room, she would sleep contentedly until Daddy or a maid carried her to her bedroom upstairs.
Ramya telephones Mrs. Rao’s home. An overdue call, which cannot be put off for any reason. Mrs. Rao’s daughter picks up the phone.
“Jayanti, I’m sorry to hear about your mother. How is she?”
Ramya remembers Jayanti as a teenager. Outwardly she looked very much Indian, but when she spoke she sounded like a native-born Canadian. Though not impolite, she had a confident and direct way of speaking, even to her elders, which had sounded curt to Ramya’s unaccustomed ears when she first came to Canada.
“I meant to call you today, Ramya. Mother passed away late in the night yesterday.”
“My god! I’m really sorry … How is your father keeping? May I speak to him?”
“He’s resting right now. He’s taken mother’s loss very badly.”
“I’m not surprised. They were close. I’d like to come and see him.”
“That will be nice. But please call before coming.”
Ramya puts down the receiver, overwhelmed with intense sadness.
When Ramya was in Grade 8 her own mother died after a prolonged illness, ending a tug-o-war between a puzzled but indefatigable team of doctors and the relentless and determined hosts of the Lord of Death. A few weeks before, Ramya’s parents had been to the port city of Chennai (called Madras then) for a couple of days to attend the wedding of a close family friend’s daughter. On their return to Hyderabad, Mummy fell ill — she felt too queasy to eat and had a slight fever. When the symptoms persisted, her condition was diagnosed as jaundice and she was put on appropriate medication. Weeks passed but there was no improvement. Test after test was done, and Daddy consulted his specialist friends, but the deterioration was unstoppable. She was not responding to drugs; the entire regimen of treatment had no effect on her. Thin as a rail at the best of times, the illness reduced her to a two-dimensional object spread out on the mattress. Like a large inflatable doll from which all air had escaped, leaving a limp, wrinkled plastic sheath.
In desperation, Daddy admitted her into a hospital. When Ramya visited her mother there, she found her lying inert on a metal cot, in a dead faint, with tubes sticking in and out of her — as if she were a processing machine designed to improve the quality of running water in the hospital. All the gallons of intravenous glucose were of no avail. For Daddy it was a terrible blow, twice over. Besides the personal loss, the fact that he was a doctor, and yet could not help her, weighed heavily on him.
Ramya felt sad, but not in an immediate, soul-wrenching kind of way. She acknowledged the loss but didn’t feel it. It was the suddenness, more than the loss itself that was the gravamen of her sorrow. When they brought Mummy’s body home, slow, silent tears trickled down her cheeks, but there was no outpouring of grief. Daddy looked more bewildered than he did at normal times, and fortunately for him, his relatives and friends stepped forward unhesitatingly to help with the funeral arrangements. The kind of support he received was not surprising at all since Daddy had always provided medical consultation, and often medicines, free of charge to his friends and relatives.
Mummy was laid out in the living room on a bed of ice-blocks, which shed copious tears for her. Quantities and quantities of flowers were arranged over the body: Arifuddin the flower vendor went out of his way to deliver a huge number of garlands for Mummy, his biggest customer. Of course, Daddy insisted on paying for the flowers, and Arifuddin reluctantly accepted
it. However large-hearted and magnanimous, Arifuddin was, when all was said and done, only a petty businessman.
Incense sticks and lighted lamps were placed on the floor at the foot of the bed of ice. The incense was of the same fragrance Mummy had used for daily worship. In death she smelled just like her puja room, the place she’d spent most of her time.
There was a steady stream of visitors. Even out-of-town relatives came, and not all of them could be accommodated in the house. They had to take rooms in nearby hotels, or they went back the same night. The house was full of strangers, many of them clad in white, who’d come to pay their last respects. There was so much hustle and bustle, with servants running hither and thither, that it grated on Ramya’s nerves. One maid’s exclusive task was to mop up the water from the melting ice-blocks.
Her mother was cremated in a faraway burial ground, and only the male relatives went to witness it. Daddy returned home carrying, in the crook of his arm as if it were a child, a large earthenware urn which contained Mummy’s ashes. He couldn’t bear to dispose of Mummy’s remains right away in the traditional way. He must have thought it too callous to jettison Mummy out of their lives in one heave.
All the guests and visitors had left, and an unnatural silence, an emptiness like curfew, descended on the house. It felt as if the house was filled with an invisible fog, and the inmates maundered about, not knowing what to do next.
Daddy sent word for one of his patients who was a jeweller to have a decorative silver container made to store the ashes. Until the silver casket arrived, the earthenware pot was placed on the sideboard like an ethnic artefact bought from a Cottage Industries showroom. A horrified Amma, Ramya’s grandmother, had it moved to a corner of the front yard. It was considered inauspicious to bring the remains of a dead person into the house.
Then Daddy got the brainwave to bury the ashes in the bed of Mummy’s beloved jasmine bushes. Amma would have none of it — she instructed Daddy to disperse her daughter’s ashes in a holy river so that her soul would have eternal peace.