by Pratap Reddy
It’s a good thing that Ramya’s finances are in order. Even without fortnightly cheques getting deposited in her bank account, she isn’t in any pecuniary distress. Besides having a variety of investments, she has already paid off the mortgage with the help of the money she had realized from selling her father’s house in India — and there was enough left over for a nest egg, too. And if she could motivate herself to fill in and submit the unemployment insurance forms, her fortnightly paycheques could be rekindled for another eight months at least, if what she heard was right.
It isn’t such a bleak scenario after all, yet a sort of lassitude has crept into her being in the last few weeks. She feels no enthusiasm, no sense of expectation, just a desire to let things be.
How can she crawl out of her cocoon of lethargy and aimlessness?
Maybe, this was the right time to reassess her priorities. It was an opportunity to have re-look at her life. She should focus on finding things to do, things which would give her real joy, things which are meaningful, things she always wanted to do but had neglected, all these years, to act on because of distractions of family and career.
Deep down in her heart there’s a dream, however incipient and insubstantial, waiting to be realized. A youthful dream that should have been pursued. A pipe dream, ambitious and asinine at once.
The dream to be an author.
A cynic would have opined that it was unrealistic; and elders in India would have declared it irresponsible. After all, how many writers could live on proceeds derived solely from writing?
Even then, this was the opportune time to breathe some life into that half-forgotten ambition. She may not have the talent to make it, but at least now she has the time to try.
Atom Auntie had to commute quite a distance to get to her school. In those days, it was uncommon for people to travel far to work. Usually, they found a job in their neighbourhood. But Atom Auntie always got a raw deal. She would leave the house at the crack of dawn and return just before dusk. She had to walk to the bus stand, take a bus to the railway station, ride a local train, and then walk again to reach her school. Despite this, she always had time for Ramya. And little Ramya would wait at the front of the house with growing impatience to catch the first glimpse of her beloved Atom Auntie turning into the street. Ramya would push the side gate open, and start running towards her, shouting: “Atom Auntie! Atom Auntie!”
On the other hand, as a teacher, she got long spells of holidays: summer holidays, Christmas holidays and term breaks. She spent all her leisure hours with Ramya.
Atom Auntie read a lot of books and as such was privy to an enormous fund of stories. Often at dinnertime she would sit on the parapet wall of the roof, and feed Ramya from a silver bowl. Though the utensil was tarnished and smelled peculiar, how heavenly it was to dine in the open air! Under a canopy crowded with twinkling stars — it was an era when lights on the earth were too modest to outshine their celestial counterparts, Atom Auntie would tell Ramya tales which would hold her captive with enchantment. And how delicious the food tasted, even if it was just plain dal and rice, when served with sides of chivalry and chicanery! When Atom Auntie wasn’t around, Ramya would refuse to eat, clamping her jaws shut with a strength that was surprising in a child. No pleas or threats could make her open her mouth again. Unless, of course, a story was told. But for Ramya’s mother, or any of the maids, it was quite a challenge to fetch up a tale to conform to Ramya’s exacting standards. If the story didn’t grab her attention or was one she’d heard before (which often was the case, considering how limited her Mummy’s or the maids’ repertoire was), Ramya would say: “The food doesn’t taste good today.” That was that — she’d stop eating, and turn her determined mouth, ringed with crumbs of food, away.
When it came to storytelling Atom Auntie was in a different class altogether. She would point out star-clusters, calling them Orion and Pegasus or Cassiopeia, and narrate their background stories. It would be years before poor Ramya could connect the random sprinkling of stars to form the picture of a hunter or a winged horse. The only exception was the Big Dipper, which fortunately looked its name.
Atom Auntie’s choice of stories was eclectic, often taken from Greek or Norse mythology, rather than from Indian sources. In those days, just over a decade after India’s independence from Britain, English books with Indian content were hard to come by. So, Atom Auntie would rather recount the exploits of King Arthur and Robin Hood than the adventures of Rama and Krishna. She was more at ease with Mother Goose tales than she was with Jataka stories.
It was left for Amma, her grandmother, to correct this asymmetry, albeit unintentionally, when she read out stories years later from an eagerly awaited Telugu periodical called Chandamama. It was printed in lurid tones of green, blue and pink, and served up Indian folklore and mythology by the ladleful. That was how Ramya became acquainted with stories of King Vikramaditya and his ghostly burden Vetala, and Emperor Krishna Devaraya and his witty minister Tenali Ramakrishna.
Amma had her own take on astronomy. In summer, when it got too warm, Amma and Ramya would go onto the roof to sleep. The flat roof, often called a terrace in India, had a parapet wall on all sides. As they unrolled the beds to sleep in the cool night breeze, Amma would explain the mysteries of the night sky with a mythological slant. The very same Big Dipper, also known as the Great Bear, would be called by its Indian name of Saptarishi Mandala, the abode of the seven great sages, and Arundati, the perfect wife — hardly visible — dimly simpering next to her hermit husband.
“If you look hard, you will find her,” Amma said, as though a perfect wife wasn’t someone easy to come by.
She would tell Ramya about Surya the Sun God and his wife Chaaya, the Shadow; about Soma the Moon God and how he was afflicted with consumption which made him wax and wane; about black, sinister serpents that would try to swallow up the Sun and Moon, causing eclipses.
The most gruesome story Ramya ever heard was recounted by Atom Auntie. It wasn’t a story at all in the real sense of the word, but a tragic incident that happened at a school. One of Atom Auntie’s friends who taught in an exclusive girls’ school had invited her to attend their annual day event which was touted to be spectacular. The school had deep pockets, so they had an excellent music and dance department which was staffed with talented teachers. In consequence, the school children put on a show every year which was of a very high order, almost professional in its execution.
The event was held in an attractive open-air theatre. A rich navy curtain hung in scalloped gathers, and pinned to it were letters made from satiny pink ribbons, which read: “Welcome to Our Annual Day Celebrations.” The bright strobe lights focused on the message heightened the sense of expectation.
It was an evening in late November; the sun had just set, leaving splashes of gold and orange along the western horizon. Overhead, the sky was a throw of inky velvet with sequins. Shy wintry stars, peering down through a veil of haze, had turned up to watch the show, as if they knew that something unexpected was about to happen. It was a chilly night, giving the audience the perfect excuse to dig out their moth-balled winter wear — men wore suits and cardigans, young men jackets and jerseys, and women and girls stoles and sweaters. Atom Auntie wore her usual chocolate brown pashmina shawl, with a tiny paisley pattern in light ochre (a gift from your mother, she told Ramya), to go with her crisply starched cream-coloured Venkatagiri sari with a thin gold border.
In front of the stage, hundreds of metal folding chairs were arranged in neat, serried phalanxes. A red carpet was laid out in the aisle, and there were potted plants everywhere, adding to the décor. The audience section was fast filling up with guests.
A male teacher selected for his voice — a kind of syrupy baritone — was the invisible master of ceremonies. As he began to welcome the guests in his deep voice, the outer strobes dimmed, and the curtain rose to reveal a stage flooded with light. On the stage was a long table with half a dozen high, ornate chairs placed on t
he farther side. Glasses of water covered with coasters were placed on the table, as if arranged for a phantom feast. The disembodied voice of the compere invited, one by one, the principal, the members of the school board, and the chief guest — a local cricket hero — on to the stage. The principal handed over large bouquets of blood-red roses to the guests. The chief guest in particular had an enormous and uncomfortably heavy garland made of white lilies and red roses put around his neck. Then began a series of unbelievably dull speeches; starting with the principal, everyone seated on the stage had a go at the mic. Taking gulps of water — for preaching parches the throat, the many speakers showered clichés on the bored, restive children who made up the bulk of the audience.
Almost an hour later the last of the speakers fell silent. Then all the guests on the stage rose en masse and filed out, taking a narrow flight of steps on one side of the proscenium. When they returned to their seats in the front row, the curtains came down, and from behind it issued sounds of hurrying feet, and furniture being dragged away. The curtains went up again to reveal a large statue of Nataraja, the dancing god. Two students were seated on a mat on the floor, and in front of them were their musical instruments, a veena and a pair of tablas. Tentatively they began to play, and the show started at last.
A dancer sashayed in, deliberately stomping on the floor of the stage to make her ankle-bells ring out. After bowing to the figure on the stage, she began to dance to the accompaniment of the music provided by her two fellow students. Though Atom Auntie had seen similar classical dances performed in schools before, they paled in comparison to what unfolded before her eyes. Most of the acts which followed — whether one-act plays, mime or folk dances — had a finesse not common in school performances, certainly not at the school where Atom Auntie taught. All the children were either extremely talented or had put in hours of practice. All the acts had that aura of professionalism which came when no expense was spared.
Grade after grade put on enjoyable acts, much to delight of the parents who’d come to see their children perform. One of the items was a dance number by the Grade 8 students which promised to be not the usual Indian classical or folk dance, but a modernistic one choreographed by a new dance teacher. It was an ensemble of ten dancers dressed exotically, if inaccurately, as birds of paradise. Each dancer wore an elaborate costume made with brightly coloured plumes. The dance was exquisite to behold as the dancers flapped their arms, and wove around the stage with fluid movements, grouping themselves into patterns, then moving away, dissolving the formations, and then re-grouping to form another.
The background score was a medley of movements from western classical music — Mozart, Beethoven and Wagner. In the final round, burning sparklers were handed out to the dancers. The dancers twirled the sparklers around, as the music picked up pace, rising in a crescendo towards a grand finale. The audience watched spellbound.
One of children accidentally dropped a sparkler on her costume. The flimsy synthetic feathers burst into flames. Some of the other dancers, sparklers in hand, ran to help their classmate, and before anyone realized what was happening, the costumes of three or four children were on fire.
Screaming, the girls ran hither and thither like celestial firebirds, while the taped music played on relentlessly with a manic verve.
Some foolhardy members of the audience rushed to the narrow staircase the led to the stage, with no clear plan of rescue, unwittingly blocking the way to others bearing fire extinguishers, having torn them down from the walls of the main school building, to douse the flames.
“Roll! Roll!” their dance teacher shouted, tears welling in her eyes because there was no way she could clamber on to the stage which came up to her chest. “Roll on the floor!”
To many in the audience, judging from their reaction, she may have been merely giving stage directions. Were they transfixed with horror or did they presume, in their confusion, that it was all part of the spectacular dance routine? But luckily, some young men who had come to watch their younger siblings perform vaulted themselves on to the stage and, taking off their outer garments, swiped at the burning costumes with them. Wrapping the burning girls in their coats, they succeeded in snuffing out the flames.
There was confusion all around, the audience dispersing helter-skelter. Never before in her life had Atom Auntie witnessed such a horrific scene. There was so much wailing and weeping, Auntie Atom herself had begun to sob without even realising it. What the parents were undergoing, especially those who saw their children go up in flames before their eyes, was difficult to imagine.
The affected children were moved to a nearby hospital in school vans. Much later, a solitary fire engine turned up, with a fireman standing in the rumble, ringing a brass bell lustily. There was nothing for the firefighters to do. The stage was deserted but for residue of foam from the extinguishers and burnt pieces of cloth fluttering in the breeze. Many of the chairs were strewn about, lying on their sides. Some of the potted plants had toppled, the red earth spilling out like bloodstains.
Three or four children received first-degree burns on their hands and back. It could’ve been a lot worse but luckily the plumes were away from their body, and the costumes themselves were made of thick cotton. Nonetheless, the children would carry the scars for life, some on their bodies, and some in their minds.
Atom Auntie wept again, as she ended the story.
“Why are you crying, Atom Auntie?” Ramya asked. “They were not your children.”
“It doesn’t matter whose children they were,” Atom Auntie said, taking Ramya in her arms and hugging her.
A little later, Atom Auntie narrated another story — a funny one, she said — as an antidote.
Atom Auntie had a friend and colleague named Thilakam. She was a short lady in her late fifties, with bold brushstrokes of grey in her hair. She wore diamond ear- and nose-studs whose lustre had dimmed long ago for want of proper cleaning. She was a good-natured, friendly person but a wee bit eccentric, so her colleagues referred to her as thikka-Thilakam. The prefix thikka meant crazy in Telugu.
One evening, after school, the two of them went shopping. Thilakam was an inveterate bargain-hunter, and she wanted to buy a pair of slippers. As usual they went to the fancy Bata showroom on the main street, inevitably called Mahatma Gandhi Road. After walking around the store, gazing at the footwear on display with prices as fancy as the shop, Thilakam declared: “They don’t have a wide variety.”
So, they left the showroom and sought out a small competitor nearby who styled himself Baba Footwear. Despite the shop being small and ill lit, its walls were crammed with racks that reached up to the ceiling. The shelves were stuffed, without a sliver of empty space, with long white cardboard boxes containing a dizzying variety of footwear: men’s shoes, ladies’ shoes, children’s shoes, leather shoes, PVC shoes, rubber boots, factory safety shoes, dancing shoes. Though the display cabinet was dusty and flyblown, sporting a very limited range, all you had to do was to ask for the type of footwear you had in mind, like “PVC sandals in mithai pink,” something cheap and waterproof that went with your shalwar kameez when you were taking the school children out for a picnic on a cloudy day. The salesman would nod his head, go inside the storeroom at the back of the shop, and re-emerge with just the pair you were looking for.
Thilakam and Atom Auntie made themselves comfortable on the lime-green faux leather and chromium chairs. The salesman switched on a ceiling fan, which groaned as it began to rotate, but soon enough sent down a hurricane force of draft at them. He then placed a shoesizing stool in front of Atom Auntie. Thilakam quickly dragged the stool towards herself and plonked her dry, dusty foot on it. The blood-red polish on her toenails was chipped, making her toes look as if they were bleeding.
The salesman read her foot-size with a studied deadpan expression and made his way to one of the racks. He pulled out a dozen boxes and brought them over. Slapping the soles of the slippers together to produce an explosive sound, he offered th
em one by one for Thilakam to try on. She would wear each one, examine it from every angle, even take a few tentative steps to test the comfort of the soles. Then she would remove her foot, and shaking her head, turn the slipper over to read the price-sticker on the instep.
When she had tried on all the slippers, she told the salesman in a commanding voice: “Andar se dikhao! Show me from the stock kept inside!”
The salesman went to the back of the shop through a narrow, curtained doorway and re-emerged with another armful of boxes. Thilakam slowly and steadily went through the motions of trying on the pairs, before shaking her head with fastidious disapproval. When she had tried out all the slippers, she barked: “Andar se dikhao!”
The salesman, with a harried look, returned to the back of the shop and came back with some more boxes. Thilakam made short work of them, finding nothing to her taste.
“Andar se dikhao! Andar se dikhao!”
The salesman sallied forth once again to the storeroom. He returned and, unloading the boxes on to the floor, said: “These are all the slippers we have in the shop.” He looked tired and altogether omitted slapping the slippers against each other as he gravely handed pair after pair to Thilakam who sat amongst a sea of open boxes and rejected slippers.
But Thilakam was insatiable. Again, she said in a rasping tone: “Andar se dikhao! Show me from the stock inside!”
With a weary look, he shambled away and returned with a few more boxes which had a red and gold design on them, instead of the standard white.
“These pairs are for brides,” the salesman said, sounding like a pent-up volcano. “They are very expensive.”