by Ira Pande
Chutke bent his head so low that it almost touched his plate. He wished he could duck out of sight under the table. But his father’s voice carried on relentlessly, ‘She was telling you, Your father’s really got his claws into poor Anand. The minute the poor child returns from school, Babuji pounces on him. If he says he wants to go back to the village, please don’t stop him. I’m warning you, if your father stays on any longer, he’ll turn my poor Anand into a zombie.’ Shivsagar turned to his daughter-in-law, ‘You were right, bahu, perhaps I may turn your son into what I made my five sons: two administrators, a doctor, an engineer and a scientist. My students are now Commissioners and police officers. I may indeed turn your son into a zombie. I am fully aware now, bahu, that your house has no place for old men and women. Perhaps it’s best if we, who your language describes as “oldies”, are made to stand in a row and shot to death. If there is no old person in your world, there will be no trouble!’
With that, Shivsagar Mishra marched to his room, packed his belongings into his tin trunk and strode out of his son’s house.
Chutke tried once or twice to make amends. He sent a draft for two thousand rupees once, another time one for five thousand. But each time, his letters were returned unopened. Shivsagar had liberated himself from the ties that bind parents to their children. His pension was sufficient for the two of them and he earned a little extra by giving tuitions to the village boys. Every evening, Badri and he set off for a walk and returned to find steaming cups of tea made by Parvati. It was pure ambrosia—the tea she made with tulsi, dried ginger powder, cardamoms and some special masalas that gave it a unique flavour. She added creamy milk from their cows to it and the two sipped it with bites of soft jaggery. The body felt revived after the first sip. Often Shivsagar would persuade his friend to share their evening meal and if it got late, Badri spent the night in the room on the rooftop. This was the oldest part of the house and the plaster had long fallen off the bricks. Badri and he had hoisted four sturdy bamboos to prop up the walls, so, all in all, Shivsagar was reasonably comfortable with his life.
Parvati, however, was shrinking by the day. Her face was white as a sheet and Shivsagar could not make out whether it was some terrible wasting disease or the indifference of their sons that was slowly eating away her insides. Every second person seemed to be suffering from cancer: did she have cancer, then? He had spared no effort in her care, sat up nights holding her hand in his. But poor Shivsagar did not know that if you forcefeed a starving man with rich food, it can kill him. He had starved Parvati all through their youth, so now if he was showering all his attention on her, was she capable of revival? Of course, she was as silent as always and never complained but he could see that even the most ordinary task exhausted her and she often sneaked off to lie down when she thought he was not looking.
Finally, Shivsagar could no longer bear it. He put aside his pride and, after ten long years, wrote a letter to his son. Shivsagar had heard that Delhi was considered the Mecca of officers, a Kumbh Mela of ministers. Chutke was now the Union Health Secretary and the destiny of the country’s finest doctors was in his hands. Surely he would be able to save his dying mother, so he convinced a reluctant Parvati to go with him to Delhi. It was nearly a month since he had written to Chutke, yet there was no reply. Parvati’s condition was deteriorating by the hour, so Shivsagar decided that it was futile to wait any longer.
‘I was thinking, Badri,’ he told his friend one day, ‘that I shouldn’t delay taking your bhabhi to Delhi. Chutke’s written a number of letters saying I should bring her there.’ Badri raised a disbelieving eyebrow as he looked at his friend. ‘Achcha?’ he replied, ‘Chutke’s invited you there? Then you must go, brother, but come back soon.’
Chutke used to love laddoos made by his mother, so even in her miserable condition, Parvati stayed up nights to make him all the snacks she remembered he liked—laddoos, besan ki namkeen, mathris and god knows what else. She filled huge canisters full of them to take with her. When they arrived, accompanied by countless bundles and canisters of snacks and their battered tin trunk, a Gurkha durban outside Chutke’s bungalow refused to let them in. However, as soon as he was told who they were, he said, ‘Come with me. You can wait in the “draaing room” because memsahib has gone out but she’ll be back soon.’
For a long time, the two of them sat frightened and overwhelmed by their posh surroundings that had statues, carpets and huge chairs upholstered in velvet. Dwarfed by her son’s prosperity, Parvati was reminded of their past—how cramped the past seemed in comparison to this expansive present! In those days, the only symbol of their comfort was the solitary armchair that Shivsagar had bought cheap at an auction. Its cane seat had worn out, so Parvati stuffed old cotton pulled from smelly old mattresses and stuffed it into a cushion to cover the hole in the seat. Her husband sprawled on it and, as long as he was in the house, this was his throne. But the minute he stepped out of the house, the boys would race each other to grab the seat of power. The victor would then spread his legs across it and declare, ‘The throne now belongs to me!’
Today, each one of her sons was seated on an individual throne and no doubt they had all forgotten that childhood game. Only she endlessly nursed the memories of that lost age. She stole a glance at the stern visage of her husband: god knows what he was thinking. If she were in her own home, she would have served him three or four rounds of piping hot tea by now. Had they done the right thing by arriving unannounced like this? Suddenly their ears pricked at the sound of a car drawing up in the porch. Parvati quickly set down the bundle that she was holding tightly pressed to her breast so far and began to breathe quickly. Her husband took her trembling cold hand in his large, reassuring paw and looked at her as if he were telling her, don’t worry, this is not some wild forest—it is our son’s house. Yet at each approaching footfall, her heart went thump-thump in dread. She saw her son after a full ten years and was shocked to see the change. There was grey in his hair and moustache but how handsome he looked in a dark blue suit. Behind him was his wife, dark lipstick on her lips, short hair and a carefully madeup face. Her body was tightly encased in a short blouse and threatened to spill out at any moment. The minute Shivsagar saw the expression on his son’s face, he knew he had made a hideous mistake.
‘You didn’t tell me anything, Babuji. I wish I had known you were planning to come,’ he started, a slight irritation creeping into his voice.
‘So shall we leave?’ his father retorted.
‘Of course not, how can you say such a thing?’ he said quickly to cover his embarrassment. ‘But if you had sent me a telegram, I would have sent a car to the station to pick you up.’
‘Look at your mother’s condition. I thought since you were such a big man now, you may be able to show her to some specialist here. And I did write but I don’t think I got a reply,’ Shivsagar could not help adding.
‘You don’t know what it’s like here,’ his son offered by way of an explanation. ‘Sometimes it is almost midnight before I come home. And this is Delhi, Babuji, you have to set up appointments weeks in advance. Anyway, why don’t you go to your room and freshen up? I’ll see what I can do.’
‘Where are the children, Chutke?’ Parvati asked in a frightened voice, as if she had committed a crime by voicing this question. Chutke laughed loudly, and for a moment hope sprang in Parvati’s heart as she remembered his laughter from the past. He always threw back his head when he did and his eyes would close on their own.
‘They aren’t children any more, Amma,’ he replied. ‘Smita is in Bombay working in a hotel and Anand is in Poona at the Film Institute.’ Shivsagar’s face closed ominously at this news. ‘Oh, so he is going to become an entertainer, is he?’ he asked in a tight voice.
‘How can you say that, Babuji?’ his son asked in an irritated voice.
The daughter-in-law did not say a single word to Parvati and as soon as she heard Shivsagar’s comment, turned rudely and went into her room. Chutke followed
her after an embarrassed pause.
After that, neither of them came to see them that day. A servant made their beds at night and asked, ‘What would you like to eat, sir?’
‘Nothing,’ said Shivsagar, ‘we have brought our own food with us.’ Then he looked shamefacedly at Parvati, mutely apologizing to her for his earlier rudeness. He had spoilt her visit even before it had started.
And the two of them went to bed hungry.
The next morning, when Shivsagar opened his eyes, he saw Parvati lying with her hands on her chest, silently gazing at the ceiling. Her face was grey and pinched. Her body was like a skeleton with the skin stretched tightly on it and Shivsagar panicked.
‘What is the matter, Parvati?’ he asked her, lovingly stroking her cold forehead. It was wet, like grass when drenched with morning dew.
‘Listen, please take me home,’ she caught hold of his hand and pleaded, her eyes streaming with tears.
She had poured out her grief in that one sentence. He knew exactly how excited she was at the prospect of visiting her son’s home, for Chutke had always been her favourite child. How many times she had told Badri before coming, ‘I won’t be back before a month. I’m going to tell Chutke that I want to see the parade on twenty-sixth January. We’ve spent almost the whole of December here, it’ll be just a few more days.’
Then she had cooked every night to make the snacks that she had packed and brought with her. But no one had even bothered to ask what they were. Her daughter-in-law had cast one withering look at her battered tins and canisters, and Shivsagar had seen the contempt in her eyes. No matter how simple Parvati was, even she could not fail to notice that their arrival was most unwelcome. Chutke had stood near the door and spoken from behind the curtain before leaving for the office, ‘I’ve told my PA to take care. He’ll come here at about eleven tomorrow morning to take you both to the hospital. Tell Amma not to eat anything—all the tests have to be done on an empty stomach.’
Shivsagar was stunned at his callous son: his mother was dying and the swine did not have the time to take her to the hospital himself? At midnight, he awoke and found Parvati sitting in her bed, quietly sobbing with her head on her knees. He jumped out of bed and bent over her. ‘What is it, Parvati? Are you in pain?’ he asked.
‘Take me home right away, please. I feel suffocated here,’ she sobbed.
‘All right, all right,’ he patted her head. ‘We’ll leave tomorrow morning. Where will I find any transport at this hour of night?’ he humoured her as if she were a child. ‘Now, come on, lie down.’ And like an obedient child, Parvati lay down once again, holding his hand so tight that he felt she was afraid he would run away if she did not hold him next to her. She had never behaved like this before, and a nameless fear took hold of his heart and squeezed the blood out of it. Was this because of the son and daughter-in-law’s behaviour or did she have an intimation of her death? Her thin body was trembling and Shivsagar began to quake along with her. Sometimes she would say, ‘They are coming, look!’
‘Who’s coming, Parvati? Where? There’s no one here. Wait, I’ll switch on the light,’ he said and loosened his hand from her vice-like grip. In the dark, in an unknown room, he went fumbling around the walls and his head hit the door. A big lump formed in minutes but he still could not locate a switch. Finally, he tottered back to her bedside and lay next to her quiet, defeated and inert body.
Was this the end, then? He put his hand close to her nose— no, no, she was still breathing. She was alive.
‘O god,’ he prayed, ‘if I have ever done any good in this life, then answer this last prayer. Don’t let anything happen to her in this house. Let her reach home safely, let her die among the treasures she has buried there.’
Dawn broke and suddenly one crow cawed followed by a chorus of caw-caws. Two or three mongrels howled from the street and a brain-fever bird screamed against the sky as it flew across the lawn. The first ray of the sun fell on Parvati’s white face and Shivsagar was reminded of the fleecy white autumn clouds of their village. She tried to smile as she saw his worried face bent over her but the pain turned it into a grimace. ‘What is it, Parvati?’ he asked. ‘Are you feeling faint?’
He had to take his face next to her trembling lips to understand what she was trying to tell him, ‘It is morning now. Take me home.’
‘All right, you stay here. The rest of the house is asleep. If they wake up, they won’t let us go. I’ll go and get us some transport.’ He was back with an autorickshaw within minutes. He told the driver to park outside the house so that its noisy engine wouldn’t wake anyone. How he was going to take her back without a proper reservation or berth he did not care to think about. He carried out their luggage, then heaved his wife on his shoulders and sat holding her in an autorickshaw.
A train that was due to go to Saharanpur was standing in the yard. Shivsagar bought his tickets and sat in a compartment. He couldn’t care where it was headed, just as long as it took him out of this cursed city. Every particle of dust seemed to him like a scorpion’s sting and he was convinced that the minute they left it his Parvati would get better. He was right. As soon as the train started to move, she put her head on his lap and slept like a baby.
God knows how many times they changed trains, then sat through an interminable bus journey to reach home. It was night by the time they reached the village. Miraculously, Shivsagar’s fear vanished as soon as he crossed his threshold. It seemed to him as if they had both escaped from hell and entered paradise. He would see how anyone could dare to snatch his wife from him on his home territory!
Early next morning, Badri arrived and Shivsagar went on and on about his son’s magnificent house, the hospitality—‘There are two cars in the porch, d’you know? One is official and the other his own. He has a huge house, but where does he have the time, poor boy, to enjoy all this? He had just returned after a trip to Japan with the prime minister, before that he had gone to Washington…they think the world of him…’
‘Shut up, you idiot,’ Badri interrupted rudely. ‘Can one conceal a pregnancy from the midwife? I know what must have happened. I know all about ungrateful sons. What hurts me, brother, is that when it happened to me I came and told you all. And you? You thought you could fool me, huh?’ Shivsagar bent his head in shame.
‘You are right, Badri,’ he admitted. ‘I kept telling her all through the way that she was special, she was the woman our village calls pootonwali, a blessed mother of sons. But today I wish that she was childless. Do you remember that old rhyme we learnt in school, Badri?
Paanch poot Rama budiya ke…
Baki bacha na koi…
(Old woman Rama had five sons / And then there were none) ‘Keep quiet,’ Parvati’s faint voice admonished him, ‘don’t you dare utter such inauspicious words. Why on earth should I wish to be childless?’
‘I know, brother,’ Badri went on, carefully stashing his half-smoked bidi behind his ear for later, ‘this pain never lessens. The wounds your children inflict continue to hurt until you climb your pyre. They eat your insides hollow…’ And, indeed, who knew better than Badri the depth of that pain? For the last ten years he had nursed his wounded heart for that was when he went over to visit his son in Bombay without any warning.
Badri had heard of Bombay and never dreamt that one day his son would live in that huge city of dreams. The son had married a girl of his own choice but, thankfully, she belonged to their own community. In the beginning, the son and his daughter-in-law would come down once in a while to visit the old man; then they stopped coming home. Nor did they ever invite him to leave his lonely life in the village and make his home with them. Badri slowly got used to living by himself. Then, one day, the son sent him a telegram to inform him of the birth of a grandson in Bombay. Badri went mad with joy— he ran to the local grocer’s shop and quickly bought five rupees worth of batashas to distribute to his neighbours. A few women came over to sing the auspicious songs that are mandatory at the birth of a g
randson.
‘So when are you off, Badri Kakka?’ they asked him. ‘Why don’t you call her here so we can see your grandson as well?’
‘I will, I will,’ Badri replied. ‘Just let her come home from the hospital and recover her strength. I’ll go over and see them both first.’
But that never happened and the child had celebrated two birthdays already. On his third birthday, Badri lovingly bought some hideous woollen clothes and caps in lurid colours to take as his offering for the child and left for Bombay. Thankfully, he had sent a wire to his son. Had he not done so, god knows where he would have landed in search of his grandson. The son and daughter-in-law had come to the station to receive him, but the minute they saw his rustic attire, their faces fell. Badri’s dhoti, which he had washed himself, was yellow with age and distinctly dirty. His shapeless waistcoat was lined round the neck with grime and oil and his feet were stuffed into a pair of cheap shoes that squeaked as he walked. He got off the train, holding an old, battered tin trunk that had faint traces of roses and leaves painted in garish colours.
He reached his son’s house and was stunned by its size and opulence. An ayah was walking the child on the lawn and Badri leapt forward to stuff a crushed five-rupee note into his grandson’s palm. The ayah saw the note and turned her face away to hide her smirk—she had taken a hundred rupees from the memsahib for washing the baby’s first nappy. Badri quickly made himself at home. He roamed around in his funny clothes and monkey cap and was all over the child, kissing him with his bristly face and smelly breath. Every morning, he took a neem stick from the bundle he had brought with him to chew as he cleaned his teeth, his caste thread looped over one ear. Then he stuffed his hand into his mouth to clean his tongue, making terrible sounds as he gargled and spat. Occasionally, he peed into the bushes at the edge of the lawn, oblivious to the horror of the neighbours. He ate in his room and polished off vast quantities of chapattis, saying, ‘These Bombay vegetables don’t have the flavour that our village vegetables do.’