by Manil Suri
What difference did it make if she had subsumed everyone else? What difference did it make, who came to power and who went? For an instant I imagined all the leaders of the past, together with the ones yet to come from the decades stretching ahead. They could replace Indira’s image, any one of them, and I wouldn’t care. History had ceased to count, as had the future—my bond with you was all that mattered in the minutes I had left.
I made my way over the sand, until it started turning damp between my toes. It was still too early for the hordes of children that would swarm along the shore in the evening. There was a group of pilgrims offering coconuts to the sea towards the Walkeshwar side, but otherwise the beach was almost deserted.
I didn’t wait for the waves to advance to lure me in, for an invitation to come from the goddess of the sea. The reason I was here was clear—to worry about what drowning signified (had it been unrequited love? financial ruin?) seemed silly. I took off my chappals and arranged them carefully on the dry part of the beach. Perhaps they would be discovered by some destitute who could use them after me.
For a while, all I felt was the packing of the wet sand under my feet. Then the first wave encircled my ankles. The water felt warmer on my skin than I had expected. A small dollop of foam churned up and clung to my kameez.
The wave withdrew and I was back to leaving my prints on the sand. Another one came in, all the way to my shins. I felt this one give a friendly tug as it went out, trying to encourage me in. I refused to be rushed, however, and stood where I was, staring at the horizon.
To be a parent is to be guilty. They’re Paji’s words, the last ones he wrote to me. I could see the note I had left for you, my thoughts inscribed in blue on the plain lined paper torn from a notebook. The page carefully folded, the envelope smoothed out and sealed, and as I addressed it to you, the realization that this might be the last time I inked the letters in your name.
I’ve always tried to focus on your happiness, Ashvin, and been grateful for the drops that fell my way. I’m sure I could have done even better—forgive me for the times I might have strayed. Would Zaida keep the letter to deliver to you in person? Would she sit you down on the dining room table and leave you to read it in private? How would you react, to the memories of your mother as they came flooding in?
You can’t imagine what I went through before you were conceived. How much my life changed once you came. How fully I treasured every minute I spent with you, what fulfillment I achieved through loving you. I will always be in your debt for all the years of joy you bestowed on me.
A volley of waves came in to pull at me again. They were polite, genteel, oblique in the invitation they made, rising no higher than my knees. They left behind sand in the folds of my salwar, and rolled smooth, sea-worn pebbles playfully over my feet.
I turned around to look back. Indira was less imposing now, but her gaze still seemed to follow me. Behind her, the city rose like a divine entity, its buildings a panoply of heads trained in my direction. They regarded me steadily, as if pondering my chosen fate, trying to decide whether to intervene.
To be a parent is to be guilty. The part Paji missed is that to be a child is to be also plagued by guilt. Forgive yourself as well, Ashvin, for anything you think you did. Remember my only wish is for you to be happy—think of it as my last testament and will.
I waded in deeper, until the water was up to my waist. The waves were still respectful, there were no swells surging in, but I felt their pressure on the middle of my body now, each time they swept out or rolled in. I could imagine them trolling me along, playfully at first, and then with brisk dispassion, once their grip was secure.
I don’t think I’ll ever be able to fully explain why this is the best way to end things. I’ve tried, I’ve redrafted this letter so many times, but you’re too young as yet to understand. How should I convey the feeling in my heart of having outlived my usefulness? The notion that I’ve overshot the goals staked out for my life?
I gazed behind me once more. Now, I could no longer make out Indira’s expression—she suddenly looked further away than she really could be. The buildings behind her seemed to have lost interest in me as well, their sternness fading, their faces becoming hazy. It was as if the city had decided I was no longer its responsibility, that I had crossed over into the domain of the sea.
I want you never to forget that whatever happened was only my fault. I want you to prove to me that I didn’t cause you harm, didn’t ruin things after all. I know you’ll be brilliant in your studies, that you’ll rise really high in whatever you decide to do. I want you to have a happy marriage, to find someone who loves you and you love in return. Promise me this, Ashvin, and you will have given me your blessing to leave peacefully.
Only the sea was relevant now. Soon, it would rise even higher in its embrace. The land would fall away, until my feet would not be able to touch the bottom when I tried. Not that I would have any reason to try—I would have outgrown that need. There would only be the white-capped crests gliding serenely around me. The bay would stretch as far as I could see with no boats anywhere in sight. I would pick a point on the horizon and allow myself to be carried towards it.
I stood there, waiting for the wave that would lift me off the sand. Trying to stop the thoughts of you that kept washing over me.
chapter thirty-seven
I WASN’T ABLE TO DO IT. I WASN’T ABLE TO SURRENDER MYSELF TO THE SEA goddess. Rather than being soothed by the vastness of the bay before me, with each wave, the doubts in my mind only multiplied. How would you react to my death? What trauma would it inflict? Would you judge me to be selfish? Self-obsessed? Unfeeling?
When the sea finally swelled up to bear me away, it was not the relinquishing experience I had imagined. What swept over me as my feet lost contact with the ground was panic. I gasped as the water abruptly seemed to turn icy, and thrashed to stay afloat. I fought against the foam, trying to claw my way to safety. The sight of my dupatta swirling out of reach further impelled me. Sandhya appeared at my side, trying to calm me down like a mother whispering into the ear of a child enduring a filling. “It will only take a few minutes, you’ll be content for all eternity.” But I was too crazed to listen to her, too occupied battling the sea.
I did manage to drag myself out. For a long time, I just lay on the sand, letting the water drip from my body. Two boys passing by tried to ignore me. A man in jogging shorts ran by so close that I felt the spray of sand on my face. The sea before me settled right down, like some calculating animal presence trying to appear unthreatening.
By the time I passed the stage again, all the portraits had been carted off—there was no sign of Indira or Sanjay. Nearby, the sand sculptor was packing a mound for a fresh deity, on the site of the one obliterated by the crowds the previous evening. I walked home since I was still too wet to sit in a cab—in any case, I had not brought along any money. The door to the flat was ajar—Zaida paced inside. She had read my letter to her and was awaiting me anxiously, furiously.
I HAD NEVER SEEN Zaida so enraged. She seemed to be using all her self-control not to slap me. She had managed to drag the bucket I had left in the bathroom to the living room—in her hand was the kitchen knife. “Is this why I’ve been your friend?” she shouted, kicking the bucket hard enough to overturn it, its contents surging across the floor. “And this? Are you mad? Are you crazy?” She brandished the knife in front of my face, as if to teach me a lesson, she was going to disfigure me.
She did, in fact, manage to leave her mark on me that afternoon, though the change didn’t take root overnight. It was several days before I could look past the glare of her audacity to discern any sense in her words. “Think about this, Meera,” she said, after she’d put down the knife, after she’d helped me mop up the floor, after we’d hugged and cried and had tea. “For the first time in your life, you’re truly free.”
She was particularly harsh on Paji. “What has that man given you, except birth? Why should you b
e so respectful to his memory? He scribbles some words to you in his will to try and free himself from blame, and you’re clinging onto them as if they’re proof he cared? Let him go, Meera, it’s not so important to be loved by him. He’s dead now, and there’s no reason to feel guilt.”
Encouraged by my silence, she continued. “And Ashvin, too. Forgive me for saying this, but perhaps you shouldn’t be mourning his departure so much, either. The way you’ve brought him up alone, the way you’ve built your life around him, the way you’ve dissolved your existence in his—where has Meera’s spirit been hiding in all of this? Why not try to view his leaving as an opportunity, not a denial, tell yourself to be exhilarated, not depressed? Isn’t it time, finally, to go out into the world and fulfill yourself?”
Her transparency almost made me laugh out aloud. “I know you want to make me feel better, but do you know how absurd it sounds to claim that being left alone is a desirable thing? That’s not why I went to the water in any case. It’s because I’m so fulfilled, so complete—there’s nothing left that I need.”
But Zaida shook her head. “Just mull it over awhile, think what I might be trying to say. I’ve known you since Ashvin was born, I’ve seen you together every day. It’s true you’re his mother, just like I’m my husband’s wife, but there must be something beyond that. If I were free, had some money and a college degree, I’d be out there trying to find the answer, rather than sitting around for Anwar to return from his visits to Sewri. Don’t you understand, Meera? You’ve just received that chance. You could work, you could travel, you could do anything you wanted for yourself. Once you accept that Ashvin’s gone, then you have nobody on whom to keep falling back. Everything doesn’t have to be the tragedy you like to make it out to be.”
“I’m not making anything into a tragedy. If you had a son, you’d know how it feels.”
“If I had a son, I’d be happy he was striking out, that he was so independent. Forgive me again, Meera, but sometimes you get too absorbed in yourself. You focus too much on one thing and forget all the other opportunities you have. It’s too easy, when you’re so close to someone, to get confused about what you each need.”
“Is that really what you think of me? How nice of you to explain. Perhaps now you should just leave.”
Such patronizing airs, such nerve, such complete lack of empathy for my loss, I fumed—not what could be expected from a friend! All week, I kept Zaida at arm’s length. Let her dispense her advice to herself, if she felt the need to pontificate rather than trying to understand what I was going through. I headed her off at the door each time she came up to check on me. “You needn’t keep worrying. I would’ve succeeded by now if I still intended to kill myself.”
And then one morning, I woke up feeling more charitable towards her. Even though her words had rankled, hadn’t she spoken them with my best interests in mind? Certainly, concentrating all my anger at her had calmed the turmoil that led me to the sea. Zaida’s mistake had been to believe she could wean me away from my absorption in you—didn’t she see this was a part of me, as essential to my existence as breathing? The point she’d made was irrefutable—if I intended to continue living, I had to find some other focus for myself. That Sunday afternoon, I took some oranges down to her flat. She opened the door even before I rang the bell. “I was going to give you one more hour, Meera, then come and drag you down here myself.”
Zaida must have been preparing for my visit all week. She launched into an animated discussion of what I should do with the rest of my life—I half expected her to pull out charts and diagrams. “What’s crucial is that you make a career for yourself. Not like in the past, under pressure from your father, or just to fill the gaps around the time you spent with Ashvin. This time, you’d be working because you enjoyed the actual work itself.”
She started presenting occupations one by one for my consideration. “What do you think of social work?” she asked, and I saw from her expression how much she might enjoy doing that herself. “Journalism might be a good option—all the translations you’ve done—couldn’t you claim them as qualifying experience?” She listed the pros and cons of opening a small store (“I could come each day and help”) and even dredged up the stints I’d put in at the museum and the law firm. With each profession I rejected, Zaida grew more determined to find something I’d accept—I realized she might not let me go without extracting some sort of commitment. Surprisingly, it was teaching which she managed to sell to me. “Not the tots who nearly drove you to madness before, but students from the higher standards, who’d be more mature. You’ll need a B.Ed., for which you’ll have to study, of course. But it’ll be completely different this time—you’ll be going to college under your own choice, not your paji’s.”
She pestered me all week. “They say we’ll need thirty thousand more women teachers each year to keep up with our growth—didn’t you see Indira Gandhi last night on TV?” On Friday, when I still hadn’t followed through, she dragged me personally to Bombay University to get the admission form. “My friend’s heeding the prime minister’s call,” she announced to people in line, “becoming a teacher for the future of the country.” Even the clerk was moved to set aside the rudeness expected of him and smile. “One day soon, she’ll be teaching your own children in her class, I promise you” Zaida said.
We stood outside afterwards, the form folded into a zippered compartment of Zaida’s purse, and watched the boys playing cricket on the Oval Maidan. I couldn’t tell from their uniforms to which school they belonged—perhaps one of the more expensive ones like Cathedral or Campion. They looked the same age as you, in the eleventh standard or the tenth. Could these be the classes for which I should aim myself?
There was a loud crack as one of the boys hit the ball with his bat—sending it soaring towards the palm trees at the edge of the maidan. I watched him run across the pitch towards the opposite wicket, as his partner made the same dash in reverse. His skin was dark, his legs not particularly muscular—other than the leanness of his frame, he didn’t resemble you very much. Even so, I could see in him the same energy, the same confidence, that I had detected in the identity card photo you sent. It suddenly felt fantastic that I might have anything to teach someone so grown and self-assured. What great storehouse of learning would I tap, what reservoir of wisdom would I draw from? I worried again about what I was getting myself into, if my attempts to humor Zaida along had gone too far.
A fielder blew the bails off the stumps in a direct hit, but the boy had already made it back in time for a double run. It occurred to me that if I did end up teaching students this old, then year after year, they would be the same age as you when you left. Would it be clever—this curious way of preserving your image, or would it be too unhealthy a link to the past?
I could, of course, aim for an earlier class. Perhaps the fifth or the sixth, when you were so attached to me—why not preserve the memories I had of you from then? Or the seventh, when students had to switch from shorts to long pants and, paradoxically, you looked so much younger in your new full-length uniform. Maybe the fourth, the year of rainbows, when we shared all those lunches on the school terrace. Or even the first, when Dev and I would each grab an arm and carry you laughing up the school steps.
Suddenly all your classes sprang up simultaneously in my consciousness, clamoring to be chosen. I felt myself engulfed by the waves again, of nostalgia this time, pulling me once more into their ocean. I tried to resist, to fight being swept away, but a part of me wanted to surrender, to be willingly submerged. There was another thwack, and I looked back at the boy in his padded long pants, execute an effortless stroke through the air. The ball rose over the field and climbed into the sky, so high that it was captured in the sun’s flare.
At home, Zaida took the form from her purse and smoothed it out on the table. “Here. I want you to fill it out before you change your mind.” She held out a pen. “In fact, sign it first, right now, in front of me. I want to be a witness
to see you seal your pledge.”
I looked at the form. The print was uneven, with several questions about background and education, all crowded into a single page. The spaces left blank for the answers seemed insufficient for all the information asked. There was a rectangular outline in the right corner for a photograph—at the bottom, the box for the signature looked too small.
I remembered a time when the future was like the unmarked sky, open, edgeless, just as vast. How had it been reduced to the size of these ungenerous blanks, how had it shrunk so much?
Perhaps Zaida saw me waver. “Sign,” she commanded, before I could bring up my doubts, before I could expound on any of my misgivings. She thrust her pen at me again, this time removing its plastic cap. I took it from her, careful not to touch the ink near the tip, leaking out to form a clot. It was just a form, I told myself, just to indulge Zaida, and yet I felt a gravity to the moment. Starting at the edge and being careful to control each flourish, I squeezed my name into the signature box.
Zaida burst into applause. She watched over me as I filled in the rest of the form. While I heated the rice for lunch afterwards, she launched into a proposal to send me on a tour of the country. “You’ll have several months before your classes start, so why not take advantage of it? Jaipur, Simla, Calcutta, Kulu—all the places I’ve always wanted to visit.”
I tried to follow the journey on which she was sending me, to behold the new future for me she envisaged. The exuberance to her cheeks, the optimism in her eyes—perhaps one day I would learn her secret.