Baby Doll

by Gracy

  My limbs turned powerless. When I fell back into bed, a black-and-white tomcat jumped into my mind. I knew it wasn’t the first time. It is true that once she did take me. ‘But because of that alone … impossible,’ I murmured. And when I hollered with all my strength, ‘It’s not my child!’ she got up, smiling. That was the day when I came to know that a smile could be so bitter. However, I ignored it. ‘You cat!’ I yelled at her. For a fleeting moment, I even wondered about the acceptability of that usage. The next moment, ignoring all doubts, I continued, ‘It’s not my child! It’s the child of that tomcat who visits you every night!’

  For a moment, she stared at me in disbelief. However, by then I had become courage personified. Abruptly, she sat on the bed and covered her eyes. I saw her shoulders quake with suppressed sobs. After a long while, she calmed down. Her fingers smeared with sweat and tears, she hugged me tight. ‘See, there’s something wrong with you. I’ve felt it from the beginning. Please come with me. Let’s go to a psychiatrist.’

  I laughed out aloud. ‘Amazing! You’re smarter than I thought! Now you want to turn me into a lunatic, right? Then things will become easier for you!’ Leaving her standing there like a wooden toy, I left the room, with no clear destination in mind.

  When I came back after wandering god-knows-where for three days, she was lying in the room, exhausted. When she saw me, she broke down: ‘I killed my child!’ I stood there in utter shock. The truth was being unravelled right before my eyes! She was indeed a tabby cat. Cats do kill and eat their children. Or else, she must at least be a feline avatar.

  Now don’t you believe what I said at the beginning? I can’t stand this any more. So, before things deteriorate further, kindly help me. On what basis can I get a divorce?

  (Poocha)

  7

  The Denouement

  It was at the age of ten that my first literary work appeared. It was as straightforward as an unaided delivery at home. In form, it was a play.

  Father: Hey, woman! Come here for a moment.

  Mother: What’s wrong with you, man?

  It was a page torn from life and would have been agreeable even to a carping, nitpicking critic. At that point in my life, I had not heard of great sayings like ‘Natakantham kavithvam’.8 Anyway, for reasons unknown to myself, I gave up writing plays altogether. Thereafter, with my ears attuned to the crazed beat occasionally dancing in my soul, I went on to become a poet. It had even reached a point when I could churn out ten to sixteen lines in one breath. Somehow, that too fell silent in me. I began to feel that perhaps the short story was my forte. Though I wrote five to six stories, all of them turned out to be of little substance. Musing on what was to be done now, I stayed despondent for quite a while. By and by, my attention shifted to colours.

  It was around this time that I came to know that a painting exhibition was to be held in the city. I decided that I too would wield the tools of a painter after seeking out some artist to clarify a few things about art.

  However, that was the time when a problem began to torment me. I had developed bad breath, a really rancid breath. You readers must be wondering how I found that out. This is where we need to understand how much of an impact TV advertisements can have on you. You just need to keep your palm in front of your face and blow on to it with a ‘haa’ sound. Instruct your nose to smell it the moment the blast of breath hits your palm. If you have bad breath, it will be unmistakable. Nevertheless, what bothered me more than my stinky breath was my body odour. If you have bad breath, there is a solution for it – shut up and work. But for body odour, I could find no way out. That was when I realized how advertisements can cheat you. Using those fragrant soaps had proved to be in vain.

  Eventually, after much rumination, I decided to chew cardamom and dab talcum powder all over myself. I spent a lot more time in front of the mirror, taking pains to make myself attractive, and felt a little more confident. The first person I spotted inside the exhibition hall was a middle-aged man in a coarse kurta, with an even coarser face. I stood, gazing in wonder at his goatee, and the smoking pipe between his lips. Then I glanced through his paintings. Assailed by circles, squares and triangles, I panicked as if I was back in Ashtamoorthi Sir’s geometry class in school. Worried that anything I asked would be construed as stupid, I moved to the next stall. The first thing that caught my attention was the hair and beard that had obviously not seen a pair of scissors since birth. Tired after wandering through that hirsute forest, I froze. It was the first time that I was coming face to face with such a cheerless face. I felt that even asking him anything would be sacrilege. All his paintings were plastered with black paint. Noticing that even his sun was black, my heart missed a few beats. I escaped to the next man.

  When I saw his paintings, I could not help being amused. Most of them were of nude women. His style was about exaggerating certain body parts, endowing them with unnecessary lushness. The heavy thighs and breasts, and the eyes that strayed outside the contours of the faces, set off a quiver in me at the very first glance. I was also amused to notice that the face of the baby, lying on the mother’s naked lap, with its mouth craning towards its mother’s breasts which seemed like pots full of heavenly elixir, looked exactly like his. With a faint smile, I turned to the theyyam9 figures he had created. The unusual care that he had put into even the minutiae of the ritual costume bewildered me. However much I scrutinized them, other than the colour red flooding everything, I could not make out anything. Looking into his captivating eyes for a while, I murmured, ‘I don’t seem to understand anything.’

  With an expression more cryptic than his paintings, he said, ‘For that, the eye should be trained!’

  I wondered what that meant. Awkwardly, I moved to another question, ‘Red is your favourite, isn’t it?’

  ‘And yours?’

  Forgetting even to breathe, I stared at him. Taking in his impassive face, I smiled to myself.

  ‘Blue.’

  He picked up the brush, dipped it in paint and created a blue sky in an instant. To it, he added red stars. I felt like kissing his long, slim fingers. Hesitantly, I asked him for that painting. With a gentle smile, he gifted it to me.

  I thanked him as I left to move to paintings by others.

  ‘I’ll be back.’

  He reminded me that the exhibition was on only for five days.

  That night, I dreamt of floating amongst sparkling red stars in a blue sky. The next day, though it was for the college that I left with my bundle of books, it was in front of the artist that I ended up. He gave me a new roll of paper. In the unfurling anxiety, I saw a red bird and a blue bird sitting like strangers on two branches of a tree, staring somewhere into space. A vague melancholy suffused me. Refusing to look into his face, I asked him, my voice moist, ‘They will always be strangers, won’t they?’

  Because no answer was forthcoming, I raised my face. I was taken aback to see turbulence reddening his eyes. He did not even bother to look at me. After waiting for a while, I returned home. As I looked again and again, I was certain that those birds were us. I was convinced that this was what tutoring the eye meant.

  The next day too, all roads led to the exhibition hall. But it was with trepidation that I unrolled the paper that he gave me. The tree was in full bloom. The red and blue birds were perched with their eyes shut and their beaks rubbing each other’s. With surging joy, I looked into his eyes. They were calm. But they were wandering elsewhere, somewhere far away. After waiting vainly for a while for those wandering eyes to come back to me, I left, embarrassed.

  On the fourth day, it was with agitation that I opened the new roll that he gave me. All the flowers had ripened into fruits. In a nest made with twigs and fibre, the mother bird sat with her two babies crying with their beaks open. My lips broke into a smile as I spotted the father bird trying earnestly to transfer the food loaded in his beak into the babies’ beaks. His lips too had a smile on them. However, his eyes seemed focused on his claws. Without staying t
here a moment more, I flew out. To tell the truth, by then, I had grown two little wings.

  Next morning, the realization that it was the last day of the exhibition made me feel bleary. In the grey emptiness that seemed to take over my heart, I could see a red bird flying away and disappearing as a mere speck. I did not even feel like getting up from my bed. However, as I knew this would be the last opportunity to meet him, I dressed with care and set out.

  ‘I had a strong hunch that I wouldn’t be able to meet you,’ he said.

  I struggled to smile. I had always taken care not to squander the scent of the cardamoms by opening my mouth unnecessarily. Hence, I was able to create the impression that I was quite different from other girls. Nevertheless, at that moment, I felt powerless to respond. Stacking the canvases, he said, ‘I’ve sold four or five. Let’s have lunch together.’

  As I sat staring at the menu card, he held my fingers and caressed them gently. Before the waiter could appear, he landed a surreptitious kiss on the back of my neck and I winced. My mouth was so parched that I was unable to utter a word when he asked me what I wanted.

  Before we parted, he handed me a white heart edged with red and said, ‘You can do whatever you want, with this.’

  As I did not want to see him leave, I buried my face in the white heart.

  On the seventh day, a letter arrived for me. Aware that written words would not stink, I wrote back boldly. We agreed to meet again. I suggested the railway station as our meeting point. It was a clever move on my part. After buying a platform ticket, I would walk into the ladies’ waiting room, pretending to be exhausted, as if I had travelled a long way. First, I would take out the toothpaste and brush from my handbag, and brush my teeth once again. Then comb my short, curly hair for a long time to make it look attractive. Rub sandal-scented talcum powder on to my body. Sticking a round bindi in place and chewing cardamom, I would smile confidently into the mirror. Finally, I would walk out and sit on a platform bench, waiting for his train to arrive.

  Things proceeded the way I wanted. However, I began to realize that the image that looked back at me from the mirror seemed utterly unfamiliar. Appalled, I stepped back from it. As I wandered with him in restaurants and parks, I felt my face detach from me to look at myself. Perhaps seeing that my face had fallen, he urged in a low voice, ‘Don’t you believe in my love?’

  I merely murmured assent.

  After a few days, the face that was reflected in the mirror in the ladies’ waiting room was full of sympathy. I yearned to make peace with that face. But it was not amenable to any overture. Seeing my misery, he asked, ‘What has happened to you?’

  I was desolate that I had no answer. With a glance that pierced me, he continued, ‘A woman is never anything but a woman. All right, let’s get married soon.’

  Actually, that should have been one of the happiest moments in my life. But I was shattered. I was sure that after marriage, I would not have the leisure to brush my teeth frequently, chew cardamom, or apply sandal-scented powder as often as I managed to now. The fear was not only about not getting enough opportunities, but that I would be found out. Because I loved him so deeply, parting was unthinkable. Uncertain as to what to do, my eyes welled up. Lifting my chin, he wiped my tears and comforted me, ‘Che, don’t cry, let’s decide next time.’

  So, as far as I was concerned, the next meeting was crucial. Somehow, I finished brushing my teeth, taking care not to look into the mirror. But when I had to comb my hair, it became impossible not to look into the mirror. The face in the mirror was utterly contemptuous. I lost all control. Resentment fumed inside me.

  Phthoo! I spat on the face in the mirror. I untied the bundle of swear words that I had gathered for years without anyone knowing and shook them all out. Then, without turning to look back, I walked out of the railway station.

  From afar, the train was chugging into the station, panting and gasping.

  (Parinamagupthi)

  8

  The Rabbits of Mamallapuram

  It was during a holiday at Mamallapuram that the householder bought a pair of rabbits made of seashells. Though they were displayed in pairs at the curio shop, it was from different pairs that he chose the Male Rabbit and the Female Rabbit. Now, ensconced in the showcase, the rabbits fell silent, grieving about their separate mates. Early in the morning on the third day, the Male Rabbit cleared his throat and mused aloud, as if in a soliloquy, ‘I want to speak to someone.’

  Startled by his voice, the Female Rabbit surfaced from her thoughts. The Male Rabbit addressed her, ‘Friend!’

  The Female Rabbit had no faith at all in feminism and shrank from that emancipating address, unmindful of which he continued, ‘In ancient lore, even dolls used to speak. For a brief period, it seemed as if such practices had fallen out of favour. However, of late, it appears that birds, fish, animals and dolls have managed to regain their right to speech. As for human beings, the significant difference is that they have voting rights too.’

  The Female Rabbit understood nothing. She was dismayed to remember that her friend at Mamallapuram was not at all like this. It had been so endearing to have him gaze tenderly into her eyes and speak in his charming voice.

  Impatient, the Male Rabbit probed, ‘What are you thinking about?’

  As there was no need for rabbits to lie, she told him the truth, ‘About my mate at Mamallapuram.’

  With a sigh, he said, ‘I too was thinking about my companion all these days. Still, we must never forget the fact that we are mere dolls.’

  After a moment’s silence, the Female Rabbit whimpered, ‘I wonder if my mate still remembers me. As for me, I don’t like this place one bit. I don’t feel secure at all in this open showcase. There is always the possibility of some naughty child picking us up, dropping and shattering us.’

  In a voice that reminded her of the sea at Mamallapuram, the Male Rabbit said, ‘Everything in this world has to perish someday.’

  The Female Rabbit said irritably, ‘Philosophy doesn’t suit rabbits!’

  With a gentle smile, the Male Rabbit said, ‘I don’t fancy sitting in any glass case, my friend. It will only limit our perspective. This way, we can not only see things, but hear a lot as well. For instance, remember the man who was here yesterday, the one researching the origins of words? After sitting through his fatuous baloney, didn’t you hear what our master said to his wife once that man left? “His mother’s research!” To say that the word “crookedness” evolved from “kurukkan”10 and through his own coinage, “kurukkedness”! Shouldn’t there be a bit more mercy even in murdering people with such rubbish?’

  The Male Rabbit burst out laughing.

  The Female Rabbit could not understand what was there to laugh so much about. She tried consoling herself, ‘Thank god his wife and children were not there with him.’

  The Male Rabbit thought about it and said, ‘Perhaps he is not married. Had he been, it wouldn’t have been this kind of madness that he would be suffering from!’

  The relief that the Female Rabbit felt melted away by sundown, when she heard the doorbell ring. The very moment the girl in the house opened the door, two naughty kids burst into the room, laughing raucously. Behind them came the parents, sporting their best smiles. When the kids jumped up on the sofa – without pausing to even take off their muddy shoes – and lunged towards the open showcase to examine the souvenirs, the housewife turned pale and retreated to the kitchen. By the time she came back with iced lemonade, one of the children was holding the Female Rabbit. She darted a lightning glance at her daughter. Recognizing its meaning, the girl crooned, ‘Aren’t you a good child? Now please put that back in its place. Otherwise, it will break.’

  Despite her entreaties, the child refused to put it back. The mother sat with a hint of a smile, as if this was not a matter concerning her at all.

  The Male Rabbit was watching all this. He grew despondent wondering what the child might do to that poor Female Rabbit. His eyes followed the fei
sty child until he disappeared into the study. Then the Male Rabbit sighed deeply, ‘Alas! It has happened exactly as she feared!’

  At that moment, he had to concede that women had better intuition.

  When the child came back from the study, the rabbit was missing from his grip. After the guests left, the housewife groaned with her hand pressed to her chest, ‘Damned lot! Whenever they come, my insides are on fire until they leave. That darned woman won’t say a word, however unruly those children are!’

  Despite the mother–daughter duo combing the house, there was no sign of the Female Rabbit. Livid, she turned to her husband, ‘How many times did I tell you not to buy any curios until you fixed a lid on that showcase? What’s the point of my saying anything at all? Isn’t that head full of moonlight?’

  The master did not even pretend to have heard anything. He knew from prior experience that it was the best policy to adopt in such circumstances.

  A week or so later, the Male Rabbit heard the girl in the house call out loudly from the yard, ‘Amma, do you want to see our rabbit?’

  The girl came running into the house. Her face bloomed with happiness. In one breath, she explained, ‘That twit must have thrown it into the wastebasket that day. You dumped the waste to burn it, didn’t you, Amma? I was just tending the fire with a stick, and there it was – our rabbit! Poor thing! One side of its face is charred.’

  The girl caressed it for a while and put it back in the showcase beside the Male Rabbit. When he saw the Female Rabbit’s face, pity surged through him. He tried to comfort her, ‘“Whatever has to happen will happen” is how some human beings put it. Anyway, it’s fortunate that the little menace didn’t break you.’