Mango Chutney: An Anthology of Tasteful Short Fiction.

by Gabbar Singh

  A peculiar case in the typology of attire in certain South Indian cities is my grandfather’s shirt. I first tried it when I was 6. It might have rained heavily on my way back home from school. I might have gotten drenched. I might have asked him or my grandmother for a quick change of clothes. I might have run around the school, fallen and ripped my school uni- form. I might have arrived back home torn, bruised, crying and eagerly awaiting some steaming idli and buttermilk. I might have just liked the shirt’s colour. I might have asked for it. The sure part of this history is that I arrived at that shirt at five thirty, one cloudy April evening.

  This shirt began to grow on me. For a long while, it was a matter of pride. I walked around with a short skirt or a trouser pair that drowned in the shirt’s length. It felt like a slice of adulthood was bestowed upon me. I punctuated my conversations with ‘righto!’ like my grandfather did. I rode my little bicycle straight-spined. I ran crisscrossing a row of fluores- cent green, orange and blue pots that were queued beside the water lorry that arrived five minutes late every morning. They seemed safe traffic-jam to trickle through in a two-wheeler. An old basket for a helmet. I used traffic-hand-signals as I walked through my school corridors. Sixth standard B section was where I stopped. When I graduated into that classroom, adulthood started to wear away. It was a norm to whisper to your neighbours who became your best friends. You no longer wore a pinafore or a pair of half-trousers. Your uniform was composed of attire and accessories handpicked by your school authorities. A long kurta and a salwar. All in cotton, neatly ironed and sturdy. Slack-sleeved and mounted with a duppatta, to assure you are vaccinated against the skin. A pair of socks and shoes to be prepared for an athletic sport at any moment of life-threatening emergency. I was allowed a pen now. I sat in the girls’ row of benches in the room and that was a foot away form the boys’. The skirt, when I returned home, was no longer short. My grandfather’s shirt could not drown it.

  The peculiarity of this shirt is only for a tuned eye. Specially designed for certain humid summers, I discovered that only certain tailors were ca- pable of producing it. And these people were made invisible by their an- tique, loyal pool of customers and a board at their shop that read ‘Gents tailors’. I guess they might have denied copyrights to large manufactur- ers; they refuse to talk about politically unsanitary issues to unwelcome little girls. This shirt could take any shade of brown, black, khaki, serious blue, maroon or grey. It was made of cotton, usually: very fine weave and tough. It intensely contrasted my grandfather’s daily dose of laughter. It was sleeved a little more than the usual slack’s. It had two mirroring pockets on its left front-half, right beside the wearer’s heart – one outside and one inside. It was buttoned left over right. It was huge.

  The shirt was cut in such a manner that any minimal wind was allowed entry. This ventilation, I believed for the longest time, was how a sufferer of the skin could dupe the benevolent vaccinators. I wore the shirt over long skirts so that I could suffer the skin. I was a rebel.

  Then came the experts who told you exactly how being a woman func - tioned: probiotic curves that do not show, well-vaccinated attire insured with duppattas, teflon skin of a uniform shade whose visibility is not interrupted by any out or ingrowth, hair groomed to prescribed lengths in restricted regions such as over the skull or above the eye. A mellow and polite smile increased your chances of procreating.

  I still wore my grandfather’s shirt on a long skirt. “Why does your daugh - ter dress like a eunuch?” “You really like being androgynous, don’t you?” I only smiled, the flat kind, at what the experts deemed insults. My grand- father still lent me his shirt to wear over my long skirt. He either was ag- nostic to the experts or did not deem me a woman, they said. “He knew I had contracted the Skin,” I scribbled in my diary.

  On the third of March a year ago, I was to gather with a flock of ten women in a house. ‘Sleepover’, the invitation mail proclaimed in bold, pink letters sounding suspiciously of abnormal or illegitimate adolescent sleeping practices. Yes, I knew the person who called me over like I knew my mirror. Her address was the tricky bit:

  “Waltersingam road?” The guy in khakhi sitting in the front-half of a yellow-black auto rick - shaw rose from his mobile phone. He panned a gaze at me vertical and horizontal to decide which language he should coin his reply in. An an- kle-length wrap skirt; a stiff cotton shirt that was clearly not cut for me; plaited hair with oil; a dot of a golden pin on the left nose; ear studs; a black-blue cloth sling bag that meant business; a streak on the forehead was not sufficiently religious; ‘singam’ pronounced just as he would have; ‘walter’ sounded more towards his ‘quarter’. He seemed to search for some version of a universal sign language. He nodded as he bent down to start the engine.

  “Meter?” He nodded again, this time with his eyes to the road. I slid into the back half of the yellow rickshaw. A quarter past eight at night, we reached this place. I verified the door number and stepped in. Food and music were served in abundance alongside conversations that are privy only to the bench-neighbours whom you whispered to. About you, me and the colleague-acquaintance-friend whose name sounded familiar. And about anybody who fit into that untitled genre. Simmer the talk back to a couple: a woman and a man. Tiptoe away from anything that changes a number or a gender in this formula.

  Ten past ten. We had eaten. People were now taking sips of conversa - tion with dessert. Homemade chocolate cake. Only the few who pos- sessed ovens at home asked for the recipe. Two helped clean the table up, tucking their duppattas away. And two pushed the table to a corner and stacked all our bags on it. Staring at the ceiling or the television that played assorted Bollywood songs seemed admissible, too. Yawns had started to creep in.

  Thirty five past ten. The women began peeling layers of cotton, elastic tapes and polyesters, and changed into night drapes to let themselves a dose of Skin. They mostly folded the three or four pieces neatly and piled them over their bags. I, ever the patient of Skin, reclined to listen to them tuck away their layers.

  Eleven. “I wish we could dress like the men,” said the one in a purple satin gown with frills on it. Two were already asleep. They had peeled themselves first.

  “Those shirts, the banians and all the hair that idiot, my boyfriend pulls off,” that was a green t-shirt talking as she changed into her shorts and clean-shaven legs. To swear and punctuate was to help count the number of years she went out with him, successfully procrastinating a marriage.

  A lavender nightie filled a couple of water bottles for the night. She listed all the men of her house and their daily attire. “Father-in-law in banian and lungi, shorts and a tee for the husband, ‘bermuda’ for the brotherin-law.”

  Two past twelve. “Dude, my grandpa never wears a shirt while at home,” the green tee, in the city to visit her cousins and appalled.

  “Nor does mine,” I murmured, removing my brassiere through the lon- ger-than-slack sleeve.

  5. Benched

  Abhilasha Kumar

  SCENE: It is nearly four in the afternoon. Two women are seated on a stone bench, no different from the many others on the pathway encircl- ing the Hauz Khas Lake. It is an ordinary, calm evening. The lake over- looks a dilapidated fort that stands still on its rocky foundations. Birds don’t sing, traffic can’t be heard, and the air is quiet. Several ducks swim aimlessly in the lake, not quacking.

  Paridhi is seated on the right. She is dressed in a green kurti and white leggings. Wrapped around her neck is a multi-coloured stole, with bold patches in green, teal and brown. Her eyes are lined with kajal. Aarzoo is seated on the left. She is wearing a denim tunic that ended just below her knees. Her spectacles are large-rimmed and she wears her hair in a care- lessly tied bun. Paridhi’s bag lies between them both.

  PARIDHI: It’s funny, us meeting on a bench like this. We were closer than that, weren’t we?

  AARZOO: Why does a bench imply distance to you? We could be a hap- pily married couple out for some fresh air, fo
r all you know. PARIDHI: Come on, we could’ve never been a ‘happily married cou- ple’.

  AARZOO: Do you mean that we couldn’t have been married or that we couldn’t have been happy? PARIDHI: What? That’s a really silly question.

  AARZOO: Not important. Answer it.

  PARIDHI: I am already married. To a man I love. In any case, you never liked my constant need for company. AARZOO: Does he?

  PARIDHI: Does who? AARZOO: Your husband, of course. PARIDHI: Oh. Well, I don’t need his company so much. AARZOO: Oh, I see. PARIDHI: What? AARZOO: Nothing, nothing at all.

  PARIDHI: You can say whatever you’re trying very hard to not say. I can hear it. AARZOO (Shrugging her shoulders): But I don’t have anything to say. PARIDHI: Fine.

  (There is silence for a while. Paridhi frowns, as though regretting this meeting already. Aarzoo brushes away a small feather that has landed on her tunic.)

  PARIDHI: What about you? Do you still write? AARZOO: Occasionally, yes. PARIDHI: Do you still draw inspiration from the people around you? AARZOO: Of course, all the time.

  PARIDHI: Who arethe people around you? (Turns curiously towards Aarzoo and rests her left leg on the bench.) AARZOO (Dismissively): Just regular people. PARIDHI: Your parents? AARZOO: Mom lives in Bangalore. Dad is still in rehab. PARIDHI: Oh. Do you visit him? AARZOO (Looking surprised): No. PARIDHI: (Nodding): Of course not. So who do you...?

  AARZOO (Interrupting, almost with a maddening urgency): Did you start reading books? Did I not say once that I’d be very surprised if you did?

  PARIDHI: (Looking startled, but distracted): Right, yes you had. I didn’t start reading though. AARZOO (Saddened): Oh, no? PARIDHI: No. I barely get the time. AARZOO: I bet that’s not why.

  PARIDHI: Okay, fine. (Rolling her eyes) I don’t liketo read, not even now.

  AARZOO: You never try new things, that’s your problem. PARIDHI (Masking her irritation with a knowing, nostalgic smile): Ah, there’s the catchphrase. I had almost forgotten it!

  AARZOO: That’s not my catchphrase. I am not a character on televi- sion!

  PARIDHI (Sulking a little): You would be a very interesting one, though.

  AARZOO (Laughing darkly): Haha, that’s funny. But I agree with you. PARIDHI (Poking her in the right arm): Look at you, immodest little creature!

  AARZOO: Ouch! Keep your distance, woman! (Rubbing her arm) Now, ‘immodest little creature’ rings a bell, doesn’t it?

  PARIDHI: Of course it does. It’s how you address your dark soul! (Laughs wildly and covers her mouth with her colourful stole) AARZOO (Shaking her head firmly): There’s no such thing as the soul. PARIDHI: So we’re just flesh and blood?

  AARZOO (Pensively): Yes.

  PARIDHI: You were never optimistic. You always believe that nothing means anything.

  AARZOO: So you believe that something means something? PARIDHI: Sure! We all count for something, don’t we? You, with your little stories about us, and us, the regular people in your stories – it all counts! AARZOO: Who’s keeping count? PARIDHI: Don’t start the God debate with me, Aarzoo. Not today. AARZOO: I’m just saying, they are just words. PARIDHI: Your stories? AARZOO: Them too. PARIDHI: What else? What else is just words? AARZOO: Everything, generally speaking.

  PARIDHI: You can’t talk about everything and say you were speaking generally. AARZOO (Looking puzzled): But that is the only time I can. PARIDHI: Oh, you and your insufferable logic! AARZOO: Don’t blame the logic. PARIDHI: Alright, alright. Let’s not fight. AARZOO: Let’s not.

  PARIDHI: So, tell me, what adventures did you encounter on your jour- ney to Ithaca? AARZOO: You...you remember the poem? PARIDHI: Of course. I read it every now and then. AARZOO: And? PARIDHI: And what? Well, that’s how I remember it.

  AARZOO: I didn’t give you that letter so that you could readit every now and then. PARIDHI: Yes, you did. It says so in the letter. AARZOO: I mean, you were supposed to act on it! PARIDHI: Act on what! AARZOO (Standing up): You were supposed to have adventures of your own!

  (Aarzoo’s breath comes in hot flashes, her lips quiver and her fingers tremble in anxiety. Her moist eyes are narrowed at Paridhi, as though accusing her.

  PARIDHI: Oh! You don’t have to scream at me. (Gestures at Aarzoo) Sit down, will you? (Aarzoo sits down, begrudgingly). What makes you think I haven’t had any adventures?

  AARZOO: Well, have you?

  PARIDHI: Sure. Everyone has adventures.

  AARZOO: Generally speaking?

  PARIDHI: No, specifically. I’ve had a life.

  AARZOO: An adventurous one?

  PARIDHI (Waving her hand): Sure, sure. Adventure, drama, the works. AARZOO: Then tell me all about it!

  PARIDHI: Hey, I asked you first! You tell me!

  AARZOO: Oh, alright, fine! I swam in the Atlantic, tried crocodile meat, wrote a terrible novel – you know that one, almost married an Australian, got a tattoo on my shoulder, was homeless for about a week and taught algebra to some children in Dehradun until I couldn’t take it anymore. (Aarzoo takes a deep breath and sits still, her fingers crossed tightly over one another, still trembling. She looks away from Paridhi, shifting her gaze to the ducks in the lake. For a minute, neither says anything.)

  PARIDHI: Wow. Can I...can I see the tattoo? AARZOO (Smiling): Sure. (Turns on the side and pulls down her tunic to reveal her right shoulder) It’s a sword.

  PARIDHI (Running her hands across the tattoo in fascination): Why a sword? Is that a symbol for something?

  AARZOO: Oh, everything is a symbol today. It means everything and nothing.

  PARIDHI: But why a sword? Why not something else, if it means noth- ing? AARZOO (Smiling mysteriously): Because it also means everything. PARIDHI (Pouting): You never tell me anything. AARZOO: I am telling you. I’m just not spoon-feeding you. PARIDHI: God, you’re such a mother sometimes. AARZOO: What! Haha!

  PARIDHI: It’s not funny. You would annoy me like this back in college too.

  AARZOO: College seems so far away. Do you remember anything? I don’t remember much. PARIDHI: So we expected. Everyone thought you would forget it all. AARZOO: Who’s everyone? PARIDHI: The three of us, Aarzoo. Surely, you remember the names! AARZOO: What did you expect? PARIDHI: Don’t joke around. You do remember, don’t you? AARZOO: Paridhi, Sargun and Tara, the holy trinity (She chuckles). PARIDHI: Thank God. AARZOO: Thank me! I remembered the names, didn’t I? PARIDHI (Rolling her eyes): And you did us a huge favour. AARZOO: I’m pretty sure God did nothing. PARIDHI: Oh, let it go. So did you find your Ithaca? AARZOO: The point was that it probably doesn’t exist. PARIDHI: Of course it does. Where are we going otherwise? AARZOO: To a place that doesn’t exist. PARIDHI: What would be the point of anything, then? AARZOO (Delighted): That’s the question, that’s exactly the question!

  PARIDHI: You’re not making sense anymore. (Takes off her stole and fans herself with it. Starts looking around, but doesn’t find anything in- teresting enough. Looks at Aarzoo and then looks away. Fans herself more vigourously.)

  AARZOO: Your turn, with the adventures. PARIDHI: What? (Looks distracted, her hand constantly fanning her - self.) Oh. Well, you know. The usual - I got married, I got a job. I went to the States. I bought myself a house; it’s really beautiful.

  AARZOO: That’s...not an adventurous life at all.

  PARIDHI: And who are you? The Adventure Police? I’ve had one heck of a life through all of this! (Fans herself more rapidly)

  AARZOO: Following routine? I hardly think so. PARIDHI: You think you know everything! Everything! It’s not routine! Every day brings new things to worry about! It’s a circus – yes, a real circus! (Her hand moves quickly, violently, until the stole falls down on the ground. She stops and looks down at the stole, and breathes heavily). A fucking circus. (She begins to cry.)

  AARZOO (Nodding and smiling): Yes, I’m convinced. PARIDHI (Picks up the stole and dusts it off. Wipes her tears): He comes home and we drink tea together. Every day. He looks at everything but me. There is nothing to talk about, so we watch tele
vision together. We’re married to each other, every day, every fucking day.

  AARZOO: I thought it was what you wanted. Companionship, wasn’t it?

  PARIDHI: Yes, and you, freedom. So imperfect we were, together. AARZOO (Looking at the ducks): We were just imperfect, together or alone. PARIDHI: Yes, but more so together. AARZOO: Always. It’s mathematical. PARIDHI: Don’t be so insensitive about it. AARZOO: About what? PARIDHI: Us. You used to have so much hope in yourself. AARZOO (Frowning): Who says I don’t, anymore? PARIDHI: Why did you stop teaching those kids? AARZOO: They needed to be taught more than just algebra. PARIDHI: But why did you leave? AARZOO: I couldn’t teach them everything. PARIDHI: But why did you leave? AARZOO: Because I always leave, Paridhi!

  PARIDHI (Smiling): That might be the only true thing you have said all evening. AARZOO: You’re exaggerating. PARIDHI: Since when did you have a problem with exaggeration? AARZOO: Never, I’m just acknowledging it. PARIDHI: You wrote terrible things about me. AARZOO: They weren’t terrible. PARIDHI: I thought they were terrible. AARZOO: That’s acceptable.

  PARIDHI: No it isn’t! You turned me into a needy and despicable whore! AARZOO: It was just a character, for the hundredth time! PARIDHI: Based on me! AARZOO: Exactly! Based on you – not you! PARIDHI: Everyone knew it was me! Paridhi, the whore, they all said! AARZOO: That should’ve been funny, if anything.

  PARIDHI: Oh, stop it! You are such a...(fastens her stole across her neck) such a...(thinks for a moment, and then folds her hands across her chest)

  (Aarzoo has stopped listening to her. She is looking at the lake and the setting sun beyond it. Her expression is sombre.) AARZOO: The sun has gone down. PARIDHI (Stiffly): So? AARZOO: So, nothing. Just an observation. PARIDHI: I never understand your little remarks. AARZOO: They don’t always mean something more than themselves.