Acid

by Sangeetha Sreenivasan

  All the same, he was filled with remorse, he touched her feet. She drew her feet away with a shudder and looked at him in disbelief. He wanted to tell her something, but instead he said, ‘I thought I would massage your feet for a while, to help the blood circulation.’ He was not sure if the words he had used were correct, but he had said something and he waited for her to respond. She didn’t say anything but she inched her feet towards him so he could sit comfortably. He took her feet in his hands and placed them on his lap. How soft. He kissed her feet. Shaly saw him kissing them from the veranda—she too felt sad and lonely.

  She was also engrossed in thoughts. She didn’t understand why Kamala was mad at her again, why she hit her head in front of the boys, why she shouted like crazy. Poor woman, she must have hurt herself a lot. Her condition had got worse; Shaly had had to take her to the Be Well hospital two or three months before her mother had passed away. It was in the dead of night, and Shaly had no idea what else to do.

  Shaly was happy she was recovering, though slowly. She had had some traces of humour left in her, at least one week before her mother had died. It was Kamala who had ordered food from Hot Pops on the day Hari Narayanan and Hafis Afsal came to her office. Shaly was also there as they had planned some shopping together after office hours. She ordered beef dipped in orange sauce and honey-glazed pork with phulka. They all knew the ban on beef was about to come, that people had problems with both beef and pork. She wondered whether it was the paprika preparation that made the zealots so crazy and hot over meat. They all laughed, there were no vegetarians in the office. But they all agreed on one point: that if they were not supposed to have beef, they ought not to eat spinach either. You cut the spinach before its time comes, you wanted it all fresh—again you were hurting a life. They said great Indian swamis waited for kernels to drop down from the heads of the stalks after completing their life cycles, yet they didn’t cook the grains, for they believed the grains contained a life that would sprout sooner or later. They asked for forgiveness and swallowed the grains raw, one life to support the other. The cow and the lion sat together in mythology, on the hills of Lord Shiva, but there was no mention of what the lion ate. Would there be fallen grains enough to support the lives on earth? Hari gave a piece of pork to Afsal, and Afsal in turn gave him a piece of steak. They all had their laugh for the day, and raised a toast to all the lonely, happy-go-lucky bastards of the world.

  She longed for Bangalore, memories suffocated her; she knew Kamala had no such troubles, for she was born in the house in which they all lived. She found it hard to believe that Kamala’s sinking was mainly because of the acid-induced stress of the past. Her symptoms indicated nothing. They could be anything, maybe even old age. It is said that one cannot remain forever young and easy under the apple boughs. Rane used to say, ‘Acid is cool, if you are cool; otherwise, it is suicidal. If you love yourself, it is better you avoid drugs.’ What he said was true. Those who love their lives should not run after an external stimulus. Everything exists within you, hell and heaven. If you tasted a drop of acid with an equal amount of fear in your mind, the fear would intensify to humongous proportions and charge at the ceilings of the brain with unbearable noise.

  If so, if that definitely is the case, I am the one who is frightening her, thought Shaly, not just her, but her kids too.

  Kamala was always worried about the unfinished building on the sandy shore. She wondered why people stared into the single room that was on the ground level. The building, she said, was not even plastered, not even in good shape, but there was something inside that room, and people watched it day and night. She said she would like to go there, to see what was happening inside, but the only thing that worried her was the heavy rheumatic feeling that weighed her legs down, making her unable to walk or crawl. How many times had Shaly warned her that it was just an illusion, a hallucinogenic effect caused by the acid, that there was no sand inside the room, no dilapidated building on the sand, no room, no windows, no people? It was just her room, the room in which her mother had died. One need not fret over a nightmare as if it were real. But Kamala said it was not just a nightmare. Shaly said it must be the acid, then.

  ‘When was the last time I took acid?’

  ‘How do I know?’

  ‘It must be the brain. It is working all the time.’

  ‘What you need is rest.’

  ‘But one thing I am sure of. There is somebody inside that room—it might be someone close to my heart, or someone I happen to know somehow.’

  At times Shaly also felt like believing her, talking bullshit for the sake of it, hoping that would bring a bit of relief. Sometimes, there would be someone who committed suicide in that room a long time ago, like the ghosts in movies. There would be a skeleton prostrated inside the room, with a priceless diamond shining on its ring finger. It was the rays from the diamond that constantly beckoned her during the night. One night, Kamala dreamed of a bunch of wild roses hanging down from the loosened pointing of that old, unfinished building.

  That same night Shaly too had a dream. She saw Kamala laughing, like the brook, like in storybooks. She heard jingles of laughter filling up the wind. But in the morning when she woke up she felt as if she had been jabbed deep down. How could a smile, even laughter, hurt someone so deeply? Soon, it became a recurrent dream, offering wonders at night and gashes in the morning.

  ‘Kamala . . .’ Shaly tried to call her, her voice no louder than a whisper.

  But Kamala didn’t hear her call. Aadi was still stroking her feet.

  There was an empty bottle of Black Dog on the table. Shaly took the bottle, surveyed it for a while and walked out of the house carrying it. The dog with the saddest eyes was lying down beside Kamala. Sometimes it growled and tried to slink away, but Kamala grabbed it and tightened her hold on its leash. She caressed it in her sleep and unease swept through Aadi as she involuntarily moved in bed. As he stroked her feet, she stroked the fold of its neck. Even with her eyes closed, she was aware of the weight of its body weighing her down.

  ‘The dog you are always carrying along with you is called depression,’ her doctor had said once. ‘We don’t need that dog.’

  She caressed it with all her strength, all her hope.

  Shaly had taken a pair of scissors from the kitchen. Now with the bottle and scissors in her hands, she walked beneath the cannonball tree and, stepping over the dead pink flowers, she walked towards the lotus pond. Near the lake, the money plant ran across like mad and crept all over the ageing ashoka tree and on the tiled roof of the lotus pond entrance. She cut a portion of the money plant vine and held it against the sun; the leaves shone, indicating luck and prosperity. She walked back to the kitchen veranda, where she opened the tap and let the water run into the bottle of Black Dog. It took approximately ten minutes to remove the plastic cork from the bottle using a tool and to fill it up.

  She walked towards Kamala’s room with the bottle and the beautiful ivy. Kamala looked like an obstinate child on that bed. Shaly placed the water-filled bottle on the window where Kamala’s eyes fell. She put the vine inside the bottle with care. She went outside and came back with some pebbles which she put inside the bottle with some sand. It looked perfect; the vine looked as beautiful as a little green grass snake. Carefully she intertwined the vine with the window grille. Sunshine kissed the heart-shaped green leaves that bloomed on the window. Kamala looked at the leaves with gratitude and smiled.

  ‘I think it is pure,’ she said.

  Clumsily, the big fat dog jumped out of her bed. Restless and agitated, it walked out, marking the boundaries of the backyard. It stopped and barked powerfully when it reached the devil’s ivy. Lifting its hind leg it peed on the ashoka tree as if this was a warning.

  41

  He called to Night but she fell shuddering back,

  He called to Hell but sullenly it retired.

  . . . . . .

  He called to his strength, but it refused his call.

&nb
sp; His body was eaten by light, his spirit devoured.

  —Savitri, Sri Aurobindo

  Aadi had kept the money his mother had given him inside the different pockets of the big rucksack for safekeeping, and some change in his wallet. This was his first time travelling alone and the umpteenth time he was opening and closing the zipper. The book was there, safe, and the money was there, safe. For a while, he tried to remain calm but he felt extremely nervous and insecure. He mentally chided himself for behaving like a girl. But the fact was that, when it came to your first solo trip, there was no girl and no boy, only a lonely child called fear who kept playing with a zipper. He thought he was lost in the endless honking and buzzing. There were all sorts of people and hawkers gathered under the lights, and buses ready to take off in different directions. Aadi had been there before, but it was in the morning, when things seemed clear and easy.

  He went to a nearby shop. ‘Can I have a lemon soda?’

  ‘Sorry, we don’t have lemon soda. Would you like Cola, Pepsi, Mirinda or Sprite?’ the shopkeeper asked.

  ‘Haven’t I told you not to buy poison?’ Kamala seemed angry, she hated aerated drinks.

  ‘Mother, please, just once . . .’

  ‘These are all bad habits, Aadi. Get a glass of fresh juice.’

  ‘Pass that bottle of poison to me, I would love to have one,’ Shaly said.

  The boy who had been raised by two women stood confused in front of the shop, in the agonies of indecision.

  ‘Do you have mineral water?’ he gestured as he asked.

  ‘Yes, twenty rupees,’ the shopkeeper gave him a bottle.

  He took a fifty-rupee note out of his purse, feeling proud of himself, of his independent money transactions. His mother and Shaly went on fighting.

  ‘You should have carried a bottle of fresh water with you, mineral water is not always trustworthy,’ his mother said.

  ‘If you are going to believe each and every article you read you are definitely going to die of hunger and thirst. Magazines are a collection of printed pages, not life,’ Shaly said.

  When he spotted the signboard for Parveen Travels, he felt his heart beating faster. He stuffed the water bottle into his side pocket, the folded fabric of the pocket stretching to accommodate it. In his first transaction, he had forgotten to take his thirty rupees change. He walked down the aisle of the bus looking for 16F. It took a while to find it, but when he saw that it was a window seat he felt grateful. The AC inside the bus was on high but he didn’t feel like covering himself with the blanket that had been provided. His mother had warned him of blister beetles. She had told him to shake the blanket thoroughly before using it, but unfortunately there was not enough space to stand up and shake it off. Instead, he took Kamala’s Kashmiri shawl out of the bag, draped it around himself and snuggled inside his mother’s perfume.

  ‘Squirrel, squirrel, are you not coming to my son’s wedding?’ his mother asked, looking at the treetops. She was extremely beautiful and unbelievably young, her face glowing, her nose stud glistening in the sunlight.

  ‘Whose wedding is it, his or mine?’ Shiva asked.

  ‘My son Aadi’s wedding,’ she said as she walked on the dead, sun-dried leaves, feeling the ground beneath her bare feet, her anklets jingling all the way.

  ‘In that case, I am not coming.’ Shiva turned away, his face down. Was he a boy of three or four?

  ‘Squirrel, squirrel, are you not coming to my son Shiva’s wedding? Do you want to see how beautiful his bride is?’ his mother asked again.

  Squirrels ran from pepper vines to the purple mangosteen trees and from there to the coconut trees. Pointing those terrific climbers out to Shiva, she said, ‘Look at the way they are all running to buy clothes for the bridegroom.’

  Aadi began to remember similar things, things forgotten. Does the rhythm of travel invite memories? He didn’t know, yet he stretched his neck to look outside, where darkness sped through time, where stillness hung from the railings of bus windows. He imagined the branches of the trees that were no longer there. Her smile lingered in his mind with the chirring of squirrels, like the green scum on the surface of the lotus pond, like a spreading layer of grief, hurting him. He turned his head to look at the people around him: most of them were sleeping—some snoring with their mouths open—and the rest were straining to fix their eyes on the small TV screen on the wall of the bus. Eyes wide open, some of those with sad thoughts looked outside the windows into the darkness. He wondered how the bus would carry them all in its heavy metallic stomach, how it dragged their individual lonelinesses through the night.

  He wanted to see Anuraktha and with that thought he went to sleep.

  ‘Aadi, I would also like to come with you one day,’ Shiva said.

  ‘Yes, next time I will take you with me, and together we will go to Anuraktha’s library.’

  ‘No, I don’t want to go to a library. You should take me to a pub where you get plenty of stuff to eat and drink.’

  Someone must have watered the plants, for the water that had spread on the brown earth was still fresh. Marigolds and large gladioli lined both sides of the paths to the ashram, the wet earth in between. He walked with confidence, like a warrior, his steps unfalteringly strong and elegant. This earth was familiar; this was where he had grown up. Someone smiled at him and he returned the smile with gratitude. He wanted to detach himself completely from the dead land of his mother and start everything anew, a new life, new thoughts, nothing to turn him inward again. He remembered the balustrade on the staircase, the red hibiscus flowers on the photographs. Where was Anuraktha this morning? He did not answer when he knocked on the door, no one did; it was ajar and he went inside. On the staircase he realized he was panicking.

  Perhaps Anuraktha was in the library, for he was not in the ashram or in the service centre. The light on the staircase was vibrant; he could see everything clearly, but he thought he missed a lot of things, mainly details, minor ones that he had noticed in the semi-darkness on his first visit. He stepped back and sat on the wooden plank, he knew he wanted to be calm before starting a conversation with him. But what was he supposed to say?

  —I am sorry, I couldn’t read the book, but I don’t wish to return the book, I would like to keep it with me forever?

  No, although that was true, it lacked something.

  —I am reading it, I think I am a slow reader, but the book offers me a sense of relief?

  No, that sounded silly.

  It was important because he wanted to say it. Finally he got up and climbed the stairs only to find the doors of the library closed. Gently, he tried to push them open and, amazingly, they parted, a shaft of morning descended from the glass tiles on to the wooden floor. He thought he was seeing darkness. When he looked up from the wooden planks, someone was there, standing beside him. He said, ‘Swami is in Delhi. He will return after two months.’

  The puppeteer’s house was on the left side of the road. From across the road he saw the battered shack where he remembered the old man was happy with his wife and the six white mice inside an ordinary cage. He crossed the road; he would love to see the puppeteer and his white mice. Each mouse had a different name, and responded when the old man called them by it. He used to visit them with his friends, for the old man was friendly with children. Sometimes, the children helped the old man paint his leather puppets. He would give the children the responsibility of painting the base coats, and only if he was confident of their skills and considered them highly qualified would he hand over the brush, and give them the chance to try a stroke or two. The boys sat around him supplying colours and keeping him company and feeding his mice. But now, he too was not home, neither was his wife nor were his mice. His neighbour informed him that he was bedridden and had been taken to his village by his relatives.

  Someone had told Aadi about Rhea’s return from Dubai and her joining VIT for further studies, maybe Rhea herself, he didn’t remember. But he did remember how she had come on her
dented bicycle and cried. But two weeks after she had left, his friend Rohit showed him her Instagram updates where she had posted several happy pictures of herself, posing in front of the magnificent malls of Dubai. It seemed she had forgotten him, Bangalore and the rest. He read her comments in detail, he didn’t recognize her in her words, so when he went to Kamala’s old house in Kerala, he didn’t wrap up her memories and store them. It was as simple as that. She lived more vividly in Shiva’s mind, like a future relative, a future solace.

  But still, the thought that it would take just three or four hours to reach her university tempted him—just to see how she was, perhaps to say hi over a cup of coffee or her favourite, hot chocolate. He was uncertain, even when the train started, even when he got down from the rickshaw at the huge gates of the university, even when he entered his name in the register. It was a labyrinth of lawns, ancient trees, different building blocks and sections. The students scattered as a car or a pick-up cab approached and then joined up in groups again when it had passed, making patterns. He bought an iced tea from the tea stall near the auditorium. It came in a big paper cup with pictures of lemons printed on it. As he walked, he sipped the tea, overhearing snatches of conversation. He understood that the students had classes at different times and in different blocks, and the pick-up cabs were for those who couldn’t walk to reach the classes in time. Shuttle cabs that charged just ten rupees for moving around the campus were also available. It would be impossible to find her in this entangled network of buildings and paths. He threw the paper cup in the trash bin and as he walked towards a shuttle cab, he dialled her number.

  ‘My God, I can’t believe it’s you!’ Her voice was full of excitement when she answered the call, but when he said he was waiting for her outside the hostel, some of her enthusiasm died down. Suddenly she seemed indifferent, her voice grew restless. Maybe it was just what he felt.