Acid

by Sangeetha Sreenivasan

  The daughter sat on the new bed sheets looking at her mother. Both of them maintained the etiquette around silence for a long time. But she wanted to talk. Kamala wanted to talk too. They waited for the lights to dim, the buzzing of the funeral flies to stop.

  When did her daughter yawn, forgetting the social niceties her mother had taught her as a young girl? When did her mother slip into her mouth, slide down her food pipe, play around her windpipe?

  ‘These traumatic, tragic worries are all for nothing,’ Shaly said. ‘Just drama, I would call this only drama. Where has your son gone? To the place where he was born and . . . fine, not born, but where he grew up. M.G. Road, Richmond Road, Indiranagar, Lingarajapuram, Whitefield, Chamrajpet—all these places are fucking familiar to him, he has friends there. He is a young gentleman, not a child any more. That is his place, do you understand that? Just the way you say this place belongs to you. At least he will think of his future, I don’t see any point otherwise. Let him decide if he wants to join fine arts or engineering or whether he wants to become a poet or start a business. Let him come to a decision, he is not a babysitter. I hope you understand.’

  All this had only troubled Kamala, though she knew everything that Shaly had said was true. Bangalore was not an unfamiliar place; he knew the nooks and corners of the terrain. But when had he learnt all that? How? She had never seen him learning. If only he were a little older, she sighed. Shaly said the young gentleman had friends there, many friends. Friends help you find ways to move forward. But many friends, as a matter of fact, find many ways, some of which could be treacherously boggy. A joint of smoke would be enough to . . . She shuddered at the thought. She was wondering if thinking helped.

  ‘You think so because you don’t know your son; you don’t know how pure he is.’

  The world is not just a tragic place always, there is light scattered all over, the most flexible thing on earth. Why do you want the climax to be in darkness always? Why are you so obstinate about seeking escape routes? Face it, face life, face light, do not be afraid.

  Laboriously, Kamala looked at the window bars. She saw life burgeoning out of the green shoots. Morning was calling.

  Shaly came in with a cup of hot tea in her hands, and the two of them talked for a long time. It was Shaly who dialled Aadi’s number and gave it to her. Unbelievably, the signal strength was strong and she heard him clearly, as if he was talking from the foot of her bed. In the energy of his voice, in the happiness he breathed out through the phone, she kept saying: ‘Life starts from here.’

  The next day Kamala prepared to leave for the flat she had bought in town, she said she would go alone in her car with a hired driver, she said she could manage on her own and asked Shaly to take care of Shiva. As they drove, she concluded that life was the only thing that would never fail you in life. Each minute you could have it back, all the same, it didn’t matter how badly you had dumped it. It remained yours. Be glad, she told herself, no more bitter jokes. Though she was tired physically, she was delighted by this new rhythm of speeding up. The vehicle was racing ahead, and she felt like kissing the driver, for the speed he offered.

  There were domesticated rabbits and ducks in the garden that didn’t seem scared of strangers. They walked towards her and she had to shoo them away, for she was scared of them. Initially, she had trouble locating her apartment, though she had been there before. At last when she managed to find her door and opened it, the smell of newly whitewashed walls and the freshness of distemper that still lingered inside the room sickened her. She hurriedly rushed to the windows to open them. She glanced at the backwaters through the living room windows and through the glass wall that opened to the balcony. When she turned back, she saw the rooms were bleak without furniture and a little scary in their nudity. That was all right, she thought, she could fill it with furniture and people. She would buy some new curtains and bring all her stuff here when it was ready. But when she opened her bedroom windows and saw the water again, she shuddered. Could water be so still always? She remembered what Shaly had said: ‘Money was no massive dump to be disposed of easily and flushed out.’

  Now she couldn’t remember why she had wanted the sight of water so badly, why she had paid so heavily for it. She couldn’t understand what there was to hope for in the sight of water that looked still and dead and windswept. She had paid for this lack of colour, with money that was not hers. She was afraid she would miss her native home, even the smoke that rose from the pyres. The more she looked out, the more restless she grew.

  She would buy green curtains, she would cover the bleakness, and she would get as many indoor plants as possible. She would need some paintings too.

  Shopping malls, she thought, were tiring. But she went all the same. She artlessly gave herself the burden of buying things: curtains, paintings and little works of art. In a coffee shop, on her chair, she dozed for nearly half an hour. When she woke, she found to her relief that nothing was missing, her purse and mobile were on the table, her bag on the chair next to her, her money safe in it. ‘Thank God,’ she said as she walked out.

  In the end, when she got home, she looked extremely tired but happy. She was happy she could move, lift a pinky and break through the monotonous grove. Though she said the day had been exhausting her pride was visible in each syllable she uttered, about how she had selected some curtains and bought some paintings for the rooms. She wished Shaly had been there but she was glad she could manage everything without much effort. When she walked to her room, she said: ‘Shaly, there are some chicken rolls and pastries inside the brown handmade bag in the back seat of the car. Shiva would love them. Could you please go and get them?’

  Kamala had forgotten some small things while executing big tasks. For example, she had forgotten to take the brown handmade bag from the shop and keep it in the back seat of her car. Maybe she had done this in her mind. She had forgotten to pay the hired driver and send him back. When Shaly came out to get the brown handmade bag, she saw the driver waiting on the doorstep.

  47

  Once upon a time there was the Internet, a decent Wi-Fi connection.

  A little bit of sadness dissolved in each cup of morning tea, sadness without benefits. But the tea tasted better these days, and it lasted longer. Now Janu knew tea was to be served to Shiva in the biggest cup available at home. She helped him sit up. He leaned on the two pillows she set against the headrest.

  ‘Don’t bother, I can manage,’ he said.

  All the same, he didn’t try to move an arm or a leg. Managing all the parts of his body was tiresome and boring. His mother was busy overseeing the work on their new house. He was happy as there was hope. But it had been days since he had brushed his teeth. When Janu or Shaly came into his room he felt awkward and he pressed his lips together tightly. What was shame? He was afraid, he still remembered.

  What made him think the world was his? It belonged to him only because Aadi had left. He couldn’t look at Shaly the way he wanted to when Aadi was there, nor could he talk to her the way he wanted to when his twin was there beside him. He wanted to tell her something, but what he wanted to say hung halfway in the air like Dylan Thomas’s ball.

  He looked outside his window; he saw the cannonball flowers in bloom. They said the tree attracted snakes, he hadn’t seen a single snake so far. What could be sadder than the sight of a tree in full bloom? He thought he wanted a pack of condoms like the paralysed hero in the movie. Condoms were the awakening calls of souls. He was ashamed he couldn’t own a single one.

  ‘Hi! ’Morning. Have you had your tea?’

  He looked up from his cup and saw Shaly smiling beside him. She gestured to ask whether he had brushed his teeth or not, to see if he wanted any help. He was half sitting, half lying, all crumpled up in his sheets. Shaly was making his bed, quite a task with him still in it, but he didn’t try to move. He was ashamed of his manhood rising, poking its head out pleadingly, something organic, something helplessly zoological about it, som
ething out of proportion.

  Looking at him, she was also thinking of an animal, of the dog that used to lie all shrivelled up in a corner of the school building in Aizawl. ‘Look, how I trust you,’ he would say, wagging his tail tirelessly, giving her the most pathetic expression in the world whenever she squatted down beside him to stroke his neck. Sometimes, when he saw her walking down the hillside, he would run towards her with a sandal or a ball in his mouth to present to her: useless things, of great value. A happy gesture or a touch of recognition was more than enough to make him feel good. He would go back to his corner and lie down again. She saw tears in Shiva’s eyes. She sighed.

  When she left the room, he realized that he had no love towards her, no lust. What he had felt was pain. He hadn’t heard such an expression before. People were known to say ‘I love you’ or ‘There is pain and pleasure in love’, but never did they say ‘I have pain for you’.

  He knew he was boiling in pain.

  Shiva surveyed his half-paralysed body. Aadi had broken his pupae. It was easy for him, for his legs were strong. He remembered the first cake Aadi had baked. It had come out still yellow, with soft dips in the centre. He had covered the uneven surfaces artistically with butter and chocolate sauce, and even put some sugar rings and wafer rolls on top of it. His cake looked yummy. The children clapped their hands; they waited for Kamala and Shaly to join them, and when they all came he cut the cake and the half-baked chocolate dough oozed out of the centre along with the raisins and nuts he had soaked overnight in rum.

  Three more flowers of the cannonball tree fell down in the wind. They looked soft, fleshy and pink.

  Tonight, I need a slut!

  48

  Kamala had not eaten anything the previous night. When Shaly had gone to her room she was not in the mood to talk, she said she had a headache and dismissed her just like that. In the morning, Shaly was not sure of a welcome, but all the same, she went to Kamala’s room. She peeped inside through the opening of the door. All she could see was a new red sari sprawling luxuriously on the bed near a brown paper bag that had been cut open. Was she going out again today? She didn’t remember her saying anything. She heard the doorbell ringing. It must be the hired driver. She went to answer the door. There was an old man waiting outside.

  ‘I have come to cut the weeds and grass.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘To clean the backyard.’

  ‘Oh!’

  She thought he had rung the bell in the morning to give her the words she feared most, about the most deadly weed. To cut: It could mean to chop down. It could also mean to chop up and give.

  Janu came from the kitchen and said, ‘He is my father, he has come to clear the overgrown weeds.’

  Shaly gestured for him to go to the backyard with Janu. True, Kamala had warned her about the poisonous plants growing in the yard, and on the path that led down to the river. She had asked her not to pluck or touch the flowers. But when Janu and her father were out of sight, she sat on the doorstep thinking over the different possibilities. Does a person need to go every day to Cochin to buy curtains and bathroom fittings? How much can she fit into eighteen hundred square feet? What is she hiding from me? Shaly tried to recall the faces of the peddlers of Bangalore, who spread like air, like cancer across the universe. There was no use asking Kamala anything, she would be better off talking to the stones on the pavement. Stones did answer at times, in this house, particularly. She told herself to calm down.

  Cautiously, she walked into Kamala’s room. Breakfast was ready in the dining room. When Kamala saw her coming, she said, ‘There is too much starch in the sari, I cannot manage it.’

  ‘You look good only in silk saris, this doesn’t suit you,’ Shaly said. She wanted to see her get angry and pulled the border of her sari to annoy her on purpose.

  ‘Oh dear, I will change it. I don’t want anything that you don’t want,’ Kamala said. ‘Yes, my old saris are a lot better than these new ones. Maybe you could try a sari too for a change; it’s good to change things up once in a while.’ She laughed, and took off the sari in a hurry.

  She was thinner than Shaly remembered. Shaly’s thoughts adamantly circled around the same words: weed, grass, peddlers. Kamala ought to tell her where she was going—she believed she had a right to know. She was the one who had introduced the first blood-fucking peddler to her, and she recalled how mercilessly Kamala had slapped her when she didn’t hear from him, the whirring noise of his fucking Bullet. She had heard a vroom last evening and when she went running outside, she saw a Fat Boy roaring down the lane. Was it going to the graveyard? A Fat Boy in this godforsaken part of the country! Kamala selected a dark violet silk sari with a yellow border from the cupboard.

  ‘I need a blouse to go with this sari.’

  She squatted on the floor and rummaged through the bottom shelves of the cupboard. This was the portion of the cupboard where Madhavan had secretly kept his sports magazines when they had all been young and things were good between them. Kamala’s mother had given him permission to keep his things in there. He was not confident of keeping or hiding his books in his own house. Memories became so loud she smiled. An issue of Sportstar cost six rupees or something during those days. Madhavan was the only boy who owned those magazines in their village. He would sell tapioca and coconuts and collect money for the magazines without anyone’s knowledge. This, he thought at the time, was the riskiest game of his life—maybe it was just one of those first links in the long chain of cheating. Those magazines were his hard-earned, ill-gotten property and Kamala was their temporary custodian, watching over them then the way she looked after her other charges these days—the children he had given her. Sometimes he rented out the magazines for a rupee or two to the local boys, sometimes in exchange for some Playboy stuff. Sometimes he would remind her, ‘If I find out that a page is missing, I’ll show you.’

  She was not afraid of him anyway.

  The magazine was a biweekly. Soon, the space granted to him became packed with books. One day, when his father came home, Kamala’s mother said: ‘When the carpenter comes, I am planning to make a bookshelf for Madhavan; the bookworms have started eating my clothes as well.’

  His father didn’t understand what she was saying, nor did he see the connection between her clothes, Madhavan’s bookshelf and the bookworms, for he had always been a slow learner, the man who got information second-hand. He was not aware of the things stolen from his own house.

  Where there were books, there would be bookworms.

  ‘My dear father-in-law, there are things called bookworms on earth,’ Kamala said, taking some blouses out of the cupboard. ‘Have you ever heard of termites and roaches?’ She smiled, unable to contain the strapping happiness of nostalgia. Shaly couldn’t understand why she was smiling.

  Kamala started trying her blouses one by one. Her body had shrunk, becoming unbelievably small in them. ‘Someone has come to remove the weeds today,’ Shaly said.

  ‘What weeds?’

  ‘The weeds in your backyard, you said there are some poisonous plants growing there.’

  ‘Yes, I remember.’

  There was no change of expression on her face and Shaly grew all the more upset.

  White trumpets had been flowering at night in the backyard, for the last two weeks. In the morning, over the green expanse of plants and grass they remained furled, along with the thorn apples hanging down from their stems. Kamala said they were poisonous, that they could be harmful to them, to her children. She told her about the woman in her neighbourhood who had committed suicide by eating its seeds. The woman, she said, was heartbroken, a failure in love or something like that. Madhavan had gone to see the dead body with cousins and friends, but she was not allowed. She had wanted to see it so badly.

  Shaly admitted that she was incredibly ignorant of botanical facts. ‘Poisonous or deadly, they are beautiful,’ she said, stressing the last word. But all beautiful things need not be entertained.


  They heard Janu’s father raking the soil in the background. Kamala scrutinized the stranger in the mirror, inside the loose blouse. She said she needed to put on more weight, she seemed cheerful. There were no signs of weed or smoke on her face. At one point, Shaly thought she was regaining a little bit of her old charm. But still, she couldn’t believe it. She wanted to know what was happening, where she was going, all alone.

  ‘You seem in a good mood today,’ Kamala said, looking at Shaly.

  ‘No, I am not. I think Shiva has not been to the toilet today,’ she said, mockingly. She wanted to irritate her, make her bad again.

  Kamala’s face darkened. She put away the sari she was trying on and pulled her nightdress over her blouse and hurried to Shiva’s room.

  If a single drop of water could contain a sea, Shaly knew Kamala had it in her eyes then.

  She followed her and said, ‘You go, dear, I can take care of it.’

  ‘It’s all right, Shaly. Ask Janu to get me a strong tea.’

  After speaking to Janu, Shaly walked out to the backyard. She saw the white trumpets, now lying dead on the brown earth as if they had been drawn on it with a piece of chalk. There were ants hurrying around and over the thorn apples. Would he set fire to them once he finished uprooting them? Would breath be choked under the poisonous smoke?