Acid

by Sangeetha Sreenivasan

  Please don’t call me again. It is my helplessness. If you haven’t deleted the messages we had sent before, please go through them and see who spoke badly and why. I hope you understand.

  He switched off his phone.

  Who said the happiness of an expedition receded once you reached the top of the mountain? He had seen the face of a teenager glowing, once, atop a mountain, when she brushed the clouds aside and peered into the skies, when she looked down and to her amazement saw the valley. That moment, he considered, was his secret truth. After that day, he had seen himself falling from mountaintops many times in his dreams; later he called it his frightening recurring dream. He worked his fingers to the bone in his dreams, pushing hard, trying not to hurt himself. Sometimes he started falling in his wakeful hours. Each mountaintop was a lesson. People were happy in the valleys, but he wanted to know the secrets of the heights, for he was never satisfied. He wanted to reach the top, nothing else mattered to him. All the same, he knew he would be falling down.

  Aadi woke up dreaming about Shiva. It had become a habit of late. These days he got his mother on the phone very rarely. Sometimes he felt it was his grandmother who was on the other end of the line, for her voice had become feeble and shaky, the words jumbled and mispronounced. He couldn’t understand why Shiva kept his phone switched off nowadays. The only person who called him on a daily basis was Shaly. He was thankful for her routine calls. She said she had gone to live with her mama who had fallen ill. He wanted to tell her that he was incapable of happiness of any kind. He found himself lonely, though his present situation helped him to cling to his delusions. But in the TV room, on the tennis court, in the pizza corner, he contemplated one thing only: whether he should go back or not. Once, he asked Nimmy, ‘Nimmy, I think I want to go back. What do you say?’

  ‘If you feel like going back, you should go at once.’ Nimmy’s tone was abrupt. ‘You can come back whenever you feel like it.’

  What she said was true, but he didn’t pack his things. His brother was crying in his bed. Janu had applied ointments to the sores that had formed on his back recently, she had told him. His mother, who had stubbornly shut herself in her room, had not eaten anything for the past three days. Sometimes her voice could be heard like the flutter of a fly from within the room. In the veranda attached to her room she was growing mint in mud pots. It would take barely a month for the mint leaves to grow and fill up the pots. She was planning to make pulavu on the day Aadi returned. She hadn’t watered the plants for the past three days. There was no way Janu could reach the veranda, unless she opened the door.

  He walked out into the morning redolent with the fragrance of fallen frangipani flowers, onto the red earth. He took off his sandals, for he wanted to feel the petals on his soles. His feet tickled when he stepped over the carpet grass covered with drops of dew. He wanted to lie down on the bed of grass and kiss the dew; like kissing the secrets of a beloved woman. But the thought that had been disturbing him since the night before poked its head up again: You have to decide something, it said.

  He made a video call to Shaly. She marvelled at him walking under fruit trees, amidst flowering shrubs. Each day he showed her each new scene: the swimming pool, the Kalari, the pizza corner, the guest house . . . Today it was the shrubs loaded with flowers. He wondered why she didn’t come running.

  ‘Is it possible that a person could live their whole life there? Are you paying money?’ she wondered. ‘What interest do you have in theatre? I have never seen you act in a play. Or are you planning to become a devotee?’ She was full of questions.

  ‘Hey Shaly, is that your Rita Mama?’ he asked, without hiding his surprise.

  Shaly turned and saw Rita Mama standing close, behind her.

  ‘Rita Mama, this is Aadi. Could you please say something to him?’ she asked.

  She made a gesture that communicated quite clearly.

  ‘Some new fads,’ said Aadi.

  ‘That said fuck off,’ said Shaly.

  After disconnecting the video call, he walked again, pondering over what she had said. This was a place where people came and went; indeed they did pay money, and money was important. Amy Ammu and her family had been living here for the past few months. It was her father who had come first and decided not to go back—he brought his family over instead. Amy Ammu, he said, would be enrolled in the ashram school here once she was old enough to attend.

  The blue teddy was very heavy these days. Amy Ammu had made him bathe under the garden pipe in the running water. It was not easy to carry a wet teddy around. Aadi didn’t go anywhere near her teddy these days, be it blue or white. For him, it was a load of damp, wet cotton. These days, it was Red. It was Rane who came up with ‘Red’. One day as she was fighting with Anu over the name of her teddy, Rane said aloud, ‘Amy . . . call him Red.’

  She was happy with the name, but she didn’t stop crying.

  ‘It is not a him, it is a her.’

  The man who lived opposite his room in the guest house was a north Indian poet. He was working on his new book. He said it was called ‘Serendipity’. Aadi wondered what he himself was doing here, besides walking around watching people. Wasting time?

  When he went to the ashram perfumery, the old woman at the desk asked him, ‘Are you a resident? You look very familiar.’

  When he said no she said again, ‘You look so familiar, like family.’

  Aadi was amazed to hear this. He remembered Veenapani had told him the same thing on the day he had arrived.

  He walked to the theatre, pushed open the heavy doors and walked through the corridor inside. It was dark inside, except for the light that seeped in through the perforated brick facade. Since it was a free day for the workshop participants, they had all gone to the beach. Aadi didn’t feel like going, so he had stayed back. There was a party the following night; he had said he would participate. He stepped into the performance area paved with wood. It felt good standing over there, watching the empty galleries. He imagined they were full of people, that he was facing them. He walked towards the centre of the stage and stood on the spot where he assumed the beam from the spotlight would fall. He decided he would tell them a story—what story if not his?

  He started telling them, his imaginary audience, his tale, the real play of his life, the women, the boys, the pond, the father, the brother in the bed, the mother on drugs. He had not analysed his life so far, he felt it was threateningly terrifying, pathetically withdrawn. He worried about what the world, the audience, would think of him, an ordinary bloke with such a long-drawn story to tell. He realized he was crying. But when he finished telling them his story, he gracefully bent forward, showing gratitude for the time his imaginary audience had given him. When he stood upright again, iridescent light fell over him from the glass symbol of the Mother fixed on the wall. He thought he was imagining this and the other things. The symbol, he remembered, was called divine consciousness.

  Kamala happened to peep in through the door that was open.

  Who is he? She was aware of fear slithering down the length of her spine. She saw a stranger on her son’s bed with the growth of nights and days covering his face like a beehive. The home nurse who had promised to come was late. Was it stinking? She sniffed around as if she were a dog. The air inside the room was heavy with a pungent smell. Lying on his bed, he looked like a fat, overgrown boy with mental health problems. She was afraid he would bite her hands or shoulders if she went anywhere near him. She knew she wanted to run away from there. She loved him dearly, yet she went on asking herself who he was. He had entered her mind like he was the boy next door, who had been there right from the beginning but whose name she had forgotten. At times, his face seemed sadly strange to her, she couldn’t make him out.

  Exhausted, she went back to her room and sat on the bed. She had received calls from Movers and Packers, who were literally shouting to be heard over the phone. Nothing on earth mattered now. Cochin was an island beyond countries. As a child sh
e had thought that people lived safe and secure inside the earth, outside of which was a terrifying void. There was safety inside the big blue-green ball. But once, years ago, when she learnt for the first time that she was on the surface, and that terrifying lava and unfathomable depths bubbled inside, she was petrified. She felt abandoned and homeless but from that day onwards she knew that she could face anything on earth, anything on the surface.

  That night she dreamed about helping Shiva shave his beard. Even in her dream she puked when she saw the hair floating on the surface of the water over the foam. Her hands shook and she made a gash on his chin. Suddenly, Shaly sprang in, God knew from where—it was a dream and dreams could be as they liked. Shaly was trembling too, but she was shaking with anger.

  ‘If you can’t do that properly, give the razor to me. I will do it for him,’ she shouted.

  ‘Is he your son or mine?’

  Shaly had to get out of this dream. She had no right to be in it. The moistness of the cunt was different from that of blood; she didn’t belong in this dream, it was time she stepped out of it. But Shaly was reluctant and stubborn as always. She tried to seize the razor from Kamala’s hand. The blood from the gash on his chin mixed with the shaving cream. He wanted to wipe it off and drink some water.

  ‘I know how to take care of my son!’ Kamala continued protesting in her sleep.

  Shaly woke, hearing Kamala’s feeble voice. It was not morning yet. She wanted to call Kamala. She told herself that that was the first thing she would do once the day dawned. She cried thinking how mutable things were. In the next room, Rita Mama was sick. She had fallen down two days ago and badly hurt her leg; above all, she had experienced severe vertigo and had thrown up everything she had eaten, some three or four times during the day. It was all a combination of bad luck and bad timing, and now this dream, which she didn’t remember, but she had heard Kamala cry in her dreams—she was afraid Kamala needed help.

  Rita Mama had been scolding her for a minute before she fell down: ‘Why don’t you get married?’

  ‘How on earth could you ask me such a substandard fucking question?’ Shaly asked, and Rita fell down and broke her leg.

  The communal dining area was an open space for actors and visitors. Outside the thatched dining room, under the breezy branches of the trees, round tables, stone benches and dogs waited for the diners to come. Like the flowers that grew out of the void around and above the bus, people filled up the places, benches and seats with laughter. As usual, they started singing:

  One young tiger we are told

  Got tired of being yellow gold

  He concentrated all day long

  And sang the tiger witch’s song

  He practiced till he learned the knack

  Of changing yellow fur to black . . .

  As the drumbeats grew louder, people squeezed into each and every available gap. One of them became the tiger and jumped on top of one of the round tables. The others became the cheerleaders.

  ‘I will get you a beer!’ someone said.

  ‘Do you want a whisky on the rocks? My turn.’

  The tiger was happy, the cheerleaders were prompt. The tiger began the drama. Looking at Itchimba, the dog who was lying on the ground, he asked, ‘Dog-etta, will I meet man? Will it stand on its hind legs?’

  The game continued into the night. For the first time since Aadi’s arrival they opened the beer bottles. Making toasts to each other, they started singing louder and talking non-stop. Nimmy looked terrific in her black spaghetti and green skirt. She had stuck big white frangipani flowers in her hair; she seemed to have come straight from the beach.

  ‘Nimmy, you look so sexy!’ someone shouted.

  ‘Thank you! Thank you!’ she hollered back.

  She was carrying a glass bottle containing orange juice in her hand. It looked beautiful: the orange against the green of her skirt and the sheen of the glass in between. Someone said they would mix orange juice with vodka and drink. But there was no vodka. Nimmy said it was from the tangerine tree in their yard. Aadi remembered having seen the worker pluck the tangerines in the morning. He was happy he could drink something. She proudly offered him the bottle, but the juice, to his disappointment, was sour.

  The smell of basmati rice, chicken and Chettinad masala spread around the tables as she unsealed the lid of the biryani pot. In no time, the round tables and stone benches were empty as they all rushed to the thatched hut, tiger and dog-ettan in the lead.

  55

  ‘Amma . . . Amma . . .’ Shiva yelled at the top of his voice.

  Half asleep, she could hear him calling her. Lying still, she waited for his summons to stop. Slowly it did. But even after that, she concentrated in the dark for so long that she thought her ears would melt. She wondered what was wrong with him in the middle of the night, she clearly remembered Janu going with a platter of food to his room after eight. She had even asked Janu to keep a bowl of warm water by him, with a piece of lemon in it—the way they did in hotels, near the food—so that once he finished eating he could wash his hands and mouth. But after some time, right when her eyelids became heavy again, he started calling again. This time she sat up in her bed. He must be saying something in his sleep. She had no idea what the boy was up to. As she stepped out into the corridor, the shadow of the massive pillars in the courtyard frightened her. Leaning against the wall, she walked towards his room slowly, as slowly as slowness could be. She didn’t venture across the threshold into his room. The door was open. She told herself she would close it when she went back so that his voice wouldn’t trouble her again.

  ‘What is it?’ she asked, standing outside the door.

  ‘Amma, could you please take me to a restaurant? I would like to have a milkshake and some chicken legs. Or get me a family pack of ice cream, a big one.’

  It was repulsive to see a man with a visibly unattractive growth of moustache and beard asking for ice cream in the dead of night. She couldn’t believe it.

  ‘Do you know what time it is now?’

  ‘I am hungry.’

  She looked at the plate of food on the table. In the moonlight it appeared untouched.

  ‘Could you please ask Aadi to come back?’

  How many more questions? She looked at him with growing unease. Good that it was dark; they couldn’t see each other, only their silhouettes. Her arms were growing heavy and weak, and so did her legs, she wanted to lie down at once. She couldn’t bear so many questions at this time of the night. What was he asking her? She turned away, closing the door behind her. She could hear him ask her, ‘Give me my father’s number. I will call him.’

  It seemed a hopeful, frightening, taunting, derailed group of words.

  It had been days since Shiva’s mobile had stopped working, or he would have called his father sooner. He wanted to ask Janu to help him use the landline. He was afraid he was developing problems with his bowel movements these days. It was important that his father know how they were living, what they ate, and what conditions they were trapped in. Janu said the doors of his mother’s room never opened. When Shaly had been there, everything had been in place. Janu was not confident taking him out. She said he might fall down. Doesn’t matter, he told her. It would not make a big difference whether he lay prostrated on the ground or in bed. In fact he thought he might be better off on the floor—who doesn’t welcome a change once in a while?

  ‘Janu, could you please ask your father to chop down the thresholds of this house?’

  Janu looked at him as if she didn’t understand.

  ‘I would like to shorten the length of the legs of this bed too.’

  She said her father was no carpenter and he said anyone with a saw or an axe was enough to do the job. He said he hated beauty, anything beautiful. He didn’t say he was missing a certain scent, one that his mother got high on, the scent of a dear woman.

  Janu thought Shiva was becoming unreasonably irritable of late. He fought with whomever he saw, and unfortunate
ly, the person he saw was always Janu. She was not afraid of him, for she knew he couldn’t move from where he was. But she was afraid of the woman who remained like a dumb ghost, shut inside the room.

  ‘If you are going to make the same dish, I am going to flay you alive,’ he said.

  When Kamala closed her eyes again, she saw colours, a number of colours coalesced into strange contour lines, like when you look down through the microscope to see the divisions of cells. A splash of chlorophyll, she thought, was missing. She closed her eyes against the artistic abundance of light, the display of designs and patterns, and the movement of the contours as if across a graph. Then, she heard music. Someone sang, Goodbye blue sky. Goodbye to the sky and the milky river. Now, she could hear it all, loud and digital. She heard bombs falling. She saw faces down below, faces with no names, but with voices. She didn’t hear the feeble voices of children; all the other voices were loud, loud enough to explode. She listened to people going mad, guitar, cymbals, drums, vocals. A minor? No, D. She could hear the bass, the height and fall, each note separate and steady. She walked through the acid bulbs that were exploding like bombs on the pavement.

  Shaly was a terrific cook; Janu came nowhere near. The best dish she had ever made or tasted was sambar, the luxury she had at her house once or twice in a month, and the curry Shiva said he was tired of having. Janu loved pickled mangoes so much she would eat even the stones. But Shiva said he could not eat any more of her sambar, curd and pickled mangoes. That day when she came to the kitchen with a new recipe a distant relative had taught her, her face revealed both hope and stress. She didn’t put rice in the cooker; instead she put it in a mud pot and kept it over the firewood stove. She sliced the tender ash gourd thinly and cooked it over a low flame with a pinch of salt, turmeric and some green chillies. She mixed ground coconut and curd in it and tempered it with sesame seeds and curry leaves. When the rice cooked, the greed of hunger escalated through the viscera of the house. Her eyes watered when she saw Shiva chewing noisily, greedily. She thought this would settle her worries for some time. She had seen three ash gourds on the rooftop, ready to pluck.