Acid

by Sangeetha Sreenivasan

  She took a deep breath before knocking on Kamala’s door.

  ‘Kamaledathi . . . Kamaledathi . . .’

  There was no response. She tried to push the door open, but it was latched on the inside. Janu felt disappointed, she wanted Kamala to try her new curry. She went outside to peep into Kamala’s room from the window. The one she knew would be kept open for the sake of the money plant in the whisky bottle. She needed a leg-up over the wall to see inside the room. Somehow, she balanced on the projections of the sill and managed a sneaky look from behind the fading leaves. The bed was empty. She craned her neck some more and saw Kamala sitting on the floor in a corner. She was mumbling something Janu couldn’t catch; she saw her lips move and that was it. Kamala was not looking at the window, she was not looking anywhere, her eyes, Janu could see, were blank, expressionless or, rather, motionless.

  Now Janu was worried, she couldn’t understand what was happening inside the room. She didn’t have numbers for Aadi or Shaly. She was not sure whether to send for a doctor or not. She thought Kamala’s face looked distorted, but again she was unsure. She tapped hard on the window. At that Kamala looked at her and shooed her away, as if she were shooing the pigeons on the sill. Janu was relieved: there was no problem.

  Kamala was shooing the eagle away. She had not seen Janu; she thought it was a huge eagle tapping its wings on her window. When the bird flew away, she saw a squabble of seagulls hovering above the dry dust bowl inside her room. She knew they were powerful, those seagulls, so she prayed to them to ensure an easy death for her. The white seagulls, she remembered, were different from the eagles of the wasteland. It must be at the point where the blue sky merged with the blue sea that the seagull abandoned duality and soared to the heights. His feathers, smooth and white, shone in the rays from the sun. She had read the story of the magnificent bird, the story of its flight. The bird asked her to break the chains of her thought, and break the chains of her body. His name, she remembered, was Jonathan. But she had no strength to fly over the dust bowl. She kept crawling; the building was a long way off from where she was. There were people, scattered all over, straining to look through the window. She wondered what was inside that building that the people were so mad about, what was wrong with the people? She was sad that people could never return to their innocence, because the faces of those who came away from the window looked vicious, alarmingly disturbed. But whatever it was, she wanted to see it. She tried with all her might to crawl, scratching her ankle on the rough surface of the granite. It had been days since she had eaten properly. If someone tore open her stomach right now, they would only get a handful of tablets.

  Janu was upset because Kamala was ruthless with her.

  ‘Don’t you worry, she will eat when she feels hungry,’ Shiva said. He was grateful for the food and he wanted to console her. He said he wanted new bed sheets as that one stank of dirt, sweat and food. But he had other woes as well, which he couldn’t tell her. For example, he wanted to change his underwear. The sore below his hip was itching, itching like mad at times. He was ashamed of that. He worried that one day he would have to suffocate in his own shit.

  Janu heard the phone ringing when she was about to open the entrance gate. She ran back, feeling grateful it didn’t stop before she reached. ‘Hello, hello,’ she said even before she had picked up the receiver. It was Aadi. In an instant she forgot everything she wanted to tell him. He kept asking, ‘Is it Janu? I’ve been trying since morning. Why isn’t Amma answering my calls? Her mobile is ringing.’

  After a gap of what seemed like hours to her, but was in reality a matter of seconds, Janu replied, ‘Amma has not eaten anything. She is not well. She didn’t touch the new curry I made today.’

  Immediately, she understood that mentioning the new curry was out of place there. So she said again, ‘She says she has a headache.’

  ‘Is it a migraine?’

  Janu had no idea what a migraine was. So she asked, ‘When are you coming back? Shiva is also not well these days.’

  ‘I’m planning to come back. Could you please give Amma’s mobile to Shiva? I want to talk to him.’

  ‘I don’t think I can get it, I’m sorry, but Kamaledathi has locked her door from the inside.’

  ‘Janu, listen to me. There is a cordless phone somewhere upstairs. Could you please go and get that? Give that to him. Tell him I will call him after half an hour.’

  It had been days since he had talked to his mother or brother. Sometimes he spoke even when he doubted that there was someone at the other end, or thought the receiver might have slipped out of the cradle. He sat down on the beach and watched people recording videos of the sunset. Everything seemed heavy and dark, even the water that lapped against the shore. He had been visiting the Samadhi for the past two days, but the stone, the flowers, the serene calmness, everything reminded him of the anguish of the brother who was waiting for him in his bed.

  He stood at the tail end of the long queue to get into the golden globe, Matri Mandir. People in the queue were silent, there was silence everywhere. It was not enough to calm his nerves, for silence, at times, could become unbelievably rude. In the quiet he remembered the library, the endless rows of books, the ancient fans and chairs that bore the imprints of souls. It was good to remember things, good to know that you were not alone; there was another man, a woman standing in the avenue. People were waiting patiently for their turn to step into the meditation chamber.

  Light purer than water called him inside. He knelt, closed his eyes and kissed the floor. He dreamt of warm breath and cleanliness, he didn’t understand why. Later, he dreamed of the single glass tile on the roof of Anuraktha’s library. He saw the doves cooing and light from the morning filling up the vacuum and a raindrop falling on top of the glass tile and exploding into seven colours.

  ‘What should I think?’ he asked the light.

  ‘Think of me.’

  He shuddered. That voice was familiar, he knew it, it was his own voice. The rainbow colours disappeared from the glass tile, making it look desolate. Erasing and drawing, drawing and erasing, the glass started shining again. It said, ‘Think of me, Aadi, think of the poor life you abandoned.’

  Aadi opened his eyes. Now he could hear Shiva knocking against the tile. It grew louder, frighteningly so. Suddenly, the whirlpool that was hiding behind the gold-plated doors of the globe covered him from tip to toe, and in the room of silence, he heard someone crying aloud, someone crying from within.

  ‘Amma . . . Amma . . . I’m hungry. Janu . . . where are you? Is anybody there?’

  Janu wanted to answer his call, but she was busy. Kamala had said there were two little snakes in her room; she said she had seen them. She wanted Janu to clean her room. This was the thirteenth time Janu was cleaning her room; there were no snakes. She ran from the kitchen to Kamala’s room like a tennis player. She knew no rest. Sometimes the phone rang in between, but it would stop by the time she got to it and then she would hear Shiva and Kamala calling her from two different directions, from two separate rooms.

  ‘Light the torch if you can’t see well. I’m sure there is something crawling in there.’

  ‘I need a cup of coffee, Janu. Janu . . . are you there?’

  Janu, too, was getting tired of it, sick of mother and son. Sometimes she went to the lotus pond, sat down on the steps and watched the flowers in full bloom.

  ‘Will I never die?’ Shiva sighed in his room.

  56

  Shaly wanted to go back and proclaim that she belonged to Kamala. She was willing to admit her mistake, if Kamala still considered it a mistake. It was torture being separated from her and her sons. If love was entrapped in a moment, she wanted to have that moment back. Had they shifted already? Aadi had not mentioned anything about it. She was sure Shiva would be happy in the flat with his gadgets, light and air. She imagined white curtains swaying in the wind. Beautiful people inside a beautiful house—she remembered them in her prayers. Recently, she had join
ed Rita in her evening prayers.

  She drew a window on the wall with a piece of charcoal. From the window she wanted to look at the sun. So she drew a charcoal sun, round and plump. Four or six strokes more and her sun had rays. Then she drew two eyes and a laughing mouth, and called it her smiley sun. Then she proceeded to draw a staircase and an open terrace at the end with a barsati, charcoal fruit and leaves, and two women in a deep embrace.

  In the evening when Rita Mama emerged from her room, she let out a horrified cry looking at the wall, her exquisitely pink walls. Shaly heard her mutter as she pissed in the toilet. In his will, Andrews had left everything to Shaly. He had done this with Rita’s consent, but she was determined not to breathe a word of it until she died. Look at the walls now.

  Shaly wanted to forget about Kamala and her children. But her memories entwined around her as if they were afraid of being blown out, like the flame of a lamp in the wind. They grabbed more memories from the past, as if making a trade union. The family was hers; the children belonged to her and she belonged to Kamala. Was she a friend, a lover, a slave or a concubine? She didn’t know. Sometimes she broke down, crying. Kamala would ask, ‘Am I a mother? Can my children call me mother?’ She was the one who played with her own life. She did that foolishly. Of course, some people do that. But they end up asking questions the way she does.

  ‘Tell me Shaly, how can a woman become a mother? I want to be like you.’

  What Aadi said was true, thought Shaly. If you have a window that opens to the city, a nice cup of frothing coffee and a book of verse by your side, your life will be okay and somewhat happy, even if not hilarious and exciting. You can choose your poems. Since you are living in a city you can amuse yourself with tales of the countryside, but remember to be in the city, that’s important, if possible, in a metro. You can read poems written about valleys and hilltops, grandfather clocks that tick endlessly and age-old mansions where ghosts take rounds every now and then. Once you master reading, try to compose a poem of your own. Write on the mud lamp in the spooky snake garden, the wick of which is lit every evening by prayer time without anyone having lit it, even when there is no oil in it.

  These dreams are not likely to leave me . . . Kamala twisted and turned in pain on the bed. She had thrown up many times that day. The cramping of her muscles made her want to vomit more. As there was nothing left inside her stomach, she spat up yellow water that looked like bile.

  ‘Can we go to a doctor?’ Janu asked. She knew Kamala would get angry if she insisted.

  ‘Could you please go and clean the room, Janu? How many times have I told you I saw something crawling in there?’

  Janu scratched her head at this, for she knew that if she went there with a bucket of water and a mop one more time, the room would get erased.

  At night, Kamala was disturbed by the noises again. The loud chirping of the insects was so clear that anyone could hear it. Even if it were the nocturnal concert of nature, or the disease called tinnitus, she realized she wanted to consult a doctor, for she feared, sometimes, that she would not hear her son calling above the night-long soprano of crickets even though she ignored him when he did. She remembered Madhavan. He had said that it was tinnitus, a disease that affected the ear. He said he would take her to the doctor. But where was he? Was he dead already? When Madhavan came home, she would go to consult a doctor. But where was he? Where was Madhavan? Was he the one who had passed away? They said it was her mother who passed away, but she could not remember. She remembered the golden snakes she had seen under her mattress once. Yes, she had come back home with her children when Madhavan got bit by the snakes. Madhavan wasn’t there any more, to take her to the doctor. But the boys were babies then. She remembered how loudly he had cried when the snakes bit him. Everything seemed so clear now, even the stuffed cardboard boxes that had belonged to her mother burning to cinders in the backyard. She remembered the mouths, the purple colour, the smell of the wetness, and how they had crawled over her breasts. Someone should set fire to this place. She knew there had been a snake garden in the backyard once, but she didn’t know what had happened to it as they grew up. In her village, almost every house had a snake garden of their own where they lit lamps and prayed for the prosperity of the family. Madhavan said it was the best example of a sound eco-system. Good for him. She was the one who suffered. She closed her eyes and tried to concentrate on the darkness.

  She saw a woman lying on her mattress, nude. Two teenagers who were also naked were trying to feed on her breasts. They moved like snakes over her body. She could only see the boys’ exposed thighs and their backs and the rest of her body. Her hair covered their faces. When they lifted their heads, she saw her sons; the woman was Shaly.

  Shaly! Like a woman possessed she threw herself on the floor and cried. Let Kadru come down to my womb and eat my children. Kamala had fever. She was sick. She wanted to sleep.

  Shiva stretched his hand towards the table for food. But unfortunately he knocked the plate down. He looked at the rice scattered all over the floor. Now to clean this mess up he would have to wait till Janu returned the next day. Sad, he drank the sambar in the small bowl. He remembered Mary, their maid in Bangalore. How easily she used to make roti and sabzi, in no time. His mouth watered.

  ‘The more she saw Kadru’s children the more Vinata burnt in jealousy . . . Are you listening?’ Amma asked as she combed Kamala’s hair. She had a high fever. She was lying in her mother’s lap.

  ‘Yes, I’m listening’ she replied in a very feeble, fragile voice. Amma continued with her story: ‘Vinata was heartbroken. She battered on her womb in frustration and it opened. A body, half-formed, came out of her womb and began to blow in the wind around her. The child cursed his mother, “Woman, you could have waited a little longer,” and flew away to the Sun to become his charioteer.’

  Kamala didn’t want to listen to the story of Vinata and her sons born with deformed bodies. She wanted to know about Kadru’s thousand baby snakes that crawled all over her big breasts. She didn’t want to get frightened by the stories of unformed bodies when she was running a temperature. She wanted to hear something pleasant.

  ‘Mother, talk to me about the crawling snakes, the beauty of their black bodies.’

  Patting her on her forehead, her mother continued: ‘Anilan, Vasuki, Nilan, Sankan, Pinkalan, Vamanan, Karkkaran, Mani Nagan, Akarkkaran, Mahodaran, Karkkodakan, Dhananjayan, Purnanagan, Thakshakan, Sumanasu, Kumudhan, Ugrakan, Kaliyan, Iravatan, Tithiri, Kadran, Halkkan, Seshan, Subahu, Padman . . .’

  ‘Kamaledathi . . . Kamaledathi . . . Please get up and have something. You haven’t eaten anything since last night.’

  57

  Aadi couldn’t recognize Amy Ammu’s mother when he saw her from a distance. She had cut her blonde hair really short, so short it resembled that of a boy. Not just that, now it was coffee-brown in colour, a sad change. She laughed, though. She looked extremely pleased with her new hairdo. She had pierced her nose too. There was something different about the way she dressed as well. Aadi looked at her and then at Amy Ammu, who was on the verge of tears.

  ‘We got separated . . .’ her mother said, maintaining a sad smile on her lips.

  Amy was pouting her lips and crying now. He looked at her and realized that her face resembled his in that moment, the face of Aadi and Shiva, the face that was petrified with fear, the face that drowned in the pond.

  At last, Aadi received a phone call from Shiva. It was Janu who found the cordless phone lying under Shaly’s bed in her room upstairs. He couldn’t be angry with Shiva for not calling him so far; in fact, he couldn’t even control his tears. He had set out on his journey to experience life, but he found himself weeping at the other end of the phone. He felt ashamed.

  Shiva said a great many things; Aadi heard a great many things. But then Shiva asked something that made Aadi shudder, all over.

  ‘What—? What did you say?’ he asked.

  ‘I said do you think Father will take
me with him to Bangalore if I ask him to.’

  ‘No,’ Aadi retorted immediately and after a pause he added, ‘Father has another wife. I don’t know whether they have children as well, but I don’t think that woman would accept us. We would be a burden.’

  ‘Mother also considers me a burden these days.’

  He had no idea his mother was dying in the next room. Janu, being a fool, also hadn’t considered the possibility. ‘She stopped throwing up when I gave her porridge mixed with medicine,’ she said with pride the last time she came out of her room, as if she were a doctor.

  ‘Aadi, could you please do me a favour?’

  ‘Please, tell me.’

  ‘Ask Shaly to come back, or you come back, or bring her back when you come. That would be wonderful. Nothing else, just come back home.’

  ‘I’m coming and I promise you I will bring her too.’

  The moment the call ended, he dialled Nimmy’s extension number and waited, listening to the muzak. When she came on the line he told her that he was planning to leave and wanted her to settle the accounts.

  ‘Are you sure you are going tomorrow itself?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes, I think so,’ he said.

  ‘In that case, could you please come over? He wants to see you.’