Bitter Almonds_v10_opc1_29.01.2021_18.32_single page copy

Bitter Almonds Edited by NAJEEB S.A.



Bitter Almonds 1st Paperback Edition The Impish Lass Publishing House Published: 2021 Copyright: The Impish Lass Publishing House Bitter Almonds is a work of fiction. The names, incidents and characters portrayed in it are the product of the authors' imagination and their personal experiences and opinions. Any resemblance with actual persons, living or dead is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved in all media. No part of this publication can be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, without the written permission of the authors. It is the writers' responsibility to ensure that their WORK is free and clear of any counts of libel, plagiarism, breach of privacy or misrepresentation of facts. The Publishing House is not responsible for it. The writers can be challenged in Mumbai High Court in case of plagiarism. Cover page design is by Amiya Hisham. Typesetting by PageQore Data Solutions. Printed at The Impish Lass Publishing House.

FOREWORD I have known Najeeb S.A. as a writer during the last couple of years, however, this is the first time I have run into him in the role of an editor. I didn’t quite know what to expect of Bitter Almonds, the collection of short stories he has edited. Nevertheless, as I turned the last page of this collection, not surprisingly though, I realized that I had savoured every bit of it. The compilation has been divided into three sections, letting the reader know in advance what awaits him on the road ahead. In most cases in the first section, ‘Where Reality Meets Magic’, the prose tends to be finely twisted with poetry, especially in story number one, the title track. Language plays a vital role here interpolating with a rugged kind of romanticism where the edges are left uncut, perhaps to bleed one’s pigheaded heart at the arrival of the perfect jiffy. Poetic prose flows like sparkling, transparent water. With this academic style, the book reads like the lovechild of a dream. Excerpt “.. She picked up her sandals from the dry sand and began to walk towards me. The tide came in wetting her feet. On its rollback, it filled the deeper rear part of her footprints with seawater in which appeared the reflection of the moon. The momentum of the tide on its rollback sent a shiver rippling over the seawater within the footprints, eventually breaking the reflection into petite fragments. It was as if she was reluctantly leaving those broken bits of the moon strewn over the tiny strip of shoreline.” - Bitter Almonds

Hybridity is the basic quality of Bitter Almonds. Magical realists integrate many techniques that have been linked to post-colonialism. It is exemplified in the cacophonous grounds of such opposites as ‘high’ and ‘low’, ‘civic’ and ‘rural’. The story of a magical realist works engaging issues of margins, integration and revolution. The authors here prefer to engage the reader with a deeper and factual veracity than the one offered by conformist, pragmatist techniques. The irony regarding the authors' perspective is the magical world view in most cases because realism is not compromised. Concurrently, the writers revere the magic, though the magic seems to dissolve into a simple folk conviction or absolute fantasy. I found, most of the stories are characterized by two conflicting standpoints, one based on a rational view of truth and the other on the reception of the mystical as prosaic veracity. Knowing well that Magical Realism disagrees with pure fantasy, principally because its backdrop is a standard, contemporary world with valid metaphors from a flesh and blood society, I couldn’t help connecting to all the emotions as well as situations of the stories. The book takes hold of the absurdity and the consolidation of contradicting ideas, but it’s a queer amalgamation of both. It rather challenges binary oppositions like black and white and good versus the bad. According to Angel Flores, magical realism addresses the fusion of the real and the fantastic, “an amalgamation of realism and fantasy.” The charisma of the supernatural in magical realism is over and over again connected to the primordial or mysterious native attitude. Gonzalez Echchevarria writes that magical realism puts forward a world view that is not based on accepted or corporeal laws or objective correlatives. The fictional world is not alienated from the real world—that is what is the tone and tenor of the collection, Bitter Almonds. There is a certain authorial reticence in most stories; in fact, to some extent, I felt a need for opinions about the precision and the integrity of the world views expressed by the characters

in the text. The simple act of amplification of the mystical would exterminate its location of equality concerning a person’s conformist view of reality. The magical world is discarded sometimes as false testimony. The mystical is not displayed as problematic in the stories. While as a reader I realize that the coherent and absurd are conflicting and in inconsistent polarities, they are not befuddled because the supernatural is incorporated within the norms of the sensitivity of the narrator and characters in the fictional world of most stories here. Take for instance the last scene of the title track, when three months after his death, the protagonist revisits the backyard of his own home where the Bitter Almond tree stood in full bloom exuding, for him, the most alluring scent of all. The metaphor of the tree understandably is a reminder of his cowardice and escapist mindset that eventually lead to the tragic fate of his callous life. Which is exactly why the youth whose song at its crescendo shattered glass (Bitter Almonds), the yellow Gulmohar that chose to blossom in violet to suit the colour of the bridal wear (Take Care, Bye), the new millennium incarnation of the Prince of Kapilavastu who shook off the remnants of an impervious entrapment (Sojourners), Noor Jahan who rose up into the skies flapping the trail of her bottle-green scarf (When Peacocks Dance), the hallucinating patient in a mental sanatorium (Scent of Roses) and the dog that waited on the seashore lending its ear to the rapturous laugh of a dead child (Waiting) would not find themselves out of place in Kafka’s ghost town of Comala in ‘Metamorphosis’. I have no doubt that Gunter Grass’ Oskar, who decided to stop his growth and stay three years old forever by falling down the stairs and succeeded, would have no trouble feeling at home in the company of the tragic hero with an overriding moral flaw, doomed to be born in a Fitzgeraldian reverse timeline (Tales the Mirror Said). A tragedy becomes all the more tragic with the knowledge more than the act. The editor of an anthology is never invisible, because it is he who has set the parameters, snipped and shaped the content, arranged the matter into shapes of felicity and taken control

of the checks and balances. In the meantime, the editor’s unseen hand makes its presence felt in most other stories of this collection. Bitter Almonds is no easy read, but it sure will come in handy if you include it in your luggage before leaving for the country for a quiet weekend. Professor Nandini Sahu Director, School of Foreign Languages, IGNOU, New Delhi. www.kavinandini.blogspot.in

EDITOR’S NOTE Reality and magic are strange bedfellows. They still make a good pair nevertheless, depending on the volume of water that has flowed under the bridge. Admittedly, we live in an age of invented, alternate worlds created by existential issues like alienation and identity crisis. Unsurprisingly this phenomenon has influenced artists and writers of our time who have ventured into fantasy fiction. However, in the finest of literature’s fictional microcosms, there is more truth than fantasy; imagination is used to enrich reality, not to escape from it. Many people still look at magic realism only halfway through, considering the first part and conveniently ignoring the latter. Magic is of a whimsy world where nothing is real, whereas the “magic” in magic realism is firmly rooted in the “real”. The magic here comes across as an augmentation of the real, letting the reader wander over his imaginative clouds. The flights of fantasy need real ground beneath them. Before I read R K Narayan I had no clue about the real-life-model after which Malgudi was conceived. Yet in his pages, I found a reality I knew well from my own experience in our country, where there was and is a conflict between the urban and the pastoral, and there are similarly profound gulfs between rich and poor, powerful and powerless, the great and the small. A place with a strong colonial history, where religion is of great importance and God is alive, and so, unfortunately, are the godly. Coming to the title of the book, I have to confess that the opening statement of Love in the Time of Cholera (“…the scent of bitter almonds always reminded him of the fate of unrequited love.”) has been an inspiration. Generally speaking, almonds are of two types, bitter and sweet. Both are similar in appearance and have brown skin and

off‑white coloured insides. Bitter almonds are usually smaller and more pointed than sweet almonds. The former contains traces of prussic or hydrocyanic acid in its raw state, which can be lethal to animals and humans. The toxicity of the poison is destroyed by heat and processing. Writers to a certain extent are journalists who never lose sight of the facts. They are dreamers who believe in the truth of dreams. Which is why great writers are capable of moments of delirious, and often comic beauty. As a result, we have encouraged our contributors to interpret magic realism based on their premise of the approach. Bitter Almonds is only a small drop in the cold, untamed river that has been flowing quietly perhaps since the time man learned the art of reading; a humble attempt by Impish Lass Publishing House (ILPH) that has been making waves among some sections of cosmopolitan Mumbai since its inception only a couple of years ago. Before winding up, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to the following people: Meena Mishra, the ILPH CEO, for her immense faith in me as a writer and editor, K. Satchidanandan for the blurb, Prof. Nandini Sahu for the Foreword, Mrutyunjay Sarangi for the Introduction, all the writers who have contributed to this compilation and the forbearing Amiya Hisham who has designed the cover. I also cannot thank Prof. Geetha Nair and Sreekumar enough who have gone out of their way to encourage many a talent come into our fold. Is it not strange and even funny that I’ve never met any of them before? Like the heroine of A Streetcar Named Desire said, “I’ve always depended on the kindness of strangers.” It is with great expectations that the ILPH team presents this proud offering before the reading public. We earnestly hope that the fruits of our labour will be to their liking. Najeeb S.A. 31 October 2020

INTRODUCTION To call \"Bitter Almonds\" a mere ''Constellation of Stories'' would be a gross understatement. It is an enchanted journey down the path of Magical Realism, an exploration of sorts, to find a meeting point where surreal meets the real and a tale bursts into a riot of emotions. In a mystic sense, the ordinary and the magical overlap each other and carry the reader to a kaleidoscopic experience of myriads of colour and fragrance. Tales of magical realism are typically a panorama of events of the past moving inexorably to the present, marching past a wondrous mind, in a mix of fiction and reality - at once stimulating and sublime. They have the extraordinary ability to make the experience as real as a touch and yet as ephemeral as a dream. In a well-researched article (\"Introduction to Magical Realism\" ThoughtCo, Oct. 9, 2020) American academic Jackie Craven, has listed the following six characteristics of writings in Magical Realism: (i) Situations and events that defy logic, (ii) Myths and legends, (iii) Historic context and societal concerns (iv) Distorted time and sequence, (v) Real-world settings, and (vi) Matter-of-fact tone. Craven goes on to say that magical realism, is not a style or a genre so much as a way of questioning the nature of reality. I was hooked to \"Bitter Almonds\" right from the first page. As the stories unfolded, I experienced new levels of consciousness, they transported me to rare feelings of ecstasy as well as melancholy. I would like to discuss a few of the stories and leave the readers to judge the book with the touchstone of the six characteristics Jackie Craven has enunciated. For me, the stories have not just passed muster, they have overwhelmed me. Ever since I read Sulochana Ram Mohan's \"Golden Flower,\" not a single day has passed when I have visited my garden to

pluck flowers for my pooja and not remembered it. The story has remained embedded in my mind and will remain so as long as I live. Najeeb S. A.'s ''Bitter Almonds'' from which the book derives its title, is an extraordinary tale alternating between dizzying heights and plateauing placidity. The astounding power of music rising to a deafening crescendo and shattering panes of glass in the windows awakens a new world where magic melts into reality in an astonishing fashion. The sound of the song absorbing the sound of the shattering glasses presents a primordial intimacy in a world where illusion descends into a calmness as if nothing happened and nothing appeared amiss. And, the narrator's world quietly moves across the shore to a different country. In Sreekumar K.'s story ''Take Care, Bye'' the Gulmohar blossoming in a violet frenzy in deference to the bride's wish to wear a violet saree is a masterly stroke which reverberates with a sweet resonance. Another fine creation is Neeti Parti's ''Hansadhwani, the Swan Song'' which leaves an indelible image in the mind of a pair of swans flying away, as the story reaches its climax with the magic of overpowering music bringing a new life to the lifeless. The story has been built with consummate finesse and comes out in a rare form of beauty. And who can forget the ever curious boy in Mini K.'s ''Farmlands in the Sky,'' looking up at heaven, trying to imagine the land there, bought by a senile man, and waiting for registration? In a large canvas of life and immortal hopes, don't we all want to reserve a space in heaven for ourselves? Is that the message in this cute little story? Geetha Nair's ''Green Days'' is a powerful, yet endearing story, playing magic with the image of Gandharvas and Yakshis coming back to haunt the protagonist urging him to collect a remnant of the past and make it a part of his life in a distant land.

''Triple Magic'' of Shubha Sagar is a tempting tapestry woven with the magical threads of memory and longing for the past ‑ the child lurking at every turn in Paryag, the narrator's childhood town, and merging into the present in an achingly melancholic way. The different turns and twists as she meanders through the town creates an enduring image of a throbbing past clinging to her living present, \"Just as I was about to close my eyes I caught sight of my childhood image outside the window of the train. We gazed into each other's eyes and exchanged a thousand unsaid words. I very much wanted to take her along, but she had disappeared without bothering to say good bye.\" The nostalgia of a tea seller far away from his village is beautifully captured by Sabin Iqbal in his brilliant story \"When Peacocks Dance\". The aching for the nubile Noor Jahan remains unfulfilled in an amalgam of dream and reality: \"As Nandilal lunges after her with a longing heart, the birds flutter away, and to his dismay, Noor Jahan too rises up into the skies, flapping the trail of her bottle-green scarf.\" ''The Carrom Board'' by Shrikant Rao is another absorbing tale where an invalid wife rises to demonic strength by the igniting of insane rage in her, quietly aided by the supernatural power of mini porcelain figures of winged angels representing Parsee iconography. The reader is left to believe \"the magic of the protector angels in the corner cupboard was real.\" Meena Mishra's ''Cupid Came Calling'', has its own fair share of mystery gently gliding into a sublime ending, but the image of a magic plant assuming the shape of the Love God leaves a lasting impression. Its intriguing romance is bound to return again and again, creating ripples in the reader’s mind. There are many other alluring tales adorning the pages of \"Bitter Almonds.\" But I would leave the readers here; I don't want to steal the thunder from the galaxy of gifted writers. An Introduction, after all, is meant to ignite the spark and leave it for the book to quench the passion. Let the journey begin.

The experience promises to be exhilarating, the joy of the extraordinary stories is bound to remain etched in memory. When you reach the end of the journey, dear reader, in the company of the gifted writers, you will find me, with many others, waiting for you, clapping and welcoming you to the blessed group who have been there, and have enjoyed every bit of this enchanting book. Ah, a memorable journey through Magical Realism indeed! Mrutyunjay Sarangi I.A.S. (Rtd.) Editor, LiteraryVibes Bhubaneswar, December 8, 2020

CONTENTS WHERE REALITY MEETS MAGIC 01 Bitter Almonds / NAJEEB S.A. 01 02 Not Anymore / SREEKUMAR K. 28 03 Take Care, Bye! / SREEKUMAR K. 40 04 Sojourners / RAMESH BABU 43 05 When Peacocks Dance / SABIN IQBAL 57 06 Hansadhwani, the Swan Song / NEETI PARTI 66 07 Scent of Roses / GEETHA NAIR G. 77 08 Green Days / GEETHA NAIR G. 81 09 Waiting / Dr. MEERA SUKUMARAN 86 10 Life in Threads / Dr. SOORYA MENON 89 11 The Girl in the Twilight Frock / 93 JOSEPH ABRAHAM 12 A Morleyan Inspiration / ROSE GEORGE 99 13 The Golden Flower / 106 SULOCHANA RAM MOHAN 14 Farmlands in the Sky / MINI K. ANTONY 118 15 The Shape of Everything / PRANITI GULYANI 123 16 Rainbows and Red Velvet / AMIYA HISHAM  128

WHERE MAGIC HAS GONE 136 152 17 Carrom Board / SHRIKANT RAO 160 18 Triple Magic / SHUBHA SAGAR 169 19 Ecstasy / RATNADIP ACHARYA 20 House No. 1313 / SAMRUDHI DASH 182 21 Fridays by the Woods / 189 Dr. DIPIMA BURAGOHAIN 193 22 Horoscope / Dr. BISHAKHA DAS 208 23 Chandran’s Daughter / BIJU VASUDEVAN 24 Sadgati / SAMEER KHASNIS  212 217 MORE MAGIC 25 Tales the Mirror Said / N.S.A. 26 Cupid Came Calling / MEENA MISHRA

WHERE REALITY MEETS MAGIC

BITTER ALMONDS Najeeb S.A. ONE Appunni was not just the milkman as he was popularly known in the neighbourhood; he also milked the cows at our house. If Hercules were to come to life from the picture in my little sister’s comic book, then he would have envied Appunni’s chiselled physique that inspired us to nickname him after the Greek god. In our backyard stood a lone tamarind tree that we regarded more like an old war-horse than the mere sapling it was. One fine day, Appunni tied two ropes over its lowest branch and joined the loose ends with a narrow timber plank addressing this contraption as a swing. My sister and I spent much of our leisure time after school hours with our new ‘toy’. Between where the tamarind tree stood and the stretch of paddy fields began was the canal. It lay dry the entire summer waiting for the monsoon to show up. Once the monsoon arrived and its pristine glory was restored, the canal would return to its benevolent ways and ferry the water liberally into the paddy fields and beyond. Sometimes, as with tears, there was just no way to hold it back. Away from the shade of the tamarind tree branches, in a cosy expanse nestled my mother’s vegetable garden. My sister and I excitedly followed the life cycle of each plant in the garden from the germination of the seed to the birth of the fruit. O, how we quarrelled with the morning breeze for not letting the mango fall from the tree’s farthest branch! Yet, come the next morning, both of us would race down to the little garden to check which seed had peeped out of the soil, which flower 1

had bloomed or which snake gourd called out to have a stone weight hung to its tail. The first time I saw my mother hanging a stone weight to the snake gourd’s tail, I asked her why she had to do that. She said the snake gourd was yet another baby, like my sister and me. Wouldn’t she send us to the ‘naughty corner’ if we misbehaved, to steer us through to the right track? Likewise, when the snake gourd showed signs of going wayward, she felt obliged to straighten its course by hanging a stone weight to its tail. I might as well reveal this now, I had long aspired to become a train driver. The rail track that stretched ahead in a rainbow curve was only a few meters away across the road from the entrance to our home. Passenger and Express trains traversed those tracks all day. The entire village population, especially women, matched their daily time-table with the hoots of the arriving and departing trains. As a result of the heat generated by the burning coal within, the train driver more often than not would unwind and position himself at the door of the engine room as a temporary respite from the stifling heat. I would be in attendance right in front of our gateway and offer him a salute, no matter whether I was in his line of vision or not. Most of the drivers never paid any attention. But there were a few who felt amused and gladly returned my gesture. I cannot translate into words the point of rapture I would reach with that return salute. The rest of the day I would hold my head high in pride, and my gait would mimic the strut of a rooster! My mother, unsuccessfully though, would try to hold back a telling smile that lingered over her generous lips. She always knew what transpired in my mind. My mother had a great ear for music. She hired an accomplished Hindustani classical music tutor to coach my sister. After the tutor had left for the day, I felt left out and couldn’t control my tears. The following day, I too joined the group as the tutor’s second disciple. It took me quite a while to pick up the basics, the scales and rhythm. Two years later, I switched tutors and 2

became the disciple of the father of a textile merchant who had moved from the northern part of the country and made our village his home. It took me another five years to grasp the ragas and pick up the finer nuances like the Bandish, Thumri, Khayal and Dhrupad among others. For reasons I don’t quite know even now, Meghmalhar turned out to be my favourite raga. The Malhar is a family of ragas that traditionally dates back seven to eight hundred years. Meghmalhar is unique in that it does not have two Nishads and Komal Gandhars typical of all the other ragas that belong to the Malhar family. While Meghmalhar had only one Komal Nishad, Shudh Nishad was absent throughout the ascending and descending aaroh orders containing only five notes in both cases. In this particular phase how the note M is rendered tugged at my heartstrings. The raga also includes certain connotations that interpret the role of clouds as a messenger. Meghmalhar is commonly associated with the monsoon. Legend has it that if sung with reverence and earnestness, its rendition can bring down showers even at the peak of summer. Regardless of the technicalities, Meghmalhar became extremely close to my heart. It offered me the liberty to construe my emotions the way I pleased, be it pathos or romance or separation. But I had no clue then about what lay in store. Both the music tutor and my mother felt very proud of the way my singing turned out. As my mother was the chairperson of the village Women’s League (Mahila Samajam), quite a few women frequented our home almost every day. Mother considered me her trophy and although I did sing for her friends, I felt so bashful that I obliged from behind the laced transparent curtain in an adjoining room. Singing transported me to an entirely different plane. It was as though I would fall into a trance. The twilight had completely faded. In the distance, a cloud crumb stood motionless. The dark shadow of a lone bird flew across the full moon. Imperceptibly the moonlight cast its molten gold over the treetops. As my voice touched the M 3

note in the ascending order, out of nowhere, I heard cascading water gush and birds chirp. It seemed the precise moment froze in time, shattering the glass of the windowpane behind me. Nothing appeared amiss to me, and I continued with the descending aaroh. My mother and the other ladies rushed into the room, bewilderment lining their faces. The floor was partly covered with splintered glass. I caught the knowing look in her eyes as my mother turned towards me. Chacko Vakil had three daughters: Ponnamma, Kunjamma and Leelamma. The elder two of the lot were beyond the usual age for marriage, both irksome individuals in their own ways. I did not know why, but I never really liked the plump and grim- faced Ponnamma chechi (Chechi = elder sister). The jaundiced, lean Kunjamma chechi with pigmented cheeks was an active participant in the affairs of the Women’s League (Mahila Samajam) and consequently a frequent caller in our home. But the petite Leelamma chechi was my favourite. And there was more than a single reason for my prejudice. The sari dance was the item number that everyone eagerly waited for in the upcoming annual day celebrations of the Women’s League. Seven saris held at either end by two women each, and a lone pretty thing as the centrepiece. As Muhammad Rafi and Noor Jahan crooned over the gramophone speaker, Yahan badla wafa ka bewafai ke siwa kya hai, (In reciprocation to fidelity what else do you get in this world other than infidelity) the women swung forward, backward and sideways forming different montages at different tiers of the dance form. The high point of the enactment, however, was the final patch where the formation resembled a butterfly fluttering its wings. Leelamma chechi invariably represented the butterfly’s face and would kneel on the stage, all other parts of her body camouflaged by saris. Leelamma chechi was an undergraduate at a college managed by Jesuit Fathers in a town 35 kilometres away. She would come home every weekend to participate in the rehearsals of the sari dance. She had a habit of pulling her lower lip into her 4

mouth using her upper teeth, a tic perhaps. When her lower lip returned to its position, it’d appear almost blood red. When she laughed, I felt as though the dusk had borrowed its colour from her cheeks. My mother thought she was too pretty to go back home alone after the evening rehearsal which meant that I would chaperon her. En route to her house, we had to pass by the goldsmiths’coconut- leaf-roofed mud shacks, and also the Puli-Para intersection that showed signs of neither leopards nor rocks after which it was named. Elders say that there used to be a huge rock that from at a distance matched the outline of a leopard, which the PWD workers blasted during road construction. In its place now stood a desolate devil’s tree that loomed large over the northern side of the crossing. The intoxicating fragrance of its short-lived flowers was attributed by most toothless grand old ladies of the village to the female devil who had chosen the tree as her abode. The devil would appear in the guise of a luscious maiden to lure lonely pedestrians who came her way and gulp down their blood with vengeance. Almost every villager was aware that the exploits of the female devil were only a myth. But none dared to deny it and avoided passing the crossroad after nightfall. The next in line was the sprawling walled cemetery filled with a variety of trees; every species that one could imagine. The treetops swung wildly in the wind and their enormous geometrical shadows boogied over the road. On the way, Leelamma chechi would ask me questions mostly related to my school. She was keen that I do well at my studies and grow up to become a great writer like Beppur Sultan one day. Her house stood amidst an elevated plain beyond which were the fish and vegetable market and the Panchayat office. In between stood the lone cinema hall of the village. Of all the old Hindi film songs that blared through its loudspeakers before the start of every show, her favourite was the one she’d hum until we reached the entrance to her house: Suhani rat dhal chuki, na jane tum kab aaoge. (The pleasant night has slipped away, do not know when you’ll come.) 5

Once we had crossed the black-painted wrought iron gate at the entrance, there were about a dozen steps leading into the house. No sooner was the screeching sound of the gate being opened heard than Bukka, the terrier, who’d be sprawled at the front door, his chin resting on his front paws, would spring to life, vigorously shaking his body and wagging his bushy tail, and come running to sniff at Leelamma chechi’s sari. With her, the dog would shed all inhibitions and bare his soul. But before she started to climb those steps, she would hug me tight, perhaps a bit tighter than was necessary, and kiss me on both cheeks. To this day, I feel her hot breath brushing my cheeks and recall the aroma of the Yardley Lavender roll-on that would drift in the air no matter wherever I went with a new spring in my step. I’d want to reach the Puli-Para crossing before the crimson of the skyline turned darker and I would run as fast as I could. One cannot argue that the fine kitchen knife used to slice tender fruits should not cut your finger, after all a knife is a knife. Nachaimma had soothed me that as it’s difficult to fall back asleep after a nightmare, one must repeat the various pronouns of the third Pancha-pandava’s name and the butterflies in your troubled stomach would quietly make their way out. I murmured under my breath Arjunan, Phalgunan, Parthan, Vijayan… When she arrived for the dance rehearsal the following week, Leelamma chechi handed me a book that was not even a quarter of the thickness of my school text books. Beppur Sultan’s Childhood Sweetheart was only 92 pages long, and I was done with it the same night. For the next two days, I moved around with a lump in my throat as I tried hard to fight back my tears. On my way home from school, I never took the long, winding country road through which ploughed bullock carts and an occasional car. One would step right into the stretch of paddy fields after crossing the courtyard of the Ganesha temple, and the old castle which was the last vestige of our last monarch’s lost kingdom. Across the fields lay the canal over which stood the makeshift wooden footbridge, and immediately on the other side our house. As I passed through the narrow footpath 6

beside the canal that led to our house, a gentle breeze wafted by ruffling my unruly hair. I left my books on the veranda, drew a bucket of water from the well and washed my face. As I sat on the high stool before the kitchen bench for the evening tea and dal dumplings, my mother spotted that I was not my usual self and asked me whether I had quarrelled with any of my friends. I shook my head. I went to bed early that night, and when my mother entered the room to turn off the light, I pretended I was asleep. She noticed the bound volume of Childhood Sweetheart lying face down on my study table and instantly knew that I was awake. She lay down beside me holding me close and whispered, “Do you know what the Sultan once said? The life that you live today was already lived by someone else yesterday. Again, the life that you live today will be lived by someone else tomorrow.” I knew that she was a half-orphan having lost her father when she was six. She was the only family her mother had when she was widowed at twenty-eight. Her father’s huge family that nourished legends like Kuttiamma, Pachan and many others was akin to a labyrinth of caves where one could easily get lost. Kuttiamma’s kitchen never ran out of food regardless of the time of day or night and regardless of the number of people to be served at the dining table. She was the quintessential queen of the kitchen kingdom! Children in the family had nicknamed Pachan as the fire-spitting ghost. Some women even used Pachan’s fictitious reputation to intimidate their children who refused to eat or go to bed on time. It was believed that Pachan would walk around on false bamboo legs with a basin of fire over his head and a lit torch in his mouth. A woman from the neighbourhood once complained to the eldest in the family, ‘Moothambran’ that Pachan had stolen her goat and consumed it all by himself. Out of anger, some say, Moothambran slapped him, although some others admit he was only severely scolded. The next morning people saw Pachan’s lifeless body hanging from a low lying branch of a cashew 7

tree. Though a murmur of foul-play rose over Pachan’s death, it died down soon enough. According to children’s lore, the post-mortem report revealed Pachan had two livers. All I know is Pachan’s grandson whom my mother brought home out of empathy, turned out to be a serpent who did not hesitate to bite the very hand that fed him. He left after being with us for a year. The women folk of our family generally were not very good at managing household affairs in the conventional sense. They were die-hard romantics who could rattle off by heart most of the popular verses of the day and age and debated among themselves about the latest literary releases. To them, fine arts was nothing short of yet another heartache. Some sang, some painted, and yet others played stringed musical instruments! I remember my mother moving from one room of the home to the other reciting celebrated poet Changampuzha Krishna Pilla’s lines from the Song of Solomon: Chenanjum Sharonin Panimalar njan, Saila sanukkalil ezhum aa kulir naithalambal. (I am the spring crocus blooming on the Sharon Plain, the cool lily of the valley.) TWO After my application for a research scholarship was accepted by the university, my father introduced me to his buddy, Iyer Sir who was the Dean of the department where I was to start working. Iyer Sir lived in a timeworn Victorian quarter in the underbelly of the old city that retained the hangover of the Raj. One could circumvent the long winding road that led to Iyer Sir’s quarter by crossing the yard of the electric crematorium, although most were hesitant to take this route. But I had no qualms about using the shortcut. Upon entering the gravelled ground around the house, what first caught my attention was the auspiciously grown cluster of three-and-a-half to four-meter high basil plants in a raised square at the centre of the courtyard. On the day I arrived, Sir greeted me with an embrace. I went to Sir’s house once a week in the evenings. We would sit together in his 8

private library on the upper floor of the house where a mixture of incense and sandalwood lent divinity to the air. As my visits became habitual, Sir’s wife started staying behind to talk to me until I finished the filter coffee she would bring me. On my way out I had to descend a flight of wooden steps and walk past a corridor that led to a foyer which then led into an open veranda from where one could step out onto the gravelled grounds. After the landing of the staircase and before the corridor emerged, was an enclosed isle which Sir’s daughter Maya used as her study. Shafts of light would trickle through the half-open door of her retreat. When my footsteps approached its entrance, she would hurriedly stand up from the chair. I would describe Maya’s movements like those of a bunch of ripe wheat buds swaying in the breeze. From under those curved long black lashes, the pupils of her vaunting eyes would lift and stretch toward me, and traces of a smile would spill over her dimpled cheeks to culminate in her bounteous lips... and my heart would skip a beat. I do not clearly recall how long this scene played itself out. I’d lie awake the entire night thinking about her gently upturned nose and heron-in- flight eyebrows resembling an alphabet from some nomadic calligraphy that had lost its way and finally found refuge over her forehead. I would reach the seaside much before the sun streamed its wedges of glimmer over the hill, and as the cold seawater ran over my feet, I would call out her name over the roar of the sea, witnessed only by the rootless, leafless seaweeds and the compass directions. Soon began the exchanges of scribbles on small bits of paper between the two of us. Everything about her, even the manner in which the serrated edges of the paper slips, as if machine cut, were artistic. She seemed curious when I once casually mentioned the connection between the scent of bitter almonds and the fate of unrequited love. The very next day I got some almond seeds from a nut seller’s outlet, but the aroma didn’t seem right to me. So I went to a tropical plant nursery 9

thirty kilometres away and fetched a few seeds that I soaked overnight in an earthenware bowl. The following morning I used a nutcracker to crack the almond shells open slightly, and planted the seeds in a flowerpot with holes at the bottom for drainage. I placed the flowerpot where it’d receive plenty of direct sunlight. Five days later when a seed sprouted I told Maya. She became so excited that she made up some excuse and came down to our house with her mother only to have a glimpse of the sprig. While our mothers went to the kitchen together, she made it a point to remind me that it was her baby. Suddenly, she became emotional and her almond-shaped eyes moistened. Please take care of it for me, she pleaded. Was she holding back a whimper in her throat? I didn’t want the tears in her eyes to roll down, and I pressed her hand, more to comfort myself than her. I felt two eyes boring into my back. Through the corners of my eyes, I noticed my mother stepping out of the kitchen with two mugs of steaming coffee. Maya’s younger brother, Raghu, had won many accolades at high school for his singing. I once mentioned to him how Geeta Dutt, a little girl from a small village in East Bengal, would sit under a tree, listening to boatmen’s songs as they ferried people across the river and grew up to become the most sought-after female singer in Hindi cinema. She later married a fickle-hearted young filmmaker who developed an infatuation toward one of his heroines. Their failed marriage and subsequent alcoholism and liver cirrhosis led to the premature end of one of the loveliest voices in the music world. I could sense how deeply the singer’s tragedy touched Raghu. The next day I handed him a compact disc that contained many of Geeta Dutt’s popular songs. A week later as I passed by Maya’s study, I heard the crooner’s voice without accompaniments: Meri jaan, mujhe jaan na kaho meri jaan.... (My love, call me not your life). I stopped in my tracks, awestruck. The niceties, nuances, the emotive interpretation—I couldn’t believe my ears, it was Maya. 10

Friday was the day when new films were released in our town targeting the weekend audience. The following Sunday, weekend sections of newspapers would carry reviews of the new releases. The film adaptation of an American novel set in the 1960s had hit the theatres the previous Friday. It was about a young couple from differing backgrounds who fall in love that ends in tragedy. As a matter of fact, the novel was produced by the writer from his own script at the insistence of the production Studio to promote the film’s release. The strategy worked and the novel was known to have defined a generation of its time. The novelist, a Greek/Latin professor in one of the north-eastern American universities had admirably converted an ordinary relationship into an extraordinary alliance. The local newspapers offered top drawer reviews for the film. Some box columns observed that the film was even subscribed to by nuns! It so happened that I had with me the novel that was created out of the script of the film. For over a week, I struggled to translate the first chapter of the book into our vernacular. Once complete, I dropped both the novel and my translation right in front of Maya’s laptop on my way out. She, as I expected, was hooked. She joined a couple of her friends who went for a matinee show of the film. At the earliest opportunity, which arrived two days later, I asked her whether she had liked it or not. She initially hesitated as though silence had expended her words. Then, quite unexpectedly she replied that she hadn’t. I should have guessed how she would respond considering the film’s abysmal ending. Precisely a week later, she got hold of a picture postcard of three Keralite women sitting pretty on a swing in their Onam- special-wear from the photo studio owned by the father of a young cinematographer who had made it big in Bollywood. She wanted me to write to the novelist for translation rights of his book hoping that the picture postcard would lure him. Initially, I had laughed it off. But when she persisted, I gave in. Surprisingly, a month later, I received a letter from the 11

novelist’s literary agent granting me the translation rights on two conditions. One, that the title of the novel should be maintained in its original form and two, that the price tag for the translation rights would be 250 US Dollars. Eventually, I didn’t accept the challenge, as I was not in a position to fulfill the second clause. It must have been a year later or maybe even longer. One evening as I was leaving her home, the paper roll she dropped in her adorable, slanting cursive hand read, “Everybody will be away at the temple ground tonight watching the festivities. Let’s do the Meghmalhar act.” When I reached the deck later that night, a full moon stood alone threatening to hide behind the hill and painting the sky in unusual shades of pink and purple. She stood in the shadow of the bamboos with her back towards me. The boogying shadows of the long pointed bamboo leaves that danced to the wind’s tune appeared several sizes larger. When I was only a couple of yards away, she suddenly turned around and looked me in the eye without flinching for several moments. And then, as if it was the most natural thing to happen, she darted into my arms like a puff of breeze. Only a half wall stood between the backyard and the sea. It had a small wicket-gate at the centre opening towards the seashore. Hand in hand, we headed down the slope to the cool sands. Behind us stood the majestic Geomagnetic Observatory, an antique glass building. Despite my earnest efforts not to, Maya coerced me to sing. The wind carried the drum beats from the temple around us and I thought of harmony. It was not about permanence. It was all and only about the merging of individual sounds. My voice touched the M note in the ascending aaroh—just a moment. But that moment lasted, merely the length of a breath. Out of nowhere, above the sound of the waves lapping onto the shore, I heard cascading water gush and birds chirp. Then the glass doors and windows of the Geomagnetic Observatory shattered. 12

Maya appeared to be lost in a reverie and failed to notice the happenings around. As soon as she snapped out of it, she zestfully ran into the water, playing hide and seek with the tide, more like a five‑year-old than the full-blown young woman she was. When the waves rolled in, she would run towards the shore, once they rolled back, she would hurriedly run after them. The salty breeze blew the silken strands of her hair upwards and caressed her long pale neck. She turned towards the dune where I sat and beckoned in invitation. I got up but did not move. She turned back again, casting her eyes over the refracted shadow of my unmoving figure. She picked up her sandals from the dry sand and began to walk towards me. The tide came in wetting her feet. On its rollback, it filled the deeper rear part of her footprints with seawater in which appeared the reflection of the moon. The momentum of the tide on its rollback sent a shiver rippling over the seawater within the footprints, eventually breaking the reflection into petite fragments. It was as if she was reluctantly leaving those broken bits of the moon strewn over the tiny strip of shoreline. I felt my body on fire as I awoke the following morning. I was confined to the bed for the entire week. The seventh day I woke up in the middle of the night only to find her footprints harbouring tiny bits of the moon scattered all over the floor. I tried rubbing my eyes, pinching myself, but neither came to my rescue. One sultry after noon while the windswept fallen autumn leaves drifted over our courtyard, a beaming Iyer Sir and his wife walked in with the news that his cousin had approached him for Maya’s hand for his son. The proposed groom was an aeronautical engineer with an international airline. They had known the youth from his boyhood and were overwhelmed by the good fortune that had come their way. The wedding was scheduled four weeks later. 13

I didn’t go to the drawing-room to greet them and my mother felt I was being discourteous. But Iyer Sir’s wife came looking for me. Perhaps my mother had mentioned I was unwell. She held my hands in hers and asked, 'Won't you come?' After taking a couple of steps she came back to hold me close and then kissed my forehead before she went out of the room. I stopped going to Iyer Sir’s house. My mother inquired on a couple of occasions, although my blank stare had given away that something was not right. Perhaps she believed I would open up to her, which was the only applicable logic to her silence. The lone two-storey building stood tall in the shade of the mango grove. The short winding road that ran past the petite bunch of trees disappeared over the foothill. A young lad tap‑rolling his tyre-less bicycle rim ran across to the only provision store in the vicinity for a soap bar for his elder sister to do the family laundry. A pallid blue sky stretched lazily, festooned with slow‑moving clouds that like a cunning jackal murkily swallowed the dazzling yellow sunlight. My eyelids felt heavy and I struggled to keep my eyes open. I had always felt that Maya’s breath was distinctly warm resulting in her tears evaporating and rising to form a condensate cloud that the westerly wind floated past the group of bamboos, the deserted yard of the electric crematorium, the uneven long gravelled road and then lowered the altitude of its flight path over the bougainvillaea branches nested over the gateway of our house before sneaking through the windowpane of my room. As if hit by a splash of silver iodide, it cooled down abruptly to reinvent itself, its original liquid state descending over my left cheek with a thud, prompting my eyelids to open. There she stood, Maya, right over my bed while all the others relished their siesta. Were her eyelashes drenched with hurt? Were little droplets, like petals of jasmine flowers, streaming down the sky? Her face appeared swollen, and her dishevelled hair fell loosely over her shoulders. I got up and sat on the edge of the bed without the slightest idea of how I would confront her. She dropped to her knees, hiding her face in my lap and wept openly. All I could manage was to run my fingers over her 14

tousled hair that still held the faint lilac scent that filled my head with dizzying thoughts of summer. When she rose I held her in a tight embrace. I felt our world was about to explode at that spot and held her as close as I could, never wanting to let her go. Without breaking away from my grip, her eyes bore down into mine, desperately seeking an answer. I couldn’t match her stare and looked away, afraid that I would drown in the uncharted depths of her eyes that blatantly laid bare her hope against all odds. Unexpectedly, she regained her composure, shrugged off my embrace and walked out of the room without uttering a word. I knew she loathed me from her gut more than anybody or anything else at that moment. From beyond the hills like a herd of black sheep, night descended on the town. My mother entered the room and pressed the light switch on the wall, sprinkling a pale yellow brightness all over. Only then did it occur to her that I had been sitting at the edge of the bed unmoving from the time Maya had left. She sat beside me, holding me close. As I lowered my head on her shoulder, a sob struggled to escape from my throat. When I was alone again, I climbed the stairs to the first floor of our house. Holding onto the wooden railings of the balcony, I stood with a barren mind. Far away on the island, the lights blinked. I could not identify the tide’s movement as darkness had spread over the water. I did not try to unfold the happenings of the afternoon. The moonlight did not appear to turn the water surface into silver; a moonless night perhaps. The wind that blew from the distant island carried with it the familiar line from an old song: Meri jaan, mujhe jaan na kaho meri jaan... Who was there? My ears tried to listen up. Nothing. Only the darkness stared back at me. THREE As the bus negotiated the rocky mountain slope at an altitude of 15,000 feet, shrieks of trepidation and perturbed laughter could be heard in the background. One slipup by the driver and the bus could plunge into an abyss several thousand feet down the mountain. 15

The bus drove around a confined, winding road with no guard banister or protected border for over 150 miles. The views of the valley thousands of feet below from different angles, however, were breathtaking. The bends emerged followed by the curves, like a woman’s body from the thighs to the back. I could hear the bearded man in the seat right behind praying in whispers. The one with the beak-like nose and homicidal canines sitting in the aisle seat asked me, ‘Are you able to endure this rollercoaster ride without your knuckles turning white? Would you rather commute by the bus, or choose to trek?’ I only smiled nonchalantly without offering much of a response. The travel guide brochure in the bus-seat-pocket said, seven years ago when the road had opened for traffic, the villagers were ecstatic. The region’s tough to travel physiognomies had isolated their lives from the rest of the world. The road brought tourists to the area, and in the bargain, better business and other forms of pecuniary advancement. As I got down from the bus, my back hurt and my feet felt leaden. The river flowed quietly in front of me like an obedient child. It was the only source of irrigation for the farmers of the valley. In the absence of a resourceful water distribution network in place, villagers who lived along its route also drank from it. Any place that squats near the water is harboured in a metaphysical relationship between the static and the dynamic. I found this as a narcissistic liaison in which the place found her own reflection in the water just as in a mirror—a potent desirability for a traveller of my ilk. I sensed a deeper and more enigmatic allure beyond the methodical actualities surrounding the river. The water spoke to me of a past I would never experience but nevertheless found myself linked to by association. Staring at the murky river, I thought of the unnamed and uncelebrated warriors from four centuries ago, who had met their ends at the river bottom fighting off invaders. No, the river was not a representation of a death cult, but a part of the full cycle of life. I saw an elderly 16

friend or relative clicking pictures of a young couple against the backdrop of the river. I wondered whether they were aware of the great triumphs and tragedies that had occurred close to the river in another time warp. When the waiter at the makeshift eatery served me tea, I couldn’t help thinking about the quality of the water that came from the river. I stared at the flowing water through the shadows of the willow trees and back at the tea glass before me from which steam rose. I took a sip of the syrupy liquid containing a little too much milk and sugar. The waiter told me there was no toilet facility around. Pointing towards the flowing river in front and a mountain pass at the rear, he chuckled saying, “We manage.” An old white stray dog speckled with ochre over its belly and back appeared from the rear, wagging its tail and making a curious sound. Its tongue was hanging out and breath heavy. The shade of its moistened eyes was a perfect foil to the river water. From the supplies that I had bought from the local grocer, I offered it a roll of bread with some meatballs. O boy, was it hungry! It was as if the poor thing hasn’t had anything for several days. As I began my hike upward, the now spirited dog appeared in no mood to leave me alone. On the way, I was lucky to find a quay with a flight of steps leading down the river where I managed to wash and tidy up. The freshly baked bread was soft and delicious. Here I stood, without any knowledge of my destination even after several months of nomadic life as a carpetbagger. A good five hundred metres farther up, I found a natural hollow space that looked like a cave on a hillside. As soon as we entered the cave, the dog spread its legs and lay down to rest. I too wanted to stretch my legs and shed myself of the baggage. That’s the last I could remember before I fell asleep. When I awoke, the sunlight had shifted towards the east. I felt as though I were reborn. How long had I slept? My backpack was completely covered with dirt and bird droppings, the sides and bottom appeared to have been eaten by termites. My clothing in 17

most places has been eaten away by ants. Cobwebs had woven a lattice blocking the entrance to the cave. It took me a while to clean up my luggage and leave the place. Only then I noticed the skeleton of the old dog. I was alarmed and didn’t know what to do. Then I realized I was hungry, but before that, I needed a wash. The place appeared to have undergone a makeover. The flight of stone steps of the quay has been replaced by concrete. I could hear the song of the river as the water lapped against the quay’s levee, a reminder of the Hindustani fusion cover of Mozart’s 40th symphony. The dirt road had made way for asphalt with zebra crossings. When I saw my reflection in the water I couldn’t believe what had come over me. I had a beard that reached almost my chest. My hair had grown far below my shoulders. I looked like someone who has landed at the wrong end of a black hole. I whispered my name as if to make sure I was my own self. To my ears it sounded like a misnomer though. I dipped myself in the river and felt like having been baptized as I came out. The sun was blazing like a billion watt LCD light source virtually blinding me. There were no makeshift eateries in the vicinity. The young man at the restaurant counter said the currency notes I had with me were no more in circulation. However, he graciously accepted the change I offered because they were of silver and what he had in a steel bowl at the counter were of stainless steel. Downstream, I saw men watering their herd. A young woman and her little sister with their sheep waited for their turn. It looked like the men did not care. Grey clouds floated over a cherry red sky. Soon it would be dark. I offered to water their sheep and the young woman appeared relieved. The little girl struck up a conversation with me and asked me to accompany them to their home in the hills. The elder one, Zulekha, nodded. Their father, a bearded old man, tall and lanky struck me as a victim of cataract. Zulekha argued her case and eventually, the 18

old man agreed to keep me as their herdsman. As days passed by, the father developed a liking towards me and at times spoke of a son he never had. Whenever Zulekha served the old-fashioned black tea with herbs added, she offered it in a glass teacup to her father, and me in an earthenware mug because mine was tea with milk. I felt embarrassed by this routine, and after the first couple of times, I told her I preferred black tea, the same kind served to her father. She was visibly upset, her thick eyelashes flapping up and down, like the leaves of a palm tree laden with fruits in the gust, but I didn’t want to encourage her. On full moon nights, I would walk across the conifers and go down to the valley. When my Meghmalhar aaroh reached its crescendo, the spruce, hemlock and larch would sway their heads to the rhythm. On the twenty-fourth full moon after my arrival, as my aaroh stretched to the M note I felt my voice touching an ethereal tenor. Were glimmers of a golden yellow light streaming through the woods from a distance, accompanied by the clinking of anklets? Was the Goddess of Knowledge from folklore just about to descend from the heavens into the valley and grant me a boon? Abruptly the lights went out. I felt a cold shiver up my spine. No sooner had the old gloom returned, , than I heard cascading water hush and birds chirp. A mirror shattered, like an echo from the past returning from deep in the forest. Startled, I turned around. There stood Zulekha, somber and doleful, in the shadow of a hemlock tree, broken bits of glass sticking out from the frame of the vanity mirror in her hand. Awash in the leaden moon light dripping through the breaches between the tree leaves lay the outline of a heart with a conduit across that Zulekha had furrowed with her big toe in the virgin soil. I looked into her eyes that were like turbulent pools the surface of which were bizarrely tranquil. Apparently I had no intention of drowning myself in them. Was it her circuitous way of letting me know she was heart-broken? 19

Halfway through the night, I woke up unawares. A quarter moon, shaped like the curved fruit-bearing stalk of a palm tree, stood in the eastern sky. A few stars were strewn across the spread out tapestry. A cool breeze sailed past and there hung a quietude in the air. Out of the blue, I smelt the odour of the oil that my father used to apply all over his body before he had a hot bath an hour later. I felt uneasy and as if drenched in a bath of sweat. It was time to go home. My father’s cremation was over long before my arrival. All my mother did was to hold me in an embrace that lasted the good part of a minute. Our neighbours looked at me scornfully, as if the prodigal son had returned. Much had occurred during my exile. Nothing was what it used to be. The links that formed the chain that held us all together were snapping one at a time. Iyer Sir and his wife had fallen victims of the pandemic that had struck the world from an animal market in the Far East. I never left the house, spending most of the time in my room, or on the veranda staring at the Bitter Almond plant that had grown into a tree and was in full bloom. Raghu, now a famous journalist and literary critic was a frequent visitor. He tried to persuade me into joining the editorial desk of the newspaper where he worked. When I did not yield, he urged me to write, and I eventually relented. I did not attend my book launch nor the prestigious felicitation and award ceremony at the nation’s capital. My world was confined to the four walls of my room or the veranda from where I could watch the almond tree. “Nine years is a long time and you’ve tormented yourself enough, don’t you see,” my mother would ask, desolately trying to repress a sob in her throat. When Raghu’s earnest attempts bore fruit and I received an employment offer from an Arabian literary magazine, The Horizon, my mother assumed it was the pathway to my redemption. “Opportunities like this are few and far between”, she said, “no matter what, you’ve to be out of this penitentiary you’ve hatched for yourself”. 20

My flight arrived in town on a chilly February morning when the day was just about to break. Half-way through the aircraft’s descent, I could sense the cityscape rising like a luscious maiden shaking off the weariness of the previous night’s exhaustion. My mother’s cousin, Uncle Prabhu, and his friend Alex were waiting in the arrival lounge. A stamp on my passport read that I was not permitted to travel to a Southern African nation, which at that time was reeling under racial discrimination. The list of countries where I was permitted to travel was written by hand. The wise guy at the immigration counter grinned at me as if he had just caught the most fraudulent act of the century. He quietly went to his supervisor and showed him what he had found. The supervisor turned the pages of my passport and showed him the other handwritten entries in the same hand. The wise guy was utterly disappointed and stamped my entry date in the passport and decided I was not worthy of a second look. All this while, Uncle Prabhu and his friend were waiting outside anxiously without any clue about the events unfolding on the other side. When I explained to them, both looked at the other smiling ruefully. From behind the wheel of the white Toyota Cressida in which we sat, Alex muttered, “Lesson number one, you are where burros rule over stallions.” The street lights were still blinking, Alex said they continued to until noon sometimes. Lesson number two, nobody cares. The roads and pavements lined by poplar and date palm trees appeared out of this world. While I watched the surface of the coffee in the paper cup placed on the cup holder, Uncle Prabhu and Alex were unmindful and continued to talk. The car stopped at the traffic signal before entering an underpass. On the left, rose a huge masjid its walls the colour of the skin of date seeds and minarets glistening against the early rays of the sun. The sprawling compound surrounding the prayer hall was lined with meticulously trimmed shrubs and flowering plants. Fully grown date palm trees were being replanted by 21

a shovel operator and some other tall bearded workers. The signal turned green, and we entered a tunnel, the sides of which were painted with colourful murals depicting horses, camels, and date palms. Traffic signals were like exceptions. In most cases, traffic at the crossroads was controlled by roundabouts exhibiting boards that read, “Give way to traffic from the left”. Having to keep pace with the flow of vehicles was challenging unless one was careful to drive in first gear and no sooner did you find a slight lull than you hit the accelerator hard without hesitating. That’s a chance you have to take, especially when in a hurry. It seemed Alex with his laidback attitude was an ace at manoeuvring the car through heavy traffic effortlessly. All of a sudden, the car cut into a service road, circled an open-air cinema house and came to a halt before a row of villas. Was this a new beginning? Even after a year, I did not feel it was so. Last night was the first time in quite a while that my mother mentioned Maya, suddenly, without any preamble, during our otherwise casual phone conversation. One month ago, Maya’s husband, Shantanu was posted at the headquarters of his company that by some strange quirk of fate was located on the outskirts of the same city where I lived. Maya was now a mother to two adorable children, the chirpy and talkative ten-year-old Meera and Manu, whose conduct was delectably sombre for his age, he was hardly six. I had dinner with them in their opulently furnished apartment of which every room had a breath-taking view of the enclave of chalets built in reclaimed land charted in the shape of a palm tree, the sprawling seven-star hotel complex and the harbour beyond. As Shantanu spoke animatedly of his plans to construct a bungalow back home, I could only pretend to listen, occasionally shaking my head while I was lost in the song of the slithering raindrops sliding down the glass windows. The next day when I phoned my mother, the conversation started with the case of my marriage, as it invariably did. However, this time she said she was voicing her concern only at Maya’s insistence. 22

Sitting behind the card table at the club I felt exasperated. If the next card I would draw from the central deck didn’t complete my natural sequence I was going to quit. I didn’t have to, the man to my left, who laughed at his inane gay jokes, sounding like an automobile tyre being deflated, announced the closeout. His opaque brown eyes bore within them a smear of a tease, seemingly targeted at me. I felt the stares of everyone around, holding back their disdainful laughter behind the awkward grins of indifference they wore. Once inside the car, I drove aimlessly. I rolled back the glass windows and felt the cold air against my cheeks. The frosty winter seemed in no mood to make way for an exuberant spring. I parked the car beside the perimeter wall of the fortress-like hotel. The jogging and bicycle tracks were deserted. A number of teenage boys rode their bicycles competing against one another. At that moment, I didn’t quite feel like being buoyant. I earnestly wished to break away from the mundane evenings I had become used to. How could I have wasted all this time being part of a card game sitting in the company of a bunch of masked men without identities? I felt as much a stranger to the city as much as it was to me. The city appeared far from the spellbinder it once had been and had walked me through my first sins. The leaves of the date palms were still wet from the mid-day showers. The heritage village had shut down for the day. Atop the huge pole beside the prayer hall flew a colourful flag. I picked up a packet of Gitanes from the vending machine and crossed onto the sands. The sands were the same as they were a long time ago several thousand miles away. And so was the sea drawn out beneath a crimson evening sky. The waves rolled over its façade like the rippling midriff of a spinster past her prime. The same sea that had witnessed a much younger me drawing Maya closer in the shadows behind the fisherman’s boat to plant a kiss on her lips as the twilight faded. The city resembled a courtesan, gorgeous and liberal, but with an inherent propensity to withdraw her 23

favours the moment she chanced upon a cocky younger man. It didn’t matter though because I was set to pick up my life as a vagabond from where I had left off a second time. By noon the day after I had dined with Shantanu and Maya, I was running a temperature and left the office early. My head spun in the elevator and I struggled to press the button for the level on which I was to get out. Yet I was able to identify the flight path of the tiny cloud that the westerly wind chartered across over the enclave of chalets, the palm island, the seven‑star hotel complex and circumventing the long sandy strip strewn around with date palms before nose-diving to enter the door of my apartment that was ajar, and landing over my left cheek in its original state forcing me to open my eyes wide. There she stood, Maya, over my bed with a gravely concerned look that perforated into my entire being. She hurried towards the kitchen and returned a minute later with a plain toast, a cup of black tea and a strip of Paracetamol tablets. She made me sit up and fed me the toast dunked in the black tea. She made me swallow two Paracetamol tablets with the remainder of the black tea. Before leaving she left a flask full of black tea, a small container full of plain toasts and what was left of the Paracetamol strip on the bedside table. She had travelled the thirty-five-kilometre distance from her apartment to mine all by herself because my colleague had told her I was unwell and left early for the day when she called, and I did not respond to the calls she made in my cell phone. The next day she called me at the office to reprimand me. It was high time I got married, she felt. She also thought I needed someone to take care of me. The following day our conversation was centred on my mother. It appeared she had called me for something else, and surely not to discuss my mother. I could not, however, put my finger on what exactly she could have meant to tell me. That weekend I took them all to the water park. Both children enjoyed the trip, especially Meera. The little girl had developed a fixation toward me to the extent that whenever her mother admonished her for having a tiff with her brother she 24

would instantly call me up, ‘Uncle, would you come and get me right now?’ Interestingly, Shantanu adopted my habit of dressing only in white, which trait I had acquired from my mother. In the meantime, I could sense that Maya was upset about something over which she did not encourage any discussion. A few days later, Maya mentioned that her in-laws were deeply concerned about their daughter, Mallika who was unyielding to matrimony. She had, however, agreed after five long years when her brother brought up my case. Both Shantanu and Maya thought that we’d make a good pair. I beseeched her not to force me; that I was used to the life I now led, and more importantly, I didn’t deserve a decent girl like Mallika. Despite what Shantanu felt about me, the conservatives in their family would have an issue. Maya was in no mood to pay heed to what I had to say. “Of all the people, you.. Don’t you see why she chose you?” There was no point in arguing, so I kept quiet that probably irritated her: “It’s your silence that’s all the more deafening.” Why would she be so desperate to pull me out of my misery, after what I had done to her? Did she feel responsible for me too? A few days after our conversation involving Mallika had died down, she started speaking about Meera in a troubled voice. I merely laughed it off. The inadvertent gesture, however, triggered her breakdown. There was no way I could have known that she was living for the last eleven years with the atonement of my fathering her daughter. She pleaded with joined palms that I leave her little household alone before things spiralled out of hand. The only part in the bargain I asked her to fulfil was to let us all take a trip together to the northern mountain range close to which lay the longest coastline and beach in the country, just one last trip. Maybe we could pretend we were going to see each other the coming week, even though it was not going to happen, yet pretend anyway, why not? When I told my mother I was coming home, her response startled me. She spoke as if she had been expecting my 25

imminent return, “She told you, didn’t she?” How could she have known? The years of my growing up did not make any difference, she still knew what transpired in my mind. When I turned back towards the car park I saw a tall lanky man with a mix of grey and black in his beard leaning over and inserting a piece of paper under the wiper blade of my car. I did not notice the huge dent on the car’s front bumper until I came closer. I realized that the stranger who had bumped into my car was trying to leave his cell phone number beneath the wiper blade. He was more gracious than apologetic when I saved him the trouble by introducing myself. While we waited for the traffic patrol to arrive, he started complaining about the scarcity of parking space downtown. The alarm of the patrol vehicle could be heard at a distance and soon was getting closer. No man can walk through life without things happening to him. Loss is a sobering phenomenon. It causes people to re-evaluate what they hold dear. From the backyard, my mother could be heard trying to coax Meera to go back to the house because it was getting dark. But then Meera had her excuse: “Grandma, I don’t want to leave the tree alone. Amma has told me Uncle had planted and watered it for her. I love Uncle as much as I do Amma and Papa.” Kneeling down, my mother held her close, and resting her head on the little girl’s delicate shoulder she wept, like how a tender bamboo stem would split. After my mother and Meera had gone back to the house and as I stood staring at the bitter almond tree, its intoxicating, honey-like scent hit my nostrils. I felt drunk and could not hold back myself from getting close to it. I sat down right below the tree resting my back against its trunk. As I looked up, the celestial white flowers with only a speck of pink in the centre smiled at me invitingly. The cinnamon-brown spiked fruits seemed beguiling. In the dimly lit azure sky, Maya’s quivering footprints that held the broken bits of the moon, strewn across the whole expanse, appeared inverted. 26

FOUR Three months ago, the Arabian Peninsula dailies had carried the following accident report on their Home pages: A Toyota Land Cruiser had plunged into the sea from the main highway in the Khor Fakkan mountain range killing four of its occupants, two men, a woman and a child on the spot. The fifth occupant, a ten-year-old girl, had escaped unhurt. Najeeb S.A. is a freelance writer and a nomad. He has been a regular with The Impish Lass since its inception. 27

NOT ANYMORE Sreekumar K. Even Ashokan’s mother used to say that Shyamala’s life got better after her husband passed away. Her father had come to take her back home a month after Ashokan’s death as was the custom. She refused to go with him. She stayed on with her husband’s family with his aged mother and father and took care of them. Her stepmother too appreciated her decision. Though she didn’t reveal it to anybody, her real reason was that this was good for her little daughter. Moreover, she had become very dear to the people around her. Ashokan had died of tuberculosis. After his death, many people, including the doctor at the Primary Health Centre said that with better treatment, he would have survived. In the early stages of the disease, there was no money to take him to the City Hospital and when they finally came up with the money, it was too late. In a way, more than the disease it was poverty that killed him. He already had a habitual cough when he married her. She still remembered how he was coughing while tying the holy thread around her neck. Her younger brother who worked in the saw mill used to cough like him. But that was only when he went to work which itself was very rare. Shyamala was hardly twenty-five when she was brought from Thalavoor to Ezhukone. Coming from a remote village, she was a little anxious about her life in the small town. But she adjusted well to the new life very quickly. Ashokan and his parents considered her a blessing to all of them. It made her happy to hear that. At the same time, she felt a burning sensation within, probably an internal resistance to being proud 28

of her achievements. She was always a humble person and there weren’t many reasons for her to be otherwise. Ashokan’s parents were aged and Ashokan himself was sick. He could go to work only a year or so after he got married. In such a bleak situation, it was easy to see how she had become the family’s sole support and blessing. She was happy about it but she often wondered how it would feel to have such a blessing. What would it feel like to have someone to look up to, in times of need and distress? She knew she could manage without much of a support, but still, she was eager to know what it would be like, just once. After her husband’s death, she found such support in Prasanthan who used to work with her husband. Apart from that solace, she had only liabilities, burdens and problems. Her daughter was her major liability. However, she preferred to consider her as the mainstay of her life without which it would have come to a sad ending not long after it began. Early memories of her daughter were rather vague and foggy. One of the earliest and most vivid memories was an incident which happened when she was eleven years old, studying in the sixth standard. She could get away with the killing of a garden lizard by blaming it on her child. It was hiding among some bright red flowers on her way back from her school. At first, she was shocked to see it. It was smaller than she had thought it to be but there was more to it than what she had feared. She saw it lashing its tongue at a moth as if it were throwing its entire mouth at its prey. The tip of its tongue sucked on to the moth and in an instant, it was all gone. True, the moth would have ended its life the same night on a burning flame. But, then it was of its own choice. This was aggression and violence. The hairs on the small of her neck stood up. This ugly reptile would also use its long tongue to suck blood from the navel of small children. She pulled her half skirt up to cover her navel. The reptile had bloodshot eyes and its ears had a tinge of blood on them. There was also a faint tinge of blood right under its 29

mouth and all along its belly and it continued like a crayon line along its long tail. It was panting like a dog and raising its head like a rooster looking around to spy a hen. She would have spared it but her daughter was stubborn. So, she had to kill it. It took only a pelted stone to make it fall off the bush and on to the ground. When it was on the ground, she used whatever she could find to beat it to death. Then she threw a big stone on it to make sure it was dead and wouldn’t come after her later. Her daughter also told her it was enough. Shyamala washed in a stream nearby, but there were still spots of blood on her ankles. When the story came out, her stepmother scolded her for hours. Had her uncle not been there, she would have been beaten up, the way she had beaten the lizard. But her uncle said it was not so bad for a child to want to see a lizard dead. It was then that she realized the endless possibilities and the benefits of having a child for the first time. Shyamala was very eager to see her daughter grow up and mature. But as days passed by she became more and more convinced that her daughter would never grow up. When she saw how the seeds and the tubers in the garden they had started in the school sprout and grow, she felt bad. She prayed to several gods, even those of other religions, to make her daughter grow. That was her only prayer when she lit the holy lamp in the evening. None of the gods favoured her. Eventually, she thought it was all very foolish. Almost all the gods she had prayed to were also babies forever, especially Lord Krishna. It was a comforting thought for her. From then onwards, her daughter’s stunted growth became more of a happy thing to see than a sad thing to worry about. True, everything depends on how we look at life. She had learned that in the week-end Gita class. Whatever was left of her life after all those long days which were spent to take care of her husband and her in-laws, she set aside for her daughter. She had, at times, questioned her sincerity in serving others. She might have been serving them with such eagerness in return for the love and affection 30

they were lavishing on her daughter. They were pampering her daughter, making no complaints at all and competing to compliment. This thought had first come to her mind when Ashokan had become sick and bedridden. She often wondered why her husband’s sickness and untimely death didn’t worry her so much. Apart from this, what would she ever get in return for the care and concern she was showing towards others? What did she expect in return and what was it that they were capable of giving? Her life was almost over. There was nothing she needed anymore. She had the same feelings when her mother passed away. Life seemed to have come to an end. But it didn’t. She stopped attending school, her father remarried and they sold their house. Her daughter should have a different life from all this. She had her likes and desires and nobody understood them. Only Shyamala could see all that. She also saw how others could be cold and inconsiderate. Her own life was a saga of poverty. What used to pain her more than that was how people could be so heartless. She couldn’t blame her stepmother for being what she was. She would have been jealous of her good looks which she had got from her mother. This woman was ugly, as ugly as a stepmother could be. All this had led to a mutual hatred between them. However, she never had an idea her father could change like that. Life had dealt Shyamala blow after blow. She regretted the cruelty and hatred she had unleashed on all forms of life when she was very young. She did not want to hurt anything or anyone anymore, knowingly or unknowingly. She was happy that she was able to bring up her daughter also in the same way. She would willingly get hurt for the sake of her child but she wouldn’t hurt others. Even then, Shyamala doubted whether this was genuine maturity since her daughter had not spared herself. All the cruelty that she used to take out on others, she now took out on 31

her. Childhood, as far as she knew, was the time to enjoy, the time of mirth and laughter. But, for her daughter, it was a time of restlessness, dissatisfaction and fleeting interests. After all, was there anything to make her daughter happy about? Was it possible for a child to have a clear idea about what to be happy about or what to be cautious about? A mother’s happiness depended on her daughter’s happiness, true. But it was never the other way. The young one would have to grow up like her and pass through all that she had passed through to have such clear ideas. But, she was convinced her daughter would never grow, not anymore. If something happened to her daughter, would she have anything left to live for? She did not want to think about it. When her husband was on his death bed, he was all the more cruel. He hated even his bosom friend Prasanthan. He did not even want him to come home asking about his health. Prasanthan told her that it was the severe pain that had that had forced the change in him. Shyamala’s husband was the first one to talk about the intimacy between herself and Prasanthan. Prasanthan took it with so much calm and composure. Perhaps, it was that calm and composure that won her respect and brought her closer to him. He was a friend in need. It was with his help that she was able to take a loan from an NGO which offered micro-financing. He also found two nice rooms outside the town, for her to start her business. The thirty-four thousand Rupees she got from the organization was spent on buying the equipment and furniture. The death benefit she got from the insurance after her husband’s death was used to pay off the hospital bills. It was Prasanthan who paid the advance for the rooms. In a matter of eight months, Shyamala was able to pay back her loan. She worked round the clock. Her in-laws also helped her as much as they could. She had completely forgotten her daughter, and she also seemed to have forgotten her. 32

It was only when she had put her business on stronger rails that Shyamala found some time to relax and rest. Then thoughts about her daughter returned to her. She was all the more stubborn and made her run around quite a bit and even meddled with her business. She forced herself to send away one of her employees who was related to Prasanthan which did not go down very well with him. She discussed the matter with him and he said it was in children’s nature to do so. When he uttered the word ‘childish stubbornness’, she flinched a bit. She did not remember whether she was happy or sad to hear that. Prasanthan repeated the same words on several other occasions. She liked him more when he said that. Her daughter also adored him. She was not interested in joining a pilgrimage organized by the NGO. It was her daughter’s stubbornness that made her go with them. Her daughter wanted to be with Prasanthan for a few days. That was the reason behind her daughter’s stubbornness; she loved him so much. Shyamala was like a little girl when she sat with Prasanthan in the luxury coach, cuddled close to him. She wondered why it took her daughter’s stubbornness for her to get this close to him. He was a nice man. He had beautiful arms with dark curly hair and a reassuring strength and a warm softness. Could it be possible that he liked her daughter more than he liked her? It was possible. He liked her more when she acted like her daughter. Her husband had never liked her daughter. He had told her so, not long after they got married. When he was closer to death, probably because of the intense pain and agony, he used to hurt her daughter bad. It had become too much for her to take and at times she had prayed for his early demise. Shyamala was shocked to recall all that. It was also possible that hatred and bitterness might come back to her life, like a season returning. When she saw her daughter with Prasanthan, she couldn’t help but notice that her little girl had grown up though without her being aware of it until now. She did not 33

have to think hard to see why Prasanthan had taken a fancy to her. Making herself a clone of her daughter, in words, deeds and thoughts, she enjoyed the incestuous venom fermenting in her veins. Seeing her daughter sleeping peacefully near her, with the vicarious satisfaction of having landed a man, she feared what nightmare might be manifesting behind those pearly eyelids. Though Shyamala had planned her business only as a small- scale industry, making ready-made clothes, it went far beyond her expectations. It took only less than a year for her to have such a good business that she had to have an accountant to manage her financial matters. It was not just her hard work that made her business a great success. She had done a very commonsensical thing in business. She was supplying something that society demanded so much. It was not in clothes but their design. She specialized in making clothes for children. The only special thing about her designs was that there was nothing special about them. They were all traditional and her customers demanded more and more of that. She stuck to the patterns of children’s dress she had worn as a child and those kids around her had worn when she was in school. Once, Prasanthan made a funny comment about them. He said that they were like coffins. She did not get the joke and he had to explain it to her. He said that those who bought her clothes never wore them and those who wore them never bought them and that those who were made to use them could not even say no. It was then that she noticed his eyes. They were too sharp for a man of his temperament. They drilled deep into the onlooker. Recently her daughter also had mentioned the same thing about him. Ashokan had never liked her daughter. It was a mutual feeling. But Prasanthan was different. He liked her daughter and knew how to keep her happy. But even though she liked him, she never wanted to be near him. This only made him search for her all the more. Quite differently from her marriage, she had definite ideas about who to be with, if there ever was a tiff between him and her daughter. She had decided to support 34