One bucket of laundry, just a set of undergarments, a single
nightdress and a pair of office clothes. Nothing more and nothing less. I tell
the maid to take a day off, today is Sunday and I want to do my laundry by
myself. I carry the bucket through the silent house to the drying line and
being peeling them one by one.
They told me you died one by one even as my flight slowly
crawled back towards home. First it was you Dada, who went through the wind
shield and stained our black car red. All the broken glass shards dressed in
your thickening blood and having painted the perfect scene of gore, you simply
died, eyes still open… yet vacant.
I can almost picture your eyes if I sit in your rocking
chair, snuggling your over-sized coat and think back really hard. You
had tiny crow feet at the edge of each eye and they gawked at people when you
laughed. You used to enjoy laughing more than anyone I know. You laughed at my
pitiful jokes and laughed yourself off the devan and somewhere around
that time even taught me to laugh through my divorce. You really did like
laughing. You tiny neck and huge belly would both dance in tune to your
laughter and I can just about hear you laughing at me even now. Peeling my
laundry, flop-sided hair, old overgrown clothes and no social life.
You’d laugh at what I’ve done to myself and shake me out of this state. You’d
just laugh.
You wouldn’t have liked the doctor. He didn’t even smile
when you told me about your death. It was all just papers and cold eyes; very
impersonal. But on the feedback form there wasn’t any box for me to check about
it. They only wanted to know about the medical standards and who’d be paying
for the medicines and ICU of the remaining members. Dada, you would have
secretly been glad that you died where you did. At least when the bees pricked
every smooth pore of your body with their tiny stings, they were singing or
humming or being merry in whatever form bees do.
They told me at the hospital that Ma went next. The bees got
her before death did. Apparently no-drama Ma in her last moments made up for it
with an overdose of drama. They say she ran in circles trying to get rid of the
black dotted yellow pests, screaming her head off and plucking at her own
flesh. She ran and screamed till accidentally she had stepped off the cliff.
From there it was all downhill. The doctors told me that they could have
possibly saved her if she’d been so fated as it simply pass out on the road due
to the terrible pain all the stinging must have caused.
Bhai died next. However, too young to appease the devil, he
didn’t quite make it to the other side. His nineteen year old limbs stayed
strapped into the seat even as they slowly disjointed due to the impact. He
didn’t squeal or scream or even open his eyes to register the chaos. He just
lay his head sideways onto the shards of the broken window and waited to pass
into a coma. His shrivelled but faithful lab coat never left his side, present
even at the accident, casually resting on the seat beside.
The doctors informed me that he was a donor and I had no
difficulty believing them. It seemed like Bhai. However, the thought of his
piercing blue eyes in someone else’s socket didn’t sit quite right with me. So
I simply signed on the dotted lines and watched them take him apart.
I gave both you and Ma funerals the best I could. Instead of
Bhai I burnt his lab coat. Orthodox Savita Mami cried foul at that, but I put
her in place by playing the ‘I’ve just been orphaned’ card. It worked like a
charm. I got my way. However, all too soon it was all done and nothing was
left.
Now I sit, my forehead painted a shade
of vermilion that has ceased to mean anything to me. The irony of it
all is the only reason red bangles line my hand is because you wanted me to
have someone after all of you. I didn't like the corporate dictator I
married to begin with.
I still remember the courtship meeting. He arrived precisely
at 9, perfectly on time. That’s when I first realised I didn’t like him.
Whoever came to an Indian household on time? It was only courteous to arrive
fashionably late. His years as an NRI had changed him. They had made him
prompt. In the sound of the doorbell as his thumb pressed against it, I could
hear all the morning alarms that would go of at 7 every morning. Possibly even
on the weekends. They’d be no time to laze around on the bed, no time for
morning flirtation. They’d be the clock reminding me that I had married the man
who’d always demand tea or perhaps the more Amreekan coffee at 7.15.
I know marriage comes with its quirks and adjustments. I
made them in my first marriage too. However, I’d like to believe I learnt a
little more through that encounter than just how to warm a double bed. I learnt
that compromises that you never wanted to make don’t come easy. It’s just the ones
you’re eased into that you learn to accept.
Anyway, I could see your expectant eyes cajoling me to open
the door and even Ma took a second of from her tireless kitchen venture to give
me a coaxing nod in the direction of the door. I couldn’t say no to that then.
So I put on a smile that matched my pink lahariya sari and relying on my
jewellery to do all the sparkling for me, I opened my door.
He was polite and charming, all six feet of him. He smiled
and greeted me, I think more so that I could see his dimple rather than because
I made him smile. I coyishly invited him in, just because with my love marriage
I’d never had a chance to be coy. He stepped over the threshold and came and
placed himself on the single seat.
Two things had already begun nagging at the end of my
pallu, pulling me away from a life with him. First that despite the fact that
all of our footwear was neatly lined near the door, he didn’t give it any
consideration and kept his shoes on his feet. Second that he picked the solo seat.
He could have sat next to you instead on the three-seating couch. I would have
liked that; the knowledge that I was about to marry a man who wanted to know my
parents better. Rahul, when I was married to him, never wanted to meet you or
even just pick up the phone and call you. Over the years, it troubled me. For I
would have loved to see you and Ma on weekends, I would have loved to know
whether Ramu kaka brought tundli instead of torrai again or whether you went
bird watching and spotted some new rare species. His disinterest often reminded
me that I had married the wrong man.
I would have called you, but the guilt of him not wanting
anything to do with either of you made me tremble every time I thought of
picking up the phone. I knew that if I’d called you, you would have been
nothing but your lively self. You wouldn’t have given his reluctance a second
thought. You would have laughed and chatted and acted like nothing ever went
wrong. And in your genuine happiness somewhere I would have heard the reflection
of my own voice of irritation. Irritation at a marriage that was fated to never
succeed and irritation at my stubbornness for not letting you stop me when I
walked out for Rahul, suitcase in hand.
Satish to my overtly cautious self now seemed like a repeat
telecast. What if he didn’t want you to visit our children? What if you never
got to showcase your stamp collection to my kids and what is Ma never got the
leisure time to tell them Hindi stories because Satish didn’t want a crowded
household? He didn’t seem the type he would and I took solace in the fact that
once a year he made it a point to go to Europe and meet his parents. He
wouldn’t stop me from coming and if this was going to be my do-over I’d come
diligently ever year. I’d call ever day and I’d do everything I didn’t do when
I was married to Rahul.
It was an informal setting as his parents were absent, having not found flight tickets to make it here on time. However, they’d Skype-d with their apologies and already made arrangements to meet me a week later. I knew they already liked my MBA degree, they liked my Indian looks and they didn’t mind my divorce in exchange for the knowledge that I didn’t mind their son’s. It was like a match made in heaven.
So when he’d left with his slight American accent, and you
asked me whether I liked him and I’d like to marry him, I nodded. It wasn’t a
jubilant nod or a nod of even acceptance; it was a nod of indifference. I
wasn’t marrying him; I was just trying to make you smile. And with my nod, it
was done. Satish liked me. His parents who came the following month
liked me more so. Within two month, cards were being sent out and in another
month I had relocated to America.
Satish wasn’t the Bollywood villain that I had initially
imagined him to be. He was flexible when it came to our relationship, even
though he wasn’t in any other part of our routine. I didn’t mind because
nothing but your and my relationship really mattered to me. So when just one
month into our marriage, I’d asked him to come back to India to visit you, he
agreed without a second thought. It was decided that on the way back, I’d stop
at Europe and meet his parents too. After all, his parents were supposed to be
equally important to me too.
I stand now, hanging my freshly washed clothes on the line.
It gives me immense peace to see the single row they form. I know now that I no
longer need a second line of reassuring clothes. I have this house full of your
laughter. I make a mental note, to call Satish and tell him that I’m sending
divorce papers.
