One Bucket of Laundry

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.