The rain came down in blinding sheets, drenching everyone and everything to the bone. The sky was leaden; and the sun was nowhere to be seen. At that moment, Bombay was a kaleidoscope of sounds: vehicles honking at different pitches, so that it sounded like an out-of-sync orchestra, rain swooshing, thunder rumbling, drivers cursing, children shrieking with delight as they splish-splashed around knee-deep puddles.

Himani watched it all through a window on the first floor of her apartment building, munching on carrot sticks. As she usually always did during this time of the year;, she felt a mixture of awe, revulsion, and fascination. This was her third year in the city, and she adored it even as it annoyed the hell out of her. The Bombay monsoon was the stuff of legend; it spared no one.

Five feet and three inches tall, with shoulder-length hair the colour of chocolate-chip brownies, deep-set eyes and a creamy complexion, Himani’s slender frame belied her twenty years. She could have passed off, still, as a schoolgirl. She had a particularly arresting look about her: diffidence, with a barely discernible strand of self-assurance. Her face was like a touch-me-not flower which turns its petals inwards: it was, in a word, inscrutable. Or perhaps it just was.When she cracked her knuckles in an empty room, it was like dropping a bomb. Her glasses were tortoise-shelled; the frames were dark green with black dots. ‘Like a green ladybird,’ she always thought to herself.

She loved many things: the rain when she was indoors, staring into space, the smell of coffee, the minty aftertaste of Colgate toothpaste and the way her teeth tingled when she drank cold water immediately after brushing, the inside of a bookstore. She also loved scribbling mindlessly in her many notebooks that lay scattered around her room. And daydreaming about Marine Drive, her favourite spot in all of Bombay.

She didn’t have many friends; two, perhaps three at the most. The loneliness eased, when she thought of Sanchita, her soul sister – ‘Sanch’, as Himani had always called her. Sanchita, the rainbow. Sanchita, the girl with the wide grin, whose guffaw could be heard from miles away; who could talk the hind legs off a donkey. She’d bumped into Sanchita during her first lecture in college, reading Indian Poetry; it would always be fresh in her memory, because the professor had been completely riveting. Himani could never forget her thick black curls spilling down her back like a waterfall, her denim midi dress, neon green tote bag, and her French-manicured fingernails which were adorned with outlandish silver rings. The diamond sparkling on the right side of her nose. The sapphire-painted toenails and the kolhapuri chappals. And how, when Sanchita spoke, she was a headmistress commanding absolute attention. The girl was a born thespian, someday meant to take the world by storm with her acting prowess.

Chance by Chanel had always been her signature perfume. Sanchita was everything Himani was not – she loved meeting people, could mingle effortlessly with all kinds of crowds, and was a master storyteller at parties. She lived in a room where a bright, purple Bluetooth speaker blasted upbeat music all day. She loved going to the park nearby, to play with the stray dogs, helping differently-abled children at the Make a Difference foundation, strumming on her guitar, effortlessly slipping into different characters at the National School of Drama, and exploring pubs and disco bars – but always with a trusted group of friends.

Even her room décor was a contrast to Himani’s, whose one-room flat, tiny as it was, radiated a characteristic serenity: pale cream walls, diffuser lamps, strings of fairy lights, gauzy curtains, books at once scattered artfully and arranged neatly, clothes stacked in her cupboard, a pile of books teetering on the bedside table. Sanchita’s room, on the other hand, was the very definition of an Arty Party Animal. Living two streets away from Himani, Sanchita’s was a shared accommodation into which she’d moved into three years ago, when they were both just starting college. There was an orange bean bag in the middle, usually surrounded by leftover boxes of Domino’s Pizza that never went to trash. Patterned floor cushions made for comfortable lounging. There were no curtains; and natural light flooded the room during the daytime. A rickety table was pushed into a corner, on which Sanchita heaped absolutely everything: clothes, jewellery, books, stationery. And, of course, there was her prized Bluetooth speaker – music was to Sanchita what books were to Himani. Every time she visited, the jarring white tube light made Himani squint.

***

15th July, 2017

“Hiiimaaaaniiii!” Sanchita’s voice echoes from the entry gate. 

‘The hurricane cometh,’ Himani thinks to herself fondly. She props up her glasses, which have an irritating habit of slipping down the bridge of her nose while she is reading. Out of the corner of her eye, she catches sight of her best friend.

Gently placing a bookmark between pages 110-11 of The Awakening, Himani stretches like a cat and beckons to her. 

“Yo, Sanch. Why haven’t I heard from you – or seen your face – in one whole month? Have you checked your messages and missed calls at all?” For the girls, joined at the hip as they are and living so close to each other as they do, a month feels more like a millennium. Himani’s tone is gentle; entirely non-confrontational.

Sanchita pauses, a curl escaping her bubblegum-pink scrunchie and falling into her eyes, and bites her lip. Her turquoise kurta accentuates her carefully-lined, almond-shaped eyes and big silver jhumkas. 

“Well, actually, Himani…”

“Yeah, babe?”

“The thing is…”

Himani’s emotional alarm starts blinking in her head. This isn’t the Sanchita she knows. To hesitate before speaking. If anything, Sanchita makes effective communication look spontaneous and confident. 

“Sanch? Why don’t you come and sit?” Himani pats the pillows next to her.

“I will. Just… give me a minute.” Sanchita appears to struggle for composure; something that – in all the time that she and Himani have known each other – Himani has never even imagined, let alone seen.

After two very long minutes (during which Himani simply looks at her and Sanchita’s eyes are as skittish as those of a particularly vulnerable horse), she walks over to Himani and plops herself down on the bed. As she’s done countless times before, she pushes the pillows aside and lays her head on Himani’s lap. She closes her eyes, feeling the familiar tightening in her chest and an itch in her throat.

“Sanch? Honey? What is it…?” Until she feels Himani’s gentle fingers on her face, Sanchita hasn’t even realised that a stray tear has made its way out of her eye and run down her cheek.

Suddenly, the whirring of the fan seems too loud. Himani has never known Sanchita to be anything but self-possessed. Inexplicably, a line from The Little Prince runs through Himani’s mind at that moment: ‘It is such a mysterious thing, the land of tears…’

“Sanch. Talk to me.”

In those few seconds that it takes from propping Sanchita upright and getting close for a cuddle – the two of them have always sensed each other’s needs for physical affection without saying anything – Sanchita seems to fold in on herself. 

Tears stream down her cheeks, smudging her eyeliner. Her shoulders shake. But she does not make a sound. She simply weeps, soaking the front of Himani’s Mickey Mouse T-shirt. Himani holds her close.

A few more minutes pass. The shadows lengthen on the walls. The clock says that it is 6 p.m.

Sanchita meets Himani’s eyes. In them, she sees nothing but love and concern; not even a trace of judgement, surprise or shock. 

“You seem unsurprised, Himani.” Her voice is hoarse from crying.

“If you want to tell me what all this is about, I’m here.” She squeezes Sanchita’s hand.

Sanchita takes a deep, shaky breath.

***

“It’s so difficult to say this, b-but,” – here, she sniffles and blows her nose before continuing – “I haven’t been feeling like myself lately. I’ve been doing all the regular things – theatre practice, music class, that volunteering work – but I feel as though I’ve… crashed. Just like that. Like I’m suddenly on a snowy mountain peak and am skidding downwards, without any sense of direction. I haven’t slept in weeks and find it hard to even get out of bed to do everyday work. The tears threaten to pull me under. I lock myself in the loo and cry for hours. I’m exhausted.”

“Oh, Sanch. I can see that you are in pain.” Himani leans closer, rubs Sanchita’s back.

“Y-yes. Absolutely anything can set me off. Like right now. And I don’t look at my phone because the notifications trigger anxiety. My appetite is non-existent. I’m having a hard time being…just normal.‟ You know how I am, I like people around me; can you imagine how much harder it must be? I mean, look at me. I feel like I’m losing my sanity. The other day, I saw the bottle of toilet cleaner on my window sill… and… and all sorts of thoughts came into my mind…” Sanchita swipes at her eyes and looks at Himani.

Himani takes Sanchita’s hands in her own. “Sanch. What led to this, was there anything particular that set this off?”

“I… don’t know, Himani. I can’t think of anything specific. Everything in the past two weeks has been going well, on the face of it. But… I suppose my mood started to plummet when I got three rejection emails in quick succession from three of my top preference universities. And I don’t want to keep going over my break-up – the last thing I want is to fixate on it – but flashes of it come back to me over and over again. This is what I ruminate over all day long. I can’t confide in my parents or family because they have no idea about any of this at all. And I don’t want to be another cause of worry. See, this is why I’ve been incommunicado.” Sanchita’s eyes well up again.

The news of Sanchita’s rejections comes as a surprise to Himani. Sanchita is one of the most talented thespians she’s ever known – but the competition is indeed very stiff. Sanchita must have been heartbroken to share the news with anyone, even her close ones. Himani also knows how badly Sanchita had taken her break-up – it had been an emotionally toxic relationship, one that was extremely manipulative, which resulted in her being cast aside for someone else. She had dated one of her classmates for two years. 

With all that in mind, she tries to muster the courage to ask something she’s never asked Sanchita before. She has never needed to – not up until this moment, with Sanchita in tears and Himani as her confidante. In Himani’s experience, it is usually she who struggles to get a solid grip over her feelings; not Sanchita. Now, listening to Sanchita makes Himani’s heart ache.

“And… d-do you know so-something? Whenever people ask me how I’m doing, I say I’m fine. I’m fiiiiine.” Sanchita stretches out the word like chewing gum; sings it with as much resentment as possible. 

“Two little words that are Band-Aids, covering up so much inside because if I admit to feeling the most miserable I’ve ever possibly felt in all my twenty years, I will come across as weak. People will come up with their own interpretations and solutions: ‘Oh, you must exercise! You must go out and be around people! You must engage! You have everything that you ever need; you simply cannot be depressed! You must be positive!’ As if one needs certain reasons to feel this way. As if I don’t engage enough already. As if my feelings are a tap that can be turned off at will. Damn it.” 

Sanchita is stiff as a ramrod. Her nails are digging into her palms. Her kurta is askew. Her eyes glitter; two wet onyxes, black as the night sky and bottomless as the ocean. Her heart-shaped face is tear-stained, but her voice is steely. In that moment, in Himani’s eyes, Sanchita is the most beautiful person in the world.

***

“Sanch. Look at me. Will you do something for me? For yourself?” Himani is fully aware that she is treading delicate waters. She tries to ease her breathing, which had accelerated. Empathy always triggers physiological responses in Himani. It’s been that way for as long as she can remember. She keeps trying to tell herself that it is a good thing. She is not – in fact – being ‘oversensitive’.. She looks at Himani, and says after a pause,“I will do anything. You know that. Just… please tell me how I can put an end to this mental agony…” 

Her voice – theatre-trained and usually pitched to fill an entire auditorium – is so soft and tremulous that Himani has to lean forward to hear her.

“I need you to do one thing. Will you come with me if I make an appointment with a psychiatrist?”

Sanchita’s eyes light up like forest fires. They blaze, and then they die out.

The only sound in Himani’s room is that of the wall clock.The room has darkened. Outside, the wind howls and lightning flashes. Somewhere in the distance, dogs bark themselves hoarse. Himani leans across Sanchita and flicks on a diffuser lamp, and warm yellow light fills the room. It makes patterns on the wall. The girls’ silhouettes, like lines on a canvas.

Fifteen whole minutes. Nine hundred seconds go by. Neither of them says anything. 

Sanchita stops fidgeting with her silver butterfly ring. She looks up at Himani through a haze of tears. “Will that help? Will you come?”

Himani does not hesitate, not even for a fraction of a second. “Of course, it is no big deal. I’d do anything in the world for you, and this is the least I can do.”

***

One year later

Sunlight spills through the patch of sky at Prithvi Café, which is curiously empty for a Sunday afternoon. The polished wood tables gleam. Indoor plants line the window sills, and classical music plays softly. At a corner table, Sanchita sits with a notebook and pen in her lap. Her legs are curled up under her. A mug of hot chocolate sits untouched. She has been here for a half-hour but it feels like it has been days.

The wind chimes clink as Himani pushes the door open. “Sanch, sweetie! How’s my favourite girl?” Himani’s voice is as familiar to Sanchita as her own. Sanchita tears her gaze away from her notebook and jumps up to greet her.

When they hug, they never want to let go. It has been far too long since they have seen each other. But even though it has been a difficult year for both of them, they feel closer to each other than ever before.

Shortly after that night in Himani’s room, Sanchita was diagnosed with major depressive disorder. When the psychiatrist told them, Sanchita did not waver. She had Himani’s hand to hold through a critical part of her life. And for that, she has never stopped feeling grateful.

Amidst an almost frenzied exchange of questions and answers – neither of them could get the words out fast enough; and time is slipping by sooner than they would like it to – they fill each other in on the minutiae of their lives.

“And that book, Himani? Have you been writing and rewriting and re-rewriting your drafts about the journey with your best friend in the world who is legitimately mentally ill?” Sanchita’s tone is playful, but her eyes are serious.

“Yes, my love, I have. It is a struggle. But I’m so glad that I know the details inside out –  and that I have the reason for the book sitting right in front of me.” Himani reaches across and gives Sanchita’s hand an extra-tight squeeze. “And you? What about that production of King Lear that’s to go on floors in three months? How is your Cordelia shaping up?”

“Oh, you know. It’s the usual. My job is to find calm in the chaos – which, mercifully, isn’t very difficult, if I just take time to breathe. Apart from that… my body is a cocktail of antidepressants, but who’s complaining? After a hellish ride, at least I know what keeps the depression at bay. I’ve been going for therapy sessions, too” – she makes air quotes as she says the word “therapy”, but she’s only kidding about the implied sarcasm – “and trying to establish a yoga and meditation routine for myself. It’s a lot of effort, and I’m taking it slow, but I’m starting to feel at ease with myself again.” Sanchita takes a sip of her hot chocolate.

“Do you know how proud I am of you, Sanch?” Himani was always emotional with Sanchita; but had been even more protective of her ever since that day, and being there with her as she waded through waves of depression so debilitating that they’d both instantly nicknamed it The Black Cloud – took a breath to steady herself. 

“You’ve come so far from the girl hunched over on my floor, who was at her wit’s end. You’ve started sleeping through the night; you’ve started eating properly. You’re taking your medicines. You’re seeing your psychiatrist. You’ve found purpose by doing what you love the most. There’s a glow to your face that I haven’t seen in a long time. Most importantly, though, you’ve come through this with so much strength..”

Sanchita smiled. “It’s not just me, Himani. Look at you. Look at the sparkle in your eyes, I am sure it comes from working on those drafts. And as for it being my journey…it was you who took me for the appointment, and you who has sat with me. How can it ever be just my journey? I like to think of it as our journey. Haven’t we always been that way, right from that first day in college when you made a face at my neon green tote?”

“You always did know how to make me cry. Stupid.”

“I might say the same for you, too, my darling. Whom do I have to thank everything you did for me during that difficult time in my life – when I didn’t want to see your face (that’s the depression, by the way, not me) but you still sent me adorable little notes and reminders; called me, even when I refused to answer the phone – and came over to clean up, nudged me to get out of bed, have a bath, and cooked for me? 

***

Once upon a time, there were two girls. And there was one shared story.

Glossary:

Chappal: a slipper
Jhumka: a traditional Indian bell-shaped earring, worn by women
Kolhapuri: of – or from – the city of Kolhapur, Maharashtra, western India
Kurta: a long, loose-fitting tunic which usually reaches the knees

Shreya holds an MA in English from the University of Delhi. She is a lifelong bibliophile, book hoarder, daydreamer, and (over)thinker. Her work has appeared on Elephant Journal, Quiet Revolution and The Punch Magazine. If she’s not daydreaming, she’s writing; and if she’s not writing, she’s reading. She needs paper and ink like a fish needs water. 

Cooking in the humid, sultry weather was pure torture. Mikhila turned on the exhaust fan and waited; a pearl of sweat hung from the tip of her nose precariously. Another slithered through the side of her face. Without warning, the salty drop of sweat dropped in her coffee mug in front of her. She closed her eyes and felt the heat pressing on her from all the sides. Her landline phone rang in  the living room. Mikhila didn’t move and the ringing died down. 

She peered over the windows shadowed by the curtains and struggled with the idea of opening them and airing the room. She stepped back as steam came off of the saucepan with oats. Mikhila was suddenly irritated, and wondered why she continued to eat oats for breakfast since she never liked it in the first place. Like most others, she preferred to eat Indian food for breakfast, which was anything but sweet. 

“Mikhi, look at the amount of oil that goes into making most of the Indian food!” Tanveer had grimaced at the parantha she made the day after their marriage. 

“Consuming excess oil on a daily basis can do damage to your body. Let’s decide one thing. We’ll eat oats for breakfast daily, and we can have Indian meals for lunch and dinner,” he said.

Mikhila’s face and voice couldn’t contain her displeasure, “Daily? Oats?”

Tanveer looked at her, squinting and with pursed lips. “Fine. On weekends we’ll have whatever you want to eat for breakfast. Come on now, give me that smile I fell for.”

Tanveer!

Mikhila’s eyes darted towards the draped windows once again. If she opened the window and saw the bright sun, people moving around in their perfect world, a part of her might yearn for all of it and that would be a betrayal to her mourning, she chided herself. Sighing, she turned off the heat. Grabbing her mug, she walked to the living room and sat on the couch. 

“I am lucky anyway, that I do not have to be outside in this sweltering heat. I could die of sunstroke.” Mikhila reasoned aloud pitifully and surprised herself. 

It was the first time she heard her voice in the last six days. Thirty-seven days had passed since the death of her husband. Thirty-seven days since he was lost to the sea. Thirty-seven days since she last saw him or his body. For four days she waited eagerly for the call to inform her that Tanveer’s body was recovered or even by a hopeful miracle that he was somehow alive. But after a month, her hope turned to despair and she shut herself in their house, refusing to attend any calls. By then she dreaded the idea of identifying his body or what was left of him. To see him and yet not to see the face she loved dearly would kill her. She  lost her sleep and would wake up screaming in the middle of the night. She would dream of the police knocking on her door and dragging her to a morgue to identify her husband. She would always wiggle out of their hands and scream to let her go because she knew her husband was just a stinking, swollen mass of flesh now. The recurring nightmare made her dread sleep altogether.

Mikhila sipped her coffee reluctantly and breathed in the musty smell hanging over the house. Setting the mug on the glass table, she closed her eyes and imagined how her life would have turned out if she had a child. Unlike some women who claimed to have always wanted to be a mother, she never had such thoughts, not until the third year of their marriage. That’s when she noticed the subtle changes in his attitude towards her. Tanveer never wanted a child but Mikhila had hoped that he would change eventually. Even the sound of children playing in the neighbourhood, annoyed and irritated him. As the year passed by, she lost all hope and even became weary of bringing up the topic of having a child. 

Mikhila began to sob when she opened her eyes. 

“If only I had a child, I wouldn’t have felt so lonely”

***

Navigating in the dark by touching the familiar objects around her, Mikhila switched on the bathroom light and entered inside. The woman looking back at her in the mirror was a mess. She had a pale skin, sunken cheeks, two dark pouches under the eyes, unkempt hair and a heart desolated by the loss.

Mikhila tugged at the loose, dry chapped skin on her lips, drawing a bead of blood. She turned the faucet and splashed water over her mouth. She sucked at her bottom lip and felt slightly nauseous at the metallic taste of blood. 

Mikhila was startled when the silence of the house was once again broken by the vexatious, familiar sound. 

Her stomach rumbled and she ambled towards the kitchen and switched on the light. Though she knew she wouldn’t find anything edible in it, she opened the refrigerator and peered at the empty shelves. Groaning, she closed the refrigerator door. Looking over her kitchen cabinets,  she suddenly felt tired and rejected the idea of cooking. 

As she was about to turn off the light she noticed, to her delight, the saucepan with the untouched oats. Grabbing a spoon she gobbled up the cold oats and found it tasty for the first time. Just as she swallowed the last of it, the ringing started again. A tear fell from her eye and she started trembling. 

“It’s time you faced the truth.” She choked on her words. 

She felt as if her feet would give away but she managed to walk to the living room without bumping into anything and lifted the receiver with her sweaty palm. 

“Hello?” The woman on the other side sounded breathless.

Mikhila didn’t respond.

“At last! You picked!” the voice on the other side exclaimed, then unsure if Mikhila was still on the line, she repeated, “Hello? Hello?”

“Who is this?” Mikhila asked, bracing for the worse.

“Ha,” the woman laughed, “Mikhila? Mikhila, it’s you, right?”

Mikhila wanted to answer in the negative, “Hmmm.”

“I have been trying to reach you for almost a week.”

“Who is this?” Mikhila was confused now. 

The woman didn’t reply right away, and then said, “If I tell you who I am, you won’t hang up, will you?”

Mikhila didn’t feel right about the whole conversation. She said no, reluctantly.

“Veena.”

“Who?”

“You don’t remember me? Me? Right, well it’s been almost six years now. How time flies!. You seriously don’t remember me? I’m Tanveer’s—”

Mikhila slammed the receiver down and on second thoughts, replaced it on the table. Her breathing became faster and finding the couch, she slumped on it and buried her face in her palms. Despite the humidity, a chill ran down her spine and she struggled to calm her breathing. 

“You are the last person I want to remember,” Mikhila muttered inside her cupped palms.

***

Bleary eyed, Mikhila went through all the stuff of Tanveer to keep her head off the phone call from two days ago. Sleep had been elusive since Tanveer’s death but she couldn’t sleep a wink the past two days. Her head was drumming and she felt nauseous since morning. 

She opened Tanveer’s wardrobe, and felt some of his shirts and t-shirts. She took out a burgundy shirt, his favourite and holding it tightly to her chest, she cried. She wished to feel Tanveer against her. Wanted his arms around her. But that can never happen.

Later, Mikhila made coffee and drank it in Tanveer’s coffee mug.  She sauntered through her memory lane as she sipped, remembering the first time they had met. 

Mikhila, a dental receptionist, was twenty-nine when she first met Tanveer Katri.  Before meeting him, she was a woman determined to remain single for the rest of her life. She firmly believed that one could only be happy by remaining unmarried and experiencing the beauty of life alone. Her parents got divorced when she was thirteen. She lived with her mother till she turned 19, around the time her mother remarried. 

Neither of her parents kept in touch with her, and as the year passed, she estranged herself from them.

On a chilly, late November morning, Tanveer asked her to get the dentist’s appointment. He had to wait for thirty-five minutes for his turn to come. Since he was the only one in the waiting room, he struck a conversation with Mikhila, asking her about her life and family. Even though Mikhila didn’t ask him anything in return, he did tell her about himself. He was a thirty-eight year old financial advisor, married to a travel agent, had no children and was living a very comfortable and happy life except for the bothersome toothache. After he was checked by the dentist, before leaving, he stopped in front of her desk and asked her if she could have coffee with him someday. Impulsively, Mikhila nodded. It didn’t take them long to go out more often.  

Whenever she was with Tanveer, Mikhila always knew that her actions were wrong and she was voluntarily causing discord in a couple’s marriage. 

After around nine months of dating, Tanveer proposed to her one day. Her suppressed guilt unveiled itself, all at once. Mikhila refused to meet him for a whole week. Not only was she whacked with guilt but staying away from Tanveer hurt her even more. On his insistence, she agreed to meet him one day, glad on the inside. He convinced her that he never loved his wife as much as he loved her. He was filing for a divorce and it was good for all three of them. 

***

Mikhila sat cross legged on her bed. She glanced up at the wall clock. The bedroom walls were mostly adorned with her and Tanveer’s photographs. That was one of the things he loved; taking their photos. Whenever they travelled, he would request a passerby to take their photos. Mikhila’s gaze travelled from one photo to another till it stopped on one.

It was her favourite. Tanveer’s too.

In the photo, Tanveer was cupping her face with his lips touching her forehead. Mikhila’s arms were draped over his neck. Groves of coconut trees lined the  background. Though their faces weren’t visible, it was undoubtedly their most beautiful photo together. The photo was taken in Palolem beach in Goa. Though widely promoted for its dolphin-spotting tours, Mikhila and Tanveer did not spot a single dolphin during their stay.

Mikhila heard the sound she dreaded. And yet, she sprinted towards it and this time the receiver was lifted on the fourth ring.

“Hello?”

“What do you want?” 

“See, I knew you’d hang up the moment I told you who I am but…”

“Vee…”, Mikhila could not even bring herself to utter the name, “Veena, why are you calling? And how did you get this number?”

Mikhila heard another laugh on the other side, “From your husband. My ex.”

Mikhila thought she didn’t hear it right. “What? Tanveer?”

“I know it might enrage you but he…”

“That’s not possible! You are lying!”

“Sure. You are entitled to think whatever you want, but Tanveer called me about eight or nine months ago, crying…”

“You are lying,” Mikhila whispered, her hand shaking in disbelief.

“No. He was crying about a lot of things, his dreary and monotonous life. How he wished to escape from it and if only he could press the right button on the remote to change his life and transport him to another world, he would have done that. I have no idea what ‘remote’ he was blabbering about. Like I mentioned, the first time he called me was around nine months ago. He called me from the number I remember. I didn’t bother to answer it. Then two days after that I got a call from an unknown number and it happened to be him. The moment I realised it was him, I disconnected the call. Just a few weeks after the second call, I got a call from another unknown number. It was him. But before I could disconnect, I heard him crying. That’s when he started complaining about his life. The last time he called me was from your landline number. He didn’t say much. Simply apologised for calling me thrice before and hung up on me.”

Mikhila drew the receiver away from her ear and held it against her hip as tears spilled from her eyes. She really wanted to break the phone, go to the comfort of her bed and sleep away this nightmare. Instead, she wiped her eyes with her other hand and brought the receiver against her ears.

“Hello? Hello? Mikhila? Are you there?”

“Mmm.”

“Are you okay?” asked Veena. 

Mikhila knew Veena was not a bit concerned. In fact, if she closed her eyes she could see Veena grinning. 

I can’t blame her, thought Mikhila.

“Why?”

“Why did he call? For one, he sounded drunk as a skunk and second, he’s a rascal.”

Mikhila winced. “Don’t. He’s…”

“He loses interest in his women as fast as people lose interest in their clothes.”

“He passed away.”

The silence on the other side was profound. So much so, that a tiny part of her thought the whole phone call was a fabrication of her imagination.

“I know. A friend of mine told me.”

Mikhila suddenly felt weary but felt companionship in Veena. There was no reason to, but she felt she needed to tell her everything.

“I see. So, he left a suicide note on the dresser and by the time you returned from the market, he was gone with what seemed like an intention to end his life by drowning. How convenient! Do  you concur with all this?”

“Please…”

“You didn’t find his body,” Veena stated. “They didn’t I mean, right?” 

“No.”

“You will not find his body anytime soon, at least not until he actually decides to end his life.”

Mikhila was perplexed. But at the same time she didn’t want to know what Veena had meant. I should hang up before it’s too late, thought Mikhila. 

Stop it. Stop it. Stop it. 

Despite her mind cautioning her, Mikhila asked the question that was nagging her since the revelation, “Veena, could you give me the numbers he called you from?”

“Gladly. Just a second.” In the brief silence that ensued, Mikhila heard a child’s shriek followed by a giggle in the background. She wondered if Veena remarried and had a child. Instantly, the pain of being childless tugged at her heart. Veena’s voice came over and she read the numbers.

“Two of them are his number. The last one is not his.” Mikhila said.

“Well, it is his. He hid the number from you. And I know why.” Veena said.

Mikhila felt sick, her hands were clammy and beads of perspiration formed on her forehead. She held the headrest of the couch tightly. 

I must lie down, she thinks.

“A week after I heard whispers of his suicide, for no reason, I dialed those three numbers. Two were switched off, the ones you said were his. The last one was answered by a woman. For a few seconds I was too surprised to speak. I didn’t expect it to be answered at all. When I asked for Tanveer, the woman hung up on me. After that I tried twice, with the same result. The number was switched off. And probably discarded immediately.”

Mikhila slammed the receiver down. Heaving, she tore the extension out of its socket and hurled the landline across the room.

She crumpled on the floor and wailed.

***

Sitting on the front steps of the porch, Mikhila nestled the coffee mug in her hands. She was wearing her favourite outfit, a mustard kurta and sage green palazzo. Tanveer hated the outfit. 

It was drizzling outside and a cool breeze ruffled her cheeks and swayed her damp hair at temples. A plate with half eaten paratha lay beside her. All the house windows were wide open. 

***

A THE BOMBAY REVIEW CREATIVE WRITING WORKSHOP PIECE

Rinu Antony works as a content writer in a digital marketing agency in Nagpur, India.

“Your move,” Shivani announced, deftly taking out Paul’s white knight with her black rook. The older man reflexively brought his hand to his face. 

“They’ve changed the rules since I last played, I swear,” he muttered. He cast a rueful glance at the young sepoy. Shivani grinned and rolled onto her back. 

In the first month of deployment, Shivani found that she needed to squint whenever her gaze turned towards the sky. The island had an extravagance of sunlight. Dawns crept ominous, in the wake of bedazzled seashores. They left in sunsets slunk away with promises of bloodened horizons. 

The sea which surrounded them was no better. Shivani discovered quite soon that the shimmering waters reflected the sunlight even more and made it easier for them to get sunburned. The humidity was so bad that her long hair, normally tied into a knot under her sepoy cap, needed to be washed almost every day, with the amount of sweat that accumulated all around it. 

Now, all her eyes needed were a thin veneer of muslin held taut by poles and tied to the raised parapet of their wall. The waves continued to crash, almost as if in frustration, upon the outer side of the walls; their ferocity stemmed by the jagged, rocky perimeters of the island. But Shivani was accustomed to this as well; even the occasional crab that bravely climbed over the wall garnered little interest. It scuttled away in its sideways gait, its bulbous eyes twitching rapidly. She started counting. 

Seconds later, a flurry of flapping wings and squawks descended on the creature. Shivani lost sight of the crab for a moment amidst the crowd of gulls that were trying to nip at the poor thing with their beaks. Paul shifted behind her; he was also watching. 

One of the smaller, niftier gulls seemed to have succeeded; it hopped away frantically, with a large chunk of the crab’s descarated body clasped in its mouth. The others gave chase of course, but Shivani had figured out these birds by now. The scraps and bits of crab that were left behind were more important, more assured chunks of food. Pursuit was a gamble in the wild; it could lead to nothing. 

“Go on now. Finish it off”, Shivani urged silently. Make your escape. 

But that didn’t happen. Whether it had been late to the party or it had been waiting all along for the right moment to strike, an albatross plunged at the little gull carrying the bulk of the crab. That made Shivani sit up; even Paul, who was watching closely, let out a tch. The albatross cowed the gull to the floor of their parapet. It pulled the crab with its powerful beak and in one swift, graceful motion, it leapt into the sky. 

Shivani stared at the sky, as the calls of the gulls grew distant. She watched as the little gull pecked at leftover scraps in lonely silence. 

Paul cleared his throat, “Your move, lad.” 

“No,” he added, as he watched Shivani reach into her pouch of rations. “Got enough problems out here without starting a zoo of our own.” Slowly, Shivani turned to look at her commanding officer. She was about to disobey and toss a biscuit out for the gull, but after a moment, her hand dropped back into her lap.   

***

Time was insignificant on the island. Some of the white officers had an inkling of the current year and date. But most of the sepoys remained ignorant, and as long as they were paid, they preferred this ignorance. Paul probably had a vague idea; and from their hours on the night watch and playing chess, Shivani inferred that he was firmly interested in what is only the practical world. Dates and hours made little difference to him, or his routine – one often saw him drinking strong palm liquor on religious holidays. 

Even so, he was still their sergeant and one of the ‘white’ men, so he had to visit the town occasionally, to report on incidents of note. Mostly, these trips passed without incident,, but sometimes Paul would return in a sour mood. Shivani had to bear the brunt of his irritation during those occasions. Usually, he would go about berating her for the  most painfully, minor affairs. A small nick on her boots, an improperly swept corner of the guard tower. It was as if he constantly needed to find faults in her, to push her around as a kind of catharsis. 

Things came to a head when Paul laid into her, over a poorly adjusted water gourd strap in Shivani’s combat kit. 

“Do you want to die?” he demanded. “Even the stupidest man could accomplish these sorts of tasks.” Shivani remained silent, “Perhaps we should sell your uniform and buy a petticoat instead!” he snapped. “That would suit you more!” 

Shivani bent over to examine her kit and readjusted the strap holding her water gourd. She held her tongue until their game of chess during that night’s watch. 

“Why does white get to start first?” She asked Paul as they tried to move their pieces under the fickle light of the moon. Paul mulled over it for a while and said “Well. That’s them rules, what have you.” He shook his head to indicate ignorance. She looked at him then, with careful deliberation, and moved her white pawn into a set of Paul’s pieces. 

“And why does a white keep running away from his kind, to wander with the coloureds all the time?”

“Sir?” she prodded, making sure that he understood that she was referring to him. Paul was astonished, and remained silent. The very idea that one of the sepoys under him could talk like that seemed novel for him. He opened his mouth to speak, but faltered. 

In a low voice, he uttered, “Even half of what you said would have earned you the whip, private.” They stared at each other, impassively, the magnitude of their words sinking into each other. Paul got up abruptly, leaving Shivani alone in the dark.  

Shivani felt herself being reminded of all the good that Sgt. Paul had done for her, making her gasp in the sweltering wetness of her bunk. While he was uncompromising over routine, he had never been outrightly cruel to any of them. 

Secretly, she had to admit that he was even helping them along by giving them a sense of order and purpose. But it was too late to change the momentary lapse of yesterday’s judgement; the little charade that Shivani had pulled off, cost her three days of her allowance. It was not a terrible punishment, but it was clear that the words had hit home; Paul had refused to meet her gaze even once since that night. Their interactions had been brief and exceedingly formal. Their chessboard lay untouched, beneath the muslin shade.  

“Perhaps it is time for a truce,” Shivani thought tersely, standing guard near their mule cart. Her unit was allowed to visit the town once every two weeks for basic provisions – oil, sugar and tea. It had now been three weeks since their falling out and there were no signs of possible reconciliation anytime soon. She sighed and wished they could return to the guard tower. The heat and humidity would be less oppressive there; she would be able to watch the gulls gliding in the sky. Preferably with Paul. It would set the right mood for an apology. If only he didn’t treat me like his wife, she scowled.   

Preoccupied, she did not see another sepoy coming towards her until he grasped her shoulder in an iron grip. Shivani was startled by the sudden appearance of this stranger. Upon closer inspection, she noticed the tattoos on his face, indicating their shared nativity. She also realised to her dismay that he outranked her; he had the insignia of a Corporal. 

A familiar feeling surfaced within Shivani. How many years had it been. she wondered. Not enough; she could feel fear rising up her throat. She hadn’t anticipated meeting someone from her place all the way out here.  

The man’s eyes were sharp and narrowed in by the band of turban he wore. He studied her with a broad smile on his lips. 

In their native tongue, he asked. “Why do I find a brother from our shared courtyard, so many miles away in this forsaken land?” 

It seemed like he wanted a decidedly specific answer. Shivani had heard about this before, about the way in which communities confirmed the identities of other members in the military through code words or questions known only to them. 

She had no idea what to say, a sense of discomfort took over her. She shrank back, hoping for a distraction that did not come. The Corporal raised his eyebrows expectantly.

“I,” she said, hesitantly. Pushing aside her inner turmoil, she said with a shrug, “I joined because the pay is good.” She gestured broadly at her tunic. “I think there is good honour in tilling my father’s soil and caring for him in his later years. But I needed to send money back home to support them.” She said, looking the man in the eye. 

The curtness seemed to displease him. He gave her a reluctant nod. “True, little brother. But this island can offer us something more as well, don’t you think?” he raised his arms. “This is a world hidden from the world,” he paused, and reached out to trace the empty, clean strip of skin that lay above Shivani’s lips – right where a moustache would have been, had she not taken care to constantly shave it off. “An escape, perhaps?” he whispered.

Shivani flinched at his touch, and the Corporal’s expression changed. He appeared to have confirmed something about her.

“Ah,” he said craftily, wagging the same finger at her face. “I see who you are, now”. His broad smile grew wider. “You should come with me,” he turned around expecting her to follow without question. 

“But I have my duties here.” Shivani said, grasping at straws. The Corporal sighed, and simply pointed at his Corporal insignia. Shivani folded her hands behind her back, her mind racing. He was not giving her a command, but a firm enough suggestion that it would be very unwise for her to outrightly disobey him. 

Sgt. Paul chose that exact moment to interrupt. “What in bloody hell is going on here?” he snarled, pushing Shivani away from the Corporal. “Is this the army or a gaggle of milksops?” He glared at Shivani, frightening her with his ferocity. Then he turned his attention to the corporal. “You,” Paul looked at him in annoyance. “Off with your unit or I’ll have a word with the captain-sahib about your dilly-dallying.” 

The man smiled at Paul, seemingly unmoved by the white man’s outburst. “I was just having a word with your man here, Sergeant-sahib.” He indicated Shivani with a loose gesture of his hand. “Tell me. Is he your man in bed as well?” 

A loud crack rang out in the air. The voices in the market hushed down, Sgt. Paul had slapped the Corporal right across his face. 

“It looks that the captain-sahib will be hearing about this after all, at the earliest.” Paul said coldly. He turned to the sepoys under his command, who were trailing about, and shouted at them. 

“Well, why are you standing there like buffaloes? Get on with it!” He indicated Shivani to follow them, but still refused to meet her gaze. She stumbled, as she trudged behind her fellow sepoys. 

Her body was trembling; had her secret been this easy to uncover? A terrible sense of unease had washed over her after hearing the Corporal’s words. As she glanced back, she saw him smiling, while Paul was frowning. 

***

Paul returned late that night. Shivani was expecting him to reprimand her. But instead, he came bearing some unexpected news. “The Captain has informed me that the Civil Guardian of the island will be hosting a dinner at his residence tomorrow.” 

There was a calculated pause, as Paul gauged their reactions before continuing, “We have also been invited. I will be asked to stand with the white officers. The rest of you will have to take up miscellaneous duties.”

Then he looked down and studied his boots, “Shiv will be reporting to the Captain directly. They have some special arrangements for you.” He looked at her with a strange expression. She thought she caught a touch of worry in it, but it vanished as quickly as it appeared. 

The moon was dead that night, so they wouldn’t have been able to play chess even if they wanted to. Normally, on a night like this, Shivani wouldn’t have been surprised if she fell asleep to the steady rush of the waves in darkness. But there was a pit of fear in her gut – the question over this ‘special arrangement’ that they had planned for her – churned and kept her awake. Still, the privacy of the dark afforded her the opportunity to let her hair down. She let the strands flap in the salt-licked wind, allowing them to brush over her face like soothing hands. 

“It’s not that I dislike the other white officers,” Paul’s voice came through the darkness, quiet. She felt the larger man stir. In her mind, he was standing, as he always did, watching over the parapet. “I’m only a half-white anyway,” he paused. “Mother’s side. Never met her though; they sent her off to England for sleeping with a dirty native.” Their muslin shade flapped as a low wind sallied across the wall. 

“You won’t find it,” Shivani said. 

“Find what?” he asked. 

“Whatever you hope to see in all your hours standing there,” came the reply. There was a long pause where neither of them spoke. 

“Perhaps,” he said finally. He crossed over to where she sat and settled down beside her. Shivani had not anticipated this; she froze, suddenly concerned about her hair that was let down, like a woman’s. She worried him falling asleep, leaning into her body. 

“I don’t understand the pieces on the chessboard,” he said, looking into the dark. “Even the white pawns won’t accept me. And the coloured ones escape my understanding – they fight for an Empire that isn’t theirs? They believe what the whites tell them – that they’re inferior.”    

“We build our roads,” Shivani said with a shrug. “Then we find signs to remind ourselves why we built them that way.” She couldn’t see Paul’s expression in the darkness, but his words reflected his outrage.

“But that is what is inherently wrong in all of this. It’s just – wrong!” The words simmered in the air for a while. A burst of spittle from another large wave showered over them. 

The sergeant was a good man, Shivani thought. She already knew this of course, but perhaps the realisation had crept in recently. They were both prisoners on their own islands. He was white, but he treated them as equals. She had a man’s appearance, yet she felt the femininity stirring inside her at the sound of his words. 

“I don’t know what they have in store for you tomorrow,” Paul said, after another long pause. “Nothing too pleasant, I imagine.” He looked at her face, and continued, “I probably won’t be allowed too close to the Civil Guardian. Likely to be surrounded by white men proper… And there’s your man. The Corporal.”

Shivani jerked upwards at the mention of him. Paul smiled grimly. “Well-connected chap. Knew the Captain quite well. Should have anticipated that.” A sigh escaped his lips. 

A hush fell over them and Shivani knew it would probably be the one which lulls them to sleep. But right before she winked out, she distinctly heard Paul say, “The stars are quite bright today.” And he had seen her with her hair down. There simply was no way to unpave roads already laid out. 

*** 

The wind swirled around in highs and lows as they assembled outside. The clouds marred the sun with their hands, painting them over in shadow. The buzzing of insects marred the cries of gulls, forecasting rain. Paul surveyed the sky for a moment, then wordlessly climbed into the cart. Shivani sat beside him and almost immediately, she felt conscious of his presence. She had a strong urge to press her hand against his and to look into his eyes for assurance. But everytime she worked herself up to it, her courage wilted away. 

Paul, for his part, said little. He seemed alert, continuously asking their driver and a couple of other sepoys about the landscape. There wasn’t much to see – kilometres of sand, rock and sparse vegetation. Occasionally, they saw indentured workers shuffling past, carrying tools and machetes. “Time for the sugar harvest,” said the driver with a nod. 

The Corporal was waiting for them when they arrived at the Civil Guardian’s residence. As they trooped up the small hill upon which the villa was situated, he gaily peppered Paul and Shivani with information. “The Spanish sahibs built this style of villa a few years after the Moorish reconquest back in Iberia. As you can see,” he pointed to shrubs and small trees that populated the slope, “there is greenery from England, some parts of Spain and even the Americas”. 

“I see.” Paul said, “Place does seem nice enough. Might be able to wrangle a fiefdom out of it if a man’s capable enough.” 

The Corporal nodded knowingly, “Very astute, Sergeant-sahib,” he lowered his voice so that only the two of them could hear. “The Civil Guardian is an old, hobbled man. Sent here because he accumulated a considerable amount of debt in the old world. He is much like you and your bed-man – an escapist.” The corporal laughed.   

As they crossed a line of porticoed fences that surrounded the house, Shivani noted the quaintess of the place. It definitely did not give an impression of imperial power. Paul touched her hand just then, and she looked up to see him looking concerned. She felt a tightness in her chest just then. They had truly bared their souls to each other last night, the vulnerability that it had left was still fresh on her mind. She touched the tight knot of her hair again. An illusion of manliness. 

“He’d gotten a good look at her in the morning,” she thought. The Sergeant was taller, had a stronger physique compared to her; and it had only dawned on her now. . Instinctively, she had to suppress the urge to bite her lips for fear that it would send a definite and irreversible signal to others standing nearby. “I’ll be alright,” she told him. “Whatever happens, will happen.”

“Aye,” he muttered. 

The dinner was a leisurely, sleep-inducing affair. Most of the white officers and their staff merely stood about chatting with one another, while the sepoys and domestic staff waited on them. Shivani was shuttled around, assigned to a middle-aged clerk and his wife first. Then, she was ordered to hold a tray of cigarettes for an East African gun merchant, as he engaged in a shooting contest with a Colonial officer. 

“So far so good,” she thought. Perhaps they had called off this planned ‘special arrangement’. She searched out for Paul. After a few minutes, she spotted him and her heart sank. He was bouncing around as he had predicted. A few white officers did engage in conversation with him. But every time he appeared to be getting involved into a discussion, he was ignored politely. 

As she struggled over this, the Corporal called her over. “Go inside and head upstairs. The Civil Guardian is waiting for you.” 

***

The interior of the house was as tasteful as the exterior. Shivani climbed the narrow staircase of wood and looked around, uncertainly. There were several rooms in there, but she wasn’t sure which was the right one. 

“Oh! There you are!” She turned to see an older woman striding towards her. “You look even better than what they described! How wonderful” Without breaking a step, she clasped Shivani’s hand and led her into one of the rooms. 

Once they were inside, the woman closed the door behind them and took care to latch it. “Don’t want anyone to interrupt us,” she giggled. Then, putting her hands on her hips, she regarded Shivani closely. “Yes. Nice, full lips. Show me your arms, love?” 

She appraised Shivani’s hands  and gave a nod, “I quite like the shape of your jaw as well, dear. We have quite a lot to work with. Why don’t you sit down over there?” Shivani wavered at first, but then meekly complied. She found herself on a stool in front of an old mirror. In it, she could clearly see the harsh, masculine lines of her face. The bushiness of her brows. The roughness of her cheeks. She choked. She was clearly a man from just a coarse glance. 

“Now now. I’ve handled my looks for years now. And I’m no spring chicken myself” Shivani looked incredulously at the old woman, unable to believe this was actually a man in woman’s clothing. “Oh!” she said, cupping her face. “Where are my manners! Please call me Mary. And you would be?”

“Shivani,” she replied shyly. 

“Shivani, is it?” Mary said kindly, “Shivani. Vani,” and nodded to herself. “Well Vani. I like to meet a lot of girls like you and I like to spend my time passing a little wisdom to them. But before that,” she lifted a small brush from the table, “I would like to have the honour of drawing out your inner woman”. 

Shivani felt impatient, but it was a delicious kind of impatience. The kind where you lose track of time, but feel its grip anyway because you’re so eager. Slowly, meticulously, Mary helped remove the hair from her chest, arms and legs using a razor and bowl of water. They treated her skin with a few poultices and concoctions to get rid of the years of blocked pores and lack of care. 

For her lips, Mary smeared beeswax over the cracked skin and kissed her when she was done. Shivani’s eyes widened as she experienced something differently glorious. 

Mary smiled. “It’s always worth it when I see the realisation on their face.” Mary cupped Shivani’s cheek and said, “Remember this. Our lives are not a sin. We’re all worthy of love, no matter what.” 

“You have a man out there, don’t you?” Shivani gave a halting nod in reply. Mary kissed her again. “Well. Let’s spruce you up for him some more, then.” 

Her eyebrows receded to thinned-lines. Her hair was freed from its prison and left to bask in its rightful place, on the flanks of her face. Mary even added some ground up rock-paste for her eyelids and some mild ink for her lashes. “There we go,” Mary said softly. They were still only halfway done when someone knocked on the door loudly. Shivani panicked and half-arose from her stool, but Mary shushed and walked towards the door gracefully. 

Sergeant Paul stood on the other side. The first thing he saw, right in front oh him, was Shivani. “What in – ” he started, eyes bulging in their sockets. 

“Oh quiet now,” Mary said sharply, in a very headmistress voice. “Did they not teach you to be respectful of ladies back in officer school, hm?” Paul looked like he wanted to say something. He was completely transfixed by what he saw in Shivani. 

“Is this your man, then, Vani?” Mary asked in amusement. “He seems to be just as shy as you are!” When their mutual silence confirmed her guess, Mary burst into laughter.

“Oh the two of you remind me so much of my husband and I, when we were young and in London.” She shooed Paul away. “And honestly speaking, London was not ready for us,” she said, with a shrug. 

Shivani still found it hard to believe that this person used to wear men’s clothes. Mary had a certain statuesque demeanour. Her grace, the tilt of her head, the gestures she made were all so feminine. This woman was the Civil Guardian of the island?  

The next thing was the dress; they picked a suitably bright-coloured one to match Vani’s skin after which Mary slyly added padding to her chest. And though she blushed, it was then that Shivani felt that she was reasonably ready to be seen by Paul. Mary patted her back gently and said, “You poor little thing. I can see that you’ve suffered quite a bit from all the close-minded folk you’ve come across. It’s quite alright to feel this way.” She beamed at Shivani. “I’ll call Paul inside and let you two have some alone time?”

Shivani hadn’t said much in the past couple of hours. Everything had been so overwhelming and unexpected. This incredible woman had, in a few minutes, made her feel accepted. She had settled her confusions towards herself, and importantly – the hopes that she had threaded to a future with Paul. 

“I owe you so much, you have no idea..” 

“Oh quiet now,” Mary said airily. “You owe the world nothing for being who you are. I’m just someone who doesn’t want someone else to go through what I did.” 

Shivani swallowed hard. “I think I am ready to see Paul.” 

Mary nodded kindly and headed towards the door. 

“Wait!” Shivani cried, “I need a bindi. Do you have one?” 

“Hold on, dear. I have a box of them right here.” With a sigh of relief, Shivani opened the box to place a small bindi on her forehead. 

As she closed the lid, she saw that it had been embossed in the shape of a seagull. She hesitated, wondering what it meant. Behind her, she heard the door being unlatched; and Paul walked inside cautiously. Seeing her focused on the lid, he peered over to see inside. An albatross screeched past their window just then, drawing their attention away from the box. And when their eyes turned back, their gaze fell on the mirror in front of them where they saw themselves together for one fleeting moment.

A The Bombay Review Creative Writing Workshop Piece 

Abinesh Kumar is the sort of chap you’d want by your side when you don’t have a radio and you need an endless supply of pointless facts. He listens to harsh black metal and thinks that Bergatt was one of the best metal albums ever made. You can often find him chasing cats to the despair of his parents and wearing black t-shirts in spite of the heat of Chennai’s sun. He has lived in Tamil Nadu all his life though he was born in Bangalore and is one more Indian woven from this coloured tapestry of a country. 

Our stories run parallel courses, break into a mesh of tributaries, gather the spoils of land and air, and unburden their salted tears into the vast and welcoming sea.

I can remember the day like it was yesterday. The men in blue brought laurels to the nation that night by winning the world cup. In the house, everybody was elated. My father and brother revelled in a camaraderie that had swept over the entire country. Cricket was a national obsession, the sport of the masses, and the day was a cause for celebration. Their joy was blind to the troubles that were brewing under the same roof.

On that very night, something else had happened as well. A flower had bloomed on the insides of my underwear. Amma and I were watching the victory celebrations on the television. Distractedly, I left the living room to quickly relieve myself. As I squatted down and shed my underwear, I found myself staring at an earth-brown blush that I had never seen before. I investigated, I implored, I questioned. But the jaded fabric gave me no answers. Four minutes later, I abandoned my efforts, and the old underwear, and found a fresh one for the day.

In the morning, when I woke up to my mother’s call, there was a great commotion around me. Bed-headed and confused, I stretched and looked around. But it seemed that the instructions were many.
Amma made me strip the bed of the bedsheets and blankets, making me dump them in a bucket for a wash. She then instructed me to sleep on a plastic mat that had been laid out on the floor. I plopped myself down on it, rather morosely.

She said, “You’re a big girl now, how exciting!”

I didn’t understand what the commotion was about in the beginning. When she gave me a sanitary pad, explaining how to wear it, I understood that I had got my period. I had gossiped about it, earlier with my friends, and we had imagined that there would be pain, agony, and a lot of embarrassment. I remembered the harmless blush I had found on the night before. I tried to reason with my mother. I must have stained it some other way. She knew how careless I could be!

Amma, this isn’t what you think.
Amma, why is Nanna avoiding me.
Amma, stop telling me what to do.

When I kicked up a fuss about all the chores she was asking me to do, my mother satiated me with a lot of sweets.

“See what your Nanamma has sent for you. She will come from the city soon to meet you. She is so happy that you are a big girl now.”

I couldn’t understand what she could have been happy about. I didn’t feel any different. But I calmed down for a while, appeased by the laddus. In the afternoon, my grandparents arrived from the city.
When she saw me sitting alone on a mat in my room, Nanamma exclaimed, “What a responsible girl. You be good and listen to what your Amma says.”

My grandmother was helping my amma prepare for the pooja. It felt like a festival. The entire family was gathered at home. There was good food and a lot of sweets. But I didn’t feel like I was part of the celebrations because I wasn’t allowed to step out of my room! I was growing impatient for it all to be over very soon.

During lunch, I could see that my family was sitting in the living room and eating lunch together. I expected to be called out as well. Mother came and placed my plate of food in front of me.

“Here, eat your food.”

“I want to eat while watching TV.”

“No, you have to eat here.”

“But why?”

“You can’t understand it now. Just do as I say. Sit properly.”

When I asked for some more sambhar, she dropped the food on the plate, taking care not to touch me or my utensils. I broke down. I couldn’t find words for it then but my own mother had made me feel like everything I touched would turn impure, or dirty. This can’t be true, this I knew. But we were good Hindus and the gods cannot be slighted.

***

In the village of Char Bramagacha, in North Bangladesh, which is twenty kilometres off the Brahmaputra river, water is a divine being. In a subcontinent where most rivers take female names, the Brahmaputra, the son of Brahma, is a large and powerful exception.
And he cannot be slighted.

Shopna had an imagination that was almost infectious.

One afternoon, Nani told Shopna the story of Brahmaputra. Amogha, the wife of a sage named Santanu, once asked Lord Brahma, the god of creation, for a child. The Lord Brahma then blessed Amogha with a son who took the form of water. Shantanu placed the child right in the middle of the four great mountains — Kailash, Gandhamadana, Jarudhi, and Sambwartakka. He grew into a great lake named Brahmakunda.

Parasurama, an incarnation of Lord Vishnu, was exiled for committing the sin of killing his own mother and father. So great was his sin that the axe he used to kill them was stuck to his hand. The great sages told him that he must visit the holy waters to absolve his sin. When he reached Brahmakunda, he found that the rains would flood the villages near the lake as the water had nowhere to go. Parasurama cleaved the banks open to help the villagers. To Parashurama’s great relief, the axe came loose, the water washed the blood away on his axe. The river flowed crimson for many days.

Shopna rushed to her friend Ajana, whose hut was by the river, to tell her stories of thunder and lightning and torrential runs. She enriched the stories with her own imagination. Stories of families who would seek shelter from the agitated heavens.

She said that many nights and days later, when the rain had finally stopped, the air was as crisp as dry chilli, and the whole world was soaked in newness; the villagers undertook a journey to rebuild their homes again. To their surprise, they found that the lake had taken the form of a silver river, dazzling the eye as it disappeared into the sunset.

Shopna and Ajana sat by the river on rocks softened by years of silken friction. They stared quietly at the bend in the river, imagining the gush and roar of that beautiful destruction which birthed the river many centuries ago.

Many moons later, Shopna returned to Ajana to tell her another story about the Brahmaputra, only this one would be truly scary. She planned to describe stretches of the river where monsters overturned boats and swallowed neighbouring lands.

Once Shopna reached Ajana’s hut, she called out,“Ajju!”

She saw the window of the hut being pried open by delicate hands. “Come! Let’s play.”

“I can’t play with you today.”

“Why?” Shopna asked, “We can go to Bishnu’s shop and share his sweets afterwards! Why won’t you play with me now?”

“You will know,” said Ajana and closed the window.

Shopna went back to her home to sulk for the rest of the day. She was not used to being refused the company of her friend. When her Nani called her for lunch, she refused to eat. When her Ma told her to bring water from the well, she refused to do her chores. She barely answered anybody who tried to make her talk. Finally, her Nani sat by her bed and pushed her to tell her beloved grandmother what was bothering her.

“It’s Ajana,” said Shopna. “She won’t talk to me.”

Her Nani patted her. “It’s just for a few days, my lovely Shona. I think I know what it is. Your Ajana has become a woman now. She cannot step out of the house during the time of the gandhagi. You will understand when you become a woman like her.”

“But, Nani, why can’t one come out during the time of the gandhagi?”

“Why, of course, it is because, during the time of the gandhagi, evil spirits can smell blood and possess the woman. So the woman must stay indoors and not touch anybody until such an unfortunate period has passed.”

Shopna cried, “I didn’t know that Ajana was in danger, Nani, I won’t meet her until she is well again. And I pray, I pray so hard, that such a thing won’t befall her ever again.”

Nani comforted her for a few minutes. “My dear Shona, it is nothing to worry, it happens every month to every girl, and, thankfully, our tradition has some practices that we can follow so nobody is hurt by the evil spirits.”

“Every month? Why would this happen every month to my friend, Nani? This is all too unfair,” said Shopna. Unsatisfied with Nani’s gentle explanations, she cried late into the night before falling asleep.

A few days later, Shopna ran into her friend at the village fair. The girls screeched each other’s names and hugged and kissed like long lost sisters.

“My dear Ajju, I missed you so much. I prayed for you every day, you know?”

“Oh! It was dreadful, Shona. I couldn’t wait for it to all be over.”

“Come, tell me everything! Nani told me the most frightful things!”

“Later! You see the first thing about this is… that it is a secret! We will talk about it at the river tonight”

Shopna hugged her friend. “Okay.”

“Ma found out when I was helping her with the cooking. I had only got up for a minute to bring her more water when she saw that there was a stain on my kurti. She grabbed the big pot, and everything else in fact, immediately throwing out the food that we had just made and told me to sit in a corner. She didn’t tell me anything about what was going on, and said, almost discreetly that I can’t go anywhere near the river until the gandhagi passes.”

“Why was that?”

“It is because the water from the river is used by the whole village for cooking, bathing and praying every day. And of course, because the river is our god. We cannot let our impurity spoil the river.”

“So, you did not bathe for these many days?”

“Yes. On the final day, I woke before sunrise, carried a pot of water far into the woods, away from everyone. I buried the spoilt cloth so that no one will be touched by its curse. And then I washed myself.”

“That must have been so scary.”

“It was. But I am all well now so it must have worked!”

“Yes, it did, but how I wish it never happened in the first place, my dear Ajju! Now, look, I have just so many stories to tell you. Do you want to listen?”

Ajana nodded her head vigorously and the two girls talked about other things, things that had nothing to do with their gandhagi experience. Ajana blinked in wonder, as Shopna waved her hands animatedly, each monster more vicious than the last one.

June arrived and brought new adventures for curious, high-spirited young girls. Shopna’s parents were harvesting their summer crops while Ajana’s parents were busy preparing for the harvest festival. The girls seemed to have made peace with the changes that had come with the turning of seasons. Presently, Shopna had climbed a young jamun tree that bent over the river bank. She shook the branch of the tree until the fruits fell onto the ground in greens, pinks and purples. Ajana was collecting the large fleshy fruits in the folds of her skirt. Shopna then plucked and pulled at the fruits in the branches, dropping them into her friend’s lap.

They found a cool spot under a tree to spread out their haul then they sat down to relish the fruits of their effort. They had a lot to chat about since Ajana had been skipping school to help her family through the busy season.

“I won’t be coming back to school this time,” said Ajana

“Why not?”

“I overheard my parents talking”

“But why won’t you come back?”

“They say I am too old for school.”

“But I am as old as you.”

“But it’s different. You know that.”

Shopna did understand that Ajana was being different these days. She didn’t climb trees anymore complaining that she wasn’t well enough. She refused to play with her often. She barely came out alone to roam the streets, visit the fairs or explore the markets.

“Can we play after I am back from school though?”

“Yes, we will still play after you are back from school.”

Even after they ate to their heart’s content, there were still so many jamuns left over that the girls were perplexed. They gathered the left-over jamuns in their arms and walked back to Ajana’s hut.

When the girls reached the hut, Ajana’s mom was bending over her little brother, trying to keep him from crying.

Shopna asked, “Will the little one have some jamuns?”

Ajana’s mother laughed, “He is too young for jamuns, beta. Why don’t you store them somewhere and you can eat them later.”

Ajana scrambled around for a plastic box. Once she found an empty one, she led Shopna with a glint in her eyes.

“Let me show you my secret corner”

“What is that?”

Ajana led Shopna to the back of the hut where she had managed to fashion a small alcove by removing a few bricks in the wall. In the winter, they would store the dry grass and sticks there but it was not winter yet so she used it as her own corner to stowe away some of her belongings for her time of the month.

“It’s my secret place where I hide my soiled clothes and rags from my parents.”

“It must be so exciting to have secrets,” Shopna thought. “How clever you are!” she said out loud.

It had been over ten days since she met Ajana. Shopna was visibly agitated and restless.

“Look, Nani, it has been many days since I met Ajana. What has happened to her?”

Nani looked uncharacteristically somber. Usually, she would scold her and tell her not to fret so much but today she seemed quiet.

“Why don’t you answer me? What do you think has happened to her? Has her gandhagi not passed yet? She promised that she would meet me first thing once it is all over”

“Shona, my dear, Ajana is not very well. They have taken her across the river to get her treated.”

“What do you mean, she is not well? What’s wrong?”

“It is the evil which has got her. The dhobi families by the river live in such filth. Not even our rich traditions can protect them for they are cursed! No wonder this has happened… I have always told you to not play with kids from those slums. Listen to me now and stay away from Ajana or else you will fall ill too.”

“But, Nani!” contested Shopna.

“Bas, I will hear no more.”

No part of Shopna’s imagination, by any stretch, could have guessed that the most terrible of stories were the ones which were true.

***

As I grew older, the period didn’t confuse me so much anymore. My mother had softened her resolve after hearing many complaints. As a working mother, she barely had any time to enforce tradition with an iron fist.

When the family elders came home, or when we visited them, or when it was a festival, the stallion presence of tradition loomed large again. I don’t know when I resolved to keep the revolutions of my body a secret, but I did. Somewhere along the way, I had decided that I would be a carrier of secrets, and not a carrier of impurity. Because, in this life, this corrupted me far less.

You see, a flower had bloomed on the insides of my underwear.

It wasn’t the flower of destruction. No, no, it was the flower of creation. I wouldn’t dare claim that I understand it. Hardly! Why must the blood that runs through the veins of many civilisations die so many deaths at the back of my underwear?

I don’t know much… but I do know that this must be something powerful. And how can something so powerful, even beautiful, ever make me feel weak?

Then, it must be that what is infectious is not impurity, but what is infectious is fear. It is fear of my woman’s body, of its unexplored potency. And, at the centre of that fear, I have died a million deaths.

Much like the blood at the back of my unwitting underwear.

A The Bombay Review Creative Writing Workshop piece.

Meghana Yerabati hails from Hyderabad, India. When she is not researching stories that are moving financial markets, she is reading literary pieces that capture the shared human experience across contexts and geographies. She primarily writes prose and poetry that captures the experiences of women in South Asian countries.

disclaimer – This is a TBR Creative Writing Workshop piece. To retain the author’s voice and theme, and at her specific request, no changes have been made to the plot and development of the story.

Ruby, a colleague of mine in her late forties, winked at me when I told her that I wouldn’t accompany  her in the evening that day. We share a cab every day after work. Sometimes, we walk up to the shopping mall nearby to pick up trinkets or to treat ourselves to our favourite ice creams. We watch a Bengali play in the office club every now and then.

My elderly friend would have pulled my leg with saucy queries if my mobile phone had not intervened on time with its shrill ringtone.  

“Hello,” I said nervously.

“Hi! I am Rahul,” greeted a male voice.

Rahul Majumder: 33 years, 5ft.11inches, MBA, Finance Analyst in a multinational company. 

Two months ago, my father had marked his profile in the matrimonial column of a newspaper. His parents visited us a couple of times and they appreciated our home-made cookies and very soon, considered me a perfect match for their son. Today, Papa informed me at the breakfast table that Rahul had taken my number from him. My father was pleased that the boy wished to meet me, in a cafeteria near my office.

Although Café Coffee was just a ten minutes walk from my office, Ruby gestured to me and said, “Say thirty minutes.” 

I responded, “Yes, Rahul, I’ll see you in thirty minutes, I mean half an hour.”

She hushed me when I enquired, “Why thirty minutes, Ruby?”She pushed me to the ladies’ restroom before I could enquire further.

She smiled at me and said, “You should meet your fiancé as the prettiest woman in the town.”

“What do you mean Ruby? You think I am ugly?”

“Of course not, I’ll probably break the head of anybody who says so.”

“Then…?”

“You should rearrange the pleats of your saree, dear. Look! You have messed them up.”

Since I joined office, I have seen her in high-neck, full sleeve salwar kameez. The only makeup she wore was her peach lipstick which suited her radiant complexion quite well. “Why don’t you wear a saree, Ruby?” I asked her.

“I don’t like to wear them,” she replied bluntly,busying herself with my hair.

“Why?” I insisted. Paying no attention to my curiosity, she ransacked her vanity bag and concentrated on accessories that would match my peacock blue silk.

“Aren’t you the same person, who is treated as the odd woman by most of our colleagues?” I mused. I have seen them sneering at her, and her old fashioned dressing style. One of them often mocks me by saying, “How do you get on with that boring bouncer?”

Ruby squatted on the floor to scrutinise the pleats of my saree. The hemline of her cotton kameez brushed on the dusty tiles below as she arranged the pleats with care and precision. I was awestruck at her skill in draping a saree. 

Holding a safety pin between her teeth, she grumbled, “Doesn’t know to drape a saree…What will this girl do at her in-laws house?” A sort of motherly affection dripped from her rebuke. She giggled and mock-wept at the same time.

The grooming session ended, with them booking a cab to reach the cafeteria on time. Rahul came forward to receive me with a bouquet of roses. 

He asked, “Were the roads jammed?” I nodded and reflected on the hullabaloo in the ladies’ restroom.

We talked casually, and then with interest. He seemed to be a sensible person with a sound sense of humour. He praised my smile and appreciated the complementary cup cakes that were served along with cappuccino. We discussed food and cuisines, and admired one another’s preferences in books, music and movies. Two-three rounds of coffee later, we poured out more details from our hearts, of our school days.

“So how long could you pursue the Parsi boy to do your Maths homework?” I asked slyly.

“As long as I wrote love letters on his behalf…but, just before the final term exams, Fenny broke up with my friend and it felt like the sky fell upon me,” he replied. I couldn’t help giggling when he said that every year, on the day of the Parents-Teacher meeting, he got a good thrashing from his father.

As we drove home, we shared other smaller tales of our trifling affairs. When we paused from all the stories, there was a brief silence. He stopped the car beside a park. 

Looking into my eyes, he said, “These were the smaller, unimportant stories…Can we not write a bigger one together?”  

“I think we can,” I said softly.

He held me in his arms and I gave in to rest my fatigued body against the warmth of his soft linen shirt. The crickets chirped from the dew-laden grass.

“Yes, pretty woman, we can,” he said, “but one thing is missing.”

He nudged me towards the car and opened the door. We got inside the car. A gentle breeze of newly-confessed love followed us. 

“What?” I asked as he gestured his hands in the air.

Like Aladdin, he fished into his pocket and produced a diamond ring. He looked at me and said, “I had picked out the ring for my wife-to-be months ago. It has been in my pocket for a long time, I never took it out when I met others. I want to today. Won’t this look nice? They seem to be a perfect match to your earrings too. I think the two look great together! He slipped it into my cold finger. 

Instantly, I remembered that I had put on Ruby’s diamond earrings. The phrase “perfect match” rang in my ears like a whistling siren. The deafening sound in my head transported me back to the ladies’ restroom.  

“Why didn’t you get married, Ruby?” I asked hesitatingly.  

 Her face became glum, a shadow passed it. She said, “I couldn’t be a perfect match for him.”

“Why was that, dear? Please tell me everything, what happened, and why.”

A gentle smile kindled the corners of her lips. She repeated, “beautiful” in a mocking-the-world tone.  

“One year and five months, that’s how long I was confined to the burns ward. The days passed slowly, in painful sessions of dressing, the half a dozen surgeries and anxiety.” She said, quietly. The crackers of Diwali had set ablaze my scarf on fire and in the wink of a moment, I was caught in a net of tall flames,” She shuddered as she narrated the darkest episode of her life.

“Twenty-six days were left for my wedding… Invitation cards were sent out…The marriage hall was booked, the caterers were paid in advance…the jewelry had been ordered,” she remembered.

“Did they not turn up?” I asked anxiously.

“Yes, they did. Suneel’s parents wept bitterly when they learnt that my chest was so severely burnt. That one of the breasts was disfigured beyond recovery.”

“And, what did your would-be husband say?”

“My parents told me that he was devastated too, there was talk that he wept for the ‘loss’.”

“Loss? What was that?” I looked at her.

“The loss our children would have faced due to their one-breasted mother.”

“Did he visit you in the hospital?”

“Maybe, he did. I don’t remember, my eyes were always heavy…When I came home from the hospital, my elder sister informed me that my younger sister was married to him and that they had moved to Delhi.”

“How could your parents…” Before, I could finish, Ruby interrupted me and said, “What else would have they done? Their meager savings were spent on my medical treatment, especially for the plastic surgery of my face. My elder brother-in-law helped us financially and it was on his suggestion that Bini, my sixteen-year old sister, was married to Suneel.”

Ruby’s eyes were dry but mine weren’t. “What do you feel when you meet him?”

“I don’t know, I don’t feel anything I guess,” she said firmly.“Because we never met in coffee shops.” Pushing a bobby pin into my hair, she said smiling, “His rejection cleared my way to become a Chartered Accountant. Otherwise, I would have been married off after my Intermediate exam, like my sisters and cousins.”

 “Suneel is not the only man of excellence in this world” I observed.

“That’s true,” she agreed.

“Didn’t your parents look for other matches?” I enquired.

“As far as I remember, six suitors had responded to my father’s ads,” she said as she tightened the screws of her diamond studs on my earlobes.

“Couldn’t you choose a better-half from the lot of that half dozen?”

“A widower with a toddler, a divorced lawyer, an aged moneylender, a bankrupt shopkeeper and a school teacher with polio affected limbs.  I could read their minds when their eyes hovered on my body to examine the lacerated skin underneath my clothes.”

 She recollected that her father was a tall man in his youth. Over the years, he looked diminutive. The guilt of fathering four daughters worsened the aching droop of his shoulders. Her accident made him hunchbacked.  He could not sleep due to his hunch, which eventually became cankerous. Under the sleepless sky, he counted the stars and talked with the moon. When he died it seemed to Ruby that even death could not lull him to sleep. His unblinking eyes stared at her like the drought-stricken fields in May. 

“Papa! My darling Papa,” she sighed. I tearfully repeated her words. She comforted me. Ruby and I stood like two vertically drawn parallel lines in front of the large mirror. The walls of the restroom became foggy. The mirror faded into dark waves of music. Seated on a large lotus, Ruby played the flute. The sublime melody of her music filled my mind with resilience and tranquility. I walked through the cave of night towards an aura of unfathomable light. 

“I thought, you’ll like this nocturnal raga,” said Rahul. His words woke me up from my trance.  

“It reminds me of a very special friend of mine,” I replied.

Rahul raised his brows, curiously. I smiled at him and rested my head on his shoulder. The harmonious notes of Kalavati * flowed in all directions from the stereo in the car.

*kalavati is a midnight/late night raga in Indian classical music

Shyamasri Maji lives in Durgapur, West Bengal. She teaches English literature at Durgapur Women’s College. She has been writing stories and poems in English since 2016. Her short stories have been published in Muse India (“The Nettle Leaves”), Six Seasons Review (“Maya’s Apartment”) and Story Mirror (“The Birthday Party”). Her poems have been published in Setu, Indian Periodical, Kolkata Fusion (a blog) and Teesta Review

“You were an eccentric child, always crying to be bathed.”

It’s a memory snippet of my mother, who was a teenager when she had me, always brought up while oiling my toiled black hair. Married at nine, pregnant at twelve, her fondest memories were of me growing up, stumbling over the hedges and thresholds, shattering porcelain items and priceless silverware of the towering haveli in my wake. I was the grand-daughter of a zamindar, an upper-class landlord of Calcutta, and a friend of the East India Company. My father, Rajkumar Roy, was a vigilant soldier, often armed and suited in a red patented British uniform. He was a young and angry man, an aspiring apostle of the rich community.

From all of my childhood, my most cherished moments were of me treading across the community pool, brimming with bright turquoise, icy-blue flickering pellets of water, almost too perfect for the human eye. It was a false picture, built and presented to the world, to the early flamingos, or the aspiring seagulls flocking in and out of the big tiled hall room—a calming image to ease the children of mighty Englishmen in, motivating them to dip their ankles in the waist-deep pool. 

I loved speeding down to the depths of my chimerical ocean, filtering away the images of sparsely dressed white men eyeing my flat chest wrapped inside a tight black second skin. Their eyes were pearly white, sometimes red from an unknown need, their palms flattened on the wet floor and their feet fidgety, their minds restive and faces vexed by the surrounding. They waited on their pale blonde children, little bratty boys, all battered and moist, tearing through the perfect ocean. 

My father, now retired, scarred from battles and civil wars, coached the British soldiers’ offspring to swim. He spent his post-service days directing the tiny clones of their fathers, instructing them about human anatomy, the power of lungs, the mechanism of mastering the ocean. 

We watched the group from afar, my little brother and I, the two browns amidst the contrasting gang of whites. We galloped across the pool, punched the thin blue surface with our knuckles, and splattered the water around, marking our victories with a fit of laughter and an invisible trophy. My brother would chuckle out loud, his teeth would clinker, and two round dents would form in his cheeks. 

Our voices echoed and turned our father’s head, who silenced us with his stony expression. My brother and I never joined the group of boys about and around; we didn’t need the directions. We knew our ABCs, the angles of our blistered pink hands and our salted feet, the beats of our hearts, the ticks of the watches on us, the bass of our chlorine-filled breath. We knew our trained bodies and our blue ocean. 

“Mira is nine-years-old, she must start veiling herself and stay at home,” my grandfather chided one day as I jogged inside the house, wet from the swim, covered under the shade of a thick woolen coat.

My feet stumbled, at the start of the staircase. I panicked and ran upstairs, doubling over the bed. The mattress had always been warm and cozy, the quilt was handwoven.

My mother tried to cajole me, “It’s for your good. Don’t you want to make an obedient wife?”

I wailed, “No, I don’t want to be a wife, I want to swim!”

***

Years passed, and this time he said, “Mira is fifteen now, your wife had borne two children by this age, Rajkumar. It is time we found her an honourable husband.”

I didn’t cry or wail. I was a good woman now, a dutiful lady of the house, always veiled, with my eyes directed to the ground.

***

I opened my eyes, one of them hurt, an ant had made itself comfortable under the hood of my right eye. I tried not to kill it, I assumed that it killed itself by narrowing its way under the eyelid. There is a depression on the other side of the bed but no presence of a human body. I slid myself off the red sheets, patterned with flowers and leaves, embroidered on a pin-prickling fabric, threaded to perfection with sparkling beads and golden threads. 

The sheet was spotted in the center, beautified by the spill of my virginal blood. I eyed the spot vacantly as I shrugged off the red saree enveloping me. A mirror, kind of extravagant with its golden finishing, watched me slither the garment off my feverish skin. I moved round and round, squirming and freeing myself from the silk hound, deliberately avoiding the crack of the bedroom door.

There was frantic movement outside the room. 

A man hovered in the hallway, tall and broad, in a white kurta and dhoti. He was combing the curved tips of his thick mustache, his eyes fixated at the light from the narrow opening of the bedroom door. He was tapping his toes and cursing under his breath. I could hear the sound of the carpet crunching under him, the constant clicking of his tongue, the impatience in his stride. 

He was waiting for me.

I stared at the foreign latticed carvings and the bare specks spread across the wall, the archaic paint was stripping away to match the irregular shapes on the crusty ceiling.

The red fabric was now hurdled and twisted around my henna-garnished feet—the colour of which was bleak and orange—‘A bad marriage’ a negative omen my aunt had snottily pointed out to an avid female-only audience watching me roll into my bridal saree. 

The gold ornaments from my family hung low around my neck and wrists, detached and broken from a lost fight. My ears burned sourly, remembering the jhumkas that lay severed on the bed, the sound of the sharp rip, the gnawing and the twisting, the surreal feeling of blood dripping down my neck. 

I stepped away from the revolting fabric and my bloodied reflection in the mirror. The chafed skin of my thighs shot up with searing pain as I moved towards an opening that led to the bathroom. A white tub in the centre of the room seemed familiar and inviting, deep and warm at the same time. 

I poured in hot water from the buckets and twisted open the golden tap. Cold water erupted from the end of the mouth, grazing the sides and accumulating in the rusted tub. I dipped my ankle, testing the water, as the reds of henna and dried blood let loose.

It burned greatly but I continued to push my foot down, into the depths of my saving ocean before plunging myself completely. My skin numbed and treated itself to the high temperature of the water, my swollen face barely wobbling above the surface. 

All my brain could register was the steamy smoke, or that is all it wanted to register.

Suddenly I felt impenetrable, unhinged by the masticated skin between my thighs. I felt free, unaffected by the unexplainable song, probably a song of danger, that clouded over me. It played in my ears and rang through my brain, coercing me to stay in the bathtub.

***

Somewhere between midnight and dawn, the downpour had throttled the roof of the house, compelling the occupants to gather in the main verandah. My mystic green saree and headcover mingled with the moss green of the outer walls, camouflaging me from the crowd in a way. The villagers had rushed inside the gates of the big Sahib’s mansion to find a cemented shelter from the storm, sparking chaos across the village. The water was flooding the huts, miscreants started looting the roofs were being torn down, the children sobbing, agitated mothers were reasoning, and abled men shuffled with handmade weapons to fight the thieves and bandits. 

My rich husband was down-south buying land for the Englishmen. Some say he was looking for a second wife, some even say that he was having an affair with a courtesan, some say there was a virgin priestess involved. I turned a deaf ear to all the alleged rumors; I had no worries, I didn’t need any assurances. If anything, I would be relieved to learn if my husband had preferences for another woman or women. 

I remained barren. Five years and my stomach was as flat as it could be. 

I had fallen prey to the vestiges of forced pregnancy thrice, but each time God had pulled out of the plan and left me crib-less. I didn’t feel sad, and neither did I shed a tear while the handmaiden took the green-lifeless-slob of flesh away from me. I watched and I absorbed. What was I going to teach the child anyway?

To swim?

A loud cry for help broke out; it was a child, a girl, as young as I was when I swam. She was holding on to a tree trunk, her feet inches away from the dangerous waters coursing on the ground. The mother of the child, dressed in a saree torn at the edges, hammered her chest with her palms loudly, demanding someone, anyone, to jump and save her grappling child. 

The men stood by, their faces sunk with fear and cowardice, and restless hands pulling the sides of their dhotis.

Nobody helped.  I stripped away the green hood covering my head. My long hair revealed, the red sindoor decked on my hairline began to drip down my forehead.

There were a lot of oohs and aahs from the men and women. There was a flaring of nostrils at this, some mutterings of disapproval. The men gawked at my full bosom in fascination, their eyes a shade of crimson, same as the old Englishmen who watched me swim as a child in my black swimwear. 

I shed the saree and threw it over my head before diving deep into the water. 

It was cold, very cold. And it was dark.

I struck out my arms and my invisible webbed-fins, pushing and pulling, striving to cross the distance between me and the child. My head broke through the surface to draw in some oxygen, I struggled to inhale due to the lashing rain. The shower was heavy and powerful, forcing my body to stagger under the bed of water. I skimmed through the uprooted plants and floating furniture, breaking past unknown objects.

“Help…” The weakening sound of the child prompted me to dive back under the ocean and swim the remaining length in a matter of minutes. 

“Help…” 

I clawed up the trunk, pulling the child above my shoulders. She had lost consciousness, and her spine was close to teetering off the edge. I climbed over a seemingly strong looking branch, setting myself and the child against the trunk of the tree. I cradled the little girl’s head in my lap before breathing into her mouth, following it up with soft slaps to her cheeks. 

She woke up with a start and almost fell off the branch. I enveloped her body with mine, pulling her close to my chest, I could hear her tiny heart beating up a crescendo. She opened her eyes, and blinked for a few seconds.

She smiled. The arch of her bruised cheeks curved in to form two explicit dimples. 

***

A The Bombay Review Creative Writing Workshop piece

Mariam is a Content and Communications Specialist based in Hyderabad. When she is not working on her debut novel, you can find her exploring historical sites or devouring a cup of piping hot Irani chai at Charminar. She draws her writing inspiration from the Urdu tehzeeb, Hyderabad’s food and culture, and the city’s still-standing old ruins. She is also a poet and runs a poetry page on Instagram @zulfyina.

 

‘Mummy! Mummy!’

My nine year old son, Srijon, shouted from the bed room.

That was Sunday morning. Unlike other days of the week, I woke up half an hour late. I was a little early to bed last night, had a bad headache. After I returned from my hospital duties, I started to work on my art. It was a painting of an elephant with its bent trunk, seen from a frontal angle. 

I was drawing with white, acrylic fabric colour, on a piece of black cloth. My plan was to give this to my niece on her birthday. If not for the headache, I would have finished work last evening itself I finished our dinner half an hour before the usual time, before heading to sleep. My husband, Rupankar, said he would remain awake for sometime to help Srijon finish his homework. The world was in a messed up state, suffering from the Coronavirus pandemic. Like many other countries, India was under lock down as well. All the schools in the country were closed, as was Srijon’s. But the school was in touch with the students, through cellphones, the internet, screens to be precise. 

Students were glued to their mobile phones during the usual school hours. Everything was being done online, their lectures, lessons, and homework too.

When Srijon called me, I had just finished my craft and was taking photographs of the work. I set it aside, and entered his room. He kept his eyes tightly closed, though I knew he was awake of course. I patted his head. He caught hold of my hand and pulled me towards him. I sat beside him on the bed as he lifted his head and placed it on my knee. I pecked his cheek, joyful, he got up to embrace me tightly.

He uttered repeatedly in a soft voice, ‘My good Mummy, I love you too much.’

We cuddled together for sometime, mother and son, until Rupankar returned from the vegetables market.

I directed Srijon to go to the washroom to get fresh, and be ready for the day. Entering the kitchen to prepare milk for him and tea for us, I asked aloud, ‘What would you like to have for breakfast?’

Rupankar forbade me, mischievously. ‘Do nothing!’

‘Why?’ I asked, startled. Srijon finished his milk hurriedly and ran inside to open the convection oven. He took out two cakes, one big, the other one smaller, and shouted, ‘Happy Mother’s Day, Mummy!’

I was overwhelmed. The father-son duo had made those last night when I was asleep. I was surprised, but pleasantly happy that my son had thought about celebrating Mother’s Day, and thought about his mother.

We had our breakfast with the larger cake.

It was already about eleven o’clock, and I realised I had to prepare lunch. I began washing the vegetables Rupankar brought from the market, with soap baking soda and potassium permanganate. This had become a compulsory unspoken necessity, to save ourselves from Corona infection.

My mobile phone rang. I dried my hand and picked up the phone. The call was from the Superintendent of my hospital, Dr. Bijit Ghoshal. All of us, the doctors called him with BG, for he always, always busy.

He said,’Doctor Mukherjee, Please to come to the hospital at once.’

No! I won’t! Why should I? Today was my off day.

I enquired, ‘Is there an emergency, BG?’

‘No, not exactly. I just received some new operating equipment for COVID 19 treatment and aligned procedures. You know, I am the only doctor on duty today here. I have a training program at NB… the North Bengal Medical College for the next two days and  have to leave early tomorrow morning. So someone else must know the how and the why about these today itself. No other doctor is available now. I am sorry to disrupt your holiday but it will only take about two hours; for the discussion. Please come?’  

***

I was unhappy for sure, but I should go. As I started to dress up, Rupankar assured me that he would take care of lunch. He hoped that we might have lunch together, if I returned early. 

‘Try not to spend too much time at the hospital,’ he said. I nodded, put on a protective mask to cover my nose and mouth, and opened the door.

Srijon hurriedly said, ‘Mummy! Please! Just a minute.’

He quickly packed the other piece of cake into an aluminium foil. The size was generous and he said, ‘Mummy, have this one if you are hungry.’ 

What a sweet boy!

It was the tenth of May, the heat outside was scorching. India was under lock down, in the third phase, continuously for the forty-seventh day. All public transports, including autorickshaws were off the road. I could have asked Rupankar to drop me on his motorbike, but I didn’t want Srijon to be alone at home. I started walking, it was a twenty minutes walk.

The security guard informed me that BG was in his office. I headed there. Some doctors and paramedics of my hospital had been sent on duty to the new Covid hospital, which started functioning within a short span of time, a tough feat to achieve in this country. My hospital became understaffed as an aftermath. BG was telling the truth, he was the only doctor on duty for that day. 

On the other hand, regular patients with regular ailments were much less in number at that time. The government had advised social distancing, all the public transports were unavailable, people were in fear of being infected by Coronavirus and widespread unemployment prevailed due to shut down of all economic activities. All of this had a direct influence on the number of people coming to hospitals everywhere, except of course for the virus itself. Only emergency and maternity cases were being admitted  and even those who were admitted, were discharged as soon as their health and case permitted

  BG was signing some papers. He pointed to a seat in front of me, and handed over a bunch of printed papers. I glanced through them and waited for him to wrap up his work and get started.

‘You must be cursing me, because I have probably spoiled your family time?’

‘Oh no! Please don’t say that!’

‘Thank you for understanding, okay, so let us discuss the directives.’

Before he could even begin, he was interrupted by a phone call. From his responses, I gathered that it was the CMO, the Chief Medical Officer of the district on the other side of the phone. BG was assuring him that everything was taken care of. Both the mother and newborn were okay. He would report to him with updates again after two hours.

We resumed our discussion. There was a new operating procedure directive sent out by the government regarding laboratory testing for Corona, reporting protocol, patient transfer and patient discharge. The laboratory technician joined us as some of the directives were related to her work. She was eager to know about the details of  the collection of saliva samples, sample preservation, dispatch and reporting procedures. Before leaving, she also added that the saliva samples of the mother and newborn had been sent for Covid test. BG nodded.

About a minute after she left, there was another call, the Superintendent of Police of Alipurduar district. BG informed him too about the health of a mother and newborn. I became curious. I wanted to know what the deal was, what BG thought important enough to mention to these high profile callers. He remained silent for a few minutes, then told me the story.

Lockdown was declared in India on the twenty fourth of March on a notice of just four hours. The government directed everyone to stay where they were, to buy time and keep the pandemic in control. But the daily wage earners and people working under contractors, faced a lot of problems; their earnings stopped, they could not pay rent where they lived, food became scarce. No one knew how long this thing would last. 

How many of them were suffering? There were no estimates, no idea of quantifiable data. A large portion of that population,  were trying to return to their native places. Where, at least, shelter would be free. Since all the modes of transport were unavailable, thousands of people started walking along the highways, the railway tracks, through forests. For some that walk was for more than a thousand kilometres. They walked day and night, with families and children, with their little belongings, without proper food and water. They earned a new name of their class, the Migrant Labourers; they already had that title in their class category, but never before had it become so important and borne such significance.

On that morning, on Asian Highway, near a police check post between Ethelbari of Alipurduar District and Gayerkata of Jalpaiguri District, a trailer was parked under the scorching sun. There was a cry for help ringing about it and the Police officers intervened, finding a woman in distress.

A group of about one hundred twenty migrant labourers were returning from Vaishali of Bihar to Kokrajhar of Assam, covering a distance of more than six hundred kilometres. Atiur Rahman and his twenty seven year old wife Tania Bibi were in that group. Tania too was a labourer at the factory where her husband worked. They walked for about a week and reached Siliguri. 

Tania was pregnant and was hoping to to reach home as early as possible. A trailer that delivered fish at Siliguri was returning to Coochbehar, and they hired that vehicle, hoping to reduce their more than one hundred and fifty kilometres walk of three days to a four-hour ride.. 

During the ride Tania suffered intense labour pain. She gave birth to her baby in that trailer. The police personnel of Birpara Police Station and of Banarhat Police Station, who were stationed at the check post came forward to help send the newborn and the parents to Birpara State General Hospital by ambulance. The Superintendent of  Police assured them a vehicle to take them home once the hospital was done treating them. 

I stood up to leave.

Just around then, the ward boy entered and informed about a new patient in the emergency room, the one with  a toothache.

BG looked at me, expectantly. I could do nothing but smile, ‘Do you want me to attend to him?’

‘How can I request you for that? Not without embarrassment, no. Although, maybe? I could not even visit the Maternity ward, everything is so hectic.’

‘Okay, I will attend that too. Thank you! Take care, and goodbye.’

After a short visit to the emergency room, I entered the Maternity ward. There were two mothers. One of them was waiting for her labour while the other one was with a newborn on her lap. She was feeding the baby. 

Tania smiled at me. I asked her some routine questions. She was all good. I checked up the newborn, it looked healthy. I asked her, ‘How was your experience today?’

She replied, ‘Well, we have always been scared of the police, and were for the whole journey frankly so. But they helped me enormously. My perception about force has changed.’

I smiled. The mother said, ‘Madam, please suggest a name for my baby.’

I thought for a moment, then said, ‘He must be called Kovid.’ 

’Covid? As in the name of the disease?’

‘No, Tania. I said K-O-V-I-D. It means learned, wise or poet, in both Hindi and Bangla. It’s a play on Covid. Isn’t that appropriate?’

Her eyes shined, and uttered the name twice. She was happy.

I asked her, ‘Do you know what is special about today?’

‘Yes, madam. The nurse told me. Today is Mother’s Day.’

‘And you have become a mother on this special day.’

She was shy, pulled the end of her clothes to conceal her smile.

I turned away to move, and suddenly remembered what Srijon told me in the morning. Someday that newborn, Kovid, would tell his mother, ‘My good Mummy! I love you so much!’

I opened my bag, took out the cake, handed over to the lady, and said, ‘Happy Mother’s Day.’

***

A The Bombay Review Creative Writing Workshop piece.

Born in Kolkata, India, in 1956, Samir Mallick is a Dental Surgeon, a chess enthusiast, avid reader and traveller. He has written travelogues, poems and stories in many periodicals and anthologies, including articles in scientific journals. He can be contacted via email at: samirmallick@yahoo.co.in

When the message arrived in his phone that evening, it was worded with the laconic urgency of an old-fashioned telegram. It read, “Father critical, come soon.” Santosh had lost no time in setting out. He threw a few essentials into a suitcase, messaged Mita who was still in office at that late hour and took the first flight out of the country.

As Santosh settled into his seat in the aircraft, a host of feelings competed for supremacy in his heart. Guilt, self-exoneration, concern and impatience pushed their way to the fore. When the seat belt sign came on, he buckled on his own and thought with a sigh: if only one could strap one’s problems and worries the turbulent patches in life  may seem less rough.

How many times had Mita urged him to visit his family back home, especially his father, but he had always put it off over something or the other with varied priorities staking claim on his time and attention. An imminent transfer, a recent promotion, one or the other of Sonny’s important examinations, Pinky’s marriage, followed by her messy divorce, Mita’s occasional hospitalizations; the list was endless.

And all this while, the people back at home had been there, doing fine on all accounts. They even became unreal somehow as they languished on the margins of a self-imposed amnesia. They appeared small and wraith-like in their interactions on a far off continent many jetlagged hours away. A trip back home was like that proverbial letter, unopened and pushed back under a pile of more pressing mail, duly unattended in the modern malaise of forgetfulness.

A small voice intoned in Santosh’s head, mingling with the air hostess’s routine, “If the cabin pressure drops please pull down the oxygen mask over your head…” Really, how many times had father pulled the oxygen mask down for him and helped him put it on?  He had not kept a count, he just knew that each time this had been done his life had steadied and he had landed safely having reached his destination.

“In the unlikely event of an unscheduled landing please take the emergency exits…” the air hostess went on with the drill. Santosh had indeed taken the emergency exit that day for he had simply, and without warning, dropped out of his regular life; changing his familiar, hectic schedule upon finding it suddenly rocked with an imminent tragedy. 

Once, only once, you have done this, my friend, the voice in his head continued. 

Well, I’m doing it now even if it’s rare, and better late than never; he countered the voice within him as he leaned back in his seat, eyes closed.

He took a cab home, his sister Bulu was waiting for him. With his father’s Alzheimer’s deteriorating, it had become impossible for Bulu to continue caring for him at home. It had become a nightmare, ensuring his personal safety in the gathering vacuum of his progressive memory loss. She had had him admitted to a hospice where he received medical care round the clock. 

Santosh wheeled in his suitcase and stood in the hallway, looking at Bulu with an anxious, questioning glance. He adjusted his spectacles nervously. Bulu led him to the drawing room.

“He’s been deteriorating steadily this past year,” she began, “to the extent that he failed to recognize me since about a month back. But he kind of carried on with the lows and highs,” Bulu went on matter-of-factly. “Yesterday afternoon, however, we had quite a scare as he seemed to have slipped into a coma, he was not responding to our calls and nudges. I had Dr. Verma see him…”

Basanti, the cook, interrupted Bulu, “Didi, shall I fry the kachuris now?” Her eyes tried to assess the stranger with a quick, sideways look.

Bulu nodded before turning to Santosh. “Dr. Verma changed the medication and he came around,” she finished, rolling her eyes up, in relief. 

“This pulling through, I guess, is a temporary thing, right?” Santosh asked, maneuvering his trolley into a corner. Bulu gave a blank look, the gravity of the situation was not lost. 

Then, as an afterthought she remarked, “Aren’t all recoveries temporary?”

“I realize it’s touch and go, or else you would not have sent that message,” Santosh responded..

“Wash up, grab a bite and we shall go over to the hospice,” said Bulu as she turned to give instructions to Basanti who was hovering about. As an afterthought, she asked Santosh, “Or would you prefer to rest today and visit him tomorrow?” 

“No, of course not!” said Santosh. “I don’t want to waste any more time, I should have done this long ago,” he added in a small voice.

“You won’t be able to recognize him,” Bulu warned. “He is all skin and bones, his face has changed, his hair, all the white has thinned considerably.”

Santosh nodded. He swallowed the incipient lump in his throat.

They jolted along in the car to the hospice which was on the outskirts. Rolling hillocks of real estate stood on both sides of the road. Some of his acquaintances back in New Jersey had booked fancy flats and villas in these prime properties. Though why they did that, was beyond him as few of them visited their relatives in the old country that regularly. Fewer had plans of long term stay or permanent return. 

He noticed that some of the towers seemed to touch the clouds. An architect, Santosh automatically hoped these buildings had proper emergency exits as he idly took them in.

No one spoke for the rest of the journey and the car drew up in front of the hospice. The facility consisted of a couple of buildings, housed within a spacious compound.

They entered the first building. Bulu spoke to the lady at the reception briefly and then they made their way across expanses of tiled floors, towards what he assumed was father’s room. Santosh’s throat constricted with a diverse set of emotions. He had last seen father… how many years ago now? It was nearly fifteen years ago when he had come down for his mother’s funeral. 

Bulu led him into a big, square room with four beds and a nurses’ station at its centre. The lone nurse, who was keeping watch at that hour motioned Bulu to come over to her desk. Bulu hurried towards her, anxious.

Santosh looked towards the cots, two of them were unoccupied. He scanned the patients in the remaining two quickly and went towards father. There he was, frail and wasted beneath the sheet, a stubble covering his changed features. Bulu was right. His shock of white hair had thinned, everything was somehow different. 

Santosh reached father’s side and looked down at him. Father truly was unrecognizable. He put out a hand and touched his shoulder lightly. Father stirred and opened his eyes. Santosh had not expected to be recognized. Yet, somewhere within him a door banged shut. 

“I’m Shantu,” he called out a trifle lamely. “Your son, Shantu, come all the way from America to see you,” he added, leaning towards the figure on the bed, hoping to spark a flicker of recognition in the vacant eyes of the old man.

Father stared at him blankly. He parted his lips, with some difficulty and asked “Shantu?” 

“Yes, Shantu,” Santosh cried eagerly. 

He pulled up a chair by the bedside, dropped into it heavily and took his father’s hand. He would try to evoke a spark in the old man, however feeble. He couldn’t possibly return without a glimmer of recognition on his father’s part. He stroked the gaunt, wrinkled hand trying all the while to establish a subtle circuitry of currents between the two of them.

Father was hanging on by a thread. Santosh realized with a pang that this thread, attenuated to a frail filament had come to resemble his relationship with him. The cord that used to tie them together so securely had, over the years, been reduced to this wispy yarn that was liable to snap at any moment. He shuddered involuntarily as he thought of the trapdoor that could open any minute to claim the unsuspecting figure lying peacefully.

He had fallen asleep, his breathing shallow and raspy. Santosh had a sudden and unaccountable longing to enter his father’s world, far as it was from his, and wander the by-lanes of slumber with him just as he had once ridden with him on his bicycle down the twisting trails of their country retreat.

He could see Bulu coming towards them, a nurse in tow. To his surprise she headed towards the other bed and laid her hand on the patient’s shoulder. The patient was lying on his side, his back towards him. Poor thing, Santosh thought. He has no visitor today, that’s why Bulu is trying to cheer him up probably, the kind soul that she is.

He was about to adjust the bedclothes on his father when Bulu called out to him impatiently.

“What are you doing there? Have you already visited Father? He’s here, in this bed,” she emphasized pointing to the figure in that bed. She sounded both irate and perplexed.

Santosh looked down at the ground. He bit his lip. How could he have made such a mistake?

Bulu looked at him for a few seconds, astounded, as the truth dawned on her. 

“You actually could not recognize him?” she cried incredulously. The dam of irritation, carefully preserved in her over the years, threatened to give way. 

Santosh flushed at his sister’s voice. He brushed at an imaginary speck on his shirt, visibly embarrassed and uncomfortable. He wished there was an emergency exit nearby through which he could escape the situation. 

The nurse who was staring at the floor, looked up. “Looks like early signs of Alzheimer’s,” she said with kindness. Santosh could not decide whether that was a taunt, a jest or an earnest observation. 

***

A The Bombay Review Creative Writing Workshop Piece

Dr. Ajanta Paul is an academician, administrator, critic, poet and author, currently Principal & Professor at Women’s Christian College, Kolkata, India. She has published several books of criticism and imaginative literature including The Elixir Maker and Other Stories in 2019.

Dr. Paul has published her poetry extensively in print magazines and online journals including Setu Bilingual Journal and Teesta Review: A Journal of Poetry and her short stories in The Statesman.