My sister. Puja—meaning prayer.
‘All our prayers answered,’ you say, Ma, at the naming ceremony, and I nod in solemn agreement.
RAJ
UNEASY TRUCE
Raj slouches in his seat, jabs earphones into his ears, and turns the volume to its loudest setting. He does not want to go to India with his mother. He wants to be with Ellie.
He has loved Ellie since the very first day of Secondary School, when she sat in front of him and he was dazzled by her hair, a halo of gold glinting in the weak September sunlight that angled in slanting streaks into the classroom. Ellie, of course, had never given any indication of even knowing who he was, except for that incredible wave and mimed words from the bus that evening—was it only the day before yesterday?—that ended with him almost getting arrested. He hasn’t been back to school since.
Did that wave and her subsequent declaration really happen or did he imagine it? If it did, then does it mean Ellie knows he likes her and that she likes him back? Will she acknowledge him when he comes back? When is he coming back?
Lord, he needs a smoke. What hell to be stuck next to his mother on a nine-hour flight, travelling to a country he never had any intention of visiting, especially after Raj’s father chose it over him.
His mother is gesturing to him.
‘What?’ he growls, tugging an earphone out of one ear.
‘I . . . ’
If he didn’t know her better, he would have thought she was blushing.
She gestures towards his cheek.‘I’m sorry about that.’
He nods, and goes to plug his earphone into his ear again.
‘I . . .’ his mum says, clearing her throat. ‘I was quite a self-centred child. Can you believe it?’
Oh, so she wants to chat, tell him about her past. Perhaps it is because of his accusation that he doesn’t know anything about her that triggered the slap. Or perhaps this is her way of apologizing for dragging him five thousand miles away from his life, to visit with an aunt and cousin he didn’t know existed until the day before yesterday. He could do with an old-fashioned sorry and a bit of silence to be honest, so he can lose himself in his music and fantasise about Ellie. Will Ellie think he’s given up on her when he doesn’t turn up at school? Will she have hooked up with someone else by the time he’s back?
Puja is looking expectantly at him, waiting for an answer. What does she think this conversation will achieve? Make him okay with being hauled on this pointless journey to the other end of the world? And does he really want to know? Does he really want to unlock the mystery that is his mother? Who knows what he’ll find.
‘Are you going to donate your kidney to your niece?’ he’d asked her that morning, as he bit into toast slathered with lashings of butter and strawberry jam. Crumbs rained onto the carpet with each bite. He wilfully did not use a plate as she always nagged him to.
He had asked the question even though he’d been wary of disrupting their status quo, not really wanting to start a fight. They had both arrived at an uneasy truce after their argument (which generally meant ignoring everything that had been said—the hurtful words and accusations—and avoiding each other as much as possible until their next spat). But his curiosity and angst had got the better of him. He wanted to know why they were dropping everything at a moment’s notice and leaving the country. He’d hoped, even then, that he might make Puja change her mind, rid her of this madness that seemed to have consumed her since her sister called. He wanted to make her see the foolhardiness of this venture—not that anything he ever suggested had the smallest effect on her.
His mother had stopped her maniacal rushing about, and her hands full of clothes that she was trying to stuff into a suitcase that was already heaving, she looked up at him. ‘I . . . I didn’t promise anything . . .’
‘Tell me again, why are we going then?’
She had sighed and ignored his question, as was her habit whenever they discussed anything of importance to him, and had resumed her frantic packing. Then she booked a taxi, sent emails, and made last-minute phone calls so her business would run smoothly in her absence.
He’d stood glaring at her until finally, she looked up. ‘Have you had your shower yet? The taxi will be here in a few minutes.’
And that was when he had finally accepted that it was happening. They were going to India.
Fat lot of help this convoluted apology of his mother’s will do, he thinks now. He’s still going to be miles away from Ellie.
But . . . his mother’s going to talk whether he wants her to or not. She has that determined look about her, the look she gets when she’s read his school report and is preparing to launch into a lecture about how he’s wasting his god-given talents by not working hard enough. Those times he escapes into his room, shuts the door, and shuts her out. Now he is trapped in this confined space beside her with nowhere to go. He should have chosen the aisle seat, he thinks.
Although truth be told, he is just a tiny bit curious to know more about the girl his remote mother once was, this girl who grew up in a hut. Sounds like a fairy tale, he thinks, especially compared with how she lives now, in a veritable mansion. He also wants to know more about his mother’s sister whose phone call caused this upheaval, but whom his mother has never mentioned, or been in contact with in years, as far as he knows. If he’s to be absolutely honest with himself, he’s jealous. Jealous of this Sharda and her daughter, and the hold they have on his mother.
When Raj was too small to know better, he would launch himself at his mum, wanting reassurance, a hug, especially during those long, bleak days after his father left. She would push him away then, albeit gently, time and again. Gradually, he learned not to ask for affection, to hide his yearning, his need for his mother, behind a taciturn scowl, an armour of sullen resentment, a shield of rage, against the disservice done to him.
He learned not to be afraid of the dark, and to ignore the shadows skulking down the walls of his bedroom and taking his toys hostage, during those long, winter evenings when his mother forgot to inform his nanny that she was working later than usual, and his nanny left at her usual time and his mum had still not come home.
He learned to recognise the sound of her key in the lock, her soft tread on the stairs. He learned to tamp down hope when she opened his bedroom door to check on him. He would sense her standing above him, smell her perfume and her tiredness, and with his heart clenched and eyes shut tight, he would pray that this was the day she would bend down and kiss him goodnight.
He learned not to expect her at cake sales and school assemblies. He was the only child whose parents were not present; the only child whose nanny came to pick him up at three fifteen on the days when all the other kids went home early with their parents after book celebration morning, and he was the only one left in class, helping his teacher put the reading folders in order in the strangely echoing classroom bereft of the music of his classmates’ voices.
In his mother’s list of priorities he’s always come last. Now he knows who comes first.
But why? Why a stranger, a woman his mother hasn’t spoken of or been in touch with in years?
He wants to find out. And so he turns towards his mother.
‘I can believe that you were a self-centred child, yes,’ he says and she laughs, slightly hysterical.
He understands that she’s nervous about this trip. She’s already dropped their passports twice, causing him to stuff them into his own pocket. She’s misplaced their boarding passes, making them wait for ten minutes at the door to their plane as she riffled through her purse, with the passengers behind them sighing and grumbling in frustration. If she’s this nervous, then why on earth is she going to meet her sister, the woman who has achieved with one phone call what he hasn’t managed in his life?
‘I was the most beautiful girl in the village . . .’ His mother says, her voice girlish, and tinged with nostalgia.
‘Always so modest,’ he mumbles and she laughs again, les
s hysterically this time and he can’t help feeling a tad pleased that he’s helped relax her nerves. This is a new side he is seeing to his proficient, distant mum—glimpses of a fumbling, unsure woman who seems to be hidden behind that accomplished façade.
It makes Raj even more curious about this stranger—his aunt—who is waiting for them on the other side of the world. A woman who has the power to reduce his efficient mother to a clumsy wreck; who, with one telephone call, has cracked his mother’s shell of indifference, made her push aside the work that she lives for, and to embark, at a moment’s notice, on an impulsive journey. His mother, the opposite of impulsive, who likes to plan everything—even their meals—weeks in advance.
‘It was the happiest time of my life . . .’ his mother says wistfully.
And so, as the plane taxies for take-off, Raj pulls his headphones out of his ears and crosses his feet, trying to find a comfortable position for them in this cramped space, and resigns himself to listening to his mum rather than his music.
PUJA—CHILDHOOD
SEEDS FROM A POPPED POD
Extract from school report for Puja Ramesh, First Standard, Age 7
Puja is an intelligent girl but she does not apply herself as much as she should. She is easily distracted. She gets into trouble mostly because she is not paying attention and/or talking too much to concentrate on her work, but she is quick to apologise. She is extremely popular and is loved by everyone.
‘You are very special,’ Puja’s sister tells her.
‘Why?’ Puja asks, a thrill running through her because she knows what’s coming.
‘Well . . . when you were born, you were not breathing. Everyone was sobbing and
then . . .’
‘And then?’ No matter how many times Puja hears the story of her birth, she is agog, mesmerised by this bit.
‘And then you joined in, a plaintive mewl, threading through the loud cries. It was the most beautiful sound in that sorrowful room. And everyone’s tears turned to laughter as they thanked God for the miracle baby—the answer to their prayers—a special, perfect delight.’ Sharda’s voice is warm as a hug, as sweet as kheer.
Puja laughs, her joy bubbling over.
Sharda holds Puja high in the basket of her arms and asks her to describe what she sees.
‘I can see way past the ocean to the very edge of the sky, that bit where the sky swallows the sun and vomits the moon, and which sometimes, but only on very precious days, gives us rainbows,’ Puja says.
Sharda sets Puja down gently and runs inside the house to fetch the cane stool, which is falling to pieces, its threads unravelling like dry brown snakes.
‘What are you doing, Sharda?’ Puja asks, puzzled, hopping from one foot to the other. She is barefoot and it is mid-day, the sun a fiery ball of fury in the cloudless sky, and the earth is baked yellow, scorching hot.
‘Wait a minute. Ah now,’ Sharda says, climbing onto the stool and squinting into the distance. ‘Do you think I am now as tall as you were when I was lifting you up high just then?’
Puja nods, distracted by a gold-winged dragonfly alighting on the hibiscus flower next to her. She goes to catch the dragonfly, but it flies away in a honey-flecked flutter.
‘I cannot even see past Sumatiakka’s hut,’ Sharda says, jumping off the stool.
‘Really?’ Puja asks, dragonfly forgotten.
‘Did you truly see the sea?’
‘I did, I did,’ Puja jumps, excited, flashing Sharda a huge, gap-toothed grin. She has just lost her two bottom teeth and the new ones haven’t begun growing. Sharda gives Puja all her milk to drink as well as Puja’s own portion so that her teeth will grow more quickly.
Sharda lifts Puja up and twirls her around.
Puja fancies herself a ballerina, her skirt and plaits flying behind her. When she is feeling dizzy with happiness, Sharda stops and hugs her close.
‘You are the only one who can see all the way to the edge of the sky,’ Sharda whispers in her ear. ‘Nobody else can do that you know—see the sky’s secret place, which sometimes gives us rainbows if we have been really, really good.’
Puja throws her arms around her sister’s neck, breathing in her smell of Lifebuoy soap and coconut oil and sweat.
‘Really?’ she whispers, eyes shut tight, her head still tilting on the axis of her neck from being a whirling ballerina.
‘You know why that is, Puja?’ Sharda’s spiced breath is warm in the crook of Puja’s neck, tickling the hairs nestling there, making them wriggle and wrenching giggles out of her.
‘Why?’ she asks when she has finished laughing.
‘Because you are unique—the baby who defeated death at birth. You are the most special girl in the world, loved by everyone, even the sky. It even says so in your school report.’
Puja laughs, and asks her sister to spin her again. Sharda does as she asks and the world around them splinters in a jumble of colours.
Puja opens her mouth and tastes the jackfruit flavoured air. Her stomach rumbles but her heart is replete with the complete conviction that what Sharda is saying is true.
Puja notices it in the way her parents’ eyes soften when they see her. She clocks it in the way the villagers pinch her cheeks and remark that she is the cutest, most beautiful angel to ever grace their humble village.
‘Even more beautiful than the butterflies?’ she asks them.
‘Even more so,’ they say as they cackle, displaying paan-scored gums.
When she goes home with her clothes in tatters from climbing trees and squeezing through the thorny mimosa bushes by the pond, Ma shakes her head and pretends to frown. But Puja sees that she is really hiding a smile which escapes the corners of her mouth when Puja flings her arms around her and asks her not to be angry, please. Then, Ma gives up all pretence of scowling and hugs Puja close, kissing her eyes and her dusty nose.
When she spills all the guavas in their stall at the market, bruising them, Da’s face darkens like the sky before a downpour. Puja’s lower lip trembles as she tries to hold in her upset, her heart fit to burst with the effort and Da’s face magically transforms and he opens his arms and engulfs Puja in them. He smells musty, of old sweat and hard work.
‘It’s okay Puja, we’ll ask Ma to make something nice with them. It’s okay, look, I have the mangoes and cashews to sell anyway,’ he says.
Da’s hug loosens her heart, and the hurt disperses like the seeds from a popped pod, and she is able to speak, the urge to cry gone.
‘I can’t eat those guavas,’ she says, wrinkling her nose, ‘they are injured and hurting and if I eat them my tummy might hurt too.’
Da throws back his head and laughs and Puja is fascinated, no matter how many times she sees it, by the way his tummy moves up and down as the laughter bubbles out of his throat.
Puja can make everyone in the village laugh, even when they are angry or upset. Sharda says it is a gift.
‘I wish I had it,’ she says.
‘But you don’t,’ giggles Puja.
‘No,’ Sharda laughs. ‘Only exceptional people have that ability.’
‘Like me,’ Puja says.
‘Like you,’ Sharda grins.
‘You’re a golden girl, my wonderful sister,’ Sharda says.
‘A minx,’ Bijjuamma snorts, shaking her head.
‘A sorceress,’ Nagamma sighs, chewing her paan.
‘A treasure,’ Ma says.
‘A delight,’ Da laughs.
And Puja knows without a doubt that she is special and that she is loved.
Extract from school report for Puja Ramesh, Eighth Standard, Age 14
Puja needs to concentrate more in class and put in more effort. Her poor marks in the end of year exams reflect this. She has barely scraped by this year and if she does not work harder in the ninth standard, she will have to stay behind and repeat the year.
Puja is hiding behind the jackfruit tree, the prickly green fruit stabbing her bare knees. Breathing in the smell o
f sandalwood and rose incense wafting from the temple by the river, she tries to stifle the torrent of giggles that threaten to erupt as she watches the bemused expressions of devotees, who come out of the temple to find that their chappals are missing.
Bored by the endless summer holidays stretching ahead, and with nothing to do in their tiny village except sit at the market stall and peddle their sorry looking vegetables as dutiful Sharda is doing, Puja couldn’t resist stealing a few pairs from the haphazard pile of footwear outside the temple and hiding them behind Nagu’s little shop underneath the rotting coconut fronds.
Her ears desensitised to the jarring clanging of temple bells and the blaring of the bhajans, she watches as the perplexed worshippers, their mouths stuffed with buttery prasadam laddoos and their foreheads smeared with vermilion, hunt for their missing chappals. They hitch up their lungis in bewilderment and scour the peepal trees for monkeys.
The hairs sticking wetly to the back of Puja’s sweaty neck prickle. She drags her eyes away from the devotees who are now performing funny little dances due to their bare feet blistering from contact with the scorched mud, to see the leader of the gang of youths who congregate outside Nagu’s shop grinning at her.
When her gaze meets his, he winks and indicates with a slight nod of his head towards the heap of decomposing coconut fronds. She looks down at her soiled skirt and busies herself trying to brush the worst of the mud away. He knows; he must have seen her stow the chappals. Will he give her away?
‘Don’t worry, my mouth is sealed.’
She jumps, startled. He has crossed the road and leaning against the jackfruit tree, he smiles down at her. She has seen him and his friends often enough sipping badam milk and biting into spicy vegetable puffs outside Nagu’s shop after having roared up and down Nandihalli and Dhoompur on their motorbikes raising ‘all the ghosts of the peaceful dead along with a tornado of dust,’ according to grumbling old Muthakka. ‘I am deaf and even I can hear them!’ Muthakka moans.
A Sister's Promise Page 8
