Monsoon Memories

by Renita D'Silva

  The heat hit her first, heavy and humid after the air-conditioned comfort of the airport. And then the noise. There were people everywhere: relatives waiting for their loved ones; bored-looking taxi drivers in their khaki uniforms and sailor hats holding plaques while chewing paan. A host of hawkers descended on her, urging her to take a taxi, to hire a coolie for her luggage. Cars honked constantly, all of them in a hurry, causing a traffic jam which a lone harassed policeman tried to direct. Drivers shouted abuse and insults at each other and at the policeman, half their bodies hanging out of the car window, one hand on the horn. It was absolute chaos and it calmed Shirin like a drug as she made her way to the domestic airport, ignoring the hawkers who continued to follow her and beg for her custom.

  The domestic airport was not quite as busy this early in the morning. She couldn’t believe she was here, on Indian soil, making her way to Taipur again for the first time since she had left for Bangalore two days before her wedding, a lifetime ago.

  Tired-looking cleaning women wearing saris with pallus tucked into their waists mopped the floors and cleaned the toilets. Shopkeepers yawned as they opened their little kiosks selling outrageously overpriced goods. Smells of filter coffee permeated the morning air.

  The airport started filling up slowly. A family comprised of parents, kids and grandparents took up the whole bench of seats opposite Shirin and beside her. The grandmother took off her flip-flops and sat cross-legged and barefoot in her chair. Then she set about patiently unknotting the end of her pallu, while talking non-stop to the other women and nagging her husband at the same time. He ignored her and fell asleep with his mouth open and started snoring, little purrs at first which gradually increased in volume.

  ‘See,’ the grandmother said with a shake of her head. ‘This is what I have to put up with!’

  The children who were running around in circles, their sneakers gliding smoothly on the polished mosaic floor of the airport, screeched to a halt when they saw their grandad, pointing to his open mouth and giggling while they conferred busily together.

  Children. Reena. Mewling like a kitten, pressing into her…

  Those dark days after... Staying in a rented flat near Vinod’s office while he set about finding a buyer for his business, looked for a job in England. ‘You’ll like it there, Shonu. There are green fields, open spaces. Just like Taipur.’ She’d flinched then. Taipur. A longing. An ache. No longer home. For Shirin, those days were a trance, an unending nightmare. She healed physically. The bruises faded. Her colour returned. But she couldn’t eat. She couldn’t sleep. She lay in bed, staring at the ceiling as if it held all the answers. She was haunted by eyes. Prem’s empty eyes. Jacinta’s filled with shame. Her mother-in-law’s full of bottomless pain... In the end, despite her continued refusals, Vinod took her to a doctor. After the examination, the doctor called them in. ‘Congratulations,’ she beamed. ‘You are going to be parents.’

  Shirin blinked, came back to the present.

  ‘Aha. No mischief, children. I know just what you are planning...’ the grandmother in the seat next to her was saying to the children, wagging a finger at them. They ran away.

  There was a thunderstorm the night she went into labour. Rain at her wedding, rain at the birth of her child. A clap of thunder, a mewling wail, the doctor holding up a wriggling blood-soaked bundle, ‘Congratulations, you have a healthy little girl—seven pounds three ounces.’ She had looked at the blood dotting squirming brown flesh and screamed and screamed, while the Eyes laughed. They had to sedate her.

  A fly buzzed near her ear. Shirin swatted at it. The knot the grandmother had been fiddling with opened, revealing a treasure trove of paan, which she distributed among the other women. They all started munching busily together. The kids ran up to the mother with cries of, ‘We’re hungry.’

  She couldn’t produce milk. It just wouldn’t come. She was dry as the River Varuna during the drought. Her baby cried and cried, the wails reminding her of another mother’s wails the night she stabbed her son. And she had run away, run from her baby. Barefoot, through the scalding streets of Bangalore. Running. Bare feet flying on blistering tarmac. Horns blaring. The damning screech of brakes. Chaos. Waking up in hospital groggy, haunted. My baby. Where’s my baby?

  The mother opened one of the bags and took out a stainless-steel tiffin carrier. She fished around in another bag and extracted some banana leaves. She opened the tiffin carrier and took out idlis from one compartment, chutney from the other and distributed these to each child on a banana-leaf plate.

  ‘She’s fine,’ Vinod had said. ‘I hired a wet nurse. You rest.’ ‘She doesn’t deserve me, Vinod,’ Shirin had replied. ‘I cannot look after her.’ ‘I will,’ Vinod had said. ‘How will you look after both her and me?’ ‘I will,’ Vinod had reiterated, in the same solemn tone he had used for his wedding vows. Softly, she had voiced her greatest fear: ‘Vinod, she’s a constant reminder. I am afraid I will… I will hurt her like I did Prem…’ His eyes, stalking her. ‘You love her, Shirin.’ ‘I do, and that is why… she is better off without me.’ And, the thing she most dreaded: ‘I do not want her to look at me and read in my eyes the truth about her conception.’

  She had called Deepak that night. It was raining when he and Preeti came to collect Reena, the clouds doing her weeping for her.

  The family next to her started packing away their belongings. The grandfather was shaken awake, the children’s hair combed. Shirin swiped at her eyes and stood, realising with a pang that her flight had been called.

  * * *

  As the little plane circled the skies above Mangalore, preparing to land in Bajpe Airport, Shirin pressed her nose against the glass window and looked down at the beloved landscape of her homeland. Rectangles of mud-red fields winked up at her. Rivers snaked in the valleys between hills, the perky blue water twinkling in the sunlight. As the plane swooped further down, she had her first glimpse of coconut trees, their palms fluttering in the light breeze as if they were graciously waving hello, and she was aware of hot tears sweeping down her cheeks, even as she smiled.

  When she came out of Bajpe Airport, the heat hit her in a humid wave, engulfing her in a sweaty embrace. She hailed a taxi at random from the huge group of people who had lunged at her offering to carry her luggage, to drive fastest, to be the cheapest fare. As she waited for the taxi to pull up, she breathed in the sight and smell of home—the green hills in the distance; the long blades of grass wilting in the sun; the air smelling of rain-soaked mud with an undertone of something spicy; the little black-and-yellow auto rickshaws with the drivers hanging out of their seats; the tiny cottages with uneven cement walls and red-brick roofs.

  ‘So, who are you visiting in Taipur?’ the taxi driver wanted to know.

  Shirin looked out of the window at the achingly familiar landscape, one she had visited in a thousand dreams. She wished the driver would leave her alone. She didn’t know what to say. She didn’t know how to reply without breaking down in front of this stranger.

  She cleared her throat. ‘My mother,’ she said in what she hoped was a firm voice that discouraged further conversation.

  She didn’t want to close her eyes and pretend to be asleep. Then she would miss out on this, her first glimpse of her hometown after eleven long years.

  ‘Hope she wasn’t affected by the riots.’

  Shirin stopped looking out of the window and focused on the driver.

  ‘What riots?’

  ‘You don’t know about the riots in Taipur?’

  ‘Riots, in Taipur?’ Shirin repeated foolishly, unable to believe what the driver was saying.

  ‘Hindus and Muslims have been fighting each other. I heard they burnt the parish hall of the Mother Mary of Miracles Church when the Christians tried to make peace. Mahatma Gandhi would be appalled at the state of India now. The politicians say it is peaceful. Where is
the peace? Everywhere there is unrest, violence...’

  They passed a little thatched hut selling snacks, framed by coconut trees. Clusters of tiny yellow bananas hung in the entrance. A stack of tender coconuts sat neatly in an upside-down V formation at the front of the shop tempting people to get a respite from the heat by drinking their honey-sweet water and eating their juicy flesh. She realised with a wrench that the little blue-green soda bottles with marble stoppers had been replaced by bottles of 7UP and Fanta.

  They were driving past Kapu now and, despite the air conditioning, she opened her window to breathe in the salty, sharp scent of the sea. If she concentrated, she could even hear the gentle ebb and flow of the waves in the distance.

  ‘Shall I switch off the air conditioning, ma’am? Do you want to leave the window open?’ the driver asked.

  ‘No, it’s okay.’ Shirin closed the window, wincing as the Dommur Mangalore buses sped past, dangerously close, horns blaring, in constant competition with the lorries packed with hay bales, which careened at breakneck speeds, their cargoes wobbling precariously.

  And then they were driving past the jasmine hawkers, peddling their wares in little hand-woven cane baskets at the base of the bridge, past the teetering old billboard set in an empty field that declared boldly, ‘Welcome to Dommur, Garden Town’ (‘Garden? What garden?’ Shirin always thought whenever she saw this sign), and then through Dommur, past new Maruti and Hyundai showrooms displaying flashy cars that wouldn’t have looked out of place in the UK, past the timber factory in Donegilu and the theatre in Mirakatte, sporting posters for the latest Shivaraj Kumar blockbuster. Fancy new buildings, each outdoing the other in extravagance, had cropped up in Mirakatte, Shirin noticed. Yet, though much of it was different, the essence of her hometown was there. Everything was so familiar, just as it had been in her dreams, her memories.

  When they passed the marketplace, Shirin saw the burnt embers of the bus and her heart stilled. She noted the absence of people, the deserted feel of the place. It was a shame, a travesty.

  Then they were driving past the ‘Medical Store’. The driver turned left and drove down the mud path, past the haunted house and the Hindu cemetery, before stopping by the lake, alongside the clearing which opened into the path that led to the house of her childhood...

  She paid the taxi driver, adding a hefty tip, for which he thanked her profusely, offering her his mobile number if she ever needed a taxi again. India really had changed for the better, mused Shirin, if taxi drivers could afford mobile phones now. She stood there, long after he had turned and driven off with a jaunty wave, remembering Deepak’s promise to Jacinta one dark night, aeons ago. They were returning home after attending a wedding and Jacinta had been standing at the clearing, lighting up the path for them with a torch, asking them to watch their step. ‘I don’t want you falling in the stream,’ she had warned.

  ‘When I’m older, Ma, and have lots of money, I will buy you a car and build you a proper road so you can drive up to the house and show off to the neighbours,’ Deepak had announced, turning back to look at Jacinta. He’d lost his footing and would have fallen into the stream had Shirin not screamed and managed to hold on to his shirt.

  ‘Thank you, Deepak. But from now on, watch where you’re going, okay?’ Jacinta had said, and even though Shirin couldn’t see her face, she knew Jacinta was smiling. She remembered wishing she was the one who had said those words, that she was the one who had made her aloof mother smile.

  Slowly, Shirin made her way down the path toward her childhood home. In the clearing by the well sat a girl in a chair with her back to Shirin. Reena? The girl seemed immersed in a book. She likes reading. Like me. Heart thudding, Shirin leant over. Wispy tendrils, escaped from the ponytail of chaotic curls, danced on a slender neck beaded with droplets of sweat that gleamed like tears in the sunshine. The girl turned. Oval face. A pert little nose. Full cheeks dusted with golden down. Film-star lips—like Anita’s. Chocolate eyes. Red-rimmed, wide with dawning recognition. Reena, sang her heart.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  Grandpa Walter’s Favourite Spot

  ‘Why did Mai say that? What did she mean?’ Reena asked, finally finding the courage that had evaded her ever since she read Shirin’s last letter.

  Mai was sleeping, her little chat having exhausted her, small moans escaping from between parched, swollen, slightly open lips. None of the other adults huddled around the tiny room would meet her eye, not even Madhu.

  A nun bustled in, shooed them all out: ‘The doctor is coming.’ She straightened the bed sheets, placed a chipped jug of water on the table and, with a, ‘Wait outside for a couple of minutes,’ shut the door on them. They heard her falsely cheery voice through the thin wood of the door, ‘Now, Jacinta, wakey-wakey; the doctor’s coming to see if you are okay.’

  The adults still wouldn’t look at her. Was it true what Mai had said? No. No! No! No! No!

  She had to know.

  ‘Mum,’ (Mum?) Reena went up to Preeti, put one hand on each of her mother’s cheeks, pulled her head down gently, insistently, ‘is it true, what she said?’

  Preeti’s guilty gaze shied away from hers.

  Look at me, Mum. Please.

  Preeti’s eyes met Reena’s, held. A gentle, tender gaze filled with all the love her mother had for her. Her mother? Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Her mother walking her up to the mirror: ‘You are our special miracle.’

  The doctor walked past self-importantly, shoes clicking on the mosaic floor, an entourage of nurses and a peon holding files in his wake. He entered Jacinta’s room without knocking. Murmurs wafted from behind the closed door. The doctor: clipped, masculine. The nurses: high-pitched, servile. Jacinta’s hoarse whisper: Shirin.

  Preeti opened her arms wide, pulled Reena in. She wanted to pull away, to run as fast as her legs could carry her, away from this building smelling of the bitter medicine forced down her throat when she was ill, away from this life she found herself in, surrounded by adults who would not meet her eyes, who had lied to her all her life. But then she breathed in the familiar smell of her mother’s sweat, the crushed, rustling feel of her sari, the warmth of her mother’s body, and despite herself, despite her anger at her for not having answered her question, Reena relaxed in her mother’s embrace, snuggled into it. The exhaustion of the previous night’s journey, the excitement of contacting Shirin, the emotion of seeing a desperately unwell Mai and hearing what she had to say caught up with her in a rush. Her eyelids felt heavy, started to close.

  The girl from the photograph floated before her eyes. Are you my mother, Shirin? If so, then why, why did you give me away? Was I not good enough for you? And to think I championed you, wanted to reunite you with your family… I hate you, hate you, hate you. I hate you all. Liars. Traitors.

  She heard the door open, a swish of feet, the doctor’s voice: ‘I’m discharging her. There’s nothing more we can do for her here. Sister Smitha will give you the list of medicines and ointments. You can buy them from here; I don’t think any of the medical stores are open. If there is any change for the worse, let me know...’

  ‘Is she...?’ Her dad seemed to have finally found his voice.

  ‘It depends. We have to wait and see. She should get better. But if a patient doesn’t have the will to live, there’s not much we can do. Who is this Shirin she keeps asking about?’

  Reena felt her mother still. A heartbeat later, her father’s voice, rusty as if it needed clearing: ‘My... our sister. She’s in London. Arriving tomorrow.’

  ‘Good. Good. That might perk her up.’ Footsteps receding. Silence. And then feet shuffling. Her father clearing his throat, ‘Right, I’d better get this medicine, then.’

  Aunt Anita: ‘Is Reena...?’

  Her mother’s cheek against hers, eyelashes fluttering: ‘Asleep.’

  Madhu: ‘We’d better get th
em both home. Ma’am and Reena.’

  Then, she was floating in her father’s strong arms, like she used to when she was a child. As if from afar, she heard the car door swing open, emitting that annoying whine it was prone to. She was propped up gently in the seat by her father, her body cushioned by her mother’s soft shoulder, her head fitting nicely in the nook of her mother’s neck. Bliss. From behind closed lids, a blurry Jacinta smiled at her and whispered, ‘Shirin’s daughter.’ No. No! No! No!

  When she woke, she was on the mat in the living room in Taipur, her mother snoring fitfully beside her. Her clothes clung to her body, wet from perspiration, despite the ceiling fan half-heartedly circulating hot air directly above. Mosquitoes feasted on city flesh. Outside, the nightly cricket orchestra reached a crescendo. Slowly, recollection dawned. Mai’s delirious words. Her parents refusing to meet her gaze. Questions buzzed in her head like Kannada verbs. Was she, Reena, the reason Shirin had been ostracized, shunned? Murli’s words: ‘Perhaps they are protecting you.’ Had she been conceived in disgrace? No.

  Preeti’s quiet snores beside her, the smell of the sandalwood talcum powder she applied liberally at night after her bath. There was a time—before she discovered the photograph—when she had believed unequivocally that her parents would never lie to her. How naïve she had been!

  She woke again to golden light dancing on her eyelids, to voices trying to whisper, but not quite managing.

  ‘Shh... She might wake.’ Her mother’s voice. Her mother?

  ‘We have to tell her, Preeti,’ her father’s voice. Soft. Desperate.

  ‘But Deepak... my baby...’ Her mother’s voice. A wail.