by Ruchi Kokcha
There she was, lying on her back, her hair left loose and spread out behind her, covering nearly the entire room. He sat down facing the cell without making any sound.
Her hands are holding the mouth organ I once held. Her lips are touching it where I once pressed my lips. Blowing softly into the instrument, she makes the most beautiful music I have ever heard, Avik mused as he looked at her, not wanting her to stop playing.
He watched her play, unaware of how long he did so, until he felt something brush his shoulder. He shrugged it off and stood up in a flurry, wondering how someone could survive in such a creepy place.
She must be mad to want to stay in a place like this when she can move to the women’s ward. Only a beast would like to live here amongst other beasts, he thought in anger.
The music stopped. The stir had made ‘the beast’ aware of being watched. He saw that she had turned to face the opposite wall. He did not know if she had stopped because she had seen him or because of the sound he had made.
Who could see anyone in such a dark dungeon?
But while he was accustomed to the brightness of the world above, her eyes were capable of seeing through the darkness between them. In the grey darkness one can see those things that hide themselves in the presence of light. Black might appear grey in the presence of white, but in grey, black appears in its real hue.
He stood there holding the bars, then saw the scarf lying on the floor nearby. He picked it up and tied it around his neck, clearing his throat to attract her attention. She did not turn around but saw his reflection in the silver of the mouth organ, and then hurled it at him. It sailed through the bars and hit his chest, making him groan. He kept his right hand on his chest where he had been struck and leant against the closed wooden door of the room opposite her cell. He wished he could open the door to her cell and grab her by her hair, pulling the insanity out of her.
Pain can indeed turn a human into a monster. Her aggression was no doubt the result of a torment she had borne in the past. She was venting her anger out on him for trying to infiltrate her space. It appeared that she had called Avik in order to punish him for the other day. He had dared to gaze upon her without her consent and she was penalizing him for it.
She giggled, making him all the more upset. He pulled the scarf from around his neck and threw it into her cell. She leapt up and caught it before it could touch the ground, then draped it across her shoulders before coming to stand close to the bars.
There was a challenge in the way she looked at him. He was not a man to let a woman’s challenge go unanswered. With unblinking eyes he held out the mouth organ. Her hand immediately reached out to grab it.
The bars that stood between them clanked suddenly, startling them. Her food had arrived. Avik stood back as Sonu unlocked the door. Ananki pulled herself back till she hit the wall opposite the bars, showing no interest in the food. The tray was placed on the floor and the door was locked again. Sonu whispered to Avik to follow him. Avik nodded, but there was something he wished to tell Ananki before he left.
‘By what you did today, you proved wrong one of the two people who thought you were not mad. I think it is fair to keep you caged in a place like this, for that’s what you deserve. I was foolish to think that I could help you. The truth is, no one can help you. No one will ever come to help you after today,’ so saying, Avik left like a bullet released from its chamber, making up his mind never to see her again.
He could have borne her aggressive gaze, her tormenting music, even her stinging words, but physical assault was too much for him.
Avik was still upset and made it clear to himself that he had done whatever he could for Ananki and that this was the end of it. The fact that he would not be able to print her story was already a blow to his dream, but being assaulted by a madwoman on top of that was too much. It had deeply offended his ego.
Avik spent the entire night trying to convince himself that he could erase Ananki from his consciousness forever. Dawn came with the cognizance that the only thought that had been in his mind since he had returned from the institution was of her. Attraction or repulsion, liking or hatred are the dualities of emotions she invokes in me. Any one of them is constantly present in my mind. There is never a moment of indifference.
I cannot kill her ever. I must go back to her, not for the story’s sake, not for her own sake, but for myself, he thought.
Avik called Sonu to ask if he could meet Ananki one more time.
When he arrived at the NGO, he was taken down to her cell immediately. He stood outside it quietly. She saw him and got to her feet. She went to the wall and flipped a switch, allowing light to illuminate the dungeon. It not only surprised Avik but also made him conscious of her gaze. Her big black eyes examined him from top to bottom as she moved towards him.
In order to avoid eye contact with her he fixed his eyes on the mouth organ, which lay in exactly the same spot as it had been in the previous day, till she stood before him, obstructing his view. He feared another assault from her and went pale, not knowing what to do. She bent her knees a little to intersect the line of his vision, her lips curving a little to break into a smile as she met his eyes, making him feel more and more vulnerable.
He reached inside his bag and took out the book of sonnets. The smile vanished suddenly and she stepped back. He opened the book to the page that had been marked by a folded corner. He looked at her once before starting to recite Sonnet 142. A thrill went through him as he recited the second-last line to her, ‘If thou dost seek to have what thou dost hide…’ but she snatched the book from his hands before he could read the last line. She pulled the page from the book and tore it to pieces. He saw tears brimming in her deep eyes, eyes that could hold an ocean.
‘How dare you? Get out of here and never come back, you thief. Get lost!’ she howled like a mad wolf and spit on him.
This was the second time his ego had received a jolt from her. It made him very angry. He clenched his fists tightly and banged them on the bars, only to hurt himself. He felt his hands going numb with pain. He spit back, not on her but on the ground, and left the basement. In his anger he appeared to be her twin soul, just as mad as her; only he did not realize it.
She was the creator of her self-inflicted madness, which she used as a shield, but he, like any other individual, created madness within himself without being aware of it.
Her mask of madness kept out the prying eyes that made her suffer by labelling her. Any deviation from the social norm was madness. So be it. For her there was no harm in being labelled as mad if it kept her safe. Only madness would let her remain what she wanted to be and act the way she desired. Unlike him, the only force that governed her actions was the one inside her and it made her push him away in fright at one moment and pull him towards her the very next. He had tried to puncture her mask and it gave him an autonomy that she feared.
By the time Avik reached his apartment, he had decided that it was time for him to return to Mumbai. As he was packing his bags, Sonu arrived with an envelope. He took it without much interest, kept it on his desk and continued to fold his clothes. Worn out both physically and mentally, he slept soon after he finished packing, completely forgetting about the envelope.
While getting ready to leave for the airport the next morning, his eye fell on the white envelope lying on the desk. He opened it to find a half-dried leaf from the book of sonnets. He read the three words written on it with charcoal, ‘One Last Time’, followed by her name.
He found it hard to believe that Ananki had written to him. Her handwriting was bewitching and, just like before, he felt it try to pull him inside the leaf.
This time, however, he insisted on staying grounded in reality and going back to Mumbai. The cab had arrived. On the way to the airport he took the leaf out of his pocket numerous times, reading it and putting it back, as if he had become akin to Sisyphus. But while Sisyphus had had no way of escaping his futile existence, Avik found his path. He told the d
river to take him to Dr Neerja’s NGO. He took the recorder out of his bag and put it in his pocket, hoping that it would prove to be useful this time.
Sonu was waiting for him in the corridor. He accompanied Avik to Ananki’s cell. Halting by the stairs to keep a watch, he asked Avik to keep the meeting as short as possible.
Avik saw Ananki standing at the bars, waiting for him. She pressed her lips together as he came near her, as if giving him a secret smile, and then asked for her diary. He pulled it out at once and handed it to her. She opened the combination lock and sat down beside the bars. He could not believe that he was the one chosen to witness and be part of her tale. He sat down opposite her.
‘I will read excerpts from my diary, things that I wrote long ago in order to free myself from despair. But I will do so on one condition,’ Ananki said and waited for his affirmation. When he nodded, she continued, ‘You will not interrupt or question me. If you do, I will stop there and then.’
‘Okay.’ Avik had no choice but to agree.
9
Being made to sleep alone as a child just because one wets the bed—something one has no control over—can make anyone feel abandoned. I had been sleeping alone ever since I could remember. Radha, the caretaker my parents had hired for me, told me that I had been sleeping in a separate room since I was two years old. Wasn’t I too young for my parents to dump me to sleep in a huge bed all by myself, while they had their share of privacy? They never knew how I felt, not even my mother. Several times I would tie myself to her with the end of her saree so that I could sleep with her, on their bed, but their fear of their bed getting spoilt never allowed me my share of security as a child. At night the expensive toys that my parents bought to be my companions would change their shapes and become something else. They would perform a strange dance, floating over my head as I tried to sleep. When I would close my eyes I felt as if they would pick me up and throw me into the wide sewer just opposite our bungalow. For hours I would open and shut my eyes to find out what was real, the bed or the sewer, until I fell asleep. They scared me even in my dreams, tormenting me with thousands of pricks on my skin; that is when I would release the water, to stop them. They were scared of getting wet, I guess. I had developed it as a defence mechanism, much to the dismay of my parents.
Once, I had this dream in which I was playing in the park where Radha would take me every evening. After playing for a while I felt really hot. I asked her for water, but she would not give it to me. When I yelled at her, she told me that Mom had told her not to give me any water when I felt hot. I felt my insides burn. I was shouting and crying for water. I asked the people who were in the park with their kids for water, but no one came to help me. The heat inside my body was rising rapidly. My body temperature increased so much that my hair caught fire. I did not know what to do. I kept running like a mad dog but could not extinguish the fire in my hair. My head was burning and there was no water to save me. So I had to release it to save myself.
When I was six years old, my parents planned a summer camping expedition. I was very excited about the fact that I would be spending a lot of time with my family. During the day we went boating. I rushed towards the red boat and sat in my father’s lap but Mom asked me to go sit in the blue boat with Radha. She said that only two people could sit in one boat. I was sad but I obeyed, thinking we would have a good time later in our tent. But Mom and Dad stayed in one tent and Radha and I had to stay in another. Radha did not even let me go to the campfire, saying that it was time for kids to sleep. I was not feeling sleepy. I wanted to go out and talk to my parents, but I was forced to lie in my bed and keep my eyes shut. I pretended to have fallen asleep. Seeing me asleep, Radha turned off the lamp and went to sleep on the mattress next to mine. When I could hear her snores, I opened the entrance flap of the tent and saw the campfire. It was glowing with yellow flames. Beside it were Mom and Dad, wrapped in each other’s arms under one blanket. He kissed her with a passion greater than that of the fire burning beside them. He lifted her up and took her to their tent, switching off the lamp while going in. I got the chance to go and sit beside the campfire. I kept staring at the fire, not realizing when it turned from yellow to red. Just then a huge lizard came towards me. It was big, like a snake. I passed water so that it would not come near me. It did not. But it stuck its long tongue out and licked my heel, maybe thinking it to be a grasshopper. Radha woke me up to change my clothes and the bed sheet.
For seven years I had to cope with the loneliness. I got the news of the arrival of another baby in the house. I was so happy, thinking how great that would be. I would have a companion. I dreamt of playing with the baby all day. I wanted to take care of it, feed it, change its diapers, tell it bedtime stories and snuggle in bed with it till we both lost ourselves to sleep. I would not have to suffer the torment of sleeping alone. I was happy inside my heart. But nothing of that sort happened. The baby had to sleep with its mother. I saw the baby being breastfed by my mother. I could not remember if I had ever been fed by her. All I remembered was the plastic bottle and the succulent rubber nipple that had fed me for four long years. I remembered how I used to chew on it out of fear and rage, widening its hole, and then it would pour out an enormous amount of milk in my mouth, making me regurgitate it. It had to be replaced almost every week. But the baby was never given the rubber nipple. I asked Radha why it was not fed with the bottle. She told me that only a mother’s milk can make one strong. So the seven-year-old in me concluded that I had been rendered weak right from my birth.
Being a weakling can play havoc with one’s mind. My mind was as violent as a hurricane, only my dear ones could not feel it. I would batter my teddies and dolls, spoil their faces with ink. One day I broke the neck of my Barbie. I hated them all. No matter how much I tried, they could not fill up my empty childhood. While I suffered, the new baby got all of my parents’ attention. My mother stopped going away as she used to each morning. She stayed at home with the new baby. Everyone said that I had had a sister. My mother would keep her in her lap for hours. I remembered that when I had wanted to sit in her lap she would tell me that she was too tired. Sometimes on my father’s insistence she would let me place my head on her lap, but soon she would ask me to remove it. She would tell me that she was not strong enough to hold me for a long time. I wondered from where she had gained her new-found strength. My heart cried on seeing the two of them hug the baby a thousand times a day and never tire of it. The baby would receive a hundred kisses while I craved just one. I was the ugly, rejected child, cared for by no one, remembered by no one and loved by no one.
Lack of love and attention from my parents killed my appetite, making me lean as a stick. The ugliness of my frame made me even more repulsive to my mother. She would not look at me for several days together. She thought she had done her duty by hiring a caretaker for me. In the lone hours of my desperation I would question the kind of parenting given to me and compare it with that bestowed upon my sister. When I needed them, my parents’ priority was their job and business respectively. They both wanted to make it big. They earned a lot of money and fame, but at the cost of my innocent childhood.
Almost every night, I went to sleep crying on my pillow. My eyes would be swollen in the morning, but no one had the time to notice. Sometimes Dad would ask me if I had overslept, if that was why my eyes were swollen. How could he know what I was going through when he was away from home most of the time? I used to think that if he spent more time with us, then he would at least try to understand me, but god did not want my miseries to be any less.
My attention span at school was poor. My mind was always preoccupied with the emotional trauma I was suffering at home. I hardly learnt anything in any of my classes. My classwork was always incomplete. No one at home ever reviewed my homework. I was thrashed every day by my teacher, who made me stand with my hands raised as punishment. One after another every one of my teachers would punish me, without trying to learn what my real problem was. Neithe
r did my parents try to understand me. They didn’t have the time. They had a very busy life. My interest in studies and school deteriorated with time. My mother already had innumerable reasons to be upset with me, and my poor academic performance added fuel to her anger. I could never tell what distressed her more, the fact that I did not do well in school or the embarrassment she faced every time she had to visit my school for a parent-teacher meeting.
I craved love, both giving and receiving it. I felt that the enormous amount of love pent up inside me would explode one day and I would waste it all. I had a tremendous need to share the love within me, but there was no one on whom I could shower it. One day I saw my baby sister lying on the bed in my parents’ room, playing with her rattle, while Mom had gone for a bath. She was wearing a pink floral-print dress. Her white hands moved briskly, making the rattle produce a musical sound. Each sound was followed by her giggle, as if she was pleased by her newly acquired skill. The sight tempted me to enter the room and sit beside her. But soon she lost interest in the rattle and starting crying. I tried to pat her so that she would know she wasn’t alone, but she did not stop. I kissed her and held her hand, gave her my index finger to hold and play with, but nothing worked. I had often seen Mom carrying and rocking her to soothe her when she was crying loudly. I thought that was the only way she would stop crying. I lifted her in my arms. It was the first time that I was holding anything other than a non-living entity. I held her close to myself for a few seconds, felt her warmth, but she would not quiet down. I tried to rock her to soothe her, but I was still a child myself. She slipped out of my hands and fell onto the bed, making her cry even harder than before. I was petrified. Out of fear of Mom’s scolding I put a blanket over my sister so that her shrill cries would not be heard. But the blanket was ineffective. Hearing the loud cries, my mother immediately came out of the bathroom, wearing her bathrobe. She quickly removed the blanket covering my sister and picked her up. She rubbed her back, but it did not help. She called Radha to take me away.
