Authors: Anita Nair
Tags: #Bangalore (India), #Widows, #Contemporary Women, #Domestic fiction, #General, #College teachers, #Fiction, #Cultural Heritage
The Lilac House (27 page)
‘They have a mobile scan unit and they tell the pregnant woman the sex of the foetus. But there’s more going on. I am going to find out what’s happening there. What they are doing is not just illegal, it’s wrong. And somebody has to stop it!’ The righteous indignation on her face filled him with dread.
‘These are dangerous people. This isn’t America and you are not Erin Brockovich… You can make a fuss about what’s happening once you are out of here. But it isn’t safe to stay on!’ Rishi tugged at her elbow frantically.
‘What’s the point of making a report? It will be hushed up even before it is taken up. All I have now is hearsay. If I stay here a few days more, I will have the proof I need. A woman I met has promised to send me to someone who will talk to me, tell me everything.’ Smriti paused. Her eyes were thoughtful when she spoke next. ‘You don’t have to get involved. You can leave if you want to!’
‘So you left.’ It is Jak who breaks the silence between them.
Rishi leans forward, his palms clasped between his thighs, his head bent low in thought. In penitence? In remorse? Jak wonders.
‘I know you have already made up your mind that I am a heartless bastard. But I couldn’t even bother to pretend any more. That’s how removed I felt,’ Rishi says with no trace of emotion on his face.
Then he falls silent.
Until Jak speaks. ‘Go on Rishi, what happened then?’
It is hard for Jak to keep the bitterness from his voice. ‘She gave you the opening you needed, didn’t she?’
Rishi shakes his head. ‘I didn’t leave. Not then! I couldn’t just leave like that. I knew she had got into something that was way beyond her!’
Jak sinks his head into his hands. He says aloud, ‘How could she not get involved? That’s how she is! She is tenacious.’ Then he stiffens and corrects himself: ‘Is? Was?’
He gets up abruptly and adds, ‘She was never good at giving up on things – or people. And she was a great one for causes…’
‘C
auses demand martyrs. Is that what you are planning to be? A martyr? They will hurt you for sure.’ Rishi Soman spoke gently at first.
auses demand martyrs. Is that what you are planning to be? A martyr? They will hurt you for sure.’ Rishi Soman spoke gently at first.
The night skies were clear. A moon hung low in the horizon. The sea breeze blew, strong and laden with salt. They could hear the boom of the waves. They sat in the room, the two of them, locked in a hostile silence.
‘So leave then. You don’t have to risk anything. You can walk away,’ Smriti tossed at him.
‘No, I can’t leave,’ Rishi snapped at her. ‘How can I? You don’t know what these men are like. Smriti, they are dangerous, and I really do mean that!’
Smriti continued to play with the fringe on her blouse. Tassels swung from the hem. She said, ‘You were planning to leave, weren’t you? It’s over. I know it. Everything about you wants to flee from me – no, don’t deny it. So why don’t you go?’
Rishi licked his lips. He could taste the sea on them. ‘I would, if I didn’t feel responsible. I brought you here. I have to take you away from here. And when I go back, I am moving to Mumbai.’
‘Would you have asked me to move with you?’ she asked softly.
‘No.’ He shook his head. ‘It’s over. Or it will be as soon as I take you away from here.’
Smriti sat up straight. ‘You, or anybody else can’t force me to leave till I have got what I want.’
‘And what’s that?’
‘Proof, Rishi. I need proof to file my complaint. I need proof to take to the newspapers. No one is going to be able to refute the truth then. Not even your dangerous men.’
He didn’t know what to say to her or how to persuade her. Neither could he leave her there, knowing that she was putting herself in danger. So he decided to stay.
They sat there in that room in the sleazy lodge, unable to bridge the silence. In the end, it was Rishi who spoke. ‘Tell me,’ he said.
‘Why?’ she asked. ‘What does it mean to you?’
‘Nothing,’ he said. ‘But at least I’ll know why you are risking our lives.’
She told him of the mother and daughter on the bus. Of meeting the woman again in the nursing home. Of discovering the existence of a visiting scan doctor who sat in a room with a board outside that read ‘Sex of the child will not be revealed here!’ Of hints and signs for an extra fee – of an abortion arranged if the scan revealed a girl child.
‘But what do you think you can do? There is nothing more complex or vicious than small-town politics. And these people know that you’ve been asking too many questions.’ Rishi’s horrified whisper slashed through the air.
‘I thought I would go with her everywhere she went. At least they wouldn’t attack her if she was with me. I thought if I seemed interested enough in helping her, she would listen to what I had to suggest.
‘I had friends in the media. I would rope them in. We could make a noise. That would alert the authorities. I would make those calls in front of her, so that she knew I was serious about helping her.
‘By next evening, I hoped we would be on the bus that would
take us to Madurai.’ Rishi recounts the sequence of events as if he has relived them in his head again and again.
take us to Madurai.’ Rishi recounts the sequence of events as if he has relived them in his head again and again.
He trailed Smriti all morning. At the nursing home, they were turned away. ‘You can’t deny us entry.’ Smriti tried to push past the watchman furiously.
‘Yes, we can.’ An elderly man had emerged from an inner room. ‘For one, you are not in need of any medical help. Secondly, this is a private nursing home and finally, I decide who is permitted to enter and who isn’t. Please leave.’
When he spotted Rishi, his brow furrowed further. In that same equable voice he had employed to halt Smriti in her tracks, he said, ‘So you decided to do things your way. You didn’t think what we said was important enough.’
‘Was that your dangerous man? That mild looking schoolteacher? ’ Smriti turned to Rishi furiously as they walked down the alley to the main road. ‘I was imagining a brawny mustachioed thug in a string vest and a lungi.’
Rishi wiped the sweat off his brow. ‘The problem is, you watch too many Tamil movies. You think villains come bearing the hallmarks of villainy. That mild schoolteacher may think nothing of slitting your throat or mine. Didn’t you hear the menace in his voice?’ Rishi felt an icy finger run down his spine. ‘Smriti, I am telling you he is dangerous, this place is dangerous!’
‘Okay, I admit there is a certain hostility. But not enough to warrant our running away with our tails tucked in. Let’s sit here awhile,’ she said, turning into a little tea shop with benches strewn outside.
‘The video cam on my phone is on. I am going to record the number of pregnant women going in. The radiologist will be here till noon and then he’ll be gone. Look…’
An autorickshaw halted at the mouth of the alley. A pregnant woman and a man emerged from it. A few minutes later, two women, one pregnant, walked into the alley.
They sat there for about two hours, drinking countless cups of tea and recording the arrival of pregnant women. Twenty-two in the course of three hours.
Back in the room, Smriti played her footage for him. ‘Do you see my point now? Do you think the scan is to check the well-being of the baby in the womb? All they want to know is if it’s a boy or a girl. How else could he attend to so many patients in so brief a time?’
Rishi nodded. He didn’t know what to say. He seldom thought too hard about anything. All he had wanted in life was a break in the movies. To be a make-believe hero. So he went to the gym and took dancing lessons. He had begun kick boxing and attended acting classes. He just wanted to be convincing as a hero. Someone who could woo the pretty girl, fight the villains, safeguard justice and uphold righteousness. But that was in the make-believe world. He left it to others more eminent than him to fight the evils of the real world.
‘We should get out of here this evening,’ Rishi said again.
‘I have to meet a woman. Chinnathayi. Her daughter died at the nursing home after an abortion and she may still have some of the papers and reports with her. I have her address. I’ll go there after lunch. I’ll probably need a couple of hours. When I get back, we can leave,’ she said in reply.
‘Why will she talk to you?’ Rishi asked.
‘She will. She lost a daughter. How can she not be angry and bitter? Once I have her on tape, we can leave. I promise!’
Rishi felt his muscles relax. He didn’t like the thought of her going out alone. But it was daytime and they would be gone soon. He didn’t want to spend another night in this cursed town or this dump of a lodge.
‘I’ll be back by six,’ she said as they ate biriyani from a banana-leaf parcel. ‘If you pack up, we can leave as soon as I am back.’
He nodded. ‘Thank you,’ he said suddenly.
She looked at him for a long while. ‘Thank you,’ she said in reply.
That was the last time I saw Smriti. Those were the last words I spoke to her.
They came for me early in the evening. The younger man and three other men. I opened the door thinking it was Smriti. ‘You are early,’ I said as I unlatched the door. They pushed their way in silently.
‘Look, we are leaving,’ I said, pointing to our packed bags. ‘I told you we are leaving. We’ll go right now.’
The younger man looked at me carefully. He gestured with a careless toss of his hand.
They began beating me up. When I screamed, one of them gagged my mouth. At some point they used a knife. I was curled into a ball on the floor and with every kick and every stab of pain, I prayed I would die. I didn’t think of Smriti. Not once.
This wasn’t cinema, for me to fight the villains and rescue Smriti, and for good to prevail.
That was when I knew how human I was, how full of frailties. I could think only of myself and if this was how I was going to die.
They left me broken and unconscious. Arul Raj found me an hour later when the hotel boy raised an alarm.
Arul Raj took me to a hospital in a nearby town. He had me admitted. I needed some stitches on my back and my wrist was broken. There were some internal injuries too. He said I was sedated for a couple of days.
When I opened my eyes, he was sitting there. He didn’t ask me what happened, and I didn’t explain. He either knew or didn’t want to know. ‘Smriti?’ I asked.
He shook his head. ‘She didn’t come back. I left a message for her at reception…’
I looked away. I hoped that she had escaped in time. I borrowed his cell phone and tried calling her. An electronic voice said, ‘The subscriber you have dialled is out of range.’ I felt less afraid then. She must be with the theatre group, I thought. She must have
fled to Madurai when she saw the mess in the room. Or, maybe someone warned her to make her escape. I sought refuge in that. That was all I could do. I was in too much pain to focus. What could I do? What could I have done?
fled to Madurai when she saw the mess in the room. Or, maybe someone warned her to make her escape. I sought refuge in that. That was all I could do. I was in too much pain to focus. What could I do? What could I have done?
My cousin came to fetch me the next day and took me to Coonoor.
A month later, when I returned to Bangalore, I heard about Smriti and the accident she was in. I thought it best to not get involved. To visit her would mean opening up old wounds
Later, Jak sits by the bed, unable to still his frenzied thoughts that echo Rishi’s words: What could I do? What could I have done? Seeking penitence in a desperate need for forgiveness for not having been there to protect his daughter.
The next morning, he waits for Meera to arrive. He will return to Minjikapuram, he has decided. A name in Rishi’s story seemed familiar, now he remembers where he first heard it. Chinnathayi – the elusive sweeper at the lodge.
If she will not talk to him, she will to Meera.
THE EYE OF CALM
I have often asked myself what represents a state of calm. Is it the sea that lies still as glass? Is it a clear blue sky? Is it the face of a sleeping child? Is it in the curve of a cat sitting on a window sill?
Then it comes to me. In the summer of 2006, I was in London and went to see for myself the much discussed
Alison Lapper Pregnant
at Trafalgar Square. I went prepared to be revolted, angry even. What was Marc Quinn, the sculptor, thinking of?
Alison Lapper Pregnant
at Trafalgar Square. I went prepared to be revolted, angry even. What was Marc Quinn, the sculptor, thinking of?
But in the whiteness of the Carrara marble, in the stillness of that form, in the full swell of the abdomen, I saw more than the celebration of the spirit. I saw the fall of the wind. I saw the calm that arises from the acceptance of the inevitable. A life would be born and with it all would change. But for now there was this. The quiet before the storm.
In everyday life, as in a storm, the forces that determine the nature of events are bound to spin closer as the most important moment nears. But with the increasing speed, something else is born: an outward directed force from this frenzied spinning of circumstances.
The scientific term for it is centrifugalforce. The ancients called it the acceptance of the inevitable. Without it, as the science of absolute teaches us, the universe would destruct itself to nothingness.
The air spins. Faster and faster. One expects this, the eye wall, to be where the greatest fury of the storm resides. Except, the heart waits beyond the rim.
As the centrifugal force draws out the spiralling air, it causes a vacuum. ‘Shunyata’, or the substance of nothingness. Mathematics and Philosophy corroborate this concept of zero.
But the organic world has no room for fanciful notions. Either something is there or it is not there; everything has to become something else. For this is the law of the living world. All of nature abhors a vacuum, any vacuum. So, into that emptiness, some of the air flows from the top of the eye wall, causing it to sink.
A cloud-free aperture emerges, of sinking air and light. This is also the calmest part of the storm – its eye.
Professor J. A. Krishnamurthy
The Metaphysics of Cyclones
The Metaphysics of Cyclones
M
eera’s eyes seek his:
eera’s eyes seek his:
Do I have it in me? Do I want to be with him? For there will come a point when life and time become irreversible. Change will be born. Do I have it in me to live with that change?
Hera knew where to keep the monster she had reared. It would appear only when she summoned it. But Meera reared the multi-headed Hydra within her. Every time she wanted to do something for herself, Hydra reared. Why? it hissed. How can you? Aren’t you being selfish by putting yourself first? Gradually Meera learnt to shut Hydra in its cave by submerging herself into the woman Giri wanted her to be.
But this Meera doesn’t fear the hissing, many-headed Hydra. She knows how to chop its head of uncertainty off and bury it deep so it stays there.
When Jak asks her if she will go with him to the little seaside town, she doesn’t hesitate.
‘Yes, I will,’ she says. ‘But why, Kitcha?’ This morning is a Kitcha sort of a morning. ‘What do you mean to do there?’
He is perched on the table and she feels the pressure of his thigh against her arm. He shrugs. ‘Closure,’ he states, picking up her cup of tea and sipping from it.
Meera clasps her hands together. It is seldom that a woman has a second chance. Actually, it is seldom that a man does either. Perhaps this is theirs, hers and his. Theirs.
C
hinnathayi flinches at the sight of the stranger framed in the doorway.
hinnathayi flinches at the sight of the stranger framed in the doorway.
Somewhere at the back of her mind, she has always known he will seek her out one day. That first time she heard he had come to Minjikapuram, she had gone away. She heard later that he had come up against silence everywhere. That was how it would be. They had bought her silence as well. She was forced to sell it. On it hinged the lives of her granddaughters, and hers too. She didn’t care about herself, but the girls would be orphaned if something happened to her. And she would have failed her daughter again.
She knew no one would talk to him. Neither was she going to give him an opportunity to find her, she had decided, as she stuffed a change of clothes for herself and the girls into a cloth bag that evening and rushed to the bus stand.
If she saw him, there was no telling what she might do. Or say.
‘What do you want?’ she asks baldly.
The stranger smiles. A grim smile of knowing. ‘It is strange you do not ask me who I am. Does that mean you recognize me?’
Chinnathayi doesn’t speak. Then she asks, even though she knows who he is, ‘Well then, who are you? And what do you want?’
She moves deeper into the house. The man doesn’t cross her threshold. He stays resolutely on it. ‘I am Smriti’s father. Do you remember Smriti?’
Chinnathayi takes a deep breath. ‘How is she?’ she asks quietly.
His expression doesn’t change. ‘It would have been better if she had died,’ he says in a voice devoid of all emotion.
‘Yes, it would have been better if she had died,’ Chinnathayi agrees, turning away. Her face is in the shadows. ‘Come in,’ she adds. After all these months of dithering, her mind is made up.
She had sent Smriti away, she says. Chinnathayi sits with her back against the wall. The man and the woman are not used to sitting on the floor, she can see. Not like the girl.
Smriti had squatted on the floor easily, playing with Vana and Kanaka, her nine- and seven-year-old granddaughters. ‘I told her there was nothing I could tell her,’ Chinnathayi says again.
‘But why did she come to you?’ the woman who is with Smriti’s father asks. ‘What information could you have given her that she didn’t have?’
‘My daughter died. She was almost five months pregnant when her doctor asked that she get a scan done. The doctor said she wanted to make sure everything was all right. What is the need? I asked. Did I have a scan when I had my babies? But her husband insisted we do as the doctor asked and he said we should go to the Meenakshi Nursing Home. It was he who wanted to know the sex of the baby.
‘The scan doctor said it was a girl child. Her husband walked away without speaking a word.
‘On our way home, my daughter asked me if I would be her midwife. I knew what she wanted. “No,” I said. “I will never be a midwife again. I swore that when you became pregnant the second time.”’
Chinnathayi’s voice cracks.
‘She wept and pleaded. But I wouldn’t listen. I thought if I was firm, she would let it rest. Her husband arranged for the baby to be aborted. They didn’t tell me. I knew when they brought my daughter’s corpse home.
‘I ask myself this now. If I had been her midwife, she would have wanted me to snuff that life out. I used to do it once, after all. And my daughter would be alive. Unhappy but alive.’
Chinnathayi reaches for her tobacco pouch and then pauses. ‘Your daughter heard about mine… she wanted to know exactly what happened. But I sent her away. My daughter is dead, what is there to talk about, I told her.’
Jak shifts on his haunches. His leg has gone to sleep. He gazes
at Meera, who looks shaken. Afraid, even. He knows remorse then. What has he done by dragging Meera into this? All he had thought of was himself – the real horror of Smriti’s last hours waited in Minjikapuram and he needed a bulwark. He has been thoughtless and selfish. He finds his hand groping for Meera’s.
at Meera, who looks shaken. Afraid, even. He knows remorse then. What has he done by dragging Meera into this? All he had thought of was himself – the real horror of Smriti’s last hours waited in Minjikapuram and he needed a bulwark. He has been thoughtless and selfish. He finds his hand groping for Meera’s.
‘But it didn’t end there,’ he says quietly.
Chinnathayi nods. She sighs and stretches her legs out straight. The soles of her feet are cracked and there are deep furrows scoring the underside. She crinkles her toes a few times. ‘No, it didn’t end there.’
They came to her house a little after Smriti left. ‘Where is she?’ Srinivasan asked.
Chinnathayi pretended she didn’t know who he was asking about. ‘Who? My granddaughters? They are here… Vana, Kanaka, come here.’
Srinivasan peered at the girls. ‘Don’t pretend, Chinnathayi. Did the girl come here? Saravana saw her.’
Chinnathayi blanched at the name of her son-in-law. The nursing home had bought his silence when her daughter died. He was an attender there now. He didn’t see them for the butchers they were. The murderers who had killed his wife. Instead, he was their dog. Their loyal, boot-licking dog. The servile, conscienceless koodhi that he was.
‘Oh, him! He is a drunk. He doesn’t know his elbow from his knee.’
Srinivasan frowned. He understood her implication well enough. ‘Saravana may be wrong but there were others who saw her come into this alley. They all remember her well enough. How many girls in our town will be seen wearing a jeans pant?’
‘What? That girl?’ Chinnathayi waved a dismissive hand. ‘Why didn’t you say so first? She left. About an hour ago.’
‘Do you know how to contact her?’
‘Why would I? I don’t even know her name.’
It was Kanaka who chirped up. She had heard the flow of words between Paati and the old man who looked like a school headmaster. She could see fear in Paati. Why was Paati so worried? She knew how to help.
‘Aiyah, aiyah!’ she cheeped. A little bird with a big beak. ‘I know!’
She felt Vana pinch her. She knew that Vana grudged her speaking out first. Vana pinched her all the time. She talked too much, both Paati and Vana said. But this time she was going to make it right for Paati. ‘Aiyah! I know that Akka’s name. It is Smriti and see, she gave us this paper with her number. She said you must tell Paati to talk to me and when she agrees, call me on this number. I’ll come and bring with me a doll and sweets, she said.’ Kanaka’s words echoed in the suddenly still room.
Srinivasan leaned forward to pat Kanaka’s head and remove the slip of paper from her hand. ‘Clever girl! You have saved me a great deal of trouble. Here, Selvam, give her a twenty-rupee note. Buy yourself some thenkuzhal with it. And don’t eat it all at once. You’ll make yourself ill. Give some to Paati and your sister, do you hear?’
Kanaka nodded her head happily.
‘That akka is going away tonight, she said. She took photos of us on her phone,’ she added, pleased with all the attention that was coming her way. She couldn’t stop smiling.
Srinivasan stretched his hand out to Selvam.
Chinnathayi spoke into the phone the words Srinivasan asked her to: ‘I thought about what you said. I will give you the papers, the scan report, everything. But you can’t be seen coming here, and I can’t be seen coming to the lodge. It is too dangerous. Come to the seashore. There is a vacant stretch with a casuarina grove, a little before the fishermen’s colony. I will be there by six. It is better if it is twilight. No one will spot us then.’
‘Thanks. Thanks. You are doing something truly noble!’ she heard Smriti say into her ear.
‘Don’t hurt her, Aiyah!’ Chinnathayi heard herself plead. ‘She is a young girl. A young girl who doesn’t know what she is doing. She is going away later today. Please leave her alone!’
Srinivasan smiled. ‘I am not a rowdy. What do you think we’ll do to her? We’ll deal with her as she deserves to be dealt with. No more. Now put this conversation out of your head.’
Chinnathayi nodded slowly. There was nothing she could do.
If there was a god, he would watch out for her. But god, she knew, sometimes closed his eyes when it came to women.
Shanta had sent word for her to be there when it was time for the first baby to be born. My mother has brought many babies into this world, she must help me bring mine too. She has to be here with me, she insisted when her mother-in-law wanted to know why. Chinnathayi had said that she wouldn’t go unless Shanta’s mother-in-law wanted her there.
‘Is it a boy?’ Shanta whimpered.
‘A girl! A beautiful girl,’ Chinnathayi said, expertly tying the stump of the umbilical cord and swaddling the infant in a cotton cloth.
‘Oh!’ Shanta said, afraid to meet her mother-in-law’s eyes.
‘That was a fine birthing indeed!’ the woman said. ‘I thought you said she had a lucky hand. I thought she would bring a boy child into our home. I told you that I would call the woman who helped bring Saravana and his brothers into this world but you wanted your mother and no one else.’
Chinnathayi went about settling the mother and child without speaking. ‘God decides. How can a midwife change things?’ she said.
But the woman shook her head, her grim face unwilling to relent. ‘We have always had boys in our family. This is the first time a girl has been born in this house.’
‘Well, we also need girl children. The human race would die out otherwise. What if your mother and mine thought of us as you do now? I was so happy when my Shanta was born,’ Chinnathayi said quietly.
‘Perhaps. But we don’t need girls in our family. Let someone else have them. As far as I am concerned, they are trouble, just trouble.’
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