Sunday, 22 June 2014
We finally know what we suspected all along. At least what I suspected. Pari and Siva are having problems. Marital problems, as they say. Viswa, on a trip to the US for work, told us this. Viswa didn’t want to go to the US, actually, and offered to turn it down. But then, as I explained, Srini had just got new plumbing in his heart, and so the best time to go was now.
That sounds so logical that it must be true. I went to my neurologist this week and, apparently, I’m doing quite well. She said I might be experiencing some mood swings and Sekar Srini simply laughed at that. Imagine! Right in front of the good doctor.
I didn’t want to say anything and validate his point. So I kept quiet.
I’m reading again. Srini’s doctors have asked him to keep away from aggravating things and I’m assuming I’m all of that one-item list. The best way to manage it is for me to curl up and read. The library here is abysmal, and I hope it improves as more people move in. When they do. If they do.
I remember the first book I read. Ammini and I sat by the riverbank. Ammini and I had always been best friends for as long as I can remember (which isn’t saying much these days). She was short and stocky, the complete opposite of me, tall and thin as a reed. In complexion too: I was dark like the bark of the tamarind tree cut off to make space for the new school building, and she was fair like its inside. Her eyes were narrow little slits that seemingly pierced into your soul. In contrast, my eyes, I’d been told, were large, as if I were perpetually wonderstruck.
Ammini’s mama had bought home an Ambulimama (we called it “Amminimama”) – it was so full of pictures and stories that we were amazed. Until then, we had never seen so many stories in one place, let alone an illustrated book. We had a small fight too. She wanted to read all the stories, and I wanted to wait and savour each one over time.
“We’ll read one story a day,” I said, but she was adamant.
“Will anyone wait to enjoy stories?”
“But it will all be over.”
“Who knows what will happen tomorrow? I am going to read. You can go if you want to. I’ll give you the book after I finish.” I relented, of course, and we finished the book in one stretch.
Ambulimama had everything: kings, queens, faraway lands, magic and a generous dose of stories from China and Turkey and suchlike – places we couldn’t even point out on a map. Parched, we devoured it all in one gulp. And as I’d predicted, afterwards we didn’t have any more. So we re-read the book several times, waiting for Ammini’s mama to visit again, but strangely that never happened until, well, ever.
Alas, the horizons of Nandhimangalam were not vast enough to accommodate reading for pleasure. Nor were my mother’s. Not that it mattered much then. I only hope that wherever she is now, Ammini is reading to her heart’s content.
Sunday, 29 June 2014
I’ve been good, and have written every week, I see. I’m proud of myself.
I forgot to write about the most important thing that we have been talking about: Pari and Siva are not together. Somehow, it seems sort of natural. Like Rajini movies, which are exciting, but overall you know the road it’s going to take and the destination.
I don’t know when I started thinking that about Siva and Pari. Or maybe it was always just there, just below the surface, like long-held prejudice.
Viswa called last week. She told me to put her on speakerphone. “Amma, Appa, something important.”
We waited eagerly, our lives tethered to our daughters’ through these invisible waves. There was a pause. Too much of a pause. Perhaps it was Viswa’s time to take centre stage and she wanted to extend it, like when they literally had to drag Ammini off stage even after she, as Tiruppur Kumaran, was dead, clutching the Indian flag on her chest.
“Avan inga illa, ma.” She used the colloquial form to address him. As if he were a retired official who had lost access to the honorific bungalow.
As it turned out, it was exactly that.
“Huh?”
“It is as if Siva was never here. I was even a bit scared, Pa. Photos, clothes, everything’s gone.”
Why was she addressing him? I had picked up the call.
“What is she saying?” I asked.
“They have separated. The kids are with him over the weekend and with her during the week.”
“Separated means?”
“Maa. Pch.”
“So they can reconcile? Why hasn’t she told me?”
“Pa, must be because of your attack. Anyway, she says she doesn’t want to talk about it.”
“Even to you?”
“Of course to me too, Pa. If she didn’t talk to you, how will she talk to me?”
“That’s also correct.”
Yes, it was so natural, her order of preference. This is a new phrase – not wanting to talk about something painful. Of course one doesn’t. It’s like me saying, I don’t want to get this baby out; it’s too painful! Even if it’s a thirty-hour delivery, it has to be done. Even if Srini jokes that I was like the Boat Mail making an overnight delivery, and Sekar laughs that irritating laugh that makes my hair stand on end, it’s not like I had a choice.
“So what are they going to do?”
I could feel her shrug. “God knows. She seems quite okay, really. So maybe it was a good thing.”
“Wonder what the fellow did. You think it was an affair? How could he?” I nearly chortled.
Srini, always protective of his little girl. Truth be told, Pari never needed much mollycoddling. She was the older sibling and if anything, she was protective of all of us, even her father.
When she got married, all our relatives were worried that she would display too much of her independence. Her best friend and cousin, Preethi, apparently told her just before her wedding to Siva, “Show some vulnerability, so that Siva can feel like he is taking care of you.”
We had laughed about it then. Now I was thankful for Pari’s steadfastness and independence. But surely, we couldn’t just shift the blame onto the poor boy.
“Come on,” I had to interject. “You know nothing about the situation. Maybe it was she who had an affair?”
I could feel the air sucked out from around me. Really, though, if you saw the two of them together, impartially, like I did, that’s exactly what you would think. I wasn’t exactly sure why Viswa seemed shocked at this possibility. It wasn’t as if she was biased towards her sister.
Why, when they were kids, she would make up such wild stories about her sister that Srini would simply ignore them. She could say, “Appa, Pari killed a boy in class,” and Srini would say, “I’m sure he took her pencil.”
Viswa, having passed on the information, must have felt like a telephone wire. “Okay, I have to go,” she rushed.
“Are you okay, ma?”
“Yes, Pa. Thanks for asking.”
“Take care. Eat well.”
Srini looked at me. If only he gave me an opening to actually talk. Before I could say anything, Viswa said, “Bye, Pa. Bye, Ma,” and hung up.
Srini was quiet for a long time and I was worried. I shook his shoulder and he seemed to come out of whatever trance he was in. “She’ll be okay, right?” I asked him – one of those questions with only one correct answer.
He did not answer immediately. I don’t recall ever seeing him so shaken up. Almost. I look back at the two of them, Srini and Pari, and all I remember is them as a team, nearly inseparable. The two of them, always conspiring, forever talking in secret code, a little something that held them together, like twins in a single placenta. As long as I was providing the nourishment via snacks.
Excerpted with permission from The Eminently Forgettable Life of Mrs Pankajam, Meera Rajagopalan, Hachette.
