Sharmila glanced at her exquisite collection of
saris and hastily picked out a peach silk one. Then she spent fifteen minutes of
careful attention to choose her lingerie. The correct selection assisted her to
shave off inches of excess fat and perked up her sagging curves. Pleased with
the visibly younger self reflecting back from the mirror, Sharmila started to
pleat the sari around herself. And that’s when she heard a huge furor from the
adjacent bedroom.
She hurried into the next room with the half draped
sari trailing behind her. There she found her daughter Priyami hunched down and rampaging through everything while cursing out aloud.
“Priya! What’s wrong with you?”
“The fucking packet of cigs,” Priyami pushed her
voluminous curls back and looked up at her mother from behind the black rimmed
big glasses.
“Are you high again?” Sharmila held Priyami by her bony
shoulders and pulled her up.
“I’m always high mum.” A strong alcoholic breath
made Sharmila flinch as Priyami placed her hands on her slim waist and looked
at her mother defiantly.
“Where have you been all night?” she asked.
“I was with Jonty.”
“Aren’t you dating Rishi?”
“Yes, him too. Him too…him too! Hahahah…” Priyami
started laughing incoherently.
“What’s so funny?”
“Hashtag him too is a cyberspace movement…against
women like you!”
Sharmila raised her hand in a slap but stopped
herself way before landing it on Priyami’s face.
“I can’t believe my own daughter has turned out to
be such a slut.”
“I earn my salary as a journalist mum…I sleep
around for fun. So technically, am not a slut.”
Priyami sat down on an armchair
and yawned casually.
“I think I’ll sleep a bit…”
With this sudden declaration she curled herself up
and promptly fell into a peaceful sleep.
Sharmila walked up to the windows and closed the curtains to darken the morning
and placed a pillow to prop up her daughter’s hanging head. She tucked in
Priyami’s curls behind her ears, finished draping the sari, took her set of
keys for the apartment and left.
For almost an hour Sharmila drove aimlessly in loops
before braking her car at a by-lane close to her home. This was a place where
the gloss of city affluence was peeling off, offering a peek into its true struggling
condition. A huge gurgling canal was washing out the inky sludge of the humans,
dousing the area in a perpetual methane stench. The abundance of trees and
birds along its bank made it look like a cursed river doing its time, in the
hope of being restored some day in the future by some magical touch.
Sharmila found a huge boulder on the other side of
the lane, flattened conveniently at the top, probably due to erosion by
hundreds of gossiping butts over untracked time. It is here that she sat down
and placed one leg comfortably over the other. She watched the canal’s silent
submission to fate as she smoked a cigarette. It gave her some solace.
She took out one more cigarette after a while and
attempted to set it alight. But her lighter refused to work. She looked around
in dismay, hoping for a little glimmer of fire somewhere. The small shop at the
corner was closed and there was no other person to borrow a match stick from.
At this moment a rag picker, who had been camouflaged against the brown and
grey of the backdrop, stood up and hobbled towards her, holding out her lit-up
bidi. Sharmila uncomfortably lit her cigarette and fished out ten bucks from
her purse instead of voicing a thank-you.
The rag picker happily accepted it and sat down on
the ground, right next to Sharmila’s feet. Her tattered sari was pulled high up,
exposing her legs. Thick dirt had accumulated in the cracks of her feet and her
matted hair looked like a perfect party zone for lice.
“Cigarettes remind us that we’ll go up in smoke one
day…that’s why smoking makes us happy,” the rag picker made a comment.
Although startled, Sharmila chose to remain silent.
“Can you go sit elsewhere? I’d prefer to sit in
silence for a while,” she added after a few seconds.
“Why? Is it because I’m ugly?” the rag picker asked.
“Do you
always sit exposing your legs…don’t you feel…mmm…” Sharmila quickly attempted
to change the subject.
“Embarrassed?” The rag picker offered to end the
sentence with a generous smile. Many of her teeth were missing and the
remaining ones were blackened.
“Aren’t you scared of sexual assault?” Sharmila
said.
“My legs aren’t creamy and enticing as yours. The
scumbags would get turned off by the view.”
Sharmila took another look. They were mottled with a
melee of wounds and scars, some still raw. She crinkled her nose and turned her
face away.
“I know all
about you,” started the rag picker again. “You live in the C block…flat number
34. Strong locks installed in the doors. Only way to break in is by
compromising the temporary security guard who comes during the summers.”
“You are planning to break in to my home?” Sharmila
was surprised and vexed.
“Wouldn’t I have done it already if I had wanted to?
I keep myself busy by plotting crimes I never commit. No money for
entertainment you see.”
“Don’t you have any family?”
The rag picker laughed out aloud for 10 long seconds.
“You should know that I wasn’t repulsive always. I too had a pretty face in my youth. My parents had named me Phool
kumari.”
There was no discernible trace of beauty left in her
face and Sharmila found the name “Phool kumari” to be quite preposterous.
“When I was sixteen I had run away with Abdul, the son
of the local ferry man, after he got me pregnant. Even though our families had
shunned us, we were happy together. But one day his boat capsized in a storm,
drowning him, and with him, my happiness. His family took away our boy who was
a little over two back then. Then they threw me out of the village. When I went
running to my parents, they called me a bringer of doom and sent me away.
That’s when I moved to the city. After trying a
thousand odd jobs I settled to being a rag picker.”
She shrugged nonchalantly and took a long drag of
smoke.
“Never saw your child again?”
The rag picker turned towards her, startled.
“I meet him every month,” she clarified. “He turned
out to be a handsome man like his father. He’s a big shot in his village. Verrry
rich…verrry powerful!” She looked immensely proud.
“Does he not treat you well?” Sharmila asked.
The rag picker thought of the first time that she
had ventured to see her son after decades. The village where she used to live
with Abdul was now a small town. Crowds were thronging the broad, paved street,
hailing their mighty leader. The rag picker peered though the cheering men to
catch sight of a tall and broad man, attired in green kurta and white pants,
marching by confidently. He was waving at all, sporting a trace of smile at the
corners of his lip, lapping up the cheers contently. It was her son, Hanif
Abdul.
After he vanished into his palatial residence, his men came and
distributed free lunch packets to all. The rag picker had saved her packet; she
meant to have lunch that day seated by her son, in the rightful place of a
mother.
She never disclosed her identity to the security
people and kept pleading with them for an appointment. But the brawny men first
tried to ignore her and then they tried to shoo her away with threats.
That’s when she lost her cool and told them who she
was. About a handful of men had heard the audacious statement and they
immediately took her in to see Hanif Abdul.
The men bowed down and saluted their leader first.
Then one of them pointed at the hapless woman who had sat down on the floor.
“She claims to be your mother, janab,” he said.
Hanif Abdul hinged his legs a bit, rested his hands
on the knees and bent forward to observe the woman with squinted eyes for a minute.
And then he stood up to his full height to let out a billowing laughter. His
men immediately joined in and echoed the laugh.
“You all may leave now,” Hanif ordered his men.
“I’ll give her some money and send her away.”
As soon as the men scuffled out Hanif brought a
chair and sat down facing the rag picker.
Seated at his feet, the woman looked at him with
open wonder.
“I’ll give you a sumptuous dinner,” he said. “Eat
and leave.”
He pointed towards the door with his raised right
hand.
“I came to eat with you,” she started. Her eyes were
moist.
“Don’t waste my time,” he began to walk away.
“Son, won’t you have a single morsel from my hands?”
she had begged with folded hands.
“No, you’re dirty!” He smirked casually and showed
her the door again.
For seven days the rag picker had waited outside the
palace, hoping for Hanif Abdul to change his mind. On the eighth day, she was
taken inside again.
Abdul was seated on an ornamental chair with two men
stationed at each side.
“Since you called me your son, I’ll help you to set
up a business,” started Hanif Abdul. He casually threw some small packets full
of a white powder towards her.
“Sell these to the rich dads and their rich kids.
And then we can share the profit.”
Then as Hanif Abdul spent the next 20 minutes focused
on his smartphone, his men shared with the rag picker, their expertise on
selling drugs.
She listened carefully and nodded along. Her son was
asking something from her after years, she had to do it well.
“Now go back to the city,” Hanif Abdul smiled
condescendingly when his men were done. The men walked out noisily, expecting her
to follow them.
“Do you not believe that I am your mother?” she
asked him one last time as she prepared to leave.
Hanif Abdul gazed into her eyes with a strange ferocity.
“I don’t want to,” he muttered.
The rag picker left for the city that very evening.
She gradually settled into her role. It fetched her some money. More
importantly it gave her a sense of purpose in life.
And now Sharmila's sudden question made all her memories alive.
“Did your son not accept you?” Sharmila asked again.
“Never told him who I was,” the rag picker quickly
lied without turning her head. “I thought it doesn’t befit his status to have
me as a mother.”
“What does your son do for a living?” Sharmila
prodded.
“He is a business man,” gloated the rag picker. “He
deals with a very rare powder, it’s an expensive medicine.”
“So, your son is a drug dealer,” Sharmila saw
through the ruse immediately. “How unfortunate for you!”
“Stop calling my son names,” the rag picker hissed
and stood up. “He doesn’t take drugs himself. My son is a very kind man who
helps the poor.”
“I didn’t mean to hurt you,” apologized Sharmila.
“You, in particular, have no right to pity me,” she
angrily chewed out the words.
Sharmila wondered what she meant while the
rag picker continued to grumble under her breath and began to limp away down
the street. As soon as her hunched figure disappeared at a turn, Sharmila got
up too.
She walked up to her car leisurely, with a thousand
thoughts clouding her mind. She unlocked her car and turned on English country
music. There are so many ways in which children hurt their parents, thought
Sharmila as she drove back home. Perhaps her Priya was not that much of an
aberration.
She parked her car in the basement and took the
elevator to her apartment. As she unlocked the door, she was greeted by the
assorted aroma of Indian spices. The kitchen was clean, the table had been set
and warm lunch was waiting. The maid had come, transformed the house and left,
much like a genie.
Sharmila threw the keys casually into the drawers and
sat down on her sofa. The sound of running water from the behind the closed
door of the bathroom told her that Priyami was up. She came out soon with her
hair wrapped in a towel turban and her body covered in a matching bath robe.
Priyami seemed happy to see her mother this time.
“I’m sorry mum,” she sat down and hugged her mother
tightly. Sharmila hugged her back.
“Why do you let alcohol control you? Can’t you see it
takes away your sweetness and turns you into a monster?”
“Please mum…don’t get started again,” Priyami sat
back, her forehead lightly creased.
“Let’s eat now…I’m famished.”
As mother and daughter shared space over the
familiar tinkling of the cutleries the tension in their bond melted away
slowly.
“Tastes heavenly,” commented Priyami as she savoured
the first mouthful.
Sharmila smiled in contentment. After chewing the
first few morsels she spoke up.
“I confess that I took away your cigarettes last
night,” Sharmila said with a wink. “Sorry dear…but you have to promise me that
you will limit yourself to one cigarette per day!”
“Oh no…mum,” Priyami was annoyed. “Why do you do
these things?”
“I smoked one or two,” her mother said with a grin.
“What? You took two?” Priyami stood up and clutched
her hair.
“No, I was kidding,” Sharmila was taken aback. “Your
packet is untouched.”
She got up and walked to the sofa. There she grabbed
her purse with her left hand and tossed the packet back to Priyami who promptly
took a head count of her stock and sighed a smile of relief.
“Thank goodness,” she smiled. “I’m sorry if you felt
bad. But don’t take them ever again. These are special cigarettes.”
“In what way?”
“They have an exotic flavor,” Priyami tried to
explain. “I buy them at half price from a rag picker who smuggles them from the
ports.”
Sharmila felt herself losing balance. She sat
down awkwardly with a grimace as the full weight of the rag picker’s comment finally
sunk in.
