It's a normal school day and I wake up at 7 am to the sound of my mother coaxing my brother and me to get up. She has better luck with me as my brother refuses to stir. I come down to the sound of Bombay jayashree singing 'kanden seethaiyai'. It's a warm day as usual and my parents are bustling about so as to allow my brother and me the luxury of a few more minutes of sleep. A tumbler filled with steaming hot Boost awaits me as I reluctantly make my way to the wash basin and the mass of tooth brushes. There are always more tooth brushes than there are people in my house. I methodically scan the bathroom entrance to see if there are any cockroaches visible to the naked eye. I'm relieved to find none. I make my way to the kitchen and pick up my tumbler. I carry it to the living room, sit myself down on the sofa and try to down the dreadful thing in one gulp. Somehow I spill it entirely on top of the sofa. The milk starts settling into the cushion. I frantically try to stop it with my hands. My mother comes rushing to me at the sound of the clanging tumbler. I look at my mother guiltily. She says ' let it be. I'll pour out another glassful'. She fixes me another tumbler within minutes and brings it to me . She starts wiping the sofa cushion with a wet cloth. She tells me it will not go easily and mildly tells me to be more careful next time. She does not ever yell at me like other moms purportedly do. I feel even more guilty and shameful. I vow to never let another Boost tumbler slip past my hands but I never did succeed in keeping that vow. I sip the drink slowly and carefully and my mother urges me to hurry. I down the last few sips quickly. I run to the bathroom where my mother has laid out my towel and clothes. I ask her if she has checked the bathroom for cockroaches and she assures me she has. I want to believe her but I do only partially. I step in gingerly and bathe with mugfulls of warm water that had already been filled in the bucket.
I put on my Monday whites and start arranging my books according to the timetable. My mother reminds me that my maths classwork notebook is lying on the sofa. She had told me to put it away last night but I hadn't. She remembers that my sixth standard maths teacher is very strict and did not let any student without their notebook go without punishment. I shudder at the thought of being punished by that teacher and gratefully put the notebook in my bag. A plate of dosas is kept on a small wooden stool in front of me. I slowly eat my two dosas, patiently dipping the pieces in the dal that runs all around the plate. By this time my brother has joined me with a plate of his own. MS Subalakshmi is singing now and my brother dubs the shlokam she sings as 'that dosa song'. He swears that this tape is always on whenever there is dosa for breakfast. My mother laughs at this and continues to recall this joke years after my brother has forgotten about it. My hair is quickly combed into two plaits by my mother as I put on my white canvas shoes. I proudly examine the white polish which I had painted on them last night and show them to my mother to see how I had skillfully avoided splashing the edges. She nods her approval.
********
We walk into a wide corridor and try to spot my room in the fresher's wing of the college girls hostel. I check the sheet of paper again for the correct number. My father spots it soon after . My parents and I walked into what was to be my home for the next four years. There are steel cots, five of them and two other girls had already arrived, one of whom I knew. We met her parents and our mothers start chatting. They are both mildly worried for their daughters. My mother does not seem too worried though. She smiles and looks around the room. She points out the few amenities, a common bathroom close by but not close enough for the associated fragrances to drift into my room, a wide corridor which is bound to get nice and windy in the evenings. She begins arranging my things in a shelf near the cot I had chosen. She tells me she's glad she remembered to bring old news papers. She spreads them on the granite slabs of my shelf. My two suitcases are quickly tucked in. A mirror, a comb and a tooth brush stand are neatly laid out on the top slab to make for a tiny dresser. We go out of the campus to a shop nearby to buy a mattress, two pillows, one for my head and another to hug, a bright pink bucket whose quality my mother has approved of, with a big mug to go with it . We carry these things back to my room. The mattress is laid out on the cot and quickly covered with a bed spread my mother had packed. I'm all set and my parents have an evening train to catch. I try not to cry when my parents were leaving. We shy away from an emotional leave taking and I hurriedly say 'bye ma , bye pa' as if they're only going out to buy groceries and will be back within the hour. They're both gone and I don't let it sink in that I'm on my own now. I go out to explore the hostel with a couple of friends from school and unexpectedly land myself in trouble with a senior. She threatens me that my life will not be easy unless I opt for an attitude change. My friends tell me that I'm quite done for and I better keep my head low for a few days and try not to be spotted. I don't know what to expect and I imagine the most horrible things. I am scared, I want to go home, I want my mother. I cry myself to sleep that night. My room-mate tries to coax me to sleep, I ignore her and continue to cry till about 4 in the morning.
A week passes by and several rounds of ragging are done. I finally find the courage to walk up to the payphones and use a couple of one rupee coins to call home. My mother answers the phone and I almost start weeping at the sound of her voice. We have a mundane conversation about every day, what I ate and whether I had enough money and so on. I hang up as I have run out of one rupee coins and there's a long line of girls waiting for me to finish.
The Pooja holidays have finally come and I'm going home. I'm filled with a surge of warmth ,longing and many more emotions as I walk down the narrow street to my house. My mother takes my bag and asks me if I remembered to bring my laundry. I had. That was all I had brought. I went up to the bedroom and wept and wept to my heart's content. How much I had missed this place and why did I ever think of leaving it. My mother brings me my tumbler of Boost and urges me to stop crying and to come and have breakfast. She points to a big bag filled with new one rupee coins to take back with me. 'just so you don't run out of them' she says. I took the tumbler from her and drank up. Boost had never tasted so good before.
********
Three years have passed since I've graduated and moved back home. I hardly find time to do anything other than go to work and come back home. My mother offers to pack a lunch for me but I leave too early to allow time for anything to be cooked. No matter what time I left home and sometimes it's as early as 4 in the morning, she would get up with me, to give me a glass of warm milk before i leave. One day she hurriedly made small sandwiches of puris and amul cheese. I remember my colleague commenting on the oddness of my food but I loved it. She was getting noticeably weaker, coughing through the night and finding it difficult to breathe. The doctors seemed clueless about how to help her. Then one day she'd had enough. She stayed at the hospital for an agonizing week. She had lost her ability to make meaningful sentences. She tried to communicate with her eyes,expressions and gestures. It broke our hearts that we couldn't understand her. We swore to make our house a palace of sorts when she returned, where everything would be clean and we would cook Masterchef-like meals for her. But she really had had enough. She refused to come back home.
Two years have come to pass since that day .Today I play her favourite Bombay jayashree song on my phone. I wait for it to feel like it's a bustling Monday morning with two dosas for breakfast. It doesn't. It's not the same. It's hauntingly different. She isn't here anymore.
I put on my Monday whites and start arranging my books according to the timetable. My mother reminds me that my maths classwork notebook is lying on the sofa. She had told me to put it away last night but I hadn't. She remembers that my sixth standard maths teacher is very strict and did not let any student without their notebook go without punishment. I shudder at the thought of being punished by that teacher and gratefully put the notebook in my bag. A plate of dosas is kept on a small wooden stool in front of me. I slowly eat my two dosas, patiently dipping the pieces in the dal that runs all around the plate. By this time my brother has joined me with a plate of his own. MS Subalakshmi is singing now and my brother dubs the shlokam she sings as 'that dosa song'. He swears that this tape is always on whenever there is dosa for breakfast. My mother laughs at this and continues to recall this joke years after my brother has forgotten about it. My hair is quickly combed into two plaits by my mother as I put on my white canvas shoes. I proudly examine the white polish which I had painted on them last night and show them to my mother to see how I had skillfully avoided splashing the edges. She nods her approval.
********
We walk into a wide corridor and try to spot my room in the fresher's wing of the college girls hostel. I check the sheet of paper again for the correct number. My father spots it soon after . My parents and I walked into what was to be my home for the next four years. There are steel cots, five of them and two other girls had already arrived, one of whom I knew. We met her parents and our mothers start chatting. They are both mildly worried for their daughters. My mother does not seem too worried though. She smiles and looks around the room. She points out the few amenities, a common bathroom close by but not close enough for the associated fragrances to drift into my room, a wide corridor which is bound to get nice and windy in the evenings. She begins arranging my things in a shelf near the cot I had chosen. She tells me she's glad she remembered to bring old news papers. She spreads them on the granite slabs of my shelf. My two suitcases are quickly tucked in. A mirror, a comb and a tooth brush stand are neatly laid out on the top slab to make for a tiny dresser. We go out of the campus to a shop nearby to buy a mattress, two pillows, one for my head and another to hug, a bright pink bucket whose quality my mother has approved of, with a big mug to go with it . We carry these things back to my room. The mattress is laid out on the cot and quickly covered with a bed spread my mother had packed. I'm all set and my parents have an evening train to catch. I try not to cry when my parents were leaving. We shy away from an emotional leave taking and I hurriedly say 'bye ma , bye pa' as if they're only going out to buy groceries and will be back within the hour. They're both gone and I don't let it sink in that I'm on my own now. I go out to explore the hostel with a couple of friends from school and unexpectedly land myself in trouble with a senior. She threatens me that my life will not be easy unless I opt for an attitude change. My friends tell me that I'm quite done for and I better keep my head low for a few days and try not to be spotted. I don't know what to expect and I imagine the most horrible things. I am scared, I want to go home, I want my mother. I cry myself to sleep that night. My room-mate tries to coax me to sleep, I ignore her and continue to cry till about 4 in the morning.
A week passes by and several rounds of ragging are done. I finally find the courage to walk up to the payphones and use a couple of one rupee coins to call home. My mother answers the phone and I almost start weeping at the sound of her voice. We have a mundane conversation about every day, what I ate and whether I had enough money and so on. I hang up as I have run out of one rupee coins and there's a long line of girls waiting for me to finish.
The Pooja holidays have finally come and I'm going home. I'm filled with a surge of warmth ,longing and many more emotions as I walk down the narrow street to my house. My mother takes my bag and asks me if I remembered to bring my laundry. I had. That was all I had brought. I went up to the bedroom and wept and wept to my heart's content. How much I had missed this place and why did I ever think of leaving it. My mother brings me my tumbler of Boost and urges me to stop crying and to come and have breakfast. She points to a big bag filled with new one rupee coins to take back with me. 'just so you don't run out of them' she says. I took the tumbler from her and drank up. Boost had never tasted so good before.
********
Three years have passed since I've graduated and moved back home. I hardly find time to do anything other than go to work and come back home. My mother offers to pack a lunch for me but I leave too early to allow time for anything to be cooked. No matter what time I left home and sometimes it's as early as 4 in the morning, she would get up with me, to give me a glass of warm milk before i leave. One day she hurriedly made small sandwiches of puris and amul cheese. I remember my colleague commenting on the oddness of my food but I loved it. She was getting noticeably weaker, coughing through the night and finding it difficult to breathe. The doctors seemed clueless about how to help her. Then one day she'd had enough. She stayed at the hospital for an agonizing week. She had lost her ability to make meaningful sentences. She tried to communicate with her eyes,expressions and gestures. It broke our hearts that we couldn't understand her. We swore to make our house a palace of sorts when she returned, where everything would be clean and we would cook Masterchef-like meals for her. But she really had had enough. She refused to come back home.
Two years have come to pass since that day .Today I play her favourite Bombay jayashree song on my phone. I wait for it to feel like it's a bustling Monday morning with two dosas for breakfast. It doesn't. It's not the same. It's hauntingly different. She isn't here anymore.
Thanks so much Adarsh.
ReplyDelete