The Visitor

Shalini rushed from the kitchen where she had been scrubbing the pots and declared at the sitting room sofa, panting,
"She has come!She has come!I told you she will come back.She has fought with her bahu
.I am telling you.!!"
"Who?"
"Huh?"
Her children sat with their brains fogged with Shahrukh Khan . It was too much information for them to assimilate.
Shalini wrung her hands , spraying water and soap suds everywhere ,and stood blocking the TV.
"Listen to me. Punditayin has returned to her home."
"What?"
"No!"
"Mom,you're imagining things!Aur ab hato, you have made us miss the best part of the song!"
Leaving her zombied kids, Shalini went back to her pots,grumbling.She craned her neck,and saw through the kitchen window,a light in one of the rooms.And a shadow moving around.
But something didn't seem right.Where was the usual hubbub associated with such an arrival?
I mean,why wasn't the driveway lit?Where was Punditji with his loud mannerisms and TV at loudest? Why didn't she hear the taxi?What if she has fought with her bahu and come back alone?
What if it is a burglar? Hey Bhagwan ! She didn't think of that?
By the time Shalini finished with the kitchen counter top,and soaking rajma and setting curd for next day,she was convinced that it was a burglar. The Pundits could never make such a quiet return.

"Sunte hoji" Shalini shook her slumbering spouse.
"Mm mm" Paras mumbled incoherently.
"I think we should go and take a look at Punditjis house."
"Kyon,bhai?" Paras dawdled,raising himself on his elbows.
Shalini told him.
"What is ze time? 1115pm? "Paras squinted at his mobile."We will go the first thing in the morning "
He announced,quickly pulling covers over himself,and started snoring the next moment.
Shalini sighed. No one believed her. But she had seen a light at the window,didn't she? Shalini hated it when people doubted her.

Eyes wide open,Shalini tiptoed to the kitchen,and peered out of the window into the dark. Pundit house was shrouded in darkness. Not a single light. Suddenly the sitting room was awash with light and a shadow moved past.Shalini covered her mouth to stop from screaming. Then the light went off and the world was dark again.

Heart hammering hard,Shalini came back to bed and quietly laid down,scared to wake up slumbering husband and children. She didn't know what to make of the light.It seemed to be signalling her. But what? For the life of her,she could not fathom.Reciting hanuman chalisa,she rested her head and tried to sleep.

"Rrrrrring "
Shalini's eyes flew open.She looked at the clock.0230 hrs.
"Who could it be? Or maybe I just imagined things."
She shut her eyes and tried to sleep.
"Rrrrring."
There was definitely some one at the door. The rest of the house seemed to be slumbering.
Paras was snoring,on his side. The kids were quiet too.
Shalini got up and pulled her shawl around her shoulders.

A small hunched figure stood at the door in the dark, away from the peephole.
Shalini tried the front door switch.It would not work.
"Hey Ram."
"Shalu" a wheezy voice called her by her childhood name.
Forgetting all apprehension,Shalini quickly unlocked the door.
"Punditayinji!!!Aayie,aayie!!! Arre !!! Itni raat gaye!!! You should have called me."
" Shalu, I need your help." The shadow sputtered and a fine spray hit Shalini. A dark puddle of water had collected beneath her dripping saree edges.
"Punditayin! You are wet, aap andar aayie." Even in the dark, Shalini could make out her wearing the same red bordered saree , She bought for punditayin , from kolkata.
"Nahin nahin, I am in a hurry.Chath, and all that.I have some dues to pay. Dhobi and the maali.Last time I left in a hurry, and forgot."
She thrust a small bundle of soggy bank notes into Shalini's protesting hands. Her hand was cold and clammy to touch. Shalini shivered despite the shawl.She moved her hand to wipe the face.
"One more thing. When Punditji comes back,he will give you something.A small gift from me for your daughters.Aakhir meri bhi toh betiyan hain"
She coughed and a large blob of phlegm flew across and stuck to the wall.
Shalini stepped back hastily, covering her face with the shawl. When she looked up,Punditayin had disappeared.
The porch light decided to come back on then,and Shalini inspected the phlegm on the wall.It was dark red and glossy. Blood mixed. She must remember to remind her to take antibiotics.Some infection!!
The puddle on the floor too seemed pinkish. Blood mixed or colour,she couldn't tell.Poor Punditayin!!!She was in real bad shape.

Overcome with pity and relief,Shalini slept like a baby,and got up late to the usual mindless mayhem of early morning breakfasts ,baths,lunch boxes and hurried departures.The bunch of soggy notes lay forgotten on the mantelpiece,drying slowly up.

At around 11am, Paras rung up. He seemed disturbed.
"Punditji rang me up. "
Shalini exclaimed,remembering last night 's events. But she let Paras finish.He didn't like to be interrupted.
"Punditayan is no more.She drowned in a lake,trying to do "Chath Puja". There is also a rumour that she fought with her' bahu ' and wanted desperately to come back to her home.The lake was dredged yesterday whole day.They found the body just now. Panditji is very upset.He was crying. He said,two days ago , she made him promise that all her gold jewellery is given to you for your daughters."
"And you know, Shaalu, she really loved you, she died wearing the red-bordered saree you bought  for her from kolkata."

Sarafuddin

He was a mason and a master story teller.
A word twisted into "My son " by my wicked classmates . for endless ribbing , which hundreds of flung-in-rage -chalk -stubs could not quell.
They had walked past my half built brick house , and had found me in deep conversation with this man with a shock of white hair, and whiter beard, perched atop a mound of bricks.
"Who is he ?"Idle curiosity.Should have shooed them away, instead I replied "He is the mason."

Sarafuddin told us tales from the Arabian nights. He was unlettered , apparently . But he knew the urdu alphabets , and taught us how to write our names in urdu, by drawing them in the dirt with a twig plucked  from the guava tree.

Terrible wars, strange pestilences, palace intrigues, loyal , armor-clinking warriors, and persian bazaars with hijab covered women, strange soothsayers and magical carpets came alive each day during his prolonged tea break.

Sarafuddin never had lunch breaks , unlike most of his workers. They carried their tiffin boxes full of home made sabzi-roti, he carried his bundle of bidis.Upon insistence , he would agree to tea.

Tales of Arabian valour, steeds that" flew not galloped" ,  men and women who could wreak magical havoc, flying carpets , all still linger with the aroma of stale tobacco, damp cement and slanting sunshine of the forenoon falling on ash- covered brick piles straight from the kilns.

He was different , yet one of us . It is difficult to explain, the one ness. It had to be experienced.

His ability to speak the same language , yet carry us to such different lands and times. That wove magic around us. He would sit hunched up, on a pile of dirt, his lungi tucked beneath him, haranguing a worker about cement - and' gara' mixing , while narrating mesmerising tales with infinite tenderness.

He, in short, was the architect of our houses , and dreams . Of veiled princesses, and kohl eyed princes .Every year, for the annual white wash, he would arrive with his tubs of limestone (Chuna) and the usual flunkies.

Five days later, he left the walls and rooms whiter, and our collection of stories richer. He knew every story in the elusive Sherazade series. The princess about to be murdered , and how she wove a magical spell with her fabulous stories .

Sarafuddin was our own Sherazade , bidi-smoking, lungi-clad, white bearded.

As our world veers today, dangerously towards intolerance and bigotry, one wonders what is lost in trying to prove one's point. A precious something, elusive, indefinable , mist-clad , like the lost treasures of Ali baba. 

The clinic

The old jalopy braked hard and came to a shuddering halt, one of its tyres resting on the ash-mound and sending  clouds of ash into the sky.
The bearded driver stayed put , so did many other people crammed into the old jeep. Two women in burqa alighted , holding a small infant between them .
The women were wailing, the child lay limp and quite still between them.
Father saw the baby and asked them to take him to a bigger hospital , immediately.
The baby was sleeping on his cot. A scorpion had climbed up the legs of the cot and stung the baby on the soft part of the head , the fontanelle.That was last night. The baby was unresponsive now .
The ladies climbed aboard, still howling.
Some one produced a small steel bowl of water with a spoon, The thinner, (and so, the younger ) woman, most probably the mother , tried feeding the baby.She spilt some , as her hand shook, the rest trickled down the baby's cheek, un-drunk. The driver sped off in a cloud of ash-filled dust.
The feminine wailing, gut-wrenching and full of foreboding, settled on the air thick with ash.

This was an image burnt into my memory, of a small clinic opened by my grandfather , for father.
It was ill-equipped to say the least. All it had was a couple of boxes of first-aid items and a cot. Father was very distressed . He had worked in a large hospital.He knew what needed to be done . His inability to provide the same , bothered him to no end.

It would distress him that a crowd would be waiting for him , patiently , by the gate , when he arrived . It bothered him, and us , that some of those dusty, dhoti-clad people, would try and touch his feet, even if they were (or looked) much older to him, and were in obvious pain.

It bothered us that medical care wouldn't be given to 90% of these people, simply because of lack of facilities. Still, they flocked to him. Fractures, wounds , fevers, boils, pregnant ladies in labour,and small babies covered in boils.He would wring his hands, shout at his assistant, give a patient hearing  to most, and send them off to government hospitals , that provide  free health care. It was a serious farce.

Father would storm into grandfather's den, when he had shooed the last patient away, and they would have a shouting match.

"You just want me to be a "Parchi doctor."( a doctor who writes slips)I am not a parchi doctor, I don't want to be one . Why can't you understand ?"

Grandfather deserved this outpouring. He was the PR behind the throngs at the gate . But he would smile and nod his head , sagely. That would drive father over the edge , and he would pack his bags  and leave early for his job in the city, forfeiting his leave .

Grandfather was doing what he thought was best . He , probably, like all doting fathers , wanted his son to stay close with him, work from home .

Once , around mid-night, the jeep from our convent stopped at our gate . Father was at home . A sister , one of our tutors , had taken ill. Food -poisoning. Father got manika to concoct a brew of salted nimbu-paani(ORS). She recovered. One of the few successful treatments administered from home .

The clinic died a natural death, next monsoon,as the tentacles of gourd and luffa vines entwined and completely covered the sign on the door. Grandfather still sat in the verandah , in his dhoti , his walking stick resting next to him, nodding and smiling to himself, waiting.

The hill station.

"Take the first right turn , there , right there, and you will find him sitting underneath a tree."
No, we were not looking for holy men. We were looking for a "Mochi", a cobbler to repair the zips on my overstuffed purse.

The zips kept throwing in the towel, after being stuffed with tourist brochures, cell-phones, batteries , cameras, chargers, wet tissues, anti-emetic tablets , iodex bottles, cough drops, combs , flowers from the feet of various "devi matas' in different phases of drying-dying,two capless pens that don't write, a small spiral notebook scribbled all over by the younger one in teenage gibberish, clips , a butter-knife , a spoon, one gutka of sikh sacred hymns, two different editions of hanuman and shiv-chalisa (my mother's advise - "you never know which God you need to propitiate!" ), two headless happy- meal toys , and one disposable menu card from the KFC.

In other words, my purse suffered from a classical case of elephantiasis.

I had to empty my above mentioned treasures into a black , polythene, garbage bag, which I wheedled out of the boy who brings water and tea to the mess- rooms , over prolonged and profuse inquiries after his "biwi-bachcha."

Everyone we asked gave the aforementioned directions . The hill-station abounded in trees. Mercifully, the roadside trees were limited in number.

Amazingly, every right turn had a roadside tree, and every tree had some sort of activity , going on.
The first tree had a "thela", a wheelbarrow, of fried papads and home made biscuits, next right turn had  two vendors , tired after a raucous morning hawking, catching breath, springing to action at the sight of us and setting upon us to buy "postcards " and T -shirts. I am inclined to believe an aggrieved tourist , who said ," they (hawkers) are like blood hounds , they can smell a tourist a bend in the road away"

Having escaped the duo, the next right turn brought us to "the lake ". Suddenly , we were dwarfed by the sheer volume of well-heeled Gujaratis, upon whom all attention turned.

Even the roadside eateries and shop owners, send out their personal criers to the town square , in front of the lake . So an assortment of raised , high pitch crying exhorts you to get photographed , get tattooed , eat Gujarati thali, eat rajasthani thali, buy embroidered camel seats,buy fur caps, ride camels, ride horses, ride strange , driver less,dangerous -looking contraptions that faintly resemble wheelbarrows, ride boats , and generally get looted /loaded with unwanted junk.

In midst of all this chaotic hub-bub, sat our Mochi, in a Buddha -like trance , comfortably , beneath a badly hacked banyan, its several stumps serving as advertisement posts for "Photos ", "Pizzas", "Boat rides and scenic views".

He had shielded himself from sun and noise with two large black umbrellas , juxtaposition-ed against each other, weighed down with bricks , creating a shell-like haven for himself.

He had the problem fixed in a jiffy, with a pair of evil-looking tweezers and some pungent smelling lubricant.

Upon being complimented, in abject gratitude , that he was a magician, the cobbler gave a rueful smile , and answered , un-Buddha like-"If I was a magician , I would be stealing money from your purses and not repairing them."

That reminded me to carry some money in my purse, when I venture out next.What was the purse meant to carry, by the way ?

The lemon tree

It was not ours. The lemon tree.
We saw it occasionally, when we were visiting my sister in one of those hyper-populated, pulsating suburbs , which a big city tends to grow its tentacles into.
It was large , gnarled and old . Lemons grew prolifically and in huge sizes. They sat like small melons , meditating amongst the thorns, waiting to be picked, bending the old tree double under their sheer weight and numbers.
The old tree was cursed with fertility. Like an old maid whose womb has no respite.
The lemons were seedless, large , juicy and yellow. They grew without having been ever watered or cared for.They ripened and fell in rotting numbers , in difficult -to-reach places .. On high branches and on the neighbours barbed wired wall top. Some , I suspect must be rolling off to the "other side " too. The tree had so much generosity to unburden.Such wanton largesse !!
The fridge is forever stocked with the yellow citrus orbs .
Citrussy flavours creeps into everything that is cooked. From biryani to poha, lemon cakes and lemonades.It creeps into the wardrobes as small bundles of dried fragrant leaves .It pervades the washrooms in pots and jars of homemade face -packs. The gift of nature is packed and parcelled, DHL-ed and couriered to various corners of the globe .
Some sit in my fridge too. A rapidly vanishing bottle of lemonade and a jumbo pack of the ripened balls .
One tree has painted us all , in various shades and fragrance of lemon.

Last I heard , a burglar lost a part of his "lungi" as he hastily made his escape . No one knows the extent of damage the thorny branches must have inflicted on his exposed flesh. But I suspect, they will be numerous and painful.

I never dreamed

I never dreamed I would be a mother -of -two. I always thought I would be a nun, and wear the white habit with a rosary tucked into my waist. The nuns who taught us ,were, in my adolescent eyes,the perfect beings . Their way of life seemed complete to me . Renunciation, service and devotion to the Lord. Bliss!
I never dreamed I would one day, be sneaking a jam sandwich at bed time , and have my daughter roll her pretty eyes at me , reminding me , in a furious whisper-“Maa, aren’t you supposed to be off-carbs?"

I never dreamed , one day , I would be scolded by my younger one , clad in baggy "capris"that has more buttons than my keyboard, jangles at every step, and ends at the fleshy shin,-"Mama, you have no fashion sense ."Not to mention that she completes her outfit with an oversized shirt, left unbuttoned , the shirttails flapping wildly in the breeze and displaying the rude words on her inner T-shirt-"I am prettier on most days", and a pair of sneakers that have pink satin strips on the sides.

I never dreamed , I would be told , on being checked for bedtime TV, -"Mama, jao yaar, tang mat karo."(Mama, go away and don't bother me )

On having recounted the unsavoury details of a classroom fight, to my sympathetic spouse , I never dreamed,I would be accosted , in the corridor, with teary eyed accusation of "betrayal of trust"-"Mama, how could you?"

I never dreamed , in the midst of  a tiring day , a soft hand would untie my apron, and snatch the roll of dough and the "belan"(rolling pin ) from my hands , ordering  me , mother-like,-"Mama, go watch some TV, let me make chapattis today."

The temple

The sun was soft and almost canoodling when we emerged from the dining hall, wiping bread crumbs off the chin , and burping coffee , cutlets.
By noon, as we struggled up the mountain-side, climbing ancient stone steps , the sun had turned an arch enemy, a hard task-master. Blazing in all its fury, beating down mercilessly on city-backs , bent and panting forms .
This was a temple . A famous temple . Oft-visited, in fact a must -visit in the guide book. Sure enough, there was a mandatory crowd of pilgrims with us , Mountain people, nimbly striding up steep gradient , as we the lesser mortals from the plains , huffed and puffed.

Like all temples in Rajasthan, this too had disputed antiquity. Some authorities said 11th century, some 15th. Some said it was razed by muslim conquerors , some said it survived due to its inaccessibility. I will vouch for the latter.

Leaving red faced and thirsty spouse and kids on the doorstep, I trudged on ahead . More steps , more doorways . Narrower, darker. Overpowering smell of ghee-lamps, incense , crushed flowers and human crowd. The floor is wet , dark, slippery and dangerous.

The roof turned into an irregular rocky mass, religiously white washed, dangerously low, brushing against the head. So did the walls. At the entrance , which was a small gap in the rocky lip, sat two saffron clad pandas, collecting mobiles , and giving tokens . I had none . But crawl you must, through the 2feet by 2feet small opening, shining through centuries of rubbing against human forms , and diligent saffron enamel paint.

The aperture opens into a cave . You may stand and breathe now. The air is cool. But it is the statues that startle. A usual Durga astride the tiger  seems a recent addition, almost as an after thought. The main statues are three naked female forms , swathed in a single sari.

There were offerings , incense , coin, coconuts , wrapped up mantras, in crinkly paper, here too. A metallic box for donations .

I make my obeisance , hastily .A strange dread , ancient and gut -wrenching, fills my heart.

I come back and read the board at the entrance carefully. The usual contradicting stories. A temple dedicated to parvati. sati. Nay, she goes by this name , no that.

The dread stays, unallayed. Rajasthanis pride themselves on their valour and the sacrifice of their women. Sati,written' suttee' by british was a common practice . It had horrified them , to see nubile girls being drugged and burnt alive on the pyre of their elderly husbands . Wars and conquests brought forth mass sati, called "Jauhar", still glorified , in movies , songs and edicts.

What I had visited was probably another sati-site. Three concubines of a king , burnt together,in a horrifying reminder of a barbaric practise.