Half Wild
Mathangi Subramanian
Before she even
opens her mouth, we know Prema is from way up north of nowhere. Not that we’re
from somewhere, exactly, but it’s a lot more somewhere than Prema’s nowhere. We
can tell from the way her eyes dart and scatter. The way her heart thumps like
a trapped rabbit’s back leg. The way her body hunches and curls and tenses like
the jungle still tangles and knots its roots around her bones, pulling her
taught and tight.
Probably we should
feel sorry for her. But we don’t.
The truth is,
we’re a little bit jealous.
Those darty
jungle eyes of hers? Sure, they’re full of fear. But they’re full of something
else too, something the rest of us wish we had. A certain kind of memory. A
memory of air that isn’t salty with petrol and construction dust. A memory of
skies lit by stars instead of the headlights of two-wheelers. A memory of
sounds that don’t come from angry drunks or angry dogs or angry drivers.
A memory of the
sound of birds.
*
Prema’s Amma’s
eyes, on the other hand, are always full of tears.
For weeks and
weeks, she cries and cries.
She cries when
she hangs the laundry on the clothesline strung between our houses. She cries
when she pours the dosa for tiffin. She cries when she sweeps the floor that
will never be clean, because it’s made of dirt, and how can you get rid of dirt
when it’s all that you have to work with? She even cries when she sees Prema,
even though Prema is the only one who makes her happy.
One day we ask, ‘Why’s
your Amma so sad?’
‘She misses the
jungle,’ Prema tells us. ‘Or at least, what lives in the jungle. She misses the
birds.’
There are plenty
of birds in Bangalore, especially in Heaven. Mynahs with feathers the color of
mud. Pigeons with necks that pop like rusty bed springs. Eagles that carry
pieces of rotting flesh in their city-sharpened claws.
But jungle
birds? There’s not so many of those.
Except if you
take the long way home from school. The one that goes through the posh
neighborhood full of houses so big they have gardens full of roses and
carnations and driveways full of two- and four-wheelers and whole floors to
rent to strangers.
Or, in the case
of one house, a whole veranda just for birds. Birds that look like they cost
more than brand new shoes. Feathers the colours of the necklaces in the
Joyalukka’s window. Birds so posh that if they applied for visas at the
American embassy, they would get them on the first try.
City birds that
still know the songs from way up north of nowhere.
And around the house,
trees. Leaves the shape of every phase of the moon. Trunks knotted with
footholds and resting places. Bits and pieces of jungle twisting and straining
their way out of the concrete.
The first time
we take the long way home together, Prema licks her palm and smooths down her
hair and walks right up to the bird-veranda-house. Sucks in her breath and
rings the doorbell.
‘Madam,’ she
says to the lady who answers. A lady dripping in actual necklaces from the
actual window of actual Joyalukka’s. ‘Do you need a maid?’
‘Actually,’ the
lady says. Voice neatly pleated, like she hired the ironwallah to press her
tongue. ‘Yes, I do.’
*
The next morning
Prema brings her Amma, memories tracing watery tributaries on her cheeks.
Nothing too difficult, the pressed-tongue woman says. Just some sweeping and
dusting and tidying up.
‘And then, of
course, we need you to care for the birds.’
Prema isn’t sure
then, but she thinks she sees the currents of her mother’s waters still.
*
For three
months, everything might be better. Prema’s Amma sweeps and dusts and tidies
up. Brings home rupees folded in the damp end of her sari. Brings the birds
their food and water and keeps the verandah clean. Pets them and coos to them
in her Marathi-Kannada-village voice.
The
pressed-tongue lady doesn’t understand what Prema’s Amma is saying but claims
that she has never seen the brood so plump and lithe and fluttery.
‘These village
women just have a way with wildlife,’ she tells her neighbors. Tilts her pretty
pale face for a minute and adds, ‘I suppose it is because they are half wild
themselves.’
The
pressed-tongue lady doesn’t notice that Prema’s Amma is still crying rivers of
tears. But these days, the waters run with determination, not despair.
When she speaks
to the birds, Prema’s Amma’s wrinkled tongue is filled with salt.
‘Do you see the
city out there?’ Prema’s Amma whispers, pointing to the world beyond the
verandah. ‘It is full of rage and fear, but you have courage. You have wings.’
‘Do you see the
buildings?’ Prema’s Amma chants. ‘The offices and shopping malls and flats?
Between those buildings there are trees. Between those buildings there are
homes. All just waiting for us to find them. Just waiting to become ours.’
‘If you think
about it,’ Prema’s Amma murmurs, ‘Bangalore is just another jungle.’
One morning, the
pressed-tongue lady finds Prema’s Amma whispering to the birds. Thin brown body
leaned against the wire mesh walls of verandah-cum-aviary. Freshwater eyes
turned up to the sky.
‘I’m going out,’
the lady says, placing the key on the table in the hall. ‘When you leave, lock
the door and tell the watchman.’
It is that
moment. The moment between maid and housewife when trust is bestowed, privilege
given. The moment when the press-tongued lady lets Prema’s Amma know that she
is guaranteed a job here forever and ever and ever. Here among the jewelled
birds and the flame of the forest trees and the floors that are made of tiles
and so, with time, can be cleaned.
Prema’s Amma
stands at the wire mesh wall and watches the pressed-tongue lady gather up the
folds of her kanjeevaram sari and adjust the position of her Joyalukka bangles
and step into her Mercedes Benz. Prema’s Amma picks up the key and feels its
cold metal weight.
For ten full
minutes, Prema’s Amma holds the key and thinks about home. Thinks about trust.
Family. Money. Thinks about birds. Trees. Farms. Thinks about right and wrong.
Prisons. Freedom.
She is as still
as a neem tree in a village square.
Prema’s Amma
lays the key back down on the table. She reaches into her sari blouse and
removes a knife. Sharpens the blade on the edge of the table. Cuts a hole in
the wire mesh verandah in the shape of a summer moon.
*
Some of the
birds leave immediately, but others aren’t sure. Prema’s Amma takes them in her
hands. Knows their hesitation. Knows their longing. Feels their feet and
feathers make crooked tracks on her palms.
Prema’s Amma
sings them village songs. Jungle songs.
Whispers, ‘You
are strong. You have wings. Use them.’
Speaks the
shared language of the half-wild.
One by one, they
go. Prema’s Amma watches them disappear, fading from the colours of emerald and
diamond and sapphire into the colours of leaf and cloud and sky. The hues of
their new lives. Or perhaps their old ones.
When they are
gone, she sweeps away the feathers they left behind.
Eyes dry, hands
steady, she gives the key to the watchman. Presses the weight of cold metal
into his blistered hand.
*
Prema’s Amma
doesn’t work at rich people’s houses any more.
She doesn’t cry
any more either.
Mathangi
Subramanian, EdD, is the award-winning author of three books for children and
young adults. The 2015 winner of the middle grade category of the Katherine
Paterson prize for Fiction, her work has appeared in publications like The
Hindu, The Indian Express, Quartz, Al Jazeera America, and Thinkling Magazine,
among others. A former government school teacher, assistant vice president at
Sesame Workshop, senior policy analyst for the New York City Council, and
Fulbright-Nehru Senior Scholar, she currently serves as the head of the
innovations team at UNESCO Mahatma Gandhi Institute for Education for Peace and
Sustainable Development in Delhi.
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