Blood Oranges
Rebecca Vedavathy
All eyes peered into the distance where the Ganga hosted a daily tableau of boats and birds. The boats, motley splotches of ebbing light; the birds, matchstick-embers dyeing the sky sunset on Leah’s lens. She loved sunset photography, part of this was because she was too lazy to wake up at sunrise. She sat there at the water’s edge with her face stuck to the camera. To her, the sun was a fruit; sometimes a tangerine or a grapefruit, other times an easy-peel clementine or a more subtle satsuma. Today, she was unable to make up her mind. ‘What could it be?’ she wondered.
‘This city is made by its tourism,’ K punctuated their silence, ‘stuck on purpose in the 1940’s.’
‘Shhh…’ Leah waved him down.
K continued anyway, ‘It’s like, you know a bride that’s presented to tourism, dressed purposely in the sordid colours of capitalism.’
‘Sometimes, you take yourself way too seriously,’ Leah shrugged, looking away from her lens as she corrected herself, ‘Wait, you take everything way too seriously, K. Reee-lax! Just enjoy the Ganga go by, no?’
‘You don’t want me to trouble the waters?’ K said amused by his own wit.
Leah pitched in, ‘Yes, please for God’s sake don’t cause anymore ripples.’
‘Which God? Shiva? Also, please, it’s not me causing the ripples! It’s all the rubbish people dunk into the river. Look at that man standing there dunking himself into the ice-cold river as if it were a cup of hot tea waiting for rusk crumbs.’
Leah shook her head in annoyance. ‘What rusk crumbs? More like he’s pissing fetid urine into it. In any case, if I humour you for half an hour, will you let me photograph the aarti in peace?’
‘Generous as always, Lee, aren’t we?’, K emphasised the ‘e’ in her name making the sarcasm clear. ‘The sun has taken with it the last light, in any case, I’m sure you can spare me some of your time before the aarti begins.’
‘I’m going to ignore that tone of yours. What did you mean when you said Banaras is purposely stuck in the 1940’s?’
‘Do you really want to know?’ K demanded as if unsure of this new tactic Leah had adopted.
‘Come on, man! I’m trying!’
‘Okay, okay! Did you notice how this place behaves like a village for its inhabitants while leaving rolls of toilet paper in the toilets for the tourists? The Banarasi folk squat on the footpaths and bathe in the Ganga for their matinal ablutions while restaurants and hotels have toilet paper that they explicitly ask you not to flush down the ancient Banarasi drainage system. Why? Because the drainage system is not meant to be compatible with the modern people who come to visit this ancient city.’
‘Are you saying, in some sense we’re being sold ancient-ness?’
‘I’m saying we won’t allow Banaras to catch up with the rest of the world. We’re making it a museum for tourists.’
‘You’re not just talking about the architecture? You’re talking about the people who seem to be stuck in a black and white film, no?’
‘Absolutely! Like the men from last night who believed the ghats are their private property and women entering this space are infringing upon their personal space…’
‘But that doesn’t apply to ALL women,’ Leah said as she turned her attention away from the boats rowing into Assi Ghat. ‘It applies only to women who are dressed a certain way, women who give away their external-ness. And it’s not just the clothes that give a woman away, for example a young girl who sits on the banks with a young boy, engaging in what could be construed as a romantic encounter; no touching, no kissing, basically they are not allowed the feeling of safety,’ Leah let her camera sit on the cemented stair beside her.
‘You’re saying, if we kissed right now it won’t be safe for us?’ asked K bemused by how serious Leah’s tone had suddenly got.
‘You think we’d be safe if we tried?’
‘Try what, Leah?!’
‘What man?!’
At the edge of the step K fidgeted, thinking about what Leah had just said. She looked at him and rolled her eyes.
‘What do you mean what, Leah? You know what!’ K said furrowing his brows.
She began to notice how his t’s were more articulate than her own. Every time he said it, she could envision him purposefully lining the t's, loading them with a warm stress.
‘Say ‘whattt’ again!’ Leah said amused.
‘Shut up, Lee! What’s with you?’
‘Just say it,’ she repeated.
‘Buttt, I don’t wanttt to. Now, can we please not…!'
‘Ah what an aural orgasm your t’s can give,’ Leah giggled.
‘Do you hear yourself, Lee?’
Leah smiled. Of course, she had. Words came to her easy.
Imitating Leah in a high-pitched tone, he said ‘What an oral orgasm your tease can give!’
‘You won’t even kiss me, what oral orgasm, tch tch tch?’ Leah poked K’s shoulder.
‘Are you really suggesting that I can’t?’ K challenged.
‘Maybe,’ she smiled. A silence spread over them, tissue thin, engulfing them in that momentary intimacy that chances upon friendship with the sole intention of complicating it. An intimacy that teases the cinder of common sense. A thrilling intimacy of firsts.
K smiled a surreptitious smile and after a while said ‘whattt?’ Looking her straight in the eye.
Leah nodded her head mischievously.
And that’s when they kissed for the first time. He pulled her hand towards him. She had never imagined he’d kiss her, let alone kiss her as they sat on the ghats. He tilted his head to draw her in. She did not resist. She held his face and ran her fingers through his beard. He was gentle, kissed her softly and slowly pulled away. Her eyes gave her away; her eyes that looked happy in abandon, in a public place, kissing a man she had been friends with for so long now. She leaned in for a second time. And this time they both tugged at each other’s lower lip. He pulled away and laughed.
‘We have a problem,’ he said, 'we both enjoy the lower lip.’
Her face lit-up with laughter. And this time they both moved in to kiss each other. She ran her tongue on the roof of his mouth where all his t's were lined, allowing him his fill of her lower lip. ‘Another problem,’ he said, this time his voice more serious. Her eyes shut she leaned in and laughed, ‘What this time? No tongue?’
He gently held her shoulders and adjusted her like a shirt on a hanger, ‘Lee, there are a couple of men watching us.’
She stiffened, tried not to be jerky with her movements. But she could see the men from the corner of her eye, chewing paan. When they noticed she was aware, they all spat in unison on the staircase leading downwards to where she and K sat, a warning.
She looked away and made eye contact with K. His eyes looked wild with worry. But he didn’t say a word. She mustered on, in as much of a stable voice as she could, ‘I won’t make such a bad wife, you know?’
‘They aren’t going to marry us off! This isn’t the kind of love jihad they are looking for. Stop saying things like that!’ His sentences came tumbling out crashing into each other.
‘Maybe we should get up and walk to Harmony.’
‘I don’t think walking past them into a closed space, that too a bookstore is going to improve the situation, let’s not be reckless! Let’s wait for the aarti to…'
Before K could complete his protest, Leah motioned towards him with a finger on her lips, a hiss growing under her own, ‘Shushhhhhh…’
K was making a list of all the incidents he had read in the newspapers. The Mangalore incident, the shutting down of Lucknow university, the marrying of animals on Valentine’s Day, the lynching of couples. The news flashed before him one by one. He wondered what these men would do.
Leah could no longer hear the undulating river reaching for the stairs where they sat. Her mind wandered and the most gruesome gang rape of the last decade came to mind. ‘Nirbhaya,’ she said softly. ‘Nirbhaya. Death is what brings bodies to Banaras.’ She was afraid.
‘Jyoti, means light,’ said K, catching on. ‘Nothing is going to happen.’
‘Even now you want to argue politics! Nirbhaya or Jyoti the end is the same,’ she said, not making eye contact.
‘No, no … I didn’t mean to…’ K whispered retreating into silence.
The men began to form a menacing half-moon, encircling them, at earshot. Miserable, low-quality phone cameras took photos. The moon stood, the searing eye of the universe.
‘Lee … Let’s call the police,’ K said desperately knowing full-well how networks like this worked.
‘Come on, K. Let’s go!’ Leah said.
‘This is so stupid! How can they look at us like this!’ He said suddenly angered by the absurdity of it all.
‘This isn’t your ideal cobble-stoned Parisian pathway, K. This is Banaras. We fucking kissed on the ghats where thousands of devotees come to worship every day. What were we thinking? What on fucking earth were we thinking?’
‘We were being reckless, I know! But that doesn’t mean they can photograph us, stalk us. How is vigilante street justice okay?’ K said, his t’s sounding less whole.
‘Are you hearing yourself? Should I quote the Nirbhaya Act? Do you think that will change their minds? Should I give a speech on women’s safety?’ Leah spat, her voice turning sour, growing in volume.
‘Leah! Calm down, they can hear you.’ K said gently. He wished he could hold her hand. ‘ I am not the enemy, Leah! Maybe the women around the ghats will help.’ K adopted a new strategy trying to keep their nerves in check.
‘You’re a man! Your safety is not in jeopardy. This entire conversation is proof of that. “Women’s safety”, you say, like you are talking about some other species. Me, being a woman, that’s what is worrisome. My body is the object of your worry, their worry. They may beat you up, but what worse will they do to me.’ Leah said hysterical.
The crowd of men behind them grew steadily. The spitting now reached their backs. They didn’t dare turn or protest.
‘You think they’ll treat me better if I told them my name means ‘cow’ in Akkadian?’ Leah suddenly said.
The smell of chilli stalks being broken open filled the night air. Sacks full of chillies were being lined behind them.
‘They can’t threaten us like this, Lee… What is the chilli for?’
‘I don’t think it’s for our eyes. They’ll stuff our orifices with it. Marinate me like beef, exact revenge for cow slaughter. What do you think?’
‘What the fuck is the matter with you, Lee!’ K. shrank in horror.
‘I’m sick of this, K. I want to go.’ Leah said for the final time that evening.
She wanted to lean in and rest her head on her friend’s shoulder. Instead, she turned towards the river, wrapped her hands around herself, kept her knees locked together and sat crumpled in thought. ‘What do you think they’ll do with the chillies?’ She asked herself as the Ganga aarti grew louder in the background. She couldn’t bear the fear growing exponentially within her. She wanted to get out. Escape the crowded ghats and its peering vision. She wanted to be anywhere but there.
The conch leading her, Leah stood up, with a clarity in her eyes and began to walk away from the water, towards the aarti, towards the men. Their eyes and cameras directed at her ivory skin, the men pretended not to notice her. K followed her quickly, picking up the camera and water bottle she had left behind; his shoulders held outwards, ready for combat, knowing full-well it was a lost battle. Leah’s gaze steadied on the men. At first, they ignored her. Then they began to stare at her, their roving eyes upon her body. Their attention was suddenly dispersed by a group of tourists moving in to get a better look at the aarti. Taking advantage of this momentary confusion, Leah dared moving ahead. K stepped up, quickly, trying to protect Leah’s back. She felt a tug from behind her.
A brief comma to Time. Held breaths. Fear. Dilated pupils. Racing heart. Adrenaline rushes.
Blood orange flashes. Cameras. The men unmoving. Leah inching forward. The air thick with incense. The growing chants. More fervent. More frenzied. More unhinged. More blood orange flashes. The blood orange flashes of the aarti. The aarti. The Ganga aarti. A religious distraction. Leah was frozen. She slowly turned back to see what was tugging at her. Ready for attack. Ready to scream. Ready to run.
Ready for the worst. She felt the hand again. She turned fully ready to strike when she realized that the aarti thali; the plate with the incense stick, the burning camphor and the marigold flowers offered to the goddess was being offered to her. The aarti thali. A moment of disorientation, followed by a sweeping sense of relief engulfed her. She finally took in a long slow breath. Her palms reached from the thali to her forehead. Behind her, fading orange sunbeams danced along wrinkled river skin.
‘That’s what it was, half a blood orange… The sun was half a blood orange, today,’ she said to herself as she left the men staring behind her.
*
Dr. Rebecca Vedavathy is an award-winning poet and academic from Bangalore, India. She works as Assistant Professor, French at a reputed college in Bangalore. Her PhD is in the field of French Haitian-Canadian Women’s Literature. She won the Poetry with Prakriti Contest in 2016 awarded by the Prakriti Foundation. Her poems have been shortlisted for the Srinivas Rayaprol Poetry Prize (2018), the Wordweaver’s Poetry Contest (2017) and the Glass House Poetry Contest (2020). She was also awarded the prestigious Shastri Indo-Canadian Fellowship for Doctoral Scholars in 2017 and worked as a Research Intern at l’Université du Québec à Montréal. She has been published by many national and international journals like Allegro Poetry Magazine, Mascara Literary Review, The Bangalore Review, Vayavya, The Sunflower Collective among others. She has been invited to read her work at the Hyderabad Literary Festival, Nazariya International Women’s Film Festival (Hyderabad), Centre for Indian Languages (Banaras), among others. When not reading, writing or teaching she lives a quiet life with her cat and plants. She has just completed her first manuscript of poems titled the peepul tree girl.
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