Mat
Anjani Raj
‘Get out!’ I snapped at Chandu holding the shotgun car door open. Her face fell. She muttered that she was going to sit in the backseat anyway. Well, she should have done that from the start instead of wasting my time. She settled in the back seat and plugged her earphones in.
‘Hi Monamma. How are you? How’s college? It's been so long!’ Nanna beamed from the
driver’s seat. Amma got in after closing the boot. The well synchronised actions of Amma,
Nanna ensured we were off the airport ramp well before the dreaded eight-minute deadline.
I had just returned home from college for the summer holidays. I put this off for as long as possible, but there were no internships or interesting summer courses this time. On the car ride home from the airport, after all the usual pleasantries and Nanna’s rant about how Hyderabad airport is better than Delhi airport was done, I asked my parents what was up with them.
‘I made nuvvula vunda for you. Here have some,’ Amma said, handing a steel container. Liar. She made them for Chandu. I shook my head and didn’t touch the box.
‘Nanna pushed retirement yet again,’ said Amma sensing the need to introduce an engaging topic. I nodded and lowered ‘Matargashti’ playing on the radio. I had given up by this time. He will retire when he wants to. I think forcing him was, in some weird way, only strengthening his resolve to not retire.
‘Hmm,’ I nodded. ‘What is the sticker on the windshield?’ I asked, pointing to a neatly tapered egg-shaped white paper blocking the top of my view.
Nanna shot a look at Amma from the rear-view mirror.
‘I joined Brahma Kumaris.’ Amma said in a flat voice.
‘It's a useless cult.’ Nanna added, unable to contain his disapproval. It was Amma’s turn to shoot daggers at Nanna.
‘What is Nanna talking about?’ I asked.
Amma launched into a rant as we got on the P V Narasimha Rao expressway, ‘It is not a cult! My friends and I once went to a meditation class that, as it turns out, was run by the Brahma Kumaris. They said a lot of interesting things about God and how we should pray to him. And a lot of things made good sense to me. I’ve attended more classes and I joined them a few months ago. We have three classes a week. Guruji does these wonderful sermons. Nanna is just being Nanna....’ I could feel the ground shifting under my feet. The flyover felt endless.
This was new. Amma was a religious fanatic. I guess no more than any of my relatives. But I didn’t expect this. She prayed incessantly. I usually woke up coughing as our home and my lungs both filled with incense smoke. Amma usually greeted me in the morning with wet hair tied in a towel, her face adorned with vermillion and a saree draped on her body. She would ring a brass bell with one hand and hold arathi in another. She would thrust it so close to my face that if I didn’t wave my hands over it and press it to my eyes in a few seconds my face would melt off.
I’ve suffered from her orthodoxy more times than I care to remember. I am happy to have forgotten them. But some memories are stubborn. And hostile. They refuse to leave your mind. The more you try to push them out, the stronger they get. They lurk in the periphery of your consciousness, stealthily gathering more power. They declare a war and invade you with an army of heightened sensory details and emotional volatility. Often to a higher degree than you actually felt in the moment. They conquer your mind and body, at the most inconvenient times. You can thrash about, try to stop it. But I’ve lost every time. All you can do is surrender and hope they pass soon. I felt one such memory gearing up to wage battle against me.
‘Why didn’t you tell me about this before?’ I asked, barely masking the irritation in my voice.
‘You don’t ever call. And you’re busy whenever we call,’ Amma trailed off.
Guilt pricked me. ‘Did any of your friends join the cult along with you?’ I asked. We shifted to a new upscale apartment in the suburbs a few years ago. It put us far away from our relatives and in the vicinity of posh neighbours. Her new friends were more educated and I hoped some of their common sense would rub off on her.
‘It's not a cult! It is a group of enlightened people rising above pointless money minting rituals. And no, most of my friends didn’t understand the concept. Preeti Aunty wanted to join, but she is so busy with Sai that she hardly has any time. You know how that boy is,’ she said. There goes Amma, pioneering new ways of reaching God.
‘And what do these enlightened people say?’ I asked.
‘They say you can reach God only through intense devotion and meditation. Like how rishis do. For this you need to treat your body like a temple and eat only sattvic food. You need to wake up early, meditate and read scriptures everyday. And that’s all. Nothing else. No senseless rules,’ she answered.
Oh. That’s why. When Chandu called me two months ago, to say she just finished her first period, I was ready to go to war with my parents. But to my surprise, she was free to roam in the house. Amma had given her a good talk on what periods entail. She was even free to go out if she wanted to. My parents only imposed that she rest for the week and skip school, something she was more than happy to do. Maybe this cult was the reason. A serpentine anger twisted inside me.
‘When did you join?’ I asked
‘Around January,’ she said. Okay, the timing checked out.
‘This is all bullshit, Monu. You just wait and watch soon they will ask Amma to pay some money or donate something for a higher purpose. What is this higher purpose anyway, just a way to loot people. Your family is the only higher purpose. She is disturbing my peace every day, waking up at five, constantly on the phone listening to those old farts talk rubbish. She has zero consideration for anything I say,’ Nanna said, almost whining. White blurs with yellow number plates zoomed past us on the flyover.
‘If you are so disturbed by me waking up, I will sleep in Monu’s room,’ Amma said.
‘Ha, do whatever you want, it's not like you listen to me anyway,’ quipped Nanna.
Oh good, more time with Amma. Why can’t she just be a normal person? What is with her and God? Why can’t she just believe in common sense? And Nanna is absolutely right, she doesn't care about what her beliefs do to the family. My eyes began to burn.
‘You can sleep in the hall,’ I bit back.
My palms clenched into a fist and hot tears threatened to spill from my eyes. An involuntary moan escaped from my lips and silenced the car. Nanna froze and pressed on the accelerator as if getting home faster will stop some calamity. I could feel Amma’s eyes on me.
All my childhood, I was her dutiful daughter. I went to temple with her every Sunday. We’d go earlier than any of the other aunties. Amma would select the prettiest flowers, the perfect coconut and get archana done in mine and Chandu’s name. She’d hold her palms together, close her eyes and mutter something until the poojari touched her head with the Shatagopuram. We’d sit on the temple steps after and I would tell Amma all about what happened in school that week. She would laugh at my jokes, cajole me if I did something wrong and shower me with love if I did something right. Amma would tell me all about fantastical landscapes, dashing heroes and beautiful heroines from the Mahabharatam. She’d move her hands, make bewildering expressions and imitate animal noises, whatever the story demanded. With the sun shining behind her, she positively looked radiant. My parents moved to Hyderabad before I was born, in search of new opportunities. A new modern life. Telling stories and inviting relatives to Sunday lunches were the ways Amma kept in touch with all that she had left behind. I was more than happy to be her sole audience. I would ask Amma why Rama asked Sita to jump in fire or why Krishna had so many wives. I was always happy with her answers. The ones I wasn’t happy with I’d just put out of my head.
When the other aunties arrived Amma would chat with them for hours while I played with their kids around the temple. We’d then go home and Amma would have relatives over and cook delicious pappu, rasam, bendakaya and serve thick curd. They’d all lounge around till the evening. Amma and the ladies gathered in the hall and Nanna held his forum in the verandah. I’d play with my cousins and pop in to sit on Amma’s lap every now and then when it got boring.
One particularly hot sweltering summer afternoon, while I was doing my homework, I started feeling lightheaded and dizzy. The feeling intensified quickly, like I was on the world’s fastest merry-go-round. I have felt dizzy before and usually Amma gave me Electral which fixed me right up. I wanted to yell ‘Amma!’ but somehow only a feeble ‘Amma’ came out of my mouth. I suddenly felt hyper aware of something wet between my legs. I got up to go to the washroom. But that movement was too much for my body to handle. I clutched the walls to steady myself. With heavy footsteps and a heavier head, I reached the bathroom. I pulled down my pants and saw a big red splotch. A thick lumpy crimson liquid covered my fingers. My heart pounded against my rib cage. My chest constricted as I gasped for air. The instant adrenaline rush gave me my voice back and I shouted ‘Amma!.’
Amma opened the bathroom door to find me leaning over and clutching the bathroom sink with one hand and holding a blood soaked panty with another. She looked at my droopy trembling body. I dropped the underwear and reached out to her. She recoiled in horror and said, ‘Don’t touch me.’ My hand fell. She ran out and got a bar of Rin soap. ‘Wash it,’ she said pointing to my underwear.
I looked at her and at the underwear in confusion. I reached out my hand again and said, ‘Amma, dizzy. Electral. Wash after.’
‘Don’t touch me!’ she said. ‘Wash it now.’
I let go of the sink and crumpled on to the bathroom floor. She threw the Rin soap near me. I reached out to the tiny old used bar of soap and rubbed it against the blood with sweaty palms. The feeling of wetness expanded as tears poured out on my cheeks. After several minutes, I think she finally realised her thirteen-year-old daughter, who had never even done dishes, would not be successful in getting the blood out. She got a crumpled plastic cover, held it open and said, ‘Put the underwear and soap in the cover.’ I obeyed. My head slumped, as she poured water on my hands.
‘Get up,’ she said. ‘And don’t touch anything. We are going to the children bedroom, where I laid out a mat for you. You will go and sit on it.’
My hands felt like they were filled with lead as I tried to position them on the bathroom tiles, to support my body. But the tiles were spinning and I couldn’t get a firm grip. After a few more such attempts, Amma realised I cannot get out of here without help. She got Electral in a plastic cup and put it on the bathroom floor. I took the cup and lifted what felt like a ton to my lips and chugged it. The salty Electral mixed with my salty tears drenching my purple Dora the Explorer shirt. I sat there for a few more minutes and when it felt like the world was spinning like a normal merry-go-round. I made another attempt to get up. Amma handed me new underwear with old cloth wrapped around the centre. I wore it and headed to the children's bedroom.
Amma kept saying ‘Don’t touch the walls!’ but I couldn’t walk without the support. I didn’t have the strength to explain it. I collapsed on the mat and blacked out to the sound of Amma washing the bathroom, wondering if I would die.
For the next seven days, I was restricted to the mat. Nanna, Amma, Chandu, no one was allowed to touch me. And I was not allowed to touch anything because they would either have to be thrown out or purified. And books can’t be purified. So I stared at the ceiling most of the time. I figured out every little pattern in the mosaic tiles. I spotted a bear, an Orion constellation and a smiling lady, a rudimentary Mona Lisa perhaps. I studied the dips and rises of the uneven tile edging and how dust settles on them.
Amma gave me special underwear with white strips of plastic coated cotton stuck on them. She came every morning and night to collect it in a plastic bag and give me new ones in silence. The blood-soaked stuff reminded me of the ones I saw in my school restroom once. Maybe I caught something that day. Maybe I was sick. And it was highly contagious. It couldn’t be, neighbour aunties came and saw me all the time. Their faces weren’t sad. They kept asking Amma and Nanna about a party. I couldn’t ask anyone, I was terrified of what the answers could be.
I was allowed to use the bathroom, but I was not allowed to bathe. Many of my relatives came to see me as well. They were congratulating my parents and handing them fruits. Some suggested I eat raw eggs and drink milk in the morning. They said I should eat homemade nuvvula vunda for good health. The congratulations and dietary input confused and scared me. Thankfully, Amma didn’t ask me to do all that. I ate only curd rice or occasionally, plain dal.
On the third day or so, Nanna took pity on me and slipped me an old phone and said, ‘Don’t call or text anyone. But it has the internet so you can read things you like.’ I googled ‘blood from there girl.’ The internet taught me that the blood I was shedding is normal and it would happen every month. It taught me that the white plastic thing was a pad. It also taught me that some religions see periods as dirty and force women to stay out of the house every time they have it.
When Amma came that night I asked her, ‘Do I have to be on the mat every month?’
She replied, ‘No, only the first time.’ Relief washed over me.
‘When can I go back to school? What will I tell my teachers and friends?’
‘Four more days. Tell them you went on a trip.’
A trip. For a week. Just like Mouni and the other girls. That time when the girls and I took a collective restroom break, I had quite the scare when Mouni threw a white gauze looking thing with blood in the bin. Sarita didn’t react at all. Later when we were walking our bicycles home I had asked her if she was alright. I thought it was cancer. That’s the only thing on TV with a lot of blood spewing and weird symptoms. She laughed and said it’s nothing to worry about and that I would soon find out about it too. I put the whole incident out of my head and moved on to bitching about Hemanth. I should have asked more questions.
After the seven days were over, I was allowed to bathe, wash the stink and impurities off of me. The hot water calmed my sore body. Amma draped a parrot green saree around me and decked me up in her finest gold jewellery. She took me to a sofa decorated with flowers and mango leaves. Guests came and smeared vermillion on my forehead and gave me sets of churidars. ‘You are a woman now,’ they said.
After the feast and festivities were over, Amma showed me how to use pads and gave me a list of things I should do every time I got my periods. I am not supposed to enter a temple. I am supposed to take a head bath on the first day of my periods. I am a woman now and I should dress like one. No more frocks and jeans, churidars and kurtis are what will suit me best. I am not supposed to hang out with boys alone anymore.
The dingy little phone Nanna gave me had to be thrown away, but I begged him to get an internet connection for the computer we had at home. He relented in a few days. I was on it every day, reading whatever anyone had to say. I discovered Quora. I followed all the commentary on Indian culture, superstition and feminism. I read about female anatomy, puberty and the physically debilitating symptoms all women have to go through. It never ends!
What followed were years of me rebelling against Amma’s hold. I stopped going to temples with her, but I made it a point to go to one when I got my periods. I poured water on my head and lied that I washed it on the first days of my period. I biked to a far-away pharmacist after school once and got a bunch of Electral for whenever I got dizzy again, Meftal for cramps and stashed it in my school bag, in the rain cover zipper at the bottom. I hated my new clothes. As my class neatly divided itself into girl and boy groups, I hung out with boys more and started playing sports. I checked out the Bible and Quran from the library. Slowly I dropped the pretence of following her rules. There were fights at home every night. She called me a disgrace and I called her stupid, irrational and suffocating. Nanna said I was disrespectful. He’d shout that there was no peace at home after a long day at the office. I never relented though. I couldn’t let Chandu sit on a mat as well. I thought if I fought with her every time she tried to control me, she would eventually see reason and the fights would end with me. Chandu would be spared.
It wasn’t easy. Once after a particularly bad fight reduced me to a sobbing hysterical mess full of teenage hormones, I scribbled a suicide note on whatever I could find, which was incidentally the back of a few wedding invitation cards. It wasn’t the brightest move but just the act of getting it out on paper made me feel a hundred times better. I hid it in the attic, but, of course, Amma found it. Looking back, I think maybe she was looking for clues to understand me or maybe just the wedding cards. My sister was sent to bed early that night. And then started the Kurukshetra. I saw Amma cry for the first time. Nanna said he didn’t understand what was wrong with me. I slammed doors.
But she backed off. After that incident. She backed off. She stopped telling me what to do. She stopped imposing all the stupid rules. We had a semblance of peace again. A paper-thin facade. Both of us tiptoed around it, Amma more than me.
And now, she had just gone ahead and abandoned that God? For a new one! So easily!
I blinked my eyes rapidly, moved my pupils around and bit my lips. What did I tell you, some memories invade you. This was years ago. I wonder where they get their power from. A few errant tears slipped out anyway.
‘Monu! Are you okay? What happened?’ Nanna asked, finally gathering some courage.
‘I am fine Nanna, just please drive.’
‘Tell us kanna, what is it?’ Amma asked, placing her hand on my shoulder from behind.
I shrugged it away and said, ‘Nothing. Can we please just ignore this? I’ll be fine. Please!’
The house had changed. The pooja room looked unused. There was a stack of the egg books on the table, a colour changing glowing plastic egg was plugged into one of the sockets. I sat stoically through lunch and skipped dinner. I spent every minute looking at a screen, earphones plugged in. I was watching reruns of Friends. I smiled with Phoebe, laughed at Chandler and Joey and cursed Ross for being so daft. Anything but looking at Amma.
That night, Amma kicked Chandu out and slept beside me. No doubt the conclusion of endless whispers between her and Nanna. ‘You know you can tell me whatever is bothering you right?’ Amma started.
‘Hmmm.’ I focused on the distant traffic noises and marvelled at the pitch darkness we had managed to achieve in the room despite having a streetlight right outside.
‘It’ll all be fine.’ Amma said, placing her hand on my head and slowly stroking it.
What is it about mothers and their wily power to break you? Tears started spilling out again. I must have had an endless reservoir somewhere.
After an eternity of contemplation, focusing intently on the rotating blades of the fan and
breathing exercises to maintain composure, I said, ‘Amma?’
‘Ha?’
‘Why didn’t you make Chandu sit on a mat?’
‘Oh.’ I focused on her breathing in the ensuing silence. It sped up first. Slowed down and sped up again.
‘I am sorry I made you sit on a mat,’ Amma said. ‘I thought it was the right thing to do.
Everyone was doing it. I thought God wanted us to follow rituals.’
‘Hmmm,’ tears spilled. I stayed silent. I didn’t want my voice to betray me.
‘But I was wrong. I found the true God now. And He doesn’t care about these things. He doesn’t care about poojas, ceremonies and all these materialistic things.’
‘Hmmm’
‘He doesn’t care about all the things we fight about.,’ her voice trailed off.
‘Now we can be good. God is on our side.’ she continued in a lowered voice.
‘Hmmm.’ Silence enveloped us. The white noise of the fan once again came into sharp focus. I stared at it, matching the rhythmic whirring to the movement of the blades.
‘I hate you Amma,’ I said. I wanted to say more. I wanted to list all the hurtful things she had done to me. I wanted to say how cruel she was to her own daughter. I wanted to say she’s partial to Chandu and makes me suffer everything. I wanted to say how getting out of this house for college was the best thing that ever happened to me. I wanted to say how I can’t wait to get away again. But I couldn’t. I’d just sob more. I did not want to let her see that.
My sobs turned to sniffles. My body stopped shaking. It was breathing heavily instead. The grief settled in my throat like a heavy ship. A silent stream of water kept flowing from my eyes. I tried to focus on the blurry fan again. Slowly the wings came to sharper focus again.
‘I am sorry,’ she said. ‘I didn’t know any better.’
Both our pillows had dried tear stains on them in the morning. We didn’t talk about it again.
Amma made my favourite food. Every day. I ate a lot of nuvvula vundalu. Something about the sweet jaggery and the slight bitter aftertaste of sesame seeds does it for me. Nanna walked on eggshells around me, like I was a ticking time bomb. Chandu hugged me randomly throughout the day. A much-needed oxytocin boost. The rest of the holidays were a blur of board games, laughter, happy weekends and late-night drives. Sundays were now cinema days.
Amma would slip out every now and then in all white churidars, a white bindi with vague
answers on where she was going. In all white she looked paler. I didn’t notice it before but she lost a lot of weight. Her eyes bulged out. She had deep, almost purple looking eye bags. She developed prominent forehead lines. They showed even when she wasn’t frowning. She had more greys than Nanna.
She continued to sleep with me every night. She would just put her hand on me and drift into slumber in seconds. I listened to her breathing. I replayed the first night again and again in my head like a masochist and cried every time. Lesser each night. Every morning I’d look at her.
Two months passed by and I barely noticed. Holidays were over and we were back at the airport. We came early and Nanna decided to park this time. I kissed Chandu on the cheek and told her to visit Delhi once. I assured Nanna that I’ll call once a week at least. Amma hugged me and I hugged her back.
Somehow my memory seems a little less powerful now.
***
Shortlisted for the inaugural (2024) Bangalore Writers Workshop R K Anand Prize
Jury: Indira Chandrasekhar, Jahnavi Barua, Saikat Majumdar
Conducted with Bangalore Writers Workshop, Atta Gallatta Bookshop and Out of Print Magazine
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