BWW RK Anand Short Story Prize 2024 - Shortlist: Sumanya Velamur

 Cold to Touch

Sumanya Velamur

I felt gora people were cold. Not in temperament but in temperature. Cold to touch. I felt like if I touched white people, I would feel nothing but ice. 

I told this to my best friend in school, Trupti. She was telling me the story of the movie ‘Koi Mil Gaya’ in minute detail. During sports period, I hardly ever played – my coughing fit would have interrupted any game – and Trupti did not like to play, so the two of us would take rounds of the school ground. She would usually fill me in on the latest movies she had seen – movies her mother took her to watch every now and then. Over recess, over sports period, over lunch, I would listen as she told me the story scene by scene. She never spared a single detail. She was very keen that I don’t miss out on anything just because I had no mother. 

‘Then, the Rakesh Roshan character tells a bunch of gora scientists, his colleagues, that he was able to contact an alien life form. They laugh at him,’ she was saying.

My mind slipped to gora people in general. How would it be to touch them? How would they feel on my fingers? How would it feel to kiss them on the lips? How would it feel to hold them in my arms?

Trupti sensed that my attention had flagged and turned her inquiring eyes onto me.

‘How do you think it would be to fall in love with a gora man?’ I asked.

She giggled. ‘I don’t know. I haven’t fallen in love with a brown man only!’

It was true. Neither of us, at fourteen, had developed a serious crush on anybody in school. The boys in our class were not interesting. And those senior to us seemed way out of our league. 

‘Yes, but think about Hrithik Roshan.’

Trupti took a sharp breath in. 

‘What about him?’

‘You know how you would feel if you were in love with him.’

Trupti was in love with Hrithik Roshan. She had been ever since ‘Kaho Na Pyaar Hai’ was released two years ago. Half the girls in school and half at the Home were also madly in love with him. It was one of the few movies I had seen on the big screen. The Sisters made it a point to take us to one or two movies a year. When ‘Kaho na Pyaar Hai’ came out in theatres, we had already seen Hrithik Roshan in the songs, dancing on a beach with Amisha Patel. A bunch of us girls made a contingent and lobbied the Sisters to take us to see it. The Sisters did take us to the theatre for the movie. And for the first time, I found I had the upper hand. Trupti’s mother was unusually busy that month and was unable to take her for the movie. It was my turn to tell her the story during lunch, during recess, and during sports period. 

‘I AM in love with him!’ Trupti said indignantly. 

‘Yeah, so you can imagine hugging and kissing him na?’

‘Yes,’ she said shyly, ‘I have imagined my lips touching his many times. I do it just before going to sleep. Tara didi from my building says that if you conjure up in your mind your desires and they are the last things you see before nodding off to sleep, they will come true. Ever since then, I have been trying to see my lips and Hrithik Roshan’s lips meet just before I sleep.’

‘Yes yes! I know. You told me all this. But do you ever feel this way about white people? Like have you ever felt like you wanted to kiss a white man on the mouth?’

Trupti thought for a bit, ‘Not really.’

‘Yesterday, we were watching ‘Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets’ for the hundredth time on our home VCD player. And I was wondering why none of us feel about the characters in that movie the way we feel about Hrithik. 

‘Maybe because Harry Potter is a small boy?’

‘No. That’s not it. I think it is because white people are cold to touch.’

‘Are they cold to touch?’

‘Aren’t they?’

*

One day I told Shamoli didi that I felt gora people were cold to touch. She laughed and laughed. She was clutching her stomach in pain by the end of it. When the laughing subsided somewhat, she asked why I thought this. 

‘I don’t know why. But, I cannot find white people attractive because I feel they are cold to touch. Technically, I know there are no real differences between white people, brown people, black people or any people. Everybody bleeds red. Everybody’s insides are the same, the same intestines, the same stomach, the same brain, the same heart, the same everything. Sizes might vary, but all in all, there is no reason for me to think that white people are cold to touch. I know this.’ I emphasised. ‘And yet it is just a feeling, a strong one, that I have. 

‘But you like Hrithik Roshan, Ridhi. Isn’t he very fair?’

‘He is fair but he isn’t white. He feels warm to touch.’

Didi smiled. 

‘Maybe, if you actually met a white person, the feeling would dissipate?’ she suggested. 

Maybe. Maybe not. 

‘You have met white people, didi. You tell me. Are they cold to touch?’

Didi had studied in America and had sat with white students in large classrooms. During our therapy sessions, she told me stories from America sometimes. And I imagined a sea of white people standing at touching distance from her. 

‘Ridhi, they are just as warm as you and me. But don’t take my word for it. You will meet a white person, maybe when you are studying in college like I did, and then you can touch them and see for yourself.’ 

A silence came over both of us. I would certainly like to touch a gora person and see for myself. Maybe, like Shamoli didi said, I might find myself studying in America or London, and then there would be an ocean of white people to touch. I decided to take Trupti’s neighbour Tara didi’s advice and visualise this just before nodding off to sleep. And then maybe it will come true. I thought of what should be in the picture. I imagined standing on the footpath in a foreign country, stretching my hand out and my fingertips brushing against a passing white man. And then I would know for sure if they were cold to touch. The idea of standing in a foreign street amongst a sea of white people had made me go quiet. Perhaps, the same idea had made didi also go quiet. Maybe she was praying that it would all come true – that I would survive to go to college, that I would go abroad, and that, one day I would touch a gora person and see for myself.

*

It was not that I had never seen a gora person ever. White people were more common now in cities like ours. Once a priest from Switzerland, Father Gerard visited our home. He was as white as milk. He stayed at the Church with Father Rupert but spent his days with us. He came with chocolates, toys and books. While he went around touching the little children on their chins, he never touched me and I never touched him. I was twelve then and the idea that white people were cold to touch had not occurred to me yet.

One day, Shamoli didi, Suryamma, and I took Father Rupert’s car to attend a conference. Shamoli didi and Suryamma were invited because they were to present a paper. It was didi’s idea to take me to the conference. 

‘Ridhi is fourteen. Girls her age have so much exposure. She only goes to school and comes back home. She also works so hard at home. She deserves a little outing. And it will be educational as well.’

Suryamma looked doubtful, ‘What does a fourteen-year-old need exposure for? School is enough to get all kinds of outlandish ideas.’ 

Shamoli didi pounced on her when she said that. ‘But that’s exactly why she should go to the conference. We will both be with her and we can keep an eye on her. Also, she is a bright kid. She may learn something from the presentations. These things will come in handy when she has to choose what she wants to do in life.’

‘I really don’t see it, Shamoli. What good can come of it? Also, wouldn’t it be traumatic for her to listen to people talk about sickness all day long.’

‘No. It’s not like she doesn’t know what ails her. She has already spoken to me a couple of times about death and dying. Besides, we will carefully monitor the sessions she attends. Plus, on each day of the conference, they are putting up a variety entertainment show. I think she will enjoy those immensely.’

Suryamma relented. The conference was held over three days, over a weekend, in a huge auditorium in the city centre. The three of us piled into Father Rupert’s car and we zoomed across the city. Friday afternoon was the key note address by a gora woman. Watching her it occurred to me that there may be other gora people around. Maybe an opportunity was presenting itself once more. Lunch was a buffet and I found myself right behind a gora person in the queue. I gently touched my elbow to her hand but her full-sleeved shirt came in the way of touching her skin. 

After lunch, I went to the toilet and when I came out I saw an old white man talking to Suryamma and didi. As I came close to them, Suryamma put her hand out to me and said, ‘You must meet Ridhi. She is one of our star pupils. A very hardworking girl.’ The old man turned and smiled at me and put his hand out. This was my chance. I could touch and see. Just then, somebody called from behind him, ‘Henry!’ and he turned and walked away. 

*

One day, I overheard Shantamma tell Suryamma that if I had received proper training in music, I would have been a famous singer. I daydreamed that day, that I was standing on a big stage, facing three judges, singing my favourite song, ‘Gali mein aaj chaand nikala’, at a high octave, one I had been unable to reach in real life without a coughing fit. But in my imagination, I ascended those high notes smoothly. The audience was uproarious. In the wings, stood the three Sisters, Suryamma, Shantamma, and Simoneamma, and Shamoli didi, tears running down their cheeks. Maybe if I became a famous singer, I could go abroad and touch a gora person. I changed the vision I would muster just before nodding off to sleep. It now had me on a stage, the spotlight hugging me as confetti dropped from the heavens. And white people were scurrying up the stage to congratulate me.

Shantamma was always telling me to sing. And when I hummed while doing the chores, she would bellow at me, ‘Sing aloud. Open your chest and sing.’ I think she meant heart, but it’s okay, I know what she meant. I had thought Shantamma urged me to sing because I was happiest singing. But after I overheard her conversation with Suryamma, I thought for the first time that I could be famous. Being famous, I thought was inherited from parents, and came down from one generation to another. What had my parents given me? Only he-who-must-not-be-named. 

Yes. I know. He-who-must-not-be-named is the villain in Harry Potter. But ever since Rubina and I saw the movies, sitting next to each other in the theatre, we have been calling the thing that ails us, Voldemort. It was Rubina who said it first. We started giggling at how apt the name was. We were Harry Potter. Our Voldemort decided what we did or did not do. Ever since, I only call it Voldemort – this formless, ugly thing that plagues our lives. Voldemort scripts our stories.

*

It certainly scripted Rubina’s life and death. Rubina was my best friend in the Home like Trupti was my best friend in school. It happened when Rubina’s pink-as-pink-can-be lips turned white. I was at the hospital with her, then. While Simoneamma spent the night with Rubina, Shantamma came in the morning. When the doctor made his rounds, Suryamma was always there to talk to him, ask him questions, and tell him about the things Rubina had done the previous day. 

‘Was there any blood in the spittle?’

‘Did she vomit?’

‘What are the blood tests saying?’

‘She was in a lot of pain last night, Doctor. Can we do something about that? Can we give her some morphine?’

‘She is too young for that, Sister. She will feel very weak.’

‘How is she sleeping?’

‘Sister Simone who was here during the night told me that her sleep has been fitful.’

‘She has been having nightmares.’

‘Is this the girl who keeps her company during the day, Sister Surya?’

‘Yes, Doctor. This is Ridhi, a very conscientious girl who is also Rubina’s best friend.’

‘Oh! that is good. Beta, make sure to wear your mask at all times. It is good for both you and your friend.’

Rubina had lain motionless on the hospital bed. She looked pale but her lips were bright pink, maybe tinged a little by the blood in her spittle. Or was it the blood in her vomit? She could hardly open her eyes but whenever she caught me looking at her she would give me a weak smile. 

One night, Rubina’s lips turned blue. And then, they turned white. I touched them. They were cold as ice. Voldemort made its presence felt.

Suryamma hated it when I called it Voldemort. ‘Aye! Ridhi, Don't be ungenerous. God gave you this. And he is not Voldemort.’ I never said God was Voldemort. But God did give me Voldemort. Suryamma was always like this – giving illogical explanations hoping to reassure a troubled mind. She was also the scariest of the three Sisters. Sister Surya, as she was known to the rest of the world, was the head of the Home. She decided on the rules and then followed them to the tee. She did not brook any misbehaviour. She never raised her voice. But a look from her – her eyes like perfectly-shaped, round fried eggs in eye-shaped saucepans – would send us scurrying for cover.

Sister Shanti was the kindest, least likely to scold. Shantamma would scold only if you put your life or anyone else’s life in danger. This was, believe it or not, quite frequent since Voldemort made all our lives precarious. She giggled a lot at all the children. She giggled when we told her how much we loved Hrithik Roshan. She giggled when we told her that Harry Potter was an eleven-year-old wizard. She giggled when we told her that Voldemort was the grown adult villain who Harry Potter fought. She giggled at everything we said and did. She did not have a problem calling it Voldemort. Only, her heavy Malayalam accented Voldemort made us giggle in turn.

Sister Simone was the most hardworking. Simoneamma once told me that whatever suffering I was going through, would be completely erased if I just focussed single-mindedly on work. ’Prayer is good, Ridhi, and one must do it regularly and diligently. But there is no substitute for hard work. It’s the one thing that can keep Voldemort at bay.’ Simonemma took to the metaphor smoothly, almost with a sense of relief. She hated to say ‘HIV positive’ aloud, especially in company. 

*

During the last days, it was Rubina’s shit that gave it away. It was watery. There is something I love about a good, well-formed, stalactite-shaped, smooth-on-the-outside, well-coalesced piece of shit. Once Shantamma told Suryamma how she was happy to have had a good shit after two days of constipation, and I nodded animatedly in agreement and said, ‘Yes, yes. Nothing like a good shit!’ Shantammma giggled and Suryamma laughed in a roar. Then she playfully tapped me on the back and said, ‘Ridhi, always listening to adults conversations!’ 

It is true. Voldemort made sure even the littlest of us had adult problems. There were around ten babies in the house, give or take, all around one or two years old. Ours was a household, where the numbers fluctuated every day. They lived (if you can call it that) on the first floor in the room called the Nursery, their white-painted wooden cradles set up in an orderly line. I always wondered why they would keep them all in one room. If one started crying, all the others would join in. I thought it made sense to split them. I told Suryamma this, once, and she smiled and said ‘When you run an orphanage, do it differently, Ridhi’

In the mornings, I had to check their nappies and wash the bums of those who had soiled them. This was, more often than not, all of them, since they all had dysentery every day. We all had dysentery quite often but the babies always had more of it. While cleaning their bums, I would often wonder how irritable I would be if my shit was always watery. Their bums must have felt like a perennial river of sludge. I would make them wear clean new nappies. Then I would be in charge of washing the soiled nappies. First, I had to dip the smelly, gooey, nappies in boiling hot water, leaving them to soak in it for 30 minutes. Then dip it all in cold water. Then scrub with a wooden handled scrubber, jhik-jhik-jhik. I always wondered at what point do the nappies become threadbare. Not that I was ever allowed to find out because before it got to that, Sister Simone would take it away to wring out and dry in the sun. 

Once school was over, I was supposed to help out in the kitchen. I was always given the job of sorting. Airlines donated their waste food to us and while most of it was perfectly consumable, we would come across the occasional rotten meat. So I was supposed to go through everything and make sure the inedible stuff was removed from the pile. 

Working in solitude gave me the time to think up ways in which to keep Voldemort at bay. When I was in school, I couldn’t think because of studies and Trupti and when I was home, if not doing chores, I was supposed to be studying. So this was the only time I had to think. To think about how I would grow up to go to college. To think how I would go abroad for higher studies. To think about how to become a famous singer. To think into the future, when I can touch a gora and make sure they are cold to touch. 

I knew of only one thing that would come in the way of me doing all these things. That was Voldemort. Voldemort was the one thing that made babies with a sludgy river for a bum. It was the one thing that turned Rubina’s pink-as-pink-can-be lips to white. It was the one thing that gave me coughing fits every time I sang. It was the one thing that made the numbers in our house fluctuate rapidly like a stock exchange ticker. The Sisters watched that ticker without blinking. And through all the fluctuation, they continued to work because there was no substitute for hard work. 

*

A few months after my ‘cold to touch’ conversation with Trupti, I was in a hospital bed. The dry, raspy cough and the breathlessness that had been part of my entire life, that I had managed with my hard work, had returned. The blue light of the hospital room and the white bed reminded me of Rubina and her lips, coloured by blood-ridden spittle. Was this how she had felt when she was lying here some months earlier? Simoneamma spent the nights in the hospital, as usual. She would come up to my bed and check on me every time I made the slightest movement in bed. Shantamma relieved her in the mornings, just as she had done when Rubina was in hospital. When the doctor came on his rounds Suryamma would be there, to field his questions and to ask him questions in turn. 

‘Yes, Doctor! There is blood in the spittle.’

‘How are her stools? Any vomiting?’

‘What are the blood tests saying, Doctor?’

 

‘It is important to keep her comfortable, Sister Surya.’

‘Yes, Doctor. Whatever it takes?’

‘How is she sleeping?’

‘Sister Simmone spends the night here, Doctor. She says she sleeps like a baby. She does not have nightmares like Rubina did.’

It was true. I did sleep like a baby. Before nodding off to sleep, I would conjure up a white doctor. Someone who would touch me. 

***

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

BWW RK Anand Short Story Prize 2024 - Shortlist: Nayana Ravishankar

 Repast

Nayana Ravishankar

The smell of caramel filled the house. From the kitchen it floated above people’s heads in the bustling hall to the porch outside. It meandered lazily over the well and outhouse in the backyard before it finally reached Jaya on the terrace. One sniff and she knew. It was time. A second too late and the sugar would burn. She rushed down the stairs just in time to grab the ladle, stirring the sweet sticky mixture as her mother poured in the gram flour. Stirring constantly, Jaya watched the mixture turn golden and bubble up. It greedily drank up all the ghee that was offered, developing a beautiful airiness. Finally, the golden mixture was poured into a massive pan and quickly cut into bars before it could harden. Now they just had to wait for it to cool. 

The Mysore pak would be crisp on the outside, tender and melt in the mouth on the inside, it’s sweetness lingering on the tongue for hours after. Amma’s Mysore pak was famous all over the village. On the rare occasion she made it all the neighbours would find an excuse to visit, hoping to be served the sweet treat with steaming cups of tea. Jaya hovered in the kitchen, watching her mother clean. She was impatient to taste the Mysore pak. It had been nearly a year since Amma had made it last. She inched towards the pan, hoping to snag an edge piece when she felt her mother’s hand land heavily on her shoulder. Guiding her away from the pan, Amma glared. Jaya knew better than to argue. Smarting at the unfairness of it all, she stormed out leaving her mother alone in the kitchen. Careful to avoid stepping on the colourful saris and the pristine white panches of the many visitors in the hall, Jaya settled into her spot in the corner beneath the stairs. From this vantage point she had a view of the hall and the entrances to the two rooms. She had spent many an hour there eavesdropping on the adult’s conversations. Using these half heard dialogues to make sense of her world. Lately though Amma barely spoke. Her parent’s loud fights from the last year had transformed into thunderous monologues by Appa. Before, when Appa was away in town after the harvest, Amma would sing and chatter endlessly. She would imitate bears, lions and elephants and chase Jaya and her sisters around the fields. Jaya would secretly pray for Appa to be away so the house would lighten as it always did in his absence. She carried the guilt of her prayer until he returned. 

Jaya leaned against the cool mud walls and admired the sight of the decorated house. The air was filled with the scent of the jasmine adorning the women’s plaits and the marigold garlands that hung from the walls. Along with the sweet perfume, snippets of conversation amongst the guests washed over her. 

“Mmmm … Mysore pak gama gama antha idhe.” 

“Howdu ri. Last time they had only boondi and payasa. This time Mysore pak too.” 

“And why not? Finally goddess Lakshmi is entering this house. That wretch in the kitchen brought him nothing but misfortune. Three. Three girls she gave him. Poor man.” 

“Tch tch … that is true…. What else is a man to do?” 

“But having her prepare the Mysore pak…” The voices faded as the group of women wandered away. Feeling the warmth creep across her face, Jaya was inexplicably embarrassed and irritated. She emerged from her spot and hurried outside, away from the women. The noise around the side of the house drew her attention. Large vessels had been set up atop roaring fires, the fields behind them shimmering in the heat. Groups of men and women sat around the vessels, peeling and chopping mountains of vegetables for the banquet. Jaya’s stomach growled as the smells of all the delicious food assailed her. She watched a man in a once white undershirt, now thoroughly stained with splashes of rasam, fry up a fresh batch of crisp sandige. Over there the payasa bubbled happily, waitng for the final garnish of ghee, raisins and cashews. The boondi was briskly bathed in the sugar syrup for just a few seconds to maintain the perfect crunch. And in the middle of it all sat the Mysore pak glistening in the afternoon sun. Absorbed in the wonder of these sights she almost didn’t hear the familiar voice call out. 

"Jayu! Come here.” It was her favourite Aththe. She was on her haunches finishing up an elaborate rangoli in front of the house. “Look at you lovely girl. You are growing more beautiful by the day”. Dusting herself off, her aunt straightened and pinched her cheek playfully leaving a smudge of pink powder on Jaya’s face. Laughing and squirming away, Jaya joined Aththe’s daughter, Girija, and they were soon absorbed in the sight of the colourful jeerjimbe that fluttered and thrashed in Girija’s palm. The emerald green of the beetle matched her new langa. Jaya admired her cousin's new clothes and looked down at her own plain ones which were just a little too short. Jaya wore mismatched ribbons. No flowers graced her hair, no bangles clinked merrily on her small wrists. 

Her envy was soon forgtten as Aththe brought the girls bowls filled with steaming payasa. She handed Jaya the larger bowl to share with her sisters. Scooping a bit into her mouth first, Jaya set out to find her younger sisters Sunita and Beena. The payasa was just a little too hot and burnt her tongue. But the ghee coating her mouth soon soothed it. She searched for them everywhere, despairing that the payasa would get cold. Finally she found them in the old granary which was now used as a storage room. It was filled with the odds and ends that they imagined would be of use one day. There, her mother was feeding the two girls between sacks of old newspapers and a broken vanity table. The girls happily abandoned the rice and rasam for the payasa and Jaya fed them patiently. Jaya was used to feeding her sisters. Some years when Amma’s belly would grow really large, she would tire easily and sleep a lot and Jaya had to help take care of her sisters. Sometimes Aththe came over to help but she couldn’t stay long. The first time Amma’s belly grew Jaya was only three and Sunita arrived. Two years later it grew again and Beena appeared. After that Amma’s belly had grown three more times but there were no more babies. Those years, even after her belly had flattened again, Amma barely noticed the three girls. She stayed locked up in her room for weeks on end ignoring them all. Every time Jaya peeked in through the keyhole she would see her mother just lying motionless on the thin mattress staring at the ceiling. It seemed that was all she did. Each time though Amma had returned eventually. When the payasa had been thoroughly licked clean from the bowl the younger girls contentedly settled in for a nap. Jaya quickly made her escape before her mother could gather her in too. There was too much excitement outside today that couldn’t be missed. Out on the porch the older women had gathered to sing. As the afternoon wore on they sang all kinds of folksongs. Songs with wisdom and lessons, songs with anecdotes and histories. The songs contained the essence of the village and its people. The crowd around them grew. People withered in the heat as they waited for the feast to begin. The flowers in their hair had wilted. The saris and crisp ironed shirts had creased. But still people stayed, entranced by the songs. 

The air was filled with melancholy as the women sang of childhoods past, innocence lost and the impossibility of return when suddenly they heard a loud shout “They are here! They are here! The bus broke down on the way but they are finally here. Come, everyone come”. The spell was broken and crowd scattered. The cooks hurried to add the finishing touches. The guests assembled at the gate. Up front was Aththe who held the aarthi plate, ready to welcome them. The tractor covered in flowers approached the house and a hush fell over the crowd. Jaya stood on her tiptoes to get a better look. She watched Appa steady himself on the girl’s shoulder as he got off the tractor. Despite her heavy sari, the girl jumped down with ease. They stood in their matching garlands while Aththe performed the aarthi. Appa, smiling wider than Jaya had ever seen before, looked softer in the warm glow of the aarthi flame. The girl was so short, Jaya could only see the top of her head. The girl stood with her head bowed, staring at the floor. She didn’t look up even as she kicked the small pot of rice before entering her new home. 

Lowering herself back on her heels, Jaya stepped back and watched the crowd drift. Most of them rushed to the meal they had been waiting for all day. The unlucky ones who weren’t able to snag a spot followed Appa and the girl into the house for the rest of the rituals. Jaya stood still as the evening breeze dried the sweat on her neck. Despite the lingering heat of the day she felt a chill envelop her. Pulling her arms around herself gently she walked slowly back to her family. Back near the storage room, she found her sisters outside, fighting over a doll. Shushing them impatiently she called for her mother but got no response. She tried the door but found that it was locked. Bending slightly, she scrunched one eye closed and peered into the room through the keyhole. 

In the fading light she spotted her mother seated at the broken vanity table. Amma sat still looking at herself in the dusty mirror. Bringing her palm up to her forehead she slowly wiped off her battu, leaving a dull red smear across her brow. Her movements quickening, she yanked at her thali saraa, the black beads scattering all over the small room. She brought her wrists up to the edge of the table and began to slam her glass bangles against it. As they broke, some of the bangles pierced the delicate skin on her wrist. Jaya’s eyes traced the rivulets of blood as they ran down Amma’s hands. 

***

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

BWW RK Anand Short Story Prize 2024 - Shortlist: Anannya Nath

 Fall of Icarus

Anannya Nath

‘Ma’am,’ the boy utters carefully, standing at her door.

Nilima looks up from her desk, her brows still knitted into a frown. She eases her frontalis. 

‘Yes?’ she asks curtly. 

The boy timorously starts up and hesitates to answer. His eyes fall on the two large mounds of answer scripts over her desk. These are testimonials of students who skip classes with the primitive assurance that their parents’ money would guarantee them a degree without their participation. They appear, quite dramatically, on examination days and finish their answers with great nonchalance. If she wished, she could evaluate them with similar flippancy but Nilima was known for her implacability. Quite ironical, really, for she was the youngest faculty. The corporal proximity of her age with her students was overpowered by her sense of discipline. It was not that she did not want to participate in their lives, but her academic expectations created an impassable wall between her and her students, dulling all her efforts to assimilate. 

‘Yes? What do you want? Speak,’ she asks again, the frown back on her forehead. 

‘I need your help, ma’am,’ he says, fighting his dread. 

Nilima asks him to come in. 

‘Ma’am, I wrote an essay for the inter-state annual literary competition,’ he waits for a response that does not come. Nilima nods with her head hung over the answers. ‘But,’ he continues, ‘I don’t know if it is coherent.’ Nilima nods again, still reading an answer that visibly upsets her. She draws an aggressive circle over it and slams it atop the pile on her right. 

‘What essay?’ she asks, lifting her head briefly. 

‘Asymmetrical Power Relations in the Classroom, ma’am.’ 

‘Alright.’ 

‘I thought you might … you could … perhaps, help me with it?’ he keeps on egging. 

Nilima picks another unevaluated sheet and leaf through the pages before reading the contents. ‘Keep it on that shelf,’ she points him to a shelf in the corner of her cabin. 

‘When can I come back, ma’am?’ he asks, placing his file in place. Nilima looks at the calendar that flutters from one of the walls. She opens a diary, skims through the details of an entry and clicks her tongue. She barely has any time to spare. In fact, the pressures of random extra classes, the mounting administrative responsibilities, and the overbearing orthodoxy of most of her colleagues were all part of a huge summation that left little time at her personal disposal. Embittered, her face was the first thing to always betray her irritation. 

‘Wednesday. After lunch,’ she replies, a little composed. 

‘Thank you, ma’am.’ 

The boy does not move. He looks around her cabin – the chest of drawers on the right, files of different colours stacked inside it. He eyes her desk floored with all kinds of stationery, a printer and a scanner, the long registers where she kept tabs on her students and Nilima herself, sitting on her chair. He notices the low neckline of her kameez and the dupatta stuck slenderly on her neck, like a rope fastened around a pole. Every time she sighs to show her disappointment, his eyes follow the ebbs of her breaths. 

‘You can go,’ Nilima says, suddenly aware of his presence. 

Her command breaks his trance. His cheeks burn. Without another word, he drags himself out. 

Nilima inadvertently stares at him. Unlike her many students who study Marx in air-conditioned libraries and carry totes imported from Shakespeare and Company, he wears a backpack, slung in tandem on his back and walks with a limp, his shoes torn at the seams. Most of her students usually give away their wealthy parentage with their often-credulous behaviours as their affections tilted, like a broken pendulum, towards their privilege. 

*

Wednesday, he comes to her cabin exactly at three and finds her doing exactly what she had been doing two days ago. She uses a sharp, red ball point pen and scrawls comments on the margins of these papers, the noise of corrective remarks filling for the silence around her. The boy hesitates, again. 

Nilima tilts her head and starts up. She was not expecting punctuality. She motions him to come inside and offers him a seat, meanwhile taking out his file from a drawer. 

‘Your arguments are good,’ she begins. ‘Valid, even,’ she finishes.

‘Thank you, ma’am.’ 

‘But they are,’ she thinks through the word, ‘radical.’ 

‘Radical?’ 

‘You make claims in your paper as though you would not like to consider any other possibility.’ 

‘But it is true. Personal bias in class is a reality. I mean, you have seen it, haven’t you?’ his voice becomes accusatory. 

‘What do you mean?’ Nilima presses on. 

‘I … I mean, you are … I am sorry.’ 

‘That is a very discreet observation.’

‘Well, there are teachers who do that…’

‘Probability is not conviction,’ Nilima smiles. ‘Alter the conclusion, please. You cannot pass a verdict. No one can. Keep it open to interpretation.’ 

‘Verdict?’ 

‘Declaration.’ 

‘How am I passing a verdict?’ 

‘You are. You are claiming that you have suffered because of this, well, have you? What proof is there?’ 

‘I am not lying. I have suffered because of…’ 

‘Oh, I am sure you have. We all have, at some point.’ 

‘But it is the truth. Every day I come to class, I work hard and then when I do not understand something, I try to ask the professors and they … they look at me and…’

Nilima’s phone vibrates on her desk. ‘One minute,’ Nilima cuts him short and picks up the call. 

‘Yes…. No … I am in a meeting’ she pauses, ‘I said I am in a meeting. No, I remember. I remember. Yes. Your mother said she would come tomorrow. No, not there. Yes…. Tomorrow. I paid the caterers already. We cannot change the menu now,’ she sighs. ‘But….  No. I cannot. Not today,’ she disconnects the call, turning her attention to the boy. ‘Yes, you were saying?’ 

‘They look at me and find reasons to not teach me.’ 

‘Who?’ 

‘Teachers.’ 

‘I see, but you cannot submit it with that conclusion.’ 

The boy appears small, defeated. Nilima almost feels pity for him. 

‘Okay. This is what we will do. We will rewrite the essay in a way that makes it tell your story without making it obvious,’ she offers. 

‘Is that doable?’ His eyes light up. 

‘I suppose so.’ 

The boy smiles. He unzips his backpack and takes out a notebook. 

‘Not today,’ she stops him from reaching for his pen. 

‘Tomorrow. Come at 3 tomorrow,’ she hands him his file. 

Nilima goes home to a salty fiancé who would rather she busied herself with their wedding than attend to the needs of pesky teenagers. He reminds her, crudely, for the seventeenth time that she must meet his mother for lunch the next day. 

‘But the menu is decided.’ 

‘Oh god, Nilee, just do what she says. It is not that hard. We are having a reception afterwards, aren’t we? Let’s just have whatever food they want at the ceremony.’ 

‘Ro, I have already…’ she considers the possibility of another inconclusive argument. ‘Okay. I will see what I can do,’ she ends the conversation. A little later, her mother calls to know when she would pay the mortgage. The term expires in three months and if she does not clear it up by then, they would lose their house. ‘The regularisation will come about in two months, Maa,’ Nilima tries to assuage her mother’s apprehension. Once she becomes a regular faculty, her salary would fetch her a decent loan and she would start earning just as much as her associates who taught at public universities and were protected by the steel hand of the education department. Nilima too could have secured a similar job, but the helmsman of her fate rowed her destiny in murky waters.

For five years, Nilima appeared for several state university interviews. She was exceptional with her demonstrations and augmented her answers with a flair that only accentuated how well she knew her subject. But she had no connections. Her erudition was marred by the interviewers’ lackadaisical attitude who found her wanting – either her research deviated from her discipline, or her papers were not highly indexed and when they could find no fault, she was deemed unfit because of her body language. She understood their excuses, fought against the system but eventually lost. Filing lawsuits against them was a tirade that drained her mentally and financially and because these people had their hands deep inside the pockets of administrators, she withdrew all cases within three months of filing them. That, however, did not quell her spirit of recalcitrance. Today, she surprised even herself. 

The boy who came for help was not wrong. She had suffered the same gridlocks, rebelled against similar institutions. No one can better understand the plight of seeing men in black suits evaluate her education and instate candidates who promised to ‘satisfy their students and superiors,’ a euphemism that translated into mooching them in academic meetings and union screenings. Dejected, she intended to avoid mourning her lost dreams for as long as possible. 

Nilima knows that once she is regularised, her position within the university would solidify like calcified tissue, and increments would kill any desire to ever leave. Autonomous universities were a corporate extension where academic integrity was a by-product, yet she felt tethered under the bludgeoning weight of expenses that never seemed to lessen. There is no way she would favour the student who talked distressingly against authority. She cannot risk losing again. Of that, she is resolute. 

*

The boy comes to her cabin the next day and sees Nilima holding her face in her hands, her eyes closed in contemplation. She opens them to find him already inside the radius of her cabin. She closes the notebook she has been scribbling on, calculating the imminent expenses, and detailing everything the regularisation would entail. She realises that a loan to clear the mortgage would stop her from taking another soon. She would be unable to afford a honeymoon, unless Rohan intervenes and decides to pay, and she cannot change apartments – not for another five years, neither can she start a family immediately. 

‘Okay, let us begin from the beginning,’ she composes herself. One of the basic tenants one agrees without vocalising while joining this profession is to appear unafraid and always ready to help. 

‘Actually,’ the boy replies, a little unsure. 

‘Yes?’ 

‘Was my essay grammatically accurate?’ 

‘Yes, of course’ 

‘Then I don’t think I will alter anything about it.’ 

‘But you agreed yesterday. And if you don’t alter it, you cannot hand it in.’ 

‘I can, there are no rules for that.’ 

‘Well, remove my name from the supervisor’s space.’ 

‘But I cannot send it without a supervisor’s name.’ 

‘I definitely did not supervise that.’ 

‘You did.’ 

‘What?’ Nilima agitates. 

‘You signed the essay.’ 

‘No, I did not,’ she refuses vehemently. 

‘Are you sure? Because I know you did,’ he hands a photocopy of his write-up, the original safe in his bag. 

Nilima frantically flips through the document and finds her signature on the margin of the last page. She does not remember signing it. 

‘You forged my signature?’ she points a finger at him, rising from her seat. 

The boy smirks. Yes, he did, it was easy. 

‘Do you know what this means? You will be suspended,’ she threatens him. 

‘By whom? You or the administration?’ 

‘How dare you smile? Here I was trying to help you and you dare do this?’ She fumes, her body sweltering in the sudden heat of her rage. In the commotion of pointed fingers and her permanent scowl, her dupatta, placed messily over her shoulder, falls off on the desk. Standing across, the boy leans towards her and glares at her chest. He picks up the dupatta and puts it on her shoulder. His hand slides down and finds way to her neckline, brushing her soft skin. Nilima flinches, falling back on her seat. Everything happens very fast, too fast to make sense of the boundary crossed. The boy steps away, gulps down his primordial instinct and picking his file, darts out of the room. 

Time stretches on tearing into Nilima’s reality. She does not move. Her phone, ringing on her desk dies several times before she finally hears its shrill ringtone. With a jolt, she breaks from the stupor, and gropes the ground below her feet, feeling gravity pull her back to earth. The noise frequents, but Nilima feels tethered to her surroundings, as if she is cursed by a spell breaking which would drown her in shame. For the first time since her appointment in the university, she is scared. The ringing stops for a while. When it screams again, she fumbles and picks it up. 

‘Do you know what bloody time it is? Do you know how many times we called you?’ Rohan thunders, throwing a volley of questions at her. 

‘I was … I,’ words refuse to make meaning, the knot in her throat getting tighter with every word she speaks. 

‘This is unbelievable. What do you want to prove, Nilima? Only your job is important?’ 

‘No, Ro, not at all. Please listen to me, something happened.’ 

‘Whatever it is, this is more important. Come out. We are late.’ 

‘Ro, I cannot. Not today. Please reschedule it.’ 

‘What? Why? Is it about that boy you are helping?’ 

‘No, it’s not.’ 

‘Stop your excuses and come out,’ Rohan disconnects the call. 

Nilima goes into the restroom and washes her face with an uneasy urgency, as if by washing away the tactile sensation she would undo the dirt of his act. She hangs her head over the basin and runs the tap, the water streaming down the bridge of her hair. She rubs water on her hands and scrubs them over her chest until the skin hurts, turning red and itchy. When she emerges out to meet Rohan, her voice shakes. 

*

Nilima is surprised when the Internal Complaints Committee calls to discuss her complaint just the day after she had filed the case. Rohan, however, warned her against it. He told her not to sabotage her chance at getting regularised. 

‘Dr Nilima Saikia, I believe you are well aware of the charges…’ the director of the committee begins.

‘Yes, sir, I am’ Nilima interrupts. 

‘…that have been levied against you?’ he finishes, raising an eyebrow. 

‘Against?’ Nilima twitches. 

‘Yes, you are accused of misusing your power.’ 

‘Misuse? Me?’ she cannot process the grievance. 

‘That is what the petitioner says,’ the director shows her the file containing the complaint letter written in bold, black ink about how she fails students who do not meet her personally. The filer’s name is struck off for privacy. 

‘This is ridiculous, sir. I have never done so,’ she roars. 

‘Well, actually, Nilima, we did some research and found that maximum number of students fail your papers. Why is that so?’ 

‘Because they write rubbish.’ 

‘Even the scholarship students?’ 

‘I do not know who is what. My job is to teach and evaluate. If students do not take studies seriously, is it my fault?’ 

‘No, definitely not. But if indeed your papers are difficult, why don’t you take remedial classes?’ 

‘I do. I mean, I did.’ 

‘You leave the campus before five.’ 

‘They do not show up. I waited for them every evening for three months after the semester commenced. Only recently...’ 

‘Dr Saikia, you do realise the precedent you are setting, don’t you?’

‘Sir, I have been busy with my wedding preparations for the past two months,’ once she claims it, Nilima realises what is at stake. Her life, clamorous as it already is, might come apart in that very moment, all because of the piercing testament. 

‘Two months? How could you think that you can leave before time for two months straight?’ 

‘Sir, I never miss any class. I tell them, repeatedly, if ever they have doubts, they can ask. I have never misused my power, in fact, I have tried all in my capacity to execute it well. If students fail, that is because they do not study nor desire to.’ 

‘An ‘F’ in a paper can terminate the grant scholarship students get; do you know that? Others can pay for backlogs but they cannot. If we do not have scholarship students complete their graduation, we will be answerable to the government. Look at this complainant’s scorecard. They have score exceedingly well in all other subjects except yours. You have given them an ‘F’ for two consecutive semesters.’ 

Nilima looks at the tally of grades and notices the roll number. Her fury, latent for so long morphs into an inferno. 

‘Him? He filed a complaint against me?’ 

‘That is not your concern...’ 

‘Of course it is. He is not the victim here, Sir.’ 

The director scoffs. 

‘Why are you laughing? He forged my signature on an essay when I refused to sign it, and he … he groped me….’ 

‘Come on Nilima. Stop lying.’ 

‘He came into my cabin.’ 

‘You are not supposed to allow any student in your cabin.’ 

‘Yes, I know. I thought he needed help with…’ 

‘No, that is no excuse. We have classrooms.’ 

‘I was in a hurry and…’

‘Dr Saikia, you are one of our best teachers. You know that. In fact, you are the youngest who was considered for regularisation. But I am afraid we must cut back on that,’ the president speaks for the first time. 

‘Please, Sir, don’t. I need the increment. My house will go away. My wedding-’ 

‘We are sorry,’ he stops her from speaking any further. 

‘For now, we are only cancelling your regularisation, if students keep failing your papers, we will have to terminate your contract,’ the director passes on the final decision. 

Nilima has wrongly assessed that the potency of her association with her students belonged to her. Instead, she had been a conquerable pawn despite the privilege of her position. As she walks out of the office, the clamour in the hall melts in her ears, blocking all sounds behind the cacophony of her thoughts. She sees the boy standing on the other end of the open yard. He passes her a victorious smile and disappears in the corridor behind the field. Nilima finds herself striding towards the same corridor. She enters each classroom on either side without permission and scans through the students. She finds him in the fifth room, sitting on the first bench. Without a moment’s reluctance, she goes up to the boy and slaps him across his face. Students gasp, but their uproar seem less jarring. He has, after all, destroyed everything that took her years to build. 

‘How dare you?’ she challenges through clenched teeth. The boy stands up, unnerved. 

‘Dr Saikia, you just can’t…’ the teacher in the room protests in vain. 

‘Mr Sahai, please. I must talk with this student alone,’ she demands with such ferocity that he asks the other students to leave and walks out himself. The students do not leave the corridor. They glue themselves to the wall outside, their ears cocked towards the dramatic encounter. Nilima proceeds to shut the door but hesitates. She keeps it open. 

‘Explain everything,’ she crosses her arms. 

‘You deserved it,’ the boy shrugs. 

‘Why?’ 

‘Because of you, I lost my scholarship,’ it is his turn to be angry. 

‘Really? You do not study, fail an exam and when your scholarship is revoked, blame me?’ 

‘I don’t understand what you teach.’

‘Then why do you not just ask me?’ 

‘Ask you? You do not even take the remedial classes.’ 

‘That is not true. I do, it’s just…’ 

‘Just? Is it not your job to teach? Do you know how hard I worked for that scholarship? How am I going to pay for the backlogs? Will you pay for me? No, right? You will not!’ The boy unleashes all his fury. ‘If you were not so caught up in your own little world, you would have seen me.’

Nilima uncrosses her arms. 

‘So, I made sure,’ he slows down, ‘I made sure neither of us got what we wanted. If I had to lose my scholarship, you should also suffer and realise what financial crisis is.’ 

‘This was revenge, then?’ Nilima asks, unfazed. 

‘You earned it. How is it that you get to fail me, mock me simply because I lack expertise in the one thing you ace at? How is this fair?’ his words sound other worldly, as the rot of disdain spreads through him and the stink of crisis floats out in all directions. 

‘You touched me,’ Nilima bangs on the desk, aloud. 

The boy fidgets but smirks. ‘Yes, so? What will you do? Nobody likes you here. Did they even consider your plea?’ he taunts her. 

‘You bastard,’ she grabs him by his collar. 

The boy does not fight back. The smirk on his lips turns into a grin. The proximity threatens her and she jumps back, pushing him away. 

The president of the Internal Complaints Committee hurries into the room. ‘Dr Saikia, you cannot talk privately with your victim. It is against the rules,’ he explains, worried. 

‘Victim? Him?’ Nilima breaks into a hysterical laugh.

***

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

BWW RK Anand Short Story Prize 2024 - Shortlist: Anjani Raj

 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

BWW RK Anand Short Story Prize 2024 - Shortlist: Aditi Chandrasekar

 Reflection

Aditi Chandrasekar

‘Give me a minute. Someone’s at the door.’

Ankita nods mutely as her manager disappears from the little screen of her laptop. In his wake is a plain black rectangle and the distant sounds of yelling, a little boy crying, sniffing and then silence.

When Rahul comes back from the episode, there is nothing different about his demeanour. He drones about a ‘project I need your help on.’ Ankita peppers the conversation with enough ‘mhm’s and ‘okay’s to make it seem like she is paying attention, but she doesn’t actually register much except for a few words – big sales deal, landing page, United Airlines, APIs. That should be enough to start with, she thinks.

She hits the red ‘Leave meeting’ button at the edge of the screen, and slumps in her chair. Unwillingly, she drags her feet to the kitchen adjoining the room, and feels a visceral urge to turn back as she sees the dirty dishes piled in the sink and the fruit flies flitting about the vegetable rack. She sighs, pulls up the sleeves of her t-shirt and turns on the tap, letting the water splash against the plates and vessels. She catches sight of a sticky note that her flatmate has tacked on a shelf, before she scooted off to Vijayawada.

‘To do: Get a maid,’ it reads.

After a few minutes, the dish rack overflows with clean-looking stainless steel plates and pots and tumblers and the occasional mug. Ankita gathers the stray wet bits of chilli, leaves and rice from the drain and flings it into the black garbage bag that lines the dustbin. She turns to face the stove. At last, she can use a clean pot, a clean strainer, and fill a clean mug with hot coffee. She looks at her phone – 9.45 am. Thursday.

Thoughts about the day's work begin to gather, annoying and unwelcome, like the fruit flies in the kitchen. Ankita takes a deep breath. The bitter scent of the coffee feels reassuring as she sifts through the noise in her head to find something to be grateful for; a ‘mindfulness exercise’ that she had once overheard Shruti talking about with her boyfriend. Coffee. She stirs the contents of the pot with a spoon. The ends of her mouth twitch, and curve upward. She is grateful for coffee.

As she holds the pot above the strainer, pouring a thin stream into her mug, Ankita feels the dampness of her armpits. It has been 2 days since she showered. She only combed her hair and changed her t-shirt in the mornings, to avoid probing questions from the colleagues, the glowing boxes on her little screen who showed up for minutes at a time.

Ankita stands still except for the repetitive movement of her arm bringing up the mug to her lips. She sips loudly, letting out a theatrical ‘aah!’ with the first slurp. She stares at the closed door of her flatmate's room. Before she left for her parents’ villa in Vijayawada, Shruti handed Ankita a spare key, which Ankita felt was a sweet gesture, not knowing why.

Suddenly, she walks back into her room, opens a drawer and fishes for the key under numerous papers and clips and things. When she does find it, Ankita hesitates only for a second before sauntering across the living room and pushing it into the keyhole, turning and hearing the clack that indicates that it has been unlocked. The aroma that greets her is uplifting. The pearl white bed sheet and pillowcases are flat and spotless, and so is the blue duvet folded up at the edge of the bed. A small black table and chair sit in one corner of the room. The sunlight filtering through her lacy curtains seems different, softer than the one that takes over Ankita’s room – harsh and glaring. She realises she’s only been here two or three times, when Shruti had invited her to show a big cockroach she had killed and when Ankita had to ask about where she’d have to send the rent.

Ankita’s eyes now fall on the books that lay on her table – copies of The Girl on the Train, Wuthering Heights and Fahrenheit 451 – books that Ankita had heard about, but never bothered to buy and open up and read herself; books that she knew were somewhat respectable literary choices. There is a pen stand, an extension cord, a half-used candle and a diary that sits near the books. The room feels incomplete, still undecorated, and Ankita knows that it is only a matter of weeks before Shruti deserts the place, to go stay with her boyfriend or her parents, maybe leaving her a banana cake, leaving her in the lurch, scrambling for another flatmate.

Her eyes stray to the cupboards, all their doors shut with the keys still inserted in the holes, until her gaze stops at a keychain – an acrylic one. It’s a photo of a shirtless man, his back turned to the camera. As she gets closer, Ankita notes the jet-black hair, the fair skin and the visible muscles and she can confirm that it’s a photo of Gagan, Shruti’s boyfriend.

She leaves the door of the room open as she goes back to open up her laptop. It is almost time for her next meeting, one where she'd be expected to list off everything she’s done over the last couple of days. She sits at her table, sips her coffee, and mechanically smiles and waves at the colleagues that show up, one after another, on her little screen. She taps her feet below the table impatiently. Her turn is at the fag end of the meeting, by which time she has already turned off her camera, typing away some or the other excuse about ‘bad network.’ She talks about something she has spent ‘all morning’ working on and

makes sure to end her barely-a-minute-long explanation with ‘I will solve this by today.’ Her words are met with half-hearted nods on the little screen.

Ankita feels as though there is a heavy cloud forming and settling in her brain, when she clicks the red button. She folds her laptop close and marches into Shruti’s room. The cloud disappears just as mysteriously as it came. She sits on the edge of the bed, picks up the diary from the table, and flips through a few pages before landing on one. ‘Dec 14th,’ it reads.

‘I found a golden skin care tip today. Always apply products from thinnest to thickest. For normal type skin (which I think I have), glycolic acid, vitamin C and retinol is recommended. I’ve been a dedicated moisturiser girl.’ She flips through a few more pages. ‘Dec 23rd’ it says. ‘I’m in Hyderabad now. I haven’t gotten my eyebrows done and I have a wedding to attend tomorrow! I’m also meeting Raju babai and Deepa pinni today so I don’t think I have the time. Ugh, this is all stressful. I wish Gagan was here.’

Ankita shuts the book close, abandons it on the bed and goes to inspect the keychain. She turns the key and is met with a cupboard stacked with books, scattered clothes and some vinyl albums - BTS, Taylor Swift, Amy Winehouse.

She had no idea that Shruti was a fan. Neither of them were the kind to play songs out loud in the house when the other was around, or to sport any merch. As she stands quietly in front of Shruti’s cupboard, Ankita feels like they are kind of similar. Soft-spoken, nearly the same skin tone and the same height.

There are a series of calls and messages and pushing buttons that Ankita attends to, on her little screen, throughout the day, forgetting to eat breakfast and lunch. The pangs of hunger stage a coup in her tummy at 4.00 pm. She hurriedly pours some dosa batter onto a hot pan, makes a hole with her finger on the small hill of milagai podi on her plate.

Ankita washes her hands before heading into her flatmate’s room. She steps into the bathroom, sees the rows of pink and orange scrubs, soaps, and shampoo that sit neatly arranged on a shelf. Ankita turns on the switch against the heater, and without waiting, turns on the shower. She takes off her wet t-shirt, pyjama pants, and undergarments, leaves them on the floor beside her feet as she soaks in the water. She rubs the soap over her arms, her legs, her chest, then squeezes a dollop of shampoo and conditioner onto

her palms before rubbing and lathering it on her hair. She wonders if this is what makes Shruti’s hair so luscious, and then she thinks about Gagan, wonders how many times they’ve showered together in this bathroom.

There’s a white towel on a rod that she grabs and dries her body with. She ties it around her chest as she steps on the mat, and strolls out and into Shruti’s room and to her dresser. She opens it, and is met with a careful collection of serums and creams. She picks one up, an expensive-looking bottle labelled ‘glycolic acid face toner’ and dips two fingers in, gently massaging it onto her cheeks and forehead, staring at the reflection in the mirror on the dresser. There is a small puddle that has formed on the floor, from her dripping wet hair. She begins to hum a song – Butter by BTS – as she places the bottle back on the shelf and picks another one up. A Vitamin C serum.

Later that evening, Ankita sits on the sofa as she listens to her mother’s voice on speakerphone rattling off about a third cousin’s daughter who has eloped. The story is followed by a statutory lesson – ‘Weddings should always be sacred, celebrated, between families.’ Ankita has learnt to repeat the expected things about her life every night after her mother finishes her monologue; just enough to satisfy her feeble mind. Today, as she does so, Ankita is distracted by the supple skin on her arms. She periodically pokes at and pinches it.

After the call, there is a silence in the living room that seems to ring louder than usual. Ankita grabs her phone, places an order for a burger and some fries, and waits patiently. Once it arrives, she takes a clean plate from the kitchen and walks into Shruti’s room. She sits on her bed as she unpacks the food, and arranges it carefully on the plate she’s now placed on the table. Then, she lights the half-used candle. She walks over to where the cupboards are, grabbing the keychain. She places the acrylic photo against the

stack of books on the table, across from her.

Ankita hits a button on her phone. Taylor Swift’s mezzo notes fill up the room. Ankita smiles, tucks her hair behind her ear and takes a bite out of her burger.

‘Hey babe, how was your day?’ She hears Gagan’s voice. She’s heard the words several times, usually accompanied by a kiss on Shruti’s forehead. Now, she hears it clearer, louder, addressed to her from across the table.

‘It was okay. Long day at work as usual.’ She stares at the reflection of the candle flame. It dances on the lines of his back. As she chews her fries, she describes the dosas she accidentally burnt and recalls the distant sounds she heard in Rahul's house.

Gagan knows exactly what to do and say – he laughs at her recollection of the brown dosas, feigns concern about Rahul's kids, speculates aloud if anyone actually enjoys working the job she does. An hour passes, and then two, as their conversation ebbs and flows, takes shapes and forms, never boring them.

The wax of the candle has shrunk by half. Ankita feels incredibly thirsty by the end of it, having drained her throat by talking, laughing, grunting, and singing.

She glugs water in the kitchen until she is convinced she’s adequately hydrated. Back in the room, she blows out the candle, and gives Gagan a gentle peck. She pulls the blue duvet at her feet up to her chest, and the smell of lavender and vanilla emanating from her hair lulls her to sleep.

Ankita wakes up the next morning, greeted by Gagan’s light snores and the sunlight that caresses her face. She turns towards the window and closes her eyes, basking in it for some moments before sitting upright, stretching her arms. From across the living room, she can hear faint sounds – incessant dings most definitely from a laptop. Ankita half-heartedly wonders why her flatmate is ignoring the sounds, as she takes a deep breath, and reflects on what she should be grateful for this morning.

***

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